Biden Admin Used Border Wall Funds On ‘Environmental Planning’ And Cleanup, Government Watchdog Says

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The Biden administration spent taxpayer dollars meant to fund a border wall to pay for “environmental planning,” according to a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

At the request of Republican Reps. Jack Bergman of Michigan and Jodey Arrington of Texas, the GAO investigated whether the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) broke the law when it effectively blocked the use of taxpayer dollars to build a wall along the southern border. While GAO’s final report clears the DHS of breaking the law, it confirmed that DHS used congressionally-appropriated funds meant for the wall to pay for “environmental planning” and efforts “to remediate or mitigate environmental damage from past border wall construction.”

Republicans on the House Budget Committee, including Bergman and Arrington, characterized the GAO’s finding as confirmation that the Biden administration has spent taxpayer funds meant to enhance border security to further its environmental agenda.

Congress previously approved funds for DHS to build a border barrier between fiscal year 2018 and fiscal year 2021, but President Joe Biden and his appointees quickly instituted a new policy whereby “no more American taxpayer dollars (would) be diverted to construct a border wall” upon entering office in 2021. Cabinet secretaries, including DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, were ordered to work together to produce plans for how to shift funds away from border wall construction.

In 2021, DHS released a report detailing how it would look to redirect funds meant for the wall to instead pay for things like “environmental planning,” reviewing upcoming eminent domain actions and considering environmental remediation efforts in areas that had been the site of previous construction, according to GAO’s report. The agency then changed its plans in July 2022, applying an amendment that made environmental remediation a top priority for the agency’s expenditure of the funds appropriated for fiscal years 2018-2021.

The Biden administration has made great efforts to roll back or replace many of the immigration and border policies of former President Donald Trump, but the situation at the border has deteriorated massively since 2021. There have been nearly 8 million land encounters at the southwest border since October 2021, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and the Congressional Budget Office reported in January that more than 3.3 million people came to the U.S. illegally, were released into the country via parole or overstayed their permission to remain in the country in fiscal year 2023 alone.

The situation at the border set the stage for congressional Republicans to attempt to impeach Mayorkas earlier this spring. The House voted to impeach Mayorkas in February, but the Senate quickly dismissed an impeachment trial along partisan lines earlier in April.

Neither the White House nor the DHS responded immediately to requests for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

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Biden Admin Weighs California’s Latest Green Gambit That Could Set Off Chain Reaction Of Economic Pain

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The Biden administration could allow California to implement a rule designed to push green locomotives, but a growing list of stakeholders are warning that the regulation would severely impact the state’s economy and the national rail industry.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could soon determine whether it will allow the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to move forward with a state regulation that would ban the use of locomotives that are more than 23 years past their manufacturing date unless they run using zero-emissions technology, according to Progressive Railroading.

The rule could disrupt supply chains and saddle the state’s railway industry with huge new costs that would flow to consumers, with the effects of the rule potentially spilling out in other parts of the country, according to numerous trade groups, lawmakers and policy experts who believe the Biden administration should reject CARB’s request.

CARB passed the locomotive rule in April 2023, but the agency must first receive the EPA’s permission before it enacts a regulation that goes above and beyond federal rules, according to the EPA’s Federal Register entry on the request. Monday was the last day to file comments with the EPA about the matter, signaling that a final determination could be coming soon.

“When you look at regulations in California, they’re being promulgated by people who don’t really understand the ramifications of what they’re requiring,” Edward Ring, a veteran of the railroad industry who is now the director of water and energy policy for the California Policy Center, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “CARB is asking for something — zero-emissions locomotives — that do not yet exist. And what’s going to happen is it’s going to dramatically raise the cost of shipping anywhere in California, and that’s going to have a ripple effect across the country. This is another example of California’s environmentalist regulations raising the cost of living.”

The rule for locomotives would take effect in 2030, assuming EPA allows CARB to proceed. Some of the rule’s critics say that timeline is too tight to meet given the current lack of dependable, affordable zero-emissions technology available for locomotives on the market.

Moreover, the rule also would require locomotive operators to pay into their own trust accounts to fund the acquisition of zero-emissions locomotives and related infrastructure, according to CARB. The payment structure requires operators to contribute more into the accounts for operating dirtier locomotives than they have to put up for running cleaner ones.

Because many other states adhere to CARB guidelines, the EPA’s approval could set off a chain reaction expanding the impact of the rule well beyond California’s borders, according to Ted Greener, vice president of public affairs for the Association of American Railroads (AAR).

“If EPA approves the waiver the rule becomes a national matter on the first day. Roughly 65% of the locomotive fleet goes in and out of California and almost all of the freight rail traffic that moves in the state of California traverses state lines,” Ted Greener, vice president of public affairs for the Association of American Railroads (AAR), told the DCNF. “Moreover, EPA granting the waiver enables other states to opt-in and replicate the regulation in full – including the phase out dates and the spending accounts. Such a balkanized system would be unspeakably costly, but also disruptive to the flow of goods.”

A “large number” of locomotives would be impacted by the rule, Greener told the DCNF. Typically, locomotives have a lifespan ranging from 30 to 50 years, and they are regularly upgraded or otherwise modified to be more fuel-efficient, Greener added.

Other rail industry interest groups, such as the American Short Line and Railroad Association (ASLRRA), have also opposed the rule.

“While the spirit behind this rule is consistent with short lines’ environmental commitment, the rule itself is impractical, unworkable, and simply not feasible for most short lines,” Chuck Baker, president of ASLRRA, said of CARB’s rule in May 2023. “In addition, this rulemaking does not acknowledge the impact of the elimination of some short line rail service to Californians … Short lines would not in fact be able to pass on these costs to their customers and some of them would be eliminated by this rule.”

For its part, CARB downplays most of these criticisms and concerns.

“Despite the availability of cleaner options, railroad companies have failed to make investments to replace their outdated, dirty locomotives that contribute to the state’s air quality problems and endanger the lives and health of Californians,” a CARB spokesperson told the DCNF. “Passenger vehicles, heavy-duty trucks, ocean-going vessels, heavy off-road equipment, small off-road engines used in landscaping, among other emissions sectors are all doing their part. It’s time for the rail industry to join and work with us to become part of the solution rather than focusing their efforts on litigation and PR campaigns.”

“In addition, under CARB’s Locomotive Regulation, railroads need not purchase new locomotives, but instead have many options available to them, including the use of zero-emission tender cars, rail electrification, or retrofitting of their existing locomotive fleet to ensure zero-emission operation while operating within California,” the spokesperson continued.

Labor unions, including the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers, have filed comments with EPA making their opposition to CARB’s rule clear.

Moreover, a diverse coalition of more than 60 trade groups — including the National Association of Manufacturers, the Beer Institute and the Aluminum Association — wrote a letter Friday to Karl Simon, the director of EPA’s Transportation and Climate Division, expressing significant concerns with the rule should CARB be allowed to proceed.

“This regulation from CARB has the potential to create significant disruptions in the supply chain for all sectors of the U.S. economy, especially manufacturers and shippers who rely on consistent, reliable rail service,” the letter reads. “This rule could lead to delays for businesses and increased costs for both shippers and consumers that could ultimately lead to a massive supply chain crisis. If railroads are forced to spend large amounts of money to ensure compliance with this rule, those costs will be passed along the entire supply chain and could inhibit rail service at facilities across the country – not just in California.”

