8/9/18: Socialism falters, Chris Collins in trouble

Some Democrats are cheering the fall of Democratic Socialism.  In Tuesday’s primary, the candidates endorsed and supported by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dropped like flies.  Democrat voters went for the more middle of the left side of the road liberals who don’t openly talk about doubling taxes.  But while Democrats #walkaway from their energetic rising stars, that still leaves them with a November election platform of raising taxes and obstructing Trump.  We’ll see if that ends up being a winning combination.  The candidates on the left with the most success were ones backed by none other than Hillary Clinton.

Down goes Socialism, establishment Democrat party is back on top

Republican Chris Collins is in trouble for insider trading.  The New York representative called family members after the failure of a new drug being developed by a company where he served on the board.  The insider trading saved his son and others about $768,000 in losses.  Collins has vowed to fight.  Congress had passed strong anti-insider trading laws in 2012, but those were walked back the following year and quietly repealed by Obama.

Chris Collins hit for insider trading making his seat a target in November

Speaking of the midterms, Democrats are in trouble in the Senate.  But to take the House, they believe there are only 15 competitive races they have to win.  Of the 23 seats Dems need to retake the House for the first time since 2010, they believe they have 8 in the bag already.  Democrats are not running on much, except for independence from other Democrats and hatred for Trump.  In fact, it’s almost hard to tell who 2018 Democrat candidates despise more, Nancy Pelosi or Donald Trump.  The American people meanwhile have to decide if they believe them.  Democrats have worked in lock step to obstruct any sort of government movement, so it is kind of weird for them to pretend to be independent now when an election rolls around.  The great economy and success of Trump’s agenda doesn’t help either.

Democrats confident in their strategy of having no agenda and opposing themselves

Who colluded with Russia?

It’s time to play spot the criminal.  Who colluded with Russia?  See if you can figure it out.

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Hillary Clinton is the only person in the story who actually colluded with the Russians to try to meddle with the election.  She used her contacts in the Obama administration to get the phony information to the friendly FBI agents who were out to stop Trump.  The Trump Russia dossier bought and paid for by Clinton, and created by a British spy working with Russian agents was deemed “salacious and unverified” by none other than former FBI director James Comey.  If we are going to accuse anyone of Russian collusion, it has to be Hillary Clinton.

Leftists admit Socialism is unaffordable

“The democratic socialists may do well in November.  Yet upon arriving in Washington, they will discover that even their revolution cannot repeal the laws of math.”  That is how an article with Vox by Brian Riedl ends.  Riedl uses leftist and Democrat sources to compile the costs of the Democratic Socialist agenda and finds that even the most generous sources leave them with $3.4 trillion per year to make up in tax revenues.

Democrats have gained traction in the coming election by claiming that deficits are bad and we need to tax the rich to fix it.  But don’t mistake their feigned concern for actual fiscal sanity.  Even the extensive list of new taxes laid out by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wouldn’t cover 10% of the cost of their agenda.

According to Reidl, Democratic Socialists could pay for all the free stuff they are promising with a 100% tax on all corporations and 100% tax on all family income over $150,000 for married taxpayers and $90,000 for singles.  This would be on top of the current tax structure and assumes the willingness of business owners and capital providers to devote their hard work to charity rather than profit.  Another idea to add on to our current taxes would an 87% value added tax.  Basically, in every step of the manufacturing process, the government gets 87 cents of every dollar made.  The inflation would kill the middle class.  Lastly, we could do it if we added a 37% flat payroll tax on top of the current tax structure.  For the middle class this would mean an all in tax rate of 77%.

So let’s talk about this blue wave?  Are voters really ready to kill the economic growth by ending the Trump tax cuts?  Are they really ready to hand over their healthcare decisions in exchange for giving 77 cents of every dollar they make to the government?  Is this what people really want?  It’s not like the Left is running on anything else, except for extreme Trump hate.  Well, now you have an idea of how much that hatred will cost you just in taxes.

