Category: Goobermint

If you aren’t on a watch list by now, you haven’t been working hard enough.

DHS Preparing to Use Private Contractors to “Scour Public Data and Social Media” To Compile Dissident Citizens for Watch List and No Fly Lists

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is now getting ready to hire public companies, individual contractors outside government, to scour public data and social media in order to provide information for the new “domestic terror watch lists.”  From the description it appears DHS is going to pay “big tech” (Google, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, SnapChat, Twitter, etc.), via contracts, to hire and organize internal monitoring teams to assist the government by sending information on citizens they deem “dangerous.”

Gee, what could possibly go wrong with this?…

NBC is reporting on these new developments as the U.S. intelligence apparatus is preparing to go live with the assembly of lists of Americans who “could be” potential threats to the government; and need to be watched.

However, even NBC is beginning to realize the consequences: “DHS planning to expand relationships with companies that scour public data for intelligence and to better harness the vast trove of data it already collects on Americans. The department is also contemplating changes to its terrorist watch listing process.”

Here’s the article:

WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security, created after the 9/11 attacks to protect the country from international terrorism, is moving toward a sweeping set of policy changes aimed at detecting and stopping what intelligence officials say is now a top threat to the homeland: domestic violent extremism.

Two senior Biden administration officials told NBC News that DHS, whose intelligence division did not publish a warning of potential violence before the Jan. 6 Capitol riots, is seeking to improve its ability to collect and analyze data about domestic terrorism — including the sorts of public social media posts that threatened a potential attack on the Capitol, but were not deemed “actionable” by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.

DHS is planning to expand its relationships with companies that scour public data for intelligence, one of the senior officials said, and also to better harness the vast trove of data it already collects on Americans, including travel and commercial data through Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Coast Guard, the Secret Service and other DHS components. (read more)

Expand your thinking to what was initiated with the COVID model for “contact tracing” and you can quickly see how physical proximity to a rogue dissident, a person with wrong thoughts – aka a domestic extremist, can result in you being labeled along with that dissident…. and you are on the list. Then overlay the efforts of Big Tech to assist the administrative state with an electronic trail of your habits, contacts, phone calls, text messages and internet patterns…. and you are on the list.

Remind yourself what FBI “contractors’ with access to the NSA database already did in their quest for political opposition research and surveillance {Go Deep}. Then overlay all of the above and you get an alarming picture that is not something to dispatch.

 

Golly gee whiz fellas, I wonder what changed in 2020?

Murder rate jumps back to 1990s levels, data show.

US murder rate per 100000 via FBI line graph

A new crime reporting system released by the FBI shows that the murder rate in virtually every city in the United States is at its highest levels in more than two decades.

In 2020, the country saw more homicides than in any year since 1998. Experts came to that conclusion after looking at reported quarterly data from roughly 12,000 agencies in various cities and states.

The spike, totaling at over 20,000 recorded homicides, was the largest one-year increase in U.S. history. Every city that reported data saw at least a 20%-25% jump in murders. Twenty-two percent of cities with a population of over 250,000 that reported data saw the most murders ever recorded since the federal government began keeping logs in 1960.

“We’ve never seen an increase like that. Previously the biggest one-year increase in murder was a 12.5% increase in the 1960s,” statistician and crime analyst Jeff Asher told the Washington Examiner. “We’re really talking about unprecedented increases in murder.”

Asher concluded, using the FBI data, that the murder rate for 2020 sat at roughly 6.22 per 100,000 people. Not since 1998 has the country seen a murder rate that high.

In 2019, the murder rate was an even 5 per 100,000 people, a slight dip from 5.1 in 2018.

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CITING ‘NATIONAL SECURITY’ 18 AGS PUSH BIDEN ADMIN TO BAN 80 % RECEIVERS

A group of 18 attorneys general from 17 mostly blue states and the District of Columbia on Monday asked the Biden Administration to act on unfinished gun frames and receivers.

The AGs wrote a five-page letter to recently installed U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland this week, asking the Justice Department to “close the loophole in the ATF’s interpretation of the federal Gun Control Act” that allows law-abiding citizens to create their own firearms from so-called 80-percent receivers. The AGs said the firearms made from such kits – sometimes referred to as “ghost guns” by gun control advocates – can be used for nefarious purposes, enough of a cause as any to lower the boom on the practice.