“The issue is that no viable technology exists today to move freight beyond yards on a zero-emissions basis,” the letter continues. “Despite aggressive [research and development] and innovation in the rail sector and significant private investments, the technologies to achieve this rule simply do not exist at this point.”

Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin and 11 Republican Senators also wrote their own letter expressing concern about the CARB rule to EPA Administrator Michael Reagan on April 16. In addition to raising questions about the legality of CARB’s rule, the lawmakers urged the EPA to “carefully consider the environmental, supply chain, and modal shift implications that EPA approving CARB’s waiver request would have.”

The EPA did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

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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.

WATCH: Thousands of Illegals Flood New York City Hall To Protest Move Out Of Luxury Hotels

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You can’t make this stuff up. New Yorkers can’t pay their bone crushing taxes …. for this. They are trying to occupy the building and are demanding to have luxury hotel rooms provided to illegals instead of the shelters that NYC has provided. Other demands include work permits, assistance, etc.

NOTE: Mostly military-age males!

WATCH:

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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

‘Hammered From All Sides’: Minority Truckers Say California’s Green Regs Are Destroying Their American Dream

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Minority truckers are struggling to stay afloat as the state of California levies stringent green regulations on their businesses, according to some of those affected who spoke with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB), California’s environmental regulatory agency, will ban the sale of new diesel heavy-duty trucks starting in 2036, a policy partially motivated by a desire to improve health outcomes for minority populations. That requirement is the latest in a string of similar requirements imposed in recent years, all of which have made it excessively difficult for minorities to operate their own trucking enterprises and pursue the American dream, some of those small business owners told the DCNF.

“Many California neighborhoods, especially Black and Brown, low-income and vulnerable communities, live, work, play and attend schools adjacent to the ports, railyards, distribution centers and freight corridors and experience the heaviest truck traffic,” CARB said in 2020 after proposing its most recent “clean truck” rule. That particular rule for trucks was motivated in part to address the “disproportionate risks and health and pollution burdens affecting these communities,” the agency said at the time.

While bureaucrats writing the rules pitch them as a way to reduce respiratory and health ailments in minority communities that live in and around frequently-trafficked trucking routes, some minority truckers told the DCNF that the rules are squeezing them financially in ways that render any purported health benefits moot.

“A lot of our members are minority-owned small businesses,” Joe Rajkovacz, the director of governmental affairs and communications for the Western States Trucking Association, told the DCNF. “Here in California, there is a decided indifference to small business trucking by both politicians and bureaucrats.”

Randy Thomas, a black man, grew up in South Central Los Angeles as the son of a World War II veteran and a lifelong resident of California. He ran his trucking firm for many decades, growing his business from a one-man operation to a company that employed 15 drivers and provided enough income to send all of his children to college, making them the first in his family to get the chance to do so.

By 2009, the regulatory environment left him no choice to shut down his business, as it did not make financial sense for him to purchase new and expensive trucks to meet new mandates.

“I did my first trip when I was 20. Everything was going great from 1971 up until around the time that (former President Barack) Obama got into office,” Thomas told the DCNF. “By 2008, we come up with this clean truck program here. We were having all these meetings. I’m looking at the division between the environmentalists, telling us about CO2 and gases …  I’m looking at the charts of what our engines that we had at that time, which were made mainly mechanical diesel, and they had no idea what engine was gonna be the engine they were writing into prospective goals.”

“Guys are going out of business like you wouldn’t believe,” Thomas told the DCNF about other Californian truckers he knows.

After closing his business, Jackson moved on to a different company, and he still drives truck routes delivering medical supplies and other time-sensitive loads. But, as he explained to the DCNF, “it wasn’t my company anymore.”

Bill Aboudi, a Palestinian-American who still owns his own small trucking company operating out of the Port of Oakland, touched on some of the same themes in an interview with the DCNF.

Aboudi was born in 1966, and his father went missing in action during the Six Day War between Israel and a coalition of Arab states in 1967. Aboudi immigrated to the U.S. when he was 14 years old, and started helping his brother out with his trucking business in 1989 after he got out of the California National Guard and never left the industry.

“I live in the middle of getting hammered from all sides. One of the first things that CARB always makes it out to be, is if you’re in the trucking business, you’re a polluter. I always try and explain to them, I’ve got an organic garden, I have about three fruit trees in my backyard. I used to keep bees … I’ve got 12 chickens. I love the environment, and I want to get the best technology for my operation,” Aboudi told the DCNF. “It seems like the regulators have no clue. They want to be able to turn on a switch and have everybody switch directionally right away … They end up reducing our company size and stunting our growth.”

Assembly Bill 5, which reclassified California’s 70,000 independent owner-operators as employees of shipping companies rather than independent contractors, was another policy that hurt the workers politicians purported to help, Aboudi said.

“This kills the liberty of being a trucker and kills the American dream,” Miguel Ramirez, a Los Angeles-based trucker, told the DCNF in July 2022.

It’s not just truckers who are impacted by regulations and their impacts on California’s trucking operators, Aboudi explained to the DCNF. There are many thousands of blue-collar workers — including immigrants like him — whose jobs rely on California’s busy ports, providing parts for trucks and other closely-related trades.

“I am still paying for trucks that I upgraded on the last round, and I can’t use them,” Aboudi continued, referencing older regulations. “Now I’m paying for the newer trucks that I upgraded to. And I’m being told I’m gonna have to go to zero-emission trucks that are still in the first stage of development … We’ve already had to downsize our company from 13 trucks to eight trucks.”

While bureaucrats in Sacramento and the supporters of their political superiors in Los Angeles and San Francisco may think that their progressive approach to environmental policy is benefiting minority communities, the opposite is true in many cases, according to Donna Jackson, the director of membership development for the National Center for Public Policy Research’s Project 21.

“California leads the country in enacting climate change policies that are increasingly leading to tiered social classes, the rich and the poor,” Jackson told the DCNF. “Like the Biden administration, California has ignored the real needs of underserved communities. Its climate change policies are destroying minority businesses and creating needless barriers to upward economic mobility. The result of all of this is not just job losses, but lost role models, financially unstable families, declining home ownership rates and a loss of community pride.”

CARB did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

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

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

Ex-Trump Advisor Purged From Federal Elections Board After Left-Wing Pressure Campaign, Emails Show

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A federal agency did not reappoint a former Trump advisor to an elections advisory board after a left-wing activist group threatened to launch a public criticism campaign, according to emails obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who is now the senior legal fellow at the Conservative Partnership Institute, was appointed to the advisory board for the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) in November 2021. After months of badgering United States Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) officials to oust Mitchell from the EAC board of advisors, Free Speech for People president John Bonifaz threatened to launch a “public campaign” criticizing the agency if it did not drop Mitchell at the end of her two-year term, emails obtained by the DCNF via public records request show.

“I am writing as a courtesy to let you know that, unless we hear from you by tomorrow, November 29, at 5 pm ET that the USCCR has decided not to reappoint Cleta Mitchell, we plan to launch a public campaign criticizing the USCCR for this decision, including by publicizing a copy of your 10/5/23 email below to me, which as you know is public record,” Bonifaz wrote on Nov. 28, 2023 to USCCR General Counsel David Ganz.

