RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/01/18/is-u-s-headed-toward-socialism-majority-says-yes-ii-tipp-poll/

In recent years, government in the U.S. has never been bigger, in terms of both spending and its power over individuals and the economy. Some have begun to openly wonder: Is the U.S. evolving into a socialist-style economy? And is that what Americans want? The latest I&I/TIPP Poll has answers.

Over the last three years, due to the COVID pandemic, government spending at all levels averaged just over 44% of GDP, the highest since World War II, when much of the economy was essentially socialized in order to boost war spending.

Today, a majority of Americans agree that the sudden, rapid growth from COVID-related spending and burgeoning top-down control over the domestic economy to address climate change have put U.S. on a path toward socialism.

This comes out of the latest I&I/TIPP Poll of 1,356 Americans across the country, taken online from Jan. 4-6. In it, we asked respondents whether they agreed or disagreed with the following simple statement: “The U.S. is evolving into a big government socialist state.”

The shocking answer: By 51% to 31%, Americans agreed the U.S. is moving toward socialism. Among the remainder, 18% said they were “unsure.” The poll has a margin of error of +/-2.8 percentage points.

Further broken down, of those who agreed, 20% said they did so “strongly,” while 31% said they agreed “somewhat.” For those who disagreed, just 15% disagreed strongly, while 16% said they “somewhat” disagreed.

While usually such politically sensitive questions show wide differences among the different political affiliations, that’s not exactly the case here.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/01/the-consumer-product-safety-commission-is-out-of-control/

The agency that floated a gas-stove ban is also harassing the maker of a child-care product, while its ex-chair argues it should be able to regulate guns.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) made headlines last week for entertaining the idea of a ban on gas-powered stoves, before quickly backtracking amid a fierce public outcry. Though that was a particularly notable instance of the CPSC’s attempted administrative overreach, it was not the only one.

The CPSC is currently in the process of harassing a small-business owner whose product has been used safely by thousands of people since 2009. Leachco, an Oklahoma-based firm founded by Jamie and Clyde Leach, manufactures the Podster, a lounge pillow for infants. The pillow has sides that cup babies to keep them in place. Over 180,000 have been sold since the product first came to market.

In 2015, a day-care worker broke state law and the day-care center’s rules by leaving an infant unattended in a Podster for over an hour and a half. In 2018, two parents accidentally smothered their baby in bed while co-sleeping. Both those infants tragically died.

The CPSC is using those cases to warn consumers to “immediately stop using the Podster.” Both babies were in a Podster when they died, but anyone with common sense can see that the negligence of adults, not the safety of the product, was the likely culprit. Those are the only two infant deaths the CPSC cites as being associated with the Podster, which has otherwise been used safely by thousands of parents.

The CPSC’s administrative proceedings against Leachco acknowledge that in those two instances, adults were using the product improperly. It says, “The Podster is not and has never been advertised by [Leachco] as a sleep product” and that “the Podster contains warnings that the product should not be used for sleep and that adult supervision is always required.” Nonetheless, the CPSC says that “it is foreseeable that caregivers will use the Podster without supervision.”

If an agency can ban any product that, even with proper warnings, could possibly be misused by two people, then no product is safe.

The Pacific Legal Foundation, a libertarian public-interest-law firm, is representing Leachco before the CPSC and has brought a separate federal suit against the agency, challenging the constitutionality of the action. Attorney Oliver Dunford told NR, “We think this kind of claim should be before a court of law, not an agency.”

https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/16/hunter-biden-fighting-in-court-to-bar-his-4-year-old-love-child-from-using-his-surname/

Scandal-plagued Hunter Biden is resisting a motion in court to allow his 4-year-old daughter to use his surname, arguing that it is in her best interest not to share his family’s name.

According to the New York Post, Lunden Roberts made the request on December 27 amid an ongoing paternity case in Independence, Ark, where Biden is fighting to lower his child-support payments for his illegitimate daughter Navy Joan Roberts.

On Dec. 27, Roberts, 31, asked Circuit Court Judge Holly Meyer to allow Navy to take the Biden name, claiming it would benefit their daughter because it is “now synonymous with being well educated, successful, financially acute and politically powerful.” Roberts also argued that the Biden name would open up opportunities for the girl “just like it has for other members of the Biden family.”

