The Biden administration recently released a $5.8 trillion-plus budget proposal. The president’s “billionaire tax” proposal and its terrible economicshave received the most attention.
Yet there’s also a big tax hike on workers slipped into the fine print of President Joe Biden’s plan. That pesky fact didn’t stop the president from repeating his big lie that only “the rich” will pay more under his plans.
But consider the facts. The plan includes a proposal for raising the corporate tax rate from 21% to 28%, which Biden said “ensures that corporations pay their fair share.” I know what you’re thinking: Boohoo, who cares if corporate bigwigs have to pay Uncle Sam more?
In reality, however, most economists agreethat the corporate tax is in part born by the working class through lower wages. Studies have consistently found that more than 50%of the burden comes out of workers’ wallets. As for Biden’s corporate tax hike proposal specifically, a Tax Foundation analysis foundthat it would lead to lower wages, lower economic growth, and 159,000 fewer jobs.
Biden’s plan would also make us less competitive internationally. We would have one of the highest corporate tax rates among developed countries, making the United States less attractive for investment and encouraging offshoring. A tax hike on workers that further handicaps American industry and empowers global competitors — how’s that for “Build Back Better,” folks?
Biden’s plan has all these downsides, but it’s unclear what, if anything, it would actually accomplish.
Despite the president’s misleading rhetoric, there’s no burning need to make “the rich” and “Big Business” pay their fair share. We already have an extraordinarily progressive federal tax system. According to the Cato Institute, the top 0.1% pays morethan 30% of all federal income taxes! Most estimates suggest the top 10% pays 70% of all federal income taxes.
What’s more, the federal government is doing a pretty terrible job with the money we’re already giving it to spend. The government lost fives time more to stimulus fraudthan it spent developing the COVID-19 vaccines, for example. That’s Big Government in a nutshell.
Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus legislation?
It failed so spectacularly that we ended up with fewer jobsthan we were projected to create without it being passed at all. The only thing it actually “stimulated” was runaway inflation.
Put simply, Biden should be looking to cut federal spending — not slipping more hikes on the working class into his budget proposal.
California has the nation’s most restrictive gun laws but they have failed to stem the increase in gun ownership, the availability of illegal guns by criminals or gun violence.
Inevitably, last weekend’s horrendous fusillade of bullets on a downtown Sacramento street that left six people dead and at least a dozen wounded generated demands for new gun controls in state that already has the nation’s most restrictive firearms laws.
However, if anything, what happened just two blocks from the state Capitol underscores the folly of believing that “gun violence” can be meaningfully reduced by trying to choke off the supply of firearms – any more than the prohibition of liquor or the war on drugs succeeded.
Nor have these laws prevented the lawless from obtaining weapons via theft, smuggling from other states or the illicit manufacture of untraceable “ghost guns.” Indeed, state restrictions have made the black market even more lucrative, mirroring the side effects of Prohibition and the decades-long drug war.
Initial evidence indicates that those who fired more than 100 rounds in a street crowded with bar and nightclub patrons probably were violating one or more gun laws. The two brothers that police arrested and are suspected of involvement in the mass shooting were charged with illegal possession of weapons – one for possession of an illegal fully automatic firearm.
So why, if California’s much-vaunted gun control laws have failed to choke off the supply of legal and illegal weapons, do politicians continue to claim that enacting even more will have an effect?
Some may believe it, the evidence notwithstanding, while others want to appear to be doing something about a problem because they don’t have any other answers. And those who propose and enact new gun laws are often woefully ignorant about guns or even existing laws.
In the aftermath of the shooting, Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg lamented to a radio interviewer about California’s difficulty in reducing the number of guns, saying, “You just have to go to a gun show in Reno to buy an assault weapon without a background check and come right back to California.”
Advocates of more laws often cite a “gun show loophole” but it’s a myth. Under federal law, one must be a resident of Nevada and undergo a federal background check to legally buy a gun in Reno.
Moreover, while California professes to have banned “assault weapons,” the state’s definition of them involves cosmetic features, rather than their lethality. Perfectly legal semi-automatic rifles that lack those features are available for sale everywhere in the state.
The newest effort at gun control in California, backed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, would authorize personal lawsuits against the manufacturers and sellers of illegal assault rifles or ghost guns, mirroring a new Texas law allowing suits against those who perform abortions.
The legislation, Senate Bill 1327, is just a stunt – one of Newsom’s periodic jabs at a rival state. Those who could be sued under the bill are already committing criminal acts in California and a federal law prohibits suits against manufacturers of legal firearms, including the “assault weapons” that California and a few other states purport – but fail – to outlaw.
