. . .“As a result, the potential risk for fraud, waste, and abuse increases the longer a program remains open,” a DHS report concluded." . . .
"Although the Federal Emergency Management Agency told Congress last month that it had $4 billion in its Disaster Relief Fund, officials also warned that the Fund could have a shortfall of $6 billion by year’s end, a situation FEMA says could deteriorate in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.
" 'While FEMA is expected to ask Congress for new money, budget experts note a surprising fact: FEMA is currently sitting on untapped reserves appropriated for past disasters stretching back decades.
" 'An August report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General noted that in 2022, FEMA “estimated that 847 disaster declarations with approximately $73 billion in unliquidated funds remained open.”
"Drilling down on that data, the OIG found that $8.3 billion of that total was for disasters declared in 2012 or earlier.
"Such developments are part of a larger pattern in which FEMA failed to close out specific grant programs “within a certain timeframe, known as the period of performance (POP),” according to the IG report. Those projects now represent billions in unliquidated appropriations that could potentially be returned to the DRF (Disaster Relief Fund).”
"These “unliquidated obligations” reflect the complex federal budgeting processes. Safeguards are important so that FEMA funding doesn’t become a slush fund that the agency can spend however it chooses, budget experts said, but the inability to tap unspent appropriations from long-ago crises complicates the agency’s ability to respond to immediate disasters." . . .
"And ultimately, we learn that Kamala would be a disaster as president from this picture, told in minute detail." . . .
. . ."We learn how Kamala, a ditz with ambitions from Canada, who pronounced her name many different ways during her lifetime, never bothered to register to vote until she was 29 years old, which would have been about the time she "dated" Willie Brown. That contrasts sharply to her claims of being an "activist" for various social causes from an early age. Activists don't skip registering to vote. But party girls often do.
"We learn about the significance of Willie Brown in San Francisco's politics, what he brought her, what she gained, the goodies she got and how he worked the system. We learn she never put in a day's work in her life, which would have gotten her fired from any real job, and how it sure as heck shows today. It was always all about the connections, not putting out the way other lawyers put out. That accumulated over her career, which is why we see her lack of confidence as a candidate today.
"We learn that she operated like Willie Brown, breaking every campaign law in the books to get elected, yet never paying a price because the political machine always protected her. In turn, when she started "winning" public office, she returned the favors by protecting all kinds of miscreants and criminals to keep her political masters happy. She had a thing against pro-life journalists, and a thing against free speech itself, which she is bound to destroy if she gets elected. She commited a lot of injustices against others for this habit, getting away with it every time, leading Harmeet to view her as simply a criminal." . . .
"In a recent video, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, wearing a camouflage hat emblazoned with a Harris/Walz logo, fed Dorito chips to a kneeling left-wing media celebrity in what many consider a blasphemous parody of the Catholic Sacrament of Communion. Catholics believe that during the Mass, the bread and wine undergo a process called Transubstantiation in which they are changed into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. The bread, shaped into small discs called “hosts” are then distributed to the people who may receive them in the hand or on the tongue while standing or kneeling. Traditional Catholics prefer to receive on the tongue while they kneel.
"Watching a video of a virulently pro-abortion governor and celebrity mock this sacrament was deeply offensive to some Catholics. I say some, not many or all because a recent poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that,
64 percent of U.S. Catholics (and 40 percent of Catholic Republicans) agreed that abortion should be legal in most or all cases, almost identical to the 65 percent of all adult Americans who held that view. Only 25 percent of evangelical Protestants held this view, putting Catholics closer to those with no religious affiliation at all (87 percent of whom said abortion should be legal in most or all case) than to their fellow Christians.
"If there’s a shred of a silver lining here at all it is that only 40% of Catholic Republicans hold that view. One would assume that the majority of those Catholics supporting abortion are Democrats or are unaffiliated." . . .
