Biden’s ‘Build Back Better’ tax and spend dream is being whittled down

In the span of just eight months since January 20, President Joe Biden has given us the border crisis, the Afghanistan debacle, the issues with China and Russia and North Korea, a broken supply chain, ridiculously high gas prices, and staggering inflation throughout the economy. 

That works out to nearly one catastrophe for each month. Some are wondering if America will be able to survive another three-plus years of Biden rule.

If many of the desired elements in Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda are approved, the answer to that is: America will be moving even farther from the country our Founders designed.

Some of the things in that agenda are not legitimate roles for the government of a democratic republic that was founded on the principal of individual, God-given freedoms. They are wrong for a nation which was created by its individual states, and that gave themselves a degree of independence from the federal government. They are wrong for a nation with a government of limited authority.

Our system of government purposefully gave us the ability to follow our desires for how to make a good life for ourselves, and not be dependent upon the government to take care of us from cradle to grave.

If you want to ply a particular trade, participate in a particular profession, start a business, or work in some other way to build your life so that you support yourself and perhaps a family, or just live independently, go for it. You may succeed, or you may not. If not, you are free to try something else.

Eventually you may make a decent living, a pretty good living, or become wealthy. What you choose to do is up to you. It is not the government’s place to tell you what you can or cannot do, beyond some common-sense laws, or to take care of you if you decide you don’t want to try anymore. And in the case of some who have bad luck and are unable to support themselves, the most generous people in the world — the American people — will most likely help you when you need it.

Yes, it is true that through the decades our government has grown well beyond its desired size, costs far too much, goes well beyond its designed restrictions, and interferes in our lives more than it was designed to do. That is not good. But it can be corrected.

Instead, the left in America is working overtime, not at trying to make their individual lives better, but to make our government even larger, more expensive and more controlling.

Some of the things President Biden and the Democrats, who still hold tenuous control of the government, want to do are simply improper. Such things as paying for child care, “free” community college, $450 billion for government-run preschools, are not the proper role of our government.

Some other things, such as amnesty for more than 8 million illegals, complete with payments of $450,000 for some; doubling the size of the IRS to monitor bank accounts of citizens; and spending $3.5 billion for a “Civilian Climate Corps” of Climate Change activists, are not good for the country, or our freedoms.

As Congress struggles to get support to pass Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda, the monstrous $3.5 trillion, 2,465-page tax and spend leftist dream is being whittled down. Even though it now spends less money and uses less paper, it is still way too expensive and much too heavy. And Biden’s tax and spend agenda is still a disaster.

One really goofy idea for funding some of the multi-trillion-dollar spending plan is a tax on the “unrealized capital gains” of anyone who makes more than $100 million a year, or whose worth is at least $1 billion. This idea is likely unconstitutional. But if not, it most certainly is an oxymoron. 

A capital gain is the profit you make when you sell an investment asset for more than you paid for it. If you buy an asset for $1,000 and sell it for $5,000, you would pay tax on the additional $4,000. But this weird tax idea would be applied to the increased value of the asset before it has been sold.

If the asset later lost some or all of its gain, would the government return the taxed amount? Nope. This concept beautifully illustrates the twisted understanding many liberals/socialists have for economics.  

The left is determined to transform our nation of maximum individual freedom and world-leading prosperity into a government-run nation like Cuba and Venezuela, and all the others that have failed.

And some of our citizens, who have never seen worse times than these pretty good times of the 21st century, do not understand how things have improved through time in America, and how good of a country they have been blessed to live in. They don’t understand that America’s poor are so much better off than those that live in the poorest nations. 

They are eager to see the left succeed, believing that socialism — and ultimately communism — will make things better for us. It won’t. Let’s hope this effort fails.

U.S. military below acceptable standards, according to analysis

Among the numerous troublesome topics bedeviling our lives today is this: “The U.S. military is only ‘marginally’ prepared to defend America’s interests at a time when adversaries are ramping up military capabilities.” This dose of reality comes from the 2022 Index of U.S. Military Strength, an annual 600-page look at our armed forces, started in 2015 by The Heritage Foundation. This edition was released earlier this month.

Of late, the concern for national security has transitioned toward cultural, social and political issues. And “military unreadiness” is the direction our armed forces leadership has moved over the last decade or so.

The military has a very narrow, critical mission. Its overriding concern is national security, and when it comes down to it, effectively fighting and winning against armed enemies. The vision held by any and all nations that might dream of defeating the United States must be that such actions will be met with overwhelming force by what is known worldwide as the most powerful and adept military on Earth. 

That is the goal that must never be sacrificed for political correctness, or social justice distractions.

