Posts Tagged ‘black’

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NC Lt. Governor Isn’t Having Any Of This Voter Suppression Nonsense

Saturday, April 24th, 2021

North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson appeared at the House Committee meeting on Voting Reform, and he’s noting having any of this “voter suppression” nonsense in relation to Georgia’s election reform law:

Am I to believe that black Americans, who have overcome the atrocities of slavery, who are victorious in the civil rights movement, and now sit in the highest levels of this government, could not figure out how to get a free ID to secure their votes?

Just a few days ago, the Vice President went to the very place that I mentioned, the Woolworth counter in Greensboro, but you know who wasn’t there you know who wasn’t invited? My good friend Clarence Henderson, who is a civil rights icon. He sat at that counter and endured the suffering and pain to make sure that black voices were heard. And why was he left out? Because he’s of a different political persuasion.

As usual, Robinson speaks truth. The Clarence Henderson who participated in the Greensboro sit-ins is “a staunch conservative who supports Donald Trump and the Republican party now. He has been an outspoken supporter of the President since the 2016 campaign.”

Then he gets down to what Democrats are actually trying to do:

The goal of some individuals in government is not to hear the voices of black Americans at all, it’s to hear the voices that fit their narratives and ultimately help keep power with one group. And that’s what this is all about, it’s about power. Just look at HR-1. It’s despicable. The entire thing is designed to keep one party in power and ensure they stay there indefinitely. They plan to do that by taking away the rights of states given by the constitution to govern their own elections. To mandate a partisan wish list that comes down from that federal government. Some of these items include using government dollars to fund campaigns in order to give an advantage to one party, mandating that felons are allowed to vote, including illegal immigrants on voter rolls, and of course trying to ban states from having voter ID.

(Hat tip: Byron Preston via Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

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Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, video | No Comments »

LinkSwarm For April 23, 2021

Friday, April 23rd, 2021

Greetings, and welcome to another super-late Friday LinkSwarm! Been a busy week at the day job. I hope that next week is less frantic, but I also have to start working on my taxes…



  • Father pulls daughter out of tony private Brearley school and and his letter why is blistering:

    It cannot be stated strongly enough that Brearley’s obsession with race must stop. It should be abundantly clear to any thinking parent that Brearley has completely lost its way. The administration and the Board of Trustees have displayed a cowardly and appalling lack of leadership by appeasing an anti-intellectual, illiberal mob, and then allowing the school to be captured by that same mob. What follows are my own personal views on Brearley’s antiracism initiatives, but these are just a handful of the criticisms that I know other parents have expressed.

    I object to the view that I should be judged by the color of my skin. I cannot tolerate a school that not only judges my daughter by the color of her skin, but encourages and instructs her to prejudge others by theirs. By viewing every element of education, every aspect of history, and every facet of society through the lens of skin color and race, we are desecrating the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and utterly violating the movement for which such civil rights leaders believed, fought, and died.

    I object to the charge of systemic racism in this country, and at our school. Systemic racism, properly understood, is segregated schools and separate lunch counters. It is the interning of Japanese and the exterminating of Jews. Systemic racism is unequivocally not a small number of isolated incidences over a period of decades. Ask any girl, of any race, if they have ever experienced insults from friends, have ever felt slighted by teachers or have ever suffered the occasional injustice from a school at which they have spent up to 13 years of their life, and you are bound to hear grievances, some petty, some not. We have not had systemic racism against Blacks in this country since the civil rights reforms of the 1960s, a period of more than 50 years. To state otherwise is a flat-out misrepresentation of our country’s history and adds no understanding to any of today’s societal issues. If anything, longstanding and widespread policies such as affirmative action, point in precisely the opposite direction.

    I object to a definition of systemic racism, apparently supported by Brearley, that any educational, professional, or societal outcome where Blacks are underrepresented is prima facie evidence of the aforementioned systemic racism, or of white supremacy and oppression. Facile and unsupported beliefs such as these are the polar opposite to the intellectual and scientific truth for which Brearley claims to stand. Furthermore, I call bullshit on Brearley’s oft-stated assertion that the school welcomes and encourages the truly difficult and uncomfortable conversations regarding race and the roots of racial discrepancies.

    I object to the idea that Blacks are unable to succeed in this country without aid from government or from whites. Brearley, by adopting critical race theory, is advocating the abhorrent viewpoint that Blacks should forever be regarded as helpless victims, and are incapable of success regardless of their skills, talents, or hard work. What Brearley is teaching our children is precisely the true and correct definition of racism.

    I object to mandatory anti-racism training for parents, especially when presented by the rent-seeking charlatans of Pollyanna. These sessions, in both their content and delivery, are so sophomoric and simplistic, so unsophisticated and inane, that I would be embarrassed if they were taught to Brearley kindergarteners. They are an insult to parents and unbecoming of any educational institution, let alone one of Brearley’s caliber.

    I object to Brearley’s vacuous, inappropriate, and fanatical use of words such as “equity,” “diversity” and “inclusiveness.” If Brearley’s administration was truly concerned about so-called “equity,” it would be discussing the cessation of admissions preferences for legacies, siblings, and those families with especially deep pockets. If the administration was genuinely serious about “diversity,” it would not insist on the indoctrination of its students, and their families, to a single mindset, most reminiscent of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Instead, the school would foster an environment of intellectual openness and freedom of thought. And if Brearley really cared about “inclusiveness,” the school would return to the concepts encapsulated in the motto “One Brearley,” instead of teaching the extraordinarily divisive idea that there are only, and always, two groups in this country: victims and oppressors.

    l object to Brearley’s advocacy for groups and movements such as Black Lives Matter, a Marxist, anti family, heterophobic, anti-Asian and anti-Semitic organization that neither speaks for the majority of the Black community in this country, nor in any way, shape or form, represents their best interests.

    I object to, as we have been told time and time again over the past year, that the school’s first priority is the safety of our children. For goodness sake, Brearley is a school, not a hospital! The number one priority of a school has always been, and always will be, education. Brearley’s misguided priorities exemplify both the safety culture and “cover-your-ass” culture that together have proved so toxic to our society and have so damaged the mental health and resiliency of two generations of children, and counting.

    I object to the gutting of the history, civics, and classical literature curriculums. I object to the censorship of books that have been taught for generations because they contain dated language potentially offensive to the thin-skinned and hypersensitive (something that has already happened in my daughter’s 4th grade class). I object to the lowering of standards for the admission of students and for the hiring of teachers. I object to the erosion of rigor in classwork and the escalation of grade inflation. Any parent with eyes open can foresee these inevitabilities should antiracism initiatives be allowed to persist.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • “Facebook Bigwig Donated Millions to Black Lives Matter. Then The Company Censored Criticism of BLM’s Controversial Founder.” Try to contain your shocked face.

    Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz has poured over $5 million into a network of nonprofits run by Black Lives Matter leader Patrisse Cullors, according to financial disclosure records, raising questions about whether this relationship played a role in the company’s decision to censor unflattering news articles about the activist last week.

    The social media giant blocked its users from posting links to a New York Post story that revealed Cullors, a self-described Marxist, spent $3.2 million on high-end real estate as her Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation raked in millions in donations.

    Facebook said the reporting violated its “privacy and personal information policy.” The Post argued that the decision was “so arbitrary as to be laughable” and noted that the media routinely report on real estate purchases by other celebrities and political figures without facing social media censorship.

  • “Democrat Mayor, BLM Activist Hit With 11 Child Sex Felony Charges.””Robert Jacob, progressive former mayor of Sebastopol in Sonoma County, Northern California, was arrested for ‘five felony and one misdemeanor sexual assault charges against a minor,’ according to a statement from the Sebastopol Police Department.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green.)
  • “The Media Lied Repeatedly About Officer Brian Sicknick’s Death. And They Just Got Caught.”

    It was crucial for liberal sectors of the media to invent and disseminate a harrowing lie about how Officer Brian Sicknick died. That is because he is the only one they could claim was killed by pro-Trump protesters at the January 6 riot at the Capitol.

    So The New York Times on January 8 published an emotionally gut-wrenching but complete fiction that never had any evidence — that Officer Sicknick’s skull was savagely bashed in with a fire extinguisher by a pro-Trump mob until he died — and, just like the now-discredited Russian bounty story also unveiled by that same paper, cable outlets and other media platforms repeated this lie over and over in the most emotionally manipulative way possible….

    As I detailed over and over when examining this story, there were so many reasons to doubt this storyline from the start. Nobody on the record claimed it happened. The autopsy found no blunt trauma to the head. Sicknick’s own family kept urging the press to stop spreading this story because he called them the night of January 6 and told them he was fine — obviously inconsistent with the media’s claim that he died by having his skull bashed in — and his own mother kept saying that she believed he died of a stroke.

    But the gruesome story of Sicknick’s “murder” was too valuable to allow any questioning. It was weaponized over and over to depict the pro-Trump mob not as just violent but barbaric and murderous, because if Sicknick weren’t murdered by them, then nobody was (without Sicknick, the only ones killed were four pro-Trump supporters: two who died of a heart attack, one from an amphetamine overdose, and the other, Ashli Babbitt, who was shot point blank in the neck by Capitol Police despite being unarmed). So crucial was this fairy tale about Sicknick that it made its way into the official record of President Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate, and they had Joe Biden himself recite from the script, even as clear facts mounted proving it was untrue.

  • “Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey may have just handed over the city to rioters as he made it clear that the overarching leftist narrative surrounding the Derek Chauvin trial is the real story, regardless of the facts.”
  • “Corporations that have criticized election reform — including Apple, American Airlines, and Uber — have received over $2 billion in Texas public dollars collectively.”

    The information was compiled by the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), a think-tank and supporter of Texas’ election reform legislation.

    That total is likely even higher due to undisclosed subsidy amounts for multiple companies.

    Most of the public funds come from state and local subsidies, with the single biggest beneficiary being Berkshire Hathaway, run by Warren Buffett, which has pulled in $802 million for its subsidiary Nebraska Furniture Mart.

    (Hat tip: Holly Hansen.)

  • Speaking of TPPF: he idea that expanding Medicaid by embracing ObamaCare is bunk:

    But that’s not the experience in states that have expanded Medicaid.

    New York, one of the earliest and most earnest adopters of Medicaid expansion, has seen Medicaid enrollment explode in the last decade and is now dealing with a $6 billion budget shortfall.

    In California, lawmakers cut money from education just to stay afloat as they addressed an astonishing $54 billion deficit. The new demands of Medicaid expansion placed on the state’s budget mean either more cuts to critical programs or ballooning deficits.

    Enrollment of able-bodied adults in the California program ended up 278% over official projections, with actual cost hitting nearly $44 billion instead of a projected $11.6 billion over a two-and-a-half year period. One out of every three people in California are now on Medicaid.

    It’s not just big blue states. Ohio, thanks to Medicaid expansion, now allots a full 38 percent of its state budget to Medicaid spending. It was just 21 percent prior to expansion in 2009.

    This is true in Indiana as well, where the share of the state budget eaten up by Medicaid has doubled from 18 percent to 35 percent since 2000. On average, states that expanded were about 50 percent over enrollment and spending projections.

    States see dramatic increases in spending whenever Medicaid is expanded. This problem is even worse now because there is a federal prohibition against removing any enrollees from the program — in place until the COVID-19 emergency expires. States are handcuffed indefinitely.

    Texas can’t ignore these outcomes.

  • What. The. Hell? “The Postal Service is running a ‘covert operations program‘ that monitors Americans’ social media posts.” Who they hell approved that bright idea and can we get them fired? (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • “That Maskless Texan Apocalypse Still Hasn’t Arrived“:

    Texas’s statewide mask mandate ended March 9. The day before, Texas had 5,119 new cases of COVID-19, and the seven-day average for new cases was 3,971. On that day, the state had 126,404 active cases of COVID-19. As of March 9, the seven-day average for new deaths was 104.

    Yesterday, the state had 3,859 new cases, and the seven-day average for daily new cases is 3,057. The state had 93,430 active cases. The seven-day average for new deaths was 54. As I noted in late March and early April, the end of the statewide mask mandate did not generate a surge in cases or deaths, and shouldn’t have been reflexively denounced as “Neanderthal thinking” by President Biden.

  • Tokyo Olympics bans taking a knee. “The IOC’s Rule 50 forbids any kind of ‘demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda’ in venues and any other Olympic area and the Games body concluded the rule should be maintained following an athlete consultation.”
  • Another day, another professor busted for lying about receiving money from communist China, in this case mathematics professor Mingqing Xiao of Southern Illinois University – Carbondale. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Why China won’t overtake the U.S.: Demographics:

    Partly thanks to their crackpot one-child policy (one child per family) that was implemented in the late 1970s in order to limit China’s population growth, the ChiComs have a serious demographics problem on their hands, too. And the one-child policy exacerbated another demographics problem:

    The one-child policy produced consequences beyond the goal of reducing population growth. Most notably, the country’s overall sex ratio became skewed toward males—roughly between 3 and 4 percent more males than females. Traditionally, male children (especially firstborn) have been preferred—particularly in rural areas—as sons inherit the family name and property and are responsible for the care of elderly parents. When most families were restricted to one child, having a girl became highly undesirable, resulting in a rise in abortions of female fetuses (made possible after ultrasound sex determination became available), increases in the number of female children who were placed in orphanages or were abandoned, and even infanticide of baby girls.

    The combined result has been an aging population and a declining birth rate, as well as a gender imbalance (approximately 30 million more men than women looking for marriage partners), which resulted in the implementation of the two-child policy in 2016 (and recent recommendations from the People’s Bank of China – the Chinese central bank – to drop the limit altogether). China’s birth rate per 1000 people has decreased from 46 births in 1950 to just over 11 births in 2021.

  • Finally! “UK Parliament declares China’s treatment of Uyghurs a genocide.” Now we’ll see what difference that makes in foreign and economic policy, if any…
  • “Sinema, Kelly Call on Administration to Help Address Crisis at the Arizona Border, Fund National Guard Deployment.” “There is a crisis at the southern border… As such, we request you reimburse the state of Arizona for the deployment the Governor announced yesterday to support border security and continue to increase DHS personnel who can further assist with the processing of migrants, securing the border, and executing important security missions.” Both Kelly and Sinema are Democrats.
  • Great great grandson of slaves isn’t having any of this condescending “reparations” garbage:

    At the age of 8, my great-great-grandfather, Silas Burgess, arrived in America shackled in the belly of a slave ship and was sold on an auction block in Charleston, South Carolina, to the Burgess Plantation. He escaped through the Underground Railroad and saved up enough money to purchase a 102-acre farm, where he worked through tremendous challenges to live a prosperous, productive life.

    My grandfather, Oscar Kirby, served our country in World War I and was the first member of my family to get a traditional education. My father, Clarence Burgess Owens Sr., fought for democracy abroad in World War II. He was undeterred by the Jim Crow South that denied him a post-graduate education and built a successful legacy as a professor, researcher and entrepreneur.

    I grew up in the 1960s Deep South during the days of the Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow and segregation. I was one of the first four Black athletes recruited to play football at the University of Miami and the third Black student to receive a scholarship for my education. Now, I am humbled to represent Utah’s 4th Congressional District in the U.S. Congress.

    This intergenerational progress represents the common thread of self-worth that allowed each of my ancestors to see themselves as victors instead of victims. I think my great-great-grandpa Silas would agree that reparations are not the way to right our country’s wrongs.

    It goes without saying that Rep. Owens is a Republican…

  • Related: Glenn Loury makes the case for black patriotism:

    There is a fashionable standoffishness characteristic of much elite thinking about blacks’ relationship to America—as exemplified, for instance, by the New York Times’s 1619 Project. Does this posture serve the interests, rightly understood, of black Americans? I think that it does not.

