Carter introduces Fair Tax Act

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).

©Congressman Buddy Carter. All rights reserved.

House Republicans Officially Launch Investigations Into Biden Documents

The FBI and DoJ knew about these docs months ago. Well before the election. That demands investigation as well.

The Mar-a-Lago illegal raid was a pre-emptive strike against what they knew was coming.

ONE COMMENTATOR — The play book:

  • Leftist Democrats claim the Republicans are doing exactly what they are themselves are guilty of, always.
  • Then the MSM doubles down and as if reading from a memo repeat the same phrases over and over and over.
  • Whenever anyone denies their accusations they are labeled a racist or conspiracy theorist or white supremacy.
    When the truth is ultimately revealed they ignore it completely.
  • When anyone gains too much traction against them they send in the FBI.
    Then the AG prosecutes.
  • All accusations of it being a political attack are dismissed as racist, conspiracy theory or white supremacy.
    They portend to defend the constitution while defiling it continuously.
  • The proof of this is that they make all whom have been harmed by their constitutional disregard file suit for their constitutional rights, and most of the time they win.

House Republicans Officially Launch Investigations Into Biden Documents

By Jack Phillips, The Epoch Times, January 13, 2023:

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) requested a range of documents and other materials from the White House after it was revealed that classified documents were found at President Joe Biden’s office and Delaware home, triggering a special counsel investigation.

In a new letter issued to White House counsel Stuart Delery on Friday, Comer noted that his committee recently initiated an investigation into Biden’s possession of classified materials and said that more documents are needed by Jan. 27. That includes “all classified documents” that were recently obtained by Biden’s lawyers “at any location,” according to the letter.

Comer’s letter also sought a complete list of Biden’s aides and lawyers who are tasked to look through Biden’s documents, a list of locations where the documents were found, and communications and documents that were sent between the Department of Justice and White House or the National Archives. The latest House Oversight letter was triggered after a second batch of documents were found by Biden’s aides and lawyers inside rooms of his Delaware residence; classified materials were also found at his Washington office.

“We have [documents] revealing this address appeared on Hunter’s driver’s license as recently as 2018,” House Oversight Republicans wrote, referring to Biden’s son Hunter Biden, “the same time he was cutting deals with foreign adversaries.”

The nexus between the tranche of documents and Hunter Biden is notable, as the GOP has long sought to investigate connections between the president and his son’s controversial business ventures in China and Ukraine. Before Republicans took control of the House, Comer and other Republicans announced they want to make investigating the Bidens’ business dealings a priority.

AUTHOR

RELATED ARTICLES:

Classified documents controversy raises questions about Biden’s think tank

Biden’s ‘Think Tank’ Where He Hid Classified Docs Accepted Millions From China With Hunter’s Help

Five More Classified Documents Unearthed at Joe Biden’s Delaware Residence

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

University of Michigan: ‘Palestinian’ jihad supporters call for destruction of Israel, ‘There is only one solution’

Why is anyone surprised? This is the entrenched orthodoxy on college and university campuses all over the country today.

Note also the charged word “solution,” used quite deliberately in this context.

Michigan University rally calling for ‘Intifada,’ demise of Israel stuns internet: ‘A call to murder Jews

by Gabriel Hays, Fox News, January 14, 2023:

Social media users were shocked and outraged over a recent anti-Israel rally put on by pro-Palestinian protestors at the University of Michigan this week.

Clips of the protest depicted marchers, chanting “Intifada, Intifada! Long live the Intifada” a call to violent overthrow of the Jewish state inspired by Palestinian riots and rebellions against Israel in the late 80s, early 90s, and early 2000s.

“There is only one solution!” a female marcher was seen chanting, as the crowd behind her responded, “Intifada! Revolution!

Marchers, seen walking around the Ann Arbor campus screaming into bullhorns and waving Palestinian flags, were also heard chanting the infamous anti-Israel call to arms: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”

Media reported that the antisemitic rally was held to protest Vice President Kamala Harris’ Thursday visit to the campus, where she gave a speech on climate policy, and student activism. The protestors appeared to be standing against U.S. government support for the state of Israel.

Another video depicted the marchers outside of campus building in which Harris was giving her speech, saying, “Not another nickel, not another dime, no more money for Israel’s crimes.”

The blatant call to overthrow Israel disturbed prominent Twitter users, who were stunned that such sentiment was expressed so freely on a major American college campus.

Jewish Journal columnist Blake Flayton tweeted, “At the University of Michigan, a call to murder Jews.”

Rep. Jared Moskovitz, R-Fla., spoke to the shocking nature of the rally, tweeting, “Using Hitler’s word ‘solution’ is intentional here. Israel has a right to exist. We will never compromise that. The Jewish people have a right to exist. We will ensure.”…

AUTHOR

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

Connecticut: Man converts to Islam, says ‘I need Islamic law,’ tries to join ISIS

Yet another convert to Islam somehow gets the crazy idea that his new religion, which every authority in the Western world assures us is peaceful, enjoins him to commit violence against unbelievers. Authorities, as always, couldn’t possibly be less interested in this recurring phenomenon.


Connecticut man pleads guilty to trying to join ISIS: ‘I need Islamic law

by Paul Best, Fox News, January 12, 2023:

A Connecticut man pleaded guilty on Thursday to attempting to travel to the Middle East to fight for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), according to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut.

Kevin Iman McCormick, 29, was arrested in October 2019 at a private airport in Connecticut, where he was allegedly tried to board a flight to Canada and then to Amman, Jordan.

In the months leading up that arrest, McCormick pledged his allegiance to ISIS and its then-leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.

“I gotta fight bro, because those people, Abu Masa and ISIL, they fought for me bro, I know it, I can feel it, in my heart. So it’s my time to fight… It just is what it is bro, it’s just my – it’s just my time to go bro,” McCormick said in one conversation in October 2019, according to prosecutors.

McCormick later said that he wants to travel to Syria, or “whatever place I can get there the fastest, the quickest, the easiest, and where I can have a rifle and I can have some people.”

“I need Islamic law, I need, that’s what I need, because if I have these things, it’s gonna to be very hard to kill me,” McCormick said, according to prosecutors….

AUTHOR

RELATED VIDEO: How Muslims Understand “Power” – Why it is Essential To Take This into Account When Formulating Policy Towards The Muslim World

RELATED ARTICLES:

Nigeria: Muslims attack Catholic church, burn a priest to death

Israel: IDF Kills 2 Palestinian Islamic Jihad Terrorists Who Tried to Ambush Them

Still unanswered questions about Hamas-linked CAIR’s role in the 2022 Colleyville synagogue hostage crisis

Two Arizona TV stations feature Hamas-linked CAIR in coverage of racist hate crime

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

Facebook is dead unless you post something that does not matter

The inane trumps all on Zuckerberg’s social network.


Since Elon Musk has taken over Twitter, it’s been quite a wild ride. Thousands of doctors and scientists have been unbanned and are now speaking. Same with journalists. Accounts that posted against Covid restrictions and mandates are now unthrottled. Brownstone’s account is now at 31K and my own personal reach is up some 175 percent.

Of course, this is also infuriating. When we needed these voices the most was during the biggest attacks on liberty in our lifetime. Now that the powers that be have been forced by public opinion to dial back their oppressions, these voices can speak again. It’s good that the truth is getting out there, but imagine the kind of difference it would have made for these 33 months if there had been no blocks on information from the start?

