Tag: campaign promises

Biden’s Pardon Of Son’s Drug-Related Crimes Draws Calls From Advocates To Free Marijuana Prisoners

President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son, Hunter, for drug-related and other crimes is drawing cries from criminal justice and marijuana policy reformers, who call the action hypocritical and say the president should do more to grant clemency to cannabis prisoners before his term expires next month.

“In pardoning Hunter Biden, the president noted that despite believing in our justice system, sometimes the outcome of that process is not fair or just,” said Sarah Gersten, executive director and general counsel for Last Prisoner Project (LPP), a nonprofit that focuses on drug policy reform. “That is certainly the case for the nearly 3,000 cannabis prisoners who remain incarcerated federally for activity that has been widely legalized.”

Biden over the weekend pardoned his son, who had been convicted on felony gun and tax charges earlier this year. Three of those convictions were related to lying on a federal form about drug use when buying a gun in 2018, a time when he was using crack cocaine.

In a statement, the president said his pardon reflected the belief that his son was “being selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted,” noting that “people are almost never brought to trial on felony charges solely for how they filled out a gun form.”

That’s a claim that even some Republicans have echoed. Following the convictions, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) said Hunter Biden “might deserve to be in jail for something, but purchasing a gun is not it.”

“There are millions of marijuana users who own guns in this country, and none of them should be in jail for purchasing or possessing a firearm against current laws,” the congressman said.

Then-Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a supporter of cannabis reform, said at the time that the “Hunter Biden gun conviction is kinda dumb.”

Nevertheless, advocates point out that thousands of people are still behind bars for cannabis-related offenses.

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Tax Cuts Without Spending Cuts Won’t Reduce the Taxpayers’ Burden

As this election cycle has demonstrated yet again, Democrats are not shy about calling for tax increases. In every election cycle they call for more taxes, whether through corporate taxes or through taxes on unrealized capital gains.

Donald Trump, meanwhile, has pledged to cut some taxes. I say “some” because Trump has also pledged to raise taxes on imports.

Nonetheless, Trump ran on the idea that he would reduce the tax burden on Americans if elected.

Unfortunately, Trump has no plans to cut government spending, and this means there is little chance that ordinary taxpayers are going to experience any real tax relief.

This is because tax cuts without spending cuts don’t actually lessen the cost of government. A tax cut without a spending cut simply moves around the tax burden, and often replaces explicit taxation with the stealth tax of price inflation.

Unless accompanied by spending cuts, a tax cut simply increases deficit spending, and taxpayers will pay for deficits one way or another. Typically deficits are paid for using one or more of the following: future taxes, present interest payments, and monetary inflation. Unfortunately for the taxpayers, when it comes to paying off deficit spending, “the future” is already here. In the 2024 fiscal year, the taxpayers had to pay nearly $900 billion in interest on the debt. That huge tax bill exists because federal politicians in the past spent more than they had in revenues.

Forcing the taxpayers to pay off old debts isn’t exactly popular, however. So, federal technocrats have found a way to push down interest rates on government debt. This reduces the amount of interest owed and nominally reduces the cost of government debt.

But this also ends up costing the taxpayers bigtime because the way that technocrats suppress the cost of interest is by having the central bank buy up more federal debt. (By buying government debt, the central bank artificially drives up demand, so the Treasury doesn’t have to pay as much in interest to attract buyers.) And where does the central bank get the money to buy up government debt? It prints the money. That then leads to both monetary inflation and (eventually) price inflation.

So, tax cuts that increase deficits only end up placing new and different burdens on the taxpayers. They’re not a real tax cut at all.

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Trump Has Sweeping Plans For His 2nd Administration: Here’s What He Has Proposed

Projected President-elect Donald Trump has made a number of sweeping proposals for a second term in office, outlining a wide-ranging agenda that targets federal regulations, taxes, immigration, and social issues.

As of Wednesday morning, The Associated Press projected that Trump is the winner of the election after securing enough electoral votes over his opponent Vice President Kamala Harris.

Early Wednesday, the former president and president-elect claimed victory in the 2024 presidential contest, telling supporters that voters had given him an “unprecedented and powerful mandate.” Early projections show that Trump may win not only the Electoral College but also the popular vote, something he’s never done in his previous two campaigns.

Immigration

Since 2015, Trump has made curbing illegal immigration a cornerstone of his campaigns. As president, he built or reconstructed about 400 miles of border barrier along the U.S.–Mexico border and implemented a number of rules curbing illegal migration into the country.

