Democrats have been promising to make college free to everybody and to also forgive student loan debt on those who are struggling to pay for the costs of higher education, but to date the Democrats have been unable to deliver on this promise.
Because of this some Democrats, such as Chuck Schumer and Elizabeth Warren, have been urging Joe Biden to use his pen and his phone to forgive student loan debt by Executive Order. But suddenly Nancy Pelosi of all people has stepped up to remind the Democrats that the President does not have this power.
President Joe Biden does not have the power to cancel student loan debt, Speaker of the House and Democratic California Rep. Nancy Pelosi said.
“People think that the President of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness. He does not. He can postpone. He can delay. But he does not have that power. That has to be an act of Congress,” Pelosi said during a Wednesday press conference at the Capitol.
She even went on to make an argument that sounded eerily like the argument the right has been making on this issue, and other issues as well for that matter.
“Suppose your [child] decided they do not want to go to college. But you’re paying taxes to forgive somebody else’s obligations. You may not be happy about that,” she said.
So what gives? If Nancy Pelosi cares so much about those struggling with student loan debt why is she suddenly unwilling to use all the tools in Joe Biden’s toolbox? The truth is that none of the politicians care about the plebeians, this issue, as well as most others, is what would be called in the classic era of Hollywood a MacGuffin.
It is something that drives the narrative but is unimportant to the actual players involved. Student loan debt is something that is held over people’s heads to drive the narrative during an election year. It is used as an election issue by the Democrats to help them retain or regain power and if they actually did something about it they would no longer be able to promise to do something about it at election time.
Joe Biden says he wants to ban some 9mm handguns
During a townhall style event yesterday Joe Biden was blathering on about gun control and the President actually admitted that he would ban some 9mm handguns. Here is what he had to say:
“I’m the only guy that ever got passed legislation when I was a Senator to make sure we eliminated assault weapons. The idea you need a weapon that can have the ability to fire 20, 30, 40, 50, 120 shots from that weapon, whether it’s a, wherwherwher whether it’s a 9mm pistol or whether it’s a rifle, it is ridiculous. I’m continuing to push to eliminate the sale of those things…”
After bragging about being the only Senator to successfully trample on the Second Amendment (doesn’t it take more than one vote in the Senate to pass legislation?) he went on to stumble towards the point that he would like to ban 9mm handguns if he considered the magazine to be high capacity.
We can either chalk this up to Joe Biden jumbling his thoughts together and not really talking about 9mm handguns, or we can chalk it up to his not having any idea what he is talking about, or we can take him at his word that he really does want to ban 9mm handguns.
Because this is the first time we have heard any serious politician talk about banning 9mm handguns I think we had better take it at face value because even if he did misspeak other Democrats are now going to jump on the bandwagon.
Joe Biden used private email as Vice President to forward government information to Hunter
I am not sure how reliable of a source this is but then again I do not trust much I read in the mainstream media so I am going to go with it. Stop me if you have heard this one before: a member of the Obama administration was using a personal email account to forward government information. However, this time it is not Hillary Clinton we are talking about but none other than the man who was Vice President at the time, Joe Biden.
Hunter Biden’s laptop is the gift that keeps on giving. According to this story, Joe Biden was using a personal email account to pass along government information to his son Hunter. Here is more:
In a communications backdoor reminiscent of Hillary Clinton’s infamous private server, President Biden used a personal email account during the Obama years to send information he was getting from the State Department as vice president to his globetrotting, foreign-deal-making son Hunter Biden.
Messages, sometimes signed “Dad,” from the email account robinware456@gmail.com were found on a Hunter Biden laptop seized by the FBI in December 2019 from a Delaware computer shop owner.
Some of the messages from the vice president to his son obtained by Just the News were deeply personal, others were political in nature, and still others clearly addressed business matters, often forwarding information coming from senior officials in the White House, the State Department and other government agencies.
I know what you are thinking, firstly: Joe Biden claimed he did not discuss his son’s business dealings but this clearly contradicts that assertion. Well, that story was debunked when we learned Joe Biden met with Hunter’s business associates in the White House and flew them to Mexico. This is just more confirmation Joe Biden was lying.
