Iowa legislative season grinds to an end

Meat grinder seems the appropriate term in that important matters that could and ought to have been hammered out by assiduous communication among the legislators before and during the normal four month “season” are left to what amounts to the “leaderships” determination in extended weeks.

Do these guys and gals not pay attention to their responsibilities out of session? Is there no legislative whip structure or effective reticulation with dependable policy groups to get this stuff worked out coherently going into the session?

True, Iowa has a citizen legislature, a good thing, but lackadaisical part-time-career citizen legislature ought not to be the approach either, leaving so much to “leadership” at the end.

At this writing most legislators have been cooling their heels back home waiting to be called back (since their per diems and clerk funding ended) relying on “leadership” to deign to tell them what they say has been worked out.

The legislative process is not pretty during the regular session but in this time period it is essentially sausage grinding by leadership with citizens in the dark not knowing what goes in, producing pretty much a take it or leave it result when the bulk of the legislators are called back in. That results in having to vote on some ineffective impatient compromised crap, leadership’s crap, or otherwise ill-considered but “must do” stuff under pressure from interest groups with their lack of insightful leadership.

Three critically important matters near and dear to us may fall into this critique (we hope not but will see). They are issues revolving around the Iowa Constitution and the ability of the legislature to regulate abortion,  the matter of private funding of official election activities, and matters relating to mask and vaccine mandates or passports.

More on these in a latter post(s)

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Rage AT the NeverTrumpers is a good and deserved thing

If you have  not read this latest Conrad Black article at American Greatness you must. We set it down below in order to ease reference to what we see as particularly insightful or otherwise important to emphasize points (set in bold black).  Doing so also gives us a framework to annotate a small bit of contention ( in blue) we have with one or two statements (in red) of our better, Lord Black.

Rage of the NeverTrumpers

May 18, 2021

Their fury now is designed to assuage their guilt. It will not succeed, even in that.
By Conrad Black

The apparent suicide plunge of U.S. Representative Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) appears to be the psychopathic backlash of NeverTrumpers who are starting to realize Donald Trump’s defeat in November and the allegations he was attempting to overturn the election by provoking an “insurrection” at the Capitol on January 6 do not bring back the Republican Party of the Bushes and McCain and Romney, as those families seem to imagine. This is only the first shoe dropping. It will soon be followed by the realization of the role the NeverTrumpers have played in shackling the country and the Western world to the unfolding disaster of the Biden presidency.

Like Brutus charging out of the Roman Senate on the Ides of March, 44 B.C., holding up two bloodied knives and expecting to be applauded after proudly shouting to a distracted group of observers that they had assassinated the tyrant, Cheney acknowledges she voted in support of the Trump Administration over 90 percent of the time, but that her reverence for the rule of law requires her to oppose the “Big Lie.” This lie, she insists, is that there is some question about the legitimacy of the election result. She also holds that there can be no question that Trump attempted to launch a violent assault on the vital processes of the U.S. electoral process by inciting the invasion and vandalization of the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

Since—as with Brutus, who shortly had to flee Rome never to return—the majority of Republican voters are not persuaded of the fairness of the election or the effective and dispositive performance of the judiciary, or the anti-Trump take on January 6, Cheney is reduced to taking comfort from the efforts of the cheerleading choristers like Peggy Noonan, telling Cheney and Noonan’s readers that Trump really doesn’t represent many people and is fading quickly.

Reality Trumps Comforting Reassurances

There isn’t much evidence of this and, in any case, it should not be counted upon in the face of Joe Biden’s crumbling regime.

A very large number of Americans are disconcerted to see 80 percent of the gas stations in Washington, D.C. closed for lack of fuel, and the Russian thugs responsible for the closure dutifully paid their ransom money by the hacked pipeline’s owners. They are disconcerted by a 944 percent increase in April, year over year, in illegal entries across the southern border. They cannot fail to notice a 75 percent shortfall from projections of new jobs for April. Nor can they be assured by a rate of inflation, if properly calculated, of approximately 12 percent. This is the emerging level of performance by the new administration that will cause recollections of President Trump to become fonder rather than more censorious.

The Real Big Lie seeks to suppress the fact that all 29 of the lawsuits over the presidential election that addressed the integrity or constitutionality of the electoral counting process were left unadjudicated. They were not heard for process reasons: late filing, lack of time to hear them, the wrong defendant, the procedural finding that challenges had to begin at the lowest courts and wend their way upwards, or lack of standing to hear the cases. Most of these objections were spurious and cowardly. The fact is, the judiciary abdicated its duty as a coequal branch of American government. It presumably did so for political reasons as overturning a presidential election result would indeed have been extremely controversial.