During the campaign, Trump often said that he would initiate the largest “mass deportation” effort in U.S. history if elected. Recently, he also warned Mexico that he would impose a 25 percent tariff targeting the country if it fails to curb illegal immigration and that he would raise that tariff if Mexico doesn’t comply.

Also, he’s suggested more enhanced screenings for immigrants, ending birthright citizenship—which may require a constitutional amendment—and reimposing certain policies enacted during his first term such as the “remain in Mexico” protocol.

Tom Homan, a former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) who is expected to join the new administration, told media outlets last year that the scale of deportations depends on what resources are available.

During a “60 Minutes” interview in October, Homan was asked about whether families would be separated. Homan responded, “Families can be deported together.”

Vice President-elect JD Vance said in his debate with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Oct. 1 that deporting criminals would be a second Trump administration’s initial focus.

“You’ve got to reimplement Donald Trump’s border policies, build the wall, reimplement deportations,” Vance said, adding that the United States has 20 to 25 million illegal immigrants in the country.

“What do we do with them? I think the first thing that we do is we start with the criminal migrants.”

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Kamala Claims She Will Legalize Recreational Marijuana in Last-Ditch Vote Pandering Scheme After JAILING People for Pot Possession

Kamala Harris took to social media on Sunday, just days before Election Day, with a claim that she will legalize recreational marijuana. Unfortunately for the Democrat presidential hopeful, she made her career on locking up individuals who were in possession of small amounts of weed.

“I will legalize recreational marijuana, break down unjust legal barriers, and create opportunities for all Americans to succeed in this new industry,” Harris said in a social media post on Sunday.

1,560 people were sent to state prison for marijuana-related offenses in California under then-state attorney general Harris.

“Under Harris’s six-year tenure, hundreds were sent to state prisons for marijuana-related offenses, crime records show,” The Washington Free Beacon said in 2019.

On a debate stage in Detroit, Michigan in 2019, Tulsi Gabbard, then a Hawaii representative and rival for the Democratic nomination lambasted Harris over her anti-pot record.

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Trump Pledges to Grant Homeschoolers a $10,000 Per-Child Tax Write-Off

Donald Trump has pledged to expand his former Trump tax cut education savings account plan (which allowed up to $10,000 dollars a year tax-free on tuition for grades K-12) to the homeschooling community.

Trump first outlined his previous tax incentives for school choice.

“When I am reelected I will do everything I can to support parents who make the courageous choice of homeschool. Under the Trump tax cuts, we allowed families to use 529 education savings accounts to spend up to $10,000 a year tax-free on tuition for grades K-12. This was a tremendous win for school choice, very important, school choice. Remember that term? And yet that benefit did not apply to homeschoolers,” Trump said in a recent video.

The GOP candidate then outlined his new initiative, bringing the school choice tax incentives to homeschooling.

“So to support the growing homeschool movement, in my next term I will immediately fight to allow homeschool parents the same incredible benefit, $10,000 dollars a year per child, completely tax-free to spend on costs associated with homeschool education. I will also work to ensure that every homeschool family is entitled to full access to the benefits avaliable to non-homeschool students, including participating in athletic programs, clubs, after-school activities, education trips and more,” Trump said in a recent video.

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Trump Does Not Rule Out Banning Certain Vaccines, Says He Will Speak to RFK Jr. About It

When asked by NBC News on Sunday about banning certain vaccines, former President Donald Trump did not rule out the possibility.

Trump said he would speak to Robert Kennedy Jr. about the matter, calling him a “very talented guy.”

“Well I’m going to talk to [Kennedy] and talk to other people, and I’ll make a decision, but he’s a very talented guy and has strong views,” Trump told NBC.

Trump did not offer a specific position Kennedy may fill in his administration but said, “He can do anything he wants,” while speaking in Arizona on Thursday.

Kennedy recently posted on X that a Trump administration would advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from tap water on day one.

In a post to X on Saturday, Kennedy said water fluoridation is “industrial waste.”

“On January 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S​. water systems to remove fluoride from public water,” Kennedy wrote. “Fluoride is an industrial waste associated with arthritis, bone fractures, bone cancer, IQ loss, neurodevelopmental disorders, and thyroid disease.”

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Trump vows no more foreign wars – Kamala, he says, will “gamble with the lives of millions”

If reelected as president in November, Donald Trump is promising to not send any more Americans to fight and die in foreign wars.

