'Pricing mechanisms'

'Seriously... cover your profile picture,' the teacher allegedly added

A post made on X claims to show a Robert F. Kennedy Jr. X post promising to bankrupt packaged food companies. ?? Wow – The Trump Administration isn’t messing around! It’s over Globalists – whether it’s Fluoride, fake food, vaccines or chemtrails – no more poisoning us all. pic.twitter.com/I3UWBElcRw — Concerned Citizen (@BGatesIsaPyscho) November 10, 2024 […]

'I just think we can do better'

Start Quiz The WB The WB Let your inner child out and travel back to the time of 1960s children’s television shows. From the kooky and spooky Addams Family to the educational variety show Captain Kangaroo, there was a little something for everyone during this particular decade. Based on your personality, the question is, which 1960s television show would you thrive in if you were lucky enough to... Source

DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—The Department of Health and Human Services spends tens of millions of dollars annually on diversity-related expenses, according to a new report from the watchdog group Open the Books. American taxpayers foot a bill of roughly $38.7 million every year to employ 297 staffers conducting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work at HHS, with 247 of those federal employees making over $100,000 a year, according to government records analyzed by Open the Books. On top of that, HHS spends $29.4 million per year to keep 209 workers on the payroll for its Office of Minority Health, which exists to “improve the health of racial and ethnic minority populations through the development of health policies and programs that will help eliminate health disparities.” One of the programs funded by the Office of Minority Health included a “vaccine equity” program in Atlanta aimed at getting monkeypox vaccine doses to gay black men to help “celebrate diversity and the impact of distinctly black gay and queer culture on the community,” according to Open the Books. “The private sector is learning the hard—and costly—way that much of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion model is discriminatory and subject to expensive litigation,” the report reads, referencing reporting that many corporations are shuttering their DEI operations. “While federal agencies have also faced a mountain of legal challenges, the Biden administration has nevertheless pressed on with the president’s commitment to a ‘whole of government’ DEI effort.” Under the Biden-Harris administration, the federal government placed an increased emphasis on embedding DEI in the bureaucracy. President Joe Biden signed Executive Order 14035 in June 2021, which ordered agencies to make “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” a “priority” in their staffing decisions. In response to the order, HHS promised to hire 313 employees across eight different DEI departments in 2023, according to the agency’s 2022 strategic plan. 2022-hhs-deia-strategic-planDownload Beyond staffing, HHS has earmarked hundreds of millions more in spending for DEI initiatives across the agency, according to Open the Books. The agency, for instance, set aside $608 million for “General Departmental Management,” with the top three goals for the program being “racial equity, environmental justice, climate change.” Other expensive line items include $241 million for universities to hire minority scientists, $24.3 million to make nursing more diverse, and $5 million to fund an Office of Climate Change and Health Equity and an Office of Environmental Justice. HHS did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The post Biden-Harris Health Department Spending Hundreds of Millions Annually on DEI appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Donald Trump last week won every battleground state and cruised to an electoral victory. “Top” data experts and pollsters didn’t see it coming. Trump’s big win should serve as a lesson for those who blindly trust the “experts,” whether pollsters or government bureaucrats, who wield control over the budget and the economy. The worst 2024 high-profile polling miss—by 16 points—came from the pollster who the media establishment put on the highest pedestal, Ann Selzer, whose 2012 polling for The Des Moines Register famously foreshadowed Barack Obama’s upset of Mitt Romney in Iowa. Politico and others referred to Selzer’s polling as the “gold standard.” Clare Malone of ABC News’ FiveThirtyEight wrote a particularly gushing feature on Selzer in 2016, saying: When Homer wrote of his hero Odysseus, he was ‘that godlike man.’ The D.C. poets use the same laudatory epithet-style when they sing of Selzer; she is uniformly ‘the great’ or ‘most respected’ or, as I saw on a book jacket recently while walking through the Des Moines airport, ‘Iowa’s polling queen.’ When Selzer’s Nov. 2 poll, released three days before the election, showed Kamala Harris winning the safe Trump state of Iowa by three percentage points, Harris supporters who follow polling were exuberant, ready to pop the champagne. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow said, “If anybody is accurate, it’s likely to be Ann Selzer.” If the “best pollster in the business” had Harris winning Iowa, surely she’d win in a rout.   