Taxes Archives - Page 3 of 21

UNBELIEVABLY OBSCENE: Senate Democrats Won’t Vote On House Bill Rescinding 87,000 New IRS agents

February 5, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Elections, Featured, Politics, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By The Geller Report

Americans can’t afford, food, fuel, rent etc. And the Democrats keep coming for us. Frankly, the people who voted for these Democrats thieves should have to pay not those of us trying to save the country.

Our founding fathers started a revolution over tea taxes. I think we have long passed that bar.

House bill rescinding $71B for 87k IRS agents stalled in Senate after nearly 4 weeks without vote

In a recent poll, a solid majority of respondents supported the House-passed bill that strips the IRS funding from the Democrats’ $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act.

House-passed bill rescinding $71.5 billion for the hiring of up to 87,000 IRS agents has languished in the Democrat-led Senate for nearly four weeks without a vote.

The funding was part of the $740 billion Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that Democrats passed last year.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy pledged to schedule a vote to eliminate the funding as his first order of business in the new, Republican-led House. The GOP bill passed along party lines on Jan. 9.

Republicans have argued the funding could be used to target Americans earning less than $400,000 per year with additional audits. In response to the criticism, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen wrote to the IRS instructing the agency not to use additional resources to target individuals or families in that category.

“Instead, new funding will crack down on tax evaders among the wealthy and large corporations, invest in technology upgrades that help taxpayers, and hire more customer support staff to prevent backlogs,” the Treasury Department said in a statement in August.

Ahead of the Inflation Reduction Act’s passage on a party-line vote using budget reconciliation, Democrats defended the roughly $70 billion expenditure for the IRS as a revenue enhancement measure that would help pay for the legislation.

In a Rasmussen Reports poll published on Jan. 17, a solid majority of likely voters queried (56%) supported the House-passed bill that strips the IRS funding from the Inflation Reduction Act.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has criticized the GOP bill, signaling that it will not get a vote any time soon in the Democrat-controlled chamber.

“It is well known that too many wealthy individuals and large corporations — through gaping loopholes — don’t pay their fair share of taxes while average Americans often pay a much higher percent,” the New York Democrat said after the bill passed in the House. “The thousands of increased IRS personnel are aimed at closing those loopholes and forcing the wealthy and well-connected to finally pay their fair share. It is incredible that the first move House Republicans make this Congress is to cut these agents and allow large corporations and wealthy individuals to continue to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.”

Schumer compared the bill’s passage to the 2017 tax reform law enacted under former President Trump and a GOP-led Congress.

“Just as they failed in 2017, when Republicans cut taxes on the rich and tried to scare the middle class, this won’t work either,” he said.

The GOP tax reform cut income tax rates across-the-board and lowered the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%.

The Inflation Reduction Act included a 15% minimum corporate tax rate.

Just the News asked Schumer’s office on Friday if he plans to vote on the House-passed IRS bill at some point but did not receive a response before publication.

Read full article.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

New GOP House Votes To Repeal Funding for Biden’s 87,000 New IRS Agents

EVERY Single Democrat Votes to RAISE TAXES and INFLATION, KILL American JOBS and ARM the IRS with 87K new Agents in a $1 Trillion spending ORGY

Watchdog To Probe IRS After Hundreds Of Employees Failed To Pay Taxes

House Oversight Investigates John Kerry’s Secret Communist China Deals That Undermined U.S. Economy and National Security

February 4, 2023/in Budget and Finance, Courts & Law, DrRichSwier.com, Elections, Featured, Politics, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By The Geller Report

This parasitic scumbag has made a career out of selling out this country, undermining our economy and national while acquiring enormous wealth. Climate is a euphemism for corruption. Imaginable corruption.

Kerry’s activities, conducted ‘under the guise of climate advocacy,’ could undermine American interests, top Republican says

By Thomas Catenacci | Fox News

House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., is probing Special Presidential Envoy for Climate (SPEC) John Kerry’s secretive negotiations with his Chinese counterparts.

Comer informed Kerry in a letter sent Thursday afternoon that the committee, under his leadership, has opened an investigation into Kerry’s role in the Biden administration and, in particular, his high-level climate negotiations with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). To date, Kerry has ignored information and document requests from Comer and other committee Republicans sent when they were in the minority.

“To date, you have failed to respond to any of our requests,” Comer wrote to Kerry. “Yet, you continue to engage in activities that could undermine our economic health, skirt congressional authority, and threaten foreign policy under the guise of climate advocacy.”

“The Committee requests documents and information to understand your role and provide necessary transparency over the SPEC and its activities,” he continued. “As a member of the President’s cabinet, you should be representing the United States’ interests. Your statements, however, consistently show disregard for American national security and taxpayer dollars.”

[….]

Letter to Kerry Re SPEC 118… by Jim Hoft

Despite the high-level role leading the Biden administration’s global climate strategy, Kerry’s office has been tight-lipped about its internal operations and staff members, sparking criticism from Republicans, including Comer, who have demanded transparency for such an important office.

“We are left with an insufficient understanding of your office’s activities, spending, and staffing,” Comer continued. “To enable long overdue oversight of your office, please provide the following documents and information.”

The Oversight Committee chairman added that Kerry has been too soft on China’s human rights violations “while promoting climate negotiations that the CCP does not even appear interested in entering.”

Kerry has been blasted for various comments that have appeared to downplay vast human rights abuses tied to China’s green energy supply chain. After he was asked in November 2021 about how slave labor was reportedly employed by solar panel firms in China, Kerry said he had to stay in his “lane” when negotiating with Chinese officials.

“Well, we’re honest about the differences,” Kerry said at the time. “We certainly know what they are, and we’ve articulated them, but that’s not my lane here… My job is to be the climate guy and stay focused on trying to move the climate agenda forward.”

Since assuming the SPEC position, Kerry has engaged in various private talks with Chinese counterparts, including two 2021 meetings that took place in China. Following a regional climate summit in April 2021, Kerry told CNBC that solving climate change was “not about China.”

“This is not about China. This is not a counter to China,” he told the outlet. “This is about China, the United States, India, Russia… a bunch of countries that are emitting a pretty sizable amount.”

China accounts for about 27% of total global emissions — nearly tripling the total in the U.S., the world’s second-largest emitter, according to Rhodium Group — and continues to approve and construct a large amount of coal power plants.

House Judiciary’s First Hearing Highlights Border Crisis

February 4, 2023/in Courts & Law, DrRichSwier.com, Elections, Immigration, National Security, Politics, Regulation, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By Federation for American Immigration Reform

Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee held its first full hearing on immigration. The hearing, entitled Biden’s Border Crisis—Part I, highlighted the impacts of illegal immigration on the American people, from schools to health care, to public safety, to families who have lost loved ones to drug overdoses. It highlighted how Border Patrol is being moved from the border to help process individuals for asylum, allowing fentanyl to pour into the country between ports of entry. It also discussed the threat that cartels and traffickers may bring their dangerous and lethal antics to our soil.

All of the witnesses at the hearing had personally experienced the impacts of the crisis at the southern border. The first witness was Mr. Brandon Dunn, the father of a fifteen-year-old boy who died from fentanyl poisoning. His son, Noah, was a sophomore in high school and was murdered by a drug dealer who sold counterfeit pills that contained 8 milligrams of fentanyl, which is four times the lethal dose. Noah’s family is not alone; Mr. Dunn testified that there are countless people that have been lost to fentanyl, which is smuggled across the border.

The second witness was Arizona’s Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels. He testified that he has experienced the good, the bad and the ugly, and today is the worst it has ever been. He said border deaths are at an all-time high, and that the threats to his county residents and law enforcement are endless. He shared that the morale of agents is extremely low and that calls for help have been ignored by this administration.

The third witness, Dale Carruthers, is a judge and rancher from Terrell County, Texas. He stated that the chaos caused by this administration’s open-border policies is the reason he and many others have switched parties. He described in detail how his ranch has suffered from illegal alien traffic, and in particular, has experienced water system damage that threatens his livestock and crops. Families like his, he said, live in fear because trespassing on their land, stealing of food, and damaging property is commonplace.

Finally, the Democrats’ witness, Texas Judge Ricardo Samaniego of El Paso, shared how his local community is treating asylum seekers and transporting them to other places in the country. He described their expeditious processing of illegal aliens as “a success story,” describing how the county is processing over 1,000 people per day and has moved nearly 27,000 people since they started working with nonprofits to provide same-day travel to the destination of their choice. He said the border is not open, that there is no invasion, despite the fact that there were 162,000 encounters in the El Paso sector in the first quarter of this fiscal year – and 55,000 encounters in December alone. He, like many Democrat lawmakers, did not see the correlation between illegal immigration and other serious issues like drug smuggling and human trafficking. He suggested the committee was conflating the issue of the border crisis with people seeking a better life.

Indeed, many Democrats in attendance complained about the entire premise of the hearing on the border crisis, even claiming that securing the border is racist. Ranking Member Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) opened the hearing by declaring it would showcase “the racist tendencies of the extreme MAGA Republican wing of the party.” Similarly, Rep. Jayapal (D-WA) criticized Republicans for using the hearing to make “a lot of statements that aren’t true” and using “nativist rhetoric” such as “invasion and flooding” to “demonize immigrants.” The Democrats’ witness echoed these statements, arguing: “There is no invasion of migrants in our community,” and that “claiming this continues a false, racist narrative…”

Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) also objected to the hearing. She declared that its purpose was “to amplify the anti-immigrant hysteria and right-wing conspiracy theories” and that her presence there was “in opposition to any racist agenda pursued by Republicans.” She excoriated Republicans’ attempts to enforce the immigration laws and said their position on immigration “is to inflict as much cruelty as possible on the people fleeing suffering and persecution.”

Despite these objections, many Democrats also called the immigration system broken, and that the laws needed to be fixed. Some argued that “legal pathways” or “functioning legal pathways” or “additional pathways” are needed to solve the problem at the border. These lawmakers, however, appear to have forgotten that enforcing the laws also secures the border and restores order to our immigration system.

Between 2017 and 2020, President Trump robustly enforced our immigration laws, and the border was much more secure. The data also show how border security collapsed during the first two years of the Biden Administration, and how the borders were thrown wide open to drug dealers, cartels, traffickers and criminals. Thus, there isn’t a problem with the law. The problem is that the Biden Administration refuses to enforce the law.

RELATED INFOGRAPHICS:

RELATED ARTICLES:

Republicans Proceed With Hearing to Investigate the Border Crisis Despite Biden Stonewalling

Arizona Republican Introduces Another Impeachment Resolution Against Alejandro Mayorkas

Bills to Shut Down Immigration Detention Spring up in Multiple States

Why There Are No ‘Fair’ Solutions Out of the Federal Government’s Spending Quagmire

February 3, 2023/in Budget and Finance, DrRichSwier.com, Elections, Featured, Politics, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

The federal government is facing very serious budget issues, dramatically worsened by the past few years’ expansion in profligate spending. But while that gets most of the fiscal headlines at the moment because of the national debt limit discussion, the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds have far more unfunded liabilities than the official federal deficit. And those huge problems are well past the “something should be done” stage and getting very close to the “something must be done” stage. That has led some to reconsider reforming Social Security, the famous “third rail” of politics.

