Political correctness and such could well be the death of us

February 28, 2023

Colleges and universities are referred to as “higher education.” It is where many people go after they have finished high school to learn about the career they want to pursue. That is the idea, or at least, that was the original idea.

Long ago colleges and universities started sports teams as an activity for those who wanted to play on them, and for students who wanted to watch the games. Those who played on the teams were students first, and athletes second.

Over the last several decades athletics have taken on much greater importance for the institutions, athletes, and audiences. A vast number of Americans in and out of college rank college sports as one of their main interests. 

Colleges and coaches rake in huge amounts of money, and the people that make it possible for them to earn the big bucks get a free or reduced-cost education. 

This heavy influence from the sporting world has so far not affected the role that higher education is supposed to play nearly as much as the encroachment of indoctrination into the curricula.

But things are changing. As of July, 2021, “college athletes can profit from their name, image or likeness (NIL) under National Collegiate Athletic Association rules,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “It’s a new era for the sprawling, multibillion-dollar college sports industry, and in these early days it’s a messy one.” 

Looking at the current college athletics situation, The Hill offered the following: “In addition to debt-free college, which is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, student-athletes receive coaching and counseling that pays off throughout life,” the article said. 

“The economics literature recognizes that even a year of college has measurable benefits. Student-athletes learn the valuable life skills of discipline and teamwork,” The Hill article continued. “They learn to cooperate with people of diverse backgrounds. These activities shape character, with lifetime consequences. In addition, college athletics is a platform connecting students, academics, alums and fans more generally.”

Now there is talk of college athletes being paid outright, as if they have a job. But if you are paid to play a sport, aren’t you a professional athlete? 

Higher education has many problems: politics in the learning environment; very high and rising tuition rates; and also, recently focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

What exactly is DEI? The InclusionHub defines these terms:

Diversity: Acknowledges all the ways people differ: race, sex, gender, age, sexual orientation, disability, socioeconomic status, religious beliefs, and more.

Inclusion: Is about diversity in practice. It’s the act of welcoming, supporting, respecting, and valuing all individuals and groups.

Equity: Is often used interchangeably with equality, but there’s a core difference: Where equality is a system in which each individual is offered the same opportunities regardless of circumstance, equity distributes resources based on needs. We live in a disproportionate society, and equity tries to correct its imbalance by creating more opportunities for people.

The InclusionHub also mentions Belonging and Justice.

Belonging: Infers that an equitable structure is in place and functioning to make all people, no matter their differences, feel welcome. When you reach for equity, you’re striving for a system that benefits everyone, no matter their circumstance. Belonging is when this not only works, but no one feels as if their inclusion is questioned.

Justice: Is the mission of equity, in which an equitable system works so well it eventually eliminates the systemic problems driving the need for the latter. In other words, everything is fairly and evenly distributed to people no matter their race, gender, physical ability, or other personal circumstances.

But how will DEI work as the method for forming teams? If this concept is put into effect in sports at any level, no longer will the 11 best football players, 9 best baseball players, 5 best basketball players, etc., necessarily be who is on the first team. All teams will be formed using the rules of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, balanced by Belonging and Justice.

America has experienced great success because of the idea of being the best you can be, and that the best student, athlete, company, military, or whatever wins. The best earned the prize, which is why they got the prize. They didn’t get the prize because it’s fair and right that everyone gets the same reward, despite how good or bad they are at whatever is being rewarded.

The term that should once again and forever be the focus is: merit! You get the prize because you earned the prize. Not because you entered the contest. You are the valedictorian because you had the highest GPA, not because everyone in the senior class should be valedictorian.

By focusing on everybody getting the same reward, regardless of their ability, there is no longer any reason to try to be better, to be the best you can be.

How long will the United States remain a free country before it is taken over by another country that is determined to rule the world, and focuses on that, rather than DEI?

DEI might not spell doom in small, limited circumstances. But it is the death knell if used throughout an entire country.

Freedom of speech is a protected right, but also a complex issue

February 21, 2023

One of the founding principles of the United States that Americans cherish is the right to freedom of speech. Its origins date back to ancient Greece. The Greeks considered free speech, meaning to “speak candidly,” a democratic principle.

America is one of the nations where this is considered important. Our Founders thought it was so important as to earn inclusion in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Americans have the protected right to criticize the government and speak their minds without fear of being censored or persecuted.

Through the two-plus centuries of America’s existence, the courts have ruled on this right. For example, in 1919, the Supreme Court ruled in the case Schenck v. United States that individuals are not entitled to speech that presents a “clear and present danger” to society. On the other hand, in1969, the court declared in Brandenburg v. Ohio that, generally, even inflammatory speech, such as racist language by a leader of the Ku Klux Klan, should be protected unless it is likely to cause violence.

So, dangerous language is not protected, but inflammatory speech that is not dangerous is protected.

In a free society, all citizens must be able to think for themselves, to choose their goals and pathways to achieve them. In America, people are free to express their ideas, even if those ideas are unpopular, or wrong. And, as we have seen, those “wrong” ideas may sometimes be proven right. 

But on the world stage, just how free is speech in America? World Population Review in 2020 listed the “Top 30 Countries with the Most Freedom of Speech/Expression.” And the United States ranks near the bottom of that list, along with Luxembourg and Peru, with a rating of .74 on a 1.00-point scale

Leading the world are: Denmark at .95; Belgium at .87; and Finland, Switzerland and Uruguay at .86. In between those high marks and the U.S. position are 22 other nations who rated higher than we did. Lowest of all nations is Panama at .65. We are closer to the bottom than we are to the top.

Interestingly, while the U.S. ranked at the bottom of the top 30 nations for free speech, a Pew Research Center poll ranked the U.S. at the very top of the list of “Whose Citizens Value Free Speech the Most.”

Why would the nation whose citizens value free speech more than any other nation not have the greatest degree of free speech?

“We the people tell the government what to do. It doesn’t tell us,” former President Ronald Reagan once said. “We the people are the driver; the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. 

“Almost all the world’s constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our constitution is a document in which we the people tell the government what it is allowed to do. We the people are free,” he said. 

Obviously, if the American people value free speech more than any other people, and if they have told the government through the Constitution that we will have free speech, then government isn’t doing its job on this subject.

There is incontrovertible evidence that some social media platforms play favorites with political opinions. Platforms have the right to control content. They can control “misinformation” or “disinformation,” and “false information.” But it is not okay to term things as “misinformation” or “disinformation,” or say that something is “false” because it is contrary to their political opinion.

A New York Post opinion piece by Miranda Devine said that a “little-noticed federal lawsuit, Missouri v. Biden, is uncovering astonishing evidence of an entrenched censorship scheme cooked up between the federal government and Big Tech …” Sixty-seven officials and agencies are accused of pressuring Facebook, Twitter and Google to censor users for alleged misinformation or disinformation. The Post was one victim of this alleged malfeasance.

Former Hawaii Democrat Congresswoman and former presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard appeared before a new subcommittee of the House of Representatives that is dedicated to probing the weaponization of the federal government earlier this month. She expressed the necessity of maintaining free speech in the United States, even when some of that speech is objectionable to some, and that includes hate speech, she said.

