Liberty & Prosperity Blog

Mitch McConnell took to the Senate floor Wednesday morning and delivered the surprise of the Senate season to those gathered . Sen. McConnell told those gathered that he's stepping down as Senate Minority Leader this November, saying that it's time for a new generation of GOP leadership. McConnell's surprise announcement is the biggest surprise of the session. CBS News is reporting "Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced he's stepping down as the upper chamber's GOP leader after November's elections, ending a 17-year run that made him the longest-serving party leader in Senate history and often the most powerful Republican in Washington. 'I always imagined a moment when I have total clarity and peace about the sunset of my work. A moment when I'm certain I have helped preserve the ideals I so strongly believed. That day arrived today.'" Sen. McConnell is right. Yesterday is the day that it finally arrived. The question now is thi...

According to Sen. Chuck Schumer, (D-NY), Joe Biden and Mike Johnson engaged in one of the most intense meetings he's ever participated in. Actually, Sen. Schumer sat on the sidelines while Biden and Speaker Johnson spent some time negotiating one-on-one. The article opened by saying "President Joe Biden and top Democrats and Republicans in Congress on Tuesday made progress toward avoiding a partial government shutdown at the end of the week, but have not cut a deal on paying for weapons for Ukraine's battle against Russia." A deal will get cut once Democrats get serious about shutting the TX-Mexico Border. The sooner Democrats realize that that's a losing issue for them, especially in light of Laken Riley's murder in Georgia and other crimes allegedly committed by illegal aliens, the sooner they'll settle this negotiation. That's in addition to Renzo Montes's arrest in Virginia on charges "by the Campbell County Sheriff's Office for sex ...

While on the way to a fundraising event in Queens, NY, Karine Jean-Pierre held a press gaggle aboard Air Force One. During the gaggle, KJP confirmed that Joe Biden would travel to Brownsville, TX, to meet with "U.S. Border Patrol agents, law enforcement, and local leaders. He will discuss the urgent need to pass the Senate bipartisan border security agreement, the toughest and fairest set of reforms to secure the border in decades." I've read that bill, which was negotiated behind closed doors. The only thing accurate in that description is that it's a Senate bill and that it's a bipartisan bill. The Border Patrol Council endorsed it with one of the most tepid endorsements in the history of endorsement letters. The Border Patrol Council didn't issue a statement that said the Senate bill fixed the biggest issues facing Border Patrol agents. The statement said that it was an improvement upon the current situation. If that statement was any more tepid, you'd...

CBS News is reporting  that Donald Trump and Joe Biden are visiting Texas this Thursday. Trump's visit will likely highlight his history of securing the U.S.-Mexico border. Meanwhile, it's been unofficially been confirmed that Biden's visit is intended as a PR stunt. Biden is expected to visit Brownsville, TX, which once was a hotspot for illegal border crossings. These days, it's a trickle of its former self. While there, Biden's expected to criticize House Republicans for being unwilling to pass the so-called Bipartisan Border Security Bill. That bill has more loopholes in it than Swiss Cheese has holes in it. It has tons of poison pills in it, too. CBS is reporting "Mr. Biden will visit Brownsville, Texas, to meet with Border Patrol agents, law enforcement and local leaders as he puts pressure on Republicans to take up a bipartisan deal on border security provisions, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Monday." Congratulations,...

Whether you say that Joe Biden's fingerprints are all over Laken Riley's senseless death or that his policies are responsible for her death, the facts remain the same. The fact is that Ms. Riley would still be alive had Joe Biden changed his policies a year into his administration. If Joe Biden cared about the American people instead of pleasing Democrat special interests, he would've shut the U.S.-Mexico border years ago. Laken Riley was, by all accounts, a beautiful young lady who attended the University of Georgia in Athens, GA, where she was getting her nursing degree. Thanks to Joe Biden's indifference to the U.S.-Mexico border, Laken Riley is dead. Biden's indifference to the border is driven by his belief that it's essential to bring in a new group of voters to replace the voters who are abandoning the Democrat Party. People should reject Democrats because they don't care about what's best for the U.S. Democrats only care about attaining, then ma...