The mere possibility of that has energized those who fear that a change from the status quo might give them less, even though the huge financial holes involved cannot be sustained for long, meaning that “doing nothing” for now guarantees a worse deal for many soon. So such opponents are gearing up to prevent any move toward improved fiscal responsibility and sustainability that might involve reducing anyone’s benefits now or in the future by asserting that it would be unfair.

Unfortunately, however, if we rule out all options that might “unfairly” reduce benefits for current or future beneficiaries, we must be unfair to others. The reason is that the federal government has promised trillions of dollars more in benefits than taxes to fund them through Social Security (and even more so for Medicare), and those overpromises leave no fair way out.

Consider the option of reducing Social Security retirement benefits in one way or another. That is not fair, because government promises of ongoing retirement support have led people to believe in continued funding at the promised levels, and to adapt their behavior to those promises. Having done so (e.g., saving less privately for their retirement), it is unfair to cut that funding, because many who relied on benefit promises have become dependent on the government living up to them.

But there is a good reason for considering this possibility—if we continue to do nothing to change things, the trust funds will soon run out and benefits will have to fall substantially from then on, which would also be unfair, and potentially even more so.

Despite that, if history is any guide, any serious proposal of potential benefit reductions will not lead to rational discussion, but fights to make sure someone named “not us” will bear as much of the burdens as possible. We will witness a “guilt parade” of the most obviously pitiful and destitute beneficiaries, none of whom should be forced to “do without,” to remind us of its unfairness (just as we see struggling family farmers when agricultural or water subsidies are under fire; the most seriously ill when medical benefit cuts are proposed; poor, inner-city children when cuts to education funding are considered; etc).

Now, this fairness argument is partly correct. But only partly, because it does not consider the fairness of the alternatives. While benefit cutbacks can be considered unfair to those now and soon-to-be dependent on them, every alternative is unfair as well. Rather than choosing between fair and unfair options, we must choose between unfair ones.

Say we look to maintain benefit promises through substantially higher Social Security taxes. The problem is that people have also adapted their behavior to the promised extent of those taxes (already greater than income taxes for the majority of Americans), and some now depend on not losing any more take-home pay just as many recipients depend on not losing anticipated benefits.

Proposing that we just tax “the rich” more, as by increasing or even eliminating the income limits on Social Security “contributions,” would especially increase its unfairness to higher income earners, who are already paying far more in Social Security taxes than they will ever get back in benefits, and who also pay a sharply disproportionate share of income and other taxes as well (not to mention being in the crosshairs for further increases in those taxes).

Benefits could be maintained without increasing Social Security taxes by federal borrowing. But borrowing is just deferred taxation, so that would unfairly burden whichever taxpayers will be left holding the bag for those taxes. It would also increase the tax uncertainty faced by all Americans, who face a harder task of guessing how, where, when, and on who those future taxes will be assessed.

What about some sort of privatization? That could potentially increase the rate of return earned on retirement savings relative to what Social Security offers, improving the system from this point in time forward. However, such a move cannot magically eliminate its current multi-trillion dollar unfunded liabilities. And if future benefits are to be more closely based on private contributions than the current system, as privatization would require, treating those savers more fairly would unfairly take funds now used to subsidize the retirement of current workers, even though many of them paid far less in taxes than they will receive in benefits under the current structure.

Even doing nothing about Social Security to avoid treating people unfairly is unfair, since the status quo is unsustainable, requiring future commitments to be broken in a major way. Even Social Security statements now communicate that there will soon be too little money to meet their benefit promises.

It is time we realized that there is no fair way out from government Social Security commitments that exceed the funds available. Current overpromises mean that everyone has a plausible fairness claim on their side, yet something must give. The closest we can come to being fair is to avoid making any new over-commitments, to search for ways to make the program more sustainable (to reduce future unfairness problems), and to look seriously at the contentious issue of which of the options will minimize the adverse impacts of unfairness that cannot be avoided altogether. Demonizing any real consideration of the various options, as some have already started doing, only increases the likelihood that there will ultimately be more unfairness than necessary.

It’s also important to recognize that the inherent unfairness we must soon address is not limited to Social Security. That problem comes in the wake of any ongoing government program that offers benefits in excess of costs to beneficiaries at the start, because in a world without free lunches, that requires future Americans to be saddled with the burden of paying for those excess benefits.

So “not fair” also applies not only to the introduction and past expansions of Social Security, but also to current attempts to sweeten the Social Security pot, as with the Social Security 2100 Act. It also applies to Medicare, Social Security’s 1965 offspring, which faces an even larger financing hole, since early recipients got far more benefits than they paid for (both because benefits have increased and because early recipients paid for at most a few years at lower tax rates than now, but got benefits for the rest of their lives).

The same unfairness applies to any government trust fund with unfunded liabilities, such as for the Highway Trust Fund, due to be fully depleted within the next dozen years. (Since benefits from the road work began long before much of the associated costs came due, the program leaves more costs than benefits for succeeding Americans.)

The national debt reflects similar benefits that have not been paid for, unfairly leaving the tab for a huge pile of not-even-remotely-justified government spending projects and policies to later generations (not to mention providing the leverage for further expanding not-yet-paid-for benefits every time the debt limit expansion provides a must-pass piece of legislation).

It is worth remembering that in many areas that have been put under government control, the word “unfair” is correct. But that is because unfairness is baked in from the beginning of such government programs.

We can now only choose among unfair options which will be unavoidably difficult and unpleasant, with a government that has shown very little interest in facing those sorts of problems. And the way to prevent further inherent unfairness problems is not by embracing policies that attempt to buy votes today by creating policies where people are disproportionately treated (debt forgiveness, anyone?). Unfortunately, there is an ever-present pile of policy proposals whose political attraction is just such disproportionate treatment, which justifies little optimism for solutions arising out of the beltway anytime soon.

AUTHOR

Gary M. Galles

Gary M. Galles is a Professor of Economics at Pepperdine University and a member of the Foundation for Economic Education faculty network. In addition to his new book, Pathways to Policy Failures (2020), his books include Lines of Liberty (2016), Faulty Premises, Faulty Policies (2014), and Apostle of Peace (2013).

VIDEO: NYC Hotel Mobbed by Illegals Refusing to Leave Hotel For Relocation

February 2, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Elections, Immigration, Politics, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By The Geller Report

New Yorkers voted for this. They always vote Democrat. You reap what you vote.

The Democrats that opened the floodgates to these ingrates is the same party what refused entry to Jew fleeing

Migrants refuse to leave Hell’s Kitchen hotel for relocation to Brooklyn

By David Propper, Joe Marino, Larry Celona and Bernadette Hogan, January 30, 2023 12:15am Updated

Dozens of migrants stood their ground outside the Watson Hotel in Hell’s Kitchen on Sunday night and refused to leave for a new shelter at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal.

Cops had mobilized around the hotel around 10 p.m. as more than 50 migrants were standing outside with activists assisting with food, water and translations.

Single men were supposed to be brought to the new shelter over the weekend that would provide the same services they’ve been receiving, city officials said.

At one point, a city bus arrived and a small number of migrants jumped on, though the vast majority stayed put in front of the hotel on West 57th Street. Activists argued the migrants were being forced out of the hotel.

One Manhattan activist told The Post the men outside were staying at the hotel and were prepared to stay outside overnight. Some were moved to the new shelter earlier this weekend, but opted to return to the Manhattan site, she said.

Keep reading.

There were more activists than migrants at the Watson Hotel last night.

It was more of a block party for far-left activists than a humanitarian crisis. There was food, party favors, and the migrants seemed to be in good spirits. pic.twitter.com/ZmoC0k6YFf

— Jason Curtis Anderson (@JCAndersonNYC) February 1, 2023

NYC: Migrants refuse to leave Watson Hotel for transfer to shelter.

No Joke: Migrants want to stay at the hotel, or have Mayor Adams open luxury apartments that are vacant. pic.twitter.com/Y5gXrIJ8dJ

— Carol Clarke (@neverlosetruth) January 30, 2023

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

List of Equipment/Munitions Biden Sent to Ukraine That Will Take Between 3 to 18 Years to Replace

February 2, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, National Security, Politics, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By Royal A. Brown III

Reference the telling table below – there is no way the occupant of the White House and his WOKE Department of Defense including Secretary of Defense Austin and Chair, of the Joint Chief’s Staff Milley can justify depleting our own warfighting capabilities for 5 years or more by sending all these munitions and equipment to Ukraine.

NOTE: This chart does not include the 33 M-1 Abrams tanks (cost $400M); 100 brand new tank transporters and now Patriot surface to air missiles being sent to Ukraine.

CLICK HERE TO VIEW

Table 1: Inventory Replacement Times for Key Systems

Now for some Questions and my Answers:

Will the Ukrainians maintain all this complicated equipment ? Answer: NO – they don’t have the capability so US contractors will do so at great expense to US taxpayers.
What happens if any of this equipment lands in hands of Russians? Answer: Russian and China will reverse engineer and copy them taking away our technological edges..
Does this negatively impact our own defense needs? Answer: Obviously sending this equipment reduces our own warfighting capabilities. This equipment costs billions in addition to the $100 M in cash sent to Zelinskyy and must also be reducing the warfighting capabilities of our own military.
How long before U.S. boots are on the ground? Answer: Probably not long. Some are already there in advisory roles – you can bet CIA and mercenaries are there, others like the U.S. 101st Airborne Division are staging in Poland.
Will all this support along with $100B+ in cash ensure the Russians will quit and go home? Answer: NO – their Black Sea Fleet is located at Ukrainian ports and they aren’t going to give up Crimea which they invaded and occupied back in early 2014.
Could this war lead to further escalation including possible use of nuclear weapons? Answer: YES – Ukraine also had thousands of nuclear weapons and probably still have some suitcase nuclear weapons there was little accountability when Ukraine broke away from old USSR.
Do we have accountability process in place to ensure this $ and equipment all go to help Ukraine military and people and not go into pockets of corrupt Ukrainian Oligarchs? Answer: NO – how much of this money will end up in the off shore or Swiss bank accounts of Ukrainian oligarchs?
Has all this fueled the rampant Inflation and rising prices in the U.S.? Answer: YES
Do we know what US National Security Interests are at stake in Ukraine? Answer: NO – sure as hell isn’t that if we don’t stop Russia in Crimea it will lead to China attacking Taiwan. This is mixing golf balls and grapefruits. For one thing, Ukraine’s allies are feckless NATO and the European Union who depend on the U.S. for their defense, whereas Taiwan has not only the U.S. but well armed and trained forces of Taiwan, Japan, S. Korea, Indonesia, Australia etc. on its side. Those worried about this contingency should be supporting shipment of the equipment in table above to Taiwan not Ukraine.
The Obama/Biden regime were in power in 2014 when the Russians first invaded Crimea what did they do about it? Answer: Nothing except sanctions which didn’t hurt Russia which kept supplying Germany and much of rest of Europe with their energy needs (e.g. natural gas) and this hasn’t stopped.
Are the Russians and Putin bad people interested in restoring old Soviet Union brand of Communism? Answer: Yes, BUT what is NATO and EU going to do about it ? What red line in the sand did the Obama/Biden regime draw when the Russians invaded Crimea in early 2014?
Did the Russians offer a ceasefire in trade for Ukraine not pushing to enter NATO? Answer: YES but Zelensky would have no part of it thus the war escalated. Zelensky is not a man of peace as he tries to convey.
Are these same people in Obama 3/Biden Admin like WOKE SOD Austin and Chair of Joint Chiefs Milley as concerned about defending the US southern border from invasion by illegal aliens and cartels as they are about defending Ukraine? Answer: Not only NO but Hell NO!

