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“‘Why does Joe Biden hate Black teenagers?’ should be the question. Why does Joe Biden want to destroy all of these jobs?”

During an interview with Fox host Sean Hannity, GOP Senator Rand Paul pummeled the Biden administration’s decision to push for a minimum wage increase that would put 4 million people out of work.

“The people who lose their jobs first when you hike up the minimum wage are Black teenagers,” Paul said.

And despite the ramblings of various left-ist economists, claiming this or that study shows no impact from such a drastic minimum wage hike…

…common sense (and historical experience) for anyone who has ever run an actual business is that raising costs on the lowest-skilled workers in your organization will ripple all the way up, forcing either higher prices to the end-user (eradicating the ‘living wage’ improvement) and or forcing layoffs as management hold margins and reduce costs (the least-skilled first).

And if all that sounds very racist, the following chart shows that Senator Paul is, of course, correct…

Source: @McClellanOsc

That’s not an “alternative” fact, that’s the awkward reality of ‘unintended consequences’ from nanny-state intervention write large for the last 70 years.

Need some more ‘facts’?

According to a recent nonpartisan analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, President Biden’s effort to raise the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $15 per hour is estimated to kill as many as 3.7 million jobs, 

Based on the CBO’s median estimate,1.3 million workers who would otherwise be employed would be jobless in an average week in 2025, an 0.8% reduction. However, the CBO also noted that a federal minimum wage of $15 per hour would increase the wages of 17 million workers in an average week in 2025.

While the $15 federal minimum wage would boost workers’ earnings, the CBO says that some of the higher earnings would be offset by higher rates of joblessness.

Paul also blasted Biden for canceling the Keystone XL oil pipeline:

“It’s kind of a strange beginning to an administration,” Paul said.

“You’re going to put your best foot forward and the first thing you say is, ‘This is how I’m going to kill jobs’ … ‘I’m going to kill thousands of jobs of the Keystone pipeline with ending it.'”

Watch the full interview below:

Authored by Brett Wilkins via CommonDreams.org,

Digital rights advocates reacted with alarm to a report published Friday detailing how Defense Intelligence Agency analysts in recent years bought databases of US smartphone location data without first obtaining warrants. 

The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is part of the Department of Defense and is tasked with informing military and civilian policymakers about the activities and intentions of foreign governments and nonstate actors. 

The new revelation, first reported by the New York Times, initially came in the form of DIA responses to questions from Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) regarding the agency’s warrantless purchase of commercial location data generated by phones both inside and outside of the United States. 

Wyden asked the DIA to clarify its interpretation of Carpenter v. United States, a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision barring law enforcement agencies from requesting personal location information from a cellphone company without first obtaining a search warrant from a judge.

“DIA does not construe the Carpenter decision to require a judicial warrant endorsing purchase or use of commercially-available data for intelligence purposes,” the agency replied, implicitly acknowledging its exploitation of an apparent loophole in the case that DIA believes permits its warrantless acquisition of location data from third-party brokers. 

Furthermore, Wyden asked whether DIA operatives differentiated between phone location data obtained inside the U.S. and abroad. 

“DIA’s data provider does not supply separate streams of U.S. and foreign location data,” the agency explained, “and so DIA processes the location data as it arrives to identify U.S. location data points, which it segregates in a separate database.”

here’s the defense intelligence agency memo confirming that the government is buying commercially available smartphone location data w/o a warrant pic.twitter.com/DXGH24PRph

— chris mills rodrigo (@chrisismills) January 22, 2021

“DIA personnel can only query this database of U.S. location data when authorized by the DIA chief of staff and DIA’s office of general counsel,” it added. “Permission to query DIA’s database of commercially acquired US device location data has been granted five times in the past two-and-a-half years, when DIA first started buying this source of data.” 

Last September it was revealed that the US military was purchasing device location data from apps—including a Muslim prayer app used by tens of millions of people around the world—and using it for counterterrorism purposes. 

“The military industrial complex and the surveillance state have always had a cozy relationship with tech,” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said at the time. “Buying bulk data in order to profile Muslims is par for the course for them—and is absolutely sickening. It should be illegal!”

To that end, the ACLU in December filed a lawsuit to determine how and why federal agencies are buying access to bulk databases of Americans’ cellphone location information and skirting  the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement.

And as The Hill reported Friday, Wyden plans to introduce legislation—the Fourth Amendment Is Not for Sale Act—which would prohibit government agencies from buying personal information from data brokers. 

