Biden and the Democrats want to increase the size and cost of government

President Joe Biden’s rushed and ill-conceived exit from Afghanistan was a true disaster, with 13 American military personnel and other innocent lives lost, and many Americans and allies still trying to get out of there, without any American assets left in the country to help make that happen.

This colossal mess has damaged our relations with some allies, caused others to question our strength and direction, and has strengthened our adversaries.

Our southern border, which the Biden administration insists is “closed,” still allows and encourages thousands of illegal aliens to enter the country every day. These people — whose identity and character are unknown, and few if any of whom have been vaccinated against the Covid virus — are mostly left in the country, while some are deported.

In the chaos at the border our Border Patrol (BP) officers are now under fire for doing their job: trying to prevent people from illegally entering the country. 

People who see what they want to see, or who never fact-check their perceptions, falsely accused the mounted BP officers of carrying whips and beating the illegal migrants, when in fact the only migrants who received any sort of physical action were those who refused to obey the officers, or were trying to interfere with them by grabbing the reins of their horses as the officers tried to keep them out of the country.

Why aren’t these critics more concerned with the safety of our BP officers than that of the trespassers?

After launching an attack on Border Patrol officers, now Biden has launched an attack on wealthy Americans and large corporations, saying, "I'm sick and tired of the super-wealthy and giant corporations not paying their fair share in taxes. It's time for it to change."

First, let’s look at who pays what in taxes. The bottom 50% who make less than $43,600 per year pay only 3% of total income taxes; those making $43,600 to $87,000 pay 10%; those making $87,000 to $152,000 pay 16%; those making $152,000 to $218,000 pay 11%; those making $218,000 to $540,000 (the top 2% to 5%) pay 20%; and the hated top 1% making more than $540,000 pay 40% of total income taxes, according to data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

If 1% of taxpayers pay 40% of income taxes and the top 5% pay 60%, while those in the lowest tax bracket pay only 3%, what would the fair share of total taxes paid be?

Just like there is some fraud in elections, there is some fraud among tax payers. But you likely would find that most wealthy people and large corporations follow the tax code pretty strictly.

If corporations are not paying enough in taxes, or maybe nothing in taxes, don’t suggest they are “un-American,” change the tax code.

Biden wants to change the reporting requirements for financial institutions, and for the IRS to be able to view transactions of all bank accounts with $600 or more in them. This is aimed at anyone who doesn’t report their income accurately, the tax dodgers. But it puts most people under the IRS microscope.

Biden’s “American Families Plan calls for banks and other financial institutions to report more than just a taxpayer’s interest earned, capital gains and losses,” Forbes magazine reported. “Banks and other financial institutions would also be required to report ‘aggregate account outflows and inflows.’

“In other words, the IRS will know about all of your bank accounts, whether you earned income on that account or not, how much is in the account in a given year, and how much was transferred in and out of the account,” the Forbes report continued. “It is unclear how this would work, but what is clear is that this new reporting obligation will create a massive compliance effort on the part of financial institutions, and eliminate a massive blind spot that the IRS is currently enduring.” Some good things, but also some bad things.

This new big government plan prompted Sen. Chuck Grassley, R–IA, to say, "Instead of promising a chicken in every pot, Biden's plan promises an auditor at every kitchen table."

And to make sure all bank accounts properly report everyone’s financial activities, the IRS will hire 87,000 new employees, and everyone can expect more scrutiny of the flow of money to and from their accounts.

Assuming that these employees make minimum wage, each one will receive gross pay of $15,080 for a year of 40-hour weeks. Figured for all 87,000 new IRS workers, that comes to an additional $1,311,960,000 per year. Most likely, they will make a bit more than the minimum wage, and probably at least double that figure. And that is only the wage cost of the new employees, not including office space and the needed equipment, etc.

Supposedly, this process will find additional income to be reported and taxed. But what it also does is increase the size and cost of government, and increase the weight of government on the shoulders of those who pay the salaries of Joe Biden, and everyone else who is employed by the federal government.

None of this represents the government that our Founders designed.