I’m sure you can come up with other questions about this debacle. If your answers are different, I’d like to hear them.

NIH Records Reveal FBI Inquiry of Wuhan Grant Records Show ‘Gain-of-Function’ Concerns about Wuhan Lab Going Back to 2016

February 1, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Healthcare, Politics, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By Judicial Watch

Washington, D.C. — Judicial Watch announced today that it received 1651 pages of records from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) revealing an FBI “inquiry” into the NIH’s controversial bat coronavirus grant tied to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The records also show National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) officials were concerned about “gain-of-function” research in China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology in 2016. The Fauci agency was also concerned about EcoHealth Alliance’s lack of compliance with reporting rules and use of gain-of-function research in the NIH-funded research involving bat coronaviruses in Wuhan, China.

The records also show EcoHealth Alliance’s legal team suggesting that a records request for data on their bat coronavirus research in Wuhan be denied because of the January 6 disturbance.

Judicial Watch obtained the records through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for records of communications, contracts and agreements with the Wuhan Institute of Virology (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (No. 1:21-cv-00696)).

In an email dated May 22, 2020, with the subject line, “Grant Questions – FBI Inquiry – 1-R01A1I110964-01 – 2-R01AI110964-06,” Ashley Sanders, a senior investigations officer in the NIH Division of Program Integrity, within NIH’s Office of Management Assessment, emails David A. Miller, an agent at the FBI’s Newark Field Office to inform Miller, “In preparation for our call on Tuesday, Erik [Stemmy] (cc’d) has provided responses to your initial questions below (also attached).” Also copied on Sanders’ email is Mike Shannon, whose email address indicates he works in the NIH Office of the Director. The responses are completely redacted but are labeled “SF [Standard Form] 424 AI110964-06 (received date 11/05/2018),” which refers to NIH grant award R01AI110964, “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.”

The records reveal several indications of gain-of-function research, as well as failures to comply with reporting regulations, including a May 9, 2016, email marked “High” importance, in which NIH official Carine Normil notes Peter Daszak’s failure to file a progress report on EcoHealth’s bat coronavirus research:

This is the second communication from NIAID requesting that you file the progress report for the above-referenced grant [5R01AI110964] that was due no later than April 15, 2016. Please submit the delinquent report by May 12, 2016…. [P]lease be advised that continued late submission of your non-competing grant progress report and any subsequently requested documentation will result in a reduction of time and/or funds for this grant.

NIAID official Erik Stemmy, who is copied on her email, replies to Normil noting, “They have proposed work for the next year of the award that may be subject to the gain-of-function funding pause.”

EcoHealth Alliance Chief of Staff Alexa Chmura separately responds to Normil saying, “We received a warning that one of the publications [redacted] listed from the past year is non-compliant.”

In a letter dated May 28, 2016, from NIH official Jenny Greer and NIH Program Manager Erik Stemmy, the officials advise Chmura that the NIH grant for the Wuhan bat project, “may include Gain of Function (GoF) research that is subject to the U.S. Government funding pause … issued on October 17, 2014.” They add that this pause was based on the following line in the grant application: “Aim 3: Testing predictions of CoV inter-species transmission.”

In an email dated June 15, 2016, from Stemmy to Grant Operations, Stemmy notes that the EcoHealth bat research at WIV may include gain-of-function research: “The Daszak award may have GoF [gain-of-function] and I’ve been in touch with the GMS [Grants Management Specialist] for a while now.”

In an email dated August 3, 2021, EcoHealth Alliance Chief of Staff Aleksei Chmura sends an email to NIH officials with the subject line “5 ROl AI110964 (Interim Report),” which is the grant number for the “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence” program. The report, which seems to detail gain-of-function research, is attached:

To analyze which viruses were a potential public health risk, we managed to cultivate three strains of SARSr-CoVs from bat feces… We used the genetic codes of some of the other viruses we found in bats and inserted spike protein genes of those viruses (the proteins that attach to cells) into the cultured viruses. By doing this experiment we showed that other viruses may also be able to infect human cells, and were able to do this safely without the need to culture large amounts of virus…. This work proves that there is a clear and present danger for future emergence of novel SARS-like viruses in people.

The August 2021 report also details that $66,500 of the award was budgeted for China in the grant period June 1, 2014, to May 31, 2019.

Records in 2020 include an April 21 NIH email thread regarding “additional subawardees,” referring to NIH grant award R01AI110964 “Understanding the Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence.” Ten facilities are listed including:

Wuhan Institute of Virology, China;

Institute of Pathogen Biology, China;

Duke-NUS, Singapore;

San Pya Clinic, Burma;

Institut Pasteur du Cambodge, Cambodia;

Primate Research Center at Bogor Agricultural University, Indonesia;

Conservation Medicine, Ltd, Malaysia;

King Chulagongkorn Memorial Hospital, Thailand;

Hanoi Agricultural University, Vietnam;

National Animal Health Laboratory, Laos;

East China Normal University, China, is listed as a “consultant.”

Also in this thread, on April 21, 2020, senior NIH official Matthew Fenton advises his NIH colleagues that in the EcoHealth Wuhan bat project’s grant, the WIV received $76,301 one year, the Institute of Pathogen Biology in Beijing received $75,600 and the East China Normal University in Shanghai received $49,750.

In an October 23, 2020, letter NIH Deputy Director Michael Lauer notes to Daszak that the Wuhan Institute of Virology had not satisfied safety requirements that applied to subawards with EcoHealth:

[W]e have concerns that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), which previously served as a subrecipient of the Project, had not satisfied safety requirements that applied to its subawards with EcoHealth, and that EcoHealth had not satisfied its obligations to monitor the activities of its subrecipient to ensure compliance.”

Lauer then enumerated all the funds WIV had received in the first five years of the grant through EcoHealth, including $133,595, $139,015, $159,122, $159,122 and $159,122.

In an email dated April 11, 2021, and flagged as “High” importance, Daszak acknowledges that he knows FOIA requests would be inevitable for information on EcoHealth’s work.

I’ve tried to stick to a logical argument, but I’m also mindful of the dozens of FoIA requests targeting EHA [EcoHealth Alliance] and myself and that previous letters have been leaked to the press, so have made sure all details are laid out. I do not aim to make this letter public, of course and am sending this to you confidentially.

In an email and letter both dated April 11, 2021, Daszak informs Lauer that it would be difficult to get the information Lauer requested about the Wuhan bat project because of the termination of EcoHealth’s funding:

This termination of a funded relationship with the [Wuhan Institute of Virology] makes it extraordinarily difficult and more likely impossible to provide the information requested about an autonomous foreign organization – as would also be the case for a domestic one – that our organization neither works with currently, nor has control over.

Daszak further states that NIH’s FOIA officer, Gorka Garcia-Malene, had informed Daszak that “any indication from my program [NIH FOIA Office] that there is an ongoing investigation into WIV [Wuhan Institute of Virology] can now be disregarded, as we recently confirmed there are no pending investigations into that organization.” [Emphasis in original]

NIH asks EcoHealth to “Provide [a sample] of the actual SARS-CoV-2 virus that WIV used to determine the viral sequence.” Daszak responds that it would be “effectively impossible” to request such a sample.

In response to NIH’s requirement to provide copies of all WIV biosafety reports from June 1, 2014, through May 31, 2019, Daszak writes, “Given the intense geopolitical pressure around the accusations that WIV intentionally or accidentally released SARS-CoV-2 (something which the WHO mission deemed ‘extremely unlikely’), obtaining such information is not a plausible option at present.” Daszak includes email correspondence between the law firm representing EcoHealth and NIH’s FOIA office on January 25, 2021. When NIH sought assistance from EcoHealth in processing a FOIA request, the law firm’s representative said the FOIA request should be denied because of the January 6 disturbance: “[A]s demonstrated by the recent attack on the US Capitol fueled by disinformation and conspiracy theories, the need to protect the privacy of EcoHealth Alliance’s employees and affiliates is more important than ever.”

In a letter dated April 13, 2021, Lauer indicates that Daszak has failed to provide all reports and documents that NIH had previously asked him to produce regarding NIH grant R01AI100964. Lauer also cites the contract language requiring Daszak to provide these documents.

In a letter dated July 23, 2021, from Lauer to Daszak and Chmura, Lauer requires EcoHealth to produce detailed records relating to three of their NIH awards including the Wuhan Risk of Bat Coronavirus Emergence project as well as grant U01A/151797, titled Understanding Risk of Zoonotic Virus Emergence in EID Hotspots of Southeast Asia involving Chulalongkorn Hospital and Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, Duke-National Singapore University and University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; and grant U01A/153420 involving the International Center for Diarrhoearal Disease Research of Bangladesh, Institute of Epidemiology Disease Control and Research of Bangladesh. Lauer writes:

For us to continue our analyses, we will need to receive and review WIV’s [Wuhan Institute of Virology] records validating expenditures specific to R01AI100964 … that WIV submitted to you. As a reminder, subawardees are required to have a financial management system that includes records that identify adequately the source and application of funds for federally-funded activities.

[ *** ]

We will also need to see subaward agreements, subawardee audit reports, subawardee safety monitoring documents, subawardee progress reports submitted to you, and subawardee financial and accounting records for two other NIH EcoHealth Alliance grants.