“This loophole flies in the face of commonsense gun safety laws,” said Connecticut Attorney General Tong in a statement from his office on the letter. “Here in Connecticut, we have some of the strongest gun safety laws on the books — we banned ghost guns in 2019 — but these statutes can only go so far if we can’t close these dangerous federal loopholes. The ATF interpretation of the Gun Control Act is wrong and a threat to public safety and national security.”

Under longstanding ATF guidelines going back to at least 2006, so-called “80-percent” unfinished pistol frames and rifle receivers aren’t subject to government oversight so long as they are made by individuals who can otherwise legally possess a firearm and don’t cross into National Firearms Act territory (e.g., machine guns, SBRs, suppressors). The push by the AGs is aimed at changing that tradition.

The letter calls on Garland to issue a new interpretation of the Gun Control Act that will include “80-percent receivers” in the category of firearms that require background checks of the same type as for fully finished guns. The biggest problem with that, however, is the ATF has never issued guidance as to exactly what an 80-percent lower or unfinished frame is, only what it is not. Such an effort could have the absurd effect of attempting to regulate raw materials such as the semi-shaped blocks of aluminum or plastic that make up 80-percent kits.

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Yeah, that Background Check System didn’t stop these people from purchasing handguns for a felon

Feds say ‘straw buyer’ purchased 39 handguns for a felon since July, paid more than $25,000 cash to firearms dealers

Law enforcement agents call people who buy guns for those who aren’t legally able to do so — like minors or felons — straw buyers.

A new federal indictment suggests a Milwaukee man might qualify as a super straw buyer.

Court records indicate that over about three months last fall, Keenan D. Hughes, 33, purchased 39 handguns from 15 Wisconsin stores, paying more than $25,000 cash, on behalf of Marvin Powell, 41, of Milwaukee, a repeat felon who can’t legally possess, much less purchase, firearms.

According to the charges, Hughes lied on federal forms he filled out at various Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL) stores, saying he intended the weapons for himself. He would buy one, two or three guns at a time at stores big and small from Brookfield to Janesville, Germantown to Waupun.

Using the filled-out form, FFLs are required to do background checks on the buyer. Because Hughes has no felony convictions or other prohibition on gun ownership, he was cleared each time.

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Try this:
Officials (period) have undermined trust in government institutions.

Officials like Fauci have undermined trust in government institutions.

We now have several COVID vaccines. All work, all have passed safety testing, and all are in wide distribution.

This is a huge accomplishment, but there’s one problem: A lot of people aren’t taking the shot.

Are they just ignorant anti-vaxxers?

No. As a recent focus group by Frank Luntz, reported in The Washington Post, demonstrates, a lot of people who won’t take the vaccine aren’t skeptical about vaccines in general. Just about this batch.

So maybe they’re just Red State Luddites?

No. In fact, it’s a worldwide phenomenon. Yes, there’s resistance in the United States: Gallup reported in February that 34 percent of front-line health workers said they wouldn’t get the vaccine, with another 18 percent unsure; fewer than half said they would definitely get jabbed. Only 65 percent of Americans as a whole said they would get the vaccine.

But there’s also resistance abroad. Reuters reported that only about half of French care-home workers are willing to get the vaccine; the rest prefer to wait and see if it’s safe. Reuters quotes a union official who says “there’s a complete lack of trust.”

Reuters reports similar numbers in Germany. Also in Germany, and in Italy, thousands of health-care workers have refused the AstraZeneca vaccine, even though it’s approved in Europe. In the German state of Saarland, The Wall Street Journal reports, over half of health workers slated to get a shot simply failed to show up.

PBS NewsHour reports similar vaccine-skepticism in India. And NBC reports that thousands of serving US military personnel are opting not to take the vaccine.

So what’s the problem? For so much of the lockdown period, we heard the words “until there’s a vaccine.” Now we have a vaccine — several, in fact — and in record time, thanks to Operation Warp Speed. Why are so many people, including health-care workers who should know the most and care the most, refusing it now?

I think it comes down to, in that French trade-union official’s words, “a complete lack of trust.”