She cited efforts by social media to control the information that users could see, including her accounts on some of those media sites that were suspended or blocked without explanation. 

This action has social media, and perhaps also federal government agencies, putting themselves in place to decide what the rest of us can and will see, hear and read. Having some ideas blocked by social media — or worse, government agencies — is not freedom of speech. It is, in fact, un-American.

In addition to the previous quote from Reagan, he also offered these, which are fitting: “Government is not the solution to our problem, government IS the problem." And, “freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”

All of those who are elected, appointed or hired to work for the people in the federal government need to stop being politicians and start being Americans.

The State of the Union speech was more like a campaign appearance

February 14, 2023

President Joe Biden continues to set records as President of the United States of America. His State of the Union (SOTU) message of February 7th set a record. It was the least-watched SOTU since viewership has been tracked, beginning in 1993, with only 27.3 million viewers. 

This year’s SOTU was 30 percent lower than last year’s 38.1 million. The only one with lower viewership was his unofficial one in 2021, which was termed an address to a joint session of Congress, and drew only 26.9 million.

Contrast those numbers with Bill Clinton’s 1993 unofficial SOTU of 66 million viewers, and George W. Bush’s 2003 address of 62 million viewers.

This year’s SOTU was the second longest one since 1964 at 1 hour, 12 minutes, and 44 seconds. That’s about 16 minutes shorter than Bill Clinton’s SOTU of 2000.

Perhaps this disappointing showing reflects the public’s dissatisfaction with the Biden presidency, of which only 41 percent of Americans approve, according to the latest Reuters poll. And currently, only 37 percent of Democrats want him to run for reelection in 2024. Worse, only about 25 percent of Americans think the country is heading in the right direction.

Perhaps the fact that Vice President Kamala Harris earned an even lower approval rating helps Biden feel a little bit better about his numbers.

In the interest of what the actual State of the Union is, here are some pertinent items, in no particular order:
* The inflation rate of 1.4 percent when Biden took office is now 7.0 percent.
* Thirty-year mortgages have risen from 2.7 percent to 6.5 percent.
* Prices of goods have risen, too. Eggs are now $7 a dozen, steak is about $15 a pound, and plywood is $95 per sheet.
* Biden’s war on fossil fuels ended America’s recently realized energy independence, and has killed nearly 70,000 jobs since 2021.
* Gasoline prices rose from $2.39 a gallon to $5 a gallon in some states, and while prices have dropped, gas still costs on average $3.42 a gallon.
* Natural gas prices have tripled over the last year.
* In his two years as President, more than 5 million people have illegally entered the country over the southern border.
* The disastrous pullout from Afghanistan left 13 American military personnel dead, stranded dozens of friendly Afghanis and left an estimated $7 billion in American military equipment behind for the Taliban.
* During his tenure, we have given away so many of our weapons from our arsenal to Ukraine without replacing them, and lowered the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to a dangerous level to try and lower gas prices.

The SOTU was marked by some unusual and objectionable things. Perhaps the most frequently mentioned is the “raucous” and “rude” behavior of Republicans reacting to Biden’s comments.

Congress members normally are quite polite and reserved in reaction to a speaker who speaks with dignity. That was not the case this year. Both the President and the Republican members of Congress strayed beyond the normal, acceptable and expected behavior.

While not excusing this aberrant behavior, we must recognize that it was in reaction to “misstatements” and “errors” in the President’s remarks.

For example, Biden claimed to have created 12 million new jobs, but neglected to say that most of them were people going back to work after the Covid pandemic killed 22 million jobs. 

He also didn’t mention the millions of Americans who lost jobs and aren’t looking for another job, due to over-generous and unnecessary government payments. These people who dropped out of the workforce make the unemployment figures look much better than if they were still in the workforce looking for a job.

He falsely accused a group of Republicans of wanting to sunset Social Security and Medicare, which drew the loudest rebuke from them.

He also asserted his confused understanding of taxes paid by people and businesses. Criticizing businesses and wealthier Americans for not paying “their fair share” appeals to many people. But such a tactic ignores so much of the sad reality of our broken tax system, our too-big government, and the 42 percent of total taxes that the wealthy actually pay.

And, he carefully avoided talking in detail about China spying on us. Beginning before the SOTU and ending after it was the situation where the administration allowed a Chinese spy balloon to float across the nation for days before taking it down. 

News of this balloon first became public when airline passengers saw something odd, and a civilian on the ground saw it, had a co-worker photograph it, sent the photos to the government, and published the photos. The Department of Defense then announced it had been tracking the balloon for a few days.

Since that fiasco at least four other unidentified objects have been spotted in our airspace and taken down. These objects have apparently been visiting us for some number of years without the Defense Department’s knowledge. 

Hopefully, Biden will do something to get the Defense Department to focus all of its attention on its critical mission of protecting the country.

The State of the Union is not good. And it is getting worse. 

Federal agents raid home and arrest father, while family watches

February 7, 2023

Imagine a husband, wife and seven children are at their Kintnersville, Pennsylvania home early one day when loud banging on their front door occurs. They look out the window and see as many as 15 big trucks and cars in their yard, and up to 25 uniformed FBI agents wearing helmets and carrying shields, with weapons drawn, and some of the agents pointing their weapons at the house. This would be characterized by many or most people as a SWAT team.

Cooperating with demands by the FBI agents to open the door or they would break it down, the husband opens the door and finds several guns pointed at him. He is then arrested, shackled, and taken away, as reported by his wife. All of this occurred with the wife and children near-by and scared to death. 

The FBI later denied the SWAT Team claim, saying “There are inaccurate claims being made regarding the arrest.” “No SWAT Team or SWAT operators were involved.” The FBI agents merely knocked on the door, identified themselves as FBI agents and asked him to exit the residence, which he did, and was taken into custody without incident, the FBI’s response said.

The husband is Mark Houck, and his wife is Ryan-Marie Houck. She said that her husband, a pro-life advocate and author, “drove two hours south every Wednesday to speak outside of abortion clinics for six to eight hours at a time and at times [took] their 12-year-old son” with him. 

While Houck was in Philadelphia near an abortion clinic providing pro-life counseling with his son present, he said he was repeatedly approached by a 73-year-old abortion clinic volunteer, Bruce Love, who criticized Houck with vulgar and harassing language and even addressed Houck’s son in that manner. The son was frightened of the man, and Houck told Love to leave his son alone.

When Love once again approached the boy, Houck shoved him away. Although local authorities did not charge Houck, Love filed suit. The suit was dismissed by the District Court.

However, more than a year after the incident, the Department of Justice decided to pursue charges against Houck, even though local authorities did not regard the incident as a crime. 

The DOJ accused Houck of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act), a 1993 law that outlaws “violent, threatening, damaging, and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with the right to seek, obtain, or provide reproductive health services.”

In his recent jury trial Houck was found not guilty on each of two counts, as the jurors understood that his action against Love had nothing to do with interfering with those seeking services, or those providing the services. He was protecting his son from Love’s confrontation in the boy’s personal space.

Why did the DOJ file charges that local authorities realized were not deserved, and which they failed to prove in court?