Lauer informs Daszak that the NIH had determined EcoHealth to be out of compliance:

We are also writing to notify you that a review of our records for R01AI100964 [the Wuhan bat project] indicates that EcoHealth Alliance, Inc. is out of compliance with requirements to submit the following reports that are outlined in the NIHGPS [National Institutes of Health Grants Policy Statement]: the Federal Financial Report … and the Interim Research Performance Progress Report …

Lauer adds that the grant was issued under a “Streamlined Noncompeting Award Process (SNAP)” and that EcoHealth Alliance had not submitted a required report that was due months earlier. Lauer warns Daszak, “[A] history of non-compliance related to R01AI100964, including reporting non-compliance, may impact other projects where EcoHealth serves as the primary grant recipient.”

(The NIH in April 2020 suspended funding to EcoHealth Alliance that “had previously established a partnership with a virology laboratory in Wuhan, China,” but in August 2021 provided a grant of $7.5 million that would reportedly “focus on Southeast Asia and the emergence of coronaviruses; filoviruses, the family responsible for Ebola; and paramyxoviruses, a family of viruses that includes measles and mumps.”)

“The incredible disclosure of an FBI inquiry shows that Fauci and others involved in this scandal were being dishonest in dismissing the seriousness of questions about their cover-up of their funding of dangerous gain-of-function research in China,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Any FBI inquiry would be appropriate as these documents, extracted by Judicial Watch after years of stonewalling, also show that Fauci’s agency knew and should have known, going back to 2016, that it funded dangerous and prohibited gain-of-function research in China,”

Previous disclosures from this lawsuit include:

HHS records revealed that from 2014 to 2019, $826,277 was given to the Wuhan Institute of Virology for bat coronavirus research by the NIAID.
NIAID records showed that it gave nine China-related grants to EcoHealth Alliance to research coronavirus emergence in bats and was the NIH’s top issuer of grants to the Wuhan lab itself. The records also included an email from the vice director of the Wuhan Lab asking an NIH official for help finding disinfectants for decontamination of airtight suits and indoor surfaces.
HHS records included an “urgent for Dr. Fauci ” email chain, citing ties between the Wuhan lab and the taxpayer-funded EcoHealth Alliance. The government emails also reported that the foundation of U.S. billionaire Bill Gates worked closely with the Chinese government to pave the way for Chinese-produced medications to be sold outside China and help “raise China’s voice of governance by placing representatives from China on important international counsels as high level commitment from China.”
HHS records included a grant application for research involving the coronavirus that appears to describe “gain-of-function” research involving RNA extractions from bats, experiments on viruses, attempts to develop a chimeric virus and efforts to genetically manipulate the full-length bat SARSr-CoV WIV1 strain molecular clone.
HHS records showed the State Department and NIAID knew immediately in January 2020 that China was withholding COVID data, which was hindering risk assessment and response by public health officials.

Through FOIA requests and lawsuits, Judicial Watch has uncovered a substantial amount of information about COVID-19 issues:

May 2022: University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) records show the former director of the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), Dr. James W. Le Duc warned Chinese researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology of potential investigations into the COVID issue by Congress.
May 2022: HHS records regarding biodistribution studies and related data for the COVID-19 vaccines show a key component of the vaccines developed by Pfizer/BioNTech, lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), were found outside the injection site, mainly the liver, adrenal glands, spleen and ovaries of test animals, eight to 48 hours after injection.
April 2022: Records from the Federal Select Agent Program (FSAP) reveal safety lapses and violations at U.S. biosafety laboratories that conduct research on dangerous agents and toxins.
March 2022: HHS records include emails between National Institutes of Health (NIH) then-Director Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci, the director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), about hydroxychloroquine and COVID-19.
March 2021: HHS records show that NIH officials tailored confidentiality forms to China’s terms and that the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted an unreleased, “strictly confidential” COVID-19 epidemiological analysis in January 2020.
October 2020: Fauci emails include his approval of a press release supportive of China’s response to the 2019 novel coronavirus.

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MASSIVE CORRUPTION SCANDAL: Top Ukrainian Officials Resign After Blowing Billions of U.S. Dollars on Cars, Mansions, and Vacations

January 30, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Elections, National Security, Politics, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By The Geller Report

While Americans struggle to buy food, fuel, eggs, baby formula AND pay obscene taxes, Ukraine Nazis live high on the hog on your blood, sweat and tears….

The Democrats and their RINO lapdogs hate you.

Ukraine Rocked By Corruption Scandal, Wave Of Top Officials Resign: Sports Cars, Mansions & Luxury Vacations As People Suffered

BY TYLER DURDEN

The Ukrainian government on Tuesday confirmed the resignation of multiple high ranking officials amid large-scale corruption allegations, in what’s being called the biggest mass resignation and graft scandal since the Russian invasion began.

Some dozen officials have quit their posts after a huge political shake-up over allegations and probes into cases ranging from bribery, to mismanagement of aid funds for purchasing food, to embezzlement, to driving expensive cars while common people suffer under wartime conditions.

A top presidential adviser and four deputy ministers – among these two defense officials, along with five regional governors were forced out of their posts. And among the regional governors to step down included officials overseeing regions which have seen intense fighting, including the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions, where Russian forces have lately reported gains.

Deputy Prosecutor General Oleskiy Symonenko

Deputy Minister for Development of Communities and Territories Ivan Lukeryu

Deputy Minister for Development of Communities and Territories Vyacheslav Negoda

Deputy Minister for Social Policy Vitaliy Muzychenk

And the regional governors of Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Sumy and Kherson

And separately, “the defense ministry had earlier announced the resignation of deputy minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov, who was in charge of the army’s logistical support, on the heels of accusations it was signing food contracts at inflated prices.”

In this case regarding the food contracts, Shapovalov is accused of signing a deal with an unknown, shady firm. In his role as deputy defense minister, his is the most notable and visible resignation. Crucially he would have had no small part in overseeing the billions of dollars flowing from the pockets of US and European taxpayers as authorized defense aid.

He purchased military rations at inflated prices in what appears a scheme to line the pockets of contractors, and potentially involving kickbacks to himself.

Top Ukrainian Officials Resign After Blowing Billions of US Dollars on Cars, Mansions, and Vacations

By: Daniel, January 29, 2023:

Well, it’s exactly what a lot of us were expecting. All of those billions of dollars that we have been sending over to Ukraine are just getting p*ssed away just like it does here. Government is almost entirely corrupt and it doesn’t even matter where it is. They waste money like it’s endless and as though we don’t actually have to work for it.

Ukraine is amidst yet another corruption scandal as several of its highest-ranking officials were discovered to be indulging in lavish lifestyles, purchasing expensive sports cars, mansions and taking luxurious vacations, while the rest of the population faces ever-increasing difficulties amid the war with Russia.

This news came on the same day that it was announced that the United States and Germany had agreed to provide Ukraine with even more tanks for military use.

On Tuesday, multiple high-ranking members of Ukrainian government confirmed their resignations due to widespread allegations of graft and corruption. This has been labeled as the biggest mass resignation since Russia’s invasion began, with a total of twelve officials quitting their posts in light of accusations ranging from bribery and embezzlement, to mismanagement of aid funds dedicated to food provisions, as well as using expensive cars while other citizens continue to suffer in wartime conditions.

Notably among these resignations are a top presidential adviser, four deputy ministers, including two defense officials, as well as five regional governors; all overseeing various regions where intense fighting has recently occurred such as Zaporizhzhia and Kherson.

Particularly, attention is being drawn toward Deputy Defense Minister Vyacheslav Shapovalov who resigned following accusations that he had signed contracts for inflated prices for food provisions for soldiers. As this was his role within the ministry responsible for managing billions of dollars worth of authorized defense aid from both the US and European taxpayers’ pockets, his resignation is seen as especially significant. Additionally, Oleskiy Symonenko (Deputy Prosecutor General), Ivan Lukeryu (Deputy Minister for Development of Communities and Territories), Vyacheslav Negoda (Deputy Minister for Development of Communities and Territories) and Vitaliy Muzychenk (Deputy Minister for Social Policy) have also resigned their posts alongside regional governors from Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kyiv, Sumy and Kherson regions.

Keep reading.

This is sick and Americans won’t put up with our hard-earned money going to this corrupt government in Ukraine.

Secure our border, restore safe streets, stop the drugs and Make America Great Again!https://t.co/fwSJ3UbZbm

— Kari Lake (@KariLake) January 25, 2023

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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Listen to Mitt Romney Explain Why Supporting Ukraine is Good for America — Laugh of the Day

January 30, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Elections, National Security, Politics, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By Royal A. Brown III

After reading an article about top Ukrainian officials resigning after blowing billions of U.S. dollars on cars, mansions, and high priced vacations, I’ve heard no good reasons why the U.S. national interests and security are at stake in Ukraine.

Listen to establishment RINO Mitt Romney’s explanation in the below 3 1/2 minute video.

History has taught us that when one country feels they can invade another country with little consequence, violence spreads and we become vulnerable to being pulled into a conflict. Supporting Ukraine is not just the right thing to do, it’s imperative for U.S. national security. pic.twitter.com/6TUNCLj58d

— Senator Mitt Romney (@SenatorRomney) January 26, 2023

Mitt Romney says US support of Ukraine is good for Americans

Utah Republican says aid for Ukraine consistent with US spending on its own national security

By Dennis Romboy, Jan 26, 2023

Sen. Mitt Romney says if Americans say the United States should not spend money to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia, they should probably say the U.S. shouldn’t spend money on its own national defense either.

“And that makes no sense at all,” the Utah Republican said in a social media post Thursday.

Romney said in the 3 ½-minute video that he is often asked why the war in Ukraine is an American interest and why supporting it is good for Americans.

“So when people say ‘What does this do for America?’ Well, why do we spend money on national defense? We could just take all that money and spend it here on ourselves,” he said. “But we spend on national defense because we know that if we do so, it makes it more likely we’ll be safe and prosperous and our lives will be spared.”

In the video, Romney outlines the reasons he believes backing Ukraine is vital to the United States.

“I begin, of course, with just the humanitarian reality, we care of course about human life and the suffering that’s going on in Ukraine,” he said. “We’re just appalled by the fact that Russia has invaded a peaceful, sovereign nation next door.”

Continued American prosperity depends on peace, Romney said.

“We have better jobs and better incomes and better prospects for our future if the world is at peace. If the world is in conflict, things aren’t good for us as well as for other people around the world,” he said.

“But conflict makes us less well off, so a peaceful world makes us better off. It’s good for Americans.”

Romney said that if a country believes it can invade a neighbor without any response or reaction, it will happen again and again. Ultimately, he said, violence keeps spreading and “involves us and we end up being attacked ourselves.”

Read more.

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The Unseen Cost of Government Largesse

January 28, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Economy, Elections, Politics, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

The U.S. government recently hit its $31.5 trillion debt limit after years of careening baseline spending on entitlements combined with emergency COVID-19 spending in the last few years to produce record-busting deficits. The new Republican majority in the House of Representatives, elected largely on economic concerns like inflation and runaway spending, now faces an obstinate Senate and White House. A showdown appears likely as does the ritual brow-beating of all those who object to simply raising the debt limit “without conditions,” as President Biden demands.

