Liberty & Prosperity Blog

According to CNN, MSNBC, the NYTimes and the Washington Post, Joe Biden isn't getting enough credit for the rip-roaring economy we have. MSNBC's Chuck Todd, for instance, highlighted the fact that 2 polls showed that a) a majority of people think we're already in a recession and b) a supermajority (75%) of people view the economy as "not so good" or "poor." This isn't that difficult to figure out. The monthly jobs report, which is due out tomorrow BTW, doesn't factor in inflation or high gas prices. It doesn't set aside the anxiety of which bills to pay and which bills to pay late. In such an environment, what's to feel good about? Where's our cheerleader? Despite his faults, we could always count on President Trump to highlight things like the lowest unemployment rate for minorities, the lowest poverty rate since that statistic has been kept or how much money the Trump tax cuts were putting into families' pockets. Then again, wi...

Joe Biden had better buckle up for a disastrous midterm election cycle. Gallup's latest polling "shows that rising consumer prices are the top economic concern for Americans, with 17% of respondents calling the recent inflation spike the 'nation's most important problem.' That's up from 8% in January and 10% in February. In all, a majority of Americans, 59%, said they worry about cost-of-living expenses a 'great deal,' according to the poll, which was conducted March 1-18 with 1,017 adults. The margin of error is 4 percentage points." Additionally, "Inflation doesn't dominate Americans' perceptions of the most important problem facing the country today the way it did in the early 1980s, but it's more top-of-mind than it's been in over three decades and appears to be taking a toll on Americans' broader economic confidence,' Gallup said in the survey." Simply put, people aren't giving Biden credit for decent job...

Everyone is buzzing about Joe Biden's 9 words at the end of his Warsaw speech. Frankly, who cares what he said about Russia's potential regime change? Biden's words can be rendered irrelevant by getting the lethal weapons to Ukraine. It's time for NATO and the U.S. to notice that Russia's military is highly defeatable. Ukraine has noticed. Most important, they're acting on what they're seeing. It's indisputable that Ukraine is still defending part of their country. Still, they're going on the counteroffensive in other parts of their nation. Actually, the "Ukrainian military has begun to take the fight to Russian territory, a new development in what has been a primarily defensive war for the country. Russian authorities were forced to place two villages under emergency orders and evacuate some citizens due to Ukrainian shelling in the area, according to reports from multiple Russian media outlets." Marc Thiessen was a speechwriter for Georg...

 Last week was a week of weakness and confusion for Joe Biden. If you think that NATO didn't decide what they'd do to help Ukraine defeat Putin, then let's add indecision to weakness and confusion. First, let's deal with the confusion since there was so much of it. When Biden was asked about whether NATO would respond to a chemical weapon attack, Biden said that there would be an "in-kind" response , meaning that NATO would respond with a chemical weapon attack of its own. When Joe Biden visited the troops of the 82nd Airborne Division, he said "But the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian people have a lot of backbone. They have a lot of guts. And I’m sure you’re observing it. And I don’t mean just the military, which is, we’ve been training since back when they uh, Russia moved into, into southeast, southeast Ukraine. But also the average citizen. Look at how they’re stepping up. Look at how they’re stepping up. And you’re gonna see when you’re there. And s...

When Joe Biden visited Poland, it was on the heels of him making several major mistakes. Earlier, in Brussels, when asked how NATO would respond to a Russian chemical weapon attack, Biden said that NATO would respond "in-kind", which means that NATO would also use chemical weapons. Within minutes of the end of that press conference, NSA Jake Sullivan rushed before the cameras to say that the U.S. wouldn't use chemical weapons "under any circumstances." In instance after instance, the Biden administration's national security team had to clean up Joe's messes. Also in Brussels, Biden insisted that sanctions didn't deter, that they weren't meant to deter Russia. That's news to VP Harris, Secretary of State Blinken, NSA Sullivan and Press Secretary Psaki. They're each caught on video saying the opposite: Those statements pale in comparison with this statement : A dictator bent on rebuilding an empire will never erase a people’s love for liber...

Apparently, the Sartell-St. Stephen school board didn't learn its lesson. They've again gotten caught tilting the Constitution against student of faith and towards an LGBTQ student group . According to the article, "Student-led groups were denied the right to advertise, yet the 'Gender and Sexuality Alliance' club, an LGBT organization, freely put up signs and individual stickers on classroom doors, according to parents. Kids over Politics 748 (KOP), the local non-partisan movement begun last year, seeking opportunity for all without discrimination, requested equal treatment in promoting clubs." The article continues: Co-founder Chris Yasgar said he’s simply asking the district to follow federal law. "One group has been allowed to express ideas by placing signs and stickers throughout the school district, including on classroom doors, windows and walls," he said during the public forum portion Monday. "Other groups, organized under the exact sam...

