tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11224432932610573732024-03-17T12:39:22.838-06:00Confessions of a Colorado ConservativeThings that I find and strike me that others might find interesting and/or informativedgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.comBlogger12150125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1122443293261057373.post-47183300510405680582024-01-29T11:23:00.003-07:002024-01-29T11:23:58.713-07:00How Much Ocean Heating is Due To Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vents?<p> </p><div class="post-15561 post type-post status-publish format-standard hentry category-blogarticle" id="post-15561">
<h2>How Much Ocean Heating is Due To Deep-Sea Hydrothermal Vents?</h2>
<small>January 29th, 2024 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.</small>
<div class="entry">
<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/vents2.jpg"><img alt="" class="wp-image-15567" height="621" src="https://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/vents2.jpg" width="960" /></a></figure>
<p>I sometimes see comments to the effect that recent ocean warming
could be due to deep-sea hydrothermal vents. Of course, what they mean
is an INCREASE in hydrothermal vent activity since these sources of heat
are presumably operating continuously and are part of the average
energy budget of the ocean, even without any long-term warming. </p>
<p>Fortunately, there are measurements of the heat output from these
vents, and there are rough estimates of how many vents there are.
Importantly, the vents (sometimes called “smokers”) are almost
exclusively found along the mid-oceanic ridges, and those ridges have an
estimated total length of 75,000 km (<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/chemistry/hydrothermal-vent" title="">ref</a>).</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/global-vents-map.png"><img alt="" class="wp-image-15563" height="592" src="https://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/global-vents-map.png" width="890" /></a></figure>
<p>So, if we had (rough) estimates of the average heat output of a vent,
and (roughly) know how many vents are scattered along the ridges, we
can (roughly) estimate to total heat flux into the ocean per sq. meter
of ocean surface.</p>
<p><strong>Direct Temperature Measurements Near the Vents Offer a Clue</strong></p>
<p>A more useful observation comes from deep-sea surveys using a towed
sensor package which measures trace minerals produced by the vents, as
well as temperature. A <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X16302564" title="">study</a>
published in 2016 described a total towed sensor distance of ~1,500 km
just above where these smokers have been located. The purpose was to
find out just how many sites there are scattered along the ridges.</p>
<p>Importantly, the study notes, “<em>temperature anomalies from such sites are commonly too weak to be reliably detected during a tow</em>“.</p>
<p>Let’s think about that: even when the sensor package is towed through
water in which the mineral tracers from smokers exist, the temperature
anomaly is “too weak to be reliably detected”.</p>
<p>Now think about that (already) extremely weak warmth being mixed
laterally away from the (relatively isolated) ocean ridges, and
vertically through 1,000s of meters of ocean depth.</p>
<p>Also, recall the deep ocean is, everywhere, exceedingly cold. It has
been calculated that the global-average ocean temperature below 200m
depth is 4 deg. C (39 deg. F). The cold water originates at the surface
at high latitudes where it becomes extra-salty (and thus dense) and it
slowly sinks, filling the global deep oceans over thousands of years
with chilled water.</p>
<p><strong><em>The fact that deep-sea towed probes over hydrothermal
vent sites can’t even measure a temperature increase in the
mineral-enriched water means there is no way for buoyant water parcels
to reach up several kilometers to reach the thermocline.</em></strong></p>
<p><strong>Estimating The Heat Flux Into the Ocean from Hydrothermal Vents</strong></p>
<p>We can get some idea of just how small the heat input is based upon
various current estimates of a few parameters. The previously mentioned
study comes up with a possible spacing of hydrothermal sites every ~10
km. So, that’s 7,500 sites around the world along the mid-oceanic
ridges. From deep-sea probes carrying specialized sampling equipment,
the average energy output looks to be about 1 MW per vent (see Table 1, <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/2015JB012245" title="">here</a>).
But how many vents are there per site? I could not find a number. They
sampled several vents at several sites. Let’s assume 100, and see where
the numbers lead. The total heat flux into the ocean from hydrothermal
vents in Watts per sq. meter (W m-2) would then be:</p>
<p>Heat Flux = (7,500 sites)x(100 vents per site)x(1 MW per vent)/(360,000,000,000,000 sq. m ocean sfc).</p>
<p>This comes out to 0.00029 W m-2.</p>
<p>That is an exceedingly small number, about 1/4,000th of the 1 W m-2
estimated energy imbalance from Argo float measurements of (very weak)
ocean warming over the last 20 years or so. Even if the estimate is off
by a factor of 100, the resulting heat flux is still 1/40th of global
ocean heating rate. I assume that oceanographers have published some
similar estimates, but I could not find them.</p>
<p>Now, what *is* somewhat larger is the average geothermal heat flux
from the deep, hot Earth, which occurs everywhere. That has a global
average value of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_gradient" title="">0.087 W m-2</a>.
This is approximately 1/10 of the estimate current ocean heating rate.
But remember, it’s not the average geothermal heat flux that is of
interest because that is always going on. Instead, that heat flux would
have to increase by a factor of ten for decades to cause the observed
heating rate of the global deep oceans.</p>
<p><strong>Evidence Ocean Warming Has Been Top-Down, Not Bottom-Up</strong></p>
<p>Finally, we can look at the Argo-estimate vertical profile of warming
trends in the ocean. Even though the probes only reach a little more
than half-way to the (average) ocean bottom, the warming profile
supports heating from above, not from below (see panel B, right). Given
these various pieces of evidence, it would difficult to believe that
deep-sea hydrothermal vents — actually, an increase in their heat output
— can be the reason for recent ocean warming.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-full"><a href="https://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/ocean-warming-with-depth-2006-2018-scaled.jpg"><img alt="" class="wp-image-15566" height="1724" src="https://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/ocean-warming-with-depth-2006-2018-scaled.jpg" width="2560" /></a></figure>
<p class="postmetadata alt">
</p>
</div>
</div>
dgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1122443293261057373.post-1571340927006843372023-10-23T11:44:00.002-06:002023-10-23T11:44:20.067-06:00Colorado's final wolf reintroduction plan has been approved<p> </p><h1 class="gnt_ar_hl"><span style="font-size: large;">Colorado's final wolf reintroduction plan has been approved. Here are the highlights.</span></h1><div class="gnt_ar_by"><a class="gnt_ar_by_a gnt_ar_by_a__fi" data-t-l=":byline with photo|o|c|text" href="https://www.coloradoan.com/staff/4406599002/miles-blumhardt/"><img alt="" class="gnt_ar_by_i" data-t-l=":byline with photo|o|c|photo" src="https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/d22b90e461b4ecd576fcabd0115245abd6faa147/c=906-0-3306-2400/local/-/media/2019/02/20/FortCollins/FortCollins/636862811232974326-Miles.jpg?width=48&height=48&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp" /> Miles Blumhardt</a><div class="gnt_ar_pb">Fort Collins Coloradoan</div></div><div aria-label="Published: 1:54 p.m. MT May 3, 2023 Updated: 2:20 p.m. MT May 3, 2023" class="gnt_ar_dt"></div><div class="gnt_ss gnt_ss__cm__tp" data-g-r="base_sc" data-ss-d="Here are the highlights from Colorado's final plan to reintroduce wolves, which was approved Wednesday after nearly two years of exhaustive work." data-ss-t="Colorado's final wolf reintroduction plan has been approved. Here are the highlights." data-ss-u="https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2023/05/03/what-to-know-about-colorados-final-wolf-reintroduction-plan/70169790007/"><div class="gnt_ss_cm_w" data-g-ctl=":coral comments|comment|close|register to comment" data-g-r="nav_ce"></div></div><div class="gnt_ss gnt_ss__cm__tp" data-g-r="base_sc" data-ss-d="Here are the highlights from Colorado's final plan to reintroduce wolves, which was approved Wednesday after nearly two years of exhaustive work." data-ss-t="Colorado's final wolf reintroduction plan has been approved. Here are the highlights." data-ss-u="https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2023/05/03/what-to-know-about-colorados-final-wolf-reintroduction-plan/70169790007/"><a aria-label="Share to Facebook" class="gnt_ss_a fbc-has-badge fbc-UID_1" data-g-r="base_si" data-ss-a="f" data-t-l=":h|v|c|facebook" href="https://www.facebook.com/dialog/share?display=popup&app_id=140942715960163&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.coloradoan.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2F2023%2F05%2F03%2Fwhat-to-know-about-colorados-final-wolf-reintroduction-plan%2F70169790007%2F" rel="noreferrer"><svg class="gnt_ss_a_svg"><use></use></svg></a><a aria-label="Share to Twitter" class="gnt_ss_a" data-g-r="base_si" data-ss-a="t" data-t-l=":h|v|c|twitter" href="http://twitter.com/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.coloradoan.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2F2023%2F05%2F03%2Fwhat-to-know-about-colorados-final-wolf-reintroduction-plan%2F70169790007%2F&text=Colorado's%20final%20wolf%20reintroduction%20plan%20has%20been%20approved.%20Here%20are%20the%20highlights.&via=coloradoan" rel="noreferrer"><svg class="gnt_ss_a_svg"><use></use></svg></a><a aria-label="Share by email" class="gnt_ss_a" data-t-l=":h|v|c|email" href="mailto:?subject=Colorado's%20final%20wolf%20reintroduction%20plan%20has%20been%20approved.%20Here%20are%20the%20highlights.%20-%20from%20Fort%20Collins%20Coloradoan&body=Colorado's%20final%20wolf%20reintroduction%20plan%20has%20been%20approved.%20Here%20are%20the%20highlights.%0A%0AHere%20are%20the%20highlights%20from%20Colorado's%20final%20plan%20to%20reintroduce%20wolves%2C%20which%20was%20approved%20Wednesday%20after%20nearly%20two%20years%20of%20exhaustive%20work.%0A%0ACheck%20out%20this%20story%20on%20coloradoan.com%3A%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.coloradoan.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2F2023%2F05%2F03%2Fwhat-to-know-about-colorados-final-wolf-reintroduction-plan%2F70169790007%2F"><svg class="gnt_ss_a_svg"><use></use></svg></a></div><div class="gnt_ar_b"><aside aria-label="Video - Meet Houdini, the Colorado calf that survived an October 2022 wolf attack" class="gnt_em gnt_em__fp gnt_em_vp__tp gnt_em__el"><div class="gnt_em_vp_w" data-c-vt="teal" data-g-r="vp_tp" data-g-s="vp_ld" data-t-pl="teal-playlist-hero"><div class="teal-video-wrap"><div class="tealplayer-play-toggle"></div><div class="tealplayer-control-wrap"><div class="tealplayer-progress"><div class="tealplayer-progress-bar"><div class="tealplayer-progress-thumb"></div><div class="tealplayer-progress-hitbox" draggable="true"></div></div></div><div class="tealplayer-left-controls"></div></div></div></div></aside></div><aside aria-label="Video - Meet Houdini, the Colorado calf that survived an October 2022 wolf attack" class="gnt_em gnt_em__fp gnt_em_vp__tp gnt_em__el"><div class="gnt_em_vp_w" data-c-vt="teal" data-g-r="vp_tp" data-g-s="vp_ld" data-t-pl="teal-playlist-hero"><div class="teal-video-wrap"><video controls="" muted="muted" poster="https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2023/03/23/PFTC/728ba090-160f-430a-bf4c-1f791e9a52aa-2ad9ef58-fa15-4fac-a234-f4902c4cf497_thumbnail.png?width=660&height=371&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp" title="Colorado calf Houdini survives 2022 wolf attack near Walden"></video><div class="tealplayer-ad-container" style="visibility: hidden;"><div style="position: absolute;"></div></div><div class="tealplayer-spinner tealplayer-spinner-hidden"></div></div></div><div class="gnt_em_vh" data-c-et="Meet Houdini, the Colorado calf that survived an October 2022 wolf attack"></div><div aria-label="Houdini was gravely injured by wolves in early October 2022 west of Walden, Colorado, but the calf survived and is expected to make a full recovery." class="gnt_em_vb gnt_em_vb__he" data-c-credit="Miles Blumhardt, Fort Collins Coloradoan"></div></aside><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">The Colorado Wolf Restoration and Management plan has been approved after nearly two years of exhaustive work.</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">The Colorado Wildlife Commission unanimously approved the final plan at its May 3 meeting in Glenwood Springs.</p><p class="gnt_ar_b_p">The <a class="gnt_ar_b_a" data-t-l=":b|e|k|${u}" href="https://cpw.state.co.us/Documents/Commission/2023/May/Item.14-FINAL_Wolf_Plan_with_Appendices_PRINT-Brian_Dreher-DNR.pdf">plan</a>
was developed with the help of two advisory groups made up of wildlife
professionals and varied stakeholders, through a series of public
meetings and more than 4,000 comments.</p><h2 class="gnt_ar_b_h2">What states will reintroduced wolves come from, how many wolves will be released and where will wolves be released?</h2><ul class="gnt_ar_b_ul"><li class="gnt_ar_b_ul_li">Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are the desired states, with other possible donor states including Oregon and Washington, though a <a class="gnt_ar_b_a" data-t-l=":b|e|k|${u}" href="https://www.9news.com/article/news/investigations/wyoming-wolves-colorado/73-d0c3eadd-5bc0-4aaf-9e90-d1be9bf8e342">9News story</a> says source states are unwilling or have had little to no communication with Colorado regarding the issue.</li><li class="gnt_ar_b_ul_li">10
to 15 wolves will be released per year, for a total of 30 to 50 wolves
over the next three years depending on recovery success.</li><li class="gnt_ar_b_ul_li">Initial
release site has been identified in an area with Glenwood Springs on
the west, Kremmling on the north, Vail on the east and Aspen on the
south. The area includes Interstate 70 running through the middle. The
release sites would be focused on state and private land where there are
willing owners.</li></ul><aside aria-label="advertisement" class="gnt_m gnt_x gnt_x__lbl gnt_x__al"><div class="gnt_x_sl gnt_x_al" data-g-r="lazy" data-gl-method="lazyLoadX" id="ad-slot-7103-co-fortcollins-C1021-native-article_link-news-2"></div></aside><p class="gnt_ar_b_p"><b class="gnt_ar_b_al">How we got here:</b><a class="gnt_ar_b_a" data-t-l=":b|e|spike click:7|${u}" href="https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2023/03/23/what-to-know-about-colorado-wolves-ahead-of-planned-reintroduction/70020933007/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">What to know about Colorado's existing wolves and conflicts around reintroduction plan</a></p><h2 class="gnt_ar_b_h2">How many wolves will need to be established for wolves to be downlisted from endangered to threatened to delisted?</h2><ul class="gnt_ar_b_ul"><li class="gnt_ar_b_ul_li">Downlisting
from state endangered to state threatened will occur when a minimum
count of 50 wolves anywhere in the state for four successive years is
met.</li><li class="gnt_ar_b_ul_li">Delisting from threatened to nongame
status will occur when a minimum count of at least 150 wolves anywhere
in Colorado is observed for two successive years, or a minimum count of
at least 200 wolves at any time with a geographical distribution
component through a finding that the species "is present in a
significant portion of its range."</li></ul><figure class="gnt_em gnt_em_img"><img alt="In this file photo, volunteers from a nearby ranch and a U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services staff member erect electric fencing with flags meant to deter wolves from cattle along a small pasture on the Gittleson Angus ranch northeast of Walden in January 2022. The ranch had cows killed by Colorado’s existing wolfpack." class="gnt_em_img_i" data-g-r="lazy" src="https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/01/25/PFTC/10fff150-6060-4c2c-afbf-9a04883beca4-DSC_0078.JPG?width=660&height=440&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp" style="height: 440px;" /><div class="gnt_em_img_ccw gnt_em_img_ccw__cap gnt_em_img_ccw__crd" data-c-caption="In this file photo, volunteers from a nearby ranch and a U.S. Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services staff member erect electric fencing with flags meant to deter wolves from cattle along a small pasture on the Gittleson Angus ranch northeast of Walden in January 2022. The ranch had cows killed by Colorado’s existing wolfpack." data-c-credit="Miles Blumhardt/The Coloradoan"></div></figure><h2 class="gnt_ar_b_h2">Will wolves be allowed to be killed in certain situations?</h2><ul class="gnt_ar_b_ul"><li class="gnt_ar_b_ul_li">Currently, wolves are listed as federally endangered in Colorado and can only be legally killed if threatening human life.</li><li class="gnt_ar_b_ul_li">Colorado
requested a 10(j) ruling under the Endangered Species Act and is
awaiting a determination by the federal government. The state is hoping
for a resolution by Dec. 15, just two weeks before state officials wish
to release wolves by the end of the year. The 10(j) rule lists wolves as
"experimental" and would allow more flexibility managing them,
including lethal take of wolves in situations such as chronic
depredation or wolves caught depredating livestock.</li><li class="gnt_ar_b_ul_li"><a class="gnt_ar_b_a" data-t-l=":b|e|k|${u}" href="https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb23-256">Colorado Senate Bill 23-256</a>
introduced in this year's legislature originally precluded
reintroduction until a determination of the 10(j) rule is finalized. An
amendment to the original bill deleted this part of the bill over <a class="gnt_ar_b_a" data-t-l=":b|e|k|${u}" href="https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2023/04/06/colorado-plan-to-reintroduce-wolves-this-year-in-jeopardy/70080373007/">concern it would likely delay reintroduction</a>. The bill is in the House or Representatives awaiting further debate. The legislative season ends May 6.</li></ul><aside aria-label="advertisement" class="gnt_m gnt_x gnt_x__lbl gnt_x__al"><div class="gnt_x_sl gnt_x_al" data-g-r="lazy" data-gl-method="lazyLoadX" id="ad-slot-7103-co-fortcollins-C1021-native-article_link-news-3"></div></aside><p class="gnt_ar_b_p"><b class="gnt_ar_b_al">More: Colorado wolves</b><a class="gnt_ar_b_a" data-t-l=":b|e|spike click:14|${u}" href="https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2023/04/28/north-park-pack-wolf-confirmed-to-have-wandered-into-grand-county/70162381007/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">North Park wolfpack member confirmed to have wandered into Grand County</a></p><h2 class="gnt_ar_b_h2">Will a hunting season of wolves be allowed when wolves are delisted?</h2><ul class="gnt_ar_b_ul"><li class="gnt_ar_b_ul_li">Proposition
114, narrowly approved by voters, designated wolves as nongame, meaning
the animals cannot be hunted, but the commission could have the power
to change that.</li><li class="gnt_ar_b_ul_li">The original plan
included a Phase 4 that looked at the possibility of a hunting season
when wolves are delisted. That has been removed and now basically defers
actions regarding a hunting season to be assessed by future Colorado
Wildlife Commissions.</li></ul><aside aria-label="Newsletter signup form" class="gnt_em gnt_em_anc" data-g-r="lazy" data-gl-method="loadAnc" id="gnt_atomsnc"><br /></aside><p> </p>dgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1122443293261057373.post-78477889553236042992023-10-23T11:43:00.002-06:002023-10-23T11:43:17.412-06:00Gun-Grabbers Break Out These 4 Common Myths Every Time There's a Shooting<p> </p><h1 class="inner-content"><span style="font-size: large;">Op-Ed: Gun-Grabbers Break Out These 4 Common Myths Every Time There's a Shooting</span></h1>
<span class="ff-author-date">
<div class="author-image">
<a href="https://www.westernjournal.com/author/mbehna/">
<img height="32" src="https://www.westernjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Mitch-Behna-150x150.jpg" width="32" />
</a>
</div>
<span class="article-authors">
By <a href="https://www.westernjournal.com/author/mbehna/"><span class="ff-author">Mitch Behna</span></a>
</span>
<span class="ff-date">
May 13, 2023 at 1:13pm </span>
</span>
<div class="article-sharing top"><a class="facebook-share ea-share-count-button" href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.westernjournal.com%2Fop-ed-gun-grabbers-break-4-common-myths-every-time-shooting%2F%3Futm_source%3DFacebook%26utm_medium%3DPostTopSharingButtons%26utm_campaign%3Dwebsitesharingbuttons&display=popup&ref=plugin&src=share_button" target="_blank">
<svg class="icon ff-fb" height="24px" viewbox="0 0 24 24" width="24px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
<g fill-rule="evenodd" fill="none" id="Symbols" stroke-width="1" stroke="none">
<g>
</g></g></svg></a></div><a class="facebook-share ea-share-count-button" href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.westernjournal.com%2Fop-ed-gun-grabbers-break-4-common-myths-every-time-shooting%2F%3Futm_source%3DFacebook%26utm_medium%3DPostTopSharingButtons%26utm_campaign%3Dwebsitesharingbuttons&display=popup&ref=plugin&src=share_button" target="_blank"><svg class="icon ff-fb" height="24px" viewbox="0 0 24 24" width="24px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g fill-rule="evenodd" fill="none" id="Symbols" stroke-width="1" stroke="none"><g></g></g></svg></a><section>The deadly shooting that took place last Saturday at a mall in Allen,
Texas, was just one of a recent string of mass shootings in the United
States. Eight victims lost their lives.
<p>With this type of violence, debates about the Constitution are always
brought forward. The Second Amendment is under attack probably more
than any other amendment in our Bill of Rights.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-2/#:~:text=A%20well%20regulated%20Militia%2C%20being,Arms%2C%20shall%20not%20be%20infringed." rel="noopener" target="_blank">Second Amendment</a>
states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a
free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
infringed.”</p>
<div class="sponsor IC1" id="IC1-ad"></div>
<p>In response to this most recent <a href="https://www.westernjournal.com/authorities-working-link-hispanic-gunman-behind-texas-mall-attack-white-supremacy/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">mass shooting</a>, anti-gun advocates are once again demanding more gun restrictions.</p>
<p>Here are four common myths surrounding the Second Amendment and <a href="https://www.westernjournal.com/federal-judge-strikes-age-limit-handgun-purchases-not-consistent-nations-history-tradition/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">gun control</a>.</p>
<div class="in-article-more inner-content" id="in-article-trending">
<div class="in-article-more-label">Trending:</div>
<div class="in-article-more-right">
<a data-type-location="in-content-trending" data-type="Internal link" href="https://www.westernjournal.com/cnn-humiliated-air-migrant-destroys-lefts-border-narrative-network-abruptly-ends-interview/">CNN Humiliated On Air as Migrant Destroys Left's Border Narrative, Network Abruptly Ends Interview</a>
</div>
</div>
<p><b>1. A “well-regulated militia” means gun regulations.</b></p>
<p>Anti-gun advocates frequently cite the “well-regulated militia”
clause. They often believe this refers to gun restrictions or needing to
be part of a militia to own firearms.</p>
<div class="sponsor IC2" id="IC2-ad"></div>
<p>But upon further analysis, this is not the case. A “well-regulated militia” simply refers to the American people.</p>
<p>“The militia system, with deep roots in English history, was one way
of ensuring that the nation could defend itself against all threats,
foreign and domestic. Instead of a large full-time professional army,
the government could, when needed, call upon the greater body of armed
citizens to employ their personal firearms in the collective defense of
the state or nation,” as <a href="https://www.heritage.org/the-essential-second-amendment/the-well-regulated-militia" rel="noopener" target="_blank">The Heritage Foundation</a> highlighted.</p></section><p>“A ‘well-regulated’ militia simply meant that the processes for
activating, training, and deploying the militia in official service
should be efficient and orderly, and that the militia itself should be
capable of competently executing battlefield operations.”</p>
<p>The 2008 Supreme Court ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller also <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/04/second-amendment-protects-individual-right-keep-bear-arms/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">confirmed</a> that the Second Amendment protects an individual right. Being part of a militia is not required to exercise that right.</p>
<p><b>2. The right to “keep and bear arms” does not apply to modern weaponry.</b></p>
<div class="sponsor IC3" id="IC3-ad"></div>
<p>The left often claims we do not have a right to own AR-15s and
“assault rifles” because they did not exist at the time the Founding
Fathers drafted and ratified the Second Amendment.</p>
<p>But this makes little sense. It is analogous to saying free speech
rights are not included on the internet or other modern forms of
communication because they did not exist at the time the First Amendment
was written.</p>
<div class="in-article-more inner-content" id="in-article-related">
<div class="in-article-more-label">Related:</div>
<div class="in-article-more-right">
<a data-type-location="in-content-related" data-type="Internal link" href="https://www.westernjournal.com/op-ed-5-biggest-lies-bidens-state-union-address/">Op-Ed: The 5 Biggest Lies from Biden's State of the Union Address</a>
</div>
</div>
<p>The Founders were brilliant to use the term “arms” since it is a very
generic term that includes many forms of firearms. If they specifically
intended the amendment to protect the right to keep and bear muskets,
all of the handguns and rifles we use today would be in legal jeopardy.</p>
<p>Rep. Jim Jordan highlighted this key distinction in a hearing earlier this year.</p><p>
<b>3. Gun control is the only action needed to prevent gun violence.</b></p>
<p>Gun control advocates say we need to “take action” or “do something”
to address gun violence. But their definition of action is always more
gun control on top of existing gun control that failed to prevent these
shootings.</p>
<p>Despite the calls for more restrictions, it appears that the mall where the Texas shooting took place was already a <a href="https://www2.cbn.com/news/us/texas-mall-massacre-took-place-gun-free-zone-why-did-gunman-do-it" rel="noopener" target="_blank">gun-free zone</a>.</p>
<div class="sponsor REP" id="REP_0-ad"></div>
<p>This shows that criminals never obey existing gun laws and, as a
result, the only ones who suffer are law-abiding citizens being unable
to defend themselves.</p>
<p>More gun control is not the answer. Part of the solution is to
eliminate gun-free zones to allow law-abiding citizens to carry a
firearm and increase their chances of repelling a potential shooter in
the first place.</p>
<p><b>4. Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott were responsible for the Texas mall shooting.</b></p>
<p>Unfortunately, we live in a time when gun control advocates blame political opponents when these deadly shootings take place.</p>
<div class="sponsor REP" id="REP_1-ad"></div>
<p>Texas Sen. <a href="https://www.westernjournal.com/fired-ted-cruz-asks-aoc-perfect-white-pantsuit-question-standing-border/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Ted Cruz</a> and Gov. Greg Abbott were among those targeted by this type of rhetoric.</p>
<p>Politicians like California Rep. <a href="https://www.westernjournal.com/eric-swalwell-gets-smacked-fact-checkers-trying-gloat-trump-verdict/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Eric Swalwell</a> wasted no time smearing Cruz and claiming that he sides with the murderers over the victims.</p><p>
Journalist Steven Beschloss was just one of many who said Abbott had blood on his hands.</p>
<p>
Second Amendment advocates are not responsible for any shooting. The blame must be placed on the killers themselves.</p>
<p>If we are going to reduce gun violence, we need to repeal ineffective
gun control laws and bring back a culture that instills good faith and
morals.</p>dgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1122443293261057373.post-9671737108547395922023-10-13T12:17:00.003-06:002023-10-13T12:17:47.701-06:00Don’t Miss The Most Damning Durham Finding<h1 class="title-lg"><span style="font-size: large;">Don’t Miss The Most Damning Durham Finding</span></h1>
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By: <a class="text-decoration-none text-hoverline-black" href="https://thefederalist.com/author/margotcleveland/"><span>Margot Cleveland</span></a> </div>
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<time datetime="2023-05-17">May 17, 2023</time> </div>
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<p>Special Counsel John Durham declared the DOJ and FBI’s hearts and minds corrupted.</p>
</div>
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<img alt="Author Margot Cleveland profile" class="img-fluid img-grayscale" height="150" src="https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/IMG_0042-150x150.jpg" width="150" />
<div class="article-author-details">
<div class="label-md">Margot Cleveland</div>
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<div class="article-content">
<p>Monday’s special counsel <a href="https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">report</a>
detailed extensive evidence of Department of Justice and FBI misconduct
concerning the launch and handling of the Crossfire Hurricane
investigation, and equally overwhelming proof of partisan motives and
double standards. While the facts are critical of both the bureau and
the DOJ, more scandalous is John Durham’s conclusion that the
inexcusable targeting of a political opponent cannot be prevented absent
a curing of the <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/16/the-durham-report-leaves-no-doubt-the-fbi-is-a-mortal-threat-to-democracy/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">corrupted hearts and minds</a> of law enforcement and intelligence agencies.</p>
<p>Durham’s 306-page report opened with an executive summary <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/16/lets-compare-medias-lies-about-the-durham-report-with-what-the-report-actually-said/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">capsulizing</a>
the results of the special counsel’s four-year investigation into the
intelligence activities and investigations arising out of the 2016
presidential campaigns. While calling the findings “sobering,” and
previewing the widespread misconduct on which the body of the report
elaborated, Durham’s introductory comments emphasized he “does not
recommend any wholesale changes in the guidelines and policies.” </p>
<p>It is here that Durham made his <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/15/durham-new-rules-wont-matter-until-fbi-starts-caring-about-fidelity-bravery-and-integrity/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">damning indictment</a>
of the DOJ and the FBI when he stressed that “the answer is not the
creation of new rules but a renewed fidelity to the old.” Ultimately, he
continued, justice “comes down to the integrity of the people who take
an oath to follow the guidelines.” And “the promulgation of additional
rules and regulations to be learned in yet more training sessions would
likely prove to be a fruitless exercise if the FBI’s guiding principles
of ‘Fidelity, Bravery and Integrity’ are not engrained in the hearts and
minds of those sworn to meet the FBI’ s mission of ‘Protect[ing] the
American People and Uphold[ing] the Constitution of the United States.’”</p>
<p>For the many details that followed — every misstep retraced and every
inexplicable and unreasonable action condemned — that conclusion
dwarfed them all. From the hurried opening of a full investigation of a
presidential campaign based on unanalyzed and uncorroborated information
to the fraudulent use of FISA warrants to the disregard of exculpatory
evidence, Crossfire Hurricane represented a perfect storm of failures. </p>
<p>But what should terrify the country is not the catalog of malfeasance
the special counsel recited — for mistakes and even gross failures can
be corrected — but that Durham warned of corrupted hearts and minds,
unfaithful to the people and their Constitution. </p>
<p>Telling too was that Durham opened and closed his 300-plus page
report on the Russia-collusion hoax with homage to Attorney General
Edward H. Levi. Appointed attorney general not long into President
Ford’s term, Levi was “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/08/us/edward-h-levi-attorney-general-credited-with-restoring-order-after-watergate.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">credited</a> with restoring order after Watergate.” Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia would later <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/08/us/edward-h-levi-attorney-general-credited-with-restoring-order-after-watergate.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">say</a> of Levi, he “brought the department through its worst years.”</p>
<p>But it was not merely Watergate. As Scalia <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/08/us/edward-h-levi-attorney-general-credited-with-restoring-order-after-watergate.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">detailed</a>,
“it was a bad time not only because of the disgrace of Watergate, which
had affected the department most deeply, but there were also problems
at the F.B.I.” At the time, the FBI had been <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/08/us/edward-h-levi-attorney-general-credited-with-restoring-order-after-watergate.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">conducting</a> domestic surveillance operations, and under Levi’s leadership, regulations were put into place to limit the bureau’s abuse.</p>
<p>That history makes even more pronounced Durham’s introductory
reminder that “the integrity of the people who take an oath to follow
the guidelines and policies currently in place, guidelines that date
from the time of Attorney General Levi,” is what ensures “the rule of
law is upheld.” </p>
<p>Likewise, Levi’s role in reforming the FBI and bringing the DOJ out
of the shadow of the Watergate scandal gives profound meaning to
Durham’s decision to close the special counsel’s report like this: </p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">
<p>‘Nothing,’ former Attorney General Levi warned, ‘can more weaken the
quality of life or more imperil the realization of the goals we all hold
dear than our failure to make clear by words and deed that our law is
not the instrument of partisan purpose.’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For all the misconduct the special counsel exposed, it was Levi’s
warning that Durham left us. And that, I fear, is the most significant
revelation to come from the investigation: that after four years of
inspecting the underbelly of the FBI, Durham saw a creature reminiscent
of the one running wild under Nixon.</p>
<p>Sadly, Durham’s words are unlikely to resonate with Attorney General
Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray. For they stand idly
by while history repeats itself with the favoritism previously shown to
Hillary Clinton now being bestowed on Hunter Biden and the Biden family.
But the special counsel’s entreat could still succeed from the bottom
up if the honorable and faithful men and women of the FBI join the ranks
of whistleblowers and revolt against those leaders corrupted in heart
and mind. <br /></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><p> </p>dgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1122443293261057373.post-86069997348924759552023-05-18T14:24:00.001-06:002023-05-18T14:24:06.000-06:00Let’s Compare Media’s Lies About The Durham Report With What The Report Actually Said<p> </p><h1 class="title-lg"><span style="font-size: large;">Let’s Compare Media’s Lies About The Durham Report With What The Report Actually Said</span></h1>
<div class="article-meta d-block d-md-flex align-items-center justify-content-center label-sm mx-n20">
<div class="article-meta-author mb-10 mb-md-0 px-20">
By: <a class="text-decoration-none text-hoverline-black" href="https://thefederalist.com/author/eddiescarry/"><span>Eddie Scarry</span></a> </div>
<div class="article-meta-date mb-10 mb-md-0 px-20">
<time datetime="2023-05-16">May 16, 2023</time> </div>
<div class="article-meta-readtime d-flex align-items-center justify-content-center px-20">
<i aria-hidden="true" class="mdi mdi-clock-outline me-10"></i> 5 min read </div>
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<img alt="John Durham" class="img-fluid w-100 wp-post-image" height="351" src="https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Screen-Shot-2023-05-16-at-7.00.01-AM-1200x675.png" width="623" />
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<i aria-hidden="true" class="mdi mdi-camera me-10"></i>
<span class="visually-hidden">Image Credit</span><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ehk9JYdhfqM&ab_channel=MSNBC">MSNBC/YouTube</a>
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<div class="article-excerpt body-lg bdr-btm-black pb-30 pb-md-45 mb-30 mb-sm-45">
<p>It’s not as if John Durham is hiding the ball. He notes there
were equal opportunities to investigate Clinton’s campaign in 2016, but
those were handled more discreetly.</p>
</div>
<div class="article-author mt-30 mt-sm-60 pb-30 bdr-btm-bold-black">
<div class="row g-0 align-items-center">
<div class="col-12 col-md-6">
<div class="article-author-profile d-flex align-items-center justify-content-center justify-content-md-start">
<img alt="Author Eddie Scarry profile" class="img-fluid img-grayscale" height="150" src="https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Eddie-Scarry-Mug-150x150.jpeg" width="150" />
<div class="article-author-details">
<div class="label-md">Eddie Scarry</div>
<div class="article-body body-md mt-30 mt-sm-60">
<div class="article-content">
<p>As with every major revelation proving them to be the treacherous,
anti-democratic demons they are, the corporate media have instantly gone
to work sweeping away <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/15/bombshell-obama-admin-had-no-actual-evidence-of-collusion-by-trump-when-it-launched-crossfire-hurricane-investigation/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">the shocking conclusions</a>
of Special Counsel John Durham’s report on the FBI’s conduct as it
related to its 2016 investigation of Donald Trump and Russia.</p>
<p>Years of work went into this thing, and the media believe all of its
heinous discoveries can be set aside with a few news briefs belittling
them as minor, unimpressive matters of mistake and “shortcomings.”</p>
<p>That’s not what Durham found. What he found was explicit bias within
the world’s most powerful law enforcement agency against a
democratically chosen presidential nominee.</p>
<p>The report, <a href="https://www.justice.gov/storage/durhamreport.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">released Monday</a>,
is more than 300 pages, many of which recount information pieced
together by Republicans in Congress and right-leaning journalists. But
everything you need to know is in Durham’s summary, which, as tactfully
as possible, describes the FBI’s 2016 investigation into Trump as not
only without a foundation, but driven by political bias, dishonesty, and
an appalling degree of personal animus.</p>
<p>The media won’t relay those facts from the report honestly because,
of course, the media were complicit in the absolute con from the start.
They hated Trump more than top officials at the FBI did and were more
than happy to fan the flames that terrified the nation for years and
irreparably crippled Trump’s entire term.</p>
<p>With that in mind, this is how big media described Durham’s findings versus what Durham actually said.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/15/us/politics/trump-russia-investigation-durham.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">New York Times</a>: </strong>“Mr.
Durham’s 306-page report revealed little substantial new information
about the inquiry, known as Crossfire Hurricane, and it failed to
produce the kinds of blockbuster revelations accusing the bureau of
politically motivated misconduct that former President Donald J. Trump
and his allies suggested Mr. Durham would uncover.”</p>
<p>That suggests there was no proof or even significant evidence in
Durham’s report that the FBI was hounding Trump for any reason outside
of standard, dry agency business. That’s false.</p>
<p>What the report actually said: “Our investigation … revealed that
senior FBI personnel displayed a serious lack of analytical rigor
towards the information that they received, especially … from
politically affiliated persons and entities. … In particular, there was
significant reliance on investigative leads provided or funded (directly
or indirectly) by Trump’s political opponents. The Department did not
adequately examine or question these materials and the motivations of
those providing them…”</p>
<p>In other words, the FBI willingly accepted allegations from Trump’s
political rivals, treating them as objective data, rather than what they
were: traditional campaign waste material.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://apnews.com/article/durham-justice-trump-russia-8d50b5f7cbff6670afbb2d866f06edb7" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Associated Press</a>:</strong>
“The report, the culmination of a four-year investigation into possible
misconduct by U.S. government officials, contained withering criticism
of the FBI but few significant revelations.”</p>
<p>That gives the impression that Durham’s report was a symbolic reprimand of no consequence. That’s false.</p>
<p>Here’s from the actual report: “FBI personnel … acknowledge[d] — both
then and in hindsight — that they did not genuinely believe there was
probable cause to believe that the [Trump campaign] was knowingly
engaged in clandestine intelligence activities on behalf of a foreign
power, or knowingly helping another person in such activities.”</p>
<p>In essence, FBI agents participating in the investigation were
insincere in their efforts to find a sinister link between Trump’s
campaign and Russia, because they knew it wasn’t likely to exist and
didn’t believe there was a reason to try finding it anyway.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2023/05/15/john-durham-report-fbi-russia-donald-trump/70179728007/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">USA Today</a>:</strong> “Special counsel John Durham criticizes FBI Trump-Russia probe, but recommends no wholesale changes.”</p>
<p><em>Mistakes were made but who among us?!</em></p>
<p>That’s not what Durham said. What he said is that the FBI abandoned
its mission in pursuit of a political agenda and that if it had simply
followed its own rules, one of the greatest political scandals in
history would have never happened.</p>
<p>From Durham’s report: “[T]here is a continuing need for the FBI and
the [Justice] Department to recognize that lack of analytical rigor,
apparent confirmation bias, and an over-willingness to rely on
information from individuals connected to political opponents caused
investigators to fail to adequately consider alternative hypotheses and
to act without appropriate objectivity or restraint in pursuing
allegations of collusion or conspiracy between a U.S. political campaign
and a foreign power. Although recognizing that in hindsight much is
clearer, much of this also seems to have been clear at the time.”</p>
<p>It’s not as if Durham is hiding the ball. He notes in his report that
there were equal opportunities to investigate Hillary Clinton’s
campaign in 2016, but those were handled more discreetly, either by
alerting the candidate’s team that it might have been targeted by
potential foreign influence, or by simply dropping the matter
altogether. (Hey, how about that?!)</p>
<p>Again, from the Durham report: “The speed and manner in which the FBI
opened and investigated Crossfire Hurricane during the presidential
election season based on raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated
intelligence also reflected a noticeable departure from how it
approached prior matters involving possible attempted foreign election
interference plans aimed at the Clinton campaign.”</p><div id="stickypbModal1674"> </div>
<p>In short, there was a double standard — a political one. A democracy
can’t sustain this kind of scandal perpetuated by its chief law
enforcers. But the media gave up on that a long time ago.</p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>dgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1122443293261057373.post-74216112348942387202023-05-15T10:52:00.004-06:002023-05-15T10:52:26.242-06:00Op-Ed: Gun-Grabbers Break Out These 4 Common Myths Every Time There's a Shooting<p> </p><h1 class="inner-content"><span style="font-size: large;">Op-Ed: Gun-Grabbers Break Out These 4 Common Myths Every Time There's a Shooting</span></h1>
<span class="ff-author-date">
<div class="author-image">
<a href="https://www.westernjournal.com/author/mbehna/">
<img height="32" src="https://www.westernjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Mitch-Behna-150x150.jpg" width="32" />
</a>
</div>
<span class="article-authors">
By <a href="https://www.westernjournal.com/author/mbehna/"><span class="ff-author">Mitch Behna</span></a>
</span>
<span class="ff-date">
May 13, 2023 at 1:13pm </span>
</span>
<div class="article-sharing top"><a class="facebook-share ea-share-count-button" href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.westernjournal.com%2Fop-ed-gun-grabbers-break-4-common-myths-every-time-shooting%2F%3Futm_source%3DFacebook%26utm_medium%3DPostTopSharingButtons%26utm_campaign%3Dwebsitesharingbuttons&display=popup&ref=plugin&src=share_button" target="_blank">
<svg class="icon ff-fb" height="24px" viewbox="0 0 24 24" width="24px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
<g fill-rule="evenodd" fill="none" id="Symbols" stroke-width="1" stroke="none">
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</g></g></svg></a></div><a class="facebook-share ea-share-count-button" href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.westernjournal.com%2Fop-ed-gun-grabbers-break-4-common-myths-every-time-shooting%2F%3Futm_source%3DFacebook%26utm_medium%3DPostTopSharingButtons%26utm_campaign%3Dwebsitesharingbuttons&display=popup&ref=plugin&src=share_button" target="_blank"><svg class="icon ff-fb" height="24px" viewbox="0 0 24 24" width="24px" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg"><g fill-rule="evenodd" fill="none" id="Symbols" stroke-width="1" stroke="none"><g></g></g></svg></a><section>The deadly shooting that took place last Saturday at a mall in Allen,
Texas, was just one of a recent string of mass shootings in the United
States. Eight victims lost their lives.
