Common Sense Comeback

How President Trump is bringing back common sense:

Crossed Over

The New York Times has discovered that religious people wear crosses:

"This is real. People wear crosses and the NYT is ON IT," responded commentator Mary Katharine Ham. "So new that everybody's nana has worn one since forever... Also every Italian guy I know," replied education activist Erika Sanzi. "The fact that this piece got through the Times's editorial process without anyone saying, 'um ... guys?' shows exactly why the press always seems so clueless about the country it is supposed to cover," said Charles C.W. Cooke of National Review. "When it comes to investigative reporting can anything top the NewYorkTimes discovery that people wear crosses around their necks," asked former columnist Patrick Goldstein. "The author probably doesn't know a single person who wears one, which is why it's treated as a novelty," said Tom Bevan of RealClearPolitics. "Good editing means avoiding publishing things which will embarrass your publication and everybody who works there," said another critic. "In certain bizarrely isolated contexts, public displays of religiosity (even something as common as cross necklaces) are so *uncommon* that they become successful pitches for New York Times stories," responded professor Charlie Camosy.

Next thing you know, they'll find out that Christians (and Catholics) read the Bible, too...

Bias Buster

Wikipedia editors aren't happy at being called out:

Editors in a wider community discussion launched into attacks on Martin. Administrator “Voorts” called Martin a “clown” in a hostile rant. Several editors followed up by making other attacks with administrator “Llywrch” claiming “those around the short-fingered convicted felon” were either clowns or incompetent hacks along with other incendiary political statements. Yet another editor responded to this stating they, including Martin, were “killer clowns” and “literally supporting more than one genocide” at the moment. Editor “Cambalachero” commented in the middle of this discussion to note that Wikipedia’s policies on claims about living people still apply in the discussion, though none of the editors modified their remarks. Administrator “Bishonen” wryly suggested creating a Wikipedia article about the letter itself. Her comments unfavorably referenced an Indian court case against the Foundation and how an article created about the court case had to be pulled down on the order of the court, while suggesting an article about Martin’s letter would more likely stay up. Bishonen has previously used her privileges to favor left-wing editors on the violent far-left Antifa group and the GamerGate anti-corruption movement in gaming. Martin’s Wikipedia page was also vandalized shortly after the letter’s release by non-account users calling him a “Nazi” and a “cuckold” with another labeling him “far-right” repeatedly before an admin, a user with special privileges, locked the page so only registered accounts over a few days old with multiple edits could edit. However, the “far-right” label was soon added back by an admitted Trump critic who added a paragraph labeling Martin a “conspiracy theorist” citing blogs and opinion pieces, despite such sourcing violating policy and the label was also added to the first sentence of Martin’s article.

The truth hurts, perhaps someone should start a wiki about it...

Red Scam

Don't mention the scam:

At the heart of the controversy is the Shandong Jianghaihui Financial Group, a government-supported investment company headquartered in Shandong province. The company abruptly ceased operations in March, and its founder fled to the United States along with his wife. Roughly 100,000 small investors were angered to discover their $2.74 billion in investments went up in smoke when the financial group dissolved. When the Chinese government seemed disinclined to do anything about it, the defrauded investors began talking to reporters — and the government very quickly did something about them. Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported on Wednesday that dozens of victimized depositors, most of them women, have been detained by the police after they tried to get around the Communist regime’s embargo on news coverage of the Shandong Jianghaihui story by talking to foreign reporters, including RFA itself. “All the people who had contacted you from here were detained,” a source in Shandong told RFA. “They said we were being used by international anti-China forces and that we were all committing crimes.” According to RFA’s sources, Chinese police looked for news reports about the Shandong financial collapse on foreign websites, got the names of the sources for their stories, and started rounding them up. Some of the unfortunate depositors were released within a matter of days, while others are in detention to this day.

The problem with one Chinese investment is that you want to kmake another one an hour later...