In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait because it insisted that Kuwait had drilled oil wells that tapped into Iraqi oil. Within hours of that invasion, President George H.W. Bush emphatically stated "This will not stand." Later, in a meeting with Lady Thatcher, Thatcher instructed Bush "George, don't go wobbly." He didn't. Iraq's invasion didn't stand. Bush 41 got it right in Iraq in the sense that he had a well-defined mission and he had enough troops to defeat Saddam Hussein thanks to what's known as the Powell Doctrine. The Powell Doctrine is named after then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Collin Powell. The Modern War Institute lays out the Powell Doctrine here : Is a vital national security interest threatened? Do we have a clear attainable objective? Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed? Have all other nonviolent policy means been fully exhausted? Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement? Have the co...

All throughout the Trump administration, Adam Schiff insisted that President Trump was a Russian agent. Forget the fact that Schiff didn't have a piece of evidence of that. Schiff insisted that the only explanation that fit his warped view of the world was that President Trump was President Putin's puppet. Perish that thought ASAP. The Mueller report and the IG report stated categorically that President Trump didn't collude with the Russians. Let's understand why I'm insisting that Joe Biden is a Russian agent. I don't mean it literally. I'm saying it to highlight the fact that Biden's administration's decisions have benefited Russia, especially with regards to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Russia's cash cow, aka oil. If we had a real president in the White House, Putin wouldn't have invaded in the first place. If Putin had invaded with a real president in office, we would've done everything possible to help Ukraine defeat Russia. ...

A month ago, Ketanji Brown-Jackson was a nobody outside legal circles. Today, every water cooler across America is talking about her. The talk about the Democrats' latest unqualified Supreme Court Justice nominee isn't flattering, thanks to this exchange with Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn: I'm confident that bumper stickers are being made as I type this post highlighting Ketanji Brown-Jackson's difficulties with the definition of the word woman. Dictionary.com's definition of the word woman is "an adult female person." That's the really unserious problem she has. The deadly serious problem ketanji Brown-Jackson has deals with her child pornography sentencing history . Ted Cruz lit her up like a Christmas tree on her rulings: "[In] United States vs. Chazin, the prosecutor asked for 78 to 97 months. You imposed 28 months. Twenty-eight months is a 64 percent reduction. In United States vs. Cooper, the prosecutor asked for 72 months, you...

When Joe Biden's Pentagon totally botched the withdrawal in Afghanistan, Biden left NATO allies hanging. That incompetence is returning to bite Biden's backside with Russia's invasion of Ukraine. After getting hung out to dry by Biden, NATO hasn't worried about following Biden's feckless dictates. Biden has lost his moral authority on the international stage. Without that, he isn't effective because NATO doesn't trust him. That's hurting Biden as he's just landing in Brussels for a high-stakes NATO discussion on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In times past, U.S. presidents were treated with respect. That's because they led NATO through difficult times and sticky situations. This trip, the NATO leaders will say all the right things in public. What's still undetermined is whether they'll dismiss him in their private discussions. Arriving in Belgium on Wednesday, President Joe Biden will meet with trans-Atlantic leaders for several high-s...

When Tim Walz proposed his Walz-Checks, he thought it was a clever campaign stunt. Walz's biggest problem is Bidenflation. Bidenflation is costing families $300 a month . Walz's next biggest Walz-Check problem is that he wants to spend money on the Education Minnesota slush fund by saying it's being invested on education. Right now, that isn't a good topic in Minneapolis because teachers are out on strike : Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) announced Sunday that it had "shared its last, best and final [Education Support Professional] ESP offer with union leaders that underscores the district's commitment to honoring the contributions ESPs make to our schools and students." The offer includes 15.6% salary increases for ESPs on average over two years and $3.5 million to cover increased work hours for ESPs. "MPS is reaching beyond its financial means on behalf of our ESPs and will need to make more than $10 million in reductions for the next school year a...

