Liberals are people who oppose conservatism; that is, they are not bound by traditional values and beliefs and work toward the elimination of many of the moral standards that have been expected by civilized society for centuries.  Calling someone a liberal is usually disparaging, because liberalism is a system of beliefs with which most people disagree.  For that reason, liberal politicians do not refer to themselves as "liberal."

Liberals are sometimes called "progressive", but they appear to make progress in a direction that most people don't want to go.  In other words, liberals are out of step with America.

The Democratic Party platform contains a number of features that most people would find objectionable — in addition to the obvious.  Allow me to bring some of them to light.

Related topic:  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Green New Deal

Background, overview and recap articles:

(Scroll down for timely news, or click here.)

From the L Word to Cultural Marxism.  During the 1988 presidential campaign, then vice-president George H.W. Bush labelled his counterpart Governor Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts in pejorative fashion with the 'L' word, or 'liberal.' [...] In the same fashion, throughout the 20th century in the United States, to be labelled a 'Socialist' would have been political suicide and would virtually automatically preclude such a candidate from winning any national office.  That was the case until 2007, when Bernie Sanders won the Senate seat in Vermont as an avowed 'Socialist.' [...] Today, some sixteen years after Sanders' election to the Senate, we have five members of Congress and over 150 state legislature officeholders nationally who describe their political delineation as that of 'Democrat-Socialist,' which is not a classic political party — yet.  Most contemporary democrats of any stripe do not appear to reflect the democrats of previous generations.  Not too many democrats of today are espousing "Ask not what your country can do for you," and likely advocate the opposite.  But adding the term 'Socialist' to Democrat is not simply a play on words.  It is arranged that way to soften the impact of the term 'Socialist.'

America needs a new GOP.  You can't have a Republican Party if you don't have a coherent and cohesive agenda.  What do Republicans stand for?  We can't answer that question and get all Republicans to agree, judging by the way they vote with Democrats sometimes.  But with Democrats, you ask them what they stand for and they will all agree:  Climate change mandates, avoidance of fossil fuels, trans rights, gay rights, drag rights, abortion, "social justice", pedophilia, free stuff, socialized medicine, anti-capitalism, dissolution of the Constitution, gun confiscation, the abolition of private property, defunding police, liberality in prosecuting criminals, legalizing all recreational drugs, DEI, SEL, ESG, CRT.  Democrats are all in for lewdness, looseness, and loudness.  The Left have a concrete agenda and it does not involve freedom, liberty, and self-sufficiency.  It does not involve being left alone and leaving others alone to pursue happiness except when it is they doing the pursuing of said happiness.  Republicans are not allowed to pursue happiness if Democrats have anything to do with it.

Critically thinking about what's happening to America.  Let's briefly step back and see several examples of where America's opponents are attacking, and what successes they have had to date.
Target: Standards.  Strategy: Promote relativism., where all points of view are equally valid, and that all truth is relative to the individual.
Target: Religion.  Strategy: Undermine Judeo-Christian beliefs and morality.
Target: Men.  Strategy: Emasculate, feminize and weaken men.  Specifically, this is mostly about "de-privileging" white men.
Target: Women.  Strategy: Defeminize women, dilute the role of mothers, corrupt the definition of "woman," allow men to compete in sports as women, etc.
Target: Families.  Strategy: Redefine what a conventional family is, and undercut its importance. Promote pornography to undermine healthy adult relationships.
Target: Education.  Strategy: Propagandize children.  Emphasize conformity instead of critical thinking.
Target: Initiative.  Strategy: Undermine by awarding participation instead of accomplishment.
Target: Citizens.  Strategy: The collective's rights take priority over individual rights.  Additionally, the planet's rights supersede those of humans.
Target: Economy.  Strategy: Waste enormous sums on foolish political agendas, driven by lobbyists, which are not in the best interest of citizens or the country.
Target: Financial System.  Strategy: Undermine the Dollar on a variety of fronts from bitcoin to CBCD.
Target: Industrialization.  Strategy: Corrupt the electric grid with unreliable, expensive renewable energy, while opposing fossil fuels and nuclear energy.
Target: Science.  Strategy: Use apostate "scientists" or "experts" to misdirect real Science analyses, and to confuse the public about what Science is.
Target: Unity.  Strategy: For example, inflame racism to incite discord and distrust among fellow citizens.
Target: Patriotism.  Strategy: Inject WOKE, DEI, CRT, etc. ideologies in our education system to sabotage citizen support for their country.
Target: Propaganda.  Strategy: Utilize mainstream media as a major source of disinformation on societal topics ranging from COVID to climate change.
Target: Free Thought.  Strategy: Trick citizens into questioning their own thoughts by normalizing non-sensical situations (e.g., there are more than two genders, etc.).
Target: Elections.  Strategy: Corrupt the election process so that key legislators are not always elected by citizens. Resist meaningful audits to avoid exposing this.
Target: Border Security.  Strategy: Allow essentially anyone who chooses, to come into the country — including criminals, spies, etc.
Target: Military.  Strategy: Use many of the above tactics to weaken our military.

Stop Calling Them Democrats. They're Communists.  We've been conditioned to believe that communism is just a myth, that it isn't real, or even if it is real, it only exists in faraway places like China, and anyone who mentions it is a conspiracist who deserves ridicule.  But let's review a few basics:
  •   They're raiding and jailing their political opponents.
  •   They're turning the FBI, CIA, and IRS against American citizens.
  •   They've come out against freedom of speech, religion, press, the Second Amendment, and other core American ideals.
  •   They've abandoned the rule of law, and now have one set of laws for themselves and another for the rest of us.
  •   They're deliberately trying to bankrupt us — sometimes directly (through shutting down businesses), sometimes indirectly (through wasting trillions of our dollars.)
  •   They're indoctrinating our children with radical ideologies.
  •   They celebrate infanticide.
  •   They're making secret deals with foreign entities against our interests.
  •   They're deliberately keeping our borders wide open to erase our national identity.
  •   They mandate groupthink and conformity and punish anyone who doesn't parrot their chosen narratives, however absurd.
  •   They're purging the best from our military and converting what's left into a tool of Wokeism.
  •   They've transformed our once-great American cities into crime-ridden hellscapes.
  •   They relentlessly stoke division between everyone and never miss the slightest opportunity to accuse someone or something of being racist, sexist, phobic, supremacist, etc.
  •   They constantly work to slander, cancel, and erase our Founding Fathers, American heroes, and America itself.  (E.g., they removed the statue of Theodore Roosevelt from the American Museum of Natural History.)
  •   They want to defund the police, release criminals from prisons and disarm the rest of us.
  •   They defend terrorists.  (Joe Biden: "Antifa is an idea, not an organization.")
  •   They've ignored the first principle of the Nuremberg Code, which was written in the aftermath of WWII, and which explicitly prohibits coerced consent for experimental medications.
  •   They've tried to corrupt elections on a national scale.
  •   They've openly stated their desire to abolish the family structure itself.
  •   They've threatened to abolish the filibuster, pack the Supreme Court, and dismantle the electoral college system.
  •   They're criminalizing normality on multiple fronts.
  •   They've taken down American flags and raised other flags in government buildings and city streets, symbolizing their stealth political takeover.
  •   Their leaders have literally kneeled to one form of the cause they actually serve in the Capital building.
This list could go on, yet they accuse us of turning against America.

Our government's executive branch is deliberately destroying liberty.  How are they destroying us?  Let me count the ways.
1.  Electoral Fraud.
    A.  2000 Mules.
    B.  Electoral Insurrection (treason).
2.  Destruction of the Economy
    A.  Funding COVID development ("gain of function") in the Wuhan Lab; deliberate exaggeration of the COVID crisis; and COVID lockdowns.
    B.  Elimination of fossil fuels; creation of energy dependency; intentionally driving up gasoline prices; and pushing for electric cars.
    C.  Deliberately enhancing inflation.
    D.  Inviting unlimited immigration for cheap labor and Democrat voters.
    E.  Climate change hoax.
3.  Destruction of the Family
    A.  Promoting abortion
    B.  Promoting sexual perversion and transgenderism.
    C.  Using public education as a platform for sexual grooming and turning children against their parent's values.
4.  Establishment of Federal Police State
    A.  FBI persecution of Mama Bears as "domestic terrorists."
    B.  Property destruction by government brownshirts.
    C.  COVID lockdown, so the US is becoming "democracy with Chinese characteristics."
    D.  Corrupting the legal system by mob intimidation of the Supreme Court.
    E.  Government censorship of speech; classifying truth as "misinformation".
    F.  Breakdown of law and order.
    G.  Government efforts to disarm the public.
5.  Destruction of the US Military
    A.  Wokism
    B.  Seeking war with Russia and China
    C.  Mandated vaccinations

Eight Startling and Uncomfortable Ways the Democrat Party Emulates the Nazi Party.  The Democrat Party has been a stain on the nation since its founding in 1828 by a virulently racist president, Andrew Jackson.  It was the party of slavery and the Confederacy, it initiated racial segregation by legislating and brutally enforcing Jim Crow laws.  It unabashedly aligned with and supported the Ku Klux Klan for over nine decades, thus promoting antisemitism, religious persecution and xenophobia.  Over the past sixty-years the Party has embraced and promulgated cultural Marxism which espouses the transformation of traditional American culture and society.  The Party has succeeded in undermining the family structure and religious freedom as well as mainstreaming abortions up to the point of birth and what was once considered deviancy.  The Democrat party's two most exalted figureheads are the fervently racist Woodrow Wilson who set the Party on the path of undermining the Constitution in order to remold the United States into a "modern administrative state" (i.e., socialist) and Franklin Roosevelt who was enamored with and utilized Fascist principles in his "New Deal" thus permanently embedding them in the Party's psyche.

They're Not Insane, They Have a Plan.  Is it just deranged thespians and virtue-signaling politicians who have been driven mad?  Not quite.  The ideological infection has spread all the way to the White House, with outgoing White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki breaking down at the prospect of the excellent Florida Bill becoming law.  I could go on.  Just consider the organized indoctrination in our schools by delightful teachers parading their trans agenda on TikTok.  But at least the lunacy can't affect the real world that you live in, where 2 + 2 = 4.  The empirical world of real jobs, free markets, and concrete bottom lines will remain apart from this nonsense, right?  Wrong.  Thanks to the investigative journalism of Christopher Rufo, we now have internal videos from one of the biggest for-profit, capitalist entities in the world, the Walt Disney Co.  These videos show their perverse agenda to sexualize their young viewers.  Where did this all come from, and what do we do about it?  Well, as with most diabolical movements in Western Civilization today, the radical transgender project can be traced back to the Frankfurt School of neo-Marxists.  Whether it's environmentalism, globalism, open-borders policies, or just systematic anti-Americanism, it can usually be traced back to that motley crew of malcontents.

Biden thinks 'ultra-MAGA people' are extremists? He should look in the mirror.  President Biden is saying that "ultra-MAGA" people are the most extreme political party in recent memory. [...] Who are the extremists:
  •   The party that wants babies to be killed no matter what stage of pregnancy or the party that wants limits?
  •   The party that wants energy independence or the party that is seeking to destroy America by destroying the fossil fuel industry, despite no scientific evidence that fossil fuel consumption controls temperatures?
  •   The party that is for no bail or the party that believes that career criminals should be treated harshly?
  •   The party that wants to enforce immigration laws or the party that wants open borders?
  •   The party that believes that males should be able to compete with women or the majority of us?
  •   The party that believes that people should use restrooms and locker rooms based on how they feel or the rest of us, who think body parts and science should control what facilities we use?
  •   The party that wants to move toward socialism or the rest of us, who believe that capitalism has created the greatest country that ever existed?
  •   The party that believes that requiring photo IDs to vote is racist or the rest of us who understand that adults of all races can easily obtain a photo ID and that common sense tells us voter verification is important?
  •   The party that believes that children age five to eight should be encouraged to analyze their sexual identity or the rest of us, who believe that that is nuts and dangerous?

From Massachusetts, 10 talking points to counter Democrat positions.  A Democrat vote means you favor:
  [#1]   No fossil fuel production.  Like the price of gasoline, heating oil and natural gas these days?
  [#2]   Inflation at a 50-year high.  The government prints money and hands it out, and it becomes worthless.
  [#3]   No freedom of speech.  Say the "incorrect thing," and you're sued.  Or fired.  No opinions allowed.
  [#4]   No civil liberties.  Don't think the vaccine is right for you or truly safe?  Sorry — you have no say.
  [#5]   De-funding the police.  Smash and grab.  No bail for criminals.  Policemen being shot.  Feel safe?
  [#6]   A weakened military.  Our top generals are more concerned with "equity" than winning wars.
  [#7]   Higher taxes.  You think the government spends your money more wisely than you do, right?
  [#8]   Unrestricted illegal immigration.  Your taxes support their education, health care, and housing.
  [#9]   Choosing your gender.  Do you like 45-year-old men in the girl's room with your daughter?
  [#10]   Woke corporations.  Everything is racist all of a sudden.  Color and sex far outweigh qualifications.

The 2020 Democratic Party Platform — Understanding the Opposition.  As a historical perspective, why not compare to the 1960 Democratic Party platform on which John Kennedy was elected President?  The 1960 platform celebrated the party of Jefferson, instead of the movement today to remove, deface, or destroy his national monument in Washington D.C. and rename hundreds, even thousands, of public schools.  It promoted a strong military and economy to defend against the Soviet Union and Red China, rather than replacing the superiority of American military and economic strength with ineffectual diplomacy.  It promised housing for everyone and the end of urban blight, as consequences of a strong economy, instead of government handouts and welfare.  It recognized God rather than claiming that government is the only hope.  It established the need for the end of pollution and the wise use of resources instead of the blind religion of environmentalism and climate change.  It blamed previous Republican administrations for not accomplishing what the Democrats claimed they could only achieve, but without hatred.  It understandably was political propaganda, but it was strikingly different than what the Democratic Party states they believe today.

The Philosophical Background of Our Anti-Social Democratic Party.  For almost two centuries, we have seen various attempts to overthrow the assumptions, beliefs, premises, and conclusions of Christian ethics, sometimes called Judeo-Christian ethics.  The Christian worldview and its underlying belief system have been challenged by transcendentalism, Marxism, Darwinism, pragmatism, Freudianism, and existentialism.  These anti-Christian schools of thought in turn have spawned subcategories of "answers" [sic] to the human dilemma — namely, what is the purpose of life and how shall I live in order to fulfill that purpose?  These subcategories advanced by that part of the political class known as Democrats include globalism (explicit and implicit rejection of Western civilization); embrace of non-binary sexuality (the nuclear family is an artificial construct); critical race theory calling for repudiation of "whiteness"; ecumenicalism in religion (i.e., we all worship the same god); and ownership of all means of production by the state (but the state is to be perceived as a global village — i.e., as an extended family, not as a people led by an elected government).  Let us now consider three of the above post-Christian philosophies and briefly view their application to the ideological program of the Mobocratic Party: [...]

A Blueprint for a Pacifist, Socialist Republic.  The Democratic Party is now committed to a far more radical socialist platform than has ever been remotely hinted at by a serious American national party.  This includes open borders, and effectively the full right of undocumented residents to the benefits of the American welfare and education systems as well as the right to vote.  They are also intent on the seizure of firearms in private hands.  All those without comprehensive health insurance will be offered a "platinum" federal government health plan covering all contingencies which will soon be "free" healthcare for up to 150 million people.  Minimum wages and taxes on anyone earning above the average income will be sharply increased.  Most of the liberalizations of business and corporate regulations enacted by the Trump regime will be reversed, and unionization of the workforce heavily favored.  The Democratic socialist caucus' Green New Deal will be enacted, banning as quickly as possible (or even more swiftly than that) fossil fuel production and use, the internal combustion engine on land and in the air, and discouraging the consumption of beef to spare the environment the challenge of bovine flatulence with which it has coexisted for all of known history.  More than $1 trillion of student loans gradually will be forgiven over 20 years, university education will be guaranteed to be available and free to all families with incomes below $150,000 a year, and private, chartered, separate, and home schooling will all be discouraged to promote the monopoly of the underperforming, heavily unionized state school systems.  Abortion, including the disposal of newly born children, will be available without cost to everyone.

Trump Derangement Syndrome:  A Misdiagnosis.  From the beginning of its "long march through the institutions," the Left has been playing the long game.  That hasn't changed.  Leftists are playing it today.  Why did they take over the media?  The universities?  Hollywood?  To get their hands on the key levers of propaganda.  Add to this the leftward tilt of Google, Facebook, and Twitter, and we're looking at a virtual lockdown on the primary sources of information and public influence. [...] This is why the Democrats absolutely must keep their charades going full force.  This is strategy, not lunacy.  They are playing the long game.  They are constantly feeding their minions the narrative that Trump is an illegitimate and dangerous president, that he's tyrannical, racist, and xenophobic — that he's a crook who lies continually, etc.

Who's the Radical?  On Confidence and Common Sense.  I just heard a fellow on CNN say that Donald Trump has radicalized the Republicans.  Let's be clear on what is and isn't radical.  A well-patrolled border is not a radical policy.  An open border is a radical policy.  To believe in two genders is not radical.  To insert gender identity into Title IX is.  To praise Western Civilization as a legacy of political freedom and artistic genius is not a radical opinion.  To regard it as promotion of white supremacy is a radical opinion.  To love America as an exceptional creation is not radical.  To see America as founded on slavery and imperialism is radical.

How do you know you are no longer a Democrat?  You believe and respect the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  The founding documents of the United States still matter and must not be set aside.  You believe the right to free speech applies to everyone, regardless of political party affiliation.  You believe in the sanctity of human life and abortion is murder.  You believe in the Second Amendment and the right to own guns.  You believe that the United States is a sovereign nation with recognized borders; which must be respected, guarded, and protected.  You know there are only two biological sexes.  Men pretending to be women and vice-versa is make-believe.  There is no such thing as being born in the wrong body.  You believe that men pretending to be women should not be allowed to use women's bathrooms, nor should men be allowed in women's dressing or locker rooms.

Open Borders Equals Abortion.  As of say, 1960, and even 1970, the Democrats were still a mainstream, patriotic political party.  They still defended traditional marriage.  And gun rights.  And property rights.  Even a mostly free economy.  The party still held enough socially conservative members that you could be a Democrat and a Christian.  I don't think that's possible today.  If you watched the Democratic presidential debate, you understand why.  Not one candidate proposed the slightest restriction on killing unborn kids for our sexual convenience.  And not one supports natural marriage.  Not one spoke up for our Second Amendment rights.  Each of them to one degree or another supports the poisonous, anti-Christian ideology of socialism.

Can California Be Saved, or Is It Too Late?  How did this state, once the envy of all others, become the pathetic, indebted loser state it is today?  The answer is simple, single-party Democratic rule. [...] They want to control how we all live our lives by pretending we are causing global warming, as if we mere humans are more powerful than the sun!  They seek to destroy capitalism, the one economic system that has elevated more people out of poverty and tyranny than any other in human history.  They have successfully indoctrinated two generations of malleable young people with the false notion that America is a racist nation, illegitimately founded by white men so it must be destroyed and rebuilt according to their monstrous, failed progressive policies.  They loathe our founding documents, our anthems, our families, our traditions.  They want to do to the nation what they've already done to California.  They must be stopped.

The Anatomy of a Self-Annihilating Political Party.  The Democrat Party has lost its mind. [...] There's a word that describes the Party's behavior:  nihilism: "a viewpoint that traditional values and beliefs are unfounded and that existence is senseless and useless, a doctrine that denies any objective ground of truth and especially moral truths."  That definition fits the current Democrat Party.  The Party and the left place little or no value on tradition, the Constitution, the sanctity of life, borders, private property rights, voting-law enforcement, election outcomes, standards of behavior, or free speech.  These are all fundamentally different kinds of rules or systems of rules.  The left does not like rules (at least not for themselves).  If you do not like rules, you do not like order, and the alternative to order is chaos.  The Democrat Party is attempting to lead the country into chaos.

The Real Game Is To Distract You, Fool You, And Bring Communism.  Of course the media lies all the time.  They do it to inculcate stated Democrat goals of implementing world-wide socialism and control by any means necessary.  By any means at all. [...] Democrats seem to embrace as holy anything that undermines America, Americans, or the American Way.  They want America gone — in order to replace it with some imagined, socialist fantasy world.

The devil is using the Democratic Party to destroy America.  21 areas reveal Democratic Party positions:
  [#1]   Radical redistribution of wealth;
  [#2]   Aggressive climate change initiatives;
  [#3]   Complete takeover of health care by federal government plus inclusion of all illegal immigrants;
  [#4]   Open immigration policy with full acceptance of all children and relatives; no border walls, entrance requirements, E-verify or penalties for those refusing deportation; disregarding the rule of law and full support for "sanctuary cities"; neglecting national security and allowing George Soros funded anarchy to "crash" our immigration system;
  [#5]   Government control over corporate profits;
  [#6]   Progressive taxes on the upper middle class and above;
  [#7]   Legalization of recreational marijuana;
  [#8]   Implementation of comprehensive LGBTQ agenda — including indoctrination of children in schools, transgender initiatives, gender reassignment surgery and removal of any "sexual discrimination" in the workplace and schools, disregarding conscience objections;
  [#9]   Taxpayer-financed abortion-on-demand until birth with full-funding of Planned Parenthood;
  [#10]   Major defense spending cuts with money redistributed to entitlements;
  [#11]   Comprehensive gun control;
  [#12]   Liberal, not originalist, judges on the Supreme Court and federal courts;
  [#13]   Alignment and support for radical feminist agenda and marches;
  [#14]   Increased censorship of "hateful" conservative thought on social media;
  [#15]   Liberalized voting standards to include fraudulent practices and everyone the party deems as "disenfranchised";
  [#16]   Partnership with Palestinians;
  [#17]   Alignment with United Nations and European Union transnationalism initiatives promoting "One World" globalism, rather than nationalism with international cooperation;
  [#18]   Euthanasia/physician-assisted suicide;
  [#19]   Taxpayer-funded child-care and college tuition;
  [#20]   Elimination of the Electoral College; and
  [#21]   Re-establishing the Iranian "nuclear deal" alongside increased protection for Islamic "rights" in America and abroad at the expense of Israel's safety.

What a Socialist Really Wants.  Socialists are passionately concerned with making sure the right people have the power — that is, themselves.  Democracy, on the other hand, is all about distributing power and making sure the worst people don't get it.  How do we know they are the worst people?  Because they are obsessed with grabbing power and using it to stifle other people, an arrangement they call socialism or communism.

From Russian Bolsheviks to American Socialists.  In December 1991, the world watched in amazement and trepidation as the communist empire spectacularly collapsed.  The jubilation proved to be premature.  Marxism adapted to a new reality and, in one of the most dramatic reversals of history, comfortably relocated to the United States, where it acquired a new life and malignancy within the Democratic Party.  In 2008 this ferment culminated in the election of Barack Obama who by 2016 had successfully transformed the Democratic Party into the de facto Social Democratic Party. [...] As the aspirations of the Bolshevik Revolution were being reincarnated in Vermont and exported to New York and California, the country inured to the world of unsustainable populist demands.  The barrier separating utopia and reason is crumbling; growing embrace of free education, free health care, and a guaranteed minimum income by young people is an obvious indication of the rise of the socialist movement.

Socialism Violates the Ten Commandments.  The very first commandment states, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me."  Right there, socialism violates the very first commandment.  Socialism is essentially atheistic.  After all, Karl Marx did say, "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.  It is the opium of the people."  In a socialist system, the worship of God is replaced with the worship of government.  The state basically becomes God.  We look to the state to give us our rights, our freedoms, our livelihood, our wages, our jobs, our meals, our education, and our healthcare — that is, if there's any of it to go around once the government takes over!  There is no appealing to a higher authority because the state is the final authority.  But as Christians, we don't serve the government, we serve God.  God is our Heavenly Father and our ultimate authority.  Our inalienable rights come from him and the state should conform to His natural law.

Timely news and commentary:

US Joins New Climate Pact to Shut Down All Coal Plants.  The United States has "proudly" committed to not build any new coal-fired power plants and to get rid of existing ones entirely, John Kerry, special presidential envoy on climate matters, said on Dec. 2.  "To meet our goal of 100 percent carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035, we need to phase out unabated coal," he said in a statement, in which he announced at the annual United Nations COP28 climate change summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates that the United States had officially joined a coalition of 56 other countries who all plan to ditch coal in the name of climate change.  "We will be working to accelerate unabated coal phase-out across the world, building stronger economies and more resilient communities.  The first step is to stop making the problem worse:  stop building new unabated coal power plants."

The Editor says...
Carbon dioxide is not carbon, and carbon dioxide is not a pollutant.  So, technically, we already have "100 percent carbon pollution-free electricity."

Biden to phase out American (coal) power.  Reports indicate that the United States has committed to phasing out coal power plants, and sooner rather than later, though no specific date has yet been given.  The U.S. joins 56 other nations who have similarly pledged to rid themselves of coal power.  U.S. "special envoy" John Kerry recently announced that Washington has agreed to join something called "the Powering Past Coal Alliance" which means the Biden administration has effectively vowed to build no new coal plants and to phase out existing plants.  Kerry said the U.S. and other PPCA nations "will be working to accelerate unabated coal phase-out across the world," and added, "the first step is to stop making the problem worse: stop building new unabated coal power plants."  Due to other Biden administration "regulatory actions" and "international commitments" already in the works, there is some speculation that it may target 2035 as a coal-free date.

US commits to shutting down its coal plants during COP28.  The Biden Administration is forging ahead with its green agenda by committing the United States to not building any new coal plants and phasing out existing plants.  U.S. Special Envoy for Climate John Kerry announced at the annual United Nations climate change summit, known as COP28 and which is being held in Dubai, although no date was given for when the existing plants would have to go.  "We will be working to accelerate unabated coal phase-out across the world, building stronger economies and more resilient communities," Kerry said in a statement.  "The first step is to stop making the problem worse:  stop building new unabated coal power plants."  Kerry said America was joining the Powering Past Coal Alliance, a pact of nearly 60 countries that have promised to accelerate the phasing out of coal-fired power stations, except the very few that have carbon capture and storage.

The Editor says...
Nobody voted to outlaw the combustion of coal, which would certainly lead to widespread blackouts.  Nobody voted for John Kerry to have that kind of authority, either.

Putting oil spills into perspective.  I am 70 years old.  My electricity has been provided by a coal-fired power plant my entire life.  I have been privileged to have AC for around 60 years.  My heat has been provided by natural gas almost all my life.  I have lived within one mile of the coal plant, with scrubbers, for 44 years.  I raised three children in this close proximity.  Not once, that I can remember, did I worry about the air quality or worry about opening the doors and windows.  We are all very healthy.  Our current power plant was updated in 2005, at the cost of several hundred million.  It passed all environmental standards yet now, Democrats want to put it out of existence to claim they can change the climate.  It is a shame they care so little about the poor and middle classes that still have to pay off the plant, and now a replacement.  The choice for president gets easier every day — either choose the party that wants to dictatorially take away freedom of choice like what kind of car to drive and appliances to use, or choose the party that wants people to have freedom and lower costs.

Victor Davis Hanson:  Biden 'pandering to Hamas' could turn off voters ahead of 2024.  Victor Davis Hanson detailed why President Joe Biden's "hopeless" bid to engender positive sentiment among pro-Hamas sympathizers has proven to be a "losing proposition."  [Video clip] [...] "Why are we bringing in people who hate us and why are we allowing our campuses to fuel this hatred of us?" he asked fill-in host Lisa Boothe Friday [11/24/2023] while calling out the latest protests that featured chants of "Bombs are dropping, why are you shopping?"  When asked about the specific "political impact" for Biden seemingly acquiescing to the "pro-Hamas caucus," Hanson laid out,  "He has a choice between something bad and something worse."  "The more he panders to Hamas to get a measly 250,000 votes and maybe Michigan, the more that he's turning off people on an issue that they're already overwhelmingly angry about and that's open border and the ingratitude of people who come in here whether — sometimes legally, but illegally — and then they use our magnanimity and they reciprocate with disgust for the very institutions that help them," he said.  "And that's a losing proposition."

What's Extreme?  Some intrepid reporter should ask Joe Biden to name one federal program that could be eliminated, not that he would receive an answer.  Not only does Biden refuse to eliminate a single program, but he refuses to reduce his ever-larger budget requests for nearly every program.  Job Corps is a good example of what should be eliminated in entirety.  Established in 1964, Job Corps has received a grade of "F" from the GAO every year of its existence.  And yet every year, its budget grows:  in 2022, $1.755 billion compared to $1.701 billion in 2010.  The average cost per graduate (2017 figures) was well over $50,000 — and this for very basic job skills that could be acquired for free by working at McDonald's or any number of businesses.  And yet Biden continues to request more money for Job Corps every year.

A Monstrous Conundrum in the Middle East.  Rather than be filled with joy that some of the hostages in Israel are released, I'm sick to my stomach at the monstrous nature and sheer audacity of the "deal."  Biden is squarely on the backs of the Israelis, who know better than to become handmaidens of Hamas.  Dozens more, perhaps hundreds more of Israel's soldiers and thousands more civilians in Gaza will be killed as a result of this "kindness."  Seven-plus weeks into what history may eventually consider one of the most sadistic, cruel, and calculated terrorist events in world history, the Free World's common sense will continue to be in question. [...] Examine for a moment the crazy reversal of priorities and strength we are witnessing:
  •   Israel values life; Hamas does not.
  •   Israel is a pluralistic, democratic country, and Hamas is a Hitler-like autocracy.  Copies of Mein Kampf have been found in the tunnels under Gaza.
  •   Israel grants the same rights and responsibilities to its Arab citizens, while Hamas kills Arab collaborators, whether Arab citizens in Israel, Gaza, or the West Bank.
  •   Israel provides free advanced medical care for Arabs, from the West Bank, Gaza, and from within Israel.  Hamas kills any Jews it gets its hands on and will often prevent its people from accessing hospitals and medical care in Israel.
  •   Israel teaches its children (including Arabs) about the world at large and without hate.  Hamas teaches the destruction of Israel and the Jews from birth. [...]
  •   Israel is Western-facing and life-affirming.  Hamas is a death cult.

Did the Congress declare war?  I must have missed it.
Biden's Using Wartime Powers to Kill Off Many Gas Appliances.  On November 17th, Sentinel reported that Biden and his Obama staff were spending money on electric heat pump factories no one needed.  No one is asking for it, except perhaps recipients of government's largesse.  Biden used wartime powers to do it, with almost no one in the media questioning it.  The White House utilized the Defense Production Act to mobilize the production of heat pumps.  The government is choosing winners and losers using tax dollars from a bill that increases inflation — the Inflation Reduction Act.  It's going to affect all of our gas appliances.  In addition to consumer furnaces, over the last several months, the DOE has unveiled new standards for a wide variety of other appliances, including gas stoves, clothes washers, refrigerators, and air conditioners.  According to the DOE, its past and planned appliance regulations will save Americans $570 billion and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 2.4 billion metric tons over the next 30 years.

The Editor says...
[#1] No war has been declared, so the (acting) president has no wartime powers.  That's just common sense, so it's probably not the way things work in Washington.  [#2] Emissions of carbon dioxide by natural gas appliances have never hurt anybody.  Carbon dioxide is not something to be afraid of.  [#3] If any changes are needed in the household appliance business, the customers will make those changes without encouragement from the government.  Free market capitalism works really well.  Big government does not.

Spaniards Aren't Afraid To Protest, So Why Are American Conservatives?  The problems faced by Spaniards are strikingly similar to those facing Americans.  The American left hates our heritage so much they torched American cities and destroyed historical statues and monuments for an entire summer.  Our corrupt president, Joe Biden, was able to take power thanks to a rigged election, and his administration has weaponized the federal government against his most prominent political adversary, former President Donald Trump, and anyone in ideological opposition to the Democrats.  The Biden administration's disregard for border security encourages mass illegal immigration at the Southern Border, exposing the public to dangerous criminals and additional economic burdens while the middle class struggles to stay afloat amid increasing taxes, inflation, and gas prices.  And despite the public's rapidly increasing suffering, Biden prioritizes sending billions of tax dollars to foreign wars and international green energy projects.  All these things, but particularly the federal government's targeting of conservatives and its assault on election integrity, should be sparking massive protests.  Yet they aren't.  Unlike Spain, America was founded on the idea that human beings have God-given, inalienable rights.  Freedom of speech and assembly are not just First Amendment givens in the United States, but part of our culture.  So why aren't conservatives protesting?

Biden's illegal invasion is an unfunded mandate killing US cities and he's planning to expand it.  Recently Joe Biden bragged about his intention to allow more massive amounts of illegals to flood the country and it's frightening.  [Tweet with video clip]  Reparations for migrants?  What I never heard talked about is the fact that this is an unfunded mandate.  Biden does everything he can to keep the borders open for illegal invasion, to keep fentanyl flowing across the border, keep money pouring into the coffers of Mexican cartels and keep human trafficking flourishing.  This has a human horrible cost.  Young females are being abused on their travels to here.  Over 100,00 [sic] are dying every year from opiate overdose, most from fentanyl.  Then there is a gigantic financial cost to America.  We have seen how big-mouth politicians have devolved into mealy-mouthed politicians when their boasts of being sanctuary states and cities have their words shoved down their throats.  One is tempted to simply say "They asked for this.  Their constituents voted for this" and that's a fair assessment.  Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City, is one such idiot.  He repeatedly boasted of being a sanctuary city.  Now that NYC has taken 142,000 illegals, the cost is becoming onerous.  To accommodate the illegals, Adams is punishing Americans.  He plans to slash the budget by $4 billion across the board by eviscerating the police force and education for his constituents.

My Journey from Frustration to Outrage to Seething Anger.  I am enraged that our US Congress continues to pile debt upon debt, with no consequences because it isn't the politicians' money (Cloward-Piven).  And they can't be held accountable.  They just keep increasing the debt limit.  I am outraged that Washington absconded with the power vested in the federated structure of our Constitution, which intends for most power to be issued from the states, and then assigned that power to an administrative state, where bureaucrats' regulations are enforced like laws. [...] I am enraged that America's city streets are filled with trash, needles, open drug use, human waste, and people living in massive tent cities — something the left has purposefully created as one way to collapse society (Cloward-Piven). We're told the solution is difficult, if not impossible, to fix, yet San Francisco just proved it could be done in a week.  I am enraged that the "defund the police" movement, which included releasing dangerous prisoners back onto the streets, is a by-design policy to increase societal unrest and make life dangerous for normal citizens (Cloward-Piven).

America on the Edge of the Cliff.  The most obvious problem is out-of-control government spending.  The interest on the national debt is pushing toward a cool trillion dollars, clocking in at $659 billion for fiscal 2022, gobbling up ever more American tax dollars.  While wise politicians should be sobered by that number, they instead are pushing the ship to ludicrous speed in search of Mad Max.  It is forcing ever higher deficit spending since it is mathematically impossible to bring in enough tax revenue to buy off voting blocs, meaning that it will skyrocket in the years ahead.  It's a serious problem that demands serious politicians in both parties.  But you first need a serious electorate, something in short supply these days.  The "ask not what your country can do for you" ethos of yesterday has transformed into the "give us more free stuff and we'll take some reparations on the side" grievance ethos of today.

Follow the Science — Except for Sex and Gender.  Throughout the real-life science fiction movie called COVID, we have been told to "follow the science."  The face of COVID, Dr. Anthony Fauci, condescendingly proclaimed, "I am the science."  It comes to light now that most of his assertions turned out to be incorrect.  Gender and sex are the latest battlefront in the realm of "science," and this, too, is turning out to defy actual science and common sense.  But as both COVID and gender are now political and advocacy issues rather than the science once taught in biology class, we are no longer following science and instead engaging in magical thinking.  What's the difference between sex and gender?  Once upon a time they were interchangeable terms.  But that changed.  Did the science change or did these terms become politically charged?

Why Governments Have Replaced God with Global Warming.  An adept government will never solve a problem unless it has a new problem prepackaged and ready to mass-produce for the public.  That's why Joe Biden didn't mind bungling America's exit from Afghanistan when he and other Obama administration alumni were already working on the next forever-war in Ukraine for the upcoming spring.  That's why the CDC and other government scientists owned and operated by the pharmaceutical industry never batted an eye when their miracle elixir COVID "vaccines" proved to be neither safe nor effective — because there is always some new exotic disease ready to be released from a Chinese bio-lab tucked away in an abandoned California factory that will require billions in taxpayer funds, too.  Any government worth its salt has an endless supply of boogeymen and a limited supply of expensive solutions that coincidentally require total citizen compliance.

Experts raise alarm after Biden strikes agreement with China to shut down fossil fuels.  U.S. energy experts are warning of the economic and national security implications of President Biden's pact with China this week to move towards shutting down fossil fuel production in favor of green energy.  The State Department announced this week it had struck a deal with its Chinese counterparts pledging to "accelerate the substitution for coal, oil and gas generation" with green energy sources like wind and solar power.  The nations, which account for nearly half of global greenhouse gas emissions, also agreed to "deepen policy exchanges" on reducing carbon emissions in various sectors, like power, industry, buildings and transportation, across their economies.  But the agreement — in which the nations further pledged to "sufficiently accelerate renewable energy deployment in their respective economies through 2030" — was criticized over its potential impact on U.S. consumers.  Experts also noted that China has rarely followed through on international accords and stands to financially benefit from such an agreement since it controls much of the world's green energy supply chain.

Two Words Describe Biden's Presidency:  Reckless Endangerment.  This week we've been treated to three government reports that all point in the same direction:  Disaster.  Interest payments are through the roof.  Real wages continue to fall.  And a record number of illegals crossed the border.  That's just the domestic news.  As of this writing, Americans are being held hostage by Iran-supported Hamas terrorists who killed nearly two dozen other Americans when they invaded Israel.  Our military forces face increasing Iranian-sponsored attacks in Iraq and Syria.  While President Joe Biden lets Iran off the sanctions hook for another four months.  The worry isn't just whether Biden — the architect of these disasters — will be voted out of office next year.  It's whether the U.S. can survive until then.

Boston Democrats Look to Extend Voting Rights to Foreign Nationals.  Democrats on the Boston City Council are looking to extend local voting rights to foreign nationals in the United States on visas, green cards, and other forms of legal status.  Councilwoman Kendra Lara (D) introduced the measure, which would allow foreign nationals on green cards, visas, and other forms of legal status to vote in Boston municipal elections.  The measure is likely to gain widespread support from the council, which is made up of 12 Democrats.

Biden Admin Pushing Coup in Israel.  The Biden administration keeps talking about the urgent need for Israel to have a post-war plan for Gaza.  What that really means is that it wants the PLO to take over Gaza.  Netanyahu has opposed that for now.  The Palestinian Authority is run by Fatah, the body behind the PLO, and is just another Islamic terrorist group.  And parts of it claimed to have taken part in the Oct 7 massacres.  But none of that is stopping the Biden administration from its obsession.  The thinking is that if the Palestinian Authority takes over Gaza, it can force negotiations on a Two-State Solution and finally bring peace by empowering terrorists.  A policy that has brought nothing but terror for 30 years.  And now that Israel's government is in the way, it's time to get it out of the way.

Green Agenda Driving Inflation and Hurting Economic Growth, Admits Central Banker.  Leftist green agenda policies are driving up inflation, raising the cost of consumer goods and depressing economic production, a top policy advisor to the Bank of England has admitted.  Net Zero agenda items pushed by the so-called Conservative party in the UK such as taxes on carbon and emissions trading schemes are increasing inflation and worsening the wallet crunch for Britons as companies pass along the costs onto average consumers, Catherine Mann, a member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee has acknowledged.  In comments reported by The Telegraph from an address delivered at Oxford University, Mann said that economists have concluded that green "carbon taxes, public investments, and subsidies are all inflationary".

If This Is True, Biden's Incompetence Cost American and Israeli Lives.  While this question has become peripheral, it's still relevant and needs answers.  There have been pieces here and there pointing to the intelligence failures that occurred leading to Hamas' barbaric October 7 terrorist attack against Israel.  That invasion, which saw over 1,000 Hamas terrorists invade the Jewish state, killing 1,400 men, women, and children, was probably the worst intelligence failure Israel has suffered since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.  Israeli intelligence has much to explain, but so does the United States.  With the serial incompetence of Joe Biden, this story isn't shocking.  This man's foreign policy blunders are almost by default supported by a long history of being exceptionally poor at international affairs.  Also, his executive orders and public record provide concrete evidence for this emerging story about how the US intelligence community slept on Hamas because they were too busy focusing on global warming.

While Hamas Planned Its Attack on Israel, Biden's Intel Community Was Focused On Climate Change.  While the Hamas terror group was working with Iran to launch its Oct. 7 attack on Israel, the Biden administration's intelligence community was ramping up efforts to combat climate change, raising questions about America's failure to detect the terror attack.  As the Israel-Gaza conflict enters its second month, congressional leaders are beginning to examine whether the Biden administration's intelligence shift — which included adding a climate scientist to his Intelligence Advisory Board, a task force that tracks national security issues, and executive orders that required the intelligence community to assess security threats posed by climate change — may have contributed to America's failure to spot Hamas's planning beforehand.  Hamas had been planning the attack for over a year, according to reports.  "The world faces unprecedented threats from Communist China, the Iran regime, and Russia yet the Biden administration is shifting intelligence and defense assets to focus on climate change," Rep. Mike Waltz (R., Fla.), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, told the Washington Free Beacon.

It's not about Israel:  We are the target.  Let's apply Occam's Razor to the question, "what is the motive behind Biden's actions as president?"  Biden's first steps were to systematically dismantle everything Trump had accomplished during his presidency.  Using the "global warming emergency" as his excuse, Biden ended drilling for oil and natural gas and moved us from energy independence to having to rely on our enemies to obtain dirtier oil.  His appointees to the military focused on wokeness, not readiness, and ended up with weakness.  His support of Ukraine, to the tune of $60 billion, with another $53 billion allocated, has depleted our military of the supplies and ammunition we need to defend our own country.  He spent money we didn't have for projects we didn't need, and has run up the national debt to $33.7 trillion -- fueling massive inflation that is ruining the lives of the "average Americans" he claims to represent.  He immediately began ignoring the law and opened our borders to all comers — terrorists, drug dealers, human traffickers, and common criminals.  Fentanyl is now killing over 110,000 Americans per year, the equivalent of a Boeing 757-300 crashing every single day.  Biden has done everything in his power to support Iran.

The Wind is Always Blowing Somewhere Fallacy.  I have followed the Climate Act since it was first proposed, submitted comments on the Climate Act implementation plan, and have written over 350 articles about New York's net-zero transition.  I have devoted a lot of time to the Climate Act because I believe the ambitions for a zero-emissions economy embodied in the Climate Act outstrip available renewable technology such that the net-zero transition will do more harm than good by increasing costs unacceptably, threatening electric system reliability, and causing significant unintended environmental impacts. [...] The Climate Act established a New York "Net Zero" target (85% reduction and 15% offset of emissions) by 2050.  It includes an interim 2030 reduction target of a 40% reduction by 2030 and a requirement that all electricity generated be "zero-emissions" by 2040.  The Climate Action Council is responsible for preparing the Scoping Plan that outlines how to "achieve the State's bold clean energy and climate agenda."  In brief, that plan is to electrify everything possible using zero-emissions electricity.

How about some hearings on human disinformation and electoral interference instead of so-called AI disinformation?  The media routinely uses adjectives like extreme and controversial to describe Republican policies while calling Democrat policies progressive. [...] Which of the following policies are actually extreme and controversial:  Having limits, not bans, on abortions like most countries in the World, or supporting abortions at all stages of a pregnancy, like a few countries such as North Korea and China.  Enforcing immigration laws that Congress passed or essentially having open borders.  Continuing to use the natural resources the Earth has been blessed with or destroying oil, gas, natural gas, and coal companies which have greatly improved our quality and length of life.  How many people in underdeveloped countries die very young because green pushers tell them they will destroy the Earth if they modernize? [...] The reason Biden is unpopular is not his age, it's the Democrat policies.  Replace Biden with Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, or any other Democrat and you get the same policies to destroy the oil companies and to make the government more powerful.

Joe Biden's menthol cigarette ban poised to open a huge new market for Mexican cartels.  We already have wide-open borders with welcome signs and promises of "free" healthcare, food, living accommodations, and college, a situation which has spurred more than ten million crossings during Biden's tenure alone (a devastating and unprecedented record).  Naturally, this equates to record revenue for the honchos raking in coyote fees and recurring payments; sometimes, the crossers reimburse the cartels by allowing the abuse of their own children.  With the decriminalization of drugs, we've seen open-air drug markets spring up and devour urban centers; expectedly, this demands a product, and more job security for criminal enterprises that deal in fentanyl and illicit drugs.  Read below, from the New York Post this past July:  ["]Honduran migrants have taken over San Francisco's drug market with the aid and blessing of Mexican cartels, according to a new report.["]  Assault after assault against the Second Amendment has disarmed peaceable citizens; but as always, those intent on harming the innocent can still procure a firearm no problem.  Now add to the list, menthol cigarettes, because Biden and the federal government really cares about your health... which is also why they promote bugs as food, plant-based diets, GMOs, "cross-sex" hormones for children, forced the jab, etc.

The US Spent $4.1 Billion on Global LGBT Initiatives.  During the past three fiscal years, $4.1 billion in federal money from taxpayers has flowed to LGBT initiatives in the United States and around the world, an Epoch Times investigation has revealed.  From Oct. 1, 2020, through Sept. 30, 2023, the U.S. government issued more than 1,100 grants to fund LGBT-promoting projects around the world, according to a review of a federal spending website.  The scope of projects varies widely.  Plans to create a "safe space for LGBTQ youth and adults to seek support and resources" earned a $1.8 million grant from the U.S. government in 2022 for the LGBT Life Center in Norfolk, Virginia.  A proposal for encouraging "diversity, equity, and inclusion in Serbia's workplaces and business communities by promoting economic empowerment of and opportunity for LGBTQI+ people in Serbia" was also a winning plan.  To fund it, the U.S. government awarded Serbian activist group Grupa Izadji a grant of $500,000.

You Have Paid $4.1 Billion to Support LGBTQ Initiatives in Other Countries Thanks to President Biden.  You're paying quite a bit of money to fund LGBTQ initiatives in other countries.  According to a recent report, the Biden administration has been quite generous with your hard-earned cash over the past three years.  The White House has given about $4.1 billion in taxpayer dollars to LGBTQ endeavors in countries like Serbia, Armenia, and several others.

American Jews on the Left Are Just Shocked by Their Fellow Leftists.  Progressive American Jews are shocked by their fellow progressives.  But the only thing that is shocking is their shock.  The Left wing has been calling for an economic boycott of Israel for decades and has labeled Israel an "apartheid" state.  The Left labels America, the most tolerant, multiethnic society in history, "systemically racist."  The Left called for "defunding the police," supports attorneys general who abolish bail for violent criminals, and praised demonstrations against America — including many that included vandalism and violence — for more than half a year.  The Left supports all-black dorms and all-black graduations on college campuses.  The Left has almost destroyed every liberal ideal regarding race.  The University of California, among many other left-wing institutions, has labeled "racist" the liberal ideal of being color-blind, and labeled "racist" the beautiful anti-racist sentiment, "there is only one race, the human race."

Was October 7 an Earthquake for the Democrats?  I see the drag queens, black-masked thugs, and [pink] hat wearing spinsters at every Democrat party event.  I know the Dems are the party of radicals, community organizers, and the occasional posse-organizing bartender.  But there are also a great many average Joes who habitually vote Democrat.  The average Joe is a law-abiding, churchgoing family man who votes Democrat because he wants to make the world better — and has been led to believe that the Dems want that also.  The average Joe:
  •   Wants some social safety nets — but not over $33 trillion of debt.
  •   Wants clean air and water — but not at the expense of worldwide destitution.
  •   Believes that immigration has been good for America — but doesn't support open borders.
  •   Believes in showing tolerance to others — but not the destruction of Judeo-Christian values.
  •   Believes we can improve our society — but not by abandoning our founding principles.
So why does Joe vote for the party of debt, invasion, racism, socialism, and moral relativism?

Carbon Dioxide:  Vital Plant Food.  [Scroll down]  It is bad enough that many of these programs have been built on a false foundation.  In truth, many of them have not been really beneficial.  Large solar farms are built in the desert, but in just a few years, the projects have failed.  Wind turbines wear out, catch fire, and break down totally.  They presently cannot be recycled and must be buried.  The only parts that can be recycled are in the generator.  One city bought several electric buses but in just a short time quit using them as impractical.  Electric vehicles may be practical to drive from home to office and back again, but they are not practical on long trips.  It is necessary to stop every few hours and charge the batteries, and sometimes it is difficult to find a proper charging station.  Those who have lived near the coast have seen their cars flooded with sea water, then their cars caught fire as their batteries shorted out.  Not only that, but the driving range is radically reduced when driving in summer (air-conditioning) or winter (heater).

Carbon Dioxide:  Vital Plant Food.  Carbon dioxide has been called a poison, yet it is actually the sustainer of all life on Earth.  Plants grow from the carbon in carbon dioxide in the air, and animals grow from the carbon in the plants they eat.  So carbon dioxide cannot be a poison.  Turn on the television any day of the week, and there is likely to be some discussion or news about some aspect of energy use.
  •   Everyone needs to buy an electric vehicle.
  •   End the use of fossil fuels by 2035.
  •   Every home with a solar panel (California).
  •   Cancel the Keystone XL Pipeline.
  •   No more coal.
  •   Eliminate the use of natural gas.
  •   No gas stoves.
  •   No gas furnaces.
  •   Battery-powered trucks and buses.
All these programs are based on one important foundation:  the belief that as carbon dioxide levels rise, the earth will get warmer, and will continue to warm until, with positive feedbacks, it burns up with us on it.  Few have ever taken the time to see if the foundation upon which they are operating is actually true.  Few even dare to ask a working scientist for the truth in the matter.  The truth is that carbon dioxide is needed by every plant on the Earth.  Trees, bushes, and plants of all kinds are made mainly of carbon and hydrogen, and the carbon comes from the tiny amount of carbon dioxide that is in the air.

Would The 'Woke' Movement Please Hurry Up And Die Already?  What do we mean by "woke"?  It's the extreme-left mindset encouraged by the "Diversity, Equity, Inclusion" movement, the ugly offspring of Marxism and critical race theory.  Its intent is all-inclusive, covering the entirety of culture, social interactions, and commerce.  Indeed, the movement's ultimate goal is to plant a permanent flag of ideological conquest in your brain so you'll be frightened to transgress even a little bit of the thought boundaries they've set for you.  It's working.  From once-sensible cops in Britain tearing down posters of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas, to Hollywood's awful woke remakes of classic entertainment, to drag queens parading in children's classrooms and events, to our own woke military, "woke" now seems culturally pervasive, almost inescapable.

The DNC Con Job to Come.  Our problems are caused by policies.  These are not Biden-Harris-specific policies; they have become standard-issue, party-platform, shared official policies.  To advocate anything else would get one kicked out of the party.  Both our nation and the entire Western world are suffering from a reduction in current and future output of petroleum, natural gas, and coal — concurrent with a costly explosion of notoriously inefficient wind and solar farms.  That's a shared Democrat policy.  Both our nation and the entire Western world are suffering from an explosion of crime, caused in part by foolish criminal justice policies (denying self-defense to the law-abiding, refusing to execute convicted violent criminals, refusing to control the entry of international crime gangs such as MS-13 and Islamofascist terrorists).  These too are shared Democrat policies.

Joe Biden Isn't 'Managing' Or Confronting Problems.  Joe Biden Is The Problem.  There's a simple pattern that the media follow when covering each new crisis that pops up during Joe Biden's catastrophic presidency:  A calamity occurs either domestically or abroad, and rather than examining the cause, the media instantly frame Biden as a hero at battle. [...] But back to Biden.  He's not confronting or managing a series of events that happened to him.  He and his party actively created them.  Or, at minimum, they created an environment that anyone could have predicted would lead to them.  Russia has long insisted that NATO stop expanding along its border.  The second Biden got into office, he pushed for Ukraine's membership.  Israel had its country under relative control for years right up until Biden's team gifted Iran, the Jewish state's greatest threat, $6 billion worth of goodies.  We were energy independent until Biden said we couldn't be.  The economy was working itself out until Biden and his party thought it would be a good idea to pump hundreds of billions of dollars more into Covid-era welfare ("childcare" and "living assistance").  And let's not start on the electric vehicle scheme, wherein car companies grabbed another round of multi-billion-dollar taxpayer funds, courtesy of Biden, for a product that barely works (and for which manufacturers are now rolling back their production of).

Consequences of American Communism.  My position is quite clear:  this nation is done for. [...] It should be obvious that nearly two-thirds of this nation cannot stand to live with the other third.  There is no compromise on pedophilia, illegal immigration, corruption, spending the people into poverty, controlling the use of gas stoves and etc., but bigger issues are on the horizon and the federal government will not be able to deal with them.  The federal government has become a form of mafia that doesn't put one moment's energy into what the people or the nation want or need.  They see profit for themselves and make laws to satisfy those who will pay them off.  That's a nation with an expiration date and that date is rapidly approaching.

Biden Wants Another $56 Billion in 'Emergency' Spending.  Under the guise of responding to natural disasters, the White House is pushing Congress to approve $56 billion in additional borrowing to fund a wide range of nonemergency spending like broadband internet and humanitarian aid.  Less than half of the $56 billion requested by the Biden administration would be directed toward disaster relief — and only $9 billion would "address ongoing disaster response and recovery efforts," according to a breakdown published by the White House.  The majority of the new spending would be aimed at what the White House calls "critical domestic priorities" like welfare programs, the war on drugs, and government-funded broadband internet.  In other words:  nonemergency line items that could — and should — be decided as part of the regular budget process, not as a supplemental funding bill.

Joe Biden touted as a 'key' figure and a 'wartime' leader?  Ever since Joe Biden took office, he has idiotically said climate change is the greatest existential threat to the U.S. and the world.  Not Iran with its "death to America" pledges, not China with its dystopian communism, American farmland grabs, and land acquisitions near military bases, not North Korea with its nuclear bombs under the control of an unstable leader, not the Mexican cartels and their human butchery.  Nope, the greatest threat is a hypothetical and miniscule temperature increase in the next hundred years or so.  The Biden administration then pretends they can prevent this from happening if they could just stop Americans from using crude oil and gas-powered vehicles and equipment, which greatly rewards China.  Iran and Russia also love this abject ignorance and arrogance, and appreciate Biden's generosity as he has greatly increased the demand for their oil, thus driving up their revenue, which they use to wage war against their enemies.

Phrases that aren't that great:
Phrases that grate.  The phrase "you can't make this up" has become a tiresome incantation, often reflecting bemusement at Biden's petulant policies.  Instead, how about "inexplicable," or "incomprehensible," to succinctly capture his compunction to reverse Trump's America First policies?  Unfortunately, one can make this up because Biden is malevolently mad.  His unfathomable DEI and ESG imperatives are impervious to rationality.

Now All Americans Can See the Insanity of the Biden Energy Strategy.  We've been warning regularly on these pages that the Biden war on American fossil fuels is not just an economic calamity, but a national security threat as well.  We have known for fifty years that terrorist organizations like Hamas are primarily financed with petro-dollars.  Just as Biden has aided and abetted the Russian war machine in Ukraine, he has enriched Middle East oil-producing nations like Iran as well.  Our latest CTUP analysis finds that the reduction in US oil output under Biden from the Trump trend has cost the U.S. roughly $500 million a day.  Much of that money has been transferred week after week from American producers to nations hostile to the U.S. and Israel.

Joe Biden has blown up the world.  On day one of the Biden administration, he canceled the Keystone Pipeline, putting thousands of skilled workers out of work.  Over the ensuing months, he canceled oil leases, stopped fracking, and drained our strategic oil reserve.  All this was surely intentional; he means to starve the American people of energy, making what is available more expensive by the day.  Like Obama, he means to transform America, and not in a good way.  The most catastrophic stunt Biden pulled was the tragically ill conceived withdrawal from Afghanistan.  He left billions in state-of-the-art military equipment to the Taliban along with the Bagram Air Base, which sits close to China.  Thirteen young American patriots were killed by the sheer ineptitude of their leaders.  This tragic maneuver telegraphed Biden's, and thus America's, weakness to every leader in the world.  Russia thought taking Ukraine's Russian-speaking border regions would be a cakewalk.  Our careless warmongers in the Biden administration thought their puppet-of-the-oligarchs Zelensky would easily defeat Russia with billions of U.S. dollars.  The military complex wanted that war.  All of that went awry.  Here we are a year and a half later; Ukraine has lost half a million people and is still begging for billions more in aid.  None of this would have happened if Trump had been in office.

Obviously Obama never "left off."  He's still pulling the strings.
On Israel, Biden Picks Up Where Obama Left Off.  Secretary of State Antony Blinken contends that Hamas would gain no "greater" victory "than allowing its brutality to send us down a path of terrorism and nihilism.  We must not let it."  You can hear echoes of Barack Obama's insufferable moral equivalencies imbued in that statement.  The contention is a not-so-subtle warning to Israel, who will almost surely enter Gaza and try to dismantle the Hamas terror state — which has been indirectly and directly funded not only by Iran, the European Union, and the United Nations but also by the Obama and Biden administrations.  The insinuation, of course, is that Israel needs to temper its inclination to engage in "terrorism and nihilism."  It is a blood libel.  It is not "terrorism" to seek justice for the pregnant woman who had her baby cut from her body or the elderly couple who was burned alive.  And eliminating those who committed Nazi-like atrocities against your citizens is no more nihilistic than tracking down Eichmann or demanding Emperor Hirohito unconditionally surrender.  Yet, only days after the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust, Biden was already lecturing Benjamin Netanyahu on how "democracies like Israel and the United States are stronger and more secure when we act according to the rule of law."  The insinuation, again, is that there is something nefarious about winning a war against those who massacre your citizens.

White House Would Rather Discuss Islamophobia Than Antisemitism.  [Scroll down]  But then there are times when the Biden administration demonstrates all the moral assurance of a blind man on a tightrope.  An exchange of this latter sort occurred on Monday, when White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded to a reporter's question about President Joe Biden's "level of concern right now about the potential rise of antisemitism in light of everything that's going on in Israel."  "Look, we have not seen any credible threats," replied Jean-Pierre.  "I know there's been always [sic] questions about credible threats.  And so, just want to make sure that that's out there."  Having disposed of antisemitism in 27 words, Jean-Pierre pivoted:  "But, look, Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim have endured a disproportionate number of hate-fueled attacks.  And certainly President Biden understands that many of our Muslim, Arab Americans, and Palestinian American loved ones and neighbors are worried about the hate being directed at their communities.  And that is something you heard the president speak to in his address just last Thursday."  Jean-Pierre spent three more paragraphs morally equating antisemitism and Islamophobia, noting that Biden has directed the Department of Homeland Security "to prioritize prevention and disruption of any emerging threats that could harm the Jewish, the Muslim, Arab Americans or any other communities."

The Editor says...
The White House is firmly on the side of the Muslims because [#1] We are witnessing Obama's third term as president, and [#2] Obama is a Muslim.

In the Mouth of Marxist Madness.  Americans [are] under siege from an Orwellian deep state that manipulates the public by distorting history and undermining the meaning of words.  In a nation that celebrates George Floyd as a hero, clings to the "Hands up, don't shoot" lie as a sacred "truth," and blames Hillary's election loss on Russian bots, propaganda is king.  The U.S. government fights racism by institutionalizing racial preferences.  It supports Black Lives Matter and Antifa domestic terrorists while locking up American patriots as "domestic enemies."  It replaces impartial justice with "social justice" and equality under the law with "equitable" special privileges.  "Climate change" communism kills property rights.  Meme-makers are imprisoned, but Russia collusion hoaxers are not.  Gene-altering serums are called "vaccines."  And generations of judges have replaced the U.S. Constitution with their own postmodern revisions.

How the Inflation Reduction Act Bankrolls EPA Overreach.  The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) offers a master class in implementing expensive, counterproductive, and highly partisan energy policy.  In previous posts, I discussed 1) how the electricity generation subsidies in the IRA could cost taxpayers $2.5 or $3 trillion and 2) why policymakers should remove those subsidies before expanding the high-voltage transmission system.  As we count the reasons why repealing the energy subsidies in the IRA is a good idea, let's also consider their interaction with the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) proposed power plant rule.  It is technically true that, as Senator Joe Manchin has said, "[n]either the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law nor the IRA gave new authority to regulate power plant emission standards."  However, the IRA did provide the foundation upon which the EPA has built its power plant regulation by subsidizing the technologies that enable the new standards.  Consequently, lawmakers who oppose the EPA's overreach should consider repealing the energy subsidies in the IRA.

James Biden receives $200k from a failing hospital, then immediately writes a check to Joe for the same amount.  [Scroll down]  I see a lot of efforts from Biden and his party to destroy America, which no one could consider "working for the American people."  Here is a sample:  As soon as Biden took office, he started his war on oil companies.  That sent prices skyrocketing, greatly helping Iran and Russia while greatly harming the American people.  Biden also canceled an American pipeline while lifting sanctions on a Russian pipeline.  Communist China loves the fact that politicians in the U.S. issue diktats, telling their subjects that they will be required to junk their reliable gas-powered vehicles in favor of vehicles powered by minerals that China substantially controls.  Biden reversed President Trump's substantially successful border policies in favor of allowing millions of illegals to flow in every year.  It is not working for Americans to flood the U.S. with mostly unvetted illegals.  It is lawless.  As Fox also reported, the "high migrant numbers" broke multiple records.

Paying for our own destruction.  Democrats want to embark on The Green New Deal, which would likely destroy the economy and fatally bankrupt the nation, all while doing next to nothing to counteract "global warming" or "climate change."  Uncle Sam is paying to fly illegal aliens around the country and put them up in fine hotels — or set them up in apartments and homes, replete with a starter allowance for furnishing them.  The Biden administration left billions and billions of dollars worth of top-shelf military equipment in Afghanistan, to the amazement and delight of the Taliban.  Some of which has apparently now been funneled to the likes of Hamas and Hezbollah.  It has deliberately devastated our domestic energy sector and drained down our strategic oil reserve at a time when multiple conflicts rock the world.  Incredibly, we now go begging for oil from the hated Russians (who are at war with Ukraine) — and Saudi Arabia — when we were energy independent just three short years ago.

Where There is No Respect for Life, Evil Flourishes.  The loss of respect for life has also begun to dramatically infiltrate the American ruling elites and the overall society as over the past two decades the following, previously unthinkable, changes have occurred within the United States:
  •   Unfettered abortion up to the point of birth and post-birth infanticide has become a policy position of the Democrat Party.
  •   Euthanasia is openly discussed and supported by an ever-growing (73%) segment of the population.
  •   Sexually confused teens are being coerced into mutilation and permanent disfigurement in order to appease the gods of transgenderism, accompanied by an unabashed campaign to legalize pedophilia.
  •   A significant plurality of Americans is demanding the censorship, imprisonment, and persecution of their political adversaries while they, and recent Islamic immigrants, are openly supporting and justifying the slaughter of Jews by Hamas.
  •   Tribalism has been mainstreamed and with it the belief that certain ethnicities or races are inferior to others and also responsible for society's ills, therefore, they are deserving of disrespect, abuse and discrimination.
The path the United States is presently traveling will inevitably lead to the darkening shadow of unfettered evil descending upon the land leading to national self-destruction.

The Cult of Personality Will Destroy This Country.  We like to blame what Elon Musk calls the 'Woke Mind Virus' for most of our ills, and surely 'defund the police,' 'open the borders,' 'make it legal to poop on sidewalks,' 'decriminalize crime,' and other loony woke ideas are causing great harm, but understand that the 'woke' represent a very small percentage of the public.  The woke like to pretend that the word 'woke' is something the political right highjacked, but that has no real meaning.  Let me define the term.  Woke is the ability to see oppression where it does not exist.  The woke then wish to eliminate oppression, even where there is none, leading to all kinds of horrendous policies.  Ask yourself how it is that policies supported by a small fraction of the public — not even supported by the majority of the party pushing them — are rapidly becoming the laws of the land.

Absolutely not.  But if he wants billions to fly them all to Argnetina or New Guinea, I'm all for it.
Joe Biden Demands Billions to Fly, Bus More Migrants into U.S. Communities.  President Joe Biden's deputies are asking Congress for $14 billion extra to help bus illegal migrants up to the U.S. border and onward into hotels in many cities and towns around the nation.  The request is being touted as "border security" even though very few funds would be used to exclude economic migrants.  For example, Biden's deputies have ushered more than 300,000 economic migrants through the U.S. border in September alone.  The 2023 inflow has added up to roughly 2.5 million, not counting legal migrants and temporary workers.

The road ahead for Israel, America, and everyone else.  President Biden left Israel Wednesday [10/18/2023] after publicly instructing Jerusalem to show restraint in their expected ground invasion of Gaza, while privately reportedly giving the Israelis more wiggle room to get the job done.  Now, even meaningless moral virtue signaling is pretty rich coming from the guy whose administration is responsible for the horrendously botched withdrawal from Afghanistan (despite it being absolutely necessary), the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline, and other incidents that helped to spark a variety of global crises.  Nonetheless, it appears pretty clear that despite the Biden "bear hug" smothering routine, Israel intends on following through with its mission to severely limit the operational capability of Hamas, the terrorist group responsible for the October 7 massacre of over 1,300 Israelis.

Biden Administration Now Wants to Ban Furnaces.  In an attempt to force Americans to conserve energy, the Department of Energy is banning a whole class of popular furnaces, eventually raising heating costs and reducing product choices for families and businesses alike.  And it is using an outdated law to give itself the authority to do so.  While the DOE did recognize many of the comments that I submitted arguing against its attempt to regulate gas furnaces, it did little more than brush them off.  Unfortunately, higher costs and less choice won't be so easy for American families and businesses to ignore.  Furthermore, the DOE relied on outdated congressional authority to devise its final rule, and the law itself doesn't require the department to tighten standards for gas furnaces when there is no good reason for it to do so (and there isn't).  The new rule does not simply alter standards; it would effectively remove a technology from the marketplace and reduce competition.

If you're tempted to think the government cares about you...  Does anybody really believe that Biden cared whether the taxpayers have to pay $60 or $100 per barrel to refill the strategic petroleum reserve that he tapped to buy votes?  After all, it was his energy policies that jacked up the cost of gas and diesel, not the Russians or the supply chain disruption.  Does anyone believe that Biden cares whether taxpayers have to pay off $100 billion or one trillion in debt that he dictatorially is forgiving?  The government didn't care when colleges jacked up their costs much faster than inflation and now wants other people to pay off the debts that students ran up.  Is that fair?  The Democrats intentionally lied when they passed the falsely named inflation reduction act that they pretended would not only be paid for, but would reduce the deficit and reduce inflation.  The goal of the act was to buy votes and establish a slush fund for radical green pushers.

Report: Biden's HHS Imposes Gender Identity Pronoun Mandate on Employees.  President Joe Biden's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is ordering its employees to defy biological reality by referring to transgender coworkers by their "preferred pronouns."  The HHS, which employs approximately 80,000 people in the United States and abroad, imposed its new "Gender Identity and Non-Discrimination Guidance" late last week, which outlines "employee rights and protections related to gender identity," according to an alleged HHS email sent to employees and obtained by Catholic News Agency (CNA).

New York gas stove ban heats up as gas and construction groups file federal lawsuit.  A group of gas and construction trade groups filed a federal lawsuit Thursday challenging the legality of New York's ban on gas stoves and furnaces in new residential buildings in a move to challenge Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul's push for green energy.  The case was filed by the National Association of Home Builders and the National Propane Gas Association, among others and names the New York Department of State as a defendant on the lawsuit.  The lawsuit alleges that New York does not have the legal ability to enforce the gas stove ban because a preexisting federal law, called the Energy Policy and Conservation Act (EPCA) of 1975, already regulates energy use policies.

Federal Lawsuit Filed Over New York State Ban on Gas Stoves That Democrats Said Wasn't Happening.  Remember the stupid ban on gas stoves?  The one that Democrats insisted wasn't happening?  Two professional groups have just filed a federal lawsuit over the ban in New York, claiming that the state doesn't have the authority to put such a ban in place.  There needs to be more legal action like this.  Democrats are out of bounds on this issue.

A gander at Joe Biden's executive orders tells us a lot about his presidency.  As of May 9, 2023 President Biden has signed 115 executive orders.  Here a few of them:  Executive Order 13985 — Advances racial equity and support for underserved communities through the federal government.  This is unconstitutional discrimination based on racial identity and not character and competence of the individual so it is a blatantly unconstitutional racist executive order.  Executive Order 13988 — Designed to prevent and combat discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation.  It is one thing to tolerate adult gays, bisexuals, and transgenders but it is another to prove discrimination by heterosexuals and punish them for it.  Who will determine whether the discrimination was based on character and competence and not gender identity or sexual orientation?  Thus, this is an unenforceable order which may sound O.K. in theory but in practice is not enforceable.

Democrats' extremism, incivility, gaslighting precludes civil response.  Many people wonder why today, as opposed to even the recent past, the political parties can no longer be civil to — or even tolerate one another.  Well, the reason for that is that the Democrat party has become so extreme and moved so far left that it is no longer possible for a sane person to agree with them.  Today's Democrats bear little resemblance to those of the Truman or even Kennedy eras.  They are not just economic Marxists believing in equality of outcome, but cultural Marxists who wish to deny and/or destroy all that came before them, including the very concept of men and women.  Not content with even this, they boldly attempt to impose their ideas — and will — on everyone else.  They want equity of beliefs and values, as long as those beliefs and values are their own.  It is one thing to believe in somewhat bigger government and higher taxes, quite another to believe that baby-killing should be enshrined as the law of the land and that men can become women just by saying so.

Joe Biden is adamant that you pay other people's student loans.  Hey there, hardworking plumber, auto mechanic, nursing aide, dutiful married couple parents, and others of your ilk struggling to live within your income while faithfully paying your bills, your debts, maybe even loans — President Joe Biden (Democrat) thinks you're a fool!  A sucker!  Okay, okay, he didn't actually say that today, but that was definitely implied as he triumphantly announced a further expansion of canceling college student loan debt.

The 'McHenry Kicks Pelosi out' Story Gets Even More Amusing.  We wrote earlier about how one of the first orders of business for speaker pro tempore Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) in the aftermath of the House's ousting of Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as Speaker was to notify former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) that she needed to immediately remove her things and vacate her hideaway office.  Also, according to reports, an email sent from a House Administration Committee aide indicated the room was being redesignated "for speaker office use."  Naturally, the move prompted some wailing from Pelosi, who proclaimed that the decision was "a sharp departure from tradition."  It was kind of an ironic statement to make considering, as my colleague Bonchie noted, ousting a House Speaker — which Pelosi's fellow Democrats ultimately supported even after she allegedly told McCarthy prior to him becoming Speaker she would push back against such a move — is quite a departure from tradition as well.

The Editor says...
Let's review:  A wide-open Mexican border, multi-trillion-dollar deficits, abortion on demand, forced vaccinations, men pretending to be women, men in the women's restrooms, mail-in ballots (with no evidence they were really mailed) counted days after election day, legalized marijuana, assisted suicide, gun control, an obviously corrupt and venal president, crime without punishment, a lesbian Senator who resides in Maryland representing California, electric cars, windmills and solar panels instead of coal and natural gas, defunding the police — nearly everything in the Socialist Democrats' platform is "a sharp departure from tradition."

Biden Administration Forces Transgender Orthodoxy in Workplaces.  The Biden administration seeks to force transgender orthodoxy on ordinary Americans via its Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).  The EEOC aims to weaponize a federal law prohibiting harassment on the basis of sex in the workplace by forbidding employers to believe that biological sex can not be altered due to one's self-identification, according to a report by the Daily Signal.  The federal agency published a proposed rule for workplace harassment Monday, citing the Supreme Court's decision in Bostock v.  Clayton County, which states, "sex-based discrimination includes discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity."

The Specter of Permanent Democrat Rule.  In today's House and Senate, nine members call themselves socialists.  Article VI, Clause 3 of the Constitution explicitly makes them ineligible to serve.  Another 15 members publicly lean socialist but do not declare themselves, probably for electability reasons.  In total, 102 representatives are members of the Democrat Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC).  Might you think that many of these are socialists in sheep's clothing?  Read the following and decide for yourself: ["]The CPC advocates a universal, high-quality, Medicare for All health care system, living wage laws, reductions in military expenditures, a crackdown on corporate greed, putting an end to mass incarceration, supporting and implementing swift measures to start reversing climate change, immigration policies that are humane, and reparations.["] [...] We are 35 years into the takeover of the Democrat party by world socialism and the World Economic Forum.  This Marxist front organization guides the world within its many bodies toward one-world government.  Ultra-left Rep. Pramila Jayapal is their caucus leader.

Democrats Use Issues to Push for Total Control.  In polling, Democrat voters rank climate change as an important issue, but less important than health care, education, and abortion rights.  Transgenderism is well down the list of voter priorities.  Transgenderism and climate change are problematic issues.  Men cannot become women and women cannot become men.  Gender is not a social construct, but a physical reality.  No matter how often you assert the opposite, it will not become true.  Likewise climate change.  "Everyone" knows that man-made climate change is destroying the planet.  The "entire" scientific community is united in agreement.  Both of these statements are false, but they are never debated.  The science upon which climate catastrophe assertions are based is not settled.  Just ask Nobel Prize-winning scientist Dr. John Clauser, who was recently cancelled for undermining the supposed monolithic climate orthodoxy.  Why are these two issues, each with a questionable foundation in reality, at the forefront of Democrat activism?

Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act committed more than $100 million to promote 'tree equity'.  The "climate change" (uh huh, sure) picture is clear:  the transfer of wealth (to them and away from us), and an attack against nature and sensibility. [...] Leave it up to federal bureaucrats to argue that high crime rates are simply because criminals don't have access to trees, having nothing whatsoever to do with the procrime policies of the Democrat politicians in these concrete jungles with minority neighborhoods.  Who knew?

Biden Forest Service Hands Out Over $100 Million To Advance 'Tree Equity'.  "Tree Equity" is a term first coined by American Forests, a conservation nonprofit, that blames the lack of trees in minority neighborhoods on "redlining and other discriminatory policies," according to the organization's website.  The Forest Service argues on its website that planting trees will reduce crime and improve health outcomes.  The grants are funded through the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden's signature climate law.  While trees cover nearly half of Atlanta, the most coverage in the nation according to Trees Atlanta, the Forest Service approved a grant to the city for $10 million to "address issues related to tree equity" and develop a "sustainable, diverse nature-based workforce." Similarly, San Francisco had 14,543 trees per square mile as of 2021, and the Forest Service allocated $14 million to plant more trees this year, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported.

Biden Admin Releases Most Restrictive Offshore Oil And Gas Drilling Plan In US History.  The Biden administration on Friday unveiled the most restrictive offshore oil and gas five-year leasing program in history.  The Department of the Interior (DOI) announced the plan, which allows for three offshore oil and gas lease sales through 2029, with sales in 2025, 2027 and 2029.  That schedule represents the lowest number of sales that the administration could have pursued while maintaining its ability to push offshore wind development under provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), and it is the "smallest number of oil and gas lease sales in history," according to Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.  "The Biden-Harris administration is committed to building a clean energy future that ensures America's energy independence," Haaland said of the schedule's release.

Dealing with Consequences.  [Scroll down]  Consider the crime wave that is currently ruining cities with Democrat mayors.  Far-left Soros funded district attorneys such as Alvin Bragg and Chelsa Boudin and George Gascón have made the decision to not prosecute criminals.  As a consequence, crime is rampant and 'Criminal Justice Practices to Enhance Public Trust and Public Safety' are nonexistent.  To say that Biden has removed our opportunity to vote on his decisions concerning his policies would be a major understatement.  But that's only half the story.  Biden is trying to create a consequence-free society.  Decisions have consequences in the real world, but not in Biden-world.  Making decisions without consequences is simply not possible.  Every decision has consequences, be they favorable or unfavorable, expected or not, intended or unintended, or some combination thereof.

Cloward-Piven Strategy:  Its hellish culmination is nearly here.  The goal is to foist us into an economic crisis leading to the collapse of the United States as well as capitalism.  A two-class system will then rise out of the ashes — one rich and one poor.  The devastation will lead to the poor begging for the rich-in-charge (also known as the government, the global elites, the Democratic Party and the liberal left) to save them.  Therein lies our nation's conversion to socialism and enslavement.  Simplified further, the three-step process reads like this:  Overwhelm the nation.  Do it all at once.  Then prepare for the collapse of the United States.  The strategy relies on uncontrolled spending, massive debt and the distribution of entitlements.  It is the reason the United States continues to financially support Ukraine, leaving us with $30 trillion in debt while illegal migrants flood our border.  It was also the reason for the COVID lockdowns and unending state of fear that had many thanking the federal government for the meager handouts they were given.

Slouching Towards 1984.  [Scroll down]  Leftists seek to decarbonize the worldwide energy system — thus intentionally destroying a highly effective, proven, and safe energy production and distribution system that has lifted millions around the world out of poverty.  This system was refined and incrementally improved over time.  The Left wants to replace this system with technologies that are neither currently effective, proven, nor safe and although inchoate are expected to emerge fully formed — meaning that once implemented technological advancement will be more difficult and expensive.  The U.S. already spends billions in order to end up further behind where we are now from an energy, industrial output and standard of living perspective.  The planners are talking about required reductions in energy consumption, automotive miles traveled, airplane miles traveled and consumption of energy intensive foodstuffs — thus destroying our wealth and reducing the quality of life.

Radical Democrats' greatest fears are religion, truth, honesty, and integrity.  Our nation's first president, George Washington, predicted what could happen.  His fears described how an unprincipled group of men and women would take over a political party and subvert the Constitution.  Radical "activists" including communists, socialists, Marxists, progressives, LGBTQ++, and haters of religion and family, have adopted the Democrat party as their vehicle of choice.  They have coalesced with naive political leaders and the media.  They are now using this power to destroy America's culture.  Deviant thinking seeks to replace absolute truth with ever-changing concepts of identity, whims, and moods.  News organizations, social media, and politics have knowing or unknowingly spread their identity to create a godless culture.

House approves bill striking down Biden's crackdown on hunting and archery in overwhelmingly bipartisan vote.  The House voted late Tuesday evening in favor of legislation striking down the Biden administration's decision to block federal funding for school shooting sports courses.  In a 424-1 vote, the House approved the Protecting Hunting Heritage and Education Act with 216 Republicans and 208 Democrats voting in favor, and just one lawmaker, Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, voting against.  Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., introduced the bill on Aug. 1, days after a Fox News Digital report in late July revealed the Department of Education was withholding funds for school hunting and archery courses.  "Hunters and fishers are the best conservationists," Green told Fox News Digital after the vote Tuesday.

Synopsis:  The government is creating 20,000 do-nothing jobs for minorities.
Biden's climate corps will hire 'diverse generation' of 20,000 Americans to 'tackle climate change'; no work experience required.  President Biden is planning to sign an executive order Wednesday to establish a federal workforce training and service initiative as part of his administration's efforts to fight climate change.  Biden's so-called American Climate Corps will, according to the White House, mobilize "a new, diverse generation" of more than 20,000 Americans who will be trained and put to work on conservation, clean energy and environmental justice projects.  The ultimate goal of the program is to pave the way for members of the corps to find jobs in the public and private sector.  "The American Climate Corps is a new initiative that will... work on a wide range of projects that tackle climate change — including restoring coastal wetlands to protect communities from storm surges and flooding, deploying clean energy, managing forests to improve health and prevent catastrophic wildfires, implementing energy efficient solutions to cut energy bills for hardworking families, and more," the White House said.

Biden admin unleashes 50-year mining, oil drilling ban across thousands of acres in New Mexico.  The Biden administration proposed to block of thousands of acres from future oil drilling or mining in northern New Mexico in an effort to protect Native American lands.  According to the Department of the Interior (DOI), the proposal would ban new mining claims and oil and gas development across more than 4,200 acres in Sandoval County, New Mexico, located north of Albuquerque.  If finalized and implemented, the action would remain in place for up to 50 years.  "Today we're responding to call from Tribes, elected leaders, and community members who want to see these public lands protected," Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement.  "We look forward to hearing more from the public to inform decisions about how activities, like gravel mining, may impact these lands, including the important cultural and natural resources."

Biden Moves Closer to Martial Law with Executive Order Creating a Civilian 'Climate' Army.  When Americans quickly needed to raise an army to fight the Nazis during World War II, the first place they turned was to the young men who had been trained in discipline and military skills a decade earlier as part of the Civilian Conservation Corps.  With radical socialists now anticipating the declaration of a "climate emergency" that will supersede the normal elections process next year, likely triggering a massive public uprising and the declaration of martial law, the recent failures of an F-35 stealth fighter may have the government worried that its fleet of artificial-intelligence piloted drones may not be enough to get the job done.  Meanwhile, federal defense-spending dollars are all being rerouted to Ukraine or to helping military members fund medical procedures like abortions and transgender surgeries.  And recruitment in several military branches may be at their lowest levels in decades, at least.

Joe Biden to Announce Executive Level Gun Control Office.  President Joe Biden will announce the Office of Gun Violence Prevention on Friday and the new office will be coordinated with Mike Bloomberg gun control proponents and others.  According to the Washington Post, "The new office will report up through Stefanie Feldman, the White House staff secretary and a longtime Biden policy aide who has worked on the firearms issue for years."  Coordination in the office is expected between the "White House, the Community Justice Action Fund and Everytown for Gun Safety."  Shannon Watts, a Mike Bloomberg affiliate who founded Moms Demand Action, praised the creation of the Office of Gun Violence Prevention, saying, "If this announcement is, in fact, the creation of a single point of leadership on gun violence in the administration, it's a very big deal for the movement."

