Leaving Minnesota!

What’s missing is a plan

At least the Center didn’t make a t-shirt calling me “Howard the Coward” for leaving Minnesota.

By Howard Root

 -June 5, 2023

(Shutterstock)

In response to my “Goodbye, Minnesota” commentary in the Star Tribune, John Phelan from the Center of the American Experiment wrote in Alpha News that conservatives should not leave Minnesota for states like Florida (as I am), but instead stay and fight for Minnesota’s future.

His boss at the Center, John Hinderaker, immediately chimed in on his Power Line blog to say that he is devoted to saving the state of Minnesota by doing all he can to encourage people “not to flee, but to stay and fight.” In that blog post, Hinderaker unveiled a new t-shirt with a “stay and fight” logo which you can get by making a $40 contribution to the Center.

At least the Center didn’t make a t-shirt calling me “Howard the Coward” for leaving Minnesota. But their implication is clear—if only we conservatives would stay in Minnesota and contribute more money to their advocacy, we can win! After hearing this plea so many times over so many years, I feel the need to respond to their “fight” to “save” Minnesota. 

Phelan claims we can save Minnesota based on three factors. First, as a good economist, he dices the 2022 election numbers to note that even though the DFL won complete control of the Minnesota legislature by only a handful of votes, they are governing like they won in a landslide.

That’s not a bug, that’s a DFL feature. By immediately using their new control to give us voting for felons, driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants, the destruction of third-party campaigns and automatic registration of young voters, the DFL is making it even harder for Republicans to win a statewide election. And that’s even before considering how large the DFL campaign coffers will become from the return contributions of the recipients of last session’s 38% growth in government spending.

Next, Phelan claims that Minnesota is being lauded in the national press for our movement to progressive policies, which will backfire on the DFL once “the sad truth about Minnesota gets out.” Instead of backfiring, though, the more accurate word is insulating, which is what the fawning national press has done to protect liberal local politicians from the sad truths of their actions.

Finally, “and most importantly,” Phelan argues that Minnesota is worth fighting for because it still is a great place to live with great scenery, decent people and “varied” weather. But everyone would agree that San Francisco has even better scenery, so let’s all move there! And staying for Minnesota’s weather? To channel the legendary football coach Jim Mora’s rant when asked about the playoffs, “Weather? Don’t talk about the weather. You kidding me?”

All of Phelan’s talk about fighting makes me think of the decent Minnesota woman I heard last week on a podcast who described how she was violently mugged while walking to the Guthrie on a scenic Saturday afternoon. Should she now wear a new “Stay and Fight” t-shirt and fight back against her next random attacker on her next stroll through Dinkytown? 

While I’m sure the Center’s fight chant is intended only in its verbal sense, those who choose to remain in our urban core will need to decide whether to extend that fight to the physical once they become the next victim of the Twin Cities’ escalating violent crime. Is this really still a great place for decent people to live?

What’s sorely missing from Phelan’s response is a plan, as in what, other than paying the salaries of Phelan and Hinderaker and 18 other staff members, is the Center accomplishing in its alleged fight to save Minnesota? Winning back control of Minnesota won’t happen because of a t-shirt or pleas for more money to parrot the same rhetoric with no demonstrated return on investment. 

Instead, change will happen only if we have better Republican candidates running better campaign messages with more well-spent money to overcome the substantial and growing DFL advantages. That, along with alternative news organizations like Alpha News and @CrimeWatchMpls engaging in direct reporting of the destruction of Minnesota is where my last remaining hopes lie. Admittedly, that’s not a cheery scenario (and I hope I am proven wrong), but a sugarcoating isn’t good on anything other than doughnuts.

Deciding to move out of Minnesota is a deliberate conclusion made after figuring out what works best for you, your family, your employment and your future. It’s also an action that will hasten the DFL’s need to deal with their out-of-control spending by removing your future taxes from Minnesota’s treasury. Many of the conservatives I know want to leave right now but can’t because of their personal situation, and I don’t begrudge anyone for staying in Minnesota for any reason or for no reason at all. 

At the same time, those of us who choose to leave, not only retirees like me but also young families leaving to find a better life in states like Tennessee and South Carolina, don’t deserve to be branded as cowards fleeing Minnesota simply because we choose not to remain and join the Center’s “fight” to “save” Minnesota.

“And was there ever a time when substantial numbers of customers wanted the companies they patronize to espouse leftism?”

