Political Witch Hunt: Weaponization of the legal system is a travesty.
The indictment of a former President of the United States on a campaign finance issue is an outrage. This is nothing more than a political prosecution that’s driven by a progressive liberal activist prosecutor who literally ran for office on a pledge to indict the former president.
Most Americans, especially New Yorkers, wish he would have spent as much time, resources, and money prosecuting violent crimes in New York City versus on a political agenda.
Remember John Edwards and Bill Clinton…
Read Democrats vs Parents: This is an important issue affecting our children and grandchildren. This isn’t some crazy right-wing conspiracy, rather it’s the far left going too far…again.
As quoted from the article: “Democrats…are the party that wants to treat normal parental oversight and curiosity as a conspiracy against the state, as presumptively seditious, and as dangerous for children. It is the most noxious Marxist conviction that the American Left cannot shake: that normal family life itself ideologically deforms children, and that only the strong checking and supervisory role of the state can save them from the baleful influence of Mommy and Daddy.”
Read more below and follow me on Twitter & GETTR – @sanuzis
–Saul Anuzis
Click Here for Past Commentary from Saul
60 Plus Weekly Video Rewind
This Week: mRNA is the new frontier of medicine, Rep Gary Palmer adds amendment to energy bill preventing Democrats from banning gas stoves, and the Senate votes to end Iraq War use of force authorization.
Links to the articles discussed in the video:
https://nypost.com/2023/03/25/how-mrna-vaccines-could-soon-target-cancer-the-plague/
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/democrats-republicans-gas-stove-ban
https://www.axios.com/2023/03/29/senate-repeal-iraq-aumf
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A RUBICON IS CROSSED
So the Democrats decided to indict Donald Trump after all. (I assume that Alvin Bragg would not have proceeded without a green light from higher-ups in the party.) Here, as in so many other areas, we are in uncharted waters. The Democrats have launched a sort of blitzkrieg against our traditions, our Constitution, our culture (at least, our culture as it was), and every form of restraint that makes civil society possible. They have unleashed a wind, and seem serenely confident that they will never face a whirlwind. I don’t know, maybe they are right. I do know that after today, our country will never be the same again.
In the short term, the indictment will help Donald Trump politically. Perhaps that was the Democrats’ intention. But I don’t think any of us can foresee how it will play out. Legally speaking, the indictment is a joke. No doubt Trump will try to have it dismissed, but I don’t know enough about criminal procedure in New York to have any idea how long that will take, or what his prospects of success are. Bear in mind that any motion to dismiss will most likely be heard by a Trump-hating Democratic judge. If the case makes it to trial, it will go before a New York jury that probably will consist entirely of Democrats and–once again–Trump haters. There is no way a conviction can be ruled out. Appeals would follow, likely taking a year or more…
…But I do know that today is an evil day in America’s history. The Democrats are behaving like a party from a pre-Enlightenment, pre-constitutional era. Seeing themselves in the driver’s seat, they are making a naked grab for totalitarian power across a broad range of issues and institutions. Indicting a former president on frivolous grounds is shocking, but it is of a piece with the strategies Democrats are following in Washington and across the country.
If ‘No One Is Above The Law,’ Democrats And Their Partisan Pawns Would Be Arraigned, Not Trump
If Democrats truly valued rule of law, they would pursue cases against many more people before even considering indicting Trump.
America’s two-tiered justice system status was solidified on Thursday after a Manhattan grand jury voted to hit former President Donald Trump with a felony indictment and the threat of imprisonment.
Cue the chorus of Democrats and corporate media mouthpieces who spent all of Thursday night on Twitter condescendingly warning: “no one is above the law, not even the former president.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the anti-Trump Adams, former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Rep. Adam Schiff, and even Trump’s ex-attorney Michael Cohen say Trump- or anyone else- doesn’t just get a free pass because he’s a 2024 presidential candidate. Yet, it doesn’t take an expert to know that the sole reason Trump ever faced indictment is because his political enemies requested it.
In addition to suggesting that Trump is not “above the law,” former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi claimed that the former president has the opportunity to “prove innocence” in court. Of course, the law, smugly touted by Pelosi, dictates that defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty- not the other way around.
Whether Pelosi’s “innocence” comment was a Freudian slip or a genuine assertion, we may never know. What we do know is that for years, Democrats have operated under the belief that their party members and their partisan allies are above the law.
Joe Biden wants you to think GOP is the biggest ‘threat’ to Social Security. He’s wrong.
President Joe Biden should learn a lesson in leadership from Emmanuel Macron, his counterpart across the pond.
The French president has followed through on campaign promises to address pension shortfalls by raising the retirement age to 64 from 62.
