On Wednesday, the White House released the details of its so-called student debt “cancelation” plan. President Joe Biden also gave remarks about the announcement later that day. While the president and White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre failed to give a satisfactory answer about the cost, the Committee for a Responsible Budget (CRFB) has estimated that it will cost between $440 billion and $600 billion over the next 10 years.
Wednesday’s release from CRFB, a non-partisan group, noted that it has come to a rough estimate of $500 billion.
The release also spells trouble for any perceived benefits from the “Inflation Reduction Act,” which the organization had positive things to say about. The CRFB’s reference to a law it had praised makes its concerns even more potent.
From this release, with added emphasis:
The changes announced today will likely cost more than double the amount saved through the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, completely eliminating any disinflationary benefit from the bill. We will be releasing an inflation estimate of these student debt changes in a subsequent analysis, but the package is likely to increase inflation by more than a year-long extension of the pause, which we previously estimated would add up to 20 basis points to the Personal Consumption Expenditure inflation rate. The proposed loan changes also do nothing to reduce the amount of borrowing moving forward, setting up a future administration to be called on to cancel debt again.
It is extremely troubling to see the Administration reverse the legislative progress made on deficit reduction. It is long past time that student debt repayments resume, and now it is even more important for policymakers to enact changes that reduce deficits through spending reductions and revenue increases in order to put the national debt on a downward sustainable path.
The organization also released a statement from its president, Maya MacGuineas, which emphasized her disappointment with the move. Her statement began:
This announcement is gallingly reckless – with the national debt approaching record levels and inflation surging, it will make both worse. Policymakers have already spent $300 billion on student debt relief—none of it paid for, and this would add another $400 to $600 billion, again, none of it paid for. This action by the White House is completely at odds with their talk of deficit reduction. It could add twice as much to the deficit as was just saved from the Inflation Reduction Act, completely eliminating any deficit reduction and then some. With the stroke of a pen, the President undid a year’s worth of work on the fiscal front.
Many progressive politicians and organization have referenced student loan debt in the context of how it affects lower-income families as well as minorities. The president in his Wednesday remarks made mention of how “the burden is especially heavy on Black and Hispanic borrowers, who on average have less family wealth to pay for it.”
A Thursday post by CRFB also addressed previous student debt proposals, which actually turn out to benefit upper-class families. “The student debt cancellation proposals that have previously been analyzed are regressive because they provide a disproportionate benefit to higher income and wealthier households. The main reason for this is that people who go to college and beyond are much more likely to earn high incomes and have high lifetime wealth compared to people who don’t go to college,” the post read.
A Brookings report is also mentioned, which found that “the top 20 percent of white non-Hispanic households by lifetime wealth hold 25 percent of all student debt and hold more student debt than all Black/African American households combined. This shows that debt cancellation disproportionately benefits white, wealthier households because those are the people most likely to owe and be paying down their debt.”
The post did acknowledge that Biden’s recently announced proposal could be “less regressive” though and that “it’s not clear at this time how the announced Biden cancellation policy affects the racial wealth gaps.”
Biden Tries Again to Legalize Illegal Aliens Without Congressional Authorization
The Department of Homeland Security has finalized a rule that would grant legal status to 600,000 children of illegal aliens. The new directive would formalize the rule adapted in 2012 during the Obama administration and transform it into federal regulation. It would prevent deportations and grant work permits to those who came to the United States as children.
The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) has been in legal limbo ever since a Texas judge ruled that the program was illegal in the early months of the Biden administration. The new rule going into effect October 31 would codify most of the eligibility rules: applicants must prove they arrived in the U.S. by age 16 and before June 2007, studied in a U.S. school or served in the military, and lack any serious criminal record.
The Texas case is likely to end up in the Supreme Court, where justices already ruled against Donald Trump’s bid to end the program, largely because of a technicality. But this case is based on far narrower Constitutional grounds; only Congress can declare large swaths of illegal aliens as legal. And that argument has a good chance of winning in the high court as it’s currently constituted.
Congress has long been unable to reach any kind of immigration deal that would garner enough bipartisan support to pass the Senate. Last year, the Senate parliamentarian rejected multiple efforts by Democrats to include immigration changes in their party-line social spending bill. And Republican leaders have expressed little interest in Democrats’ attempts at overhauling immigration policy.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who has long pushed for a pathway to citizenship for Dreamers, was quick to applaud the Department of Homeland Security’s issuing the rule. He noted that it provides “some stability to DACA recipients and make[s] it more difficult for a future administration to rescind DACA, which is a lawful exercise of prosecutorial discretion.”