JUNE 6, 2023 BY JOHN HINDERAKER at Power Line:

DODGING THE SOCIAL ISSUES

Today’s Wall Street Journal surveys the wreckage of recent weeks and headlines: “Companies’ New Cause: Dodging the Culture Wars.” It is all quite interesting, but I want to highlight a couple of points:

CEOs spent the past few years adjusting to a world in which investors, customers and employees expected corporate leaders to align themselves with social causes.

Did they really? I think that only a small minority of investors, driven by the ESG fad, were leaning on companies to go left. Likewise, in most industries the number of employees who pushed management to wade into the culture wars must have been few, and concentrated among younger and less essential workers. And was there ever a time when substantial numbers of customers wanted the companies they patronize to espouse leftism? I don’t think so.

Rather, I think that wokeism penetrated certain limited precincts of corporate America, mostly Human Resources departments, but also found a willing audience among a number of CEOs who, in many cases, don’t have long histories with their companies, don’t necessarily know a great deal about their companies’ products or services, and are susceptible to trends, especially trends that put them in a good light within their peer group.

Over the past decade, companies have become more vocal on causes such as immigration, voting access, abortion, gay rights and racial equity, often taking stances shared by progressives. Many executives said they felt pushed by employees or customers to express an opinion on issues rippling through society.

What is changing now, executives and corporate advisers said, is that conservative groups and political leaders are pushing back against companies more forcefully. Consumers are also more openly expressing frustration that companies are airing views in ways some don’t welcome.

How can this possibly have come as a surprise to corporate leaders? On all of the issues that have gotten companies into trouble, public opinion favors the conservative position at least as much as the liberal one, usually more. Apparently the suits took it for granted that conservatives are quiescent and can safely be ignored.

The Journal quotes the CEO of Upwork, which “operates a marketplace for freelance workers and other professionals”:

The company considers a series of questions when deciding whether to weigh in: “How central is this topic to our business, to our customers? Does it really concern them? Would they expect us to be opining on this because it really intersects with their day-to-day lives?” she said. “We don’t think it’s our job to opine on everything. But at the same time, it’s not our job to stay on the sidelines, either.”

Really? Why not stay on the sidelines, unless the issue is one that is actually germane, in an important way, to the company’s business? For example, the rapidly rising cost of electricity “really intersects with [the] day-to-day lives” of every company’s customers, but I don’t know of any companies that have taken an anti-green energy position so as to align themselves with customers’ political or economic concerns that are not specifically related to the company’s business.

The Journal’s story wraps up with reassurance that companies are not abandoning their commitment to liberal activism.

“It’s not the end of LGBT marketing. It’s the end of amateurism in LGBT marketing,” said Fabrice Houdart, who consults with Fortune 500 companies and directs an organization for LGBT board members. He said senior leaders should consult with marketing, legal and communications teams, and also with employee resource groups, such as an LGBT employee group, along with human-rights advisers, if they have them.

So will those human rights advisers advise on the use of slave labor in China? Or child mining of “green” minerals in Africa? Are those human rights issues that corporations will start opining on?

Just kidding.

“I can see that my clients are more cautious,” he said. “But none of them have said ‘I’m going to change my strategy or roll back what I’m doing.’”

If that is true, they are going to encounter a lot more trouble from disgruntled conservatives.

“President Joe Biden’s declining mental acuity has become a national security issue…”

Biden’s Declining Mental Acuity Is A Big Welcome Mat To Red China’s Aggression

BY: SHAWN FLEETWOOD at the Federalist:

JUNE 06, 2023

President Joe Biden’s declining mental acuity has become a national security issue and has seemingly emboldened Red China’s willingness to engage in increasingly aggressive behavior.

On Saturday, a U.S. destroyer was abruptly cut off by a Chinese naval vessel during a transit through the Taiwan Strait. According to Fox News, the USS Chung-Hoon — which was conducting a “freedom of navigation” exercise with the Royal Canadian Navy — was forced to “slow down to 10 knots to avoid a collision” with the Chinese vessel. U.S. Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement that the Chinese ship came within 150 yards of the U.S. destroyer and that China’s “actions violated the maritime ‘Rules of the Road’ of safe passage in international waters.”

“The U.S. military flies, sails, and operates safely and responsibly anywhere international law allows,” U.S. military officials said. Paul Mountford, the commander of the Canadian frigate, claimed the Chinese vessel’s maneuver was announced over the radio before it was attempted, “clearly indicat[ing] this was intentional.” Predictably, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) defended the aggressive move by calling it “lawful, safe and professional.”

