Commentary: Enemies of the Administrative State

DOJ Logo

Amid allegations from conservative lawmakers and activists that Washington, D.C.’s most powerful agencies have been weaponized against their critics, one organization has not only played a key role in helping marshal evidence of such malfeasance, but found itself at the center of an emerging government targeting scandal that would seem to only further substantiate the claims of administrative state critics.

That organization is Empower Oversight Whistleblowers & Research. It has represented whistleblowers at the heart of some of the most consequential and contentious congressional investigations in recent years, touching on matters ranging from the impeachment inquiry into President Biden, to alleged FBI inflation of the domestic terror threat.

Read More

Ray Epps, Accused of Being FBI Informant on January 6, Sentenced to One Year Probation

January Six

An Arizona man who was believed to an FBI plant in the Jan 6. Capitol riot, was sentenced Tuesday to one-year probation for his participation in the incident. 

The rioter, 62-year-old Ray Epps, was sentenced to probation in deal with federal prosecutors, after pleading guilty in September to a single charge of engaging in disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, according to The Hill newspaper.

Read More

Commentary: Out of Office

Lloyd Austin

Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, has apparently been in the hospital, following complications from a surgery for an unknown ailment. He had the surgery and passed the baton to the Deputy Secretary of Defense, Kathleen Hicks, but did not inform the President, the National Security Advisor, and a bunch of other people who should have been kept in the loop.

Worse, Austin’s deputy was apparently on vacation when she was put in charge. This all matters because the military functions through a chain of command, and the Secretary of Defense is a crucial link in that chain, the interface between the uniformed military and the President.

Read More

New Poll Shows Trump Ahead in Six Battleground States

Former President Donald Trump is leading President Joe Biden in all six battleground states surveyed for a 2024 hypothetical matchup, according to a Monday poll.

Trump beat Biden in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina and Florida anywhere from 1 to 11 points, according to a Redfield & Wilton Strategies survey. Independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was also on the ballot for the six swing states polled, receiving his largest margins in North Carolina and Arizona.

Read More

Groups Behind Seattle Highway Blockade Allegedly Tied to Terrorism, Major Left-Wing Money

An activist group with alleged ties to Palestinian terrorists and an organization backed by major left-wing nonprofits blocked a Washington state highway for hours over the weekend to demand a ceasefire amid the ongoing conflict in Israel.

Read More

Almost a Quarter of All Jobs Added in 2023 Didn’t Actually Exist

man in yellow hardhat and work jacket

The original number of jobs reported by the federal government in 2023 was revised down by a total of 749,000 jobs, meaning nearly one-fourth of jobs thought to be created in the year were not actually there, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) analyzed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The sum of the initial estimate from each of the government’s monthly job growth reports in 2023 totaled 3,140,000 new jobs, with later reports revising down the number of jobs added by a collective 443,000, according to the BLS. The BLS also announced in August a revision in total employment for March, subtracting another 306,000 jobs.

Read More

Commentary: The Immediacy of the PRC Threat Requires Shift from a Focus on Land Power to Maritime Power

One of the biggest news stories coming out of Asia for the New Year was the alleged purge of senior People’s Liberation Army (PLA) officers, most notably the former PRC Minister of Defense Li Shangfu who went missing in late August 2023 and was formally removed from his position in October. This so-called purge, which also included three senior defense industry officials, was in fact the result of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) annual announcement of the new slate of delegates for the upcoming Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), an advisory body of the PRC’s annual National People’s Congress (NPC), that is held each year, usually in early March.

Read More

Businesses Are Getting Crushed ‘Beneath the Surface’ of Economy, New Figures Show

In recent years, mid-sized companies between $100 million and $750 million in yearly revenue have been increasingly struggling compared to large businesses, taking the brunt of poor economic conditions and high interest rates, according to asset manager Marblegate.

From 2019 to the end of 2022, mid-sized companies had a 24 percent drop in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) compared to public companies, which had their earnings rise 18 percent, according to a study by Marblegate acquired by Axios. The discrepancy between large and midsized companies is in part due to the increased cost of credit for smaller businesses, which are more affected by the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes, with the federal funds rate currently being placed in a range of 5.25 percent and 5.50 percent, the highest point in 22 years.

Read More

Commentary: An Economic Bill of Rights for the 21st Century

Manual Labor

Beginning April 1, the minimum wage for employees working in California’s fast food chains and health care industries will rise to $20 per hour and, in some cases, up to $23 per hour. Many employers managing independent restaurants, retail, and other industries will have to match the higher hourly rate to retain employees. And for hourly employees whose wages are indexed to the minimum wage, mostly in California’s unionized public sector, wages will rise proportionately.

There is no national consensus on the impact of minimum-wage laws. It is part of a much larger debate over what constitutes an optimal economic environment to enable, quoting from Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “economic security and independence.”

Read More

Federal Debt Up $6.2 Trillion Under Biden – $47,462 per Household

Congress Spending

The federal debt increased by $6,238,231,285,652.06 between Jan. 20, 2021, the day President Joe Biden was inaugurated, and Jan. 2, 2023, the last day for which the debt has been reported.

That equals $47,462.84 for each of the 131,434,000 households that the Census Bureau estimates were in the United States in 2023.

Read More