It may have been, politically, the correct call—making it unlikely that there will be a serious effort to pack the Supreme Court. But that is not the role of the justices of all the courts involved—they have not been placed in their life-positions on the benches of the country’s highest courts to be politicians. That is the ultimate response to Liz Cheney’s tired and hypocritical pieties about the rule of law.

The Lamest Insurrection Ever

As for an insurrection, in the United States that would require control of the Armed Forces, the media, and much of the vast apparatus of the federal government. That’s what happens in the countries where there is a vulnerability to coups d’état.

Trump urged his followers, aggrieved as he and they were at what they all thought, with some reason, to be a tainted election result, to demonstrate “patriotically and peacefully.” He did not counsel and gave no support nor knew anything about the hooliganism that occurred. It would have gone nowhere if House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) or Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser had paid any attention to the requests the chief of the Capitol Police made in the preceding days for reinforcements. It would be gratifying if the same self-elevated custodians of American political virtue had managed any comment at all on the “peaceful protests” of last summer, which killed at least 50 people, wounded more than 2,000 police, and caused billions of dollars in damage. Where was the rule of law then as the police were being defunded by the Democrats?

As emotionalism subsides, the grim facts of the Biden Administration’s incompetence and mendacity grow more onerous, degrading, and cringe-worthy, and the soufflé of Trump-hate settles, the absurdity and futility of the anti-Trump Republicans will become unimpeachably clear.

The frustrations of the Trump-haters in both parties now take the form of reproaching Republicans for wanting the former president to campaign for them in the midterm elections next year, and in reproaching the Trump supporters for causing the Republican Party to tear itself apart. This, too, is nonsense: those who want Trump‘s support in the midterm elections only do so because they realize how necessary it is to Republican victory, and the Republican Party is not tearing itself apart at all.

The ex-president is conducting himself with commendable restraint. His support is not declining appreciably and will not, especially as the screaming horror of the Biden presidency sinks in on its victim-electors. Meantime, Republican leadership is taking the position that there are legitimate concerns about the last election but there is no point in debating them further and all Republicans should focus on bringing their party back in the midterm elections and in 2024.

If an accurate summation, and we suspect it is,  “leadership” will miss the boat again.  “No point in debating them further”  referring to Trump supporters’ election concerns,  is pathetic. What do they think drives people to the polls?  Yes Biden’s record is horrific but why be silent about another outrage that leads people to the polls and voting in the most fraud-resistant method — in person on election day.

How deflating to be represented or lead by people who discount election integrity issues. Declining to debate a red-meat topic, undercuts  the seriousness of the charges, impliedly is weak and may be viewed as just more establishment cluelessness. It is not a mere rehash to point out the necessity of avoiding early voting by mail and to point out the Democrats fraudulent activities.  McCarthy and McConnell do not have the luxury of  widespread trust.

Cheney and her followers are not numerous or credible enough to tear anything but a marginal corner off the Republican Party as it moves in the direction Trump pointed it: pitching directly to blacks, Hispanics, and working and middle-class Americans. It is a winning formula on a rising trajectory, and it is not accessible to the McRomBush (and Cheney) Republicans as they disappear into the mists of the party’s less successful past.

There is an argument to be made for trying to persuade Trump to confer his benediction on another candidate who would thus be much indebted to him, and to do the necessary to make that candidate a unitary Republican figure. In this, Cheney inadvertently shows the way: the Trump policy with a less disruptive personality but with whom Trump is congenial.

Long before serious consideration needs to be given to the next presidential nominee, however, Trump will flex his muscles in the midterm elections next year. He will demonstrate that he is the only person in the country for whom 50,000 Americans will stand outdoors in raw weather to wait for the chance to see and listen to him. Unless he does something to damage his franchise, none of the other plausible Republican nominees will announce until Trump says that he will not run. If he does not say that, he will probably be renominated and reelected.

That is what drives the NeverTrumpers to these insane acts and utterances: in policy terms, he was very good and it is clear that his opponents wounded but did not kill him. In their mindless hate, they inflicted this terrible regime on the country. Their rage now is designed to assuage their guilt. It will not succeed, even in that.

