Hi friends,
Every day, it’s good news, bad news. Don’t let the roller coaster get you down. Overall, President Trump and team are making good progress.
Two articles at the end of this newsletter for my fellow Texans.
Tariffs vs Taxes
(Epoch Times) (Excerpts)
There was a time, before 1913, when you could keep every penny you earned. You did not have to file with the federal government, telling them what you earned and giving the feds their cut. Your finances were your business and no one else’s.
“In name, it was a tax reform. In point of fact, it was a revolution. For the Sixteenth Amendment corroded the American concept of natural rights; ultimately reduced the American citizen to a status of subject, so much so that he is not aware of it; enhanced Executive power to the point of reducing Congress to innocuity; and enabled the central government to bribe the states, once independent units, into subservience. No kingship in the history of the world ever exercised more power than our Presidency, or had more of the people’s wealth at its disposal. We have retained the forms and phrases of a republic, but in reality we are living under an oligarchy, not of courtesans, but of bureaucrats.”
Trading The Income Tax For Tariffs
(Issues & Insights) (Excerpts)
While speaking Saturday in Las Vegas, President Donald Trump suggested, as he had during the 2024 campaign, replacing the federal income tax with tariffs on foreign imports. We don’t need to see an economic analysis to believe this is debate worth having. Of all the good Trump could do as president in the next four years, eliminating the federal income tax would be one of his greatest achievements.
Trump also reminded the fussbudgets and change-fearing conventionalists who will predict that without a federal income tax the country will fall into a decline that until the 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913, there was no federal income tax. That’s right, establishing a federal income tax required a change to the Constitution. The Supreme Court in 1895 struck down an effort in the year before to establish a national income tax. It was, said five justices, unconstitutional.
An income tax at any level is insidious. Internal taxes, Thomas Jefferson said, were an assault on liberty, which “covered our land with officers and opened our doors to their intrusions.”
Trump’s J6 Pardons Signal The End Of The War On Wrongthink: The Capitol riot fueled the war on wrongthink. Clemency for Capitol rioters should represent the start of the end of that war.
In the four years since the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, Democrats have crushed and disenfranchised their political opponents in a bid to achieve total power by waging a whole-of-society war on wrongthink. This war encompassed, among other elements, the lawfare apparatus, the broader weaponized administrative state, and the Censorship-Industrial Complex.
Now, with President Trump’s many corrective actions during week one of his second term, we may be witnessing the beginning of the end of this tyrannical war — the first step toward restoring liberty and justice in this country.
Miranda Devine: Trump used his finite political capital to pardon the Jan. 6 riot defendants – and right the egregious wrongs of Biden’s DOJ
Excerpts:
Of all the crimes and threats to the United States — terrorism, organized crime, drug trafficking, espionage, drone attacks
— why was a four-hour riot in Washington, DC, singled out by the DOJ and FBI to be the biggest investigation in their history? Bigger than 9/11, bigger than Enron.
The J6 riots did $1.5 million damage to the Capitol compared to $2 billion in damage caused by the BLM-Antifa George Floyd riots in the summer of 2020.
Not to mention 25 deaths and countless injured cops.
With thousands of FBI and DOJ personnel mobilized to hunt down every Trump supporter who set foot on Capitol grounds, the cost of the J6 prosecutions has been immense, even with the free labor of malicious self-styled citizen “sedition hunters.”
An extra $780 million was allocated to the FBI and the DC US Attorney’s Office just in 2022 for J6 cases, which they were working on right up until Trump’s inauguration.
The full cost over four years has yet to be calculated, but the opportunity cost was equally high.
For example, FBI whistleblower Steve Friend says he was taken off child sexual abuse cases to investigate J6.
How many children have been abused, terrorist plots hatched, assassinations planned, or criminal gangs flourished while the FBI was looking the other way at some phantom threat of “domestic conservative terrorism,” whether J6ers, parents at school board meetings, pro-lifers, or Catholics at Latin Mass.
In that sense, it was poetic justice that one of Trump’s first acts on reclaiming the presidency, on the very day of his inauguration, was to pardon all J6 defendants, apart from 14 whose sentences he commuted.