The bottom line is this: Actor Alec Baldwin’s claims notwithstanding, guns don’t fire on their own. Someone must accidentally or purposely pull the trigger and that should be the focus of efforts to reduce violence – such as more vigorous enforcement of laws banning gun possession by felons and those under court order.
In 2020, my husband and I took a concealed carry course at Magnum Shooting Center in Colorado Springs. The class itself was approximately four hours and covered a number of topics related to gun ownership and safety. After the classroom instruction, we spent an hour on the range.
What surprised me about this course was that a fair portion of it included instruction on Colorado laws, and specifically, what to do if I were ever in a situation when I needed to discharge my weapon (answer, get a lawyer).
Indeed, even in cases of clear self-defense, legally owning a gun and using it to protect yourself can ruin you financially if the person you shot decides to come after you in court. What’s more, this happens regularly. Someone shoots a would-be perpetrator in self-defense, and the assailant turns around and presses charges.
If the above sounds outrageous to you, you’re not alone. But, owning a gun and using it for protection is not as straightforward as you might think. That’s because while Colorado Democrats in the General Assembly can’t outright ban gun ownership thanks to the Second Amendment, they’ve made fair progress toward making gun ownership impractical. And while Republicans are trying to safeguard Second Amendment rights, they’re facing an uphill battle. Here’s what just happened in the Colorado House of Representatives and why it matters to the overall picture of gun ownership.
Restricting Constitutional Carry
Colorado is currently considered an open carry state. That means if you’re legally allowed to possess a firearm, you can open carry it as long as it’s not in a restricted area. However, in 2021, Democratic lawmakers successfully passed Senate Bill 21-256, allowing local governments and municipalities the right to enact any gun law or regulation it wants, as long as that rule is not less restrictive than current Colorado law.
That means places like Boulder can now legally ban open carry of firearms even though open carry is legal under Colorado’s state law. And indeed, that’s what’s happening. So far, Denver is the only area to prohibit open carry, but liberal places like Boulder will follow.
In response to the above, Representative Ron Hanks (Republican, D-60) introduced House Bill 22-1033, “Constitutional Carry of a Handgun.” If it’d passed, HB 1033 would allow anyone 21 years or older who is legally permitted to own a handgun, to also be permitted to carry that weapon concealed without a concealed carry permit. In other words, if you’re 21 or older and you legally own a gun, you wouldn’t have to attend a class and then get a permit to carry that gun under your jacket. More importantly, HB 1033 would’ve repealed part of SB 256. It stated, “The bill repeals local government authority to regulate open or concealed carry of a handgun, including repealing the authority of special districts and the governing boards of institutions of higher education, as applicable.”
After Hanks introduced HB 1033 to the House, it was assigned to the House Committee on Public & Behavioral Health and Human Services. And on Feb. 8, after less than three hours of deliberation, Democrats voted to postpone HB 1033 indefinitely on a party-line vote.
Republicans’ Hands are Tied
Over the past year, The Maverick Observer has detailed how Democrats in the Colorado General Assembly have worked to increase barriers to gun ownership. And with recent bills like HB 22-1086 successfully making their way through the legislative process (link to be included once my article is published), 2022 will end with even more bureaucratic red tape. Make no mistake, the end goal is to overregulate guns into obscurity.
Republican lawmakers like Hanks have tried to push back on these measures, but because Democrats make up a majority in both the House and Senate, and Colorado has a Democratic Governor, these efforts have almost zero chance of passing and are, essentially, dead on arrival.
If the above concerns you, you can take a number of actions. First, contact your representatives and tell them how you feel about the continued encroachments to your Second Amendment rights. Second, sign up to testify either for or against bills making their way through the legislative process. And third — and arguably the only way to enact change given the current makeup in the General Assembly — vote in November for representatives who support the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
The author finds hisslef in a dissonance quandary.
He’s for gun control, but believes more of it useless as what California has now didn’t work.
He’s for early release -parole- from prison, but is ‘troubled’ by these murders.
He keeps that up and he’s likely to burst a blood vessel in his brain.
One of the alleged shooters in a mass shooting that killed six people in Sacramento last Sunday was released from prison six years early by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, even though the man has a long and violent criminal record.
The Sacramento District Attorney’s office strongly opposed the man’s early release, claiming, correctly, “If he is released early, he will continue to break the law.”
Responsibility for the mass shooting, which killed a homeless woman, lies with Governor Gavin Newsom who appointed the head of the California Department of Corrections, which already reduced California’s prison population by nearly 30,000 inmates since 2019, and is seeking to reduce it by an additional 76,000.
