PrairiePundit

 Paul Bedard: ... Then, on Face the Nation, he bristled when host Margaret Brennan criticized his appointment of “election deniers” to committee posts. Noting that she didn’t complain when Democratic deniers of former President Donald Trump’s election got good committee seats, he said, “If you want to hold Republicans to that equation, why don’t you also hold Democrats?” ... McCarthy: Yeah, they're my choices, but they’re the conference choices. But I’m also asking you when you look to see just Republicans — Democrats have done the same thing. So maybe it’s not denying. Maybe it’s the only opportunity they have to have a question about what went on during the election. So if you want to hold Republicans to that equation, why don’t you also hold Democrats? Why don’t you hold Jamie Raskin? Why don’t you hold Bennie Thompson? When Democrats had appointed them to be chair, I never once heard you ask Nancy Pelosi or any Democrat that question when they were in power, in the majority. W...

 The Hill: PayPal laying off 2,000 employees ...  PayPal is the latest tech company to announce a round of layoffs in the industry. Workday also announced plans to cut jobs on Tuesday, which will eliminate about 3 percent of its global workforce. They join Google and Facebook. along with Twitter where Musk started to cutbacks.  Most of these companies operate in the Bay Area of California.

 Daniel Greenfield: Last year, bills to stop funding non-profits that help illegal aliens enter this country were introduced in the House and Senate. The Stop Federal Funding for Human Trafficking and Smuggling Act and the Protecting Federal Funds from Human Trafficking and Smuggling Act have failed to make headway. Meanwhile, the problem has only gotten worse. Such bills would not be necessary if the IRS were doing its job. Instead, the IRS, which consistently targets conservative nonprofits, has refused to address the problem. The mass invasion of the United States of America would not be possible without a nonprofit sector that has taken in over a billion, from both the government and private donors, to subsidize the invasion, providing aid, shelter, legal support and transportation for the invaders. ... There is much more   Several different church-affiliated groups are seen as facilitating the illegal invasion of the US.  The IRS has not pulled their tax-exempt ...

 Wall Street Journal: The U.S. is hoping to reach an agreement this week to open as many as four U.S. military sites at Philippine bases in Washington’s latest push to expand its strategic footprint across the region to counter threats from China, U.S. officials said. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is meeting later this week with recently elected Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in Manila and hopes to secure the deal, which would rotate groups of U.S. forces to sites in the country, U.S. officials said. Two of the sites could be on the northern island of Luzon and in the southwest province of Palawan, the officials said. It is unclear where the other two sites would be or how many U.S. troops would be involved. In return, the U.S. has offered Manila military assistance, including drones, so that Filipino forces could monitor activity in the South China Sea, the officials said. The deal is part of a broader U.S. effort to position smaller groups of forces across the Asia Pa...

 Yahoo News: Russia plans to receive Iranian ballistic missiles against which Ukraine's air defence is powerless And:   Ukraine official gloats after drone strike on weapons facility in Russian-allied Iran: 'Ukraine did warn you' A senior aide to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday gloated over a drone strike on an Iranian weapons facility, hinting that the attack was made in connection with Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Over the weekend, footage circulated online of a large explosion on the roof of a building in Isfahan, western Iran, prompting Mykhailo Polodyak to tweet: "[Ukraine flag] did warn you." A Ukrainian-language version of Polodyak's tweet included a screenshot of his purported "warning," a December 24 tweet in which he called for the destruction of Iranian production facilities. ... Earlier reports suggested that Israel was responsible for the Iran attack.  I suspect that if Israel was behind the attack it would have probably ...

 Washington Examiner: Gasoline prices are creeping back up and may soon average $4 per gallon, requiring drivers to start putting in more for fuel after having enjoyed falling prices for much of the second half of 2022. The national average price of retail gasoline rose for the fifth straight week Sunday, according to data compiled by GasBuddy, with higher oil prices and lower refinery utilization being driving factors. The national average is up to $3.49 per gallon, a 33.3-cent rise from a month ago. BIDEN OIL RESERVE REFILL PLAN WON'T WORK, INDUSTRY GROUP TOLD ADMINISTRATION Oil has seen fairly consistent gains over the same period, and refineries have been operating at 86.1% of capacity or below since Winter Storm Elliot struck during the week of Christmas, according to the Energy Information Administration. Other factors expected to weigh on prices going forward include the European Union's impending embargo of Russian petroleum product imports and growing demand in Chi...

