If you go back in time and look at the footage of citizen Trump, you will find that Donald Trump has been on point from day one. From the Oprah interview to the NY supreme court as an expert witness during the S&L crisis and everything in between. As stated by Q, America needed to be resurrected. Our Constitutional Republic needed to be restored. Back in 2014, the plan was set and the rest is history. Trump has come aboard to restore the power to the people as intended by our founding documents. And so, along with many other areas being addressed, draining the economic swamp has now begun.
The global financial reset is underway, albeit mostly behind the scenes. The market meltdown may now have been delayed ensuring a Trump victory in 2020 as Trump now is controlling the Fed. Dangers and opportunities through this reset are evident and I will post on this over the months and short years ahead.
The existing controlled and rigged debt based economic and monetary model is being disassembled. You cannot MAGA without controlling your currency. Trump is now going for the jugular and he, (we), will win once again. Let the force be with you sir.
Now I get it, many say this cannot and will not happen and I for one completely disagree. We have been programmed to believe this. And I too, was in that camp, pre-Trump. Well, my friends it’s a new day dawning. The great awakening is upon us as is the light of God. We are winning and draining the economic swamp will soon be (perhaps within a couple of short years), another item to be filed here, in promises kept.
No Longer
The old model of which Trump and company has begun to seize control, will soon be taken out. No longer will there be a debt based monetary system. Sound money will be restored. No longer will the bankers fund both sides of endless manufactured wars, reaping the profits and the harvest. No longer will our constitution and bill of rights be shredded. No longer will we the people be controlled by debt, debt slaves. Face it. We are debt slaves. No longer will we be taxed on our income. No longer will a private for profit banking cartel control our currency as this is in fact a violation of our constitution. Yes, President Trump will lead us back to sound money. Gold may become the de facto currency, so watch gold (and silver) as Trump restores in due time , sound money and crushes the power of the central banks. No more digital fiat. Over the many months to come, the President will expose the Fed and the central bank debt based monetary system. Watch. You will see. This will take some years, but this too will soon come to light. Now it may be confusing along the way. There will be many mixed signals and signs day by day along the way. So stay truly informed. In order to do this you must change the channeland build an arsenal of truth news versus fake news. Americans are starving for truth. Seek and ye shall find. This will restore your faith, hope and trust. This will help raise your tone level from apathy, anger, fear etc., to perhaps becoming an informed, empowered and engaged and active citizen. If nothing else, you will at least feel better.
In Closing
I will keep this post short and sweet as this is a subject that is rather complex as Trump takes on the Federal Reserve, IMF and the Central Banking Rothschild dynasty. I will be posting content along the way to play my part in keeping us informed. Put on your seat belts. Be prepared. And get some popcorn and enjoy the show! Visit these supportive and insightful links below. Stay the course. Trust the plan. Pray for and support our President.
EDITORS NOTE: This John Michael Chambers column with images is republished with permission.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/trump-8-e1551006700803.jpg369640John Michael Chambershttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngJohn Michael Chambers2019-02-24 06:12:122019-03-07 10:23:06Trump Draining the Economic Swamp
This will be a rough year for full-service NYC restaurants as they try to navigate a future with significant economic headwinds and significantly higher labor costs from the city’s $15 an hour minimum wage.
An article in the New York Eater (“Restaurateurs Are Scrambling to Cut Service and Raise Prices After Minimum Wage Hike“) highlights some of the suffering New York City’s full-service restaurants are experiencing following the December 31, 2018 hike in the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour, which is 15.4% higher than the $13 minimum wage a year earlier and 36.4% higher than the $11 an hour two years ago. For example, Rosa Mexicana operates four restaurants in Manhattan and estimates the $15 mandated wage will increase their labor costs by $600,000 this year. Here’s a slice:
Now, across the city, restaurant owners and operators are reworking their budgets and operations to come up with those extra funds. Some restaurants, like Rosa Mexicano, are changing scheduling. Other restaurateurs are cutting hours and staffers, raising menu prices, and otherwise nixing costs wherever they can.
And though the new regulations are intended to benefit employees, some restaurateurs and staffers say that take home pay ends up being less due to fewer hours — or that employees face more work because there are fewer staffers per shift. “The bottom line is, we have to reduce the number of hours we spend,” says Chris Westcott, Rosa Mexicano’s president and CEO. “And unfortunately that means that, in many cases, employees are earning less even though they’re making more.”
In a survey conducted by New York City Hospitality Alliance late last year, about 75% of the more than 300 respondents operating full-service restaurants reported they’ll reduce employee hours this year because of the new wage increases, while 47% said they’ll eliminate jobs in 2019.
Note also that the survey also reported that “76.50% of respondents report reducing employee hours and 36.30% eliminated jobs in 2018 in response to mandated wage increases.” Those staff reductions are showing up in the NYC full-service restaurant employee series from the BLS, see chart above. December 2018 restaurant jobs were down by almost 3,000 (and by 1.64%) from the previous December, and the 2.5% annual decline in March 2018 was the worst annual decline since the sharp collapse in restaurant jobs following 9/11 in 2001.
As the chart shows, it usually takes an economic recession to cause year-over-year job losses at NYC’s full-service restaurants, so it’s likely that this is a “restaurant recession” tied to the annual series of minimum wage hikes that brought the city’s minimum wage to $15 an hour at the end of last year. And the NYC restaurant recession is happening even as the national economy hums along in the 117th month of the second-longest economic expansion in history and just short of the 120-month record expansion from March 1991 to March 2001.
Here’s more of the article:
“There’s a lot of concern and anxiety happening within the city’s restaurant industry,” says Andrew Rigie, executive director of the restaurant advocacy group. Most restaurant owners want to pay employees more, he says, but are challenged by “the financial realities of running a restaurant in New York City.” Merelyn Bucio, a server at a restaurant in Soho that she declined to name, says her hours were cut and her workload increased when wage rates rose. Server assistants and bussers now work fewer shifts, so she and other servers take on side work like polishing silverware and glasses. “We have large sections, and there are large groups, so it’s more difficult,” she says. “You need your server assistant in order to give guests a better experience.”
At Lalito, a small restaurant in Chinatown, they used to roster two servers on the floor, but post wage increases, there’s only one, who is armed with a handheld POS (point of sale) system, according to co-owner Mateusz Lilpop. Having fewer people working was the only way for him to reduce costs, he says. Since the hike, labor costs at Lalito have risen about 10 percent — from 30 to 35 percent to 40 to 45 percent of sales, he says.
These changes get passed onto the diner, some restaurateurs argue. Service can suffer due to fewer people on the floor, or more and more restaurateurs will explore the fast-casual format over full-service ones. Some restaurants are also raising prices for customers. According to the NYC Hospitality Alliance’s survey, close to 90 percent of respondents expect to raise menu prices this year. Lalito’s menu prices have increased by 10 to 15 percent. Lilpop says, and it’s not just the cost of paying his staff driving prices up — it’s a ripple effect from New York-based food purveyors’ own labor cost increases.