Subtle unease

It’s a creepy feeling to know based on disclosures so far that I was certainly throttled. It did not matter what I posted, it got no traction. The censors — meaning certainly the government — learned over time that there might be too much provocation associated with outright bans. Turning down the dial on reach was a better way.

Of course, during this entire period, the same platform also invited you to pay for reach. Throw them a few bucks and they will give you some eyeballs. When the money runs out, you are back to where you were. You couldn’t prove the throttling. You just sensed it in your bones, but when you complained about it, people would throw it back at you: you just fail to admit that your content is unworthy!

In any case, now we know. There were FBI agents embedded all over the platform. The White House and various deep-state actors were pushing Twitter to censor. After a while, it became the main job of the platform to block reach, rather than actually doing what they are supposed to do.

Twitter is quasi-free now, but what about the rest?

Thought control

For years, my Facebook account has been irrelevant to me. I don’t even know why I bother using it at all. We know for sure that Facebook has been subject to the same controls that once affected Twitter. Same goes for LinkedIn and Google, of course. No doubt about that. My typical post sits there with almost no reach at all.

What I’ve not known is whether I’m targeted directly or m,y account has long been restricted by virtue of keywords and content. As everyone knows, I shifted my life three years ago to post entirely about the invasions of life, liberty, and property that commenced in 2020.

I did this not because I wanted to abandon other research projects, but rather because Covid became a window into the nefarious works of the ruling class I had long opposed. Plus few others seemed willing to speak out. Most of my own ideological set was predisposed to “leave this subject to the experts” and thus went silent. I went the other direction.

That decision killed my reach on Facebook. There was nothing I could do about it, so I decided just to forget it. But this morning, a friend had a great idea. He suggested that I post a cute animal picture with no other comment, other than to say it is a test. I did this very thing and posted the following picture:

The results: an explosion of reach! Out of nowhere it was like the old Facebook, with comments and conversations and shares, plus many hundreds of likes. Absolutely amazing! At least for me, this test suggests something important. Zuckerberg is surely flagging accounts, but the main means of control is content. Say something that means something, and your post disappears from feeds. Post something stupid and irrelevant, and you can have all the views you want.

Of course, Facebook’s business is selling your content in order to sell ads. That’s it, nothing more. But as a tool of state control of the public mind plus surveillance, it is extremely useful to state actors. And in the last three years, it has served this purpose very well. The platform is not dead, contrary to what seemed true, but rather directed toward a particular purpose. It’s not just selling ads. It’s selling an anodyne impression of a neutered public mind.

To be sure, if some website offered a deal to users — you post pics of lunch, cats, and flowers, and we give you ads — and it worked, fine. That’s normal terms of use. That’s not what is going on. Via explicit and implicit pressure, combined with irresponsible management, Facebook turned over its entire business model to government to deploy on behalf of regime interests. The customers and stockholders were the victims.

Scant choice

What applies here is also true for YouTubeInstagram, and all the rest of the mainstream platforms, which constitute the vast swath of social media content in existence. I like the alternative platforms, but they are small players by comparison. The freedom and reach we get today on Twitter is beautiful, but how long can it last? Is this a brief window that is opened before it shuts again?

Nothing has changed on the rest of them, which means that nothing has changed with regard to the state-directed censorship that took over our lives three years ago. That’s a terrifying reality, and especially so for intellectuals and writers who imagined some years ago that these tools would be a gift for making a difference in the world.

I’m inclined to think that the Elon Musk takeover of Twitter is a fluke — a lucky one to be sure, but the strange exception. He should watch his back. The main drive to control the conversation and shape the public mind is still with us: bad actors working to limit criticism of themselves and their policies. It is just as intense now as it was at the height of the lockdowns and drive for universal vaccination.

We’ve never needed the First Amendment more than we do now. And just when it became most necessary, it failed. We should all hope for victory in the lawsuits going on against the government, but what does victory mean? Who or what is going to make sure this does not happen again? We still don’t have a clear answer to that, but it is the burning question, especially since it is all still happening right under our noses.

And many people are okay with that, and just want to believe that all anyone really cares about are cute pictures of animals.

This article has been republished from the Brownstone Institute under a Creative Commons licence.

AUTHOR

Jeffrey Tucker

Jeffrey Tucker is Director of Content for the Foundation for Economic Education. He is also Chief Liberty Officer and founder of Liberty.me, Distinguished Honorary Member of Mises Brazil, research fellow… More by Jeffrey Tucker.

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

AWED NEWSLETTER: We cover COVID to Climate, as well as Energy to Elections.

Welcome! We cover COVID to Climate, as well as Energy to Elections.

Here is the link for this issue, so please share it on social media.

Bookmark or make Favorite the 2023, 2022, 2021 & 2020 Newsletter Archives.

Particularly note the ***asterisked*** items below…

— This Newsletter’s Articles, by Topic —

If You Only Have Time to Read a Few Select Articles:

*** A Country We No Longer Recognize, a Coup We Never Knew

*** The Five Stages of Totalitarianism

*** Political Salvation Is Slow Suicide

*** Jordan Peterson has his license threatened

*** Report: Critical Thinking: What It Is and Why It Counts

*** Linear Thinking vs Lateral Thinking

*** Don’t Fall For “Feel Good” Where Evil Lurks

*** Stupidocrisy: Tolerating Anti-Christianism and anti-Americanism

*** A dying perspective: If It’s Worth Doing, It’s Worth Doing Well

*** 2023: Expect a financial crash followed by major energy-related changes

*** Short video: The Disturbing Reality of Cobalt Mining for Rechargeable Batteries

*** Report: Climate Change and its Effects on the Mental Health of Young People

*** Short Tucker Carlson video: These climate activists are fraudulent

*** A Quiet Refutation Of ‘Net Zero’

*** Whales on losing side of wind energy

*** Virginia County planners deny Solar project for third time

*** US nuclear enjoys revival as public and private funding pours in

*** Yet another pivot by the Left? A new climate reality: Less warming, but worse impacts on the planet

*** Fauci Fibbed on the Day Everything Changed

*** Vitamin D in the Prevention of COVID-19

*** COVID Vaccines Fueling New COVID Variants

*** Universities Unlikely to ever admit they were wrong about COVID policy

*** Remarkable Report: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Masks, and the Deadly Falsehoods Surrounding Them

*** Dr. John Campbell’s Awakening: The End of evidence based Medicine

COVID-19 — Repeated Important Information:

My webpage (C19Science.info) with dozens of Science-based COVID-19 reports

*** World Council of Health: Early COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines

*** FLCCC Long COVID Treatment Protocol

*** COVID-19: What You Need To Know (Physicians for Informed Consent)

*** If you have received a COVID-19 injection, here’s how to Detox

*** Place Your US Order for Free At-Home COVID-19 Tests

COVID-19 — Therapies:

*** Vitamin D in the Prevention of COVID-19

*** FTX Donations to Early COVID-19 Researchers Raise Questions of Propaganda Tied to Pandemic Prevention

AMA, WisMed File Amicus Brief Opposing Court-Ordered Ivermectin for COVID-19

COVID-19 — Injections:

*** Harvard Med research on mRNA vax spike protein undermines fact-checkers, COVID censorship

*** COVID Vaccines Fueling New COVID Variants

*** Lead Author Of Research On Pfizer And Moderna Trials Warns COVID Vaccinations Must Be Stopped

Are COVID Boosters Behind Increase in Cancer Among Younger Adults?

