What is wrong with America? The Left wants to dramatically change it!

October 25, 2022

Those among us who grew up when people learned about their country’s real history, agreed with its sensible principles, and appreciated its fundamental freedoms are very uncomfortable today. 

We watch as our traditions are being ignored or actively discarded, resulting in deconstructing what is generally regarded as the most free and successful form of government yet designed.

Mark Levin is a lawyer, former president of the Landmark Legal Foundation, and a conservative author, broadcaster and commentator. He discussed many things that are wrong with America today in a speech recently. 

“We don’t want to change the Constitution. We want to uphold the Constitution. They’re changing the Constitution. These people don’t even believe in the Constitution. 

“They don’t even believe in American history. They’ve destroyed Madison’s home. They’ve destroyed Jefferson’s home.

“They’re destroying our colleges and universities. They’re destroying our public schools. They’ve destroyed the southern border. They’re destroying our currency and our economy. They’re destroying our military; they’ve destroyed police forces across the country.

“We don’t need lectures from them about us destroying anything. We are the ones that want to uplift this country and believe in this country.”

“They” are the political Left. The Left is responsible for most of our current problems.

Our federal government as it was designed is virtually unrecognizable today. Under federalism, the system upon which the United States of America was formed, there is a balance between the federal government and the states. The federal government has certain authority given to it by the U.S. Constitution, and states have authority in areas not given to the federal government. The result was a limited federal government.

But the federal government has grown well beyond its intended size and scope. And the result is a gargantuan bureaucracy that costs a fortune to operate, and has produced bountiful regulations that so often interfere with the freedom our system was designed to insure.

Why should the federal government be telling people in the states what they can or cannot do with their property? Why should the federal government have any authority over how states and localities educate their children? Why should the federal government, control what businesses across the country pay their employees?

Why do elected officials continue to grow the size and influence of the federal government, increasing the need for higher taxes, and encroaching on the personal freedom of their constituents? Why is the Department of Justice paying any attention to parents in local school districts who attended board of education meetings to object to what is going on in their schools, and labeling them “domestic terrorists” for wanting to protect their children, which is their primary duty?

And why is one group of non-violent people facing large teams of armed federal agents confronting them to arrest them for non-violent crimes, while other groups are peacefully arrested for the same sort of crimes?

The political Left has a very different outlook on life in America. Since excellence in so many things is so critically important, why do they think it is better that good jobs or rewards be delivered to all ethnicities and genders equally, rather than all people having an equal chance to earn these things through performance and merit?

Since the best way to make good decisions is to be aware of the different possibilities that exist, why are ideas that liberals do not agree with being censored from being read or heard to the benefit of everyone? Why promote the ending of an unwanted pregnancy up to, and even beyond the minute of birth, rather than encouraging and assisting in the prevention of pregnancy, or suggesting adoption of the baby? 

Why do those in positions of authority in education or who teach in our public schools think it is okay to diverge from the approved curriculum and/or covertly insert controversial and often-dangerous social concepts into classwork?

Why is it suddenly necessary to change things that have worked to our benefit as a country for more than two centuries by trying to do things like packing or doing away with the Supreme Court, eliminating the Senate filibuster, or eliminating the Electoral College? Why do Democrats in the federal government not insist on a secure southern border that is able to prevent deadly drugs, child and sex traffickers, criminals and other illegal aliens from coming into the country so easily?

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden, who ended America’s energy dominance, now uses our Strategic Petroleum Reserve — which is intended to be used to provide fuel during real emergencies, not to lower Biden’s price increases by a few cents for a few days — to attract voters to Democrats in the mid-term election two weeks from now.

If America does not very soon reject these subversive efforts and return to the tried and true traditional values upon which it was established, it will be only a relatively short time before we will be kneeling to and obeying the Communist Chinese, or a cabal of Chinese, Russians, Iranians and North Koreans, all of whom are working hard to take us down.

As they say, elections have consequences, but offer opportunities

October 18, 2022

Voting in the midterm election of November 8th has already started, with early voting underway in some states. Exactly how the election will turn out is being debated, with predictions of Republican gains in Congress and statehouses, but is truly unknown at this point.

There are several issues that command the interest of voters. Those include the economy/inflation, the rising crime problem, abortion, education, immigration and voting policy.

A survey by the Pew Research Center in August placed the economy at the top of the list, with 77 percent of the registered voters polled ranking it first. Coming in fifth was voting policies, ranked first by 59 percent of those polled.

We all remember the chaos over the security of the 2020 election, but that one was not the only election that has been questioned. Four previous presidential elections have been seriously questioned, dating back to 1876 when Samuel Tilden ran against Rutherford B. Hayes. Amid much controversy, Hayes squeaked out a 185-184 majority in the Electoral College.

A bribery scandal marred the 1888 election between Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland. Ultimately, Cleveland lost the race. More recently, the 1960 election between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon had some of the closest results in presidential politics. Kennedy won by just 100,000 votes.

And then there was the election of George W. Bush over Al Gore in 2000. With Bush receiving just 527 more votes than Gore, a U.S. Supreme Court decision ultimately led Gore to concede the race to Bush.

There was also a lot of chatter about the 2016 election between Donald J. Trump and Hillary Rodham Clinton, with many Democrats, including Clinton, complaining about the outcome. Many of these same Democrats were highly critical of Trump’s complaints about the 2020 election, which put Joseph R. Biden, Jr. in the White House.

The complaints by Trump and his supporters did not produce a change in the results of the election. And there is not going to be a discussion of that election here today.

However, it is appropriate to note that in many, if not most, elections, there are those who question the results, and there is the fact that in most elections voter fraud does exist, as well as other irregularities. The real issue is, to what extent do fraud and irregularities influence the outcome?

A very important issue in any election is the security of the process. 

Every eligible voter’s vote must be counted, and no ineligible votes can be counted. And while removing obstacles that make it a little inconvenient for people to vote is important, that is far less important than making the process as secure as possible. A little inconvenience in return for vote security is a small, but necessary price to pay.

In-person voting, where prospective voters go to the polling place, show their photo ID and are verified, and vote on paper ballots that are counted by honest poll workers, is generally considered the most secure method. Voting by mail is considered the most vulnerable to fraud, because the ballots are sent out and returned through the mail or in special ballot return boxes. This process makes the ballots available to being intercepted from home mailboxes and the boxes set up for ballots to be returned, and fraudulently used by those wanting to control the outcome.