    Indeed, a case can be made that the correct narrative to adopt today is one of unabashed black patriotism—a forthright embrace of American nationalism by black people. Black Americans’ birthright citizenship in what is arguably history’s greatest republic is an inheritance of immense value. My answer for black Americans to Frederick Douglass’s famous question—“Whose Fourth of July?”—is, “Ours!”

    Is this a venal, immoral, and rapacious bandit-society of plundering white supremacists, founded in genocide and slavery and propelled by capitalist greed, or a good country that affords boundless opportunity to all fortunate enough to enjoy the privileges and bear the responsibilities of citizenship? Of course, there is some warrant in the historical record for both sentiments, but the weight of the evidence overwhelmingly favors the latter. The founding of the United States of America was a world-historic event by means of which Enlightenment ideals about the rights of individual persons and the legitimacy of state power were instantiated for the first time in real institutions.

    African slavery flourished at the time of the Founding, true enough. And yet, within a century of the Founding, slavery was gone and people who had been chattel became citizens of the United States of America. Not equal citizens, not at first. That took another century. But African-descended Americans became, in the fullness of time, equal citizens of this republic.

    Our democracy, flawed as it most surely is, nevertheless became a beacon to billions of people throughout what came to be known as the “free world.” We fought fascism in the Pacific and in Europe and thereby helped to save the world. We faced down, under the threat of nuclear annihilation, the horror that was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Moreover, we have witnessed here in America, since the end of the Civil War, the greatest transformation in the status of a serfdom people (which is, in effect, what blacks became after emancipation) to be found anywhere in world history.

  • Planned Parenthood finally admits that founder Margaret Sanger was a racist
  • Zaire hyperinflates their currency. People stop using it. Zaire introduce a new currency. People start using the old currency, simply because they’re not printing it anymore.
  • He, you know that Islamist insurgency in Mozambique I talked about earlier this month? Well, evidently they’re now beheading children.
  • “The NBA has suffered another ratings disaster, with ABC falling 45 percent since the 2011-12 season, while TNT was down 40 percent, and ESPN was off 20 percent.”
  • “Woman who lost partner in crossbow attack wants ‘medieval’ weapon regulated.” Can Pointy Stick Control be far behind?
  • Important safety tip: Don’t buy crappy ammo.
  • NSFW perspective:

  • Florida man and woman try to have wedding at palatial house. Tiny problem: They didn’t own it and hadn’t rented it.
  • Godzilla Shark fossil found in Mexico.
  • Speaking of Godzilla, here’s my review of Godzilla vs. Kong.
  • “BLM Founder Calls For Abolishing Police In All The Areas Where She Doesn’t Live.”
  • Not Billy Joel fans:

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    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Guns, ObamaCare, Regulation, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Uncategorized | No Comments »

    NC Lt. Governor Mark Robinson Demonstrates Punching Back Twice as Hard

    Sunday, February 28th, 2021

    Back before Mark Robinson became North Carolina’s Lieutenant Governor, he attracted notice as an ordinary citizen fighting against gun grabbing legislation:

    And after being elected Lt. Governor, here he is fighting about the media’s “insurrection” bullshit on January 6, and slamming a newspaper for depicting him, a black man, as a member of the Klu Klux Klan.

    That’s how you do it.

    And here’s Robinson talking about his own rise from being a blue collar worker to Lt. Governor:

    (Hat tip: Andrea Widburg at American Thinker.)

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    Posted in Guns, Media Watch, Republicans, video | 8 Comments »

    The Trump White House’s List Of Trump’s Accomplishments

    Sunday, January 24th, 2021

    I wanted to compile a list of the Trump Administration’s pluses and minuses (and, indeed, still might). One source I was going to draw from was the WhiteHouse.gov list of Trump Accomplishments. However, the Biden Administration took that down. As a service, and for the Historical Record, I’ve fished that list out of the Wayback Machine and am posting it below. (Plus you never know when the Biden Administration might ask the Wayback Machine to remove it from their records.) I’ve even tried to replicate the formatting.

    As of January 2021

    Trump Administration Accomplishments

    ━━━━━━━━ ★ ★ ★ ━━━━━━━━

    Unprecedented Economic Boom

    Before the China Virus invaded our shores, we built the world’s most prosperous economy.

    • America gained 7 million new jobs – more than three times government experts’ projections.
    • Middle-Class family income increased nearly $6,000 – more than five times the gains during the entire previous administration.
    • The unemployment rate reached 3.5 percent, the lowest in a half-century.
    • Achieved 40 months in a row with more job openings than job-hirings.
    • More Americans reported being employed than ever before – nearly 160 million.
    • Jobless claims hit a nearly 50-year low.
    • The number of people claiming unemployment insurance as a share of the population hit its lowest on record.
    • Incomes rose in every single metro area in the United States for the first time in nearly 3 decades.

    Delivered a future of greater promise and opportunity for citizens of all backgrounds.

    • Unemployment rates for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, veterans, individuals with disabilities, and those without a high school diploma all reached record lows.
    • Unemployment for women hit its lowest rate in nearly 70 years.
    • Lifted nearly 7 million people off of food stamps.
    • Poverty rates for African Americans and Hispanic Americans reached record lows.
    • Income inequality fell for two straight years, and by the largest amount in over a decade.
    • The bottom 50 percent of American households saw a 40 percent increase in net worth.
    • Wages rose fastest for low-income and blue collar workers – a 16 percent pay increase.
    • African American homeownership increased from 41.7 percent to 46.4 percent.

    Brought jobs, factories, and industries back to the USA.

    • Created more than 1.2 million manufacturing and construction jobs.
    • Put in place policies to bring back supply chains from overseas.
    • Small business optimism broke a 35-year old record in 2018.

    Hit record stock market numbers and record 401ks.

    • The DOW closed above 20,000 for the first time in 2017 and topped 30,000 in 2020.
    • The S&P 500 and NASDAQ have repeatedly notched record highs.

    Rebuilding and investing in rural America.

    • Signed an Executive Order on Modernizing the Regulatory Framework for Agricultural Biotechnology Products, which is bringing innovative new technologies to market in American farming and agriculture.
    • Strengthened America’s rural economy by investing over $1.3 billion through the Agriculture Department’s ReConnect Program to bring high-speed broadband infrastructure to rural America.

    Achieved a record-setting economic comeback by rejecting blanket lockdowns.

    • An October 2020 Gallup survey found 56 percent of Americans said they were better off during a pandemic than four years prior.
    • During the third quarter of 2020, the economy grew at a rate of 33.1 percent – the most rapid GDP growth ever recorded.
    • Since coronavirus lockdowns ended, the economy has added back over 12 million jobs, more than half the jobs lost.
    • Jobs have been recovered 23 times faster than the previous administration’s recovery.
    • Unemployment fell to 6.7 percent in December, from a pandemic peak of 14.7 percent in April – beating expectations of well over 10 percent unemployment through the end of 2020.
    • Under the previous administration, it took 49 months for the unemployment rate to fall from 10 percent to under 7 percent compared to just 3 months for the Trump Administration.
    • Since April, the Hispanic unemployment rate has fallen by 9.6 percent, Asian-American unemployment by 8.6 percent, and Black American unemployment by 6.8 percent.
    • 80 percent of small businesses are now open, up from just 53 percent in April.
    • Small business confidence hit a new high.
    • Homebuilder confidence reached an all-time high, and home sales hit their highest reading since December 2006.
    • Manufacturing optimism nearly doubled.
    • Household net worth rose $7.4 trillion in Q2 2020 to $112 trillion, an all-time high.
    • Home prices hit an all-time record high.
    • The United States rejected crippling lockdowns that crush the economy and inflict countless public health harms and instead safely reopened its economy.
    • Business confidence is higher in America than in any other G7 or European Union country.
    • Stabilized America’s financial markets with the establishment of a number of Treasury Department supported facilities at the Federal Reserve.

    ━━━━━━━━ ★ ★ ★ ━━━━━━━━

    Tax Relief for the Middle Class

    Passed $3.2 trillion in historic tax relief and reformed the tax code.

    • Signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act – the largest tax reform package in history.
    • More than 6 million American workers received wage increases, bonuses, and increased benefits thanks to the tax cuts.
    • A typical family of four earning $75,000 received an income tax cut of more than $2,000 – slashing their tax bill in half.
    • Doubled the standard deduction – making the first $24,000 earned by a married couple completely tax-free.
    • Doubled the child tax credit.
    • Virtually eliminated the unfair Estate Tax, or Death Tax.
    • Cut the business tax rate from 35 percent – the highest in the developed world – all the way down to 21 percent.
    • Small businesses can now deduct 20 percent of their business income.
    • Businesses can now deduct 100 percent of the cost of their capital investments in the year the investment is made.
    • Since the passage of tax cuts, the share of total wealth held by the bottom half of households has increased, while the share held by the top 1 percent has decreased.
    • Over 400 companies have announced bonuses, wage increases, new hires, or new investments in the United States.
    • Over $1.5 trillion was repatriated into the United States from overseas.
    • Lower investment cost and higher capital returns led to faster growth in the middle class, real wages, and international competitiveness.

    Jobs and investments are pouring into Opportunity Zones.

    • Created nearly 9,000 Opportunity Zones where capital gains on long-term investments are taxed at zero.
    • Opportunity Zone designations have increased property values within them by 1.1 percent, creating an estimated $11 billion in wealth for the nearly half of Opportunity Zone residents who own their own home.
    • Opportunity Zones have attracted $75 billion in funds and driven $52 billion of new investment in economically distressed communities, creating at least 500,000 new jobs.
    • Approximately 1 million Americans will be lifted from poverty as a result of these new investments.
    • Private equity investments into businesses in Opportunity Zones were nearly 30 percent higher than investments into businesses in similar areas that were not designated Opportunity Zones.

    ━━━━━━━━ ★ ★ ★ ━━━━━━━━

    Massive Deregulation

    Ended the regulatory assault on American Businesses and Workers.

    • Instead of 2-for-1, we eliminated 8 old regulations for every 1 new regulation adopted.
    • Provided the average American household an extra $3,100 every year.
    • Reduced the direct cost of regulatory compliance by $50 billion, and will reduce costs by an additional $50 billion in FY 2020 alone.
    • Removed nearly 25,000 pages from the Federal Register – more than any other president. The previous administration added over 16,000 pages.
    • Established the Governors’ Initiative on Regulatory Innovation to reduce outdated regulations at the state, local, and tribal levels.
    • Signed an executive order to make it easier for businesses to offer retirement plans.
    • Signed two executive orders to increase transparency in Federal agencies and protect Americans and their small businesses from administrative abuse.
    • Modernized the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) for the first time in over 40 years.
    • Reduced approval times for major infrastructure projects from 10 or more years down to 2 years or less.
    • Helped community banks by signing legislation that rolled back costly provisions of Dodd-Frank.
    • Established the White House Council on Eliminating Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing to bring down housing costs.
    • Removed regulations that threatened the development of a strong and stable internet.
    • Eased and simplified restrictions on rocket launches, helping to spur commercial investment in space projects.
    • Published a whole-of-government strategy focused on ensuring American leadership in automated vehicle technology.
    • Streamlined energy efficiency regulations for American families and businesses, including preserving affordable lightbulbs, enhancing the utility of showerheads, and enabling greater time savings with dishwashers.
    • Removed unnecessary regulations that restrict the seafood industry and impede job creation.
    • Modernized the Department of Agriculture’s biotechnology regulations to put America in the lead to develop new technologies.
    • Took action to suspend regulations that would have slowed our response to COVID-19, including lifting restrictions on manufacturers to more quickly produce ventilators.

    Successfully rolled back burdensome regulatory overreach.

    • Rescinded the previous administration’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule, which would have abolished zoning for single-family housing to build low-income, federally subsidized apartments.
    • Issued a final rule on the Fair Housing Act’s disparate impact standard.
    • Eliminated the Waters of the United States Rule and replaced it with the Navigable Waters Protection Rule, providing relief and certainty for farmers and property owners.
    • Repealed the previous administration’s costly fuel economy regulations by finalizing the Safer Affordable Fuel Efficient (SAFE) Vehicles rule, which will make cars more affordable, and lower the price of new vehicles by an estimated $2,200.

    Americans now have more money in their pockets.

    • Deregulation had an especially beneficial impact on low-income Americans who pay a much higher share of their incomes for overregulation.
    • Cut red tape in the healthcare industry, providing Americans with more affordable healthcare and saving Americans nearly 10 percent on prescription drugs.
    • Deregulatory efforts yielded savings to the medical community an estimated $6.6 billion – with a reduction of 42 million hours of regulatory compliance work through 2021.
    • Removed government barriers to personal freedom and consumer choice in healthcare.
    • Once fully in effect, 20 major deregulatory actions undertaken by the Trump Administration are expected to save American consumers and businesses over $220 billion per year.
    • Signed 16 pieces of deregulatory legislation that will result in a $40 billion increase in annual real incomes.

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    Fair and Reciprocal Trade

    Secured historic trade deals to defend American workers.

    • Immediately withdrew from the job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
    • Ended the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and replaced it with the brand new United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA).
    • The USMCA contains powerful new protections for American manufacturers, auto-makers, farmers, dairy producers, and workers.
    • The USMCA is expected to generate over $68 billion in economic activity and potentially create over 550,000 new jobs over ten years.
    • Signed an executive order making it government policy to Buy American and Hire American, and took action to stop the outsourcing of jobs overseas.
    • Negotiated with Japan to slash tariffs and open its market to $7 billion in American agricultural products and ended its ban on potatoes and lamb.
    • Over 90 percent of American agricultural exports to Japan now receive preferential treatment, and most are duty-free.
    • Negotiated another deal with Japan to boost $40 billion worth of digital trade.
    • Renegotiated the United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement, doubling the cap on imports of American vehicles and extending the American light truck tariff.
    • Reached a written, fully-enforceable Phase One trade agreement with China on confronting pirated and counterfeit goods, and the protection of American ideas, trade secrets, patents, and trademarks.
    • China agreed to purchase an additional $200 billion worth of United States exports and opened market access for over 4,000 American facilities to exports while all tariffs remained in effect.
    • Achieved a mutual agreement with the European Union (EU) that addresses unfair trade practices and increases duty-free exports by 180 percent to $420 million.
    • Secured a pledge from the EU to eliminate tariffs on American lobster – the first United States-European Union negotiated tariff reduction in over 20 years.
    • Scored a historic victory by overhauling the Universal Postal Union, whose outdated policies were undermining American workers and interests.
    • Engaged extensively with trade partners like the EU and Japan to advance reforms to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
    • Issued a first-ever comprehensive report on the WTO Appellate Body’s failures to comply with WTO rules and interpret WTO agreements as written.
    • Blocked nominees to the WTO’s Appellate Body until WTO Members recognize and address longstanding issues with Appellate Body activism.
    • Submitted 5 papers to the WTO Committee on Agriculture to improve Members’ understanding of how trade policies are implemented, highlight areas for improved transparency, and encourage members to maintain up-to-date notifications on market access and domestic support.

    Took strong actions to confront unfair trade practices and put America First.

    • Imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions worth of Chinese goods to protect American jobs and stop China’s abuses under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.
    • Directed an all-of-government effort to halt and punish efforts by the Communist Party of China to steal and profit from American innovations and intellectual property.
    • Imposed tariffs on foreign aluminum and foreign steel to protect our vital industries and support our national security.
    • Approved tariffs on $1.8 billion in imports of washing machines and $8.5 billion in imports of solar panels.
    • Blocked illegal timber imports from Peru.
    • Took action against France for its digital services tax that unfairly targets American technology companies.
    • `Launched investigations into digital services taxes that have been proposed or adopted by 10 other countries.