To those who will inevitably cry, “Don’t use the debt ceiling as a negotiating tool!” over the coming weeks and months, it should be pointed out that it is the only tool that has been even remotely effective at taming Congress’s appetite for spending. In the same way that an intervention is only possible when a drug addict is in crisis, debt limit negotiations are the only context in which Uncle Sam has accepted even modest constraints on government spending in recent decades.

Conservatives and libertarians rightly decry the rapidly-expanding national debt as an embarrassment, a threat to the nation, a root cause of inflation (as the Federal Reserve must expand its balance sheet to purchase the Treasuries that finance these huge deficits, as happened most clearly in the pandemic’s peak), and a promise of higher future taxes. While all these are accurate observations, one effect of massive government spending and deficits is often overlooked in the standard conservative critique: the forgone private investment of capital and therefore forgone economic growth, often termed the “crowding out effect.”

The basic idea is that there exists a total sum of money, or financial capital, that individual and institutional investors are willing to loan out or invest. Most economists call this the “loanable funds market.” The supply of loans, as with any supply curve, slopes upward and to the right. In other words, as the interest rate (the price of a loan) rises, more people will be eager to supply loans. In contrast, the demand for loanable funds slopes, like a normal demand curve, downward and to the right. That is, as the interest rate goes down, more people are interested in borrowing money. Just think of any normal supply-demand graph, but with the good in question being a loan rather than a physical good or a service, and the vertical axis labeled “interest rate” rather than “price,” as in other markets.

The demand for loanable funds is a function of how much capital investment businesses need (which is itself a function of how profitable those capital investments are), what quantity of money consumers need for purchases like homes and new vehicles, and how much money the government needs to borrow. In a game where the total supply of loanable funds per year is set, say at $5 trillion, every $1 trillion the government runs up in deficits is $1 trillion less available for private investment in the innovations that improve quality of life, bring us new medicines, and create new jobs.

Increased government deficits shift the demand for loanable funds to the right. As any student of elementary economics knows, this increases the price, or in this case, the nominal interest rate. Many private sector projects that make sense at 4 percent interest are no longer acted upon if the government runs such a large deficit that the interest rate must increase to 7 percent for investors to shell out the cash necessary to finance that deficit. Increasing the supply of loanable funds through monetary expansion, as happened in the COVID pandemic with breathtaking speed, can temporarily hide this effect. However, this spurs inflation that reduces real returns and hampers economic growth (the stock market’s dismal returns since runaway inflation started in late 2021 is one example of this result).

In contrast to the Keynesian “money multiplier” theory, which insists that government spending stimulates the economy by circulating money via transfer payments that otherwise would have remained in savings and uncirculated, savings in nearly all developed countries are not locked away gathering moths and rust, but invested. Of every dollar put in the bank, more than 90 percent is invested in loans for commercial enterprises, in home loans, and in bonds, and this doesn’t account for the fact that a larger and larger share of surplus savings in the United States are not in the traditional banking system, but in brokerage accounts, 401(k)s, and elsewhere.

Government spending does not multiply the economic power of money, it diminishes it. If the opposite were true, Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela would be among the wealthiest nations on the planet, since nearly all economic activity is facilitated through government spending in those nations. That they are not, but that nations with relatively free markets such as the United States, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and Japan punch above their weight economically suggests that private investment in the innovations and technologies of tomorrow everywhere and always beats government transfer payments in facilitating economic growth.

Every dollar the government must borrow is a dollar not available for private businesses or individuals to borrow, and that reduces future economic growth and job creation. With America’s debt now hovering near 125 percent of GDP (before netting for debt held by government entities) and deficits topping $1 trillion yearly as far as the eye can see, we can no longer ignore this drag on the American economy.

AUTHOR

Nathan J. Richendollar

Nathan Richendollar is a summa cum laude economics and politics graduate of Washington and Lee University in Lexington, VA. He lives in Southwest Missouri and works in the financial sector.

The IRS has Taxpayers Subsidize the ‘Iran Lobby’

January 28, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Economy, Politics, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By Jihad Watch

And the double standard on pro-Israel and pro-Iran groups.

During the freedom protests in Iran, #NIACLobbies4Mullahs trended on Twitter.

It’s not the first time that Iranian refugees, dissidents and activists have denounced the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) and accused it of acting as the ‘Iran Lobby’. But the over 300,000 tweets demonstrated the forceful opposition of Iranians to the regime and to the ‘Iran Lobby’. So did the marchers in Washington D.C. chanting, “NIAC is not our voice!”

“Iranians expect @TheJusticeDept to look into this hashtag: #NIACLobbies4Mullahs,” Arash Sobhani, a prominent Iranian-American musician and dissident, tweeted.

A Justice Department investigation of NIAC for violations of the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) is long overdue and has been urged by Senator Tom Cotton and other legislators.

But the pro-Iran group has also maintained a tax-exempt status with the IRS for over 20 years and that’s all the more remarkable considering the very different treatment of pro-Israel groups.

The New York Times has spent over a decade urging the IRS to investigate pro-Israel non-profits. In 2021, antisemitic congressmembers, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, and Rep. Andre Carson, who met with Louis Farrakhan, signed a letter urging the Biden administration to crack down on the tax-exempt status of pro-Israel groups.

Treasury Secretary Yellen “must act to enforce US law and end these organizations 501(c)(3) status,” Rep. Tlaib tweeted.

If the Biden administration uses the IRS to go after pro-Israel groups, it will be following up on the work of the Obama administration which launched an unprecedented effort to shut down pro-Israel groups who were critical of its foreign policy including its empowerment of Iran.

In 2009, Z Street founder Lori Lowenthal Marcus applied for tax exempt status for the pro-Israel group. When the IRS refused to move forward, she was told that it “has to give special scrutiny to organizations connected to Israel.”

NIAC was never given this special level of scrutiny. Nor was the American Iranian Council, whose founder had run for the presidency of Iran and at whose events Biden had appeared.

In 2009, Eli Lake, then of the Washington Times, warned that communications between NIAC founder Trita Paris and Iran’s UN ambassador “offer evidence that the group has operated as an undeclared lobby and may be guilty of violating tax laws, the Foreign Agents Registration Act and lobbying disclosure laws.”

IFMAT, an Iranian dissident site, alleged that, “according to NIAC’s own documents released during the lawsuit, the organization used to ‘defraud IRS [and] did not report lobbying.’”

The IRS however appeared to show little interest in NIAC and instead went after pro-Israel groups. While pro-Israel groups were asked to “explain their religious beliefs about the Land of Israel”, there’s no sign that NIAC has been asked to explain Shiite religious beliefs about Iran.

Before founding NIAC, Trita Parsi had created, “Iranians for International Cooperation” which admitted that it existed to “safeguard Iran’s and Iranian interests”. The same IRS, which had asked of a pro-Israel group, “does your organization support the existence of the land of Israel?” did not seem especially interested in whether NIAC supported an Islamic terror state.

Parsi then moved on to the American Iranian Council before founding NIAC allegedly in coordination with Hamyaran which had been created by the Iranian government.

The IRS however decided to go after pro-Israel groups instead. Five of these groups were audited at the same time even as revelations about NIAC were emerging. “Israel is one of many Middle Eastern countries that have a ‘higher risk of terrorism,’” an IRS manager argued.

Israel had a higher risk of terrorism because Iran was targeting it with a terror campaign. But instead of scrutinizing the terrorists, the IRS decided that the victims of Islamic terrorism were the ones who really needed investigating.

In 2018, the case by Z Street was finally settled after eight years of litigation.

Lori Lowenthal Marcus told Front Page Magazine that, “One of the excuses given to Z Street by an IRS official was that the IRS had to make sure we were not ‘engaged in terrorism’ because we mentioned ‘terror’ in our mission statement. The part of Z Street’s mission that mentioned terror? ‘We will not engage with, negotiate with or appease terrorists.’ Yet Z Street’s application for 501(c)(3) status was sidelined for seven years while Z Street litigated the IRS’s unconstitutional application of Viewpoint Discrimination against us.”

The IRS demonstrated that when it came to Z Street and other pro-Israel groups, it was willing and able to scrutinize, investigate and harass them. It has demonstrated the same thing with conservative groups. It is not however willing to apply that same standard to the ‘Iran Lobby’.

And the reasons may be obvious.

NIAC Action, its sister PAC, endorsed Biden and declared, “our long, national nightmare is almost over. AP has called the race for Joe Biden.”

Jamal Abdi, the executive director of NIAC Action, was one of Biden’s bundlers and claimed that its members had dominated phone banks and donated $385,000 to Biden.

NIAC Action had gushed that, “our long, national nightmare is almost over. AP has called the race for Joe Biden”.

“It’s an obscene joke that NIAC was given and retains the U.S. government’s permission to provide its donors with the ability to write off their tax donations to the Islamic Republic of Iran’s U.S. cheerleading squad, NIAC,” Marcus, the founder of Z Street, told Front Page Magazine.

In Iran, protesters are putting their lives on the line for freedom. And some of them are calling for a long overdue investigation of the ‘Iran Lobby’ and its influence over American politics.

NIAC Action’s recent endorsements include Rep. Katie Porter, who now aspires to the Senate, Rep. Ro Khanna, who is seen as the successor for the Bernie Sanders camp and a possible presidential candidate, and antisemitic figures like Rep. Ilhan Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib.

After over two decades of neglect by the IRS, NIAC has gained unprecedented influence.

NIAC’s nonprofit status is evidence of a glaring double standard by the IRS and a national security crisis.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

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PODCAST: Biden’s Proposal—Increase National Debt By 57.8%

January 24, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Politics, Science, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By Conservative Commandos Radio Show

GUESTS AND TOPICS

TERRY JEFFREY

Terry Jeffrey is editor in chief of CNSNews.com. Prior to that, he served for more than a decade as editor of Human Events, where he is now an editor at large. From 1987-91, he was an editorial writer for The Washington Times, which entered his investigative editorials about then-House Speaker Jim Wright for consideration for the Pulitzer Prize. In 1992, he served as issues and research director for Pat Buchanan’s first Republican presidential campaign. In 1995-96, he was national campaign manager for Pat Buchanan’s second Republican presidential campaign. Buchanan that year won the Alaska, Louisiana and Missouri caucuses, placed second in the Iowa caucuses, and won the New Hampshire primary.

TOPIC: Biden’s Proposal: Increase Debt By 57.8%

E. CALVIS BEISNER, PH.D.

E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D., Founder and National Spokesman of The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, www.CornwallAlliance.org, author of over a dozen books and over a thousand articles, former associate professor of historical theology and social ethics at Knox Theological Seminary and of interdisciplinary studies at Covenant College.