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House OKs Dems’ Immigration Bills for Dreamers, Farm Workers

The House voted Thursday to unlatch a gateway to citizenship for young Dreamers, migrant farm workers and immigrants who’ve fled war or natural disasters, giving Democrats wins in the year’s first votes on an issue that once again faces an uphill climb to make progress in the Senate.

On a near party-line 228-197 vote, lawmakers approved one bill offering legal status to around 2 million Dreamers, brought to the U.S. illegally as children, and hundreds of thousands of migrants admitted for humanitarian reasons from a dozen troubled countries.

They then voted 247-174 for a second measure creating similar protections for 1 million farm workers who have worked in the U.S. illegally; the government estimates they comprise half the nation’s agricultural laborers.

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Biden blocks press access at border, constructs false narratives.

In her first press briefing, President Joe Biden’s press secretary Jen Psaki promised to bring “truth and transparency” back to the White House.  But it’s now 55 days into the new administration and the Biden team has been anything but transparent.

The Biden administration issued a gag-order on the southern border, blocking all press requests to visit detention centers to take pictures or to tour the facilities. Border Patrol agents have been told to deny all media requests for “ride-alongs” with agents, and all stationed on the southern border are being told to forward all press requests to Washington for approval, according to NBC News.

President Biden hasn’t visited the southern border and likely won’t — because he would need to bring a press pool and cameras for the trip, which would reveal a humanitarian crisis is occurring. The reality of the situation would conflict with the narrative the Biden administration is trying to paint — that this is merely a “challenge” — a situation they “certainly” have a handle on, according to Ms. Psaki.

The U.S. is on pace to encounter more individuals on the southwest border than it has in the last 20 years. The federal government plans to use the downtown Dallas convention center to hold up to 3,000 immigrant teenagers, as other holding centers have exceeded their capacity due to the surge. What’s more, four foreign nationals whose names match with individuals on the terror watch list have been stopped trying to enter the U.S. via the southern border since October, according to Fox News.

Those are the facts the Biden administration would like you to ignore, doing their best to kneecap journalists from seeing and reporting these developments.

President Biden is also one of the least accessible Presidents in history. He booked his first press conference for March 25,  breaking a 100-year-long presidential record by waiting so long into his term to answer questions from the media. At his formal events, President Biden typically ignores the media, or gives brief, one-word answers to questions.

His press office has also come under scrutiny for trying to control the media. Biden’s communication staff was soliciting questions in advance of Ms. Psaki’s press conferences, the Daily Beast reported.

“The requests prompted concerns among the White House press corps, whose members, like many reporters, are sensitive to the perception that they are coordinating with political communications staffers,” The Daily Beast wrote.

In another effort to curb news-media access to the West Wing, the Biden administration has imposed a COVID-19 testing fee on reporters, and has capped the number of reporters allowed on White House grounds per day to 80. By contrast, under the Trump administration, any journalist with a “hard pass” was allowed into the White House.

Truth and transparency has evolved into lies and opacity. The Biden administration has proved in its early days, it’s more interested in controlling the narrative than it is confronting the truth. 

Pelosi, Capitol Police: Oh By the Way, There’s No Actual Threat to the Capitol

Good to know guys. Good to know.

So why was there an extended military occupation of Washington D.C. Why is there still an occupation?

Pelosi’s latest Dear Colleague letter states, “Today, you have received a letter sent by the Acting House Sergeant at Arms regarding the security posture of the Capitol.  The U.S. Capitol Police, working with federal, state and local intelligence partners, has concluded that “there does not exist a known, credible threat against Congress or the Capitol Complex that warrants the temporary security fencing.”  Therefore, alterations to the temporary fencing around the Capitol will soon be made, and the National Guard presence will also begin to draw down.”

So all of this was a bunch of nonsense and lies?

The Department of Homeland Security used its National Terrorism Advisory System to issue a bulletin claiming that “a heightened threat environment across the United States” would continue for weeks.

“There are several upcoming events — we don’t know what they are — over the next several weeks, and they’re concerned that there could be situations where there are lawful protests, First Amendment-protected protests, that could either be used by malicious actors, or other problems that could emerge,” Secretary of the Army John Whitley had argued.

