Round-the-clock surveillance is a hallmark of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes. It is no surprise that Google has been illegitimately collecting data on Americans; what is surprising is that Texas is one of only a handful of states that are fighting back. Now is the time for those who value freedom and individual rights to stand in the breach against the forces of darkness. There ought to be a wholesale rejection of Google and the rapid development of alternatives. Instead, its massive power remains largely unchallenged.
WASHINGTON (Reuters)—Texas has filed a lawsuit against Alphabet’s Google for allegedly collecting biometric data of millions of Texans without obtaining proper consent, the attorney general’s office said in a statement on Thursday.
The complaint says that companies operating in Texas have been barred for more than a decade from collecting people’s faces, voices or other biometric data without advanced, informed consent.
“In blatant defiance of that law, Google has, since at least 2015, collected biometric data from innumerable Texans and used their faces and their voices to serve Google’s commercial ends,” the complaint said. “Indeed, all across the state, everyday Texans have become unwitting cash cows being milked by Google for profits.”
Google did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The collection occurred through products like Google Photos, Google Assistant, and Nest Hub Max, the statement said…
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Geller Reporthttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Geller Report2022-10-22 05:29:572022-10-22 05:30:15Texas Sues Google for Allegedly Collecting Biometric Data of MILLIONS of People Without Their Consent
If you want to know what the left wants to do to the entire nation, look at California: unsustainably high taxes, soaring crime rates, filthy, dangerous cities full of insane and criminal homeless people — California is a leftist’s paradise. If Gavin Newsom is the Democrat nominee in 2024, as many are whispering now, and becomes the next president, that will be it for America. The companies that are fleeing California in droves now will flee all of America, and with good reason, as all they will be able to expect here will be robberies that go unprosecuted, confiscatory taxes, immense economic burdens due to climate fantasies, and worse.
California officials are sounding the alarm after recent statistics showed that fewer corporate and start-up activity in the state was leading to a decline in tax revenue, according to a report by Bloomberg News.
This year, just nine companies based in the state had held initial public offerings (IPOs), which is when a company first lists shares for sale on the stock market – considered a milestone in its growth after strong activity and high valuation, the report revealed. In 2021, California – whose start-up ecosystem in ‘Silicon Valley’ is considered the most prodigious in the world – saw 81 companies conduct IPOs, making 2022 a year of a nine-fold decrease.
Moreover, the value of these IPOs was far lower than in the past, raising merely $177 million, or 2% of the total amount of money raised by U.S. companies that went public in 2022. By contrast, in 2021, California’s share of the revenue generated by IPOs was 39%, by far the largest of any state.
Over the last few years, many companies have departed from California for other states run by Republicans, with Texas being the top destination, gaining 44% of companies that left according to a report by BuildRemote, a business consultancy. These include high-profile departures such as that of electric carmaker Tesla, Inc., led by CEO Elon Musk, which moved its headquarters to Texas.
Musk and other entrepreneurs cite the state’s left-wing policies, enacted by a heavily Democratic state administration, of high taxes, permissive bail reform and drug-use laws, chronic homelessness and stringent COVID-19 regulations as reasons for leaving. Musk called the state the “land of overregulation, overlitigation and overtaxation” when describing his decision to leave….
California has some of the highest tax rates in the nation, with a 7.25% sales tax and a top income tax rate of 13.3%, both of which outrank all other states. The revenues it gathers far exceed the state’s regular expenditures, and it ran a budget surplus of $97.5 billion in 2021.
Ryan Crownholm’s story perfectly illustrates how occupational licensing laws stifle competition.
Ryan Crownholm is a self-described “serial entrepreneur” and the founder of a California-based business called MySitePlan.com. Founded in 2013, the business creates unofficial “site plans” for various clients using publicly available imagery. Hotels and resorts will sometimes use the plans as maps for their guests. Homeowners and contractors often use the plans in their permit applications when they are preparing to make minor changes to a property, such as building a shed or removing a tree.
Over the years, MySitePlan.com has built a strong reputation for itself, and customers are consistently impressed with the quality of the work and the short turn-around times (often within 24 hours).
“I had the first draft within 8 hours and they made changes to accommodate what the city needed. Good service!” writes one recent reviewer. “Amazing service! So incredibly quick! I will recommend this company to anyone in need of a site plan,” writes another.
Crownholm and his customers are certainly happy the business has been successful, but it seems not everyone feels this way. In December 2021, Crownholm was given a citation from the California Board for Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors, and Geologists. The order demanded that he “cease and desist from violating” the law and pay a fine of $1,000.
What was Crownholm’s crime? According to the Board, Crownholm and his company were illegally practicing land surveying without a license. In the Board’s view, “preparing site plans which depict the location of property lines, fixed works, and the geographical relationship thereto falls within the definition of land surveying,” and thus requires a license.
It’s worth noting that MySitePlan.com never claimed to create official land surveys by licensed surveyors. In fact, a banner at the top of their website plainly states, “This is not a legal survey, nor is it intended to be or replace one.”
Now, it’s tempting to say Crownholm should just get a license and move on, but it’s not that simple. Obtaining a land surveying license is an arduous process. In the state of California it requires six years of higher education and practical experience, passing four exams, and earning references from four existing licensees.
So rather than getting a license or shutting down his business, Crownholm has chosen to take the Board to court. On September 29, Crownholm joined with the Institute for Justice to file a federal lawsuit against the Board, claiming that the regulation violates his First Amendment right to free speech.