Guess what? A lot of people don’t like it, and the French have taken to the streets. Yet, Macron isn’t deterred by the potential political fallout. He knows it must be done.
“One cannot play with the future of the country,” Macron said recently to government ministers.
Rather than talk straight with Americans about what must be done to ensure that U.S. entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare remain solvent, Biden prefers to play politics.
In the next 30 years, these programs face a $116 trillion shortfall, says Brian Riedl, senior fellow in budget, tax and economics at the Manhattan Institute. If reforms aren’t put in place now, we will hurdle toward a fiscal crisis that will spark significant tax increases (think European-style value-added taxes) for the middle class and high inflation and interest rates, among other ills.
6 people are dead and all Jokin’ Joe Biden can do is sow the rancor and division that got us here
Joe Biden really reached deep into his fabled store of empathy this week to crack jokes on two occasions when the topic was the Nashville Christian school shooting.
First on Monday, before an audience in the White House four hours after the tragedy, he rolled out his old gag of “I’m Dr. Jill Biden’s husband” along with a reference to chocolate chip ice cream.
Then he attempted to blame Republicans over gun control: “I call on Congress, again, to pass my assault weapons ban.”
The next day, asked by reporters if he agreed with a Republican senator that Christians were targeted in the attack on the Covenant School in Nashville, he made a nasty partisan gibe.
“Josh Hawley believes they were,” said a reporter.
“Well, then I probably don’t, then,” replied the president, with a mirthless chuckle before saying, “I’m joking.”
Three innocent 9-year-old children are dead, along with three school staffers who tried to protect them.
And all the president can do is sow more of the rancor and division that got us to this point.
Poll: Government spends too much overall, too little in specific areas
A majority of U.S. adults say federal spending is too high, but far fewer say the same when asked about specific priorities like education and Social Security
Retiree Peter Daniluk acknowledged the tensions over the federal budget by saying the government might be “a little too” large, but “you’ve got to spend money in order to make things better.” The 78-year-old from Dryden, New York, voted for Biden and believes there should be more funding for the environment and military, while also preserving Social Security and Medicare.
“The rich don’t pay enough of the taxes — that’s the problem,” he said. “They know how to get out of paying their proper share.”
Inflation jumped as the U.S. economy recovered from the pandemic. GOP lawmakers have blamed Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package for rising prices as they’ve pushed for spending cuts, while the president says inflation reflects global factors involving supply chains and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Federal expenditures are expected to be equal in size to roughly 24% of all U.S. economic activity for the next several years, a figure that will likely grow as an aging population leads to more spending on Social Security and Medicare. Government spending accounted for just 20.5% of U.S. gross domestic product a decade ago, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget.
With His First Veto, Biden Puts Woke Capitalism Before American Workers And Retirees
The Biden administration forced a new ESG rule down Americans’ throats as a backlash against ESG investments grows.
President Joe Biden issued his first veto against a bipartisan bill that sought to protect millions of Americans’ retirement plans from woke investments. His action shows he prioritizes politics over Americans’ financial security.
Early this month, the U.S. House and Senate passed a bipartisan resolution to prevent fiduciaries of retirement plans from subordinating financial returns to woke causes. Biden chose to ignore all the concerns and warnings, including those from his own party. Instead, he used his first veto to preserve a so-called environmental, social, and governance, or ESG, rule that his administration adopted last year. His action confirms that despite his rhetoric of bipartisanship, he is an inflexible politician.
The Labor Department issued a new ESG rule last November, which “allows plan fiduciaries to consider climate change and other environmental, social, and governance factors when they select retirement investments and exercise shareholder rights, such as proxy voting.”
The ESG rule also reversed the Trump administration’s restriction on retirement plan investments in ESG companies or funds due to fear of subordinating “the interests of plans and their participants and beneficiaries to unrelated objectives.”
China’s atheist pledge pushed on parents is a Democratic Party dream
Government authorities in the eastern Chinese city of Wenzhou have ordered parents to sign an atheist pledge as a condition of keeping their kids in kindergarten.
This is where Democrats in America will soon go. Democrats’ gods are trees and rivers and government bureaucrats. They don’t want the real God interfering with their fake idols of climate change and communism and science and self.
Remember this?
“A rare moment of dissension at the Democratic National Convention,” NPR host Neal Conan recounted in 2012. “After a routine adoption of the party platform … critics pointed out that document omitted any mention of the word God and did not identify Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.”
Following the backlash, Democrats voted on an amendment to add back “God” and Jerusalem as Israel’s capital — and after a tumultuous three votes, the chairman, Antonio Villaraigosa, finally gave it to the “ays.” But it was a toss-up.
“When Villaraigosa announced ‘the ays have it,’” ABC News wrote in 2012, “loud boos erupted across the arena.”
