Briane M. House

Attorney and occasional politico. Partner at Pritzke & Davis.

[Briane M. House @m_briane]

@lady_valor_07 Tapestry

[Briane M. House @m_briane]

@For_Film_Fans Mark Shaw has written a book on the issue. I think the title is The Reporter Who Knew Too Much.

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

Talking about socialism is a luxury paid for by the successes of capitalism. As I wrote in 2016:

"A popular rebuttal is to invoke the socialist leanings of several European countries with high living standards, especially in Scandinavia. Why can’t America be more like happy Denmark, with its high taxes and giant public sector, or at least more like France? Even the more pro-free-market United Kingdom has national health care, after all. First off, comparing relatively small, homogeneous populations to the churning, ocean-spanning American giant is rarely useful. And even the most socialist of the European countries only became wealthy enough to embrace redistribution after free-market success made them rich. Still, why cannot America follow this path if that is what the people want? What is the problem if American voters are willing to accept higher taxes in exchange for greater security in the embrace of the government?

The answer takes us back to all those inventions America has produced decade after decade. As long as Europe had America taking risks, investing ambitiously, attracting the world’s dreamers and entrepreneurs, and yes, being unequal, it could benefit from the results without making the same sacrifices. Add to that the incalculable windfall of not having to spend on national defense thanks to America’s massive investment in a global security umbrella. America doesn’t have the same luxury of coasting on the ambition and sacrifice of another country."

[Garry Kasparov @Kasparov63]

Socialism is like polio, it comes back when people forget about the horrible damage it did last time.

[Briane M. House @m_briane]

@Hot_Pepper76 @barclaygrayson You must see many of his films. An absolute master but I’m surprised no one has mentioned Philadelphia Story.

[Briane M. House @m_briane]

@Steve_K_85015 @Crazymoments01 Because you wanted an explosion of steam and molten metal. This is fake.

[Kerry McQuisten’s Common Sense Sanctuary @KerryMcQ4Oregon]

Let’s talk reflecting pool. Warren G. Harding built it on swampland and the structure beneath it would have been fine - if it had been built on stable ground. The whole thing started sinking slowly.

Presidents all the way up through Carter kept trying to prop it up with little cement pours, and regularly draining and cleaning it. Algae was a problem even then because there was no real circulation system. No pumps. No filters.

Reagan added some more concrete, realizing the entire pool was now 12 or 13 inches lower than it should be. It had sunk over a foot and pulled loose from its structure.

Clinton publicly acknowledged that the entire pool needed demolished and rebuilt, and that it would take hundreds of millions of dollars to do it right.

The Bushes just kept trying to plug leaks and clean it. Every time they had to drain and scrub the thing, it cost around $100,000 to do so. George W. Bush actually had plans drawn up to rebuild it. 

Obama decided to revise and execute the Bush renovation, which was needed, but it was flawed, and he spent tens of millions of dollars on it. He raised the pool up with a timber under-structure so the water ended up being even shallower, which means that’s the point at which the water started getting warmer. He also turned off the chlorinated city water supply into the pool and began pumping water in from the tidal basin - that’s the somewhat stagnant water that comes in from the Potomac River and surrounds the Jefferson Memorial. There was algae before, but with those changes came even more algae. Obama‘s reasoning was that the basin water would be cheaper instead of using the city water supply. He had the pool tiles removed from the bottom and another layer gray cement put in place along with gray-tinted reflective paint, which gradually faded away.

By the time Trump’s first term came around, the cleaning had to be done every three or four months, some of the Obama structural repairs were failing, and the leaks were rampant again.

By the time Biden got into office, Obama’s reflecting pool fixes were cracked and the pool was leaking hundreds of thousands (probably millions) of gallons of water. Biden opted to clean the pool, but performed little maintenance, and did no substantial refurbishment.

Trump’s fix was to try something that the other presidents hadn’t. Whereas Obama had used a gray reflective paint and cement, Trump tried a combination sealant liner - it isn’t paint. Those sealants are similarly light-reflective to what Obama used. Trump switched up to blue from the dark gray. He added nanobubblers.

When we walked around it the other day, there was only a small patch on the middle of the left side that may have been coming up. It was too windy and stormy to see why. It was not as if the sealant was coming up all over the pool and floating to the top because it wasn’t. We did see the algae cleaning going on and the crews, you could tell, were tired of being harassed for doing their jobs. 

Vandals have damaged the grass, they’ve cut into the liner in other places and the knife lines are clear in the videos. We did see the National Guard soldiers coming in. We also saw them placed around the America 250 construction area and in between the museums. Five vandals have been arrested since we walked through. It’s unbelievable to me that they want to destroy something we could all enjoy out of hatred for a president whose policies they don’t even understand.  And the mainstream media is reprehensible. They aren’t reporting. They’re spinning propaganda as usual.

[indy reporter @Indy_reporter_]

I know this is a long one, but trust me when I say..... it's worth listening.

During yesterday's Indiana State Budget Committee meeting, the discussion on Indiana's wetland credit program was WILD.