The tragedy could have been prevented had Martin not been released, or been released under strict parole supervision, including electronic monitoring, and unannounced searches of his home by a parole officer for weapons.
“Despite a two-page letter to the Board of Parole Hearings urging that Martin remain in custody,” reports the Sacramento Bee, he won his release and was in Sacramento on Saturday night recording himself on a Facebook Live video brandishing a handgun hours before the shooting.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom used the incident to demand more gun control, tweeting “We cannot continue to let gun violence be the new normal.”
But there is little reason to believe more gun control would have prevented the killing. California already has the most gun control laws of any state. The automatic gun Martin apparently used is already illegal. And there is little reason to think Newsom’s proposal to let individuals sue people who help people get guns would have prevented Martin from getting a gun.
“We must do more than mourn — we must act,” President Joe Biden said on Sunday’s shoot-out in downtown Sacramento that killed six. Biden called on Congress to ban ghost guns, pass “universal” background checks, ban assault weapons, and repeated the lie that gun manufacturers have special immunity from liability.
California already has “universal” background checks. It has “red flag” laws and domestic-violence gun confiscation (often, without any real due process). It has an assault-weapon and magazine ban, deputizing citizens to enforce them. California has safe-storage laws and a ghost-gun ban. The state has a firearm-sales record and the strictest gun-dealer regulation in the nation. It empowers local authorities to further regulate firearms but not to deregulate. It has raised the allowable age even to buy a shotgun or rifle from 18 to 21. In most municipalities, concealed-carry permits are almost impossible to get.
California is home to 111 laws — not counting the thousands passed in cities and counties — that restrict “the manner and space in which firearms can be used,” according to Boston University School of Public Health. “California has the strongest gun laws in the United States and has been a trailblazer for gun safety for the past 30 years,” says Giffords Law Center. The only thing California hasn’t done is outright ban semi-automatic weapons, which is where all these incremental restrictions are meant to lead.
In 2020, then-presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg was asked how he could continue to demand gun control while being protected by private guards equipped with the same firearms and magazines that he wanted to ban others from owning. “Does your life matter more than mine or my family’s or these people’s?” Bloomberg’s response, in essence, was that he was not an ordinary person. He was a celebrity and billionaire who received more threats than most people: “That just happens when you are the mayor of New York City or you are very wealthy.”
At the same time, another big-city Democrat politician known for pushing gun control on the lower orders was being shielded by a small army of police officers, presumably at the taxpayers’ expense. The Chicago Sun-Times recently disclosed that a special police security detail, Unit 544, was created two years ago to protect Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, her home and office, and to “oversee her personal bodyguard detail.” The special unit consists of approximately 71 officers, in addition to the mayor’s existing “separate personal bodyguard detail” of 20 officers.
Both cities – ex-Mayor Bloomberg’s New York City and Lightfoot’s Chicago – are experiencing horrific surges in violent crime. The most recent “CompStat” report from the NYPD indicates rapes, robberies, felony assaults, burglaries, grand larceny, and auto thefts have all increased significantly as compared to the same time last year, and the Chicago Police Department’s (CPD) own “CompStat” contains the same dismal message.
While privileged politicians float above this wave of criminality, untroubled by threats to person or property, less exalted individuals are forced to rely on whatever police resources may be available or become their own version of Unit 544.
Last week in Chicago, for instance, a 70-year-old Uber driver, threatened by robbers who then carjacked his vehicle, had to wait 75 minutes before police could respond. Police assigned to serve the area had been drastically reduced to 261 officers, the “lowest monthly staffing level for the district since at least August 2017,” so no one was available to take the assignment until the next shift began. The problem isn’t restricted to that police district: overall, more than 660 CPD officers retired in 2021, almost double the number of retirees in 2018, and recruiting of new officers dropped during the pandemic. Carjacking reports, meanwhile, have set a new monthly record as of February 2022, up 390% from February 2019.
The impact on public safety is what makes Lightfoot’s private defense force of almost 100 officers all the more outrageous. In 2020, residents had already complained that patrol officers in areas close to Lightfoot’s home were redeployed to the mayor’s residence. It’s at odds with the mayor’s oft-used theme of “all hands on deck” to address public safety using a “coordinated and collective effort,” if scores of the deckhands are used for what amounts to private security work. And Lightfoot herself can’t pretend that police resources aren’t affected, because the creation of Unit 544 coincided with her proposal to cut the CPD budget by $80 million as part of addressing a pandemic–related citywide budget shortfall.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Lightfoot asserts her special police detail became necessary because in 2020, there was “a significant amount of protests all over the city, and some of them targeted [] my house.” (News reports from 2020 indicate that the protests included, ironically, calls to remove police from schools, for reforms to the CPD, and to defund the police.) A 2020 news report quotes Lightfoot defending, as well, the closing off of residential streets around her home to activists, because of threats to her safety. “[T]he situation can’t be compared to protests at former mayor Rahm Emanuel’s home given the pandemic… This is a different time – like no other.”