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Fun with Baseball Statistics

Fauchi as secret weapon of Yankee haters — here at opening game between the Nats and the Yanks (he also threw out the first pitch)

Fun with Baseball Statistics

By David Hartsuch, MS MD

The probability that a certain batter will hit 3 home runs with 6 times at bat can be calculated using a statistical distribution known as the binomial distribution.  This tells us what the likelihood of k events occurring out of n independent trials given that p is the probability of each event occurring.

Let’s consider the Yankees–Not batting averages but their recent COVID-19 outbreak.  What are the odds of 8 players out of a roster of 26 “fully vaccinated” players getting COVID-19?  Isn’t that what the vaccine is supposed to prevent?  The probability should be zero. shouldn’t if?

The “experts” claim that this is due to contact with unvaccinated persons.  Could these vaccinated players transmit it to each other? They say this is why we all need to be vaccinated. Let’s test their hypothesis.

The State of New York now registers 486 thousand active cases out of a population of 19.45 million giving us an active infection rate of about 2.5%.  Out of a cohort of 26 unvaccinated players we would expect 26 x .025 = .65 players to have COVID-19. The probability of 8 of 26 players to independently get the disease without spreading to each other according to the binomial distribution is 8.1e-9, or effectively zero.  This means that the players must have either transmitted it to each other or caught it from a common contact.

A recent new article said that experts claim that the outbreak shows that the vaccine is working. Really? How? The J&J vaccine which the players received touts an 86% efficacy.

A meta-analysis of 22 studies of transmission among family members living in the same household published in October of 202 showed that the overall transmission of COVID-19 among newly diagnosed unvaccinated family members is less than 18%.  Assuming the Yankee players are like an unvaccinated family we would only expect 5.5 members sick. ( .18 x25 contacts + one sick member) but if the vaccine is 86% effective that number should drop to 1.6. (.18 x (1-.86) x 25 +1)  But according to the binomial distribution the probability of this event assuming one sick player is only 1.2e-07. (again, zero)

The attack rate of the Yankees was 8/26 or 30.8% which is nearly double the 18% transmission rate among family members.  Is it possible that the vaccine increases the transmission rate or perhaps we should consider another possibility to which the experts have been silent throughout this pandemic—that the disease is being intentionally spread—bioterrorism. Afterall, the cases arose simultaneously across the country, and have shown linear rather than exponential growth.  Normally, a highly contagious disease spreads like wildfire and infects everybody in 16 – 20 weeks and is gone.

This disease stopped spreading soon after the November election and before the introduction of the COVID-19 vaccinations.  The number of new cases peaked at 300,000 new cases on Jan. 10th, 2021.  At that time, almost no one was vaccinated.  By February 17th, the number of new cases fell to 70,000 or only 23% of its peak. However, by that time only 4.7% of the population was fully vaccinated and only 8% of Americans had had the disease leaving 88% of Americans still susceptible.  But the experts say that herd immunity can only be reached when everybody is vaccinated.

They say that statistics don’t lie, but what about our experts?\

Maybe the air ball he threw at the Nats/Yanks game was a bio-weapon actually aimed at the Yankee bullpen?!

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“THE OPENING “FLUSH” OF “NUMBER 2 SHOULD BE EASY TO DO” ?

“THE OPENING “FLUSH” OF “NUMBER 2 SHOULD BE EASY TO DO” ?

The subtext of the first sentence here is that Biden is simply not up to the give-and-take of a conversation with a foreign leader. No wonder Vice President Harris seems to be the person who is making personal contact with foreign leaders.

“The timing of the Times story is interesting, as Biden’s “honeymoon” period looks to be over, his ambitious legislative and spending agenda is in trouble on Capitol Hill, and multiple self-induced crises are piling up in ways that bring back memories of the ineptitude of Jimmy Carter.”
——————-

PowerLine’s report on a curious NY Times article presenting a “devastating” picture of the Biden presidency. Is the Times “prepping the battle space” for the removal of Biden and the coronation of “Colace” Harris as the 47th president ?   dlh

By Steven Hayward

NY TIMES: SLOW JOE GETTING SLOWER

The New York Times has a remarkable story out this weekend that offers its typical “behind the scenes” construction of how the White House operates—in this case, under President Biden. While the story tries to soften the blows with lots of fluff and filler, it paints a devastating picture of Biden for the careful reader. It explains he has a quick temper, takes a long time to make decisions, and needs to be heavily propped up by staff to function. It reminds us that Biden is indeed a creature of the Senate, where he mostly attended hearings, made speeches, fiddled with legislation, and seldom made any decisions that suggested executive skill (Quick—can anyone name a major piece of Biden legislation? The crime bill of 1994? Likely written mostly by the Clinton Justice Department. The bankruptcy reform bill of 2007? Likely written largely by Delaware-based banks. You get the picture.)

