Nice Work If You Can Get It? What a New Report Reveals About Federal Employees thumbnail

Nice Work If You Can Get It? What a New Report Reveals About Federal Employees

By The Daily Signal

Bring on the DOGE revolution.

An explosive new report from Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who chairs the Senate DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) Caucus, notes that fewer than 1 of out every 10 federal employees (6%) work in an office full time, citing an April survey.

“If you exclude security guards & maintenance personnel, the number of government workers who show up in person and do 40 hours of work a week is closer to 1%!” posted Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur leading DOGE with fellow billionaire entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, in response to the report. “Almost no one.”

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, only 3% of federal government workers did remote work. Now, an astonishing 30% never come into the office, according to an April survey from Federal News Network.

Two-thirds of federal employees alternate between working at home and in the office—even as taxpayers remain on the hook for insanely expensive office building costs.

An August report from the Office of Management and Budget showed different numbers than the April survey, however. The OMB report found that 54% of civilian federal employees worked fully on-site, and that employees eligible for telework spent on average 61% of their work hours on site.

The “Out of Office” report details reasons for concern about the overall productivity of federal employees. Just consider these clear failures by various government agencies:

  • 74% of calls to the Department of Education during the recent FAFSA debacle, with parents and students having questions about the new financial-aid application, were not answered, according to the Government Accountability Office.
  • An Indiana man employed by the Social Security Administration was paid from 2019 to 2022 as a full-time teleworking employee “when in reality he was earning income working as a home inspector for his personal business.” (His mother and wife used his computer to send emails to make it look like he was working.)
  • Don’t expect to get any customer service from the IRS. Only two of the 76 local IRS offices picked up their phones to answer questions, according to a July 2024 report.

Meanwhile, veterans in Atlanta faced significant hurdles to getting responses to their mental health calls. Out of the roughly 22,000 calls placed over 12 months in the 2022-2023 period, about 7,200 weren’t answered, according to a whistleblower cited in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW: Screenshot from “Out of Office” report released by Sen. Joni Ernst

At about the same time, in March 2022, an employee at the Atlanta Veteran Affairs Medical Center’s community care office decided to post on social media about taking a bubble bath while “working.”

“The Instagram story shows him in a bathtub, legs kicked up with a federal government-issue laptop propped on the ledge. The computer is open to a March 17 staff meeting and the post’s caption reads, ‘My office for the next hour,’” reported WSB-TV, an Atlanta ABC affiliate.

What a workplace.

Sure, federal employees in many roles can be productive at home. But the report from Ernst, an Iowa Republican, raises serious questions about whether there is any real culture of accountability at federal agencies. Occasional work from home is a privilege—and federal agencies should be careful to limit it to good employees and regularly be tracking performance and productivity metrics.

Yet the IRS allowed 138 poor performers to work remotely, despite its own policy prohibiting that.

Ernst also recommends the commonsense policy of agencies avoiding blanket policies regarding telework, and allowing managers and supervisors to make those calls.

There’s also questions about just how occasional the work from home is. “[P]ublic reporting indicates telework-eligible managers and supervisors at the USDA’s D.C. headquarters have been required to be in the office five days per two-week pay period—which is less than three days a week—since September 10, 2023,” states the Ernst report. Coming in only half the time is wildly different from coming in, say, 70% to 80% of the time.

Meanwhile, over at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, 90% of employees only have to show up one day a week to work.

At the same time that federal employees are getting able to dodge horrific D.C. traffic and work from their comfort of their homes, taxpayers continue to fund huge, underutilized offices.

“Not a single headquarters of a major government agency or department in the nation’s capital is even half full. Yet it’s costing $8 billion every year to maintain or lease government office buildings. Another $7.7 billion is being expended annually for the energy to keep them running. And billions more are being spent buying brand-new furnishings for the largely abandoned offices inside them,” states the report.

That’s insanity.

To realize just how ludicrous that is, consider that it costs “more than $182,000 per employee a year to cover operating and maintenance expenses at the Department of Labor headquarters,” according to the report.

“On an average day, fewer than 500 employees are reporting to work at the building, which costs nearly $60 million a year to rent, operate, and maintain.”

Say, maybe that money could be used to help the hurricane victims in North Carolina and Florida? Or to repair crumbling roads? Or, well, a thousand other things?

Nor is that the only outrageous expense the report identified.

The federal government pays employees based on localities they work in. It’s a good-faith effort to recognize that different areas have different costs of living.

But there’s reason to believe a significant portion of government employees are getting paid the salaries for a different area than the one they actually live in. Ernst’s audits “are finding as many as [23% to 68%] of teleworking employees for some agencies are boosting their salaries by receiving incorrect locality pay.”

Nice work if you can get it.

Clearly, there is room for reform here. Ernst’s report offers a slew of practical suggestions, from moving more federal work outside of the Washington, D.C., area to tracking, as some private employers do, workers’ time spent on their work laptops and in offices.

I’d also suggest that local D.C., Virginia, and Maryland governments should immediately invest in a dramatic expansion of the local highways. In-person work and collaboration is valuable, but spending time parked on a highway, as D.C. area drivers do during commute hours, is not. The region’s myopic focus on public transit and green fantasies has led to a situation where people regularly miss time with their families and friends just because local officials won’t build enough lanes and bridges to keep up with the demand.

Meanwhile, government agencies need to provide some accountability to taxpayers.

Right now, the average salary for government employees is $106,000, according to Zip Recruiter. (It’s even higher in Washington, D.C.: $120,000.) The average American salary is $59,000.

“One of the first things that I think you’ll see is a demand from the new administration, from all of us in Congress, [that] the federal workers, return to their desks,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday, according to the New York Post.

Musk and Ramaswamy signaled in a November column for The Wall Street Journal that they would oppose allowing federal employees to work remotely. “Requiring federal employees to come to the office five days a week would result in a wave of voluntary terminations that we welcome: If federal employees don’t want to show up, American taxpayers shouldn’t pay them for the COVID-era privilege of staying home,” the DOGE duo wrote.

When it comes to federal employees, the taxpayers are the bosses—and the taxpayers elected Donald Trump, whose allies are signaling it’s a new day in Washington for federal employees. It’s about time.

AUTHOR

Katrina Trinko

Katrina Trinko is the editor-in-chief of The Daily Signal. Send an email to Katrina. Katrina on X: @KatrinaTrinko

Related posts:

Does DOGE Need Congress for Massive Budget Cutting?

‘Accountability Is Coming’: Iowa’s Ernst Sends Musk’s DOGE $2T Worth of Ways to Gut Government Spending 

Trump’s Efficiency Department Secures Support From Dem Lawmakers

RELATED VIDEO: Congress will require all federal employees to return in-person to work

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


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Time to appoint a Special Counsel to investigate the ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ of the Biden/Harris cabal thumbnail

Time to appoint a Special Counsel to investigate the ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ of the Biden/Harris cabal

By Editorial Board – DrRichSwier.com

“One sin leads to a deeper sin.” — Judah Rosenthal


§ 600.1 Grounds for appointing a Special Counsel.

The Attorney General, or in cases in which the Attorney General is recused, the Acting Attorney General, will appoint a Special Counsel when he or she determines that criminal investigation of a person or matter is warranted and—

(a)That investigation or prosecution of that person or matter by a United States Attorney’s Office or litigating Division of the Department of Justice would present a conflict of interest for the Department or other extraordinary circumstances; and

(b) That under the circumstances, it would be in the public interest to appoint an outside Special Counsel to assume responsibility for the matter.

The charge of high crimes and misdemeanors covers allegations of misconduct by officials.

Offenses by officials also include ordinary crimes, but perhaps with different standards of proof and punishment than for non-officials, on the grounds that more is expected of officials by their oaths of office.

Oath of Office

Executive Branch: President and Vice President of the United States

According to the 20th Amendment to the Constitution, a President’s term of office begins at 12:00 p.m. (noon) on January 20th of the year following an election. To assume his or her duties, the President-elect must take the Oath of Office as stated in Article II, Section I , Clause 8 of the Constitution:

Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation: – “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Legislative Branch: Members of Congress

At the start of each new Congress, in January of every odd-numbered year, the entire House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate takes an oath of office. For Members of the House, the Speaker will direct the Members to rise, and the oath is administered. A Senator-elect takes the oath of office from the presiding officer in an open session of the Senate. The current oath is as follows:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”

Judicial Branch: Supreme Court Justices

According to Title 28, Chapter I, Part 453 of the United States Code, each Supreme Court Justice takes the following oath:

“I, [NAME], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as [TITLE] under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God.”

To learn more, see the Oath of Office from the U.S. Senate site and the Presidential Oaths of Office from the Library of Congress site.

