Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., “is trying to take the 87,000 new IRS agents and put them to work investigating me and my friends because he doesn’t like their politics,” government watchdog Tom Jones says. Pictured: Whitehouse speaks March 22 during a hearing held by the Senate Judiciary Committee. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images)
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., called for revoking a tax exemption for a conservative group for not masking up and socially distancing during the pandemic, insisted on a slew of investigations of other conservative groups, and pressed for the Internal Revenue Service to expand its reach.
A total of 176 pages of correspondence from and to Whitehouse was obtained from the IRS by the conservative watchdog group American Accountability Foundation through the Freedom of Information Act and shared with The Daily Signal.
“It’s abundantly clear that [Whitehouse] is trying to take the 87,000 new IRS agents and put them to work investigating me and my friends because he doesn’t like their politics,” Tom Jones, president and founder of the American Accountability Foundation, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview Tuesday.
The letters span from Jan. 19, 2021, the day before President Joe Biden took office, into May 2022.
‘Lois Lerner on Steroids’
Whitehouse long has been a critic of conservative, nonprofit organizations and uses an expansive definition of “dark money” groups, broadly defined as tax-exempt organizations that don’t disclose donors.
The Supreme Court, in 1958 and 2021 cases, has struck down compelled donor disclosure requirements at the state level.
The Rhode Island Democrat, first elected in 2006, has made “dark money” a central point of Senate floor speeches and often uses up his entire five-minute question period to make related speeches during hearings of the Senate’s Judiciary and Finance committees.
“It’s Lois Lerner on steroids,” Jones said of what’s in the Whitehouse correspondence, referring to the Internal Revenue Service official in the middle of the Obama-era IRS scandal over the targeting of tea party groups.
“The Lois Lerner stuff was a mid-level bureaucrat abusing [her] power to investigate conservative groups,” he said. “This is a U.S. senator basically trying to turn the heat up on investigations by the Internal Revenue Service.”
“So, if Sheldon Whitehouse had his way,” Jones said, “Lois Lerner would just look like a test run of what Sheldon Whitehouse has in mind.”
Jones’ nonprofit American Accountability Foundation describes itself as “a government oversight and research organization that uses investigative tools to educate the public on issues related to personnel, policy, and spending.”
Targeting Turning Point USA
In a letter dated Jan. 19, 2021, Whitehouse asked IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig to revoke the tax-exempt status of Turning Point USA because the conservative organization held an event at then-President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club without masking and social distancing.
Turning Point USA’s mission is to train and develop young Americans to become conservative leaders.
“Tax-exempt status provides a substantial benefit to charitable organizations and reflects the federal government’s endorsement of an organization’s activities,” Whitehouse wrote to the IRS chief. “Organizations that knowingly put in danger minors entrusted to their care should not enjoy the benefits of tax-exempt status. Accordingly, I urge the IRS to review whether it should revoke Turning Point USA’s tax-exempt status.”
Many of the documents provided by the IRS to meet the public records request were heavily redacted, but the Whitehouse letter referencing Turning Point USA also appears in full on Whitehouse’s Senate website.
Rettig’s response to Whitehouse, dated March 28, 2021, asserts that the IRS wouldn’t tell him if it were investigating or otherwise acting against the conservative youth organization. The reply was not available before the FOIA request.
“You shared your concern about reports that the organization hosted COVID-19 super-spreader events in violation of local regulations,” Rettig told Whitehouse. “You urged the IRS to review and consider whether we should revoke its tax-exempt status.”
A portion of Rettig’s response was redacted. The letter then goes on to say: “Section 6103 of the Internal Revenue Code protects the privacy of tax returns and tax return information of all taxpayers. Therefore, we cannot disclose any actions we may or may not take on this information.”
Whitehouse’s concern over “dark money” groups generally is one-sided, Jones noted. He referred to the billion-dollar Arabella Advisors network of liberal nonprofit groups.
“What’s important about these letters is it makes it very clear that a U.S. senator is attempting to essentially encourage the IRS to investigate his political opponents,” Jones said. “He never mentions there is a vast group of left-wing nonprofits whose funding I envy. … You don’t hear a peep from Sheldon Whitehouse about New Venture Fund, Arabella Advisors, Sixteen Thirty, a laundry list of folks on the Left.”
‘Fall Between the Infielders’
The final letter the IRS made available was an inquiry from Whitehouse to Rettig, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and Attorney General Merrick Garland about why his concerns had not been investigated.
“I have described to you flagrant and persistent instances in which 501(c)(4) organizations engage in political activity—and report that political spending to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) or its state equivalents—while telling the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that they did not engage in any political activity,” Whitehouse wrote in the letter dated May 5, 2022.
The Rhode Island Democrat referenced a 2012 report by the left-leaning investigative reporting website ProPublica, which found that 32 nonprofits reporting electioneering to the Federal Election Commission and state equivalents did not also report it to the IRS.
He said a 2022 report by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal watchdog group, found about two dozen nonprofits doing the same.
“This fact pattern, where tax-exempt organizations’ submissions under oath to different government entities are plainly inconsistent, should present straightforward cases for the IRS and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to pursue,” Whitehouse wrote. “Such facts present prima facie cases of noncompliance with IRS rules, and predicate ‘false statement’ investigations.”
However, Whitehouse noted that Rettig responded at a Senate Finance Committee hearing in April that the IRS never has referred a single case of inconsistent statements to the Justice Department and it doesn’t appear that the Justice Department investigated such statements.
“I request that IRS and DOJ together brief my office on this matter,” Whitehouse wrote. “I request both Commissioner Rettig and Attorney General Garland to clarify the referral policy between IRS and DOJ so that well-predicated investigations do not constantly fall between the infielders.”
The documents provided by the public records request to the IRS don’t show a response to Whitehouse’s request.
The IRS, Treasury Department, and Justice Department did not respond to inquiries from The Daily Signal for this report.
Whitehouse’s Senate press office also did not respond Tuesday or Wednesday.
Whitehouse is “taking a spaghetti-to-the-wall approach” in going after conservative groups, hoping to see what sticks, American Accountability Foundation’s Jones said.
“It’s simply wrong, an abuse of his position,” Jones said. “Thankfully, the IRS hasn’t indulged in what Whitehouse is asking them to do, but you have to remain vigilant. He is a United States senator, close with the [Biden] White House.”
“At some point, the dam could break on this and conservative nonprofits could get a knock on their door from IRS agents because a U.S. senator wants them to investigate his political opponents.”
Rettig’s Resistance
Whitehouse joined a letter led by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., along with 38 other Senate Democrats. Klobuchar’s April 27, 2021, letter to Rettig and Yellen urged executive action to reinstate disclosure requirements for some tax-exempt groups.
“We write to urge the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to reverse the Trump administration’s decision to eliminate disclosure requirements for certain tax-exempt organizations that engage in political activity,” the letter says. “As it stands, this policy weakens federal tax laws, campaign finance laws, and longstanding efforts to prevent foreign interference in U.S. elections.”
Rettig responded to the senators in a June 8, 2021, letter explaining that the IRS can’t help other agencies enforce campaign finance laws. The IRS commissioner wrote:
We determined it was not necessary to the efficient administration of the internal revenue laws for such tax-exempt organizations (those not described in Sections 501 (c)(3) or 527 of the Code) to report annually the names and addresses of substantial contributors; however, all tax-exempt organizations must continue to report the amounts of contributions from each substantial contributor, maintain the names and addresses of their substantial contributors in their own books and records, and provide such information upon request.
Rettig’s response letter goes on to say that unauthorized sharing of tax information could be illegal:
Congress has not authorized the IRS to enforce campaign finance laws. In addition, Section 6103 of the Code strictly limits the IRS’s ability to share tax information with other federal agencies. Accordingly, the IRS cannot disclose any names or addresses of substantial contributors to other federal agencies for non-tax investigations, including campaign finance matters, except in very narrowly prescribed circumstances. Unauthorized disclosures may lead to civil and criminal liability.
Expanding the IRS
Days after Senate passage of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which added 87,000 new IRS agents, Whitehouse joined Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to urge Rettig to take immediate action.
The Aug. 10, 2021, letter from the three New England senators said the IRS “needs to go after wealthy tax cheats.”
Whitehouse, Warren, and Sanders wrote:
Part of the reason for the massive tax gap is that more than a decade of politically motivated budget cuts have hampered the IRS’s ability to perform its core duties—especially enforcement focused on the ultra-rich and large corporations. … Without the necessary resources, audit rates for the very richest taxpayers, those with incomes over $10 million, are nearly 80% lower than they were a decade ago, and audits of the largest companies, those with over $20 billion in assets, declined by nearly 50%.
Rettig responded more positively to this letter about greater resources for his agency, providing detailed information about audits and tax collection in a response seven days later, on Aug. 27, 2021.
“Maintaining a flat budget will continue to deprive Americans of both the nature and quality of services they deserve, producing a continuing decline in fairness and service,” Rettig told the Democrat senators. “Adding substantial multi-year mandatory funding, however, provides an opportunity to greatly improve federal tax administration for all Americans. The gross revenue collected by the IRS is approximately $3.5 trillion per year, representing around 96% of the gross revenue of the United States.”
Rettig continued:
Investing in IRS technology, data analytics, and people will improve taxpayer services, restore base enforcement functions that have declined substantially over the last decade, improve the effectiveness of our existing enforcement workforce and programs, help us tackle key compliance priorities and emerging issues, and allow us to invest in programs essential to maintaining the broad compliance framework.
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.
So let’s celebrate (or commiserate) this awful day by wading into the debate about whether the Internal Revenue Service should have a bigger budget.
Proponents usually claim the IRS is under-funded by comparing today’s budget to how much the bureaucracy received in 2011.
But that was a one-year spike because of all the money in Obama’s failed stimulus package. If you review long-run data, you can see that the IRS’s budget has increased significantly.
And these numbers are adjusted for inflation.
But perhaps proponents are right, even if they use deceptive numbers.
The Washington Post has a new editorial on this topic, arguing that the bureaucracy needs more money.
The IRS is currently limping along without enough staff or funding. Congress, especially Republicans, needs to face up to reality. …It’s not a mystery how the IRS deteriorated. …the core problem is that Republicans slashed the IRS budget about 18 percent in the past decade. That’s not belt-tightening, it’s gutting an agency. …The Biden administration is rightly asking for a big increase for 2023 (a request of $14.1 billion). This isn’t some Democratic wish list item; it’s about restoring the basic functions of America’s tax collection agency.
When this topic was being debated last year, Ryan Ellis explained that the IRS will target small businesses if it gets a bigger budget.
Here are some excerpts from his piece in National Review.
…the idea is that if taxpayers fund the IRS to the tune of $40 billion over the next decade, the IRS will step up audits and collect an additional $100 billion in tax revenue, penalties, and interest. This is lauded as a good because of the supposed “tax gap,”… Apparently, it doesn’t occur to anyone that the IRS, which is seeking this extra $40 billion in taxpayer funding, has every incentive in the world to exaggerate this “tax gap” and to make wild promises about the new money that additional enforcement will yield for the Treasury. …Giving money to IRS bureaucrats to conduct fishing expedition audits on millions of honest self-employed people? The same IRS behind the Lois Lerner scandal a decade ago, when the IRS inappropriately targeted conservative political groups during the 2012 election season, when Obama was running for reelection?
Ryan is right to point out that the IRS is undeserving because of bad behavior.
Advocates of more funding will argue that the bureaucracy’s malfeasance is a separate issue and that more employees and more audits are needed regardless of whether criminals at the IRS are caught and punished.
But this brings us to another important topic, which is whether it would be best to fix the underlying tax laws instead of throwing more money at the IRS.
In a column for the Louisville Courier-Times, we get this point of view from Richard Williams of George Mason University’s Mercatus Center.
…money won’t fix this problem. …Another approach would be drastically reducing the complexity of federal taxes. …The Tax Foundation estimates that we give up 3.24 billion hours and $37 billion to comply with federal taxes each year. Given the headaches and anxiety that come with this, Americans don’t need more IRS workers. We need a leaner agency…individual filers and small businesses represent a huge proportion of the public who would gain from simplification. …There is no need to hire more people to oversee a reformed system. What’s not to like?
And that’s just a brief list of the things that the IRS now does in addition to generating revenue.
Get rid of these added roles, ideally as part of a total replacement of the tax code with a flat tax, and the discussion would be about how much money could be saved by reducing the IRS’s budget.
But that means less power for politicians, so don’t hold your breath waiting for genuine tax reform.
That being said, supporters of good policy should feel no obligation to help prop up the current system by shoveling more money to the IRS.
An underfunded corrupt IRS administering a bad tax code is better than a well-funded corrupt IRS administering a bad tax code.
*April 15 may be the worst day of the year, but there’s an argument to be made that October 3 is the worst day in history.
P.S. From my archives, here are some examples of the bureaucrats who will benefit from a bigger IRS budget.
It is now well known that the IRS targeted tea party organizations. What is less well known, but perhaps even more scandalous, is that the IRS also targeted those who would educate their fellow citizens about the United States Constitution.
According to the inspector general’s report (pp. 30 & 38), this particular IRS targeting commenced on Jan. 25, 2012 — the beginning of the election year for President Obama’s second campaign. On that date: “the BOLO [‘be on the lookout’] criteria were again updated.” The revised criteria included “political action type organizations involved in … educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.”
Grass-roots organizations around the country, such as the Linchpins of Liberty (Tennessee), the Spirit of Freedom Institute (Wyoming), and the Constitutional Organization of Liberty (Pennsylvania), allege that they were singled out for special scrutiny at least in part for their work in constitutional education. There may have been many more.
The tea party is viewed with general suspicion in some quarters, and it is not difficult, alas, to imagine the mindset of the officials who decided to target tea party organizations for special scrutiny. But federal officers swear an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” It is chilling to think that these same officials who are suspicious of the tea party are equally suspicious of the Constitution itself.
What is most corrosive about this IRS tripwire is that it is triggered by a particular point of view; it is not, as First Amendment scholars say, viewpoint-neutral. It does not includeobfuscating or denigrating the Constitution; only those “involved in … educating on the Constitution” are captured by this criterion. This viewpoint targeting potentially skews every national debate about politics or government. And the skew in not strictly liberal; indeed, it should trouble liberals as much as conservatives. The ultimate checks on executive power are to be found in the United States Constitution. Insidiously, then, suppressing those “involved in … educating on the Constitution” actually skews national debate in favor of unchecked executive power.
For example, this IRS tripwire would not be triggered by arguing that the NSA should collect the phone records of every American citizen. But it would be triggered by teaching that the Fourth Amendment forbids “unreasonable searches and seizures.” This tripwire would not be triggered by arguing that the president should unilaterally suspend politically inconvenient provisions of federal law, like ObamaCare. But it would be triggered by teaching that, under Article II, section 3, the president “shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.” This tripwire would not be triggered by arguing that the president should appoint NLRB members unilaterally. But it would be triggered by teaching that, under Article II, section 2, such appointments require “the Advice and Consent of the Senate.” This tripwire would not be triggered by arguing that the president should target and kill U.S. citizens abroad. But it would be triggered by teaching that, per the Fifth Amendment, no person shall “be deprived of life … without due process of law.” This tripwire would not be triggered by arguing that the president should declare war unilaterally. But it would be triggered by teaching that, under Article I, section 8, “Congress shall have Power … To declare War.” In short, the IRS was “on the lookout,” not for those who preach unlimited executive power, but for those who would teach about constitutional constraints.
Even more to the point, perhaps, this IRS tripwire would not be triggered by arguing that the IRS should discriminate against the tea party. But it would be triggered by teaching that such discrimination constitutes unfaithful execution of the tax laws. And thus, alas, there is a perverse logic to targeting constitutional educators alongside tea party organizations. Political discrimination in the administration of the tax laws is not merely “outrageous,” as President Obama has said; it is an assault on our constitutional structure itself. For an official who has chosen to go down this road and target the tea party, there is an Orwellian logic to targeting constitutional educators as well. After all, they are the ones who might shed light on this very point.
This is a new low for American government — targeting those who would teach others about its founding document. Forty years ago, President Richard Nixon went to great lengths to try to conceal the facts of his constitutional violations, but it never occurred to him to conceal the meaning of the Constitution itself, by targeting its teachers. Politicians have always been tempted to try to censor their political adversaries; but none has been so bold as to try to suppress constitutional education directly. Presidents have always sought to push against the constitutional limits of their power; but never have they targeted those who merely teach about such limits. In short, never before has the federal government singled out for special scrutiny those who would teach their fellow citizens about our magnificent Constitution. This is the new innovation of Obama’s IRS.
“We the People” do not yet know who first decided to target “political action type organizations involved in … educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights.” But there is at least one person who does know. Ironically, though, Lois Lerner, former director of the Exempt Organizations Division of the IRS, is making full use of her own constitutional education: “I have been advised by my counsel to assert my constitutional right not to testify …. One of the basic functions of the Fifth Amendment is to protect innocent individuals, and that is the protection I’m invoking today.”
Five years ago, President Obama, our constitutional law professor-in-chief, presented his first, ringing Constitution Day proclamation: “To succeed, the democracy established in our Constitution requires the active participation of its citizenry. Each of us has a responsibility to learn about our Constitution and teach younger generations about its contents and history.” Quite so. Perhaps this year, Obama could explain why his IRS would target those who answered this call.
(Emailed to White House on 3-15-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is […]
(Emailed to White House on 3-15-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is […]
(Emailed to White House on 3-15-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is […]
(Emailed to White House on 3-15-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is […]
(Emailed to White House on 3-15-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is […]
(Emailed to White House on 3-15-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is […]
_ Dear Senator Pryor, here are some spending cut suggestions (“Thirsty Thursday”, Open letter to Senator Pryor) __________________ Senator Pryor pictured below: Why do I keep writing and emailing Senator Pryor suggestions on how to cut our budget? I gave him hundreds of ideas about how to cut spending and as far as I can […]
Open letter to President Obama (Part 644) (Emailed to White House on 6-10-13.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get […]
___________________ Senator Pryor pictured below: Why do I keep writing and emailing Senator Pryor suggestions on how to cut our budget? I gave him hundreds of ideas about how to cut spending and as far as I can tell he has taken none of my suggestions. You can find some of my suggestions here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here, and […]
________ ________________ Pres Obama talking to a youngster outside Arthur Bryant’s BBQ tonight in KC on July 29, 2013. What It’s Like To Get Invited By Obama For Dinner President Obama spends the night in downtown Kansas City Kansas City is ready to host President Obama President Obama has dinner at Arthur Bryant’s Raw: Obama […]
Congressional Republican leaders are working in lockstep with their Democrat counterparts to pass a massive taxpayer-funded spending bill before the end of the year. The move comes immediately after a dozen Senate Republicans helped their Democrat colleagues advance a bill permitting radical leftists to wage legal war against religious Americans who value the true meaning of marriage.
After meeting with President Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday, House and Senate leaders announced they had reached an agreement on the need for Congress to pass an omnibus spending package before the government’s current funding runs out on Dec. 16. Unlike a continuing resolution (CR), which would fund the federal government for a few months, an omnibus bill would provide funding for the entire 2023 fiscal year.
“The best option by far is for both parties to come to the table and work on a yearlong funding bill, not a continuing resolution,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., agreed, adding that “there’s widespread agreement that we’d be better off with an omnibus than a CR.”
Similarly to McConnell, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who is likely to become speaker when Republicans assume control of the House in January, also expressed a preference for an omnibus package, but noted that he has “no problem” advancing a CR and “coming back in January” to hash out a long-term bill that includes funding for Republican priorities.
Despite their consensus on the desire for a larger funding package, however, one of the remaining areas of contention among congressional leaders is the bill’s price tag and allocation of funds. While House Democrats are seeking to increase discretionary spending to $1.6 trillion, Senate Republican leaders are focused on raising defense spending and “providing more aid to Ukraine.”
If Congress passes the bill before the end of the year, any and all leverage an incoming Republican House majority would have in securing critical spending priorities would be shelved until the end of 2023.
“I think it makes absolutely no sense for a lame-duck Congress to pass Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer’s appropriations bills,” said Texas GOP Sen. Ted Cruz. “[I]f a handful of Senate Republicans decide their outgoing act is to rubber-stamp Nancy Pelosi’s spending priorities, that would be a gross abdication of responsibility and also an affront to the voters who just voted to give Republicans a majority in the House.”
In addition to Cruz, Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Rick Scott of Florida have also publicly raised concerns over a potential omnibus.
The decision by Republican leadership to throw in with their Democrat colleagues’ spending shenanigans is the second slap in the face to conservative voters this week after 12 GOP senators crossed party lines on Tuesday to help Senate Democrats pass the wrongly named “Respect for Marriage Act,” which seeks to codify same-sex marriage into federal law. As The Federalist’s Jordan Boyd reported, the legislation would enable LGBT activists, as well as the highly political Department of Justice, to use the legal system as a weapon to target and harass religious Americans who believe firmly in God’s definition of marriage.
Among the Republicans who voted “yes” for the bill were Sens. Roy Blunt of Missouri, Richard Burr and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Susan Collins of Maine, Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Rob Portman of Ohio, Mitt Romney of Utah, Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Joni Ernst of Iowa, and Todd Young of Indiana.
Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
January 31, 2021
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500
Remember the debt? That $17 trillion problem? Some in Washington seem to think it’s gone away.
The Washington Post reported that “the national debt is no longer growing out of control.” Lawmakers and liberal inside-the-Beltway organizations are floating the notion that it’s not a high priority any more.
We beg to differ, so we came up with 17 reasons that $17 trillion in debt is still a big, bad deal.
Some families and businesses won’t be able to borrow money because of high interest rates on mortgages, car loans, and more – the dream of starting a business could be out of reach.
5.High debt and high spending won’t help the economy.
8. Jeopardizes the stability of Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid.
Millions of people depend on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, but these programs are also the main drivers of the growing debt. Congress has yet to take the steps needed to make these programs affordable and sustainable to preserve benefits for those who need them the most.
9. Washington collects a lot, and then spends a ton. Where are your tax dollars going?
In 2012, Washington collected $2.4 trillion in taxes—more than $20,000 per household. But it wasn’t enough for Washington’s spending habits. The federal government actually spent $3.5 trillion.
College students from all over the country got together in February at a “Millennial Meetup” to talk about how the national debt impacts their generation.
14. Makes us more vulnerable to the next economic crisis.
According to the Congressional Budget Office’s 2012 Long-Term Budget Outlook, “growing federal debt also would increase the probability of a sudden fiscal crisis.”
15. Washington racked up $300 billion in more debt in less than four months.
Read the Morning Bell and more en español every day at Heritage Libertad.
_____________
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733,
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In Part I, I wrote about kleptocrats exploiting the issue to shake down western governments for enormous amounts of aid money.
In Part II, I noted how then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, using tens of billions of dollars from American taxpayers, wanted to bribe third-world governments into adopting anti-energy measures
In Part III, I explained how the Kyoto Protocol encourages the destruction of jobs in western nations.
In Part IV, I warned that environmental extremists were using government coercion to line their pockets and stifle dissent.
Now we have a fifth installment in the series.
Here are the details, based on a report in the New York Times by Brad Plumer, Max Bearak, Lisa Friedman and Jenny Gross.
Diplomats from nearly 200 countries concluded two weeks of climate talks on Sunday by agreeing to establish a fund that would help poor, vulnerable countries… The decision on payments for loss and damage caused by global warmingrepresented a breakthrough… the United States and other wealthy countries had long blocked the idea… Developing nations — largely from Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and South Pacific — fought first to place the debate over a loss and damage fund on the formal agenda of the two-week summit. And then they were relentless in their pressure campaign.
The agreement is the bad news.
The good news is that having some bureaucrats sign an agreement does not automatically mean American tax dollars will wind up in the pockets of corrupt government officials overseas.
…major hurdles remain. There is no guarantee that wealthy countries will deposit money into the fund. …And while American diplomats agreed to a fund, money must be appropriated by Congress. …With Republicans set to take over the House in January, the prospects of Congress approving an entirely new pot of money for loss and damage appear dim. “Sending U.S. taxpayer dollars to a U.N. sponsored green slush fund is completely misguided,” said Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming. “The Biden administration should focus on lowering spending at home, not shipping money to the U.N.
At the risk of understatement, I agree with Sen. Barrasso.
The Wall Street Journal opined against the proposed wealth transfer.
The use of climate policy to soak Americans keeps getting worse, and the United Nation’s climate conference in Egypt ended this weekend with agreement on a new fund to pay reparations to poor countries. Welcome to the latest climate shakedown. …Details about the reparations fund—such as which countries will pay, how much, and which countries will benefit—will be fleshed out over the next year. Biden officials claim the agreement doesn’t create new liabilities for Americans. But the U.S. and Europe are conceding the principle… American taxpayers are being asked to pay because the U.S. industrialized first and then lifted billions of people out of poverty via investment and trade. …Countries might also shake down U.S. fossil-fuel producers in their own courts. Climate reparations will merely serve as another form of global income redistribution.
There’s one other issue worth mentioning.
As Andrew Follett explains for National Review, China’s getting a sweet deal.
…it is a total shakedown. A major beneficiary of the deal is China, despite the fact that it has much higher emissions than the United States. …That’s because “the United Nations currently classifies China as a developing country. Even though it is now the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses as well as the second-largest economy,” according to the New York Times. “China has fiercely resisted being treated as a developed nation in global climate talks,” and it makes sense why. …American taxpayers will be forced to directly or indirectly fund Communist China. …Despite emitting far less than our international rival.
For what it’s worth, it seems that major western nations want to make sure the new fund does not provide direct handouts to China.
But so long as China gets to self-classify as a developing nation, any expansion of climate schemes will enhance its competitive advantage over the United States and other western nations.
John Stossel: Through 50 years of reporting on scares, only COVID proved true
By John Stossel
Published November 17, 2020 at 7:06pm
I hear that climate change will destroy much of the world.
“There will be irreversible damage to the planet!” warns a CNN anchor.
Joe Biden says he’ll spend $500 billion a year to fight what his website calls an “existential threat to life.”
Really?
I’m a consumer reporter. Over the years, alarmed scientists have passionately warned me about many things they thought were about to kill Americans.
Asbestos in hair dryers, coffee, computer terminals, electric power lines, microwave ovens, cellphones (brain tumors!), electric blankets, herbicides, plastic residue, etc., are causing “America’s cancer epidemic”!
If those things don’t get us, “West Nile Virus will!” Or SARS, Bird Flu, Ebola, flesh-eating bacteria or “killer bees.”
Experts told me millions would die on Jan. 1, 2000, because computers couldn’t handle the switch from 1999. Machines would fail; planes would crash.
The scientists were well-informed specialists in their fields. They were sincerely alarmed. The more knowledge you have about a threat, the more alarmed you get.
Yet, mass death didn’t happen. COVID-19 has been the only time in my 50 years of reporting that a scare proved true.
Maybe you accepted the phrase I used above: “America’s cancer epidemic.” But there is no cancer epidemic. Cancer rates are down. We simply live long enough to get diseases like cancer. But people think there’s a cancer epidemic.
The opposite is true. As we’ve been exposed to more plastics, pesticides, mysterious chemicals, food additives and new technologies, we live longer than ever!
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That’s why I’m skeptical when I’m told: Climate change is a crisis!
Climate change is real. It’s a problem, but I doubt that it’s “an existential threat.”
Saying that makes alarmists mad.
When Marc Morano says it, activists try to prevent him from speaking.
“They do not want dissent,” says Morano, founder of ClimateDepot.com, a website that rebuts much of what climate activists teach in schools.
“It’s an indoctrination that’s so complete that by the time (kids) get to high school, they’re not even aware that there’s any scientific dissent.”
Morano’s new movie, “Climate Hustle 2,” presents that dissent. My new video this week features his movie.
Morano argues that politicians use fear of global warming to gain power.
“Climate Hustle 2” features Sen. Chuck Schumer shouting: “If we would do more on climate change, we’d have fewer of these hurricanes and other types of storms! Everyone knows that!”
But everyone doesn’t know that. Many scientists refute it. Congress’ own hearings include testimony about how our warmer climate has not caused increases in the number of hurricanes or tornadoes. “Climate Hustle 2” includes many examples like that.
“Why should we believe you?” I ask Morano. “You’re getting money from the fossil fuel industry.” After all, Daily Kos calls him “Evil Personified” and says ExxonMobil funds him.
“Not at all,” he replies. “I’m paid by about 90% individual contributions from around the country. Why would ExxonMobil give me money (when) they want to appear green?”
Morano’s movie frustrates climate activists by pointing out how hypocritical some are.
Actor Leonardo DiCaprio says he lives a “green lifestyle … (using) energy-efficient appliances. I drive a hybrid car.”
Then he flies to Europe to attend a party.
I like watching Morano point out celebrities’ hypocrisy, but think one claim in his movie goes too far.
“Stopping climate change is not about saving the planet,” says narrator Kevin Sorbo. “It’s about climate elites trying to convince us to accept a future where they call all the shots.”
I push back at Morano: “I think they are genuinely concerned, and they want to save us.”
“Their vision of saving us is putting them in charge,” he replies.
And if they’re in charge, he says, they will destroy capitalism.
—-
State of the Union 2013
Published on Feb 13, 2013
Cato Institute scholars Michael Tanner, Alex Nowrasteh, Julian Sanchez, Simon Lester, John Samples, Pat Michaels, Jagadeesh Gokhale, Michael F. Cannon, Jim Harper, Malou Innocent, Juan Carlos Hidalgo, Ilya Shapiro, Trevor Burrus and Neal McCluskey respond to President Obama’s 2013 State of the Union Address.
Video produced by Caleb O. Brown, Austin Bragg and Lester Romero.
Today I am taking a look at the response of the scholars of the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute scholars to the 2013 State of the Union Address.
Swept into office four years ago based, in part, on promises to slow sea-level rise, President Obama initiated a radical climate agenda. It seems we are seeing a rerun in 2013. It is worth asking what is different four years after his first State of the Union Address?
There have been four more years of no global warming. In 2010, there had been no significant world temperature increase for over a decade. The streak is now 16 years long. We have four years of costly lessons on the waste and inefficiency of green-energy subsidies.
The scientific basis for catastrophic climate change gets weaker and weaker. The economic argument for green subsidies has already collapsed. It is time for the administration to quit using both arguments to justify a regulatory and fiscal power grab.