Under White House Pressure, Facebook Censored Accurate Covid Vaccine Information

What Caused Damar Hamlin’s Cardiac Arrest? Experts Weigh In

We Are Seeing An Explosion of Myocarditis In Young People Due to COVID Vaccine

American Heart Association Warns Americans: “Vaccines Are Causing Heart Attacks”

‘Independent’ Advisor Who Evaluated Pfizer Vaccine Safety was Former Paid Pfizer Consultant

Japan Launches Official Investigation Into Millions of COVID Vaccine Deaths

COVID-19 — Injection Mandates:

*** COVID-19 Injections mandates are wrong from three (3) different perspectives:

Morality, Civil Rights, and Science

*** Boston College stands ‘resolute’ amid controversy over vaccine requirement

*** Universities Unlikely to ever admit they were wrong about COVID policy

*** Judge strikes down NY vaccine mandate for health workers, rules state overstepped its authority

COVID-19 — Masks:

*** Remarkable Report: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Masks, and the Deadly Falsehoods Surrounding Them

*** Behind the Forever Mask: A Guide to Pro-Lockdown Holdouts

Even more proof: Masks don’t work

COVID-19 — Models and Data:

*** Dr. Leana Wen admits there’s been ‘overcounting’ of COVID deaths: ‘TWO AND A HALF YEARS LATE’

*** CDC Finally Released Its VAERS Safety Monitoring Analyses for COVID Vaccines

*** The Devil’s Advocate: An Exploratory Analysis of 2022 Excess Mortality

CDC: Highly Infectious COVID Variant Spreading Much Faster in NY, NJ Than US

Study Finds 42% False Discovery Rate for SARS-CoV-2 PCR Tests

Why Has COVID Spared Africa?

COVID-19 — Misc:

*** Fauci Fibbed on the Day Everything Changed

*** New COVID Variant XBB.1.5: What It Is, Symptoms and What You Should Know

*** Dr. John Campbell’s Awakening: The End of evidence based Medicine

Rasmussen Poll: 28% Say Someone They Know Died from COVID-19 Vaccines

It’s been a year since we left New York for Florida. Here’s what we learned

‘The Contagion of Liberty’ Review: At the Start of the Spread

The Lancet has become a laughing stock

Renewable Energy Health and Ecosystem Consequences:

*** Short video: The Disturbing Reality of Cobalt Mining for Rechargeable Batteries

Renewables (General):

*** Don’t Fall For “Feel Good” Where Evil Lurks

*** Duke Energy’s “Black Christmas”: Outrageous Story of the Week

*** Short video: Rick Perry – We can’t let climate alarmists drive us from energy reality

Never-opened $300 million-plus biofuels refinery facing foreclosure in Oregon

Green Energy Infatuation Puts Millions at Risk of Death

Researchers work toward harnessing ocean energy to power devices

Wind Energy — Offshore:

*** New NOAA map shows North Atlantic Right Whales in very same areas targeted for offshore wind development

*** NJ congressman demands investigation into whether offshore wind projects are killing whales

*** Whales on losing side of wind energy

In the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, a Quiet Reckoning Over Offshore Wind

The silly giant scale of US offshore wind development

No! to New York Wind in the Great Lakes (NYSERDA verdict)

New Organization: Save Right Whales Coalition

Giant Wind Arrays Invade the Ocean As BOEM Spins the Story

Wind Energy — Other:

How to tax renewable energy firms for windfall profits from high wholesale electricity prices

Death Of The Wind Industry?

Payments for wind facilities to “switch off” soar to quarter billion pounds

Solar Energy:

*** Virginia County planners deny Solar project for third time

Busting the solar myth: A call to embrace the circular renewable economy

Solar Panels Support Combined with Deforestation and using Farmland by Eco-Warriors is Hypocritical

Solar Energy Rejections Soared in 2022

Nuclear Energy:

*** US nuclear enjoys revival as public and private funding pours in

*** Green surge is circuit breaker on nuclear revival

*** The phoenix of nuclear reactors – Holtec’s SMR-160

*** South Korea curbs plans for renewables in push for more nuclear

France’s Nuclear Power Output Rises, Easing European Energy Woes

MIT Video: The Future of Nuclear Energy: Have we entered a new era?

Delay to small nuclear reactors as ministers battle over costs

Fossil Fuel Energy:

*** Despite bold climate pledges global coal demand to remain high for years to come

China to accelerate approval of new coal projects to ensure energy supply

New Book: Clean Energy Crisis — The Challenge of Replacing Fossil Fuels

German finance minister calls for lifting fracking ban

Gas Appliances And Asthma:

*** No, New Study Does Not Link Gas Stoves with Asthma in Children

*** Gas Stoves and Asthma

*** Joshua Rath (Hoover Institute) Summary

*** Steve Everley Summary

*** Gas stove fight is more elite culture-war nonsense

*** Calls to ban gas stoves are anti-science, anti-freedom, and anti-energy

The Creepy Cult Surrounding the Gas Stove Panic Gets Exposed

Electric Vehicles (EVs):

*** A Mad Rush to Build More EV Factories, But Where are the Minerals?

The Coming Future Of Electric Vehicles: Something Here Does Not Add Up

Weight of electric cars can cause collapse of parking garages

South Korea fines Tesla $2.2M for exaggerating driving range of EVs

Tesla Mobile Supercharger Burns Down on New Year’s Day

Electric Vehicles and Other Lies Joe Biden Is Selling

Misc Energy:

*** 2023: Expect a financial crash followed by major energy-related changes

*** Four energy hearings the House should hold

*** Geothermal energy poised for boom, as U.S. looks to follow Iceland’s lead

*** AAF Comes Out Swinging Against WOKE Energy Agenda

*** Short video: Hydrogen Will Not Save Us. Here’s Why.

Study: 6G May Use Humans As Power Source

Short Video: Some Energy Storage Options

Manmade Global Warming — Some Deceptions:

*** Report: Climate Change and its Effects on the Mental Health of Young People

*** Short Tucker Carlson video: These climate activists are fraudulent

*** Net Zero — The Pursuit Of The Impossible

*** Anthropogenic Climate Change is a Hoax but Global Warming is Real

*** Will Climate Change Really Put New York City Underwater?

*** Good 2022 Climate News the MSM didn’t tell you

*** Yet another pivot by the Left? A new climate reality: Less warming, but worse impacts on the planet

Shell Game Deceit Behind New York State Climate Plan

Erlich and McKibben: The Original Green Grifters!

The Pied Piper of Planet Ithaca Has No Clothes

HadCRUT Data Manipulation Makes 2000-2014 Warming Pause Vanish

IPCC vs. The Facts: The Case for Climate Realism

Manmade Global Warming — Misc:

*** A Quiet Refutation Of ‘Net Zero’

*** Climate Goals vs. Human Well-Being: A Discussion with Dr. Judith Curry

*** How Green Investors Pay the Media to Promote ‘Climate Change’

*** Net Zero Will Lead to the End of Modern Civilization, says Top Scientist

*** The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast with Dr. Richard Lindzen

2023 – The Year Ahead: Recommendations

Video: Tom Nelson Podcast, 2022 year-end AGW highlight clips

Video: Science of Solar Ponds Challenges the Climate Crisis

Powell says Fed should stay out of social issues like climate change

The Truth About CO2, Why We Want More of It And Why It’s Not the Cause of Global Warming

Ozone Layer Recovers, Limiting Global Warming: UN Report

CCP Proves ‘Climate’ Fight Not Really About Climate

US Election:

Election-Integrity.info (10 major election reports by our team of experts, plus much more!)