High Crimes and Misdemeanors

It is time for Attorney General nominee Pam Bondi, once approved by the U.S. Senate, to deal with those who are found to have violated their oaths of office by committing high crimes and misdemeanors such as:

  1. Wrongfully imprisoning Americans for attending your rally on January 6th, 2021.
  2. For misappropriating government funds from any of the Departments in the Executive Branch.
  3. For misappropriating government funds to expand the war between Russia and Ukraine.
  4. For misappropriating government funds sent via the United Nations organization UNWRA to fund the terrorists groups Hamas and Hezbollah.
  5. For misappropriating government funds to create the Steel Dossier which led to a false and failed impeachment of you, Mr. President-Elect,
  6. To investigate and indict those in the current administration who have failed to follow the laws involving our border security.
  7. To investigate and indict those who wrongfully raided your Mar-a-Lago home in Florida using the FISA courts.
  8. To investigate and indict those who within our government gave secret documents concerning our ally Israel to Iran.
  9. To investigate and indict the members of the J6 Committee for withholding evidence that would show that those over 1,200 Americans who are wrongfully in prison are brought to justice.
  10. To investigate and indict any member of Congress who is here illegally or who supports terrorism, anti-Semitism or organizations that are anti-American.
  11. To investigate and indict those who misappropriating American tax dollars to fund the lodging of illegal aliens.
  12. To investigate and indict those who misappropriating the Department of Veterans Affairs funds to house and/or support illegal aliens.
  13. To investigate and indict those who used Federal Emergency Management budget to fund illegal aliens.
  14. To investigate and indict those who failed to secure our borders, including senior leaders in the Department of Homeland Security.
  15. To investigate and indict those in the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation who spied on Americans without cause, e.g. those who bought Bibles and attended your rallies.
  16. To investigate and indict those in the Department of Transportation for misappropriating funds used to transport of illegal aliens to American cities and state.
  17. To investigate and indict those who misappropriating the Department of Heath and Human Services budget to fund abortions both within the United States and promote abortion programs overseas.
  18. To investigate and indict those officers in all military branches in the Department of Defense who promoted transgenderism, DEI and Critical Race Theory in our military.
  19. To investigate and indict those lobbying firms in Washington, D.C. who are funded by America’s enemies, including Iran, Russia, China, and organizations such as Open Society Foundations, America Coming Together, Democracy Alliance, Priorities USA Action, et. al.
  20. Finally to investigate and indict those who were behind the lawfare conducted against we the people and you, your family, friends and colleagues.

The Cabal

AG Bondi has the authority to appoint this special council in the public’s interest.

A cabal is a small, secret group of people who work together to promote their own interests or views, often through intrigue.

We believe that Biden, Harris and their Cabinet are a cabal that his been behind the destruction of the rule of law in America. We believe that they have broken their collective oaths of office and committed treason against we the people.

Justice must be served!

We believe that given the 2024 election mandate, it is imperative that this cabal and its members be brought to justice, quickly and publically.

Here is our suggestion for a candidate who will serve we the people and not the elites: former Congressman Matt Gaetz from Florida.


Please leave a comment below on appointing former Congressman Matt Gaetz from Florida as a special council.


©2024 . All rights reserved.

Judicial Watch Sues for Records on $27M Grants to ‘Miscellaneous Foreign Awardees’ for Use in Gaza thumbnail

Judicial Watch Sues for Records on $27M Grants to ‘Miscellaneous Foreign Awardees’ for Use in Gaza

By Judicial Watch

Washington, D.C. – Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for records about to the $27 million in U.S. grants awarded to “Miscellaneous Foreign Awardees” that have been designated for use in Gaza (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Agency for International Development (No. 1:24-cv-02159)).

On April 2, 2024, Judicial Watch filed a FOIA request with the USAID for:

  1. All records identifying the recipients of USAID funding under the $7,000,000 grant allocation awarded on or about November 15, 2023, and associated with Federal Award Identification Number 720BHA24GR00005.
  2. 2. All proposals, applications, scope of work documents, or similar records related to any grant award or sub-award associated with Federal Award Identification Number 720BHA24GR00005.

Recently USAID produced records in this case but is refusing to disclose what organizations received the money. Judicial Watch is challenging that withholding.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas—a U.S.-designated terrorist organization—invaded southwest Israel, killing over a thousand people and kidnapping hundreds of others.

On November 15, 2023, the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, a component of the USAID, issued a $7 million grant for “multisectoral response in Gaza.” The grant was awarded to “Miscellaneous Foreign Awardees.” The same day a “continuation” grant of $20 million was also issued for “multisectoral response.”

“The involvement of employees of a U.S. backed multinational organization in the October 7 attack on Israel underscores the importance of transparency in who receives U.S. taxpayer dollars and how they are spent,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “This is critical to protecting the national security of the U.S. and Israel.”

USAID reports that over $282 million was obligated to the West Bank and Gaza in fiscal year 2023.

EDITORS NOTE: This Judicial Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

AGENDA 47: The Plan to Dismantle the Deep State thumbnail

AGENDA 47: The Plan to Dismantle the Deep State

By Dr. Richard M. Swier, LTC U.S. Army (Ret.)

Agenda 47 is the 20 point plan to dismantle and destroy the deep state while at the same time rebuilding America into a free nation once again.

Agenda 47 restores and strengthens our Constitutional Republic, returns power to the people and makes Americans healthy, happy and prosperous once again.

The 20 point plan

  1. Seal the border and stop the migrant invasion
  2. Carry out the largest deportation operation in American history
  3. End inflation, and make America affordable again
  4. Make America the dominant energy producer in the world, by far!
  5. STOP OUTSOURCING, AND TURN THE UNITED STATES INTO A MANUFACTURING SUPERPOWER
  6. Large tax cuts for workers, and no tax on tips!
  7. Defend our constitution, our bill of rights, and our fundamental freedoms, including freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the right to keep and bear arms
  8. Prevent world war three, restore peace in Europe and in the middle east, and build a great iron dome missile defense shield over our entire country — all made in America
  9. End the weaponization of government against the American people
  10. Stop the migrant crime epidemic, demolish the foreign drug cartels, crush gang violence, and lock up violent offenders
  11. Rebuild our cities, including Washington D,C., making them safe, clean, and beautiful again.
  12. Strengthen and modernize our military, making it, without question, the strongest and most powerful in the world
  13. Keep the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency
  14. Fight for and protect social security and Medicare with no cuts, including no changes to the retirement age
  15. Cancel the electric vehicle mandate and cut costly and burdensome regulations
  16. Cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, radical gender ideology, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children
  17. Keep men out of women’s sports
  18. Deport pro-Hamas radicals and make our college campuses safe and patriotic again
  19. Secure our elections, including same day voting, voter identification, paper ballots, and proof of citizenship
  20. Unite our country by bringing it to new and record levels of success

President Donald J. Trump Declares War on Cartels

Ending Veteran Homelessness in America

No Welfare for Illegal Aliens

The American Academy

President Trump’s Pledge to Homeschool Families

President Trump’s Message to America’s Auto Workers

President Trump’s Ten Principles For Great Schools Leading To Great Jobs

America Must Have the #1 Lowest Cost Energy and Electricity on Earth

Returning Production of Essential Medicines Back to America and Ending Pharmaceutical Shortages

President Trump Calls for Death Penalty for Human Traffickers

Rescuing America’s Auto Industry from Disastrous Job-Killing Policies

Rebuilding America’s Depleted Military

Protecting Students from the Radical Left and Marxist Maniacs Infecting Educational Institutions

Cementing Fair and Reciprocal Trade with the Trump Reciprocal Trade Act

Using Impoundment to Cut Waste, Stop Inflation, and Crush the Deep State

Addressing Rise of Chronic Childhood Illnesses

Ending the Scourge of Drug Addiction in America

Celebration Of 250 Years Of American Independence at the Iowa State Fairgrounds

Day One Executive Order Ending Citizenship for Children of Illegals and Outlawing Birth Tourism

Protecting Students from the Radical Left and Marxist Maniacs Infecting Educational Institutions

Ending the Nightmare of the Homeless, Drug Addicts, and Dangerously Deranged

Liberating America from Governmental Regulatory Onslaught

Watch more here.

The Bottom Line

We know that when President Trump makes a promise he keeps his promise. We also know that there are Democrats and some Republicans who don’t want Agenda 47 fully implemented.

We will be watching what President Donald J. Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance and the Trump cabinet will do to implement Agenda 47.

We will also be watching what Congress does.

We believe that it will take up to 20 years to fully implement Agenda 47. Therefore we are looking forward to POTUS 47 to get it started followed by two terms for J.D. Vance to make Agenda 47 into Agenda 48, Agenda 49 and beyond.

©2024 Dr. Richard M. Swier, LTC U.S. Army (Ret.) All rights reserved.

About One-Third Of Border Patrol’s Main Surveillance Cameras Broken, Internal Memo Says thumbnail

About One-Third Of Border Patrol’s Main Surveillance Cameras Broken, Internal Memo Says

By The Daily Caller

Nearly one-third of the cameras in Border Patrol’s primary surveillance system along the southern U.S. border are currently nonfunctional, according to an internal memo obtained by NBC News.

The memo indicates that out of approximately 500 cameras mounted on surveillance towers along the U.S.-Mexico border, around 150 are inoperative due to a variety of technical issues, according to NBC News. Officials, speaking under the condition of anonymity, cited old equipment and a backlog of repair requests as primary reasons for the widespread camera failures.

Since their inception in 2011, the malfunctioning cameras of the Remote Video Surveillance Systems have been crucial in enabling Border Patrol to effectively monitor extensive border regions without the need for significant ground personnel, the outlet reported. Despite recent repair efforts, more than 150 camera repair requests remain unresolved, leading to surveillance gaps in key border sectors and heightening safety and security concerns in areas without visual monitoring.

Exclusive: Nearly one-third of the cameras in the Border Patrol’s primary surveillance system along the southern U.S. border are not working, according to an internal agency memo sent in early October. https://t.co/Rxyhf61sEs

— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 14, 2024

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has reportedly installed about 300 new towers equipped with advanced technology, including artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, NBC News reported. A CBP spokesperson emphasized that these upgrades are part of a broader effort to modernize border surveillance and reduce reliance on manual monitoring by agents.

The internal memo also pointed fingers at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the agency responsible for servicing and repairing the camera systems, accusing it of failing to meet the Border Patrol’s needs effectively, NBC reported. Border Patrol leadership is considering replacing the FAA with a private contractor that could potentially offer more reliable technical support for the surveillance cameras.

The breakdown in camera functionality and the subsequent repair delays have led to calls for increased funding and resources as the Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly requested additional funds from Congress to restore and upgrade surveillance systems along the border, NBC News reported.