– David W. Kreutzer, PhD, research fellow in energy economics and climate change, Center for Data Analysis
Is President Obama gutting the welfare reform that Bill Clinton signed into law? Morning Bell: Obama Denies Gutting Welfare Reform Amy Payne August 8, 2012 at 9:15 am The Obama Administration came out swinging against its critics on welfare reform yesterday, with Press Secretary Jay Carney saying the charge that the Administration gutted the successful […]
Senator Blunt Vows to Keep Pressure on President Obama Over Contraceptive Mandate Uploaded by HeritageFoundation on Feb 13, 2012 http://blog.heritage.org/2012/02/13/sen-blunt-vows-to-keep-pressure-on-obama-… | Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) introduced legislation to protect religious organizations from Obamacare’s overreach last summer. Now, as President Obama presses forward with his anti-conscience mandate, Blunt is prepared to keep the pressure on the […]
Max Brantley is wrong about Tom Cotton’s accusation concerning the rise of welfare spending under President Obama. Actually welfare spending has been increasing for the last 12 years and Obama did nothing during his first four years to slow down the rate of increase of welfare spending. Rachel Sheffield of the Heritage Foundation has noted: […]
Sen. Mitch McConnell: Americans Don’t Approve of Anything Obama Has Done Uploaded by HeritageFoundation on Dec 8, 2011 In an exclusive interview at The Heritage Foundation, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) sharply criticized President Obama for engaging in class warfare and accused him of shifting the focus away from his own failed policies in […]
Obamanomics: A Legacy of Wasteful Spending Published on Aug 12, 2012 by CFPEcon101 This mini-documentary from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation highlights egregious examples of wasteful spending from the so-called stimulus legislation and explains why government spending hurts economic performance. **Links to additional reading material** Thomas Sowell, “Stimulus or Sedative?” http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/03/09/stimulus_or_sedative_104… Veronique de […]
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. Is […]
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. The […]
Thomas Sowell (This letter was mailed before September 1, 2012) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a […]
I have been writing letters to President Obama almost all of 2012. I have received several responses from the White House but none of the responses have been personal responses from the President. Below is a letter I wrote to the President and a form letter response that I got followed by links to other […]
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., likely will become chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee under the incoming Republican majority. Pictured: Comer, right, confers with fellow committee member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, during a June 22 hearing on Capitol Hill. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
When Republicans secure a narrow House majority, which appears likely as vote counting continues, it will mean an aggressive oversight agenda in the new year, something the Biden administration largely has avoided from Congress in its first two years.
As of Friday morning, Republicans appeared to control 211 House seats after midterm elections Tuesday—only seven short of the 218 needed for a majority in the 435-member chamber. Democrats apparently had won 196 House seats, according to RealClearPolitics, with 28 races yet to be decided.
Meanwhile, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of California announced his bid Wednesday for speaker of the House. Although a predicted “red wave” didn’t materialize as voting concluded Tuesday, Republicans will control House committees whether they have a one-seat or a 20-seat majority.
Although other topics could arise, congressional Republicans already have stated plans to look into controversies surrounding the business dealings of Hunter Biden and other members of the president’s family, the crisis on the southern border, the politicization of the Justice Department, and even talk of impeachments.
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., likely will go from ranking member to incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee.
Here are eight investigations to expect under GOP leadership of the House in the coming year.
1. Hunter Biden and Beyond
The FBI presented enough evidence to Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss to charge Hunter Biden with tax crimes and lying on a gun purchase form, The Washington Post reported in early October.
Republicans in Congress, noting the Chinese business interests of President Joe Biden’s son, say the problem is significantly larger.
In a written statement last week to The Daily Signal, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., who will take over as chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, said:
Oversight Republicans are investigating the domestic and international business dealings of President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and other Biden associates and family members to determine whether these activities compromise U.S. national security and President Biden’s ability to lead with impartiality.
Hunter and other members of the Biden family have a pattern of peddling access to the highest levels of government to enrich themselves. The American people deserve to know whether the president’s connections to his family’s business deals occurred at the expense of American interests and whether they represent a national security threat.
Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote a letterto top Justice Department officials arguing that the foreign business dealings could be much broader and could include other members of the Biden family, including the president.
“These documents also indicate that Joe Biden was aware of Hunter Biden’s business arrangements and may have been involved in some of them,” Grassley says in his Oct. 13 letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, FBI Director Christopher Wray, and Weiss, the U.S. attorney in Delaware.
“Based on recent protected disclosures to my office,” Grassley wrote, “the FBI has within its possession significant, impactful and voluminous evidence with respect to potential criminal conduct by Hunter Biden and [the president’s brother] James Biden.”
Grassley provided 30 pages of documents collected by the committee—some from whistleblowers within the FBI who allege that the bureau has been holding back.
The documents include details of a contract designed to funnel $5 million from a Chinese government-connected firm, CEFC, to Hunter Biden and James Biden to compensate them for work done while Joe Biden was vice president in the Obama administration.
2. Border Crisis
Republicans say they also plan to hold the Biden administration accountable for the crisis of rampant illegal immigration across the southern border.
“We will also continue our oversight of President Biden’s border crisis that has led to historic illegal immigration, a surge of deadly drugs pouring across the border, and mismanagement of taxpayer dollars,” Comer said in his written statement. “We will hold the Biden administration accountable for this self-inflicted crisis.”
According to the Department of Homeland Security, Mexican cartels’ income from smuggling illegal immigrants across the border into the United States soared from $500 million in 2018 to $13 billion in 2022—a 2,500% jump.
Border Patrol agents apprehended 951,568 illegal immigrants during President Donald Trump’s final 19 months in office, but caught 3.5 million in Biden’s first 19 months as president—a 377% increase.
As of early October, the Border Patrol had encountered at least 266,000 unaccompanied migrant children at the southern border since Biden took office, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
In September, 14 House Republicans wrote Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to say that “between October 2021 and July 2022, more than 130,000 Venezuelan nationals were encountered after entering the United States illegally.”
The GOP lawmakers argued that the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro “is deliberately releasing violent prisoners early, including inmates convicted of ‘murder, rape, and extortion,’ and pushing them to join caravans heading to the United States.”
In August, 12 GOP senators wrote to Ronald Davis, director of the U.S. Marshals Service to say: “So far in FY22, [Customs and Border Protection] has apprehended over 9,000 criminal aliens, including 53 for homicide or manslaughter, 283 for sex crimes, and almost 900 for assault, battery, and domestic violence.”
For the federal government, fiscal year 2022 ended Sept. 30.
3. Probing Big Tech
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., likely the incoming chairwoman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has said that House Republicans’ “Big Tech Accountability Platform” would focus on China.
Specifically, GOP lawmakers would focus on how tech companies such as Facebook, Apple, Amazon, and Google allow data to go to China.
“Companies with deep ties to China raise significant concerns about China’s access to American information,” the memo from McMorris Rodgers to fellow GOP members says, adding:
To address this concern, we will consider new transparency obligations, such as
Requiring companies to notify American users if those companies send, maintain, or store their personal information in China.
Requiring companies to notify American users if those companies are owned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), a Chinese state-owned entity, or a non-state-owned entity located in China.
In August, Republicans on the House Oversight Committee sought information from White House national climate adviser Gina McCarthy about possible collusion with Big Tech firms to censor criticism of the Biden administration’s environmental policies.
GOP members also raised concerns about former Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s involvement with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
4. COVID-19 Origins
Comer, the likely incoming chairman, told The Daily Signal last week that the House Oversight and Reform Committee also would investigate the origins of COVID-19.
The probe would focus on three key facts, the Kentucky Republican said.
First, the panel would examine growing evidence that the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 likely originated in a research lab in Wuhan, China, and that the Communist Party of China covered it up.
Secondly, Comer said, oversight Republicans would focus on whether U.S. taxpayer dollars were funneled to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to conduct risky experimental research on bat coronaviruses. This also is known as “gain-of-function research.”
Third, Comer said the committee would explore whether Dr. Anthony Fauci, the retiring director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was aware of this information at the start of the pandemic. And, he said, the panel would investigate whether Fauci or other federal officials acted to conceal facts and intentionally downplay the “lab leak” theory.
“We will continue this oversight to hold U.S. government officials accountable for any wrongdoing and ensure Americans’ tax dollars aren’t being used on risky research at unsecure labs,” Comer said.
In August, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., sent a letter to the National Institutes of Health, telling the agency to maintain its records on COVID-19 and specifying the NIH subagency headed by Fauci.
“Specifically, I request you preserve all records, email, electronic documents, and data created by or shared with Dr. Fauci during his tenure at NIH that relate to COVID-19 including, but not limited to, NIAID-funded coronavirus research,” the Paul letter says. It continues:
This preservation request also includes all records of official business conducted on non-official accounts. For purposes of this request, ‘preserve’ shall be construed to mean taking reasonable steps to prevent the partial or full destruction, alteration, testing, deletion, shredding, incineration, wiping, relocation, migration, theft, mutation, or negligent or reckless handling that could render the information incomplete or inaccessible.
5. Botched Afghanistan Withdrawal
Republicans say they also intend to investigate the Biden administration’s hasty withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.
In late October, Republicans on the House Oversight Committee raised concerns about the Biden administration’s being uncooperative with an official known as the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction. Congress created the post, as well as the office of the same name.
Comer and Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wis., ranking member of the committee’s subcommittee on national security, wrote to Special Inspector General John Sopko to inquire about his access.
“On two separate occasions, you have informed the committee that the Biden administration is obstructing your work by failing to produce required information. This is unacceptable,” says the letter to Sopko, who was appointed in 2012 by President Barack Obama.
“Therefore, we request a briefing on your continuing oversight efforts and any obstacles put in place by the Biden administration. Historically, [the] State [Department] and USAID [the U.S. Agency for International Development] have honored SIGAR’s mission,” the letter continues, referring to Sopko’s office. It adds:
But since the Biden administration’s botched Afghanistan withdrawal—which is in desperate need of oversight—State and USAID have denied travel, delayed, obstructed, and even questioned SIGAR’s jurisdictional authority. The Biden administration’s obstruction directly violates the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2008 and the Inspector General Act of 1978, as amended, which both require agencies to provide inspectors general [with] information or assistance.
The chaotic U.S. exit from Afghanistan left 13 American servicemembers dead and left behind at least $7 billion worth of U.S. military equipment for the Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalist group that regained control of Afghanistan.
House Republicans included addressing the “catastrophic Afghanistan withdrawal” in their “Commitment to America” plan.
6. IRS Management
Grassley led a letter from Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee requesting that the Government Accountability Office investigate financial management at the Internal Revenue Service after Democrats’ so-called Inflation Reduction Act bestowed $80 billion on the tax collection agency.
“If the near-$80 billion is spent out evenly over time, for FY 2023 the IRS will be receiving a supersized 57% boost relative to FY 2022,” the committee senators wrote. “Such an outsized boost to agency funding, derived from legislation developed and passed in partisan fashion, in our view represents a high risk for waste, fraud, abuse, and improper politicized utilization of taxpayer resources.”
The Republican senators seek information on what high-risk IRS issues identified previously by the Government Accountability Office remain outstanding, and what “significant deficiencies in internal controls” continue after IRS financial statements for fiscal year 2021 and fiscal year 2020. They also ask for details of “unresolved information system security control deficiencies” identified in the GAO audit.
7. Possible Impeachments
Some House Republicans have called for the impeachment of Biden. That seems far-fetched now, especially since McCarthy, the likely incoming speaker of the House, hadn’t shown any interest while he was House minority leader.
As speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., repeatedly pushed away calls for impeaching then-President Donald Trump from multiple members of the Democratic caucus. But after gaining a House majority in 2019, Pelosi gave into pressure from the more adamant lawmakers in her caucus.
In the House minority, Republicans have introduced 14 impeachment resolutions against either Biden or his Cabinet officials.
If an impeachment happens, some observers say, it’s more likely to happen with Cabinet members—chiefly Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas or Attorney General Merrick Garland.
“I think it’s pretty much guaranteed that Mayorkas is going to be impeached by the House next year. Now, whether he’d be removed by the Senate, because it’s the same process as any other impeachment, that’s unclear,” Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, told The Daily Signal earlier this year.
“He took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the laws of the United States, and that ain’t what he’s doing,” Krikorian said of Mayorkas, who Biden appointed. He added:
There’s all kinds of hotheads among Republicans who will say, ‘Well, we got to impeach Biden’ and all this. Impeachment is a political process. It’d be a political error, I think, to go after Biden and even impeach him. Then Kamala Harris is president? I mean, that’s even worse.
But Mayorkas is an appropriate target for impeachment because even though the administration has a policy and he’s following it, it’s precisely because the president is so weak and unable to exercise authority—and there are differing currents of opinion in the administration. Mayorkas could be a lot tougher than he is. He could be actually following the law in a way that he’s not doing.
8. Investigating a Politicized Justice Department
After the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Aug. 8, McCarthy issued a warning to Garland, Biden’s attorney general.
“When Republicans take back the House, we will conduct immediate oversight of this department, follow the facts, and leave no stone unturned,” the House Republican leader said. “Attorney General Garland, preserve your documents and clear your calendar.”
After revelations that the Justice Department was targeting parents for objecting to local school board policies, some Republican lawmakers said Garland should be forced out.
“We have problems at the border, we have problems with drug cartels, we have problems with human traffickers,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., told The Daily Signal last year.
“And Merrick Garland wants the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s offices to focus on parents that go to a school board meeting to ask questions about mandates on their children, curriculums affecting their children, and the safety of their children during the academic day,” Blackburn said. “I think that Merrick Garland should be removed from his position.”
Blackburn said Garland should resign, Biden should fire him, or the House should impeach him and the Senate convict and remove him.
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The left praises democracy when elected but claims the right will destroy democracy when it loses. Pictured: Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton discusses the 2016 election during her 2017 book tour. (Photo: Bastiaan Slabbers, NurPhoto/Getty Images)
Recently, Democrats have been despondent over President Joe Biden’s sinking poll numbers. His policies on the economy, energy, foreign policy, the border, and COVID-19 all have lost majority support.
As a result, the left now variously alleges that either in 2022, when it expects to lose the Congress, or in 2024, when it fears losing the presidency, Republicans will “destroy democracy” or stage a coup.
A cynic might suggest that those on the left praise democracy when they get elected, only to claim it is broken when they lose. Or they hope to avoid their defeat by trying to terrify the electorate. Or they mask their own revolutionary propensities by projecting them onto their opponents.
After all, who is trying to federalize election laws in national elections contrary to the spirit of the Constitution? Who wishes to repeal or circumvent the Electoral College? Who wishes to destroy the more than 180-year-old Senate filibuster, the over 150-year-old nine-justice Supreme Court, and the more than 60-year-old 50-state union?
Who is attacking the founding constitutional idea of two senators per state?
The Constitution also clearly states that “When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside.” Who slammed through the impeachment of former President Donald Trump without a presiding chief justice?
Never had a president been either impeached twice or tried in the Senate as a private citizen. Who did both?
The left further broke prior precedent by impeaching Trump without a special counsel’s report, formal hearings, witnesses, and cross-examinations.
Who exactly is violating federal civil rights legislation?
New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in December decided to ration new potentially lifesaving COVID-19 medicines, partially on the basis of race, in the name of “equity.”
The agency also allegedly used racial preferences to determine who would be first tested for COVID-19. Yet such racial discrimination seems in direct violation of various title clauses of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
That law makes it clear that no public agency can use race to deny “equal utilization of any public facility which is owned, operated, or managed by or on behalf of any State or subdivision thereof.” Who is behind the new racial discrimination?
In summer 2020, many local- and state-mandated quarantines and bans on public assemblies were simply ignored with impunity—if demonstrators were associated with Black Lives Matter or protesting the police.
Currently, the Biden administration is also flagrantly embracing the neo-Confederate idea of nullifying federal law.
The Biden administration has allowed nearly 2 million foreign nationals to enter the United States illegally across the southern border—in hopes they will soon be loyal constituents.
The administration has not asked illegal entrants either to be tested for or vaccinated against COVID-19. Yet all U.S. citizens in the military and employed by the federal government are threatened with dismissal if they fail to become vaccinated.
Such selective exemption of lawbreaking non-U.S. citizens, but not millions of U.S. citizens, seems in conflict with the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
After entering the United States illegally, millions of immigrants are protected by some 550 “sanctuary city” jurisdictions. These revolutionary areas all brazenly nullify immigration law by refusing to allow federal immigration authorities to deport illegal immigrant lawbreakers.
At various times in our nation’s history—1832, 1861-65, and 1961-63—America was either racked by internal violence or fought a civil war over similar state nullification of federal laws.
In the last five years, we have indeed seen many internal threats to democracy.
Hillary Clinton hired a foreign national to concoct a dossier of dirt against her presidential opponent. She disguised her own role by projecting her efforts to use Russian sources onto Trump. She used her contacts in government and media to seed the dossier to create a national hysteria about “Russian collusion.” Clinton urged Biden not to accept the 2020 result if he lost, and herself claimed Trump was not a legitimately elected president.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has violated laws governing the chain of command. Some retired officers violated Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice by slandering their commander in chief. Others publicly were on record calling for the military to intervene to remove an elected president.
Some of the nation’s top officials in the FBI and intelligence committee have misled or lied under oath either to federal investigators or the U.S. Congress, again, mostly with impunity.
All these sustained revolutionary activities were justified as necessary to achieve the supposedly noble ends of removing Trump.
The result is Third World-like jurisprudence in America aimed at rewarding friends and punishing enemies, masked by service to social justice.
We are in a dangerous revolutionary cycle. But the threat is not so much from loud, buffoonish, one-day rioters on Jan. 6. Such clownish characters did not for 120 days loot, burn, attack courthouses and police precincts, cause over 30 deaths, injure 2,000 policemen, and destroy at least $2 billion in property—all under the banner of revolutionary justice.
Even more ominously, stone-cold sober elites are systematically waging an insidious revolution in the shadows that seeks to dismantle America’s institutions and the rule of law as we have known them.
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The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.
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The Honorable Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Washington D.C.
Dear Representative Adam Kinzinger,
I noticed that you are a pro-life representative that has a long record of standing up for unborn babies! It was in the 1970’s when I was first introduced to the works of Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop and I wanted to commend their writings and films to you.
Washington, DC – Today, Congressman Adam Kinzinger (IL-16) joined his House Republican colleagues in a press conference urging Democratic leadership to allow a vote on the Born Alive protections. The proposal would protect babies who survive abortion and provide them with the same medical care that any other premature baby would receive. Yesterday, the Democrats blocked the proposed legislation—for the 17th time—from coming before the House for a vote.
Joining the Congressman and House Republican leaders at the press conference this morning was Jill Stanek, an Illinois nurse and pro-life advocate who has witnessed the devastating realities of these pro-abortion laws. The Illinois legislature is currently debating two abortion bills, similar to the extreme pro-abortion agendas in New York and Virginia.
It seems you have a grudge against President Trump while our freedoms under President Biden are being taken away. I recommend to you the article below:
Roger Kimball Editor and Publisher, The New Criterion
Mr. Kimball concludes his article with these words:
That’s one melancholy lesson of the January 6 insurrection hoax: that America is fast mutating from a republic, in which individual liberty is paramount, into an oligarchy, in which conformity is increasingly demanded and enforced.
Another lesson was perfectly expressed by Donald Trump when he reflected on the unremitting tsunami of hostility that he faced as President. “They’re after you,” he more than once told his supporters. “I’m just in the way.”
There were a few Republicans Thursday who surprised observers when they voted in support of holding former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress and referring him to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution.
Prior to the vote, four Republicans were considered a lock to approve the criminal referral, according to Capitol Hill sources: Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Fred Upton of Michigan and Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio.
Cheney and Kinzinger are on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and have for months stood alone as the only two House Republicans willing to speak out against former President Donald Trump’s continued lies about the 2020 election. They were the only two House Republicans to vote for the formation of the select committee on June 30.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi formed the select committee after Republicans rejected a bipartisan commission that would have been evenly split between five Democrats and five Republicans. Only 35 Republicans voted for that measure when itpassed the House of Representatives, and it was defeated by a GOP filibuster in the Senate.
From left: Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a Democrat, and Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois arrive for the House Select Committee hearing investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
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Upton has served in the House for more than three decades, since 1987, and will face a primary challenge next year because of his willingness to stand up to Trump.
Gonzalez is retiring from Congress next year, after only four years in the House. “While my desire to build a fuller family life is at the heart of my decision, it is also true that the current state of our politics, especially many of the toxic dynamics inside our own party, is a significant factor in my decision,” Gonzalez said in September when heannounced he would not seek another term.
The remaining five Republicans included three who voted for impeachment — Peter Meijer of Michigan, John Katko of New York and Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington — and two House Republicans who did not vote to impeach Trump: Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.
Trump seems never to have discerned what a viper’s nest our politics has become for anyone who is not a paid-up member of The Club.
Maybe Trump understands this now. I have no insight into that question. I am pretty confident, though, that the 74 plus million people who voted for him understand it deeply. It’s another reason that The Club should be wary of celebrating its victory too expansively.
Friedrich Hayek took one of the two epigraphs for his book, The Road to Serfdom, from the philosopher David Hume. “It is seldom,” Hume wrote, “that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.” Much as I admire Hume, I wonder whether he got this quite right. Sometimes, I would argue, liberty is erased almost instantaneously.
I’d be willing to wager that Joseph Hackett, confronted with Hume’s observation, would express similar doubts. I would be happy to ask Mr. Hackett myself, but he is inaccessible. If the ironically titled “Department of Justice” has its way, he will be inaccessible for a long, long time—perhaps as long as 20 years.
Joseph Hackett, you see, is a 51-year-old Trump supporter and member of an organization called the Oath Keepers, a group whose members have pledged to “defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.” The FBI does not like the Oath Keepers—agents arrested its leader in January and have picked up many other members in the months since. Hackett traveled to Washington from his home in Florida to join the January 6 rally. According to court documents, he entered the Capitol at 2:45 that afternoon and left some nine minutes later, at 2:54. The next day, he went home. On May 28, he was apprehended by the FBI and indicted on a long list of charges, including conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, destruction of government property, and illegally entering a restricted building.
As far as I have been able to determine, no evidence of Hackett destroying property has come to light. According to his wife, it is not even clear that he entered the Capitol. But he certainly was in the environs. He was a member of the Oath Keepers. He was a supporter of Donald Trump. Therefore, he must be neutralized.
Joseph Hackett is only one of hundreds of citizens who have beenbranded as “domestic terrorists” trying to “overthrow the government” and who are now languishing, in appalling conditions, jailed as political prisoners of an angry state apparat.
Let me recommend that you read this letter below from Senator Ron Johnson and his colleagues:
WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), along with senators Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), sent a letter on Monday to Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting information on the unequal application of justice between the individuals who breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, and those involved in the unrest during the spring and summer of 2020. The senators sent 18 questions to the attorney general on what steps the DOJ has taken to prosecute individuals who committed crimes during both events, and requested a response by June 21.
“Americans have the constitutional right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances,” the senators wrote. “This constitutional right should be cherished and protected. Violence, property damage, and vandalism of any kind should not be tolerated and individuals that break the law should be prosecuted. However, the potential unequal administration of justice with respect to certain protestors is particularly concerning.”
The full text of the letter can be found here and below.
June 7, 2021
The Honorable Merrick B. Garland
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530
Dear Attorney General Garland:
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is currently dedicating enormous resources and manpower to investigating and prosecuting the criminals who breached the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. We fully support and appreciate the efforts by the DOJ and its federal, state and local law enforcement partners to hold those responsible fully accountable.
We join all Americans in the expectation that the DOJ’s response to the events of January 6 will result in rightful criminal prosecutions and accountability. As you are aware, the mission of the DOJ is, among other things, to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans. Today, we write to request information about our concerns regarding potential unequal justice administered in response to other recent instances of mass unrest, destruction, and loss of life throughout the United States.
During the spring and summer of 2020, individuals used peaceful protests across the country to engage in rioting and other crimes that resulted in loss of life, injuries to law enforcement officers, and significant property damage.[1] A federal court house in Portland, Oregon, has been effectively under siege for months.[2] Property destruction stemming from the 2020 social justice protests throughout the country will reportedly result in at least $1 billion to $2 billion in paid insurance claims.[3]
In June 2020, the DOJ reportedly compiled the following information regarding last year’s unrest:
“One federal officer [was] killed, 147 federal officers [were] injured and 600 local officers [were] injured around the country during the protests, frequently from projectiles.”[4]
According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), “since the start of the unrest there has been 81 Federal Firearms License burglaries of an estimated loss of 1,116 firearms; 876 reported arsons; 76 explosive incidents; and 46 ATF arrests[.]”[5]
Despite these numerous examples of violence occurring during these protests, it appears that individuals charged with committing crimes at these events may benefit from infrequent prosecutions and minimal, if any, penalties. According to a recent article, “prosecutors have approved deals in at least half a dozen federal felony cases arising from clashes between protesters and law enforcement in Oregon last summer. The arrangements — known as deferred resolution agreements — will leave the defendants with a clean criminal record if they stay out of trouble for a period of time and complete a modest amount of community service, according to defense attorneys and court records.”[6]
DOJ’s apparent unwillingness to punish these individuals who allegedly committed crimes during the spring and summer 2020 protests stands in stark contrast to the harsher treatment of the individuals charged in connection with the January 6, 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. To date, DOJ has charged 510 individuals stemming from Capitol breach.[7] DOJ maintains and updates a webpage that lists the defendants charged with crimes committed at the Capitol. This database includes information such as the defendant’s name, charge(s), case number, case documents, location of arrest, case status, and informs readers when the entry was last updated.[8] No such database exists for alleged perpetrators of crimes associated with the spring and summer 2020 protests. It is unclear whether any defendants charged with crimes in connection with the Capitol breach have received deferred resolution agreements.
Americans have the constitutional right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances. This constitutional right should be cherished and protected. Violence, property damage, and vandalism of any kind should not be tolerated and individuals that break the law should be prosecuted. However, the potential unequal administration of justice with respect to certain protestors is particularly concerning. In order to assist Congress in conducting its oversight work, we respectfully request answers to the following questions by June 21, 2021:
Spring and Summer 2020 Unrest:
Did federal law enforcement utilize geolocation data from defendants’ cell phones to track protestors associated with the unrest in the spring and summer of 2020? If so, how many times and for which locations/riots?
How many individuals who may have committed crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020 were arrested by law enforcement using pre-dawn raids and SWAT teams?
How many individuals were incarcerated for allegedly committing crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020?
How many of these individuals are or were placed in solitary confinement? What was the average amount of consecutive days such individuals were in solitary confinement?
How many of these individuals have been released on bail?
How many of these individuals were released on their own recognizance or without being required to post bond?
How many of these individuals were offered deferred resolution agreements?[9]
How many DOJ prosecutors were assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020?
How many FBI personnel were assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020?
January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol Breach:
Did federal law enforcement utilize geolocation data from defendants’ cell phones to track protestors associated with the January 6, 2021 protests and Capitol breach? If so, how many times and how many additional arrests resulted from law enforcement utilizing geolocation information?
How many individuals who may have committed crimes associated with the Capitol breach were arrested by law enforcement using pre-dawn raids and SWAT teams?
How many individuals are incarcerated for allegedly committing crimes associated with the Capitol breach?
How many of these individuals are or were placed in solitary confinement? What was the average amount of consecutive days such individuals were in solitary confinement?
How many of these individuals have been released on bail?
How many of these individuals have been released on their own recognizance or without being required to post bond?
How many of these individuals were offered deferred resolution agreements?
How many DOJ prosecutors have been assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with the Capitol breach?
How many FBI personnel were assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with the Capitol breach?
I want to recommend to you a video on YOU TUBE that runs 28 minutes and 39 seconds by Francis Schaeffer entitled because it discusses the founding of our nation and what the FOUNDERS believed:
Edith Schaeffer with her husband, Francis Schaeffer, in 1970 in Switzerland, where they founded L’Abri, a Christian commune.
________________
______________________
March 23, 2021
President Biden c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. I know that you don’t agree with my pro-life views but I wanted to challenge you as a fellow Christian to re-examine your pro-choice view. Although we are both Christians and have the Bible as the basis for our moral views, I did want you to take a close look at the views of the pro-life atheist Nat Hentoff too. Hentoff became convinced of the pro-life view because of secular evidence that shows that the unborn child is human. I would ask you to consider his evidence and then of course reverse your views on abortion.
___________________
The pro-life atheist Nat Hentoff wrote a fine article below I wanted to share with you.
Nat Hentoff is an atheist, but he became a pro-life activist because of the scientific evidence that shows that the unborn child is a distinct and separate human being and even has a separate DNA. His perspective is a very intriguing one that I thought you would be interested in. I have shared before many cases (Bernard Nathanson, Donald Trump, Paul Greenberg, Kathy Ireland) when other high profile pro-choice leaders have changed their views and this is just another case like those. I have contacted the White House over and over concerning this issue and have even received responses. I am hopeful that people will stop and look even in a secular way (if they are not believers) at this abortion debate and see that the unborn child is deserving of our protection.That is why the writings of Nat Hentoff of the Cato Institute are so crucial.
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the video below. It is very valuable information for Christians to have. Actually I have included a video below that includes comments from him on this subject.
Francis Schaeffer Whatever Happened to the Human Race (Episode 1) ABORTION
_____________________________________
Dr. Francis schaeffer – from Part 5 of Whatever happened to human race?) Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 5 | Truth and History
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – A Christian Manifesto – Dr. Francis Schaeffer Lecture
Francis Schaeffer – A 700 Club Special! ~ Francis Schaeffer 1982
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – 1984 SOUNDWORD LABRI CONFERENCE VIDEO – Q&A With Francis & Edith Schaeffer
http://www.NewsandOpinion.com | A longtime friend of mine is married to a doctor who also performs abortions. At the dinner table one recent evening, their 9-year-old son — having heard a word whose meaning he didn’t know — asked, “What is an abortion?” His mother, choosing her words carefully, described the procedure in simple terms.
“But,” said her son, “that means killing the baby.” The mother then explained that there are certain months during which an abortion cannot be performed, with very few exceptions. The 9-year-old shook his head. “But,” he said, “it doesn’t matter what month. It still means killing the babies.”
Hearing the story, I wished it could be repeated to the justices of the Supreme Court, in the hope that at least five of them might act on this 9-year-old’s clarity of thought and vision.
The boy’s spontaneous insistence on the primacy of life also reminded me of a powerful pro-life speaker and writer who, many years ago, helped me become a pro-lifer. He was a preacher, a black preacher. He said: “There are those who argue that the right to privacy is of a higher order than the right to life.
“That,” he continued, “was the premise of slavery. You could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore out of your right to be concerned.”
This passionate reverend used to warn: “Don’t let the pro-choicers convince you that a fetus isn’t a human being. That’s how the whites dehumanized us … The first step was to distort the image of us as human beings in order to justify what they wanted to do — and not even feel they’d done anything wrong.”
That preacher was Jesse Jackson. Later, he decided to run for the presidency — and it was a credible campaign that many found inspiring in its focus on what still had to be done on civil rights. But Jackson had by now become “pro-choice” — much to the appreciation of most of those in the liberal base.
The last time I saw Jackson was years later, on a train from Washington to New York. I told him of a man nominated, but not yet confirmed, to a seat on a federal circuit court of appeals. This candidate was a strong supporter of capital punishment — which both the Rev. Jackson and I oppose, since it involves the irreversible taking of a human life by the state.
I asked Jackson if he would hold a press conference in Washington, criticizing the nomination, and he said he would. The reverend was true to his word; the press conference took place; but that nominee was confirmed to the federal circuit court. However, I appreciated Jackson’s effort.
On that train, I also told Jackson that I’d been quoting — in articles, and in talks with various groups — from his compelling pro-life statements. I asked him if he’d had any second thoughts on his reversal of those views.
Usually quick to respond to any challenge that he is not consistent in his positions, Jackson paused, and seemed somewhat disquieted at my question. Then he said to me, “I’ll get back to you on that.” I still patiently await what he has to say.
As time goes on, my deepening concern with the consequences of abortion is that its validation by the Supreme Court, as a constitutional practice, helps support the convictions of those who, in other controversies — euthanasia, assisted suicide and the “futility doctrine” by certain hospital ethics committees — believe that there are lives not worth continuing.
