Biden's regressive energy policy is one big war on the poor - American Thinker "Joe Biden's transportation secretary nominee, Pete Buttigieg, was all over the map at his confirmation hearings. ...Buttigieg did not specify where money could come from for big investments in infrastructure, and wouldn't rule out a tax increase.
...Two things stand out:
Buttigieg wants a tax hike for gasoline to fund his so-called infrastructure projects. Who will pay those taxes? Those who drive...But the poor live on a low margin — the tax will likely cut to the bone for the poor, forcing them to go without, say, in food supplies or other necessities. Tax hikes that are the same and unavoidably hit the poor the hardest.
The hearing also notes that Buttigieg likes the Big Brother solution, to tax people based on miles driven...
And as a side note, these regressive tax hikes for so-called infrastructure projects will likely be the kind that never happen, because if experience is any indicator, the funds will get diverted to other leftist priorities, which don't include quality of life for the general public...Read all.
"President Joe Biden signed an executive order Monday to phase out the federal government’s use of vehicles that run on gas and replace them with ones that run on electricity.
The process is part of Biden’s “Made in America” executive order, which the president claims will create one million additional jobs in the auto industry in America.
...But replacing an entire federal fleet of hundreds of thousands of vehicles could be a massive undertaking. TechCrunch reported that, in 2019, the federal fleet comprised of more than 645,000 vehicles, including more than 412,000 trucks and 224,000 passenger cars.
...Automakers likely to supply the country with these electric vehicles include Ford and General Motors, companies that have both said they would commit to spending billions on electric vehicles...Read all.
Von Spakovsky highlighted how the For the People Act would increase the difficulty for states to compare voter rolls to prevent citizens from voting in multiple states.
“It makes it almost impossible for states to compare their statewide voter registration list with that of other states to try to find people who are registered and voting in more than one state. They make that as difficult as possible,” he said.
Trends throughout California are aimed at banning the use of natural gas hook-ups to for cooking, heating, and cooling, and washing and drying clothes imposes a regressive energy tax on low- and middle-income consumers.
Prohibiting the direct consumption of natural gas in furnaces, stoves, clothes dryers, and water heaters forces consumers to buy electricity, which in California is four times as expensive as natural gas on an energy-equivalent.
“A Republican must assert the truth,” (Nicolle) Wallace proposed, “before they’re allowed to share any other views.”
...And who would Wallace want in charge of “Speech Licenses” in the next Republican administration... On the other hand, this isn’t as surprising coming from Ben Rhodes, who once bragged about how easily he manipulated reporters by having “created an echo chamber” regarding the Iran deal.
...Ned Price, Rhodes’s assistant, gave me a primer on how it’s done.
The easiest way for the White House to shape the news, he explained, is from the briefing podiums, each of which has its own dedicated press corps.
“But then there are sort of these force multipliers,” he said, adding, “We have our compadres, I will reach out to a couple people, and you know I wouldn’t want to name them — ”...Read all, it gets worse!
President Biden signed an executive order on Thursday that could have American taxpayers covering 100 percent of the cost of “homeless hotels” through September in cities such as San Francisco.
"Six months ago, a throng of New Yorkers, yours truly included, gathered outside of the Museum of Natural History to protest the planned removal of the statue of Theodore Roosevelt that graces the entryway.
It was a small event in a sweeping summer of plague, riots and iconoclasm, but today, the statue still stands.
It’s a lesson that the fanatic mobs that would destroy our history can be held at bay — if we have the courage to fight back.
Boston wasn’t so fortunate.
There, an iconic statue of Abraham Lincoln was removed.
This was a statue, mind you, modeled on an original in Washington, DC, that was paid for by freed slaves.
But today’s laptop-class progressives decided they didn’t like the way those former slaves had themselves been portrayed in a work of art showing a black man rising from his knees under the Liberator’s protection.
Michigan sending $500 hazard pay checks to teachers, $250 to school staff by Feb. 25 - mlive.com
"LANSING, MI - Hazard pay checks to teachers and school staff that worked through the pandemic will be sent by the end of February, according to an update by the Michigan Department of Treasury.
The “MI Classroom Heroes Grants” would send $500 bonus payments to teachers and $250 checks to staff by Feb. 25 per the update.