Throughout history presidents have removed military commanders they viewed as inadequate or insubordinate, based upon the philosophy of the individual president. But that action must never result in weakening our national security.

President Barack Obama, tenure 2009 to 2017, declared at a political rally prior to his election that “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” Among other things, Obama worked to transform the U.S. military, including imposing significant budget cuts.

An editorial in Investor’s Business Daily in October of 2013 noted that since his inauguration, Obama had purged at least 197 military officers. And that included nine senior commanding generals in 2013.

A senior retired general told The Blaze — on the condition of anonymity, because he provided services to the government and feared retribution — that "they're using the opportunity of the shrinkage of the military to get rid of people that don't agree with them or do not toe the party line.” 

“For President Obama, the military of a once-feared superpower is an anachronistic vestige of an America whose exceptionalism and world leadership require repeated apologies,” the editorial stated. “It must be gutted and fundamentally transformed into a force wearing gender-neutral headgear only useful for holding the presidential umbrella when it rains. It is to be ‘his’ military and used only for ‘his’ purposes.”

As a result, the highest levels of military leadership became dysfunctional.

“The Index of U.S. Military Strength assesses the ease or difficulty of operating in key regions based on existing alliances, regional political stability, the presence of U.S. military forces, and the condition of key infrastructure,” states the executive summary of the Index. “Threats are assessed based on the behavior and physical capabilities of actors that pose challenges to vital U.S. national interests. The condition of America’s military power is measured in terms of its capability or modernity, capacity for operations, and readiness to handle assigned missions.”

The Index’s aggregate rating for all military branches is “marginal.” The individual rankings are as follows: 

Army: Marginal. A force only about 62 percent the size it should be earns the service a “weak” rating for capacity. However, 58 percent (18) of its 31 regular brigade combat teams are at the highest state of readiness, thus earning the Army a score of “very strong” on readiness and conveying the sense that the service knows what it needs to do to prepare for the next major conflict.

Navy: Marginal. The Navy is rated “marginal” on a downward slope to “weak” in readiness. It desperately needs a larger fleet of 400 ships, but current and forecasted levels of funding will prevent this from occurring for the foreseeable future.

Marine Corps: Strong. The score rose from “marginal” for two reasons: 1) The 2021 Index changed the threshold for capacity, lowering it from 36 infantry battalions to 30 in acknowledgment of the Corps’ argument that it is a one-war force that also stands ready for a broad range of smaller crisis-response tasks, and 2) because of the Corps’ extraordinary efforts to modernize and enhance its readiness during the assessed year.

Air Force: Weak, down from “marginal.” Though the Air Force possesses 86 percent of the recommended combat aircraft, public reporting of the mission readiness and physical location of these planes indicates difficulty to respond rapidly to a crisis. Its ability to recruit and retain pilots adds to its challenges.

Dismissal of senior officers that didn’t fit the president’s desires — admirals and generals, primarily — and budget cuts have reduced military readiness.

Retired Marine Lt. Col.Dakota Wood, senior research fellow with Heritage, said “This is not an indictment in any way of the men and women who serve in the military.”

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, national security adviser to former Vice President Mike Pence, touted former President Donald Trump’s foreign policy accomplishments, including the rebuilding of the U.S. military after nearly a decade of decline under the Obama administration.

This is yet one more area of governing that President Joe Biden would be well advised to continue. But that doesn’t fit into the Democrat’s play book.

Once upon a time, U.S. border security was an important concern!

The disgraceful chaos at the southern border is a topic of great concern to sensible Americans. It is a given that nations need secure and impenetrable borders, and levelheaded people understand that. And sometimes border policies and practices need reworking, such as after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

“Unbelievable as it may seem to us today, it was only 15 years ago — with the 9/11 terrorist attacks still fresh in our minds — when Congress came together in a bipartisan effort to pass the Secure Fence Act of 2006.” That comment came from Mark Morgan, in a speech delivered this past July at Hillsdale College. 

Morgan served as acting commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Trump administration, and as chief of U.S. Border Patrol in the Obama administration, and provided details on this action. “The Secure Fence Act directed the Department of Homeland Security to take appropriate actions to achieve ‘operational control’ over U.S. land and maritime borders to ‘prevent unlawful entry.’” The measure had the support of 80 of the 100 U.S. Senators.

“It defined operational control as the prevention of all unlawful entries into the U.S., including terrorists, instruments of terrorism, narcotics, and other contraband,” he continued. “And it specifically set the goal of providing ‘at least two layers of reinforced fencing, installation of additional physical barriers, roads, lighting, cameras, and sensors.’ It added thousands of Border Patrol personnel, mandated the acquisition of new technologies, and resulted in the construction of more than 650 miles of physical barrier along the southern border of the U.S. between 2006 and 2011.”