Around the time of my conversation with Jackson on the train, I attended a conference on euthanasia at Clark College in Worcester, Mass. There, I met Derek Humphry, the founder of the Hemlock Society, and already known internationally as a key proponent of the “death with dignity” movement.
He told me that for some years in this country, he had considerable difficulty getting his views about assisted suicide and, as he sees it, compassionate euthanasia into the American press.
“But then,” Humphry told me, “a wonderful thing happened. It opened all the doors for me.”
“What was that wonderful thing?” I asked.
“Roe v. Wade,” he answered.
The devaluing of human life — as the 9-year-old at the dinner table put it more vividly — did not end with making abortion legal, and therefore, to some people, moral. The word “baby” does not appear in Roe v. Wade — let alone the word “killing.”
And so, the termination of “lives not worth living” goes on.
______________________
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband. Now after presenting the secular approach of Nat Hentoff I wanted to make some comments concerning our shared Christian faith. I respect you for putting your faith in Christ for your eternal life. I am pleading to you on the basis of the Bible to please review your religious views concerning abortion. It was the Bible that caused the abolition movement of the 1800’s and it also was the basis for Martin Luther King’s movement for civil rights and it also is the basis for recognizing the unborn children.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733,
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ Picture of Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith from the 1930′s above. I was sad to read about Edith passing away on Easter weekend in 2013. I wanted to pass along this fine […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
It is truly sad to me that liberals will lie in order to attack good Christian people like state senator Jason Rapert of Conway, Arkansas because he headed a group of pro-life senators that got a pro-life bill through the Arkansas State Senate the last week of January in 2013. I have gone back and […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
Sometimes you can see evidences in someone’s life of how content they really are. I saw something like that on 2-8-13 when I confronted a blogger that goes by the name “AngryOldWoman” on the Arkansas Times Blog. See below. Leadership Crisis in America Published on Jul 11, 2012 Picture of Adrian Rogers above from 1970′s […]
In the film series “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?” the arguments are presented against abortion (Episode 1), infanticide (Episode 2), euthenasia (Episode 3), and then there is a discussion of the Christian versus Humanist worldview concerning the issue of “the basis for human dignity” in Episode 4 and then in the last episode a close […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
E P I S O D E 1 0 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode X – Final Choices 27 min FINAL CHOICES I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes. A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes. B. But society has to be […]
E P I S O D E 9 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IX – The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence 27 min T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads […]
E P I S O D E 8 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VIII – The Age of Fragmentation 27 min I saw this film series in 1979 and it had a major impact on me. T h e Age of FRAGMENTATION I. Art As a Vehicle Of Modern Thought A. Impressionism (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, […]
E P I S O D E 7 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VII – The Age of Non Reason I am thrilled to get this film series with you. I saw it first in 1979 and it had such a big impact on me. Today’s episode is where we see modern humanist man act […]
E P I S O D E 6 How Should We Then Live 6#1 Uploaded by NoMirrorHDDHrorriMoN on Oct 3, 2011 How Should We Then Live? Episode 6 of 12 ________ I am sharing with you a film series that I saw in 1979. In this film Francis Schaeffer asserted that was a shift in […]
E P I S O D E 5 How Should We Then Live? Episode 5: The Revolutionary Age I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Francis Schaeffer noted, “Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection. But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there […]
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IV – The Reformation 27 min I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer makes three key points concerning the Reformation: “1. Erasmian Christian humanism rejected by Farel. 2. Bible gives needed answers not only as to […]
Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 3 “The Renaissance” Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 3) THE RENAISSANCE I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer really shows why we have so […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 2) THE MIDDLE AGES I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer points out that during this time period unfortunately we have the “Church’s deviation from early church’s teaching in regard […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 1) THE ROMAN AGE Today I am starting a series that really had a big impact on my life back in the 1970′s when I first saw it. There are ten parts and today is the first. Francis Schaeffer takes a look at Rome and why […]
Last week, I explained that “supply siders” need to be ardent advocates of spending restraint. After all, there is no chance of good tax policy in the future if the burden of federal spending continues to expand.
In an article for National Review, Philip Klein speculates whether there is any appetite for spending restraint, even among self-described conservatives.
For much of the history of the American conservative movement, limiting the size and scope of government has stood as one of its central goals. …In 2022, such messages were barely anywhere to be found on the campaign trail…conservatives have largely moved on from making the case for reducing the size and power of Washington. In some cases, this shift has been passive. …It has become popular in some circles on the right to mock “zombie Reaganism” and insist that while it may have made sense back in the 1980s to argue for smaller government, such a message is now outdated. …the argument that the battle to limit government has already been lost also neglects to recognize that things could always get worse. That is, even though the federal government has gone through extraordinary growth since the New Deal, it would have grown even larger had there been no conservative movement to push back. One need only look at Europe, where conservative parties long ago made their peace with the welfare state, to see how government agencies have crowded out civil society… There is no way in which a nation with…a ballooning welfare state will be an accommodating place for conservatives in the long run, no matter how much some may fantasize about seizing the dragon and precisely aiming its fire at their enemies during the relatively brief windows in which Republicans have power. Conservatives…should not abandon the fight for limited government.
Those are easy columns to write since it is the same argument I’ve been making my entire life. But what is depressing now is that there is opposition from Republicans as well as Democrats.
Maybe they should all be forced to watch my video series on the economics of government spending.
In the Wall Street Journal, Andy Kessler explains that smaller government is the recipe for more growth.
Winston Churchill…said: “We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucketand trying to lift himself up by the handle.” The U.S. should heed that advice… economic growth is going to come from efficient supply chains and productivity in manufacturing in the U.S. Tax andspending cuts are the cure. …Republicans must resist the urge to subsidize higher energy costs and instead help slay inflation and bring back a strong, productive economy.
Let’s look at some new academic research bolstering Kessler’s argument.
Megha JainAishwarya Nagpal, and Abhay Jain published a study last year in the South Asia Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance.
The key findings deal with the Armey-Rahn Curveand can be found in the abstract.
The current study attempts to examine the linkage between government (public) spending and economic growth in the broader framework of selected South Asian Nations (SANs), BRICS and other emerging nations by using two sets of empirical modelling over the period 2007–2016 by using inverted U-shaped hypothesis, propounded by Armey curve (1995).…The key findings signify the existence of an inverted U-shaped relationship for the selected data set of emerging nations and, therefore, support the Armey curve hypothesis. The projected threshold (tipping) levels (as a percentage of GDP) are 24.31% for the government total expenditures (GTotExp), 12.92% for consumption spending (GConExp) and 7.11% for investment spending (GInvExp). It has been observed that a rise in the public spending (size) resulted in a substantial…decrease…in the growth rate when the public spending was…after…the optimal threshold level, indicating a non-monotonic association.
For what it’s worth, I think the study is wrong and that the growth-maximizing level of government spending is much lower than 24.3 percent of economic output.
But since total government spending in the United States now consumes about 40 percent of GDP, at least we can all agree that there will be more prosperity if America’s fiscal burden is dramatically reduced.
If we ever bring the spending burden back down to 24.3 percent of economic output, we can then figure out whether the ultimate goal is even lower (as it was for much of America’s history).
There is one point from the study that merits further attention. The authors estimated not only the growth-maximizing level of total spending, but also how much the government should spend on “consumption” and “investment” outlays (an issue I addressed last month).
Here’s a chart from the study showing that consumption outlays should be less than 13 percent of economic output.
P.S. If you want to watch videos that address the growth-maximizing size of government, click here, here, here, here, and here.
P.P.S. Ironically, the case for smaller government is bolstered by research from normally left-leaning international bureaucracies such as the OECD, World Bank, ECB, and IMF.
March 31, 2021
President Biden c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
Please explain to me if you ever do plan to balance the budget while you are President? I have written these things below about you and I really do think that you don’t want to cut spending in order to balance the budget. It seems you ever are daring the Congress to stop you from spending more.
“The credit of the United States ‘is not a bargaining chip,’ Obama said on 1-14-13. However, President Obama keeps getting our country’s credit rating downgraded as he raises the debt ceiling higher and higher!!!!
Washington Could Learn a Lot from a Drug Addict
Just spend more, don’t know how to cut!!! Really!!! That is not living in the real world is it?
Making more dependent on government is not the way to go!!
Why is our government in over 16 trillion dollars in debt? There are many reasons for this but the biggest reason is people say “Let’s spend someone else’s money to solve our problems.” Liberals like Max Brantley have talked this way for years. Brantley will say that conservatives are being harsh when they don’t want the government out encouraging people to be dependent on the government. The Obama adminstration has even promoted a plan for young people to follow like Julia the Moocher.
Imagine standing a baby carrot up next to the 25-story Stephens building in Little Rock. That gives you a picture of the impact on the national debt that federal spending in Arkansas on Medicaid expansion would have, while here at home expansion would give coverage to more than 200,000 of our neediest citizens, create jobs, and save money for the state.
Here’s the thing: while more than a billion dollars a year in federal spending would represent a big-time stimulus for Arkansas, it’s not even a drop in the bucket when it comes to the national debt.
Currently, the national debt is around $16.4 trillion. In fiscal year 2015, the federal government would spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.2 billion to fund Medicaid expansion in Arkansas if we say yes. That’s about 1/13,700th of the debt.
It’s hard to get a handle on numbers that big, so to put that in perspective, let’s get back to the baby carrot. Imagine that the height of the Stephens building (365 feet) is the $16 trillion national debt. That $1.2 billion would be the length of a ladybug. Of course, we’re not just talking about one year if we expand. Between now and 2021, the federal government projects to contribute around $10 billion. The federal debt is projected to be around $25 trillion by then, so we’re talking about 1/2,500th of the debt. Compared to the Stephens building? That’s a baby carrot.
______________
Here is how it will all end if everyone feels they should be allowed to have their “baby carrot.”
How sad it is that liberals just don’t get this reality.
While living in Europe in the 1760s, Franklin observed: “in different countries … the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”
Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee(15 October 1747 – 5 January 1813) was a Scottish lawyer, writer, and professor. Tytler was also a historian, and he noted, “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.”
[Jefferson affirms that the main purpose of society is to enable human beings to keep the fruits of their labor.— TGW]
To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, “the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.” If the overgrown wealth of an individual be deemed dangerous to the State, the best corrective is the law of equal inheritance to all in equal degree; and the better, as this enforces a law of nature, while extra taxation violates it.
[From Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Albert E. Bergh (Washington: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), 14:466.]
_______
Jefferson pointed out that to take from the rich and give to the poor through government is just wrong. Franklin knew the poor would have a better path upward without government welfare coming their way. Milton Friedman’s negative income tax is the best method for doing that and by taking away all welfare programs and letting them go to the churches for charity.
_____________
_________
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733
We got to act fast and get off this path of socialism. Morning Bell: Welfare Spending Shattering All-Time Highs Robert Rector and Amy Payne October 18, 2012 at 9:03 am It’s been a pretty big year for welfare—and a new report shows welfare is bigger than ever. The Obama Administration turned a giant spotlight […]
We need to cut Food Stamp program and not extend it. However, it seems that people tell the taxpayers back home they are going to Washington and cut government spending but once they get up there they just fall in line with everyone else that keeps spending our money. I am glad that at least […]
Government Must Cut Spending Uploaded by HeritageFoundation on Dec 2, 2010 The government can cut roughly $343 billion from the federal budget and they can do so immediately. __________ Liberals argue that the poor need more welfare programs, but I have always argued that these programs enslave the poor to the government. Food Stamps Growth […]
Milton Friedman – The Negative Income Tax Published on May 11, 2012 by LibertyPen In this 1968 interview, Milton Friedman explained the negative income tax, a proposal that at minimum would save taxpayers the 72 percent of our current welfare budget spent on administration. http://www.LibertyPen.com Source: Firing Line with William F Buckley Jr. ________________ Milton […]
Dan Mitchell Commenting on Obama’s Failure to Propose a Fiscal Plan Published on Aug 16, 2012 by danmitchellcato No description available. ___________ After the Welfare State Posted by David Boaz Cato senior fellow Tom G. Palmer, who is lecturing about freedom in Slovenia and Tbilisi this week, asked me to post this announcement of his […]
Is President Obama gutting the welfare reform that Bill Clinton signed into law? Morning Bell: Obama Denies Gutting Welfare Reform Amy Payne August 8, 2012 at 9:15 am The Obama Administration came out swinging against its critics on welfare reform yesterday, with Press Secretary Jay Carney saying the charge that the Administration gutted the successful […]
Thomas Sowell – Welfare Welfare reform was working so good. Why did we have to abandon it? Look at this article from 2003. The Continuing Good News About Welfare Reform By Robert Rector and Patrick Fagan, Ph.D. February 6, 2003 Six years ago, President Bill Clinton signed legislation overhauling part of the nation’s welfare system. […]
Uploaded by ForaTv on May 29, 2009 Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/05/18/James_Bartholomew_The_Welfare_State_Were_In Author James Bartholomew argues that welfare benefits actually increase government handouts by ‘ruining’ ambition. He compares welfare to a humane mousetrap. —– Welfare reform was working so good. Why did we have to abandon it? Look at this article from 2003. In the controversial […]
Thomas Sowell If the welfare reform law was successful then why change it? Wasn’t Bill Clinton the president that signed into law? Obama Guts Welfare Reform Robert Rector and Kiki Bradley July 12, 2012 at 4:10 pm Today, the Obama Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released an official policy directive rewriting the welfare […]
I have been writing President Obama letters and have not received a personal response yet. (He reads 10 letters a day personally and responds to each of them.) However, I did receive a form letter in the form of an email on July 10, 2012. I don’t know which letter of mine generated this response so I have […]
In the Wall Street Journal, Andy Kessler explains that smaller government is the recipe for more growth.
Winston Churchill…said: “We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucketand trying to lift himself up by the handle.” The U.S. should heed that advice… economic growth is going to come from efficient supply chains and productivity in manufacturing in the U.S. Tax andspending cuts are the cure. …Republicans must resist the urge to subsidize higher energy costs and instead help slay inflation and bring back a strong, productive economy.
Let’s look at some new academic research bolstering Kessler’s argument.
Megha JainAishwarya Nagpal, and Abhay Jain published a study last year in the South Asia Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance.
The key findings deal with the Armey-Rahn Curveand can be found in the abstract.
The current study attempts to examine the linkage between government (public) spending and economic growth in the broader framework of selected South Asian Nations (SANs), BRICS and other emerging nations by using two sets of empirical modelling over the period 2007–2016 by using inverted U-shaped hypothesis, propounded by Armey curve (1995).…The key findings signify the existence of an inverted U-shaped relationship for the selected data set of emerging nations and, therefore, support the Armey curve hypothesis. The projected threshold (tipping) levels (as a percentage of GDP) are 24.31% for the government total expenditures (GTotExp), 12.92% for consumption spending (GConExp) and 7.11% for investment spending (GInvExp). It has been observed that a rise in the public spending (size) resulted in a substantial…decrease…in the growth rate when the public spending was…after…the optimal threshold level, indicating a non-monotonic association.
For what it’s worth, I think the study is wrong and that the growth-maximizing level of government spending is much lower than 24.3 percent of economic output.
But since total government spending in the United States now consumes about 40 percent of GDP, at least we can all agree that there will be more prosperity if America’s fiscal burden is dramatically reduced.
If we ever bring the spending burden back down to 24.3 percent of economic output, we can then figure out whether the ultimate goal is even lower (as it was for much of America’s history).
There is one point from the study that merits further attention. The authors estimated not only the growth-maximizing level of total spending, but also how much the government should spend on “consumption” and “investment” outlays (an issue I addressed last month).
Here’s a chart from the study showing that consumption outlays should be less than 13 percent of economic output.
P.S. If you want to watch videos that address the growth-maximizing size of government, click here, here, here, here, and here.
P.P.S. Ironically, the case for smaller government is bolstered by research from normally left-leaning international bureaucracies such as the OECD, World Bank, ECB, and IMF.
March 31, 2021
President Biden c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
Please explain to me if you ever do plan to balance the budget while you are President? I have written these things below about you and I really do think that you don’t want to cut spending in order to balance the budget. It seems you ever are daring the Congress to stop you from spending more.
“The credit of the United States ‘is not a bargaining chip,’ Obama said on 1-14-13. However, President Obama keeps getting our country’s credit rating downgraded as he raises the debt ceiling higher and higher!!!!
Washington Could Learn a Lot from a Drug Addict
Just spend more, don’t know how to cut!!! Really!!! That is not living in the real world is it?
Making more dependent on government is not the way to go!!
Why is our government in over 16 trillion dollars in debt? There are many reasons for this but the biggest reason is people say “Let’s spend someone else’s money to solve our problems.” Liberals like Max Brantley have talked this way for years. Brantley will say that conservatives are being harsh when they don’t want the government out encouraging people to be dependent on the government. The Obama adminstration has even promoted a plan for young people to follow like Julia the Moocher.
Imagine standing a baby carrot up next to the 25-story Stephens building in Little Rock. That gives you a picture of the impact on the national debt that federal spending in Arkansas on Medicaid expansion would have, while here at home expansion would give coverage to more than 200,000 of our neediest citizens, create jobs, and save money for the state.
Here’s the thing: while more than a billion dollars a year in federal spending would represent a big-time stimulus for Arkansas, it’s not even a drop in the bucket when it comes to the national debt.
Currently, the national debt is around $16.4 trillion. In fiscal year 2015, the federal government would spend somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.2 billion to fund Medicaid expansion in Arkansas if we say yes. That’s about 1/13,700th of the debt.
It’s hard to get a handle on numbers that big, so to put that in perspective, let’s get back to the baby carrot. Imagine that the height of the Stephens building (365 feet) is the $16 trillion national debt. That $1.2 billion would be the length of a ladybug. Of course, we’re not just talking about one year if we expand. Between now and 2021, the federal government projects to contribute around $10 billion. The federal debt is projected to be around $25 trillion by then, so we’re talking about 1/2,500th of the debt. Compared to the Stephens building? That’s a baby carrot.
______________
Here is how it will all end if everyone feels they should be allowed to have their “baby carrot.”
How sad it is that liberals just don’t get this reality.
While living in Europe in the 1760s, Franklin observed: “in different countries … the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.”
Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee(15 October 1747 – 5 January 1813) was a Scottish lawyer, writer, and professor. Tytler was also a historian, and he noted, “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy.”
[Jefferson affirms that the main purpose of society is to enable human beings to keep the fruits of their labor.— TGW]
To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, “the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.” If the overgrown wealth of an individual be deemed dangerous to the State, the best corrective is the law of equal inheritance to all in equal degree; and the better, as this enforces a law of nature, while extra taxation violates it.
[From Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Albert E. Bergh (Washington: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1904), 14:466.]
_______
Jefferson pointed out that to take from the rich and give to the poor through government is just wrong. Franklin knew the poor would have a better path upward without government welfare coming their way. Milton Friedman’s negative income tax is the best method for doing that and by taking away all welfare programs and letting them go to the churches for charity.
_____________
_________
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733
We got to act fast and get off this path of socialism. Morning Bell: Welfare Spending Shattering All-Time Highs Robert Rector and Amy Payne October 18, 2012 at 9:03 am It’s been a pretty big year for welfare—and a new report shows welfare is bigger than ever. The Obama Administration turned a giant spotlight […]
We need to cut Food Stamp program and not extend it. However, it seems that people tell the taxpayers back home they are going to Washington and cut government spending but once they get up there they just fall in line with everyone else that keeps spending our money. I am glad that at least […]
Government Must Cut Spending Uploaded by HeritageFoundation on Dec 2, 2010 The government can cut roughly $343 billion from the federal budget and they can do so immediately. __________ Liberals argue that the poor need more welfare programs, but I have always argued that these programs enslave the poor to the government. Food Stamps Growth […]
Milton Friedman – The Negative Income Tax Published on May 11, 2012 by LibertyPen In this 1968 interview, Milton Friedman explained the negative income tax, a proposal that at minimum would save taxpayers the 72 percent of our current welfare budget spent on administration. http://www.LibertyPen.com Source: Firing Line with William F Buckley Jr. ________________ Milton […]
Dan Mitchell Commenting on Obama’s Failure to Propose a Fiscal Plan Published on Aug 16, 2012 by danmitchellcato No description available. ___________ After the Welfare State Posted by David Boaz Cato senior fellow Tom G. Palmer, who is lecturing about freedom in Slovenia and Tbilisi this week, asked me to post this announcement of his […]
Is President Obama gutting the welfare reform that Bill Clinton signed into law? Morning Bell: Obama Denies Gutting Welfare Reform Amy Payne August 8, 2012 at 9:15 am The Obama Administration came out swinging against its critics on welfare reform yesterday, with Press Secretary Jay Carney saying the charge that the Administration gutted the successful […]
Thomas Sowell – Welfare Welfare reform was working so good. Why did we have to abandon it? Look at this article from 2003. The Continuing Good News About Welfare Reform By Robert Rector and Patrick Fagan, Ph.D. February 6, 2003 Six years ago, President Bill Clinton signed legislation overhauling part of the nation’s welfare system. […]
Uploaded by ForaTv on May 29, 2009 Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2009/05/18/James_Bartholomew_The_Welfare_State_Were_In Author James Bartholomew argues that welfare benefits actually increase government handouts by ‘ruining’ ambition. He compares welfare to a humane mousetrap. —– Welfare reform was working so good. Why did we have to abandon it? Look at this article from 2003. In the controversial […]
Thomas Sowell If the welfare reform law was successful then why change it? Wasn’t Bill Clinton the president that signed into law? Obama Guts Welfare Reform Robert Rector and Kiki Bradley July 12, 2012 at 4:10 pm Today, the Obama Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released an official policy directive rewriting the welfare […]
I have been writing President Obama letters and have not received a personal response yet. (He reads 10 letters a day personally and responds to each of them.) However, I did receive a form letter in the form of an email on July 10, 2012. I don’t know which letter of mine generated this response so I have […]
To understand why I’m concerned, look at the most-recent edition of the Congressional Budget Office’s long-run fiscal forecast.
It shows that the burden of government spending is going to substantially increase over the next three decades – largely due to the unchecked growth of entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
Failure to control spending will mean two bad things – either huge tax increases or staggering levels of debt. Probably both.
And if politicians add more spending (as Biden has already done), then those long-run trend lines will get even worse.
My concern is that some national conservatives are unwilling to confront this problem and/or they support policies to make matters worse.
But first, in the interest of fairness, bigger government is not an inherent part of the national conservatism platform. At least based on the statement of principles published by The American Conservative.
That document, signed by the key advocates of national conservatism, lists 10 concepts, most of which are good from a libertarian perspective and only one of which is overtly troubling.
National independence (I cheer for anyone opposed to global governance)
Rejection of imperialism and globalism(they’re opposed to the bad form of globalism)
But don’t believe me. Bill McGurn of the Wall Street Journalmakes similar points.
Mr. Cass’s movement insists (rightly) that purely economic and material measures are limited. But whenever they move beyond rhetoric to specifics, their preferred solutions almost always turn out to be economic interventions, from child tax credits to industrial policy. …Even a cursory glance at the record of the past half-century shows government often doing the most harm to people precisely when it is trying to help them. Federal efforts to promote homeownership ended up encouraging banks to lend people more than they could afford and feeding a housing bubble. Federal college loans helped drive up tuition while leaving Americans $1.6 trillion in debt. As we ought to have learned from the Great Society, well-intentioned government policies can do immense damage to families and communities. Unfortunately, when it comes to getting the toothpaste back in the tube, government has shown much less success.
The bottom line is that national conservatives always seem to advocate bigger government when they develop or endorse specific policies.
And, to the best of my knowledge, none of them have put forth any agenda to deal with the spending problem that already exists.
That’s an agenda that guarantees future tax increases. And, for what it’s worth, one of the advocates already has embraced a tax-the-rich agenda to help finance the national conservative agenda.
In the case of business taxation, the most visually powerful evidence for the Laffer Curve is what happened to corporate tax revenue in Ireland after the corporate tax rate was slashed from 50 percent to 12.5 percent.
Tax revenue increased dramatically. Not just in nominal terms. Not just in inflation-adjusted terms.
Corporate receipts actually climbed as a share of GDP.
And this was during the decades when economic output was rapidly expanding.
Now let’s look at some evidence from a new study. Three professors from the University of Utah (Jeffrey Coles, Elena Patel, and Nather Seegert), and a Treasury Department economist (Matthew Smith) estimated what happens to taxable income for U.S. companies when there is a change in the corporate tax rate.
In response to a 10% increase in the expected marginal tax rate, private U.S. firms decrease taxable income by 9.1%, which indicates a discernibly more elastic response than prevailing estimates. This response reflects a decrease in taxable income of 3.0%arising from real economic responses to a firm’s scale of operations and 6.1% arising from accounting transactions via (for example) revenue and expense timing. Responsiveness to the corporate tax rate is more elastic if a firm uses cash (9.9%) rather than accrual accounting (7.4%), if the firm is small (9.9%) rather than large (8.6%), and if the firm discounts future cash flows at a lower rate.
The paper is filled with equation, graphs, and jargon, but the above excerpt tells us everything we need to know.
When tax rates go up, taxable income goes down (both because there is less economic activity and because companies have more incentive to manipulate the tax code).
But it does mean that politicians will not grab as much money as they hope when they increase tax rates. And that they won’t lose as much revenue as they fear when they lower tax rates (and we saw that most recently with the 2017 tax reform).
I’ll close by noting that this is additional evidence for why we should be thankful that Biden’s proposal for higher corporate tax rates was not enacted.
P.S. The chart at the beginning of this column may be the most visually powerful evidence for the corporate Laffer Curve. The most empirically powerful evidence, however, comes from very unlikely sources – the pro-tax IMF and the pro-tax OECD.
March 3, 2021
President Biden c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
______________________________
Dan Mitchell shows how ignoring the Laffer Curve is like running a stop sign!!!!
I’m thinking of inventing a game, sort of a fiscal version of Pin the Tail on the Donkey.
Only the way it will work is that there will be a map of the world and the winner will be the blindfolded person who puts their pin closest to a nation such asAustralia or Switzerland that has a relatively low risk of long-run fiscal collapse.
That won’t be an easy game to win since we have data from the BIS, OECD, and IMF showing that government is growing far too fast in the vast majority of nations.
We also know that many states and cities suffer from the same problems.
A handful of local governments already have hit the fiscal brick wall, with many of them (gee, what a surprise) from California.
The most spectacular mess, though, is about to happen in Michigan.
After decades of sad and spectacular decline, it has come to this for Detroit: The city is $19 billion in debt and on the edge of becoming the nation’s largest municipal bankruptcy. An emergency manager says the city can make good on only a sliver of what it owes — in many cases just pennies on the dollar.
I could continue with a long list of profligate governments, but you get the idea. Some of these governments are collapsing at a quicker pace and some at a slower pace. But all of them are in deep trouble because they don’t follow my Golden Rule about restraining the burden of government spending so that it grows slower than the private sector.
Detroit obviously is an example of a government that is collapsing sooner rather than later.
Why? Simply stated, as the size and scope of the public sector increased, that created very destructive economic and political dynamics.
More and more people got lured into the wagon of government dependency, which puts an ever-increasing burden on a shrinking pool of producers.
Meanwhile, organized interest groups such as government bureaucrats used their political muscle to extract absurdly excessive compensation packages, putting an even larger burden of the dwindling supply of taxpayers.
But that’s not the main focus of this post. Instead, I want to highlight a particular excerpt from the article and make a point about how too many people are blindly – perhaps willfully – ignorant of the Laffer Curve.
Check out this sentence.
Property tax collections are down 20 percent and income tax collections are down by more than a third in just the past five years — despite some of the highest tax rates in the state.
This is a classic “Fox Butterfield mistake,” which occurs when someone fails to recognize a cause-effect relationship. In this case, the reporter should have recognized that tax collections are down because Detroit has very high tax rates.
The city has a lot more problems than just high tax rates, of course, but can there be any doubt that productive people have very little incentive to earn and report taxable income in Detroit?
And that’s the essential insight of the Laffer Curve. Politicians can’t – or at least shouldn’t – assume that a 20 percent increase in tax rates will lead to a 20 percent increase in tax revenue. They also have to consider the degree to which a higher tax rate will cause a change in taxable income.
In some cases, higher tax rates will discourage people from earning more taxable income.
In some cases, higher tax rates will discourage people from reporting all the income they earn.
In some cases, higher tax rates will encourage people to utilize tax loopholes to shrink their taxable income.
In some cases, higher tax rates will encourage migration, thus causing taxable income to disappear.
