Author name: John Zambenini

The incoming Trump administration has said it will prioritize the 1.5 million illegal immigrants who’ve committed crimes — a figure that ignores the crime of crossing the border in the first place — and the 1.3 million immigrants whose asylum requests were denied, but who remained in the country anyway. Of course, all other illegal aliens will be deported – this is just the first phase.

A recent Rasmussen poll shows 64% of Americans favor the incoming Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts. The poll showed remarkable sentiments on illegal immigration across demographics, to boot: “78 percent of white voters, 74 percent of black voters, and 70 percent of Hispanics all agree it is important to stop illegal immigration. This includes 61 percent of Democrats, 90 percent of Republicans, and 80 percent of Independents.”

Reports surfaced this week of migrant caravans forming again, in order to reach the U.S. before then. Meanwhile, Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum is reported to be cooperating with Trump on the border after Trump reportedly wielded the threat of tariffs against Mexico.

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Brendan Carr’s nomination  for Federal Communications Commission chair by President-elect Donald Trump resurfaces old fights over speech, regulation of communications providers, and net neutrality, but with a catch. Carr says he will take the fight to its proper battlefield: Silicon Valley.  The intangible nature of the FCC’s regulation of broadcast airwaves and other means by which Americans communicate — the internet chief among them — obscures from debates over such issues as net neutrality the more serious threats Americans have faced in exercising their rights to free speech. That threat has come in the form of censorship from major tech platforms such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and before Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, that platform as well. 

Those platforms enjoy, functionally, monopolistic dominance, and both massive license and protection from the government that shield platforms from liability for content users publish. That dynamic has crystallized over the past four years as it became apparent major tech platforms  also served as its de facto censorship arm. Carr has already notified tech companies the fight is coming to their door.

Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft & others have played central roles in the censorship cartel.

The Orwellian named NewsGuard along with “fact checking” groups & ad agencies helped enforce one-sided narratives.

The censorship cartel must be dismantled. pic.twitter.com/Xf0sEYOUfv

— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) November 15, 2024

The litany of banned content and users being booted from major tech platforms have had grave downstream implications: Facebook’s suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story likely changed the outcome of the 2020 election.  The Covid pandemic spawned a new era of censorship as platforms quelled dissent over lockdowns and vaccine mandates.  Spotify very nearly stands alone among major streaming and publishing platforms in the COVID era for allowing dissenting views on both the origins of the virus and safety of mRNA vaccines in continuing to stream Joe Rogan’s popular podcast, which now dwarfs cable news audiences. Rogan interviewed leading doctors and scientists who questioned dominant Covid narratives. 

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According to the National Association of Realtors’ Housing Affordability Index, just three years ago, a homebuyer could afford a median-priced home on a $58,000 income. To afford the median home today, a household needs to earn $108,000, about 46% more. 

But has the surge of immigration of the Biden-Harris administration affected housing affordability? According to economist Amy Nixon, a Dallas housing analyst, the supply and demand considerations are cut and dried.

Guys, this isn’t rocket science.

We’ve added an estimated 4 million Illegal immigrants since 2021 with Biden and Harris in office

A recent Zillow report says the US is short 4 million housing units

No need for mental gymnastics on what is happening and why pic.twitter.com/jtGf8eGdGE

— Amy Nixon (@texasrunnerDFW) October 11, 2024

More than 3 million undocumented immigrants own homes in the USA

Illegal immigrants are encouraged to apply for US government backed home loans using ITIN numbers—with home prices at record highs

We did this before.

It didn’t end well. pic.twitter.com/KcncvpEEjV

— Amy Nixon (@texasrunnerDFW) February 3, 2024

Nixon’s likely low estimate of 4 million new illegal immigrants since 2021 (a Yale and MIT study found there were already as many as 22 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. in 2018) could actually conceal the extent of the demand pressures of immigration on the housing market.

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A new Congressional report shows the Biden-Harris administration spent almost $1 billion manipulating public opinion on COVID vaccines, at times relying on wrong or speculative information. A House Energy and Commerce report released Wednesday night details how the National Institutes of Health seeded “erroneous or unproven information” into COVID-era messaging and advertisements.

“While the Biden-Harris administration’s public health guidance led to prolonged closures of schools and businesses, the NIH was spending nearly a billion dollars of taxpayer money trying to manipulate Americans with advertisements—sometimes containing erroneous or unproven information,” the report said. 

“By overpromising what the COVID-19 vaccines could do—in direct contradiction of the FDA’s authorizations—and over emphasizing the virus’s risk to children and young adults, the Biden-Harris administration caused Americans to lose trust in the public health system,” Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-WA, said.

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While stock indexes are posting record YTD gains, with the S&P 500 showing a 20% annual gain for the first time in more than 25 years, market melt-ups may conceal a juiced up economy. Is the next presidential administration being handed a live grenade? Parabolic government spending and a surge in public sector jobs gains may indicate the pin is out.

….

Meanwhile, legendary investor Stanley Druckenmiller told Bloomberg earlier this week markets, his favored election indicator, appear to be pricing in a Trump victory. Druckenmiller pointed to signs in bank stocks, crypto markets, and even Trump’s own social media company, $DJT. 

Even as markets soar, and per Druckenmiller, a Trump victory is baked into market indicators, there are signs the next Trump administration could reap a harvest of economic turmoil being sown now. Americans are coping with record low housing affordability under the Biden-Harris administration, and while wages have failed to keep up with inflation for generations, inflation has gone parabolic during the past four years.   

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After months of local and national media priming the pump for ambiguous or delayed results on election day, Georgia has become the latest state to say the count could be delayed beyond Nov. 5.

Georgia joins Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, as well as Arizona, Nevada, and North Carolina — each a critical swing state with thin margins — in expecting delayed results on election night. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger has said the count in that state could be held up for votes from overseas.

Claims of late-night ballot dumps, states called prematurely, or Georgia’s inability to audit ballots in Fulton County, became a convenient slur for Democrats and legacy media to smear Trump supporters as conspiracy theorists or “election-deniers.”  But the slurs and lack of sunlight from officials, including officials fighting calls for transparency tooth and nail, now exacerbated by the specter of delayed results, have done little to inspire confidence in the system itself, and therein lies the problem. Will the threat of delayed results add fuel to the fire?

Read the Full Story at The Midwesterner