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This weekend’s incident marks the latest in a growing list of Chinese maneuvers that appear designed to interfere with U.S. military operations. Two weeks ago, a Chinese fighter jet came within 400 feet of a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft while the latter was conducting a patrol of the South China Sea. The unexpected fly-by signifies “an alarming increase in the number of risky aerial intercepts and confrontations at sea by [People’s Liberation Army] aircraft and vessels,” according to the Pentagon.

Biden’s Decline = Red China’s Rise

The list of aggressive actions taken by the CCP in recent months isn’t the only one that’s getting longer. Within the past few days, Biden has advertised several moments of ailing mental and physical health.

On Thursday, the president tripped over a sandbag while handing out diplomas at the Air Force Academy’s 2023 graduation ceremony. When exiting Marine One later that same day, Biden hit his head on the helicopter’s door frame, later telling reporters he “got sandbagged,” in reference to his graduation fall.

In addition to falling numerous times, Biden has failed to recall basic facts while speaking at public events. For example, when asked by a child during a White House event in late April about the last country he visited, Biden completely blanked on the question until another kid had to remind him it was Ireland — where he had been only two weeks prior. Biden’s also had moments where he’s gotten lost on stage, forgotten the name of his defense secretary, confused President Donald Trump with President George W. Bush, and forgot what office he was running for, just to name a few.

While legacy media have worked overtime to run interference for Biden by accusing Republicans of “seizing” on these moments to question his fitness to serve, the president’s penchant for exhibiting physical and cognitive weakness poses a major problem. Every public display of Biden’s fragility is another indication to Xi Jinping and the CCP that America lacks the effective leadership necessary to confront China’s growing ambitions.

And why wouldn’t it? Biden’s domestic policies have crippled America’s national security and economic stability, while opening the door for antagonistic powers such as China and Russia to move towards a “multipolar world order” devoid of U.S. hegemony. Moreover, the CCP already tested Biden’s resolve when it sent a spy balloon into U.S. airspace earlier this year. Instead of shooting it down immediately, Biden waited for it to drift across the entire continental United States — after it had gathered “intelligence from several sensitive American military sites” — before taking action.

Absent a strong American leader to challenge the CCP, it’s not out of the question to think China will take advantage of the Biden presidency as an opportunity to take additional aggressive actions throughout the Indo-Pacific in order to further its regional (and ultimately global) objectives.

---

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. 

“…they are going to encounter a lot more trouble from disgruntled conservatives”.

JUNE 6, 2023 BY JOHN HINDERAKER at Power Line:

DODGING THE SOCIAL ISSUES

Today’s Wall Street Journal surveys the wreckage of recent weeks and headlines: “Companies’ New Cause: Dodging the Culture Wars.” It is all quite interesting, but I want to highlight a couple of points:

CEOs spent the past few years adjusting to a world in which investors, customers and employees expected corporate leaders to align themselves with social causes.

Did they really? I think that only a small minority of investors, driven by the ESG fad, were leaning on companies to go left. Likewise, in most industries the number of employees who pushed management to wade into the culture wars must have been few, and concentrated among younger and less essential workers. And was there ever a time when substantial numbers of customers wanted the companies they patronize to espouse leftism? I don’t think so.

Rather, I think that wokeism penetrated certain limited precincts of corporate America, mostly Human Resources departments, but also found a willing audience among a number of CEOs who, in many cases, don’t have long histories with their companies, don’t necessarily know a great deal about their companies’ products or services, and are susceptible to trends, especially trends that put them in a good light within their peer group.

Over the past decade, companies have become more vocal on causes such as immigration, voting access, abortion, gay rights and racial equity, often taking stances shared by progressives. Many executives said they felt pushed by employees or customers to express an opinion on issues rippling through society.

What is changing now, executives and corporate advisers said, is that conservative groups and political leaders are pushing back against companies more forcefully. Consumers are also more openly expressing frustration that companies are airing views in ways some don’t welcome.

How can this possibly have come as a surprise to corporate leaders? On all of the issues that have gotten companies into trouble, public opinion favors the conservative position at least as much as the liberal one, usually more. Apparently the suits took it for granted that conservatives are quiescent and can safely be ignored.

The Journal quotes the CEO of Upwork, which “operates a marketplace for freelance workers and other professionals”:

The company considers a series of questions when deciding whether to weigh in: “How central is this topic to our business, to our customers? Does it really concern them? Would they expect us to be opining on this because it really intersects with their day-to-day lives?” she said. “We don’t think it’s our job to opine on everything. But at the same time, it’s not our job to stay on the sidelines, either.”