Such as barrio gang members for one example? And recall the baptism scene in The Godfather? I have met personally a number of cult members at my door who have previously been Catholics led on by those with a distorted Bible translation and no knowledge of true Scriptures to resist them. TD
“ 'Now, when she’s asked softball questions, she implodes, whether it’s The View, whether it’s 60 Minutes,” she said, hoping that former President Donald Trump will force them to release the full transcripts."
"The hype for Vice President Kamala Harris was “fake from the get-go,” and the mainstream media have been exposed as “sycophants and stenographers for the left” amid Harris’s collapse, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) said during an appearance on Breitbart News Saturday.
"“It was fake from the get-go, and not only is it exposing Kamala Harris”; it is exposing the media as “sycophants and stenographers for the left,” Stefanik said, referencing the lack of substance in Harris’s recent interviews.
"“They’ve lost tremendous, tremendous credibility. And let’s be honest: these are not tough interviews. These are softball interviews that if you’re running for Congress or you’re running for local office, you get tougher questions,” the House Republican Conference chair continued.
"“Now, when she’s asked softball questions, she implodes, whether it’s The View, whether it’s 60 Minutes,” she said, hoping that former President Donald Trump will force them to release the full transcripts.
" 'That’s one of the things I love about President Trump and this movement, is he is exposing this deep rot in the Deep State, working with mainstream media to try to pull one over the American people. But you know what? The American people are smart. They see through this. They see through the answer that Kamala Harris just gave on The View this week, saying there was nothing she would do differently,” she said, describing that as “abysmal and unacceptable.”
" 'Not only does she own Joe Biden’s crises; she created the crises in her positions as open borders czar, casting deciding votes in the Senate, etc. So again, this is something where the more people learn about Kamala Harris as a candidate, the less support she has,” Stefanik said, expressing hope that Harris continues to participate in these interviews." . . .
“Lampooning sacraments is not likely to win over Catholic voters… Or any other voting block. Or is there a Wiccan Doritos cult that I’m unaware of?” Arroyo added. Conservative commentator Tammy Bruce said, “I’m not even Catholic and I was disgusted.” Bruce went on to note that Whitmer and Plank went on to joke about “post term abortions.”
"A bizarre video featuring Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer(D) mocking the Catholic faith went viral on social media Thursday, offending Catholics and appalling just about everyone else.
"The short clip shows Whitmer placing a Doritos chip onto the tongue of kneeling lefty influencer Liz Plank, in an apparent attempt to mimic the Catholic sacrament of Holy Communion.
"As the lefty podcaster consumed the Dorito, Whitmer, clad in a camouflage Harris-Walz hat, stared at the camera with a weird, deadpan expression.“This video is abhorrent, and we are calling on @gretchenwhitmer to issue an apology for this offensive act,” the Catholic League posted on X. The Catholic League is a religious rights group founded by Bill Donahue in 1973.
" 'Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer insulted Catholics nationwide when she intentionally ridiculed the Eucharist in a video,” Donohue wrote in a statement.
" 'There is no way to understand this stunt other than as an expression of vintage anti-Catholic bigotry. Whitmer’s team, and her allies in the media, are trying to distort what she did,” he said.
"The disturbing clip, which was posted on Plank’s Instagram account, was an apparent reenactment of a TikTok meme in which people are seen feeding each other snacks and then staring awkwardly into the camera.
"Helen Hare, a spokeswoman for Whitmer, claimed critiques of the video are an attempt to distract from Democrat investments in the economy.
" 'The governor’s social media is well known for infusing her communications with pop culture,” Hare said in a statement. “This popular trend has been used by countless people, including Billie Eilish, Kylie Jenner, and Stephen Colbert, and the fact that people are paying attention to a video promoting President Biden’s CHIPS Act proves it’s working.”
"But as Donahue noted, none of the people in the other videos were kneeling." . . .