The U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency shouldn’t be spying on Americans, without a warrant, by paying data brokers for location info generated by our phone apps. https://t.co/1KUtaJG1jw

— EFF (@EFF) January 22, 2021

“I think we’ve really reached the point where you have so much data floating around that governments can essentially buy their way around the Fourth Amendment,” Wyden lamented last November. 

In a Senate speech on Wednesday, Wyden condemned the status quo “in which the government, instead of getting an order, just goes out and purchases the private records of Americans from these sleazy and unregulated commercial data brokers who are simply above the law.”

Digital and pivacy rights advocates agree. 

“The government cannot simply buy our private data in order to bypass bedrock constitutional protections,” senior ACLU staff attorney Ashley Gorski told The Hill. “Congress must end this lawless practice and require the government to get a warrant for our location data, regardless of its source.”

News of the DIA warrantless data acquisition came a day after Avril Haines was sworn in as President Joe Biden’s director of national intelligence. Haines will oversee the nation’s 18 intelligence agencies, including the DIA.

Wyden supports Haines’ appointment, in part due to what he called her “commitments related to transparency issues.” A broad range of progressive groups, however, strongly opposed her nomination. 

During her Senate confirmation hearing earlier this week, Wyden asked Haines about government abuse of commercially available location data.

“I would seek to try to publicize, essentially, a framework that helps people understand the circumstances under which we do that and the legal basis that we do that under,” she replied. “I think that’s part of what’s critical to promoting transparency generally so that people have an understanding of the guidelines under which the intelligence community operates.”

During the final months of the Trump administration Chinese PLA military exercises near Taiwan grew as part of the tit-for-tat escalation of Washington moves in support of the self-declared Republic. 

Lately Chinese jets have breached Taiwan’s claimed airspace as part of ongoing ‘show of force’ maneuvers in the contested area. But on Saturday, a mere few days following President Joe Biden’s entry into the White House, China’s military undertook one of its biggest flyovers yet.

According to local press “Taiwan recorded no fewer than 13 incursions by Chinese military planes into its air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in a single day Saturday (Jan. 23), the most of any such incidents within one day so far this year.” As Reuters adds, “Eight Chinese bomber planes and four fighter jets entered the southwestern corner of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone on Saturday, and Taiwan’s air force deployed missiles to ‘monitor’ the incursion, the island’s Defense Ministry said.” Additionally, a Chinese Y-8 anti-submatine aircraft also entered Taiwan’s ADIZ.

Taiwan reportedly scrambled its American-supplied fighter jets to “warn off” the Chinese formation.

“Airborne alert sorties had been tasked, radio warnings issued and air defense missile systems deployed to monitor the activity,” a Taiwan military statement said.

PLA military flyovers of contested territory around the island have now become an almost daily occurrence, but as Reuters points out:

However they have generally consisted of just one or two reconnaissance aircraft.

The presence of so many Chinese combat aircraft on this mission – Taiwan said it was made up of eight nuclear-capable H-6K bombers and four J-16 fighter jets – is unusual.

In this instance it was said to be in the vicinity over the contested waters of the Paracel islands.

The new White House National Security Council has this week vowed that America’s commitment to Taiwan would remain “rock-solid”. But it remains to be seen if Biden keeps up the provocative level of Trump’s weapons sales to Taiwan, which reached a historic peak in the latter part of 2020.

Authored by Ned Barnett via AmericanThinker.com,

The media has been buzzing with this news about the young forensic psychologist from Oegstgeest, Netherlands and her amazing creation.  A quick Google review of this story found more than 100 news stories about this innovation – not just (or even primarily) in fringe online media outlets – but in mainstream media from the Reuters to the New York Post.

“If we have this hierarchy that the king is worth more than the queen,” Ms. Mellink said in a press interview, “then this subtle inequality influences people in their daily life (sic) because it’s just another way of saying ‘hey, you’re less important.’  Even subtle inequalities like this do play a big role.”

Toxic masculinity?

Despite their hearts being in the right place on the left side of their chests, both Ms. Mellink and the fawning media who’ve been both reporters and cheerleaders for this long-overdue innovation have managed to miss the main point. 

Playing cards – and indeed most, if not all – games, are politically incorrect, and for a variety of reasons. 