Booing God.
It’s become the Democrats’ signature issue.
“[Data] shows that Democrats are significantly less religious by any objective measure of the term compared to their Republican counterparts,” Religion Unplugged wrote in a piece called “Why Democrats Are Less Religious Than Republicans” published in January.
Democrats vs. Parents
Last week, Republicans in Congress passed the Parents Bill of Rights, 213–208. Critics will dismiss it as a messaging bill, but the message it sends about Democrats’ priorities is unsettling in the extreme.
Consider: The bill requires schools in receipt of federal funding to publish their curricula and to provide parents with a list of books and materials accessible at the school library. It also contains provisions that require schools to notify parents of any planned elimination of gifted-and-talented programs, to alert parents to any violent activity that took place at school, to provide parents a forum to speak at school-board meetings, and to offer two in-person meetings between parents and teachers in each school year. It requires parental consent for any medical exams or mental-health and substance-use screenings. Crucially, it establishes for parents “the right to know if a school employee or contractor acts to . . . change a minor child’s gender markers, pronouns, or preferred name; or . . . allow a child to change the child’s sex-based accommodations, including locker rooms or bathrooms.”
As you can guess, each one of these provisions relates to the rash of controversies swirling around public schools in the news the past few years, including the introduction of critical race theory and sexually explicit material for young readers and the treacherous subterfuge of school districts’ making major psychological-health decisions for students while deliberately keeping parents in the dark.
‘He’s done a great job’: Youngkin praises would-be rivals
As he ponders a presidential run, the Virginia governor is doing something unusual in today’s GOP — getting all warm and fuzzy.
As Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin ponders a 2024 presidential campaign, he is not exactly sharpening his sword against potential GOP rivals.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis? “He’s done a great job,” Youngkin said in a recent interview here. “If you look at Florida, he’s done a great job.” Referencing his own efforts to bring economic development to Virginia, in which employers are sometimes making a choice between the two states, “He’s a tough competitor.”
As for former president Donald Trump, who will surely in due course have cutting words for Youngkin if the Virginian decides to compete for the Republican nomination, “I think there were many things that Donald Trump progressed on a policy standpoint that were extremely good,” Youngkin said, citing “things like manufacturing in America, and standing strong on the international stage, and bringing down taxes in order to fuel economic growth.”
Any criticism at all of those tumultuous Trump years? “Well, I think what you say and how you say it,” Youngkin offered delicately. “I think there is a chance to disagree with people without being disagreeable. I don’t call people names. [Avoiding insults] is just one of the things I believe is appropriate. We just have different styles.”
In an age of snarling politics, Youngkin is trying to decide if the 2024 field has room for a different style. While he draws a contrast with Trump, Youngkin shot to national prominence in GOP circles largely on the strength of his deft handling of Trump in his 2021 victory. He gained the former president’s support — and won handily in Trump-backing precincts—but effectively rebuffed Democratic efforts to tie him closely to the former president. Youngkin, a wealthy former private-equity executive and political novice, beat former Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who had been a well-known national Democrat for 25 years.
Now, as winter turns to spring, Youngkin is in the midst of a prolonged and even anguished decision-making process about whether the moment is right for a presidential run, according to people close to his deliberations, as well as Virginia and national operatives familiar with his decision-making.
Why a Glenn Youngkin Presidential Candidacy Makes Sense for the Republican Party
The Virginia governor offers two things Republicans need: A non-hostile alternative to Trump and a compelling centrist challenge to Biden.
People, please, implored the Republican governor of Virginia: Let us “set aside acrimony” and finger-pointing and all the “mental gymnastics of partisanship” that combine to make people so tired and cynical about “politics as usual.”
Before setting all that aside, however, Glenn Youngkin had some work to do: In the very same speech to the General Assembly in which he urged bipartisan comity, he blamed Democratic predecessors for “systematically lowered” standards for student achievement, “soft on crime” policies that led to rising murder rates, and outsourcing the state’s energy future to “radical bureaucrats in California.”
A politician who seems to speak from both sides of the mouth is hardly a rare phenomenon. More uncommon, however, is to find one who does so with cheerful ebullience. Youngkin does it without reading the cue cards — centrist-sounding appeals to bipartisanship in this paragraph, right-wing bongo drums in the next — so clumsily that a listener is in pain.
It’s a matter of taste, to be sure, but many people do not find Youngkin painful. His approval ratings among Virginians is at 58 percent, according to a recent Roanoke College poll. Those who recoil at his rhetorical contradictions and the evident calculation behind them are heavily concentrated here around the state capitol: Legislators who resent what they regard as his unseemly haste in pursuing national ambitions, or local reporters stiffed by a governor who doesn’t much care about their questions.
