Christmas & New Year's Message For Cuba

For the past twenty years, when I thought of the stages of a new country with great libertarian potential being formed, I have first thought of people in Cuba clandestinely meeting in homes or secret places to determine how to claim their God given liberties from a tyrant.  I always think of these Cuban people, who are daring greatly, trying to break away from such tyrants.  In the process the people being liberated go from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; & from liberty to abundance.  These are the stages that all great nations have gone through, epitomized by the United States formation in 1776.

So I was pleased on July 11, 2021 when anti-communist protests targeting the Cuban government spontaneously broke out in San Antonio de Los Banos, a city south of Havana, starting with a lone protester walking the streets shouting "Freedom!" & other anti-communist government slogans before he was joined by a friend.  This turned into tens of thousands of protesters in more than 60 cities & towns that participated.  

Now Cuba has no Bill of Rights - no freedom of religion, speech, the press, assembly, or association - freedoms Americans take for granted.  Let alone any right to be secure in their houses against unreasonable searches & seizures or quartering Soldiers, or not to be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law or the taking of private property for public use without just compensation.  There is no ban in Cuba on cruel & unusual punishment being inflicted or a right to trial by jury or Law forbidding the impairment of the Obligation of Contracts.

There is no Constitution Cubans can call on to protect them with the due process of law or to ensure them the equal protection of the law.

In Cuba there are no individual rights or liberties from which the right to self-government is derived - including the right to vote or otherwise determine the form of that government.

Without these constitutional protections those who dared to speak out against the Cuban government last summer risked being beaten to death in the streets by the dictator's military or later imprisoned &/or put to death.  And these Cubans in the streets were ordinary people (in one sense) - men & women of every race, age, & locale.

During the commotion of last summer's spontaneous anti-communist protests against the Cuban government many protesters escaped the tyranical Cuban government & braved the 90 mile ocean trip to America only to be told by Biden to return to Cuba & almost certain death.  This underhanded & mean decision by Biden to deny freedom seekers from Cuba entry to America while he was openly inviting in Mexican migrants carrying disease including Covid-19, who are resource draining poor people in need of skills & education, looking to exploit America's generosity, clearly shows the deterioration & anti-American policies against freedom & liberty that Biden prefers.  Having freedom loving Cubans come to America does not fit into Democrat's hateful plans for transforming America.

Now even the jailing of nearly 1,200 Cuban protesters - with about 200 of those facing five to twenty-five year sentences on criminal charges of sabotage, sedition, & confronting socialism - in the biggest demonstrations in decades has not discouraged the people protesting their repression.  After being denied a permit to hold a peaceful, nationwide demonstration on November 15 the dissidents were not dissuaded.

The communist Cuban government realized this & proactively & preemptively sent out large security forces to repress the planned protest that was brought on by an economic crisis that included widespread shortages of food, medicine, & basic goods.  Large police presences in cities prevented protesters from marching & secret police were stationed in homes of known protest organizers to keep them from meeting with other dissidents. 

So there is an uneasy standoff - but the dissidents are receiving help & support from outside the communist island nation.  

Three days after the squelched protest in November "Patria y Vida," which means "Fatherland & Life," won song of the year @ the Latin Grammy awards.  The rap song is in direct conflict with Cuba's decades old slogan "Patria o Muerte," which means "Fatherland or Death." 

Below is a stanza from the song - you can see why it has been banned in Cuba & why Cubans caught listening to it are fined the equivalent of a month's salary.

"My people ask for freedom, no more doctrines, Let's no longer shout homeland or death but homeland & life, And start building what we dream of, What they destroyed with their hands, That the blood does not continue to flow, For wanting to think differently, Who told you that Cuba is yours?, If my Cuba belongs to all my people, your time is up, the silence is broken, (It's over) the laughter is over & the crying is already running, (It's over) & we're not afraid, the deception is over."

So it is to Cuba, & specifically the libertarian people who dare greatly to protest in the streets against as brutal a regime as exists on earth, that I dedicate this Christmas & New Year's message - namely, it is the future that they bring when tomorrow comes.

Democrats & Republicans Learn Different Lessons From The 2021 Elections

"I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach." - Virginia Democrat gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe responding in the September 28 debate - a rare moment of honesty in which McAuliffe, a strong supporter of teachers unions, said what he thought was in his best interest.  Republican challenger Glenn Youngkin won the race.

"If you're a one issue voter & tax rate is your issue.  We're probably not your state." - NJ Democrat Governor Phil Murphy during an interview in August.  Murphy's opponent, Jack Ciattarelli, responded in political ads - "Not your state?  Who says that?" - Jack went on to say "High taxes are the reason why young people can't afford to get started here."

But the most egregious statement made by any of these four candidates was Murphy saying he "wasn't thinking of the Bill Of Rights when he implemented these bans" to work, assemble, associate, & worship.

***

When I first wrote in the August 10 post that we would get a gage on how the 2022 midterms would play out based on the results of the California recall election of Newsome & the Virginia & New Jersey gubernatorial races I thought "the margins could be telling if close even in defeat" since all three states have Democrat majority constituencies.

However, that lukewarm assessment was before McAuliffe infuriated parents all over America with his above statement about parents not telling schools what they should teach.  After McAuliffe's admission of Democrats' allegiance to the teachers unions @ the expense of parents & students, Youngkin should have won, & won big, & by extension helped Ciattarelli's campaign in NJ as Democrat destructive plans for America continue to be flushed out. 

After all, what society would expect to last long that was not based on parents' responsibility for raising their children & specifically seeing that their children received a good education.  My entire life was based on this.  

But who could blame McAuliffe for speaking out - what with 1) Americans indifference to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens crossing the southwest border every month bringing unchecked Covid-19, just as long as it doesn't come too close to home to inconvenience a birthday party, 2) the shameful humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan that so far seemingly does not pertain to any of the non-uniformed citizens on the homeland who feel they have done their patriotic duty when they perfunctorily say to those who have "thank you for your service," 3) the lack of concern about Biden's multi-trillion dollar spending bills that are mistakenly believed by the majority of people to cost nothing, & 4) the reappearance of 1970s style inflation that has been treated as unimportant because of advance government payments ($1.9 trillion in new spending in March & $4 trillion in Covid relief in 2020) that swelled savings during the first year of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic & now are used to make up the cost difference in buying higher priced Christmas presents.

The problem for McAuliffe was that, unlike the above insults to freedom, he finally brought up an issue that got people's attention & 55.2% of registered VA voters turned out to vote.  This amounted to 700,000 more voters than in the 2017 gubernatorial race.