@Sen_ChrisGarten questioned why private property owners and farmers can be required to buy wetland credits after being told they've impacted a wetland, calling the current "fee-in-lieu" system a "Ponzi scheme." He argued that credits can be purchased for mitigation projects hundreds of miles away, raising the question of how replacing a wetland in one part of the state with one in another actually benefits the local environment.

Then came the numbers.

According to Garten, the program went from roughly $1.8 million in credit purchases during its first few months in 2018...to $7.3 million in 2019...and then exploded to $25.8 million in 2020 while much of state government was shut down.

But what really caught my attention?

INDOT is the biggest purchaser of these wetland credits.

Think about that. One government agency paying another government program with taxpayer dollars to buy credits. If that's accurate, taxpayers deserve to know exactly how this system works and where all that money is going.

Garten also made serious allegations that, during prior leadership, IDEM and DNR employees aggressively targeted farmers and private property owners over alleged wetlands. He even stated, on the record, that after pursuing wetland legislation he received a call from then-IDEM Commissioner Bruno Pigott, who allegedly referenced complaints about Garten's private business and suggested inspections could follow. Garten characterized that as an attempt to intimidate him.

He also recounted stories from constituents who said inspectors entered private property following anonymous complaints and, in one alleged case, told a farmer to "go sit on his porch" while they determined "what rights he had left."

Those are significant claims. If even a fraction of these allegations are true, they deserve a thorough investigation by the General Assembly.

Senator Chris Garten is doing AMAZING work at the IGA exposing all of this.

[Mike Netter @nettermike]

This article was written by a 26 yr old college student by the name of Alyssa Ahlgren, who's in grad school for her MBA. What a GREAT perspecitve..👍🏽

My Generation Is Blind to the Prosperity Around Us!
I'm sitting in a small coffee shop near Nokomis (Florida) trying to think of what to write about. I scroll through my newsfeed on my phone looking at the latest headlines of presidential candidates calling for policies to "fix" the so-called injustices of capitalism. I put my phone down and continue to look around.

I see people talking freely, working on their MacBook's, ordering food they get in an instant, seeing cars go by outside, and it dawned on me. We live in the most privileged time in the most prosperous nation and we've become completely blind to it.

Vehicles, food, technology, freedom to associate with whom we choose.These things are so ingrained in our American way of life we don't give them a second thought.

We are so well off here in the United States that our poverty line begins 31 times above the global average. Thirty One Times!!!

Virtually no one in the United States is considered poor by global standards. Yet, in a time where we can order a product off Amazon with one click and have it at our doorstep the next day, we are unappreciative, unsatisfied, and ungrateful. ??

Our unappreciation is evident as the popularity of socialist policies among my generation continues to grow. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently said to Newsweek talking about the millennial generation, "An entire generation, which is now becoming one of the largest electorates in America, came of age and never saw American prosperity."

Never saw American prosperity! Let that sink in.

When I first read that statement, I thought to myself, that was quite literally the most entitled and factually illiterate thing I've ever heard in my 26 years on this earth. Many young people agree with her, which is entirely misguided.

My generation is being indoctrinated by a mainstream narrative to actually believe we have never seen prosperity. I know this first hand, I went to college, let's just say I didn't have the popular opinion, but I digress.

Why then, with all of the overwhelming evidence around us, evidence that I can even see sitting at a coffee shop, do we not view this as prosperity? We have people who are dying to get into our country.

People around the world destitute and truly impoverished. Yet, we have a young generation convinced they've never seen prosperity, and as a result, we elect some politicians who are dead set on taking steps towards abolishing capitalism.

Why? The answer is this,?? my generation has only seen prosperity. We have no contrast. We didn't live in the great depression, or live through two world wars, the Korean War, The Vietnam War or we didn't see the rise and fall of socialism and communism.

We don't know what it's like to live without the internet, without cars, without smartphones. We don't have a lack of prosperity problem. We have an entitlement problem, an ungratefulness problem, and it's spreading like a plague."

[Mark Mendlovitz @MendlovitzMark]

Well within the margin of fraud.

[Eric Schwalm @Schwalm5132]

https://t.co/clby7y04O9

[The Husky @Mr_Husky1]

Remember the guy who wouldn't take the flag pole down on his Virginia property awhile back? You might remember the news story several months ago about a crotchety old man in Virginia who defied his local Homeowners Association and refused to take down the flag pole on his property along with the large American flag he flew on it.

Now we learn who that old man was. On June 15, 1919, Van T. Barfoot was born in Edinburg, Texas . That probably didn't make news back then.

But twenty five years later, on May 23, 1944, near Cyrano, Italy, That same Van T. Barfoot, who had in 1940 enlisted in the U.S. Army, set out alone to flank German machine gun positions from which gunfire was raining down on his fellow soldiers. His advance took him through a minefield but having done so, he proceeded to single-handedly take out three enemy machine gun positions, returning with 17 prisoners of war.

And if that weren’t enough for a day's work, he later took on and destroyed three German tanks sent to retake the machine gun positions.