The FAA and CBP did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

Mariane Angela

News reporter.

RELATED ARTICLES:

‘Right Into His Strengths’: ‘Morning Joe’ Guest Reports Trump Has Massive Edge Over Kamala Harris On The Issue of Migration

Mayorkas Says Admin’s Doing ‘Everything’ Against Migrant Gangs, Before Pressed On Migrant’s Election Terror Plot

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.


All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

The post About One-Third Of Border Patrol’s Main Surveillance Cameras Broken, Internal Memo Says appeared first on Dr. Rich Swier.

The Hellish Nightmare of DMV Bureaucracy thumbnail

The Hellish Nightmare of DMV Bureaucracy

By Kelleigh Nelson

“In any bureaucracy, there’s a natural tendency to let the system become an excuse for inaction.” — Chris Fussell

“The minute you’re working with the government, you’re dealing with bureaucracy, you’re dealing with time lags, you’re dealing with rigidity, you’re dealing with a slow pace.” — Bob Simon

“Every year the Federal Government wastes billions of dollars as a result of overpayments of government agencies, misuse of government credit cards, abuse of the Federal entitlement programs, and the mismanagement of the Federal bureaucracy.” —  Chris Chocola


In my previous article, The Authoritarian Tyranny of the DMV, I explained how difficult it has become for women who have changed their last names more than once to attain the new ID driver’s license in order to board an airplane or enter a federal building.

If you have been married and divorced, you must have documented proof of the divorce showing your previous name, and Lord help you if you’ve been divorced more than once and cannot even remember what year the divorce occurred.

And lucky for the men, they never change their surnames, except for JD Vance.  I wonder if the Republican candidate for Vice President has had to prove his name change to renew his license?  Highly doubtful.

Ultimately, if you cannot attain these records, even as an American citizen, you will one day not be allowed to fly.  Of course, it’s perfectly fine for millions of illegal aliens coming through our sieve of an open southern border to jump on a plane and be flown all over the USA to their new destinations without, mind you, even a birth certificate.  The government does issue them social security cards however. Wonder if that works for their driver’s licenses so they can then get a voter’s card.  Meanwhile, female American citizens who have had surname changes are put through the wringer in proving who they are, despite presenting your social security card and your birth certificate.

Scream!

After my last go around with the local DMV, I called my representative’s office and spoke with a gal who had just gotten married and had been through the same thing.  She told me that every state now has different laws for attaining the new ID license.

How exciting!

I sent my Congressman, Tim Burchett, the original article on this nightmare debacle, and he was kind enough to call me at home.  I told him the whole story and asked him if he couldn’t please do something to make life less difficult in attaining the desired ID.

Needless to say, I thought I had the entire insanity cured when I found my old passport as I knew the passport could be used for the ID and would keep me from searching divorce records.

I was wrong.

I didn’t need divorce records when I attained my passport in 2010; I only needed my birth certificate and social security card.  But lo and behold, now to renew my passport, I need proof of my divorce decree(s).  How lovely.  Here we are again.

Can you imagine me calling the Chicago Cook County Clerk of Courts and telling them I don’t remember the date or even the year I was divorced but I need a copy of the decree and it was around such and such year.  As of 2022, there were only 5.109 million in that county.

So, here we are again in the same scenario as before.  Does any woman keep a copy of her divorce decree?  I mean really…you want to forget everything about the mistake and never dredge up the thought again.

But here we go again.  I am going to once again forward this article to Congressman Burchett and see if he can do anything to help me.  It’s not like I’m going to get on a plane tomorrow, but I have family all over the country and should anything happen to any of them, I would not be allowed to fly, even if the thought of getting on a plane with a DEI pilot scares the daylights out of me.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, my husband renewed my regular driver’s license via the web, but I’m still haggling with trying to renew my passport in order to go see the lovely people at the local DMV for that ever so special ID license.

Anyone get the picture that illegal aliens have more rights than American citizens?

It sure seems that way.

I’ll keep you posted as to whether I’m ever able to board a plane again, and God forbid enter a federal building.

©2024. All rights reserved.

How the August 8, 2022 FBI Raid on Mir-a-Lago ‘Fundamentally Transformed’ America into a ‘Police State’ thumbnail

How the August 8, 2022 FBI Raid on Mir-a-Lago ‘Fundamentally Transformed’ America into a ‘Police State’

By Dr. Rich Swier

“We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” — Barack Hussain Obama on October 30. 2008.


On August 8th of 2022, for the first time in history, the FBI executed a search warrant on a former President President of the United States Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.

August 8, 2022 is a date that will live in infamy as this single event “fundamentally transformed” America into a “police state.”

on August 12th, 2022, investigative reporter Paul Sparry wrote, “Sources say the FBI agents and officials who were involved in the raid on President Trump’s home work in the same CounterIntellegence Division of the FBI that investigated Trump in the Russiagate hoax and are actively under criminal investigation by Special Council John Durham for potentially abusing their power investigating Trump in the Russian fraud and therefore have a potential conflict of interest and should have been RECUSED from participating in this supposed ‘espionage’ investigation at Mar-a-Lago.”

If the federal government can raid the home of a former president of these United States they can do the same to any and all citizens of this nation.

This raid was the first shot in a growing salvo of actions to falsely accuse and imprison one party’s political candidate—Donald J. Trump.

Watch as Don Jr. discusses this “unprecedented raid” with Tucker Carlson.

The raid on Mar-a-Lago fundamentally changed our country forever

Courts are supposed to be safeguards against corrupt justice

But now, they just enable it@TuckerCarlson explains https://t.co/6axyLlkcaf pic.twitter.com/pAMIKvNyJa

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) December 18, 2023

President Donald J. Trump is the primary target of the police state, and the January 6 protesters—some serving long sentences for peacefully entering the Capitol to make their voices heard—are now the first political prisoners in U.S. peacetime history!

Remember on Mar 6, 2023 when Tucker Carlson, on Fox News, dared to question the idea that J6 was an insurrection?

WATCH: This video tells a different story of Jan 6th

Since then the 40,000 hours of video have been released by Speaker Mike Johnson and they confirm what Tucker Carlson said on Mar 6, 2023.

Watch this U.S. Senate hearing with the FBI.

The FBI hates Americans pic.twitter.com/DdrxahFEFd

— Hodgetwins (@hodgetwins) December 17, 2023

The Bottom Line

The July/August 2017 issue of The Atlantic had an article titled “What’s Wrong With the Democrats?” by Franklin Foer. Foer wrote:

Leaderless and loud, the Resistance has become the motive power of the Democratic Party. Presidential hopefuls already strive to anticipate its wishes. Elected officials have restructured their political calculus to avoid getting on its wrong side. The feistiness and agitation of the moment are propelling the party to a new place.

But where? The question unnerves Democrats, because the party has no scaffolding. All the dominant leaders of the last two generations—the Clintons, Barack Obama—have receded. Defeat discredited the party’s foundational strategy—or, at the very least, exposed it as a wishful description of a more distant future, rather than a clear plan for victory in the present. Resistance has given the Democrats the illusion of unity, but the reality is deeply conflicted. Two of the party’s largest concerns—race and class—reside in an increasing state of tension, a tension that will grow as the party turns toward the next presidential election.

To produce a governing majority, the party will need to survive an unsettling reckoning with itself. Donald Trump didn’t just prevail over the Democrats; he called into doubt their old truths. [Emphasis added]

The Democratic Party is eating its own. Watch this video about how a Hispanic socialist candidate won the Democrat primary in New York because she targeted her Democratic opponent was white.

As a young man I was a JFK Democrat. He was my American idol. It was the time of Camelot and at the peak of American economic, political and military power. JFK embodied a vision of the future that Americans embraced.

Allow me to point out a few examples of what JFK brought to the Democratic Party:

  • JFK was a Catholic. He held those beliefs and spoke about his beliefs. JFK stated, “For while this year it may be a Catholic against whom the finger of suspicion is pointed, in other years it has been, and may someday be again, a Jew— or a Quaker or a Unitarian or a Baptist. It was Virginia’s harassment of Baptist preachers, for example, that helped lead to Jefferson’s statute of religious freedom. Today I may be the victim, but tomorrow it may be you — until the whole fabric of our harmonious society is ripped at a time of great national peril.
  • JFK was a decorated Navy Combat Veteran. JFK Commanded PT109. He served proudly and loved the military. He created the U.S. Army Special Forces, which led to the creation of special operations forces such as the Navy SEAL program. JFK said, “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” JFK supported compulsary military service and noted, “A young man who does not have what it takes to perform military service is not likely to have what it takes to make a living. Today’s military rejects include tomorrow’s hard-core unemployed.”
  • NASA and reaching for the stars. It was JFK who believed in American ingenuity and wanted to put a man on the moon. He and his policies did just that.
  • The National Rifle Association. JFK was a life member of the NRA. On March 20, 1961 JFK became a life member and in a letter to the NRA President Franklin L. Orth stated, “Through competitive matches and sports in coordination with the National Board for Promotion of Rifle Practice, the Association fills an important role in our national defense effort, and fosters in an active and meaningful fashion the spirit of the Minutemen.” BHO hates the NRA and all it stands for. BHO, his administration and Democrats have taken an adversarial position on the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms. JFK supported Second Amendment rights for Americans, saying in an April 1960 statement, “By calling attention to a well-regulated militia, the security of the nation and the right of each citizen to keep and bear arms, our founding forefathers recognized the essentially civilian nature of our economy. Although it is extremely unlikely that the fears of government tyranny, which gave rise to the Second Amendment, will ever be a major danger to our nation, the Amendment still remains a major declaration of our basic civilian-military relationships, in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country. For that reason, I believe the Second Amendment will always be important.
  • JFK added the M16 (AR15) rifle into the U.S. military inventory. It was JFK who introduced the Armalite M16 (AR-15) rifle into the inventory of the U.S. Military. Under JFK, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ordered Secretary of the Army Cyrus Vance to test the M14 , the AR-15 and the AK-47 . The Army’s test report stated only the M14 was suitable for Army use, but Vance wondered about the impartiality of those conducting the tests. He ordered the Army Inspector General to investigate the testing methods used, who reported that the testers showed undue favor to the M14. McNamara ordered a halt to M14 production in January 1964. In November, the Army ordered 85,000 XM16E1s for experimental use, and the Air Force ordered another 19,000. Meanwhile the Army carried out another project, the Small Arms Weapons Systems (SAWS) , on general infantry firearm needs in the immediate future. They highly recommended the immediate adoption of the weapon, so much so that they started referring to it as the M16.
  • Immigration policy was much different under JFK. JFK in his book “A Nation of Immigrants” wrote, “The interaction of disparate cultures, the vehemence of the ideals that led the immigrants here, the opportunity offered by a new life, all gave America a flavor and a character that make it as unmistakable and as remarkable to people today as it was to Alexis de Tocqueville in the early part of the nineteenth century.” In his book JFK Kennedy outlines three main reasons why immigration to the U.S. took place: freedom from religious persecution, political oppression and economic hardship. While JFK believed in a generous, fair and flexible immigration policy he did not believe in open borders and no immigration policy.
  • On Federal taxation and balancing the budget. As JFK wrote on September 18, 1963, “A tax cut means higher family income and higher business profits and a balanced federal budget….As the national income grows, the federal government will ultimately end up with more revenues. Prosperity is the real way to balance our budget. By lowering tax rates, by increasing jobs and income, we can expand tax revenues and finally bring our budget into balance.” BHO has raised taxes, spent like no other president and increased the federal deficit to historic levels.
  • Communism and the Free World. As JFK stated in his 1961 inaugural address, “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty. This much we pledge —- and more. To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided, there is little we can do—for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder….We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.”
  • JFK and McCarthyism. Joseph Kennedy had befriended McCarthy because he found him to be a likable fellow Irish-Catholic who had all the right ideas on the domestic communist menace. These warm feelings were quickly transferred to the entire Kennedy family. JFK liked the fact that McCarthy went after the “elites” in the State Department whom JFK regarded with contempt. Even before McCarthy made accusations against the State Department of subversion, JFK had already aligned himself with the militant anti-communists who blamed the Truman State Department for the “loss” of China. So JFK declared on the House floor in January 1949, “The responsibility for the failure of our foreign policy in the Far East rests squarely with the White House and the Department of State.”

I could go on and discuss how JFK worked with Congress. How JFK embraced the Constitution. At his 1962 State of Union, JFK stated, “The Constitution makes us not rivals for power but partners for progress.”

Just like Foer, I ask, “What has happened to the Democratic Party?

©2023. Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: 250 Years Ago Americans Faced an Openly Hostile Government …. Just As Now

POSTS ON X:

Deep State sent into PANIC after Fox News blows up damning timeline exposing politically coordinated lawfare against President Trump ahead of 2024 on MASSIVE floor-to-ceiling screen pic.twitter.com/XE7LmHucNf

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) December 18, 2023

FBI Terror Watch List: pic.twitter.com/51BWOkfPkS

— ZNO 🇺🇸 (@therealZNO) December 17, 2023

Rich Men North of Richmond

By DEACON

Rich Men North of Richmond

Oliver Anthony

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqSA-SY5Hro 

Christian Virginian Christopher Anthony Lunsford, known to many as Folk Performer  Oliver Anthony   (his grandfather’s name) touched a resonant chord with 26 Million suffering Americans & Freedom Lovers worldwide, this past week  –  all vibrating with his heartfelt lament,

Rich Men North of Richmond.

Lyrics

“Rich Men North of Richmond” 

by

 Oliver Anthony

I’ve been selling my soul,
working all day.

Overtime hours,
for bullshxx pay.

So I can sit out here,

and waste my life away,

drag back home

and drown my troubles away.

It’s a damn shame,
what the world’s gotten to,
for people like me

and people like you.

Wish I could just wake up

and it not be true.

But it is.

Oh, it is.

Living in the new world,
with an old soul.

These rich men north of Richmond,
Lord knows,

they all just want to have total control.

Want to know what you think.
Want to know what you do.

And they don’t think you know,

but I know that you do.

‘Cause your dollar ain’t shxx

and it’s taxed to no end,
‘Cause of rich men north of Richmond.

I wish politicians would look out for miners
and not just minors on an island somewhere.

Lord, we got folks in the street,

ain’t got nothing to eat
and the obese milking welfare.

Well God, if you’re 5 foot 3

and you’re 300 pounds,
Taxes ought not to pay,

for your bags of fudge rounds.

Young men are putting themselves

six feet into the ground,
’cause all this damn country does,

is keep on kicking them down.

Lord, it’s a damn shame,
what the world’s gotten to,
for people like me

and people like you.

Wish I could just wake up

and it not be true.

But it is,

Oh, it is.

Living in the new world
with an old soul.

These rich men north of Richmond,
Lord knows,

they all just want to have total control.

Want to know what you think.

Want to know what you do.

And they don’t think you know,

but I know that you do.

‘Cause your dollar ain’t shxx

and it’s taxed to no end,
’cause of rich men north of Richmond.

I’ve been selling my soul
working all day.

Overtime hours,
for bullshxx pay.

During a recent performance, at Morris Farm in the little town of Barco  –  just a few miles north from where the Wright Brothers first achieved powered flight 120 years ago on North Carolina’s Outer Banks  –  Chris opened with a reading from the Book of Psalms, at Psalm 37, coming straight to the point,

12.  The wicked plotteth against the just,

        and gnasheth upon him with his teeth.

13.  The Lord shall laugh at him:

        for he seeth that his day is coming.

14.  The wicked have drawn out the sword,

        and have bent their bow,

        to cast down the poor and needy,

        and to slay such

        as be of upright conversation.

15.  Their sword shall enter into their own heart,

        and their bows shall be broken.

16.  A little that a righteous man hath

        is better than

        the riches of many wicked.

17.  For the arms of the wicked shall be broken:

        but the LORD upholdeth the righteous.

18.  The LORD knoweth the days of the upright

        and their inheritance shall be for ever.

19.  They shall not be ashamed in the evil time:

        and in the days of famine

        they shall be satisfied.

20.  But the wicked shall perish,

        and the enemies of the LORD

        shall be as the fat of lambs:

        they shall consume;

        into smoke

        shall they consume away.

Clearly, young Americans like Chris Lunsford, already intuit & pivot from the last century and more of Anglo-Banker Kommunist, Kritical Theory, Divide & Konquer Societal Dekonstruktion and Indoktrination of the old & the new world.  For in fact,

T’was ever thus.

We read in Proverbs 1  –  set down by the wisest man to ever live, King Solomon, some 3,000 years ago,

1.   The proverbs of Solomon the son of David,

       king of Israel;

2.   To know wisdom and instruction;

       to perceive the words of understanding;

3.   To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice,

       and judgment, and equity;

4.   To give subtilty to the simple,

       to the young man knowledge and discretion.

5.   A wise man will hear,

      and will increase learning;

      and a man of understanding

      shall attain unto wise counsels:

6.   To understand a proverb,

       and the interpretation;

       the words of the wise,

       and their dark sayings.

7.   The fear of the LORD

       is the beginning of knowledge:

       but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

8.   My son, hear the instruction of thy father,

       and forsake not the law of thy mother:

9.   For they shall be an ornament of grace

       unto thy head,

       and chains about thy neck.

10. My son, if sinners entice thee,

      consent thou not.

11. If they say,

      Come with us,

      let us lay wait for blood,

      let us lurk privily for the innocent

      without cause:

12. Let us swallow them up alive as the grave;

      and whole,

      as those that go down into the pit:

13. We shall find all precious substance,

      we shall fill our houses with spoil:

14. Cast in thy lot among us;

      let us all have one purse:

15. My son, walk not thou in the way with them;

      refrain thy foot from their path:

16. For their feet run to evil,

      and make haste to shed blood.

17. Surely in vain

      the net is spread

      in the sight of any bird.

18. And they lay wait

      for their own blood;

      they lurk privily

      for their own lives.

Brother Lunsford’s songs are as nourishing now to humble souls of God-fearing American Patriots, as doubtless divine services had been then  –  160 years ago  –  ‘mongst the twinkling watch fires of his Fasting & Prayerful Forefathers, encamped in martial array, between Richmond & the Rich Men to the North.

Should the Lord tarry in His Glorious Return, one perceives events yet in the offing, perhaps, in continuing American Defense of Christ’s Liberty on this Earth.

A Prayer by General Lee

General OrdersNo. 83

13 August 1863

The President of the Confederate States has, in the name of the people, appointed the 21st of August as a day of fasting, humiliation and prayer. 

A strict observance of the day is enjoined upon the officers and soldiers of this army. 

All military duties, except such as are absolutely necessary, will be suspended.  The commanding officers of brigades and regiments are requested to cause divine services, suitable to the occasion, to be performed in their respective commands.

Soldiers!  We have sinned against Almighty God. 

We have forgotten his signal mercies, and have cultivated a revengeful, haughty, and boastful spirit.  We have not remembered that defenders of a just cause should be pure in his eyes;  that “our times are in his hand” and we have relied too much on our own arms for the achievement of our independence. 

God is our only refuge and our strength.

Let us humble ourselves before him. 

Let us confess our many sins, and beseech him to give us a higher courage, a purer patriotism and more determined will:  that he will convert the hearts of our enemies:  that he will hasten the time when war, with its sorrows and sufferings, shall cease, and that he will give us a name and place among the nations of the earth.