The rule would only apply to DACA renewal requests as the government is blocked from approving any new applications. But the radical immigration advocates want Biden to go long and go big.
But some immigrant advocates expressed frustration that the Biden administration did not go further in its final rule, opting to keep the same criteria from when the program was created in 2012.
“This final DACA rule fails to strengthen the program by not expanding it to include the majority of undocumented immigrant youth who are graduating from high school this year and not eligible for the program because of arbitrary cut-off dates,” said Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, deputy director of federal advocacy for United We Dream.
“While Congress must pass permanent protections for all, President Biden cannot hide behind the courts or Congress. He can take bold action now,” she added.
The rule is still going to face challenges in court, so Biden isn’t hiding very well. He can’t. Congress has the authority to end this argument. But even those Republicans — like Donald Trump — who support DACA in one form or another realize what a loaded political issue it is and will never risk voting for it.
Most people agree that young children should not suffer from their parent’s immigration crimes. But a blanket amnesty would be uncalled for and would be hard to do anyway.
Yessireebob, these ‘red flag’ laws will be just the thing to stop people bent on murder.
Albany murder suspect had guns seized under Red Flag Law
DELAWARE COUNTY, Ind. — An Albany man faces a murder charge after police say he shot his neighbor over a dispute.
The charge comes after police responded to the 9100 block of North County Road 900 East Tuesday. When they arrived, they found Gary Coply had been shot multiple times and was lying up against his house.
A probable cause affidavit filed in the case against Cy Alley details the person who called 911 said they were taking a walk when they saw Cy Alley shoot Coply multiple times before driving away.
When police found Alley, the document said they found a 12-gauge shotgun shell similar to a spent one found at the crime scene in his pocket.
When detectives interviewed Alley, the document said he told them that he has been having trouble with electricity at his home. Alley assumed Coply had been “hacking into his network.”
Alley went to Coply’s home to confront him and the document said he told detectives he got out of his truck with a 12-gague pump shotgun and shot Coply four times, intending to kill him. He told detectives the shotgun was in the back of his truck.
The petition was granted and court records indicate the Muncie Police Department seized a rifle, a shot gun and a revolver from Alley. They are still in police custody.
Along with the murder charge, the court document says the office is seeking an enhanced penalty for use of a firearm in the commission of a crime.
Fact Check: Are Armed Civilians to Blame For Mass Shootings?
USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- Our country has been buried in hoaxes, one after another. Lies have become part of American culture.
They are intended to change our thoughts and actions, even if those changes are not to our benefit. A familiar hoax is that guns and gun owners are dangerous. This hoax is almost invisible; it has become an assumption that politicians use to claim we need more laws to deal with gun violence.
The gun violence hoax is bolstered by pseudo-scientific articles published in medical journals, even in a few criminological journals. A proper scientific article is easily identified because the researcher is honestly searching for truth; unscientific ones use complex scientific language to dress up their biases to prove what they already believe. That’s pseudo-science.
Unfortunately, too many editors and reviewers share this bias against guns, so pseudo-science easily slips through the review process.
Any time journalists need an emotional article about guns, a pseudo-science piece is easily found. It is false but looks convincing. The gun violence hoax gets another boost.
In fact, many articles in scientific journals have been discovered to be fraudulent and unscientific. The problem is even worse in social science and medicine.
Journalists typically ignore complex scientific methodology, so they are easy to fool. Besides, most journalists share the same anti-gun biases.
Fortunately, there are honest, competent academics who can see through the pseudoscientific claptrap and are willing to point out the truth.
A recent dust-up between two researchers in Justice Quarterly is illustrative. For the sake of simplicity, we shall only cite 2 of those feisty articles. First, Emma Fridel, a Florida criminologist, wrote Comparing the Impact of Household Gun Ownership and Concealed Carry Legislation on the Frequency of Mass Shootings and Firearm Homicide. Attempting to clear up her errors, Professor Gary Kleck soon after published a stinging critique, The Continuing Vitality of Flawed Research on Guns and Violence: A Comment on Fridel.
The point to take away from this ‘battle of the boffins’ is that without any math at all, you will be able to understand Fridel’s flaws. It’s that obvious that Fridel fiddled with the books to find the answer she sought, not reality. That’s not science.
Of course you can still detect the antigun bias, but this is a surprisingly more balanced article for a main stream media outlet
Why even more Americans are arming up with AR-15 guns
The AR-15 is one of the most controversial weapons in America.