China’s aggression against America is currently our greatest threat

In July of this year, Dan Blumenthal wrote in National Review that “The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) long-term strategic objective is to displace the United States as the world’s most powerful country and create a new world order favorable to China’s authoritarian brand of politics, or its ‘socialist market economy,’”  

Today the Chinese economy is one of the strongest in the world, and its military is one of the largest and best equipped. China has stolen our technology, and uses it to get a leg up economically and militarily. Virtually every aspect of our lives has been infiltrated by CCP operatives, including in academia, the news media and politics.

We know that Communist China has tried to recruit American politicians, overtly or covertly. Congressional Democrats like California’s Senator Diane Feinstein and Representative Eric Swalwell are two who have been targeted. Swalwell’s Chinese friend Fang Fang had suspicious ties to the Chinese government, and Feinstein had a potential Chinese intelligence official working in her San Francisco office. 

Who knows how many others there might be? And who knows how much sensitive information they accessed, or how much influence they may have had on elected officials?

In academia, Chinese infiltrators can be found on college campuses involved in academic affairs and also creating dissent among impressionable young minds. Yet, the Chinese have successfully gained access to government research work at some of our colleges and universities.

None of that means, by the way, that all Chinese in the country are working against us.

Furthermore, CNBC reported that China has purchased 10 large American businesses. Among them are Smithfield Foods, AMC, GE Appliances, the Waldorf Astoria, Strategic Hotels and Resorts, and Motorola Mobility, and attempted to buy Forbes magazine.

Interestingly, Forbes magazine reported that “Since 2016, a company owned by Xinjiang-based real estate tycoon Sun Guangxin had spent an estimated $110 million buying up land in Texas’ Val Verde County,” which is on the Mexican border. Sun planned to use 15,000 acres for a proposed 46-turbine wind power project, called Blue Hills Wind Development.

The Forbes story said that critics of the project “alleged that a wind farm controlled by a Chinese company would seek to tamper with, or even shut down, the embattled Texas energy grid; some speculated the turbines would be used to gather military intelligence on the activities of nearby Laughlin Air Force Base.” 

Forbes also reported that in response to this the Texas legislature passed a bill aimed at preventing “business entities associated with ‘hostile nations’ from accessing the Texas electricity grid and other pieces of ‘critical infrastructure,’ including computer networks and waste treatment systems.”

A Chinese conglomerate has bought up more than 146,000 acres of farmland across the United States, worth about a half-billion dollars, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And now there is news that Rawlings will move a company it owns that produces products for Major League Baseball from Minnesota to China.

FBI Director Christopher Wray addressed the Hudson Institute last year. In his opening remarks, he said: “The greatest long-term threat to our nation’s information and intellectual property, and to our economic vitality, is the counterintelligence and economic espionage threat from China. It’s a threat to our economic security — and by extension, to our national security.”

“It’s the people of the United States who are the victims of what amounts to Chinese theft on a scale so massive that it represents one of the largest transfers of wealth in human history,” he said. “In 2017, the Chinese military conspired to hack Equifax and made off with the sensitive personal information of 150 million Americans” — nearly half of our population — and he noted that this wasn’t a standalone incident.

He also said that the FBI “is opening a new China-related counterintelligence case about every 10 hours,” and that “at this very moment, China is working to compromise American health care organizations, pharmaceutical companies, and academic institutions conducting essential COVID-19 research.”

“When considering the threat Communist China poses to our nation all one has to do is look on the streets of America in recent years,” wrote D.W. Wilbur on Townhall.com. “Much of the civil strife and unrest that we have been [experiencing] and continue to experience has the fingerprints of Communist China all over it.”

And then, “ANTIFA, BLM, and any other leftist organizations are most certainly quietly influenced — if not outright infiltrated and getting their marching orders from Communist China.”

The Biden administration — with the porous southern border; its colossal early blunders in Afghanistan, and the recent drone strike on a supposed enemy that turned out to kill civilians; and the foolish behavior that alienates allies like France and strengthens our challengers — is weakening the U.S. and our military.

And then there is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, who visited Great Britain. After listing some of the problems China is causing globally, but not America’s China aggression problems, she said what is the most critical thing involving China. “But we have to work together on Climate. Climate is an over-riding issue.” 