*** House Republicans Call for Ban on Big Tech Private Election Funding

US Election — State Issues:

*** Citizen’s Guide to Building and Election Integrity Infrastructure

*** Gov. signs photo ID requirement, election changes into Ohio law

*** Video: Moore v Harper — A Very Important Case

Wisconsin Election Fraud Team Member Comes Forward with Damaging Evidence

Rank ‘ranked choice voting’ dead last for Georgia

Ranked Choice Voting Gets a Black Eye (in California)

Alabama Democrat Indicted on Voter Fraud Charges

Iowa elected official’s wife arrested in alleged voter fraud scheme

Misc US Politics:

*** A Country We No Longer Recognize, a Coup We Never Knew

*** Tucker Carlson: Lies about Jan. 6 have been relentless

White House Unveils Program to Tighten Border Against 4 Countries

After a tough battle, Kevin McCarthy wins the presidency of the “US House of Representatives”.. So who is he?

Mayorkas Impeachment Articles Filed In House

Coverage of Biden & Trump’s Mishandled Classified Documents Reveals Media Double Standard

Societally US:

*** A dying perspective: If It’s Worth Doing, It’s Worth Doing Well

*** No, Humans Are NOT Causing A “Sixth Mass Extinction”

*** America Has Become the Greatest Exporter of Destructive Ideas

*** The Active Voice: Ted Gioia takes the long view

The Second Housing Bubble of the Twenty-First Century Is Over

Apollo 7 Astronaut Walter Cunningham Dead at 90

An Unholy Invasion – Chatbots Are Colonizing Our Minds

FAA computer failure caused by personnel who damaged data file

US Politics and Socialism:

*** The Five Stages of Totalitarianism

*** Political Salvation Is Slow Suicide

*** You Must Assume That All Information Put Out By Our Government Is Corrupt

*** Where Have The Voices For Liberty Gone?

*** The leftist media’s reliance on liars and frauds

*** The CDC Puts Itself In Charge Of Language Too

*** The Empress Wears No Clothes

How Political Ideology is Weakening America’s Military

Hospitals are now Ranked by Wokeness

Globalism:

*** The Deep Optimism Manifesto

*** World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2023: List of Participants

Green extremists are reinventing feudalism by banning travel

Religion Related:

*** Stupidocrisy: Tolerating Anti-Christianism and anti-Americanism

Catholic bishops celebrate Born Alive Act, condemn 210 Democrats who voted against

How Prayer Played a Central Role in Electing a US House Speaker

Education Related — Thinking:

*** Report: Critical Thinking: What It Is and Why It Counts

*** Linear Thinking vs Lateral Thinking

*** Linear thinking vs lateral thinking (A complete guide)

Linear Thinking vs Non-linear Thinking: Decide Your Category

Linear Thinking: What It Is and How It Can Help You

Linear Thinking Versus Systems Thinking

The Benefits of Linear Thinking Over Systems Thinking

Social Media Use CHANGES The BRAINS of Teenagers

Education Related — Other:

*** K-12 Science and Math Teaching Need an Upgrade

*** Higher Education Reforms We’re Cheering For in 2023

*** For Teachers’ Unions, Parents and Children Come Last

With Schools Ditching Merit for Diversity, Families of High Achievers Leave

We don’t want to be Yale’: new University of Austin constructing a different model of excellence

Science:

*** Jordan Peterson has his license threatened

*** A good commentary: Jordan Peterson: Enemy Of The State

*** Dr. Jay Lehr RIP

Is it illegal to question the safety of the polio vaccine, even if you are right?

Latest Data Shows NYS Math Proficiency Plummets

Search DeepDyve’s database of 100M+ free, rentable, and downloadable papers

Misc Matters:

2022 Year in Review

‘Fat-shaming’ is bad and exercising is racist. No wonder childhood obesity is soaring

Ukraine:

*** Pray for the safety of the Ukrainian people

*** A well-rated source to make a Ukraine donation

*** Latest Developments in Ukraine: January 15th

Open Letter to Pope Francis From Political and Social Leaders: Support Call for Immediate Peace Negotiations


Please use social media, etc. to pass on this Newsletter to other open-minded citizens…If at any time you’d like to be added to (or taken off) the distribution of our popular,  free, worldwide Media Balance Newsletter, simply send me an email saying that.


Note 1: We recommend reading the Newsletter on your computer, not your phone, as some documents (e.g., PDFs) are much easier to read on a large computer screen… We’ve tried to use common fonts, etc. to minimize display issues.

Note 2: For past Newsletter issues see the archives from: 2020 & 2021 & 2022 & 2023. To accommodate numerous requests received about prior articles over all thirteen plus years of the Newsletter, we’ve put this together — where you can search ALL prior issues, by year. For a background about how the Newsletter is put together, etc., please read this.

Note 3: See this extensive list of reasonable books on climate change. As a parallel effort, we have also put together a list of some good books related to industrial wind energy. Both topics are also extensively covered on my website: WiseEnergy.org.

Note 4: I am not an attorney or a physician, so no material appearing in any of the Newsletters (or any of my websites) should be construed as giving legal or medical advice. My recommendation has always been: consult a competent, licensed attorney when you are involved with legal issues, and consult a competent physician regarding medical matters.

Copyright © 2023; Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (see WiseEnergy.org).

The Growing Welfare-Warfare State

“If we are not ashamed to think it, we should not be ashamed to say it.” ― Marcus Tullius Cicero


President Emeritus of the Foundation for Economic Education Lawrence W. Reed in an article titled Why Heroes Matter—And Now More Than Ever wrote,

In the First Century B.C., Cicero defended the old Roman republic as its core values were being undermined by a growing welfare-warfare state. He spurned opportunities for great personal power and denounced the demagogues like Julius Caesar and Mark Antony who sought to snuff out personal liberties and constitutional government. He paid for his principles with his life but bequeathed the world a treasure trove of insightful speeches and letters. Nearly two millennia after Cicero challenged the authoritarians of his day, US President John Adams proclaimed that “All the ages of the world have not produced a greater statesman and philosopher” than him.

As we begin the year 2023 we the people are witnesses to a growing Welfare-Warfare state. This time in history is reminiscent of Nazi Germany.

German Lutheran pastor, theologian and anti-Nazi dissident Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote,

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

We are in a time when we the people are seeing unbelievable things and yet many stay silent because they are afraid.

“Saying It” Has Become A Revolutionary Act

It is time for those who wish to save our republic and our children and grandchildren from those who wish to control them to speak out!

“Say it” when it comes to speaking out against,

  • Those who teach children in school (K-20) to believe that sodomy is normal and not harmful.
  • Those people who counsel children to chemically or physically castrate themselves to become the opposite gender.
  • Those individuals who call themselves something other than he or she.
  • Those women believing that killing their babies is healthcare.
  • Those Christians and Jews believing that Islam is a religion of peace.
  • Those healthy Americans believing that they must get vaccinated.
  • Those individuals, scientists and elected officials who believe that they can control the climate.
  • Those elected officials who seek nothing but power, more power, absolute power.
  • Those who believe that CO2 is a green house gas that is harmful to the planet.
  • Those who believe more and more and more government spending is a good thing.
  • Those who believe welfare is better than working.
  • Those who believe open borders are good for America.
  • Those who believe being at war is better than peace.
  • Those who believe that there is no God or supreme being.

The Welfare-Warfare State

Today we have those who believe in growing the state and those who believe that the state is the enemy of the people.

Today those in power want to kept themselves in power and have and will do anything to do so.

Today America have morphed into a nation with only two parties: traitors and patriots.