<p>With this type of violence, debates about the Constitution are always
brought forward. The Second Amendment is under attack probably more
than any other amendment in our Bill of Rights.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-2/#:~:text=A%20well%20regulated%20Militia%2C%20being,Arms%2C%20shall%20not%20be%20infringed." rel="noopener" target="_blank">Second Amendment</a>
states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a
free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be
infringed.”</p>
<div class="sponsor IC1" id="IC1-ad"></div>
<p>In response to this most recent <a href="https://www.westernjournal.com/authorities-working-link-hispanic-gunman-behind-texas-mall-attack-white-supremacy/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">mass shooting</a>, anti-gun advocates are once again demanding more gun restrictions.</p>
<p>Here are four common myths surrounding the Second Amendment and <a href="https://www.westernjournal.com/federal-judge-strikes-age-limit-handgun-purchases-not-consistent-nations-history-tradition/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">gun control</a>.</p>
<div class="in-article-more inner-content" id="in-article-trending">
<div class="in-article-more-label">Trending:</div>
<div class="in-article-more-right">
<a data-type-location="in-content-trending" data-type="Internal link" href="https://www.westernjournal.com/cnn-humiliated-air-migrant-destroys-lefts-border-narrative-network-abruptly-ends-interview/">CNN Humiliated On Air as Migrant Destroys Left's Border Narrative, Network Abruptly Ends Interview</a>
</div>
</div>
<p><b>1. A “well-regulated militia” means gun regulations.</b></p>
<p>Anti-gun advocates frequently cite the “well-regulated militia”
clause. They often believe this refers to gun restrictions or needing to
be part of a militia to own firearms.</p>
<div class="sponsor IC2" id="IC2-ad"></div>
<p>But upon further analysis, this is not the case. A “well-regulated militia” simply refers to the American people.</p>
<p>“The militia system, with deep roots in English history, was one way
of ensuring that the nation could defend itself against all threats,
foreign and domestic. Instead of a large full-time professional army,
the government could, when needed, call upon the greater body of armed
citizens to employ their personal firearms in the collective defense of
the state or nation,” as <a href="https://www.heritage.org/the-essential-second-amendment/the-well-regulated-militia" rel="noopener" target="_blank">The Heritage Foundation</a> highlighted.</p></section><p>“A ‘well-regulated’ militia simply meant that the processes for
activating, training, and deploying the militia in official service
should be efficient and orderly, and that the militia itself should be
capable of competently executing battlefield operations.”</p>
<p>The 2008 Supreme Court ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller also <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/04/second-amendment-protects-individual-right-keep-bear-arms/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">confirmed</a> that the Second Amendment protects an individual right. Being part of a militia is not required to exercise that right.</p>
<p><b>2. The right to “keep and bear arms” does not apply to modern weaponry.</b></p>
<div class="sponsor IC3" id="IC3-ad"></div>
<p>The left often claims we do not have a right to own AR-15s and
“assault rifles” because they did not exist at the time the Founding
Fathers drafted and ratified the Second Amendment.</p>
<p>But this makes little sense. It is analogous to saying free speech
rights are not included on the internet or other modern forms of
communication because they did not exist at the time the First Amendment
was written.</p>
<div class="in-article-more inner-content" id="in-article-related">
<div class="in-article-more-label">Related:</div>
<div class="in-article-more-right">
<a data-type-location="in-content-related" data-type="Internal link" href="https://www.westernjournal.com/op-ed-5-biggest-lies-bidens-state-union-address/">Op-Ed: The 5 Biggest Lies from Biden's State of the Union Address</a>
</div>
</div>
<p>The Founders were brilliant to use the term “arms” since it is a very
generic term that includes many forms of firearms. If they specifically
intended the amendment to protect the right to keep and bear muskets,
all of the handguns and rifles we use today would be in legal jeopardy.</p>
<p>Rep. Jim Jordan highlighted this key distinction in a hearing earlier this year.</p><p>
<b>3. Gun control is the only action needed to prevent gun violence.</b></p>
<p>Gun control advocates say we need to “take action” or “do something”
to address gun violence. But their definition of action is always more
gun control on top of existing gun control that failed to prevent these
shootings.</p>
<p>Despite the calls for more restrictions, it appears that the mall where the Texas shooting took place was already a <a href="https://www2.cbn.com/news/us/texas-mall-massacre-took-place-gun-free-zone-why-did-gunman-do-it" rel="noopener" target="_blank">gun-free zone</a>.</p>
<div class="sponsor REP" id="REP_0-ad"></div>
<p>This shows that criminals never obey existing gun laws and, as a
result, the only ones who suffer are law-abiding citizens being unable
to defend themselves.</p>
<p>More gun control is not the answer. Part of the solution is to
eliminate gun-free zones to allow law-abiding citizens to carry a
firearm and increase their chances of repelling a potential shooter in
the first place.</p>
<p><b>4. Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott were responsible for the Texas mall shooting.</b></p>
<p>Unfortunately, we live in a time when gun control advocates blame political opponents when these deadly shootings take place.</p>
<div class="sponsor REP" id="REP_1-ad"></div>
<p>Texas Sen. <a href="https://www.westernjournal.com/fired-ted-cruz-asks-aoc-perfect-white-pantsuit-question-standing-border/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Ted Cruz</a> and Gov. Greg Abbott were among those targeted by this type of rhetoric.</p>
<p>Politicians like California Rep. <a href="https://www.westernjournal.com/eric-swalwell-gets-smacked-fact-checkers-trying-gloat-trump-verdict/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Eric Swalwell</a> wasted no time smearing Cruz and claiming that he sides with the murderers over the victims.</p><p>
Journalist Steven Beschloss was just one of many who said Abbott had blood on his hands.</p>
<p>
Second Amendment advocates are not responsible for any shooting. The blame must be placed on the killers themselves.</p>
<p>If we are going to reduce gun violence, we need to repeal ineffective
gun control laws and bring back a culture that instills good faith and
morals.</p>dgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1122443293261057373.post-15195923866354543032023-05-01T10:29:00.005-06:002023-05-01T10:29:51.609-06:00 SB23-213 Land Use<p> </p><header>
<div class="field field-name-field-bill-number field-type-text field-label-hidden">
<div class="field-items">
<div class="field-item even"><span style="font-size: large;">SB23-213</span></div>
</div>
</div>
<h1 class="node__title node-title"><span style="font-size: large;">Land Use</span></h1>
<div class="field field-name-field-bill-long-title field-type-text-long field-label-hidden">
<div class="field-items">
<div class="field-item even">Concerning state land use
requirements, and, in connection therewith, establishing a process to
diagnose and address housing needs across the state, prohibiting a
local government from enforcing certain occupancy limits, modifying the
content requirements for county and municipal master plans, criteria
for certain grant programs, and expenditures from the multimodal
transportation options fund to align with state strategic growth
objectives, and making an appropriation.</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="bill-session">
<span class="bill-session-label">Session: </span>
<div class="field field-name-field-sessions field-type-entityreference field-label-hidden">
<div class="field-items">
<div class="field-item even">2023 Regular Session</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="bill-subjects">
<span class="bill-subjects-label">Subjects: </span>
<div class="field field-name-field-subjects field-type-entityreference field-label-hidden">
<div class="field-items">
<div class="field-item even">Housing</div>
<div class="field-item odd">Local Government</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<span class="bill-subjects-label">Bill Summary</span>
</header>
<div class="field-items" id="bill-summary-top">
<div class="field-item even"><p></p>
<p><b>Housing needs planning.</b> The executive director of the
department of local affairs (director) shall, no later than December 31,
2024, and every 5 years thereafter, issue methodology for developing
statewide, regional, and local housing needs assessments. The statewide
housing needs assessment must determine existing statewide housing stock
and current and future housing needs. The regional housing needs
assessments must allocate the addressing of housing needs identified in
the statewide housing needs assessment to regions of the state.
Similarly, the local housing needs assessments must allocate the
addressing of the housing needs allocated in the regional housing needs
assessment to localities in the relevant region.</p>
<p style="text-indent: 50px;">The director shall, no later than December
31, 2024, issue guidance on creating a housing needs plan for both a
rural resort job center municipality and an urban municipality.
Following this guidance, no later than December 31, 2026, and every 5
years thereafter, a rural resort job center municipality and an urban
municipality shall develop a housing needs plan and submit that plan to
the department of local affairs (department). A housing needs plan must
include, among other things, descriptions of how the plan was created,
how the municipality will address the housing needs it was assigned in
the local housing needs assessment, affordability strategies the
municipality has selected to address its local housing needs assessment,
an assessment of displacement risk and any strategies selected to
address identified risks, and how the locality will comply with other
housing requirements in this bill.</p>
<p style="text-indent: 50px;"></p>
<p style="text-indent: 50px;">The director shall, no later than December
31, 2024, develop and publish a menu of affordability strategies to
address housing production, preservation, and affordability. Rural
resort job center municipalities and urban municipalities shall identify
at least 2 of these strategies that they intend to implement in their
housing plan, and urban municipalities with a transit-oriented area must
identify at least 3.</p>
<p style="text-indent: 50px;"></p>
<p style="text-indent: 50px;">The director shall, no later than December
31, 2024, develop and publish a menu of displacement mitigation
measures. This menu must, among other things, provide guidance for how
to identify areas at the highest risk for displacement and identify
displacement mitigation measures that a locality may adopt. An urban
municipality must identify which of these measures it intends to
implement in its housing plan to address any areas it identifies as at
an elevated risk for displacement.</p>
<p style="text-indent: 50px;"></p>
<p style="text-indent: 50px;">The director shall, no later than March 31,
2024, publish a report that identifies strategic growth objectives that
will incentivize growth in transit-oriented areas and infill areas and
guide growth at the edges of urban areas. The multi-agency advisory
committee shall, no later than March 31, 2024, submit a report to the
general assembly concerning the strategic growth objectives.</p>
<p style="text-indent: 50px;"></p>
<p style="text-indent: 50px;">The bill establishes a multi-agency advisory
committee and requires that committee to conduct a public comment and
hearing process on and provide recommendations to the director on:</p>
<p style="text-indent: 50px;">
</p><ul><li>Methodologies for developing statewide, regional, and local housing needs assessments;
</li><li>Guidance for creating housing needs plans;
</li><li>Developing a menu of affordability strategies;
</li><li>Developing a menu of displacement mitigation measures;
</li><li>Identifying strategic growth objectives; and
</li><li>Developing reporting guidance and templates.</li></ul><p></p>
<p style="text-indent: 50px;">A county or municipality within a rural
resort region shall participate in a regional housing needs planning
process. This process must encourage participating counties and
municipalities to identify strategies that, either individually or
through intergovernmental agreements, address the housing needs assigned
to them. A report on this process must be submitted to the department.
Further, within 6 months of completing this process, a rural resort job
center municipality shall submit a local housing needs plan to the
department. Once a year, both rural resort job centers and urban
municipalities shall report to the department on certain housing data.</p>
<p style="text-indent: 50px;"></p>
<p style="text-indent: 50px;">A multi-agency group created in the bill and
the division of local government within the department shall provide
assistance to localities in complying with the requirements of this
bill. This assistance must include technical assistance and a grant
program.</p>
<p style="text-indent: 50px;"><b>Accessory dwelling units.</b> The
director shall promulgate an accessory dwelling unit model code that,
among other things, requires accessory dwelling units to be allowed as a
use by right in any part of a municipality where the municipality
allows single-unit detached dwellings as a use by right. The committee
shall provide recommendations to the director for promulgating this
model code. In developing these recommendations, the committee shall
conduct a public comment and hearing process.</p>
<p style="text-indent: 50px;">Even if a municipality does not adopt the
accessory dwelling unit model code, the municipality shall adhere to
accessory dwelling unit minimum standards established in the bill and by
the department. These minimum standards, among other things, must
require a municipality to:</p>
<p style="text-indent: 50px;">
</p><ul><li>Allow accessory dwelling units as a use by right in any part
of the municipality where the municipality allows single-unit detached
dwellings as a use by right;
</li><li>Only adopt or enforce local laws concerning accessory dwelling units that use objective standards and procedures;
</li><li>Not adopt, enact, or enforce local laws concerning accessory
dwelling units that are more restrictive than local laws concerning
single-unit detached dwellings; and
</li><li>Not apply standards that make the permitting, siting, or construction of accessory dwelling units infeasible.</li></ul><p><b>Middle housing.</b> The director shall promulgate a
middle housing model code that, among other things, requires middle
housing to be allowed as a use by right in any part of a rural resort
job center municipality or a tier one urban municipality where the
municipality allows single-unit detached dwellings as a use by right.
The committee shall provide recommendations to the director for
promulgating this model code. In developing these recommendations, the
committee shall conduct a public comment and hearing process.</p>
<p style="text-indent: 50px;">Even if a rural resort job center
municipality or a tier one urban municipality does not adopt the middle
housing model code, the municipality shall adhere to middle housing
minimum standards established in the bill and by the department. These
minimum standards, among other things, must require a municipality to:</p>
<p style="text-indent: 50px;">
</p><ul><li>Allow middle housing as a use by right in certain areas;
</li><li>Only adopt or enforce local laws concerning middle housing that use objective standards and procedures;
</li><li>Allow properties on which middle housing is allowed to be split by right using objective standards and procedures;
</li><li>Not adopt, enact, or enforce local laws concerning middle
housing that are more restrictive than local laws concerning single-unit
detached dwellings; and
</li><li>Not apply standards that make the permitting, siting, or construction of middle housing infeasible.</li></ul><p><b>Transit-oriented areas.</b> The director shall
promulgate a transit-oriented area model code that, among other things,
imposes minimum residential density limits for multifamily residential
housing and mixed-income multifamily residential housing and allows
these developments as a use by right in the transit-oriented areas of
tier one urban municipalities. The committee shall provide
recommendations to the director for promulgating this model code. In
developing these recommendations, the committee shall conduct a public
comment and hearing process.</p>
<p style="text-indent: 50px;">Even if a tier one urban municipality does
not adopt the transit-oriented model code, the municipality shall adhere
to middle housing minimum standards established in the bill and by the
department. These minimum standards, among other things, must require a
municipality to:</p>
<p style="text-indent: 50px;">
</p><ul><li>Create a zoning district within a transit-oriented area in
which multifamily housing meets a minimum residential density limit and
is allowed as a use by right; and
</li><li>Not apply standards that make the permitting, siting, or
construction of multifamily housing in transit-oriented areas
infeasible.</li></ul><p><b>Key corridors.</b> The director shall promulgate a key
corridor model code that applies to key corridors in rural resort job
center municipalities and tier one urban municipalities. The model code
must, among other things, include requirements for:
</p><ul><li>The percentage of units in mixed-income multifamily
residential housing that must be reserved for low- and moderate-income
households;
</li><li>Minimum residential density limits for multifamily residential housing; and
</li><li>Mixed-income multifamily residential housing that must be allowed as a use by right in key corridors. </li></ul><p>The committee shall provide recommendations to the director for
promulgating this model code. In developing these recommendations, the
committee shall conduct a public comment and hearing process.</p>
<p style="text-indent: 50px;"></p>
<p style="text-indent: 50px;">Even if a rural resort job center
municipality or a tier one urban municipality does not adopt the key
corridor model code, the municipality shall adhere to key corridor
minimum standards promulgated by the director and developed by the
department. These minimum standards, among other things, must identify a
net residential zoning capacity for a municipality and must require a
municipality to:</p>
<p style="text-indent: 50px;">
</p><ul><li>Allow multifamily residential housing within key corridors that meets the net residential zoning capacity as a use by right;
</li><li>Not apply standards that make the permitting, siting, or construction of multifamily housing in certain areas infeasible; and
</li><li>Not adopt, enact, or enforce local laws that make satisfying the required minimum residential density limits infeasible.</li></ul><p>The committee shall provide recommendations to the director on
promulgating these minimum standards. In developing these
recommendations, the committee shall conduct a public comment and
hearing process.</p>
<p style="text-indent: 50px;"><b>Adoption of model codes and minimum standards.</b>
A relevant municipality shall adopt either the model code or local laws
that satisfy the minimum standards concerning accessory dwelling units,
middle housing, transit-oriented areas, and key corridors. Furthermore,
a municipality shall submit a report to the department demonstrating
that it has done so. If a municipality fails to adopt either the model
code or local laws that satisfy the minimum standards by a specified
deadline, the relevant model code immediately goes into effect, and
municipalities shall then approve any proposed projects that meet the
standards in the model code using objective procedures. However, a
municipality may apply to the department for a deadline extension for a
deficiency in water or wastewater infrastructure or supply.<b>Additional provisions.</b> The bill also:
</p><ul><li>Requires the advisory committee on factory-built structures
and tiny homes to produce a report on the opportunities and barriers in
state law concerning the building of manufactured homes, mobile homes,
and tiny homes;
</li><li>Removes the requirements that manufacturers of factory-built
structures comply with escrow requirements of down payments and provide a
letter of credit, certificate of deposit issued by a licensed financial
institution, or surety bond issued by an authorized insurer;
</li><li>Prohibits a planned unit development resolution or ordinance
for a planned unit with a residential use from restricting accessory
dwelling units, middle housing, housing in transit-oriented areas, or
housing in key corridors in a way not allowed by this bill;
</li><li>Prohibits a local government from enacting or enforcing
residential occupancy limits that differ based on the relationships of
the occupants of a dwelling;
</li><li>Modifies the content requirements for a county and municipal
master plan, requires counties and municipalities to adopt or amend
master plans as part of an inclusive process, and requires counties and
municipalities to submit master plans to the department;
</li><li>Allows a municipality to sell and dispose of real property and
public buildings for the purpose of providing property to be used as
affordable housing, without requiring the sale to be submitted to the
voters of the municipality;
</li><li>Requires the approval process for manufactured and modular
homes to be based on objective standards and administrative review
equivalent to the approval process for site-built homes;
</li><li>Prohibits a municipality from imposing more restrictive
standards on manufactured and modular homes than the municipality
imposes on site-built homes;
</li><li>Prohibits certain municipalities from imposing minimum square
footage requirements for residential units in the approval of
residential dwelling unit construction permits;
</li><li>Requires certain entities to submit to the Colorado water
conservation board (board) a completed and validated water loss audit
report pursuant to guidelines that the board shall adopt;
</li><li>Allows the board to make grants from the water efficiency grant
program cash fund to provide water loss audit report validation
assistance to covered entities;
</li><li>Allows the board and the Colorado water resources and power
development authority to consider whether an entity has submitted a
required audit report in deciding whether to release financial
assistance to the entity for the construction of a water diversion,
storage, conveyance, water treatment, or wastewater treatment facility;
</li><li>Prohibits a unit owners' association from restricting accessory
dwelling units, middle housing, housing in transit-oriented areas, or
housing in key corridors;
</li><li>Requires the department of transportation to ensure that the
prioritization criteria for any grant program administered by the
department are consistent with state strategic growth objectives, so
long as doing so does not violate federal law;
</li><li>Requires any regional transportation plan that is created or
updated to address and ensure consistency with state strategic growth
objectives;
</li><li>Requires that expenditures for local and state multimodal
projects from the multimodal transportation options fund are only to be
made for multimodal projects that the department determines are
consistent with state strategic growth objectives; and
</li><li>For state fiscal year 2023-24, appropriates $15,000,000 from
the general fund to the housing plans assistance fund and makes the
department responsible for the accounting related to the appropriation.<br /><i>(Note: This summary applies to this bill as introduced.)</i>
<p></p>
</li></ul></div>
</div>
<a class="button" href="https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb23-213#"></a>dgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1122443293261057373.post-60113716716388991532023-04-25T10:58:00.000-06:002023-04-25T10:58:00.461-06:00New Data Reveals Race, Gender, Political Affiliations of Mass Murderers Since 1998<p> </p><h1 class="headline"><span style="font-size: large;">New Data Reveals Race, Gender, Political Affiliations of Mass Murderers Since 1998</span></h1>
<div class="byline">
<span class="post_author_intro">by</span> <span class="post_author">Jordan Michaels</span>
<span class="post_date_intro">on</span> <span class="post_date" title="2021-03-01">March 1, 2021</span>
</div><br />
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img alt="" class="wp-image-142545 lazyautosizes ls-is-cached lazyloaded" data-sizes="auto" data-src="https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/El_Paso_shooting_memorial.jpeg.png" data-srcset="https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/El_Paso_shooting_memorial.jpeg.png 1000w, https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/El_Paso_shooting_memorial.jpeg-400x240.png 400w, https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/El_Paso_shooting_memorial.jpeg-150x90.png 150w, https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/El_Paso_shooting_memorial.jpeg-768x461.png 768w" height="600" src="https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/El_Paso_shooting_memorial.jpeg.png" width="1000" /><figcaption><em>A memorial for the victims of the mass murder that took place in El Paso in 2019 (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)</em></figcaption></figure>
<p></p><div class="inline-placement-desktop-left hide-mobile" id="nas_hunt_box1"></div>
<p>A new dataset from the <a href="https://crimeresearch.org/">Crime Prevention Research Center</a>
compiles the demographic makeup of all mass public shooters in the
United States since 1998, and the top-line results appear to contradict
media stereotypes about the kind of people who use firearms to commit
atrocities.</p>
<p>While mass murderers are majority white (57%) and male (96%), whites
and Hispanics are underrepresented among mass murders compared to their
share of the total American population. By contrast, those of Middle
Eastern descent, Asians, blacks, and American Indians are all above
their population shares.</p><div class="inline-placement-desktop-left hide-mobile" id="nas_hunt_box2"></div>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img alt="" class="wp-image-142546 lazyautosizes ls-is-cached lazyloaded" data-sizes="auto" data-src="https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Screen-Shot-2021-02-19-at-Friday-February-19-9.01-PM-768x176-1.png" data-srcset="https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Screen-Shot-2021-02-19-at-Friday-February-19-9.01-PM-768x176-1.png 768w, https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Screen-Shot-2021-02-19-at-Friday-February-19-9.01-PM-768x176-1-400x92.png 400w, https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Screen-Shot-2021-02-19-at-Friday-February-19-9.01-PM-768x176-1-150x34.png 150w" height="176" src="https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Screen-Shot-2021-02-19-at-Friday-February-19-9.01-PM-768x176-1.png" width="768" /></figure>
<p></p>
<p>In terms of religion, the vast majority of mass murderers are not
religious or do not profess any particular religious faith. Christians
comprise the largest religious group, but their share among mass
murderers is far lower than their share of the larger American
population. By contrast, Muslims and non-Christian religions are
overrepresented compared to their share of the population.</p><div class="inline-placement-desktop-left hide-mobile" id="nas_hunt_box3"></div>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img alt="" class="wp-image-142547 lazyautosizes ls-is-cached lazyloaded" data-sizes="auto" data-src="https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Religious-affiliation-of-mass-public-shooters-768x134-1.png" data-srcset="https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Religious-affiliation-of-mass-public-shooters-768x134-1.png 768w, https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Religious-affiliation-of-mass-public-shooters-768x134-1-400x70.png 400w, https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Religious-affiliation-of-mass-public-shooters-768x134-1-150x26.png 150w" height="134" src="https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Religious-affiliation-of-mass-public-shooters-768x134-1.png" width="768" /></figure>
<h2 class="wp-block-heading">SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/la-times-stop-mass-shootings/">LA Times: These Gun Laws Would Have Stopped All But One Mass Shooting Over the Last Five Years</a></h2>
<p>Politically speaking, most mass shooters do not divulge any political
leanings. The next most common political affiliation is “Islamic
extremism,” followed by indications that suggest right-leaning and
left-leaning beliefs.</p>
<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><img alt="" class="wp-image-142548 lazyautosizes lazyloaded" data-sizes="auto" data-src="https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Political-Demographics-of-Mass-Public-Shooters-1024x951.jpg" data-srcset="https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Political-Demographics-of-Mass-Public-Shooters-1024x951.jpg 1024w, https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Political-Demographics-of-Mass-Public-Shooters-323x300.jpg 323w, https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Political-Demographics-of-Mass-Public-Shooters-150x139.jpg 150w, https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Political-Demographics-of-Mass-Public-Shooters-768x713.jpg 768w, https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Political-Demographics-of-Mass-Public-Shooters.jpg 1234w" height="951" src="https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Political-Demographics-of-Mass-Public-Shooters-1024x951.jpg" width="1024" /></figure>
<p></p>
<p>“Mass public shootings” is defined as those cases where four or more
people are killed at one point in time in a public place and not
involving some other type of crime such as a gang fight or a robbery.</p>
<p>Dr. John Lott, the researcher who compiled the data, believes these
facts contradict the perception that mass murderers are all white
supremacists.</p>
<p>“Entertainment television continually provides a false impression of
those who commit mass public shootings and how they commit them,” Lott
says on <a href="https://crimeresearch.org/2021/02/the-false-narrative-of-white-supremacists-doing-mass-public-shootings-racial-gender-religious-and-political-views-of-these-killers-from-1998-through-january-2021/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">his website</a>. “…another myth is that attacks are frequently by white supremacists. Yet, that is far from the case.”</p>
<p>It is somewhat unclear where Lott sees evidence for this statement.
“White supremacist” is not a political affiliation, according to Lott’s
data, and there have been at least two mass murderers who articulated
white supremacist beliefs since 1998, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/us/dylann-storm-roof-photos-website-charleston-church-shooting.html" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Dylann Roof</a> and <a href="https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2019/08/04/the-el-paso-shooting-and-the-gamification-of-terror/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Patrick Crusius</a>.</p>
<h2 class="wp-block-heading">SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.gunsamerica.com/digest/bloomberg-assault-weapon-ban-mass-shooting/">Bloomberg-Funded Study Finds that ‘Assault Weapon’ Bans Don’t Stop Mass Shootings</a></h2>
<p>In response to our inquiry, Lott pointed out that while “white
supremacist” is not a political category, he did compile information
about whether the suspect was a neo-Nazi or part of some similar group.
They also noted whether the case might have been a hate crime in the
“part of other crime” column of the spreadsheet. </p>
<p>Dylann Roof, for example, is listed as a “right-wing extremist,”
Robert Bowers is listed as “anti-Jewish” and Patrick Crusius is listed
as “anti-government.”</p>
<p>Still, for the vast majority of suspects, it is not known whether
they held any beliefs that suggest sympathies with white supremacism. </p>
<p>The data set proves that, with the exception of gender, mass
murderers are more diverse than the media and politicians would have
Americans believe. White supremacists may garner the most media
attention, but the data doesn’t appear to be robust enough to make many
generalizations.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://crimeresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Mass-Public-Shooting_US_1998-2020_updated-20210219.xlsx" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Click here to download the data and check it out yourself</a>. </strong> Also, please consider <a href="https://crimepreventionresearchcenter.nationbuilder.com/donate">supporting</a> Dr. Lott and the Crime Prevention Research Center.</p>dgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1122443293261057373.post-90211675696221048372023-04-24T14:46:00.006-06:002023-04-24T14:46:42.109-06:00Testimony: The Costs and Complexity of the Federal Tax Code Demand Refor<h1 id="post-title"><span style="font-size: large;">Testimony: The Costs and Complexity of the Federal Tax Code Demand Reform</span></h1>
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<p style="text-align: left;"><em><strong>Note</strong>: The following is the testimony of <a href="https://taxfoundation.org/staff/william-mcbride/">Dr. William McBride</a>,
Vice President of Federal Tax Policy & Stephen J. Entin Fellow in
Economics at the Tax Foundation, prepared for Senate Budget Committee <a href="https://www.budget.senate.gov/hearings/a-rigged-system-the-cost-of-tax-dodging-by-the-wealthy-and-big-corporations" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">hearing</a> on April 18, 2023, titled, “A Rigged System: The Cost of Tax Dodging by the Wealthy and Big Corporations.”</em></p>
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<h3 id="50"><strong>Table of Contents</strong></h3>
<ul><li><strong><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#burden">The Size and Distribution of the Federal Tax Burden</a></strong></li><li><strong><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#collections">Federal Tax Collections are Near Record Highs</a></strong></li><li><strong><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#high">Most of the Federal Tax Burden is Paid by High Earners</a></strong></li><li><strong><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#complexity">Tax Code’s Complexity Adds to the Burden</a></strong></li><li><strong><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#economic">The Economic Cost of High Marginal Income Tax Rates</a></strong></li><li><strong><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#reform">Recommendations for Reform</a></strong></li><li><strong><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#conclusion">Conclusion</a></strong></li></ul>
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<h2 id="burden">The Size and Distribution of the Federal <a class="tooltip__anchor" href="https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/tax/" id="anchor98690">Tax</a> Burden</h2>
<p>Chairman Whitehouse, Ranking Member Grassley, and distinguished
members of the Senate Budget Committee, thank you for the opportunity to
provide testimony on the distribution of the federal tax burden. I am
William McBride, Vice President of Federal Tax Policy and Stephen J.
Entin Fellow in Economics at the Tax Foundation, where I focus on how we
can improve our federal tax code.</p>
<p>Today, my testimony will focus on four points. First, I will
describe the current federal tax system, showing that tax collections
are near an all-time high and the burden is highly progressive. Second, I
will describe how the tax code’s increasing complexity adds to this
burden, raising compliance costs for taxpayers and administrative costs
for the <a class="tooltip__anchor" href="https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/internal-revenue-service-irs/" id="anchor92648">Internal Revenue Service (IRS)</a>.
Third, I will describe the economic costs of the tax code’s high
marginal income tax rates, which slow economic growth and reduce living
standards.</p>
<p>Finally, I will recommend ways to reform the federal tax code to
reduce complexity and improve economic incentives, grow the economy,
benefit low- and middle-income workers, and raise sufficient revenues at
or above current levels.</p>
<h2 id="collections">Federal Tax Collections are Near Record Highs</h2>
<p>As a result of the economic recovery coming out of the pandemic and
surging inflation, federal tax collections hit an all-time high of $4.9
trillion in fiscal year (FY) 2022 that ended September 30, topping the
prior year’s record collections by $850 billion.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a>
As a share of gross domestic product (GDP), federal tax collections in
FY 2022 reached a multi-decade high of about 19.6 percent, up from 17.9
percent in the prior fiscal year and approaching the last peak of 20.0
percent set during the dot-com bubble in FY 2000.</p>
<p>Only two other years in U.S. history saw federal tax collections as a
share of GDP exceed the FY 2022 level, both during World War II: in
1943, federal tax collections reached 20.5 percent of GDP before falling
to 19.9 percent in 1944. FY 2022 tax collections exceeded the post-war
average of 17.2 percent of GDP by 2.4 percentage points.</p>
<p><a href="https://files.taxfoundation.org/20230417125246/SenFin_Apr2023_WAM-01.png"><img alt="federal tax collections approaching a record high" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-112728" src="https://files.taxfoundation.org/20230417125246/SenFin_Apr2023_WAM-01.png" /></a></p>
<p>In the most recent fiscal year, individual income tax collections
contributed the most to the surge in federal tax collections, growing 29
percent to $2.6 trillion in FY 2022 from $2.0 trillion in FY 2021. <a class="tooltip__anchor" href="https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/payroll-tax/" id="anchor75127">Payroll tax</a>es
grew 13 percent to $1.5 trillion in FY 2022 from $1.3 trillion in FY
2021, while corporate taxes grew 14 percent to $425 billion from $372
billion, and other revenues grew 13 percent to $356 billion from $316
billion.</p>
<p>Individual income tax collections reached 10.5 percent of GDP in FY
2022, the highest level on record. That level substantially exceeded the
prior record of 9.9 percent of GDP set in FY 2000 as well as the World
War II-era record of 9.2 percent of GDP set in FY 1944.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2">[2]</a></p>
<p>The surge in individual income tax revenue is partly attributable to
growth in capital gains revenue due to booming stock and housing markets
in 2021, itself a function of inflationary fiscal and monetary stimulus
during the pandemic.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3">[3]</a>
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that capital gains
realizations and revenue roughly doubled during the pandemic years:
realizations grew to $2.0 trillion in 2021 and $1.7 trillion in 2022
from $881 billion in 2019 while revenues grew to $304 billion in FY 2021
and $378 billion in FY 2022 from $169 billion in FY 2019.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4">[4]</a></p>
<p>Extreme economic volatility in recent years makes it difficult to
assess how tax collections have been impacted by the Tax Cuts and Jobs
Act (TCJA), which was enacted in 2017. Among other changes, the TCJA
reduced the corporate tax rate percent to 21 percent from 35 percent.
Corporate and other federal tax revenues were relatively low in 2018
through the first year of the pandemic but have since rebounded with the
economy and inflation. Average federal tax collections in the five
years since the TCJA’s enactment are about 17.3 percent of GDP—higher
than the 16.7 percent forecasted by the CBO following its passage,
higher than most years before the TCJA, and higher than the post-war
average of 17.2 percent.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5">[5]</a></p>
<p>As the inflationary boom of 2021 has turned into a bust over the
course of the last year, and as the Federal Reserve continues to raise
interest rates to fight the inflation, growth in federal tax collections
is likely to slow in FY 2023. On a preliminary basis, the CBO reports
that federal tax collections in the first half of FY 2023 (October 2022
to March 2023) are down 3 percent from the same period in FY 2022, with
individual income tax revenue down 8 percent.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6">[6]</a>
However, based on current projections, federal tax collections as a
share of GDP will likely remain above the historical average in FY 2023.</p>
<h2 id="high">Most of the Federal Tax Burden is Paid by High Earners</h2>
<p>By any objective measure, the U.S. tax code is extremely progressive
and very redistributive. According to the latest IRS data for 2020, the
top 5 percent of taxpayers (about 7.9 million filers that earn more than
$220,521) paid in aggregate $1.1 trillion in income taxes, amounting to
62.7 percent of all income taxes paid that year.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7">[7]</a>
The top 1 percent of taxpayers (about 1.6 million filers who earn more
than $548,336) paid $723 billion in income taxes, or 42.3 percent of all
income taxes paid—a larger share than the bottom 95 percent of
taxpayers combined.</p>
<p>The share of federal income taxes paid by the top 1 percent is higher
than it has been in at least 20 years, according to IRS data.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8">[8]</a>
In 2001, the top 1 percent’s share of income taxes paid was 33.2
percent, then fluctuated with the business cycle and the ups and downs
of the housing and stock markets, before rising steadily to its current
high of 42.3 percent in 2020. The top 1 percent’s share of income taxes
could well go higher in 2021 and 2022 due to growth of capital gains
revenue, which is paid primarily by high earners.</p>
<p><a href="https://files.taxfoundation.org/20230417125327/SenFin_Apr2023_WAM-02.png"><img alt="wealthy taxpayer data on federal tax burden share" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-112729" src="https://files.taxfoundation.org/20230417125327/SenFin_Apr2023_WAM-02.png" /></a></p>
<p>High income taxpayers also pay the highest tax rates, according to
the IRS. The average income tax rate in 2020 was 13.6 percent. The top 5
percent of taxpayers paid a 22.4 percent average rate while the top 1
percent of taxpayers paid a 26.0 percent average rate—more than eight
times higher than the 3.1 percent average rate paid by the bottom half
of taxpayers. The top 0.001 percent, or the richest 1,575 tax returns
filed in 2020, paid nearly $71 billion in income taxes and had an <a class="tooltip__anchor" href="https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/average-tax-rate/" id="anchor73329">average tax rate</a> of 23.7 percent.</p>
<p>The average tax rate for the top 0.001 percent is slightly lower than
that of the top 1 percent because a larger share of the top 0.001
percent’s income is capital gains, which face a lower rate schedule. One
justification for the lower rate is that capital gains income is earned
in an environment where other taxes have already been applied. In
particular, shareholder taxes on capital gains and dividends essentially
apply on top of the corporate income tax of 21 percent. That is, the
same dollar of corporate income is first taxed by the corporate income
tax and then taxed again when distributed to shareholders in the form of
capital gains and dividends. Note that the shares and average tax rates
cited above do not reflect the additional burden of the corporate
income tax.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9">[9]</a></p>
<p><a href="https://files.taxfoundation.org/20230417125349/SenFin_Apr2023_WAM-03.png"><img alt="average federal tax burden and rate by income group" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-112730" src="https://files.taxfoundation.org/20230417125349/SenFin_Apr2023_WAM-03.png" /></a></p>
<p>Analysis from the CBO provides a more complete picture of the
distribution of the federal tax burden. When accounting for individual
income taxes—including the outlay portion of refundable tax
credits—corporate income taxes, payroll taxes, estate taxes, and excise
taxes, CBO finds that the federal tax system, as a whole, is
progressive. <a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10">[10]</a>
The latest data indicates that households in the highest income
quintile paid about 69 percent of all federal taxes in 2019, and the top
1 percent of households paid about 25 percent of all federal taxes.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11">[11]</a> In contrast, the bottom quintile of households paid about 0.1 percent of all federal taxes.</p>
<p>Like the IRS data on federal income taxes, the CBO analysis indicates
the share of all federal taxes paid by high earners has grown over
time. For example, the share of federal taxes paid by households in the
top 1 percent has approximately doubled to about 25 percent in 2019 from
roughly 12 percent in the early 1980s.</p>
<p><a href="https://files.taxfoundation.org/20230417125413/SenFin_Apr2023_WAM-04.png"><img alt="share of federal tax burden by income group" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-112731" src="https://files.taxfoundation.org/20230417125413/SenFin_Apr2023_WAM-04.png" /></a></p>
<p>Furthermore, the CBO analysis indicates that average federal tax
rates increase substantially with income. For example, the top quintile
of households paid an average federal tax rate of 24.4 percent in 2019
and the top 1 percent of households paid an average federal tax rate of
30.0 percent. In contrast, the bottom quintile paid an average federal
tax rate of 0.5 percent, reflecting the fact that <a class="tooltip__anchor" href="https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/refundable-tax-credits/" id="anchor75136">refundable tax credit</a>s for this group almost entirely offset payroll taxes and other federal taxes.</p>
<p>The CBO notes that within the top 1 percent’s average federal tax
rates are relatively flat at about 30 percent, as the effect of lower
capital gains tax rates are offset by higher average corporate tax
rates.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12">[12]</a> For example, the top 0.01 percent of households paid an average federal tax rate of 30.2 percent in 2019.</p>
<p>Over time, the average federal tax rate paid by the top 1 percent has
remained within a range of about 25 to 35 percent since 1979, and as of
2019 is about in the middle of that range and close to the average of
30.5 percent over the period 1979 to 2019. However, the average federal
tax rate for the bottom quintile has declined substantially, to nearly
zero in 2019 due to the introduction and expansion of refundable <a class="tooltip__anchor" href="https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/tax-credit/" id="anchor75470">tax credit</a>s from a high of about 12 percent in 1984.</p>
<p><a href="https://files.taxfoundation.org/20230417125451/SenFin_Apr2023_WAM-05.png"><img alt="average federal tax rates vary by tax type and income level and are progressive overall" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-112732" src="https://files.taxfoundation.org/20230417125451/SenFin_Apr2023_WAM-05.png" /></a></p>
<p>Data from the <a class="tooltip__anchor" href="https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/joint-committee-on-taxation-jct/" id="anchor100418">Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT)</a>
confirms that average federal tax rates consistently rise with income.