“California regulators are strangling entrepreneurs, like me, with red tape even though customers are pleased with the valuable services we provide,” Crownholm said. “Prosecuting my company hurts homeowners, contractors, landscapers, farmers, wedding venues and others who depend on my service.”
“California’s regulations go far beyond what other surveying regulators think is appropriate,” said Institute for Justice Attorney Mike Greenberg. “This is yet another example of an established industry using the government to shut down popular, innovative competition. If read literally, California’s laws could harm services everyday people use such as Uber and Google Maps. It would even criminalize drawing a makeshift map on a napkin to help a lost tourist find the way to their destination.”
A Mysterious Motive
The question on everyone’s mind, of course, is why? Why would this regulatory board go after an entrepreneur when he’s clearly not in the business of official land surveying?
The simplest explanation is that they’re just really eager to enforce the law to the letter. That seems to be the argument they’re going with. But if that’s the case, why don’t they also crack down on the homeowners and contractors who regularly make identical site plan drawings? As the Institute for Justice press release notes, “California’s own building departments teach [unlicensed] homeowners and contractors how to make the exact same drawings Ryan makes.”
So if litigiousness is the goal, why single out MySitePlan.com?
Perhaps they think he’s taking safety shortcuts, but that makes no sense. There’s nothing dangerous about what he’s doing. Maybe they’re concerned he’s a fraud, and that the quality of his product doesn’t match what he promises? It’s possible, but a quick glance at his glowing reviews ought to set the record straight on that. Maybe they think he’s misrepresenting himself, pretending to have a license when he really doesn’t? Again, that makes no sense. He’s very explicit on the website that he doesn’t do official land surveys.
Perhaps they just think it’s unfair that everyone else has to go through an arduous licensing process while he gets to avoid it despite doing very similar work. That would be understandable, but if it was really just about fairness, wouldn’t it make more sense to push for scrapping the burdens on everyone else rather than imposing those burdens on him?
None of these motives make much sense.
There’s another possible motive, however, and that’s the malicious one. Perhaps the regulators were simply looking to protect licensed surveyors from competition. After all, less competition means higher prices and more business for those who have jumped through the hoops. I’m sure many licensed surveyors weren’t particularly happy to see MySitePlan.com taking away potential clients.
Even assuming the absolute best of intentions, one must admit the decreased competition would be at the very least a convenient side-benefit for the established special-interests.
Oh, and did I mention that the the guy who issued the citation—Richard B. Moore, the Board’s Executive Officer—is himself a licensed land surveyor?
Bootleggers and Baptists
This isn’t the first time entrepreneurs have been impeded by these kinds of regulations. Occupational licensing requirements like this are ubiquitous, not just for doctors and engineers, but also for jobs that have little to do with safety like hair braiding.
Every industry has a similar story. Decades ago there was an accident, maybe a series of accidents, or some fraudulent practitioner. As a result, people pressured the government to “do something,” and the government responded by creating a licensing scheme.
The thinking is pretty straightforward. We make it illegal for someone to practice a trade unless they have a government-approved license, and the government only gives licenses to people who can prove they are trustworthy and capable. Ostensibly, the system protects consumers. But that’s just the official narrative.
Whether by design or by accident, licensing laws also have the effect of limiting competition, resulting in higher prices and fewer options for consumers.
I say “by design or by accident” because it isn’t always clear what the intentions were of the people who promoted these schemes. Though it’s nice to think they were all motivated by an altruistic desire to help consumers, it’s more realistic to see this as a classic “Bootlegger and Baptist” alliance—a phrase that was coined by economist Bruce Yandle in a 1983 paper in reference to the Prohibition era.
The “Baptists” are the true believers. They are motivated, in their desire for government regulation, by genuine—though often misguided—concern for consumers. The “Bootleggers” are the special-interest groups who stand to benefit should these laws pass. The strategy of the Bootlegger is simple and surprisingly effective: simply paint yourself as a Baptist and push for the regulations with altruistic arguments, even though your real goal is to hurt your competitors.
“A carefully constructed regulation can accomplish all kinds of anticompetitive goals,” Yandle wrote, “while giving the citizenry the impression that the only goal is to serve the public interest.”
In 2014, Yandle expanded on his theory in a book titled Bootleggers and Baptists that he co-authored with his grandson Adam Smith (not to be confused with the original Adam Smith). In a review of the book, economist Art Carden summarized the theory rather succinctly.
“Public policies…emerge because a moral constituency (the Baptists) and a financial constituency (the bootleggers) come together in support of the same policies,” Carden wrote.
Quoting the book, Carden notes that special interests looking to pass anti-competitive regulations often seek out “a respectable public-spirited group seeking the same result [in order to] wrap a self-interested lobbying effort in a cloak of respectability.”
Carden goes on to identify occupational licensing in particular as a good example of the Bootleggers and Baptists theory playing out in real life.
The Case against Occupational Licensing
While the drawbacks of occupational licensing laws are difficult to deny, some may still have reservations about abolishing them. If we let just anyone practice these professions, wouldn’t there be a proliferation of fraudulent and dangerous practitioners? Isn’t that why these laws were needed in the first place, to protect us from the evidently disastrous results of free markets?
This is a common line of argumentation, but it’s missing some key nuances. First, it’s important to keep in mind that the mental picture many have of the pre-license market is likely distorted. The special-interest groups pushing for these laws have a strong incentive to exaggerate how bad things used to be; it would be naive to simply take them at their word.