From the Michigan Catholic Conference:“The skit goes further than the viral online trend that inspired it, specifically imitating the posture and gestures of Catholics receiving the Holy Eucharist, in which we believe that Jesus Christ is truly present,”said Paul A. Long, Michigan Catholic Conference President and CEO.“It is not just distasteful or ‘strange;’ it is an all-too-familiar example of an elected official mocking religious persons and their practices. While dialogue on this issue with the governor’s office is appreciated, whether or not insulting Catholics and the Eucharist was the intent, it has had an offensive impact.
“People of this state and across the country have grown tired of and continue to express their alarm at the bar of civility and respect toward people of faith lowering by the day. Michigan is a religiously diverse state and includes thriving communities of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim believers. The time is now for those in public office, their handlers, and strategists to return a level of respect, civility, and appreciation for those who have found peace and fulfillment in life by worshiping God and serving their neighbor.” Go here to read about it.
“ 'There is no way to understand this stunt other than as an expression of vintage anti-Catholic bigotry,” Donohue wrote.
"The Whitmer team is lying when they say she is merely “mimicking a popular trend on social media where people are shown feeding each other,” he stated, and it is “easy to disprove.”
"The typical TikTok videos show one person sitting at a table, often in a restaurant, being fed—usually with a fork or spoon—by a friend.
“ 'None of them are kneeling. None of them are receiving food on the tongue,” Donohue noted.
“ 'What Whitmer did was to deride Holy Communion. There is no wiggle room for her to deny the obvious,” he added." . . .
"The Democrats’ strategy of shaming black men into pulling the lever for Harris will be about as effective as fighting a grizzly bear with a toothpick. Black men have valid reasons for questioning the Democratic Party, which has enjoyed their loyalty for decades without offering much in return."
"Former President Barack Obama stepped deep in it during recent remarks aimed at black men who are not planning to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris in November. He and those defending him are getting pilloried on social media after he basically accused black men of being misogynists because they don’t want to support Harris at the ballot box.
"As cringeworthy as his remarks were, Obama showed why so many black Americans are giving up on Democrats.
"For those who haven’t heard, the former president was at a campaign event for Harris and took the opportunity to schoolmarm the millions of black men who don’t want to vote for the vice president. He argued that they should support her because she “grew up like you” and supposedly had the same struggles as many young black men who spent most of their middle-class childhoods in Canada getting a superior education.
"He then said that these individuals are “coming up with all kinds of reasons and excuses” not to vote for Harris. One of these reasons is a supposed mistrust of women.
"Because part of it makes me think -- and I'm speaking to men directly -- part of it makes me think that, well, you just aren't feeling the idea of having a woman as president, and you're coming up with other alternatives and other reasons for that."
"Obama then claimed the “women in our lives have been getting our backs this entire time” and that “When we get in trouble and the system isn’t working for us, they’re the ones out there marching and protesting.” . . .
Dems in Disarray as Backlash Against Barack Obama’s Lecture to Black Men Grows Louder. . ."It’s simple: The Democratic Party is setting Black men up to take the fall in case Vice President Harris fails to defeat former President Trump in November. It’s that simple. And it is an outrage that they are trying to pin this on Black men. If Harris loses, it will not be on Black men or any other group of voters. The fault will lie squarely with the candidate and the party she represents." . . .
"Others talked about how they were insulted over the fact that they seemed to be expected to ignore the last four years of absolute failures in leadership from the Biden-Harris administration. There are a lot of videos like this circulating on TikTok (language warning):"
FORMER BLM ACTIVIST, XAVIAER DUROUSSEAU: “Black men are sick of being reduced to being expected to think with our skin color. We have seen how terrible the Obama, Biden, Harris trilogy has been for our country.” pic.twitter.com/No5qT9H68h
Some of the first actions the Biden-Harris administration took at the Pentagon were to hire a DEI senior adviser, form a counter-extremism task force, undo Trump’s order to allow transgender persons to serve in the military only in their biological sex, and implement a COVID vaccine mandate, which ended up kicking out more than 8,000 healthy troops who did not want to take the vaccine.
"Former President Donald Trump’s campaign played a video at a rally earlier this week in Pennsylvania that slammed wokeness in the United States military under President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris and called for making “our military great again.”