“I wanted to let you know about this so you’re not surprised if e.g. you or the Commission receive media calls,” Bonifaz added.

The threatening email seems to have worked. The next day, Free Speech for People, the same group that was behind several recent efforts to kick Trump off the ballot, celebrated that Mitchell would not be reappointed. Ganz had said in an Oct. 5 email that Mitchell’s appointment could not be withdrawn during her term, but suggested there may be alternate means of removing her from the board when her term expired.

The duties of the EAC, a federal agency established by the Help America Vote Act of 2002, center on the administration of elections, including administering grant programs and offering voluntary voting system guidelines, testing and certification. Its board of advisors, comprised of 35 members appointed from a range of agencies and organizations such as the USCCR, reviews draft guidance and provides input to the EAC commissioners.

Mitchell’s appointment sparked backlash from Democrats and left-wing groups because her volunteer legal work for Trump’s 2020 campaign and her presence on a Jan. 2, 2021 phone call where Trump told Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes for him to win the state.

Mitchell told the DCNF she was not aware of Free Speech for People’s pressure, though she noted there were “a number of left-wing groups who went berserk when I was designated.”

“I do find it ironic that a group that supposedly promotes ‘free speech for people’ organized a campaign to make sure that the opinions and views of people like me are not heard,” Mitchell told the DCNF.

Free Speech for People was among the groups seeking to remove former President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, a ploy that was recently shut down by the U.S. Supreme Court. Free Speech for People filed lawsuits and urged election officials in various states to bar him from the ballot.

Trump-appointed USCCR commissioner J. Christian Adams told the DCNF he was not aware of Free Speech for People’s efforts. He said Republican commissioners were only able to get Mitchell appointed via a compromise with Democrats. The deal was Republicans would vote to approve President Joe Biden’s pick for USCCR chair and Democrats would support filling an open seat on the EAC board with a Republican — either Adams or Mitchell.

Now, since both USCCR’s appointments to the EAC board expired, he has been “agitating to have the process commenced to have these positions filled.” Neither Mitchell nor Democratic appointee law professor Jenny Carroll were reappointed after their terms expired.

“And as far as I can tell, nothing is being done by staff or the chair,” Adams told the DCNF.

Free Speech for People first sent a letter to USCCR staff director Mauro Morales in January 2023 calling for the withdrawal of Mitchell’s appointment, stating she was “deeply enmeshed in the disgraced former President Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 federal election.”

It renewed that call in a July letter to Morales and the USCCR’s commissioners.

After the Fulton County grand jury’s final report revealed it had recommended charging Mitchell in the racketeering case against Trump, Bonifaz continued to push for her removal in emails. Mitchell was not indicted by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, whose case has since been bogged down by scandal.

Ganz told Bonifaz in an Oct. 5 email that the USCCR did not have the authority to “unilaterally revoke a post appointment” or remove a current member, though he noted the current appointees terms expired in November 2023. In light of this, he told Bonifaz he had requested USCCR commissioners “commence consideration of new appointments” to the board.

One agenda item for Nov. 1, 2023, the “Democratic Commissioner Caucus Call,” references an email from Bonifaz regarding new appointments to the EAC board. Yvesner Zamar, Special Assistant to USCCR Chair Rochelle Garza, wrote it was an issue that “has caused much consternation for The Commission and it doesn’t appear that will end soon.”

“There is uncertainty about how terms end automatically or rollover,” he wrote. “There are other outstanding considerations, but ultimately, we need to decide how we move forward. Most recently, outside inquiries were surprisingly punted over to me as the Chair’s Special Assistant regarding the appointment of new people.”

A Nov. 7 agenda item for a Democrat-only call included an “EAC Discussion” led by Vice Chair Victoria Nourse.

Zamar called Bonifaz shortly after his Nov. 28 email threat to tell him they were “working on appointing people” and would circle back with him the next week, according to an email he sent thanking him for taking the call.

It’s unclear precisely when the decision not to reappoint Mitchell was made, though an email the next day from Bonifaz suggests the USCCR sent the EAC a letter following his threat to launch a public campaign.

“We now understand that the USCCR has sent a letter to the EAC,” he wrote on Nov. 29. “Can you send us a copy of that letter or should we issue a FOIA request for it?”

A spokesperson for the EAC told the DCNF members on its board of advisors serve two-year terms.

“The USCCR informed the EAC that it would not be reappointing Ms. Mitchell for an additional term,” the spokesperson said.

Mitchell said she found out the same way.

“I just received a notice that both of the USCCR designees’ appointments were terminated,” she told the DCNF.

Free Speech for People pointed the DCNF to the public statement it issued after Mitchell’s removal.

“The election denier Cleta Mitchell had no place on the advisory board for the Election Assistance Commission and the US Commission on Civil Rights should never have appointed her to that position,” Bonifaz said at the time. “Today’s announcement is a triumph for our democracy.”

USCCR Chair Rochelle Garza declined to comment. Staff director Mauro Morales did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

KATELYNN RICHARDSON

Contributor.

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

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

Will feds decimate one owl species to help another?

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Nearly 500,000 barred owls in northern California, Oregon, and Washington state will soon be under the gun if the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service goes ahead with its latest scheme to save the endangered northern spotted owl.

In November, the Fish and Wildlife Service unveiled its barred owl management proposal, the centerpiece of which is the removal of approximately 500,000 barred owls via the shotgun or other forms of euthanasia from the habitat of its smaller cousin, the northern spotted owl.

“Barred owl removal is not something the Service takes lightly,” Jodie Delavan, a spokeswoman for the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Service, told McClatchy News on March 26. “However, the Service has a legal and ethical responsibility to do all it can to recover northern spotted owl populations.” A final barred owl “management strategy” and a record of decision is expected later this year, Ms. Delavan told McClatchy News.

Since the barred owl is protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, killing them — in this case, by the hundreds of thousands — will require a federal permit or regulation. And that is a step the feds appear to be prepared to take.

That the barred owl is covered under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act is quite appropriate because the bird — beginning in the early 20th century — began migrating westward from eastern North America. By the 1980s, it was well established in the Pacific Northwest, where it occupies the same habitat as the smaller northern spotted owl. The two species feed on the same prey, with the more aggressive barred owl outcompeting its cousin, sometimes even killing northern spotted owls.

When the problem first garnered public attention in the early 1990s, the preferred explanation from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and environmental groups was that the commercial logging of old-growth forests was responsible for the loss of the northern spotted owl’s habitat and thus was behind the bird’s dwindling numbers. Saving old-growth forests, where Douglas fir and hemlock prevail, was seen by the Clinton administration as the preferred solution, and policies were put in place that restricted logging on federal land in the Pacific Northwest. Those policies succeeded in shutting down many sawmills and destroying timber-dependent communities throughout the region.

The Clinton administration even orchestrated an “Owl Summit” at which federal officials and environmentalists congratulated themselves for caring so much about the fate of the northern spotted owl. Those who pointed out that the problem lay not with old-growth forests but with the encroaching barred owl were ignored.