Further, it’s important to remember that people were much poorer back when these laws were first introduced, so we shouldn’t be surprised that the general standard of living—including the quality and safety of services available on the market—was far lower than it is today. The fact that “things used to be bad” is much more a reflection of our ancestors’ relative poverty than an indictment of unregulated markets.
For another point, clearly it’s tragic when people get injured or killed because of incompetent workers, but there is always a trade-off between cost and safety. Sometimes people prefer slightly less safe options (such as workers with less training) because those options are cheaper. And if that’s a risk they want to take, we’re only making them worse-off by taking that option away.
The other thing to consider is that businesses that are downright dangerous or fraudulent get weeded out very quickly. As a business owner, if you don’t provide a reasonable level of quality and safety in your products, you’ll be out of business in no time. Since entrepreneurs know this, they have a strong incentive to avoid hiring dangerous and fraudulent workers. Economists call this the discipline of continuous dealings. This, not licensing, is the reason we can trust most of the businesses we patronize.
Besides, there are plenty of ways to ensure product safety and quality that don’t involve licensing laws. Workers can get voluntary certifications and consumers can look at reviews to help them decide who they can trust. Just think about MySitePlan.com and their reviews we saw earlier. Did you really need them to have a license to know they were a trustworthy business?
What Consumers Really Need
Though government licensing may seem like a good way to protect consumers, the reality is that these schemes unnecessarily restrict competition, with fewer options and higher prices being the inevitable result. In other words, they mostly end up hurting the very consumers they were supposed to help.
The best way to help consumers is to give them lots of choices and a rigorously competitive market. And the way to achieve that is not by protecting established special interests from new players. It’s by letting the Ryan Crownholms of the world compete.
This article was adapted from an issue of the FEE Daily email newsletter. Click here to sign up and get free-market news and analysis like this in your inbox every weekday.
Patrick Carroll has a degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Waterloo and is an Editorial Fellow at the Foundation for Economic Education.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Foundation for Economic Education (FEE)http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngFoundation for Economic Education (FEE)2022-10-22 04:45:352022-10-22 04:47:24California Entrepreneur Who Was Fined $1000 for Drawing Informal Maps without a License Takes Regulatory Board to Court
And the killers have still not been brought to justice.
This Sunday is the 39th anniversary of the Iranian attack on the US Marines barracks in Beirut, which took the life of 241 US Marines. It was the single largest loss of life in the history of the US Marine Corps since the battle of Iwo Jima.
Every year on this date families gather for memorial services around the country to commemorate the lives of these first American victims of Islamic Iran’s vicious, relentless, and still unending war on America.
For years we have known the names of the main perpetrators. Until now, only one has been brought to justice: Imad Fayez Mughniyeh.
Prior to 9/11, he was the terrorist with the most U.S. blood on his hands. A Lebanese-born Shiite Muslim who worked in Yasser Arafat’s elite Force 17, he was hired by Iran as their chief overseas terrorist once Arafat was forced out of Beirut in September 1982.
Mughniyeh was quick to prove his worth to his new masters with a series of massive car bombs in Lebanon. The first, on Nov. 11, 1982, took down the seven-story Israeli military headquarters in Tyre, Lebanon, killing 67 IDF personnel and Border Guards.
Next was the April 18, 1983, bombing of the U.S. embassy on the Beirut corniche, which I witnessed first-hand. Sixty-three people perished in that blast, including seventeen Americans. Among them were Kenneth Haas and Robert Ames, the CIA’s top spies in the Middle East. Indeed. Mugniyeh’s target was a top secret meeting of CIA station chiefs from around the region. In a single blow, Iran decapitated the Agency’s intelligence apparatus in the region.
Emboldened by these successes, Mughniyeh’s Iranian masters next instructed him to strike against Western peace-keeping troops, with the goal of driving them out of Lebanon. Shortly after 6 AM on October 23, 1983, an Iranian terrorist drove a red Dodge water truck past unarmed sentries at the U.S. Marine barracks near the Beirut airport, killing 241 Marines. Less than ten minutes later, a second explosive-laden truck smashed into the Drakkar building several miles away, killing 63 French Marines. Mughniyeh watched both attacks with binoculars from a nearby hill while his underlings captured them on videotape.
Mughniyeh’s terrorist rap-sheet is a mile long. He went on to blow up the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992, and the AMIA Jewish Center in 1994. His men instructed al Qaeda bombers in the art of the simultaneous truck bombs they set off against US embassies in Africa in 1998. Later, he helped Osama bin Laden and his men plan the 9/11 attacks, and killed hundreds more Americans in Iraq following the US invasion in 2003.
Israel and the US finally brought him to justice in a joint operation in Damascus on February 12, 2008.
As effective as he was, Mughniyeh never could have carried out this killing spree without sponsors, money, and mentoring.
Among his early mentors were Ali Reza Asgari and Hussein Dehghan, who commanded the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) contingent in Lebanon between 1982 and 1984.
Asgari defected to the United States in 2007, provided significant intelligence on Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and now lives under a pseudonym thanks to US taxpayers. Dehghan rose to become Iranian regime defense minister from 2013-2017, and currently serves as an advisor to the Supreme Leader. The Trump administration sanctioned him as a “specially designated terrorist” in 2019.