“Defense lawyer Brian McMonagle said it was a case of the Department of Justice using a minor street scuffle between Houck and a Planned Parenthood volunteer, Bruce Love, to trounce Houck’s First Amendment rights to peacefully protest, pray and ‘sidewalk counsel’ at abortion clinics,” according to Phillyburbs.com. “They made a federal case out of a shove,” he said.

Peter Breen, senior counsel at the Thomas More Society, and Houck’s attorney, condemned the arrest as an abuse of power from President Biden’s DOJ during a “Tucker Carlson Tonight” interview on Fox News. He accused the department of trying to intimidate pro-life Americans.

“This was not a federal crime. We have controlling case law on that, strong defenses, but instead, they’ve taken an innocent man and made an example out of him, presumably to send a message to pro-life people and people of faith across this country,” he said.

“This was reckless and outrageous,” Breen told Carlson. “It put the Houck family in unnecessary danger. We’ve offered to bring him in. Didn’t get a response. Even if you’re going to arrest a regular person, you just send a couple of agents, they knock on the door, not dragging the head of the family out, violating the sanctity of the home, pointing guns at them. This was outrageous and uncalled for.”

Catholicvote.org reported last June that “At least 81 pregnancy resource centers and pro-life groups have been attacked and vandalized since a draft Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked in early May. Pro-abortion domestic terrorists have claimed responsibility, and delivered on their promise of a ‘summer of rage.’ The attacks have continued into the fall and winter.”

“The pregnancy resource centers, which provide free medical and financial support to pregnant and new mothers, have been spray-painted with pro-abortion and anarchist messages and symbols. Several have been set on fire. Other pro-life groups which advocate for the right to life have also had their offices vandalized.”

Why did the DOJ not arrest these criminals?

The DOJ indicted two Florida residents in January for attacks on crisis pregnancy resource centers, said a CBN News website story. These arrests were the first arrests for crimes against pro-life centers. What took the DOJ so long?

The United States of America faces serious problem

January 31,  2023

The United States has many problems with which to deal. Problems with the government. Problems with other countries. Problems within society. 

The federal government itself is a serious problem. Yes, we have managed to keep going with things as off the rails as they are. But if these problems continue to grow, our lives will become progressively less pleasant.

We need the federal government to be returned to its proper size and scope. Over the years and decades, the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances, so thoughtfully designed by the Founders, have been weakened, and the balance between the three branches of our government — Legislative, Executive, and Judicial — has been heavily altered. 

Actions by the Supreme Court, the Congress and the many US presidents have gradually shifted the government’s balance, and given the it much more power and a broader reach than intended.

The Executive Branch has become far more powerful than it should be, with unelected bureaucrats in administrative agencies implementing regulations with the force of law, rather than the Congress making those laws and the Judiciary ruling on their constitutionality and legality.

The National Debt continues to grow. Every year since the 1950s has seen an increase in the Debt, regardless of which political party the sitting President represented. As of December, 2022, the National Debt stood at approximately $31.42 trillion. According to Statista.com, the national Debt in 2021 worked out to $80,885 per person. It has increased since then.

Some of that growth resulted from additional funding for crisis situations, and some of it merely from the desire for additional spending without having the funds to pay for it.

As with every business and household, government spending should not exceed income. And borrowing when extra money is needed has to be paid back. Our government has not been doing this.

To raise required funds, we first need a realistic budget, based upon only the absolute necessities of the government, and then we need a sensible and fair system of taxation to raise those funds. 

Taxes should not be punishingly high and treat everyone equally. They should be high enough to fund the needed functions of a lean and efficient government.

The Libertarian Republic published an article in 2015 titled “Top 10 Government Agencies We Should Eliminate Immediately.” The article focused on the magazine’s opinion of elements of these agencies that exceed the boundaries of a limited government like that set forth in the U.S. Constitution, and which infringe on the personal liberties of Americans.

Perhaps this perspective does not match that of many or most Americans, but it paints a libertarian picture of just how much our government has expanded.

Those in denial of just how horrible a job the government is doing to stop illegal immigration on the southern border tell us the immigration system is to blame and needs to be revised. But if the government would merely follow the guidelines of that system, we would have far fewer deadly drugs, human trafficking, criminal immigrants and other things coming across the border each day.

And then we have issues involving both China and Russia. 

Some say that we are headed into a conflict with Russia over our support of Ukraine against the brutal and unprovoked Russian war. The more we support Ukraine, they say, the greater the chance that Russia will regard us as an enemy, leading to a nuclear conflict.

And, there is criticism both of the amount of money spent for Ukraine that some believe could and should be used for problems here at home, and for the idea that we really don’t know how Ukraine is using those funds. Further criticism comes from the idea that by sending Ukraine military weaponry that we are weakening our own level of military readiness.

China has made no secret of its desire to replace the U.S. as the world’s dominant economy. However, one Simon Baptist, global chief economist at the Economist Intelligence Unit, told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” that “I think it’s very unlikely that ... China will get to U.S. levels of GDP per capita — that’s our measure of wealth — for at least the next 50 years if ever.”

That may be true, or not, but it does not relieve the tensions between the two nations over Covid, the fentanyl crisis, and economic issues. So many things that the U.S. once produced, or could now produce, are strongholds of the Chinese economy, and could be used against us.

President Joe Biden weighed in on this topic. “I see stiff competition with China. China has an overall goal — and I don’t criticize them for the goal,” he said. “But they have an overall goal to become the leading country, the wealthiest country in the world and the most powerful country in the world.  That’s not gonna happen on my watch.” Time will tell.

There will always be problems and things not going as planned or hoped. But if we respond to all of them with the same degree of disinterest as the Biden administration has shown for the border, energy, and the other current problems, the country will pay a very heavy price.

The value of public education is under attack, and sinking

January 24, 2023

Between 2000 and 2019 the student population in America’s public schools increased by 7.6 percent. The number of teachers increased by 8.7 percent. However, the population of district administrators nearly doubled, increasing by 87.6 percent.

This is a fundamental change in the public education system, a foundational change. When the foundation changes, what sits on that foundation also changes. This is certainly happening in public education.

Among these changes is a challenge to the age-old idea that the responsibility for and the raising of children belongs to the parents. They are the ones that created the child; paid for her/his food, clothing, and living quarters for years; and began the long, slow process of helping them grow and mature.

But now, in this age of administrative growth, the idea is that those involved in the process of teaching subjects like language, science, history, math, the arts, and other things, are really the ones who should teach kids everything, including those things that for centuries had been the domain of parents. This attitude is the basis for many of the problems of public education today.

And this attitude exists in spite of the fact that the taxes of citizens — most of whom have been, now are, or someday will be parents of school children — pay for the bulk of public education.

As parents have become aware that the education bureaucracy — which includes state agencies, school boards, administrators and teachers — is slowly and secretly controlling what is being presented to their children in school, they are correctly concerned and justifiably upset.

In Virginia, where much controversy exists over public education, it was recently discovered that administrators in three counties and 17 high schools had failed to notify their students that they qualified as National Merit scholars. 