“If you have a farmer that has employees that are picking fruit, he has to increase his labor costs, which means he has to increase his fruit prices,” Lilpop says. “I have to buy that fruit from him at a higher rate, and it goes down the chain.”
A few economic lessons here.
A reduction in restaurant staffing that results in a decline in customer service (e.g., longer wait times, less attentive wait staff, etc.) is equivalent to a price increase for customers.
The increases in the city minimum wage to $15 an hour, in addition to directly increasing labor costs for restaurants, also affects the labor costs of companies that supply food, liquor, restaurant supplies, menus, etc. and causes a ripple effect of indirect higher operational costs throughout the entire restaurant supply chain as described above.
Even for workers who keep their jobs, a higher minimum wage per hour doesn’t necessarily translate into higher weekly earnings, if the reduction in hours is greater than the increase in hourly wages. For example, 40 hours per week at $13 an hour generates higher weekly pre-tax earnings ($520) than 33 hours per week at the higher $15 an hour ($495).
Prediction: This will be a rough year for full-service NYC restaurants as they try to navigate a future with significant economic headwinds and significantly higher labor costs from the city’s $15 an hour minimum wage.
A coal-fired power plan that’s operated for more than 100 years is shutting down, and its owners say Obama-era regulations are to blame.
Alabama Power’s Plant Gorgas will officially close in April. It’s only the latest coal industry casualty, driven by Environmental Protection Agency regulations and market forces.
“We recognize that Plant Gorgas and the men and women who have operated it have brought great value to Alabama Power, our customers and the local community,” Jim Heilbron, Alabama Power’s senior vice president, said in a statement issued Wednesday.
“We are also concerned that more regulations are on the horizon that could require additional, costly expenditures at the plant,” Heilbron said.
Heilbron said federal regulations for handling coal ash and wastewater made it too costly to continue operating Plant Gorgas. Those regulations were put in place under the Obama administration.
Coal plant retirements spiked during former President Barack Obama’s time in office as his administration put in place costly regulations amid a boom in natural gas production. Low natural gas prices have persisted, putting more pressure on coal plants facing high compliance costs.
Obama-era regulations for wastewater, for example, were estimated to cost coal operators $2.5 billion a year, though utilities said EPA vastly underestimated compliance costs.
The Trump administration put the wastewater rule under review in 2017, but nothing seems to have happened since. Trump’s EPA put the rule under review in response to a petition from utilities.
Alabama Power estimates it would cost $300 million to comply with federal environmental regulations and keep its three remaining coal-fired generators running. Plant Gorgas has been in operation since 1917.
The company said closing down Plant Gorgas would not impact reliability, and that federal regulations are forcing them to take a hard look at their power portfolio.
“Alabama Power is focused on providing our customers reliable, affordable electricity while protecting the environment we all share,” Heilbron said.
The effects of Plant Gorgas’ closure will likely ripple upstream to its suppliers. More than half of U.S. coal mines have closed since 2008 as coal plants close their doors and suppress demand.
EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column with images is republished with permission. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities for this original content, email licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org. The featured image is by Pixabay.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/building-2058_640.jpg426640The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2019-02-21 17:05:102019-02-21 17:11:14Obama EPA Regulations Blamed for Closure of 100-Year-Old Coal Plant
“Entire populations, rather than just individuals, now live under constant surveillance. It’s no longer based on the traditional practice of targeted taps based on some individual suspicion of wrongdoing. It covers phone calls, emails, texts, search history, what you buy, who your friends are, where you go, who you love.” – Edward Snowden
The last thing we need is another swamp creature, but it
appears that is what we’re getting with our new Attorney General (AG). Bill Barr is a DC insider who praised Comey,
Rosenstein and Mueller during his confirmation hearings — how is President
Trump going to drain the swamp if Mueller’s best friend is running the DOJ? Barr and Mueller worked together when Barr
was Bush’s attorney general from 1991 to 1993 and Mueller oversaw the
department’s criminal division.
During William Barr’s confirmation hearings, Senator Lindsey Graham asked the nominee several questions. Barr said he didn’t think Robert Mueller was on a witch hunt, and thought he’d be fair to the country as a whole. He also said he had no reason to stop Mueller’s investigation or terminate it for cause. Barr told Senator Graham that he was committed to allowing Robert Mueller to finish his job, and that he has a very high opinion of Deputy AG (DAG) Rod Rosenstein. Link
Barr has now asked
Rod Rosenstein to stay on for a while, and he has said he would. How special.
Fired former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and two other people who
have testified to Congress, claim Mr. Rosenstein repeatedly offered to wear a
wire when meeting with Mr. Trump. McCabe
also stated that he and other officials, including DAG Rosenstein, did
headcounts of which cabinet officials might vote to declare the president
“unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” under the 25th
Amendment. Rosenstein never actually
denied McCabe’s claims.
The very suspicion of impropriety should be reason for
Rosenstein’s termination.
Barr and Second Amendment
William Barr served as the 77th United States Attorney General from 1991 to 1993 during the first Bush administration. He is also a past employee of the CIA. The Bushes represent the establishment globalists in their party and rather than vote for their party’s nominee in 2016, they voted for Hillary Clinton.
It is also
disturbing that Barr has been a big fan of taking people’s property through civil
asset forfeiture without a conviction. Many poor people in our
country have cash taken from them and then the government says, “Prove to us
where you got the cash and then you can get it back,” the burden is on the
individual. Civil Asset Forfeiture is a terrible thing and William Barr is a
big fan.
Government Theft of Promis Software
In October 1991,
Barr appointed then retired Democratic Chicago judge Nicholas
Bua as special counsel in the Inslaw scandal. Few
people understand the full ramifications of Promis software, and the
undetectable spying apparatus placed in foreign computers. In 1989, House
Judiciary Committee Chairman Jack Brooks, D-TX, launched a three-year
investigation into the Inslaw affair. In the resulting report, the Committee
suggested that among others, Edwin Meese, while presidential counselor and
later as attorney general, and Democrat D. Lowell Jensen a
former assistant and deputy attorney general and former US district judge in
San Francisco, conspired to steal PROMIS software from Bill Hamilton’s company,
Inslaw.
Bua’s 1993 report
found the DOJ of no wrong doing in the matter, despite a 12-year lawsuit by
Inslaw, regarding the government theft of their software. One journalist,
Danny
Casolaro, died as he attempted to tell the story and boxes of
documents relating to the case were destroyed, stolen, or conveniently “lost”
by the DOJ. Software piracy, conspiracy, cover-up, stonewalling, covert
action…just another decade at the corrupt DOJ.
Barr was responsible for both the U.S. Marshals Service and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, two federal agencies whose misconduct at Ruby Ridge “helped to weaken the bond of trust that must exist between ordinary Americans and our law enforcement agencies,” according to a 1995 Senate Judiciary Committee report.
