“We must reject the idea that every time a law is broken, society is guilty, rather than the law breaker.” – President Ronald Reagan
“If we as a nation were capable of legislating evil out of the hearts and minds of criminals who commit these heinous acts, we would have done it a long time ago.” – Wayne LaPierre
Biden’s Inflation Hurting American Families Daily: Biden’s policies continue to cause pain to EVERY American daily. At the gas pump, grocery store, and online, Biden and the Democrats in Congress refuse to address the inflation tax hitting every American daily.
Policies matter. Spending matters. Who wins or loses elections matters.
Uvalde Massacre: Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families in Uvalde. I can’t even imagine the pain, sadness, and frustration their families and community feel at this moment.
There will be much to learn from this tragedy and hopefully we, as a society must address the root causes of such senseless horror.
Democrats/Liberals Politicize Uvalde Tragedy: Virtually instantaneously, the Democrats and liberal press politicized this crisis for their selfish political gain versus dealing with the situation.
Whether it was the obnoxious, rude, inconsiderate political opportunist Beto or Democrats in Congress demanding more laws that would have NO impact and a situation like this, the left’s politicization of this shooting is disgusting.
We have a cultural problem, we have mental health problem, we have a family/parenting problem, we apparently have a law enforcement problem and an overall school process/security problem. All of which that need to be addressed.
As the facts emerge let us set aside political partisanship and address solutions that can really work to stop this kind of madness. The system failed us.
Read more below and follow me on Twitter – @sanuzis
–Saul Anuzis
60 Plus Weekly Video Rewind
The Biden Administration wants high gas prices to force you to go green, Stacey Abrams explains voter suppression, and Joe Manchin says no to ending the filibuster… again!
Links to the articles discussed in the video:
https://freebeacon.com/democrats/stacey-abrams-jim-crow-suppression/
Memorial Day
Memorial Day is a time for the country to reflect and remember—on the men and women who have sacrificed for our country, on the principles upon which the nation was founded and on the role we all have to play in protecting the freedoms of future generations. All of those principles were fittingly at the heart of the Ronald Reagan Memorial Day speech, which he delivered every year at a moving ceremony to both commemorate lives lost and celebrate victories won—all while connecting these ideas to center attention on the pressing current events of the time. Looking back on the messages and meanings behind these addresses is an important way for modern American culture to reconnect with the true mission of the holiday.
The 1982 Ronald Reagan Memorial Day speech was among his most poignant. Fittingly delivered at Arlington National Cemetery, with scores of veterans and active-duty military members in attendance, the ceremony marked the return of the Unknown Soldier from the Vietnam War, who was being buried that day. Instead of speaking in broad platitudes about military might or valor, Reagan zeroed in on the true personal cost of fighting for freedom—both for servicemembers and their families.
The president focused on the scourge of the Vietnam War, recognizing that the wounds of the conflict were still deep for many before him at the ceremony. He cited the unique circumstances that so many Vietnam vets faced, returning to a country where support for military members was sorely lacking. However, he struck a note of optimism that he sought to impart to his listeners: “We’ve learned that government owes the people an explanation and needs their support for its actions at home and abroad. And we have learned, and I pray this time for good, the most valuable lesson of all — the preciousness of human freedom.”
The impact of military service on families was a common throughout many of the Ronald Reagan Memorial Day speeches, especially his 1982 remarks. Reagan reflected on the deep losses so many Americans had suffered in the previous decades but sought to inspire those in attendance to funnel that loss into action—urging all present to redouble efforts to press for closure for the families of those missing in action: “Heal the sorest wound of this conflict,” the president said. “Return our sons to America. End the grief of those who are innocent and undeserving of any retribution.”
Reagan’s Memorial Day speech illustrates just why he was called the Great Communicator: He deeply understood his audience, connected with them and provided them with an actionable path forward — a model we should all look to this Memorial Day.
It’s not just spending — Biden’s record regulations are driving inflation too
The highest inflation in 40 years isn’t driven just by record federal spending, a record government-driven labor shortage and record restrictions on US energy production. President Joe Biden’s record regulation spree is also pushing prices higher. Stopping the bureaucratic assault on the economy is essential to taming inflation and giving families relief.