Whistle Waste

Hunter Biden blinks:

The whistleblowers, Gary Shapley and Joe Ziegler, alleged there had been a cover-up in former President Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) to block a tax fraud investigation into Hunter Biden. In a statement after the lawsuit was dropped, the two men said it was always clear it was an attempt to intimidate them. “Intimidation and retaliation were never going to work. We truly wanted our day in court to provide the complete story, but it appears Mr. Biden was afraid to actually fight this case in a court of law after all,” they commented. “His voluntary dismissal of the case tells you everything you need to know about who was right and who was wrong.” In December, the IRS whistleblowers criticized former President Joe Biden for pardoning Hunter before he left office, per Breitbart News. “No amount of lies or spin can hide the simple truth that the Justice Department nearly let the President’s son off the hook for multiple felonies. We did our duty, told the truth, and followed the law,” their statement read.

Hunter had to ditch his dog whistle...

Hell's Road

Good intentions alone never work:

When welfare began, the poverty rate dropped ... dropped for seven years. But then progress stopped. Since the 1970s, the number of Americans living in poverty rose and fell, but the initial success hasn't repeated. That's because the handouts encourage people to become dependent. Welfare even discouraged marriage because a single parent gets a bigger check. As a result, welfare created something never seen before in America: a permanent "underclass" -- generations raised without fathers, generations who stay poor and passive. It's happened because people "are basically told, 'you can't take care of yourself'... It doesn't encourage them to be ambitious," says Yaron Brook, head of the Ayn Rand Institute, in my new video. "Once you start paying people not to work ... they don't expect to take responsibility for their own lives." The War on Drugs also had unintended consequences. "When you launch a war on drugs ... you create huge profits for cartels because there's so much at stake," says Brook. That led to more illegal drugs, and "massive corruption among police." I ask, just "let everybody take whatever poison they want?" "Yes," says Brook, echoing Ayn Rand, who said it is "the responsibility of the individual not to take the kind of things ... which destroy his mind." Brook and I disagree about how to protect the environment. It's one area where I think we do need government. Our air and water are cleaner now because the Environmental Protection Agency set some rules. Brook says we could have accomplished that without the EPA, if individuals filed lawsuits. "You pollute in some way that is clearly making me sick, we have legal redress to deal with that ... But once you give it into the hands of bureaucrats ... they want to regulate and control every activity that we're engaged in." He cites California's wildfires and water shortages as an example of "government gone wild." (That's also the title of my new book.) Government has grown wildly. Even with DOGE cuts, it will still grow. It always does.

The beast will feed wherever it wants...

Red Smarts

Red states do better:

The secret of Mississippi and Louisiana’s educational success is not secret at all; it is about returning to the fundamentals and following the evidence. Mississippi’s Republican-led legislature has implemented effective education reforms in 2012 that prioritize phonics — teaching students to sound out words — and enforce a retention policy for third graders who do not meet essential reading benchmarks. Furthermore, the state invests $15 million each year, or approximately $32 per student, into training teachers on literacy and providing dedicated reading coaches in schools. The reform has produced remarkable results, with Mississippi’s fourth graders’ reading scores rising from 49th in the nation in 2013 to the top of the rankings (after adjusting for demographics) in 2024. The progress among black students is particularly impressive. According to Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, the reading scores of the state’s black fourth graders have improved from 45th to third place during the same period. This reflects the effectiveness of Mississippi’s literacy program, which has provided a learning gain equivalent to a full year of schooling. Moreover, the state’s graduation rate has seen a significant rise from 72 percent in 2013 to 89.9 percent in 2024. This drastic improvement has been dubbed as the “Mississippi Miracle,” and even caught the attention of Vice President J.D. Vance, who praised Mississippi’s education success on X.com: “This is pretty incredible. Smart education reform drastically improved Mississippi’s schools.” Gov. Reeves declared in an interview that the education outcome in his state “is really not a miracle at all. It’s really a result of conservative reforms implemented in public education — they’re making a huge difference for kids.”

Blues could learn a few things from them...