The family had come under federal siege because of Randy’s refusal to become an informant within the Aryan Nation white supremacist group. Randy had been manipulated by an ATF undercover operative named Kenneth Fadeley into selling a shotgun with a sawed-off barrel. Eight months after that transaction, two of Fadeley’s comrades in that detestable organization demanded that Randy become an informant, threatening his home and family if he didn’t cooperate. Ruby Ridge was considered a kill zone.
In a questionnaire by the Judicial Committee, Barr was asked to disclose his past work including pro bono activities “serving the disadvantaged.” The “disadvantaged” that Barr spent the most time helping was FBI agent Lon Horiuchi who slayed an Idaho mother holding her baby in 1992. Barr spent two weeks organizing former Attorneys General and others to support “an FBI sniper in defending against criminal charges in connection with the Ruby Ridge incident.” Barr also “assisted in framing legal arguments advanced… in the district court and the subsequent appeal to the Ninth Circuit,” he told the committee.
U.S. marshals
trespassed on Weaver’s land and killed his 14-year-old son, Sammy, and his dog.
The following day, FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi killed his wife, Vicki, as she was
standing in the cabin doorway holding her 10-month-old baby. Horiuchi had
previously shot Randy Weaver in the back after he stepped out of the cabin to
collect the body of his son. The suspects were never given a warning or a chance
to surrender and had taken no action against FBI agents. Weaver survived.
In August of 1995, the Justice Department paid $3.1 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit from the Weaver family. In 1998, they paid Elmer “Geronimo” Pratt $4.5 million for a 26-year false imprisonment and false testimony against him by an FBI informant.
Government Surveillance
The fourth amendment originally enforced the idea that each man’s home is his castle, secure from unreasonable search and seizure by the government. The Patriot Act was the destruction of American citizen privacy. Both Mueller and Barr are big brothers who love the “all-seeing eye.”
While serving as
attorney general under former President George H.W. Bush in 1992, Barr directed
the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to collect bulk phone data on
millions of people, most of whom weren’t even suspected of a crime. This
program laid the groundwork for the National Security Agency’s phone record
collection authorized by the Patriot Act a decade later, a misnomer if there
ever was one. Barr continued to be a cheerleader for warrantless
surveillance even after the PATRIOT Act’s passage. During congressional testimony in 2003, he called the bill a “major
step forward.”
He went on to say that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the law that authorizes foreign surveillance and has been abused to surveil, “remains too restrictive” because it “still requires that the government establish probable cause that an individual is either a ‘foreign power’ or an ‘agent of a foreign power.’” In other words, Barr objects to the idea that the government should need a warrant before it can spy on citizens. Link
Surveillance and the Patriot Act
The Patriot Act
permits FBI agents to write their own search warrants for business records, and
it has been used to induce the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA)
to issue warrants on a made-up basis to read emails and listen to telephone
calls in real time. The members of Congress who voted for it were largely
unaware of the liberties they were sacrificing.
None of them ever read it.
Both the Patriot Act and the USA Freedom Act unconstitutionally do away with the probable cause requirement for warrants. Those two laws permit the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to issue warrants based on the standard of “governmental needs” rather than probable cause. This is a profoundly unconstitutional standard, and one that has resulted in spying on all people all the time.
The Patriot Act
vastly expanded the surveillance potential of the FBI, the CIA and the NSA
among other intelligence agencies. The
US government contracted with Acxiom, Lockheed, Booz Allen Hamilton and many
others to build new mass surveillance programs.
One program was called Total Information Awareness (TIA), which was an
operation where the FBI and other agencies would build profiles, like Acxiom’s,
on millions of law-abiding Americans. Link
Mr. Barr strongly supports the Patriot Act which violates every American’s fourth amendment right to privacy. The Constitution provides us with more protection and safety than the surveillance state ever will.
An NSA Whistle-Blower tells all in this video to filmmaker Laura Poitras. She profiled William Binney, a 32-year veteran of the National Security Agency who helped design a top-secret program he says is broadly collecting Americans’ personal data.
Following the June
2013 leak of documents detailing the NSA practice of collecting
telephone metadata on millions of Americans’ telephone calls, former
Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper was accused of perjury for telling a congressional committee
hearing that the NSA does not collect any type of data on millions of
Americans. He escaped prosecution
because the five-year Statute of Limitations ran out.
Birds of a Feather
Barr and Mueller
are birds of a feather. Mueller has
claimed one case to validate spying on all of America. It was a Supreme Court case and the tracing
of a single phone call to a single robber.
Thus, the Supreme Court held that phone metadata is not protected by the
fourth amendment. Mueller has repeatedly
used this. The case is Smith v.
Maryland, which held that people did not have a reasonable
expectation of privacy regarding the numbers they call, because they willingly
give up those numbers to the company to connect their call.
And so, because the
Supreme Court approved the collection of one robber’s phone records in 1979,
Mueller insists it meant it was reasonable for FBI and NSA to collect and
aggregate the phone records for every American today and forever. Link
Mueller implicitly argues that the perpetual and ubiquitous data collection of the digital and telephonic communications of law-abiding Americans is constitutional. For thorough documentation of same, see Louisiana State Senator John Milkovich’s book, Robert Mueller, Errand Boy for the New World Order.
Conclusion
Rand Paul opposed the confirmation of William Barr. He said, “He’s been the chief advocate for warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens. I think that the Fourth Amendment should protect your phone calls and your bank information. People shouldn’t be allowed to look at it without a warrant.” Perhaps this one Senator knows an inside player when he sees one.
Surely, we’ve all heard foolish folks say, “Well, I have nothing to
hide, I’m not a terrorist.” Edward
Snowden said, “Arguing that you don’t care about privacy because you have
nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech
because you have nothing to say.”
Americans do not understand freedom or the Fourth Amendment of our
unalienable Bill of Rights. The Jews of
Europe had nothing to hide either, but it didn’t stop the Gestapo, and neither
did it stop the East German Stasi. The
NSA’s algorithms and extensive databases make it far more effective than the
Stasi ever dreamed of being.
Attorney Joe DiGenova believes William Barr is going to be the catalyst who will clean out the filth from the DOJ. I hope he is right, and I am wrong. P.S. Remember during the Trump campaign how NewsWithViews articles had virus warnings appear when you opened them? There was never a virus, it was an attempt by google to keep people from reading truth. Now, Google has removed their ads from NewsWithViews because they don’t like the content of the articles. Those ads help to pay for the cost of running the website. They know that, and that’s why they’ve pulled their ads. We need your help now more than ever. Please tell your friends to sign up to receive the daily emails, and remember NewsWithViews when you pay your monthly bills.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Friday that the state legislature intends to establish Equal Opportunity Scholarships designed to end the current waiting list on the tax credit scholarship program—a move the Republican chief executive supports.
The Florida Tax Credit Scholarship—which provides scholarships to eligible children to attend a private school of choice, and which is financed through corporate donations—currently has a waitlist of an estimated 13,000 families.
As the Tampa Bay Times reported, DeSantis would like those waiting students to have an immediate school choice option.
“If the taxpayer is paying for education, it’s public education,” regardless of where the student attends, DeSantis said.