Consider, for instance, a deck of cards – even Ms. Mellink’s gender-neutral deck of cards.  They have four suits – Hearts, Diamonds, Clubs and Spades – as well as two colors – Red and Black.  “Red,” obviously, is a not-so-subtle allusion calling to mind the Red States, where – in the most recent two Presidential elections – white supremacists voted overwhelmingly for Trump.  “Black,” especially when connected to the name of one of the four suits in the card deck, is an obvious and historically-offensive racist reference to a pejorative label for black men.  This clearly racist sub-text is also present in the game of checkers, where Red and Black compete for power and dominance.

Another major offender is the board game Scrabble. The fact that the game’s rules contain no restriction on the use of specific words ignores the risk of allowing players to use excluding terms. It is well within the rules to marginalize individuals or groups, and insult groups of disadvantaged or discriminated-against people.   Verbal micro-aggressions, such as the use of demeaning gender-specific pronouns, are freely permitted in the game.  Specifically, trigger words, hate speech and the cultural appropriation of words – all of which must be avoided at all cost – are freely permitted in Scrabble.  The game does nothing to prevent their use, nor does it encourage virtue signaling by players offended by their opponents’ use of hurtful and exclusionary words.  That signaling should be rewarded as a necessary part of the process of excluding hateful, hurtful words from the game.

Monopoly – in some ways the worst offender – is symbolized by a cartoon caricature of a white male capitalist, an oligarch and almost certainly a Republican … a Trump Republican.  This raises some important questions, including, “Is Donald Trump consciously channeling the Monopoly icon, or is this merely a coincidence of cosmic proportions?”  Other questions include: “How does this paternalistic affirmation of the patriarchy makes right-thinking people feel while playing such a game?”  Or, “What does Monopoly’s embrace of rapacious exploitation of workers and tenants teach our children about life in a society dominated by unfettered capitalism?  Shades of Gordon Gekko …

However, perhaps the most offensive game – as well as perhaps the oldest board game in human history, is chess. This game is also the most blatantly offensive of the lot.  The reason is obvious to even the color-specific visually-impaired around us.  Chess pieces are either white or black, and white ALWAYS goes first, while black ALWAYS goes second.  The racist message of chess is hardly obscure or subtle.  Players are told that white is always better than black.

So, while Ms. Mellink has identified the risk of politically-incorrect games and gaming devices, she has barely scratched the surface.  If we want a “safe space” for games and gaming, we must take collective action to enforce decent, inoffensive standards on those games.

The exodus of city dwellers from New York City continued into late 2020 as homebuying in Greenwich surged, according to Bloomberg. 

A new report from appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and Douglas Elliman Real Estate said 317 single-family homes were listed in the tiny town, located in southwestern Fairfield County, at the end of December. 

A shortage of Greenwich homes prompted a fierce bidding war among buyers who were willing to pay at least 14% above the seller’s asking price, compared with 2.6% in 2019. 

The average listing time for homes on the market was 142 days in 2020, compared with 183 days one year earlier. The pace at which Greenwich homes are selling is the the fastest in seven years. 

Completed transactions jumped 141% in the fourth quarter from a year earlier to 282, Miller Samuel and Douglas Elliman said.

In a separate report, Brokerage Houlihan Lawrence said pending home sales in the town soared as well. The number of homes in Greenwich under contract at the end of December was up 97% from a year earlier. 

A combination of the virus pandemic, social unrest, remote working, and violent crime has resulted in hundreds of thousands of people fleeing New York City. 

The great escape to Greenwich began in April and has continued ever since. Last month, we noted that condo interest in New York City suburbs was erupting in the fourth quarter, especially in Greenwich.

New York City’s trend is to either downsize and find a house in the suburbs or unload real estate and never return as the metro transforms into a violent hellhole. The city’s economic recovery times will undoubtedly lag the rest of the country.

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Speaker Nancy Pelosi ramped up the attacks on members of her own house this week, accusing them of giving “aid and comfort” to those who want to destroy the nation. 

The comments came after Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., denied a public accusation by Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., that she personally took rioters around the capitol for a tour before the attack on January 6th.  Boebert pointed out that the “rioters” were her family members and she has never given such tours. Rather than encouraging colleagues to avoid baseless and inflammatory accusations pending review of what occurred on January 6th, Pelosi threw gasoline on the fire and accused her colleagues of giving “aid and comfort” to those who were trying to destroy the Constitution and the country.  It is, in my view, another failure of leadership by the Speaker in her duties to the institution as a whole.