In their only debate in 1980, Ronald Reagan asked the American people if they were better off today than they were 4 years earlier. Days later, Reagan won in a landslide, collecting 489 electoral votes. IBD/TIPP asked a similar question in their recent poll . In the IBD/TIPP poll, they asked "Generally speaking, is your family better off today than it was one year ago, worse off than it was one year ago, or about the same as it was a year ago?" This is the reply: Here's the reply: Fewer than one in five (20%) said they were "better off" while more than twice that number — 42% — said they were "worse off." Another 36% said they were "about the same." Republicans should pound this home morning, noon and nighttime from now until Election Day. People know that they're paying too much for gas, rent and to heat their homes. It doesn't take a genius to convince people of that. Despite this, Biden's recent speeches have included referenc...

Altogether too often, American citizens 'surrender' their rights without a fight. It's time to stop that habit. Whether it's at school board meetings or elsewhere, our First Amendment rights are a fight worth having. Jazz Shaw's article  highlights what happens when people stand up and intelligently fight the machine. In Jazz's article, he notes that "Last October, 44-year-old Alabama gun shop owner Nathan Kirk went to the DMV to attend to one of the most typical, boring tasks that most Americans have to deal with on a regular basis. He was completing the registration of his Ford F-250 pickup truck. But he was taking care of that little detail just as the whole “Let’s Go Brandon” meme was blowing up online. He decided to have a bit of fun and coughed up the extra money for a vanity plate for the truck. The license plate number he requested was “LGBF JB.” The plate arrived near the end of January and he put it on the truck, then didn’t think much more about ...

This week, Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy attempted to shame a group of Republican senators for voting against the omnibus spending bill that funds the government for the rest of this year. Murphy did his best to virtue-shame these GOP senators. Murphy's bad fortune is that Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse stood up to him. Contained in the omnibus spending bill was funding for Ukraine. Rather than put Ukraine funding in a clean bill, Democrats put the funding in with their Christmas wish list spending bill, which they knew was loaded with poison pills for Republicans. Sasse was one of the Republicans who voted against the omnibus spending bill after saying that Joe Biden had taken his time in supplying Ukraine with lethal military aid. Rather than put up with Sen. Murphy's grandstanding , Sen. Sasse chose to question Murphy on the Senate floor: Sen. @BenSasse absolutely wrecks @ChrisMurphyCT after the Democrat senator claims Sasse voted against an omnibus bill over aid to Ukraine. The ...

Joe Biden hasn't figured out that diplomacy without a legitimate looming military threat doesn't work with Vladimir Putin. Each step of the way, Congress has pushed Biden to tighten U.S. sanctions and push Biden to send more armaments to Ukraine. Thus far, Biden has worried far too much that Biden's actions might provoke Putin. That isn't projecting strength. Biden hasn't figured out that getting a bully's attention like Putin requires a legitimate threat of giving Putin a bloody nose or a fat lip. Far too often, Biden has hidden under his desk when strength was required. Newt Gingrich summed things up perfectly in this op-ed : We have, again, seen that deterrence based on words and diplomacy is unreliable when dealing with dictators. Only strength matters. President Biden first talked about Putin’s threat to Ukraine in April 2021. He had 10 months to strengthen Ukraine’s military, provide the necessary equipment and provide training when Putin could not have ef...

It's time to throw away the metrics used to measure whether the U.S./NATO/EU response to the war in Ukraine is a success. At this point, the only metric that matters is whether Ukraine's military is throwing Putin's military out of Ukraine. While it's true that some sanctions are helping the Ukrainian military, the only true thing that matters is whether Putin's troops are thrown out of Ukraine. Anyone thinking that Putin will call it a career after retaking Ukraine haven't studied him. They haven't paid attention to him recently, either. Putin wants Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland back in Russia's federation, most likely within the next 5 years. The Biden administration continues clinging to their strawman argument against a no-fly zone . That's ancient history. There's a growing bipartisan (and bicameral) support for sending the MiG-29 jets from Poland to Ukraine. Additionally, this bipartisan group is pushing for beefing up air defense s...

I just finished writing a post about cutting Putin down to size on the battlefield. Little did I know that this article would be published this morning. Ukraine's President Zelenskiy publicly humiliates Russian President Putin with a speech: "The 19th day of our resistance is over. Historical war. Another difficult day, which is still approaching our victory. Approaching peace for Ukraine," Zelenskyy began, according to his presidential office. He noted that "the enemy is confused" and did not expect stiff resistance. "Their soldiers know this. Their officers are aware of this. They flee the battlefield. They abandon equipment." President Zelenskiy continued: "We take trophies and use them to protect Ukraine," Zelenskyy said. "Today, Russian troops are, in fact, one of the suppliers of equipment to our army. They could not imagine such a thing in a nightmare." "Russian conscripts! Listen to me very carefully," Zelenskyy ...