Although Democrats held a 451,000-vote margin in VA in the 2020 presidential election, Youngkin won Virginia 50.57% to 48.64% (1,663,565 to 1,600,062).   Republicans also won back the VA House of Delegates with a new margin of 52-48.  Prior to the election Democrats held a 55-45 advantage.  There are two Republican wins being challenged for a recount with leads of 94 votes out of 27,388 cast in District 91 & 127 votes out of 28,413 cast in District 85.

Ciattarelli overperformed in NJ, but Murphy won 51.1% to 48.2% (1,304,954 to 1,231,140).

Conservative news media constantly presents these results as a sweeping prediction for winning the 2022 midterms & the return of Trump to the presidency in 2024.  This is not the lesson to be learned from the 2021 elections @ all.

Just think, in the TX 2018 Senate race Ted Cruz defeated Beto O'Rourke by 2.6% & the conservative media labeled O'Rourke a loser of ridicule ever since.  Jack Ciattarelli loses NJ by 2.9% & the same conservative media calls him a hero.  Not to mention Youngkin's win by 1.93%.

If you consider the two gubernatorial elections as one people interested in their children the combination shows a different lesson to be learned in that there were more votes for the two Democrat candidates than for the two Republican candidates - Youngkin won VA by 63,503 votes & Murphy won NJ by 73,814 votes meaning that 10,311 voters in the combined two states cared less about what Republicans, parents @ school board meetings, & citizens paying taxes cared about.

This is especially disheartening when you understand that NJ had a low turnout election.  Although Ciattarelli far exceeded the less than 900,000 votes that Kim Guadagno had in 2017 the turnout was static compared to the increase in registered NJ voters.  See graph below that shows the dramatic increase in NJ registered voters to the decrease in actual votes cast during the last six gubernatorial elections

The Republicans in NJ turned out every one they could for Ciattarelli while the Democrats did not turn out for Murphy - Democrats outnumber registered Republicans by over 1 million voters in NJ.  NJ Senator Bob Menendez summed up the low Democrat turnout by saying that he was "struck by how few voters of color appeared to cast ballots" - an observation from a man who has spent a lifetime in NJ politics.

In short, we are outnumbered & only have a chance in low turnout elections with few exceptions like the squeaker in VA & other elections with gut wrenching issues like defunding the police.  

Elections in 2021, with gut wrenching issues, & their results are as follows:

Voters in Minneapolis, the site of George Floyd's death in May of 2020, had a 53% turnout in which a public safety ballot question to replace the Minneapolis Police Department with a new Department of Public Safety was defeated 56% to 44% (78,454 to 60,887).  This vote comes as Minneapolis is on pace for one of the deadliest years in recorded history.

In Seattle moderates won in the races for mayor, city attorney, & a key council race over liberals who had called to defund the police.  The liberal candidate for mayor had called for cutting the Seattle Police Department's budget in half.  The liberal city attorney candidate had been a police & jail abolitionist.  First term mayor Jenny Durkan (the summer of love girl) did not seek reelection. 

The powerful NJ Senate President Steve Sweeney faced a surge of Republican voters as support for Democrats disappeared in the suburbs & rural areas - Sweeney lost to newcomer Ed Durr, a truck driver, by 2,298 votes.  The state's high tax rate & disapproval of shutting down public schools was often given as the reason.  Voters took this out on Sweeney, NJ's second most powerful politician, as Murphy survived with just a scare.

After being defeated in the Buffalo mayoral primary by 1,507 votes by Democrat Socialist India Walton, four term incumbent Byron Brown orchestrated a write-in campaign that he won 59.57% to 39.88% (38,338 to 25,773).  Walton ran as a Socialist with endorsements from AOC & Bernie.  Brown had support from moderate Democrats as well as Republicans.

NYC picked the most law-&-order candidate in the ranked-choice Democrat primary in June by a mere 7,197 votes but did not go all the way in the general election with Curtis Sliwa, the Guardian Angels founder who was defeated 4 to 1.  Nonetheless, this was another setback for the progressives, @ least on the surface, as NYC elected Eric Adams mayor, a former police officer who ran a public safety campaign.

Democrats think the above results would have been much different if the Biden spending bills agenda would have passed before the election.

And Democrats put their money where their mouth was in that three days after the November 2 election, not believing &/or caring about the above voter signals, Pelosi brought the infrastructure bill to the floor of the House & it passed - but only because thirteen Republicans voted for it (Bacon - NE, Fitzpatrick - PA, Garbarino - NY, Gonzalez - OH, Katko - NY, Kinzinger -IL, Malliotakis - NY, McKinley - WV, Reed - NY, Smith - NJ, Upton - MI, Van Drew - NJ, & Young - AK).  These Republicans must think their constituents want this bill & therefore it is in their best interest to vote for it.  After all, nineteen Senate Republicans [Blunt (MO), Burr (NC), Capito (WV), Cassidy (LA), Collins (ME), Cramer (ND), Crapo (ID), Fischer (NE), Graham (SC), Grassley (IA), Hoeven (ND), McConnell (KY), Murkowski (AK), Portman (OH), Risch (ID), Romney (UT), Sullivan (AK), Tillis (NC), & Wicker (MS)]  had already voted for Infrastructure before it was sent to the House for passage. 

Yes, without the above listed thirteen House Republicans Biden's spending program would have come to a halt, @ least for a while longer, because AOC & her Squad voted against Infrastructure thinking it took away their leverage for the much larger Build Back Better (BBB) bill that has since passed the House.

The six Democrats who voted against the Infrastructure bill were AOC - NY, Cori Bush - MO, Jamaal Bowman - NY, Ayanna Pressley - MA, Rashida Tlaib - MI, & Ilhan Omar - MN.  With this vote these people reaffirmed themselves as the six most dangerous Members in the People's House.  

The shame of it all is that the so-called Infrastructure bill ($1 trillion & 2,702 pages) has only a quarter of the additional spending going toward what most people think of as infrastructure - highways, bridges, airports, & tunnels.  The other three quarters goes to Democrat spending priorities like the Green New Deal - for example, $21.5 billion for creation of the office of clean energy demonstrations, $2.4 billion for advanced nuclear reactor projects, $3.5 billion for carbon capture, $8 billion for clean hydrogen, & $5 billion for investment into energy related projects.  And loosely regarding infrastructure there is $66 billion in new subsidies for Amtrak.  Is any of this how you want your tax dollars spent?  Does any of this follow the Constitution?

So now that the above listed thirteen House Republicans paved the way Pelosi lost no time & brought the much larger BBB bill to the floor on November 19 & it passed strictly along party lines - only Democrat Jared Golden of Maine voted against it.

BBB is written to appear to cost $2 trillion over the next ten years.  But the dishonesty of this figure is appalling.  In reality it costs closer to $5 trillion.