Here’s one early paragraph:

On policy issues, Mr. Biden, 78, takes days or weeks to make up his mind as he examines and second-guesses himself and others. It is a method of governing that can feel at odds with the urgency of a country still reeling from a pandemic and an economy struggling to recover.

One passage details weeks and weeks of meetings, briefings, and deliberations about how to confront Putin, culminating with this astonishing paragraph:

In the end, Mr. Biden called Mr. Putin directly and then delivered a public statement on Russia sanctions that lasted only five minutes and 49 seconds. For as much as Mr. Biden projects an aura of ease — with his frequent backslapping, references to Irish poetry and liberal use of the phrase “c’mon, man” — his aides say it takes a lot of behind-the-scenes work to prepare him to project an assured demeanor.

The subtext of the first sentence here is that Biden is simply not up to the give-and-take of a conversation with a foreign leader. No wonder Vice President Harris seems to be the person who is making personal contact with foreign leaders.

The timing of the Times story is interesting, as Biden’s “honeymoon” period looks to be over, his ambitious legislative and spending agenda is in trouble on Capitol Hill, and multiple self-induced crises are piling up in ways that bring back memories of the ineptitude of Jimmy Carter.

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Softening up America — an advertising slogan to fit the times

NUMBER 2 SHOULD BE EASY TO DO

It appears that the Democratic Party has taken a page from the current commercials being run by a well-known stool softener.

When the Party was actively trying to choose its candidate for president who could beat Donald Trump in the 2020 election, they already had someone in mind.

Unfortunately the person the Democrats had in mind to become the 46th president of the United States was someone the ‘rank and file’ of the party not only didn’t want, but couldn’t stand.

Consequently that would -be candidate received such few votes in the various state primaries that she was the first to be forced to drop out.

So…the Party ‘movers and shakers’ were near panic…”what to do?”, they asked themselves.

Riding to the rescue was the somewhat unlikely figure, 80 year old James Enos Clyburn, Democrat congressman from South Carolina.

The very influential African-American, Clyburn came up with what to the Party’s “wise men and women” was a brilliant plan to rescue his party’s desired candidate,,,bizarre and unconventional as it seemed.

It was Clyburn who came up with the plan and it was he who actually put it into motion.

“Big Jim” was the one who had the idea that if the Party could get its main body of followers…those least informed and most gullible to get behind a candidate, any candidate, the Party would achieve its goal, Clyburn figured, The candidate Clyburn chose was one whom the wiser Democrat politicos believed was not only a ‘has-been’ in presidential politics, but actually a ‘never-was’ because he has been, for years, more of a laughing stock among American voters in general, but even among his fellow Democrats.

Although he had served as Obama’s Vice President for 8 years, Clyburn’s pick had been a miserable failure in his own past bids for “THE” candidacy.

It was fairly common knowledge among members of his Party that Clyburn’s pick was so successful in election and reelections to a Senate seat because he represented a small state with fewer voters than many congressional districts, and his family name was probably among the few that was widely known in Delaware.

Although, also, his name had become well-known in national politics because of his seniority-won Senate prominence. However, he was best known as a fool who often stuck his foot in his mouth with inappropriate, often widely offensive remarks so much that he became best known as a “gaffe machine”. He was selected by Obama as his running mate because Obama believed in his own omnipotence and intellectual superiority that he didn’t need a competent person in his number 2 position.

So, when Jim Clyburn shared his plan with Democratic elders, they saw its wisdom immediately.

With this person as the party’s nominee, they were sure that , to the national electorate and with the all out help of an ideologically compatible national media , this individual could be ‘sold’ as a “nice guy”, calmer and morally superior to his incumbent opponent, he would be seen as “a national ‘uncle’…a guy who would bring “normalcy” to the affairs of government; a guy whose “gaffes” were so goofy that they tended to make him “appealing” to ‘regular’ folks…many of whom saw in this prominent public figure some of themselves, recognizing they, too, from time to time, said dumb stuff.

The party ‘geniuses’, like Clyburn, also saw that here was the perfect ‘foil’, a somewhat unlikely “Trojan Horse” (or at least that part of a horse often used to describe their would be candidate) who would be perfect for the ultimate goal they all sought…the eventual, and early, ascendancy of the individual they all really wanted in the Oval Office.