John Catanzara, president of Chicago’s Fraternal Order of Police, observes that “[w]hile murders are soaring, while districts are barebones for manpower, all that matters [to Lightfoot] is protecting her castle.”
Of course, it is completely reasonable for Lightfoot to take lawful measures to protect herself and her family, the same as anyone else, but her situation is arguably no more dire nor compelling than the crisis of crime faced by every other Chicago resident today.
The problem is that the mayor, and others like her, are the same anti-gun advocates who see no contradiction between demanding ever more pointless restrictions on the ability of constituents to legally access firearms for self-defense, and ensuring their own safety with assigned police bodyguards and armed security. Ordinary citizens don’t need guns because the police will protect them – even if crime climbs to levels not seen in decades and there’s upward of an hour’s wait on a 911 call.
These people would have you believe that this isn’t gun control elitism in action – it’s just that they aren’t like you and me. After all, if you don’t have bread you can always eat cake.
Democrats love mass shootings. It’s their best chance at taking away our guns. We saw it happen in Australia back in 1996 when some wackjob killed 35 people and Australians HANDED OVER THEIR firearms — 700,000 or so to be exact, because, you know, safety, I guess…?
As you have probably heard, a mass shooting in Sacramento, Calif., left six people dead and 15 more wounded. The story isn’t getting a ton of traction because the shooter is most likely not Muslim or white. The media loves when the shooter is a Muslim because terror attacks keep people focused on the news. Lefty media will drag out a mass shooting when the shooter is white because it backs up the lie that most mass shooters are angry, drooling white guys in NRA hats.
That’s right, a lie. As I’ve reported, 67% of mass shooters are black. Most people don’t realize that fact because the Pravda press perpetuates the myth that mass shooters are white dudes who got fired from Denny’s. When people hear “mass shooting,” they assume a white guy flipped out and blazed up a McDonald’s. Democrats want you to believe that. Sure, you heard about the Sacramento shooting, but did you hear about the 11 people who were shot the day before at rapper Big Boogie’s concert in Texas? I didn’t until just now. I’ve never even heard of Big Boogie. I wonder why the media ignored that story? Awww, we know! Let’s put it this way, no MAGA hats were recovered at the crime scene.
FACT-O-RAMA! Stalin, Castro, Mao, and Pol Pot took guns away from their people before slaughtering them. Biden wants to take your guns too. Why? Because he’s a communist and that’s what commies do.
This is how it works: the Democrats let criminals out of jail and then got rid of bail laws to keep them out. They defunded police departments nationwide. Criminals do what criminals do: they shoot people. When there is a mass shooting, Democrats say, “Look! Another mass shooting! Let’s take guns from law-abiding people!”
Let’s pause for a moment and consider how they are simultaneously blaming “ghost guns” (i.e. home-made firearms with no known manufacturer) at the same time they want to hold gun manufacturers liable for guns being used in crimes.
Today, America once again mourns for another community devastated by gun violence. In a single act in Sacramento, six individuals left dead and at least a dozen more injured. Families forever changed. Survivors left to heal wounds both visible and invisible.
I want to thank the first responders in Sacramento, and all those across the United States, who act every day to save lives. We know these lives were not the only lives impacted by gun violence last night. And we equally mourn for those victims and families who do not make national headlines.
But we must do more than mourn; we must act. That is why my Administration has taken historic executive action to implement my comprehensive gun crime reduction strategy — from standing up gun trafficking strike forces to helping cities across the country expand community violence interventions and hire more police officers for community policing.
We also continue to call on Congress to act. Ban ghost guns. Require background checks for all gun sales. Ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Repeal gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability. Pass my budget proposal, which would give cities more of the funding they need to fund the police and fund the crime prevention and intervention strategies that can make our cities safer. These are just a few of the steps Congress urgently needs to take to save lives.
Question O’ The Day. I think the answer just might be ‘Reverse Gears!‘
They’ve banned high-capacity magazines and cracked down on assault weapons. They’ve made it so Californians have to pass a background check to purchase a gun and ammunition. They’ve prohibited buyers from having ammo or “ghost” gun parts shipped directly to their homes.