Like a jigsaw puzzle BBB was presented to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) for scoring with programs intended to remain for the full ten years shown as expiring in one year (e.g., the enhanced child allowances were presented to CBO as expiring in one year @ a cost of $130 billion instead of $1.5 trillion over the full ten years) while paying for them with ten years of tax increases - one year of expenses with ten years of tax increases provides quite a charade in budgeting especially when half the child allowances have already been paid monthly to 36 million families starting July 15 under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, aka the Covid-19 Stimulus Package.  Did any inquisitive journalist ask Pelosi, or any other Democrat who supported BBB, if they really planned to drop this entitlement after one year & if not where were they going to get the other $1.37 trillion dollars since all of the tax increases were included in the bill?

Similar BBB budget deceptions were used to hide the true ten year cost of the enhanced Earned Income Tax Credit expansion, subsidies for ObamaCare premiums, the new child care entitlement, & universal pre-K.  The full ten year tax increases in the bill were purposely misused to make it look like BBB was funded without adding to the deficit.  

I don't know how anyone taking the oath of office could support these absurd pretenses intended to create a respectable appearance of a congressional bill.

And BBB exposes Democrats hand as the party of the rich in that the state & local tax deduction (SALT) is expanded from $10,000 to $80,000 meaning that a Democrat in NY, NJ, or CA who is in the current top 37% federal tax bracket & took the full $80,000 SALT deduction (& there are plenty of them) would see their federal income taxes reduced by $25,900 net ($70,000 X 0.37) meaning that middle America is subsidizing tax cuts to high income Democrat households. 

Put simply, the Infrastructure bill is falsely named & BBB employs dishonest accounting.

So there certainly are different lessons that the two parties think should be learned from the 2021 elections.  White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain said "I do think the voters sent a message on Tuesday.  They wanted to see more action in Washington.  They wanted to see things move more quickly.  And three days later, Congress responded." - referring to the passage of the Infrastructure bill & counting on passage of BBB in the immediate future.  Republicans have a unified message, so far, against BBB.

Republicans are counting on the above positive election results, in VA & NJ & across the country, as signals that the electorate understands that the seeming incompetence of Biden & Harris is really the execution of a deceptive plan to transform America into a Socialist/Communist nation.  Republicans think the 2021 election results prove that people see that Biden & Harris are leading America into 1) record illegal immigration flows that have really been purposely brought on by Democrat policies including downright neglect, 2) large increases in inflation that are really more in line with the 10+% annual increases of the 1970s than the reported 6.2% year over year October figure due to rent-housing methodology changes that lower the entire Consumer Price Index, 3) energy dependence after we had reached energy independence for our own domestic needs, 4) soft on crime enforcement, & 5) seeing everything through a fanatical uncompromising race lense that tears down the entire society & replaces it with nothing of substance or value.

Democrats are counting on passing BBB & the simple fact that 36 million people have already received half ($300 per month per child under 6 & $250 per month per child 6 to 18) of the enhanced child tax credits every month since July 15, as well as the promise of receiving up to $4,000 per month federal government paid family & medical leave.  Democrats figure that illegal immigration will not be a factor in the 2022 midterms if illegals have not moved into voters neighborhoods by next November & that inflation will be negated by the money people have received from the government as Covid-19 payments.  They are willing to double down on energy dependence in the name of climate change & are too far invested in soft crime enforcement & critical race theory to abandon them.  Democrats are counting on people not remembering the humiliation of the Afghanistan withdrawal - after all, they figure, Afghanistan is thousands of miles away & will be long forgotten, if ever considered, by November 2022.

Biden is pulled in two directions - one direction by the Democrat progressive socialist wing in both the House (AOC & the Squad) & Senate (Bernie, Warren, Brown, Whitehouse) & the other direction by the more practical wing that realizes more elections need to be won in order to achieve their goal - people like White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, & Susan Rice domestic policy adviser.  Biden, ever feckless, is willing to go in either direction.

Hillary has complained about the 2016 presidential election for the last five years (if you subtract the popular vote totals in 2016 in CA & NY Trump held a 3-million vote lead in the other 48 states & recorded a 304 to 227 electoral college win by a combined total of 77,736 votes thanks to three states - PA, MI, & WI - thereby showing how set up the potential reversal of this result was in 2020).  Stacey Abrams has never conceded the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial race for the last three years (although she recently denied this), after losing by 1.4%.  And of course Trump has not accepted the Biden win (this time if you subtract the popular vote totals in CA & NY Biden was still ahead in the other 48 states by 36,327 votes in winning the electoral college 306 to 232 thanks to another three states - AZ, GA, & WI - by a combined total of 42,918 votes showing another turn around is highly possible in 2024) instructing his legal representatives to make one unproven claim after another on TV without ever offering one scintilla of evidence in court that could stand up in over 60 cases including cases before judges he appointed.

Of the above three examples Trump is the most dangerous because he demands loyalty to himself & the idea that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him - or he will turn against any candidate, like Congressman Chip Roy of Texas with a liberty score of 100%.  You can expect to see in both the 2022 midterms & the 2024 presidential race an endless TV tape of the January 6 break in of the Capitol & the most disgusting images of Trump resulting from Pelosi's investigation - thereby turning off many Independents & moderates.  But, more importantly, to those of us who believe in & follow the Constitution, what Trump asked Pence to do that day was unforgivable regardless of how cheap or cooked up the attack on the Capitol was. This divisiveness, even in a small number of close races, could turn some 2022 midterm congressional races to the Democrats, resulting in a continuation of the Biden/Harris administration unchecked except for the fragile most unlikely of sources within the Democrat Party.

The Mayflower Compact

This Thanksgiving post is a little bit different from recent ones where I posted presidential proclamations honoring our marvelous holiday.  And of course the presidents who wrote the proclamations.

This post is based on historical documentation presented in Professor Peter W. Wood's book, 1620 - A Critical Response To The 1619 Project, regarding "the proper starting point for the American story in 1620, with the signing of the Mayflower Compact aboard ship before the Pilgrims set foot in the Massachusetts wilderness."

The signing of the Mayflower Compact, on November 11, 1620, demonstrates how free people of all walks of life, real pioneers aboard ship, came together to create a society based on freedom & equality after they disembarked.

There were 102 passengers on the Mayflower - 50 men, 19 women, & 33 young adults & children.  There were 37 Separatists, later called Pilgrims, who were seeking freedom from the Church of England.  The Pilgrims called the nonreligious passengers "Strangers" - but they all came together out of the desire for self preservation in a new world looking to form "a civil body politic."

Of the 41 who signed the Mayflower Compact several were in the early 20s & some were underage.  But the signed document was "the first time in European settlement of the New World (that the) ideal of self-government based on justice" was attempted.  It "ignored class, wealth, & other marks of status" that were prevalent @ the time & as such showed the libertarianism of people who wanted to come to America.