 Fox News: Texas GOP Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday announced the state's first-ever border czar to address the influx of migrants coming through the U.S.-Mexico border. Abbott tapped veteran Border Patrol agent Mike Banks to serve as "special adviser on border matters to the governor," in response to the Biden administration's handling of the border crisis. "For nearly two years, the state of Texas has taken unprecedented, historic action under Operation Lone Star in response to the Biden administration's refusal to secure the border," Abbott said at a news conference on a border wall construction site in San Benito, Texas. "To continue doing what no other state in the history of our country has done to secure the border, I hired Mike Banks as the state of Texas' first-ever border czar." "As an award-winning Border Patrol agent, with decades of federal law enforcement and border security experience, Mike is the perfect choice to oversee ...

 Clarence ‘Bud’ Albright: You don’t have to be Nostradamus to see the Biden Administration’s hostility to the traditional U.S. energy mix sets us up for long-term trouble. The president made it clear on his first day in office he would cede America’s hard-won gains in energy projects that led to new dominance in global energy production. With the stroke of a pen, he laid low the cause of American energy independence by canceling the permitting needed to build the Keystone XL pipeline. When finished, it would have supplied as much as 880,000 barrels per day of petroleum and be an important part of keeping the U.S. as a major reducer of prices on the world energy market. Team Biden crowed about their victory, showing its indifference to the devastating effect such policies have on all Americans as it set the stage for energy price spikes and the overall inflation we’ve experienced over the past year. Most people want to reduce human carbon emissions as part of our commitment to ens...

 PJ Media: ... “The notebooks were seized because Biden’s notes on some of the pages relate to his official business as vice president, including details of his diplomatic engagements during the Obama administration, and may refer to classified information, this same person said, adding that the notebooks do not have classified markings on them, but some of the handwritten notes inside them could be considered as such given their sensitive content,” NBC News  reported . “Other pages in the notebooks, while they may not contain potentially classified information, could still be considered government property under the Presidential Records Act because they pertain to official business Biden conducted as vice president, according to the person familiar with the investigation.” According to Jason R. Baron, a former director of litigation at the National Archives, if Biden shared the notes with staff while he was vice president, they would be considered official records belonging t...

 Andy May: Is it just me, or are the climate alarmists more unhinged than usual lately? Al Gore screaming about  boiling oceans and rain bombs  is just part of it. As Eric Worral has reported, the  BBC  blamed global warming for the lack of snow, just after they blamed global warming for colder winters. And, who can forget John Kerry’s  World War II style mobilization  to fight a possible man-made climate change disaster? What disaster? There is  no observational evidence  today that  human activities  are causing any climate-related problems and there is considerable evidence that warming and additional CO 2  have been  beneficial since the so-called “pre-industrial.” Could they be worried that global warming is slowing down? Are we entering another hiatus or pause in warming ( horrors! )? Talk about in-your-face humiliation. They didn’t predict the first “Pause” from 1998-2014, if they miss another one, how does that loo...

 ISW: Western, Ukrainian, and Russian sources continue to indicate that Russia is preparing for an imminent offensive, supporting ISW’s assessment that an offensive in the coming months is the most likely course of action (MLCOA).[1] NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg stated on January 30 that there are no indications that Russia is preparing to negotiate for peace and that all indicators point to the opposite.[2] Stoltenberg noted that Russia may mobilize upwards of 200,000 personnel and is continuing to acquire weapons and ammunition through increased domestic production and partnerships with authoritarian states such as Iran and North Korea.[3] Stoltenberg emphasized that Russian President Vladimir Putin retains his maximalist goals in Ukraine.[4] Head of the Council of Reservists of the Ukrainian Ground Forces, Ivan Tymochko, relatedly stated that Russian forces are strengthening their grouping in Donbas as part of an anticipated offensive and noted that Russian forces will need t...

  The Hill: Prospective GOP candidates for president are leaning heavily into education amid concerns over issues like parental rights and the politicization of school curriculums. Underscoring how critical an issue it is for Republicans, former President Trump unveiled his education platform on Thursday, calling for cutting federal funds to any education program that involves “critical race theory, gender ideology, or other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content onto our children.” The move comes after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), both seen as top potential challengers to Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, have made headlines in recent weeks with a series of education-related actions. DeSantis sparked controversy most recently by rejecting an Advance Placement African American studies course earlier this month, while Youngkin launched an investigation into multiple northern Virginia schools for not giving students t...