Why are Democrats/Socialists/Communists pushing transgender ideology so hard, especially on children?  In short, it is because Communist countries already practice totalitarian control over their people, while far-Leftists/wannabe — Communists in the West are endeavoring to achieve that level of control.  By brainwashing people, starting with very young children, into questioning their gender and trying to eliminate the concepts of "Mother" and "Father," "Boys" and "Girls," the Leftists in America are working to destroy the "nuclear family" which is the basis for freedom and democracy, as well as free- market Capitalism.  As German socialist philosopher Friedrich Engles once said: "The male-dominated nuclear family is essential for Capitalism."

RFK Jr says he would ban fracking in 10-point plan to tackle plastics pollution.  Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., while announcing his 10-point plan to end the plastics pollution crisis, said he would ban fracking.  The process of fracking involves high pressure injections of liquid into underground rocks and layers to open fissures and extract oil or gas.  The United Nations says each year, 19-23 million tons of plastic waste leaks into waterways, polluting rivers, seas, and lakes.

Markey, Ocasio-Cortez ask Biden to create Civilian Climate Corps by executive order.  Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), two of Congress's most vocal proponents for aggressive climate action, on Monday called for President Biden to establish a Civilian Climate Corps (CCC).  The CCC had been a key element in early versions of the Build Back Better Act, the sweeping environmental and infrastructure bill.  It was not ultimately included in the slimmed-down Inflation Reduction Act, which nonetheless was the largest climate bill in U.S. history.  Biden was a vocal backer of the CCC early in his presidency, comparing it to the Civilian Conservation Corps introduced during the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  The original legislation called for $10 billion to launch the program.

Joe Biden to Announce Executive Level Gun Control Office.  President Joe Biden will announce the Office of Gun Violence Prevention on Friday and the new office will be coordinated with Mike Bloomberg gun control proponents and others.  According to the Washington Post, "The new office will report up through Stefanie Feldman, the White House staff secretary and a longtime Biden policy aide who has worked on the firearms issue for years."  Coordination in the office is expected between the "White House, the Community Justice Action Fund and Everytown for Gun Safety."

Mark Levin's The Democrat Party Hates America.  Once again, Mark Levin has done a great service to the Republic by writing a fully documented, highly pointed book on a topic of vital national interest.  Published today by the Threshold Editions imprint of Simon & Schuster, The Democrat Party Hates America is required reading for anyone who follows politics in America.  That most assuredly includes those who identify as Democrats, though most will shun the book because it is too much of a challenge to their sense of self-worth and virtue.  For the few who have the courage to read it, the book will be a revelation.  I make no secret that I was born into a family of active Democrats, and until reality intruded well into adulthood, I shared that political attachment.  I have since regarded it as a mistaken affiliation, but after reading this book I now have a sense a shame.  If it is widely enough read, and I predict that it will be a runaway best-seller, the book will change the way the public understands one of our two major political parties, forever tainting the Democrats for the racism, hypocrisy, lack of principle, and sheer ruthless pursuit of power at any cost that have permeated their party throughout its history.

The Democrat Party Is Stripped Naked In Mark Levin's Astonishing Bestseller.  Mark Levin has authored 10 bestselling books over the past 16 years related to politics, current events, and policy issues.  His latest book, The Democrat Party Hates America lays out a devastating argument that the Democratic Party is responsible for much of the division the country faces today.  But Levin demonstrates this is nothing new for the Democrats because its very origin was predicated on hatred.  Levin provides a detailed history of the Democratic Party since the Civil War and its shifting positions and language over time.  He observes party leaders like Barack Obama and Joe Biden have mastered political tactics to gain power while attacking, demonizing and even imprisoning critics.  At its core, the book warns of the longstanding Democrat embrace of hatred as its center, from Slavery to Marxism.

While Using Drag Queens for Recruitment, Woke General Milley Hotly Denies That Military Is Woke.  The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark "Thoroughly Modern" Milley, who apparently wears a medal on his chest for every military disaster he's overseen, bristles at claims that on his watch, the U.S. military has become woke, soft, and distracted from its actual purpose.  The uber-woke general claims that he's "not even sure what that word truly means" — that is, "woke" — and that the United States military is fearsome, powerful, and ready for anything.  And it's true, as long as the Chinese or Russians send an army of drag queens to confront us.

Biden Will Veto Military Pay Raise Because It Doesn't Cater to Climate Change, Transgenders Enough.  Since day one in office, President Joe Biden has advanced policies that weaken America's military and distract from its core mission of protecting the nation.  Biden has continually proposed cuts to the defense budget while sending hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to Ukraine.  The president has also tried to politicize America's armed forces and cater to those who are transgender, pro-abortion, or radical climate change activists.  This week, the White House announced Biden will veto a GOP bill that includes military pay raises for soldiers should it pass. [...] "If the president were presented with H.R. 4365, he would veto it.," the White House said in a press release, pointing to the lack of Left-wing agenda items such as diversity initiatives, abortion, transgender issues, and climate change.

Gotham's Airheaded Carbon Law.  On Earth Day 2019, then-mayor Bill de Blasio signed the Climate Mobilization Act (Local Law 97) into law, heralding a Green New Deal for New York City.  The measure, committing the city to full carbon neutrality by 2050, represented the most aggressive urban climate-change plan in America.  Its centerpiece provision seeks to cut greenhouse-gas emissions from buildings, a source that constitutes two-thirds of the city's total emissions.  "In one of the great coastal cities of the world, there's a lot we have to do to make sure that life in 2050 will be livable," preached the mayor.  Local Law 97 won't make life in New York more livable in 2050.  On the contrary, starting next year, when its harsh penalties take effect, the law will further raise costs in the world's priciest housing market, force middle-income New Yorkers to subsidize green industries, and — by discouraging newcomers and driving away existing residents — displace emissions to less carbon-efficient jurisdictions.  In exchange for nearly three decades of New York sacrifices, LL97 will reduce global climate emissions by an infinitesimal amount.

What the Left Did to Our Country.  [Scroll down]  They launched a base attack on the American legal system.  Supreme Court judges are libeled, their houses swarmed, and their lives threatened with impunity.  The Left promised to pack the court or to ignore any decision it resents.  The media runs hit pieces on any conservative justice deemed too influential.  The prior Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer whipped up a mob outside the court's doors, and threatened two justices by name.  As Schumer presciently put it, they would soon "reap the whirlwind" of what they supposedly had sowed and thus would have no idea what was about to "hit" them.  Under the pretense of Covid fears, balloting went from 70 percent participation on election day in most states to a mere 30 percent.  Yet the rates of properly rejected illegal or improper ballots often dived by a magnitude of ten.  Assaults now followed on hallowed processes, laws, customs, and institutions — the Senate filibuster, the 50-state union, the Electoral College, the nine-justice Supreme Court, Election Day, and voter IDs.

"Who Is Biden Working For?" Admin Under Fire For 'Illegal, Reckless' Cancellation Of Alaska Oil Leases.  After canceling the Keystone XL pipeline project, draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to dangerously low levels (some of which was sold to a Hunter Biden-linked Chinese energy giant), and vowing "no more oil drilling" on US soil while America's geopolitical adversaries — two of whom paid his family handsomely — beef up their own energy independence, the Biden administration has done it again.  Last week the regime confirmed that it will cancel seven controversial oil and gas leases in an area of Alaska known as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), which were legally awarded from a 2021 sale.

Are You Better Off Today Than You Were Four Years Ago?  Another metric is food inflation as all Americans need to purchase and consume food.  Food inflation currently sits at 4.9 percent compared to 1.8 percent four years ago.  It has more than doubled in the past four years, with no sign of slowing down.  At a macroeconomic level, is our national debt higher or lower compared to four years ago?  In 2022, the national debt was $30.8 trillion.  Four years ago in 2018 it was $21.4 trillion.  In four short years it increased by almost $10 trillion.  It took America until 2008 to even reach $10 trillion in debt and in four short years we added 230 years' worth of debt to our ledger.  That's what America owes.  How about what America spends?  The annual U.S. budget deficit was $665 billion in 2017, rising to $2,772 [billion] in 2021.  This is more than a fourfold increase in spending money we don't have.  Budget deficits used to be measured in the billions.  Under Biden they are in the trillions.

A gun grab to test the waters.  Democrats are testing the waters for a national gun grab.  On Friday in New Mexico, the governor, a Second Amendment foe, tried to take legal guns away from one of her cities. [...] Let no one be fooled:  This is Step One to see if Americans are paying attention and if they have the stones to fight back.  If they are not and don't, this will go national and the Second Amendment will fall.  Democrats are clever.  They won't try this in a large, populous city with national attention.  They will try dying a corner of the fabric first to see if the color is good for the whole garment.  It seems the Guv got national attention anyway, probably because of the outrageousness of the grab.  Our Constitution is a paper document with nothing to protect it from being burned to ashes.  Unless the People rise up against this gun grab, the rest of us will be forever unprotected against what has become The Beast that is governmental overreach.

Democrats' 2024 Magic Bullet:  Mass Mail-In Voting.  What do you do, as a political operative, when your party's candidate doesn't appear to be physically well enough to endure a national presidential campaign?  When your candidate struggles with prepared remarks, trips on stairs, and cannot make it through a campaign event without uttering major gaffes?  When your candidate, simultaneous to the problems stated above, is unable to answer basic questions about a myriad of family scandals that allegedly involve millions of dollars funneling into family bank accounts from foreign entities?  When your candidate is not even able to point to a track record of success on the economy, the security of our southern border, or unifying the nation?  You find a bulletproof way to win, anyway.  And the Democrats just may have found it: mass mail-in voting.

White House:  Funds for Maui and Florida to be withheld unless Congress approves more money for Ukraine.  White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre suggested on Wednesday that much-needed disaster relief for Florida's hurricane victims and those in Maui who were devastated by the raging wildfire could be withheld unless Congress approves another $24 billion to aid Ukraine's military.  "[Republican Florida] Sen. Rubio, whose state is recovering from [Hurricane] Idalia, says the $16 billion in additional disaster relief should be decoupled from the additional funding [sic] for Ukraine.  Of course, that's part of their request which seems to be opposed by many Republicans," a reporter began during Wednesday's briefing.  "Is the administration willing to separate these requests and seek the FEMA disaster aid independently to ensure it gets to the hurricane victims [and] Hawaii wildfire victims as quickly as possible or do you see that these things have to be grouped together for the request?"

Biden Launches Nationwide Workforce Initiative — for Illegal Aliens.  President Joe Biden's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has launched a nationwide workforce initiative that seeks to funnel millions of border crossers and illegal aliens into United States jobs — even as the labor force participation rate for Americans continues to decline.  On Wednesday, Biden's DHS announced "a first-of-its-kind national campaign" to make millions of border crossers and illegal aliens, who have been released into the U.S. interior, aware that they are eligible for work permits to take American jobs.

Biden's Declaration of War on Domestic Political Enemies.  Taking a page from former Chinese leader Mao Zedong's book about the suppression of political enemies in order to maintain control, Joe Biden has declared war on his own domestic political enemies.  Thanks to two decades of Democrats corrupting the nation's intelligence and federal law enforcement agencies, the awesome powers of the surveillance state have been turned from a focus on overseas threats to an ever-evolving characterization (by Democrat prosecutors and the US Dept of Justice) of "domestic terrorists."  Meanwhile, the Democrats' Antifa and Black Lives Matter thugs are the vanguard of the American version of Mao's Cultural Revolution in the streets.

Biden's brain, mind, behavior, and character.  [Scroll down]  Biden had campaigned on green energy proposals toward America's shift to solar, wind, and electric-powered vehicles.  However, his abrupt, aggressive rejection of all fossil fuels, industries and pipelines was impulsive.  It hurt America because no gradual plan for such change to a higher and effective percentage of renewable energy was implemented.  In addition, gas and petroleum products and energy sources are impossible to forever be shut down.  Electric cars require fossil fuels for electricity that supports their operation.  Medical equipment and implements require oil-based plastic products, as do fertilizers and wrappings for meats and other foods.  Cold winters require natural gas and heating oil.  In addition, America has made huge progress in clean fossil fuel energy production and utilization via internal combustion engine technology.

Team Biden Continues Two-Pronged Assault on 2nd Amendment and Small Businesses.  The commie puppet masters who run Joe Biden's brain have made no secret of their contempt for the Second Amendment and law-abiding American gun owners.  They've had their senile mouthpiece babbling about "assault weapons" almost from the moment he was installed in the Oval Office.  Democrats don't have a lot of luck with sweeping gun control legislation for a couple of reasons.  First, they keep passing laws that make gun owners who have adhered to the law criminals overnight.  These laws eventually find their way to a judge or a court that says, "Yeah... no."  The other reason — and this is the big one — is that there are a lot of Democrats who own guns and are fond of their Second Amendment rights.  Most of them are in flyover country, which is why a lot of the D.C. Dems are out of touch with reality.

Biden cancels more student debt:  President wipes $72 million from 2,300 borrowers from online Ashford University.  The Biden administration is canceling $72 million in student loans for 2,300 borrowers who say they were cheated by Ashford University, a former for-profit college that was purchased by the University of Arizona in 2020.  The Education Department announced the action Wednesday, saying it will seek to recoup the money from the University of Arizona.

Biden admin mulls more intervention in the market with new overtime pay 'rules'.  Now, the Biden administration is mulling more intervention in the market, and wants to hike the threshold for overtime pay. [...] Does anyone truly believe that these regulations will help productivity, or that costs won't spiral out of control?  I am sure rising costs will help the poor and seniors on fixed incomes be able to afford their necessities.  It's as if we have a bunch of economic illiterates running the asylum in D.C. who think they have to regulate everything.  They must be voted out or they will never stop.

What squirrely priorities these people have!
Pentagon Officials Worked To Finalize Climate Plan During Botched Afghanistan Withdrawal, Emails Show.  In the midst of the Biden administration's disastrous military withdrawal from Afghanistan, top Pentagon officials were working to get the Secretary of Defense to sign a major climate change initiative, according to emails obtained by The Daily Wire.  In the two weeks between the fall of Kabul to the Taliban on August 15, 2021, and the final U.S. military flight out of Afghanistan on August 30, Pentagon officials were scrambling with the White House to finalize the Department of Defense Climate Adaptation Plan, a document that declares climate change a major national security risk.  The emails indicate frustration from climate change-focused Pentagon officials at the difficulty of getting the plan signed — but that ultimately their determination to focus on climate change even during the Afghanistan withdrawal paid off.  Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin signed the climate initiative on September 1, just six days after 13 Americans were killed by a Taliban suicide bomber.

A Silly Scheme by Green Zealots to Appease the Global Warming Gods?  As the Biden administration moves toward vastly increasing carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems as a means of reaching the chimerical goal of Net Zero America, that is, net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, the Satartia disaster should serve as a warning.  The government has allocated $10 billion for CCS projects, besides grants, funds, and tax credits.  CCS involves capturing CO2 from industrial and other sources, compressing it, and conveying it via pipelines for storage in underground geological formations and disused oil wells.  Or, it might be used for forcing out more oil from active wells, as Denbury is doing.  As you can imagine, this would involve a huge grid:  a Princeton study envisages 65,000 miles of pipelines carrying CO2 across America by 2050.  The trunk lines will be four feet in diameter.  Currently, there are 50 pipelines — about 5,000 miles — transporting 70 million tons of CO2 annually for enhanced oil extraction.  Developers are now seeking permits for multi-state CCS projects that will ferry CO2 from ethanol plants in the Midwest through some 3,500 miles of pipeline.  All this could be at great risk to the ecology, besides exposing numerous human habitations to Satartia-like accidents.

Colorado Dems Go Full Commie, Choose Open Marxist Who Calls for Cultural Revolution for State House Seat.  Just in case you have any lingering doubt about what the Democrats plan to inflict upon America, consider the case of Tim Hernández, whom Colorado party apparatchiks have just selected to fill a vacant state House seat in the Denver area.  The charming Hernández is an open and proud Marxist, frequently rails against "Whiteness," and has called for a "FORCEFUL Cultural Revolution."  He is also, of course, a schoolteacher, busy raising up new cadres of Bolsheviks to bring about the revolution he desires.  Every Marxist revolution in history has been accompanied by appalling bloodlust; if Hernández ever gets what he wants, Coloradans can't say they didn't see it coming.

Barack Obama the Vindictive Enforcer.  [Scroll down]  Let's face it: it is highly unlikely Joe Biden came up with the idea to cut open Trump's border wall in Arizona.  Nor is it likely that the guy who couldn't find his way to a podium accomplished the goal of abandoning U.S. soldiers Benghazi-style or haphazardly arming the Taliban with billions of dollars in military war weaponry.  Every policy decision, from the diminishing supply chain to destroying energy independence to the economic crippling of the middle class to the devastating invasion at the border to the vaccine mandates, hints at the forced exoneration of Obama's hurt feelings — on steroids.  Then add to the equation the travelers aboard Biden's clown car, which include Giggles Harris, Sniffles Hunter, and the esteemed Dr. Jill.  And if that motley crew being within a mile of the nuclear codes isn't scary enough, what's even more disturbing is how everyone who dared question the 2020 election is being tarred; feathered; disgraced, and primed for political, professional, and in Trump's case literal gallows.

Quit Aiming for the Ankles.  On August 1, the Administration decreed it is illegal to sell the incandescent bulbs which most of us use (and have used for 140 years) and which are cheap.  You can only sell LED bulbs or compact fluorescent light bulbs.  Like Grant running through Richmond, the administrative state is running though our homes, mandating more expensive and less efficient household items. [...] [T]his week the administration added yet another sacrifice to the Sky Dragon — ceiling fans. [...] Once again, the defenders of this overreach pad the benefits to be obtained and minimize the cost to consumers.  At the same time, the beneficiaries are large corporations, you know, the kind of companies from whom — like unions — the Democrats count on for political contributions.

The Cloward-Piven Strategy of Orchestrated Crisis.  Before the 1994 Republican takeover, Democrats had sixty years of virtually unbroken power in Congress, with substantial majorities most of the time.  Can a group of smart people, studying issue after issue for years on end, with virtually unlimited resources at their command, not come up with a single policy that works?  Why are they chronically incapable?  Why?  One of two things must be true.  Either the Democrats are unfathomable idiots, who ignorantly pursue ever more destructive policies despite decades of contrary evidence, or they understand the consequences of their actions and relentlessly carry on anyway because they somehow benefit.  I submit to you they understand the consequences.  For many it is simply a practical matter of eliciting votes from a targeted constituency at taxpayer expense; we lose a little, they gain a lot, and the politician keeps his job.  But for others, the goal is more malevolent — the failure is deliberate.

Democrats Have Broken America:  Where's the Outrage?  The Democrats have an ace in the hole in their relentless war on the Constitution — conservative America's reverence for the concept of the rule of the law.  Only their steadfast commitment to this traditional ideal explains why conservatives are allowing Democrats to flagrantly corrupt our judicial system to destroy their opponents and protect themselves.  For all their huffing and puffing, conservatives have effectively taken a let the system play itself out attitude while Democrats nakedly politicize that system through their partisan indictments of former President Trump and their Potemkin Village probes of the Bidens.  These are not statements of opinion.  These are facts.  Part of me is glad that so many legal analysts have spilled so much ink exposing these charades.  But we degrade our country and ourselves when we treat this unspeakable behavior with anything other than horrified contempt.  Every good-faith critique normalizes and legitimizes this profoundly un-American conspiracy.

Pot, porn, and Planned Parenthood.  Laura Ingraham managed to boil down the Democrat Party platform into three little words: pot, porn, and Planned Parenthood.  It's a bit simplistic, I admit.  I would probably throw in a bit more bits of degeneracy, but it captures something essential about the fundamental message of the Left:  living a hedonistic, consequence-free lifestyle is the highest good.  If it feels good, do it.  [Tweet with video clip]  The funny thing about her alliterative description of the Democrats' philosophy is how readily so many Democrats agreed with her.

The Biden Admin Is Going After Another Common Household Item in the Name of Climate Change.  After attempts to ban gas stoves burned such proposals' Democrat proponents and proposed new federal vehicle efficiency standards seek to force costs even higher, the Biden administration is now going after (drumroll please) ceiling fans.  Republicans in the House of Representatives, however, are not fans of the proposal due to the impact it looks to have on America's small businesses.  In a new letter to the U.S. Department of Energy and its leader Secretary Jennifer Granholm, members of the House Small Business Committee pointed out the problems with the latest policy in the Biden administration's supposedly "green" energy crusade that's anything but.

Executive Orders and the End of Liberty.  [Scroll down]  We are fighting for the liberties with which we were born.  The issue is no less than tyranny.  It is no coincidence that the same mayor (Michelle Wu) has been under fire for maintaining an "enemies list."  Those that would change our lives through executive order apparently have a much larger "enemies list" than the one at issue in Wu's court battles.  Wu advocates a "green new deal" for Boston and beyond.  The original program with that name would have required every building in the U.S. to be torn down or completely renovated in the name of fighting "climate change."  It should be no surprise that the ideological successors to Pol Pot and Reverend Jim Jones would pursue a policy that would displace the entire population.  The most brutal of dictators have relied on mass relocation of their people for various reasons.  As in the case of Pol Pot and Jones, those policies ended very badly.  There is no way to remove/rebuild every building in the U.S. without displacing each person that lives and works in those buildings.  We feel safe that no such policy will ever be enacted because it is so extreme.  But we must remember that the idea of a national consensus is now quaint and poses no obstacle to government initiatives.  Executives now act on their own without a legislative mandate.

How America Becomes Zimbabwe.  What is the difference between South African politician Julius Malema, who led chants of "Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer" during a recent rally of the Economic Freedom Fighters, the political organization that he chairs, and U.S. Air Force general C.Q. Brown, nominated as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose goal as CJCS isn't to increase the combat capability of the Armed Forces, but to ensure that white male officers become a minority at the Pentagon?  Same clown, different uniform.  The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the secretary of defense used to be interested in improving the combat capability of America.  Now it is putting dresses on men and calling them admirals, hiring more refugees from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, and mandating that troops take an experimental non-FDA-approved vaccine lest they be fired or court-martialed for disobeying an obviously illegal order, all while demeaning the troops with bogus accusations of racism and white supremacy.

Understanding The Parasitic Cooperation Between Globalists And Leftists.  Consider for a moment the progressive "intersectional" narrative which we often refer to as "woke": It's not an activist movement because they already have equal rights under the law.  It's partially a political movement but their goals go far beyond putting candidates in government — A large part of the government is already on their side.  They claim to stand against "capitalism" and corporate power, yet their movement is primarily funded by the very money elites they say they despise.  No, this movement is something different — It's a system of blind belief and the invasion of a cult that worships itself, that worships power and seeks to undermine the truth whenever possible as a means to an end.  We are witnessing history in the making; the birth of a monstrous religion of moral relativism.

Biden administration best understood as a junta.  I have come to realize that the Biden administration is nothing but a junta.  Those who constitute it are the opposite of the Founders.  They don't believe in limited government — of, by, and for the people.  They do not believe in objectivity — or freedom of speech, religion, and assembly.  They do not believe in "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects," or in their right to be free from "unreasonable searches and seizures."  (Just ask Roger Stone or Donald Trump.)  Nor do they believe in equality under the law, the people's right to a "speedy and public trial" by a jury of one's peers (just ask Donald Trump), natural law, etc., etc.  And they certainly don't believe that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."  In fact, in recent years, they appear increasingly to disdain all these concepts...because they obviously increasingly disdain those who disagree with them and/or who could stand in the way of the ever-increasing power and control they have over others — power and control they revel in and believe they richly deserve.  They do believe in a Supreme Ruler.  But they believe they are that Supreme Ruler.  They believe they have the right — indeed, duty — to rule over the "deplorables" in rural areas and flyover country.  Preposterously, they purport to believe that their ideas and policies must be implemented, whether the rest of us like it or not... if we are to "save our democracy."  There is nothing less democratic — or more deplorable — than that.

Biden Declares War On Your Appliances.  President Biden's unelected bureaucrats were never going to stop at taking away your light bulbs.  Your gas stove is next, followed by your dishwasher and your water heater — then finally your car.  And it's not members of Congress who are doing this, so you can't vote them out of office.  This isn't conjecture.  This year the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation have announced proposed rules that would force you to give up your current appliances and cars.  Additional regulations to pressure companies not to fund American energy have come from the Council on Environmental Quality, the Office of Comptroller of the Currency, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Biden's new crackdown on another appliance will be worse than gas stoves.  We have seen a big consumer backlash in 2023 over Biden administration bureaucrats targeting gas stoves, but that could pale in comparison to the coming anger over costly air conditioning regulations.  In fact, that has already begun, making this unusually hot summer even more unpleasant for homeowners needing air conditioner repairs.  And things could get downright ugly starting next summer.  The Environmental Protect Agency (EPA) just announced a 40% production cut in 2024 for hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), the widely used class of refrigerants being targeted for their claimed contribution to climate change.  As it is, the modest 10% cut in force today has already caused many HFCs to triple in price, including HFC-410a which is used in most home air conditioners.

The Push to Trade with Enemies.  Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's attempt in Beijing to separate commerce from geopolitics, to promote private trade and investment even with nations that present threats to American security which include control of strategic industry and resources is an error at best.  Secretary Yellen is not alone in pushing this notion based on classical liberal sophistries backed by the influential business lobbyists who inhabit the Washington swamp.  The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) is a major component of the Establishment, heavily funded by corporations and liberal foundations.  It has put out a paper casting as illegitimate the U.S. stand that national security issues are exempt from World Trade Organization rulings favoring "free trade" in all things.

We're selling Putin our nuclear power future.  Back when we first started waging economic warfare on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, we slapped all manner of sanctions on Moscow and various Russian businesses and oligarchs.  (Unless they had business ties with Hunter and Joe Biden, of course.)  There were sanctions on Russian oil, vodka, caviar, and many other exports.  But there was one product that conveniently didn't get any sanctions.  That would be uranium.  Why?  Because we use a lot of uranium for a variety of things, particularly in our nuclear reactors, and we didn't want to upset the apple cart.  Russia is a major exporter of Uranium, although Kazakhstan is far and away the biggest exporter, so dealing with Kazakhstan is basically just dealing with Russia and the difference is subtle.

This is exactly what Barack H. Obama would have done:
The $6 Billion Misunderstanding.  Robert Gover wrote the cult classic One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding.  It might have been cutting-edge in 1962, when it was published, but not for long.  Insofar as my subject here is related to President Biden, I can note that Hunter Biden's misadventures have taken reality far beyond Gover's satire.  However, I have found Gover's title an irresistible source of headlines for comments on the news.  Today comes word via the New York Times that the Biden administration has entered into a $6 billion arrangement with Iran for the return of five imprisoned Americans.  Fox News has posted an accessible story on the arrangement [elsew]here.  That's quite an increase over the $400 million non-signing bonus and future considerations (more money) that the Obama administration paid the Iranian regime for the return of four American prisoners and entry into the JCPOA.  The astronomical increase might be a case of Bidenomics in action or just a deeper descent into national abasement.

GOP lawmakers barred from re-election in Oregon after 6-week walkout, state secretary says.  Oregon Republican leaders who orchestrated a six-week walkout from legislative sessions to stall Democrat-led bills will not be allowed to run for re-election when their term ends in 2024, Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade said Tuesday.  Griffin-Valade, a Democrat, vowed to uphold a 2022 law passed by Oregon voters known as Measure 113, which says lawmakers with more than 10 unexcused absences from the legislative session will not be eligible for re-election.  "It is clear voters intended Measure 113 to disqualify legislators from running for re-election if they had 10 or more unexcused absences in a legislative session," Griffin-Valade said in a news release.  "My decision honors the voters' intent by enforcing the measure the way it was commonly understood when Oregonians added it to our state constitution."

The Editor says...
One party rule!  There must be a name for that.

Biden Descends Into Complete Incoherence in New Mexico.  As we noted, he designated a new monument which is raising a lot of questions about whether this move will harm our national security.  His move also helps the Russians by cutting off our ability to develop uranium deposits within the ambit of the land blocked off by the national monument.  The land in question is almost a million acres, including land far away from the Grand Canyon, the area the new monument designation was supposed to protect.  There's also a question about how much land is being taken from private citizens and how it may affect their rights.  On top of that, he didn't seem to understand what the number and nature of the wonders of the world were, and he showed off some full-blown hypocrisy with a huge gas-guzzling motorcade while sermonizing about climate change.

The Editor says...
Never mind the motorcade in the middle of nowhere — what about the multiple jumbo jets needed to bring his limousine(s) out to the desert, and all of it just for show?

White House Teases Climate Emergency:  Says Every Big Storm a Result of Global Warming!  Is this really where we're headed?  A national emergency for climate change?  It's become abundantly clear that the Biden administration is now considering COVID-style lockdowns with the idea of exploiting weather conditions as a pretext for exerting more control over the American people.  During a recent CNN interview, John Kirby suggested President Biden treats the supposed climate crisis with "all the due gravity and seriousness."  What does that even mean?  Is it another clever way to prepare the masses for yet another assault on our freedoms, this time under the guise of "climate emergencies"?

        " 'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded."

— F.A. Hayek               

Biden Is Moving to a Climate Emergency with 130 New Powers.  If Joe Biden declares a climate emergency, he would have 130 new powers, including the power to lock us all down.  He admits he has declared a national emergency, "practically speaking."  During an interview with The Weather Channel on Tuesday aired on Wednesday, President Joe Biden said that "Practically speaking," he's "already" declared a national emergency on climate change. [...] In light of the Maui fires, the media is pushing Joe Biden to declare an official climate emergency.  If Biden declares a 'Climate Emergency,' he would seize 130 new powers.  Among them would be COVID-style lockdowns that bypass democracy and human rights.

The Editor says...
The Constitution does not include the word emergency.  And even if it did, bad weather is not a national emergency.  One fire in Hawaii is not a national emergency.  This is a power grab on the part of the anonymous commie puppeteers who operate Joe Biden.

If Biden declares a 'Climate Emergency,' he would seize 130 new powers.  "The Biden administration believes that when democracy fails to achieve its climate goals, it's time to bypass democracy and Congress and follow the COVID model.  Climate activists have lusted after the COVID lockdowns as the model for climate lockdowns.  The plan is to declare a 'climate emergency,' toss out elected representatives and follow China's one-party rule model by implementing energy restrictions through the bureaucracy.  They don't need no stinkin' democracy.  Throughout history, emergency declarations have been used and abused to crush freedom.  For those who loved how unelected officials ruled our lives under COVID lockdowns, prepare for the attempts to make climate lockdowns permanent.

Hillary Clinton sold uranium to Russia, and now we depend on them for uranium.  Brilliant!
Biden just threw a wrench in efforts to reduce America's reliance on Russian Uranium.  The Biden administration announced Tuesday that it has designated nearly 1 million acres in Arizona outside the Grand Canyon as a monument, a move that could further America's reliance on Russia for sourcing uranium, according to the White House.  The monument designation will permanently prohibit new mining claims in the covered 917,618 acres, parts of which are known for having rich deposits of uranium, an essential material for generating nuclear energy, according to E&E News.  The Biden administration is justifying the designation by pointing to the land's cultural significance to local Native American tribes in accordance with its wider push for "environmental justice," according to the White House.

Hardly a man is now alive who lived in New Mexico in '45.
Biden wants to compensate New Mexico residents sickened by radiation during 1945 nuclear testing.  President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he's open to granting assistance for people sickened by exposure to radiation during nuclear weapons testing, including in New Mexico, where the world's first atomic bomb was tested in 1945.  Biden brought up the issue while speaking Wednesday in Belen at a factory that produces wind towers.

The Editor says...
Given his feeble state, one must question if Joe Biden meant to say this or he was just blithering incoherently.

Biden: I Wanted 'to Stop All Drilling' on the Coasts and Gulf, Got Blocked by Courts.  During an interview with The Weather Channel that is set to air on Wednesday, a portion of which aired on Tuesday, President Joe Biden said that he "wanted to stop all drilling on the East Coast and the West Coast and in the Gulf" but was blocked by the courts from doing so.  Weather Channel Meteorologist Stephanie Abrams asked, "Let's talk Gen Z, because they're going to play a big role in the next presidential election, and many of them are angry about the 7,000 oil and gas permits you approved since you've been in office.  You promised no new drilling on federal land or offshore.  Can you tell Gen Z that you haven't broken your promise?"  Biden responded, "Yes, because the courts overruled me.  The courts said I couldn't do it.  I wanted to stop all drilling on the East Coast and the West Coast and in the Gulf.  But I lost in court."

The Editor says...
If he really was blocked by the courts, there would be some record of it.

Biden: I've Declared a Climate Emergency 'Practically Speaking'.  During an interview with The Weather Channel on Tuesday aired on Wednesday, President Joe Biden said that, "Practically speaking," he's "already" declared a national emergency on climate change.  He stated that, as part of this practical emergency declaration on climate, "we've conserved more land," "rejoined the Paris Climate Accord," and "we've passed a 368 billion-dollar climate control [initiative]."

Biden interview from the Grand Canyon:  He's already declared a national emergency for climate change.  Who knew?  I sure don't remember Joe Biden declaring a national emergency over climate change.  It seems like I would have remembered that if it was true.  This is Joe Biden we're talking about here so take everything with a big ole grain of salt.  Guess where the habitual liar-in-chief gave his first sit-down interview in over a month?  He sat down with a longtime reporter for The Weather Channel.  Yep, The Weather Channel.  He is rightfully being mocked for that decision.  To be fair, he surely didn't make the decision, his staff did.  We all know Biden doesn't actually run the country.  Those around him do that.  Joe Biden holds on to the climate issue for dear life — his political life.  Conservatives and other rational people are angry over the heavy-handed push to increase regulations and restrictions on regular Americans in the name of saving the planet while all it really is is a power grab by leftists.  Far left environmental whackos are angry that Biden's overreach isn't happening faster.  So, Biden has latched on to the alleged climate crisis as a top issue in his public remarks and speeches.

Down goes Biden.  According to the news story, the Biden rules are so vague that they give the administration the power to grant universal into debt relief.  Who gave the President such powers?  Don't we have enough government assistance programs already?  Maybe we should tell college students to major in something that makes you attractive to an employer running a business.  I remember the CEO of a company telling me that he asks job applicants a couple of questions:  How can you help me make a better product?  Or sell more of them?  Or help me get customers to pay on time?  I don't think that they cover those realities of life in gender studies!  We're back to square one:  Down goes Biden, who does not have the authority to do this.  However, expect him to come back with a variation of this theme because they need to mobilize the college vote.

What? Biden Sold America's Oil Reserve to China.  On and after January 20, 2021, [Joe] Biden has issued punitive, increasingly restrictive executive orders, regulations, and expensive legislation — passed by single-party government — intended to shut down big parts of the US fossil fuel industry.  Not satisfied to shut down supply, the federal government has — with and without legislation — methodically perverted the demand side of the curve, too.  After making gas and heating oil prohibitively expensive, they penalized makers of automobiles and countless gas-powered household appliances.  Specifically, they have punished makers of gas powered engines, cars, trucks, boats, lawnmowers, hammered the energy, construction, transportation, and farm sectors, then turned to appliances, aiming to outlaw everything from gas and wood stoves to refrigerators and water heaters.  The Democrat idea, fueled by activists, is to mandate everything by fiat.  The Soviets dealt this way, Chinese still do.  Biden's "make it all electric" mandate sees wind turbines and solar panels covering the Earth, powering the grid, now 80 percent fossil and nuclear.  By magic, wind and sun will run it all.

Biden student loan cancellation plan for borrowers who were misled blocked by federal appeals court.  A federal appeals court blocked President Biden's administration from implementing rules aimed at providing debt relief to student loan borrowers who were misled by their colleges Monday [8/7/2023].  The ruling from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals is the latest defeat for Biden's efforts to forgive student loans across the country.  The court granted a request from a for-profit college in Texas seeking an injunction against the administration's rule change.  The block is temporary, and the three-judge panel will hear the case in full later this year.  The Biden administration's rule changes would have expanded the number of student loan borrowers who are eligible for debt relief as well as facilitated the application process for obtaining relief.

Democrats demand 1,000% excise tax on 'assault weapons,' high-capacity magazines.  More than two dozen House Democrats put forward legislation Friday that would slap "assault weapons" and high-capacity magazines with a 1,000% excise tax, a change that would raise the price of a $500 weapon to $5,000 in a bid to reduce access to guns across the country.  Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., and 24 other House Democrats introduced the legislation Friday.  It's the second time Democrats have put forward the idea.  Beyer and 37 Democrats proposed the same idea last year when Democrats controlled the House, but it never moved.

The USA's Turn toward Communism.  [Scroll down]  [T]he left-leaning but non-communist mainstream of the Democrats retained their claim to being "liberal" or "left of center" and managed to draw the line when it came to uniting with the extreme leftist wing of their party.  However, that boundary line collapsed 72 years later with the emergence of the Biden-Sanders pact.  The Dems are now the Demo-communist party with a few other elements of cultural Marxism included that were not anticipated by or included in the writings of Karl Marx or Friedrich Engels.  For example, Marx and Engels understood the family to be a bourgeois institution that they believed promoted selfishness, so they stood basically in opposition to the nuclear family as the building block of society.  However, knowledge of puberty-blockers and genital-mutilating surgeries was not available in the 1840s, so they did not explicitly promote "transitioning" as a legitimate albeit anti-family practice.  Today's left is, of course, totally on board with all this transgender-affirming ideology because it conforms totally with traditional anti-bourgeois, anti-family values.

If a product is given away at no cost, what is its value?
Whitmer launches new department in quest for 'tuition-free' Michigan.  Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed an executive order on July 11, creating a statewide department that will assist with educational resources to ensure that K-12 students are on a path to "tuition-free" college.  In a state that already has an education department, the Michigan Department of Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential (MiLEAP) will share Whitmer's goals of universal and state-funded pre-K over four years, as well as tuition-free college.  "I'm establishing MiLEAP today because we need to get every kid started early, in pre-K, so they succeed in kindergarten, have paths after graduation to get higher education tuition-free, and forge strong partnerships with our employers so they can get a good-paying, high-skill, and in-demand job," Whitmer said.

Why is Biden withholding funding for schools with archery and hunting programs?  Even with all of the troubling things that the Biden administration has been doing over the past two and a half years, I'll confess that I didn't see this one coming.  According to a recent report from Fox News, the White House is blocking federal funding for public schools that have hunting and archery programs for students.  The excuse they are offering is that a provision in the Democrats' "Bipartisan Safer Communities Act" last year precludes federal funding for public schools with these programs.  Of course, that wasn't the actual intent of the bill, but as we've learned by now, the names that Washington politicians give to bills rarely have much to do with what's inside of them.  For proof, look no further than the hilariously named "Inflation Reduction Act" which was actually a climate change bill.

Enjoy Your Water Heater — While You Still Can.  Americans gave Joe Biden the Oval Office, and now he is taking away their cars, dishwashers, gas stoves, and, most recently, their water heaters.  Biden's Department of Energy on July 21 released new proposed energy-efficiency standards for water heaters.  This is the latest round in the administration's ongoing home-invasion campaign in the name of stopping climate change and saving the world, all while actively making life harder for everyday Americans.  If finalized as currently written, beginning in 2029, this regulation would require new boiler installations to use electric heat pumps, which pull heat from the surrounding air to bring water up to temperature, instead of heating the water internally.  Moreover, standards for traditional gas-fired water heaters will become stricter, thus making them more costly, which is in line with the Biden administration's push toward full home appliance electrification.

Biden's Awful Plan To Raise Your Taxes To Support Global Socialism.  The Biden administration has just spent two years negotiating with a group of foreign countries to raise taxes on U.S. companies operating overseas.  Now we're being told it's been "delayed" for two more years.  But why delay a bad decision?  It's an awful idea that should be rejected out of hand.  "Americans have already been crushed by inflation caused by the Biden administration," argued West Virginia congresswoman Carol Miller, in a recent op-ed.  "But now, they want to add fuel to the fire by giving American taxes to foreign countries, raising costs for Americans, and sticking us with the bill for funding a global socialist agenda."  Her analysis is spot on.  The U.S. Treasury and White House have no business negotiating a deal to subvert America's sovereignty and erode its economic power, which the accord with the 38-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), headquartered in the ultra-deluxe Château de la Muette in Paris, is clearly meant to do.

GOP lawmakers slam Biden administration's proposed clamp down on home water heaters.  Water heaters could soon be subject to much more stringent efficiency requirements if a recent Department of Energy proposal that has been criticized by Republican lawmakers goes into effect.  In a draft rule unveiled Friday, the Biden administration is seeking to compel most electric water heaters to deploy heat pump technology and gas-fired ones to use condensing technology.  It comes months after the Biden administration ignited a firestorm over feared stove top regulations, after Albany lawmakers enacted a controversial first-in-the-nation gas stove ban in New York.  "Today's actions — together with our industry partners and stakeholders — improve outdated efficiency standards for common household appliances, which is essential to slashing utility bills for American families and cutting harmful carbon emissions," Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said in a statement.

Orwellian or Kafkaesque?  Kafka's brainchildren are recklessly coughing up tyrannic edicts while using for an excuse the artificial hysteria being generated over reasonably normal weather.  The Biden administration has recently announced that all military vehicles will run on batteries as of 2030.  Since the purpose of fighting a war is to not lose, vast quantities of diesel-powered field generators will be needed to keep the caissons rolling along.  Governor Hair Gel of California has followed along by announcing a ban on the sale of gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035.  The trick with this is to have enough lead time so the victims of such nonsense will have forgotten the original announcement — and will be more surprised than angry when they realize they've been screwed.  As of next January, California's already legislated ban on the sale of gas-powered gardening equipment will take effect.

Fighting extreme climate policies must happen now.  There's no need to make slippery slope arguments when it comes to analyzing the policies pushed by climate alarmists.  There's a simple reason why:  We are so far down the slope that past fears of the extremism to come are now the real extremism of today, from limiting what cars people can drive to restricting the use of natural gas stoves. [...] Pushing policies that restrict freedom, reduce economic growth, and drive-up prices for Americans isn't a law of science required to address rising global temperatures.  Instead, they are efforts to use the force of government to impose personal preferences and ideological objectives without regard for tradeoffs or costs.  Even worse, these policies would have little to no impact on global temperatures.

New York City pushes the limits of green policies.  New York City has embraced a set of controversial policies that push the limits of green experimentation in seeking to reduce emissions from buildings, kitchen appliances, and cars.  Critics argue the new policies are likely to be costly and burdensome for the city's millions of residents.  New York City has drafted rules to slash carbon emissions from its roughly 50,000 buildings by more than 40% by 2030 and reach net-zero emissions by 2050 — an ambitious goal, especially considering buildings in the city are the source of 70% of its total greenhouse gas emissions.  Of particular note, the rules would clamp down on gas stoves.

The Editor says...
There is no point in avoiding the emission of carbon dioxide as a byproduct of business and industry, for a number of reasons, the biggest of which is that China and India have no such concerns, and they share the same atmosphere.  You may hold your breath or do whatever else you can to avoid emitting CO2, but it won't make any difference to the makeup of the atmosphere.  In addition, carbon dioxide is plant food, not air pollution.  If you are concerned about the carbon dioxide content of the air — about which you can do nothing — it is probably because you watch too much television and/or you read the New York Times.  Also, here is my weekly reminder that carbon dioxide is not carbon, for the same reason that water is not hydrogen, so please stop talking about "carbon emissions."

Subverting the Court.  It's important to keep in mind that the Biden administration still wants to pack the Supreme Court, but they also want to compress it, and now more than ever, after it found itself on the losing side of several rulings.  By so doing, they seek to change the nature of American government.  Packing the Court, or adding more justices beyond the current nine, is a progressive policy going back at least to Roosevelt and the New Deal.  If the DNC can run up the number of justices on the Court, then it can cement a near-permanent majority, using the Court to legislate.

Dem bill in House seeks to scrub words 'husband' and 'wife' from federal law.  Democrats understand the lessons of George Orwell's 1984 and treat it as an instruction manual, not a warning. [...] The Dems are following Orwell's outline of the path toward totalitarian control.  Make no mistake, if they win both Houses of Congress and the Oval Office in 2024 (or later), they will enact this bill.  At first, federal code "including the Internal Revenue Code, Social Security Act, and Family and Medical Leave Act" will be changed to eliminate "husband" and "wife," but that is only the prelude to an all-out campaign to demonize the terms as "hate speech" and "literal violence" and effectively forbid their use.  Eventually, with people afraid to utter the terms, and with media purged of their use, they will become anachronisms, soon to be forgotten.

Joe Biden Dreams Up [an] Illegal Federal Library Code For Public Schools.  Just call him the librarian-in-chief.  In yet another gross abuse of executive authority, President Joe Biden is wielding the power of his Department of Education to stop parental efforts to remove sexually explicit books from public school libraries.  It's his latest in a string of moves meant to bully parents and other concerned citizens into silence when it comes to what kids learn in public schools and, in this case, when they should be exposed to sexually explicit material.  But the notion that the federal government has any authority to veto a school district's decision to protect students from pornographic content belongs in the library's fantasy section.

The Classic Psychology Text That Predicted Today's Urban Decay.  It's a question that most Americans who follow the news ask themselves daily:  "How can the residents of so many of the nation's largest cities keep supporting local officials who tolerate the ongoing destruction of their communities?"  Why this May, for example, did the citizens of Chicago — a city where 21,000 students cannot demonstrate a basic competence in reading, science, and math — choose the teachers union-backed candidate, Brandon Johnson, for mayor?  Especially when Johnson's chief opponent, Paul Vallas, had promised the electorate sensible school reforms?  Why, a few years earlier, did San Franciscans elect a mayor, London Breed, whose obvious reluctance to crack down on criminal behavior has since forced the city's largest mall to close, two of its best hotels to declare bankruptcy, and tens of thousands of high-earning taxpayers to move away?  Why has there been no serious movement to get New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to initiate proceedings to remove Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who refuses prosecute "low-level" crimes, all while promising to downgrade felony charges and to decriminalize resisting police arrest?

Chasing a Green Chimera, Biden Has Put America in the Red Dragon's Grasp.  No country would ever depend on an out-and-out rival for something as vital as energy.  Yet the Biden administration, through its zealous, misguided pursuit of "net-zero emissions," is fast-tracking America's dependence on Communist China for the minerals and components that back-end green technology.  The administration also is curbing the mining industry, again allowing China to monopolize America and the world in minerals and ores.  This strategic disaster is a complete reversal of what President Donald Trump had achieved. [...] Biden, on assuming office, pledged to eliminate the fossil fuel industry and pursue a radical climate agenda to replace carbon energy with renewables.  He has since called for replacing 50% of carbon-fueled automobiles with electric vehicles (E.V.s) by 2030, creating a carbon-free electric grid by 2035, and having a carbon-free economy by 2050.  This push toward unstable solar and wind power will markedly increase dependence on China, which dominates the market in materials required for E.V.s, batteries, and other renewables.

10 Paradigm Shifts that Shatter Establishment Illusions.  [#1] Now people understand that the left's real mission is to reject reality.  Castrating boys so that they can pretend to be girls is not "healthy."  Perpetuating racism as social policy is not "justice."  Imposing a "woke" State religion over personal conscience is not "moral."  Aiding and abetting child sex-trafficking and drug-smuggling at our borders is not "compassionate."  Stealing property is not "equitable."  Just as with Leninism and Maoism before, today's leftism is evil.

Democrats: Let's lower the voting age.  Democrats are fond of aborting kids, sometimes even after birth.  They are also big fans of providing minors with hormone blockers and mutilating the genitals of those they didn't abort.  And, of course, they are engaged in an all-out effort to groom our children — sexually and politically.  For many Democrats, love of unfettered abortion and gender dysphoria combine with their unshakeable belief in man-caused climate change to become a surpassingly odd — and perverse — religion.  One in which doubters or dissenters, or even the insufficiently devout, are dealt with particularly harshly.  Democrats seem to have an unquenchable desire to sexualize children, and in the past week have been attacking opponents of child sex trafficking and calling us "conspiracy theorists."  The California Assembly Public Safety Committee actually initially voted down a bill, on a party-line vote, that would have enhanced penalties for child sex trafficking by making it a "serious felony," a step up from merely being illegal.  Hard to believe.  Yet, progressives also spent time trashing a movie chronicling and attacking child sex trafficking, even though audiences loved it.  They do, however, wish to garner kids' votes by... offering to let them vote.  And hold high office.  But do we really want 14-year-olds to vote, and 16-year-old governors?  What would this mean?

Dems Attempt To Cram The ERA Amendment Through Congress.  Democrats are attempting to resurrect the ERA — or "Equal Rights Amendment" to push their radical ideology.  It was not fully ratified by 1982, with only 35 states, and 3 more states ratified it AFTER the deadline.  Now two Dems, Rep. Cori Bush, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, want to push forward a bill that says it was ratified and force the National Archivist to certify and publish it as law.

Biden Proposal Would Give Foreign Climate Group Veto Power Over U.S. Military Contracts.  A new Biden administration rule aimed at reducing carbon emissions would give approval authority over large U.S. defense contracts to a little-known British environmentalist group that just incorporated two weeks ago.  Under the White House's proposed rule change, a London-based group called the Science Based Targets Initiative that is funded by the Democratic Party's main dark money network would be responsible for approving the carbon emissions reduction plans of large federal contractors.  The Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) is a fee-based service that helps companies set emissions reduction targets in line with the Paris Climate Agreement and verifies their progress.  But its foreign status and murky financial background raise questions about the Biden administration's decision to outsource its vetting process to the group.  Critics say the proposal would give SBTi enormous veto power over American defense contracts and access to potentially sensitive data about U.S. military suppliers.

Climate change is just about the only change progressives don't like.  Progressives/leftists/revolutionaries/Democrats (but I repeat myself) always demand change.  "Hope and change."  "Fundamental transformation."  Change, change, change.  Ergo, it is quite remarkable, upon reflection, that the one thing progressives don't want to change is the one thing that cannot be prevented from changing:  the climate.  The climate has always changed.  Dramatically, profoundly, radically.

Climate change is just about the only change progressives don't like.  [Scroll down]  Here, too, it seems odd that the one thing these leftists won't take on faith is the existence of God.  They purport to believe wholeheartedly in Dr. Fauci, global warming, Bidenomics, open borders, the Russia-collusion hoax, and that the 2020 presidential election was the most secure in history.  They believe people can change genders on a whim and that men can menstruate.  (That's putting the "men" into "menstruation!")  They think males should be able to breast/chest-feed infants.  They believe the Wuhan flu could not have come from the Wuhan lab where they were experimenting with coronaviruses.  They believe the subsequent lockdowns and mask mandates were effective.  They believe China is, in fact, a role model, and that a one-world government should be our goal.  They believe crime should be legalized, the unborn are simply non-viable tissue masses, Ukraine is defeating Russia, 9/11 was an inside job, the government has our best interests in mind, Biden is a nice man -- and that Jan. 6 was an "insurrection!" but the 2020 riots were "mostly peaceful."

Will Someone Please Wake Me From This Nightmare?  Biden has made it clear that he supports going to zero carbon emissions which would eliminate all use of coal, and fossil fuels.  Natural gas is used to make fertilizer, which is very important to agriculture.  And, over 6,000 things that we use on a daily basis are made from oil.  Wind and solar will never take the place of coal-fired, or natural gas-fired energy generation.  Electric cars will soon be a national disaster because they are useless during a time of disaster with no electricity available.  It is not possible to build batteries large enough to carry a city during times when the sun does not shine or the wind blow.

Did the Congress vote on this?
Biden Administration Announces $39 Billion in Student-Loan Forgiveness for Over 800,000 Borrowers.  The Biden administration announced Friday that it would forgive $39 billion in student loans for 804,000 borrowers, explaining it had pursued certain fixes to existing income-driven-repayment plans.  "For far too long, borrowers fell through the cracks of a broken system that failed to keep accurate track of their progress towards forgiveness," Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said in a statement.  These income-driven plans set a forgiveness threshold of 20 or 25 years.  Borrowers must make payments that qualify over this period, either 240 or 300 in total.  These payments can be as low as $0 based on an individual's income and family situation.

Sanctuary State Illinois: Gov. Pritzker Considers Allowing DACA Illegal Aliens to Police Americans as Cops.  Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) is considering signing legislation into law that would allow illegal aliens, enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, to become police officers in the sanctuary state.  Democrat legislators, with a supermajority in the Illinois House and Senate, passed legislation late last month that would allow thousands of DACA illegal aliens living in the state to become police officers or deputy sheriffs.

Extremist Democrats are openly calling for the destruction of the Supreme Court.  When spoiled toddlers lose a game, they often try to change the rules or otherwise throw a tantrum.  That's how former President Donald Trump handled losing the 2020 election.  And it's evidently how top progressive members of Congress — who endlessly criticize Trump — are handling a slew of recent defeats at the Supreme Court.  The conservative-majority Supreme Court recently ruled against racial discrimination in college admissions, against President Joe Biden's attempt to twist the law to spend $430 billion on a student loan bailout against Congress's wishes, and against LGBT activists in a free speech case.  Progressive Democrats are not taking these decisions well.  Indeed, they're responding by effectively calling to destroy the Supreme Court as we know it.

Five Storylines Overshadow Joe Biden's Summer Agenda.  Media headlines in recent weeks soured on President Joe Biden, as his agenda appears derailed by setbacks ranging from Supreme Court rulings to economic pessimism to nagging scandals.  While gearing up for his 2024 campaign, Biden launched an economic public relations scheme.  He calls it "Bidenomics."  The plan is meant to reverse voters' negative perception of the nation's direction.  According to a recent Politico/Morning Consult poll, 78 percent of voters believe Biden's America is on the wrong track, increasing over 25 points since Biden took office.

Understanding Marxism Is Key To Understanding Today's Leftists.  As Americans, we are being assaulted by numerous alphabet ideologies we don't understand — from DEI to ESG to LGBTQ+. We seek to understand through logic, but by doing so, we become only more confused.  The only way to understand what's happening is to recognize the ideology that underlies all of it:  Marxism.  When Patrisse Cullors, BLM's co-founder, acknowledged that BLM leaders were "trained Marxists," we failed to understand the significance.  It is time to change that.  Marxism's central idea is that the world is broken down into two groups; or as Marx stated: "in a word, oppressor and oppressed."  This is from his opening statement in the Communist Manifesto (published in 1848).  If you remember nothing else, remember this.

To Gain Power, the Left Seeks to Destroy the Supreme Court.  Always remember:  Any institution the Left doesn't control, it will seek to destroy.  The Supreme Court dealt a series of serious blows to the Left's agenda this summer, and leftists aren't taking it well.  First, the high court ended racial discrimination in college admissions, which the Left views as essential to upholding the diversity, equity, and inclusion regime.  Then the court struck down President Joe Biden's blatantly unconstitutional student loan bailout scheme, which was unpopular with the general electorate but extremely popular with the base of his party.  Several other Supreme Court decisions have the Left pretty steamed at the moment, too.

Castrating Kids to Win Elections.  Biden's first campaign ad attacked conservatives for keeping 'Lawn Boy', a book featuring a 10-year-old performing sex acts, out of schools.  The Department of Education launched a civil rights investigation of a Georgia school district for pulling books containing graphic sexual content from middle school shelves.  At a Pride Month event at the White House, it was announced that a special coordinator would be waging lawfare against schools that try to shield children.  The Biden administration sued Tennessee over the 'Protecting Children from Gender Mutilation Act'.  Democrat judges have illegally blocked similar measures in Florida, Arkansas and Alabama.  In Washington and California, Democrat majorities legalized the abduction of children by the state for transgender procedures.  Similar legislation is pending in other states.

Working around Kamala.  As the public wakes up to all of this malfeasance — since they're already realizing that they really are getting screwed — all the old tricks of the trade start falling flat.  The drums of racism and homophobia are falling ever more on deaf ears.  The manufactured hysteria over imaginary weather events and trends, in an effort to eliminate carbon-based energy along with the comfortable standard of living that comes with it, is coming up against increasing skepticism.  The tyrannical attempts at banning gas stoves, furnaces, and water heaters is logically generating profound public anger.  Never mind that the electrical substitute for powering natural gas appliances is itself produced by over 75% carbon-based and nuclear fuel.

Democrats Revive Calls To Pack Supreme Court.  Democrats revived calls to pack the Supreme Court with liberals last week after the court's conservative majority decided several cases the wrong way, as liberals view it.  On Thursday and Friday, the Supreme Court handed down three decisions on multiple closely watched cases.  The court ruled against Harvard and the University of North Carolina's race-based admissions processes, it ruled in favor of a Christian graphic designer who did not want to make wedding websites for same-sex couples, and the court struck down President Biden's student loan forgiveness program.  Democrats and liberals raged at the high court, some calling to expand the court's bench to dilute the conservative majority, which was cemented by former President Donald Trump's three conservative nominees.

Why the Biden White House Will Try to Keep Their Latest Global Warming Study a Secret.  The wanton destruction of priceless art and heritage sites across Europe by climate change activists is insane, and one would think we've reached peaked insanity with this unhinged community, short of acts of eco-terrorism.  Nope.  Sometimes, even banal actions, like a government study, can exhibit more ludicrousness than smearing paint on a Monet.  The latest Biden White House-endorsed study into curbing global warming is not just a case study in wasteful spending; it's a Rorschach test on mental health.  And there's a reason why they want to keep it a secret:  it deals with trying to bend sun rays to prevent the Earth's temperature from rising[.]

The Biden Regime Is Doling Out Your Tax Money to Promote Trans Madness Worldwide.  Why is the Biden regime so obsessively preoccupied with promoting sexual deviance and transgender delusion and fantasy?  Not only is it aggressively promoting "Pride" inside the United States, but it is also sending your tax dollars abroad to make sure that young Ecuadorians see their fair share of drag queens, and that Polish boys can decide they're really girls after all. [...] The Washington Free Beacon reported Friday [6/30/2023] that "the Biden administration has given nearly $4.6 million to help foreign groups promote LGBT projects like drag shows and pride parades."  This money comes from hard-working Americans who logged long hours, often at physically taxing jobs, to provide for their families, and dutifully forked over a significant percentage of their earnings to the U.S. government, which saw fit to use it to corrupt and sexualize children in other countries.  This is what things have come to, and it's likely only to get worse.

Constitutional cruelty: Democrats now oppose a democratic process on student loans.  "Disappointing and cruel."  Those words from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) after the Supreme Court's rejection of the Biden administration's loan forgiveness program may say more than the opinion itself.  The court's "cruelty" was in supporting Congress's core constitutional power of the purse.  Schumer's disappointment in having to address and vote on the forgiveness of hundreds of billions of dollars in loans speaks volumes about the collapse of our constitutional values.  The court's decision on the merits of the case was hardly a surprise.  President Biden was using the Higher Education Relief Opportunities for Students (HEROES) Act of 2003 to order the largest loan forgiveness program in U.S. history.  The law is only a few pages long and was intended to assist military personnel deployed abroad in combat zones.  The idea of using that law in order to avoid getting congressional approval for such a massive expenditure was laughable.  The Office of Legal Counsel considered the theory and issued a memo stating that it would be unconstitutional.  In his response to the court, Biden declared that "the hypocrisy is stunning" and that the court had "misinterpreted the Constitution."  However, during the last presidential campaign, Biden himself acknowledged that this effort would be unconstitutional.

Supreme Court tosses Biden's student loan forgiveness plan where it belongs: The trash.  On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court handed President Joe Biden and his administration a strong rebuke.  In a 6-3 decision, the conservative majority of the court struck down Biden's controversial decision to cancel billions of dollars in student loan debt based only on his say so and without Congress' clear approval.  "...this leads the Court to conclude that '[t]he basic and consequential tradeoffs' inherent in a mass debt cancellation program 'are ones that Congress would likely have intended for itself,'" wrote Chief Justice John Roberts for the majority.  The president overstepped his authority in unilaterally declaring millions of Americans could benefit from up to $20,000 in student loan forgiveness, without going through Congress.  This "generous" plan would have saddled taxpayers — the majority of whom have not gone to college themselves — with at least $400 billion in debt.

Supreme Court Kills Joe Biden's Student Loan Forgiveness Scam.  In a decision released on Friday, the Supreme Court struck down Joe Biden's student loan "forgiveness" plan.  Biden's plan, which was unveiled last August, mere months before the midterm elections, sought to cancel $10,000 of debt for individual student loan borrowers earning less than $125,000 per year (or $250,000 for households) and $20,000 of debt for borrowers who received a Pell Grant. [...] Biden's Education Department utilized the HEROES Act of 2003, which grants the U.S. secretary of Education the authority to let military service members postpone their student loan payments during national crises, previously used to postpone student loan payments during the COVID pandemic.  But the Biden administration attempted to use the HEROES Act to forgive debt.

'Bidenomics' in layman's terms is foreign corruption and government control.  The media and other Democrats disparage trickle-down economics, but apparently they're big believers in what they're calling "Bidenomics." [...] Democrat policies are striving towards socialism while not calling it socialism, because socialism has never worked, and socialist ideations like the Soviet gulags aren't exactly popular with mature Americans.  Essentially, Biden and the rest of the reigning Democrats consider the best economic plan to be one where they confiscate as much as they can for the government, keep a lot for themselves and a massive number of bureaucrats, maybe sell some state secrets, and then trickle out the remainder to special interest groups, like green fanatics and others, in order to buy votes.  They pretend that all the handouts, to keep more people dependent on the government, are free.

In Pennsylvania Democratic Party politicians just proved their fascist anti-first amendment beliefs.  When the parental rights organization Moms for Liberty arranged to have their annual 2023 summit in the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia beginning today, six Democrats from the Pennsylvania state senate immediately proved to the world that Democrats no longer believe in free speech, and in fact make their number one principle oppression and censorship, by writing a joint letter demanding the museum cancel the event.  These Democrats also proved that their method for silencing also includes routine slanders and libels, based on zero evidence.

Maine Democrats Kill Amendment to Ban Trafficking of Aborted Baby Remains.  Maine state Senate Democrats blocked a proposed amendment on Tuesday to a late-term abortion bill that would have placed a four-year moratorium on the trafficking of fetal remains leftover from late-term abortions, the Maine Wire reported.  Republican state Sen. Eric Brakey proposed the amendment and stated that if the late-term abortion bill passes (LD 1619) "the least we can do it to establish this moratorium on the trafficking of fetal body parts so that the legislature can thoughtfully consider the issue in the coming years and develop more permanent policy."  Trafficking in fetal remains would have been a Class C crime under the amendment.

The Democrats' Definition Of Democracy Is Like The Marxist Definition Of Peace.  The criminalization of politics is only one iteration of the left's doctrine that politics are war by other means, though.  The Democrats, with in-kind aid from the media, are also trying to bully the Supreme Court into submission to their will.  Their message to the Court's conservative justices:  Rule our way or we will harass you until you resign.  In this war with multiple fronts, the Democrats are attempting to establish a permanent majority through a direct assault on elections.  We're talking about far more than the "cabal" that was mobilized in 2020 to guarantee the presidency for Joe Biden.  The party is determined to federalize elections with rules that would put our voting system in the hands of Deep State bureaucrats and political insiders rather than the locals we live among, and codify practices that are illegal in most of the country.  This would end our political system as we've known it, with its crucial checks and balances, and eventually replace it with a Democratic Party dictatorship.

Senate Democrats Take One More Step Toward Socialized Medicine.  It's been less than a year since Democrats enacted the Inflation Reduction Act, which gives Medicare the power to set the prices of certain medicines.  Those price controls have yet to go into effect.  But Democrats already want more.  They've introduced new legislation that would amp up those price controls — and even permit the government to refuse to cover drugs in order to drive a harder bargain with pharmaceutical companies.  As for the patients who would benefit from those drugs — or may even need them to stay alive?  They may end up being collateral damage.

The hill we will die on.  In the decades during which I have followed politics and social issues, I have seen passionate disagreements among Americans.  The Vietnam War was the focus of massive protests.  Legalized abortion, after Roe v. Wade, was followed by bombings.  Racial integration was accompanied by murders by racist militants.  Unenforced laws, including immigration and retail theft, have left us feeling betrayed by our government.  The list goes on.  Somehow, we survived.  Then came the transsexual movement, complete with "drag-queen story hours" for young children.  Some of those children have become the victims of surgical mutilation.  This has occurred in the context of politicians and educators telling us we have no right to know what our children are being taught in school.  We are being threatened with loss of custody of our children if we do not "affirm" their "gender identity," if that identity does not conform with their biological sex.  Recently, during a so-called "pride march," the chanting marchers sang out, "We're coming for your children."  Even if this was chanted supposedly in jest, it was about as funny as joking that they would rape our mothers.  I doubt that all those who chanted this did so merely as a taunt.

Green madness: You'd have to burn a pizza stove 849 years to equal one year of John Kerry's private jet.  Environmental bureaucrats are out to save you from pizza.  The city government is set to restrict emissions from coal- and wood-fired pizza ovens in restaurants in the city.  New Yorkers are once again suffering at the hands of the unelected food police in the name of public health and climate change.  New Yorkers have already endured former Mayor Michael Bloomberg's attempts to ban soda sales of over 16 ounces for their own good and are facing Gov. Kathy Hochul's gas stove and furnace bans in the state, all in the name of climate change.  And now, another one bites the crust as New York City officials are going after pizzerias using the century-old cooking methods, citing the ovens' allegedly excessive carbon emissions.

The end of the American Experiment?  Radical leftist forces have been methodically undermining the American Experiment in an attempt to replace it with their own.  The grantors behind the new experiment are not visionaries, but ego-challenged elitist control freaks who seek power and retributive justice in a society of their own design.  The problem, they aver, is that the original experiment has failed.  After nearly 250 years of hollow promises, we continue to suffer systemic racism, white supremacy, xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia, and economic inequality.  We can do better!  In reality, they are engaged in a bloodless coup requiring a methodical deconstruction of the existing social order, attainable via recruitment of a sufficient number of malcontents to elevate its designers into their real goal of absolute political power.

The New Democratic Dictatorship and Transition of Power from Joe Biden to Gavin Newsom.  For his Twitter monologue episode 7, Tucker Carlson walks through the post COVID new authoritarian model of 'western democracy', a system of dictatorial fiat and unilateral power intent on retention of control.  Within our new system of "western democratic norms" authoritarianism is embraced by both wings of the UniParty vulture as it ensures power for those who benefit.  From the dual system of U.S. justice to the dictatorship now present in Ukraine, the common thread is power by a select group of system operators with large control mechanisms.  The retention of this power structure requires the passing of the baton to the next loyalist of the regime.  In the case of Joe Biden, Tucker foresees the rise of California Governor Gavin Newsom.

Michigan is criminalizing opinions.  To say that Michigan has lurched to the left under the leadership of Gretchen Whitmer and the state's liberal majority would be a significant understatement.  But with a new bill passed in the state House this week, they are taking things to a cartoonish level.  If (more likely "when") House Bill 4474 is signed into law, you will literally be able to be thrown into prison for hurting someone's feelings.  This is being hidden under the guise of protecting people from "hate speech," and includes standard liberal online tropes about "feeling threatened."  To be clear, you don't have to actually threaten someone with violence.  They simply need to "feel" threatened by something you say or post online.  There is no word from Governor Whitmer yet as to whether the State Police will be directed to establish a new "thought police" unit.

Michigan state legislature House passes censorship bill to make free speech a felony.  Democrats run the state government of Michigan, with majorities on the House and Senate of the state legislature and Democrat Governor Gretchen Whitmer with the ability to sign bills into law.  That's why a bill already passed by the State Legislature's House and assigned to committee in the State Senate is so dangerous.  Can you believe five years in prison for speech based on someone's feelings about it?  HB 4474 has a good chance of becoming law, despite its obvious unconstitutionality. [...] Yes, the bill is unconstitutional.  But if it becomes law, it will takes years and hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars to get it to the Supreme Court for a finding.  IF it makes it there.  Meanwhile, left wing agitation to weaken the Court and drive conservatives from its bench will only intensify.  If they succeed or if mortality intervenes and Democrats get to appoint more justices or even pack the court by expanding it, the constitutional safeguards may crumble in the foreseeable future.

Michigan can now censor you if you hurt someone's feelings.  Michigan's Democratic House passed legislation on Tuesday that enables attorneys to shut down "hate speech."  The new House Bill 4474 is a vague and unconstitutional censorship law that determines "feeling threatened" as reasonable grounds to prosecute offenders.  The punishment for making someone "feel threatened" in Michigan is five years in jail and a $10,000 fine. [...] The problematic language about "feelings" can be found in the bill's definition of "intimidation" as "willful course of conduct, involving repeated or continuing harassment of another individual that would cause a reasonable individual to feel terrorized, frightened, intimidated, threatened, harassed, or molested, and that actually causes the victim to feel terrorized, frightened, or threatened."

Wood-fired pizza ovens are destroying the planet.  First, the climate alarmists in the government said they were coming for your gas stoves.  Then they said they weren't coming for them.  Then they came after them anyway.  So given this crowd's recent track record, we should probably take them seriously when they say that they're going to crack down on wood-burning pizza ovens.  Oh, and coal-fired ovens also.  Thus far this is only happening in New York City, but a "great idea" like this will no doubt be spreading to liberal circles across the land in no time.  And if you run a pizza shop that uses such a stove, you can either spend an arm and a leg for a new filtration system or the city will fine you huge amounts of money until you shut up and comply.

New NYC Mandate Threatens Future and Taste of New York Pizza.  If you only ate Chicago pizza, this would be not an issue.  The city of New York is cracking down on pizzerias, threatening their futures.  The New York City Department of Environmental Protection has drafted new rules that would order pizza joints using the decades-old baking method to slice carbon emissions by up to 75 percent, reports the New York Post.  "All New Yorkers deserve to breathe healthy air and wood and coal-fired stoves are among the largest contributors of harmful pollutants in neighborhoods with poor air quality," DEP spokesman Ted Timbers said.  "This common-sense rule, developed with restaurant and environmental justice groups, requires a professional review of whether installing emission controls is feasible."  The rule would force pizzerias with such ovens installed prior to May 2016 to buy [e]mission-control devices that could send local joints over their budgets.

These are the same people who oppose natural gas appliances.
NYC to Crack Down on Wood-Fired Pizza Joints to Reduce Carbon Emissions by Up to 75%.  New York City will be cracking down on wood-fired pizza joints to reduce carbon emissions by up to 75%.  "All New Yorkers deserve to breathe healthy air and wood and coal-fired stoves are among the largest contributors of harmful pollutants in neighborhoods with poor air quality," Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Ted Timbers said in a statement to the New York Post on Sunday.  "This common-sense rule, developed with restaurant and environmental justice groups, requires a professional review of whether installing emission controls is feasible."

The Editor says...
[#1] It isn't a "common-sense rule."  The tail is wagging the dog, as usual.  The "environmental justice groups" are anti-capitalist troublemakers, solving problems that nobody has.  Making pizza in a wood-fired oven is not an "environmental [in]justice," whatever that is.  [#2] While all this nit-picking is underway in New York, China and India are building coal-fired power plants as if carbon dioxide is not a problem.  Because it isn't!  [#3] The air in an overcrowded city may not be entirely fresh, but it's not necessarily unhealthy, and if you don't like the air in a big city, you're free to move!

Crybullies and Beyond: Four Additional Ways the Left Resembles Nazis.  [#4] Democrats and Nazis demand complete compliance - you will comply or else.  You've probably seen the famous picture from Nazi Germany in 1936, with one man later identified as August Landmesser standing with his arms crossed, as the crowd raised their arms in unison in the Nazi salute.  Today's Leftists are similarly demanding that you submit to their agenda.  You're a 'domestic terrorist' if you refuse to shop at Target.  They are in your face with their agenda and if you don't comply, they complain crybully style to the nation's socialist media.  This is how it all starts; they indoctrinate your children behind your back and do whatever they can to be as invasive in your life as possible.  And then when you push back, they suddenly become the victim.  Then when you don't fully comply with their demands, they label you a 'domestic terrorist.'  But somehow, we're supposed to ignore all of this because it might hurt the feelings of the leftists.  Never mind that they've been lying about this for more than 90 years and still haven't come up with a cogent explanation as to why National Socialism was 'far-right'.

President Trump Did What Ross Perot Could Not.  As Governor Mike Huckabee noticed during his recent appearance on NewsMax, the affairs of the prevailing political regime are scandals that dwarf Watergate.  Those comprising the Obama-Biden cabal have abused their powers for years with defining hallmarks like illegal surveillance and political persecution; but they've also weaponized the most powerful departments and agencies of the federal government, all funded by your tax dollars, against those (like President Trump) who stand in the way of the monopolization of political power for which they have an insatiable desire.  And, in a manner characteristic of their communist mentality, they consider anything that obstructs their power grab as "evil" and every detrimental action taken against their opponents as "good" — or, according to standard Marxian terminology used by Soviet rulers and similar regimes elsewhere: "progress."

Biden's Economic Program is Made in China.  As reported by New York Times Magazine at the time, Joe Biden's goal was to transform the economy from the get-go: "The Biden Team Wants to Transform the Economy.  Really." Nearly two-and-a-half years later, the damage and chaos of that transformation process are obvious: continuing high inflation (especially energy, food, and gasoline prices), rising interest rates, recession predictions, a stagnant economy, depleted individual savings, sky-high credit card debt, and other indications of stagflation and recession.  Who has benefited from the Biden economy?  Green new deal grifters benefit from the gargantuan tax subsidies and federal spending on transitioning the US economy from hydrocarbon energy sources to "clean" sources, especially solar and wind energy.  The communist Chinese are happy to benefit from Biden economic policies that ultimately mandate and subsidize green products from Chinese companies at the expense of the US companies who produce and use hydrocarbons.

Resistance.  I will hold the line, but very few others will.  I've watched it over and over.  They won't even stop watching sports, regardless of how offensive the left is willing to be, how calculating they used those programs to indoctrinate their audiences into the "acceptable" beliefs.  They just knuckle under and turn on the tube.  Soon, it's going to get hard to do the right thing.  The American people are all too willing to allow the teachers union to determine the gender of their children, allow scalpels to be used on their babies for fear of taking social backlash.  In California you can now be charged with child abuse if you don't shake the pom poms for gender reassignment surgery.  I guess it needs to get worse.  It will, it already is.  There will be a break, a moment when they attempt to call our bluff, to shove some means of transaction on us that will lead to our slavery.

The Green New Deal is full of holes, with AOC leading the charge to fall into them.  The New York congresswoman plans to drastically "cut carbon emissions across the economy from electricity generation to transportation to agriculture," to "create jobs" and "boost the economy."  Revealing the truth, her chief of staff stated the Green New Deal "wasn't originally a climate thing at all," rather, "we really think of it as how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing," "moving the U.S. economy entirely away from fossil fuels within 10 years, while simultaneously providing federal jobs and health care guarantee," advancing "social, economic, racial, regional and gender-based justice and equality and cooperative — and public ownership."  So, the Green New Deal is simply a Marxist-Leninist plan to destroy the U.S. economy and transform America into a full-fledged socialist nation costing $93 trillion in new government spending over a decade, while 2022 U.S. GDP was only $25 trillion.

Ramping up wind turbines, solar panels and electric vehicles can't solve our energy problem.  Many people believe that installing more wind turbines and solar panels and manufacturing more electric vehicles can solve our energy problem, but I don't agree with them.  These devices, plus the batteries, charging stations, transmission lines and many other structures necessary to make them work represent a high level of complexity.  A relatively low level of complexity, such as the complexity embodied in a new hydroelectric dam, can sometimes be used to solve energy problems, but we cannot expect ever-higher levels of complexity to always be achievable.

Report: Biden Admin Forced Social Security Employees to Complete 'Mandatory' LGBTQ+ Training.  President Joe Biden's administration forced Social Security Administration (SSA) employees to complete a "mandatory" training that lectured employees on respecting their coworkers' "sexual orientation," and "gender identity," The Sentinel reported.  The LGBTQ+ training warned that using preferred pronouns is compulsory and threatened investigations for those deemed noncompliant, according to audio recordings obtained by the Sentinel.

Biden Announces $600 Million for 'The Most Aggressive Climate Action Ever' During California Visit.  Climate action projects across the nation, including in California, will get $600 million more in federal funding, President Joe Biden announced during a tour of a nature preserve in northern California on June 19.  California's share — $67 million — will help build power lines and transmission infrastructure, and support the state's transition to 100 percent clean energy, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom's office.  "We're taking the most aggressive climate action ever," Biden said.  "I'm here today to announce that we're putting our critical climate investment to work."  The U.S. Department of Energy is also expected to announce a $2 billion investment to modernize the nation's electric grid.

The Editor says...
[#1] Where did Joe Biden come up with $600 million?  [#2] No amount of spending will improve the weather.

The left's assault on the United States military is picking up steam.  One of the most vital things for a successful dictatorship is military control.  A politically neutral military composed of people loyal to the country, rather than its leadership, represents an ongoing threat to a despot.  For centuries, America has had that politically neutral military, but the Biden administration is accelerating a process begun under Obama, which is to weaken military readiness while ensuring that both officers and troops hew to a specific political ideology.  In the first five years of his presidency, Obama fired almost 200 military officers, some of whom felt very strongly that there was an ideological purge taking place.  Certainly, the Pentagon class's willing embrace of leftist ideologies (DEI, CRT and, especially, LGBTQ+++) seems to indicate that those in charge of the military's strange new destiny are on board with all of this.

Maine Lobstermen Get a Big Win Over Biden; Admin's Hypocrisy Faces Big Questions and Investigation.  There are a lot of people who have been suffering under the Biden regime, from being crushed by Bidenflation to being oppressed by his overregulation.  The lobstermen of Maine know all too well about that second part.  The Biden administration's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) imposed a rule that could gut what is already a challenging industry.  The lobstermen challenged Biden in court.

Ready for even more medical shortages?  Big Pharma giant Merck has emerged as an unikely voice for freedom, which is what comes when one's ox is gored.  They've got a lawsuit out to overturn at least part of Joe Biden's odious "Inflation Reduction Act" which has an Orwellian clause about forcing pharmaceutical companies to allow the feds to dictate their prices, which amounts to constitutionally prohibited confiscation without compensation and sure as the sun comes up, will lead to even more medical shortages.  That's on top of the medical shortages we are already seeing, thanks to Pete Buttigieg's latest supply chain failure.

We should all give Biden great credit for what he has achieved in office.  We should be giving Biden credit for energy and spending policies that caused inflation to skyrocket from under 2%, despite COVID to over 9% or 4% in May.  Oil is still around $70 per barrel, or up around 75% from when Biden was elected.  I am sure people on fixed income, the poor, and middle class are extremely happy that food and energy prices have leveled off at such a high level.  When Biden was running for office, he repeatedly said he was going to destroy the oil and coal industry:  "I would transition away from the oil industry, yes," Biden said.  As soon as Biden took office, he dictatorially halted oil and gas leases on US land and water.  Biden also dictatorially cancelled the permit for the Keystone pipeline the day he took office. [...] As a result of Biden's anti-domestic oil policies, the price of oil skyrocketed from around $40 per barrel the day Biden was elected to $84 per barrel in October 2021, less than a year later, which was long before Russia attacked Ukraine.  When the price of oil inflates by over 110% in one year, it causes overall inflation to also go up rapidly, because energy prices affect everything.  It is a simple concept.  Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Iran benefit greatly when the U.S decides it no longer wants to be a major oil market competitor.

Biden's World Bank Head Promises To Spend 'As Much As We Possibly Can' On Climate Change.  Ajay Banga, the Biden-appointed president of the World Bank, promised to "push" the financial institution to its limits to combat climate change in an interview with Reuters late Tuesday.  While Banga said he would not take any actions that would threaten the global financier's "AAA" credit rating, he said that he would leverage the bank's balance sheet "as hard as you can" to address climate issues, Reuters reported.  Members of the Biden administration, notably including Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and President Joe Biden himself, and climate activists have — at times over the objections of developing nations — called for Banga to shift the bank's focus from combating poverty to additionally combating climate change.

Law soon requires new Illinois homes to include electric vehicle charging capabilities.  A new law in Illinois soon requires electric vehicle charging stations in the garage of new or renovated homes.  Critics say this will increase costs.  State Sen. Sara Feigenholtz, D-Chicago, filed Senate Bill 40 to keep Illinois on its path to having one million EVs on the roads by 2030.  The bill was signed into law by Gov. J.B. Pritzker Friday with an effective date of Jan. 1, 2024.  In 2021, Pritzker signed the Reimagining Electric Vehicles in Illinois Act into law, which incentivizes EV production across the state.  There are also state tax incentives for the purchase of electric vehicles.

The Editor says...
What's next?  Why not require every new house to have a basketball goal in the driveway, a dog house in the back, and built-in Christmas lights?  The answer is obvious:  If the home wants that stuff, he will buy it later.  Not everyone will buy an electric car — unless the Democrats rig every future election, which isn't out of the question.

State Senator Tells Parents to Flee His Own State Amid Law That Would Take Kids Away From Non-'Affirming' Parents.  A California state senator told a gathered crowd of parents at the California Senate Judicial Committee to flee the state on June 13 during a hearing on a bill which would put parents who don't affirm their child's "gender transition" in danger of child abuse charges.  Sen. Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita, is the lone Republican on California's Senate Judiciary Committee, and he has served in the California Legislature for 11 years.  He was also the lone voice warning against language in AB 957, which a Democratic senator had amended on June 5 to rewrite the California Family Code to list "gender affirmation" alongside a child's need for "health, safety, and welfare."