When it comes to gun laws, California’s legislators have passed some of the most stringent regulations in the country, checking off nearly every box on national gun control advocates’ wishlist.
A mass shooting early Sunday that left six dead and 12 wounded just a block from the Capitol — the very building where these laws were enacted — immediately prompted new calls for legislation to curb gun violence, from California elected officials and gun-control advocates across the nation.
“The scourge of gun violence continues to be a crisis in our country, and we must resolve to bring an end to this carnage,” Gov. Gavin Newsom, who’s already signed 15 gun-control laws, said Sunday in a prepared statement.
The call for action on the federal level reached as far as the White House.
“Ban ghost guns,” President Joe Biden said, expressing his sorrow for the Sacramento victims. “Require background checks for all gun sales. Ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Repeal gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability.”
But what else can California’s lawmakers do to restrict guns that they haven’t already done — and have their laws survive the inevitable challenge by Second Amendment advocates?
Even before Sunday’s shooting, Democratic legislators planned to do more. One new bill, introduced by state Senator Bob Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, would give citizens the “private right of action” to sue gun manufacturers and suppliers. The bill, SB 1327, is modeled after an anti-abortion law enacted in Texas.
State Sen. David Min, D-Irvine, introduced Senate Bill 915, which would prohibit the sale of firearms or ammunition on state property, effectively ending gun shows on 73 state-owned fairgrounds. Previous efforts on a blanket-ban on gun shows at fairgrounds have failed.
“These are all practical actions we can take today to stop gun violence,” Hertzberg said Sunday.
But the fact is, the recent legislation pending in California is relatively modest compared to some of the sweeping reforms that gun-control advocates are demanding in other states and on the federal level — simply because most of the toughest curbs are already part of California law.
Remember when one of the gravest threats to US democracy was the politicization of the DOJ, specifically a President influencing decisions about who should and shouldn't be prosecuted?
Now Biden is publicly pressuring Garland to prosecute Trump, and the same people are swooning: https://t.co/IyCffLs1La
BLUF:
As a direct result of having an ersatz president without any semblance of worthwhile goals or inspired vision, daily life in America is now close to an unmitigated disaster. Absent America’s clear leadership on the world stage, uncertainty and potential catastrophe loom everywhere, around every corner because foreign adversaries are emboldened by our weakness. We are living through the debacle of not having a real president, someone with a clear plan to better the country.
The United States does not have a real president right now. There is an individual named Joe Biden who shows up occasionally and sits in the Oval Office, but in no way can he be considered to be “President” in the traditional understanding of that term. Biden is an ersatz president.
An American president is essentially the CEO of the federal government. He or she sets the overall strategy and direction of the country, outlines and articulates its major objectives and manages the subordinate elements that create the actual policy in order to achieve the big-picture goals laid out by the president. Like any CEO, that person likely doesn’t personally have the specific technical knowledge and expertise on a micro level in a given subject area that his/her subordinates have (nor should a CEO or president get bogged down in that kind of attention-diverting minutia), but the CEO must have an overriding vision of their company’s intended direction and be able to see how the various component parts work together in the proper proportion and timing needed to achieve the stated goals. That holds true as well for the President of the United States.
Donald J. Trump was the prototypically ideal president in terms of setting clear achievement objectives for the country (securing the southern border, becoming energy independent, rebuilding our military, renegotiating advantageous international trade agreements, stopping China from taking unfair advantage of America in trade matters, getting NATO to pay more of its share of its defense needs, etc.) and putting in place the laser-focused personnel required to execute the plan. This was classic large-scale business-style vision and management at its best.
Putting aside the unfounded, irrational personal animosity that his political opponents felt for him for having defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016 and for being direct, rough-edged and unapologetic in his dealings with the liberal media, recalcitrant foreign adversaries and feckless erstwhile “allies,” President Trump’s clear-eyed ambitions for the country led to a very targeted effort with unrelenting emphasis on the ultimate goal.
President Biden’s administration has released a series of documents encouraging gender-reassignment surgery and hormone treatments for minors.
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Population Affairs released a document Thursday titled “Gender Affirming Care and Young People.” The same day, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Child Traumatic Stress Network – another subset of the HHS – released a parallel document titled, “Gender-Affirming Care Is Trauma-Informed Care.”
The HHS documents describe what it calls appropriate treatments for transgender adolescents, including: “‘Top’ surgery – to create male-typical chest shape or enhance breasts;” and “‘Bottom’ surgery – surgery on genitals or reproductive organs, facial feminization or other procedures.”
“Medical and psychosocial gender affirming healthcare practices have been demonstrated to yield lower rates of adverse mental health outcomes, build self-esteem, and improve overall quality of life for transgender and gender diverse youth,” the OPA release states.