Is Ari Fleischer right? Is Nikki Haley planning on running as a third-party candidate? Is she planning on running as the endorsed candidate for the No Labels Party? The more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Appearing during Fox News's South Carolina Primary coverage Saturday night, Fleischer said "I've been around a lot of these candidate speeches, I've written a few. That was a 'No Labels' speech tonight by Nikki Haley. That was a speech, when she says, 'No matter what I am running.' When she trashes Joe Biden, trashes Donald Trump, she is setting herself up to run down the middle." Fleischer continued, saying "And look what happened in South Carolina tonight, she won according to the Fox voter analysis independent voters by 19 percentage points. That is only 7% of the people who voted in the primary which is why she got her clock cleaned in the primary by Donald Trump. But when you look at independent voters, she sees a huge group...

Joe Biden knows more than a little about segregationist senators. Early in his Senate career, he's worked with segregationist senators. For those of you who are wondering, that wasn't right after reconstruction. I'll be clear about this. Joe Biden is a full-blooded racist. It isn't difficult to find racist quotes from him. It's unfortunate that these statements aren't just things he said in the 1970s. We'll return to that subject in a bit. Let's shift to today's Joe Biden. This week, Biden said "I've been a senator since '72. I've served with real racists. I've served with Strom Thurmond. I've served with all these guys that have set terrible records on race. But guess what? These guys are worse. These guys do not believe in basic democratic principles." Joe Biden eulogized Sen. Byrd, the late former Exalted Cyclops of the KKK , at Sen. Byrd's funeral in 2010. Biden is most famous for chairing Clarence Thomas' c...

It's often thought that Joe Biden and Donald Trump are opposites when it comes to Ukraine. Bill McGurn took the time to explain how they're similar in terms of Ukraine. He lays out the similarities in his latest column . (Where's Ronald Reagan when we really need him?) In his column, McGurn wrote "The dominant narrative today holds that Joe Biden and Donald Trump are opposites on Ukraine. The president supports the Senate bill that includes about $60 billion for Kyiv, mostly in military aid. The former president attacks it, and his influence among House Republicans is why Speaker Mike Johnson is reluctant to bring it to the floor for a vote." McGurn then wrote "But when it comes to the failure to spell out a strategic argument, the two are one. As a result, the military-aid package has largely been fought over issues unrelated to Ukraine, such as funding for border security. Meanwhile, Democrats sound like hawks, Republicans sound like doves , and U.S. policy...

When the tri-partisan Border Security Bill died in the Senate, Senate Democrats accused Republicans of selling out to Donald Trump. Republicans argued that Biden didn't need legislation to restore order to the border. When Democrats heard that, they insisted that wasn't true. What a difference 2 weeks makes. Axios is reporting "One bold move that Biden has considered, we're told, is an executive order that would dramatically stanch the record flow of migrants into the Southwest. This could even happen in the two weeks before the address, allowing Biden to say he took action while Republicans just talk." There's 2 problems with that scenario, neither of which will get reported by the MSM. The first problem is that the House passed HR2 on May 11, 2023. Unlike the Senate capitulation bill, which has a few decent provisions in it and tons of loopholes and poison pills to offset the positive provisions, HR2 is rock-solid. The Democrats' next problem is that th...

Catrin Wigfall of the Center for the American Experiment is highly critical of Minnesota's new Social Studies standards. She's reporting that some of the Minnesota Department of Education's paid experts are highly critical of the new standards, too. Wigfall reports "In fact, expert reviewers paid by the Minnesota Department of Education to confirm whether the standards and benchmarks are clear and objective explicitly told MDE they are not, according to documents American Experiment obtained through a public data request." Further, Wigfall reports "Three of the four expert reviewers, with years of experience related to social studies subject matter, criticized the standards and benchmarks. Reviewers highlighted not only political bias but numerous examples of broad and imprecise wording , problems of clarity, definition and contextual problems, and immeasurability." Finally, it's being reported "one reviewer concluded that 'compared with do...