Who is Driving the Train?  American Leadership is in Full Retreat.  How would John Kirby spin the following US retreats (strategic debacles) on the world scene in two interminable years of the Biden administration?
  •   The Biden administration has committed to a legally binding agreement that "will give the World Health Organization (WHO) control over U.S. pandemic policies," as reported here.  How is giving up US sovereignty to foreigners a demonstration of US world leadership?
  •   Then there was the Biden administration helplessly standing by and watching the communist Chinese facilitate a rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran.  Losing geopolitical leverage to the Chinese in the Middle East is more US world leadership?
  •   How about the gifting of Afghanistan's natural resources to China?  Afghanistan holds lithium deposits estimate to be worth "between $1 trillion and $3 trillion."  China will be delighted to exploit those deposits to retain world leadership in the production of green technology (i.e., electric vehicles, batteries, and solar panels) for export to the US.  The debacle of the US withdrawal itself probably helped convince Putin to launch the Russian invasion of Ukraine, too.

California Bill Would Charge Any Parent Who Doesn't Affirm Transgenderism With 'Child Abuse'.  A recently amended California bill would add "affirming" the sexual transition of a child to the state's standard for parental responsibility and child welfare — making any parent who doesn't affirm transgenderism for their child guilty of abuse under California state law.  AB 957 passed California's State Assembly on May 3, but a co-sponsor amended it after hours in California's State Senate on June 6.  Assembly Member Lori Wilson, D-Suisun City, wrote the bill and introduced it on Feb. 14.  State Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, co-sponsored it.  Wilson's child identifies as transgender.  Originally, AB 957 required courts to consider whether a child's parents were "gender-affirming" in custody cases.  Wiener's amendment completely rewrites California's standard of child care.

Democrats Had Better Be Careful What They Wish for After the Latest Trump Indictment.  Regardless of what you think about the Trump indictment, it's hard not to believe that it smacks of the Democrats' endless attempts to nail Donald Trump for — something.  We've gotten used to it over the past few years, and these legal maneuvers always seem to play out the same way. [...] Maybe they have him this time, but maybe not.  After all, we've heard the rhetoric about the "walls closing in" on Trump for a long time now.  [Video clip]  What seems to be missing from the Democrats' calculus in indicting Trump again (with potentially more indictments to follow) is that the whole scheme could backfire on them tremendously.  They don't seem to be aware of the precedent they're setting with these indictments.  The Democrats are clearly counting on being able to knock Trump out of the 2024 election cycle, but they apparently haven't given much thought to the idea that what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

The Editor says...
Socialist Democrats are apparently unable to think ahead and foresee the potential consequences of their half-baked ideas; for example, open borders, relying on solar panels and windmills while blocking every practical source of energy, allowing men in women's restrooms, letting bums live in the street, giving money to people who are too lazy to work, letting violent criminals roam free, demanding that employers hire the blackest available people instead of those with the most aptitude, letting the FBI act as the Secrete Police, killing babies at any stage of pregnancy — or even beyond, conducting obviously fraudulent elections, calling carbon dioxide a pollutant when it really isn't, Covid lockdowns, promoting homosexuality in public schools, printing money and spreading it around to buy votes, draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, dissolving student loan debt, prohibiting gas stoves, and subsidizing electric cars and gasoline diluted with ethanol that nobody asked for.

Biden administration is 'actively plotting' ways to jam through his $400 billion student loan forgiveness plan even if the Supreme Court strikes it down.  The Supreme Court is getting ready to hand down a decision any day now on President Joe Biden's proposed student loan forgiveness plan — and progressives are scrambling to find a way to still wipe clean that debt.  Meanwhile, the group that launched one of the lawsuits that landed the resident's plan at the Supreme Court says that they will sue any workarounds the Biden administration tries to jam through.  Job Creators Network President and CEO Alfredo Ortiz told DailyMail.com that the Department of Education (DOE) is actively working on workarounds to still get at least $10,000 taken off of the debts of most borrowers with outstanding student loans.

Don't call modern leftists communists.  Communists also have a definite goal: the overthrow of the capitalist order and its replacement by a more harmonious collective system.  The means of achieving this objective have been vigorously debated by theoreticians, and the prescriptions have varied from revolutionary violence to parliamentary reform.  What exactly this earthly paradise would consist of is vague, but the intention is crystal-clear.  Modern Western radicals, on the hand, are a congeries of races, religions, economic classes, and sexes.  They are united only by their absolute loathing for the history and culture of the West and nothing more.  The writings of a Robin DiAngelo or the seminars of a Peggy McIntosh are not blueprints for creating a better world, but simply hate-filled propaganda designed to stoke the fires of resentment among groups.  Empty slogans about "equity," the destruction of Occidental living standards in the name of "saving the planet," race-revenge politics, and apparently endless third-world immigration seem to have no goal beyond themselves.  Chaos is cultivated for its own sake, and the endgame seems to be the void.  In short, then, what we have now is not communism.  Hard as it is to believe, it is worse.

Democrats are seeking to destroy the greatest country that ever existed.  Here are some examples:  On healthcare, Democrats want to either have single payer, government-run insurance or want to dictate, as with Obamacare, exactly what must be in health care policies.  Republicans want people and companies to have freedom of choice.  Democrats seem to want to make as many people to be dependent on government as possible, as with Great Society programs.  Why would Democrats fight so hard to block a requirement for able-bodied people to work for their benefits?  With Great Society expansion of welfare programs, Democrats essentially encouraged the break-up of families that leads to generational poverty.  Republicans believe in a safety net but want policies that encourage work, instead of welfare, which would potentially allow people to move up the economic ladder.  Democrats believe that the government should pay off student loan debt.  Republicans believe the people that borrowed the money and received the benefit should pay it off.

New York Calls for Reparations, Erasing Criminal Records, & Wearing Masks Indoors.  A New York bill is part of a national push to provide reparations for African Americans.  Democratic lawmakers in New York hope the Legislature will approve SB1163A in the coming days.  "There's a real question of whether slavery would have been economically feasible without New York," Democrat James Sanders Jr. told Politico.  "New York provided the insurance for the slave industry; New York paid for many of the votes; New York bought much of the cotton."  In other words, it's New York's fault.  This is the greed and politics of envy that socialism brings.

Ready for Socialized Electric Power?  Ever hear of the Build Public Renewables Act (BPRA)? Sounds great, doesn't it?  Yet, like "The Inflation Reduction Act" (the largest climate legislation in government history), its title has very little to do with its actual purpose.  Its true objective is to empower the state (in this case New York) "to provide clean energy if the private sector fails to."  Still sounds great!  There is, however, one little catch: the private sector has until 2030 to provide clean energy.  We all know that, given today's technology, the private sector isn't going to meet this requirement — which means that the second little catch will kick in:  the moving of power utilities out of private hands into publicly owned facilities.

How Green New Dealers became Washington power players.  It was just four years ago that backers of the Green New Deal were considered outcasts in Congress.  They butted heads with Democratic leaders on climate.  Then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) derided them as "perfect" and "pure."  And their sweeping plan to transform the energy sector never got a vote on the House floor.  But fast-forward to today, and many of those young outcasts have ascended to top roles in Congress.  They're wielding power on committees — some as attack dogs, others as would-be consensus builders.  And their ideas have helped shape legislation like last year's landmark climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act.

Biden admin is preparing to target Americans' gas furnaces amid stove crackdown.  The Biden administration is expected to soon finalize regulations restricting which home gas-powered furnaces consumers are able to purchase in the future.  According to experts, the regulations — proposed in June 2022 by the Department of Energy (DOE) — would restrict consumer choice, drive prices higher and likely have a low impact on greenhouse gas emissions.  The agency could finalize the rules targeting residential gas furnaces, which more than 50% of American households rely on for space heating, at any point over the upcoming weeks.  "This is a classic example of one size not fitting all," Ben Lieberman, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told Fox News Digital in an interview.  "Every home is different, every homeowner is different and people are best off having a wide range of choices.  They can work with their contractor to make the best decision for their home and their circumstances."

House Republicans Target Gas Stove Regulations, Power of Administrative State.  After repeatedly failing to overturn Biden administration regulations in existing legislation, House Republicans are taking the next steps in their attempt to exert authority over the administrative state.  Lawmakers discussed a series of bills intended to reach those ends during a June 5 Rules Committee hearing.  "The Constitution articulates where the laws are made.  It's here in Congress," said Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) in his opening remarks.  Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.), by contrast, said the proposals show that the House Republican majority "once again prioritizes right-wing culture wars over the American people."  Right-leaning ideology prioritizes individual liberty over the government intervention preferred by the left.

Government's Ban Isn't Only About Gas Stoves.  The gas stove ban that we were told wasn't going to happen is now being debated in Congress.  Democrats are trying to ban certain models of gas stoves and other household appliances.  Republicans, meanwhile, are pushing two bills to try to stop the bans from happening.  [Video clip]

Those Who Oppose Capitalism Are The Enemies Of Freedom.  Capitalism is not an economic system imposed by government in the way socialism or communism or any form of Marxism or planned economy is imposed on people against their will.  Capitalism is merely the economic activity that men will engage in when left alone, when they are free to act as they wish.  It is spontaneous, ordered and entirely organic.  When men are free to trade with each other without government intrusion, they will inevitably seek and sell capital.  And why wouldn't they?  It is their nature.  Innovators and entrepreneurs hungry to make their ideas flesh need capital to fund their ventures.  Those who have capital see opportunities to reap profits, so they trade their capital in an open market for profits to be realized later.  This is not exploitation but the manifestation of liberty.

It's Not About Politics!  Too many people still believe what we see on the news is politics as usual.  It is not.  Politics departed long ago.  What we are witnessing, what we see demonstrated everyday, is good vs. evil. [...] Normalizing homosexuality, pushing transgenderism, even celebrating them is not politics.  Hospitals operating on children, mutilating them, removing perfectly normal reproductive organs or creating faux body parts as a poor substitute is not politics.  Observing major corporations getting into politics like never before is not mere politics.  Watching these same corporations changing their wares to heighten the Left's narrative is not politics.  Major store chains selling clothing to hide genitalia to enhance the cloaking of actual gender or allowing men in women's bathrooms is not politics.  Thousands upon thousands of homeless living on sidewalks in major Democrat cities while allowing hardened criminals to prey on the innocents is not politics.  Authorizing marketing execs to destroy their brand just to normalize abnormality and then watching other companies follow suit is not politics.  Inviting drag queens to display their deviancy to children in public libraries and classrooms and then calling it 'promoting imagination' is not politics.  Finding thousands of ballots over and above the number of voters in any precinct or allowing people to vote without proving who they are is not politics.  Opening borders to millions of unvetted, unknown people from foreign countries the world over is not politics.  Giving up energy independence is not politics.  Punishing political rivals with censorship is not politics.  Spending trillions on what no one can identify is not politics.  Politicians and Deep Staters committing treasonous acts for decades without repercussion is not politics.  Permitting people to 'serve' in Congress and the presidency who are mentally incompetent or even dead is not politics.  Using 'climate change' to amass power and money is not politics.

Climate Madness: Government Looking to Cull Nearly 200,000 Dairy Cows.  The high priests of climate change are at it again, this time decreeing that 200,000 dairy cows must be put to death to satisfy the left's global warming religion.  This latest outrage is coming from government officials in Ireland who have announced the destruction of tens of thousands of dairy cows so that officials can meet their climate change goals.  One proposal claims that by reducing the country's dairy herd by 10 percent, the equivalent of removing 65,000 cows a year for three years, will help officials meet their emissions reduction plans, according to Farmers Weekly citing the Irish Independent newspaper.

The Editor says...
Or you could just ship 200,000 cows to Dimmitt County, Texas, where they could disappear overnight and no questions will be asked.  If you don't know what I mean, check into this fairly recent story: [1] [2] [3] [4] The Dimmitt County explosion was just one of a series of mysterious explosions at food processing facilities all over the country.

The Road to Socialism is Paved with Equity.  The Biden administration defines equity as "the consistent and systematic treatment of all individuals in a fair, just, and impartial manner."  Who could be against a policy so pure?  One would think the supporters of a policy so pragmatically pristine would encourage critical discussion.  This is not the case.  Anyone that dares question the Democrat party's pursuit of equity is castigated as a blasphemer against liberal orthodoxy.  Liberals require opponents to approach their canon with the reverence of monastic silence.  But when the equity dogma is examined, one realizes that it more closely resembles a Faustian bargain than progressive enlightenment.

Senate Votes To Overturn Biden's Student Loan Giveaway.  Two Democrats and one Independent joined with all 48 present Senate Republicans on Thursday to pass a resolution blocking President Joe Biden's plan to shift billions of dollars in student loans onto American taxpayers.  The Congressional Review Act resolution, introduced in the upper chamber by Republican Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, would overturn the Department of Education's 2022 move to forgive up to $20,000 in loans for some recipients.  A companion resolution introduced by Republican Virginia Rep. Bob Good passed the House in May, 218-203.  Biden has pledged to veto the resolution.  Democrats Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Jon Tester of Montana, along with Independent Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, joined with Republicans.  [Tweet]

Arrest of Chicago 'Peacekeeper' police substitute demonstrates the folly of 'defund the police'.  A man wearing the vest of the new "Peacekeeper" corps deployed over the Memorial Day weekend, to stem the mayhem on a holiday weekend that has become an opportunity for murder tallies to soar, was arrested for a violent attack. [...] One of the many fantasies of the progressives is that there is something inherently wrong or dangerous with police.  Instead of armed police capable of using the threat of violence to restrain offenders, unarmed social worker-like alternatives can reduce violence by sympathizing with offenders and understanding the root causes of their behavior.  The Chicago Police Department's 1,700 vacancies are so catastrophic that Democrat politicians are desperate to deflect blame for their support of defund the police and anti-cop measures.  Chicago's new mayor, Brandon Johnson, ditched his former defund-the-police rhetoric during the campaign but still won't commit to adding funds to the police.

The Democrats' Greatest Achievement: Convincing Idiots That Tyranny Is Virtue.  The far lefties have spent decades demonizing conservatives, Republicans, and white Christians as hateful, racist, terrorists, hell-bent on oppressing minorities, and, lately, guilty of taking down our American democracy, while at the same time assuring their minions they are morally superior to these same liberty-embracing crowd. [...] Leftists, desperate to feed their cowardice — rather than starve it to death and replace it with courage — eat up their phantom supremacy by swallowing whatever self-righteous balderdash their Democrats masters throw at them, even if that means slowly stripping away their own freedoms.  Those at the top of the Democrat hate pyramid have learned they can thrust tyranny on their myrmidons if they just thinly disguise it with a bogus sense of virtue.  The weak are easy prey.  Die-hard leftists will trip over themselves in a desperate attempt to out-virtue signal their Bolshie friends, and if that means cutting off their noses to spite our Constitution-loving faces, so be it.

Why the White House Wants War.  With Ukraine's capital, Kiev, subject to increasing Russian bombardment, and Moscow subject to new drone attacks, the hostility now reflects direct provocation of central government and leadership.  Whether you rightly find Russia's aggression in Ukraine unacceptable, or like University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer, you also see, pragmatically, a long trail of U.S. and EU provocation and mismanagement in foreign affairs, one thing is fairly obvious:  the United States is not interested in pursuing, or trying to broker, a peace deal.  Current U.S. foreign policy toward Russia is following a narrow path of strict escalation toward superpower confrontation.  Russia is not going to lead a peace effort, nor will Ukraine.

American Deviancy.  You don't have to look very far to witness how fundamentally fractured our society is.  Intersectionality lauds our differences, and sets us up for punishment for the transgression of individuality. [...] The nexus argument behind all claims of intersectionality is victimhood — white males have stolen everything, which rightfully belongs to other deserving distinct groups, all of course, sans white males.  Everything must be returned or taken by force, and only then can redress be genuinely achieved.  This has become incontrovertible and sacred doctrine among progressives, although nonsense!  (And that's being charitable when considering the absolute devastation yielded by the belief in and application of intersectionality.)

The Nanny State Stains a Deck.  When candidates run for public office — local, state, or federal — they campaign on some careful blend of their résumés, their personalities, and their political issues. [...]The related issue currently in the news is the world of natural gas appliances.  The United States has so much natural gas, it's practically free energy... but gas-powered ovens, ranges, furnaces, water heaters, and clothes dryers are under assault from blue states like New York and California and from the federal Department of Energy.  Some states have mandated that no new construction can include them; some cities have mandated that perfectly functional existing appliances be ripped out and replaced with electric.

Walz signs recreational marijuana bill into law.  Possibly the most talked about bill during this year's legislative session, the recreational marijuana bill, was signed into law on Tuesday [5/30/2023].  Joined by state lawmakers and other advocates, including former Gov. Jesse Ventura, Gov. Tim Walz signed the legislation during a ceremony at the State Capitol to make Minnesota the 23rd state to legalize recreational marijuana.  "Jimi Hendrix is looking down on Minnesota smiling today," Ventura said while pumping his fist.

Michigan GOP Blasts Dems' Proposal To Give Most Violent Convicts Chance For Reduced Sentences.  Convicted felons in Michigan, including most murderers and sexual offenders, could have a better chance of returning to society if Democrats get their way.  A package of legislation introduced last week by Democrat state Rep. Kara Hope aims to amend Michigan's penal code to allow nearly every criminal to petition for a reduced sentence after serving 10 years behind bars.  Michigan Republicans, led by House Minority Leader Matt Hall, blasted the Democrat-sponsored legislation, arguing that it prioritizes criminals above victims.  "The Democrats make these conversations largely about these criminals and how unfair the criminal justice system is," Hall, who represents areas around Kalamazoo, told The Daily Wire in a phone interview Friday.  "And what we're trying to do is make sure the voices of the victims are heard."

How to Destroy a People.  Wokeness is not about "rights" — it is about favoritism on a colossal scale.  It is about transforming America into a Marxist totalitarian state based on a coalition of groups antagonistic to traditional American identity.  And so, ultimately, it is about destroying America as we have known it for over 200 years.  The special consideration that these groups demand comes at the expense of ordinary citizens — those decent, hardworking, family-oriented citizens who now find themselves forced to the back of the bus.  Ordinary Americans pay the higher taxes necessary to fund the privileges that marginal groups now claim; ordinary folks are expected to nod in agreement as their children are subjected to woke brainwashing; ordinary people are told they must swallow the idea that the needs of homosexuals, transgenders, transvestites, criminals, illegal aliens, environmentalist radicals, communists, atheists, and anarchists come first — in education, hiring, culture, politics, and the news.  There is little space or funding left for everyday Americans, who are told that they are less important and "outdated" and even "hate-filled" just because of their noble beliefs in Christianity, self-responsibility, decency, and goodness.

In the Fight for America, We Hold the High Ground.  The radicals have infiltrated virtually all of our institutions.  But Americans who identify as "liberal" — the 21st-century codename for communists — are only 25 percent of the population according to Gallup.  As our institutions have become increasingly radical, confidence in them has collapsed.  With the loss of confidence, they are also losing their effectiveness.  The 75 percent are having their say in the matter.  Our enemies can't win ideologically, either.  Instead, they've tried to stifle debate.  But Biden's plan to govern disinformation crashed and burned.  The DOJ's attempt to censor dissenting opinions has been exposed as a major scandal, which may even threaten the existence of the FBI. [...] The radicals can't win elections, either.  Instead, they tried to institutionalize election fraud.  Their push to nationalize elections with H.R. 1 — the For the People Act — would have taken control away from the states.  The legislation failed to pass.  Even many of the rule changes that enabled the 2020 shenanigans have since been found unconstitutional.

The military is lying to you, of course.  Both Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and General Milley, Chair of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, insist that the Department of Defense neither funds nor supports drag queen story hours on military bases.  That was and remains a lie.  When presented with the evidence in a Congressional hearing Austin repeated the lie, even when confronted by incontrovertible evidence that he was spreading falsehoods.  He lied.  Then he lied again.  And again.  I have no idea if he was under oath, but it shouldn't matter.  Lying to Congress and the American people is unacceptable, except when a Democrat is in the White House.  Then it is apparently mandatory.  [Tweet]

The Corruption of Climate Science.  It is no exaggeration that every major institution in America has now committed itself to the elimination of affordable and abundant energy.  If it isn't stopped, this commitment, motivated by misguided concern for the planet but also by a lust for power and money and enabled by moral cowardice and intellectual negligence, will destroy Western civilization.  For over 50 years, with increasing frequency, corrupted, careerist scientists have produced biased studies that, amplified by agenda-driven corporate and political special interests, constitute a "consensus" that is supposedly "beyond debate."  We are in a "climate crisis."  To cope with this climate emergency, all measures are justifiable.  This is overblown, one-sided, distorted, and manipulative propaganda.  It is the language of authoritarians and corporatists bent on achieving even more centralized political power and economic wealth.  It is a scam, perhaps the most audacious, all-encompassing fraud in human history.

The Biden admin, with the help of the complicit media, sure pretends a lot.  Incompetence runs deep in the Biden administration.
  •   They didn't seem to prepare for the disaster in Afghanistan.
  •   They didn't control the border.
  •   They also couldn't control inflation and don't seem to have a clue on what causes it (hint, massive regulations and their destructive energy policies).
  •   And they couldn't even keep baby formula on the shelves or valuable drugs in the pharmacies.
But we are supposed to believe that these people can control temperatures, sea levels, and storm activity forever if we just give them trillions of dollars and allow them to destroy industries that use natural resources.  Everything in the Biden administration seems to involve endlessly offering talking points, which the media gladly regurgitates without doing research or asking questions.  Facts haven't mattered for a long time.

The Truth About Diversity and the Terrifying Reason the Commie Left Is Pushing It.  Anything being pushed by globalists — especially the evil commie clowns at the World Economic Forum (WEF) — requires a closer look.  So, I thought I'd look into their dedication to diversity, equity, and inclusivity (DEI) which they've been hell-bent on gavaging down our throats.  It wasn't long before I stumbled upon a study from 2000 by a political science professor from Harvard named Robert Putnam.  Putnam, a liberal, has spent much of his career studying the reality of diversity.  What he has found, again and again, doesn't bode well for the apparatchiks, snowflakes, and prairie fairies preaching the supposed benefits of all things DEI.  We've been led to believe that our differences are our strengths, but Putnam's findings tell us quite the opposite.  He interviewed 30,000 people, and the results were staggering.

Medicare For All: This Idea Has To End.  Sen. Bernie Sanders is still promoting Medicare for All to "solve" several problems with the current health care system.  What are those problems?  Cost and access are the top two.  Advocates for socialized medicine schemes like Medicare for All get both wrong.  Typical framing of the cost issue shows U.S. healthcare spending relative to gross domestic product (GDP).  But, health care spending should be divided by household disposable income, which is the amount of income available to spend after taxes.  The U.S. ranks no. 1 in household disposable income in the world, and leads 2nd place by more than 20%.  Gross domestic product, in contrast, is a measure of the productivity of the economy rather than of income.  On a per-capita basis, the U.S. typically ranks between 10th and 15th place in the world, and trails countries like Luxembourg, Ireland, and Monaco (which has a per-capita GDP that is more than three times the U.S.)  Clearly, GDP is an antiquated measure developed shortly after WWII that doesn't reflect reality.

The Left's Systematic Slandering of the Police.  After the May 25, 2020 death of George Floyd, a Black man, in the custody of Minneapolis Police, many Democrats, including Joe Biden, have said the police are systematically racist.  San Francisco Democrat Mayor London Breed, Democrat "squad" member Rep. Cori Bush and others have called to defund them.  Their reasoning, so to speak, is that since some police officers rarely kill an unarmed Black man, the entire institution is "systematically racist" (the expression of choice by the Democrat party and their stenographers in what remains of our "news" media), it is necessary to defund the police.  Inferring from a few cases to a conclusion about an entire institution used to be called "the fallacy of hasty generalization" in university critical reasoning courses, but the lack of any good arguments for the Left's talking point has required their use of this fallacy in recent years.

Neil Oliver: There's nothing green about the green agenda; It's all a scam.  [Video clip.]

House Votes Against EPA Truck Emissions Rule, Setting Up Biden Veto.  The House voted on May 23 to overturn the Biden administration's rule on heavy-duty vehicles' tailpipe emissions, the latest knock against the president's environmental agenda in a closely divided Congress and the forerunner to an expected Biden veto.  The short piece of legislation would roll back a rule submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for trucks in December 2022.  The rule, which can be read here, "sets stronger emissions standards to further reduce air pollution, including pollutants that create ozone and particulate matter, from heavy-duty vehicles and engines starting in model year 2027," according to the EPA.  Heavy-duty vehicles are those with a gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) above 8,500 pounds.  Heavier light-duty pickup trucks such as the Ford F-250 and the Chevy Silverado 2500 have GVWRs that top out above that, as do even heavier pickups like the Ford F-350.

On global warming, so many problems with the data.  Here are some of the destructive policies of the radical greenies that are based on predictions, not scientific data:  The destruction of energy-producing companies that produce reasonably priced energy. (They clearly don't care about the harm to the poor and middle class by high inflation).  The promotion of the highly flammable pollutant lithium while seeking to control CO2, a non-pollutant, clear gas, that makes plants grow and allows the world to be fed.  Spending trillions on carbon capture.  Selling worthless carbon credits so people like John Kerry can pretend they care as they fly in their private jets.  Outlawing gas stoves, furnaces, lawn mowers, leaf blowers, and gas grills.  The destruction of fishing and killing of whales by wind farms.  Environmentalists claim to worry about landfills and pollution so where are they going to put all the gas- powered equipment which will be worthless when the wind turbines wear out?  Why should anyone trust the same people who did the following when they said they could control temperatures, sea levels, and storm activity, if we just hand over trillions, and give up our freedom and quality of life?

Biden admin announces 'historic' plan to reduce western states' water supply.  The Biden administration announced Monday that seven western states had reached an agreement to conserve critical Colorado River system water supplies amid severe drought conditions.  The agreement — reached by the so-called Lower Basin states of Arizona, California and Nevada — ensures that at least 3 million acre-feet (maf), or 978 billion gallons, of Colorado River water supplies are conserved by 2027, according to the Department of the Interior (DOI) which has worked with states to address shortages.  Under the plan, at least half of that amount will be conserved by 2025.  "There are 40 million people, seven states, and 30 Tribal Nations who rely on the Colorado River Basin for basic services such as drinking water and electricity," Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement Monday.

Nebraska senator flips out debating ban on sex change surgeries for minors, screams 'we need trans people'.  A Friday morning session in the unicameral Nebraska legislature devolved into chaos after one Democratic lawmaker began shouting her support for transgender people amid a debate on a bill to ban sex change procedures for minors in the state.  The bill, which was ultimately approved by lawmakers and sent to Republican Gov. Jim Pillen's desk to become law, bans sex change procedures for minors, as well as abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy.  In voicing her disapproval to the measure Friday morning, state Democrat Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh slapped the lectern and repeatedly shouted: "Transgender people belong here, we need trans people, we love trans people."

Let's Call Them What They Are: Communists.  A "liberal" is someone who stands for liberty.  That is literally the opposite of what our "liberals" stand for.  They use cancelation and censorship to quiet disagreements.  They distort the law to crush dissent.  They use moral relativism to break our sense of right and wrong.  They don't deliver liberty.  They deliver oppression and corruption.  "Progressive" doesn't work much better.  A progressive is supposed to be a person who values progress.  But those operating under the progressive banner have
  •   created conflict in the name of social justice,
  •   destroyed our prosperity in pursuit of ecological justice, and
  •   used wildly out-of-control spending to buy our way out of problems that actually require human development.
In the name of "progress," they have delivered social strife, criminal chaos, and economic collapse.  They haven't delivered progress — only regression. [...] "Democracy" has nothing to do with what Democrats promote.  None of those labels adequately describes those who are actively working to undermine America's founding principles.  Let's stop denying the threat and call them what they are:  communists.

What Is Wrong With These People?  Imagine literally being upset about your state government preventing you from physically removing the genitals from your minor child.  It's difficult to do, I know, because the very idea of butchering the body of a child is foreign to you, but there are a lot of people wildly upset by just that idea.  Just as there is a slice of the public, small as it is, demanding Bud Light completely destroys itself in the name of "tolerance." Then there are the wealthy white liberals who, as if it were a sexual fetish of theirs, demand they and their children, and by extension everyone's children, be indoctrinated into the idea that they are responsible for things done by people who aren't them that happened long before they were born.  You really have to wonder what [...] is wrong with these people.

Eight Disturbing Similarities between the Democrat and Nazi Parties.  The overarching philosophy of both Democrats and Nazis is centralized control.  The individualists on the pro-freedom side of the political spectrum favor liberty and limited government.  The collectivists of the anti-liberty side of the political spectrum favor control and unlimited government.  This can easily be seen in the Democrat's obsession with controlling not only basic liberties, but also gas stoves, dishwashers, and air-conditioners.

The Editor says...
And low-flow shower heads, and one-gallon toilets, and 50-mpg cars, and fluorescent lightbulbs.

Democrats Are The Brainless Party.  The policies being pushed by the party aren't just brainless, they're dangerous.  Rep. Cori Bush, D-Missouri, this week introduced a Reparations Now Resolution that would provide $14 trillion in funds to descendants of American slaves.  "What we're talking about is freedom and equity and calling on this country to acknowledge the harm that it has inflicted," Bush said.  Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., tweeted in support of the bill saying:  "Reparations means equity.  Reparations means justice.  Reparations means dismantling the systems that have kept us marginalized."  Aside from the impossibility of figuring out how to divide the spoils, to say nothing of raising the money, a reparations bill would be massively divisive, given that 68% of Americans oppose it, including 58% of Hispanics and 65% of Asians.  Just 48% of rank-and-file Democrats back reparations.

The Editor says...
Representative Barbara Lee has been in the U.S. Congress for 25 years, yet she claims there are "systems that have kept us marginalized."  Cry on Oprah Winfrey's shoulder.

Karine Jean-Pierre slams bans on trans treatment for minors: 'These are our kids, they belong to all of us'.  While appearing at the 34th annual GLAAD Media Awards over the weekend, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre insisted that trans kids are "our kids" and "belong to all of us" in response to what she called "anti-LGBTQ+ legislation."  Speaking with the website Jezebel at the event on Saturday, Jean-Pierre, who identifies as "queer," talked about the importance of representation and visibility for young people.  She also insisted that there needed to be more moments to "call out" Republican legislation for the sake of trans children.  "There are more than 600 pieces of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation out there.  A few hundred of them are anti-trans community, and that matters because we have to call that out.  And we've never seen this level.  It's historic in the number of pieces of legislation," she said.

Disturbing Democrat Trans Cult Thinks It Owns Your Children.  Despite the very public pushback against them in recent years, the predatory Democrat Trans Cult is still in full force, mobilized, and coming for your children.  These people are relentless and operating under the mistaken impression that they're compassionate.  The coastal bubble Dems are all on board with the push to normalize conversations about sexuality between 8-year-olds and any random adults they interact with during the day at school.  In their telling of the story, every other third-grader in America is trapped in the wrong body and agonizing to be liberated by a compassionate public educator.  This is just one more thing that was made worse by the evil touch of Hillary Clinton.  Ever since Granny Maojackets published It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us back in the '90s, Democrats have felt justified in claiming that parents really can't handle raising their own children and that such things should be left up to the nation's teachers.

Chicago, RIP.  Electing Lori Lightfoot as Mayor of Chicago was the beginning of the end for that city.  Replacing her with someone even more far left is accelerating Chicago's terminal decline.  Tom Bevan notes that the death throes are under way:  [Tweet]  The stupidity is hard to fathom.  A "head tax" on employees means less employment.  The tax on jet fuel will fall, I suppose, on all who fly into or out of O'Hare or Midway airport — yet another reason to avoid the city.  A 3.5% income tax that goes all the way down to $100,000 in income is suicidal.  I have no idea how the city plans to implement a "wealth tax," but it sounds as though a household with a net worth of just $1 million would pay another $4,000 a year.  And the transaction fee will drive banking and investment firms out of the city.  In short, the plan, if enacted, will be a disaster.

Sen. Markey introduces bill to pack Supreme Court, claims two Justices 'have no right to be there'.  Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey introduced a bill to pack the Supreme Court on Tuesday, claiming during a press conference on the legislation that Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett have "no right" to be on the Court.  Markey's Judiciary Act of 2023, which pro-abortion groups Planned Parenthood and NARAL Pro-Choice America endorsed, would add four seats to the Supreme Court.  During his press conference on the Supreme Court steps, Markey called for Justice Clarence Thomas to resign and claimed that two justices have "no right to be there."  "In 2016, Senate Republicans broke the rules and packed the court," Markey said.  "In 2020, Donald Trump helped them to break the rules again."  Republicans refused to confirm Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court in 2016. After former President Donald Trump took office, Republicans confirmed Gorsuch in 2017.  After Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died, Republicans confirmed Barrett in October 2020.

Is Sanity Returning?  I'm referring to the firestorm rejection consumers are giving to Anheuser-Busch (AB), specifically to buying and drinking Bud Lite. [...] AB's executives, Hollywood celebs, academia, TV networks, Big Media, Big Tech, most large corporations, and most government agencies have collectively decided they know what's best for you, know exactly what you need, and have proceeded to shove it down our throats while forcing their political insanity onto society.  You must hate President Trump — Check; every TV network and celebrity continually echoes that mantra.  We will teach racist ideology to your children, and you'll learn to love it — Check; Democrat-controlled school boards cram Critical Race Theory (CRT) into every school curriculum.  Demand gun control/gun confiscation — Check; every mass-shooting is not because the shooter is deranged or mentally ill; no, it's the gun's fault and Dems demand guns be confiscated.  Americans must have and support open borders to flood the country with illegals and change the voter base — Check; Biden and Dems have refused to control the border, resulting in five million (but who's counting) illegals in slightly over two years (thanks, Joe).  America needs a weakened military more focused on White rage than defeating our enemies — Check; all service branches are struggling to recruit new members.  So, given the large numbers of idiotic, woke businesses and lunatic government/military agendas, Anheuser-Busch managed to outstupid them all.  AB used a girly-man transgender to advertise Bud Lite (BL) to the average working man.

Something wicked this way comes.  [Scroll down]  What are we looking at?  Whatever its long-term provenance going back decades, the movement we are dealing with now starts with Obama.  In the 2008 campaign, Obama said the objective of his administration would be to "fundamentally transform" America.  I, and I suspect a lot of others, thought this was just political blather.  Not hardly.  But there is a problem with this objective.  To achieve it, you have to plow through the Constitution.  Obama didn't plan to do that by amendments but by stoking racial animosity.  Something important happened with the death (ruled to be murder) of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020, for which police officer Derek Chauvin has been convicted and sentenced to 22.5 years.  (Given the plethora of relevant details around the case, a different judgment is imaginable.)  It effectively launched the Defund the Police movement.

Congressional Counter-Offensive.  This summer, Congress will pass 12 separate bills to fund federal government programs in fiscal year 2024.  In anticipation of that process, the Anti-Woke Caucus combed through all 12 of the bills that passed the then-Democratic controlled appropriations subcommittees in 2022 to identify woke funding requests.  As we say in the Navy, it was a target rich environment.  Speaker Pelosi's Democratic majority asked for $200 million for programs dedicated to increasing race-based hiring and recruitment in STEM; $200 million for the Department of State's Gender Equity and Equality Action Fund; $8.6 million for gender advisor programs at the Department of Defense; ICE to detain transgender illegal aliens only at facilities with staff who have received LGBTQ sensitivity and awareness training and medical personnel who have experience delivering hormone therapies; $108 million for environmental justice activities through the Department of the Interior and Environmental Protection Agency; the Army Corps of Engineers to prioritize projects that provide opportunities based on race; and the Department of Veterans Affairs to establish a program to combat "online misinformation" and "extremism."

The age of manufactured crises.  This week, with the eclipsing of Title 42, the U.S. southern border has gone from a hot mess to a full-blown emergency.  We were pushed into the conflict with Ukraine and Russia as well.  Before that was the debacle in Afghanistan.  Our leaders killed drilling for oil and terminated pipeline projects which led to elevated gas prices and fueled inflation.  If inflation was a concern, you'd never notice it from our leaders.  They pumped trillions of dollars into the economy to make inflation worse (and had the gall to call it an Inflation Reduction Act.)  Even when there isn't a crisis, the current administration creates one.  For example, claiming gun violence and trans-oppression are national emergencies.  You can almost hear them, "Let's make loans easier for people with bad credit ratings," which is destined to ignite a housing crisis down the road.  If that isn't enough, looming on the horizon is a Taiwan crisis, the Sudan, and perhaps an incident or two with North Korea.  Rather than get in front of an issue and calm it, actions are taken (or not taken) to ensure that problems are allowed to fester and explode.

Chefs join nationwide pushback against gas stove bans.  World-renowned chef José Andrés is trying to open his first Bay Area eatery but appears ready to quit the effort if officials in the city of Palo Alto don't allow the use of natural gas at the proposed site.  Andrés's position was revealed in an April 28 letter to the city from the attorney for the shopping center that has a deal to bring in the chef's new Zaytinya restaurant.  "Some of its more conventional cooking equipment can be made electric, but other unique pieces of gas-fired equipment critical for Zaytinya's success do not have electrically powered equivalents," the letter reads.  "Without a gas connection and appliances, Zaytinya would be forced to alter its signature five-star reputation and ... will likely choose not to locate within the city."  The controversy started in January after the chairman of the Federal Consumer Safety Products Commission, Richard Trumka Jr., said gas stoves posed a "hidden hazard" and suggested the agency could ban them.

Liberals sure like dead black men.  We are a nation led by a party that is bent on destruction.  On the West Coast, Democrats are destroying dams in the name of nature.  Elsewhere, they are destroying nuclear plants in the name of safety.  They are destroying coal plants in the name of global warming.  They are destroying sections of interstates in the name of racism.  Black men kill black men by the thousand each year.  Liberals ignore those actual murders.  Instead, they turn the media spotlight on the very rare occasion when a black man dies at the hands of a white person.  The murkier the details, the louder liberals screech.  Liberals are playing America.  When President Obama said if he had a son he would look like Trayvon Martin, he created this monster we still grapple nearly a decade later.  Martin was beating George Zimmerman's head against a sidewalk when the victim pulled his gun and killed his assailant.  The death of another teen thug, Michael D. Brown, gave libs an excuse to destroy Ferguson, Missouri, a quiet suburb that black people used to escape St. Louis.  The list goes on, ending in the overdose death of George Floyd while in police custody.  Liberals used their rationalization to destroy cities.

The government doesn't want to talk about your actual concerns.  Gallup periodically asks Americans to declare what they think is "the most important problem facing the country today."  Rather than offering multiple choice answers, they leave it open for respondents to say whatever they like, matching the answers to a number of related categories. [...] ["]The single most common answer was "the government," or "poor leadership," at 18 percent.  Fourteen percent said the economy in general, and 9 percent said inflation or high cost of living.["] [...] Keep that list in mind and consider what news stories are generating the most buzz in the media.  Then consider what the President and congressional leaders are spending their time talking about.  We are repeatedly assured that some sort of "transgender genocide" is going on and we should all be fighting about transgender issues. [...] We're told that the country simply can't move forward without addressing systemic racism and reparations.

Collateral Damage.  The media and every leftist lunatic will claim that failing to pass a debt limit increase will cause the loss of the dollar as the world reserve currency.  This is a flat-out lie.  That boat has already sailed.  What do you think de-dollarization is?  De-dollarization is caused by massive overspending resulting in the need to print, or inject more dollars, even unbacked by Treasuries, in order to have the cash on hand to spend on luxuries like the Green New Deal, transgender surgeries, electric car incentives, wind and solar incentives, the de-oilization of our power grid etc., and other nations recognize it as irresponsible and reckless so they're getting away from the dollar before they're wrapped up in the collateral damage of its implosion.  The media and politicians will tell you that you need to raise the debt limit to avoid defaulting on our obligations.  That's a lie.  The government raises enough cash through taxes to pay for Social Security (paid for by workers over the course of their lives) Medicare and Medicaid.  It raises enough money to pay the interest on the debt, currently about $1 trillion.  So there would be no default, whether the debt limit is increased or not.  What would not be paid for is a great deal of discretionary spending and some tough choices would have to be made.

Janet Yellen: we have to risk default to build windmills.  At least Janet Yellen is upfront about the Biden Administration's priorities. [...] They truly believe that spending a few billion more on worthless clean energy projects is worth wrecking the US economy, or at least that the American people might think so.  I'm pretty sure that argument isn't going to fly outside the confines of an Antifa meeting or a faculty lounge discussion.  They are about the only people who think that a few more solar panels and windmills are worth blowing up the US economy.

Today It's Your Gas Stove, Tomorrow It's Your Dishwasher.  "Don't worry about the dishwasher," our host told us as we checked out the house where my wife and I were staying in the south of France several years ago.  "It's more than two years old."  I had no idea why I needed to worry about this or any other dishwasher, but I was about to find out. [...] Here's where Presidentish Joe Biden steps up to say: You ain't seen nothin' yet, Jacque.  In yet another notorious Friday afternoon news dump, Biden's Department of Energy proposed new efficiency rules for dishwashers sold in the U.S.  If the proposed regulations go into effect — and there's no doubt that the enviro-cabal running the White House is in favor — water use would be reduced by a third on some standard-sized machines, and energy use would be reduced by more than a quarter.  Consumers already complain that machines that have been made since Obama-era restrictions went into effect a decade ago already don't properly clean or dry dishes.  In the future, they'll have even less water and energy to work with.

Count the parallels:
The Impending Thermidor Reaction in Jacobin America.  The decade-long French Revolution that broke out in 1789 soon devolved into far more than removing the monarchy, as it became antithetical to the earlier American precedent.  American notions of liberty and freedom were seen as far too narrow, given the state, if only all-powerful and all-wise, could mandate "equality" and force "fraternity" among its subjects. [...] Jacobins sought to wipe out religion, both materially and spiritually.  They replaced God, first, with the atheistic "Cult of Reason" and then a stranger still "Cult of the Supreme Being" — a dreamed-up, living, humanistic god that only the murderous Robespierre could fully envision, but eerily similar to our own Green New Deal deity.  The months of the year themselves were renamed, the days of the week renumbered and relabeled.  Statues were toppled, first at night, later in shameless daylight.  Place names were erased and renamed.  The original revolutionary heroes were not to be mentioned; their uncouth successors deified.  Money was printed to "spread the wealth" — until it was worthless.

We should talk about just how bad the RESTRICT Act is.  Back in 2001, like many other people I foolishly bought into the idea of the USA Patriot Act.  After all, we had just suffered the worst terrorist attack in history and we had to go after the bad guys, right?  Of course, since that time we've seen the government and our own intelligence agencies spying on regular Americans more than any alleged ISIS sleeper cells.  Now the government is brewing up a new plan supposedly in response to threats posed by China through back-door data breaches using the TikTok video app.  It's called the RESTRICT Act and it is unfortunately drawing bipartisan support in the Senate.  But much like its predecessor, this bill would open the door to vastly expanded executive branch powers and unprecedented levels of control of both financial activity and people's personal data.

[The] Biden Administration [is] waging [a] pointless war on our comfort in the name of climate.  Looking forward to using your air-conditioning this summer to keep you from misery and lack of sleep?  Well, you might have some issues.  You see, the Biden administration has declared war on comfort.  It's not just gas stoves, leaf blowers, and lawnmowers the Biden-ites are coming for.  No siree.  They are also bound and determined to eventually make air-conditioning prohibitively expensive for all but their coastal elite friends and allies.  New Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations are limiting supplies of freon and other refrigerants, because they are allegedly contributors to "climate change."  The new production quotas have driven up the price of these refrigerants by about 300%, meaning that a recharge may cost $100 to $500 more than before these regulations took effect, depending on how much replacement refrigerant is needed.  But wait, there's more!  The coolant quotas get even more stringent next year.

The RESTRICT Act Gives Up Nearly All Notions of Checks and Balances.  Just like snake oil salesmen of the past, these Senators may talk a good game, but their antidote is far worse than any purported affliction.  To address our nation's hysteria over dance videos, more than twenty Senators, both Republican and Democrat, support the RESTRICT Act.  They tell us that this bill will help rein in the dastardly threat that comes from the Chinese government supposedly spying on silly videos made by American teenagers.  Instead, it bestows an astonishing amount of power to the Executive branch in a manner that the Chinese Communist Party would approve of.  As Tucker Carlson correctly observed, "this is not an effort to push back against China.  It's part of a strategy to make America much more like China."

There are never enough regulations for progressives.  Bernie Sanders now wants a minimum wage of $17 per hour and a 32-hour work week. [...] The goal of Democrats for decades seems to be making more people dependent on the government instead of having a goal to make more people independent and giving them the opportunity to move up the economic ladder.  A huge problem is that members of Congress haven't worked even an average of 32 hours a week for a long time, so they live in an alternative universe.  Five of the richest ten counties in the United States are around Washington, D.C., where they produce nothing but more bureaucracy for the rest of us, but there is never enough.  The question is, when will the politicians and bureaucrats ever think they have confiscated more than their fair share?  The answer is never.

Beware the Globalist 'One Health' Propaganda Merging Pandemic and Climate 'Emergencies'.  First UNICEF, followed by GAVI, the WHO, the UN, the Council of Europe, the BMJ, the Guardian, the Financial Times, Save the Children and now the Labour Party have all told you:  "No one is safe until everyone is safe."  This slogan is designed to garner ideals of equity and togetherness and induce a warm, fuzzy feeling whilst in actual fact it is cold and calculating.  The ultimate purpose of this slogan is to diminish the range of your thought and to perpetuate the state of emergency.  Its teaching is a top-down imposition with no grounding in reality, amplified with mantra-like repetition by many (seemingly) independent voices until it is no longer questioned by the masses.  This is an insidious form of indoctrination.  The techniques employed by these sloganeers are not new and echo those of totalitarian regimes.  Unless we are able to comprehend the power of this manipulation then we cannot safeguard ourselves from the danger that it poses.

Why do liberals support legislation that obviously harms them?  A large percentage of liberal voters seems to have no objection to raising taxes, even when they themselves are the target.  These voters are, in fact, socialists who believe that Big Government can solve every problem if only it has enough money to do so.  These voters don't understand, or don't care, that government spending translates into higher inflation.  They believe Biden's lies — that the economy is improving, that there is no inflation, that America is more secure, that gas-powered engines must soon be eliminated, that there is no border crisis, that 57,000 new IRS agents will make life better for everyone.

The New Ugly Americans.  The Biden Administration in January 2022 stopped the EastMed pipeline.  That joint effort of our allies Cyprus, Greece, and Israel sought to bring much needed clean-burning Mediterranean natural gas to southern Europe.  Apparently, our diplomats felt it violated our own New Green Deal orthodoxies.  So we imperialists interfered to destroy a vital project of our closest allies.

The war on gas stoves is a war on all natural gas.  Remember when we were assured that there is no war on natural gas stoves?  That was always a lie, of course.  But it is bigger than just stoves.  New York is banning all natural gas connections in new construction.  [Tweet]  Maybe when the Democrats and their MSM allies assured that gas stoves weren't in the crosshairs they actually meant that not only gas stoves were going to be banned.  Natural gas appliances of all types are going the way of the dinosaur.

Biden to Spend $500K Teaching 'Professional Skills' to Trans Kids in Pakistan.  Decades hence, when historians are seeking the exact moment when relations between the West and the Muslim world turned the corner to become a model of trust and mutual respect, they will land on the day the Biden administration reached out to help "Transgender Youth" in Pakistan.  No, really.  There are trans kids in Pakistan, and they need "professional development."  And now our far-sighted administration is offering a $500,000 grant to teach Pakistani kids English.  One of the conditions of the grant is that the recipient provides "intensive professional development courses for Pakistani transgender youth."

Minnesota Democrat Signs Bill Banning Free Speech For Therapists Of People Struggling With Sexual Distress.  Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz signed a bill on April 27 that bans private conversations between therapists and patients struggling with their sex and sexuality.  Now Minnesotan therapists who help those with gender dysphoria accept their sex and those with unwanted same-sex attraction are banned from helping willing clients with these struggles.  HF 16 bans these private, uncoerced conversations as illegal "conversion therapy" for children and adults despite studies suggesting such conversations can be helpful and welcomed.  "No child will be subjected to this outdated, Byzantine, and cruel practice of conversion therapy," Walz announced during the signing.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland Testifies It's Better to Get Rid of Jobs in USA, Live in Poverty and Save the Planet.  Around 15 years ago CTH outlined the inclusive goal of the progressive movement, modern Democrats as they were evolving, was to deconstruct the U.S. economic system so that Americans would be forced to live in government-controlled poverty.  Essentially reduced to circling a campfire, eating sustainable algae cakes and picking parasites off our family members.  Most people understandably scoffed and said we were being hyperbolic.  However, what we were highlighting was the natural conclusion of a visible ideology and set of policies.  The modern democrat ideology is based on a worldview that feudalism is superior, and Democrats are elite in their global magnanimity (defined as their virtuous self image).  Fast forward a decade+ later, and there is Joe Biden's Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, explaining why it is better for the health of the planet if Americans lose their jobs, lose their economic sustainability, starve in feudal poverty, as the virtuous government ships all the dirty jobs to China and retains their clean pro-climate agenda.  In Haaland's defense, it should be noted that this has been the policy of Canada for quite a while.

The Editor says...
Before you wreck the U.S. economy to "save the planet," I have a few questions:  How do you know your actions will prevent anything?  How do you know climate change isn't inevitable?  How do you know carbon dioxide is harmful?  How many environmental disaster predictions have come to pass in the last 50 years?  Shouldn't the primary goal of the Executive Branch be to assure that the United States thrives even when no other country does?

The Disposable Biden.  By any national metric, we're all far worse off now than we were before Biden stumbled through the doors of the Oval Office like a lobotomized polio victim.  His "stiff gait" is an indicator of serious neurological decline which has become a brand of sorts.  It's Biden's version of Trump's rambunctious mane.  But, instead of signaling a raucous virility, Biden's halting and unbalanced gate communicates fundamental weakness and morbidity.  The leader of the free world?  How about sock puppet? [...] Our institutions have been poisoned by feckless, political appointees.  But, the watershed moment in deep state corruption manifested itself when Barack Obama sauntered into the White House, and Karl Marx followed with him.  Every apparatus of deep state power fell under the full control of left wing radicals, installed by the Obama administration — a phalanx of unelected officials that still occupy key positions today.

Democrats are threatening to remove security funding for Supreme Court.  Even I underestimate the willingness of the Democrats to use the threat of violence to force compliance with their demands.  According to both Senators Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley, 15 Democrats from the Judiciary Committee have sent a letter to the Appropriations Committee asking that funding for the security that defends the lives of the Supreme Court Justices and their families be denied until the Court buckles to the demands of the Democrats.  [Tweet]

Josh Hawley Gets Deb Haaland to Admit 'Quiet Part out Loud' During Energy Committee Hearing.  With both Sens. Ted Cruz (Texas) and John Kennedy (La.) doing their respective parts to expose the rotten nature of the Biden White House and Congressional Democrats on the issue of targeting conservative Supreme Court Justices for blatantly partisan reasons, it only seems fitting that we close out the day with a pretty epic takedown from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).  In Hawley's case, the scene was a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing held Tuesday [5/2/2023] "to examine the President's budget request for the U.S. Department of the Interior for Fiscal Year 2024."  Deb Haaland, in her role as Joe Bidens Sec. of the Interior, was there to defend her department's budget requests, which include billions for addressing an allegedly "profound climate crisis that is rapidly changing how we consider the future, evaluate risk, and protect resources."

USA Today Is Coming for Your 'Pollution'-Spewing Lawn Mower.  The liberal newspaper doom mongered how "[g]as leaf blowers and lawn mowers are shockingly bad for the planet" and praised how "[b]ans are beginning to spread."  USA Today immediately kicked off its nutty April 30 climate agitprop by making it seem like the fight against lawnmowers was a noble crusade against Thanos' minions in Marvel's Avengers: Endgame (2019):  "Your lawn may be the next climate change battleground.  And parks.  And playgrounds."  The newspaper ludicrously propagandized that "[r]egulators and clean-air advocates are increasingly eyeing the pollution emitted by small gasoline engines used to power lawn mowers and leaf blowers as they seek to blunt climate change."  The newspaper apparently found this nonstory so important that it plastered the item on the front page of its May 1 print edition.

Gas leaf blowers and lawn mowers are shockingly bad for the planet.  Regulators and clean-air advocates are increasingly eyeing the pollution emitted by small gasoline engines used to power lawn mowers and leaf blowers as they seek to blunt climate change.  Environmentalists say using a commercial gas leaf blower for an hour produces emissions equal to driving from Denver to Los Angeles.

The Editor says...
[#1] The last sentence in the excerpt above is (ahem) rather hard to believe.  Driving from Denver to Los Angeles takes about 15 hours.  The engine in an automobile is roughly 50 to 100 times as big (in piston displacement) as the engine in a leaf blower.  [#2] Environmental activists and nanny-state regulators are concentrating on leaf blower and lawn mowers in a effort to slow down "climate change," which is a process that's already so slow that nobody can tell it's happening.  (It's also incurable and inevitable.)  Moreover, any battle against leaf blowers is a waste of time because carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, and China is burning coal faster than all other countries combined.  That's a lot of combustion, and nothing done in the U.S. will stop it.

USA Today Is Coming for Your 'Pollution'-Spewing Lawn Mower — Claims 'a commercial gas leaf blower' produces emissions 'equal to driving from Denver to Los Angeles'.  "Here we go again," Climate Depot Founder Marc Morano said in comments to MRC Business.  "Every day Americans wake up to find that some new unelected bureaucracy or bureaucrat has determined that in order to save the planet, a major modern tool or convenience is going to be banned."  Morano blasted USA Today for pushing woke, eco agitprop:  "Forcing Americans to pay three times higher for electric equipment in order to save the planet and meet climate goals — is unacceptable."  All Americans need to know about these restrictions, said JunkScience.com founder Steve Milloy, is that "the government can still use gas-powered blowers but residents and their lawn care companies can't.  It's obviously not about air quality."  Rather, Milloy stated, "it's about left-wing government asserting more and more mindless control over our lives.  Even if it was true that gas-powered lawn equipment somehow affected air quality or were too noisy, I'd rather suffer that than rogue government."

It Takes a Village?  Hillary's famous book title may have some truth to it in that a village is a close-knit tiny community where everyone knows everyone and has a stake in each other's well-being.  But Hillary wasn't talking about a village; she was talking about huge, faceless, unaccountable government bureaucracies.  Now we have a president — or maybe half a president — who recently said, "Our nation's children are all our children."  Really?  Our children belong to their radical left-wing teachers?  Biden quoted one such teacher saying, "There's no such thing as someone else's children."  So, our children belong to the pedophiles among us?  Do they belong to the greedy plastic surgeons?  Do they belong to the drug dealers and the pharmaceutical companies?  Do they belong to school boards and bureaucrats and school counsellors?

Shut Down the Border or Shut Down Democrat Cities.  The Mayor of New York City can regularly be heard complaining about the strain placed on his city by the flood of illegal aliens shipped to the sanctuary city by red state Governors.  Now the city of Chicago is joining the chorus of Democrat-run localities that advocate for open borders that are now choking on their wish.  While it's fun to watch, it is damaging to America.  As such, it's time to shut down the border until those charged with securing it can put a plan in place to actually do just that.  Honestly, the Biden administration had no intention of securing the border.  Flooding the country with illegal aliens straining state and local budgets is part of the plan — you can't "fundamentally transform" something working, there'd be no point or appetite for it.  Democrats need to overwhelm people and governments, as well as completely crumble the current system in order to sell people on the idea that something "new" is needed.  Of course, that "new" is the old tropes and policies leftists have been imposing and failing at for more than a century, but you can't create a hellish Utopia without breaking a few eggs (or killing 100 million people, as the case may be).  That plan to transform the United States into something it not only has never been, but was expressly never intended to be can only work if what exists now is destroyed.

Kennedy Jr. is a Trojan Horse.  Commentators on the right tend to suffer the Bush Syndrome of wanting love and respect from the enemies of America we call the left.  This explains the praise of Robert Francis Kennedy Jr., who is challenging Biden for the presidential nomination.  I warn readers that Biden is not Kennedy's target.  It's Trump.  Democrats want a Pretend Populist to keep him from winning re-election.

"No Bricks, No Glass, No Cement" — What Net Zero 2050 Demands According to Government-Funded Report.  No bricks, the walls and foundations made of compacted earth, cement made from clay and glass scavenged from demolition skips are just some of the construction changes needed to comply with Net Zero by 2050.  The latest paper from Government-funded U.K. FIRES looks to "minimise new construction", and notes the shape of the urban environment will change, allowing for "denser living and reduced transport needs".  The latest U.K. FIRES paper seems to have slipped out quietly at the end of last year and has to date attracted little publicity.  But the group, which comprises a number of academics led by Cambridge engineering professor Julian Allwood, made headlines around the world recently with previous work noting that all flying and shipping must stop by 2050, beef and lamb must be banned, and only 60% of energy will be available to cook food and heat homes.

It's Never Been About Tucker, Trump, or Fox News.  America is going to hell in a handbasket.  Not in the surreal world created by TV and social media, but in the real world.  A civilizational inferno has engulfed America and the people we've elected to fight it have done nothing of substance to contain it.  We're not dealing with people who merely disagree on how to put the fire out.  We're dealing with political pyromaniacs who set the fires, watch them burn, and work to stop anyone who tries to put them out.  They're facilitating illegal immigration, weaponizing government, redefining crime and punishment, changing the definition of inflation to spend more, corrupting our election system, cheering and funding a tyrannical gender revolution, and butchering history to institutionalize a cultish gospel of black victimhood.

Rappers' violent lyrics can't be used against them in court under Democrats' new bill.  House Democrats are pushing a new bill that would make it illegal for prosecutors to use violent lyrics by rap artists against them in court if they commit crimes, citing First Amendment protections.  On Thursday, Reps.  Hank Johnson, D-Ga., and Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., announced they would reintroduce the Restoring Artistic Protection Act, or RAP Act.  The bill would protect artists from the use of their lyrics against them in criminal and civil proceedings, a practice that's more common in cases involving hip-hop artists.  The pair introduced the bill last Congress, but it failed to gain any traction.  The measure, they say, would add a presumption to the Federal Rules of Evidence that would limit the admissibility of evidence of an artist's creative or artistic expression against that artist in court.

The Ruling Class's Stalinist Purge.  Like a hammer smashing anyone who seeks to "make America great," the ruling class pounds Trump, his supporters, and now even Tucker Carlson.  A "great America," you see, is antithetical to the technocratic police State that the Marxist globalists are busy building. [...] There is a great deal of public celebration among leftists these days.  They managed to use propaganda, criminal conspiracies, and boatloads of unverified mail-in ballots to remove President Trump from office.  Since his departure, federal and state prosecutors have built sham criminal cases intended to thwart his return and imperil his life with once-unthinkable imprisonment.  State actors attack him from all directions with civil suits intended to drain him of time and resources.  His political friends and allies — who have been unjustly dragged through the criminal "justice" system due to the machinations of unethical prosecutors and black-robed tyrants — remain targets for their beliefs.

Minnesota bill normalizing pedophilia dropped after backlash.  I'm not quite sure whether the bill is totally dead or not, because nothing is until the legislature adjourns.  We do know that the GOP managed to get the language normalizing pedophilia stripped out of the bill in a vote yesterday.  Whether the language comes back or not, it is clear is that the pressure is on and the Chief Author of the bill is feeling the heat and the Republicans in the Minnesota House, who apparently hadn't noted the change to the definition of "sexual orientation" to remove the exclusion for pedophilia, have grown a backbone.

Conservatives Lost the Culture War and the Trump Agenda Is the Only Path Forward.  Immigration, trade, war, and crime.  Being right on these four issues propelled Donald Trump to the presidency in 2016 against all odds.  The intervening seven years have changed nothing.  The only way a candidate from the Right can possibly win the presidency in 2024 is by campaigning on limiting immigration (build the wall), increasing tariffs, getting out of Ukraine, and restoring law and order (especially in regards to elections and the opioid crisis).  These are the core issues for the center-Right coalition needed to win national elections.  No supposedly conservative politician with aspiration for higher office should ever make any public statement without hammering at least one of these points.  Journalist asks about Social Security?  Talk about why we need to stop giving money to Volodymyr Zelenskyy.  Democratic opponent brings up climate change?  Talk about why we need to build the wall and make Mexico pay for it.

The Editor says...
No.  Changing the subject is what Socialist Democrats do when they're losing an argument.  If your baby-killing Democrat opponent brings up climate change, make him prove that carbon dioxide is harmful (it isn't), and that the polar ice caps are melting (they aren't), and the sea level is rising so fast that millions of people will have to move in a few years (nope, just look a New Orleans).  Ask your Socialist opponent if he arrived at the debate in an electric car.  Probably not, but if so, ask him if he knows about the little kids who work in lithium mines to make the batteries for electric cars.  Whatever the subject, beat them down with indisputable facts.  Win the debate.  The Socialists are not your friends.  They are wrong about everything, so there is no need to change the subject.

Minnesota Legislation Seeks to Normalize Pedophilia as a Sexual Orientation.  Earlier this year I noted that the mainstream acceptance of transgenderism would be the precursor to the normalization of pedophilia.  The evidence to support this was quite clear.  And I'm sorry to say that I was right.  The Minnesota legislature is in the process of changing the legal definition of "sexual orientation" that literally opens the door to mainstreaming pedophilia.  Here's how it's being done.  The bill modifies the existing Minnesota law that designates sexual orientation as a protected category, making it unlawful to discriminate based on sexual orientation within the state.  The first thing it does is adds a definition for gender identity: [...] That portion striking out the part that reads, "'Sexual orientation' does not include a physical or sexual attachment to children by an adult," is not a mistake.  The Democratic majority in the House of Representatives has made the decision to eliminate a clause that explicitly excluded pedophilia from being considered a valid sexual orientation.  This doesn't mean that pedophilia will be legalized in Minnesota — yet — but by specifically removing the clause excluding pedophilia as a protected sexual orientation, pedophiles will become a protected class, subject to the same legal protections against discrimination currently enjoyed by gays, lesbians, transgenders, etc.

Democrats for Pedophilia.  Anyone who has been paying attention knows that lots of liberals have been grooming kids in recent years.  Generally, though, they don't admit it:  there are lots of good reasons, supposedly, why drag queens should invade little kids' libraries, and ask children to stuff dollar bills into their G-strings at drag shows.  Here in Minnesota, we have something different: the Democratic Party is officially coming out in defense of pedophilia as a matter of law.  Minnesota's crazed DFL majorities have passed one extreme measure after another this session, but this one breaks new ground in service of pedophilia.  The bill is HF 1655, sponsored by a man pretending to be a woman named Leigh Finke.

Pedophiles are about to become a protected class in Minnesota.  The bill amends the provisions in Minnesota law that created sexual orientation as a protected class, meaning that discrimination of any kind based upon sexual orientation is illegal in the state.  It's been around for a long time, unsurprisingly, and like all such provisions, it encourages mischief such as lawsuits, quotas, DEI initiatives, etc.  They also undermine the right to free association.  There is a carve-out for some non-profits, but otherwise, it applies to everything and everybody.  Nothing shocking, of course.  This sort of thing is common now.  Nobody has the right to free association in America anymore.  Well here in the great state of Minnesota we are about to expand the definition of "sexual orientation," and in the process, the great minds of the Democrat majority in the House of Representatives have decided to remove a provision that excluded pedophilia as a legitimate sexual orientation.

Portland to ban gas-powered delivery vehicles from 16 blocks downtown.  Portland is about to be one of the first cities in the U.S. with blocks dedicated as a zero-emission delivery zone, thanks to a $2 million grant the city received.  The Portland Bureau of Transportation announced Tuesday that the money will support creating a 16-block area in downtown where all deliveries must be made using zero-emission vehicles.  These vehicles can include electric vans and trucks, cargo bikes or hydrogen-fueled vehicles.

The Editor says...
News bulletin:  Downtown Portland shares the atmosphere with the rest of the world.  This stunt, (much like electric cars themselves) will benefit no one in the long run.

Biden Reelection Video Fails to Mention a Single First-term Accomplishment.  President Joe Biden launched his reelection bid on Tuesday with the release of a new video that fails to name a single achievement in his first term — nor any plan for what he might hope to achieve in his second term.  Instead, the video dwells on abortion ("personal freedom"), as well as "MAGA extremists," whom the country must defeat in what Biden calls a "battle for the soul of our nation," repeating a theme from his 2020 campaign. [...] The only hints at any kind of first-term achievement are images of Biden's nomination of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.  The video does not mention economic policy, nor foreign policy, nor challenges like inflation or the border.  It is focused on oblique references to abortion and attacks on "MAGA extremists."

My Monday rant on saving civilization.  Justice, to the Left, means people destroying things, stealing things, committing violence, and tossing people out of the public and economic square.  Creating inflation in order to eliminate the middle class.  [Tweet]  We live in a society now where killing babies and old people is considered a positive good, and paying people not to work in the midst of a huge labor shortage is considered just.  Where performing sterilization on children before they even reach puberty is to be celebrated.  In Minnesota, in just one day, the Minnesota Senate passed 3 bills that shock the conscience:  banning so-called conversion therapy for transgender people, which is just giving counseling to troubled youth and not a cult reprogramming as implied; making Minnesota an abortion sanctuary where non-custodial parents can take their children for "care;" and the same "sanctuary" law that allows such parents to get "gender-affirming" care for children despite not having custody rights and violating court orders.  The Democrats cheered and clapped after they passed all 3 bills.  This is their vision of a just society.  It is, literally, evil.  The intentional destruction of our society.

Five-Year Plans: Climatistas Think Three's the Charm.  Joe Stalin was first out of the box with his Five-Year Plan, a brilliant scheme to transform the Soviet Union from an agricultural into an industrial state.  What could be easier, what with all the brilliant intellectual minds that Stalin had gathered around him, not to mention Joe's extensive library of 20,000 books?  Only, of course, on account of "saboteurs and wreckers," it didn't quite work out as the planners had predicted.  The Five-Year Plan of 1928-32 was punctuated by the Soviet Famine of 1932-33.  Still, only 6 to 8 million died.  Thirty years later, Mao Tse-tung, as we then knew him, tried to repeat Stalin's achievement with another Five-Year Plan, the Great Leap Forward of 1958-62.  There's no doubt that the Great Leap Forward made Stalin's Plan look like a walk in the park, with the Great Chinese Famine of 1959-61 causing 15-55 million deaths.

Playing By the Rules Is for Suckers.  Just look at yourself, all responsible and upstanding.  You worked hard, and you played by the rules.  You didn't go out and commit felonies or drop a bunch of kids with so many partners that you need a spreadsheet to keep Father's Day straight.  You've earned a credit score in the triple digits by paying your bills.  Congratulations.  Now you get to pay for the deadbeats who party while you grind out a paycheck.  The Biden regime's new plan is to add a surcharge to the mortgages of people with good credit scores to subsidize a key Democrat constituency, the ditzes, doofuses, layabouts, and bums whose bad decisions would have once led to bad consequences, except we only do dire consequences for good people in 2023.  Their problems are your problems, and your problems are also your problems.

Getting Off the Roller Coaster to Bondage.  It's not as if the ruling class's "cult of expertise" provides any comfort.  We have a president who long ago lost his marbles, a vice president who succeeded in the political profession by excelling in the oldest one, a secretary of defense committed to promoting men in dresses, a health bureaucracy pumping citizens full of experimental drugs, a Treasury Department endlessly printing money, a Commerce Department prioritizing inflation-inducing "green" windmills over real economic growth, a homeland security chief dedicated to keeping the nation insecure, and a national police force that treats half the country as "domestic enemies."  It's almost as if whoever installed these yahoos into the highest positions of authority wanted obvious "fall guys" for when everything, well, falls down.

Did a 21-year-old air guardsman expose Biden's violation of the War Powers Act?  Last week, the mainstream media gleefully reported the arrest of a low-ranking, 21-year-old Air National Guardsman from Massachusetts named Jack Teixeira, who apparently, on an internet chat site, divulged state secrets in violation of the Espionage Act and embarrassed the Biden administration. [...] Among the information spilled are revelations of the Biden administration spying on friends and foes alike.  But bigger questions surround this case, hot-potato questions the media won't touch, with the hottest being this: Do the Teixeira revelations expose a violation of the War Powers Act by Biden?  But most disturbing, are claims of United States Special Forces inside the red-hot Ukrainian war zone, months after Biden boasted there will be "no boots on the ground," a boast perhaps as credible as his blathering that "if you take the vax, you won't get COVID."  If United States Special Forces advisors are on the ground, in the midst of a kinetic war, supporting Ukraine's military against Russia, not only do Americans have a right to know, as major wars have been ignited by the slightest of hair triggers, but a larger question must now be examined:  Has Joe Biden violated the War Powers Act?

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg proposes spending $20 million taxpayer dollars on female crash test dummies.  Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has proposed that the Department of Transportation include $20 million for female crash-test dummies in its 2024 fiscal budget.  That Buttigieg — famous for his love of females though he may be — wants to spend vast sums of taxpayer dollars on feminine crash dummies seems odd in the current cultural climate in which we salute all things non-binary.  Nonetheless, Mayor Pete's proposal has already garnered support from several House Democrats.  For example, Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut praised Buttigieg's plan during a recent House Appropriations Subcommittee meeting.  DeLauro stated that the use of female crash dummies would be a major step forward in the fight against "gender inequity".  Say what?  Unlike humans, who are either one sex or another, crash dummies can't be gendered[,] as they are not living beings.  But, in today's world, nothing can stand in the way of insanity.

The Editor says...
The clamor for female crash test dummies is clearly promoting violence against women.  Or maybe it's a sexist commentary on the way women drive.  Either way, where are the great feminist leaders now?

Biden's 'environmental justice' is a cheap façade.  Joe Biden claims he cares so much about communities and the people, but he has never cared about the people in East Palestine, Ohio.  Maybe the IRS should concentrate on collecting taxes instead of pretending they can control temperatures.  Maybe the Justice Dept. should concentrate on criminals, like the Bidens, instead of pretending they can control droughts.  Maybe bank regulators should concentrate on the safety and soundness of banks instead of on social justice and pretending they can determine someone's carbon footprint.  Maybe the DHS should concentrate on securing the border instead of acting as though it can control sea levels.  Maybe the military should concentrate on keeping America safe from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea instead of pretending it can control the weather.  Anyone who believes that politicians and bureaucrats can design policies or predict temperatures and other climate patterns twenty or one hundred years out, knowing how far off previous dire predictions are, has lost his ability to think and certainly has no common sense.

NYC Subway Attack Victim Slams AOC's Call to Direct Police Funding to Teachers.  A woman from Queens, New York who lost her eye in a violent attack last fall torched Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (NY) suggestion that funding for police be given to public schools, parks, and libraries.  Elizabeth Gomes, 33, was brutally attacked at a subway station by a "homeless ex-con," 41-year-old Waheed Foster, last year, according to the New York Post.  On Monday, Ocasio-Cortez slammed Democrat Mayor Eric Adams' decision to give "militarized" police their first raise in seven years.  "We are now at a point where officially, most officers are paid more than a teacher with a master's degree," Ocasio-Cortez said on the show.  "We are defunding safety, defunding our public schools, defunding our public pools, defunding our parks [and] defunding our libraries."

Zero Democrats Vote For House Bill To Protect Women's Sports.  The House of Representatives passed legislation on Thursday to protect women's sports leagues by banning male athletes who identify as females from competing.  The Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2023 would amend Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 such that recipients of federal financial assistance which operate sports leagues cannot "permit a person whose sex is male to participate in an athletic program or activity that is designated for women or girls."  The legislation passed with 219 affirmative votes, all of which came from Republicans, and 203 negative votes, all of which came from Democrats.

The Useful Veneer of the Aging Democrat.  This new Democratic Party believes in defunding the police.  It supports the George-Soros-funded state and city district attorneys.  These prosecutors seek either to release violent criminals without bail or reduce their felonies to misdemeanors.  Critical legal and race theories are their creeds.  So they argue that crimes have little to do with individual free will.  Criminals are not deterred by tough enforcement of the laws.  Instead, "crime" reflects arbitrary constructs of a racially oppressive hierarchy.  They believe the "woke" revolution of using race and gender in lieu of a meritocracy should dominate government and corporate boardrooms.  Racial separation in graduations, dorms, and university programs are needed reparations.  Big Tech is their ally.  All the better when it partners with government, especially the FBI and CIA, to suppress "misinformation" and "disinformation."  They believe gender is socially constructed.  Thus transitioning biological males can and should compete in women's sports.

New York City is Discovering that Legalizing Marijuana Wasn't Really a Great Idea.  Decriminalizing marijuana, we've been told to the point of stupor for years, would simply be a matter of recognizing the way society has changed and coming to a mature accommodation of a widespread current practice.  It would free up valuable police resources to deal with actual crimes and real criminals, and end a longstanding injustice in which — you guessed it! — people of color were, we were told, disproportionately targeted for arrest and prosecution.  So the state of New York has legalized marijuana, and how's it going?  Doritos and Patchouli oil sales through the roof?  Maybe.  But there have been a lot of unexpected downsides.

Both American Political Parties Have Adopted Lenin's Strategy for the Destruction of Capitalism.  Ironically, uncontrolled spending and the massive assault on capitalism are the products of our irresponsible democracy.  There are three critical points.  First, the Democrat party made an epochal ideological shift toward egalitarianism.  For years the Democrat elite and party leaders have displayed their distaste for capitalism, fracturing the country's moral consensus.  Second, the Republican Party opted, for the most part, to ignore the ideological challenge.  Third, the American voters, who are dumb enough to elect untutored graduates of American universities that are uninformed and poorly read; a few have even earned notoriety for inconceivable stupidity.  Some of them, aware of self-worthlessness, adopted Marxism and can hardly contain their awe and envy at the American enterprise and question its moral validity.  The others are pedestrian opportunists with no intellectual basis and, as such, going along just to get reelected.  Since 1971 when the gold standard was abandoned, the Democrat and Republican administrations, with the support of the House and Senate, have been replaying Lenin's strategy for the downfall of capitalism, spending, and printing money at unprecedented levels.

When Did the U.S. Become East Germany?  How long will it be before dissent is criminalized in this country?  Mothers and fathers are being stripped of their parental rights, and children are being told to be the functionaries of government.  The Sanderses and AOCs would love nothing more than to elist them to spy on their families and report their involvement in disinformation, misinformation, and "anti-government" activities.  Wealth redistribution schemes are disguised as green policies.  Our retail shelves have in recent times looked like the bare counters of communist East Berlin.  We're told that we have to make do with less, and fewer choices are in our best interest.  Our economy would be full-on GDR-ed if the Sanderses and Ocasio-Cortezes had their way.  The left is unrelenting in its ambition to take more of the economy out of the private sector and place it in the hands of elected Democrats and administrative tyrants.

Federal Court Blocks California City's Gas Stove Ban, Turning Up The Heat on Democrats.  A federal appeals court on Monday overturned a California city's first-in-the-nation ban on natural gas hookups in new buildings, saying it violates federal law.  The three-judge panel from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal sided with a coalition of California restaurants, who argued that the City of Berkeley's ordinance essentially bans gas appliances in violation of a 1975 directive that gives Congress control over restrictions on appliances.  The unanimous ruling is a major blow to California Democrats' green energy push, and could clear the way for legal challenges to similar bans around the country.  Democrats have increasingly moved to ban gas stoves while attempting to downplay their efforts.  New York is poised to become the first state to ban gas stoves, and California is working towards a statewide ban of its own.  The White House has denied that President Joe Biden supports banning gas stoves while the Energy Department works to restrict their sale.  Blue state attorneys general and environmental groups lined up to support the ban in court, in a sign of the case's national implications.

Ninth Circuit Throws Out Berkeley Ban on Gas Stoves.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit tossed a Berkeley, California, ban on gas stoves on Monday, saying that the federal Energy Policy and Conservation Act preempted state and local authorities in regulating natural gas. [...] The Biden administration has taken steps toward eliminating gas stoves — though it briefly pretended otherwise — ostensibly to prevent asthma, but actually as part of a broader push against fossil fuel production.

The Revenge of Moriarty.  Last week, Washington state passed a bill that will permit children to be taken from their parents if they deny them the right to "gender transition."  According to Senate Bill 5599, child shelters could contact the Department of Children, Youth, and Families instead of parents for minors seeking "reproductive health services or gender-affirming care."  It's vile enough that pregnant young girls can have their babies killed by state-sanctioned abortionists — the true meaning of "reproductive health services" — even without their parents' permission.  None can deny the baby inside them is, or was, alive before his or her murder.  But pro-choice maniacs can wail about the greater good of a child's death for the parents or society, absent the little corpse of the victim.  Their punishment will come later, after their own demise, in a place they don't believe exists.  But "gender-affirming care" is a chimera, a nightmare, a Frankensteinian objective that cannot be achieved, only imitated in a grotesque parody of the opposite sex, requiring the mutilation and approximate rearrangement of body parts.  Adults that consent to such a horror must bear the remaining lifelong consequences of their mistake, although no doctor should ethically indulge their pathology.  But children lack the mental judgment to make such an irrevocable choice.  And those who not only encourage them to do this yet would prevent their parents from stopping it deserve to be in prison, and nowhere near a statehouse.

Why Banning TikTok Would Be a Cybersecurity Disaster.  TikTok is not be the first app to be scrutinized over the potential exposure of U.S. user data, but it is the first widely used app that the U.S. government has proposed banning over privacy and security concerns.  So far, the discussion has focused on whether TikTok should be banned.  There has been little discussion of whether TikTok could be banned, and there has been almost no discussion of the effects on cybersecurity that a TikTok ban could cause, including encouraging users to sidestep built-in security mechanisms to bypass a ban and access the app.  As a cybersecurity researcher, I see potential risks if the U.S. attempts to ban TikTok.  The type of risk depends on the type of ban.

They Fear You.  Almost gleefully supporting the Uniparty's calls for the urgent passage of The Restrict Act — legislation ostensibly drafted to combat China's TikTok but in actuality a statutory vehicle designed to provide the federal government with broad authority to confront internet "danger" — the American press play along while the Legislative and Executive Branches use this present "crisis" as an excuse to swing the sledgehammer down on Americans' free speech.  As those with eyes to see and sufficient backbone to speak uncomfortable truths have noted, The Restrict Act is an "online PATRIOT Act" meant not to protect, but rather to silence Americans.  Make no bones about it: the federal government's number-one worry is you.

Can We Do Anything About America's Decline?  Biden is on schedule to run up a $2 trillion annual deficit, adhering to the Bush, Obama, and Trump legacy of unfettered spending.  In Biden's case, he insanely printed over $4 trillion at a time when labor participation rates were already in decline, COVID-suppressed demand was returning, and transportation and production interruptions were reducing supply.  He raised taxes, increased regulations, cut projected increases in gas and oil production, and canceled energy projects.  The result was the highest inflation in 40 years, near-record energy costs, soaring interest rates, the largest modern percentage of debt to GDP at 130 percent, the greatest debt in our history at $33 trillion, and stagnant GDP.

America's Coming Energy Crisis.  In 2021, Biden signed an executive order that decreed that all federal contracts for goods and services to be carbon-neutral by 2050. Some states and businesses are following Biden's lead.  California and six other states intend to ban the sale of gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035.  California also wants to ban the sale of gas-powered water heaters and furnaces by 2030.  Now the Environmental Protection Agency has piled on.  The agency is proposing vehicle pollution limits for 2032 that are so strict that they will force roughly two thirds of new vehicles sold to be electric.  This may sound glorious to climate warriors, but they have no idea what they are getting us into.  Transitioning to net zero involves decarbonizing electrical generation, industry, and transportation all at the same time.  It also involves creating net-zero carbon buildings, even though none presently exists.

Forced Diversity Is Actively Harming America.  In sum, left-leaning ideologues are operating under a moralistic fallacy: They took the notion of "equality under the law" and, from that, inferred that people must be physically equal.  Or phrased more simply, "Discrimination is undesirable; therefore, all people are (or must be) equal.  The ideologues have used this fallacy to impose their diversity, equity, and inclusion policies despite extensive and often irreparable harm to individual Americans' freedom and prosperity.  If America is to survive, we must unite against the DIE ideology and the unconstitutional and harmful pathologies that it has incorporated.  Americans must all work to persuade those who are not ideologues that a relentless focus on affirmative action to achieve the dysfunctional goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion, will drag our country down.  It's time to stand up against inept-ocracy and demand a return to meritocracy everywhere in society.

Washington State Democrats Vote to Hide Transgender Runaways From Parents.  Washington State could soon require youth shelters to hide minors who run away from home in order to obtain an abortion or sex change operations without parental consent.  The Washington House of Representatives this week passed Senate Bill 5599, which would eliminate a law that requires youth shelters to alert parents when their child checks in, unless there is evidence the child is being abused.  The proposal would widen the scope of what constitutes a "compelling reason" to conceal a minor to include youths seeking sex change operations or "reproductive health services," like abortion.  The bill, which the Senate passed in March, now goes to Gov. Jay Inslee's (D.) desk for a signature.  This is the latest blue state effort to help minors obtain controversial medical procedures without parental consent.  Lawmakers in Oregon, Minnesota, and Colorado have all passed legislation designed to make their states "safe havens" for youths seeking sex changes or abortions.

