Tag: coronavirus

So do you really trust the group that brought you the IRS? And, in a round-about way, Covid (part 2).

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Do you want to trust a government that demonstrably lies to you continually?

Experts recommend the shutdown of AI due to a lack of failsafe controls

The Daily Mail explains how Joe Biden really did know about the raid (in fact, he ordered it) at Mar-A-Lago.

A legal group run by former Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller is claiming that their independent probe found the Biden administration was involved in giving authorization for the FBI to raid Mar-a-Lago last year.

America First Legal says results of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request  found the bureau initially obtained access to Trump’s records through a ‘special access request’ from Biden’s White House.

‘I called it the morning of the Mar-a-Lago raid. Biden knew everything!!!’ Trump’s middle son Eric Trump tweeted in response to the new report.

The latest revelations from the conservative world contradict claims from the Biden administration that they found out about the August 8, 2022 raid on social media.

America First Legal, self-dubbed as a ‘long-awaited answer to the ACLU,’ is calling on the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) to turn over materials related to Biden’s involvement in the raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

In August 2022, the FBI conducted a raid on Trump’s residence in Palm Beach, Florida to obtain documents and materials he took from the White House when they were required to be handed over to the National Archives for preservation.

Many of the documents had classified markings on them.

Attorney General Merrick Garland held a press conference days after the raid confirming he had personally approved the law enforcement action.

America First Legal claims that Biden was also specifically involved in allowing the raid to be carried out and slammed it as a ‘politically motivated’ move.

These claims are only further justified after such classified documents were also found at the homes of both former Vice President Mike Pence and President Joe Biden – but no FBI raids were conducted on their residences.

America First Legal senior counselor Reed Rubinstein said in a statement Monday: ‘The evidence further suggests that Biden officials in the Executive Office of the President and the Department of Justice unlawfully abused their power and then lied about it to the American people.’

‘This government, it seems, acknowledges no limits on its power to harass, intimidate, and silence its political opponents,’ said Rubinstein, who serves as the director of oversight and investigations at the conservative legal center.

(Read more at the Daily Mail)

And, yes, just like they told you inflation was “transitory,” they told you they knew nothing of the Mar-A-Lago raid

Public Broadcasting System (recently shamed into leaving Twitter due to its being identified as “state-funded media“) quoted Karine Jean-Pierre in her parroting of the Biden regime line regarding the raid on the compound of their political rival. (Bolding is mine for emphasis.)

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre says neither President Joe Biden nor anyone at the White House “was given a heads up” about the FBI’s search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.

“No, that did not happen,” Jean-Pierre. She told reporters the West Wing first learned of the search from public media reports and the White House had not been briefed in the run-up or aftermath.

Jean-Pierre refused to say whether Biden wanted the attorney general to explain publicly the rationale for the search amid the concerns about politicization of the probe.

“The Justice Department conducts investigations independently and we leave any law enforcement matters to them,” she said. “We are not involved.”

(Read more left-wing blige at the state-sponsored outlet called PBS — also known as Pure BS)

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So do you really trust the group that brought you the IRS? And, in a round-about way, Covid.

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Do you want to trust a government/industrial complex that was experimenting in gain-of-function projects with the People’s Liberation Army of China?

Experts recommend the shutdown of AI due to a lack of failsafe controls

Time was the latest of a series of publications distributing warnings over the continued dalliences with Artificial Intelligence and its capacity to replace human functionality.

An open letter published today calls for “all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.”

This 6-month moratorium would be better than no moratorium. I have respect for everyone who stepped up and signed it. It’s an improvement on the margin.

I refrained from signing because I think the letter is understating the seriousness of the situation and asking for too little to solve it.

The key issue is not “human-competitive” intelligence (as the open letter puts it); it’s what happens after AI gets to smarter-than-human intelligence. Key thresholds there may not be obvious, we definitely can’t calculate in advance what happens when, and it currently seems imaginable that a research lab would cross critical lines without noticing.

Many researchers steeped in these issues, including myself, expect that the most likely result of building a superhumanly smart AI, under anything remotely like the current circumstances, is that literally everyone on Earth will die. Not as in “maybe possibly some remote chance,” but as in “that is the obvious thing that would happen.” It’s not that you can’t, in principle, survive creating something much smarter than you; it’s that it would require precision and preparation and new scientific insights, and probably not having AI systems composed of giant inscrutable arrays of fractional numbers.

(Read more at Time)

The failsafes in our current government must be resurrected, much to the chagrin of Democrats

We need to start with the reigning in the power of the federal government. A government big enough to give you everything, …

Actually, a government that is big enough to give you everything will soon prove so bloated that it won’t fund Social Security due to Biden‘s current war on energy.

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Going into the mortgage disaster of 2008, we were told that mortgage companies were racist if they didn’t open to everyone

Easing mortgage access: what could possibly go wrong?

UBS looks into the health of the real estate market by digging into the Democrat-driven perks that may push us over the cliff.

The recent reduction of mortgage insurance premiums by the FHA increases the potential for riskier mortgage loans to be made. The UBS Chief Investment Office (CIO) explains why we all need to remain vigilant of the potential unintended consequences of policy decisions, particularly those made with nationwide elections not far off in the future.

On 22 February 2023, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that the mortgage insurance premium (MIP) on FHA endorsed loans would be reduced by 30 bps to 0.55% from 0.85%. HUD estimates that this reduction will reduce the annual borrowing cost for the average FHA borrower by USD 800. According to HUD “the 30 basis point annual MIP reduction will apply to almost all Single Family Title II forward mortgages insured by FHA. Further, the reduction applies to all eligible property types, including single family homes, condominiums, and manufactured homes, all eligible loan-to-value ratios and all eligible base loan amounts.” The annual MIP reductions are effective for all mortgages endorsed by FHA on or after 23 March 2023. HUD estimates the year one cost of the program to be about USD 678MM. Source: HUD

One of the key differences of the current housing cycle as compared to the housing bubble period that preceded the 2008/2009 global financial crisis (GC) is the substantially higher quality of mortgage underwriting post the GFC. Largely gone are the no doc/low doc, stated income and NINJA loans (no income, no job no assets) as well as loans at exceptionally low loan-to-value ratios (LTV) to low credit quality borrowers. This is not to say that there is no risk in the mortgage system. However, by and large mortgage underwriting standards and credit quality has been substantially better over the past decade.

A significant portion of FHA loans are made to borrowers with very low, subprime or just above subprime status with high LTVs and elevated debt-to-income (DTI) ratios. One positive is that LTVs for borrowers with FICO scores # 619 have declined over the past several quarters, although they still remain above 90%.

Historically there has been a strong relationship between lower credit quality borrowers, particularly those with high LTVs and DTIs and increased delinquency, default and ultimately foreclosure rates. One of the key contributors to the plethora of “strategic defaults” during the great financial crisis (GFC) was the little skin in the game many homeowners had in their homes—that is extremely high LTVs or very little equity.

We wish to emphasize that we are not calling for another mortgage market collapse similar to that witnessed during the GFC. That said, one of the key contributors to the pre-GFC housing bubble was the plethora of higher risk mortgages.

We believe a key impetus for HUD in lowering the MIP was to make housing more affordable for lower credit quality borrowers. While this may be a laudable goal, as we have stated in prior written reports, best-intentioned policies often lead to unintended consequences. In January 2015, HUD reduced the FHA MIP by 50bps to 85pbs. In HUD’s own words in a report published on 29 September 2016, “We find that lowering the annual MIP in 2015 substantially increased the number of loans to lower credit score, high-LTV borrowers—who as a group heavily rely on FHA insurance.”

There was a noticeable pickup in HUD market share pursuant to the January 2015 MIP reduction. Although this clearly benefited a group of borrowers who might otherwise have been unable to access the mortgage market, the question ultimately becomes, was overall affordability improved? Both new and existing home prices continued their strong upward trend in 2015 and beyond. We do not mean to imply that the lowering of the MIP was the key driver of this. Rather that home price affordability was more negatively impacted by rapidly rising prices rather than advantaged by a lower MIP. In our view all that was done was to enable lower credit quality, high LTV and DTI buyers to buy homes.

One of the key issues plaguing the US housing market is the dearth of available inventory. Although there has been some retrenchment of median home prices from extremely elevated levels we believe the ongoing shortage of homes for purchase, combined with elevated mortgage rates, will keep affordability very challenged, particularly for first time buyers.

Is HUD truly making housing more affordable or is policy being utilized to push less qualified buyers into purchasing a home when they lack the financial wherewithal for the rigors of homeownership?

(Read much, much more at UBS)

If you remember the disaster of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, the lie of having to give mortgages to those who couldn’t afford them killed a market

It looks like, in the name of Diversity Inclusion and Equity (DIE), we are committing the same fatal mistakes as those committed by the Democrats of less than 20 years ago.

In the recent past, people would comment on how Stalin might be laughing from his grave. Now, it is obvious that Maxine Waters (architect of much of the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) has not had to die to get her sardonic chuckles.

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For the past two years, Biden and Yellen have said inflation is “transitory.” – Do you trust them now they say we won’t see recession?

Experts warn that a rental market bust may be just around the corner

The Epoch Times backs up the report by UBS as both point out the weakness of the rental market.