The Laffer Curve charts a relationship between tax rates and tax revenue. While the theory behind the Laffer Curve is widely accepted, the concept has become very controversial because politicians on both sides of the debate exaggerate. This video shows the middle ground between those who claim “all tax cuts pay for themselves” and those who claim tax policy has no impact on economic performance. This video, focusing on the theory of the Laffer Curve, is Part I of a three-part series. Part II reviews evidence of Laffer-Curve responses. Part III discusses how the revenue-estimating process in Washington can be improved. For more information please visit the Center for Freedom and Prosperity’s web site: http://www.freedomandprosperity.org
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733,
We got to cut spending or we will be in a fiscal crisis like Greece!!! Question of the Week: Has the European Fiscal Crisis Ended? January 12, 2013 by Dan Mitchell I’ve frequently commented on Europe’s fiscal mess and argued that excessive government spending is responsible for both the sovereign debt crisis and the economic stagnation […]
The Flat Tax: How it Works and Why it is Good for America Uploaded by afq2007 on Mar 29, 2010 This Center for Freedom and Prosperity Foundation video shows how the flat tax would benefit families and businesses, and also explains how this simple and fair system would boost economic growth and eliminate the special-interest […]
I have put up lots of cartoons from Dan Mitchell’s blog before and they have got lots of hits before. Many of them have dealt with the economy, eternal unemployment benefits, socialism, Greece, welfare state or on gun control. President Obama really does think that all his answers lie in raising taxes on the rich when the […]
__________ President Reagan, Nancy Reagan, Tom Selleck, Dudley Moore, Lucille Ball at a Tribute to Bob Hope’s 80th birthday at the Kennedy Center. 5/20/83. __________________________ Dan Mitchell is very good at giving speeches and making it very simple to understand economic policy and how it affects a nation. Mitchell also talks about slowing the growth […]
The Laffer Curve – Explained Uploaded by Eddie Stannard on Nov 14, 2011 This video explains the relationship between tax rates, taxable income, and tax revenue. The key lesson is that the Laffer Curve is not an all-or-nothing proposition, where we have to choose between the exaggerated claim that “all tax cuts pay for themselves” […]
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. The way […]
Dan Mitchell does a great job explaining the Laffer Curve President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a […]
I have put up lots of cartoons from Dan Mitchell’s blog before and they have got lots of hits before. Many of them have dealt with the economy, eternal unemployment benefits, socialism, Greece, welfare state or on gun control. Today’s cartoon deals with the Laffer curve. Revenge of the Laffer Curve…Again and Again and Again March 27, 2013 […]
I have put up lots of cartoons from Dan Mitchell’s blog before and they have got lots of hits before. Many of them have dealt with the sequester, economy, eternal unemployment benefits, socialism, minimum wage laws, tax increases, social security, high taxes in California, Obamacare, Greece, welfare state or on gun control. President Obama’s favorite state must be California because […]
Class Warfare just don’t pay it seems. Why can’t we learn from other countries’ mistakes? Class Warfare Tax Policy Causes Portugal to Crash on the Laffer Curve, but Will Obama Learn from this Mistake? December 31, 2012 by Dan Mitchell Back in mid-2010, I wrote that Portugal was going to exacerbate its fiscal problems by raising […]
Republicans would be stupid to raise taxes. Don’t Get Bamboozled by the Fiscal Cliff: Five Policy Reasons and Five Political Reasons Why Republicans Should Keep their No-Tax-Hike Promises December 6, 2012 by Dan Mitchell The politicians claim that they are negotiating about how best to reduce the deficit. That irks me because our fiscal problem is […]
The Laffer Curve – Explained Uploaded by Eddie Stannard on Nov 14, 2011 This video explains the relationship between tax rates, taxable income, and tax revenue. The key lesson is that the Laffer Curve is not an all-or-nothing proposition, where we have to choose between the exaggerated claim that “all tax cuts pay for themselves” […]
Dan Mitchell’s article and the video from his organization takes a hard look at President Obama’s tax record. Dissecting Obama’s Record on Tax Policy October 30, 2012 by Dan Mitchell The folks at the Center for Freedom and Prosperity have been on a roll in the past few months, putting out an excellent series of videos […]
The Laffer Curve, Part I: Understanding the Theory Uploaded by afq2007 on Jan 28, 2008 The Laffer Curve charts a relationship between tax rates and tax revenue. While the theory behind the Laffer Curve is widely accepted, the concept has become very controversial because politicians on both sides of the debate exaggerate. This video shows […]
I got to hear Arthur Laffer speak back in 1981 and he predicted what would happen in the next few years with the Reagan tax cuts and he was right with every prediction. The Laffer Curve Wreaks Havoc in the United Kingdom July 1, 2012 by Dan Mitchell Back in 2010, I excoriated the new […]
You can’t blame someone for leaving one state for another if they have a better an opportunity to make money. Maryland to Texas, but Not Okay to Move from the United States to Singapore? July 12, 2012 by Dan Mitchell I’ve commented before about entrepreneurs, investors, and small business owners migrating from high tax states such […]
Raising taxes will not work. Liberals act like the Laffer Curve does not exist. The Laffer Curve Shows that Tax Increases Are a Very Bad Idea – even if They Generate More Tax Revenue April 10, 2012 by Dan Mitchell The Laffer Curve is a graphical representation of the relationship between tax rates, tax revenue, and […]
Dan Mitchell of the Cato Institute shows why Obama’s plan to tax the rich will not solve our deficit problem. Explaining in the New York Post Why Obama’s Soak-the-Rich Tax Policy Is Doomed to Failure April 17, 2012 by Dan Mitchell I think high tax rates on certain classes of citizens are immoral and discriminatory. If the […]
You want the rich to pay more? Dan Mitchell observed:I explained that “rich” taxpayers declared much more income and paid much higher taxes after Reagan reduced the top tax rate from 70 percent to 28 percent. Liberals don’t understand good tax policies. Against 3-1 Odds, Promoting Good Tax Policy on Government TV April 12, 2012 by […]
Class warfare again from President Obama. Rejecting the Buffett Rule and Fighting Obama’s Class Warfare on CNBC April 10, 2012 by Dan Mitchell I’ve already explained why Warren Buffett is either dishonest or clueless about tax policy. Today, on CNBC, I got to debate the tax scheme that President Obama has named after the Omaha investor. […]
Today I’m going to change hats and pretend to be a political pundit so I can offer some unsolicited advice to my Republican friends.
If they like to win elections, they need to realize that Donald Trump is bad news.
Yes, he beat a very unpopular Hillary Clinton in 2016, but every subsequent election has produced Republican disappointment.
The 2018 midterm elections.
The 2020 presidential election.
The 2022 midterm elections.
What should most upset the GOP is that Trump has given Democrats control of the Senate twice. First, by depressing Republican turnout in the two Georgia runoff contests with his sore-loser routine about stolen elections in the 2020 cycle. Second, by convincing Republican voters to nominate inferior candidates in the 2022 cycle.
But the fault is not entirely with Trump.
As illustrated by this cartoon, a significant share of Republican voters like Trump and this gives him enormous power over the GOP.
The interesting question to answer is why many rank-and-file Republicans feel so loyal to Trump – even though he often supported bad policies and has helped Democrats gain power in Washington.
One thing that surprised me over the past four yeas is that I found strong support for Trump from grassroots conservative Republicans. Yes, they didn’t like his fiscal profligacy and they mostly didn’t like his protectionism, but they did like the fact that he was a “fighter,” unlike so many (but not all) Republican politicians who get cozy with the DC establishment. They also figured he was worth supporting because he was so reviled by the establishment media (i.e., the enemy of my enemy is my friend).
I think that analysis still applies, but let’s dig deeper. Another problem is that Republican voters think anti-Trump GOP politicians must be bad (closet Democrats, or something like that).
But that binary analysis – the Trump camp vs the every-other-Republican camp – is woefully inadequate.
I think it’s more accurate (though obviously simplified) to look at the Republican Party as having three camps. And here’s a Venn diagram with my amateur depiction of what unites and divides them.
I’m sure many of you already know my conclusion, which is that the Republican Party should opt for Reaganism.
I’ve written many times why it is good policy, so I’ll conclude by elaborating on why it is good politics.
Simply stated, Trump voters don’t trust establishment Republicans. They view them as proponents of things they don’t like such as bailouts, globalism, and amnesty.
And establishment Republicans obviously don’t like Trump and Trumpie candidates, even if only for stylistic reasons.
Below is a full transcript of Trump’s speech, which started with a new video, combining Sean Hannity‘s voice speaking over clips of Biden’s Thursday speech.
A man waves an American flag depicting former President Donald Trump outside the Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on Saturday ahead of the campaign rally where Trump will support candidates Dr. Mehmet Oz and Doug Mastriano.SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES
Full text of former President Donald Trump’s Pennsylvania speech
Well thank you very much and hello, Pennsylvania. Hi.
I’m thrilled to be back in this incredible Commonwealth with the thousands of proud hardworking American patriots that I have gotten to know so well.
Two months from now, the people of Pennsylvania going to fire the radical left Democrats and you are going to elect, Doug Mastriano is your next governor.
You’re going to send my friend Oz, Oz is a great guy, to the U.S. Senate. you’re going to elect an amazing slate of true America First Republicans to Congress. We are going to end the Nancy Pelosipolitical career, the Biden political career.
Our country is going to hell.
This election is a referendum on skyrocketing inflation, ramping crime, soaring murders, crushing gas prices, millions and millions of illegal aliens pouring across our border, race and gender indoctrination, converting our schools and above all this election is a referendum on the corruption and extremism of Joe Biden and the radical Democrat party.
If you want to stop this destruction of America, you must vote Republican you gotta get out
As you know this week Joe Biden came to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to give the most vicious, hateful and divisive speech ever delivered by an American president, vilifying 75 million citizens, plus another probably 75 to 150.
If we want to be accurate about it, As threats to democracy and as enemies of the state, you’re all enemies of the state. He’s an enemy of the state, you know that? The enemy of the state is him and the group that control him, which is circling around him, ‘Do this. do that Joe, you’re going to do this Joe.”
Right. I think Philadelphia was a great choice to make this speech of hatred and anger. His speech was hatred and anger. By the way, the next morning he forgot what he said, you saw that.
I do like the red lighting behind him, like the devil.
But Philadelphia was a great choice because the city is being devastated under Democrat rules. Devastated. He could tell you, we love Pennsylvania. I went to school in Philadelphia, what’s happening to Philadelphia?
Fourteen people were shot last weekend in Philadelphia, 14, and the fake news will—God, that’s a lot of fake news lately. A lot of fake news.
Well, they’ll go out and check the facts for people were killed last weekend. At one point last month, seven people were shot in the span of just 71 minutes, in Philadelphia this year. Philadelphia has already seen more than 1,400 people shot including numerous beautiful little children.
Last year, the city set an all time murder record with 560 homicides, and it’s on track to shatter that record. Again in 2022 numbers that nobody’s ever seen other than some other Democrat-run cities. Armed robberies in Philadelphia are up 62 percent. Doug, you have to take care of this. You have to take care of it, and we’ll send you the goods, I’ll send him the goods. You know what the goods are: lots of police officers. That’s what the goods are.
Retail theft is up 59 percent from last year.
There have been more than 750 carjackings this year. Anybody have a nice car, because you’re not gonna have it long. More than triple the average for 2010 to 2019. And it’s heading way up heading up in other cities that are run by Democrats also.
Instead of trying to demonize half of the population, Biden and congressional Democrats should focus on stopping the killing and the bloodshed in Philadelphia and every other Democrat-run city in America where record death and destruction is taking place every single day.
Biden thinks making America great again is bad for our country. Do you believe it? That was in his—Biden says “We got to stop MAGA.” That’s when I defined it, because I don’t think he knows what it meant. It means “make America great again.” We have to stop it. Stop MAGA. Stop making America great again.
He thinks making America great again is a threat to our country. No, making America great again is great for our country.
There’s only one party that’s waging war in American democracy by censoring free speech, criminalizing dissent. You see that happening? Disarming law-abiding citizens, issuing lawless mandates and unconstitutional orders, imprisoning political protesters. That’s what they’re doing, rigging elections. weaponizing the Justice Department and the FBI like never ever before. And raiding and breaking into the homes of their political opponents. I wonder who that could be.
Republicans in the MAGA movement are not the ones trying to undermine our democracy. We are the ones trying to save our democracy very simple. The danger to democracy comes from the radical left, not from the right. Not from the right.
This November, we’re going to stand up to this rising tyranny of sickness, lawlessness And death. And we are going to take back our country. We’re going to take it.
There could be no more vivid example of the very real threats from American freedom. And just a few weeks ago, you saw when we witnessed one of the most shocking abuses of power by any administration in American history, the shameful raid and breaking into my home Mar-a-Lago was a travesty of justice.
That made a mockery of America’s laws, traditions and principles. Before the entire world the entire world was watching and they’re shocked. They’re shocked. South American countries, numerous of them, their leaders said could you imagine if that was ever done in our country? What the United States would be saying about us. The Biden administration invaded the home of their chief political opponent who is absolutely destroying him and everyone else in the polls. I hate to say it.
Even including the Republicans, but we love the Republicans, on a phony pretext getting permission from a highly political magistrate who they hand-picked late in the evening, just days before the break-in. And trampled upon my rights and civil liberties as if our country, that we love so much. We’re a third world nation. We’re like a third world nation.
They rifled through the First Lady’s closet drawers and everything else, and even did a deep and ugly search of the room of my 16-year-old son, leaving everything they touched in far different conditions than it was when they started. Can you believe it?
The FBI and the Justice Department have become vicious monsters. controlled by radical left scoundrels lawyers and the media who tell them what to do—you people right there—and when to do it.
They’re trying to silence me and more importantly, they are trying to silence you. But we will not be silenced, right. We will never stop speaking the truth. We have no choice because we’re not going to have a country love. The evil and malice of this demented persecution of you and me should be obvious to all entities.
Thank you. That yet, now, the same people, the exact same people are sending the FBI storming through the home of their number one political rival. It’s a disgrace, a disgrace, like possibly never before. Our country has never seen anything like it. They talked about documents not being properly stored. Yet they go in and take documents, dump them on the floor, stage a photoshoot, and pretend that I had done it like I had put them all over the floor.
They took that back. After a lot of product then they put out for public consumption, a picture which is seen all over the world. this is what they do. it’s called disinformation. These are very dishonest, sick people. Very dishonest people.
Americans are sick of the lies sick of the hoaxes and scams, and above all sick of the hypocrisy. But our opponents have badly miscalculated. This egregious abuse of the law is going to produce a backlash the likes of which nobody has ever seen before.
Before our very eyes, our beloved country is being taken over by the very people who turned democracies into dictatorships and into ultimately, ruination. They think they can divide us but they can’t. Can’t divide us.
The MAGA movement is the greatest in the history of our country. And maybe in the history of the world, maybe in the history of the world.
In any event, we have no choice. We are trying to save our country because such bad things are happening to our beautiful, beloved America. We will make America great again. I will never turn my back on you.
And you will never turn your back on me because we love our nation. And we will save our nation from people who are trying to destroy it. It was not just my home that was rated last month. It was the hopes and dreams of every citizen who I’ve been fighting for since the moment I came down the golden escalator in 2015, wanting to represent the people. Wanting to stop the massive corruption in our country and determined to finally in this world, put America first. I want to put America first and we did.
We did.
There’s never been a period of time, both before COVID—or the China virus as we say—and after COVID. From that moment on, I became the enemy of the Washington swamp for six years. The radical Democrat party, the RINOs, the media and the Deep State have tried relentlessly to stop me and you.
First they fabricated the Russia Russia Russia scam you so it was a total fabrication. Now they all admit it. Then we had impeachment hoax number one, impeachment hoax number two, and now the same exact people at Justice and the FBI, the same people along with outside scum, are at it again with the horrific raid of my home.
They just go on and on. And they have to be stopped. We have to spend time on our country, not on defending ourselves against scams.
Think about it, about Russia and the Muller—no collusion, right? Came in no collusion. That was your decision after two and a half years, no collusion. I could have told them that after the first hour. And they could have said that because they had the laptop from hell, which had everything, so they knew immediately.
But it went on—but think of this, you know what, I tell this story on occasion very seldom because it’s too sad to tell. But I tell this story because it’s very important. Russia Russia Russia was a hoax. It was developed by Hillary Clinton and a group of people. Small group around the kitchen table, as a way of explaining why she lost an election that a lot of people thought she would win because the Democrats have an advantage in elections. Because of a lot of things, aside from the fact they cheat like hell.
So when they lost, Hillary Clinton and her people, guys like Adam “Shifty” Schiff , watermelon head. Watermelon Head, he’s a watermelon head, but no dummy.
Think of this, think how bad they are, think how evil they are. We’re all fathers and your mothers and your children are great people, and all of the people are represented here—think how bad they are. They make up a story that’s false. It’s now been admitted to be false. The FBI is the last one to tell us that. But it’s now admitted even in the newspapers, even by the people back there, they will not fight it. They make up now think of this or think of this.
So they make up a story about Russia. Let’s say, you know, I was tougher on Russia than any president before. I’m the one that stopped Nord Stream II, the pipeline. I’m the one that did the big sanctions.
And I guarantee you one thing, Putin was not going into Ukraine. I guarantee you that. I guarantee you, nobody was tougher than me, but I also got along with them. That’s a good thing. You know, getting along with other countries. It’s a good thing. Not a bad thing, but think of it. So they make up a story, Russia, Russia. Russia. It was made up so that when they launched, they could say it was Russia.
I’m saying, what the hell did Russia have to deal with? It was Russia. Okay, so Adam Schiff knows it’s a fake story. He made it up with other people. They know it’s a fake and I see Adam Schiff go solemnly to the microphones in the Capitol building, And stand. They’re so sad and say, “Donald Trump Jr. will be going to prison because of what he did with Russia.” Now think of it, he knows the story is a scam. He knows the story’s a fake.
And he wants my son, who’s a good kid, he wants my son to go to prison over something that they made up, that they know is a phony story, and has now been, as they say, fully debunked.
In other words, it was a total lie, and he’s standing before microphones with many of those people standing there and they can’t get enough, saying that my son is going to prison. And I then call my son I say, “Donnie, you okay, what’s going on? What’s going on?”
Think of this. If you’re a parent, think of it. My son’s going to prison on something that they made, which is a total hoax. These are bad people. They’re trying to destroy our country, and we can’t let it go on. Any longer because we have too much work to do.
Whether through activist Attorney Generals, the state attorney generals. If I fly over a state, they send me before a grand jury. “Trump is up there. Let’s see what can we do with the grand jury?”
I’ve been going through this for six years now. Local Democrats and county prosecutors, congressional committees or federal agencies, the radical Democrats are engaging in a desperate attempt to keep me from returning to the White House where they know I will clean this mess up again.
They want to stop us from completing our mission to bring back American values. Secure America’s borders, millions and millions of people are pouring into our country. Nobody has any idea where they’re from. Last month, 129 countries were represented. They’re emptying their prisons into the United States of America
They know we’ll continue to fix America’s trade deals. Continue to lower taxes. Nobody gave tax decreases like Trump, bigger than the Reagan cuts. And lower regulations created all of those jobs, defend and protect our police and our military. We have to protect our police. You know, our police want to protect us. They’re stymied from doing it.
We have to protect our police.
No, we’re going to reclaim our energy independence. We’re going to save our Second Amendment which is under siege.
We’ll build our manufacturing base, just like I was doing. In other words, they know that we’re going to make America great again. You know, we had a different saying because after we did so well we were all set. And we had a statement remember Keep America Great. But after they destroyed it, I’d love to use it. But I must say there’s nothing like MAGA.
I don’t know. I don’t know KAG. KAG wasn’t the same. Keep America Great. The problem I had though wasn’t the fact that KAG can’t compete with MAGA, the real problem I had that.
We can’t use the word Keep America Great because they’ve destroyed our country. So we can’t keep it great because it’s not great. Right now. Our country is a laughingstock. Our leaders are a laughingstock.
You know, we just sent another $13 billion to Ukraine, that gets us close to $80 billion now. Well, it angers me more for a different reason. It would have never happened before, Putin really wouldn’t have done it. Said “Vladimir, you’re not gonna do that, Vladimir.”
He knew that. He knew it. He knew it. But he did it soon as the election was rigged and it was considered over. I don’t know if it’s ever going to end, if you look at what’s going on, because more and more facts are coming out, like the FBI with Facebook the other day can you believe but you know what?
Our country, it would have been so inappropriate to say Keep America Great, because who the hell wants to keep our country the way it is right now? I don’t know.
But together, we have easily beaten every single witch hunt in the past think of that—the time and the money and the effort it takes. And now we will likewise do that in the future if they continue their craziness, and if they don’t stop they don’t stop that’s all they’re good at is disinformation, they put out disinformation.
You know, when I heard about Russia was right after I came down that beautiful golden escalator.
First lady, I said “you’ll be a great first lady.” She has been a great first lady. Great first lady. They love our first lady.
But people would come up to me, this was right at the beginning. Right after the escalator ride, but people have shared, “you know anything about Russia?”
Young guys come up, beautiful, staffers, there a lot of them here right now and here all over the place. That just came up to me. You won Pennsylvania by a lot, sir. That’s right. You’re right about that. I think at nine o’clock in the evening, we went 950,000 votes up with 73 percent of the vote cast. All of a sudden, around 3:02 or something, the equipment closed down. It all closed down. And then you had that massive spike. Remember the spike that went to heaven and came back? It should have gone to hell and come back.
And all of a sudden we were tied and then all of a sudden, we lost by a whisper. A rigged election. But the people would come upm some of them are here, “Sir, sir. It’s such an honor to meet you, sir. Sir. Can I ask you a question? You know, what is it? What do you think about Russia?”
No, not really, but I know probably less than you know. But I have a lot of common sense and I know how to defend our country and I’ll end up being friendly with them and will do just fine.
Then a month later another one came up. “Hello, Uncle Sam. Look, send up Uncle Sam.” Great people, great people.
And a month later, another young person came up. A little naive, and said, it was really, actually, was cute. He said, “Oh sir, it’s such an honor to go for a couple of minutes.” He said, “Sir, can I ask you one question has been bothering me.” Yeah, what is it? “Do you, what do you think about Russia?”
And then again and again, then after about five or six times you’re gonna think about Russia. When I looked at my people, my help people that are a little older. I said, “What the hell is going on with Russia?”
This is all I knew what was going on. It was a scam. And we took two and a half years to win. But all of that time and effort and money and the corruption and the people that were in charge of that scam are horrible, and they’re the same people that we have now. They never leave. They never leave. And if we would have had an attorney general with courage, instead of somebody that was afraid to be impeached, so I don’t want to be—we would have gotten to the bottom of the very quickly.
We’ve been waiting for Durham for a long time, Durham, please come in and give us your work, please. You’re up, Durham. We gotta get Durham going here.
But this battle is not about me. This is a struggle for the very fate of our republic. Our movement is fighting against a corrupt group of unelected tyrants who believe they can wield absolute power over you, with the help of a willing and very corrupt media.
They think the deep state, not the citizens should be the true masters of this country.
On our watch, we will never let that happen. And we will never let it happen, even though we’re going to be gone. We’re going to set this country up so strong and so powerfully that we may not be here, at least some of the older ones—that I love you all, but we’re going to have the country set up properly. Like it was before the COVID came in, before the China dust came in.
And even after we handed it off where we had a higher stock market, because we did it twice. We had a higher stock market on January 20 than we did—think of it—the so-called handoff. I hate to even use the term it’s so ridiculous. It’s so ridiculous. I have to use that term. But the handoff, we handed it off, the market was higher than it was just prior to COVID coming into our country. We did an incredible job, an incredible job.
But we have no choice in 2022 and 2024. We have to smash the grip of his vile and vindictive political class. We have to clean house in Washington, D.C. and we have to restore government for the people.
If we do not, our republic and, indeed, our country will be destroyed and we will never be able to do what is called a comeback. You won’t be able to do it. It’ll never come back again.
It’s so fragile, you know, it’s so fragile. You will never bring it back again. You remember in the campaign, I used to say if these people get in we’re going to end up with Venezuela on steroids. I said it many many times. I never thought it was much of a possibility. But I never knew people could cheat like that. Not like last week. Weirdo. He’s a weirdo.
Mark Zuckerberg came to the White House, kissed my ass all night. “Sir, I’d love to have dinner, sir. I’d love to have dinner. I’d love to bring my lovely wife.” All right, Mark, come on in. “Sir, you’re number one on Facebook. I’d like to congratulate you.” Thank you very much, Mark. I appreciate it.
Well, Mark Zuckerberg confessed that in 2020, the FBI went to Facebook and the media and gave them the false narratives that the Hunter Biden laptop from Hell was Russian disinformation, even though they knew that was not true. So they went in they said it was Russian disinformation, by the way. The guy that came in with that stuff just got fired. He perp-walked, he was perp-walked out of the FBI on Friday.
But that doesn’t help us, and the election of 2020, that doesn’t help us. They perp-walked him because of all the things he did. So many more than what we’re even talking about. The FBI made it clear that they did not want the truth about the criminality and influence peddling of the Biden family coming out before the election, because that would hurt the chances of Joe Biden who virtually never left his basement winning the election.
You know, he came to Philadelphia, as you know, you know many people they had almost nobody showed up. And we have a lot of people. A lot of people, and we’re not even talking about all the people outside that couldn’t get in, because you have better real estate, right? We got a lot of people outside watching. I hope they’re watching the big screens we put up outside.
You know this place? I think it holds 12,000 people. So we sold out in about 15 seconds and I said what are we going to do? For the people that can’t get in? That’s why a lot of times, I like fields because fields, you could just keep having them. In Alabama, we had 66,000 people. Figure this: Outside of Houston, Texas, we had 89,000 people show up.
But what the FBI did was corruption and election interference on a scale that we have never seen before in our country. According to pollsters, it made a 10 to 20 point difference, not even including all of the other totally determinative evidence of illegality that was found having to do with the 2020 presidential election scam, including ballot stuffing and not adhering to the laws, rules and regulations of state legislatures, which is totally illegal. They just did whatever they wanted to do. And frankly, Republicans locally that ran things in a lot of states—should be ashamed of themselves.
Should be ashamed of yourself. And a guy like Mitch McConnell, who allowed this stuff to happen, should be ashamed. You should be ashamed. The 2020 election was rigged, and now our country is being destroyed by people who got into office through cheating and through fraud.
Now watch, the cameras will all turn off as soon as I say that because they’re not allowed to put the cameras. They’ll all turn off. They don’t want to hear that. They don’t want to hear that. You know why?
But Republican leadership just doesn’t fight because in many cases, they are intimidated. They’re afraid they’re actually afraid, Republicans must get tougher and stronger and fast.
The way I’ll tell you a guy that fought back that’s why he’s here. Today is your nominee. Doug Mastriano. He fought, he fought, but he was dealing with RINOs, all such crap.
Doug, you fought like very few people fought, that’s really why he’s here, because everybody saw that. He fought. You know, after people figured it out. They all ran on the basis of “we’re gonna stop” but they were not there. He was there at the beginning. And the people understood it.
So the big deal—by the way, I saw a poll today, Doug, that you’re tied or up one point. Just so you know, again, all they do well is cheat on elections and use this information. So when he’s running, he’s got a big base, and he won by a lot. He won by even more when I endorsed him, but that’s okay. And you know what?
They said this guy Shapiro, who’s a lightweight, they said the following. They saw he was going to win, he was doing well, he was way up and he had a big base and they don’t like that. So what do they do? “The one we really want to run against is Doug Mastriano. That’s the one.”
Well, they say that one every time, they have somebody that’s going to kick their ass, they go out and they say, “go on, we want to run again.” The one person they didn’t want to run against is Doug Mastriano. This information I kept hearing it, I’d be out I see the people going crazy for Doug, for his incredible wife but it’s true.
He was right there from the beginning, day one, got to fight the Republicans and the Democrats, yet to fight people. American elections should be determined only by the American people. And that did not happen in 2020. and I’m just talking to FBI but there are many, many other things. We won’t go into it.
The Mar-a-Lago raid was a desperate effort to distract from Joe Biden’s record of misery and failure. The many disasters that our country in the world are now suffering would never ever have happened. If I was in the White House, you all know that all of this stuff when you could take the five worst presidents in American history and put them together, and they would not have done the damage Joe Biden has done to our country in less than two years. They could not have done it.
Two years ago when I was in office, gas was $1.87.
We weren’t talking about going to all electric cars which are twice as expensive. I mean, the problem is—a friend of mine wanted to do something for the environment. He went out and bought a electric car and he made a certain trip. I won’t say from where—Kentucky—I won’t say from, and he’s a good person. He wants to do what’s well, now he understands. Not so good.
And he bought an electric car and he made the trip often from Kentucky to Washington, and he made it and he drove down and put the car away and drive back. He was getting like 38 miles a gallon and he was fine. And then he goes to hybrids and all the other things they can do.
But he wanted to go all-electric, because he wants to save our country, wants to save the atmosphere. And he called me, he said “I’m exhausted.” Why? He said, “This damn trip took me forever. I drive for two hours, and then I’d have to have my car charged. And in two cases I couldn’t find a place to charge it, but even if I could, it took me more time to charge the damn car than I could spend in it driving.”
He said, “It took me two and a half times. Please Please let’s get rid of this stuff. Please.” And you see in California, you see what’s happening there, with going all electric cars. Number one, people can’t afford them. Number two, the batteries are made all in China, all the earth, the rare earth comes out of China.
And interesting. We have all the guests, and the guests to leave the gasoline, when it’s refined. We have it all right under us, we don’t have any of the other stuff. And if we did, our environmentalists wouldn’t let us take it. It all comes out of China and a little bit in the Congo, guess who controls the Congo, China.
We play right into their hands you see where I’m getting a lot of great press because I told Germany, don’t make a deal with Russia on the pipeline. And they said, “Oh, that’s so funny.” I actually didn’t during the meeting, G7, I sent, Angela, Angela Merkel, a white flag of surrender. She said, “Donald, Donald, but why’d you send me this white flag?”
I said, “Angela, you’re going to surrender, 75 percent of your energy is coming from Russia. If you look back over the decades, Russia and Germany haven’t done too well together. When there’s a war, when there’s a problem, they’ll just turn it off, Nord Stream II, and Angela, you’re not going to be able to defend yourself.” “Oh, that will never happen.”
Well, that was about two years ago. The only thing, I never thought it was gonna happen this fast. And now they’re giving me great—remember, I made the speech at the United Nations. And the German delegation was all smiling. They thought it was so funny. They’re not smiling. No one said it better than me. They’re not smiling.
But now gas is $5 and $6 and $7. And it’s going to be going up. Think of it, and they brag because it came down slightly. You know, it came down about 42 cents.
We actually had it down to $1.42. Remember that? But I had to get it a little up. We had to let the oil companies make a couple of bucks. I didn’t want to wipe out the oil companies.
But what’s happened is one of the big reasons for inflation is what this guy has done with energy, because energy is so all-encompassing. It’s so big. With the help of Pennsylvania energy workers. Did you get screwed or what? Remember, I told you they were gonna do this to you. He lied during the debate. He said, “No, no, I would never do that.” The first thing he did practically was kill the pipeline. Right? That was like the first thing he did.
And you know, all those workers voted for me, but the head of the Union voted. I wonder if he’s still the head, check it out. He ought to be fired real fast. The Keystone pipeline would have been great. A lot of jobs, would have done a good job, with the help of Pennsylvania energy workers, under my leadership. We had American energy independence for the first time ever, ever.
And within a short period of time, we would have been energy-dominant. We would have been bigger that Russia and Saudi Arabia combined, times two, and now we’re beggars.
We’re like a beggar nation. You think that, we’re energy beggars, we would have been bigger than everybody combined. The two biggest, the biggest energy suppliers combined times two. We’re going to be energy-dominant and figures we gave you the largest tax cuts and regulation cuts in American history. The radical Democrat Congress just passed one of the largest tax hikes in American history, pulverizing the middle class and now you have the privilege of having 87,000 IRS agents go after you. And they’ve actually been approved. I’d never heard of this one. They got approved to carry guns so they can go after you with guns. You know, they don’t want to have guns but it’s okay for the IRS. It’s like an army.
Can you imagine that that was approved? That they allowed that to get through?
And all Mitch McConnell had to do is waive that debt ceiling. I’m not approving anything having to do with debt ceiling, unless you drop all this crap, $4 trillion. Because McConnell folded like a dog, you saw that, and I always said he would, I told you he will, he did. And West Virginia which voted for me—45 points I was up 45 points—West Virginia is not happy with Joe Manchin, because he killed coal, and they put taxes on coal. Clean beautiful coal, he killed it. I can’t imagine he’s going to do well. I don’t know—well, the heck to him.
Under the Trump administration, we had the greatest economy in the history of the world with no inflation. Biden and the Democrat Congress created the worst inflation in 50 years, 9.1 percent. It is gonna go a lot higher. And now they are making it worse with their immoral plan to wipe out hundreds of billions of dollars of debt for college graduates. Now think of this. How unfair is it, how unfair is it all of those, people, many of you are here, that paid and worked so hard. I saw they were doing a story about Pocahontas. That’s Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts.
And this big strong guy came up, a really good looking guy. And he looks at he goes, “Hey, well, what’s going on with this debt? You want to cancel the debt? I’ve been working my ass off for 12 years,” he said, “and I’ve almost got my daughter’s debt paid off. I worked weekends for 12 years. My neighbor, he’s my friend but he hasn’t worked at all. And now his debts could have been canceled, but I worked. This is unfair.”
And then he was not doing nice after that. So we’ll forget what he said, that he was not too happy. But you can multiply that times millions and millions of people. They paid for it on the backs of hardworking citizens and they’re raising your taxes. Remember this, you don’t realize it, you’re getting the biggest tax increase in history. So all this information, they’re saying under, under 400,000, You’re getting the biggest tax increase in the history of our country. So enjoy paying it.