The Capitol Police issued a press release claiming there was, “obtained intelligence that shows a possible plot to breach the Capitol by an identified militia group on Thursday, March 4.”

The occupation was supposed to end on March 12. Instead it’s getting a two month extension.

The Democrat military occupation of Washington D.C. will now be extended until May 23.

Except that they’ve run out of threats and the new argument is the Capitol Police are inept. The extension was made over protests from the Army and the National Guard by Defense Secretary Austin: Biden’s hack.

“It’s not just about a threat assessment, it’s about assisting and supporting capabilities that the Capitol Police may now lack and may need to look at improving,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby claimed.

So there’s no threat. There was never a threat. But now it can be told.

Portland cut police funding and got a 2,000% surge in murders

Last June, the city of Portland, Oregon, hopped on the “defund the police” bandwagon. Now, it is flooded with gun violence, and the mayor is already backtracking from his support for the cuts.

Mayor Ted Wheeler has requested $2 million in emergency funding for the police department, pointing directly to the surge in gun violence. By the end of February 2020, Portland had seen just one homicide year to date. This year, that number was 20, with 208 shootings in the city so far.

Wheeler backed the Portland City Council’s decision to cut $15 million from the police budget last June, which included disbanding police units that investigate gun violence. Predictably, that move backfired in a city that saw 100 consecutive days of violent rioting last year.

Riots are back once again in the city, thanks to Wheeler’s spinelessness. Rioters have once again targeted a federal courthouse in the city, a reprise of the violent storming of the courthouse last July. In June, it was reported that the city lost around $24 million due to the riots. Damage to federal buildings totals roughly $2.3 million.

Portland, like Minneapolis, doesn’t have and never did have an overpolicing problem. The city has an underpolicing problem, compounded by cowardly city leaders who pander to anti-police activists. Portland city leaders, just like their Minneapolis counterparts, humored these leftist ideologues while turning a blind eye to riots. Now, they reap the whirlwind in the form of a surge in violent crime.

And this is Portland, so there is no Republican to blame for this issue. Wheeler is a Democrat. So are the city council members, with one independent who was endorsed by the council’s Democratic members. Gov. Kate Brown, who said that former President Donald Trump was “provoking confrontation for political purposes” by protecting the courthouse, is a Democrat. So is President Biden, who currently has federal agents trying to protect the courthouse.

Nor is there any plausible way to blame the availability of guns in Oregon or in neighboring states. Guns are exactly as available today as they were before this 2,000% surge in murders.

This is what happens when people who are tasked with actually running a city embrace ridiculous ideologies to please activists. I would say that Portland residents deserve better, but this is the leadership they chose for their city. Given the failures of Wheeler and the city council to this point, the voters are the only ones who can change course.

If the 2020 election is any indication, it won’t be happening any time soon.

CBS Reports DHS Has Detained 13,000+ Unaccompanied Kids at the Border, Calls it a ‘Crisis’

Now that the MSM has called it such, it’s official.

There’s a new sheriff in town

By Frank Liberato
There’s a new sheriff in town and he cares not a whit for you, your family, or your country. The rescinding of the “public charge” rule was the latest domino to fall in the Biden administration’s abandonment of all Trump-era measures to restrict immigration and protect the border.

People breaking into our country, now do so with impunity. They are still breaking the law but there is no enforcement in the wokeisphere.

In the old America, if you wanted to become a citizen, you had to show proficiency in English, a basic understanding of American civics, and the ability to support yourself. Then you would get in line with all the other applicants.

The impact of those requirements would now appear to be negligible with most immigrants coming here illegally. The Biden administration sees only votes and will promote any law or take any executive action that makes it easier to enter the country.

Once they’re here, Biden wants to ease and shorten the path to citizenship. This will provide the left with an endless supply of Democrat voters and undermine the fabric of the American culture that they so loathe. Two birds with one stone. Welcome to wokeworld.

Illegal immigrants enjoy a special status that American citizens do not. They are largely ignored or protected in many states and municipalities, and they are eligible for benefits they have not paid for. The vast majority work hard and simply want a better life for themselves and their families, but the fact is that they broke our laws to come here. In Biden’s woke America, they will be rewarded for it.