The collapse of the U.S. rental market is just around the corner, some real estate experts warn.

Rental prices finally dropped to pre-pandemic levels last month after millions of Americans struggled to keep up with skyrocketing housing costs since the start of the pandemic.

In a series of recent tweets, Nick Gerli, the CEO & Founder of Reventure Consulting, predicted that the rental apartment market may face a downturn.

One of the primary reasons for a potential bust is the increase in the supply of rental properties is due to a recent surge in construction, which has led to a greater supply for renters.

The housing shortages caused by the pandemic, combined with fewer affordable homes to purchase, pushed many Americans into the rental market, leading builders to go on a multi-family unit housing boom.

“Apartment builders are going crazy right now. 1.1 Million apartment units currently in construction/permitting. 60% higher than pre-pandemic. Double peak set in 2007 Bubble. Bad news for Real Estate Investors. Means lower rents are coming,” wrote Gerli.

Meanwhile, RealPage Market Analytics reported that approximately 917,000 apartments were being developed nationwide in 2022, which will eventually increase the existing apartment base by 4.9 percent.

The construction boom is the largest since the early 1970s and has pressured landlords to keep their rent prices competitive to attract new tenants.

“Even if demand continues to strengthen, a robust supply of new inventory hitting the market this year should keep rent prices in check,” said Apartment List, which expects this year to be one of “modest positive rent growth.”

The pandemic also was a factor in the decline in rent prices, as economic uncertainty caused tenants to downsize or find more affordable housing, said the real estate website.

The American Housing Survey estimated that about half of rental households spent $1,000 or more monthly on rent in 2021.

Monthly payments for apartments rose slightly in March, up only up 2.6 percent from the same month last year, CNBC reported.

Apartment List reported that this was the smallest annual increase since April 2021, with housing price growth falling below the pre-pandemic average of 2.8 percent after reaching historically high levels last year.

Evictions Increase

The recent surge in available apartments may further expose the market to the vulnerability of a real estate bubble, said Gerli, as the increase in the construction of rentals has caused prices to fall nationwide.

“What’s especially concerning for real estate investors is that they’re already dealing with lots of empty apartments. Take Phoenix, for example. Data from Apartmentlist shows the vacancy rate has surged up to 7.2%. Highest level in at least six years.”

“Las Vegas is another. Vacancy Rate has more than tripled from 2.5% to 8.3% in less than two years. Rents have already started to go down in these markets,” he noted.

Another reason for the increase in rental vacancy rates is that the pandemic era halts on tenant evictions and the end of COVID monetary aid packages, have caused those unable to pay their rents to be forced out in ever-increasing numbers.

“Lots of metros in America have now surpassed their pre-pandemic eviction levels. Take Jacksonville, for example. Turns out the moratoriums/free money was just a band aid,” explained Gerli.

“So you combine evictions, with lots of building, with a Recession or near Recession, and you have problems brewing in the Rental Market. Which will invariably spill over in to the Housing Market. Because declining rents will eventually translate into declining prices,” he said.

Moody’s Analytics predicted that market growth will taper off in the second half of 2023, as home financing costs decline, due to the expectation that the Fed will move away from continued borrowing rate hikes if inflation starts to come down, taking some pressure off the mortgage market.

(Read of specifics on market trends at The Epoch Times)

Biden has beat down our energy sector and our overall economy

Now, it seems, Biden is ready to put us into a depression. He could not be happy with the “Great Recession” of the Obama years (and while Obama did not cause it, he also did not cure it — rather, he let the cause plod along in the form of the Fed). Now he has to depress our ability to make a living and bow to the Chinese and Russians who pay him.

All while the people in the press look the other way.

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Proof positive the press has their heads pushed so far up Joe Biden’s backside as to give him an upper endoscopy (part 2)


On COVID, what happened to the debate on the right and the pressure on the left?

At the Right’s Wall Street Journal: Intelligence on sick staff at Wuhan lab fuels debate on Covid-19 origin

The Wall Street Journal points out a debate on the right during 2021 where some were duped by the Biden line and others saw the logic of a Wuhan virus having come from a Wuhan lab.

Three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care, according to a previously undisclosed U.S. intelligence report that could add weight to growing calls for a fuller probe of whether the Covid-19 virus may have escaped from the laboratory.

The details of the reporting go beyond a State Department fact sheet, issued during the final days of the Trump administration, which said that several researchers at the lab, a center for the study of coronaviruses and other pathogens, became sick in autumn 2019 “with symptoms consistent with both Covid-19 and common seasonal illness.”

The disclosure of the number of researchers, the timing of their illnesses and their hospital visits come on the eve of a meeting of the World Health Organization’s decision-making body, which is expected to discuss the next phase of an investigation into Covid-19’s origins.

Current and former officials familiar with the intelligence about the lab researchers expressed differing views about the strength of the supporting evidence for the assessment. One person said that it was provided by an international partner and was potentially significant but still in need of further investigation and additional corroboration.

Another person described the intelligence as stronger. “The information that we had coming from the various sources was of exquisite quality. It was very precise. What it didn’t tell you was exactly why they got sick,” he said, referring to the researchers.

November 2019 is roughly when many epidemiologists and virologists believe SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind the pandemic, first began circulating around the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where Beijing says that the first confirmed case was a man who fell ill on Dec. 8, 2019.

The Wuhan Institute hasn’t shared raw data, safety logs and lab records on its extensive work with coronaviruses in bats, which many consider the most likely source of the virus.

(Read more woo-hoo from China and their friends as repeated by the Wall Street Journal)

Ok. There are a hew more steps in the logic chain than stating the Wuhan virus came from a Wuhan lab

To condense the creation of the COVID virus through the help of Dr. Redfield’s testimony before the House COVID-19 panel (and the summarizing skills of the Daily Signal), here are six take-aways concerning COVID’S origin:

The House on Wednesday held its first hearing investigating the origins of COVID-19 after two federal agencies suggested the pandemic likely began when a new coronavirus escaped China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology. 

(continued)

Here are six highlights from testimony before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee’s subcommittee on the pandemic. 

  1. What’s Ahead?

    Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, chairman of the select subcommittee, provided a glimpse of what his panel will delve into during future hearings.

    (continued)

    “Unfortunately the question of the origins [of COVID-19] has been politicized,” Wenstrup said. “That’s no secret. It has driven most people to their corners, rather than driving apolitical scientific debate or discussion.”

  1. ‘No Doubt’ US Tax Dollars Funded Gain-of-Function Research

    The key witness was Dr. Robert Redfield, who was director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the Trump administration when the pandemic emerged. 

    (continued)

    The term “gain of function” describes a risky process of making a disease more dangerous or contagious for the purpose of studying a response.

    “Do you think that Dr. Fauci intentionally lied under oath to Sen. Paul when he vehemently denied NIH’s funding of gain-of-function research?” Malliotakis asked Redfield. 

    Redfield responded: “I think there is no doubt NIH was funding gain-of-function research.”

    The former CDC director didn’t address whether Fauci was truthful under oath. 

    Malliotakis then asked: “Is it likely American tax dollars funded the gain-of-function research that created this virus?”

    Redfield responded yes, but that the NIH wasn’t the only factor. 

    “I think it did, not only from the NIH but the State Department, from USAID, and from DOD,” Redfield said, referring to the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Department of Defense. 

    (continued)

    The subcommittee chairman then asked: “Has gain-of-function research stopped a pandemic, in your opinion?”

    Redfield: “No, on the contrary, I think it probably caused the greatest pandemic our world has seen.”

    (continued)

  1. ‘Three Things Happened in That Lab’

    Wuhan Institute of Virology officials deleted chronological logs of past research data, put the lab under military control, and redid the ventilation system in fall 2019, months before the rest of the world became aware of a new coronavirus and COVID-19, Redfield noted. 

    Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz., asked Redfield: “Do you believe that we can have certainty that the virus did not come from the Wuhan lab, and that U.S. funding was not used for COVID-19-related research? 

    Redfield responded that the public can read recently unclassified information that shows those in charge of the Wuhan lab engaged in unusual conduct. 

    “The declassified information now shows in September 2019, three things happened in that lab,” Redfield said. 

    “One is they deleted the sequences,” he said, referring to sequencing, a laboratory technique used to determine the exact order of nucleotide bases, which compose individual genomes. 

    “That’s highly irregular. Researchers don’t usually like to do that.”

    “The second thing they did is they changed command and control of the lab from civilian control to military control. Highly unusual,” Redfield said. 

    “The third thing they did, I think is really telling, is they let a contractor redo the ventilation system in that laboratory,” Redfield added. “So, I think clearly, there is strong evidence that a significant event happened in that laboratory in September. It has now been declassified. You can read it.”

  1. ‘Donald Trump’s Culpability’**

    Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., ranking member of the full House Oversight Committee, argued that regardless of the origins of the pandemic, it happened on former President Donald Trump’s watch. (Read below at **A double asterisk to the baseless accusations by the Democrats on this committee)

    (continued)

  1. ‘Bunch of Yokels Are Eating Bats’

    (continued with numerous biased Democrat memes on the Chinese equivalent of Walmart shoppers)

  1. ‘Antithetical to Science’

    Fauci, who became the face of the nation’s fight against COVID-19, has said that “attacks on me quite frankly are attacks on science.” 