Lightweight and easily customizable AR-15 style weapons have skyrocketed in popularity in recent years, taking center stage at gun ranges and shooting competitions across the country. Advocates say the weapons are a symbol of freedom, and important for personal safety.
“I am smaller and less capable to handle violence, and a firearm is the great equalizer,” said Dianna Muller founder of the DC Project, which advocates for firearm education. “I go to bed comfortably and do not worry about it at all because I have an AR-15 beside my bed.”
As of 2018, there were an estimated 393 million civilian-owned firearms in the U.S., according to the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey, a government-backed global organization. As of 2020, there were about 20 million AR-15-style weapons in the country, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association.
Firearm manufacturers have seen revenue surge, taking in about $1 billion from the sale of AR-15 style weapons in the past decade.
The weapons have been involved in a number of mass shootings, including at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, earlier this year that killed 19 children and 2 teachers. Critics argue the weapons are aggressively marketed by gun companies targeting at-risk young males.
In an effort to stem the flow of mass shootings, the U.S. House of Representatives last month passed legislation that would ban assault weapons. That measure is likely to face defeat in the Senate.
So what’s behind the popularity of the AR-15, and what responsibility do gun makers have when their products are used in mass shootings? Watch the video to learn more.
Iowa Firearms Coalition applauds the Spirit Lake School Board for plans to arm staff
SPIRIT LAKE, I.A. (Dakota News Now) – The Iowa Firearms Coalition has been working to change security policies in public buildings, claiming the current system has left them vulnerable to attacks. As a result, the Spirit Lake School Board decided to allow members of their on-campus staff to carry guns.
The IFC applauds the decision that was made unanimously by the school board during their Monday meeting. According to a press release from the IFC, 10 staff members who agree to carry and undergo training will be allowed to take part in the program.
“The Spirit Lake School Board clearly loves their children enough to ensure, should tragedy strike, a threat can be addressed,” said IFC President Dave Funk. “We strongly encourage all other Iowa school districts to follow in the footsteps of Spirit Lake. Our children are worth protecting.”
Iowa Code 724.4B, which allows school districts to regulate armed personnel on school grounds, paved the way for Spirit Lake’s decision.
“Having this policy in place serves as a deterrent for anyone who might consider entering our schools with the intent to do harm,” said Spirit Lake Schools Superintendent David Smith in a statement to Explore Okoboji.
Audio of the Spirit Lake School Boarding meeting can be found here: https://bit.ly/3QPs7A4
The Iowa Firearms Coalition, an affiliate of the NRA and NSSF, is a 501(c4) nonprofit and is Iowa’s only effective pro-Second Amendment rights organization.
Gun law grounded in bigotry reveals its roots
It’s telling when your best argument for a new law is to cite discredited laws of the past as part of your rationale.
But that’s just what New York State has resorted to in trying to convince a judge that its plethora of new restrictions making a permit to carry a handgun virtually useless should pass muster.
As the clock ticks down to the Sept. 1 implementation date, the misnamed Concealed Carry Improvement Act will do nothing more than create a new class of law-abiding criminals. And if that phrase sounds oxymoronic, you don’t know New York State – where the second half of that word is often the most operative.
Instead of targeting criminals, the new statute targets law-abiding pistol permit holders, many of whom will become felons simply by ignoring a law that will accomplish nothing except to put their lives at risk and put them in handcuffs.
The fact that in defending the law from a legal challenge, the state’s filing contains a footnote practically disavowing its own arguments tells you all you need to know. But that’s what happens when you try to defend the indefensible restrictions pushed through by Gov. Kathy Hochul and a compliant Democratic Legislature.
What the Mainstream Media Doesn’t Tell Us About Guns
It’s hard to fool an honest man or woman who wants to know the truth. Unfortunately, many of us depend on the media to bring us much of our news, and lying to us — or withholding key parts of the story — today makes it easier to fool us tomorrow.
Most of us feel horrible when we see news stories about violent crime. Beyond the emotional shock of the story, though, we are seldom told what the story means. Is that newsworthy event a common problem or is it rare? Are there good solutions that make us safer most of the time?
Besides the violence shown in movies and TV dramas, it’s almost as if the news deliberately keeps us in the dark about real violence and its causes. We can’t make good choices unless we have perspective. For a minute, let’s shed some light on the reality of armed citizens and guns
We’re told that guns cause crime. That’s odd because a lot of criminals didn’t seem to have gotten the memo. Only one out of twelve violent crimes are committed with a firearm. If someone says they need to disarm honest people in order to stop violent crime, they are going to leave about 92 percent of those violent crimes untouched. No wonder gun control laws don’t make us any safer.