And so, the Party “leaders’ readily adopted the “Clyburn Strategy”

To the Black voters of South Caroline, Jim Clyburn ‘their guy’ in Washington, greatly respected by Black voters nationally, gave his “candidate”, Joseph Robinette Biden the boost he needed for the Party’s nomination for President.

But, the ‘blessing’ was granted only after, securing from the hapless, senile, barely coherent Biden, his agreement to not campaign publicly, to make only policy promises first approved by Party leadership, to “campaign”under tightly controlled conditions, mostly from his home and primarily from tightly managed formats, and, most importantly, to name as his running mate, the individual the Party had chosen as its desired nominee for President.

Of course, Biden agreed in full to those terms, even though it is likely he didn’t know exactly what they were and was incapable of understanding them even if he did.

And so it came to pass that an overwhelming vote by the Blacks in its primary, South Carolina, due almost entirely to Clyburn’s endorsement, vaulted Joe Biden from near elimination, again, as a candidate to the top prospect for the Democratic Party’s 2020 nominee.!

Many Republican and Trump-leaning voters were delighted!

The Democrats would be naming the worst candidate in recent history as their nominee for President in the 2020 election.

(Personal note: I was among those who hailed this development. I thought, surely, no American, even only modestly informed and reasonably intelligent would think of voting for this boob. Joe Biden was devoid of any redeeming qualities to be the leader of the greatest and strongest nation on earth. Perverse toward women in his personal and public life, abjectly wrong in virtually every major government policy decision in his career, contemptual of any political opponent, and weak in every conceivable phase of the decision making process, I was convinced that he would be seen as the biggest and worst political joke any Party has ever attempted to play on the American people in the nation’s history!)

Most people, as I, who have respected America’s political process and the wisdom of the average American voter, it turns out, were wrong…Joe Biden became the 46th president of the United States.

The cynical “strategy” of Jim Clyburn and of the Democratic Party’s leaders will soon become our nation’s grim reality.

Their “true candidate”…the dishonest, America-hating, divisive, incompetent ‘civil servant’, giggly Kamala Harris, will soon become America’s 47th president.

From the #2 position in our nation’s government to the world’s most important job…elevated due to the complete physical, mental, and temperamental inability of a pathetic Joe Biden.

Clyburn’s “strategy, effectively summarized can be accurately described by the nation’s now best-known producer of the stool softener known as Colace, and its’ advertising slogan: NUMBER TWO (Harris to #1) SHOULD BE EASY TO DO,

And history will show, sadly, that it was. dlh

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All’s well. Democrats must be proud

Via Gary Bauer at Campaign for Working Families

Biden’s Open Borders

After 500,000 illegal aliens crossed our southern border this year, some media outlets yesterday reported that the Biden Administration had “seen the light” and would begin construction of a small portion of border wall. 

I was skeptical when I saw the report, and I was right to be skeptical. The administration rushed to reassure its radical left-wing base that it is only reinforcing a levee. There will be no additional border wall construction. 

In fact, the Biden Administration announced last month that it is reallocating funds that Trump set aside to build the wall.

This administration has zero interest in stopping the crisis at the southern border. To them, mass illegal immigration is not a crisis. They want not 500,000 but millions of illegal aliens pouring into the country because these future voters will be grateful to the left. 

That’s why amnesty is a top priority for the left. It is central to their long-term strategy to fundamentally transform America.

Don’t Believe Your Lying Eyes

Our founding fathers intended the “free press” to be a vital check against overreaching government. Unfortunately, the “mainstream media” is anything but a “free press” dedicated to good government. 

And it’s striking just how confident this administration is that the media are willing partners in its agenda. It’s the sort of thing you see in totalitarian regimes, particularly under communism.

For example, the Biden White House has spent more time trying to avoid referring to the border as a “crisis” than securing the border. Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of homeland security, insists with a straight face that the border is closed. 

But we just learned that 178,000 illegal aliens were apprehended in April, and many more were not apprehended. Plus, many who were caught are being allowed in. 

That IS NOT a closed border!

Meanwhile, as gas stations were closing left and right in more than a dozen states, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm denied that we had a gas shortage, saying, “We have a supply crunch.” Oh, okay. That’s makes it all better.

There are multiple states where 50% or more of the gas stations are closed. There are lines that go on for blocks. Fights are breaking out as people get frustrated waiting for $7 a gallon gas. 

