Only days left in Biden’s presidency. The end of an error.

December 17, 2024

As Joe Biden’s disastrous tenure in the White House nears its end, he has apparently taken something to stimulate his penchant for preferring law breakers to the citizens he has sworn to protect.

He demonstrated his preference for law breakers with his dangerous and foolish policy on border security, which has seen thousands of deaths of Americans through fentanyl illegally brought in, and from violent criminals among the millions of illegal aliens who were allowed in.

And now he’s issued 39 pardons and granted clemency to nearly 1,500 convicted criminals, in what the White House said was “the largest single-day grant of clemency in modern history.” The list includes drug traffickers, crack dealers, cartel leaders and fraudsters, according to court records, and also includes some high-profile criminals.

In announcing this move, Biden said, “I am also commuting the sentences of nearly 1,500 people who are serving long prison sentences — many of whom would receive lower sentences if charged under today’s laws, policies, and practices. These commutation recipients, who were placed on home confinement during the COVID pandemic, have successfully reintegrated into their families and communities and have shown that they deserve a second chance.”

Several of them were involved in crimes affecting thousands of Americans. And the reactions to these actions by people affected by the crimes of some of these people are anything but supportive.

One beneficiary was Rita Crundwell, who as comptroller of Dixon, Illinois, stole $53.7 million from residents of the city over a 20-year period, beginning in 1990. For this she was sentenced to 19 years and 7 months in prison in 2013.

Crundwell blamed the lack of city funds caused by her criminal behavior on the economy and the state of Illinois for failing to adequately fund the city.

In response to this sentence commutation former Dixon Mayor Li Arellano, Jr. said, “I am very disappointed … angry. Are we really going through this again?”

And city Councilman Mike Venier noted that “It was really just another gut punch to the city of Dixon.”

Another commutation raised the ire of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. Addressing the commuting of the sentence of former Luzerne County Judge Michael Conahan, Shapiro said that Biden “got it absolutely wrong.”

Interestingly, this criticism was given in Biden’s childhood hometown of Scranton, and in a building on Biden Street.

Conahan was found guilty in 2011 of collecting millions of dollars in kickbacks for sending children to prison in private, for-profit jails. This criminal exploit became known as “kids-for-cash.”

Shapiro, a Democrat, added, “Governors and presidents have unique power to grant pardons and clemency and commute sentences. … It is an absolute power that should be used incredibly carefully.” He concluded his remarks by saying, “I do feel strongly that President Biden got it absolutely wrong and created a lot of pain here in northeastern Pennsylvania.”

A drug smuggler was also among the lucky ones. Francesk Shkambi, received a sentence of 27 years in prison for heading a criminal organization that smuggled drugs from Albania into the United States.

Specifically, Shkambi trafficked large quantities of cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and Ecstasy into the US. The Federal Bureau of Prisons said he was due to be released in 2029.

There are many other examples of similar circumstances where the criminal acts of those receiving clemency did significant harm to the citizenry. The only people apparently concerned with this are the citizens, not the President.

Before this move, Biden gave his son Hunter a full, unconditional pardon, breaking his previous promises not to use the extraordinary powers of the presidency for the benefit of his family members.

The pardon occurred about a month before Hunter was set to face sentencing, and clears him in both of his federal cases of three felony charges for purchasing and possession of a gun in 2018, violating a law by concealing drug use, and for which he was found guilty. He avoided a trial on nine federal tax charges by entering a guilty plea. The pardon also covers years prior to the times Hunter was charged with a crime, going all the way back to 2014.

After breaking his promise, Biden attempted to defend the move by blaming politics. “No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong,” he said.

“The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election,” Biden said. “Then, a carefully negotiated plea deal, agreed to by the Department of Justice, unraveled in the court room — with a number of my political opponents in Congress taking credit for bringing political pressure on the process.”

So, political activists use the law against their opponents? Didn’t Donald Trump say something about that?

