7/21/18 Comics

head on backwards

Maybe you’ve run into this argument.  Generally, I think Democrats don’t want a border wall and don’t want illegal aliens charged with a crime because they support open borders.  But if you challenge them on it, they get offended.  Ever try pointing out that Hillary Clinton supported a border “fence”? Like when she voted for the Secure Fence Act of 2006?  Oh look, here’s video of her bragging about voting for it:

 

So let’s talk about the cost.  $21.6 billion.  That’s no small amount.  That’s almost twice as much as it costs to build an aircraft carrier.  So some, perhaps Libertarians and Conservatives, have a reason to think a border wall, fence, barrier, or whatever you want to call it, would cost too much.  But not Democrats.

In 2016, Obamacare cost taxpayers $110 billion.

But let’s ignore Obama’s previous spending. Let’s ignore his average deficits of $900 billion a year.  Let’s talk about the future.  Democrats, such as Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris and nearly every other potential future Democrat Presidential candidate supports guaranteed jobs or universal basic income.  The only one who doesn’t is Joe Biden, who at his age might be struggling reading internal party polls.

A government guaranteed jobs program would ONLY cost $543 billion.

So Democrats really have no credibility when it comes to the argument that a wall costs too much.  Here’s an idea for Democrats to think about.  Guaranteed employment means people need something to work on.  Why not have them build a wall?

Need to know 7/20/18

Fact checking the factcheckers: Politifact had an article out yesterday giving Kamala Harris a “True” rating for her statement that “nearly 2,600 children who are separated from their parents” on June 17th.  Harris also said “these children are in prison”, a completely false statement that wasn’t fact checked by Politifact.  In fact, the very reason children are separated from their parents at the border is the Flores decision which says you can’t put kids in jail.  Obama ran afoul of this ruling and we ended up with the now infamous photos of kids in cages from the Obama era.

Back to Politifact.  The first problem with with their analysis is that this number is a moving target.  The number Harris is using is from July 13th testimony, but since family reunification has been ordered by Trump and the courts, that process continues.  That number was very likely inaccurate when she said it and far less accurate now.

But the bigger problem is that many of the children held by the state didn’t come with their parents or won’t be reunified with their parents because their parents are criminals.  According to Politifact’s own article, nearly 50% of children under 5 were not reunified because they were brought here by traffickers or because their parents were violent criminals.  If you extrapolate that out over Kamala Harris’s figure, we are looking at about 1,250 children who hadn’t been reunified days before she made her statement.  We rate Politifact’s analysis to be 75% biased.

Politifact gives True rating to inaccurate statement about family separation

Rumor has it: Tony Podesta is being offered immunity to testify against Paul Manafort.  If you remember, Manafort is in trouble for laundering Russian money to two US lobbying groups.  One of them was run by Democrat and Clinton ally Tony Podesta.  Podesta and Manafort worked together to lobby for the Ukraine in the United States.  Isn’t it interesting that Robert Mueller and his team of Clinton supporting lawyers would offer immunity to Tony Podesta in order to bring down Paul Manafort for the same crime?

Tony Podesta offered immunity to testify against Paul Manafort

Gallup has a new poll out.  Apparently no one cares about Russia.  The biggest issues on the minds of Americans are the economy, dissatisfaction with government, illegal immigration, and race relations.  Russia garnered less than 1% as a concern in the poll.  Seems like Schumer should consider this since the DNC seems to be running on obstruction, economy crushing tax hikes, open borders, racial division, and Russia.

Gallup poll shows no one cares about Russia

Need to know 7/19/18

Vast majority of Democrats don’t know what their stance on ICE is.  Like Ocasio-Cortez trying to find a position on Israel, Democrats are wandering adrift on the issue of border security.  Republicans took advantage of their wishy washy position Wednesday with a resolution expressing support for ICE.  Of the 183 Democrats in the House, 133 voted “present” rather than take a side.  18 voted yes on the resolution and 34 voted no.  Because 73% of Democrats couldn’t take a side on the issue, the resolution easily passed.  One thing is for sure, there is no unity on the left when it comes to border security, and for most of them the activism is all talk.

Most Democrats refuse to take a stance on ICE

San Francisco takes the next step by registering illegal aliens and non-citizens to vote in local school board elections.  Federal law still prevents them from voting in national elections.  Just like Federal law prevents people from growing and using pot…

Non-citizens register to vote in San Francisco school board elections

Democrats have introduced a bill to make it easier to claim bankruptcy for student loans.  The reason unsubsidized student loan interest rates are around 8% rather than 16% like credit card debt is because it’s hard to claim bankruptcy on student debt.  Student loans have no collateral.  A 16% rate would make a $100,000 student loan cost about $500,000 after the interest is paid over a 30 year term.  Is that the trade off the 89% of students who pay their loans on time want?