Need to Know 8/8/18

Investigative research by the Daily Caller has revealed that the Chinese spy working for Diane Feinstein was not just her driver.  Comparing dates and time periods, the Daily Caller identified Feinstein’s spy staffer as Russell Lowe, a Chinese-American, who’s actual title was “Office Director”.   He worked with Feinstein in this sensitive role for 20 years while providing information to the Chinese government.  Feinstein forced him into retirement when the FBI informed her of his espionage.  He now works for the Education for Social Justice organization.  Little else about him or his background is known at this point.

Feinstein’s Chinese spy “driver” was actually her “Office Director”

A leaked memo from the desk of Democrat Senator Mark Warner is making waves.  Warner called for intense regulation of internet platforms to promote his idea of “fairness”.  Among the proposals, common tools like Google Maps would become publicly regulated and subject to government anti-discrimination rules.  The plan would also make internet platforms liable if they don’t introduce greater censorship of users.  Anonymity of political writers online would become a thing of the past under this plan.  The combination of outing anonymous political writers online and subjecting them to potential lawsuits of the government disagrees with the information they share is a very dangerous step towards the destruction of free speech on the internet.

Leaked Democrat memo calls for curbs on internet free speech

Another win for the economy as 2.8 million have dropped off of food stamps since Trump became President.  This combined with unemployment below 4% and GDP growth above 4% make it more and more difficult for anyone to argue that the Trump economy has not been amazing so far.

2.8 million fewer on foodstamps

Need to Know 8/7/18

Yesterday we wrote about a California politician saying the state needs to regulate every aspect of our lives.  Today it’s Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy applauding the removal of Alex Jones from the internet.  I’m not an Alex Jones fan, I think half the stuff he puts out is fake news and the other half is sensationalized news.  He’s on par with CNN.  But Murphy went on to say something scary.  Murphy tweeted that the censorship of internet sites by the major corporations like Facebook and Youtube is what our democracy depends on.

I’m going to disagree with Murphy and suggest that freedom of speech, political expression, and freedom of association are what our democracy depends on.  Our founders seemed to agree when they wrote the bill of rights.  Companies can do whatever they want with their own internet platforms.  But it’s scary to see a US Senator cheer on big corporate censorship of political views.

Democrat Senator suggests internet censorship will save our democracy

It’s always fun to go back and read the climate change predictions from the past and see how they have failed to materialize.  On the first Earth Day, everyone figured climate change would wipe out the planet by 2000.  Obviously that didn’t happen, but the predictions went on.  Climate change predictions have become a great way for one side to use fear mongering to pass their agenda.  Republicans have been wrongly accused of wanting dirty air and dirty water.  Here’s a link to an article highlighting some of the failed predictions since 2000.

2018 and the planet is still here

We are back to not accepting a nuclear Iran.  After canceling the Iranian nuke deal made by Obama, without congressional approval, Trump gave Iran months to come to the table and renegotiate.  After Iran’s refusal, Trump is now reinstating the Obama era sanctions in two stages.  the first stage went into effect yesterday, the second is coming in November.  Trump has also issued an ultimatum to our trading partners that the US will not deal with countries who deal with Iran.  The pressure is back on for Iran to abandon their nuclear ambitions, although they now have billions more to work with thanks to Obama’s attempt at a legacy.

Trump reinstates Iranian sanctions over Iran’s refusal to negotiate new nuke deal

Several states go to the polls today for the midterm primaries.  Media outlets like CNN have chosen a special election in Ohio to focus on as their indication of how the blue wave is doing.  The special election is for a state senate seat and will be re-decided in November, so frankly we don’t care.  I’m looking more closely at the Missouri primary.  This will be an indication of any strides made by the Libertarian party in influencing the future of conservative politics.  Libertarian-turned-Republican Austin Petersen chose to run within the Republican primary rather than as a third party candidate.  A long shot win by the champion of liberty could set the tone for future incursions into the GOP by Libertarian hopefuls.  The Freedom Caucus has shown it can be done, and many Libertarians have grown wary of their own party that nominated perpetually high Gary Johnson and old school RINO Bill Weld in the 2016 Presidential race.

