With the disastrous Fall of Saigon Redux—that is, the Fall of Kabul—and the 2022 midterms fast approaching, it seems a good time for a cursory review of the past seven months of Joe Biden’s ill-fated presidency and of 2020 pre-presidential election discussions.

Befuddled Biden and his hapless administration have presided over the epically inept exit from Afghanistan, which is resulting in a humanitarian crisis, has left Afghans who helped the United States at risk, has left U.S. military weapons in the hands of terrorists, has increased the threat of terrorist acts on U.S. soil, has emboldened enemies,and has diminished our allies’ trust in America as a security partner.

The epically disastrous border crisis created by Biden policies and pronouncements dwarfs in magnitude of human suffering and in numbers anything that happened under the Trump administration. If the legacy press included ethical journalists, this would have been front page news every day until the Fall of Kabul. They would be rightly condemning Biden’s housing of children in overcrowded plastic pods, the release of COVID-positive illegals into the U.S., the record-setting number of deaths of immigrants along the Arizona border, the refusal of Biden to allow journalists to witness the housing crisis firsthand, and the failure of Kamala Harris to visit the border communities most affected by the crisis.

Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which incentivizes unemployment through the distribution of “free” money, has stymied an economy that should be surging.

Biden rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement which will result in thousands of lost jobs, and he shut-down the Keystone XL pipeline which has resulted in thousands of lost jobs. The energy independence the Trump administration secured is dwindling, and inflation is increasing.

The frantically pursued $1 trillion infrastructure monstrosity and $3.5 trillion socialist budget resolution will plunge America deeper into the hellhole of debt Democrats (at times aided and abetted by spendthrift Republicans) have dug with their Bagger 288 excavator.

Biden removed the Hyde Amendment from his budget, an amendment which prevented taxpayer-funding of abortions, and he rescinded the Mexico City Policy, which prevented federal dollars from going to foreign non-profit organizations that provide abortions.

While deceitfully promising to be the unity president, Biden has promoted controversial and divisive social policies. He is promoting racism from California to the New York Island by embedding critical race theory in all government agencies. He seeks to end women’s privacy and sports through his support of science-denying “trans”-cultic beliefs and practices. And he endorses “trans”-cultic medical experimentation on children that mutilates healthy bodies in a perverse effort to cosmetically conceal their sex.

Biden is still cheerleading the 800-page Voter Chicanery Law, H.R. 1, which, according to the Heritage Foundation’s  Hans von Spakovsky, “is a dangerous and radical bill”:

It threatens the security, fairness, and integrity of our elections and restricts the First Amendment rights of Americans to freely engage in political speech and activity.

It would force state legislatures to hand over the redistricting process to unaccountable bureaucrats and institutionalizes racial and gender quotas.

It would also implement what amounts to a test to participate in redistricting that violates the associational and religious rights of the public.

And Biden supports the equally dangerous and deceptively named Equality Act, which would require that federal law recognize disordered subjective feelings and deviant behaviors as protected characteristics. Federal law would absurdly recognize homoeroticism and cross-sex masquerading as conditions that must be treated like race and biological sex, which are objective, 100 percent heritable conditions that are in all cases immutable, and carry no behavioral implications. (Troubling side note: The third-ranking U.S. House Republican, Elise Stefanik, chair of the U.S. House Republican Caucus, was one of eight U.S. House Republicans to vote for the Equality Act.)

Here are some questions I posed one month prior to the 2020 presidential election to GOP voters who opposed Trump. As we approach the mid-term elections, perhaps it’s a good time to revisit these questions:

• Do we really want to give more power to corrupt Democrats in Congress or give the presidency to a cognitively impaired recluse?

• Do we want to pay for the slaughter of babies in the womb, including full-term babies?

• Are we so blind we cannot see the danger to the republic posed by the appointment of activist federal judges and Supreme Court Justices who will legislate from the bench?

• Do we want the U.S. Supreme Court packed and the filibuster eliminated?