When including all federal taxes, the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers
face an average federal tax rate of 6.3 percent, compared to an average
rate of 24.8 percent for the top 1 percent of taxpayers. The federal
income tax is the most progressive of the federal taxes, with corporate
income taxes and estate and <a class="tooltip__anchor" href="https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/gift-tax/" id="anchor98092">gift tax</a>es also adding to federal progressivity. The <a class="tooltip__anchor" href="https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/progressive-tax/" id="anchor75133">progressive tax</a> sources more than offset payroll taxes and <a class="tooltip__anchor" href="https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/excise-tax/" id="anchor74471">excise tax</a>es
that apply higher average tax rates to lower income groups. The JCT
data also shows average federal taxes rise within the top 1 percent,
from an average tax rate of 22.6 percent for those in the 99th to 99.5th
percentiles of income to 32.9 percent for the top 0.01 percent of
earners, representing about 15,000 taxpayers in the United States.</p>
<p><a href="https://files.taxfoundation.org/20230417125518/SenFin_Apr2023_WAM-06.png"><img alt="average federal tax rates vary by tax type and income level and are progressive overall" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-112733" src="https://files.taxfoundation.org/20230417125518/SenFin_Apr2023_WAM-06.png" /></a></p>
<h2 id="complexity">Tax Code’s Complexity Adds to the Burden</h2>
<p>By any measure, the federal tax code is extremely complex. Totaling
more than 6,000 pages and about 4 million words (plus about 15,000 pages
of associated tax law interpretations), no taxpayer can reasonably be
expected to fully comprehend it.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13">[13]</a>
The complexity derives in part from the basic challenge of defining and
taxing income, an endeavor the country embarked on more than 100 years
ago. Every Congress and administration since has revised and added to an
accumulating pile of deductions, credits, and special provisions. By
official measures, there are now more than 200 such special provisions
known as “tax expenditures,” costing about $2 trillion annually. In the
last three years alone more than 100 tax expenditures have been created
or amended.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14">[14]</a></p>
<p>While some tax expenditures are important structural elements of the
tax code, many are complicated and disproportionately benefit specific
industries or types of households.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15">[15]</a> The CBO finds about half of the total income tax benefits of expenditures go to high-income households.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn16" name="_ftnref16">[16]</a></p>
<p>The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), enacted last year, adds several
complicated provisions to the tax code, including a book minimum tax, a
stock buyback tax, and more than 20 different tax subsidies for green
energy. All of these require extensive regulatory guidance which
continues to roll out even as much of the law took effect at the
beginning of this year.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn17" name="_ftnref17">[17]</a>
Taxpayers, too, have highlighted several remaining concerns and
ambiguities in the law (e.g., reporting requirements and applicable
financial statements for the book minimum tax, and domestic content
rules for the green energy tax credits).<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn18" name="_ftnref18">[18]</a></p>
<p>The uncertainty in the law also translates into uncertainty about the
budgetary costs and distributional impacts. For example, researchers
now estimate the budgetary cost of the IRA’s green energy credits and
subsidies will exceed $1 trillion over a decade, three times the
original cost estimated by the CBO and the JCT, with the benefits
accruing mainly to high earners.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn19" name="_ftnref19">[19]</a></p>
<p>In the same month the IRA was enacted, Congress passed the CHIPS and
Science Act, which provides billions of dollars of targeted (and
complex) incentives and investment tax credits for semiconductor
manufacturing, along with a variety of eligibility and reporting
requirements.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn20" name="_ftnref20">[20]</a></p>
<p>In 2022 (before the IRA or the CHIPS Act), Americans spent more than
6.5 billion hours trying to comply with the tax code, according to the
latest estimates from the White House Office of Information and
Regulatory Affairs (OIRA).<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn21" name="_ftnref21">[21]</a>
Based on wage and benefit estimates for tax preparers and certified
public accountants, we estimate the hourly compliance costs of the tax
code equates to about $313 billion each year in lost productivity, or
1.4 percent of GDP.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn22" name="_ftnref22">[22]</a>
The compliance burden for individual taxpayers is nearly $74 billion
annually, while the burden on corporate entities of complying with just
their income tax returns is more than $60 billion. Much of the remaining
$179 billion of costs comes from complying with hundreds of other
business tax forms and regulations, such as those relating to
depreciation and amortization. Compliance with income tax returns for
estates and trusts costs $18 billion a year, approaching the amount of
tax revenue raised by the <a class="tooltip__anchor" href="https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/estate-tax/" id="anchor71996">estate tax</a>.</p>
<p>Our estimate of compliance costs does not include the cost of tax
planning, which is a significant industry on its own. Nor does it
include the cost of uncertainty in the law for taxpayers, which makes
planning for taxes as well as investment and other economic activities
difficult and costly.</p>
<p>The majority of the compliance burden is from the complex taxing of
business income, which involves tracking and reporting multiple items of
income and expense to arrive at net taxable income and allowing offsets
from net income to account for past losses (in a typical year roughly
40 percent of companies are in a loss position).<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn23" name="_ftnref23">[23]</a>
In addition, the U.S. tax code contains several business credits,
exclusions, and other special provisions that increase compliance costs.
Multinational corporations face a slew of complex provisions that
subject various types of foreign income and cross-border transactions to
tax, including Subpart F, Global Intangible Low-Taxed Income (GILTI),
Foreign-Derived Intangible Income (FDII), and Base Erosion and
Anti-Abuse Tax (BEAT).<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn24" name="_ftnref24">[24]</a></p>
<p>For individual filers, compliance costs generally increase
proportionally with income, such that most of the compliance burden is
borne by high earners.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn25" name="_ftnref25">[25]</a>
High earning individuals typically have multiple sources of income
beyond wages, including capital gains, dividends, rents, royalties, and <a class="tooltip__anchor" href="https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/pass-through-business/" id="anchor73696">pass-through business</a> income from partnerships and <a class="tooltip__anchor" href="https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/s-corporation-s-corp/" id="anchor75465">S corporation</a>s (income from these business forms is subject to <a class="tooltip__anchor" href="https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/individual-income-tax/" id="anchor74523">individual income tax</a> rather than <a class="tooltip__anchor" href="https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/corporate-income-tax-cit/" id="anchor71997">corporate income tax</a>).</p>
<p>Another aspect of the tax code’s complexity is the administrative
costs and challenges for the IRS, an agency whose responsibilities have
grown well beyond simple revenue collection to include administration of
subsidies and benefits relating to children, health care, education,
housing, energy, the environment, economic stimulus, and more.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn26" name="_ftnref26">[26]</a>
Pursuant to its expanded role, in FY 2021 the IRS processed some 261
million returns and forms and received some 4.7 billion pieces of
information, detailing the composition and activities of nearly every
American household and business.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn27" name="_ftnref27">[27]</a>
In recent years, the IRS has found itself literally buried in
paperwork, resulting in processing delays, millions of returns
backlogged, and poor customer service.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn28" name="_ftnref28">[28]</a>
Last year, for instance, the IRS answered only about 13 percent of the
173 million phone calls it received from taxpayers asking for help;
those who got through waited an average of 29 minutes.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn29" name="_ftnref29">[29]</a> Clearly, administrative challenges at the IRS are also problematic for taxpayers.</p>
<p>A report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) sheds light
on the challenges faced by the IRS and taxpayers as a result of the
increasing complexity of the code.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn30" name="_ftnref30">[30]</a> The report finds that the average number of hours the IRS spends per <a class="tooltip__anchor" href="https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/audit/" id="anchor98298">audit</a>
has increased about 30 percent in recent years, to 6.5 hours in 2021
from 5.0 hours in 2010. The increase is concentrated in high-income
returns. Average hours per audit increased 209 percent for incomes of $5
million and above, to about 58 hours in 2021 from about 19 hours per
return in 2010. Average hours per audit increased 118 percent for
incomes between $500,000 and $5 million, to 34 hours from about 16, and
103 percent for incomes between $200,000 and $500,000, from about 10 to
21 hours. In contrast, audits for incomes below $200,000 took
considerably less time—about 2 hours on average for incomes below
$25,000, and 6 hours for incomes between $25,000 and $200,000, This
remained stable over this period.</p>
<p>The GAO report notes that IRS officials attribute the increase in
average audit hours to “greater complexity of higher-income audits and
increased case transfers due to auditor attrition.” The GAO report
mentions several legislative changes that have added to the IRS’s
responsibilities in recent years, including the Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, the TCJA,
as well as some 496 million stimulus payments totaling $837 billion as
part of the CARES Act and other pandemic relief packages. (Note the GAO
report was published before enactment of the IRA or CHIPS Act.)</p>
<p>As a measure of the efficiency of audits, or the “bang for the buck,”
the GAO compared the recommended additional tax with hours spent on
audits. The GAO found that audits of the highest income returns—those
with income of $5 million or more—resulted in the highest amounts of
recommended additional tax per audit hour ($4,880 in 2021), followed by
audits of those claiming the EITC ($3,130) and those reporting less than
$25,000 of income ($2,120). In aggregate, the majority of the total
recommended additional tax came from audits of taxpayers with income
below $200,000. On average, roughly half of recommended additional
amounts are ultimately collected, however the collection rate for EITC
returns exceeds 70 percent since these audits are typically done prior
to issuing refunds.</p>
<p>Lastly, the GAO report documents that audit rates for individual
income tax returns have decreased for all income levels, dropping to
0.25 percent in 2019 from an average of 0.9 percent in 2010, which IRS
officials attribute mainly to reduced staffing as a result of reduced
funding. Audit rates decreased the most for high earners because,
according to IRS officials, these audits are generally more complex and
require more staff time to complete.</p>
<p>Simplifying the tax code would reduce IRS resources required to more
effectively administer it, including by reducing the time needed to
audit the currently complex returns of high earners. A simpler tax code
would also reduce taxpayer confusion so that there would be less need
for the IRS to produce volumes of guidance and respond to millions of
taxpayer calls for assistance. Less confusion on the part of taxpayers
would also boost compliance.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn31" name="_ftnref31">[31]</a>
As the IRS Taxpayer Advocate explains: “The most efficient way to
improve compliance is by encouraging and helping taxpayers to do the
right thing on the front end. That is much cheaper and more effective
than trying to audit our way out of the tax gap one taxpayer at a time
on the back end.”<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn32" name="_ftnref32">[32]</a></p>
<h2 id="economic">The Economic Cost of High Marginal Income Tax Rates</h2>
<p>Decades of economic research amply demonstrates the steep cost of
high marginal income tax rates that arises from disincentives to work,
save, and invest.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn33" name="_ftnref33">[33]</a>
The economic harm of income taxes increases with the square of the tax
rate, meaning high income tax rates come with a disproportionately large
additional excess burden. This burden is over and above the tax revenue
collected, manifesting itself over the course of several years as a
drag on economic growth through less investment, less innovation, fewer
jobs, and lower wages.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn34" name="_ftnref34">[34]</a></p>
<p>A study based on postwar tax reforms in the United States found that
reducing marginal tax rates on individual income for the top 1 percent
of earners leads to increases in real GDP and declines in unemployment,
with a 1 percentage point cut in the tax rate increasing real GDP by
0.78 percent by the third year after the tax change.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn35" name="_ftnref35">[35]</a>
Given the size of the U.S. economy today, that equates to about $204
billion in additional GDP for each 1 percentage point cut in the <a class="tooltip__anchor" href="https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/marginal-tax-rate/" id="anchor74682">marginal tax rate</a>
on individual income earned by the top 1 percent. The study shows the
benefits of the resulting economic growth would be felt throughout the
economy.</p>
<p>In looking at the experience of developed countries over the period
1971 to 2004, researchers at the Organisation of for Economic
Co-operation and Development (OECD) concluded that “a reduction in the
top marginal [individual] tax rate is found to raise productivity in
industries with potentially high rates of enterprise creation. Thus,
reducing top marginal tax rates may help to enhance economy-wide
productivity in OECD countries with a large share of such industries.”<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn36" name="_ftnref36">[36]</a></p>
<p>The CBO modeled three types of tax increases to fund a permanent
increase in government spending of 10 percent of GDP annually: a flat
labor tax, a flat income tax, and a progressive income tax. The CBO
found that a progressive income tax is the most economically damaging of
the three options, reducing GDP by 10 percent after 10 years, and
reducing lifetime consumption and hours worked, especially for younger
households.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn37" name="_ftnref37">[37]</a></p>
<p>Corporate income taxes are generally more economically damaging than
individual income taxes, since they make investment opportunities less
profitable on an after-tax basis for corporations, reducing the
likelihood that marginal investments will be pursued. In most countries
including the U.S., business investment makes up the bulk of all private
sector investment; more uniquely in the U.S., about half of business
investment is done by corporations and the other half by pass-through
businesses subject to individual income taxes.</p>
<p>An OECD study examining data from 63 countries concluded that
corporate income taxes are the most economically damaging way to raise
revenue, followed by individual income taxes, consumption taxes, and
property taxes.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn38" name="_ftnref38">[38]</a>
A study on taxes in the United Kingdom found that taxes on consumption
are less economically damaging than taxes on corporate and individual
income.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn39" name="_ftnref39">[39]</a>
A study of U.S. tax changes since World War II found that a 1
percentage point cut in the average corporate tax rate raises real GDP
per capita by 0.6 percent after one year, a somewhat larger impact than a
similarly sized cut in individual income taxes.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn40" name="_ftnref40">[40]</a>
Based on U.S. state taxes, a study found that a 1 percentage point cut
in the corporate tax rate leads to a 0.2 percent increase in employment
and a 0.3 percent increase in wages.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn41" name="_ftnref41">[41]</a></p>
<p>Furthermore, several studies demonstrate that the corporate tax is borne in part by workers.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn42" name="_ftnref42">[42]</a>
For instance, a study of corporate taxes in Germany found that workers
bear about half of the tax burden in the form of lower wages, with
low-skilled, young, and female employees disproportionately harmed.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn43" name="_ftnref43">[43]</a></p>
<p>The corporate tax is also borne by owners of shares, including
retirees earning considerably less than $400,000. In the short run, the
JCT assumes owners of capital bear all of the corporate tax, yet that
includes more than 90 million tax filers earning less than $200,000. In
the long run, the JCT assumes workers bear a portion of the corporate
tax, such that the burden falls on more than 150 million tax filers
earning less than $200,000.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn44" name="_ftnref44">[44]</a></p>
<p>Another factor to consider regarding the corporate tax in particular
is competitiveness with respect to our major trading partners, as
corporate investment is highly mobile internationally and will flow to
lower tax locations all else equal. The corporate tax rate reduction
from the TCJA brought the U.S. closer to the average among developed
countries accounting for federal and state level taxes, though it
remains slightly above average. The U.S. combined federal-state
corporate tax rate in 2022 was 25.8 percent, compared to 21.2 percent in
the average EU country and 23.6 percent in the average OECD country.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn45" name="_ftnref45">[45]</a></p>
<p>Lastly, one of the most problematic and economically destructive
aspects of the U.S. tax code is the double taxation of corporate income
by the corporate income tax (and now also the book minimum tax) and
shareholder taxes on capital gains and dividends. Accounting for federal
and state corporate and individual incomes taxes, the top integrated
tax rate on corporate income distributed as dividends is about 47
percent in the U.S., compared to an OECD average of about 42 percent.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn46" name="_ftnref46">[46]</a>
Several OECD countries have integrated corporate and individual tax
codes to eliminate or reduce the negative effects of double taxation of
corporate income. In the U.S., after decades of double taxing corporate
income, a large share of business activity has migrated to pass-through
form, which has only one layer of income tax as owners report
pass-through profits on their individual income tax returns.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn47" name="_ftnref47">[47]</a></p>
<h2 id="reform">Recommendations for Reform</h2>
<p>For several years, the Tax Foundation has observed and analyzed tax
systems from around the world and evaluated them based on the principles
of sound tax policy.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn48" name="_ftnref48">[48]</a>
Most tax policy experts agree that taxes should be simple, transparent,
and stable over time so they are easy to understand, comply with, and
administer. Another element of sound tax policy is neutrality: the tax
code should generally treat taxpayers equally with minimum preferences,
which extends to equal treatment of immediate versus delayed consumption
via saving. A tax code that embodies these principles naturally
supports economic flourishing, including plentiful jobs, growing wages,
upward mobility, innovation, progress, and higher standards of living.</p>
<p>In our annual ranking of the most competitive tax systems, we found
for the ninth year in row that Estonia has the best tax code in the
OECD. <a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn49" name="_ftnref49">[49]</a>
This is in part because it has a fully integrated income tax system
that avoids double-taxing corporate income through taxes at both the
entity and shareholder levels. Instead of a complicated corporate income
tax and separate rules that apply to passthrough businesses, all
businesses are subject to a simple 20 percent tax on distributed profits
(including dividends and stock buybacks). At the individual level, a
simple flat tax of 20 percent applies to all individual income except
dividends, since they are already taxed by the distributed profits tax.
Capital gains are taxed as ordinary income at 20 percent. Rather than a
complicated estate tax like ours that taxes accumulated savings at
death, bequeathed assets are simply taxed as capital gains when sold by
the heir with deductible basis determined only by costs incurred by the
heir.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn50" name="_ftnref50">[50]</a></p>
<p>Simplicity and neutrality are the hallmarks of the Estonian income tax system.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn51" name="_ftnref51">[51]</a>
Taxes are so simple in Estonia that they can typically be filed in five
minutes, and the cost of compliance for businesses is among the lowest
of any country.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn52" name="_ftnref52">[52]</a>
Estonia’s tax system is also very pro-growth, increasing small business
entrepreneurship, investment, labor productivity and thereby wages.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn53" name="_ftnref53">[53]</a> Estonia’s income tax system does all of this while generating substantial revenue comparable to other developed countries.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn54" name="_ftnref54">[54]</a></p>
<p>We recently analyzed the effect of a revenue-neutral reform of the
U.S. tax code along the lines of the Estonian income tax system, keeping
only certain features of the current code that benefit low-income
households (such as the EITC and Child Tax Credit) and support saving
(such as 401ks).<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn55" name="_ftnref55">[55]</a>
By greatly simplifying the federal tax code, these reforms would
substantially reduce compliance costs, potentially saving U.S. taxpayers
more than $100 billion annually, comprised of more than $70 billion in
reduced compliance costs for businesses and more than $30 billion in
reduced compliance costs for individuals related to individual income
and estate tax returns.</p>
<p>In addition to compliance cost savings, our modeling of the reform’s
impacts on the U.S. economy indicates it would increase GDP by 2.3
percent in the long run, amounting to about $400 billion in additional
annual output by 2032 and $1 trillion in the long run (both in 2023
dollars). These changes would increase the long-run capital stock by 3
percent, amounting to $2.1 trillion in 2023 dollars. Additionally, we
estimate it would add 1.3 million full-time equivalent jobs and raise
wages by 1.3 percent. By increasing GDP, we would reduce the debt burden
as measured by the debt-to-GDP ratio by 5.9 percentage points over the
long run.</p>
<p>Distributionally, we find the reform would increase <a class="tooltip__anchor" href="https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/after-tax-income/" id="anchor73318">after-tax income</a>
overall by 2.1 percent in the long-run, accounting for improved
economic growth, with a larger boost of 2.7 percent for the bottom
quintile of earners and 3.0 percent for the second quintile.</p>
<p>More generally, the U.S. could learn from the experience of other
countries in the OECD, which rely more heavily on consumption taxes than
the U.S. does.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn56" name="_ftnref56">[56]</a>
Value added taxes (VATs) are a major source of revenue in virtually
every developed country except the U.S., and as the literature cited
above indicates, VATs and other taxes on consumption are among the least
economically harmful ways to raise revenue.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn57" name="_ftnref57">[57]</a></p>
<p>OECD countries have also tended to abandon more complicated means of
taxing high earners such as wealth taxes due to their administrative and
economic challenges.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn58" name="_ftnref58">[58]</a>
Rather than high capital gains taxes, or any attempt to tax unrealized
capital gains, most OECD countries have lower capital gains tax rates
than the U.S., and tax capital income overall at lower average tax
rates.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn59" name="_ftnref59">[59]</a></p>
<p>Consumption taxes can be designed to progressively tax the
consumption of higher earners without the administrative complexity and
compliance costs of our current progressive income tax system. For
example, by splitting the VAT base in two, businesses would pay taxes on
their cash flow (sales less purchases and compensation paid), while
households would pay taxes on compensation received. Applying a
progressive rate schedule at the household level, with the top rate
matching the rate on business cash flow, is a relatively simple way to
achieve progressivity within a consumption tax.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn60" name="_ftnref60">[60]</a>
Under a more standard value-added tax, the most efficient way to
increase progressivity would be to offer targeted relief to lower- and
middle-income households.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn61" name="_ftnref61">[61]</a></p>
<h2 id="conclusion">Conclusion</h2>
<p>We as a country have built a federal tax system that is inherently
complex, costly, and controversial, one that is centered on taxing both
individual and business income at progressive tax rates and littered
with various preferences. To the extent it is comprehensible at all,
taxpayers do not perceive it as fair. The IRS has real challenges
administering such a complicated tax system, but boosting the IRS budget
will not fix the underlying problem that caused Americans to call the
agency 173 million times last year asking for help.</p>
<p>As top priority, lawmakers should simplify the tax code so that
taxpayers can understand the laws and the IRS can administer them with
minimum cost and frustration. As the IRS’s National Taxpayer Advocate
states in their most recent report to Congress, “Simplifying the Code is
the most important step Congress can take to reduce taxpayer compliance
burdens. Simplification is essential to the integrity of the U.S. tax
system and will enhance voluntary compliance.”<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn62" name="_ftnref62">[62]</a> We have outlined reforms that would reduce taxpayer compliance burdens by at least $100 billion per year.</p>
<p>Second, lawmakers should reduce the economic drag caused by the tax
code, particularly as economic growth is expected to slow this year and
most economists are forecasting a recession.<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftn63" name="_ftnref63">[63]</a>
The tax code is one of the most effective levers available to lawmakers
to address this economic slowdown, but it should not be done through
preferences that are targeted and complicated but instead by broadly
improving incentives to work, save, and invest through lower marginal
tax rates on individual and corporate income.</p>
<p>We have shown that revenue-neutral tax reform can greatly improve
economic growth, increasing GDP by 2.3 percent in the long run, adding
1.3 million jobs, and raising wages by 1.3 percent such that after-tax
incomes for the bottom 40 percent of earners increase by nearly 3
percent on average. Additionally, the experience of other countries
shows that taxing consumption as opposed to income raises substantial
revenue in a more economically efficient way. To address distributional
concerns, lawmakers can design <a class="tooltip__anchor" href="https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/consumption-tax/" id="anchor97105">consumption tax</a>es
to progressively tax the consumption of higher earners without the
administrative complexity and compliance costs of our current
progressive income tax system.</p>
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<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> William McBride, “Inflation is Surging, So Are Federal Tax Collections,” Tax Foundation, Oct. 13, 2022, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-collections-inflation-surging/">https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-collections-inflation-surging/</a>; Congressional Budget Office, Budget and Economic Data, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.cbo.gov/data/budget-economic-data" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.cbo.gov/data/budget-economic-data</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2">[2]</a> Office of Management and Budget, Historical Tables, Table 2.3-Receipts by Source as Percentages of GDP: 1934-2028, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/historical-tables/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/historical-tables/</a>;
A similar measure from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) indicates
federal and state individual income taxes as a share of personal income
reached an all-time high of 14.7 percent in calendar year 2022. See BEA,
National Income and Product Accounts, Table 2.1 Personal Income and Its
Disposition, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.bea.gov/itable/national-gdp-and-personal-income" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.bea.gov/itable/national-gdp-and-personal-income</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3">[3]</a> William McBride, “Inflation is Surging, So Are Federal Tax Collections,” Tax Foundation, Oct. 13, 2022, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-collections-inflation-surging/">https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-collections-inflation-surging/</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4">[4]</a> Congressional Budget Office, “The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2023 to 2033,” February 15, 2023, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58848" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58848</a>; CBO, Budget and Economic Data, Revenue Projections, by Category, https://www.cbo.gov/data/budget-economic-data#7</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref5" name="_ftn5">[5]</a> Congressional Budget Office, Budget and Economic Data, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.cbo.gov/data/budget-economic-data" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.cbo.gov/data/budget-economic-data</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref6" name="_ftn6">[6]</a> Congressional Budget Office, “Monthly Budget Review: March 2023,” April 10, 2023, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58995" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58995</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref7" name="_ftn7">[7]</a> Internal Revenue Service, <em>Statistics of Income</em>,
“Number of Returns, Shares of AGI and Total Income Tax, AGI Floor on
Percentiles in Current and Constant Dollars, and Average Tax Rates,”
Table 1, and “Number of Returns, Shares of AGI and Total Income Tax, and
Average Tax Rates,” Table 2, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-individual-income-tax-rates-and-tax-shares" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-individual-income-tax-rates-and-tax-shares</a>; Erica York, “Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data, 2023 Update,” Tax Foundation, Jan. 26, 2023, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income-tax-data/">https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income-tax-data/</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref8" name="_ftn8">[8]</a> Erica York, “Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data, 2023 Update,” Tax Foundation, Jan. 26, 2023, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income-tax-data/">https://taxfoundation.org/publications/latest-federal-income-tax-data/</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref9" name="_ftn9">[9]</a>
The IRS statistics on shares and average tax rates also do not include
the outlay portion of refundable tax credits, such as the Earned Income
Tax Credit (EITC) and the <a class="tooltip__anchor" href="https://taxfoundation.org/tax-basics/child-tax-credit/" id="anchor73916">Child Tax Credit (CTC)</a>,
which if included would reduce further the average tax rates paid by
low-income filers and increase the share of federal income taxes paid by
high-income filers.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref10" name="_ftn10">[10]</a> Congressional Budget Office, “The Distribution of Household Income 2019,” Nov. 15, 2022, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2022-11/58353-HouseholdIncome.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2022-11/58353-HouseholdIncome.pdf</a>; Garrett Watson, “CBO Analysis Finds Income Growth and Progressive Tax Code in 2019,” Tax Foundation, Jan. 10, 2023, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/us-income-growth-progressive-tax-code/">https://taxfoundation.org/us-income-growth-progressive-tax-code/</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref11" name="_ftn11">[11]</a>
In CBO’s analysis, the top 1 percent income group represents about 1.2
million households. Income thresholds defining each income group vary by
household size. For example, a one person household in the top 1
percent of income earns more than $447,200 in 2019 while a four person
household in the top 1 percent earns more than $894,400.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref12" name="_ftn12">[12]</a>
In CBO’s analysis, 75 percent of corporate income taxes are allocated
to owners of capital in proportion to their income from interest,
dividends, rents, and adjusted capital gains, and 25 percent to workers
in proportion to their labor income.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref13" name="_ftn13">[13]</a> Demian Brady, “Tax Complexity 2021: Compliance Burdens Ease for Third Year Since Tax Reform,” NTU, April 15, 2021, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.ntu.org/foundation/detail/tax-complexity-2021-compliance-burdens-ease-for-third-year-since-tax-reform" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.ntu.org/foundation/detail/tax-complexity-2021-compliance-burdens-ease-for-third-year-since-tax-reform</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref14" name="_ftn14">[14]</a> The Joint Committee on Taxation, “Estimates of Federal Tax Expenditures for Fiscal Years 2022-2026,” Dec. 22, 2022, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.jct.gov/publications/2022/jcx-22-22/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.jct.gov/publications/2022/jcx-22-22/</a>; Treasury Department, “Tax Expenditures,” <a class="link--long" href="https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/tax-policy/tax-expenditures" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/tax-policy/tax-expenditures</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref15" name="_ftn15">[15]</a> Alex Muresianu, “JCT Tax Expenditure Report: Not All Expenditures Are Created Equal,” Tax Foundation, Feb. 13, 2023, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/largest-tax-expenditures-saving-investment-tax/">https://taxfoundation.org/largest-tax-expenditures-saving-investment-tax/</a>;
Erica York and William McBride, “Lawmakers Could Pay for Reconciliation
While Improving the Tax Code,” Tax Foundation, Oct. 25, 2021, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/pay-for-reconciliation-tax/">https://taxfoundation.org/pay-for-reconciliation-tax/</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref16" name="_ftn16">[16]</a> Congressional Budget Office, “Distribution of Major Expenditures in 2019,” October 2021, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2021-10/57413-TaxExpenditures.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2021-10/57413-TaxExpenditures.pdf</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref17" name="_ftn17">[17]</a>
Alex Durante, Cody Kallen, Huaqun Li, William McBride, and Garrett
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Provisions,” Tax Foundation, Aug. 12, 2022, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/inflation-reduction-act/">https://taxfoundation.org/inflation-reduction-act/</a>;
Cody Kallen, William McBride, and Garrett Watson, “Minimum Book Tax:
Flawed Revenue Source, Penalizes Pro-Growth Cost Recovery,” Tax
Foundation, Aug. 5, 2022, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/inflation-reduction-act-accelerated-depreciation/">https://taxfoundation.org/inflation-reduction-act-accelerated-depreciation/</a>;
Daniel Bunn, “How Does the Inflation Reduction Act Minimum Tax Compare
to the Global Minimum Tax,” Tax Foundation, Aug. 2, 2022, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/inflation-reduction-act-minimum-tax/">https://taxfoundation.org/inflation-reduction-act-minimum-tax/</a>; Alex Muresianu, “Breaking Down the Inflation Reduction Act’s Green Energy Tax Credits,” Tax Foundation, Sept. 14, 2022, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/inflation-reduction-act-green-energy-tax-credits/">https://taxfoundation.org/inflation-reduction-act-green-energy-tax-credits/</a>; Internal Revenue Service, “Latest Updates on the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022”, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.irs.gov/inflation-reduction-act-of-2022" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.irs.gov/inflation-reduction-act-of-2022</a>.</p>
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<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref19" name="_ftn19">[19]</a>
John Bistline, Neil Mehrotra, and Catherine Wolfram, “Economic
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Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, March 2023, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/BPEA_Spring2023_Bistline-et-al_unembargoedUpdated.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/BPEA_Spring2023_Bistline-et-al_unembargoedUpdated.pdf</a>; Jason Furman, “Comment on “Economic Implications of the Climate Provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act,”” Mar. 30, 2023, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/2b_20230330-BPEA-climate-furman-comment.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/2b_20230330-BPEA-climate-furman-comment.pdf</a>; Christine McDaniel, “The Cost of Battery Production Tax Credits Provided in the IRA,” Forbes, Feb. 1, 2023, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinemcdaniel/2023/02/01/the-cost-of-battery-production-tax-credits-provided-in-the-ira/?sh=362fc62279ef" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinemcdaniel/2023/02/01/the-cost-of-battery-production-tax-credits-provided-in-the-ira/?sh=362fc62279ef</a>; Christine McDaniel, “The Costs of Wind Production Tax Credits Provided in the IRA,” Forbes, Mar. 8, 2023, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinemcdaniel/2023/03/08/the-costs-of-wind-production-tax-credits-provided-in-the-ira/?sh=7cd6f4295ff7" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinemcdaniel/2023/03/08/the-costs-of-wind-production-tax-credits-provided-in-the-ira/?sh=7cd6f4295ff7</a>; Goldman Sachs, “Carbonomics: The Third American Energy Revolution,” Mar. 22, 2023.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref20" name="_ftn20">[20]</a> Erica York, “Careful What You Wish For: CHIPS Subsidies Require “Excess Profits” Sharing,” Tax Foundation, Mar. 2, 2023, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/biden-semiconductor-chips-act-subsidies/">https://taxfoundation.org/biden-semiconductor-chips-act-subsidies/</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref21" name="_ftn21">[21]</a> White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Information Collection Review, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref22" name="_ftn22">[22]</a> Scott Hodge, “The Tax Compliance Costs of IRS Regulations,” Tax Foundation, Aug. 23, 2022, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/tax-compliance-costs-irs-regulations/">https://taxfoundation.org/tax-compliance-costs-irs-regulations/</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref23" name="_ftn23">[23]</a>
Arthur P. Hall, “House Way & Means Committee Testimony: Compliance
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<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref24" name="_ftn24">[24]</a>
Kyle Pomerleau, “A Hybrid Approach: The Treatment of Foreign Profits
under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act,” Tax Foundation, May 3, 2018, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/treatment-foreign-profits-tax-cuts-jobs-act/">https://taxfoundation.org/treatment-foreign-profits-tax-cuts-jobs-act/</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref25" name="_ftn25">[25]</a>
Daniel Berger, Eric Toder, Victoria Bryant, John Guyton, and Patrick
Langetieg, “Estimating the Effects of Tax Reform on Compliance Burdens,”
Urban Institute, May 19, 2018, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.urban.org/research/publication/estimating-effects-tax-reform-compliance-burdens" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.urban.org/research/publication/estimating-effects-tax-reform-compliance-burdens</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref26" name="_ftn26">[26]</a>
Alex Muresianu and Garrett Watson, “Chaotic IRS Filing Season Shows the
Perils of Running Social Policy Through the Tax Code,” Tax Foundation,
Apr. 18, 2022, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/irs-filing-season-2022/">https://taxfoundation.org/irs-filing-season-2022/</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref27" name="_ftn27">[27]</a> Internal Revenue Service, Data Book 2021, May 2022, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-irs-data-book" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.irs.gov/statistics/soi-tax-stats-irs-data-book</a>; Joseph Bishop-Henchman, “Transforming the Internal Revenue Service,” Cato Institute, Apr. 11, 2023, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/transforming-internal-revenue-service/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/transforming-internal-revenue-service/</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref28" name="_ftn28">[28]</a> Internal Revenue Service National Taxpayer Advocate, “2022 Annual Report to Congress,” Jan. 11, 2023, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/news/national-taxpayer-advocate-delivers-2022-annual-report-to-congress/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/news/national-taxpayer-advocate-delivers-2022-annual-report-to-congress/</a>; Joseph Bishop-Henchman, “Transforming the Internal Revenue Service,” Cato Institute, Apr. 11, 2023, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/transforming-internal-revenue-service/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.cato.org/policy-analysis/transforming-internal-revenue-service/</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref29" name="_ftn29">[29]</a> Internal Revenue Service National Taxpayer Advocate, “2022 Annual Report to Congress,” Jan. 11, 2023, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/news/national-taxpayer-advocate-delivers-2022-annual-report-to-congress/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/news/national-taxpayer-advocate-delivers-2022-annual-report-to-congress/</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref30" name="_ftn30">[30]</a>
Government Accountability Office, “Tax Compliance: Trends of IRS Audit
Rates and Results for Individual Taxpayers by Income,” May 17, 2022, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-104960" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-22-104960</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref31" name="_ftn31">[31]</a> Garrett Watson, “Closing the Tax Gap and Improving the Tax Code Are Complementary Goals,” Tax Foundation, November 21, 2019, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/closing-tax-gap-improving-tax-code/">https://taxfoundation.org/closing-tax-gap-improving-tax-code/</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref32" name="_ftn32">[32]</a>
Erin Collins, “NTA Blog: IRS Strategic Operating Plan Has Potential to
Transform Tax Administration,” National Taxpayer Advocate Blog, April 6,
2023, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/news/nta-blog-irs-strategic-operating-plan-has-potential-to-transform-tax-administration/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/news/nta-blog-irs-strategic-operating-plan-has-potential-to-transform-tax-administration/</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref33" name="_ftn33">[33]</a> N. Gregory Mankiw, Matthew Weinzierl, and Danny Yagan, “Optimal Taxation in Theory and Practice,” <em>Journal of Economic Perspectives </em>2009, volume 23(4), <a class="link--long" href="https://eml.berkeley.edu/~yagan/OptimalTaxation.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://eml.berkeley.edu/~yagan/OptimalTaxation.pdf</a>; William McBride, “What Is the Evidence on Taxes and Growth,” Tax Foundation, Dec. 18, 2012, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.taxfoundation.org/what-evidence-taxes-and-growth/;%20">https://www.taxfoundation.org/what-evidence-taxes-and-growth/</a>; Alex Durante, “Reviewing Recent Evidence of the Effect of Taxes on Economic Growth,” Tax Foundation, May 21, 2021, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/reviewing-recent-evidence-effect-taxes-economic-growth/;%20">https://taxfoundation.org/reviewing-recent-evidence-effect-taxes-economic-growth/</a>; Timothy Vermeer, “The Impact of Individual Income Tax Changes on Economic Growth,” Tax Foundation, June 14, 2022, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/income-taxes-affect-economy/">https://taxfoundation.org/income-taxes-affect-economy/</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref34" name="_ftn34">[34]</a> Robert Carroll, “The Excess Burden of Taxes and the Economic Cost of High Tax Rates,” Tax Foundation, August 2009, <a class="link--long" href="https://files.taxfoundation.org/legacy/docs/sr170.pdf;%20">https://files.taxfoundation.org/legacy/docs/sr170.pdf</a>; Martin Feldstein, “Tax Avoidance and the Deadweight Loss of the Income Tax,” <em>The Review of Economics and Statistics</em> 81:4 (November 1999): 674-680, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2646716" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.jstor.org/stable/2646716</a>;</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref35" name="_ftn35">[35]</a> Karel Mertens and José Luis Montiel Olea, “Marginal Tax Rates and Income: New Time Series Evidence,” <em>The</em> <em>Quarterly Journal of Economic</em>s 133:4 (November 2018), <a class="link--long" href="https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/133/4/1803/4880451?redirectedFrom=fulltext" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/133/4/1803/4880451?redirectedFrom=fulltext</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref36" name="_ftn36">[36]</a>
Åsa Johansson, Christopher Heady, Jens Arnold, Bert Brys, Cyrille
Schwellnus, & Laura Vartia, “Taxation and Economic Growth.”</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref37" name="_ftn37">[37]</a>
Congressional Budget Office, “The Economics of Financing a Large and
Permanent Increase in Government Spending: Working Paper 2021-03,” Mar.