After I'd cast my first presidential vote (for Jimmy Carter), I noticed how limited his responses were. I didn't know at the time that Carter's options were limited because he'd hollowed out the military. When President Reagan took over, he immediately started rebuilding the military. It didn't take long for him to rebuild patriotism while he rebuilt the military. Joe Biden's frequent hesitations in the Red Sea are causing catastrophic damage. Biden's unwillingness to  take the fight to Iran is pushing OPEC nations into China's arms. This Daily Wire article highlights how risk-averse Biden is. Ryan Saavedra's article opens by saying "President Joe Biden is once again failing on the world stage to protect American interests and to deter aggression from America’s enemies as the Iranian-backed Houthi terrorist organization seriously damaged a cargo ship near the Arabian Peninsula over the weekend and appeared to shoot down a U.S. drone." At h...

A loyal reader of this blog just sent me today's good news story of the day. My friend sent me this link . It couldn't be better news. Natalie Ringsmuth Copeland is moving on from her position "as Executive Director of Unite Cloud, a non-profit working to reduce racial, religious, and cultural tensions in Central MN." She's most 'famous' for her role in making St. Cloud a 'welcoming city.' According to Ringsmuth (her name at the time), people that opposed the Refugee Resettlement program were racists and Islamophobes. Ringsmuth's chief target was then-City Councilman Jeff Johnson. I don't recall if Ringsmuth called him a racist or an Islamophobe. She might've let Jaylani Hussein, the Executive Director at CAIR-MN, do that. Hussein has been Executive Director at CAIR-MN since 2015 . Councilman Johnson's 'unforgivable sin' was that he wanted "a temporary moratorium on refugee resettlement in the city until Lutheran Soci...

If I got the opportunity to tell Joe Biden something, I'd love telling him 'I told you so.' That being said, I'd love telling other Democrats 'I told you so', too. Anyone that thought things through knew that Biden's EV push wouldn't work. It took time for the truth to sink in but the truth is finally sinking into Biden's thick skull . Ryan Saavedra's article opens by saying "President Joe Biden is reportedly preparing to ease its push to force electric vehicles onto American consumers as consumer demand for the vehicles remains low , dealerships have expressed serious concerns , and automakers have had to cut production and revamp production of gas vehicles ." That's understatement I'd consider it understatement to say "The New York Times reported that the move was a “concession to automakers and labor unions” from the administration as it was forcing “limits on tailpipe emissions” to force Americans to switch from gas-pow...

Now that he's returned to being the best governor in the U.S., Gov. Ron DeSantis has returned to fighting against what I've nicknamed the Democrats' Censorship Network. It's getting reported in this Daily Wire article that the Democrats' Censorship Network "are trying to generate false narratives in the media by claiming that extremely popular books and classics are under review by the state, even though they are not, noting that the some have even challenged the Bible and dictionaries." This started with Gov. DeSantis signing the Parental Rights in Education Act into law. The law " prohibits classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through 3rd grade and prohibits instruction that is not age appropriate for students." It isn't that the bill allows the censorship of classic books. It's that the Democrats' Censorship Network want to make it look like the classics are getting prohibited. Gov. DeSan...

I can't say that I'm surprised by this article about U.S. Secretary of State Anton Blinken's meeting with Israeli President Isaac Herzog at the Munich Security Conference. While attending the Conference, Blinken is quoted as saying "We're thinking of the suffering of people caught up in the middle of conflict, including the Palestinian men, women and children in Gaza. We’re thinking as well of the genuine opportunities that lie before us for a better, more secure future for Israelis, Palestinians and all of our friends in the region. There's a lot of work to be done to move toward that future, but I’m grateful for President Herzog and our work to not only think about it, but to help realize it." President Herzog is quoted as saying that getting Israeli hostages back from Hamas is "at our top priority." Then he's quoted as saying "We want them back and we're working with the international community. We are working with you and the i...

Now that Joe has visited East Palestine as often as he's visited El Paso and VP Harris has sorta visited the border, he can take another vacation. Last year, Joe took 140 days of vacation, including his vacation at Tom Steyer's mansion on Lake Tahoe and his Thanksgiving at a Nantucket mansion. Thank goodness that Joe's a man of the people, a regular Scranton Joe. If there was a theme for the day, it was that Biden's visit was too little too late . That theme kept popping up wherever Biden went. I can't imagine the frustration that the people living in East Palestine felt when Biden announced "Today, I'm announcing the award of 6 National Institutes of Health grants to some of America's best research universities to study the short- and long-term impacts of what happened here." ABC is reporting "Biden praised the town for its 'herculean efforts' in the wake of the tragedy and pledged to continue to support residents." Then he added...

