How Democrats keep Blacks Hostage in their ‘Nouveau Plantations’ the Ghetto thumbnail

How Democrats keep Blacks Hostage in their ‘Nouveau Plantations’ the Ghetto

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By Dr. Rich Swier

“For those looking for security, be forewarned that there’s nothing more insecure than a political promise.” — Harry Browne, Libertarian candidate for U.S. President 1996 and 2000

“You cannot have a political solution for a spiritual problem. You must have spiritual solutions for spiritual problems!” ― Ken Ham, Understanding the Times

We have grown up seeing how Democrats have worked tirelessly to keep blacks on their political plantation. Democrats promise one thing to the black community but their policies do just the opposite.

The Democrats before during and after the Civil War were, and still are, segregationists. They have replaced the Southern plantations with American ghettos.

The new Democrat segregationist policy is called intersectionality which is the interconnected nature of social categorizations such as race, class, and gender as they apply to a given individual or group. Intersectionality is focused on identifying multiple factors of advantage and disadvantage.

Rather than focus the positives like individual responsibility, strengths, possibilities, successes and outcomes intersectionality focuses on the negatives. It is one of the great myths of our time.

Intersectionality does one thing and one thing only, it pits one group against other groups in order to gain political power. It divides rather than unites America and Americans.

Ghetto is defined as “a part of a city, especially a slum area, occupied by a minority group or groups.”

The United Nations considers a slum-dweller as exhibiting one or more of the following attributes:

  • insecurity of tenure
  • low structural quality of dwelling
  • poor access to safe water
  • poor access to sanitation facilities
  • insufficient living space

In an August 9th, 2015 The Atlantic article titled “The Resurrection of America’s Slums” Alana Semuels wrote,

After falling in the 1990s, the number of poor people living in high-poverty areas has been growing fast.

Half a century after President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a war on poverty, the number of Americans living in slums is rising at an extraordinary pace.

he number of people living in high-poverty areas—defined as census tracts where 40 percent or more of families have income levels below the federal poverty threshold—nearly doubled between 2000 and 2013, to 13.8 million from 7.2 million, according to a new analysis of census data by Paul Jargowsky, a public-policy professor at Rutgers University-Camden and a fellow at The Century Foundation. That’s the highest number of Americans living in high-poverty neighborhoods ever recorded.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE INFOGRAPHIC: Population Living in High-Poverty Neighborhoods

According to the infographic in the Atlantic article infographic on Population Living in High-Poverty Neighborhoods during the period 2009-2013 there were a total of 13.8 million living in high poverty neighborhoods. This was up from 7.2 million in 2000. Of the 13.8 million living in high-poverty neighborhoods in the period 2009-2013: 3.5 million were white, 5 million were black and 4.3 million were Hispanic.

In an Oct 31st, 2021 Forbes article Laura Begley Bloom wrote,

Americans are dealing with a surge in murder, violence and crime. According to FBI data, murders in the United States increased by 30% in 2020 over the previous year and violent crimes jumped by 5.6% for the first time in four years. While the numbers are still below historic peaks, the statistics have left many people wondering where they can go to feel safe. SafeWise—a safety and home security site—just released a timely report on “The 100 Safest Small Towns in America for 2021.” The report also looked at the 100 most dangerous small towns in the United States.

Here are the SafeWise most dangerous small towns in the United States:

  1. Emeryville, California (also had the highest property crime rate in the U.S.)
  2. Sauk Village, Illinois (also had the highest violent crime rate in the U.S.)
  3. Glendale, Colorado
  4. Florida City, Florida
  5. Ocean City, Maryland
  6. Marksville, Louisiana
  7. Osceola, Arkansas
  8. Hartsville, South Carolina
  9. Darlington, South Carolina
  10. Globe, Arizona

In a September 8th, 2021 article Top 10 Most Ghetto Cities in the USA Markie Young listed the following as “ghetto” cities:

  1. Detroit, Michigan
  2. Memphis, Tennessee
  3. Birmingham, Alabama
  4. Baltimore, Maryland
  5. St. Louis, Missouri
  6. Kansas City, Missouri
  7. City of Cleveland, Ohio
  8. Little Rock, Arkansas
  9. City of Milwaukee, Wisconsin
  10. Stockton, California

The Bottom Line

The factors that have led to American ghettos are Democrat policies including: the welfare state (i.e. LBJ’s great society), socialist economic policies (i.e. creation of social security and the income tax under FDR), the promoting of racial violence in cities in the name of diversity, inclusion and equity (i.e. funding road and bridge repairs based on race not on need), and policies that put caring for the plant over caring for the American people (i.e. Green New Deal and Build Back Better under JRB).

Democrats have build ghettos and slums that put blacks back on their plantations. This time they aren’t the plantation owners but rather they are the politicians who control the budgets and public policies of these cities.

If you want to keep blacks in their ghettos and slums then first disarm them so that they cannot defend themselves from the crime and criminals that surround them. Then you defund the police in order to give free reign to the criminals of each ghetto and slum.

When Democrats do these two simple things, which they have now for decades, then you get more ghettos and slums until every major metropolitan area becomes a huge ghetto and slum.

When Mac Davis was 5 or 6 years old, the esteemed Nashville songwriter couldn’t understand why one of his best friends had to live in a bad part of town (a ghetto). He remembered that friend as he wrote “In the Ghetto,” which Elvis Presley turned into a chart-topping hit in 1969. Elvis Presley understood this threat to both blacks and whites as he lived in Memphis, Tennessee and saw it first had. This led Elvis to release in 1969 his song “In the Ghetto” (originally titled “The Vicious Circle”). Elvis recognized a vicious circle in America that created no hope for black boys who were raised in a single parent home and no father.

Here’s Elvis singing “In the Ghetto:

You see Elvis witnessed what are not known as King assassination riots in 125 cities in April and May of 1968, in response to the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.,

This ends this lesson on Democrats and their modern version of the plantation—the ghetto.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

RACE RIOTS DURING ELVIS’ LIFETIME

1943: Detroit In the 1940s, Detroit, a segregated city, was a hotbed of racial tension. On a steamy evening in late June, a fistfight broke out between a Black and white young men at an amusement park called Belle Isle. The fighting quickly grew in scope and intensity. The violence escalated when rumors about violence against white and Black women circulated, and both whites and Black people engaged in retaliatory attacks. Homes and businesses were burned and looted and people were beaten and shot. The fighting raged for three days, and 6,000 U.S. Army troops were brought in. Twenty-five Black people and nine whites were killed. About 700 were injured.
1965: Watts Watts, the predominately Black neighborhood in Los Angeles, erupted in riots that lasted from August 11 to 17 after the arrest of 21-year-old Marquette Frye, a Black motorist, by a white highway patrolman, Lee Minikus. Racial tension had been on the rise in Los Angeles, and particularly in Watts, because of years of discrimination and racial injustice. A crowd of African Americans gathered and watched as a scuffle broke out between police; Frye; his brother, Ronald; and their mother, Rena Price. Ronald and Price were also arrested. The number of people gathering increased, and the crowd of Black onlookers through rocks and concrete at police. Nearly 4,000 National Guardsmen were deployed, in addition to about 1,600 police officers. Martial law was declared and a curfew implemented. More than 30,000 people participated in the riots, fighting with police, looting white-owned homes and businesses, and attacking white residents. The riots left 34 dead, more than 1,000 injured, and about 4,000 arrested.
1967: Newark Black residents of Newark felt disenfranchised and that they were victims of racial profiling, creating a palpable sense of racial tension. On July 12, John Smith, a Black cab driver, was arrested for improperly passing a police car. He was taken to a police station across the street from a public housing project. Residents of the project reported that Smith was seriously injured and was dragged from the police car into the station. They reported the event to several civil rights groups, who asked to see Smith. They requested that Smith be taken to the hospital for treatment. Word of the incident spread, and Black leaders organized a peaceful protest. However, the protest turned violent, with Black demonstrators throwing bottles, rocks, and Molotov cocktails at the police station. Rioting followed for the next several nights, and the National Guard was deployed. Despite the presence of the National Guard, the violence and looting continued for three nights. The worst rioting in New Jersey’s history left 26 dead, 725 injured, about 1,500 arrested, and more than $10 million in property damage.
1968: King Assassination Riots Riots broke out in about 125 cities following the April 4, 1968, assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Washington, DC, Chicago, and Baltimore experienced the most violence. In Washington, violence broke out hours after the assassination. On April 5, looting, arson and attacks on police increased, and as many as 20,000 people participated in the riots. The National Guard and Marines were dispatched. The riots reached within two blocks of the White House. Twelve people were killed, more than 1,200 buildings were destroyed, and damage was tallied at $27 million, leaving the district’s economy in tatters.

Rioting in Baltimore began April 5. Maryland’s governor Spiro Agnew called in the National Guard, and later needed to dispatch federal troops to help control the violence and looting.

Rioting continued until April 14. Seven people were killed, 700 injured, and about 4,500 were arrested.In Chicago, rioting took place over a 28-block area in Chicago’s West Side. As in other cities, rioters looted stores and homes, set buildings on fire, and broke windows. In addition to some 10,500 police officers, about 6,700 members of the National Guard and 5,000 federal troops were deployed. Eleven people were killed in the violence and 2,150 arrests were made.

Lyrics to In the Ghetto By Elvis Presley

On a cold and gray Chicago mornin’

A poor little baby child is born

In the ghetto

(In the ghetto)

And his mama cries

‘Cause if there’s one thing that she don’t need

It is another hungry mouth to feed

In the ghetto

(In the ghetto)

People, don’t you understand

The child needs a helping hand

Or he’ll grow to be an angry young man some day

Take a look at you and me

Are we too blind to see?

Do we simply turn our heads

And look the other way

Well, the world turns

And a hungry little boy with a runny nose

Plays in the street as the cold wind blows

In the ghetto

(In the ghetto)

And his hunger burns

So he starts to roam the streets at night

And he learns how to steal

And he learns how to fight

In the ghetto

(In the ghetto)

Then one night in desperation

The young man breaks away

He buys a gun, steals a car

Tries to run, but he don’t get far

And his mama cries

As a crowd gathers ’round an angry young man

Face down on the street with a gun in his hand

In the ghetto

(In the ghetto)

And as her young man dies

(In the ghetto)

On a cold and gray Chicago mornin’

Another little baby child is born

In the ghetto

(In the ghetto)

And his mama cries

(In the ghetto)

(In the ghetto)

(Ah)

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Graham David Bates / Writer Unknown

In the Ghetto lyrics © Sony/atv Songs Llc, R & H Music Company, Atal Music

Republicans Charge Biden With ‘Intentional Destruction’ of the United States of America thumbnail

Republicans Charge Biden With ‘Intentional Destruction’ of the United States of America

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By Dr. Rich Swier

(RepublicanPartyNews) – I think it’s pretty safe to say, at this point, Joe Biden is the worst president this country has ever seen. Given that the ranks for such a title include names like Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, this is a major accomplishment, albeit one that no normal, sane individual would be happy to have bestowed upon them.

