"Georgia's top election official on Monday demanded that the U.S. Justice Department open an investigation into election management in the state's largest county after officials in Fulton County disclosed they had shredded at least 300 voter applications for its upcoming municipal elections in apparent violation of the law.

"Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger's office told Just the News that his office had also opened an inquiry into the disclosure by Fulton County officials but believed it was time for federal prosecutors to review chronic election irregularities inside the state's largest county, which includes the city of Atlanta. ...

"State officials told Just the News that Fulton County's elections chief fired two workers who were seen shredding the voter applications on Friday and then disclosed the problem to Raffensperger's office earlier Monday.

"Georgia law requires election officials to preserve all documents related to primary or general elections for 24 months after the election. The shredded documents are believed to be voter applications to vote in this fall's local elections in Fulton County, officials said."

Read the entire article here.

"Only a fool pokes a mama bear, but that's Merrick Garland for you.

"The attorney general thought to be such a moderate that 20 Republicans confirmed his nomination turns out to be a radical ideologue hellbent on targeting President Biden's political foes.

"He is injecting himself into the front lines of every culture war, from pregnant 'people' to school board meetings.

"But Graland's ominous memo last week directing the FBI to investigate parents as domestic terror threats was a big mistake. He cited no evidence for what he claims is a 'disturbing spike in harassment, intimidation, and threats of violence' against school boards.

"His memo was a shocking abuse of his office on behalf of left-wing activists who have been using schools as brainwashing factories for future social justice warriors. It was designed to intimidate parents and stop them advocating for their children.

"For all his awesome power, Garland has met a force greater than his weaponized Department of Justice: the love of parents for their children."

Read the entire article here.

"What is stymying President Biden more than anything else is the illusion that he has a mandate for transformational government action. In fact, he doesn't and he never did.

"Biden thinks he wants to be Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but FDR won 42 of 48 states in 1932. The Democrats had a 196 member advantage in the House, and an 11 seat edge in the Senate. That's a mandate.

"Biden and the Democrats in 2020 won the political equivalent of a 12-inning baseball game on a walk off bloop single, or maybe a wild pitch.

"As Biden's first year as president slips into autumn his ice cream sundae has melted. And ice cream is like broken glass, it really can't be repaired.

"What the president has today is a sugary soup of giveaway programs that cannot be formed into a scoop acceptable to all sides of his tiny majority. With the benefit of hindsight it is clear that, at least politically, he would have been better off with a small GOP majority in the Senate."

Read the entire article here.

"No one should be physically attacked or threatened with bodily harm. That is a given.

"But Attorney General Merrick Garland is exploiting this fundamental doctrine as a pretext to coerce and frighten parents whose only supposed 'crime' is seeking to improve their children's education. ...

"To accomplish it, Garland plans to weaponize the immense powers of the FBI and the Department of Justice to bully parents into submission. Under the guise of combating what he refers to as 'intimidation,' he is exerting more intimidation with superior force. He aspires to criminalize contentiousness. ...

"Even more embarrassing was Garland's misstatement of constitutional law. He claimed that the First Amendment does not protect 'efforts to intimidate individuals based on their views.' What? Where is that written anywhere in the myriad of U.S. Supreme Court decisions involving free speech cases? ...

"Even more confounding was the attorney general's assertion that he possesses some imagined jurisdiction over local school boards and any potential crimes arising from their public meetings. Those are issues solely within the province of local police and their enforcement of state laws. There is no valid federal authority over such matters. Yet, Garland asserts it without the power to do so.

"Political activity in petitioning our government -- whether it be Congress in Washington or a school board in Wichita -- for a redress of grievances is a cherished right of every American and vital to democracy. It is embedded in the Bill of Rights. Garland seems oblivious to this sacred principle."

Read the entire article here.

"Republicans are 'refusing to do their job,' President Joe Biden thundered Monday, calling their failure to lift the debt ceiling 'hypocritical, dangerous and disgraceful.'

"Sorry, Joe: our decades in Washington surely taught you how this works. It's the party in power, especially the one that holds the White House, that has to get this done. Getting the votes to do it always requires compromise. ...

"As Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell puts it, 'Bipartisanship is not a light switch that Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi and Leader [Chuck] Schumer may flip on to borrow money and flip off to spend it.'

"Biden himself voted against debt-ceiling hikes three times as a senator. Now he notes that Dems voted to raise it under President Donald Trump. But that was after Trump cut a deal with Pelosi and Schumer for Democratic votes, agreeing to hike spending on domestic programs. 'Democrats have secured an increase of more than $100 billion in funding for domestic priorities since President Trump took office,' Pelosi bragged in urging colleagues to vote for suspending the debt limit.

"Whining and finger-pointing won't get the job done now. Negotiate a compromise, or get Chuck and Nancy to bite the bullet and use reconciliation. Stop refusing to do your job, Mr. President."