This situation is not sustainable. With open borders and open benefits, the millions that are coming today will soon be tens of millions. With such an abrupt change in demographics, the American culture will likely start to dissolve under the pressure. When foreigners can come into the United States with little more than an obligation to attend a hearing two years down the road, and over ninety percent don’t show up, then we have no border. If we have no border, we have no country.

The last great migration to America ended around 1920. This was almost entirely legal immigration, so we knew who was coming and how many. It took a forty-year cooling-off period for the country to absorb the new immigrants and for those immigrants to assimilate into American culture. They’ll be no such luxury this time. The new numbers dwarf the last wave, and they will only be accelerating.

Even the “wokest” of western nations understands the necessity for a secure border. Most, despite the boatloads of refugees they take in each year, are quite strict in administering and protecting their borders. How is it that America has come to forsake its own security and that of its people?

The answer lies with America’s leftist elite. They are a caste of preening, narcissistic, would-be-aristocrats and they need an ever-burgeoning underclass to keep voting for Democrats to support their lifestyles and egos.

They import voters from third-world countries and tear down America’s middle class while claiming to be their champion. They build walls around their houses. They build walls around their communities and now they have built a wall around the capital. All this while fiercely opposing a wall at the southern border where all varieties of turpitude and criminality are imported into the United States.

The rank hypocrisy is hiding in plain sight. The new Marxist elites can live behind walls but average citizens are left to fend for themselves. The woke folk have armed guards and state of the art law enforcement while community policing is defunded and our Second Amendment rights are threatened with new restrictions and taxation. There is increasingly nowhere for the average person to turn to for justice and security.

The Cloward- Piven plan from the 1960s called for overwhelming America’s social welfare system to topple capitalism and usher in a new utopian, socialist government. With the backdrop of an overtaxed citizenry, massive illegal immigration, a rapid increase in violent crime, endless wars, endless crises, and an exploding national debt, the pieces are all in place for large-scale social unrest. Just the way they planned it.

Rep. Andrew Clyde’s Big Idea: Restore Second Amendment and eliminate all taxes on firearms.

The Big Idea is a series that asks top lawmakers and figures to discuss their moonshot — what’s the one proposal, if politics and polls and even price tag were not an issue, they’d implement to change the country for the better?  

Georgia GOP Rep. Andrew Clyde brings to Congress a deep understanding of federal firearms laws, as a licensed gun store owner for the last 30 years.

Clyde’s real-world experience has convinced him federal government regulations have gone way too far by infringing on the Second Amendment. The Navy combat veteran now wants to lead the charge in Congress on restoring gun rights and rolling back century-old laws that tax firearms.

“I’m very passionate about the Second Amendment, not just defending it, but restoring it because we’ve lost a lot of ground,” Clyde told Fox News.

While House Democrats on Thursday passed an expansion of gun background check provisions, Clyde takes the opposite approach. He campaigned in 2020 on the “complete elimination” of the background checks established by the 1993 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act and wants to start a “conversation” in Congress on revising the system with a greater onus on the government to prove a person is legally prohibited from having a gun — and not the other way around.

“I really think the Brady background check system is looking at it backwards,” Clyde told Fox News. “We need to be looking at it from the point of the Second Amendment is an inalienable right.”

The freshman member is kicking off his gun-rights crusade by introducing legislation to speed up the background check waiting period from three business days to three calendar days.

In the longterm, Clyde is working on a landmark proposal to eliminate all taxes on guns and ammunition arguing that the Second Amendment is a constitutional right, much like voting rights, which cannot be limited by cost restrictions.

“If you can tax a constitutional right, then it is truly not a constitutional right,” Clyde said.

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Maternity Flight Suits and Other Admonitions.

Just about the first thing Lloyd Austin did after being confirmed as Joe Biden’s Secretary of Defense was to issue a service-wide order mandating a one-day “stand down” within sixty days to “address extremism within the nation’s armed forces.” “What extremism?” you might be asking, and you would be right to ask.

No matter what Lloyd Austin or the media tells you, the trouble with the U.S. Armed Forces is not political extremism but the enervating rust of political correctness. As Victor Davis Hanson has shown, the upper echelons of the U.S. military were purged by Barack Obama. If they are politicized today, it is firmly in the direction of the woke ideology of identity politics.