And, states must insure that voting procedures are not changed by election officials or poll workers, etc. Only action by the state legislature may legally change election procedures. In 2020, five states did not abide by this requirement, perhaps for the best of reasons during the pandemic. But the law is the law, and it must be followed.

The country is in far worse condition than when Biden took office, and the problems that have resulted are causing much discomfort among Americans, both voters and non-voters.

Inflation has surged by double digits — 13 percent — since Biden first entered the White House. Higher prices of products like gasoline and food have put thousands or millions in financial distress.

Illegal immigration has killed people trying to cross the Rio Grande, thousands more who have mistakenly taken fentanyl brought across the border by illegals have died, as have others at the hands of illegal aliens who crossed the border, which is, for all intents and purposes, wide open.

Crime in many U.S. cities has spiraled out of control, as “progressive” prosecutors, judges, and others have eased up on punishing criminal behavior, refusing to prosecute some crimes and to jail criminals for some violent crimes, and generally catering to criminals, to the detriment of their victims.

This election and the 2024 General Election offer opportunities to reject the incompetence of the Biden administration, and to return life in America to where it was only a short time ago. Elect people who want to restore common sense to government, to use America’s resources to benefit Americans and the world, and move toward cleaner energy at a sensible, normal pace.

The policies of the radical left Democrats have created chaos, and put the lives of Americans at greater risk than ever before in our lifetime. It’s time to put a stop to that.

Lowering standards for success is a foolish and dangerous concept

October 11, 2022

Some of America’s younger generation are failing to understand what their country is all about, how it works, how they are supposed to work to succeed in it, and make the country work like it should.

In one of the more disturbing instances that demonstrate this problem, an 84-year-old New York University (NYU) professor with long tenure and wonderful credentials was recently fired.

Maitland Jones, Jr., who taught organic chemistry — an important subject for future medical doctors, and a necessarily difficult subject — authored the 1,300-page textbook “Organic Chemistry,” now in its fifth edition, and had been a star teacher at Princeton.

In its story on Jones’ firing, the New York Post wrote this about Jones’ subject: “Organic chemistry is a very difficult subject. Doing well in the course in college has been a litmus test for medical-school suitability. It demands discipline, ability to think in three dimensions, memorizing complex structures, managing a series of chemical rules and solving intricate problems. Its intellectual demands and need for disciplined study are surrogates for the discipline and problem-solving physicians must demonstrate throughout their careers.”

During the pandemic, Jones went the extra mile to tape his lectures, at his own cost, to help students who were having attendance problems attributed to the pandemic.

Despite Jones’ sterling credentials, his experience in the classroom, and his knowledge of the subject, 82 of his 350 students — about 23 percent — signed a petition against him claiming he had made his class too difficult and was at fault for their failing grades.

And that was enough for NYU to oust Jones for making the course “too hard.” The New York Times had a story about this saying that students revolted because they feared that “they were not given the grades that would allow them to get into medical school.”

Apparently, these students believe grades, that may not reflect what they actually learned, are more important than what they learned, or didn’t learn, in college.

The Post story, however, tells us, “The professor, meanwhile, saw a different problem: ‘They weren’t coming to class. … They weren’t watching the videos, and they weren’t able to answer the questions.’ But the school terminated his employment rather than the students, who are on track to become physicians despite struggling to get into med school.”

In an interview Jones had with the Times, he told the paper that “Students were misreading exam questions at an astonishing rate. In the last two years, they fell off a cliff. We now see single digit scores and even zeros.”

Don’t we want and need the country’s future physicians to have successfully mastered a difficult educational background in medicine and related topics? 

Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, who wrote the Post story, had this to say about the education of future physicians: “Jones could not be more correct in his judgment that his organic chemistry course should be tough. Entry into medical school these days is almost a guarantee that a student will one day have a medical degree and a license to practice medicine.”

Goldfarb then noted that “Even struggling students are coached through to graduation. I know this as I was the associate dean for curriculum at Penn’s medical school. But until recently, the standards for admission were so high that one could be sure that at least students admitted had the potential to excel. Jones’ experience at NYU makes clear that assumption is no longer correct.”

Today, many colleges and universities offer majors in subjects that may be interesting to students, but that do not prepare them to get a job when they graduate. 

NYU is bowing to fewer than 1-in-4 of Jones’ students’ demands that he be fired, because they think he is the problem. He was the problem because he made his class too hard — like it has been for many years — rather than that the students who were failing were the problem, using the pandemic as an excuse for why they didn’t study as they should have. This is a troubling sign, especially in a critical and demanding field like medicine. 

Goldfarb’s story increases concern: “Every American should be worried because this kind of standard-lowering is becoming commonplace in medical school.”

In every career field, in every job, we need the best available person to fill positions. That is accomplished not by the silly idea of equity, where positions are filled based upon gender and race, so that every gender and race gets its fair share, but on merit: he/she who is best suited for a position gets the position. 

The American standard is that we must all work to be the best we can be at whatever productive career we choose. That is what builds individual success, and what makes a country as good as it can be.

There are other countries in the world — China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, for example — that are doing their best to be effective and capable enemies of America. We need schools and the next generation to keep America at the top of its game against these and other challenges. And that means working hard, not easing up and looking for excuses.

The Biden administration has weaponized the Justice Department

October 4, 2022

A father often took his oldest son to a place he frequented. While there, a 72-year-old man often said “crude … inappropriate and disgusting things” to the 12-year-old boy. The father told the older man repeatedly to stop verbally harassing his son, but that didn’t stop the man from being vulgar.

One time the man got too close to the boy, into the boy’s personal space, and the father, after telling the man to stop harassing his son, and defending his son, pushed the man away. He fell back, but was not injured. The older man then sued the father.

The case was investigated by a District Court and the case was dismissed.

However, the family was awakened one morning by a team of 25-30 FBI agents carrying weapons.

“They had big, huge rifles” pointed at the father, “and pointed at me and kind of pointed throughout the house,” the mother said.

“The kids were all just screaming. It was all just very scary and traumatic,” the mother told a news agency, about the incident that she and her children witnessed. Her husband pleaded with the FBI agents to be calm, referencing the couple’s seven children, she said.  

Catholic News Agency reported that the FBI reported that the father was arrested outside his home “without incident.” According to federal court documents, the father was charged with assaulting the 72-year-old man.