But Mughniyeh’s ultimate bosses were Ahmed Vahidi, head of the Quds Force, and Mohsen Rezai, the IRGC commander. Vahidi was indicted by the US for his involved in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 US servicemen; today he serves as Iranian regime interior minister, in charge of repressing pro-freedom protestors. Rezai was indicted by the government of Argentina for his role in the 1994 AMIA Jewish Center bombing, and is now an Iranian regime vice-president for economic affairs.
In January, Rezai was invited by Nicaraguan strongman Daniel Ortega to visit Managua. Given that Rezai was the subject of an Interpol “Red Notice” for his role in the AMIA bombings – an administrative procedure that requested assistance from all Interpol members in detaining and extraditing him – his government Falconjet charted a circuitous route to reach Managua, avoiding flying over the airspace of countries such as Cape Verde that had a history of detaining Iranians wanted by Interpol.
The government-owned Tehran Times called his trip in blatant violation of US sanctions and Interpol a “slap in the face” to the U.S.
In Washington, Rep. Jim Banks (R, IN) introduced a resolution in March opposing the removal of terror-designations and sanctions against Mohsen Rezai, Dehghan, and Vahidi that won just 65 co-sponsors, none of them Democrats.
Rezai was on the road again earlier this week, this time flying to Qatar to support Iranian exporters and meet with Qatari officials. Once again, the Argentinean government launched an official protest, demanding that Qatar arrest him. Both the Qatari and the US governments ignored the request (with total silence from the US embassy in Qatar and the State Department).
In the thirty-nine years since the Iranian regime drew first blood against America, the United States has yet to exact a price from the Iranian regime for its actions. We have yet to stand up to Iran’s aggressive behavior and, as I argue in my new book, this failure has encouraged Iran to continue attacking us because they see that they can do so with impunity.
The very fact of naming men such as Mohsen Rezai and Hossein Dehghan to top government positions shows the utter disdain Iran’s Islamic rulers have for the current U.S. administration. President Biden may want to be loved by the mullahs; but President Trump, with the killing of top Iranian terrorist Qassem Suleymani, showed it is much wiser to be feared.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Kenneth R. Timmermanhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngKenneth R. Timmerman2022-10-22 04:33:132022-10-22 04:33:3539 Years after Marine Barracks Bombing in Beirut
The Biden administration is “weaponizing” the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act to go after pro-life activists, an attorney who served under George W. Bush and Barack Obama told the Daily Caller.
“The left is out for blood, and Biden’s base is demanding prosecutions and the DOJ is providing them,” said Roger Severino, who served as an attorney at the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights division, the same division that enforces the FACE Act.
The Biden administration has charged at least 16 pro-life activists with a maximum of 11 years in prison for alleged violations of the act, which prohibits obstructing people seeking reproduction services. Pro-life activist Mark Houck allegedly pushed an abortion escort to the ground after a verbal confrontation. FBI agents swarmed Houck’s house and took him away at gunpoint months after the initial charges against him were dropped.
The DOJ charged the other 15 pro-lifers with allegedly obstructing entrances of abortion clinics and they face a maximum of 11 years in prison, when, under the law, first time violators of the FACE Act usually face a maximum of six months.
Houck is being charged with the decade-long version of the FACE Act violation because the abortion escort “scraped his arm,” his attorney Peter Breen told the Daily Caller. “The charges shouldn’t apply at all, but even if they did, he’s being overcharged.”
“It’s outrageous that you would take a six-month misdemeanor … and turn it into a 10-year federal felony,” Breen added.
One of the other pro-lifers facing over a decade in prison, Paul Vaughn, never blocked the door of an abortion clinic, but was standing nearby, Breen claimed.
Video of the FBI's arrest of Paul Vaughn of Centerville, Tennessee. DOJ charged him with “conspiracy against rights secured by the FACE Act, and committing FACE Act violations" for blocking the entrance to an abortion clinic. Paul tells me the footage was taken by his wife. pic.twitter.com/KSDvLRSrlF
Severino, who served under both former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama from 2008 to 2015, said he’s “never heard of a charge being so excessive” as the 11-year maximum prison sentence and $350,000 fine put forth by the current administration for allegedly obstructing abortion clinic doors.
“This is law enforcement run amok. The FACE Act had always been enforced very rarely, because the pro-life movement is a movement of peace,” Severino said. “All of a sudden, they are inventing cases and doing sham prosecutions in an election year for purely political purposes to go after their political enemies.”
The DOJ did not respond to an inquiry from the Daily Caller asking if they have comment on whether the Biden administration has used the FACE Act more excessively than previous administrations.
The FACE Act also protects houses of worship and pro-life pregnancy centers, both of which have been firebombed across the country after the Dobbs decision. Thirty-three churches and 54 pregnancy centers have been attacked, according to the Catholic News Service. The DOJ has not prosecuted any cases of destruction against pro-life centers, Severino stressed.
The effort to arrest pro-lifers is specifically being pushed before the midterms, Department of Homeland Security official under the Trump administration, Ken Cuccinelli, told the Daily Caller.
“This has nothing to do with public safety. This is political virtue signaling to the radical-left base that has control of this administration,” Cuccinelli said.
“I think it will thoroughly backfire on them. I can’t think of a way they’ll get one more vote because they arrest these people, but I guarantee you, a lot [more] pro-lifers will stay home than might have for the midterm election,” he added.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2022-10-22 04:17:092022-10-22 04:23:46‘The Left Is Out For Blood’: Biden’s DOJ ‘Weaponizing’ Law To Arrest ‘Political Enemies,’ Former Official Says
BOCA RATON, Fla./PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ — Hispanics are increasingly concerned about their personal finances, leading to a decline in optimism in the U.S. economy during the third quarter, according to a new poll from the Florida Atlantic University Business and Economics Polling Initiative (FAU BEPI).