Really? Why not stay on the sidelines, unless the issue is one that is actually germane, in an important way, to the company’s business? For example, the rapidly rising cost of electricity “really intersects with [the] day-to-day lives” of every company’s customers, but I don’t know of any companies that have taken an anti-green energy position so as to align themselves with customers’ political or economic concerns that are not specifically related to the company’s business.

The Journal’s story wraps up with reassurance that companies are not abandoning their commitment to liberal activism.

“It’s not the end of LGBT marketing. It’s the end of amateurism in LGBT marketing,” said Fabrice Houdart, who consults with Fortune 500 companies and directs an organization for LGBT board members. He said senior leaders should consult with marketing, legal and communications teams, and also with employee resource groups, such as an LGBT employee group, along with human-rights advisers, if they have them.

So will those human rights advisers advise on the use of slave labor in China? Or child mining of “green” minerals in Africa? Are those human rights issues that corporations will start opining on?

Just kidding.

“I can see that my clients are more cautious,” he said. “But none of them have said ‘I’m going to change my strategy or roll back what I’m doing.’”

If that is true, they are going to encounter a lot more trouble from disgruntled conservatives.

Never Forget THE HORROR FROM “1984”!

June 5, 2023

Irony on Steroids

By D. Parker at American Thinker:

The almost subliminal message in the afterward of several editions of 1984 is a stark warning on what the globalist left wants to do to liberty.

If you buy a copy of a certain paperback edition of George Orwell’s most famous work you can be witness to one of the fascist far left’s first attempts at rewriting history in an afterword to a book that warned of the danger of rewriting history.  You’ll have to look at the listing of the book title and authors to see if it includes:  Erich Fromm (Afterword).  However, it’s also available from here, here, here, here, or you can request a copy of the document here. 

When you read George Orwell’s later works, you will note a great amount of disdain for socialism, even if this wasn’t always the case.  Apparently for the far left, once you’re a socialist, you’re always a socialist.

The afterword was written by Erich Fromm, a socialist and political activist from the infamous Frankfurt School that spawned Critical Theory.  So, while George Orwell was warning against collectivist authoritarianism, Erich Fromm was advocating for it.  It wasn’t exactly an unbiased commentary by any means.

The supremely ironic passage is found midway in the 6th paragraph of the piece.  We’re presenting it in context so you can see how it’s almost a subliminal message:

This hope for man’s individual and social perfectibility, which in philosophical and anthropological terms was clearly expressed in the writings of the Enlightenment philosophers of the eighteenth century and of the socialist thinkers of the nineteenth, remained unchanged until after the First World War. This war, in which millions died for the territorial ambitions of the European powers, although under the illusion of fighting for peace and democracy, was the beginning of that development which tended in a relatively short time to destroy a two-thousand-year-old Western tradition of hope and to transform it into a mood of despair. The moral callousness of the First World War was only the beginning. Other events followed: the betrayal of the socialist hopes by Stalin’s reactionary state capitalism; the severe economic crisis at the end of the twenties; the victory of barbarism in one of the oldest centers of culture in the world—Germany; the insanity of Stalinist terror during the thirties; the Second World War, in which all the fighting nations lost some of the moral considerations which had still existed in the First World War.

Did you catch that?

The betrayal of the socialist hopes by Stalin’s reactionary state capitalism;”

The nearly subliminal sentence goes by quickly, along with the subsequent criticism of socialist terror techniques, but by then the idea that Stalin was supposedly ‘reactionary’ or ‘right-wing’ had already been planted in the mind of the reader.

“the insanity of Stalinist terror during the thirties;”