With those actions, the southern border became even more secure than it had been, sparked by concerns of additional terrorist efforts to kill Americans. And Morgan noted that there was substantial support for this action in the Congress before and after those actions were taken. 

In 2005, then-Senator Barack Obama said: “We simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, unchecked, and circumventing the line of people who are waiting patiently, diligently, and lawfully to become immigrants in this country.” 

And Senator Chuck Schumer said in 2009: “Illegal immigration is wrong, plain and simple … People who enter the United States without permission are illegal aliens and illegal aliens should not be treated the same as people who enter the U.S. legally.”

And then there was this comment: “Let me tell you something, folks, people are driving across that border with tons, tons — hear me, tons — of everything from byproducts from methamphetamine to cocaine to heroin, and it’s all coming up through corrupt Mexico.” That comment was voiced by then-Senator, and current President, Joe Biden, in 2006.

But since that time, something has happened. Congressional Democrats seemingly no longer care about security at the southern border. “Some attribute the breakdown of the bipartisan consensus on securing the border to the fact that Democrats came to look on illegal immigrants as much-needed Democrat voters,” Morgan said. “For whatever reason, a decade later these same Democratic leaders were lambasting President Trump’s border wall policy as ‘immoral and ineffective,’ even ‘racist,’ and fiercely opposing any and every serious proposal aimed at enforcing immigration law.”

“One of the most ridiculous criticisms I’ve heard.” Morgan noted, “is that the wall is ‘a fourteenth century solution for a twenty-first century problem.’ The same could be said of the wheel, which also still works pretty well.” 

In the minds of at least some of today’s Congressional Democrats, the tighter and more successful border security methods of the recent past are immoral and ineffective, and trying to prevent drug dealers, child traffickers, and terrorists from entering the country is racist. Brilliant!

One of the most effective and sensible programs dealing with illegal aliens crossing the border was called the Remain in Mexico Program. It required people illegally entering or being smuggled into the country with a minor to be returned to Mexico as opposed to being released into the U.S. with only a date for a hearing that most ignore.

Joe Biden, almost as soon as he drew a breath after being sworn in, canceled the Remain in Mexico Program, replacing it with the senseless “catch and release” method that existed prior to the Trump administration’s successful alternative.

Now, however, according to Morgan, “In response to a lawsuit brought by the Texas Attorney General, a federal judge has recently ruled that the Remain in Mexico Program must be reinstated, and the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to overturn that ruling.”

This may be the best thing to occur in the Biden administration’s brief but catastrophic tenure, and Biden had nothing to do with it, other than to have cancelled it early on, and opposed its reinstatement.

It is projected that 1.7 million illegal aliens will enter the U.S. in 2021. Border Patrol documents show that more than160,000 illegal aliens have been released into the U.S. since March, often with little to no supervision.

These illegal aliens have not been vaccinated, and they have not been vetted. What could possibly go wrong? 

Need we even ask that question?

Wildly exaggerating things is a cheap, repulsive political tactic

Lately, we have seen two occasions where certain parties have exaggerated descriptions of some events to make them seem more serious than they actually were. Two immediately come to mind: The January 6th “insurrection” at the U.S. Capitol; and the “domestic terrorism” at some local school board meetings.

Let’s take a look at these terms and allegations.

Insurrection: What it is: a violent armed uprising by a group or movement acting for the specific purpose of overthrowing the constituted government and seizing its powers.

What it isn’t: Insurrection is not a lot of people, nearly all of whom were unarmed, who illegally entered a government building, even if they were intent upon interrupting the work of those who occupy that building. The January 6th event at the U.S. Capitol Building was illegal and wrong — perhaps even an actual riot — but it was not an insurrection.

This common-sense evaluation was confirmed by the FBI, which Reuters reported “has found scant evidence that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was the result of an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result, according to four current and former law enforcement officials.”

When parents attend their children’s school board meeting and issue complaints against activities, and criticism of the school or the school system, even if they are angry and accusatory, they are not “domestic terrorists.” And if there were threats made against those associated with the school system, they may be minor crimes, but not “domestic terrorism.” This allegation and misuse of the term is irrational and disgraceful.

As reported by The Daily Signal, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland ordered the FBI and federal prosecutors to meet with federal, state, and local leaders to look into a “disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence” allegedly being made against “school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff.” 