The Hispanic Consumer Sentiment Index dropped to 74.3 from 78.3 in the second quarter and 92 for the first quarter, the survey found.
Only 44 percent of the 454 respondents said they are better off financially than a year ago, down from 56 percent in the second quarter and 65 percent in the first quarter. In addition, a smaller percentage of respondents are more optimistic about their financial futures.
Hispanics also remain troubled over the cost of living, with 81 percent saying costs are going up, compared with 80 percent who said that in the second quarter.
“They are less optimistic about their personal finances because Hispanics spend a greater share of their budgets on items that have seen the most inflation, like used cars, food, gas and housing,” said Monica Escaleras, Ph.D., director of FAU BEPI in the College of Business.
In three other questions used to create the index, respondents were slightly more upbeat compared to the second quarter but not nearly as optimistic as the first quarter.
When asked about business conditions over the next year, 44 percent of respondents said they expect conditions to be good, up from 43 percent in the prior quarter but down from 55 percent in the first quarter.
Compared to the second quarter, a higher percentage of respondents (53 percent) expect good times for the country over the next five years, but that still was down from 61 percent in the first three months of 2022.
Finally, while 40 percent said now is a good time to buy a big-ticket item, 50 percent felt that way in the first quarter. Only 26 percent said it’s a good time to buy a house, but 49 percent felt that way in the first quarter.
In all the questions, Escaleras noted that younger Hispanics generally appeared more optimistic than their older counterparts.
The poll is based on a sampling of Hispanic adults from July 1 to Sept. 30. The margin of error is +/- 4.59 percentage points. The polling results and full cross-tabulations can be viewed here.
BOCA RATON, Fla./PRNewswire/ — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is on track for re-election, leading Democratic challenger Charlie Crist by 11 percentage points and garnering strong approval ratings, particularly for his response to Hurricane Ian, according to a new statewide poll from Florida Atlantic University.
The Republican incumbent’s overall approval rating was 53 percent, and his hurricane response approval was better at 63 percent. In addition, 66 percent of respondents expect DeSantis to be re-elected.
“The governor’s hurricane response received strong approval among Floridians, who most likely favor him in the upcoming gubernatorial race,” said Monica Escaleras, Ph.D., director of FAU BEPI.
The survey of 719 Floridians also revealed that inflation was the most important issue to voters by a wide margin at 36 percent. Threats to democracy was the next most important issue at 19 percent. Interestingly, only 9 percent of respondents felt abortion access was an important issue.
In the U.S. Senate race, Republican incumbent Marco Rubio leads Democratic challenger Val Demings 48 percent to 42 percent, with 7 percent still undecided. Also, 60 percent of respondents expect Rubio to be re-elected.
“Republicans continue to perform well in Florida,” said Kevin Wagner, Ph.D., a professor of political science at FAU and a research fellow of the initiative. “If these numbers hold, Florida’s status as a battleground state might be in question.”
Wagner noted that both Democratic candidates are doing well with younger voters, but they will need higher turnout to close the gaps in these races.
Other findings showed that respondents favored DeSantis and former U.S. President Donald Trump to U.S. President Joe Biden in a hypothetical 2024 matchup. DeSantis leads Biden 48 percent to 42 percent, while Trump tops Biden 45 percent to 41 percent.
Biden’s approval rating was underwater – 41 percent favored the job he is doing and 50 percent opposed.
The survey was conducted Oct. 12-16. The survey has a margin of error of +/- 3.65 percentage points. The polling results and full cross-tabulations are available by clicking here.
I love this country. It’s the best country on earth and I am fortunate to live here. It amazes me that the Left has managed to convince so many people America is the worst country on earth and they should hate it. Here are some recent examples:
A man was triggered by a woman wearing an American flag shirt in Minnesota. He grabbed her by the neck, beat her, and threatened to kill her with a towel rack. Also allergic to the American flag is a Reuters reporter who was so upset by a crowd of people waving the American flag near the U.S. Capitol, she tweeted about it. But the colors of the flag are symbolic. Red is for hardiness and valor. White stands for purity and innocence, and the blue symbolizes vigilance, perseverance, and justice. What would the Reuters reporter prefer? A flag honoring depravity, timidity, and malevolence? I doubt the reporter has thought this through.
The Fargo school board voted to stop reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at their meetings because, according to them, America does not have ‘liberty and justice for all’ and the phrase ‘under God’ excludes atheists and Buddhists. Well, that’s interesting. The Pledge of Allegiance swears fealty to our Republic. Our Constitution guarantees a republican form of government in the states (Article IV, Section 4). Representative government is part of what a republic means. So does this mean the school board members don’t want to be elected to office again? I don’t get it.
An elementary school in New Jersey changed its name, getting rid of Thomas Jefferson who wrote the Declaration of Independence. I guess the school doesn’t want its pupils to have life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness. Apparently, NPR doesn’t want people to have those things, either. This year, it ended a 33-year tradition of reading the Declaration of Independence on the 4th of July. Instead, it had a discussion of the importance of equal outcomes – ‘equity’ – and how the Republican Party is pushing the country into authoritarian rule. Hmm… Didn’t the Declaration of Independence rail against a “long train of abuses” and object to authoritarians shutting down colonial legislatures, preventing the people from making their own laws? NPR’s reasoning is a little confused, here.