The traitors believe in the welfare-warfare state in order to keep the people under their collectivist thumbs. Whether the warfare is against a virus, the climate or in a nation state like Ukraine, it is critical for the traitors to expand their control over the people. It’s all about control. Control of what we the people think, say, eat, drink, drive, buy, sell and how we live our lives. Traitors judge people by the color of their skin, or preferred pronoun, and not by the content of their character.

The patriot is the enemy of the welfare-warfare state. The patriot stands for faith, family and freedom. The patriot believes in limited government control in order to live their lives in freedom, enjoy the liberty of becoming what they want to become and in the pursuit of their own happiness. Patriots judge each man and woman by the content of their character not by the color of their skin.

We are in a war, have not doubts about it.

The future of this nation called America, its families, institutions and fundamental beliefs are under attack by the traitors.

If there ever was a battle royale then it will be determined on November 5th, 2024.

Mark our words. Prepare yourselves. Remember, Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.

But most importantly, Not to vote is to vote.

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

RELATED ARTICLES:

‘Methodologically Flawed’: Key Studies That Inspired Trans Medicine Don’t Hold Up, Doctors Argue

A dying perspective: If It’s Worth Doing, It’s Worth Doing Well

No, Humans Are NOT Causing A “Sixth Mass Extinction”

The Five Stages of Totalitarianism

Political Salvation Is Slow Suicide

You Must Assume That All Information Put Out By Our Government Is Corrupt

Where Have The Voices For Liberty Gone?

The leftist media’s reliance on liars and frauds

The CDC Puts Itself In Charge Of Language Too

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

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.

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.

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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. Checkcheckcheck.

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.

RELATED ARTICLE: Nancy Pelosi’s Other Legacy: A Mountain of Debt for Our Children

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

SUDDEN ADULT DEATH [SAD] VICTIMS: Student Age: 20, Black Man Age: 42, Tennis Player Age: 20

Sudden Adult Death (SAD) syndrome is becoming the rule rather than exception. We are seeing healthy individuals collapse unexpectedly and either be hospitalized or die.

Here are the three most recent examples of SAD:

Dies Suddenly: University of Pittsburgh Student Lindsay Heck Dies Suddenly At 25 Years Old

Story by Jillian Pikora

A25-year-old doctor of Pharmacy died suddenly in Pittsburgh in December, just before her father was rushed to the ICU, loved ones say in a GoFundMe campaign.

University of Pittsburg Pharma student Lindsay Heck has #diedsuddenly at 25 years old. “Lindsay loved teaching students, doing research, running multiple vaccine clinics, and sharing her passion and knowledge with others”  Her father died of cardiac arrest two weeks after.

Read more.

Died Suddenly: Former Alabama Running Back Dead at 42

By: Scott Thompson | Fox News January 14, 2023

Former Alabama Crimson Tide running back Ahmaad Galloway was found dead in his apartment Monday, according to a report by WVTM 13.

Galloway was 42 years old.

Galloway was a teacher at Compton-Drew Middle School in St. Louis, and the school’s principal, Susan Reid, said a welfare check led to his discovery.

Ahmaad Galloway of the Alabama Crimson Tide runs with the ball against the South Carolina Gamecocks Sept. 30, 2000.

Galloway’s cause of death is still being investigated.

“Ahmaad was always on time, very responsible. So, we knew something might be wrong,” Reid said. “There wasn’t anything disrupted at Ahmaad’s apartment, so we are thinking that it could have been a medical issue.”

Read more.

Died Suddenly: Colorado College Tennis Player Has Died Suddenly at 20 Years Old

By Paul Klee paul.klee@gazette.com Jan 11, 2023:

Tennis courts at Colorado College. One of the college’s former tennis players, Jack Madison, 20, died in his sleep Jan. 2.

Jack Madison, a sophomore on the Colorado College men’s tennis team, died in his sleep Jan. 2, the school announced.

Madison was 20 years old. The cause of death has not been announced.
Jack Madison was recruited to Colorado College out of Bexley, Ohio, where he was a two-time all-state selection at Columbus Academy.

“We are devastated by the tragic passing of Jack Madison,” CC vice president and director of athletics Lesley Irvine said in a statement.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

RELATED ARTICLES:

43-year-old USTA tennis champion collapses on court and dies

The FAA has very quietly tacitly admitted that the EKGs of pilots are no longer normal. We should be concerned. Very concerned.

Covid ‘vaccine’

Died Suddenly: Colorado College Tennis Player Has Died Suddenly at 20 Years Old

Died Suddenly: Former Alabama Running Back Dead at 42

16-Year-Old Basketball Player Suffers Stroke While in School

Kindergarten Student in Ohio Dies Suddenly

17-Year-Old Basketball Player Dies Suddenly at Home

US Air Force Academy Cadet Died Suddenly While Walking to Class

Thrice Vaxxed Young Television Reporter Sparks Vaccine Fears After Collapsing Live On Air

Vaxxed Into Early Graves: This Week’s Young Victims Who Died Suddenly

Kindergarten Student in Ohio Dies Suddenly

EDITORS NOTE: These articles from the Geller Report are republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Facebook Admits It Suppressed ‘Often-True Content’

“Many think social media companies only censored “vaccine misinformation.” But a recently-released email shows Facebook reassuring the White House that they were censoring “often-true content” that “does not contain actionable misinformation” but was “discouraging vaccines.””

Not Just Misinformation: In Emails to White House, Facebook Admits Suppressing ‘Often-True Content’ on COVID-19 Vaccines

By: Tyler O’Neil, Daily Signal, January 12, 2023

Facebook told an official at the Biden White House that the Big Tech company not only suppressed misinformation but took action against the “virality” of “often-true content” regarding the COVID-19 vaccines.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey released the documents earlier this week. Bailey obtained them through a court case, Missouri v. Biden, alleging that some of President Joe Biden’s top officials “colluded with Big Tech social media companies to violate Americans’ right to free speech under the First Amendment.”

“I want to protect Missourians and the freedoms they enjoy, which is why as attorney general, I will always defend the Constitution,” Bailey told The Daily Signal in an email Thursday. “This case is about the Biden administration’s blatant disregard for the First Amendment and its collusion with Big Tech social media companies to suppress speech it disagrees with.”

“I will always fight back against unelected bureaucrats who seek to indoctrinate the people of this state by violating our constitutional right to free and open debate,” the Missouri attorney general pledged.

In an email to the White House dated March 21, 2021, a Facebook staff member discussed “levers for tackling vaccine hesitancy content” with Andrew Slavitt, then a senior adviser on Biden’s COVID-19 response team, and Rob Flaherty, White House director of digital strategy.

“You also asked us about our levers for reducing virality of vaccine hesitancy content,” wrote the Facebook staffer, whose identity was redacted. “As you know, in addition to removing vaccine misinformation, we have been focused on reducing the virality of content discouraging vaccines that does not contain actionable information. This is often-true content, which we allow at the post level because it is important for people to be able to discuss both their personal experiences and concerns about the vaccine, but it can be framed as sensation, alarmist, or shocking.”

“We’ll remove these Groups, Pages, and Accounts when they are disproportionately promoting this sensationalized content,” the Facebook staffer added. He or she then promised, “More on this front as we proceed to implement.”

In this email to the White House, the Facebook representative admitted to preventing exposure of content that doesn’t violate Facebook’s policies—content that isn’t “actionable.” The staffer also suggested that the White House had asked Facebook to take these measures.