    Historic support for American farmers.

    • Successfully negotiated more than 50 agreements with countries around the world to increase foreign market access and boost exports of American agriculture products, supporting more than 1 million American jobs.
    • Authorized $28 billion in aid for farmers who have been subjected to unfair trade practices – fully funded by the tariffs paid by China.
    • China lifted its ban on poultry, opened its market to beef, and agreed to purchase at least $80 billion of American agricultural products in the next two years.
    • The European Union agreed to increase beef imports by 180 percent and opened up its market to more imports of soybeans.
    • South Korea lifted its ban on American poultry and eggs, and agreed to provide market access for record exports of American rice.
    • Argentina lifted its ban on American pork.
    • Brazil agreed to increase wheat imports by $180 million a year and raised its quotas for purchases of United States ethanol.
    • Guatemala and Tunisia opened up their markets to American eggs.
    • Won tariff exemptions in Ecuador for wheat and soybeans.
    • Suspended $817 million in trade preferences for Thailand under the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program due to its failure to adequately provide reasonable market access for American pork products.
    • The amount of food stamps redeemed at farmers markets increased from $1.4 million in May 2020 to $1.75 million in September 2020 – a 50 percent increase over last year.
    • Rapidly deployed the Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, which provided $30 billion in support to farmers and ranchers facing decreased prices and market disruption when COVID-19 impacted the food supply chain.
    • Authorized more than $6 billion for the Farmers to Families Food Box program, which delivered over 128 million boxes of locally sourced, produce, meat, and dairy products to charity and faith-based organizations nationwide.
    • Delegated authorities via the Defense Production Act to protect breaks in the American food supply chain as a result of COVID-19.

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    American Energy Independence

    Unleashed America’s oil and natural gas potential.

    • For the first time in nearly 70 years, the United States has become a net energy exporter.
    • The United States is now the number one producer of oil and natural gas in the world.
    • Natural gas production reached a record-high of 34.9 quads in 2019, following record high production in 2018 and in 2017.
    • The United States has been a net natural gas exporter for three consecutive years and has an export capacity of nearly 10 billion cubic feet per day.
    • Withdrew from the unfair, one-sided Paris Climate Agreement.
    • Canceled the previous administration’s Clean Power Plan, and replaced it with the new Affordable Clean Energy rule.
    • Approved the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines.
    • Opened up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska to oil and gas leasing.
    • Repealed the last administration’s Federal Coal Leasing Moratorium, which prohibited coal leasing on Federal lands.
    • Reformed permitting rules to eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy and speed approval for mines.
    • Fixed the New Source Review permitting program, which punished companies for upgrading or repairing coal power plants.
    • Fixed the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) steam electric and coal ash rules.
    • The average American family saved $2,500 a year in lower electric bills and lower prices at the gas pump.
    • Signed legislation repealing the harmful Stream Protection Rule.
    • Reduced the time to approve drilling permits on public lands by half, increasing permit applications to drill on public lands by 300 percent.
    • Expedited approval of the NuStar’s New Burgos pipeline to export American gasoline to Mexico.
    • Streamlined Liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal permitting and allowed long-term LNG export authorizations to be extended through 2050.
    • The United States is now among the top three LNG exporters in the world.
    • Increased LNG exports five-fold since January 2017, reaching an all-time high in January 2020.
    • LNG exports are expected to reduce the American trade deficit by over $10 billion.
    • Granted more than 20 new long-term approvals for LNG exports to non-free trade agreement countries.
    • The development of natural gas and LNG infrastructure in the United States is providing tens of thousands of jobs, and has led to the investment of tens of billions of dollars in infrastructure.
    • There are now 6 LNG export facilities operating in the United States, with 2 additional export projects under construction.
    • The amount of nuclear energy production in 2019 was the highest on record, through a combination of increased capacity from power plant upgrades and shorter refueling and maintenance cycles.
    • Prevented Russian energy coercion across Europe through various lines of effort, including the Partnership for Transatlantic Energy Cooperation, civil nuclear deals with Romania and Poland, and opposition to Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
    • Issued the Presidential Permit for the A2A railroad between Canada and Alaska, providing energy resources to emerging markets.

    Increased access to our country’s abundant natural resources in order to achieve energy independence.

    • Renewable energy production and consumption both reached record highs in 2019.
    • Enacted policies that helped double the amount of electricity generated by solar and helped increase the amount of wind generation by 32 percent from 2016 through 2019.
    • Accelerated construction of energy infrastructure to ensure American energy producers can deliver their products to the market.
    • Cut red tape holding back the construction of new energy infrastructure.
    • Authorized ethanol producers to sell E15 year-round and allowed higher-ethanol gasoline to be distributed from existing pumps at filling stations.
    • Ensured greater transparency and certainty in the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program.
    • Negotiated leasing capacity in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to Australia, providing American taxpayers a return on this infrastructure investment.
    • Signed an executive order directing Federal agencies to work together to diminish the capability of foreign adversaries to target our critical electric infrastructure.
    • Reformed Section 401 of the Clean Water Act regulation to allow for the curation of interstate infrastructure.
    • Resolved the OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) oil crisis during COVID-19 by getting OPEC, Russia, and others to cut nearly 10 million barrels of production a day, stabilizing world oil prices.
    • Directed the Department of Energy to use the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to mitigate market volatility caused by COVID-19.

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    Investing in America’s Workers and Families

    Affordable and high-quality Child Care for American workers and their families.

    • Doubled the Child Tax Credit from $1,000 to $2,000 per child and expanded the eligibility for receiving the credit.
    • Nearly 40 million families benefitted from the child tax credit (CTC), receiving an average benefit of $2,200 – totaling credits of approximately $88 billion.
    • Signed the largest-ever increase in Child Care and Development Block Grants – expanding access to quality, affordable child care for more than 800,000 low-income families.
    • Secured an additional $3.5 billion in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act to help families and first responders with child care needs.
    • Created the first-ever paid family leave tax credit for employees earning $72,000 or less.
    • Signed into law 12-weeks of paid parental leave for Federal workers.
    • Signed into law a provision that enables new parents to withdraw up to $5,000 from their retirement accounts without penalty when they give birth to or adopt a child.

    Advanced apprenticeship career pathways to good-paying jobs.

    • Expanded apprenticeships to more than 850,000 and established the new Industry-Recognized Apprenticeship programs in new and emerging fields.
    • Established the National Council for the American Worker and the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board.
    • Over 460 companies have signed the Pledge to America’s Workers, committing to provide more than 16 million job and training opportunities.
    • Signed an executive order that directs the Federal government to replace outdated degree-based hiring with skills-based hiring.

    Advanced women’s economic empowerment.

    • Included women’s empowerment for the first time in the President’s 2017 National Security Strategy.
    • Signed into law key pieces of legislation, including the Women, Peace, and Security Act and the Women Entrepreneurship and Economic Empowerment Act.
    • Launched the Women’s Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP) Initiative – the first-ever whole-of-government approach to women’s economic empowerment that has reached 24 million women worldwide.
    • Established an innovative new W-GDP Fund at USAID.
    • Launched the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) with 13 other nations.
    • Announced a $50 million donation on behalf of the United States to We-Fi providing more capital to women-owned businesses around the world.
    • Released the first-ever Strategy on Women, Peace, and Security, which focused on increasing women’s participation to prevent and resolve conflicts.
    • Launched the W-GDP 2x Global Women’s Initiative with the Development Finance Corporation, which has mobilized more than $3 billion in private sector investments over three years.

    Ensured American leadership in technology and innovation.

    • First administration to name artificial intelligence, quantum information science, and 5G communications as national research and development priorities.
    • Launched the American Broadband Initiative to promote the rapid deployment of broadband internet across rural America.
    • Made 100 megahertz of crucial mid-band spectrum available for commercial operations, a key factor to driving widespread 5G access across rural America.
    • Launched the American AI Initiative to ensure American leadership in artificial intelligence (AI), and established the National AI Initiative Office at the White House.
    • Established the first-ever principles for Federal agency adoption of AI to improve services for the American people.
    • Signed the National Quantum Initiative Act establishing the National Quantum Coordination Office at the White House to drive breakthroughs in quantum information science.
    • Signed the Secure 5G and Beyond Act to ensure America leads the world in 5G.
    • Launched a groundbreaking program to test safe and innovative commercial drone operations nationwide.
    • Issued new rulemaking to accelerate the return of American civil supersonic aviation.
    • Committed to doubling investments in AI and quantum information science (QIS) research and development.
    • Announced the establishment of $1 billion AI and quantum research institutes across America.
    • Established the largest dual-use 5G test sites in the world to advance 5G commercial and military innovation.
    • Signed landmark Prague Principles with America’s allies to advance the deployment of secure 5G telecommunications networks.
    • Signed first-ever bilateral AI cooperation agreement with the United Kingdom.
    • Built collation among allies to ban Chinese Telecom Company Huawei from their 5G infrastructure.

    Preserved American jobs for American workers and rejected the importation of cheap foreign labor.

    • Pressured the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to reverse their decision to lay off over 200 American workers and replace them with cheaper foreign workers.
    • Removed the TVA Chairman of the Board and a TVA Board Member.

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    Life-Saving Response to the China Virus

    Restricted travel to the United States from infected regions of the world.

    • Suspended all travel from China, saving thousands of lives.
    • Required all American citizens returning home from designated outbreak countries to return through designated airports with enhanced screening measures, and to undergo a self-quarantine.
    • Announced further travel restrictions on Iran, the Schengen Area of Europe, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Brazil.
    • Issued travel advisory warnings recommending that American citizens avoid all international travel.
    • Reached bilateral agreements with Mexico and Canada to suspend non-essential travel and expeditiously return illegal aliens.
    • Repatriated over 100,000 American citizens stranded abroad on more than 1,140 flights from 136 countries and territories.
    • Safely transported, evacuated, treated, and returned home trapped passengers on cruise ships.
    • Took action to authorize visa sanctions on foreign governments who impede our efforts to protect American citizens by refusing or unreasonably delaying the return of their own citizens, subjects, or residents from the United States.

    Acted early to combat the China Virus in the United States.

    • Established the White House Coronavirus Task Force, with leading experts on infectious diseases, to manage the Administration’s efforts to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and to keep workplaces safe.
    • Pledged in the State of the Union address to “take all necessary steps to safeguard our citizens from the Virus,” while the Democrats’ response made not a single mention of COVID-19 or even the threat of China.
    • Declared COVID-19 a National Emergency under the Stafford Act.
    • Established the 24/7 FEMA National Response Coordination Center.
    • Released guidance recommending containment measures critical to slowing the spread of the Virus, decompressing peak burden on hospitals and infrastructure, and diminishing health impacts.
    • Implemented strong community mitigation strategies to sharply reduce the number of lives lost in the United States down from experts’ projection of up to 2.2 million deaths in the United States without mitigation.
    • Halted American funding to the World Health Organization to counter its egregious bias towards China that jeopardized the safety of Americans.
    • Announced plans for withdrawal from the World Health Organization and redirected contribution funds to help meet global public health needs.
    • Called on the United Nations to hold China accountable for their handling of the virus, including refusing to be transparent and failing to contain the virus before it spread.

    Re-purposed domestic manufacturing facilities to ensure frontline workers had critical supplies.

    • Distributed billions of pieces of Personal Protective Equipment, including gloves, masks, gowns, and face shields.
    • Invoked the Defense Production Act over 100 times to accelerate the development and manufacturing of essential material in the USA.
    • Made historic investments of more than $3 billion into the industrial base.
    • Contracted with companies such as Ford, General Motors, Philips, and General Electric to produce ventilators.
    • Contracted with Honeywell, 3M, O&M Halyard, Moldex, and Lydall to increase our Nation’s production of N-95 masks.
    • The Army Corps of Engineers built 11,000 beds, distributed 10,000 ventilators, and surged personnel to hospitals.
    • Converted the Javits Center in New York into a 3,000-bed hospital, and opened medical facilities in Seattle and New Orleans.
    • Dispatched the USNS Comfort to New York City, and the USNS Mercy to Los Angeles.
    • Deployed thousands of FEMA employees, National Guard members, and military forces to help in the response.
    • Provided support to states facing new emergences of the virus, including surging testing sites, deploying medical personnel, and advising on mitigation strategies.
    • Announced Federal support to governors for use of the National Guard with 100 percent cost-share.
    • Established the Supply Chain Task Force as a “control tower” to strategically allocate high-demand medical supplies and PPE to areas of greatest need.
    • Requested critical data elements from states about the status of hospital capacity, ventilators, and PPE.
    • Executed nearly 250 flights through Project Air Bridge to transport hundreds of millions of surgical masks, N95 respirators, gloves, and gowns from around the world to hospitals and facilities throughout the United States.
    • Signed an executive order invoking the Defense Production Act to ensure that Americans have a reliable supply of products like beef, pork, and poultry.
    • Stabilized the food supply chain restoring the Nation’s protein processing capacity through a collaborative approach with Federal, state, and local officials and industry partners.
    • The continued movement of food and other critical items of daily life distributed to stores and to American homes went unaffected.

    Replenished the depleted Strategic National Stockpile.

    • Increased the number of ventilators nearly ten-fold to more than 153,000.
    • Despite the grim projections from the media and governors, no American who has needed a ventilator has been denied a ventilator.
    • Increased the number of N95 masks fourteen-fold to more than 176 million.
    • Issued an executive order ensuring critical medical supplies are produced in the United States.

    Created the largest, most advanced, and most innovative testing system in the world.

    • Built the world’s leading testing system from scratch, conducting over 200 million tests – more than all of the European Union combined.
    • Engaged more than 400 test developers to increase testing capacity from less than 100 tests per day to more than 2 million tests per day.
    • Slashed red tape and approved Emergency Use Authorizations for more than 300 different tests, including 235 molecular tests, 63 antibody tests, and 11 antigen tests.
    • Delivered state-of-the-art testing devices and millions of tests to every certified nursing home in the country.
    • Announced more flexibility to Medicare Advantage and Part D plans to waive cost-sharing for tests.
    • Over 2,000 retail pharmacy stores, including CVS, Walmart, and Walgreens, are providing testing using new regulatory and reimbursement options.
    • Deployed tens of millions of tests to nursing homes, assisted living facilities, historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), tribes, disaster relief operations, Home Health/Hospice organizations, and the Veterans Health Administration.
    • Began shipping 150 million BinaxNOW rapid tests to states, long-term care facilities, the IHS, HBCUs, and other key partners.

    Pioneered groundbreaking treatments and therapies that reduced the mortality rate by 85 percent, saving over 2 million lives.

    • The United States has among the lowest case fatality rates in the entire world.
    • The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) launched the Coronavirus Treatment Acceleration Program to expedite the regulatory review process for therapeutics in clinical trials, accelerate the development and publication of industry guidance on developing treatments, and utilize regulatory flexibility to help facilitate the scaling-up of manufacturing capacity.
    • More than 370 therapies are in clinical trials and another 560 are in the planning stages.
    • Announced $450 million in available funds to support the manufacturing of Regeneron’s antibody cocktail.
    • Shipped tens of thousands of doses of the Regeneron drug.
    • Authorized an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for convalescent plasma.
    • Treated around 100,000 patients with convalescent plasma, which may reduce mortality by 50 percent.
    • Provided $48 million to fund the Mayo Clinic study that tested the efficacy of convalescent plasma for patients with COVID-19.
    • Made an agreement to support the large-scale manufacturing of AstraZeneca’s cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies.
    • Approved Remdesivir as the first COVID-19 treatment, which could reduce hospitalization time by nearly a third.
    • Secured more than 90 percent of the world’s supply of Remdesivir, enough to treat over 850,000 high-risk patients.
    • Granted an EUA to Eli Lilly for its anti-body treatments.
    • Finalized an agreement with Eli Lilly to purchase the first doses of the company’s investigational antibody therapeutic.
    • Provided up to $270 million to the American Red Cross and America’s Blood Centers to support the collection of up to 360,000 units of plasma.
    • Launched a nationwide campaign to ask patients who have recovered from COVID-19 to donate plasma.
    • Announced Phase 3 clinical trials for varying types of blood thinners to treat adults diagnosed with COVID-19.
    • Issued an EUA for the monoclonal antibody therapy bamlanivimab.
    • FDA issued an EUA for casirivimab and imdevimab to be administered together.
    • Launched the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium with private sector and academic leaders unleashing America’s supercomputers to accelerate coronavirus research.