He also said:
We have parents who are lining up for a tax credit scholarship. They would not do that if the program was not succeeding. … The question for us now is, should we be satisfied there is a growing waitlist, or should we build off the successes?
He is indeed correct to want to build off the success of the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship and end the waitlist. And the announcement follows on the heels of DeSantis’ promise earlier this month to eliminate the waitlist on the state’s education savings account program, which provides those accounts to students with special needs to get a customized education.
DeSantis’ remarks underscore the need to safeguard education choice for those hoping to exercise it; namely, students on the waitlist across the Sunshine State.
Now Florida should take the next step, and make education choice universally available to every student in the state.
Florida policymakers—along with DeSantis and his newly appointed education commissioner, Richard Corcoran (another staunch supporter of school choice)—should establish universal education savings accounts available to all students in the state.
As the Fordham Institute’s Robert Pondiscio explained, Republicans control the governor’s office, the state Senate, and the state House—a “trifecta” bolstered by DeSantis’ appointment of three conservatives to the Florida Supreme Court, shifting the balance on the court from a liberal majority to a conservative-leaning court.
Although Pondiscio notes that some are wary of expanding choice too quickly, “[a]lmost without exception, every state official and school choice advocate I recently met in Florida believes the state will be the first to have ‘universal’ education savings accounts, opening private-school choice options to all who seek them,” he noted.
As Jason Bedrick of EdChoice and I recently explained, Florida’s tax credit scholarship program is benefiting some of the most disadvantaged students in the state, with participating families’ average household income being just 8.2 percent above the federal poverty line (at $25,362).
Participating students scored lower on standardized exams prior to entry into the program than their peers, yet performed up to the national average (and exceeded their demographic peers) after using a scholarship.
Those are likely a few of the reasons parents are highly satisfied with the school choice option. Ninety-two percent of parents are satisfied with the program, including 89 percent who reported being highly satisfied.
Notably, as we found in this study—currently, the largest survey ever conducted of school choice program participants—parents are seeking out things the public school system cannot or will not provide:
Parents place a high value on their child’s character development. When asked to list the top three factors that influenced their decision to have their child attend their chosen school, the only factors to be selected by a majority of scholarship parents were religious environment/instruction (66 percent) and morals/character/values instruction (52 percent).
These two highly influential factors were followed by a safe environment (36 percent), academic reputation (34 percent), and small classes (31 percent).
The least important factor was standardized test scores, which only 4 percent of parents listed as one of their top three factors.
Parents in Florida want expanded education choice options. There are high levels of satisfaction among families in the current programs, high demand for more options (as evidenced by the waitlist), and the opportunity to go bold.
More than 100,000 children currently attend a school of their choice, thanks to the tax credit scholarship program, and 13,000 remain on the waitlist.
If implemented, Equal Opportunity Scholarships would give immediate school choice access to those students.
Florida should also seize this critical moment in time, as Pondiscio explains, to go bold on school choice:
Now the political stars have aligned to allow Florida Republicans—if they choose—to push the school choice agenda even further.
With the election of Gov. Ron DeSantis, a victory credited by The Wall Street Journal to African-American ‘school choice moms’ voting to protect tax credit scholarships and charter schools, choice proponents are champing at the bit to push school choice into the middle class, even making Florida the first state in the nation with universal choice.
Florida should do just that, providing education savings accounts to every child in the Sunshine State. Such a move would maintain Florida’s status as a leader in education choice, and improve educational opportunity to all families.
Lindsey M. Burke researches and writes on federal and state education issues as the Will Skillman fellow in education policy at The Heritage Foundation. Read her research. Twitter: @lindseymburke.
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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column with images is republished with permission. The featured image is by Pixabay.
Democrats intend to save “democracy” by putting themselves in charge of elections.
As absurd as that sounds, it really is a part of the inappropriately named “For the People Act of 2019,” or H.R. 1, moving through the House of Representatives.
The Heritage Foundation created a list of the law’s provisions, which you can read here. The Conservative Action Project also provided this quick rundown of the bill:
• Forces states to implement mandatory voter registration, removing civic participation as a voluntary choice, and increasing chances for error.
• Mandates that states allow all felons to vote.
• Forces states to extend periods of early voting, which has shown to have no effect on turnout.
• Mandates same-day voter registration, which encourages voter fraud.
• Limits the ability of states to cooperate to see who is registered in multiple states at the same time.
• Prohibits election observers from cooperating with election officials to file formal challenges to suspicious voter registrations.
• Criminalizes protected political speech by making it a crime to ‘discourage’ someone from voting.
• Bars states from making their own laws about voting by mail.
• Prohibits chief election officials in each state from participating in federal election campaigns.
• Mandates free mailing of absentee ballots.
• Mandates that states adopt new redistricting commissions.
The bill is more or less a grab bag of progressive priorities, much like the Green New Deal.
As the above summary makes clear, H.R. 1 has numerous provisions that would undermine free speech rights, upend the way America conducts elections, encourage voter fraud, and turn election oversight into little more than a partisan weapon to bludgeon foes.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who seems to have positioned herself at the forefront of every piece of radical legislation coming out of the House, dismissed the idea that H.R. 1 is a “power grab” by Democrats.
She had to make an almost immediate correction after that tweet, as the legislation has not yet passed the House. Even if it did, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said it wouldn’t pass in the Senate, where Republicans hold a majority.
Ocasio-Cortez has a penchant for missteps, but she’s a good barometer for where the progressive base in America is.
In this bill, the left has shown it is willing to make a “naked attempt to change the rules of American politics to benefit one party,” as McConnell noted. But beyond that, H.R. 1 is most concerning for the devastating effect it would have on our federal republic.
National Review’s David French summed it up perfectly:
At its essence, the bill federalizes control over elections to an unprecedented scale, expands government power over political speech, mandates increased disclosures of private citizens’ personal information (down to name and address), places conditions on citizen contact with legislators that inhibits citizens’ freedom of expression, and then places enforcement of most of these measures in the hands of a revamped Federal Election Commission that is far more responsive to presidential influence.
Certainly, the effort to get around the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision through a constitutional amendment to get money out of politics is misguided and an assault on free speech. It is at odds with our right to free speech and, in the end, would mostly benefit insiders and incumbents who know how to play the Washington game of navigating arcane campaign finance laws.
Further, it would require donors to disclose their own private information in the name of “transparency.”
This is how democracy descends into mob rule. It’s why the Founders erected barriers to guard against a tyrannical majority. Given the way progressives brazenly attack and shame dissenters on college campuses—and increasingly in public life—it is all the more urgent that individual privacy rights be protected. Privacy is a cornerstone of liberty.
Perhaps the most concerning aspect of H.R. 1 is what it would do to American election laws and how it would not just undermine, but bulldoze any semblance of federalism left in our political system.
H.R. 1 would stop state legislatures from drawing up their own congressional districts and would mandate independent commissions in their place.