Over 30 years after the summit and the bird’s being added to the Endangered Species List, the situation faced by the northern spotted owl has worsened. While ignoring the mistake it made in blaming the loss of old-growth forest for the northern spotted owl’s declining numbers, the feds now acknowledge that the problem lies with the barred owl. Seizing the bull by the horns — to mix metaphors — the Fish and Wildlife Service initiated an experiment that involved the killing of 2,485 barred owls with 12-gauge shotguns in five different areas, the Modesto Bee reported March 26.

Having concluded that nonviolent removal of the barred owls was impractical, the feds appear to have settled on a lethal approach. This means showing a preference for one species of owl over another, with the “invasive” barred owl coming up short. But is the barred owl really an invasive species, or is it simply expanding its territory, as many species of birds and mammals are prone to do?
The Owl Research Institute, a Montana-based nonprofit focused on owl conservation, is reviewing the government’s proposal.

“Central to this discussion is the determination of whether Barred Owls truly meet the criteria for an invasive species, or if they represent a more adaptable species capable of natural expansion by themselves, as some have suggested,” the institute said in a March 26 statement emailed to McClatchy News.

The Fish and Wildlife Service is operating under the 1973 Endangered Species Act, a statute that has fallen woefully short in fulfilling its mission of recovering species at risk. In the case of the northern spotted owl, the law was used in the 1990s to curtail commercial logging in the Pacific Northwest. That was a political goal pursued by environmentalists in and out of government. As is now clear, it did nothing to improve the lot of the northern spotted owl.

Today, federal wildlife managers are seriously considering an avian version of ethnic cleansing to carry out their “legal and ethical responsibility” under the Endangered Species Act. The statute allows bureaucrats to play God, even if their policies turn out to be ungodly. If they go through with their plan and shotguns are trained on hundreds of thousands of owls, the Endangered Species Act will have reached a new level of absurdity.

This article originally appeared at The Washington Times

AUTHOR

Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.

Bonner R. Cohen is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research, where he concentrates on energy, natural resources, and international relations. He also serves as a senior policy adviser with the Heartland Institute, senior policy analyst with the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, and as adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Articles by Dr. Cohen have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Investor’s Business Daily, New York Post, Washington Times, National Review, Philadelphia Inquirer, Detroit News, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Miami Herald, and dozens of other newspapers in the U.S. and Canada. He has been interviewed on Fox News, CNN, Fox Business Channel, BBC, BBC Worldwide Television, NBC, NPR, N 24 (German language news channel), Voice of Russia, and scores of radio stations in the U.S. Dr. Cohen has testified before the U.S. Senate committees on Energy & Natural Resources and Environment & Public Works as well as the U.S. House committees on Natural Resources and Judiciary. He has spoken at conferences in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Bangladesh. Dr. Cohen is the author of two books, The Green Wave: Environmentalism and its Consequences (Washington: Capital Research Center, 2006) and Marshall, Mao und Chiang: Die amerikanischen Vermittlungsbemuehungen im chinesischen Buergerkrieg (Marshall, Mao and Chiang: The American Mediations Effort in the Chinese Civil War) (Munich: Tuduv Verlag, 1984). Dr. Cohen received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and his Ph.D. – summa cum laude – from the University of Munich.

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

Robinette Hood: Here’s How Biden’s EV Agenda Will Take From The Poor And Give To The Rich

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President Joe Biden’s massive electric vehicle (EV) agenda will subsidize the lifestyles of America’s well-to-do while hitting average people the hardest, economists and auto market analysts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Biden administration is aggressively regulating the U.S. auto market to drastically increase the proportion of EVs sold over the coming decade, but consumer demand has not taken off as quickly as proponents had projected despite the subsidies made available by Biden’s flagship climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Manufacturers are slashing prices of their EVs to make the vehicles more appealing to consumers, which will increase prices for internal combustion engine (ICE) cars to compensate; this dynamic will only pick up speed and infect the used-car market favored by lower-income consumers as the administration’s stringent regulations kick in over time, economists and auto market analysts told the DCNF.

EVs benefit from direct subsidies, such as the IRA’s $7,500 consumer tax credit, but they also will increasingly benefit from a hidden cross-subsidy whereby manufacturers drop their prices and offset those losses by boosting prices of ICE vehicles, experts explained to the DCNF.

“As the mandated market share of EVs grows, the number of ICE vehicle sales must shrink. A decreasing number of ICE vehicle sales would have to prop up an increasing number of EV sales. The price hike per ICE vehicle would have to increase to offset losses on the ever-larger volume EVs sold,” Marlo Lewis, a senior fellow for the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the DCNF. “Used cars compete with new cars for customers. If new car prices rise, so will used car prices. Even with generous federal, state, and manufacturer incentives, EVs cost thousands of dollars more than comparable ICE vehicles, and millions of middle-income households are already priced out of the market for new vehicles.”

The Biden administration’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) have each promulgated major emissions or fuel economy regulations designed to effectively require massive increases in the number of EVs sold in the 2030s. Despite these regulations and massive federal spending intended to help advance EV production and demand, American manufacturers are losing billions of dollars on their EV product lines.

These losses are poised to kick off a chain of second-order consequences on the auto market that will disadvantage lower-income consumers whose needs are especially not well-suited by EVs, O.H. Skinner, the executive director of the Alliance for Consumers, told the DCNF. Democrats set aside billions of dollars to help build out a national EV charging network in the bipartisan infrastructure package of 2021, but those funds have so far only led to a handful of charging stations coming online across the country while “range anxiety” remains a very real concern for consumers.

One of the most pernicious effects of the EV agenda is the skyrocketing cost of many traditional models. When D.C. and California elites fixate on wiping away the majority of the cars on the market, it distorts the market — the cars that people want are in shorter and shorter supply, leading to higher prices and requiring consumers to pay over list price to snag what is available, while the market is flooded with EVs that consumers aren’t interested in, even at steep discounts,” Skinner told the DCNF.  “And this will roll forward into the used market as well, as the same shortages flow through for years, hurting those who most need affordable cars that meet their family needs.”

The general effect that Skinner describes projects that increased costs of new gas-powered cars — driven by manufacturers’ desire to offset losses on EVs and increase demand for a decreased number of available new gas-powered models — will boost demand for used cars as consumers turn to that market for better deals. In turn, that increase in demand will put upward price pressure on the used car market, making cheaper options less affordable to the detriment of demographics that do not have the means to splurge on pricier automobiles.

The used vehicle market is significantly larger than the market for new cars.

In 2022, approximately 38.6 million used vehicles were sold, compared to 13.6 million brand new vehicles, according to data aggregated by Statista. The regressive impacts of the administration’s EV agenda stand at odds with much of its rhetoric on its broader environmental agenda, which broadly seeks to promote climate policy and social justice at the same time.

“Even if it’s not explicitly stated, the only way that automakers can survive billions in losses from one division (EVs) is because of profits from the other division (conventional car),” Mark Mills, the director of the National Center for Energy Analytics, told the DCNF. The long-term and downstream impacts of this cross-subsidization are “profoundly regressive,” he added, alluding to the fact that the government and manufacturers are taking actions in ways that make luxury EVs less expensive while driving up the costs of models favored by the everyman.

EV adoption is lagging in the American heartland relative to coastal and more densely-populated states like California, which had more than four times as many EV registrations as of 2022 than the next state on the list, according to Department of Energy data.