The NCTSN document is far longer than the brief outline provided by the OPA, but reiterates the same thought process and explanation for minors receiving alterations to their genitalia.
“For transgender and nonbinary children and adolescents, early gender-affirming care is crucial to overall health and well-being as it allows the child or adolescent to focus on social transitions and can increase their confidence while navigating the healthcare system,” the NCTSN wrote in their release. “It may include evidence-based interventions such as puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormones.”
The NCTSN document goes out of its way to assure the public that the use of gender-affirming methods such as surgery and hormone replacement are not child abuse – most likely in response to recent policy decision in Texas that made such treatments illegal.
“Providing gender-affirming care is neither child maltreatment nor malpractice. The child welfare system in the US, charged with “improv(ing) the overall health and well-being of our nation’s children and families,” should not be used to deny care or separate families working to make the best decisions for their children’s well-being. There is no scientifically sound research showing negative impacts from providing gender-affirming care,” the NCTSN added.
The White House released a video to coincide with the new policies featuring President Biden speaking on the issue of transgender children.
Biden told the parents of transgender children that “affirming your child’s identity is one of the most powerful things you can do to keep them safe.”
Biden also indicated that his administration would fight state laws that limit how transgender athletes may compete, after transgender University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas drew national attention at the NCAA championships.
Such state laws are “simply wrong” and “hateful,” Biden said, adding that his administration is “standing up for transgender equality in the classroom, on the playing field, at work, in our military, in our housing and health care systems – everywhere.”
A Texas judge earlier this month blocked the state from investigating parents who provide medical treatments to help their transgender children transition, according to reports.
Gov. Greg Abbott has called gender-affirming treatments “child abuse” and ordered Texas Child Protective Services to investigate any reported cases. Attorney General Ken Paxton also issued a legal opinion coming to the same conclusion, according to Houston Public Media.
In ordering the temporary injunction, District Court Judge Amy Clark Meachum said the investigations exceeded Abbott’s constitutional authority, noting that such instances had never been investigated before his order.
The notion is people are moving away from proggie controlled places to ‘free America’. Let’s hope they leave those politics behind them too.
Blue cities and states have lost ground since the spring of 2020.
The Census Bureau formally counts the population only once every decade, but it updates its population estimates annually. While those estimates are not always rock-solid, they reflect the best available data — more precise than moving-truck rentals — to show where our people are shifting.
The latest data add the population change for counties between mid 2020 and mid 2021, following the release in December of the population shifts for states. First, the grim national news:
“The population of the United States grew in the past year by 392,665, or 0.1%, the lowest rate since the nation’s founding.”
“33 states saw population increases and 17 states and the District of Columbia lost population, 11 of which had losses of over 10,000 people.”
“More than 73% (2,297) of U.S. counties experienced natural decrease in 2021, up from 45.5% in 2019 and 55.5% in 2020.”
With immigration sharply curtailed during the pandemic, Americans just aren’t reproducing fast enough to make up for deaths from Covid. Some of this is a temporary problem that should get a bit better as things reopen, but it also reflects long-term trends as birth rates fall. The United States remains in an enviable position: We can add as many people as we need just by letting in more immigrants, if we want. But depending too much on immigrants is a poor substitute for a more balanced approach to population growth built around more born-and-raised Americans.
(census.gov)
The boomingest place in America? Idaho. If we measure from April 2020, when the official census was taken, to July 2021, only ten states have grown their population by 1 percent or more:
If you’re keeping score at home, that’s seven states with Republican governors and Republican legislatures, one with a Democratic governor and a Republican legislature, and two with a Democratic governor and Democratic legislature. Of course, political leadership isn’t the only factor; who governs a state doesn’t even fully describe its governing climate, which may be built into long-standing laws. But the pattern is nonetheless pretty pronounced. Most of the growing are states in the Sun Belt or the Rockies with large religious populations.
By contrast, ten jurisdictions (eight states, D.C., and Puerto Rico) lost at least half a percent of their population:
Again, if we are keeping partisan score, the big blue states (New York, Illinois, and California) stick out along with D.C. and Hawaii as the top five slots on the list, with the Democrat-affiliated government of Puerto Rico in seventh place. The rest of the list includes two states with unified Republican governments, one (Louisiana) with a Democratic governor and Republican legislature, and one (Massachusetts) with a Republican governor and Democratic legislature.