As I’ve written in the past, getting rid of legislative redistricting, sometimes known as “gerrymandering,” is a “cure” worse than the disease. Redistricting will always be partisan, no matter who does it. Laws to prevent this would simply drive partisan redistricting underground, where it would be done in secret by an unelected, uncountable commission rather than openly by a legislature.
Again, even if this were good policy, it assumes that the federal government has the right to dictate how states run their elections. It would take away the right of the citizens of a state to make their own choices on these issues.
H.R. 1 contains other violations of federalism—and the Constitution—including mandates to restore voting rights to felons as soon as they are released from prison and stop states from finding and removing ineligible voters.
And it gets worse.
After nationalizing American election laws, H.R. 1 would put them all under the watchful eye of a “revamped” Federal Election Commission. This is perhaps the most brazenly partisan element of the bill.
The Federal Election Commission currently allows six members (though it currently only has four), with a requirement that four members sign on to any decision in order for it to pass. It has an even number of Republican and Democratic appointees—thus, it takes both parties to agree to prosecute a violation of federal law. This prevents the party in control of the White House from enforcing the law in a partisan fashion.
H.R. 1 would change that by making the commission a five-person body comprised of the president’s appointees, with the president’s party able to appoint three of the five. This would make the commission into a partisan body beholden to the president.
Proponents say this would end the current “deadlock,” but in reality it would turn the commission into a partisan tool to be used by the president. It would be an egregious concentration of power, especially given the way the rest of the bill would nationalize American elections.
While the Framers weren’t unanimous about how much power states should have relative to the federal government, none would have thought it a good idea to give near-tyrannical power to an unelected body of five people, which is what H.R. 1 would essentially do.
The “For the People Act” really is little more than a progressive power grab intended to manipulate election rules to favor liberals, and it is an anti-democratic bill that would upend America’s electoral system.
As with the Green New Deal, it is a vehicle for introducing ideas that would fundamentally transform our republic into something we would not recognize at all.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/arnaud-jaegers-253360-unsplash-1-e1550575579544.jpg427640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2019-02-19 06:27:002019-02-19 06:27:02The Left Wants to Transform Our Election System. It’s a Recipe for 1-Party Rule.
Over the last
couple of years, many folks have been lured to the cryptocurrency space
expecting to hold or trade their way to riches. Despite the 2018 downtrend in
markets, those who bought in pre-summer 2017 are likely still looking at some
healthy profits.
Bitcoin wasn’t just created for speculation though. The clue is in the name – digital currency. That said, the process of turning some of your gains into usable money can be arduous. You first must bring your funds out of cold storage, get them to a Bitcoin exchange that allows fiat withdrawals, register your bank details, and wait for the withdrawal. It’s all a bit convoluted. Fortunately, you often don’t have to worry about any of that (or the harsh withdrawal and exchange fees that usually accompany it).
Just about any purchase you could possibly make can already be completed entirely using Bitcoin. From web services to outdoor gear, online entertainment to real estate, the future is already here. Hell, you can even buy that famous cup of coffee that many Bitcoin protesters are always banging on about. Let’s look at some of the options in more detail.
Online
Purchases
There are loads
of ways to spend your Bitcoin in a strictly online capacity. Any firm that
supports credit or debit card transactions can technically accept the digital
currency. It’s actually a lot simpler than making a legacy systems payment too.
Just scan a QR code or copy a string of digits into your wallet and hit send.
You don’t have to worry about personal data being stolen by hackers from the site
either!
Here are some of
the main online retailers accepting Bitcoin as a payment for goods and
services:
Overstock.com
– this online retailer sells mostly homewares, along with toys, sporting goods,
jewellery, clothes, and gadgets. Their prices are pretty good too!
Shopify
stores – merchants operating their own stores on e-commerce platform Shopify
can opt to accept Bitcoin if
they choose so. You’ll find an eclectic bunch
of goods offered for the virtual currency there.
Subscription
services – some massive names accept Bitcoin to pay for the subscriptions they offer. These
include Microsoft, 4Chan, Reddit, Bloomberg, WordPress.com, NameCheap, and
Chicago Sun-Times.
Travel services – when booking your next flight or hotel, check out some
of these options to spend your Bitcoin in
getting you from A to B. You can even get somewhere to rest up when you arrive:
Expedia, airBaltic, AirTreks, and CheapAir.com. If you really want to splash
the cash on the most exotic trip possible, head over to Virgin Galactic and
check out their Bitcoin offerings.
Real-World
Purchases
Real-world
purchases with Bitcoin are a little trickier than their online counterparts,
for now. That’s because when you want to have a quick bite to eat or even to
pay for a home in person, you’re limited by your geographical location. Since
many retailers haven’t begun to accept Bitcoin yet, finding one might be more
trouble than it’s worth!
Real-estate – if you did really well from Bitcoin’s meteoric rise over the last five years, you could buy property with the virtual currency. All budgets are catered for too. There was the famous example of the massive Moscow mansion selling for Bitcoin. Meanwhile, at the other end of the spectrum, a man from Grimsby, UK, offered to sell his modest, terrace house for crypto last year. The US has also joined the trend, and if you are looking to buy a lake house in the state of Minnesota, you can pay for it with Bitcoin at some real estate agencies.
Bars, restaurants, and coffee shops – this one is a little bit location-dependent. However, if you live or are visiting one of the destinations on the growing list of Bitcoin-friendly cities, you’ll have loads of options to spend your gains. Berlin, Reykjavik, and Ljubljana are amongst the top spots for live Bitcoin purchases. The likes of KFC Canada have even had cryptocurrency promotions in the past. However, these were for a limited period only.
Entertainment – if you’re out in Vegas at a loose end, you can even pay for a spot of late-night activities using Bitcoin in the flesh. A strip club in Las Vegas has seen the advantages of a pseudonymous payment system early, and some of their exotic dancers come adorned with QR codes, so you can tip them directly using Bitcoin.
Charity – the Twin Cities, which are Minneapolis and Saint Paul, have long embraced cryptocurrencies with Bitcoin ATMs popping up regularly across the area. But, it’s not the only space the community is seeking to disrupt. Recently, Minnesota’s charity organizations have started accepting Bitcoin donations. The relevant authorities believe this will not only contribute to the public good, but also help boost mass adoption of cryptocurrencies.
Mixing
the Virtual and the Physical
Finally, if the
store you wanted to shop at doesn’t directly accept Bitcoin, that doesn’t mean
you can’t use it. Several gift card services have sprung up in the last couple
of years. You pay for the card in Bitcoin (or another supported cryptocurrency)
and you receive the voucher to your email. You can then use the code from the
card online or print the voucher off and take it down to the store to do your
shopping in an old-school style.
The following
services are more than happy to sell you a gift card in exchange for some
Bitcoin: GiftOff, eGifter, and Gyft. These vendors offer gift cards for some
massive companies including but certainly not limited to:
Decathlon
Tesco
Pizza
Express
Nike
Amazon
Adidas
Domino’s
Dunkin’
Donuts
Macy’s
It’s even possible
to use a peer-to-peer marketplace and sell your Bitcoin to someone directly in
exchange for a gift voucher. You’ll be amazed at the price increase you can
charge too. We’ve seen a trader offering Bitmain vouchers in exchange for
Bitcoin with a 75% markup!