    Brought the full power of American medicine and government to produce a safe and effective vaccine in record time.

    • Launched Operation Warp Speed to initiate an unprecedented drive to develop and make available an effective vaccine by January 2021.
    • Pfizer and Moderna developed two vaccines in just nine months, five times faster than the fastest prior vaccine development in American history.
    • Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines are approximately 95 effective – far exceeding all expectations.
    • AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson also both have promising candidates in the final stage of clinical trials.
    • The vaccines will be administered within 24 hours of FDA-approval.
    • Made millions of vaccine doses available before the end of 2020, with hundreds of millions more to quickly follow.
    • FedEx and UPS will ship doses from warehouses directly to local pharmacies, hospitals, and healthcare providers.
    • Finalized a partnership with CVS and Walgreens to deliver vaccines directly to residents of nursing homes and long-term care facilities as soon as a state requests it, at no cost to America’s seniors.
    • Signed an executive order to ensure that the United States government prioritizes getting the vaccine to American citizens before sending it to other nations.
    • Provided approximately $13 billion to accelerate vaccine development and to manufacture all of the top candidates in advance.
    • Provided critical investments of $4.1 billion to Moderna to support the development, manufacturing, and distribution of their vaccines.
    • Moderna announced its vaccine is 95 percent effective and is pending FDA approval.
    • Provided Pfizer up to $1.95 billion to support the mass-manufacturing and nationwide distribution of their vaccine candidate.
    • Pfizer announced its vaccine is 95 percent effective and is pending FDA approval.
    • Provided approximately $1 billion to support the manufacturing and distribution of Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine candidate.
    • Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine candidate reached the final stage of clinical trials.
    • Made up to $1.2 billion available to support AstraZeneca’s vaccine candidate.
    • AstraZeneca’s vaccine candidate reached the final stage of clinical trials.
    • Made an agreement to support the large-scale manufacturing of Novavax’s vaccine candidate with 100 million doses expected.
    • Partnered with Sanofi and GSK to support large-scale manufacturing of a COVID-19 investigational vaccine.
    • Awarded $200 million in funding to support vaccine preparedness and plans for the immediate distribution and administration of vaccines.
    • Provided $31 million to Cytvia for vaccine-related consumable products.
    • Under the PREP Act, issued guidance authorizing qualified pharmacy technicians to administer vaccines.
    • Announced that McKesson Corporation will produce store, and distribute vaccine ancillary supply kits on behalf of the Strategic National Stockpile to help healthcare workers who will administer vaccines.
    • Announced partnership with large-chain, independent, and regional pharmacies to deliver vaccines.

    Prioritized resources for the most vulnerable Americans, including nursing home residents.

    • Quickly established guidelines for nursing homes and expanded telehealth opportunities to protect vulnerable seniors.
    • Increased surveillance, oversight, and transparency of all 15,417 Medicare and Medicaid nursing homes by requiring them to report cases of COVID-19 to all residents, their families, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
    • Required that all nursing homes test staff regularly.
    • Launched an unprecedented national nursing home training curriculum to equip nursing home staff with the knowledge they need to stop the spread of COVID-19.
    • Delivered $81 million for increased inspections and funded 35,000 members of the Nation Guard to deliver critical supplies to every Medicare-certified nursing homes.
    • Deployed Federal Task Force Strike Teams to provide onsite technical assistance and education to nursing homes experiencing outbreaks.
    • Distributed tens of billions of dollars in Provider Relief Funds to protect nursing homes, long-term care facilities, safety-net hospitals, rural hospitals, and communities hardest hit by the virus.
    • Released 1.5 million N95 respirators from the Strategic National Stockpile for distribution to over 3,000 nursing home facilities.
    • Directed the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council to refocus on underserved communities impacted by the coronavirus.
    • Required that testing results reported include data on race, gender, ethnicity, and ZIP code, to ensure that resources were directed to communities disproportionately harmed by the virus.
    • Ensured testing was offered at 95 percent of Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC), which serve over 29 million patients in 12,000 communities across the Nation.
    • Invested an unprecedented $8 billion in tribal communities.
    • Maintained safe access for Veterans to VA healthcare throughout the COVID-19 Pandemic and supported non-VA hospital systems and private and state-run nursing homes with VA clinical teams.
    • Signed legislation ensuring no reduction of VA education benefits under the GI Bill for online distance learning.

    Supported Americans as they safely return to school and work.

    • Issued the Guidelines for Opening Up America Again, a detailed blueprint to help governors as they began reopening the country. Focused on protecting the most vulnerable and mitigating the risk of any resurgence, while restarting the economy and allowing Americans to safely return to their jobs.
    • Helped Americans return to work by providing extensive guidance on workplace-safety measures to protect against COVID-19, and investigating over 10,000 coronavirus-related complaints and referrals.
    • Provided over $31 billion to support elementary and secondary schools.
    • Distributed 125 million face masks to school districts.
    • Provided comprehensive guidelines to schools on how to protect and identify high-risk individuals, prevent the spread of COVID-19, and conduct safe in-person teaching.
    • Brought back the safe return of college athletics, including Big Ten and Pac-12 football.

    Rescued the American economy with nearly $3.4 trillion in relief, the largest financial aid package in history.

    • Secured an initial $8.3 billion Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Act, supporting the development of treatments and vaccines, and to procure critical medical supplies and equipment.
    • Signed the $100 billion Families First Coronavirus Relief Act, guaranteeing free coronavirus testing, emergency paid sick leave and family leave, Medicaid funding, and food assistance.
    • Signed the $2.3 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, providing unprecedented and immediate relief to American families, workers, and businesses.
    • Signed additional legislation providing nearly $900 billion in support for coronavirus emergency response and relief, including critically needed funds to continue the Paycheck Protection Program.
    • Signed the Paycheck Protection Program and Healthcare Enhancement Act, adding an additional $310 billion to replenish the program.
    • Delivered approximately 160 million relief payments to hardworking Americans.
    • Through the Paycheck Protection Program, approved over $525 billion in forgivable loans to more than 5.2 million small businesses, supporting more than 51 million American jobs.
    • The Treasury Department approved the establishment of the Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility to provide liquidity to the financial system.
    • The Treasury Department, working with the Federal Reserve, was able to leverage approximately $4 trillion in emergency lending facilities.
    • Signed an executive order extending expanded unemployment benefits.
    • Signed an executive order to temporarily suspend student loan payments, evictions, and collection of payroll taxes.
    • Small Business Administration expanded access to emergency economic assistance for small businesses, faith-based, and religious entities.
    • Protected jobs for American workers impacted by COVID-19 by temporarily suspending several job-related nonimmigrant visas, including H-1B’s, H-2B’s without a nexus to the food-supply chain, certain H-4’s, as well as L’s and certain J’s.

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    Great Healthcare for Americans

    Empowered American patients by greatly expanding healthcare choice, transparency, and affordability.

    • Eliminated the Obamacare individual mandate – a financial relief to low and middle-income households that made up nearly 80 percent of the families who paid the penalty for not wanting to purchase health insurance.
    • Increased choice for consumers by promoting competition in the individual health insurance market leading to lower premiums for three years in a row.
    • Under the Trump Administration, more than 90 percent of the counties have multiple options on the individual insurance market to choose from.
    • Offered Association Health Plans, which allow employers to pool together and offer more affordable, quality health coverage to their employees at up to 30 percent lower cost.
    • Increased availability of short-term, limited-duration health plans, which can cost up to 60 percent less than traditional plans, giving Americans more flexibility to choose plans that suit their needs.
    • Expanded Health Reimbursement Arrangements, allowing millions of Americans to be able to shop for a plan of their choice on the individual market, and then have their employer cover the cost.
    • Added 2,100 new Medicare Advantage plan options since 2017, a 76 percent increase.
    • Lowered Medicare Advantage premiums by 34 percent nationwide to the lowest level in 14 years. Medicare health plan premium savings for beneficiaries have totaled $nearly 1.5 billion since 2017.
    • Improved access to tax-free health savings accounts for individuals with chronic conditions.
    • Eliminated costly Obamacare taxes, including the health insurance tax, the medical device tax, and the “Cadillac tax.”
    • Worked with states to create more flexibility and relief from oppressive Obamacare regulations, including reinsurance waivers to help lower premiums.
    • Released legislative principles to end surprise medical billing.
    • Finalized requirements for unprecedented price transparency from hospitals and insurance companies so patients know what the cost is before they receive care.
    • Took action to require that hospitals make the prices they negotiate with insurers publicly available and easily accessible online.
    • Improved patients access to their health data by penalizing hospitals and causing clinicians to lose their incentive payments if they do not comply.
    • Expanded access to telehealth, especially in rural and underserved communities.
    • Increased Medicare payments to rural hospitals to stem a decade of rising closures and deliver enhanced access to care in rural areas.

    Issued unprecedented reforms that dramatically lowered the price of prescription drugs.

    • Lowered drug prices for the first time in 51 years.
    • Launched an initiative to stop global freeloading in the drug market.
    • Finalized a rule to allow the importation of prescription drugs from Canada.
    • Finalized the Most Favored Nation Rule to ensure that pharmaceutical companies offer the same discounts to the United States as they do to other nations, resulting in an estimated $85 billion in savings over seven years and $30 billion in out-of-pocket costs alone.
    • Proposed a rule requiring federally funded health centers to pass drug company discounts on insulin and Epi-Pens directly to patients.
    • Ended the gag clauses that prevented pharmacists from informing patients about the best prices for the medications they need.
    • Ended the costly kickbacks to middlemen and ensured that patients directly benefit from available discounts at the pharmacy counter, saving Americans up to 30 percent on brand name pharmaceuticals.
    • Enhanced Part D plans to provide many seniors with Medicare access to a broad set of insulins at a maximum $35 copay for a month’s supply of each type of insulin.
    • Reduced Medicare Part D prescription drug premiums, saving beneficiaries nearly $2 billion in premium costs since 2017.
    • Ended the Unapproved Drugs Initiative, which provided market exclusivity to generic drugs.

    Promoted research and innovation in healthcare to ensure that American patients have access to the best treatment in the world.

    • Signed first-ever executive order to affirm that it is the official policy of the United States Government to protect patients with pre-existing conditions.
    • Passed Right To Try to give terminally ill patients access to lifesaving cures.
    • Signed an executive order to fight kidney disease with more transplants and better treatment.
    • Signed into law a $1 billion increase in funding for critical Alzheimer’s research.
    • Accelerated medical breakthroughs in genetic treatments for Sickle Cell disease.
    • Finalized the interoperability rules that will give American patients access to their electronic health records on their phones.
    • Initiated an effort to provide $500 million over the next decade to improve pediatric cancer research.
    • Launched a campaign to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic in America in the next decade.
    • Started a program to provide the HIV prevention drug PrEP to uninsured patients for free.
    • Signed an executive order and awarded new development contracts to modernize the influenza vaccine.

    Protected our Nation’s seniors by safeguarding and strengthening Medicare.

    • Updated the way Medicare pays for innovative medical products to ensure beneficiaries have access to the latest innovation and treatment.
    • Reduced improper payments for Medicare an estimated $15 billion since 2016 protecting taxpayer dollars and leading to less fraud, waste, and abuse.
    • Took rapid action to combat antimicrobial resistance and secure access to life-saving new antibiotic drugs for American seniors, by removing several financial disincentives and setting policies to reduce inappropriate use.
    • Launched new online tools, including eMedicare, Blue Button 2.0, and Care Compare, to help seniors see what is covered, compare costs, streamline data, and compare tools available on Medicare.gov.
    • Provided new Medicare Advantage supplemental benefits, including modifications to help keep seniors safe in their homes, respite care for caregivers, non-opioid pain management alternatives like therapeutic massages, transportation, and more in-home support services and assistance.
    • Protected Medicare beneficiaries by removing Social Security numbers from all Medicare cards, a project completed ahead of schedule.
    • Unleashed unprecedented transparency in Medicare and Medicaid data to spur research and innovation.

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    Remaking the Federal Judiciary

    Appointed a historic number of Federal judges who will interpret the Constitution as written.

    • Nominated and confirmed over 230 Federal judges.
    • Confirmed 54 judges to the United States Courts of Appeals, making up nearly a third of the entire appellate bench.
    • Filled all Court of Appeals vacancies for the first time in four decades.
    • Flipped the Second, Third, and Eleventh Circuits from Democrat-appointed majorities to Republican-appointed majorities. And dramatically reshaped the long-liberal Ninth Circuit.

    Appointed three Supreme Court justices, expanding its conservative-appointed majority to 6-3.

    • Appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch to replace Justice Antonin Scalia.
    • Appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy.
    • Appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

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    Achieving a Secure Border

    Secured the Southern Border of the United States.

    • Built over 400 miles of the world’s most robust and advanced border wall.
    • Illegal crossings have plummeted over 87 percent where the wall has been constructed.
    • Deployed nearly 5,000 troops to the Southern border. In addition, Mexico deployed tens of thousands of their own soldiers and national guardsmen to secure their side of the US-Mexico border.
    • Ended the dangerous practice of Catch-and-Release, which means that instead of aliens getting released into the United States pending future hearings never to be seen again, they are detained pending removal, and then ultimately returned to their home countries.
    • Entered into three historic asylum cooperation agreements with Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala to stop asylum fraud and resettle illegal migrants in third-party nations pending their asylum applications.
    • Entered into a historic partnership with Mexico, referred to as the “Migrant Protection Protocols,” to safely return asylum-seekers to Mexico while awaiting hearings in the United States.

    Fully enforced the immigration laws of the United States.

    • Signed an executive order to strip discretionary Federal grant funding from deadly sanctuary cities.
    • Fully enforced and implemented statutorily authorized “expedited removal” of illegal aliens.
    • The Department of Justice prosecuted a record-breaking number of immigration-related crimes.
    • Used Section 243(d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) to reduce the number of aliens coming from countries whose governments refuse to accept their nationals who were ordered removed from the United States.

    Ended asylum fraud, shut down human smuggling traffickers, and solved the humanitarian crisis across the Western Hemisphere.

    • Suspended, via regulation, asylum for aliens who had skipped previous countries where they were eligible for asylum but opted to “forum shop” and continue to the United States.
    • Safeguarded migrant families, and protected migrant safety, by promulgating new regulations under the Flores Settlement Agreement.
    • Proposed regulations to end the practice of giving free work permits to illegal aliens lodging meritless asylum claims.
    • Issued “internal relocation” guidance.
    • Cross-trained United States Border Patrol agents to conduct credible fear screenings alongside USCIS (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services) adjudication personnel to reduce massive backlogs.
    • Streamlined and expedited the asylum hearing process through both the Prompt Asylum Claim Review (PACR) and the Humanitarian Asylum Review Process (HARP).
    • Launched the Family Fraud Initiative to identify hundreds of individuals who were fraudulently presenting themselves as family units at the border, oftentimes with trafficking children, in order to ensure child welfare.
    • Improved screening in countries with high overstay rates and reduced visa overstay rates in many of these countries.
    • Removed bureaucratic constraints on United States consular officers that reduced their ability to appropriately vet visa applicants.
    • Worked with Mexico and other regional partners to dismantle the human smuggling networks in our hemisphere that profit from human misery and fuel the border crisis by exploiting vulnerable populations.