The National Merit Scholarship Program, administered by the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, “is an academic competition for recognition and scholarships that began in 1955. Approximately 1.5 million high school students enter the program each year,” according to the organization’s Website.

Those who receive this honor have applied for it, and worked hard to earn the award. They set this high goal, and they achieved it. Those who receive the Merit award stand at the top of the student learning pyramid. 

Yet, some Virginia education administrators, and likely some in other states, as well, decided not to notify these students in a timely manner. This in many cases denied the recipients the ability to include this information in their applications to the colleges where they hope to go to further their education, and cost them scholarship support. 

And what is the reason for this unacceptable decision? The education authorities did not want to hurt the feelings of those students who did not earn the award, whether or not they even tried for it.

This is one example of what the dubious goal of creating “equity” in outcomes requires. The new “rule” is that a student may have out-performed all other students in the senior class, but it is not fair to the others for him or her to be recognized for that.

There are other unacceptable activities taking place in some American schools. There is strong evidence that some schools and school systems, such as in Chicago, Illinois, and Virginia are teaching Critical Race Theory (CRT). A simplified definition of CRT is that it classifies one race as oppressors and other races as oppressed, increasing division among races rather than continuing to bring all races together.

Gender fluidity is being taught in some schools in New York state. This encourages youngsters to question their gender and perhaps attempt to change it. Other topics regarding sexual activity are also being presented which, out of regard for using appropriate language, will not be named or described here. 

The latter two topics are being presented to very young students, in elementary and middle school. These children are not old enough or mature enough to be presented these topics, or to make decisions about changing their gender. Furthermore, none of these topics are officially part of the approved curricula; they are being added under the table.

Writing in Hillsdale College’s publication, Imprimis, Hillsdale President Larry Arnn explains what he sees as the origin and purpose of these changes. “The process is dominated by ‘stakeholders’ — mostly people who have a financial or political interest in what is taught. They are mostly not teachers or scholars, but advocates. And so we adopt our textbooks, our lesson plans, and our state standardized tests with a view to future political outcomes once the kids grow up.”

Arnn blames these changes on the administrative state. Nationwide, he said, the administrative state has more than 20 million employees, most of whom are at the state level. They are in many areas of government, education among them. They make direct and indirect decisions on the economy, and those decisions affect everything, including educational direction.

The growth of administrative positions in public education was noted earlier. While teachers sometimes are active participants in these under-handed activities, the primary culprits are in administrative positions.

This has to be stopped.

More IRS agents, or smaller, less intrusive, less expensive government?

January 17, 2023

Wealthy Americans are a favorite target of the political left. They suspect they do not pay their fair share, and indeed, actually work to evade paying what they should. The many features of the tax code provide opportunities for people, especially the wealthy, to pay less than what their critics think they should pay.

Congressional Democrats last August passed the so-called "Inflation Reduction Act." Among other things, this bill would add 87,000 new Internal Revenue Service agents to search for taxpayer mistakes and evasions.

This $72 billion of taxpayer money would, according to Sen. John Kennedy, R-LA, expand the IRS to the extent that it will have "more agents, or soldiers, than the entire Israeli army." It will definitely more than double the size of the IRS, which currently has 78,661 employees. 

And Elon Musk, said to be the world’s richest man, tweeted a picture of a British Redcoat, expressing the irony of it all:  "When the country that revolted over taxes hires 87,000 new agents."

CBN News commented: “The Internal Revenue Service dropped the ball on auditing millionaires, according to a new report published by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). Despite calls by Democrats to ramp up scrutiny of high-net-worth individuals’ tax returns, and a legislative push for increased funding for the agency, the likelihood of a millionaire being audited in 2022 was just 1.1 percent.

“Instead, data shows that low-income earners were more than five times more likely to be targeted by the IRS in 2022,” the CBN story continued. “TRAC, a nonpartisan data gathering and distribution organization, was able to obtain the information under a court order through a Freedom of Information Act request.”

“Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Joe Biden himself claim these agents will target only the wealthy,” CBN wrote. “And congressional Democrats say the money will just be used to restore the IRS to its previous size.”

The Heritage Foundation’s John Cooper showed a chart reflecting the concerns of average Americans. "From 2010-2021, those making less than $200K accounted for the most in additional paid taxes. Those making less than $25K were audited at a higher rate than those making $200K to $500K," he commented.

The House of Representatives new Republican majority passed a bill rescinding the $72 billion for the 87,000 new IRS agents. House Resolution 23, the Family and Small Business Taxpayer Protection Act, passed the House on a 221-210 vote along party lines. “This was our very first act of the new Congress, because government should work for you, not against you,” said new House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-CA.

America’s government should be small, efficient, and not intrude into the lives of its citizens. The Libertarian Republic published an article in 2015 focused on the “Top 10 Government Agencies We Should Eliminate Immediately.” Citing the size of President George Washington’s cabinet, with only three departments, the article lists the 10 we could close, and why:

* National Security Agency - Perhaps the US governments’ most Orwellian agency, it has many times found itself embroiled in controversy, whether for spying on leaders opposed to the Vietnam war, or collecting the phone records of billions of people.

* Food and Drug Administration - The FDA is given the surreal power of regulating what Americans may eat, drink and medicate themselves with. This creates an environment where citizens are told that they are in fact not the sole deciders of what goes into their own bodies.

* Environmental Protection Agency - The EPA has gone from a small and seemingly necessary regulatory agency to a behemoth which tramples small businesses without regard for economic realities. The EPA has taken the power to arbitrate land disputes and environmental concerns from courts and private citizens, replaced with actions by bureaucrats with no accountability.

* Amtrak - Trains are the transportation choice of the past, yet government keeps investing in them. Higher subsidies are necessary to keep Amtrak running. 

* Internal Revenue Service - The IRS has a long history of abusing its power. If taxation is indeed necessary, must there really be an agency which so clearly intrudes into every aspect of our lives when tax filing season approaches?

* Federal Emergency Management Agency - Emergency relief should be left to private organizations like the American Red Cross, which has proven itself time and time again.

* Transportation Security Administration - Americans have been taught that Constitutional rights are suspended if one decides to travel through an airport. There are certainly better and more efficient ways for safety to be ensured.

* Drug Enforcement Administration - The War on Drugs has taken millions of lives and prisoners, and billions of taxpayer dollars. We as free people have a duty to bring an end to the tyranny of the DEA. 

* Federal Communications Commission - Freedom of speech is among the most important rights in our Constitution. However, the FCC places barriers upon our rights to engage in and listen to speech of our choice. 

* Federal Reserve - Not many Americans truly understand it, yet it silently steals value from Americans’ dollars every day. Since its creation, the dollar has lost 95 percent of its value. 

Agree or disagree with this libertarian view, our government is too big.

A Republican Speaker of the House was chosen, after a long process

January 10, 2023

Republican Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Minority Leader for several years who had the support of 90 percent of the House Republicans, was elected Speaker of the House in the early minutes of last Saturday. But it was a long, tedious battle that lasted four days, as a group of 20 Republicans opposed his election in order to gain concessions. 