The Priorities Of Our Own Government Are Completely Upside Down.  When you consider good to be evil and evil to be good, of course your priorities are going to be completely and utterly messed up.  The White House, the halls of Congress, and the federal bureaucracy and filled with people that have an extremely warped view of the world.  As a result, they are incapable of making the right choices even if they were inclined to do so.  Pretty much the best that we can hope for is for them to do nothing, because everything that they "accomplish" ends up being diametrically opposed to the interests of the American people.

Progressives [are] Not Interested in the Good of the Country.  Does wokifying the military with DEI and drag queen shows on military bases improve and strengthen the national security standing — which is the military's only mission — of this country?  No.  Does it help progressives' election efforts with fringe voters?  Yes. [...] Every public utterance, every policy move, every new regulation from today's progressives is designed to further their ability to obtain and hold power and control the American populace.  The closer one pays attention, the more apparent this is.  "For the good of the country" never enters the picture.

America's Coming Energy Crisis.  President Joe Biden and the apocalyptic climate cult within the Democrat party believe that climate change is the greatest threat to the country.  That's right, the greatest threat is not nuclear war, not unlimited unlawful immigration, not inflation, or out-of-control spending.  Instead, it's the slow warming of the atmosphere, which they believe is caused solely by burning fossil fuels.  In 2021, Biden signed an executive order that decreed that all federal contracts for goods and services to be carbon-neutral by 2050.  Some states and businesses are following Biden's lead.  California and six other states intend to ban the sale of gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035.  California also wants to ban the sale of gas-powered water heaters and furnaces by 2030.  Now the Environmental Protection Agency has piled on.  The agency is proposing vehicle pollution limits for 2032 that are so strict that they will force roughly two thirds of new vehicles sold to be electric.  This may sound glorious to climate warriors, but they have no idea what they are getting us into.

9 Reasons Chicago Is the Perfect Site for the 2024 Democratic Convention.  [#1] The rampant crime:  Like most big cities the Democratic Party has controlled for decades, Chicago has a crime problem that its elected leaders are unable or unwilling to do anything about.  The city's murder rate has jumped nearly 40 percent since 2019, while car theft has more than doubled in the past year alone.  Kim Foxx, the George Soros-backed district attorney in charge of prosecuting crime in Chicago, has a history of letting violent offenders off the hook.  Convictions have dropped nearly 30 percent on her watch.  Naturally, the city's voters just elected a radical new mayor who in 2020 said "defund the police" was "an actual real political goal."

Death to the Suburbs!  The indomitable Betsy McCaughey has called out the latest ugly manifestation of "diversity, inclusion, and equity" the drive to destroy the suburbs.  The Biden administration and Democrat-controlled legislatures in several states have taken the lead in this effort.  In New York State, Governor Kathy Hochul, as part of the state budget, has advanced a so-called Housing Compact that would eliminate local control and single family zoning.  Hochul's plan would require that high-rise "affordable" (read: low-income, taxpayer-subsidized) housing be constructed close to each sleepy village train station — mostly a few miles apart — on Metro North and the Long Island Railroad.  If the affected communities fail to do so "voluntarily," the state will have the power to override local zoning.  Those who fail to applaud this combined coup by warriors for social justice and real estate interests are, you guessed it, racist.  Suburban homeowners, Democrats as well as Republicans, are beginning to awaken to the deadly threat these proposals pose to their way of life.

Whose idea was this, and who benefits from it?
Biden Admin Proposes Reducing Water Supply From Colorado River Basin Amid Drought.  The Biden administration has proposed a federal mandate to reduce the supply of water to 40 million Americans who live in western states dependent on the Colorado River Basin to address long-term severe drought and low run-off conditions.  A draft report by the Department of the Interior's (DOI's) Bureau of Reclamation proposes to revise the current guidelines for the near-term operation of the Glen Canyon and Hoover dams.  According to the DOI, the move forms part of the Biden administration's efforts to invest in climate change resilience for the Colorado River Basin and all the communities that rely on it.  The draft report explores different alternatives to ensure continued water deliveries and hydropower production for the 40 million Americans who depend on the river system.

Big Ag, Big Oil & Biden's Colorado River Plans.  After the Biden administration this week released proposals to cut water allotments to the states that depend on the shrinking Colorado River, a progressive advocacy group criticized federal officials for failing to address an underlying cause of the region's hydrological plight: the overexploitation of water resources by the corporate agriculture and fossil fuel industries.  "Any legitimate plan for the Colorado River must directly confront a key driver of the crisis in the first place:  the overuse and abuse of limited water resources by big agribusiness and fossil fuel corporations — the very same industries contributing to climate chaos in the first place," Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter said in a statement.  The seven Colorado River Basin states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming — have missed multiple federal deadlines to finalize an interstate water conservation pact.

The Editor says...
[#1] Farming and the sequestration of water does not cause "climate choas."  [#2] The climate has always been slightly chaotic, which is why the weather cannot be predicted more than a few days in advance.

Honoring the great Ludwig von Mises.  "The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement," argued economist Ludwig von Mises in his book "Bureaucracy," published in 1944.  "They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office.  Every man but one a subordinate clerk in a bureau."

Not Zero, or even close.  The Biden Administration has set a goal of achieving Net Zero US annual CO2 emissions by 2050.  To accomplish this goal, the Administration has decreed that all coal-fired electric generation would cease by 2030; and, that all natural gas fueled electric generation would cease by 2035.  The Administration has also decreed that all new vehicles sold in the US after 2035 would be electric vehicles.  There is also an effort underway to end the use of natural gas for applications other than electric generation, including virtually all residential, commercial and industrial end uses.  Incentives have been put in place for EVs and electric appliances and equipment, as well as for wind and solar generation and electricity storage.  Achieving the Administration's goals would result in a US energy economy based solely on electricity, generated by a mixture of renewable generation sources including hydro, biomass, geothermal, wind, solar and possibly some nuclear generation.

What Will Net Zero Ever Do For Us?  We are being asked to cut overall energy use by 46-60% per person.  The evidence shows a clear relationship between high energy use and high GDP per capita.  Such dramatic cuts in energy use would put us on a par with Ecuador, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.  It is clear that reducing energy consumption puts us at severe risk of making us all poorer with big cuts in living standards.  We are also being asked to cut meat consumption by 35-50% and the zealots at UK FIRES want to ban beef and lamb entirely.  However, higher meat consumption is linked to longer life expectancy, so big cuts to meat consumption runs the risk of making us live shorter lives.  In addition, there are calls for up to a quarter of all our agricultural land to be re-forested, reducing our ability to grow our own food.  The UK FIRES extremists also want to ban all aviation and shipping, so non-rail food imports would be curtailed.  They also want to greatly reduce fertiliser use, further reducing crop yields and risking food security.  They don't stop there: we are to be forced into electric cars and to use them less.  We will be forced to heat our homes with heat pumps and install ruinously expensive insulation.

The Left Unmasks Its Desire to Destroy Families&Nbsp;— And the Nation — With Sexual Chaos.  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis once again led the way in protecting parental rights in education last week when he signed into law a bill that prohibits age-inappropriate "classroom instruction" on "sexual orientation and gender identity" in kindergarten through third grade.  The legislation also requires parental consent for any health care services offered at school, and school districts "may not prohibit or discourage parental notification of or involvement in critical decisions affecting a student's mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being."  Contrary to the fear-mongering, there is nothing "controversial" about this law.  Yet it certainly does throw a spanner in the works for the radicals, neurotics, and degenerates in control of corporate America, the establishment media, and Hollywood, who are evidently on board with schools serving as platforms for perverts, predators, and groomers.

Washington State Democrats Plan to Confiscate Your Money if They Think You're Making Too Much.  The time is coming, if Leftists get their way, when a government official can decide that you're making too much money and confiscate all except what he, she, or xe decides you need.  This is already happening, in effect, with federal, state, and municipal income taxes, but a new bill in Washington State is carrying the idea farther than it has ever before advanced in the United States.  The bill proposes an "excess compensation tax" to level out the unfair advantage that overpaid people have.  Who is overpaid?  Anyone the Democrats target, of course.

The Energy Transition Is a Delusion Indeed.  The "energy transition" continues to receive thunderous applause from all the usual Beltway suspects, an exercise in groupthink fantasy amazing to behold.  For those with actual lives to live and thus uninterested in silliness:  The "energy transition" is a massive shift, wholly artificial and politicized, from conventional energy inexpensive, reliable, and very clean given the proper policy environment, toward such unconventional energy technologies as wind and solar power.  They are expensive, unreliable, and deeply problematic environmentally in terms of toxic metal pollution, wildlife destruction, land use massive and unsightly, emissions of conventional pollutants, and in a broader context large and inexorable reductions in aggregate wealth and thus the social willingness to invest in environmental protection.  But the Beltway being what it is, the fantasists are impervious to reality, until the massive costs and dislocations and absurdities become impossible to ignore. (Witness, for example, California.) Even as they backtrack on their confident assertions that a modern economy can be powered with the energy equivalent of pixie dust, they argue that the emerging problems are little more than growing pains attendant upon short run rigidities, and all will be well given some more time, more subsidies, and more magical thinking.

Brandon's CAFE Standards To Drastically Increase.  This is going to make vehicles a great deal more expensive, making it harder for the working class and middle class afford vehicles, even used ones.  Of course this is being pushed by rich folks who do not have to worry about all this.  Oh, and many of them, like Joe Biden, are not even driving compliant vehicles[.] [...] Automakers know the customer base.  They know what people can afford, and have already been pushed too far since the start of COVID.  Will their own banks start doing 7 years plus loans as business as usual?  This will destroy leasing for the average American, and making financing costs too high for most to afford.  This couldn't possibly be the next step in forcing the peasants out of their privately owned vehicles and onto mass transit, could it?  Nah, that would be a crazy thought.  [Tweet]

The Real Existential Threat.  he two subjects Democrats like to talk about the most are democracy and existential threats, threats to our democracy and existence.  Since Democrats live in a Bizarro world, everything they say is opposite of reality and priority.  These threats to our existence if made in opposite order of consequence would be Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, and [...] the Democrats themselves!  It is the Democrat Party, represented by the misinformed, the ill-informed, the MSNBC and CNN watchers, the rioters-on-a-moments- notice, the woke crowd, every worm that comes out of a closet, the dumb Anheuser Busch people who think putting a transgender on their cans is going to be a big seller.  They are the lords of social chaos.

Donald Trump, Tiberius Gracchus, And America's Imminent End.  [Scroll down]  It has taken less than 20 years since Barack Obama promised to "fundamentally transform" America for the country to change from a functioning but imperfect republic into a farce of a country characterized by a banana-republic-level tyranny.  With a complicit bureaucracy, Obama used the IRS to target political opponents, the Justice Department to coerce banks into blacklisting businesses he didn't like, and Obamacare to give government unprecedented control over Americans' health decisions while doubling the cost.  He unconstitutionally opened the immigration spigot that has now become a torrent.  Within six months of taking office, Obama would set the tone for an administration that would set race relations back 50 years.  His "evolution" on gay marriage would give cover to the spineless Supreme Court to impose that travesty on the country and lay the ground for the fascist LBTQ hellscape America endures today.  And finally, he weakened two of the most foundational elements of American society:  The military and residential communities.

Biden considering cracking down on gas cars after stripping EVs of tax credits.  The Biden administration is weighing an aggressive proposal to implement the tightest-ever federal regulations governing tailpipe emissions in an effort to boost electric vehicles.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is expected to announce the new standards, which will impact cars manufactured between 2027-2032, next week during a ceremony in Detroit, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing officials briefed on the proposal.  In a statement, the EPA confirmed the standards are designed to incentivize consumers to purchase electric vehicles (EV).

The Editor says...
When they say, "incentivize," they mean "force."

Canadian Bill Seeks to Criminalize Protests of LGBTQ+ Activities, Impose $25K Fine.  A bill introduced in the Ontario, Canada, legislature this week would ban protests and criticism of LGBT activities within a designated 100-meter "safety zone."  Bill 94, titled the "Keeping 2SLGBTQI+ Communities Safe Act," indicates it would establish "community safety zones" designated by the Attorney General prohibiting "persons from performing an act of intimidation" within 100 meters of said zone.  According to the bill, such "acts of intimidation" include "causing a disturbance," "distributing hate propaganda," "uttering threats or making offensive remarks, either verbally or in writing with respect to matters of social orientation or gender roles," and "engaging in a protest or demonstration for the purpose of furthering the objectives of homophobia and transphobia."

Life after Climate Change.  The global discussion about climate change has become quite hysterical.  Some 60 percent of people living in the rich world think it is likely to bring an end to humanity.  This is not only untrue; it is also harmful, because fear makes people embrace bad policies and ignore many other urgent challenges facing the world.  Consider, for example, how the World Health Organization declared climate change the defining public-health issue of the 21st century in 2014, but perhaps should have been more focused on pandemics, like Covid.  Or take the World Economic Forum participants who in January 2020 found the greatest policy risk of the next ten years to be climate-action failure — ignoring the rapid spread of Covid.  Or consider how development institutions increasingly focus on helping poor countries with climate-change responses, often at the expense of other things those countries urgently need, such as growth and development, stronger health-care systems, better education, and a more plentiful energy supply.

Treasury Sec.  Janet Yellen: 'The Inflation Reduction Act is, at its core, about turning the climate crisis into an economic opportunity'.  [Tweet with Video clip.]

The Editor says...
The same idea used to be called The Green New Deal

Could It Happen Here?  It Is Happening Here.  My field of study in graduate school was communism.  As a fellow at the Russian Institute of Columbia's School of International Affairs, I was, if I remember correctly, one of seven students in the entire university to major in what was known at the time as "Communist Affairs."  I cite this in order to make this point:  In my wildest dreams, I never imagined what I was studying would ever apply to the United States of America, the freest country in world history.  I assumed that communism was, for various reasons, something that happened elsewhere — most obviously, Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba, Cambodia and North Korea.  What were those various reasons?  One was the absence of freedom in the history of those countries.  Another was that all those countries were, with the exception of Cuba, outside of Western civilization.

When Will This Climate Madness End?  What do gas ranges, Dutch farmers, and moose have in common?  In a normal everyday context, very little.  But in the world of apocalyptic climate change, everything. [...] In 2021, Biden signed an executive order banning the federal government from purchasing gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035 and requiring federal contracts for all goods and services to be carbon-neutral by 2050.  Despite claims to the contrary, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission has already begun the process of banning gas stoves by approving an official Request for Information on the hazards related to them.  At the same time, California is charging ahead with its own environmental plans.  The state will ban the sale of gas-powered water heaters and furnaces by 2030.  In addition, it and six other states intend to ban the sale of gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035.  Last Monday, the United Nations released a report saying, "The world is rapidly approaching catastrophic levels of heating."  U.N. secretary-general António Guterres said developed countries should attempt to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2040 instead of 2050.

The Editor says...
Any assertion that the "world is rapidly approaching catastrophic levels of heating" is an outright lie.  The rate of global warming is near zero.  There is no urgnet need to shut down gasoline engines and coal-powered industry.  There is no climate emergency.  There is no crisis.  The U.N. is looking for ways to perpetuate its existence, and the tyrants at the U.N. assume (and hope) that you know nothing about global warming.

Destroying the Rule of Law.  Why do they want legal law-abiding citizens disarmed,while they demand defunding of law enforcement?  It is simple: it goes along with their releasing violent criminals back onto the streets, along with supporting their version of the Brown Shirts, Antifa as a means of intimidation.  I will say it, and it is no hyperbole.  If the American left could just line their political opposition up against a wall, they would.  How else do you explain the radical leftist gender dysphoria community calling for a "Trans Day of Vengeance?" This call to violence resulted from legislation passed and signed into law in Tennessee protecting children from gender mutilation surgeries, hormonal therapies, and puberty blockers, as well as ending the perverse drag queen shows being performed before children.  Talk about contributing to the delinquency of a minor!  But that is how the left responds to opposition.

Joe Biden Moves to Cut Medicare Advantage.  President Joe Biden's administration announced that it would cut Medicare Advantage, after the president has frequently claimed that Republicans want to slash Medicare and Social Security.  The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced this week that they would cut Medicare Advantage by 1.12 percent in 2024, which is not as significant a cut as what the administration proposed two months ago. [...] Biden has proposed these cuts to Medicare Advantage as he has frequently accused Republicans of wanting to slash Social Security and Medicare as part of a potential compromise to address the coming debt ceiling deadline.

Who is pulling the puppet strings in Washington, DC?  Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) appeared last week on Jesse Watters's show on Fox News to express his opposition to the RESTRICT Act.  The proponents of the bill claim that it will be used to ban the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok.  But the critics of this legislation have pointed out that it grants sweeping powers to the federal government and the president to ban any application they label a 'threat'.  Some wondered if the use of a VPN to conceal one's online identity and access sites blocked by the U.S. would be made illegal.  The concern that many have is that the government will use TikTok as an excuse to pass intrusive laws that monitor citizens online and beyond.  Watters made his case opposing the bill while pointing out that the bill doesn't even have the word "TikTok" in it.

The Left now has a demonic new aim:  to make ordinary people poorer.  We are living through the most startling political realignment in more than 100 years.  Never since the advent of modern socialism in the early 20th century has the Left openly advocated making ordinary people poorer, thereby leaving those on the Right to defend the spread of mass prosperity.  The debate (if this tendentious chorus of unanimity can be called a debate) on net zero has entirely shifted the ground on which modern political discourse has been based.  This role-reversal is especially clear in the features that were once most characteristic of Left-wing and Right-wing allegiance:  it is the radical young who now tend to be most adamant that the freedoms and comforts that come with widespread disposable wealth should be prohibited, while the traditionally conservative older generation is left to fight for what used to be the Left-liberal doctrine that higher income and the independence it brings should be spread as widely as possible.

Biden's cynical game of debt-limit chicken puts entire nation at risk.  Facing a July-or-so deadline to get the federal debt limit increased or the nation will be unable to pay its bills, and with the national debt at $31 trillion and soaring, President Joe Biden is ... playing hardball, short-term, partisan politics.  Republicans took the House last fall all vowing to start slowing (at least) the ginormous growth in federal spending.  They elected Kevin McCarthy speaker after he committed to including spending cuts in any measure to raise the debt ceiling.  McCarthy and Biden then had what both sides called a productive face-to-face on Feb. 1 — only for the White House to decline further meetings, even with a presidential aide.

Biden admin moving forward with light bulb bans in coming weeks.  The Biden administration is preparing to implement a sweeping nationwide ban on commonly used light bulbs as part of its energy efficiency and climate agenda.  The regulations, which prohibit retailers from selling incandescent light bulbs, were finalized by the Department of Energy (DOE) in April 2022 and are slated to go into effect on Aug. 1, 2023.  The DOE will begin full enforcement of the ban on that date, but it has already urged retailers to begin transitioning away from the light bulb type and, in recent months, begun issuing warning notices to companies.  "The lighting industry is already embracing more energy efficient products, and this measure will accelerate progress to deliver the best products to American consumers and build a better and brighter future," Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said last year.

Now the Biden Administration is Coming for Our Cheap Light Bulbs.  The Biden administration is obsessed with climate change and they don't care how much worse they make life for average Americans.  They have already gone after gas stoves, gas cars, and even air conditioners.  Now they are coming after incandescent light bulbs.  Anything that's cheap, convenient, and liked by millions of Americans lands on their radar eventually.  There is just no end to it.

29 Dems Join GOP in House Vote to Block Biden Admin From Limiting Access to Gas Stoves.  U.S. House lawmakers voted in support of an energy bill amendment that would prevent the Department of Energy from introducing energy efficiency standards that could outlaw most gas stoves on the market today.  More than a dozen Democrats joined Republicans in supporting the measure, part of a Republican-led pro-fossil-fuel legislative package H.R. 1, also referred to as the Lower Energy Costs Act, which the Biden administration has vowed to veto.  "Glad the House passed my amendment to H.R. 1 preventing @ENERGY from banning 50% of gas stoves on the market," Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.), who proposed the amendment, wrote on Twitter late Wednesday. "This de facto gas stove ban was supported by 181 Democrats who are complicit in Biden's quest to control your kitchen appliances," added Palmer, the chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee.

You'll Live Like Peasants And You'll Like It.  Every day it gets more difficult to ignore just how odious the political left in this country is.  In case we needed a reminder — we didn't — another instance of the progressives' deranged minds landed last week: The Biden administration is, in effect, coming after air conditioners.  No, it doesn't appear that the White House is planning to outright ban air conditioning.  But a recent round of rule making at the Energy Department will make new window units less efficient at cooling and more expensive to buy, which will create hardships for the millions of poor Americans who use them to counter summer heat, and in some cases survive it.  It's part of a pattern.  In a little more than two years, the loathsome Biden administration has targeted not only air conditioners, but automobiles with internal-combustion engines, gas stoves, dishwashers, freight-hauling trucks, washers and dryers, and showerheads through a regulatory regime that will either eventually ban them altogether or make them so expensive and inefficient that they become a luxury item.

The RESTRICT Act Is Exactly What It Sounds Like.  The RESTRICT Act is the very definition of a Trojan horse: innocuous on the outside, lethal on the inside.  And it is being wheeled toward the gates, with the help of Republicans in Congress.  Ostensibly, the RESTRICT Act is designed to protect Americans from TikTok — you know, that nifty piece of Chinese spyware masquerading as a fun way to showcase dance videos, asinine behavior, and other things people can live without.  And Congress is interested in protecting the country from bad international actors.  That is because it can be done via the RESTRICT Act, which will do far more than keep TikTok off of your phone or tablet.  How much more?  More than you want or even thought possible, even under this administration.  The RESTRICT Act goes after anyone whom the powers that be deem a threat.  That determination is made by the secretary of commerce.  A threat can include people abroad and U.S. citizens.

The RESTRICT Act did not surface in a vacuum.  [Thread reader]  The "TicTok ban" legislation (SB686), which is a fraudulent auspice for total internet control by the intelligence community, comes from within bipartisan legislation spearheaded by the aligned interests of Senator Warner, the SSCI and DHS.  None of this is accidental, and the legislative branch is walking into the creation of an online control mechanism that has nothing whatsoever to do with banning TikTok.  Preceding the Restrict Act, on March 2, 2023, the people in control of the Joe Biden administration officially announced that government control of internet content was now officially a part of the national security apparatus.  If you have followed the history of how the Fourth Branch of Government has been created, you will immediately recognize the intent of this new framework.

Out-of-Control US Federal Spending Needs to be Stopped Now!  Consider the symptoms of one of the major problems that has plagued the US for decades:  out-of-control federal spending, as highlighted by the symptoms of massive spending bills that defy regular order, congressional earmarks, endless continuing resolutions, no federal budgets, and omnibus bills that fund leftwing Democrat spending priorities and include non-spending atrocities (such as gun control provisions). [...] During the first 70 years of the twentieth century, the only time the federal budget wasn't balanced was during an economic downturn or during wartime.  Americans understood that a heavily indebted government ceded control of that government to its creditors, who could very well be foreign governments or others with ill intentions toward the US.  Veto-proof Democrat control of Congress beginning in 1955 changed all that, as the socialism inherent in Democrat domestic politics resulted in massive spending programs, such as Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.

Uncommon Senselessness: Who Are These People?  Let's step back for a minute and look at what the Left wants and how it is going about getting it.  First and foremost, it wants a heavily centralized government that takes its marching orders from ideologues who see a constitutional republic as an impediment, not an empowerment, for progress.  It opposes states' rights and the sovereign right of the individual to chart his/her own future.  They see religion as a threat to their plans to secularize the country and make God a bit player in their drama.  They view the Constitution and Bill of Rights as mere suggestions on how to form a more perfect union.  To them, diversity is more important than unity, and they view everything in terms of race.  They believe that our history is reprehensible and steeped in white supremacy; that it needs to be re-written and that they should be its new authors and censors.  They regard our children as property of the state and that the state has the ultimate say in how they are educated and raised.

Holding the right people responsible for the global energy crisis.  America's grid is in decline and about to get far worse due to policies that 1) reward unreliable electricity, 2) prematurely shut down coal plants, 3) criminalize nuclear, and 4) force electric vehicle use.  The root cause of our grid's reliability problems is simple:  America is shutting down too many reliable power plants — plants that can be controlled to produce electricity when needed in the exact quantity needed.  And it is attempting to replace them with unreliable solar and wind.  Nationally, as demand has increased over the last 10 years we have seen a decline in reliable capacity (gas, coal, oil, nuclear, hydro, battery storage) by 5%.  Will batteries make unreliable solar/wind reliable?  No.  Battery storage is expensive and can only provide a given "capacity" (e.g., 1 GW) for a few hours, and only then if fully charged.  Planned batteries are nowhere near enough to compensate for solar and wind's unreliability.

Dem Bill Will Allow School Psychologists to 'Kidnap' Kids as Young as 12 - Remove from Homes Without Parental Consent.  A California legislative proposal that its sponsor says will increase mental health services for children is being attacked by its opponents as "state-sanctioned kidnapping."  Democratic Assemblywoman Wendy Carrillo said her bill fixes an issue that denies poor kids on the state's Medi-Cal insurance plan the same coverage as other children.  "[Assembly Bill] 665 is about making sure all young people, regardless if they have private health insurance or are Medi-Cal recipients, have access to mental health resources," Carrillo said, according to the Sierra Sun Times.

The Editor says...
This bill isn't about "access" or mental health or poor kids.  I suspect it's about transvestites, sex change operations, and grooming.

John Kerry Says More Climate Mandates Coming From Biden Regime.  Joe Biden's Climate Envoy John Kerry sat down for an interview with Yahoo News Senior Climate Editor Ben Adler to discuss climate change.  The interviewer began by admitting Biden's so-called 'Inflation Reduction Act' is actually a Marxist 'Climate Change' bill.  Ben Adler asked John Kerry if the Biden Regime will be taking more aggressive climate action in addition to what is already in the 'Inflation Reduction Act.'  "We are doing a lot more than just the IRA.  The IRA is a package that in and of itself could get to 40% but in addition to that, the president is issuing executive orders, there will be changes on automobile, on light truck, heavy truck... a number of initiatives are being made," John Kerry said before he trashed Trump.

Biden and Harris both weak going into 2024.  President Joe Biden's job approval rating has fallen to 38% in a new poll from the Associated Press and the National Opinion Research Center — close to his lowest rating ever in that poll.  Just last month, Biden's rating was 45%, which was as high as it has been since his rating began a long slide a few months after he took office.  What's going on?  The economy.  In the month since Biden's previous, higher rating, people have become deeply concerned about the safety of the banking system.  They have renewed worries about inflation.  They are concerned about some difficult-to-understand maladies affecting world economic stability.

Minnesota advances 'trans refuge' bill opponents say would strip custody from non-consenting parents.  Minnesota lawmakers on Thursday advanced legislation that would establish the state as a "trans refuge" for children who are seeking transgender medical procedures but who may be denied "gender-affirming care" in other states.  In a party-line 68-62 vote, the Minnesota House passed HF 146, which had been introduced by Rep. Leigh Finke of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.  Finke is the state's first transgender lawmaker.  Democrats supporting the bill say the legislation will protect transgender people, their families and healthcare providers from facing legal repercussions for traveling to Minnesota to obtain cross-sex hormone prescriptions or sex-change procedures.  Similar legislation has been introduced in California and other states with Democratic-controlled legislatures, which seek to counter Republican states that have sought to ban transgender procedures for minors.

As China War Looms, Navy's Priority is Going 'Green'.  The "age of American naval dominance is over", Jerry Hendix, a former Navy Captain warned in a high-profile article in The Atlantic.  Hendrix's article imagines a scenario in which China or other enemy nations seize control of what are now international waters and the cargo that moves across them.  "The great container ships and tankers of today would disappear, replaced by smaller, faster cargo vessels capable of moving rare and valuable goods past pirates and corrupt officials."  A handful of nations would end up controlling the chokepoints of international trade and America would not be one of them.  Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro has already conceded China's naval supremacy.  Last month, the Biden appointee stated that China has "got a larger fleet now so they're deploying that fleet globally."

Biden Defense Officials Defend Diversity, Equity, Inclusion in the Military.  Biden Pentagon officials in charge of military personnel policy defended pushing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in the United States military during a House hearing on Thursday, arguing that it would make the military stronger, not more divided.  However, they were short on data to back up their arguments.  Gil Cisneros, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, argued, "Diversity, equity and inclusion are essential to unit cohesion and trust."  The Army's Assistant Secretary for Manpower and Reserve Affairs Agnes Schaefer argued, "A diverse and talented force of trained and cohesive teams is the most important indicator of our readiness."

The Editor says...
The Army is not ready for battle if it's full of limp-wristed snowflakes.  Diversity adds nothing to cohesiveness.  Do you see any "diversity" in the armies of Japan, China, or North Korea?  No, and you also don't see any excess fat, earrings, or tattoos.

It is clearer every day which party is radical, extreme, dangerous, and flat out crazy.  It is sad that only 74% of registered voters believe that parents have more rights to choose major, life-changing medical surgery than school officials. [...] Who are the 26% of voters who believe the parents have no right to know?  Probably the same sliver of people who believe that biological males should compete with girls in sports and that people with penises should be able to invade girls' privacy in public restrooms and expose themselves in their locker rooms.  They are most likely within the same slim minority of people who think it is O.K. to abort children throughout all nine months of a pregnancy and even to let a baby just lay there and die if he or she is nevertheless born alive in a botched abortion.

Republicans Introduce Bills to Prevent Biden Administration From Banning Gas Stoves.  Two House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans announced on March 20 they are introducing legislation to prevent the Biden administration from banning gas stoves.  The legislation was introduced by Reps.  Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.) and Debbie Lesko, (R-Ariz.) in response to the Biden administration's two-pronged push to ban gas stoves, and might go to the House floor for a vote later this year.  Lesko introduced H.R. 1640, also known as the Save Our Gas Stoves Act, while Armstrong introduced H.R. 1615, the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act.  Both bills are currently in committee.  The pieces of legislation would prohibit the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) from using federal funding to implement any regulation that would classify gas stoves as a prohibited dangerous product under current law.

Industry Is a powerful ally against Biden's power grab.  From day one in the White House, the Biden administration has fumbled one issue after another.  Whether it's sending the American economy into a nosedive or bungling foreign policy crises with some of our greatest adversaries, Joe Biden and his cadre of agency cronies can't get out of their own way, or that of the American people.  Pressure at the pump, supply chain issues keeping store shelves empty, and rising inflation thanks to this administration have hurt American consumers and businesses.  Meanwhile, an America-last approach to foreign policy has left us vulnerable and weak in the eyes of adversaries like Russia and China.

America has deadly enemies, and they are laughing at us.
The Pentagon Supports Child-Sex Changes, Argues Red States Have Created a 'Public Health Crisis'.  President Joe Biden's Pentagon is arguing for gender-affirming care for minors as young as seven years old who belong to military families.  In a March edition of the American Journal of Public Health, Department of Defense providers expressed their support for children to be put on hormone blockers and sex change surgeries despite the dangers of its long-term effects, both mentally and physically.  "Affirming care has only recently become politicized; protection of gender-affirming medical care for military-affiliated [transgender] youths may require a declarative position without tolerance for personal biases, as the DoD has historically achieved for other minoritized groups," the authors wrote.  Titled "Caring for Military-Affiliated Transgender and Gender-Diverse Youths: A Call for Protections," claim that the only option for children who present gender dysphoria signs is to immediately move forward with gender-affirming care, arguing it is a "human right."

Biden Executive Order on Equity Rhymes With Jim Crow.  President Biden recently issued an executive order entitled "Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government."  Make no mistake:  this executive order has the effect of pushing us backward toward a racially divided nation, just like the good old days.  What a shame.  Not thirty years ago, a very different spirit animated civil rights.  Call it the Martin Luther King vision.  Dr. King's vision was fundamentally the Christian one, where every person has dignity, where racism is a sin, where race matters not at all compared to character.  Dr. King held the moral high ground here.  His vision ushered in a few short decades of getting it right.  America had just emerged from two centuries as a nation embracing the opposite of Dr. King's vision.  First human slavery, then violent, racially motivated lawlessness ruled the night.

I Left My Hate in San Francisco.  With the gatekeepers a non-factor and near complete institutional infiltration, the Left may now dispose of any pretense of principle.  As it turns out, the Left has always favored racial hierarchies, as long as White males are on the bottom.  The Left has always desired censorship and the repression of civil liberties, the police state, and even war and environmental degradation.  It was simply that the Left wanted to be the one in charge of the levers of inhumanity, able to exempt itself from its own brutal policies while applying draconian tactics to weaken and abuse political opponents for their own pleasure and political gain.  The Left was never interested in tolerance and compassion, only towards those who resemble them, checking all the ever-multiplying boxes, their own tribe as they whimsically and arbitrarily define it.  There is nothing admirable in this kind of tribal compassion.

As China's Blue-Water Navy Continues Massive Expansion, US Navy Secretary Says Climate Is His 'Top Priority'.  China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) surpassed the U.S. Navy in fleet size sometime around 2020 and now possesses roughly 340 warships, according to the Pentagon's 2022 China Military Power Report, released in November.  Moreover, China's fleet is expected to grow to 400 ships by 2025.  Meanwhile, the U.S. fleet consists of fewer than 300 ships, with a Pentagon goal of 350 manned ships by 2045, according to the U.S. Navy's Navigation Plan 2022, released last summer.  So, what is the U.S. Navy under Joe Biden doing about this sobering reality?  As reported by the Washington Examiner, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro has said, multiple times, that fighting climate change has been one of his biggest priorities since taking office.

Here Are the Tech Companies, Liberal Media Outlets, and Prominent Democrats Saved by Biden's Bank Bailout.  Prominent tech companies, liberal news outlets, and a Democratic politician's vineyards are among the thousands of businesses that breathed a sigh of relief on Sunday when the Biden administration moved to bail out Silicon Valley Bank.  Silicon Valley Bank maintained $209 billion in assets and $175.4 billion in total deposits, making it the 16th-largest bank in the country.  It was the second-largest bank to fail in American history when the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation took control of the institution on Friday.  President Joe Biden has insisted that the FDIC's move was not a bailout, and claimed his administration is working to protect "American workers and small businesses."  But average Americans won't benefit the most from the bailout.  Ninety-three percent of the bank's depositors kept more than $250,000 in the bank.

Federal Agency Comes Closer to Gas Stove Ban.  The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has made a formal request for information about the possible health hazards of gas-powered stoves — another signal that the United States may be moving towards a ban on those appliances under the Biden administration.  "This RFI does not constitute or propose regulatory action, but rather is intended to inform the Commission and the public," the request states.  The request can be viewed here.  It has already received hundreds of comments.  The comment period ends May 8.  The request states that it is seeking input and "proposed solutions" from stakeholders such as "consumers, manufacturers, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, and researchers on chronic chemical hazards associated with the use of gas ranges."

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm praises China.  What at first would appear to be a head-scratcher comes sharply into focus only when you understand that China is constantly increasing its greenhouse gas output without U.S. rebuke.  Its output is now greater than all the other developed nations combined!  Nothing the rest of the world (i.e.  America and Europe both committed to net zero) does will achieve Biden's stated goals to "save" the planet.  China greenlights two coal plants a week while the U.S. and Europe shutter their own, risking brownouts and people dying from the cold!  Why are we such zealots for dumping our traditional sources of energy with nothing on the near horizon to replace our needs?  Granholm knows what's going on, and, like our President, both are in the tank for an ever-ascendant China.

Stacey Abrams gets a new job after election loss, joins environmental group trying to eliminate gas stoves.  Failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams has announced she will be joining an environmental advocacy dark money group that is pushing to regulate and ban natural gas-powered stoves.  Rewiring America, the nonprofit group Abrams will join as senior counsel, is a self-described "leading electrification nonprofit, focused on electrifying our homes, businesses, and communities."  Through her role, Abrams will "launch and scale a national awareness campaign and a network of large and small communities working to help Americans go electric," according to the group.

The Editor says...
In case you get most of your information from TV, there is just barely enough electricity available to meet the demand as it is.  Adding thousands of new all-electric houses is unwise and inefficient, since the required electricity will probably come from a power plant that uses coal or natural gas.  It would be far better to burn the natural gas right under a skillet in your kitchen.

Stacy Abrams is coming for your gas stove.  Abrams is thrilled — thrilled, I tell you — to be a part of such important work.  Bringing the message of climate change, renewables, and electrification to ignorant sods in communities all over the country, who didn't know how unhappy they were with the appliances they own. [...] You'll notice the mention of the Inflation Reduction Act incentives there.  She's pushing spending our money to make us miserable, cold, and unhappy.  Not to mention she's "connecting" you to the people who'll do the installing, etc., so she's basically the annoying solar salesman who bangs every third day on your door already, only she's salaried.  What a peach.

Biden Seeks to Eliminate 96% of Gas Stoves.  It wasn't until America's crooked fact-checkers said Joe Biden had no intention of banning gas stoves that I was certain Joe Biden would ban gas stoves.  And now we know he is — 96 percent of them.  "Yes, the Biden administration is coming for your gas stove," writes Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ) in the Washington Examiner.  It's a backdoor ban by way of outrageous regulations only four percent of gas stoves will meet.  And it's being done, not through democracy and our elected representatives, but by fascist bureaucrats in the Department of Energy.

Biden admin buckles to environmental groups, makes sudden reversal on key land decision.  The Biden administration announced late Tuesday that it would reverse a Trump-era land swap deal facilitating the construction, in an Alaska wilderness area, of a potentially life-saving road opposed by environmental groups.  The Department of the Interior (DOI) withdrew the land exchange — which had been finalized by former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt in 2019 and aggressively defended in court by the Biden administration — and explained that it contained procedural flaws and wasn't consistent with agency policy.  DOI Secretary Deb Haaland said the agency would initiate another environmental analysis of the proposal as part of President Biden's conservation agenda.

Biden Fails to Explain How His 'Plan to Reduce Gun Violence' Will Stop Criminals.  After the White House announced a new executive order focused on the president's "plan to reduce gun violence" on Tuesday, Biden addressed his latest fiat from Monterey Park, California.  As usual, Biden's remarks had, at best, a tenuous connection to truth and reality.  Pledging that his latest executive order dealing with firearms will "accelerate and intensify" his administration's supposed crackdown on illegal firearms, Biden said his order would keep firearms out of the hands of criminals by taking "every lawful action possible to move us as close as we can to universal background checks."

Obama and Other Democrats Are Destroying the First Amendment by Design.  The Democrat Party is conducting a full-scale attack on the First Amendment and on those who dissent from the Democrat Party line on any and all topics.  Leading the charge is Barack Hussein Obama, with the minions in the Biden regime implementing anti-free-speech campaigns behind the scenes as feverishly as they can be divined.  In a speech given at Stanford University last year, Barack Obama declared himself to be a "First Amendment absolutist" while calling for social media regulations.  The self-described constitutional law professor needs to reread the First Amendment, as well as the Federalist Papers, to understand how the latter recommendation completely contradicts his absolutist claim.

NY legislature rejects Governor's budget as being not expensive enough.  As with many other states, New York is still in the process of attempting to sort out its overly-bloated budget for the fiscal year, but it's not going well.  Governor Kathy Hochul submitted a draft budget six weeks ago, but the state legislature has been bogged down, beset with infighting over the details.  One of the chief complaints from the legislators (and many of you will find this hard to believe) is that Hochul has drifted "too far toward the center" since winning a full term of her own last year.

Delaware Voters Overwhelmingly Oppose Gas-powered Car Ban.  Without legislative action, Delaware state agencies are reviewing banning gasoline-powered cars and trucks, and banning natural gas and propane hookups to new buildings.  Both actions are discussed in "Delaware's Climate Action Plan."  Regulatory action has already started forcing vehicle manufacturers to stock 35% of electric vehicles (EV) in Delaware in only three years, eventually allowing only EV sales.  Drivers will not be able to register a new gasoline or diesel-powered vehicle in Delaware by 2034.  A survey conducted by Ragnar Research in February 2023 found that 73% of Delaware voters opposed the gasoline and diesel-powered vehicle ban, with only 18% supporting the ban.  Follow-up questions showed 60% strongly opposed while 9% strongly supported the ban.

Biden: Worse than Jimmy Carter.  Climate change alarmists would have America sacrifice its very nationhood, and national security interests, in blind pursuit of a demonstrably failed plan that accelerates resource depletion to profit a handful of speculators.  What's next?  Abolishing cows so all humanity eats Bill Gates' patented vat meat manufactured with fossil fuels and synthetic fertilizers?  Biden is opening up drilling in Alaska's Cook Inlet while blocking future oil and gas developments in 16 million Arctic acres.  (Carter protected some 156 million Alaskan acres, though drilling there dates back to the 1950s).  This conflicted pattern has revealed friction within Democrat ranks.  Unhappy with gargantuan debt incurred for salvific "renewable" energy independence, more Dems are waking up to the scam.

Bye, Democrats: I'm leaving party that disgracefully supports censorship.  The latest House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government hearing was the final straw.  I can no longer be a Democrat after watching my party of three decades ignore the serious implications of vast governmental censorship and desperately, sometimes comically, try to shoot the messengers.  Last week's hearing was meant to take testimony on the implications of government censorship reported in the Twitter Files — a series of articles, released on social-media platform Twitter, outlining the "censorship-industrial complex."  But what it actually did was draw an astonishingly clear distinction between today's Democrats and Republicans when it comes to our most fundamental and important right:  freedom of speech.

The Editor says...
I see.  You were okay with the far-left, godless, socialist, tax-and-spend baby killers who are afraid of carbon dioxide, opposed to gasoline and coal, and have no objections to transvestite story hour at the library, stolen elections, four-dollar gasoline, mandatory injections of experimental drugs, and a wide-open border with Mexico.  But when they tampered with Twitter, that was just too much!

They Are Intolerant, Divisive, And Anti-Liberty — Call Them Leftists, Not Liberals.  Democrats have moved so far to the left in recent years that they should no longer be called "liberals," unless the true liberals among them start to stand up to the leftists who have taken over.  The term is misleading, giving the impression that Democrats support individual freedoms and accept people of different viewpoints, when increasingly they do not.  The word "liberal" gives yet more power to those who seek to take more of our liberties.  Right-leaning publications often use the term "liberal" when "leftist" would be better.  On the other hand, left-leaning newspapers such as The Washington Post and The New York Times like to use the word "liberal" to describe their own illiberal political views.  It obfuscates how Democrats and their media allies have become more extreme, supporting censorship, authoritarianism, and racial division:  Twitter staff who denied conservatives their right to free speech and eagerly complied with censorship demands from the federal government were described by the Post as milquetoast "liberal employees."  MSNBC says those pushing the tyranny of wokeness are just naughty-sounding "liberal rascals."

Congress Caught Off-Guard by Biden's $5 Trillion Tax Increase Proposal.  Joe Biden's $6.8 trillion annual budget proposal, which included a proposed increase of $5 trillion in taxes in order to fund it all, surprised many in Congress due to drastically overshooting what he was expected to ask for.  As reported by The Hill, the unexpected proposal only creates greater risks for Democrats in the 2024 elections, as Biden presumably prepares for a re-election bid and his party seeks to defend 23 seats in the U.S. Senate, including many red-state seats.  The new proposal, some say, would only exacerbate ongoing economic woes, including inflation and high tax rates, putting an even greater strain on the average American household's finances.  However, Biden has vowed that he would not raise taxes on anyone making more [sic] than $400,000 a year.  Senator Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) described the Biden administration's proposal as "jaw-dropping," declaring it to be "exactly the wrong approach to solving our fiscal problems."

The Editor says...
Everything Biden does is "exactly the wrong approach" to any problem.  It must be intentional.  Nobody is that stupid.

McCarthy Attacks Biden Against His $7 Trillion Budget, Warning Him Not to 'Play Games' With Debt Ceiling.  House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif) is warning President Joe Biden not to "play games with the debt ceiling" as the president rolls out a multi-trillion dollar budget proposal.  McCarthy argued that Biden's $6.9 trillion budget proposal would not succeed in a House vote, saying that not even Democrats would vote for it.  "This budget talks more about equality and climate change than it does dealing with China dealing with fentanyl, dealing with putting our workforce back in the workplace.  That is a real challenge," McCarthy said in an interview with Fox News.  "To have a non-serious budget and for a president not to show the leadership to sit down and solve this problem early only weakens America."  The president unveiled his proposed budget earlier this week.  Some projections say it would result in nearly $5 trillion in tax hikes on corporations and upper-class Americans, increasing costs for everyone.

Biden Budget: The COVID Ratchet is Permanent.  [Scroll down]  So, the net effect of the COVID emergency was to ratchet up federal spending by about $2 trillion a year.  Forever.  If you take a look at federal spending in the 20th century, the same ratchet happened after the 1929 Crash and World War II.  As the philosopher said: "You never let a serious crisis go to waste."  I used to be angry at the perpetual hunger for more spending by our Democratic friends.  But now that I've read and digested Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt's The Concept of the Political, I understand.  If politics is the distinction between friend and enemy, then everything makes sense.  In politics you fight the enemy in World War COVID and World War Climate and World War J6-Deplorables to the death, and you shovel the loot and plunder at your DEI supporters.

Ted Cruz Says Biden 'Certainly' Isn't Running the White House After New Budget Proposal.  Ted Cruz acknowledged what the majority of us have long known: Biden is a puppet leader.  Cruz criticizes the projected $6.8 trillion budget of the Biden administration on social media, claiming he no longer runs the White House.  Cruz, R-Texas, asserted that President Biden's budget for the 2024 fiscal year indicated that "socialists are in charge" and that he had failed to fulfill his vow to unite the two major parties.  The budget, as stated by Cruz, boosts taxes and increases expenditure to record levels for the socialist economic, education, climate, and healthcare agenda.

Biden's Proposed 2024 Budget Will Fund Veterans' 'Sex Changes'.  President Joe Biden's proposed 2024 budget, which was released Thursday, hopes to fund sex-change surgeries and gender-affirming treatments for military veterans.  "Recognizing the diversity of America's veterans, the Administration is also taking action to advance equity across veterans' services," the budget reads.  "In addition to ending the ban on transgender service, the Administration is committed to providing gender affirming care to the Nation's veterans — and last year, the VA announced that it was extending survivor benefits to certain survivors of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex veterans."

For Democrats, Joe Biden's 'right' to spend is absolute.  A big bank has gone down, the second in 48 hours.  The U.S. trade deficit has widened.  Inflation is out of control with the Fed openly warning the rate hikes to beat it back are going to keep coming.  Yet [...] Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats, keep calling for more federal spending.  That's where the problem is coming from.  Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, just as economist Milton Friedman explained.  Call for more spending and what's really being called for is more inflation and the interest rate hikes that follow to stop that inflation, both of which are now wreaking havoc.  Biden just did that this week, seeking a $6.9 trillion federal budget full of new spending, even as he questionably claimed that tax hikes would bring in a windfall for the government, making its deficit smaller.

NYC Residents Say City's New Climate Law Could Ruin Their Lives.  A New York City climate law regulating emissions is set to impose harsh penalties on larger buildings, many of them residential, that don't comply by 2024, forcing building boards and residents to make difficult financial decisions, according to The New York Times.  Local Law 97 is part of the city's 2019 Climate Mobilization Act and aims to reduce carbon emissions by 40% by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050 by targeting buildings, which are believed to be the city's largest polluters, according to the NYT.  But the strict regulations put building managers in a difficult position, forcing them to choose between costly energy upgrades and massive fines.  One building manager, Craig Hart, told the NYT he could install solar panels on a roof that's going to need a $650,000 replacement in coming year, install a new boiler system that will have to be replaced in a few years as emissions standards become more stringent, or face massive fines for noncompliance.

Joe Biden's Preposterous Student Loan Bailout.  The legality of President Biden's student loan forgiveness proposal (Proposal) is much debated.  The legal dispute revolves, in significant part, around the language of the HEROES Act.  Biden's lawyers claim that the HEROES Act authorizes the proposed student loan forgiveness.  Others claim that it does not. [...] The HEROES Act states that the secretary of education (the "Secretary') may waive or modify certain statutes and regulations as may be necessary to ensure that recipients of student financial assistance are not placed in a worse position financially because of the pandemic.  In order for the Secretary, or anyone else, to determine whether a person's financial position has worsened, one must examine that person's financial statements (balance sheets, income statements, and tax returns) of the beginning and end and during the period in question. [...] It appears that the Secretary has not obtained or reviewed the requisite financial statements for any or all student loan borrowers who may claim benefits under the Proposal, nor sought the necessary information to determine causation of any worsened financial positions.  Therefore the Secretary is not authorized by the HEROES Act, on its face, to commence any implementation of the Proposal that does not and cannot qualify.

An America shot through with Marxism.  A few months ago, I was asked to write a book review for an American Thinker reader named Leslie Stein, an associate professor of economics at the University of Macquarie, in Sydney, Australia.  He has written four books in total, including the one he asked me to review, called The Undermining of Western Civilization.  This book is timely and pertinent, to say the least.  This book comes in the midst of an all-out Marxist assault on Western civilization. [...] Stein documents the entire history and evolution of what we now call "wokism," beginning in the 1960s with radical Marxist student groups on college campuses around the United States, including the Students for a Democratic Society, the Black Panthers, and the Weather Underground organization — groups that doubled as terrorist organizations who waged war with the police and blew up federal buildings, all in an attempt to foment a communist revolution.  They, collectively, were known as the "New Left."

Biden's Budget Is Tax-And-Spend On Steroids.  The headline the White House wants everyone to write would say that President Joe Biden's budget plan will cut projected deficits by $2.9 trillion.  That number isn't impressive at all, given the context.  Worse is the way he gets there.  Start with the fact that the $2.9 trillion amounts to just a haircut in the projected $20 trillion deficits over the next decade, deficits that Biden and his fellow Democrats vastly inflated with their two-year spending spree. [...] Next is the fact that Biden's budget would increase spending by $1.8 trillion over the next decade.  And all of it comes through increases in "mandatory spending" — also known as "entitlement" programs.

Biden's new budget mentions 'equity' 63 times, 'transgender' eight times and 'queer' seven times.  Joe Biden's new budget plan, released on Thursday, is light on initiatives for dealing with the drug crisis sweeping the county but heavy on gender politics, according to a new analysis.  Biden mentioned 'equity' 63 times in the document, Fox News found - more than double the references to the word 'border'.  The word 'fentanyl' was only mentioned twice.

Federal Judge Rules Biden Border Policies Unlawful, Make Border "Meaningless".  After the Biden regime released tens of thousands of migrants into the United States by using humanitarian parole, a federal judge in Florida put the administration on blast and ruled that its actions were unlawful.  As the Biden administration worsens the country's immigration crisis, it has been using parole as a tool to prevent overcrowding at the U.S.-Mexico border.  This allows migrants to enter the U.S. more quickly than they already were able to.  A lawsuit was filed by Republican Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody alleging that the administration's use of parole at the border is illegal, as it is supposed to be used on a "case-by-case basis for urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit."

They are coming for your parking spot.  For decades cities were designed around cars, as anyone who lives outside a very dense urban area knows.  Suburbs exist because of cars.  Single-family homes for the middle class do too.  Before cars you had to walk or ride a horse; after, all that space around cities became usable as living space.  It was nirvana for the average family and still is for many of us.  Urban planners often speak as if there were no roads before cars, which is absurd.  By their telling, everybody used a sidewalk or took a train to get around, and the car ruined everything.  In their world, you should live in a 15-minute city where you can walk anywhere, which is another way of saying you should live in an urban high-rise building.

The 76 congressmen who demand unlimited illegal immigration.  Recently a large group of US Congressmen signed a letter to Joe Biden, demanding that he make it easier for illegal aliens to enter and stay in the USA.  The signers are ten US Senators, sixty-six US Representatives, and one non-voting delegate from Washington DC.  Below is a list of the seventy-six voting delegates who signed the letter. [...]

A lot of major Democrat donors have a couple things in common.  The media and other Democrats don't really care about any of the following:
  •   Too much money in politics
  •   Where the donations come from
  •   Paying back victims of crime.
  •   Soft on crime prosecutors
  •   Equity
  •   Equality
  •   Fairness.
They care only about power.

Proposed bill would prevent anyone under 25 with being charged with felony murder.  In recent weeks, the issue of age has been a hot topic when it comes to justice reform.  Governor Wes Moore's pick to run the Juvenile Justice Service, Vincent Schiraldi has said no one under the age of 21 should be introduced to the justice system, because the brain is not fully developed.  However, opponents of HB 1180, like Republican Delegate Susan McComas say Democrats are only using mental capacity when it comes to soft on crime policies.  "Proponents of the bill say that the human brain is not fully formed in the frontal lobes until age 25.  But yet, we're doing other things in the general assembly, letting children vote earlier and earlier, letting them get hormone inducing drugs to change their sex," said McComas.

SoFi sues over student-loan pause to force borrowers to resume making payments.  Some 40 million people have had their student-debt payments paused because the government thinks they need the help.  But one big financial technology company, which refinances student loans, disapproves of the public policy and wants the payments resumed immediately to help its bottom line.  SoFi Technologies, a financial technology company involved in the student loan refinancing business, is suing the Department of Education over the student loan payment pause.  In a suit filed in federal court late last week, the company alleges that the latest extension of the COVID-era pause on student loan payments, interest and collections "is unlawful on multiple grounds."  The company is asking the court to invalidate and set aside the pause, or at a minimum, require student loan borrowers who aren't eligible for the Biden administration's debt relief plan to start repaying their loans.

Should Taxpayers Subsidize College Dropouts?  Last week's oral arguments before the Supreme Court concerning the Biden administration's student-loan forgiveness plan predictably focused on arcane legal theories such as the "major questions doctrine."  Relatively little time was devoted to the profoundly inequitable structure of the program.  Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch did note that it would provide benefits to certain favored persons while ignoring the very real costs it would impose on others, but no one mentioned a fact that will gall most taxpayers — it would cancel student loans for college dropouts.  Remarkably, the Biden administration and most Democrats see this as a selling point for the plan.

A great question nobody is asking about Biden's student loan giveaway plan.  I am vehemently opposed to Joe Biden's illegal assumption of the power to force taxpayers to assume the burden of student loan repayments on college tuition obligations voluntarily entered into.  It's wrong constitutionally, and it's wrong morally to force other people to pay for services to others that only a minority receive.  Besides, higher education has devolved into a brainwashing arm of the hard left and has lost all claim to be a general public benefit.  The education cartel has abused the public with tuition escalating at three times the rate of general inflation for about half a century now, financing useless, expensive, and counterproductive administrative bureaucracies that now equal or outnumber teaching faculty at many institutions.

Now convicted felons can vote in Minnesota.  Formerly incarcerated felons in Minnesota will now be able to vote after a new law restoring their rights was signed by the state's governor.  Minnesota Governor Tim Walz signed a bill on Friday which gives convicted felons who have completed their jail time the right to vote.  Now, 55,000 individuals who were previously deprived of those rights can register to vote, the most significant expansion of that right in Minnesota in a half-century, according to the governor's office.

What's Next for Wokeism?  Twenty-five years ago, I told a friend that we would likely bear witness to the acceptance and even protection of several abhorrent social or political practices.  That came true, but it didn't stop there. [...] During the 1980s and 1990s, the social norms listed below were largely unacceptable; eventually the practices became mainstream through the strident promotion by activists and ineffective pushback by traditional institutions:
  •   Open homosexuality, coupled with the very public promotion of the lifestyle
  •   Gay Marriage
  •   Transgenderism
  •   Sex by consenting children with young adults
  •   Open Borders
  •   Anti-Capitalism
  •   The acceptance of recreational drug use as acceptable behavior
  •   Rampant crime and reduced punishment
  •   Society no longer requires work to live
  •   Single-parent constructs as equal to two-parent families
Take a moment to reread this list.  Nothing surprises us anymore.  History teaches us that radical social change usually ends badly, even for progressives.  All of the above continues to have a significant stigma for many Americans.  There is general agreement that promoting negative moral or societal values can and usually will have a deleterious effect on society.  With no national debate, the redefinition of our country has almost been achieved.  Today, our ability to be shocked must surpass a very high threshold.

Just Call it What it Is.  Stone-deaf to public opinion polling, fringe party socialists have seized control of the Democrat party and continue to influence despotic policies that damage economic prosperity and national security.  In television interviews and stump speeches, Beltway Republicans play whack-a-mole, ignoring the obvious in search of an explanation; that is, DEI and climate activism are utilized to control people rather than to repair any historical injustice or spruce up the planet.  From the manipulation of science and elections to speech police and social media censorship to historical amnesia in grade school education to the creation of an economic caste system by way of inflation, taxation, and immigrant invasion, the Biden administration has deliberately inflicted an apostasy upon America.

House votes to kill Biden's 'woke' ESG investment rule that props up 'phony climate movement'.  The House voted Tuesday [2/28/2023] to kill the Biden administration's controversial rule that encourages private retirement plan fiduciaries to consider environment, social and governance (ESG) factors when making investment decisions for tens of millions of Americans.  The Department of Labor rule is widely seen by Republicans as part of the Biden administration's push to inject "woke" ideology into all aspects of government.  Under the rule, fiduciaries who make investment decisions for the retirement plans of more than 150 million people would be explicitly permitted under federal guidelines to consider companies' approach to climate change and other social issues, instead of focusing on only profitability and return on investment for retirees.  Republicans say that's a recipe for tanking millions of investment accounts, and on Tuesday, House GOP leaders called up a resolution aimed at killing the rule, which passed 216-204.  Only one Democrat voted for it.

DC passes bill into law allowing illegal immigrants, other noncitizens to vote.  The Washington, D.C. city council made it official on Monday, illegal immigrants and other non-citizens can now vote in local elections.  The Democrat-run district that serves as the nation's capital went so far as to allow foreign diplomats to cast a vote.  That's according to various reports that the city council passed the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act after a 30-day congressional review period ended — the GOP-led House pushed to block the D.C.  law from taking effect but the Democrat-run Senate let the clock expire without taking action.  The law requires a person to be 18 and to have lived in D.C.  for 30 days to be eligible to vote, providing they do not claim voting residence in any U.S.  state or U.S.  territory.

SCOTUS [is] Gearing up to Sink Biden's Midterm Bribe of Forgiving Student Loan Debt.  It was never up to President Joe Biden to forgive the student loan debt held by millions of Americans, yet during the midterms, the Democrats made it a party-wide campaign promise.  While the lie didn't fly well enough to stop the Republicans from taking back the House with an unforgivably slim margin, it sure gave young leftists something to rally around.  But despite Biden telling Americans he'd forgive the debt, even members of his own party were feeling uneasy about the promise.  New Hampshire Democrat lawmaker Chris Pappas didn't like the way Biden was sidestepping Congress and said publicly that this wasn't so much forgiveness as it was debt reallocation.

Blue State Is Imposing A New Climate Policy And Gas Prices Are Already Skyrocketing.  Gas prices in the state of Washington have surged 40 cents since the new year, when a new law designed to penalize greenhouse gas emissions went into effect, according to the U.S.  Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration (EIA).  Washington businesses that produce more than 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year will either need to purchase allowances from the state's Department of Ecology at quarterly auctions, or trade for them with another business later, a practice commonly known as "cap-and-trade," Axios reported.  Since the law was implemented, the cost of gas in the state has skyrocketed from nearly $3.70 to just over $4.10, according to the EIA.

Biden Unites the Feds with DEI.  How are we to understand the Biden administration's executive order to go full DEI for the whole federal government?  I mean, if we need to purge the federal government from stem to stern of systemic racism and enforce diversity, equity, and inclusion, the federal government must be a veritable hornet's nest of racism, sexism, homophobia, and hate.  Otherwise we wouldn't need a whole-of-government effort to stamp it out.  And, of course, we are talking about Democrats.  No Republican has had a shot at a Fed job for a generation.  But how can this be?  Our liberal friends have been running the federal government, man and boy — and now gender non-binary — for not less than 90 years, at least since FDR was inaugurated and cranked up the federal government to ramming speed with a ton of new liberal programs.  Our liberal friends have run a race program — fighting systemic racism! — for the last 55 years, from quotas to Affirmative Action to Diversity to Reparations.  And that's not enough?

Biden will be playing defense on student loans this week at the Supreme Court.  President Joe Biden's $400 billion student loan forgiveness plan will finally get its day at the Supreme Court on Tuesday.  But some experts predict that by the time arguments end, the administration may wish it had been somewhere else.  Biden's proposal, which would forgive up to $20,000 for some borrowers, is almost certain to be in for a rough ride before a court with a 6-3 conservative majority and an increasingly skeptical view of agencies acting without clear approval from Congress.  "The case against him on the merits is very strong," said Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University.

Minnesota joins growing movement to ban new homes from having any gas at all.  A growing number of states and cities are considering or implementing bans for the future construction of not just gas stoves, but natural gas hookups themselves, a move that would raise costs for consumers and potentially have negative environmental consequences, natural gas advocates told the Daily Caller News Foundation.  Lawmakers in the state of Minnesota introduced legislation this month that would permit the state's Commissioner of Labor and Industry to amend the state's energy code to "mitigate the impact of climate change," a directive that could be used to justify a ban on natural gas, according to the free-market Minnesota think-tank Center of the American Experiment.  California and New York are weighing statewide bans which would not only increase costs but may not have the climate benefits advocates hope for, Dan Kish, senior fellow at the Institute for Energy Research told the DCNF.  "Natural gas is our cleanest fossil [fuel] and it is responsible for the U.S.  reducing carbon dioxide emissions more than other countries, largely because we have centuries of the stuff," Kish told the DCNF.

Turns Out They Are Coming for Your Gas Stoves.  A new Biden administration rule on cooking appliances would effectively ban half of all gas stoves on the U.S.  market from being sold, according to an Energy Department projection.  In an analysis published earlier this month, President Joe Biden's Energy Department acknowledged that roughly half of all gas stoves on the U.S.  market today would not meet its proposed cooking appliance efficiency regulations, E&E News reported Friday.  As a result, those stoves would not be eligible for purchase.  Still, Energy Department spokesman Jeremy Ortiz dismissed concerns over the proposal, saying half the gas stove market "would remain if this standard is finalized as proposed."  The Energy Department's admission comes roughly one month after U.S.  Consumer Product Safety commissioner Richard Trumka Jr., a Biden appointee, said a gas stove ban was "on the table."  "This is a hidden hazard," Trumka Jr.  said of gas cooking.  "Any option is on the table.  Products that can't be made safe can be banned."

Biden Official Clears Ukraine of Misusing U.S.  Financial Aid.  Ukraine is not misusing the tens of billions of dollars in direct financial assistance it is receiving courtesy of U.S.  taxpayers according to a top Biden administration official.  Samantha Power, the administrator of the U.S.  Agency for International Development (USAID), gave the public affirmation during a CNN live town hall on Thursday evening.  Her assurances came just hours ahead of the White House revealing it would give another $2 billion in military aid to Ukraine as its war with Russia officially hits the one-year mark, bringing the total amount of American military assistance to over $30 billion in one year.

California Democrats want gender-neutral bathrooms mandatory in all K-12 schools.  A California state lawmaker has introduced legislation that would make the Golden State the first in the nation to require schools to have at least one gender-neutral bathroom on campus.  State Sen. Josh Newman (D) introduced SB 760 last week, which would require all K-12 public and charter schools to have at least one genderless bathroom for student use amid ever-increasing controversy over the place of public schools when a student claims to identify with a gender different from their biological sex.

I not a lawyer or a judge, but this is a Bill of Attainder:
Chinese Spy Lover Eric Swalwell Proposes Bill to Ban Trump From U.S.  Capitol.  Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif), who was kicked off the House Select Committee on Intelligence because of his years-long affair with a Chinese spy, is trying to stay in the headlines by proposing a plan to keep former President Trump out of the Capitol.  The bill, introduced by Rep. Nikema Williams (D-GA), would permanently bar Trump and several top aides from the Capitol because of their attempt to "undermine and overturn the 2020 presidential election."  The proposal asks the House and Senate Sergeant at Arms and the U.S.  Capitol Police to take "such actions as may be necessary" to keep Trump from entering the halls of Congress forever.

Kamala Harris, the $21 Trillion Woman.  That's the conservatively estimated cost of then-Senator Harris' "Monthly Economic Crisis Support Act."  With the Biden administration setting a May 11 end date for the COVID-19 public health emergency, we can finally close the books on the remarkable plan Harris introduced in May 2020. She proposed sending Americans "crisis payments" each month that emergency declaration was in effect, plus an extra three months after it expired.  The legislation never advanced, but if it had most Americans would have received $2,000 checks each month retroactive to March 2020 and continuing through this coming August.  Up to two parents and three children per household would have been eligible, for a maximum of $10,000 per month or an astonishing $120,000 per year.  That's nearly double the US median household income of $67,521 in 2020.  It even exceeds the risible guaranteed annual income of $97,000 recently proposed by the San Francisco Reparations Advisory Committee.  Think finding workers is hard now?  Across a span of 42 months, a typical family of four would have received a whopping $336,000 in federal checks — without working a minute.

Biden Administration's New Equity Atlas: An Unconstitutional Equity Redistribution Scheme.  The Biden administration's $1.2 trillion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) gives cities a blank check for hundreds of billions of dollars in federal grants.  An astonishingly massive windfall for municipal budgets.  Janet Yellen, U.S. Treasury Secretary, followed up by forming an Advisory Committee on Racial Equity (a.k.a.  TACRE) to ensure cities channel those funds and future federal grants towards racial equity justice.  The Committee's mission is to "identify, monitor, and review aspects of the domestic economy that have directly and indirectly resulted in unfavorable conditions...for persons of color."  The ulterior motive is to produce a permanent mechanism that is a data-driven approach forcing racial equity justice outcomes.  Leftists refer to the concept as "democratizing data," a contrary term that is an affirmative action contrivance.

California Democrats want gender-neutral bathrooms mandatory in all K-12 schools.  A California state lawmaker has introduced legislation that would make the Golden State the first in the nation to require schools to have at least one gender-neutral bathroom on campus.  State Sen. Josh Newman (D) introduced SB 760 last week, which would require all K-12 public and charter schools to have at least one genderless bathroom for student use amid ever-increasing controversy over the place of public schools when a student claims to identify with a gender different from their biological sex.

Minnesota Senate passes bills to restore felon voting rights, give licenses to illegal immigrants.  Two more bills are on their way to the governor's desk:  one to restore voting rights to felons when they leave prison and another to grant driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.  Current state law requires felons to complete their entire sentence before regaining the right to vote, including probation or parole.  HF28 will allow felons to vote whenever they are not incarcerated. [...] Republicans unsuccessfully attempted to amend the bill to prevent certain violent criminals and those convicted of felony voter fraud from regaining the right to vote until after serving their full sentence.

Biden's Wonderful World of 'Equity'.  Immediately after his inauguration on January 20, 2021 Joe Biden, signed an executive order placed in front of him directing the federal government to "...pursue a comprehensive approach to advancing equity for all."  On February 16, 2023, he signed a follow-up executive order mandating that all federal agencies create teams and annual plans to insure equity within all government agencies and to utilize government programs to compel equity within the private sector.  The use of the word "equity" is a deliberate attempt to hoodwink the American public, who are fully are on board with a similar-sounding word "equality."  Equity, unlike equality, isn't equal access to opportunity or equal protection before the law.  Equity, per the American Marxists, is the redistribution of societal status, legal protection, and economic goods (i.e., jobs and material possessions) in accordance with their politized assessment of disadvantages and demographics.  Equity, in the Marxist context, requires a clearly defined villainous group, and not coincidentally a political adversary, in order to manipulate the masses into believing that they have the best interests of the people at heart.  But first the population has to be segmented or tribalized and then indoctrinated into believing they as distinct groups have been and continue to be victimized and, thus, deserving of equal outcomes as merit or ability is immaterial.

Combustion Going Bust: Global Phase-Outs Of Gasoline Cars.  The European Union last week approved a law that will ban the sale of combustion engine cars in its member states [beginning in] 2035.  For Germany and Italy as well as for Romania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Hungary, the new bill sets a first deadline for the sale of gasoline-powered cars.

Biden Is Still After Your Gas Stoves.  Shortly after a Biden administration official boasted about how the federal government might ban gas stoves for being "unsafe," the White House reassured the public that no such ban was in the works.  We warned readers at the time not to believe such reassurances because "once this sort of train starts moving there is often no stopping it."  That was in early January.  It took less than a month for the Biden administration to prove us right.  Earlier this month, the Department of Energy released a proposed rule that, if implemented, would essentially regulate gas stoves out of existence.

Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari Admits Goal is to Shrink Economy to Meet Decreased Energy Supplies.  Apparently, the interview took place a few weeks ago (it's new to me), but the admissions within it are quite remarkable.  The CNBC discussion surrounds inflation and the federal reserve raising interest rates.  Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari is talking about the jobs report, inflation and the intention of the federal reserve to continue raising interest rates until they achieve 2% inflation, regardless of consequence.  Kashkari doesn't hedge on the latter issue of consequence; he affirms with absolute guarantee the fed will keep raising rates until the economy shrinks enough such that 2% inflation is achieved.  However, watch what happens when Joe Kernan takes that outlook and overlays "supply side" energy policy.  [Video clip]

The Greens Aren't Just Coming for Your Gas-Powered Car — They're Coming for All Cars.  Late last month, Joe Biden was mocked for posting a photo of himself in an electric vehicle (a GMC Hummer) that costs $110,000 and up.  And for touting a $7,500 federal tax credit that doesn't apply to vehicles that cost over $80,000. In other words, the 46th president was ripped for confirming the stereotype that electric cars are a vanity passion for rich green liberals.  But what was less noticed, at least by the right, was that left-wing greens didn't like Biden's photo-op, either.  You see, Middle Class Joe insists that he wants to replace internal-combustion vehicles with electric vehicles (EV), but the hardcore greens — including those within his own administration — want to get rid of cars, period.

The Left Is Willing to Bankrupt America for Climate Change.  American socialists are eager to prove Churchill right.  Their preferred stalking horse in their pursuit of egalitarian misery is the specter of a climate apocalypse.  Since the apocalypse, in their telling, is gonna be, well, apocalyptic, that means the defense against it must be just as all-embracing.  And just as the defense against the real Nazi apocalypse bankrupted the British Empire, so, too, they are content to bankrupt America in the pursuit of a cause they believe has equal urgency.  But there is no confidence among climate fanatics that the battle can ever be won without the surrender of abundance.  The further down the road we get to electrification, the more apparent it is that it will not solve the problem of how to get enough energy without harming the planet.

Report: Joe Biden Weighs Expanding Foreign Competition Against Working Class Americans.  President Joe Biden is weighing expanding foreign competition in the labor market against working class Americans by offering green cards to foreign visa workers, a new report suggests.  An exclusive report from Fox News's Adam Shaw reveals that Biden is considering allowing foreign workers on H-2A agricultural visas and H-2B non-agricultural visas to apply for and secure green cards to remain permanently in the United States labor market.

Maryland bill would block minors from being charged as adults.  The Maryland state Senate recently introduced SB 93, named the Youth Equity & Safety Act.  This latest attempt at so-called "justice reform" would end the practice of charging juvenile suspects under the age of 18 as adults.  Proponents of the bill claim that younger offenders don't receive the resources they need in an adult prison while going through the juvenile court system makes them "less likely to re-offend."  (They offered no data to back up that assertion.)  This is a stunning proposal to put forward at a time when Baltimore has seen seven straight years with more than 300 murders and a very sizable portion of the offenders (when they manage to identify and arrest a suspect) are minors that are recruited by the gangs, some of whom are barely old enough for middle school.

The Editor says...
Ax yourself this question:  If this idea becomes law, will violent crime increase or decrease?

Minnesota Democrat lawmakers push ban on gas-powered lawn mowers, chainsaws to curb 'climate pollution'.  Two Minnesota Democratic lawmakers are proposing a pair of bills that would significantly impact the state's backyards and neighborhood ice rinks in an effort to combat climate change.  State Reps.  Jerry Newton and Heather Edelson, members of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, introduced legislation on Monday that would block the sale of common landscaping appliances like lawn mowers and chainsaws as well ice resurfacing machines such as Zambonis, requiring that only electric battery versions be sold in the state starting Jan. 1, 2025.  The ban on lawn and garden equipment would include any machine that uses "a spark ignition engine rated at or below 19 kilowatts or 25 gross horsepower."  Commonly used landscaping tools like lawn mowers, leaf blowers, hedge clippers, chainsaws, lawn edgers, string trimmers and brush cutters would all be prohibited by that definition.

The Editor says...
That also outlaws your backup generator, unless you have a really big one.  But then, why would really big engines be okay, if small ones are ruining the earth?

Really?  Does this include reverse discrimination and "affirmative action?"  Of course not.
Biden Signs Executive Order to Root Out Systemic Racism from Federal Government.  President Joe Biden signed an executive order Thursday aimed at rooting out systemic racism from the federal government and doing more to achieve racial equity.  The order, made in the middle of Black History month, extends an order Biden made on his first day in office requiring federal agencies to investigate inequities within their departments and to proactively address shortcomings.  That is now an annual requirement.  The aim is to deliver "equitable outcomes" for all Americans, including underserved communities, through government policies, programs, and services.  The order also requires federal agencies to establish "equity teams," with a designated senior leader charged with implementing the administration's equity goals and "delivering equitable outcomes, to the extent consistent with applicable law."  And it requires the establishment of a new White House steering committee on equity to "coordinate Government-wide efforts to advance equity."

Biden installed: What could possibly go wrong?  Biden was not legitimately elected, he was fraudulently installed.  So terrified of Donald Trump are the denizens of the swamp that they were willing to sell out the country, the Constitution, and the American people, and put into the oval office a man so corrupt and so compromised, that the nation might never recover from this catastrophic theft of an American presidential election.  Biden has effectively ruined America in two short years.  We are no longer energy independent but are being starved of domestic energy.  Businesses, especially restaurants, that survived the ridiculous Covid lockdowns now face unaffordable gas bills.  Gas prices are twice what they were under Trump — and now these fools want to ban gas stoves!  Punishingly absurd.  This is a party that means to restrict all of the freedoms Americans have long taken for granted.

Democrats propose plan to make federal government give EVERY American born after 2005 a $1,000 savings account.  Congressional Democrats rolled out a spending proposal aimed at closing the racial wealth gap on Wednesday, which would give at least $1,000 to every American born after 2005.  Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) introduced the American Opportunity Accounts Act, which would federalize the use of 'baby bonds' for the country's youth to help fight wealth inequality.  The program would be funded by raising estate and inheritance taxes.  It would result in a major redistribution of wealth to middle and lower-income Americans.

The Editor says...
Any effort by the government "to help fight wealth inequality" is nothing more than a scheme to buy the votes of lazy people using the wealth of the most productive and successful citizens.

Illinois bills seek to require EV charging stations in new and renovated homes.  Two proposed legislation in Illinois seek to require new and renovated homes to have electric vehicle (EV) charging stations, a change that could make new houses more costly.  House Bill 2206 states that the Capital Development Board shall adopt rules requiring each newly constructed residential building in the state that includes a garage "to have enough electric generating capacity in the garage to charge an electric vehicle."  Senate Bill 0040, on the other hand, requires new single-family residences or small multifamily residences to have at least one electric vehicle capable parking space for each residential unit that has dedicated parking, unless any subsequently adopted building code requires additional electric vehicle capable parking spaces or installed electric vehicle supply equipment.

Real and Fake Worlds: Why the Trains are Failing.  Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg worked in the fake world of Harvard and consulting.  Consultants do not improve business outcomes.  They exist as a way to give cover to an executive team by saying that the executive team's strategy is the correct one.  This also means you can't fire the executives for failure because the consultants agreed it was the right move.  Where do you suppose "Mayor Pete's" priorities are?  [Video clip]  Roads and train tracks can't get more real.  Polluted water is as real as it gets.  Racial identity politics are part of the fake world.  We only get to fight over nonsense when infrastructure is strong enough to support our bloated selves.  The country has decided that the fake world matters more than the real world.

Forget 'Defund The Police': There's A New Movement To Handcuff The Cops.  Leaders in multiple states and cities are embracing efforts to bar police from pulling drivers over for certain less-severe traffic violations, a move that some experts believe endangers public safety.  Lawmakers in Washington state are pushing a plan that would forbid police traffic stops conducted to address some lower-level traffic lawbreaking, and Oregon has already established a similar policy, while San Francisco is considering a city-wide plan of this kind after Los Angeles and Minneapolis instituted their own.  Such restrictions could effectively impede enforcement against more serious offenses and put innocent civilians at risk, according to experts who spoke to the Daily Caller News Foundation.

California's reparations proposals may carry a steep price for Democrats.  A long-awaited meeting of San Francisco's board of supervisors was set this week to discuss the recommendation of its African American Reparations Advisory Committee to give $5 million to each eligible Black resident as reparations.  The meeting was postponed, but the city and the state soon must make a decision on a bill that has come due for Democratic politicians.  The city council voted unanimously to create the reparations committee in 2020.  Even though California was a free state without slavery before the Civil War, the committee's "particular focus has been the era of urban renewal, perhaps the most significant example of how the City and County of San Francisco as an institution played a role in undermining Black wealth and actively displacing the city's Black population."  That could be viewed as only a partial payment for race-related injuries.

Campus diversity, equity, and inclusion programs make students miserable.  Winston Churchill offered two brief, brilliant definitions of socialism:  (1) "Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy."  (2) "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings.  The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."  In other words, unhappiness is socialism's lifeblood.  It needs unhappy people to be the revolution's foot soldiers and, after the revolution, its praetorian guard.

The Truth About Biden's Would-Be Gas Stove Ban Comes Out.  Since the initial dust-up in early January, the Biden administration and its media allies have run a relentless campaign to pretend as if concerns over a federal gas stove ban were made up by Republicans.  Unfortunately for them, the internet is forever, and commentary by administration officials, including CPSC head Alexander Hoehn-Saric, made it clear the idea was on the table.  Democrat politicians also defended the possible move, claiming that gas stoves cause childhood asthma.  For several days, you were treated as an idiot who wanted to harm kids if you didn't think gas stoves should be banned.  Even the late-night TV shows were talking about, and then suddenly, everything changed.  The press started to put out stories asserting that Biden was never going to ban gas stoves and that it was simply a moral panic created by the right.  That wasn't true, but it served as a useful way to abscond from the fact that the administration had backtracked due to the backlash.

'Democrat Leadership' is an Oxymoron.  Research shows that grandiose narcissists lack self-awareness, exaggerate their skills and experience, and are not the best leaders.  Unfortunately, today's Democrat leaders are riddled with grandiose narcissism as they determine to save us from ourselves.  One example:  it's ludicrous that those so full of hot air would contemplate banning our gas stoves, and clean gas in general.  They are more bullies wielding a cudgel than leaders with a gavel.  Such forceful tactics may work in battle or other emergency situations where there's no time for debate, but not in a government of checks and balances designed for deliberate debate.

86 House Democrats vote against resolution condemning 'horrors of socialism'.  The U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning socialism on Thursday, with nearly all Republicans and half of the Democrats supporting it.  H. Con. Res. 9, a resolution "denouncing the horrors of socialism," passed 328 to 86, with 14 Democrats voting present, and six members (three Republicans and three Democrats) not voting.  "This was a win for democracy," Rep. María Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., the daughter of Cuban exiles who represents Miami-Dade County and who sponsored the resolution, told The Daily Signal in a statement Thursday.  "As the representative of the city of Miami, and daughter of Cuban exiles, I say that this resolution hits close to home for us all," she added.  "We know that socialism only brings misery, oppression, and exile, wherever it is tried."

Steel Yourselves, Conservatives.  In the lead up to 2022, Democrats not only refused to moderate their support for unlimited abortion up to the moment of birth, transgender surgery for minors, critical race theory, criminal justice reform, and illegal immigration, they doubled-down.  Voters rewarded them with additional governorships, four flipped state legislatures, an increased Senate majority, and minimal losses in the House.  The Left has zero reason to take the foot off the gas.  Elections, legitimate or not, have consequences.  The most likely outcome of the 2024 election is that Democrats retake the House, keep the Senate, and retain the presidency, regardless of who they run or what the economy looks like.  As Joe Biden and Jon Fetterman proved in 2020 and 2022, respectively, Democrats don't need to actually campaign in order to win political office.  Nor do they need to be able to string together a coherent sentence.

After His State Takes Away Gas Stoves, Sen. Schumer Falsely Claims "Nobody is Taking Away Your Gas Stove".  Political discourse is skipping right past the "make a good argument" stage to the "lying right to your face" stage. [...] Schumer also tweeted that Republicans were, "cooking up a silly, shameless, and desperate narrative that Democrats are coming for your gas stove."  Fact Check:  Infinity pinnochios.  The governor of his own state has proposed a gas stove ban. [...] Yes, they want to ban your stove, your car, your home and your life.  It's what they do.  And they lie about it non-stop until they're ready to do it.

100 Members of Congress Refused to Denounce Socialism - Here Are Their Names.  Republicans in Congress passed a resolution Wednesday condemning the ideology of socialism and the destruction it has wrought throughout history.  While 219 Republicans were united in their opposition, House Democrats were split, with 109 voting for the condemnation, 86 voting against it and 14 others voting "present."  According to the Washington Examiner, the final tally for the vote was 328-86, indicating a sizable chunk of Democrat opposition.