    Secured our Nation’s immigration system against criminals and terrorists.

    • Instituted national security travel bans to keep out terrorists, jihadists, and violent extremists, and implemented a uniform security and information-sharing baseline all nations must meet in order for their nationals to be able to travel to, and emigrate to, the United States.
    • Suspended refugee resettlement from the world’s most dangerous and terror-afflicted regions.
    • Rebalanced refugee assistance to focus on overseas resettlement and burden-sharing.
    • 85 percent reduction in refugee resettlement.
    • Overhauled badly-broken refugee security screening process.
    • Required the Department of State to consult with states and localities as part of the Federal government’s refugee resettlement process.
    • Issued strict sanctions on countries that have failed to take back their own nationals.
    • Established the National Vetting Center, which is the most advanced and comprehensive visa screening system anywhere in the world.

    Protected American workers and taxpayers.

    • Issued a comprehensive “public charge” regulation to ensure newcomers to the United States are financially self-sufficient and not reliant on welfare.
    • Created an enforcement mechanism for sponsor repayment and deeming, to ensure that people who are presenting themselves as sponsors are actually responsible for sponsor obligations.
    • Issued regulations to combat the horrendous practice of “birth tourism.”
    • Issued a rule with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to make illegal aliens ineligible for public housing.
    • Issued directives requiring Federal agencies to hire United States workers first and prioritizing the hiring of United States workers wherever possible.
    • Suspended the entry of low-wage workers that threaten American jobs.
    • Finalized new H-1B regulations to permanently end the displacement of United States workers and modify the administrative tools that are required for H-1B visa issuance.
    • Defended United States sovereignty by withdrawing from the United Nations’ Global Compact on Migration.
    • Suspended Employment Authorization Documents for aliens who arrive illegally between ports of entry and are ordered removed from the United States.
    • Restored integrity to the use of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) by strictly adhering to the statutory conditions required for TPS.

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    Restoring American Leadership Abroad

    Restored America’s leadership in the world and successfully negotiated to ensure our allies pay their fair share for our military protection.

    • Secured a $400 billion increase in defense spending from NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) allies by 2024, and the number of members meeting their minimum obligations more than doubled.
    • Credited by Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg for strengthening NATO.
    • Worked to reform and streamline the United Nations (UN) and reduced spending by $1.3 billion.
    • Allies, including Japan and the Republic of Korea, committed to increase burden-sharing.
    • Protected our Second Amendment rights by announcing the United States will never ratify the UN Arms Trade Treaty.
    • Returned 56 hostages and detainees from more than 24 countries.
    • Worked to advance a free and open Indo-Pacific region, promoting new investments and expanding American partnerships.

    Advanced peace through strength.

    • Withdrew from the horrible, one-sided Iran Nuclear Deal and imposed crippling sanctions on the Iranian Regime.
    • Conducted vigorous enforcement on all sanctions to bring Iran’s oil exports to zero and deny the regime its principal source of revenue.
    • First president to meet with a leader of North Korea and the first sitting president to cross the demilitarized zone into North Korea.
    • Maintained a maximum pressure campaign and enforced tough sanctions on North Korea while negotiating de-nuclearization, the release of American hostages, and the return of the remains of American heroes.
    • Brokered economic normalization between Serbia and Kosovo, bolstering peace in the Balkans.
    • Signed the Honk Kong Autonomy Act and ended the United States’ preferential treatment with Hong Kong to hold China accountable for its infringement on the autonomy of Hong Kong.
    • Led allied efforts to defeat the Chinese Communist Party’s efforts to control the international telecommunications system.

    Renewed our cherished friendship and alliance with Israel and took historic action to promote peace in the Middle East.

    • Recognized Jerusalem as the true capital of Israel and quickly moved the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
    • Acknowledged Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights and declared that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are not inconsistent with international law.
    • Removed the United States from the United Nations Human Rights Council due to the group’s blatant anti-Israel bias.
    • Brokered historic peace agreements between Israel and Arab-Muslim countries, including the United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom of Bahrain, and Sudan.
    • In addition, the United States negotiated a normalization agreement between Israel and Morocco, and recognized Moroccan Sovereignty over the entire Western Sahara, a position with long standing bipartisan support.
    • Brokered a deal for Kosovo to normalize ties and establish diplomatic relations with Israel.
    • Announced that Serbia would move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
    • First American president to address an assembly of leaders from more than 50 Muslim nations, and reach an agreement to fight terrorism in all its forms.
    • Established the Etidal Center to combat terrorism in the Middle East in conjunction with the Saudi Arabian Government.
    • Announced the Vision for Peace Political Plan – a two-state solution that resolves the risks of Palestinian statehood to Israel’s security, and the first time Israel has agreed to a map and a Palestinian state.
    • Released an economic plan to empower the Palestinian people and enhance Palestinian governance through historic private investment.

    Stood up against Communism and Socialism in the Western Hemisphere.

    • Reversed the previous Administration’s disastrous Cuba policy, canceling the sellout deal with the Communist Castro dictatorship.
    • Pledged not to lift sanctions until all political prisoners are freed; freedoms of assembly and expression are respected; all political parties are legalized; and free elections are scheduled.
    • Enacted a new policy aimed at preventing American dollars from funding the Cuban regime, including stricter travel restrictions and restrictions on the importation of Cuban alcohol and tobacco.
    • Implemented a cap on remittances to Cuba.
    • Enabled Americans to file lawsuits against persons and entities that traffic in property confiscated by the Cuban regime.
    • First world leader to recognize Juan Guaido as the Interim President of Venezuela and led a diplomatic coalition against the Socialist Dictator of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro.
    • Blocked all property of the Venezuelan Government in the jurisdiction of the United States.
    • Cut off the financial resources of the Maduro regime and sanctioned key sectors of the Venezuelan economy exploited by the regime.
    • Brought criminal charges against Nicolas Maduro for his narco-terrorism.
    • Imposed stiff sanctions on the Ortega regime in Nicaragua.
    • Joined together with Mexico and Canada in a successful bid to host the 2026 FIFA World Cup, with 60 matches to be held in the United States.
    • Won bid to host the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, California.

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    Colossal Rebuilding of the Military

    Rebuilt the military and created the Sixth Branch, the United States Space Force.

    • Completely rebuilt the United States military with over $2.2 trillion in defense spending, including $738 billion for 2020.
    • Secured three pay raises for our service members and their families, including the largest raise in a decade.
    • Established the Space Force, the first new branch of the United States Armed Forces since 1947.
    • Modernized and recapitalized our nuclear forces and missile defenses to ensure they continue to serve as a strong deterrent.
    • Upgraded our cyber defenses by elevating the Cyber Command into a major warfighting command and by reducing burdensome procedural restrictions on cyber operations.
    • Vetoed the FY21 National Defense Authorization Act, which failed to protect our national security, disrespected the history of our veterans and military, and contradicted our efforts to put America first.

    Defeated terrorists, held leaders accountable for malign actions, and bolstered peace around the world.

    • Defeated 100 percent of ISIS’ territorial caliphate in Iraq and Syria.
    • Freed nearly 8 million civilians from ISIS’ bloodthirsty control, and liberated Mosul, Raqqa, and the final ISIS foothold of Baghuz.
    • Killed the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and eliminated the world’s top terrorist, Qasem Soleimani.
    • Created the Terrorist Financing Targeting Center (TFTC) in partnership between the United States and its Gulf partners to combat extremist ideology and threats, and target terrorist financial networks, including over 60 terrorist individuals and entities spanning the globe.
    • Twice took decisive military action against the Assad regime in Syria for the barbaric use of chemical weapons against innocent civilians, including a successful 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles strike.
    • Authorized sanctions against bad actors tied to Syria’s chemical weapons program.
    • Negotiated an extended ceasefire with Turkey in northeast Syria.

    Addressed gaps in American’s defense-industrial base, providing much-needed updates to improve the safety of our country.

    • Protected America’s defense-industrial base, directing the first whole-of-government assessment of our manufacturing and defense supply chains since the 1950s.
    • Took decisive steps to secure our information and communications technology and services supply chain, including unsafe mobile applications.
    • Completed several multi-year nuclear material removal campaigns, securing over 1,000 kilograms of highly enriched uranium and significantly reducing global nuclear threats.
    • Signed an executive order directing Federal agencies to work together to diminish the capability of foreign adversaries to target our critical electric infrastructure.
    • Established a whole-of-government strategy addressing the threat posed by China’s malign efforts targeting the United States taxpayer-funded research and development ecosystem.
    • Advanced missile defense capabilities and regional alliances.
    • Bolstered the ability of our allies and partners to defend themselves through the sale of aid and military equipment.
    • Signed the largest arms deal ever, worth nearly $110 billion, with Saudi Arabia.

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    Serving and Protecting Our Veterans

    Reformed the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to improve care, choice, and employee accountability.

    • Signed and implemented the VA Mission Act, which made permanent Veterans CHOICE, revolutionized the VA community care system, and delivered quality care closer to home for Veterans.
    • The number of Veterans who say they trust VA services has increased 19 percent to a record 91 percent, an all-time high.
    • Offered same-day emergency mental health care at every VA medical facility, and secured $9.5 billion for mental health services in 2020.
    • Signed the VA Choice and Quality Employment Act of 2017, which ensured that veterans could continue to see the doctor of their choice and wouldn’t have to wait for care.
    • During the Trump Administration, millions of veterans have been able to choose a private doctor in their communities.
    • Expanded Veterans’ ability to access telehealth services, including through the “Anywhere to Anywhere” VA healthcare initiative leading to a 1000 percent increase in usage during COVID-19.
    • Signed the Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act and removed thousands of VA workers who failed to give our Vets the care they have so richly deserve.
    • Signed the Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act of 2017 and improved the efficiency of the VA, setting record numbers of appeals decisions.
    • Modernized medical records to begin a seamless transition from the Department of Defense to the VA.
    • Launched a new tool that provides Veterans with online access to average wait times and quality-of-care data.
    • The promised White House VA Hotline has fielded hundreds of thousands of calls.
    • Formed the PREVENTS Task Force to fight the tragedy of Veteran suicide.

    Decreased veteran homelessness, improved education benefits, and achieved record-low veteran unemployment.

    • Signed and implemented the Forever GI Bill, allowing Veterans to use their benefits to get an education at any point in their lives.
    • Eliminated every penny of Federal student loan debt owed by American veterans who are completely and permanently disabled.
    • Compared to 2009, 49 percent fewer veterans experienced homelessness nationwide during 2019.
    • Signed and implemented the HAVEN Act to ensure that Veterans who’ve declared bankruptcy don’t lose their disability payments.
    • Helped hundreds of thousands of military service members make the transition from the military to the civilian workforce, and developed programs to support the employment of military spouses.
    • Placed nearly 40,000 homeless veterans into employment through the Homeless Veterans Reintegration Program.
    • Placed over 600,000 veterans into employment through American Job Center services.
    • Enrolled over 500,000 transitioning service members in over 20,000 Department of Labor employment workshops.
    • Signed an executive order to help Veterans transition seamlessly into the United States Merchant Marine.

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    Making Communities Safer

    Signed into law landmark criminal justice reform.

    • Signed the bipartisan First Step Act into law, the first landmark criminal justice reform legislation ever passed to reduce recidivism and help former inmates successfully rejoin society.
    • Promoted second chance hiring to give former inmates the opportunity to live crime-free lives and find meaningful employment.
    • Launched a new “Ready to Work” initiative to help connect employers directly with former prisoners.
    • Awarded $2.2 million to states to expand the use of fidelity bonds, which underwrite companies that hire former prisoners.
    • Reversed decades-old ban on Second Chance Pell programs to provide postsecondary education to individuals who are incarcerated expand their skills and better succeed in the workforce upon re-entry.
    • Awarded over $333 million in Department of Labor grants to nonprofits and local and state governments for reentry projects focused on career development services for justice-involved youth and adults who were formerly incarcerated.

    Unprecedented support for law-enforcement.

    • In 2019, violent crime fell for the third consecutive year.
    • Since 2016, the violent crime rate has declined over 5 percent and the murder rate has decreased by over 7 percent.
    • Launched Operation Legend to combat a surge of violent crime in cities, resulting in more than 5,500 arrests.
    • Deployed the National Guard and Federal law enforcement to Kenosha to stop violence and restore public safety.
    • Provided $1 million to Kenosha law enforcement, nearly $4 million to support small businesses in Kenosha, and provided over $41 million to support law enforcement to the state of Wisconsin.
    • Deployed Federal agents to save the courthouse in Portland from rioters.
    • Signed an executive order outlining ten-year prison sentences for destroying Federal property and monuments.
    • Directed the Department of Justice (DOJ) to investigate and prosecute Federal offenses related to ongoing violence.
    • DOJ provided nearly $400 million for new law enforcement hiring.
    • Endorsed by the 355,000 members of the Fraternal Order of Police.
    • Revitalized Project Safe Neighborhoods, which brings together Federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement officials to develop solutions to violent crime.
    • Improved first-responder communications by deploying the FirstNet National Public Safety Broadband Network, which serves more than 12,000 public safety agencies across the Nation.
    • Established a new commission to evaluate best practices for recruiting, training, and supporting law enforcement officers.
    • Signed the Safe Policing for Safe Communities executive order to incentive local police department reforms in line with law and order.
    • Made hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of surplus military equipment available to local law enforcement.
    • Signed an executive order to help prevent violence against law enforcement officers.
    • Secured permanent funding for the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund for first responders.

    Implemented strong measures to stem hate crimes, gun violence, and human trafficking.

    • Signed an executive order making clear that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 applies to discrimination rooted in anti-Semitism.
    • Launched a centralized website to educate the public about hate crimes and encourage reporting.
    • Signed the Fix NICS Act to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals.
    • Signed the STOP School Violence Act and created a Commission on School Safety to examine ways to make our schools safer.
    • Launched the Foster Youth to Independence initiative to prevent and end homelessness among young adults under the age of 25 who are in, or have recently left, the foster care system.
    • Signed the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, which tightened criteria for whether countries are meeting standards for eliminating trafficking.
    • Established a task force to help combat the tragedy of missing or murdered Native American women and girls.
    • Prioritized fighting for the voiceless and ending the scourge of human trafficking across the Nation, through a whole of government back by legislation, executive action, and engagement with key industries.
    • Created the first-ever White House position focused solely on combating human trafficking.

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    Cherishing Life and Religious Liberty

    Steadfastly supported the sanctity of every human life and worked tirelessly to prevent government funding of abortion.

    • Reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy, ensuring that taxpayer money is not used to fund abortion globally.
    • Issued a rule preventing Title X taxpayer funding from subsiding the abortion industry.
    • Supported legislation to end late-term abortions.
    • Cut all funding to the United Nations population fund due to the fund’s support for coercive abortion and forced sterilization.
    • Signed legislation overturning the previous administration’s regulation that prohibited states from defunding abortion facilities as part of their family planning programs.
    • Fully enforced the requirement that taxpayer dollars do not support abortion coverage in Obamacare exchange plans.
    • Stopped the Federal funding of fetal tissue research.
    • Worked to protect healthcare entities and individuals’ conscience rights – ensuring that no medical professional is forced to participate in an abortion in violation of their beliefs.
    • Issued an executive order reinforcing requirement that all hospitals in the United States provide medical treatment or an emergency transfer for infants who are in need of emergency medical care—regardless of prematurity or disability.
    • Led a coalition of countries to sign the Geneva Consensus Declaration, declaring that there is no international right to abortion and committing to protecting women’s health.
    • First president in history to attend the March for Life.