Many of the things attributed to Biden of late have been suspected of being planned by others in the administration, citing his recent mental decline. Regardless of who is making these decisions, they are clearly not using the best of thoughtful reasoning, and not protecting the interests of the American people.

Biden’s weak policies increase our risk of terrorist activity

December 5, 2023

No objective person can look at the chaos at the southern border and not be alarmed. Of course, the Biden administration’s Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, insists that the border is closed.

However, the New York Times reported in October that “Migrants were caught crossing the southern border of the United States more times in the past year than in any other year since at least 1960, when the government started keeping track of the data.

“It is the third record-setting year in a row,” and there were “more than 2.4 million apprehensions in the 2023 fiscal year, which ended in September. That tops the previous record, set a year earlier, of more than 2.3 million, according to government data released on Saturday. During the 2021 fiscal year, there were more than 1.7 million apprehensions.”

Question for Mayorkas: If 2.3 and 2.4 million people can enter the country illegally in two consecutive years, and those numbers have set records for illegal entry going back 50 years, how many illegal entries constitute a situation where the border could reasonably be considered open?

No doubt the response will be: crickets.

And while states on the border are suffering immensely, and illegals are being transported around the country by the federal government, even the sanctuary states and cities are beginning to understand the pain of these lax federal policies, and want action to be taken.

Critics point out that while many or maybe most of these illegal aliens merely seek a better life, many of them have other intentions: trafficking children, women, and drugs; gang violence; and worse. 

In former President Donald Trump’s final 32 months in the White House, Border Patrol agents apprehended 1.9 million illegal aliens. By contrast, in the first 32 months of President Joe Biden’s tenure, the Border Patrol apprehended 6.3 million illegal aliens.

In addition to the millions of illegals apprehended, there have been 1.5 million “gotaways,” illegals that were spotted and counted, but not apprehended. As the number of those apprehended increases, so does the number of gotaways. We don’t know who they are or why they came. And we don’t know where they went.

Illegals on the terror watch list that have been apprehended have increased in number since fiscal year 2017, when two were caught. In 2018, there were six; in 2019 there were none; and in 2020 there were three.

And then the increases began. In 2021 - 15; in 2022 - 98; in 2023 - 169.

If that by itself isn’t bad enough, wait until you see which countries they are coming from.

From October 1, 2021 to Oct. 4, 2023 some 73,000 “Special Interest Aliens” entered the country from places including Afghanistan, Iran, Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey and Syria. 

In the first half of October of this year, more than 30 came from Iran and Pakistan each. More than 100 came from Russia. Almost 2,000 came from China.

Are any of these illegals associated with Iranian terrorist proxies, like Hamas or Hezbollah? And many of these illegals are military age males. And what about those from China, our most serious adversary?

This is the reality that the feeble and perilous Biden border policy has produced.

To call on their supporters to conduct attacks on our own soil,” Wray said.

“Terrorists and criminal actors may exploit the elevated flow and increasingly complex security environment to enter the United States,” said the fiscal year 2024 threat assessment by the Department of Homeland Security.

And, FBI Director Christopher Wray told reporters on a call in October that “Here in the U.S., we cannot and do not discount the possibility that Hamas or their foreign terrorist organizations could exploit the conflict to call on their supporters to conduct attacks on our own soil.”

The weakness demonstrated by the Biden administration on the southern border has not gone without notice around the world. Since the butchery carried out in the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, Iranian terrorist proxies have attacked U.S. military installations in the region 75 times. The U.S. response has been meek and scarce. The only good news is that while some military personnel have been injured, none have been killed.

This sort of under-reaction will not deter future attacks; they invite more. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at the end of October, two weeks after the attacks began, “Iran wants to hide its hand and deny its role in these attacks against our forces. We will not let them. If attacks by Iran’s proxies against U.S. forces continue, we will not hesitate to take further necessary measures to protect our people.”

Austin’s words had no effect on Iran and its terrorist proxies; the attacks have continued. And the tough talk threatening “further necessary measures” has not led to one significant retaliatory strike.