22, 2021, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57021" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57021</a>;
see also Garrett Watson, “Congressional Budget Office and Tax
Foundation Modeling Show That Some Tax Hikes Are More Damaging Than
Others,” Tax Foundation, Mar. 26, 2021, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.taxfoundation.org/tax-hikes-are-more-damaging-than-others-analysis/">https://www.taxfoundation.org/tax-hikes-are-more-damaging-than-others-analysis/</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref38" name="_ftn38">[38]</a>
Åsa Johansson, Christopher Heady, Jens Matthias Arnold, Bert Brys, and
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Co-Operation and Development Working Paper No. 620, July 3, 2008, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/economics/taxation-and-economic-growth_241216205486" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/economics/taxation-and-economic-growth_241216205486</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref39" name="_ftn39">[39]</a> Ahn D. M. Nguyen, Luisanna Onnis, and Raffaelle Rossi, “The Macroeconomic Effects of Income and Consumption Tax Changes,” <em>American Economic Journal: Economic Policy</em> 13:2 (May 2021), <a class="link--long" href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20170241&&from=f" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20170241&&from=f</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref40" name="_ftn40">[40]</a> Karel Mertens and Morten O. Ravn, “The Dynamic Effects of Personal and Corporate Income Tax Changes in the Unites States,” <em>American Economic Review</em> 103:4 (June 2013), <a class="link--long" href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.103.4.1212" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.103.4.1212</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref41" name="_ftn41">[41]</a>
Alexander Ljungqvist and Michael Smolyansky, “To Cut or Not to Cut? On
the Impact of Corporate Taxes on Employment and Income,” National Bureau
of Economic Research Working Paper No. 20753 (October 2018), <a class="link--long" href="https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w20753/w20753.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w20753/w20753.pdf</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref42" name="_ftn42">[42]</a> Stephen J. Entin, “Labor Bears Much of the Cost of the Corporate Tax,” Tax Foundation, Oct. 24, 2017, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.taxfoundation.org/labor-bears-corporate-tax/">https://www.taxfoundation.org/labor-bears-corporate-tax/</a>; and Alex Durante, “Who Bears the Burden of Corporate Taxation? A Review of Recent Evidence,” June 10, 2021, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.taxfoundation.org/who-bears-burden-corporate-tax/">https://www.taxfoundation.org/who-bears-burden-corporate-tax/</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref43" name="_ftn43">[43]</a> Clemens Fuest, Andreas Peichl, and Sebastian Siegloch, “Do Higher Corporate Taxes Reduce Wages? Micro Evidence from Germany,” <em>American Economic Review</em> 108:2 (February 2018): 393–418, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.doi.org/10.1257/aer.20130570" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.doi.org/10.1257/aer.20130570</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref44" name="_ftn44">[44]</a> Joint Committee on Taxation, “Revenue Estimates and Distributional Analyses,” Aug. 3, 2021, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/jct_analysis_on_corporate_tax_increase.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/jct_analysis_on_corporate_tax_increase.pdf</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref45" name="_ftn45">[45]</a> Cristina Enache, “Corporate Tax Rates around the World, 2022,” Tax Foundation, December 13, 2022, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/corporate-tax-rates-by-country-2022/">https://taxfoundation.org/corporate-tax-rates-by-country-2022/</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref46" name="_ftn46">[46]</a> OECD, Tax Database Table II.4. Overall Statutory Tax Rates on Dividend Income, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/tax-database/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.oecd.org/tax/tax-policy/tax-database/</a>; Elke Asen, “Double Taxation of Corporate Income in the United States and the OECD,” Tax Foundation, January 13, 2021, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/double-taxation-of-corporate-income/%20">https://taxfoundation.org/double-taxation-of-corporate-income/</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref47" name="_ftn47">[47]</a> Scott Eastman, “Corporate and Pass-through Business Income and Returns Since 1980,” Apr. 23, 2019, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.taxfoundation.org/pass-through-business-income-since-1980/">https://www.taxfoundation.org/pass-through-business-income-since-1980/</a></p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref48" name="_ftn48">[48]</a> TaxEDU, “Principles of Sound Tax Policy,” Tax Foundation, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/principles/">https://taxfoundation.org/principles/</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref49" name="_ftn49">[49]</a> Daniel Bunn and Lisa Hogreve, “International Tax Competitiveness Index, 2022,” Tax Foundation, Oct. 17, 2022, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/2022-international-tax-competitiveness-index/">https://taxfoundation.org/2022-international-tax-competitiveness-index/</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref50" name="_ftn50">[50]</a> William McBride, “Biden’s New Tax Proposals are Complicated and Rife with Double Taxation,” Tax Foundation, Mar. 13, 2023, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/biden-tax-fairness/">https://taxfoundation.org/biden-tax-fairness/</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref51" name="_ftn51">[51]</a>
Estonia’s simple approach to taxing business and individual income has
also been implemented in Latvia and Georgia. Daniel Bunn, “Better than
the Rest,” Tax Foundation, Oct. 9, 2019, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/estonia-tax-system-latvia-tax-system/">https://taxfoundation.org/estonia-tax-system-latvia-tax-system/</a>; Gia Jandieri, “Tax Reform in Georgia 2004-2012,” Tax Foundation, July 17, 2019, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/tax-reforms-in-georgia-2004-2012/">https://taxfoundation.org/tax-reforms-in-georgia-2004-2012/</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref52" name="_ftn52">[52]</a> Kyle Pomerleau, “The Best Part of the Estonian Tax Code Is Not 5 Minute Tax Filing,” Tax Foundation, Jul. 21, 2015, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/best-part-estonian-tax-code-not-5-minute-tax-filing/">https://taxfoundation.org/best-part-estonian-tax-code-not-5-minute-tax-filing/</a>;
William McBride, Garrett Watson, Erica York, “Taxing Distributed
Profits Makes Business Taxation Simple and Efficient,” Tax Foundation,
Mar. 1, 2023, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/distributed-profits-tax-us-businesses/">https://taxfoundation.org/distributed-profits-tax-us-businesses/</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref53" name="_ftn53">[53]</a>
Jaan Maaso, Jaanika Meriküll, and Priit Vahter, “Gross Profit Taxation
Versus Distributed Profit Taxation and Firm Performance: Effects of
Estonia’s Corporate Income Tax Reform,” The University of Tartu Faculty
of Economics and Business Administration Working Paper No. 81-2011,
March 23, 2011, https://ssrn.com/abstract=1793143 or <a class="link--long" href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1793143" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1793143</a>;
Jaan Masso and Jaanika Merikull, “Macroeconomic Effects of Zero
Corporate Income Tax on Retained Earnings,” Baltic Journal of Economics,
11:2 (2011): 81-99, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1406099X.2011.10840502" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1406099X.2011.10840502</a>;
Aaro Hazak, “Companies’ Financial Decisions Under the Distributed
Profit Taxation Regime of Estonia,” Emerging Markets Finance & Trade
45:4 (2009): 4-12, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/27750676" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.jstor.org/stable/27750676</a>;
Eduardo Davila and Benjamin Hebert, “Optimal Corporate Taxation under
Financial Frictions,” NBER Working Paper No. 25520, October 2021,
https://www.nber.org/papers/w25520.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref54" name="_ftn54">[54]</a>
Over the last 10 years, Estonia’s central government tax collections
from income and profit amount to about 7.4 percent of GDP, compared to
7.3 percent for the median OECD country and 8.4 percent averaged across
OECD countries. See OECD Tax Revenue Statistics,
https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref55" name="_ftn55">[55]</a>
William McBride, Huaqun Li, Garrett Watson, Alex Durante, Erica York,
and Alex Muresianu, “Details and Analysis of a Tax Reform Plan for
Growth and Opportunity,” Tax Foundation, February 14, 2023,
https://taxfoundation.org/growth-opportunity-us-tax-reform-plan/</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref56" name="_ftn56">[56]</a>Daniel
Bunn and Cecilia Perez Weigel, “Sources of Government Revenue in the
OECD,” Tax Foundation, Feb. 23, 2023,
https://taxfoundation.org/oecd-tax-revenue-by-country-2023/.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref57" name="_ftn57">[57]</a> William McBride, “What Is the Evidence on Taxes and Growth,” Tax Foundation, Dec. 18, 2012, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.taxfoundation.org/what-evidence-taxes-and-growth/">https://www.taxfoundation.org/what-evidence-taxes-and-growth/</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref58" name="_ftn58">[58]</a>
Daniel Bunn, “What the U.S. Can Learn from the Adoption (and Repeal) of
Wealth Taxes in the OECD,” Tax Foundation, Jan. 18, 2022, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/wealth-taxes-in-the-oecd/">https://taxfoundation.org/wealth-taxes-in-the-oecd/</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref59" name="_ftn59">[59]</a>
Daniel Bunn and Elke Asen, “Savings and Investment: The Tax Treatment
of Stock and Retirement Accounts in the OECD,” Tax Foundation, May 26,
2021, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/savings-and-investment-oecd/#Capital">https://taxfoundation.org/savings-and-investment-oecd/#Capital</a>; Jacob Lundberg and Johannes Nathell, “Taxing Capital—An International Comparison,” Tax Foundation, May 11, 2021, <a class="link--long" href="https://taxfoundation.org/tax-burden-on-capital-income/">https://taxfoundation.org/tax-burden-on-capital-income/</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref60" name="_ftn60">[60]</a> This design is known as the “X Tax,” developed by the late economist David Bradford. See Robert Carroll and Alan D. Viard, <em>Progressive Consumption Taxation: The X Tax, </em>(Washington, D.C: The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, 2012).</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref61" name="_ftn61">[61]</a>
See Rita de la Feria and Michael Walpole, “The Impact of Public
Perceptions on General Consumption Taxes,” British Tax Review 67:5 (Dec.
4, 2020), 637-669, <a class="link--long" href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3723750" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3723750</a>
for a discussion on how other approaches, such as exemptions or reduced
rates can, counterintuitively, increase regressivity by providing more
benefits to higher-income households.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref62" name="_ftn62">[62]</a> Internatal Revenue Service National Taxpayer Advocate, “2022 Annual Report to Congress,” Jan. 11, 2023, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/news/national-taxpayer-advocate-delivers-2022-annual-report-to-congress/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.taxpayeradvocate.irs.gov/news/national-taxpayer-advocate-delivers-2022-annual-report-to-congress/</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://taxfoundation.org/federal-tax-complexity-costs-reform/#_ftnref63" name="_ftn63">[63]</a> See for instance: National Association of Business Economics, “Outlook Survey,” February 2023, <a class="link--long" href="https://nabe.com/NABE/Surveys/Outlook_Surveys/February_2023_Outlook_Survey_Summary.aspx" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://nabe.com/NABE/Surveys/Outlook_Surveys/February_2023_Outlook_Survey_Summary.aspx</a>; The Conference Board, “Probablity of US Recession Remains Elevated,” April 12, 2023, <a class="link--long" href="https://www.conference-board.org/research/economy-strategy-finance-charts/CoW-Recession-Probability" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.conference-board.org/research/economy-strategy-finance-charts/CoW-Recession-Probability</a>.</p><p> </p>dgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1122443293261057373.post-14664600933226091592023-04-24T14:44:00.003-06:002023-04-24T14:44:15.201-06:00UN Says Minors Can Consent to Sex <p> </p><h1 class="mb-3 text-gray font-sanserif text-4xl">
<span style="font-size: large;">UN Says Minors Can Consent to Sex </span></h1>
<div>
<h2 class="article-excerpt text-xl">'Sexual conduct involving
persons below the domestically prescribed minimum age of consent to sex
may be consensual in fact, if not in law,' UN says</h2>
</div>
<figure class="post-thumbnail-container relative lg:mr-24 w-full my-4 mb-8">
<img alt="" class="w-full wp-post-image" height="491" src="https://s1.freebeacon.com/up/2022/07/gay-pride-festival-held-hometown-vice-president-mike-pence-736x491.jpg" width="736" /> <figcaption class="absolute text-white p-4 w-full text-right text-xs bottom-0 bg-black opacity-75">
A girl at a gay pride festival / Getty Images </figcaption>
</figure>
<div class=" ">
<span class="text-gray text-xs md:text-lg"> <div class="w-fit-content" style="line-height: 1.1;">
<div class="w-fit-content">
<a href="https://freebeacon.com/author/adam-kredo/">Adam Kredo</a> </div>
<div class="w-fit-content md:text-xs">April 17, 2023</div>
</div>
</span>
</div>
<p>The United Nations is working to mainstream sex with minors,
stating in a report that relations with underage individuals can be
considered consensual despite worldwide prohibitions on such acts. </p><div class="inline-ad-wrapper">
</div>
<p></p>
<p>"Sexual conduct involving persons below the domestically prescribed
minimum age of consent to sex may be consensual in fact, if not in law,"
several U.N.-backed organizations claimed in a <a href="https://icj2.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/8-MARCH-Principles-FINAL-printer-version-1-MARCH-2023.pdf" rel="noopener" target="_blank">March report</a> that advocates decriminalizing these acts as part of a "human rights-based approach" to laws governing sexual relations.</p>
<p>"The enforcement of criminal law should reflect the rights and
capacity of persons under 18 years of age to make decisions about
engaging in consensual sexual conduct and their right to be heard in
matters concerning them," according to the report, authored by the
International Committee of Jurists (ICJ) with support from UNAIDS and
the U.N. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. "Pursuant to
their evolving capacities and progressive autonomy, persons under 18
years of age should participate in decisions affecting them, with due
regard to their age, maturity, and best interests, and with specific
attention to non-discrimination guarantees."</p>
<p>The U.N. report echoes the thinking of groups like the North American
Man-Boy Love Association, which condones pedophilia and works to
abolish age-of-consent laws. While the report stops short of calling for
the legalization of sex with minors, it maintains that those under 18
years of age have the mental capacity to willingly have sex with older
individuals. The report is raising red flags with experts who say the
United Nations is trying to mainstream underage sex as it pushes a woke
ideology that has long existed at the fringes of society.</p>
<p>"This document advocates for a lot of troubling ideas and bad
policies," said Grace Melton, a Trump administration appointee to the
United Nations who works as an analyst for the Heritage Foundation think
tank. "Not only does it suggest that minors may be mature enough to
consent to sexual activity, but it also asserts that 'criminal law may
not in any way impair' the so-called right to abortion or to
'gender-affirming care.'"</p>
<p>The report, Melton added, "illustrates some of the consequences of
the progressive left's expansion of what constitutes 'human rights.'"</p>
<p>Other portions of the report advocate for the mass decriminalization
of sex acts. As part of this decriminalization, "consensual sexual
conduct, irrespective of the type of sexual activity, the sex/gender,
sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression of the people
involved, or their marital status, may not be criminalized in any
circumstances," according to the report. "Consensual same-sex, as well
as consensual different-sex sexual relations, or consensual sexual
relations with or between trans, nonbinary, and other gender-diverse
people, or outside marriage—whether pre-marital or extramarital—may,
therefore, never be criminalized." </p><div class="in-article-ad-wrapper">
<div data-adpath="/339474670,22676103662/Freebeacon/InContent" data-onpage="true"></div>
</div>
<p></p>
<p>Ian Seiderman, the legal and policy director at the ICJ, said in a <a href="https://www.unaids.org/en/resources/presscentre/featurestories/2023/march/20230308_new-legal-principles-decriminalization" rel="noopener" target="_blank">statement</a> that laws criminalizing sex "not only violate human rights, but the fundamental principles of criminal law themselves."</p>
<p>Former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter did not respond to a request for comment.</p>dgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1122443293261057373.post-41554019317521084462023-04-24T13:49:00.003-06:002023-04-24T13:49:29.719-06:00No One Can Explain Why Planes Stay in the Air<p> </p><h1 class="hmjyd8t" data-cy="parsed-headline"><span style="font-size: large;">No One Can Explain Why Planes Stay in the Air</span></h1><h2 class="d149txkx"><p>Do recent explanations solve the mysteries of aerodynamic lift?</p></h2><cite class="b1yvsvix"><a data-cy="author-url" href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/?utm_source=pocket">Scientific American</a><ul><li data-cy="author" itemprop="author">Ed Regis</li></ul></cite><div class="s6y9bk2 top save-article"></div><br /><div class="content-body"><article class="a18y1bts"><div class="r3dvya1" data-cy="parsed-content"><section class="c19xbjrv"><div class="body story-image" data-reactroot=""><img alt="illustration of a plane" height="515" src="https://pocket-syndicated-images.s3.amazonaws.com/6434da5c8a16a.jpg" width="643" /><p class="description"><span class="caption"><span class="caption-space"> </span> <span class="caption-content">Photo by CSA Images/Getty Images</span></span></p></div><p class="body">
In December 2003, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first flight of the Wright brothers, the <em>New York Times</em>
ran a story entitled “Staying Aloft; What Does Keep Them Up There?” The
point of the piece was a simple question: What keeps planes in the air?
To answer it, the <em>Times</em> turned to John D. Anderson, Jr.,
curator of aerodynamics at the National Air and Space Museum and author
of several textbooks in the field.
</p><p class="body">
What Anderson said, however, is that there is actually no
agreement on what generates the aerodynamic force known as lift. “There
is no simple one-liner answer to this,” he told the <em>Times</em>.
People give different answers to the question, some with “religious
fervor.” More than 15 years after that pronouncement, there are still
different accounts of what generates lift, each with its own substantial
rank of zealous defenders. At this point in the history of flight, this
situation is slightly puzzling. After all, the natural processes of
evolution, working mindlessly, at random and without any understanding
of physics, solved the mechanical problem of aerodynamic lift for
soaring birds eons ago. Why should it be so hard for scientists to
explain what keeps birds, and airliners, up in the air?
</p><p class="body">
Adding to the confusion is the fact that accounts of lift exist
on two separate levels of abstraction: the technical and the
nontechnical. They are complementary rather than contradictory, but they
differ in their aims. One exists as a strictly mathematical theory, a
realm in which the analysis medium consists of equations, symbols,
computer simulations and numbers. There is little, if any, serious
disagreement as to what the appropriate equations or their solutions
are. The objective of technical mathematical theory is to make accurate
predictions and to project results that are useful to aeronautical
engineers engaged in the complex business of designing aircraft.
</p><p class="body">
But by themselves, equations are not explanations, and neither
are their solutions. There is a second, nontechnical level of analysis
that is intended to provide us with a physical, commonsense explanation
of lift. The objective of the nontechnical approach is to give us an
intuitive understanding of the actual forces and factors that are at
work in holding an airplane aloft. This approach exists not on the level
of numbers and equations but rather on the level of concepts and
principles that are familiar and intelligible to nonspecialists.
</p><p class="body">
It is on this second, nontechnical level where the controversies
lie. Two different theories are commonly proposed to explain lift, and
advocates on both sides argue their viewpoints in articles, in books and
online. The problem is that each of these two nontechnical theories is
correct in itself. But neither produces a complete explanation of lift,
one that provides a full accounting of all the basic forces, factors and
physical conditions governing aerodynamic lift, with no issues left
dangling, unexplained or unknown. Does such a theory even exist?
</p><hr class="divider" data-reactroot="" /><h2 class="body title">Two Competing Theories</h2><p class="body">
By far the most popular explanation of lift is Bernoulli’s
theorem, a principle identified by Swiss mathematician Daniel Bernoulli
in his 1738 treatise, <em>Hydrodynamica</em>. Bernoulli came from a
family of mathematicians. His father, Johann, made contributions to the
calculus, and his Uncle Jakob coined the term “integral.” Many of Daniel
Bernoulli’s contributions had to do with fluid flow: Air is a fluid,
and the theorem associated with his name is commonly expressed in terms
of fluid dynamics. Stated simply, Bernoulli’s law says that the pressure
of a fluid decreases as its velocity increases, and vice versa.
</p><p class="body">
Bernoulli’s theorem attempts to explain lift as a consequence of
the curved upper surface of an airfoil, the technical name for an
airplane wing. Because of this curvature, the idea goes, air traveling
across the top of the wing moves faster than the air moving along the
wing’s bottom surface, which is flat. Bernoulli’s theorem says that the
increased speed atop the wing is associated with a region of lower
pressure there, which is lift.
</p><div class="body story-image" data-index="0"><img class="article_image" height="1659" id="image_1" src="https://pocket-image-cache.com/direct?resize=w2000&url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.scientificamerican.com%2Fsciam%2Fassets%2FImage%2F2020%2FXXsaw0220Regi31_d.png" width="666" /><p class="description"><span class="caption"><span class="caption-text"></span><span class="caption-space"></span></span><span class="credit"><span class="credit-text"></span></span></p></div><p class="body">
Mountains of empirical data from streamlines (lines of smoke
particles) in wind-tunnel tests, laboratory experiments on nozzles and
Venturi tubes, and so on provide overwhelming evidence that as stated,
Bernoulli’s principle is correct and true. Nevertheless, there are
several reasons that Bernoulli’s theorem does not by itself constitute a
<em>complete</em> explanation of lift. Although it is a fact of
experience that air moves faster across a curved surface, Bernoulli’s
theorem alone does not explain why this is so. In other words, the
theorem does not say how the higher velocity above the wing came about
to begin with.
</p><div class="body story-image" data-index="1"><img class="article_image" height="974" id="image_2" src="https://pocket-image-cache.com/direct?resize=w2000&url=https%3A%2F%2Fstatic.scientificamerican.com%2Fsciam%2Fassets%2FImage%2F2020%2Fsaw0220Regi32_d.png" width="653" /><p class="description"><span class="caption"><span class="caption-text"></span><span class="caption-space"></span></span><span class="credit"><span class="credit-text"></span></span></p></div><p class="body">
There are plenty of bad explanations for the higher velocity.
According to the most common one—the “equal transit time” theory—parcels
of air that separate at the wing’s leading edge must rejoin
simultaneously at the trailing edge. Because the top parcel travels
farther than the lower parcel in a given amount of time, it must go
faster. The fallacy here is that there is no physical reason that the
two parcels must reach the trailing edge simultaneously. And indeed,
they do not: the empirical fact is that the air atop moves much faster
than the equal transit time theory could account for.
</p><p class="body">
There is also a notorious “demonstration” of Bernoulli’s
principle, one that is repeated in many popular accounts, YouTube videos
and even some textbooks. It involves holding a sheet of paper
horizontally at your mouth and blowing across the curved top of it. The
page rises, supposedly illustrating the Bernoulli effect. The opposite
result ought to occur when you blow across the bottom of the sheet: the
velocity of the moving air below it should pull the page downward.
Instead, paradoxically, the page rises.
</p><p class="body">
The lifting of the curved paper when flow is applied to one side
“is not because air is moving at different speeds on the two sides,”
says Holger Babinsky, a professor of aerodynamics at the University of
Cambridge, in his article <em>“</em>How Do Wings Work?” To demonstrate
this, blow across a straight piece of paper—for example, one held so
that it hangs down vertically—and witness that the paper does not move
one way or the other, because “the pressure on both sides of the paper
is the same, despite the obvious difference in velocity.”
</p><p class="body">
The second shortcoming of Bernoulli’s theorem is that it does
not say how or why the higher velocity atop the wing brings lower
pressure, rather than higher pressure, along with it. It might be
natural to think that when a wing’s curvature displaces air upward, that
air is compressed, resulting in increased pressure atop the wing. This
kind of “bottleneck” typically slows things down in ordinary life rather
than speeding them up. On a highway, when two or more lanes of traffic
merge into one, the cars involved do not go faster; there is instead a
mass slowdown and possibly even a traffic jam. Air molecules flowing
atop a wing do not behave like that, but Bernoulli’s theorem does not
say why not.
</p><p class="body">
The third problem provides the most decisive argument against
regarding Bernoulli’s theorem as a complete account of lift: An airplane
with a curved upper surface is capable of flying inverted. In inverted
flight, the curved wing surface becomes the bottom surface, and
according to Bernoulli’s theorem, it then generates reduced pressure <em>below</em>
the wing. That lower pressure, added to the force of gravity, should
have the overall effect of pulling the plane downward rather than
holding it up. Moreover, aircraft with symmetrical airfoils, with equal
curvature on the top and bottom—or even with flat top and bottom
surfaces—are also capable of flying inverted, so long as the airfoil
meets the oncoming wind at an appropriate angle of attack. This means
that Bernoulli’s theorem alone is insufficient to explain these facts.
</p><p class="body">
The other theory of lift is based on Newton’s third law of
motion, the principle of action and reaction. The theory states that a
wing keeps an airplane up by pushing the air down. Air has mass, and
from Newton’s third law it follows that the wing’s downward push results
in an equal and opposite push back upward, which is lift. The Newtonian
account applies to wings of any shape, curved or flat, symmetrical or
not. It holds for aircraft flying inverted or right-side up. The forces
at work are also familiar from ordinary experience—for example, when you
stick your hand out of a moving car and tilt it upward, the air is
deflected downward, and your hand rises. For these reasons, Newton’s
third law is a more universal and comprehensive explanation of lift than
Bernoulli’s theorem.
</p><p class="body">
But taken by itself, the principle of action and reaction also
fails to explain the lower pressure atop the wing, which exists in that
region irrespective of whether the airfoil is cambered. It is only when
an airplane lands and comes to a halt that the region of lower pressure
atop the wing disappears, returns to ambient pressure, and becomes the
same at both top and bottom. But as long as a plane is flying, that
region of lower pressure is an inescapable element of aerodynamic lift,
and it must be explained.
</p><hr class="divider" data-reactroot="" /><h2 class="body title">Historical Understanding</h2><p class="body">
Neither Bernoulli nor Newton was consciously trying to explain
what holds aircraft up, of course, because they lived long before the
actual development of mechanical flight. Their respective laws and
theories were merely repurposed once the Wright brothers flew, making it
a serious and pressing business for scientists to understand
aerodynamic lift.
</p><p class="body">
Most of these theoretical accounts came from Europe. In the
early years of the 20th century, several British scientists advanced
technical, mathematical accounts of lift that treated air as a perfect
fluid, meaning that it was incompressible and had zero viscosity. These
were unrealistic assumptions but perhaps understandable ones for
scientists faced with the new phenomenon of controlled, powered
mechanical flight. These assumptions also made the underlying
mathematics simpler and more straightforward than they otherwise would
have been, but that simplicity came at a price: however successful the
accounts of airfoils moving in ideal gases might be mathematically, they
remained defective empirically.
</p><p class="body">
In Germany, one of the scientists who applied themselves to the
problem of lift was none other than Albert Einstein. In 1916 Einstein
published a short piece in the journal <em>Die Naturwissenschaften</em>
entitled “Elementary Theory of Water Waves and of Flight,” which sought
to explain what accounted for the carrying capacity of the wings of
flying machines and soaring birds. “There is a lot of obscurity
surrounding these questions,” Einstein wrote. “Indeed, I must confess
that I have never encountered a simple answer to them even in the
specialist literature.”
</p><p class="body">
Einstein then proceeded to give an explanation that assumed an
incompressible, frictionless fluid—that is, an ideal fluid. Without
mentioning Bernoulli by name, he gave an account that is consistent with
Bernoulli’s principle by saying that fluid pressure is greater where
its velocity is slower, and vice versa. To take advantage of these
pressure differences, Einstein proposed an airfoil with a bulge on top
such that the shape would increase airflow velocity above the bulge and
thus decrease pressure there as well.
</p><p class="body">
Einstein probably thought that his ideal-fluid analysis would
apply equally well to real-world fluid flows. In 1917, on the basis of
his theory, Einstein designed an airfoil that later came to be known as a
cat’s-back wing because of its resemblance to the humped back of a
stretching cat. He brought the design to aircraft manufacturer LVG
(Luftverkehrsgesellschaft) in Berlin, which built a new flying machine
around it. A test pilot reported that the craft waddled around in the
air like “a pregnant duck.” Much later, in 1954, Einstein himself called
his excursion into aeronautics a “youthful folly.” The individual who
gave us radically new theories that penetrated both the smallest and the
largest components of the universe nonetheless failed to make a
positive contribution to the understanding of lift or to come up with a
practical airfoil design.
</p><h2 class="body title">Toward a Complete Theory of Lift</h2><p class="body">
Contemporary scientific approaches to aircraft design are the
province of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations and the
so-called Navier-Stokes equations, which take full account of the actual
viscosity of real air. The solutions of those equations and the output
of the CFD simulations yield pressure-distribution predictions, airflow
patterns and quantitative results that are the basis for today’s highly
advanced aircraft designs. Still, they do not by themselves give a
physical, qualitative explanation of lift.
</p><p class="body">
In recent years, however, leading aerodynamicist Doug McLean has
attempted to go beyond sheer mathematical formalism and come to grips
with the physical cause-and-effect relations that account for lift in
all of its real-life manifestations. McLean, who spent most of his
professional career as an engineer at Boeing Commercial Airplanes, where
he specialized in CFD code development, published his new ideas in the
2012 text <em>Understanding Aerodynamics: Arguing from the Real Physics</em>.
</p><p class="body">
Considering that the book runs to more than 500 pages of fairly
dense technical analysis, it is surprising to see that it includes a
section (7.3.3) entitled “A Basic Explanation of Lift on an Airfoil,
Accessible to a Nontechnical Audience.” Producing these 16 pages was not
easy for McLean, a master of the subject; indeed, it was “probably the
hardest part of the book to write,” the author says. “It saw more
revisions than I can count. I was never entirely happy with it.”
</p><p class="body">
McLean’s complex explanation of lift starts with the basic
assumption of all ordinary aerodynamics: the air around a wing acts as
“a continuous material that deforms to follow the contours of the
airfoil.” That deformation exists in the form of a deep swath of fluid
flow both above and below the wing. “The airfoil affects the pressure
over a wide area in what is called a <em>pressure field</em>,” McLean
writes. “When lift is produced, a diffuse cloud of low pressure always
forms above the airfoil, and a diffuse cloud of high pressure usually
forms below. Where these clouds touch the airfoil they constitute the
pressure difference that exerts lift on the airfoil.”
</p><p class="body">
The wing pushes the air down, resulting in a downward turn of
the airflow. The air above the wing is sped up in accordance with
Bernoulli’s principle. In addition, there is an area of high pressure
below the wing and a region of low pressure above. This means that there
are four necessary components in McLean’s explanation of lift: a
downward turning of the airflow, an increase in the airflow’s speed, an
area of low pressure and an area of high pressure.
</p><p class="body">
But it is the interrelation among these four elements that is
the most novel and distinctive aspect of McLean’s account. “They support
each other in a reciprocal cause-and-effect relationship, and none
would exist without the others,” he writes. “The pressure differences
exert the lift force on the airfoil, while the downward turning of the
flow and the changes in flow speed sustain the pressure differences.” It
is this interrelation that constitutes a fifth element of McLean’s
explanation: the reciprocity among the other four. It is as if those
four components collectively bring themselves into existence, and
sustain themselves, by simultaneous acts of mutual creation and
causation.
</p><p class="body">
There seems to be a hint of magic in this synergy. The process
that McLean describes seems akin to four active agents pulling up on one
another’s bootstraps to keep themselves in the air collectively. Or, as
he acknowledges, it is a case of “circular cause-and-effect.” How is it
possible for each element of the interaction to sustain and reinforce
all of the others? And what causes this mutual, reciprocal, dynamic
interaction? McLean’s answer: Newton’s second law of motion.
</p><p class="body">
Newton’s second law states that the acceleration of a body, or a
parcel of fluid, is proportional to the force exerted on it. “Newton’s
second law tells us that when a pressure difference imposes a net force
on a fluid parcel, it must cause a change in the speed or direction (or
both) of the parcel’s motion,” McLean explains. But reciprocally, the
pressure difference depends on and exists because of the parcel’s
acceleration.
</p><p class="body">
Aren’t we getting something for nothing here? McLean says no: If
the wing were at rest, no part of this cluster of mutually reinforcing
activity would exist. But the fact that the wing is moving through the
air, with each parcel affecting all of the others, brings these
co-dependent elements into existence and sustains them throughout the
flight.
</p><hr class="divider" data-reactroot="" /><h2 class="body title">Turning on the Reciprocity of Lift</h2><p class="body">
Soon after the publication of <em>Understanding Aerodynamics</em>,
McLean realized that he had not fully accounted for all the elements of
aerodynamic lift, because he did not explain convincingly what causes
the pressures on the wing to change from ambient. So, in November 2018,
McLean published a two-part article in <em>The Physics Teacher</em> in which he proposed “a comprehensive physical explanation” of aerodynamic lift.
</p><p class="body">
Although the article largely restates McLean’s earlier line of
argument, it also attempts to add a better explanation of what causes
the pressure field to be nonuniform and to assume the physical shape
that it does. In particular, his new argument introduces a mutual
interaction at the flow field level so that the nonuniform pressure
field is a result of an applied force, the downward force exerted on the
air by the airfoil.
</p><p class="body">
Whether McLean’s section 7.3.3 and his follow-up article are
successful in providing a complete and correct account of lift is open
to interpretation and debate. There are reasons that it is difficult to
produce a clear, simple and satisfactory account of aerodynamic lift.
For one thing, fluid flows are more complex and harder to understand
than the motions of solid objects, especially fluid flows that separate
at the wing’s leading edge and are subject to different physical forces
along the top and bottom. Some of the disputes regarding lift involve
not the facts themselves but rather how those facts are to be
interpreted, which may involve issues that are impossible to decide by
experiment.
</p><p class="body">
Nevertheless, there are at this point only a few outstanding
matters that require explanation. Lift, as you will recall, is the
result of the pressure differences between the top and bottom parts of
an airfoil. We already have an acceptable explanation for what happens
at the bottom part of an airfoil: the oncoming air pushes on the wing
both vertically (producing lift) and horizontally (producing drag). The
upward push exists in the form of higher pressure below the wing, and
this higher pressure is a result of simple Newtonian action and
reaction.
</p><p class="body">
Things are quite different at the top of the wing, however. A
region of lower pressure exists there that is also part of the
aerodynamic lifting force. But if neither Bernoulli’s principle nor
Newton’s third law explains it, what does? We know from streamlines that
the air above the wing adheres closely to the downward curvature of the
airfoil. But why must the parcels of air moving across the wing’s top
surface follow its downward curvature? Why can’t they separate from it
and fly straight back?
</p><p class="body">
Mark Drela, a professor of fluid dynamics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of <em>Flight Vehicle Aerodynamics</em>,
offers an answer: “If the parcels momentarily flew off tangent to the
airfoil top surface, there would literally be a vacuum created below
them,” he explains. “This vacuum would then suck down the parcels until
they mostly fill in the vacuum, i.e., until they move tangent to the
airfoil again. This is the physical mechanism which forces the parcels
to move along the airfoil shape. A slight partial vacuum remains to
maintain the parcels in a curved path.”
</p><p class="body">
This drawing away or pulling down of those air parcels from
their neighboring parcels above is what creates the area of lower
pressure atop the wing. But another effect also accompanies this action:
the higher airflow speed atop the wing. “The reduced pressure over a
lifting wing also ‘pulls horizontally’ on air parcels as they approach
from upstream, so they have a higher speed by the time they arrive above
the wing,” Drela says. “So the increased speed above the lifting wing
can be viewed as a side effect of the reduced pressure there.”
</p><p class="body">
But as always, when it comes to explaining lift on a
nontechnical level, another expert will have another answer. Cambridge
aerodynamicist Babinsky says, “I hate to disagree with my esteemed
colleague Mark Drela, but if the creation of a vacuum were the
explanation, then it is hard to explain why sometimes the flow does
nonetheless separate from the surface. But he is correct in everything
else. The problem is that there is no quick and easy explanation.”
</p><p class="body">
Drela himself concedes that his explanation is unsatisfactory in
some ways. “One apparent problem is that there is no explanation that
will be universally accepted,” he says. So where does that leave us? In
effect, right where we started: with John D. Anderson, who stated,
“There is no simple one-liner answer to this.”
</p></section></div></article></div>dgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1122443293261057373.post-12106520481924049472023-04-11T14:21:00.002-06:002023-04-11T14:21:17.475-06:00Pausing AI Developments Isn't Enough. We Need to Shut it All Down<h1 class="headline heading-content margin-8-top"><span style="font-size: large;">Pausing AI Developments Isn't Enough. We Need to Shut it All Down</span></h1>
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By
<a class="bold author-name" href="https://time.com/author/eliezer-yudkowsky/">
Eliezer Yudkowsky
</a>
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<div class="timestamp published-date padding-12-left">
<time datetime="2023-03-29T22:01:58.000Z">March 29, 2023 6:01 PM EDT</time>
</div>
<div class="author-bio">Yudkowsky is a decision
theorist from the U.S. and leads research at the Machine Intelligence
Research Institute. He's been working on aligning Artificial General
Intelligence since 2001 and is widely regarded as a founder of the
field.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="article content body clearfix" data-tracking-zone="body" id="article-body">
<div class="padded">
<p><span class="dropcap" role="presentation">A</span>n <a href="https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/pause-giant-ai-experiments/" target="_blank">open letter</a>
published today calls for “all AI labs to immediately pause for at
least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.”</p> <p>This
6-month moratorium would be better than no moratorium. I have respect
for everyone who stepped up and signed it. It’s an improvement on the
margin.</p></div></div></div></div> <p>The
key issue is not “human-competitive” intelligence (as the open letter
puts it); it’s what happens after AI gets to smarter-than-human
intelligence. Key thresholds there may not be obvious, we definitely
can’t calculate in advance what happens when, and it currently seems
imaginable that a research lab would cross critical lines without
noticing.</p> <p>Many researchers steeped in these <a href="https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/uMQ3cqWDPHhjtiesc/agi-ruin-a-list-of-lethalities" target="_blank">issues</a>, including myself, <a href="https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/QvwSr5LsxyDeaPK5s/existential-risk-from-ai-survey-results" target="_blank">expect</a>
that the most likely result of building a superhumanly smart AI, under
anything remotely like the current circumstances, is that literally
everyone on Earth will die. Not as in “maybe possibly some remote
chance,” but as in “that is the obvious thing that would happen.” It’s
not that you can’t, in principle, survive creating something much
smarter than you; it’s that it would require precision and preparation
and new scientific insights, and probably not having AI systems composed
of giant inscrutable arrays of fractional numbers.</p><hr /><p>Without that precision and
preparation, the most likely outcome is AI that does not do what we
want, and does not care for us nor for sentient life in general. That
kind of caring is something that <i>could in principle</i> be imbued into an AI but <i>we are not ready </i>and <i>do not currently know how.</i></p> <p>Absent
that caring, we get “the AI does not love you, nor does it hate you,
and you are made of atoms it can use for something else.”</p> <p>The
likely result of humanity facing down an opposed superhuman
intelligence is a total loss. Valid metaphors include “a 10-year-old
trying to play chess against Stockfish 15”, “the 11th century trying to
fight the 21st century,” and “<i>Australopithecus</i> trying to fight <i>Homo sapiens</i>“.</p> <p>To
visualize a hostile superhuman AI, don’t imagine a lifeless book-smart
thinker dwelling inside the internet and sending ill-intentioned emails.
Visualize an entire alien civilization, thinking at millions of times
human speeds, initially confined to computers—in a world of creatures
that are, from its perspective, very stupid and very slow. A
sufficiently intelligent AI won’t stay confined to computers for long.
In today’s world you can email DNA strings to laboratories that will
produce proteins on demand, allowing an AI initially confined to the
internet to build artificial life forms or bootstrap straight to
postbiological molecular manufacturing.</p> <p>If
somebody builds a too-powerful AI, under present conditions, I expect
that every single member of the human species and all biological life on
Earth dies shortly thereafter.</p> <p>There’s no <i>proposed plan </i>for how we could do any such thing and survive. OpenAI’s openly declared <a href="https://openai.com/blog/our-approach-to-alignment-research" target="_blank">intention</a> is to make some future AI do our AI alignment homework. Just hearing that <i>this is the plan</i> ought to be enough to get any sensible person to panic. The other leading AI lab, DeepMind, has no plan at all.</p> <p>An
aside: None of this danger depends on whether or not AIs are or can be
conscious; it’s intrinsic to the notion of powerful cognitive systems
that optimize hard and calculate outputs that meet sufficiently
complicated outcome criteria. With that said, I’d be remiss in my moral
duties as a human if I didn’t also mention that we have no idea how to
determine whether AI systems are aware of themselves—since we have no
idea how to decode anything that goes on in the giant inscrutable
arrays—and therefore we may at some point inadvertently create digital
minds which are truly conscious and ought to have rights and shouldn’t
be owned.</p> <p>The rule that most people aware of
these issues would have endorsed 50 years earlier, was that if an AI
system can speak fluently and says it’s self-aware and demands human
rights, that ought to be a hard stop on people just casually owning that
AI and using it past that point. We already blew past that old line in
the sand. And that was probably <i>correct</i>; I <i>agree </i>that
current AIs are probably just imitating talk of self-awareness from
their training data. But I mark that, with how little insight we have
into these systems’ internals, we <i>do not actually know.</i></p> <p>If
that’s our state of ignorance for GPT-4, and GPT-5 is the same size of
giant capability step as from GPT-3 to GPT-4, I think we’ll no longer be
able to justifiably say “probably not self-aware” if we let people make
GPT-5s. It’ll just be “I don’t know; nobody knows.” If you can’t be
sure whether you’re creating a self-aware AI, this is alarming not just
because of the moral implications of the “self-aware” part, but because
being unsure means you have no idea what you are doing and that is
dangerous and you should stop.</p> <hr /> <p>On Feb. 7, Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/23589994/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-bing-chatgpt-google-search-ai" target="_blank">publicly gloated</a>
that the new Bing would make Google “come out and show that they can
dance.” “I want people to know that we made them dance,” he said.</p> <p>This
is not how the CEO of Microsoft talks in a sane world. It shows an
overwhelming gap between how seriously we are taking the problem, and
how seriously we needed to take the problem starting 30 years ago.</p> <p>We are not going to bridge that gap in six months.</p> <p>It
took more than 60 years between when the notion of Artificial
Intelligence was first proposed and studied, and for us to reach today’s
capabilities. Solving <i>safety</i> of superhuman intelligence—not
perfect safety, safety in the sense of “not killing literally
everyone”—could very reasonably take at least half that long. And the
thing about trying this with superhuman intelligence is that if you get
that wrong on the first try, you do not get to learn from your mistakes,
because you are dead. Humanity does not learn from the mistake and dust
itself off and try again, as in other challenges we’ve overcome in our
history, because we are all gone.</p> <p>Trying to get <i>anything </i>right
on the first really critical try is an extraordinary ask, in science
and in engineering. We are not coming in with anything like the approach
that would be required to do it successfully. If we held anything in
the nascent field of Artificial General Intelligence to the lesser
standards of engineering rigor that apply to a bridge meant to carry a
couple of thousand cars, the entire field would be shut down tomorrow.</p> <p>We
are not prepared. We are not on course to be prepared in any reasonable
time window. There is no plan. Progress in AI capabilities is running
vastly, vastly ahead of progress in AI alignment or even progress in
understanding what the hell is going on inside those systems. If we
actually do this, we are all going to die.</p> <p><b>Read More: </b><a href="https://time.com/6256529/bing-openai-chatgpt-danger-alignment/"><i>The New AI-Powered Bing Is Threatening Users. That’s No Laughing Matter</i></a></p> <p>Many
researchers working on these systems think that we’re plunging toward a
catastrophe, with more of them daring to say it in private than in
public; but they think that they can’t unilaterally stop the forward
plunge, that others will go on even if they personally quit their jobs.