R. E. Lee, General

____

© 2023 DEACON.  All rights reserved.

Music © 2023 Christopher Anthony Lunsford.  All rights reserved.

RELATED VIDEO:  Oliver Anthony Turned Down $8 Million and Turned to Scripture

OLIVER ANTHONY  –  Rich Men North of Richmond (Live From Morris Farm Market 8/13/23)

Oliver Anthony LIVE at Morris Farm Market  (Aug 13, 2023)  –  Full Performance

UK Immigration Minister: Illegal migrants ‘cannibalize’ communities by importing ‘different lifestyles’ thumbnail

UK Immigration Minister: Illegal migrants ‘cannibalize’ communities by importing ‘different lifestyles’

By Jihad Watch

Britain and other Western countries have seen steadily rising public anger over open-door immigration policies and the general retreat from the rule of law, cultural traditions and concern for national security. Not long ago, globalist leaders who willfully ignore the well-being of their own people were outraged when Home Secretary Suella Braverman called the UK’s influx of illegal Muslim migrants an “invasion,” yet that is what it is. Britain’s new Illegal Immigration Bill offers some promise, but only if it is genuinely acted upon will it mean anything.

There is more going on in the UK than is being reported, given the news that keeps on emerging, which reflects the frustration of the British people as well as the government’s lack of the will to do anything significant about the invasion via the English Channel. Last year, Jenrick stated that “the UK is essentially full.” It is only a matter of time before the true harm of the illegal invasion is seriously felt by Britons, as communities become “cannibalized” one at a time.

Channel migrants ‘cannibalise’ communities by importing different lifestyles, claims minister Robert Jenrick

by Arj Singh, i News, April 25, 2023:

Asylum seekers who arrive in the UK by crossing the Channel in small boats “cannibalise” communities by importing “different lifestyles and values”, the Immigration Minister has claimed.

Robert Jenrick said the “excessive” number of those arriving in small boats “undermine cultural cohesiveness” and put “immense pressure” on public services.

Protests against asylum seekers being housed in hotels, such as those in Knowsley, Liverpool which saw far-right demonstrators clash with police, are a “warning to be heeded, not a phenomenon to be managed” by ministers, he said.

Mr Jenrick was unable to say exactly what it was about asylum seekers’ lifestyles that had such an impact, or whether he was talking about people from a certain country, with Afghans, Albanians, Iranians, Iraqis and Syrians making up the majority of arrivals last year.

A Home Office source also said the minister had “zero tolerance” towards the kind of violence seen in Knowsley in February.

His comments were criticised by the Refugee Council, which said it is “important to recognise” that refugees have made a vital contribution to the UK as tax-paying citizens after being resettled.

Mr Jenrick was speaking at the Policy Exchange think-tank in Westminster as he prepared to see the Government’s controversial Illegal Migration Bill, which is designed to crack down on Channel crossings, through its final Commons stages on Wednesday.

understands that ministers are in discussions about a concession to stop Tory moderates led by ex-minister Tim Loughton rebelling to amend the Bill to impose more stringent limits on the detention of lone children under the legislation.

One option available to Mr Jenrick would be to promise to Mr Loughton to amend the laws when they reach the House of Lords.

The talks came as Mr Jenrick in his speech cited an “an extensive body of research that demonstrates the damaging effects on social trust and cohesion from uncontrolled migration” as he defended the Bill’s radical and contested approach, which will put a duty on the Government to detain and deport nearly all Channel asylum seekers.

“I saw this myself in the early days in this position, when I met residents of Aycliffe, an estate in Dover, whose lives have been made a misery by illegal migrants who have made clandestine landings on the nearby beaches – knocking on their doors, entering their homes being found in their kitchens,” Mr Jenrick said.

“They felt abandoned by the authorities, and it’s strange for their neighbourhood.

“If we don’t have confidence that those who live in our communities do so lawfully, Individuals are less likely to trust their neighbours, or to make sacrifices which sustain communities.

“Put simply, excessive, uncontrolled migration threatens to cannibalise that compassion that marks out the British people.

“And those crossing tend to have completely different lifestyles and values to those in the UK and tend to settle in already hyper diverse areas, undermining the cultural cohesiveness that binds diverse groups together and makes our proud multi-ethnic democracy so successful.”

Asked what he meant about lifestyles, Mr Jenrick said it was important to ensure public services do not come under pressure.

““We as a government believe that our resources are finite, and there have to be limits to the number of people coming into this country,” he said….

AUTHOR

CHRISTINE DOUGLASS-WILLIAMS

RELATED ARTICLE: French Immigration Expert: Immigration Costs Much More Than People Realize

EDITORS NOTE: This Jihad Watch column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

“MX. Aldrich”: Suspect in Colorado Gay Club Shooting is Non-Binary, Demands They/Them Pronouns thumbnail

“MX. Aldrich”: Suspect in Colorado Gay Club Shooting is Non-Binary, Demands They/Them Pronouns

By The Geller Report

The hell the left wrought.

The Colorado shooter informed the authorities he is non-binary, uses they/them pronouns, and requested to be referred to as Mx. Aldrich throughout the proceedings

CNN is speechless.

Watch in real time as CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota sees her network’s narrative on the Colorado Springs gay night club shooting come crashing down. She was speechless that the shooter identifies as “non binary”: “I don’t know what to say about that.” pic.twitter.com/mLdsZZlCds

— Kevin Tober (@KevinTober94) November 23, 2022

Colorado gay club shooting suspect identifies as non-binary, lawyers say

Court papers revealed public defenders referred to the suspect as Mx Aldrich, after they legally changed their name back in 2016.

By Lauren Russell, Sky News, 23 November 2022:

The defence team of a suspect facing possible hate crime charges over the fatal shooting of five people at a gay club in Colorado have said they define as non-binary.

Court papers filed on behalf of Anderson Lee Aldrich, 22, showed public defenders referring to the suspect as Mx Aldrich, noting that they are non-binary and use they/them pronouns.

Aldrich was taken into custody and treated for injuries after five people were killed and at least 25 others injured at Club Q, an “adult-oriented gay and lesbian nightclub” in Colorado Springs, on the night of 19 November. The suspect was beaten into submission by patrons at the nightclub.

They were scheduled to appear in court via video link from El Paso County jail for the first time on Wednesday.

At a news conference, officers said that a “long rifle” was used and shooting began as soon as the suspect entered the venue. The motive is still under investigation, but Aldrich faces possible murder and hate crime charges, according to authorities.

Charges are currently preliminary and prosecutors have not yet filed formal charges. Hate crime charges require proving that the suspect was motivated by bias against the victims’ actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.

The media is not telling you that the mentally ill non-binary guy who shot up the Colorado gay club had an absentee father who did gay porn.

— John Cardillo (@johncardillo) November 23, 2022

In new court filing, public defenders for the suspect in the mass shooting at a Colorado gay club that left 5 people dead say that their client is non-binary and that “they use they/them pronouns.” The lawyers refer to their client as Mx. Anderson Aldrich. pic.twitter.com/dPaUpiFXKN

— Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs (@NickAtNews) November 23, 2022

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: Two Years Later, CBS ‘confirms’ Hunter Biden laptop is real 769 days after Post broke story

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Voter fraud happened in 2020 and could happen this time thumbnail

Voter fraud happened in 2020 and could happen this time

By Joan Swirsky

A friend recently reminded me of an article I had written on October 5, 2020, just before the presidential election that found all TV networks reporting that President Donald Trump was crushing Joe Biden across the board—including in the all-important battleground states—and then that coverage mysteriously stopped cold, disappeared for over three hours, and reappeared to report that the exact opposite was true, that Joe Biden had magically become the Crusher in Chief, ultimately “winning” the 2020 election.

“Remember the title of your article?” my friend asked me. In fact, I did, since it was the only time in decades of writing that I had capitalized a word in the title. It read like this:

The ONLY Issue in the 2020 Election is Voter Fraud.

Well, it’s election time again, and sure enough the same thing is true. And after viewing Dinesh D’Souza’s jaw-dropping “2000 Mules,” which documents the massive fraud that indeed took place in 2020, and after reading dozens of reports about audits that were done in the battleground states and others which uncovered overwhelming voter fraud, including thousands of dead voters, it appears that voter fraud is once again the ONLY issue of concern. Great concern.

The reality factor

When you peel back all the layers of the onion of a human being’s psychology, our species is really not that complicated. Whether man or woman, black or white, rich or poor, from whatever background, religion, or culture, we all have similar if not identical needs.

In 1943, psychologist Abraham Maslow introduced the concept of a Hierarchy of Needs, which hasn’t changed much since then. They include:

Physiological needs that are vital to survival:

  • Food
  • Water
  • Breathing
  • Homeostasis
  • Shelter
  • Clothing
  • Reproduction

Security and Safety Needs

Social needs

  • Friendships
  • Romantic attachments
  • Family relationships
  • Social groups
  • Community groups
  • Churches and religious organizations

Yes, these are needs common to everyone, and yet in the past two years, under the Biden regime, every single one of them has been threatened if not destroyed.

When you destroy basic needs

With the stupefying mismanagement of our national budget—and in spite of the booming economy and high employment he inherited— the Biden inflation factor didn’t take long to set in, followed in short order by the Biden Recession. There went the security most Americans felt in buying food and gas and paying rent. Even reproduction is down as younger people hoping to move out of their parent’s basement have hunkered down for an indefinite stay.

At the same time, there went the country’s security and safety needs. With four-million illegal aliens swarming over Biden’s open southern border, including drug cartels with so much Fentanyl that the deaths of young people have already increased exponentially, and thugs and criminals being bused and flown in the middle of the night to cities and suburbs throughout our country, even a walk in the park or a trip to the supermarket has become a looming threat.