 Texas Tribune: Texas led country in new jobs in 2022 as state’s unemployment rate fell below 4% The state set a record for the number of employed people for 14 consecutive months. ... The state’s employers added 650,100 nonfarm payroll jobs — a 5% jump — between December 2021 and December 2022, according to the report. This rise surpassed that of California and Florida, which added 621,400 and 440,000 jobs, respectively. In total, 13.7 million Texans were in nonfarm jobs at the end of 2022 compared to about 13 million at the end of 2021. The report continues a stream of strong economic indicators for Texas. According to a previous report from the Texas Workforce Commission, the state continued a 14-month streak of record employment in December. And the state’s unemployment rate dropped to 3.9%, the first time it fell below 4% since the forced business closures at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. ... The increases were in education, healthcare, financial services, and manu...

 Just the News: Biden administration playing 'shell game' to mask illegal immigration, former CBP chief alleges Under new rules, eligible migrants "don't even have to go through the motions of claiming asylum," said Mark Morgan. "Just hop on the internet to claim your free pass. That's 360,000 would-be illegal aliens this coming fiscal year who will be granted defacto temporary amnesty."  See, also:   Rhode Island school under scrutiny for soliciting funds for cartel human smuggler Providence Public School District confirms email solicitation was sent to staff at Mount Pleasant High School. Biden and other liberals are enriching the Mexican cartels. 

 Carl Szabo: The Biden administration is waging war on America’s leading job creators. Its latest suit against Google may have grabbed headlines this week, but this is just one of many assaults on America’s economy by two government agencies: the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ). In the past eight months, unelected, radical bureaucrats leading these agencies have attempted to block the growth of, or completely break-up, America’s leading businesses. If the Biden administration succeeds in limiting growth or outright shattering them, it will mean even more job losses for Americans. Layoffs in America’s technology sector have dominated 2023 business news already as stock values of these companies have plummeted. Microsoft is down 26%, Google is down 36% and Meta is down 65% year to date. And yet, Biden’s DOJ just filed a lawsuit against Google, claiming it is some unstoppable Goliath. The FTC is citing antitrust concerns to block Meta’s acquisiti...

 Washington Post: She named her breakfast cafe Woke. A conservative backlash followed. This name was not the best marketing ploy for a diverse client base. 

 Wall Street Journal: Israel Strikes Iran Amid International Push to Contain Tehran Israeli, American officials discuss new ways to combat Iranian operations Israel carried out a drone strike targeting a defense compound in Iran , as the U.S. and Israel look for new ways to contain Tehran’s nuclear and military ambitions, according to U.S. officials and people familiar with the operation. Iranian officials said that the country’s air defenses had fended off an attempted attack by three small quadcopters targeting a munitions factory in the city of Isfahan, right next to a site belonging to the Iran Space Research Center, which has been sanctioned by the U.S. for its work on Iran’s ballistic-missile program. Iran said its air defenses brought down one of the drones while the two others exploded above the warehouse, causing minor damage to the roof. ... Israel’s latest strike comes as Israeli and American officials are discussing new ways to combat Iran’s destabilizing operations, in...

 NY Times: Back From War, Convict Fighters Will Test Russia Tens of thousands of inmates have joined a mercenary group fighting with Russian forces in Ukraine, and some are returning home. Russian society faces the potential challenge of reintegrating traumatized men with military training, a history of crime and few job prospects. They are a product of Russia's failed military and shortage of trained troops.  700,000 military-aged men fled the country rather than fight Putin's illogical war in Ukraine.  In desperation, Putin and one of his allies offered prisoners freedom if they became cannon fodder in Ukraine.  They made up the mercenaries used in human wave attacks.  The casualties were horrific and the survivors were few.

 Clarice Feldman: Riots broke out in Memphis and are rapidly spreading through the usual urban areas. The purported rationale is the horrific beating to death in Memphis of Tyre Nichols captured on video and released by the police. As  Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) observes , Nichols’ beating was administered by “Black officers in a majority Black city with a Black police chief.” The officers involved have been criminally charged, but the media to which every Black killed by a cop is just proof that we are still in the Selma, Alabama world of decades ago -- another case of some innocent Black person victimized by racist oppressors. The odious Joy Reid at MSNBC highlighted a guest who blames Nichols’ death on “white supremacy” and CNN’s Van Jones opined “The police who killed Tyre Nichols were Black. But they still may have been driven by racism.”  To the contrary, I blame the death on those who actually administered the beating and the lack of rapid medical treatment, but ...