Biden hasn’t been moved to stand up to Iran and order an action to exact a substantial price from the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism. And until Iran is shown that we will back up our words with significant action, these attacks will continue, and likely get worse.

Two of Biden’s proposals spell serious problems for the countr

Immediately after his inauguration, President Joe Biden began stirring the pot, making the unity he pledged to work for next to impossible.

Among the divisive ideas he supports are raising the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour, so that all workers would supposedly earn a “living wage,” and turning the District of Columbia into America’s 51st state.

In 2019, minimum wage workers were concentrated in the leisure and hospitality industry in a service occupation, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). And, the number of workers paid at or below the minimum wage has been dropping. In 2019, this category of workers was comprised of just 1.6 million, down dramatically from 4.4 million in 2010. 

These numbers include some workers who receive tips, commissions, or overtime pay, all of which raise their pay above the minimum wage level. Minimum wage workers make up just 1.9 percent of all hourly-paid workers.

Relative to the education level of minimum wage workers, the BLS reports that “among hourly-paid workers age 16 and older, about 3 percent of those without a high school diploma earned the federal minimum wage or less, compared with 2 percent of those who had a high school diploma (with no college), 2 percent of those with some college or an associate degree, and about 1 percent of college graduates.”

Generally, minimum wage jobs go to those with little or no job experience, those with little or no job skills, or to those who work in jobs that require no specialized skills.

My first job paid the minimum wage: $1.00 an hour. That did not allow me to rent or purchase a place to live, buy groceries, a car, etc. But I was 15 years-old and living with my parents. Many minimum wage workers are often teenagers working on weekends or after school. Some are college students. Hardly any are trying to support a family, and therefore do not need a “living wage.”

Raising the minimum wage carries with it some true negatives. Doing so will force employers find ways to cover the increase in personnel wages and related taxes. That may include reducing the number of employees, which increases unemployment; reducing employee hours, which directly cuts the supposed benefit of a higher minimum wage; replacing people with machines, again increasing unemployment; raising product and/or service prices — inflation — which hurts the middle class most. And higher prices make what is needed for a “living wage” higher yet.

It will also pressure employers to raise the wages of those who had been making more than the minimum, so that they will maintain the distance above the minimum wage that they had been receiving. If employers do not do this, workers will be unhappy. Plus, this further increases personnel costs.

America is a land of opportunity. Each of us is allowed to pursue the kind of work we choose for how we earn a living. Or, we can start our own business. And unless we are, through some physical or mental issue, unable to do so, that is what we are supposed to do when we become an adult.

Being able to select the kind of work we want to do is an advantage many countries do not offer. The only thing is, we expect people to learn how to perform that work, or some kind of work, and then do it. 

A higher minimum wage discourages people from getting training for a job, which robs employers of needed skilled personnel. If people can make a “living wage” without going to trade school or college, why go?

As for making DC a new state, well that is problematic, too. Last year the House Oversight and Reform Committee approved legislation that would make the District of Columbia a new state to be named “New Columbia” or “Douglass Commonwealth,” in honor of abolitionist Frederick Douglass. Later, the full House, with its Democrat majority, approved H.R. 51 — aptly named, as it would make DC the nation’s 51st state — along party lines by a 21-16 vote.

The Founders could have put the nation’s capital in a state, or could have made the capital a state. But they didn’t. Instead, they decided that the new nation’s permanent capital should not be in a state, or be a state itself. Doing so would give great power to that one state. The nation’s capital should not be controlled by any single state, and the federal government should not be beholden to any state for hosting the government.

Furthermore, the Department of Justice, under both Democrat and Republican administrations, has held that a majority vote by the Congress is not sufficient to make the District of Columbia a state. An amendment to the U.S. Constitution is needed.

And amending the Constitution is an arduous process, one that might very well not succeed. And it should not succeed.

The Founders were very wise in creating this representative republic. They did a fantastic job. And we need to be smart enough to appreciate the gift they gave us, and not transform it into just another socialistic failure, as the Democrats seem determined to do.