And you know what? It’s paying for things like that, but the “Green New Deal,” which is like taking the money and throwing it out the window, and it’s actually worse. It’s actually like taking the money and destroying our country. Because it sets us back. Just like Germany, you know, Germany’s back to building and opening its plants because they got so screwed up with a green new energy.
They got carried away, windmills all over the place, killing all the birds, destroying all the values of homes, destroying the planes and fields, beautiful planes. If you want to see a dead bird cemetery, go under a windmill sometime. It’s not a pretty sight. It’s also the single most expensive form of energy you can get. And all of those big giant turbines are built in China and Germany to a lesser extent.
I rebuilt our military including our nuclear capability and hope to God we never have to use it. And the creation of the Space Force. See what they’re doing with Iran. Iran was dying to make a deal with them, without a deal done, within one week after the election. And now we’re going to pay them hundreds of billions of dollars and they’re gonna have nuclear weapons within a short period of time.
These people are crazy, this figure. I mean, they honestly, they can’t be stupid. They must hate our country. They must hate our country. They surrendered our strength and our wisdom, our everything. They turned Afghanistan into the greatest humiliation our country has ever seen. I believe it was the most humiliating thing, time that our country’s ever gone through.
Thirteen dead soldiers, but they never mentioned those soldiers who lost their legs and arms and face. They were obliterated. Nobody talks about them and there were many. Nobody talks about them. We left American citizens behind. And we left $85 billion worth of the best military equipment in the entire world, planes and tanks and goggles 700,000 rifles and AK-47s.
We left it all behind, figure this, 70,000 vehicles is not a used car lot in the country that has probably 500 vehicles, 70,000 vehicles we left behind. Some of those vehicles cost millions of dollars because they’re armor-plated with six inches of steel. We left it all behind. I built much of it. Because I rebuilt our entire military, think of it, $85 billion worth of military equipment. And you know, I saw a number the other day, the second largest arms dealer in the entire world is Afghanistan.
Because they’re selling their cars. They don’t need 700,000 rifles and guns—700,000—they need 40,000 or 20,000. What were we thinking? You don’t take the military out first. And remember this, in Afghanistan 18 months, we didn’t lose one soldier. You heard the numbers’ Philadelphia, 18 months.
I spoke to Abdul, I said, Abdul don’t do that. Don’t do that. “Why sir. Why do you send me a picture of my house?” I said Abdul, That’s a different story. Don’t go and we were fine. Remember, they said, why is he speaking to the Taliban? Because that’s where the problem was, right. That’s where the problem was.
Eighteen months and Biden, actually a couple of months ago, well, I’ll say one thing. We didn’t lose one soldier in 18 months and they’re screaming at him. You don’t take it back. You’re not supposed to say that, because it’s good. We didn’t lose a soldier in 18 months. They were so afraid. They didn’t want anything. We could have gotten out, I want to get out more than anybody. I’m the one that got it down to 2,000.
But also, we should have kept Bagram because if China—Bagram Airbase costs billions and billions of dollars, years ago, to build. It’s one hour, a day from where China makes its nuclear weapons. We should have never left without keeping Bagram. What a shame.
The most humiliating time I believe, actually, that probably, Putin went in because when he saw the incompetence of that, he said, “This is going to be easier than I thought.” And now we have a war between Russia and Ukraine with potentially hundreds of thousands, and even millions of people, are going to die. That would have never happened if I was your president. Would have never happened. I promise you.
Vladimir, you can’t do that.
Those beautiful golden terrorists in Moscow, Vladimir, I want to leave them alone. Please. You can’t do it, Vladimir. He would never have done it. He would never have done it.
He said “Why should I believe you? You did kill me on Nord Stream.” Nobody thought that was possible. I ended Nord—can you imagine? Biden came in and he opened up the pipeline. I ended it. Then he says, “Oh, Trump was soft on Russia.” I was soft.
The only one that doesn’t think that is Putin. He didn’t think I was too soft with the sanctions. But think of it, the biggest deal they’ve ever done is Nord, that nobody ever heard of until I came along. They were building this massive pipeline. Nobody ever heard of Nord Stream II till I came along.
We created the border in United States history. We ended catch and release, we deported record numbers of illegal aliens, gang members, and we built hundreds and hundreds of miles of border wall. In two and a half years of Democrat-inspired losses, we’re delivered lawsuits. I want every one of them, look, two and a half years that went. And you know, we completely finished our original plan for the wall and they came to me for some other sections. They said, “Let’s do it. Come on. Let’s go fast.” Then we added much more wall, 200 miles, and we almost got that finished on top of what we did. And I figured that this guy would finish it up. And he didn’t!
Not only didn’t finish when Texas wanted to use the stuff that was sitting there ready to be erected, it was going to be erected very quickly. Very quickly. very effectively. Great, great wall. It’s actually what Border Patrol wanted. I said what do you want? This is exactly what, steel. They wanted concrete. They wanted rebar, heavy set rebar. They wanted exactly that, and they have to be able to see through, so we see what’s happening on the other side.
I want to just give a nice big beautiful concrete plank but they didn’t want that. So we gave them exactly what they wanted. And this could have been finished in a few weeks. And not only didn’t they give this free to Texas, Texas could have put it up. They actually took it away, and put it in a secure area. And nobody can take it. That’s just a terrible thing. Three weeks was all it would have taken to complete the job.
Our country is paying a terrible price for the rigged election. I ran twice. I won twice and did much better the second time than I did the first, getting millions and millions more votes in 2020 than we got in 2016.
Doug knows that we got millions of more votes. I tell people, yeah. Oh, what a great job you did. I was being interviewed by this fake news reporter. And he said what happened in 2020? I said, Well, we did much better actually. We got New Orleans, more votes, we get the largest number of votes of any sitting president in history. They said, “You know, I never thought of it that way.” I said why don’t you start thinking about that way. Got a rigged election. And likewise getting more votes than, think of it, there has never been a person as the sitting president got anywhere near. I think we got like 10 million more votes than Obama. You know, so popular.
He’s so popular. They say he’s so handsome. Oh, Obama is such a great speaker. What does he say? He says nothing. And we’re leading Biden, and everyone else including the Republicans, by record numbers in the polls. So I may just have to do it again. You’ll be starting to have to do it again. Do it again. Have to do it again.
But first, we have to win a historic victory for the Republican Party this November.
Among our highest priorities must be to end the nightmare Joe Biden and congressional Democrats have created on our southern border, that nightmare.
Remember this, we had the strongest, best border we ever had two years ago. Now we have the worst border. I believe it’s worse than any border anywhere in the world. Because no country would let people come into the country the way we have. Right here in Pennsylvania, last year two illegal alien criminals allegedly brutalized and bludgeoned women to death. On a busy street corner in Chester County and illegal alien stands accused of grabbing a 33 year old woman by the hair, pulling her down and around the ground and stabbing her to death in front of her 7-year-old daughter.
Just a few weeks ago, an illegal alien murderer was charged with shooting to death a 76-year-old man from Pennsylvania. He took a walk every morning and this guy killed him for no reason whatsoever. He didn’t know, he didn’t know him, didn’t do anything. Just wanted to kill him.
The radical Democrat Congresses turned our country into one giant sanctuary for serious criminal aliens. We protect all of the criminals, we don’t protect our own people. In fact, they raid our people. And the Republican Party. We believe our country should be a sanctuary for law abiding citizens who love America. If we’re going to make America great again, our first pass is to make America safe again. We have to have a safe country.
You know, I told you before, I love the fields, but I like these better because of the air conditioning system, but that conditioning is not working too well. It’s about 100 degrees up here. I’m sweating like a dog but I’m cold. Dr. Oz? Dr. Oz.? Am I okay Doctor? Am I okay? He says yes. I was in Arizona for his show years ago and Dr. Oz, in a second, but I was at a show years ago and he did like an examination of me—I don’t know what the hell they did the show for, I wasn’t like even a politician at that. But he did an examination, and the word he said is extremely healthy. Very, very fine, fit man but he should lose 20 or 25 pounds. I was so angry. I didn’t speak to him. He said he was great but he could lose a couple of pounds.
He’s great. He’s gonna be great.
Under a Democrat, all the streets of our great cities are drenched in the blood of innocent victims. Much of this crime is caused by drug dealers, who during the course of their lives will kill an average of 500 a month. Citizens, every drug dealer is responsible. And that doesn’t include what they’ve done to families of people that haven’t died, but families that are just devastated by what happened to their children and to themselves. Think of it, 500 people the average drug dealer kills. I’m calling for the death penalty for drug dealers which will upon stashes reduce drug distribution in our country on day one by 75 percent.
No more blue ribbon committees. What to do, you know, I was setting them up in the White House, is a blue ribbon committee headed by socialites, and they just want—I mean, look, they’re very nice people, but they just want a little publicity for themselves. They can’t deal with the kind of killers that would—We want the death penalty for drug dealers, and you will save millions of lives. You know, we’re gonna lose 250,000 people I think this year, you know, just to go off for a second. Does anybody mind that? I do that.
Is there any perfect place to be on a beautiful Saturday evening than a Trump rally?
But just to go for a second. So you know, I got to know a lot of the foreign leaders and let me tell you, unlike our leader, they’re at the top of their game. There’s no one in like Central Casting that could play the role in Hollywood, all of Hollywood. Nobody can play the role of President Xi of China. Nobody could play the role. He’s a fierce person. Putin, fierce, is smart. You know, a lot of times I’ll say somebody’s smart, and the fake news go, he thought President Xi smart.
He rules with an iron fist 1.5 billion people. Yeah, I’d say he’s smart, wouldn’t you say he’s smart? So I’m with President Xi. And I got along with him to work. I mean, once COVID is yourself, but we made a great trade deal with him, helped our farmers, helped our manufacturers, but I’m with him. And I really had a great relationship with him. And then I asked him a question I said, “President,” he’s president for life, by the way, like thinking as a king. He said, “but I am not a king.” I said, “You are to me, you’re president for life. It’s the same.”
You will be very soon, you know that—another thing by the way. Do you notice a lot of ships are circling Taiwan. That wouldn’t have happened either, by the way. But I said, “President could I ask you a very simple question. Do you have a drug problem?” He looked at me like, what’s wrong with that? “No, of course not.” He goes, “No, no.” He’s like, “What the hell of a stupid question it is. No.”
I said you don’t have a drug problem with 1.5 million people. His big problems, they make the drugs, he sent them into our country. That’s their problem. That would have been their problem and he was stopping it too. But now they’re sending the fentanyl in numbers that you wouldn’t believe, wouldn’t believe it, pouring through that portal. At numbers you wouldn’t believe, I had him very close to stopped. He couldn’t do it. “So President, President, you don’t have a drug problem, but why? But why don’t you have a drug problem?”
“We have quick trial. It’s a what is it quick. We immediately catch the drug dealer. We give him quick trial. And if he is guilty, which I would say probably,” Would you say, Oz, would you say they’re getting 100 percent? Or only 99?
“If the drug dealer is guilty, he is immediately executed. So we have no drug problem.” And they have other countries like that to Singapore, other countries. And if you do that, you know, I’m told this and it’s a hard thing to say, because calling for the death penalty stuff, but think of it.
They kill 500 people during a lot of time, and I think it’s much worse than that. I think that’s only what we hear about who would stop it. If you didn’t get it down, 75 percent. Person said from day one, I’d be surprised and these committees that they set up, it’s laughable, it’s a horrible thing. We would solve that problem so fast and I’m calling on Republicans and Democrats immediately to institute to get to 10, and institute the death penalty for drug dealers. You will no longer have a problem.
Philadelphia has become, as you heard many times over the last short period of time, worse than it’s ever been. It’s become a killing field a few days ago. A 4-year-old boy was shot while getting a haircut. For his first day in school. His mother was so proud of him, is getting a hug. He was shot.
Recently, a mother was shot in the head and horribly murdered, her unborn baby was miraculously saved. Under a Republican Congress. We should pass emergency funding to hire thousands and thousands more police officers nationwide to put violent criminals behind bars and keep them behind bars and also leave our police alone to do their job.
Give them back the respect, they know what to do and nobody can do it better but they’re under siege. They don’t want to lose their house. They don’t want to lose their families. What they do to police officers. What they do to police. You’re always gonna have some bad apples, but they’re very few and we have a country that’s become one of the most unsafe countries in the world.
Think of it, you’re gonna deal with third world nations where they’re much safer than many parts. Think of it. what I said in Afghanistan, we didn’t lose one soldier in 18 months. And yet I just read off numbers in Philadelphia. If you look at Atlanta, I have a district attorney in Atlanta, she’s asking for a perfect phone call. And yet, it’s even worse proportionately than Chicago for killing.
But the district attorney, Trump made a phone call, because he was challenging the election. So they’re after me for perfect—by the way, perfect for you. Be very proud of me. Just like the call to Ukraine was a perfect call. The one in Atlanta was a perfect, perfect call and yet Atlanta is even worse than Chicago. Proportionately restoring safety. Market starts with defeating the Democratic stream. It’s right here in Pennsylvania, your state’s radical Democrat candidate for Senate. John Fetterman is the most dangerous Democrat.
He’s the most dangerous Democrat.
He came to join Congress this year and one of the most fringe far-left freak shows ever to seek election for any offense, at any stage and I’ve watched them over the last couple of years. And I said, “You gotta be kidding.”
Actually I saw Conor Lamb, I don’t know, kind of be a decent politician, you know he can’t pay into the sort of middle Democrat area and he was doing commercials that was so good for me, they people thought that he was a Republican. I like Conor Lamb.
But Fetterman got it. He got it in a landslide. And this guy is a disaster. He comes in with a sweat suit on, I’ve never seen him wear a suit. A dirty dirty, dirty sweat suit. It’s really disgusting. You know, I’m a clean freak. I’m a clean freak, Oz, I don’t like those dirty sweat suits that disgusting.
Fetterman may dress like a teenager getting high in his parents basement. But he’s a raging lunatic, hell bent on springing hardened criminals out of jail in the middle of the worst crime wave in Pennsylvania history. He wants everybody out of jail.
And, by the way, he wants to get rid of the police. Fetterman is a defund the police Marxist who’s just pulling the wool over people’s eyes, who literally said that if he had a magic wand and could fix one thing, he would end life sentences without parole for murderers, cop killers, rapists and other monsters. Criminals. That’s what he said. He wants him to get them out of jail.
Get addicts? Yeah, let’s put Trump in jail. Let’s get these murderers, let these murderers out, put Trump in jail. That Trump is no damn good. He has worked his ass off for this country through his position on the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons. Fetterman has released a record number of dangerous criminals, back on the streets, many of which have created horrible just atrocious crimes. He supports setting loose one out of every three inmates in your prisons. And he bragged that his goal is to get as many criminals out onto the street as quickly as possible.
Fetterman supports taxpayer-funded drug dens and the complete decriminalization of illegal drugs including heroin, cocaine, crystal meth, and ultra-lethal fentanyl, and by the way, he takes them himself—which would mean death and despair for every community in Pennsylvania and every community in the United States of America.
Compare that to President Xi of China, a little different, wouldn’t you say? Fetterman openly supports deadly sanctuary cities and he signed a pledge to ban fracking which would demolish almost a million jobs in Pennsylvania. I told them, I told you they were going to do that Pennsylvania, well you did listen to because I won Pennsylvania by a lot.
I can only hold accountable the people that counted the votes. Did you ever hear the statement by, I believe it was Lenin, did anyone ever hear of—many people would say it with less sophistication, Lenin. Lenin, I like the way they say that. Where he said the vote-counter is far more important than the candidate, well that turned out to be true. The vote-counter is far more important than the candidate, said by Lenin.
And while Fetterman wants to raise your taxes, he is a spoiled and entitled socialist loser who leached off his parents’ money, you know he lives on the parents money until he was 49 years old. And on top of it all, he’s too cowardly to even show up and debate. A very nice man. Nice. He’s very nice, and you’ll treat him nicely, right?
Because he knows that his positions are totally indefensible, and in all fairness, you need to be out there and just ripping it for you, otherwise you’re going to lose out to all the other southerners that are going to bring back money to the states, et cetera. And as we’ll do it.
Fetterman is running against a man I’ve known for many years. I told you I had a real problem with him when he said I was a little heavy. I didn’t like that. And of course it was wrong, was he wrong? And who is with our MAGA movement all the way. he’s with us all the way. And you know, some people thought that, “Oh gee, maybe it was a little bit of a controversial thing,” but I know him very well. And he’s a guy that gets it done. He’s a good person, and his wife is a fantastic person, I think I like her even more than I like him, Lisa.
So I’d like to ask Dr. Oz to step forward and say a few words. He’s been an incredibly successful man on television, in medicine. He knows what’s happening, and he’s going to work and fight for Pennsylvania. Thank you.
Dr. Oz: Pennsylvania, we have one question, one important question we have to answer by November 8. Are you ready for it? Is the country headed in the right direction? If your friends say “Yes,” take away their car keys. They should not be driving in that condition, people should stay home. But if the answer is no, we’ve got a big problem. This country has dramatically turned in the wrong direction. I’m the person for change.
I’ll make the change based on our family values here in Pennsylvania, because I believe in the American dream, I am part of the American dream. My whole life has been about hard work, and earning, and supporting kids because that’s what Americans do. I believe we can make safe city streets and communities. I believe we can have a secure border and allow legal immigration but not the fentanyl brought by traffickers bringing human beings and fentanyl from China which took 100,000 lives last year.
And I know people just aren’t hurt by fentanyl. I believe we can have an economy that hurts the American people but most importantly, I believe in each and every one of you and so should you. God bless you.
Donald Trump: We have a great record of endorsement, all of us together. Very close to 90 percent. And I endorsed that guy and I’m telling you, I will always tell you this. I’ll tell you the truth and he’s going to be a phenomenal representative for Pennsylvania. You gotta vote him and you got to vote.
Great guy. And Lisa, thank you very much. Thank you very much for what you have to put up with, Lisa. Thank you very much. You know they spent, just so you know, they spent like $50 million trying to destroy that man. $50 million. Like it was water. And they didn’t come close. This guy is tough and he’s strong and he loves us
This November, you also have to defeat the far left Democrat candidate for governor, Little Josh Shapiro—who is so much like Fetterman, other than he’s about half his height which is fine. It’s fine. I would say it’s absolutely fine as we don’t want to tell height jokes. Not here to tell any jokes today. Not weight jokes, not heighte jokes. I’ve got them all covered.
But he is a disaster for the state. He’s the one that kept saying “Oh, after” after it came out that we have a great man running against him. “Oh, that’s the man I wanted to run against.” No it’s not. Because that’s the man that had a base like I do. He has a base that’s so powerful and so strong. He doesn’t want to run again. As attorney general, he presided over the complete disintegration of law and order and letting things and criminals run wild.
Look at the numbers I just talked to you about in Philadelphia. Well, he’s the guy who knows those numbers are getting worse. There is nothing to stop these animals from continuing, those numbers are gonna get worse, if that’s possible. It’s not even—you would think it’s not possible.
Shapiro supports sanctuary cities, and he sided with Marxist anti-American BLM radicals and Antifa, and he’s a vicious hater of free speech and a hater of your Second Amendment. So he’s gonna let criminals roam your streets, and he’s not gonna let you have a gun to protect yourself. Shapiro is also using his office to shut children’s schools and force masks to be strapped to your children’s faces, doing unimaginable harm.
And like Fetterman, Shapiro is a pro-abortion extremist who supports totally unrestricted abortion on demand. Right through the ninth month. Think of this and you know where I am. You know where I am, the exceptions, I believe in the exceptions. He supports it the right through the ninth month and beyond. You know what beyond means, after the baby is born, after the baby is born. So as I said in my debate with Crooked Hillary Clinton, rip the baby out of the womb at anytime, and if the baby’s already out of the womb, he’s there too. “Just talk to the doctor.”
Now you don’t want that. States will make the decision by the way, the states will make the decision and in Pennsylvania, I have a feeling that decision will be an interesting decision, but it’s up to the states and that’s the way it was always supposed to be. But he wants to let things happen that no civilized person would allow. They don’t allow it in other countries.
No Pennsylvanian should listen to one word on abortion from these two twisted sickos who believe in killing and dismembering babies right up until that that time that time of birth. Shapiro is running against an incredible patriot and a fearless warrior for Pennsylvania workers and Pennsylvania values. Doug Mastriano, who has been with me right from the beginning, I mean right from the beginning. I remember that. They all wanted my endorsement. They all ran.
I know you had the U.S. attorney, nice guy. He was a nice guy, but he didn’t do anything in terms of the election fraud. “No, there was no problem in Pennsylvania, there was no problem.” There was massive problems. And then he wants to run, he said, “Sir, Bill Barr would not let me go after anybody. He wouldn’t let me touch anybody.” What a shame what an opportunity, but he wanted to run. Others wanted to run.
I said the one guy that supported election integrity and supported me right from the beginning. Is Doug Mastriano. One day he came to the White House with a whole group of people. He brought them and he was working like hell, it was really an uphill battle because you had the Democrats. They didn’t want to hear anything. And then you had some bad RINOs that just—somebody, someday, somebody’s going to explain the RINOs. Why are they doing it?
But Doug is a former Army colonel who honorably served our country in uniform for 30 years before going on to fight for you. In the State Senate, he became the most respected person in the Senate and definitely the hardest fighter. He was the relentless person out there fighting against lockdowns and COVID mandates. He didn’t want to destroy real Americans, he got it long before the so-called doctors who weren’t very good, and a true champion for election integrity and tough as hell on a thing called illegal immigration.
We want people to come into our country legally. As your governor, he will back down from nobody, he’ll back down those violent criminals and crack down on violent crime and COVID mandates, protect Pennsylvania oil and gas workers, which right now—enjoy your job for another couple of months, because you’re not gonna have it longer.
And defend your jobs, your rights and your freedoms. Doug is joined by an incredible person who I also got to know because we were in a real fight with a lot of really sick, bad people. Rebby, thank you very much. Thank you, stand up. And she was a big part. She’s a great partner to a man that will be one of the greatest governors in this country. Doug, please come up. Please come up.
Doug Mastriano: Oh, yeah. Thank you, Mr. President. Philadelphia loves you and America needs you. Thank you for your leadership.
Thank you for paving the way for people like me and everyone you see out here to fight for freedom. Thank you for taking the shots. And standing boldly and leading by example, Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania is the Keystone State. On 8 November, we’re taking our state back by storm. That’s right. We’re gonna do it. We’re gonna do it. We’re gonna be the state where people want to come to raise their families, to succeed in business on day one. We’re out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. We’re gonna drill and dig like no tomorrow. That’s right. That’s right. We’re gonna do it. Oh, yeah.
On day one, we’re no longer a sanctuary state. So Joe Biden can have these illegals, we’ll drop them off at his beach house where he spends all his time anyway. You can have them on day one. We’re gonna have the backs of law enforcement on day one, there’s no more mask requirement or COVID jab requirement. That’s right.
We’re gonna walk like free people like never before, Pennsylvania. This is where the light of liberty was lit in 1776, a new birth of freedom in 1863. And something very near and dear to both of our hearts: We’re going to fight like hell for voting integrity, and we’re going to start with voter ID. That’s right. That’s right.
The left, my opponent, is too dangerous, too extreme and too radical. When he can’t even define what a woman is, then the guy is nuts. Pennsylvania is less safe with his six year record of failure as attorney general that all ends on 8 November. Pennsylvania, the key to our nation starts with us. And let’s not forget that on September 11, 2001, and you are a champion on 9/11/2001, Mr. President, and he was. We saw him at the World Trade Center. Meanwhile, Flight 93 over Somerset County, the terrorists had it. Todd Beamer and other people on that flight took action. What did they say?
Pennsylvania, let’s roll!
Donald Trump: You know, Doug said a lot in a few short sentences. One of the things he mentioned was voter ID. The Democrats don’t want voter ID. Actually it’s interesting. The leadership, the people want it, 91 percent Democrats, but the leaders don’t want voter ID, OK. I think the only reason you don’t want voter ID, there’s only one reason because you want it cheap, right. That’s the only reason.
When you had the Democrat National Convention, the last one, they had signs, and the biggest signs, they were like billboards, pictures, fingerprints, everything. You couldn’t get in. But the greatest thing happened over the last few days, Starbucks, this guy Schultz. The one with the extremely thin legs. I think maybe Dr. Oz would have said he’s either really good or very, very, very thin. But he was doing a debate. He was sitting down, I thought his legs—I didn’t think he’d be able to stand up. But Schultz, he’s the head of it.
But he just announced unions are trying to take over stuff. But he will not under any circumstance allow mail-in voting because it’s evil and corrupt. And the process can be corrupted. And yet when he was running for president for about three days before he realized he couldn’t do it, took him about two days. But when he was running for president, he was talking about mail-in ballots. Now that he’s got his company that he’s got a nice piece of, he wants nothing to do with voting by mail-in ballots for unions, because he says you can’t get their vote, and it’s easily corruptible.
When are people going to get smart, and get rid of this mail-in voting in Pennsylvania, killing our country. You’ll do it. We’re also joined tonight by the next congressman from Pennsylvania’s 8th congressional district. Jim Bognet. Jim, thank you very much. Good luck. I hear you doing well, these two guys are gonna help you a lot. Thank you, Jim. Great job.
So Jim’s running against radical Democrat socialist Matt Cartwright. That’s another beauty. Who said he’s all on board for the Green New Deal. Greatest waste of money in history. The Green New Deal, why don’t you just throw the money right out the window. And he absolutely supports defunding the police and votes with Biden 100 percent of the time, so you know he can’t be any good. Everybody get out and vote for Jim. Okay.
Also with us, our Pennsylvania treasurer, a very good person, good woman, Stacy Garrity. Hello, Stacy. Thank you, Stacy. Great job you’re doing. Friend of mine—a warrior. Never laid down, always been their representative. Dan Meuser. Dan, thank you. Great job. Great job. Thank you. And also Fred Keller. Another warrior. Fred stand up, what a good guy. Thank you for all your help. He comes to our defense. He gets out there the two of them.
Now a woman is with us. She’s very silent. Very shy. doesn’t believe in using guns to protect yourself. Says anybody can come into my house anytime you’d like. No, no. She did a little ad I saw, her first time, and her ad was something to the effect. “Sure. Anybody can come into my house. He can be big,” and she took this gun. I never saw anybody used this gun. Boom, put it back and she said, “But he might not get out of my house alive.” And I said “I think I like her,” Marjorie Taylor Greene.
A man I’m very proud of. He’s got a tough race. But I’m very proud of this. You have a RINO governor in Maryland. His name is Larry Hogan. I think he wants to run for president. I think he wants to run for president, they said you got to look in the mirror first—it’s not gonna work. Not gonna work. But he’s a real RINO and he doesn’t want this man because this is all for our country.
His name is Dan Cox. And he beat he beat Larry Hogan’s candidate by like 20 points with my endorsement. With my endorsement, and he’s doing fantastically Dan. Congratulations. And Larry Hogan—and this is my fault, I’m sorry, Dan—but Larry Hogan is not going to be supporting you only because I am supporting you. So I don’t know what that means. But I can tell you that Maryland has a great, great man running and I hope you’re going to do well and we’ll be out there helping you.
Okay, thank you. I have a feeling you’ll do very well. A friend of mine who’s a great businessman and a great person, Mr. Woody Johnson and his wife, Suzanne Johnson. Where’s Woody? Stand up, Woody! He’s shy. They own a very small company named Johnson. Johnson, does anybody like Johnson? I want to own a piece of that company, too. Great job. We love your boss. And Cynthia Hughes and Gina Pernod with the Patriot Freedom Project. What a job they do. Where are you? Where are you, stand up for the job. And we all appreciate it. We all appreciate it.
With the help of everybody here today we are going to fight for Pennsylvania. We’re going to win for Pennsylvania this November. One of the first things we will do is stand up for parents’ rights. It’s time to finally and completely break the radical local education cartel. Can you believe like 10 years ago, let’s put yourself back, that somebody would stand up—I can’t believe I’m calling myself a politician. But I guess I am. I don’t know. I can’t stand politicians.
But can you believe that 10 years ago—like put yourself in that position—a politician would be standing up saying we’re going to defend parental rights? I mean, that’s about as basic as it gets, but that’s what we have to do because these people are crazy. Our children are captive to unhinged Marxist educators who are pushing inappropriate sexual, racial and political material on our children from the youngest possible age.
At long last, every parent in America must be empowered to opt out of the indoctrination and send their child to the public, private, charter, religious or home school of their choice. In addition, we will get critical race theory the hell out of our schools, out of our military and out of every part of our federal, state and local government, just like I did two years ago, it was out. We had it out, but they put it right back in.
We will also keep men out of women’s sports. You know those stories that I tell? I love to tell those stories, the woman swimmers, I tell it again, should I, you want me to? Mr. Wall, stand up Wall, please. This is Mr. Irving Q. Wall, you know, it’s so ridiculous. And you know, it’s not politically correct, and a lot of people are afraid to talk about it, but I’m not—men in women sports.
So you have this swimmer, who’s really—I met her the other day, very high quality swimmer and she’s gonna break the record. She’s worked like hell. She’s worked all her life. The big meet is on and she looks to the left and she sees all of those great athletes that she’s been fighting for years. She looks to the right, and she sees this massive human being, he’s looking up, what is he, like 6’6″ or something? He’s got a wingspan bigger than Wilt Chamberlain. Wilt was small by comparison and she looked over, I’ve never seen her before. Anyway, she wanted to break that record she fought so hard to do. And the race started and as you know, she was severely injured. She was injured by windburn because he went by her so fast.
The wind burned the hell out of her. And she didn’t quite make it that day for the record. But he did. He broke the record by 38 seconds. You know, usually you break it by—she wants to break it by 1/8 of a second. But he was far better than her. He broke it by 38 seconds. That’s one that no woman’s ever gonna catch.
And then the better one is the weightlifter. You had a woman she’s gonna lift the 213 pounds and that’s a lot of weight. Do you think I could lift, Oz, you think I could lift 213 pounds and she got up and she was gonna break it. They put it half an ounce and a half an ounce and have these big barbells and dumbbells and she’s up there and she pulls it up and she’s gonna do it—couldn’t do it too. So she was ashamed but she couldn’t do it.
And then this person comes in you know, they actually call it—this is the correct term. A person in a man’s body. That’s what they call it. This is supposed to be politically correct. I hope it is. Otherwise they’ll be very rude to me. The fake news will be very rude.
This guy walks up, they asked him before, did you lift? “No, not too much.” And he gets up—ding—that was the end of that record. It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. And no teacher should ever be allowed to teach transgender to our children without parental consent.
Another one of our highest priorities under a Republican Congress will be to stop left wing censorship and to restore free speech in America. We don’t have free speech. Go out and sign up, by the way, for Truth Social. Anybody on Truth Social? It’s hot. And it’s much better than Twitter. You see what’s going on with Twitter. Twitter’s not doing do well. Frankly, if we didn’t have Truth we wouldn’t be able to get the word out like they do. We get the word out fast.
The Radical Left Democrat Party is not, in my opinion, a 50 percent party within our country. They’re against God, guns, oil, law enforcement, voter ID, tax cuts, regulation cuts, the Constitution and they’re against our founding fathers. But other than that, actually, they’re quite good. The way they win is to cheat in elections. I really believe that. How can you be against all of those things and for some of the things that therefore and be considered a 50/50 party? I don’t believe it.
