Liberty & Prosperity Blog

I don't know what magical power Nancy Pelosi has over so-called Democrat moderates but it isn't disputed that it works. After the House passed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework, aka BIF, Pelosi next called a vote on Joe Biden's Build Back Better Bill. According to the Clerk of the House, the bill passed by a vote of 220 yeas, 213 nays. Among the so-called moderates who voted for Biden's Build Back Better Bill were Minnesota's Angie Craig and Dean Phillips. Today, Joe Biden visits Minnesota to highlight the pork in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill that's now law. Tyler Kistner issued this statement the day before Biden's visit: Earlier this week President Joe Biden announced he is coming to Minnesota in an attempt to save Angie Craig’s failing campaign. Joe Biden is coming to Minnesota with stunningly low approval ratings and a record of failure less than one year into his term. Minnesotans are currently facing record inflation, a stagnant economy, a...

Truth Be Told: Part II: Forgotten History—the Declaration of Independence Against the Pro-slavery King of England By Ramblin’ Rose In the continuation of the Crossroad interview of Tim Barton (Wallbuilders) by Joshua Philpp, the truth about the maligned Thomas Jefferson, as a reputed slave owner, was revealed. After Jamestown, the other major colony was Plymouth. There the view of slavery was completely different. The Founding Fathers from the northern colonies were abolitionists. Those from South Carolina and Georgia championed slavery. In 1773 and 1774, four colonies passed the first anti-slavery laws that were vetoed by the King of England. From the handwritten notes of Thomas Jefferson in drafting the Declaration of Independence, the longest grievance among the 27 grievances against King George was against slavery. A hidden truth was that the colonists wanted to end slavery that was perpetuated by the King. Only the colonies of South Carolina and Georgia refused to support...

The stupidity of the Biden administration is highlighted by their hostility towards fossil fuels and pipelines. Thanks to the Biden administration's war on traditional energy sources, inflation is rampant, not transitory. It's apparent that Democrats are economic illiterates and that the Biden administration is either too weak to stand up to AOC's Green New Deal or too economically illiterate to know that getting energy right is essential to strong economies. That isn't the only thing required for a strong economy but it's the first building block to put into place. Kevin Mooney's article highlights the Democrats'/globalists' energy agenda. It's apparent that Democrats see energy as a tool to be used for coercing more central planning: When former President Barack Obama says “We are nowhere near where we need to be” in terms of climate change, he’s not talking about reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The stated goals of the U.N. Paris Agreement tha...

Truth Be Told: Part I: Forgotten History—the Anti-slave History of America By Ramblin’ Rose Too bad that Nikole Hannah-Jones did not study history before publishing her 1619 project, soon to become a book. Fortunately, Tim Barton of Wallbuilders did review original documents in order to relate the real narrative about the founding of our country. In an interview with Joshua Philipp of the Epoch Times Crossroads at the American Journey Experience Museum, opened in May 2021, Mr. Barton countered the 1619 lies with original notes from our Founding Fathers—verified information—not the “subjective truth” from the left. In reality, there were black slaves in the Americas in the 1500s—long before 1619-but in Spanish-dominated regions of the Americas. Some may claim that the first black colony of slaves in North America was in 1619. But that is not completely accurate either. The slaves were on a Portuguese ship that fell to British pirates who transported their plunder (19 black slaves) to J...

Who could've predicted that OPEC+ and Russia might delay increasing oil production after Joe Biden announced he'd tap 50,000,000 barrels of oil from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve? A: The Wall Street Journal predicted it. Ditto with Forbes Magazine owner Steve Forbes. Ditto with Larry Kudlow, now the host of his own show on Fox Business. This article reports "Top oil producers Saudi Arabia and Russia are considering pausing their planned efforts to ramp up oil production, according to The Wall Street Journal, after the U.S. and other energy-consuming countries said they would tap their national strategic petroleum reserves in an attempt to bring down gasoline prices." That's as surprising as finding out that the sun always rises in the east. If Joe Biden wasn't totally afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome, he likely wouldn't have demolished each of President Trump's successful policies. Reversing this policy is exceptionally stupid. With it ...