    However, Redfield said actions taken by Fauci and other officials to shut down discussion of the pandemic was “antithetical to science.”

    (continued)

(Read the whole thing, including the Democrat excuses, at the Daily Signal)

**A double asterisk to the baseless accusations by the Democrats on this committee

First, regarding trying to link Trump to the major effects of COVID, let us remember that:

However, it was Biden who:

  • Mandated the shut-down of the “non-essential businesses” (as if this geezer with an orbit of inexperienced socialists would know an essential business if their lives depended on it)
  • Mandated wearing of masks (something proven in many studies to be ineffective) in public
  • Used his war-time powers to mandate the manufacture of masks, swabs, and other equipment
  • Ramped up free COVID testing (which always seemed to be for the previous variant and which had an inflationary effect similar to giving out free money)
  • Pushed through the American Rescue Plan (largely a money hand-out — spell that: inflationary)
  • Required all military personnel to get vaccinated (though most fell within the age range that easily developed natural immunity and a number had developed natural immunity through recovery from the virus)
  • Announced his attempt to use OSHA to require businesses with more than 100 employees to get those employees vaccinated
    • By announcing this, he bullied a number of large companies into forcing the jab
  • Essentially confiscated personal property by announcing his Eviction Moratorium

The New York Times formerly shamed us with: The Lab-Leak Theory

The New York Times tried to school all of us Walmart shoppers on 27 May 2021 in how it was non-scientific and racist to believe anything but the bat soup theory of COVID origin.

Suddenly, talk of the Wuhan lab-leak theory seems to be everywhere.

President Biden yesterday called on U.S. intelligence officials to “redouble their efforts” to determine the origin of Covid-19 and figure out whether the virus that causes it accidentally leaked from a Chinese laboratory. Major publications and social media have recently been filled with discussion of the subject.

Today, we offer an explainer.

What are the basics?

The origin of the virus remains unclear. Many scientists have long believed that the most likely explanation is that it jumped from an animal to a person, possibly at a food market in Wuhan, China, in late 2019. Animal-to human transmission — known as zoonotic spillover — is a common origin story for viruses, including Ebola and some bird flus.

But some scientists have pointed to another possibility: that it escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. As in other laboratories, researchers there sometimes modify viruses, to understand and treat them.

“It is most likely that this is a virus that arose naturally, but we cannot exclude the possibility of some kind of a lab accident,” Dr. Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, told senators yesterday.

Why now?

The subject is getting more attention because some scientists who were once skeptical of the laboratory theory have expressed new openness to it.

Two weeks ago, 18 scientists wrote a letter to the journal Science calling for a new investigation and describing both the animal-to-human theory and the lab-leak theory as “viable.” And three scientists who last year dismissed the lab-leak explanation as a conspiracy theory have told The Wall Street Journal that they now consider it plausible.

Among the reasons: Chinese officials have refused to allow an independent investigation into the lab and have failed to explain some inconsistencies in the animal-to-human hypothesis. Most of the first confirmed cases had no evident link to the food market.

What changed?

In some ways, not much has not changed. From the beginning, the virus’s origin has been unclear. All along, some scientists, politicians and journalists have argued that the lab-leak theory deserves consideration.

Almost 15 months ago, two Chinese researchers wrote a paper concluding that the virus “probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan.” Alina Chan, a molecular biologist affiliated with Harvard and M.I.T., made similar arguments. David Ignatius and Josh Rogin, both Washington Post columnists, wrote about the possibility more than a year ago. Joe Biden, then a presidential candidate, didn’t mention the lab-leak theory in early 2020 but he did argue that the U.S. should “not be taking China’s word” for how the outbreak started.

But these voices were in the minority. The World Health Organization initially dismissed the lab-leak theory as implausible.

(Read more “take the word of Chinese Socialists” at the New York Times)

By the way, Apoorva was/is the COVID reporter for the New York Times.

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With the good news of yesterday’s blog, there is still much Biden in Biden’s America


Biden and his “defund the police” movement have hit America

New report reveals that half of American murders go unsolved in Biden’s America

National Review points out how a little over half of murders in America go unsolved — a new low for a Western country.

Data analyzed by the organization Murder Accountability Project (MAP) revealed that the U.S. murder “clearance rate,” which reflects the proportion of total homicides solved by police, dropped to the lowest point ever on record in 2020.

Whereas the FBI reported over 90 percent of homicides were solved in the mid 1960s, that number has continuously declined over the decades, dropping sharply between 2015 and 2020, to an all-time low of just above 50 percent.

“We’re on the verge of being the first developed nation where the majority of homicides go uncleared,” MAP founder Thomas Hargrove explained to the Guardian.

In order for police to meet the criteria of “clearing” a crime, such as a homicide, law-enforcement agents must arrest and charge at least one suspect with the wrongdoing.

The science behind clearing rates can be murky.

Data collected by the FBI revealed that many law-enforcement agencies cleared hundreds of murders in 2020 by “exceptional means,” which refers to cases in which police believe they have enough evidence for an arrest but were unable to make one. The failure to produce an arrest could be because the alleged perpetrator may have died or been extradited, for instance.

Hargrove believes that the lack of governmental databases tracking and monitoring homicides is obstructing Americans’ ability to appreciate the full extent of the crisis.

This is of particular importance to intercity jurisdictions — such as Oakland, Indianapolis, and Baltimore — where murders of black men are the least likely to result in an arrest. According to some studies, homicides of “minority” men are somewhere between 15-to-30 percent less likely to result in an arrest.

(Read more at the National Review)

So, instead of denigrating the hellholes that unleash their criminals on us, Biden brings that system to America

Why else would illegal aliens flee crime-ridden Democrat cities for Canada using buses provided by Biden?

Sounds like part of the plan by Biden and his friends for the “Great Reset.”

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Biden and his “defund the police” movement keep hitting America

Atlanta “Cop City” anarchy sees at least 35 “agitators” detained — all part of an “international group”

Fox News outlines how Biden’s “defund the police” movement still plagues one specific Democrat-run hellhole.

At least 35 people have been detained after demonstrators allegedly set fire to the construction site of an Atlanta public safety training facility that anti-police and environment activists dubbed “Cop City.”

A group of “agitators” left the nearby South River Music Festival around 5:30 p.m. and descended on the construction site of the proposed Atlanta Public Safety Training Center “to conduct a coordinated attack on construction equipment and police officers,” the Atlanta Police Department said in a statement. 

Authorities noted how the group changed into black clothing and allegedly began to throw commercial-grade fireworks, Molotov cocktails, large rocks and bricks at police officers. 

Though demonstrations at the 85-acre property in DeKalb County secured for a $90 million police and fire training facility have been ongoing, Atlanta Chief of Police Darin Schierbaum said Sunday’s incident marked a “significant escalation” both in the level of violence and the number of individuals involved in the attack.

(Read more at Fox News)

While main stream media outlets (which Fox News seems intent on becoming) will not identify the international group, likely that group is commonly known as “socialists”

Ah, but what does that matter to us smelly Walmart shoppers (as the Clinton-like elite classify us)?

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Biden and his “defund the police” movement cause changes in American business

Walmart to close Portland stores months after warning from CEO on crime

Fox Business outlines how Biden’s “defund the police” movement has run Walmart out of Portland, Oregon.

Walmart announced it is permanently closing all of its locations in Portland, Oregon, over financial reasons.

“We have nearly 5,000 stores across the U.S. and unfortunately some do not meet our financial expectations,” Walmart said in its announcement, according to KPTV. “While our underlying business is strong, these specific stores haven’t performed as well as we hoped.”

Both Walmart locations at Hayden Meadows and East Port Plaza will officially close on March 24. 

The employees at the locations will have the option to transfer to Walmart locations outside the city, KPTV reported. Pharmacy staff will also work with customers on transferring their prescriptions to nearby Walmarts.

There are 17 other Walmart locations outside of Portland and Vancouver. A total of 580 employees will be affected by the closures, KGW8 reported. 

“We are grateful to the customers who have given us the privilege of serving them at our Hayden Meadows and Eastport Plaza locations,” the announcement added. 

The retail staple announced other closures across the U.S., including in: Arkansas, Florida, Washington, D.C., Wisconsin, New Mexico and Illinois. 

(Read more at Fox Business)

It seems that words and actions do have consequences

Joe’s bailing out of Black Lives Matter and Antifa anarchists prior to the 2020 election seems to be coming to fruit now. All of those socialists/anarchists had thought babies and spread across businesses of the North and Northwest. Hence, we see business react now. Look for more.

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Biden and his use of COVID to control America revolves around one scandal

Biden’s emerging scandal of the Wuhan Lab cover-up may be his world-wide scandal

Fox News comments on the cover up Biden enabled to protect certain interests in Washington and China.

We are living through the largest, deadliest scandal in American history, but the elite media refuses to connect the dots and analyze it.

COVID-19, a disease no one disputes came from Wuhan, China, has killed more than 1.1 million Americans and more than 6.8 million people worldwide. It has left millions of others with chronic health problems.