Now the Mayflower Compact & the Declaration of Independence differ in many ways.  Jefferson's Declaration is "an explanation, a statement of principles, a list of complaints, & a bold assertion of a new authority of a new sovereignty," while the Mayflower Compact "is a bare statement of purpose" simply written for the people who signed it with a pledge to join together.

What both documents have in common is that they recognize that governments derive their just powers "from the consent of the governed."  

Professor Wood explains that the signing of the Mayflower Compact was "the moment when an idea of true self-government began to take root."

The full text of the Mayflower Compact is as follows:

In the name of God, Amen. We, whose names are underwritten, the Loyal Subjects of our dread Sovereign Lord King James, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, King, defender of the Faith, etc.:

Having undertaken, for the Glory of God, and advancements of the Christian faith, and the honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the Northern parts of Virginia; do by these presents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one another; covenant and combine ourselves together into a civil body politic; for our better ordering, and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame, such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions, and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the colony; unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.

In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names at Cape Cod the 11th of November, in the year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord King James, of England, France, and Ireland, the eighteenth, and of Scotland the fifty-fourth, 1620.

ACTA's College Evaluations 2021-2022

On September 29, the American Council of Trustees & Alumni (ACTA) released their annual assessment of the core academic requirements of 1,133 of our nation's colleges & universities entitled What Will They Learn? 2021-2022.  This link will take you directly to the school evaluations - just plug in a school or click on a state & you'll learn all you need to know to get started in a college selection.  This is an invaluable resource.

ACTA works with college & university leaders on campuses around the country to strengthen curricula & raise academic standards.  What Will They Learn? is the only rating system that examines the course catalogs of each school evaluated to provide an alternative assessment based on a school's core curriculum, the program of study that all students share. 

ACTA reports that general education makes up one-quarter to one-third of a student's educational program @ most universities whether the student is taking engineering or accounting or anything in between.  A well designed core curriculum helps students develop the skills & abilities that employers prize, including mathematics, critical thinking, & written communication skills. 

For instance just a few years ago the University of Georgia was graded "F" by ACTA.  After working with ACTA Georgia achieved an "A" grade & a charter member of this blog's daughter graduated from the University of Georgia & commands an annual six figure salary while still in her twenties.  This Georgia graduate could have easily gone to a school with twice the cost & way less than half the earning power punch.

ACTA grades the schools based on what students actually learn in the classroom & every year there are surprises in that schools with big reputations & even bigger tuition bills receive poor grades.  This year I mention Stanford, graded "D" with a $56,169 tuition, & the usual leader in many surveys, Harvard, still graded "D" with a $54,002 tuition. 

Only 24 (2.1%) of the schools evaluated earned an "A" while 423 schools (37.4%) received a "D" or an "F".  The list of "A" graded schools is shown on the website.

Just 3.1% of U.S. colleges and universities require a course in economics & this woeful statistic becomes very apparent when you talk to new graduates or look @ the poor financial decisions that people make.  Just a few years ago ACTA found that only two schools required a course in economics in order to graduate - the U.S. Military Academy @ West Point & the University of Alaska @ Fairbanks.

The graphic below gives the entire grade breakdown for this school year.

Research shows that only 13% of Americans strongly agree that "college graduates in this country are well-prepared for the workforce" so this post could be the most important one you read all year.

Fourteen schools added a foundational course in U.S. government or history to their general education program in the past year.  But don't rest there but rather be prepared to fight back because the forces against America have never been greater.  Critical Race Theory (CRT), American Marxism, & false claims from the 1619 Project are being taught @ every academic level & you surely don't want your child, whether 4 or 22, being indoctrinated in school with ways that you know not to be true & go against everything you taught them @ home.

Progressive Democrats Lead Biden To Transform America

 "A house divided against itself cannot stand." -  Abraham Lincoln

"We are five days away from fundamentally transforming America." - BO, five days before the 2008 presidential election - a corollary to the above Lincoln quote, in that the natural consequence of a divided country is its fundamental transformation into something else.

"We the People of the United States" - the first seven words of the Constitution that signifies for whom the Constitution was written.  Alexander Hamilton called the Constitution the fundamental law in the Federalist Papers.  In fact it is so fundamental that the Constitution requires all persons holding an office of trust under the United States to take an oath to support it - not divide the People or try to fundamentally transform the country. 

***

Even the least discerning among us are starting to realize that "We the People of the United States" are being torn apart more & more every day by Progressive Democrats led by Bernie Sanders, AOC & her Squad, & BO.  Biden is merely following their lead.

Biden assumed the presidency on January 20 to find, in Mike Huckabee's words, "the most secure southwest border in history, a strong recovering economy, energy independence, a vaccine for Covid-19, a return to manufacturing, an uptick in wages for the working class, a stronger NATO & military, & protection for unborn babies."

After just a few hours in office it appeared that Biden was determined to reverse many of the above positions of strength & accomplishment.  But after a few days it couldn't have been more obvious that Biden intended to reverse every single one of the positions he found as he purposely divided the nation by changing (transforming) it completely from a prosperous free enterprise economy to a government dependent one where the weak outnumber the strong - which they already did.  

In the first few hours after the January 20 inauguration, in an opening bid to reverse America's energy independence, Biden canceled the Keystone XL crude oil pipeline putting thousands of people out of work, while later working out an agreement with Germany that allows the Russian Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline to be completed in a boon to Moscow.  

Very shortly thereafter Biden incentivized tens of thousands of the poorest, lowest skilled, least educated people from Central America, all originally wearing Biden T-shirts (with virtually none of them even knowing who he was), to come to our southwest border to pursue admission to the U.S. to take advantage of the 126 welfare programs identified by the Cato Institute - & to vote Democrat out of appreciation for being allowed entry into the country.  

Just look @ the blue line & the below statistics (click on image to enlarge) from the U.S. Custom & Border Protection (USCBP) for the past four fiscal years to see the dramatic uptick that started immediately upon Biden's inauguration.  The past two recorded months have each shown over 200,000 illegal immigrants being encountered with August representing the highest August in 21 years.  Over 1.2 million illegal immigrants have been caught attempting to cross the border since Biden took office.  Of course there is no word as to how many evaded capture & are now illegally in the country carrying Covid or are terrorists.

The border problem was graphically displayed by the photos below of up to fifteen thousand migrants being housed under unsanitary conditions below the International Bridge in Del Rio, Texas.  A few thousand were flown back to Haiti but the majority were flown under the cover of darkness to small airports across the country & left to blend in - source NY Congresswoman Claudia Tenney.  Texas authorities had been concerned that these people were spreading COVID or had terrorists mixed in with the masses.  The area under the bridge is currently vacant for now.