Bill Bennett got into a heated debate with Charles Lane of the Washington Post on inflation during the Biden administration. When the skirmish ended, Lane had exposed himself as a leftist. It started when Bennett said "Look, this will last maybe two, two-and-a-half. OPEC can lower its production, so prices can remain the same. In any case, it's a very, very temporary thing. There is a problem with the Biden administration right now that's getting acute, and that is keep saying things are getting better, things are OK. You think things are bad, don't believe your own eyes. Don't believe what you see at the gas pump. Believe me. This is what happens in authoritarian countries, and it's a very dangerous road, a very dangerous road to take." That clearly triggered Lane, who replied "Well, I think we did have a president in the previous four years who did quite often what Bill just, and that was, as he says, a symptom of authoritarianism. As for the gas p...

This op-ed was written by Jessica Tarlov and Antjuan Seawright. It's initial premise is dishonest, to say the least. They write "Imagine your house was struck by lightning. What would you do? Would you rebuild it just as it was, with the same dripping faucet in the bathroom, leaky roof, or sticking door? Would you choose new guest room wallpaper as faded as the old, and ignore the outdated wiring that transformed a lightning strike into a house fire?" This is insulting to thinking people. The premise is faulty because the COVID recovery started the minute we re-opened the economy. The Trump-GOP tax/regulatory policies were still intact. The GDP for Q32020 was 33%. That's the biggest GDP in this nation's history. That hardly sounds like the home Tarlov and Seawright described. A GDP rate of 33% doesn't sound like a home with a dripping faucet, a leaking roof and sticking door. It sounds more like a luxury penthouse to me: Tarlov and Seawright continue this ex...

Kim Strassel's latest Potomac Watch column is titled "Democrats Have a Waukesha Problem." In it, she writes "Here’s the common reaction to the Waukesha, Wis., murders: It’s nuts that the suspect, with his long criminal history, was free on $1,000 bail posted days before the automotive rampage. Here’s New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, in a tweet the day after the Waukesha murders: 'Today, we sent a letter . . . to NYC’s 5 District Attorneys requesting information on excessive bail in the NYC court system.' The letter was also signed by fellow New York Democrat Carolyn Maloney and Maryland’s Jamie Raskin. That disconnect will haunt Democrats." The Marxist/socialist wing of the Democratic Party is fighting the less radical wing of the party. Rashida Tlaib has signed onto the BREATHE Act, which has a stated goal of emptying all federal prisons within 10 years. Watch Tlaib attempt to defend that legislation when cross-examined by Jonathan Swan: Meanwhi...

I'm confused. Less than a week ago, the nation was told that white people could wander the streets and shoot people, yell self-defense, then get acquitted at the end of a trial. Yesterday, 3 white men were convicted of shooting Ahmaud Arbery after claiming self-defense. Which is it? After Mr. Rittenhouse was acquitted on all charges, Joy Reid said "We've talked about this. I mean, this is what we expected to happen because I think we have to keep in mind when we`re watching the criminal justice system at work that it was designed to do exactly what it did today. Gun laws helped to enhance the design to allow this verdict to happen today. This country was built on the idea of white men had a particular kind of freedom and a particular kind of citizenship that only they have that gives, you know, from the slave catchers on the right to inflict violence in the name of protecting property." Reid wasn't finished saying foolish things. After that, she said this: I'...

Apparently, the Zimmerman School Board (ISD728) needs to be taught a Constitution lesson . According to the article, "A Minnesota school district banned parents and residents from school grounds for one year after they complained about an alleged sexual abuser in the building with their children. " Cassandra Bonine, a parent of a student in the district, "was able to exchange words with Zimmerman High School Principal Marco Voce outside the room where the meeting was being held. Bonine 'asked him [Voce] if he had children,' she recalled to the Daily Mail . 'What if it were your daughters? How would you feel in this situation?' she inquired." In response, she said she got a knock on her door a few days later as police handed her a trespass notification that bans her from the district office and Zimmerman Middle/High School. "This trespass notice is given due to your verbal altercation with Principal Marco Voce, which you instigated, was witnessed...

I'm old enough to remember great economies that were built on rock-solid fundamentals, not trendy political movements. The last great economy built on those types of fundamentals was built in 2017 by President Trump with a little assistance of Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. Before passing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, Congress eliminated tons of Obama-Biden administration regulations designed to kill the fossil fuel industry. (Sounds familiar, doesn't it?) They used the Congressional Review Act 16 times to eliminate rules restricting the use of fossil fuels. After that, it didn't take long for the United States to become energy dominant. It took a little longer to become energy independent. The next big building block of the best economy of my lifetime was passing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. When President Trump signed that into law, the economy's animal spirits were unleashed. Money parked overseas was repatriated and invested here in the United States. Unemployment rate...