Those Attacks on Gas Stoves Aren't Really about Health.  Earlier this month, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced that indoor gas stoves emitted harmful pollution.  Several studies claim that the use of gas can cause respiratory illness.  The CPSC is considering restrictions on gas stoves, including possible bans in new residential construction.  But attacks on gas stoves are based on questionable science and are largely driven by concerns not related to health.  The CPSC has reportedly been considering actions on gas stoves since October.  Richard Trumpka, Jr., a CPSC commissioner, stated "This is a hidden hazard.  Any option is on the table.  Products that can't be made safe can be banned."  Two recent studies figure prominently in agency concerns.  The first, published in January last year by Eric Lebel and others, found that gas stoves and ovens emit hazardous levels of methane and nitrogen dioxide (NO2).  The second, published in December last year by Talor Gruenwald and others, estimated that 12.7 percent of childhood asthma cases in the US were due to gas stove use.  Nitrous oxide (NO) is produced at combustion temperatures above 1,600°C by breaking down nitrogen molecules in air.  Modern stove burner flames reach temperatures above 1,600°C, producing NO.  The nitrous oxide then combines with oxygen to form nitrogen dioxide, a pollutant.  But the amount of NO2 generated by stoves is very small, only parts per billion (ppb) levels.

Responding to the demands of almost nobody...
Energy Department proposes efficiency rules for cooking devices after gas stove furor.  The Department of Energy is proposing new energy conservation standards for new household gas and electric cooking devices, some of which have never been subject to federal efficiency standards.  DOE's proposed rule-making, published Wednesday, follows the recent political frenzy over the fate of gas stoves that was ignited after a federal regulator at the Consumer Product Safety Commission said his agency could ban them to reduce indoor air pollution.  The proposed rule-making would set new efficiency standards for both electric and gas cooking tops, preventing them from exceeding set levels of energy use per year.

The Editor says...
[#1] What does that last sentence mean?  If your stove exceeds "set levels of energy use per year" while you're cooking your Christmas dinner, will it quit working for the rest of the year?  Who would benefit from that?  [#2] We have a centuries-old system of elected representatives in this country, which the regulatory agencies are bypassing, in order to justify their continued existence.  If everybody opposes natural gas, we will let our Congressmen know, and they'll vote to phase it out.  That will never happen, of course, because natural gas is a very popular and feasible alternative to electricity or coal or firewood.

Every Democrat voted to extend the COVID-19 "emergency."  I wonder why.
House ignores White House objections, votes to end COVID health emergency.  The House on Tuesday ignored opposition from President Joe Biden and voted to end the public health emergency related to COVID-19, winning some support from House Democrats on a second bill that would end the government's requirement that federal health care workers must be vaccinated against COVID.  The two bills — the Pandemic is Over Act and the Freedom for Health Care Workers Act — were planned by Republicans last week; and late Monday, the White House announced that it will terminate the national COVID emergency on May 11.  The White House also announced its opposition to the two bills up for a vote today.  But Republicans pressed ahead anyway and easily passed both measures despite the GOP's narrow majority in the House.

Why conservatives oppose the war.  Patrick Buchanan has retired at 84 after a long and influential career as a writer, TV commentator and presidential advisor (Nixon, Ford and Reagan).  He saw through George H.W. Bush and later opposed the Gulf War.  He opposes the blank check Washington has given Zelensky in this war.  "For us, the greatest stake in this Russia-Ukraine war is not who ends up in control of Luhansk, Donetsk or Kherson, but that we not be drawn into a military conflict that would put us on the escalator to a war with Russia, a world war and perhaps a nuclear war.  "Nothing in Eastern or Central Europe is worth a major U.S. war with Russia that could go nuclear and cost millions of American lives."  That last sentence is heresy to the hysterical hawks, but the line rings true for conservatives who, after initial rah-rah support for Ukraine, are having second thoughts.

The root of our problems as a nation.  When a six-year-old brought a gun to school and shot his teacher, the first thought was that it was an accident.  When upon further review it was announced that it was intentional and deliberate, a sort of shock wave went through the population.  This was not just another incident, not just another step along the road to perdition.  Society is no longer slouching toward Gomorrah.  Like the expanding cosmos, the headlong race toward the edge of the cliff is actually accelerating.  This was a quantum leap, an order-of-magnitude increase.  When one observes the breathtaking increase in moral degeneracy, one is reminded of the biblical warning that the beast, knowing that his time is short, is seeking to devour whom he may. [...] Society is becoming more and more disoriented, less structured in terms of norms, and, as an inevitable result, more dysfunctional.  Indeed, the definition of what is "normal" has become so vague as to have lost all practical meaning.  If everything is normal, then nothing is.  If everything is a matter of personal opinion, then facts become irrelevant.  If your truth is not my truth, nor mine yours, then there can be no social contract.  Dysfunctional societies must eventually collapse.  Whether from internal strife or external invasion, they cannot survive.

Now the Left Is Coming for Your Pickup Trucks, America — and Their 'Logic' Couldn't Be More Ridiculous.  Rather than "only" coming after our evil, planet-destroying passenger cars, the left is targeting our pickup trucks as well, my fellow Americans.  Moreover, the idiocy is neither new nor driven only by the left's hatred of internal combustion engines.  As I first reported in January 2021 — and this is laugh-out-loud hysterical — pickup trucks not only brazenly project "petromasculinity"; they're also the personification (or would that be "truckification"?) of "glorification of violence and domination."  Incidentally, one of the many benefits enjoyed by conservative political pundits is never having to make [stuff] up; the left's got you covered on a regular basis.

The Editor says...
"Petromasculinity" made automobiles feasible, and made America a superpower, beginning in about 1942.

Taking on the Would-be Destroyers of America.  Enemies of Freedom wish to see our prosperous nation willingly give up our success to become a failed state. [...] To be successful, destroyers must control the meaning of words.  The destroyers had to take a functioning country with the world's largest middle class and tank it.  Not only that, but to tank it with the acquiescence of a significant portion of the population and make it appear noble.  Where do you start?  First, you become a metaphorical geologist and, in that way, uncover our stress points.  But instead of rock, you look at fissures like inequities, racial disparities, the continuing breakdown of families, and how to take on the economic and political power structures.  Introduce fear, such as claiming the end of the world is at hand through climate change.  Then, institutionalize the process so that challenging "change" identifies you as one of the dangerous ones standing in the way of "progress."

Elijah Mohammed street-naming: Just when you think the NYC Council couldn't go any lower.  Just when you think the City Council couldn't go lower, along comes Councilmember Kristin Jordan-Richardson looking to rename a Harlem street after Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, who promoted an odd mixture of black nationalism, "black capitalism" and black separatism.  And in the most pernicious of ironies, KJR proposes "The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad Way" for the corner of West 127th Street and Malcolm X Boulevard.  Speculation continues to this day about Mohammad's involvement in the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X, who'd broken fully and public with the NOI not long before — in part over credible accusations against Mohammad of sex with underaged girls and adulterous activities with multiple women in the sect.

The Editor says...
Here is a rule of thumb, which I think I heard from Rush Limbaugh:  in any city that has a street called "Malcolm X Boulevard," that's the most dangerous street in town; especially at the corner where it intersects Martin Luther King Boulevard.

Democrats want 8.7% pay hike for federal workers who were 'subjected to' Trump.  Democrats are proposing giving federal workers an 8.7% pay increase for toiling through the Trump administration and the coronavirus pandemic.  The suggested pay increase for the 2 million federal workers would take effect in 2024, and would come after they received the 4.6% raise this year from President Biden.  "For years now, federal employees have risked their health and safety working on the frontlines of this pandemic," Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) said in a press release announcing that he and Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) would reintroduce the Federal Adjustment of Income Rates, or FAIR Act.

People Arrested at NYC Protest Show Exactly the Problem With Dem Approach to Law Enforcement.  We saw some of the violence that went on in New York City in the wake of the release of the horrible video of the beating of Tyre Nichols.  People are legitimately upset with the actions of the police in this case.  But in NYC, you also had the radical leftists who are pushing their political agenda, no matter the reason or the cause.  Everything is an argument about why the current order should be shifted to the left.  The march in NYC, which featured the Party of Socialism and Liberation leading the way, dissolved into violence in Times Square when a man began stomping on a police car and breaking the windshield.  Police tried to arrest him and then others tried to free him.  Then the police were trying to make another arrest, reportedly of one of the organizers of the march, when a woman intervened and started allegedly punching at cops.  [Tweet]

Speed Is No Issue Unless It's About How Fast Our Liberty Is Being Lost.  Government, unfortunately, rarely admits to or learns from its mistakes and often seems determined to repeat them in updated form.  Sometimes, it descends into the bizarre, as when New York Governor Kathy Hochul said that "buildings are the largest source of emissions in our state" and that's why she's "proposing a plan to end the sale of any new fossil-fuel-powered heating equipment by 2030."  It's probably safe to extrapolate that the bulk of the heating equipment required under her scheme would be powered by electricity and that the electricity will be generated by solar, wind and/or hydro.  Keep that point in mind.  Governor Hochul's push for increased use of electricity comes not long after she "called for major regulatory action that will require all new passenger cars, pick-up trucks and SUVs sold in New York State to be zero-emission by 2035.  Governor Hochul has also proposed that all school buses be zero-emission by that the same year," according to a press release from her office.  Those "zero-emissions" vehicles obviously would be powered by electricity from the same sources and over the same distribution system as would her proposed heating equipment.

It's Not Just Gas Stoves Democrats Are Coming For.  Earlier this month, Biden's Consumer Product Safety Commission announced that it opposed gas stoves and was looking at ways to eliminate them, prompting an outcry over the coming ban.  But climate scolds aren't just looking to ban your gas stove, America.  They have a long list of other appliances they want canceled, too.  On Jan. 9, the CPSC pointed out that about 35 percent of U.S. households use gas stoves, and then warned of the dangers of their use. [...] The nanny state move was further complicated by the fact that the study, used by CPSC, warning that gas stoves promote asthma in kids was partly funded by RMI, a group that seeks to "accelerate the clean energy transition," and was co-authored by Brady Seals, the manager of RMI's Carbon-Free Buildings arm, which aims to retrofit buildings with electric appliances.  In turn, RMI, which used the study to promote stove electrification, has received at least $1 million in donations from Breakthrough Energy, a "green energy" investment firm founded by Bill Gates, as well as the Bezos Earth Fund and Bloomberg Philanthropies, according to the 2022 RMI donors report.

Gas bags: Progressive war on your stove is very real.  The first clue is the kinder, gentler puff pieces appearing in the op-ed sections of the usual suspects.  They pooh-pooh sane people's dismissal of the recent, pretty thoroughly debunked BOMBSHELL STUDY.  You know.  The one where they measured all these horrific toxic chemicals flooding the air while cooking on gas stoves... in kitchens encased in sheets of plastic sealed with dust-proof ZipWall barriers?  [Tweet]  Yeah.  That's the one.  Not surprisingly, the New York Times has jumped on the "simmer down" bandwagon.  Quit trying to deny they're bad for you and Mother Gaia.  Let us lead you to the wonderful world of induction!

The most dangerous legislator in America?  California State Senator Scott Wiener could be the most dangerous legislator in the nation.  That's the lesson I took away from a great piece by Abigail Shrier I just read in City Journal, one of the best magazines in America.  It shines a light on Weiner's one-man crusade to empower human traffickers in the State of California under the guise of protecting LGBTQIA+ rights. [...] And as Shrier describes in the opening to her piece, Weiner got a law passed that vastly expanded the street prostitution trade, by removing all penalties for a loitering law that gave police probable cause to arrest street prostitutes.  In practical terms that meant that police couldn't identify minors who were being trafficked and separate them from their abusive pimps.  The result has been drastic — the number of young women escaping sex slavery in California has dropped to near zero.

Dave Chappelle Says out Loud What Absolutely Everyone Is Thinking About Trans Activists.  [Scroll down] These kinds of protests by the radical trans lobby are nothing more than performance art and they always pick on a group they know won't fight back (again, minus our barricade-throwing heroine).  They are absolute phonies trying to stir up trouble where there isn't any.  It's just the left being the left — the supply of legitimate anti-trans crimes doesn't come close to meeting their insatiable demand, so they try to create it by taunting people not looking for a fight.  Their hope, of course, is that someone will finally snap and fight back, thus they'll be able to make the the claim that the trans community is being victimized.  Unfortunately for the perma-woke, Dave Chappelle's got their number and he's not afraid to say what we're all thinking:  Their ultimate goal is to garner publicity and to create controversy where there isn't any — and it's a tired schtick that's long since run its course.

Do You Trust the Integrity of Our Elections?  How long would it take for the United States to become a fascist nation if we were to adopt some of the ideas that were recently offered in the "For the People Act," the "John Lewis Voting Rights Act," and/or the "Freedom to Vote Act"?  Democrats have proposed...
  •   complete legalization of ballot harvesting so that a ballot could be submitted, on your behalf, by paid operatives.
  •   automatic voter registration for all adults (with no verification of citizenship).
  •   universal ability to vote by mail, for any reason.
  •   no voter ID requirement in states that choose not to have one.  States that already have an ID requirement would be forced to weaken it by accepting a broad array of documents, including copies of utility bills or sworn statements (in lieu of ID).
  •   voting by convicted felons, unless they happen to be in prison on the day of the election.
  •   a ban on post-election independent audits, such as the Arizona Senate audit of Maricopa County's 2020 election.  Only "official" audits would be allowed.
The proposals (above) are truly scary, and this may be the reason for GOP opposition to any national standard.  However, a country-wide standard is essential.  We can no longer allow some states to cheat by allowing non-citizens to votes, or by allowing political operatives to cast votes on behalf of unsuspecting residents.

Democrats Propose Overturning The First Amendment.  Adam Schiff and a group of Democrats introduced a proposed constitutional amendment to overturn the Citizens United decision, one of the greatest free-speech victories in history.  It's just a political stunt, of course, as Schiff doesn't have the votes.  But it does reflect the authoritarian outlook of the contemporary left on free expression.  From the day the decision came down, 13 years ago this week, Citizens United was a rallying cry for those threatened by unregulated discourse.  President Barack Obama infamously, and inaccurately, rebuked the justices during his State of the Union for upholding the First Amendment.  Since then, Democrats have regularly blamed the decision for the alleged corrosion of "democracy."  Recall, however, that Citizens United decision revolved around the federal government's banning of a documentary critical of 2008 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton before the Democratic primary elections.  At the time, McCain-Feingold made it illegal for corporations (groups of freely associating citizens) and unions (ditto) to engage in "electioneering" a month before a primary or two months before a general election.  It was outright censorship.  In oral arguments, then-Solicitor General of the United States, now-Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan initially contended that the federal government had the right to censor books that "express advocacy."

The greenie left is coming for your coffee.  It wasn't enough that the greenie left came for our light bulbs, our flush toilets, our guns, our plastic straws, our gas stoves, or our hamburgers.  Now they're coming for our coffee. [...] What they want, of course, is to take away more stuff from us, the better to control us.  It wasn't enough to target our gas-powered cars and tell us to take the bus.  It wasn't enough to take away our electricity and natural gas in the name of 'going green' and tell consumers to freeze in winter.  It wasn't enough to howl for an end to jet travel while greenie leftists bought carbon indulgences and continued to jet about with their private planes.  It wasn't enough to take away our plastic bags, to ensure that we only use unsanitary bacteria-filled cloth recycle bags.  It wasn't enough to take away our meat and tell us to eat bugs.  All these are things they are — no, really — trying to take away.  In some cases, they have succeeded at such schemes, too, all for a phony and chimerical quest to stop global warming, which somehow never happens.

Democrat-led cities are already moving forward with gas stove bans that will affect millions.  Democratic leaders in major cities nationwide have already moved forward with bans on natural gas stoves even as the Biden administration has pumped the brakes on similar regulations at the federal level.  Cities including Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle and New York City — which are collectively home to more than 10 million Americans — have enacted varying restrictions on natural gas hookups impacting gas-powered furnaces, ovens and stoves.  Leaders of the Democrat-led cities have argued that transitioning away from natural gas would help achieve climate and net-zero ambitions.

The Editor says...
Nobody thought gas appliances were a problem until about two weeks ago.  And now there's a mad rush to get rid of them, for reasons that are never mentioned because their reasons are so stupid!

JPMorgan Chase CEO Warns Against Halt to Gas Use on CNBC; Musk Agrees.  JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon dealt leftists a dose of energy infrastructure reality on CNBC's Squawk Box Thursday [1/19/2023].  While leftists are busy calling for Americans to chuck their gas stoves off a cliff in the name of climate change, Dimon quipped, "We need oil and gas," when Squawk Box co-host Joe Kernen asked him whether stakeholders will increase pressure on companies to pursue Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) policies.  Dimon said it would take "50 years" to transition away from oil and gas completely.  "It's a hundred million barrels a day that are used to heat, fuel, [and] feed people."  Dimon's comments are simply common sense.  Anyone with a watt of common sense realizes that an entire nation cannot merely switch its method of energy production and consumption overnight.

NY lawmakers push to have Lunar New Year declared a public holiday.  As the day approaches, a number of New York lawmakers have pushed the state to recognize Lunar New Year as a public holiday.  Assemblymember William Colton introduced a bill on the subject in the 2021-2022 legislative session.  He and Assemblymember Grace Lee, who was elected in November of 2022, have pushed for the calendar change.  Colton plans to reintroduce his bill in the next legislative session.  He's said declaring Lunar New Year as a public holiday will promote increased awareness of both Asian history and tradition.

Democrats Propose Constitutional Amendment to Overturn First Amendment Decision.  Democrats in the House of Representatives have introduced a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court's controversial Citizens United v. FEC decision made in 2010.  The court ruled 5 [to] 4 that the free speech clause of the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting independent expenditures for political campaigns by corporations and overruled an earlier decision that banned corporations from making "electioneering communications."  Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif) said in a press release he and Democrat colleagues introduced the "Democracy For All Amendment" to "overturn legal precedents that have allowed unrestrained campaign spending and dark money to corrupt American democracy."  He has introduced the constitutional amendment every year since 2013, according to the release.

There's an announcement like this almost every week:
Joe Biden's Secretary of State Announces $2.5 Billion More in Ukraine Military Aid.  President Joe Biden's Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, announced another $2.5 billion in military aid for Ukraine on Thursday and said the United States "will stand united with Ukraine for as long as it takes."  The most recent aid package comes after Congress awarded $45 billion to Ukraine in the massive $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill that Biden signed into law last month, bringing the total amount of U.S. aid sent to Ukraine to over $110 billion.

At Davos, the Rev. John Kerry Signals His Place Among the Elect.  Before getting to the sillier part of his homily, allow me to explain what Neo-Puritanism is and why it has surfaced.  The concept is implicit in the very word "progressive."  In the last decade or two, that word has replaced "liberal" as self-definition among the Left.  On the Right, we shorthand the Left's shifting semantics into the more useful "woke," a word that on the Left originally meant someone who had awakened and seen the light.  At the risk of tautology, progressives, by definition, progress.  Unlike old-school liberals who could content themselves with a status quo, progressives move forward.  They refuse to rest, refuse to reflect.  That much said, few among them have any clue as to what their ultimate destination might be.

Bay Area Regulators Want To Ban Gas Furnaces and Water Heaters.  If you live in the San Francisco Bay Area, you may soon have to give up your natural gas heaters.  On March 15, regulators will decide if they will ban new propane water heaters and furnaces, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.  Residents would have to replace their broken gas units with electric appliances, starting in 2027 for most water heaters and in 2029 for furnaces.  The sweeping proposal from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District's board is similar to a recent move by the Biden administration to crack down on gas stoves because of their alleged link to childhood asthma.  The news drew immediate public outrage, which the media described as the latest twist in the "culture wars."

Meet the Green Energy Group Behind the Study That's Driving Calls To Ban Gas Stoves.  The green energy group behind a study cited in Consumer Product Safety commissioner Richard Trumka Jr.'s call to ban gas stoves has partnered with the Chinese government to implement an "economy-wide transformation" away from oil and gas.  Colorado-based nonprofit Rocky Mountain Institute, which published the December study that attributes 13 percent of U.S. childhood asthma cases to gas-stove use, is hardly staffed by an objective group of scientists. [...] The Rocky Mountain Institute is far from the first green energy group to advocate for the banning of gas stoves, which nearly 40 percent of U.S. homes use.  But the nonprofit's newfound influence reflects the Biden administration's alignment with the left's loudest climate activists.  President Joe Biden has already proposed a natural gas phaseout in federal buildings, which would ban fossil-fuel equipment in new buildings by 2030.

CNN host accidentally EXPOSES real motives for gas stove ban live on-air.  Every once in a while, left-wing propagandists will accidentally blurt out the truth.  That's exactly what happened on CNN the other day when one of the network's hosts was discussing the Biden administration's proposed war on gas stoves.  While the official party line from the federal government claimed that gas stoves needed to be phased out to prevent childhood asthma, CNN let slip that there is a bigger motive behind the move.  [Video clip]

The Gas Stove Scare Is A Fraud Created By Climate Change Authoritarians.  In the past I have often tried to take a big picture approach to the issues facing the American public and how there is almost always a deeper connection between a variety of political and economic events.  And, what has become increasingly clear to me is that in order to understand government actions and geopolitics, you must always ask yourself "Who benefits?" [...] Right now I'd like to take a look at a relatively small issue and how the little dominoes lead up to a bigger con game and a bigger disaster.  Let's talk about gas stoves.  Frankly, I don't care about what my stove uses to cook with as long as it works.  That said, around 38% of US households use natural gas for cooking and heating.  That's a significant percentage of people that rely on gas based energy for their daily needs.  Here's the problem, though — Natural gas is not politically correct these days.  Nearly all carbon emitting energy sources have been marked by climate activists and western governments as a threat that needs to be erased between 2030 [and] 2050.

Why Deception Is Essential to the Left.  News item: Stanford University withdraws its "Harmful Language" list after it received widespread publicity — and universal ridicule.  But other universities are quietly imposing similar "language guidance" albeit without high-profile master lists that would expose them to the withering laughter and contempt they deserve.  News item: The Biden Administration rushes to reassure Americans that there is "no plan" to ban natural gas stoves.  This is a lie, of course.  Lots of progressive cities — and even New York state — are moving to impose bans on all natural gas appliances.  There is no doubt that the climatistas are determined to take away your gas stoves.  What do these two stories have in common?  In both cases the left was too open and explicit about what they wanted, drawing unwanted and premature attention.

Is [the] U.S. Headed Toward Socialism?  Majority Says 'Yes': I&I/TIPP Poll.  In recent years, government in the U.S. has never been bigger, in terms of both spending and its power over individuals and the economy.  Some have begun to openly wonder: Is the U.S. evolving into a socialist-style economy?  And is that what Americans want?  The latest I&I/TIPP Poll has answers.  Over the last three years, due to the COVID pandemic, government spending at all levels averaged just over 44% of GDP, the highest since World War II, when much of the economy was essentially socialized in order to boost war spending.  Today, a majority of Americans agree that the sudden, rapid growth from COVID-related spending and burgeoning top-down control over the domestic economy to address climate change have put U.S. on a path toward socialism.

Who was behind that greenie push to ban gas stoves?  The call to ban gas stoves in the U.S., based on environmental concerns, certainly drew backlash from an angry public tired of seeing their household appliances, critical possessions and standard of living being targeted.  After all, they've already gotten our incandescent light bulbs and flush toilets in many quarters.  They've meddled with the design of our cars and guns.  They're trying to get our meat, telling us to eat bugs instead.  Many consumers, and professional chefs, who say gas is best for cooking, simply put their collective foot down.  Where did this lunacy come from?  About where you'd expect — from our enemies.

Questionable Governor Katie Hobbs Rolls Out New Budget Proposal Eliminating Border Security, Repealing School Choice Law.  Katie Hobbs' first budget proposal, released on Friday, January 13, calls for the defunding and total elimination of Arizona's 'Border Strike Force,' $40 million for illegal immigrants to receive in-state tuition rates, and the repeal of a new school voucher law giving school choice to all families.  As The Gateway Pundit reported, in 2022, The Arizona Legislature passed a new law expanding the Empowerment Scholarship Account program, giving every family in the state the freedom to choose their child's school no matter which school they attend.  Katie Hobbs did everything possible to prevent this law from taking effect late last year.  As she removes tax breaks for American families, Hobbs calls for $40 million to be used on financial aid programs for illegal immigrants.

Sheila Jackson Lee wants to criminalize "white supremacy" writings that are felt to have inspired a crime.  Here's the bill that Sheila Jackson Lee has introduced.  Its title is "Leading Against White Supremacy Act of 2023" — and so I would guess it might be unconstitutional because of its race specificity: [...] I believe what this bill proposes is that, if someone publishes anything online that is read or viewed by someone who later commits any crime motivated by "white supremacy," that first person can be convicted of conspiracy with that second one even if they have never met or communicated in any way, and even if that person writing the online material is not advocating crimes of any sort.  If a judge or jury decides the publicized words fall under any broad and ill-defined heading of "white supremacy," both people could be convicted.  I've mentioned several times before that, even back when I was in law school eons ago, I didn't like conspiracy laws because they seemed dangerous to me and easy to misuse.  Nothing since then has disabused me of that idea.  This bill won't pass.  But if the House was controlled by Democrats instead of Republicans, would it pass?

Democrat Introduces Legislation to Make White People Criticizing Minorities a Federal Crime.  Rep. Shelia Jackson Lee, long in the running for being the vapidest member of Congress (oops, did I just commit a crime?), has introduced legislation that could make political criticism by white people against minorities a federal crime.  In what can only be called a convoluted mess, the bill proposes that a white person who "vilifies" any non-white person and has their words end up on social media, accessible by "persons who are predisposed to engaging in any action in furtherance of a white supremacy inspired hate crime," would themselves be committing a federal crime.  [Tweet]  The provision is so broad that you could drive a Mack truck through it.  What is a "white supremacy-inspired hate crime" under this statute?  How is "replacement theory" defined?

We're All Chicagoans Now.  Much has been made about California leading the country: the Golden State is said to be America's future, and to some extent, that is happening.  But in other respects, as a nation, we're becoming more like Chicago, and Chicago is our future unless we struggle against progressive policies.  Chicago is perhaps the most solidly Democrat city in America.  It has not elected a Republican mayor since 1927.  And what it has created in the past 95 years is a society that suffers from inequality, corruption, and violence on a scale beyond anything seen elsewhere in America.  Chicago ought to be a case study in what not to do, but liberals like Obama and Biden seem to think it is a blueprint for success — and it is, if only for the political elite who rule over a helpless underclass.  That blueprint involves transforming citizens into clients of the State, a process that progressives have begun calling "democracy."  Progressives intend to establish a socialist totalitarian society with a permanent underclass ruled by a small elite — the so-called vanguard of the proletariat that Lenin said must rule indefinitely until workers were prepared to govern themselves, a day that never has arrived in any communist state.

The Green War on Natural Gas Heats Up.  Historically, those on the left never saw an energy source they liked.  Americans who have been around for a few decades remember the protests at nuclear power plants.  Then there is the war on coal which has been largely successful and continues unabated.  But something can and should be said for having a diversity of power available.  If one supply goes down, there has always been another.  But it appears the ability to pick and choose is now under fire.  On Jan. 14, Liberty Nation's Sarah Cowgill reported on Governor Kathy Hochul's natural gas ban in New York, which will take place over the next ten years.  This will mean approximately 60% of New Yorkers will have to transition their homes to electric everything from water heaters to stoves and ovens — the whole enchilada.  Dictating energy sources is a dicey business because it takes away a consumer's freedom of choice.  This has become so troubling that 20 states have already passed laws that make it illegal to block natural gas hookups.

Gas-stove ban is off, claims Biden, but many are skeptical.  Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, and millions of natural gas-cooking Americans can breathe a little easier: Both President Biden and the head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission say they have no plans to ban natural gas stoves.  White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said yesterday that Biden "does not support banning gas stoves."  Jean-Pierre pointed to a clarifying statement by the head of the CPSC to buttress her point.  "I want to set the record straight.  Contrary to recent media reports, I am not looking to ban gas stoves and the [CPSC] has no proceeding to do so," Alex Hoehn-Saric, chair of CPSC, tweeted yesterday. [...] Conservatives had a field day exploiting the apparent floating of a potential ban on popular natural gas stoves, showing photos of First Lady Jill Biden, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other top Democrats cooking with gas.  Others noted that the main study launching the discussion was authored by writers tied to two climate-change advocacy groups.

A Revolution in the Minds of the People.  I have a guttural revulsion to one-world-government types who seek to rule the world by turning domestic populations against themselves.  "Divide and conquer" is the only strategy they know, and oppression disguised as altruism is the only outcome they bring.  They speak obsessively about racism not because they seek racial peace, but rather because the exploitation of such petty, ancient hatreds distracts people from the real problems those with power continue to create.  They preach about "climate change" not because they fear that our planet is coming to an end, but because scaring humanity into handing governments complete control over the use of energy hands governments complete control over humanity as well.  They hyperventilate over COVID variants today not because they seek to save lives, but because they seek to monitor and manipulate every movement of every life from here on out.

Like Paul Revere, a Massachusetts Republican Sends Warning.  How do progressives govern?  During the COVID debacle, we got a good look at progressive blue state governors and then a progressive president in action.  They govern like absolute monarchs, decreeing mask mandates, vaccine mandates, and destructive lockdowns.  They abusively utilize 'emergency powers' that have no end date.  They impose unconstitutional executive orders that bypass legislative approval. [...] They've worked to silence conservative voices, suppressing all opposition.  Even the White House is in on it.  What's on the agenda?  Progressive Democrats plan to federalize elections, violating the Constitutional requirement that state legislatures control elections.  They want to pack the Supreme Court to bend it to their will.  They plan to add D.C. and Puerto Rico as new states, thus giving themselves more Democrat senators and representatives, as well as additional electoral votes.  Ultimately, they plan to abolish the Electoral College altogether in favor of a national popular vote.  They want immediate amnesty for all illegal aliens.  Progressive presidents have also installed corrupt federal judges to block any attempt by conservatives to 'right the ship.'  What destructive, evil, self-serving people these are!  They are heedless of the damage they are causing to the country.

Get Ready for 'Climate Change Death' Tracking.  Anyone following the regime's playbook already understands that when you disagree with it, you'll be accused of killing someone.  Don't take the vaccine, don't lock down, or don't wear a mask — you're killing grandma.  Question voting and balloting procedures, and your words will provoke a deadly insurrection.  Suggest that a man can't get pregnant, and you're guilty of stochastic terrorism.  The regime characterizes conservatives as killers for their opinions, yet its partisans celebrate abortion up to parturition.  It wants to let murderers out of jail, and is now moving to destigmatize the "dignified" culling of the elderly and infirm.  Climate change is the platform from which the regime seeks to achieve power by creating a rationale for laws and regulations that dictate where and how people can move, live, purchase, and work.  So it makes sense that climate change would re-emerge as a priority just as the world moves on from a pandemic, where the body count of those dying "from" or "with" Covid was used to justify repressive policies such as lockdowns, shutdowns, election process changes, and the prevention of the practice of your religious faith.

Talk about Gaslighting!.  The Biden Administration has beat a hasty retreat from the trial balloon of banning natural gas stoves and other appliances, but this is likely only because they got caught before the bureaucratic rule-making machinery of the administrative state could make it fait accompli and provide cover for Democratic politicians.  You know in your bones the authoritarian climatistas are determined to ban all natural gas use that they can.  As Jim Geraghty pointed out at National Review, "When a member of a federal commission says 'any option is on the table' and 'products that can't be made safe can be banned,' you cannot say that 'fears of a ban are unfounded.'"  I'm so old I can remember back in the 1980s when the air quality regulators in Los Angeles wanted to ban backyard charcoal barbecues and fast-food drive-through windows even though they had barely negligible air pollution impacts even with the most generous computer "models" of pollution attribution.

Biden Is Coming for Your Gas Stove.  Compelling Americans to give up fossil fuels, gas stoves, and other gas-fired appliances is not a vice for the Biden administration.  Now more than ever, the administration's climate change police are coming after cooks and Americans who heat their homes with natural gas.  Consistent with this prospect, the Wall Street Journal editorial board concludes that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is poised to ban gas stoves soon.  A puritanical war on fossil fuels drives this possibility.  It follows a destructive pattern designed to impoverish and control American citizens.  President Biden has consistently claimed that climate change is the greatest threat to American security.  He argues that Americans must embrace an ambitious climate action plan to prevent the cruelest impacts of climate change as part of the global transition to clean energy technology.  Spurred by the Biden administration's climate change fantasy, the federal government is working tirelessly to make fossil fuels scarcer and more unavailable.  This wearisome campaign represents a surrender to far-left environmentalists, who are committed to making natural gas, petroleum, and all forms of fossil fuel more expensive for working people.

About that gas stove ban... Never mind.  Yesterday we discussed the ridiculous idea of a federal ban on gas stoves floated by Consumer Product Safety Commissioner Richard Trumka.  This crazy idea was quickly panned far and wide, particularly by chefs and others in the restaurant industry.  The outrage over this latest woke nonsense was great enough that it caught the attention of government officials who realized that they had clearly picked up a live political grenade and were looking for somewhere to throw it.  By the end of the evening, CPSC Chairman Alexander D. Hoehn-Saric issued a "clarifying" statement, saying that he was "not looking to ban gas stoves" and his commission "has no proceeding to do so."  Perhaps government idiocy isn't quite as bulletproof as many of us had previously assumed.

Jerry Nadler Argues Taking Babies to Hospital who Survive Abortions to Save Them — "Endangers" the Baby.  Rep. Jerry Nadler argued on the House floor that taking babies to the hospital who survive the abortion procedure "endangers" the baby.  Democrats prefer the abortion doctor let the baby bleed out on the table. [...] Barack Obama voted four times while he served in the Illinois Senate in support of infanticide.  This was before he joined the US Senate in 2005.  Obama opposed life-sustaining treatments for babies born alive after failed abortions.  It's one of his unbelievable and extremist positions that the liberal media overlooked while he was in office.

210 Democrats vote against bill requiring medical care for babies born alive after abortion attempt.  Nearly every House Democrat on Wednesday voted against legislation that would require immediate medical attention for babies who are born alive after an attempt was made to abort them.  The House passed the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which says any infant born alive after an attempted abortion is a "legal person for all purposes under the laws of the United States."  Doctors would be required to care for those infants as a "reasonably diligent and conscientious health care practitioner would render to any other child born alive."  The bill passed 220-210, and all 210 of the "no" votes came from Democrats.  Only one Democrat voted for the bill — Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas — and one other Democrat, Rep. Vicente Gonzalez of Texas, voted "present."  Following that level of care, doctors would be required admit those infants to a hospital for further care.  Any violation of this standard would result in fines and imprisonment for up to five years, or both.

Gov. Hochul quietly sneaks in proposal to ban sale of gas stoves, fuels outrage across New York.  Gov. Kathy Hochul quietly snuck a proposal to outlaw new gas stoves into the "New York Housing Compact" she unveiled during her State of the State speech Tuesday — urging people to ditch their kitchens' gas grills and go electric.  The ban would affect old-timers and millennials who are obsessed with cast-iron pans, which are tricky to use on electric stoves.  "This is plain stupid," said a 70-year-old resident of Sea Gate, Brooklyn, who gave his name as Victor K.  "We lost electricity before, during Hurricane Sandy.  The only thing we had to heat up our food was gas.  What if that happens again?"  Hochul's plan would ban gas stoves, hot water heaters and oil furnaces in both new home and commercial construction by the end of the decade.

The Editor says...
Isn't the demand for electricity already as great as the supply, with the addition of electric cars, Bitcoin mining, and marijuana farms?  Now millions of homes and restaurants will need electric power like never before.  The only way around this lunacy is if every restaurant installs a natural gas-powered generator!  That's assuming natural gas isn't outlawed entirely — to save the Earth.

Welcome to New Yorkifornia.  [Scroll down] Haven't there been enough rolling disasters for years already in California for them to take a time out?  Europe's crisis means nothing?  The fact that the Carolinas had their first winter blackouts EVER this year, because why?  North Carolina's state-mandated clean energy plan, and the huge population shift combined with the electrification of home heating.  That not one soul planned in advance to add capacity to the grid for.  They are making the exact same mistake here.  Nowhere in the mumbo jumbo about justice and diversity is a peep about expanded capacity to handle the tremendous additional demands all this new beneficial electrification is going to gobble up.  Especially when solar panels are covered in 4 feet of snow and the wind isn't blowing.  Here goes New York, plunging merrily into the heat pump abyss — in a state where it gets cold, and they get snow measured in feet.  All winter long.

Biden administration gas stove ban idea leaves NYC restaurants feeling burned.  During a Friday night dinner rush, executive chef Peter Petti will have stainless steel pots of pasta water boiling while searing salmon and steaks, all 12 burners ignited on the gas stoves at Sojourn, a New American restaurant on the Upper East Side.  Nearly everything on his menu — from a 30-day, dry-aged NY strip to a chocolate flambeed dessert — is cooked on the range.  "Some dishes require two or three pans on the burners," said Petti, 45, who's been cooking with gas since the beginning of his culinary career in the early 2000s, when he started as a line cook at Eleven Madison Park.  The Feds, however, can't stand the heat.  On Monday, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission said it was considering a nationwide ban on gas stoves, which are currently used in 37% of US households and 76% of US restaurants, according to Consumer Reports and the National Restaurant Association.  The safety commission cited recent reports that gas stoves emit unsafe levels of pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide and carbon monoxide and have been linked to cancers, respiratory illnesses and cardiovascular problems.  But the city's chefs and restaurateurs are fuming at the possibility of a ban and the devastating effect it could have on the health of their businesses.

Really? They want to ban gas stoves now?  The Consumer Product Safety Commission is opening a period of public comments on the "dangers of gas stoves."  We'll get to the supposed dangers in a moment, but if a regulatory agency like the USCPSC is already to the point of taking public comments, one of two things is almost certainly on the way.  They will either impose emission limits on the stoves, no doubt driving up the cost and/or reducing efficiency, or they will ban the stoves altogether.  Either way, somebody is about to make a boatload of money, and it won't be the consumers.

In Mexico, Joe Biden Promotes Plan to Make it 'Easier' for Migrants Trying to Enter the United States.  President Joe Biden promoted his plan Tuesday to make it easier for migrants to come to the United States after meeting with the leaders of Mexico and Canada.  "This has been the greatest migration in human history around the world as well as in this hemisphere," Biden said, speaking about the ongoing migration crisis after meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador during a summit in Mexico City.  But the president did not appear troubled by the volume of border crossings and migrants flooding into local communities in the United States, placing a burden on U.S. citizens and legal residents.

Feds propose 'student loan safety net' alongside forgiveness.  The White House is moving forward with a proposal that would lower student debt payments for millions of Americans now and in the future, offering a new route to repay federal loans under far more generous terms.  President Joe Biden announced the repayment plan in August, but it was overshadowed by his sweeping plan to slash or eliminate student debt for 40 million Americans.  Despite the low profile of the payment plan, however, some education experts see it as a more powerful tool to make college affordable, especially for those with lower incomes.  Education Department officials on Tuesday called the new plan a "student loan safety net" that will prevent borrowers from getting overloaded with debt.

The Editor says...
The way to keep "from getting overloaded with debt" is to stop borrowing money!

Washington lawmaker with past convictions introduces bill to pay state prisoners minimum wage.  A Washington state lawmaker who is a former convict is aiming to start paying inmates for working prison jobs.  Democratic Rep. Tarra Simmons said in a statement, "This is an evolution of slavery," and is proposing that the convicted felons be paid minimum wage for working in the kitchen or while producing other goods.  Simmons is an attorney and co-founder/director of the Civil Survival Project, an organization that advocates for former convicts.

Biden Admin Spent Over $300 Million In Taxpayer Money to Fund Illegal Migrants' Dental and Health Care.  By now it's not shocking to learn that President Joe Biden favors illegal migrants more than Americans after two of doing nothing as the southern border wreaked havoc on the U.S.  In an annual report released by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Biden Administration spent hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure illegal immigrants were well taken care of.  The ICE Health Service Corps' budget was about $324 million, which was an $8 million increase from the year prior.  According to the report, the money was spent on providing "direct care — including medical and dental health services — to over 118,000 non-citizens housed at 19 IHSC-operated facilities throughout the United States, which exceeded 1.1 million visits over the course of the fiscal year."

Biden Makes More of a Mess, Compares Illegal Aliens to Holocaust Victims.  We reported earlier about how Joe Biden had finally gotten around to making plans to go to the border.  Biden also made remarks about the border, with Kamala Harris trying to hold it together while standing behind him.  The remarks were just a confused mess.  Biden didn't seem to have any idea what he was talking about.  He didn't know what "CBP" stands for, that it is Title 8 that applies to immigration, or that Title 42 has helped to prevent the situation at the border from getting much worse.  His "plan" seems to be an app that would help people who apply for asylum.

The Coup We Never Knew.  Did someone or something seize control of the United States? [...] Since when did money not have to be paid back?  Who insisted that the more dollars the federal government printed, the more prosperity would follow?  When did America embrace zero interest?  Why do we believe $30 trillion in debt is no big deal?

The War On Truckers, Refrigerators, And Your Well-Being.  In the same way our "superiors" think that their food comes from the grocery store rather than a farm or ranch, they must believe that those items magically appear on the shelves.  Otherwise, why would the ruling class, made up of and zealously backed by elites, go to war against trucks?  Just before Christmas, the Biden Environmental Protection Agency finalized a rule that it calls a "key step toward accelerating zero-emissions future," and part of "the historic Clean Truck Plan, which is moving America's highly polluting heavy-duty trucking fleet towards low-carbon and electric technologies."  Enforcement of course will mean fewer trucks on the road.  For many drivers, the cost of working under the new regime will be too high.  "Truckers and manufacturers warn that the rule is too stringent and costly, and that compliance could send higher prices through the economy that is already suffering from high energy costs and high inflation," says the Institute for Energy Research.

We Must Convince People That The Fascist Far Left Wants To Destroy The US.  Events are part of an overall plan that has a specific purpose that proves it's not just incompetence.  Leftists desperately had to suppress the Biden laptop scandal because it showed that they were under foreign influence.  We know now that if the people had been aware of this, history would have been changed.  That influence explains why we are diminishing our energy capabilities while giving the red Chinese a free pass.  The purpose is to weaken us compared to them.  That influence explains why we are diminishing our military capabilities by shoveling cash and weapons into Ukraine.  That influence explains why we are committing national suicide with an open border that not only weakens us to the point of a Cloward-Piven implosion but also provides all manner of military infiltration opportunities.  That open border also is giving leftists a great opportunity to take a page from the history of the Opium wars and destabilize the US with a flood of Fentanyl.

The Tyranny in America.  The Left lives to see absolute destruction of freedom.  Communists exult when liberty is tattered.  Progressives rejoice in limiting freedom.  It is the epitome of dictatorship whether it is a jab for a poison or a useless mask or the destruction of the sanctity of one's property.  This is the picture of tyranny.  The media who have sold their souls to Satan neither care nor want to learn the truth of the dire situations that beset the United States.  The fact-checkers are usually the handmaidens of the very sources of evil. [...] Identity politics, incitement to violence, tolerance for anti-white bigotry, heralding corrupt school systems and defending the most egregious acts by communists are all palatable to Joe Biden and company.

Illinois Supreme Court puts end of cash bail on hold until further notice.  The Illinois Supreme Court has ordered courts statewide to continue operating on the cash bail system until further notice, according to an order issued by the court Saturday afternoon [12/31/2022].  A provision of the SAFE-T Act criminal justice reform bill scheduled to go into effect on January 1 would have eliminated cash bail across the state.  But a Kankakee County judge found that portion of the law unconstitutional last week.  The Supreme Court's action stems from a filing by DuPage County State's Attorney Robert Berlin and Kane County State's Attorney Jamie Mosser on Friday afternoon that sought guidance from the Supreme Court to clear up confusion about whether the Kankakee County judge's decision affected all 102 counties or only the 60-plus counties that were involved in the lawsuit that challenged the SAFE-T Act.

Brace yourself for mountains of pain and misery under Gov. Hochul's zero-emissions fantasy plan.  With the start of the new year, New Yorkers are set to have their worlds turned upside down — and all for a fanciful green-dream plan that comes with sky-high costs and mountains of other pain yet is almost certain to fail, and won't even do much good if successful.  Gov. Andrew Cuomo and state lawmakers triggered the nightmare back in 2019 with their delusional Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, setting wholly unrealistic "mandatory" milestones to force the state off fossil-fuel energy and dramatically lower greenhouse gas emissions.  Gov. Kathy Hochul eagerly picked up the ball, and in December, a panel stacked with rubber-stampers pushed through a plan they preposterously claim will enable the state to meet those goals.  Hochul's agencies will now spit out specific rules and regulations based on the plan.  It's pure delusion.

America's 'most dangerous law' goes into effect.  Illinois law enforcement is preparing new ways to best serve and protect law-abiding citizens as the state's new sweeping criminal justice reform bill takes effect Sunday, a local sheriff said. [...] Illinois' Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today (SAFE-T) Act, which went into effect Jan. 1, overhauled Illinois' justice system with provisions like limiting when defendants can be deemed flight risks and allowing defendants under electronic monitoring to leave home for 48 hours before they can be charged with escape.  It was also supposed to eliminate cash bail, but the state's Supreme Court stayed that portion hours before the law was set to take effect.

Law Will Install Kill Switches In All New Cars.  According to an article written by former U.S. Representative Bob Barr, hidden away in the recently passed infrastructure bill, the very one I warned before would negatively impact drivers across the country if it were to pass, is a measure to install vehicle kill switches into every new car, truck, and SUV sold in this country.  The regulation likely won't be enforced for five years, so maybe there's time to do something about this.  As we've seen both in this country and others recently, what constitutes "law-abiding" can change drastically overnight.  For example, in September a car was pulled over in New Zealand and the occupants arrested when police discovered the trunk was full of Kentucky Fried Chicken meals.  They were smuggling the fast food to customers in locked-down Auckland, against quarantine measures.  Yet not too long before, delivering restaurant orders to people was considered a reputable, legal activity.  It gets even better:  Barr points out that the bill, which has been signed into law by President Biden, states that the kill switch, which is referred to as a safety device, must "passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired." In other words, Big Brother will constantly be monitoring how you drive.  If you do something the system has been programmed to recognize as driver impairment, your car could just shut off, which could be incredibly dangerous.  There is the possibility the kill switch program might measure your driving as impaired, then when you try to start the car up again the engine won't fire up.  That would potentially leave you stranded.

Biden's Unopposed Imposition of Stalinism.  The majority of Americans are against open borders.  Once again, what we want doesn't seem to matter.  A steady wave of illegal immigration is what Biden wants and no one seems the least bit interested in putting an end to it.  Millions of unvetted migrants are streaming across the border and being shipped to secret destinations in direct violation of U.S. immigration law.  This is nothing short of treasonous.  The import of deadly drugs, violent criminals, terrorists, and COVID spreaders constitutes the worst public safety issue since World War II.  At a time when runaway inflation is driving millions of Americans into the poorhouse, we are being forced to provide public assistance to millions of freeloading non-citizens.  Local communities are being torn apart by the influx of refugees. [...] None of this is happening by accident.  "It is becoming harder not to conclude that the border crisis is intentional," said Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana. "Nobody is this incompetent."  Of course it is intentional.  Biden knows exactly what he is doing.  He gets his stooges, DHS Secretary Mayorkas and Press Secretary Jean-Pierre, to deny that the border is open, but we know they are lying through their teeth.

What are Senate Conservatives Going to Do about McConnell?  The script is sickeningly familiar by now, isn't it?  Establishment Republicans — led throughout the '22 elections and in their aftermath by the notorious Kentucky senator-for-life Mitch McConnell — betrayed their party's base, which is staunchly conservative, increasingly in an America First sorta way. [...] RINOs are affirming Democrats coming out as authoritarians who mean to centralize ever-greater power in Washington, D.C.  The purposes are undercutting the people's liberties, radically altering the nation.  In fact, cementing alliances with elites in corporate suites, the leftist academy, and other major institutions to monopolize power.  RINOs, in turn, are "transitioning" to full statist.  Need we detail two years of Biden administration policies and Pelosi and Schumer-led efforts to have Uncle Sam control all elections, attack our 1st and 2nd Amendment rights, promote the unrestricted killing of babies in the womb, destroy conventional energy exploration and production, erase the southern border, spend like crazy drunks, and... oh, what else?  If you need convincing at this juncture about Democrats' and their allies' intentions, you've got some hard work ahead of you.

Could It Be That Our Rulers are 'Blithering Idiots?'.  I think that the present annual event of an annual one-size-fits-all omnibus spending package is not a sign of evil intent on the Pelosi and Schumer front, but a sign that we are governed by blithering idiots.  Because, you see, if the Pelosis and Schumers were really in control of things, they wouldn't need to fund the government by gussying up an annual government-shutdown emergency, and finalizing all their dirty deals with special interests high and low in the dark of 4,000 pages.  Every year.  Their spending plans would be gloriously broadcast in the light of day.  If our liberal friends were really confidently in charge, they wouldn't need to be oppressing us with their cancel culture.  You don't need cancel culture when you already own the future.  Cancel culture, like Reigns of Terror and Great Purges, is a backhand admission of failure.  If our Democratic friends really felt that they owned the future they wouldn't need to bother about chasing Trump around and stigmatizing his followers as "armed insurrectionists," and going to enormous effort to prosecute January 6 rioters.  They would just know that they would win at the next election.

Department of Energy ramps up the war against their tax slaves (us).  On December 19, 2022, the Biden White House released a statement briefing the public on a newly proposed rule by the Department of Energy which would require lightbulb manufacturers to comply with new "climate change" efficiency standards.  In fact, the move was just the latest transgressions against the American citizenry:  ["]This is the 110th action to strengthen energy efficiency standards that the Administration has taken in 2022.  These 110 actions span a range of household products — everything from air conditioners and furnaces, to clothes washers and dryers, to kitchen appliances and water heaters — as well as commercial and industrial equipment.["]  The move brings two major issues to the forefront of my mind:  The first being the complete disregard for the constitutional rule of law, and separation of powers.  The second, the contemptuous display of elitism and immodest display of climate communism.

The Gigantic Defense Bill Does More Harm than Good.  On Friday, President Joe Biden signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2023 into law.  Conservative lawmakers like Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) — for whom the bill was formally named — and liberal lawmakers like Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) overwhelmingly supported it in the House and the Senate.  The bill has much to like. [...] But as is normal when considering monstrous bills that come out of D.C., the good in the law may be outweighed by the bad, including but not limited to the following:
  •   Over 8,000 servicemembers who objected to the vaccine's moral compromises and risks were summarily dismissed from the military.  A Republican compromise means they will not be reinstated.
  •   The budget itself is unnecessarily enormous.  The proper role of good government includes support for a strong military because without a functioning national defense, there's no security for markets, businesses, and economic movement.  However, our country's military spending leaks like a sieve.
  •   There's no accountability for those who use and abuse taxpayer dollars.
  •   Abortion funding was left in.

18 Absurdities of the McConnell-Schumer Omnibus Spending Bill.  [Scroll down]  [T]he spending bill includes provisions that are cause for concern for pro-life Americans.  In perhaps the clearest example of the frame of mind of the authors, the $575 million in a global health section allocated for "family planning/reproductive health, including in areas where population growth threatens biodiversity or endangered species."  This section quite literally puts plants before people.  This provision sees humanity as a parasite, as a threat to the plants and animals that the bill's drafters clearly see as vastly more important than the Americans and their families who Congress is supposed to protect.

Duplicitous media suggests a 'Republican Biden' for a GOP win.  [Scroll down]  Why would journalists support leftist politicians and their policies when statistics show the majority of people unhappy and distressed?  A recent poll conducted by USA Today revealed that "two-thirds of respondents... say the country has gotten off on the wrong track."  Well, because the journalists and the rest of the Democrats apparently live their lives in a fantasyland:  They pretend they care about Blacks by supporting "reparations" — but with other people's money.  They pretend they care about Blacks but "expand abortion care."  They pretend they care about education but prevent the poor and minorities from having the freedom of school choice.  They pretend they want women to control their own bodies yet will fire them if they don't take a vaccine still currently in clinical trials.  They pretend they support women and privacy, but they make them compete and shower with biological men.  They pretend they can control the climate, so long as the poor and middle classes hand over more money.  They pretend that they never tried to block election results.

America's Growing Political Impotence.  [Scroll down]  Paradoxically, this highly visible impotence occurs at a time when America is displaying its bedazzling technical skill.  Thanks to the James Webb telescope, we can peer into the beginning of time even as the same TV show might feature videos of feral teenagers pillaging Nordstrom's jewelry department while "security" haplessly watches.  Even more ironic, as government fails in its most fundamental responsibilities, it embarks on the most Utopian missions such as altering the climate and imposing racial and sexual equality.  A visiting Martian might suspect that these odd priorities reflect mental illness, an inability to separate the Quixotic from the practical here and now.  Why not first stop the mentally ill from pooping on the street before building a moon base to explore the cosmos?  Who established these bizarre priorities?

Not Your Grandfather's Election Day.  Republicans are still recovering from the midterms hangover after suffering a stiff dose of how probabilistic mathematics, statistics, blood-red election maps, armchair predictions, and century-long historical trends are collectively no match for the underhanded ground game of one's opponent.  Giddy Democrats have again put one over on the American people, somehow dodging retribution for a miserable economy and two years of demonizing half the electorate.  Even with majorities in both houses, the Dems faced stiff political and public resistance in their failure to pass H.R. 1, For the Peoples Act, a misnamed Democrat effort to federalize state elections.  Undeterred, state Democrat parties have teamed up with Democrat national campaigns to achieve a permanent, quasi-legal destruction of the election process and institutionalized fraud through the pursuit of early mail-in voting and extended ballot deadlines in states that prohibit or curtail these practices.  This campaign is virtue-signaled through baseless and easily refuted claims of voter suppression, racism, and vintage pandemic concerns.

Biden administration boating proposal would be 'greatest regulatory overreach' of its kind, critics warn.  "This would be the greatest regulatory overreach in American maritime law" — that's how Frank Hugelmeyer describes a proposal by the Biden administration to limit the speed of all motorboats over 35 feet from Florida to Massachusetts.  "Not only are they creating a serious safety issue, they are creating a massive negative economic impact."  Hugelmeyer is president of the National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA), and he is just one of a growing number of voices expressing outrage over the proposal put forward by the U.S. Commerce Department under the auspices of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).  "It's stupid," said Jeff Angers, the president of the Center for Sportfishing Policy.  "It's not what government is supposed to do."

The Democrats' Slow Motion Insurrection.  The Jan. 6 Capitol ruckus is not one of our country's greatest moments.  But if the objective of a few of the protesters was to overthrow the federal government, they planned and executed poorly.  The same can't be said of the Democrats.  Their mostly bloodless coup to suspend constitutional limits and seize unchallenged power has been thoroughly calculated and expertly executed.  For decades Democrats at all levels have been moving the U.S. from the civil society it was designed to be to the political (that is, coercive) society they want to be in control of.  They have waged outright war on the first, second and 10th amendments to the Constitution; robbed us of our economic liberty through punitive taxation and strangling regulation; created environmental policies that have made innocent men criminals for making use of their own property and taken that property whenever possible; and destroyed independence by fostering more dependence on the state.  They spend other people's money as if it were, well, other people's money and there is therefore no governor on their actions.  "The Democrat Party has a long history of ignoring the Constitution when it impedes their government-expansionist objectives.  Which is nigh constantly — as the Constitution is a government-limiting document," says Seton Motley, president of Less Government, who cites some of the more egregious examples in a Heartland Institute essay.

In a last act of inverted morality, Oregon's outgoing governor commutes death sentences for criminals, but not babies.  Oregon is (currently) one of the handful of states in the country that allows abortion through all the months of pregnancy, and for any reason.  Democrats hold majorities in both legislative chambers, and the governor's seat, and with their lax approach towards the sacredness of humanity, one which results in "unrestricted" abortion, they're rightfully pinpointed and labeled as belonging to the "party of death" — but it turns out that's not entirely true.  More accurately, the Democrats should be noted as the "party of innocent death."

Dem Gov. Kate Brown Commutes all 17 of Oregon's Death Sentences.  Kate Brown, Oregon's Democratic governor, has commuted the sentences of the state's 17 death row inmates during her last month in office, changing the prisoner's sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole.  This order, which takes effect on Wednesday, has angered the victims' families as well as government officials.  A prisoner has not been executed in Oregon since 1997.  In a statement, Brown explained the reasoning behind her new order.  She said, "I have long believed that justice is not advanced by taking a life, and the state should not be in the business of executing people — even if a terrible crime placed them in prison."

The Editor says...
[#1] Did you get that?  One of the leaders of the Abortion Party says, "justice is not advanced by taking a life."  [#2] Keep this in mind if you ever have to spend a week or two on jury duty in a capital murder trial:  Years from now, all your thought and deliberation could be thrown out the window by a left-wing governor.

Oregon Governor Commutes the Sentence of Every Death-Row Inmate in State.  Oregon governor Kate Brown said Tuesday that the state's 17 death-row inmates will be spared execution and will instead have their sentences downgraded to life in prison without the possibility of parole.  "I have long believed that justice is not advanced by taking a life, and the state should not be in the business of executing people — even if a terrible crime placed them in prison," the outgoing Democratic governor said in a statement.  She added: "This commutation is not based on any rehabilitative efforts by the individuals on death row.  Instead, it reflects the recognition that the death penalty is immoral.  It is an irreversible punishment that does not allow for correction."

The Editor says...
I'm not inclined to listen to one of the leaders of the Abortion Party as she pontificates about what's immoral.

Joe Biden Signs Same-Sex Marriage Bill: 'Nothing More Decent, More Dignified, More American'.  President Joe Biden signed a bill making same-sex marriage legal nationwide on Tuesday, describing it as a victory for freedom in America.  "There is nothing more decent, more dignified, more American about what we are doing here today," Biden said during his speech at the White House before the signing.

The United States of Fascist America.  Fascism is a political ideology which, unfortunately, is mischaracterized by both media and academia.  For example, Wikipedia describes fascism as, "A far right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement characterized by a dictatorial leader, central autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy."  The definition is mostly correct, except for the first words, claiming fascism is a "far right" ideology.  Hitler was considered a fascist but his party, contrary to the political science experts (disguised as journalists), was far left.  The Nazi Party is the Nationalist Socialist German Workers' Party.  Note the name "socialist," an ideology of the left, not the right.  Another famous fascist, Benito Mussolini further clarified, "Fascism should rightly be called corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power."  That's where America is now, corporate and government power merging into a totalitarian behemoth, crushing any and all dissent.

Biden's EPA Prepares To Crack Down On Home Appliances.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed new rules on Friday that would restrict the use of refrigerators, air conditioning equipment and heat pumps that utilize hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs).  The EPA's proposed rule would crack down on the manufacturing and importing of goods containing HFCs, which would restrict the use of HFCs in refrigeration units, air conditioning systems and heat pump equipment starting in 2025, according to an agency press release.  In accordance with the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, a global climate treaty that the Senate ratified in September, the agency intends to reduce the production and consumption of HFCs by 85% by 2036.

Guaranteed to lose money:
Washington DC is leading the pack with fare-free bus rides next summer.  Washington DC will permanently offer free bus rides on all routes from next summer and other big cities like Boston and Denver may follow suit in what would be America's biggest public transport shakeup in years.  Under a plan agreed unanimously by Washington DC's council last week, the city will expand its transport services and waive the $2 fares for riders boarding Metrobuses within city limits [beginning] around July 1.  During the Covid-19 pandemic, cities from Los Angeles to Missouri and New York stopped collecting bus fares to cut human contact and ensure residents could reach jobs and services at hospitals, grocery stores and offices.

DHS Partnered Social Media Surveillance Systems Delivering Mutual Benefits.  Pelosi and Reid intentionally did not advance a budget in 2008 (for fiscal year 2009) because their plan included installing Barack Obama (and all that came with him) with an open checkbook made even more lucrative by a worsening financial crisis and a process called baseline budgeting.  Baseline budgeting means the prior fiscal year budget is accepted as the starting point for the next year budget.  All previous expenditures are baked into the cake within baseline budgeting.  Massive bailouts preceded Obama's installation due to U.S. economic collapse, and massive bailouts continued after his installation.  This is the 'never let a crisis go to waste' aspect.  TARP (Troubled Asset Recovery Program), auto bailouts (GM), and the massive stimulus spending bill, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA, ie. those shovel ready jobs) were all part of the non-budget spending.  The federal reserve assisted with Quantitative Easing (QE1 and QE2) as congress passed various Porkulous spending bills further spending and replacing the formal budget process.  Note: There has never been a budget passed in the normal/traditional process since September of 2007.

The terrible consequences of stolen elections and government corruption.  The minute Biden took office he tanked the recovering economy he inherited.  This had to be purposeful; no economic adviser is that stupid.  He destroyed the energy independence Trump had made possible which has given us the gas prices we now endure.  He doubled down on all the COVID restrictions, all of them specious, harmful and unnecessary; these mandates and the vaccines killed more people that COVID itself.

Congress Quietly Slips Ukraine Debt Relief into 4,400 Page National Defense Authorization Act.  When it comes to congress and the graft that is Ukraine, nothing should come as a surprise.  Last month, the Biden administration asked Congress for another $37.7 billion in support for Ukraine.  If that passes, and it certainly will, Congress will have approved more than $100 billion in Ukraine-related spending.  To wit, yesterday congress slipped Ukraine Debt Payment Relief, into the 4,400 page National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) which will make the Senate happy as the intent of the upper chamber is to continue the laundry operation.

Democrats Want to Abolish Prisons.  Following the midterm elections, Democrats gained two new members who have already been outspoken in their progressive beliefs.  Rep.-elect Summer Lee (D-PA) has openly advocated for socialist policies.  "Instead of 'thanking' Black women, Black voters, and especially, Black organizers... give us the investments we need and deserve, redistribute wealth, ends police violence, abolish the carceral state, commit to building Black directed political power... and reparations," Lee said.  Last year, Lee introduced a bill that would end cash bail in Pennsylvania.  She has insisted that the majority of those who are arrested don't pose a threat to society, therefore shouldn't have to go to jail just because they can't afford their bail.  In 2016, Lee classified Pennsylvania's system of bail as "a flaw in our system of justice" and "a threat to equal justice under the law."

Federal Court Blocks Biden Mandate Forcing Religious Hospitals to Facilitate Gender Transitions.  A federal court on Friday blocked a Biden administration mandate that would force religious hospitals and doctors to facilitate gender transitions against their sincerely held moral convictions.  The Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court's decision to block enforcement of the rule on the grounds that "intrusion upon the Catholic Plaintiffs' exercise of religion is sufficient to show irreparable harm," the filing reads.  Catholic nuns, clinics, a university, and hospitals were among the plaintiffs in the case, represented by the Becket Fund.  The plaintiffs all provide medical care for transgender patients but refuse to provide gender-transition surgeries because they believe them to be harmful.

Schumer defies voters, urges Dems to squeak by massive spending bill before House GOP takes control.  Proving once again that he could care less about the will of the American people, Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) admitted that he wants Democrats in Congress to use the lame-duck period between now and January, when Republicans regain control of the House, to pass an omnibus spending bill that will fund government spending for the entirety of next year, preventing Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) from "having any control" over the amount of taxpayer money that will be thrown at liberal causes, such as climate change and the war in Ukraine.

Biden's 401(k) Heist.  President Joe Biden's going after 401(k) retirement accounts, risking millions of workers' comfortable retirements.  If you put money into a 401(k), beware.  Until now, the law always required fund managers entrusted with your savings to invest the money where it's expected to get the top return for you.  Period.  But on Nov. 22, Biden's Labor Department announced a rule change that goes into effect the end of January.  It will allow fund managers to invest your money in the stocks of companies that favor left-wing policies, even if they earn a lower return.  It's legalized theft.  The future return on your retirement nest egg is being sacrificed to advance a woke agenda.

2020: The Year the Ruling Class Took Control.  Manipulation is the key word when it comes to the Democrats.  Calls to pack the Supreme Court and the Senate, eliminate the filibuster, and change the way the Electoral College works all point to the fact the Democrats and the Left never rest in their nonstop efforts to manipulate the political and judicial systems to their advantage.  In a way, they really are geniuses in identifying ways to manipulate the system.  They're not always successful, but they're always trying, and for now they've succeeded in changing the way elections work in many states by making mail-in voting, ballot drop boxes, and ballot harvesting legal.  Democrats can get away with these ongoing shenanigans, especially the coverup of the coverup of the Hunter Biden laptop story, is because nearly every major institution in the country is controlled by progressives in positions of authority at those institutions, most in the corporate mainstream media.

What Democrats Are Trying to Pass Before Their House Majority Ends.  Jamming through controversial legislation through Congress during a lame-duck session is a troubling practice to begin with.  It's becoming increasingly common to bring up more hotly contested legislation that didn't have a chance of passing when vulnerable legislators had to face an election — and the voters.  Democrats are so concerned with "democracy" that they are scrambling to head off the results of last month's elections, it seems.  As is often the case, the Left cares little about the proper functioning of government when its priorities are at stake.  The Washington Post editorial board called on Democrats in Congress to make this lame-duck session a "mighty one."  Imagine how The Post would describe the situation if it were Republicans seeking to push a conservative agenda through.  In addition to "the Respect for Marriage Act," here are four more of the most controversial pieces of legislation being considered by the current lame-duck Congress: [...]

Wyoming Sues Biden Administration, Alleges Suspensions of Oil Lease Sales [are] Illegal.  The State of Wyoming filed a second lawsuit against the Biden Administration, alleging that its suspension of oil lease sales were illegal.  Gov. Mark Gordon (R-Wyom.) announced that his state filed the lawsuit against the Interior Department for the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) decision to halt oil and gas lease sales in the state.  "This litigation is timely and vital to the interests of Wyoming citizens," said Gordon in a statement.  "Beyond that, Wyoming's energy resources can help power the nation and bring down costs at the pump.  BLM's decision to cancel lease sales sure seems to be a violation of both the letter and the spirit of the law.  "I firmly believe the pause in lease sales was politically driven and not based in law or fact," the governor continued.

The Democrats' Contempt for the American People.  [Scroll down] The American people deserve a government, not a clown show.  When asked by Zeke Miller "What do you intend to do differently," following the midterms, Biden replied "Nothing."  Biden appears to have forgotten that the democratic process is supposed to be about the well-being of the American people, not that of the Democrat Party.  The facts that his party, via its ballot-harvesting schemes, its bankrolling of "extremist" Republican candidates that it knew would not win in the general election, its dishonest representation of the consequences of overturning Roe vs. Wade, and Biden's cynical buying votes with his unconstitutional student loan forgiveness scheme has managed to avoid a large "red wave" does nothing to solve problems for the American people. [...] Biden and the Democrats clearly do not care about the suffering of the American people or the immigrants, but only for their own money and power.  They obviously see the American people as sheep to be played with one hoax after another rather than answering their questions.  The fact that the Democrats managed to stave off the "red wave" has literally nothing to do with Joe Biden's enormously unpopular policies.

If You Really Wanted to Destroy the U.S., Then...  First, you would surrender our prior energy independence.  Reduce new gas and oil leases on federal lands to the lowest levels of any president in history.  Cut back production at precisely the time the world is emerging from a two-year lockdown with pent-up consumer demand.  Make war on coal and nuclear power.  Drain the strategic petroleum reserve to make the pain for consumers more bearable for midterm election advantage.  Cancel the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge oil and gas field.  Block pipelines like the Keystone oil pipeline and the Constitution natural gas line.  Overregulate and demonize frackers and horizontal drillers.  Ensure there is less investment in their exploration and production.  Making use of internal combustible engines or fossil fuel power generation is prohibitively expensive.  Achieve a green oil dependency along the lines of contemporary Europe.

Biden Defends Multi-Trillion Dollar Scam: 'We Did So Much, Nobody Knows the Effects Yet'.  Oh, Joe, bless your clueless heart; you don't even see the irony. [...] Biden, on Tuesday [11/29/2022], defended his ill-fated "American Rescue Plan" for the zillionth time by arguing that the (at least) $1.9 trillion spending spree helped enable local governments to keep paying their employees (which does zero to help productivity).  He also boasted of his additional trillions in spending for government-subsidized health care, manufacturing, infrastructure, and so-called "green energy."  Biden's claim was not only nonsensical; it was a direct contradiction of Economics 101:  Injecting trillions of dollars into a struggling economy to chase a relatively limited supply of goods and services generally leads to an increase in inflation — not a decrease, as Team Biden disingenuously continues to claim.

The Guilty Justify Their Cruel and Anti-Social Values.  We see the incessant communist rantings of Bernie Sanders for decades.  Once a marginalized member of the Democratic caucus in the Senate although he self-designated as a Democratic Socialist [euphemism for communist], Sanders has steadily gained in popularity over the decades until he reached a high point of signing a 110-page pact with the Biden wing of the party in July of 2020.  Of the eight sections in that pact, six sections appeared with slightly different wording shortly thereafter in the 90-page Democratic Party Platform.  He says that he is "non-authoritarian" but that is bull.  He honeymooned in Moscow in 1988, and his visible enjoyment revealed that he felt he was at home-sweet-home.  More importantly, the socialists in the USA starting in 1912 included ownership of the means of production in their platform and this same principle is expressed in the Communist Manifesto of 1848.  The progressives who were both Republicans and Democrats at the beginning of the 20th century preferred expanded regulation of certain industries (for example, the pharmaceutical industry through the FDA and the railroads through the ICC) rather than ownership.

Senate Passes vote to make same-sex marriage federal law - with 11 Republicans cooperating.  The United States Senate voted to enshrine the right to same-sex and interracial marriage into federal law on Tuesday [11/29/2022].  The Respect For Marriage Act passed on a 61-36 vote.  Eleven Republicans voted with Democrats on the measure.  It now heads back to the House of Representatives, where it's likely to pass the Democrat-controlled chamber swiftly enough to head to President Joe Biden's desk before the current Congressional term is over.

Language warning!
Four nefariously managed events meant to harm us.  [#3] Wokery, the Marxist campaign to disorder society in order to overthrow existing institutions and replace them with a utopian dictatorship of the intersectionally oppressed — also known as The Revenge of the Losers. [...] It laughs at the idea of redemption.  Its adversaries are never forgiven, only dealt additional punishments for asking.  The mystery here is how Wokery was incorporated into the operating system of the Democratic Party.  The answer is the party needed something to replace its erstwhile corpus of organized industrial workers, gone with the winds of Globalism, and so it valorized the various categories of the mentally ill, the permanently downtrodden, and sundry persons who had become economic hostages to its corrupt system of payments and grants.  High above that ragtag-and-bobtail of crazies reigned an aristocracy of the so-called cognitive elite, people of unquestioned virtue, college professors, the creative class, the credentialed echelon — super-busy signaling their good intentions to their vassals to keep them in line.

The coup-attempt party.  A political light bulb went on regarding Adam Schiff's remark on CNN's "State of the Union" as reported by Breitbart's Pam Key.  In the interview, Schiff again mentioned the Russia hoax he has promoted for five years, if not longer.  (Note that Dana Bash did not call Schiff on this huge lie.).  With Schiff continuing to assert this gross falsehood, the Democrat Party has, for years, switched from being a loyal opposition party to priding itself as a party of the permanently-attempted coup.  How dumb of me not to have taken seriously the Democrat cries of "Resistance," as of the Trump inauguration, January 20, 2017 — but I then understood such cries to be figurative and fanciful references of a politically romantic nature.  But where were the Republican political experts like House Speaker Paul Ryan back in early 2017 when the "Resistance" was gearing up?  Alas, the anti-Trump Ryan was silently supporting the Resistance.  How could the Democrats have succeeded with the Mueller probe if Ryan had spoken out forcefully against what was apparently a coup attempt to oust the legitimately-elected president?

Seattle Councilmembers are trying to defund the police again.  Despite a rise in crime, some on the City Council are trying to defund the Seattle Police Department again.  Too bad it's getting scant or disingenuous coverage.  The council is currently debating Mayor Bruce Harrell's budget.  Anti-police councilmember Teresa Mosqueda, who once defended a man threatening to murder police, is looking to cut funds from the SPD permanently.  She just doesn't want you to realize it's part of the defund movement.  Harrell's budget temporarily cuts $11 million dollars from the budget.  The money would have been used to fill 200 open staff positions, but it was cut to fund only 120.  The SPD is dangerously understaffed, so why would they cut the budget?

Has the Democrat party converted to Islam?  On October 21, U.S. reps.  Ilhan Omar and Jan Schakowsky issued a press release introducing a bill titled the "Combating International Islamophobia Act."  According the release, the purpose of the bill is "to address the rise in incidents of Islamophobia worldwide."  Specifically, it would require "the State Department to create a Special Envoy for monitoring and combating Islamophobia, [which would] include state-sponsored Islamophobic violence and impunity [sic] in the Department's annual human rights reports."  The bill was supported by the White House, which, notwithstanding its focus on Islam alone, described it as a measure committed to "defending freedom of religion and belief."  On Dec, 14, 2021, the bill, H.R. 5665, passed in the House, 219 to 212.  No Democrat voted against it; no Republican voted for it. [...] Under this clause, no reports of any violence and killing committed not against Muslims, but by Muslims against other religious groups, nor the suppression of non-Muslims in Muslim-ruled nations, would be authorized.  Only acts against Muslims. [...] Need it be said that H.R. 5665 violates the First Amendment at two different levels?  First of all, in addressing not the alleged hostile actions themselves, but rather the media that are supposedly instigating those actions, the bill runs afoul of such media's freedom of speech.  Secondly, in focusing on issues relating specifically to Islam and to no other religion, the bill is "respecting an establishment of religion," which, under the Amendment, is prohibited.  One has to wonder if the 219 House members are aware that we have a Constitution, or whether it has a First Amendment?

Biden's Not So Subtle Lurch Toward Dictatorship.  In the wake of the midterm elections, President Joe Biden was asked during a rare press conference — in reference to Twitter's new owner — whether he thought Elon Musk was a threat to national security.  With a pause and a smirk, the president said that topic was "worthy of being looked at."&n bsp;With those words, Biden made it clear that if you even seem to oppose his politics, your private life will be under the direct scrutiny of the state.  Despite his constant prattle about saving our democracy, Biden seems to think he's running an authoritarian police state.  In truth, the federal government already maintains entities that review acquisitions such as Musk's for anything from foreign influence to anti-competitive business practices.  After many months in which Musk's negotiations to purchase Twitter happened in full public view, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said last week that she sees no basis for the government to investigate that purchase.

Senate candidate Raphael Warnock, 2009: I'm "SICK AND TIRED" of hearing people criticize socialism.  Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock holds a slight lead over his GOP challenger, Herschel Walker, in a runoff election poll released Tuesday morning.  In a video from 2009, preaching from the pulpit, Warnock states he was 'sick and tired' of hearing people criticize socialism.  [Video clip]

Are You Freer than You Were Two Years Ago?  Make no mistake:  it is despotism that we face in Biden's proposal to double the size of the IRS; in the political weaponization of the FBI, CIA, and DOJ; in the amassing of information by technology giants; in the corporate surrender to woke ideologies; in the takeover of schools by progressive activists; in the proliferation of "hate speech" laws; in the self-censorship that so many Americans practice to appease political correctness; and in the influence of media on our thinking.  We live in an age of fear and conformity, and those who are weak have become enslaved and have willingly relinquished their freedom to the powerful forces of government, media, "expert" opinion, and corporate venality.  The practical effects of this despotism can be seen everywhere.  Rising taxes are used to transfer more and more of an individual's earnings to government, where it is used with little accountability to enrich those who support ever greater government spending and who make campaign donations to ensure this happens.

Biden tells 401k investors to prioritize green investments over profit.  The Biden administration will allow employers to invest pension money in green industries that could provide lower returns for Americans.  The move, which was announced on Tuesday, reverses a rule imposed by Trump in 2020 that forced employers to prioritize profit when making 401(k) investments.  The new rule introduced by US Department of Labor will allow retirement plan investors to focus on ESG investing — which considers the environmental and social impacts of investments.

Biden Extends Student Loan Pause Again After Declaring 'Pandemic Is Over'.  President Joe Biden reportedly plans to extend the pause on federal student loan payments through the summer of 2023 as his student debt cancellation plan faces legal challenges.  The Department of Education will soon announce the extension of the freeze, according to a report from CNN.  The first payments will be due two months after June 30, unless the Supreme Court greenlights the administration's debt forgiveness program beforehand.  A similar report from Bloomberg quoted multiple unnamed sources.

Also posted under Using handouts to buy votes.

Energy Policy Roadmap 2023.  Since the start of his presidency, Biden has indulged in apocalyptic concerns about climate change at the expense of American energy production, workers, and consumers.  Early in his presidency, aping the constant refrain from climate Chicken Littles, Biden signed an executive order, which stated, "There is little time left to avoid setting the world on a dangerous, potentially catastrophic, climate trajectory."  Therefore, Biden grandly declared, "it is the policy of my Administration that climate considerations shall be an essential element of United States foreign policy and national security."  Moreover:  ["]We must combat the climate crisis with bold, progressive action that combines the full capacity of the Federal Government with efforts from every corner of our Nation, every level of government, and every sector of our economy.["]  Federal agencies acted quickly to implement Biden's reckless order, and their policies continue to wreak havoc on American energy, consumers, and the economy.  For example, the Interior Department, led by radical former Rep. Deb Haaland (NM), banned new federal onshore and offshore oil and gas leases.  This is significant, because oil and gas production from federal lands and waters comprises about 24 percent and 11 percent of total U.S. oil and gas production, respectively.  To put those figures in context, "if U.S. federal land/waters was treated as its own country, the 2.67 million barrels of oil it produced daily in 2019 would have made it the 11th largest daily oil producer in the world that year."  Several states sued Interior to overturn the ban, and a federal district court recently ruled (again) that it is illegal.

As Shortages Persist Under Biden, It's Time To Ask: Is This On Purpose?  Did the United States suddenly become a socialist basket case?  It's hard not to come to that conclusion after reading about the endless shortages plaguing the nation.  Each of which President Joe Biden either seems clueless to resolve or determined to make worse.  Let's start with the biggest one: the shortage of diesel fuel.  While Biden was busy draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to tamp down gas prices before the midterm elections, the real worry was that supplies of diesel fuel have been running short.  Two years after the short-lived COVID lockdowns ended, diesel inventories continued to trend downward to their lowest levels since 2008.  The cost for a gallon of diesel fuel is 46% higher than it was a year ago, according to AAA, and now costs more than $5 a gallon.

The White House can end the energy crisis by next year if it wants to.  Power the Future is an American energy advocacy and research organization that promotes solutions to energy-related crises currently facing the United States.  In a report simply titled Energy Policy Roadmap, the group sets forth ten basic steps that President Joe Biden and/or Congress could begin taking immediately before we run out of diesel, experience more rolling blackouts, and all the rest of the very real threats America is facing because of the current destructive energy policies that are now in place. [...] Here is the bullet list, and every item on here could be put into motion tomorrow if Joe Biden has the will to take action or if the new Congress is willing to stand up to him and put corrective measures in place.
  •   Repealing Joe Biden's Natural Gas Tax
  •   Ending Biden's Oil and Gas Leasing Moratorium/Return Power to States
  •   Approving the Keystone XL Pipeline
  •   Blocking Biden's ESG Regulations
  •   Repealing the California Waiver
  •   Ending Activist-led "Sue and Settle" and "Citizen Lawsuits"
  •   Banning Use of the "Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases"
  •   Issuing Automatic Approvals for LNG Export Terminals
  •   Overturning Massachusetts v. EPA
  •   Stopping Biden's War on Coal

Free America: We're already dealing with a fascist regime.  Where does the Democrat Party want to be in five years, or ten or twenty?  We saw that very clearly on September 1, 2022, when Joe Biden made his infamous speech with the red and black background.  Biden gave a speech that was without parallel in American history.  It was an extraordinary departure from 200 years of American political tradition, and it was extremely important.  It reveals what the Left is trying ultimately to do. [...] In his red and black speech on September 1, 2022, the 83rd anniversary of the beginning of World War II, Biden said that Trump and his supporters represented a grave threat to the Republic itself.  That was what was so unprecedented in American life, and why his speech was more like Hitler's Reichstag speech than any speech of an American president.  Biden was saying that essentially half of the electorate was a threat to the Republic and outside the bounds of acceptable political discourse.  Do you think that they are going to peacefully allow those whom they have thus branded to recapture the White House or the House or the Senate?  This is an effort to rule Trump supporters, that is, America First patriots, out of the bounds of acceptable discourse, and to criminalize their perspective.

The Run on Guns and Legal Battle Begin After Oregon's Gun Grab Passes.  The joke these days is that if you put the Bill of Rights to a vote, it would lose.  The latest example of this decline in intelligence is Oregon, where voters narrowly passed an anti-gun measure so ghastly that the Second Amendment has been "rendered superfluous."  Now, there's a run on gun stores, and civil liberties advocates have begun the fight to once again "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" and reclaim the rights the Declaration of Independence stated were "self-evident" and "endowed by our Creator."  Don't kid yourself:  It'll be a tough sell in Oregon, where wokeness doesn't recognize "self-evidence," and "our Creator" has been replaced by godless communist dogma.  It's a place where young adults believe free rent, cheap weed, and college loan forgiveness are civil rights.

The scary part is that the students fell for it.  Some time ago, President Biden announced an executive order aimed at helping students with college debt, promising $10,000 in debt relief from federal student loans for most and $20,000 in debt relief from the poorest recipients who qualified for Pell grants.  It was "Pandering 101" and really aimed at getting college students to vote Democrat ahead of the midterms.  What else was it?  Well, it worked and the young voted for Uncle Joe and his loan-forgiving ideas.  They probably saved the U.S. Senate for the Democrats and cut losses in the House.

