Free Republic

Why must citizens pay for the education of illegal aliens?

SCOTUS case Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982)

Ukraine’s problem is they are running out of people...this will lead to a quick and sudden collapse on the front-line..

That is the nub of the problem. Far more concerning is the sending of troops from Europe into Ukraine to bolster a dispirited and losing Ukrainian military that lacks numbers and the willingness of the population to enlist. The demographics of Ukraine are bracing. With 14 million leaving the country as refugees and young people trying to evade the draft with the age now reduced to 25, where are the additional troops going to come from? Europe—but Not NATO—Should Send Troops to Ukraine To Halt Russia’s Advance, Kyiv Needs More Boots on the Ground.

"A taboo has been broken in Europe. Only a few months ago, it would have been inconceivable for European leaders to propose sending European troops to Ukraine. But on February 26, French President Emmanuel Macron said the deployment of European forces to Ukraine could not be “ruled out.” Since then, other European officials have joined the chorus; the Finnish defense minister and Polish foreign minister have both suggested that their countries’ forces could end up in Ukraine. These comments, combined with existing support for such measures in the Baltic states, show that there is a growing bloc of countries open to direct European intervention in the war."

Ukraine Population Pyramid 2023

Median age in Ukraine

total: 45.3 years (2023 est.)

male: 41.3 years

female: 50 years

15th oldest country in the world

The largest male cohort was born in 1974 (turning 40). Births were declining towards end of Soviet Union, but then fell precipitously during chaos of 1990s during Yeltsin regime in Russia. Current male population born in 2000 is less than 100,000. Average age of a Ukrainian soldier is 42.

As the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Charles Brown, said on supplying US trainers in Ukraine, "We’ll get there eventually, over time."

Today we see the same thing beginning to occur but with a different group. And the USA has made no effort or any successful effort to bring this to a stop.

The English brought in the slaves from Africa for agrarian purposes primarily to reduce the economic operating costs of their farms. The African slaves were forced to come here. They did not come voluntarily.

Today's immigrants, legal and illegal, are coming voluntarily. And they are coming from everywhere. Over 50% of immigrant headed households, legal and illegal, are on at least one major welfare program. We are importing poverty at a time when our national debt has ballooned to almost $35 trillion and we add $1 trillion every 100 days. Milton Friedman: “It's just obvious you can't have free immigration and a welfare state.”

The country as we have known it during our life span will be vastly different for the grand/great children. Sad but change comes. They will adapt and be living in outer space within the next hundred years.

The country is being transformed now. You will live to see it. Since Biden was elected, we have allowed in 10 million illegal aliens, 4 million legal immigrants, and added 1.2 million legal citizens thru birthright citizenship. This 15.2 million added to our population, most of them poor and uneducated.

The $10 billion is chump change. Not enforcing the sanctions funnels close to $100 billion into Iranian coffers.

I am reminded of Milton Friedman’s observation:

“I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or it they try, they will shortly be out of office.”

Irrelevant.

Fontes is illegitimate. He is the product of a stolen election.

Might have some validity, but always remember Epoch Times is owned by people from China/Taiwan…

Here is how leftist Wikipedia desrcibes the Epoch Times:

The Epoch Times is a far-right international multi-language newspaper and media company affiliated with the Falun Gong new religious movement. The newspaper, based in New York City, is part of the Epoch Media Group, which also operates New Tang Dynasty (NTD) Television. The Epoch Times has websites in 35 countries but is blocked in mainland China.

The Epoch Times opposes the Chinese Communist Party, platforms far-right politicians in Europe, and has supported former President Donald Trump in the U.S.; a 2019 report by NBC News showed it to be the second-largest funder of pro-Trump Facebook advertising after the Trump campaign itself. The Epoch Times frequently runs stories promoting other Falun Gong-affiliated groups, such as the performing arts company Shen Yun. The Epoch Media Group's news sites and YouTube channels have promoted conspiracy theories such as QAnon, anti-vaccine misinformation and false claims of fraud in the 2020 United States presidential election.\

Finances

According to NBC News, "little is publicly known about the precise ownership, origins or influences of The Epoch Times", and it is loosely organized into several regional tax-free nonprofits, under the umbrella of the Epoch Media Group, together with New Tang Dynasty Television.