According to this article , Joe Biden will release 50,000,000 barrels of oil from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Ed Morrissey's article says "Fifty million barrels of oil sounds like a lot, right? It’s not — at all. In 2020, when consumption hit its lowest level in a quarter-century, the US consumed 18 million barrels of oil a day." If Joe Biden won't increase oil production, then we should expect higher gas prices until Republicans retake the White House in 2024. If the US doesn't increase oil exploration, which won't happen thanks to the Democrats' environmental activist supporters, expect inflation to remain high. Without robust energy production, the cost of virtually everything goes up. It isn't just higher gas prices and more expensive home heating bills, either. Higher diesel prices translates into higher grocery prices. The cost of shipping products to stores increases, too. Releasing 50,000,000 barrels of oil is a holiday weekend's wort...

Monday night, a future Fox News superstar asked the question that other networks have asked. Lawrence Jones asked "What would happen if a black man did what Kyle Rittenhouse did?" Then Lawrence answered his own question. Lawrence said "If the liberal media were actual journalists, they wouldn't have to ask 'what if this happened to a black man?' We know. Look no further than the story of Andrew Coffee IV." Then he proverbially rubbed salt into the media's wounds, saying "So instead, let me do their job and tell America what happened. In March of 2017 Andrew Coffee was asleep in his home when a SWAT team arrived with a search warrant for his father. When police detonated a flash bang device before entering, Coffee woke up thinking he was being robbed. Being a gun owner, Coffee opened fire, looking to defend his home. When police returned fire, Andrew's girlfriend, Alteria Woods, was tragically caught in the crossfire and killed by police. No...

There's little that vast swaths of people agree with. According to I&I/TIPP Polling, though, the vast majority of people expect inflation to be with us for the next year. According to their polling, "In our November I&I/TIPP Poll, 84% said 'over the next year prices for gasoline, food, and other household products' would be 'much higher' or 'somewhat higher' than today. Only 8% thought they’d be lower, while 5% weren’t sure." The Biden White House should be worried about this: The big surprise comes from those who expect 'much higher' prices (48%), compared to those expecting only 'somewhat higher' prices (36%). Clearly, many people are preparing themselves for a slog against '70s-style inflation at least for the next year. This pie-chart shows the distribution of views on inflation: With the list of problems already tormenting Democrats, this is bad news for Democrats. They voted to create this inflation when they vot...

On Sunday morning's At Issue with Tom Hauser, Hauser discussed Biden's Build Back Better Bill with Brian Melendez and Brian McClung. Hauser described the BBB Bill as a "$1.75 trillion bill." Clearly, Mr. Hauser is better at journalism than he is with math. Only the CBO score puts the cost of the bill under $2,000,000,000,000. The Penn-Wharton score says that "new spending would instead increase by $4.26 trillion and new revenue would still increase by $1.56 trillion over the 10-year budget window." I'm not a Ph.D mathemetician but I'm certain that $4.26 trillion is much bigger than $1.75 trillion. I'm not surprised that Brian Melendez didn't disagree with the CBO score but I expect better from Mr. McLung. Instead of highlighting the gimmicks that Democrats deployed to get a smaller-sounding number, McClung just went into his analysis of whether the bill might pass. Shame on him for that. Not commenting on the Democrats' gimmicks is miss...

Enes Kanter isn't just another athlete. He is a profile in courage. He's earned that title for having the courage to stand up to the Chinese Communist Party, aka the CCP. This morning, the Wall Street Journal published Kanter's op-ed , which highlights the CCP's brutality and oppression of Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai. According to Mr. Kanter's op-ed, "Shuai took to social media earlier this month to accuse a former top-ranking official in the Chinese Communist Party of sexually assaulting her. Within 30 minutes the post was scrubbed from the internet in China. She disappeared and no one has heard directly from her since." Then Kanter took a not-so-veiled shot at LeBron James, saying "We must also stop giving priority to money over morals. Claiming we are 'misinformed' or 'not really educated' should no longer be an excuse." Then he gives 'King James' a history lesson worth learning: Athletes can play a profound role in ...