The role of regulations in the inflation crisis is largely overlooked but shouldn’t be. When Washington wraps the economy in red tape, businesses must spend massive sums on compliance.
That cash doesn’t materialize from thin air. Every dollar that goes toward hiring lawyers, filling out paperwork and redesigning products and assembly lines gets passed to consumers through higher prices. Mercatus Center research finds that a 15% increase in federal regulation hikes the cost of consumer goods by a full percentage point.
This puts the president’s regulation obsession in perspective. In its first year, Team Biden added more than 72,000 pages of regulations, executive orders and agency notices. That’s 25% more than the Trump administration added in its first year, according to my review of the Federal Register. Biden’s team also pushed through more major regulations in his first year than any president in modern US history — 69 such regulations compared with 22 under Donald Trump and 52 under Barack Obama.
Biden tax increases would harm jobs and wages, study shows
As President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats continue to push their massive tax and spending increase bill, a new study has found that the legislation would significantly harm the economy, jobs, and wages. Even a slimmed-down version of the bill would reduce economic growth.
The House passed the so-called Build Back Better bill last November in a narrow partisan vote. The bill calls for more than $2 trillion in tax increases on individuals and businesses, the largest peacetime tax increase in our history, and trillions of dollars more in increased spending.
So far, this reckless bill has been stalled in the Senate thanks to concerns raised by centrist Democratic Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. But Senate Democratic leaders are still trying to revive it.
They should read the study. The new study was commissioned by the American Action Forum and conducted by the Center for Public Finance at Rice University. It was authored by John Diamond, the center’s director and a former staff member on the Joint Committee on Taxation.
The study used estimating methods similar to those used by the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Congressional Budget Office.
Hillary Clinton Did It
Her 2016 campaign manager says she approved a plan to plant a false Russia claim with a reporter.
The Russia-Trump collusion narrative of 2016 and beyond was a dirty trick for the ages, and now we know it came from the top—candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton. That was the testimony Friday by 2016 Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook in federal court, and while this news is hardly a surprise, it’s still bracing to find her fingerprints on the political weapon.
Mr. Mook testified as a witness in special counsel John Durham’s trial of Michael Sussmann, the lawyer accused of lying to the FBI. In September 2016, Mr. Sussmann took claims of a secret Trump connection to Russia’s Alfa Bank to the FBI and said he wasn’t acting on behalf of any client. Prosecutors say he was working for the Clinton campaign.
Prosecutors presented evidence this week that Mr. Sussmann worked with cyber-researchers and opposition-research firm Fusion GPS to produce the claims on behalf of the Clinton campaign, and to feed them to the FBI. An FBI agent testified that a bureau analysis quickly rejected the claims as implausible. (Mr. Sussmann has pleaded not guilty.)
Prosecutors asked Mr. Mook about his role in funneling the Alfa Bank claims to the press. Mr. Mook admitted the campaign lacked expertise to vet the data, yet the decision was made by Mr. Mook, policy adviser Jake Sullivan (now President Biden’s national security adviser), communications director Jennifer Palmieri and campaign chairman John Podesta to give the Alfa Bank claims to a reporter. Mr. Mook said Mrs. Clinton was asked about the plan and approved it. A story on the Trump-Alfa Bank allegations then appeared in Slate, a left-leaning online publication.
Democrats weaponize government when they don’t get their way
Such is the mantra of today’s political left
The sight of protesters invading the private homes of Supreme Court justices should alarm Americans across the ideological spectrum. So should the Biden administration’s collective shrug of the shoulders, despite the mobs violating a federal law criminalizing attempts to “influence” federal officials on the outcome of a court case. Sadly, the tactics are not all that surprising, given the left’s pattern of weaponizing the federal government against their political opponents.
After all, who can forget last year’s mysterious leak to ProPublica disclosing the private financial information of some of the nation’s top earners? U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Sheldon Whitehouse seized on the opportunity by issuing a red-faced letter demanding an investigation into the “tax avoidance schemes” of the “nation’s wealthiest individuals.”
The duo was willing to look the other way on the incredible breach of decorum because it created a political opportunity to advance their divisive class warfare.