The newspaper's revenue has increased rapidly in recent years, from $3.8 million in 2016 to $8.1 million in 2017 (with spending of $7.2 million), $12.4 million in 2018 and $15.5 million in 2019. Tax documents indicate that between 2012 and 2016, the group received $900,000 from a principal at Renaissance Technologies, a hedge fund led at the time by the conservative political donor Robert Mercer. Chris Kitze, a former NBC executive and creator of the fake news website Before It's News who also manages a cryptocurrency hedge fund, joined the paper's board as vice president in 2017.

A 2020 New York Times report called The Epoch Times's recent wealth "something of a mystery". Steve Bannon, the former executive chairman of Breitbart News who produced a documentary with NTD, said "I'd give them a number" on a project budget and "they'd come back and say, 'We're good for that number.'" Former employees say they were told The Epoch Times is financed by subscriptions, ads and donations from wealthy Falun Gong practitioners.

The Epoch Times has increased its revenue by 685% over two years, reaching $122 million in 2021. Since 2019, it has gone mostly digital, spending millions on Facebook and YouTube advertisements (Facebook later banned the website, saying it "leveraged foreign actors posing as Americans to push political content"). As of 2023, The Epoch Times claims to be the US newspaper with the fourth-highest number of subscribers; this ranking cannot be verified as their circulation data is not audited by independent organizations.

Distribution

The Epoch Times publishes in 21 languages and 33 countries, and has print editions in eight languages: Chinese, English, Spanish, Hebrew, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, and Indonesian. Special print editions have also been erratically published in France. As of March 2022, The Epoch Times is planning to expand into the United Kingdom.

In April 2019, videos and ads from the Epoch Media Group including The Epoch Times and New Tang Dynasty (NTD) totaled 3 billion views on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, according to the analytics company Tubular. That ranked it 11th among all video creators, and ahead of any other traditional news publisher, according to NBC News.

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I subscribe to Epoch Times because I believe their reporting is more objective than the MSM and supports, for the most part, my world view. It covers news stories from around thew world, often not even mentioned in the MSM. I am not concerned by their alleged funding sources. I am more concerned about the handful of corporations that control the MSM and their highly partisan and biased "reporting."

Here is another good article taken from Epoch Times:

Treason Of The Intellectuals And Danger From Within

“The enemies from within are more dangerous to me than the enemies from the outside,” said Republican Presidential Candidate Donald J. Trump, at a rally in Wildwood, New Jersey, on May 11, 2024.

At a Springfield, Illinois, event, some 20 years before the American Civil War, Abraham Lincoln delivered a prophetic message to his fellow citizens: “At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”

The speech is said to be the origin of the popular quote wrongly attributed to Lincoln: “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”

While these were not Lincoln’s exact words, most Americans understand that the 16th and 45th presidents of the United States were troubled by the same thing—the potential self-destruction of their nation.

History has demonstrated that internal discord can be as dangerous to a sovereign country as a foreign aggressor. A History of Betrayal

In 2013, American author Diana West published “American Betrayal: The Secret Assault on Our Nation’s Character.” Her book initiated an important debate about the modern history of the American Republic.

Ms. West contended that Nov. 16, 1933, was the beginning of a long assault on the security of U.S. democracy. This was the date when Democrat President Franklin Delano Roosevelt decided to normalize relations with the murderous communist regime known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. FDR’s fateful decision opened America’s doors to an unprecedented invasion of Marxist militants, communist spies, and domestic fellow-travelers.

In the decades that followed, progressive academics, journalists, novelists, artists, and entertainers all celebrated the socialist ideals of the Bolshevik Revolution. According to Ms. West, even American businessmen were “eager to buy their rope from Lenin.”

Ms. West’s views about the influence of communist ideologues in American politics were ridiculed by some of the most notable literary figures in the United States and Canada.