And so they all think they might as well keep going. This is a stupid
state of affairs, and an undignified way for Earth to die, and the rest
of humanity ought to step in at this point and help the industry solve
its collective action problem.</p> <hr /> <p>Some
of my friends have recently reported to me that when people outside the
AI industry hear about extinction risk from Artificial General
Intelligence for the first time, their reaction is “maybe we should not
build AGI, then.”</p> <p>Hearing this gave me a tiny
flash of hope, because it’s a simpler, more sensible, and frankly saner
reaction than I’ve been hearing over the last 20 years of trying to get
anyone in the industry to take things seriously. Anyone talking that
sanely deserves to hear how bad the situation actually is, and not be
told that a six-month moratorium is going to fix it.</p> <p>On March 16, my partner sent me this email. (She later gave me permission to excerpt it here.)</p> <p>“Nina
lost a tooth! In the usual way that children do, not out of
carelessness! Seeing GPT4 blow away those standardized tests on the same
day that Nina hit a childhood milestone brought an emotional surge that
swept me off my feet for a minute. It’s all going too fast. I worry
that sharing this will heighten your own grief, but I’d rather be known
to you than for each of us to suffer alone.”</p> <p>When
the insider conversation is about the grief of seeing your daughter
lose her first tooth, and thinking she’s not going to get a chance to
grow up, I believe we are past the point of playing political chess
about a six-month moratorium.</p> <p>If
there was a plan for Earth to survive, if only we passed a six-month
moratorium, I would back that plan. There isn’t any such plan.</p> <p>Here’s what would actually need to be done:</p> <p>The
moratorium on new large training runs needs to be indefinite and
worldwide. There can be no exceptions, including for governments or
militaries. If the policy starts with the U.S., then China needs to see
that the U.S. is not seeking an advantage but rather trying to prevent a
horrifically dangerous technology which can have no true owner and
which will kill everyone in the U.S. and in China and on Earth. If I had
infinite freedom to write laws, I might carve out a single exception
for AIs being trained solely to solve problems in biology and
biotechnology, not trained on text from the internet, and not to the
level where they start talking or planning; but if that was remotely
complicating the issue I would immediately jettison that proposal and
say to just shut it all down.</p> <p>Shut down all the
large GPU clusters (the large computer farms where the most powerful AIs
are refined). Shut down all the large training runs. Put a ceiling on
how much computing power anyone is allowed to use in training an AI
system, and move it downward over the coming years to compensate for
more efficient training algorithms. No exceptions for governments and
militaries. Make immediate multinational agreements to prevent the
prohibited activities from moving elsewhere. Track all GPUs sold. If
intelligence says that a country outside the agreement is building a GPU
cluster, be less scared of a shooting conflict between nations than of
the moratorium being violated; be willing to destroy a rogue datacenter
by airstrike. </p> <p>Frame nothing
as a conflict between national interests, have it clear that anyone
talking of arms races is a fool. That we all live or die as one, in
this, is not a policy but a fact of nature. Make it explicit in
international diplomacy that preventing AI extinction scenarios is
considered a priority above preventing a full nuclear exchange, and that
allied nuclear countries are willing to run some risk of nuclear
exchange if that’s what it takes to reduce the risk of large AI training
runs.</p> <p>That’s the kind of policy change that
would cause my partner and I to hold each other, and say to each other
that a miracle happened, and now there’s a chance that maybe Nina will
live. The sane people hearing about this for the first time and sensibly
saying “maybe we should not” deserve to hear, honestly, what it would
take to have that happen. And when your policy ask is that large, the
only way it goes through is if policymakers realize that if they conduct
business as usual, and do what’s politically easy, that means their own
kids are going to die too.</p> <p>Shut it all down.</p> <p>We
are not ready. We are not on track to be significantly readier in the
foreseeable future. If we go ahead on this everyone will die, including
children who did not choose this and did not do anything wrong.</p> <p>Shut it down.</p><p> </p>dgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1122443293261057373.post-1413304099187356032023-03-29T13:39:00.003-06:002023-03-29T13:39:15.258-06:00New IRS Report Provides Fascinating Glimpse Into Your "Fair Share"<p> </p><h1 class="ArticleFull_title__FDrpw"><span style="font-size: large;">New IRS Report Provides Fascinating Glimpse Into Your "Fair Share"</span></h1><footer class="ArticleFull_headerFooter__eijAF"><div class="ArticleFull_headerFooter__authorInfo__rqsBA"><br /><div class="ArticleFull_headerFooter__author__pC2tR">by Tyler Durden</div></div><div class="ArticleFull_headerFooter__date__UFCbS">Wednesday, Mar 29, 2023 - 09:25 AM</div></footer><div class="NodeContent_body__HBEFs NodeBody_container__eeFKv"><p><a href="https://www.sovereignman.com/tax/new-irs-report-provides-fascinating-glimpse-into-your-fair-share-146597/"><em></em></a></p><p><strong>Every year the IRS publishes a detailed report on the taxes it collects. And the statistics are REALLY interesting.</strong></p><p>A few weeks ago the agency released its <a href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p1304.pdf"><u>most recent report</u></a>. So this is the most objective, up-to-date information that exists about taxes in America.</p><div class="AdvertisingSlot_desktop__eL99N AdvertisingSlot_tablet__3SxtX AdvertisingSlot_placement__udF_V"><aside class="AdvertisingSlot_inContent__nSM6b" id="in-content-video"></aside></div><p><strong>This
is important, because, these days, it’s common to hear progressive
politicians and woke mobsters calling for higher income earners and
wealthier Americans to pay their “fair share” of taxes.</strong></p><p><a data-image-external-href="" data-image-href="/s3/files/inline-images/2023-03-28_09-46-37.jpg?itok=BeHviYxf" data-link-option="0" href="https://www.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/2023-03-28_09-46-37.jpg?itok=BeHviYxf"><picture><img alt="" class="inline-images image-style-inline-images" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="e464d8c0-72fa-4620-a57e-794500f151ee" data-responsive-image-style="inline_images" height="277" src="https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/2023-03-28_09-46-37.jpg?itok=BeHviYxf" width="500" /></picture></a></p><p>But this report, directly from the US agency whose job it is to tax Americans, shows the truth:</p><p><strong>The top 1% of US taxpayers paid 48% of total US income taxes</strong>.</p><p>And that’s just at the federal level, not even counting how much of the the local and state taxes the wealthy paid.</p><p>Further, <strong>the top 10% paid nearly 72% of total income taxes</strong>.</p><p>Meanwhile, the bottom 40% of US income tax filers paid <strong>no net income tax at all</strong>. And the next group, those making between $30-$50,000 per year, paid an effective rate of just 1.9%.</p><p><em>(Again, this is not some wild conspiracy theory; these numbers are directly from IRS data.)</em></p><p><strong>But the fact that 10% of the taxpayers foot nearly three-fourths of the tax bill <em>still</em> isn’t enough for the progressive mob. They want even more.</strong></p><p>The
guy who shakes hands with thin air, for example, recently announced
that he wants to introduce a new law that would create a minimum tax of
25% on the highest income earners.</p><p>But the government’s own
statistics show that the highest income earners in America— those
earning more than $10 million annually— paid an average tax rate of
25.5%. That’s higher than Mr. Biden’s 25% minimum.</p><p>So he is essentially proposing an unnecessary solution in search of a problem.</p><p>I
bring this up because whenever you hear the leftist Bolsheviks in
government and media talking about “fair share”, they always leave out
what exactly the “fair share” is.</p><p><strong>The top 1% already pay nearly half the taxes. Exactly how much more will be enough?</strong></p><p>Should the top 1% pay 60% of all taxes? 80%? At what point will it be enough?</p><p><strong>They never say. They’ll never commit to a number. They just keep expanding their thinking scope.</strong></p><p>Elizabeth
Warren, for example, quite famously stopped talking about the “top 1%”
and started whining about the “top 5%”. And then the “top 10%”.</p><p>She has already decided that the top 5% of wealthy households should not be eligible for student loan forgiveness or Medicare.</p><p>And
when she talks about “accountable capitalism” on her website, Warren
calls out the top 10% for having too much wealth, compared to the rest
of households.</p><p><strong>Soon enough it will be the “top 25%” who are the real problem…</strong></p><p>Honestly this whole way of thinking reminds me of Anthony “the Science” Fauci’s pandemic logic on lockdowns and mask mandates.</p><p>You
probably remember how reporters always asked “the Science” when life
could go back to normal… and he always replied that it was a function of
vaccine uptake, i.e. whenever enough Americans were vaccinated.</p><p><strong>But then he kept moving the goal posts. 50%. 60%. 70%. It was never enough. And there was never a concrete answer.</strong></p><p>This same logic applies to what the “experts” believe is the “fair share” of taxes which the top whatever percent should pay.</p><p><em><strong>They’ll
never actually say what the fair share is. But my guess is that they
won’t stop until 100% of taxes are paid by the top 10% … and the other
100% of taxes are paid by the other 90%.</strong></em></p></div>dgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1122443293261057373.post-52007745567651630032023-03-23T11:39:00.004-06:002023-03-23T11:39:44.030-06:00The Colorado Way: What Coloradans are Saying About the Historic Housing Plan that Will Create More Affordable Housing Options<p> </p><div class="layout-content">
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<h2 class="press-release__title"><span><span style="font-size: large;">The Colorado Way: What Coloradans are Saying About the Historic Housing Plan that Will Create More Affordable Housing Options</span></span>
</h2>
<footer class="press-release__footer">Wednesday, March 22, 2023</footer>
<div class="field field--name-body field--type-text-with-summary field--label-hidden field__item"><p dir="ltr">DENVER
- Today, Governor Polis, Senate Majority Leader Dominick Moreno,
Representative Iman Jodeh, Representative Steven Woodrow, Representative
William Lindstedt, Representative Ruby Dickson, environmental leaders,
local government officials, housing, business, labor leaders, and
community leaders will announce a comprehensive plan to help create more
housing now for every Colorado budget. </p>
<p dir="ltr">The plan will create ways for the state to work with local
leaders to develop strategies that meet the needs of their communities
by incentivizing smart and efficient buildings, allowing more affordable
types of homes to be built. The plan will also help Colorado improve
air quality, grow open space, conserve our water, and plan for future
growth. </p>
<p dir="ltr">“I am proud to be part of a diverse group of leaders,
organizations, and businesses that recognizes that Colorado simply
cannot continue with the status quo to solve our housing affordability
challenges. I’m confident that local governments can work with the
Governor and State Legislature to rise to the occasion to address our
affordability crisis, united in our determination to work
collaboratively for a better future for our city and our state,” said
City of Boulder Mayor, Aaron Brockett. </p>
<p dir="ltr">“City leaders have been focused on housing and
affordability for some time and we thank the Governor and his team and
the legislature for caring about this important issue. The state has
held hundreds of stakeholder meetings to listen and try to better
understand the challenges we face. I’m excited for this next phase of
the conversation to see how we can work together to help make housing
more available to all in our state,” said Adam Paul, Lakewood Mayor. </p>
<p dir="ltr">"The simple goal of expanding housing options for
Coloradans can have a big impact. It can enable more people to live
closer to jobs, amenities, and transit, reinvigorate neighborhoods and
communities, reduce sprawl and lengthy commutes, and is one of our most
promising solutions to climate change,” said Alana Miller, Colorado
Policy Director for NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council). “We have
an unprecedented opportunity with strong political momentum in Colorado
and urge legislators to be bold in tackling housing affordability to
improve our quality of life and our climate.”</p>
<p dir="ltr">“I enthusiastically support this plan to help our State in
creating more homes. As a National policymaker and builder of affordable
housing, I can attest we are decades behind in ensuring we are building
inclusive communities for everyone. This bill will remove barriers to
housing that have long existed,” said Albus Brooks, Vice President,
Milender White. </p>
<p dir="ltr">“Centennial State Prosperity applauds Governor Polis and
the legislature for taking action to address the housing crisis. Too
many Coloradans are struggling to afford housing and the state needs to
take action now to lower housing costs. We look forward to working with
the Governor and state legislators to help working families get ahead,”
said Austin Blumenfeld, Executive Director of Centennial State
Prosperity.</p>
<p dir="ltr">"The Colorado Housing Affordability Project is pleased to
see our state take action to address the serious undersupply of the most
affordable forms of housing. A statewide solution is needed to ensure a
level playing field across localities and to address the regional
impacts of restrictive land use regulation. This bill does that, while
still offering leeway for local officials to respond to local needs. We
are particularly supportive of the bill's focus on planning for housing
needs and ensuring residential density in transit-served locations,"
said Brian Connolly, Colorado Housing Affordability Project.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“When we talk about solving for the affordable housing
crisis in Colorado, we must focus on meaningful affordability,
preventing displacement, and equity in access to housing for
marginalized households. We are grateful that the Governor’s Office and
bill sponsors are hearing and responding to these issues, and we are
optimistic about how this legislation will shape housing policy in an
impactful way,” said Cathy Alderman, Colorado Coalition for the
Homeless.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“The governor and legislature’s commitment to affordable
housing and the streamlining of approvals for modular, will make a
significant impact on the number of houses we can build each year from
our factory,” said Charlie Chupp CEO of Fading West.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“Reducing housing costs is not a partisan challenge but
rather, high costs are a very serious reality confronting all
Coloradoans today. The challenges faced by those in rural Colorado,
rural resort communities or the major urban centers of the front range
are very different but our goals are the same. The supply chain,
interest rates, explosive growth, and availability of water and water
treatment, are just a few of the realities that got us to where we are
today. This led to a call to action – a 6 month long non-partisan
collaborative effort with key stakeholders, leaders and expertise from
across Colorado who sat down and developed options for deliberate growth
that maximizes local control and focuses state resources. County and
municipal governments working with the state on solutions will result in
real movement forward. It has been very refreshing to see the state
working in such a collaborative way, providing a state-level
policy-level framework and guidance options while ensuring local control
and flexibility for our unique environments in Colorado. This
watershed work will have a very real impact on attainable housing in
Colorado,” said Dan Williams, Teller County Commissioner. </p>
<p dir="ltr">“As a nurse living and working in Commerce City, I deeply
understand the need to improve access to housing that is affordable and
close to transit or to work. I, along with many of my colleagues, are
being pushed out of our communities due to the rising cost of housing
and the lack of housing options that are actually available. This means
many of us are driving far distances, exacerbating our stress and air
quality problem. This has very real health impacts that I see in my
clinic staff and patients every day/week/etc., Designing or modifying
communities to connect activity-friendly routes to everyday destinations
helps increase physical activity, create community connections, and
improve health equity. Our state leaders must be forward-thinking and
intersectional in their solutions and address the housing crisis in a
way that creates walkable communities, improves access to transit, and
improves air quality. This package is our opportunity to achieve just
that,” said Dr. Darci Martinez, PhD, RN, FNP, National Alliance of
Hispanic Nurses.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“Rising costs of housing is outpacing the wages of fire
fighters and without affordably priced housing options, many
firefighters commute 1-2 hrs to their firehouses. We have seen this
problem worsen and expand over time to all corners of the state. I am
glad to see our state and local leaders taking action to make housing in
Colorado more affordable and available for our fire fighters,
workforce, and all other Coloradans,” said Dennis Eulberg, Executive
Director for Colorado Professional Fire Fighters. </p>
<p dir="ltr">“Colorado is grappling with two major crises: housing
affordability and climate change. Building more homes in our
communities, near transit and jobs, and reining in sprawling development
on Colorado’s natural and agricultural lands will help solve both
challenges. These smart growth policies are essential for lowering
housing costs, cutting traffic and transportation pollution, and
protecting Colorado’s great outdoors,” said Elise Jones, Executive
Director of Southwest Energy Efficiency Project.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“Colorado is facing housing challenges that require an
all-hands-on-deck approach of housing advocates, businesses and local
leaders coming together to provide real, Colorado solutions. This plan
is the Colorado way and will ensure that together, the most affordable
housing choices are built for Coloradans,” said Eva Henry, Adams County
Commissioner. </p>
<p dir="ltr">“Having affordable housing advocates, businesses and
environmentalists together in support of a bill is rarely seen at the
State Capitol, but this is a common sense policy to address an
all-hands-on-deck challenge. This bill will deliver more of the most
affordable types of housing to Coloradans, making our communities and
economy healthier,” said Jake Williams, Healthier Colorado CEO. </p>
<p dir="ltr">“To keep Colorado competitive, it is an economic imperative
that we develop housing for every budget. The lack of housing is one of
the biggest concerns we hear from businesses looking to relocate,
expand, or even stay in Colorado. There are many stakeholders who need
to rally to address our housing crisis, and it is a complicated policy
problem, no doubt. We look forward to working with Governor Polis,
legislators, local government leaders, and our business community
through this bill to craft real incentives and solutions. Statewide
awareness of the issue is essential – and while communities need
flexibility to best accomplish our collective goals, this bill and the
Governor’s leadership will help provide the tools and incentives needed
to move us forward,” said J.J. Ament, CEO of Denver Metro Chamber of
Commerce. </p>
<p dir="ltr">“Housing for our workforce is critical to a vibrant and
sustainable economy. Full stop. The Boulder Chamber stands with Governor
Polis and local leaders as they work to eliminate housing development
barriers that are inconsistent with our economic, equity and
environmental goals,” John Tayer, President and CEO of the Boulder
Chamber.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“One community's resident is another community's visitor,
and that community's resident is another community's teacher, childcare
provider, and or firefighter. Our municipalities are interconnected,
yet, we plan housing initiatives as if this issue doesn't cross
community borders. It's our duty to work together to solve the housing
affordability crisis while maintaining local flexibility to address the
housing needs of diverse residents—prioritizing those who are most in
need. With smart and thoughtful planning, we can make sure that people
aren't priced out of the communities they love, and we can build homes
that fit the needs and budgets of all Coloradans,” said Jonathan
Cappelli, Executive Director, Neighborhood Development Collaborative.</p>
<p dir="ltr">"Housing is a crisis all over Colorado. Mountain
communities have been leading on this issue for years, and we are happy
that there is potential for statewide goals that align the entire state,
while still respecting the differences in communities," said Glenwood
Springs Mayor, Jonathan Godes.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“The climate crisis and the housing crisis are intertwined.
We all deserve clean air to breathe and a stable place to call home.
That’s why we’re very encouraged by this policy and its potential to
help reduce climate emissions, create more diverse housing options to
meet the needs of Colorado and help Colorado build a more sustainable
and equitable future,” said Kelly Nordini, CEO of Conservation Colorado.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“Across Colorado, there are servers and cooks, janitors and
maintenance staff, home health and childcare workers earning far too
little to live in the communities where they work. In this effort to
more sustainably share our land while expanding housing supply, we must
increase the number of homes affordable to people living on low and
fixed incomes and prevent the displacement of vulnerable communities. We
appreciate the openness of the Governor’s and departmental staff and
the legislature on these critical considerations and are committed to
ongoing conversations with them, bill sponsors, and fellow stakeholders
as we work together to get it right,” Kinsey Hasstedt, State and Local
Policy Director, Enterprise Community Partners.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“When it comes to talent recruitment and workforce
development, Colorado’s limited housing supply and affordability is a
growing concern for businesses statewide. We are in desperate need of
new tools and incentives to increase the development of new housing,
especially in high-demand areas where employers are looking to attract a
diverse collective of workers. We applaud Governor Polis for his
leadership to streamline development and deploy new tools to ensure our
communities can support long-term growth in Colorado’s workforce and
economy,” said Loren Furman, President & CEO, the Colorado Chamber
of Commerce.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“We applaud Governor Polis’ bold leadership aimed at
addressing the state’s housing inventory crisis. The Governor’s plan is
smart and will make a real difference, cutting red tape, promoting
sustainability, and getting the people of this state the housing
solutions they so desperately need,” said redT Homes CEO, Nathan Adams.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“Addressing the housing crisis requires state and local
governments to come together to create effective change that will allow
more affordable housing to be built, faster. By breaking down barriers
and building the most affordable type of housing options, more
Coloradans will be able to find the home they deserve, and our
communities will continue to flourish,” said Westminster City Councilor
Obi Ezeadi.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“Colorado has a unique opportunity to become a national
model in our approach to addressing our housing crisis as we work
collaboratively across sectors to better leverage our state and local
resources. The policy goals in the More Housing Now bill will streamline
regulations, making it easier to increase wealth equity, housing
supply, and the variety of housing types necessary to make sure every
Coloradan has a place to call home,” said Pat Hamill, CEO, of Oakwood
Homes.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“The unaffordability of housing in Colorado has reached
crisis levels, and this often causes a terrible domino effect related to
food security, transportation, health, and education. Having a safe and
affordable home—whether you rent or buy—is key to quality of life and
economic security. So, this is a welcome, much-needed legislative
solution,” said Papa Dia, Executive Director, the African leadership
Group. </p>
<p dir="ltr">“I emphatically applaud Governor Polis’s inspirational
leadership; a new Coloradan housing future is upon us. The goal must be
to end our housing depression. Let us start with the first point on the
value chain, let us start with our codes, let us scrutinize our scale
decisions, and let us build the homes that Coloradans require to
thrive,” said Peter LiFari, Chief Executive Officer of Maiker Housing
Partners.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“When Colorado builds better, Colorado is better. Not only
will this bill infuse housing affordability back into our communities,
but it will also tackle issues core to keeping Colorado the best place
to live. It will diversify the types of homes available so people have
options to rent or buy, keeps people in the homes and communities where
they've lived for generations, ensures there is statewide planning to
accommodate homes that people can afford for every budget, saves
taxpayer dollars on sprawling infrastructure projects, conserves water
and our beautiful open spaces, and begins to reverse our climate crisis.
The benefits of statewide planning and regional coordination are
endless,” said Ray Rivera, Colorado Builds Better. </p>
<p dir="ltr">“The lack of affordable housing options is a crisis
affecting our entire State, and requires immediate action. Housing is a
fundamental human need and government plays a role ensuring an equitable
pathway for everyone. We look forward to continue to collaborate with
the State in order to holistically address the housing crisis,” said
Raymond C. Lee III, Greeley City Manager.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“We’re encouraged to see Governor Polis, the state
legislature and local leaders taking the lead to create systemic changes
to our state’s land use policies. The lack of affordable housing
directly affects our teacher shortage, which in turn directly affects
the quality of our students’ education. Where affordable housing is hard
to find, so are educators,” said Rob Gould, President of the Denver
Classroom Teachers Association.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“Affordable and attainable housing remains one of the most
critical needs in mountain destination communities. I applaud the
Governor and legislature for bringing forward a viable solution for
barriers currently preventing communities and businesses from creating
more housing options locally. With the proposed changes in legislation,
communities, and businesses like Steamboat Ski Resort, can identify new
ways to create more affordable and attainable housing opportunities for
our workforce; ultimately supporting our economy and providing a
foundation for locals to thrive,” said Rob Perlman, President &
Chief Operating Officer, Steamboat Ski & Resort Corporation.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“Governor Polis is putting small businesses first by
tackling the housing crisis head on. Colorado Springs has a thriving
small business community, but it’s become increasingly challenging for
workers to find affordable housing. This is an issue that affects all
wage and salaried workers. Lowering housing costs with sustainable
solutions will attract small businesses and incentivize home-grown
talent to stay in Colorado Springs,” said Rodney Gullatte, Jr. CEO of
Firma IT Solutions in Colorado Springs.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“Our Governor has been at the forefront of our major issues
in Colorado from education and health to employment and housing, his
leadership is transformative,” said Rudy Gonzales, Servicios de la Raza.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“Our health care workers are experiencing our housing
crisis both professionally and personally. First, they can't afford to
live in or near the communities they serve because there aren't homes
that fit their needs and budgets. Second, when they go to work, they
treat patients experiencing the health impacts of our poor air quality,
largely caused by heavy traffic and commuting emissions. This solution
will help ease the extreme burden housing costs have on our health care
workforce while making our air cleaner and healthier for their
patients,” said Sabrina Pacha, Senior Director, Healthy Air and Water
Colorado.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“Surveys by AARP show most Coloradans, including older
adults, prefer to live in walkable neighborhoods that offer a mix of
housing and transportation options,” said Sara Schueneman, AARP Colorado
State Director. “Maximizing middle housing helps keep people in the
neighborhoods they want to age in with dignity.” “Middle Housing can
provide a community with a wider range of housing options, at various
price points, while maintaining the character of the community. They
also provide the size and affordability options that people of all ages —
including older adults — need but can’t often find,” Schueneman added. </p>
<p dir="ltr">“As both a City Councilor and an urban planner working in
the Denver region, I support the Governor's office and legislature's
goal of addressing our housing needs through strategic planning and
policy. We are at a critical juncture where growth has outpaced our
housing supply, placing many out of reach of housing they can afford.
The framework of this bill provides a path toward diversifying and
adding housing where we have the capacity to grow. While it's still a
work in progress and will be refined further, the goal of this bill is
to offer flexibility to each community, respecting our Colorado culture
of local control. Our communities are all very different--from our
location and access to transit, to whether we're built out or still
growing--and we all need tools that will meet us where we are today and
where we're headed in the future. I look forward to further refinement
of this vision,” said Sarah Nurmela, Westminster City Councilor.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“Housing is the biggest issue for the average Coloradan,
and we're deeply grateful that the Governor continues to center housing
as a priority. Our current housing crisis demands that we consider
every and all solutions. We hope this legislation serves to increase the
number of units available and make it possible for more people to have a
place to call home,” said Shara Smith, Exec Dir of the Interfaith
Alliance of Colorado. </p>
<p dir="ltr">“Colorado’s housing crisis affects all of us, and we must
work together to solve it. Whether it’s a teacher, a first responder, or
a small business owner—the housing shortage impacts far too many
Coloradans. Solutions will require deeper collaboration between state
and local governments. I appreciate that this legislation seeks to find
the right balance between statewide strategies and the unique nature of
each community across Colorado,” said Tamara Pogue, Summit County
Commissioner. </p>
<p dir="ltr">“The new legislation addresses a long-standing issue that
Colorado communities have been facing. This will hopefully serve its
purpose for not only homeowners but also renters who I am hopeful will
benefit from this effort,” said Tejwant Mangat, Sikh community leader.</p>
<p dir="ltr">“Affordable housing is an important contributor to student
success and also to the well-being of our faculty and staff. The
University of Colorado appreciates and applauds the efforts of state and
local leaders to find creative solutions so that members of the CU
community can continue to call Colorado home,” said CU President, Todd
Saliman. </p>
</div>
</div>
</article>
</div>
</div>
</div>dgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1122443293261057373.post-57310574422090257972023-03-16T15:05:00.001-06:002023-03-16T15:05:10.109-06:00The 2020 Election Steal Required an “Emergency” on Jan 6 to Complete the Coup<p> </p><header aria-label="Content" class="entry-header">
<h1 class="entry-title" itemprop="headline">EXPLOSIVE: The 2020 Election Steal Required an “Emergency” on Jan 6 to Complete the Coup</h1> <div class="entry-meta">
<span class="byline">by <span class="author vcard" itemprop="author" itemscope="" itemtype="https://schema.org/Person"><a class="url fn n" href="https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/author/joehoft/" itemprop="url" rel="author" title="View all posts by Joe Hoft"><span class="author-name" itemprop="name">Joe Hoft</span></a></span></span> <span class="posted-on"><time class="entry-date published" datetime="2023-03-14T10:45:54-05:00" itemprop="datePublished">Mar. 14, 2023 10:45 am</time><span class="post-comment-count"><a data-disqus-identifier="889644" href="https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/03/explosive-the-2020-election-steal-required-an-emergency-on-jan-6-to-culminate-the-coup/#disqus_thread">2913 Comments</a></span>
</span> </div>
</header><div class="entry-content" itemprop="text"><br /><p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-861771" height="400" src="https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-content/uploads/nancy-pelosi-jan-6-600x400.jpg" width="600" /></p>
<p><strong>An “emergency” was required on Jan 6 to prevent the 2020 election coup from being uncovered. </strong></p>
<p><em>(When I first read and put this together I jumped out of my chair and said aloud – “No Way”)</em></p>
<p>The <a href="https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/03/12/the-parliamentary-motive-behind-the-j6-fedsurrection/">Conservative Treehouse</a>
laid this out in an article a couple of days ago. This is a very
important read. What this shows is that the Democrats and the Deep
State needed an “emergency” on January 6th to culminate their 2020
Election steal.</p><div class="code-block code-block-81" style="clear: both; margin: 8px 0;">
<div class="ai-dynamic" data-code="" data-fallback-code=""><div class="adcovery"><div class="__hinit __kwvr" id="_widget_adcovery_com3600"><div class="pngmonet moduletablenewsletter_signup"><div class="gbqfqwb"><div class="gbfox"></div><div class="gbfwa"><div class="pdnwamq_endu" id="pngmonetbzlz0"><div class="bqfway_avbrott_qimule"><a href="https://widget.adcovery.com/wc/3600/13529/15975/15975,15964,15942.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><div class="fa_ew"></div><div class="pdnwamq_endu_aspect"></div><span class="pngmonety_avbrott pngmonety_avbrott_15975"></span><span class="pngmonety_asg pngmonety_15975"></span></a></div><span class="pngmonety_ulv8_bax"><a href="https://widget.adcovery.com/wc/3600/13529/15975/15975,15964,15942.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><div class="fa_ew"></div><span class="pngmonety_ulv8 pngmonety_frogd"><div>Urologist Warns Men: Start Doing This Tonight to Shrink Your Prostate (Watch)</div></span><span class="pngmonety_asg pngmonety_15975"></span></a><a href="https://widget.adcovery.com/wc/3600/13529/15975/15975,15964,15942.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a></span></div><div class="pdnwamq_endu" id="pngmonetbzlz1"><div class="bqfway_avbrott_qimule"><a href="https://widget.adcovery.com/wc/3600/13529/15964/15975,15964,15942.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><div class="fa_ew"></div><div class="pdnwamq_endu_aspect"></div><span class="pngmonety_avbrott pngmonety_avbrott_15964"></span><span class="pngmonety_asg pngmonety_15964"></span></a></div><span class="pngmonety_ulv8_bax"><a href="https://widget.adcovery.com/wc/3600/13529/15964/15975,15964,15942.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><div class="fa_ew"></div><span class="pngmonety_ulv8 pngmonety_frogd"><div>Brain Scan Reveals Root Cause Of Tinnitus (Watch Video)</div></span><span class="pngmonety_asg pngmonety_15964"></span></a><a href="https://widget.adcovery.com/wc/3600/13529/15964/15975,15964,15942.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a></span></div><div class="pdnwamq_endu" id="pngmonetbzlz2"><div class="bqfway_avbrott_qimule"><a href="https://widget.adcovery.com/wc/3600/13529/15942/15975,15964,15942.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><div class="fa_ew"></div><div class="pdnwamq_endu_aspect"></div><span class="pngmonety_avbrott pngmonety_avbrott_15942"></span><span class="pngmonety_asg pngmonety_15942"></span></a></div><span class="pngmonety_ulv8_bax"><a href="https://widget.adcovery.com/wc/3600/13529/15942/15975,15964,15942.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><div class="fa_ew"></div><span class="pngmonety_ulv8 pngmonety_frogd"><div>Brain Scan Uncovers Real Cause of Tinnitus (Ear Ringing)</div></span><span class="pngmonety_asg pngmonety_15942"></span></a><a href="https://widget.adcovery.com/wc/3600/13529/15942/15975,15964,15942.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a></span></div></div></div><div style="clear: both;"></div></div></div><div class="adcovery-post-01"></div></div></div>
</div>
<p>In order to complete the 2020 Election coup, Pelosi, Schumer,
McConnell and Pence needed to create an emergency. The only way to
prevent Congress from delaying the certification of state electoral
votes was to create a crisis that could easily be designated an
emergency.</p><div class="code-block code-block-36" style="clear: both; margin: 0;">
<div class="ai-dynamic" data-code="" data-fallback-code=""><div class="g g-1"><div class="g-single a-2"><p><a class="gofollow" data-track="MiwxLDEsNjA=" href="https://www.mypillow.com/tgp" target="_blank">Support Gateway Pundit by using promo code <strong style="font-weight: 900;">TGP</strong> at MyPillow.com -- and get up to 80% off!</a></p></div></div></div>
</div>
<blockquote><p>Just moments, literally 3 minutes before two
representatives issued a vote for motions to suspend the certification,
the House members were “informed” by capitol police and other “agents”
that a protest was about to breach the chambers. It was at this time
that key people: Pence, Pelosi, Schumer, Mcconnell can be seen being
walked out and escorted from the chamber. This effectively halted the
Entire Chamber Process…</p></blockquote>
<p>The crisis was created to eliminate the motion challenges to halt the
certification and to begin voting to look into voting irregularities
and fraud.</p>
<blockquote><p>The <span style="font-size: inherit;">two motions were
completely legal and constitutional under at least two constitutionally
recognized procedures… procedures that would REQUIRE the House to pause
the certification and then vote to determine whether the motions of
suspend could move forward…</span></p></blockquote>
<p>Conservative Treehouse opines that by eliminating the motions from
the records of the House, they could certify the fraud with no
detractors on record and give SCOTUS a reason to claim that cases before
it lacked standing.</p><div class="code-block code-block-50" style="clear: both; margin: 8px 0 22px;">
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</div>
</div>
<p>In order to prevent those two motions, the Speaker of the House, the
Minority Leaders, and the President of the Congress (VP Pence) could not
be PRESENT IN THE CHAMBERS.</p>
<p>This allowed Speaker Pelosi to suspend the Congress UNILATERALLY
UNDER EMERGENCY RULES. This protest was necessary. The crisis was
created because there is no other way to suspend the business of
certification UNILATERALLY. The crisis invoked emergency procedures and
Pelosi was able to prevent the delay of certification herself.</p><div class="code-block code-block-20" style="clear: both; margin: 8px 0 22px;">
<div class="ai-dynamic" data-code="" data-fallback-code=""><div data-endpoint="//trends.revcontent.com" data-rc-widget="" data-widget-host="habitat" data-widget-id="275163" id="rc-widget-a2e344"></div>
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</div>
<p>When Congress returned later that night, Pelosi was in charge:</p>
<blockquote><p>The Speaker initiated the NEW sessions under special
emergency rules. These rules abandon and make it clear that the ONLY
purpose of the new session was to EXPEDITE the certification and dismiss
all prior regular session procedural rules. This is why those two
motions to table votes to consider a debate and pause to the
certifications of state vote electors never happened later that evening
when the house business was reconvened!…</p>
<p>…it was at THIS NEW SESSION that VP Pence, President of Congress,
would also have no ability to even consider pausing the electoral
certification, because there were no motions of disagreements on the
matter. So, in a technical legal claim, he is correct that he had no
constitutional authority to address any issues of fraud or doubts about
electoral irregularities.</p></blockquote>
<p>But how did Pence know this ahead of time so that he could clarify it
in his statement that he released while President Trump was still
talking?</p><div class="code-block code-block-51" style="clear: both; margin: 8px 0 22px;">
<div class="ai-dynamic" data-code="" data-fallback-code=""><div data-endpoint="//trends.revcontent.com" data-rc-widget="" data-widget-host="habitat" data-widget-id="275178" id="rc-widget-4d241c"></div>
</div>
</div>
<blockquote><p>This was a coup….it was a very organized and carefully
planned coup. VP Pence without a doubt as well as most members of the
house were quite aware of how the certification was going to be
MANAGED. It would require new rules to prevent the debate clause from
occurring! New rules that ONLY AN EMERGENCY CRISIS COULD CREATE! So,
they created an emergency.</p></blockquote>
<p><strong>The Jan 6 riots were planned. We all know it. Now we better understand why.</strong></p></div>dgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1122443293261057373.post-5490442386893493872023-03-06T15:43:00.003-07:002023-03-06T15:43:26.747-07:00Will Japan throw its old people on the tracks?<p> </p><div id="page-title-container">
<h1 class="page-headline">
<span style="font-size: large;">Demographic train wreck: Will Japan throw its old people on the tracks?</span>
</h1>
</div><div class="meta" style="padding-top: 10px;">
<span class="byline"> By <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/staff/don-feder/">Don Feder</a> </span>
<span class="source">
-
-
Saturday, March 4, 2023
</span>
</div>
<p class="article-category"><strong>OPINION:</strong></p>
<p>It didn’t take long to start heading where no
civilized people should go. A Japanese professor at Yale is talking
about euthanasia for his country’s growing population of older adults.</p>
<p>One-third of Japanese are over 65. One in 5
live alone. More than 30,000 die alone each year. A small industry has
sprung up to remove their remains.</p>
<div class="piano-newsletter-inline-in-article"></div>
<p>Japan’s elderly crisis is a consequence of its
demographic crisis. The nation has one of the world’s lowest fertility
rates — an average of 1.3 children per woman, with 2.1 needed to
maintain population stability.</p>
<p>In 2022, its population declined by 800,000.
It’s projected to fall an additional 30% by 2045. Back in the 1980s,
Japan’s economy seemed invincible, and we were all learning Japanese
business techniques. It worked for a while. In 1990, the nation’s gross
domestic product grew 4.9%. By 2019, this growth had slowed to 0.3%.
There aren’t enough young workers to keep the economy growing and pay
social benefits to care for the aged.</p>
<p>In such a situation, ice floes look
increasingly inviting. Professor Yusuke Narita, who is 38, told The New
York Times in a Feb. 12 interview: “I feel like the solution is pretty
clear. In the end, isn’t it mass suicide and mass seppuku of the
elderly?”</p>
<p>And it needn’t necessarily be voluntary. “The
possibility of making it mandatory in the future will come up in the
discussion,” the professor remarked.</p>
<p>Mr. Narita has a huge social media following.
Some Japanese lawmakers are saying he’s creating the conditions for a
much-needed discussion. “There is criticism that older people are
receiving too much pension money and young people are supporting all of
the old people,” a leading member of the Diet says.</p>
<p>Solutions — other than seppuku?</p><div id="div-gpt-ad-in-article-0" style="float: left; margin-right: 2em;"></div>
<p>In a Jan. 23 policy address, Prime Minister
Fumio Kishida warned that “it’s now or never” for addressing the
nation’s demographic tailspin. He wants to double child-related
spending, including more for day care and childrearing support — the
sort of unimaginative solutions that politicians on the left and right
favor.</p>
<p>But Japan also has a low marriage rate, a
precursor of a low birthrate. Will the government set up Vegas-style
wedding chapels where couples can be united by Elvis impersonators? Can
young couples be bribed to have children?</p>
<p>Nippon isn’t alone. After decades of its
ruinous one-child policy, China faces its own demographic disaster. In
2022, for the first time since the mass starvation of Mao’s Great Leap
Forward, China lost a population of 850,000 from the previous year. And
it will only get worse. China’s population is expected to decline by 100
million by 2050 and 600 million by the end of the century.</p>
<p>Some China watchers say Chinese President Xi
Jinping is panicking over his nation’s coming population collapse, which
may force him to try to achieve his territorial ambitions while he
still has the military muscle.</p>
<p>Ailing Asian dragons are at the forefront of
what could be the great plague of the 21st century. But the West can’t
afford to be complacent. America’s fertility rate has fallen to 1.6.
Over the past decade, fewer babies have been born each year — the first
time that’s happened since we began keeping records.</p><div id="div-gpt-ad-in-article-1" style="float: left; margin-right: 2em;"></div>
<p>East and West, all of us suffer from the same
ailment. In each generation, fewer are marrying, and those who do aren’t
having enough children.</p>
<p>We live in an anti-child culture driven by the myths of climate change and overpopulation and good old-fashioned misogyny.</p>
<p>James Cameron, director of the noble-savage
Avatar movies, told Time magazine that he can “relate to Thanos,” the
villain in Marvel’s Infinity Wars, who wants to wipe out half of all
life in the universe, in the belief that population growth is
unsustainable.</p>
<p>I keep thinking of another work of fiction —
“The Children of Men,” a dystopian novel set in Britain, where a
worldwide plague of infertility leads to forced euthanasia. In
ceremonies called Quietus, the old are towed offshore on barges that are
sunk, and the people drown. Those who survive to reach the shore are
clubbed to death.</p>
<p>Are such horrors to mark the end of
civilization? The answer isn’t a change of policy but a change of heart.