There are a number of things that make Biden’s term so egregiously bad. The fact that gas prices are so high you nearly have to sell off a kidney on the black market just to get work everyday is a good starting point. Then, of course, there’s the 9 percent inflation rate, the crisis at the southern border, and the fact that many of our nation’s enemies are more emboldened to take action against us than ever before.

Yeah, things are looking pretty bleak right now.

In fact, according to WND, who cited a report from Just the News, Republican Rep. Jim Jordan from Ohio is calling it a deliberate assault on the United States. Jordan made an appearance on the John Solomon Reports podcast where he cited Biden’s threat to withhold funding for school lunch programs from establishments that don’t fall in line with the LGBT agenda.

“It makes no sense. That tells you this is intentional,” Jordan said.

Deroy Murdock, a columnist and London Center fellow, spoke with Just the News, stating, “The wide-open ‘border’ is no accident. It is deliberate. This is not a sign of incompetence. It is a reflection of [Biden’s] relentless, intentional destruction of the southern ‘frontier.’”

“Those high fuel prices, triggered by Biden’s cancellation of drilling leases in the Gulf and blocked energy exploration in oil-rich part of Alaska?” the report posits.

“It’s intentional,” Liz Harrington, a former spokesman for President Trump, remarked.

The Just the News report said, “House Minority Whip Steve Scalise expounded in a recent statement, noting Biden approved a pipeline for Russia but blocked one for America.”

Scalise stated, “It’s not that he’s against all pipelines. As my colleagues have pointed out, he approved Russia’s pipeline, the Nord Stream 2, which builds on top of the Nord Stream 1, which was already supplying Russian oil to parts of Europe. We could have been there to provide all of the oil and gas that Europe needs. And instead, Biden turned off the spigots here and sent leverage to Putin.”

Scalise then went on to explain that Americans are not that dumb.

“People get this,” he said during a conversation with Just the News. “As [GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik] said, ‘The American people are smarter than Joe Biden gives them credit for.’ They know it’s Biden’s policies — anti-American energy policies — that have led to this skyrocketing sticker shock at the pump, where it costs over $150, in some cases, to fill your car.”

“It actually was Biden, and Kamala Harris too, who suggested that high fuel prices were just part of their intentional scheme, even though Republicans had been labeled conspiracists when they suggested it first,” WND reported.

Biden confessed, “When it comes to the gas prices, we’re going through an incredible transition that is taking place that, God willing, when it’s over, we’ll be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels.”

Harris then stated, “We are all in the midst of a turning point. We have the technology to transition to a zero-emission fleet. Our administration — together, all of us — is working to make that possibility a reality.”

The congressman then said that Biden, along with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, basically lied to the American public when they said that inflation was transitory, so Democrats could spend however much they wanted.

“Janet Yellen said this week, ‘We were surprised that we had this kind of inflation. We didn’t really see it coming.’ And I’m like, how could you not see it coming? You spent like crazy. You paid people not to work, and you drove up the cost of energy,” Jordan noted.

“Yellen’s claims, Jordan said, make clear that what is happening under Biden ‘is intentional,’” WND reported.

Copyright 2022. RepublicanPartyNews.org All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLE: Violent leftist group promises more violence because Biden’s DOJ, FBI and media approve of it

Supreme Court Overturns 2nd Amendment Decisions in 4 States thumbnail

Supreme Court Overturns 2nd Amendment Decisions in 4 States

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By The Geller Report

The Second Amendment is the last line of defense for each and every one of us. The Supreme Court ruling on gun rights reiterated our fundamental right enshrined in the Constitution.

“Our Founding Fathers didn’t give us the Second Amendment for duck hunting or simply for self-protection in a country that at the time had a vast and yet unknown frontier. They bestowed it upon us so that we could protect our precious nation from devolving into tyranny as so many others have done.”

Eduardo Bolsonaro talks to Tucker Carlson about what happened after gun restrictions in Brazil were loosened:

“Brazil is safer, thanks God, because of this policy.” pic.twitter.com/dBcUjNAYWi

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) June 30, 2022

There are historical lessons of totalitarian governments that rule because citizens have been deprived of their weapons.

The Nazi policy

In Nazi Firearms Law and the Disarming of the German Jews, page 537, Stephen P. Halbrook observed:

“The record establishes that a well-meaning liberal republic would enact a gun control act that would later be highly useful to a dictatorship. That dictatorship could then consolidate its power by massive search and seizure operations against political opponents, under the hysterical ruse that such persons were ‘Communist’ firearm owners.”

“It could enact its own new firearms law, disarming anyone the police deemed ‘dangerous’ and exempting members of the party that controlled the state. It could exploit a tragic shooting of a government official to launch a [sic] pogrom, under the guise that Jewish firearm owners were dangerous and must be disarmed.”

“This dictatorship could, generally, disarm the people of the nation it governed and then disarm those of every nation it conquered.”

The USA’s fundamental rights

“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

“In the 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller, the Supreme Court held that the ‘Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.’” Reported by the Legal Information Institute of the Cornell Law School.

“The above experiences influenced perceptions of fundamental rights in both the United States and Germany,” Halbrook explained: “Before entering the war, America reacted to the events in Europe in a characteristic manner. Seeing the Nazi threat and its policies, Congress passed the Property Requisition Act of 1941 authorizing the President to requisition certain property for defense, but prohibiting any construction of the act to ‘require the registration of any firearms possessed by any individual for his personal protection or sport’ or ‘to impair or infringe in any manner the right of any individual to keep and bear arms.’” Nazi Firearms Law, pp. 536-37.

“Remember that registration of firearms is only the first step,” stated the Requisition Act’s sponsor, Rep. Paul Kilday (D-TX). “It will be followed by other infringements of the right to keep and bear arms until finally the right is gone.” Nazi Firearms Law, p. 537, fn. 289.

Analysis

A secret Nazi Gestapo Order (1941) is compared to Pennsylvania’s Firearm Registration bill (2019) in this side-by-side chart. Pennsylvania’s bill has more requirements than the Nazi’s order. In Pennsylvania, if the bill becomes law, a gun owner will be required to provide more information than a person who registers to vote.

For the right of self-defense, a person would be required annually to self-report ownership of each gun and describe it in detail. A certificate or renewal is not guaranteed because the State Police could deny the application. Partisan bureaucrats may not appreciate an applicant’s conservative politics: Allegiance to the Bill of Rights and limited government. Far-fetched? Just ask Tea Party organizations who were delayed or denied non-profit status by Obama’s IRS.

The State Police’s database could be released for official or nefarious purposes: The Pennsylvania Legislature under the guise of oversight. Freedom of Information requests by liberal media and advocacy groups.

Anti-gun zealots could dox persons who own guns. New York’s concealed weapon permit holders were posted via a map on the internet. There was proposed a multi-state map. Liberal news agencies and the social media mob have harassed law-abiding, private citizens. Identification of gun owners is not likely to deter criminals, who may have a shopping list for gun collections.

An enemy could learn that you own a gun. A related “red flag” law may be used for a fraudulent claim against you. The police will confiscate your gun pending a court hearing. Meanwhile, an enemy has an opportunity to cause injury or murder of you.

Law-abiding citizens’ registration of guns will not prevent criminals from obtaining unregistered guns. No lives will be saved. Note the bill’s absence of “whereas” clauses of findings of facts to support unidentified benefits. Also, the absence of redeeming press releases of the bill being introduced by Democrats: Angel Cruz, Mary Jo Daley, and Mary Louise Isaacson; and Democrat co-sponsors: Joseph C. Hohenstein, Joanna E. McClinton, and Benjamin V. Sanchez. The bill failed in 2009-10, 2011-12, 2013-14, 2015-16, and 2017-18.

This proposed law could be enforced only if the government is aware that you own a gun. Will the police conduct a search for guns, literally door to door?

If you are forced to use a gun for self-defense, but fail to comply with registration, could your defense effectively be an infringement of the Fifth Amendment?

Fail to register a gun, then risk a criminal penalty of 90 days in jail. The government likely will confiscate your gun; You likely will not be eligible to possess another gun; and you likely will be limited to lesser forms of self-defense.

Gun registries will lead to gun confiscation, as illustrated by Australia, Canada, and Germany; as well as the United States: California, Illinois, and the heart of liberalism: New York City.

National gun confiscation has been proposed by liberals including Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA; 2018); the NAACP (2018); and Hillary Clinton, presidential candidate (2016).

Admit it, liberals, you really do want a total ban on firearms.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, suggested that a Democrat President could declare gun violence as a national emergency.

Conclusion

Have we not learned the lesson of the Nazi policy to disarm, and then control, its citizens? Nazi gun laws facilitated the murder of political enemies, specifically the Holocaust of more than six million Jews.

What part of the Second Amendment’s independent status, “shall not be infringed,” did these legislators, some attorneys, not understand? The U.S. Constitution trumps a state statute. A first-year law student learns this principle.

Liberals ignore constitutional law in favor of an agenda of a gun-free society. Liberals use safety as subterfuge for registration leading to confiscation of guns.

I appreciate our Founding Fathers’ wisdom that the Second Amendment is a guard against tyranny, whether the enemy is foreign or domestic.

Since self-defense is a God-given right, I believe in the Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrates: Should gun registration become law by an act of either a state or federal government, such a law would classify this patriot as a criminal.

Read relevant documents:

Law Comparison

Pennsylvania HB768: Firearm Registration Act

Pennsylvania Summary Offenses

Nazi Firearms Laws

Nazi Gestapo Order

Gerald Lostutter is a Florida licensed attorney, college professor, journalist, and patriot life member (endowment level) of the National Rifle Association

Supreme Court Overturns 2nd Amendment Decisions in 4 States

The Supreme Court followed up its June 23 landmark ruling that for the first time recognized a constitutional right to carry firearms in public for self-defense, by issuing a series of rulings June 30 reversing federal appeals court decisions that upheld gun restrictions in California, New Jersey, Maryland, and Hawaii.

Courts will find it difficult to uphold the firearms laws in question after the high court’s June 30 and June 23 rulings.