Question: Why was the FBI arresting a man on a charge that the court had found warranted dismissal? And if an arrest was warranted in this case, why did the FBI show up early in the morning pointing weapons at the parents in front of their children, when a phone call, or a single agent appearing at the home with a warrant for the father’s arrest would have been a logical and appropriate way to proceed?

When you realize that the place the man and his son went was a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic, that the man was a pro-life advocate, that the older man was a pro-abortion protester, and that the Biden administration supports very liberal abortion rules, this makes more sense.

CBS News reported that, “With guns drawn, FBI agents in combat gear and night-vision equipment fanned out just before dawn Friday in front of the Florida home of President Trump's former campaign adviser, Roger Stone.”

The report said one of the agents shouted, "FBI! Open the door!" as he repeatedly pounded on the door in a video of the raid broadcast on CNN. "FBI warrant!"

Soon a light came on, and Roger Stone appeared in sleepwear. Are you Roger Stone?" an agent asked him. "Yes," he responded. Stone was arrested and then led away.

Stone commented about the raid, "This morning at the crack of dawn, 29 FBI agents arrived at my home with 17 vehicles with their lights flashing, when they could simply have contacted my attorneys and I would have been more than willing to surrender voluntarily," he said. "They terrorized my wife, my dogs."

The raid was "completely unnecessary," Stone's attorney, Bruce Rogow, said. “He's not in hiding."

Stone was charged with seven counts: one count of obstruction of an official proceeding; five counts of false statements; and one count of witness tampering.

These charges do not indicate the need for a dawn swat team raid. And, how, exactly, did CNN know about the raid in advance?

While some Trump supporters have been charged with crimes, legitimate charges in at least some of the cases, this spectacular event seems more than a little over-the-top.

And the arrest of a pro-life supporter after a court had dismissed a lawsuit on the same charge as the arrest seems completely inexplicable.

These two incidents, as well as the incident where Trump supporter Mike Lindell was approached in public, rather than in a less spectacular way, indicates a particular motive on the part of the FBI, and the Department of Justice of which the FBI is a part.

Lindell was in the drive-through at a fast food restaurant when FBI agents approached him, showed him a warrant, and demanded he give them his cell phone.

This is the same DOJ that ignored the federal law-breaking by demonstrators at the homes of the judicially conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justices, following the Court overturning of the incorrect Roe v. Wade decision made decades ago.

This is the same DOJ that sent agents to harass parents who attended school board meetings and complained about the course of events at their children’s schools. 

In some cases, these parents were termed “domestic terrorists” because they used their First Amendment right to speak freely when they expressed their dissatisfaction with the behavior of school boards, schools, and teachers that abandoned the approved curricula, and began indoctrinating young students without notifying the parents of these changes in the curriculum. It is parents, after all, who are the ones whose taxes support public education.

The DOJ appears to be targeting the right. Is there a greater wrong against the people when their government targets one group for the benefit of another group?

The Democrats are moving the country in the wrong direction

September 27, 2020

We see liberal/Democrat prosecutors who deliberately refuse to enforce some laws, under-charge persons arrested for crimes, enact no-bail laws that release arrested persons back on the street hours after their arrest so that they can, and often do, commit more crimes. These dangerous moves are pro-criminal and anti-victim.

Liberals/Democrats also failed to curtail the crazy riots, arson and looting in well more than 100 cities that followed the killing of George Floyd in 2020 at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. This rioting, which was often defended as “mostly peaceful,” did as much as $2 billion dollars of damage to insured property, an unknown amount of damage to uninsured property, and worse, cost 15 people their lives.

Then came the not-so-brilliant idea of defunding the police, “re-imagining” law enforcement. This resulted in crime spikes in blue-run cities at shocking levels. Police officers grew tired of the lack of support, anger and violence they experienced, and took retirement or just quit working. And that contributed further to the crime sprees that still exist.

Liberal educators and school boards have been secretly changing approved and traditional curricula to include indoctrination; teaching young kids about dangerous gender transition, that boys can become girls, and girls can become boys at will, except that they say there are no such things as males and females anymore. 

Instead of teaching legitimate school subjects full time, there is the idea that everyone must use each persons’ chosen pronouns instead of their birth pronouns; mothers and fathers are now “birthing parents” and  “parents,” aunts and uncles are a “parents’ sibling”; and they falsely teach that America is filled with white oppressors mistreating the oppressed non-white minorities in what is called “Critical Race Theory.”

While China teaches its youth about math and science, the U.S. increasingly is spending less time on real education, and more time on indoctrination of “woke” ideas.

One political party is proposing radical changes to fundamentals of our Constitution and the way the nation operates. The Democrats in Congress support eliminating the Electoral College, a device created by our Founders to protect smaller states from being under the thumb of the most populous states.

Also in their tool chest of dominance, is doing away with the Senate filibuster, which Democrats have themselves used when desired. The filibuster enables the minority party to act to stop the passage of measures it believes are bad law. Without this long-time feature, the tyranny of the majority can become reality.

The Democrat leader, the President of the United States, is accusing the opposition party — the party that defends the Constitution and generally supports the current ways of doing things — of doing what his party is actually doing, which is radically attacking our democracy, our democratic republic style of government.

This party also supports weakening the election process, the security and reliability of which must be beyond question. For example, it opposes voters being required to show photo IDs that prove who they are in order to vote. 

But it also supports mailing ballots to all registered voters, even to voters who did not request a ballot, and collecting ballots by mail. It also supports voted ballots being dropped into unguarded drop boxes along the streets 24 hours a day for days on end so that anybody can dump as many “ballots” as they want.

In-person voting is the most secure method, and voting by mail is the least secure.

Other things on the Democrats’ list of accomplishments are these items, highlighted by Virginia 9th District Congressman, Republican Morgan Griffith in his weekly email communication. “In less than two short years, unified Democrat control of the Federal Government has diminished our country in ways that would astound even a pessimist,” Griffith wrote.

“Inflation has risen to levels not seen in forty years. Gas prices hit record highs earlier this year. More than two million illegal immigrants have been encountered at the southern border this fiscal year before it has even ended, not counting the significant number that have evaded detection.”

“President Biden and the liberals in Congress wreaked havoc on the economy by pouring trillions of dollars into it,” he continued. “Too many dollars chasing too few goods is the classic formula for inflation, yet Democrats persisted.”