Who funds Antifa protests? We all do
Last week, the city of Philadelphia agreed to pay $9.25 million to 343 left-wing protesters who alleged they suffered “physical and emotional injuries” when police used tear gas and pepper spray to clear them off a major highway in downtown at a Black Lives Matter-style direct action in 2020.
Videos recorded at the time showed the mob shut down the highway while vandalizing public property.
As a journalist who reports on the militant far-left and its rioters, the question I’m asked most often is, “Who funds them?”
Some believe billionaire George Soros is responsible.
And they would be partially correct. Soros funds groups that form part of the support apparatus of left-wing militants — district attorneys, biased media and legal groups.
But his money doesn’t directly reach the pockets of militants on the street.
Who ends up paying far-left rioters like Antifa? Too often, taxpayers like you and me.
Through a developed network of radical leftist legal groups, like the National Lawyers Guild, lawfare against cities and police departments is the go-to method for payloads. At nearly every left-wing “direct action” or riot, you’ll see NLG “legal observers” move in and out with the mob to record police. This “evidence gathering” is propaganda made to portray the police in the worst possible light while specifically omitting any recordings of what their comrades do.
Americans made hopeless on economy by the left
The American Dream is at risk of death, thanks to decades of terrible economic policy and social engineering from the left.
A new Wall Street Journal-NORC survey tells the tale: 80% say the nation’s economy is poor or not so good; 47% see it getting even worse over the next year.
And 44% disagree that people like them and their families have a “good chance” of bettering their living standards, while 78% are “not confident” that their children’s lives will be better than their own — the highest level since NORC began the poll in 1990.
The proximate causes are clear. Ever since President Joe Biden took office, he and his allies have at every turn adopted policies designed to wreck the economic lives of average Americans and laughed off the consequences.
They dumped trillions into an economy already running hot and sent inflation to levels not seen since the ’80s.
It’s still sky-high, at “only” 6%, with little relief in sight. Especially as a banking crisis constrains the Federal Reserve in its tightening efforts.
And Biden’s medicine for that crisis is worse than the disease.
His administration is moving to save all depositors in failing banks, far above the $250,000 Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation-insured limit, again riding to the rescue of the super-rich on the backs of the less well-off.
Federal Interest Costs, 1790–2033
As federal spending continues to rise, accumulated federal debt will soon reach all‐time highs relative to the size of the economy. Federal debt held by the public will hit 107 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2028, surpassing the previous peak after World War II. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) often highlights the rising debt‐to‐GDP ratio as a warning for policymakers to change course and avert a debt crisis.
Another warning sign of a coming debt crisis is soaring interest costs. With interest rates rising, federal interest payments have doubled from 1.2 percent of GDP in 2015 to 2.4 percent in 2023. The government will pay $640 billion in net interest this year.
The chart shows federal interest costs entering uncharted territory in coming years, based on CBO projections. Interest costs will hit an all‐time high in 2030 of 3.3 percent of GDP, surpassing the previous peak in 1991. By 2033, interest costs will hit 3.6 percent of GDP, double the peak reached after World War II.
Medicare and Social Security Are Responsible for 95 Percent of U.S. Unfunded Obligations
The Financial Report of the United States Government (also known as the Financial Report) raises significant concerns about the country’s long‐term financial health with increasing deficits and debt levels. Over the next 75 years, U.S. taxpayers face nearly $80 trillion in long‐term unfunded obligations. What’s more, 95 percent of this unfunded obligation is driven by only two federal government programs: Medicare and Social Security.
Here are five key takeaways from the Financial Report:
Over the next 75 years, the U.S. government’s unfunded obligations total $79.5 trillion. Over the next 75 years, the unfunded obligations are the difference between the present value of projected non‐interest spending of $430.2 trillion (see Figure 1) and the present value of total receipts of $350.6 trillion over the same period. Present value means that future cash flows have been discounted to adjust for expected inflation and interest rates, recognizing that one dollar today is more valuable than one dollar tomorrow. The discount rate reflects the expected rate of return taxpayers could have received over the next 75 years if they invested the 2022 value.
Over the next 75 years, Medicare and Social Security funding shortfalls comprise 95 percent of the total unfunded obligation. As shown in Figure 2 below, of the $79.5 trillion in unfunded U.S. government obligations over the next 75 years, Medicare and Social Security’s funding shortfalls make up $75.9 trillion, or 95 percent. The Statement of Social Insurance (SOSI) shows the present value of the government’s projected expenditures for Social Security and Medicare Parts A, B, and D, as well as the railroad retirement and black lung benefits programs, in comparison to social insurance revenue. Of the total unfunded obligation, less than 0.2 percent is due to railroad retirement and black lung benefits.