America was built on coal.  Now Biden wants to abolish it.  The one promise that President Joe Biden has faithfully kept is his pledge to "close down" fossil fuels.  We get two-thirds of our energy in America from fossil fuels, and almost one-third of our power comes from coal.  That's quadruple the amount of energy we get from wind and solar, which are niche forms of energy.  But Biden doesn't see it that way.  He recently reiterated his pledge to end coal production altogether.  "No one is building new coal plants because they can't rely on it," Biden said on Nov. 4 while in California. "We're going to be shutting these plants down all across America and having wind and solar."  I hope the people in Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Wyoming are listening because thousands of mostly union jobs are associated with the coal plants he wants to shutter.  Biden says we need to "shut down" these plants and the jobs that come with them because we need to combat climate change.  One problem:  Most of the rest of the world is using more coal even as we use less.  Even the sanctimonious Europeans are turning to coal because their natural gas supplies from Russia are no longer reliable.

U.S. Reverses Course, Now Says It Will Pay Climate Extortion Money to Poorer Nations.  It had been an article of faith since the 1990s when the idea of "climate reparations" was first proposed that the United States would never participate in such an extortion scheme.  Then Joe Biden got elected.  At the COP27 climate conference in Egypt, wealthy nations agreed for the first time to a framework that would pay poorer countries for "damages" that are caused by climate change.  Droughts, storms, heat waves, excessive cold — all can now be itemized as part of the cost poor countries pay because rich countries are responsible for the changing climate.  Of course, storms and droughts have been occurring for millions of years in these regions, but that doesn't matter.

The Editor says...
[#1] If there are any actual damages, do they not affect all countries?  [#2] If there is any actual change in the world-wide climate, is none of it caused by smaller, undeveloped beggar countries?  [#3] Was Joe Biden really elected, or was he installed as the result of a fraudulent election?

US will pay up to $1BN to compensate developing countries for global warming - but China Won't have to pay.  The United States will take part in the creation of and contribute to a fund that will pay developing nations to tackle climate change.  The fund, negotiated at the United Nations' COP27 Summit, was originally known as a 'loss and damage' fund and had been blocked by previous American administrations.  With a final climate accord already more than a day overdue, representatives of nearly 200 nations were anxious for an agreement they could bill as a step forward in the fight against climate change.

The Editor says...
[#1] Any "fight against climate change" is futile and unnecessary.  Yet the news media seems to think it's a fact of life.  Personally, I adapt to the weather when it changes and don't try to fight it.  Nobody can stop the climate from changing, and the climate changes so little, from one year to the next that it is imperceptible and nearly impossible to measure.  [#2] This is obviously just a shakedown and wealth redistribution scheme.  [#3] Why are "developing nations" uniquely able to keep the climate from changing?  [#4] Here's an idea:  Let's pay the "developing nations" after they prove their ability to stop climate change.

A Little Learning on Methane and Climate Change.  Before leaving for a week of virtue-signaling at the COP27 climate conference with other world elites, President Joe Biden would have done well to reread Hans Christian Anderson's story "The Emperor's New Clothes." [...] In Biden's case, the new clothes are the nonsense that there is a climate emergency.  But who would want to be considered "unfit for his office" or "unusually stupid" by questioning whether there really is an emergency?  So, resplendent in his new regalia, President Biden has proposed regulations on methane emissions by the U.S. oil and gas industry, at a direct cost of more than $1 billion annually, to deal with a nonexistent problem.

Maybe denial is the driving factor in the 2022 election outcome.  Democrat voters are not a monolithic bloc.  Yes, some are hard-core ideologues who swooned over Bernie Sanders.  Some are recipients of public assistance and dependent on Democrat party largesse.  Some are students and recent graduates majoring in insurrection.  But they're not all community organizers, and they don't all hate America.  Most are normal, center-left people who habitually vote Democrat. [...] But consider for a moment what the habitual Democrat would have had to acknowledge to vote Republican on November 8th:
  [#1]   That the President of the United States is a doddering mediocrity.
  [#2]   That the person (or persons) responsible for the policies and decisions emanating from the White House is a matter of conjecture.
  [#3]   That the administration's policies are blatantly extremist and being implemented with ruinous effect.
  [#4]   That proper stewardship of the nation's fiscal and energy resources is utterly lacking — to the point of precipitating a foreseeable crisis.
  [#5]   That large numbers of inner-city youth, trapped in broken homes or broken schools, are not being taught respect, self-control, or the difference between right and wrong.
  [#6]   That the freedoms, values, and checks and balances on which this country was founded are being left grossly unprotected.
  [#7]   That despite mounting challenges we are not presently capable of deterring our adversaries or defeating them on the battlefield.
Perhaps it's all too much to contemplate.  The habitual Democrat voter prefers to remain incongruously oblivious.

Biden Attempts to Revive Student Loan Forgiveness Plan By Asking Supreme Court to Restore It.  The Biden Administration is desperately trying to restore its failing $400 billion student loan forgiveness plan after it keeps getting blocked by federal judges.  According to a legal filing, the Biden Administration plans to ask the Supreme Court to reinstate the president's canceled student loan debt program.  In the court documents, President Joe Biden is warning the Supreme Court that if it doesn't reverse the cancellation of the plan, millions of Americans will face a financial burden when the payments are scheduled to start again in January.

Joe Biden's Transgender Insanity Gets Crushed in Court.  One of the most deranged aspects of the Biden administration has been its pushing of radical transgender ideology in the medical field.  Well past just letting people do what they want, the president and his handlers have sought to force doctors to partake in activities that violate their principle to do no harm.  That includes being forced to prescribe puberty blockers and hormone blockers to those who have no medical need for them as well as having to refer patients for "gender-affirming" surgeries that permanently harm them.  Thankfully, in a blow to the transgender lobby, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas has ruled that Biden's edict on those matters is not lawful.

Tenacity by itself will not make this idea constitutional.
Biden admin seeks to take student debt cancellation to Supreme Court.  The Biden administration will soon ask the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court decision blocking the implementation of the president's student loan debt cancellation plan.  The Department of Justice on Thursday asked a federal appeals court to end the injunction on the plan's implementation while indicating in the same filing that it would turn to the Supreme Court to list a separate appeals court ruling, the Associated Press reported.  Biden announced his plan in late August to forgive student debt up to $10,000 for those earning less than $125,000 annually and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients.  The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the plan will cost taxpayers approximately $400 billion.

The 2022 Mid-Terms Exposed the Existence of Two Americas and the Overwhelming Importance of the 2024 Election.  The United States is currently plagued with uncontrolled inflation spiraling into a severe recession, crime is rampant in the nation's cities, the borders are open and uncontrolled, the standard of living is rapidly deteriorating, society is sinking into a morass of premeditated cultural decline, and an increasingly bleak future awaits the vast majority of Americans.  Yet fifty percent of 2022 voters chose to continue this state of affairs by opting to elect or re-elect the politicians that have created or abetted this ongoing national devastation.  Far too many, particularly the younger generations who voted overwhelmingly Democrat, dwell in mindless loyalty to a collectivist tribe, its leaders and its attendant ideology.  In their addled thinking this fidelity outweighs the well-being of themselves or the nation and its citizenry.

Federal Court Blocks Biden's Student Loan Forgiveness Nationwide.  The U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered a nationwide injunction pending appeal against President Joe Biden's student loan debt forgiveness program Monday, adding to previous legal action blocking the plan.  The program seeks to forgive $10,000 in federal student loan debt for individuals with incomes under $125,000 and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients, with the Biden administration claiming it had the authority to institute the program under the HEROES Act of 2003 and an emergency situation sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic.  Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina had filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration in late September over the program, and the court issued a stay on the debt cancellation last month before granting an emergency motion for the injunction Monday [11/14/2022].

Federal Judge Strikes Down A Key Part Of President Biden's Transgender Agenda.  A federal judge has reversed a Biden Administration rule that directed the Department of Health and Human Services to increase access to sex change surgeries and hormone therapies, including to children, in a Friday ruling.  Biden's HHS said in May 2021 that it would interpret a section of the Affordable Care Act, which bars doctors from discriminating on the basis of sex, as covering sexual orientation and gender identity.  Two doctors represented by the America First Legal Foundation brought a class action lawsuit against the Biden administration after the HHS took the action, arguing that the rule would interfere with their ability to properly practice medicine.  The judge argued that the Biden administration's interpretation of Title IX to include "gender identity," was faulty and could not be changed until Congress passed a law to that effect, or the Supreme Court ruled otherwise.

UN considers trying to outlaw all fossil fuels on the planet.  The COP27 globalist gathering that recently took place in Egypt came with open calls for a global phase-out of, and eventual ban on, all fossil fuels.  Were this to actually happen, billions of people would die.  A tiny, failing island in the South Pacific called Tuvalu (ever heard of it?) made the proposition using the following quoted statement:  "We, therefore, unite with 100 Nobel Peace Prize laureates and 1000s of scientists worldwide to urge world leaders to join the fossil fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty, to manage a just transition away from fossil fuels."  One wonders:  what does Tuvalu mean by the term "just transition?"  Is ending most human life on earth considered by the globalists to be the "just" thing to do?  Because that it what eliminating all fossil fuel usage would do.

Another Stolen Election.  [Scroll down] Polls show that Biden suffers an approval rate of only 36% and that a large majority of Americans do not want Biden to run for reelection in two years.  How is this preference consistent with the vote count of Tuesday's election?  Consider also that the party in power loses representation in midterm elections, but despite the substantial turn away from Democrats revealed by CNN, this normal result did not occur on Tuesday.  Consider also public dissatisfaction with: record crime, record inflation with high food and gasoline prices, rising interest rates and falling home values, massive illegal immigration, forced indoctrination of school children with transgender theory and critical race theory, Biden's Covid vaccination mandates that caused health injuries, deaths, and destroyed careers, Biden's Covid lockdowns that destroyed businesses, jobs, supply chains and raised prices, Biden's "Russian" sanctions that disrupted energy supply and raised the price of everything. [...] Now, ask yourself, what is worse, a stolen US election or an American electorate so insouciant and out to lunch that they would keep a political party in office that is leading us into war with Russia and China, that hates white people and persecutes them, that has politicized the FBI and Department of Justice turning them into Gestapo agencies serving Democrat power, that fervently believes that parents are bad for children and should have no say in their education (brainwashing), that is demonizing normality and normalizing perversity, that ... I could go on and on.  Here was a chance for voters to register their dissent, and according to the vote results they failed to do so.  If the vote count is honest, then the conclusion is that we must write off the American people as beings too stupid to survive as a free people.  This is why I much prefer to believe that the election was again stolen.  What can be done about stolen elections?  Nothing.  Especially when a previously stolen election has left Democrats in control of the executive branch.  The executive branch is the police branch.  It is not going to enforce election or any law against itself.

Federal judge: You'd better believe that Biden's Academia bailout is unconstitutional.  You better believe that Joe Biden and his team knew that already, too.  He managed to buy midterm votes without spending a dollar, and now he can play the victim for another couple of years to hang onto those voters, who will end up with nothing at all.  At least one judge decided that the Constitution might be a little more important than "standing" when it comes to Biden's unilateral appropriation of several hundred billion dollars.  In fact, the insult to the separation of powers and Congress' exclusive power of the purse is grave enough that Judge Mark Pittman decided to dispense with the plaintiff's request for an injunction and proceeded to decide the case immediately, vacating Biden's executive order.

John Kerry Spills the Beans at U.N.'s COP27 Meeting: They Want to Replace Capitalism with a New Economic System.  The World Economic Forum's climate change agenda was "modeled" off the effort to roll out vaccines during the Covid pandemic, John Kerry said during a COP27 panel discussion in Egypt on Tuesday.  That means we can all look forward to high-pressure, coercive government tactics, and not only from the government but from corporate elites.  Appearing alongside WEF President Børge Brende and various corporate executives, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry said that it is urgent for the private sector to pair with governments to realize the goal of preventing the global temperature from rising and to save lives in the allegedly looming global climate crisis, Breitbart reported.  Kerry said in a speech before the panel:  "We have an enormous challenge before us to bring to scale new technologies and to harness the deeply capable capacity of private sector entrepreneurs in order to bring them to the table because without it, no government has enough money... we need everybody behind this."  King Charles has made similar statements, that we need nations to pool their resources and raise a trillion dollars to combat climate change.
[Emphasis added.]

Biden's student loan handout struck down by federal judge in Texas.  A federal judge in Texas struck down President Biden's student loan handout in a Thursday night ruling.  Biden's plan, which aims to cancel up to $20,000 in student loan debt for Pell Grant recipients in college and up to $10,000 for others who borrowed using federal student loans.  "Whether the Program constitutes good public policy is not the role of this Court to determine.  Still, no one can plausibly deny that it is either one of the largest delegations of legislative power to the executive branch, or one of the largest exercises of legislative power without congressional authority in the history of the United States," United States District Judge Mark Pittman wrote.

Physicals, Virtuals, Machines and Overlords.  WEF chief [Klaus] Schwab has proclaimed that a key element of the COVID crisis-fueled "Great Reset" will be to advance and shape this "Fourth Industrial Revolution."  And in public statements, he has explained what this means: merging man with machines.  "What the fourth industrial revolution will lead to is a fusion of our physical, digital and biological identity," Schwab explained in a speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.  This is not a conspiracy "theory".  Schwab even wrote a book on the subject in 2016 entitled Shaping the Future of The Fourth Industrial Revolution.  In it, he explains how looming technological changes will allow governments to "intrude into the hitherto private space of our minds, reading our thoughts and influencing our behavior."  The title is a tell.  This vision is not inevitable, but rather will have to be shaped if it is to develop in the way that he and his WEF colleagues envision.

Biden's America is actually a democratic autocracy.  President Biden recently spoke about the need for democracy rather than autocracy, pointing out that the American midterm elections would save democracy only if the Democrats got the majority.  In other words, those who vote Republican are against democracy, as only the rule of one party with complete control over the government promotes democracy.  Biden thereby defined his attitude as autocratic, pointing out that "autocracy is the opposite of democracy.  It means the rule of one, one person, one interest, one ideology, one party."  It is clear that autocracy — not democracy — is what the Democrats are pushing for.  If you are not for the rule of one interest, namely the socialist, ultra-rich corporate class that now controls the very political theater Biden is a part of, you are the enemy of democracy.

Democrats Are Losing Voters They Took for Granted, Thanks to Misplaced Priorities.  Over the weekend, new data showed Democrats that minorities are migrating to Republican candidates in a historic shift, and the electorate sees them as focused on all the wrong things.  All Democrats had to do was not be crazy.  Biden inherited an economy in recovery and a nation looking to take a collective deep breath.  Instead, Democrats decided to destroy the economy and push transing the kids.  Voters noticed.

Manchin's rebuke shows how toxic Biden's energy views are.  It's not often that a senator launches a brutal, frontal assault on a president from his own party.  It's even rarer when he does it just before a national election.  But that is exactly what West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin just did to Joe Biden.  At issue was Biden's recent speech attacking coal, a bedrock of the West Virginia economy.  Manchin was furious over Biden's promise to shut down all of America's coal-fired power plants.  That view might be red meat for Biden's audience of green-power advocates and rich California donors, but it is poison in West Virginia.  And it is those West Virginians who elected Manchin, the only Democrat still standing in a state that is now deep red. [...] President Biden's comments are not only outrageous and divorced from reality, they ignore the severe economic pain the American people are feeling because of rising energy costs. [...] Shutting down coal-fired plants is hardly a new position for Biden.  He said as much while campaigning for president.  But why return to that theme just before an election when high energy prices are already a political burden?  Some combination of Biden's usual foot-in-mouth disease, his quest for rich donors, and an effort to spur turnout among base voters.

Biden Says the Quiet Part Out Loud About Climate Change And His Handlers Are Trying To Save The Situation.  In a move that surely had his tapioca dealers talking themselves back from the ledge, the President stated that they would be shutting down coal-fired power plants 'across America'.  West Virginia may be the first state that comes to mind when one thinks of coal country, but Pennsylvania is a close second and is home to one of the key senate races of this election.  Democrat senate hopeful, Fetterman, was likely stunned by Biden's recklessness ... and her husband probably was too.

Energy Inflation Was by Design.  This essay will demonstrate that the energy supply and price crisis was a deliberate outcome of a policy that Biden promised to implement, the same one that Obama had supported during his time in office.  It will review how and why we arrived here, why record energy prices were not happenstance, why domestic conventional energy supplies are inadequate in relation to levels of demand seen in recent years, and how the entire thrust of Obama's — and now Biden's — energy policy was designed to deliver these results.  It's not a bug but a core feature of his program.

Inflation By Design.  Gas is as ordinary as a pencil.  We fill up our tanks every day, or jump in a rideshare, hop on a plane, jet ski around a lake, without taking any notice of the miracle of this fuel.  Gas is the result of the labor of innumerable individual contributions, from geologists to tanker drivers; it begins miles underground and ends at the local filling station, yet it is cheaper than bottled water.  Pencils and gas are both marvels of free market capitalism, as are countless petrochemical products, from plastics and rubber to laundry detergent and cosmetics.  The only non-market force capable of disrupting this well-oiled machine is government.  That's exactly what Joe Biden did.

Who has really been running our country?  On the day that Joe Biden was sworn into office, he signed dozens of extensively radical executive orders.  Then the Biden administration began populating the federal government and the federal Judiciary — including the new Supreme Court vacancy — with hundreds (probably thousands) of the most extreme anti-American people imaginable.  The administration has re-crafted an enormous number of laws and regulations — often illegally — to push the hard-left, woke, LGBT agendas throughout business, government, education, and society in general.  U.S. foreign policy, including the hideous abandonment in Afghanistan and unhinged Ukrainian response, has clearly been coordinated to weaken America and strengthen our enemies.  Our military is being emasculated — and proselytized to consider patriotic Americans as the enemy.  The Biden administration ignores our immigration laws and welcomes millions of illegal aliens to swarm across our southern border, and then methodically ships them to cities across the country (and even gives them cell phones to use).  The administration's aggressive "green new deal" is paralyzing our transportation system and causing crippling inflation never seen in this country before.  Federal agencies, spearheaded by the Justice Department and FBI, have viciously become weaponized against conservatives, at the same time allowing "Antifa" and other left-wing hoodlum groups to terrorize citizens at will.  As many have observed, it's a controlled demolition of America.

'Moderate' Democrat Tim Ryan Backs Free Sex Changes for Illegal Migrants.  The Democrat party's candidate in the Ohio Senate race promised to provide taxpayer-funded sex-change surgeries and hormones to illegal migrants who say they are transgender.  Tim Ryan, who portrays himself as a moderate, made the wildly unpopular pledge in 2019 to one of the party's most radical constituency groups, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).  Ryan made the pledge while he was running for president in 2019.

Don't Cry For Me, America.  We've seen this movie before.  The Democrats' populist giveaway plans can't possibly work, because government bankrupts everything it touches.  History teaches us that ObamaCare and the myriad of government's unfunded entitlement programs will be utter, complete disasters.  Today's Democrats are guilty of more than stupidity; they are enslaving future generations to poverty and misery.  And they will be long gone when it all implodes.  They will be as cold and dead as Juan Perón when the piper must ultimately be paid.  Throughout history, Democrats' Marxist templates for wealth redistribution have proven fatal for civilized societies.

The Democrat War on Fossil Fuels.  On October 19, in the heat of an election campaign, President Biden told the American people, "We need to increase oil production."  He went on to say, "My administration has not stopped or slowed U.S. oil production."  It was a disingenuous statement from a man whose sense of reality, fact, and fiction have become an undecipherable narrative.  Biden failed to mention the executive order he issued which stipulates, "the Secretary of the Interior shall pause new oil and natural gas leases on public lands or in offshore waters."  This pause is ongoing.  Biden uses the same executive order as an instruction to the secretaries of State, Treasury, Energy, Defense, and Homeland Security, "to organize and deploy the full capacity of its agencies to combat the climate crisis."  Millions of Americans are employed by businesses supporting the fossil-fuel industry.  Others choose to invest in fossil-fuel businesses.  All Americans rely on fossil fuels to power their businesses, transportation systems, and utilities.  Democrats will destroy these people's jobs, capital, and imperil the U.S. economy.

Could [Democrat] Politics Be Even More Childish?  In contrast to the left's campaign of disinformation, we present some facts:
  •   Fascists don't cut taxes, deregulate, and shrink government.  Republicans, even "MAGA Republicans," run on those issues, and are devoted to the principles, even if too often the policy agenda fails (because of Democratic and media opposition).
  •   Fascists are socialists, and it's the Democrats who are wed to socialist policies.  They constantly agitate for higher taxes, more government control of the means of production, ever-deeper government intrusion into private affairs, and incontestable political power.  They don't want voters to know that fascism's father Benito Mussolini said that "socialism is in my blood," or that the Nazis were national socialists.
  •   Politicians and media figures hungry for raw power will call those who question an election that they won "deniers" while themselves denying that they did exactly that in previous elections.
  •   A party that wishes to destroy America would, as Walter Russel Mead wrote a month after Donald Trump took office, limit fracking as much as possible, block oil and gas pipelines, and try to tamp down tensions with Russia's ally Iran.  The GOP has done none of that.  The Democrats are guilty of all three.
  •   A party that would abolish democracy would crush dissenting voices and opinions, and constantly smear its opponents — which is what the Democrats have done.  (And yet again we have to reiterate that the U.S. is not a democracy.  That is an infantile construction used to deceive.  We are a republic.)

The Left Were the Mad Scientists, We Were Their Lab Rats.  We are now headed for a decisive midterm election.  Strangely the hard-left architects of the last two years neither offer a defense of their failing agendas, nor agree to change them.  No Democratic congressional candidates brag about the 3 million people who illegally crossed an open border.  None boast that they helped cancel key pipelines, reduced federal leasing of gas and oil, and shut down the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.  None take credit for hammering investments in fossil fuels.  None preen over the no-bail and defund-the-police policies of left-wing, big-city prosecutors and mayors who have spiked crime.  None insist that an annual 8-9 percent inflation rate is a desirable spreading of the wealth.  And yet odder still, no Democratic candidate, state or national — and most certainly not Joe Biden — offers to alter these toxic policies.  If they won't defend what they have done, they apparently will not undo what they have wrought either.

Back to the Carter economy.  The latest edition of "Joe Biden: Bad Ideas" came yesterday when Biden stepped up his attacks on Big Oil and suggested that unless they lower prices he would push to implement a Windfall Profits Tax on the companies, essentially seizing their profits as a punishment for making money.  Such taxes are notoriously idiotic, and even the dimwits in the White House must know that.  It seems like Biden is trying to ruin the economy, and we have hit the point where we have to actually consider that to be a possibility.  Everything he has done to the economy has made things worse, and after a while you have to consider whether it is intentional.

A second attempt to block Biden's student-debt cancellation lands at the Supreme Court.  Opponents to President Joe Biden's student-debt relief took their legal battle to the Supreme Court on Tuesday in the latest attempt to get the nation's highest court to block the plan.  Indiana student-loan borrowers Frank Garrison and Noel Johnson are seeking to halt the program, claiming it's unlawful and requires them to pay more in taxes because the debt cancelation is considered taxable income under state law.  "The administration is attempting to erase half a trillion dollars in debt without any legal basis," Caleb Kruckenberg, an attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative law firm representing the two applicants, said in a statement.  "The Court ought to put the brakes on this lawless action while it's considered by the courts."

Los Angeles and L.A. County buy into guaranteed income movement.  Following a national trend, Los Angeles and Los Angeles County have embraced the popular guaranteed income concept to combat poverty by offering low-income residents no-strings-attached money.  The city of Los Angeles offers a guaranteed income program to 3,200 participants chosen at random to receive $1,000 per month for 12 months.  Los Angeles County has responded with two guaranteed programs of its own.  The county's pilot guaranteed income program involves 1,000 participants who will receive $1,000 monthly payments for three years.  The budget is $16.3 million, and the county will use federal COVID-19 relief money to pay for the program, according to Los Angeles County.  The program began in August.

A Stunning Number of Americans Believe the Country Is 'Out of Control' Thanks to Democrats.  A look at the Democrat tote board reveals that this party's policies have resulted in more dead people.
  •   Democrats believe women should be able to kill their babies up to the moment of birth.
  •   The murder rate has spiked in Democrat-run cities where police are "de-funded."
  •   Democrats are willing to sacrifice your life at the altar of their global warming religion by depriving you of reliable, cost-effective energy.  Good luck heating your home this winter!
  •   They've required you to drive electric cars that don't work in the deep cold or when you're stuck in traffic trying to escape a hurricane.  Good luck with your evacuation plan!
  •   Democrats' policies have made food much more expensive, forcing some to choose whether to eat or spend on other necessities.
  •   Democrats have opened the borders, releasing vast amounts of fentanyl and meth into the country, killing more people than our wars.
The upshot is that Democrats are an existential threat to human life.  Maybe that's why nearly 80% of the people in a new CBS News/YouGov Battleground Tracker poll say that the country is "out of control."

No such thing as a 'Christian Democrat'.  This past week Matt Walsh posted the following comments on Twitter.  "The Democrats have settled on their closing argument:  'Vote for us so that we can castrate children, use your money to pay for abortions, and put pornography in the schools.  If you don't vote for us, then you are a Nazi and democracy will die.'  Fascinating political strategy."  In these few words, Mr. Walsh highlighted a sad and sobering fact:  The Democrat party is now so extreme that no serious follower of Christ can align with it.  There is no longer any such thing as a "Christian Democrat."

The 'Hands Off Our Kids!' Election.  Obama sold "hope and change."  Trump promised to "Make America Great Again."  With control of Congress and the presidency heading into the 2022 midterm elections, what future are Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats offering to lure voters toward their side?  It appears to be one in which boys are celebrated as girls, education is reduced to political indoctrination, and Green New Deal policies continue to exacerbate food and fuel costs.  What is the Democrats' argument for re-election?  Despite staggering inflation, crime, and illegal immigration, things could be much worse?  If you loved masks and lockdowns, get ready for more?  You'll forget about the pain at the pump once war with Russia officially begins?  Celebrate the future by mutilating and aborting the children of today?  Whatever future Democrats are selling voters, it is bereft of hope, is riddled with pain, steals from Americans' depleted savings, and leaves those growing up today with little but spare change.

The Democrat party is evolving as a tool of the deep state.  Who is in charge of the Democrat party?  Democrat voters?  Supporters of politicians who vow to abolish socioeconomic injustices, but who instead tacitly perpetuate them so they can continue to promise to abolish them, in exchange for continued support at the ballot box.  Voters do not control the Party -- they are manipulated by it.  The media?  No.  Devoid of original thought they are the propaganda arm of the Party, promoting the Party narrative to give vent to their own personal grievances.  They merely amplify the Party agenda.  Democrat politicians?  Traditionally probably so, but that appears to be changing.  The Party has evolved, installing an unprincipled, senile president and an incompetent vice president, now touting a senatorial candidate who is patently impaired by post-stroke aphasia, and propping up a senile senior senator from California.  And it has no bright shining stars as potential future leaders.  It appears to be staffing its policy-generating apparatus with puppets.  If they can read the cue cards, they can run for office.

Have Democrats Lost Interest in the Working Man?  Perhaps the most telling example of the Democratic Party's abandonment of what used to be called "the working class" was the transparent effort of this regime to have the federal government illegally absorb a trillion dollars in college student loans this fall.  These are largely people earning six figures per year, a high percentage of them with advanced degrees.  These aren't the hardworking longshoremen, railroad engineers, and factory assembly line workers who used to form the core of the Democratic Party.  A lot of these college loan defaulters wouldn't know a lathe, conveyor belt, or arc welder from the background in their video games.  But blue collar workers' taxes (and their children's and grandchildren's taxes) will be paying off the masters degrees and doctorates of these latte-drinking vegans for the next 100 years.  How easily the Biden-Harris regime threw their old base overboard to take care of their new base.  The greenies and academics, the counter-culturists and bureaucrats.  These are the Democratic Party's base today.

If Republicans win, it's the end of democracy.  We should hope so.  Democracy is mob rule.  Democracy is rule by majority.  We do not have a direct democracy.  We never had one.  America was never set up for that. [...] If you want a resuscitated America in November, you must vote for representatives who will:
  •   Open oil pipelines.
  •   Close the borders.
  •   Educate in our schools and remove drag queens and anti-white racist teachers.
  •   Secure elections by going back to paper ballots and one-day voting.
  •   Resuscitate the military as a fighting force, not a social experiment.
  •   Remove every vestige of CRT, SEL, DEI, ESG in government agencies.
  •   Clean out the FBI, CIA, FCC, NEA, IRS, and the EPA and strip them of all but the most innocuous powers.  Better still, eliminate these agencies.
  •   Stop spending and printing money.
  •   Stop paying people not to work.
  •   Bar men in women's sports.
  •   Revoke Section 230 and make websites like Twitter and Facebook legally responsible for their unrepentant censorship against conservatives.
This is a no-excuses election.  Everyone must vote.  We have the choice in a few days to either keep a free America or acquiesce to the Great Resetters who want a one-party system.  If you want more of what we've been getting the last two years, vote Democrat.  If you want your freedom back and want to stop self-censoring, vote Republican.

Bad Energy Policy Ideas Never Die.  Thus far in 2022, political actors and their acolytes are dusting off, again, every bad idea that has ever permeated political debate in the United States regarding energy.  Among them:
  •   Price caps, which do nothing to provoke demand response or salient investment.
  •   Export bans, which only shrink the global supply pie, worsening price pressures.
  •   Tapping strategic oil reserves, originally reserved for emergencies — a tactic too often deployed to manage or attempt to manage prices.
  •   Appealing to OPEC (and OPEC+) to open spigots while also investigating and/or invoking sanctions against, and/or attempting to legislate against, OPEC.
None of these are new, or even clever, or even useful, but they are being presented to voters here and abroad as such.

The 'SAFE-T Act' Is the Epitome of Political Hypocrisy.  Based on the title, you might expect that this law would have something to do with keeping people safe, right?  Think again.  What the SAFE-T Act really does is eliminate cash bail for people who commit heinous felonies such as second-degree murder, arson, drug-induced homicide, robbery, kidnapping, aggravated battery, burglary, intimidation, aggravated driving under the influence, fleeing and eluding, drug offenses, and threatening a public official.  And just in case you were wondering — no, that doesn't mean that people who commit those crimes will be sitting in jail until their trial.  Just the opposite, in fact.  Under the SAFE-T Act, starting on January 1, 2023, accused murderers, arsonists, kidnappers, and other violent criminals will not be in jail at all before their trial.  They will be free to roam the streets as before, despite the fact that they are potentially dangerous and undoubtedly desperate.

Progressives Have Descended Into Madness, And Are Dragging The Rest Of Us With Them.  [Scroll down] One needn't prattle on like a conservative cable news host to list the ways in which our current polity and culture are, in fact, "demented" in its worst sense:  utterly depraved.  It's demented for a political party to pin its election hopes on going all-in on snuffing out more than 930,000 lives in the womb annually.  Especially when America is plunging (despite a small COVID baby bump) into demographic winter with its attendant economic and social consequences.  And depraved to mutilate and chemically deform children based on a seeming sudden surge, largely among impressionable teenaged girls, of a condition previously believed to affect far less than 1% of the population — up to 80% of whom also suffer from "personality disorders."  Not to mention to subject kindergartners to drag queen performances.  But it's also perverse to plunge entire populations into energy insecurity and poverty to humor a doomsday cult obsessed with an unproven and unprovable hypothesis about climate apocalypse.

Every House Democrat just voted against parental rights legislation.  House Democrats on Thursday unanimously voted to block legislation that would have required informed parental consent before a school provides mental health services related to sexual orientation or gender identity to students.  In a 220-208 vote, the House rejected an attempt by Republicans to amend a bill that seeks to bolster mental health care for students, educators, and school staff negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.  Titled the Mental Health Matters Act, the legislation would award grants to build a pipeline of school-based mental health services providers and increase the number of professionals providing mental health services to elementary and secondary schools in high-need areas.  The Department of Education would be responsible for allocating those grants.

Violent Crime Is Driving a Red Wave.  Since crime is essentially a local issue, why does it hurt Democrats running for national or statewide office?  Because the Democratic Party has associated itself with the notion that "social justice" and "racial equality" require fundamentally changing policing and incarceration.  The problem, they say, is police, not criminals.  In practice, that means Democrats, especially progressives, favor weaker law enforcement, easier conditions for bail (even for those charged with violent offenses), and less funding for police officers.  That message was encapsulated in the slogans "defund the police" and "reimagine policing," which took hold in 2020 after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis cop.  Not all Democrats embraced this self-defeating fad.  Joe Biden, notably, spoke out against it.  But progressives marched in lock-step, and their policies became the party's dominant message on crime.  Not just dominant, uncontested.

Biden Wants Your Kids to Be Gender-Transitioned Whether You Like It or Not.  President Joe Biden wants your children to make life-changing gender transitions, and the only reason you want to stop him is bigotry and fear.  At least, so he says.  In a NowThis media roundtable aired Sunday, Biden discussed issues of the day with progressive activists and social media personalities.  Most notable was his interview with transgender TikTok celebrity Dylan Mulvaney, a biological male who is transitioning to "girlhood."  In the interview, Biden said state attempts to restrict gender transitions are immoral and based on "fear."  He was asked if states had the right to place restrictions on "gender-affirming care," as the Left likes to call hormone therapy and reconstructive surgeries.  "I don't think any state or anybody should have the right to do that.  As a moral question or as a legal question, I just think it's wrong," the president said in response.

The Economy Will Never Prosper Under Biden: Here's Why.  The White House has also promised to use "every lever at its disposal — including regulatory action — to deliver on the president's priorities, including containing the pandemic, driving a durable economic recovery, advancing equity, and combating climate change."  We are already seeing the fruits of Biden's approach.  A recession in the first half of the year.  Sky-high inflation.  Widespread despair.  What the left can't seem to understand is that when government gets active, businesses get passive.  They become more risk averse.  Compliance costs weigh them down.  Long-term investments become problematic if you don't know what the rules will be down the road.  This is one big reason why energy production has never recovered after the pandemic — the oil and gas industry has no idea what lies ahead.  So, as Biden's regulators descend upon the land, the economy will — as it was throughout Barack Obama's eight years — be on a long and dreary slog.  Indeed, Biden's regulatory zeal will probably ramp up if Republicans win big in November, since his legislative agenda will be caput.

Biden's Marijuana Pardons Did Not Free a Single Federal Prisoner or Deliver the Expungement He Promised.  Edwin Rubis has served more than two decades of a 40-year federal prison sentence for participating in a marijuana distribution operation.  Taking into account "good time" credit, he is not scheduled to be released until August 2032.  Rubis is one of about 3,000 federal prisoners whose cannabis-related sentences were unaffected by President Joe Biden's mass pardon for low-level marijuana offenders.  A protest at the White House today called attention to their predicament.  Biden's October 6 proclamation applied only to U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents convicted of simple marijuana possession under the Controlled Substances Act or the District of Columbia Code, none of whom was still incarcerated.  Although his pardons could benefit as many as 10,000 or so individuals, that represents a tiny percentage of all simple possession cases, which typically are charged under state law.  And Biden's action will not release a single federal prisoner.

Biden's Destroying the Economy.  Is It Intentional?  Here are seven Biden administration steps to undermine an economy and a society from within. [...]
  [#1]   Dismantle the nation's energy supply
  [#2]   Don't enforce the border
  [#3]   Devalue the nation's currency through inflation
  [#4]   Destroy the nation's finances by running up the debt by multiple trillions of dollars
  [#5]   Divide rather than unite the nation
  [#6]   Dumb down and indoctrinate our children with anti-American propaganda in the schools and media
  [#7]   Decriminalize a lot

Why some progressive Democrats are urging Biden to rethink his Ukraine strategy.  Since the beginning of the war, the US has sent over $60 billion in aid to Ukraine.  These aid packages have received rare, almost unprecedented bipartisan support.  Only a small contingent within the GOP, i.e. 57 of 212 House Republicans and 11 of 50 Senate Republicans, voted against the aid packages.  Among them was Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) who proposed essential transparency and accountability, but that idea was summarily rejected.  Quite often when asked how long the US can be expected to spend billions on the war effort, Biden, and his top aides respond with "as long as it takes."

Why Biden Went Far Left.  One must never forget that most politicians are not like ordinary people.  Most of us are such that if we told a big public lie, for example, that we had finished in the top half our law school class when we had actually finished in bottom 11% of the class, or that we had been arrested protesting for civil rights with Nelson Mandela when we had not, or that Mitt Romney had not paid any taxes for the past decade when we knew he paid taxes, or that one's political opponent had colluded with Russia in order to steal the 2016 presidential election when we knew that is false, or say under oath that the southern border is secure when everybody knows it is not, we would, once we had been exposed, be ashamed and have difficulty showing our faces in public for a long time.  Similarly, most of us would feel deeply ashamed if we enacted policies that led to 800+ deaths at the southern border ... and so on.  In fact, many politicians feel no shame whatsoever when they are exposed for telling big lies or perpetrating destructive hoaxes or enacting deadly policies.  The immediate reaction of most politicians when their enormous lies, hoaxes, and body-counts are exposed is to start plotting how to get away with it.  That is, most politicians are concerned with securing their own wealth and power, in Joe's case, being "the Big Guy," truth never even being in the mix.  My diagnosis of Joe Biden's sudden lurch to the far left is that Joe pretty much never believed in much at all.  He said what he said and did what he did to secure his grip on power.

Biden Is 'Buying Votes' Ahead of Midterm Elections With Policy Decisions: Rep. Lauren Boebert.  As the Nov. 8 midterm election draws near, some see recent moves by President Joe Biden as a desperate means to "buying votes."  [For example,] Pardons for Marijuana Offenses:  On Oct. 6, Biden announced a blanket pardon for some federal marijuana possession convictions.  "No one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana," Biden said.  "Sending people to prison for possessing marijuana has upended too many lives and incarcerated people for conduct that many states no longer prohibit.  Criminal records for marijuana possession have also imposed needless barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities."  He went on to say that minorities are disproportionately targeted by law enforcement for marijuana offenses.

North America Goes South: The Plan To Dismantle USA.  People are starting to realize that the collapse of the American border is not an accident.  It can't be.  When the vice president of the United States says the border is "secure" at the same time that illegal border crossings have surged to more than a million a year, then one of two things must be true. [...] Unfortunately, there was no way to determine what the Biden administration was up to — until now.  Two weeks ago, we learned that Biden's Secretary of State Antony Blinken is actively engaged in a campaign to break down all barriers between the United States and Mexico.  In other words, the huge influx of Mexicans and other foreigners across the U.S. border is just the first stage in a globalist effort to blur the lines between not just the United States and Mexico, but also Canada.

Fact-Checking 4 Biden Claims on His Student Loan Bailout.  President Joe Biden used his home state of Delaware on Friday to promote his "forgiveness" of student loan debt, which he did through executive action in August rather than through Congress.  Some of Biden's assertions during 24 minutes of remarks at Delaware State University in Dover were factual, and some less so.  Biden spoke at the event one day after the Supreme Court opted not to immediately block the student loan forgiveness program from going forward, and after a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by six states to block the plan.  "They've been fighting us in the courts," Biden told the crowd.  "But just yesterday, a state court and the Supreme Court said no, we are on Biden's side."  However, on Friday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit barred the Biden administration temporarily barred from discharging student loan debt while the appeals court weighed the states' request to halt the bailout.

Congress Trying to Ram Through $50 Billion More for Ukraine Before GOP Takes Control of the House.  Lawmakers from both parties are reportedly seeking to lock in a staggering $50 billion in additional military aid for Ukraine before a new Congress is sworn in this January.  The move is yet another indication that your elected senators and representatives no longer view the American people as their top priority, but rather, the government of a corrupt Eastern European nation is their new baby.  NBC News reports that multiple sources have confirmed ongoing discussions regarding a government funding bill during the lame-duck session following the election.

Here's proof Biden knows his student loan bailout is illegal.  Basically, in order to sue, you have to have been directly harmed by the program.  And, on paper, it's hard to see who is harmed by the bailout because, unfortunately, just generally being a taxpayer whose money is being illegally wasted is not considered sufficient justification to bring a lawsuit.  So, for a while, it seemed that even though Biden's plan was glaringly constitutionally suspect, nobody would be able to challenge it in court, meaning it wouldn't be struck down even if it was unconstitutional.  Thankfully, various right-of-center plaintiffs have come up with creative ways to challenge the plan in court.  One such lawsuit that has emerged is a suit by six states claiming that their finances would be harmed by Biden's bailout because they're heavily invested in private companies that service loans and will take a big hit from the president's cancellation initiative.

Bizarro president destroys the economy.  Reagan drove a wooden stake through inflation in the 1980s and his successors carried a crucifix afterward.  Then came Biden.  He emptied the Treasury by borrowing trillions of dollars to spend on the Green New Deal (ironically labeled the Inflation Reduction Act) and on an infrastructure program called the American Rescue Plan.  Democrat Senator Mark Warner of Virginia told Bloomberg, "Was there too much in the American Rescue Plan on a relative basis?  Absolutely."  This is the first infrastructure program that actually tears down interstate highways in the name of equity.

Cancel This.  President Biden premised his cancelation or forgiveness of student loans of up to $20,000 per person on "the financial harms of the pandemic."  However, a Wall Street Journal editorial duly noted that "the government had halted student loan payments since 2020, holding borrowers harmless.  A month before he declared the pandemic 'over,' Biden extended that student loan pause through Dec. 31."  Biden's "plan," as he calls it, is blatantly unconstitutional.  It's not unfair to say that everything about it is wrong.  The only question is whether any party has legal standing to challenge it.  Indeed, Biden has altered the "plan" since the original announcement to exacerbate the standing issue for possible challengers.  At last word, the estimated cost of the plan was $400 billion.

In Ukraine, The Democrats Have Locked Us Into A Pointless, Dangerous War.  This war should have ended months ago.  It was simply a matter of allowing Ukraine to stay out of NATO.  Given that option or the continuing devastation of their country, it seems clear which way the Ukrainians would have gone.  If pressure wasn't brought to bear from outside, the whole crisis would probably be a fading memory.  Now, however, we'll continue to funnel billions of tax-payer dollars into a military operation that has no legitimate justification in terms of American interests and no clearly defined resolution other than, perhaps, ousting Putin.  Will he allow that to happen before using every weapon at his disposal?  It seems unlikely. [...] Joe Biden says we will support Ukraine for "as long as it takes."  As long as it takes to do what?  What is the objective?

Americans Shell Out Or Shiver While Biden Ships Our Energy Off To Europe.  A trend is emerging in the Biden administration's foreign policy, a perpetual obsession with supporting Europe above and even at the expense of U.S. needs at home.  In response to attacks on the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline system, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the situation in Europe a "tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy."  Blinken went on to tout the ability of U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) producers to meet heightened European demand, conveniently forgetting it was the Biden administration's executive actions that stifled production capacity within its first 100 days in office.  Careful, Mr. Secretary, with too much premature boasting.  Blinken's naïve comments, practically salivating at the idea of saving Europe, indicate just how much the Biden administration does not want the war in Ukraine to end.  The conflict has become the administration's sacred cow, allowing it to cover up domestic political blunders and receive heaps of praise from European elites, perhaps the toughest crowd globally for the U.S. post-Trump.  What goes unsaid is that all this European love comes at the expense of the interests and bank account balances of American households.

A conservative group just asked the Supreme Court to block Biden's student-loan forgiveness.  A conservative taxpayers group wants President Joe Biden's student-loan forgiveness plan blocked as soon as possible — and it's taking matters to the Supreme Court.  The Brown County Taxpayers Association in Wisconsin filed an emergency request to the Supreme Court on Wednesday, asking to temporarily pause Biden's student-debt relief plan before Sunday, when the group expects the administration to start officially canceling borrowers' debt.  The conservative group, represented by the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty (WILL), initially filed a lawsuit against the debt relief on October 4, arguing that it has an "improper racial motive" by seeking to help Black borrowers and advance racial equity.  It said Biden exceeded his constitutional power by enacting the loan relief without congressional approval.  Two days later, a federal judge tossed out the lawsuit.  While that decision is being appealed, the group is now escalating the issue to the Supreme Court in an effort to block Biden's plan from taking effect.

Biden's Closing Moves.  President Biden's handlers seem to me not to have chosen well so far.  The Biden economy inflicts pain on a daily basis.  What have they got for that?  They served up the Inflation Reduction Act.  In other words, they have nothing to mitigate the inflation they ignited.  On the contrary, they have more kindling for the fire.  And they count on their ability to play on the stupidity of voters abetted by their media adjunct.  Democrats haven't done much bragging about the IRA on the campaign trail.  One can reasonably infer that, insofar as it was enacted to serve their immediate political needs, it has proved a bust.

Eight things that killed the Democrat Party.  The old Democrat Party is gone.  In its place is a radical Libertine Party, full of itself and full of radical sexual, cultural, and economic ideas that have all but killed their chances of ever getting legitimately elected again.

Pritzker Democrats and the Safe-T Act, Releasing Violent Criminals Upon the People and Pretending There is No Cost.  Most Americans are workers.  They're not afraid of hard work.  And they believe in being fair.  It was unfair to deny fellow Americans a seat at a lunch counter based on the color of their skin.  The unfairness of such racism compelled Americans to support civil rights.  And now, even those who haven't studied the Constitution or criminal law, there is basic fairness in the idea that all Americans when charged with crime, have the right to bail.  I don't know who doesn't support this.  I support it.  I don't want to live in a country where people are charged and hauled off without a chance for bail.  But what Pritzker and the Democrats have done with their SAFE-T ACT is a perversion of fairness.  They use guilt and the fear of being called a racist to push it down the people's throats.

Virginia Democrat Lawmaker Backs Down From Bill That Would've Made It a Crime for Parents Not to Affirm LGBT Child.  A Democrat Virginia state delegate has backed down from introducing a bill to expand the definition of child abuse to include inflicting "physical or mental injury" on children due to their gender identity or sexual orientation.  In her interview with local ABC7 on Thursday, Del.  Elizabeth Guzman (D-Prince William) said parents who didn't affirm their children's choice of gender identity could incur Child Protective Services (CPS) charges that might cause harm to the parents' employment.  She added that she wanted to do this to counter the transgender student policy recently released by the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE).  The draft policy requires public schools to acquire written parental consent before treating a student as a different gender.

The Democrats are responsible for the hardships faced by citizens.  Inflation is at a 40-year high making essential commodities expensive.  Even the price of candy reached its highest recorded mark which will impact Halloween celebrations.  The price of gasoline continues to rise.  The border is open causing over 4.9 million migrant to enter the US since Biden took over, and the smuggling of illicit narcotics is resulting in numerous drug overdose deaths.  The rate of violent crimes in the U.S. is rising while the murder rate spiked by 30%, the highest increase since record-keeping began in 1960.  Democrats are placing restrictions on firearms, which are the only affordable means of defense for citizens.  The Democrats were responsible for the lockdowns that infringe upon the right of movement and the right to earn a living.  The Democrats impose vaccine mandates that eliminate the right of choice.  The Democrats desperately want to change the topic.  Hence the focus on the 'insurrection'.  The goal of the January 6th committee was never to find facts, it was instead to persecute their main political opponent, Donald Trump.

Wasn't Legalizing Pot Supposed To Reduce Crime?  [A]nyone pushing for legalized marijuana should look at what's going on in California before cheering this on.  That state, as have several others, legalized marijuana on the promise that it would reduce crime, improve public health, increase traffic safety, and stimulate the economy.  Instead of wasting time prosecuting people for possession or for selling pot, states could capture a new revenue source by taxing it.  Legalization would also mean that states could regulate it, presumably making the marijuana safer and free of adulterants.  So far, 19 states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for nonmedical use, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Americans Must Permanently Marginalize the Perpetual Adolescents of the American Left.  Currently in the United States, less than 8% of Americans identify as very liberal or essentially Marxist and another 11% identify as liberal.  Yet this small subset (19%) of Americans dominates the culture, entertainment, education, the federal bureaucracy and most importantly, the Democrat party.  In November of 2022, the 81% of Americans who do not identify with the left must begin the process of permanently defeating the radical left and their fatuous acolytes if the nation is avoid the precipice toward which it is headed.  The United States must not be destroyed by the American Marxists and their attendant gaggle of egotistical and perpetual adolescents; therefore, the counter strategy is to denigrate these buffoons by never missing an opportunity to call them out, and above all by ignoring their infantile tactics as they have no weapon other than words and idle threats.  In other words, treat them as the adolescents they are.

Summers: We Can't Have 'Strategy of Total Hostility to Fossil Fuels' That We've Had.  During an interview aired on Friday's broadcast of Bloomberg's "Wall Street Week," Harvard Professor, economist, Director of the National Economic Council under President Barack Obama, and Treasury Secretary under President Bill Clinton Larry Summers reacted to OPEC+'s production cut by stating that "we made a mistake by canceling the Keystone pipeline.  We made a mistake by slowing down all kinds of permitting activity.  We made a mistake by being hostile as a country to natural gas."

Former Obama Adviser Demolishes Joe Biden's Energy Moves With Simple Truth.  Gas prices are starting to creep up again.  Despite Joe Biden going hat in hand to Saudi Arabia to beg for more oil production, OPEC gave him the finger and announced that they would be cutting production by two million barrels a day.  Joe's response?  He's going to continue to empty the Strategic Petroleum Reserve by 10 million barrels when it's already at dangerously low levels and pretend like that's doing something besides robbing our security for the future.  He's also canceling sanctions on the dictatorial state of Venezuela (who cares about human rights?) so that they can pump more and give some to us.

November Surprise?  We are barreling into an election that will determine the composition of Congress.  There is much chatter about whether this election will be allowed to happen.  Signs and portents point to a grievous loss of power for the Party of Chaos.  Power is all they care about — certainly not the public interest or the common good — and a particular sort of power:  the power to coerce, persecute, and punish.  It is obvious in everything they do, from the FBI swat-team home invasions of select opponents and the gross mistreatment of the January 6 defendants, to the craven censoring of public speech, to the imposition of medical tyranny and the deadly fraud of Covid shots, to the degenerate insults of their race-and-gender hustles, to their assault on the value of our money, to their sabotage of the oil-and-gas industries, to their treasonous abandonment of border control, to the deliberate perversion of policing and public order, to their promulgation of a faithless and unnecessary war, sharply against our national interests, in faraway Ukraine.

OPEC Humiliates Biden While the UK Increases Domestic Oil Production.  It hasn't been a good week for Joe Biden. [...] OPEC+ announced that it would be cutting oil production in the weeks leading up to the 2022 midterm elections, despite his repeated pleas for them to boost production.  It was the latest in a long line of humiliations for Joe Biden — and, of course, entirely his own doing.  He's the one who put the brakes on domestic oil production and drilling, outsourcing our energy to foreign nations — including our enemies.  Now, gas prices are going to shoot up just before the midterm elections because of Biden's war on domestic energy.  For sure, increasing domestic energy production would go a long way toward fixing this problem, but Biden either hasn't figured that out yet or just doesn't care.

A massive indictment of the Democrat party.  The U.S. Constitution, by limiting federal power, is designed to protect the individual citizen from external coercion. [...] By supporting big government at the expense of the individual, Democrats threaten to transform America into a totalitarian nightmare.  President Biden has declared that the "most lethal elements" in our society are political conservatives.  In true Stalinist fashion, the DoJ, the FBI, and the media are being weaponized to go after Biden's political opponents.  Armed FBI agents raided the homes of Roger Stone, James O'Keefe, Paul Manafort, and dozens of other Trump-supporters, to say nothing of the raid on Mar-a-Lago.  "The FBI is now an organization solely focused on destroying the domestic enemies of the Democratic Party," said radio host Jesse Kelly.  The implication is that if you distrust Biden's government, you are considered a terrorist and must be hunted down.  Democrats will not hesitate to deprive you of your basic rights if it suits their purpose.  In their war on free speech, Democrats have attempted to silence anyone who denies global warming, criticizes Islamic terrorism, advocates a stronger military, or questions the validity of the 2020 election.

One Vote Over the Line.  Congratulations, potheads.  Once again, your friends the ultra-liberal Democrats have lived up to their reputation as primo vote-buyers with Joe Biden's in-flight, Air Force One order to liberate you from your previous criminal acts.  I'm talking about his pardoning of those of you who have been convicted of federal drug charges for possession and use of cannabis, marijuana, weed, ganja, Mary Jane and all those other code words you used to describe your 'cool' unplugged habit.  Somewhere parties are being planned by ponytailed aging hippies and drug pushers who see this as but the first step in a journey to legalize all drugs for public use.  Flags emblazoned with the green cannabis leaf are going up as Cheech and Chong roll their joints for a parade down Main Streets all over the country.  But wait! There's one caveat.  This pardon only covers those marijuanians who were prosecuted under federal laws and does not include those convicted by state courts.

Biden administration demands Alabama embrace genderless schools or else, but we aren't giving in.  Undeterred by repeated losses, the Biden administration's war on red states and our "Neanderthal thinking" rages on.  This month, my colleagues and I are fighting Biden and his comrades at the United States Department of Agriculture in court to protect the right of states to run their public schools as they see fit.  This time, the fight isn't over curriculum or masking — it's whether states still possess the paltry authority to require boys to use the boys' bathroom at school.  The United States Constitution leaves no doubt as to the states' broad authority over their own public schools, but the Biden administration supposes that everything — even schoolchildren — has a price.

The Democrats Wrecked My Retirement.  On Day One, Biden cut the legs out from under American energy independence.  Oil, gasoline, and natural gas prices skyrocketed.  Why did the administration do this?  Because they think it's cool and woke to be Green.  The Squad likes Green, and the administration wants to be "in" with that ilk and with the extreme voters who support that.  Green energy and renewables can't come close to supporting our energy needs and won't for the foreseeable future.  Remember, Biden, Pelosi, Kerry, Obama, Gore, etc., etc. — none of them lives by Green rules.  But they expect you to.  All I know is, now that I'm a retiree, gasoline has gone from $2.11/gallon to $3.76/gallon.  And it'll be back over $4.00/gallon shortly, as soon as Biden's game-playing with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve runs out of tricks.

Letting marijuana offenders off isn't going to make us any safer.  A day after the FBI released its yearly crime data showing that murder rose yet another 4% in 2021 after rising almost 30% in 2020, President Joe Biden announced that he is pardoning everyone convicted of marijuana possession.  Rampant crime has been a major focus of Republican campaign advertisements against Democrats this election year, and Democrats deserve every single attack.  Across the country, Democrats have been defunding police departments, decriminalizing offenses like bus fare jumping, and supporting prosecutors that refuse to prosecute gun possession and other misdemeanors.

Joe Biden Pardons Thousands Convicted of Federal Marijuana Possession.  President Joe Biden announced Thursday his decision to pardon some federal marijuana offenses as part of his effort to satisfy criminal justice and drug policy activists.  "As I often said during my campaign for President, no one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana," Biden said in a statement released by the White House, noting that marijuana crimes had "upended too many lives."  Biden said he would pardon all prior federal offenses of simple possession of marijuana, directing his attorney general to set up a system to pardon all eligible individuals.

Biden Administration's Manipulated Energy Policy Demonstrates Ignorance of History.  Consumed, as they have been, with the work of pushing revisionist woke ideology in the schools, it seems the Left missed the lesson that those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.  They've learned nothing from the past, not even the recent past.  Yet here we are, looking at the possibility we could repeat the same mistakes Europe made in the late 90s and early 2000s when they failed to realize the real motivations behind the green energy propaganda they were being spoon fed as truth.  Back in the early 2000s, Russia did a phenomenal job with a disinformation campaign pushing anti-fracking in Europe.  We know this because NATO admitted that this "green energy" advocacy was funded by the very people who stood to gain from the enacted policies: [...]

Some Helpful Ideas For Biden's Impeachment.  In his conduct while president of the United States, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. has shown a habitual contempt for the rule of law, on numerous occasions willfully violating his constitutional oath by corrupting and manipulating the power of the executive branch. [...] Biden again knowingly subverted the will of Congress when he transferred loan payments for millions of affluent students to taxpayers in hopes of affecting the 2022 midterms.  The president does not possess the statutory power to "forgive" or "cancel" loans.  Just ask congressional leaders like Nancy Pelosi, who correctly noted that "[p]eople think that the President of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness — he does not."  He did it anyway.  Unilaterally.  The president used the emergency powers found in the HEROES Act, passed after 9/11 to help U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, to justify his decree.  We know that Biden cynically exploited the bill, because, by his own recent admission on "60 Minutes," he concedes there is no emergency.

Why some polls show a dead heat for a generic ballot.  The Afghanistan withdrawal was perhaps the most serious foreign policy mistake in U.S. history.  It left the Taliban billions of dollars of state-of-the-art military equipment and the Bagram air base which is in spitting distance from China.  Joe Biden's ill-conceived spending kicked off the inflation that is currently sullying the lives of millions of Americans.  Drunk with power, Biden gleefully imposed mask and vaccine mandates on millions of Americans — law enforcement, military, federal employees, etc.  Those who were wisely skeptical and refused the experimental jab lost their jobs.  As it turns out, they were the smart ones; the vaccines were ineffective and have caused countless deaths and vaccine injuries far more devastating than COVID.  The mortality rate among young people is up by forty percent.  Biden gleefully put an end to our energy independence that President Trump had won.  He cancelled the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada and ended drilling on most federal lands.  He has drained our strategic oil reserves at a most inopportune time.  This can only be a purposeful plan to destroy America as founded.

Hunger In America: Why Hasn't It Already Been Ended?  As you may know, the Biden Administration is planning to hold its big "White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health" this coming Wednesday, September 28.  Apparently, we are to believe that "hunger" is and remains a significant problem today in the United States. [...] But wait a minute — hasn't hunger in the United States already been ended?  I seem to remember multiple prior government promises to end hunger in America, each of them followed by massive funding, and/or increases in prior already-massive levels of funding to achieve the goal.  Are we only now learning that none of these prior efforts worked?  If not, that would represent a huge failure of the government bureaucracies that had been charged with dealing with and solving this problem.  Those same bureaucracies are still in place today, spending tens and even hundreds of billions of dollars annually and, if we are to believe President Biden, failing miserably in their prime responsibility of ending hunger.  Shouldn't those bureaucracies be held accountable for that failure?

Biden says White House has secured $8 billion in public and private sector funding to help end hunger in the U.S. by 2030.  President Joe Biden's administration secured $8 billion in commitments from public and private entities to end hunger in the United States by 2030, announcing them Wednesday ahead of the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health.  Participants include grocery stores like Hy-Vee, Meijer and Publix, tech and media companies including Google, Warner Bros.  Discovery and Doordash and familiar brands like Chobani.  'We're announcing over $8 billion in commmitments from over 100 different organizations to help reach our goals,' Biden said as he opened up the conference Wednesday morning.

The Editor says...
Nobody is ever going to eliminate hunger or poverty.  Look carefully, and you'll see they're spending billions of dollars to "help end hunger in the U.S."  You can do that much every time you eat lunch.  The Democrats are hoping you don't notice the difference.  They're just re-distributing money.

Pacific Legal Foundation sues to block Biden's student debt cancellation effort.  A libertarian group of attorneys based in Sacramento filed a legal challenge to President Joe Biden's plan for student debt cancellation on Tuesday, calling it an illegal overreach that would increase state tax burdens for some Americans who get their debt forgiven.  The lawsuit, believed to be the first targeting Biden's plan, was filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation, a Sacramento law firm.  It was filed in federal court in Indiana, one of several states that plan to tax any student debt canceled by Biden's plan.  "Congress did not authorize the executive branch to unilaterally cancel student debt," said Caleb Kruckenberg, an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation.

56 GOP Members Beg Their Colleagues To Do Anything To Stop Biden's Destructive Agenda.  Fifty-six congressional Republicans are urging their colleagues in the House and Senate to vote against a wasteful, stopgap spending measure that would fund the federal government — and a number of Democrats' wasteful wish-list items — through the middle of December.  In a letter sent to his Republican colleagues in the House of Representatives, Texas Rep. Chip Roy explained how Congress's current spending habits are "fueling rampant inflation and funding the Biden administration's radical agenda," which includes "empowering authoritarian bureaucrats at agencies like the IRS and FBI, implementing open-border policies that are threatening [American] communities, imposing COVID-19 mandates that shut down schools," and "forcing [U.S.] military servicemembers out of their jobs, and advancing self-destructive energy policies."

Biden's plan to end U.S. hunger by 2030 and tackle obesity: Monthly benefits for Americans to buy food.  The Biden administration is laying out its plan to meet an ambitious goal of ending hunger in the U.S. by 2030, including expanding monthly benefits that help low-income Americans buy food.  The administration, in a plan released Tuesday, is also seeking to increase healthy eating and physical activity so that fewer people are afflicted with diabetes, obesity, hypertension and other diet-related diseases.  It said it would work to expand Medicaid and Medicare access to obesity counseling and nutrition.

Wasn't the "War on Poverty" supposed to have ended hunger in the 1960's?
Biden Plans To 'End Hunger' In The US Through The Power Of Diversity, Equity And Inclusion.  The Biden administration is working to end hunger and "diet-related diseases" by hiring more minority nutritionists, according to a White House plan released Monday [9/26/2022].  The administration says that hiring more non-white registered dietitian nutritionists will help minority communities that experience higher rates of "food insecurity," obesity and type 2 diabetes, according to the White House National Strategy on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health.  The Health Resources and Services Administration will begin collaborating with Minority Serving Institutions and Historically Black Colleges and Universities in 2023 to recruit and train a diverse crop of nutrition experts as part of the White House's plan. "A more diverse health care workforce would better serve communities of color, which suffer from higher rates of food insecurity and diet-related disease," the memo states. "Patients are less likely to seek care or share information if they perceive ethnic or social differences with their health care providers."

The Editor says...
Of course!  The whole hunger problem is that there aren't enough non-white nutritionists.  Imagine all the people who have starved because their nutritionists were white!  Oh, if only the whole country was non-white, every problem would disappear.  Wait — isn't that what they used to say in Zimbabwe?  How's that working out?

Dems Stuffed Billions In Reparations For Black Farmers In 'Inflation Reduction Act'.  The Democrats' massive climate spending and tax bill gave the Department of Agriculture (USDA) $2.2 billion in loans to pay farmers, many of whom are black, who have previously been denied USDA loans due to discrimination.  The provision, which was backed by Democratic Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey and Raphael Warnock of Georgia, is intended to provide financial assistance to farmers, ranchers or forest landowners that the department determines to have experienced discrimination in USDA farm lending programs before Jan. 1. 2021, according to the bill's text.  Although the funding could go to any farmer that the government has discriminated against, such as white women or members of the LGBTQ community, the money is primarily intended to rectify the historic denial of loans to black farmers, accordingto The Wall Street Journal.  Another of the bill's provisions will allocate $3.1 [sic] to help farmers of any race who are facing financial hardship and also have a direct or guaranteed loan with the USDA.

A Congress full of contempt for the American people.  Since inflation is currently the major issue for the American people, the Democrat Congress, with much fanfare and the usual self-congratulation, passed the "Inflation Reduction Act."  Since, however, one is here talking about Congress, one should not assume that anything is what it is claimed to be.  No sooner was the bill passed than former Secretary of State and current "climate envoy" John Kerry, one of the D-Mass bunch, who purchased his massive seven bedroom carbon footprint mansion in the fake liberal "sanctuary destination" of Martha's Vineyard in 2017, slipped up and told the truth to the International Energy Agency's Global Clean Energy Action Forum:  "I'm not sure how much it has to do with inflation, but that's O.K." [...] The reason this deception is "O.K." with Kerry is that the real purpose of the bill is to spend 375 billion taxpayer dollars on the Left's "green new deal" agenda to "tackle" climate change and double the number of IRS agents to harass the remaining fraction of Americans that still have a job or small business.

Biden's student debt forgiveness will cost taxpayers $400 billion over 10 years, non-partisan Congress office says.  Joe Biden's student loan relief plan could cost the country $400 billion over the next decade as the administration prepares to unveil next steps for borrowers to apply for forgiveness as early as next month.  The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office noted in a letter to the Senate and House Labor committees noting the high cost of the president's relief plan, as well as reporting the plan would cause outstanding student loans to increase by $20 billion.  In August, Biden announced his plan to cancel $10,000 in federal student loan debt for borrowers making less than $125,000 individually and $250,000 jointly.  That forgiveness would rise to $20,000 for those with Pell Grants.

Running the World into the Ground.  Who can claim to be better off under Biden?  The economy has tanked, inflation is at a 40-year high, people can't afford to heat their homes or fill up their cars with gas, crime statistics are off the charts, and confidence in America is at an all-time low.  Biden's open-border policy, which is opposed by a majority of American citizens, is leading to social unrest and economic chaos.  A country without a functioning border is not a country, yet that is where Biden has taken us.  America is marching toward totalitarianism as Biden empowers the DoJ and FBI to go after his political opponents, i.e., at least half of the population.  His worst offense, however, is following the climate dictates of the World Economic Forum.  Biden is torpedoing the robust U.S. economy in service of a totally false assumption — that human beings are able to change the planet's climate.  He is raising taxes so that billions of your dollars can be wasted on ridiculous anti-fossil fuel projects.  Biden has declared war on the energy industry in the name of global warming.  He wants us to believe that oil, gas, and coal are killing the planet.

Check Out What New Dem Legislation Offers Military Members To Get Abortions.  Some House Democrats have joined forces to introduce a new piece of legislation that would require the United States military to provide a leave of absence for service members to get abortions, which also includes payment for travel expenses for those who would need to go out of state to receive the procedure.  According to the Daily Wire, the legislation is called the "Access to Reproductive Care for Service Members Act," which was introduced as a response to requests for abortions that were being made by individuals within the armed forces after the Supreme Court overturned the sick and twisted Roe v. Wade decision this past June.

Bad news for Dems: The border crisis is the new Roe in Google searches.  My, how quickly the plot changes with just a single flight to Martha's Vineyard!  To be fair, the media's interest in the border crisis began spiking upward before then, but not much before Ron DeSantis sent 50 illegal immigrants to the wealthy Massachusetts enclave.  When buses began arriving in "sanctuary cities" like New York City and Washington DC, thanks to the efforts of DeSantis, Greg Abbott, and Doug Ducey, the media went into full freak-out mode.  They excoriated these Republican governors endlessly, and still do.  And you can guess what that did for public interest in the border crisis.  Axios reports this morning that it has now eclipsed interest in abortion, a topic that mainstream media spent the summer flogging for the midterms, as well as the Mar-a-Lago kerfuffle.

Are Democrats Deliberately Choosing Impaired Candidates?  Once could be excused.  Twice is suspicious.  Three times seems like a strategy.  Are Democrats choosing infirm, intellectually challenged, feeble people to run for office so that they can be easily manipulated?  Joe Biden was and is clearly infirm, physically, psychologically, and cognitively.  John Fetterman is also clearly infirm due to two things: He has had a recent stroke which seems to have left him cognitively impaired, and he also has a rather prominent swelling on the back of his neck, which could be the sign of several very serious conditions.  Kamala Harris is intellectually suspect, linguistically incontinent, and verbally incoherent.  Why are these people being chosen by the Democrat Party for the highest offices?  My observation leads me places I would rather not go.

The war isn't against 'fossil fuels' but rather the people.  Democrats in Congress just passed a slush fund — also known as the Inflation Reduction Act — which gives massive amounts of money to their political interests who claim they can control temperatures, sea levels, and storm activity forever.  Politicians are waging a war against the people, which are made manifest in their attempts to force everyone to get rid of their cars, trucks, lawn mowers, and everything else powered by gas combustion engines, based on the unproven theory that they cause rising temperatures, storms, floods, and droughts.  They want the poor and middle class to be forced to buy inefficient, impractical, and unaffordable options, or go without.  What they don't put limits on are private jets, yachts, or the number and size of mansions that emit massive amounts of carbon compared to the rest of us. [...] What we never see in testimonies, articles, and news programs is any direct correlation between crude oil consumption, coal consumption, methane emissions, CO2 content and temperatures because there is none.  The temperature has fluctuated the last 160 years cyclically and naturally as it always has.

As Biden Closes in on 100 Executive Orders, He's Costing Taxpayers an Astronomical Amount of Money.  Biden is a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat who's lived in the pretend world of D.C. politics for nearly 50 years, has no concept of life in the real world, has never seen a wealth redistribution scam he didn't wholeheartedly embrace, and has become a multimillionaire in the process.  It doesn't take a proverbial rocket scientist to figure out that disastrous combination.

Democrats' push for guaranteed income is a slap in the face to working people.  Democratic politicians across the United States are pushing for guaranteed monthly cash handouts to the poor.  No strings attached.  No work required.  Taxpayers foot the bill.  This scheme — already being rolled out in Los Angeles, Chicago, Providence, Denver and numerous other cities — needs to be stopped.  It's turning people who work and pay taxes into suckers.  Los Angeles County will soon begin handing out $1,000 a month to random applicants.  The Los Angeles Times editorial board applauds the unconditional nature of the payments, naïvely claiming the recipients "know far better than the government what their challenges and priorities are."  Translation:  It's okay to forgo work and have children you can't support.

Six States Allow Abortions Up to Birth But Protect Bald Eagle Eggs.  A host of land, sea, and freshwater animals are more protected under American laws than unborn babies in some states across the nation.  In at least six states, an unborn child legally may be killed up until the moment of birth.  In these same states, it is illegal to kill or even transport the eggs of a bald or golden eagle without a proper permit.  Under the federal Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, it is illegal to:  ["]take, molest or disturb, possess, sell, purchase, barter, offer to sell, purchase or barter, transport, export or import, at any time or in any manner any bald eagle commonly known as the American eagle or any golden eagle, alive or dead, or any part, nest, or egg thereof of the foregoing eagles.["]  The law defines "take" as kill or capture.  If a man or woman were caught carrying an egg of a bald eagle without a proper permit to do so, he or she could face up to a $5,000 fine or a year in prison, or both.

Summers: "Insane" that Biden's blocking pipelines for oil transport.  Is there anything sane about Joe Biden's energy policies?  For that matter, was there anything sane about Barack Obama's energy policies while Larry Summers served as Obama's National Economic Council chair?  Answer:  not really.  We got continually lectured during that administration that we couldn't drill our way to energy independence, an argument proven false almost as soon as Donald Trump took office.  Biden and his team haven't made that argument, at least not explicitly, but they have made it very clear that they have no intention of drilling more to re-acquire energy-independent status.  Even with that, however, Summer considers hostility to pipeline creation "kind of insane."  The oil still has to get transported, no?

MAGA's Real Crime?  Spotlighting Government Failure.  The midterm elections are only weeks away.  The Democrats are in complete control of the House, Senate, and presidency.  Donald Trump's name appears nowhere near a November ballot.  Yet the only things Democrats talk about are the former president and his "Make America Great Again" voters.  It is as if Joe Biden's and Nancy Pelosi's political troops have no interest in touting their successes in opening the Southern border to endless illegal immigration, promoting divisive lockdowns and "vaccine" mandates, passing a Green New Deal spending extravaganza, encouraging transgender drag queen shows for elementary-schoolers, emptying prisons of criminals, eliminating cash bail for felony arrests, leveraging Americans' pain at the gas pump to push them into expensive electric vehicles, or presiding over the highest rates of inflation in over forty years.

The Coming Outlawing of the Republican Party.  Republicans want to hold the majority and co-exist with Democrats, while Democrats, under the influence of the Left, want to eliminate Republicans.  This fundamental difference between the two sides was on display during Biden's fascist rant in Philadelphia where he denounced half the country as a threat to democracy.  And it would be a mistake to imagine that all the talk of a "threat to democracy" is mere rhetoric.  Another basic difference between the two parties is that Republicans are politically unserious.  Politicians, pundits and influencers spend so much time virtue signaling that they think words don't matter.  Democrats are quite serious.  The Republican refusal to take them at their word, to believe that their histrionic rhetoric represents a serious policy agenda, is why things are so bad.  Surely, Beltway GOP figures will reassure, Democrats aren't serious about adding states, Supreme Court seats, a trillion dollar coin or using unlimited dictatorial executive authority.  But what if they are?

The DOJ Is Hiding Biden's Voter Registration Plan.  The Justice Department (DOJ) has refused to release its mandated strategic plan about ways to champion voter registration and participation, according to the Foundation for Government Accountability.  President Joe Biden's March 2021 Executive Order on Promoting Access to Voting required every federal agency head to submit a plan within 200 days outlining methods the agency could use to promote voter registration and participation.  A Federal District Court decided earlier in summer 2022 that the DOJ must release documents on this matter to the FGA by Sept. 8, but the department withheld the plan, citing executive privilege, and revealed heavily redacted versions of other documents, the FGA revealed.  FGA President and CEO Tarren Bragdon said Americans "deserve to know if the Biden Administration's unprecedented action is fair and non-partisan."  He argued the DOJ must reveal the documents to ensure fair elections.

Legislation Within the Biden Green New Deal, Inflation Reduction Act, Has Created a Domestic Carbon Trading Platform.  Deep inside the legislative language of the falsely titled "inflation reduction act", aka The Green New Deal legislative vehicle constructed by lobbyists and passed by congress, people are now starting to realize a carbon-trading system was created.  Ultimately, a carbon trading system has always been the holy grail of the people who run the western financial system and want to create mechanisms to control wealth by using the 'climate change' agenda.  A carbon trading system is a very lucrative financial transfer mechanism with a potential scale to dwarf the derivative, Wall Street betting, market.  Secondarily, such a market would cement the climate change energy policy making it very difficult to reverse.  The new creation as explained by the Wall Street Journal, holds similarities to the EPA ethanol program.

Now Biden's Trying to Redefine Pregnancy.  The actual purpose of the 1972 law known as Title IX was to prohibit sex-based discrimination in school sports and programs.  But now, the radical left is abusing Title IX to impose radical gender theory.  Much has been made of how Joe Biden seeks to redefine "sex" under Title IX to include gender identity.  Less attention has been paid to the fact that Biden's 700-page-long proposed rules changes also include redefining actual pregnancy, the Heritage Foundation found.  "The Biden administration wants to redefine pregnancy to include childbirth, lactation, and 'termination of pregnancy' — that is, abortion," explains Melanie Israel of the Daily Signal.  "The administration's three-pronged definition of pregnancy makes a notable departure from previous ones.  Under Title IX now, women are protected from discrimination if they get an abortion.  This means that with a doctor's note, women receive medical leave from class or a sports team to recover."

New Poll Spells Disaster For Dems Who Backed Student Loan Forgiveness.  A majority of voters are saying they are less likely to support candidates running for office if they favor the Biden administration's student loan forgiveness plan, according to a Convention of States Action poll.  More than 55% of voters are "less likely" to back a candidate who is in favor of the Biden administration's student loan forgiveness plan, with about 31% saying they are "much more likely" to support those who backed the president's plan, according to a Convention of States' Action poll.  Among independent voters, 64.6% say they are "less likely" to choose candidates who back the forgiveness plan.  "We're seeing this reflected not just in the polling but on the ground as well with grassroots activists we talk to in every state," Convention of States President Mark Meckler said in a statement shared with Daily Caller News Foundation.  "Voters — particularly those must-win Independents — are appalled by Biden's plan and will respond at the ballot box.  This is looking like the sleeper issue that may have more impact in November than people suspect."

IL SAFE-T Act goes into effect 1 Jan: No cash bail and lots of other good stuff.  Chicago's Mayor Lori Lightfoot, while torquing off the suburbs by dumping bused-in illegal migrants on them, might be doing those migrants the biggest favor they've had yet.  She's getting them out of the city before Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker's latest and greatest experiment in equitable justice becomes enforceable, and the city proper [gets bad]. [...] To their credit, Republicans in the statehouse are fighting this tooth and nail, asking law enforcement for input in an effort to force revisions, and outright calling for repeal in one instance.  Mayors around the state are absolutely apoplectic and with good reason.  "No cash bail" after a judge okays your release sounds... well, not great, but reasonable enough.  Until you hear the list of offenses that qualify for "no cash bail" consideration — [indeed], your jaw will hit the floor.  Listen up, as Mayor Keith Pekau of Orland Village elucidates:  [Video clip]

Ernst Bill Would Force Biden Admin to Set Thermostats in Solidarity With Californians.  Republican Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa is pushing for the Biden administration to play by the rules it expects Americans to follow with a new bill aimed at turning up the heat — literally — in solidarity with residents in California who have been plagued by energy shortages and the threat of rolling blackouts as a result of the left's so-called "green" energy policies.  "During a hot summer, liberal leaders told folks to set the AC to 78 degrees to compensate for failed Democratic policies," Sen. Ernst said of California's energy crisis that saw days of power shortages and power officials tell residents statewide to set their thermostats to 78 degrees or higher, avoid using large appliances, turn off unnecessary lights, and avoid charging their electric vehicles.  "Secretary of Energy Granholm praised the move, saying states like California are leading by example," Ernst reminded.

The Editor says...
[#1] There are 50 states.  They are "united" to a certain extent, but "solidarity" is not required by law.  [#2] California is going over a cliff, and their one-party tax-and-spend political system is ruining a once-great state.  That is not what "leading by example" means, in any positive way.

Inflation Rises After Joe Biden Signs 'Inflation Reduction Act' and Prepares White House Celebration.  The White House is planning a celebration of President Joe Biden's "Inflation Reduction Act" on Tuesday, even as consumer prices rose again in August, according to the latest numbers from the federal government.  The Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index released Tuesday morning shows that inflation in August rose one-tenth of a percentage point from July and up 8.3 percent from the previous year.  Grocery prices continue rising fast, as prices rose 0.7 percent from July and 13.5 percent from the previous year.  Restaurant prices are up 0.9 percent from July[.]

"Sue And Settle': Biden Admin Agrees To Cancel Oil And Gas Drilling After Settling With Eco Activists.  The Biden administration will stop oil and gas drilling on more than 58,000 acres of federally-issued land after reaching a legal settlement with environmental activist groups on Sept. 6.  The Interior Department's (DOI) Bureau of Land Management (BLM) agreed to halt drilling permits on 113 oil and gas leases across 58,617 acres of land in Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota, according to the settlement.  The DOI agreed to stop drilling after a coalition of environmental nonprofits led by WildEarth Guardians and the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit against the agency in January 2021.  "This is a sue and settle case," Paul Seby, a lawyer who specializes in environmental issues at Greenberg Traurig, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.  "It's an abuse of the system and is being used to advance the policy goals of the Biden administration at the expense of the law."

Biden Celebrates 'Inflation Reduction Act' as Market Plummets over August Inflation.  President Joe Biden celebrated the passage of the "Inflation Reduction Act" by hosting an event at the White House Tuesday, the same day the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a report showing inflation had continued to rise in August, causing markets to plummet.  "This bill cut costs for families.  Helped reduce inflation at the kitchen table, because that's what [people] look at — how much of their monthly bills they have to pay out for their necessities," Biden said in a speech delivered outside the White House, thanking West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin for voting for the bill.

Biden chooses unions and green energy boondoggles over free market.  As the Nov. 8 midterm elections approach, President Joe Biden and his minions will be traveling the country celebrating statism.  That is to say: ignoring what made the nation unique and great, capitalism and the freedom to contract.  Capitalism, free markets, and the consistent application of the rule of law are what brought prosperity to 97% of Americans.  Unfortunately, Biden wants to emulate the policies of Europe, a geography fast becoming irrelevant in the arena of geopolitics.  Last week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen touted top-down industrial policy.  Does anyone remember Solyndra?

Would You Please Stop Being Stupid?  Think about it:  Democrats are supporting men participating in women's sports and being in girls' bathrooms.  Democrat district attorneys are releasing criminals without bond who go out and commit theft, murder, and rape.  Democrats are letting in tens of thousands of illegal immigrants and giving them thousands of dollars.  Democrats are causing the biggest rise in food prices and gas prices in 40 years.  Democrats are imposing censorship on television, the internet, in schools and businesses.  Democrats used the COVID farce to destroy people's livelihoods and destroy small businesses.  Democrats are forcing people to take defective vaccines that have killed many.  Democrats have turned television networks into propaganda outlets.  Democrats are conducting drag queen shows in schools and libraries.  And are Republican candidates forcefully bringing this up in ads?  Of course not!  That would be rude.  The prissy conservatives don't want to offend anybody.

End Of Renewables Craze Is Near.  The global energy crisis appears to have strengthened the resolve of Western political leaders to not just continue but accelerate the transition toward green energy.  Last month, U.S. President Joe Biden signed legislation that aims to spend $370 billion on wind, solar, electric cars and other forms of green tech.  California legislators and regulators recently decided to spend $54 billion on clean tech, restrict oil and gas drilling, and ban the sale of internal combustion cars by 2035.  And the President of the European Commission affirmed yesterday the European Union's "massive investments in renewables" because "they are cheap, they are home-grown, they make us independent."  But appearances can be deceiving.  In truth, the energy crisis is rapidly exposing the limits of renewables and the need for fossil fuels.  Recognizing the political threat of high gasoline prices, Biden has released so much petroleum from the public's Strategic Petroleum Reserves that they are at their lowest level in nearly 30 years.  Six days after California regulators banned the sale of internal combustion engines, the state's grid operator urged residents to not charge their electric vehicles from 4 pm to 9 pm for fear of blackouts.  And European governments will spend over $50 billion this winter on new and refurbished coal and natural gas supplies and equipment.