If guns cause crime, then honest gun owners haven’t gotten the message either. Ordinary citizens like us own a lot of guns. About 40 percent of Americans live with a gun in our homes and we own hundreds of millions of firearms that are never used in crimes.
These are the guns you never seem to hear about. The news media don’t want to admit that firearms are ordinary tools that a huge portion of Americans lawfully own and use on a daily basis.
Uvalde school police chief Pete Arredondo was terminated by the district’s board on Wednesday, exactly three months after a shooting at Robb Elementary School that left 19 children and two teachers dead.
Arredondo, who has been harshly criticized for his response to the shooting, did not attend Wednesday’s meeting, his attorney said.
“Chief Arredondo will not participate in his own illegal and unconstitutional public lynching and respectfully requests the Board immediately reinstate him, with all backpay and benefits and close the complaint as unfounded,” Arredondo’s attorney, George Hyde, wrote in a 17-page letter that was sent out less than an hour before the meeting.
Angry parents and family members of the 21 victims voiced their anger at the beginning of the meeting. After Uvalde resident Brett Cross criticized Arredondo for not appearing at his own termination hearing, the crowd yelled, “Coward!”
“Our babies are dead. Our teachers are dead. Our parents are dead. The least y’all can do is show us the respect to do this in the public,” Cross said, pushing the board to hold the termination vote in an open session.
Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steven McCraw identified Arredondo as the incident commander and blamed him for the more than 70-minute delay in confronting the gunman.
Hyde argued in Wednesday’s letter that Arredondo did not consider himself to be the incident commander and wasn’t aware that children were wounded in the classroom.
“It is important to note that Chief Arredondo, along with several other officers in the hallway, were completely unaware of any occupants in the room with the shooter until entry was made, the shooter was engaged, and the officers stopped him,” Hyde wrote.
Arredondo was originally suspended in June and his termination hearing had been delayed twice.
He told a Texas House committee investigating the shooting that he thought the suspect was contained in the classroom.
“Although the encounter had begun as an ‘active shooter’ scenario, Chief Arredondo testified that he immediately began to think of the attacker as being ‘cornered’ and the situation as being one of a ‘barricaded subject,'” House lawmakers wrote in the report.
“With the benefit of hindsight, we now know this was a terrible, tragic mistake.”
Len Dawson, Hall of Fame quarterback who led Chiefs to Super Bowl win, dead at 87.
Len Dawson, the legendary quarterback who led the Kansas City Chiefs to a Super Bowl victory, has died, his family said Wednesday. He was 87.
Dawson’s family released a statement to KMBC-TV, where the retired NFL star worked as a broadcaster.
“With wife Linda at his side, it is with much sadness that we inform you of the passing of our beloved Len Dawson. He was a wonderful husband, father, brother and friend. Len was always grateful and many times overwhelmed by the countless bonds he made during his football and broadcast careers,” his family said in a statement.
If you graduated from Harvard Law School and can’t find gainful employment to repay your debts, that’s on you https://t.co/bgtVhK9yHR
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) August 24, 2022
He's not canceling it, he's forcing the rest of us to satisfy the terms of a loan we neither agreed to nor signed. https://t.co/a4Lj98WUDq
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) August 23, 2022
Self-Defense Exercise: Think Like a Criminal
You can improve your situational awareness by putting yourself in a predator’s shoes.
We talk a lot about situational awareness and the color-code system, and for good reason: They are important tools in helping you avoid scenarios that could turn dangerous. Getting out of a situation before things really go sideways is the best possible self-defense option and keeps you from having to resort to your concealed-carry firearm.
Keeping yourself in a constant state of Condition Yellow in public isn’t always easy, though. It doesn’t come naturally to most of us, and it might feel like a lot of work. It’s easy to start in Condition Yellow but gradually drift off into Condition White as you go about whatever you’re doing, lapsing into obliviousness. The good news is that situational awareness is a muscle you can train. You can get better at it by actively practicing it, and one simple way to do so is by deliberately thinking like a criminal.
As you go about your day, try to look at every person, place and situation from the perspective of a predator. This is a little uncomfortable because, of course, you’re not a predator. You’re not used to looking at people as objects and considering the landscape based on how you can use it for nefarious purposes. But give it a shot.
Texas robbery victim shoots and kills suspect who pulled gun on him
SAN ANTONIO – A young man is dead after being shot in the neck by a man defending himself during a robbery attempt early Friday morning.
The shooting happened around 3:30 a.m. at the Doral Club Apartments off Culebra Road near Ingram Road on the West Side.