    Stood up for religious liberty in the United States and around the world.

    • Protected the conscience rights of doctors, nurses, teachers, and groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor.
    • First president to convene a meeting at the United Nations to end religious persecution.
    • Established the White House Faith and Opportunity Initiative.
    • Stopped the Johnson Amendment from interfering with pastors’ right to speak their minds.
    • Reversed the previous administration’s policy that prevented the government from providing disaster relief to religious organizations.
    • Protected faith-based adoption and foster care providers, ensuring they can continue to serve their communities while following the teachings of their faith.
    • Reduced burdensome barriers to ensure Native Americans are free to keep spiritually and culturally significant eagle feathers found on their tribal lands.
    • Took action to ensure Federal employees can take paid time off work to observe religious holy days.
    • Signed legislation to assist religious and ethnic groups targeted by ISIS for mass murder and genocide in Syria and Iraq.
    • Directed American assistance toward persecuted communities, including through faith-based programs.
    • Launched the International Religious Freedom Alliance – the first-ever alliance devoted to confronting religious persecution around the world.
    • Appointed a Special Envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism.
    • Imposed restrictions on certain Chinese officials, internal security units, and companies for their complicity in the persecution of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang.
    • Issued an executive order to protect and promote religious freedom around the world.

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    Safeguarding the Environment

    Took strong action to protect the environment and ensure clean air and clean water.

    • Took action to protect vulnerable Americans from being exposed to lead and copper in drinking water and finalized a rule protecting children from lead-based paint hazards.
    • Invested over $38 billion in clean water infrastructure.
    • In 2019, America achieved the largest decline in carbon emissions of any country on earth. Since withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord, the United States has reduced carbon emissions more than any nation.
    • American levels of particulate matter – one of the main measures of air pollution – are approximately five times lower than the global average.
    • Between 2017 and 2019, the air became 7 percent cleaner – indicated by a steep drop in the combined emissions of criteria pollutants.
    • Led the world in greenhouse gas emissions reductions, having cut energy-related CO2 emissions by 12 percent from 2005 to 2018 while the rest of the world increased emissions by 24 percent.
    • In FY 2019 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cleaned up more major pollution sites than any year in nearly two decades.
    • The EPA delivered $300 million in Brownfields grants directly to communities most in need including investment in 118 Opportunity Zones.
    • Placed a moratorium on offshore drilling off the coasts of Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida.
    • Restored public access to Federal land at Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
    • Recovered more endangered or threatened species than any other administration in its first term.

    Secured agreements and signed legislation to protect the environment and preserve our Nation’s abundant national resources.

    • The USMCA guarantees the strongest environmental protections of any trade agreement in history.
    • Signed the Save Our Seas Act to protect our environment from foreign nations that litter our oceans with debris and developed the first-ever Federal strategic plan to address marine litter.
    • Signed the Great American Outdoors Act, securing the single largest investment in America’s National Parks and public lands in history.
    • Signed the largest public lands legislation in a decade, designating 1.3 million new acres of wilderness.
    • Signed a historic executive order promoting much more active forest management to prevent catastrophic wildfires.
    • Opened and expanded access to over 4 million acres of public lands for hunting and fishing.
    • Joined the One Trillion Trees Initiative to plant, conserve, and restore trees in America and around the world.
    • Delivered infrastructure upgrades and investments for numerous projects, including over half a billion dollars to fix the Herbert Hoover Dike and expanding funding for Everglades restoration by 55 percent.

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    Expanding Educational Opportunity

    Fought tirelessly to give every American access to the best possible education.

    • The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expanded School Choice, allowing parents to use up to $10,000 from a 529 education savings account to cover K-12 tuition costs at the public, private, or religious school of their choice.
    • Launched a new pro-American lesson plan for students called the 1776 Commission to promote patriotic education.
    • Prohibited the teaching of Critical Race Theory in the Federal government.
    • Established the National Garden of American Heroes, a vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans to ever live.
    • Called on Congress to pass the Education Freedom Scholarships and Opportunity Act to expand education options for 1 million students of all economic backgrounds.
    • Signed legislation reauthorizing the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program.
    • Issued updated guidance making clear that the First Amendment right to Free Exercise of Religion does not end at the door to a public school.

    Took action to promote technical education.

    • Signed into law the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act, which provides over 13 million students with high-quality vocational education and extends more than $1.3 billion each year to states for critical workforce development programs.
    • Signed the INSPIRE Act which encouraged NASA to have more women and girls participate in STEM and seek careers in aerospace.
    • Allocated no less than $200 million each year in grants to prioritize women and minorities in STEM and computer science education.

    Drastically reformed and modernized our educational system to restore local control and promote fairness.

    • Restored state and local control of education by faithfully implementing the Every Student Succeeds Act.
    • Signed an executive order that ensures public universities protect First Amendment rights or they will risk losing funding, addresses student debt by requiring colleges to share a portion of the financial risk, and increases transparency by requiring universities to disclose information about the value of potential educational programs.
    • Issued a rule strengthening Title IX protections for survivors of sexual misconduct in schools, and that – for the first time in history – codifies that sexual harassment is prohibited under Title IX.
    • Negotiated historic bipartisan agreement on new higher education rules to increase innovation and lower costs by reforming accreditation, state authorization, distance education, competency-based education, credit hour, religious liberty, and TEACH Grants.

    Prioritized support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

    • Moved the Federal Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Initiative back to the White House.
    • Signed into law the FUTURE Act, making permanent $255 million in annual funding for HBCUs and increasing funding for the Federal Pell Grant program.
    • Signed legislation that included more than $100 million for scholarships, research, and centers of excellence at HBCU land-grant institutions.
    • Fully forgave $322 million in disaster loans to four HBCUs in 2018, so they could fully focus on educating their students.
    • Enabled faith-based HBCUs to enjoy equal access to Federal support.

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    Combatting the Opioid Crisis

    Brought unprecedented attention and support to combat the opioid crisis.

    • Declared the opioid crisis a nationwide public health emergency.
    • Secured a record $6 billion in new funding to combat the opioid epidemic.
    • Signed the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act, the largest-ever legislative effort to address a drug crisis in our Nation’s history.
    • Launched the Initiative to Stop Opioid Abuse and Reduce Drug Supply and Demand in order to confront the many causes fueling the drug crisis.
    • The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded a record $9 billion in grants to expand access to prevention, treatment, and recovery services to States and local communities.
    • Passed the CRIB Act, allowing Medicaid to help mothers and their babies who are born physically dependent on opioids by covering their care in residential pediatric recovery facilities.
    • Distributed $1 billion in grants for addiction prevention and treatment.
    • Announced a Safer Prescriber Plan that seeks to decrease the amount of opioids prescriptions filled in America by one third within three years.
    • Reduced the total amount of opioids prescriptions filled in America.
    • Expanded access to medication-assisted treatment and life-saving Naloxone.
    • Launched FindTreatment.gov, a tool to find help for substance abuse.
    • Drug overdose deaths fell nationwide in 2018 for the first time in nearly three decades.
    • Launched the Drug-Impaired Driving Initiative to work with local law enforcement and the driving public at large to increase awareness.
    • Launched a nationwide public ad campaign on youth opioid abuse that reached 58 percent of young adults in America.
    • Since 2016, there has been a nearly 40 percent increase in the number of Americans receiving medication-assisted treatment.
    • Approved 29 state Medicaid demonstrations to improve access to opioid use disorder treatment, including new flexibility to cover inpatient and residential treatment.
    • Approved nearly $200 million in grants to address the opioid crisis in severely affected communities and to reintegrate workers in recovery back into the workforce.

    Took action to seize illegal drugs and punish those preying on innocent Americans.

    • In FY 2019, ICE HSI seized 12,466 pounds of opioids including 3,688 pounds of fentanyl, an increase of 35 percent from FY 2018.
    • Seized tens of thousands of kilograms of heroin and thousands of kilograms of fentanyl since 2017.
    • The Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecuted more fentanyl traffickers than ever before, dismantled 3,000 drug trafficking organizations, and seized enough fentanyl to kill 105,000 Americans.
    • DOJ charged more than 65 defendants collectively responsible for distributing over 45 million opioid pills.
    • Brought kingpin designations against traffickers operating in China, India, Mexico, and more who have played a role in the epidemic in America.
    • Indicted major Chinese drug traffickers for distributing fentanyl in the U.S for the first time ever, and convinced China to enact strict regulations to control the production and sale of fentanyl.

    If I have time, I’d like to go through this list to touch on the highlights of what the Trump Administration got right or wrong, what he accomplished that a Democratic Administration wou8ldn’t have, and what he accomplished that another Republican presidential admistration would or wouldn’t have.

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    Posted in Border Control, Budget, Communism, Crime, Economics, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Military, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Supreme Court, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 2 Comments »

    Thomas Sowell on White Liberals

    Tuesday, December 29th, 2020

    Thomas Sowell (and others) on the identity fetish of white liberals.

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    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Social Justice Warriors, video | 4 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for December 11, 2020

    Friday, December 11th, 2020

    Greetings, and welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! Democrats dance to China’s tune, the media suddenly discover that Hunter Biden is covered in a thick coat of industrial-grade sleaze, California continues to destroy its economy, and Elon Musk moves to Texas.

  • Kurt Schlichter: The Democrats are literally in bed with the Chinese.

    The most shocking thing about the recent news story that flatulent Russiagate hoaxer and American-nuking enthusiast Rep. Eric Swalwell was caught intertwined with a Chinese honey pot is…well, actually nothing about it is shocking. This is totally on-brand for the Dems and especially this particular clown. It’s not clear how far he got with this Democrat-diddling doxie, but the best case for Swalwell is that he was a fool who couldn’t see how unlikely it was for a DC 8 (and real world 5) to want anything to do with him other than as a mark. The worst case is that he eagerly betrayed his country for a roll in the rice with this Beijing bimbo.

    Either way, he’s a disgrace.

    But this singularly unaccomplished punch-line, this aspiring Beto without the hype or substance (Swalwell’s status as a furry is unknown, but I have my suspicions), is all too representative of his garbage party. The fact is that Red China is delighted by the opportunity to get back to business as usual with a Democrat administration – and in the case of a potential President Biden*, that’s literally business as usual. The garbage media didn’t think his crack-huffing, loser spawn being owned by Chinese intel –you think they don’t have tape of him living out his X-rated video of David Bowie’s 80s hit?– was significant enough to tell us about. But then, like the rest of the establishment, the media’s corporate owners are all wrapped up with the Chi-Coms. When’s the last time you saw Hollywood take a stand against the Chinese commies? That would be about the last time you saw Richard Gere on the big screen, since his career died when he did a movie pointing out their oppression of Tibet. Go look on Netflix or wherever – there’s plenty of stupid woke trash about how America sucks, but nobody talks about the big Red Panda in the room. The corporations know who their real boss is.

    And, as Tucker pointed out in a great monologue, the Establishment is all-in on catering to the commies. It is bought and paid for, owned and happy, and dedicated to selling you out. And a President Biden*, in the event he is inaugurated, will happily continue the fire sale of American physical, intellectual, and moral assets to the reds.

  • “If Voters Had Known About 8 Stories Media Ignored, Trump Would Have Won.” Well, that’s why they ignored them…
  • Speaking of which, our media elites have suddenly discovered that the Hunter Biden corruption story was true. Of course they knew it was true all along, they just suppressed it until they could drag Joe Biden’s ambulatory corpse over the finish line. (And if you somehow missed the Hunter Biden story, here’s the archive.)
  • More on the same theme.
  • Illegal alien charged in Houston human trafficking case.
  • Lockdowns don’t work:

  • More on that subject:

  • Judge rules Los Angeles County acted arbitrarily with an outdoor dining ban. “By failing to weigh the benefits of an outdoor dining restriction against its costs, the county acted arbitrarily and its decision lacks a rational relationship to a legitimate end,” Superior Court Judge James Chalfant wrote in a tentative ruling.”
  • San Francisco residents really hate that golden goose:

    When Chirag Bhakta saw a headline recently that said tech workers were fleeing San Francisco, he had a quick reaction: “Good riddance.”

    Bhakta, a San Francisco native and tenant organizer for affordable housing nonprofit Mission Housing, is well-versed in the seismic impact that the growth of the tech industry has had on the city. As software companies expanded over the past decade, they drew thousands of well-off newcomers who bid up rents and remade the city’s economy and culture.

    He said the sudden departure of many tech workers and executives — often to less expensive, rural areas where they can telecommute during the coronavirus pandemic — reveals that their relationship with San Francisco was “transactional” all along.

    “They used their capital to radically shift the makeup of poor, working-class communities,” Bhakta said. “We’re left with ‘for sale’ signs and price points that are still out of reach for most people.”

    Many urban centers have seen residents move out in large numbers since the start of stay-at-home orders in March, but the shift has been especially dramatic for San Francisco, a city that was already experiencing rapid change because of the tech industry.

    Software engineers, CEOs and venture capitalists have chosen to jump from the Bay Area to places such as Denver, Miami and Austin, Texas, citing housing costs, California’s relatively high income tax and the Bay Area’s general resistance to rapid growth and change.

  • Tesla CEO Elon Musk has moved to Texas. “‘It’s worth noting that Tesla is the last car company still manufacturing cars in California,’ Musk said. ‘There used to be over a dozen car plants in California, and California used to be the center of aerospace manufacturing. My companies are the last two left.'”
  • “Immediately After Moving To Texas, Elon Musk Announces Tesla AR-15.

    The new firearm will look similar to a standard AR-15 but will in fact be a battery-powered railgun capable of firing 3 million rounds per minute. It will also feature a fingerprint sensor, Bluetooth capability, heat-seeking ammunition, and a chainsaw bayonet, to name a few.

    At 3 million rounds a minute, trips to the shooting range would get very expensive…

  • Black Republican congressmen elect Burgess Owens of Utah and Byron Donalds of Florida look to oppose socialism. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • 21st century money laundering:

    Virtually unheard of a decade ago, these Chinese players are moving vast sums quickly and quietly, authorities said. Their expertise: routing cartel drug profits from the United States to China then on to Mexico with a few clicks of a burner phone and Chinese banking apps – and without the bulky cash ever crossing borders. The launderers pay small Chinese-owned businesses in the United States and Mexico to help them move the funds. Most contact with the banking system happens in China, a veritable black hole for U.S. and Mexican authorities.

    (Hat tip: Director Blue.)

  • Billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson tries yet again to get Texas to legalize casino gambling. “Adelson’s noteworthy lobbyist crew includes current and former high-ranking government officials, including former chiefs of staff to disgraced Speakers of the Texas House Joe Straus and Dennis Bonnen.” Of course.
    

  • OhNoNotThisShitAgain.jpg:

  • Iran’s Quds Force is sending weapons and troops to Venezuela.
  • Frederick Forsyth says that the reason the Brexit deal was scuttled at the last minute is that the EU was doing France’s bidding.

    After years covering France in Paris for the Reuters agency, and bilingual in French, I have a pretty good idea how the French system works. Basically, whoever appears to rule on the basis of elections, it is the graduates of the ENA who are really in charge. So what is it, this ultra-college?

    Founded under De Gaulle, it is a college designed to produce the true ruling class of the country, the Ecole Nationale d’Administration or ENA and its graduates are the ENArques. More than all our public schools and Oxbridge put together, the ENA is accessible only by the brightest and the best to start with.