TOPIC: Setting the Record Straight on Climate Change

New House Majority Attempts Debt-Defying Feat

January 23, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Economy, Elections, Politics, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By Family Research Council

Will Rogers used to joke, “Alexander Hamilton started the Treasury Department with nothing — and sometimes I think that’s the closest we’ve been to breaking even.”

Not many people saw the humor in that Thursday when the U.S. bumped its head on the debt ceiling, setting the stage for a titanic showdown over America’s spending. While Uncle Sam has maxed out his credit cards for years, the government has never owed anything close to $31 trillion — a failure the new conservative House majority has zero intention of repeating.

If anyone doubts whether the GOP means business, one look at the speaker’s race ought to tell the skeptics all they need to know. The group forged by five days of adversity over Nancy Pelosi’s successor is a hardened and united front now, determined to declare war on the reckless habits that got our country into this mess. Many believe one of the biggest victories the conservative holdouts won was the promise not to raise the debt ceiling until serious budget reforms are made.

Not surprisingly, Democrats are demanding that Congress raise the borrowing limit — no strings attached. Joe Biden, who called Republicans “fiscally demented” for trying to steer America away from the cliff, is insisting that conservatives who want new spending limits can pound sand. Of course, his refusal to negotiate with the GOP is rich considering that he’s added more to the national debt ($3.8 trillion) in two years than our country did in 61 years (1929-1990).

Biden’s pigheadedness is putting the two parties on a collision course for a knock-down, drag-out fight — the likes of which Washington hasn’t seen since 2011 and 1995 when other House majorities tried to put Congress on the spending straight and narrow. Meanwhile, the prospects of Congress coming to blows over America’s ballooning debt is making the media downright hysterical. The New York Times wrung its hands, writing that “breaching the debt limit would lead to a first-ever default for the United States, creating financial chaos in the global economy.” Other Chicken Littles panicked that Republicans will pull the plug on Social Security and Medicare.

The reality is, America has never defaulted on its loans (despite coming dangerously close under Barack Obama). Even now, the House GOP is working on an emergency plan to keep the government afloat while the two sides hammer out an agreement. Conservatives have said that non-Defense spending will be first on the chopping block, but that doesn’t mean, as Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.) joked with me on “Washington Watch,” that “nasty Republicans are going to push grandma off a cliff.” “We’re going to start with non-Medicare, non-Social Security spending,” he insisted. But frankly, Harris said, we should ultimately have “a bipartisan agreement on how to control all our federal spending.”

And yet the media would have you believe that any Republican who wants to leverage the moment to help America sober up after decades of a spending binge is reckless. “Crazy even,” National Review’s Veronique De Rugy writes. The fact of the matter is, our fiscal house is a disaster “and Congress is to blame for it. … These people are upset about the symptom of the disease, not the disease itself.”

Ironically, these same media outlets didn’t seem the slightest bit concerned when it was Biden and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) opposing multiple debt ceiling hikes. Back in 2006 and 2004, the two men could’ve been mistaken for Ronald Reagan, saying such things as “This massive accumulation of debt … was the result of willful and reckless disregard for the warnings that were given and for the fundamentals of economic management.” That was then-Senator Joe Biden before voting against increasing the debt limit. Schumer was so against the idea that he ran ads about it.

Apparently, the press is messaging this debate the same way they did the speaker’s race: demanding Republicans stop whining and fall in line. Conservatives who didn’t earlier this month, who made demands of their next leader in exchange for their support, were “terrorists.” Today, when Republicans ask for everyone to come to the table, Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz (Hawaii) lashes out, “There is no table.”

In other words, Congress should just roll over and rubber-stamp more borrowing to fund the Left’s agenda. If that’s the House’s perfunctory duty, as the critics say, why even vote? Or, could it be that this is a neglected accountability tool for lawmakers to keep spending in check?

I know some Americans will yawn at the country’s predicament. We’ve become numb to the big numbers. Living within our means seems to be an ideal long lost in this age of excess and instant gratification. But as everyone eventually learns, borrowing of this magnitude is ultimately unsustainable — and it’s immoral for us to leave it to our children and grandchildren to pay Washington’s piper. This is a fight that needs to be had, and we need to have it now.

When Ronald Reagan took office, the government’s debt was $650 billion. By 2010, it had skyrocketed to $10 trillion. Now, we’re approaching three times that number. And it’s not because Republicans have been spending angels, and Democrats have been devils. Both parties have been irresponsible. But we can’t keep swimming in red ink as a country and hope to survive. We have to address it.

Some of the ideas floating through the conservative caucus are completely reasonable solutions like “no budget, no pay,” which withhold lawmakers’ pay when they don’t pass budgets. For years, they’ve been kicking the can of appropriations down the road, which has resulted in gigantic, unread, multi-trillion-dollar boondoggles like we saw in the December omnibus. No more, House conservatives said in the speaker’s fight. It’s time to send these 13 budgets through regular order — holding hearings, conducting mark-ups, and giving members time to digest and amend the bills.

In return for a debt ceiling increase, Republicans will almost certainly demand across-the-board cuts and savings. There are calls to balance the budget in 10 years and scale back on glutted entitlements.

“The bottom line is we can’t just keep raising the debt ceiling year after year and just whistling past the graveyard on this,” Harris warned. “[O]ur debt exceeds our entire output of our economy. We are beyond the point where Greece was about 10 years ago when they essentially went bankrupt, so it’s completely unreasonable for the president to not want to negotiate some spending control.”

He compared it to a teenager maxing out his credit cards and telling his parents, “Look, just raise my limit. Don’t talk to me about controlling my spending.” “It’s crazy,” Harris shook his head. “We will discuss it, and the president will have to negotiate … because the debt ceiling is not going to be increased by the House without some spending control.”

At the end of the day, the new majority may not be able to take the credit cards away, but they can put a serious dent in Congress’s allowance. True leadership means “the bucks stop here.” It’s time for Republicans to take charge — and not the plastic kind!

AUTHOR

Tony Perkins

Tony Perkins is president of Family Research Council and executive editor of The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLES:

There’s A Way Out Of The Federal Government’s Debt Pit

Here’s How The 118th Congress Will Be Different

EDITORS NOTE: This The Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

VIDEO: Billions of Dollars for Lost Wages During Pandemic Went to Improper Payments

January 22, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Economy, Politics, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By Open The Books

WASHINGTON, D.C. , The National Desk — Billions of taxpayer dollars for the COVID-19 Lost Wages Assistance program went to improper payments that the Federal Emergency Management Agency failed to control.

Open the Books founder Adam Andrzejewski joined The National Desk’s Jan Jeffcoat Friday morning to discuss the money.

“The president, by August of 2020, authorized FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, to provide extra unemployment payments to people who had real needs,” he said. “It was up to $44 billion worth of extra payments. And eventually, very quickly, within 11 days, about $37 billion was allocated from the Federal Emergency Management System into the state’s unemployment aid system to provide additional dollars … There was $3.7 billion basically stolen from the program on these improper payments.”

It’s yet another case of economic fallout from pandemic-related programs.

Andrzejewski says it comes down to a “lack of control” that led to so much cash getting into the hands of the wrong people.

“Through the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, they piggyback off the state unemployment aid programs. And those add a complete lack of accounting control and fraud,” he said. “This is the greatest public fraud in the history of the country that came out of our unemployment state programs … Congress had allocated $800 billion to the Unemployment Aid Program, again to serve people who had real needs. And now we know that up to half of it, $400 billion, was stolen by criminals, cons artists and crime syndicates around the world.”

Andrzejewski says it’s a prime issue for the new Republican majority in the House to investigate within their fraud committees.

Newsom Twosome: Siebel Newsom’s Films – Shown In Middle Schools – Feature Porn, Radical Gender Materials, And Her Husband Gavin

January 21, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Education, Elections, Politics, Science, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By Open The Books

California Governor Gavin Newsom and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, are the dream team. He runs the state and she’s a nonprofit founder, entrepreneur, and filmmaker.

While her husband attends to state business, Siebel Newsom engages in her passion: advancing “gender justice” through her charitable nonprofit The Representation Project. According to tax documents the organization is “committed to building a thriving and inclusive society through films, education, and social activism.”

We previously reported that while the governor engaged in the highly unethical practice of soliciting 1,000 state vendors for $10.6 million in campaign cash, the first partner, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, solicited state vendors and the governor’s campaign donors for large gifts to her charity, The Representation Project.

However, Newsom’s charity shouldn’t have been soliciting anyone for donations throughout most of 2022.

Last week, our investigation broke the story that The Representation Project was not in compliance with the California Charitable Solicitation Act. Now, it’s clear that the charity spent last year engaged in big-money fundraising events with corporate executives and philanthropists – while its charitable filings were delinquent with the state.

Then, the Newsom nonprofit scrambled to submit their proper registration. Working with the California Attorney General, a process that normally takes days or weeks was completed in hours.

So, just what does Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s charity do – with the full support of her husband, the governor, and underwritten by the wealthy California establishment?

THE FILMS

Siebel Newsom, through her non-profit The Representation Project, has released four films advocating gender justice. The films are leased for screenings to individuals, corporations, and schools, and come with their own lesson plans. Schools spend between $49-$599 to screen these movies to children.

Jennifer Siebel Newsom is credited as a writer and director on each of these films. Two of the movies feature Gavin Newsom himself, and many of the lesson plan activities are oriented toward engaging children in social and political activism.

Because of Gavin Newsom’s role in these films and because licenses are sold to schools which the governor is responsible for funding with tax dollars, auditors at OpenTheBooks.com felt the organization deserved further scrutiny.

Who’s Watching? 2.6 million students in 5,000 schools

According to The Representation Project’s Impact Report (2011-2021), the organization’s film curricula are being used in over 5,000 schools in all fifty states. The Representation Project claims over 11,200 copies of the curricula have been distributed, reaching more than 2.6 million students.

Tax records show that since 2012 the nonprofit has generated $1,483,001 in film screening revenue, although it is unclear how much money came from schools versus other sources. We asked The Representation Project for the number of California schools that purchased a screening license and received no response.

Auditors at OpenTheBooks.com watched Newsom’s movies and read the lesson plans. What we found was, at times, shocking: sexually explicit images, political boosterism, and something called “The Genderbread Person.”

SEXUALLY EXPLICIT IMAGES

Screenshot from “age-appropriate” middle school curriculum video for Miss Representation; see full video here.

Miss Representation’s curriculum links to “age-appropriate” video clips in its K-12 lesson plans and says that the full film is rated PG-14. (Certainly, parents may still object to clips from the “age-appropriate” film like the animated, upside down stripper shown above).