The episode was not an isolated incident at the Internal Revenue Service, either. During the Obama years, a previously obscure agent called Lois Lerner became a household name when she was forced to apologize for inappropriately singling out the applications of conservative groups for tax-exempt status.
Another favored tactic of the left is using official congressional committee hearings to attack their villains du jour. Last fall, U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna hauled the nation’s top energy company executives before the House Oversight Committee. In a nod to the eco left that drives and funds today’s Democratic Party, the purpose was a public flogging for the companies’ purported role spreading, “climate disinformation.”
Ironically, when Khanna repeated the charade six months later, his message had shifted. No longer was he browbeating the companies for destroying the environment – now they were guilty of producing too little oil and gas. The only thing that changed in the intervening six months was the politics. As the party in charge, Democrats were taking it on the chin for the record gas prices that hit new levels by the day. They desperately needed a villain to shift the blame and pass the buck. No better setting than grandstanding before the cameras using official congressional hearing.
Russia has incited genocide in Ukraine, independent experts conclude
Russia is responsible for inciting genocide and perpetrating atrocities that show an “intent to destroy” the Ukrainian people, a new legal analysis signed by more than 30 independent experts concluded.
The report, published Friday by the Washington-based New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy and the Montreal-based Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, also concludes that there is “serious risk of genocide in Ukraine,” and that states have a legal obligation to prevent genocide from occurring.
It cited denials from high-level Russian officials and state media commentators of the existence of a distinct Ukrainian identity, and dehumanizing claims that Ukrainians are Nazis and “are therefore deserving of punishment.” The report also points to Russian authorities’ rewarding soldiers suspected of mass killings in Ukraine, among other evidence.
“The purveyors of incitement propaganda are all highly influential political, religious and State-run media figures, including President Putin,” the report says. “There is mounting evidence that Russian soldiers have internalized and are responding to the State propaganda campaign by echoing its content while committing atrocities.”
Genocide, often seen as the ultimate crime, has a precise legal definition: “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”
Biden has already opened the border
“It is very important to note that while of course we are preparing for the end of Title 42,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said recently, “that does not mean the border is open beginning May 23.”
Mayorkas, who was speaking at a press conference in McAllen, Texas , was only half right. May 23 is not some magical date when the southern border will suddenly flip from “closed” to “open.” Rather, President Joe Biden has been steadily rolling back the use of Title 42 since the day he was sworn into office. The planned end of Title 42 is just a further extension of what has already been a functionally open border for some time.
Just look at the latest “status report” filed by DHS under federal court order as part of litigation with Texas over Biden’s decision to end the Remain in Mexico policy. According to DHS data filed with the court, the use of Title 42 to expel migrants fell from 109,549 in March to 96,908 in April, despite an increase in the overall number of migrants from 221,303 to 234,088 . Meanwhile, the use of Title 8 to process migrants rose from 111,754 in March to 137,180 in April. In other words, DHS has been phasing out the use of Title 42 in favor of Title 8, which was Mayorkas’s plan all along.
“We are now using Title 8 in a number of different contexts,” Mayorkas said at his McAllen press conference on May 17. “What we’ll be doing is expanding that use when Title 42 is no longer something we will be able to use.”
So, what will border enforcement look like when Title 42 is completely phased out? Here are the numbers from April: Of the 137,180 migrants arrested and processed through Title 8, just 16,340 were denied entry into the United States. The rest were either immediately released into the U.S., free to go wherever they want (117,989), or detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be released at a later date.
That means just 12% of migrants arrested for illegally crossing the southern border were returned across the border. So no wonder more illegal migrants are coming.
Biden’s failed immigration policies turned every state into a border state
House Republicans have a 3-step plan to reverse the Democrats’ self-made border crisis
In April 2022, U.S. Customs and Border Protection apprehended 234,088 migrants at the southern border. This is the highest number of monthly apprehensions in CBP’s history, and a 1,268 percent increase compared to April 2020.
What has changed over the last two years? In 2020, we had a president who worked to secure our border and shield American citizens from drug traffickers trying to smuggle illicit substances into our country. Now, we have a president who has welcomed illegal immigrants into our country with open arms. Due to President Joe Biden’s open-door immigration policies, every state in America is now a border state. Through his failed border policies, President Biden has surrendered operational control of America’s southern border to drug cartels.