    After three years there the graduates are the elite of the elite. They move seamlessly from industry to commerce to banking to civil service to politics, and always in the top slots. They do not oppose each other. President Macron and Michel Barnier are both ENArques.

    As in all politics, election-winning is the key and in elections there are powerful voting blocs which must not be affronted. In France the biggest is the agricultural vote. Hence the EU’s incredibly expensive and burdensome Common Agricultural Policy, a money tree paid for by others, to subsidise France’s mediaeval and uncompetitive farming sector and its attendant sub-professions. Offend them and you lose the election.

    Not far behind comes the fishing industry. Emmanuel Macron is facing an election. That is why last week at the very threshold of an agreement with the UK, Michel Barnier got new orders from Paris. No, you have conceded too much to the Anglo Saxons – we want all the fish and free access to all the waters.

    It is easy to blame Barnier but he had his orders. That is why a German, Dane or Dutchman would have been better as the EU team leader. Germany, Denmark and Holland fish those waters but their politicians do not lose elections because of their fishing industries and they are not run by an ENA.

    In other news, Frederick Forsyth is still alive. (Hat tip: @davidjacksmith.)

  • Feds sue to break up Facebook.
  • Speaking of which: “Facebook’s Fact-Checker ‘Lead Stories’ is Staffed by Exclusively Democrat Party Donors, CNN Staffers, And ‘Defeat Trump’ Activists.”
  • Grant Baker at American Thinker has an interesting (and infuriating) three-part series on Democratic Party megadoner and accused serial killer Ed Buck, the man whose fetish seems to be overdosing gay black teenagers with drugs. Part 2 is here, and Part 3 talks about some of his rich and powerful political supporters:

    What could have bought Ed Buck so many layers of protection?

    West Hollywood politics has a glimmering rainbow surface, but the authentic underlying powers are real estate interests. The City Council controls the fate of hundreds of millions of dollars worth of development projects, a fact reflected in their campaign contributions. “Developers don’t drop tens of thousands of dollars in West Hollywood because they like the City’s position on gay marriage, says former West Hollywood Mayor Steve Martin.

    With a huge war chest supporting them, a small handful of politicians reduced the government of West Hollywood to a game of musical chairs. John Duran, John D`Amico, John Heilman, Jeffrey Prang, and Abbe Land would bounce back and forth between the Mayor’s Office and City Council for decades, winning eighteen out of the last twenty-one mayoral elections between them.

    Ed Buck played a variety of supporting roles in the political machinery, buoying the chosen few.

    D’Amico’s political career was launched on the back of Buck’s support, winning a seat on City Council after marching through West Hollywood with Buck promoting his “Fur Free WeHo” campaign. Buck’s donations and connections to other major donors, including billionaire Gary Michelson, brought tens of thousands of dollars to Buck’s friends on City Council through multiple entities sharing the name ANIMAL PAC.

    Buck’s money also bought him a position on the Steering Committee of the Stonewall Democratic Club, the kingmaker of West Hollywood politics. Buck used his position on the Steering Committee to influence Stonewall’s secretive endorsement process, one “designed to protect incumbents and well-financed, well-connected candidates,” says a former Steering Committee member. Stonewall rank and file must have wondered why the LGBTQ group was promoting candidates for County Tax Assessor and Board of Equalization. Buck was so useful, Abbe Land would open City Council meetings by calling him to recite the pledge of allegiance.

    Officially retired since his early thirties, Buck would not have had the money to sustain his prolific spending habits relating to drugs, escorts, and politics. His biggest payday was in the 1980s when he flipped his friend’s business, Gopher Courier, to profit just over a million dollars, after which he lost money investing into pay-phones and a restaurant.

    After moving to West Hollywood, Buck was suspiciously cash-rich and asset poor, driving a wreck of a car and living in a rent-controlled apartment. Journalists paint Buck as a wealthy social climber, but his finances and lifestyle suggest he was a dirty political operative.

    Data from California’s political contribution records is highly truncated, but campaign finance rules create patterns that highlight alliances.

    One can skirt contribution limits and obscure contribution origins by breaking up large donations into smaller payments and passing them through family members and political allies, so I looked for donors that matched Buck’s donations.

    He donated varying amounts to plenty of politicians and causes, but there were consistent primary beneficiaries such as Jeffrey Prang, John Duran, Scott Svonkin, Honesty PAC, and of course, his ANIMAL PACs. The highly incestuous top donors who also supported Prang, Duran, Svonkin, and Buck’s PACs were real estate interests, chief among them being Excel Property Management Services managed by CEO Arman Gabay. Arman Gabay and his company funded Jeffrey Prang’s successful 2014 Los Angeles County Assessor bid with the help of Ed Buck, Ed Buck’s future attorney Seymour Amster, ANIMAL PAC, John Duran, West Hollywood activists, and various real estate interests. The same donors also funded periphery candidates who endorsed Prang and Svonkin.

    As County Assessor, Jeffrey Prang controls property taxes on $1.7 trillion worth of property, explaining why his donors are real estate interests. The Tax Assessor is a notoriously corrupt office, both in Los Angeles and across the country. Jeffrey Prang’s predecessor was arrested by the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office on bribery charges after selling tax breaks. Eighteen Tax Assessors in New York City were arrested on bribery charges after real estate developer Donald Trump realized he was paying more in taxes than his competitors.

    This is where Scott Svonkin’s role comes in. Funded by Ed Buck, Buck’s attorney Seymour Amster, and a small handful of real estate interests after Gemmel Moore’s death in Buck’s apartment, Honesty PAC was created solely to fund Scott Svonkin’s 2018 for Board of Equalization, an oversight position overseeing the County Tax Assessor Jeffrey Prang. The kicker: Scott Svonkin was an aide to Jeffrey Prang while he served on West Hollywood City Council.

    Scott Svonkin’s 2018 bid was unsuccessful, but the setback did not deter Jeffrey Prang. Whistleblowers filed suit against Prang for giving favorable tax treatment to West Hollywood real estate interests by intentionally losing legal cases, reversing property tax decisions, and reimbursing millions of dollars in back taxes for favored companies and individuals. Worse, Arman Gabay was arrested in May 2018 for allegedly soliciting preferable tax treatment from County Officials, soliciting public funds for his development projects, trading political donations in exchange for help on West Hollywood development projects, and other crimes involving political patronage. From a January 2020 prosecutor’s motion: “in another phone call agents intercepted on or about April 22, 2017, defendant made clear why he donates to public officials — he expects things in return.” When asked to contribute to reelect “Public Official 5,” he refused “because the last time he donated, defendant did not get anything from Public Official 5. Referring to Public Official 5, defendant said “f[*]ck him.”

    If Arman Gabay had helpful public officials on his payroll, he and others likely had Ed Buck on it, too, which would explain Buck’s mysterious revenue stream. Buck’s choice of Christopher Darden as his defense attorney shows he still has plenty of cash to play with and that investigators aren’t chasing down where it comes from. Prosecutors seem to know Buck’s income is off the books; they requested an order from the court to ensure “no portion of the proffered bail was feloniously obtained.” Even from jail, Buck still has cards to play, especially if his corruption touches politicians or some in the district attorney’s office.

  • Israel and Morocco strike normalize relations. Nothing to see here, just that idiot Trump helping facilitate another peace deal between Israel and the Muslim world…
  • “Goya CEO names AOC as employee of the month after her boycott call sends sales soaring.”
  • Oopsie!
  • J.C. Penny’s is back from corporate bankruptcy. Sort of. Kind of.
  • Snapshots of the continuing decline of Austin:

  • Austin decommissions shitty art. Of the “artworks,” two are garbage, one is already gone, one is so badly decayed it has to be torn down, and one is literally a circle of rocks. It’s fine as rock circles go, but a yard guy could probably put one together for you for less than 20 bucks.
  • Chuck Yeager, RIP.
  • Rehab for Vice bloggers:

  • Bob Dylan sells out.
  • All your Spidermen are belong to us.
  • “Hallmark Channel Announces 19 New Coronavirus-Themed Movies.”

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    Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, video | 3 Comments »

    Walter E. Williams, RIP

    Thursday, December 3rd, 2020

    Famed free market economist Walter E. Williams has died at age 84.

    Williams is probably most famous for being a regular guest of Rush Limbaugh, but I probably first became aware of him from his work in Reason magazine, which published excerpts from his book The State Against Blacks. (No Amazon link, because the book is out of print and hideously expensive on the user market; a canny publisher should get it back into print.) Like Thomas Sowell (to whom he was often compared), Williams used his inside understanding of the American black experience to argue persuasively that free markets were the best mechanism to lift black people out of poverty, and that government intervention (be it a minimum wage, Affirmative Action, heavy business regulation, the welfare state, or closed shop labor rules) constantly undermined black economic progress.

    Williams also wrote an autobiography, Up from the Projects: An Autobiography, that’s more readily available. Here’s an interview where he discusses it:

    Here’s a documentary on The State Against Blacks:

    As you might expect, Williams was not a fan of #BlackLivesMatter or ascribing the lack of black economic progress to “systemic racism”:

    While it might not be popular to say in the wake of the recent social disorder, the true plight of black people has little or nothing to do with the police or what has been called “systemic racism.” Instead, we need to look at the responsibilities of those running our big cities.

    Some of the most dangerous big cities are: St. Louis, Detroit, Baltimore, Oakland, Chicago, Memphis, Atlanta, Birmingham, Newark, Buffalo and Philadelphia. The most common characteristic of these cities is that for decades, all of them have been run by liberal Democrats. Some cities — such as Detroit, Buffalo, Newark and Philadelphia — haven’t elected a Republican mayor for more than a half-century. On top of this, in many of these cities, blacks are mayors, often they dominate city councils, and they are chiefs of police and superintendents of schools.

    In 1965, there were no blacks in the U.S. Senate, nor were there any black governors. And only six members of the House of Representatives were black. As of 2019, there is far greater representation in some areas — 52 House members are black. Nine black Americans have served in the Senate, including Edward W. Brooke of Massachusetts, Carol Moseley Braun and Barack Obama of Illinois, Tim Scott of South Carolina, Cory Booker of New Jersey, and Kamala Harris of California. In recent times, there have been three black state governors. The bottom line is that today’s black Americans have significant political power at all levels of government. Yet, what has that meant for a large segment of the black population?

    Democratic-controlled cities have the poorest-quality public education despite their large, and growing, school budgets. Consider Baltimore. In 2016, in 13 of Baltimore’s 39 high schools, not a single student scored proficient on the state’s math exam. In six other high schools, only 1% tested proficient in math. Only 15% of Baltimore students passed the state’s English test. That same year in Philadelphia only 19% of eighth-graders scored proficient in math, and 16% were proficient in reading. In Detroit, only 4% of its eighth-graders scored proficient in math, and 7% were proficient in reading. It’s the same story of academic disaster in other cities run by Democrats.

    Violent crime and poor education is not the only problem for Democratic-controlled cities. Because of high crime, poor schools and a less pleasant environment, cities are losing their economic base and their most productive people in droves. When World War II ended, the population of Washington, D.C., was about 800,000; today, it’s about 700,000. In 1950, Baltimore’s population was almost 950,000; today, it’s around 590,000. Detroit’s 1950 population was close to 1.85 million; today, it’s down to 673,000. The population of Camden, N.J., in 1950 was nearly 125,000; today it has fallen to 74,000. St. Louis’ 1950 population was more than 856,000; today, it’s less than 294,000. A similar story of population decline can be found in most of our formerly large and prosperous cities. In some cities, the population decline since 1950 is well over 50%, and that includes Detroit, St. Louis, Cleveland and Pittsburgh.

    Academic liberals, civil rights advocates and others blamed the exodus on racism — “white flight” to the suburbs to avoid blacks. But blacks have been fleeing some cities at higher rates than whites. The five cities whose suburbs have the fastest-growing black populations are Miami, Dallas, Washington, Houston and Atlanta. It turns out that blacks, like whites, want better and safer schools for their kids and don’t like to be mugged or have their property vandalized. And like white people, if they have the means, black people cannot wait to leave troubled cities.

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    Posted in Economics, unions, video, Welfare State | 9 Comments »

    Special Election Day LinkSwarm

    Tuesday, November 3rd, 2020

    Greetings, and welcome to a special Election Day LinkSwarm!

  • Late breaking polls have Trump up in Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and New Hampshire. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Democrats are freaking out about Pennsylvania.
  • Which is why Democrats may try to steal the state through vote fraud.
  • Biden-Harris goes full Godwin.
  • People are evidently worried that “mostly peaceful protestors” will burn parts of the country down.
  • Trump is doing better with blacks and Hispanics than four years ago:

    In 2016, Donald Trump got a lower share of the white vote than the previous Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, and white turnout was stagnant as compared to 2012. Trump was able to win nonetheless because he got a higher share of Black and Hispanic voters than his predecessor — up roughly 3 percentage points with African Americans and 2 percentage points with Hispanics — helping tilt pivotal races in states such as Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania toward Trump.

    That is, it was minorities, not whites, who proved more decisive for Trump’s victory.

    Going into Election Day in 2020, Trump seems poised to do even better with minority voters. His gains in the polling have been highly consistent and broad-based among Blacks and Hispanics — with male voters and female voters, the young and the old, educated and uneducated. Overall, Trump is polling about 10 percentage points higher with African Americans than he did in 2016, and 14 percentage points higher with Hispanics.

    It may be that many minority voters simply do not view some of his controversial comments and policies as racist. Too often, scholars try to test whether something is racist by looking exclusively at whether the rhetoric or proposals they disagree with resonate with whites. They frequently don’t even bother to test whether they might appeal to minorities, as well.

    Yet when they do, the results tend to be surprising. For instance, one recent study presented white, Black and Hispanic voters with messages the researchers considered to be racial “dog whistles,” or coded language that signals commitment to white supremacy. It turned out that the messages resonated just as strongly with Blacks as they did with whites. Hispanics responded even more warmly to the rhetoric about crime and immigration than other racial groups.

  • It seems that everyone in the country except polling companies expect a big Trump victory today:

  • In South Carolina, Jaime Harrison is this year’s Beto O’Rourke. “Harrison has raised, and spent, more than any other Senate candidate in U.S. history — ‘as of Oct. 14, Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison had raised more than $108 million and spent more than $105 million in his quest to unseat U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham’ with another $13 million in outside spending hitting Graham.” And he’s still behind Graham in the polls.
  • Biden wants to disarm working class gun owners.
  • “Hillary Clinton, who thinks the Electoral College should be eliminated, will be an Electoral College elector for this election.”

    • Now go vote, if you haven’t already!

  • Williamson County Voting Locations.
  • Travis County Voting Locations.

    • Also, I intend to be live-blogging/live-tweeting election returns starting about 7 PM tonight. Tune in for what promises to be a host of ridiculous typos.

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    Posted in Crime, Democrats, Elections, Guns, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | 2 Comments »

    Why Shouldn’t Black America Walk Away From The Democratic Party?

    Sunday, November 1st, 2020

    Preference cascades are tricky things.

    A preference cascade occurs when a group of people who have long felt strongly about something they felt they couldn’t express suddenly find out that there are a lot of people who feel the same way. It happened in Eastern Europe in the 1980s, when the rise of Solidarity started a series of shocks to the decaying edifice of communist control that made people realize that just about all their fellow citizens hated living under communism just as much as they did.

    Now a similar preference cascade may be taking place among black Americans willing to #WalkAway from the Democratic Party.

    For years, Black America’s absolute fidelity to the Democratic Party has been one of the bedrock assumptions of political calculations in the United States, with Democratic Presidential candidates regularly receiving some 90% of the black vote every four years. The pattern was so pronounced that neither Republicans nor Democrats felt the need to aim campaign pitches at black Americans, Republicans because they felt it was useless and Democrats because they felt it was unnecessary.