In an April 14, 2021, email to Facebook, Flaherty suggested the social media platform should take action to suppress Fox News host Tucker Carlson and conservative journalist Tomi Lahren.

“Since we’ve been on the phone—the top post about vaccines today is tucker [sic] Carlson saying they don’t work,” Flaherty wrote. “Yesterday was Tomi Lehren [sic] saying she won’t take one. This is exactly why I want to know what ‘Reduction’ actually looks like—if ‘reduction’ means ‘pumping our most vaccine hesitant audience with tucker [sic] Carlson saying it doesn’t work’ then … I’m not sure it’s reduction!”

In a May 12, 2021, email, the White House’s Flaherty faulted Instagram, which Facebook owns, for failing to remove “bad information” from its search function. He appears aggressive in pushing for censorship.

“You know and I know that the universe of undecided people searching Instagram for ‘vaccines’—as compared to, say, Google—is probably low,” Flaherty wrote. “But ‘removing bad information from search’ is one of the easy, low-bar things you guys do to make people like me think you’re taking action. If you’re not getting that right, it raises even more questions about the high bar stuff.”

“You say in your note that you remove accounts that discourage vaccination from appearing in recommendations (even though you’re using ‘primarily’ to give yourself wiggle room),” Flaherty added. “You also said you don’t promote those accounts in search.”

Then Flaherty compared Instagram to other social media platforms.

“Youtube [sic], for their warts, has done pretty well at promoting authoritative info in search results while keeping the bad stuff off of those surfaces,” the White House official said. “Pinterest doesn’t even show you any results other than official information when you search for ‘vaccines.’ I don’t know why you guys can’t figure this out.”

Neither Facebook nor the White House responded to The Daily Signal’s requests for comment.

These documents confirm the close relationship between the federal government and Big Tech companies revealed in the recently reported “Twitter Files.”

Internal Twitter documents, released under the direction of new CEO Elon Musk, showed the Justice Department and FBI pressuring tech companies such as Twitter to stifle and suppress “misinformation,” particularly on the COVID-19 pandemic. In some cases, Twitter executives and government officials took aim at scientists who shared their professional opinions on the social media platform.

The FBI also paid Twitter more than $3 million while the intelligence community was pressuring the tech company to suppress news about Hunter Biden, the president’s son.

Keep reading.

AUTHOR

RELATED ARTICLE: ‘Any Messaging You Want’: Facebook Asked Biden Regime For Talking Points After FDA Vaccine Blood Clots Warning

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

Media Blackout Over Islamic Terror Attack At Vegas Solar Power Plant

A Muslim is facing terror-related charges after police said he rammed his car through a gate at a solar plant outside Las Vegas and set his car on fire, disabling the huge facility, the 8 News Now Investigators have learned. Nothing to see here. No media coverage – even though it was a SOLAR plant.

Las Vegas Metro police responded to the solar plant on U.S. 93 north of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, sources told the 8 News Now Investigators. Employees at the plant said they found a car smoldering in a generator pit. The Mega Solar Array facility provides energy to MGM properties but is run by a company called Invenergy.

The driver, later identified as Mohammad Mesmarian, 34, is accused of ramming through a fence and setting the car on fire. The car is registered out of Idaho, documents said.

Mesmarian faces charges of committing an act of terrorism, arson, destroying or injuring real or personal property…..

Media Blackout Over Terror Incident At Vegas Power Plant

by Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge, Jan 07, 2023:

The US power grid is under attack as extremists shoot, sabotage, and vandalize electrical equipment at power stations. One of the highest-profile attacks was when two men used guns to paralyze a substation in Washington state on Christmas Day, leaving thousands without electricity. The incident made national news, but strangely enough, another attack last week on the Las Vegas power grid went unnoticed by the national press.

Mohammad Mesmarian, 34, rammed his car through the gate of a solar power generation plant outside Las Vegas on Wednesday and set his car on fire, intending to damage a massive transformer, 8 News Now reported.

“Employees at the plant said they found a car smoldering in a generator pit,” 8 News Now said, adding the Mega Solar Array facility provides power to 13 properties on the Las Vegas Strip, all belonging to MGM Resorts.

Investigators believe Mesmarian “siphoned gasoline from his car to put on wires at the transformer,” 8 News Now said, citing documents from investigators.

“Mesmarian clarified he burned the Toyota Camry,” police said. “Mesmarian said he burned the vehicle at a Tesla solar plant and did it ‘for the future.'”

Here’s security camera footage of Mesmarian lighting his car on fire next to a giant transformer.

The US power grid is under attack as extremists shoot, sabotage, and vandalize electrical equipment at power stations. One of the highest-profile attacks was when two men used guns to paralyze a substation in Washington state on Christmas Day, leaving thousands without electricity. The incident made national news, but strangely enough, another attack last week on the Las Vegas power grid went unnoticed by the national press.

Mohammad Mesmarian, 34, rammed his car through the gate of a solar power generation plant outside Las Vegas on Wednesday and set his car on fire, intending to damage a massive transformer, 8 News Now reported.

Read more.

AUTHOR

RELATED ARTICLES:

Huffington Post enraged, says new House Homeland Security Committee chair has ‘history of anti-Muslim comments’

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee calls for presidential pardon for Afghan soldier jailed for crossing into U.S. illegally

Biden Regime Gives ‘Temporary’ Amnesty to Thousands of Somalis Living in U.S.

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

Biden Tells Israel to Give Money to Terrorists, Not Terror Victims

The most anti-Israel administration stands with Islamic terrorists.


The Biden administration condemned Israel for giving $39 million in tax revenues to the victims of terrorism instead of the terrorists.

“It is morally just and important for the war against terror. There is no greater justice than using the funds for the victims of terror,” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said of the move.

State Department spokesman Ned Price condemned Israel’s actions as a “unilateral response” that will “exacerbate tensions. and warned that the administration will raise the issue with Israel.

Price did not address whether the Palestinian Authority spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year to finance terrorist attacks against Israelis through the ‘Pay-to-Slay’ program raises any tensions. The ruling PLO body spending millions to kill Jews is not unilateral, but Israel refusing to finance the murder of its own citizens is a dangerous move that will make peace difficult.

Palestinian Authority PM Mohammad Shtayyeh claims that if Israel doesn’t give it $39 million, that “will promptly lead to its collapse.”

The terror organization has been claiming variations of the same thing for over two decades.

“Palestinian Authority Broke and In Disarray,” the media agonized in 2004. “Palestinians Threaten to Collapse the Palestinian Authority,” they clamored in 2009. “Suspended tax transfers leave Palestinian economy on the brink” came the warnings in 2015. “Palestinian finances near collapse as cuts deepen,” we were told in 2019.

The PLO’s terror infrastructure is always on the verge of collapse, but sadly never does.

“Israel sells us everything, including water treatment, electricity and drinking water, and in fact profits from all of this,” Shtayyeh whined.

Why after 30 years can’t the aspiring terror state do anything for itself? The “Palestinians” have received an estimated $40 billion in foreign aid. Other estimates have put it at $50 billion.

Over $14 billion of that money went directly to the Palestinian Authority. What did all that money buy apart from mansions for top terrorists?

Pinchas Rutenberg, who had unsuccessfully urged Russia’s liberal Kerensky government to execute Lenin and Trotsky before it was too late and fought to the last to defend the Winter Palace against the Bolsheviks, headed to Israel and began electrifying the country.