In unsigned orders, all four cases were remanded June 30 to lower courts “for further consideration in light of” the Supreme Court’s June 23 decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen. In that 6–3 ruling, the high court invalidated New York state’s tough concealed-carry gun permitting system.

Epoch Times Photo

Lisa Caso sells guns at Caso’s Gun-A-Rama store in Jersey City, N.J., on March 25, 2021. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

The Supreme Court has been strengthening Second Amendment protections in recent years. In District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), the Supreme Court held the amendment protects “the individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation,” and in McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010), that this right “is fully applicable to the States.”

It makes no sense to recognize Americans’ right to defend themselves in their homes while denying them the ability to defend themselves outside their homes, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote June 23 in the court’s majority opinion.

“After all, the Second Amendment guarantees an ‘individual right to possess and carry weapons in case of confrontation,’ and confrontation can surely take place outside the home. … Many Americans hazard greater danger outside the home than in it,” Thomas wrote.

In the new orders, the Supreme Court summarily disposed of the four pending cases, simultaneously granting appellants’ petitions seeking review while skipping over the oral argument phase. Some lawyers call this process GVR, standing for grant, vacate, and remand.

In the Maryland case, Bianchi v. Frosh, court file 21-902, a coalition of 25 states led by Arizona challenged Maryland’s Firearms Safety Act of 2013. The statute, which was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in September 2021, required pistol purchasers to seek a license, complete safety training, and be fingerprinted. Maryland bans popular weapons such as the AR-15 and similar rifles and limits magazine capacity to 10 rounds.

Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh, a Democrat, was defiant after the remand order. Military-style firearms “pose grave risks to public safety, as recent mass shootings in other states have made clear,” Frosh stated. Despite the Bruen ruling, the state’s law remains in effect, he said. “Marylanders have a right to be protected from these dangerous weapons.”’

The California case, Duncan v. Bonta, court file 21-1194, challenged the state’s ban on magazines containing more than 10 rounds. The ban went further, requiring the confiscation of such magazines, which had previously been lawful to own. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upheld the ban in November 2021.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, is currently scrambling to deal with the fallout after his office leaked sensitive personal information, including the names and addresses of every concealed-carry permit holder in the state. Some holders say they now fear for their lives.

The New Jersey case, Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs Inc. v. Bruck, court file 20-1507, is similar to the California case. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit affirmed the New Jersey law in December 2021.

Petitioners challenged the state law that bans 10-round magazines and requires that owners surrender such magazines to law enforcement. The law also forbids the transfer or sale of these magazines but allows owners to keep them if they modify them to reduce how many rounds may be held. Failing to comply with the law is a crime that can be punished with a sentence of up to 10 years of imprisonment and $150,000 in fines.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLE: After the Guns Were Confiscated, the Killing Fields Began

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

Biden Administration Report Shows MASSIVE Fuel Industry Job Losses thumbnail

Biden Administration Report Shows MASSIVE Fuel Industry Job Losses

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By The Geller Report

If America’s worst enemy inhabited the White House, what would they be doing differently? Nothing. We are living a nightmare. The Democrats agenda is to destroy everything good in this country in rapid time.

It’s going to get ugly, really ugly, fast.

Biden administration report shows massive fossil fuel industry job losses

A spokesperson for a petroleum association says the Biden administration has worked ‘overtime on restricting American natural gas and oil production’

By: FOX Business, July 1, 2022:

The Biden administration published its annual U.S. Energy and Employment Report (USEER) Tuesday, showing large fossil fuel industry job losses.

The Department of Energy (DOE) report found that the fuels technology sector experienced job losses totaling 29,271 jobs in 2021, a 3.1% year-over-year decline, with the majority coming in the fossil fuel industry. Onshore and offshore petroleum companies shed 31,593 jobs, a 6.4% decline, the coal industry lost 7,125 jobs, down 11.8% year-over-year, and fossil fuel extraction jobs declined by 12%.

“The DOE jobs report is not only reflective of the broader pandemic slowdown, but also highlights an Administration that has worked overtime on restricting American natural gas and oil production,” Independent Petroleum Association of America spokesperson Jennifer Marsteller told Fox News Digital in an email.

“We are confident in our sector, and in the work oil and natural gas employees do to bring energy safely and reliably to our country and the world,” she continued. “We urge President Biden to get on board with that same made-in-America pride in our workers.”

Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, weighs in after French President Emmanuel Macron was caught on camera at the G7 telling President Biden that the UAE and Saudi Arabia say they can barely increase oil production.

US has ‘got to be leading producer’ of oil in the world: Rep. Williams https://t.co/KfqcZKPMqH

— Dr. Rich Swier (@drrichswier) July 2, 2022

Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, weighs in after French President Emmanuel Macron was caught on camera at the G7 telling President Biden that the UAE and Saudi Arabia say they can barely increase oil production.

The fuels sector category was the only category that saw overall declines, according to the USEER.

The Biden administration has pursued an aggressive climate agenda since taking office, canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, limiting oil and gas lease sales on public lands and pushing environmental regulations impacting fossil fuel project development.

“The American natural gas and oil industry is proud to support nearly 11 million U.S. jobs,” an American Petroleum Institute spokesperson told Fox News in a statement. “While we have grappled with many of the same labor shortages that the rest of the U.S. economy is facing due to the pandemic, we have seen a slow but steady rebound in both drilling and oil & gas support service employment in 2022.”

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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

Supreme Court Delivers Massive Blow To Biden’s Climate Agenda thumbnail

Supreme Court Delivers Massive Blow To Biden’s Climate Agenda

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By The Daily Caller

The Supreme Court delivered a massive blow to the Biden administration’s climate change plan Thursday, severely limiting the power of federal agencies.

The Court, in a 6-3 decision, limited the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) authority to regulate greenhouse gases from power plants, significantly curtailing the power of the federal agency. The decision restricts the agency to regulating individual power plants and not the entire power sector.

“Congress did not grant EPA in Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act the authority to devise emissions caps based on the generation shifting approach the Agency took in the Clean Power Plan,” Justice Roberts wrote in the majority opinion.

The case stems from an Obama-era EPA climate rule and addresses the scope of Congress’s ability to delegate legislative authority to executive agencies.

In August 2015, the EPA adopted the Clean Power Plan that sought to cut carbon emissions by 32% from power plants by 2030.

However, in early 2016, the Supreme Court blocked the plan’s implementation in a 5-4 vote. Plaintiffs successfully argued that the EPA had exceeded its congressional mandate under the 1970 Clean Air Act, which broadly authorizes the agency to issue the “best system of emission reduction.”

The Trump administration repealed the Clean Power Plan and created the Affordable Clean Energy Rule, which included looser restrictions and allowed states to regulate their standards.

“Unlike the Clean Power Plan, ACE adheres to the Clean Air Act and gives states the regulatory certainty they need to continue to reduce emissions and provide a dependable, diverse supply of electricity that all Americans can afford,” former EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said in a statement at the time.

Hillsdale College Associate Professor of Politics Joseph Postell said the case has to do with the EPA’s authority to regulate major sources of air pollution that are stationary, like smokestacks.

“Does the statute allow the Obama administration to force the state of West Virginia to put more clean power into its energy grid as a means of reducing carbon emissions or does the Clean Air Act force the states to implement technology controls at the actual existing plants?” Postell said.

Postell said the new Trump rules regulated only the existing sources of air pollution rather than requiring new energy generation from sources like wind and solar.

“The Trump administration basically advanced version of what is now known as the major questions doctrine,” Postell said. “When there is a question of major importance or a major question. It has to be resolved by Congress and cannot be kicked over to the agency.”

In 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia vacated everything the day before Biden’s inauguration, according to SCOTUSblog. While the Biden Administration could reinstate the Clean Power Plan, it has instead chosen to draft alternate power plant emissions rules.

The Biden Administration was awaiting the Supreme Court’s ruling before releasing its plan, the Washington Post reported.

Following the repeal, West Virginia led a coalition of 20 other Republican-led states and coal companies to file an appeal to ask the Supreme Court to challenge the appeals court decision.

The plaintiffs argued that the appeals court wrongly grants “an agency unbridled power—functionally ‘no limits’—to decide whether and how to decarbonize almost any sector of the economy.” They asked the Supreme Court to preemptively intervene before the EPA issues additional emissions reduction plans or rules using this authority.

Click here to read the full decision: Supreme Court — West Virginia vs EPA

AUTHOR

JOSH HYPES

Contributor. 

RELATED ARTICES:

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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.

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Here’s Why The Government Can’t Set Up Abortion Clinics On Federal Land

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By The Daily Caller

Despite demands from several prominent Democrats, the federal government is prohibited from using taxpayer dollars to fund abortions.

The Hyde Amendment, first included in federal appropriations bills in 1976, prohibits the federal government from funding abortions unless “the life of the mother would be endangered if the fetus were carried to term or where the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest.” Activists estimate that the Hyde Amendment prevents at least 60,000 abortions every year.

The amendment is named for Republican Illinois Rep. Henry Hyde, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee who championed it.

Although support for the amendment was initially bipartisan, Democrats in recent years have attempted to pass federal budgets that do not include the provision. President Joe Biden flip-flopped on support for the amendment during his 2020 presidential campaign, and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi attempted to jettison the provision for an early COVID-19 relief package. Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin’s demand that the Hyde Amendment be included in a social spending package was a key factor in the breakdown in Build Back Better negotiations.

Following the Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, several Republican-controlled states instituted trigger laws limiting abortion. In response, prominent left-wing Democrats urged the Biden administration to take actions to protect abortion access in those states.

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren both called on the federal government to make abortions available on federal lands like national parks, where state governments could not regulate the procedure.

Warren and Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith claimed in a New York Times op-ed that Biden could provide “federal resources for individuals seeking abortion care in other states” and use “federal property and resources to protect people seeking abortion services locally.” Warren also claimed that the administration could designate “federal lands as a place where abortions can occur.”

Ocasio-Cortez added that providing abortion services on federal lands is the “the babiest of the babiest of the baby steps” that the federal government can take.

Neither Warren nor Ocasio-Cortez responded to the Daily Caller’s request for comment on whether or not they believe that such actions would violate the Hyde Amendment.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre rejected the congressional Democrats’ suggestion Monday, but two cabinet members did suggest that they would use their agencies to promote abortion access.

“Nothing is more important to me or to this Department than the health and well-being of our Service members, the civilian workforce and DOD families,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a Friday statement shortly after the ruling. “I am committed to taking care of our people and ensuring the readiness and resilience of our Force.”