One thing that the Rittenhouse jury didn't rule on was whether government failed its most fundamental responsibility of protecting the people. They didn't rule on that because the Rittenhouse jury's primary responsibility, its only responsibility really, was to determine whether Kyle Rittenhouse had acted legally. As for whether government failed to protect the people, that verdict would be 'guilty'. Democrat Gov. Tony Evers twice rejected offers from then-President Trump to send in the National Guard. Evers only accepted after the shootings. Former state Supreme Court Justice Janine Geske said "It was a tough case. I worry that the message is that it's OK to bring serious arms, whether an AR-15 or other kinds of guns, to protests or counter protests for self-defense purposes. If everyone is open carrying guns we're going to get into situations with people being shot." These riots (no, they weren't protests) could've been prevented or, at...

Friday afternoon, the Rittenhouse jury delivered a verdict on the criminal trial. They also delivered a verdict on the MSM. It isn't pretty. Miranda Devine's article outlines 10 of the MSM's biggest lies. He killed 2 black BLM protesters. He crossed state lines. Rittenhouse took an AR-15 across state lines. The gun was illegal. Rittenhouse’s mother drove him across state lines to the riot. He was an "active shooter" who took his gun to a riot looking for trouble. Rittenhouse is a "white supremacist," as then-candidate Joe Biden labeled him in a tweet showing the teenager’s photograph. He “flashed white power signs” with Proud Boys. He wore surgical gloves "to cover his fingerprints." Judge Bruce Schroeder is a “Trumpy” racist biased toward the defense. That's   quite the indictment against the MSM. If you're surprised by any of these verified facts, Townhall's Julio Rosas has some advice: If you are in shock over the verdict, get ...

This afternoon, the jury in the Rittenhouse trial delivered their verdict in the trial. Predictably and correctly, the Rittenhouse jury acquitted Mr. Rittenhouse on all 5 counts against him. Rittenhouse pleaded not guilty on the basis of self defense. In summation, Judge Bruce Schroeder said "I couldn't have asked for a better jury to work with and it has truly been my pleasure. I think, without commenting on your verdict, the verdicts themselves, just in terms of your attentiveness and the cooperation that you gave to us, justifies the confidence that the founders of our country placed in you so I dismiss you at this time." Meanwhile, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, the chairman of the DCCC, aka the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee, issued this statement , saying "It’s disgusting and disturbing that someone was able to carry a loaded assault rifle into a protest against the unjust killing of Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man, and take the lives of two people an...

Thursday night and Friday morning, Kevin McCarthy was a man posessed. Starting at 8:38 pm ET, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy held the floor until Nancy Pelosi cried uncle. In the wee hours of Friday morning, Pelosi called off the vote on Joe Biden's Build Back Better Bill. FNC's Chad Pergram reported "At one point, the minority leader asked how President Biden can be trusted with $5 trillion after the debacle in Afghanistan." Pergram then reported "Rep. Steny Hoyer, the Democrat majority leader, issued a statement at early Friday that said members were 'advised that there are no further votes in the House tonight.' The House will reconvene at 8 a.m. ET and will likely vote on the bill. Most Democrats abandoned the chamber after midnight with McCarthy still talking, the Associated Press reported." House approval was still expected on a near party-line vote. That would send the measure to a Senate where cost-cutting demands by moderate Sen. Joe ...

After reading these tweets, my first question is simple. Will this whistleblower get US Attorney General Merrick Garland impeached? FROM THE WHISTLEBLOWER: pic.twitter.com/4IfJRPVKMk — House Judiciary GOP (@JudiciaryGOP) November 16, 2021 To use a Biden phrase, this is a big effing deal. The article highlights the fact that "An Oct. 20 internal email from the FBI’s criminal and counterterrorism divisions, released Tuesday by House Republicans, instructed agents to apply the threat tag "EDUOFFICIALS" to all investigations and assessments of threats directed specifically at education officials." The article continues, saying this: "The purpose of the threat tag is to help scope this threat on a national level, and provide an opportunity for comprehensive analysis of the threat picture for effective engagement with law enforcement partners at all levels," the email stated. The email also directs FBI agents to consider whether the criminal activity being in...