After the 14th vote failed late Friday night, Patrick McHenry, R-NC, moved to adjourn the House until Monday. Other Republicans, however, changed their minds during the vote, and managed to defeat the adjournment motion. That meant that the voting for Speaker must continue, and the 15th vote was then taken. Enough of the 20 Republicans that had opposed McCarthy did what was needed for him to finally win.

Then, the gavel was passed, and the new Speaker swore in the newly elected House members.

What was it about McCarthy with which those 20 Republicans so strongly disagreed? He was called a “RINO,” and said to have not stood up for Republican principles. He went along with the Democrat majority, and other similar things, they charged.

And the group was determined to oppose his election unless and until he agreed to certain concessions, which he finally did.

After the election McCarthy addressed the House. "As Speaker of the House, my ultimate responsibility is not to my party, my conference, or even our Congress. My responsibility — our responsibility — is to our country."

McCarthy revealed some of his priorities for the 118th session of Congress, promising to "address America’s long-term challenges: the debt and the Chinese Communist Party. Congress must speak with one voice on both of these issues," he said.

McCarthy said he is set on building a "nation that is safe," a "future that is built on freedom," and to construct a "government that is accountable where Americans get the answers they want, need, and deserve."

"Our system is built on checks and balances. It’s time for us to be the check and provide some balance to the President’s policies," he added. "There is nothing more important than making it possible for American families to live and enjoy the lives they deserve."

He believes it is necessary to "stop wasteful Washington spending to lower the price of groceries, gas, cars, and housing and stop the rising national debt."

"We pledge to cut the regulatory burden, lower energy costs for families, and create good-paying jobs for workers by unleashing reliable, abundant American-made energy," McCarthy said. "Our first bill will repeal funding for 87,000 new IRS agents. Because the government should be here to help you, not go after you."

In closing, McCarthy said: "Our nation is worth fighting for. Our rights are worth fighting for. Our dreams are worth fighting for. Our future is worth fighting for."

Republicans also have said they will return the operation of the House to its previous fashion that existed before former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, began her iron-fisted rule that removed much of the ability for members to participate that the House had been known and celebrated for, and replaced by Pelosi’s heavy hand.

Among the topics the Republican-led House will explore are a couple that are just common sense in a body that is supposed to work for the people it serves: Single Subject Bills, and 72 hours to read a bill.

A good example of what these measures will prevent is the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill, or more appropriately, the “ominous” spending bill. This bill contained several separate subjects, was 4,155 pages long, spent a ridiculous amount of taxpayer’s money, and was put to a vote before it could be adequately studied by those voting on it. As former Speaker Pelosi famously said, you have to pass it to find out what is in it. That is not what America is about.

One of these many subjects provides about $3 million for the Pollinator-Friendly Practices on Roadsides and Highway Rights-of-Way Program, for "activities to benefit pollinators on roadsides and highway rights-of-ways" like planting certain types of flora or implementing certain mowing strategies.

Another one provides that "not less than" $575 million "should be made available for family planning/reproductive health, including in areas where population growth threatens biodiversity or endangered species."

And, the “ominous” bill allocates $1.56 billion to Customs and Border Protection for "border management requirements" and $339.6 million to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for "non-detention border management requirements." But these funds are prohibited from being used to "acquire, maintain, or extend border security technology and capabilities" unless they’re for improving processing, not securing the border. 

Some other beneficial topics are a “Church” style committee that allows the House to look into the weaponization of organizations like the FBI against the American people, a Texas border plan, ending COVID mandates and funding, a budget that stops an increase in the debt ceiling and holds the Senate accountable, and a vote on term limits.

The Republicans have identified quite a few areas needing repair or attention that have been ignored, or subverted, by the Biden administration.

Now they have to appropriately address and fix them, and Democrats will hopefully understand their importance, and support them.

More changes are being offered to satisfy the “cancel culture”

January 3, 2023

Here we go again! Along with all the efforts to “cancel” things that upset someone, a few people, or lots of people — like the names of buildings, streets and schools; and statues of people, and actual people living and dead — there is a new movement. This one seeks to eliminate words and phrases used for years, decades or centuries.

In an act of “we gotta get woke,” Stanford University has published an index of "harmful language." The school plans to eliminate this language from its websites and computer code, and will offer replacement terms to be used in the future. And likely these rules will apply to those on campus and otherwise associated with the school.

Stanford calls this project the Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative, and it is described as a "multi-phase, multi-year project to address harmful language in IT at Stanford," according to the project guide.

The guide goes on to say that its goal is to eliminate "many forms of harmful language," including "racist, violent, and biased language, including disability bias, ethnic bias, ethnic slurs, gender bias, implicit bias, and sexual bias. "It also states that it wants to educate people on the impact of words.

It should be fairly obvious that the language Stanford finds “harmful” consists of words and phrases that have been around in popular usage for years or decades. But in this new hypersensitive world, they are no longer useful because of some relatively under-lying meaning that someone might find offensive.

Here’s one example. Under a section titled “Imprecise Language,” the guide advised readers to replace the term “American” with “U.S. citizen.” The reason for this is that calling people who live in the United States of America (USA) “Americans” insinuates that the USA is the most important country in the Americas.

There are four groups of countries in the Americas: North America, Central America, South America and The Caribbean. And in those four groups, there are more than 40 individual countries. However, only one of them, the United States of America, has the word “America” in its name. The USA has also been known as “America,” for a long time. Therefore, the citizens of the USA can properly be called “Americans.”

This example is plain evidence of how foolish this and many other such efforts are. Perhaps the powers that be at Stanford realized this, had it explained to them, or gave in to the outrage over this cancellation, because it has back-tracked on this word, and now claims to absolutely welcome the term “American.” 

Progress? Perhaps.

Some of the terms Stanford deems harmful and has not back-tracked on include "abort," which the school wants to replace with "cancel" or "end," due to moral concerns about abortion; "child prostitute" to be replaced with a "child who has been trafficked," so the person is not defined by just one characteristic; and "Karen" is to be replaced with "demanding or entitled White woman."

The index suggests using "accessible parking" instead of "handicap parking," "died by suicide" instead of "committed suicide" and "anonymous review" instead of "blind review." We also should use "unenlightened" as a replacement for "tone deaf," and a "person with a substance abuse disorder" as a replacement for "addict."

The institutionalized racism section says to avoid using phrases like "black hat," "black mark" and "black sheep" because of "negative connotations to the color black." It also says to avoid using "grandfathered" and use "legacy status" instead, because of "roots in the ‘grandfather clause’ adopted by Southern states to deny voting rights to Blacks."

“Immigrant” is out, and the preferred substitute is “person who has immigrated.” The Wall Street Journal noted about this cancellation that, “It’s the iron law of academic writing: Why use one word when four will do?”

“You can’t ‘master’ your subject at Stanford any longer,” the Journal added, saying “in case you hadn’t heard, the school instructs that ‘historically, masters enslaved people.’” 

Does Stanford still award “masters” degrees? Or, will they simply be renamed “post-bachelor,” “bachelor-plus,” or “pre-doctorate,” “not-yet-doctorate,” or something else?

Given that these words and phrases “trigger” the sensitivities of some folks, and that the multitude of other things that people want to cancel are things that have been around or in common use for a long time, and their meanings have been understood and accepted as useful and normal.