Are climate worries more important than national security? Congressional Democrats and the Biden administration seemingly don’t notice those.  

Two examples of how higher education is failing the country

Today, higher education has serious problems. Between political correctness, wokeness, equity and diversity issues, there are now many problems in classrooms and administrative offices.

Professors, who are the source of many of the classroom problems, are sometimes on the receiving end of political correctness and wokeness mania. 

One such example involves veteran University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) law professor Jason Kilborn.

Just before the first class on the first day of the spring semester this year, UIC’s administration abruptly suspended Kilborn from teaching. He said the administration would not explain what the basis for the indefinite suspension was when he asked.

“This hits you like a ton of bricks,” he said. “It was totally unexpected. You’re totally isolated.”

When he finally learned the reason behind this extreme administrative action, Kilborn learned that UIC had violated his rights to academic freedom. 

On an exam the preceding semester he had posed a hypothetical matter to which the law students were to respond. That issue set off alarms among some hypersensitive members of a student organization. Without discussing their concerns with their teacher, they complained to the law school dean, the University administration, and the media, calling his use of certain language “inexcusable.”

Just what momentous transgression had Kilborn committed? He had employed a long-used hypothetical issue in the law school exam that contained two redacted slurs. The question about employment discrimination included a female plaintiff being called “a ‘n____’ and ‘b____’” as explosive evidence of the discrimination. But even redacting the terms didn’t save Kilborn from being targeted by his university.

“Undergrad teaches students to think, but law schools, medical schools — they have to teach students how to do,” Kilborn said. As someone who has taught law for 21 years, he understands that concept, and had structured his curriculum to accomplish that goal.

Explaining his technique, he said, “In virtually every one of my law classes, I try to put that scalpel in my students’ hands and ask them: What do you do?”  “These hypotheticals,” he explained, “really force students, future lawyers, to be confronted with the messy reality they’ll be faced with in the outside world.”

Kilborn was eventually reinstated through action by FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education), but this occurrence paints a very clear picture of some of what has driven higher education at many institutions in our country from being a valuable asset, to being a politically-driven wasteland.

This is not the only case where a professor has been targeted for controversial expression. FIRE research into the rise in collegiate scholars punished for their constitutionally protected speech reveals that fully 74 percent of targeting incidents are successful. What that means is that the target professor ends up with some type of punishment, such as investigations or suspension. And FIRE noted that one in four targeted scholars lose their job.

Working hard to not upset students while trying to help them learn how to deal with the real world they are preparing to enter has become, in far too many cases, more important than the actual process of preparing them to survive and prosper after college.

Another professor trying to cope with this new upside-down campus environment was not suspended. Instead, he decided he had had enough.

Professor Peter Boghossian had taught philosophy at Portland State University for the last decade. He quit his teaching post, submitting his letter of resignation to the school’s provost, and also publishing that letter.

His problems began, he explained, because he started asking critical questions. “Unlike my colleagues, I asked these questions out loud and in public.” The more he spoke out, the more push-back he got. So, he began publishing articles with two other people demonstrating how critical thinking had gradually faded from importance at Portland.

These articles resulted in him being attacked and verbally harassed by both students and faculty. This harassment included being spit on, and being threatened as he walked to and from classes.

When he went to Portland, he believed he was joining a group of professional people that were committed to growing critical thinkers, not machines. He believed his job was not to tell students what to think, but to teach them how to think, he said. But Portland no longer pursues its original mission.

In his letter to the university’s provost, Boghossian, explained, “But brick by brick, the university has made this kind of intellectual exploration impossible. It has transformed a bastion of free inquiry into a Social Justice factory whose only inputs were race, gender, and victimhood and whose only outputs were grievance and division.”

He continued, “Rather, I sought to create the conditions for rigorous thought; to help them gain the tools to hunt and furrow for their own conclusions” based on rigorous research, critical thinking and listening to diverse voices.

The education and degrees so many have sought and benefitted from for so long have, in many institutions, become little more than a certification of successful adopting of a political attitude that challenges America’s fundamental principles.