They cheat like hell on elections all over the country, and they’re really good at it. Everywhere the Republican Party has the chance, we must pass critical election integrity reforms, including Universal voter ID citizenship confirmation. No more fake drop boxes by Zuckerberg and these people, no private money pouring into local election offices. And ultimately, we need same day voting with only paper ballots. Same day voting. Same day paper.
France just had an election. Big country—35 million people. They hd same day voting, all paper ballots. The election ended at 11 o’clock. They had the vote, that was it. Nobody walked away. Right here in Pennsylvania, Democrats are still trying hard to rig your elections.
Act 77 clearly violates your state Constitution encouraging widespread abuse of mail-in ballots, and your radical left state Supreme Court just violated the Constitution a second time by overturning a decision by an unbiased lower court. Republicans in the state legislature need to get to work immediately to kill Act 77 by a state constitutional amendment, they have to do it immediately.
We are just two months away from the most important midterm election in American history. And we need a landslide so big that the radical left just cannot rig it. You know the more we win by, it gets harder, harder, harder, harder. They can cheat a lot but once you get to a certain level, it gets very hard. This is the year we’re going to take back the House. We’re going to take back the Senate, we’re going to take back America. We’ll take back America.
And in 2024, most importantly, we are going to take back our magnificent White House. Together we will fight for more jobs for Pennsylvania families, fair trade for Pennsylvania workers and more Pennsylvania factories forging more products stamped with those beautiful, beautiful words, “Made in the USA,” right? Made in the USA.
We will shut down Biden’s border disaster, reinstitute our strong Remain in Mexico policy. How good was that, Remain in Mexico? You think it was easy for me to get Remain in Mexico from Mexico, but I got it. I said “You don’t give it to me, you’re gonna pay big tariffs on your cars.” “Oh, we’d love to give it to you.” Strengthen the patriots of ICE and Border Patrol. They’re patriots and they’re great. We will again end catch and release. We will end chain migration, we will end the visa lottery and we will clamp down on illegal immigration. Just like we did less than two years ago when we had the most secure border in our country’s history.
We will stop the crime wave in Democrat-run cities, we will give our police the power they need and the respect they deserve. And we will not take legal protection away from our police. These maniacs want the police officers go out and hire lawyers so they can defend themselves. We won’t do that. We will restore law and order in America. And we will override governors that don’t look for law and order.
We will hold China accountable for unleashing the virus upon the world. We will protect innocent life. We will defend our Constitution. We will defend the Second Amendment and we will proudly uphold the Judeo-Christian values and principles of our nations. We will restore education to our schools and we will teach our children to love their country, honor our history and to always respect our great American flag.
In conclusion, our MAGA movement, Make America Great Again, is by far the greatest political movement in the history of our country. Together we are standing up against some of the most menacing forces, entrenched interests and vicious opponents our people have ever seen. Despite great outside dangers, our greatest threat remains the sick, sinister and evil people from within our own country. But no matter how big or powerful the corrupt radical left Democrats are—and they are corrupt and they are powerful. We have to make them much less powerful. We will never allow anyone to forget that this nation does not belong to them. This nation belongs to you. This is your home. This is your heritage.
And our American liberty is your God-given right. From Allentown to Johnstown from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh, and from Philadelphia to Scranton, PA. We stand on the shoulders of American legends who poured out their blood, sweat and tears for our rights and for our freedom. They were so great.
Pennsylvania is where our founding fathers declared independence. It’s where the army weathered its brutal winter at Valley Forge, where General George Washington led his men on a daring mission across the Delaware and where our union was saved by immortal heroes at Gettysburg. And this is the state where generations of tough strong Pennsylvania miners, factory workers and steel workers forged the greatest nation in the history of the world.
But now we are a nation in decline. We are a nation that is failing. We are a nation that has the highest inflation in over 50 years and where the stock market just finished the worst first half of the year since 1872. Likewise, we are a nation that has the highest energy costs in its history. We are no longer energy independent or energy-dominant as we just were two short years ago. We are a nation that is begging Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and many others for oil. “Please, please, please help us,” Joe Biden says, but we have liquid gold right under our feet than any other country in the world.
We are a nation that is consumed by the radical left’s Green New Deal, yet everyone knows that the Green New Deal will lead to our destruction. We are a nation that is surrendering all over, but in particular to Afghanistan, leaving behind dead soldiers, American citizens and 85 years’ worth of the finest military equipment anywhere in the world. We are a nation that allowed Russia to devastate a country, Ukraine, killing hundreds of thousands of people and it will only get worse.
It would never have happened with me as commander-in-chief. And for four long years, it didn’t happen. Never happen. And China with Taiwan is next. We are a nation that has weaponized its law enforcement against the opposing political party like never before. We’ve got a Federal Bureau of Investigation that won’t allow bad election-changing facts to be presented to the public and a Department of Justice that refuses to investigate egregious acts of voting irregularities and fraud.
And we have a president who is cognitively impaired and in no condition to lead our country and everybody knows it. We are a nation that no longer has a free and fair press. Fake news is all you get and they are truly the enemy of the people. We are a nation where free speech is no longer allowed. Where crime is rampant like never before, where the economy has been collapsing, where more people died of COVID in 2021 than did in 2020.
We are a nation that is allowing Iran to build a massive nuclear weapon, which they are incredibly being allowed to do right now in China to use trillions and trillions of dollars that is taken from us to build a military, to rival our own. And just two years ago we had Iran, China, Russia and North Korea in check. They weren’t going to do a thing against us. And everybody knows it.
And perhaps most importantly, we are a nation that is no longer respected or listened to around the world. We are a nation that in many ways has become a joke. We are a nation that is hostile to liberty, freedom and faith. We are a nation whose economy is floundering, whose stores are not stocked. Whose deliveries are not coming and whose educational system is ranked at the bottom of every single list.
But we are not going to let this continue. Two years ago, we had the greatest election that we’ve ever had. But it was taken away from us. We weren’t allowed to use the power of the people to make America great again. Two years ago, we also had greatness like no one had ever seen. And soon we have that greatness again.
It was hard-working patriots like you who built this country. And it is hard-working patriots like you who are going to save our country. We will stand up to the radical left lunatics, RINOs and we will fight for America like no one has ever fought before.
The left praises democracy when elected but claims the right will destroy democracy when it loses. Pictured: Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton discusses the 2016 election during her 2017 book tour. (Photo: Bastiaan Slabbers, NurPhoto/Getty Images)
Recently, Democrats have been despondent over President Joe Biden’s sinking poll numbers. His policies on the economy, energy, foreign policy, the border, and COVID-19 all have lost majority support.
As a result, the left now variously alleges that either in 2022, when it expects to lose the Congress, or in 2024, when it fears losing the presidency, Republicans will “destroy democracy” or stage a coup.
A cynic might suggest that those on the left praise democracy when they get elected, only to claim it is broken when they lose. Or they hope to avoid their defeat by trying to terrify the electorate. Or they mask their own revolutionary propensities by projecting them onto their opponents.
After all, who is trying to federalize election laws in national elections contrary to the spirit of the Constitution? Who wishes to repeal or circumvent the Electoral College? Who wishes to destroy the more than 180-year-old Senate filibuster, the over 150-year-old nine-justice Supreme Court, and the more than 60-year-old 50-state union?
Who is attacking the founding constitutional idea of two senators per state?
The Constitution also clearly states that “When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside.” Who slammed through the impeachment of former President Donald Trump without a presiding chief justice?
Never had a president been either impeached twice or tried in the Senate as a private citizen. Who did both?
The left further broke prior precedent by impeaching Trump without a special counsel’s report, formal hearings, witnesses, and cross-examinations.
Who exactly is violating federal civil rights legislation?
New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in December decided to ration new potentially lifesaving COVID-19 medicines, partially on the basis of race, in the name of “equity.”
The agency also allegedly used racial preferences to determine who would be first tested for COVID-19. Yet such racial discrimination seems in direct violation of various title clauses of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
That law makes it clear that no public agency can use race to deny “equal utilization of any public facility which is owned, operated, or managed by or on behalf of any State or subdivision thereof.” Who is behind the new racial discrimination?
In summer 2020, many local- and state-mandated quarantines and bans on public assemblies were simply ignored with impunity—if demonstrators were associated with Black Lives Matter or protesting the police.
Currently, the Biden administration is also flagrantly embracing the neo-Confederate idea of nullifying federal law.
The Biden administration has allowed nearly 2 million foreign nationals to enter the United States illegally across the southern border—in hopes they will soon be loyal constituents.
The administration has not asked illegal entrants either to be tested for or vaccinated against COVID-19. Yet all U.S. citizens in the military and employed by the federal government are threatened with dismissal if they fail to become vaccinated.
Such selective exemption of lawbreaking non-U.S. citizens, but not millions of U.S. citizens, seems in conflict with the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
After entering the United States illegally, millions of immigrants are protected by some 550 “sanctuary city” jurisdictions. These revolutionary areas all brazenly nullify immigration law by refusing to allow federal immigration authorities to deport illegal immigrant lawbreakers.
At various times in our nation’s history—1832, 1861-65, and 1961-63—America was either racked by internal violence or fought a civil war over similar state nullification of federal laws.
In the last five years, we have indeed seen many internal threats to democracy.
Hillary Clinton hired a foreign national to concoct a dossier of dirt against her presidential opponent. She disguised her own role by projecting her efforts to use Russian sources onto Trump. She used her contacts in government and media to seed the dossier to create a national hysteria about “Russian collusion.” Clinton urged Biden not to accept the 2020 result if he lost, and herself claimed Trump was not a legitimately elected president.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has violated laws governing the chain of command. Some retired officers violated Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice by slandering their commander in chief. Others publicly were on record calling for the military to intervene to remove an elected president.
Some of the nation’s top officials in the FBI and intelligence committee have misled or lied under oath either to federal investigators or the U.S. Congress, again, mostly with impunity.
All these sustained revolutionary activities were justified as necessary to achieve the supposedly noble ends of removing Trump.
The result is Third World-like jurisprudence in America aimed at rewarding friends and punishing enemies, masked by service to social justice.
We are in a dangerous revolutionary cycle. But the threat is not so much from loud, buffoonish, one-day rioters on Jan. 6. Such clownish characters did not for 120 days loot, burn, attack courthouses and police precincts, cause over 30 deaths, injure 2,000 policemen, and destroy at least $2 billion in property—all under the banner of revolutionary justice.
Even more ominously, stone-cold sober elites are systematically waging an insidious revolution in the shadows that seeks to dismantle America’s institutions and the rule of law as we have known them.
(C)2022 Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.
The Honorable Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Washington D.C.
Dear Representative Adam Kinzinger,
I noticed that you are a pro-life representative that has a long record of standing up for unborn babies! It was in the 1970’s when I was first introduced to the works of Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop and I wanted to commend their writings and films to you.
Washington, DC – Today, Congressman Adam Kinzinger (IL-16) joined his House Republican colleagues in a press conference urging Democratic leadership to allow a vote on the Born Alive protections. The proposal would protect babies who survive abortion and provide them with the same medical care that any other premature baby would receive. Yesterday, the Democrats blocked the proposed legislation—for the 17th time—from coming before the House for a vote.
Joining the Congressman and House Republican leaders at the press conference this morning was Jill Stanek, an Illinois nurse and pro-life advocate who has witnessed the devastating realities of these pro-abortion laws. The Illinois legislature is currently debating two abortion bills, similar to the extreme pro-abortion agendas in New York and Virginia.
It seems you have a grudge against President Trump while our freedoms under President Biden are being taken away. I recommend to you the article below:
Roger Kimball Editor and Publisher, The New Criterion
Mr. Kimball concludes his article with these words:
That’s one melancholy lesson of the January 6 insurrection hoax: that America is fast mutating from a republic, in which individual liberty is paramount, into an oligarchy, in which conformity is increasingly demanded and enforced.
Another lesson was perfectly expressed by Donald Trump when he reflected on the unremitting tsunami of hostility that he faced as President. “They’re after you,” he more than once told his supporters. “I’m just in the way.”
There were a few Republicans Thursday who surprised observers when they voted in support of holding former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress and referring him to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution.
Prior to the vote, four Republicans were considered a lock to approve the criminal referral, according to Capitol Hill sources: Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Fred Upton of Michigan and Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio.
Cheney and Kinzinger are on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and have for months stood alone as the only two House Republicans willing to speak out against former President Donald Trump’s continued lies about the 2020 election. They were the only two House Republicans to vote for the formation of the select committee on June 30.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi formed the select committee after Republicans rejected a bipartisan commission that would have been evenly split between five Democrats and five Republicans. Only 35 Republicans voted for that measure when itpassed the House of Representatives, and it was defeated by a GOP filibuster in the Senate.
From left: Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a Democrat, and Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois arrive for the House Select Committee hearing investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
More
Upton has served in the House for more than three decades, since 1987, and will face a primary challenge next year because of his willingness to stand up to Trump.
Gonzalez is retiring from Congress next year, after only four years in the House. “While my desire to build a fuller family life is at the heart of my decision, it is also true that the current state of our politics, especially many of the toxic dynamics inside our own party, is a significant factor in my decision,” Gonzalez said in September when heannounced he would not seek another term.
The remaining five Republicans included three who voted for impeachment — Peter Meijer of Michigan, John Katko of New York and Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington — and two House Republicans who did not vote to impeach Trump: Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.
Trump seems never to have discerned what a viper’s nest our politics has become for anyone who is not a paid-up member of The Club.
Maybe Trump understands this now. I have no insight into that question. I am pretty confident, though, that the 74 plus million people who voted for him understand it deeply. It’s another reason that The Club should be wary of celebrating its victory too expansively.
Friedrich Hayek took one of the two epigraphs for his book, The Road to Serfdom, from the philosopher David Hume. “It is seldom,” Hume wrote, “that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.” Much as I admire Hume, I wonder whether he got this quite right. Sometimes, I would argue, liberty is erased almost instantaneously.
I’d be willing to wager that Joseph Hackett, confronted with Hume’s observation, would express similar doubts. I would be happy to ask Mr. Hackett myself, but he is inaccessible. If the ironically titled “Department of Justice” has its way, he will be inaccessible for a long, long time—perhaps as long as 20 years.
Joseph Hackett, you see, is a 51-year-old Trump supporter and member of an organization called the Oath Keepers, a group whose members have pledged to “defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.” The FBI does not like the Oath Keepers—agents arrested its leader in January and have picked up many other members in the months since. Hackett traveled to Washington from his home in Florida to join the January 6 rally. According to court documents, he entered the Capitol at 2:45 that afternoon and left some nine minutes later, at 2:54. The next day, he went home. On May 28, he was apprehended by the FBI and indicted on a long list of charges, including conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, destruction of government property, and illegally entering a restricted building.
As far as I have been able to determine, no evidence of Hackett destroying property has come to light. According to his wife, it is not even clear that he entered the Capitol. But he certainly was in the environs. He was a member of the Oath Keepers. He was a supporter of Donald Trump. Therefore, he must be neutralized.
Joseph Hackett is only one of hundreds of citizens who have beenbranded as “domestic terrorists” trying to “overthrow the government” and who are now languishing, in appalling conditions, jailed as political prisoners of an angry state apparat.
Let me recommend that you read this letter below from Senator Ron Johnson and his colleagues:
WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), along with senators Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), sent a letter on Monday to Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting information on the unequal application of justice between the individuals who breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, and those involved in the unrest during the spring and summer of 2020. The senators sent 18 questions to the attorney general on what steps the DOJ has taken to prosecute individuals who committed crimes during both events, and requested a response by June 21.
“Americans have the constitutional right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances,” the senators wrote. “This constitutional right should be cherished and protected. Violence, property damage, and vandalism of any kind should not be tolerated and individuals that break the law should be prosecuted. However, the potential unequal administration of justice with respect to certain protestors is particularly concerning.”
The full text of the letter can be found here and below.
June 7, 2021
The Honorable Merrick B. Garland
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530
Dear Attorney General Garland:
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is currently dedicating enormous resources and manpower to investigating and prosecuting the criminals who breached the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. We fully support and appreciate the efforts by the DOJ and its federal, state and local law enforcement partners to hold those responsible fully accountable.
We join all Americans in the expectation that the DOJ’s response to the events of January 6 will result in rightful criminal prosecutions and accountability. As you are aware, the mission of the DOJ is, among other things, to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans. Today, we write to request information about our concerns regarding potential unequal justice administered in response to other recent instances of mass unrest, destruction, and loss of life throughout the United States.
During the spring and summer of 2020, individuals used peaceful protests across the country to engage in rioting and other crimes that resulted in loss of life, injuries to law enforcement officers, and significant property damage.[1] A federal court house in Portland, Oregon, has been effectively under siege for months.[2] Property destruction stemming from the 2020 social justice protests throughout the country will reportedly result in at least $1 billion to $2 billion in paid insurance claims.[3]
In June 2020, the DOJ reportedly compiled the following information regarding last year’s unrest:
“One federal officer [was] killed, 147 federal officers [were] injured and 600 local officers [were] injured around the country during the protests, frequently from projectiles.”[4]
According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), “since the start of the unrest there has been 81 Federal Firearms License burglaries of an estimated loss of 1,116 firearms; 876 reported arsons; 76 explosive incidents; and 46 ATF arrests[.]”[5]
Despite these numerous examples of violence occurring during these protests, it appears that individuals charged with committing crimes at these events may benefit from infrequent prosecutions and minimal, if any, penalties. According to a recent article, “prosecutors have approved deals in at least half a dozen federal felony cases arising from clashes between protesters and law enforcement in Oregon last summer. The arrangements — known as deferred resolution agreements — will leave the defendants with a clean criminal record if they stay out of trouble for a period of time and complete a modest amount of community service, according to defense attorneys and court records.”[6]
DOJ’s apparent unwillingness to punish these individuals who allegedly committed crimes during the spring and summer 2020 protests stands in stark contrast to the harsher treatment of the individuals charged in connection with the January 6, 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. To date, DOJ has charged 510 individuals stemming from Capitol breach.[7] DOJ maintains and updates a webpage that lists the defendants charged with crimes committed at the Capitol. This database includes information such as the defendant’s name, charge(s), case number, case documents, location of arrest, case status, and informs readers when the entry was last updated.[8] No such database exists for alleged perpetrators of crimes associated with the spring and summer 2020 protests. It is unclear whether any defendants charged with crimes in connection with the Capitol breach have received deferred resolution agreements.
Americans have the constitutional right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances. This constitutional right should be cherished and protected. Violence, property damage, and vandalism of any kind should not be tolerated and individuals that break the law should be prosecuted. However, the potential unequal administration of justice with respect to certain protestors is particularly concerning. In order to assist Congress in conducting its oversight work, we respectfully request answers to the following questions by June 21, 2021:
Spring and Summer 2020 Unrest:
Did federal law enforcement utilize geolocation data from defendants’ cell phones to track protestors associated with the unrest in the spring and summer of 2020? If so, how many times and for which locations/riots?
How many individuals who may have committed crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020 were arrested by law enforcement using pre-dawn raids and SWAT teams?
How many individuals were incarcerated for allegedly committing crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020?
How many of these individuals are or were placed in solitary confinement? What was the average amount of consecutive days such individuals were in solitary confinement?
How many of these individuals have been released on bail?
How many of these individuals were released on their own recognizance or without being required to post bond?
How many of these individuals were offered deferred resolution agreements?[9]
How many DOJ prosecutors were assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020?
How many FBI personnel were assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020?
January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol Breach:
Did federal law enforcement utilize geolocation data from defendants’ cell phones to track protestors associated with the January 6, 2021 protests and Capitol breach? If so, how many times and how many additional arrests resulted from law enforcement utilizing geolocation information?
How many individuals who may have committed crimes associated with the Capitol breach were arrested by law enforcement using pre-dawn raids and SWAT teams?
How many individuals are incarcerated for allegedly committing crimes associated with the Capitol breach?
How many of these individuals are or were placed in solitary confinement? What was the average amount of consecutive days such individuals were in solitary confinement?
How many of these individuals have been released on bail?
How many of these individuals have been released on their own recognizance or without being required to post bond?
How many of these individuals were offered deferred resolution agreements?
How many DOJ prosecutors have been assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with the Capitol breach?
How many FBI personnel were assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with the Capitol breach?
I want to recommend to you a video on YOU TUBE that runs 28 minutes and 39 seconds by Francis Schaeffer entitled because it discusses the founding of our nation and what the FOUNDERS believed:
Edith Schaeffer with her husband, Francis Schaeffer, in 1970 in Switzerland, where they founded L’Abri, a Christian commune.
________________
______________________
March 23, 2021
President Biden c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. I know that you don’t agree with my pro-life views but I wanted to challenge you as a fellow Christian to re-examine your pro-choice view. Although we are both Christians and have the Bible as the basis for our moral views, I did want you to take a close look at the views of the pro-life atheist Nat Hentoff too. Hentoff became convinced of the pro-life view because of secular evidence that shows that the unborn child is human. I would ask you to consider his evidence and then of course reverse your views on abortion.
___________________
The pro-life atheist Nat Hentoff wrote a fine article below I wanted to share with you.
Nat Hentoff is an atheist, but he became a pro-life activist because of the scientific evidence that shows that the unborn child is a distinct and separate human being and even has a separate DNA. His perspective is a very intriguing one that I thought you would be interested in. I have shared before many cases (Bernard Nathanson, Donald Trump, Paul Greenberg, Kathy Ireland) when other high profile pro-choice leaders have changed their views and this is just another case like those. I have contacted the White House over and over concerning this issue and have even received responses. I am hopeful that people will stop and look even in a secular way (if they are not believers) at this abortion debate and see that the unborn child is deserving of our protection.That is why the writings of Nat Hentoff of the Cato Institute are so crucial.
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the video below. It is very valuable information for Christians to have. Actually I have included a video below that includes comments from him on this subject.
Francis Schaeffer Whatever Happened to the Human Race (Episode 1) ABORTION
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Dr. Francis schaeffer – from Part 5 of Whatever happened to human race?) Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 5 | Truth and History
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – A Christian Manifesto – Dr. Francis Schaeffer Lecture
Francis Schaeffer – A 700 Club Special! ~ Francis Schaeffer 1982
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – 1984 SOUNDWORD LABRI CONFERENCE VIDEO – Q&A With Francis & Edith Schaeffer
http://www.NewsandOpinion.com | A longtime friend of mine is married to a doctor who also performs abortions. At the dinner table one recent evening, their 9-year-old son — having heard a word whose meaning he didn’t know — asked, “What is an abortion?” His mother, choosing her words carefully, described the procedure in simple terms.
“But,” said her son, “that means killing the baby.” The mother then explained that there are certain months during which an abortion cannot be performed, with very few exceptions. The 9-year-old shook his head. “But,” he said, “it doesn’t matter what month. It still means killing the babies.”
Hearing the story, I wished it could be repeated to the justices of the Supreme Court, in the hope that at least five of them might act on this 9-year-old’s clarity of thought and vision.
The boy’s spontaneous insistence on the primacy of life also reminded me of a powerful pro-life speaker and writer who, many years ago, helped me become a pro-lifer. He was a preacher, a black preacher. He said: “There are those who argue that the right to privacy is of a higher order than the right to life.
“That,” he continued, “was the premise of slavery. You could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore out of your right to be concerned.”
This passionate reverend used to warn: “Don’t let the pro-choicers convince you that a fetus isn’t a human being. That’s how the whites dehumanized us … The first step was to distort the image of us as human beings in order to justify what they wanted to do — and not even feel they’d done anything wrong.”
That preacher was Jesse Jackson. Later, he decided to run for the presidency — and it was a credible campaign that many found inspiring in its focus on what still had to be done on civil rights. But Jackson had by now become “pro-choice” — much to the appreciation of most of those in the liberal base.
The last time I saw Jackson was years later, on a train from Washington to New York. I told him of a man nominated, but not yet confirmed, to a seat on a federal circuit court of appeals. This candidate was a strong supporter of capital punishment — which both the Rev. Jackson and I oppose, since it involves the irreversible taking of a human life by the state.
I asked Jackson if he would hold a press conference in Washington, criticizing the nomination, and he said he would. The reverend was true to his word; the press conference took place; but that nominee was confirmed to the federal circuit court. However, I appreciated Jackson’s effort.
On that train, I also told Jackson that I’d been quoting — in articles, and in talks with various groups — from his compelling pro-life statements. I asked him if he’d had any second thoughts on his reversal of those views.
Usually quick to respond to any challenge that he is not consistent in his positions, Jackson paused, and seemed somewhat disquieted at my question. Then he said to me, “I’ll get back to you on that.” I still patiently await what he has to say.
As time goes on, my deepening concern with the consequences of abortion is that its validation by the Supreme Court, as a constitutional practice, helps support the convictions of those who, in other controversies — euthanasia, assisted suicide and the “futility doctrine” by certain hospital ethics committees — believe that there are lives not worth continuing.
Around the time of my conversation with Jackson on the train, I attended a conference on euthanasia at Clark College in Worcester, Mass. There, I met Derek Humphry, the founder of the Hemlock Society, and already known internationally as a key proponent of the “death with dignity” movement.
He told me that for some years in this country, he had considerable difficulty getting his views about assisted suicide and, as he sees it, compassionate euthanasia into the American press.
“But then,” Humphry told me, “a wonderful thing happened. It opened all the doors for me.”
“What was that wonderful thing?” I asked.
“Roe v. Wade,” he answered.
The devaluing of human life — as the 9-year-old at the dinner table put it more vividly — did not end with making abortion legal, and therefore, to some people, moral. The word “baby” does not appear in Roe v. Wade — let alone the word “killing.”
And so, the termination of “lives not worth living” goes on.
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Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband. Now after presenting the secular approach of Nat Hentoff I wanted to make some comments concerning our shared Christian faith. I respect you for putting your faith in Christ for your eternal life. I am pleading to you on the basis of the Bible to please review your religious views concerning abortion. It was the Bible that caused the abolition movement of the 1800’s and it also was the basis for Martin Luther King’s movement for civil rights and it also is the basis for recognizing the unborn children.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733,
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ Picture of Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith from the 1930′s above. I was sad to read about Edith passing away on Easter weekend in 2013. I wanted to pass along this fine […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
It is truly sad to me that liberals will lie in order to attack good Christian people like state senator Jason Rapert of Conway, Arkansas because he headed a group of pro-life senators that got a pro-life bill through the Arkansas State Senate the last week of January in 2013. I have gone back and […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
Sometimes you can see evidences in someone’s life of how content they really are. I saw something like that on 2-8-13 when I confronted a blogger that goes by the name “AngryOldWoman” on the Arkansas Times Blog. See below. Leadership Crisis in America Published on Jul 11, 2012 Picture of Adrian Rogers above from 1970′s […]
In the film series “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?” the arguments are presented against abortion (Episode 1), infanticide (Episode 2), euthenasia (Episode 3), and then there is a discussion of the Christian versus Humanist worldview concerning the issue of “the basis for human dignity” in Episode 4 and then in the last episode a close […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
E P I S O D E 1 0 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode X – Final Choices 27 min FINAL CHOICES I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes. A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes. B. But society has to be […]
E P I S O D E 9 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IX – The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence 27 min T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads […]
E P I S O D E 8 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VIII – The Age of Fragmentation 27 min I saw this film series in 1979 and it had a major impact on me. T h e Age of FRAGMENTATION I. Art As a Vehicle Of Modern Thought A. Impressionism (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, […]
E P I S O D E 7 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VII – The Age of Non Reason I am thrilled to get this film series with you. I saw it first in 1979 and it had such a big impact on me. Today’s episode is where we see modern humanist man act […]
E P I S O D E 6 How Should We Then Live 6#1 Uploaded by NoMirrorHDDHrorriMoN on Oct 3, 2011 How Should We Then Live? Episode 6 of 12 ________ I am sharing with you a film series that I saw in 1979. In this film Francis Schaeffer asserted that was a shift in […]
E P I S O D E 5 How Should We Then Live? Episode 5: The Revolutionary Age I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Francis Schaeffer noted, “Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection. But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there […]
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IV – The Reformation 27 min I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer makes three key points concerning the Reformation: “1. Erasmian Christian humanism rejected by Farel. 2. Bible gives needed answers not only as to […]
Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 3 “The Renaissance” Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 3) THE RENAISSANCE I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer really shows why we have so […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 2) THE MIDDLE AGES I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer points out that during this time period unfortunately we have the “Church’s deviation from early church’s teaching in regard […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 1) THE ROMAN AGE Today I am starting a series that really had a big impact on my life back in the 1970′s when I first saw it. There are ten parts and today is the first. Francis Schaeffer takes a look at Rome and why […]
Most election watchers are focused on whether Republicans will take control of the House and/or the Senate in today’s midterm election in the United States.
That’s an interesting topic, and I’ll close today’s column with my predictions, but I’m going to continue my long-standing tradition (2010, 2012, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021) of highlighting the year’s most important initiatives and referendums.
1. Regular readers already know that the class-warfare initiative in Massachusetts is at the top of my list. The left-controlled state legislature has placed an initiative on the ballot to replace the state’s 5 percent flat tax with a class-warfare system with a top rate of 9 percent. The Wall Street Journalrecently warned, “A proposed millionaire tax would accelerate the exodus of wealth to New Hampshire and Florida” and National Reviewadded that “The Bay State’s economic future is on the ballot.”
2. It has not attracted much attention, but my sentimental favorite is Proposition 132 in Arizona, which would strengthen the state’s constitution by requiring a 3/5ths vote to approve any ballot initiative to increase the tax burden. This would augment the 2/3rds supermajority that already existsfor legislatively enacted tax increases.
3. Speaking of taxes, I can’t imagine that anyone is surprised to learn that there’s an initiative to (further) increase California’s top tax rate. The Tax Foundation explained that, “California Proposition 30 would create a 1.75 percentage point surtax on income above $2 million, which would bring the top marginal rate to 15.05 percent. (Separately, the scheduled uncapping of a 1.1 percent payroll tax in 2024, combined with the passage of Proposition 30, would yield a 16.15 percent top rate on wage income.)” This is so extreme that I’m predicting even California’s crazy voters will vote no.
4. Sticking to taxes, there’s a referendum in Colorado, Proposition 121, to lower the state’s flat tax. The Tax Foundation summarizes what’s at stake: “Colorado Proposition 121 would reduce the state’s flat statutory income tax rate from 4.55 percent to 4.4 percent, effective retroactively for tax year 2022.” Not a huge reduction, but a welcome step in the right direction.
5. For those who follow labor issues, there are two initiatives that merit attention. In Illinois, Amendment 1 would further empower and entrench the power of government bureaucrats. As noted by the Illinois Policy Institute, “Amendment 1 would allow government unions to pass their most unpopular demands at the bargaining table, and voters would have no way to hold them accountable.” By contrast, Tennessee voters will get to vote on whether to enshrine “right-to-work” in the state’s constitution.
6. Last but not least, voters in a couple of California communities will have the opportunity to demonstrate whether they understand economics. To be more specific, an article in Reason explains, “The most sweeping rent control initiative up for a vote next Tuesday is Measure H in Pasadena, California. It would cap rent increases at 75 percent of inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index…A handful of other California cities have ballot initiatives that would tighten pre-existing rent caps.”