In his first 100 days in office, President Biden issued more than 90 executive actions on immigration, including stopping the construction of President Trump’s border wall, which cost taxpayers $72 million, and ending the Trump administration’s successful “Remain in Mexico” policy, which required migrants seeking asylum to wait in Mexico until their court date in the United States. Because of President Biden’s efforts to dismantle America’s border and immigration enforcement system, drug-overdose deaths reached a new record last year.
The Wall Street Journal reports that over 100,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2021. Provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveals that roughly two-thirds of these deaths came from synthetic opioids like fentanyl. To date, CBP has seized over 5,000 pounds of fentanyl in Fiscal Year 2022. This is enough to kill 2.4 billion people – nearly one-third of the Earth’s entire population. Fentanyl can be 50 times stronger than heroin, and it is easier for drug cartels to manufacture because it can be made from common chemicals.
MSNBC Claims Homeschooling Is Driven By “Insidious Racism,” But the Facts Show Otherwise
Homeschooling encompasses a demographically, geographically, and ideologically diverse group of families who share a common goal of wanting to take a more active role in their children’s education.
On Friday, MSNBC shared a tweet claiming that homeschooling is being driven by “the insidious racism of the American religious right.” While Anthea Butler, the opinion columnist who wrote the article referenced by the tweet, never used that specific phrase, her piece implies that homeschooling is a strategy used by white, evangelical parents to destroy public schooling and uphold racial segregation.
The facts, including those which Butler acknowledges in her article, simply do not reflect her theory.
Butler, a professor of religious and Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania, asserts that homeschooling originated out of the work of Christian fundamentalist Rousas Rushdoony in the 1960s, but she neglects to mention that the rise of the modern homeschooling movement was broad and bipartisan, capturing both the political left and right who were equally dissatisfied with public schooling and other American institutions at the time.
As education professor and author of Homeschool: An American History, Milton Gaither, writes:
“Given this pan-ideological commitment to local, authentic, private life and contempt for establishment liberalism, it is not surprising that members of both the countercultural right and the countercultural left reacted, for different reasons, against the twentieth-century expansion of public education into a near-universal experience.”
President Clinton’s Political Director Doug Sosnik memo released by POLITICO…is it over for the Democrats?
As POLITICO Playbook reports: IS IT ALREADY OVER FOR BIDEN AND THE DEMS? — A president’s first midterm election is both an enormous story and completely anticlimactic. It’s major news because there will likely be a dramatic shift away from the president’s party. It’s anticlimactic because it’s one of the most predictable events in American politics.
Can anything change the predicted trajectory for Democrats? Some theories have come and gone. President JOE BIDEN’s leadership rallying Europe against Russia’s aggression in Ukraine has had no effect on his approval. The news that the Supreme Court is on the cusp of overturning Roe v. Wade has not yet helped him either.
Democrats are still clinging to a few potential developments that they hope could turn things around: (1) an actual decision from the Supreme Court that makes the reality of state abortion bans more acutely felt; (2) passage of a new version of Build Back Better; (3) the upcoming Jan. 6 committee hearings that highlight the issue of Trump and the GOP’s efforts to overtun the 2020 elections; and, at least on the Senate side, (4) the emergence of unelectable Republican nominees in key states.
But history is not on Biden’s side. In fact, voters may have already made up their minds.
We need gun rights because men aren’t angels
Being an advocate for individual rights and civil liberties can be difficult. When terrorists attack, when the economy fails, when a pandemic strikes, and yes, when evil visits schools , the natural instinct is to demand security above all else.
So, after each tragedy, I easily understand the reaction that soon fills my social media feeds: “We have to do something. There should be laws restricting guns so they don’t get in the hands of these deranged murderers.”
The logical impulse for those of us who defend private gun ownership is to avoid such discussions altogether, to let the passions settle. But on the contrary, it’s more important than ever to present our position with clear-eyed resolve.
Even against the backdrop of each latest tragedy, I still support the fundamental right to armed self-defense. Especially in an imperfect world where madness abounds, I oppose policies that would restrict legal gun ownership by law-abiding citizens.