Garland’s directive followed soon after the National School Boards Association (NSBA) requested President Joe Biden to assist in looking into behavior it absurdly classified as “domestic terrorism.”

And even if there is unlawful behavior at local school board meetings, it is the responsibility and clearly the purview of local law enforcement to deal with it. The federal government has no business or authority to involve itself in local and state affairs such as the goings-on at local meetings.

However, the actions favored by the NSBA, if granted, are likely to inhibit the ability of voters and parents to make their opinions known to the board. Even the foolish mischaracterization of these events is enough to inhibit some from exercising their constitutional rights and responsibilities in speaking out against what their children’s schools are doing.

This is yet one more episode where the federal government is improperly imposing its will over the guaranteed freedoms of the people.

This increasing misapplication of terrifying terms to make things seem far worse than they are is not the proper way to do things in America. It is a cheap political ploy designed to arouse false negative feelings, and to stifle opposition to unpopular policies. This is especially true when these preposterous over-reaches are done by public servants and/or elected representatives.

Most local school boards are elected by voters, and are therefore accountable to those voters and the parents of school children. They do not have the luxury of ignoring complaints and appeals for change. 

They also do not have the luxury of stifling the free speech of those voters and parents simply because they disagree with their complaints. They are elected servants of the people, not the rulers of the people.

This school board hoopla has spurred the idea of finding alternatives to government schools. This authoritarian behavior is the biggest boost to that idea that has come along lately.

An unresponsive school board runs the risk of parents saying they are finished with the arrogant attitude of the board, and will remove their child or children from the public school to one of the alternatives: charter schools, so long as they retain their independence; private or religious schools; or home schooling.

To what are these parents objecting? In what is likely the most reported of these conflicts, Loudoun County, Virginia, the Democrat-controlled board of supervisors and school board are trying to promote Critical Race Theory (CRT), and silence the opposition, as reported by Real Clear Politics (RCP).

“Supporters of [CRT] claim white racism is embedded in American institutions, and some go so far as to blame whites for poverty and crime in black communities,” RCP wrote. “Opponents claim [CRT] is inherently racist, teaching people to judge by skin color: all whites are oppressors, all blacks are victims.”

Much of the thousands of tax dollars related to CRT has gone to “the ‘Equity Collaborative,’ a group that seeks to expose and eliminate ‘the dominant (male, White, heterosexual) ideology’ and teaches tenets like ‘Whiteness as property’ and “Permanence of racism,’” RCP wrote.

Such a radical change in the history curriculum, without even notifying parents, let alone asking their opinion, does not sit well with true Americans, who expect — and deserve — transparency from their elected public servants.

We must not allow public education to become indoctrination.

The transformation of the United States of America is ongoing

Today, we are living in crazy and dangerous times. Tens of thousands of people from many countries travel many miles to get to Mexico so that they can enter the United States illegally.

There are different reasons why they want to be here, just as there are different types of people coming here. Some come with criminal intent, such as gang members and drug dealers. Some come because they know they can get a lot of stuff for free.

The most desirable ones, however, realize that America is so much better than where they came from. They can have a good life here. We have freedom, jobs and opportunities, due to the crystal-clear vision of the Founders.

The number of illegal entrants coming into the country is likely above any previous level, with more than 1.4 million people coming in illegally the first nine months of 2021, according to U.S. Border Patrol and the Office of Field Operations Encounters.

This high number is due to the failure of the Biden administration to do its job of providing border security, whether that is through ignorance of why borders are important, or is a deliberate effort to attract illegal aliens to our country.

Of course, the Biden administration insists that the borders are not open. Perhaps one of them can tell us how open borders, as they imagine them, would actually look, and be worse than what we see with our own eyes.

Even as those migrants from socialist, communist and otherwise poor countries come here to enjoy living in what is regarded by many as the best country on Earth, people in the government of this country continue to increase the control of the government over its people, gradually moving it toward the kind of places these illegal migrants could not wait to get away from.

The Democrats in Congress and the administration are busy transforming America into a government-controlled “paradise” where many things are free, except, of course, the individuals under the thumb of a government that seeks to control important things like healthcare, jobs and many current freedoms.

U.S. Senator Joe Manchin, D-WV, is a strong opponent of the Democrat’s multi-trillion-dollar efforts to increase dependence on government, calling these proposals that total some 5.5 trillion dollars "fiscal insanity" paid for with "vindictive" tax hikes, that will basically change “our whole society to an entitlement mentality." 

In a shocking display of abysmal ignorance about economics, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki responded to a question about raising taxes on businesses by saying, “In the past, companies have passed on these costs to consumers… We feel that that’s absurd and unfair, and the American people won’t stand for that,” she said.