Levine
"The video begins with a clip from the movie Full Metal Jacket, where the character of drill instructor Marine Gunnery Sgt. Hartman is yelling at a new recruit, then cuts to a clip of Navy Adm. Rachel Levine, the Biden-Harris administration’s assistant secretary for health for the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
“ 'Happy Pride. Happy Pride Month, and actually, let’s declare it a summer of pride,” Levine, a transgender man, says in uniform.
"The rest of the video switches back and forth between clips of the movie and clips of two active duty service members, showing them in uniform before transforming themselves into drag queens and dancing, one of whom served as a digital ambassador for the U.S. Navy and has performed on ships while deployed.
"The clip ends with recruits calling cadence and the words “Let’s make our military great again” across the screen." . . .
Seeing hordes of Keffiyeh-clad young people in the streets assaulting Jews and destroying America's historical monuments, I have lost much confidence in the next generation and in the prospects for our nation's historical integrity. TD
"Advocates of eliminating the Electoral College need look no further than one-party states like California to get a glimpse of what presidential elections would look like if the Electoral College were gone."
"Just the other day, Tim Walz stated explicitly that America needs to end the Electoral College. Although the campaign quickly walked this back, the reality is that he was speaking for most Democrats. That’s why it’s important for us to understand why the Electoral College matters and should continue.
"Equality under the law is the bulwark of any free democratic nation that operates under the rule of law and values liberty and justice for all. This includes making the value of votes as equal as possible across a vast country. The U.S. Constitution’s Framers brought this concept as close to perfection as possible.
"They accomplished this by creating a democratic republic, not a pure democracy. They were not so naïve as to think one person with one vote was enough to protect individual rights or that every vote would, by itself, carry equal weight. The Electoral College was their answer, for it prevents majority one-party rule and protects the individual rights of the minority better than pure democracy.
"The Electoral College, because it has the potential to override a national popular vote in a presidential election, may seem to infringe on individual rights. In truth, the opposite is true, for it protects individuals and states with minority views from majority electoral abuse.
"Pure democracy works best at the state and local levels because it is closest to the individuals, who, by their geographic clustering, are more likely to be “birds of a feather” and are more apt to share a greater commonality of self-interests." . . .
Paul C. Binotto writes freelance from Pittsburgh, where he happily resides with his wife of more than 20 years. He makes observations generally on society and culture, politics and jurisprudence, natural law, and natural rights, most often from a conservative, Catholic-Christian, and pro-life perspective.
For the Democrats, power is much more important than the financial, spiritual, and moral health of this nation, delivered to this generation by the blood,sweat, and tears of ancestors. TD
"Our analysis of U.S. consumer prices in 2019 showed that prices of imported goods actually declined despite import tariffs. A 2024 report from CPA takes a look at the impact to Chinese exports to the U.S. [SEE DATA HERE] Bottom line, the tariffs worked to reduce Chinese imports."
Receipts in this article:
. . ."So yes, we know President Trump can save Social Security and Medicare by expanding the economy with his America First economic policy. We do not need to guess if it is possible or listen to pundits theorize about his approach being some random ‘catch phrase’ disconnected from reality. Yes folks, we have the receipts.
"This was MAGAnomics at work, and this is entirely what created the middle class MAGA coalition. No other Republican candidate has this economic policy in their outlook, because all other candidates are purchased by the Wall Street multinationals.
"America First MAGAnomics is unique to President Trump, because he is the only one independent enough to implement them.
"That’s just the reality of the situation. They hate him for it… "
She is brat. She is joyful. She is speaking. And she exists in the context of all in which she lives and what came before her. Democrats have fallen in line behind geriatric and mentally impaired candidates before. They’ll gladly fall in line behind a stupid one now.