And the Biden Administration refuses to admit that their hostility to pipelines is wrong. In fact, their allies like Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer are still trying to close even more pipelines!

Every small business owner in America will tell you that they are having an extremely hard time finding people willing to take available jobs. It’s not surprising that a person who can get paid almost as much or more staying home will do so instead of going to work. 

But the White House continues to insist that there is no evidence that unemployment benefits on steroids have anything to do with the fact that there are eight million job openings but only 266,000 people were willing to accept job offers last month.

And if you had any doubt at all that the media were eager “team players,” we learned this week that they must clear certain reports past the Biden White House, which reserves the right to edit quotes or veto their use entirely. 

No self-respecting journalist would ever agree to such a demand. But there are virtually no journalists in the “mainstream media” today. Most reporters are left-wing hacks, more than happy to spread the administration’s propaganda.

More good news for Dems to be proud of:

Hyperinflation? ONE QUARTER of Money in Circulation Has Been Created Since January 2020

We Have Left God Out of Our Culture and Are Reaping the Consequences

Biden Regime Reverses Trump Policy, Doles Out Chi-Com Virus Relief to International Students, Illegal Aliens

Amid Multiple Growing Crisis, Biden Regime Apparatchiks Declare Nearly Non-Existent ‘White Supremacy’ is the Greatest Threat to America

And these are just a sampling!  And as for the Republicans who could find no reason to insist on forensic voter audits, well join the Democrats and be ashamed.

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The last institutional bastion of conservatism . . .

  • Being hammered into submission
  • Dire warning

Off the rails: Dem Sen. Chris Murphy boldly proclaims that ‘China is gaining on us so rapidly’ because their trains run on time

Corporal Klinger* merely quaint, or clairvoyant?

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Food prices are soaring and Harris-Biden want to take more land out of production

  • We wonder, is Bill Gates going to have us pay for his land acquisitions?

Excerpts from Stu Cvrk writing at RedState:  (Graphic not part of article)

More Acreage in CRP? What Could Go Wrong? 

The pace of the America Last policies implemented by the Hologram’s mad regime continues unabated. While most of the public focus is on big-ticket items like welcoming a flood of illegal aliens after dissolving the US-Mexico border, raising gasoline prices by shutting down pipelines and drilling access on public lands, and destroying US military readiness by turning it into a “woke” organization, there are a whole host of smaller but nevertheless important actions that have gone virtually unnoticed. And all of those are intended to have deleterious effects on Americans, too.

One of those is a recent decision by the US Dept of Agriculture to try to persuade US farmers to put another four million acres into the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP):

The Biden administration hopes to convince farmers to set aside four million more of acres of land for conservation this year by raising payment rates in an environmental program, but farmers said surging crop prices make it a tougher sell.

The push to enroll more land into the 36-year-old Conservation Reserve Program is a part of the administration’s campaign to counter climate change.

In the voluntary program, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) pays farmers a yearly rent not to grow crops on environmentally sensitive land for 10-15 years as a way to prevent soil erosion, sequester carbon, reduce nitrogen runoff and provide habitats for wildlife.

About 21 million acres are enrolled in the program, below the Congress-set limit of 25 million acres. The cap will gradually increase to 27 million acres by 2023.

To entice farmers to add 20% more acres in 2021, the USDA is expanding the number of incentivized environmental practices allowed under the program, along with raising payment rates, the agency said.

The order also calls for the establishment of a Civilian Climate Corps Initiative to put a new generation of Americans to work conserving and restoring public lands and waters, increasing reforestation, increasing carbon sequestration in the agricultural sector, protecting biodiversity, improving access to recreation, and addressing the changing climate.

. . .  Still think the CRP increase and the 30×30 Plan have nothing to do with “climate change”? Neatly bundled in an EO expressly dealing with climate change. And note that second bullet. Maybe the Hologram et al. are planning ahead on what to do with all the unemployed after they destroy the US economy through hyperinflation and massive tax increases. Somewhere FDR is smiling, as the Democrats appear to be laying the foundation for a new Civilian Conservation Corps patterned after the public work relief program put in place during the Great Depression. Except the new focus will be on “climate control” public works.  . . .