The White House did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

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

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

Biden’s Electric Vehicle ‘Mandate’ Might Just Be A Surprise Gift To China

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The Biden administration has put in place regulations that would require many Americans to adopt electric vehicles (EV) in the coming years despite U.S. companies struggling to produce the products, leading some experts to wonder if vehicles from China will be needed to meet current goals.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized emission standards in late March for light-duty vehicles that would effectively require 67% of new models sold to be electric or hybrid by the end of 2032 in hopes of speeding up an EV transition to reduce carbon emissions. The regulations are in spite of sluggish American EV demand that has led to both concerning losses and slowdowns in production for automakers, with both Tesla and Rivian missing production expectations for the first quarter of 2024.

China’s EV industry could fill the gap left by the lagging U.S. market, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“China’s EV production would pose no risk to American consumers or U.S. geopolitical security if we had a free market allowing U.S. companies to concentrate on their comparative advantage in pickups, SUVs, and minivans, and allowing consumers to decide which types of vehicles best meet their needs,” Marlo Lewis, senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, told the DCNF. “EV mandates, however, create a captive market for EV producers, and China is today the world’s top EV producer.”

BYD, China’s top EV maker, has experienced a meteoric rise in recent years, with yearly profits growing 80.72% year-over-year in 2023 amid global expansion, but has so far been priced out of the American market due to current restrictions. EVs and hybrids made up 30% of all Chinese car sales during the first 11 months of 2023.

China also has broad command over the current EV supply chain due to its control over minerals needed to build batteries required for electric vehicles. The country currently controls 87% of the world’s mineral refining capacity, with U.S. attempts to increase its own capacity not yet yielding sufficient results.

The Biden administration has sought to incentivize the purchase and manufacturing of certain American EV models with a $7,500 tax credit in an effort to drive down costs for consumers, conditioning the subsidy on manufacturers not using a certain level of components from foreign entities of concern, like China. Despite incentives and mandates, sales for new EVs in the U.S. grew only 2.7% in the first quarter, below the 5% that sales for all new vehicles grew, leading to a drop in auto market share to 7.1% for EVs.

Automakers, including Bentley, GM, Ford, Mercedes-Benz and Honda, have scaled back their previous EV goals as consumers decline to buy the product.

“So, if U.S. manufacturers are forced to keep making high-priced EVs, their market share could contract while BYD’s increases,” Lewis told the DCNF. “Global auto industry leadership would shift from the United States to China. California and EPA’s EV campaign could end up helping fulfill China’s ambition to be the world’s leading superpower.”

The Biden administration has also put forward restrictions on heavy-duty vehicles, like trucks, that effectively require at least 25% of new long-haul trucks and 40% of all new medium-sized trucks to be electric or zero-emission by 2032.

Several American auto manufacturers have posted huge losses due to EV development and sales, including Ford, which lost $4.7 billion on EVs in 2023, losing nearly $65,000 on each EV that it sold. General Motors lost $1.7 billion in just the fourth quarter of 2023, despite strong profits overall.

“Americans rely on too many critical goods and raw materials from China, which is why we need to ‘strategically decouple’ from CCP supply chains as soon as practicable,” Adam Savit, director of the China Policy Initiative at the American First Policy Institute, told the DCNF. “That goes most especially for critical high-tech and defense needs, such as semiconductors, AI, quantum computing, and rare earth elements. U.S. policymakers have made us increasingly dependent on EVs for transportation, so as long as such policies are in place, we must decouple from CCP EV supply chains as well.”

Savit pointed to the current tariffs on EVs as the reason Chinese EV makers have been unable to break into the U.S. market and are unlikely to if current trade restrictions were to remain the same. The Trump administration put in place a 25% import tax on EVs, which Biden has so far kept in place.

BYD has sought to infiltrate the American market through possibly building EV plants in Mexico, which, under current restrictions, could skirt around tariffs, delivering EVs that could compete with even gas-powered vehicles in terms of price to American buyers. Chinese EVs are also often of lesser quality, have access to cheaper materials and can utilize less expensive labor.

“Even American-made EVs are produced with a lot of Chinese inputs, including critical minerals,” Savit told the DCNF. “Many EV-related CCP supply chains are tied to human rights abuses and forced labor in Xinjiang.”

Former President Trump, in a campaign speech in mid-March, called for putting a 100% tariff on every single car manufactured outside the U.S., which would severely hamper China’s ability to sell in the country, while also reducing competition for domestic manufacturers, according to CNN.

Chinese EVs have already made large headwinds in the European market, with around 19.4% of EVs sold on the continent in 2023 being made in China, which is expected to rise to 25% by the end of 2024, according to an analysis from the European Federation for Transportation and Environment. The European Union announced in September 2023 that it had launched an investigation over whether to impose punitive tariffs on Chinese EVs due to artificially cheap prices from state subsidies, according to Reuters.

The White House did not respond to a request to comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.

AUTHOR

WILL KESSLER

Contributor.

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

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

‘Blatant Violations’: Watchdog Challenges Key Data Used By Biden Admin To Push Sweeping Climate Agenda

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A government watchdog group has filed a complaint with the Biden administration over its use of a dataset frequently used to push its climate agenda.

Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT) filed the complaint with the Commerce Department over the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) “Billions Project” dataset, which purports to keep track of natural [and climate] disasters that have caused at least $1 billion in damages going back to 1980. The billion-dollar disasters (BDD) data — cited frequently by the Biden administration to insinuate that climate change is intensifying and justify sweeping green policies — is based on opaque data derived from questionable accounting practices, PPT alleges in the complaint.

“American families and businesses continue to struggle with persistently high inflation, which many attribute in large part to the energy policies and government spending of the current administration. The idea that blatant violations of scientific integrity could be underlying the rationale for these policies should concern every American,” Michael Chamberlain, PPT’s director, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Unfortunately, this is far from an isolated incident. The Biden Administration came into office pledging that its decision making would be grounded in the highest-quality science, but all too often has failed to live up to those promises.” 

PPT Scientific Integrity Co… by Nick Pope

The complaint was filed with the Commerce Department, as NOAA operates under its auspices, Chamberlain told the DCNF.

PPT’s complaint alleges that NOAA does not adequately disclose its sources and methods for compiling the BDD dataset, adds and removes BDD events from the dataset without providing its rationale for doing so and produces cost estimates that are sometimes significantly different than those generated by more conventional accounting procedures.

While NOAA states that it develops its BDD data from more than a dozen sources, the agency does not disclose those sources for specific events or show how it calculates loss estimates from those sources, PPT’s complaint alleges.

The complaint further alleges that NOAA’s accounting methods are opaque and “produce suspect results.”

For example, when Hurricane Idalia took aim at Florida in 2023, NOAA initially projected that the storm would cause about $2.5 billion worth of damages before insured losses ultimately came in at about $310 million, according to PPT’s complaint, which cites the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation for that figure. Nevertheless, NOAA subsequently marked up its estimate for how much damage the storm caused to $3.5 billion, a discrepancy for which NOAA provided no explanation, PPT alleges in its complaint.

NOAA researchers have disclosed in the past that the agency considers factors such as functions pertaining to livestock feeding costs — in addition to more conventional types of damages — in their cost calculations.