With control of the Executive Branch and both the House of Representatives and the Senate, the Democrats could do so much to help the country. They could revise the U.S. tax code, designing it with fewer loopholes and sensible tax rates. They could have left intact our recently regained position of energy independence that would have allowed the U.S. to help provide energy to countries now buying energy from Putin’s Russia, among other things.

Instead, its control has botched the Afghanistan withdrawal that killed 13 U.S. military personnel and many local allies, allowed the highest inflation in decades, contributed to the death of many Americans from the Fentanyl flooding across the southern border, doubling the size of the Internal Revenue Service, and a new recession that shows no signs of letting up, to name a few.

And we have two more years of this disaster to come.

Sanctuary cities: are they sanctuaries, or are they not?

September 20, 2022

The Democrats have long been supportive of illegal immigration into the United States. This is purportedly done to help those in other countries who are fleeing poverty, violence and oppression. To help that process, some cities and other communities became “sanctuary” communities

The Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service describes this phenomenon: “The phrase sanctuary city is not a legal term, but one developed over time and more recently reflecting a response to ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) policies and actions. In general, a sanctuary city is a community with a policy, written or unwritten, that discourages local law enforcement from reporting the immigration status of individuals unless it involves investigation of a serious crime. These sanctuary communities go beyond cities, though. One can find entire counties and states declaring sanctuary status.”

Today, more than 10 states and 180 cities have become sanctuaries for illegal immigrants.

Of course, the U.S. has an immigration system to deal with people who want to become U.S. citizens. There is a process that focuses on admitting individuals into the country who are coming here for the right reasons, and that attempts to prevent criminals and other undesirable types from being admitted to the process of gaining U.S. citizenship.

In general, the system prefers family members of U.S. citizens or Legal Permanent Residents. Hopefuls must pass English and U.S. history and civics exams, with certain exceptions, and pay an application fee, among other requirements.

Why, then, does the country need sanctuary communities that admit anyone who is in the country, whether they are legal immigrants, or illegal aliens?

The Biden administration has all but posted signs at the southern border saying, “C’mon in! It’s wonderful here! You can check in with the Border Patrol, or not, as you choose.”

Our sanctuary cities and states, by their very definition, are ready and willing to accept and care for immigrants, legal and illegal. Among those are New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Denver, and Alexandria, Virginia.

However, when people come in illegally, they don’t enter a sanctuary city or state, they enter Texas, Arizona, New Mexico or California. Only the latter is a sanctuary state. Most of the illegals, by far, come into Texas, which has the longest and southern-most border of the four border states.

“A new report from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) reveals that 4.9 million migrants — including 900,000-plus ‘got-aways’ who eluded apprehension from border officials — have unlawfully crossed the United States-Mexico border since President Biden entered the White House (January 2021),” as reported by Newsmax.

However, Vice President Kamala Harris, who is supposed to be in charge of border issues, still insists that “the border is secure.”

On September 15, internal U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) documents showed that roughly 8,000 encounters with illegal immigrants

are taking place each day. That is the highest daily number in U.S. history. And it does not count the “got-aways” who evade Border Patrol agents.

Even the ones who report to Border Patrol are usually released into the country. And the Biden administration flew many plane-loads of illegals to places around the country in the dark of night, and released them.

After several months of being overwhelmed with thousands of illegals each day coming into his state, Texas Governor Greg Abbott began busing them to sanctuary cities of New York and Chicago, which voluntarily became sanctuary cities, and more recently to Washington, D.C.

Given the extraordinary number of people illegally entering the border states, especially Texas, and the failure of the Biden administration to do its job to prevent this invasion, who can blame the governor for sending these illegals to the sanctuary cities that have advertised how important it is to accept them, and therefore should be prepared for them? 

And when you consider that after tens of thousands of illegals cross the border each month, and only hundreds are sent to sanctuary cities, why are Mayor Eric Adams of New York and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot whining and crying their eyes out over the relatively few that have arrived in their sanctuary? Can you say “hypocrisy?” 

While the raw number of illegal aliens entering the country is important, and the primary focus of many, exactly who these people are, and what they are doing is far more of a problem.

While many of these people are good people only wanting a better life, others are involved in child smuggling, sex trafficking, and drug smuggling, including the deadly influx of fentanyl that is killing Americans almost daily.

Shouldn’t those in the government who have contributed to these deaths by their malfeasance in ignoring laws and common sense be held accountable?

Last Saturday, the mothers of children and others killed by these drugs protested on the National Mall. They displayed large banners that featured the faces of nearly 3,500 people killed by fentanyl. “Many were young, even teenagers. Some wore their high school jerseys or graduation caps,” said a story in The Washington Post.

Trying to make Democrats confront the impact of their failed, dangerous, and inhumane border policies is critical. If shipping illegals to sanctuaries causes the administration to finally do something about the illegal entry, then hurrah!

Free speech: “Censorship is to art as lynching is to justice.”

September 13, 2022

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The rights guaranteed in the Amendment were selected first among the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights because of their importance to the well-being of the new nation. And free speech was the second of those freedoms to be listed.

John Milton, English poet and intellectual of the 1600s, understood the importance of the concept of free speech to individual and national freedom. He wrote, “Let truth and falsehood grapple … in a free and open encounter.” 

Under Milton’s sensible vision the American people must get information from a variety of sources to help them understand issues and craft informed opinions. This includes both speech that is liked and accepted by some individuals and groups, and speech which is not liked or accepted by some individuals and groups.

This idea is one of the most important in the founding of the United States of America, and one which has played a critical role in its success among the nations of the world throughout its history.

The rub comes when some people dislike certain points of view, and will not tolerate their existence in free discussion. Milton’s point, however, is that all points of view must be available for those interested in knowing them. 

In 1927, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis provided this advice: "The remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."

In 1969 the U.S. Supreme Court held in Brandenburg v. Ohio that “inflammatory speech -- and even speech advocating violence by members of the Ku Klux Klan -- is protected under the First Amendment, unless the speech ‘is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.’"

Only the most severe and dangerous ideas should be overruled, which means not merely ideas that are disagreed with or that anger some people, but those which actually try to incite violence or endanger people. 

Yet many Americans work hard to thwart free speech. Worst of all is if and when the government tries to stifle dissent or controversial language, or participates with non-governmental entities to oppose some speech. 