. . . With these rising prices, farmers are making real money for the first time in years, and most Americans want farmers to earn a fair living for their sweat and hard work. Grain prices affect the cost of beef, pork, turkeys, and chickens. It is simple economics: higher grain prices result in higher meat prices. What the US government should be doing is incentivizing crop production, not curtailing it. We should also be expanding US cattle and hog herds and turkey and chicken flocks in order to keep food prices stable while also exporting to meat-importing countries. Taking even marginal land out of agricultural production is a mistake. [Note: a lot of land previously considered to be “marginal” has been improved for productive cultivation over the years through diligent hard work.]

Finally,other grain exporting countries like Brazil, Argentina, and Australia will be enticed to plant more acres to meet world demand if the US sets aside additional acreage in CRP. Maybe that is one unspoken purpose behind the Hologram’s CRP push – another America Last policy. Good for foreign farmers; not so much for American farmers. And if the Hologram regime’s 30×30 Plan (and CRP) goal is to help “halt climate change” in response to the “climate crisis panic porn” being purveyed by CNN by taking US acreage out of production, how is that goal achieved if other countries merely make up the difference?

But then Democrats always seem to ignore the law of unintended consequences in their misguided policies. And, as more and more Americans are recognizing, the Democrat Party is all about America Last.

No sale on the increase in CRP acreage and the 30×30 Plan! More development for agriculture and other land use purposes means more jobs and economic growth while minimizing food price inflation. America First!

We are aware of a situation in a neighboring state that ought to raise red flags. A person in a position to know related to us how an individual, already up there in years, in his retirement bought some tillable farm land as an investment.  He as the owner has never grown a crop on it nor did he rent it out for others to do so.  He turned it all over to the CRP program and in is essence having the government, you and I pay for his estate.

We do not think most real farmers are interested in doing that. Which brings up recent news about Bill Gates:

Is This The Chilling Reason Why Bill Gates is Buying Up So Much US Farm Land?  

Also this:

Hay big spender! Farmer Bill is now the biggest owner of agricultural land in the US – billionaire Gates buys up 242,000 acres across 18 states

  • Microsoft founder Bill Gates is now the biggest private owner of farmland in the US, according to The Land Report
  • The tech billionaire, 65, owns 242,000 acres of agricultural land in 18 states 
  • His largest holdings are in Louisiana, Arkansas, Arizona and Nebraska
  • Gates owns total of 268,984 acres of land of all kinds, including in suburban Phoenix, Arizona, which he aims to turn into a ‘smart city’
  • Gates is the fourth richest person in the world with net worth of $121billion, according to Forbes
  • John Malone, the billionaire businessman and Liberty Media owner, is biggest overall US landowner, with 2.2 million acres of land
  • It is unclear why Gates has invested so heavily in farmland, but could be connected to climate change 
  • Land owned directly and through Gates’ investment entity, Cascade Investment
  • Cascade Investment’s money manager, Michael Larson, is reportedly to be Gates’s land portfolio manager 

Read more by linking to the article.

So is Gates going to have us foot some or all the bill for his acquisition?  Inquiring taxpayers want to know.

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Trump election “lies” – “unsubstantiated claims” – “without evidence” – “debunked” – “disproved”- “conspiratorial”

You have seen them all if you read any of the leftist media references to presentations and allegations about vote fraud and 2020 election being stolen.  In our judgement an overwhelming amount of evidence gives credence to calls for, and civil justice demands, forensic audits of voting in certain 2020 battleground states  (substantial overwhelmingly Democrat cheating occurred in all the others as well and we are content to endorse a  nationwide state by state forensic audit).  But as regards Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Pennsylvania  —  they are so rife with obvious fraud and illegalities, waving of statutory voting integrity protections,  “anomalies”, suspicious activity that anyone who opposes a forensic audit of those plebiscites is part of a cover-up.

Here are some recent commentaries that help explain some dramatic occurrences that demand investigation.

Still “without evidence”
According to the Census, the recorded number of people voting in 2020 was tallied at 154,628,000. On the other hand, official results place the number of actual ballots cast slightly north of 158 million. That’s a discrepancy of nearly four million votes.

THIS IS BIG: US Census Bureau Confirms HUGE CONFLICT in Total Number of Voters in 2020 Election

Note: The “Hologram” is a derogatory reference to the fakery of the Biden-Harris electoral “victory” and ascension to the presidency

Here Is Why the Democrats Are Totally Panicked About the Arizona Audit

W.I.M.P.: Did Adjudication of These Votes Provide The Hologram’s Margin of Victory?

Red-Pilled by the Hologram

No Question Some Battleground States Were Stolen in 2020 Election – Newt Gingrich

The Election Audits Are The Key To Bringing Back America – CD Media

Trump Vindicated as Judge Rules Michigan Secretary of State Violated Election Laws – PJ Media

Alarming results in Montana election audit. 