Not to be outdone, Cornell University removed a bust of Abraham Lincoln after getting one complaint. They removed a plaque with the Gettysburg Address, too. The University didn’t explain its reasoning, but it didn’t matter that Lincoln called slavery immoral, freed the slaves, and bound up the nation’s wounds after successfully seeing it through the Civil War. It must be that Cornell wants to see government “of the people, by the people, for the people” perish from the earth.
Which brings us to Wisconsin Democratic Senate candidate Mandela Barnes who said the founding of America was “awful” and we need to repair the damage of colonialism and slavery. Mandela Barnes, meet Maurice Barboza, a mixed-race individual who is working to get a memorial built on the National Mall dedicated to the memory of the forgotten black patriots who fought on the side of the colonists in the Revolutionary War. Maurice wrote a brilliant article which appears on my Potomac Tea Party website in which he describes how generations of blacks in America worked to “complete the Founders’ vision.” The vision is outstanding, Maurice wrote. But it took time for the country to extend the inescapable logic of the vision to all people, starting as it did from a position of allowing slavery. Those generations of blacks “grasped the quintessential meaning of the Revolutionary War: ‘Those principles apply to me, too’,” Maurice wrote. “The Confederacy strenuously fought this inexorable logic and perished.”
So anyone who is stuck on the sins of the founding – and hates the flag, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the Declaration of Independence – is willfully blind to the progress that has been made since America’s founding. Which begs the question: Woke leaders know there’s been progress, so why are they playing this game? Because it pays. They’ll keep beating us up with this club as long as they think it’s working, as long as we let them. Show them the guilt trip is over, and they’ll have to move on.
Liberty – as expressed in the flag, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the Declaration of Independence – is a grand philosophical tradition and, no matter how Woke you are, I guarantee you would not like life without it.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Skirmish - Liberato.UShttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Skirmish - Liberato.US2022-10-21 12:55:162022-10-21 12:55:16The Utter Cynicism and Confusion of the Hate America Crowd
These days the Middle East is undergoing a profound and historic transformation. Many Middle East scholars are attempting to understand the developments in the Arab world and in the Arab and Muslim culture and religion. Additionally, Iran’s nuclear aspirations are the cause of a deep concern to many all over the world.
Dr. Mordechai Kedar, a research associate of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies and formerly a lecturer in the Department of Arabic Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, is one of Israel’s leading figures in understanding the Arab and Islamic world. He is the Middle East analyst of Israel’s channel 14 and the weekly newspaper “Makor Rishon” as well as other publications. Dr. Kedar is a frequent guest in the Israeli, Arab and international media.
Dr. Kedar will be on a speaking tour, visiting North America during February 2023. He is available to be booked for lectures and various presentations. He can be a scholar-in-residence for a weekend or give presentations and lectures during the weekdays.
His lectures are about the Middle East, Israel’s existence within the Middle Eastern environment, the struggle over Jerusalem, Anti-Semitism in the Islamic world and Iran etc. Please see the list of topics below.
You might have watched Dr. Kedar’s famous interview on al-Jazeera about the right of Jews to build in Jerusalem:
In May 2012 Dr. Kedar spoke in a conference about the problems of the Israeli public diplomacy:
Dr. Kedar would like to offer his lectures (see list below) to Synagogues, Churches, Mosques, universities, colleges, schools, community centers, organizations etc.
Dr. Kedar travels in economy class and his fee is reasonable.
Dr. Kedar is planning to be in North America during February 2023.
If you would like to view a sample lecture or if you have any ideas or suggestions please feel free to contact Dr. Kedar at the e-mail: kedar.tour@gmail.com
About Dr. Mordechai Kedar
Research Associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies; Formerly lecturer in the Department of Arabic, Bar-Ilan University, Israel.
Contact Information:
Phone+WhatsApp in Israel: +972-544-778-908
US Mobile (while in North America): 1-917-868-3551 Kedar.tour@gmail.com
Possible Topics:
Israel and its neighbors
Biden, Putin and the Middle East.
Israel at 75: Achievements and Challenges.
Israel in a Changing Middle East – Challenges and Opportunities.
Israel and the Palestinian Issue – Possible Solutions.
The Middle East – where to?
Peace in the Middle East – What does it Need?
Iran – Where to?
Understanding Arab and Muslim Culture.
ADDITIONAL ISSUES:
1.
“The Arab Spring” – Why did it fail?
2.
Tribalism in the Middle East and its influence on politics and state building.
3.
Turkey – What went wrong?
4.
What is the struggle over Jerusalem all about?
5.
Why do many Muslims hate the West?
6.
Understanding the Iranians – What motivates the Ayatollahs?
7.
Hezbollah – Ideology, politics and modus operandi.
8.
Hamas – Ideology, politics and modus operandi.
9.
Islam – A culture in crisis.
10.
Islam in Democratic State – The Islamic Movements in Israel.
11.
Democracy in the Middle East – Opportunity or danger?
12.
Islamic Radicalism – Causes, ideology and ways to face it.
13.
Sunnis and Shi’is – Why do they hate each other so?
14.
Islamic Women between Tradition and Modernity.
15.
Palestinian Political Illustrations – Cartoons and messages.
16.