Libertarian candidate hopes for upset in GOP primary

What’s next for straw banning Socialists?

One of the California Socialists who voted to ban drinking straws is now apologizing for his comments about what will come next.  Jason Dominguez apologized for putting together a “string of words” that seemed to indicate that they want to “regulate every aspect of people’s lives”.  What was the unfortunate and easily misunderstood string of words?  When explaining the ban on drinking straws, Dominguez said “Unfortunately, common sense is just not common. We have to regulate every aspect of people’s lives.”

I don’t know.  That seems really straight forward to me.  I mean, I’m not sure how he could have accidentally strung those words together.  Ken Oplinger of the Santa Barbara Chamber of Commerce defended Dominguez saying he probably didn’t mean what he said and was simply being “politically dumb”.  Dominguez excused his remarks, saying “A few weeks ago I made a string of words in a rhetorical fashion about regulation and they were not taken as rhetorical and that’s my fault so I want to apologize.”

I suppose it was difficult to understand that he didn’t really mean what he said about regulating people’s lives since he had just voted to ban drinking straws.

California politician apologizes for stating his agenda aloud

Need to Know 8/6/18

While CNN’s Jim Acosta continues to suffer PTSD from being yelled at at a Trump rally, Carlos Bayon was just arrested in New York for threatening the families of Republican Representatives Steve Scalise and Cathy McMorris Rogers.  Bayon was apparently responding to the fake news reports detailing Obama’s era of putting illegal immigrant kids in cages as Trump era policy.  Bayon said in his threatening phonecalls that he would “feed them lead” referring to Scalise and McMorris Rogers’ families.  “Ojo por ojo, diente por diente. [“An eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth.”] That is our law and we are the majority. Have a good day.”  This comes as CNN commentators continue to fear that Trump calling fake media reports fake news will lead to violence against the press.

The threats from the anti-immigration enforcement terrorist come just over a year after Steve Scalise was shot at a Congressional soft ball game practice.  And only weeks after the Left led by Maxine Waters and Ocasio-Cortez began calling for ICE to be abolished.

Leftist terrorist threatens families of Republican lawmakers over immigration 

David Hogg was at it again.  Hogg showed up at the NRA headquarters to protest, among other things, America.  One one side he had Therese Okuomo, who he calls one of his biggest inspirations.  Okuomo is known for getting protesters together and chanting about America being fascist and horrible.  On the other side, Hogg ironically had armed guards.

David Hogg inspiration calls America a fascist KKK nation.

Twitter is in hot water after suspending the account of Candace Owens, a conservative commentator with Turning Point USA.  Owens crime was taking one of New York Times editorial writer Sarah Jeong’s many violent, racist tweets and replacing the word “white” with “Jew” and “black”.  While Jeong was left alone by Twitter when her attacks were towards white people, Owens was blocked despite the rest of the verbiage of the tweet being the same.  Twitter has since unblocked her account after the uproar and apologized.

Twitter thinks Sarah Jeong’s tweets were racist.  But only when someone else says it.

Need to Know 8/4/18

CNN has stepped up it’s nasty rhetoric towards American voters.  Jim Acosta, who was verbally assaulted by elderly Trump supporters at a rally, said things about those voters he would never say about Antifa crowds throwing urine and rocks at police officers.  David Gergen stated that if something happens to someone in the media the blood will be on Trump’s hands.  That’s interesting, I suppose he’s sort of admitting that Steve Scalise’s blood is on CNN’s hands.  It took until August 17, 2018 before a mainstream media outlet would actually call out Antifa as a violent group, even though they constantly physically confronted media members at their mob rallies.