The Spectator: Turkey’s heavy price for pressuring the Russians   Is Sweden and Finland’s NATO membership really worth appeasing Erdogan? Erdogan is unhappy with the Swedes' freedom to criticize Islam. He seems to have forgotten that what is now Turkey was once a Christian nation before the Muslims conquered it.

 ISW: Delays in the provision to Ukraine of Western long-range fires systems, advanced air defense systems, and tanks have limited Ukraine’s ability to take advantage of opportunities for larger counter-offensive operations presented by flaws and failures in Russian military operations. Western discussions of supposed “stalemate” conditions and the difficulty or impossibility of Ukraine regaining significant portions of the territory Russia seized in 2022 insufficiently account for how Western delays in providing necessary military equipment have exacerbated those problems. Slow authorization and arrival of aid have not been the only factors limiting Ukraine’s ability to launch continued large-scale counter-offensive operations. Factors endogenous to the Ukrainian military and Ukrainian political decision-making have also contributed to delaying counteroffensives. ISW is not prepared to assess that all Ukrainian military decisions have been optimal. (ISW does not, in fact, assess U...

  Washington Times Editorial: On President Biden’s first day in office, then- White House press secretary Jen Psaki vowed that the administration would “bring transparency and truth back to government.” What a useless promise. The Biden administration has turned out to be one of the most opaque, secretive and nontransparent in decades, creating the overt appearance of impropriety. After Republicans won control the House of Representatives and promised to investigate Mr. Biden’s son Hunter’s overseas business dealings, among others, the White House told incoming House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer and House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan to pound sand. While in the minority, the White House claimed it couldn’t cooperate with House Republicans because they simply weren’t in the majority. When they won, the top lawyer for the president notified both men in letters that all oversight demands made in the last Congress would have to be renewed — once Messrs. Comer and Jordan we...

 NY Post: A left-wing think tank erroneously claiming to track Russian online activity was responsible for thousands of bogus stories asserting the nation’s influence in US politics, according to the latest batch of Twitter Files . The Hamilton 68 “dashboard” was the brainchild of former FBI special agent and MSNBC contributor Clint Watts and operated under the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a think tank founded in 2017 — shortly after former President Trump took office. The ASD Advisory Council included such figures as top Clinton ally John Podesta , Obama-era acting CIA Director Michael Morell, former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, and former conservative activist Bill Kristol. The latest Twitter Files disclosure, the 15th so far, revealed how Hamilton 68’s Russian bot dashboard repeatedly insisted there was widespread and deep Russian penetration of social media and unveiled that Twitter executives frequently challenged those claims internally. ... “I think we need to...

 Daily Caller: Former Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio called the Democratic Party’s brand “toxic” Friday during a discussion on “Real Time with Bill Maher.” “The Democratic brand, in so many areas of the country, is toxic,” Ryan told host Bill Maher. “There is a woman who ran for Supreme Court in Ohio, sitting Supreme Court justice. Two years ago, she ran and won, got on the court, you didn’t have to put a D or R by your name. There’s a county in southern Ohio, she got 51%.” (RELATED: Dem Says US Needs To ‘Kill And Confront’ ‘Extremist’ Republican Movement) Ryan lost to Republican candidate J.D. Vance for the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio in November. ... “Two years later, Republicans changed the law, you had to put a D or R behind your name. Same woman, same court, same message, same candidate. [She l]ost, and in that county got 31% instead of the 51% she got when it was just, do I like that candidate?” Ryan continued. Ryan pointed to ...

 Town Hall: President Joe Biden’s secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, reportedly smuggled over 100,000 illegal migrants into the U.S. through a hidden parole pathway. From May to December, Mayorkas has been welcoming at least 20,000 migrants into the country each month, according to the New York Times. The NYT was given an official briefing on the pathway, which was name CBP One after many reporters were unable to explain the migration pathway. The secret pathway delivers more than 240,000 illegal migrants into the U.S. per year under the disguise that they will be used as economically despite a 1986 ban on the corporate hiring of immigrants. This is in addition to the 360,000 migrants per year that officials will bring in from Haiti, Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua using the same hidden pathway. Combined, this would add 600,000 extra economic migrants per year to the country’s economy. ... Joe Biden is the human smuggler-in-chief.  His disgraceful ignoring of U...