We must return to a culture of life — one that doesn’t sacrifice the
vulnerable on either end of life’s spectrum but treats each as a gift
from God.</p>
<p>Those with faith in the future have children.
Those who don’t don’t. Where does faith in the future come from? It
comes from faith in a higher power.</p>dgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1122443293261057373.post-82587927947034575872023-03-01T14:38:00.000-07:002023-03-01T14:38:05.533-07:00<h1><span style="font-size: large;">Musk: Electric Cars Will Require a Lot More Electric Power Than We Currently Have</span></h1>
<div class="post-header__byline clearfix">
<div class="float-start">
<a href="https://pjmedia.com/columnist/bryan-preston"></a>
</div>
<div class="author float-start">
By
<a href="https://pjmedia.com/columnist/bryan-preston">Bryan Preston</a> </div><div class="author float-start"><span class="date date-formatted" data-original-date="12/01/2020 17:42:58">5:42 PM on December 01, 2020</span></div></div><p>Tesla CEO Elon Musk says we’ll need more electricity to power cars like his. <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-ceo-says-electric-cars-164927709.html" target="_blank">A lot more</a>.</p><div class="thm-piano-mop"></div>
<blockquote><p>Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk said on Tuesday that
electricity consumption will double if the world’s car fleets are
electrified, increasing the need to expand nuclear, solar, geothermal
and wind energy generating sources.</p>
<p>Increasing the availability of sustainable energy is a major
challenge as cars move from combustion engines to battery-driven
electric motors, a shift which will take two decades, Musk said in a
talk hosted by Berlin-based publisher Axel Springer.</p></blockquote>
<div class="my-4">
</div>
<p>There’s no unicorn energy source or free lunch. Currently, electric
cars are primarily powered by coal, natural gas, and nuclear. Those are
the sources we use to generate electricity, after all, <a href="https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us.php" target="_blank">according to the Energy Information Agency</a>. Renewables are growing but still account for less than 20% of U.S. electricity.</p>
<p>There’s no free lunch when it comes to renewable energy sources,
which may not even be all that renewable. Wind and sun are free, but the
means of generating power from them are not.</p>
<p>They require batteries, which requires extensive mining and the use of toxic chemicals.</p>
<p>Mining is a <a href="https://grist.org/article/report-going-100-renewable-power-means-a-lot-of-dirty-mining/" target="_blank">dirty business.</a></p>
<blockquote><p>Weighing those trade-offs — between supporting mining in
environmentally sensitive areas and sourcing metals needed to power
renewables — is likely to become more common if countries continue
generating more renewable energy. That’s <a href="https://earthworks.org/publications/responsible-minerals-sourcing-for-renewable-energy/?utm_source=Earthworks+Press+List&utm_campaign=34929f519f-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_04_16_10_53&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d36f253784-34929f519f-291346073" target="_blank">according to a report</a> out Wednesday from researchers at the <a href="https://www.uts.edu.au/research-and-teaching/our-research/institute-sustainable-futures" target="_blank">Institute for Sustainable Futures</a> at
the University of Technology Sydney in Australia. The report,
commissioned by the environmental organization Earthworks, finds that
demand for metals such as copper, lithium and cobalt would skyrocket if
countries around the world try to get their electric grids and
transportation systems fully powered by renewable energy by 2050.
Consequently, a rush to meet that demand could lead to more mining in
countries with lax environmental and safety regulations and weak
protections for workers.</p>
<p>“If not managed responsibly, this has the potential for new adverse environmental and social impacts,” the report says.</p></blockquote>
<div class="my-4">
</div>
<p>The giant <a href="https://www.chooseenergy.com/news/article/wind-turbine-blades-cause-issue-with-waste/#:~:text=The%20majority%20of%20wind%20turbines,composite%20glass%20or%20carbon%20material." target="_blank">composite glass blades</a> on modern windmills are not efficiently recyclable, so after they’re used up they end up in landfills, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turbine-blades-can-t-be-recycled-so-they-re-piling-up-in-landfills" target="_blank">Bloomberg reported</a> in February 2020.</p>
<blockquote><p>Tens of thousands of aging blades are coming down from
steel towers around the world and most have nowhere to go but landfills.
In the U.S. alone, about 8,000 will be removed in each of the next four
years. Europe, which has been dealing with the problem longer, has
about 3,800 coming down annually through at least 2022, according to
BloombergNEF. It’s going to get worse: Most were built more than a
decade ago, when installations were less than a fifth of what they are
now.</p></blockquote>
<p>They’re so durable they’re practically indestructible.</p>
<blockquote><p>Built to withstand hurricane-force winds, the blades
can’t easily be crushed, recycled or repurposed. That’s created an
urgent search for alternatives in places that lack wide-open prairies.
In the U.S., they go to the handful of landfills that accept them, in
Lake Mills, Iowa; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and Casper, where they will
be interred in stacks that reach 30 feet under.</p></blockquote>
<p>Removing them and transporting them to landfills increases windmills’ energy footprint over time.</p>
<p>All of this is true, but Barack Obama still wants you to know that he <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/obama-criticizes-americans-for-liking-cheap-gas-and-big-cars-more-than-the-environment" target="_blank">disapproves of your wish</a> to have a car you can use and that you can afford to drive. Because that means using gasoline.</p>
<div class="my-4">
</div>
<blockquote><p>On page 570 (of his second autobiography before turning
60 -ed.), the former commander in chief recounts a press conference he
gave more than a month into the oil spill – now considered one of the
largest in history – saying his comments did not adequately express the
frustration he truly felt.</p>
<p>(edit)</p>
<p>He then chastised Americans for not being willing to foot the bill
for technology to “quickly plug the hole because it would be expensive
to have such technology on hand, and we Americans didn’t like paying
higher taxes—especially when it was to prepare for problems that hadn’t
happened yet.”</p>
<p>The only way to truly prevent another catastrophe, like the 2010
Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Obama says, “was to stop drilling
entirely.”</p>
<p>“But that wasn’t going to happen because at the end of the day we Americans loved our cheap gas and <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/category/cars" target="_blank">big cars</a> more than we cared about the environment, except when a complete disaster was staring us in the face,” he writes.</p></blockquote>
<p>“Paying higher taxes…stop drilling entirely…”</p>
<p>There’s no free lunch and that’s not even middle school-level realism
from the former president. Energy comes at some cost and likely always
will. Stopping drilling wouldn’t just stop gas-powered cars. It would
eventually stop the whole economy. Natural gas, our largest source of
electricity, is a <a href="https://www.appienergy.com/news-and-resources/news/oil-drilling-nat-gas/" target="_blank">byproduct of drilling for crude oil</a>.
Stopping drilling for crude means little or no natural gas as well.
That would reduce our electric generation by about a third by itself.
Even if America stopped drilling because Obama said so, the rest of the
world wouldn’t. Russia and the Middle East would go right on drilling,
and we would become far more dependent on them for our energy, in turn
endangering our national security and making the world less stable.</p>
<div class="my-4">
</div>
<p>Musk is being a realist, which is refreshing. He recognizes the
simple fact that more electric cars will require more electric
generation. Electric cars are seen by too many as some escape from the
ways we currently run our cars. But they’re not. At best, electric cars
currently just transfer where the energy gets created, from burning dead
dinosaurs inside of the vehicle itself to burning them someplace else.
But for the most part, something is still being burned somewhere to make
Teslas move.</p>
<p>At this point, electric cars move — as long as the grid to support them is available. For the most part, <a href="https://www.kentlive.news/news/motoring/kent-couple-endures-9-hour-4747150" target="_blank">it’s not</a>. So, of course, electric car owners are calling on government to fund that, which would mean more taxes.</p>
<p>And let’s take a look at <a href="https://www.homesandgardens.com/news/president-obama-new-house-marthas-vineyard" target="_blank">Barack Obama’s massive new home</a>, shall well?</p>
<blockquote><p>The (6,982 square foot) home features seven bedrooms,
eight and a half baths and several stone fireplaces. There is a two-car
garage, a detached barn and a pool.</p>
<p>The property also offers direct access to the pond, and includes a
boat house and a private beach front with deeded rights, as per the
listing on LandVest.</p></blockquote>
<p>It’s on 29 acres and cost over $11 million.</p>
<p>But he wants you to pay higher taxes to fuel his unrealistic power plays while he enjoys his Netflix money.</p><p> </p>dgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1122443293261057373.post-56833216577181998102023-02-27T15:50:00.005-07:002023-02-27T15:50:28.429-07:00Abolish the White Race<h1><span style="font-size: large;">Abolish the White Race</span></h1>
<p class="date"><a href="https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2002/09">September-October 2002</a>
</p><aside class="icons"><div class="field field-name-field-share-buttons field-type-addthis field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><div class="addthis_toolbox addthis_default_style addthis_32x32_style ">
</div>
</div></div></div> </aside>
<div class="desktop" style="float: left;">
</div>
<div class="graybox"><p>This excerpt from <em>When Race Becomes Real: Black and White Writers Confront Their Personal Histories,</em> edited by Bernestine Singley, appeared in 2002 as part of <em>Harvard Magazine</em>’s
coverage of recent books by Harvard affiliates. The excerpt concerns
author Noel Ignatiev’s role in launching a journal “to chronicle and
analyze the making, remaking, and unmaking of whiteness.”</p></div><div class="block-inject block-inject-1" id="block-inject-1">
</div><div class="clearfix"></div><p> </p><p><span class="firstwords">"The good news</span>
is that there are now a host of writers and a growing number of courses
and workshops designed to enlighten white people as to the real
benefits and the great cost of their property in whiteness," writes
former Harvard Law School professor Derrick Bell in his epilogue to <em>When Race Becomes Real: Black and White Writers Confront Their Personal Histories,</em>
edited by Bernestine Singley, LL.M. '76 (Lawrence Hill Books, $26.95).
Many of those engaged in this Herculean task are white, Bell notes,
among them Noel Ignatiev, Ed.M. '85, Ph.D. '94, C.A.S. '95, author of <em>How the Irish Became White </em>and a fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, who writes:</p><p> </p><p><span class="firstwords">In the interests</span>
of survival, Afro-Americans have always studied whiteness. There is a
long tradition among them that the white race is a peculiar sort of
social formation, one that depends on its members' willingness to
conform to the institutions and behavior patterns that reproduce it. By
the early 1900s...it was becoming commonplace in the academy to speak of
race, along with class and gender, as a social construct....</p><p> In
addition to the notion of race as a social construct, [an old friend,
John Garvey, and I] shared another, which we owed to the West Indian
Marxist C.L.R. James: that ordinary Americans are drawn by the
conditions of their lives in two opposite directions, one that mirrors
and reproduces the present society of competition and exploitation, and
another that points toward a new society based on freely associated
activity. We believed that this internal antagonism played itself out as
a civil war within the white mind, between the desire of whites to wall
themselves off from black Americans and their desire to overcome the
boundaries that kept them apart.</p><p>John and I decided that it was time to launch a journal to document that civil war. The result was <em>Race Traitor,</em>
whose first issue appeared in the fall of 1992 with the slogan "Treason
to whiteness is loyalty to humanity" on its cover. The aim was to
chronicle and analyze the making, remaking, and unmaking of whiteness.
My book on the Irish was the story of how people for whom whiteness had
no meaning learned its rules and adapted their behavior to take
advantage of them; <em>Race Traitor </em>was an attempt to run the film backwards, to explore how people who had been brought up as white might become unwhite....</p><p>The
goal of abolishing the white race is on its face so desirable that some
may find it hard to believe that it could incur any opposition other
than from committed white supremacists. Of course we expected
bewilderment from people who still think of race as biology. We
frequently get letters accusing us of being "racists," just like the
KKK, and have even been called a "hate group." ...</p><p>Our standard
response is to draw an analogy with anti-royalism: to oppose monarchy
does not mean killing the king; it means getting rid of crowns, thrones,
royal titles, etc....</p><p>Every group within white America has at one
time or another advanced its particular and narrowly defined interests
at the expense of black people as a race. That applies to labor
unionists, ethnic groups, college students, schoolteachers, taxpayers,
and white women. <em>Race Traitor</em> will not abandon its focus on
whiteness, no matter how vehement the pleas and how virtuously oppressed
those doing the pleading. The editors meant it when they replied to a
reader, "Make no mistake about it: we intend to keep bashing the dead
white males, and the live ones, and the females too, until the social
construct known as 'the white race' is destroyed—not 'deconstructed' but
destroyed."</p><a href="https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2002/09/abolish-the-white-race.html"></a>dgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1122443293261057373.post-11469486011375405392023-02-14T13:33:00.002-07:002023-02-14T13:33:07.090-07:00Lauren Boebert Pulls Out Literal Giant Surprise from Elon Musk's Staff Seconds After Twitter Execs Lie to Her Face<p> </p><h1 class="entry-title"><span style="font-size: large;">Lauren Boebert Pulls Out Literal Giant Surprise from Elon Musk's Staff Seconds After Twitter Execs Lie to Her Face</span></h1>
<div class="entry-meta">
<div class="entry-meta-text">
<span class="author-avatar"><img alt="Randy DeSoto, The Western Journal" height="50" src="https://thefederalistpapers.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/wjlogo-150x150.png" width="50" /></span>
<span>
By <a data-type-location="before-article-meta" data-type="Internal link" href="https://thefederalistpapers.org/author/wj">Randy DeSoto, The Western Journal</a>
<br />
Published February 10, 2023 at 7:15am
</span>
</div></div><div class="entry-content"><p>GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado
led some former Twitter executives down the primrose path during a
congressional hearing Wednesday, only to spring a surprise on them.</p>
<p>The House Oversight and Accountability Committee conducted a <a href="https://oversight.house.gov/release/the-cover-up-big-tech-the-swamp-and-mainstream-media-coordinated-to-censor-americans-free-speech-%EF%BF%BC/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">hearing</a> regarding Twitter’s past censorship policies, particularly in relation to the<a href="https://www.westernjournal.com/musk-just-drops-bombshell-hunter-biden-laptop-twitter-files/" rel="noopener" target="_blank"> Hunter Biden laptop story</a>.</p>
<p>Yoel Roth, Twitter’s former head of trust and safety; Vijaya Gadde,
former chief legal counsel; and James Baker, former Twitter deputy
general counsel (and former FBI general counsel), were all on hand for a
<a href="https://www.westernjournal.com/mtg-torches-former-twitter-execs-face-allowing-child-porn-conservative-censorship/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">grilling</a>.</p>
<div class="sponsor IC1" id="IC1-ad"><p class="ad-notice flipboard-remove"></p>
<div id="IC1"><div id="ld-8405-1566" style="margin: 0px auto; max-width: 835px;"></div>
</div>
</div>
<p>Boebert began her questioning of the former executives by quoting from a tweet from the “<a href="https://www.westernjournal.com/journalists-jaw-hit-floor-learning-vetting-twitter-files/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Twitter Files</a>” made by journalist Matt Taibbi in December.</p>
<p>“Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary,” Taibbi said.</p></div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-twitter-extracted-i1676406343974698096="true">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">3. Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary.</p>
<p>— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) <a href="https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1603857539178848280?" target="_blank">December 16, 2022</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p></p>
<div class="sponsor IC2" id="IC2-ad"></div>
<p>“Mr. Roth, while at Twitter, how many meetings did you have with the FBI?” Boebert asked.</p>
<p>“I couldn’t say for sure but I would say –,” Roth began to answer.</p>
<p>“More than 10?” the congresswoman interjected.</p>
<p>“That’s a reasonable estimate,” he responded.</p>
<p>“More than 20?” she followed up, which brought Roth back to his original stance of being uncertain of the number.</p>
<p>Asked if the total was more than 50, Roth responded, “That seems a bit high.”</p>
<div class="sponsor IC3" id="IC3-ad"></div>
<p>The <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/12/04/fbi-warned-twitter-of-hunter-biden-hack-before-censoring-the-post/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">New York Post</a> reported in December that the FBI held weekly meetings with Twitter and Facebook during the 2020 presidential campaign.</p>
<div class="firefly-embed"><p>
</p>
</div>
<p>Boebert next asked how many former FBI agents were working at Twitter.</p>
<p>Roth said that he knew of two.</p>
<div class="sponsor IC4" id="IC4-ad"></div>
<p>The congresswoman responded there was actually a group chat made up of nine former FBI agents at the company.</p>
<p>“It’s almost impossible to tell where the FBI ends and where Twitter
begins,” she asserted. “We have Mr. Baker here, a former FBI agent, and
there seems to be a revolving door between the FBI and Twitter itself.”</p>
<p>Boebert said <a href="https://www.westernjournal.com/journalists-jaw-hit-floor-learning-vetting-twitter-files/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Baker</a>
had previously stated there was no collusion with the federal
government and Twitter, to which she said, “Mr. Baker, that’s you. You
are the collusion between the federal government and the FBI.”</p>
<p>The congresswoman asked Roth and Gadde if either had approved the shadow banning of her Twitter account.</p>
<div class="sponsor REP" id="REP_0-ad"></div>
<p>Roth said he did not, while Gadde answered, “Not to the best of my recollection.”</p>
<p>In law school, students are instructed not to ask a question of a
witness at trial you don’t already know the answer to, and Boebert
appeared to follow that counsel.</p>
<p>Boebert announced she was in fact shadow banned in early 2021 just after she took office.</p>
<div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; max-width: 550px; width: 100%;"></div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-twitter-extracted-i1676406343974698096="true">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">From January 9, 2021 until April 9, 2021 I was shadowbanned on Twitter.</p>
<p>This has now been confirmed.</p>
<p>I would watch my followers go up but never increase past a certain number.</p>
<p>Yes, as a sitting Representative.</p>
<p>If they did this to me, imagine what they did to everyone else!</p>
<p>— Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) <a href="https://twitter.com/laurenboebert/status/1623469562506223619?" target="_blank">February 8, 2023</a></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="sponsor REP" id="REP_1-ad"></div>
<p></p>
<p>“For members of Congress to be shadow banned, it had to go before you, Mr. Roth,” she said, citing Twitter policy.</p>
<p>“So I’ll ask again, did you shadow ban my account, yes or no?” Boebert questioned.</p>
<p>Roth followed Gadde’s lead responding, “Not to the best of my knowledge.”</p>
<div class="sponsor REP" id="REP_2-ad"></div>
<p>“So the answer is, Mr. Roth, yes you did,” Boebert fired back. “I
found out last night from Twitter staff that you suppressed my account”
for a joke she tweeted about Hillary Clinton being angry that she
couldn’t rig her election.</p>
<p>“You placed a 90-day account filter so I could not be found,” she said.</p>
<p>Proof of that was then set up behind her in the form of a large
poster board showing documentation that she had received a
“misinformation” strike from Twitter and her account had been given an
“aggressive visibility filter.”</p>
<p>“You silenced members of Congress from communicating with their
constituents,” Boebert argued. “You silenced me from communicating with
the American people over a freaking joke.”</p>
<div class="sponsor REP" id="REP_3-ad"></div>
<p>“Now who the hell do you think that you are?” the lawmaker angrily asked.</p>
<div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; max-width: 550px; width: 100%;"></div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-twitter-extracted-i1676406343974698096="true">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Rep. <a href="https://twitter.com/laurenboebert?" target="_blank">@laurenboebert</a>
wipes the floor with Yoel Roth: “You silenced me from communicating
with the American people over a fricken’ joke. Who the hell do you think
you are?” <a href="https://t.co/46UmTRV7RC" target="_blank">pic.twitter.com/46UmTRV7RC</a></p>
<p>— Media Research Center (@theMRC) <a href="https://twitter.com/theMRC/status/1623419097256976388?" target="_blank">February 8, 2023</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p></p>
<p>Boebert charged that election interference was taking place in 2020 and Twitter was the culprit.</p>
<div class="sponsor REP" id="REP_4-ad"></div>
<p>“I am angry for the millions of Americans who were silenced because
of your decisions, because of your actions, because of your collusion
with the federal government,” she concluded.</p>
<div class="one-half" id="firefly-poll-container">
<div class="firefly-poll-question">Should the former Twitter executives be prosecuted for election interference?</div>
<div id="pollResultsBox"><div id="firefly-poll-results">
<div id="firefly-poll-results-yes" style="width: 99%;">
99% (315 Votes)
</div>
<div id="firefly-poll-results-no" style="width: 1%;">
1% (2 Votes)
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p>On Thursday, Boebert <a href="https://boebert.house.gov/media/press-releases/rep-lauren-boebert-introduces-elon-act-audit-government-collusion-big-tech" rel="noopener" target="_blank">introduced</a>
the ELON Act — an acronym for “Exposing Lewd Outlays for social
Networking companies” that also happens to be the first name of
Twitter’s new CEO, Elon Musk.</p>
<p>The legislation would require the federal government to reveal how
much in payments it has made to big tech companies. It also would impose
a one-year moratorium on any payments going from the FBI to Big Tech
companies.</p>
<div class="sponsor REP" id="REP_5-ad"></div>
<p>“The millions of dollars sent to Twitter that we know of during an
election cycle, when they were at the same time censoring the Hunter
Biden laptop from hell, is incredibly concerning,” Boebert said in a
statement.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fbi-declines-list-other-social-media-companies-paid-says-twitter-payment-was-reimbursement" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Fox News</a>
reported in December that the FBI confirmed it paid nearly $3.5 million
to Twitter for “reimbursement” for the “reasonable costs and expenses
associated with their response to a legal process … For complying with
legal requests, and a standard procedure.”</p>
<p>Journalist Michael Shellenberger wrote about it in a “Twitter Files” release that month.</p>
<div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; max-width: 550px; width: 100%;"></div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-twitter-extracted-i1676406343974698096="true">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">46. The FBI’s influence campaign may have been
helped by the fact that it was paying Twitter millions of dollars for
its staff time.</p>
<p>“I am happy to report we have collected $3,415,323 since October 2019!” reports an associate of Jim Baker in early 2021. <a href="https://t.co/SmNse97QxK" target="_blank">pic.twitter.com/SmNse97QxK</a></p>
<p>— Michael Shellenberger (@ShellenbergerMD) <a href="https://twitter.com/ShellenbergerMD/status/1604908670063906817?" target="_blank">December 19, 2022</a></p>
</blockquote>
<div class="sponsor REP" id="REP_6-ad"></div>
<p></p>
<p>Musk tweeted in response, “Government paid Twitter millions of dollars to censor info from the public.”</p>
<div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; max-width: 550px; width: 100%;"></div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-twitter-extracted-i1676406343974698096="true">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Government paid Twitter millions of dollars to censor info from the public <a href="https://t.co/eSEwcZlGjt" target="_blank">https://t.co/eSEwcZlGjt</a></p>
<p>— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1605219914813673473?" target="_blank">December 20, 2022</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p></p>
<div class="sponsor REP" id="REP_7-ad"></div>
<p>Boebert did a masterful job holding the former Twitter executives’ feet to the fire.</p>
<p>Free speech is essential to the American experiment in liberty.</p>dgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1122443293261057373.post-82648948531159065642023-02-13T12:53:00.004-07:002023-02-13T12:53:38.719-07:00How General Flynn and Sidney Powell Used the Brady Rule to Expose Obama and His Coup d’État Co-Conspirators as Traitors<p> </p><h1 class="entry-title"><span style="font-size: large;">Jerome Corsi: How
General Flynn and Sidney Powell Used the Brady Rule to Expose Obama and
His Coup d’État Co-Conspirators as Traitors</span></h1>
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By <a data-type-location="before-article-meta" data-type="Internal link" href="https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/author/joehoft/">Joe Hoft</a>
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Published February 11, 2023 at 5:40pm
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<p><b>How General Flynn and Sidney Powell Used the <i>Brady</i> Rule to Expose Obama and His Coup d’État Co-Conspirators as Traitors</b></p>
<p><b>Part 1: </b><b>Strzok’s “Papadopoulos Entrapment” Scheme Explained</b></p>
<p><i>Guest post by Jerome R. Corsi, Ph.D.</i></p>
<p>On September 11, 2019, attorney Sidney Powell <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/425569731/Doc-111-Motion-to-Compel-Flynn" target="_blank">filed</a> with the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., a motion to compel the production of <i>Brady</i> material [<i>Brady v. Maryland</i>,
373 U.S. 83 (1963)], i.e., exculpatory evidence the prosecution has not
shared with the defendant, General Michael Flynn. The list of
exculpatory evidence Sidney Powell demanded reveals that Flynn knew
documents existed that would prove that President Obama and his
administration co-conspirators, aided by Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton, had engaged in treasonous activity. It was also apparent how
desperately the Obama administration had worked to keep the requested
documents from the American public. Had the federal government complied
with Powell’s requests for <i>Brady</i> material, Flynn could have
established that Obama’s treasonous activity began by spying on Flynn
before April 30, 2014, when Obama forced Flynn to resign as director of
the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).</p>
<p>The Obama administration’s treasonous activity reached a new level of
intensity in a secret Oval Office meeting on January 5, 2017. In that
meeting, Obama approved FBI Agent Peter Strzok’s illegal plan to ensnarl
General Flynn in a “perjury trap.” The secret Oval Office meeting
occurred one day after the Department of Justice (DOJ) had exonerated
Flynn regarding telephone calls Flynn made as President-elect Trump’s
incoming national security advisor with Russian Ambassador Sergey
Kislyak in December 2016.</p>
<p>Powell’s motion, filed September 11, 2019, clarifies that if Flynn
had taken office, he would have proven that U.S. intelligence agencies,
with the full cooperation of the U.S. Department of Justice,
collaborated in 2017 with British intelligence in the Obama-approved
coup d’état plan to remove Trump from the White House. He also could
have exposed that President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
in 2011 had supplied arms to the al-Qaeda splinter group that became
ISIS in another covert plan that involved U.S. and British intelligence
working together.</p>
<p>Paragraph 4 of Powell’s September 11, 2019, motion for <i>Brady</i>
materials asks explicitly for “all payments, notes, memos,
correspondence, and instructions” between, on the U.S. side, the DOJ,
CIA, and Department of Defense (DOD), and the U.K. side, with several
British intelligence agents going back to 2014 regarding General Flynn.
Powell mentions Stefan Halper, a Cambridge University professor who
seconded as an intelligence officer. As we covered in Part 1 of this
series, Halper accused General Flynn of colluding with Russia during a
Cambridge University Intelligence Seminar in the U.K. in February 2014
that Svetlana Lokhova attended. Lokhova was a Russian-born British
scholar who was taking courses at that time at Cambridge University.
Halper fabricated charges that Lokhova was a Russian spy with whom Flynn
had an affair. Powell also asked for documents related to Sir Richard
Dearlove of British intelligence (MI6) and Professor Christopher Andrew
of Cambridge University (connected with MI5). Dearlove had a forty-year
career with MI6, where he rose to serve as its head from 1999 to 2004.
After graduating from Cambridge, MI6 recruited Christopher Steele
(author of the infamous “Steele report”). At MI6, Dearlove was Steele’s
mentor. Dearlove assisted Halper in running the Cambridge University
seminar Flynn attended in 2014. Andrew was an emeritus history
professor at Cambridge and an associate of Dearlove and Halper.</p>
<p>On the U.S. side, Powell asked for communications and correspondence
involving various DIA, CIA, DOJ, and DOD. Had the government been
honest, Sidney Powell would have succeeded in obtaining for Flynn’s
defense documentary evidence of crimes the Obama administration
committed using the intelligence and justice agencies of the U.S.
government for criminal purposes. Under the Supreme Court standard of <i>Brady v. Maryland</i>, General Flynn had a right to demand that the federal prosecutors had to disclose exculpatory material to the defense<i>. </i>Flynn
knew that the government had to keep the requested documents secret, or
Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and a score of other Obama
administration officials faced severe criminal charges, including
treason. The list of Obama’s coup d’état co-conspirators that Flynn
could quickly identify was extremely long. Flynn’s list would
undoubtedly have included John Brennan, James Clapper, Susan Rice, James
Comey, Peter Strzok, and Lisa Page.</p>
<p>Powell’s motion also asked for any information regarding Joseph
Mifsud. Joseph Mifsud was a Maltese-born academic associated with Link
Campus University, a school established in 1999 as the Rome branch of
the University of Malta. Mifsud played a central role in the setup of
George Papadopoulos. The Democrats on the House Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence <a href="https://archive.org/details/Russian-Active-Measures-House-Intel-2018/HRPT-115-2/" target="_blank">have asserted</a>
that the Russians, in their approach to Papadopoulos, “used common
tradecraft and employed a cutout—a Maltese professor named Joseph
Mifsud.” But the evidence is otherwise. Mifsud is an academic by
training and profession, but he also has close ties with British,
Italian, and U.S. intelligence. Real Clear Investigations reporter Lee
Smith <a href="https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2018/05/26/the_maltese_phantom_of_russiagate_.html" target="_blank">tagged</a>
Mifsud as the “Maltese Phantom of Russiagate,” noting that although
Mifsud has traveled many times to Russia and has contacts with Russian
academics. Misfud’s closest ties are to Western governments,
politicians, and institutions, including the CIA.</p>
<p>Experts who have studied the coup d’état against Donald Trump launched by British and U.S. intelligence have <a href="https://www.thelibertybeacon.com/all-russiagate-roads-lead-to-london-as-evidence-emerges-of-joseph-mifsuds-links-to-uk-intelligence/" target="_blank">realized</a>,
“all roads in Russia-gate lead to London.” On July 31, 2016, the FBI
opened Operation Crossfire Hurricane. Text messages exchanged between
Peter Strzok and Lisa Page document, on August 3, 2016, only three days
after the opening of Operation Crossfire Hurricane, Strzok was in
London. A <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/02/full-text-nunes-memo-fbi-transcript-385057" target="_blank">declassified memo</a>
from the majority staff of the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence (HPSCI) to the majority members made clear that Strzok ran
the FBI counterintelligence investigation. The memo stated: “The
Papadopoulos information triggered the opening of an FBI
counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016 by FBI agent Pete
Strzok.”</p>
<p>Strzok met with Claire Smith, a U.K. Joint Intelligence Committee
member in London. Strzok knew Smith had worked with Mifsud at three
different institutions—the London Academy of Diplomacy, the University
of Stirling in Scotland, and Link University Campus in Rome. Smith was
also a U.K. security vetting panel member and could brief Strzok on
Mifsud, given that she had followed him from the London Academy of
Diplomacy to Stirling University and Link University Campus in Rome.
Smith and Mifsud were photographed together in October 2012 in Rome at
Link University Campus, where they <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0b4kOwcADI" target="_blank">were involved</a>
in training Italian law enforcement on intelligence operations.
According to reports published in Italy, Link Campus University
officially terminated Mifsud’s contract when Mifsud’s role with
Papadopoulos became known. Then, in November 2018, Mifsud went missing;
U.S. authorities presumed he was dead. Seven months later, however,
Mifsud <a href="https://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2017/11/01/news/russiagate_mystery_professor_joseph_mifsud_speaks_out_dirt_on_hillary_clinton_nonsense_-179948962/" target="_blank">resurfaced</a>. It turns out he never left Rome! Italian newspapers <a href="https://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2017/11/01/news/il_prof_dei_contatti_russi-trump_e_vero_ho_fatto_da_mediatore_ma_sono_clintoniano_e_di_sinistra_-179918121/" target="_blank">reported</a>
that when Mifsud was missing and presumed dead, he lived comfortably in
an apartment near the U.S. embassy in Rome. A Greek diplomat owned the
apartment, and Link Campus University paid the rent. Strzok’s trip to
London in August 2016 appears arranged to ensure the details of his
Papadopoulos entrapment scheme remained hidden.</p>
<p>Let’s review the details Strzok engineered in a scheme designed to
make it appear Papadopoulos knew in April 2016 that Russia had stolen
Democratic party emails that contained information damaging to Hillary
Clinton. Remember, this was the predicate Strzok needed to open
Operation Crossfire Hurricane at the end of July 2016. In his book, <i>Deep State Target: How I Got Caught in the Crosshairs of the Plot to Bring Down President Trump</i>,<a href="https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/jerome-corsi-general-flynn-sidney-powell-used-brady-rule-expose-obama-coup-detat-co-conspirators-traitors/#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a>
Papadopoulos explained step-by-step how he fell into Strzok’s trap.
George Papadopoulos describes Link Campus University in Rome as “Spook
University” (pp. 37-38). On April 26, 2016, after Mifsud returned from a
trip to Russia, Papadopoulos met him for breakfast in London at the
Andaz Hotel, near the Liverpool Street station. This breakfast meeting
was the critical meeting in this Strzok’s entrapment scheme. At the
breakfast meeting at the Andaz Hotel, Mifsud surprised Papadopoulos.
Mifsud leaned across the table conspiratorially and whispered to
Papadopoulos, “the Russians have ‘dirt’ on Hillary Clinton—emails of
Clinton. They have thousands of them” (p. 60). In his book,
Papadopoulos says he was shocked to hear this but didn’t know what to do
with the information. “My mission is to make a meeting [between Trump
and Putin] happen. End of story. Hacking, security breaches, potential
blackmail—that is illegal and treasonous. I want no part in it.” (p.
61). Papadopoulos insists he did not want to pursue the subject but
instead returned to the proposed Putin-Trump meeting. “But when we said
goodbye, I have a feeling he’s still just spinning me” (p. 60).</p>
<p>After the meeting in which Mifsud “dropped the bomb” (p. 59) on
Papadopoulos, intelligence-connected operatives intervened to set up
Papadopoulos to meet with Alexander Downer, a leftist Australian
politician who served as Australian high commissioner to the U.K. from
2014 to 2018. Papadopoulos explained in his book that Christopher
Cantor, his acquaintance at the Israeli embassy in London, called him to
introduce him to his girlfriend, Erika Thompson. (p. 63). Ericka
Thompson, whom Papadopoulos first described as “an Australian woman in
her mid-thirties,” introduced Papadopoulos to Downer (p. 64).
Papadopoulos subsequently described Erika as “the Australian ‘diplomat’
who is ‘dating’ the Israeli ‘political officer’ Christopher Cantor.
Papadopoulos explains: “Yes, those quotation marks are there for a
reason. A high-profile reporter based in Washington recently told me
that Christopher and Erika were both intelligence officers for their
respective countries, something Erika has repeatedly denied” (p. 71).</p>
<p>On the rainy London evening of May 10, 2016, Papadopoulos met with
Downer and Erika for drinks at the Kensington Wine Rooms. Now,
Papadopoulos describes Erika and Downer as follows: “It’s a wet, ugly
London evening on May 10, 2016, when I go meet Erika Thompson and her
boss, Australian High Commissioner Alexander Downer” (p. 73). The point
is that Papadopoulos is catching on that the people who approach him
seemingly innocently while he is in London are all intelligence officers
connected to the country of their nationality. This swanky joint boasts
of having some 150 different wines by the glass. A day or two after
the meeting at the wine bar, Downer reported by cable to his diplomatic
superiors in Canberra that Papadopoulos knew the Russians had damaging
information on Hillary Clinton. Downer, who also appears to be an <a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/former-trump-aide-says-declassified-mueller-report-would-reveal-uk-australian-intelligence-involved-in-anti-trump-witch-hunt_2852129.html" target="_blank">informant</a>
to the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (the equivalent of the
CIA), claims to have reported by cable to his diplomatic superiors in
Canberra about his conversation with Papadopoulos at the wine bar.</p>
<p>This information appeared buried within the Australian government
until July 22, 2016, when over two days, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks
began making public some forty thousand stolen DNC emails that forced
Debbie Wasserman Schultz to resign as DNC chair. Papadopoulos suggests
that Downer shared the information with Chargé d’Affaires Elizabeth
Dibble. She was the U.S. deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in
London. Dibble, a career diplomat, was the Deputy Chief of Mission and
Chargé d’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Rome from 2008-2010.
Papadopoulos comments in his book that Dibble was in close touch with
Gregory Baker and Terrence Dudley, two presumed CIA agents posing as
military attachés to the U.S. embassy in London (p. 76). Baker and
Dudley were monitoring Papadopoulos in London, possibly from the first
moment he arrived in March 2016. Papadopoulos explained: “The most
widely reported sequence of events is that within forty-eight hours of
our meeting, Downer sends a cable to Australian intelligence reporting
my alleged remark” (p. 76). Once Downer’s information reached the State
Department, it was conveyed to the FBI by Jonathan Winer, the former
deputy assistant secretary of state who communicated with Christopher
Steele during the summer of 2016.</p>
<p>Reporter Kimberley A. Strassel at the <i>Wall Street Journal</i> <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-curious-case-of-mr-downer-1527809075" target="_blank">correctly noted</a>
that the information from Downer about Mifsud’s conversation with
Papadopoulos originated with Downer and reached the FBI outside normal
channels. Strassel reports the chain of communication as follows:</p>
<p>When Downer ended his service in the U.K. this April [2018], he sat for an interview with the <i>Australian</i>,
a national newspaper, and “spoke for the first time” about the
Papadopoulos event. Mr. Downer said he officially reported the
Papadopoulos meeting back to Australia “the following day or a day or
two after,” as it “seemed quite interesting.” The story nonchalantly
notes that “after a period of time, Australia’s ambassador to the U.S.,
Joe Hockey, passed the information on to Washington.</p>
<p>But Strassel insists that her reporting “indicates otherwise.” She explained:</p>
<p>A diplomatic source tells me Mr. Hockey neither transmitted any
information to the FBI nor was approached by the U.S. about the trip.
Rather, it was Mr. Downer who at some point decided to convey his
information—to the U.S. Embassy in London.</p>
<p>Why is this important? The United States is part of the “Five Eyes,”
an intelligence network that includes the U.K., Canada, Australia, and
New Zealand. “Five Eyes” <a href="https://www.privacyinternational.org/learn/five-eyes" target="_blank">originated</a>
in 1946 as an alliance between the U.S. (National Security Agency,
NSA), the U.K. (Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ), Australia
(Australian Signals Directorate, ASD), Canada (Communications Security
Establishment Canada, CSEC), and New Zealand (Government Communications
Security Bureau, GCSB). Each of the Five Eyes nations conducts its own
interception, collection, acquisition, analysis, and decryption
activities, <a href="https://www.privacyinternational.org/learn/five-eyes" target="_blank">sharing</a> all the intelligence each obtains with the others by default.</p>
<p>Strassel stressed that Downer’s job was to report his meeting back to
Canberra and leave it to Australian intelligence. “We also know that
it wasn’t Australian intelligence that alerted the FBI,” she wrote.
“The document that launched the FBI probe [Operation Crossfire
Hurricane] contains no foreign intelligence whatsoever. So if
Australian intelligence did receive the Downer info, it didn’t feel
compelled to act on it.” Strassel’s point is that the Obama State
Department was the agency that acted on Downer’s information. “The
Downer details landed with the embassy’s then-chargé d’affaires,
Elizabeth Dibble, who previously served as a principal deputy assistant
secretary in Mrs. Clinton’s State Department.”</p>
<p>Strassel put the puzzle together as follows:</p>
<p>When did all this happen, and what came next? Did the info go
straight to U.S. intelligence? Or did it instead filter to the wider
State Department team, who we already know were helping foment
Russia-Trump conspiracy theories? Jonathan Winer, a former deputy
assistant secretary of state, has publicly admitted to communicating in
the summer of 2016 with his friend Christopher Steele, author of the
infamous dossier.</p>
<p>But Strassel picked up on a disconnect between the Mifsud
communication of what Papadopoulos supposedly said and Downer’s version.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, something doesn’t gel between Mr. Downer’s account of the
conversation and the FBI’s. In his Australian interview, Mr. Downer
said Mr. Papadopoulos didn’t give specifics. “He didn’t say dirt, he
said material that could be damaging to her,” said Downer. “He didn’t
say what it was.” Also: “Nothing he said in that conversation indicated
Trump himself had been conspiring with the Russians to collect
information on Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p>Her research into the Papadopoulos affair led Strassel to begin
doubting the veracity of the FBI’s decision to use Papadopoulos’s
remarks to Mifsud as the pretext for opening a counterintelligence
investigation into Trump. She concluded:</p>
<p>For months we’ve been told the FBI acted because it was alarmed that
Mr. Papadopoulos knew about those hacked Democratic emails in May
[2016], before they became public in June [2016]. But according to the
tipster himself, Mr. Papadopoulos said nothing about emails. The FBI
received a report that a far-removed campaign adviser, over drinks, said
the Russians had something that might be “damaging” to Hillary. Did
this vague statement justify a counterintelligence probe into a
presidential campaign, featuring a spy and secret surveillance
warrants? Unlikely. Which leads us back to what did inspire the FBI to
act, and when. The Papadopoulos pretext is getting thinner.</p><p>The truth is that Papadopoulos knew nothing about who stole the DNC
emails. Papadopoulos’s goal in London was to see if he could elevate
himself in Trump’s eyes by arranging for Trump a meeting with Putin.