• Do we want to destroy any hope for school choice, restore federal funding for Critical Race Theory propaganda, and further empower leftist teachers’ unions?

• Do we want to return the U.S. to energy dependence on Middle East oil?

• Do we want taxes raised and businesses regulated into the ground?

• Do we want “free” college for all students, including illegal immigrants?

• Do we want law enforcement “reimagined” and defunded, ICE and the DEA eliminated, and borders opened?

• Do we want all women’s sports, locker rooms, restrooms, prisons, shelters, semi-private hospital rooms, nursing home rooms, and dorm rooms sexually integrated?

• Do we want our First Amendment religious, speech, and assembly rights diminished through the “Equality Act”?

• Do we want government to protect the invasive, tyrannical, leftist behemoth Big Tech?

While Never-Trumpers and Christianity Today focused like laser beams on the morally and intellectually compromised Trump, calling into question the veracity of his claims of being a Christian, they deftly donned their blinders when turning their bobbling heads toward the equally morally and intellectually compromised Biden, whose claims to being a Christian are at least as dubious.

What too often became lost in all the frenzied virtue-signaling and tussling over which man is less worthy of the office was a discussion of whose policies and personnel will best serve the needs of America and Americans. The 2020 presidential election meant not just the replacement of Trump by Grampa Simpson but also the replacement of all members of the Trump administration with the gang that can’t shoot straight.

Remember all this as you make mid-term decisions.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/The-Disastrous-Biden-Administration.mp3

I (and likely millions of other Americans) were surprised to learn from the racism sleuths among us that Georgia recently enacted a Jim Crow voter suppression law the likes of which America has never seen. In light of that disturbing revelation, I wondered if there were any other states with such laws and was even more surprised to discover that from sea to shining sea, America is riddled with Jim Crow laws. There are so many Jim Crow voter suppression laws in so many states that I don’t have time to list them all, so I’ll just highlight a few.

According to the New York Post, Chuck Schumer may have some ‘splainin’ to do:

the Empire State still makes it harder to vote than does the state [Georgia] that’s drawing the boycotts. New York offers eight fewer days of early voting and requires a valid excuse to vote absentee.

Yes, Georgia will now ask for a valid ID to vote absentee, but lets you out of the requirement if you attest that you don’t have one.

New York even has a ban similar to Georgia’s new prohibition on the distribution of food and drink in voting lines that President Joe Biden labeled “Jim Crow in the 21st century.” …

Those “mobile ballot drop-off” vans that Georgia just restricted? New York doesn’t allow them at all.

It’s not only New York that attempts to suppress the black vote by requiring an excuse to vote absentee. Delaware, Connecticut, and New Hampshire also require such excuses.

Georgia’s new law expands existing early voting requirements. The “new law …  adds a mandatory weekend day for early voting, requiring two Saturdays of early voting. The old law required one.” To be truly fair, early voting should be expanded another few months. But Delaware hasn’t begun offering any early voting days. Those won’t start until next year. Maybe Delaware voters had to wait for vote-suppressor Joe Biden to leave the state before getting rid of that Jim Crow relic.

It’s weird that Biden and Schumer were elected year after year while remaining silent on their states’ voter suppression laws. I thought silence was violence.

Oh, but there’s still more voter suppression hiding in plain sight, like the fact that photo IDs are also required at polling places in Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Wisconsin.

Georgia’s law makes some changes to the number and location of ballot drop boxes—drop boxes that were added in 2020 because of the pandemic. If you’re alarmed by that, you won’t believe what else I learned. Arkansas, Indiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia provide no ballot drop boxes. Who knew New Hampshire has been suppressing the black vote?

We all know what needs to happen now. Every professional sports event scheduled in these states must be canceled.

After ruminating about and researching the prevalence of racist voter suppression laws, I began wondering what other forms of racist suppression I may not have noticed while traipsing about America draped in my white privilege. Well, those who oppose Jim Crow photo ID laws better be sitting down for this next bit of shocking news I discovered about America.

