Sunday, August 30, 2020

What Joe Biden's America Would Look Like In 2021

It is now November 2021, one year after Joe Biden was elected president after a razor-thin election. We have been given a glimpse into the future to see Biden’s America.

Summer 2021 was another scorcher. The rolling brownouts California suffered in 2020 spread throughout the West. Record demand for air conditioning combined with the ongoing closures of coal, nuclear, and even gas-powered electric plants have left millions powerless in these heat waves.

Energy Secretary Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, with the support of President Biden, has permanently extended the airlines’ drastic curtailments of flights, first seen during the late pandemic, in keeping with the Green New Deal they both support. Taxes on gasoline and diesel fuel have shot up to European levels “to discourage internal combustion engine use and to promote jobs in the alternative transportation industry, especially the manufacture of bicycles.”

The Ferguson effect, where law enforcement pulls back in the wake of hostility, lawsuits, and violent crime increases, and seen in 2020 in certain cities such as Seattle, Portland, Chicago, and Minneapolis, has extended to hundreds of major cities. Attorney General Lori Lightfoot, former mayor of Chicago, has called for a blue-ribbon commission on how to best spend the mandatory 30% diversion of police funds to social service agencies that the Democratic U.S. House and Senate mandated. Although Biden said during the 2020 campaign that he did not support defunding the police, he never denounced violence and rioting in the aftermath of the George Floyd protests. This was seen as a green light by progressives in Congress to divert money from law enforcement nationally, or else state and local governments would lose federal funding.

Because Biden has been making fewer and fewer public appearances, his ability to impose his will on Congress has diminished. Rumors have circulated, but his advisers remain tight-lipped about his medical and mental condition.

Identity politics has expanded. Vice President Kamala Harris, who was chosen by Biden because she checked three boxes as a progressive woman of color, was designated by him as the czar in charge of “remedying historical grievances.” The 1619 Project, claiming that America was founded to promote slavery and first pushed by the New York Times, has been adopted as mandatory reading by the majority of public school districts in the country. This was after a guidance letter went out from her office to school districts nationwide, telling them to incorporate the 1619 Project or face liability exposure on civil rights grounds. The fact that the 1619 Project is opposed by liberal and conservative historians alike, and also ignores the abolition movement, are not considered significant by the Biden administration.

In foreign affairs, Biden has attempted to resurrect the Obama-era agreement with Iran to keep it from developing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Reversing all the Trump sanctions as a unilateral peace gesture to the regime did not work — Iran has ramped up its 20,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges, which mostly had been in storage prior to the election.

National security adviser Adam Schiff has stated publicly that “Iran must curtail its nuclear efforts or face the consequences.” But when pressed, he could not say what those consequences would be. He said he hoped that discussions with the European Union, Russia, and China about how to deal with the Iranian crisis would find common ground for the first time.

The new Democratic Congress has cut funding to the Department of Defense under pressure from the newly empowered progressive wing of the Democratic Party. The Joint Chiefs of Staff have been reacting to the painful cuts by triaging their defense priorities. Adversaries have shown signs of challenging U.S. interests abroad to exploit new weaknesses in American forces.

The one bright spot in Biden’s America over the last 12 months has been in healthcare. When the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed led to a vaccine in record time, Americans, for the most part, decided they were tired of seclusion and took the vaccine. Even Democratic governors lifted Coronavirus restrictions, employees went back to work, schools and universities reopened for the spring semester, sports teams played in front of fans, and the atmosphere of fear went away. Defeating the pandemic is now acknowledged by pundits on both ends of the spectrum as Trump’s finest hour. The vaccine came out two weeks after the November election.

Friday, August 28, 2020

Some Black Lives Matter, but not all!

 

Some Black Lives Matter, but not all!

The reality is that homicides in major cities are not race neutral. 136,000 Americans are shot each year—over one million in the past decade and. 36,000 killed. The shooters were most likely black as well. This is a devastating plague acutely affecting black communities across the country.

The killings continue even as the country faces a Coronavirus pandemic that prompted the governor to place states on a stay-at-home lock-down. No one is to go out unless it is for essentials such as groceries and prescription medications. However, the killings did not stop and are rising rapidly. Again, it is mostly black victims.

When the big city Mayor’s got tough on “bad guys with guns,” homicides in went down. It is likely that most of those detained were black. In these reductions in homicides, the people who benefited most also were African Americans who lost fewer sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers to senseless street violence. More black people lived. However, the mantra has been about cops killing innocent black men.

In the past months, we have had highly destructive riots under the banner of Black Lives Matter. Each was started by the death of a black person at the hands of officer(s). Details in most, factual details are still coming out. Yet, in every case, the commencement of rioting and destruction started immediately.

For most people, it is difficult to balance the outrage of “death by police” with the daily black-on-black homicides that occur daily. This is the conversation we need to have. The riots have only destroyed. They have not produced any closure of the gap of needed understanding and change.

Thursday, August 27, 2020

How To Build Another Booming Economy

 Conservative policies are best for working families. Ambassador Haley made that clear in her RNC speech on Monday: “Before Communist China gave us COVID-19, we were breaking economic records left and right.”


Before the pandemic hit, the last four years saw a strong economy across the board. Historic tax cuts, record red tape slashing, and unleashing American energy — the combination of common-sense policies created an economy that worked for everyone.

 

- Jobs. The national unemployment rate hit a 50-year low. Women’s unemployment hit a 67-year low. For Hispanics and African Americans, unemployment reached their lowest levels in history. People of all backgrounds were climbing the ladder of opportunity.