Now take apart the nearly subliminal message and apply the appropriate definitional context.
‘betrayal of the socialist hopes’ This sets up the promulgation of the falsehoods in the later half of the sentence as well as further on in the piece.
The Merriam-webster dictionary definition of the word betrayal spells it out:
2: to deliver to an enemy by treachery.
Synonyms of: backstab, cross, double-cross, sell (out), two-time, go back on, sell down the river, stab in the back.
The author is trying to pin the failures of ‘socialist hopes’ on Stalin, because of his betrayal.  Do you see the massive lie that is being perpetrated?  It wasn’t that socialism is a failed ideology, it was because of Stalin. 
With the unspoken implication that it would have worked if it hadn’t been for him.  We’ll get to why this is the case in a second.
Even as early as 1961 it was entirely apparent that socialism had failed to meet its ever-lofty promises in the former ‘Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik’ Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.  The same can be said for the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party.  
In both cases, we see how the fascist far left executes their biggest lies. Claiming that a collectivist, far-left authoritarian regime is based on liberty and limited government from the opposite end of the political spectrum.  It sounds ridiculous when it’s stated that way, but leftists also love to repeat their lies over and over until they become the truth, something both Vladimir Lenin and Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels both advocated.  Imagine that, it’s almost as if leftists are the same the world over.
Whenever socialist regimes fail, they magically become ‘right-wing’ somehow.   
This massively big lie lets the far-left claim that ‘socialism has never really been tried before.’ They’ve even gone so far as to state: Republicans claim to fear left-wing authoritarianism — but there’s no such thing.  That classic big lie from Salon is an ideological descendant from the 62-year-old afterword, it just had to make the lie even bigger because of socialism’s abject failures in the interim.  Sidenote: Be sure to copy that article to a CD and print it out for the future, you’ll never know when that piece might find its way to the ‘memory hole.’
Then there is this part that tries to invert reality:  Stalin’s reactionary state capitalism
 For those unfamiliar with leftist dog whistle language, ‘reactionary’ is synonymous with ‘right wing’
From the Merriam-webster dictionary definition of the word reactionary 
Synonyms: archconservative, conservative, ultraconservative, unprogressive
Strangely enough, after setting up the big lie and claiming Stalin was a ‘conservative’ he throws a curve ball with the phrase ‘state capitalism,’ defined by the Merriam-webster dictionary as:
…an economic system in which private capitalism is modified by a varying degree of government ownership and control
However, this is a comparison to full-blown communism, so in that context, it was probably too much of a stretch to claim that it was economic liberty – that would have raised alarms with everyone as an outright lie.
Thus, to summarize we have one of a nation’s prominent socialists claiming that Stalin was ‘conservative’ and he had ‘betrayed’ collectivist dogma with the implication that was why even then the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was failing to become the ever-vaunted “worker’s paradise” or as The People’s Cube calls it “The Glorious World of Next Tuesday!”
Keep in mind that according to the far left, a communist all-powerful authoritarian government that controls everything is supposed to ‘wither away’ leaving a perfect ‘Utopia’ where everyone shares everything and everything is perfect.  And if you believe that, we can get you a good deal on the Golden Gate Bridge.
Why is this important?
For the far left, their collectivist ideologies cannot fail.  Meaning that when that inevitably happens, it must be blamed on the pro-freedom right so that their system can rise again and they can parrot the tired old line that ‘socialism has never really been tried before.’
We know this is a total lie, attempts at implementations of collectivist ideologies have been failing for 400 years. And they will always fail, as they are doing now.  But if the fascist far left can impose a global regime of collectivism on the world, liberty, true liberalism, and conservatism will never be able to challenge that regime with the truth.
D Parker is an engineer, inventor, wordsmith, and student of history, the director of communications for a civil rights organization, and a long-time contributor to conservative websites.  Find him on Substack.

…”after five million illegals have streamed in on Joe Biden’s watch–is that blue state and city officials will be horrified by their own minuscule dose of illegal immigration and will demand that the nation’s laws be enforced”.

JUNE 5, 2023 BY JOHN HINDERAKER at Power Line:

MAYOR ADAMS HAS A GOOD IDEA

Our best hope for closing the southern border–too late, perhaps, after five million illegals have streamed in on Joe Biden’s watch–is that blue state and city officials will be horrified by their own minuscule dose of illegal immigration and will demand that the nation’s laws be enforced. In California, Governor Newsom and the Mayor of Sacramento are squealing for relief after a mere 16 illegals were dropped off in that sanctuary city. Some sanctuary!

But in New York, where a far more substantial 72,000 illegals have shown up, is taking a more enlightened view. Mayor Eric Adams wants New Yorkers to put the immigrants up in their homes:

Adams said moving migrants into private homes is the next step in the administration’s blueprint to house the crush of homeless individuals, after unveiling a new plan to house single migrant men in 50 churches, mosques and other houses of worship across the five boroughs.

Who could object to that? Everyone is welcome here, right? Conservatives have been saying for years that liberals who declare their cities to be sanctuaries should put their houses where their mouths are.