The list of places you can spend your Bitcoin continues to grow each week. With options to suit just about every taste, it can be quite difficult not to abandon your strategy and just blow a hefty chunk on a two-man kayak canoe, those Nike sneakers you’ve been pining after, or even a luxury apartment.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/bitcoin-3089728_640.jpg360640Mary Ann Callahanhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngMary Ann Callahan2019-02-15 09:16:122019-02-15 09:16:14The Future is Now: Bitcoin Acceptance is Growing
The left-leaning media would have you believe that the 2017 tax cuts were nothing of the sort. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., recently tweeted that average refunds are down, calling the president’s tax cut a “middle-class tax hike.”
This is simply the latest episode in a long-running campaign to demagogue tax cuts that let the vast majority of Americans keep more of their hard-earned money.
Some of the biggest cuts are actually being enjoyed by the lowest-income Americans. A typical family of four got a $2,917 tax cut this year.
So what’s the complaint about?
In an early sample of tax returns, the IRS has reported that average refunds are down $170 from last year and that they hadn’t changed much from 2017, the year before.
But this is not relevant, for two reasons.
First, the sample of tax returns cited by the IRS is very small, and some analysts expect refunds will actually go up this year.
But second, and more importantly, tax refunds have nothing to do with the size of anyone’s tax cut. A refund is what you get back if you’ve paid too much in taxes throughout the year. Your tax cut is the drop in total taxes you owed to Uncle Sam last year. The two are not connected.
Employers across the country already gave us our tax cuts by withholding less money from our paychecks every pay period. Americans saw a bump to their paychecks in February 2018.
Of course, withholding is never perfectly accurate, so your refund or tax payment at the end of the year is simply a last-minute adjustment. But that refund does not cancel out the overall bump in take-home pay due to the tax cut.
Do you remember when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the tax cuts “monumental, brazen theft,” or when former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers predicted the tax cuts would kill 10,000 people every year? This most recent round of hysteria is just more of the same.
Last year, The Heritage Foundation calculated what Americans across the country can expect from the tax cuts. The average household can expect about $26,000 more in take-home pay over the next 10 years thanks to the tax reform.
Americans benefit twice from the tax cuts—first, by paying less in taxes, and a second time from higher wages generated by a faster-growing economy.
At the end of 2018, workers saw some of the largest wage gains in over 10 years, and unemployment rates remain historically low. Over the next 10 years, because of a larger economy, the typical American will benefit from over $26,000 more in take-home pay, or $44,697 for a family of four.
The average American household can expect to pay about $1,400 less in taxes in 2018. But depending on where you live and how many kids you have, the numbers can look different.
In communities that had high tax bills last year, such as Palo Alto, California’s district (CA-18) represented in the House by Anna Eshoo, or one of New York City’s Manhattan districts (NY-12) represented by Carolyn Maloney, the average tax cut could be as much as $3,000.
Lower-income communities, such as areas near Phoenix, Arizona (AZ-7), represented in the House by Ruben Gallego, as well as Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (PA-2), will see much larger cuts in their tax bills. In these communities, tax reform brought an average income tax cut of 18 percent or more.
And the tax cuts are especially good news for parents. A married couple filing jointly with two children will see their tax bills fall by $2,917.
In the coming years, the tax cuts will continue to raise wages, increase investment, and expand economic opportunities. They will also continue through 2025.
Don’t let the misinformation about refunds throw you off. Middle-class and lower-income Americans are the biggest beneficiaries from the tax cuts.
Adam Michel focuses on tax policy and the federal budget as a policy analyst in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. Twitter: @adamnmichel.
The Daily Signal depends on the support of readers like you.Donate now
EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Signal column with images is republished with permission. The featured image is by Pixabay.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/one-69528_640.jpg426640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2019-02-14 20:26:202019-02-15 05:28:51Don’t Believe the Fake News. Tax Cuts for Everyday Americans Are Real.
Florida, the state with some of the strongest Second Amendment protections in the country, may be facing the reality of voters putting a full-on assault weapons ban into the Florida Constitution — bypassing a Republican-controlled Legislature that has resisted any such moves even after last year’s Parkland school massacre.
Gail Schwartz, the aunt of one of the students killed a year ago at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, held a press conference Monday to announce a petition drive she is spearheading to put a constitutional amendment on the Florida ballot in 2020 that would ban “assault weapons.” Her group is forthrightly named Ban Assault Weapons Now.
The language of the proposed amendment defines an assault weapon as “semi-automatic rifles and shotguns capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition at once, either in fixed or detachable magazine, or any other ammunition-feeding device.” Such a broad ban could presumably capture everything down to a revolver, as it has an “ammunition-feeding device.”
“Try explaining to your children that they’re never going to see their cousin again,” Schwartz said, hitting the emotional buttons that are essential to restricting Second Amendment rights. “That’s not a conversation that anyone should ever have to make.”
Schwartz said that she believes her nephew — 14-year-old Alex Schachter — might be alive today if Nikolas Cruz did not have access to such a deadly weapon. Cruz killed 17 students and teachers at Parkland as an on-campus Broward County deputy hid outside. Schachter was one of the very first victims of Cruz, so it seems unlikely his life would have been spared if Cruz only had access to non-semi-automatic weapons.
Each mass shooting is used to evoke the necessity of getting guns out of the hands of Americans. A ban on what the media frequently calls “military-style” semi-automatic rifles — which basically means scary looking guns, regardless of relative lethality — has been a goal of gun control advocates nationally since a temporary federal ban expired in 2004.
In Florida, the push has been particularly fierce since the massacre at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub, where 49 people were killed in 2016. But school shootings elicit the most emotional response for obvious reasons.
So Florida Democrats have been pushing hard for an assault weapons ban. But they are a minority in the Republican-controlled Legislature and their efforts go nowhere.
Last year Democrats tried to attach an assault weapons ban to the larger school safety bill that was ultimately passed in response to the Parkland shooting, which included armed security on school campuses. But the amendment failed, gaining only two Republican votes.
In fact, Florida Republicans annually consider the opposite direction, proposing bills to allow conceal-carry permit holders to carry on college campuses.
However, a direct-to-voters constitutional amendment bypasses the Legislature. Florida now has a 60 percent threshold for amendments to make it into the state constitution. But last November, all but one proposed amendment met that, and that one had 58 percent. Given the media coverage and the number of mass shootings in the state, it would be foolish to think that such an amendment could not pass.
“I think there is a better chance of getting a citizens initiative on the ballot than getting the current Legislature to seriously entertain an assault weapons ban,” said Florida League of Women Voters President Patricia Brigham. Naturally, the “nonpartisan” League supports the ban.
She is right.
Possibly the larger hurdle is actually getting the proposed amendment on the ballot. That means gathering 766,200 legal signatures, which requires spending several million dollars to paid signature-gathering organizations.