Here’s How You Know Democrats Rigged and Stole the 2020 Election

more can be added

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Martyrs for a cause indeed

Two weeks ago we published a commentary Killer of Ashli Babbitt exonerated and Capitol cops allowed to kill anonymously.   The author of our piece, Illustrious Senior Editor dlh drew a response from reader “CH” which can be read by revisiting the link above. Any reader’s response is welcome, but the more honest about wanting a “conversation” the better.  DLH nevertheless takes time to respond: 

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These impetuous yutes might look concerned about the ‘rona in this environment, that is if they really are that stupid. But the masks do inhibit “po’po” from using face recognition to identify these brave martyrs for a cause. Is it wrong to wonder if their phony devotion to hygiene and safety has roots in opportunism and lawlessness?

“Christopher Harper’s”, often incoherent and strikingly uninformed response to recent comments do as much as anything to illustrate the futility of the so-called “conversation” this nation should have about race.

Mr. Harper’s extensive stereotyped remarks don’t sound like a Black man. In fact, it sounds more like someone trying to offer a caricature of what they think (and hope(?)) is the ‘typical’ Black experience and attitudes. In fact, it is insulting to Blacks as he pretends to represent their viewpoint.

Harper is surely not as uninformed as his comments reflect.

For example, I know of no one who “boo-hoo’d” Minister Farrakhan’s wildly overestimated “million man march” in 1995. Most people seemed to see it as a tragic joke which needlessly exposed (because they were already well-known) the Minister’s anti-Semitic, radical left, racist impulses. It’s negative effects on racial harmony persist today, as Mr. Harper’s comments illustrate. The “million” attendees (actually, less than half that number) it would seem were among the planet’s most gullible.

As our writer, Mr. Harper, says, regarding Ashlii Babbit; “Somehow NOBODY wants to recognize that she was at fault in her own death! She left her home state for DC, KNOWING EXACTLY what she was going to do when she got there. Should she have been in the building she was in? Did she work there? Compare that to Botham Jean…”

Maybe Mr. Harper is unaware of the “urban youths” and “inner-city teens’ (predominately and tragically Black) who trash Walmarts and rampage in malls and loot stores and shops and set fire to federal buildings and privately-owned stores. Do they “work there”, do they know “exactly” what they are going to do when they leave their home…?”

As none are shot dead for these antics, perhaps Ms. Babbitt assumed that because she was not doing anything so rash as these folks, she would not get “the death penalty”. The lady went to Washington to legitimately protest government inaction toward the willful destruction of our nation’s electoral system. She threw not even one Molotov cocktail or bottle of frozen water at the head of a Capitol policeman. She brought no weapons of any kind.

Had one of the Black Lives Matters rioters in Portland or Seattle, or Washington been shot dead, that Marxist organization, to use ‘Christopher’s’ words, would “be ready to invade Hell on his or her behalf …”

To “compare to Botham Jean” is no comparison at all…Mr. Jean was not high on drugs and had committed no crime…his killer was not acting in any law enforcement capacity, although an off-duty police officer, she was apparently an emotionally unstable, irresponsible , lacking good sense or judgement, as some in any society , in all walks of life and occupations are. And she received the full force of legal judgment (sentenced to 10 years) for her senseless behavior.

From his ranting, Mr. Harper also appears to not be aware that Officer Chauvin has been found guilty in a court of law for what Harper accuses him of.

So, for all of Mr. Harper’s self-righteous rant, he doesn’t attempt to explain why Ms. Babbitt’s killer is not named by authorities when the kind of comparisons he is so fond of making …”if it were”…a white cop’s identity would be announced immediately along with an often one-sided or distorted version of the event that Mr. Harper seems always to prefer.

Whoever the Capitol police officer who killed Ashli Babbit is, whether Black, White, or Brown, he seems to have no better judgment than the person who killed Botham Jean; a ‘trigger-happy, unstable, fearful and insecure individual’.

But, for authorities to declare, wholly outside of public view, that the action was proper and to withhold the identity of Babbit’s killer, feeds the suspicion that there is something those currently in power wish to conceal…suspicion that there is some dark reason, and the disparity with circumstances very similar elsewhere in today’s society only intensifies the nature of the event…and the role that race may have played.

And so, that “national conversation” seems to have a pre-ordained conclusion.     dlh

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