The film features strong language and women dressed provocatively:

Caroline Heldman, who is now executive director of Newsom’s non-profit, described women’s role in action movies as “the fighting fuck toy.”
Actress Daphne Zuniga, famous for Melrose Place and film parody Spaceballs, suggested women should “tell those fuckers to get penis implants,” in response to being told to get plastic surgery.
Middle school children are served images of upside-down strippers with little left to the imagination (see above).

Then, it gets worse.

Newsom’s film The Mask You Live In features the website addresses of porn sites including Porn Hub, MassiveCams, BDSM.XXX, and Brazzers.com. The pornographic images displayed in the film are tagged with descriptions such as “domination,” “face fuck,” “kinky couples,” and “…dirty brunettes.”

Newsom included images of naked or mostly naked women being slapped, handcuffed, and brutalized in pornographic videos. The pictures are graphic even when blurred. Screenshots of those scenes can be found HERE (VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED).

These jarring pictures are displayed with their corresponding porn website addresses – providing a roadmap for future exploration. The film seems to justify their harmful content by saying that “34% of youth online receive UNWANTED PORNOGRAPHIC EXPOSURE.”

However, 100% of the youth (or anyone else) receive unwanted or unwarranted pornographic exposure by watching Newsom’s movies.

In 2019, one parent filed a complaint about a screening of The Mask You Live In for his 12-year-old daughter’s class at Creekside Middle School in California. In an interview with The Sacramento Bee the father said,

“Some of the images when slowed down were not blurred, and even when they are blurred, it is obvious what is going on. It is absolutely profane and disgusting.”

An investigation found a substitute teacher accidentally screened the full version of the film rather than an “age-appropriate” version. However, The Representation Project recommends the full version for ages 15+.

Siebel Newsom’s idea is to protect children from highly exploitative and disturbing sexual media content seems to involve showing it to them personally.

BOOSTING GAVIN NEWSOM – THE COMPASSIONATE POLITICIAN

Screenshot of then-Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom in Siebel Newsom’s film, Miss Representation.

Gavin Newsom himself provides interview commentary for Miss Representation and The Great American Lie.

Newsom speaks three times in Miss Representation and is portrayed as a champion of women’s rights—see this example from the middle school curriculum video (18:37):

“One of the first things I did when I came to San Francisco (as mayor) is I appointed a female police chief and appointed a female fire chief.”

Getting paid by schools to portray your politician husband as a standup guy to captive children in the classroom was such a winning idea, Siebel Newsom deployed it again in The Great American Lie.

Here, Newsom makes five appearances to deliver political talking points, including:

At the end of the day a budget is a set of values, budget reflects your values.”

“This notion of interdependence—that we’re all in this together, that we all rise and fall together—is absolutely true.”

“We’re not bystanders in this world, we have the ability to step up and solve big problems, we have done that in the past, it’s just a question of prioritization, of political will.”

Siebel Newsom’s provided companion curriculum require student discussion of Gavin Newsom’s points and are told to vote, and help others vote, for politicians “who show empathy through their support care [sic] policies.”

IMAGE 1

IMAGE 2

Activity from The Great American Lie curriculum for high school and college students. Students are asked to watch and discuss a clip of Gavin Newsom.

Call to action from The Great American Lie curriculum for high school and college students. Students are told to vote and help others vote for candidates “who show empathy through their support care [sic] policies”

Overview: Jennifer Siebel Newsom makes a movie portraying Gavin Newsom as a politician that supports certain policies, and then in the movie’s curriculum advises students to vote and campaign for politicians that support those policies.

Schools, which receive funding from the state, pay The Representation Project to show this movie, and use taxpayer-funded class time to facilitate these lessons.

In July 2022 Gavin Newsom signed a budget of $128 billion for state schools and community colleges.

THE GENDERBREAD PERSON

ACTIVITY: WHAT IS GENDER

Source: Genderbread Person activities from The Mask You Live In curriculum for middle and high school students.

Multiple lesson plans from The Representation Project promote radical notions of gender and sexuality.

One such lesson for middle and high schoolers includes the “genderbread person,” who aims to show children how biological sex, “gender expression,” “sexual attraction,” and “gender identity” exist on a spectrum, which can be mixed and matched.

While kindergarteners are spared the genderbread person in their curriculum, they are offered similar lessons on “gender identity,” introducing genders other than “boy” and “girl.”

A. GENDER IDENTITY AND EXPRESSION.

Gender identity and expression activity from The Mask You Live In curriculum for elementary school students, grades K-5.

LEFT-WING POLITICAL ACTIVISM – THE “PRIVILEGE WALK”

Kids forced to watch The Representation Project films in schools aren’t just subjected to gender ideology, sexually explicit images, and Gavin Newsom’s one-liners. They’re being given a left-wing framework through which to see the world, and then prompted to conduct social and political activism.

In The Great American Lie curriculum, students are asked to do a “privilege walk,” divulging personal information in order to compare themselves to peers inside and outside the classroom. “Privileges” include being “a cisgendered man,” “white,” “born in the United States,” “straight,” and speaking English as a first language.

THE PRIVILEGE WALK ACTIVITY

Activity from The Great American Lie curriculum for high school and college students.

Speakers in The Great American Lie are clear about what “privilege” means—something you hurt other people with, something you should feel bad about, and something you should work to change.

Trump Says GOP Should Not Cut Social Security As Part Of Spending Deal

January 21, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Elections, Featured, Politics, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By The Daily Caller

Former President Donald Trump is urging congressional Republicans to keep entitlement reform off the table as part of debt ceiling negotiations.

“Under no circumstances should Republicans vote to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security to help pay for Joe Biden’s reckless spending spree, which is more reckless than anybody’s ever done or had in the history of our country,” Trump said Friday in a video posted to TRUTH Social. “We absolutely need to stop Biden’s out-of-control spending. The pain should be borne by Washington bureaucrats, not by hard-working American families and American seniors.”

Republicans are threatening to oppose raising the debt ceiling if the increase is not accompanied by spending cuts. As part of Kevin McCarthy’s speakership negotiations, Republicans agreed to freeze the Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 budget at FY 2022 levels. While defense hawks like Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Michael McCaul of Texas are pledging to leave defense spending untouched, others, such as Texas Rep. Chip Roy, are pledging not to “touch” Medicare or Social Security.

“Cut the hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars going to corrupt foreign countries. Cut the mass releases of illegal aliens that are depleting our social safety net and destroying our country. Cut the left-wing gender programs from our military. Cut the billions being spent on climate extremism. Cut waste, fraud and abuse everywhere we can find it. And there’s plenty of it. But do not cut the benefits our seniors worked for and paid for their entire lives. Save Social Security, don’t destroy it,” Trump continued.

Social Security’s Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund is projected to become insolvent in 2033 if the program continues to pay benefits under current law, according to the Congressional Budget Office, meaning retirees will not receive full benefits. Some Republicans have acknowledged the program must be reformed in order to keep it solvent. Pennsylvania Rep. Lloyd Smucker floated means testing the universal program.

“We should ensure that we keep the promises that were made to the people who really need it, the people who are relying on it,” he told Bloomberg. “So some sort of means-testing potentially would help to ensure that we can do that.”

Social Security and Medicare combined make up more than 30% of the federal budget, and the number is set to increase as Baby Boomers continue to retire.

The U.S. Treasury on Thursday began taking extraordinary measures to avoid defaulting on the federal debt. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has estimated the government will go over the fiscal cliff at some point in June or July.

AUTHOR

MICHAEL GINSBERG

Congressional correspondent.

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The Smoke Grinder Government: How Gridlock Can Be Good

January 20, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Economy, Elections, Politics, Regulation, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By Family Research Council

Back in the ’80s, I used to watch a quirky PBS show with my dad on woodworking called “The Woodwright’s Shop.” In one episode, host Roy Underhill introduced an old wooden folk toy called a “smoke grinder,” or “do-nothing-machine.” It consisted of a block of wood with dovetails cut into the top, with a handle attached that would spin along the grooves in an elliptical pattern. Just for fun, my dad built one, and it did exactly what its name implied: nothing.

Like the wooden toy before it, the 118th Congress all but threatens to be a smoke grinder government. The 2022 midterm elections missed the anticipated “red wave,” but, the GOP did gain control of the House of Representatives, ending two years of Democrat control of all three branches of government. And with control of the people’s house, comes the return of a term all-too-familiar to the nation’s capital: gridlock. Any controversial legislation passed by a Republican-majority House likely won’t make it past the Senate’s Democratic majority, much less have any chances of being signed by a Democrat president. Likewise, any controversial Democrat-led legislation will go nowhere. Forget being off to the races, major change in Washington won’t leave the treadmill for the next two years.

But what if this was a good thing? Don’t get me wrong, dysfunction — especially in the essential functions of government — is rarely helpful. But what if instead of dysfunction, the gridlock imposed by a two-party system was a function for good? As the conservative magazine National Review launched, its founder, William F. Buckley, Jr. famously wrote that its mission was to, “stand athwart history, yelling Stop.” Indeed, it is good to bring traffic to a halt when the bridge up ahead is out. Motion doesn’t necessarily drive morality. And for governments, there are quite often times when their inaction serves their people better than action. At the very least, an inactive government can be far less expensive to the people who fund it.

But bringing government to a halt is not the only thing that happens in a gridlock situation. The Republican majority in the House of Representatives has wasted no time introducing legislation that is doomed to fail. For example, the House just passed the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Act, which requires legal protection for babies born alive during an abortion, by a vote of 220-210. The bill will go nowhere in a Democrat majority Senate. And even if somehow it miraculously broke through a Senate filibuster and made it to the desk of the pro-abortion President Biden, there’s little mystery as to what he would do with it. All this raises the question, why bother?

For starters, 210 elected representatives of the people are now publicly on record as voting against providing life-saving protection to newborns. The significance of this one vote cannot be understated. It underscores for the nation just how polarized America is on this issue. What once may have masqueraded as middle ground has given way to a giant sink hole. The curtain on an issue once framed by abortion supporters in terms of a woman’s “choice” has been pulled back to reveal its ugly fruits, and those fruits are oozing with the fermented rot of evil.

In his letter to the Ephesian church, Paul wrote, “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them” (Ephesians 5:11). This is a must for Christ’s church, and it wouldn’t hurt for Congress to follow this directive as well. The right thing to do isn’t the right thing because it’s effective. The right thing to do is the right thing because it is right. Daniel’s service in Babylon didn’t revolutionize pagan Babylonian society, but it did preserve a legacy of doing the right thing in the eyes of the Lord.

After all is said and done in the 118th “smoke grinder” Congress, we may not get the fruit we desire. Much of the fruit may be ugly, stunted, and underdeveloped. But we can help the fruit that we end up with to grow in the long run. If wrongs can be thwarted, let them be thwarted. And if right can be attempted, let it be attempted. And if darkness can be exposed, let it be exposed and allow that exposure to someday break the smoke grinder and deliver the unity we need.