The assault weapons ban campaign collected $439,888 as of the last filing date on Dec. 31. It will take a lot more and the question politically is whether Democrat organizations actually want to ban assault weapons, or whether they prefer to run on the issue of assault weapons so they can keep forcing Republicans to defend assault weapons used in mass shootings.
Polling on the issue in Florida is heavily dependent on the length of time between mass shootings. Right after the Parkland shooting, a Florida Atlantic University poll found that nearly 70 percent of Floridians support an assault weapons ban. But the same poll six months later found only 51 percent favored. How it would fare in the midst of a presidential election during heavy voter turnout is the question.
We may find out.
EDITORS NOTE: This The Revolutionary Act column is republished with permission. The featured image is by Pixabay.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/boy-958477_640.jpg425640Rod Thomsonhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngRod Thomson2019-02-13 18:32:292019-02-13 18:32:31Florida Facing A Complete Assault Weapon Ban In 2020
In order to know if a theory could be true, there must be a way to prove it to be false. Unfortunately, many climate change scientists, the media and activists are ignoring this cornerstone of science. In this bizarre new world, all unwelcome climate events are caused by climate change. But as legendary scientific philosopher Karl Popper noted, “A theory that explains everything, explains nothing.” Guest host Marc Morano explains.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/smartphone-703385_640.jpg366640Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2019-02-12 04:37:112019-02-19 05:44:22Science is Falsifiable. Take Climate Change As An Example.
It is not clear whether President Trump plans to declare a national emergency in order to build a physical barrier along our border with Mexico, in order to protect Americans from illegal aliens, drug traffickers, gun runners, human smugglers and other assorted criminal border jumpers.
The mainstream media has repeatedly asserted that the president does not have the authority to declare a border emergency and take the action necessary to defend the American public.
However, the media pundits would appear to be mistaken. Below, FAIR sets out the facts on the National Emergencies Act and related statutory provisions that would enable the president to accomplish what congress refuses to – place the interests of law-abiding Americans above those of law-breaking foreign nationals.
1976 National Emergencies Act (NEA) 50 U.S.C. §§ 1601-1651: This legislation specifies the manner in which the president may declare a national emergency. It also gives congress the authority to terminate a national emergency by joint resolution of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.[1]
58 national emergencies have been declared since the act was signed into law by President Gerald Ford.[2]
31 of those national emergencies remain in effect.[3]
An emergency declaration pursuant to the NEA does not provide any specific emergency authority on its own. Rather, it allows the president to exercise emergency authorities set forth in other statutes.[4]
There are currently 123 distinct statutes granting the president emergency authority to respond to a wide variety of situations.[5]
None of those statutes explicitly reference immigration. However, many of them would allow the present to implement an emergency response to migration crises involving threats to national security, public safety or public health.
As part of the emergency declaration process the president must specify which emergency authority he is invoking.
The statutes the president is most likely to invoke, upon declaring an immigration-related national emergency, are:
10 U.S. Code § 2808 – Construction Authority in the Event of A Declaration of War or National Emergency: This statute provides that, upon the President’s declaration of a national emergency, “that requires use of the armed forces,” the Secretary of Defense may “without regard to any other provision of law . . .undertake military construction projects . . . not otherwise authorized by law that are necessary to support such use of the armed forces.”[6]
33 U.S.C. § 2293 – Reprogramming During National Emergencies: This legislation authorizes the Secretary of the Army to terminate or defer Army civil works projects that are “not essential to the national defense” upon the declaration of a national emergency. The Secretary of the Army can then use the funds otherwise allocated to those projects for “authorized civil works, military construction, and civil defense projects that are essential to the national defense.”[7]
According to the Congressional Research Service there are also two statutes which may allow the president to begin construction on a border wall without declaring a national emergency or obtaining congressional authorization:
10 U.S.C. § 2803 – Emergency Construction: This legislation provides that the Secretary of Defense “may carry out a military construction project not otherwise authorized by law” after determining the following: (1) “the project is vital to the national security or to the protection of health, safety, or the quality of the environment,” and (2) “the requirement for the project is so urgent that” deferring the project “would be inconsistent with national security or the protection of health, safety, or environmental quality.”[8]
10 U.S.C. § 284 – Support for Counterdrug Activities and Activities to Counter Transnational Organized Crime: This legislation provides that the Secretary of Defense “may provide support for the counter drug activities or activities to counter transnational organized crime” of any law enforcement agency, including through the “[c]onstruction of roads and fences and installation of lighting to block drug smuggling corridors across international boundaries of the United States.”[9]Should the president choose to declare an immigration-related national emergency and invoke his powers under one of the aforementioned statutes, he is sure to be challenged in court – most likely in the radical Ninth Federal Circuit – by organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union and its network of open-borders, pro-illegal-alien agitators.However, outside the Ninth Circuit, he is likely to prevail. Many prior presidents have declared national emergencies and invoked extraordinary powers in response to “crises” that were significantly less threatening than the near failure of our southern border.For now, those of us who are concerned about the integrity of America’s borders can only wait, watch and hope that our elected leaders will do the right thing and put the interests of everyday Americans above those of un-vetted border-jumpers who may present a significant threat to our country.
EDITORS NOTE: The featured image by geralt on Pixabay.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/flag-3889781_640.jpg360640Federation for American Immigration Reformhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFederation for American Immigration Reform2019-02-10 16:51:372019-03-07 05:31:17Fact Sheet: National Emergencies, Military Construction Authority and the Border Barrier
On Wednesday, gun owners got to see what a Nancy Pelosi controlled Congress looks like as the House Judiciary Committee held its first gun control hearing in nearly a decade. Things went as one would expect.
While the hearing was labeled “Preventing Gun Violence: A Call to Action,” it was intended to be the legislative launching pad for H.R. 8, the “universal” background check bill introduced by California Representative Mike Thompson (D). As we have pointed out, “universal” background checks will do nothing to prevent gun violence. H.R. 8 does, however, have the potential of ensnaring otherwise law-abiding gun owners unfamiliar with its proposed new restrictions on lawful activities that pose no threat to public safety.
From the beginning, it was clear how anti-gun members of the committee intended to steer the proceedings.
First, there was the panel, which consisted of two crime victims, two anti-gun representatives of law-enforcement, one trauma surgeon (who happens to sit on the Board of the anti-gun Brady Campaign), one constitutional scholar, and the Executive Director of the anti-gun Giffords Law Center. Out of the seven panelists, only two—one crime victim and constitutional scholar Joyce Lee Malcolm—spoke against H.R. 8 and other forms of gun control that were discussed.
Notably absent from the hearing was House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R). While the Louisiana Representative is a survivor of a well-known public shooting, and he asked to be given the opportunity to testify, his request was denied. He was likely denied for being unwilling to toe the gun control line, and anyone interested in seeing what he had to say on the matter can see his full statement here.