Now the migrants, who are in need of skills & education, seen under the bridge above, have been encouraged by the Biden/Harris administration to come to America but the spontaneous Cuban anti communist government protesters of last summer who escaped the tyrannical government & braved the 90 mile ocean trip to America were told by Biden to return to Cuba & almost certain death.  These Cubans were people in the spiritual faith to great courage to liberty & abundance stages of a free country's development - just the opposite of the resource draining poor people welcomed by Biden - a sure anti American sign against freedom & liberty.

But despite all the information presented above Biden looks @ the soaring number of border crossings in Texas as merely "seasonal."  We can believe this with the same confidence that we have in Kamala Harris being the person in charge of protecting our southwest border.  Absolutely none.

No matter how tired you may have become of our military presence in Afghanistan (the majority of people had forgotten we were even there so they never gave it a thought), a fair minded person must admit the withdrawal on August 31 was awful.  But it does go right along with Biden's socialist purposeful plan to destroy the independence & free market capitalist system America was built upon.

Once the Taliban came back to power in control of the country on August 15, the entire American evacuation procedure was exactly backwards from what any failing sophomore Cadet @ West Point would have planned - before he was thrown out of the Academy.

Our evacuation occurred during the summer fighting season; we closed down Bagram Air Base with our troops stealthily leaving the base in the middle of the night without telling the new Afghan commander; we held only the Kabul airport while relying on the Taliban, our enemy, for security around the airport that resulted in thirteen servicemen & women being killed in a terrorist bombing; & worst of all we evacuated civilians last. 

On August 15 the Taliban released thousands of terrorist inmates from the Bagram prison including Abdul Rehman who masterminded the attack on August 26 that killed ten U.S. Marines, two Army soldiers, & one Navy corpsman; wounded twenty other U.S. service members; & killed over 100 Afghan civilians.  Source - California Congressman Ken Calvert.

Below is a photo of Biden looking @ his wristwatch during the return of the remains to the Dover Air Force Base of the aforementioned 13 military personnel needlessly killed.  Since it is documented that Biden looked @ his watch in between virtually every one of the caskets that passed before him, you have to ask yourself - "how much less interest could this Commander in Chief have shown?"

The answer to that question can be found in Biden's response to the 13 murders - he authorized a U.S. drone strike that mistakenly killed ten civilians including many children without a word of explanation.

The American retreat from Afghanistan was so shocking to the significant portion of the Afghan population that had never lived under Taliban rule that just the thought of the Taliban's reputation & return caused many to hide or flee - like the people who held onto the exteriors of airplanes, such as landing gears, as the planes started to take off only to fall to their deaths once the planes reached a speed of hundreds of miles per hour.   See photo below of young Zaki Anwari & another unidentified Afghan, who were so desperate that they saw no hope under Taliban rule, that during their escape, after holding on to the exterior of a plane during take off, they fell to their deaths from a plane that reached altitude.  One other Afghan was crushed in the right wing retracting landing gear of another plane.

Biden was so anxious to leave Afghanistan that the military left approximately $80 B worth of equipment that armed the Taliban & gave them an air force.  See graphic below.  I know of many people who think the 16,035 pairs of night vision goggles was the most harmful to America of all the equipment on the list.  We used to "own the night," thanks to this equipment before we gave it away.

What has been determined by Forbes is that those costs do, however, involve 75,898 vehicles, 208 aircraft, and at least 600,000 infantry weapons.  

At least some of this equipment could have been given to the National Resistance Front (NRF) - it has been verified by Oryx, a blog that uses photos & videos (as reported in the WSJ), that 38 airplanes, 13 helicopters, & seven unmanned aerial vehicles that the Taliban captured are in working order. 

The NRF held up in Panjshir province, under the leadership of Ahmad Massoud - whose father, Ahmad Shah Massoud, had been regarded as America's best friend in Afghanistan.  The elder Mr. Massoud was assassinated on September 10, 2001 - many, like me, think this was part of the plan highlighted by the Muslim fascist terrorists flying airplanes into buildings in America less than 24 hours later.

But add up all the above incidents in Afghanistan, that are clearly a result of the policies & practices of the Biden/Harris administration, & they pale in comparison to the atrocities that have been inflicted or will be inflicted upon the women & girls remaining in the country under the Taliban's rule.  In addition to what Americans would consider civil rights loses, Afghan women, under the Taliban, suffer forced obedience & are subject to honor killings if they are victims of rape.  The Taliban has banned girls from schools beyond the sixth grade.  Yet not a word on this from Biden or the Democrats - supposed & self proclaimed champions of women, except when it really counts.

It should be remembered that the Afghanistan conflict was a 20 year NATO mission with the United States being the country our allies came to help after the September 11, 2001 Muslim fascist terrorist attacks.  Biden largely ignored our allies as he focused on an arbitrary evacuation deadline he set up to make himself look good, as the president who ended America's longest war, on the twentieth anniversary of 9/11 - this never materialized because Biden was overshadowed by much stronger people on the anniversary of those terrorist attacks.  The allies wanted to extend the August 31 withdrawal deadline to give them more time to airlift their citizens & Afghan allies out of Kabul.  

But ignoring the allies was hurtful to Tom Tugendhat, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the U.K. Parliament, who had served as an Army officer in Afghanistan.  Tugendhat called Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan shameful & said the experience should prompt Britain to rethink the terms of its relationship with the U.S. in future security operations.  In short, in Tugendhat's view the U.S. betrayed its allies, that it will need again one day, in order to rapidly proceed with a plan thought to politically help the American president - Biden.

Relationships with our allies also hit lows when Australia cancelled a multibillion dollar submarine deal with France in order to procure similar equipment with the U.S. & the U.K.   France recalled its ambassadors to the U.S. & Australia calling the matter a "stab in the back."  Was Biden this oblivious & insensitive to the relationships he was affecting?  My answer is: yes & he doesn't care because it all falls in line with making America weaker.

The Medicare & Social Security Trustees annual reports, released on August 31, project exhaustion of the Medicare hospital trust fund by 2026 & the two Social Security trust funds by 2034.  This means that the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund will be able to pay only 91% of the hospital & related expenses it is responsible for under the Medicare program & Social Security beneficiaries could be cut 22%.  And yet Democrats want to expand Social Security & Biden wants to expand Medicare to include dental, hearing, & vision benefits in addition to lowering the age of eligibility to 60 from 65.  These are two great examples of the financial irresponsibility that socialism represents - & why it is destined to fail.