This past weekend, Daniel Henninger of the WSJ asked a legitimate question. Henninger asked what the difference between WW3 or WW 2.5 was. Later in the weekend, Trey Gowdy asked why it's ok for Russia to bomb baby hospitals in eastern Ukraine or Ukrainian cities 10 miles from Ukraine's border with Poland but it isn't ok to hit Polish people in Poland. I'd love hearing from Joe Biden explain why it's morally defensible to rain holy hell on Russia if they hit Poland but it isn't defensible to rain holy hell on Russia for intentionally bombing a Ukrainian children's hospital. Let's be clear about this. I don't want U.S. boots on the ground if it can be avoided. Russia attacking a NATO country invokes Rule 5, which says that an attack on one is an attack on all. At that point, war with Russia can't be avoided. Is Rule 5 the only thing that should trigger a NATO response? A strong case can be made that other extenuating circumstances should trigger WW...

According to David Petraeus, the former Director of the CIA and the architect of the Iraq Surge, it isn't difficult to understand why Russia's military isn't performing as expected : DAVID PETRAEUS: I think an awful lot of people got caught up in the narrative that President Putin had invested a great deal in his military, had brought it back from the depths of the post-Cold War period and seemed to take from these limited operations that were conducted, for example, in Syria, which was really mostly just Russian Air Force dropping bombs in an area where they had complete air supremacy, but took from that, that this is a really much improved military force. And we just haven't seen that. They have failed to integrate their ground maneuver and their air assets, something we thought they would use to great effect. That's really the essence of blitzkrieg going all the way back to, say, 1939, and they haven't been able to achieve combined arms effects. In other word...

It's frightening what types of stupid things can be heard while watching MSNBC hosts. This article quotes Chuck Todd as saying "There was this focus group - and it’s qualitative, not quantitative - where swing voters, Trump-Biden voters seem to buy the idea that Putin wouldn’t have done this in Trump was president. How does the Democratic Party answer for that?" Then Todd continued, saying "I don’t buy that. I don’t think that matches logic, but voters do. That's a perception issue." Actually, it's a fact problem. During the Trump administration, Putin behaved himself, relatively speaking, and didn't threaten Ukraine. That's largely because Trump shipped massive quantities of Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine. Some were part of an aid package. Others were sold outright to President Zelenskiy. Trump and Zelenskiy projected a no-nonsense image to Mr. Putin. Further, Trump's version of Drill, Baby, Drill kept oil prices cheap. It isn't ...

The West, especially Joe Biden, has talked a big game about how Vladimir Putin has bitten off more than he can chew and how western democracies necessarily will finish on the right side of history. It's time for Biden, Chancellor Scholz and NATO to take a step back and reflect a little. Each of these organizations and leaders should read this article in the Atlantic. It says "In the time since Russia invaded Ukraine, a round of self-congratulation has erupted in the West. Moscow is threatening the liberal order, but in the eyes of leaders in Washington, Berlin, London, or Paris, the West has shown the world just how strong and unified it is. The scale of the sanctions package is unprecedented, they say; the idea of freedom has shown itself to be stronger than Vladimir Putin ever could have imagined; the collective spirit of the liberal order has been restored." It continued, saying "It is easy to get carried away in a wave of awe at what is happening in Ukraine, fac...

I'm a little late with my opinion on the news that Dr. Scott Jensen picked former Viking Matt Birk as his running mate. Let's start by noting that the 2 frontrunners on the GOP side this year, Dr. Jensen and Kendall Qualls, are exciting candidates worthy of GOP and independent votes. Next, let's notice that Birk graduated from Harvard with a degree in economics. That puts him lightyears ahead of any elected DFL politician. Most elected DFL politicians are socialists economically. In his introductory statement, Birk said all the right things. For instance, he said "After decades of one-party complacency, our schools are not better, our top producers are leaving the state, crime is out of control, and we have a cultural and economic malaise which is impacting our spirit. But I believe we can make a comeback and become the best place to live and do business in America." Minnesota has a major crime problem. EdMinn, aka the teachers' union, runs the schools (and t...