On social media platforms, claiming posts and comments are “misinformation” or “disinformation,” these targeted offerings are deleted, and the writer often blocked from further participation. 

Author Salman Rushdie offered this opinion: “The moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible.” Rushdie was recently the victim of a vicious attack by an armed man, who may have been prompted by Rushdie’s “Satanic Verses,” and wanted vengeance for a message with which he disagreed.

In the campaign for the 2020 election, some posts and comments were labeled as false by these platforms, and removed. After the election, however, some turned out to be correct. But because ideas that should have been freely available were censored, participants were denied knowing this pertinent information.

Imagine a world where only some information is allowed. Who gets to decide what is and is not allowed for anyone to see? Who has that power? Who has that right?

Some prefer to advance their narrow ideas without the troublesome problem of having to prove those ideas are the best through open and free debate. After all, who does not understand that with only one idea being offered, it will be accepted by many people who might not have accepted it had contrary ideas been available to consider.

In addition to social media platforms, other places where different ideas should be open to discussion, such as opinion sections of the news media and schools, must be bastions of the free exchange of ideas.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) recently released the results from its 2022-2023 College Free Speech Rankings survey. This survey questioned 44,847 college students currently enrolled in four-year degree programs at 208 colleges and universities in the United States about their institution’s degree of speech freedom.

The highest score on a 100-point scale was 77.92, ranking it in the “Good” level of speech freedom. Depending upon which grading scale you apply to 77.92, it is only a C-plus, at best.

Five other institutions also were rated “Good.” Sixteen institutions were rated “Poor,” two were rated “Very Poor,” and one was rated “Abysmal,” with a numerical score of 9.91. Only 76 of the 208 institutions in this survey scored above 50.0, only 27 scored above 60.0, and just 6 scored above 70.00.

This is far below the level of free speech and open debate of ideas that should be occurring in institutions of higher education in the United States. 

An objective view of the free speech environment will clearly show many efforts to discourage and even ban ideas that some people or some groups do not like.

This is not healthy for our country, and it clearly violates the intent of the First Amendment.

We desperately need leaders that can think beyond stage one

September 6, 2022

Nearly 20 years ago the brilliant Thomas Sowell — author, economist, political commentator, and social theorist — released a book titled, “Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One.” This applies to the immediate reaction to some idea to improve a situation, leading to action being taken without first asking, “and then, what will happen?” And then asking that question after each proposed next step.

Sowell gives an example: A state government decides it will help the state to raise taxes on businesses. The immediate result is more revenue for the state. And that is good, the government says. However, over the course of time, those affected businesses might move bits and pieces of their companies to another state, or new businesses may choose another state to place a new factory or operation. 

Over the course of time, the state will lose revenue because businesses will go to other states to avoid the higher taxes.

Had the state government indulged in thinking about what might happen after it raised taxes on business, they might have been able to foresee these very negative consequences. Higher taxes discourage business, therefore while in the short-term revenues will be larger, in the longer term, companies will see that doing business in the state will be more difficult, and some, maybe many, will leave. The state then suffers a loss of tax income, and lost jobs.

Finding examples of how this has worked is not difficult. Such examples are often the result of decisions made on emotion, because they seem to be great ideas to achieve desirable ends, and they feel good. The reality is usually very different.

Here is one example. The question being asked is, “How can we stop the mistreatment of civilians by police?” Well, if police departments have less money to operate on, they will have to do things differently, and the changes will benefit the public, as fewer officers will make fewer horrible mistakes against the public.

We can use social workers to respond to some calls, instead of armed officers. We can tell officers not to arrest people for minor crimes, lessening the number of police/public interactions, and lowering the number of people in jails and those having court proceedings.

Today, we see quite plainly how these efforts have failed. This solution has resulted in police officers quitting and retiring in large numbers. Finding new recruits is difficult, as potential recruits see what has happened, and want no part of a situation that makes them targets. 

Prosecutors do not prosecute all crimes anymore, and many persons charged with a crime are released without even paying a bond. These people are not discouraged or prevented from committing more crimes. Meanwhile, crime is doing well, rising to historic highs in some states and cities.

Another example is that the climate activists tell us that we have got to stop burning fossil fuels and reduce CO2 emissions. One thing we can do, they say, is to stop or substantially slow the production of coal, oil and natural gas in the United States. President Joe Biden, not the sharpest tool in the shed, did this on his first days in office. 

The result was that America’s recently regained position as energy independent and a net exporter of energy came to an end. And now we have to purchase some energy that had been coming from domestic sources from foreign countries, raising the cost of gasoline and other fuels, and helping a foreign country’s economy. The oil we buy from some of them is dirtier than our oil. 

Also, other countries that could be purchasing energy from us, and helping our economy, are instead buying Russian energy, which helps Russia’s economy, and that helps it fight its unprovoked war against Ukraine.

These results could fairly easily have been predicted with a bit of intelligent thought. And, in fact, these results were predicted by those who went beyond stage one and saw where these rash decisions would take us. Too bad Biden and his advisors did not consider the possible results of their plan. Or maybe they just don’t care.

So much of what the political left does or wants to do to “make America better” sounds good, or looks good on paper. But in reality, they often want to undo elements of our country that have worked well for more than 200 years, and the proposed solutions themselves cause problems that are often as bad or worse than the situation they sought to improve.

They don’t seem to understand that making changes to systems that have been in effect for a long time, and are deeply integrated in our way of life, need to be done thoughtfully, and that most of them must gradually evolve to replace existing systems, and not be implemented too quickly, causing chaos.

This is particularly true with climate matters. Clean energy sources like wind and solar power have not evolved nearly enough to take the place of fossil fuels. That will take many years. In fact, the reality is that we may never be able to not rely to some degree on fossil fuels.

Education is a critical function, but America’s is in deep trouble

August 30, 2022

When talking with folks who have lived in America for many years, one thing is a common topic: the many crises we see today.

We are very divided, politically. Our news media is infected with many organizations that have abandoned neutrality in reporting. While our military may still be highly effective, recent new ideas within its leadership are weakening it. And education in grades K-12 and at the college level is seriously troubled.

On the topic of education, that observation does not mean that there are no good schools or no great teachers, only that the system is damaged and getting worse. Some evidence of that follows.

The Program for International Student Assessment tests 15-year-old students around the world every three years, and is administered by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). In 2018, the U.S. placed 25th out of nearly 80 nations for average scores in mathematics, science and reading.