The Right of Return in the Palestinian National Ethos.
17.
Hizballah, Hamas, and Israel – Living with the enemy.
18.
Clash of Values: Gender and Family Issues – Sources of tension between Islam and the West.
19.
Arab Intellectuals – Where are they?
20.
Arab Mass Media – their role in ME societies.
21.
The Other Voice in the Arab World – My personal experience.
Lecture Subjects Concerning Military Intelligence:
1.
Flawed intelligence assessments and mistaken policies resulting from cultural differences.
2.
What motivates Arab states, societies and armies?
3.
How to understand the Arab state media?
4.
Major mistakes made by the Western coalition in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Lectures on Israeli domestic issues can also be considered.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Mordechai Kedarhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Mordechai Kedar2022-10-21 08:42:342022-10-21 08:45:21Dr. Mordechai Kedar, Upcoming Speaking Tour to the U.S. and Canada – February 2023
Breitbart News reports that although the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) purports to use its resources to ensure black Americans “have the opportunity to achieve the American Dream,” they are supporting a white Democrat congressman over black Republican candidate Jennifer-Ruth Green.
Green is running for Congress in Indiana’s first congressional district to replace incumbent Rep. Frank Mrvan (D). If elected, Green would be the only black Republican woman in the U.S. House of Representatives.
But the Left deems black Republicans to be race traitors, so the CBC decided to donate $5,000 to Mrvan’s reelection efforts in the final days of the third fundraising quarter.
Although the CBC’s founders envisioned the caucus as a non-partisan organization, they avoid accepting black Republicans into the group. For example, the CBC reportedly prohibited black Republican Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) from joining last year.
Although the CBC donated $5,000 to Mrvan, Green still out-fundraised Mrvan by nearly $500,000 in the campaign’s third quarter. Green reported roughly $1.4 million raised from July to September, while Mrvan reported raising less than $940,000.
Green similarly out-fundraised Mrvan in the campaign’s second quarter by more than $200,000, at $561,329.50 compared to Mrvan’s $355,906.37.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Discover The Networkshttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDiscover The Networks2022-10-21 08:21:162022-10-22 03:47:08Congressional Black Caucus Backs White Dem Over Black Republican Candidate
Discussing the recent news that open-borders fanatic Mayorkas knew that reports of the iconic photo showing a Border Patrol agent “whipping” a Haitian migrant were false but ran with this information anyway, the Tennessee conservative asked Judd how this revelation made him and other border patrol agents feel.
“There’s nothing that will get my blood boiling more than this story,” Judd replied. “This was the biggest illegal immigration event in the history of the United States, there were thousands, in this particular time, there were ten thousand people that were camped out under a bridge in the United States. It literally looked like a warzone.”
Judd noted that the photographer who took the picture even stated that not one border patrol officer whipped a migrant.
“The day that he [Mayorkas] got the initial report, he actually backed the agents up, but then you had President Biden come out [with] his rhetoric and accuse these agents of a criminal act of strapping these people, which would have been a felony,” he said.
“The problem is when you lie to the American public you should be held accountable. He was Senate-confirmed and because he lied to the American public I believe he perjured himself. I personally believe that’s an impeachable offense.”
Mayorkas Likens Conservative “Extremists” to the 9/11 Terrorists
On September 11, 2022 — the 21st anniversary of the deadly 9/11 terrorist attacks — Mayorkas said on MSNBC’s The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart: “The threat landscape has evolved considerably over the last 20 years. Back when 9/11 occurred, in those years we were very focused on the foreign terrorist, the individual who sought to do a severe harm to enter the United States and and do us harm…. We are seeing an emerging threat, of course, over the last several years of the domestic violent extremist. The individual here in the United States radicalized to violence by a foreign terrorist ideology, but also an ideology of hate, anti-government sentiment, false narratives propagated on online platforms, even personal grievances.”
RELATED VIDEO:Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council talked about U.S. border policy and conditions, appropriations for a U.S.-Mexico border wall in recent government-funding legislation, and more.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Discover The Networkshttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDiscover The Networks2022-10-21 07:24:412022-10-21 08:16:53Border Council President Calls for Mayorkas’ Impeachment
OnSeptember 24, 2012 at Convocation, North America’s largest weekly gathering of Christian students, Donald Trump began his speech with the dire state of the nation’s economy and its failed foreign relations and then engaged students for 30 minutes about the values that brought him to the pinnacle of real estate development and business success.
WATCH:
Donald J. Trump finished by addressing a few questions from students, which had been texted during the speech.
Trump also spent time praising Liberty for its notoriety and honoring its founder, Dr. Jerry Falwell, Sr., whom he had met on several occasions and Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr.
Prior to his speech, Trump was awarded an honorary doctorate of business in recognition of his, “unwavering and public commitment to our nation’s founding principles of limited government, individual liberty, and the free enterprise system, and in further recognition of his iconic status as one of America’s most successful visionaries and entrepreneurs.”
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00Dr. Rich Swierhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngDr. Rich Swier2022-10-21 07:04:182022-10-21 07:05:52VIDEO: Remembering Donald J. Trump’s Warnings at the September 24, 2012 Liberty University Convocation
Guatemala City, Guatemala — The United Nations and other aid groups are informing migrants from across the globe how to get to the United States to cross the border illegally, six migrants from Afghanistan told the Daily Caller News Foundation after they were apprehended in Guatemala.
