All posts by Wintery Knight

https://winteryknight.com/

Call your senators and ask them to vote against Lori Chavez-DeRemer

I like about a third of Trump’s Cabinet picks. A third are OK. And a third are terrible. The worst pick of all is his pick for Secretary of Labor. He picked Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who is endorsed by a teacher union leader. Lori opposes right-to-work laws. She supports job-killing labor unions. And she is a former employee of Planned Parenthood. Democrats love this pick.

Here’s an article from Christian Post:

President Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as secretary of labor, who is expected to face opposition from Senate Republicans, admitted to lawmakers that she once worked at a Planned Parenthood facility.

A source close to the situation confirmed to The Christian Post Thursday that Lori Chavez-DeRemer worked for a Planned Parenthood in Fresno, California, from January 1989 through February 1991.

Chavez-DeRemer, a Republican who represented Oregon’s 5th Congressional District in the 118th United States Congress, took appointments at the abortion provider’s front desk.

That’s a problem with her on moral issues, but there are also problems with her economic views.

Daily Caller explains:

Chavez-DeRemer, who represented Oregon’s 5th congressional district from 2023 to 2025, supported several pieces of legislation favored by Democrats, including the PRO Act, a bill championed by former President Joe Biden that targeted the private sector. Notably, Chavez-DeRemer also supports the Public Service Freedom to Negotiate Act, which would “strengthen” the rights of public sector workers who want to join unions and or bargain collectively.

Rand Paul, author of “The Case Against Socialism” is opposed to her:

“I’m not going to support her,” Paul told NBC News in January. “I’m the national spokesman and lead author of the right-to-work bill. Her support for the PRO Act, which would not only oppose national right to work but would pre-empt state law on right to work — I think it’s not a good thing.”

And the far-left website The Atlantic has this to say about her:

After Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination was announced, two senior Democratic senators, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Patty Murray of Washington State, issued cautiously optimistic statements about her—a rare sentiment for Democrats to express about any Trump nominee.

[…]“It’s a positive move for those of us who represent workers and who want workers to have a better life,” Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers and a close ally of Democratic Party leaders, told me. She noted that Chavez-DeRemer bucked her party not only by supporting the PRO Act but also by voting against private-school vouchers and cuts to public-education funding.

[…]An anti-union group, the National Right to Work Committee, wrote in a letter to Trump before he announced Chavez-DeRemer’s nomination that she “should have no place” in his administration: “She would not be out of place in the Biden-Harris Department of Labor, which completely sold out to Big Labor from the start.”

She should be withdrawn as a candidate, and someone who understands economics, and is pro-business, should be nominated in her place.

If I have time, and it’s not too complicated, I’m going to call both of my senators this week and urge them not to vote for her.

Why are Republicans so interested in giving parents school choice?

I saw that Tennessee recently enacted a school choice problem, and on Facebook, there were a lot of negative comments. I was able to click on the profiles of some of the negative commenters – the majority of them were white, female public school teachers. Well, I thought it might be a good idea to explain to people why Republicans are so interested in letting parents choose.

First, here’s the story from Focus on the Family:

Tennessee Governor Bill Lee signed the Educational Freedom Act of 2025 earlier this week, creating 20,000 educational scholarships for students for the 2025-2026 school year. The bill also gives all public school teachers a one-time, $2,000 bonus for the current school year.

This legislation is part of a growing movement toward giving families the freedom to choose the best type of education for their children, allowing them to thrive and succeed.

[…]The scholarships, amounting to a little over $7,000, can be used for tuition and fees at a private school of a family’s choice, along with textbooks, instructional materials and uniforms at the private school. Money can also be used for transportation, tutoring and computer technology for educational needs.

In addition, “There will be an automatic growth trigger of 5,000 additional scholarships for each year after 75% of total scholarships are taken in the prior year.” The bill denies scholarships to students who cannot establish their “lawful presence in the United States.”

The Education Freedom Act was applauded by groups who want parents and families to have more freedom in choosing the education that best fits their children’s needs.