Number one China averaged 578, while the U.S. averaged 495, only a few points above the overall average score of 489. The top five average scores belong to China, Singapore, Macao, Hong Kong, and Estonia.

The U.S. scored 478 in math, below the OECD average. In science, the United States scored at 502, above the average score. In reading, the U.S. scored 497, slightly higher than the average.

If there is any good news in these ominous figures, it is only that the scores have not fallen further from where the country ought to be in recent years. Scores have remained fairly stable in math since 2003, and science since 2006.

While China — America’s number-one economic and military threat — teaches young people calculus and quantum physics, many American K-12 schools and colleges are more concerned with students’ chosen pronouns, gender issues, creating equity and diversity, and pushing the historically false Critical Race Theory.

Changes to the curriculum and classroom activities for our youngest and most vulnerable learners are often made without the public’s knowledge, or without the consent of parents. Parents are people who pay taxes that fund public education, and are responsible for properly raising their children. Yet, when they attend school board meetings to question or complain about the activities in their children’s schools, their frustration and anger is labeled as “domestic terrorism” by U.S. Attorney General, Merrick Garland.

Things at the post-secondary level are also gummed up. Diversity and equity issues, and the drive to raise enrollment push true education matters to the back. Many colleges and universities offer courses of study that may satisfy the desires of students, but do not provide learning in subjects with which one can make a living. This is likely a factor in the current situation where President Joe Biden wants to relieve some former students of $10,000-to-$20,000 of their college loan debt.

Recognizing the problems in colleges today, on the first day with university status, Bluefield State University President Robin Capehart outlined to faculty and staff some of the problems the school faces. Citing a book published by social scientists Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa titled “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses,” Capehart noted the following findings of a trend that is moving away from students’ focusing on learning, and instead toward getting a degree in the quickest and easiest way.

They say that many college students: were underprepared for college work; lacked academic commitment; were more focused on the nonacademic aspects of college life; and had become adept at the “art of college management,” which is the ability to navigate through their college work with the least time and effort, relegating learning to a matter of happenstance.

For their part, the institutions had become so dependent upon enrollment that they enable the students’ ambitions for an easy time by sacrificing academic rigor, by promoting social and other nonacademic aspects of college life, and investing in amenities that would further enable enrollment gains, Arum and Roska wrote.

Capehart told the audience that Bluefield State has two choices: “You can give them what they want — or you can help them see what they need.”

He then listed five attributes that focus on learning: the need for students who want to learn; a rigorous curriculum; engaging instruction; effective and efficient delivery of support services; and last, but not least, accountability from an external source. This transition will be difficult, he said.

How many of the nation’s institutions of higher learning need to re-structure their academic environment as Bluefield State is doing? How many of them will do it, or even understand that they need to?

America faces substantial challenges from other nations in military strength and other critical areas. How is the country going to regain its high position in the world, or even maintain the lesser position in holds today, if we don’t stop this foolishness, focus on the basics, and once again strive for excellence in education, the military, government, business, science, medicine and the other critical areas?

Changing how America works for partisan benefit is un-American

August 23, 2022

The American left believes that the Republicans are “radical,” and “dangerous.”

“In America, in the face of what the Supreme Court and the radical right wing are trying to do to the fundamental rights of every American, we, the coalition of the sane, owe something better to our children and our grandchildren. We need to win and we need to keep our promises to the people who elected us,” said Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker at a Democratic brunch.

MSNBC host Joy Reid contributed her opinion, calling Republicans "dangerous," back on Election Night 2020. 

Responding to Rachel Maddow’s comment about Republicans “fear mongering” Loudoun County school board members over getting vaccinated, wearing masks, and “made-up stuff about racial indoctrination," Reid said, “For Democrats to really fight that, they would have to be willing to say what you have said on your show, I think we’ve all said a version of it, you have to be willing to vocalize that these Republicans are dangerous."

Another MSNBC face, Tiffany Cross, suggested that “civil war” was just around the corner. 

“You have millions of people tuning into a propaganda network every night,” Cross said. “As if that were not bad enough, that’s an extremist network itself, you have these fringe pop-up outlets from OANN to Newsmax. Then you have the social media component. The train has left the station. There is no dealing with the rhetoric. At this point, we need serious conversations around preparing for actual violence. People keep saying a Civil War is coming. I would say the Civil War is here.”

So, according to these three sources, one an elected Democrat and the other two TV journalists, Republicans are radicals who are trying to change the country into something it has never been, and should not become.

People who are doing such things are acting against the best interests of the country. Could they not be classified as “un-American?” 

Well, if un-American behavior and beliefs are the subject, there is much more of that than these few examples.

Citing Molotov cocktails at pregnancy centers, rampant crime in major cities, and an open border, Republican National Committee spokeswoman Emma Vaughn suggested that we “Call out the left on their threatening hyperbole, then we will talk.”

There’s more. Democrats want to make major changes to aspects of Constitutional standards, such as junking the 233-year-old Electoral College; ending the 180-year-old Senate filibuster and the 150-year-old, nine-person Supreme Court. They also advocate bringing in two more states and ending 60 years of a 50-state nation.

The New York Times published an opinion piece essentially calling for the U.S. Constitution to be jettisoned. And Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tore up the State of the Union address on national TV. She also set up the January 6 Committee that strongly resembled a trial where the prosecution selected the judge and defense attorneys, and was the only side in the questioning of witnesses.

We saw illegal protests outside the homes of some Supreme Court Justices ignored by the Justice Department. Democrats favor defunding the police and “progressive” prosecutors give criminals more consideration than their victims.

And then there is the Time magazine piece in which author Molly Ball gloated over how Democrats had won the 2020 election by essentially rigging it. “That classic article by Molly Ball in February of 2021 where she gushed, she was giddy outlining what she called a conspiracy to change radically the voting laws, to inject four or 500 million dollars to alter the way we voted for centuries so that 70 percent of the votes would not be cast on Election Day, even as the rejection rate would decline by a magnitude of seven or eight,” Victor Davis Hanson explained.

Republicans did not call parents of school children “domestic terrorists” for expressing concerns about controversial on-goings in their classrooms, or fail to control the southern border.