Jim Acosta still crying about being insulted at a Trump rally

Speaking of media “whipping up violence”, the NYT’s new editorial board member Sarah Jeong had quite the opinion about cops.  In addition to calling for killing all men, Jeong also said equality and fairness would require homeless people to be able to murder cops with no repercussions.  In fact, Jeong didn’t just fantasize about violence against cops, but actually called for it on a couple occasions too.  I wonder if Jim Acosta has ever met Sarah Jeong?  I wonder if that would change his thoughts about how it’s conservative media ginning up violence because they occasionally use the phrase “fake news”?

New York Times editorial board member calls for killing all men and violence against cops

Another liberal judge, DC District Court Judge John Bates, has ruled that Obama’s DACA executive order cannot be repealed.  While he granted the administration time to come up with alternatives, this sets a very dangerous precedent.  The idea that executive orders could be made the eternal law of the land through judicial fiat removes the constitutional form of government that the United States was built on.  People who are afraid of Trump being a tyrant or dictator should have more fear of the precedent set here.  What protects us from tyranny is laws being written in Congress.  If Congress doesn’t want to replace the DACA executive order with a real law, the courts cannot just step in and make the DACA executive order the irreversible law of the land.   Both sides of the aisle should be upset about this ruling.  Or at least anyone who opposes tyranny and supports our constitutional form of government.

Sanders v. Acosta

This is a great bit of video.  Jim Acosta, butt hurt from getting booed at a Trump rally, asked Sarah Sanders to make a statement that the press is not the enemy of the people.  Well, he asked, pestered, interrupted, and talked over her but eventually got the question out.  This was in response to Ivanka Trump saying the press is not the enemy of the people, and President Trump agreeing, tweeting that the media is not the enemy of the people.

Perhaps Acosta thinks all of the media is fake news and that’s where he’s getting confused?

Anyway, Sanders didn’t give Acosta what he wanted, but rather reminded him of the many times the media has personally attacked her and that she is the first press secretary to require secret service protection.  Acosta got up and stormed out when she was done.  Here’s the clip of her response:

Need to Know 8/3/18

Job growth disappointed in July….Ok, not really.  That’s just the headline.  Actually, the news is pretty much all good in the jobs department.  The economy added 157,000 jobs in July and the unemployment rate dropped back below 4%.  We continue to be at full employment.  The underemployment rate also dropped from 7.8% to 7.5% which is the lowest it’s been since before the 2008 financial crisis.  So what’s the bad news?  Economists were expecting 193,000 jobs, so that’s a 41,000 miss.  Keep reading.

June’s jobs report was revised upward from the 213,000 originally reported to 248,000.  That’s a 35,000 increase over what was originally reported.  May was also revised up to 268,000.  Originally they had reported 244,000 jobs in May.  That’s another 24,000.  So we missed July by 41,000, but revised May and June up 59,000.  I’m feelin’ alright.

“US Economy added fewer jobs than expected in July” but more than previously thought in May and June

Speaking of unemployment, the unemployment rate for adult women is at 3.7%, for blacks 6.6% and for Hispanics a record low 4.5%.  The black unemployment rate had been at 7.9% at the beginning of the Trump economy and as high as 16.3% during the Obama administration.  And yet Democrats want to go back to the way it was before Trump.  They want to raise taxes back to where they were and bring back all the regulation that hurt the economy.  I think black Democrat voters need to ask themselves if they want to go back.

Unemployment for minorities drops again

“…relics from the past, frumpy and outdated”.  This was the description of the terms “feminism” and “empowerment” by none other than young Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  You may not know this, but Ocasio-Cortez used to be an anti-tax capitalist and economics student.  This was of course before her publishing company went under in 2016, she tried to vote for the first time and found out she had been purged from the voter rolls for inactivity, she went full blown socialist, and joined up with Bernie Sanders.  Turns out in 2009 she had a right leaning blog too and described herself as an Adam Smith capitalist.  She also had the harsh words for feminism back then.  I’m sure she’d hate if anyone brought that up today, as she runs as the icon of the Democratic Socialist movement.

In 2009, Ocasio-Cortez trashed feminism, supported capitalism, and cooled on the fight for equality