Mifsud was the operative Strzok used Papadopoulos to plant on him the
“Russia stole the DNC emails to get dirt on Hillary” origin.</p>
<p>In London, just days after the FBI opened Operation Crossfire
Hurricane, Strzok met with Downer. McCarthy noted the extraordinary
nature of this Strzok meeting with Downer. “Breaking with diplomatic
protocol after tense negotiations, the American and Australian
governments had agreed that Strzok and another agent would be permitted
to interview High Commissioner Alexander Downer, Canberra’s top emissary
to London,” McCarthy <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/us/politics/crossfire-hurricane-trump-russia-fbi-mueller-investigation.html" target="_blank">wrote</a>.
“Downer had informed the American embassy that he believed
Trump-campaign advisor George Papadopoulos had tipped him off to a
Russian scheme to swing the presidency to Trump—mainly by hacking and
releasing information that could damage Clinton, such as the tens of
thousands of Democratic party emails now in circulation.” So now, the
FBI was involved in international diplomatic affairs, working with
British intelligence GCHQ, mixing responsibilities with the State
Department and the CIA, by meeting Downer in London with obvious consent
of GCHQ and the Australian government.</p>
<p>First, Strzok needed GCHQ to pin the Russian collusion narrative on
Papadopoulos. Next, Strzok needed Australian intelligence to pass the
message to the U.S. State Department in London. Strzok could not let
anyone know pinning the Russian collusion on Papadopoulos was a
convoluted Five Eyes intelligence operation. None of the Five Eyes
countries want their intelligence agencies spying on their own citizens,
and Strzok knew that if the FBI learned about the Papadopoulos escapade
through GCHQ, his cover would be blown. When the State Department in
London passed the information to the State Department in Washington, and
the State Department in Washington passed the information to the CIA,
Strzok sanitized the information to be FBI actionable. Strzok realized
that the information from the Papadopoulos setup together with the
Steele dossier was a sufficient predicate to open a counterintelligence
investigation into Trump and his campaign officials. But the scheme
would only work if the FBI got the Papadopoulos information through
normal diplomatic channels, not Five Eyes.</p>
<p>Strzok’s scheme was complicated, but it worked. Strzok used Mifsud
to plant the “Russia stole Hillary’s email” comment on Papadopoulos.
Then Downer met with Papadopoulos and passed the word on to Australian
intelligence. Having informed Australia, Downer shared the statement
with the State Department in London. The State Department in London
told the State Department in Washington. The State Department in
Washington passed the information to the FBI. The FBI opened Operation
Crossfire Hurricane.</p>
<p>Flynn must have figured out that Strzok had invented the Papadopoulos
entrapment scheme just as Strzok invented the Flynn perjury trap over
Flynn’s calls with Kislyak. Powell filed the motion to get delivered to
Flynn’s defense team the documentary evidence Flynn needed to expose
Strzok’s ingenious circular methodology. The FBI needed a tie between
the Trump campaign and Russia to claim Trump colluded with Russia to
release damaging information about Hillary Clinton. Strzok estimated
that Papadopoulos was an easy mark. Papadopoulos was young and
inexperienced in international affairs, but Papadopoulos was also
ambitious and connected to the Trump campaign. <b>What Strzok also knew was that what he did was both criminal and treasonous.</b>
Strzok also knew that if Powell got the documents she requested in her
motion to the court on September 11, 2019, Flynn would make public
evidence exposing Strzok as the operational mastermind of the
Obama-directed coup d’état against Trump. The threat of having to
release <i>Brady</i> exculpatory material was most likely the last
straw convincing the Obama administration to drop all charges against
General Flynn.</p>
<p>Strzok morphed the coup d’état scheme first to prevent Trump from
winning in 2016, then to remove Trump from the White House after he won
the election. After the FBI decided Flynn had done nothing wrong in his
telephone conversations with Kislyak, Strzok shifted to running a
perjury trap on Flynn over whether or not Flynn discussed with Kislyak
the sanctions Obama had placed on Russian intelligence. Strzok schemed
to open the FBI’s Operation Crossfire Hurricane hoping to deflect
attention from the content of the DNC emails Assange was releasing.
Strzok’s original goal was to elect Hillary Clinton president. When
Trump won the 2016 election, Strzok’s plan shifted to removing Trump
from office for having colluded with Russia to intervene in the
presidential election for his benefit. On May 17, 2017, Deputy Attorney
General Rod Rosenstein appointed Robert Mueller as special counsel.
Strzok trusted that Andrew Weissman on Mueller’s team would establish
enough evidence that Trump’s campaign had colluded with Russia and
Julian Assange at WikiLeaks to make the DNC emails public so as to
inflict maximum damage on Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions.</p>
<p>So, what is the answer to why Obama was so determined to destroy Trump? Obama knew that Flynn had the goods on him. <b>If Flynn had been allowed to be Trump’s national security advisor, Obama’s treason would be exposed.</b> Now, as the end game to get Flynn released from his plea deal, Powell decided to use the <i>Brady</i>
rule to get Flynn’s defense team possession of the documents that would
prove the DOJ, FBI, CIA, NSA, President Obama, and top members of
Obama’s administration were all in a treasonous coup d’état criminal
scheme. Powell succeeded in that the DOJ dropped all charges against
Flynn. Powell also succeeded in communicating through her court filings
the reality of how Strzok criminally politicized U.S. intelligence to
implement Obama’s treasonous coup d’état. The time for a new Church
Committee investigation is long overdue.</p>
<p><i>In 2020, Jerome Corsi published </i><a href="https://amzn.to/3wAox4n" target="_blank"><i>Coup d’État: Exposing Deep State Treason,</i></a><i> from which much of this article was drawn. In 2019, he published </i><a href="https://amzn.to/40dlUTV" target="_blank"><i>Silent No More: How I Became a Political Prisoner of Mueller’s “Witch Hunt,”</i></a><i>
explaining how the Mueller prosecutors confronted Dr. Corsi for over
two months for hours at a time in a closed conference room with no
windows. Dr. Corsi effectively ended the Mueller “Russian Collusion”
investigation when he refused to take the Mueller prosecutors’ plea
deal, alleging he had lied to the FBI. The FBI never indicted Dr.
Corsi—further proof the Mueller prosecutors were the ones telling the
lies.</i></p>
<p><a href="https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/jerome-corsi-general-flynn-sidney-powell-used-brady-rule-expose-obama-coup-detat-co-conspirators-traitors/#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> George Papadopoulos, <i>Deep State Target: How I Got Caught in the Crosshairs of the Plot to Bring Down President Trump</i> (New York: Diversion Books, 2019). Page numbers are inserted into the text to identify quotations used here from the book.</p><p> </p><p> </p><h1 class="entry-title"><span style="font-size: large;">Jerome Corsi: Part
II on How General Flynn and Sidney Powell Used the Brady Rule to Expose
Obama and His Coup d’État Co-Conspirators as Traitors</span></h1>
<div class="entry-meta">
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By <a data-type-location="before-article-meta" data-type="Internal link" href="https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/author/joehoft/">Joe Hoft</a>
<br />
Published February 13, 2023 at 8:15am
<br /></span><a class="truthsocial-share ea-share-count-button" href="https://truthsocial.com/share?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thegatewaypundit.com%2F2023%2F02%2Fjerome-corsi-part-ii-general-flynn-sidney-powell-used-brady-rule-expose-obama-coup-detat-co-conspirators-traitors%2F%3Futm_source%3DTruth%20Social%26utm_medium%3DPostTopSharingButtons%26utm_campaign%3Dwebsitesharingbuttons&title=Jerome%20Corsi%3A%20Part%20II%20on%20How%20General%20Flynn%20and%20Sidney%20Powell%20Used%20the%20Brady%20Rule%20to%20Expose%20Obama%20and%20His%20Coup%20d%27%C3%89tat%20Co-Conspirators%20as%20Traitors" target="_blank"><span class="label"></span> </a></div></div><div class="entry-content"><p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-456990" data-src="https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-content/uploads/sidney-powell-mike-flynn-general.jpg" height="274" src="https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-content/uploads/sidney-powell-mike-flynn-general.jpg" width="400" /></p>
<p><b>How General Flynn and Sidney Powell Used the <i>Brady</i> Rule to Expose Obama and His Coup d’État Co-Conspirators as Traitors</b></p>
<p><b>Part 2: </b><b>Strzok’s Five Eyes Intel Scheme to Destroy Trump Explained</b></p><p></p>
<p>Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson is a member of the Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). Johnson is confident the
Obama co-conspirators utilized the “Five Eyes club” for intelligence
sharing “without attracting undue attention.” Papadopoulos sent emails
in 2015 to Corey Lewandowski after Lewandowski was appointed Trump’s
first campaign director. Johnson <a href="https://turcopolier.com/muellers-lies-about-george-papadopolous-by-larry-c-johnson/" target="_blank">documents</a>
his reasons for being confident that Britain’s GCHQ and the NSA
intercepted Papadopoulos’s emails to Lewandowski. He wrote: “It is now
clear, with the benefit of hindsight, that these emails [that
Papadopoulos wrote to Lewandowski] were transmitted as SIGINT [Signals
Intelligence] reports.” On April 24, 2019, in an interview on the One
America News Network (OANN), Johnson <a href="https://larouchepub.com/pr/2019/190424_drive_out_brit_empire.html" target="_blank">explained</a> Britain’s reasons for spying on Trump:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The British did this [use GCHQ to spy on Trump] in part, I am given
to understand by people familiar with what was up, because they were
concerned about Trump’s policies on NATO and Syria, and they wanted to
make sure they could start understanding what he’s up to.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Johnson is further <a href="https://turcopolier.com/muellers-lies-about-george-papadopolous-by-larry-c-johnson/" target="_blank">certain</a>
that Papadopoulos’s emails were “unmasked.” Section 702 of the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA Act) surveillance is a loophole
that allows the FBI to conduct warrantless surveillance of U.S. citizens
with practically no checks or accountability on the process. Obtaining a
FISA Court warrant to authorize surveillance against U.S. citizens is
supposed to be difficult under FISA law. To get a warrant to authorize
surveillance, DOJ attorneys, working with FBI agents, need to convince
the FISA Court that probable cause exists to believe a U.S. citizen is
an agent of a foreign power. Section 702 of the FISA legislation <a href="https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2018/07/explaining-secret-surveillance" target="_blank">allows</a>
the FBI—and other entities within the federal government, including the
White House—to query the NSA to obtain any information it may have on a
U.S. citizen being monitored by the NSA. But the query is only
legitimate if the government can establish credible (i.e., not
fabricated) evidence to be suspicious a particular citizen is engaged in
suspicious activity with foreign agents acting against the national
security interests of the United States.</p>
<p>To be clear, under Section 702, the White House or the FBI, in
practice, can merely use a foreign intelligence concern to ask the NSA
about any information it may have obtained on U.S. citizens believed to
be involved in foreign espionage activities. Many Russian intelligence
operatives and government officials were already under NSA electronic
surveillance. So, FBI counterintelligence agents and various Obama
administration officials could merely have asked the NSA under Section
702 for any information that the NSA may have collected on Flynn, or
other Trump associates, regarding suspected “Russian collusion.” Thus, <b>Section
702 under Operation Crossfire Hurricane functioned as an FBI backdoor
to conduct electronic surveillance on U.S. citizens</b>. The FBI
could simply utilize Section 702, thus avoiding the requirement to
gather legitimate probable cause evidence to get a warrant from a FISA
Court authorizing electronic surveillance of the same U.S. citizens the
FBI is targeting. In Operation Crossfire Hurricane, the Obama
administration co-conspirators illegally disregarded the rules. They
used Section 702 to query the NSA about political opponents. They also
fabricated evidence (i.e., the Steele dossier) to falsify probable cause
evidence to obtain from a FISA court a warrant to conduct electronic
surveillance on political opponents.</p>
<p>Another severe violation of Fourth Amendment rights occurs when U.S.
citizens who the NSA surveils without a warrant are “masked.” Federal
law requires the names of U.S. citizens under NSA surveillance to remain
secret unless there is a genuine and overwhelming national security
interest justifying that the person is named—or, in intelligence terms,
“unmasked.” Several Obama administration officials, including former
National Security Advisor Susan Rice, former U.N. Ambassador Samantha
Power, and former CIA Chief John Brennan <a href="https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/in-abusing-nsa-intelligence-did-obama-white-house-commit-a-crime/" target="_blank">were subpoenaed</a>
by the House Intelligence Committee investigating illegal unmasking in
the Russian collusion hoax for political rather than legitimate national
security reasons. When the Obama administration decided to leak to
David Ignatius at the <i>Washington Post</i> the information about
Flynn’s phone calls with Kislyak, James Clapper, Obama’s director of
national intelligence, urged Ignatius to “take the kill shot.”
Predictably, however, in the Russian collusion hoax, the DOJ has issued
no indictments for unlawful unmasking of names, even when the names were
illegally leaked to the press by senior Obama administration officials.</p>
<p>If the CIA, FBI, or DOJ, in their hate-Trump zeal, circumvented U.S.
law to receive intelligence from unauthorized sources, the entire
“Russia collusion” investigation—including all applications to the FISA
Court—may have been illegal. If Flynn had been allowed to take office
as Trump’s national security advisor, he most certainly would have ended
Operation Crossfire Hurricane, and Robert Mueller would never have been
appointed Special Counsel. Strzok understood that the only way he
could perpetuate Operation Crossfire Hurricane after Trump took office
was to ensure Flynn never took office.</p>
<p>General Flynn and Sidney Powell understood that Strzok’s entrapment
scheme against Papadopoulos was needed to make Crossfire Hurricane an
FBI counterintelligence operation. <b>In 2016, Strzok realized the
only way he could access NSA surveillance information on Trump and his
associates was to implicate Trump and his associates as spies. Since
this was not true, Strzok had to fabricate the evidence.</b>
That’s why Strzok hit upon using Mifsud to make it appear that
Papadopoulos, a Trump associate (even if peripheral to Trump’s
campaign), knew in April 2016 that the Russians had stolen the DNC
emails. Strzok knew the NSA had the Trump campaign under surveillance,
and he wanted to access that mother lode of secret information. He
also knew that the NSA was the pivotal U.S. intelligence agency in the
Five Eyes scheme. Powell, in her motion to the court dated September
11, 2018, paragraph 7 requests the following: “All documents, reports,
correspondence, and memorandum, including any National Security letter
or FISA application, concerning any earlier investigation of Mr. Flynn
and the basis for it.” Powell referenced this request by citing the
Mueller Report, <a href="https://www.justice.gov/storage/report_volume2.pdf" target="_blank">Volume II</a>,
pages 24 and 26. Pages 24 and 26 involved Flynn’s telephone calls with
Kislyak. Flynn must have explained to Powell that the Obama
administration had accessed the NSA for surveillance information the NSA
had collected on Flynn.</p>
<p><b>In January 2016, John Brennan <a href="https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/10/john-brennans-secret-cia-trump-task-force-by-larry-c-johnson.html" target="_blank">organized</a>
a secret “Donald Trump Task Force” in the CIA, with the blessing of
James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence. Brennan organized the
Donald Trump Task Force on the premise that Trump was a spy, an asset
of Putin running for president in the United States.</b> The Task
Force members, including officials from the FBI and NSA, were
handpicked, with no posting of jobs. As a counterintelligence operation,
Brennan’s Task Force could recruit foreign intelligence agencies,
including MI-6 in the U.K., as well as Italian [i.e., Mifsud’s
involvement with Link University in Rome] and Australian [i.e., Downer]
intelligence operatives. The Task Force spent CIA money to fund travel
overseas and to pay cooperating assets to set up entrapment schemes of
Trump campaign officials, including Carter Page and George Papadopoulos.</p>
<p>In July 2016, CIA Director John Brennan wrote a two-page E.C., or
“electronic communication,” to FBI Director James Comey. In the E.C.,
Brennan <a href="https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2019/04/11/devin-nunes-the-spying-began-in-2015/" target="_blank">communicated</a>
to Comey details of the meeting between Papadopoulos and Mifsud, as
reported by Downer. According to GOP Representative Devin Nunes, the
former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Brennan’s E.C. was
not an official product of the U.S. intelligence communities, nor was
Brennan using information gained through official partnerships with the
Five Eyes. Instead, the CIA appears to have enlisted the assistance of
foreign intelligence assets to run operations against the Trump
campaign, perhaps starting <a href="https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2019/04/11/devin-nunes-the-spying-began-in-2015/" target="_blank">as early as</a>
late 2015. Two of the foreign intelligence assets the CIA recruited
were Stefan Halper and Joseph Mifsud, both with extensive ties to the
CIA. Brennan’s E.C. to Comey and the information Mifsud shared with
Papadopoulos at their famous breakfast meeting at the Andaz hotel in
London on April 26, 2016, were the final pieces needed to trigger the
FBI into opening Operation Crossfire Hurricane as a counterintelligence
investigation.</p>
<p><b>Remember, the FBI opened Operation Crossfire Hurricane on
July 31, 2016, as a counterintelligence investigation rather than a
criminal investigation. By so doing, the Obama administration avoided
the rigorous probable cause standard of proof demanded in a criminal
investigation to bring a criminal indictment.</b> The
administration knew that a counterintelligence investigation would
operate under less stringent standards of evidence, from demanding
probable cause to merely requiring that the conduct being investigated
must have a legitimate national security concern. An FBI
counterintelligence investigation is aimed at finding and convicting
foreign spies operating in the United States, as well as prosecuting
U.S. citizens collaborating with foreign spies.</p>
<p>The Obama administration knew that a counterintelligence
investigation was a national security case that would require only
reasonable suspicion to reach across to involve foreign intelligence
services. The question was no longer limited to whether Donald Trump had
committed a crime under federal election laws but now included whether
he was a spy—specifically, whether he was acting as a Russian agent.
Under the less rigorous standards of proof under which a
counterintelligence investigation operates, the FBI’s mission was merely
to investigate whether or not Trump had colluded with Russia to defeat
Clinton. The FBI no longer had to meet the requirement of criminal law
that to indict Donald Trump the FBI would have to establish probable
cause evidence that Donald Trump personally or his campaign officials
had violated the law.</p>
<p>But through the backdoor of a counterintelligence investigation, the
Obama DOJ and FBI were also allowed to conduct a criminal investigation
should any crimes be found in the espionage activity being investigated.
In his closed-door testimony before the House Judiciary Committee,
James A. Baker, the general counsel for the FBI on October 18, 2018
[Part Two], <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/document-transcripts-jim-baker-interview-house-judiciary-and-oversight-committees" target="_blank">explained</a>
how counterintelligence investigations could also become criminal
investigations. “The FBI always has all of its authorities in dealing
with a counterintelligence matter,” Baker testified. “And so, to my
mind, the FBI walks in with all of its options on the table. And it can
pursue things in a strictly, you know, foreign intelligence channel,
interacting with other intelligence agencies and things like that and
never have anything to do with, you know, a grand jury subpoena or
putting anybody in a courtroom or anything like that, or an indictment.”
Yet, Baker acknowledged when a counterintelligence investigation
transforms into a criminal investigation, the standard of proof becomes
the more rigorous standard of probable cause. “But at the same time, if
the facts and circumstances warrant going—using criminal tools,
including up to and including prosecution, then the FBI can do that. And
so I think it’s just misleading to think of a counterintelligence
investigation as not also being, in part, at least potentially a
criminal investigation.”</p>
<p>This point disturbed former U.S. assistant attorney Andrew C.
McCarthy, who has accused the DOJ and FBI of running a criminal
investigation against Donald Trump under the pretext of a
counterintelligence investigation. In his 2019 book, <i>Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency</i>,<a href="https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/jerome-corsi-part-ii-general-flynn-sidney-powell-used-brady-rule-expose-obama-coup-detat-co-conspirators-traitors/#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1">[1]</a>
McCarthy writes: “In the absence of a solid factual predicate for a
criminal investigation, foreign-counterintelligence powers were used as a
pretext to dig for criminal evidence that would support a hoped-for
prosecution” (p. 227). McCarthy considered the FBI’s use of foreign
intelligence sources in Operation Crossfire Hurricane a major and
abusive flaw of the Trump-Russia investigation.</p>
<p>McCarthy also comments the Obama administration “bent over backward <i>not</i>
to make a criminal case on Hillary Clinton—the candidate Obama heartily
endorsed—despite a mountain of incriminating evidence” (p. 178, italics
in original). In sharp contrast, he noted the Obama administration
“exploited every tool in its arsenal (surveillance, informants,
foreign-intelligence agencies, moribund and constitutionally untenable
criminal statutes) to try to make a criminal case on Trump—the candidate
Obama deeply opposed—despite the absence of incriminating evidence” (p.
178). McCarthy also explained this by noting that the Obama
administration “notoriously political in its intelligence assessments
and law-enforcement actions, used Trump contacts with Russia as a
rationalization for a counterintelligence investigation because it saw
Trump as a Neanderthal degenerate” (pp. 177-178). At the same time, the
Obama administration “ignored Clinton contacts with Russia, or assumed
they simply must have been good-faith contacts, because it saw the
Clintons as bien pensant transnational-progressives” (p. 178).</p>
<p><b>Proof President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Schemed to Send Weapons to ISIS</b></p>
<p>In 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton persuaded President Obama
to arm the Free Syria Army rebels in Syria. Her goal was to topple the
regime of Bashar al-Assad. This complemented a strategy Clinton and
Obama had already begun in Libya to switch sides by supporting
Al-Qaida-affiliated militia to topple Gadhafi. On November 4, 2016, the
<i>Sun</i> in London <a href="https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2117406/julian-assange-sensationally-claims-hillary-clinton-and-isis-are-secretly-funded-by-the-same-shadowy-figures-and-says-trump-wont-be-allowed-to-win-election/" target="_blank">published</a> a report that Julian Assange claimed that Wikileaks had emails in the Hillary Clinton <a href="https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/" target="_blank">email archive</a>
that established ISIS “was created largely with money from people who
were giving money to the Clinton Foundation. This claim derived further
support from a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/09/30/world/middleeast/john-kerry-syria-audio.html?mtrref=www.wnd.com&gwh=F6FD5EEE2C7E1F8E2DC07356950C2A5C&gwt=pay&assetType=PAYWALL" target="_blank">recording</a> leaked to the <i>New York Times.</i> On the recording, Secretary of State John Kerry <a href="https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2017/01/01/absolutely-stunning-leaked-audio-of-secretary-kerry-reveals-president-obama-intentionally-allowed-rise-of-isis/#comments" target="_blank">admitted</a>
the Obama administration not only hoped ISIS would depose the regime of
Assad al-Bashar in Syria but also gave arms to the jihadist army and
its allies to carry out the task.</p>
<p>As early as June 20, 2011, longtime Clinton adviser Sidney Blumenthal sent a <a href="https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/12602" target="_blank">confidential email</a> to Clinton at the State Department. The email included <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/06/16/lesch.syria.repression/" target="_blank">an article</a>
published by David W. Lesch, a professor of Middle Eastern history at
Trinity University in San Antonio. In the article, Lesch argued that a
regime change strategy would work in Syria if the U.S. could find
opposition groups in Syria capable of establishing “a Benghazi-like
refuge from which to launch a rebellion and to which aid can be sent.”</p>
<p>In a subsequent confidential email dated July 24, 2012, Blumenthal further <a href="https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/12173" target="_blank">advised</a>
Clinton that the “growing success of the rebel forces of the Free Syria
Army, FSA,” inspired him to believe the Assad regime was increasingly
vulnerable to being overthrown. In an email dated February 24, 2012,
Blumenthal <a href="https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/12221" target="_blank">characterized</a>
the Free Syrian Army (FSA) as “loosely organized and uncoordinated,”
noting it was “for the most part, local militias, many of them
civilian-based, that are simply calling themselves the FSA to appear to
be part of a whole.” Blumenthal added in that email to comment the
armed resistance to Assad “is not well funded or well-armed.”</p>
<p>Then, on September 18, 2012, one week after the disastrous Benghazi
9/11 terror attack, Blumenthal sent a confidential memo to Clinton. In
the email, Blumenthal <a href="https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/12123" target="_blank">alerted</a>
her to the possibility of an FSA military victory taking over Damascus,
which would cause Assad’s wife and close relatives to urge Assad to
flee Syria. Blumenthal reasoned that Assad would want to avoid “the
fate of Assad’s former ally Muammar al Qaddafi of Libya, who was
captured and killed by rebel forces while attempting to flee his home
territory in Sirte.”</p>
<p>Former U.S. attorney Andrew C. McCarthy, writing in <i>National Review</i> on August 2, 2016, <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2016/08/hillary-clinton-wikileaks-benghazi-scandal-arm-syrian-rebels-al-qaeda-isis-libya-turkey/" target="_blank">reported</a> Ambassador Stevens had moved an enormous shipment of weapons from Benghazi to the Syrian ‘rebels’ in Turkey. McCarthy <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/world/middleeast/cia-said-to-aid-in-steering-arms-to-syrian-rebels.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank">pointed</a> to a <i>New York Times</i>
article in 2012, written three months before the Benghazi massacre.
The article reported CIA operatives were secretly in Turkey, helping the
Obama administration to decide which Syrian opposition fighters would
receive arms clandestinely from the United States to fight the Syrian
government. The <i>New York Times</i> article further reported that
the weapons included automatic rifles, rocket-propelled grenades,
ammunition, and some antitank weapons. These weapons were being funneled
mostly across the Turkish border by way of a shadowy network of
intermediaries, including Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood and paid for by
Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.</p>
<p>According to Seymour M. Hersh, <a href="https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v36/n08/seymour-m.-hersh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line" target="_blank">writing</a>
in the London Review of Books in 2014, a secret agreement reached in
early 2012 between the Obama and Erdogan administrations, the CIA, with
the support of MI6, was responsible for transporting arms from Gaddafi’s
arsenals into Syria to support the FSA. Hersh commented: “The
operation had not been disclosed at the time it was set up to the
congressional intelligence committees and the congressional leadership,
as required by law since the 1970s. The involvement of MI6 enabled the
CIA to evade the law by classifying the mission as a liaison operation.”</p>
<p><b>Conclusion</b></p>
<p>By pointing out the numerous crimes the government had committed,
Sidney Powell showed great diligence and skill in defending General
Flynn. We know why the Obama administration pursued General Flynn with a
determination to destroy him. General Flynn knew too much. Still
today, the Biden administration hides the evidence that General Flynn
knows exists. <b>Judging from Sidney Powell’s motion to the court
on September 11, 2019, Flynn knew he could prove the Obama
administration and CIA, with the willing cooperation of British
intelligence, committed treason. Once Flynn could establish the extent
to which the Obama administration used U.S. intelligence agencies for
partisan political purposes, he could explain how Obama clandestinely
used U.S. intelligence agencies to arm ISIS. </b> Obama knew he could never permit unredacted copies of the documents Powell demanded under the <i>Brady</i> rule to be shown the American people.</p>
<p>On September 12, 2019, Margot Cleveland, the Federalist’s chief legal correspondent, <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2019/09/12/sidney-powells-latest-motion-michael-flynns-case-russiagate-bombshell/" target="_blank">published</a>
an article entitled “Sidney Powell’s Latest Motion in Michael Flynn’s
Case Is a Russiagate Bombshell.” In that article, Cleveland correctly
noted that “the spying on Trump likely began with spying on Flynn and
involved not just the FBI, CIA, and Department of Defense, but their
British counterparts, and dated back to Flynn’s time as President
Obama’s Defense Intelligence director.”</p>
<p><b>FDR famously declared that all we have to fear is fear
itself. What General Flynn’s case proves is that FDR was wrong. Today,
we must fear the U.S. government, a government our Founding Fathers
would not recognize. Understanding what Lieutenant General Michael
Flynn suffered after being forced to face imprisonment by Hillary
Clinton, Barack Obama, and their lying, treasonous associates serves
only to display the exemplar courage of this brave patriot.</b></p>
<p><i>In 2020, Jerome Corsi published </i><a href="https://amzn.to/3wAox4n" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><i>Coup d’État: Exposing Deep State Treason,</i></a><i> from which much of this article was drawn. In 2019, he published </i><a href="https://amzn.to/40dlUTV" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><i>Silent No More: How I Became a Political Prisoner of Mueller’s “Witch Hunt,”</i></a><i> explaining
how the Mueller prosecutors confronted Dr. Corsi for over two months
for hours at a time in a closed conference room with no windows. Dr.
Corsi effectively ended the Mueller “Russian Collusion” investigation
when he refused to take the Mueller prosecutors’ plea deal, alleging he
had lied to the FBI. The FBI never indicted Dr. Corsi—further proof the
Mueller prosecutors were the ones telling the lies.</i></p>
<p><a href="https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/02/jerome-corsi-part-ii-general-flynn-sidney-powell-used-brady-rule-expose-obama-coup-detat-co-conspirators-traitors/#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1">[1]</a> Andrew C. McCarthy, <i>Ball of Collusion: The Plot to Rig an Election and Destroy a Presidency </i>(New York: Encounter Books, 2019).</p></div></div>dgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1122443293261057373.post-25549465729293472502023-02-10T15:25:00.002-07:002023-02-10T15:25:18.029-07:00Biden reverses his long history of supporting entitlement cuts <p class="maintitle">
<span style="font-weight: bold;"> <span style="font-size: large;">Biden reverses his long history of supporting entitlement cuts </span></span></p><p class="subtitle">
<span class="Fid_16"> Reelection campaigns brought calls for balanced budgets</span></p><p class="abody"><span style="font-weight: bold;"> BY DAVE BOYER</span><span style="font-weight: bold;"> THE WASHINGTON TIMES</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_14"> Joseph R. Biden was for cutting entitlements before he was against it.</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_14">
As a senator dating back to 1984, and as vice president, Mr. Biden
embraced proposed cuts to Social Security and Medicare to balance the
federal budget. He often declared support for balanced budgets when he
was up for reelection.</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_14"> Now, as the president who is likely</span><span class="Fid_14">
running for reelection, Mr. Biden is vowing never to reduce
entitlements. He has staked out the position in a battle with House
Republicans over spending cuts and raising the nation’s borrowing limit.</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_14">
The 80-year-old president knows that seniors love a pledge against
cutting entitlements, and they tend to be the most reliable voting
bloc. Mr. Biden repeated his promise Thursday in the swing state of
Florida, where 21% of residents are seniors, the highest level in the
nation.</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_14"> “I know that a
lot of Republicans, their dream is to cut Social Security and Medicare,”
Mr. Biden said at the University of Tampa. “If that’s your dream, I’m
your nightmare. I will not cut a single Social Security or Medicare
benefit.”</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_14"> How times
have changed. In 1984, when Mr. Biden was running in Delaware for
reelection to the U.S. Senate, he teamed up with Republican Sen.</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6">
Charles E. Grassley of Iowa on a proposal to freeze federal spending,
including Social Security cost-of-living adjustments, or COLAs. It was
during the Reagan era, when cutting government spending was a more
popular notion.</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6"> “When
those of my friends in the Democratic and Republican Party say to me,
‘How do you expect me to vote for your proposal? Does it not freeze
Social Security COLAs for one year? Are we not saying there will be no
cost-of-living increases for one year?’ The answer to that is ‘Yes, that
is what I am saying,’” Mr. Biden said in a Senate floor speech in April
1984.</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6"> The proposal didn’t succeed, but Mr. Biden won reelection.</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6">
If the same proposal were enacted nowadays, it would have erased an
8.7% increase in Social Security monthly benefi ts that went into
effect this month for about 65 million seniors. Most of those seniors
are facing tighter household budgets because of inflation, which has
soared during Mr. Biden’s presidency.</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6">
In 1988, after Mr. Biden’s first presidential bid crashed and burned,
he was still professing pride about his stance on freezing federal
spending.</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6"> “I introduced
an amendment, notwithstanding my quote ‘liberal’ credentials, of
freezing the federal budget, absolute freeze,” Mr. Biden said at the
time. “I did it for a simple reason: I sat on the Budget Committee for
11 years. And I’d find the same thing occurs every time. We’d start off
with grandiose ideas of how we’re going to cut the budget. We would
never touch entitlements, we would never touch the defense budget, and
we couldn’t touch the interest on the debt, which meant that out of a
trilliondollar budget, that left us only $156 billion. And what we
would do each year is we would go out and cut out education, food
stamps, Head Start, [welfare] payments, on down the line, everything
that</span><span class="Fid_6"> I cared about got cut, because, at the
very end, we’d say, ‘Well, we’ve got to make some cuts.’ And that would
be the path of least resistance.”</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6">
In 1995, Mr. Biden voted for a balanced budget amendment despite
warning that it would cut entitlements. He introduced a proposal to
exclude Social Security from the balanced budget requirements, but the
legislation failed.</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6"> At the time, the national debt was about $5 trillion. Today, it is more than $31 trillion.</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6"> In 2007, when he was running for president again, Mr. Biden was asked by “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert</span><span class="Fid_6"> whether he would consider “looking” at curbing the costs of Social Security and Medicare.</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6">
“Absolutely,” Mr. Biden said. “Cost of living — put it all on the
table. … Social Security’s not the hard one to solve. Medicare, that is
the gorilla in the room, and you’ve got to put all of it on the table.”</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6">
In November 2007, before the Iowa caucuses, Mr. Biden said, “The
American people know we have to fix Social Security. They know we can’t
grow our way to a solution. They know we’re going to have to make some
tough decisions. They’re ready to make those decisions. They’re ready to
step up. We have to be</span><span class="Fid_6"> ready to straightforwardly tell them what we’re about to do.”</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6">
As reported by The Intercept in 2020, Mr. Biden as vice president was
involved in multiple administration attempts to cut Social Security as
part of a “grand bargain with Republicans” during the Obama
administration. Tea party Republicans, who wouldn’t agree to any tax
increases, blocked the proposals.</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6">
In 2014, Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, said Mr. Biden privately
told him he was in favor of raising the retirement age and
means-testing Social Security benefits.</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6">
“I asked the vice president, ‘Don’t we have to raise the age? Wouldn’t
meanstesting and raising the age solve the problem?’” Mr. Paul
recalled. He added that Mr. Biden said, “Yes in private, but will not
say it in public.”</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6"> At a
Brookings Institution event in 2018, Mr. Biden referred to Republican
Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s attempt to rein in the costs of entitlements.</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6"> “Now, we need to do something about Social Security and Medicare,” said Mr. Biden, proceeding to discuss means-testing.</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6">
“I don’t know a whole lot of people in the top one-tenth of 1% or the
top 1% who are relying on Social Security when they retire,” Mr. Biden
said. “So we need a pro-growth, progressive tax code that treats workers
as job creators, as well, not just investors; that gets rid of
unproductive loopholes like steppedup basis; and it raises enough
revenue to make sure that the Social Security and Medicare can stay, it
still needs adjustments, but can stay; and pay for the things we all
acknowledge will grow the country.”</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6">
Social Security trust funds are on track to be insolvent by 2035, when
today’s 55-year-olds reach the normal retirement age and today’s
youngest retirees turn 74, according to the Committee for a Responsible
Federal Budget.</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6"> At trust fund exhaustion, CRFB said, Social Security benefits will be cut by 20% or more across the board, resulting</span><span class="Fid_6"> in a $12,000 to $17,000 benefit cut for a typical couple retiring in 2035.</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6">
Mr. Biden pledged this week to take Social Security “off the books,”
but he has not offered a plan to make it solvent. Many policymakers
agree that the likeliest ways to extend the program are raising the
retirement age (currently 67 for full retirement), raising tax
contributions, trimming benefits or a mix of all three options.</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6"> On Thursday, Mr. Biden said he would shore up the entitlement programs by raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations.</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6"> “I’m going to extend the Medicare Trust Fund by at least two decades,” the president said.</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6">
The CRFB said the Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund, which funds
Part A benefits, will be depleted by 2028, when today’s newest
beneficiaries turn 70.</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6">
Medicare payments to hospitals will be cut automatically by 10%, “likely
through payment delays that would jeopardize access to care,” the
organization said.</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6">
Republican lawmakers say Mr. Biden is flat-out lying about their various
proposals to control the costs of entitlements. Sen. Rick Scott,
Florida Republican, said Mr. Biden is falling back on “the made-up old
charge that Republicans want to cut Medicare and Social Security.”</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6">
“Biden is the one who has said these programs should be cut,” Mr.
Scott said in a statement. “The nicest thing you can say about our
president is that he is very, very confused.”</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6">
The president on Thursday pointed to Mr. Scott’s proposal that would
require Social Security and Medicare to be reauthorized by Congress
every five years. He said benefits are “likely to get cut drastically”
under such a plan. Then Mr. Biden suggested that his effort to portray
Republicans as entitlement cutters was working and he believed Mr. Scott
was retreating from his proposal.</span></p><p class="abody"><span class="Fid_6"> “Maybe he’s changed his mind. Maybe he’s seen the Lord,” the president said.</span></p><div class="dontsplit attr0" id="scrollMergeADD"></div><div class="imgArt dontsplit" id="imgArt0" style="height: 150px;"><img src="https://us6lb-cdn.newsmemory.com/eebrowser/ipad/html5.check.22033014/ajax-request.php?val=Image_2.jpg&action=loadImage&type=Image&pSetup=washingtontimes&issue=20230210&crc=a01-wtna0210.001.pdf.0&edition=Washington Times&paperImage=washingtontimes&mtime=564A1BF8" /><img class="imgchild" id="imgchild_0" src="https://us6lb-cdn.newsmemory.com/eebrowser/ipad/html5.check.22033014//code/icons/usa/zoom_in.png" /></div><p class="paragraph"><span style="font-weight: bold;"> FLIPPING POLICY: </span><span class="Fid_13">
President Biden is accusing Republicans of trying to cut Social
Security and Medicare while ignoring his decades of support for that. </span><span class="Fid_11"> ASSOCIATED PRESS </span></p><a href="https://washingtontimes-dc.newsmemory.com/?token=6c006be98accc05d8efea00e5b1749a1_63e66711_c23fa55&selDate=20230210&goTo=A01&artid=5"></a>dgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1122443293261057373.post-65907822175515507322023-02-08T13:04:00.003-07:002023-02-08T13:04:31.378-07:009 Most Ridiculous Claims Biden Made During State of the Union Address<h1 class="mb-3 text-gray font-sanserif text-4xl">
<span style="font-size: large;">9 Most Ridiculous Claims Biden Made During State of the Union Address </span></h1>
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<img alt="" class="w-full wp-post-image" height="491" src="https://s4.freebeacon.com/up/2023/02/president-biden-delivers-state-of-the-union-address-736x491.jpg" width="736" /> <figcaption class="absolute text-white p-4 w-full text-right text-xs bottom-0 bg-black opacity-75">
Getty Images </figcaption>
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<div class=" ">
<span class="text-gray text-xs md:text-lg"> <div class="w-fit-content" style="line-height: 1.1;">
<div class="w-fit-content">
<a href="https://freebeacon.com/author/josh-christenson/">Josh Christenson</a> </div>
<div class="w-fit-content md:text-xs">February 8, 2023</div>
</div>
</span>
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<p>Though he reportedly spent weeks <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/06/us/politics/biden-state-of-the-union-preparation.html">rehearsing</a>,
President Joe Biden made a number of clumsy, strange, or outright
ridiculous claims during his State of the Union address Tuesday night.