She apparently perceives economic matters like most “progressives,” which does not include understanding economics, specifically that every cent a business spends — for materials, wages, advertising, loans for new equipment or expansion, taxes, etc. — is paid for with income from consumers that buy its product or service. And when taxes and other costs go up, prices have to go up to pay for them.

Perhaps this is why they see no problem with humongous spending bills that will add trillions more to the already-gigantic national debt of $28.8 trillion.

A New York Post opinion column by Betsy McCaughey had this to say about the spending bill: “The colossal bill Democrats in Washington, DC, are assembling this week is a slap in the face to Americans who work, pay taxes and support their families. It demeans the work ethic and glorifies government handouts, sending the message that work and self-sufficiency are for suckers: better to climb on Uncle Sam’s gravy train, which will now provide cradle-to-grave benefits.”

McCaughey mentions “Biden bucks,” which are monthly payments to almost all parents, based on how many children they have. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t even matter whether the parents work or not. She notes that Democrats also promise “virtually free child care until the children turn 5, free community college and, for seniors, new Medicare and elder-care benefits,” and “12 weeks a year paid leave for anyone who claims a family member — even a distant relative like a spouse’s grandmother — needs care.”

“This bill pours money down a rathole,” McCaughey wrote. “It allocates a whopping $45 billion to make community college free. Students won’t have to spend a single dollar on tuition or fees — or pursue studies that prepare them for work. Only about one in five students now finishes community college within two years. A big reason is lack of academic skills when they enter. Nothing in this program will change that.”

Manchin urges “needs testing” to see who really needs these freebies and financial bonuses. That’s moving in the right direction, but the real question that needs an answer is, “are these measures, which will dramatically increase the peoples’ dependence on government, really a proper role for our government?”

The answer to that is a definite “No!” Our government is supposed to be as small, inexpensive and unobtrusive as possible. That’s how it started; that’s what built the country to which so many want to come;  and that’s how the country works best.

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. 

There’s never a good time for military weakness. Especially now!

A story sent to me by a friend was written by a man with many years of active service in the United States Air Force. His story began, “Tomorrow morning will be the final day I lace up my boots and put on my Air Force uniform. I have now served my country in uniform for years but it is time to go.”

He said it wasn’t the pay and benefits, although he made less than the $15 per hour that some people think every person ought to make, regardless of skill, experience or value of the job. He said he wasn’t thrilled to have been deployed in some 25 countries, but that wasn’t the reason, either.

“I currently am an AMMO troop,” he said. “Our mission is to build bombs and process numerous other munitions to take the fight to the enemy. We pretty much put ‘Warheads on Foreheads!’"

He holds the position quaintly stated by the late Rush Limbaugh, that the military “is designed to kill people and break things.” That description engendered much backlash, and many still argue against it. But the underlying truth still rules: The U.S. military has a very specific, demanding and critical responsibility; it must never be side-tracked from that vital and narrow obligation.

Our airman agrees. “Even though our mission is to kill, we are more worried about upsetting someone’s feelings versus getting the mission done,” he wrote. “We spend more time doing ancillary training than actually training. Even though I have a military driver’s license I have to be signed off in another database to drive a vehicle and then have a competency card saying I know how to drive on top of that. That is just a few examples of why I have decided to call it quits.” 

He said that the country needs to focus on what is really important, not what is politically correct, or we will no longer be tough enough to defend ourselves from those who wish to destroy us. “Perception is reality, and right now we are more scared of speaking our mind and hurting someone’s feelings versus doing the right thing,” he wrote.

Another person with a military background agrees. Josiah LIppincot, writing in The Federalist, said, “Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress in June that he wanted to understand ‘white rage,’ why ‘thousands of people’ tried ‘to assault this building and … overturn the Constitution of the United States of America.’”

“As a Marine Corps officer who served at the tail end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he continued, “I saw firsthand the rapid ideological transformation pervading the military in the wake of these disasters in the Middle East.”

Also recognizing the dangerous transformation of our military’s philosophy is columnist Kurt Schlichter, writing for Townhall.com.

“Fire all the generals. Invite a few back, maybe a dozen,” he wrote. “Clean out the Pentagon. Can all the ‘Diversity Consultants,’ ‘Equal Opportunity Officers,’ ‘Climate Change Mitigation Specialists,’ and every other strap-hanging oxygen thief who doesn’t contribute to the only thing the military should be focusing on right now”; protecting America.