Dangerous rhetoric from the left led to an assassination attempt on a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, and a shooting at a Congressional baseball practice, 

The left is so fired up that it even criticizes a well-known liberal Democrat attorney. Alan Dershowitz is a self-proclaimed liberal Democrat who voted against Donald Trump. Yet many Democrats/liberals condemn him for his defense of Trump’s situations. They either don’t understand what is actually going on, or they don’t care. The radical left apparently believes that if it reflects positively on Trump, it must be a sin or a crime.

But what Dershowitz did is what any good, honest lawyer would and should have done: defend a person’s constitutional and legal rights, without political bias. That is also what the Supreme Court’s originalist justices did in the Roe v. Wade matter: they acted on the standards enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.

It’s easy to toss around terms to denigrate others, and there is a tendency among like-thinkers to accept these things without question.

But when the subject is that one political group is un-American, the evidence is heavily against the liberals/Democrats.

They are the ones who want to change the country to make controlling the country easier. They are the ones who are acting against the country.

Democrat officials and policies moving us in the wrong direction

President Joe Biden told the world last week in a televised announcement that there was no inflation in July. “Zero!” he said. 

That, of course, is totally upside-down. Inflation still exceeded 9 percent in July. What Biden should have said is a very different story: Inflation did not increase in July. It also did not decrease in July. The status quo was due to some prices coming down a little while other prices increased a bit more.

Biden also celebrated a nominal decrease in gasoline and diesel fuel prices, ignoring that these prices are still $2- to $3-higher than when he took office.

The enigma that is New York’s new mayor — Eric Adams, who is a former police officer, state senator, and Brooklyn Borough president — is in the news, once again.  Adams’ election filled the hearts of many with excitement and hope, following the disastrous reign of former Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Under de Blasio, crime increased and was rampant, undoing the hard work and strong results of former Mayor Ruddy Giuliani, who followed former Mayor David Dinkins, and made the City a much safer one.

Adams’ reaction to illegal aliens being bused to New York City by Texas Governor Greg Abbott is hypocrisy at its best, and ignores the disastrous effects of the relaxed enforcement of immigration policy by the Biden administration. Instead, Adams blames the Texas governor.

Texas sees more illegals coming across its border each day than the total Adams has welcomed to New York on buses from Texas.

We have been told how proud New York City is to be a “sanctuary” city. And Adams didn’t complain when the Biden administration sent thousands of illegals by air to places around the country, including New York City, in the dark of night. But suddenly, when Gov. Abbott sends a few busloads to Adams’ city and Washington, DC, to help make the point of how badly Texas and other border states are suffering under this insane relaxed border policy, Adams thinks the world is coming to an end, and it’s all Abbott’s fault.

This is not Adams’ only failure. He has done little to fight the increasing crime wave, for example. But it is the topic he uses to try to cover up his thus-far failed tenure.

The Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act was recently passed by the U.S. Senate. Vice President Kamala Harris, in her position as the President of the Senate, broke the 50-50 tie and voted for the measure. It will add 87,000 new IRS agents over the next few years. The IRS employed more than 78,000 people during fiscal 2021, so this measure will more than double the size of the IRS.

Critics of the measure have produced some comparisons of the number of new employees: One photo showed an 86,000-seat football stadium filled with fans, which is less than the number of new agents; that number is about as large as a U.S. Army Corps; and it makes the IRS larger than the Pentagon, the State Department, the FBI, and the Border Patrol combined.

It has been titled by some critics as “Biden’s Shadow Army.” Another critic pointed out that the new agents are aiming at billionaires, who are rich American individuals and companies. There are only about 1,000 of those, the critic said, but 87,000 agents are being hired to audit their tax returns.

The newly staffed IRS, it has been said, will to have to go after middle- and low-income families and small and mid-sized businesses, rather than only businesses making more than $1 billion, and families making $400,000 or more, as we have been told.

“The IRS will have to target small and medium businesses because they won’t fight back,” Joe Hinchman, executive vice president at National Taxpayers Union Foundation, told The New York Post.

“We’ve seen this play out before … the IRS says ‘We’re going after the rich’ but when you’re trying to raise that much money, the rich can only get you so far.”

“The approach here is to double the IRS workforce, take the leash off, and see how much they can collect,” Hinchman adds. “I think they’ll collect it but it will be quite painful.”

A requirement for the new agents is that they will be armed and will have agreed to use deadly force if needed. All of this is necessary to collect under-reported taxes, we are told. The party that is working hard on strict gun control is also arming federal employees.

This idea, considered crazy and reckless by many, is not needed. The “difficulties” the government sees with tax collections can easily be solved by simplifying the tax code to remove the “loopholes” that enable companies and individuals to avoid taxes. And then require them to pay a reasonable rate of taxes, like 10-15 percent. 

And hire 87,000 new Border Patrol agents to fix the disgraceful situation at the southern border and restore our immigration policies that allow in only those who follow the proper procedure, and find those that were allowed to enter illegally, and put them on the right course by waiting in Mexico until their hearing date.

Justice must not be allowed to be used as a partisan weapon

“Maybe it was the death threat delivered by a fellow law-enforcement officer while he stood shackled in belly chains.

“Perhaps it was being described as a ‘terrorist’ by a federal judge who will preside over his trial.

“It could have been being released on bail by a U.S. magistrate judge in Tennessee, only to be ordered held until trial by a U.S. district judge in Washington D.C.

“Former sheriff’s deputy Ronald McAbee, 28, of Tennessee, has faced a difficult road since being indicted for alleged criminal actions at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“Arguably the most trying situation for McAbee was being denied bail for nearly a year based on video evidence that his attorney now says exonerates him.”

This is how a story in The Epoch Times begins about the strange situation Ronald McAbee found himself in. McAbee had served more than seven years as a sheriff’s deputy and correctional officer in Tennessee and Georgia, and was wearing a “Sheriff” garment that day

During the chaotic situation, McAbee assisted two people who were in trouble. One incident was that “Several times he tried to render lifesaving aid to a dying Rosanne Boyland, 34, of Kennesaw, Georgia,” The Times reported. The other incident was when McAbee saw Metropolitan Police officer Andrew Wyatt down, and tried to help him. That action caused others involved in the riot to call McAbee names. While helping Wyatt, the two exchanged friendly comments.

However, for some reason, Metropolitan Police saw fit to charge McAbee with several crimes, according to The Times. “Charges included assaulting, resisting, or impeding a federal officer, two counts of civil disorder, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, engaging in physical violence in a restricted building or grounds with a deadly or dangerous weapon, and committing an act of physical violence in the Capitol grounds or buildings.”