At a recent campaign stop in the battleground state of Pennsylvania, the Republican candidate told a crowd that he and only he is able to prevent another world war, arguing that his Democrat rival, Kamala Harris, “would get us into World War III, guaranteed, because she is too grossly incompetent to do the job.”

“To make her president would be to gamble with the lives of millions of people,” the former president continued. “Sons and daughters will end up getting drafted to fight in a war in a country you’ve never heard of.”

Earlier this year in his nomination acceptance speech, Trump vowed to “end every single international crisis that the current administration has created,” including both the Ukraine and Gaza conflicts.

Trump has yet to reveal any specific plans for making this happen, but is sure that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are not the types to vote for because they want to continue supporting and financing “other people’s wars.”

“… if Kamala gets four more years, the Middle East will spend the next four decades going up in flames, and your kids will be going off to war,” Trump wrote in a screed last week on his Truth Social platform.

“But I will not send you to fight and die in a foolish, never-ending foreign war,” Trump reiterated most recently at his Pennsylvania rally.

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Trump’s Former Advisors Discuss How He Could End Ukraine War

Donald Trump has long stated that he would end the war in Ukraine if elected president. Confident in his ability to do so, the former president has stated he could end the conflict in 24 hours, and has guaranteed to do so before he actually enters the White House. He finally revealed how he intends to accomplish such a feat.

It begins by revisiting the failed Minsk Agreement – the entire premise of the current war. François Hollande and Angela Merkel representing France and Germany at the time brokered the agreement between Russia and Ukraine. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) monitored negotiations and both sides agreed to an immediate ceasefire. Russia withdrew troops from Ukraine for one primary reason — the Donetsk and Luhansk regions were to be occupied territories that would have the autonomy to vote in their own elections.

These regions were never Ukrainian territory. It was occupied by Russians for centuries. The people there had a right to their own lives. The Ukrainians demanded they no longer speak Russian and they sought to deny them even their own religion and they were to report to Kyiv instead of Moscow. This was like Mexico reclaiming Texas and demanding English was to be outlawed and only Spanish was to be spoken and all religions were to be outlawed except allegiance to the Archbishop of Mexico.

The ethnic Russians in the Donbas did not want to submit to a central government from Kyiv itself. The Obama Administration really opposed this sort of settlement on the grounds of old-world empire theory predicated on the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Such policies have led to the death of hundreds of millions of people over the centuries.

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Kamala Backs Mass Amnesty for Illegals in Rambling Interview.

Vice President Kamala Harris is backing mass amnesty for illegal immigrants instead of mass deportations, which are supported by a majority of the American people. The immigration policy revelation came during a disjointed response by the 2024 Democrat Party presidential nominee to a question posed by Telemundo.

“Right now, we’re talking about border security and there’s nobody—no Democrat—talking about a pathway to citizenship, an immigration relief,” pressed Telemundo’s Julio Vaqueiro before Harris interjected: “I am!”

Vaqueiro continued, emphasizing Democrats are not talking enough about the “benefits migrants bring to this country.” At this point, Harris engages in one of her signature rambling, nonsensical interview answers.

“Oh, but there is no question that [pause] migrants bring. America is a country that is, was built, in part, by immigrants,” the vice president says, appearing confused by her own response. When pressed further by Vaqueiro regarding concerns among immigrants about mass deportations, Harris—becoming visibly frustrated and angry—says: “I’m not talking about other… Uh, we need smart, humane immigration policy in America that includes a pathway to citizenship.”

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Trump Suggests He Could Abolish Federal Income Tax Entirely

Donald Trump has sensationally suggested that he could abolish federal income tax for Americans entirely if he wins the presidency.

Trump made the comments during a visit to a barber shop in the Bronx after he was asked if there was “a way to eliminate federal taxes.”

Suggesting that America could return to the policies of the late 1800s, when income tax funds were replaced by new trade tariffs, Trump said America could go back to a time “when we were a smart country” and “relatively the richest it ever was.”

“It had all tariffs — it didn’t have an income tax,” said Trump.

“Now we have income taxes, and we have people that are dying. They’re paying tax, and they don’t have the money to pay the tax,” he added.

The presidential candidate said that during the 1890’s, America was becoming so rich, “We had to set up committees, blue ribbon committees (on) how to spend our wealth – we had no idea how to spend it there was so much money.”

“Then we went to the income tax system and the rest is sort of history,” said Trump.

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