This transformation of the military began under the presidency of Barack H. Obama, according to Retired Army Major General Paul Vallely. “He's intentionally weakening and gutting our military, Pentagon and reducing us as a superpower, and anyone in the ranks who disagrees or speaks out is being purged,” he wrote in March of 2014, after listing 99 military officers, including 16 flag officers, who were fired or driven out.

Two others in Vallely’s article agreed: Retired Army Major General Patrick Brady: “There is no doubt he (Obama) is intent on emasculating the military and will fire anyone who disagrees with him.” 

Retired Army Lt. General William G. Jerry Boykin: “Over the past three years, it is unprecedented for the number of four-star generals to be relieved of duty, and not necessarily relieved for cause.”

The Afghanistan mess is also plagued in part by the goofy PC atmosphere that has invaded our military. Critical Race Theory (CRT), gender and racial equity, and other such things have no place in the U.S. military.

We need the most qualified person in every job, whether that is a position fighting the enemy, or a supporting position. And it makes absolutely no difference their skin color, whether male or female, and certainly not whether those categories are equally or fairly represented among active and reserve military personnel.

“A serious organization does not alternate its designation of America’s most serious threat between the weather, ‘racism,’” and other such things, Schlicter wrote.

Rest assured that generals, admirals and national leaders in China, Russia and the rest of the radical nations are not drumming their fingers on the table wondering what to do about alleged “supremacy,” racism, equity, how to defeat climate change, or which historical statues to take down and which buildings and bridges to rename.

We don’t need to be woke; we need to wake up, and get our act together, or before too long we’ll be kneeling before tyrants who kept their focus on what was important to them.

About Dr. Fauci, and the importance of the marketplace of ideas

Dr. Anthony Fauci is the face and official voice of all that is going on with the Covid pandemic, and how we should respond to it. Depending upon whom you ask, Fauci is either one who walks on water, or one who lives in hell.

I am one of the likely few outside the healthcare and scientific communities who had heard of the man prior to the invasion of COVID-19. That previous knowledge kept me from bowing down to him, as so many have. But at the same time, it gave me reason to give him the benefit of the doubt on the mysteries of, and prescriptions for dealing with the pandemic.

In the 1980s when AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) was a new thing, its causes were being investigated. Two schools of thought existed: one was that a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was the cause; the other was that long-term drug use and other factors that weaken the immune system were the cause.

Another scientist, Dr. Peter Duesberg, was prominent at that time. Duesberg isolated the first cancer gene through his work on retroviruses in 1970, and mapped the genetic structure of these viruses. This, and his continued work on viruses, resulted in his election to the National Academy of Sciences in 1986. He also received a seven-year Outstanding Investigator Grant from the National Institutes of Health.

Duesberg had made a name for himself in the scientific world. He is regarded as a specialist on viruses and retroviruses. He was a primary voice among those who argued that HIV is not the cause of AIDS.

One of the better-known opponents of Duesberg and his theory was, and is, Anthony
Fauci, and that is how I came to know who he is. Fauci has an MD degree and has worked in the National Institutes of Health, and as a clinical associate in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which he now heads. He no doubt has learned things beyond what a practicing physician knows in some areas. But does he know more about viruses than a virology expert?

Duesberg’s position is that HIV is merely a passenger in AIDS, and not the cause, a position that draws derision from the HIV = AIDS faction.

Through the decades, viruses have been defeated by vaccines. Those include: flu, SARS, measles, hepatitis A and B, mumps, chickenpox, whooping cough, tetanus, polio, and recently COVID-19. However, to date, decades after AIDS came on the scene, there is no vaccine for HIV.

Is that perhaps because, as Duesberg maintains, AIDS is not caused by a virus?

* * *

In his new book, The Case Against the New Censorship: Protecting Free Speech from Big Tech, Progressives, and Universities, liberal Democrat and civil rights attorney Alan Dershowitz makes the case for an unrestricted “marketplace of ideas.”

John Stuart Mill is generally credited with originating the concept of the marketplace of ideas back in 1859. He argued against censorship and in favor of the free flow of ideas, claiming that the free competition of ideas is the best way to separate falsehoods from fact.

However, in certain social media platforms today, the controlling oligarchs, likely unaware of Mills and his position, insist on removing content they regard as false, or perhaps just inconvenient.

But that creates potential problems. Dershowitz wrote: “If Facebook, Twitter and YouTube take down content which they deem to be untrue, then at least some viewers may come to believe that content that is not taken down must have passed the test of truthfulness.”

“So, when social media get into the business of selectively censoring some untruths,” he continues, “it is they who may be promoting false belief in the alleged truth of the untruths they do not censor. It is a no-win situation.”