Like many, I support a commission to look into how these rioters gained such rapid entry into the Capitol Hill.  However, Democratic members have claimed that Republican members were actual co-conspirators in the riot in supplying access to the building to plan out the attack. Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D., N.J.) went public with an extraordinary allegation against some of her colleagues that they conducted secret surveillance in a conspiracy with rioters at the Capitol. Sherrill stated in a Facebook live address to her constituents that she witnessed the surveillance personally. She said unidentified members of Congress “had groups coming through the Capitol” in “a reconnaissance for the next day.”

Sherill has still not supplied any of the names of her colleagues to who worked as inside co-conspirators. As noted earlier, this is an unambiguous allegation of criminal conduct against colleagues.  Either members were conspiring in a crime or Sherill unfairly defamed her colleagues. Article I, Section 5, the Constitution says, “Each House (of Congress) may determine the Rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member.”  The House may discipline members for violations of both unlawful conduct as well as any conduct which the House of Representatives finds has reflected discredit upon the institution. In re Chapman, 166 U.S. 661, 669-670 (1897). A House Select Committee in 1967 stated:

Censure of a Member has been deemed appropriate in cases of a breach of the privileges of the House. There are two classes of privilege, the one, affecting the rights of the House collectively, its safety, dignity, and the integrity of its proceedings; and the other, affecting the rights, reputation, and conduct of Members, individually. Most cases of censure have involved the use of unparliamentary language, assaults upon a Member or insults to the House by introductions of offensive resolutions, but in five cases in the House and one in the Senate [as of 1967] censure was based on corrupt acts by a Member, and in another Senate case censure was based upon noncooperation with and abuse of Senate committees.

If members did conspire as alleged by Rep. Sherrill, they could be expelled for that criminal act.  They would also face prosecution.  It would be a betrayal of not just Congress but the country.

One would think that this rising level of acrimony would prompt a Speaker to calm her members and call for an investigation. Speaker Pelosi however proceeded to ramp up the rhetoric. She started out well by stating, “You have to have evidence for what has happened.” She then took a shot at Republicans and stated:

“There is no question that there were members in this body who gave aid and comfort to those with the idea that they were embracing a lie — a lie perpetrated by the president of the United States that the election did not have legitimacy.”

The language comes from the treason language in the Constitution Article III, Section 3 states:

“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or, in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”

In the context of alleged criminal conspiracy by members, the use of this language clearly suggested members were more than just politically at fault for their positions. It suggested that they were traitors.

These attacks are coming as some members are calling for the possible expulsion of members for challenging the electoral votes, an act expressly allowed under federal law and repeatedly done by Democrats in prior elections.  It is an example of the rage-filled politics that continues to build in our country, including calls for blacklists and punitive measures against anyone deemed supportive of Trump.  As I noted in today’s column, it is a crisis of leadership in this country when we desperately need leaders who can unite us rather than capitalize on our divisions.

Earlier on Saturday as pro-Navalny protests began “sweeping across Russia” – as CNN dubiously put it (which have not numbered more than in the thousands in any one place) – we asked the question: are we witnessing the start of a manufactured ‘color revolution’ targeting Putin and the ruling government under the banner of the Navalny ‘nerve agent’ saga?

Of course, it’s too early to tell. But already on ‘day one’ of major protests across several Russian cities the US Embassy in Moscow is highlighting the protests and their locations on its website. While ostensibly the embassy is directing citizens to “avoid” these demonstrations, given the possibility of violence, the State Department-sponsored public notice lists in surprisingly specific detail the location and times of a dozen protests in large cities.

Russia’s foreign ministry is livid, and has charged the US Embassy with giving unnecessary “cover” to the ‘unauthorized’ protests. Essentially the Kremlin is alleging that the ‘notification’ is a US Embassy ploy to actually publicize and promote the protests.

#Hypocrisy is an instrument of American democracy, which has become especially dangerous during the #COVID19 pandemic.

☝️ See to your own problems and stop interfering in domestics affairs of other countries. pic.twitter.com/7bQbBJRr8m

— MFA Russia 🇷🇺 (@mfa_russia) January 23, 2021

Here’s the full Russian foreign ministry response to the provocative US Embassy webpage as featured in TASS:

Russia plans to view the attempts of the US embassy in Moscow to “cover” the unauthorized rallies in Russia as interference in internal affairs, the Russian Foreign Ministry wrote on its Telegram channel on Friday.