Other courageous scholars came to her defense.

One was the late Vladimir Bukovsky, a Russian-born writer and human rights activist who spent 12 years in Soviet psychiatric hospitals, prisons, and labor camps during the Brezhnev era. Another was Pavel Stroilov, a Russian Christian exile who fled to the UK after his academic research put his life and liberty in jeopardy.

Writing for Breitbart News in November 2013, Mr. Bukovsky and Mr. Stroilov insisted that Diana West’s book would make history. Both agreed that, despite the collapse of the Soviet Union and the unraveling of the Warsaw Pact in 1989, the United States never really won the Cold War.

Like Ms. West, they asserted that the conflict between the United States and the USSR was more than a military stand-off.

“It was an ideological war waged by the totalitarian utopia of Socialism against our civilization; and on that level, the most optimistic view of it is that it still goes on. The Soviet Union is gone, but Russia is still governed by a junta of Gestapo officers; China is still governed by the Communist Party; and the Western world is governed by closet Marxists and Mensheviks, imposing on us yet another version of the same socialist utopia,” they wrote.

Drawing on copious research and experience, Ms. West, Mr. Bukovsky, and Mr. Stroilov demonstrated that it was an elite American intelligentsia who surrendered the United States to the adversarial socialist culture. The U.S. establishment’s capitulation to the global left led to a complete occupation of U.S. institutions and the ultimate corruption of the free world.

Few scholars have produced better explanations for the precipitous decline of Western democracy in the 21st century. Treason of the Intellectuals

For more than 150 years after the signing of the U.S. Constitution, Americans regarded their nation as a beacon of liberty and a model for representative democracy.

In the early decades of the 19th century, French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville expressed high praise for the United States, its citizens, and their civic institutions.

After abolishing slavery, Abraham Lincoln identified the U.S. Republic as “a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

Americans developed civil institutions that were second to none. In 1964, the American Civil Rights Act extended the foundational promises of the United States to all of its citizens.

Today’s woke left is destroying America’s legacy. While they claim to worry about “democracy,” they are really worried about losing their own power. They saw how actual democracy worked in 2016 and they don’t want any more of it.

Ordinary American citizens are victims of what French philosopher Julien Benda once called “La Trahison des Clercs” (The Treason of the Intellectuals).

Benda condemned early 20th-century European elites who were apologists for aggressive imperialism, military power, and racial discrimination. The elites who are betraying America today are proponents of aggressive globalism, technocratic power, and reverse racial discrimination.

Both Benda and Ms. West asserted that free societies can be ruined by a leadership class that rejects objective reasoning and ignores the difference between truth and lies.

From the New Deal to Bidenomics, Soviet show trials to corrupt courts, national sovereignty to open borders, education to indoctrination, free speech to censorship, honest elections to ballot harvesting, and freedom of religion to the suppression of faith, the survival of American democracy is more tenuous than ever.

These are the “dangers from within” that Presidents Lincoln and Trump were speaking about.

Bannon has been saying that all of young people will be like Russian serfs and own nothing. Their masters say that will make them happy.

Interesting that they left OUT ABC's "The View" (better known as The Moo). It's the biggest news propaganda show on tv.

You are right. Many so-called entertainment shows have become highly politicized, primarily in favor of the Dems. Fallon, Colbert, and Kimmel have become Dem infomercials.

It's been pointed out that today the rich ally with the dirty dems. Things have flipped. We, Republicans were always told that the rich were all in our party. Today it's all the dirty dems from hillary,obama,soros to all the rest of hollywierd and those who seek special privilege.

Trump resurrected and expanded a dying party. The GOP is now the party of the American worker and America First. Everything else in terms of policy is based on this foundation.

The problem is how informed the public really is about the trial or anything else. Most people are not as well-informed as the people on this thread. We don't depend on the MSM or social media for most of our news.

If Trump is convicted, I doubt you will see people in the streets denouncing the verdict. Unlike the left, we don't Astroturf our demonstrations. The Dems and MSM will be shouting it from the rooftops demanding that Trump be jailed. .