Biden's Build Back Better plan consists of a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill (that is 80% not infrastructure) & a 2,465 page, $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill that includes up to $4,000 per month federal government paid family & medical leave, free universal pre-K for 3 & 4 year olds, two years of free community college for all students regardless of family income, child care assistance for children up to age 5, fully refundable child tax credits - meaning you get cash whether or not you pay income tax - of $300 per month for each child under 6 & $250 per month for each child 6 to 18 which have been sent out since July 15, & expanded Medicare as described in the paragraph above.  These benefits become part of permanent universal new middle class entitlements, as opposed to being part of a temporary social safety net only for people in need, that are not linked to any work requirement such as other permanent middle class entitlement programs like Social Security & Medicare.

In addition, Build Back Better includes ample funding to get the Green New Deal started before it overwhelms everything.

In short, every Biden program & policy is detrimental to the well being of the American citizenry.

This post illustrates how the agenda the Progressive Democrats are planning (with Biden coming along for the ride & holding on for dear life @ that) is not in America's interest.  Progressive Democrats are not about economic growth & prosperity.  They are about tax hikes & government dependent spending on welfare programs that secure votes for the Democrat Party thereby turning America socialist & then communist.

Biden blames border agents on horses & finds no fault with illegal aliens, takes people who have broken our laws & releases them into the country with no systematic Covid-19 checking or quarantines while mandating masks & vaccinations for the citizenry, & spits in the face of U.S. Afghan vets & gives $85 billion in military equipment to the Taliban.  Democrats defund the police but Biden gives billions of dollars to the Iranians, & has no problem killing a baby a day before birth & yet doesn't want to test shampoo on bunny fur.  This list of contradictions was presented by Tennessee Congressman Mark Green to Governor Huckabee - Green called the contradictions "exactly backwards" regarding America's General Welfare.

And "exactly backwards" is what Biden has when he says that the cost of the Progressive Democrat's agenda that he is following is "zero." 

A Pre-2022-Midterm-Election Analysis

 "We will get a gage on how this will play out in the 2022 midterms in the very near future.  First, California Governor Gavin Newsome is involved in a recall election on September 14, a two step process on the ballot - if more than 50% of the ballots support Newsome he is safe & the recall process is over (Newsome is polling about 50% support after posting a terrible record by freedom loving Americans the past 18 months.)  If Newsome does not receive 50% support in the first question he will be replaced by whichever candidate receives @ least a plurality from the 46 list of people on the ballot.

"There are also governors' races in New Jersey & Virginia in November but between these three events we may get a good idea of where the country is heading.  All three contests are in blue states but the margins could be telling if close even in defeat." - From the August 10 RTE post.

***

Well the Newsome recall election wasn't close.  If anything, Newsome increased his political standing in that his margin of victory in the recall was greater than when he won the governorship in 2018 with a 62% to 38% victory over John Cox.

Mr. Cox, like Larry Elder in the just completed recall race, was exactly what California needed to turn the once Golden state around.  As many readers know I have followed Mr. Cox since he campaigned in South Carolina for the FairTax over a dozen years ago.  He is a fine man & deserves more than a 38% share of any electorate in the United States.  Something is wrong in America, or changing, when a candidate like Cox cannot command more than 38% of the vote - even in California.

As for Larry Elder, my respect for him only increased during this recall process - he dared greatly for America & the people of California let us all down.

This time 64% of the electorate supported Newsome (to not be recalled) & Larry Elder received 47% of the votes to recall Newsome meaning that Elder received 17% of the total vote.  Since there were 46 candidates to replace Newsome, Larry Elder would certainly do better than 17% in a head to head match with Newsome but with a number under 40% clearly in sight, Elder said "it is hard to see how the outcome would be any different" in a one on one rematch in 2022.  

Also since the last successful recall in 2003 California has turned even more blue.  There are now 5% more registered Democrats than in 2003, 50% more registered Independents who predominantly vote Democrat, & 33% fewer Republicans.

Also very discouraging is that the 2021 recall election produced about 5.3 million votes supporting recall, a number less than the 6.0 million votes Trump received in California in 2020.  What happened to those 700,000 unaccounted for people?  Don't they know that Elder, as governor, would have had a more immediate direct impact on their wellbeing than Trump would have had as president?

Based on exit polls 68% of white college graduates supported Newsome - a greater percentage than Asians (62%) & Latinos (58%).  Only Blacks, @ 81% support, were higher in their support for Newsome than white college graduates.  White voters without a college degree favored the recall 57% to 43%.

Newsome's fate was @ best 50-50 last summer when the recall effort obtained the number of signatures required for a recall election to go forward.  But this quickly turned in Newsome's favor when he masterfully turned the issues away from his poor performance as governor & manipulated the electorate to believe that Larry Elder was a figurehead, or nominal leader, of the California Republican party taking orders directly from Trump.

And it worked so well in California that Democrats plan to try it again in Virginia with an offshoot of the tactic in New Jersey.  

Trump has already endorsed Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin against Terry McAuliffe, a former Democrat governor, who as such, has already won a statewide election.  It doesn't look good in Virginia this November.

In New Jersey, Jack Ciattarelli has the opposite problem - he has been branded a RINO & can reliably expect only non-supporters of Trump to vote for him. 

And of course linking Republican candidates one way or the other to Trump will become the universal game plan for Democrats in all the 2022 midterm congressional races.  And to our detriment Trump will play along by drawing negative attention by fighting back against any perceived slight, however insignificant, he may think was made. 

Republicans are counting on the historical fact that the President's party loses congressional seats in midterm elections.  Since 1900 only three presidents have seen their party gain House seats in their first midterm election - TR in 1902, FDR in 1934, & GW Bush in 2002.  And of course James Monroe, our best president, not only gained House seats for his party in both of his presidential terms but also did not lose a Senate seat during his entire administration which is something that no other president ever achieved.

Now the flip side of this historical coin that favors Republicans (think about it - this favoritism is only the result of them losing the last presidential election thereby giving Biden a chance to govern) is the negative aspect that Republicans are defending 20 Class III Senate seats in 2022, & Democrats are defending 14.

But worse yet, Trump is purposely further dividing the Republican party by calling on his Senate allies to depose Mitch McConnell of his Senate leadership position.  Readers know I am no fan of Mitch's overall record - his last Liberty Score was 28%, just above the highest Democrat - but if Trump could have put his massive ego aside & really campaigned for Perdue & Loeffler in the two Georgia senate elections on January 5 as if he knew the entire Biden agenda hung in the balance, which it obviously did, I can't think of a better person to gum up Biden's program than having Mitch in opposition as Senate majority leader.

Without the loss of both Georgia senate seats we would have none of the problems we have today from Biden.  Not always affectionately called "old turkey neck" - Mitch has proven he would have bottled up all of this Marxist propaganda Biden is trying to peddle @ Sanders/AOC's direction.