“The Department is examining this decision closely and evaluating our policies to ensure we continue to provide seamless access to reproductive health care as permitted by federal law,” he added.

When contacted for comment, a Department of Defense (DOD) spokesperson cited a memorandum released Tuesday by Undersecretary of Defense Gilbert Cisneros. The memorandum stressed that the DOD will comply with the conditions laid out by the Hyde Amendment, and “will continue to follow existing departmental policy.”

Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Xavier Becerra promised to “increase access” to abortifacients, claiming that his agency has been planning for “every action necessary to protect women’s access to reproductive healthcare.”

A spokesperson for HHS did not respond to the Daily Caller’s request for comment on compliance with the Hyde Amendment.

AUTHOR

MICHAEL GINSBERG

Congressional reporter.

RELATED ARTICLES:

EXCLUSIVE: 48 Senate Republicans Tell Schumer They Will Block Any Bill Undermining Hyde Amendment

‘Simply Ignore’: Military Expert Sounds Alarm On Pentagon’s Abortion Stance

New York Attorney General Demands Google Scrub Crisis Pregnancy Centers From Search Results

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

One More Blockbuster Supreme Court Decision: West Virginia v. EPA Could Still Be Coming thumbnail

One More Blockbuster Supreme Court Decision: West Virginia v. EPA Could Still Be Coming

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By The Geller Report

And it is potentially bigger than Roe v. Wade.

The court could begin to rein in the vast powers of the alphabet agencies in D.C. that run our lives and return it to legislators whom we elect to create.

Supreme Court’s abortion ruling rocked nation last week but West Virginia v. EPA could also be huge

By Liz Peek | Fox News

Believe it or not, overturning Roe v. Wade may not be the Supreme Court’s most dramatic decision this year. Instead, its ruling on West Virginia v. the Environmental Protection Agency could prove far more consequential. It could literally upend how our government works.

For the better.

West Virginia vs. EPA asks whether important policies that impact the lives of all Americans should be made by unelected D.C. bureaucrats or by Congress. This SCOTUS could well decide that ruling by executive agency fiat is no longer acceptable.

The case involves the Clean Power Plan, which was adopted under President Barack Obama to fight climate change; the program was estimated to cost as much as $33 billion per year and would have completely reordered our nation’s power grid. The state of West Virginia, joined by two coal companies and others, sued the EPA, arguing the plan was an abuse of power.

By deciding in favor of West Virginia, the court could begin to rein in the vast powers of the alphabet agencies in D.C. that run our lives and return it to legislators whom we elect to create…legislation. Just as the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade that abortion laws are more appropriately left up to the people’s elected representatives, it may decide in West Virginia vs. EPA that Congress, and not federal agencies, should write our laws.

A decision that puts Congress in charge would stall environmental rules intended to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy. Legislators, back in the driver’s seat, would have to debate and go public with the consequences – and costs — of regulations that are now adopted with little buy-in from the public.

To further their climate agenda, Democrats have been able to hide the full-in price tag of abandoning oil and gas as our main energy sources by creating tax subsidies for renewables. If consumers had to pay the real cost of wind and solar power, they might not be so enthusiastic about what President Joe Biden calls the great “transition.”

But the case goes beyond environmental regulations.

A ruling in favor of West Virginia would reverse a decades-long trend in which Congress has handed off to federal agencies decisions our legislators refuse or are unable to make. The usurping of authority by D.C. bureaucracies began with the New Deal in the 1930s, when an ambitious President Franklin D. Roosevelt led the way by creating the TVA, the WPA and a total of 69 other offices and executive branch agencies to do his bidding. The process occasioned Democrat Al Smith to complain that he was “submerged in a bowl of alphabet soup.”

Restricting the power of the alphabet soup authorities might require that our representatives and senators actually do their jobs, allowing less time for posturing and passing pointless dead-on-arrival bills. They might have to show up more than half the days in the year, for instance, which is the current norm.

It could, for sure, derail the ambitions of Joe Biden, who won no significant majority in Congress and appears incapable of “working across the aisle,” though as Candidate Biden, he argued that ability was one of his strongest credentials.

In addition to broad environmental rules that might come under new scrutiny, subsequent suits might challenge labor laws written by the NLRB, consumer protection edicts from the CFPB, and regulations put in place by the FDA, the CDC and the entire host of agencies that have immense – many would say excess – power over our lives.

But initially, the ruling would deep-six the Biden administration’s ambition to kill off the coal industry, which is why West Virginia, our nation’s second biggest coal-mining state after Wyoming, brought the suit, along with Westmoreland Mining Holdings, North American Coal Corporation and others.

Like Obama, Biden wants to effectively shut down our fossil fuel industries that provide cheap, plentiful and reliable energy and that are the envy of the world. His “Build Back Better” plan incorporated $550 billion in programs aimed at curtailing emissions, including significant portions of Bernie Sanders’ Green New Deal.

Obama’s approach was to reinterpret the 1970 Clean Air Act to allow a nationwide cap-and-trade regimen, requiring power plants to offset emissions by investing in other low-carbon facilities. Congress did not alter the Clean Air Act language to permit the Clean Power Plan; the Obama White House simply grabbed it as a way to further their climate ambitions.

The courts decided the CPP constituted executive overreach and put the plan on hold. Subsequently, the Trump White House rescinded the program.

This back-and-forth highlights an obvious problem with government by alphabet soup. Successive administrations can easily change the rules by which such agencies operate. Policymaking ; therefore, is erratic and inconsistent. Especially in the power arena, where new facilities can take years to build and the impact on the general population can be profound, this is a costly and inefficient way to govern.

Political parties rise and fall, to be sure, and can also change the nation’s direction. But matters of consequence should be argued in the public forum and not buried under the almost 100,000 pages of new rules and regulations published during Obama’s last year in office, for instance.

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia once wrote in a decision, “We expect Congress to speak clearly if it wishes to assign to an agency decisions of vast ‘economic and political significance.” That limiting guidance appears to have support from the conservative justices on the court today.

If the court launches a widespread curtailment of governing by executive agency, as it should, we will see more protests and renewed cries to “Pack the Court,” including from members of Congress. After all, they’ll have to get to work.

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

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AUNTVN : The Doctors speak out about the Covid Vaccine Dangers

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By Conservative Commandos Radio Show

It’s not quite a documentary but it does come at the issue from several perspectives. I hope it is helpful. I have friends that have asked about the shows we’ve done recently on this subject.

WATCH: The Doctors speak out about the Covid Vaccine Dangers.

 MEET THE DOCTORS

DR. SYED HAIDER, MD

Dr. Syed Haider, MD completed his 3-year residency in Internal Medicine at New York Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn, NY he worked as an internal medicine hospitalist for 10 years. He is additionally trained in Functional medicine, Lifestyle medicine and Chinese medicine. Since December 2020, Dr. Syed has focused entirely on prevention and treatment of COVID-19. He was the first physician in the US to widely use Fluvoxamine for the treatment of COVID-19 starting in February 2021.

DR. NAOMI WOLF

Dr. Naomi Wolf is a bestselling author, columnist, and professor. She is cofounder and CEO of Daily Clout. a successful civic tech company. Since the publication of her landmark international bestseller, The Beauty Myth, which The New York Times called “one of the most important books of the 20th century,” Dr. Wolf’s other seven bestsellers have been translated worldwide. The End of America and Give Me Liberty: A Handbook For American Revolutionaries, predicted the current crisis in authoritarianism and presented effective tools for citizens to promote civic engagement. Dr. Wolf trains thought leaders of tomorrow, teaching public presentation to Rhodes Scholars and co-leading a Stony Brook University that gave professors skills to become public intellectuals. She was a Rhodes Scholar herself, and was an advisor to the Clinton re-election campaign and to Vice President Al Gore. Dr. Wolf has written for every major news outlet in the US and many globally; she had four opinion columns, including in The Guardian and the Sunday Times of London. TOPIC: Pfizer Docs Contradict Claim of No Risk to Unborn Babies.

DR. RICHARD URSO

Dr. Richard Urso is a board-certified ophthalmologist and one of America’s Frontline Doctors. He is a scientist, sole inventor of an FDA-approved wound healing drug, and the Former Director of Orbital Oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center. TOPIC: COVID-19 vaccines and kids: What parents need to know.

© All rights reserved.

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Supreme Court Overturns Roe vs. Wade

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By Dr. Rich Swier

CV NEWS FEED // The Supreme Court on Friday repealed pro-abortion legal precedents Roe vs. Wade and Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, returning the matter of abortion to elected officials in each state.

The 5-4 ruling in the case of Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health has long been anticipated by both sides of the political aisle.

Democrats and abortion industry leaders have worked for months devising ways to thwart the ruling, including by enshrining the so-called “right to abortion” in blue state constitutions. Republican lawmakers in at least 18 states, meanwhile, have enacted “trigger” laws to protect unborn life immediately in the event of Roe’s repeal.

“Held: The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito in the Supreme Court majority opinion released Friday:

Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.

CatholicVote President Brian Burch hailed the decision and called on pro-life Americans to immediately act in the interests of cementing the Supreme Court victory at the state and local levels throughout the country.

“Catholics and pro-life advocates across the country celebrate today’s landmark Supreme Court decision as the ‘dawning of a new day in America’ – a long-awaited first step toward the full protection of American women and children,” said Burch:

The Court finally righted the notorious decision in Roe vs. Wade after nearly 50 years of heroic efforts by millions of Americans in pursuit of justice. Nowhere in our Constitution do we find a right to take innocent human life. Further, the humanity of children in the womb has become plain and undeniable thanks to the decades of technological advances since Roe was decided. Millions of women have been coerced, threatened, or forced into a decision they regret. They too are worthy of protection. A dark chapter in our nation’s history has finally been closed.

Burch exhorted the pro-life movement to “resolve to work ever more diligently toward building a culture of life that respects the dignity of both mother and child.”

The Court today has merely allowed state legislators to begin the important task of supporting women in need, and protecting their vulnerable children from the grisly practices of the abortion industry,” he said:

We urge state legislatures along with our federal representatives to move quickly to enact broad protections for women and children, and support for pregnancy centers, maternity homes, and programs that offer real choices for women to keep and love their children.”

CatholicVote Communications Director Joshua Mercer added that he saw a great significance in the date of the ruling, from a Catholic perspective. “Not only was this realized on the day we celebrate the Sacred Heart, but every other year it will fall on the Nativity of John the Baptist — who recognized the humanity of Christ in the womb,” he said.