 Steve Hilton: Republican Congressman George Santos is rightly in the middle of a media and political storm over his astonishing series of lies about everything from his career experience to his family history. It surely can’t be long before this ludicrous fabulist is booted out of public life for good. But there’s another congressional fabulist whose lies are far more serious and who isn’t facing nearly the same level of scrutiny: Adam Schiff. Schiff is the Santos of the Democratic Party - only much more dangerous. His deceptions are part of a far-reaching, left-wing establishment scheme to corrupt Big Tech and America’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies to serve the Democrats. This has all been confirmed by the Twitter Files, a series of reports from independent journalists, who were given exclusive access to the company’s internal communications Schiff, his party, and their media puppets lecture everyone endlessly about “our democracy.” Turns out, they’ve been the on...

 Washington Examiner: DC wants federal government to solve migrant crisis as it buckles under influx This is a result after they only go a fraction of what border cities are getting.  Now it is not just border cities that are having to deal with Biden's irresponsible immigration policies and failure to protect the border.  As noted below it is not just the Mexican border that is being impacted by illegal immigration. See, also: Border agents dealing with new smuggling problem: eggs Avian flu is causing the price of eggs and poultry to rise, along with current inflation. ...   As avian flu is causing the price of eggs and poultry to rise, along with the current inflation rate, people are purchasing the products in Mexico instead of shelling out the extra cash at the grocery store. “There has been a large increase in the volume of prohibited food items, such as raw eggs and raw poultry meat, brought by travelers from Mexico. We would like to remind the traveling public...

 FoxNews: Vermont border apprehensions in last three months more than past two years combined The Swanton Sector encompasses all of Vermont and some counties of New York and New Hampshire ... ... the sector had a nearly 743% increase over the same prior-year period. In December, the Swanson Sector, which encompasses all of Vermont , captured a record 441 people crossing illegally from Canada, according to the Center Square. BIDEN ADMIN'S BORDER POLICIES NOW FACING BACKLASH FROM DEMOCRATS AS WELL AS REPUBLICANS Garcia said that illegal crossings into the state is more dangerous in the cold winter months. "In freezing temperatures over uncertain terrain, families with children, from just a few months old, continue to illegally cross from Canada into the U.S," he tweeted. "The risk to human lives—including #BorderPatrol Agents —is increasing. Illegal & irresponsible." This is more evidence of Biden's irresponsible border policy and his failure to enforce...

 Fox Business: Electric vehicles more expensive to fuel than gas-powered cars at end of 2022: consulting firm Research shows that rising electricity prices and stabilizing gas prices made internal combustion engine cars more economical than their electric counterparts in late 2022 They are also expensive to buy with a longer refueling time. See, also: Car buyers love EVs but hate the prices. That’s bad for green-energy hopes. I will keep my gas-powered vehicles for now.

 NY Times: Tyre Nichols Beating Opens a Complex Conversation on Race and Policing The officers charged in the young Black man’s murder are also Black, complicating the anguish and efforts at police reform. While the killing was a tragedy and should not have happened the only "complexity" might be the inability of some to make it a racially motivated crime. The crime was the use of excessive force and the lack of a responsible officer stepping in to stop it rather than joining the fray.

 Strategy Page: When it comes to the Ukraine War, Belarus is definitely a Frenemy (friend and enemy) of southern neighbor Ukraine and a hostage to eastern neighbor Russia. Belarus only has about a fifth of Ukraine’s population and a less vibrant and aggressive form of nationalism. Technically Belarus is an ally of Russia in its war in Ukraine, yet most Belarusians are pro-Ukraine. Some have actively helped Ukraine from inside Belarus while a few have crossed the border and joined the Ukrainian Foreign Legion. The ruler of Belarus since 1994 is Alexander Lukashenko, a veteran communist official in the Soviet Union until 1991. Lukashenko was active in the three-year process to create a new constitution and hold elections. Lukashenko won the first presidential election, which was his only legitimate victory. After that he rigged the elections in one way or another to remain in power. He developed close ties with Russia and Vladimir Putin but refused to back Russian demands that he all...