America has flying suppression laws, driving suppression laws, car rental/purchase suppression laws, welfare access suppression laws, alcohol purchase suppression laws, medical care access suppression laws, bank account access suppression laws, food stamps access suppression laws, house purchase and house rental suppression laws, apartment rental suppression laws, marriage suppression laws, pet adoption suppression laws, hotel/motel access suppression laws, cell phone purchase suppression laws, blood donation suppression laws, gun purchase suppression laws, and hunting/fishing license suppression laws.

Who wants to live in a country like that? Not me. So, I went on a search for countries without racist suppression laws and much to my dismay, I learned there are very few places in the world devoid of racism.

Here are just a few of the racist countries that prohibit mail-in voting: Albania, Armenia, Belgium, Belarus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Malta, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and Sweden.

Here are a few of the racist countries that ban early voting: Albania, Armenia, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and United Kingdom.

Here are a few of the racist countries that ban ballot collecting (i.e., proxy voting, “ballot harvesting”): Albania, Armenia, Austria, Belarus, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungry, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Norway, Portugal, and Spain.

All the coolest countries are racist!

In my research, however, I came across some confusing information.

First, I read something by Hans von Spakovsky which threw an ideological monkey wrench into the “Georgia Is a Hotbed of Racism” narrative:

Georgia provides a free photo ID to anyone who doesn’t already have one. …

Section 25 of the bill doesn’t even require voters to provide a photocopy of their ID. Instead, the voter can simply write “the number of his or her Georgia driver’s license or identification card” on the application for the absentee ballot.

Moreover, if the voter doesn’t have such a Georgia ID card, she can “provide a copy of a form of identification listed” in another code section of Georgia law (§ 21-2-417(c)). And what does that code section say? That you can satisfy the ID requirement with a “copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document that shows the name and address of such elector.”

Now where do you think the Georgia legislature got that language? They got it from federal law, the Help America Vote Act of 2002. Section 303(b) of this law (codified at 52 U.S.C. § 21083) requires an individual who registered to vote by mail and who is voting for the first time in a federal election (whether in person or by mail)  to instead provide “a copy of a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck, or other government document that show the name and address of the voter” if he doesn’t have a “current and valid photo identification.”

The language on voter IDs for absentee ballots in the new Georgia law is thus identical to the language in federal law, promulgated through the Help America Vote Act. And guess who voted to approve this federal law in 2002? Why, then-Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware. In fact, the vote was 92 to 2, and included in the “yes” votes were Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.; Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.; and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

Were they all imposing “Jim Crow” on American voters? I don’t seem to recall the Major League Baseball Players Association boycotting any of the states of these senators—or any of the other senators who voted in favor of the Help America Vote Act. Or boycotting their own stadiums, which require IDs to pick up will call tickets.

Then I read something even weirder than the U.S. Senate re-elections after re-elections after re-elections of racist vote-suppressors Biden and Schumer. I read that Missouri, Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas rank in the top ten states for black voter turnout despite their voter suppression laws. Black voter turnout in North Carolina is virtually tied with that of New York and beats black turnout in California by a smidge.

A study conducted by the National Bureau of Economic Research and published in 2019 found that voter ID requirements have virtually no effect on voter turnout:

For all the heated debates around strict voter ID laws, our analysis of their effects obtains mostly null results. First, the fears that strict ID requirements would disenfranchise disadvantaged populations have not materialized. Using the largest individual-level dataset ever assembled to study voter participation, we do not find any negative effect on overall turnout and registration rates or on any group defined by race, age, gender, or party affiliation.

Confusing? A bit, but oh, well, I’m with President Biden who once said, “We choose truth over facts.”