In 2020, the Biden campaign said repeatedly that, should they get elected, the adults would return to the White House. Further, the Biden campaign insisted that normalcy would return to the White House. That's a farce. A senile old man is the figurehead while his wife plays caretaker and his staff tries limiting Biden's damage to a minimum. Meanwhile, Antony Blinken, Biden's Secretary of State, keeps getting pushed around , this time in Israel. This time, "Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Secretary of State Tony Blinken last week that a direct or indirect U.S. recognition of a Palestinian state 'would be a prize for those who planned and orchestrated the Oct. 7 massacre.'" That Blinken even thought about mentioning that to PM Netanyahu is proof that Biden thinks first about winning Michigan rather than standing firmly with the U.S.'s staunchest ally. That wouldn't have happened with Trump, Bush 43 or Reagan. Standing steadfast with Is...

Back in the 1950s and 60s, Atlanta was a cesspool filled with racists. After significant improvements in the 1980s and 90s, it's slowly degenerated into another immoral cesspool, thanks in large part to the rise of Marxists like Fani Willis and Stacey Abrams. Today, Willis took the witness stand to testify. Some might say that she took the witness stand and held it hostage. CBS is reporting that Willis didn't initially want to testify but eventually testified. That's a major mistake, IMO. She came across as upset as Joe Biden at his ill-advised press conference last Thursday. She's quoted as saying "You've been intrusive into people's personal lives. You're confused. You think I'm on trial. These people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. I'm not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial. I object to you getting any personal records of mine." She's definitely getting judged for her extramarital affair wi...

Last year, the DFL's wing of the party that doesn't like police officers jammed through a bill that police officers, sheriffs' departments and other law enforcement organizations opposed that severely restricts School Resource Officers, aka SROs, which I wrote about here . Apparently, the DFL intends on watering down the bill that's intended to fix last year's bill. Alpha News is reporting "Just two days into the 2024 legislative session DFL and Republican lawmakers are debating what that final bill might look like and what kind of impact it will have on school districts across Minnesota who employ the use of SROs in their buildings." I don't doubt that a fix-it bill of some sort will pass this session. Unfortunately, I'm confident that the wing of the DFL that sees cops as bad guys will have too much influence on this bill. Walter Hudson explains what the DFL wanted to do in terms of eliminating accountability. He's quoted in the article as s...

Last week, DFL legislators from the House and Senate held a press availability to announce the North Star Act, which would make Minnesota a sanctuary state if passed and signed into law. Fortunately, that bill didn't gather the support it needed so it likely won't even get a hearing. That development produced much rejoicing from Republicans. At a time when illegal aliens are attacking NYPD officers and gang violence is increasing in Chicago, it's astonishing that Minnesota Democrats were chomping at the bit for the opportunity to further bankrupt the state. The aforementioned Chicago is already expecting to spend an additional $800,000,000 this year on housing, education and health care for illegal aliens. With Greg Abbott having just gotten started on his second term, rest assured that more busloads of illegal immigrants will be making their way up I-35 to Minnesota and other highways into Chicago. Now that the DFL's plan to increase crime in Minnesota has been dashed...

If, at first you don't succeed, trot out the same tired old line and try again. Apparently, Democrats think the PR stunt strategy will work great this time after it worked so well when Gov. Abbott started shipping illegal aliens to NYC, Chicago, Washington, DC and elsewhere. These days, NYC and Chicago are begging for mercy. Today, the PR stunt is being taken seriously. Cities' budgets are getting overwhelmed. (Imagine that!)  After House Republicans voted last night to impeach DHS Secretary Mayorkas , DHS spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg released a statement. It said "House Republicans will be remembered by history for trampling on the Constitution for political gain rather than working to solve the serious challenges at our border. While Secretary Mayorkas was helping a group of Republican and Democratic Senators develop bipartisan solutions to strengthen border security and get needed resources for enforcement, House Republicans have wasted months with this baseless, unconst...