“No one doubts the duty of the British Empire to develop the Land of Israel, but who will be charged the financial burden? The British taxpayer? Or perhaps the Arab public that has lived in the country for hundreds of years and has not lifted a finger to develop it. True, Rutenberg is a Jew, and he recruited businessmen and Jewish capitalists to develop the natural resources of the Land of Israel and create jobs for its Arab residents, but is it therefore necessary to disqualify his vision?” Churchill opined.

In a matter of years, much of Israel was powered by the generators that Rutenberg had built.

And all of this happened over two decades before Israel even achieved independence.

Somehow Jewish refugees could do a better job of providing electricity in the 1920s after only a few years than the Palestinian Authority has managed in the 2020s after 30 years.

Churchill correctly observed that the Arab invaders and colonizers had lived there for “hundreds of years” yet had “lifted a finger to develop it.” The cost of developing the territories under PLO control has passed right back to the British taxpayer, the American taxpayer and the Israelis.

Every few years, Israel threatens to cut off the power unless the terrorists pay their debts. The last time around the debt had shot up to $500 million. Each time diplomats warn that if Israel cuts off the power, there will be a humanitarian crisis. But when isn’t there a crisis?

Biden directed over half-a-billion dollars to the terrorists since taking office. And yet the PLO claims that it’s still on the verge of collapse and Israel has to save it all over again.

“The PA must stop its involvement in terror if it wants to survive. As long as it continues to encourage terror, it is our enemy and as such, what interest do we have to help it?” Israeli Finance Minister Smotritch pointed out.

The Palestinian Authority has never run out of money to pay the terrorists, but it can’t manage to pay for its power bill or accomplish anything useful for its people.

Secretary of State Blinken and Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, are headed to Israel to scold the Jewish State for not giving money to the terrorists. The administration has used every possible forum to show contempt and undermine Israel: including a recent UN session denying Jews the right to visit the Temple Mount which is the holiest site in Judaism.

When National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the Temple Mount, the Biden administration called it an “unacceptable” violation of the “historic status quo” that bans Jews.

And yet Ben-Gvir’s visit came and went.

Since then, he’s told the police to take down the terrorist flags of the PLO.

“It is inconceivable that lawbreakers will wave terror flags, incite and encourage terrorism,” Ben Gvir said. “I have issued instructions for the removal of the flags, which support terrorism, from the public space and to stop incitement against the State of Israel.”

The Biden administration, which funds terrorism and incitement against Israel through its foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority, is probably unhappy with this. Its spokesmen repeatedly accuse Israel of “unilateral” acts that increase “tensions”. Every time a Jewish person sneezes in Jerusalem, Ned Price appears at a State Department podium to intone about unilateral sneezing, raising tensions. And yet it’s the Biden administration that is conducting unilateral actions meant to undermine Israel’s status like its rogue diplomatic operation to the PLO.

The level of pettiness included stepping in when an Iron Age spoon was seized from the founder of Birthright Israel to “return” it to the Palestinian Authority even though the Arab Muslim colonists had invaded the area a thousand years later and have no claim to the ancient artifact.

The spoon was identified in the files as coming from the country of Israel, “from the Hebron area” that “is the area of the richest Iron age Jewish tombs (many royal).”

The pettiness of seizing an artifact that originated from an Israeli source and turning it over to the Arab Muslim terrorists who currently occupy parts of Hebron to make a point is emblematic of the Biden administration’s determination to undermine the Jewish People’s claim to its land.

The Biden administration and the media are furious that Israel’s new patriotic government is asserting its rights. It’s a belated act of self-defense that the media treats as an attack.

A hysterical AP news story denounces Netanyahu’s new government as “hard-line”,  “ultra-nationalist”, and the “most hard-line and religious government in Israel’s history” that is “shaking the foundations of Israel’s democracy”, “fomenting divisions” and “barreling toward conflict”.

And that’s just the first two paragraphs of a deranged screed masquerading as news coverage.

Israel’s new government is not “shaking the foundations of Israel’s democracy”, it’s restoring it after decades of hijacking by an activist judiciary by implementing a system of checks and balances to equalize its power with that of the legislature.

It is not “fomenting divisions”, it’s confronting divisions created by leftists and dealing with them. And it’s not “barreling toward conflict” but responding to the attacks against the Jewish State.

What has Israel’s “ultra-nationalist” and “hard-line” government done so far? It diverted money that will be used by terrorists to finance the murder of Jews to the victims of these attacks.

One of its cabinet members briefly visited the holiest site in Judaism. Another suggested that the terrorists need to choose between getting money through Israel and killing Jews.

All that outrage over basic acts of decency.

It’s hard to argue with any of these actions when they’re described objectively. That’s why shrill labels like “hard-line” and  “ultra-nationalist” are being used to silence any meaningful debate.

The media doesn’t want to talk about why Israel and the United States should be financing Islamic terrorism against Jews. Israel’s new government is determined to make that the issue.

Anyone in the Biden administration, the media and activists who scream about “unilateralism” and “ultra-nationalists” should be asked to put away their thesauruses and answer why money should go to terrorists not terror victims.

AUTHOR

RELATED ARTICLES:

Media Blackout Over Islamic Terror Attack At Vegas Solar Power Plant

Biden Regime Gives ‘Temporary’ Amnesty to Thousands of Somalis Living in U.S.

Hamas-linked CAIR supports ritual animal sacrifice in Hamtramck, Michigan

Shamima Begum On Islamic State Beheadings: ‘I Was Okay With That’

Afghanistan: Taliban education minister says ban on girls’ education is based on culture and Islam

Afghanistan: Death toll from jihad suicide bombing at foreign ministry could be as high as 20

Muslim Thug in NYC Attack On Jewish Man to Get Slap on the Wrist

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

Blue States Attempted To Crackdown On Guns. Firearm Sales Skyrocketed Instead

Blue states have recently introduced restrictive gun laws that aim to remove firearms from the streets, but numerous states are now seeing massive increases in gun sales as Americans begin to “vote with their wallets,” according to data from the Firearm Industry Trade Association (NSSF).

Gun sales in Oregon, Washington and Illinois jumped either before or after legislators introduced or passed restrictive gun measures, according to National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) data adjusted by the NSSF. The number of gun sales per month in each state was based on the number of firearm background checks performed by NICS.

‘Threats, and actual legislation to limit the right of law-abiding citizens to own the firearm of their choosing, does have an effect on firearm sales,” NSSF Public Affairs Managing Director Mark Oliva told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

In November, Oregon residents narrowly passed Ballot Measure 114, a gun law that requires background checks, firearm training, fingerprint collection and a permit to purchase a gun. Following the law’s passing, background checks jumped from 29,472 in October to 86,075 in November, according to NSSF data obtained by the DCNF.

“Oregon’s figures easily demonstrate that Oregonians acted while they had the opportunity to buy the guns of their choice before the state moved to infringe on their Constitutional rights,” Oliva told the DCNF.

In March 2022, Democratic Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed three gun laws that restrict gun usage, including where guns can be carried, how to handle firearms without serial numbers and what kinds of magazines can be made and sold, according to The Spokesman-Review. After signing the laws, background checks jumped from 39,247 in February to 59,419 in March, according to the NSSF data.

In December 2022, Inslee announced additional gun control legislation that would ban “assault-style” weapons, hold manufacturers and retailers accountable for gun sales and implement a permit-to-purchase requirement for all gun buyers, according to a press conference.

“We intend in this session of the legislature to give Washingtonians assertive, effective and protective laws to protect them and their children against this epidemic of gun violence,” Inslee said.

Background checks in Illinois were at 33,326 in November, jumping to 42,305 in December, according to NSSF data.