I say this despite having grown up in Canada and never owned a gun. I’ve shot handguns and rifles about a dozen times at friends’ invitations but have never gone hunting. For about a decade before moving to the Virginia suburbs, I lived in Washington, D.C., where, despite the Supreme Court’s 2008 ruling in Heller, it’s still hard to obtain a firearm and near impossible to carry one legally. So I hope you can accept that I’m not a “gun nut.”
But you don’t have to be crazy about guns to recognize that no law could make the 400 million firearms in America disappear. Even making it illegal to own a gun wouldn’t prevent a criminal or madman from carrying out the malevolent deed to which he has committed himself. Robust policies to prevent legal gun ownership only translate to guns being overwhelmingly possessed by those willing to break the law — that is, criminals.
Dana Loesch: 5 Things the ‘Gun Lobby’ DIDN’T Do; 3 Things ‘Not a Single Politician Is Asking’ About Texas Shooting
Instead of blaming the millions of law-abiding gun owners in the U.S., Democrats should be focusing on the actual root causes of mass shootings, author and Radio Host Dana Loesch said Tuesday after a horrific shooting at a Texas elementary school killed more than twenty people.
Tuesday evening, President Joe Biden blamed the “gun lobby,” the reflexive response of those who believe gun bans are the solution to mass shootings.
In a series of tweets following Biden’s claims, Loesch said that Democrats’ ire is misplaced, listing five things the “gun lobby” didn’t do to cause the Texas shooting:
“The ‘gun lobby’ didn’t head his household,
“The ‘gun lobby’ didn’t neglect to monitor his behavior,
“The ‘gun lobby’ didn’t neglect to secure the school,
“The ‘gun lobby’ didn’t leave any doors unlocked, and
“The ‘gun lobby’ didn’t tell him to murder anyone.”
Instead of blaming legal gun owners, Democrats should be looking at the influences that shaped the individual who was personally responsible for the shooting, Loesch tweeted:
“If you’re going to insanely blame someone for the actions of an 18 year-old criminal who lived at home and dropped out of school, START IN THE HOME and not the millions of law abiding people who carry every single day without issue.”
Crushing scientific dissenters, as Fauci urges, would kill medical progress
Beware of totalitarian control of scientific and medical thought here in America. Prominent academic publications, medical organizations and even some state legislatures are trying to silence scientific disagreements about COVID-19. That will kill medical progress.
On Friday, Anthony Fauci, the face of the federal government’s COVID response, urged graduates at Roger Williams College in Rhode Island to stand up against disinformation and “the normalization of untruths” about COVID-19. Let’s hope graduates were too busy tossing their mortarboards skyward to heed Fauci’s dangerous advice.
Dangerous because there is no such thing as scientific certainty about COVID-19 or any other disease. Challenging scientific consensus is not “disinformation.” It’s how scientific breakthroughs, including medical ones, happen.
Today’s unorthodox treatment might become tomorrow’s lifesaving standard of care. Crushing scientific dissenters is a sure way to halt medical progress in its tracks.
ESG’s power grows as banker is canceled for talking sense on climate change
Last Thursday, something extraordinary happened: A senior HSBC banker, Stuart Kirk, told the world that climate change, though real, is not something financial markets need worry about. “Unsubstantiated, shrill, apocalyptic warnings are ALWAYS wrong,” one of Kirk’s presentation slides read.
The reaction was instantaneous. Christiana Figueres, former head of the United Nations climate secretariat, denounced Kirk’s remarks as “abhorrently outrageous,” words that might well describe Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine — but a banker’s presentation analyzing climate financial risk for what it is?
Four hundred years ago, people were burnt at the stake for believing the wrong things about religion. Today, they get fired for questioning the climate-change catechism.
Figueres demanded HSBC immediately cleanse itself of Kirk’s remarks and fire the climate heretic. “I do not agree — at all — with the remarks made at last week’s FT Moral Money Summit,” bank chief executive Noel Quinn duly declared, avoiding any mention of Kirk by name. “I am determined that our team won’t be distracted by last week’s comments.” On Monday, it emerged HSBC had suspended Kirk.