(census.gov)
Drilling down to the county level, we see Idaho and the surrounding areas with the strongest growth, as well as big parts of Tennessee, east Texas, north Georgia, and most of Florida outside Miami, but also people fanning out of cities such as New York and D.C. to the surrounding suburbs. The Rockies and the southern Appalachians are doing strongly, as Americans literally headed for the hills; the big cities and the Mississippi Valley took a pounding, and no state suffered as uniformly between its big blue city and its red counties as Illinois.
The hardest-hit counties in population decline, reflecting remote-work patterns and rising crime and housing costs, were dominated by the big blue cities. Four of the top ten were Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn, plus San Francisco and neighboring San Mateo County, Boston, and Jersey City.
What do we see in the booming areas? A lot of communities like The Villages and Myrtle Beach, and nine of the top ten in Florida, Idaho, or Utah.
As I have discussed at some length before, Democrats dodged a bullet by having the census conducted as of April 2020, rather than after a year of pandemic, remote work, and progressive law enforcement. If we take the mid-2021 population figures and run them through the formula for reapportionment, two states gain an additional House seat (Texas and Idaho), while two lose a seat (California and Minnesota). That is likely a net gain of two seats for Republicans in the House, and almost certainly a net gain of two electors in the Electoral College in a normal year.
Without getting too far into the math, these are the districts that just make it, and the ones that just miss, if we run the 2021 numbers:
While California would lose a seat if reapportionment was done as of mid 2021, it would also not be that distant from losing two seats. That is a grim trend for the Golden State if it continues in that direction for the rest of the decade, even at a slower pace post-pandemic. New York may also continue its downward trend, which has been ongoing for quite some time; the state had 45 House seats in the 1940s. Florida and Arizona, by contrast, have edged closer to adding another seat just from growing their populations since the census. In terms of the national balance of political power, this seems like good news for Republicans — but help that won’t arrive until 2032.
At least in the political climate of the moment, if not a decade from now, one thing all of this suggests is that we may see shifts in the relationship between the national popular vote for Congress and the presidency and the outcomes, as the major blue states in the next few years are likely to represent fewer people per House seat than the major red states.
My whole utility bill isn’t even close to $500. SloJoe’s senility strikes again
As sure as the sun rises in the east every day, two things are certain: First, Joe Biden — whose relationship with the truth is arm’s length at best — is going to say something that makes no sense at all, make up something really stupid, exaggerate or minimize the hell out of something, or purposely lie his ass off.
Bank it.
Second, there will be another clean-up in aisle 46. A White House staffer or a senior member of the administration is going to “correct” or explain what Joe meant to say, or didn’t mean to say, while the lapdog media flies wingman.
Bank that, too.
In today’s case in point, as reported by the New York Post, the White House was forced to correct the claim Biden made during his remarks announcing the planned release of 180 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve over the next six months: Americans who use renewable energy to power their homes could save “about $500 a month on average.”
If your home is powered by safer, cheaper, cleaner electricity, like solar or heat pumps, you can save about $500 a month on average.
Just one problem. Not even close to the truth. Biden overstated the estimated savings by $5,500.
Within hours — why hours? — the administration was forced to make a correction: it sent out a transcript of the bumbling Biden’s remarks with the word “month” crossed out and the word “year” added in brackets. According to the Post, the fact sheet sent to reporters prior to the speech contained the correct numbers.
If I were a cynic, I’d suggest Lyin’ Biden does this crap on purpose, knowing full well that more people will see him say “it” than will see a corrected transcript. Nah, that’s giving Corn Pop’s pal far too much credit.
Out of 27,900 research publications on gun laws, only 123 tested their effects rigorously. (‘rigorously’ as only in relation to the others which were unmitigated slop)
‘One (1) heartbeat away………….’ May God have mercy on us
Quip O’ The Day “She has convinced herself that everything she says is deeply profound”
KAMALA HARRIS: "For Jamaica, one of the issues that has been presented as an issue that is economic in the way its impact has been the pandemic…we will assist Jamaica in Covid recovery by assisting in terms of the recovery efforts in Jamaica that have been essential." pic.twitter.com/fmPJFTbKQ6
For the longest time, Vermont stood as a curious exception among states with Democrat- dominated governments, having practically no gun control laws. Constitutional carry was the tradition since the founding of the state and was sometimes called Vermont Carry in the Second Amendment community.
That sadly changed in 2018 when a swathe of new laws like (unenforceable) background checks for private sales, “high-capacity” magazine ban, a bump stock ban, red flag laws, and raising the age requirement were passed, proving to the Second Amendment community that no state is safe from the rapacious Gun Grab Lobby even if it has a centuries-long tradition of unimpeded gun ownership and low violence rates going back to the founding era.