“Every time new restrictions on firearms ownership are enacted we always see a spike in gun sales. The gun prohibition lobby is the best gun salesman out there. When people’s Second Amendment rights are attacked they respond by exercising them,” Second Amendment Foundation Founder Alan Gottlieb told the DCNF.

In January, Illinois passed a ban on “assault weapons” that went into effect immediately. The law banned more than 100 guns that were deemed “weapons of war” and limited magazine capacity to 10 rounds for long guns and 15 rounds for handguns, according to the legislation. However, the law states that gun owners can keep any firearm purchased before the ban took effect.

Leading up to the law’s passing, background checks climbed from 33,318 to 51,301 over a three-month period, according to NSSF data. “There’s been quite a rush of people trying to get in under the wire,” Maxon Shooter’s Supplies Owner Dan Eldridge told the Illinois Newsroom.

“Obviously, the law-abiding gun owners are concerned. And they’re voting with their wallets,” he continued.

AUTHOR

BRONSON WINSLOW

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Gun Sales Jump In Oregon With 36,000 People Waiting On Delayed Background Checks

RELATED VIDEO: Why Would You Ever Carry Concealed a Taurus G2c

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.

Here Is The Climate Cult’s True Agenda

With the Biden administration’s latest bid to ban gas stoves, many Americans might be asking themselves where they came up with this one. As usual, climate change is one of the culprits – despite Snopes telling you otherwise. This campaign comes as businesses argue it would annihilate the restaurant industry and drive up consumer prices. But that might be exactly the point.

Climate alarmism is calculated to achieve a series of goals that for too long have been considered the domain of “conspiracy theorists.” It’s easy to dismiss them as craziness when we’re treated to spectacles of activists gluing their nipples to pavement or defacing priceless works of Western art.

But ignore the theater and look at a blueprint for climate goals: the C40 2019 report titled “The Future Of Urban Consumption in a 1.5°C World.”

C40 defines itself as an alliance of “mayors and [their] cities … taking ambitious, collaborative and urgent climate action that aligns with science-backed targets.” It includes New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles – you know – the usual suspects. The World Economic Forum (WEF) gives it a platform, so you know it’s going to be good.

The report says people must reduce consumption to “mitigate climate change.” So far, no problem. After all, in consumerist America, the amount of polluting junk that ends up in landfills boggles the mind. But that’s not what C40 has in mind.

Instead, C40 calls for phasing out all meat and dairy consumption by the year 2030. Fortunately, the WEF has a solution: Eat the bugs. It’s more eco-friendly than raising livestock for meat and milk.

Now on to air travel. The C40 project calls for citizens to only take “1 short haul return flight (less than 1500 km) every three years per person.” That means you get one ~1,000-mile flight – a little more than a flight between Chicago and New York City. No more international travel for you.

As for cars, the goal is a grand total of zero private vehicles. For clothing, you get a total of three new clothing items per year, all by 2030.

Now, skeptics will say there is no way anyone will sign on to this. And they would be correct. That is where the coercive hands of government, “philanthropy” and the private sector combine to screw you over.

Americans can look to Europe for what the Biden administration is planning here. France has already banned short-haul domestic flights within the country. In the Netherlands, the government has moved to close nearly 12,000 family farms and cut the livestock capacity of roughly another 18,000. And if a buyout doesn’t work, the Dutch government has indicated it will expropriate the properties.

In America, such measures are already under consideration. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, for all his incompetence in handling the various air crises, appears a willing player in this climate power grab, floating a mileage tax allegedly to help pay for infrastructure. However, anyone paying attention will realize that taxing mileage will disincentivize car ownership and aid towards the goal of zero private vehicles. When AOC talks about cow farts, she may sound stupid, but she is unwittingly pushing the same agenda as in the Netherlands.

And if people resist, there’s always the corporations ready to cut you off. Mastercard is already pioneering such an experiment with a “carbon limit” credit card (which is voluntary for now) that cuts your purchases off if you exceed your monthly limit. And the calculation tool is available to other banks, too. It’s not just Mastercard. Look at the list of the WEF’s partners and see how many brands you recognize that are involved in this “Great Reset.” This is how the C40 goals will be enforced. You will comply or be cut off from the financial system.

And if you think that’s bad, just wait until the Federal Reserve rolls out central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) to control and block any transaction you make. Sound like something out of Communist China? That’s because it is. It’s exactly how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) social credit system is designed.

Yet, none of the climate alarmists follow these suggestions. When John Kerry visits Davos, Switzerland, for the WEF summit, he will be flying ~4,000 miles, likely on a gas-guzzling private jet. Davos attendees certainly won’t be eating the bugs. Despite touting a meatless menu, there will still be the option of steaks at expensive Swiss restaurants. And if and when global emissions regulations do kick in, they will always have the option of buying carbon credits to increase their allowances.

And the worst part is that none of this is a “conspiracy theory.” It’s all documented and suggests these guys have nothing but contempt for you. Just look at what they say vs. what they do. Jill Biden gets to use a gas stove, but you don’t. Ted Turner gets to have five children, but you only get one. Bill Gates gets a massive yacht, Kerry gets his private jet and Al Gore gets his mansion, but you get to fly once every three years, live in a pod and eat the bugs.

Pay no attention to the crazy climate activists. They are simply a cover for this agenda which certainly seems hellbent on making sure you own nothing and are happy.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller.

AUTHOR

MICHELE GAMA SOSA

Michele Gama Sosa is an opinion editor for the Daily Caller and a historian by training.

RELATED ARTICLES:

U.S. Energy Dept. Report Admits Mistake in Canceling Keystone XL Pipeline, Shows Economic Benefits

Meet the Green Energy Group Behind the Study That’s Driving Calls To Ban Gas Stoves

Globalists’ ‘Net Zero’ crusade will lead to end of modern civilization

RELATED TWEET:

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

Five Additional Pages Of Classified Documents Found At Biden’s Delaware Home

Five additional pages of classified documents were discovered in President Joe Biden’s home, his special counsel, Richard Sauber announced Saturday.

The pages were found by Sauber on Thursday in Wilmington, Delaware, as he was facilitating the delivery of another classified document found Wednesday to the Department of Justice (DOJ), Sauber said in a statement.

Biden’s lawyers were conducting a search of the president’s Delaware residences following the discovery of classified documents at Biden’s private office at the Penn Biden Center in November, and found classified documents in his garage on Dec. 20 and one additional document at his residence on Wednesday, the DOJ said on Thursday.

When the additional document was found Wednesday, Biden’s lawyers suspended their search of the immediate area and contacted the DOJ, because they didn’t have security clearances, Sauber said.

“I went to Wilmington Thursday evening to facilitate providing the document the President’s personal counsel found on Wednesday to the Justice Department. While I was transferring it to the DOJ officials who accompanied me, five additional pages with classification markings were discovered among the material with it, for a total of six pages. The DOJ officials with me immediately took possession of them,” Sauber added.

He stressed that Biden’s lawyers acted “immediately and voluntarily,” and that the administration is cooperating with the special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday.

The White House did not announce the discovery of the five additional documents on Thursday or Friday. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Thursday that the search by Biden’s lawyers is “clearly complete, and therefore we shared the information with all of you.”

AUTHOR

DIANA GLEBOVA

White House correspondent.

RELATED ARTICLES:

More Classified Documents Found In Biden’s Garage, Next To His Corvette

Aides Find 2ND SECRET BATCH of Classified Documents—IN BIDEN’S GARAGE

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