"If you listened solely to Democratic talking points, including the so-called mainstream media, you would be convinced that America is a systemically racist nation and that Republicans are somehow hell bent on disenfranchising large swaths of voters. Both of these notions are patently false.

"In fact, thanks to sustained long-term efforts, in 2021 it is easier to register and vote now than at any point in American history -- no matter what color your skin is. This is a measure progress of which we should all be proud. ...

"Only two states have both higher voter registration among Black voters than White voters and had higher voter turnout of Black voters than White voters in 2020. Guess which two states?

"Mississippi and Tennessee.

"The worst state in America? Massachusetts. ...

"Democrats and their allies in the media would have you believe that rampant and systemic voter suppression is one of the most crucial issues facing our nation. This assertion is quite simply false."

Read entire article here.

"New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay has humiliated her employer.

"Again.

"Gay revealed this week she is 'disturbed' by conspicuous displays of the American flag, claiming the type of person who flies the flag from the back of a pickup truck is the type of person who wants to keep the United States all white. That a member of the New York Times's editorial board would assert such an asinine thing is embarrassment enough for the newspaper. But it gets worse. The paper of record is tripping over itself to defend Gay's half-baked musings, claiming she did not, in fact, say the thing she absolutely said. ...

"The American flag is ubiquitous. You see it flown everywhere in this country, in both heavily Democratic and heavily Republican counties. You see it flown with great pride in our largest cities and smallest towns. In fact, there are no small amount of pictures online showing trucks bearing both the American flag and pro-Joe Biden paraphernalia. Also, the very idea that the flag has been 'politicized' is rather preposterous as flags are inherently political. Have you ever heard of an apolitical national flag?"

Read entire article here.

"'Taxpayers have the right to expect that any information they provide to the IRS will not be disclosed unless authorized by the taxpayer or by law,' declares the Internal Revenue Service.

"Unless, of course, someone within the agency chooses to leak your return to ProPublica.

"The news organization publishes a vast trove of information about the country's wealthiest taxpayers and declares this morning, 'we obtained the information from an anonymous source who provided us with large amounts of information on the ultrawealthy, everything from the taxes they paid to the income they reported to the profits from their stock trades ... We also believe that disclosure of specific figures about the tax returns of people like Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Warren Buffett and Elon Musk will deepen readers' interest and understanding of this complex and arcane subject.'

"The relevant question is not whether you like Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Warren Buffett and Elon Musk. The question is whether the IRS declaration that tax returns are confidential applies to everyone or not. This morning it's pretty clear that the your tax return is confidential, as long as no one at the IRS thinks it is newsworthy. But if they do, you're screwed. (It is highly unlikely that anyone outside of the IRS would have access to the tax returns of all of these figures.) ...

"It's probably those darned low-level employees in Cincinnati again."

Read entire article here.

"On Sunday, the Charleston Gazette-Mail published an op-ed by Sen. Joe Manchin in which the West Virginia Democrat announced his opposition of the For the People Act, a bill that aims to impose a variety of election-related laws on states across the country.

"Without Manchin's support, the odds that the For the People Act will become law any time soon have effectively sunk to zero.

"According to Manchin, the primary reason he is not willing to vote for the legislation is that he believes the For the People Act poses a serious danger to the future of the country.

"'I believe that partisan voting legislation will destroy the already weakening blinds of our democracy, and for that reason, I will vote against the For The People Act,' Manchin wrote in his article.

"It might sound like hyperbole to some, but Manchin's concern about the threat posed by the partisan nature of the bill is absolutely right. The For the People Act is truly one of the most troubling pieces of legislation proposed in recent memory. Should it ever become law, voters' faith in elections would be eroded, regardless of whether widespread voter fraud actually occurs."

Read entire article here.

"Democrats, media figures and activists are aware of the hypocrisy over the filibuster rule and its long defense by Democrats as a positive democratic device. That is why there is a concerted effort to portray support for the filibuster as racist. It is a familiar pattern in silencing an opposing view: Frame the rule as racist, and dismiss the consensus arguments accepted just a few years ago in defense of the rule. You then pass bills on straight party line votes in the name of national unity.

"The filibuster has gone through historic controversies through the centuries, from opposing Caesar to opposing civil rights. But as a consensus-forcing rule, its time may have arrived, to the chagrin of many."

Read entire article here.

"The big scandal of American education is that our most disadvantaged students are forced to attend ineffective public district schools, sabotaging educational opportunity and laying the basis for all manner of adult inequality. Conversely, public charter schools of choice reduce inequality and expand educational opportunity by improving the academic and life outcomes of K-12 students. ...

"Three reasons contribute to their effectiveness:

• School autonomy. Charter school leaders have the freedom of action to make school-level decisions on their program, hiring and operations, rather than being dictated to by a central school district bureaucracy.

• Accountability for results. If schools don't meet their goals, they are closed by the public agency that sponsors them. Approximately 220 charter schools were closed in 2019-2020.

• Parent and teacher choice. Since charters are schools of choice, families and teachers are not forced to attend them, generating a sense of commitment and association."

Read entire article here.

"Democrats and much of the media are pushing to make permanent the extraordinary, pandemic-driven measures to relax voting rules during the 2020 elections -- warning anew of racist voter 'suppression' otherwise. Yet democracies in Europe and elsewhere tell a different story -- of the benefits of stricter voter ID requirements after hard lessons learned.

"A database on voting rules worldwide compiled by the Crime Prevention Research Center, which I run, shows that election integrity measures are widely accepted globally, and have often been adopted by countries after they've experienced fraud under looser voting regimes.

"Of 47 nations surveyed in Europe -- a place where, on other matters, American progressives often look to with envy -- all but one country requires a government-issued photo voter ID to vote. The exception is the U.K., and even there voter IDs are mandatory in Northern Ireland for all elections and in parts of England for local elections. Moreover, Boris Johnson's government recently introduced legislation to have the rest of the country follow suit. ...

"Seventy-four percent of European countries entirely ban absentee voting for citizens who reside domestically. Another 6% limit it to those hospitalized or in the military, and they require third-party verification and a photo voter ID. Another 15% require a photo ID for absentee voting.

"Similarly, government-issued photo IDs are required to vote by 33 nations in the 37-member Organistion for Economic Co-operation and Development (which has considerable European overlap)."

"The U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday revealed the five states suffering the most from the country's labor shortage.

"The Chamber released its 'America Works Report' analyzing the country's available job numbers, which stood at 8.1 million in March, compared to its average worker-to-job ratio, which stands at 1.4 workers per vacant job. By comparison, the historical ratio average is 2.8 workers per job, according to the Chamber.

"These five states, however, have the lowest worker-to-job ratios in the country:

• South Dakota (0.6 workers per job)

• Nebraska (0.8 workers per job)

• Vermont (0.8 workers per job)

• Kansas (1 worker per job)

• Indiana (1 worker per job)

"'The worker shortage is real -- and it's getting worse by the day,' Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Suzanne Clark said in a Tuesday statement."

Read entire article here.

"Joe Biden finally released his proposed federal budget Friday, just before the Memorial Day holiday. It's almost as if the White House didn't want people to look at it too closely.

"The Congressional Budget Office reports that if everything that Biden has proposed were to be approved by the Democratic Congress, the national debt would climb by $22 trillion over the next decade. That's a $7.6 trillion increase in the deficit, and that's after the recovery from COVID-19's disruptions. ...

"The publicly held debt would skyrocket from 98 percent of GDP in 2020 to 130 percent by 2031, eclipsing the debt level of 114 percent held by the U.S. just after it fought World War II."

Read entire article here.

"May we never forget our fallen comrades. Freedom isn't free."