Continuing Coverage

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced in response to the Supreme Court ruling that abortion is now fully illegal in the Lone Star State. In addition, June 24 is now a state holiday.

Read more.

FROM THE HOLOCAUST TO SURFSIDE — The amazing story of the Champlain condo collapse in Surfside, FL. thumbnail

FROM THE HOLOCAUST TO SURFSIDE — The amazing story of the Champlain condo collapse in Surfside, FL.

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By The United West

ISRAEL SHOWCASED is a project of The United West featuring the accomplishments and global contributions of Israel, to the world.

FROM THE HOLOCAUST TO SURFSIDE – A short documentary by The United West about an elite team from Israel’s National Rescue Unit, in the search and recovery efforts at the Surfside, Florida building collapse. The United West team, with Suzi Gold as Host, showcases the turbulent history of the Jews and their continued resilience to overcomes all obstacles and share their experience and talents with all mankind.

Please watch and share this story which features first-time interviews inter-cut with the actual 911 call, in real time! The Surfside unspeakable tragedy, ironically, will uplift you as you watch this story and listen to the survivors and rescue team members.

BACKGROUND ON THE SURFSIDE, FL. BUILDING COLLASPE:

On Thursday, June 24, 2021, at approximately 1:25 a.m. EDT, Champlain Towers South, a 12-story beachfront condominium in the Miami suburb of Surfside, Florida, United States, partially collapsed. Ninety-eight people died. Four people were rescued from the rubble, but one died of injuries shortly after arriving at the hospital. Eleven others were injured. Approximately 35 were rescued the same day from the un-collapsed portion of the building, which was demolished 10 days later. The main contributing factor under investigation is long-term degradation of reinforced concrete structural support in the ground-level parking garage under the housing units, due to water penetration and corrosion of the reinforcing steel. The problems had been reported in 2018 and noted as “much worse” in April 2021. A $15 million program of remedial works had been approved before the collapse, although no main structural work had been undertaken. Other possible factors include land subsidence, insufficient reinforcing steel, and corruption during construction.

©The United West. All rights reserved.

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Chevron CEO Fires Back at Biden, Slams His Attacks And ‘Political Rhetoric’ in New Letter

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By The Geller Report

The Democrat USG is out of control – destroying our economy, our freedoms, our every way of life.

In the wake of Democrat-induced hyper inflation amid massive government spending, the Biden regime has gone on the attack against ……. business.

In this case, Chevron has responded, which is mighty brave. Speaking truth to power makes you an an enemy of the Biden regime — a suicidal act.

The irony is Chevron and other oil companies have been trying to appease the radical greens for years by running away from defending their core oil business and promoting biomass and other green fantasies. https://t.co/3Vgq9YVXrn

— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) June 22, 2022

Biden last week blamed oil companies for contributing to high prices — arguing they aren’t refining enough oil after previously claiming they aren’t drilling enough on existing federal leases and slamming companies such as ExxonMobil and Chevron for reaping massive profits as global prices rise.

Wirth pushed back on Biden’s portrayal of the companies as responsible for soaring gas prices, which last week hit an all-time average of more than $5 per gallon.

Chevron’s CEO pointed out to @adsteel that the U.S. hasn’t constructed a new refinery since the 1970’s and he doesn’t believe a new facility will ever be constructed. https://t.co/u2iHzxg6td

— Alex Salvi (@alexsalvinews) June 21, 2022

Biden mocks ‘sensitive’ Chevron CEO Michael Wirth in spat over gas price claims https://t.co/wUJdy9l5bB pic.twitter.com/wwXvAfdoBf

— New York Post (@nypost) June 21, 2022

Chevron CEO Fires Back at Biden, Slams ‘Political Rhetoric’ in New Letter

By: Jack Phillips, June 21, 2022

The CEO of Chevron sent an open letter to President Joe Biden after Biden sent a letter suggesting that oil companies could face consequences and accusing them of not doing enough to increase refining capacity.

Mike Wirth, in the letter, called on the White House to end its hostilities toward the oil industry, saying there needs to be a change in its approach and policies before gas prices can drop.

“Addressing this situation requires thoughtful action and a willingness to work together, not political rhetoric,” Wirth said, adding, “Your Administration has largely sought to criticize, and at times vilify, our industry.”

More than a week ago, Biden attacked oil companies and claimed they’re making record profits before urging them to increase oil production to alleviate record-high gas prices. Targeting ExxonMobil specifically, Biden accused them of making “more money than God” and not drilling enough during comments he made in May.

Soaring Gas Prices

In recent months, Biden has taken criticism as regular gas prices have eclipsed the $5 per gallon mark. AAA data shows that prices fell for several days before rising again this week to $4.96 per gallon.

Since Biden took office, gas prices have been steadily increasing as the president issued a number of energy-related executive orders, including suspending new oil drilling leases and ending the Keystone XL pipeline.

“The U.S. energy sector needs cooperation and support from your Administration for our country to return to a path toward greater energy security, economic prosperity, and environmental protection,” Wirth said in the letter, adding that Chevron has increased production in recent years.

Oil companies “need clarity and consistency on policy matters ranging from leases and permits on federal lands, to the ability to permit and build critical infrastructure, to the proper role of regulation that considers both costs and benefits,” Wirth added.

“Most importantly, we need an honest dialogue on how to best balance energy, economic, and environmental objectives–one that recognizes our industry is a vital sector of the U.S. economy and is essential to our national security,” he said. “We can only meet these challenges by working together.”

When asked about the letter, Biden didn’t appear to try and tone down the tensions.

“I didn’t know they’d get their feelings hurt that quickly. We need more refining capacity. This idea that they don’t have more oil to bring up and refine is simply not true,” he told reporters.

Last week, ExxonMobil responded to Biden’s letter and said it had invested $118 billion in new oil and gas supplies compared to a net income of $55 billion.

“We kept investing even during the pandemic, when we lost more than $20 billion and had to borrow more than $30 billion to maintain investment to increase capacity to be ready for post-pandemic demand,” the company stated.

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is slated to meet with oil industry executives on Thursday to discuss ways to reduce energy prices.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

RELATED ARTICLES:

Go Green With Gasoline If You’re Going to Consume That Vegan Sandwich

New Study Finds Electric Cars Cost More To Refuel Than Gasoline Powered Cars

Biden Soaring Gas Prices Are Part Of Green Agenda-Gas Stations Adding Extra Digit Expecting $10 a Gallon for Gasoline

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

The Failure of Public Schooling in One Chart thumbnail

The Failure of Public Schooling in One Chart

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By Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

Public school spending has become a costly failure.

While I have great fondness for some of the visuals I’ve created over the years (especially “two wagons” and “apple harvesting“), I confess that none of my creations have ever been as clear and convincing as the iconic graph on education spending and education outcomes created by the late Andrew Coulson.

CATO Education Chart pic.twitter.com/cLaNZw32dC

— Dr. Rich Swier (@drrichswier) June 22, 2022

I can’t imagine anyone looking at his chart and not immediately realizing that you don’t get better results by pouring more money into the government’s education monopoly.

But the edu-crat lobby acts as if evidence doesn’t matter. At the national level, the state level, and the local level, the drumbeat is the same: Give us more money if you care about kids.

So let’s build on Coulson’s chart to show why teachers’ unions and other special interests are wrong.

Gerard Robinson of the American Enterprise Institute and Professor Benjamin Scafidi from Kennesaw State University take a close look at this issue.

…education is important to the economic and social well-being of our nation, which is why it is the No. 1 line item in 41 state budgets. …Schools need extra money to help struggling students, or so goes the long-standing thinking of traditional education reformers who believe a lack of resources – teachers, counselors, social workers, technology, books, school supplies – is the problem. …a look back at the progress we’ve made under reformers’ traditional response to fixing low-performing schools – simply showering them with more money – makes it clear that this approach has been a costly failure.

And when the authors say it’s been a “costly failure,” they’re not exaggerating.

Since World War II, inflation-adjusted spending per student in American public schools has increased by 663 percent. Where did all of that money go? One place it went was to hire more personnel. Between 1950 and 2009, American public schools experienced a 96 percent increase in student population. During that time, public schools increased their staff by 386 percent – four times the increase in students. The number of teachers increased by 252 percent, over 2.5 times the increase in students. The number of administrators and other staff increased by over seven times the increase in students. …This staffing surge still exists today. From 1992 to 2014 – the most recent year of available data – American public schools saw a 19 percent increase in their student population and a staffing increase of 36 percent. This decades-long staffing surge in American public schools has been tremendously expensive for taxpayers, yet it has not led to significant changes in student achievement. For example, public school national math scores have been flat (and national reading scores declined slightly) for 17-year-olds since 1992.

By the way, the failure of government schools doesn’t affect everyone equally.

Parents with economic resources (such as high-profile politicians) can either send their kids to private schools or move to communities where government schools still maintain some standards.

But for lower-income households, their options are very limited.

Minorities disproportionately suffer, as explained by Juan Williams in the Wall Street Journal.

While 40% of white Americans age 25-29 held bachelor’s degrees in 2013, that distinction belonged to only 15% of Hispanics, and 20% of blacks. …The root of this problem: Millions of black and Hispanic students in U.S. schools simply aren’t taught to read well enough to flourish academically.  …according to a March report by Child Trends, based on 2015 data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), only 21% of Hispanic fourth-grade students were deemed “proficient” in reading. This is bad news. A fourth-grader’s reading level is a key indicator of whether he or she will graduate from high school. The situation is worse for African-Americans: A mere 18% were considered “proficient” in reading by fourth grade.

But Juan points out that the problems aren’t confined to minority communities. The United States has a national education problem.

The problem isn’t limited to minority students. Only 46% of white fourth-graders—and 35% of fourth-graders of all races—were judged “proficient” in reading in 2015. In general, American students are outperformed by students abroad. According to the most recent Program for International Student Assessment, a series of math, science and reading tests given to 15-year-olds around the world, the U.S. placed 17th among the 34 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries in reading.

This is very grim news, especially when you consider that the United States spends more on education – on a per-pupil basis – than any other country.

Here’s a table confirming Juan’s argument. It lacks the simple clarity of Andrew Coulson’s graph, but if you look at these numbers, it’s difficult to reach any conclusion other than we spend a lot in America and get very mediocre results.

Education: The United States v. The World pic.twitter.com/4n5dmsrIhP

— Dr. Rich Swier (@drrichswier) June 22, 2022

Juan concludes his column with a plea for diversity, innovation, and competition.