P.S. My predictions for Congress (which occasionally are accurate) are for Republicans to take the Senate by a 52-48 margin and the House by a 246-189 margin.
House Democrats Block Probe of Biden Family Business Deals, Ask: What About Trump?
Republicans seek 150 documents in which banks flagged suspicious financial activity by Biden family members and associates. Pictured: Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, attends a July 7 ceremony in which his father presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 17 recipients at the White House. (Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images)
House Democrats on Tuesday blocked an inquiry into 150 reports of suspicious financial activitysurrounding the international business dealings of Hunter Biden and other Biden family members, which Republicans said could compromise President Joe Biden.
Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform Committee generally had a disciplined message in opposing oversight of potential conflicts of interest for the president, his son Hunter, and his brother Jim: What about Donald Trump?
Rep. Gerald Connolly, D-Va., listed matters such as the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., the Constitution’s emoluments clause, and insinuations that Trump didn’t separate his many businesses from his work as president.
Connolly also brought up Trump’s phone call to Ukraine’s president, which House Democrats used as the preface for the 45th president’s first impeachment, among other issues.
“What happened to investigations about Donald Trump?” Connolly asked, with a tone of outrage.
The Virginia Democrat added: “I don’t know that there is any kind of objective observer who would say there is nothing to see in the Trump years, that it was not a fertile ground for any kind of investigation.”
For about two hours, Connolly and other committee members debated a proposal from ranking member Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., to push the Biden administration to hand over about 150 documents held by the Treasury Department that are categorized as suspicious activity reports regarding Hunter Biden and other Biden family members.
By a voice vote, the committee opposed sending Comer’s resolution to the floor.
“I’m going to pose another question to my colleagues across the aisle,” Comer said during the debate. “Does anyone in the majority party dispute our allegations that Hunter Biden was influence peddling with our adversaries? I’m sure they will want to have time to speak to dispute that.”
The Kentucky Republican added: “We are investigating Hunter Biden because we fear that he has compromised Joe Biden, which is compromising our national security.”
In response, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said the “laser focus of the majority” includes “defending a woman’s right to choose against their [Republicans’] theocratic schemes.”
Raskin also talked about the “bipartisan” House select committee investigating the Capitol riot and what he called “Donald Trump’s incitement of domestic violent extremists.”
Raskin is a member of the House panel looking into the events of Jan. 6, 2021, along with six other Democrats and two Republicans, all appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
After 11 minutes of discussion Tuesday by other members, Comer spoke again.
“Again, I’m giving the Democrats on this committee every chance to say Hunter Biden was not influence peddling with our adversaries, and I’m hearing nothing but crickets,” Comer said. “The fact that we are hearing crickets shows that we need to provide oversight and we need to conduct investigations.”
During an interview that aired Sunday on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Biden again said that his son’s business activities overseas, including in China and Ukraine, never presented a conflict of interest.
“I love my son, No. 1. He fought—an addiction problem. He overcame it,” the president said of Hunter Biden in his interview with “60 Minutes” correspondent Scott Pelley. “He wrote about it. And no, there’s not a single thing that I’ve observed at all from that [sic] would affect me or the United States relative to my son Hunter.”
Republicans on the committee requested that the Treasury Department provide about 150 suspicious activity reports, called SARs, from banks about the Biden family’s financial activity. Such information had been available upon request to members of Congress, but the Biden Treasury Department reversed the policy and refused to comply with the request, Comer said.
“There are changes by Joe Biden to the ability of Congress to get suspicious activity reports,” Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., said during the debate. “I am a recovering banker. When we issue suspicious activity reports, it’s not just thrown out like a bag of shells. It’s done for a specific reason, because there are concerns about criminalities surrounding financial transactions.”
Donalds continued:
If Hunter Biden and other members of the Biden family have more than 100 suspicious activity reports, Congress does need to know about this, because a funny thing is happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Joe Biden is president of the United States. His son—who is not a kid, he’s 50 years old—is running around the world cutting deals.
On May 25, Comer wrote to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen requesting copies of all special activity reports generated because of the financial transactions of Hunter Biden and other Biden associates and family members.
Comer asked again July 6. However, on Sept. 2, the Treasury Department denied his requests for the information related to the Bidens.
House Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., called committee Republicans’ pursuit of information about the suspicious activity reports on the Biden family “nakedly partisan.”
Maloney then brought up the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and the FBI’s investigation of whether Trump took classified information from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. Trump has said he declassified the documents before leaving office, and the former president has not been formally charged with doing anything illegal.
“These same Republicans turned a blind eye when Donald Trump incited a deadly riot in the Capitol and illegally removed highly classified presidential records,” Maloney said. “Today, our Republican friends have chosen to spend our committee’s time on a resolution that seeks to smear President Biden by targeting his family.”
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.
The left praises democracy when elected but claims the right will destroy democracy when it loses. Pictured: Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton discusses the 2016 election during her 2017 book tour. (Photo: Bastiaan Slabbers, NurPhoto/Getty Images)
Recently, Democrats have been despondent over President Joe Biden’s sinking poll numbers. His policies on the economy, energy, foreign policy, the border, and COVID-19 all have lost majority support.
As a result, the left now variously alleges that either in 2022, when it expects to lose the Congress, or in 2024, when it fears losing the presidency, Republicans will “destroy democracy” or stage a coup.
A cynic might suggest that those on the left praise democracy when they get elected, only to claim it is broken when they lose. Or they hope to avoid their defeat by trying to terrify the electorate. Or they mask their own revolutionary propensities by projecting them onto their opponents.
After all, who is trying to federalize election laws in national elections contrary to the spirit of the Constitution? Who wishes to repeal or circumvent the Electoral College? Who wishes to destroy the more than 180-year-old Senate filibuster, the over 150-year-old nine-justice Supreme Court, and the more than 60-year-old 50-state union?
Who is attacking the founding constitutional idea of two senators per state?
The Constitution also clearly states that “When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside.” Who slammed through the impeachment of former President Donald Trump without a presiding chief justice?
Never had a president been either impeached twice or tried in the Senate as a private citizen. Who did both?
The left further broke prior precedent by impeaching Trump without a special counsel’s report, formal hearings, witnesses, and cross-examinations.
Who exactly is violating federal civil rights legislation?
New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in December decided to ration new potentially lifesaving COVID-19 medicines, partially on the basis of race, in the name of “equity.”
The agency also allegedly used racial preferences to determine who would be first tested for COVID-19. Yet such racial discrimination seems in direct violation of various title clauses of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
That law makes it clear that no public agency can use race to deny “equal utilization of any public facility which is owned, operated, or managed by or on behalf of any State or subdivision thereof.” Who is behind the new racial discrimination?
In summer 2020, many local- and state-mandated quarantines and bans on public assemblies were simply ignored with impunity—if demonstrators were associated with Black Lives Matter or protesting the police.
Currently, the Biden administration is also flagrantly embracing the neo-Confederate idea of nullifying federal law.
The Biden administration has allowed nearly 2 million foreign nationals to enter the United States illegally across the southern border—in hopes they will soon be loyal constituents.
The administration has not asked illegal entrants either to be tested for or vaccinated against COVID-19. Yet all U.S. citizens in the military and employed by the federal government are threatened with dismissal if they fail to become vaccinated.
Such selective exemption of lawbreaking non-U.S. citizens, but not millions of U.S. citizens, seems in conflict with the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
After entering the United States illegally, millions of immigrants are protected by some 550 “sanctuary city” jurisdictions. These revolutionary areas all brazenly nullify immigration law by refusing to allow federal immigration authorities to deport illegal immigrant lawbreakers.
At various times in our nation’s history—1832, 1861-65, and 1961-63—America was either racked by internal violence or fought a civil war over similar state nullification of federal laws.
In the last five years, we have indeed seen many internal threats to democracy.
Hillary Clinton hired a foreign national to concoct a dossier of dirt against her presidential opponent. She disguised her own role by projecting her efforts to use Russian sources onto Trump. She used her contacts in government and media to seed the dossier to create a national hysteria about “Russian collusion.” Clinton urged Biden not to accept the 2020 result if he lost, and herself claimed Trump was not a legitimately elected president.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has violated laws governing the chain of command. Some retired officers violated Article 88 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice by slandering their commander in chief. Others publicly were on record calling for the military to intervene to remove an elected president.
Some of the nation’s top officials in the FBI and intelligence committee have misled or lied under oath either to federal investigators or the U.S. Congress, again, mostly with impunity.
All these sustained revolutionary activities were justified as necessary to achieve the supposedly noble ends of removing Trump.
The result is Third World-like jurisprudence in America aimed at rewarding friends and punishing enemies, masked by service to social justice.
We are in a dangerous revolutionary cycle. But the threat is not so much from loud, buffoonish, one-day rioters on Jan. 6. Such clownish characters did not for 120 days loot, burn, attack courthouses and police precincts, cause over 30 deaths, injure 2,000 policemen, and destroy at least $2 billion in property—all under the banner of revolutionary justice.
Even more ominously, stone-cold sober elites are systematically waging an insidious revolution in the shadows that seeks to dismantle America’s institutions and the rule of law as we have known them.
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The Daily Signal publishes a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Heritage Foundation.
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the URL or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.
The Honorable Representative Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Washington D.C.
Dear Representative Adam Kinzinger,
I noticed that you are a pro-life representative that has a long record of standing up for unborn babies! It was in the 1970’s when I was first introduced to the works of Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop and I wanted to commend their writings and films to you.
Washington, DC – Today, Congressman Adam Kinzinger (IL-16) joined his House Republican colleagues in a press conference urging Democratic leadership to allow a vote on the Born Alive protections. The proposal would protect babies who survive abortion and provide them with the same medical care that any other premature baby would receive. Yesterday, the Democrats blocked the proposed legislation—for the 17th time—from coming before the House for a vote.
Joining the Congressman and House Republican leaders at the press conference this morning was Jill Stanek, an Illinois nurse and pro-life advocate who has witnessed the devastating realities of these pro-abortion laws. The Illinois legislature is currently debating two abortion bills, similar to the extreme pro-abortion agendas in New York and Virginia.
It seems you have a grudge against President Trump while our freedoms under President Biden are being taken away. I recommend to you the article below:
Roger Kimball Editor and Publisher, The New Criterion
Mr. Kimball concludes his article with these words:
That’s one melancholy lesson of the January 6 insurrection hoax: that America is fast mutating from a republic, in which individual liberty is paramount, into an oligarchy, in which conformity is increasingly demanded and enforced.
Another lesson was perfectly expressed by Donald Trump when he reflected on the unremitting tsunami of hostility that he faced as President. “They’re after you,” he more than once told his supporters. “I’m just in the way.”
There were a few Republicans Thursday who surprised observers when they voted in support of holding former Trump adviser Steve Bannon in contempt of Congress and referring him to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution.
Prior to the vote, four Republicans were considered a lock to approve the criminal referral, according to Capitol Hill sources: Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Fred Upton of Michigan and Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio.
Cheney and Kinzinger are on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and have for months stood alone as the only two House Republicans willing to speak out against former President Donald Trump’s continued lies about the 2020 election. They were the only two House Republicans to vote for the formation of the select committee on June 30.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi formed the select committee after Republicans rejected a bipartisan commission that would have been evenly split between five Democrats and five Republicans. Only 35 Republicans voted for that measure when itpassed the House of Representatives, and it was defeated by a GOP filibuster in the Senate.
From left: Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a Democrat, and Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois arrive for the House Select Committee hearing investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
More
Upton has served in the House for more than three decades, since 1987, and will face a primary challenge next year because of his willingness to stand up to Trump.
Gonzalez is retiring from Congress next year, after only four years in the House. “While my desire to build a fuller family life is at the heart of my decision, it is also true that the current state of our politics, especially many of the toxic dynamics inside our own party, is a significant factor in my decision,” Gonzalez said in September when heannounced he would not seek another term.
The remaining five Republicans included three who voted for impeachment — Peter Meijer of Michigan, John Katko of New York and Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington — and two House Republicans who did not vote to impeach Trump: Nancy Mace of South Carolina and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.
Trump seems never to have discerned what a viper’s nest our politics has become for anyone who is not a paid-up member of The Club.
Maybe Trump understands this now. I have no insight into that question. I am pretty confident, though, that the 74 plus million people who voted for him understand it deeply. It’s another reason that The Club should be wary of celebrating its victory too expansively.
Friedrich Hayek took one of the two epigraphs for his book, The Road to Serfdom, from the philosopher David Hume. “It is seldom,” Hume wrote, “that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.” Much as I admire Hume, I wonder whether he got this quite right. Sometimes, I would argue, liberty is erased almost instantaneously.
I’d be willing to wager that Joseph Hackett, confronted with Hume’s observation, would express similar doubts. I would be happy to ask Mr. Hackett myself, but he is inaccessible. If the ironically titled “Department of Justice” has its way, he will be inaccessible for a long, long time—perhaps as long as 20 years.
Joseph Hackett, you see, is a 51-year-old Trump supporter and member of an organization called the Oath Keepers, a group whose members have pledged to “defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.” The FBI does not like the Oath Keepers—agents arrested its leader in January and have picked up many other members in the months since. Hackett traveled to Washington from his home in Florida to join the January 6 rally. According to court documents, he entered the Capitol at 2:45 that afternoon and left some nine minutes later, at 2:54. The next day, he went home. On May 28, he was apprehended by the FBI and indicted on a long list of charges, including conspiracy, obstruction of an official proceeding, destruction of government property, and illegally entering a restricted building.
As far as I have been able to determine, no evidence of Hackett destroying property has come to light. According to his wife, it is not even clear that he entered the Capitol. But he certainly was in the environs. He was a member of the Oath Keepers. He was a supporter of Donald Trump. Therefore, he must be neutralized.
Joseph Hackett is only one of hundreds of citizens who have beenbranded as “domestic terrorists” trying to “overthrow the government” and who are now languishing, in appalling conditions, jailed as political prisoners of an angry state apparat.
Let me recommend that you read this letter below from Senator Ron Johnson and his colleagues:
WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), along with senators Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), sent a letter on Monday to Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting information on the unequal application of justice between the individuals who breached the Capitol on Jan. 6, and those involved in the unrest during the spring and summer of 2020. The senators sent 18 questions to the attorney general on what steps the DOJ has taken to prosecute individuals who committed crimes during both events, and requested a response by June 21.
“Americans have the constitutional right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances,” the senators wrote. “This constitutional right should be cherished and protected. Violence, property damage, and vandalism of any kind should not be tolerated and individuals that break the law should be prosecuted. However, the potential unequal administration of justice with respect to certain protestors is particularly concerning.”
The full text of the letter can be found here and below.
June 7, 2021
The Honorable Merrick B. Garland
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530
Dear Attorney General Garland:
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is currently dedicating enormous resources and manpower to investigating and prosecuting the criminals who breached the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. We fully support and appreciate the efforts by the DOJ and its federal, state and local law enforcement partners to hold those responsible fully accountable.
We join all Americans in the expectation that the DOJ’s response to the events of January 6 will result in rightful criminal prosecutions and accountability. As you are aware, the mission of the DOJ is, among other things, to ensure fair and impartial administration of justice for all Americans. Today, we write to request information about our concerns regarding potential unequal justice administered in response to other recent instances of mass unrest, destruction, and loss of life throughout the United States.
During the spring and summer of 2020, individuals used peaceful protests across the country to engage in rioting and other crimes that resulted in loss of life, injuries to law enforcement officers, and significant property damage.[1] A federal court house in Portland, Oregon, has been effectively under siege for months.[2] Property destruction stemming from the 2020 social justice protests throughout the country will reportedly result in at least $1 billion to $2 billion in paid insurance claims.[3]
In June 2020, the DOJ reportedly compiled the following information regarding last year’s unrest:
“One federal officer [was] killed, 147 federal officers [were] injured and 600 local officers [were] injured around the country during the protests, frequently from projectiles.”[4]
According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), “since the start of the unrest there has been 81 Federal Firearms License burglaries of an estimated loss of 1,116 firearms; 876 reported arsons; 76 explosive incidents; and 46 ATF arrests[.]”[5]
Despite these numerous examples of violence occurring during these protests, it appears that individuals charged with committing crimes at these events may benefit from infrequent prosecutions and minimal, if any, penalties. According to a recent article, “prosecutors have approved deals in at least half a dozen federal felony cases arising from clashes between protesters and law enforcement in Oregon last summer. The arrangements — known as deferred resolution agreements — will leave the defendants with a clean criminal record if they stay out of trouble for a period of time and complete a modest amount of community service, according to defense attorneys and court records.”[6]
DOJ’s apparent unwillingness to punish these individuals who allegedly committed crimes during the spring and summer 2020 protests stands in stark contrast to the harsher treatment of the individuals charged in connection with the January 6, 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. To date, DOJ has charged 510 individuals stemming from Capitol breach.[7] DOJ maintains and updates a webpage that lists the defendants charged with crimes committed at the Capitol. This database includes information such as the defendant’s name, charge(s), case number, case documents, location of arrest, case status, and informs readers when the entry was last updated.[8] No such database exists for alleged perpetrators of crimes associated with the spring and summer 2020 protests. It is unclear whether any defendants charged with crimes in connection with the Capitol breach have received deferred resolution agreements.
Americans have the constitutional right to peaceably assemble and petition the government for a redress of grievances. This constitutional right should be cherished and protected. Violence, property damage, and vandalism of any kind should not be tolerated and individuals that break the law should be prosecuted. However, the potential unequal administration of justice with respect to certain protestors is particularly concerning. In order to assist Congress in conducting its oversight work, we respectfully request answers to the following questions by June 21, 2021:
Spring and Summer 2020 Unrest:
Did federal law enforcement utilize geolocation data from defendants’ cell phones to track protestors associated with the unrest in the spring and summer of 2020? If so, how many times and for which locations/riots?
How many individuals who may have committed crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020 were arrested by law enforcement using pre-dawn raids and SWAT teams?
How many individuals were incarcerated for allegedly committing crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020?
How many of these individuals are or were placed in solitary confinement? What was the average amount of consecutive days such individuals were in solitary confinement?
How many of these individuals have been released on bail?
How many of these individuals were released on their own recognizance or without being required to post bond?
How many of these individuals were offered deferred resolution agreements?[9]
How many DOJ prosecutors were assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020?
How many FBI personnel were assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with protests in the spring and summer of 2020?
January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol Breach:
Did federal law enforcement utilize geolocation data from defendants’ cell phones to track protestors associated with the January 6, 2021 protests and Capitol breach? If so, how many times and how many additional arrests resulted from law enforcement utilizing geolocation information?
How many individuals who may have committed crimes associated with the Capitol breach were arrested by law enforcement using pre-dawn raids and SWAT teams?
How many individuals are incarcerated for allegedly committing crimes associated with the Capitol breach?
How many of these individuals are or were placed in solitary confinement? What was the average amount of consecutive days such individuals were in solitary confinement?
How many of these individuals have been released on bail?
How many of these individuals have been released on their own recognizance or without being required to post bond?
How many of these individuals were offered deferred resolution agreements?
How many DOJ prosecutors have been assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with the Capitol breach?
How many FBI personnel were assigned to work on cases involving defendants who allegedly committed crimes associated with the Capitol breach?
I want to recommend to you a video on YOU TUBE that runs 28 minutes and 39 seconds by Francis Schaeffer entitled because it discusses the founding of our nation and what the FOUNDERS believed:
Edith Schaeffer with her husband, Francis Schaeffer, in 1970 in Switzerland, where they founded L’Abri, a Christian commune.
________________
______________________
March 23, 2021
President Biden c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. I know that you don’t agree with my pro-life views but I wanted to challenge you as a fellow Christian to re-examine your pro-choice view. Although we are both Christians and have the Bible as the basis for our moral views, I did want you to take a close look at the views of the pro-life atheist Nat Hentoff too. Hentoff became convinced of the pro-life view because of secular evidence that shows that the unborn child is human. I would ask you to consider his evidence and then of course reverse your views on abortion.
___________________
The pro-life atheist Nat Hentoff wrote a fine article below I wanted to share with you.
Nat Hentoff is an atheist, but he became a pro-life activist because of the scientific evidence that shows that the unborn child is a distinct and separate human being and even has a separate DNA. His perspective is a very intriguing one that I thought you would be interested in. I have shared before many cases (Bernard Nathanson, Donald Trump, Paul Greenberg, Kathy Ireland) when other high profile pro-choice leaders have changed their views and this is just another case like those. I have contacted the White House over and over concerning this issue and have even received responses. I am hopeful that people will stop and look even in a secular way (if they are not believers) at this abortion debate and see that the unborn child is deserving of our protection.That is why the writings of Nat Hentoff of the Cato Institute are so crucial.
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the video below. It is very valuable information for Christians to have. Actually I have included a video below that includes comments from him on this subject.
Francis Schaeffer Whatever Happened to the Human Race (Episode 1) ABORTION
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Dr. Francis schaeffer – from Part 5 of Whatever happened to human race?) Whatever Happened To The Human Race? | Episode 5 | Truth and History
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – A Christian Manifesto – Dr. Francis Schaeffer Lecture
Francis Schaeffer – A 700 Club Special! ~ Francis Schaeffer 1982
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – 1984 SOUNDWORD LABRI CONFERENCE VIDEO – Q&A With Francis & Edith Schaeffer
http://www.NewsandOpinion.com | A longtime friend of mine is married to a doctor who also performs abortions. At the dinner table one recent evening, their 9-year-old son — having heard a word whose meaning he didn’t know — asked, “What is an abortion?” His mother, choosing her words carefully, described the procedure in simple terms.
“But,” said her son, “that means killing the baby.” The mother then explained that there are certain months during which an abortion cannot be performed, with very few exceptions. The 9-year-old shook his head. “But,” he said, “it doesn’t matter what month. It still means killing the babies.”
Hearing the story, I wished it could be repeated to the justices of the Supreme Court, in the hope that at least five of them might act on this 9-year-old’s clarity of thought and vision.
The boy’s spontaneous insistence on the primacy of life also reminded me of a powerful pro-life speaker and writer who, many years ago, helped me become a pro-lifer. He was a preacher, a black preacher. He said: “There are those who argue that the right to privacy is of a higher order than the right to life.
“That,” he continued, “was the premise of slavery. You could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore out of your right to be concerned.”
This passionate reverend used to warn: “Don’t let the pro-choicers convince you that a fetus isn’t a human being. That’s how the whites dehumanized us … The first step was to distort the image of us as human beings in order to justify what they wanted to do — and not even feel they’d done anything wrong.”
That preacher was Jesse Jackson. Later, he decided to run for the presidency — and it was a credible campaign that many found inspiring in its focus on what still had to be done on civil rights. But Jackson had by now become “pro-choice” — much to the appreciation of most of those in the liberal base.
The last time I saw Jackson was years later, on a train from Washington to New York. I told him of a man nominated, but not yet confirmed, to a seat on a federal circuit court of appeals. This candidate was a strong supporter of capital punishment — which both the Rev. Jackson and I oppose, since it involves the irreversible taking of a human life by the state.
I asked Jackson if he would hold a press conference in Washington, criticizing the nomination, and he said he would. The reverend was true to his word; the press conference took place; but that nominee was confirmed to the federal circuit court. However, I appreciated Jackson’s effort.
On that train, I also told Jackson that I’d been quoting — in articles, and in talks with various groups — from his compelling pro-life statements. I asked him if he’d had any second thoughts on his reversal of those views.
Usually quick to respond to any challenge that he is not consistent in his positions, Jackson paused, and seemed somewhat disquieted at my question. Then he said to me, “I’ll get back to you on that.” I still patiently await what he has to say.
As time goes on, my deepening concern with the consequences of abortion is that its validation by the Supreme Court, as a constitutional practice, helps support the convictions of those who, in other controversies — euthanasia, assisted suicide and the “futility doctrine” by certain hospital ethics committees — believe that there are lives not worth continuing.
Around the time of my conversation with Jackson on the train, I attended a conference on euthanasia at Clark College in Worcester, Mass. There, I met Derek Humphry, the founder of the Hemlock Society, and already known internationally as a key proponent of the “death with dignity” movement.
He told me that for some years in this country, he had considerable difficulty getting his views about assisted suicide and, as he sees it, compassionate euthanasia into the American press.
“But then,” Humphry told me, “a wonderful thing happened. It opened all the doors for me.”
“What was that wonderful thing?” I asked.
“Roe v. Wade,” he answered.
The devaluing of human life — as the 9-year-old at the dinner table put it more vividly — did not end with making abortion legal, and therefore, to some people, moral. The word “baby” does not appear in Roe v. Wade — let alone the word “killing.”
And so, the termination of “lives not worth living” goes on.
______________________
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband. Now after presenting the secular approach of Nat Hentoff I wanted to make some comments concerning our shared Christian faith. I respect you for putting your faith in Christ for your eternal life. I am pleading to you on the basis of the Bible to please review your religious views concerning abortion. It was the Bible that caused the abolition movement of the 1800’s and it also was the basis for Martin Luther King’s movement for civil rights and it also is the basis for recognizing the unborn children.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733,
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ Picture of Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith from the 1930′s above. I was sad to read about Edith passing away on Easter weekend in 2013. I wanted to pass along this fine […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
It is truly sad to me that liberals will lie in order to attack good Christian people like state senator Jason Rapert of Conway, Arkansas because he headed a group of pro-life senators that got a pro-life bill through the Arkansas State Senate the last week of January in 2013. I have gone back and […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
Sometimes you can see evidences in someone’s life of how content they really are. I saw something like that on 2-8-13 when I confronted a blogger that goes by the name “AngryOldWoman” on the Arkansas Times Blog. See below. Leadership Crisis in America Published on Jul 11, 2012 Picture of Adrian Rogers above from 1970′s […]
In the film series “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?” the arguments are presented against abortion (Episode 1), infanticide (Episode 2), euthenasia (Episode 3), and then there is a discussion of the Christian versus Humanist worldview concerning the issue of “the basis for human dignity” in Episode 4 and then in the last episode a close […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
E P I S O D E 1 0 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode X – Final Choices 27 min FINAL CHOICES I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes. A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes. B. But society has to be […]
E P I S O D E 9 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IX – The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence 27 min T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads […]
E P I S O D E 8 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VIII – The Age of Fragmentation 27 min I saw this film series in 1979 and it had a major impact on me. T h e Age of FRAGMENTATION I. Art As a Vehicle Of Modern Thought A. Impressionism (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, […]
E P I S O D E 7 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VII – The Age of Non Reason I am thrilled to get this film series with you. I saw it first in 1979 and it had such a big impact on me. Today’s episode is where we see modern humanist man act […]
E P I S O D E 6 How Should We Then Live 6#1 Uploaded by NoMirrorHDDHrorriMoN on Oct 3, 2011 How Should We Then Live? Episode 6 of 12 ________ I am sharing with you a film series that I saw in 1979. In this film Francis Schaeffer asserted that was a shift in […]
E P I S O D E 5 How Should We Then Live? Episode 5: The Revolutionary Age I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Francis Schaeffer noted, “Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection. But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there […]
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IV – The Reformation 27 min I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer makes three key points concerning the Reformation: “1. Erasmian Christian humanism rejected by Farel. 2. Bible gives needed answers not only as to […]
Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 3 “The Renaissance” Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 3) THE RENAISSANCE I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer really shows why we have so […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 2) THE MIDDLE AGES I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer points out that during this time period unfortunately we have the “Church’s deviation from early church’s teaching in regard […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 1) THE ROMAN AGE Today I am starting a series that really had a big impact on my life back in the 1970′s when I first saw it. There are ten parts and today is the first. Francis Schaeffer takes a look at Rome and why […]
Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) speaks as Judge Merrick Garland testifies before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on his nomination to be US Attorney General on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC on February 22, 2021. (Photo by Demetrius Freeman / POOL / AFP) (Photo by DEMETRIUS FREEMAN/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton slammed Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday for allowing illegal protesting to continue outside the homes of Supreme Court justices.
More than six months after the leak of the draft Supreme Court opinion indicating that Roe v. Wade would soon be overturned, pro-abortion activists continue to illegally demonstrate outside justices’ homes.
On Friday evening, 42-year-old Melissa Barlow (under the username Miscreant Mouse) posted videos of her group marching outside of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s home (as they have done for months now), chanting, “Illegitimate and unfit” as they banged on drums.
Federal law prohibits picketing or parading near the home of a justice with the intent of “interfering with, obstructing, or impeding the administration of justice,” though President Joe Biden’s Justice Department has yet to enforce this law against the protesters. Both Maryland and Virginia law also prohibit picketing to disrupt or threaten to disrupt that individual’s “tranquility in his home.”
Cotton pointed to President Joe Biden’s recent remarks warning about the death of democracy.
“For all Biden’s screeching about the death of democracy, his Department of Justice continues to let left-wing mobs unlawfully harass Justices,” Cotton said in a Twitter post.
“Merrick Garland should be ashamed of himself,” the senator added.
Barlow, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Daily Signal, has frequently donated to the Democratic Party and has regularly protested outside the justices’ homes for months.
A longtime protester and activist, she frequently coordinates abortion protests with “Our Rights DC,” an “anti-fascist” organization, and “Downright Impolite.” She has also attended many protests organized by “ShutDownDC,” a group that infamously offered bounties for sightings of the justices.
Barlow, who has said she has participated in Antifa “black bloc” protests, has described Antifa as “passionate about serving the community” (black bloc protestors hide their identities by dressing in black and covering their faces with masks). She also called black bloc a “protective strategy” for avoiding arrest.
She also participated in “Fuck the Police” marches with Black Lives Matter where she and fellow protestors “march through DC neighborhoods and engage in several types of actions” including “Shutting down DC roads,” “noise pollution protests,” and “gathering outside restaurants in gentrified neighborhoods and reading names of POC, often trans, queer, killed by the police.”
In August 2019, the Washington Post described her as having provided much of the video and photo content for “Kremlin Annex,” a group funded by Party Majority PAC, created by former Clinton staffer Adam Parkhomenko, that protested against former President Donald Trump outside the White House in 2018 and 2019.
The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to request for comments for this story.
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TUCKER CARLSON: In 2022, whether you’re considered dangerous or not depends on who you voted for
Oct 10, 2022 | 11:06 PM
Happy Columbus Day! Remember Columbus Day? That’s the day that we celebrate the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus and all that happened after, which was the creation of the freest and most humane society in the history of man. We’re still celebrating it, but we’re also assessing what happened to that society because it is changing.
We want to tell you the story of a man called Paul Vaughn leading off tonight. Paul Vaughn does not fit the profile of a terrorist. You’d never guess. He’s 55 years old. He’s a former pastor who now runs a small Internet service business in middle Tennessee. He and his wife are gentle people. They’re faithful Christians. They spend most of their time raising their 11 children.
Last Wednesday morning, at about 7:15 a.m., a bucolic scene at the Vaughn household. Several of Paul Vaughn’s children are standing in the front yard about to head to school. Suddenly, out of nowhere, their world falls down around them. A team of FBI agents armed with automatic rifles swoop in in their SUVs and begins pounding on the front door of the family home.