"Univision hosted a “Latinos Ask”town hallwith Kamala Harris on Thursday night, and it was about as airheaded and disingenuous as you’d expect. Here was one word salad from the first five minutes — remarkably in response to a question about the two hurricanes that just decimated the southeast of the country:
Leadership is about understanding the importance of lifting people up, understanding that the character of our country is such that we are a people who have ambitions and aspirations, dreams, goals for ourselves and our families, and are entitled to have a leader who then invests in that. … The two visions [for our country], simply put, are that one is about the future, and the other is about the past and taking us backward. And I do believe that the American people are ambitious and aspirational about an investment in the future in a way that we are optimistic while being clear-eyed.
"That’s a lot of ambitions. After one voter observed that Harris was never elected to be the Democrat nominee but just magically became such when “President Biden was pushed aside,” the vice president naturally drove home the point for the umpteenth time that Donald Trump is the “unprecedented” threat to democracy. Funny she brought up Trump and democracy because the former president actually made an apropos comment about the topic earlier the same day, telling the Economic Club of Detroit: “Our biggest threat to democracy is stupid people.”
"He’s onto something. Stupid people — people who know nothing of civic responsibility or common sense — do threaten the fabric of our self-government, especially when they hold power, and Kamala Harris is the poster child. She’s frankly too stupid to be president." . . .
. . ."And Barack Obama gets credit for conquering the Democrat Party in the name of the radical Left, who were generally relegated to the low levels of that party before he broke through and unseated the genteel East Coast liberals who’d formerly run it. And now, eight years after having left office, Obama is still the most influential figure in American politics. Are we better off as a result? Of course not. Greenfield offers a very easy, very true, explanation for why:" . . .
May I suggest you read my commentary at the right sidebar of this page which has been there for almost two decades? The Tunnel Dweller.
Vernon Jones (@VernonForGA) October 11, 2024“And for him to want to come down from his mansion in Martha's Vineyard and tell black men how we should vote, really? You don't even live in Chicago anymore. You left your black community, Barack Obama, and you want to tell us how to vote? We're not having that,” he said.
"From the Generation Z Republican who heads the Republican National Committee’s Youth Advisory Council to the Democratic national co-chairwoman of Bernie Sanders's 2020 presidential campaign, Obama’s stern words to a group of young black men during a Pittsburgh appearance Thursday haven't quite gotten the response he was looking for.
“ 'I think that my ancestors fought far too hard for my right to vote in this country, for me to support someone just because they look like me, especially when that person who looks like me doesn't give a damn about me,” C.J. Pearson, who heads the RNC’s Youth Advisory Council, said in a video posted to X.
"My name is CJ Pearson. I’m 22 years old. And in 25 days, I’ll be joining millions of other young black men and voting for Donald J. Trump!
"His comments came after Obama urged young black men to vote for Harris because she is “somebody who grew up like you, knows you, went to college with you, understands the struggles and pain and joy that comes from those experiences.”
"Obama told black men that considering a vote for former President Donald Trump was "not acceptable" as he said part of their hesitancy was because they “just aren’t feeling the idea of having a woman as president.” . . .
"From their opening the border to millions of invaders on day one, to the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, to vaccine mandates and lockdowns, the war in Ukraine, the Oct. 7 massacre of Jews in Israel and their subsequent support of Hamas and Iran, to the massively irresponsible spending that has led to soul-killing inflation, and, most recently the abject failure of FEMA to come to the aid of hurricane victims." . . .
JNS poll: Israelis support Donald Trump over Joe Biden "If Israelis were the ones who decided, presumptive Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump would defeat U.S. President Joe Biden in a landslide on Nov. 5, according to a JNS/Direct Polls survey of public opinion carried out on July 9.
"According to the survey, 55% of Israelis would prefer to see Trump elected, 34% prefer Biden and 11% don’t have an opinion on the matter.
"Israelis are unsure whether Biden is pro-Israel. Fifty percent said he is, while 43% said he is not and 7% don’t know.
"Among young Israelis, the responses were even more dramatic. Seventy-four percent of respondents aged 18 to 29 said that Biden is not pro-Israel. Young Israelis support Trump over Biden 95%-5%." . . .more