"The great economic problem facing the poor and the middle classes is not that high-income Americans aren't paying taxes that are proportional to their incomes. The great problem for the poor is that both incomes and mobility are stagnant for lower-skilled workers, with globalization and automation putting pressure on those jobs. The great problem for the middle class is rising prices of certain critical goods, namely housing in the markets where the best jobs are, health care, and education. The basic responsible progressive proposition (to the extent that there is such a thing) is that higher taxes on the wealthy would make funds available to subsidize these goods on behalf of those with lower incomes. The conservative response is that the worst housing, the worst health care, and the worst schools already are free, and that much of what is wrong with those markets is the result of earlier progressive efforts to fix them.

"Conservatives also are right to point out that if American progressives want to build a Scandinavian-style welfare state, then they are going to need to impose Scandinavian-style taxes, meaning radically higher taxes on the middle classes. There isn't enough leftover income at the top to fund what progressives dream of."

Read the entire article here.

"'Those people will pay.' With that promise, President Biden vowed to punish Customs and Border Protection agents accused of whipping undocumented immigrants on the southern border. Despite the announcement of an investigation into the allegation just the day before, Biden did not stop for the pretense of process in declaring the agents guilty.

"This 'sentence first -- verdict afterwards' approach may amuse the Red Queen of Alice in Wonderland, but it should be anathema to an American president. Not only did Biden shatter his own administration's investigation but he joined other leading Democratic figures in defaming the agents. ...

"By announcing that the agents were guilty and needed to be punished, Biden destroyed the credibility of the Department of Homeland Security's ongoing investigation. It is akin to what is called 'command influence' in the military, when comments or actions of a superior officer influence an investigation or prosecution. Investigators and department officials could well be worried about their own careers if they do not find a basis to punish one or more of the border agents. The failure to do so would be an embarrassment to the president and risk the wrath of powerful figures in Washington. Conversely, any action taken against these agents can now be challenged due to Biden's preemptive declaration.

"The biggest problem is that the whipping story was entirely untrue."

Read the entire article here.

"A new congressional report shows that the tax increase bill approved by the House Ways and Means Committee would increase taxes on millions of taxpayers making less than $400,000. That would violate a pledge President Joe Biden has made repeatedly.

"The House tax bill would raise taxes by $2.1 trillion, making it the largest peacetime tax increase in U.S. history. It contains 45 separate tax increases and would raise taxes on individuals, small businesses, companies, family farms, and other estates. Analysis by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation shows that a substantial number of taxpayers at all income levels would pay more in taxes.

"According to the Joint Committee numbers, more than two-thirds of all taxpayers in 2023 would experience either no tax benefit or a tax increase. About 35% of taxpayers earning between $100,000 and $200,000 would face a tax increase. By 2027, more than 85% of taxpayers would receive either no benefit or see a tax increase.

"Middle-income taxpayers would be hit hard. Nearly 60% of taxpayers earning between $75,000 and $100,000, roughly the national median family income, would face a tax increase."

Read the entire article here.

"'My "Build Back Better" agenda costs zero dollars. Instead of wasting money on tax breaks, loopholes and tax evasion for big corporations and the wealthy, we can make a once-in-a-generation investment in working America.'

"That's President Biden insulting the intelligence of sober, sane Americans by claiming that $3.5 trillion in new spending -- via an infrastructure bill in which most of the money allocated does not go toward improving roads, rail lines, bridges, power grids or other actual infrastructure -- 'costs zero dollars.'

"Fortunately, numbers are numbers and math is math, and therefore they can't be spun so easily.

"According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization based in Washington, the $3.5 trillion bill would call for the U.S. government to borrow $1 trillion. It also projects that approximately $3 trillion would be added to the national debt over the next decade.

"The CRFB further found that, thanks to various accounting and budgeting gimmicks, the $3.5 trillion bill's cost is more in the $5.5 trillion range."

Read the entire article here.

"Biden lied, they died.

"That's no longer just an accusation. It's now a fact, with Tuesday's Senate testimony shredding President Biden's nonsensical fictions about Afghanistan and confirming that he alone made the fateful decisions that created the chaotic and deadly withdrawal.

"We now know for certain what was suspected all along -- that the president rejected the advice of his top military aides about how to reduce the troop numbers while keeping the Taliban in check. He also falsely claimed to the public that al Qaeda was no longer in Afghanistan and declared the withdrawal a ringing success.

"Reluctantly, but clearly, his commanders begged to differ. One by one, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley and head of U.S. Central Command Gen. Kenneth McKenzie said they advised the president either to keep 2,500 troops in Kabul or supported the proposal.

"All three also said al Qaeda remains in Afghanistan and, as Milley put, is still at war with us. And none dared call the conclusion a success.

"'The war is lost,' Milley said. 'The enemy is in control in Kabul.'"