But secondly, and more importantly, why was Joe Biden forwarding governmental information which was coming from the White House and the State Department to his son who was not in the government? I think the first question most likely answers the second question…
Okay, I am sure the Biden administration would not approve of the word “conspiring” in the headline but as of right now they are not flagging what they are considering misinformation on blogs so because it is accurate I am going with it.
We all know that for quite some time Facebook has employed “fact-checkers” to flag any information which the website deemed might not be true. And to be honest I have not written anything about this or of Facebook and other social media outlets banning Donald Trump because I believe as a private entity they have the right to run the sites they way they see fit.
However when it turns out one of the “fact-checkers” happens to be the Federal Government and they are working with Facebook to flag and remove posts the State claims is false or misleading I have a problem. And that is exactly what the Biden administration admitted a couple of days ago. Here is more:
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday the Biden administration is identifying “problematic” posts for Facebook to censor because they contain “misinformation” about COVID-19.
Psaki disclosed the government’s role in policing social media during her daily press briefing after Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called on companies to purge more pandemic posts.
“We are in regular touch with the social media platforms and those engagements typically happen through members of our senior staff and also members of our COVID-19 team — given as Dr. Murthy conveyed, this is a big issue, of misinformation, specifically on the pandemic,” Psaki said.
She added: “We’ve increased disinformation research and tracking within the Surgeon General’s Office. We are flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.”
Psaki added, “it’s important to take faster action against harmful posts … and Facebook needs to move more quickly to remove harmful violative posts.”
Does anybody really believe that this is only happening on posts about COVID-19 and the vaccine? Note the last two sentences do not mention the pandemic when it says harmful posts need to be removed. What does the Biden administration believe is a harmful post? Could it be any post which is in disagreement with the administration on any issue? That is coming…
There is a name for it when government and corporations become entwined but I cannot seem to remember what it is. Oh yeah, I got it, it is called FASCISM!
Federal judge rules DACA illegal
This is just starting to come over the wire as I write this but it is being reported here that a Federal judge has ruled DACA is illegal because the Congress never granted Barack Obama the authority to create immigration law. Here is more:
A federal judge in Texas on Friday invalidated an Obama-era initiative that provided deportation protections and work permits to some young immigrants, a ruling that places the program in jeopardy.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen ruled the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was unlawful because Congress never gave the executive branch the power to grant mass reprieves to immigrants who are in the U.S. without authorization.
Judge Hanen’s ruling barred the Biden administration from approving new DACA applications, but the judge stayed the immediate effect of his ruling on current DACA recipients.
The judge issued a stay of his decision for those who have already been approved previously but has banned new approvals moving forward and this seems like the proper decision.
The problem most of us have had with DACA was with the overreach of Executive Authority and this decision and not necessarily the program itself and this decisions reaffirms our concerns. Of course I think we all know this is not over by a longshot.
With all of the unrest happening in Cuba and in Haiti there are refugees seeking to come to the United States. Now, if we have learned one thing over the four years of Donald Trump’s Presidency it is that if you are not willing to take on any and all comers from other nations, especially those who are fleeing in fear of their lives, you are a nativist, a racist, and a xenophobe who does not like brown and black people. So imagine my surprise when I learned that the Biden administration’s message to those who are fleeing Cuba and Haiti seeking a better life in America was that they are not welcome here. Here is more:
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas had a stern warning Tuesday for Cubans and Haitians thinking of escaping the ongoing unrest in both countries by sailing to the US: Don’t even think about it.
“The time is never right to attempt migration by sea,” Mayorkas said during a news conference. “To those who risk their lives doing so, this risk is not worth taking. Allow me to be clear: If you take to the sea, you will not come to the United States.”
Those who could provide what Mayorkas called a “well-founded fear of persecution or torture” would be referred to other countries for resettlement.
“They will not enter the United States,” the DHS secretary added.
It was not all that long ago that the left in general, and Joe Biden in particular, told us that this type of rhetoric was unamerican, that it was not who we are, and that because of this type of anti-immigrant rhetoric America had lost her soul. And now we hear nary a word from the left about turning away families who are fleeing for their lives. And this is not the first time the Biden administration has taken this stance, it was not all that long ago that Kamala Harris told Guatemalan migrants they were not welcome in America.