That probably didn’t make much news either, given the scope of the war, but it did earn Van T. Barfoot, who retired as a Colonel after also serving In Korea and Vietnam , a well deserved Congressional Medal of Honor.

What did make news was his Neighborhood Association's quibble with how the 90-year-old Veteran chose to fly the American flag outside his suburban Virginia home. Seems the HOA rules said it was OK to fly a flag on a house-mounted bracket, but, for decorum, items such as Barfoot's 21-foot flagpole were "unsuitable."

Van Barfoot had been denied a permit for the pole, but erected it anyway and was facing Court action unless he agreed to take it down.

Then the HOA story made national TV, and the Neighborhood Association rethought its position and agreed to indulge this
aging hero who dwelt among them.

"In the time I have left", he said to the Associated Press, "I plan to continue to fly the American flag without interference."

As well he should. And if any of his neighbors had taken a notion to contest him further, they might have done well to read his Medal of Honor citation first. Seems it Indicates Mr. Van Barfoot wasn't particularly good at backing down.

If you've read this post and don't share it, - Guess what -You need your butt kicked. I share this with you because I don't want MY butt kicked anymore and I'm tired of seeing those who hate our country yet march in our streets, tear down our statues, burn our stores and loot our businesses have a free hand to do whatever they want.

WE ONLY LIVE IN THE LAND OF THE FREE BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE! AND, BECAUSE OF BRAVE OLD MEN LIKE VAN BARFOOT!

[Briane M. House @m_briane]

@ACMillerAuthor A classic. Now I am hungry for some.

[Briane M. House @m_briane]

@real_bechambers Happy Birthday Danny!

[Briane M. House @m_briane]

@nogooddeed2 Recipe please.

[Yogi @Houseofyogi]

Spirit Airlines died tonight at the hands of the socialist crusader, Elizabeth Warren

She must be so proud to add another casket to her achievements.

Tonight at 3am, Spirit turns off the lights. 14,000 jobs gone. 30+ smaller airports lose service.

JetBlue offered $3.8 BILLION in cash to buy Spirit in 2022. Shareholders, flight attendants union, literally everyone voted yes.

The combined company would have held 9% of the US market against a Big 4 that already owned 80%.

For anyone who understands numbers: 9% isn’t a monopoly against 80%.

Warren said no.

She wrote letters. She pressured Buttigieg. Biden’s DOJ sued. A federal judge killed the deal in January 2024.

Her argument: the merger would cost consumers $1 billion a year.

Now look at her collateral damage she dusts under the rug.

510 pilots gone in the months after. 1,800 flight attendants furloughed in December.

14,000 jobs in 2023. 7,500 last week. Zero tonight.

And that’s just the people in Spirit uniforms.

Catering goes. Fuel guys go. Baggage crews, gate agents, airport coffee shops, hotels and rental cars in 70 cities Spirit flew to. Every airline job carries 3 more on its back.

40,000 people out of work because of one woman’s moronic crusade against the market.

And the math ain’t mathing.

Spirit abandoned 90 routes during the death spiral. Fares on those routes are up 14% on average. Oakland to Newark: $135 to $288. Fort Myers to San Juan: $92 to $219. Kansas City to Newark up 66%.

That’s reality. Not some BS number from a “study.”

So @SenWarren tell me how this saves the consumer money?

Cheap carriers in a market drop fares 21% across the board. Southwest did this in the 90s and saved Americans $68 BILLION over 20 years.

Warren killed it. That’s what moronic politicians led by socialism do.

Then with her own blind arrogance, she tweeted Spirit’s collapse is “a Biden win for flyers.”

A win.

14,000 people are reading termination letters tonight.

And she’s taking credit.

This is socialism in 2026.

A senator who’s never made payroll thinks she knows how to run a market better than the people who own and work in the company.

She saved you a billion on imaginary paper.

She cost you ten times that in real life.

She didn’t protect consumers from anything.

14,000+ will go from working to welfare.

She will make sure to blame billionaires, hardworking tax payers, AI, capitalism and whatever monster they will make up tomorrow hiding under your bed.

Higher taxes. Fewer jobs. More expensive everything.

She called it a win. I hope you enjoy winning.

[Alec Lace @AlecLace]

🚨 MUST WATCH:

Johnny Carson (a Democrat) opens the 1981 Oscars, a day after the assassination attempt on President Reagan, with genuine class and respect.

The entire liberal Hollywood crowd erupts in applause.

Today? Jimmy Kimmel jokes about Melania Trump becoming a widow.

[Briane M. House @m_briane]

@Aellagirl If you have not seen it, take a look at the article on Shere Hite in the March 9 issue of the New Yorker. It’s on pa
He 68.

[🇺🇸Hot Pepper @Hot_Pepper76]

Thirty years after John Candy died, Steve Martin reflected on his deep affection for him and revealed that a longer, more emotional train station scene from Planes, Trains and Automobiles was cut.

When John Candy died in 1994, Steve Martin stayed briefly with Candy's widow and children, helping them through an incredibly difficult time. That says a lot about how close they really were.

Have you seen the movie?