Government Sponsored Unemployment
 
When the coronavirus pandemic hit last year, many liberal governors mercilessly shut down their states and forced all kinds of small businesses to close in the name of fighting COVID-19. 
 
But now as more and more Americans are getting vaccinated and attempting to return to normal, small businesses are being forced to compete with the federal government for potential workers. 
 
Tens of thousands of small businesses permanently closed their doors last year and will never reopen.  And the carnage will continue as long as government unemployment benefits are close to or greater than what an employee would be paid for working at a grocery store, a movie theater or a restaurant. 
 
Over the weekend, every Biden Administration official vehemently denied that those extra benefits have anything to do with the fact that there are 7.3 million job openings, but employers could only find 266,000 people willing to fill them.
 
Yet employers all over the country are increasingly saying the same thing: We can't compete against the government's free money.
 
 
 
A word of caution
 
While the facts above are indisputable, conservatives need to be very careful about how we talk about this.  It's a big country, and every American has experienced the COVID-driven economic decline differently.  Through no fault of their own, millions of Americans did lose jobs.  And some can't go back to work because Joe Biden and the left have declared war on the industries they work in. 
 
We don't want to begrudge the worker who lost his job when Biden canceled the Keystone XL pipeline.  We don't want to forget all the energy workers and steel workers whose jobs will be sacrificed on the altar of climate change.
 
There are a lot of families who can't make ends meet unless they have two incomes.  But many mothers can't go back to work because Biden and his big city allies refuse to reopen the schools. 
 
There are some, we don't know how many, who are still afraid to go back to work because we've got a president who insists on wearing masks outside even after he was fully vaccinated.
 
Americans are not lazy people.  But liberal policies are damaging the economy and delaying the return to normal.  If there was any doubt about that, Dr. Fauci said yesterday that he intends to drag this out for at least another year, saying we could be "about as close to back to normal as we can" by next Mother's Day!
 
Conservatives are right to attack the foolishness of the Biden Administration, but in times of crisis "smaller government" rhetoric can be a tough sell.  We must convince unemployed Americans that we have better solutions than the left's socialism. 
 
 
 
Cyber Terrorism?
 
There was breaking news over the weekend that the largest pipeline in the country was shut down Friday after a cyberattack.  The Colonial pipeline transports millions of barrels of gas, home heating oil and jet fuel each day from Gulf coast refiners to states along the Atlantic coast. 
 
If the shutdown lasts much longer, gas prices will spike and shortages may arise in the affected states.  Thankfully, Colonial believes it will be able to restore service in a few days.
 
Still, there's a lot we don't know.  Many media pundits immediately went to the narrative that this was merely some criminal extortion effort.  That may very well be the case.  It's also possible that these criminals could be foreign hackers from China, Iran or Russia attempting to damage the national security of the United States. 
 
We know that hackers from all three countries have attempted to gain access to our energy grid.  Iranian hackers seized control of a dam in New York.  Chinese hackers recently infiltrated Microsoft.  Russian hackers are allegedly responsible for the SolarWinds breach.  Hundreds of entities, including many government agencies, had massive amounts of data stolen for months before it was discovered. 
 
An enemy planting malware in vital infrastructure that could be activated in the middle of a crisis is a real threat.  For example: Many experts believe that communist China will move on Taiwan in the next few years.  The regular sorties of planes from communist China flying into Taiwan's airspace appear to be dress rehearsals for a future invasion.
 
Taiwan is not just another island off the coast of China.  It is vital to our national security.  We can't afford to allow Taiwan to fall to communist China.  But in any conflict involving Taiwan, the U.S. will be severely challenged due to supply lines that are nearly 7,000 miles long, whereas communist China is just 120 miles away. 
 
But just imagine that as we detect the Chinese getting ready for an imminent invasion of Taiwan, suddenly our pipelines go down, electrical grids go down and many military bases lose power. 
 
Donald Trump tried to address these threats, but Joe Biden seems clueless.  He's much more interested in negotiating with Iran than protecting us from communist China.
 
 
 
Tensions Flare In Jerusalem
 
You probably have seen the news out of Jerusalem.  At best, the media reporting is a delicate balancing act of moral equivalency between Israel and the Palestinians.  At worst, some are suggesting that the violence is Israel's fault. 
 
Here's what you must understand:  This violence coincides with the end of Ramadan and what is known as "Quds Day" in Iran.  Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, marked Quds Day with a fiery address once again inciting violence against Israeli Jews.  Khamenei said:
 
"It has been [decades] now that the most impure and malicious human beings have been occupying [Palestine] . . . They are racists who have been harassing, for more than 70 years, the main owners of the land by murdering, looting, imprisoning and torturing them. . ."
 
Remember, the Biden Administration is currently negotiating sanctions relief and a nuclear weapons program with the ayatollah's regime, even as he is calling for Israel's destruction.  The ayatollah's statements should end the negotiations!
 
Today is also "Jerusalem Day" in Israel, celebrating the liberation and reunification of the Holy City during the 1967 Six-Day War.  There was no religious freedom in Jerusalem before then.  And if some future deal with a Palestinian state ends Israeli sovereignty in parts of Jerusalem, religious liberty will cease in the Palestinian area.  
 
The fact of the matter is that attacks against Israeli Jews have been steadily increasing in recent weeks.  Hamas is once again firing rockets at Israeli civilians, as Palestinian terrorists launch incendiary balloons from Gaza.
 
But the kneejerk reaction from the Biden Administration, as Palestinian radicals raise the Hamas flag over the Temple Mount, is to berate Israel. 
 
If an alien landed on earth today and listened to statements from the Biden Administration, he would assume that Iran was our ally and Israel was our enemy!
 
 
 
Biden Bashes Law Enforcement
 
This is Police Week and Saturday, May 15th, is Peace Officers Memorial Day.  It's an annual event that began during the Kennedy Administration recognizing the sacrifice and service of the men and women on the Thin Blue Line.  Unfortunately, ongoing pandemic restrictions have forced the delay of most official events until mid-October.
 
Nevertheless, President Joe Biden issued a proclamation officially recognizing Police Week and Peace Officers Memorial Day.  It probably would have been better if he hadn't.  The Biden White House just couldn't resist bashing the police in the same proclamation that supposedly praised the courage of law enforcement.
 
Biden's proclamation bemoaned the "deep sense of distrust towards law enforcement" in minority communities, as well as the "profound fear, trauma, pain, and exhaustion for many Black and brown Americans."
 
Here's a reality check for the Biden White House: 

• 70% of black Americans approve of their local police.
• 81% of black Americans want law enforcement to spend the same amount of time or more time policing their community.
• Only 18% of Americans support efforts to "defund the police."