So, why would the opponents of school choice want to prevent parents from having a choice? Well, they view parents – the very people who pay their salaries – as enemies. They report them to the federal government as “domestic terrorists”. Why? Because those parents object to having their children indoctrinated with secular leftist ideologies.

Here’s an example of school choice opponents dealing with parents who object to their indoctrination:

First Daily Wire post:

On Tuesday evening, school board members representing Penfield Central School District in Rochester, New York, walked out on a packed house of parents who were upset about an inappropriate book on display at the elementary school library called “The Rainbow Parade,” authored by Emily Neilson.

The book in question is about a young girl attending a pride parade with her lesbian parents. The illustrations show men in sexual BDSM gear holding hands, drag queens, and naked people.

Instead of taking on comments from concerned parents, the board’s president called a motion to adjourn and ended the meeting abruptly. Kimberly DeRosa, who attended the meeting, told The Daily Wire that it ended after “more than an hour of presentations celebrating Black History Month and the superintendent detailing the process of submitting objections to books in the school.”

As noted by DeRosa, the board told parents that they should submit their complaints, which apparently negated their right to speak out at the meeting.

“We are here at our board meeting, conducting our business,” one board member told parents, who began booing. One parent responded, “It’s our board meeting,” and others yelled, “cowards!”

DeRosa, who is a Penfield taxpayer, concerned mother, and on the executive board of the Monroe County Federated Republican Women, told The Daily Wire that it was “a slap in the face to everyone there when the board members walked out before any public comments could be made.”

Second Daily Wire Post:

After school board members walked out on parents who were upset over LGBT book “The Rainbow Parade,” the board is doubling down and prohibiting public comments at meetings until at least the end of April, citing alleged racism.

[…]Now, the board representing Penfield Central School District has barred public comment at all meetings for the months ahead.

[…]The message also cited alleged racism, since one of the board meeting attendees showed up on Tuesday wearing a gorilla suit and a black “Make America Great Again” hat. Roberts suggested it was worn as an act of racism, since the district’s superintendent and some of the board members are black.

Can you imagine being treated like this by companies in the private sector, like Amazon.com or Apple? Recently, I ordered some Indian simmer sauces from Wal-Mart. They didn’t arrive for 2 weeks. So I asked for a refund. They gave me the refund immediately, no questions asked. But public school education isn’t like the private sector. You pay your money up front – in taxes – and then they give you whatever they feel like. It’s the complete opposite of the private sector, where they compete with rivals in order to earn your money.

And the Trump administration is aware of this, and they are already doing something about it.

Here’s a story from The Federalist:

The U.S. Department of Education has launched a Title IX investigation into five Virginia school districts that allow boys to use girls’ facilities like restrooms and locker rooms, moving one step closer to revoking their federal funding.

The Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) confirmed to America First Legal (AFL) that it is investigating Loudoun, Fairfax, Arlington, and Prince William Counties, as well as the City of Alexandria, for violating allegedly Title IX civil rights law meant to protect women and girls at school. AFL filed a formal complaint about the far-left Washington, D.C., suburb school districts in early February.

[…]The school districts in Northern Virginia, which serve some of the largest populations of students in the commonwealth, are notoriously defiant and completely consumed by gender theory, critical race theory, and a dedication to conducting far-left social and academic experimentation on children. If the Department of Education finds them violative of Title IX and they continue to be defiant, the districts are poised to lose federal funding.

You might remember that the Loudon County school board is the one responsible for working with the Biden administration to label concerned parents as “domestic terrorists”. This is why elections are important. The Democrat party thinks that parents should be forced to pay, and if they object to what they get, then they are “domestic terrorists”. The Republican party thinks that parents are more important than the school boards. I hope you voted Republican in the last elections, because they are looking out for your kids.

Jay Richards: what should Christians know about economics?