And then getting to what many believe is the deliberate muzzling of conservative comments, Dershowitz wrote that, “censorship is almost never content-neutral. Codes that purport to ban ‘offensive’ or ‘untruthful’ words are inevitably invoked selectively against politically incorrect words.”

With the free flow of ideas comes the likelihood of false or misleading information being published, which Dershowitz defends by saying “the costs of imposing a regime of censorship outweigh the costs of tolerating dangerous speech and its consequences.”

He describes the present efforts to control speech and thought as “the current regressive war against freedom of speech being waged by ‘progressives,’ social media moguls, university administrators, and other well-meaning but dangerous censors.”

“The marketplace of ideas is the best option for a democracy not because it always produces the best ideas,” he wrote, “but because like democracy itself, the alternatives are far worse.” And then the kicker: “[W]ithout freedom of speech, democracy cannot survive.”

* * *

And then there are these gems from Louisiana Republican Senator John Kennedy, who has been called the Will Rogers of our time:

“This election in Georgia will be the most important in history. You have nothing to worry about, unless you are a taxpayer, parent, gun owner, cop, a person of faith, or an unborn baby!”

And about some members of Congress: “how did these morons make it through the birth canal?”

The infrastructure bill highlights what is wrong with Congress

The bill H.R. 3684, the Infrastructure Investments and Jobs Act, known simply as the “infrastructure bill,” has been a controversial product from day one. 

The Democrat majority attempted to get a vote to pass the bill before it was even fully written. Yeah, what a wonderful idea: let’s vote to approve a bill before it’s written. What could possibly go wrong?

This situation is a serious contender for the dumbest idea dealing with pending legislation in our nation’s history.

Next, the bill is 2,702 pages long. Most books I read take many hours from start to finish, and most of them are not only a fraction of this bill’s length, usually 300 to 500 pages, but also have much smaller pages with fewer words.

The Christian Bible has about 1,300 pages and about 800,000 words. That makes this Democrat bill twice as long as the Bible. Another way of understanding how long this bill is: compare it to these weekly columns. Each weekly column word-count target is 858 words, give or take a few. Dividing 800,000 by 858 equals 932.4, or enough weekly columns to fill 17.9 years.

The International Christian College and Seminary tells us that it takes approximately 70 hours and 40 minutes to read the Bible. Extrapolating that to the infrastructure bill, someone who read the bill continuously from start to finish in one sitting would spend more than 140 hours, or six days, reading it. With time out to eat, sleep, visit the restroom, and other normal things, add more days. And experts tell us that reading federal legislation is a more difficult read than most books. It takes study time, in addition to reading time.

“These bills are not written for even the educated layperson, Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University, said. “They are written for specialists.” His comment was made back in 2009 when the Affordable Care Act and the Health and Education Reconciliation Act were under consideration. Those two bills dwarfed the infrastructure bill, adding up to 10,516 pages in the Federal Register.

This bill is simply way too big, in both length and dollars spent. It’s a safe bet that few if any of our representatives and senators will have personally read and studied the entire bill. Much of the work will be done by staff, and some topics may simply be accepted as good and proper without anyone actually reading or studying them. Is that really the best way to do things?

Furthermore, there is no emergency demanding that one ridiculously long bill that spends more than a trillion dollars be created and voted on. Truly important measures will have bipartisan support, and can be easily passed individually, or in small groups of two or three closely related topics, and a few dozen pages. 

Within its 2,702 pages the bill contains 10 divisions, and most of those could easily be, and should be, addressed as separate bills to be debated and voted on over time, rather than crammed through all at once.

One part of the bill proposes spending $110 billion for roads, bridges, and major projects. That’s a bunch of money. Will it all be spent on really needed projects? Or will some of it be used for pet projects that benefit some special interests?

Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute addressed some specific features: “The bill also contains various faddish ideas like elements of the Green New Deal and ‘Buy American’ provisions, all of which will simply increase costs to American consumers for no discernible benefit. Many of my criticisms of the president’s infrastructure plan as being bloated and wasteful continue to apply to this bill.”

“Finally, several Democrats have made it clear that they view this as the first of a two-part package,” Murray’s evaluation continued, “the second being a budget reconciliation bill with $3.5 trillion of new spending and a variety of progressive wish-list items that would seek to turn the U.S. into a European-style social democracy, with a vastly expanded welfare state. Again, it appears that the plan is to rush this through on the back of the infrastructure bill without proper scrutiny.”