Thus we have the commander-in-chief, Joe Biden, speak about the “intensity of purpose” that will be devoted to “designing body armor that fits women properly, tailoring combat uniforms for women, creating maternity flight suits, updating requirements for their hairstyles.” This was not a joke—or, rather, it was not said in jest.

Perhaps the Biden means to prepare the distaff side for a different sort of Battle of the Bulge. True, he would be modestly more reassuring about the U.S. military if he could remember the name of his defense secretary or the name of the building where he works. “I want to thank the—former general . . . the guy who runs that outfit over there.” Oh, dear.

Meanwhile, the Army is about to revise its standards for physical performance downwards so that women will be able to compete more effectively with men. Once upon a time, the Army’s slogan was “Be All That You Can Be.” Today, it might as well read “Be Whatever You Want.” Among the avalanche of executive diktats signed by Joe Biden in his first weeks in office is a directive approving sex reassignment surgery for active duty personnel.

Who pays for this madness? Why you, the taxpayer, natch, and at $100,000 a pop to turn Donna into someone you can call Dan you can bet it is going to add up to a pretty penny.

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If This Week You Learned Biden is ‘Hopeful’ And Tucker Carlson Is Evil, Congratulations, You’ve Been Lied To

“Biden Tells Nation There Is Hope After a Devastating Year.”

“Hopeful Biden Says, ‘I Need You.’”

“Biden Sets Vaccine Goal That Would Allow Americans To Gather By July 4.”

These headlines, from the covers of the printed New York Times, LA Times, and Boston Globe, greeted Americans Friday morning, 51 days into the Biden presidency and a full year into the beginnings of America’s long lockdown experiment.

“Seven Takeaways From Biden’s Prime-Time Address” topped CNN’s site. Chris Cillizza’s first two “takeaways”? “Donald Trump dug the hole” was number one. Number two? “A return to empathy.” Chris Cillizza, it’s worth noting, is a 45-year-old man and does not work for the White House.

“Last night is why Joe Biden won the presidency,” Politico Playbook opened with a straight face.

If you hadn’t watched the president’s prime-time address, you might think it was something — anything — other than the most depressing, defeated, and resigned speech since President Jimmy Carter held the office. You might think he hadn’t devoted his third sentence to a baseless attack on his predecessor, and the entire rest of his address to death, sadness, loneliness, and despair. You might think he hadn’t literally threatened the American people, warning, “We may have to reinstate restrictions to get back on track, please, we don’t want to do that again.”

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U.S. Citizenship Act Next On Biden Agenda

[Thursday], Joe Biden signed into law the 1.9 trillion dollar slush fund being billed as a Covid relief package. Next on his agenda is the U.S. Citizenship Act. Biden broke the border. His next legislation isn’t going to do anything to fix it.

During the 2020 Presidential Campaign, Biden promised to reverse the cruel Trump Administration program of “ripping children from their parents’ arms” and putting them “in cages”. On December 16, the New York Post reported:

Well, that didn’t take long. A border crisis is brewing before President-elect Joe Biden takes office.

Migrant caravans are forming in Honduras, where residents were hit with a pair of devastating hurricanes last month, adding to the economic hardship caused by COVID-19. Faced with ruin, many Hondurans have ­decided to defy local travel bans and head north.

On his first full day in office, Biden ended Trump’s stay in Mexico policy. Three months later, there is a crisis at the border. Thank you very much, Mr. Biden. The Border Patrol personnel is overwhelmed:

The Department of Homeland Security documents show that more than 3,400 children were in custody as of earlier this week and that the number of children being referred to Health and Human Services is growing almost three times faster than social workers are able to find appropriate homes for the children.

Many children can’t even get transferred to more hospitable shelters that can have bunk beds, video games, classrooms, medical facilities and ball fields because those are already at 94% capacity. That backlog explains why kids are staying on average 107 hours in the sprawling and sometimes jail-like Border Patrol facilities — longer than the 72 hours allowed by law.