“All that coincides with Washington’s provocative doctrinal guidelines to encourage ‘protests in the countries with unwanted governments’,” the Foreign Ministry said. “Any attempts of this ‘coverage’ of unauthorized rallies will be regarded as gross interference in our country’s domestic affairs and will lead to a corresponding response.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry pointed out that the information, posted on the US embassy’s site, on the time and venues for the unsanctioned rallies goes beyond concern for US nationals in Russia.

Under the pretext of “avoiding ” the planned for today anti-government meetings in Russia , US Embassy published the exact times & locations of the planned meetings, as a guide where actually the riots are expected. https://t.co/rGGw3scRrj
How do they know, where & when, btw? https://t.co/1eMtvPo2hQ

— Elena Evdokimova (@elenaevdokimov7) January 23, 2021

The chaotic scene in central Moscow on Saturday after jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny called on supporters to take the streets…

Via the @AvtozakLIVE telegram channel, it’s getting increasingly brutal out there pic.twitter.com/YsDbyFzXTP

— Ilya Lozovsky (@ichbinilya) January 23, 2021

Мирный протест, ага. Не понимаю, почему парни должны рисковать здоровьем в этом зоопарке? Есть же спецсредства pic.twitter.com/tPbgVHSRIm

— Дегтярёв Леонид (@leon_elk) January 23, 2021

Below is the remarkably detailed information posted to the US Embassy in Moscow’s website.

The “Demonstration Alert” provided the list of planned protests a full day ahead of the demonstrations actually taking place.

* * *

In Moscow, demonstrators plan to gather near Pushkin Square at approximately 1400 and march towards the Kremlin.

In St. Petersburg, demonstrators plan to gather near Senate Square at approximately 1400 and march towards Gostiny Dvor (located on Nevsky Avenue).

In Yekaterinburg, demonstrators plan to gather at the entrance to Dinamo Stadium, 12 Ulitsa Yeryomina at approximately 1400 and march along the embankment of the city lake toward the Drama Theater.

In Perm, demonstrators plan to gather at the intersection of Komsomolskiy Prospekt and Ulitsa Poliny Osipenko at approximately 1400 and march towards Komsomolskiy Prospekt and some other central streets.

In Chelyabinsk, demonstrators plan to gather at Slavy Boulevard at approximately 1400 and march towards Lenin Prospekt to Kurchatov Monument.

In Krasnoyarsk, demonstrators plan to gather in Krasnaya (Red) Square at approximately 1400 and march towards the downtown area.

In Novosibirsk, demonstrators plan to gather at 63 Krasny Prospekt, near House of Officers at approximately 1400 and march towards Lenin Square.

In Omsk, demonstrators plan to gather at Leningrad Square, at the intersection of Karla Marksa Prospekt and Ulitsa Maslennikova at approximately 1400 and march towards Sobornaya (Cathedral) Square.

In Vladivostok, demonstrators plan to gather at the Fighters for Soviet Power Monument on Svetlanskaya Street at 1400.

In Khabarovsk, demonstrators plan to gather at Lenin Square at 1200.

In Ulan Ude, demonstrators plan to gather at Teatralnaya Square at 1400.

In Irkutsk, demonstrators plan to gather at the Square on Ulitsa Uritskogo on the square near the consumer services center “Dom Byta”

* * *

Time for another US-sponsored Color Revolution in Eastern Europe?

Russian authorities arresting peaceful protesters, journalists – appears to be concerted campaign to suppress free speech, peaceful assembly. This continues years of Russia tightening restrictions, repressive actions against civil society, independent media, political opposition.

— Rebecca Ross (@USEmbRuPress) January 23, 2021

Russians are taking to the streets today in the freezing cold to peacefully demand freedom, human rights for all their citizens, an end to corruption, and the immediate release of Alexei @Navalny.

I stand with them. The United States, and the world, must stand with them, too. https://t.co/OtKebHgMBm

— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) January 23, 2021

Meanwhile…

He’s back. pic.twitter.com/90zhypFeap

— 38Parrots (@Parrots38) January 23, 2021

Many commentators have pointed out that if the Russian Embassy in Washington D.C. had done the same thing related to either pro-Trump or BLM protests at any point, US leaders would explode in anger and there’d be a flood of the usual denunciations of “Russian interference”.