Because of the teachers’ unions and totally misguided, destructive public health policies, children who were under virtually no risk from COVID-19 have lost at least a year of education. Many children are suffering from depression and other mental health challenges from the forced isolation and lack of social contact.

Now, it is becoming more clear that much of this pain was avoidable – and the result of powerful government employees protecting themselves. As Jarrett Stepman in The Daily Signal wrote:

“In 2020, if you thought it was possible COVID-19 came from a lab in China you were labeled a conspiracy theorist, a peddler of misinformation, ‘bonkers,’ and a racist.

“Facebook and other social media removed the lab leak claim from their apps or slapped ‘misinformation’ labels on it. Facebook did so in lockstep with the government.

“So according to the standard set in 2020, the Department of Energy just came out as a racist purveyor of misinformation this week.

“The Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday that, according to a classified intelligence report provided to the White House and Congress, the Department of Energy concluded that the COVID-19 pandemic likely came from a lab leak.

‘”The Energy Department’s conclusion is the result of new intelligence and is significant because the agency has considerable scientific expertise and oversees a network of U.S. national laboratories, some of which conduct advanced biological research,’ the Wall Street Journal report said.”

(Read more at Fox News)

Since we previously talked about Joe’s affinity to socialism and have now brought up COVID, here is an interesting video

…

Biden and his hidden scandal (his total refusal to take cognitive testing) has results

One politician’s (John Fetterman’s) incapability to serve raises questions

Newsweek barely digs into John Fetterman’s letter from the hospital and points out how it all presents problems.

Social media users have raised questions about U.S. Senator John Fetterman being involved in sending a joint letter to the Norfolk Southern Railway on Wednesday despite the fact he’s currently in hospital.

Fetterman joined fellow Democratic Senator Bob Casey, both of whom represent Pennsylvania, and Democratic Representative Chris Deluzio in sending a letter to Norfolk Southern CEO Alan Shaw that urged the company to provide assistance to residents in Darlington Township.

The letter may raise further questions about Fetterman’s capacity to serve in the Senate following his hospitalization last month. The senator’s team has provided limited information about his activities but in a statement on Monday, his office said he was being kept informed about news and Senate business.

There has also been speculation about whether Fetterman could choose to resign, though his office has given no indication that he will do so. Pennsylvania’s Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro, who would choose a successor if Fetterman left office, said on Monday that there was “no contingency plan” for that situation.

(Read at Newsweek to see the print equivalent of a Charlie-Brown-adult voice)

If anyone is complaining, read the complaints closely

If you find a complaint that has words, but says nothing, you have found the decoy of the Left. They got what they wanted in the election of Fetterman. Now they are trying to fool the conservatives and useful idiots into inaction.

If you read a complaint and it turns out to be a sincere question, you have located a complaint of a conservative (who obviously never voted for Fetterman in the first place).

…

 

Two developments that speak well of the death of wokism


Maybe it was just me, but that one term of Lori Lightfoot seemed like an eternity

How Lightfoot went from political rock star to rock bottom

The Chicago Sun-Times chronicles the rise of Lori Lightfoot on her race and sexual proclivities and her fall on her political rulings.

Four years ago, she was a darling among national Democrats. The first openly gay Black woman to serve as mayor of Chicago and only the second woman to do so in the city’s history.

On Tuesday, she joined Jane Byrne and Michael Bilandic as the the only elected mayors of Chicago to be denied a second term since Prohibition.

How did Lori Lightfoot fall so far, so fast, to the point where she couldn’t even make it into a runoff between the two top finishers?

Part of it was the hand she was dealt: the pandemic, civil unrest triggered by the murder of George Floyd and the violent crime wave after those demonstrations.

But Lightfoot’s popularity actually soared during the pandemic. She almost embraced playing the heavy, shutting down the lakefront and admonishing people to stay home. It played into her dictatorial personality, inspiring an avalanche of hysterical memes the mayor was smart enough to embrace.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker was dealt that same bad hand but managed to win a second term, albeit after spending over $132 million of his personal fortune — some of it to boost Darren Bailey in the Republican primary, essentially hand-picking his fall opponent.

Bad timing is too simple an explanation for Lightfoot’s stunning political downfall.

It does not explain why violent crime is up 40% since Lightfoot promised during her inaugural address to stop the “epidemic of gun violence that devastates families, shatters communities, holds children hostage to fear in their own homes” and leaves parents wondering “if Chicago is a place where they can continue to live and raise their children.”

It does not explain why Lightfoot has been such a disappointment to the lakefront voters who formed the base of her support in 2019. Lightfoot opposed the elected school board after saying she’d support it; failed to deliver the transparency she had promised; and broke her pledge to raise the real estate transfer tax on high-end home sales to create a dedicated funding source to reduce homelessness.

Bad timing also can’t explain Lightfoot’s inability to get along with people and a relationship with the City Council so contentious at least seven members of her own leadership team abandoned ship, endorsing other mayoral candidates.

(continued)

Pressed for specifics, Ferguson pointed to Lightfoot’s own campaign themes and 2019 transition report. He argued the “vast majority” of promises made in that report “never got implemented and, in critical areas, she did the opposite of what she said she would do.”

Exhibit “A” was reforming the police department. It was supposed to be Lightfoot’s greatest strength. She served as Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Police Board president. She co-chaired the Task Force on Police Accountability, which championed a series of reforms laying the groundwork for a federal consent decree in the furor following the shooting of Laquan McDonald by Chicago police.

“She brought in, as the interim [police superintendent], the person in the United States who had successfully transformed a big-city police department under terms of a consent decree,” Ferguson said, referring to Charlie Beck, the retired Los Angeles police chief.

But then, “she brought in a permanent superintendent who undid all of that in a matter of two weeks, then never held him to account,” Ferguson added, referring to CPD Supt. David Brown, whom Lightfoot lured from Dallas.

Ald. Anthony Beale (9th) has spent the last four years doing battle with Lightfoot after being stripped of his committee chairmanship for daring to oppose her choice of Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) as Finance Committee chairman.

Beale advised Lightfoot to look in the mirror to explain her forced retirement from Chicago politics.

“She had a great opportunity. Everybody was excited, including myself. We all had high hopes for her. But she came out of the gate and got power-drunk. Instead of governing as though people voted against the other person, she thought there was a mandate for her to do whatever she wanted to do. She became this totally vindictive person against everybody.

(Read more at Chicago Sun-Times)

While I do not hail from Chicago, it seems that mention of the sky-high gun violence might have played a part

All of these assessments in the article above may be true. She may have pushed allies away. She may have broken promises. However, there are things looming out there that seem a little bigger on the horizon  than the observations from the Chicago Sun-Times.

If a well-known web site has been out there for years tracking Chicago murders and gun violence (and mocking liberals with the moniker of “Hey, Jackass”), then it seems likely that high murder rates might have affected the chances of Mayor Beetlejuice.

…

The truth comes out from the medical community on COVID

Dr. Marty Makary: The greatest perpetrator of misinformation during COVID was the U.S. government

Real Clear Politics cleared up a lot of the confusion created by Doctor Anthony Fauci and the political class over COVID and the COVID jab by quoting Doctor Martin Makary’s testimony before the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

Johns Hopkins University professor Dr. Marty Makary told the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic during its first hearing on Tuesday “the greatest perpetrator of misinformation during the pandemic has been the United States government” and listed multiple examples.

DR. MARTY MAKARY: The greatest perpetrator of misinformation during the pandemic has been the United States government.

Misinformation that…

  • Covid was spread through surface transmission
  • That vaccinated immunity was far greater than natural immunity
  • That masks were effective. Now we have the definitive Cochrane review. What do you do with that review? Cochrane is the most authoritative evidence body in all of medicine and has been for decades. Do you just ignore it and not talk about it?
  • That myocarditis was more common after the infection than after the vaccine. Not true, it is 4-28 times more common after the vaccine.
  • That young people benefit from a booster, misinformation. Our two top experts on vaccines quit the FDA in protest over this particular issue, pushing boosters in young, healthy people. The data was never there. That’s why the CDC never disclosed hospitalization rates among boosted Americans under the age of 50.
  • That vaccine mandates would increase vaccination rates. A George Mason University study shows that it didn’t. It did one thing, it created “Never-Vaxxers” who are now not getting the childhood vaccines they need to get.

Over and over again, we’ve seen something that goes far beyond using your best judgment with the information at hand. We’ve seen something that is unforgivable, and that is the weaponization of medical research itself. The CDC putting out their own shoddy studies, like their own study on natural immunity looking at one state for two months, when they had data for years on all 50 states. Why did they only report that one sliver of data? Why did the salami slice the entire database? Because it gave them the result they wanted.

The same with the masking studies. The data has now caught up in giant systematic reviews, and public health officials were intellectually dishonest. They lied to the American people.

(See the full video and read the original article at Real Clear Politics)

The only problem with this great testimony is that it hasn’t visited the main stream media

Until this message leaks into the alphabet soup of the main stream media, few in this nation will acknowledge it. As shown by the vast numbers that say they believe in conservative values, but vote for Democrat politicians — the main stream media still holds a strong sway on a great number of us.