Inside the house, Paul Vaughn is watching this and he shocked, as he said later, “When I opened the door and saw the guns pointed at me, I asked them what they wanted. They said they wanted me,” and they did. The agents led Paul Vaughn away. Inside the house, his wife who had been at the back with their newest child, an 18-month-old baby, ran to the front door. Confused and terrified, she asked what anyone would ask, “Who are you and why are you taking my husband away?” We don’t need to guess about the exchange because it’s on tape. Here’s what it looked like.
PAUL VAUGHN WIFE: I want to know why you were banging on my door with a gun. You’re not going to tell me anything?
AGENT: I tried m’am
WIFE: No, you didn’t. You did not try. This is not acceptable. Can I have your name? You’re not going to give me your name? You’re not going to give me any information?
Body armor, little watch caps, automatic weapons held at the ready, taking off with her husband. “Why are you taking him? Who are you?“ she asks, but of course they completely ignore her. “No, we’re not going to answer. We tried” – when they didn’t. They don’t have to answer because when your husband is a domestic terrorist, the government doesn’t owe you an answer to the most basic questions. So, Paul Vaughn, we now learn, is a terrorist, but what did he do? You may be wondering that by this point.
Well, as the Department of Justice explained later in the statement, Paul Vaughn opposes abortion and not just in a quiet, personal way. That would be bad enough, but Paul Vaughn is outspoken about his views on abortion. He still believes, being 55, this is a free country with a Bill of Rights that allows you the freedom to say what you want and even have protests on behalf of your ideas. He believes that was the freedom that built this country. So, a year and a half ago, on March 5 2021, Vaughn and ten volunteers from a Christian pro-life group in Tennessee staged a protest at an abortion clinic in Mount Juliet. Now, we don’t need to speculate about what happened next, and that’s a good thing for Paul Vaughn. It was broadcast live on Facebook by one of the volunteers. That would be 73-year-old Chester Gallagher. Watch this:
Protesters sing church hymns.
COP:We’re going to need you guys to disperse outside, ok? This is your last warning. We need everyone to step outside and go to the sidewalk. You’re more than welcome to protest out on the sidewalk, ok? I’m just asking nicely for you to leave and go outside on the sidewalk.
So, you live in the United States and you watch nightly the chaos in your city, buildings burning, people being pushed in front of subway trains, people getting knocked in the face on the street for no reason, carjackings, murders up in every city in America. So, you look at that and you think, is that really it? That’s why armed FBI agents with automatic rifles arrived at Paul Vaughn’s home last Wednesday? Because of that? Because more than a year ago, a group of Christians, many of them elderly, sang hymns? Yeah, that’s it. That’s what he did wrong.
Now we should note that we only have this video evidence because of the hard work of Mia Cathell at Townhall, which broke this story. God bless. Without this documentary evidence, without this video, you might be tempted to believe the Biden administration when it tells you that Paul Vaughn “used force and physical obstruction to injure, intimidate and interfere with employees of the abortion clinic.”
Oh, but he didn’t. He didn’t use physical force. He sang hymns, but for doing that, Joe Biden’s Department of Justice now tells us Paul Vaughn deserves to spend 11 years in prison. 11 years? Vaughn’s “coconspirators” from that day in March of 2021, meaning other pro-life activists, are also facing long prison sentences.
This group would include 87-year-old Eva Edl. Now, if that name sounds familiar to you, it’s because she is something of a celebrity in Christian circles, pro-lifecircles, and that’s because she survived a Yugoslav concentration camp before escaping to this country, where she spent decades advocating against abortion. She has seen firsthand what happens when the government denies the essential humanity of a person. In this picture, you can see her sitting in front of an abortion clinic as a police officer towers over her. Within seconds, two officers are shoving this 87-year-old into the back of a car.
Now, again, contrast this with the country you watch every night on television or the one you experience if you live in a city where people are afraid to go to the grocery store, where Wendy’s burned down in the name of civil rights, and no one does a thing about it. Watch how they’re treated.
Same thing happened to 58-year-old Heather Idoni back in March of 2021. It took a whole team of police officers to remove her. Really? You wonder why. How dangerous does she look? Then there was 57-year-old evangelist Calvin John Zastrow. He was also arrested that day in March. Here’s a video he shot discussing it:
ZASTROW: When we have national revival, this is what every abortion clinic’s gonna look like right here, a field of rubble. Not through violence, through peace, through God bringing the high places down. So, let’s go show up in front of those high places, trust him, rescue, preach sing pray, and see this happen to the rest of ‘em.
Now, you may not share his views. Maybe you do, maybe you don’t, but be as honest as you can with yourself. Does that guy look dangerous and if so, compared to what? There are a lot of dangerous people wandering around completely unimpeded. In fact, they’re celebrated by this administration. Is that guy a dangerous person? Of course, he’s not. He’s a Christian. Maybe you’re not a Christian. Maybe you’re pro-choice.
But even if you are, you are not, if you’re being completely honest, going to conclude that that guy poses a threat to you or this country because he doesn’t and neither is his daughter, who’s 24 years old, Eva Darlene Zastrow. She was also apprehended at the clinic with her father. Here’s her violent manifesto.
DARLENE ZASTROW: I’d seen the pictures before, and I heard that it was murder before, but the connection went from knowing it here to knowing it in my heart. I just praise God that he gave me the opportunity to rescue, and Lord willing, abortion will end.
So imagine sitting back at Department of Justice headquarters assessing that video and saying to yourself, “You know what? They need an armed FBI raid. Get out the body armor. That’s a terror manifesto.” Apparently, they did conclude that because now Joe Biden’s Justice Department, the FBI, to its eternal shame, is rounding up everyone associated with Paul Vaughn’s entirely nonviolent Christian organization.
Take a look at the mug shots from the FBI’s investigation into this event in March of 2021. It’s on your screen right now. They’re telling you, the FBI is telling you, bragging about it, that these people are dangerous. and of course, you know what they know, which is in America 2022, whether you’re dangerous or not, depends almost entirely on who you voted for.
There are people in this country who molest children. True fact. You are hearing now that they are “minor-attracted persons.” You have people on television trying to minimize the gravity of child molestation. Why is that? Well, because they’re probably Biden voters. That’s the assumption anyway. Meanwhile, those people in the mug shots on the screen, those are the terrorists.
Keep in mind that Biden voters, who’ve actually killed people, are facing less jail time than these Christian protesters. Illinois BLM rioter Matthew Rupert received fewer than 11 years for setting fire to a cell phone store in Minneapolis. Oh, really? 26-year-old Montez Terriel Lee received fewer than 11 years in prison for setting fire to the Max It Prawn Shop in Minneapolis, a fire that wound up killing a 30-year-old man. He got less time than Paul Vaughn is facing.
20-year-old Samuel Elliot Frey was sentenced to just over two years in federal prison for setting fire to a health food store, but it was for a good cause. It was for Joe Biden, so not a big deal. All of those crimes and countless others that are happening around the country at a scale we have not seen in our lifetimes, all of those crimes are being treated as less serious offenses than a man who sang hymns in an abortion clinic.
So, what’s going on here? Well, a day before the FBI’s raid on Paul Vaughn, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris announced their new policy, which is pro-lifers, because they disagree with Joe Biden and upset the base, are now terrorists.
VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: What we believe, and I certainly believe, that a woman should have the freedom to make decisions about her own body and that her government should not be making those decisions for her. Today’s extremist so-called leaders are attacking the freedom and liberty of millions of women.
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: We’re not going to sit by and let Republicans throughout the country enact extreme policies to threaten access to basic health care. My message to folks across the country who are worried about what we’re seeing is first, that we have your back.
So, you think to yourself as you watch something like that, “Well, of course, there’s an election coming up in just a few weeks and a lot of the Democratic base believes that abortion is the key to freedom and happiness and they’re very upset about the Roe v. Wade decision. Roe v. Wade is no longer the law of the land and so Biden and Harris and the rest of the leaders of that party are pandering to them.” It’s okay. We’re on your side.
What you don’t think as you watch something like that, that its effect will mean sending guys with automatic weapons to Paul Vaughn’s house and scaring the hell out of his 11 children. You never would have imagined that in real life, people who sang hymns in an abortion clinic could be facing 11 years in prison. So, you have to ask, since the parallels are very clear, this is effectively the modern version of Bull Connor’s fire hoses and German Shepherds, has a single Democrat pointed out that this is insane, that an 11-year sentence for him singing might be a little punitive?
Has Sandy Cortez said anything? Wait a second. We’re pro-choice and everything but 11 years for a 55-year-old father of 11? Has Rashida Tlaib? What about George Gascon or Larry Krasner? The guys who think, “Well, we put away too many people in prison. We got to pull back a little bit. We got to rehabilitate them.” What about the compassion mongers at CNN or MSNBC? Have they said a word about this? As their country becomes totalitarian, have they even noticed? We checked. No. The only clip we could find was Nancy Pelosi, where she endorses violence against her political enemies. Here she is.:
REPORTER:There has been a number of attacks on churches, on crisis pregnancy centers. Republicans are going after Democrats for not saying anything and they’re saying that your rhetoric is contributing to these attacks on these crisis pregnancy centers.
HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI: Well, let me just say this: a woman has a right to choose, to live up to her responsibility. It’s up to her, her doctor, her family, her husband, her significant other and her god. I’m a very Catholic person and I believe in every woman’s right to make her own decisions.
First of all, you’re not a Catholic. I mean, this is ridiculous. Let’s stop pretending. Second, you don’t believe at all of the right to choose. You applauded as nurses got fired because they didn’t want to take the mandatory vax because they did want to hurt their own fertility. They wanted to have children maybe some day and you thought that was great. So, it wasn’t their body, their choice. You’re a liar and a fraud. You’re not a Christian. Be quiet.
But what’s really stunning is nobody the people who’ve lectures for years, the criminal justice system is just to mean that MS-13 are children of God. They have a problem with us at all. The people who claim to hate mass incarceration, it turns out, are strongly for the mass incarceration of anyone who disagrees with them, and they’re doing it.
As Julie Kelly has reported relentlessly, judges have sentenced dozens of January 6 defendants to months in prison, followed by probation. Why? Oh, because they entered a public building as police officers stood by, lifted the ropes for them. What was that about, by the way? Don’t ask, shut up. They belong in jail.
As of this week, dozens of January 6 defendants are still being held in pretrial detention. No one notices. Where’s the Republican Party in that? Nowhere. At the same time, the FBI has made zero arrests, none to protect pro-lifers from actual violence, not hymn singing, firebombing. The CompassCare Pregnancy Services center in Buffalo was firebombed in June. No arrests have been made. In fact, the FBI seized surveillance footage from the facility and never gave it back.
REPORTER: This building was up in flames this morning when police and firefighters arrived and this is the aftermath: broken windows, shattered glass and graffiti which the CEO says gives him an indication as to who is behind this. CEO Jim Harden says this didn’t come as a shock. Recently, CompassCare has received threats online and in person. The graffiti on the side of the building says “Jane was here” and Harden says he thinks the abortion rights group Jane’s Revenge is behind the attack. It’s a reference to Jane’s Collective which was provided underground abortions in Chicago in the 60s. The group took responsibility for firebombing a pro-life facility in Wisconsin last month. Harden says it’ll take months to repair the $100k worth of damage to the facility.
See how this works? So, a group aligned with Joe Biden firebombs a building (firebombs!) and the FBI does nothing. Instead, they send agents with automatic rifles to the home of a 55-year-old man with 11 children because he sung hymns in an abortionclinic.
This is too much actually. There’s always going to be disparities in justice. There’s always going to be disparities in law enforcement. You have to believe they’re unintentional. This is not unintentional. This is intentional. It’s right in our face, and it’s completely unacceptable.
Chris Wray, who runs the FBI, purportedly a good guy, a decent man who cares about justice, what does he think of this? Is this all right, sending FBI agents automatic weapons to arrest hymn singer? So, we called Chris Wray’s office today and asked a simple question: Are you okay with this? You know this is happening? You run the FBI. No response just like Paul Vaughn’s wife just shut the door. We don’t have to answer your questions.
These are political raids, and they’re exactly what the most recent FBI whistleblower Steve Friend warned about last month. The FBI didn’t respond to those warnings from one of its own agents. It just suspended Steve Friend. So, the raids are continuing. People need to see this. This is going too far, and it’s getting scary.
Dr. Francis schaeffer – The flow of Materialism(from Part 4 of Whatever happened to human race? Co-authored by Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop)
Edith Schaeffer with her husband, Francis Schaeffer, in 1970 in Switzerland, where they founded L’Abri, a Christian commune.
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September 25, 2021
President Biden c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. I know that you don’t agree with my pro-life views but I wanted to challenge you as a fellow Christian to re-examine your pro-choice view.
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the video WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? which can be found on You Tube. It is very valuable information for Christians to have.
Today I want to respond to your letter to me on July 9, 2021. Here it is below:
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
July 9, 2021
Mr. Everette Hatcher III
Alexander, AR
Dear Mr. Hatcher,
Thank you for taking your time to share your thoughts on abortion. Hearing from passionate individuals like me inspires me every day, and I welcome the opportunity to respond to your letter
Our country faces many challenges, and the road we will travel together will be one of the most difficult in our history. Despite these tough times, I have never been more optimistic for the future of America. I believe we are better positioned than any country in the world to lead in the 21st century not just by the example of our power but by the power of our example.
As we move forward to address the complex issues of our time, I encourage you to remain an active participant in helping write the next great chapter of the American story. We need your courage and dedication at this critical time, and we must meet this moment together as the United States of America. If we do that, I believe that our best days still lie ahead.
Sincerely
Joe Biden
Mr. President, my wife was born in JEFFERSON MEMORIAL HOSPITAL in Pine Bluff, Arkansas and Adrian Rogers tells a story about another lady that was born in that same hospital: “They took that grocery sack and Maria home and one hour passed and two hours passed and that baby was still crying and panting for his life in that grocery sack. They took that little baby down to the hospital there in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and they called an obstetrician and he called a pediatrician and they called nurses and they began to work on that little baby. Today that baby is alive and well and healthy, that little mass of protoplasm. That little thing that wasn’t a human being is alive and well. I want to tell you they spent $150,000 to save the life of that baby. NOW CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO ME HOW THEY CAN SPEND $150,000 TO SAVE THE LIFE OF SOMETHING THAT SOMEBODY WAS PAYING ANOTHER DOCTOR TO TAKE THE LIFE OF?”
Thanks for your recent letter about evolution and abortion. The correlation is hardly one to one; there are evolutionists who are anti-abortion and anti-evolutionists who are pro-abortion.You argue that God exists because otherwise we could not understand the world in our consciousness. But if you think God is necessary to understand the world, then why do you not ask the next question of where God came from? And if you say “God was always here,” why not say that the universe was always here? On abortion, my views are contained in the enclosed article (Sagan, Carl and Ann Druyan {1990}, “The Question of Abortion,” Parade Magazine, April 22.)
I was blessed with the opportunity to correspond with Dr. Sagan, and in his December 5, 1995 letter Dr. Sagan went on to tell me that he was enclosing his article “The Question of Abortion: A Search for Answers”by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan. I am going to respond to several points made in that article. Here is a portion of Sagan’s article (here is a link to the whole article):
(both Adrian Rogers and Francis Schaeffer mentioned Carl Sagan in their books and that prompted me to write Sagan and expose him to their views.
For the complete text, including illustrations, introductory quote, footnotes, and commentary on the reaction to the originally published article see Billions and Billions.
The issue had been decided years ago. The court had chosen the middle ground. You’d think the fight was over. Instead, there are mass rallies, bombings and intimidation, murders of workers at abortion clinics, arrests, intense lobbying, legislative drama, Congressional hearings, Supreme Court decisions, major political parties almost defining themselves on the issue, and clerics threatening politicians with perdition. Partisans fling accusations of hypocrisy and murder. The intent of the Constitution and the will of God are equally invoked. Doubtful arguments are trotted out as certitudes. The contending factions call on science to bolster their positions. Families are divided, husbands and wives agree not to discuss it, old friends are no longer speaking. Politicians check the latest polls to discover the dictates of their consciences. Amid all the shouting, it is hard for the adversaries to hear one another. Opinions are polarized. Minds are closed.
Is it wrong to abort a pregnancy? Always? Sometimes? Never? How do we decide? We wrote this article to understand better what the contending views are and to see if we ourselves could find a position that would satisfy us both. Is there no middle ground? We had to weigh the arguments of both sides for consistency and to pose test cases, some of which are purely hypothetical. If in some of these tests we seem to go too far, we ask the reader to be patient with us–we’re trying to stress the various positions to the breaking point to see their weaknesses and where they fail.
In contemplative moments, nearly everyone recognizes that the issue is not wholly one-sided. Many partisans of differing views, we find, feel some disquiet, some unease when confronting what’s behind the opposing arguments. (This is partly why such confrontations are avoided.) And the issue surely touches on deep questions: What are our responses to one another? Should we permit the state to intrude into the most intimate and personal aspects of our lives? Where are the boundaries of freedom? What does it mean to be human?
Of the many actual points of view, it is widely held–especially in the media, which rarely have the time or the inclination to make fine distinctions–that there are only two: “pro-choice” and “pro-life.” This is what the two principal warring camps like to call themselves, and that’s what we’ll call them here. In the simplest characterization, a pro-choicer would hold that the decision to abort a pregnancy is to be made only by the woman; the state has no right to interfere. And a pro-lifer would hold that, from the moment of conception, the embryo or fetus is alive; that this life imposes on us a moral obligation to preserve it; and that abortion is tantamount to murder. Both names–pro-choice and pro-life–were picked with an eye toward influencing those whose minds are not yet made up: Few people wish to be counted either as being against freedom of choice or as opposed to life. Indeed, freedom and life are two of our most cherished values, and here they seem to be in fundamental conflict.
Let’s consider these two absolutist positions in turn. A newborn baby is surely the same being it was just before birth. There ‘s good evidence that a late-term fetus responds to sound–including music, but especially its mother’s voice. It can suck its thumb or do a somersault. Occasionally, it generates adult brain-wave patterns. Some people claim to remember being born, or even the uterine environment. Perhaps there is thought in the womb. It’s hard to maintain that a transformation to full personhood happens abruptly at the moment of birth. Why, then, should it be murder to kill an infant the day after it was born but not the day before?
As a practical matter, this isn’t very important: Less than 1 percent of all tabulated abortions in the United States are listed in the last three months of pregnancy (and, on closer investigation, most such reports turn out to be due to miscarriage or miscalculation). But third-trimester abortions provide a test of the limits of the pro-choice point of view. Does a woman’s “innate right to control her own body” encompass the right to kill a near-term fetus who is, for all intents and purposes, identical to a newborn child?
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End of Sagan Excerpt
When I was in high school the book and film series named WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? came out and it featured Doctor C. Everett Koop and Francis Schaeffer and they looked at the issues of abortion, infanticide, and youth euthanasia and they looked at comments from such scholars as Peter Singer and James D. Watson.
C. Everett Koop pictured above and Peter Singer below
Peter Singer, an endowed chair at Princeton’s Center for Human Values, said, “Killing a disabled infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Very often it is not wrong at all.”
James D.Watson
In May 1973, James D. Watson, the Nobel Prize laureate who discovered the double helix of DNA, granted an interview to Prism magazine, then a publication of the American Medical Association. Time later reported the interview to the general public, quoting Watson as having said, “If a child were not declared alive until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice only a few are given under the present system. The doctor could allow the child to die if the parents so choose and save a lot of misery and suffering. I believe this view is the only rational, compassionate attitude to have.”
Carl Sagan
On August 30, 1995 I mailed a letter to Carl Sagan that probably prompted this discussion on abortion and it enclosed a lengthy story from Adrian Rogers about an abortion case in Pine Bluff, Arkansas that almost became an infanticide case:
An excerpt from the Sunday morning message (11-6-83) by Adrian Rogers in Memphis, TN.
I want to tell you that secular humanism and so-called abortion rights are inseparably linked together. We have been taught that our bodies and our children are the products of the evolutionary process, and so therefore human life may not be all that valuable to begin with. We have come today to where it is legal and even considered to be a good thing to put little babies to death…15 million little babies put to death since 1973 because of this philosophy of Secular Humanism.
How did the court make that type of decision? You would think it would be so obvious. You can’t do that! You can’t kill little babies! Why? Because the Bible says! Friend, they don’t give a hoot what the Bible says! There used to be a time when they talked about what the Bible says because there was a time that we as a nation had a constitution that was based in the Judeo-Christian ethic, but today if we say “The Bible says” or “God says “Separation of Church and State. Don’t tell us what the Bible says or what God says. We will tell you what we think!” Therefore, they look at the situation and they decide if it is right or wrong purely on the humanistic philosophy that right and wrong are relative and the situation says what is right or what is wrong.
This little girl just 19 years old went into the doctor’s office and he examined her. He said, “We can take take of you.” He gave her an injection in her arm that was to cause her to go into labor and to get rid of that protoplasm, that feud, that little mass that was in her, but she wasn’t prepared for the sound she was about to hear. It was a little baby crying. That little baby weighed 13 ounces. His hand the size of my thumbnail. You know what the doctor did. The doctor put that little baby in a grocery sack and gave it to Maria’s two friends who were with her in that doctor office and Said, “It will stop making those noises after a while.”
(Adrian Rogers pictured above)
Pine Bluff, ArkansasMy wife was born in main hospital in Pine Bluff, Arkansas
They took that grocery sack and Maria home and one hour passed and two hours passed and that baby was still crying and panting for his life in that grocery sack. They took that little baby down to the hospital there in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and they called an obstetrician and he called a pediatrician and they called nurses and they began to work on that little baby. Today that baby is alive and well and healthy, that little mass of protoplasm. That little thing that wasn’t a human being is alive and well. I want to tell you they spent $150,000 to save the life of that baby. NOW CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO ME HOW THEY CAN SPEND $150,000 TO SAVE THE LIFE OF SOMETHING THAT SOMEBODY WAS PAYING ANOTHER DOCTOR TO TAKE THE LIFE OF? The same life!!! Are you going to tell me that is not a baby? Are you going to tell me that if that baby had been put to death it would not have been murder? You will never convince me of that. What has happened to us in America? We have been sold a bill of goods by the Secular Humanists!
Carl Sagan was elected the HUMANIST OF THE YEAR in 1982 by the AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSOCIATION
Carl Sagan asked, “Does a woman’s “innate right to control her own body” encompass the right to kill a near-term fetus who is, for all intents and purposes, identical to a newborn child?”
This message “A Christian Manifesto” was given in 1982 by the late Christian Philosopher Francis Schaeffer when he was age 70 at D. James Kennedy’s Corral Ridge Presbyterian Church.
Listen to this important message where Dr. Schaeffer says it is the duty of Christians to disobey the government when it comes in conflict with God’s laws. So many have misinterpreted Romans 13 to mean unconditional obedience to the state. When the state promotes an evil agenda and anti-Christian statues we must obey God rather than men. Acts
I use to watch James Kennedy preach from his TV pulpit with great delight in the 1980’s. Both of these men are gone to be with the Lord now. We need new Christian leaders to rise up in their stead.
To view Part 2 See Francis Schaeffer Lecture- Christian Manifesto Pt 2 of 2 video
The religious and political freedom’s we enjoy as Americans was based on the Bible and the legacy of the Reformation according to Francis Schaeffer. These freedoms will continue to diminish as we cast off the authority of Holy Scripture.
In public schools there is no other view of reality but that final reality is shaped by chance.
Likewise, public television gives us many things that we like culturally but so much of it is mere propaganda shaped by a humanistic world and life view.
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I was able to watch Francis Schaeffer deliver a speech on a book he wrote called “A Christian Manifesto” and I heard him in several interviews on it in 1981 and 1982. I listened with great interest since I also read that book over and over again. Below is a portion of one of Schaeffer’s talks on a crucial subject that is very important today too.
A great talk by Francis Schaeffer:A Christian Manifesto by Dr. Francis A. SchaefferThis address was delivered by the late Dr. Schaeffer in 1982 at the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It is based on one of his books, which bears the same title._________
Infanticide and youth enthansia ———So what we find then, is that the medical profession has largely changed — not all doctors. I’m sure there are doctors here in the audience who feel very, very differently, who feel indeed that human life is important and you wouldn’t take it, easily, wantonly. But, in general, we must say (and all you have to do is look at the TV programs), all you have to do is hear about the increased talk about allowing the Mongoloid child — the child with Down’s Syndrome — to starve to death if it’s born this way. Increasingly, we find on every side the medical profession has changed its views.
The view now is, “Is this life worth saving?”I look at you… You’re an older congregation than I am usually used to speaking to. You’d better think, because — this — means — you! It does not stop with abortion and infanticide. It stops at the question, “What about the old person? Is he worth hanging on to?” Should we, as they are doing in England in this awful organization, EXIT, teach older people to commit suicide? Should we help them get rid of them because they are an economic burden, a nuisance? I want to tell you, once you begin chipping away the medical profession…
The intrinsic value of the human life is founded upon the Judeo-Christian concept that man is unique because he is made in the image of God, and not because he is well, strong, a consumer, a sex object or any other thing. That is where whatever compassion this country has is, and certainly it is far from perfect and has never been perfect. Nor out of the Reformation has there been a Golden Age, but whatever compassion there has ever been, it is rooted in the fact that our culture knows that man is unique, is made in the image of God. Take it away, and I just say gently, the stopper is out of the bathtub for all human life.
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Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband. Now I wanted to make some comments concerning our shared Christian faith. I respect you for putting your faith in Christ for your eternal life. I am pleading to you on the basis of the Bible to please review your religious views concerning abortion. It was the Bible that caused the abolition movement of the 1800’s and it also was the basis for Martin Luther King’s movement for civil rights and it also is the basis for recognizing the unborn children.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733,
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 1) ABORTION OF THE HUMAN RACE Published on Oct 6, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ________________ Picture of Francis Schaeffer and his wife Edith from the 1930′s above. I was sad to read about Edith passing away on Easter weekend in 2013. I wanted to pass along this fine […]
ABORTION – THE SILENT SCREAM 1 / Extended, High-Resolution Version (with permission from APF). Republished with Permission from Roy Tidwell of American Portrait Films as long as the following credits are shown: VHS/DVDs Available American Portrait Films Call 1-800-736-4567 http://www.amport.com The Hand of God-Selected Quotes from Bernard N. Nathanson, M.D., Unjust laws exist. Shall we […]
I have been writing President Obama letters and have not received a personal response yet. (He reads 10 letters a day personally and responds to each of them.) However, I did receive a form letter in the form of an email on April 16, 2011. First you will see my letter to him which was mailed around April 9th(although […]
ABORTION – THE SILENT SCREAM 1 / Extended, High-Resolution Version (with permission from APF). Republished with Permission from Roy Tidwell of American Portrait Films as long as the following credits are shown: VHS/DVDs Available American Portrait Films Call 1-800-736-4567 http://www.amport.com The Hand of God-Selected Quotes from Bernard N. Nathanson, M.D., Unjust laws exist. Shall we […]
When I think of the things that make me sad concerning this country, the first thing that pops into my mind is our treatment of unborn children. Donald Trump is probably going to run for president of the United States. Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council recently had a conversation with him concerning the […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
It is truly sad to me that liberals will lie in order to attack good Christian people like state senator Jason Rapert of Conway, Arkansas because he headed a group of pro-life senators that got a pro-life bill through the Arkansas State Senate the last week of January in 2013. I have gone back and […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
Sometimes you can see evidences in someone’s life of how content they really are. I saw something like that on 2-8-13 when I confronted a blogger that goes by the name “AngryOldWoman” on the Arkansas Times Blog. See below. Leadership Crisis in America Published on Jul 11, 2012 Picture of Adrian Rogers above from 1970′s […]
In the film series “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?” the arguments are presented against abortion (Episode 1), infanticide (Episode 2), euthenasia (Episode 3), and then there is a discussion of the Christian versus Humanist worldview concerning the issue of “the basis for human dignity” in Episode 4 and then in the last episode a close […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
E P I S O D E 1 0 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode X – Final Choices 27 min FINAL CHOICES I. Authoritarianism the Only Humanistic Social Option One man or an elite giving authoritative arbitrary absolutes. A. Society is sole absolute in absence of other absolutes. B. But society has to be […]
E P I S O D E 9 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IX – The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence 27 min T h e Age of Personal Peace and Afflunce I. By the Early 1960s People Were Bombarded From Every Side by Modern Man’s Humanistic Thought II. Modern Form of Humanistic Thought Leads […]
E P I S O D E 8 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VIII – The Age of Fragmentation 27 min I saw this film series in 1979 and it had a major impact on me. T h e Age of FRAGMENTATION I. Art As a Vehicle Of Modern Thought A. Impressionism (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, […]
E P I S O D E 7 Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode VII – The Age of Non Reason I am thrilled to get this film series with you. I saw it first in 1979 and it had such a big impact on me. Today’s episode is where we see modern humanist man act […]
E P I S O D E 6 How Should We Then Live 6#1 Uploaded by NoMirrorHDDHrorriMoN on Oct 3, 2011 How Should We Then Live? Episode 6 of 12 ________ I am sharing with you a film series that I saw in 1979. In this film Francis Schaeffer asserted that was a shift in […]
E P I S O D E 5 How Should We Then Live? Episode 5: The Revolutionary Age I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Francis Schaeffer noted, “Reformation Did Not Bring Perfection. But gradually on basis of biblical teaching there […]
Dr. Francis Schaeffer – Episode IV – The Reformation 27 min I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer makes three key points concerning the Reformation: “1. Erasmian Christian humanism rejected by Farel. 2. Bible gives needed answers not only as to […]
Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 3 “The Renaissance” Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 3) THE RENAISSANCE I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer really shows why we have so […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 2) THE MIDDLE AGES I was impacted by this film series by Francis Schaeffer back in the 1970′s and I wanted to share it with you. Schaeffer points out that during this time period unfortunately we have the “Church’s deviation from early church’s teaching in regard […]
Francis Schaeffer: “How Should We Then Live?” (Episode 1) THE ROMAN AGE Today I am starting a series that really had a big impact on my life back in the 1970′s when I first saw it. There are ten parts and today is the first. Francis Schaeffer takes a look at Rome and why […]
So let’s celebrate (or commiserate) this awful day by wading into the debate about whether the Internal Revenue Service should have a bigger budget.…the core problem is that Republicans slashed the IRS budget about 18 percent in the past decade. That’s not belt-tightening, it’s gutting an agency. …The Biden administration is rightly asking for a big increase for 2023 (a request of $14.1 billion). This isn’t some Democratic wish list item; it’s about restoring the basic functions of America’s tax collection agency.
Apparently, it doesn’t occur to anyone that the IRS, which is seeking this extra $40 billion in taxpayer funding, has every incentive in the world to exaggerate this “tax gap” and to make wild promises about the new money that additional enforcement will yield for the Treasury. …Giving money to IRS bureaucrats to conduct fishing expedition audits on millions of honest self-employed people? The same IRS behind the Lois Lerner scandal a decade ago, when the IRS inappropriately targeted conservative political groups during the 2012 election season, when Obama was running for reelection?
…The Tax Foundation estimates that we give up 3.24 billion hours and $37 billion to comply with federal taxes each year. Given the headaches and anxiety that come with this, Americans don’t need more IRS workers. We need a leaner agency…individual filers and small businesses represent a huge proportion of the public who would gain from simplification. …There is no need to hire more people to oversee a reformed system. What’s not to like?
It has thieving employees.
The Daily Hatch 