Why is it now suddenly necessary to get rid of them?

These days there is virtually nothing that doesn’t bother someone. So, the question that arises is, are we going to give in to this new mania and change everything when some people become uncomfortable with them? Or, are we just going to learn to deal with the discomforts, as we have been doing since humans have existed?

The things that are now considered as unacceptable are part of American society and history. They are “us.” If they are removed, we lose the valuable lessons they can teach us. If we reword things, we are giving in to what in many cases are hyper-sensitive feelings about things that we historically have simply accepted. 

We aren’t perfect, and will never be. We need to learn to live with these imperfections.

The United States military is being weakened from the top

December 20, 2022

One of the things that has earned the respect of most Americans through the decades is our military. Our armed forces have done wonderful things, like helping to save much of the world in World War II. It was able to do this because of the proper training of competent individuals.

Our military has been regarded as the best, most proficient and capable in the world. On the land and sea, and in the air, there were none better.

Recent developments now place those highly regarded forces in danger of being less ready and able to do their job of protecting America from its adversaries.

The men and women in the ranks are not the problem. They are well-trained and very competent, at least at the present time. The problem lies with much of the civilian and military leadership in the Pentagon and some officers in the services.

Non-military topics like diversity, equity and inclusion, and using the proper pronouns have crept into the thinking of some of the top brass.

The Department of Defense (DoD) has something called the Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Plan. The DoD explains that “diversity is a strategic imperative — critical to mission readiness and accomplishment.” 

And, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has said that it must be a priority for our military “to look like America and not only in the ranks, but our leadership should look like America.” 

“The new priority turns the Army into a social experiment at the cost of mission readiness,” said Robert M. Berg in National Review. “The new push within the DoD for diversity, equity, and inclusion goes well beyond measures to ensure equal opportunity and instead looks to create preferences that have nothing to do with merit. Our military will suffer if it does not change course.”

Imagine how the performance of sports teams would be affected if the main concerns were having the right mix of ethnicities and such, instead of having the most talented players. That is the direction our military is headed.

Also, the military released thousands of service people who refused to get a Covid vaccine, and the services are now having trouble attracting enough new recruits to meet their targets. Some of that is because those of the right age and physical condition are turned off by the misdirection of the military recently.

The largest military service, the U.S. Army, is revisiting some of the fitness standards and academic standards right now to try to meet its recruitment goals. Lowering standards does not bode well for keeping military readiness at the highest level.

The late Rush Limbaugh, in highlighting the military’s critical areas, said that its job is “to kill people and break things.” The military must have as its primary goals to be as skillful, efficient and well equipped as possible. The services must not emphasize things like race, religion, gender, or other non-merit-based traits. Instead, it must focus on combat readiness. Anything that stands in the way of that mission is dangerous and unacceptable. We must always be prepared to fight and win the nation’s wars.

And now this new twist comes to light, courtesy of the Wall Street Journal. “A little-noticed rule-making proposed by the Department of Defense, NASA and the General Services Administration would require federal contractors to disclose and reduce their CO2 emissions as well as climate financial risks. The rule would cover 5,766 contractors that have received at least $7.5 million from the feds in the prior year,” the Journal reported.

“Smaller contractors would have to publicly report their so-called Scope 1 and 2 emissions — i.e., those they generate at their facilities and from the electricity and heating they use. Firms with larger contracts would also have to tabulate their upstream and downstream Scope 3 emissions, including those from customers, suppliers and products used in the field.”

“In other words, this is a back door for the Administration to force businesses across the economy to report and reduce their CO2 emissions,” the Journal article continues. “As the U.S. military faces strained budgets and growing threats, climate will be a costly new priority in national defense.”

“But the very point of the rule, National Review said, “is to force CO2 emissions reductions across the private economy by leveraging $650 billion in annual federal contracts. By covering Scope 3 emissions, the rule would sweep in tens of thousands of non-federal contractors, including many small businesses.”

Thus, it is not only costly in terms of national defense, but it will affect the ability of these contractors to produce needed military goods as inexpensively and as quickly as possible.

The United States has already done pretty well in reducing CO2 emissions, compared to other nations. China, for example, continues to build new coal-fired electric generation facilities. And China is not focused on foolish “woke” concepts for its military, the largest in the world.

The civilian and military leaders who favor these new off-center ideas need to be replaced immediately with people who know and understand the critical purpose of our military, and who will focus on that.

How is Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan working out for the country?

December 27, 2022

President Joe Biden campaigned on the phrase “Build Back Better,” and as president has frequently used the phrase. The point he was trying to make was that things were really not so good under then-President Donald Trump, and if the country just had the good sense to elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to the White House, things would improve.

Nearly half-way through his term, how is he doing?

A column by Beth Whitehead on The Federalist website is titled “11 Of The Biden Administration’s Greatest Failures So Far.” Let’s take a look at a few of these failures.

** Facilitating a Deadly Border - The effects of Biden’s refusal to enforce U.S. border and immigration laws are devastating. Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, has said before a Congressional committee that the border is not open. He also said that the problems were inherited. And, he later denied having said the border is not open.

Putting some detail on that claim, Newsweek reported in September that “Data from the U.S. Border Patrol and Office of Field Operations compiled by Newsweek show that the average number of encounters under Biden reached totals of roughly 189,000 per month, compared to an average of just under 51,000 per month during the Trump presidency.” Sounds like an open border, doesn’t it?

Our southern border is controlled by cartels, which make millions of dollars smuggling men, women, and children across the border, which can be, and has been deadly for many of them. 

They also smuggle drugs, like fentanyl, which is deadly, along with other dangerous drugs. The number of Americans and others killed by fentanyl is in the thousands, and other drugs have taken thousands more lives. 

Roughly 3 million persons will have walked or waded across the border in Biden’s first two years, and we know little if anything about most of them. Some of them are criminals. Some of them probably were ill. Some of them were likely kidnapped.

** Shipping Illegals to a Community Near You - The president secretly shipped illegal aliens across state borders and into suburban cities and neighborhoods, without taking measures to deal with them, or even notifying these cities that the illegals would be coming.

** Holding Kids Hostage to Trans Radicalism - “In May, the Biden administration attempted to strong-arm public schools into letting males who identify as transgender use girls’ bathrooms by threatening to pull federal funding for school lunches if they didn’t,” Whitehead reported. “That’s 30 million lunch-program students Biden took hostage to push his party’s trans radicalism.”

** Tapping into Emergency Petroleum Reserves - So dedicated to the idea of killing the American fossil fuel industry, Biden decided that he would kill thousands of energy jobs, cancel fossil fuel projects, and gives up our energy independence, which we gained in the Trump presidency, and make up for that loss of oil by releasing oil from the national reserve, which exists for emergency use. 

He tries to cover his tracks by blaming our shortage on Russian leader Vladimir Putin and the Ukraine war. But it doesn’t work. And Americans really enjoyed paying double for gasoline that now is only $1 or so per gallon higher than when he took office. He hasn’t told us how he plans to replenish the petroleum reserve’s oil, or if he knows he must. Perhaps he’ll buy the oil from Putin.