And with liberal legislators all over the country ignoring the massive criminality of thuggish groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter, and innocent pedestrians being assaulted—sometimes fatally—and the passing of no-bail laws that put rapists and muggers and even murderers back on the street 20 minutes after they are so-called “booked,” life in America has become a daily and nightly menace.

Biden destroyed our energy independence

And let’s not forget Biden’s pathetic reliance on foreign oil, going hat in hand literally begging for the resources to keep us going, while only two years ago, President Trump had achieved one-hundred percent energy independence—to last us 500 years!

Then there is the war in Ukraine and the billions (going on trillions) we have sent to what is now widely recognized at The Money-Laundering Capital of the World!

A normal person would look at the bleak state of our union and conclude that the powers-that-be—those running the show from the Oval Office—are so woefully inept, have such patronizing contempt for We the People, and such a deep loathing for America the Beautiful, that it would seem to be a given that every Democrat candidate, including those running for the U.S. Senator or the U.S. Congress on Tuesday, November 8, would lose in a landslide.

However…

Over the past many decades—with the advent of electronic voting machines and mail-in ballots—American elections have not been predictable. Why? Because the only thing Democrats have cared about for the past hundred years is winning elections with the goal of inflicting their strangulating socialist/communist and now Islamist style of government on the American people.

Why don’t they want Trump to run again?

In the past two years in particular, they’ve been maniacally obsessed with insuring that President Trump is unable to run again for POTUS, even if the perpetual sore losers of the left have to buy the guns they say they hate to wage a Civil War!

Why? Because citizen-cum President Trump won the 2016 election by exposing:

  • “The Swamp’s” systemic depravity, corruption, and treason.
  • The Democrats’ America-Last policies.
  • The leftist bias of the bought-and-paid-for Media Whores.
  • The Democrat racism that has kept blacks with broken families, mal-educated, imprisoned, and impoverished for decades on end.
  • The craven deals that made our country dependent on foreign oil.
  • The Obama-Biden regimes’ weaponizing of the FBI, CIA, and the FISA Court, et al.
  • The crooked money “arrangements” enjoyed by higher-ups like former VP Joe Biden in securing multimillion-and-billion-dollar windfalls for himself, his son Hunter, and his brother James. Ukraine, anyone? China, anyone?
  • The horrible treaties, including the Iran deal, NAFTA, NATO, et al, that benefitted foreign countries significantly more than the U.S.
  • The interest of the “anti-war” Democrats in keeping wars going endlessly (always follow the money).
  • This is the very very short list.

The method to their madness

Even diehard leftist partisans acknowledge that Democrats have stolen elections over the past many decades by enlisting the votes of illegal aliens, absentee voters who simply don’t exist, cartoon characters, and of course dead voters.

Then there is Ballot Harvesting, a scheme exclusively used by Democrats to, ahem, win elections. According to California political commentator Stephan Frank, anyone—campaign workers, minors, illegals, et al—go door to door to “help” people fill out ballots that strangely favor Democrats and refuse to collect ballots from anyone they suspect of voting the “wrong” way. They even pay them to vote the “right way.”

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, currently 26 states allow this fraudulence, a practice that was aggressively and somewhat successfully challenged by Tom Fitton of electionintegrity@judicialwatch.org.

Not to omit ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), in operation since 1970. But the group was exposed for its criminal activities in 2009 by James O’Keefe, founder of The Veritas Project, resulting in multiple convictions for massive voter fraud in several states, and it closed its doors in 2010, although it is believed that splinter groups formed and are active to this day.

Let me count the ways voter fraud happened

The following is a tiny example of the vote-rigging methods used exclusively by Democrats going into the 2020 election:

An obvious voter fraud source: dead voters still on the rolls

But Democrats don’t stop! This past August, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s tried to dismiss the Public Interest Legal Foundation’s (PILF) lawsuit for her failure to remove 25,975 dead registrants from the state’s voter rolls.

According to PILF:

  • 23,663 registrants have been dead for five years or more
  • 17,479 registrants have been dead for at least a decade
  • 3,956 registrants have been dead for at least 20 years

In August, the United States Western District Court of Michigan denied Benson’s attempt.

In July, a hearing on the Maricopa, Arizona, 2020 election audit revealed the following:

  • Maricopa County refused to provide their computer’s router, claiming that its data would make private data available. In fact, routers don’t keep such information.
  • Maricopa claimed to have provided images of the mail-in envelopes. In fact, they did not.
  • 74,243 ballots that were received and included in the 2020 Election in Maricopa County show no record that they were ever mailed out.
  • 11,326 people voted in the election who did not appear on the voter rolls on Nov 7th.
  • 3,981 people voted after registering after the October 15, 2020, deadline.
  • On and on and on.
And in Georgia…

In addition, a recent Georgia audit of the 2020 election revealed:

  • A Non-Profit group, called True the Vote provided evidence that as many as 242 voting activists flooded as many as 5,500 drop boxes with fraudulent ballots in the middle of the night.
  • Videos also showed that the activists wore blue rubber gloves when depositing the ballots into the drop boxes. This practice was begun when investigations, in Arizona, over the same crime of ballot harvesting were, successfully, prosecuted, based on fingerprints on the ballots.

Partners in crime

According to a Google whistleblower in Allum Bokhari’s book, #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal the Electionwhen voters find out what Big Tech companies have done to meddle in the upcoming election, they’ll be rightly furious

at the attempts of Google, Facebook, Twitter, and other tech companies to sway the election in Biden’s favor.

In addition, Democrats Sen. Charles Schumer and Rep. Nancy Pelosi are closely aligned with groups like Majority Forward (created in 2015) that funnel millions in secret cash into 2020 elections, according to FreeBeacon.com.

Linda Goudsmit, author of The Book of Humanitarian Hoaxes: Killing America with ‘Kindness’, sees the upcoming midterms as yet another “sinister leftist, Islamist, globalist attack on America.” “We are only weeks away from the election,” she said, and “the enemies of America are desperate” and behaving like cornered animals poised for attack. Their survival is at stake because if Republicans take the Congress, they will start the process that President Trump began of taking down the Deep State and exposing them all.

Voter fraud is all the Democrats have left – everything else has failed

It must be incomprehensible to all those liberals/leftists/progressives—with all their prestigious college degrees, high IQs, impeccable credentials, fancy job titles, and positions in the highest reaches of the American government—that every ploy they used against President Trump, every arch machination, every exquisitely formulated plan of action, all resulted in crashing failures, and that everything they’ve done to try to legitimize Joe Biden and enact his deeply anti-American agenda has resulted in equally colossal failures.

But still, there remains ONLY one overriding issue in the 2022 midterm elections, and that issue is Democrat Voter Fraud!

Our Republican and Conservative leaders have had two years to right the egregious wrong of the 2020 election. If that sordid history repeats itself, they only have themselves to blame!

©Joan Swirsky. All rights reserved. 

TAKE ACTION: Tell CDC to Stop Promoting Occult Resources to Youth! thumbnail

TAKE ACTION: Tell CDC to Stop Promoting Occult Resources to Youth!

By The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property

TAKE ACTION: SIGN OUR PETITION TO STOP THE CDC FROM PROMOTING THE OCCULT


The Center for Disease Control (CDC) is directing youth to online discussions on sexual behavior and “transgender” resources. One discussion instructs children on occult practices and astrology. Worst of all, the resources give minors the ability to hide the resources from parents. According to reports:

“The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is promoting to youth an online chat space that discusses sex, polyamorous relationships, the occult, sex change operations, and activism, and is specifically designed to be quickly hidden while being used. It also mixes LGBT adults and children and is run in part by Planned Parenthood [sic].

“Called Q Chat Space, the platform is advertised on the CDC’s LGBT Health Youth Resources page… The chat service, which describes itself as ‘a community for LGBTQ+ teens,’ is available for those ages 13-19, can be hidden from parents, and focuses on a number of mature themes.”

Read more.

(Source: Breitbart.com)

Some of the topics for discussion are:

  • “Drag Culture 101,”
  • “Sex and Relationships”
  • “Having Multiple Genders”
  • “Queer Youth Activism”
  • “Gender Affirmation Surgeries”
  • “Queering Tarot”

Everywhere on the Q Chat site, there is a large, green “quick escape” button, so users can immediately leave the site and appear to be looking at something else. Q Chat also gives the option to have “discreet” text reminders. This allows youth to receive automatic updates about upcoming discussions. But, the message hides the discussion topic and hides the name of the name of the source (i.e., Q Chat). In other words,

CDC is sidelining parents from what their children are learning.

Promoting sexual and occult practices will bring irreparable moral damage to the youth. And encouraging distrust in parents is a grave blow to the bond children should have with their family. Please sign our petition to the CDC, demanding that it remove sexual and occult practices from its resources.


TAKE ACTION: SIGN OUR PETITION TO STOP THE CDC FROM PROMOTING THE OCCULT


PETITION TEXT

To: The Center of Disease Control,

I am appalled at the resources you are offering to youth and minors, as Q Chat. Among the topics included are deviant sexual practices, “transgenderism” and sex-transition surgery, and even occult practices like astrology.

This site also promotes distrust of parents. It provides means to keep the topics from being seen with a “quick escape” button, and deliberately hides topics of discussion with a “discreet” option for automatic reminders.

This will cause serious moral damage to youth. It will open them to immoral practices, and encourage distrust within families. Above all, it is a serious offense to God.

I urge you to remove these resources at once. Stop targeting our youth.