I did learn that one news report about the Georgia law was wrong, and this will be a huge relief to many. For those people of color and colorless people who regularly lose consciousness from thirst or starvation while waiting in line to vote, just pack up all your care and woe. Georgia will feed you.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/States-with-Racist-Jim-Crow-Voter-Suppression-Laws.mp3

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The liberal news media, which is ever more resembling a communications arm of the Democratic Party, has been determined to portray President Donald Trump’s immigration Executive Order as over-reach, inhumane, and anti-Muslim.

It is not new that American consumers of the news media should be wary of the daily narrative, but the need for it increases daily as nearly every step taken by the Trump Administration is going to be picked apart and pilloried on a daily basis.

The good news is that new media outlets are growing their reach, and old stalwarts like the National Review Online continue to produce a ton of material correcting the record whenever it is necessary. And since President Trump took office just weeks ago, a lot of correcting has been needed.

There is no better example of a need to correct the record is President Trump’s Executive Order ordering a 90-day halt to immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. Why those seven and not the other 44 other Muslim-majority countries and territories? Because they are hotbeds of militant Islam, as even Obama conceded labeling them “countries of concern.”

What is in the Executive Order and why is being portrayed as almost a crime against humanity? We all know the answer to the second question — it is because many Democrats and Leftists and supporters of open borders see any limits as problematic.

What about the first question — what is in the Executive Order? Here is David French writing at National Review:

First, the order temporarily halts refugee admissions for 120 days to improve the vetting process, then caps refugee admissions at 50,000 per year. Outrageous, right? Not so fast. Before 2016, when Obama dramatically rampedup refugee admissions, Trump’s 50,000 stands roughly in between a typical year of refugee admissions in George W. Bush’s two terms and a typical year in Obama’s two terms.

. . .

Second, the order imposes a temporary, 90-day ban on people entering the U.S. from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. These are countries either torn apart by jihadist violence or under the control of hostile, jihadist governments.

The ban, French writes, “is in place while the Department of Homeland Security determines the ‘information needed from any country to adjudicate any visa, admission, or other benefit under the INA (adjudications) in order to determine that the individual seeking the benefit is who the individual claims to be and is not a security or public-safety threat.’”

French notes that the ban has an “important exception”:

‘Secretaries of State and Homeland Security may, on a case-by-case basis, and when in the national interest, issue visas or other immigration benefits to nationals of countries for which visas and benefits are otherwise blocked.’ In other words, the secretaries can make exceptions — a provision that would, one hopes, fully allow interpreters and other proven allies to enter the U.S. during the 90-day period.

David French, noted for his role as a “Never Trumper,” also writes:

To the extent this ban applies to new immigrant and non-immigrant entry, this temporary halt (with exceptions) is wise. We know that terrorists are trying to infiltrate the ranks of refugees and other visitors.

“Unless we want to simply accept Muslim immigrant terror as a fact of American life,” French adds, “a short-term ban on entry from problematic countries combined with a systematic review of our security procedures is both reasonable and prudent.”

Reasonable and prudent? Seems so when even Syria’s brutal dictator Bashar Assad says that there are “definitely” some terrorists among the refugees.

A final note of interest. Thomas Gallatin writing at Patriot Post in an article titled, “Behind the Immigration Ban Hysterics: Trump’s travel ban on foreigners is not what the Left claims it is,” writes:

[T]he order will seek to revamp the refugee processing in order to prioritize those of minority religious groups fleeing the persecution of radical Islamists. This will specifically help Christians but also other minorities who have suffered from rising persecution over the last few years. This is a significant change from Obama’s policy that did not favor minority religions in the refugee processing.

Here are a few related articles:

First up is Dr. Michael Brown answering the question “”Is Trump’s executive order on the refugees fundamentally unChristian, or is it being misreported by the media?”

Next, for information on the legal challenge to the Executive Order, read Hans von Spakovsky’s article
“Trump’s Executive Order on Immigration Is Both Legal and Constitutional” at the Heritage Foundation website.

For information about “extreme vetting,” here is Middle East expert Daniel Pipes writing at the Middle East Quarterly: “Smoking Out Islamists via Extreme Vetting.”

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