** Driving up Inflation - Biden’s brilliance has produced an economy that has chalked up 40-year high inflation of 7.9 percent. Trying again unsuccessfully to shift the blame to Putin, it is clearly Biden’s policies that have driven up the prices of everything Americans need and want, like gas, food, clothing, building materials and household items. 

He appointed Jerome Powell to be Federal Reserve chairman, and Powell printed money well after the “need” for it was over. That, along with the American Rescue Plan, set the stage for the current inflation cycle. So far there is nothing indicating an end to this misery.

“Under the Biden administration, consumer prices rose so much faster than wages that the average family lost $5,800 in real annual income,” reports the Heritage Foundation. “Skyrocketing interest rates account for another $1,300 in lost annual income,” for a total of $7,100.  

** Botching the Afghanistan Withdrawal - Moving American military out of Afghanistan was always something we knew we would do. But it was never intended to be the disaster that Biden created. We left too quickly, without giving the Afghan troops time to prepare, and abandoned Bagram Air Base. We left behind Americans and Afghan allies to fend for themselves. We also left billions of dollars in weapons and equipment, which are now in the hands of the Taliban.

No president is perfect, although some have done wonderful things. Biden, on the other hand, has set a new standard for imperfection. There is an ongoing debate as to whether these horrible ideas are his, or whether he is just doing as someone or some group is telling him. Regardless, the buck stops with him.

Summarizing Biden’s performance, his three Bs are actually four Ds: Dereliction, Dangerous, Disastrous, and Disgraceful.

Elon Musk’s releasing of Twitter files proves what so many thought

December 13, 2022

It is possible that there is a new person atop the left’s “Most Disliked Person” list. And that person, replacing former President Donald Trump, is the new owner of Twitter, Tesla owner Elon Musk. Or maybe Musk will merely be added to the list below Trump’s name.

Twitter and Facebook have long been criticized for censoring certain kinds of tweets and posts, including those of conservatives and those whose opinions run counter to liberal thinking. Now that Twitter is not owned and operated by someone who believes in censorship, things are changing. And evidence to support the long-held beliefs that social media sites were infringing on free speech is coming to light.

Not only is the censorship of certain topics now shown to be fact, but some, perhaps many, of the items censored were valid and important.

One conservative user, “Stanford University's Dr. Jay Bhattacharya — a longstanding opponent of a COVID groupthink during the pandemic who expressed opposition to lockdowns" was placed on the site’s secret blacklists, as reported by Fox News, which is as bad to the left was Twitter was good.

This man is no average guy expressing an uneducated opinion. Yet, in its efforts to protect a faulty narrative, Twitter blacklisted him.

Bari Weiss, founder and editor of The Free Press, posted on Twitter earlier this month that, “A new #TwitterFiles investigation reveals that teams of Twitter employees build blacklists, prevent disfavored tweets from trending, and actively limit the visibility of entire accounts or even trending topics — all in secret, without informing users.”

Her revelations are all based upon information provided by Musk from Twitter files he has released.

"Twitter denied that it does such things," Weiss noted. "In 2018, Twitter's Vijaya Gadde (then Head of Legal Policy and Trust) and Kayvon Beykpour (Head of Product) said, ‘We do not shadow ban.’ They added, ‘And we certainly don’t shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology.’" Former Twitter owner Jack Dorsey said as much in a Congressional hearing.

One technique used is visibility filtering, a senior Twitter employee told Weiss: “Think about visibility filtering as being a way for us to suppress what people see to different levels. It’s a very powerful tool.”

 A post on msn.com offered the following: “Liberals on Twitter panned the latest ‘Twitter Files’ revelations from Elon Musk and journalist Matt Taibbi Friday which showed the internal communications of Twitter leading up to the decision to ban former President Donald Trump from the social media platform in early 2021.

“The third ‘Twitter Files’ installment – this time dubbed, ‘THE REMOVAL OF DONALD TRUMP,’ presented documents showing that Twitter staff banned Trump not solely based on tweets he made during January 6th, but on the ‘context surrounding’ Trump and his supporters’ actions ‘over the course of the election and frankly last 4+ years.’”

And more inside information: A member of Facebook’s Oversight Board and former Prime Minister of Denmark Helle Thorning Schmidt, said, “Free speech is not an absolute human right,” at a Politico Europe event. “It has to be balanced with other human rights.” Schmidt may have said what’s what in Denmark, but that’s not the way things are in America, where free speech is guaranteed in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. And that includes unpopular speech.

What we know and are learning shows that the mindset of Twitter’s boss and employees was one of cheating, censoring speech by deplatforming, suspending users, and other techniques to achieve its liberal/progressive goals, including winning the election of 2020.

“Deplatforming is certainly an effective tool when it comes to countering terrorist and like-minded extremist groups online. But the fact that this tactic is being used against individuals and organizations that do not fit these categories is a terrifying abuse of power,” reported The Washington Times.

“Such a tactic has proven to be just as effective in manipulating mainstream electoral campaigns. One of the most egregious examples of this was when Facebook and Twitter censored the New York Post over the paper’s exposés about Hunter Biden’s emails and corruption. In other words, social media platforms baselessly characterized the Post’s investigative journalism as ‘misinformation’ and blocked it.”

The Times story goes on to say that a news report from the Media Research Center shows that some voters “would not have voted for the Biden-Harris presidential ticket if they knew at least one of the eight news stories that were suppressed by big tech and mainstream media outlets.”

Twitter was and is a platform owned by a private company. According to webopedia.com, “Social media platforms are interactive digital channels that focus on the creation and sharing of thoughts, ideas, and information through virtual networks. These platforms enable users to take part in social networking by creating content, sharing their thoughts, commenting on other user content, and reposting it.”

Twitter and Facebook can control what is on their platform. They can prohibit truly dangerous language. But to take a political side, without a public statement to that effect, and then secretly censor the other political side is dishonest, and un-American.

Elon Musk has a good start to cleaning up Twitter, and hopefully will keep it politically neutral. Maybe Facebook will clean up, too.

Taking a step to restoring common sense to the legislative process

December 6, 2022

There are problems with the Congressional process of writing legislation. This process should be simple and straight-forward: if a representative or senator has a proposal he or she believes would benefit the country, it should be written up in the appropriate manner and submitted for consideration.

Usually, this would take several pages, but not hundreds of pages, as some bills do. It also would not involve some number of items added to a bill that are not related to the stated purpose of the bill.

These days we find proposed legislation of hundreds and hundreds of pages and many additional items, some or most of which do not relate to the bill’s purpose.

Unrelated items that are included are designed to serve other purposes. They frequently are used to benefit some particular special interest group or a political purpose that the proponent seeks to help by adding items to the bill that have nothing to do with its stated purpose. 

The authors believe these little goodies will slide through because the main purpose of the bill is a good one, and anyone who doesn’t vote for it will suffer bad press and political negatives for opposing it. If each of these items were required to be in a bill of their own, this tactic would be rendered useless, and legislation that achieves approval would be much cleaner, more appropriate, and less harmful.