Further, the complaint alleges that BDD events are quietly added and removed from the dataset without explanation, citing Roger Pielke Jr., a former academic who believes climate change to be a real threat but opposes politicized science. In a forthcoming paper analyzing the merits of BDD statistics, Pielke compared the dataset in late 2022 to the dataset in the middle of 2023 and found that ten new BDD events were added to the list and 3 were subtracted without explanation.

Apart from the issues with methodology alleged by PPT in its complaint, the use of BDD events as a proxy for climate change’s intensity is inherently misleading because economic data does not reflect changes in meteorological conditions, Pielke has previously explained to the DCNF.

For example, increasing concentrations of assets, especially in coastal areas, can confound the usefulness of BDD events as an indicator for the intensity of climate change, as Energy and Environment Legal Institute Senior Policy Fellow Steve Milloy has previously explained to the DCNF. Hypothetically, the same exact hurricane could hit the same exact place, decades apart, with vastly different damage totals; this would be the case because there are simply more assets sitting in the way of the storm, not because the storm was any more violent due to worsening climate change.

NOAA has acknowledged this limitation of the dataset in prior communications with the DCNF.

Additionally, NOAA will add disasters to the list retrospectively because it adjusts for inflation, meaning that a hurricane that caused $800 million in damages in 1980 dollars would be added to the list because the damages exceed $1 billion when adjusted for inflation, for example.

The Biden administration has frequently cited the BDD dataset to substantiate its massive climate agenda.

For example, Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk cited the dataset in written testimony submitted to lawmakers in February explaining the White House’s decision to pause new approvals for liquefied natural gas export terminals.

The BDD statistics are also referenced Fifth National Climate Assessment (NCA5), the Biden administration’s landmark climate report that is intended to provide the most sound scientific basis for lawmakers and officials to craft climate policy.

NOAA asserted that the increasing frequency of BDD events is a sign of intensifying climate change in a January press release and blog post summarizing 2023, and then defended the use of the dataset in subsequent communications with the DCNF.

“Sensational climate claims made without proper scientific basis and spread by government officials threaten the public’s trust in its scientific officials and undermines the government’s mission of stewarding the environment,” PPT’s complaint states. “It also poses the danger of policymakers basing consequential government policy on unscientific claims unsupported by evidence.”

NOAA declined to comment, citing the active nature of the scientific integrity complaint. The White House and the Department of Commerce did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

AUTHOR

NICK POPE

Contributor.

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

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

ELECTION FRAUD ALERT: Illegal Voter Registrations in Texas, Arizona and Pennsylvania Exposed

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On February 26th, 2019 NPR’s reported,

About five years ago [in 2014], immigration attorneys started contacting Pennsylvania election officials to report that many of their clients had gone to get a driver’s license and, a few weeks later, received a voter registration card in the mail.

[ … ]

But it turns out that Pennsylvania, like some other states, was asking that question of everyone who applied for a driver’s license or state ID card — even those showing green cards or other documents identifying them as noncitizens.

That is often confusing for immigrants who come in to get a driver’s license or ID, which noncitizens are eligible to do.

The issue remains a challenge for states, especially as President Trump and other Republicans have alleged — without providing evidence — that tens of thousands, even millions, of noncitizens have illegally registered and voted in U.S. elections.

Texas officials recently announced that 95,000 noncitizens appeared to be on that state’s voter rolls. Those numbers have since been shown to be seriously flawed, but it hasn’t stopped Trump from insisting such fraud is rampant.

[ … ]

He notes that noncitizens can face serious legal action — several dozen have been prosecuted recently in North Carolina and Texas. It also undermines public trust and opens the way for allegations — even unfounded ones — of voter fraud.

“My concern is it risks jeopardizing confidence in the electoral process,'” California Secretary of State Alex Padilla said last fall when it emerged that some 1,500 individuals, including noncitizens, had mistakenly been registered as part of his state’s new automatic voter registration law. The registrations were canceled, but it raised questions about what other mistakes had been made.

Read the full article.

On January 31st, 2024 Rep. Barry Moore released a statement after voting in support of H.R. 6678, the Consequences for Social Security Fraud Act, sponsored by Rep. McClintock (R-CA). This legislation ensures that illegal immigrants are inadmissible to and removable from the United States for social security fraud and other identification document fraud.

“American taxpayers spend years paying into Social Security and look forward to using those benefits in retirement,” said Moore. “Biden’s open border policies allow illegal immigrants to throw their identification down before crossing the border and defraud Social Security to steal the benefits of hardworking Americans. In 2017 alone, 1.2 million illegals used Social Security numbers that belonged to someone else. Rep. McClintock’s legislation holds these illegals accountable for stealing from the American people.”

To learn more, click here.

The Social Security Administration just released the following information.

Pay attention.

The number of voters registering without photo ID is alarming in the below mentioned three key swing states:

  1. Arizona – 220,731
  2. Texas – 1,250,710
  3. PA – 580,513

TOTAL = 2,051,954 illegal voters.

Illegals are not qualified to receive legal driver’s license, but they can obtain, and are greatly encouraged by the federal government, to have Social Security Cards. The argument is that permitting illegals Social Security Cards helps with work authorization permits. Help America Vote Act of 2002, P.L. 107-252 (HAVA) requires states to verify the information of newly registered voters for Federal elections. Each State must establish a computerized State-wide voter registration list and verify new voter information with the State’s Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA).

States are required to verify the driver’s license number against the state MVA database. Only in situations where no driver’s license exists should the states verify the last four digits of the new voter registrant’s Social Security Number. The State submits the last digits of the SSN, name and date of birth to the MVA for verification with SSA.

The organized multi-dimensional plot to create new and multi-faceted illegal voting continues.

©2024. Lyle J. Rapacki, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

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FDA loses in court in campaign against Ivermectin COVID-19 treatment

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Starting 2021, the FDA mounted a campaign against ivermectin – an inexpensive, Nobel Prize-winning medication that showed promising signs in the early treatment of COVID-19.

While the death toll from this campaign is difficult to calculate, the impact was far-reaching. The campaign was used as fuel to terminate employment of doctors who understood the science behind ivermectin, as well as justification for pharmacies to cease filling ivermectin prescriptions when people needed the medication most.

Courageous doctors fought back.

In 2022, doctors filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over the agencies’ unlawful attempts to block the use of ivermectin for treatment of COVID-19.

“We’re suing the FDA for lying to the public about ivermectin,” said Dr. Bowden, a plaintiff in the case.

The complaint directly cites US laws, including the provision that the FDA “may not interfere with the authority of a health care provider to prescribe or administer any legally marked device to a patient for any condition or disease within a legitimate health care practitioner-patient relationship.”

On Thursday last week, the court ruled against the FDA and mandated the removal of all previous social media posts that specifically addressed the use of ivermectin for the treatment or prevention of COVID-19. The posts have started to come down, including a popular one titled: “Should I take ivermectin to prevent or treat COVID-19? No.”