The Legislature and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer struck a state budget deal last October that set aside $53 million in hazard pay for teachers and $20 million for support staff...Read all.
Demonstrating once again that these so-called Christian religious charities care more about illegal aliens and third world refugees than they do about America’s poor, sick, homeless and unemployed….
"They are federal refugee contractors who have worked hard to elect Biden/Harris as part of the ‘religious’ Socialist Left and are cheering Biden’s plan to push for a blanket amnesty for those in the country illegally and to increase the ceiling for the admission of refugees to 125,000 in this fiscal year (FY2021 is underway).
See the story at the Christian Post: Christian immigration advocacy groups praise Biden’s plans as ‘glimpse of hope’
Several faith-based immigration advocacy and humanitarian organizations [they are federal refugee contractors, see list below—ed] have voiced support for the immigration proposal President Joe Biden sent to Congress on his first day in office Wednesday and the immigration-related executive orders he signed....World Relief also called on Biden to raise the annual U.S. refugee resettlement ceiling that was drastically reduced during the Trump years. In November, Biden vowed to raise the ceiling to 125,000 refugees that can be resettled in the U.S. during the fiscal year.Under Trump, the ceiling was set at 15,000 for the fiscal year 2021.
One of those cheering Biden is the often-arrested CEO of Church World Service.***See here.
Arrested on the Capitol steps in 2019. That is the Rev. McCullough of Church World Service on the far left. He pulls in an annual salary and benefits package of $386,227 (most recent form 990) from the quasi-government CWS. Looks like Anne Richard, Obama’s refugee chief next to him, and then of course CAIR’s Nihad Awad fourth from the left.
That is a fine representative of Church World Service (sporting their logo).
By the way, to raise the refugee ceiling to 125,000 does not require Congressional approval, but Biden through his State Department is required to (merely) consult the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.
*** Is your church one of these?
McCullough and CWS say they represent the following “communions.”
And, know this, if your church does a “Crop Walk” you are funding the politically Leftwing activist group Church World Service!
Democrats move to ban Trump supporters from federal jobs or joining the military "Cancel culture has arrived in Congress in a big way. ...Florida Democratic congresswoman Stephanie Murphy...proposed legislation from Murphy would prevent anyone who participated in the January protests and riot on Capitol Hill from being eligible for a security clearance.
Further, she would impose a similar ban on anyone who participated in any “stop the steal” rally or anyone who knowingly engaged with Q-anon.
Given that a security clearance check is required for virtually every person applying for a federal job (and many state or municipal jobs) or enlistment in the military, Murphy would be banning an entire class of people from public service even if they never engaged in any violent activities...Read all!
In fact, so far, all Biden has done to “stop” the coronavirus is institute a stupid federal mask policy, a policy that he and his corrupt family have already violated. Oh, and he’s also promised to vaccinate one million people per day, which the Trump administration was already doing.
Biden’s vaccination goal is especially hilarious when you remember that just last week the Biden administration told far-left CNNLOL (I don’t link fake news) that President Trump left them with no vaccination plan. The truth, however, is that His Fraudulency’s vaccination plan is to adopt Trump’s vaccination plan, which was already well on its way to vaccinating a million people per day.
"...Passing a stimulus package is like drinking alcohol: It makes you feel better in the short run, but later on it can give you a nasty hangover.
President Obama’s 2009 stimulus package cut unemployment in the short run, but it actually shrank the economy and increased unemployment in the long run, resulting in slower economic growth.
As the director of the Congressional Budget Office explained, it had “a net negative effect on the growth of GDP over 10 years.”
...People who lose their jobs due to COVID-19 need unemployment benefits until they can find another job.
But most Americans are doing just fine.
Their situation doesn’t justify $1.9 trillion in stimulus spending on things like aid to state governments, or expanded welfare benefits (including for people not financially harmed by the coronavirus).
Some state governments are flush with cash, and adopting big new spending.
...A growing national debt menaces the economy, because more interest has to be paid on the rising debt. That drives up the cost of government, resulting in increased taxes, increased budget deficits, or both...Read all.
1606 - The trial of Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators began. They were executed on January 31.