And, that doesn’t even speak of the drug smuggling:

Mexican President Lopez-Obrador is not well-pleased with Biden:

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Political Cartoons by Michael Ramirez

Federal COVID-19 Bailout Prohibits States From Cutting Taxes
The measure could also make it illegal for states to create new tax credit programs, such as those used for expanding school choice.

Buried within the $1.9 trillion emergency spending bill that Congress sent to President Joe Biden’s desk on Wednesday is a provision that could effectively block states from cutting taxes if they accept federal bailout dollars.

That provision, added to the bill by the Senate last week, could put a halt to several states’ plans to cut taxes this year as a way to stimulate economic growth following the COVID-19 pandemic. Depending on how the text is interpreted, the measure could also make it illegal for states to create new tax credit programs like the ones that have become a popular mechanism for expanding school choice. Critics say this expansion of federal control over state policymaking is murky at best, and potentially unconstitutional.

First, the basics: The COVID-19 relief-bill-that-isn’t-really-a-relief-bill contains $350 billion earmarked for state governments, local governments, and Native American tribes. That money is supposed to help governments fill temporary budget holes created by the pandemic—even though the funding vastly exceeds actual state and local budget shortfalls, as Reason’s Christian Britschi has previously reported. States are in such non-dire straits, in fact, that about $150 billion of the state aid distributed as part of last year’s Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act hasn’t even been spent yet.

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I Am Really Freaking Sick of Anthony Fauci.

Why should you get vaccinated against COVID-19?

This isn’t a rhetorical question. It’s a question the people who are trying to convince you to get vaccinated need to answer. Here are just a few valid answers:

  • “So you don’t get COVID and die.”
  • “So you don’t get COVID and live, with horrible symptoms that linger for months or possibly years.”
  • “So you can hug your loved ones.”
  • “So you can reopen your business.”
  • “So you can try to get back to something resembling your normal life before you were told to lock yourself down and lead a bleak, isolated existence for an entire year.”

Anything along those lines would be acceptable. Pretty much anything that gives people hope! That’s called an incentive. When you’re trying to convince folks to do something they may or may not want to do, it’s a good idea to give them an incentive.

Instead, the people in power who expect our trust keep hemming and hawing. “Well, don’t get too excited! Just because you get vaccinated, that doesn’t mean you can actually do anything. Yes, you absolutely should get vaccinated, and also no, we’re not going to give you any upside to getting vaccinated. Just sit there where you are, don’t move, and await further instructions. Which will be more of the same, every single time.”

I am really freaking sick of Anthony Fauci. Nobody has done more over the past year to debase the name of science than this clown. Just look at this crap:

“When you don’t have the data and you don’t have the actual evidence, then you’ve got to make a judgment call.”

What? I need to look at that again:

“When you don’t have the data and you don’t have the actual evidence, then you’ve got to make a judgment call.”

Yes, Anthony Fauci actually said that. On national TV. Well, on CNN, at least.

Isn’t that great? Hey now, don’t worry about all those pesky numbers and all that confusing technical jargon. Just trust the guy who knows what he’s talking about because he says he knows what he’s talking about. Who do you think you are, anyway? Are you a scientist? No? Then shut up and do as you’re told.

This isn’t science. This is religion. Fauci has styled himself as the Pope of COVID, and his enablers in the media have been more than happy to confer him with papal infallibility. He’s established himself as the only true mediator between the unwashed masses and God Science. And whenever he says something that doesn’t make sense or he contradicts himself, well, don’t you fret your little head about it. You just need to have faith. Pope Anthony the First would never lie to you.

Well, except when he lied to you about masks. (“Absolutely do not wear a mask. On second thought, you must wear a mask at all times. You know what? Make that two masks! Would you believe… three masks?”) And when he lied about herd immunity. And whatever else he’s lied about that he hasn’t admitted lying about yet. That was different, because you just weren’t ready to hear the truth. You couldn’t handle it. And Pope Anthony’s impeccable judgment in protecting you from reality is all the more reason for you to trust him.

Don’t you see how easy it is when you just stop thinking and believe in science?

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m no anti-vaxer. The messaging on this has been awful, and Fauci has destroyed his credibility, but that doesn’t mean I’ve taken leave of my senses. I’m getting vaccinated as soon as I can. And then you know what I’m gonna do?

Whatever I damn well please.