Continuing the assault on the Second Amendment, the Vermont legislature passed a new bill which was signed into law by Republican Governor Phil Scott last week. This new law extends the background check “default proceed” duration from 3 days to 7 days, allowing the government to further delay the exercise of Second Amendment rights when the “instant” background check system doesn’t instantly return a clear answer.
What does a president do when inflation surges under his watch, gas prices are out of control, and his signature legislation has failed miserably ?
Pivot back to scapegoating the rich, apparently.
At least, that’s President Joe Biden’s latest tactic. On Monday, Biden proposed a new “minimum tax” on billionaires. “For too long, our tax code has rewarded wealth, not work, and contributed to growing income and wealth inequality in America,” Biden said in a statement. “Under current law, when an American worker earns a dollar of wages, that dollar is taxed as they earn it. But when a billionaire earns income because their investments increase in value, that gain is too often never taxed at all.”………
Philosophically, I certainly understand the desire not to increase taxes on high earners. But I also understand the reverse, as in they helped in a big way to install this regime, so let them get it good and hard.
……..actual conservatives have very few rich benefactors. They have many more billionaire oppressors.
Mark Zuckerberg used Facebook to silence Trump and other patriots opposed to the fascism rising from the halls of Congress.
Zuckerberg also paid off state election officials to rig the election in Wisconsin.
Twitter censors us as well.
Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post.
Bill Gates is funding biolab research in Red China.
The Internet oligarchs are power-mad.
Clean up in aisle Biden – Clarifying the clarification. One More Time™
All this senile dolt can do is open his mouth and insert his feet.
He’s handed prepared answers, but he still can’t cut it.
The problem is, as POTUS, what he says IS POLICY (until it gets walked back by his lackeys). I wonder what could happen one day, when he might go total alzheimers, get his ‘back up’ in a fit of irate dementia, makes an idiotic decision and then tells his staff where to go when they try to walk it back?
The White House on Monday attempted to clarify what President Joe Biden said to reporters about Americans training Ukrainian troops in Poland.
During a question and answer session with members of the media at the White House, Biden responded to a question concerning his remark last week about what U.S. service members would see in Ukraine, “when you’re there.”
“You’re going to see, when you’re there, and some of you have been there, you’re going to see women, young people, standing in front of a damn tank…” he said.
But when asked Monday to explain what he meant, Biden said he was only talking with American troops about training the Ukrainians in Poland.
“I was talking to the troops. We are talking about helping train the troops in – that are in – the Ukrainian troops that are in Poland,” Biden said. “That’s what the context [was].”
“I was referring to being with and talking with the Ukrainian troops that are in Poland,” he added later in his remarks.
But the White House had to walk that back, after Politico reported on the exchange.
“There are Ukrainian soldiers in Poland interacting on a regular basis with U.S. troops, and that’s what the President was referring to,” a White House official said, clarifying Biden’s remarks.
If the United States is actually training the Ukrainian people, it would be a major development for the United States in the ongoing conflict between Poland and Russia.
Biden has repeatedly discussed American troops being deployed to Poland, but only to bolster NATO defenses, not to take an active role in Ukraine’s defense against Russia.
In December, Politico reported that Biden turned down a plan from the United States military to send in special operations personnel to Ukraine to advise and train the Ukrainians.
The Biden team nixed the idea over concerns of escalating tensions with Russia.
The idea of American troops in Ukraine is not uncommon.
In February, before Russia escalated its war, the Pentagon announced its decision to withdraw 160 members of the Florida National Guard who were in Ukraine training their military.
Of course, with Chicago crime stats like this; Murders up 55%, Shootings up 63%, Carjackings up 204%, her concern may be justified, and I’m not talking about danger from the criminal element, but a fed up citizenry.
For several years prior to 2020, violent crime in America’s major cities was on the decline. But since the riots that summer following the death of George Floyd, it is heading in the opposite direction.
Murders nationwide in 2020 rose a stunning 29.4 percent over the previous year, the largest annual increase since the FBI began tracking that data in the 1960s. The number of murders in Chicago climbed even more sharply, rising 55 percent. It was as if a switch had been flipped. At least ten major U.S. cities hit new murder highs in 2021, but Chicago led the way with 797, the city’s highest number in 25 years.
Chicago’s violent crime epidemic is not limited to murder. The city’s 3,561 shooting incidents in 2021 were up 63 percent over 2019. Expressway shootings in Chicago-Cook County rose even more dramatically, from 51 in 2019 to 130 in 2020 to 273 in 2021. These expressway shootings pushed Chicago’s actual 2021 murder total north of 800.