Sincerely and urgently,

EDITORS NOTE: This TFP column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

New Poll Delivers Some Alarming News For Democrats thumbnail

New Poll Delivers Some Alarming News For Democrats

By The Daily Caller

Voters overwhelmingly trust Republicans to manage the economy, a new poll ahead of this year’s midterm elections suggests, while

Roughly 52% of voters said that they trust Republicans to manage the economy, compared to 38% for Democrats, while only 1% of respondents said they agreed with the proposals of both parties to manage it, according to a poll conducted by the Times and Siena College, which measured the relative strength of both parties in advance of the election scheduled on Nov. 8. The economy has been the most important issue to voters heading into the polls; in a July edition of the same NYT/Siena poll, 20% called it the “most important problem facing the country today,” while roughly 76% said that it would be “extremely important” to them as they vote.

Democrats have sought to focus their campaign narrative on social issues such as abortion in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s overturning by the Supreme Court, as well as gun regulations following mass shootings across the country over the summer.

However, efforts to place social issues at the forefront of voters’ minds do not appear to be working. The NYT/Sienna poll revealed that voters consider economic issues more important to their voting decision than social issues, by an 18-point margin.

The polls come at a time of bad economic news for the Biden administration before November’s election. The White House recently released an economic blueprint listing its various accomplishments, with President Joe Biden holding a series of events to highlight the “Inflation Reduction Act,” a massive spending package that his administration had proposed to the Democratic-controlled Congress.

REUTERS: 🇺🇸 household wealth fell by a RECORD $6.1 trillion in Q2 2022

In 2022:

Nasdaq declined by 26.16%

S&P 500 declined by 18.15%

Bitcoin declined by 57.34%

30 Year Fixed Mortgage Rate:

Jan 2021: 2.65%

Sep 2022: 6.28%

Inflation

Jan 2021: 1.4%

Sep 2022: 8.3% pic.twitter.com/NHC9IqkVNl

— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) September 16, 2022

The Consumer Price Index, an aggregate measure of inflation, increased by 0.1% from July to August, though tempered by reductions in the price of gasoline even as food costs rose, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. The news poorly affected stock markets over the week, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling by 1,600 points beginning Monday, closing for the week at 30,841.05 points.

There was some good news for Democrats, who currently control Congress and the White House. Between July and September, the number of voters who believe the country is “heading on the right track” increased modestly, from 27% to 50% for Democrats, and 9% to 27% for independents; however, 53% expressed disapproval of Biden’s performance in office.

The poll surveyed 1,399 registered voters nationwide from Sept. 6 to 14, 2022, its margin of sampling error was +/- 3.6 percentage points.

The White House and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had not responded to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

AUTHOR

ARJUN SINGH

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Federal law enforcement agencies conduct clandestine surveillance of thousands of U.S. citizens with the help of Microsoft

“Targeting of Americans’ records ‘routine’” – Tom Burt, Microsoft Executive


The country is no longer America. Ignorance is no longer an excuse.

Microsoft exec: Targeting of Americans’ records ‘routine’

Federal law enforcement agencies secretly seek the data of Microsoft customers thousands of times a year, according to congressional testimony Wednesday by a senior executive at the technology company.

Tom Burt, Microsoft’s corporate vice president for customer security and trust, told members of the House Judiciary Committee that federal law enforcement in recent years has been presenting the company with between 2,400 to 3,500 secrecy orders a year, or about seven to 10 a day.

“Most shocking is just how routine secrecy orders have become when law enforcement targets an American’s email, text messages or other sensitive data stored in the cloud,” said Burt, describing the widespread clandestine surveillance as a major shift from historical norms.

The relationship between law enforcement and Big Tech has attracted fresh scrutiny in recent weeks with the revelation that Justice Department prosecutors obtained as part of leak investigations phone records belonging not only to journalists but also to members of Congress and their staffers. Microsoft, for instance, was among the companies that turned over records under a court order, and because of a gag order, had to then wait more than two years before disclosing it.

Reuters reports:

Microsoft executive says U.S. overuses secret orders for Americans’ data

By Raphael Satter

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States government is overusing its secret subpoena power to routinely gather vast amounts of data on American internet users, a senior Microsoft executive said in prepared testimony to Congress released on Wednesday.

In remarks for a U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee hearing, the executive said that in the last five years Microsoft had received 2,400 to 3,500 secrecy orders a year and that U.S. courts provided little by way of meaningful oversight.

Tom Burt, a vice president for customer security and trust, said that American law enforcement was ordering Microsoft to stay quiet about between one third to one quarter of the requests for data that it received, “developing a practice of reflexively asking to keep even routine investigations secret.”

“Providers, like Microsoft, regularly receive boilerplate secrecy orders unsupported by any meaningful legal or factual analysis,” Burt told lawmakers. “Many of these orders should never have been approved by the courts.”

The panel called a hearing into secrecy orders in the wake of revelations that the U.S. Department of Justice during Donald Trump’s administration had secretly sought the phone records of reporters and Democratic representatives to investigate the leak of classified material.

Word of the investigations outraged lawmakers and blew new life into efforts to rein in the federal government’s domestic surveillance powers.

Burt said that while the effort to target lawmakers and reporters disturb many Americans, “what may be most shocking is just how routine court-mandated secrecy has become when law enforcement targets Americans’ emails, text messages, and other sensitive data stored in the cloud.”

Burt called for ending indefinite secrecy orders, boosting transparency around their use, forcing the government to notify targets of such orders once their time was up, and raising the bar on such orders to prevent what he described as the current “rubberstamping process.”

EDITORS NOTE: This Geller Report column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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OUT OF GAS: What Does The Colonial Pipeline Shutdown Say About U.S. Defence Readiness?

On Friday, May 7, hackers attacked the computer systems of Colonial Pipeline, which operates a major gasoline pipeline that brings gasoline and jet fuel from Houston refineries up through the southeastern United States as far as New Jersey.  Out of concern that the hackers might have obtained data enabling them to do physical damage to their facilities, the pipeline operators shut the pipeline down while it was still under their control.

This may have saved the machinery from damage, but it produced a severe regional fuel shortage that affected everything from flights out of Atlanta to drivers’ vacation plans.  As of Sunday, May 16, the pipeline was fully restarted, but the ripple effects of the shutdown meant 88% of Washington, D. C. gas stations were out of gas at one point over the weekend.

This was a ransomware attack by a group calling itself DarkSide with reported links to Russia.  According to Bloomberg News, Colonial Pipeline paid DarkSide about $5 million in bitcoin for software to unlock their systems, only to find that it ran so slowly that they ended up restoring service without its help.

This is by far the most serious ransomware attack ever mounted on a U. S.-based facility, and should become a turning point in our response to this sort of attack.  Although I’ve stated the following position before in relation to other ransomware attacks, it bears repeating now that millions of people are going without gas, including many in Washington, D. C., and are presumably paying attention to the problem.

Article 4, Section 4 of the Constitution of the United States reads as follows, in full:

“The United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.”

The key word of present interest in this section is “invasion.”  An online law dictionary defines invasion as “[a]n encroachment upon the rights of another; the incursion of an army for conquest or plunder.”  The Constitution was written at a time when messages travelled fastest by horseback or sailing ship.  It is safe to say that the current technological facts of instant global Internet access to a domestic firm’s private infrastructure were not in the minds of the drafters of the Constitution.

But notions of justice and international relations were, and the drafters recognised that a federal government that could not successfully defend its constituent states against invasion, as defined above, was not worth organising.  So they put words in the Constitution that gave the federal government the responsibility of defending the states against invasion, and in Article 1, section 8, they also gave Congress the power to “provide for the calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions.”  There’s that word “invasion” again.

Pardon what may look like a constitutional detour, but what happened to Colonial Pipeline this month amounts to invasion and plunder by agents of a foreign power.  The DarkSide criminals may not formally be agents of the Russian government, but they operate with its approval or at least without its hindrance.

Suppose a bunch of Canadians armed with tanks and machine guns charged across the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit and took over the headquarters of Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Michigan, capturing their main computer centre and demanding $5 million in ransom to turn it loose.  This would quite properly be regarded as a foreign invasion, and no one would raise a finger to object to using whatever military force was necessary to repel such an invasion.

I submit that what happened to Colonial Pipeline is morally equivalent to my hypothetical invasion by Canadians.  The technological details are different, but the responsibility of the US government to defend those within its borders from invasion and plunder is something that the Founders intended it to do.

So what has the federal government in fact done?  Hardly anything — a few warnings not to try keeping gasoline in plastic bags, a few adjustments of shipping regulations to allow more ships to land gasoline from abroad, and that’s about it.

There is a well-known saying that generals always prepare for the last war, not the one they’re fighting now.  And that is certainly true in this case.  According to one source, the U. S. military has over 200,000 troops stationed abroad in over 170 countries.  The vast majority of these are conventional soldiers ready to shoot bullets and drop bombs, and certainly, bullets and bombs haven’t gone out of fashion.  But among the more advanced criminal element, it’s much more chic to keep your fingers clean while typing code that will shut down half of the gasoline going to the U. S. East Coast, and make $5 million in exchange for some software that doesn’t even work.

Congress is reportedly drafting legislation to do something about this sort of thing.  That is where the process should start, but it’s clear that a vast reorganisation and re-prioritising of the entire domestic and foreign military establishment is called for.  Cyberwarfare is where it’s at now.  Metaphorically speaking, the Canadians have been rioting through the entire country for years now, and all we have done is have vague discussions about the future of military combat.  Don’t people get it?  It’s happening now.  The fact that nobody was killed in the Colonial hack is due more to the foresight of the pipeline operators than to anyone else, as an out-of-control pipeline can do unimaginable amounts of damage.

But private companies should not have to shoulder by themselves the burden of protecting their facilities against foreign invasion and plunder.  That’s one of the most basic services of the federal government, and so far it is failing miserably in its job.