But Iowa voters didn’t get the memo. Iowans showed up for Trump en masse, giving the former president a 13-point win, the biggest margin for a Republican since Richard Nixon over George McGovern in 1972. Almost all pollsters underestimated Trump’s support to some extent. According to statistician Nate Silver, who models presidential election outcomes, Harris had a one-point national edge in the final polling average, while the seven key battleground states were all virtual ties. Based on polling and other inputs, Silver’s reputed election model showed that Harris and Trump had almost identical probabilities of winning, giving Harris the narrowest of edges at 50.015% to 49.985%. Instead, Trump carried the night with relative ease. Much like pollster Selzer, the media has lauded Silver as a “renowned election guru” and “polling wizard” ever since he accurately predicted the outcome of all 50 states in the 2012 election pitting Obama against Romney. But 2024 wasn’t the first time Silver’s modeling understated Trump’s chances—the president-elect outperformed Silver’s model by about the same number of electoral votes in 2020 (42) and by even more in 2016 (71). Although Silver’s model projected that Trump had a near 50-50 chance of winning the Electoral College in 2024, it put Trump as a big underdog to win the popular vote. But not only did Trump win the popular vote, he’s ahead by a healthy margin of two percentage points. According to Silver’s probabilistic model, such an outcome was possible, but unlikely. For Silver’s model to miss by as much as it has in the same direction in three consecutive presidential elections suggests something’s wrong with his model. Part of the problem is what’s put into the model: The polls consistently understate Trump’s support, so Silver’s model has too. As they say in statistical modeling: garbage in, garbage out. But Silver, along with his election-modeling counterparts at his former company, FiveThirtyEight, act as gatekeepers deciding which pollsters are deemed credible and which are not. Selzer’s polling is, according to Silver, rated an A+. In theory, Silver and FiveThirtyEight are filtering out what they deem as unreliable polls, so “garbage in, garbage out” is no excuse. Selzer, Silver, and FiveThrityEight exist within a self-reinforcing media ecosystem. The anointed establishment elites set the media narratives and dictate what information is considered credible and what is not. There’s nothing inherently wrong with polling and statistical modeling. These tools can bring great value in understanding the world we inhabit and the issues society faces. But they should be viewed with healthy skepticism. And nobody should be seen as so authoritative that he is above questioning, especially when conducting complex modeling. Unfortunately, overreliance on “top expert forecasts” isn’t just a problem for polling and election modeling. It’s also a problem that’s deeply embedded in our federal budgeting process, and it leads to higher taxes, more government spending, and less economic growth. The Congressional Budget Office and Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation forecast the budget and economic impacts of tax and spending legislation. When the media says that a bill would increase or decrease the deficit over 10 years by, say, $1 trillion, chances are the forecast came from CBO or JCT. All too often, Congress treats these forecasts as gospel. Lawmakers tailor bills—often in gimmicky ways—to get the best possible score from these government gatekeepers. This is especially true with the most consequential tax and spending packages, which go through what’s called the budget reconciliation process. If the Congressional Budget Office determines that a reconciliation bill would add to the deficit outside of the 10-year budget window, the legislation isn’t permitted under the Congressional Budget Act. This arrangement gives CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation outsize power over Americans’ lives, even if that power is indirect. When CBO scored the Biden-Harris administration’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act as reducing the budget deficit, it provided proponents with all the cover they needed to ram the big spending bill through Congress. Never mind that outside estimates correctly determined that the bill would add hundreds of billions—if not trillions—to the deficit. Even CBO later acknowledged that the green energy subsidies in the bill would cost about $428 billion more than they originally projected. But by then the damage was done. On the other hand, forecasts by the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation exaggerate the deficit impact of tax cuts—especially pro-growth tax cuts—creating a giant obstacle for lawmakers pursuing positive reforms. JCT also puts out distribution tables that purport to show who will benefit from tax reform and by how much. But at best, these tables tell only a part of the story. The Joint Committee on Taxation doesn’t have a crystal ball that can show what entrepreneurs will do when allowed to keep a little more of the money their businesses earn. Government forecasters can’t predict every job created, every technology developed, or every life-changing opportunity that will be made possible. They can’t foresee the dynamism that would be unleashed and the innovations that would be possible if businesses and individuals weren’t so bogged down by the IRS and government regulators.  Modeling the U.S. economy is immensely more complex than estimating what percentage of Americans will vote for one candidate or another. It involves countless assumptions by CBO and JCT, most of which remain hidden from the public. Lawmakers should remember that government scorekeepers are human and just as prone to error and bias as the statisticians and pollsters who have egg on their face after Trump’s big electoral win. The incoming Congress cannot allow technocrats at the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation—who work for Congress, not the other way around—to stand in the way of passing conservative legislation that gets the economy back on track. The post What Trump’s Big Win Says About Some Experts, Their Numbers, and How Congress Sets Policy appeared first on The Daily Signal.