Yesterday, I went to a Chick-fil-a and got three shakes, an order of fries, and 12 nuggets. Cost $27.

The Gap Between The Rich And The Poor Is Larger Than Ever, And Frustration Is Growing To Very Dangerous Levels

Have you ever felt like you can never seem to get ahead no matter how hard you try? If so, you are definitely not alone. The gap between the ultra-wealthy and the rest of us has never been greater, and more wealth is being transferred to the top of the pyramid with each passing day. Unfortunately, our economy has evolved into a highly centralized system that is designed to drain wealth from those that do not own wealth-producing assets and transfer it to those that do own wealth-producing assets. Sadly, even most of our homes and most of our vehicles have been turned into wealth-producing assets by the elite. Every month when you make your mortgage payment and your vehicle payment, you are making the wealthy even wealthier. The entire system is designed to get you deep into debt and keep you paying on that debt until you die.

As we have seen in recent years, those that manage the system will do whatever it takes to protect the wealth of the elite.

The Federal Reserve pumped trillions of dollars into the system to prop up the value of financial assets, and it worked.

Right now, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is hovering around 40,000 and those that own stocks are living the high life.

But who owns most of the stocks?

According to Federal Reserve data, the wealthiest 10 percent of all Americans own a record high 93 percent of all the stocks…

The wealthiest Americans have never owned so much of the stock market, with the top 10% now holding a record 93% of US equities, according to Federal Reserve data.

On the flip side, the poorest 50 percent of all Americans own just 1 percent of all the stocks…

Still, stock ownership is skewed toward the top: by comparison, the bottom 50% of Americans owned just 1% of all stocks and mutual fund shares in the third quarter, central bank data shows.

Of course stocks are just one form of wealth.

But when you add in all other forms of wealth, the bottom 50 percent of the U.S. population still only owns just 2.6 percent of all the wealth.

Tens of millions of Americans have lost faith in the system and are becoming increasingly restless, and our politicians have been trying to keep them pacified with handouts.

At this point, a whopping 42 million Americans receive food stamp benefits each month, and much of that money is spent on junk food…

An alarming study has spotlighted how 42 million food stamp recipients spend their welfare handouts on ultra-processed junk food.

Coca-Cola, Sprite and other soft drinks are the most commonly-bought items via the $135 billion-a-year Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a new study says.

Candy, potato chips, frozen pizza, ice cream, cookies, and other ultra-processed food dominates the top 20 items, says a report from the Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC).

A lot of those that are receiving government assistance are actually employed.

But the cost of living has become so oppressive that even people working for some of the biggest companies in America can’t afford the basics…

Five years after Amazon.com Inc. raised wages to $15 an hour, half of warehouse workers surveyed by researchers say they struggle to afford enough food or a place to live.

The national study, published Wednesday by the University of Illinois Chicago’s Center for Urban Economic Development, asked US employees about their economic wellbeing, including whether they’d skipped meals, went hungry, or were worried about being able to make rent or mortgage payments.

Fifty-three percent of respondents reported that they’d experienced one or more forms of food insecurity in the prior three months, and 48% experienced one or more forms of housing insecurity. Workers who said they took unpaid time off after getting hurt on the job were more likely to report trouble paying their bills, the researchers found.

Today, approximately 40 percent of the entire U.S. population is either living in poverty or is considered to be among the ranks of “the working poor”.

In order to maintain the same standard of living as it did in January 2021, it now costs the average American family $12,000 more per year.

If your income has not increased by $12,000 a year since January 2021, you are falling behind.

And now that economic conditions are starting to deteriorate at a frightening pace, Americans are becoming increasingly pessimistic about where the economy is heading next…

After a spurt of optimism, Americans are feeling a little more glum about the economy — again.

Consumer sentiment, a gauge of Americans’ economic perceptions, is at a six-month low, according to a closely watched index by the University of Michigan. The measure notched its biggest drop since 2021, reflecting the persistent tug of inflation on household budgets and fueling fears that rising prices, unemployment and interest rates could all worsen in the coming months.