From this point, the circus only gets worse. At a detention hearing last August, prosecutors played a video with audio turned off as evidence against McAbee. The magistrate judge ordered McAbee released until his trial.

Prosecutors, not pleased with the judge’s ruling, filed an emergency appeal. In a hearing the same day in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C., the federal judge stayed the order and scheduled hearings on the government’s motion to keep McAbee behind bars until trial. That hearing occurred on Sept. 22, and the judge ordered McAbee to be held in jail without bond.

During that hearing, the judge seemed to give a clue to his eventual decision to hold McAbee without bond. “When being shown a video with McAbee wearing body armor with a patch that read ‘Sheriff,’ the judge said, ‘That’s pretty outrageous,’ according to the official hearing transcript. Later, he said, “These videos are very disturbing,” and he agreed with the prosecutor’s assessment of the evidence.

“So, it appears clearly to this court that the defendant is pulling the officer back into the crowd of other terrorists,” the transcript quotes the judge as saying.

After another hearing on Oct. 13, 2021, the federal judge reversed the magistrate judge’s order, ruling that McAbee should be held pending trial. This despite the original judge’s statement that prosecutors did not show evidence that McAbee had been a danger in the eight months since his arrest, the federal judge still ruled that to protect the community, McAbee must remain in jail.

However, once the audio track of the video prosecutors used to create the image of McAbee as a “terrorist” was played, the story created by the prosecutors, and unquestioned by the federal judge, changed dramatically.

 “A break in McAbee’s case came when video investigator Gary McBride of Decatur, Texas, studied the bodycam footage shown in court, except with the audio track turned on. It painted a vastly different picture of what took place, McBride told The Epoch Times.

“The prosecutors did not play the audio of AW [Andrew Wyatt] and McAbee talking during this point,” McBride stated in his evaluation of the video. “McAbee is trying to save AW. Prosecutors didn’t play that in court.” McAbee is heard telling someone in the crowd who tried to grab at Wyatt, “No!” and “Quit!” He also told the Metropolitan Police that they had a man down, and was telling Wyatt, “I’m one of you, I’m one of you.”

So, we have prosecutors — who almost certainly knew that the audio portion of the video they used as evidence against McAbee would destroy, or at least weaken, their case — presented it to two judges without the audio being played. And the federal judge, who apparently did not ask about their being an audio track, believed the faulty evidence, and reached, and announced the conclusion that the man whose trial he would preside over was a “terrorist.”

This example of “justice” was performed by people who are paid to do their important jobs with honesty and integrity, and to render equal justice under the law. That is what we, as American citizens, expect and deserve. Ronald McAbee did not get justice.

Today’s political left is hard at work changing many things

August 2, 2022

One thing Joe Biden has done consistently is to support changing things. He immediately changed the U.S. energy status as an energy independent nation and a net exporter of energy achieved under Donald Trump, by restricting the nation’s ability to maintain that status.

And, during the Biden rule, definitions of well-known things have changed. A woman is a female of the species, with certain distinct qualities different from a male/man. Biden’s pick for Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Ketanji Jackson Brown — a woman, by traditional standards — admitted in a Senate hearing that she was unable to define what a woman is. Today, many argue that the terms “woman” and “mother” are bad, and want to replace them with “birthing person.”

The recent porousness of the southern border allows tens of thousands of illegal aliens to enter the country each month. But the Biden administration has changed the definition of a “secure border” to include this travesty. The Border “Czar” — Vice President Kamala Harris — has done nothing to secure the border, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, even said recently that the southern border is “not open” and is “secure.”

And just recently, when the second successive quarter of negative Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was announced, qualifying the U.S. as being in a recession — according to the long-standing measure used to determine what constitutes a “recession” — the Biden administration changed the definition of what constitutes a recession.

Yes, there are some positive economic factors, like a decent unemployment rate, and the recent negative GDP rate was not as low as the first one. But the high inflation rate and other factors show the overall economic picture as obviously negative.

Along with changing definitions, Biden is working to change the country. The standards and processes that have served us so well for more than two hundred years are no longer good enough. Packing the Supreme Court, doing away with the Senate filibuster, getting rid of the Electoral College are some of the things on the list.

It’s not that these features don’t work anymore, it’s that they are obstacles to the radical left agenda.

Biden rattled off a few positive economic figures recently, ending by saying, “That doesn’t sound like a recession to me,” just before making a hasty exit from the press. But let’s look at the numbers.

The Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR), according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, is “the number of people in the labor force as a percentage of the civilian non-institutional population […] the participation rate is the percentage of the population that is either working or actively looking for work.”

The LFPR in January of 2017 was 62.8% (160,320,000 Americans) when Donald Trump took office. It rose to 63.4% (162,007,000 people) by Feb. 2018, meaning there were a good many more people working or looking for a job than at the beginning of Trump’s term. And then the pandemic hit.

The LFPR dropped to a low of 60.2% (160,074,000 people) in April of 2020, but rose to 61.4% (161,200,000 people) in Jan. 2021, a gain of 1.2% in 8 months, reflecting the re-entering of hundreds of thousands to the labor force.

It now stands at 62.2% as of June 2022. In the 17 months that Joe Biden has been President, the LFPR has risen 0.8%, representing a fraction of those who lost jobs or stopped working during the pandemic re-entering the labor force.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics describes the Unemployment Rate like this: “Perhaps the most widely known labor market indicator, this statistic reflects the number of unemployed people as a percentage of the labor force.”

The unemployment rate was 4.7% in January of 2017 when Donald Trump took office. In Feb 2020, when the effects of the pandemic hit, the unemployment rate was 3.5%.

It is now. 3.6% as of June 2022. While this is a good unemployment rate, it is not as good as it was before the pandemic.

After the 17 months Biden has been in office, as of the end of June, there are fewer people in the labor force today than there were when Trump took office, and when the pandemic began.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce tells us that right now, the latest data shows that we have over 11 million job openings in the U.S., but only 6 million unemployed workers looking for work. 

The most serious aspects of the pandemic are virtually over, and there are nearly twice as many unfilled jobs as there are people looking for work. The labor force is 3.2 million people smaller than before the pandemic. The difference is those who were working and have either retired, or no longer need to work due to government subsidy payments in the name of helping people get through the pandemic.

These numbers support the idea that the country is in a recession. There’s not enough lipstick to put on the recession pig to hide reality.