If Trump was anywhere near as influential as he imagines Republicans would not have lost both the House & Senate over his one term in office.  Now Trump is further dividing the Republican electorate only because he wants to pay back those who slighted him like Congressman Chip Roy of Texas, with a Liberty Score of 100%, who voted against overturning the presidential election in January.

So to sum up: there are three factors currently in play regarding the 2022 midterm elections - historical trends that favor Republicans, more Republican incumbent Senate seats up for reelection that favors Democrats, & Trump's inherent divisiveness that has favored Democrats ever since 2016.

We need a fourth factor to increase the odds of this mixed bag & to counter Biden's socialist appeal of his gigantic spending plans that much of the general populace will find hard to resist: namely, a Newt Gingrich type Contract with America that will address the 14 questions I raised before the first 2020 presidential debate one year ago this week, such as: 1) What is the significance of the national debt? 2) What is the maximum amount of a person's income anyone should ever have to pay to the federal government in income taxes? & 3) Shouldn't we be taking steps now to head off the upcoming 21% reduction in Social Security benefits & if so what are these steps?  If not, why not?

If Republicans can supply answers so that people understand the importance of these three questions, & the other eleven I posted with them, we are well on our way to returning our country to the excellence of her founding.  If you cavalierly dismiss the questions with the attitude that no one can implement answers to them then we are indeed in for more trouble because the answers are the only way back to our prosperity & way of life so many in this readership see slipping away.

To continue to proceed in America without real questions being answered is like a structural engineer designing & building a bridge on quicksand instead of bedrock.  The project is heading for trouble.

If you can even just begin to see the destructive nature of what Biden & the Democrats are trying to do in transforming America please do all you can to stop it.

But so far we can't find anyone who will even mention these points so the 2022 midterms are a potluck process that could very well get us in deeper with an even more empowered Biden/Harris administration.

Constitution Quiz

 click on Scene at The Signing of the Constitution of the United States to enlarge

One of the common findings of institutions like Hillsdale College & the American Council of Trustees & Alumni (ACTA) is the woeful understanding the American citizenry has of the U.S. Constitution - this applies to recent college graduates, the general public, & our elected representatives.

There has been an "alarming loss of our historical literacy.  Fewer than half of American college students could place the Civil War within the correct half century.  More than a third of the general public cannot name any rights protected by the First Amendment.  Nearly three-quarters of Americans can't name the three branches of government.  Only 12% of high school students are scored "proficient" in American history."  Source - Peter W. Wood - 1620 A Critical Response to the 1619 Project - pages 64 & 65.

ACTA's work revealed that less than one-third of the colleges & universities in the U.S., annually ranked as the country's best schools, require students pursuing a degree in history to take even a single course in American history.  What are such students paying for?  Wonder if they could name the two figures in the center of the above photo or the man standing on the platform on the right side?

We have gone beyond taking the Constitution for granted - we never even think of it anymore including not realizing that this week is the anniversary of the unanimous signing of the Constitution by our Founders @ the Constitutional Convention.

Even if you are not part of ACTA's surveys who think Judge Judy is on the Supreme Court, or are unable to identify the Bill of Rights accurately, or believe the Constitution must be reauthorized every four years you will find the following two quizzes a very good refresher.

Please let me know how you do.  The answers follow the questions on each website.

Quiz #1

Quiz #2

Yair Lapid - The Last Train To Lodz

Thanks to my dear friend whose family has been charter members of RTE for sending this dynamic speech by Yair Lapid, the Alternate Prime Minister of Israel (Prime Minister-Designate) who will come into office on August 27, 2023 - if the government survives.

The cite of the speech is the Berlin train station where 1,251 Jews boarded the first Holocaust train to Nazi concentration, forced labor, & extermination camps.

 click on photo from Fotoeins Fotografie to enlarge

During the speech Prime Minister-Designate Lapid questioned how Germans in Berlin in 1933 could lower their heads & without raising a finger hope the evil they knew Hitler embodied would somehow pass on its own.  

But Yair Lapid doesn't stop there; he asks how could 1,251 Jews board a train heading east to the Lodz, Poland ghetto - all destined for their deaths, without one of them "attacking the guards in black uniforms," all knowing that hard labor, overcrowding, & starvation were their future.  And he answers the question saying, under his leadership, "we will never board that train again."

As I listened to the above speech I saw the parallels of the evils then in Germany & today in America as evil is transforming America, right before our eyes, as Americans lower their heads & hope our current evil too will pass.  I liken the Germans with lowered heads described above in 1933 to the silent majority in America today.

Either we want to defund/disband the police & let criminals run wild & teach critical race theory to our children in our schools that America is rotten to its core or we don't.  

Now I know people who are so disengaged, really oblivious, that they do not understand what I just wrote & that is unacceptably irresponsible regardless of how busy they are trying to make a living or raise a family.  Many of these oblivious people never have thought of not having a police force because they always have had one when it was needed or have never heard of critical race theory that is dividing Americans including their own children from themselves.  Unless the silent majority speaks up very soon to swat down these doctrines one can only conclude that what is happening in America, in both these regards & others, is what the majority, who are engaged, want.

Republican Support For Infrastructure Bill Sets The Stage For Socialist Sanders' Spending Spree

Well, it didn't take long to find a miserable example of Republican infighting that will make it harder than it should be for the GOP to retake either Chamber of Congress in the 2022 midterm elections.  See The January 6 Commission Vote Shows Republican Infighting Makes It Hard For GOP To Win The 2022 Midterms.

The case in point is that 17 Senate Republicans fell for the Biden bait & voted with all Democrats for cloture of the $1 trillion, 2,702 page, infrastructure bill that Democrats regard as a bipartisan down payment for Socialist Bernie Sanders' $3.5 trillion budget outline that Democrats plan on passing via reconciliation that requires a simple Senate majority in accordance with Senate rules concerning budget matters.  The Sanders' outline is billed by Democrats as "human infrastructure" that includes spending on housing, education, healthcare, & climate change.

The shame of it starts with only a quarter of the additional spending going toward what most people think of as infrastructure - highways, bridges, airports, & tunnels.  The other three quarters goes to Democrat spending priorities like the Green New Deal - for example, $21.5 billion for creation of the office of clean energy demonstrations, $2.4 billion for advanced nuclear reactor projects, $3.5 billion for carbon capture, $8 billion for clean hydrogen, & $5 billion for investment into energy related projects.  And loosely regarding infrastructure there is $66 billion in new subsidies for Amtrak.  Is any of this how you want your tax dollars spent?

The second shame is that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) disagrees with the Democrat & Republican supporters of the bill's central premise that the infrastructure bill will pay for itself through marked increases in efficiency that will lead to economic growth.   Rather than finding that the bill will be "fully paid for'' the CBO found that the infrastructure bill would widen the budget deficit by $256 billion over ten years.  See The Significance Of The National Debt.