…

 

COVID damage to our Armed Forces


“Toxic by design:” Researcher explains why US Department of Defense COVID vax operation shows intent to harm

LifeSiteNews points to evidence from the beginning showing that the COVID shots implemented by the Department of Defense amounted to toxic injections rather than the promised “vaccines.”

Former pharmaceutical executive and researcher Alexandra “Sasha” Latypova has laid out compelling arguments for why the “cartel” that orchestrated the dissemination and uptake of “biowarfare agents” — marketed as “COVID-19 vaccines” — operated with “very clear intent to harm” and to execute a “mass genocide of Americans.”

Latypova worked more than 25 years in the pharmaceutical industry specializing in research and development, including data analysis, clinical trials, and technologies, while also co-founding multiple research organizations before retiring at a relatively young age.

Having been alarmed by government policy during the COVID crisis, she began conducting several levels of investigation that most recently revealed how the COVID-19 “vaccines” were fully produced, controlled and distributed by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) with pharmaceutical manufacturers such as Pfizer, Moderna, and Janssen only serving as “figureheads” in a broader public relations campaign to provide the product with an appearance of medical legitimacy.

As Latypova has explained, the DoD managed to classify these “vaccines,” not as medicines or pharmaceuticals but as “COVID countermeasures” under the authority of the military, which means they are not required to comply with U.S. law governing the manufacturing quality, testing, effectiveness, safety, and labeling of medical products.

Yet while such laws did not apply to these “COVID-19 vaccines,” the government advanced an orchestrated public relations façade that standard testing, monitoring and approval processes were being strictly observed by the CDC and FDA, even as many thousands of injuries and deaths had been steadily documented and independent medical experts and media sounded alarms only to be canceled my legacy and social media corporations.

In an early December video lecture, the former pharma executive laid out evidence for how the DoD, HHS, and other U.S. government agencies, along with other governments and pharmaceutical companies, were involved in “a conspiracy to commit mass murder through bioterrorism and informational warfare operations worldwide.”

“The evidence is overwhelming that there is an intent to harm people by the COVID 19 injections, so-called ‘vaccines,’ and other nonsensical COVID response measures implemented in lockstep by governments all over the world,” she explained.

Refusal to intervene despite high injury rates ‘points to an intentional act’ to inflict harm

First, such intent is indicated by the fact that “these injections are toxic by design,” Latypova said. “We know this. There has been an extensive body of literature, studies, scientific discussions, [and] evidence published on this matter.”

Therefore, “there is definitely no safety in these shots,” the analyst said, referring to the well-known death and injury reports from VAERS and other data sources that show “millions of reports of injury, deaths, [and] permanent disabilities,” including these harms being inflicted on many children and young people.

In an earlier presentation to the Corona Investigative Committee (CIC), Latypova called these reports “absolutely alarming,” emphasizing that the safety signals were “obvious from the start.” And the fact that “no health authority ever noticed it” or intervened “points to an intentional act” to inflict harm.

She also highlighted one incident on January 18, 2021 when California health officials “paused” the use of one large lot of the injections from Moderna due to its “higher-than-usual number of possible allergic reactions.” However, just three days later, health authorities said it was “safe to resume” the use of the lot and these products continued to be injected in thousands of people across the U.S.

This batch of biological agents went on to generate “about 1,000 serious adverse events and close to 60 deaths,” Latypova explained. And thus, “all of those [deaths and injuries] should be deemed intentional because the authorities did flag it. They did find that it was generating abnormal adverse events, yet nobody did anything to stop it and they continued pushing it into people.”

The broad, systematic omission of safety standards in production indicates an intent to harm

In addition, “there is no efficacy in these shots,” Latypova explained in December. “In fact, we know there is negative efficacy, meaning that these shots make you more likely to get sick and die.”

Also last month, highly acclaimed insurance analyst Josh Stirling reported that those who accepted the experimental gene-base COVID vaccine “have a 26% higher mortality rate,” including 49% for those under 50, and 145% for those who accepted just one dose of a two-dose regimen.”

And just before Christmas, Alex Berenson reported on two studies that showed those who received the shots “are at least twice as likely to be infected with the coronavirus as unvaccinated people,” and “the risk actually rises with the number of shots. People who had received three or more shots were more than three times as likely to be infected.”

Latypova continued focusing primally on her earlier work, asserting the “extensive evidence of bad manufacturing of these products,” including their “highly variable production.” Such manufacturers “are not compliant with good manufacturing practices and, importantly, there is no enforcement of good manufacturing practices worldwide for these products [by the regulators].”

Such a broad, systematic omission of safety standards in production indicates an intent to harm by the perpetrators as well, the former executive told CIC. If these individuals, government agencies and pharmaceutical companies had a legitimate medicinal intention to assist in the prevention of disease, then “the safety guidelines should [have been] followed, and they don’t follow a single one of them.”

(Read of the lying, cover-up, and gaslighting pointing toward the intent to do harm as shown at LifeSiteNews)

Forcing the healthy and young to take an engineered mRNA shot built to mimic the symptoms of a possibly engineered disease — just doesn’t seem right

When the young already showed a resistance to the disease, it seemed like the best thing to do was to focus on protecting the vulnernable populations (the old, the obese, those who smoked, and others).

However, Biden chose not to do that with our military.

…

 

Joy Pullmann has 7 reasons high inflation won’t go away soon. I have 4 more.


Seven reasons high inflation won’t go away soon

Joy Pullmann of The Federalist lays out the driving forces in our current bout of high inflation and the reasons that this high inflation will likely not leave any time soon.

A recession is coming in 2023, concluded more than two-thirds of the economists at big financial institutions recently surveyed by The Wall Street Journal. Inflation is also likely to remain high. Measuring year-over-year inflation by the U.S. government’s 1980s methodology put it at 15.23 percent in November 2022 instead of the government’s claimed 7.11 percent, according to economist John Williams.

Many commentators, including me, were wrong when we previously claimed our grandkids will be paying off America’s massively unaffordable welfare state. We are all paying for it right now and are likely to be for much of our lives in inflation and other economic devastation.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman’s maxim that “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon” — meaning, inflation is always caused by government overspending — predicts continued inflation for at least the next five years, if not longer.

That’s because government entities are continuing to engage in seriously inflationary actions. They’re doing this partly because of ideology, partly to buy votes, and partly because they prefer eating away Americans’ savings to paying off the unprecedented government debt that politicians have accumulated in the last 70 years enriching their friends and buying off voters.

Inflation Means Politicians Stealing from You

A 2021 Politico profile of a former U.S. Federal Reserve member noted, “Between 2008 and 2014, the Federal Reserve printed more than $3.5 trillion in new bills. To put that in perspective, it’s roughly triple the amount of money that the Fed created in its first 95 years of existence. Three centuries’ worth of growth in the money supply was crammed into a few short years.”

That dissenting former Federal Reserve committee member, Thomas Hoenig, “was worried primarily that the Fed was taking a risky path that would deepen income inequality, stoke dangerous asset bubbles and enrich the biggest banks over everyone else,” the profile says. “He also warned that it would suck the Fed into a money-printing quagmire that the central bank would not be able to escape without destabilizing the entire financial system.”

Essentially, the Federal Reserve has been helping Congress manufacture money to buy up the public debt they contracted by promising Americans more stuff than we can pay for. That’s been ongoing since the 1960s Great Society, which basically paid Americans with unaffordable entitlements to shut up about the steady loss of their constitutional freedoms, according to scholar Christopher Caldwell.

The Borrowing Will Go On Until It Can’t

In 2021, 41 percent of federal spending depended on borrowing. In 2022, 22 percent did. This means raising the cost of debt by hiking interest rates, as the Fed is now doing, could provoke a crisis because it would make Congress’s unsustainable behavior even more painful.

As a Manhattan Institute analysis by economist Brian Riedl notes, “rising interest rates risk pushing government interest costs, annual budget deficits, and total government debt to unsustainable levels … once the debt surges, even modest interest-rate movements can impose stratospheric costs.”

This would call years of government bluffing about the state of federal finances and institutions. It would require Congress not only to stop spending but to cut programs, which means angering voters. It would usher in the unavoidable and painful new era of managing America’s decline.

“Once a debt-and-interest-rate spiral begins, it is nearly impossible to escape without drastic inflation or fiscal consolidation,” Riedl notes.

However this ends, it is likely to include a lot of economic pain, one way or another. Here are just a few of the many indicators that inflationary times are not going away fast.

1. ‘Covid’ Overspending Continues Until at Least 2024

The funds for the sixth waste-packed “Covid relief bill” will be distributed to big-government donors, states, and local governments through the end of presidential election year 2024. Yes, the American Rescue Plan Act from Covid-tide sends states and local governments $350 billion that is still being rolled out — by design.

(continued)

2. Democrats and Republicans Recently Went on Even More Inflationary Spending Binges

In conjunction with Democrats’ mega-spending “infrastructure” and “green energy” bills soon after Covid that also helped them win Congress and the presidency in 2020, all this extra spending is projected to increase the federal debt by an unprecedented $6.5 trillion, costing more than the 20 years of U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Riedl.