- Wages. Workers of all kinds saw their incomes rise at the fastest rate in a decade. Lower-income workers saw the largest wage gains, with paychecks for the bottom 10% growing more than twice as fast as they did in Obama’s second term.

- Tax relief. The tax cuts of 2017 put more money in the pockets of hard-working Americans. Some of the biggest relief went to low- and middle-income families — those earning between $25,000 and $100,000. Millions got bonuses and wage hikes, too.

- Stocks. The markets hit record highs, creating trillions of dollars in new wealth for retirees, pension plan holders, and middle-class families that scraped together the money to invest.


The economic boom was felt in every corner of America. Manufacturers made new investments, the nation’s small businesses saw record optimism, and more. Families and workers have seen remarkable benefits, making communities and the country better off.

On Monday, Amb. Haley said: “The pandemic has set us back, but not for long.” Conservative policies brought the economy back before. They can bring it back again.

Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Political Correctness Has Morphed Into -- Cancel Culture.

 

What started with political correctness has morphed into something else -- cancel culture.

 
FIRST: First cancel culture went after the 1st Amendment. If someone said something or did something that offended them, they came after that person’s job and their family. 

THEN: They went after our history. Statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were torn down. Monuments to abolitionists were defaced. Even a statue of Abraham Lincoln, paid for by freed slaves and praised by Frederick Douglass, needed armed guards to prevent its destruction. 
 
NOW: They're going after our culture. There’s a screaming 1% that’s trying to shout down the other 99% of us. A loud few are trying to force their views on the rest of society, telling us how to live and think.
 
Cancel culture is out of control — and frankly — it's un-American.
 
You and I know that our society is built on the values of free speech and mutual respect. 


But cancel culture rejects both. 

In place of free speech, it demands conformity. 

Instead of mutual respect, it tears people down. 
 
It would rather SILENCE, than speak — and would rather DESTROY than discuss. 
 

Nikki Haley

Thursday, August 20, 2020

A Vote For Democrats is like poisoning the Economy!

 California’s Tax Grab 

Joe Biden isn’t the only one with plans to raise taxes. So is the People’s Republic of California. Not only are state lawmakers considering higher taxes on current residents, they also want to tax people who’ve already left the state.

The backdrop to the California tax proposal is a massive $54 billion deficit. Yet rather than cut spending or end giveaways to liberal interest groups, California’s powerful government unions have demanded higher taxes. The current proposal is targeted at the wealthy and would apply to virtually all assets they hold everywhere, even outside of California. Worse, people who left the state within the last 10 years would still be forced to fork over money.

The bill’s liberal backers say it’s all about attacking the rich, but every Californian would get hurt in the end. Higher taxes drive away job creators and can raise less money than intended, leading to calls for even higher taxes on even more people — all without solving the underlying spending problem. Since California is often where the worst ideas get their start, this terrible tax hike needs to fail.

→ Read more: California wealth tax could become first of its kind in US under new proposal (San Francisco Chronicle)

→ Read more: Before proposing a new wealth tax, maybe California should actually try studying it first (Yahoo


Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Kamala Harris: Was she “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

 Why not simply answer the question rather than deny the merits of the question?

Were Harris’ parents lawful permanent residents at the time of her birth? If so, then under the actual holding of [the 1898 Supreme Court case] Wong Kim Ark, she should be deemed a citizen at birth — that is, a natural-born citizen — and hence eligible. Or were they instead, as seems to be the case, merely temporary visitors, perhaps on student visas issued pursuant to Section 101(15)(F) of Title I of the 1952 Immigration Act? If the latter were indeed the case, then derivatively from her parents, Harris was not subject to the complete jurisdiction of the United States at birth, but instead owed her allegiance to a foreign power or powers — Jamaica, in the case of her father, and India, in the case of her mother — and was therefore not entitled to birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment as originally understood.

Despite the Democrats’ “open border” agenda, which subordinates the law to their political objectives, the notion of “birthright citizenship” is erroneous. It is clear that the drafters and ratifiers of the 14th Amendment never intended it to confer citizenship on the children of illegal aliens. Leftmedia “fact-checkers” who dismiss Harris’s parents’ status as irrelevant completely ignore that aspect of the question. In fact, parental legal status is the entire premise of the “anchor baby” debate.

As noted by Eastman, the 14th Amendment states, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” The phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” is key, regardless of the media effort to ignore rather than address the real argument. Contrary to the constitutional mandate, the Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA) of 1952 establishes in U.S. Code what “jurisdiction” means, and, according to the State Department, that includes children born to illegals.

The fight over the Post Office isn’t about the election!

 Pelosi Goes Postal ✉️

The fight over the Post Office isn’t about the election. It’s really about a multi-billion dollar postal bailout that Democrats and their labor union allies have been demanding for years. Now that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has called the House back into session to pass a $25 billion bailout, Americans need to know that this is nothing more than political theater.

Despite what Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, and the mainstream media have been screaming from the rooftops, the Post Office is perfectly capable of handling election mail. So say its current leaders and former regulators who served under Republican and Democratic administrations. The Post Office has already laid out clear and commonsense recommendations so that voting by mail goes smoothly. As of yesterday, it has also delayed all operational changes until after the election, to "avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail," according to U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.

The real issue is that the Post Office has lost $78 billion since 2007 — money that taxpayers have been forced to cover. Rather than support reforms to make the Post Office profitable, the seven unions that represent its workers are demanding tens of billions of dollars to protect the status quo. 

Congressional Democrats have tried to pass a bailout for years, including earlier in the pandemic. But they weren’t talking about the election then. They’re only talking about it now because it makes good headlines. If only they were interested in passing good policy — and reforms that protect the American taxpayers who already shell out far too much for the Post Office.

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