To be fair, though, Adams contemplates that the government will pay homeowners to house illegals:

Mayor Eric Adams wants regular New Yorkers to literally welcome migrants flooding the Big Apple by revealing his latest idea to potentially put thousands of asylum seekers into private dwellings while paying local homeowners and landlords.
***
The mayor said the city will work to “find a way” to get around city government rules that typically bar the city from housing homeless people in private homes.
***
He also mentioned that City Hall is making a push for the state legislature to strike a deal that would bring illegal basement apartments up to code.

“First of all, it’s cheaper and it’s an investment for us to go to a family and assist them instead of placing people in large congregate settings or all these emergency hotels.”

The details of Adams’ proposal are not clear. How much would New Yorkers be paid to take in illegal immigrants? We don’t know, but the city has a lot of money to play with: the current cost of housing migrants in hotels and feeding them runs to around $380 a night. If you do the math, that suggests that a New York household that takes in a group of illegal immigrants for a year would be paid something less than $138,700. So it’s a win-win situation!

In all seriousness, though, causing blue cities to share even a tiny percentage of the burden of illegal immigration is the most likely path to finally ending the Biden administration’s open borders policy.

“James Comer announced Monday that lawmakers will convene contempt hearings for FBI Director Christopher Wray later this week.”

James Comer Announces Contempt Hearings For FBI Director Christopher Wray

BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE at the Federalist:

JUNE 05, 2023

FBI DIRECTOR CHRISTOPHER WRAY

Republican Chairman of the House Oversight Committee James Comer announced Monday that lawmakers will convene contempt hearings for FBI Director Christopher Wray later this week.

Speaking to reporters in a Capitol Hill press conference, the Kentucky representative charged the FBI with violating a congressional subpoena over an unclassified document. The FBI record purportedly implicates President Joe Biden in a $5 million-dollar bribery scheme with a “foreign national” from Biden’s time in the Obama administration.

“Anything short of producing these documents to the House Oversight Committee is not in compliance with the subpoena,” Comer warned last week.

The House Oversight chairman viewed the document in a secure SCIF at the Capitol on Monday after agency officials initially refused and demanded lawmakers travel to the FBI headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue.

“FBI officials confirmed that the unclassified FBI generated record has not been disproven and is currently being used in an ongoing investigation,” Comer said Monday. “At the briefing, the FBI again refused to hand over the unclassified record to the custody of the House Oversight Committee, and we will now initiate contempt of Congress hearings this Thursday.”

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?creatorScreenName=JusticeTristan&dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=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%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1665769189813145601&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fthefederalist.com%2F2023%2F06%2F05%2Fjames-comer-announces-contempt-hearings-for-fbi-director-christopher-wray%2F&sessionId=48532c535b6c750b5ab77d39ed4855bd3d503790&siteScreenName=FDRLST&theme=light&widgetsVersion=aaf4084522e3a%3A1674595607486&width=500px

Comer noted the document “appears” to be used in an ongoing FBI probe “which I assume is in Delaware” and promised Congress’ own investigation is only in the “beginning” stages. Agency claims that the document can’t be released, however, are likely to be met with skepticism considering the FBI hired Igor Danchenko as an undercover informant to keep the lies around the Trump-Russia investigation quiet.

Republicans have threatened to hold Wray in contempt of Congress for weeks over the FBI chief’s refusal to hand over the requested record. Comer submitted a subpoena for the document with Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, a primary watchdog of the Justice Department in the upper chamber.

“We believe the FBI possesses an unclassified internal document that includes very serious and detailed allegations implicating the current President of the United States,” Grassley wrote in May. “What we don’t know is what, if anything, the FBI has done to verify these claims or investigate further. The FBI’s recent history of botching politically charged investigations demands close congressional oversight.”

[RELATED: Chuck Grassley Demands DOJ Cough Up Document Over Criminal Scheme Involving Joe Biden]

While the FBI director faces contempt charges over the document implicating the president in a bribery scheme, the agency continues to stonewall congressional requests on a pair of pipe bombs found at the DNC and RNC headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio has demanded an FBI briefing on the pipe bomb investigation multiple times. According to Kyle Seraphin, a former FBI agent who worked on the case, the agency previously tracked down the suspect’s car but has not identified the culprit. The FBI also found both bombs to be inoperable.

---

Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist and the author of Social Justice Redux, a conservative newsletter on culture, health, and wellness. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. 

“Why, then, are American globalists from venture capital firms to Wall Street using dollars to bolster Chinese industry that is determined to take down the West?”