Why Joe Biden can't change course on greenie madness.  In many ways, Joe Biden's presidency is a baffling one.  He's down in the polls, and his policies are disasters, but unlike, say, Bill Clinton, he can't change course, or moderate his direction, not even to save his presidency.  He's particularly rigid on some of these policies, such as the green agenda, even as the voters say "no" and the obvious political consequences of that are coming for him.  So what gives?  Is he simply too old to change?  That doesn't explain it, because he's been a political weathervane for the duration of his career. [...] Biden is a cash- and prestige-obsessed nobody of zero accomplishments and ideas, which makes him the perfect palimpsest for a foreign manipulator such as Wyss to get his hands on America and remake it his way.  His money animates the policy, and since he's got no obligation to the American people, he can be as rigid as he pleases.  Billionaires insist on value for their money, after all.  That's why Biden can't change course.

This is utterly delusional energy policy:
Janet Yellen: U.S. Must Look to 'Wind, Sun' for Energy, Not Oil and Gas.  U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Thursday the United States must look to "the wind, sun, and other clean sources of energy" instead of relying on oil and gas.  Yellen's remarks came during a trip to Detroit, Michigan, where she boasted about the Democrats' Inflation Reduction Act.  "Our plan — powered by the Inflation Reduction Act — represents the largest investment in fighting climate change in our country's history," Yellen told the crowd.  "It will put us well on our way toward a future where we depend on the wind, sun, and other clean sources of energy."  "We will rid ourselves from our current dependence on fossil fuels and the whims of autocrats like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin," Yellen added.

The Editor says...
The U.S. under Donald Trump was not dependent on Russia, because we were utilizing our own petroleum resources to the maximum possible extent — or at least we were moving quickly in that direction.  Joe Biden has made domestic energy production far more difficult, in every way that he can, for no reason other than the political appeasement of environmental fruitcakes.

Are Democrats looking to provoke riots by arresting President Trump?  To try and head off a likely loss of the House of Representatives and prepare for the next presidential election, Democrats create situations which raise anxiety in citizens, and this increases the chances their candidate will prevail because voters know discord will then subside.  An example is Kathy Griffin's widely read statement:  "If you don't want a Civil War, vote for Democrats in November.  If you do want Civil War, vote Republican."  They make it very clear your life will only be peaceful if you keep Democrats in power, and they think that this is persuasive enough to tip elections. [...] In the past, Democrats fought a war inside the U.S., killing hundreds of thousands of Republican-backed Union soldiers in a grim civil war in order to keep humans as slaves.  Lately, legislation they filed shows they're for killing unborn babies right up until the moment before birth, or perhaps even after.  Most people would say owning slaves and killing babies is evil, so Democrats have shown what they were and are.

The Political Party That's Built On Lies.  The Democrats have to lie.  They have to accuse the other side of doing exactly what they're doing, of being the extremists that they themselves are.  They can't openly admit who they are nor the truth about their agenda.  Most Americans would not be comfortable voting for candidates whose objective is to establish a single-party regime across the country, and whose ideology is much closer to that of history's worst despots than the Founding Fathers' vision of freedom and independence.  The Democrats have a party that couldn't exist without being held up by a support structure of calculated fabrications.

Biden's DOJ embraces bias and anti-religious bigotry.  Do you believe a baker has the right not to bake cakes for same-sex weddings?  Do you believe church daycare programs have just as much of a right as other such programs to apply for state grants?  Do you think pregnancy centers should not be forced by the government to tell pregnant women where to get an abortion?  If you support the First Amendment rights of any of these entities, then President Joe Biden's Department of Justice believes you're a bigot unworthy of associating with — or at least that is the message the department sends by protecting a senior DOJ official who attacked the nation's leading legal advocate of religious liberty.  The DOJ Civil Division's assistant director of commercial litigation is Eric Bruskin.  Last week, Bruskin labeled a reputable organization, the Alliance Defending Freedom, a "hate group" and told a former colleague online, "Are these beliefs you hold?  If so then it's time we end our professional association."

The U.S. also needs a sane policy for immigration, law enforcement, energy production, and election security.
The U.S. Needs a Safe, Sane Energy Policy.  Western democracies are under assault by a Russia determined to bring the United States and its allies to their knees.  It is time our response was nuclear.  As in nuclear power.  Improvements in nuclear power have now reportedly made it a safer source of energy, providing an additional source of power free from the posturing blackmail of leaders such as Putin. [...] The French are not content to sit in the cold this winter.  In recognition that wind and solar cannot possibly replace lost Russian natural gas, their response has been to restart their nuclear reactors.  They seek a clean, reliable source of power that is indifferent to Putin's energy war on the West.  That is not to say nuclear will replace fossil fuels or its "green" alternatives, solar and wind.  Aircraft engines may one day run on hydrogen, but the scores of aircraft now in the air at any given hour will rely on fossil fuels for years to come.

The 'Inflation Reduction Act' [will] Increase Inflation and Impoverish Middle Class Americans.  The IRA [Inflation Reduction Act] is revolutionary in what it purports to do for the climate.  The only impact it will have on inflation is to increase it.  The IRA deliberately sets about impoverishing many Americans by increasing taxes "on everyone" and increasing tax audits at the same time as prices are skyrocketing.  Imposing steeper taxes at a time of steeper prices may not mean that much to the rich, but has the effect of a stealth double-tax that crushes especially middle- and working-class families, who now find themselves forced to choose between necessities such as food, gasoline or rent.  Reports state that 42% of Americans are struggling financially.

After $370 Billion Climate Spending Spree, Biden Charts 'Nationwide Shift Away From Oil'.  Less than one month after President Joe Biden approved nearly $400 billion in climate spending, the Democrat is plotting a "nationwide shift away from oil" through executive orders that could "effectively ban" internal combustion engine production.  In the next year, Biden is expected to unveil executive actions aimed at reducing vehicle and power plant emissions, the Houston Chronicle reported Tuesday.  Those actions "have the potential to drive a nationwide shift away from oil and natural gas," according to the Chronicle.  Biden, for example, is weighing new emissions standards for vehicles made in the 2030s, and environmental activists are pushing the Democrat to "set a standard rigorous enough to effectively ban the production of internal combustion engines."  There's reason to believe the Biden administration could support such a policy.  After California banned the sale of new gas-powered cars as of 2035, Biden's energy secretary expressed support for the move and said the policy "could be" a "national model."

COVID Authoritarianism Paved the Way for Biden's Socialist Tyranny.  It seems as if the more Biden assumes the role of a dictator, the more inclined he is to proclaim himself democracy's "savior."  This kind of Napoleon complex is hardly unusual with Marxists.  Socialist regimes always arrive under the pretense of protecting the people, yet, as Lord Acton persistently warned, socialism remains "the worst enemy freedom has ever had to encounter."  White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said explicitly this last week that not agreeing with the majority "is an extreme way of thinking," while simultaneously accusing Trump-supporters of representing an "extremist threat to our democracy."  Anyone who doubts that majorities can be just as vicious as brutal dictators need only survey the aftermath of a torch and pitchfork mob.  Mob rule is democracy at its simplest and no friend to human liberty.  It is worth noting that after the elections of both President Donald Trump in 2016 and Prime Minister Boris Johnson in 2019, socialists, Antifa domestic terrorists, anti-Brexiteers, and other leftists took to the streets in huge mobs, clashing with police and chanting, "This is what democracy looks like."  Protest mobs have no illusions about what democracy means.

Biden Administration Plans to Ask Congress for Another $14 Billion For Ukraine.  This has become absurd.  According to an AP report, Joe Biden is planning to ask congress for an additional $13.7 billion for Ukraine within a budgetary request for $47 billion spending package.  According to the report the Ukraine spending request will be inside a package for additional COVID-19 spending, Monkeypox spending and other domestic relief.

Student Debt Relief: Reparations for Rich White People.  To reduce inflation, battle climate change, reduce gas prices, stem rising crime, and protect our southern border, President Joe Biden has forgiven $10,000 in federal student loans and extended $20,000 in debt cancellation to Pell Grant recipients for borrowers making less than $125,000 a year.  A study by the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School found that "between 69% and 73% of debt forgiven accrues to households in the top 60% of income distribution" and the total cost could reach $1 trillion.  Even many Democrats are outraged.

These Back-Busting Americans Paid For College Themselves And Think You Should, Too.  Upon news that Joe Biden had decided to completely ignore U.S. laws to attempt to force taxpayers to assume the debts of people who chose to attend college, I reached out to Federalist writers for stories of how other Americans paid their own way.  Calling this particular pile of government handouts for the privileged "forgiveness" is just a way to try to hide the fact that it's fundamentally wrong and unfair.  As the Bible says, he who doesn't work shouldn't eat.  He who takes on obligations should pay them.  Taking something without paying for it is stealing.  Forcing other people to work so you can enjoy luxuries is called enslavement.

Long-term con: Obamacare was 'paid for' by nationalizing student loans.  It may be hard to recall these days when a Democratic White House proudly rejects any guiderails from things such as economics or the Constitution.  But back in the Obama years, they considered themselves the wonks.  And Obamacare was supposed to be the triumph of the wonks.  As the law aged, its rickety construction became clearer, which is why most of the top-tier Democratic presidential candidates in 2020 ran on replacing Obamacare.  Among other problems, the bill's "pay-fors," the revenue enhancements that would supposedly dampen the law's effects on the deficit and on inflation, all evaporated.  More specifically, Democrats repealed them, showing that they never really intended for the bill to reduce healthcare spending or pay for itself.

Biden's Teetering House of Cards.  On day one of his administration Biden put an end to the energy independence achieved under Trump.  He cancelled the Keystone Pipeline and cut off most new drilling and fracking on federal land.  That single action kicked off the highest inflation in forty years; our economy depends first and foremost on fuel.  Biden pretends that there is a climate crisis (there is not) but he will spend billions on green projects, billions that will end up in the pockets of grifters like all those companies who got millions from the Obama administration, companies like Solyndra.  The companies fail, the money disappears.  Biden has sent billions to Ukraine, the third most corrupt nation on the planet (Russia is number seven).  Now he wants to "forgive" (transfer the debt to citizen taxpayers) nearly a trillion dollars of student loans to buy votes.  This is monstrous and should cost him the votes of millions of Americans who will bear the cost of this irresponsible executive order.

Expect More Democrat Hail Marys.  It's pretty obvious to me that the Biden Student Loan Handout is a midterm Hail Mary.  With a 40 percent approval rating, why wouldn't the president throw some free stuff at the gender studies graduate vote?  What has he got to lose?  Notice that I said: "what has he got to lose."  I didn't say:  what has the average American got to lose by adding $300 billion to $1 trillion to the national debt?  It helps me understand how the Peronistas wrecked Argentina, and the Chávezistas wrecked Venezuela.  When your policies have wrecked the economy, why not double down, throw money at your supporters, and call your opponents names?

Writing Off Student Debt.  President Biden's plan to forgive student debt is clear:  most students will get a $10,000 debt reduction, while lower-income students will be eligible to double the amount (an element that went unmentioned inmost reports).  Biden's August giveaway adds half a trillion dollars to the federal government's debt deficit by some estimates.

The Editor says...
If you went to college, why do you have "lower income?"

Inflation Reduction Act won't reduce inflation or climate change.  Just 1 in 4 Americans believe that President Joe Biden's so-called Inflation Reduction Act will actually reduce inflation, while 71% say the law will either have no impact or make things worse.  The majority is right to be skeptical.  The nonpartisan Penn Wharton Budget Model found that the bill's effect on inflation will be "statistically indistinguishable from zero."  This is not surprising.  The real purpose of the bill is not to reduce inflation but to reduce climate change.  Fully 85% of the law's spending goes toward climate and clean energy.  So, what will the bill's effect be on the climate?  Answer:  Statistically indistinguishable from zero.

Conventional Wisdom is an Oxymoron.  This week's fairy tale, now that the raid on Mar-a-Lago seems to have fizzled — except as further evidence of DoJ and FBI overreach and incompetence — is that the president has legal authority to forgive a substantial amount of school loans.  In fact, long before the courts rule on this — and I believe they will find it an unconstitutional expenditure never authorized by Congress — the ill-considered plan will die aborning.  No administration calculation of the cost was made.  While the figure of $500 million has been bandied about, a trillion dollars is more like it.  And almost all of it this fiscal year. [...] The editors of both the lefty Washington Post and Newsweek have opposed it and several vulnerable Democratic congressmen are walking away from it.  Worse, the administration of this is in the hands of the Department of Education, which lacks the underlying income information from applicants, the manpower, or expertise to handle it.

Student loan transferral ought to be the nail in the coffin for Democrats.  President Biden's decision to buy the votes of people who accumulated student debt they cannot pay off — the cost of which could range from $500 billion to one trillion when the country is already over $30 trillion in debt with sky high inflation — is a compelling argument to "Use Your Head and Vote Red" this November.  Why should you pay for this agenda if you are among the following people?
  •   People who never went to college
  •   People whose tuition was paid by the Armed Forces for service to our country
  •   People who worked their way through college and did not incur debt
  •   People who have already paid off their college debt
  •   People whose parents were willing and able to pay for their college, perhaps because they chose inexpensive community colleges for their freshman and sophomore years, and in-state universities for their junior and senior years, over pricey private schools

Is there a more subtle reason behind the student loan money grab?  All honest people understand that the Democrats' plan to pay off $10,000 in student loan debt for those earning less than $125,000 is incredibly corrupt.  However, aside from the obvious vote buying, one reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, suggested to me that there's a more nefarious purpose to all this.  I thought he had a point, so I'm sharing it with you. [...] ["]The Left's plan does not depend on the current scheme.  It's a red herring.  Their goal is to rev up their clueless base, pit people against one another, enflame class warfare, and then come to the rescue to put out the flames with their free college goal.["]

Biden's Student Loan Bailout.  A new model just published by the prestigious — and non-partisan — Penn-Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania shows that rather than the $300 billion number being thrown around by Democrats as the cost of the student debt bailout plan, the true cost is at least $519 billion for debt cancellation alone.  And there are other factors to consider, making the total cost of the plan at least $605 billion and perhaps as much as $1 trillion.

Bill Gates Investment Fund Cheers Biden's $350 Billion in Green Pork.  As reported exclusively by Frontpage Magazine, Americans can expect to see their chances of an IRS audit increase fourfold under the Biden-Manchin 'Inflation Increase Act'.  The massive upsurge in IRS enforcement was justified as a way to pay for the massive spending in the bill.  Much of that spending consists of green pork for Democrat donors and special interests.  While the media had spent the past month persuading Americans that they will see economic benefits from the green pork, now that the bill was passed through lies and dirty tricks, we know that it offers as much as $350 billion in loans, subsidies and guarantees to green companies.  Overseeing the Department of Energy's loan program is Jigar Shah:  the founder of SunEdison.  SunEdison was one of the biggest of Obama's subsidized green energy bankruptcies, receiving $1.5 billion in government grants and subsidies.  While Solyndra's bankruptcy, after receiving a $535 million loan from the Obama administration, is infamous, there were quite a few disasters.  The $350 billion that the 'Inflation Increase Act' is playing with will be far worse.

"Doctor" Jill's trillion-dollar gift to the educational-industrial complex.  First Lady Jill Biden asked to be called "Doctor" after her husband was elected president.  She's not actually a doctor.  She's also not nearly as smart as one and so she thought the title made her look like she was, at least to stupid people who don't know better. [...] Since then, she's been lying low.  Most of her public displays of authority are limited to whispering in her husband's ear to tell him where he is and who he is, and unsuccessfully instructing him not to talk.  But she scored big this week behind the scenes.  She whispered in Joe's ear that he should cancel billions in loans that students voluntarily took on to pay six-figure tuition bills to the education establishment.  The published cost of this giveaway is $300 billion, but most objective observers think the real cost is more like triple that.  The people whose debt is being cancelled are, naturally, people with college degrees.  A large proportion of them have Master's degrees.  These are not the downtrodden of society; these are the privileged.  They are people who either have excellent earnings prospects or used the money loaned to them to voluntarily purchase worthless degrees.  Either way, they don't deserve this freebie.  But I'm sure they'll take it.

Parents wonder: Does Biden's student debt handout include college loans taken out by moms and dads?  After President Biden announced his student loan handout plan on Wednesday, August 24, 2022, many parents immediately wondered about the status of the college loans they took out in their own names on behalf of their children.  Many moms and dads took out Parent PLUS loans, the federal loans available to parents of undergraduate students to handle college expenses not covered by financial aid.  Currently, at least 3.4 million Parent PLUS borrowers owe at least $87 billion, according to the Brookings Institute.

Axios: Biden and team stunningly unprepared for their trillion-dollar Academia bailout.  After nearly two years of talking about it, Joe Biden finally rolled out his student-loan forgiveness plan ... and apparently nothing else.  According to Axios, the White House didn't bother to gather the data on eligibility, didn't create a system which would check it, and has no system yet in place to fully complete the process.  Did Biden drop the ball again — or did he never expect to be allowed to run with it in the first place? [...] I mean, why not wing it?  The executive-order-driven policy will only cost between $605 billion and $1 trillion, most of which will land in this fiscal year while inflation's already raging.  No biggie!  More seriously, this looks like a lot of Joe Biden's policymaking — impulsive, unprepared, and entirely reactive.  Biden and his team have had seventeen months to get these pieces in place for this policy decision.  Instead, it looks like someone just pulled together a few talking points at the last minute and bundled it into a memo for Biden to wave at a presser.

The True Cost of Student Loans.  Much like the illegal migrants waiting for the next amnesty, there will now be waves of people signing up for student loans and college courses, confident the government will bail them out in the next round of amnesty/debt forgiveness.  This is how the current situation is comparable to the amnesty act and mostly impacts the prospective students.  But it is not just the students who will be implicated.  The announcement to cancel debt is comparable to the mortgage schemes of Clinton, as it will change the behavior of the colleges.  They had to be slightly careful in terms of college tuition fees, as they needed to make sure their prospective students could actually get a loan.  Now that the government has announced student debts will be cancelled, the colleges will be incentivized to increase their fees.  After all, now the government will come to the rescue of students who owe the college.  Much like the banks being confident that the government would bail them out over mortgages to credit-risky customers, colleges are confident that the government will bail them out for the costs of tuition racked up by students.  So why not rack the fees up some more?

Is Biden even able to bail out student loans?  As almost everyone has heard, Biden announced his plan to spend $360 billion to forgive student loans for up to 43 million Americans.  Groups estimate that the actual cost may be $440 to $600 billion, but who's counting?  Legal experts have reported that although Biden may have some authority to postpone payments, he clearly doesn't have the power to cancel debts. [...] The reaction from many different sides to his plan has been overwhelmingly negative.  People who have already paid off their student loans are angry because they did the right thing and kept to their obligations, and people who didn't get loans, or didn't go to college at all, are even angrier at the idea of paying more taxes to fund doctors, lawyers, and academics who should be able to pay what they owe.  The inflationary aspects of the debt forgiveness mean that the $7,000 Americans are paying extra each year for Biden's high prices will continue to increase, with no end in sight — and this includes the people getting the cash in the first place.

The Lawless Executive.  Biden thinks he can get away with tossing three hundred billion dollars, more or less, on the taxpayer's tab with his "student loan" cancelation order.  He's relying on a post-9/11 law which applies to times of national emergency and attempting to piggyback on the Covid one which was declared in 2020 along with the HEROES act — and of course that "emergency" has not been lifted. [...] I would expect that in any fair hearing this goes up in smoke in the courts.  But — there's a problem:  Standing to sue.  You see, to bring a case before the courts you must have particularized injury.

Biden's Education Secretary dodges questions on how student loan relief will be paid for.  Education Sec.  Miguel Cardona on Thursday refused to say how much the White House had projected President Biden's student debt cancellation would cost — despite repeated asks.  'The projections are still coming out depending on how many people take advantage of it,' Cardona said when asked by CNN's John Berman for a number.  'Mr. Secretary what's the range?' Berman pressed.  'Well, like I said, those projections are still coming out,' Cardona said again.  'What we're finding is when the loan payments restart $4 billion is going to go back into it because people are going to start paying.  Anyone making over $125,000 will resume payment into their loans.'  'It won't offset the total cost of this over time, how will this be paid for?' Berman asked.  'The president has been very clear about reducing the deficit, ' Cardona said.  'Whatever funds go to this loan forgiveness will be offset by the increase in loan payment restart for those making over $125,000.'

Watch Nancy Pelosi Say President Doesn't Have The Power To Do Debt Forgiveness.  Back in April, Nancy Pelosi admitted Biden didn't have the power to bail out student loan debt.  [Video clip]

Joe Biden Wakes up to Democratic Mutiny on Student Loan Forgiveness Plan.  President Joe Biden's unilateral move to implement a student loan forgiveness plan that "will include at least $10,000 in loan forgiveness for borrowers who make less than $125,000 annually, as well as another payment freeze for roughly four months" has understandably set off a firestorm nationwide, with Republicans lining up to express their outrage over Biden's actions.  But Republicans aren't the only ones ripping Biden.  He's also faced intense criticism from some surprising corners, including from Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) who as we previously reported said on Wednesday that "This announcement by President Biden is no way to make policy and sidesteps Congress and our oversight and fiscal responsibilities."  "Any plan to address student debt should go through the legislative process, and it should be more targeted and paid for so it doesn't add to the deficit," Pappas, who is said to be in a tough reelection battle, also stated.

Biden's Student Loan Giveaway Is 'Unconstitutional Flimflammery'.  The White House "Fact Sheet" speaks of the horror and hardship students are experiencing.  It talks of the "significant burden" of student loan debt, how some borrowers are in default, and that the share of debt falls disproportionally on black students.  But this debt burden was not mandatory.  It was optional.  And racking up $100,000 in student debt was an option these former students willingly accepted.  So now, the biggest beneficiaries of the loan forgiveness program are going to be those who don't need it.

Biden Shops For Critical Minerals In Canada While Shutting Down Mining Projects On American Soil.  President Joe Biden is looking north for critical mineral supplies to meet government-inflated demand for clean-energy initiatives while the administration shuts down major mining projects on American soil.  In March, the president invoked the Defense Production Act to expedite the expansion of U.S. mining operations behind lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite, and manganese as demand rises for the raw materials.  Not only are the critical minerals central to the administration's subsidized wind and solar farms, but they are essential for defense technologies and popular products from cell phones to laptops.  Biden triggered the Cold War-era law to reconfigure supply chains of critical minerals away from dependence on China, which dominates refining capacity and production of rare earth elements.  The president invoking the Defense Production Act offers federal financial assistance to "domestic" projects securing American mineral supplies, and in June, the administration published a report identifying Canada as a "domestic source" under the Defense Production Act.

Biden announces student loan handout as national debt soars.  President Biden announced Wednesday that he will cancel $10,000 of federal student loan debt for certain borrowers making less than $125,000 per year, and up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients, while extending the pause on federal student loan payments through the end of the year.  "In keeping with my campaign promise, my Administration is announcing a plan to give working and middle class families breathing room as they prepare to resume federal student loan payments in January 2023," Biden tweeted.  Biden gave remarks on the plan Wednesday afternoon [8/24/2022].  The nation's federal student debt now tops $1.6 trillion after ballooning for years.  More than 43 million Americans have federal student debt, with almost a third owing less than $10,000 and more than half owing less than $20,000, according to the latest federal data.

Theorems on the Student Loan Cancelation.  Invoking the HEROES Act as the legal justification for student debt forgiveness reminds of Franklin Roosevelt invoking the World War I-era Trading With the Enemy Act as legal ground for his "bank holiday."  At the time everyone was so dumbstruck and panicked that no one thought to raise a legal challenge, but that's surely not the case today, though I do wonder if legal challenges may founder for lack of standing. [...] But there's an even deeper logic at work.  Young voters tend to drop off a lot in mid-term elections, and Biden has just given the college cohort a reason to turn out this fall — especially if a judge inhibits this blatant vote-buying scheme.

Pelosi Does Complete 180 as Biden WH Reveals Where Debt Relief 'Authority' Purportedly Comes From.  As expected, President Joe Biden made a unilateral move Wednesday [8/24/2022] to implement a student loan forgiveness plan that "will include at least $10,000 in loan forgiveness for borrowers who make less than $125,000 annually, as well as another payment freeze for roughly four months."  While Republican members of Congress are understandably outraged, most of the ones openly speaking out against Biden's move seem to be studiously avoiding the "i" word (impeachment) even though that is an option that should definitely be on the table considering Biden does not have the authority to carry out this plan, which does an end run around Congress and the required legislative process.  But according to a statement from Biden's Education Dept., he indeed has such authority, something that was pointed to by reporters Wednesday after many raised questions as to where he thought he was getting his power from: [...]

Biden's Student Loan Bailout Adds Insult to Working-class Injury.  President Joe Biden is set to announce student loan forgiveness of $10,000 — and perhaps more — for lower-income debtors on Wednesday, in a move that is unconstitutional, unfair, and dangerous for the stability of our economy and our democracy.  There is no doubt that some borrowers would benefit from student loan relief — especially young people, low earners, borrowers in the black community.  It would help them avoid default, and perhaps allow some to enter the housing market.  Some of these debtors can truly be seen as victims of a system that urges young people to attend college when other paths might be better suited to their talents and interests; that jacks up federally-subsidized tuition costs; and that steers students toward highly-ideological majors that provide few marketable skills, but train them as future left-wing voters and activists.

Biden Announces His Illegal Student Loan Move With Senility and Casual Racism.  Joe Biden made it official on Wednesday, confirming reports that he was going to "forgive" tens of thousands of dollars of student debt for federal borrowers, many of which are the most privileged and well-off in our society.  As I wrote previously, I think the move is morally reprehensible, forcing an electrician who paid for their technical training to now pay for the gender studies degree of some far-left kook making $100K a year in an academic position.  For his part, Biden took to the podium to announce his move while taking a precious few questions.  Those he did field received some of the most non-sensical answers of his presidency.  Before we get there, though, here was the president attempting to set things up in a way absolutely no one understood.  Really, what in the world is he talking about here?  [Tweet]

Biden's Student Loan 'Forgiveness' Is An Unjust, Cynical Abuse Of Power.  "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law."  That's what it says right there in the Constitution.  And yet, without any legislation, Joe Biden now promises to "cancel" up to $10,000 in student loans per borrower ($20,000 for Pell Grant borrowers), limited to those with annual incomes of less than $125,000.  Let's start by pointing out that President Joe Biden isn't "canceling" or "forgiving" any student loans.  Those are preposterous euphemisms favored by Democrats and the media.  The debt in question already exists, it has been lent and spent, and those who borrowed the money of their own volition have already received services.  This debt isn't cancelable.  The president hasn't "forgiven" loans, he's unilaterally broken existing contracts and transferred the responsibility of payment to taxpayers — many of whom have either repaid their own student loans or never borrowed any money to begin with.  Now, if you're opposed to repaying some stranger's loan, that's too bad.  A new batch of IRS agents will be there to ensure that you do.

White House poised to cancel up to $10K in debt for some student loans: Report.  The Biden administration is leaning toward canceling up to $10,000 in student loan debt for those who make less than $125,000 a year, according to a new report.  CNN reported that the announcement could come Wednesday, and that additional forgiveness for specific parts of the population are on the table as well.  Liberal Democrats such as Sen.  Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have pressed for a far more sweeping loan forgiveness program.  The income cap was seen as a way of insulating the White House from criticism that the debt relief is benefiting those who can afford their payments, per CNN.

Biden Is About to Commit an Impeachable Offense, Republicans Must Respond With Fury.  As my colleague Brandon Morse reported, President Joe Biden is about to blatantly break the law to "cancel" thousands of dollars of student loan debt accrued by some of the most privileged members of society.  Of course, nothing will actually be canceled.  Instead, because the government will simply be out that money, the burden of those debts will be transferred from those who accrued them to hundreds of millions of taxpayers who didn't.

Hochul's Compelled Speech Bill is Just the Beginning.  Governor Kathy Hochul signed a bill last year that will compel certain speech be used when addressing or referring to LGBTQ or trans people.  It is not constitutional and will be overturned.  Legislation S.5325/A.6193 is very strange because it mandates that utility companies "allow customers to use what preferred name and pronoun they want."  I was not aware that utility companies ever forbade customers their silly pronouns and preferred names, but apparently Kathy believes this has been the case.  That is just a red herring.  Here is the disturbing part.  She clearly thinks that failing to use the right pronouns is a problem.

Death of a 'salesman' in New York.  Willy Loman is no more, at least in New York state law.  Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation Thursday replacing the word "salesman" with "salesperson" — the latest in a series of moves by Albany toward gender-neutral and other woke language.

Why is the Biden administration paying off Ukraine's debt but not ours?  "Biden administration allocates billions to pay down the budget deficit ... in Ukraine."  This sounds like a parody headline from the Babylon Bee, but it is actually a real thing that's happening under President Joe Biden's watch.  On Monday, the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, announced that it is sending an additional $4.5 billion in U.S. taxpayer money to Ukraine.  And it's not going to humanitarian aid or even weapons for fighting off Russia's brutal invasion — debatable but at least understandable forms of U.S. aid — it's going to reduce the Ukrainian government's budget deficit.

Joe Biden Signs $430 Billion Climate and Health Care Spending Bill to 'Fight Inflation'.  President Joe Biden signed a $430 billion climate spending bill on Tuesday, insisting it would fight inflation.  "We're cutting deficits to fight inflation by having the wealthy and big corporations finally pay their fair share," Biden said at the signing ceremony at the White House.  The bill raises the corporate minimum tax to 15 percent and spends more money on bolstering the ability of the IRS to enforce taxes.

Can a GOP Congress Stop the New IRS Gestapo?  Other than Mar-a-Lago and the Jan. 6 committee, the latest — and ultimately quite possibly the biggest — elephant in the room is the legislation that's nearing passage with a name straight out of Orwell's Ministry of Truth:  the Inflation Reduction Act.  Forget for a moment all the ridiculous "green" featherbedding in this legislation.  The administration's version of "the science" is about as scientific as the Greek myths, possibly less.  It's the same pro forma collection of hand-outs to the usual pseudo-environmental suspects that ultimately add up to more orders for, frequently defective, Chinese solar collectors.  That's bad enough but the real danger in this legislation is the massive infusion of cash ($80 billion) into the IRS, yielding an extraordinary expansion (an army of 87,000 new agents) and the literal weaponization of the tax agency.

Job One For The GOP: Kill The Inflation Reduction Act.  Joe Biden's $700 billion Inflation Reduction Act passed both the Senate and House without a single vote from Republicans.  It has zero redeeming value and is the most wretched bill out of Washington since Obamacare was approved in 2010.  The GOP has to take it off the books.  As we pointed out in this space weeks ago, the entire bill is a lie.  It has nothing whatsoever to do with inflation and, in fact, won't reduce it at all.  The University of Pennsylvania's Penn Wharton Budget Model says the IRA's "impact on inflation is statistically indistinguishable from zero."  Bill Adams, chief economist for Comerica Bank, says it won't rein in rising prices "over the short run."  Even the Congressional Budget Office says it does nothing to address inflation.

Biden Puts IRS Funding Ahead of Military and Border Security.  Is this about the most warped set of national priorities you've ever heard?  If this $80 billion were rerouted to the Army and the Border Patrol, we could easily stop much of the tide of illegal immigration and staff up our military so we have the soldiers we need to defend our country.  According to official budget numbers, the overall cost of border security at the Department of Homeland Security is roughly $55 billion a year.  That is less than just the increase in IRS funding to harass the public.  Or consider this:  The epidemic of opioid and other drug overdoses is killing close to 100,000 a year.  We spend about $11 billion a year to prevent these tragic deaths.  But the ironically named Inflation Reduction Act calls for 30 times more than this, or more than $300 billion, to try to combat climate change, while the number of those who die from CO2 emissions each year is close to zero.

Buckle Up:  Tough Times Are Coming.  With each passing day, Biden's and Democrats' failures become more apparent and painful to average Americans.  The economy is shaky; inflation and energy costs will resume rising.  Crime spikes in big cities.  Woke and sexual indoctrination of schoolkids is meeting with growing backlashes.  Democrats' police state gambits repel people who'd otherwise take a pass on politics.  Their sheer incompetence, serial failures, and tyrannical overreach are undercutting their authority.  So Democrats and the establishment are afraid and anxious.  Looming ahead is the fall of the establishment's thousand-year Reich.  Desperation will drive establishment factions to more and, perhaps, even greater acts of illegally and shows of force — or worse.  After all, the ends justify the means.

Pelosi-Biden's Inflation Bill Passed with 35 Percent of the House Voting Remotely and the CBO Not Finished Scoring Its Impact.  It was a mad rush to pass Biden's "Inflation Reduction Act" and now we know why.  This act from the corrupt and now communist left is named like other bills they manufacture in that it is the opposite of what it claims.  This bill will not reduce inflation and will likely add to it.  The funding will occur by taxing Americans of all classes and increasing the US debt. [...] According to Redstate around 35 percent of those voting, did so remotely.  But the bill charged ahead.  Now you have to wonder what's really in it.

Analysis suggests Inflation Reduction Act will reduce annual inflation by only 0.1 percentage points.  The Senate-passed Inflation Reduction Act is expected to have almost zero impact on inflation, according to a new analysis.  A University of Pennsylvania Penn Wharton analysis released Friday [8/12/2022] revealed the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 would do little to reduce the annual rate of inflation in the midst of the economic recession.  The bill would only reduce annual inflation by 0.1 percentage point over the next five years.

Do The Political Elites Intend To Starve People To Death?  What happened in Sri Lanka — "the systematic destruction of Sri Lankan agriculture by a regime so focused on appearing environmentally conscious that it blinded itself to the humanitarian disaster it was creating" — is also taking place in the Netherlands, one of the world's top producers of farm products.  There, policymakers have placed limits on agricultural waste emissions, which the eco-zealots are now at war with.  The "tractor-riding rebels" understandably rose "up against their government."  What else should be expected when the rules could force as many as 30% of producers out of business?  Farmers in Spain, Ireland, and New Zealand are also rising up.  It's more than enough for any open-minded lawmaker anywhere on Earth to look at these events and rethink the policies that have caused such turmoil.  But not Justin Trudeau, Canada's Boy Prime Minister, who like the rest of the immature left is fixated on making points with the "right" people, as if he never left high school.

Democrats continue to wage war against the oil industry in the name of 'climate emergency'.  What else might a political party do if the goal was actually to destroy a country, besides destroying affordable energy in the modern world?  Would they have open borders, destroying the rule of law, and creating a scenario where human and drug trafficking rates skyrocket?  Would they support district attorneys who refuse to prosecute violent criminals, instead placing them back on the streets?  Would they tell our children that racism is the very underpinnings of our nation?  And therefore patriotism equates with oppression?  Would they confiscate a greater share of wealth from the private sector and transfer it to the hands of an ever-growing federal government?  Would they slowly erode the three branches, allowing courts and unelected bureaucrats to pass de facto laws instead of the legislature?

The complete Sovietization of the Democrat party.  The Democrats are so determined to destroy Trump, they are willing to reveal their true colors:  They are all Stalinist communists now.  They've just rammed through a nearly $800 billion bill that will obviously exacerbate inflation, as well as transform the IRS into a Gestapo-like agency, armed and dangerous to all Americans but for the very wealthy.  Small businesses that survived the lockdowns will now be stamped out by the higher taxes, audits, and regulations within this destructive bill.  The billions of green agenda requirements in the bill will force us all into energy deficits that will further devastate our already ruined economy and our quality of life.  That is their goal, their endgame.

Another Key Fundamental Contradicts the Democrat 'Comeback' Narrative.  Democrats are riding high right now, at least in their own minds.  On Sunday, the Senate passed the Manchin-led reconciliation deal, blowing hundreds of billions of dollars on "climate change" provisions, including subsidies for well-off people to buy electric cars and solar panels.  The other part of the bill was a sizeable tax increase for the middle class.  As to it being called the "Inflation Reduction Act," even Bernie Sanders admits that's hogwash.  Still, Democrats rejoiced, citing it as a major accomplishment that will help lead them to victory in the mid-terms.

Why Is No One Using the Inflation Reduction Act's Actual Name?  This was never an Inflation Reduction Act.  This is Build Back Better v2.0.  It is a handout to the IRS so Democrats can fund their pet projects by harassing and fleecing small businesses and middle-class Americans.  It is a handout to upper-class Americans who want to make the switch to electric vehicles.  It is a handout to pet companies that produce those vehicles.  You are giving massive subsidies during high inflation and raising taxes during a recession.  It is a violation of basic economic principles at a time when the economy is extremely unstable.  This bill was the end result of Democrats negotiating with themselves.  At no point was there any Republican input.

Here's the Truth About What 'Inflation Reduction Act' Would Do.  As Senate Democrats achieve their goal of jamming through the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, reality is becoming clear:  The bill will likely increase near-term inflation, depress household incomes, and produce the long-term deficits that fuel long-term inflation.  Using the Congressional Budget Office's latest scoring, estimates of the most recent changes, and accounting for very expensive gimmicks, it's likely that the bill will produce deficits.  The cumulative deficit would be around $52.5 billion over the next four years, at least $110 billion through fiscal year 2031, and more beyond.  That would mean adding to near-term and long-term inflationary pressures, in contrast to what proponents such as Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., claim.  In short, the bill is about as far away from a genuine Inflation Reduction Act as possible.  Though it would be harmful under any circumstances, signing it into law during a period of stagflation would be the worst possible timing.

Democrat Senators Advance Biden's Massive Tax-and-Spend Bill — Kamala Harris Casts Tie-Breaking Vote.  Senate Democrats on Saturday night advanced Biden's massive tax-and-spend bill dubbed the 'Inflation Reduction Act.'  Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote Saturday night [8/6/2022]. [...] After casting the tie-breaking vote, Kamala Harris claimed the massive bill will "lower costs" for families and "address some of the basic needs families have been having for generations."

Kamala Harris casts tiebreaking vote as Biden's massive spending and tax package advances in Senate.  Vice President Kamala Harris cast a tie-breaking vote Saturday [8/6/2022] to advance President Joe Biden's massive spending, tax and climate legislation in the Senate.  The 51-50 party line vote allowed senators to begin debate on the legislation, which includes $400 billion in spending and $700 billion in taxes and revenue increases.  Republicans planned to offer about four dozen amendments to force vulnerable Democrats like Sens. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Raphael Warnock of Georgia to take a series of tough votes on everything from border security to taxes.  Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell argued the legislation "will kill American jobs and hammer our manufacturing sector" and "have no meaningful impact on global temperatures whatsoever."

The Congressional Budget Office Hasn't Finished Scoring the Manchin's Inflation Reduction Act.  While the Senate's "Vote-a-Rama" for Build Back Better v2.0, better known as the Inflation Reduction Act, is underway, it seems that the Congressional Budget Office hasn't even finished scoring the bill we've been assured reduces inflation. [...] I'm not a stellar math student, but that seems like a lot of deficit increasing.  No wonder the Democrats want to pass the bill before the CBO finishes scoring it.  There is still a new 30-page section to score, which was amended in recently.  This is going to be another big spending bill that the Democrats will use to fund pet projects and not actually reduce any inflation with.  Full steam ahead.

Biden administration's farcical climate policies to devastate farmers, exacerbate food shortages.  Democrats are rabidly pro-abortion.  Their policies foster violent crime.  They tend to favor assisted suicide.  And the legalization of even hard and hallucinogenic drugs.  They were/are all-in on vaccine mandates.  Apparently, they never met a population control measure they didn't like.  So, it's not surprising they want to curtail our food supply.

A Glance Ahead.  [Scroll down]  Meanwhile, the Party of Chaos is about to unleash its "Inflation Reduction Act," which proposes to spend three quarters of a trillion dollars created from thin air into an economy already hyperventilating on three years of multi-trillion-dollar injections derived from no productive activity.  At the same time, the act will raise taxes especially for low-end wage earners and small businesses, completing the regime's destruction of the middle-class.  The cherry-on-top is the provision to double the size of the Internal Revenue Service by hiring 87,000 new employees to harass ordinary American taxpayers.  Is that what you voted for in 2020?  I thought not.

Get Ready For The 100 Year Long Climate "Emergency".  Since the Supreme Court's decision in West Virginia v. EPA on June 30, the bureaucracies in the "climate" space, together with all the environmental activists, have been thrown into a tizzy.  The Supreme Court just declared that the bureaucracies have no power to fundamentally transform the use of energy in the economy without a clear direction from Congress, which on the climate issue cannot be found in existing statutes.  And it has become clear that no further such statutory direction is likely to emerge from Congress before the mid-term elections in November.  After November, changes in the make-up of Congress will probably make further such legislation even less likely, if not completely off the table for years if not decades.  So what is a self-respecting climate alarmist to do?  To those over there on the left, the answer seems obvious:  Demand declaration of a "climate emergency."  With that declaration, the statutory gap could perhaps be filled by another whole category of laws providing special powers in the event of a declaration of "emergency."

Democrat Spending Bill Will Bring Nothing But More Economic Hardship.  After months of trying and failing to get enough votes in the Democrat-controlled Congress to pass sweeping social spending legislation, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) finally convinced Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) to abandon their previously stated principles and put their party over what's best for their constituents.  Since the result of Schumer's closed-door negotiations was announced, it's been clear that the bill — referred to unofficially as "Build Back Better Jr." but officially named the "Inflation Reduction Act" — will not do anything it's being proclaimed to do.  As Townhall reported, the "Inflation Reduction Act" won't actually reduce inflation.  In fact, it might even add slightly to inflationary pressure for the next two years.  That false name is enough to prove the legislation is a trojan horse for radical Democrat policies and would be better dubbed "Democrats' Job-Killing Middle-Class Tax Hike for Woke Nonsense."

The Meaning of Bidenomics.  Everyone senses that the American economy under Joe Biden is in a rut.  Inflation is at a 40-year high.  Energy prices are skyrocketing.  The prices of all goods and services going up.  Meanwhile, the administration does little to alleviate these regular everyday problems.  This is by design. [...] This is precisely what the Biden administration, their apparatchiks, and the proponents of the Green New Deal seek:  a thorough top-down command-control system of the economy.  Whether in the more benign bureaucratic-managerial form of the modern welfare-state of the West, or the more viciously brutal socialistic, fascistic, or communistic cousins, the goal remains the same: centralized command-control.  By permitting economic malaise, the Biden administration deliberately seeks to punish the independent spirit of American freedom in order to subjugate it to its federal vision of regulatory control (that's what regulation is always about).

Dems Tell the American People "The Inflation Reduction Act" Won't Raise Taxes.  Democrats love taxes.  The never-ending promise that they won't raise taxes almost always leads to more taxes.  So why should we believe the Inflation Reduction Act won't lead to a hideous tax burden on the American people?  Well, we shouldn't. [...] The Inflation Reduction Act is going to increase taxes on every American income tax bracket, large, or small, regardless of the lies told to us by the Biden administration and the arguments from Democrats that regular Americans will not see their taxes increase under this proposal, according to data from the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT).  The cap, we were told, was $400,000.00, but this is not the truth.  This legislation is just the Green New Deal and Build Back Better repackaged into one colossal disaster.

Student loan cancellation is a slap in the face to working-class families.  There are few policy proposals more backward than President Biden's and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's farce of "canceling" student loan debt.  Debt cannot be "canceled" or erased — it can only be shifted to someone else.  Truck drivers, farmers, bartenders, electricians and plumbers shouldn't have to pay for someone else's degree.  Those who have sacrificed and worked hard to pay off their own student loans shouldn't then have to take on someone else's debt.  But that is exactly what Mr. Biden's plans would force hardworking Americans to do.

Why We Lost Trust in the Expert Class.  Recently, a group of 55 distinguished pro-administration economists assured us that President Joe Biden's massive borrowing and new entitlements agenda were not inflationary.  In September 2021, these economists with 14 Nobel prize winners among them declared that Biden's inflationary policies would actually "ease" inflation.  Last month, inflation spiked to an annualized rate of 9.1%.  None of these "blue-chip" economists have offered any apologies for lending their prestige to convince Americans of the absurd: that inflating the money supply, spiking new government spending, incentivizing labor non-participation, and keeping interest rates artificially low would not cause inflation.

This is what finally puts an end to Australia.  There is an ominous buzz in the new Australian Parliament — Albo and the Greens are planning to pass 40 new bills, quick smart.  Each bill will probably need 100 new regulations and 200 new inspectors, auditors, and enforcers plus many new taxes and fees. [...] Probably the worst bill in Green-Albo's legislative avalanche is "The Climate Change Bill."  This dreadful piece of legislation gives the government the ability to "ratchet up" green targets without new parliamentary approval but makes it difficult for future governments to ratchet back these targets.  This will clutter rural Australia with imported solar panels and windmills and destroy forests and grasslands with spider-webs of roads and transmission lines.  It will make blackouts more likely and destroy any heavy industry we have left.  Filling our cities with electric cars will stress the electricity grid and add greatly to urban fire risks.  And in 15 years (or after every cyclone), we will have an enormous problem trying to dispose of the worn out, non-degradable wind and solar generator debris.

The Inflation Reduction Act increases inflation.  On July 28, President Joe Biden announced his "support for a historic agreement to fight inflation and lower costs for American families.  It's called the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022."  He added, "This is the strongest bill you can pass to lower inflation ... while reducing the burdens facing working-class and middle-class families."  So, according to Biden and Senate Democrats, who apparently live in a fantasy world, when the federal government increases taxes and spending, we are supposed to believe that inflation will be reduced.  Back in the real world, where one plus one still equals two, recessions are defined by two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth, and indisputable laws like gravity and supply and demand reign supreme, the Inflation Reduction Act would actually increase inflation.

The only inflation-fighter in Dems' new bill is the name.  Why have Democrats taken to calling everything what it's not?  The word games from "woman" to "recession" are bad enough, but Sens. Joe Manchin and Chuck Schumer now offer an "Inflation Reduction Act" that doesn't actually reduce inflation.  Oh, if it works out as they claim, the Penn-Wharton Budget Model indicates it might do a little inflation-reducing in a decade, but would actually goose it a bit first.  The White House's favorite experts, Moody Analytics, read the bill as lowering the Consumer Price Index by a third of a percentage point — by 2031.  That really shouldn't surprise, since this wasn't remotely written to combat inflation.  It's simply another cut-down version of the Build Back Better package, which President Biden put on the table early in 2020, when no one in Washington was looking for ways to fight soaring prices.

Rigging the War on Fossil Fuels.  [Scroll down]  In September 2020, a Gallup poll likewise found that climate change ranked eleventh in a list of registered voters' top concerns — well behind such items as the economy, terrorism/national security, the COVID-19 pandemic, health care, education, race relations, gun policy, crime, abortion, and immigration.  Notwithstanding the public's consistent and overwhelming lack of concern about climate change as an urgent problem, the main concern of the Biden administration and the entire agenda of the Democrat Party has been, and continues to be, driven by this issue.  In the words of President Joe Biden, "climate change poses an existential threat" — in fact, the chief existential threat to the United States — greater than terrorism, or Chinese expansionism, or the invasion by 2,400,000 unvetted illegal migrants annually across America's broken southern border.  So obsessive is the focus of Democrat leaders on the alleged "existential threat of climate change," that a centerpiece of their policies to oppose it is a war on fossil fuels, beginning with the cancelling of the Keystone pipeline, the shutting down of the ANWR oil field in Alaska, and the refusal for more than 17 months to sell oil-and-gas drilling leases on federal lands.

'Build Back Better' Bill Would Fund 86,000 Additional IRS Agents To Sic On American Taxpayers.  If you think that Democrats' tax-and-spending bill wouldn't expand government, have I got news for you.  Believe it or not, the Build Back Better legislation would more than double the size of the IRS.  That's one of the hidden details in the agreement that Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., cut with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., behind closed doors.  And of course, Democrats want to ram it through Congress within a matter of days.  As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., once said about another big-government scheme, "we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it."  The draft bill contains an $80 billion "investment" in the Internal Revenue Service.  Of that amount, more than half, or over $45.6 billion, will go towards enforcement activities.  Even as it doles out such vast sums for the IRS, the bill contains only a few short pages of text explaining the provisions.  In other words, the IRS will have a relatively wide berth to spend the new funding as it likes.

Virginia AG Sues Biden for Pushing Transgender Ideology on Children.  Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares is accusing the Biden administration of using children to win more votes at the ballot box.  Miyares filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration's Department of Agriculture, which is threatening to take away funding for school lunches if schools refuse to adhere to the left's radical transgender agenda.  "They're essentially saying, 'We are requiring you to have biological males in women's sports, we are requiring you to allow biological males to use women's bathrooms, female bathrooms, and if you don't, we're going to withhold nutrition assistance for needy children,'" Miyares said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.

Pay Attention To The Dutch Farmer Protests Because America Is Next.  Why is the Netherlands, of all places, experiencing such unrest?  Americans need to understand what's happening over there because the ruinous climate policies that triggered these protests are precisely what President Joe Biden and the Democrats have in mind for the United States.  Specifically, Dutch farmers are protesting a government plan to cut fertilizer use and reduce livestock numbers so drastically that it will force many farms out of business.  Earlier this month, farmers used tractors and trucks to block highways and entrances to food distribution centers across the country, saying their livelihood and way of life are being targeted by the government. [...] The goal is to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide and ammonia, which are produced by livestock but which the government is labeling "pollutants," by 50 percent nationwide by the year 2030.  The only way to do that, many Dutch farmers say, is to slaughter the vast majority of their livestock and shutter their farms.  The government knows this and admitted as much earlier this year, saying in a statement, "The honest message ... is that not all farmers can continue their business," and that farmers have three options:  "Becoming more sustainable, relocating or ending their business."

Canada's Trudeau Declares War on Fertilizer, Following the Footsteps of Sri Lanka.  Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau ignored cries of anger and desperation from farmers and provincial officials last weekend by pressing ahead with a climate change agenda that will dramatically reduce Canada's use of fertilizer — the same ruinous strategy that drove Dutch farmers into revolt and destroyed the agriculture of Sri Lanka.  The Toronto Sun reported on a dismaying Friday meeting of federal and provincial ministers, in which the latter could not convince the Trudeau administration to show any "flexibility" in its emissions targets, not even with a global food crisis on the horizon.

Canada Joins The Netherlands In Declaring Climate-Crazed War On Farmers.  In his latest bid to amass greater control of Canadian society, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to move forward with his government's plan to reduce nitrogen emissions by limiting fertilizer use among Canadian farmers.  The revelation came following a Friday meeting between Trudeau and Canadian provincial ministers, where the prime minister unexpectedly announced his decision to cap fertilizer emissions by unilaterally targeting the country's agricultural sector. [...] As referenced in the press release, the targets set by the federal government include a bid "to reduce absolute levels of [greenhouse gas] emissions arising from fertilizer application by 30% below 2020 levels by 2030," which the Trudeau administration previously announced in December 2020.  While Trudeau has not publicly released specific mandates, the provincial governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan are blasting the prime minister for advancing the policy.  "We're really concerned with this arbitrary goal," said Saskatchewan Minister of Agriculture David Marit.  "The Trudeau government has apparently moved on from their attack on the oil and gas industry and set their sights on Saskatchewan farmers."

What Biden's 'climate change emergency' is REALLY about.  Glenn Beck reveals how climate academics and activists have been gaming this out for years.  They know exactly what they are going to do once Biden pulls the trigger.  So many scary options become available once a national emergency is declared.  [Video clip]

How Long Until Democrats Storm the Capitol?  Are Democrats trying to incite an insurrection?  The party's rhetoric on the "existential threat" of so-called climate change has grown increasingly radical and vitriolic of late, its policy solutions alarmingly anti-democratic in nature.  Given the way some Democratic politicians have implicitly endorsed subversive tactics to enact their controversial agenda, one can't help but wonder why outraged liberal voters aren't storming the U.S. Capitol building at this very moment.  "This is our last chance to prevent the most catastrophic — and costly — effects of climate change," Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) told the New York Times earlier this month.  "We can't come back in another decade and forestall hundreds of billions — if not trillions — in economic damage and undo the inevitable human toll ... failure really is not an option here."

The Editor says...
[#1] There is no reason to believe any assertion that "we only have ten years left" to fix global warming, when many similar predictions have failed over the last 50 years.  The weather cannot be altered by legislation and taxes.  Global warming — or cooling — is gonna happen whether we like it or not.  And nobody will ever notice any warming or cooling, because it will be so gradual.  Summer will be hot and winter will be cold, and the best defense against the weather is lots of electricity, which can be produced by the combustion of hydrocarbons.  [#2] Any assertions about "trillions in economic damage" are highly speculative.

How To Erode the World's Greatest Military.  A year ago, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley were assuring the country not to worry over Joe Biden's strange ideas of abruptly pulling out all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. [...] The shame of defeat and the cloud of incompetence from Afghanistan has continued to harm recruitment efforts of the military.  About a year ago Austin and Chairman Milley took time out from assuring Americans that all would be well in Kabul, to testify before Congress about the Pentagon's effort to address "white rage" in the six-month aftermath of the January 6 riot.  Both were also asked to explain why the armed services were recommending soldiers read inter alia the often-discredited "antiracist" theories of Ibram X. Kendi.  His polarizing doctrine asserts that the entire U.S. system of government, all social and political life, and our very culture are racist to core.  As a result, Kendi's solution requires radical and overt racial preferencing and discrimination supposedly to fight such an insidious system.

Socialism Is a Deal with the Devil.  America was founded on the principles of capitalism.  But there are those who think communism is the solution for every problem, from bad weather to old Joe's dementia.  In their book, In Their Own Words, Terry Turchie and Donagh Bracken document that organizations such as the Weather Underground, the Black Panther Party, Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and The Democratic Socialists of American have been agitating for communism for decades.  We've even got one senator who spent his honeymoon in the Soviet Union and a whole squad of congresswomen who openly support it now.  They don't use the word "communism" very often, but their manifestos and stated goals are 100 percent aligned with that ideology.  Instead, they use seductive terms like "social justice," "guaranteed income," and "equality."

The Left Should Be Happy with Biden.  [Scroll down]  Strangely, leftists do not grasp that Biden's current record and unpopularity are due not just to his unmistakable cognitive decline.  The problem is not just his often-toxic personality, or his creepy habits of trying to shake the hands of invisible people or violating the private space of younger women.  Instead, the Biden Administration has become an utter failure because voters detest its agendas.  They recoil at $5-a-gallon gas.  They feel their lives are being destroyed by 9.1 percent annual inflation and supply chain shortages.  The public is tired of near record annual increases in murders and other violent crime.  They are sickened by the tsunami of dangerous drugs pouring across the border and unvetted millions of foreign nationals entering their country without their permission.  They are irate that the Biden cabinet never responds to these disasters.  Instead, the administration denies the crises even exist.  Or it blames its own self-created messes on the Russians, or Trump, or their own Democratic senators who balked at printing more trillions of dollars.

Democrats Are Now Begging Biden To Act Like A Dictator.  Democrats are using the latest heat wave to push Biden to declare a climate "emergency" so he can bypass the legislative branch.  Biden is reportedly considering doing just that.  The left is freaking out because Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., won't sign onto a bill that includes carbon emission mandates at a time when gasoline prices are way up, inflation is rampant, and the economy is almost certainly in a recession.  Plus, the Supreme Court just tossed an attempt by the EPA to control the nation's power grid in the name of fighting "climate change."  On Monday, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, told reporters "There is probably nothing more important for our nation and our world than for the United States to drive a bold, energetic transition in its energy economy from fossil fuels to renewable energy."  Merkley said time is of the essence because it's not clear when Democrats will be able to pass a climate bill.

Biden fixates on nonexistent 'climate crisis' while ignoring actual problems.  On July 20, President Biden gathered with his climate change super friends at Brayton Point Power Station in Somerset, Massachusetts to relay this message to the American people:  "As President, I have a responsibility to act with urgency and resolve when our nation faces clear and present danger.  And that's what climate change is about.  It is literally, not figuratively, a clear and present danger."  To emphasize just how dire the "climate crisis" has become, Biden added, "The health of our citizens and our communities is literally at stake."  Of course, Biden offered no evidence or data to support these outrageous claims of imminent doom.  Instead, he relied on fearmongering and less-than-truthful statements to incite a sense of panic among the American people.

Dem Sen. Heinrich: 'We're Going to Solve Inflation with a Climate Bill' and 'Every Bill' Should Deal with Climate.  On Wednesday's broadcast of NBC's "MTP Now," Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) argued that Democrats should say that "we're going to solve inflation with a climate bill" and that in Congress, "we need to be doing climate all of the time now" and that "every bill we do, whether it's an appropriations bill or whether it's a policy bill," should have climate provisions because "we've reached a point where our climate is truly at a tipping point.  We're losing this battle and losing control of the weather."  Heinrich stated, "[I]t really is our addiction to fossil fuels that is driving the out-of-control frustration and inflation that our constituents are feeling."

The Editor says...
Take it easy, Senator Heinrich.  You're not "losing control of the weather."  You've never had control of the weather.  Turn off your television and look around.  There is no extraordinary climate change.  Global warming has stopped, all by itself.  It's hot outside because we're in the middle of summer.  Where's the emergency?  Also, where are the masses of constituents whose number one concern is global warming?  What do the Democrats intend to do, to stop the weather from changing?  Their only solutions are new taxes and more government bureaucracy.

Democrats hope Biden uses the climate to take over and destroy the economy.  If there was one lesson the Democrats learned from 2020 forward, it was that, if the government convinces voters there's an emergency, the voters will let the government get away with murder.  That's why there is a huge push from the left for Biden to declare a "climate emergency" and, under that rubric, end fossil fuels in America on an accelerated timeline.  If Biden were to do this — and to get away with doing it — America is over.  Kaput.  The great experiment will have ended.

Biden Pledges Increases in OSHA Workplace Inspections as Part of Climate Change Compliance System.  Joe Biden has pledged to increase his use of executive power in order to deconstruct the U.S. energy system and recreate a Green New Deal energy economy using windmills and solar power to generate electricity.  Today, Biden kicked-off the first round of executive orders.  [Tweet]  The first round of executive orders is essentially payments to low income Americans for the increased costs of Biden's new energy programs.

Biden Blasts Republicans for Failing to Recognize Climate 'Emergency,' Vows to Use Executive Action.  President Joe Biden called climate change an "emergency" during a Wednesday speech and vowed to use executive powers to bypass Congress, days after Senator Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) dealt a death blow to his sweeping legislative agenda.  "Since Congress is not acting as it should, and these guys here are, but we're not getting any Republican votes, this is an emergency," Biden said from the podium in Somerset, Mass., apparently gesturing at Democrats around him.  The president stopped short of issuing a national climate emergency, but said he would use executive powers to address the issue.  "As president I'll use my executive powers to combat climate crisis in the absence of Congressional action," Biden added.

The Editor says...
There is no climate emergency.  There is no climate crisis.  Long-range weather forecasts are impossible.  Changing the weather through legislation is also impossible.

Brick by Brick, Courts Build a Roadblock Against Biden's Administrative State.  As the Biden administration reels from a string of recent legal defeats, political analysts hail the U.S. Supreme Court's latest ruling, West Virginia v. EPA, as but one component of a new, broad-based approach that the courts are taking to halt a century-long effort by progressives to empower the administrative state and rule Americans by bureaucratic decree.  Dating back to President Woodrow Wilson 100 years ago, progressive presidents, including Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, have worked to transfer law-making authority from Congress to their executive agencies.  Wilson, the father of modern-day progressives, believed the Constitution, with its separation of powers, was an outdated document and that professional bureaucrats were superior at decision-making, compared to the time-consuming and compromise-ridden process of passing laws through elected representatives.  Wilson wrote in the 1887 article "The Study of Administration" that "the many, the people, who are sovereign [under the Constitution] have no single ear which one can approach, and are selfish, ignorant, timid, stubborn or foolish."

Bye-bye, Biden.  Joe Biden has done more to drop-kick America back to the political, fiscal, and energy Stone Age than any president in memory.  Under Biden, our social and economic infrastructure has been all but decimated.  It is almost as if he has signed on to an America-last agenda.  For that matter, does he even know what his agenda is?  Or has he delegated his presidency to pre-Trump power brokers?  Worst of all, Joe Biden's policies regarding racial matters have reignited a previously placid racial state.  He is now exacerbating a simmering situation between white and black that hasn't been seen since the '60s.  While doing this, he has turned our once illustrious military into a race-based adversarial social experiment, pitting our fighting forces against one another instead of against our enemies abroad.  How can the American military defend our country against a vicious socialist, communist, or radical Islamic threat if our own fighting forces are pitted against each other by color?  This is treasonous because what he has not directly promoted, he has allowed.  If Biden does not remove himself, he should be removed for terminal gross incompetence.  The people who are actually running this administration need to be removed as well.

Biden holds off on climate emergency declaration.  President Joe Biden will travel to Massachusetts on Wednesday to promote new efforts to combat climate change, although he will not declare an emergency that would unlock federal resources to deal with the issue despite increasing pressure from climate activists and Democratic lawmakers.  The White House said Tuesday [7/19/2022] it has not ruled out issuing such a declaration later, which would allow the president to reroute funds to climate efforts without congressional approval.  On Wednesday, Biden will announce other new climate actions when he visits a former coal-fired power plant in Somerset, Massachusetts, which shuttered in 2017 but has since been reborn as an offshore wind power facility.

Trans Biden Official Wants To 'Empower' Kids To Get Sex Changes.  Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine said transgender youths need to be empowered to get "gender affirmation treatment" on MSNBC Monday [7/18/2022].  Levine, who is transgender, said transgender youths are threatened by mental health issues, bullying and political attacks, and that treatment of these youths should affirm their perceived gender identity and empower them to get sex change treatments.

The Left's Blackmailing of Biden has Unleashed National Chaos, Stagflation and Systemic Uncertainty.  In July of 2020 Biden signed on to a unity platform with Bernie Sanders that would seal his fate.  He could never deviate from it and he would have to agree to any and all further demands for fear of being not only exposed but abandoned by the American Marxists, which would end his life-long narcissistic ambition to be another Franklin Roosevelt.  Among the commitments made and kept in the unity platform:
  •   The repeal, by executive order, of all of Trump's border policies including the stoppage of the wall construction, the elimination of the "Remain in Mexico" policy, a moratorium of deportations, and an immigration reform package that includes amnesty and a path to citizenship.  In essence an open and uncontrolled border to allow millions to pour in illegally and enter the electorate.
  •   The elimination of fossil fuels by 2030.  Using executive orders:  to stop the construction of new pipelines, to curtail leases on public lands, to force financial institutions to stop investing in fossil fuel companies and to promote limitless government investment in so-called "renewable energy" and impractical electric vehicles.
  •   Unlimited spending on new and existing social programs, which included housing, infrastructure, welfare, as well as the left-wing's wish list of funding for left-wing non-government organizations and unions, the nationalization of K thru 12 education, the elimination of charter schools and private school vouchers, and higher taxes on business and the nebulously defined wealthy.

Judge rules Biden administration's LGBTQ directives [...] infringes on states' rights.  A judge in Tennessee has temporarily banned two federal agencies from enforcing directives issued by the Biden administration that extended protections for LGBTQ people in schools and workplaces, like allowing transgender people to use the bathroom of their choice.  US District Judge Charles Atchley Jr. on Friday ruled for 20 state attorneys general who sued last August claiming the Biden administration directives infringe on states' rights.  The ruling could prevent students from participating in sports based on their gender identity or requiring schools and businesses to provide bathrooms and showers to accommodate transgender people.  Atchley, appointed by President Donald Trump in 2020, agreed with the attorneys generals' argument and issued a temporary injunction preventing the agencies from applying that guidance on LGBTQ discrimination until the matter can be resolved by courts.

The war on fossil fuels is concluding — and the good guys are losing.  There are several entities that saw a benefit in declaring war on fossil fuel: the environmentalists who are so historically illiterate that they believe that a world without fossil fuels will be a bucolic paradise rather than a Hobbesian nightmare; the leftists who want to break the West to rebuild it as a socialist paradise; the Great Reset/New World Order crowd, which envisions happy, possession-free serfs; and the Chinese, who foresee a bloodless conquest of the West, which, believe me, will not be anybody's paradise.  While the winner among these groups isn't clear, the loser is coming into focus: ordinary people across the Western world.  The latest example comes from Germany.

There's a low-cost way for the oil companies to respond to anti-petro Biden.  I like fossil fuels.  I like that everything from coal to clean natural gas has raised most of humanity out of abject misery in my lifetime.  I like that parts of the world that seemed to have nothing to offer only had to look down to find a gift that has blessed us all.  I'm glad that some form of the dinosaurs continues to roam the earth if only as a part of the car I drive around.  And I'm glad that we can grow our food, cook our meals, drink clean water, heat our homes, have satisfying careers, and raise our children in relative comfort compared to my great-grandparents' generation.  Thank you, Oil Companies.  All of us depend every day on what you have done and continue to do.  It must be a staggering shock to be told — in the face of all evidence to the contrary — that your services will no longer be required in a few years.  Everyone knows it's a lie, but a hurtful one.  Especially coming from some of the most listened-to voices at the highest levels of our government.

Socialists Rising in L.A..  The Los Angeles chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America has emerged as the clear winner of the city's June 7 primary in the weeks since ballot counting began.  Five out of the nine candidates on the ballot for city office to earn the DSA's endorsement have either won outright (garnering more than 50 percent of the vote) or advanced to the general election with leads over their rivals.  The results reveal the expanding political might of L.A.'s socialist Left.  Los Angeles primaries usually see low turnout.  Well-organized groups with a solid ground game stand to do best.  This year, every registered voter was mailed a ballot, and 84 percent of ballots were cast by mail.  The city now permits ballot harvesting and unguarded drop boxes, and it doesn't check signatures.  The DSA took advantage of these rules, got boots on the ground, and reaped the rewards.

Never-learn Dems pushing a zombie Build Back Better to wreck our economy even more.  Despite even more crushing inflation news — 9.1%, a level not seen since 1981 — congressional Dems are again flogging their recipe for deeper disaster: a new version of Joe Biden's ill-fated 2021 "Build Back Better" bill.  Have they learned nothing?  More spending is the last thing we need.  Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va) was right to kill the first one, a mishmash of social outlays, green poppycock and tax hikes (plus giveaways to the wealthy).  The zombie-BBB Dems are moving to bring to the Senate floor is, allegedly, smaller than the original — the promised cost is "only" $1 trillion — with many specifics still up in the air.  But it's near-certain to include federal bucks for green boondoggles as well a tax hike on businesses.  A tax hike on businesses, as a recession looms and jobless claims rise.  What planet are these people living on?

The Left's obsession with transgenderism is barbaric.  How to explain the Democrat party's obsession with transgenderism, with shoving it down the throats of every American, from ages five and up?  It's inexplicable.  Does every registered Democrat support confusing small children with gender identity indoctrination?  That can't be true.  But school districts across the country are using books about all manner of sexual issues, including pornography, topics way beyond the grasp of small children.  And they are using those books without parents' knowledge.  When parents discover these books and object, they are threatened.  Grooming, a word that once applied to other cultures or the worst sadists, grooming young children for sex with adults, now applies to public schools in America with the full support of American Democrats in Congress.

The revolt against green tyranny has toppled its first government, as farmers' protests spread across Europe.  Green tyranny has finally provoked mass reactions, and the first government has fallen after imposing insane policies that wrecked the food supply for its people.  Both the president and the prime minister of Sri Lanka are resigning in the wake of massive mobs storming and occupying their residences, burning the PM's private house and refusing to leave the presidential palace until both men are out of office. [...] Sri Lanka foolishly signed on to the green initiative in farming, going organic and limiting the importation and use of chemical fertilizers.  Food production, including tea, a vital export earner of foreign exchange, collapsed, and now the government is broke, people are hungry. [...] Farmers in Holland, in open revolt against government plans to destroy their livelihoods by limiting nitrogen application for fertilizer, are tying up that country's roads and cities.  And the revolt is spreading to Germany, Italy, Spain, and Poland.

If They Lose, You Will Eat Bugs — Dutch Farmer Spokesperson Explains How EU Climate Change Goals Will Reduce Farm Production.  Despite the U.S. media not giving any time, attention or discussion to the rise of farmer protests in Europe, everyone should pay attention because the same climate change goals being enforced in the European Union are coming to North America.  The global food manipulators within the World Economic Forum have established the farming policy that aligns with their climate change goals.  As noted in [a] Sky News discussion this is the Great Reset.  It's not just Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte pushing the agenda, in 2020 Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave an identical outline, with an identical timeline, for the exact same process.  The collective WEF political leaders are all singing from the same hymnal.

Yeah, "GOP Leadership."  That's a good one.
When Will GOP Leadership Come Out and Say It?  Biden is a Traitor.  He Must be Impeached, Then Indicted for Treason.  No one is even bothering to hide it.  Biden is clearly a suicide bomber, owned by the Chinese Communist Party and the Mexican Drug Cartel, and put in place to destroy America, American exceptionalism, capitalism, and most importantly, the great American middle class.  I learned this plan at Columbia University, Class of '83, alongside my classmate Barack Obama (who was never actually seen in any class at Columbia[,] but that's a story for another day).  The plan we learned at Columbia was called "Cloward-Piven."  The goals of Cloward-Piven were about overwhelming the system, collapsing the US economy, destroying capitalism and turning America into a socialist/communist country.  It's happening right now — with Biden as the frontman and brain-dead puppet, and Obama as the real president, lurking in the shadows, pulling all the strings.  Except now Obama has updated Cloward-Piven to include open borders and massive inflation to bankrupt the middle class.

The Great Regression.  A word of caution is needed about the pretentious and supposedly benign signature title of the Great Reset project.  Assume the worst when the adjective "great" appears in connection with envisioned fundamental, government-driven, or global political changes.  What was similar between Lyndon Johnson's massively expensive but failed "Great Society" and Mao's genocidal "Great Leap Forward" was the idea of a top-down, centrally planned schema, cooked up by elites without any firsthand knowledge, or even worry, how it would affect the middle classes and poor.  So often, the adjective "great" is a code word of supposed enlightened planners for radical attempts at reconstruction of a society that must be either misled or forced to accept a complete overhaul. [...] The same linguistic suspicions hold true of the use of the noun "Reset."  It assumes a year-zero arrogance that all that came before was flawed.  And all that will follow, we are assured, will not be so defective.

President Biden and His Admiral Have Boarded a Sinking Ship.  Admiral (not a Navy admiral) "Rachel" Levine is a so-called transgender woman, a pediatrician, and now a U.S. asst. secretary for health.  Levine has joined President Biden and many others in the LGBT campaign to promote "gender-affirming care" for youths.  "There is no argument among medical professionals — pediatricians, pediatric endocrinologists, adolescent medicine physicians, adolescent psychiatrists, psychologists, etc. — about the value and the importance of gender-affirming care[.]"  Levine's "no argument" assertions are hogwash for many obvious reasons. [...] In the same vein, President Biden has climbed on board with the admiral by announcing his social transition proposal that K-12 schools must allow males who claim to be females to access female private spaces, such as showers, bathrooms, and sleeping areas.  In addition, schools must require staff to use false and confusing pronouns when referring to so-called transgender people and must allow male staff to dress as women while on the job.  Specifically claiming reliance upon reasoning of the Supreme Court in the Bostock Title VII employment case, Biden proposes to accomplish his goals by applying Title IX prohibitions of sex discrimination in education also to sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination.

Where Science Ends and Morality Begins.  Under the Biden administration, we are getting a foretaste of a green future.  The high costs of gasoline, heating oil, and electricity; the consequent high prices of everything else; the food shortages; and economic recessions will all be permanent features of a green America.  Tried flying lately?  Consider the phase-out of air travel to be already underway.  Supply chain problems causing empty shelves at the store?  Not to worry; when "buy local" is your only choice, you won't have to worry about supply chains.  Don't like arbitrary government mandates?  Don't like what the COVID lockdowns did to your constitutional rights?  Don't like seeing the rule of law abandoned before your eyes — from our open southern border to the homes of our Supreme Court justices?  Consider all this your introduction to socialist governance.

Democrats' Anti-Democratic Delusions Require Population Control.  Population control — whether seen as the strict limiting of a population's growth or as the strict regulation of a population's freedom — touches every hot-button political issue of today.  Will taxpayers be forced to fund abortion?  Will female athletes be forced to compete against men?  Will citizens be forced to take experimental vaccines?  Will Americans be forced to pay soaring gas prices until they either become too impoverished to own a personal vehicle or reluctantly choose to invest $60,000 in a new electric automobile dependent upon an aging electrical grid powered by natural gas and coal?

Senate Democrats Pushing $500 Billion Climate, Obamacare Package.  Senate Democrats want to pass a $500 billion package that would include major reforms to health care, climate change, and taxes, according to a report.  NBC News reported that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), who was primarily responsible for tanking the Build Back Better Act, continues to hold talks with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on a reconciliation package that would spend $500 billion and raise $1 trillion in revenue.  The package would primarily focus on health care, energy, and taxes.  One source told NBC News that the "ceiling" for climate change funding would be capped at $300 billion, making it a significant fixture of the package.

The LGBT Hostile Work Environment.  On May 31, 2022, President Biden delivered to the American people "A Proclamation on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, And Intersex Pride Month 2022."  A presidential proclamation is a directive that grants to the chief executive of the United States certain powers of mandatory ceremony and observance.  The power of presidential proclamations is especially operative in enforcing mandatory observances in the federal military and civilian workplaces, as those are the domains over which the president holds direct constitutional authority. [...] Biden rages:  "An onslaught of dangerous anti-LGBTQI+ legislation has been introduced and passed in States across the country, targeting transgender children and their parents, and interfering with their access to health care.  The unconscionable attacks have left countless LGBTQI+ families in fear and pain."  The unconscionable attackers whom Biden's proclamation vilifies are otherwise known as the American people.  He is outraged at the diversity of viewpoint about the needs of children, and he attacks the American people in the strongest terms for resisting sexuality indoctrination of children.

Democrats don't want anyone to succeed.  The number one projection you hear from Democrats today is how Republicans are extremists who threaten democracy and individual rights.  But if one takes a close look at Republicans and the Right, their positions have remained consistent over the years — promoting small government, lower taxes, and individual responsibility.  It's the Democrats who have become the extremists by calling for bigger and more government every election cycle, more spending and more regulation.  And now calls for censorship by the Left continue to grow.  It's the stuff of socialism that's morphing into a kind of soft communism, which would explain the Democrats' affinity for all things China.  The final proof is the fact that the Biden presidency is really the Sanders/AOC presidency that totally controls the agenda primarily in the form of the Green New Deal.  It is nothing but big government socialism disguised as planetary salvation.

Biden Is Going Green, Even if It Kills Us.  Hubris can get us all killed.  The Biden administration's determination to make its climate agenda a central factor in U.S. foreign policy could be the greatest threat to human survival in our times.  This leap into the climate-change rabbit hole has distracted the White House from the old-fashioned — but painfully present — task of making sure Americans are not devastated by a major war.  By stirring partisan politics and dubious science into their recipe for national security, this administration risks getting the single most important responsibility of the federal government horribly wrong.  For starters, their climate agenda lacks legitimacy.  Declaring that it is validated by "settled" science neither settles the science nor validates their agenda.

Despite Record Gas Prices, Biden Rejects New Drilling in Atlantic and Pacific.  Joe Biden has proven once again that he has no interest in reducing the record-high costs of gasoline, which have gone up throughout his time in office.  Biden not only wants to block all new oil drilling in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, but he's also taking steps to shut down exploration of oil and gas on federal lands.  "A plan released Friday shows the White House proposed no more than 10 potential lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico, an option for one potential lease sale in the northern portion of the Cook Inlet of Alaska, and no lease sales for the Atlantic or Pacific planning areas over the 2023-2028 period," reports Breitbart.  This plan is not finalized, however, but any potential areas of exploration or sale not mentioned in the proposal will reportedly be off-limits from 2023-2028.

Biden administration unveils oil and gas drilling plans, gutting Trump-era framework.  The Biden administration published its long-awaited five-year offshore oil and gas leasing plan Friday one day after missing its June deadline.  The Department of the Interior (DOI) plan included the possibility of the federal government holding up to 11 lease sales off the coast of Alaska and in the Gulf of Mexico over the five-year period between 2023-2028.  However, the plan also put forward the option of the federal government holding no lease sales in that same time period.  "From Day One, President Biden and I have made clear our commitment to transition to a clean energy economy," Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement. [...] The plan didn't include any potential sales in the Atlantic or Pacific, effectively blocking drilling off the east and west coasts.  In the first version of the DOI plan, the Trump administration sought to hold a total of 47 sales across the Atlantic, Pacific, Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska's coasts.

New York Moves to Nullify Supreme Court Decision Upholding Gun Rights.  Writing for the majority in Bruen, Justice Clarence Thomas struck down New York's century-old requirement that an applicant for a handgun carry permit demonstrate a "special need" if he wanted to carry for self-defense.  New York's licensing process was entirely discretionary and arbitrary, and in many jurisdictions, licensing officers simply refused to issue permits for self-defense.  This was particularly true in New York City, where applicants were routinely and summarily rejected unless they were politically connected or celebrities — such as Howard Stern, Donald Trump, and Don Imus.  In other jurisdictions, licensing officers simply invented acceptable reasons on a whim, often issuing handgun licenses for "hunting and target shooting" only, if at all.  (In one rural upstate county, a former judge who had authority as a licensing officer invented a requirement that he would not allow any permit-holder to have more than five handguns without appearing before him personally and giving a "good reason.")  In Bruen, Justice Thomas ruled that these arbitrary restrictions were unconstitutional and violated the Second Amendment's guarantee to keep "and bear" arms for self-defense, ordering New York State and New York City to issue concealed carry permits to qualified applicants for that reason.

New York Democrats Ignore Supreme Court Ruling and Ban Guns Just About Everywhere.  New York Democrats in the state legislature were called into special session by Gov. Kathy Hochul in order to deal with an emergency situation.  The U.S. Supreme Court had thrown out New York's restrictive gun licensing law that made it nearly impossible for a citizen to carry a weapon for self-defense, and Democrats were experiencing near-apoplexy.  Their paradise was about to be invaded by a bunch of gun-toting, whiskey-swilling, cowboy-hat-wearing yahoos.  (That's their vision of anyone wanting a concealed carry permit, anyway).  They solved their problem by passing another gun law.

New York moves toward enshrining abortion, LGBTQ rights in state constitution.  New York is taking the first step toward enshrining abortion access and LGBTQ rights in the state's constitution following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.  The Democrat-led Legislature began the process of passing an amendment Friday to expand the state's constitutional protections during a special session initially called by Gov. Hochul to strengthen the state's gun laws in response to a separate Supreme Court ruling.

The Cry-Baby Leftist Mind.  Modern progressives assume moral and intellectual authority.  Consequently, their supposedly superior ends naturally justify almost any means necessary to achieve them.  Among the elite, the Democrats' "blue-wall" states were once considered a testament to the wisdom of the Electoral College.  When that wall crumbled in 2016 to Donald Trump, the Electoral College suddenly was blasted as a relic of our anti-democratic founders.  The nine-person Supreme Court was once beloved.  On issues like abortion, school prayer, same-sex marriage, pornography, and Miranda rights, the Left cheered the Court as it made the law and ignored legislatures and presidents.

Delusional Democrats Advance 'Transgender Bill of Rights'.  A group of House Democrats made the politically questionable decision to advance a proposal they call the "Transgender Bill of Rights" on Tuesday.  Apparently, it's not enough that all signs point to them getting utterly crushed, destroyed, wrecked, and annihilated in the November midterms; these Democrats must want people to poke their party's smoldering corpse with sticks afterward. [...] Can these Democrats really be this willfully blind to the deep resentment Americans feel for being forced to "celebrate" a freaky, creepy delusional mental illness?  For example, recent polls have shown that U.S. voters overwhelmingly (61%) approve of Florida's Parental Rights in Education law and oppose "transgender" females competing against girls and women in athletics.

Five Things The GOP Must Do To Win In November And Stay In Power.  Among other unforced errors, Biden and the Democrats have destroyed our economy, irrevocably damaged our national security by opening our borders, and have thoroughly deprived millions of Americans of their basic rights in an alleged attempt to protect us in an unwinnable battle against a Chinese virus.  One need not look any further than the devastating surge we're currently seeing in gasoline prices for evidence of the Democrats' complete implosion, and it seems clear the results they're achieving were indeed intentional.  As a result, and coming as no surprise to anyone other than Democrats themselves, Americans are vocally rejecting the Democrats' socialist, climate alarmist, and racist agenda.  In virtually every demographic that is tracked — including a remarkable renunciation of their policies from Hispanics, traditionally one of the most loyally Democratic groups in the country — Americans are abandoning Democrats in droves.

It's more than just pain at the pump.  Despite the United States being energy independent when President Biden assumed office, we are now paying record prices for petroleum products that are contributing to near-record inflation once termed by his administration as only "transitory."  The mere fact that the President is now blaming Putin for the energy crisis and begging Saudi Arabia and Venezuela for gasoline illustrates his administration's extreme naiveite and disjointed energy and national security strategy.  Even if his administration desires to go "green," his means to achieve that goal is both foolhardy, disjointed, and dangerous to our national security.

Is the Green Agenda Being Forced Upon Us by Accident?  The Left hates oil and gas, beef (and chicken, and all meat), and coal [and concrete and air conditioning and DDT and nuclear power and CO2 and natural gas and styrofoam and plastic bags].  But millions of Americans don't believe the hysterical Leftist claims that these things are destroying the planet.  What to do about these folks?  A number of suspicious recent incidents suggest that some people have decided to take matters into their own hands and force compliance with the green agenda by leaving us no other choice.