The biggest reason I watch Larry Kudlow's program on FBN is because it tells me things that Joe Biden, Jennifer Granholm and Jen Psaki won't tell me about fossil fuels. Larry's daily opening riffs often are the highlight of my day. Today's riff isn't any different. Today's riff introduces the concept of "the Biden regulatory octopus." Kudlow explains it this way: Put aside federal permits and leases and look at private lands. They don't need federal permitting, but—and it's a huge but—private oil development may run into federal opposition from the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, NEPA, or other federal statutes that would block drilling and that is exactly what's happening. 9,000 federal leases or not, reality is the EPA, FERC, the SEC and the Federal Reserve are all working against new oil and gas production, particularly the EPA and FERC. They are invoking this crazy social cost of carbon metric which is, as I've said, c...

Let's understand the most important players in Russia's invasion into Ukraine. Russian President Vladimir Putin is described by Newt Gingrich as the Bear while Ukraine's President Zelenskyy is described as the Lion in Gingrich's article . Playing a diminutive role as a supporting actor is Joe Biden. He's characterized as the Bunny Rabbit. Gingrich opens the article by saying "The best way to understand the current extraordinarily dangerous tragedy in Ukraine is to imagine a fight between a bear, a lion, and a bunny rabbit. The bear of course is Russia, as President Ronald Reagan brilliantly evoked in his 1984 re-election commercial 'The Bear.' As the narrator said: 'There is a bear in the woods. For some people, the bear is easy to see. Others don’t see it at all. Some people say the bear is tame. Others say it’s vicious and dangerous. Since no one can really be sure who’s right, isn’t it smart to be as strong as the bear? If there is a bear.'...

Inside the energy industry, there's little doubt that Joe Biden got off to a bad start with energy policy. There's virtually no doubt that he's made the situation worse with his attempts to pass the Green New Deal. Biden's desperation is showing now that it appears he's going, hat in hand, to Saudi Arabia: According to Axios, the president’s advisers are considering the trip as a way to mend fences with the Islamic nation and get them to produce more oil to offset the loss that would come should the U.S. ban the purchase of oil from Russia. The meeting would come at a time when Americans are hurting due to inflation, which has been particularly noticeable at the gas pump, with prices climbing higher and higher. Biden spent much of last year citing the need to move away from fossil fuels because climate change was the "greatest threat" to the country, and one of his first acts was to shut down the Keystone XL oil pipeline. Biden is heading to Saudi Arabia ...

By the time people read this article, gas prices might've hit their highest national average price in history. According to this article (and likely others), "The national average for a gallon of gas hit $4.009 on Sunday, according to AAA, which is the highest since July 2008, not adjusted for inflation. Prices have been rising at a fast clip. Consumers are paying 40 cents more than a week ago, and 57 cents more than a month ago." The Democrat Party is to blame for this from start to finish. Starting with Joe Biden, who killed U.S. energy independence his first week in office, Democrats have implemented policies that've raised oil prices since February, 2021. Stopping construction of multiple pipelines, including the Keystone XL Pipeline, made it difficult to transport oil from the fields to the refineries, thus driving up oil prices. Reducing production from 13,000,000 barrels a day to 11,470,000 barrels a day in the U.S. drove up oil prices, too. That drove the pri...

Carin Mrotz is the latest DFL activist to weigh in on Almanac on the projected budget surplus and the GOP gubernatorial contest. Let's start with her predictable spin that "When Republicans are in charge, there are lots of groups lined up with their hands out. They just look more like chambers of commerce and corporations and the very, very rich. So there's always someone looking to get some help for their community." There's little dispute that chambers of commerce often find their way to St. Paul with their hands out. There's also little disputing the fact that chambers of commerce aren't as pro-Republican as they should be. Further, the line about the "very, very rich" is laughable. Minnesota's tax rates guarantee that there aren't very, very rich people in Minnesota with the exception of the Pohlad family. Mrotz then said that "public schools are in a bit of a crisis". This is boilerplate DFL stuff. They have Education Minne...

Though it's undoubtedly going to hurt his profits, Elon Musk is calling for an increase in domestic oil production : Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk called on the United States to increase its domestic oil output in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, while also acknowledging that his electric car company would be negatively affected by that move. "Hate to say it, but we need to increase oil & gas output immediately," Musk tweeted Friday. "Extraordinary times demand extraordinary measures." Musk added, "Obviously, this would negatively affect Tesla, but sustainable energy solutions simply cannot react instantaneously to make up for Russian oil & gas exports." That's what patriots do. They put nation before profits. Patriots help nations with sattelite internet service, too. Joe Biden's administration isn't willing to shut down Putin's war funding, aka Russian oil. If the U.S. were to open the spigots on domestic oil pr...