(continued)

3. Build Back Bankrupt Shoveled Yet More Out the Door for Years to Come

In 2022, the Biden administration managed to get its top-priority grab-bag of increased government spending signed into law. By spending more money the government does not have and imposing more taxes, the ridiculously named Inflation Reduction Act is likely to increase inflation, said a Tax Foundation analysis.

(continued)

4. Federal Officials Are Destroying the People’s Trust

Inflation happens “When money is no longer a trustworthy measure of value,” note Steve Forbes, Nathan Lewis, and Elizabeth Ames in their 2022 book, “Inflation.” Inflation is at least partly about a crisis of confidence in government — a warranted one, usually, because major inflation occurs as a result of politician malfeasance. Unfortunately, U.S. government officials are doing nothing to restore the people’s lost confidence in them — in fact, just the opposite.

(continued)

5. The U.S. Federal Government Is Effectively Bankrupt and Inflation Helps It Hide That

The on-books U.S. national debt of $31.5 trillion is just the tip of the iceberg. Our entitlement systems are about to start going bankrupt, adding trillions in additional financial burdens on taxpayers. Riedl notes, “The U.S. government is projected to run a staggering $112 trillion in budget deficits over the next three decades, driven mostly by Social Security and Medicare commitments that are already set in law.” 

(continued)

6. Child Scarcity Will Drive Higher Prices

In March 2022, The Wall Street Journal reported the opinion of retired British central banker Charles Goodhart that global structural factors will drive higher inflation for years to come. Goodhart helped Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher break inflation in the 1980s. He told the Journal that the rising global crisis of child scarcity will also push inflation up for decades.

(continued)

7. The People Who Did All This Are Still in Charge

This reality applies to nearly every major political problem: The same people who have created these messes are the same people who largely retain the power to respond to them. The same people writing massive spending bills that divert our economy away from productive labor and into rent-seekers’ pockets are still largely in charge of government spending.

(Read the interspersed paragraphs and the conclusion at The Federalist)

Additionally, I will provide four more reasons for continued high inflation

I would suggest that there are also four additional reasons for high inflation:

  • Too many Americans take the word of the traditional media (aka, main stream media) as gospel and the traditional media supports those in charge
  • The press/politicians still use COVID to scare a significant portion of the population into compliance (this hints at control past 2024)
  • As long as you have the money to take advantage of it, inflation can be a tool for gaining wealth. Therefore, inflation only hurts the middle and lower classes. Therefore, the powerbrokers have no reason to reign in inflation.
  • The Ukraine mess and its subsequent money pit remain a favorite of the ruling class. While I support any people who want to fight to rule themselves, we have to acknowledge that such support has a cost.

    Additionally, let’s not kid ourselves. Not all of the money sent to support the Ukrainian cause goes to weapons, blankets, or food for the Ukrainian people. (Does it, Big Guy?)

…

 

Losing our Free Speech to a Democrat COVID, part 2


How the FBI hacked Twitter

Tablet Magazine outlines the methods used by the FBI as they got Twitter to do Biden’s bidding.

The FBI prepared America’s new public-private censorship regime for the 2020 election by falsely telling Twitter, as well as other social media platforms, press outlets, lawmakers, and staff members of the White House, that Russians were readying a hack and leak operation to dirty the Democratic candidate. Accordingly, when reports of a laptop owned by Hunter Biden and giving evidence of his family’s financial ties with foreign officials were published in October 2020, Twitter blocked them.

In the week before the election, the FBI field office in charge of investigating Hunter Biden sent multiple censorship requests to Twitter. The FBI has “some folks in the Baltimore field office and at [FBI headquarters] that are just doing keyword searches for violations,” a company lawyer wrote in a Nov. 3, 2020, email.

The documents also show that Twitter banished Trump after misrepresenting his posts as incitement to violence. With U.S. intelligence services reportedly using informants to provoke violence during the January 6th protest at the Capitol, the trap closed on Trump. Twitter and Facebook then moved to silence the outgoing president by denying him access to the global communications infrastructure.

The FBI unit designated to coordinate with social media companies during the 2020 election cycle was the Foreign Influence Task Force. It was set up in the fall of 2017 “to identify and counteract malign foreign influence operations” through, “strategic engagement with U.S. technology companies.” During the election cycle, according to the Twitter files, the unit “swelled to 80 agents and corresponded with Twitter to identify alleged foreign influence and election tampering of all kinds.”

The FBI’s chief liaison with Twitter was Elvis Chan, an agent from its Cyber Branch. Based in the San Francisco field office, Chan was also in communication with Facebook, Google, Yahoo!, Reddit and LinkedIn. Chan demanded user information that Twitter said it could not release outside of a “legal process.” In exchange, Chan promised to secure temporary security clearances for 30 Twitter employees a month before the election, presumably to give staff the same briefings on alleged Russian information operations provided to U.S. officials in classified settings.

But Twitter executives claimed they found little evidence of Russian activity on the site. So Chan badgered former head of site security Yoel Roth to produce evidence the FBI was serving its advertised mission of combating foreign influence operations when in fact it was focused on violating the First Amendment rights of Americans.

Chan briefed Twitter extensively on an alleged Russian hacking unit, APT28, or Fancy Bear, which was the same outfit that was claimed by Hillary Clinton campaign contractors to have hacked and leaked Democratic National Committee emails in 2016. According to Roth, the FBI had “rimed” him to attribute reports about Hunter Biden’s laptop to an APT28 hack-and-leak operation. Needless to say, the FBI’s reports—and subsequent “disinformation” claims—were themselves blatant disinformation, invented by the FBI, which had been in possession of the laptop for nearly a year.

Twitter was more than a one-way mirror: The FBI also seems to have embedded its own spy structure within the social media company to siphon off the personal data and behavior of users. Dozens of former intelligence officials were installed within Twitter after the election of Donald Trump. Some had active top secret security clearances. Twitter’s director of strategy was Dawn Burton, former FBI Director James Comey’s deputy chief of staff. Perhaps most significant was Baker himself, who appears to have led the FBI’s internal organization at the platform. Efforts to reach Baker for comment on this story were unsuccessful.

Baker left the FBI in 2018 under a cloud of suspicion. In 2017, the Justice Department investigated him for leaking to the press, and the Republican-led House of Representatives later investigated him for his role in Russiagate. Former congressional officials say that as part of the bureau’s 2016 investigation of the Trump campaign, Baker authored the warrant to spy on Trump’s inner circle.

After he departed the law enforcement agency, CNN rewarded him for his “resistance” activities—which boosted the network’s ratings to record levels—by hiring him as a legal analyst. The Washington, D.C.-based Brookings Institution brought Baker on board to contribute to its collusion-conspiracy website “Lawfare.” DOJ again investigated him in 2019 for leaking to the media while at the FBI. In June 2020, Baker joined Twitter as deputy general counsel. With his security clearances still active, he was Twitter’s liaison with U.S. intelligence agencies, where he reinforced the FBI’s external pressure from inside Twitter to censor the Biden laptop story.

Under Baker, Twitter became more than just an instrument to censor the opposition; it also spied on them. Newly released court documents show that Twitter coordinated with the DOJ to intercept the communications of users potentially dangerous to the Biden campaign, like Tara Reade, ​the former Biden Senate staffer who alleged that Biden had sexually assaulted her decades earlier. The DOJ subpoenaed her Twitter account, likely with the purpose of giving the company cover for finding out which journalists had contacted her about her allegations.

(Read Tablet Magazine to see the introductory material and the evidence presented after this section)

As maintained by many, to know what Democrats are doing, observe their accusations

As many have said, Democrats seem to accuse others of doing what they do.

So, when Hillary colluded to rig an election, she accused Trump of Russian collusion and it snowballed from there.

…

The Biden administration pressured Facebook to censor Fox News host Tucker Carlson

The Conservative Review discovered through emails how the Biden regime hounded Facebook to silence Tucker Carlson.

President Joe Biden’s administration actively pressured Facebook to censor Fox News host Tucker Carlson for criticizing the Covid shots, according to internal White House communication records obtained by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana.

In an email dated April 14, 2021, then-senior adviser to the president’s Covid response team, Andrew Slavitt, voiced dissatisfaction to a Facebook official that a video of Carlson questioning the left’s universal demand that people get the Covid jab was “Number one” on the platform, to which said official responded that they’d look into the matter. Later that same day, the Facebook representative informed the White House that while the “Tucker Carlson video does not qualify for removal under [Facebook’s] policies,” the company would label the clip with “a pointer to more authoritative COVID information” and work to limit its reach on the platform.

Facebook’s efforts did not meet the administration’s demands for greater censorship, however. In response to the representative, White House Director of Digital Strategy Robert Flaherty questioned how Carlson’s video didn’t violate Facebook’s existing policies and pressured the company to turn over information on the efficacy of its censorship practices.

“How was this not violative? The second half of the segment is raising conspiracy theories about the government hiding that all vaccines aren’t effective,” Flaherty claimed. “Moreover, you say reduced and demoted. What does that mean? There’s 40,000 shares on the video. Who is seeing it now? How many? How effective is that?”

“Not for nothing but last time we did this dance, it ended in an insurrection,” Flaherty added in an apparent reference to the platform’s handling of claims pertaining to the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and subsequent riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

But the Biden White House’s habit of using Big Tech to silence dissenting voices on Covid-related information didn’t just stop at Carlson. A separate batch of emails released by the Missouri and Louisiana attorneys general reveals a concentrated endeavor between the administration and Facebook to reduce the “virality of vaccine hesitancy content,” even if such posts contained factually accurate information.