June 5, 2023

The Tragedy of the McCarthy-Biden Debt-Limit Bill

By Robert A. Taft at American Thinker:

A CNN poll revealed that 60 percent of Americans wanted meaningful cuts before a debt limit rise. Another 15 percent wanted the United States to default. Only 25% wanted the debt ceiling raised unconditionally.

The concern was that the United States would default on its debt. This was a fearmongering falsehood. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen never produced actual numbers, and she changed the default date several times. The truth of the matter is that the federal revenue cash flow would easily have covered all debt payments while temporarily delaying some contract payments.

Nonetheless, in an overwhelming bipartisan vote (the House — 314 to 117, and Senate — 63 to 36), Congress voted to give President Biden unlimited spending for the remainder of his term.

Even the New York Times declared that the new debt limit bill will not save a penny or cut a dime from government spending. Over the next two years Biden will have access to $14 trillion of new spending, $4 trillion that will not be covered by tax and revenue income. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill will save $2.1 trillion over six years, but since there are no statutory caps in place, the 2.1 trillion is a fiction. In fact, supplemental requests for natural disasters and the Ukraine war will add to the $14 trillion.

Everyone, including those in Congress and the White House, knows what additional spending will mean in the near term. Inflation will rise and the Federal Reserve will have to raise interest rates significantly. People will spend less, tax revenue will drop and personal investment managed by the likes of Blackstone and Sequoia Capital will continue to feed the Chinese economy while U.S. small businesses will be denied access to capital.

But there is something even worse: the impact this new bill will have on the dollar. Over the next two years, the debt will increase to $36 trillion or more, weakening the dollar on the world stage. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and their coalition of nations call the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are developing a gold-backed alternative to our weak fiat currency. Central banks are buying gold at record rates and the BRICS are far ahead in this race. (The BRICS are geographically dispersed, have over 40 percent of the global population, the vast majority of natural resources and minerals, and their intention is to replace the dollar as the world’s currency.) Their new currency will be backed by a precious metal while the dollar by the Fed’s reckless printing of money.

Unlimited spending is exactly what the BRICS want and McCarthy, Biden, and the globalist Congress have agreed to do exactly what the coalition wants. If the BRICS new currency replaces the dollar, hyperinflation will set in. Our debt will increase. The U.S. energy sector will still be restrained, making the United States a net buyer of foreign oil. As interest rates climb to check more inflation, banks holding low-interest U.S. bonds will be in worse condition than they are now.

But inflation will soar like Americans cannot imagine.

This country has never experienced hyperinflation. For example, when I was in Brazil, I watched the cruzeiro — the currency at that time — devalue two, sometimes three times a day. Finally, the cruzeiro plunged to zero and the government had to create a new currency (the real), which ironically was tied to the dollar.

If China has its way, the U.S. dollar will be replaced with a currency tied to the Chinese yuan or other BRICS currency. A coalition of third-world countries will have and control the world’s currency. This transition is occurring, not when China and the other BRICS are doing so well, but when the West is purposely propping up that coalition, sending U.S. investment dollars to China and buying their oil and other natural resources.

Why, then, are American globalists from venture capital firms to Wall Street using dollars to bolster Chinese industry that is determined to take down the West? Because they admire China’s totalitarian form of government and want to replicate it in the “New World Order.”

But when China finally has the world’s currency and Western globalists have to rely on it, will those globalists control the world or will they be even more subservient to the Chinese Communist Party than they already are?

Has Target Become Fascistic Or Just Broke?

 JUNE 5, 2023 BY JOHN HINDERAKER at Power Line

TARGET SAYS: TEAR DOWN MOUNT RUSHMORE!

Target keeps digging the hole deeper. Fox News has a report on the Target Foundation, which funds the extreme Left. One of the beneficiaries of Target’s largesse is the NDN Collective, a South Dakota nonprofit that hauls in $50 million or more in annual revenue. It must be nice to be on the Left! That is where the money is.

NDN is absurdly radical:

NDN identifies as “intersectional,” which is an idea coined by a critical race theorist, Kimberlé Crenshaw, holding that America is inborn with structurally racist and misogynistic systems, and they can intersect upon an individual to form numerous layers of persecution. By joining forces with other oppressed groups, NDN hopes to move towards “liberation.”

The organization’s campaign “LANDBACK” called for America to give up its public land.

“The closure of Mount Rushmore, return of that land and all public lands in the Black Hills, South Dakota is our cornerstone battle,” NDN said. “Not only does Mount Rushmore sit in the heart of the sacred Black Hills, but it is an international symbol of White supremacy and colonization. To truly dismantle white supremacy and systems of oppression, we have to go back to the roots. Which, for us, is putting Indigenous Lands back in Indigenous hands.”