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EDITORS NOTE: This O’Keefe Media Group column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

To Control or not to be Controlled, that is the Question

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This past week my husband and I were in the car going food shopping. His phone was on the console. It was lunch time and he said we haven’t had pizza in a while, what do you say we stop for pizza? Before I could answer, his phone answered and started telling us all the different varieties of pizza and the closest places. I shut the phone off. I don’t know about you but I don’t want some device telling me what to do. Who is listening, nudging, guiding and controlling our thoughts, our actions?  Is that what they mean by AI? Is that our New World Order? Control by a device? Is that where we are headed? or are we already there and we don’t know it? Humanity controlled by technology. Aside from taking away my free thought, Who is doing the programming?  Is is someone from Orwell’s Ministry of Love? Is that is what your children learn in school. Don’t think, just press a button.

Aside from not learning to read and write, students no longer learn the scientific method which supports critical thinking, logic, reasoning and consequences. Students are trained to think as they are told while professors are paid to use computer programs to get the outcome desired for the grant that is funding their career. Deviate and say good bye to your career.

How do you get a consensus in science? Design a a grant to meet your agenda and pay the scientists to prove your desire outcome. Is this the “new” sustainable settled science? A science that no longer allows for multiple questions, multiple methods and multiple results. The whole purpose of science is to question for without questions, there is no learning, no growth.  No growth is the desired results, Sustainability means: NO GROWTH.  The Globalist Utopia is: Everyone thinking the same. Everyone acting the same. Everyone having the same. Everyone eating the same in a world of limited population, resources and power. Except of course the leaders.

Man Made Climate Change is a perfect example.  Every time I debate Man Made Climate Change I wind up in the same place with no answers because I question outside the sound bite.  Let’s face it, the people trying to manage the decline of America are evil and practicing some form of communism. We all must believe the same or we are outcasts.  So if you want to see their limited knowledge and stump the globalists, I suggest you ask a few simple questions:

QUESITON: What part of the atmosphere is CO2?

ANSWER: .035-.04%

QUESTION: What would happen if you get to Net Zero CO2?

ANSWER: All living things will die

QUESTION: Is CO2 the result or cause of warming?

ANSWER: The result. You can’t be a cause and result at the same time.

Look at their charts and graphs. Most only go back 140 years. If they tell you , now is the coldest /warmest on record, ask how old is the record?  Make them go back to the climate of 1920-30. Less people, less industry but yet it was much colder or warmer.  The driver of our climate is the SUN along with other variables like, water vapor, clouds, gravity, mostly from mother nature. Way down on the bottom of the heap is man. So why is climate blamed on us, CONTROL.  If they can scare you they can control you. Learn and spread the truth, hold your head high.

Don’t take anything they say at face value. Remember most of what they say are words created by computer models. Computer models are only as good as their creator/programmer. Their creators are affirmative action graduates easily fooled or bribed. This is a excellent must see movie. Get out to popcorn and note pad.

Great important worthwhile movie CLIMATE THE MOVIE: The Cold Truth.

By sending your children to the public indoctrination clinic theyy become Affirmative Action Graduates.  They learn Diversity, Inclusion, Equity or as I call it Discrimination, Inequality, Exclusion.  By changing the order of the words, you find their true goal DIE.  Remember to them the earth is overpopulated so best thing is for you to do is to DIE. While they tell us that their goals are reducing poverty, world hunger and disease most of their programs aim for death hence DIE:  abortion, drugs, restricting farming, limiting mobility, vaccines, crime. By restricting excellence, innovation, creation and invention and promoting, entertainment and other favored controlled behaviors people begin to believe that life is meaningless and suicide is the answer.   When race becomes the dominant feature for hiring and merit takes a back seat, products and programs are doomed to fail. We now have a manage decline of America where freedom and liberty will be replaced by a CCP form of government controlling every aspect of our lives.    Today’s guest Physicist John Droz Jr explains the damage done to our students by an inferior education.

Look at all of the crises America has suffered under this administration filled with incompetent Affirmative Action Graduates.  The most recent of course is the Francis Scott Key bridge failure. Shipping giant Maersk confirmed that the Dali ship, operated and managed by Synergy Marine Group, collided with the Francis Scott Key bridge in Maryland around 1:27 AM. Synergy Marine Group promotes DEI in their company. Did DIE play a role? We may never know. What we do know is Congress allocated $1.2 trillion for a Bipartisan Infrastructure Build Back Better scheme that Mayor Pete is using to “fix racism on highways.”

After further investigation Ricki, today’s guest discovered: The Ship was owned by the Chinese, and registered in Singapore & operated under the Singapore flag. The CEO of the Chinese Merchant Shipping company that owned the ship was Angela Chao, the sister of Sen. Pedo Mitch McConnell’s wife-Elain Chao & daughter of the Chinese Billionaire & top Chinese CCP Politburo Member that ran China’s merchant shipping. He, their daddy, is dead, and Angela Chao was handed down the merchant shipping company. She, Angela Chao, was killed several weeks ago… Is this a psyops attack? Will we ever know?

Power on ship was lost just prior to reaching bridge & after Harbor Pilot Tugboats pulled away from the ship.  This was a major failure of Harbor Pilot Tugboats to not escort the ship thru the channel completely. Their job was to escort the ship under the bridge & out into open sea at 1:48.  This is standard protocol which was not followed.

In Ricki’s opinion, there are 2 possibilities China or the USA Deep State. Is it part of the USA Deep State on behalf of the Globalists to continue the destruction of our country? China controls the West Coast ports because of Pelosi, Newsome, Feinstein,  Waters, Governors of Washington & Oregon too.  Why would OBiden say that America, not the shipping company will pay for the reconstruction of the bridge?  Once you destroy a countries ports & take control of them, you control their commerce & infrastructure. You control everything coming in & going out.. “We The People Shall Speak”- Ricki is a 9/11 Survivor who has done numerous investigations into the Deep State.

Nationalists will dream of their future, their life and set a plan to achieve that dream. Globalists will have a visions of life and demand you fit into their vision without deviation. If you disagree squash you.

All Globalists want is Money, Control and Power. They can only get Power if we give it to them. Don’t give them yours. Challenge them with the truth. Doing Nothing is Affirmation. The Regime will not go quietly, Prepare.  Share with your 5.   So join me today.

Join the Florida Citizens Alliance goflca.org.  Help save America mentor a child.

DOJ Creates New Federal ‘Red Flag’ Center To Seize Firearms From Law-Abiding Americans [But Not Illegals]

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Apparently the Democrat regime’s gun control mania only applies to law abiding American citizens but not illegals. An Obama judge U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman recently ruled illegals can carry guns.

This all goes back to the relentless war on our first amendment – free speech. Once you criminalize speech (under the Orwellian ‘hate speech), all of our other rights come crashing down, like dominoes.

DOJ’s Sinister Scheme: Seizing Guns from Law-Abiding Citizens!

President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) made a significant announcement on Saturday with the launch of the National Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) Resource Center, catching some congressional Republicans off guard. Attorney General Merrick Garland emphasized in a press release that the new center aims to equip law enforcement officials and other stakeholders with resources to prevent individuals deemed dangerous from accessing firearms. ERPOs, commonly known as “red flag” laws, enable authorities to confiscate guns from individuals deemed to pose a threat to themselves or others, with provisions to prevent them from purchasing or possessing firearms for the duration of the order.

Garland framed the establishment of the center as a proactive measure in leveraging the tools provided by the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act to address gun violence. The DOJ’s initiative underscores the administration’s commitment to utilizing all available means to enhance public safety and prevent potential tragedies involving firearms.

