Did you know that I’m a “Domestic Violent Extremist”? I didn’t know I was, but that’s apparently how the Biden Administration would have classified me, if they knew who a small fry like me was. Continue reading
Category Archives: Government Overreach
Could Daniel Pearson be a conservative? Are there any moderate Democrats left?
Is a member of the Right Eing Extremists of the United States of America allowed to have a favorite liberal writer who I don’t use as a blog whipping boy? I have twice asked if The Philadelphia Inquirer’s primary editorial writer, Daniel Pearson, could actually be a conservative.
He knows that I have asked that question, and certainly denies it, definitely opposed to President Trump and most Republicans, but he is at least in some ways the kind of Democrat conservatives can appreciate. He’s certainly not a loony leftist like his colleagues Will Bunch and the rest of the newspaper’s cabal of columnists! While he seems to support some silliness like the city’s silly driving while black driving equality law, he does support the enforcement of law.
Fake, expired, and obscured car tags threaten public safety | Editorial
Not everything has to be a federal government project!
Under our 47th President, the sensible people in charge are looking at all of the spending in which the federal government engages. With the FY2024 federal budget deficit at $1.83 trillion — that’s trillion, a thousand billion, or a million million dollars — and FY2025 possibly going to be more, the Trump Administration is taking a battle axe to spending where it can, because a battle axe is what is needed. Tiny little cuts by going over everything with a fine-toothed comb will never work, because there’s always some purportedly good reason to spend for someone’s pet project. The battle axe method is the right thing to do, and then, after that is done, we can check to see if anything truly essential was cut and needs to be restored.
Trump administration freezes $12 million meant to help Philly plant thousands of trees
Beware the Ides of March!
Happy St Valentine’s Day!
I awoke this morning to a tweet from Libs of TikTok, noting that yet another federal judge has tried to block President Trump’s ‘pause’ in foreign aid spending.
Judge orders Trump administration to temporarily allow funds for foreign aid
by the Associated Press | Thursday, February 13, 2025 | 11:53 PM EST
WASHINGTON — A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to temporarily lift a three-week funding freeze that has shut down U.S. aid and development programs worldwide.
Judge Amir Ali issued the order Thursday in U.S. district court in Washington in a lawsuit brought by two health organizations that receive U.S. funding for programs abroad.
Newsweek noted that Judge Ali was one of President Joe Biden’s last judicial appointees, confirmed by the then Democrat-controlled Senate after the election. Continue reading
Sometimes you just have to be an [insert slang term for the rectum here] to do things right Joe Biden was a very sympathetic President . . . and that led to Donald Trump being elected again!
I check Bluesky so you don’t have to because it sometimes leads me to interesting things. I saw this skeet from The Philadelphia Inquirer’s hard-left columnist Will Bunch, which he did not post on Twitter, leading me to an article in the UK’s The Guardian.
Canada intercepts people trying to cross border in ‘incredibly cold’ conditions
Nine Venezuelans including children found by police in Alberta with a second group apprehended in Manitoba
by Leyland Cecco | Friday, February 7, 2025 | 6:30 AM EST
More than a dozen people have been caught making the hazardous crossing into Canada, renewing focus on the closely watched – and seasonally perilous – border with the United States.
Police in Alberta this week intercepted two groups attempting to cross into Canada illegally, including one which included five children who were ill-prepared for the cold which can plunge as low as -30C (-22F) at this time of year. Continue reading
President Trump cancels the left’s electric vehicle policies
I have always held that if someone wants to buy a plug-in electric vehicle, if he can afford one, he has every right to do so. Alas, Our Betters in the former Biden Administration — and I do so love referring to it as the former Biden Administration! — thought that no, it ought not to be a matter of personal choice or preference, but that people should eventually be required to buy a plug-in electric vehicle. Our American left are pro-choice on exactly one thing.
Trump ended the EV mandate. Here’s what it means for the auto industry.
The transition to electric vehicles is a years-long process that is already underway and faces fierce competition from abroad.
When family members play heroes of the Soviet Union
Pavel Trofimovich Morozov (Па́вел Трофи́мович Моро́зов) was a supposed hero of the Soviet Union:
In 1932, at the age of 13, Morozov reported his father to the political police (GPU). Supposedly, Morozov’s father, Trofim, the chairman of the Gerasimovka Village Soviet, had been “forging documents and selling them to the bandits and enemies of the Soviet State” (as the sentence read). Trofim Morozov was sentenced to ten years in a labour camp, where his sentence was changed to death, which was fulfilled. However, Pavlik’s family did not take kindly to his reporting his father and on 3 September of that year, his uncle, grandfather, grandmother, and a cousin murdered him, along with his younger brother. All of them except the uncle were rounded up by the GPU and sentenced to “the highest measure of social defense” – execution by a firing squad.
Thousands of telegrams from all over the Soviet Union urged the judge to show no mercy for Pavlik’s killers. The Soviet government declared Pavlik Morozov a glorious martyr who had been murdered by reactionaries. Statues of him were built, and numerous schools and youth groups were named in his honour. An opera and numerous songs were written about him. The Gerasimovka school that Morozov attended, became a shrine, and children from all over the Soviet Union went on school excursions to visit it.
The entire story may have been a fabrication by the Soviet Communist Party under Josef Vissarionovich Stalin, yet another of the typical propaganda stories. Who, after all, could imagine a 13-year-old denouncing his own father to the police? Continue reading
I check Bluesky so you don’t have to Amanda Marcotte loves her some censorship and ordering of society . . . when it comes from the left
My good friend Robert Stacy McCain has frequently written, “I watch CNN” or sometimes MSNBC, “so you don’t have to.” Well, I created an account and check Bluesky, the liberal version of Twitter, so that you don’t have to. And checking this morning I found the very lovely Amanda Marcotte complaining that Mark Zuckerberg, the creator and owner of Facebook, is no longer going to apply liberally-oriented ‘fact checkers’ to posts on Facebook.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta makeover: MAGA grandpa is about to get much worse
Facebook ditches its fact-checking program in favor of Elon Musk’s army of disinformation zombies
by Amanda Marcotte | Wednesday, January 8, 2025 | 8:00 AM EST
In part because of his goofy appearance and in part because he doesn’t engage in fascist trolling like fellow billionaire Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg is rarely seen as a sinister character in modern American life. But Zuckerberg’s announcement that Facebook and Instagram will soon cease fact-checking is such a stellar model of villainous doublespeak that George Orwell would have thought it was a bit much. Zuckerberg insisted it’s in the name of “free speech” that he must unleash uncontrolled disinformation on his platform, adding, “The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards, once again, prioritizing speech.” Continue reading
I’ll bet that Will Bunch and Taylor Lorenz are glad now that Joe Biden’s attempt to create a Ministry of Truth failed
The Philadelphia Inquirer’s far left columnist Will Bunch skeeted an editorial by the UK’s left-wing The Guardian about protecting journolists, oops, sorry, journalists.
The Guardian view on Trump’s threat to the media: time to pass the Press Act
Bipartisan legislation offers historic protections for journalists, banning secret surveillance and ensuring source confidentiality
Tuesday, December 10, 2024 | 1:40 OM EST
Fears of a press crackdown under Donald Trump’s second term deepened with his nomination of Kash Patel as FBI director – given his calls for retribution against journalists. Yet a rare chance to protect press freedom has emerged. The bipartisan Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying (Press) Act, the strongest press freedom legislation in US history, is on the brink of a vote. While President-elect Trump has urged Republicans to block it, the Senate could still deliver it to Joe Biden before the lame-duck session ends in January. Continue reading