According to this article , "Democrats plan to swing back aggressively at Republicans on critical race theory claims." That's actually the title of the article. The truth is that this tactic is destined for failure. While Republicans like Glenn Youngkin used this to build his winning coalition, the truth is that parents were the people that started the movement. Any attacks on Republicans are actually attacks against parents. Good luck with that strategy. Democrats intend on using nuance in their pitch. For instance, they plan on selling this with lines like "Democrats want to teach the truth about US history" and "Republicans are trying to divide Americans." This is the political equivalent of playing with fire while carrying an open gas can while performing a high wire act. If Democrats don't figure this out, the bodycount next November will be historically high. It wouldn't be just a matter of Democrats losing the House. It's a matter of...

Tim Gannon, the former police chief in Brooklyn Center, made 100 decisions in the days after Daunte Wright's shooting. In this article , he says he can't think of a single decision he'd change. Gannon said "In every decision that I made for those two or three nights; I thought any other police chief would’ve made those same decisions. They were the right decisions to make. I wanted the community to know that we were going to be honest, transparent, and if it looked bad, it looked bad." Brooklyn Center Mayor Mike Elliott ambushed Gannon at a meeting that Elliott told Gannon he had to attend: The day after Wright’s killing, Mayor Elliott told Chief Gannon he needed to attend a 10 a.m. community listening session before the chief’s 11a.m. press conference where he would reveal the body cam footage to the media. "I walked in, and to be honest with you, I didn’t recognize many, if any citizens from Brooklyn Center. It turned out to be a number of activists from Mi...

California has lost its luster over the last 20+ years. California gained at least 1 congressional district each census since becoming a state. That stopped with the 2010 census, when California stayed with 53 congressional districts. After this years census, though, that trend got worse, with California losing a district for the first time in the state's history. That trend might accelerate if this article is right: Some of the 2,000 Walt Disney Company employees who are being moved from California to Florida are already eyeing up the housing market near Orlando. "They are already trickling in," Armel Real Estate owner Deanna Armel told WKMG of the Disney employees looking at homes. "I’m working with a Disney relocation right now buying in the Winter Garden area." Disney announced in July that it would move 2,000 employees from California to Florida in part because of "Florida’s business-friendly climate," chairman of Disney Parks, Experiences and Pr...

Adam Schiff, the corrupt chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, aka HPSCI, should learn the definition of character. Preferably, he'd learn from retired Congressman J.C. Watts. During his keynote speech to the Republican National Convention in San Diego in 1996, Watts defined character , aka integrity. Specifically, Watts said "I've got a pretty simple definition of character. It's simply doing what's right when nobody's looking." That's a concept that's foreign to Schiff. Schiff's more dishonest than Richard Nixon. This morning, Schiff went on Chuck Todd's Meet the Press. When he was asked about the Steele/Clinton Dossier, Schiff started making excuses like he usually does. He said "I don't regret saying that we should investigate claims of someone who, frankly, was a well-respected British intelligence officer. And we couldn’t have known, of course, years ago that we would learn years later that someon...

Earlier this week, I wrote this post about Brenda Sheridan, the current chair of the Loudoun County School Board. The highlight (lowlight?) of the post is the petition that claims that "the School Board's plan was" to: Gather information (list of residents who are in charge of the anti-CRT movement;) Infiltrate (create fake online profilees and join these groups to collect and communicate information, hackers who can either shut down their websites or redirect them to pro-crt/anti-racist informational websites) Spread information ( expose people publicly , create online petitions, create counter-mailings) Apparently, Loudoun County isn't the only school board with nefarious intentions. This article exposes Jann-Michael Greenburg, the Scottsdale Unified School District president. It opens by saying "A group of mothers in the Scottsdale Unified School District community are questioning an online dossier that has digital connections to school board President Jann-...

In 1948, President Truman campaigned against the do-nothing congress. In next year's midterm elections, it won't be difficult for Republicans to campaign against the no-solutions Biden administration. Joe Concha's op-ed shows how simple it is to make that accusation stick: In a related story, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg was in Scotland, talking about climate change and paternity leave, instead of addressing the supply chain crisis, which is playing a big role in this jump in inflation, while his Vice President was in France, instead of at the U.S. southern border.  Overall, President Biden hasn't met with his senior cabinet members since ... July. The Biden administration's priorities aren't the American people's priorities. The administration's slavish devotion to passing Biden's Build Back Better Bill makes the administration look disinterested in curbing inflation, fixing the labor shortage or fixing the supply chain's issues. In...