"We have previously discussed allegations that Marc Elias, the former general counsel for the Clinton Campaign and partner at the firm Perkins Coie, lied to conceal the campaign's funding of the infamous Steele Dossier. The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has now fined the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign for violating election rules in hiding that funding. Elias has previously been sanctioned for his conduct in litigation and recently lost an effort to gerrymander the Maryland voting districts.  The alleged Elias' lies would ordinarily seem a professional liability for any attorney but they seem an actual professional attraction for Elias.

"On March 29, the FEC imposed a relatively small fine of $8,000 for Clinton and $105,000 for the DNC. However, it is the basis rather than the size of the fine that is so notable.

"The FEC found that Clinton campaign and DNC payments to Fusion GPS were funneled through Perkins Coie and Elias. As the campaign denied funding the dossier, these payments were concealed as 'legal advice and services.' The FEC said the law firm, Perkins Coie, paid Fusion $1,024,407.97 for the dossier in 2016."

Read the entire article here.

"Rarely have nine words caused such global consternation as President Joe Biden's impromptu reference to Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Poland Saturday. Mr. Biden's declaration that 'For God's ake, this man cannot remain in power!' unsettled allies, fed Mr. Putin's paranoia, buried the president's intended message, and complicated an already grave situation.

"Mr. Biden's blooper is only the latest in a long string of jarring misstatements. He makes them worse with his unwavering denial in the aftermath. For example, his Putin regime-change announcement was preceded on his trip by a presidential threat that if Russia used chemical weapons, America 'would trigger a response in kind' (the U.S. doesn't have such weapons and signed a treaty pledging not to use them) and a suggestion to troops from the 82nd Airborne that they were going to Ukraine (they aren't). Asked by Fox News's Peter Doocy about this triple gaffe Monday at a White House rollout of his 2023 budget, the president replied, 'None of the three occured.'

"Really? Asking Americans to believe Mr. Biden instead of their own eyes isn't a winning tactic in the era of instant replay. He would've been better off if he'd simply repeated ad nauseam the words on his pocket card that photographers captured with an over-the-shoulder close-up: 'I was expressing the moral outrage I felt.'

"All the gaffes, cleanups and disavowals have undercut Mr. Biden's standing with American voters. The president's misstatements that must be 'clarified' by White House staff have undermined confidence in his competence."

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"Public attention is understandably focused these days on the inflationary effects of massive government spending, which has increased the national debt by $7 trillion in the past two years. No less dire are the repercussions of the Biden administration's radical regulatory agenda.

The president's 2022 regulatory to-do list includes 2,678 'active' actions, which exceeds by 35% the number of rule-makings in the Trump administration's second-year agenda.

Some 200 of the regulations are designated as 'economically significant' -- i.e., regulations that are each expected to have an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more. These include more stringent standards on the 'housing environment' of chickens, rear seat belt reminder systems, and the use of 'healthy' on food labels, as well as new restrictions on medical insurance options. ...

While a burden for all, regulatory overreach harms low-income families and fixed-income seniors the most. The billions of dollars in compliance costs translate to higher consumer prices that exhaust a relatively larger share of their household budgets.

Biden's expansive regulatory agenda represents a massive tax. It is the worst course possible at any time -- but particularly now, when regulatory escalation will exacerbate runaway inflation and inhibit recovery from the COVID-19 lockdown."

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"Conservatives in Congress are blasting President Biden's proposed $5.8 trillion budget for failing to deal with record inflation that is already stretching paychecks and family budgets.

"The inflation rate in February was 7.9%, representing a 40-year high. However, Biden's budget assumes an inflation rate of 4.7% for calendar year 2022 and just 2.3% for calendar year 2023.

"According to Kiplinger's economic forecast, March's inflation rate will be close to 10%. ...

"Despite the estimated deficit reduction from Biden's proposed tax hikes, the White House projected that the nation's gross debt would jump from $31.3 trillion to $44.8 trillion by fiscal 2032 under the president's budget path. ...

"South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the Senate Budget Committee's top Republican, suggested Biden's budget is filled with gimmicks and shell games."

Read the entire article here.

"President Biden said Thursday that a food shortage is 'gonna be real' following the sanctions that were placed on Russia by the U.S. government as a result of Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion into Ukraine. ...