Here is the list that identifies the aforementioned seventeen Senate Republicans:

Blunt (MO), Burr (NC), Capito (WV), Cassidy (LA), Collins (ME), Cramer (ND), Crapo (ID), Graham (SC), Grassley (IA), Hoeven (ND), McConnell (KY), Murkowski (AK), Portman (OH), Risch (ID), Romney (UT), Tillis (NC), & Young (IN).  Rounds (SD) did not vote.

Now the above list includes the usual "support the Democrats every chance they get Republicans" - Cassidy, Collins, Murkowski, Portman, & Romney.  But Lindsey Graham brags about being a friend of Trump's & yet he supported the infrastructure bill in the cloture vote without one dollar being dedicated for the southwest border wall completion begging the question - just what do the Republicans get out of the bill?

But worse yet - Saturday, Schumer held another interim vote & not 17 Republicans but 18 Republicans voted for what had increased to a $1.2 trillion bill.

The 18 Republicans are as follows:

Blunt (MO), Capito (WV), Cassidy (LA), Collins (ME), Cornyn (TX), Cramer (ND), Crapo (ID), Fischer (NE), Grassley (IA), Hoeven (ND), McConnell (KY), Murkowski (AK), Portman (OH), Risch (ID), Romney (UT), Rounds (SD), Tillis (NC),& Young (IN).

Democrat Warnock from Georgia & these five Republicans did not vote - Barrasso (WY), Burr (NC), Graham (SC), Rubio (FL), & Scott (SC).

Then on Tuesday afternoon the final infrastructure bill passed the Senate with 19 Republicans in support.  Lindsey Graham was back in along with newcomers Sullivan (AK) & Wicker (MS).  Dropping out were Cornyn (TX) & Young (IN).  Rounds (SD) did not vote.

The final Senate Republican tally was 30 in opposition, 19 in support, & one not voting.  A pitiful display of unity handing Biden a victory after Trump, the supposed leader of the Republican Party, had pressured them not to support the bill.

Biden has an approval rating in the 30s regarding both the border chaos & crime which gives Republicans an opportunity to be aggressive.  Record numbers of migrants, as they are now called, with a significant number carrying the Wuhan coronavirus being transported to every state in the nation & all 38% of the Republican caucus can do is vote for an infrastructure bill that sets the table for one socialsit project after another to be passed into law while they watch.  Very uninspiring but a good example of why the socialist creep has gone as far as it has in America.

But the real game changer is waiting in the wings to follow immediately.

The aforementioned Sanders' $3.5 trillion budget outline centers around giveaways that make people dependent on government including 1) expanding Medicare to the uninsured & widening coverage for seniors into dental needs as well as hearing aids & eyeglasses, 2) making community college tuition free, 3) providing universal pre-K child care to every 3 & 4 year old,  4) guaranteeing paid family & medical leave, 5) making sure there are enough doctors, nurses, & dentists in underserved areas, 6) providing nursing facility care in people's own homes instead of nursing facilities, 7) making investments in affordable housing to address homelessness, 8) providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented people such as Dreamers & essential workers who remained employed during the pandemic (that is still going on), & 9) shifting America's energy system away from fossil fuels to combat climate change including creating a Civilian Climate Corps to protect our natural resources & fight climate change. 

Many in the readership have told me the implementation of the Biden/Harris agenda is going too fast - but I think it is slower than I expected.  I thought that by now the above infrastructure bill & items in Sanders' outline would have been passed & we would be well on our way to 52 states, 15 Supreme Court Justices, & that there would be no filibuster to protect the minority which we certainly are in.  But thank heavens, just like with ObamaCare in 2009 &  2010, there are still a few congressional districts & states in the country that balk before going further down the road to serfdom that we are travelling.

Surprisingly, the House is a different story for the infrastructure bill.  First Republican support is less assured than in the Senate & even more importantly Democrats have not signed on either.  Pelosi has repeatedly said that the larger Sanders budget outline, known to Pelosi as an antipoverty & climate package, must be approved by the Senate before the House will take up the infrastructure bill.  Pelosi is once again taking her marching orders from AOC in that the Squad has said that ten House Democrats will not support the infrastructure bill unless it is preceded by an approval of the Sanders budget outline becoming law which is expected this fall.

But there is more dissatisfaction than that within the Democrat ranks.  Just like I personally think that Democrat things are moving slowly, activist liberal actress Suran Sarandon thinks things are moving too slowly & she blamed AOC by demonstrating in front of AOC's NYC office recently.  Sarandon is considering a primary challenge to AOC who in turn is considering a primary challenge to Schumer.

Conservatives do themselves a disservice by thinking all that needs to happen is for the majority of Americans to wake up & realize what is going on with this giant statist plan.  We cannot discount that a large portion of the American citizenry will be attracted to all the government giveaways as people always have been for thousands of years in their own particular societies but in this day of Critical Race Theory, Black Lives Matter, & #MeToo there will be even more than the usual number of people who think things are rigged against them & see themselves as oppressed victims who will gladly sign on to the Biden/Harris/Sanders/AOC socialist way of life.

We will get a gage on how this will play out in the 2022 midterms in the very near future.  First, California Governor Gavin Newsome is involved in a recall election on September 14, a two step process on the ballot - if more than 50% of the ballots support Newsome he is safe & the recall process is over (Newsome is polling about 50% support after posting a terrible record by freedom loving Americans the past 18 months.)  If Newsome does not receive 50% support in the first question he will be replaced by whichever candidate receives @ least a plurality from the 46 list of people on the ballot.

The good news is that libertarian Larry Elder, who would move California toward the sensible right, emerged as a front runner after entering the race but now slightly trails Democrat Kevin Paffrath, a 29 year old YouTube personality.  One of the dangers of recalling Newsome to me has always been that Newsome may not have been progressive enough for residents of the once Golden State & someone to his communist left may win.

There are also governors' races in New Jersey & Virginia in November but between these three events we may get a good idea of where the country is heading.  All three contests are in blue states but the margins could be telling if close even in defeat.

The bottom line is that America is on the ropes.  What you see going on in our country is exactly what the Biden Democrats want - they just have to be careful not to rock the boat too much in going about getting it thereby tipping their hand.

As the great University of Chicago Professor Frank Knight wrote in his timeless book Risk, Uncertainty, & Profit - "The best we can hope is that a few people will learn the lesson & carry it forward to another historic juncture, when the 'other man,' who is, after all, likewise in humanity, the lover of truth & right, & of mutuality, & real co-operation, may get another chance." 

People in this readership are the few who have learned the lesson Professor Knight was talking about.  Do everything you can to make sure that young men & women of liberty get that other chance.