For black and Hispanic students falling behind at an early age, their best hope is for every state, no matter its minority-student poverty rate, to take full responsibility for all students who aren’t making the grade—and get those students help now. That means adopting an attitude of urgency when it comes to saving a child’s education. Specifically, it requires cities and states to push past any union rules that protect underperforming schools and bad teachers. Urgency also means increasing options for parents, from magnet to charter schools. Embracing competition among schools is essential to heading off complacency based on a few positive signs. American K-12 education is in trouble, especially for minority children, and its continuing neglect is a scandal.

He’s right, but he should focus his ire on his leftist friends and colleagues. They’re the ones (including the NAACP!) standing in the proverbial schoolhouse door and blocking the right kind of education reform.

P.S. This is a depressing post, so let’s close with a bit of humor showing the evolution of math lessons in government schools.

P.P.S. If you want some unintentional humor, the New York Times thinks that education spending has been reduced.

P.P.P.S. Shifting to a different topic, another great visual (which also happens to be the most popular item I’ve ever shared on International Liberty) is the simple image properly defining the enemies of liberty and progress.

Republished from Dan Mitchell’s blog.

AUTHOR

Daniel J. Mitchell

Daniel J. Mitchell is a Washington-based economist who specializes in fiscal policy, particularly tax reform, international tax competition, and the economic burden of government spending. He also serves on the editorial board of the Cayman Financial Review.

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

3 Things Biden Has Done That Increased Gas Prices thumbnail

3 Things Biden Has Done That Increased Gas Prices

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By Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

President Biden isn’t entirely to blame, but his anti-market policies have contributed to the problem.

Average gas prices recently passed $5 per gallon nationwide, setting a new record. This is bad news for workers’ budgets, and since it’s happening under President Joe Biden’s watch, it’s bad news for the Democratic Party’s electoral prospects.

The White House has tried to deflect blame for the insane surge in gas prices onto Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. And, to be fair, gas prices are definitely not completely within any president’s control. They absolutely are influenced by global factors, and the disruption in the global energy market caused by Putin’s invasion certainly has contributed to higher prices.

But Biden isn’t off the hook. Gas prices started rising long before the invasion, and the president still has direct responsibility for how his policies have contributed to this problem.

Here are three specific things Biden has done that have led to increased gas prices.

Since taking office, Biden has taken too many steps to count to limit domestic production. These include halting federal permits for oil and gas drilling and leasing shortly after taking office and blocking drilling in a major oil-rich Alaskan region.

To be clear, these decisions will mostly affect future production. But that does still significantly affect gas prices because companies factor in their expectations about the future into the decisions they make today.

“Some say that new leases … would have taken time and would not yet be online, but even so, there is evidence that expectations of increased future supply has a beneficial impact on current prices and expectations of future supply drying up has a negative impact on current prices,” the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s Ben Lieberman said.

“At a day-to-day level, I am hearing from drillers that they are having a very hard time getting all the approvals they need from [the Environmental Protection Agency] and other agencies in order to produce on existing wells, and of course, new federal leasing has come to a halt,” Lieberman added.

It’s just basic economics that when the government throttles future supply in an industry, that will lead to higher prices both now and in the future. Biden was warned by many critics at the time that this would happen, but he proceeded anyway.

Speaking of basic economics, it’s well established that when businesses’ costs rise, that puts upward pressure on the prices they charge consumers. The oil and gas industry is no exception.

And unfortunately, the Biden administration has both proposed and implemented a wide array of regulations on the energy sector, inflicting billions in direct financial costs and incalculable indirect compliance costs — plus further harming expectations for the future.

“The regulatory chokehold imposed by the Biden administration on oil production in place of a Green New Deal has drastically raised gasoline prices, thereby hurting lower-income people the most,” said conservative economist Vance Ginn, who served in the Trump administration.

“This is yet another example of the high cost of big-government environmentalism when the better approach is to remove government barriers so that free markets can better let people adapt to changes in the environment at a much lower cost,” Ginn concluded.

Rhetoric matters. While words don’t literally do anything to change gas prices, the signals coming from policymakers absolutely do affect the long-term investment decisions businesses make.

And even as a presidential candidate, Biden sent very negative messages about what his leadership would mean for the gas industry.

In just one example, as Americans for Tax Reform pointed out, Biden said during a campaign stop: “We are going to get rid of fossil fuels. … We’re going to phase out fossil fuels.” Then, upon taking office, the president followed these words with actions such as canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, blocking leases, restricting imports, and pursuing regulations.

In general, Biden’s open hostility toward the oil and gas industry has almost certainly curbed investment into production that otherwise would’ve occurred.

“Such extinction rhetoric, coming from the now-president, has an unprecedented chilling effect on investment,” Lieberman said. To put it simply, less investment means less supply — which means higher prices.

It’s absolutely true that our high gas prices aren’t entirely Biden’s fault. But the president is not the helpless bystander his defenders would have you believe.

This article originally appeared in the Washington Examiner. 

AUTHOR

Brad Polumbo

Brad Polumbo (@Brad_Polumbo) is a libertarian-conservative journalist and Policy Correspondent at the Foundation for Economic Education.

RELATED ARTICLE: Why High Gas Prices Are a Signal of (More) Inflation to Come

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VIDEO: After the Guns Were Confiscated, the Killing Fields Began

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By The Geller Report

“Our Founding Fathers didn’t give us the Second Amendment for duck hunting or simply for self-protection in a country that at the time had a vast and yet unknown frontier. They bestowed it upon us so that we could protect our precious nation from devolving into tyranny as so many others have done.”

By: J. William Middendorf, June 16, 2022

J. William Middendorf is a former secretary of the Navy and author of “The Great Nightfall: How We Win the New Cold War” (2020).

“All political power comes from the barrel of a gun. The Communist Party must command all the guns; that way, no guns can ever be used to command the party.”

The quote was from Mao Zedong, founder of Communist China. Mao’s first act after gaining complete control of China in 1949 was to take away all guns from the population. It was a policy he began in 1935 as he took over each rural province. Anyone found with a gun post-confiscation was executed.

An estimated 65 million Chinese died as a result of Mao’s repeated, merciless attempts to create a new “socialist” China. Anyone who got in his way was done away with—by execution, imprisonment, or forced famine.

Mao killed more people than either Stalin or Hitler during World War II. And it all began after he took away the guns.

Dictators throughout much of history have disarmed their populations before they began their mass killings. Examples abound beyond Mao: Hitler took guns from the Jews in November of 1938, and Kristallnacht and the Holocaust followed; and then there was Fidel Castro in Cuba and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, to name but a few.

Cuba and Gun Control

Everybody ought to have a gun, Castro maintained—until he took over Cuba in 1959. At a rally in Havana before he assumed power, he explained: “This is how democracy works: It gives rifles to farmers, to students, to women, to Negroes, to the poor, and to every citizen who is ready to defend a just cause.”

Weapons ranging from Czech submachine guns to Belgian FN automatic rifles were handed out to 50,000 soldiers, 400,000 militiamen, 100,000 members of the factory-guarding popular defense force, and to many men, women, and children in Cuba’s 1 million-strong “neighborhood vigilance committees.”

Immediately after assuming power in 1959, Castro changed his position, following Mao’s rule that guns should not be in the hands of the people.

For three weeks after the Castro government was formed, Radio Havana warned, “All citizens must turn in their combat weapons. Civilians must take arms to police stations, soldiers to military headquarters.”

Radio Havana’s explanation was somewhat contradictory: The guns were in bad shape anyway and the “struggle against our enemies requires a rigorous control of all combat weapons.”

There was an urgency about the new policy that suggested serious concern. Failure to turn in military weapons by Sept. 1, 1959, warned Radio Havana, would be punished not by criminal courts but by the dreaded Revolutionary Tribunals—those kangaroo courts that sentenced thousands of Cubans to death after Castro took over.

Venezuela and Gun Control  

Venezuela is now paying the price for allowing Chavez to implement the Mao rule when he came to power in 2012.

The shocking nature of an economic collapse that led Venezuela from being one of the richest countries in Latin America to one of the poorest has been well documented.

One aspect of the Venezuelan crisis that does not receive much coverage is the country’s gun control regime. All guns were outlawed when Chavez came to power, and harsh penalties were imposed on violators. The Venezuelan Armed Forces have exclusive power to control, register, and potentially confiscate firearms.

Many citizens now regret the repressive gun control legislation the Venezuelan government implemented in 2012. Naturally, this regret is warranted. The Venezuelan government is among the most tyrannical in the world, with a proven track record of violating basic civil liberties such as free speech, debasing its national currency, confiscating private property, and creating economic controls that destroy the country’s productivity.

Elections have proven to be useless, as they’ve been mired with corruption and charges of government tampering. For many, taking up arms is the only option left for the country to shake off its tyrannical government. But the Venezuelan government has prevented such an uprising with its draconian gun control.

These life-and-death lessons of history are lost on too many Americans. Our Founding Fathers didn’t give us the Second Amendment for duck hunting or simply for self-protection in a country that at the time had a vast and yet unknown frontier. They bestowed it upon us so that we could protect our precious nation from devolving into tyranny as so many others have done.

Politicians who respect the American ideal don’t try to diminish the Second Amendment or blame it for other ills of society that they have failed to solve, but rather embrace it as part of the legacy of rights that helps keep America free.

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

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Proposed Government Solutions Ignore the Presence of Nuance, and Perpetuates Unintended Consequences

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By Save America Foundation

Government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem.

We continue to see a push for legislation to cure America’s ills.  Red flag laws for guns, on demand abortion available in the name of women’s rights, prosecution of “insurrectionists”, all of these are being touted as a solution or cure.  But the reality still remains, that evil will always be present in this world.  Evil acts are a physical manifestation of Satan and the control that he has over our flesh.  You cannot pass legislation to end evil.  You can take action to minimize evil and incentivize moral behavior, but you cannot stop the Prince of Darkness with a bill that comes out of congress.