“As you know, in addition to removing vaccine misinformation, we have been focused on reducing the virality of content discouraging vaccines that does not contain actionable misinformation,” a Facebook representative told Slavitt in a March 21, 2021, email. “This is often-true content, which we allow at the post level … but it can be framed as sensation, alarmist, or shocking. We’ll remove these Groups, Pages, and Accounts when they are disproportionately promoting this sensationalized content.”

In addition to Facebook, Twitter was also a major player in the collusion efforts between the federal government and Big Tech to further squash free speech online. In an email dated August 11, 2022, Flaherty admonished Twitter for allowing posts contradicting White House claims to circulate on the platform, writing that “if your product is appending misinformation to our tweets[,] that seems like a pretty fundamental issue.”

Flaherty separately accused Twitter in a December 2021 email of “Total Calvinball” and “bending over backwards” to tolerate disfavored speech after the company refused to comply with demands from the administration to censor a video.

“This case is about the Biden Administration’s blatant disregard for the First Amendment and its collusion with social media companies [to] suppress speech it disagrees with,” said Missouri AG Andrew Bailey in a statement. “I will always fight back against unelected bureaucrats who seek to indoctrinate the people of this state by violating our constitutional right to free and open debate.”

(Read more at the Conservative Review)

Flaherty needs to be the center of every Republican advertisement for a while

Just because Flaherty so epitomizes the current Big Brother sentiment in government, we need to make it a distasteful central focus until it disappears.

We have done too much coddling of the woke.

…

Ted Cruz accuses the White House of “brazen censorship”

BizPacReview details the case where Senator Ted Cruz accused the White House of censorship in trying to silence Tucker Carlson over his vaccine stance.

Sen. Ted Cruz is helping to bring attention to the latest bombshell about Twitter.

The bombshell comes courtesy newly appointed Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey.

His predecessor, Eric Schmitt, had filed a lawsuit against the Biden administration, and that suit has finally borne some fruit: White House emails showing the Biden administration trying to pressure Twitter into silencing conservatives.

Case in point:

In the email seen above, White House digital director Rob Flaherty pressures Twitter into reducing the reach of posts published by Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Tomi Lahren.

“Since we’ve been on the phone — the top post about vaccines today is tucker Carlson saying they don’t work. Yesterday was Tomi Lehren saying she won’t take one. This is exactly why I want to know what ‘reduction’ actually looks like — if ‘reduction’ means ‘pumping our most vaccine hesitant audience with tucker Carlson saying it doesn’t work’ then … I’m not sure it’s reduction!” the email reads.

(Read more at BizPacReview)

This blatant government censorship must stop

My only question now is: “Why hasn’t Mr. Flaherty been fired?”

…

 

Indicators of how the COVID jab might affect heart health


Former NFL player who called for COVID jab resisters to be jailed dies suddenly at 38

LifeSite News reports on the death of 38-year-old former NFL player (who called for the jailing of anyone who refused to get the COVID jab).

A professional football player who argued that refusing COVID jabs should be illegal has died suddenly.  

38-year-old Uche Nwaneri, who played for the Jacksonville Jaguars in the National Football League (NFL) and called for the imprisonment of those who refused to take the COVID-19 vaccines, was found dead in his wife’s home in Lafayette, Indiana on December 30.

Nwaneri was found “unresponsive in a bedroom” by his wife at “about 1 a.m. Friday,” according to a local news report. An initial autopsy report “indicated there were no signs of foul play” and that “preliminary results indicate a possible heart attack, pending toxicology results.”

The athlete played college football at Purdue University before spending seven seasons as an offensive lineman in the NFL. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Nwaneri advocated for vaccine mandates, exaggerating the danger of COVID-19 for children and suggesting that those who refused the shots should be thrown in jail.

“Ok so let’s get these vaccine mandates and vaccine passports up and running ASAP,” the football player said in a September 2021 Twitter post. “We seeing children DIE daily from the unvaccinated selfishness. Pregnant women at risk too. PROTECT LIFE. MANDATE THE VACCINE. Jail anyone who refuses, to protect LIFE.”

Nwaneri also criticized pro-lifers for responding to mask recommendations with the pro-abortion slogan “my body, my choice,” expressing his view that protecting the unborn is “a bunch of men” controlling women’s bodies.

Nwaneri’s death is the latest in an alarming trend of sudden deaths among athletes, coinciding with the rollout of the COVID vaccines and raising suspicion that the shots led to heart failure among young athletes. In April 2022, Dr. Joseph Mercola pointed out that over 700 athletes “collapsed on the field during a game from March 2021 to March 2022.” The average age of those who experienced heart-related trauma was 23.

(Read more at LifeSite News)

Hundreds of professional athletes have collapsed on the field, dying of mysterious heart complications

One America News Network reported on 10 April 2022 how hundreds of professional athletes worldwide had collapsed and died from heart complications following their COVID jab.

Professional athletes all over the world are mysteriously collapsing during games, many of them having to be carried from the field after suffering heart complications and even cardiac arrest. One America’s Pearson Sharp has more.

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Information that still shall not be uttered on the main stream media

NFL player’s cardiac arrest may have been caused by “vaccine-induced myocarditis”

LifeSite News quotes Doctor McCullough on a possible cause of Damar Hamlin’s collapse during the Bill’s game.

The tragic cardiac arrest suffered by a 24-year-old Buffalo Bills safety on Monday Night Football may have been caused by “vaccine-induced myocarditis,” according to distinguished internist, cardiologist, and epidemiologist Dr. Peter McCullough.

“If Damar Hamlin indeed took one of the COVID-19 vaccines, then subclinical vaccine-induced myocarditis must be considered in the differential diagnosis,” McCullough told COVID vaccine journalist Steve Kirsch last night.

In the statement that was also amplified by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), McCullough described the tragic event as “a classical cardiac arrest,” which was later confirmed to be accurate by the Buffalo Bills, and expressed solidarity in prayer with the entire nation for Hamlin’s “complete recovery.”

Kirsch announced in an 11:20 p.m. update that Hamlin had indeed received an experimental COVID-19 gene-based vaccine as “The Buffalo Bills is a 100% vaccinated team.” He likewise reported that he had received a communication from an anonymous source who “knows this for a fact.”

After making what may be considered a routine tackle on a Cincinnati Bengals receiver in the middle of the first quarter of play, Hamlin raised himself to his feet and then seemed to lose consciousness, falling backward onto the turf.

(Read more at LifeSite News)

Has the New York Times taken up practicing medicine without a license?

Now that you have read the preceding article where doctors have offered diagnoses of an ailment, you know how to recognize an unbiased medical mind. Therefore, when the New York Times openly excludes the possibility of one medical answer to a conundrum, you know who has the closed mind. (Bold underscoring is mine for emphasis.)

Cultural dominance

On Monday night, millions of people watched a terrifying scene unfold in real time. Damar Hamlin, a 24-year-old safety for the Buffalo Bills, collapsed and went into cardiac arrest after making what appeared to be a routine tackle in a nationally televised N.F.L. game against the Cincinnati Bengals.

Hamlin’s medical emergency, the specifics of which have not been fully made public, may have been a rare and unlucky event. But in a sport where high-speed collisions are a feature, not a bug, there is risk of serious injury every single time the football is snapped. And yet the games play on. Today’s newsletter will explain why inherent danger persists in a sport that is interwoven with American culture.

(Read more bilge at the New York Times)

Of course, the New York Times was primarily trying to undermine something they see as violent and toxically masculine

The New York Times, floating in a sea of estrogen along with Joy Behar, wasn’t really focused on refuting the possibility that Damar Hamlin’s heart had been damaged by the jab. Rather, they (in a God-like wave of the hand) dismissed the notion and proceeded to address the violence of the NFL. Instead, they focused on the meritocracy, violence, and masculinity of football.

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The German autopsy registry

If you are expecting a quick read and a single outcome, do not turn to this study at The Lancet

The Lancet provides a full view of the many interpretations available from the great amount of data provided by the study of German COVID autopsy registry. If you read the study, you will find that sought to do something sorely lacking in the Democrat-dominated discussion of COVID in America — it sought to open the dialog.

There are several reasons for the relatively low number of autopsied cases, e.g., the early recommendation by the Robert Koch Institute in Germany not to perform COVID-19 autopsies (which, however, was corrected shortly thereafter), but also the overall situation in pathology with the declining interest of both pathologists and clinicians to perform autopsies. To assess the actual infectious potential of SARS-CoV-2 during autopsy, centres from the DEFEAT PANDEMIcs consortium performed a study on infectiousness of contaminated autopsy personal protective equipment. We believe that COVID-19 strongly documented and “rejuvenated” the interest in autopsies and that initiatives like the DeRegCOVID might further increase the value of autopsies as an important medical research tool.

Another aspect of the first goal is central data curation and analyses.

(continued)

The second objective of the registry is to support the autopsy centres, by serving as a central information hub for practical aspects of COVID-19 autopsies, such as providing Standards of Practice (SOPs) for autopsies in pandemic situations.