Monday, Representative Sandra Feist and Senator Omar Fateh spoke to a gathering of approximately 100 people at the Upper Mall of the Minnesota State Capitol to tout the North Star Act, a bill being introduced into the Minnesota legislature that, if passed, would prohibit state and local law enforcement from using state resources for the purpose of civil immigration enforcement. That was Monday. By Tuesday, Speaker Melissa Hortman announced "I don’t believe that there are the votes for that bill to move in the House or the Senate. I just don’t think there’s the votes." From what I'm hearing, this isn't as much about a split between Republicans vs. the DFL as much as it's about rural DFL legislators vs. metro DFL legislators. In the Senate, all 33 Republicans stood fast against the North Star Act, which meant that the DFL didn't have a vote to spare. That ended when Sen. Grant Hauschild took to Twitter to say he wouldn't support the North Star Act: The San...

If we want accountability and good governance in Washington, DC, then it's imperative that we get rid of omnibus bills. Those types of bills are perfect for politicians that want to vote for unpopular provisions but still avoid accountability from voters. President Reagan once said that politics is the second-oldest profession and, "at times, it looks like the world's oldest profession." By putting multiple 'must-pass' bills together, the Uniparty guarantees that whatever is in the bill, a major part of it will be pork. Then the Uniparty defends their creation by insisting that they didn't want to vote for the unpopular parts of the bill but there was too much important stuff in the bill to vote against. What they're really saying is a) they created the bill, complete with all the crap in it, and b) they didn't have the spine to say no to excessive spending that we don't the money fore and that we don't need. The Ukraine aid bill was thrown...

House Speaker Mike Johnson just gave wobbly Senate Republicans something extra to think about when he said in a statement that "the Senate’s foreign aid bill is silent on the most pressing issue facing our country." He continued, saying "[In] the absence of having received any single border policy change from the Senate, the House will have to continue to work its own will on these important matters. America deserves better than the Senate’s status quo. " Speaker Johnson has shown a willingness to throw "thrown cold water on a foreign aid package crafted in the Senate, raising more questions about the fate of Ukraine aid on Capitol Hill, a controversial matter in the Republican Party and, especially, the House GOP conference." Initially, House Republicans insisted that the Senate include border security provisions in a bill in exchange for aid for Ukraine. When Senate Republicans got rolled in negotiations on a border bill, Senate Democrats thought that t...

Minnesota's legislature, the most radical legislature in the U.S., more radical than California's, hopes to pass the North Star Act this session. The North Star Act "would turn Minnesota into a “sanctuary state” for illegal immigrants. More specifically, the North Star Act would ban local law enforcement from assisting federal agencies in enforcing immigration law. " This is happening after "county commissioners in McLeod County approved a resolution Saturday which denounced and opposed the pending “North Star Act.” In a unanimous vote, the five commissioners sent a clear signal to legislators in St. Paul that they do not support the state’s proposed protections for illegal immigrants." Sanctuary state laws are quickly dropping in popularity, thanks mostly to Gov. Abbott's shipping of illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities like Chicago and NYC. Chicago and NYC have gotten hit with exorbitant additional expenses thanks to additional expenses for health c...

Vincent Vallelong is the president of the New York City Sergeants Benevolent Association. This morning, the NY Post published Vallelong's op-ed . Vallelong used his op-ed to announce that the NYC Sergeants Benevolent Association had endorsed Mazi Pilip in the special election to fill an open congressional seat. In the op-ed, Vallelong wrote "As a 34-year NYPD member and president of the New York City Sergeants Benevolent Association, I can say without equivocation that the law-enforcement profession has never been more daunting and downright frightening. I stood shoulder to shoulder last week with my fellow police leaders and endorsed Nassau County Legislator Mazi Pilip for Tuesday’s special election for New York’s 3rd Congressional District." Vallelong then said "Mazi Pilip’s opponent, Tom Suozzi, is a career politician who is saying all the right things. But when he was Nassau County executive, he pushed deep cuts to law enforcement. When he served in Congress and ...