There are nuances that come with these “feel good” proposals in congress, and there are unintended consequences that result from those nuances.  Sometimes the proposed government solution can be abused and manipulated in order to expose loopholes in the law.    The worst legislation to ever come out of the halls of congress, has been a result of a knee jerk reaction to an event or crisis.  It is the “do something” mentality that has destroyed liberty in America. The definition of tyranny is said to be, “The deliberate removal of nuance.” The USA Patriot Act is a prime example of the government abuse that is tolerated by the people when there is fear among the citizenry.  If you acknowledge that the government has the authority to suspend portions of the constitution in a time of crisis, then the government, in its quest for power and authority, will create a crisis to exploit. Use the Reichstag fire in pre Nazi Germany as a point of reference.  There is too much trust in government. People have a tendency to believe the government narrative, even when it doesn’t make sense, because they believe that our government has credibility. Jim Garrison once said, “Is the government worth preserving when it lies to the people?  Doesn’t it become a dangerous country when you cannot trust anyone anymore, when you cannot tell the truth?’ Garrison then sternly asserted this familiar maxim, “Let justice be done though the heavens fall”.  He was of course referring to his case against New Orleans business man Clay Shaw, regarding the alleged conspiracy in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Do we seek justice anymore, or have we decided to forego justice and replace it with political expediency?  Garrison’s words are still very relevant today.

Do you not think that the government creates crises to push agendas?  Try running “Operation Northwoods” through an internet search and read the declassified documents.  Or maybe dig into the Gulf of Tonkin incident that was used to justify going to war in Vietnam.  Our government does not deserve our trust or respect, if they continue to lie to us, take advantage of us and waste our hard earned tax dollars on other countries and promotion of sexual deviancy.  All of this while our so called representatives, enrich themselves and become multi-millionaires after only a few terms.

Why is knee jerk legislation dangerous even when it sounds good on paper?  The answer is nuance and unintended consequences.  These two forgotten components are never part of the legislation being proposed and there is little thought into how these things may affect implementation of said law after it goes into effect.  We’ll start with Red flag laws and the very concept of imposing such law on the masses, opening Pandora’s Box when it comes to abuse and manipulation. Hypothetical scenario, a couple is getting a divorce and the woman wants to get under the skin of her soon to be ex so she makes an accusation that leads to a man having his guns confiscated in the absence of due process, because a bitter ex-wife or husband to be fair wanted to get back at their former partner.  What about a leftist progressive that lives in a neighborhood where they find out their next door neighbor possesses firearms?  An accusation is made about the gun owner to trigger confiscation of a law abiding citizen’s weapons.    These are just unintended consequences that make things worse.  This is on top of the fact that due process is being scrapped here totally.  Even if the allegations are legitimate, the accused still has a right to due process.  Suggesting anything less is putting forth a “minority report” enforcement mentality. These loopholes and the total disregard for due process and the 5th and 6th amendment, are not highlighted in the legislation, and there is no acknowledgment of these pitfalls as congress scurries to appease the activist mob.

Let’s move onto abortion laws, and the potential abuses that may exist in drafting state legislation if the SCOTUS sends regulation on the issue back to the states.  Once again, a hypothetical but realistic scenario; a woman gets pregnant and does not want to have the baby, and she lives in a state that has strict abortion restrictions but makes exceptions for rape and incest.  In order to justify her abortion, she accuses the partner that she had of rape, which leaves the accused no alibi, because he was with her.  Even though it was consensual from the perspective of both parties, the woman screams rape because she wants an abortion.  I believe that if a state passes abortion restrictions with an exception for rape, that state would see rape accusations skyrocket.  So on abortion, we must not attempt to appease the moderates.  Life is life, period.

Now onto the so called “insurrection”, and the screams from the left to prosecute any and all involved.  BLM and ANTIFA are generally given a pass, and released soon after arrest, but because they subscribe to a leftist ideology, they are handled with kid gloves.  They are certainly not subjected to the same scrutiny.  This is my warning to both sides of the aisle, and to all ideologies across the spectrum of the electorate. Be careful what you wish for, because there will be a day when there is someone in the White House, in control of the DOJ, that wants to target political opposition, and they are at the opposite end of the political spectrum from where you are. Be careful when you demand peoples’ heads on a silver platter. German born Martin Niemöller, son of a Pastor, wrote a poem that I think is relevant to this subject.

“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a communist;

Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist;

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist;

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew;

Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

Martin Niemöller

We have to stand up for the rights that we have as individuals as dictated by God, not government. We must be consistent in our defense of these rights, not selective, based on political ideology. If we don’t take this seriously, the law is dead, and all that is left is tribalism and warring factions. I hear many people cite the 14th amendment when it comes to equal protection under the law. However, I have to submit, that if we are all given equal protection, we must all be held accountable under the same law. Translation: government officials from either side of the aisle, should not be immune to prosecution when corruption/wrongdoing are present.

©Fred Brownbill. All rights reserved.

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EXCLUSIVE: Immigrants Travel To Schools With Warning: Socialism Is Deadly

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By The Daily Caller

Immigrants who have fled socialist countries are travelling to schools across the U.S. for free under a new program to teach students about the dangers of socialism.

The Dissident Project launched Monday with speakers set to “travel to high schools across the U.S. to speak to students about authoritarian socialism” at no cost to the schools, Dissident Project founder and Venezuelan-born economist Daniel Di Martino told the Daily Caller.

The speakers include activists from Venezuela, Cuba, Hong Kong and North Korea who have immigrated to the U.S. and are dedicated to speaking about how socialism has destroyed their countries.

Grace Jo, a speaker from North Korea, came to the U.S. after almost starving “to death as a child” under the country’s socialist regime. Two of her brothers and her father died from starvation, according to the Dissident Project’s website.

“All of us Dissident Project speakers came to America for freedom, and it is our duty to preserve that love for freedom among the youngest generation. That’s why we’re stepping up and doing our part so Americans never forget that this is an exceptional nation, that free enterprise and the rule of law made it great and that socialism can destroy it all like it did in our native countries,” Di Martino said.

pic.twitter.com/1h5hcmMNnO

— Dissident Project (@DissidentProj) June 3, 2022

The project was inspired by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ legislation recognizing a statewide “Victims of Communism Day” annually on Nov. 7 and requiring Florida schools to teach students about “the evils of communism.”

“Honoring the people that have fallen victim to communist regimes and teaching our students about those atrocities is the best way to ensure that history does not repeat itself,” DeSantis said in a statement about the bill in May.

Starting in the 2023-2024 school year, students in Florida will be mandated to receive at least 45 minutes of instruction in their required U.S. Government class about the evils of communism. Potential topics to cover include “Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution, Joseph Stalin and the Soviet System, Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution, Vladimir Lenin and the Russian Revolution, Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, and Nicolás Maduro and the Chavismo movement,” according to the bill.

Di Martino began the Dissident Project “after learning about Florida’s new curriculum.”

“I thought we needed a unified platform where schools could find immigrants from socialist countries to speak there at no cost to them so we could reach every single American,” he said.

The Dissident Project will focus its efforts in speaking to school districts in Florida, given DeSantis’ legislation, but will also advertise the opportunity to teachers across the country, Di Martino concluded. Teachers who wish to host a speaker can do so for free by filling out a form.

AUTHOR

DIANA GLEBOVA

Associate editor. 

RELATED ARTICLES:

Immigrants From Communist And Socialist Countries Spell Out Why The GOP Is The Party Of Freedom

Communism is Treason!

Americanism vs. Communism

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

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The Economic Theory That Explains Biden’s Response to the Baby Formula Shortage

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By Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

In a famous lecture, economist Ludwig von Mises showed how government intervention begets more intervention.

Over the last month, president Biden invoked the Defense Production Act in an attempt to fix the formula shortage. In a statement, the White House highlighted that,

“The President is requiring suppliers to direct needed resources to infant formula manufacturers before any other customer who may have ordered that good. Directing firms to prioritize and allocate the production of key infant formula inputs will help increase production and speed up in supply chains.”

In other words, the government is now engaging in what economist Don Lavoie referred to as non-comprehensive economic planning. It’s imposing rules requiring businesses to operate in a way that bureaucrats believe will quickly resolve this crisis. But the planning seems to have failed. Since Biden invoked the DPA, the number of stores out of stock has increase to 70% according to ABC news.

While some may be surprised that the US government can so quickly command industry, it should be no surprise at all. In fact, some basic understanding of government intervention shows that this sort of result is seemingly inevitable.

There have been several good articles explaining the source of this infant formula shortage. FEE’s own Jon Miltimore produced a great story on the topic. But, to keep it short, Abbott, one of the country’s largest formula producers, had a plant shut down by the FDA due to safety concerns.

But how could shutting down one plant in the whole country cause this? Well, formula production is one of the most tightly regulated industries in the US. Because of this, it’s very difficult to enter the market, so there are a few firms that  dominate the industry. So, when one has problems, the national supply is severely impacted.

One of the most harmful regulations are related to WIC and SNAP programs aimed at providing taxpayer subsidized formula to low-income consumers.

As reported in Time, Congress, in a supposed attempt to limit the cost of this program, made each state select one company to have formula which can be bought with WIC and SNAP in 1989. Since up to two thirds of formula is purchased with WIC and SNAP, the winners of these bids are able to crush competition.

Furthermore, until recently, the FDA banned importation of formula that listed ingredients in an order not prescribed by US bureaucrats. This limit on imports further restricts competition on a basis unrelated to health.

Meanwhile Fortune highlights research that shows despite European brands meeting safety regulations by and large, the FDA still restricts these imports due to the instructions being confusing.

Economist Alex Tabarrok highlights how price controls may be playing a role in the shortage as well.

Policy analyst Gabriella Beaumont-Smith examines the trade restrictions on baby formula, which includes tariffs of up to 17.5 percent.

In short, the industry is tangled in a web of intervention which is killing competition.

It’s this abundance of regulation that makes Biden’s use of the Defense Production Act so unsurprising.

In 1950, economist Ludwig von Mises gave a lecture titled “The middle of the road policy leads to socialism.” In this lecture, Mises expounded upon a theory now known by many as “the dynamics of interventionism.”

Mises uses an example of the dairy industry to show how intervention unfolds dynamically. Imagine the government decides that the price of milk is too high for poor people to afford it. In order to remedy the problem, the government passes a price control. For example, “milk cannot cost more than $2/gallon.”

But another problem arises. At this lower price, dairy farmers can no longer sell their milk at a high enough price to make a profit. Instead, they would be better off exiting the industry. But if dairy farmers exit, there will be less milk to buy. If the government wants to continue to make milk affordable and accessible, they’ll have to bail out the dairy industry. One way they could do this is by setting a price control on feed for cows.

But then producers of cattle feed will make losses. So, the interventions must occur again.

Intervention begets intervention.

This dynamic is exactly what is occurring in the formula industry. FDA regulations have made it impossible in the current industry for sufficient competition to arise.

This lack of competition combined with FDA shutdowns exacerbates the possibility of shortages like this. The shortages lead to the executive branch using the Defense Production Act to control the industries which provide imports to the formula industry.

Again, intervention begets intervention.