According to the Gun Control Act of 1968 a person under the age of 21 cannot purchase a handgun or ammunition from a dealer. This does not mean an adult under the age of 21 cannot own or purchase a handgun, they can buy handguns in a private sale, just not through a dealer. (You would think if there was going to be a restriction it would be the other way around but this is the Federal Government we are talking about.)
However that could be about to change as a Federal appeals court has ruled it is unconstitutional to prohibit an adult from exercising their Constitutional right, here is more:
A 53-year-old law preventing federally licensed firearms dealers from selling handguns or handgun ammunition to adults under the age of 21 is unconstitutional, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.
A divided panel on the Richmond, Va.-based Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a Virginia federal judge’s ruling upholding the federal Gun Control Act of 1968.
“When do constitutional rights vest? At 18 or 21? 16 or 25? Why not 13 or 33?” asked US Circuit Judge Julius Richardson in his ruling. “In the law, a line must sometimes be drawn. But there must be a reason why constitutional rights cannot be enjoyed until a certain age. Our nation’s most cherished constitutional rights vest no later than 18. And the Second Amendment’s right to keep and bear arms is no different.”
Richardson, who was appointed to the bench by former President Donald Trump, went on to note that 18-to-20-year-olds “enjoy almost every other constitutional right, and they were required at the time of the Founding to serve in the militia and furnish their own weapons … Despite the weighty interest in reducing crime and violence, we refuse to relegate either the Second Amendment or 18- to 20-year-olds to a second-class status.”
The Biden administration’s war on the Second Amendment is just starting to ramp up so you can rest assured this decision will not go unchallenged, but for now chalk one up for the good guys.
Yesterday Politico published this article in defense of Joe Biden’s proposed plan to send people door-to-door urging Americans to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Oddly enough, this defense centered around a game of semantics; according to the article this plan is okay because it is not government officials who will be going door-to-door but rather people hired by the government.
As troubling as the plan is, and as troubling as this defense of the plan is, it is not the most troubling aspect of the story. Buried in paragraph seven is this little gem:
Biden allied groups, including the Democratic National Committee, are also planning to engage fact-checkers more aggressively and work with SMS carriers to dispel misinformation about vaccines that is sent over social media and text messages.
As if it were not bad enough that the Biden Gestapo will be going door-to-door looking for people’s papers, and if it were not bad enough that Facebook is monitoring posts for COVID-19 related stories and memes, the government is now preparing to monitor personal text messages between individuals, looking for keywords I would imagine, so they can hassle Americans via texts. And you though the robocalls were bad…
FBI urges people to turn in family members
Back in June Joe Biden urged Americans to turn in their friends and their family members if you had the feeling that they someday might do something nefarious. Not that they had done anything wrong, mind you, but that you feel they might someday in the future.
Well, now the FBI is joining in on Joe Biden’s Orwellian vision. The FBI is now advocating people turning in their family and friends, here is more:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) published a tweet on Sunday telling Americans to report their own family members and peers for “suspicious behaviors.”
Here is more on the Tweet:
The tweet included a link to a government booklet that was first written in 2015 on “indicators” that someone may be contemplating violent action.
The booklet also states several times that the “indicators” may be constitutionally protected activities, but if they are observed in combination with “other suspicious behaviors,” those indicators may “raise suspicions” and “constitute a basis for reporting”:
The National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) emphasize that many of the indicators described herein may involve constitutionally protected activities and might be insignificant on their own. However, when observed in combination with other suspicious behaviors, these indicators may raise suspicion in a reasonable person and constitute a basis for reporting. Law enforcement action should not be taken solely based on the exercise of constitutionally protected rights, or on the apparent or actual race, ethnicity, national origin or religion of the subject, or on any combination of these factors. Individuals are encouraged to contact law enforcement if, based on these indicators and the situational context, they suspect an individual is mobilizing to violence.
Big Brother is watching…
Sunday, July 11th open thread: ‘Never Enough’
“This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24 KJV)
Here is this week’s open thread. Please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
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Here is The Cure performing “Never Enough” live:
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