The gasoline shortage Washington now enjoys has fallen equally on Republicans and Democrats.  We can only hope that they will unite to make major lasting changes in the structure and priorities of the U. S. military so that we can once more be secure in our persons and property against the depredations of foreign invasion, including ransomware attacks.

This article has been republished with permission from Engineering Ethics.

COLUMN BY

Karl D. Stephan

Karl D. Stephan received the B. S. in Engineering from the California Institute of Technology in 1976. Following a year of graduate study at Cornell, he received the Master of Engineering degree in 1977… More by Karl D. Stephan

EDITORS NOTE: This MercatorNet column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Five reasons Biden’s move to rejoin the WHO is bad news


The WHO promotes permissive policies on prostitution, drug use, abortion, gender theory, and sex for kids.


Last year President Trump halted US funding to the United Nations’ World Health Organization (WHO). On his first day in office President Biden reinstated US funding for the WHO. Here are five reasons this is a very bad news:
1. The WHO advocates for decriminalizing prostitution. The WHO publication “Sexual Health, Human Rights and the Law” says, “All countries should work toward decriminalization of sex work.” Additionally, at DecriminalizeSex.Work, the WHO is listed as a proud partner in the decriminalization cause. The WHO’s push to make the world into a giant Las Vegas strip downplays the myriad risks to “sex workers” including assault, traumatic brain injury, PTSD, and death as documented by the National Center on Sexual Exploitation. The WHO’s enthusiasm for prostitution also ignores the fact that there are no independent studies showing that decriminalizing the sex trade makes it safer.
2. The WHO advocates for decriminalizing drug use. An official WHO report in 2014 said, “Countries should work toward developing policies and laws that decriminalize injection and other use of drugs.” In 2015, the WHO published “HIV and Young Transgender People” which urges the governments of the world to “work toward the decriminalization of…drug use” in the name of helping young people fulfill their “needs and rights.” The WHO—an official United Nations entity—appears to be pushing the decriminalization of injection drugs despite the fact that there is no consensus among UN member states on whether injection drugs should be decriminalized. It is especially troubling that the WHO is recommending decriminalization of drugs for “young people” which is defined by them as “people 10–24 years of age.”
3. The WHO advocates for legalizing abortion worldwide. The WHO produces manualsvideos, and programs that promote abortion and seek to expand the legalized and “safe” killing of pre-born babies throughout the world. Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was likely chosen for his post as head of the World Health Organization in part because of his successful campaign to expand abortion as Minister of Health in Ethiopia and his deep commitment to abortion and other tenets of the sexual rights agenda. The WHO regularly partners with abortion giant International Planned Parenthood Federation and has a close relationship with Ipas, maker of the EasyGrip portable abortion device and other grisly abortion innovations. Ipas is pursuing a scheme to expand abortion in accordance with the WHO’s guidance on “self-care” which would enable “health intermediaries” (instead of doctors) to distribute abortion-inducing pills to pregnant women, without a prescription. These women’s babies would then be disgorged into toilets and garbage cans in their own homes.
4. The WHO promotes gender ideology for children. The WHO endorses UN guidelines stating that children should be instructed on gender incongruence starting at age five. The WHO says it is “important to recognize identities that do not fit into the binary male or female sex categories” and that gender conflicted individuals need access to hormonal treatment and invasive, irreversible surgeries “for the protection of their health.” The WHO seems content to ignore the staggering risks (see here and here) that can accompany hormone treatments and transgender surgeries including blood clots, breast cancer, coronary artery disease, cerebrovascular disease, gallstones, liver dysfunction, hypertension, uterine cancer, incomplete mineralization of bone, transition regretsuicidality, sterility, and diminished or demolished sexual function.
5. The WHO advocates for “sexual rights” for children. TheWHO is a supporter of the children’s sexual rights movement and of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) which is founded on the premise that children have inborn sexual rights. The name and logo of the WHO appears on the front cover of UNESCO’s 2018 International Technical Guidance on Sexuality Education. This document is peppered with references to children’s sexual rights including these statements:

  • “(Young) people want and need sexuality and sexual health information as early and comprehensively as possible…”
  • Children should have “agency in their own sexual practices and relationships.”
  • Comprehensive Sexuality Education can “help children…form respectful and healthy relationships with…sexual partners.”

Additionally, official WHO partner International Planned Parenthood Federation makes these statements in its 2011 document, Exclaim! Young People’s Guide to ‘Sexual Rights: An IPPF declaration’:

  • “Young people are sexual beings…It is important for all young people around the world to be able to explore, experience and express their sexualities in healthy, positive, pleasurable and safe ways. This can only happen when young people’s sexual rights are guaranteed.”
  • “Sexuality and sexual pleasure are important parts of being human for everyone—no matter what age, no matter if you’re married or not and no matter if you want to have children or not.”
  • “There is a common misconception that young people are not or should not be sexual beings with the exception of certain groups, such as married young people or young people above a certain age. Sexuality is a central aspect of being human during all phases of each person’s life.”

The WHO not only supports sexual rights for children but is a strong advocate for eliminating parental consent in regard to abortion, contraception, and other sexual services for young people.
With these five reasons in view, it is dumbfounding that the Biden administration made a top priority of ensnaring the US in this ethically corrupt organization once again. This is a significant setback to the children, women, and families of the world.
COLUMN BY

Why the Real Villain of 2020 Was Big Government


COVID-19 was going to be bad, no matter what. But the failures of big government made it much, much worse.


The disaster that was 2020 is finally over. Now it’s time for the inevitable post-mortems.
First and foremost, the COVID-19 pandemic posed enormous challenges to American institutions, and continues to do so. Frankly, we were not prepared. We need to diagnose what went wrong, so that we are never caught unaware like this again. Fortunately, the diagnosis is straightforward. COVID-19 was going to be bad, no matter what. But the failures of big government made it much, much worse.
In particular, the Centers for Disease Control, Food and Drug Administration, and public teachers’ unions are the great American villains of 2020. Meanwhile, the heroes of this year are almost entirely in the private sector. From Zoom to vaccine development, Big Pharma and Big Tech—yes, you read that right—made this horrible year bearable. Even amid a crisis that led so many to cry out for vigorous government action, we saw that private markets still work best.
For progressives and so-called “national” conservatives who support big government, 2020 represented the ultimate test for their philosophies. Although they disagree on cultural issues, they see eye-to-eye on the role of government. Both want a big, energetic state promoting what (they believe to be) the good of the nation. Well, here was their chance for the government to shine.
The result was shameful failure. The COVID-19 crisis put left-wing and right-wing statism on trial—and both were found guilty of ill-intent and gross incompetence.
After all, the CDC is the reason America lagged behind other nations for so long in terms of COVID-19 testing. We had the virus genome fully mapped in January, which enabled the rapid production of private testing kits. But the CDC forced these operations to shut down, coming up with its own test—which was flawed, and even contaminated! Testing and tracing could have stemmed the worst of the COVID-19 tide.
On this issue alone, CDC ineptitude is likely responsible for tens of thousands of deaths. Its red tape and incompetence made containing the COVID-19 pandemic, like a few other countries were able to, impossible.
How about the FDA?
It is no secret that the vaccine was delayed because it needed FDA approval. Indeed, several working vaccines could have come much earlier, were it not for our bungling bureaucrat gatekeepers. (Dear FDA: Can you please speed things up a little, so people do not, you know, die? It would make us ever so happy if you did. Thanks.)
As for schools, the data show that young people and children are at very low-risk from COVID-19, and that schools are not “super spreaders.” Despite this, largely due to pressure from public teachers’ unions, many schools remained closed in the fall. In fact, the US was pretty much the only country to pursue the alarmist policy of keeping schools closed.
The toll on school-aged children is immense, from psychological trauma to impeded learning. Low-income families were hit especially hard. They often lacked the means to participate in distance learning, and having their kids at home made it harder for parents to earn much-needed income.
Fortunately, there seems to be some well-deserved backlash against the crony public education establishment. Hopefully a mass exodus to more effective and accountable learning platforms will follow, whether that is charter schools, private schools, or homeschooling. Even more hopefully, parents will realize public education racketeers are not their friends. They should demand loud and clear: Fund students, not systems!
In stark contrast to these unacceptable failures by government agencies and employees, the private sector delivered.
Big Pharma and Big Tech are the winners here. Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and many other companies did amazing work getting the vaccines developed as quickly as they did. Public health “experts” repeatedly claimed a vaccine would not be available for 18 months, at the earliest. (Shows what they know!)
As for Big Tech, companies like Facebook and Twitter helped us stay connected while we were forced physically to remain apart. Amazon responded well to a huge surge in demand, stemming from the curtailment of in-person shopping. Faced with an immense logistical challenge, the online retailer surpassed expectations.
These sectors and their star performers are not perfect, of course.
In the past, Big Pharma lobbied for many of the regulatory roadblocks that made fighting COVID-19 so hard. Big Tech got egg on its face for covering up the Hunter Biden laptop story. Nevertheless, the takeaway is clear: 2020 would have been much, much more miserable without these supposedly evil big businesses in our corner. We owe them far more than we give them.
2021 is the perfect time to revisit our basic beliefs about the role of government and business in society. Both were unexpectedly challenged by the greatest public health crisis in recent memory.
Government failed. Business triumphed. Statism should be discredited, hopefully for an entire generation. Any coherent political philosophy for the 21st century must start from this basic truth.
COLUMN BY

Alexander William Salter

Alexander William Salter is an associate professor of economics in the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University, the Comparative Economics Research Fellow at TTU’s Free Market Institute, and a senior fellow with the American Institute for Economic Research’s Sound Money Project. Follow him on Twitter @alexwsalter.
EDITORS NOTE: This FEE column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.