Here’s a good basic introduction to the free enterprise system by Dr. Jay Richards:

Here is the description:

In this edition of the Evangel Guest Lecture Series, Jay W. Richards discusses his book on the capitalist system within the context of the Christian faith and examine how enterprise based on hard work, honesty, and trust fosters creativity and growth.

Jay W. Richards, PhD, is author of many books including the New York Times bestseller Infiltrated (2013). Richards is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, and executive editor of The Stream. In recent years he has been a distinguished fellow at the Institute for Faith, Work & Economics, contributing editor of The American at the American Enterprise Institute, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and research fellow and director of Acton Media at the Acton Institute.

It turns out that the best system for lifting the poor out of poverty – by work or charity – is the economic system that creates wealth through human ingenuity and hard work. That system is the free enterprise system.

Something to read?

If you can’t listen to the lecture and don’t want to buy the whole book “Money, Greed and God?” Then I have a series of posts on each chapter for you.

The index post is here.

Here are the posts in the series:

  • Part 1: The Eight Most Common Myths about Wealth, Poverty, and Free Enterprise
  • Part 2: Can’t We Build A Just Society?
  • Part 3: The Piety Myth
  • Part 4: The Myth of the Zero Sum Game
  • Part 5: Is Wealth Created or Transferred?
  • Part 6: Is Free Enterprise Based on Greed?
  • Part 7: Hasn’t Christianity Always Opposed Free Enterprise?
  • Part 8: Does Free Enterprise Lead to An Ugly Consumerist Culture?
  • Part 9: Will We Use Up All Our Resources?
  • Part 10: Are Markets An Example of Providence?

Parts 4 and 5 are my favorites. It’s so hard to choose one to excerpt, but I must. I will choose… Part 4.

Here’s the problem:

Myth #3: The Zero Sum Game Myth – believing that trade requires a winner and a loser. 

One reason people believe this myth is because they misunderstand how economic value is determined. Economic thinkers with views as diverse as Adam Smith and Karl Marx believed economic value was determined by the labor theory of value. This theory stipulates that the cost to produce an object determines its economic value.

According to this theory, if you build a house that costs you $500,000 to build, that house is worth $500,000. But what if no one can or wants to buy the house? Then what is it worth?

Medieval church scholars put forth a very different theory, one derived from human nature: economic value is in the eye of the beholder. The economic value of an object is determined by how much someone is willing to give up to get that object. This is the subjective theory of value.

And here’s an example of how to avoid the problem:

How you determine economic value affects whether you view free enterprise as a zero-sum game, or a win-win game in which both participants benefit.

Let’s return to the example of the $500,000 house. As the developer of the house, you hire workers to build the house. You then sell it for more than $500,000. According to the labor theory of value, you have taken more than the good is actually worth. You’ve exploited the buyer and your workers by taking this surplus value. You win, they lose.

Yet this situation looks different according to the subjective theory of value. Here, everybody wins. You market and sell the house for more than it cost to produce, but not more than customers will freely pay. The buyer is not forced to pay a cost he doesn’t agree to. You are rewarded for your entrepreneurial effort. Your workers benefit, because you paid them the wages they agreed to when you hired them.

This illustration brings up a couple important points about free enterprise that are often overlooked:

1. Free exchange is a win-win game.

In win-win games, some players may end up better off than others, but everyone ends up better off than they were at the beginning. As the developer, you might make more than your workers. Yet the workers determined they would be better off by freely exchanging their labor for wages, than if they didn’t have the job at all.

A free market doesn’t guarantee that everyone wins in every competition. Rather, it allows many more win-win encounters than any other alternative.

2. The game is win-win because of rules set-up beforehand. 

A free market is not a free-for-all in which everybody can do what they want. Any exchange must be free on both sides. Rule of law, contracts, and property rights are needed to ensure exchanges are conducted rightly. As the developer of the house, you’d be held accountable if you broke your contract and failed to pay workers what you promised.

An exchange that is free on both sides, in which no one is forced or tricked into participating, is a win-win game.

If you do get the book, be sure and skip the chapter on usury. It’s just not as engaging as the others, in my opinion.