Police said a man arrived home at the apartment complex when he noticed a vehicle circling the parking lot. A silver car pulled up and three young men got out of the car, all pointed guns at the victim and demanded all his stuff.
The victim didn’t comply, instead, pulled out his own gun and shot one of the young men in the neck. One of the young men got back in their car and drove off and the other took off running through the apartment complex.
The young man who was shot was rushed to the hospital in critical condition, but later died from his injuries.
A search for the other suspects turned up nothing.
As of right now, the victim is not facing any charges. The investigation is still ongoing.
The Galveston National Laboratory (GNL), part of the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) and funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), focuses on “dangerous pathogens” with the “potential to be used as weapons around the world.”
This same GNL signed agreements with three Chinese labs, including the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), that gave China the power to destroy “secret files, materials and equipment, without any backups. “The agreements applied to “all cooperation and exchange documents, data, details and materials,” were renewable every five years, and the confidentiality terms remaining in force even after termination.
As The Epoch Times reports, the UTMB now concedes that officials signed “poorly drafted” agreements, and that the signing could violate Texas law. Also in play are violations of a more serious order.
The Galveston National Lab is a 2008 creation of NIAID, the division of the National Institutes of Health headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci since 1984. Dr. Fauci funded dangerous gain-of-function research, which makes viruses more lethal and transmissible, at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, controlled by Communist China and not accountable to American officials.
In addition to some $4 million in U.S. funding, which Fauci laundered through Peter Daszak’s EcoHealth Alliance, the WIV received a cargo of deadly pathogens courtesy of Dr. Xiangguo Qiu. As Israeli molecular biologist Dr. Dany Shoham documented in China and Viruses: The Case of Dr. Xiangguo Qiu, the Chinese scientist came to head the special pathogens program at Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg.
The viruses that were “surreptitiously shipped from the NML to China included Machupo, Junin, Rift Valley Fever, Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever, and Hendra. In 2017-18 alone, Dr. Qiu made at least five trips to the Wuhan lab.
NIAID boss Fauci promotes the theory that the COVID-19 virus arose naturally in the wild. This is pure speculation, not science, which involves observation, testing and replication. Centers for Disease Control director Dr. Robert Redfield found evidence of a laboratory origin for COVID. That resulted in death threats, but no word of any FBI investigation. More recently, evidence for a lab origin has been mounting.
We’re told 18 year olds aren’t emotionally responsible enough to own firearms. But a toddler can “come out” at age 2, and decide at age 10 to have “sexual surgeries” at 16, when still a minor. pic.twitter.com/3ngN6Pkv2g
— Jay Caruso (@JayCaruso) August 23, 2022
The promoters of this state constitutional amendment have missed the boat, purposefully, or not I don’t know.
SCOTUS, in Bruen ended the tiers of judicial scrutiny for fundamental rights, specifically RKBA and mandated ‘Text, History and Tradition‘ instead. If this state constitutional amendment were passed, it could be opposed on U.S. Constitutional grounds as SCOTUS in McDonald incorporated RKBA, protected by the 2nd amendment, onto the states.
This needs to go back for editing.
Iowa gun rights amendment: What a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote could change
Iowa voters in November will be asked to add language to the Iowa Constitution that states it is a “fundamental individual right” to keep and bear arms, and that any restraint on that right is invalid unless it meets the stringent demands of “strict scrutiny.”
A new coalition of gun safety advocates warns the pro-gun amendment will prohibit reasonable safety measures that Iowans support, such as firearm safety training, universal background checks and a license to carry a gun in public.
Republicans have argued for the measure for years, saying Iowa is one of only six states without protections in its constitution for the right to keep and bear arms.
Democrats and gun-safety advocates contend Republicans are misleading Iowans when they say the amendment is equivalent to the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The “strict scrutiny” language, they say, could prohibit reasonable safety measures that many Iowans support and could lead to courts overturning gun restrictions already on the books.
“Inserting gun rights with strict scrutiny into the (Iowa) Constitution would tip the balance of power, elevating access to guns above public health and safety,” said Connie Ryan, executive director of Des Moines-based Interfaith Alliance of Iowa and a member of the Iowans for Responsible Gun Laws coalition. “This is unacceptable and, quite frankly, it is dangerous.”
The Iowa Firearms Coalition, a gun-rights advocacy group, said in a statement that, “U.S. courts have long recognized that the right to keep and bear arms is a fundamental right that preexisted the Constitution and which is protected — not granted — by the Second Amendment. Although it is the ultimate guarantor of our other rights, Iowa is one of only six states that do not protect that vital right in their constitutions.”