Helping young adults grow intellectually and gain needed skills isn’t their goal. Turning America into another socialist failure is their goal. And the movement is expanding.

Shakespeare was right: The past is prologue. We must pay attention.

Many of you will remember Richard (Dick) Lamm as a former Governor of Colorado. He ran for, but did not win, the Reform Party’s presidential nomination in 1996. Back in 2003, Lamm attended and spoke to an overpopulation conference in Washington, DC, filled to capacity by many of America's finest minds and leaders.

Among the other speakers was scholar and historian Victor Davis Hanson, who talked about a book he had written titled Mexifornia, addressing immigration, both legal and illegal.

Following Hanson’s address, Lamm gave a stunning speech on how to destroy America. The audience sat spellbound as he described eight methods for the destruction of the United States. He said, "If you believe that America is too smug, too self-satisfied, too rich, then let's destroy America. It is not that hard to do. No nation in history has survived the ravages of time. Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and fall and that 'An autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide.'"

First, to destroy America, he said, "Turn America into a bilingual or multi-lingual and bicultural country. History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict, and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures. It is a blessing for an individual to be bilingual; however, it is a curse for a society to be bilingual.”

Second, to destroy America, "Invent 'multiculturalism' and encourage immigrants to maintain their culture. I would make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal. That there are no cultural differences.”

Third, "We could make the United States a 'Hispanic Quebec' without much effort. The key is to celebrate diversity rather than unity.”

"I would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language and culture. I would replace the melting pot metaphor with the salad bowl metaphor. It is important to ensure that we have various cultural subgroups living in America reinforcing their differences rather than as Americans, emphasizing their similarities."

"Fourth, I would make our fastest growing demographic group the least educated. I would add a second underclass, unassimilated, undereducated, and antagonistic to our population. I would have this second underclass have a 50 percent dropout rate from high school."

"My fifth point for destroying America would be to get big foundations and businesses to give these efforts lots of money. I would invest in ethnic identity, and I would establish the cult of 'Victimology.'”

"My sixth plan for America's downfall would include dual citizenship and promote divided loyalties. I would celebrate diversity over unity. I would stress differences rather than similarities. Diverse people worldwide are mostly engaged in hating each other — that is, when they are not killing each other.” He said. 

“A diverse, peaceful, or stable society is against most historical precedent. People undervalue the unity! Unity is what it takes to keep a nation together. Look at the ancient Greeks. The Greeks believed that they belonged to the same race; they possessed a common language and literature; and they worshiped the same gods. All Greece took part in the Olympic Games.”

"Next to last, I would place all subjects off limits — make it taboo to talk about anything against the cult of 'diversity.' I would find a word similar to 'heretic' in the 16th century — that stopped discussion and paralyzed thinking. Words like 'racist' or 'x! xenophobes' halt discussion and debate."

"Lastly, I would censor Victor Hanson Davis's book Mexifornia. His book is dangerous. It exposes the plan to destroy America. If you feel America deserves to be destroyed, don't read that book."

There was no applause. The audience sat in stunned silence. Every American in that room knew that everything Lamm had said was proceeding methodically, quietly, darkly, yet pervasively across the United States right then.

As stunned as the audience was in 2003, should we not be more stunned today?

FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) reported that in 2019 there were 14.3 million illegal aliens — the politically correct term for which is “undocumented immigrants” — in the U.S. That is the number of “known” illegals, and it is rising daily. Are these millions all assimilating by learning to speak English and adopting American values?

Has not the focus on diversity taken a big jump, even in the military, where such distractions are a true threat to our national security? Is America not more divided than it has been for many decades?

Are there not far more “racists” in the country day-by-day, as we are told? And victimhood is at an all-time high, as small sub-groups now spurn long-accepted standards and clamor for attention and acceptance?

Have we not noticed our educational standing among nations having dropped over the last several years? The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development rated the U.S. the sixth best education system behind Canada, Japan, Israel, Korea and the United Kingdom.

Do we not see the danger of the anti-testing movement and lowering or eliminating some standards for high school graduation? Oregon has eliminated reading, writing and math requirements to “help” certain student groups?