How can we fix things if you don't get involved?  Joe Biden and his puppet masters want to destroy fossil fuel use in the name of an unproven theory called "man-made global climate change."  Not only do they refuse to admit their guilt for the current crisis, but they don't seem to understand the unintended consequences of their actions.  Or the backlash in future elections.  In order to solve a problem, one must first understand complicity.  There is no redemption if there is no admission of guilt, and then remorseful contrition.  Every problem has a solution, and every error can be rectified.  Redemption would be signaled by gas prices returning to Trump-era levels, including energy independence.  Since the party in power doesn't understand cause and effect, or the Democrats intentionally sabotaged a successful economy, redemption won't grace our nation until the culprits have all left Washington.  On both sides of the aisle.

Biden sneaking amnesty through for a million illegal border crossers.  Who says crime doesn't pay?  When you can cross the border illegally, and not only be allowed to stay here, collect big benefits, and actually be allowed to apply for citizenship as a reward for your lawbreaking, why wouldn't you come without papers instead of come the legal way?  You'd be a fool not to.  Applying legally and waiting years for entry at great personal expense with no adjacent benefits is a fool's errand, given the Biden administration's current policies.  That's the shocking reality revealed in a report from the Washington Examiner showing that the Biden administration is now .... ever so quietly ... dropping charges against tens of thousands of unvetted illegal border crossers and visa overstayers, leaving them with clean records and incredibly, the "right" to apply for green cards and U.S. citizenship.  If the current pace of that continues, at least a million are going to be effectively amnestied by 2024, the Examiner reports.

Biden declares war on nicotine while giving addicts crack pipes.  As Americans grapple with sky-high prices at the pump, the worst rate of inflation in more than four decades, increasing crime, a wide-open southern border, a surge in fentanyl deaths, a baby formula shortage, a looming food crisis, a plunging stock market, rolling brownouts, and many other pressing problems, the Biden administration has set its sights on waging war on nicotine.  This week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it "plans to develop a proposed product standard that would establish a maximum nicotine level to reduce the addictiveness of cigarettes and certain other combusted tobacco products" and that it has "issued marketing denial orders (MDOs) to JUUL Labs Inc. for all of their products currently marketed in the United States."  For those keeping track, these anti-nicotine measures follow the Biden administration's proposal to ban menthol cigarettes, which was announced by the FDA in April.

Biden Administration Moves to Expand Title IX to Eliminate Gender-Exclusive College Facilities, Sports Teams.  The Biden administration on Tuesday proposed changes to the federal civil-rights statute banning sex discrimination in federally funded education programs, including expanding protections to sexual orientation and gender identity.  One proposed change "would make clear that preventing any person from participating in an education program or activity consistent with their gender identity would subject them to more than de minimis harm on the basis of sex and therefore be prohibited, unless otherwise permitted by Title IX or the regulations."  If adopted, the rule change would bar universities any other federally funded institutions from maintaining men and women's sports and sex-segregated spaces like locker rooms and dormitories.

Now That Country's Problems are Solved, the Democrats Pass One of the Most Useless Bills in American History.  Now that America's problems are solved and there is no more rampant inflation, gas prices are at reasonable levels, the border is secure, and the economy is picking back up, House Democrats have decided to pass a thoroughly unnecessary bill for no other reason that optics.  It turns out women can become president, the bill states, as if we didn't already know from Geraldine Ferraro and Sarah Palin running as vice presidential candidates or the candidacy of the Trump-vanquished Hillary Clinton.  The Democrats also wanted to make sure that LGBTQIA+ people could become president, as if there were any doubt about their eligibility for the office.  "The House passed a bill on Tuesday that seeks to revise federal law and clarify that women and LGBTQ Americans can be president of the United States," the Hill reported.  "The legislation, dubbed the 21st Century President Act, passed by voice vote.  It also passed the House by voice vote in the last Congress."

Biden Celebrates His Green Policies that Will "Take Millions of Cars Off the Road".  Joe Biden on Wednesday delivered remarks on soaring gas prices from his fake White House set in the South Court Auditorium.  Biden repeated the same lies in his speech and blamed Vladimir Putin for high gas prices.  "Let's remember how we got here:  Putin invaded Ukraine," said Biden.  This is a lie.  Gas prices spiked before Putin invaded Ukraine.

Biden Admin Quietly Nukes Trump-Era 'Transparency' Initiative Tracking Settlements And Payouts To Left-Wing Activists.  President Joe Biden's Department of the Interior (DOI) has quietly rolled back a Trump-era "transparency and accountability" order creating a public litigation website so people can track details pertaining to lawsuits from outside interest groups that Republicans argue cost taxpayers unwieldy sums.  Interior Secretary Deb Haaland revoked the order, which was issued in September 2018, on Friday.  The order made details concerning settlements and consent decrees, as well as cash amounts paid to lawyers of private entities, accessible online.  The website was scrubbed following the Biden revocation order and sought to "alleviate" any concerns by the public that it may not have a voice in "policymaking."  It made the Office of the Solicitor and the Office of the Chief Information Officer "post" a "searchable list" of final decrees and settlements "that continue to govern departmental actions," according to the Trump order.

Congressman Troy Nehls To Introduce Bill To Rescind Biden's Executive Order Requiring All States To Offer Gender Transition Therapy To Minors.  This week Congressman Troy Nehls will introduce the "Stop Child Abuse Act," seeking to rescind the Executive order signed by President Biden on June 15, which prohibits individual state governments from banning the use of gender transition therapies in minor children and removes the states' right to govern independently.  Biden signed the Executive Order on Advancing Equality for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Individuals as part of his administration's plan to further the cause of the LGBTQI+ community in America.  According to the executive order, the administration seeks to "protect LGBTQI+ individuals' access to medically necessary care," including gender transition therapies such as hormones and surgical intervention for individuals suffering from gender dysphoria.

Biden's energy hypocrisy.  Joe Biden promised on the campaign trail in 2020 that he would "transition away from the oil industry," convert to 100 percent "clean" energy by 2035, and "end fossil fuels."  Shortly after taking office, he started to make good on this pledge by suspending all new gas and oil leases on federal property and ending the Keystone XL pipeline.  Now, faced with gas prices at a record high $5 per gallon and runaway inflation — aka the consequences of his own actions — Biden is looking for an off-ramp.

The Dem's Inflation-Fighting Plan Is A Cruel Joke.  "Today the Democratic House takes a strong step to bring down crucial kitchen table costs of the pump and grocery store and across the board."  That's the transcript of what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on the House floor before all but five of her fellow Democrats voted for the "Lower Food and Fuel Costs Act" last week.  Pelosi's garbled syntax aside, the only thing this bill would lower is the public's trust in anything Democrats say these days.  Despite its title, this bill would expand government but do nothing — repeat, nothing — to lower prices today, tomorrow, or any time in the future.

The Democrats vs.  Morality.  The list of debaucheries Democrats' champion is long.  They offer a dark, vulgar, inverted world:  Criminals are victims, and victims are disregarded.  Democrat-run cities teem with hoodlums and worse.  Cities are becoming illicit drug sanctuaries.  The homeless (mentally and emotionally disturbed, drug and/or alcohol addicted) roam streets like extras from the Walking Dead.  Abortion is no longer about being "legal, safe, and rare."  It's naked infanticide.  Institutional corruption appears endemic (the FBI, DoJ, and much of corporate America, for example).  Decades-old sexual permissiveness was the gateway to today's spreading sexual perversion. [...] Marxism, including its offshoots (fascism is one such), wherever tried, has led to ruin.  Traditional Russia was destroyed by communists.  Lenin and Stalin killed millions, smashed faith and family, relentlessly terrorized populaces, and bequeathed to generations of Russians a gutted society.  Recovery will be long coming, if ever.

Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor to Host Webinar on the 'Power of Trans Inclusion' in the Workforce.  The Women's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor is set to hold a webinar titled "Equity in the Workplace — The Power of Trans Inclusion in the Workforce," where attendees will hear from leftwing activists.  The Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor, which is hosting the event, was created "to safeguard the interests of working women; to advocate for their equality and economic security for themselves and their families; and to promote quality work environments."

The Editor says...
Encouraging the acceptance of transvestites in the workplace does not "promote quality work environments."

The Biden Administration's Push to Normalize Drug Use Will Result in More Deaths.  We have been covering several stories related to the escalation of drug deaths across the country, namely due to fentanyl (now the leading cause of death for young Americans).  In a normal world, there would be a push to stem the recreational use of powerful narcotics.  However, the Biden administration and progressives across the country are pressing to normalize drug use.  For example, we reported that Biden's Health and Human Services department provided $30 million in funding to dole out crack pipes to drug addicts as part of its 'Harm Reduction Plan.'  In the same piece, we noted that Biden's Department of Justice says it might be open to allowing safe injection sites, which are places where people can shoot up heroin and other narcotics.

Why Biden's Attacks On Energy Are "Absolutely Insane".  Last month, Biden officials eased sanctions on Venezuela with an eye to increasing oil imports.  Next month, Biden will travel to Saudi Arabia with the intention of improving relations and increasing oil production. [...] But none of those actions will lower energy prices.  Increasing oil production in Venezuela would take years and it wouldn't be nearly enough to make up for the reduction of oil imports from Russia.  Even Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates together could not produce enough oil to offset declining supply from Russia.  And it's not clear how antagonizing American oil and gas companies will result in more production and lower prices.  U.S. refineries are already operating at 94% of their capacity and Exxon invested $50 billion over the last five years to expand oil production by 50%.

Joe Biden to sign order for LGBTQ+ inclusive schools, foster system.  President Biden will mark Pride Month Wednesday by mandating that federal agencies craft "inclusive" school policies and ensure that same-sex couples and transgender adults can foster children.  Biden will sign an executive order that includes various other gay and transgender rights initiatives at an afternoon White House event with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the first Senate-approved openly gay cabinet member.  Other provisions instruct the Federal Trade Commission to look into whether the phrase "conversion therapy" amounts to deceptive marketing and order the Department of Health and Human Services to draft a "Bill of Rights for LGBTQ+ Older Adults."  A Biden administration official told reporters that the president will use the signing event to condemn recent legislation in Republican-led states that restricts the teaching of sexual orientation and gender identity.  A Florida law restricts such topics in kindergarten through third grade.

Team of Fools:  Biden's Cabinet Picks Prove He is Unfit to Lead.  I have written extensively about Biden's shortcomings.  Nothing exceeds his capacity for choosing the wrong people. [...] Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, for example.  "Granholm's credentials for the job appear to be that she has swallowed Biden's climate agenda hook, line, and sinker, and especially his affection for electric vehicles," says Liz Peek.  "It certainly wasn't her deep understanding of U.S. energy markets.  She apparently knows nothing about U.S. oil production or how world energy markets work." She believes that climate is the nation's number one challenge.

American Individualism Is Being Extinguished By The New Elite.  [Scroll down]  One doesn't have to look too deeply to see the manifestations of this puppet society.  From carbon copy propaganda outlets masquerading as news agencies to outrageous bureaucratic efforts to snuff out the rights and autonomy of the individual.  The aristocracy that we fought long and hard to be rid of is back with an unholy vengeance.  The new aristocrats demand a renewed acceptance of their superior station along with a vastly diminished standard of living for the average person.  Their war on the middle class and the Bill of Rights is so thoroughly immoral that it's difficult for most people to believe it's happening.  Their arsenal includes endless crises, wars, pandemics, social unrest, and fraud.  The very air we breathe is their greatest weapon.  They frighten people into believing that it will not sustain a livable environment for even ten more years if we can't learn to live without meat, heat, freedom, and autonomy.  They then renew the threat every decade with a slightly different tenor and tone.

Biden Senior Climate and Energy Policy Advisor Demands Social Media Companies Immediately Block Content Identifying Biden Policy as Source of Energy Inflation.  As things in society start to collapse; and as people begin to really feel the inflationary consequences of the Biden energy policy in action; suddenly all of those 'talking points' about shutting down the fossil fuel industry take on a new meaning.  People didn't realize the Green New Deal was going to mean $10/doz eggs, $15/gal milk, $20 happy meals at McDonalds, or $150/tank of gasoline.  Now they are paying attention.  For former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy, the current senior climate and energy policy advisor within the White House, all of these 'in your face' surfacing Green New Deal consequences have become problematic for the Biden administration.  Her proposed solution, however, is rather remarkable.  In this interview discussing the skyrocketing inflation and consequences created by the Green New Deal policies, Gina McCarthy urgently begs all of the social media companies to start removing the content from American people who are giving real world examples of the pain and economic hardship they are feeling.  McCarthy says that if social media do not start to help Joe Biden hide the pain, the climate change agenda might be at risk.  [Video clip]

The Green New Deal crashes into the rocks.  What a surprise!  Carbon-based energy is much more important than we were led to believe.  A slight reduction in domestic resource development has sent seismic shock waves throughout our economy.  Bottom line:  Folks are often willing to go along with calls for sacrifice... unless and until they are made to really suffer. [...] The obvious question is:  how will this all play out?  The corrupt news media will likely go even farther in its over-the-top hysterical portrayal of ordinary weather events, trends, and hiccups.  As in [Michael] Crichton's novel, [State of Fear,] what used to be a typical seasonal phenomenon — hurricanes — are now being portrayed as cataclysmic events, even though the last 140 years have seen no significant trend up or down in frequency.  And yet, the EPA claims the opposite, even though most of its sources show stability instead.  That's what you get when you rely on corrupt government scientists.

Is Biden Purposely Raising Gas Prices to Fuel His Green Agenda?  The national gas average hit a new record of $5.00 a gallon this week, and it doesn't look like prices are going to fall anytime soon.  Americans are frustrated with President Joe Biden's lies about the economy, and many believe he is at fault for their wallets shrinking.  A new poll conducted by the Trafalgar Group found that over 53 percent of people "believe the Biden administration is intentionally letting gas prices rise to make Americans use less fossil fuels."  While 56 percent of voters agreed that the high fuel prices is Biden's fault.  Gas prices have nearly doubled since Biden took office just over a year ago when the national average price was just $2.39.

Your Pain at the Pump Is Biden's Plan.  June 9, 2022 — a day that will live in infamy.  That's the day that the national average for gasoline officially broke $5.00 a gallon.  And, yes, Joe Biden did that!  Gas prices have more than doubled since Biden took office, and they have been breaking new records day after day after day.  Some California gas stations are approaching $10 a gallon.  Sadly, your pain at the pump is only going to get worse.  But here's what you must understand and what you must help your friends and family members to understand:  Your pain at the pump isn't an accident.  It's all part of Joe Biden's plan.  High energy prices are the predictable, desired, and deliberate result of the Democrat jihad against the American energy industry.  They are an essential element of their "climate change" agenda.

Biden's WHO Takeover.  The Biden administration's bid to surrender American control over public health emergencies in the United States to the World Health Organization fell short at the UN's 75th World Health Assembly in Geneva last month, but there is no reason to believe Biden won't try again.  This drive is part of our illegitimate placeholder president's effort to undo all the good things that former President Donald Trump accomplished.  Trump slashed U.S. funding of WHO and served notice the country would pull out of the Communist Chinese-influenced agency, but Joe Biden aims to super-charge WHO's authority in world affairs by amending an international pandemic treaty known as the International Health Regulations (IHR) 2005.  Of course, WHO is a bureaucratic monstrosity, a purveyor of leftist horror propaganda that, like its parent, the United Nations, should not exist.

The Subordinate Citizen.  The Biden administration blasted the Trump southern border wall and canceled all further funding.  Yet it just appropriated $40 billion to Ukraine to ensure that it does not lose its border war against Russian aggression.  That is a tiny percentage of the federal budget.  But the aid is full of symbolic irony, nonetheless.  The multibillion-dollar appropriation would have more than covered the completion of the entire wall along our own southern border.  An outside observer might conclude that the U.S. government intends to uphold the universal idea of national sovereignty, internationally recognized borders, and the security of citizens inside their own country — as long as they are not American citizens.

How Democrats and dark money are plotting to blow up the Supreme Court.  After Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election to Donald Trump, Brian Fallon needed a job.  Fallon had served as Clinton's national press secretary during the campaign, and before that he had done the same job for my colleague Chuck Schumer in the Senate.  For a while, his reputation around Washington, DC, was stellar.  He was, according to a lengthy profile in the Daily Beast, "one of the most sought-after operatives in Democratic politics: a brass-knuckle brawler with experience at the highest levels of government, a cellphone filled with the top journalists in town, and a reputation for being preternaturally on message." But something changed in Fallon after Clinton's loss to Donald Trump.  He became less interested in traditional politics, giving up a role as a commentator on CNN, and more interested in ways of putting pressure on Democrats to take radical action.  By 2018, two years into President Trump's first term, Fallon and his friends in Democratic politics had seen some of their party's core ideas repudiated time and time again at the ballot box.  They had lost the game of electoral politics.  So, they figured, they would change the rules of the game to give themselves a better chance of winning.

Bernie Sanders Thinks Democrats Need to Spend Trillions More or Lose the Midterms.  There's a blessed consistency to the solutions radical left-wing Democrats have offered for America's problems.  As far back as the 1960s, liberal Democrats have been agitating for the government to "spend more money."  In the '60s, it was spending six zeroes more for the government's schemes.  But that just won't do for today's government Gargantua.  Today we must speak in terms of nine zeroes to solve any problem created when the government was spending only six zeroes.  Senator Bernie Sanders remembers when he was agitating for the government to spend billions of dollars on the welfare state in the 1960s.  There were warnings from mainstream economists back then too — that such massive spending would lead to inflation.  Of course, it did.  The creation of the welfare state in the '60s — and the monopolistic practices of the OPEC oil cartel — led to the last "Great Inflation" of the late 1970s and early 1980s.  It was a no-brainer then and it's a no-brainer now.

The Biden administration's feckless diesel policy.  Ordinary Americans are feeling the pain from high gas prices but the real problem is skyrocketing diesel prices and, helped along by looming shortages.  Nevertheless, the Biden administration is doing nothing to solve the problem.  How can Biden and his buddies on the left not realize that America runs on diesel fuel in the over-the-road trucks that deliver our food, pharmaceuticals, building supplies, and even the gasoline and diesel delivered to filling stations?  The short answer is that they do realize the harm that they are doing to the economy but they do not care.  Perhaps thanks to Hunter Biden's business plans, Joe Biden plans to force Chinese solar panel power on Americans, whether they want it — or can afford it — or not.  There's no room in that plan for addressing the high fuel costs that the "great unwashed" are enduring.  Biden and his administration may avert their eyes but, when the price of diesel fuel soars, trucking and material supply companies will pass those rising costs directly to consumers in the form of rising food prices.

What would it take for the White House to commit treason?  A number of prior actions by the Biden administration directly harmed rather than helped the U.S.  These injurious executive decisions include suppression of domestic oil and natural gas production (note current gas prices); opening the southern border to a massive wave of illegal immigration, deadly drugs, and human-trafficking; fabricating a COVID scam that destroyed public trust in Washington; mandates that nullified the Bill of Rights; printing trillions of fiat dollars; abrogation of rule of law causing the current crime wave; and promotion of anti-white racism CRT (Critical Race Theory).  While all these actions hurt the American people and are frankly anti-American, they do not satisfy the definition of treason:  "betraying one's country, especially by attempting to kill the sovereign or overthrow the government."  But what the White House is currently planning behind closed doors may be a different story.

Biden Continues Obama's 'Fundamental Transformation' of America.  [Scroll down]  Obama's gaslighting strategy has become the Democrats' overall approach.  We're told that we don't actually see what we see.  Or if we do see it, it's not their fault.  Or if it is their fault, it's for our own good.  On every issue — job creation, gas prices, inflation, immigration, crime, foreign policy — Democrats aren't telling us what can't happen; they're telling us what they won't let happen.

Just Stop It!  Donald Trump left us with production elasticity and as net exporters of energy.  Biden deliberately blew it up because the administration fully supports the big lie that is the Climate Change/Green agenda.  The Climate Change movement has nothing to do with saving the environment and has everything to do with the collapse of our economy and the rise of globalist domination once America is neutered.  Greens, to that end, use misguided and disproven arguments that fossil fuel use must be immediately curtailed to save the planet.  Greens do not care if people starve or freeze, even though they have no workable replacement for our total energy needs.  Greens block all nuclear power options, which would be a clean solution, further demonstrating that their goal is economic collapse and not climate.  Biden cut, and now refuses to expand, US energy production, yet he is trying to convince the Saudis to pump more oil to alleviate the crisis he created.

If Biden Intended To Destroy America, What Would He Be Doing Differently?  [Scroll down]  He set off a 40-decade-high inflation spiral with his $2 trillion "rescue" plan.  He exacerbated supply-chain problems by paying people not to work.  He threw open the borders to millions of illegal immigrants.  He needlessly kept COVID mandates and restrictions in place.  He worsened shortages of baby formula and spiking gasoline prices.  He encouraged foreign adversaries with his disastrous Afghanistan retreat.  In every instance, Biden has said he and his top officials were "caught off guard."  In other words, his is pleading incompetence.  The public has picked up on this, which is why most Americans now believe that "incompetent" is the word that best describes this president.  But incompetence doesn't do Biden justice.  In every case, Biden knew, or should have known, what would happen if he pushed his policies.  Yet he did so anyway.  On inflation, even liberal economists were warning that Biden's reckless $2 trillion "rescue" plan — which he signed after the economy had already roared back to life — would set off a '70s-style inflationary spiral.

The dystopian state of our nation.  The illegitimate Biden administration is the worst thing that has ever happened to the United States.  He, his handlers, and his mind-numbingly incompetent Cabinet appointees have brought this country to its lowest point in modern history, domestically and internationally.  We are suffering a massive third-world invasion on our southern border.  The Russian incursion into Ukraine was incited by Biden and his cronies, the ones who get rich on war.  We were energy independent under Trump, but Biden put a stop to that on day one and so must go begging to Saudi Arabia and Venezuela for oil.  Meanwhile, the price of gasoline for Americans has doubled.  The Democrats are thrilled.  They have wanted this for a decade.  The new press secretary-reader thinks that because gas prices are high in other nations, we should be happy; we've caught up with the rest of the world.  But the greenies in this administration could not care less about the environment.  They are interested only in power and control over us all.  The "climate crisis" is as big a hoax as Russian collusion.  Like the "pandemic" and all its unconstitutional restrictions, it's all about power, control, and greed.

Biden Accelerating Obama's Push for a 'Woke' Military, Undermining Combat Readiness, Analysts Say.  As the U.S. military rolls out its new Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT), which imposes different physical standards and requirements for men and women, longtime defense analysts and observers say that the military's push for diversity and inclusion — a trend that accelerated under President Barack Obama and that the Biden administration aggressively carries forward — undermines combat training and readiness.  "The Biden administration has assigned priority to diversity, inclusion, and equity as the primary criteria.  That is a key decision and from it flows everything else that is problematic" in the military today, said Elaine Donnelly, founder and president of the Center for Military Readiness, a public policy organization in Livonia, Michigan.  Donnelly views the Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan 2021 released by the United States Special Operations Command (SOCOM) as providing a good measure of the new priorities.  The plan's "Strategic Objective 2" is "Educate USSOCOM professionals and leaders to help facilitate and sustain a diverse and inclusive culture."  Another of its goals is to "Increase hiring rates of diverse applicants."

Progressive America is the Twilight Zone.  Real Clear Politics' average for "Direction of Country" polls is currently an eye-popping wrong track, 70.7%, while right direction stands at a paltry 22.4%.  Other than D.C. lifers, welfare moochers, and people wanting their college debt loans erased, who are these 22%?  And who, this side of lobotomies, is the smaller percentage of "not sure?"  America's accelerating tumbling is the handiwork of a corrupt, ideologically driven, incompetent — dare say, venal — elite.  Don't doubt that most of the incompetence stems from an irreparably flawed leftist worldview and age-old, mind-twisting power- and money-lust.  A calamitous, destructive, painful descent is happening before our eyes.

Biden Administration Declare[s] National Emergency for Clean Energy Production.  Earlier today [6/6/2022], Joe Biden, working toward the agenda of Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Wall Street multinationals, and the radical climate change activists within the far left of the socialist democrat party, declared a national emergency around the issue of U.S. energy prices and policies.  On the front side of the justification, the people in control of the Biden administration, claim that current and future increases in energy prices are likely to do severe damage to the economy and the lives of all Americans.  However, in the background of the issue, this is the 'never let a crisis go to waste' phase of an energy crisis the administration has intentionally created.  The real goal is to fundamentally transform the foundation of the U.S. economy away from fossil fuels and into a new era of clean renewable energy.  This is what all of the Biden cabinet officers now refer to as the "economic transition" phase.

National Socialist Media:  It's Only A Coincidence We Want To Confiscate Guns Like The Nazis.  We're not supposed to notice that the collectivist actions of one nation's socialist party just happen to mimic the actions of other nation's socialist parties or one particular National Socialist German Workers' Party, that's just a coincidence, don't pay any attention to that.  Have you ever noticed that our esteemed national socialist media spends an inordinate amount of time attacking anyone who dares to compare their collectivist actions to other collectivists?  Have you also noticed that you can be sure a socialist nation has failed when our nation's socialist media suddenly decides that it was somehow, someway 'right-wing'?  Their severe difficulty in always trying to push these lies is that all of these socialist nations have certain characteristics in common that simply don't exist with countries imbued in the pro-freedom right.  The most glaring example is the parallels with the government of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, with gun control.

Of course it's intentional, but Biden is only doing what he's told.
GOP sharpens a new attack line:  What Biden is doing to America is 'intentional'.  Rep. Jim Jordan is never one to mince words.  So when asked why President Joe Biden was willing to risk children losing their federally subsidized school lunches just to force schools to adopt new LGBTQ-plus agendas, the Ohio Republican gave a razor sharp answer.  "It makes no sense," Jordan told Just the News during an interview Friday on the John Solomon Reports podcast.  "That tells you this is intentional."  After more than a year of attacking Biden as a commander in chief who is bumbling, incompetent, prone to foot-in-mouth, rambling until he is lost, and mentally challenged, Republicans have changed tack as they head into crucial midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.  Now, the most unpopular features of the current American scene — high gas and food prices, transgender mandates and the open border among them — are relentlessly painted as part of the president's and Democrats' deliberate policies.

This country doesn't need solar panels.  It needs petroleum.  QmlkZW4gaXMgYW4gaWRpb3Qh
Biden will trigger DPA, waive tariffs for two years on solar panels to boost productions.  President Biden will invoke the Defense Production Act to spur domestic production of clean energy technology and order a two-year tariff exemption on solar panels imported from Southeast Asian countries in a bid to tackle rising energy prices.  The move will accelerate production of solar panel parts, building insulation, heat pumps that more efficiently regulate the climate in buildings and equipment for making fuel cells and other electricity-generated fuels.  Mr. Biden also will waive tariffs on solar panels imported from four Southeast Asian countries in a move to nudge Americans toward green alternatives amid rising energy prices.

Tucker Carlson:  Biden's Lunatic War Against Putin [is] Crushing The U.S. Economy.  Let's say just for the sake of a mind experiment, that you're the secretary of transportation for the United States of America.  That's a big job, but what would you do all day?  Well, [...] your first concern would be the price of diesel fuel.  Diesel fuel is what makes transportation possible in this country. [...] Your second concern, if you were transportation secretary, would be domestic air travel.  This is a huge country.  It's far too big a country not to have reliable commercial flights from one place to another. [...] So, that's what you would be worried about if you were the secretary — diesel and airlines — and yet, remarkably, in less than a year and a half under Joe Biden, both of these things, fuel costs and air travel have gone dramatically in the wrong direction.  The price of diesel is now hit its highest price ever recorded in history. [...] Wasn't it just the other day that the United States was energy independent?  Yes, but now we're begging dictatorships to sell us oil, but it won't be enough.  Industry officials are predicting shortages very soon.  [Video clip]

The Naked Truth about Energy Transitions.  Today's climate-mongers, led by ideologues such as Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Jennifer Granholm, Elizabeth Warren, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, to name a few, are so mindlessly shortsighted that they apparently can't think beyond the tips of their noses.  They demand we give up fossil fuels and replace them with renewable energy, and they want it right now!  [Disregard] the consequences to you, me, and our country during the transition.  They know that they'll all be dead in fifty years, so they're not willing to let change happen incrementally, plus they have only two and a half years left of Joe's presidency to complete their build-back-worse strategy, and if some of these ideologues are true to their stated belief, we will all be dead in the next nine years because of global warming.  Therefore, we absolutely must accept their scripture and change our sinning ways to save the planet.  All the more reason they push us toward presumed energy nirvana before our extinction occurs.  These people are not patient or logical, so they never think ahead to imagine what could go wrong if they succeed with their mission to rewire the world in their image.

Jim Jordan on Inflation: 'Part of Me Says This Is Intentional' by Biden WH.  Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) on Friday blasted President Joe Biden and his administration for having created the record-high inflation and gas prices across the United States.  Jordan told Fox Business Network's "Varney & Company" that he was not as surprised as Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said she was that inflation followed the "crazy" spending, paying people not to work and doing away with energy independence.  He suggested it was "intentional" by the White House.

Dem Rep. Mondaire Jones:  We Will Abolish The Filibuster, Expand The Supreme Court If Gun Control Is Not Passed.  Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY) said at a Thursday hearing on recent mass shootings that Congress would abolish the filibuster and expand the Supreme Court if the Democratic party's proposed gun control legislation does not pass.  "You will not stop us from advancing the Protecting Our Kids Act today," Jones said.  "You will not stop us from passing it in the House next week and you will not stop us there.  If the filibuster obstructs us, we will abolish it.  If the Supreme Court objects, we will expand it.  And we will not rest until we have taken weapons of war out of circulation in our communities.  Each and every day we will do whatever it takes to end gun violence, whatever it takes."  [Video clip]

Rhode Island Democrat, David Cicilline, [reveals what he thinks] About Constitutional Rights.  The Rhode Island representative refused to yield his time during the outburst, while discussing legislation related to "red flag" laws, that would allow the government and law enforcement to confiscate firearms from anyone deemed to be a danger to themselves or others.  Florida congressman Matt Gaetz attempted to insert an amendment to the legislation stating "Congress disfavors the enactment of laws that authorize a court to issue an extreme risk protection order, also known as Red Flag laws, in the States because such laws trample on an individual's due process and Second Amendment rights."  [Video clip]

Joe Biden Says Radical Gun Control Should Be 'Central' to Voting in November.  President Joe Biden unleashed another passionate call for gun control, using the bully pulpit of the White House to make his case.  "Nothing has been done," Biden said.  "This time that cannot be true.  This time we must actually do something."  The president spoke about his proposals during a prime-time address from the White House, surrounded by candles representing the victims of mass shootings.  "For so many of you at home, I want to be very clear, this is not about taking away anyone's guns," Biden said before announcing he wanted to ban all "assault weapons" including AK-47s and AR-15s as well as magazines holding 30 rounds.

JPMorgan Chase CEO Warns to Prepare for Economic Hurricane as Biden Administration Switches U.S. Economy to Green New Deal Agenda.  JPMorgan Chase & Co.  Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon warned of a "hurricane" as the economy struggles against fiscally induced growth, quantitative tightening and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.  Mr Dimon was delivering remarks at a conference sponsored by Alliance Bernstein Holdings Wednesday.  Higher oil prices, higher fuel prices, higher energy prices and much higher food prices are all looming over the horizon as the Biden administration switches the baseline for the U.S economy from oil and gas to the Green New Deal energy program.  Things are going to get worse, the question is, how much worse?

Our Economic Misery Isn't an Accident, It's the Plan.  Americans can't afford to buy a used car or even gas because the Left doesn't want them to drive.  They can't buy homes because the Left wants to destroy the suburbs and force everyone to live in megacities.  They have trouble buying meat because the Left wants them to eat soy.  The same is true for the whole exercise in planned economic misery that we're experiencing.  Take Hoover's "A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage" and reverse it.  That's the goal.  What we're living through is not an unintentional accident:  it's the American Holodomor.  The Left doesn't want you to be able to drive, buy a home, or enjoy a burger.

There Is No Plan.  On May 30, Biden published an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that explained "My Plan for Fighting Inflation." [...] Biden's Journal op-ed is a masterclass in passing the buck.  He doesn't bring up his "plan for fighting inflation" until midway through his thousand-word piece.  My inner college professor wanted to send the article back to him with suggestions for revision.  Number one:  Always move your best material to the top!  The plan itself is gauzy and thin.  "The Federal Reserve has a primary responsibility to control inflation."  You wouldn't know that from listening to Progressives, including some of Biden's nominees to the Federal Reserve, who argue that the Fed's interest in price stability distracts it from promoting full employment, green energy, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.  Now Biden wants the Fed to correct not only its mistakes, but his own.

Democrats' safety agenda demonizes gun owners, coddles criminals, and defunds police.  In order to understand what Democrats are doing to this country, one must first understand that their new push for gun control is just one element of a three-part agenda to reshape day-to-day life in the United States.  Facing a brutal midterm election this fall, they believe that the tragic shooting in Uvalde, Texas, is their opportunity to change the subject.  Their problem, however, is that they have already made it too difficult to discuss the gun control issue in isolation, the way they could back in the late 1990s.  That's because today's Democrats have gone so far to the left, embracing a radical anti-law enforcement and anti-incarceration agenda that has become too big a national news story to hide.  At this point, many voters feel unsafe in their communities and know that no number of new gun laws can fix the problem.

Democrat Mondaire Jones:  Abolish the Filibuster, Pack Supreme Court to Pass Gun Control.  Progressive Democrat Mondaire Jones (D-NY) said during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday that Democrats would go to extraordinary lengths to pass major gun control.  Jones spoke before the Judiciary Committee as House Democrats continue to consider gun control legislation.  During his impassioned speech, he said that Republicans cannot stop Democrats from passing said reform because Democrats would go to extreme lengths to pass gun control legislation.  This includes breaking the legislative filibuster and packing the Supreme Court.

Green Energy Chickens Coming Home to Roost.  This year will graphically demonstrate the malign consequences of the misguided efforts to replace cheap, reliable fossil fuel energy with unreliable, inefficient "renewable" energy like wind and solar.  Never in history has a civilization willfully embarked on destroying its material foundations, based solely on a hypothesis rather than scientifically established fact. [...] Here at home, warnings of electricity blackouts across the country this summer have not slowed down many states' increased efforts to shutter electrical plants powered by coal, natural gas, and nuclear fission.  In New York, Governor Kathy Holchul has announced the state's commitment to enforcing a requirement that new power plants must achieve "zero on-site greenhouse gas emissions for new construction no later than 2027."  This policy of wishful thinking follows New York's Climate Act of 2019, which requires that all power generation comes from "green" sources by 2040, including 70% from renewable energy by 2030.

Joe Biden Creates 'Office of Environmental Justice' for 'Communities of Color'.  President Joe Biden's administration announced Tuesday a new Office of Environmental Justice (OEJ) to preserve "communities of color" from zoning restrictions and pollution, among other objectives.  The OEJ will report to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and will sit within the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity at HHS, according to Xavier Becerra, secretary of HHS.  Biden created the Office of Climate Change and Health Equity in 2021 to stop the warming of the globe.

The Editor says...
Does Joe Biden believe he can stop global warming by setting up another layer of bureaucracy?

Dem Congressman Warns America:  We Will Stop at Nothing Until We Confiscate Your Guns.  Congressman Mondaire Jones (D-NY) warned law-abiding gun owners that Democrats will do everything in their power to ensure AR-15s and similar types of firearms are confiscated during a House Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday [6/2/2022].  The hearing was to consider H.R. 7910, the "Protecting Our Kids Act," which would raise the legal age to purchase "certain semiautomatic centerfire rifles or semiautomatic centerfire shotguns" from 18 to 21 with "exceptions."  The bill will also "modernize the prohibition on untraceable firearms [and] encourage the safe storage of firearms."

Joe Biden's Train-Wreck Economy.  [Scroll down]  The only thing we know today is that the pre-existing status quo is gone.  When Joe Biden and Brian Deese say they want to transition to an economy with more "stable and resilient" growth, they are describing their alternative to the prepandemic froth.  That vision has two goals.  The first is to use taxes and government-guided capital investments to compensate for the widening spread between the incomes of knowledge-economy workers and everyone else.  The other goal, of course, is their great white whale — a non-fossil-fuel economy.  Growth, they assume, will be slower in their economy but somehow steadier and more predictable.  Substance aside, the progressive economic model is on its way down the political drain.  Mr. Biden admitted as much in Tokyo when he remarked that passing his Build Back Better agenda would have lowered child and family-care costs and tempered the effects of inflation.  Of course, it's not happening.  Still, this grand progressive experiment — a final choice between the U.S. as a welfare state or a growth state — came within one Senate vote of reality.

Trudeau takes another major step towards totalitarianism.  Last week marked the conclusion of the annual conference of the World Economic Forum in Davos, an event with particular focus on the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.  These goals, collectively known as Agenda 2030, are a set of objectives designed to be a "shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future."  The Agenda includes seventeen Goals, like "No Poverty" and "Zero Hunger" — however, underneath the facade of humanitarianism is a malevolent truth:  Agenda 2030 is nothing more than an assault on national sovereignty and common people by the power-hungry global aristocracy.  As you may recall, Klaus Schwab, president of the Forum said, "The pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world."  Goal 16, Target 8 of the SDGs, is this:  "Broaden and strengthen the participation of developing countries in the institutions of global governance" — enter Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau.  According to Schwab, more than half of Justin Trudeau's Cabinet are members of the Forum.  Just yesterday, Trudeau announced his regime would be implementing a "national freeze" on gun ownership, ultimately capping the amount of legal guns within Canadian borders.

'In the crosshairs': Department of Navy releases climate change strategy.  The Department of the Navy this week released its strategy for how it will deal with climate change and proceed toward the government's goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.  "Climate change is one of the most destabilizing forces of our time, exacerbating other national security concerns and posing serious readiness challenges," Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said in the introduction to the 32-page report.  "Our naval and amphibious forces are in the crosshairs of the climate crisis and this strategy provides the framework to empower us to meaningfully reduce the threat of climate change."  Setting the department on a course to combat climate change is a main priority of Del Toro's tenure.  He called the issue "existential" for the Navy and Marine Corps.

The Editor says...
The climate is constantly changing, at an imperceptibly slow rate.  The changes do not threaten anyone, especially the military.  The pronouncement by the Navy Secretary is a power grab and a demand for a bigger budget.  If our armed forces can be defeated by bad weather, this country is finished.

Biden Plans To Cancel $10,000 In Student Debt Per Borrower Ahead Of Midterms.  As soon as this weekend, President Biden could announce a plan to cancel $10k in student debt per borrower, according to WaPo, citing three people with knowledge of the matter.  Biden could make the announcement at the University of Delaware's commencement ceremony on Saturday.  The plan would apply to Americans who earned less than $150k in the previous year or less than 300k for married couples filing jointly.  On April 6, the White House announced it would extend the pause of federal student loan repayments through August 31.  It wasn't clear if the administration would extend the moratorium beyond this.

Also posted under Politicians use handouts to buy votes.

Biden student-loan forgiveness plan: $20,000 for households earning $300K per year?  So much for Scranton Joe looking out for the working class, eh?  While Joe Biden crows about the "incredible transition" he's forcing lower- and middle-class households to endure with hyperinflation and record gas prices, Biden's about to offer Academia a bail-out.  College-loan recipients could get $10,000 taken off the top of their debt as long as they earn under $150,000 per year, and married couples with loans for both could see a $20,000 benefit as long as they earn under $300K.

Why Team Biden might be purposefully grinding down the middle class.  Inflation is running rampant.  The Producer Price Index, the most useful measure of general inflation, is up a whopping 16.3% from April 2021, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  That means that roughly $1 out of every $6 that people earn has been lost to inflation in a single year. [...] Inflation comes when you have too much money chasing too few goods.  The spending part provided the excess money, but the Biden team was right there helping to ensure fewer goods, too.  Gas prices going up?  Not only was Biden's spending program stimulating inflation, but at the same time Biden policies were reducing the amount of gasoline, diesel and heating oil those dollars could buy.  Biden went wild canceling pipelines, ending gas and oil leases, imposing stricter environmental rules and — in cooperation with big institutional investors — choking off the finances of people trying to produce new fuel supplies.

Democrats' Domestic Terrorism Bill Actually Goes After Political Opponents.  Democrats are calling for a crackdown on domestic terrorism, but Republicans say their colleagues want to pass legislation that endangers the privacy of all Americans.  Democrats' proposed legislation is "nothing more than empowering the federal government to police thought and speech in the United States of America," Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, says.  The House last week passed the bill, dubbed the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, days after a gunman in Buffalo, New York, shot and killed 10.  The bill is now before the Senate, which is expected to vote on it Thursday [5/26/2022].

The Sinister Roots of Build Back Better.  The foundation of the New Deal was found in the economic theory of John Maynard Keynes.  Keynes was a British economist who developed the theory of 'deficit spending' — the idea that the government going into debt would jump start the depressed economy which, then, would experience reinvigoration. [...] However, the Keynesian model has been weaponized under Build Back Better in a most sinister way.  The present shift is to make us more amenable to the globalist fantasies gaining popularity in recent decades to ensure a transition towards world governance and a cooperative world economy (rather than a competitive one) under the cloak of "meeting needs" and "sustainability."  These two concepts are key pillars in a document written and published by the United Nations called Agenda 2030.

Cruz: Dems Blocked My Legislation to Harden Schools, Keep Guns Away from Criminals from Getting 60 Votes.  On Wednesday's [5/25/2022] broadcast of the Fox News Channel's "Jesse Watters Primetime," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) stated that Democrats blocked legislation he proposed in 2013 to bolster school security and keep firearms out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill by keeping it from reaching the 60-vote threshold.  Cruz said, "In 2013, I introduced legislation that would spend $300 million on federal grants to harden schools to make them safer, to make them more protected.  The Democrats filibustered that legislation.  I've introduced legislation to say schools like this elementary school behind me can get federal grants to harden their security, to put in bulletproof doors, bulletproof glass, to put in armed police officers to protect kids."

Never Forget Democrats Want to Remove Cops from Schools.  The Democrat party can never be allowed to forget how hard it has worked to expel police officers from schools.  At the state and local level, Democrats have and continue to push and push and push to remove police and leave schoolchildren defenseless. [...] Here's what we know for a fact:  We know Evil is going to shoot up schools.  We know the corporate media will never stop incentivizing shooting up schools.  Thanks to our pro-school shooting media, every school shooter knows that shooting up a school will give him exactly what he wants: the power to shake up the country.  We know the only thing that will stop a maniac with a gun is a good guy with a gun.  We know all this, and yet Democrats still want to remove cops from schools.  So the question is why?  And the answer is simple.  There is no greater propaganda tool to push to disarm the American people than school shootings.  Police in schools stop and discourage school shootings.  If school shootings stop, Democrats lose their best propaganda tool.

Biden's Climate Czar Threatens Airlines That Resist The Green Agenda.  White House National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy hit airlines with a thinly-veiled threat Friday, warning of consequences if they don't follow strict climate regulations.  "Who would've thunk that [airlines would] be all in?" McCarthy, President Joe Biden's top climate adviser, remarked during a speech at Tufts University.  "But they better be or they're gonna be out of here."  The White House has pushed policies that would increase sustainable jet fuel by three billion gallons, reducing aviation emissions 20% by 2030.  McCarthy also said the Biden administration is doubling down on a wide variety of climate regulations, noting the myriad rules on appliances the White House plans to introduce this year.

The Elites Are Plotting Against Us In Plain View.  Yes, it's that time of year, and the Neo-Malthusian global elites are meeting in Davos, plotting in plain view, scheming to get us normals under their thumbs — and make it hurt.  Not kidding — they're talking a lot about pain.  Zhou let the cat out of the bag the other day, when he said that high gas prices were part of the "incredible transition".  Incredible transition?  Great Reset?  Sounds the same to me — and it is. [...] Climate change.  That's what caught my eye.  The whole point of the electoral coup against Trump was to seize the moment to jam the Green agenda, the Great Neo-Malthusian Reset, down our throats.  Problem is, they've screwed up so badly that they can see approaching doom, in spite of the rigging.

Biden Wants Taxpayers To Fund Massive Mining Projects — Just Not In The US.  While minerals, like copper, cobalt, nickel, graphite and zinc, are essential for green tech, China and other hostile nations dominate global mineral supply chains.  In 2021, the U.S. produced just 6% of the global copper supply, 0.4% of global cobalt supplies, 0.67% of the world's nickel, 0% of global graphite supply and about 5.7% of the world's zinc, according to federal data.  "The Biden Administration continues to put American union workers last and look anywhere else but domestically for minerals, the opposite of what Biden pledged to do before taking office," Minnesota Rep. Pete Stauber, the top Republican on the Natural Resources Energy and Mineral Subcommittee, told The Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement.  "This Administration is unserious about securing our domestic supply chains by cancelling the Twin Metals leases in my district in Minnesota and standing in the way of mining projects in places like Arizona and Alaska as well," he continued.

Federal money always comes with strings attached.
Biden Admin:  K-12 Schools Must Put Boys In Girls' Bathrooms To Get Federal Lunch Money.  K-12 schools must allow boys into girls' private areas to obtain federal funds for lunches, breakfasts, and snacks, the Biden administration announced this month.  A U.S. Department of Education spokesman told The Federalist the Biden administration's press releases from several agencies announcing this policy will be followed by formal rulemaking in June.  "It seems to be playing politics with feeding poor kids, which is really unfortunate," John Elcesser, executive director of the Indiana Non-Public Education Association, said via phone amid weeks of attempting to sort out these new demands with government officials on behalf of private schools in his state.  "Because if a school feels like they cannot participate because it's in conflict with their mission or values, if a religious exemption is not granted, you're taking away a program that's feeding low-income kids."

No Way Out but War.  The United States, as the near unanimous vote to provide nearly $40 billion in aid to Ukraine illustrates, is trapped in the death spiral of unchecked militarism.  No high speed trains.  No universal health care.  No viable Covid relief program.  No respite from 8.3 percent inflation. [...] No respite from gas prices that are projected to hit $6 a gallon.  The permanent war economy, implanted since the end of World War II, has destroyed the private economy, bankrupted the nation, and squandered trillions of dollars of taxpayer money.  The monopolization of capital by the military has driven the US debt to $30 trillion, $6 trillion more than the US GDP of $24 trillion.  Servicing this debt costs $300 billion a year.  We spent more on the military, $813 billion for fiscal year 2023, than the next nine countries, including China and Russia, combined.  We are paying a heavy social, political, and economic cost for our militarism.

Stark Raving Green.  2050: That's the deadline that President Joe Biden has set to decarbonize the U.S. power sector and supposedly save the planet from man-made climate catastrophe.  In issuing his December executive order prioritizing a "Clean Energy Economy," Eco-Joe pledged you, the American taxpayer, to spend billions in the next three decades to achieve net-zero carbon emissions "across federal operations" by mid-century.  Blue-state governors and some power companies hail the proposals as ground-breaking, according to the International Business Times.  However, Biden is facing hostility from Republicans and coal-producing states, who are challenging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the Supreme Court about whether the administration has authority to implement the scheme.  What few are talking about is how unfeasible the plans actually are.

It Sure Looks Like Joe Biden Is Trying to Purposely Destroy the Country.  The last several weeks in the United States have been a wild ride.  Everything that could go wrong, short of a full-blown apocalyptic situation, has gone wrong.  The stock market is currently in the midst of a collapse, with the Dow Jones losing nearly 5,000 points over the last 30 days.  Inflation clocked in at 8.3% for April, representing another crushing blow to Americans.  Of course, gas prices continue to break milestones on a daily basis. [...] If the Biden administration were actually purposely trying to destroy the country, what would they be doing differently?  That's a question everyone should ask themselves at this point.  At every turn, on every issue, the president and his team are moving to do exactly the opposite of what has to happen to help, and they are doing so with blatant arrogance.

The Editor says...
Aha!  I think I know what they're up to.  Joe Biden is creating a series of preventable crises.  Someday soon, the Democrats will throw out Mr. Biden on the basis of his obvious senility, and replace him with Kamala Harris, who is as dumb as a box of rocks.  The news media will celebrate the coronation of the First Female President for a couple of weeks, and then... TA-DAAA all the country's problems will get fixed, one by one:  The Mexican border will be sealed up, the oil companies will be given every possible incentive to produce, ship, import and sell gas as cheaply as possible, the money supply will be tightened, career criminals will be locked up for life, and baby formula will be flowing in the streets.  After a year of Reaganesque improvements — which is really just un-doing everything Biden did — Harris will be absolutely unbeatable in 2024.  You couldn't possibly vote against her with such a record of "achievements" unless you're some kind of racist.  And don't you dare question her citizenship, you truther!  Do you hate women, or something?  It's an enormous plot to make old white men look like the last people you should ever elect as president.  And, as Biden has proven, a Democrat president is just a figurehead anyway — the real power is behind the curtain — so it doesn't matter if the ostensible president is competent or not.  That's your cue, Michelle!

Councilwoman Kristin Richardson Jordan pushing for NYC 'drag laureate'.  A Harlem councilwoman is pushing legislation that would require city leaders overseeing museums and nightlife to appoint a laureate of the Big Apple's growing drag performance scene.  Democratic socialist Councilwoman Kristin Richardson Jordan introduced a bill Thursday that would require a "drag laureate" to be picked annually by the Commissioner for Cultural Affairs in consultation with the head of the Mayor's Office of Nightlife.  During Thursday's City Council meeting, Richardson Jordan said the drag laureate would serve as the city's "ambassador to LGBTQ nightlife."  "As a black queer woman, I know what it is to feel invisible," said Richardson Jordan, who has come under fire during her first year on the Council for bashing the NYPD as the city's "biggest gang" and blaming Ukraine — for being invaded by Russia.

Is The New Deal Unconstitutional?  Well, duh — the obvious answer is YES.  But that hasn't been a winning argument in the Supreme Court since 1935 unfortunately.  In the aftermath of the leaked Dobbs opinion, the left has been in a panic about what other "rights" the Supreme Court might take away, like the right to same sex marriage, inter-racial marriage, contraception, and watching European soccer in the middle of the night.

Pete Buttigieg says US backs new Marshall plan to rebuild Ukraine.  A leading figure in the Biden administration has backed a recovery programme for Ukraine in the style of the Marshall plan, which helped rebuild Europe after the second world war.  Pete Buttigieg, the US transportation secretary, said there was plenty of political will at home and internationally towards cooperating in long-term reconstruction efforts including to buttress existing infrastructure in Ukraine.

The Editor says...
[#1] The war's not over yet, Peetie.  [#2] Why is it up to the U.S. to rebuild Ukraine?

Fed Chair Jerome Powell:  We won't hesitate to raise rates to tame inflation.  The US central bank is in the midst of a "whatever it takes" moment when it comes to inflation, but if Fed officials had known how high inflation would rise, they would have changed their course on policy earlier, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said Tuesday.  "In hindsight, it would have been better to raise rates earlier," Powell said in an interview at the Wall Street Journal's Future of Everything event.  The central bank raised its benchmark interest rate by a half-percentage point earlier this month, following a smaller rate hike in March, in order to get a handle on the highest inflation in 40 years.

When it comes to energy production, the midterm elections matter.  The day before Joe Biden entered the Oval Office, America was a net energy exporter with a rapidly growing economy, despite the effects of the Democrat-demand lockdowns.  On his first day in the Oval Office, Biden immediately took steps to cut America's energy production and, by vetoing the Keystone Pipeline, its access to energy.  America instantly began an inflationary climb that accelerated with the War in Ukraine.  What a Senate Energy Committee hearing revealed is that the Biden administration is only just getting started.  If America is to survive, Biden's wings must be clipped and that can only be done with a veto-proof majority in Congress.

Biden invokes Defense Production Act to bring in the baby formula.  What could go wrong?  Joe Biden is suddenly serious.  He's taken control.  Instead of sending a spokeswoman to laugh off a question about who was "running point" on the baby formula crisis, or telling moms with hungry infants to ask their doctors for free samples, if not call their local community organizer, he's invoked the Defense Production Act to empower the federal government to take control of the baby formula shortages that have come as 50% of baby formula has disappeared from store shelves. [...] Biden created the crisis by allowing his FDA to hamfistedly shut down a major baby formula supplier over safety concerns after several infants got sick and one died after supposedly consuming Abbott's baby formula, a charge the company says was falsely attributed to its formula.  Biden hasn't proven otherwise, but the plant, which makes about a third of the formula consumed in the States, stays shut down.  The shortages that came of it were something the Bidenite FDA never considered.

The Editor says...
It's almost as if Joe Biden is creating a series of calamities in order to fix them all just before the next election.  Except he's not even that smart.  He's just creating calamities for the sake of destroying the U.S.

The Biden effect is real.  Over the past few weeks, Democrats seem to be having a revelatory experience, discovering that simply increasing demand through government spending doesn't work if there are limited products to buy.  The supply side of the capitalism equation is essential, and when government layers on excessive regulations, it holds back business and slows the production of goods.  The inability of the Biden administration to both create a constructive environment for producers and a dependable, efficient supply chain to get goods to market has produced the worst inflation in 40 years.  Without supply, all increased demand does is increase prices.  This administration needs to focus on fixing the supply side of the economy.  But instead, Biden tweeted Friday, "You want to bring down inflation?  Let's make sure the wealthiest corporations pay their fair share."  So, his solution to inflation is to increase taxes on businesses, who will then pass those costs on to consumers.  Sounds like a recipe for higher inflation.

Is Biden's 'Success' Our Mess?  If an administration deliberately wished to cause havoc on the border, to ensure fuel was nearly unaffordable, to create a crime wave, to spark 1970s hyperinflation, and to rekindle racial tensions, what would it have done differently than what Joe Biden has done?  So is Biden malicious, incompetent, or a wannabe left-wing ideologue?  When pressed about inflation and fuel price hikes, Biden either blames someone or something else, gets mad at the questioner, or claims Donald Trump did it.  His administration apparently believes things are going well and according to plan.  When polls disagree, his team either believes the American people are brainwashed or that they themselves have not supplied sufficient propaganda.  So they never pivot or compromise, but rededicate themselves to continued failure.  Why?  Apparently, what most in the country see as disasters, Biden envisions as success.

No help at our border, but Biden announces $5 billion going to bike paths, wider sidewalks.  In the world of Democrat delusion, they think $5 billion is necessary, at this point in time, to make bike paths and widen side walks.  You cannot make this up.  They have approved $40 billion in aide to Ukraine in a heartbeat under President Biden, while having rejected former President Trump's request for a mere $5 billion to secure our border.  The news also comes as fentanyl and the drug overdoses are the number one cause of death in the U.S. There's also an increase in human smuggling and extortion to pay to cross the border.  But no; let's make some bike paths and widen sidewalks.  That is an immediate emergency.

Liberalism and the Problem of Evil.  No one can speak of evil without mentioning its attraction to the Democrat Party, which is now the party of official racism in America.  Political evil is a contagion of psychological immaturity, self-delusion, and counterfeit justification, and its virus has spread throughout America's liberal ruling class.  Its influence has scoured our nation of its fundamental values, and leftists are intent on creating a state apparatus that facilitates the separation of children from their parents, criminals from justice, and citizens from the Bill of Rights.  This is a call to Marxist socialism that has no past and no possibility of a future.  This is evil come to do business with the Democrat Party, and it is evil on a national scale.  Civilization must protect the weakest, but leftist ideology targets and crushes those who are unable to resist the powerful forces of state coercion.  There is no civilization on the far side of Marxism.

Americans Send Biden a Resounding Message About His Policy on Gender Treatments for Minors.  The vast majority of American voters are against permanent "gender transition" treatments for minors, according to a new poll despite the Biden administration's endorsement of these procedures.  The poll, released Tuesday, found that 90% of respondents who had an opinion on the subject believed minors should not be allowed to undergo permanent "gender transition" procedures, in stark opposition to Biden's position.  The poll surveyed 1,000 likely voters from April 22-26 and was conducted by McLaughlin and Associates along with Summit Ministries.

As Baby Formula Shortage and Inflation Worsen, Democrats to Hold UFO Hearings.  America faces a series of worsening crises, including a major baby formula shortage, and growing economic and social unrest, and what are Democrats in Nancy Pelosi's House of Representatives doing?  They are pushing abortion bills and holding UFO hearings.  In a Fox News report last week, correspondent Chad Pergram noted that the priorities of the Democrats in Washington don't seem to be jibing with the needs of the American people.  Instead of concerning themselves with gas prices, inflation, and a baby formula shortage, Pergram reported, "Democrats are focused on abortion."

Senate Advances Bill to Give Ukraine $40 Billion in Aid During 40-Year High Inflation.  The Senate voted on Monday to advance legislation that would provide $40 billion in aid to Ukraine, while Americans continue to suffer from food shortages and reel from inflation.  The Senate voted to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed on H.R. 7691, the Ukraine Supplemental Aid Package.  The motion passed 81-11. This means that the Senate can begin debate on the Ukraine aid package.

Another COVID-19 Spending Bill Would Fuel More Inflationary Fire.  With the annualized inflation tax now around $8,500 per American household, the last thing we need is more fuel dumped on the inflationary fires.  Yet, that is exactly what President Joe Biden has asked Congress to do.  Congress is now considering a $48 billion corporate bailout disguised as COVID-19 spending that takes more of your money and gives it to Biden's chosen few.  This, of course, is on top of more than $6 trillion of taxpayer money that has been spent on COVID-19.  Of these funds alone, $40 billion (80% of the bill) would go just to backfill a single program from Biden's inflationary stimulus that gave out cash last year to businesses of the government's choosing.  However, who will backfill the bank accounts of the Americans robbed to finance this corporate giveaway?  Point of fact:  It is your money that they would be giving out.

Biden team's bright idea to get Venezuela to pump oil for us panned by senior diplomat.  A few weeks ago, the Joe Biden team, in response to Congress cutting off Russian oil imports, tried to get Venezuela to pump some oil for us.  The logic, of course, was to let bygones be bygones, and ignore the inconvenient little detail about Venezuela's oil company being full of drug dealers, which is among the things that got them sanctioned and cut off in the first place.  Why not have Venezuela replace Vladimir Putin for oil?  It sounded so logical, so easy.  Anything but pump our own.  Well, now the details of that caper are out and let's just say it isn't pretty.

The SEC climate change rule sidesteps Congress and voters.  The Securities and Exchange Commission's recently proposed rule is so complex and far-reaching it could reorient the entire U.S. financial system into one that prioritizes climate change over financial soundness.  The rule risks turning the SEC into a quasi-environmental agency in which climate "experts" have greater influence than financial regulators focused on preventing fraud and promoting fair returns to workers and retirees. [...] The proposed climate change disclosure rule is so complex that it runs 506 pages with 1,068 footnotes.  It would impose a $10.235 billion cost on society, putting further upward pressure on energy prices.  Rather than providing clarity to investors, it would require companies to report the unknowable and predict the impossible.

Chuck Schumer Is Hellbent On Destroying The Democratic Party.  The midterm elections in November will be decided by a lot of things, but abortion and the overturning of Roe v. Wade won't be among them.  The economy will be at the top of the list of voters' priorities in the fall.  Folks who have watched their 401K accounts evaporate and who are getting clobbered by inflation will be voting with their pocketbooks.  Many voters will consider the immigration crisis at the southern border when casting their votes, as well as the instability in Eastern Europe and President Joe Biden's incoherent foreign policy.

'Bread and Circuses' but without the bread.  Roman poet Juvenal purportedly said, "Give them bread and circuses and they will never revolt."  This phrase expressed the strategic blueprint of Roman officials, one which sustained civic approval through misdirection and diversion — attention was directed towards the pleasures of hedonism and entertainment rather than the neglectful government.  Sound familiar?  The presence of fast-food establishments, fully-stocked grocery stores, and microwaves, provide convenience to such a degree, few of us would be able to survive in the event of a total collapse of the supply chain.  We live in a world of perpetual distractions, from social media, to streaming services on the television, to a 24-hour news cycle of state-sponsored propaganda.  However, with Biden's usurpation of the executive branch, he and his accomplices are flipping the script.  Instead of pacifying the masses to maintain public support, Joe and company threw out half of Juvenal's equation — they forgot the food!

Gas lines, here we come:  Pelosi to push federal price caps on gasoline.  The 1970s came back so fast, I didn't even have time to buy some leisure suits.  Faced with massive inflation and an energy crisis, the obvious solution would be to incentivize more extraction and refining by lowering regulatory hurdles, a solution that eventually helped end the cyclical energy crisis 40 years ago.  Instead, Democrats have decided to act by canceling lease sales, erecting more regulatory hurdles, and attacking ... "price gouging."  Bloomberg Energy reporter Javier Blas reports that Nancy Pelosi will float a bill in the House that would give Joe Biden the authority to impose price controls on gasoline:  [Tweet]

The Leftwing Insurrection.  [Scroll down]  The real insurrection brewing in America isn't on the right despite the constant talk and promotion of this view.  It is meant to hide the reality.  It is from the left that the real insurrection is brewing and coming.  "Transformation" of the Supreme Court (destroying the Supreme Court).  "Transformation" of the Presidential election process (destroying the Electoral College).  "Transformation" of the First and Second Amendments (destroying the First and Second Amendments).  "Transformation" of the economy (destroying the market economy and replacing it with government control and cronyism).  The talk of "transformation" hides the insurrectionist mentality of the left.  The left wants to destroy and alter the organs and institutions of American government to suit their own tyrannical desires.  Patriotic conservatives, derided by Joe Biden as "ultra MAGA," seek the restoration of the promise of American self-governance and the autonomy of states and communities from the federal leviathan.  The left wants to implement its one-size fits all California politics across the entire country.

Biden's Climate Czar May Have Inadvertently Revealed Deep Dysfunction In The Administration.  Top White House climate adviser Gina McCarthy copied a CBS News reporter on an email chain Wednesday announcing the administration would cancel a series of oil and gas lease sales.  "The Cook inlet sale was canceled.  It is not proceeding," McCarthy wrote to other White House officials in an email, CBS reported.  Another official reportedly responded immediately saying that a decision hadn't been made yet.  Interior Department (DOI) officials then reiterated that sentiment to CBS, also saying the agency hadn't decided if it would move forward on the lease sales Wednesday evening.

Biden announces 20 internet companies will give 'free' high-speed broadband for almost 50 million low income families.  The Biden administration announced a plan to get high-speed internet to millions of Americans through subsidies and discounts agreed to by industry — putting work-from-home technology, plus educational and entertainment options into rural and low-income homes.  'High-speed internet service is no longer a luxury — it's a necessity,' the White House said in a fact sheet Monday [5/9/2022] announcing the program.  The funds come from the bipartisan infrastructure law that Biden is championing around the country.

The Editor says...
Low-speed internet service is good enough for email, high-school homework, and browsing the news.  High-speed internet is "a necessity" only if you watch a lot of movies and TV shows over the internet, or you constantly upload movies of your cat.

Congressional Democrats Say Biden Not Spending Enough on Ukraine.  The House of Representatives were concerned Joe Biden was not spending enough on the Ukraine laundry operation, so they took his $33 billion request and added another $7 billion making the Ukraine support package $40 billion.  Yes, you read that correctly:  'Unbelievable' is an understatement.  I mean seriously, does anyone in Washington DC even talk to their constituents any longer?  The DHS Customs and Border Patrol budget for our border security operations is approximately $4 billion, the Southern border is in crisis.  Meanwhile Biden and Pelosi send over $55 billion to Ukraine?

Biden Administration Sneaks Unlawful Immigration Benefits Into Ukraine Aid Request.  President Joe Biden recently sent an emergency supplemental funding request to Congress for $33 billion in aid to Ukraine.  However, the administration used the opportunity to sneak in unlawful immigration benefits for hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian, Afghan, and Russian immigrants — paid for by the American people and at the expense of lawful applicants who have been waiting years to properly immigrate to the U.S.  The emergency request includes $1.2 billion for the Department of Health and Human Services with a nod to the Department of Homeland Security's Uniting for Ukraine program.  This portion of the funding request includes robust and increased blanket immigration provisions for Ukrainians, Afghans, and Russians in the science, technology, engineering, and math — or STEM — fields.

Is the American Postmodern Left a Fascist Movement?  For my work in corporate social responsibility, I was recently reading The Great Transformation, Karl Polanyi's critique of capitalism, when something he wrote gave me one of those really uncomfortable "Aha" moments.  Polanyi was discussing the alternatives to capitalism — left socialism and right socialism (which we call "Fascism").  His point was that these two socialisms were created to undo the disruptions of capitalism which had privileged "money power" to degrade human sociality into atomic individualism driven by self-seeking greed.  When I read his observation that the Fascist phase of anti-capitalism brought about "Irrational philosophies, racialist aesthetics, anti-capitalist demagogy, heterodox currency views, criticism of the party system, widespread disparagement of the 'regime'," I thought "How odd, that sounds just like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the postmodern Left."

Disinformation Panels, Control over Social Media Content and Now DOJ Environmental Justice.  Barack Obama and Eric Holder did not create a weaponized DOJ and FBI; instead, what they did was take the preexisting system and retool it, so the weapons only targeted one side of the political continuum.  This point is where many people get confused.  Prior to 9/11/01 the greatest threat to government was considered to be from outside the U.S, vis-a-vis terrorism.  After 9/11/01 the greatest threat was redefined, Americans were now considered the threat, the enemy tracking radar was turned around to look inside America.  In the era shortly after 9/11, the DC national security apparatus was constructed to preserve continuity of government and simultaneously view all Americans as potential threats.  The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) were created specifically for this purpose.  DHS and ODNI were created because Americans were now the threat to government.  Stop.  Pause.  Think.  You are taking off your shoes at the airports because YOU are the threat.  You pass through body scanners because YOU are the threat.  Stop.  Pause.  Think.  How does that define your relationship with government?

Biden's gender-transition agenda is harming children.  "There is no argument among medical professionals — pediatricians, pediatric endocrinologists, adolescent medicine physicians, adolescent psychiatrists, psychologists, etc. — about the value and the importance of gender-affirming care," U.S. Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine told NPR recently.  This was Levine's way of saying that it is actually harmful not to gender-transition boys into being girls and vice versa, even though that often means permanent mutilation of a child's body and irreversible hormonal treatments.  With the assertion that there is "no argument," Levine is using a fallacy called "proof by assertion" — as if the forceful repetition of a controversial statement can make it true.  This is a concerted effort by the Biden administration and the gender-transition industry to quell a raging debate among medical professionals and researchers, many of whom strongly disagree.

Biden's climate advisor threatens airlines they better comply or 'they're gonna be outta here!'.  White House National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy openly threatened airlines in true "Godfather" fashion on Friday during a forum at Tufts University, warning that they will no longer exist if they don't follow President Joe Biden's Green New Deal-style rules.  "Who woulda thunk that [airlines would] be all in?" McCarthy remarked.  "But they better be or they're gonna be out of here."  The White House is promoting exceedingly unrealistic policies that claim to increase sustainable jet fuel by three billion gallons and reduce aviation emissions by 20 percent by 2030.  McCarthy boasted that the Biden administration will be issuing over 100 new rules this year to regulate appliances.

Student Loan Bailout Is [a] Handout to [the] Ruling Elite.  Democrats are calling for more redistribution of wealth — this time for the benefit of their Ivy League-educated elites.  The COVID-19 pandemic and continual government-imposed lockdowns upended our way of life.  Many Americans found themselves unemployed or in financial trouble.  Now, inflation is eating away at everyone's wealth, making us all poorer.  Large swaths of Americans are hurting, but whose needs are being prioritized?  Apparently, the Biden administration wants to prioritize what amounts to welfare for the upper class.

King Joe Can't Transfer Student-Loan Debt.  Transferring hundreds of billions of dollars of student-loan debt — as Joe Biden is reportedly considering — would be unjust, indiscriminate, and remarkably irresponsible.  It would force everyday Americans who didn't take out those loans to shoulder their burden in the form of higher taxes or increased national debt (which, inevitably, leads to higher taxes).  But none of this matters as much as the worst thing about such a potential action:  It would be a naked violation of our constitutional forms, a move more monarchical than republican.  Both the Constitution and the founders' writings make it clear that Congress has the power to make federal laws (subject to a presidential veto) and the power of the purse.  Biden has neither, and yet he wishes to exercise both in this instance.

Samantha Power Admits Biden Admin Using Russia-Ukraine War to Push Green Energy.  Samantha Power, the administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), admitted to the world that the administration is using Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine to push its green energy agenda.  [Tweets]

It's not debt forgiveness, it's debt transfer.  Laura Ingraham sparked intense outrage on the left (what's new) with her recent remarks criticizing President Biden's reported plans to push forward with his student loan debt "forgiveness" scheme.  Before we get to that, let's establish the obvious:  this isn't debt forgiveness, it's a debt transfer.  Since money can't be evaporated or erased, the existing debt — that is, money that has already been spent — will be paid by someone.  What the president is promising to do is to tell the people who took the loans that they don't have to fulfill their obligation to pay, while telling taxpayers they get to.

Congress Must Carefully Review Any Ukraine Spending Package.  President Joe Biden has requested a $33 billion supplemental spending package to provide additional aid to Ukraine.  These funds would follow the $13.6 billion appropriated in March as well as the $6.4 billion in security assistance provided since 2014.  This proposed level of funding is significant.  For context, $33 billion is about the same amount as the annual discretionary funding provided to the Department of Justice and is even greater than the funding for the Environmental Protection Agency plus the Department of Labor plus the Department of Commerce.  Compared to the $46.6 billion in Ukraine-related funding provided and requested this year, the entire fiscal year 2022 State and Foreign Operations Appropriations bill was $56.1 billion.  While the human impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine is moving, and further U.S. support for Ukraine to defend itself is warranted, it is vital that Congress carefully evaluate Biden's request and ensure that any legislation is responsibly crafted.

Biden's Loan Forgiveness Fraud.  His popularity flagging, President Joe Biden is using the oldest trick in the book to return voters to the Democrats' fold:  Don't earn their future votes, buy them.  And that's exactly what Biden is doing with his $1 trillion plan to "forgive" student loans.  Biden had already allowed students to "postpone" paying their loans during the pandemic "emergency," even those who have jobs and could make the payments.  So why now forgive the loans?  The truth is, one of the biggest recent declines in Biden's support comes among Americans of college age and slightly older, the very group most likely to have a pile of student loans.  What better, or more cynical, way to revive their flagging political support than to bribe them with a "free" education?

Biden is circling closer to a student loan forgiveness executive order.  Despite the lack of any definitive proof that the President has the authority to simply cancel student loan debt without congressional approval, Joe Biden is reportedly in talks to do precisely that and he claims a decision will be coming in a matter of weeks.  The progressive lobby in Congress has been pushing Biden to take such an action, but he supposedly isn't prepared to give them everything they want.  The target figure for progressives is $50,000 in debt relief for everyone.  Biden said he's not going that high and there are expected to be income caps associated with any proposed relief.  What the exact figures are remains to be seen.  But if it's anything close to what's being suggested in this report from National Review, there are definitely going to be a lot of questions among the public.

A Bridge Too Far, the Demise of the Democrats.  The progressive socialist left has gone not just one, but several bridges too far in just these past 16 months.  They have sought to advance along a singular avenue of approach into the heart of America and are now facing a strategic demise.  There can be no doubt that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris represent the most incompetent duo that this Nation has possibly ever seen.  Of course, to leftists, all is just well, but they cannot hide this facade for too much longer.  The left's decision to end our energy independence and force Americans to their economic knees to accept their Green New Deal fallacy is failing.  America was not too long ago a net exporter of energy resources.  Along those lines, the astronomical rise in inflation, a 40-year high, is curtailing economic independence for many Americans.  Realize that inflation and the rise in energy prices are hidden taxation on Americans.

Biden Sues Alabama, Claims Ban on Transgender Child Abuse Violates 14th Amendment.  The Fourteenth Amendment states that, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.  No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."  At no point in time does it state that states are not allowed to ban child abuse simply because a particular group tends to practice that abuse.  For example, states can be raping 7-year-olds even though Mohammed married a 7-year-old girl.  Biden and his hack running the DOJ disagree.  The DOJ has sued Alabama over Senate Bill (S.B.) 184 or the Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act.  The filing is filled with woke gibberish that makes lots of assertions without ever meeting a basic legal standard.

Ad Campaign Reminds Voters of Reality in Blue States Under Biden, Democrats.  Earlier this week, the State Government Leadership Foundation (SGLF) launched its six-figure "Tale of Two Americas" ad campaign to highlight the stunning contrast between how states run by Republican leaders and those run by Democrats fare when it comes to issues such as economic opportunity, academic achievement, and safety in their communities.  The 54-second ad contains buzzwords such as "freedom and fear."  The ad distinguishes how "Our country is a tale of two Americas.  One full of freedom.  The other full of fear.  We have opportunity or hardship.  Education or indoctrination.  Rule of law or lawlessness.  Strength or weakness."  The narrator goes on to point out "Liberal failures are hurting Americans.  Conservative ideas are moving us forward," and closes by asking "Which America do you want to live in?"

The Taxpayer Con of the Century.  Remember how Democrats sold their student loan takeover as a money-saver?  Now millions of borrowers can't or don't want to repay their loans, so President Biden says he may cancel their debt. [...] Federal student loans were established as part of the Great Society to help low-income students.  Yet step by step, Democrats have turned student loans into an entitlement for academia and the affluent.  Rather than make college free on the front end — which might have failed to pass Congress — they want to waive the costs at the back end.  As the loan limit increased over time — now $57,500 a year for independent undergrads and $31,000 for those dependent on their parents — colleges raised their prices to sop up more federal largesse.  It doesn't matter to the schools if their philosophy grads work as baristas.  In 2010 Democrats nationalized the student loan market, eliminating guarantee fees for private lenders and using the "savings" to pay for ObamaCare.

White House considers excluding high earners and those who studied professional degrees such as law and medicine from student-loan relief.  The White House is considering using income caps to exclude high earners, and those who took out loans for medicine and law degrees, from being eligible for student-loan relief.  Officials of the Biden administration are looking at limiting the relief to people earning less than $125,000 to $150,000 for individual filers, or $250,000 to $300,000 for couples filing joint taxes, according to a new report released Saturday by the Washington Post.  A source told the Post that there are different proposals being floated around about how to structure this, but no final decision has been made on the plans.

Democrats are suddenly embracing a congressional stock-trading ban.  There are a number of nervous Democrats in Congress that are searching for some sort of "win" to put up on the scoreboard before the midterm elections come washing over them.  With most of their big-ticket (and widely unpopular) agenda items bogged down, some are looking at a possible ban on stock market trading by members of both chambers as one piece of low-hanging fruit that they might be able to get into the books.  This is an issue that shows up in the news from time to time but never seems to garner much momentum in Congress.  The underlying questions are the obvious issues of the propriety of members making bets on the stock market involving companies that they themselves are charged with regulating, potentially impacting the value of those stocks.

Why Biden pursues politically suicidal policies.  The politically insane plan to divert resources away from the Veterans Administration to care for illegal immigrants is only the latest example of the unpopular policies that have driven Biden's approval ratings into the toilet.  But it's not insane if the end game is to "fundamentally transform" the country in such a way that it can't be reversed, and politics will no longer play the same role.
  •   Once geopolitical alliances and relationships have been altered as they're being since Obama's first term and now on steroids;
  •   Once 4 years of an open border with possible 6-10 million illegal immigrants flood in and alter demographics and domestic policy including drugs, crime, welfare, education, housing, and of course voting;
  •   Once you destroy every major institution from academia and the media to the Democrat party and executive branch departments like State, DHS, IRS, DOJ, etc., not to mention the military.
You can't just reverse it.  So perhaps the end game, after Obama (and his handlers) realized that 8 years of slow change was the wrong method, is 4 years on steroids while gutting every constitutional protection that's kept us the greatest civilization in the history of the world.

What if Joe Biden forgives all student loans?  Perhaps the Democrats in Washington are beginning to realize that even their base, particularly the old school Democrats, are turned off by the Democrats' focus on peripheral issues such as climate change, abortion, and transgenderism, while they ignore the record-high inflation that is rapidly draining voters' savings, the supply chain crisis, the influx of illegal immigrants, and numerous other Biden-made crises.  With only six months left until midterms, the Democrats realize that the only way to enthuse and appease their base is to implement some of the very radical items that have always been on their list.  One of their most important voting bases are young voters, who frequently carry significant student loans.  They've been calling for debt forgiveness, which, of course, will amount to a freebie.  Freebies are often used to bribe voters prior to elections with the hope that a record of misgovernance will be overlooked.

Biden's student debt cancellation plans:  Who benefits and who is burdened?  President Joe Biden's student debt cancellation plan could end up providing millions of people with relief from monthly payments and be a vote winner ahead of the midterm elections — but it could also offer benefits disproportionately to those who are better off.  Biden said Thursday that he wasn't considering canceling as much as $50,000 worth of debt per borrower — which would be a significant sum, well beyond what he campaigned on doing — although he said little else about the shape his student debt plan will take.  White House press secretary Jen Psaki similarly offered few details Thursday when pressed about Biden's forthcoming plan.

White House shrugs off student debt cancellation inflation concerns.  The White House downplayed concerns that President Joe Biden forgiving certain federal student loan debt will worsen inflation.  White House press secretary Jen Psaki declined to comment Thursday on modeling by nonprofit organizations, such as the Committee for a Responsible Budget, that Biden exercising executive power to cancel select student debt would exacerbate rising consumer prices, especially since the president had not presented any proposals yet.

The Editor says...
When does Joe Biden ever present a proposal of his own?  All he does is sign papers (and make speeches) that someone else has written.  Mr. Biden has one foot in a nursing home and barely knows what day it is.

Stagflation is staring Biden in the face — but he refuses to change course.  First we were told inflation was imaginary.  Then we were told it was "transitory," the result of COVID-inflicted supply-chain problems.  Then we were told it was Russian President Vladimir Putin's fault.  Now people are starting to admit the massive runaway spending of the Biden era has something to do with it.  But we're also facing stagflation, a mixture of inflation and slow growth, and the government also plays a role in turning inflation into stagflation.  As Milton Friedman famously warned, inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.  When the government pumps the economy up with excess dollars — something usually referred to as "printing money," though a too-literal USA Today fact-checker hastened to assure us that much of the money created isn't actually printed on paper — inflation results.  When you have more money in the system than goods, the price of goods goes up.  That's inflation, and it's what's happening now.

Exactly what Bernie Sanders would do:
Joe Biden unveils new plan to saddle Americans with $1.6 trillion in student loan debt.  Joe Biden is in trouble.  His Democrats are collapsing at the polls based on his disastrous first term and now midterms are around the corner.  What's a failed president to do?  Dole out the goodies, of course, some big ones in a desperate bid to win back younger leftist voters. [...] What could go wrong with that?  Well aside from the disgust that many Americans would feel at having scrimped and saved to pay off their own student debts as those who took on too much debt get off scot-free — the delayed home purchasing, the delayed vacation, the choice of a state school over a prestigious private one to avoid taking on too much debt, or the choice to take up a trade instead of a college education, there are also other problems with the entire process.  First, this one would probably bypass Congress.

Biden's open border:  One of the most successful voter drives in Democrats' history.  To fully understand how Democrats plan to turn America into a single-party state, take a look at two of their seemingly disparate actions shortly after President Biden's inauguration.  In Washington, Democrats immediately pushed legislation to fundamentally take over state-run elections to greatly loosen voter registration rules.  While GOP senators stalled the bill in January, Democrats have vowed to enact the unprecedented federalization, somehow, someday.  At the southern border, Mr. Biden has illegally opened the gates to just about anyone — be they drug and sex traffickers, or migrant job seekers, or sex offenders or other criminals.  The brutal Mexican drug cartels are getting richer.  Their Chinese-produced fentanyl is killing record numbers of Americans.  Official count of people illegally entering the U.S. is in the millions in 2021-22 and will go even higher the rest of Mr. Biden's term because he wants it to.  Take the two separately or together — federalized ballot counting and opened borders — and you've got yourself a successful Democratic voter drive.

The terrible unintended consequences of the Biden presidency (unless they were intended).  The Biden administration is consumed with wokery to the point that they value members of the LGBTQ++ "community" over all other Americans.  Biden was duty-bound by a promise to Jim Clyburn to select a black woman to the SCOTUS. He chose the most radical black woman he could find, a woman who said she was unable to define the word "woman" because she is not a biologist!  She has long made clear her sympathy for procurers and users of child pornography.  This would seem to line up with the left's agenda to sexualize, to groom, very young children.  The appointment of Ketanji Brown-Jackson does not bode well for the integrity of the Court nor does the DOJ's war on parents, AG Garland's "domestic terrorists," as if they have no right to be informed about what their children are being taught in school.  The criminalization of parents and the destruction of the nuclear family would seem to be fundamental to their goal.

Biden to ban traditional incandescent lightbulbs by 2023 in favor of LED alternatives that are $3 more expensive.  President Joe Biden is banning traditional incandescent lightbulbs in a push to be more energy efficient, but critics claim the switch to LED alternatives will prove costly for poorer Americans.  The Department of Energy (DOE) adopted two new rules Tuesday that strengthen energy efficiency standards for lightbulbs and will effectively phase out the sale of traditional bulbs by next year.  However, consumer analysts allege that not only are LED bulbs more expensive, costing nearly $4 each as opposed to $1 for an incandescent bulb, but are often not stocked in stores in lower-income communities.

Red tape:  The agencies pursuing major new rules for Biden's green agenda.  President Joe Biden promised the most ambitious green agenda ever, ending fossil fuels, pushing renewables, and forcing business to toe the line.  As Earth Day 2022 arrives, the Washington Examiner offers alternative coverage in light of record energy prices and widespread criticism of the administration's incoherent policy approach.  In one of his first acts in office, President Joe Biden signed an executive order for a "whole of government" approach to combating climate change, drawing in not just the Environmental Protection Agency but a host of federal entities.  Later, he signed a second order mandating that agencies address financial risks stemming from climate change,