How DOJ prosecutors turned January 6 rioters into martyrs-
Most of the charges were for misdemeanors like trespassing or disorderly conduct.
Yet anyone who so much as wandered into the Capitol through an open door or trespassed on the lawn was subjected to a full-scale federal investigation.
Some, like New Yorker Joseph Bolanos, 69, had just attended the Trump rally and was back at his hotel when the riot broke out, yet he was subjected to an FBI dawn raid and arrested in front of his neighbors.
Jacob Chansley, the QAnon shaman, spent 27 months in jail for walking into the Senate chamber.
Yes, some thugs committed violence against police, and that is reprehensible, but they have already spent three or four years in jail, much of it in pre-trial detention.
Even if you think they got off lightly, there has to be equal justice, and the lenient treatment of the Antifa-BLM rioters of 2020 suggests J6ers were unfairly treated.
For truth about J6, click open.ink.
Fellow Texans –
From Today’s Texas Minute:
In DOGE Push, Keith Self and Ted Cruz Set CFPB Funding at $0
Under legislation filed by U.S. Rep. Keith Self (R-TX), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s statutory funding cap would be set to $0, effectively eliminating the agency by cutting off its financial resources. Ted Cruz is carrying a companion measure in the Senate.
Their legislation aligns with the Byrd Rule in the Senate, ensuring it is eligible for inclusion in a budget reconciliation package. The reconciliation package is seen as critical to President Donald Trump's "DOGE" agenda in cutting inefficiency in government.
The CFPB, established in 2010, currently draws its funding directly from the Federal Reserve, bypassing Congress’ power of the purse. The CFPB has been criticized for wielding unchecked power over the financial services industry, with regulations that stifle innovation, negatively impact small businesses, and increase consumer costs.
“The CFPB has long operated as an unaccountable and burdensome agency that has stifled economic growth through regulatory overreach.” – Keith Self
Lawfare, Lawfare, Lawfare
Texas State Bar Drops Long-Running Case Against Attorney General Ken Paxton
After four years of contentious legal battles, the Texas State Bar has officially dropped its highly politicized effort to sanction Attorney General Ken Paxton. Brandon Waltens has the details.
In December 2020, following a presidential election filled with concerns about election integrity, Paxton led 18 states in filing Texas v. Pennsylvania at the United States Supreme Court. The case challenged the voting procedures in Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, and Wisconsin and sought to temporarily block those states from certifying vote counts ahead of the Electoral College vote. The Supreme Court eventually dismissed the case.
In 2022, the Texas State Bar—the professional organization that certifies lawyers—attempted to censure and sanction Paxton and his first assistant attorney general, Brent Webster, for having filed the lawsuit. The Bar filed a lawsuit against them to strip their law licenses.
“The State Bar’s meritless case was not about justice or the rule of law but about weaponizing the legal process to attack me for boldly defending the rights of Texas. For four years, this unfounded lawfare wasted valuable time and resources, but these unethical tactics will never stop me from fighting to uphold the rule of law, protect our elections, and defend the values that Texans hold dear.” – Ken Paxton
For more general information from President Trump or about his Administration:
White House website
Issues
Remarks (including the full Inaugural Address)
The Cabinet
There’s so much more to talk about of course. I’ll be sending you more in a day or two.
In the meantime, staying informed is just the first step. What happens next depends on us - everyday citizens who care about our country’s future. I encourage you to:
Take time to be informed, stay up to date. We’ve only accomplished Step 1.
Share information with friends and family. We need to bring back civil discourse.
Reach out to your representatives, local, state, and federal, to voice your support or concerns. If you haven’t heard, “All politics is local”, do realize that bad local politicians just move up the ladder. Don’t let them get a foot in the door.
The work of restoring our country and protecting our freedoms has only just begun. Let’s move forward together to continue the momentum to make America, health, and education great again.
If you have questions, let me know. I’m happy to help.
This message reflects my personal perspective on current events. While I strive for accuracy, please verify details through official sources linked above. If sharing, I encourage readers to include this disclaimer to ensure clarity.
United we stand. Divided we fall. We must not let America fall.
VoteTexas.gov, https://www.votetexas.gov/get-involved/index.html
Until next time…
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