How Dumb Can Government Get?

Every leftist’s nightmare has come true. That is, Donald Trump has won the presidency, and their lives will likely get better because of it. The devastating loss has Democrats now claiming that the 2024 election has been stolen, as they point out that it appears 20 million voters came out of nowhere in the 2020 election for Joe Biden and have now disappeared. “PolitiFact even points out, ‘No, 20 million Democratic votes didn’t disappear, and there’s no evidence the 2024 election was stolen,’” Stu Burguiere of “Stu Does America” comments. “It’s fascinating to watch all of them now do what they accused us of doing all of this time. We were the election deniers for four years, now they can deny the election, and no one seems to care whatsoever,” he continues. A survey found that more than half of Harris voters have considered leaving the country after Trump’s win, though 44% of them would like to move but probably won’t. Five percent say they will definitely move and another 5% say they probably will. “If the reason why you’re worried about potentially moving is because of a federal abortion ban, you could just leave when you need the abortion. These people are not that bright,” Burguiere says. “Go fly somewhere else, and you can escape the little 'Handmaid’s Tale' country we have for you here.” Leftists are taking Trump’s win so poorly that they’re even canceling classes at their prestigious universities like Harvard, Penn, and Columbia. The dean of Harvard reportedly told students to let themselves “feel a bunch of emotions about how this is going to impact us in the future and listen to other people and how they feel about it, too.” “Now, of course, you can’t listen to all other people ‘cause some of them might like it, so don’t listen to those people. But listen to other people who also have b****es and complaints about the election results and the democracy they hold so dear,” Burguiere says. A Yale psychiatrist is also urging MSNBC viewers to shun Trump voting family members over the holidays. Dr. Amanda Calhoun told viewers that there is a “societal push that if someone is in your family, they are entitled to your time, and I think the answer is absolutely not.” “If you are going through a situation where you have family members or you have close friends who you know have voted in ways that are against you, that are against your livelihood, then it’s completely fine to not be around those people and to tell them why,” Calhoun said. “There’s only one actual response to that. It is one word long, and it is ‘good,’” Burguiere says. Want more from Stu?To enjoy more of Stu's lethal wit, wisdom, and mockery, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

Days prior to the 2020 presidential election, former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley telephoned his communist Chinese counterpart, General Li Zuocheng. Milley reportedly reassured Zuocheng that he would provide him with actionable warnings should his commander in chief, then President Donald Trump, decide to attack, thereby nullifying the strategic advantage of a possible American surprise attack for the benefit of an adversarial nation. According to Bob Woodward and Robert Costa's book "Peril," Milley also plotted in secret to deprive the American president of his ability to swiftly defend the nation with nuclear weapons, telling senior military officials in charge of the National Military Command Center not to follow orders unless he personally gave the green light. It appears Pentagon officials are once again figuring out ways of undermining Trump, possibly at the nation's expense. Defense officials recently told CNN that elements of the Department of Defense have been holding informal discussions about how they might respond to Trump orders they find objectionable, such as the firing of redundant bureaucrats or the domestic deployment of troops. 'There is huge risk in disobeying a president's order.' "We are all preparing and planning for the worst-case scenario, but the reality is that we don't know how this is going to play out yet," said one defense official. Among the concerns reportedly entertained by would-be obstructors is that Trump might deploy active-duty forces to help Customs and Border Protection — something military officials were happy to do when President Joe Biden took office. It appears the difference is that Trump might use the forces effectively. One former senior DOD official noted that unlike the military, law enforcement agencies "don't have the manpower, they don't have the helicopters, the trucks, the expeditionary capabilities" that are likely necessary to execute Trump's mass deportation plan. While using the military to make good on Trump's campaign promise is sensible, "it is a big deal," suggested the official. Sending troops into American cities is hardly unprecedented. For instance, President George H.W. Bush invoked the Insurrection Act during the 1992 Los Angeles race riots and tasked federal troops with restoring order. 'We will clean out all of the corrupt actors.' Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a memo following Trump's landslide victory, directing the military to "make a calm, orderly, and professional transition to the incoming Trump administration." Austin also made a point of specifying that the military must obey "lawful" orders. "The U.S military will stand ready to carry out the policy choices of its next Commander in Chief," wrote Austin, "and to obey all lawful orders from its civilian chain of command." "Troops are compelled by law to disobey unlawful orders," one defense official told CNN. "But the question is what happens then — do we see resignations from senior military leaders? Or would they view that as abandoning their people?" Kori Schake of the American Enterprise Institute made clear to Reuters that there is a big difference between lawful orders and orders believed to be immoral. "There is a widespread public misperception that the military can choose not to obey immoral orders. And that's actually not true," said Schake. Rachel VanLandingham, a former Air Force attorney, told the Washington Post, "They will follow President Trump's orders, particularly because the president can lawfully order domestic use of the military in a wide variety of situations." "There is huge risk in disobeying a president's order and seemingly little risk in obeying it," added VanLandingham. The other big concern that insiders are reportedly "gaming out" is that Trump might trim the fat as promised, at least where government bloat is concerned. Trump plans to reissue his 2020 executive order establishing the Schedule F employment category for federal employees, making it easier to remove insubordinate and useless bureaucrats from an estimated pool of 50,000 eligible candidates. "I will wield that power very aggressively," Trump vowed in a March 2023 video. "We will clean out all of the corrupt actors in our national security and intelligence apparatus, and there are plenty of them." Vice President-elect JD Vance told Tucker Carlson ahead of Election Day, "If the people in your own government aren't obeying you, you have got to get rid of them and replace them with people who are responsive to what the president's trying to do." While Biden announced a rule earlier this year aimed at further shielding federal bureaucrats from being ousted under a framework resembling Schedule F, one defense official told CNN that "there are still ways a new administration could work around these protections." "My email has been inundated on this topic," said an unnamed defense official. "Definitely going to be a busy couple months." Blaze News reached out to the DOD's press operations office for comment but did not receive a response by deadline. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!