That pessimism is altering consumers’ spending habits. McDonald’s, Home Depot, Under Armour and Starbucks all recently reported disappointing earnings, as people cut back on fast food, kitchen renovations, sneakers and afternoon lattes.

Frustration with the economy is going to be a major theme during the next few years here in the United States.

Of course the entire world is grappling with a system that is leaving way too many people behind.

According to Oxfam, most of the global population has gotten poorer since the turn of the decade…

Oxfam’s new report, Inequality Inc., explores the disparity between the uber-wealthy and the rest of society. Since 2020, five billion people have become poorer, while the world’s five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes—at a rate of $14 million per hour.

Just like in the United States, the gap between the wealthy and the poor globally has reached a level we have never seen before.

Since 2020, Oxfam says that billionaires have gotten “$3.3 trillion richer”…

Hundreds of millions of people are struggling to keep up with the cost of living; meanwhile, billionaires are $3.3 trillion richer than they were in 2020. This is not a coincidence. When we analyzed the world’s largest corporations, we found that a billionaire is running or the principal shareholder of 7 out of 10 of them.

Such a system is not sustainable.

If most of the global population is steadily getting poorer and a tiny sliver of the global population is becoming fabulously wealthy, it is only a matter of time before the entire system comes crashing down.

Hundreds of millions of people are becoming deeply angry and deeply frustrated, and civil unrest will erupt in major cities all over the planet during the period of great chaos that we are entering.

Today, the world is dominated by ultra-powerful governments, ultra-powerful banks and ultra-powerful corporations.

The little guy is being absolutely crushed, but it won’t be too long before the deeply corrupt system that the ultra-wealthy have created suddenly implodes right in front of their eyes.

Wholesale inflation for energy is going to rip higher in the Apr report as the price increases that weren't included in Mar are piled into later months...Weapons-grade gaslighting by the administration

New orders for durable goods in Apr were up less than 1% after a huge downward revisions for Mar - these new orders for manufacturers are now down Y/Y:

Here is one chart and and story that demonstrates how one-sided the media are.

Despite the legal justifications viewed as anywhere from flimsy to non-existent, ABC, CBS, and NBC rose to the occasion for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) by spending an interminable 573 minutes on the trial of former President Donald Trump, an un-American leftist charade to influence the 2024 election.

NewsBusters examined every allusion to and mention of the Trump trial on the major broadcast networks during their flagship morning shows, evening newscasts, and Sunday political talk shows, starting with the morning of jury selection on April 15. In the 38 days since the trial began, the networks have dedicated 573 minutes and 25 seconds.

Put another way, the networks have force-fed viewers more than nine hours of coverage. ABC obliterated the competition with a combined 237 minutes (236:36) between Good Morning America (GMA), This Week, and World News Tonight, accounting for roughly 41 percent of the overall total.

GMA also claimed the distinction of being the newscast with the most time spent on the trial with 136 minutes (136:29).

The chief reason for this dishonor was thanks to co-host and former Clinton flack, George Stephanopoulos. As he’d introduce the show’s Trump trial coverage, his openings were nauseating.

Hunter is also in legal jeopardy so Biden will use it as a distraction along with the expected SCOTUS decisions that will decimate the government's cases against Trump and the J6 political prisoners. Those opinions are expected to come out at the end of June. Given the attacks against Alito and Thomas, I suspect the Dems have already been leaked the outcome of those opinions.

Of course, appeals will reverse AFTER the election, and that may be Joe’s planned appeal. “Let it play out”. In the meantime, are you gonna’ vote for a convicted felon ?

I doubt if Biden's handlers will say "let it play out." They will go forf the jugular knowing that the appeal results will come out after the election. Maybe they will call for immediate jail time for Trump if he is convicted. No one is above the law. Look what they did to Trump's financial guy.

The Biden Green New Deal aka Inflation Reduction Act will have serious consequences on our energy supply and the cost of electricity. Our taxpayer money is skewing the marketplace to the detriment of consumer and businesses. It is insane.