"'The price of the sanctions is not just imposed upon Russia,' he added. 'It's imposed upon an awful lot of countries as well, including European countries and our country as well.' ...

"Biden's warning of a 'real' food shortage and the impact it will have on America and European countries following the implementation of sanctions on the Russian economy comes after White House press secretary Jen Psaki said this week that Americans are unlikely to face a food shortage."

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"Nearly 2 in 3 voters, including broad majorities across racial, educational and economic lines, believe public schools in the United States are headed off on the wrong track, a new poll shows.

"Just 24 percent of Americans said that when they think about what children are being taught in public school, they believe schools are headed in the right direction, according to the survey conducted for Grinnell College by the Des Moines-based polling firm Selzer & Co.

"There is broad agreement across virtually every stratum of society. About two-thirds of men polled and nearly as many women believe schools are off on the wrong track; so do 64 percent of white voters surveyed and 63 percent who are not white. Sixty-seven percent of respondents who live in homes with children under the age of 18 said the same.

"'If you pay any attention to news and you paid any attention to the last election, you knew there was this murmur of what was happening in public schools. This says it's approaching a roar,' Selzer said in an interview. 'It puts together the zeitgeist that's been in play for a few years.'"

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"For all their talk about protecting democracy, Democrats sure are proving quick to abandon it by sidelining Congress and pushing President Joe Biden to enact a far-left agenda unilaterally through executive action.

"Last week, the Congressional Progressive Caucus released 'Recommendations for Executive Action,' a six-page document outlining policies that left-wing Democrats failed to persuade even a Democratic-controlled Congress to pass. They now want Biden to use presidential power alone to implement what has been rejected by the representatives of the wider public. Can there be a more crystalline example of elitism over equality?

"The scope of the changes Democrats are pushing for is staggering. ...

"Whether Biden has the authority to do everything listed is debatable. Anything he does by executive action can also be undone by a future president. But the core point is not how awful the 'progressive' policies are, it is that such a radical agenda should not be implemented unilaterally and in defiance of our highest elected legislature. We have a House and a Senate for a reason. Democrats control both chambers. If they can't pass these policy changes through a Congress they control, they definitely should not force them on the public by executive diktat."

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"If Putin can withstand the pressure of the sanctions and continue escalating indiscriminate attacks while the West continues its current approach, Ukraine may be destroyed. This is the inherent risk in the current, gradualist approach. If this happens, Western leaders will tell themselves, 'We did all we could; we won't let that happen ever again.' But such a claim has little deterrent value, for it is based on taking counsel of fear -- something other nuclear armed authoritative governments will see clearly, even if Western political leaders don't."

Read the entire article here.

"Bidenomics has hit another ugly milestone.

"In 2021, for the first time ever (per Census data analyzed by Zillow), the annual dollar growth in the value of a typical home was bigger than the inflation-adjusted median pre-tax income of a full-time American worker.

"The average home grew in value by nearly $53,000; the median worker earned around $50,000.

"That's right: The typical homeowner earned more by doing nothing than the median worker earned by, well, working. Overall, US homeowners with mortgages gained an eye-popping $3.2 trillion in equity."

Read the entire article here.

"Contrary to President Biden's recent claims that his administration is pulling out all the stops to alleviate America's inflation woes, since its early days it has fostered a policy environment that is hostile to domestic energy production, fueling price hikes at the gas pump long before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, according to memos obtained by National Review.

"On the day Biden took office, his Department of the Interior issued a memo suspending the authority of local Bureau of Land Management offices to approve leases, drilling permits, and mining operations plans that would support America's oil supply, Republican senator Dan Sullivan of Alaska explained on the House floor Monday night. Sixty days later, a second memo was sent out by political appointee Laura Daniel Davis extending the suspension of local authorities indefinitely and making the fate of all future leasing and drilling permits contingent on her personally rubber-stamping them.

"A month ago on February 15, as the conflict in Ukraine took a turn for the worst and Western nations retaliated against Russia with economic penalties, amid already record-high gas prices, Biden told the public, 'We're prepared to deploy all the tools and authority at our disposal to provide relief at the gas pump.'

"He assured Americans last week, 'It's simply not true that my administration or policies are holding back domestic energy production. That's simply not true.'

"But these memos, obtained by National Review, appear to show that the Biden administration intentionally handicapped the domestic oil industry from day one as part of its mission to transition the U.S. to a green economy."

Read the entire article here.