(continued)

The third main objective of the DeRegCOVID is to act as an honest broker, i.e., to connect researchers with autopsy centres that can provide available material or data for the research question they would like to address.

(Read more at The Lancet)

If we lack anything in the discussion of COVID in Biden’s America, it is a balance to the Democrat view

Even at the newly opened Twitter, the dominance of Democrat thought stifles everything else. To have a group dedicate their efforts toward providing a balanced view proves very refreshing.

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One paper’s interpretation of the German autopsy registry

Autopsy study ties deaths to COVID vaccine

Clark County Today reported on 6 December 2022 how the above-mentioned German autopsy study linked cardiovascular deaths to the COVID vaccine.

Dr. Peter McCullough is among prominent cardiologists calling for a halt to the COVID-19 mRNA shots, contending there is a link between the vaccines and the apparent increase in reports of sudden deaths from cardiac arrest.

In a column on his Substack page, he pointed to an unusual study conducted in Germany of autopsies of 35 people who died within 20 days of COVID-19 vaccine injection.

A total of 25, or 71%, had a final diagnosis consistent with a vaccine injury, including myocardial infarction, worsening heart failure, vascular aneurysm, pulmonary embolism, fatal stroke and vaccine-induced thrombotic thrombocytopenia.

Significantly, McCullough said, five cases had acute myocarditis as the cause. Biopsies of the heart muscle, he pointed out, showed “patchy inflammation very similar to what was seen in the deltoid muscle were the mRNA vaccine was injected.”

“Inflammation in the heart was coincident with the same pattern of inflammation in the arm,” McCullough explained. “Thus we can conclude death within a few days of vaccination is most likely due to the genetic product and that inflammation in the arm may be a surrogate for a similar process in the heart.”

McCullough noted the public “is becoming increasingly disturbed with reports of death among the vaccinated.”

“It is natural to ask ‘was the death caused by vaccination?’  The most definitive way of answering that question is with autopsy,” he wrote.

Dr. Marty Makary, a surgeon and public policy researcher at Johns Hopkins University, also weighed in on the study, which was led by Constantin Schwab of the Institute of Pathology at Heidelberg University Hospital.

“This is a German study from a reputable group. It’s very hard to conduct this research in the U.S.,” Makary wrote.

He noted that German researchers also were the source of a study showing that no healthy child 5-17 years of age died of COVID in the country.

Nevertheless, White House COVID coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha has insisted it’s “crystal clear” that a healthy young male needs to take the current bivalent booster.

Makary argued that Jha “can’t tell you how many *healthy* children have ever died of Covid” and there is no bivalent trial data.

McCullough, in a video interview with WND, cited peer-reviewe literature indicating the vaccines cause myocarditis, including a U.K. study that found about 100 fatal cases of myocarditis linked to the shots.

(Read of other studies cited by McCullough at Clark County Today)

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Finally, just to put a humorous spin on this post, let me remind you of a quote shared by two men

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Things the main stream press decided to hide (part 3)


2022 in review: Issues ignored version

Twitter was in contact with multiple government agencies

Federales sought action on narratives on Ukraine and COVID

The Daily Wire points out how it was not just the FBI that directed Twitter to restrict topics, ban people, publish lies, and promote the Biden position on Ukraine and COVID.

Journalist Matt Taibbi released a new installment of “The Twitter Files” Saturday afternoon that showed that the FBI was not the only government agency that was in regular contact with Twitter about content on the platform.

Taibbi said that the State Department, Department of Defense, and Central Intelligence Agency were also involved in contacting the platform about potential foreign propaganda on the platform.

Internal company emails showed that FBI agent Elvis Chan asked Twitter executives if he could invite an “OGA” — Other Government Agency — to an upcoming conference.

The email referred to a Twitter employee, whose name was redacted, and said that people from the employee’s “former employer,” which a Twitter executive acknowledged meant the CIA, were specifically inquiring about the invitation.

“The government was in constant contact not just with Twitter but with virtually every major tech firm,” Taibbi said. “These included Facebook, Microsoft, Verizon, Reddit, even Pinterest, and many others. Industry players also held regular meetings without government.”

The new Twitter Files release also showed that FBI officials helped put the company in contact with local law enforcement officials to deal with issues.

Taibbi said that the FBI was “clearly tailoring” its searches on the platform to look for potential content violations that Twitter could take action on.

(Read more at the Daily Wire)

Banana-republic Biden here proves he will push us into a Democrat-dictatorship

Through this article, we see Biden:

  • Restricting free speech through the proxies of Twitter and the FBI, CIA, and NSA
  • Stepping into the role of the doctor as he restricts discussion of alternate medicines (such as hydrochloroquine and other medicines) for COVID
  • Silencing his opposition (while again by proxy) through banning people from platforms
  • Allowing only his approved narrative (never mind that it was a complete fabrication)

Therefore, the next time that I go on a rant regarding the fascism of Biden, don’t stop me. It does not constitute any exaggeration.

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Breitbart names eighteen wasteful items in the $1.7 trillion spending bill

Here are the first six

Breitbart details eighteen insanely liberal projects that the $1.7 trillion splurge pushes (including further prosecution of 6 January detainees; LGBT projects; border security for Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia and Oman; and more).

The $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill contains millions in wasteful spending, including $575 million for “reproductive health” where population growth “threatens biodiversity,” $11 million for LGBT-related projects, and millions more for border security for other countries.

Democrats are determined to pass the $1.7 trillion spending spree prior to Christmas following the Senate advancing the spending bill on Tuesday. The omnibus hit a snag mid-week due to Sen. Mike Lee’s (R-UT) Title 42 amendment, which lawmakers ultimately rejected.

The swamp quickly regained its footing, and the Senate passed the bill on Thursday in a 68-29 vote, despite conservatives in both chambers warning Republican colleagues to vote against the measure. Republican Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is among those who has backed the warnings of House Republicans threatening to thwart the legislative efforts of GOP senators who voted in favor of the bill.

Eighteen Republican senators ended up voting with Democrats to pass the $1.7 government spending spree.

The 4,155-page monster contains billions in earmarks and millions more on wasteful projects unrelated to keeping the government up and running.

Here are some of the highlights.

  1. The bill contains $45 billion to Ukraine. This is in addition to the $66 million given by American taxpayers earlier this year, bringing the total to $111 billion.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has stated that the blank check is simply not enough:

    “We are not in an easy situation. The enemy is increasing its army. Our people are braver and need more powerful weapons,” he said about the Ukrainian war. “We will pass it on from the boys to the Congress, to the president of the United States. We are grateful for their support, but it is not enough. It is a hint — it is not enough.”

  2. The bill also designates part of D.C. as Ukrainian Independence Park and, as Breitbart News reported, “allows for signs around the park that ‘include information on the importance of the independence, freedom, and sovereignty of Ukraine and the solidarity between the people of Ukraine and the United States.’”
  3. $11 million is allotted for LGBT-themed projects. This includes $1.2 million to San Diego Community College for “centers to support LGBT students,” $3 million for the American LGBTQ+ Museum in New York City, $750,000 for the “TransLatin@ Coalition” to provide “workforce development programs and supportive services for Transgender, Gender nonconforming and Intersex (TGI) immigrant women in Los Angeles,” and $105,000 going toward what has been described as a “mentoring program for LGBT youth in the greater Pittsburg area.” Another $856,000 is allotted for an “LGBT Center” in New York as well.
  4. The bill designates tens of millions for “necessary expenses associated with the restoration of Pacific salmon populations, $65,000,000, to remain available until September 30, 2024.” The words “salmon” or “salmonoid” are mentioned 48 times throughout the bill.
  5. The bill includes over half a billion, $575 million, to be used for “family planning” or “reproductive health.” This includes areas where lawmakers say population growth “threatens biodiversity.” The bill states in part, “That of the funds appropriated under title III of this Act, not less than $575,000,000 should be made available for family planning/reproductive health, including in areas where population growth threatens biodiversity or endangered species.”
  6. 19 earmarks totaling $60 million are set aside for RINO Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). This includes $500,000 for the “Restoring Indigenous Safety and Empowerment (RISE) Tribal Domestic Violence Shelter for Helping Ourselves Prevent Emergencies.”

(Read more at Breitbart)

The six items I included are aggrivating. The eighteen cited by Breitbart are maddening

The six items that I list include enough idiocy to be aggrivating. The eighteen things mentioned by Breitbart could drive one to madness. However, to consider the degree of insanity inclosed in over 4,000 pages that had to be voted on within a matter of days, then a new level of craziness gets involved. Therefore, I find myself agreeing with Representative Dan Crenshaw as he uses a Townhall article to explain his vote against the $17 trillion omnibus bill.

Republican Congressman Dan Crenshaw is detailing why he voted against the $1.7 trillion omnibus package on Friday, paving the way for President Joe Biden’s signature after the monster legislation was passed in the U.S. Senate. He’s also calling claims lawmakers didn’t have enough time to read the legislation an “excuse” for voting against it, arguing there are much better reasons why the bill should have been opposed. 



(Read more at Townhall)

Hence, I agree with Representative Crenshaw for this time and thank him for his “no” vote.

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