Some may accept the argument but argue that now that we have a crisis, we need to use things like the Defense Production Act to end it.

I disagree.

Government bureaucrats have insufficient knowledge and incentives to craft regulations which actually help. The Defense Production Act won’t help, because the government does not effectively plan the economy.

Need proof? The Abbot formula plant was shut down in February. The politicians and bureaucrats in Washington had from February to May to create and carry out a plan which would prevent this crisis. They failed.

Rather than solve the problem by using the same means that created it, central planners would be wise to lay down their Excel spreadsheets and let the market solve problems.

Allowing consumers to give their money and provide profits to companies which best solve their needs is how babies get fed.

Time to clean up the web of intervention.

AUTHOR

Peter Jacobsen

Peter Jacobsen is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Ottawa University and the Gwartney Professor of Economic Education and Research at the Gwartney Institute. He received his PhD in economics from George Mason University, and obtained his BS from Southeast Missouri State University. His research interest is at the intersection of political economy, development economics, and population economics. His website can be found here.

RELATED ARTICLES:

MISINFORMATION WATCH: Baby Formula and Biden’s Misinformation Blame Game

Walgreens Starts RATIONING Baby Formula as Shortage Worsens Under Democrat Regime

MONSTERS: Biden White House Blames American Moms For Baby Formula Shortage, ‘They’re HOARDING’

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

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Destroying Our Iconic and Uniquely American Cowboys via Yellowstone, The Ranch and Outer Range

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By Dr. Rich Swier

I grew up watching shows about cowboys like Roy Rogers, The Lone Ranger, Gunsmoke, Rawhide and Have Gun – Will Travel. In these television series there was the good guy versus the bad guy. The good guy always won and usually got the girl.

Fast forward to 2022 and we now have a new series of cowboy television shows called Yellowstone, The Ranch and Outer Range. I have watched all three series and was shocked as producers and filmmakers worked to destroyed our uniquely American and iconic cowboys and ranchers.

Each series has these things in common:

  1. Cowboys are now the bad guys.
  2. The families of cowboys and ranchers are dysfunctional.
  3. Cowboys are heavy drinkers.
  4. Cowboys are murderers.
  5. Cowboys and ranchers are violent.
  6. Cowboys and ranchers are oppressors of minorities, like the native American Indian, i.e. Yellowstone.
  7. Cowboys and ranchers are greedy.
  8. Cowboys and ranchers use guns.
  9. Cowboys and ranchers are uneducated, inept and prone to violence.
  10. Cowboys have serious challenges which they are not equipped to deal with.
  11. Finally, cowboys and ranchers are portrayed as vigilantes and above the law.

In other words the American cowboy and ranchers are portrayed today as evil.

Cowboys and Guns

By portraying our cowboys and ranchers in a negative light it impacts the actual families and children of cowboys and ranchers.

This is part and parcel of the anti-gun, cultural and social justice war being waged against Americans in general, and in the case of these three popular streaming television series, cowboys and ranchers in particular.

QUESTION: But why?

ANSWER: Ranchers and cowboys represent fly over America.

Ranchers and cowboys feed Americans and work their land for the common good. Also, they carry guns.

Today, guns are being targeted by those who wish to eliminate the single amendment in our Constitution that was written to stop a tyrannical president – the Second Amendment.

Yellowstone, The Ranch and Outer Range each has a anti-gun agenda. This anti-gun agenda is particularly noticeable in Yellowstone. For example, the Marlin Model 336 is a rifle seen and used throughout the Yellowstone series. But so to are AR-15 style rifles like the Daniel Defense MK18 AR, a rifle similar to the DDM4, made by Daniel Defense that was used by 18-year-old Salvador Rolando Ramos during the Uvalde Massacre on May 24, 2022.

In our column “CULTURAL ROT: The Left’s War Against Guns But Not Criminals” we quoted Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., who on June 2, 2022, in the White House said,

“I respect the culture and the tradition and the concerns of lawful gun owners. At the same time, the Second Amendment, like all other rights, is not absolute.”

Cowboys have a tradition and culture of the use of guns to protect themselves, their families and their ranches and livestock. Yellowstone, The Ranch and Outer Range are designed not only to denigrate our iconic cowboys and ranchers but also to attack guns.

You see these cowboys and ranchers are much like today’s law enforcement officers. In Yellowstone the ranchers have their own police force called “Livestock Agents.”

Watch this cattle thief shootout from Paramount’s Yellowstone (warning graphic images and foul language):

Jason Whitlock said,

“When your culture makes George Floyd the hero, real heroes stand down. Cultural rot has consequences.”

After watching Yellowstone, The Ranch and Outer Range we sadly say,

When your culture makes cowboys and ranchers the bad guys, real heroes stand down. Cultural rot has consequences.

Today we have people who celebrate criminals while attacking our Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. This is all designed to disarm us. As Keven Downey, Jr. wrote,

The 2nd Amendment isn’t about shooting deer… It’s about defending the Constitution against enemies foreign and DOMESTIC. It’s for when our elected leaders go rogue. It’s for when an entire political party of the United States goes full commtard and won’t stop shredding the Constitution until it’s dead, floating facedown in the Potomac, enveloped in adipocere. Defending our Constitution is way easier to do with magazines that hold 30 rounds of commie-stoppers.

The Bottom Line

Here is an FBI chart showing the types of weapons used for murders between 2015-2019. As you can see, over three times as many people were beaten to death as were killed by all rifle styles combined, and nearly five times as many were killed by knives.

NCFIRE.info reported the following:

2022 Monthly Child Rapes by Illegal Aliens

5) May 2022               18 illegal aliens arrested for 42 child rape/child sexual assault charges in NC       here

4) April 2022               19 illegal aliens arrested for 72 child rape/child sexual assault charges in NC       here

3) March 2022            30 illegal aliens arrested for 110 child rape/child sexual assault charges in NC     here

2) February 2022        27 illegal aliens arrested for 84 child rape/child sexual assault charges in NC       here

1) January 2022         18 illegal aliens arrested for 96 child rape/child sexual assault charges in NC        here

But these facts don’t matter to Biden, Democrats and their social justice warrior allies. What matters to the likes of Biden and his administration is taking away our God given freedoms and gaining more and more power.

If you want more crime, anti-social behavior and civil disorder then simply demonize the police, cowboys and ranchers and idolize criminals like George Floyd.

I spent 23 years in the U.S. Army. I used guns of all types and calibers. I defended our nation using guns to stop our Communist enemies in Vietnam and during the Cold War with the former Soviet Union.

I grew up watching cowboys and ranchers doing these same things when it came to their families, ranches and communities. Guns save lives, protect families and secure our homes.

To kill the iconic cowboy is to kill our American culture.

It is no different than tearing down statues of Confederate generals, defacing statues of General George Washington or cancelling our culture using theories like Critical Race in public schools.

These times are dangerous times. Everywhere you look our institutions, icons and heroes are being  torn down and replaced with symbols and icons of pure evil.

REMEMBER: Without law and order there is no law and order.

Gird your loins. Tyranny is coming to America in the name of social justice for some but not for all.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLES:

A Tyrannical President Wants to End the Constitutional Amendment Written to Stop a Tyrannical President

Seattle Police So Defunded They Can’t Even Investigate New Rape Cases

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Biden’s Rollback of NEPA Reforms May Haunt Green Energy Projects

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By Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow

Author

Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.

Bonner R. Cohen, Ph. D., is a senior policy analyst with CFACT, where he focuses on natural resources, energy, property rights, and geopolitical developments. Articles by Dr. Cohen have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Investor’s Business Daily, The New York Post, The Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, The Hill, The Epoch Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Miami Herald, and dozens of other newspapers around the country. He has been interviewed on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, NBC News, NPR, BBC, BBC Worldwide Television, N24 (German-language news network), and scores of radio stations in the U.S. and Canada. He has testified before the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, and the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee. Dr. Cohen has addressed conferences in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Bangladesh. He has a B.A. from the University of Georgia and a Ph. D. – summa cum laude – from the University of Munich.

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

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Partisan Push for Domestic Terrorism Office Targets Local Cops

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By Center For Security Policy

After the horrific mass murders in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York, Senate Democrats took an opportunity to try and ram through new biased counterterrorism legislation which treats law enforcement and the military as infiltrated by “extremists” and seeks to limit counterterrorism training. The legislation was blocked after Republican senators held firm with Republican Senator Rand Paul calling the bill an “insult” to law enforcement.

“It would be the Democrat plan to name our police as white supremacists and neo-Nazis. I met policemen throughout Kentucky and I’ve not met one policeman motivated or consumed with any kind of racial rage,” Paul said, according to The Hill.

The Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, sponsored by Senator Dick Durbin (D-Il), is the latest iteration of legislation which has been on the Democrats’ wish list since early 2020. The bill would create a joint “Domestic Terrorism Executive Committee” and would create special Domestic Terrorism offices within DHS and DOJ and the FBI.

The legislation goes further, putting its thumb on the scales and directing these new offices to focus their attentions only on “white supremacist” terrorism by mandating extensive reporting requirements exclusively focused on that threat. This reporting would then be used to justify focusing domestic terrorism and law enforcement counterterrorism training solely on “white supremacist extremism.” Democrats previously shot down attempts by Republicans to include a broader range of potential terror threats within the language of the legislation.

Efforts by politicians to direct law enforcement to investigate only certain types of terror threats can have a severely deleterious effect on intelligence gathering and terrorism prevention. In 2019, the FBI faced substantial pressure from congressional Democrats to eliminate the use of the analytical category “Black Identity Extremism.” The same year the FBI reportedly investigated but cleared Frank James, who went on to conduct the NYC subway mass shooting that injured 10 people. James’ social media was replete with references to black identity extremist ideology.

Two decades after 9/11, it is readily apparent that a top-heavy, politicized federal bureaucracy approach to counterterrorism isn’t working.

Bureaucrats in Washington D.C. shouldn’t presume to tell police scattered around the country what the greatest terrorism threat is for their specific area of operations. Rather they should listen seriously to local law enforcement’s local knowledge and follow their lead.

A federal office of domestic terrorism should not tell local law enforcement officers what kinds of training they can receive, or which threats are most relevant to investigate. Federal agencies cannot continue to demand maximum cooperation from local agencies, hoovering up hard-earned information, only to be ever more secretive and unwilling to share information with those same departments, whom they are being told by politicians to treat as “infiltrated” by extremists.

AUTHOR

Kyle Shideler

Director and Senior Analyst for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.

EDITORS NOTE: This Center for Security Policy column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

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