Here are the top nine:</p><div class="inline-ad-wrapper"></div><p></p>
<h3><strong>1. Cashiers at Burger Joints Need To Sign Non-Competes</strong></h3>
<p> </p>
<p>Biden took credit for banning burger joints like McDonald’s from
forcing employees to sign non-compete agreements. "So a cashier at a
burger place can’t cross the street to take the same job at another
burger place to make a couple bucks more," he said. Republicans balked.</p>
<p>"They just changed it because we exposed it," Biden retorted. "That was part of the deal guys, look it up."</p>
<p>The president is apparently referring to his <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/07/09/fact-sheet-executive-order-on-promoting-competition-in-the-american-economy/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">July 2021 Executive Order</a>, which encouraged the Federal Trade Commission "to ban or limit non-compete agreements."</p>
<p><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-jimmyjohns-settlement/jimmy-johns-settles-illinois-lawsuit-over-non-compete-agreements-idUSKBN13W2JA" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Most fast-food chains</a>
have never made any such requirement of their workers, though some did
prevent them from working at nearby franchise locations. During his 2020
presidential campaign, Biden made frequent use of this talking point, <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jul/28/joe-biden/biden-wrong-mcdonalds-workers-cant-jump-competing-/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">even earning</a> <a href="https://www.factcheck.org/2020/07/bidens-false-claim-about-mcdonalds/">the rebuke</a> <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-politics/fact-check-biden-once-again-bungles-a-story-about-low-wage-noncompete-agreements/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">of left-leaning</a> fact checkers.</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/MollyNagle3/status/1202648690302869505" rel="noopener" target="_blank">"Get your facts straight, Jack!"</a></p>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>2. Paul Pelosi Was Attacked Because of Election Deniers</strong></h3>
<p> </p>
<p>Biden tied the brutal assault of 82-year-old Bay Area resident Paul
Pelosi to the rhetoric of election deniers. "Just a few months ago,
unhinged by the Big Lie, an assailant unleashed political violence in
the home of the then-speaker of this House of Representatives, using the
very same language that insurrectionists who stalked these halls
chanted on January 6th," he said.</p>
<p>David DePape, a deranged 42-year-old who reportedly <a href="https://nypost.com/2022/10/29/paul-pelosi-attacker-david-depape-lived-in-a-school-bus/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">lived inside a school bus</a>,
attacked Pelosi with a hammer inside his San Francisco home just days
before the 2022 midterms. He has presented conflicting reasons for the
attack since his arrest, including government corruption and the <a href="https://www.ktvu.com/news/depape-in-bizarre-phone-call-to-ktvu-says-he-should-have-been-more-prepared" rel="noopener" target="_blank">reduction of individual liberties</a>. While legacy media tried to paint DePape as a right-wing extremist, his son <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11537665/Son-Paul-Pelosis-alleged-attacker-David-DePape-breaks-silence.html" rel="noopener" target="_blank">told</a> the <em>Daily Mail</em> that his father was a "progressive" and "hardly a right-wing conservative."</p>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>3. COVID Shut Down Businesses and Closed Schools</strong></h3>
<p> </p>
<p><strong> </strong>Biden in his prepared remarks blamed an airborne
virus for having "shut down our businesses" and "closed our schools,"
when referring to the COVID-19 pandemic.</p>
<p>In reality, politicians chose to initiate lockdowns and stay-at-home
orders to "slow the spread" of the coronavirus beginning in March 2020.
While some Republican governors like Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.) reversed
course within months, Democratic governors and lawmakers kept lockdown
orders and mask mandates in place for years, damaging many small
businesses and <a href="https://freebeacon.com/campus/math-and-reading-scores-plummeted-for-students-during-pandemic/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">harming children’s educations</a>.</p>
<p>Biden has still not lifted the federal emergency declaration for COVID-19, which is set to expire on May 11.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>4. Republicans Want To Get Rid of Social Security</strong></h3>
<p> </p>
<p>"Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share," Biden said,
"some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset."</p>
<p>The president was referring to an ongoing debt ceiling fight with
Republican lawmakers, in which the Republican Party has floated various
spending cuts to avoid a default. But House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R.,
Calif.) <a href="https://www.politico.com/video/2023/02/06/mccarthy-says-cuts-to-medicare-social-security-are-off-the-table-829467" rel="noopener" target="_blank">has said</a> that cuts to both Medicare and Social Security are "off the table." Many Republicans also <a href="https://twitter.com/philipaklein/status/1623151301864333312" rel="noopener" target="_blank">stood and applauded</a> when Biden pledged to not cut either program.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>5. </strong><strong>Jill Biden, Ed.D., Came Up With an Obama-Era Education Slogan</strong></h3>
<p> </p>
<p>Biden credited his wife, "Dr." Jill Biden, with having coined the
expression: "Any nation that out-educates us will out-compete us."</p>
<p>She did not come up with it. The expression has been used before by
Biden’s former boss, Barack Obama. During his first year in office, the
former president <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/realitycheck/the-press-office/remarks-president-department-education" rel="noopener" target="_blank">remarked</a>,
"In a world where countries that out-educate us today will out-compete
us tomorrow, the future belongs to the nation that best educates its
people."</p>
<p>Cameras caught Biden’s wife cheating with more than her words at the beginning of the speech last night, when the first lady <a href="https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/exclusive-frame-by-frame-analysis-sheds-light-on-dr-jills-open-mouthed-make-out-sesh-with-kamalas-husband/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">stole a kiss</a> from second gentleman Doug Emhoff.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>6. Biden Takes Credit for Changing the Conversation on China</strong></h3>
<p> </p>
<p>"Before I came to office," Biden noted in his address, "the story was
about how the People’s Republic of China was increasing its power and
America was failing in the world. Not anymore."</p>
<p>Former president Donald Trump has often been credited with changing
U.S. policy toward China. Under Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, his
administration <a href="https://freebeacon.com/national-security/full-of-hot-air-how-bidens-weakness-assures-chinese-aggression/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">cracked down</a> on Chinese espionage campaigns and moved to ban TikTok.</p>
<p>Biden <a href="https://freebeacon.com/national-security/panda-in-the-room-biden-mum-on-chinese-balloon-in-sotu/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">made no mention</a> that a Chinese spy balloon traversed the United States just days before his State of the Union.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>7. </strong><strong>Biden Talks Up Smoking Trees</strong></h3>
<p> </p>
<p>In apparently off-the-cuff remarks about climate change, Biden said
that "more timber has been burned [due to wildfires] that I have
observed from helicopters than in the entire state of Missouri." He also
blamed global warming for "floods and droughts."</p>
<div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; max-width: 550px; width: 100%;"></div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-twitter-extracted-i1675886300336928836="true">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Biden: "More timber has been burned that I have observed from helicopters and the entire state of Missouroh." <a href="https://t.co/rtrmUEKIvE">pic.twitter.com/rtrmUEKIvE</a></p>
<p>— Greg Price (@greg_price11) <a href="https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1623149177810173952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 8, 2023</a></p></blockquote>
<p><br />
Leaving aside for the moment whether the president has indeed observed
wildfires from a helicopter, Biden may just have been mixing up his
words, as he’s <a href="https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/watch-joe-bidens-senior-moment-of-the-week-vol-28/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">been prone to do</a>. His administration last July greenlit more than 200 helicopters to respond to wildfire incidents, <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/07/28/fact-sheet-the-biden-harris-administration-continues-efforts-to-address-growing-wildfire-threat/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">according to</a> the White House.</p>
<p>The claims follow a long tradition of liberals <a href="https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/landmark-climate-study-says-melting-arctic-wont-lead-to-more-severe-cold-weather/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">using debatable</a> <a href="https://freebeacon.com/blog/media-blame-wildfires-climate-change-ignore-human-driven-decline-global-fire/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">scientific results</a>
to push their agenda. Biden’s prepared remarks, for instance, touted
his administration’s green energy initiatives as a response to the
wildfires.</p>
<p>"We’re building 500,000 electric vehicle charging stations installed
across the country," he said. "And helping families save more than
$1,000 a year with tax credits for the purchase of electric vehicles and
energy-efficient appliances."</p>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>8. </strong><strong>America Needs Oil for ‘At Least Another Decade’</strong></h3>
<p> </p>
<p>As part of a <a href="https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/trial-ballon-biden-previews-reelection-campaign-in-one-sided-appeal-for-bipartisanship/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">reelection campaign preview</a>, Biden floated the idea that America might "need oil for at least another decade."</p>
<p> </p>
<div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; max-width: 550px; width: 100%;"></div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-twitter-extracted-i1675886300336928836="true">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Biden: "When I talked to a couple of [oil
companies], they say, 'we are afraid you are going to shut down all the
oil refineries anyway, so why should we invest in them?' I said, we are
going to need oil for at least another decade."</p>
<p>All the Republicans start laughing <a href="https://t.co/AYLBI5g7pw">pic.twitter.com/AYLBI5g7pw</a></p>
<p>— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) <a href="https://twitter.com/FreeBeacon/status/1623152516874608645?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 8, 2023</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<p>The apparent olive branch to the oil and gas industry is far from
reassuring, given the vast economic and social repercussions of
abandoning fossil fuels in just 10 years' time. The shift would threaten
jobs, food supply chains, and the entire global economy. Most
progressives are pushing for the United States to have net-zero carbon
emissions by 2050 at the earliest.</p>
<p>Early in the pandemic, lefties loved <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/coronavirus-oil-gas-industry-climate-change-renewable-energy-a9453756.html" rel="noopener" target="_blank">to suggest</a>
that a government-forced reduction in travel by fossil fuels could
transition to a permanent change. If they stay in power, that idea could
go up like a Chinese spy balloon over the continental United States.</p>
<p> </p>
<h3><strong>9. </strong><strong>Nobody Wants to Be Xi</strong></h3>
<p> </p>
<p>In another unscripted remark, Biden said, "Autocracies have grown
weaker, not stronger. Name me a world leader who changed places with Xi
Jinping. NAME ME ONE! NAME ME ONE!"</p>
<div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; max-width: 550px; width: 100%;"></div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-twitter-extracted-i1675886300336928836="true">
<p dir="ltr" lang="en">Biden: "Autocracies have grown weaker, not
stronger. Name me a world leader who changed places with Xi Jinping.
NAME ME ONE! NAME ME ONE!" <a href="https://t.co/MxYUpWGZVY">pic.twitter.com/MxYUpWGZVY</a></p>
<p>— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) <a href="https://twitter.com/FreeBeacon/status/1623158141956284417?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 8, 2023</a></p></blockquote>
<p></p>
<p>The attempt <a href="https://freebeacon.com/national-security/trump-warns-north-korea-will-met-fire-fury-threatens-u-s/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">to ape his predecessor’s tough talk</a> on malign foreign powers left more than a few pundits <a href="https://twitter.com/JonahDispatch/status/1623157717631135747" rel="noopener" target="_blank">scratching their heads</a>.
The reference apparently reaffirmed Biden’s commitment to protecting
the fate of democracy amid the rise of authoritarian powers—namely,
China, which last week flew unimpeded over the nation to gather
intelligence on U.S. military bases.</p>
<p>In fact, tyrants from Kim Jong-un to Vladimir Putin and Kamala Harris
would probably kill to have Xi’s absolute power and cult of
personality.</p>
<p>At least one person seemed to get what Biden was saying: Lincoln Project alum Tom Nichols, who <a href="https://twitter.com/RadioFreeTom/status/1623157804537196544" rel="noopener" target="_blank">said</a> Biden’s geopolitical ad lib "was great" for "wonks" like himself.</p>
<p>"I guess I just got it on an intuitive level: 'Who'd want to be
riding that tiger.' We spend so much time embiggening China when in fact
their leaders have to sweat out every damn day and pray for enough
growth to keep them in power."</p><div class="in-article-ad-wrapper"><div data-adpath="/339474670,22676103662/Freebeacon/InContent" data-onpage="true"></div></div><p></p>
<p>Whatever that means.</p><a href="https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/9-most-ridiculous-claims-biden-made-during-state-of-the-union-address/"></a>dgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1122443293261057373.post-45900060364192716602023-02-06T12:38:00.004-07:002023-02-06T12:38:28.683-07:00What Was Behind Today's "Wow, Wow, Wow" Jobs Report<p> </p><h1 class="ArticleFull_title__MEgbb"><span style="font-size: large;">What Was Behind Today's "Wow, Wow, Wow" Jobs Report</span></h1><footer class="ArticleFull_headerFooter__nkAH_"><div class="ArticleFull_headerFooter__authorInfo__2eHVs"><img alt="Tyler Durden's Photo" class="ArticleFull_headerFooter__authorPhoto__V1Urb" src="https://zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b792-20bd8d8fa069.storage.googleapis.com/s3fs-public/styles/thumbnail/public/pictures/picture-5.jpg" /><div class="ArticleFull_headerFooter__author__28NvM">by Tyler Durden</div></div><div class="ArticleFull_headerFooter__date__GYv4c">Friday, Feb 03, 2023 - 01:44 PM</div></footer><div class="NodeContent_body__6iJOI NodeBody_container__hI8PI"><p>There
was a loud gasp from Wall Street strategists and economists after
today's job report printed, with the reactions more or less in line with
sheer shock: anywhere from "<strong>wow, wow, wow</strong>"...</p><div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; max-width: 550px; width: 100%;"></div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck" data-twitter-extracted-i1675710862534414296="true"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">'WOW! WOW!' CNBC Anchor Stunned By Jobs Report Showing 517,000 Jobs Added — 'A Blastoff of a Number!' <a href="https://t.co/P8sxFQnJtG">https://t.co/P8sxFQnJtG</a> <a href="https://t.co/WC4jMYt1Tr">pic.twitter.com/WC4jMYt1Tr</a></p>
— Tommy moderna-vaX-Topher (@tommyxtopher) <a href="https://twitter.com/tommyxtopher/status/1621529130788323328?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 3, 2023</a></blockquote><p>... to "<strong>holy moly</strong>"</p><div class="AdvertisingSlot_desktop__lDlm4 AdvertisingSlot_tablet__MndqJ AdvertisingSlot_placement__b8TLC"><aside class="" id="in-content-video"></aside></div><div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; max-width: 550px; width: 100%;"></div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck" data-twitter-extracted-i1675710862534414296="true"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">Holy
moly what a report! Seasonal distortions & benchmarking aside
people who want jobs can find them, and while the labor share of GDP
isn't rising there is something extraordinary & good going on in the
distribution of wage growth <a href="https://t.co/4mf4ct9uvI">pic.twitter.com/4mf4ct9uvI</a></p>
— Julia Coronado (@jc_econ) <a href="https://twitter.com/jc_econ/status/1621529074806956033?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 3, 2023</a></blockquote><p>And
with the unemployment rate plunging to 3.4% - matching the lowest in 54
years - from 3.6%, while the payrolls report showing the addition of
517K jobs the highest since July, and far above the highest forecast -
in fact, a record 9-sigma beat to median consensus, the shock was
merited as today's report was indeed a blowout.</p><p>But why: what happened that everyone was so wrong?</p><p>A
couple of things. First, as we warned yesterday, today the BLS unveiled
a slew of data revisions, which include updating the population
controls – which would have the mechanical effect of boosting the labor
force – and updating seasonal factors, which further distorted the
January nonfarm payroll number (this is key as readers will read
shortly). This is <a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm">indeed what happened</a>:</p><p><a data-image-external-href="" data-image-href="/s3/files/inline-images/BLS%20revisions.jpg?itok=VGO0pg1T" data-link-option="0" href="https://www.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/BLS%20revisions.jpg?itok=VGO0pg1T"><picture><img alt="" class="inline-images image-style-inline-images" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="b0deef97-a77c-4185-bfed-83c15aa37a58" data-responsive-image-style="inline_images" height="449" src="https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/BLS%20revisions.jpg?itok=VGO0pg1T" width="500" /></picture></a></p><p>The
revisions - in case there was any question - were to the upside, and
made the Establishment survey data appear even stronger. A <em><strong>lot </strong></em>stronger in fact: there were <em><strong>upward revisions to all monthly payrolls reports</strong></em> starting with June 2022 as shown in the chart below.</p><p><a data-image-external-href="" data-image-href="/s3/files/inline-images/NFP%20monthly%20pre%20post%20revision%20.jpg?itok=VwB7emf7" data-link-option="0" href="https://www.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/NFP%20monthly%20pre%20post%20revision%20.jpg?itok=VwB7emf7"><picture><img alt="" class="inline-images image-style-inline-images" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="9c3c424f-7ebb-4f2e-adab-bb703989cbbb" data-responsive-image-style="inline_images" height="320" src="https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/NFP%20monthly%20pre%20post%20revision%20.jpg?itok=VwB7emf7" width="500" /></picture></a></p><p>In
practical terms, whether the they were merited or purely goalseeked
propaganda, the revisions helped to resolve the mystery of missing
workers in the labor market. Fed Chair Jerome Powell and most analysts
have estimated that about 2.5-3 million workers are “missing” – i.e.,
most analysts would expect many more workers to be working today if the
pandemic hadn’t happened. Well, there was an 813k upward revision to the
December payrolls report (which was revised from 153.743 million to
154.556 million) and which explained much of where the "missing workers"
went: as expected, they were merely bits in some excel spreadsheet.</p><p><a data-image-external-href="" data-image-href="/s3/files/inline-images/payrolls%20pre%20post%20revision.jpg?itok=kn6R32yl" data-link-option="0" href="https://www.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/payrolls%20pre%20post%20revision.jpg?itok=kn6R32yl"><picture><img alt="" class="inline-images image-style-inline-images" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="f698b3d3-018f-4963-8944-6eb14e48d223" data-responsive-image-style="inline_images" height="298" src="https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/payrolls%20pre%20post%20revision.jpg?itok=kn6R32yl" width="500" /></picture></a></p><p>But
the one place where the revisions were most notable was in the
Household survey which is used to calculate the actual number of
employed workers. What it showed was an even more remarkable surge in
employment in January, which surged by a whopping 894K in January, and
together with the upward revised 717K in December, a grand total of 1.6
million in two months...</p><p><a data-image-external-href="" data-image-href="/s3/files/inline-images/household%20survey%20nonfarm%20payrolls%20ES%202023-02-03_7-38-23_0.jpg?itok=bxeESSiL" data-link-option="0" href="https://www.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/household%20survey%20nonfarm%20payrolls%20ES%202023-02-03_7-38-23_0.jpg?itok=bxeESSiL"><picture><img alt="" class="inline-images image-style-inline-images" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="1088fbec-9fdf-4f0b-ad47-0fe705fbba1b" data-responsive-image-style="inline_images" height="256" src="https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/household%20survey%20nonfarm%20payrolls%20ES%202023-02-03_7-38-23_0.jpg?itok=bxeESSiL" width="500" /></picture></a></p><p>....
that infamous divergence between the Household and Establishment
surveys which showed zero employment gains from March until November,
has almost closed.</p><p><a data-image-external-href="" data-image-href="/s3/files/inline-images/nonfarm%20vs%20BLS%20revisions.jpg?itok=vmoxkDg-" data-link-option="0" href="https://www.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/nonfarm%20vs%20BLS%20revisions.jpg?itok=vmoxkDg-"><picture><img alt="" class="inline-images image-style-inline-images" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="ba1582fa-307e-4a8a-af6d-cfee19ffd98e" data-responsive-image-style="inline_images" height="256" src="https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/nonfarm%20vs%20BLS%20revisions.jpg?itok=vmoxkDg-" width="500" /></picture></a></p><p>So
good job BLS, for keeping an eye on this website which tends to point
out what data makes no sense and you revising it appropriately. Only...
maybe not. Because despite the massive revisions, what the BLS forgot to
fix was the distribution between full time and part-time workers. And
that's a whoppsie, because as shown in the chart below...</p><p><a data-image-external-href="" data-image-href="/s3/files/inline-images/full%20vs%20part%20time%20workers.jpg?itok=kHzg7HNH" data-link-option="0" href="https://www.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/full%20vs%20part%20time%20workers.jpg?itok=kHzg7HNH"><picture><img alt="" class="inline-images image-style-inline-images" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="de0c5f9c-981c-4904-8ee8-0b31bbd69e6e" data-responsive-image-style="inline_images" height="256" src="https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/full%20vs%20part%20time%20workers.jpg?itok=kHzg7HNH" width="500" /></picture></a></p><p>...
the number of full-time workers in March 2022 was 132.587 million. Fast
forward to January 2023 when it was 132.577: that's right: <strong>total
US full-time workers declined by 10K over a period of 10 months.
Meanwhile, part-time workers soared from 25.908 million to 27.400
million, an increase of 1.492 million!</strong></p><p><a data-image-external-href="" data-image-href="/s3/files/inline-images/changes%20in%20part%20and%20full%20time%20workers%20feb%2023.jpg?itok=pKJRCUiu" data-link-option="0" href="https://www.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/changes%20in%20part%20and%20full%20time%20workers%20feb%2023.jpg?itok=pKJRCUiu"><picture><img alt="" class="inline-images image-style-inline-images" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="bcd3ba43-93cb-4448-9afd-a7ce1c7a8491" data-responsive-image-style="inline_images" height="306" src="https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/changes%20in%20part%20and%20full%20time%20workers%20feb%2023.jpg?itok=pKJRCUiu" width="500" /></picture></a></p><p>So
at least we know where the bulk of the increase in US labor came from
in the past year: virtually no full-time jobs, and all part-time.</p><p>Ok,
fine, but what about the January surge in Payrolls? Well, recall what
we said last night: in our preview of today's payrolls we warned "It's
not the January payrolls report. It's the January seasonal adjustment
report. Lat year it was 2.9 million"...</p><div class="twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered" style="display: flex; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; max-width: 550px; width: 100%;"></div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-twitter-extracted-i1675710862534414296="true"><p dir="ltr" lang="en">It's not the January payrolls report. It's the January seasonal adjustment report. Lat year it was 2.9 million <a href="https://t.co/Dn2CygV4FP">pic.twitter.com/Dn2CygV4FP</a></p>
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) <a href="https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/1621328136334970882?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 3, 2023</a></blockquote><p>... and that today's number would be entire a function of the seasonal adjustment.</p><p>Guess what: it was. Because, while theadjusted payrolls print was an increase of 517K, <strong>the unadjusted was - oops - 2.5 million</strong>!</p><p>This
is what Bloomberg chief economist Anna Wong put it: "The January jobs
report showed extremely robust growth, higher than the highest estimate
in the Bloomberg survey. <strong>If it seems too good to be true, that’s
because it is too good to be true — the gain is mostly due to seasonal
factors and revisions to past data</strong>. <strong>The Fed likely won’t place too much weight on this report in formulating policy."</strong></p><p>Readers
knew this of course: in our NFP preview last night we quoted Goldman
who said that "the January seasonal factors have evolved favorably in
recent years, <strong>with a month-over-month hurdle for private payrolls of -2,829k in January 2022 compared to -2,695k on average in 2017-19 </strong>(see Exhibit 3). We believe <strong>the
BLS seasonal factors are overfitting to the Omicron-related payroll
deceleration in January 2022 (+500k mom sa, vs. +609k on average in 4Q21
and +714k in February 2022)." </strong></p><p>This is how Goldman showed the seasonal "hurdle" (i.e., fudge factor) going into the January print...</p><p><a data-image-external-href="" data-image-href="/s3/files/inline-images/jan%20seasonal%20factors_1.jpg?itok=kW00075U" data-link-option="0" href="https://www.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/jan%20seasonal%20factors_1.jpg?itok=kW00075U"><picture><img alt="" class="inline-images image-style-inline-images" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="19abbc3c-c639-4dd3-be1f-880964a835f7" data-responsive-image-style="inline_images" height="310" src="https://assets.zerohedge.com/s3fs-public/styles/inline_image_mobile/public/inline-images/jan%20seasonal%20factors_1.jpg?itok=kW00075U" width="500" /></picture></a></p><p>... and the the final adjustment factor: +517K seasonally adjusted number vs -2.505 million unadjusted, <strong>which brings us to a record 3+ million seasonal adjustment factor. </strong></p><p>And
that, dear readers, is how you convert a 2.5 million plunge in jobs
into a 517K, market blow-out 9-sigma payrolls beat, which moments ago
allowed Biden to brag on TV just how strong his economy truly is...</p></div>dgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1122443293261057373.post-63060212169582842702023-02-06T12:37:00.003-07:002023-02-06T12:37:23.685-07:00Without a Suspect “Seasonal Adjustment” Payroll Jobs Fell Over 2.5 Million in January<p> </p><h1 class="h2"><span style="font-size: large;"><span>Without a Suspect “Seasonal Adjustment” Payroll Jobs Fell Over 2.5 Million in January</span></span>
</h1>
<div class="blog-page__separator d-flex align-items-center mb-5">
<div class="me-4 authors fs-xs fw-medium">
By
<a href="https://www.cato.org/people/alan-reynolds" hreflang="und">Alan Reynolds</a>
</div>
<hr class="blog-page__rule flex-grow-1" />
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<p>With a State of the Union address coming up, nobody could blame
President Joe Biden if he mentions January’s supposedly huge 517,000
gain in seasonally adjusted payrolls rather than the actual unadjusted
2,505,000 loss.</p>
<p>
</p><div class="embedded-entity" data-embed-button="image" data-entity-embed-display-settings="{"link_url":"","link_url_target":0}" data-entity-embed-display="view_mode:media.blog_post" data-entity-type="media" data-entity-uuid="8e3e058a-4892-4cb5-b967-1a6a94c21cb7" data-langcode="en">
<img alt="Nonfarm jobs with and without adjustment" class="image-style-pubs-2x component-image" height="400" src="https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/styles/pubs_2x/public/2023-02/NONFARM%20PAYROLLS.png?itok=aSMOsxdj" width="666" /></div>
<p></p><p>Economist <a href="https://twitter.com/Markzandi/status/1621511603895287810">Mark Zandi</a>, long the <a href="https://www.commentary.org/articles/andrew-ferguson/press-man-the-prisoner-of-zandi/">go‐to guy</a>
for every fiscal stimulus scheme (Democrat or Republican), tweeted the
BLS jobs report “was…so strong I don’t believe it.” He suggests we
“ignore the report altogether,” and expects “future revisions will show
the economy created far fewer jobs over the past year.”</p>
<p>In the sixties, when I managed the main floor of a Sacramento J.C.
Penney store, I tried to reassure laid‐off Christmas employees in
January that, technically speaking, they were all still employed—on
a seasonally adjusted basis.</p>
<p>Everyone knows that holiday workers are always laid‐off in January,
sometimes less than usual. A milder winter can also make January job
losses look milder. In such cases (including January last year) seasonal
adjustment makes huge jobs losses look like large gains on paper.</p>
<p>But seasonal adjustment is no paycheck.</p>
</div>
</div>dgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1122443293261057373.post-27525710438630843122023-02-06T11:06:00.007-07:002023-02-06T11:06:57.184-07:00Why Obama, the FBI, and the CIA Orchestrated the Takedown of General Michael Flynn <p> </p><h1 class="entry-title"><span style="font-size: large;">Dr. Corsi: Why Obama, the FBI, and the CIA Orchestrated the Takedown of General Michael Flynn – Part 1</span></h1>
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Published February 5, 2023 at 10:00am
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<p><strong>Why Obama, the FBI, and the CIA Orchestrated the Takedown of General Michael Flynn – </strong><strong>Part 1</strong></p>
<p><em>Guest post by </em><em>Jerome R. Corsi, Ph.D.</em></p>
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<p><em>This article is Part 1 of a two-part series investigating why
President Obama, the FBI, and the CIA masterminded a plot to destroy the
career of Lieutenant General Michael T. Flynn. </em><em>Part 1 covers
the period up to and including Obama’s decision to fire General Flynn as
director of the Defense Intelligence Agency on April 30, 2014. Part 2
will cover Obama’s continued determination to ruin General Flynn’s
career. Part 2 resumes the analysis, beginning with January 4, 2017,
the day the FBI cleared Flynn of “Russian collusion” in the FBI’s
Crossfire Hurricane investigation. Part 2 concludes on December 1, 2017,
when Flynn pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the FBI concerning
his telephone conversations with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak
during the Trump transition months following the 2016 presidential
election.</em></p>
<p>The Obama administration’s persecution of Lt. General Michael T.
Flynn clarifies the degree to which Barack Obama, the FBI, and the CIA
orchestrated the coup d’état that threatened to incarcerate Flynn while
working clandestinely to deny Donald Trump a second term as president.
Obama’s relentless determination to destroy Flynn also clarifies how
much he feared Flynn. Why? Because Flynn was a national security
expert in counterintelligence who understood cyber warfare. If anyone
in the United States could expose the Obama-directed coup d’état Obama
planned in his “fundamental” change of the USA into a neo-Marxist
Stalinist state, it was Lt. General Flynn.</p>
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<p>In an Oval Office meeting at the White House on November 10, 2016,
less than 48 hours after the presidential election, President Barack
Obama <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/obama-warned-trump-against-hiring-mike-flynn-say-officials-n756316" target="_blank">warned</a>
Trump not to put General Michael Flynn on his White House staff.
Specifically, Obama explained to Trump that he had “profound concerns”
about putting Flynn in a sensitive, high-level national security post.
In 2014, Obama fired Flynn as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency
(DIA) <a href="https://www.bostonherald.com/2020/05/20/political-setup-of-flynn-comes-back-to-haunt-obama/" target="_blank">reportedly</a> because of Flynn’s opposition to Obama’s nuclear weapons deal with Iran. Other reports <a href="https://apnews.com/article/74f45709306145ea8b1a8372037f2d42" target="_blank">indicate</a>
Flynn had said Islam is a “cancer.” On November 18, 2016, Trump
appointed Flynn, his national security advisor. On November 21, 2016,
the Associated Press <a href="https://apnews.com/article/74f45709306145ea8b1a8372037f2d42" target="_blank">reported</a>:
“Of all Trump’s choices, White House officials said it was the
selection of Flynn that felt like the most devastating blow, given the
immense authority the national security advisor has over matters of war
and peace.”</p>
<p>The question is burning for an answer: <em>Why did Barack Obama hate General Flynn?</em>
In answering this question, we must remember that Obama’s animosity
toward Flynn began in 2012 when Obama was running for re-election.</p>
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<p>On April 17, 2012, President Obama <a href="https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/press-releases-2012/item/525-nomination-of-lt-gen-flynn-as-dia-director-and-maj-gen-nicholas-as-assistant-dni-for-partner-engagement" target="_blank">nominated</a>
General Flynn for reappointment to lieutenant general. In the same
announcement, Obama reassigned Lieutenant General Flynn to be the next
director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Flynn then served as
the assistant director of national intelligence for partner engagement
at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ONDI). Like the
National Security Agency (NSA), the DNI is part of the Department of
Defense (DOD). Within the DOD structure, Flynn’s <a href="https://www.acq.osd.mil/ic/partner-engagements.html" target="_blank">responsibilities</a>
over “partner engagement” meant that as an assistant director within
ONDI, Flynn’s duties involved “cooperating and collaborating with U.S.
allies and friends in the research, development, production, and support
of weapons systems and related equipment.” Obama’s <a href="https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/press-releases-2012/item/525-nomination-of-lt-gen-flynn-as-dia-director-and-maj-gen-nicholas-as-assistant-dni-for-partner-engagement" target="_blank">announcement</a>
of Flynn’s promotion portrayed him as an “outstanding military leader
and intelligence professional.” Obviously, at this time, Obama had no
reason to fear Flynn.</p>
<p>In 2012, under Flynn’s leadership as DIA director, the DIA <a href="https://www.aei.org/foreign-and-defense-policy/intelligence/defense-intelligence-agency-warned-obama-about-isis-in-2012/" target="_blank">issued</a>
a classified report obtained by Judicial Watch that predicted the chaos
in Syria was creating conditions that would allow al Qaeda in Iraq to
make a comeback and declare an Islamic caliphate. At that time, the
Obama administration’s narrative was that Obama “ended the war in Iraq
and put al-Qaeda on the path to defeat” with the killing of Osama bin
Laden in 2011. Then, on February 11, 2014, Flynn <a href="https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Flynn_02-11-14.pdf" target="_blank">delivered</a>
the DIA’s “Annual Threat Assessment” to the Senate Armed Services
Committee. In that report, Flynn predicted that ISIS “probably will
attempt to take territory in Iraq and Syria to exhibit its strength in
2014, as demonstrated recently in Ramadi and Fallujah, and the group’s
ability to currently maintain multiple safe havens in Syria.” In June
2014, Obama must have thought that Flynn had been insubordinate in his
2014 “Annual Threat Assessment.” In that assessment, Flynn did not
parrot the Obama administration’s narrative that the national security
threat represented by Middle East radical Islamic extremism died with
the killing of Osama bin Laden.</p>
<p>Earlier that year, in January 2014, Obama had called ISIS the junior varsity. What Obama specifically <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/01/27/going-the-distance-david-remnick" target="_blank">said</a>
was: “The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think it is
accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms, that doesn’t make
them Kobe Bryant.” Flynn’s problems with Obama grew even more severe
in June 2014, when his predictions about the continued threat to U.S.
national security created by radical Islamic extremism proved true. The
extremist Sunni group, known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant
(ISIL or ISIS), <a href="https://sofrep.com/news/go-isis-now-control-fallujah-ramadi/" target="_blank">regained control</a> of Ramadi and Fallujah in Iraq and <a href="https://time.com/2938317/isis-militants-declare-islamist-caliphate/" target="_blank">declared</a>
a new caliphate, claiming dominion over Muslims across the globe. In
June 2014, Obama had to realize that as Director of National
Intelligence, Flynn could persuade the American public that Obama was
soft on ISIS because the truth was that Obama had always been strongly
pro-Islam. Obama <a href="https://www.danielpipes.org/5354/confirmed-barack-obama-practiced-islam" target="_blank">practiced</a>
Islam in Indonesia when he lived there as a child with his mother and
his stepfather Lolo Soetoro. In a speech Obama delivered at Cairo
University in Egypt on June 4, 2009, he <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-Cairo-university-6-04-09" target="_blank">said</a>: “So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed.” Obama always <a href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/02/03/remarks-president-islamic-society-baltimore" target="_blank">characterized</a> Islam as a “religion of peace.” In 2009, the Obama administration <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-obama-rhetoric/obama-team-drops-war-on-terror-rhetoric-idUSTRE52T7MH20090330" target="_blank">dropped</a> the use of the phrase “war on terror.”</p>
<p>Instead of rewarding Flynn for accurately understanding ISIS as a
dangerous Middle East terrorist organization, Obama fired him in 2014.
On April 30, 2014, Flynn announced his retirement from the DIA a year
before expected. Media stories at the time <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/timeline-michael-flynn-obama-trump-troubles-article-1.3147873" target="_blank">made clear</a>
that Obama effectively fired Flynn over disagreements over Flynn’s
attempt to overhaul the agency. Why did Obama fire Flynn? The bottom
line is that Flynn had embarrassed Obama as junior varsity when it came
to anticipating before June 2014 the degree to which ISIS’s radical
Islamic insurgency continued to threaten U.S. national security
interests. Flynn had concluded Obama was not aggressive enough fighting
radical Islamic terrorists. After leaving DIA, Flynn <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/12/05/673857739/the-rise-and-fall-of-michael-flynn" target="_blank">wrote</a>:
“We can’t win this war by treating radical Islamic terrorists as a
handful of crazies. The political and theoretical underpinnings of
their immoral actions have to be demolished.” After leaving DIA, Flynn
retired from the Army and set up a private consulting firm.</p>
<p><strong>The truth is that in 2014 prior to Flynn’s decision to retire from the DIA, the Obama administration had the CIA spying on him. </strong>
In February 2014, then-DIA director Michael Flynn attended a Cambridge
University Intelligence Seminar in the U.K. that Svetlana Lokhova
attended. Lokhova was a Russian-born British scholar who was taking
courses at that time at Cambridge University. Stefan Halper, a
professor at Cambridge University, was part of a small group that ran
the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar. As <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/stefan-halper-the-cambridge-professor-the-fbi-sent-to-spy-on-trump" target="_blank">reported by</a> Jerry Dunleavy in the <em>Washington Examiner</em>
on April 10, 2019, Halper graduated from Stanford University in 1967
and received doctorates from Oxford University in 1971 and Cambridge
University in 2004. At Cambridge, he was the director of American
studies in the Department of Politics and International Studies; he
taught classes and delivered papers at institutions worldwide, including
Chatham House in London, the Center for Strategic and International
Studies in Washington, and the U.S. Naval War College.</p>
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<p>On May 23, 2019, Lokhova <a href="https://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2019/05/24/cambridge-academic-news-outlets-flynn-links-1342943" target="_blank">sued</a> Halper, the <em>Wall Street Journal</em>, the <em>New York Times</em>, the <em>Washington Post</em>, and MSNBC in federal district court for $25,350,000. Lokhova <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.442627/gov.uscourts.vaed.442627.1.0_5.pdf" target="_blank">alleged</a>
that Halper “colluded with rogue agents of the FBI, with political
operatives at Cambridge University, and with ‘journalists’ employed by
the <em>Wall Street Journal</em>, the <em>Guardian</em>, the <em>New York Times</em>, the <em>Washington Post</em>, and other mainstream media outlets” to spread lies about her and General Flynn. Specifically, Lokhova <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vaed.442627/gov.uscourts.vaed.442627.1.0_5.pdf" target="_blank">charged</a>
that Halper was “part of a sophisticated counterintelligence operation”
that manufactured and published false and defamatory stores
representing that Lokhova was a Russian spy. She also charged that
Halper spread false stories that she had “an affair with General Flynn
on the orders of Russian intelligence.” Halper’s allegations had <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-39863781" target="_blank">focused on</a> a dinner Flynn had with Lokhova during the 2014 conference at Cambridge University. The <em>Wall Street Journal</em> editorial board <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-carter-page-met-stefan-halper-1527029988" target="_blank">confirmed</a>
in print on May 22, 2018, that Stefan Halper was the “top secret”
informant the FBI had asked to get close to Trump campaign officials,
including Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, and Michael Flynn. On
February 25, 2021, a declassified document <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/feb/25/fbi-document-shows-paid-spy-stefan-halper-behind-m/" target="_blank">confirmed</a>
that FBI-paid spy Stefan Halper spread the defamatory story of a
supposedly inappropriate encounter between General Flynn and
Russian-born Svetlana Lokhova at the University of Cambridge in 2014.</p>
<p><img alt="" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-490385" height="384" src="https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-content/uploads/svetlana-halper-600x384.jpg" width="600" /></p>
<p><em>(Above Svetlana Lokhova and Stefan Halper)</em></p>
<p>As early as 2015, Halper had put a report on John Brennan’s desk at
the CIA linking Flynn and Lokhova from when they had first met at that
seminar in 2014. “In 2015, as word of Flynn’s interest in the Trump
campaign spreads, the London-to-Langley spy ring fatten[ed] the file
with more alarmist dreck—that Flynn had gone to a Russian Television
gala and so forth,” <a href="https://spectator.org/the-london-to-langley-spy-ring/" target="_blank">wrote</a> author George Neumayr, a contributing editor for the <em>American Spectator</em>.
Neumayr continued, noting that in February 2016, when Flynn joined the
Trump campaign as an advisor, “the spy ring move[d] into more concerted
action…extend[ing] its radar to Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, and
Paul Manafort.” Neumayr concluded that British intelligence was not only
sending information to the CIA on Trump as early as 2015. Peter
Strzok, as FBI liaison to the CIA, briefed CIA Director John Brennan on
developments in the early stages of the FBI investigation of Trump
before the FBI officially launched the Operation Hurricane
investigation.</p>
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<p>It turns out Halper played a controversial role in heading the 1980
Reagan presidential campaign “research staff.” In his “research staff”
capacity, Halper assisted with a CIA spying operation on the
presidential campaign of the then-Governor Jimmy Carter, the Democratic
nominee facing Ronald Reagan. In 1983, <a href="https://theintercept.com/2018/05/19/the-fbi-informant-who-monitored-the-trump-campaign-stefan-halper-oversaw-a-cia-spying-operation-in-the-1980-presidential-election/" target="_blank">news sources</a>
identified Halper as connected to the CIA’s successful effort to obtain
a copy of Jimmy Carter’s briefing book, which was leaked to the Reagan
campaign in advance of the only Carter-Reagan debate held in 1980.
Throughout the 1980 presidential campaign operation, Halper was reported
to have <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1983/07/07/us/reagan-aides-describe-operation-to-gather-inside-data-on-carter.html" target="_blank">provided</a>
twenty-four-hour news updates and policy ideas to the traveling Reagan
campaign. Halper’s connection to CIA spying on the Carter campaign was
allegedly directed by George H. W. Bush, who had served as CIA director
under President Gerald Ford from January 30, 1976, to January 20, 1977,
and was Ronald Reagan’s vice-presidential candidate in 1980.</p>
<p>During the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane counterintelligence
investigation of Trump, the FBI opened Crossfire Razor, a special
sub-investigation aimed at General Flynn. On January 4, 2017, a few
days before Trump’s inauguration, the FBI <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2020/04/30/breaking-fbi-closed-flynn-case-dubbed-crossfire-razor-in-early-2017-until-strzok-ordered-it-to-stay-open/" target="_blank">closed</a>
its criminal counterintelligence investigation of General Flynn after
finding no incriminating information. The FBI’s “case closed” memo
effectively ended the FBI investigation into the Halper allegations
against Flynn regarding Russia Svetlana Lokhova. But that was not the
end of the story. Failure to find evidence that Flynn colluded with the
Russians did not quell Obama’s determination to eliminate him.</p></div>dgpgrovehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08304615666533383794noreply@blogger.com0