In a recent poll by Politico’s “Morning Consult,” 61 percent of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. Like George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, Lamm’s speech was prescient.

Democrats want to control how the states manage their own elections

 

Hurricane Ida’s destruction and the colossal Biden Afghanistan blunder dominate the news. And given the enormous impact of these two catastrophes, that is entirely appropriate. Yet, there are other things of importance that continue to move forward, that are covered up by the “big news” of the day.

One of those other things is alive and well in Congress. H.R. 4, the illegitimate offspring of H.R.1 and S.1 — known inappropriately as the “For the People Act of 2021” — moves in the same direction: aiding the federal government in taking control of election procedures that belong to the states, and weakening the election system.

The Heritage Foundation, hated by many on the left for its accurate perspective, had this to say about the “For the People Act of 2021”: “H.R. 1 would federalize and micromanage the election process administered by the states, imposing unnecessary, unwise, and unconstitutional mandates on the states and reversing the decentralization of the American election process —which is essential to the protection of our liberty and freedom,” the summary began. 

“It would (among other things) implement nationwide the worst changes in election rules that occurred during the 2020 election; go even further in eroding and eliminating basic security protocols that states have in place; and interfere with the ability of states and their citizens to determine the qualifications and eligibility of voters, ensure the accuracy of voter registration rolls, secure the fairness and integrity of elections, and participate and speak freely in the political process.”

Since H.R. 1 and S. 1 were not passed by Congress, this new effort to destroy our election security — H.R. 4 — is now alive and well. It has been named the “John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2021.” Naming it after a deceased and respected gentleman is a good thing to do, and has the added advantage of helping to disguise its true purpose.

“H.R. 4’s goal is to eviscerate the right of states to manage their own elections with appropriate transparency and ballot-security safeguards. It will attempt to misuse the 1965 Voting Rights Act to achieve this goal,” the Real Clear Politics (RCP) evaluation begins. 

“’Preclearance’ is central to H.R. 4 — this plank of the law would require every state election official to submit any election law changes to the Department of Justice for approval. In short, Democrats want states to ask Washington, D.C., for permission to pass local laws that would, for example, require voter ID — a policy that polls consistently find roughly 80% of Americans in support,” RCP continues. 

“Joe Biden and Democrats want their politicized Department of Justice to control how states manage their own elections,” RCP wrote, adding that the “Department of Justice is currently trying to strong-arm states into making their elections less secure and transparent, and Joe Biden wants to expand its mandate to control every aspect of state-level elections.”  

The U.S. Constitution, which controls how our government operates, very deliberately, and wisely, leaves much authority to the states. A country where everything is controlled by the federal government is not what America is or was ever supposed to be. In fact, without the necessary support from the individual states, there would be no federal government for the likes of Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and the rest to try to commandeer, by hook or by crook. 

Article I, Section 4, Clause 1 of U.S. Constitution states: “The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing [sic] Senators.”

While the Elections Clause does give the Congress the authority to “make or alter such Regulations,” that does not mean that Congress actually has the authority to replace all state legislatures’ decisions on how their state will hold elections. If the Clause was actually intended to empower Congress to change all election laws nationwide to suit its desires, the Founders would not have written the first half of the Clause that gives that authority to state legislatures.

We have been taught — through outright lessons of failure, or by our elders, if we had sense enough to listen to them — that we must protect the things that are most valuable to us. One of those things is the right and duty to vote. Through voting, American citizens steer their country forward.

Yet, despite that voting is one of the most sacred, most valuable of our rights, there are those who would subvert that process for their own selfish, political purposes.

Mailing out thousands or millions of unrequested election ballots, and not absolutely verifying voter’s identification are just stupid, and put election security at risk. And there are other actions that Congressional Democrats favor that weaken ballot security and invite fraud.

Common sense, which unfortunately is a tool too often not used, dictates making sure that every vote is cast by an eligible voter in that voter’s proper precinct. Yes, that sometimes causes inconvenience. But that is a small price to pay for a secure election system that our nation depends upon.