Remember that next time you think about shopping at Target.

NDN also supports, among other things, the obliteration of Israel and the destruction of the U.S. military. Great causes for Target to get behind.

Target has been on the Left for a while, especially following the death of George Floyd in 2020. That seems like a strange response, given that George Floyd rioters looted and badly damaged two Target stores in Minneapolis and probably more in other cities. But the company’s CEO, was primed to be sympathetic to the rioters:

Target CEO Brian Cornell discussed Target’s DEI strategy on CBS Mornings in September 2022. He said that a series of meetings on DEI in 2019 “prepared me for the murder of George Floyd.”

It is remarkable that the leader of a major corporation could be so soft-headed.

Target did not respond to Fox News’s request for comment on its anti-Mount Rushmore activism.

“Over the next two years Biden will have access to $14 trillion of new spending, $4 trillion that will not be covered by tax and revenue income.”

The Tragedy of the McCarthy-Biden Debt-Limit Bill

By Robert A. Taft at American Thinker:

A CNN poll revealed that 60 percent of Americans wanted meaningful cuts before a debt limit rise. Another 15 percent wanted the United States to default. Only 25% wanted the debt ceiling raised unconditionally.

The concern was that the United States would default on its debt. This was a fearmongering falsehood. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen never produced actual numbers, and she changed the default date several times. The truth of the matter is that the federal revenue cash flow easily would easily have covered all debt payments while temporarily delaying some contact payments.

Nonetheless in an overwhelming bipartisan vote (the House — 314 to 117, and Senate — 63 to 36), Congress voted to give President Biden unlimited spending for the remainder of his term.

Even the New York Times declared that the new debt limit bill will not save a penny or cut a dime from government spending. Over the next two years Biden will have access to $14 trillion of new spending, $4 trillion that will not be covered by tax and revenue income. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill will save $2.1 trillion over six years, but since there are no statutory caps in place, the 2.1 trillion is a fiction. In fact, supplemental requests for natural disasters and the Ukraine war will add to the $14 trillion.

Everyone, including those in Congress and the White House, knows what additional spending will mean in the near term. Inflation will rise and the Federal Reserve will have to raise interest rates significantly. People will spend less, tax revenue will drop and personal investment managed by the likes of Blackstone and Sequoia Capital will continue to feed the Chinese economy while U.S. small businesses will be denied access to capital.

But there is something even worse: the impact this new bill will have on the dollar. Over the next two years, the debt will increase to $36 trillion or more, weakening the dollar on the world stage. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and their coalition of nations call the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are developing a gold-backed alternative to our weak fiat currency. Central banks are buying gold at record rates and the BRICS are far ahead in this race. (The BRICS are geographically dispersed, have over 40 percent of the global population, the vast majority of natural resources and minerals, and their intention is to replace the dollar as the world’s currency.) Their new currency will be backed by a precious metal while the dollar by the Fed’s reckless printing of money.

Unlimited spending is exactly what the BRICS want and McCarthy, Biden, and the globalist Congress have agreed to do exactly what the coalition wants. If the BRICS new currency replaces the dollar, hyperinflation will set in. Our debt will increase. The U.S. energy sector will still be restrained, making the United States a net buyer of foreign oil. As interest rates climb to check more inflation, banks holding low-interest U.S. bonds will be in worse condition than they are now.

But inflation will soar like Americans cannot imagine.

This country has never experienced hyperinflation. For example, when I was in Brazil, I watched the cruzeiro — the currency at that time — devalue two, sometimes three times a day. Finally, the cruzeiro plunged to zero and the government had to create a new currency (the real), which ironically was tied to the dollar.

If China has its way, the U.S. dollar will be replaced with a currency tied to the Chinese yuan or other BRICS currency. A coalition of third-world countries will have and control the world’s currency. This transition is occurring, not when China and the other BRICS are doing so well, but when the West is purposely propping up that coalition, sending U.S. investment dollars to China and buying their oil and other natural resources.

Why, then, are American globalists from venture capital firms to Wall Street using dollars to bolster Chinese industry that is determined to take down the West? Because they admire China’s totalitarian form of government and want to replicate it in the “New World Order.”

But when China finally has the world’s currency and Western globalists have to rely on it, will those globalists control the world or will they be even more subservient to the Chinese Communist Party than they already are?