In a court filing on January 6, Biden’s lawyer argued in response that his surname would rob the child of a “peaceful existence” because it has become a lightning rod for criticism. He told the judge that his daughter should decide for herself once “the disparagement of the Biden name is not at its height.”

https://amgreatness.com/2023/01/16/new-body-worn-camera-footage-from-j6-supports-calls-for-release-of-all-video/

Body-worn camera footage obtained by American Greatness of a D.C. Metropolitan police officer on duty on January 6, 2021, shows the chaos unfolding in real-time that day and how law enforcement’s response to the protest led to rising tension and deadly violence.

Officer Terrence Craig, an 11-year veteran of the force, testified last week in the criminal trial of Richard Barnett, the Arkansas man notoriously photographed with his feet on a desk in then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) office on January 6, 2021. Nearly two-and-a-half hours of video was captured by Craig’s body-worn camera, providing an uninterrupted and shocking view of what happened inside and outside the building. 

Never-before-seen interactions with police and protesters bolster demands by House Republicans to release all surveillance video recorded by Capitol security cameras on January 6.

Craig’s video starts with a group of D.C. Metro and Capitol Police advancing toward the west side of the building at 2:30 p.m. The first physical breach occurred about 15 minutes beforehand; Capitol police had used “nonlethal” munitions such as flashbangs, pepper balls, and tear gas on the crowd assembled outside on Capitol grounds for roughly an hour—the first time in department history that officers were ordered to use such dangerous crowd control devices on political protesters.

D.C. police were ordered to dress in full riot gear, including gas masks, face shields, gloves, and ballistic vests. Under cross-examination by Joseph McBride, one of Barnett’s defense attorneys, Craig admitted the officers were “fully geared up” before taking their positions.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/reining-in-government-spending-lets-get-real/

Behind the refusal of the House Republican Party’s so-called freedom caucus to vote for Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., is the caucus’s skepticism that he will actually “rein in government spending.” I’ve never quite understood why all Republicans do not belong to the Freedom Caucus. If the Republican Party supports low taxes, light regulations and strong national security, why is a Freedom Caucus even necessary?

Here’s the problem. In 1900, government at all three levels — local, state and federal — taxed Americans at about 9% of their earnings. Now, it is over 32%. As former President Ronald Reagan said: “Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

The federal budget devotes about half of its spending to the so-called entitlement programs: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare. Next is income security, which includes general retirement and disability insurance; federal employee retirement, disability and military retirement; unemployment compensation; housing assistance; nutrition assistance; foster care; Supplemental Security Income; and the earned income and child tax credits. They are followed, in decreasing order, by national security and interest on the debt. Combined, these programs consume almost all federal spending — courtesy of dollars collected from taxpayers or through borrowing that ultimately must be paid back by taxpayers or through printing. This leaves a small percentage of the federal budget for so-called discretionary spending.

As to the “entitlement” portion, even Democrats over the years called the spending “unsustainable.”

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/01/17/biden-wants-it-both-ways-on-covid-but-either-way-taxpayers-get-screwed/

Last week, the Biden administration once again extended the COVID public health emergency, the 12th time it’s been extended in the past three years. Just weeks before, however, team Biden told the Supreme Court that there is no COVID emergency, and there hasn’t been one since last April.

Why the two diametrically opposed positions? Simple. Extending the public health emergency declaration lets Joe Biden keep millions of recipients on Medicaid and continue his student loan bailout. Claiming that COVID isn’t an emergency will open the floodgates to illegal immigrants.

Notice the connective tissue? It’s about expanding government dependency – for health care, for college aid, or for illegals getting on welfare. Who loses? You. And anyone else who pays taxes.

On Jan. 11, Biden Health and Human Service Secretary Xavier Becerra announced that “as a result of the continued consequences of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic,” he was renewing the public health emergency declaration because “a public health emergency exists and has existed since Jan. 27, 2020, nationwide.”

This isn’t about public health. It’s about government welfare.

As the Mercatus Center’s Liam Sigaud and Markus Bjoerkheim explained recently, one of the many COVID relief bills rushed through Congress “substantially increased the proportion of Medicaid costs that the federal government covers and barred states that receive the funding from checking enrollees’ eligibility or removing the ineligible from Medicaid rolls.”