The migrants said that before they arrived in Guatemala that aid workers provided them with maps guiding them to Mexico so that they can reach the U.S. southern border. The men were six of 16 Afghans in the detention facility for foreign migrants in Guatemala City.
“They give us a map,” one of the Afghan men said. “The map was up to Mexico. There was no United States. But they told how to cross these borders,” one of the Afghan migrants explained.
“But they told us how to go to the U.S. border,” he added.
The aid workers explained which countries have an immigration process for them and which don’t, they said. But not much else was conveyed due to a language barrier.
“Our big problem was Spanish,” another Afghan refugee said. “They didn’t understand English as well. But they try our best and they only tell us that these countries have immigration processes.”
The group paid in each country along the way to pass through to the next northern destination on their way to the U.S.
“After Nicaragua, they have an immigration process, they will get $150 from you. We went and we gave a 150 U.S. dollars for immigration and we cross another border up to Honduras. We were told that there was also an immigration process in Honduras,” the first Afghan refugee told the DCNF.
“So we went and we gave our biometrics in all process we have done. And we went move up again in another country,” he added.
They hope that they can reach the U.S., where they will be safe like a large portion of the over 2 million migrants that federal border authorities encountered at the U.S. border with Mexico in fiscal year 2022.
The United Nations’ International Organization for Migration (IOM) didn’t immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2022-10-21 06:46:012022-10-21 06:47:50EXCLUSIVE: Afghan Migrants Say United Nations Workers Gave Them Directions To U.S. Border
The left’s war on the family, the basic building block of civilization, is part of their war on G-d. This is a culture that is embracing degeneracy, depression and death.
Eliminating parental authority paves their way to absolute control and autocracy.
The case against this horrendous surgery is a whole other matter. Ten to 15 years after surgical reassignment, the suicide rate of those who had undergone sex-reassignment surgery rose to 20 times that of comparable peers.
A Philadelphia gender clinic provided training materials to public school employees in a Pennsylvania district that asks educators to use students’ preferred names and pronouns without informing parents, according to training slides and emails obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller.
A Southern Lehigh School District guidance counselor emailed the training materials from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) to several educators on Sept. 15, 2021. Several district employees attended the CHOP training off-site, and one disseminated the information to colleagues.
Approximately three weeks later, the district’s intermediate school principal sent an email to educators stating that they should not inform parents about a child’s perceived gender identity. The intermediate school’s vice principal was a direct recipient of the CHOP training materials.
The presentation obtained by the Caller called for schools to be “affirming” of a children’s perceived gender identities. Educators are encouraged to use the word “students” instead of “boys and girls” when referring to the classroom. CHOP also urged educators to include “examples of LGBTQ people in lessons,” beginning in elementary school.
CHOP recommends that elementary schoolers read books about pronouns, such as “They, She, He Easy As ABC,” and books about young boys dressing in drag, such as “Julian Is A Mermaid.” The materials also call on middle and high school classrooms to “critically examine roles and messages (now and throughout history)” and to “build allies and advocacy.”
The training goes on to encourage educators to “follow [a] child’s lead” and to “allow room for exploration” of his or her gender.
In separate training sessions provided by CHOP to school districts throughout Pennsylvania in 2020, the gender clinic told educators to keep students’ gender identities secret from parents.
“If we disclose this information without someone’s involvement, without them giving us permission, we are setting them up for a negative, potentially harmful, unsafe experience,” the training video says. “So when we get this information, we keep it private from other students, from other staff members and from parents.”…
Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s town hall went downhill Wednesday night after protesters shouted her down.
Ocasio-Cortez was hosting a Listening Forum Event in Astoria, Queens, when a large group of protesters began chanting “AOC has got to go.” Several of the protesters held up signs, with some reading, “Fuck Joe Biden,” “Wake up New York” and “Agenda 2030 U.N. Is Dirty.”
"So if I don't have butt sex, I don't have a place to live" one protester said to AOC as she spoke about special LGBTQ centers, she responded "Sir your sexual orientation has nothing to do with it". pic.twitter.com/pwNSYN52QR
As Protesters chant "AOC has got to go" AOC starts dancing as she drank water, as more people shouted she said "very classy, thank you Sir" pic.twitter.com/rCVr9Y5OTa
As Ocasio-Cortez spoke about LGBTQ centers, one protester asked, “So if I don’t have butt sex, I can’t have a place to live?”
“Sir, your sexual orientation has nothing to do with it,” Ocasio-Cortez responded. The man then said the centers were “racist against straight people.”
Another man then stood up, and though his speech was inaudible, the rest of the crowd broke out into a “let her speak” chant.
Eventually Ocasio-Cortez, addressing a woman in the crowd, said, “Ma’am, you are saying you ask us why, you’ve been talking for twenty minutes, we know why, we know why you’re mad, let’s talk about it.”
“I am not mad. There are only two fucking genders,” the woman shouted back in response.
This wasn’t the first time Ocasio-Cortez’s town hall was interrupted by protesters. The congresswoman was shouted down by a pair of protesters one week prior at a town hall in the Bronx. One protester slammed Ocasio-Cortez for voting to send weaponry to Ukraine, with one protester saying she should really focus her efforts on calling for peace.
http://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.png00The Daily Callerhttp://drrich.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/logo_264x69.pngThe Daily Caller2022-10-21 05:58:222022-10-21 06:05:52‘Only Two F*cking Genders’: Ocasio-Cortez Townhall Goes Completely Haywire As Protesters Shout Her Down