    During the same period, cities across American enjoyed uninterrupted Democratic Party control and uninterrupted decay. Detroit, Baltimore, Philadelphia: None has had a Republican mayor in the last half century. Black Americans voted for Democrats in near-monolithic numbers since 1964 only to see the cities they lived in continue to get worse.

    Now, thanks to President Donald Trump, that may all be changing:

    The black community is not owned. They’re free Americans with free minds, talents, and ideas and deserve to practice and perfect that level of autonomy just like everyone else does.

    However, the Democrats have more or less forbidden anyone from the black community from reaching across the aisle or considering any ideas that break from their approved ideological boundaries. Being a black person and a Republican will cause the Democrats to suddenly turn on you in vicious ways. They’ll lob racist names at you like “Uncle Tom” or worse.

    They’ll even arbitrarily decide that you’re not really black.

    It’s a brave thing to step out of line and disagree with a large group at the best of times but this is a time when political tensions are at their height. Any political or ideological disagreement could result in your entire life being destroyed by the mob.

    For a black person in America, I can only imagine how difficult it is to stand up and say that you’re not going to go along with the approved behavioral codes set for you by the mainstream social guidelines. It will result in a backlash, but the black community knows how to endure, and little by little, they’re enduring the hate and anger thrown at them for reaching across the aisle and shaking hands with the man you’re not supposed to ever even look at without scorn.

    It started with Kanye West hugging President Donald Trump and talking about how much he likes him. Maybe they thought that was the end of it. West is a massive talent but they could write him off as loony.

    But then recently, Ice Cube thanked Trump for all the things he’s doing for the black community. Cube is a legend, and calling him crazy wasn’t going to fly in this case.

    Lil Pump also came out with his own profanity ridden endorsement of Trump.

    Now, as my colleague Alex Parker recently wrote, Lil Wayne did the exact same. He sent out a tweet containing a picture of him smiling with Trump and thanking him for the work he’s doing on criminal justice reform.

    Democrats are incredibly upset and it’s not hard to understand why. These endorsements will have an effect. If they don’t outright turn people to vote for Trump, then they’ll do something even more horrifying. They’ll make reaching across the aisle a normal thing to do, and the distrust and prejudice against Republicans that the Democrats have built and fostered for so long will begin to dissipate.

    Unapproved ideas may begin to creep in and delusions will begin to melt. The Democrat party will lose its hold on the black community and the vote they took for granted for so long will begin to lessen.

    Perhaps the Democrats didn’t see this coming, but perhaps the world should have.

    The black community isn’t a community known for being friendly with the establishment. They have a lot of reasons to be distrustful or resentful of it as you can imagine. Trump is anything but the establishment. He came in as an outsider whose political experience was a few failed campaigns and some meetings with politicians in the past.

    When Trump hit the scene it was clear he wasn’t a part of the Washington machine. He wasn’t a politician and he didn’t care much for their rules. It was clear they hated him for it from the word “go.”

    Trump began getting to work for the black community, bringing their unemployment levels to all-time lows. He lowered their taxes and opened up opportunity zones. He began channeling money to black colleges. He’s also been doing a lot for criminal justice reform, which was overdue for change.

    The black community began to wake up and see what was happening. The Democrat party hadn’t been on their side for a long time. It was using them. Little by little that became apparent, and soon you had black people switching parties.

    Maybe the Democrats thought they had the black community on lock, but the black community proved that they’re not owned by anyone.

    The rapper endorsements were significant in a way that all those “Actors reunions for Biden” were not. Does anyone think the Seinfeld cast would endorse anyone but liberals?

    Rap stars endorsing Republicans, especially a Republican President so hated by white political elites as Donald Trump, is just about unprecedented. Many black people may be low information voters, but they know their cities are broken, they know that Democrats run their cities, and most don’t think that rioting, looting and defunding the police are answers.

    Seeing not just black celebrities endorsing Trump, but black celebrities whose entire images revolve around being “ghetto” endorsing Trump does carry novelty value. That’s the sort of thing that gets attention and breaks through to voters that never watch CNN or pick up The New York Times. That’s the way preference cascades start.

    In the meantime, what #BlackLivesMatter seems to be accomplishing is getting black-owned businesses looted and burned and getting more black people shot.

    New York City’s homicide rate is at a five-year high; the number of shooting victims was up over 42 percent through June 21 compared with the same period in 2019. The number of shootings in the first three weeks of June was over twice that of the same period in 2019, making this June the city’s bloodiest in nearly a quarter century, according to The New York Times. At 4 a.m. last Sunday, a 30-year-old woman was shot in the head in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, at a house party. On Saturday afternoon, a man and a woman were shot to death outside a Brooklyn home. Early Friday morning, a 19-year-old girl was shot to death in the heart of Manhattan, near Madison Square Park, on East 26th Street.

    Milwaukee’s homicides have increased 132 percent. “In 25 years, I’ve never seen it like this,” a Milwaukee police inspector told the Police Executive Research Forum, referring to the violence and the low officer morale. Shootings are spiking in Indianapolis. Other cities will show similar increases once their crime data are published.

    Snip.

    So far this year, more people have been killed in Baltimore than at this point in 2019, which ended with the highest homicide rate on record for that city. June’s killings, which eclipse those of June 2019, include a 23-year-old woman who was eight months pregnant and her three-year-old daughter. They were gunned down in their car by the father of the woman’s unborn child, according to the police.

    The victims in these shootings are overwhelmingly black. So far this year, 78 percent of all homicide victims in Chicago are black, though blacks are less than a third of the population. But the defund-the-police advocates and the Democratic establishment have said nothing about the growing loss of black lives.

    Indeed, #BlackLivesMatter is not about saving black lives, but imposing a radical Marxist ideology on America that is making things worse:

    Their stated goal—to achieve equality for blacks—masks a different agenda. In the “What We Believe” section of the BLM site, they highlight the work they do to “dismantle cisgender privilege” and their desire to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure”—a structure that many, including myself and Kanye West, believe is key to rebuilding black communities. The mission statement mires a message that should be about black lives in a slew of buzzwords and Marxist psychobabble. Not all the sentiments are bad, but none will create positive change in the black community.

    That’s one reason why rapper Lord Jamer says that #BlackLivesMatter is “a movement that was given to us by, you know, George Soros and his f***ing boys. Because they saw how things were going and they didn’t want to go back to the 60s to where we started having our own organic movements. That was a big f***ing problem for them.” (The Black Panthers had many problems with radical Marxism of their own, but at least were not funded and controlled by Democratic Party billionaires.)

    Democratic Party affiliation among young black people is at an all-time low. “Only 47% of [under-30 black voters] say that the [Democratic] party is welcoming to Black Americans, and only 43% say they trust Democrats in Congress to do what’s best for the Black community.”

    81% of black Americans don’t want reduced police funding, because they know that less police funding inevitably results in more violence against innocent black people.

    A lot of black people seem to understand that the biggest problem facing black America isn’t “systemic racism,” but Democratic indifference to their suffering and the breakdown of the black family.

    The American economy was doing gangbusters before the overreaction to the Wuhan coronavirus hit, with black unemployment hitting historic lows. Some of that was due to the Trump Administration actually enforcing border controls against illegal aliens. Probably no demographic has suffered from wages suppressed by illegal alien labor than working class black Americans. But the Democratic Party, seeing “demographic transformation” as a key to permanent majority status, has not just turned a blind eye the illegal alien problem but has actually encouraged it, constantly pushing for more welfare for illegal aliens and blanket amnesties for illegals.

    Now that we’re on the other side of the V-shaped recovery, the economy grew at a record pace in the third quarter. Biden tax increases would kill that recovery dead.

    Here’s a very short video which points out why transactional politics should trump the personal for black voters:

    This Trump billboard offers a succinct summary of the choice facing all Americans:

    George Soros and the radical left have offered up #BlackLivesMatters as an AstroTurf movement providing sham leadership of black Americans to empower the hard left by cowing white liberals and to keeping black Americans voting for Democrats. Meanwhile, the Republican Party is offering real reform, a booming economy, and a very strong slate of black Republican candidates like Kimberly Klacik, John James and Wesley Hunt. And in Donald Trump, Republicans have a leader capable of closing deals others thought impossible. Is getting hosts of Arab countries to normalize relations with Israel any less impossible than getting black Americans to vote Republican?

    President Trump seems within striking distance of closing that impossible seeming deal. All that has to happen is for black Americans to #WalkAway from the Democratic Party that’s ignored them for the last half century.

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, video | 2 Comments »

    LinkSwarm for October 30, 2020

    Friday, October 30th, 2020

    Welcome to the last LinkSwarm before the election! Halloween is tomorrow, and I will actually be handing out candy in the time-honored traditional manner.

  • The economy grew at a white hot 33.1% rate during the third quarter, which is what happens when you lift the counterproductive economic lockdowns Democrats want to keep in place. We’ve still got recovering to do (something that’s not going to happen under a Harris-Biden Administration’s huge tax hikes), but it looks like we’re enjoying the V-shaped recovery that so many economists assured us was impossible.
  • Kurt Schlichter says not to fall for the Psy-Op:

    The next few days will be a Cat 5 hurricane of mainstream media spin and Democrat bullSchiff designed to make you think that you’ve already lost this election. They want your morale shattered, your spirit broken, and you to put a lid on your participation in saving your country from leftist tyranny.

    It’s all a lie.

    It’s a psychological operation designed to keep you on the sidelines.

    We got this.

    All you need to do is vote.

    People reach out to me all the time looking for hope, and I’ve got plenty, because things are breaking our way. You have structural factors like the fact that incumbents tend to win, particularly when the economy is improving and we’re not in some idiotic new war. You have factors like how the Democrat candidate is a desiccated old weirdo who pretty much called a lid on his campaign back in July and whose corruption is being shown to be more corrupting every single day. You have manifest enthusiasm for our guy and tumbleweeds for theirs. You have people moving from Hillary to Trump, but nobody moving from Trump to Grandpa Badfinger. Trump dominated the debate where Oldfinger doubled down on his deeply unpopular program of destroying millions of oil industry jobs, single payer, and Matlock for All. On the inside, the insiders almost unanimously think Trump will win – that’s the real talk behind the scenes among people whose names you know. Early voting numbers are GOP-friendly, and many polls now show Trump moving up or taking the lead.

    We have the heat, we have the momentum, we have this to lose.

    (Hat tip: Kurt Schlichter.)

  • “Wisconsin Republican Party Says Hackers Stole $2.3 Million from Trump Reelection Account.”
  • Another rapper endorses Trump and slams Biden’s tax plan. I do not believe I’ve heard a single song by “Lil Pump,” but that’s because I’m old in and in the way, and Mr. Pump (real name Gazzy Garcia) evidently has some 17 million followers. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Speaking of rappers endorsing Trump, Lil Wayne (who I have actually heard of) all but did that as well:

  • “5 Charts That Show Sweden’s Strategy Worked. The Lockdowns Failed.”
  • “Russian Airstrikes Obliterate Turkish-Backed ‘Rebel’ Camp In Idlib, Killing Over 60.” Remind me why S.E. Cupp thinks we should be over there bombing things, again…
  • AMD buys Xilinx for $35 billion in an all-stock transaction. Xilinx dominates Field Programable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and has fingers into a lot of weird verticals I don’t have any visibility into. Like AMD they’re fabless, and like AMD they use TSMC as their foundry. Assuming all the usual merger hurdles (both regulatory and cultural) can be overcome, this is probably a good move for both sides.
  • Leftwingers are really butt-hurt that Joe Rogan interviewed Alex Jones.
  • The owners of a bunch of famous Austin businesses come out against the tax-hiking rail bond. “‘We are not open, we are not going to be open for a long time so no money coming in paying an extra $3000,’ said Shannon Sedwick with Esther’s Follies.” Also opposing the huge tax hike for the bond: Former Democratic State Senator Gonzalo Barrientos, who will never be mistaken for a fire-breathing conservative.
  • The Texas House Speaker’s race heats up.

    What GOP insiders hoped would be a quiet race for Speaker of the Texas House got suddenly heated on Thursday, with four establishment Republicans officially in the hunt – and at least one other poised to jump in. Most Texans have never heard of none of them.

    Officially filing declaring their candidacy today are Republican State Reps. Chris Paddie of Marshall, Trent Ashby of Lufkin, John Cyrier of Bastrop, and Geanie Morrison of Victoria joining Democrats Senfronia Thompson of Houston and Trey Martinez Fischer of San Antonio

    Republican Dade Phelan of Beaumont was also reportedly considering jumping into the race as the “Team Bonnen” candidate.

  • Is Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush considering running against Ken Paxton for Attorney General in 2022?
  • Remember how the New York Times hyped an op-ed by “Anonymous” slamming Trump? Honestly, I barely do, because all the fake “anonymous” #JustTrustMeBro “sources” “familiar with” Trump just blur together in my mind. Well, turns out the “Senior Trump Official” was a minor official turned CNN staffer, so they, and most of the liberal media complex that trusted them, just straight lied to us to smear Trump. You know, just like all their other anti-Trump “bombshells.”
  • “Hospitals gave Gov. Andrew Cuomo a campaign booster shot“:

    It’s bad enough that Gov. Cuomo presided over the needless COVID-19 deaths of thousands of vulnerable people in New York nursing homes.

    It’s bad enough that he wrote a shameful book praising himself for his pandemic response and now is doing a victory lap of self-congratulation in the worst-hit state in the nation.

    It’s bad enough that he is mounting a pre-election scare campaign on COVID vaccines to stir up anti-vax sentiment for political purposes.

    But now we discover that Cuomo got campaign funds from the hospital organizations that lobbied for his lethal policy for the elderly and which then bought TV ads whitewashing his culpability.

    An exclusive audit of campaign donations to Cuomo by OpenTheBooks.com shows disturbing links with industry bodies which demanded the disastrous order forcing nursing homes to admit COVID-infected patients hospitals didn’t want.

  • “Jeremy Corbyn suspended from Labour Party over response to antisemitism report.” Wow, that’s not closing the barn door after the cows have escaped, that’s closing the barn door after the cows have escaped, run off to a different region, been captured, fattened, slaughtered, made into hamburgers, and consumed at a St. Swithun’s Day feast in Wessex.
  • 46 arrested in massive human trafficking bust in Fort Bend County.
  • Commies vandalize Austin Public Library polling place. Because that’s the sort of garbage commies pull.
  • Some uncomfortable facts for #BlackLivesMatter:

  • “$150 MILLION worth of illegal cannabis, weapons, and 3 kangaroos seized by York Police.” That’s York, Ontario, a locale for which I’m reliably informed kangaroos do not constitute native fauna.
  • Old and Busted: The monster in your daughter’s closet. The New Hotness: The pedophile in your daughter’s closet.
  • “More APD officers resigning recently, former officer and Austin Police Association say.” #ThanksMayorAdler
  • Jake Tapper still isn’t over Mucho Grande.
  • Deaderheads. (Hat tip: Ace.)
  • James “The Amazing” Randi, RIP.”
  • “Psychic Already Sick Of Spectral James Randi Ragging On Her From Afterlife.”
  • Huge Trump parade…in Beverly Hills:

  • What. The. Hell.

  • “State That Just Voted To Reduce Penalties For Pedophiles Not Sure Why God Keeps Lighting Them On Fire.”
  • “CNN Mourns ACB Confirmation By Flying Chinese Flag At Half-Mast.”
  • Swing, you sinners!
  • I sort of like this one:

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    Posted in Austin, Communism, Crime, Democrats, Media Watch, Texas | 1 Comment »

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