1880 - Thomas Edison patented the electric incandescent lamp.
1926 - John Baird, a Scottish inventor, demonstrated a pictorial transmission machine called television.
1945 - Soviet troops liberated the Nazi concentration camps Auschwitz and Birkenau in Poland.
1967 - At Cape Kennedy, FL, astronauts Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee died in a flash fire during a test aboard their Apollo I spacecraft.
1984 - Carl Lewis beat his own two-year-old record by 9-1/4 inches when he set a new indoor world record with a long-jump mark of 28 feet, 10-1/4 inches.
1998 - U.S. First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton appeared on NBC's "Today" show. She charged that the allegations against her husband were the work of a "vast right-wing conspiracy."
Forty-five senators voted on Tuesday with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), raising constitutional concerns over the second impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump.
Forty-five senators voted with Paul’s motion to raise the question of whether it is constitutional to impeach Trump after he left office. This means that likely five Republicans voted with Democrats on the question of whether it is constitutional to impeach a former president.
Although Trump’s policy was frequently referred to as a “transgender ban,” it did not ban transgender members of the military. It allowed for transgender recruits to serve as long as they served in their biological gender and did not suffer from gender dysphoria, a condition of distress when someone’s gender identity differs from their biological gender.
"Brandon Straka, creator of the #WalkAway campaign, was arrested Monday in Nebraska on charges of impeding a law enforcement officer, entering a restricted building and engaging in disorderly conduct with intent to disturb a hearing before Congress in connection with the January 6th riot in Washington. He was allegedly turned in by a relative.
This past week, Guy W. Reffitt, a 48 year old man was arrested after turned in to the FBI by his 18 year old son. The crapbag kid probably doesn't know what the STASI was or that he is part of the newest iteration.
Twitter announced this morning that it has permanently banned Mike Lindell, he of My Pillow fame and an outspoken Trump supporter, due to "repeated violations" of Twitters new "Civic Integrity Policy". Lindell's violation? Continuing to voice his opinion that President Trump actually won the 2020 election after Twitter decided that having such an opinion was forbidden.
In the entirety of 2020 during the year long ANTIFA and BLM violence, not a single Democrat was banned or censored from social media and the majority of the rioters were not even arrested, much less charged.
Those who were arrested were summarily released or bailed out by funds supported by our sitting Vice President, Kamala Harris. 20 years ago, such censorship of "wrongthink" and prosecution of "thoughtcrimes" would have been unthinkable in the United States. And yet, here we are. 1984 came 36 years late."
"Disregarding public health orders could mean jail time and a hefty fine for one mountain county in Colorado amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Violating public health orders in Pitkin County now carries the highest-level misdemeanor in Colorado.
Mountain county law enforcement, including those in Aspen, Snowmass Village, and Basalt, will now be issuing misdemeanor tickets for "egregious public health violations," such as large parties and gatherings.
The offense for violators is considered a Class 1 misdemeanor, which is punishable by up to 18 months in jail and/or a $500 to $5,000 fine.
..."We are not spying on you," states a joint press release from the Upper Valley law enforcement agencies...Read all.
America is in the throes of a suicide epidemic, with the highest suicide rate since World War II. Suicide rates have risen 30 percent since 1999, and the number keeps climbing. There were 45,000 suicide deaths in 2016 alone. In 2017, there were 47,000. Roughly 129 people a day.
"People who have received two doses of the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus vaccine may still spread the virus to others, a senior British medical officer has warned.
Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, England’s deputy chief medical officer, said on Jan. 24 that “we do not yet know the impact of the vaccine on transmission of the virus.”
“So even after you have had both doses of the vaccine you may still give COVID-19 to someone else and the chains of transmission will then continue,” he wrote in the Sunday Telegraph.
Therefore, he urged the millions of Britons who have already been vaccinated to keep following the lockdown rules.
“If you change your behaviour you could still be spreading the virus, keeping the number of cases high and putting others at risk who also need their vaccine but are further down the queue.”...Read all.
...Two things stand out:
President Obama’s 2009 stimulus package cut unemployment in the short run, but it actually shrank the economy and increased unemployment in the long run, resulting in slower economic growth.