AUTHOR

Jared Bridges

Jared Bridges is editor-in-chief of The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This The Washington Stand column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved. The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Migrant Encounters At The Southern Border Hit New All-Time Record

January 17, 2023/in Courts & Law, DrRichSwier.com, Elections, Immigration, National Security, Politics, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By The Daily Caller

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) migrant encounters at the southern border surpassed 250,000 for the month of December, the highest ever recorded, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) source, who requested anonymity as they weren’t authorized to speak publicly, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The new total surpasses May 2022’s more than 241,000 migrant encounters, which was the highest DHS ever recorded before December 2022. The total encounters include Border Patrol and Office of Field Operations encounters of migrants both at and between U.S. ports of entry.

Fox News first reported the new record.

In December, Republican states and the Biden administration fought over whether or not to scrap Title 42, the Trump-era public health order used to quickly expel illegal migrants to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Illegal immigration surged during that time period in places like El Paso, Texas, where hundreds of migrants crossed into the area in a matter of days in anticipation of Title 42 expiring on Dec. 21 due to a previous court ruling that the Supreme Court quickly paused.

The influx in El Paso drew the attention of President Joe Biden, who visited the area Jan. 8 in his first border visit.

Biden’s tenure in office has been marked by years of record migrant encounters. In fiscal year 2022, CBP encountered another record of more than 2.3 million at the southern border.

Biden announced Jan. 5 new efforts to expel illegal migrants from Cuba, Haiti and Nicaragua to Mexico. The plan also means that migrants from those countries who don’t cross illegally will have the opportunity to apply for asylum at U.S. ports of entry if they have a U.S. sponsor.

CBP didn’t respond to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

JENNIE TAER

Investigative reporter.

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

Carter introduces Fair Tax Act

January 16, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Economy, Elections, Politics, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By Dr. Rich Swier

Rep. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter (R-GA) today introduced H.R. 25, the Fair Tax Act, to replace the current tax code with a national consumption tax known as the Fair Tax.

“Cosponsoring this Georgia-made legislation was my first act as a Member of Congress and is, fittingly, the first bill I am introducing in the 118th Congress,” said Rep. Buddy Carter.

“Instead of adding 87,000 new agents to weaponize the IRS against small business owners and middle America, this bill will eliminate the need for the department entirely by simplifying the tax code with provisions that work for the American people and encourage growth and innovation. Armed, unelected bureaucrats should not have more power over your paycheck than you do.”

Joining Rep. Carter as original cosponsors are Reps. Andrew Clyde (R-GA), Jeff Duncan (R-SC), Kat Cammack (R-FL), Scott Perry (R-PA), Bob Good (R-VA), Thomas Massie (R-KY), Ralph Norman (R-SC), Bill Posey (R-FL), Gary Palmer (R-AL), Jim Banks (R-IN), and Barry Loudermilk (R-GA).

Congress’s 4,155-Page Omnibus Bill Is a Symbol of American Decadence

January 15, 2023/in DrRichSwier.com, Economy, Elections, Politics, Taxes /by DrRichSwier.com

By Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)

An eight-ream bill is no sign of legislative nobility.

On December 20th a handful of Republican senators shuffled before an audience of reporters prepared to issue fiery polemics on the year-end omnibus bill which sat, heavy and ponderous in all its eight-ream absurdity on a wheeled cart before the five-senator assemblage.

“DANGER: $1.7 trillion of hazardous debt” read one of the mock-hazard signs decking the cart. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul declared the bill an “abomination,” while Utah Senator Mike Lee skewered the unseemly pressures to freeze it into law by proclaiming the process “legislative barbarism.”

Every year it happens with textbook repetition: Washington politicians procrastinate in releasing a colossal expense prospectus for the following year which unfailingly runs thousands of pages, requests billions of dollars, and is granted mere hours of scrutiny before being thrust to a congressional vote. The process is riddled with partisan intimidations and shrewd slandering. Democratic politicians trot out folksy pleas about supporting struggling Americans, to which, naturally, passing the bill is postured to achieve. Most Republicans cave to its smothering inevitability; a minority bitterly protest.

The omnibus bill earns its name from its practice of absorbing a collection of smaller bills into one vote. You might be tempted to call this government efficiency, but think again. In reality, it’s the gateway of legislative sloppiness and profligacy. And you might be tempted to believe Washington’s Christmas tradition is paternal benevolence for the common man but this too is a smokescreen. If our political overlords actually cared for our future in the manner of responsible stewards they would not bankrupt the nation. They would not smuggle dozens of silly congressional pet projects into our legislative initiatives. They would not make a mockery of the political process by demanding decisions on bills scarcely proffered hours of review. They would not egregiously spend money we did not have. They would not thoughtlessly shovel funds to any hungry bureaucratic mouth in the country. They would not insult American taxpayers by destroying our currency, snowballing our debt, and wrapping it all in a veneer of charity and Progress. Grim and apocalyptic though this indictment may be, it is nevertheless the bitter truth.

Desensitization

As Americans, we have become numb to the money-gobbling maneuvers of the bureaucratic machine. We hardly flinch at billion-dollar price tags, not because we do not cognitively register such a number as large but because we feel detached from its significance. We do not feel connected to its consequences. We don’t even feel particularly sure about what the spending figures should be, so bewildered by the dizzying complexity of contemporary American politics are we. We put our fingers to the glass and watch but we cannot seem to stretch our fingers out and really touch the harrowing reality of a $1.7 trillion bill or a $31 trillion in national debt. Such numbers fail to disquiet our consciences. Why?

Here are a few potential reasons.

Nobody talks about fiscal conservatism anymore. Republicans love to rhapsodize about this fixture of their intellectual tradition but few are those who actually extend this principle from token rhetoric to the necessary scolding and refashioning efforts of current regimes. No matter whether they claim democratic or republican status, administrations do a sordid job of expenditure restraint. This equivalence between the parties is sobering indeed, indicating that the majority of republicans do not know how to defend small-government and balanced budgets with any authentic confidence. You might hear “fiscal conservatism” sprinkled throughout the campaign trail for its old-fashioned appeal and knack for attracting votes, but it is no longer practiced by those in Washington. Longtime champion of fiscal restraint Sen. Rand Paul has made entreaties for years that are drowned out by the opportunism and apathy swarming the Capitol.
Nobody is sure why fiscal conservatism even matters: Government money has been lamentably scrubbed of morality. It bears no qualms about tempering its quantity or maintaining its quality due to an ethical contract with the people. Money has no scruples attached to it anymore. The modern conscience conceives of it as a hollow instrument; a neutral tool to get from A to B. But what is money really made of? Where does it get its value? In what ways can it be a wonderful thing and in what ways can it equally be a dangerous thing? Few care to mull these questions.
Nobody quite feels the consequences of reckless spending yet: Because we raise debt ceilings with impunity and have thrown that old burden of balancing budgets out the window, we stay disconnected from the ramifications of fiscal hedonism. It is hard enough for politicians to make difficult choices that affect life beyond their term limits, because where’s the motivation in that? And so, money becomes this distant, untouchable relic that no one wants to poke at.

And so, not only have we lost a certain emotional reaction to government spending (i.e. an instinctual discernment of when it hits a threshold of moral questionability) but we have also lost an intellectual grasp of it (i.e. an understanding of why extravagance cannot persist in perpetuity.) All of this adds up to a mass desensitization that leaves us dangerously acclimated to an environment that pretends money is a plaything and not actually the beating heart a civilization.

Here are some of the ways in which this unlucky acclimatization has occurred:

Money added is rarely scaled back: In government, addition is the path of least resistance. Subtraction has poor incentives, can be politically painful, and sounds mean and parsimonious to us Americans who see government as our rightful purse strings and sympathetic caretaker.
Added bureaucracy is rarely reviewed or pruned: More money inevitably feeds more bureaucratic cubicles. Bureaucracy is a curious animal: one that has a considerable appetite for more money and workers and administrative projects, but one that also has a deadening effect and leaves decay in its wake. In this way, bureaucracy has always bizarrely appeared to me as a life/death personification. If one thing is for sure, it will seek to justify its existence and once breathed form by taxpayer dollars, will lunge for more funds to legitimize its continuance.
Law becomes more complex and disorienting: As sentences rain from keyboards and paper churns from the printer and more thousand-page legal monstrosities are produced, we end up building on a (new-ish) toxic American tradition of unintelligible, byzantine law. The less lucid and graspable the law is to the public, the less accountable government becomes—and the more fuzzy the political vision of the masses grows. After all, do we even know what laws were passed in the year-end omnibus bill? More worryingly still, do our politicians even know? Is this state of affairs normal? Would we call it a natural progression? I would warn against this particular temptation: the temptation to believe that increasing complexity is a sign of sophisticated progress, of governmental fine-tuning. It is not. It tangles with its serpentine requests and chokes with its punishing demands. And it throws a veneer of precision and compassion (owing to its seeming charity) over it all. As a general rule of thumb, when edicts becomes more profuse and complex and fail to remain concise and coherent to the public, they are unequivocally not serving the masses. (They are probably serving the elites.)

Post-Empire Flavor

What does one see when they gaze upon a 4,155-page bill? A symbol of American decadence. A pile of legal jargon so exhaustive its efforts look undeniably frantic. This utter excess inspires notions of blind mania. What are we doing and why? Is there any principle behind governmental motion? Are there any scraps of real thought or prudence? Or is the impetus merely zombie-like bureaucratic appetite? No matter how comprehensive and caring we would like our present government to appear, the rot cannot be fully concealed. An eight-ream bill is no sign of legislative nobility. It is an insult to the common people. It makes for a ridiculous picture of thoughtless excess. It just looks stupid at first glance. This intuitive, gut-level reaction is important. It’s the embarrassing truth of our attempts at managerial sophistry laid bare. It’s worth mentioning that empire decline is marked by an apathetic watering-down of principle, by money deterioration, and by administrative overextension. Check, check, check.

Size Matters

The larger government grows, the more money it absorbs; sure. But the less functional it becomes too. It ossifies, and its vibrant principles start to decay under the dead weight.

Once a certain threshold in size is reached (and who’s to say exactly where that is) organization lapses into oppression. Vibrancy lapses into atrophy. And decent functionality lapses into chaotic disarray. The lesson?

Overreach and you snuff out life. Congress’ proud 4,155-page creation is a post-empire emblem if there ever was one. Do not be fooled by the legislation’s size: it represents a floundering American system, not a vibrant one.

AUTHOR

Lauren Reiff

Lauren is a writer of economics, psychology, and lots in between. To read more of her work, follow her on Medium.

Now for some Questions and my Answers:

THE FILMS

BOOSTING GAVIN NEWSOM – THE COMPASSIONATE POLITICIAN

Desensitization

Post-Empire Flavor

Size Matters

STAY INFORMED