A tone that was clearly antagonistic towards the right to keep and bear arms was set early by Democrats on the committee. The panelists were each given five minutes to make an opening statement, and most used that time to make clearly emotional, political, and/or arguable points, which is expected in such a setting. But a courtesy normally extended to panelists allows them to make such statements unchallenged. If legislators wish to question something said during opening remarks, they are free to do so during their own allotted speaking time.
After Professor Joyce Lee Malcolm had made her opening remarks, Deutch decided he needed to make sure the anti-gun community knew where he stood. Abandoning common courtesy, he spoke up, misstating what Malcolm had said so that he could appear as if he was correcting her. The message was clear; support the Second Amendment in this committee hearing at your own peril.
It should come as no surprise that the committee didn’t focus on the actual effectiveness of H.R. 8 at reducing violent crime. Recent studies, even those produced by anti-gun research institutions, have found that “universal” background checks are ineffective at reducing crime.
Ultimately, the hearing went as anyone who pays attention to politics would expect. Anti-gun Democrats made sure they were able to promote anti-gun legislation, and they ignored facts, reason, and the concerns of crime victims that don’t support their agenda. What’s next for H.R. 8?
The bill will receive a “markup” as part of the committee process next Wednesday. That’s why it’s important for all gun owners to take action now to help stop this misguided and ineffective gun control from moving through Congress.
While we will keep working to derail this attack on law-abiding gun owners, you need to take action now.
EDITORS NOTE: This NRA-ILA column with images is republished with permission.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/mike-thompson-d-ca-e1549704751766.jpg360640NRA Institute for Legislative Actionhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngNRA Institute for Legislative Action2019-02-09 04:32:472019-02-09 05:08:38House to Move Forward with Ineffective Gun Control Proposals
The day before Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis introduced his $91.3 billion budget request for fiscal year 2020, which includes $21.7 billion for education programs, he issued an executive order to do away with “vestiges” of Common Core standards, “streamline” standardized testing, and revise the state’s educational curriculum.
In a Jan. 31 press conference at a Cape Coral High School in Lee County, DeSantis said he had instructed newly appointed Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran—the former House speaker and longtime Common Core critic—to develop new standards for presentation to the Legislature in 2020.
He said among the most frequent issues voters asked him to address during the gubernatorial campaign was their frustration with Common Core academic standards—especially its “confusing” math requirements—and its standardized testing program.
“I’m here to say when you complained about Common Core, I hear you, I told you I’d do something about it, and today we are acting to bring those promises into a reality,” DeSantis said.
The 2010 Common Core State Standards Initiative spells out what K–12 students throughout the U.S. should know in English and mathematics at the conclusion of each school grade.
The initiative was sponsored by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers and was an attempt to establish consistent educational standards across all 50 states and territories.
The standards were developed by officials in 48 states and have been adopted by 41 states and the District of Columbia.
From its beginning, Common Core has been vigorously criticized and challenged, especially by Republican voters and elected officials, and especially in Florida.
In 2014, at the direction of then-Gov. Rick Scott, the Florida Board of Education adopted the Florida Standards, which changed some components of Common Core but left “vestiges” intact.
Those “vestiges” mostly relate to Common Core’s rigorous schedule of standardized testing that have drawn widespread criticism not only from lawmakers of both parties, but by educators.
DeSantis said his executive order also calls for Corcoran to “streamline some of the testing” and “identify ways to really make civics education a priority in Florida.”
Corcoran, who also spoke at the press conference, eagerly accepted DeSantis’ directive, claiming Florida has been “stuck with Common Core,” which “needs to be scrutinized.”
In a later tweet, Corcoran called DeSantis “the boldest, #1 education Governor in the nation” and vowed that Florida “will have the best standards, best civics education, and be the most literate state in the nation!”
DeSantis’ plan was lauded by Fedrick Ingram, president of the Florida Education Association, the statewide teachers union, which has rarely agreed with the state’s Republican leaders on educational matters.
“A deliberate look at what students must know is always appropriate, and it’s very encouraging to hear that Gov. DeSantis and Commissioner Corcoran plan to bring teachers and parents to the table as they go about reshaping Florida’s standards,” Ingram said in a statement. “We’re also pleased to hear that the administration will look at streamlining testing. Parents and our members cite time spent on testing—as versus on genuine teaching and learning—as one of their top concerns. If all stakeholders are heard, we have confidence that this effort can improve public education in Florida.”
“What an amazing victory for Florida’s children!” tweeted Chris Quackenbush of Stop Common Core FL.
Florida Stop Common Core Coalition Executive Director Karen Effrem said her group was “thrilled with Governor DeSantis’ great efforts to keep his campaign promise and finally listen to the frustrations of parents.”
But getting rid of Common Core will be easier said than done.
“We also know that he will be up against a very entrenched corporate and political establishment that is very much in favor of keeping these standards. So we look forward to helping him fight that battle,” she wrote.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/ron-desantis-and-family-e1549537639403.jpg427640The Daily Signalhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Signal2019-02-07 06:12:212019-02-07 06:42:19Florida Gov. DeSantis Issues 1-Year Deadline to Eliminate All ‘Vestiges’ of Common Core
President Donald J. Trump at the State of the Union said the following:
To defend the dignity of every person, I am asking the Congress to pass legislation to prohibit the late-term abortion of children who can feel pain in the mother’s womb.
Let us work together to build a culture that cherishes innocent life. And let us reaffirm a fundamental truth: all children — born and unborn — are made in the holy image of God.
There will be a National Day of Mourning in silent protest of the state of New York’s infanticide law.
Saturday, February 23, 2019 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM Empire State Plaza Albany, NY 12210
The state of New York just voted to expand abortion access right up to the birth of the baby! To celebrate this unbelieveable depravity they lit the One World Trade Center in pink! Women used to celebrate motherhood and find joy in their children. Today, in places like New York City, they are taking joy in destroying their children. N.Y. State has crossed a line of inhumanity that should drive us to our knees. 46 years of the state sanctioned killing of our most helpless and defenseless children should cause us to weep, to mourn, and to take action. What is to be thought of a society that kills her own children? What will the future be of such a hearltess society that celebrates such barbaric inhumanity?
“If the foundations be destroyed what shall the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3) We are calling for a National Day of Mourning and repentance. We are in desperate need for God to move upon the hearts of young and old in our nation. If our hearts do not break over the killing of these little image bearers of God in the womb, then how can we expect those growing up in this lost, confused and decadent culture to take our message seriously? Join us February 23rd for “A National Day of Mourning.”
“Booker announced bright and early this morning that he’s running for president. We all know he was running months ago when he started grandstanding during the Kavanaugh hearings. Spartacus showed his true beliefs back then: He’s another gun-grabbing, Trump-despising liberal who’s out for power at all costs.” —Grant Stinchfield
EDITORS NOTE: This NRA-ILA column with video and images is republished with permission.
https://drrichswier.com/wp-content/uploads/COREY-BOOKER-NRA.jpg338600NRA Institute for Legislative Actionhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngNRA Institute for Legislative Action2019-02-05 16:58:162019-02-05 16:58:16VIDEO: The Disarmament Primary Is Gearing Up for Its Own Spartacus Moment