The newly launched National ERPO Resource Center includes a website offering a plethora of resources and guidance for stakeholders involved in implementing red flag laws. It provides training and technical assistance to various professionals, including law enforcement officers, prosecutors, judges, and mental health professionals, involved in executing laws aimed at curbing access to firearms for individuals deemed risky.

Additionally, the center’s website features a comprehensive state-by-state guide on red flag laws across the country, offering specific information on each state’s ERPO legislation. Currently, 21 states and the District of Columbia have enacted red flag laws, reflecting a growing trend in adopting measures to address concerns related to gun violence and mental health.

Republican lawmakers, however, expressed surprise and concern over the DOJ’s move to establish a federal resource center for red flag laws. Some, like Representative Thomas Massie and Senator Mike Lee, voiced opposition to the initiative, questioning its authorization and raising concerns about potential overreach by the federal government in matters traditionally regulated by states.

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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

DAVID BLACKMON: New EPA Auto Emission Rules Reflect The Madness Of King Biden

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In a move that is certain to be challenged in the courts, the Biden Environmental Protection Agency enacted a de facto ban on many gas-powered cars this week in the form of a final regulation on allowable tailpipe emissions.

The regulation is designed to force two-thirds of new light-duty cars and 46% of medium duty autos sold in the United States to be electric vehicles by 2032, one of the more hare-brained schemes that make up the Biden Green New Deal energy policies.

In the press release accompanying the new rule, the EPA boasts that the new mandates “will avoid more than 7 billion tons of carbon emissions and provide nearly $100 billion of annual net benefits to society, including $13 billion of annual public health benefits due to improved air quality, and $62 billion in reduced annual fuel costs,” all of which is so much nonsense that no one really believes it. But this kind of fantasy narrative forms the very foundation of current Democrat party thinking on energy and climate policy.

In a statement, Tom Pyle, President of the American Energy Alliance, fired back at the EPA talking points, calling the regulation “another example of President Biden’s assault on the middle class.” Pyle correctly points out that the new rules “will make cars more expensive and ultimately make fewer cars available for Americans. By now, we have gotten used to incredibly damaging and stupid rules from the Biden administration, but this one is in a class by itself.”

But of course, raising the price for a new car in the United States is a feature of the Green New Deal policies pushed by Biden and his regulators, not a glitch. According to data kept by the St. Louis office of the Federal Reserve, the consumer price index when Biden assumed office in January, 2021 stood at 150.131. By February of 2024, that had skyrocketed to 179.311, a rise of 14% in just three years. By contrast, the index rose by just 1% during the first term of Donald Trump.

It is no secret that increasing the cost of energy is a central goal of the climate-alarm activist movement, not just in the United States but across the globe. The conceit there being that if you can force energy costs high enough and fast enough to make them unbearable to ordinary consumers, you will force people to conserve, i.e., do without. As Pyle correctly points out, it is a direct assault on the middle and lower classes in society, given the fact that rising energy costs essentially function as a regressive tax that impacting the poorest classes the hardest.

This is the core belief system that controls policy in the Democrat party today. It is simply beyond question at this point – literally every action this administration takes related to energy policy is designed to intentionally increase the cost for energy for every American. Consumers see it in the rising price for gas at the pump – more than 50% higher today than it was when Biden took office. They see it in skyrocketing home utility bills. They see it in irrational Biden policy actions like pushing offshore wind industrial projects, where big developers continue to demand more subsidies and higher rate guarantees before moving forward. They see it in the administration’s policies designed to depress the domestic oil and gas industry. They see it in policies intentionally designed to destroy reliability on the nation’s power grid.

And now they see it in this new EPA power grab. It comes after U.S. automakers have spent the last half year scaling back their plans for EV development and begging the administration to reconsider its irrational, destructive approach in light of the slowing demand for such cars and the ensuing massive financial losses. The vast majority of Americans simply do not want to own an EV, and forcing automakers to manufacture them regardless of market demand is the surest way to create the “bloodbath” in the domestic industry that Trump predicted last week.

It is madness, plain and simple, and if voters give this administration another four years in office, disaster will become inevitable.

AUTHOR

DAVID BLACKMON

David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.

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Liberal State Declares War On Small Farmers And Homesteaders

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War on food is spreading in U.S. through land-use restrictions, geoengineering and waves of propaganda. Remember, it really is all about depopulation.

The World Economic Forum warned us several years ago that its ultimate goal was to destroy the middle class. How else would you explain their slogan: “You will own nothing and learn to like it“?

This mantra is playing out in real time in the state of Oregon, and other states, in various forms which we will get into in this article.

Small farmers are under attack in the Beaver State, which has begun shutting down family farms throughout the state under the guise of water conservation and groundwater protection.

The owner of Yanasa Ama Ranch shared a 20-minute video explaining what is going on in Oregon as bureaucrats erroneously classify small family farms and homesteads as “concentrated animal feeding operations,” or CAFOs, in order to shut them down. Any feeding area that has a concrete, rock or gravel floor falls into this category, which would include most small dairy or egg farms.

If you have two or three milking cows, the rancher explains, you are now targeted by the state for closure.

The rancher further explains in the video:

“The state of Oregon has effectively shut down small farms and market gardens on a large scale, and they’re actually sending out cease-and-desist letters to farms and they’re using satellite technology to find their victims and send them these letters that say you can’t operate.”

The below video is 20 minutes but the most critical information is contained in the first 5 or 6 minutes. Note that he says most of these anti-farming, anti-private property laws start in places like Washington and Oregon but end up spreading to other states over time. That is so true!

Wake up folks. The tyranny is gaining ground. The war on food is heating up and will inevitably cause a major worldwide famine at some point. Remember what I’ve said in previous articles, that depopulation is the ultimate goal of the globalists. There is no other explanation behind their rabid lust for World War III, their relentless pushing of toxic vaccines, harmful chemicals sprayed in the atmosphere and put in our food, their celebration of abortion and all things LGBTQ+, and the list goes on. The more death and sterilizations they can foster, the happier they will be.

There was some good news on the atmospheric spraying this week. The state Senate in Tennessee has passed a bill banning all such spraying within its borders, whether it be for geoengineering or other purposes. (See story here).

The globalists are also waging war against small farms and homesteaders on the propaganda front.

The far-left media group Media Matters, funded by George Soros and other globalists, recently put out a hit-piece article targeting homesteaders as “white nationalist” and “anti-government.” How dare they seek to grow their own food! They must be racists! See video below.

I keep hearing that the CFR-Trilateral-WEF-UN globalists are “running scared.” That may be true, but I wouldn’t bet on it. As long as we see horror stories like this one out of Oregon I am of the opinion that these global predators are only just getting started. If they were at all fearful they would be pulling back on some of their most harmful policies in the war on food. Instead, they continue to pressure farmers to cull their flocks of birds, radically reduce the size of their bovine herds, and now they’re trying to render their farmland useless through nefarious “water protection” policies. Their goal is to put all small farmers and homesteaders out of business and force them into the cities, where people are more easily surveilled and controlled. We cannot allow them to succeed. Find small farmers in your area and support them.

Let me know in the comments below if your state is showing any signs of joining the globalists’ war on food.

©2024. Leo Hohmann. All rights reserved.