One feature of the $1.2 trillion bill that appears to breach President Joe Biden’s “red line” pledge not to raise taxes on anyone earning less than $400,000 a year is a “national motor vehicle per-mile user fee pilot program,” which would affect most drivers. Calling it a “fee” instead of a “tax” will do little to soothe the pain that drivers will have to endure when they drive to and from work or on vacation to help fund this massive spending plan.

And then we must ask, will there be the need for a “Mileage Czar” with a bloated staff to keep track of these taxes?

There is a need to address real infrastructure issues in the country. But the most important, the most critical area of need today, is securing the southern border. Thousands of illegal aliens, many of whom are gang members, drug dealers, and Covid-infected, enter this country every week. This bill does not address that. Congress needs to address the criminal nature of the border crisis first.

Biden’s failure to secure the border is dangerous and reckless

The Biden administration’s disaster at the southern border is dangerous and reckless. Illegal entry into the United States by thousands of illegal aliens occurs daily. Some of these people are taken under control by Border Patrol. Some are released into the state where they entered the country, and some are transferred by bus to cities and towns across the country. 

The largest of those borders belongs to Texas, and the impact on that state has finally reached the breaking point.

Appearing on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” on July 26th, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said, “if you recall, under the Trump administration, they pretty much had cross-border illegal immigration shut down,” he told host Maria Bartiromo.

“All that Biden had to do was to continue the Trump policies, and we would have no problem on the border whatsoever. But now it’s getting worse because Biden is opening the floodgates for people who are coming from countries where there’s an extremely low vaccination rate, and there’s an extremely high number of people coming across the border who do have COVID,” he said.

Now out of patience with the failure of the federal government to provide border security, Abbott introduced a plan to arrest and jail illegal aliens, put into effect by an executive order. “We had to open up a former prison that has now 1,000 jail beds that we’re starting to fill up,” Abbott said. “We are arresting people every single day, and we’re arresting for trespass. When you come across the [Rio Grande], you’re typically coming into private property or county property or state property. You are trespassing,” he said.

“And because I declared it an emergency, the punishment for the crime has been doubled. So, it’s either a Class B or Class A misdemeanor that can put them in jail for a half-a-year or a year,” he said. “And our goal is to continue to arrest people coming across the border, but, at the same time, surge more National Guard, more Texas Department of Public Safety officers to make sure that we’re doing everything that we can as a state to secure the border,” he continued.

Bartiromo then brought up the drugs being smuggled across the border by illegal aliens. Referring to the Biden administration’s failure to control the border from illegal entry and drugs, Abbott responded: “… fentanyl is one of the most deadly drugs that exists. It’s almost 100 times more potent than morphine, almost 50 times more potent than heroin. And it’s laced onto other drugs like ecstasy, Valium, Xanax, and other things that people are taking. And people are losing their lives,” Abbott said.

“But here’s the important mathematical fact, Maria,” Abbott continued. “And that is, when you put all law enforcement agencies together, they have seized more [than enough] fentanyl to kill, to kill every man, woman and child in the United States of America. All it takes is two milligrams for it to be a lethal dose,” he said.

“[T]he Biden administration is doing nothing to stop this,” Abbott explained. But Texas “once again is stepping up. And we are going after the cartels.” 

And, of course, being very sensitive to problems like this, the Biden administration immediately reacted. U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland sent a letter threatening legal action against Texas for trying to protect its citizens from the malfeasance of the federal government.

“I urge you to immediately rescind the Order. If you do not do so, I’m providing notice that the United States intends to pursue all appropriate legal remedies to ensure that Texas does not interfere with the functions of the federal government,” Garland’s letter said. “To the extent the Order interferes with immigration enforcement, the Order is unconstitutional.”

So, the Biden administration’s immigration enforcement policy is to allow illegal entry of people and drugs into border states, and then take legal action against the states if they try to enforce their state laws.

The southern border of the United States is also the border of four states. If the federal government refuses to protect its border from illegal alien entry, the four states have not just the right, but the absolute duty to protect their citizens from illegal aliens entering their states. And if doing so gets in the way of the federal government’s “immigration enforcement policy,” that’s just too bad.

The Daily Wire reported last week that total apprehensions at the border for 2021 were expected to top one million by July 31, and that at this rate the border patrol will likely intercept two million illegal immigrants in 2021.

The report continued: “Around 50,000 migrants who were captured crossing the United States-Mexico border illegally have been released into the United States without court dates, only instructions to eventually report back to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office, according to a report from Axios. Only 13 percent of those, the outlet notes, have actually followed up with an ICE agent.”

The Biden administration’s failure to secure the border and protect the lives and property of Americans who live on or near the border, and protect against virus spread is a national disgrace.