Sometimes a bill is so long that in the busy atmosphere of legislative work some representatives and senators simply cannot read every word and effectively study the bill in the amount of time allotted before a vote is scheduled. They then are only partially prepared to cast a knowledgeable vote.

Nancy Pelosi, the Democrat Representative from California whose tenure as Speaker of the House blessedly ends with the 117th Congress on December 31, once said something to the effect of, “we have to pass the bill to find out what is in it.”

No, that isn’t the way a democratic republic passes legislation.

Republican Representative Morgan Griffith represents Virginia’s Ninth Congressional District, which covers 19 counties completely, and parts of three others, and is the Congressman for our region of the Commonwealth.

In one of his regular emails to his constituents, titled “Return to the Basics,” Griffith cites the need for changes, and says with the control of the House of Representatives moving to the Republican Party in the 118th Congress, it is time to make needed changes to the Rules of the House.

Of his suggestions, he wrote, “Most of these amendments restore old rules or clarify existing rules. It would mean a return to the basics of parliamentary procedure.” And, he recently testified before the House Rules Committee to offer those amendments to the rules.

He suggested restoring the Holman Rule, which was created in 1876. It was a tool that could cut government spending.

“One of my proposed rules changes is to restore the Holman Rule, which existed for more than 100 years,” he wrote. “[T]he Holman Rule was created by Congressman William Holman … [who] thought spending was out of control.”

“The Holman Rule allows representatives to offer retrenchment amendments on the floor of the House of Representatives to appropriations bills,” Griffith wrote. “Retrenchment means these amendments could rearrange an agency or department of the Federal Government to cut specific programs, positions, or salaries. In 2017, I revived this rule for the 115th Congress, but in 2019 Speaker Pelosi dismantled this tool,” he wrote.

He also suggested a change to the germaneness rule, that would only allow amendments to a bill that pertained to the bill’s purpose, and suggested that a bill could only have one purpose. He also suggested that those limitations could not be waived without a two-thirds vote of the House.

“Shouldn’t a bill address one issue and be straight forward,” he asked? “My single purpose rule would make it so. This rule would still allow for complex bills like an infrastructure bill. However, two bills or concepts could not be combined into a single bill unless their purposes were the same. For example, a bill to set doctors’ reimbursement rates under Medicare could not be amended into a rewrite of Medicare. To rewrite Medicare would require a separate bill.”

“Additionally, I proposed an amendment to set time limits for bill introduction. This would focus individual members on bills that the members are most passionate about,” Griffith wrote. “It would also reduce the practice of introducing a bill on the cause celebre of the day for publicity purposes,” and “allows a remedy for bills that are ‘truly’ important by giving members the ability to ask the House for permission to introduce their ‘vital’ bill late.”

These common-sense ideas, and others included in Griffith’s email, would go a long way to restoring the legislative process to a form that is straight forward, efficient, and offers more protection from political manipulation than the current process. As he wrote, “a return to the basics of parliamentary procedure.”

Is it too much to hope that a majority of House members will agree with these good ideas, and vote to adopt them?

America’s current pandemic is bad, and shows no signs of abating

November 29, 2022

The latest “virus” in our society has been around a good while, but has gotten more active in recent months. It’s not a biological thing, it’s a cultural thing, commonly referred to as the “cancel culture.” It is born of dissatisfaction with something or someone, based upon what is believed, but absent much or most of the relevant facts about the subject at hand. 

Such things as painting or removing statues of well-known people, changing the names of buildings and other things honoring someone, or demeaning traditions are some of the work of the “cancel culture.”

As the Thanksgiving observance approached, the idea that Thanksgiving should be cancelled arose.

But what is there about Thanksgiving that it should be done away with? Thanksgiving is a time for all Americans to “cease from their daily work” and give thanks for their “many and great blessings,” as then-President Theodore Roosevelt noted in his 1908 Thanksgiving Day proclamation.

Taking a different approach to Thanksgiving, Joy Reid, the host of “The ReidOut” MSNBC, said on Wednesday night, "Tonight, we begin with Thanksgiving, the day we gather with friends and family to enjoy turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie. We throw on the game, catch up on with lives and discuss or quite possibly argue about religion and politics. For millions of Americans, it’s been a cherished tradition, and as Americans, we value those traditions. But it is also important to unpack the myth of Thanksgiving."

Enlightening the ignorant people who only think of Thanksgiving as a wonderful day of celebration and thanks, Reid then said: "It is a holiday riddled with historical inaccuracies, built on this myth that the indigenous welcomed their colonizers with open arms and ears of corn. A simplistic fairytale interpretation of a 1621 encounter between indigenous tribes and English settlers that erases the genocide that followed. It is the truth that Republicans want banned from our textbooks because here is the secret they want so desperately to keep: We are a country founded on violence. Our birth was violent."

Fortunately, there are millions of Americans who were not afflicted with this “unpacking,” as they prepared to enjoy the day with their families.

But now that the wonderful day has ended, looking into the substance of Reid’s diatribe can be done.

“We are a country founded on violence,” she proclaimed. Well, yes. Those British citizens who over the years ventured across miles of ocean in weeks-long trips on sailing ships, and through the many decades built themselves colonies which they cherished, were forced to employ violence to escape being under the thumb of their British masters who would not peacefully free them. 

This is not a secret. The Revolutionary War of 1775 to 1783 was an escape to freedom using violence, because that was what colonists were forced to do. Are we today supposed to apologize for that violent beginning? Or, does it make more sense to acknowledge what was needed and what was done, and move forward from there?

She makes fun of the first Thanksgiving in 1621, calling what most of us were taught a “fairytale interpretation.” She said “that the indigenous welcomed their colonizers with open arms and ears of corn,” was a myth.

Obviously, Reid was not there. But there actually is a first-hand account, written by Edward Winslow, who was one of the 102 people who sailed from England on the Mayflower in 1620.  After arriving in North America, they founded Plymouth Colony in what is now Massachusetts. His letter can be found online at mayflowerhistory.com.

According to the History of Massachusetts Blog, “What is known is that the pilgrims held the first Thanksgiving feast to celebrate the successful fall harvest. Celebrating a fall harvest was an English tradition at the time and the pilgrims had much to celebrate.

“The 53 pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving were the only colonists to survive the long journey on the Mayflower and the first winter in the New World. Disease and starvation struck down half of the original 102 colonists.

“These pilgrims made it through that first winter and, with the help of the local Wampanoag tribe, they had a hearty supply of food to sustain them through the next winter.” Later, the colonists had conflicts with indigenous tribes, but not before or during the first Thanksgiving.

Reid’s tunnel-vision view of history from inside her bubble seeks to erase the established history of our country that has been with us for nearly 250 years, and replace it with a story based upon selected facts that support her position that the American people have been horrible from before day-one until today.

She then endorses the fallacious 1619 Project, which attempts to re-date the beginning of America to that year, when a ship with more than 20 enslaved Africans landed in what is now Virginia. In 1619 there was no United States of America, nor even colonies from which America evolved. And no slavery on that first Thanksgiving.

These pathetic efforts to tear down America with intellectually-challenged stories of half-truths and outright lies are dangerous.

America is not perfect. But it is so much better than these self-gratifying falsehoods suggest.