What to know about possible bankruptcy changes for student debt

Did Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez call for violent opposition and illegal activities?  In her interview with Now!, Ocasio-Cortez said that activists needed to occupy ICE offices and airports.  While occupying ICE offices violates a few laws, occupying airports would get her mixed up with the TSA and DHS as well.  Probably not a good idea.  I’m pretty sure her followers could face jail time for attempting to illegally enter and occupy any area of an airport past security.  But by all means, I hope she gives it a shot.

Democrat candidate Ocasio-Cortez calls on supporters to violate the law

Need to Know 7/18/18

Democrats are claiming that Trump told Russia to hack the DNC.  What they are actually referring to was a campaign speech Trump gave after Hillary Clinton deleted 30,000 emails under subpoena from her illegal private server.  The FBI couldn’t find those incriminating emails, so Trump joked that he hoped the Russians could find them.  And that is the closest thing we have to Russian Collusion.

Trump asked Russia to find Clinton’s emails

David Love, writing for CNN, is suggesting that #walkaway is actually a ploy by the Russians to make people think that there is an exodus from the Democrat party by those disillusioned with the extreme turn the party has taken toward Socialism.  So when your friends use #walkaway, just know that means they are actually a Russian bot.

Russian bots are using #walkaway to try to wound Dems in the midterm

Trump is being accused of going soft on the Russians by not starting a war with Putin over the hackers.  But actually, it was the Obama administration who decided to back burner efforts to stop Russian hackers.  After US intel agencies had developed a plan to fight back against Russian hacker attacks, Susan Rice issued a stand down order.

Obama cyber chief confirms ‘stand down’ order against Russian cyberattacks in summer 2016

Ocasio-Cortez has screwed up on Israel again.  Despite holding a degree in international relations, the young Socialist candidate for New York’s 14th district has now bumbled through three different interviews on questions about Israel.  But take heart, she is going to be “speaking to activists” so they can finally tell her what to think about Israel.  I feel better already.

Ocasio-Cortez backpedals on two-state solution comments

No MAGA Allowed
Never mind making a cake. You can refuse to serve someone simply because you don’t like their politics according to a judge in New York. There are two differences between this and the cake ruling just handed down by the Supreme Court.  The first is that wearing a MAGA hat doesn’t make you constitutionally protected.  Yeah, I know, free speech.  That’s not what they argued.  They said Make America Great Again was a religious expression.  I didn’t really buy that either.
The other difference is that the bar wasn’t asked to serve him a specialty drink celebrating his politics.  In other words, it’s not like he walked in and asked the bar to make him a MAGA Mai Tai*.  He was refused general services based on his politics.
Actually, this is a victory for the freedom of business owners. The judge’s interpretation is that since he wasn’t kicked out specifically for his religious views (or any other civil rights protected status), it was A-OK. So you could refuse to serve someone for being a liberal, for wearing saggy pants, or many other reasons.  You could kick out anyone who wears a suit and tie on Sunday morning and say it was how they dressed, not their religion.
In Chicago, if you happen to be one of the handful of conservatives left, you could even refuse to serve blacks just with the basic assumption that they are all voting Democrat. The DNC assumes that, it’d be reasonable for you to as well. Of course, everyone has conveniently forgotten that back in the day it WAS the Democrats who refused to serve blacks.
Freedom not to serve people is also a victory for consumers. After all, if someone hates you because of how you look, what you wear, or who you vote for, why would you want to give them money? If I’m about to walk into an establishment and buy their stuff, I actually wouldn’t mind if they met me with a sign that says “don’t pay me, I hate you”. Or as Trump haters put it, “I love everyone except for you”. Sounds more warm and fuzzy when they put it that way.
*MAGA Mai Tai – Regular Mai Tai served in a whiskey glass so you get the fruity goodness but still look macho drinking it. No umbrellas.

Hillary Clinton or Roseanne Barr?
Let’s talk reality for a minute. Hillary Clinton ran against Trump in 2016.  Roseanne Barr has been a vocal supporter of Trump.  Roseanne’s ABC show was cancelled because of her racist insult directed at former Obama staffer Valerie Jarrett.  So Clinton is the leftist and Barr is the crazy right winger, right?  In 2012, one of these two individuals took the  Political Courage Test and here’s her results. Go ahead, try to guess. Hillary Clinton or Roseanne Barr:
– Pro-choice
– Supports higher corporate, capital gains, and income taxes on upper earners
– Supports higher government spending on education, welfare, and the environment, and cuts in defense
– Against the death penalty
– Supports federal spending to grow the economy
– Believes humans contribute to global warming and supports federal environmental regulations
– Supports bringing home ALL of our troops and using the savings to pay for Universal Single-Payer healthcare
– Supports gun control
– Does not want Obamacare repealed
– Supports same-sex marriages
– Opposes private accounts for social security
– Supports marijuana legalization
 
Here’s the kicker, ready?
– Does not support requiring illegal immigrants to return to their country of origin
– Supports amnesty for illegal immigrant minors
– Supports sanctuary cities
 
These are the positions Roseanne Barr took in the 2012 survey when she ran for President as the Peace and Freedom party nominee. Oh, I’m sorry, did you think she was a conservative? Did you think her vocal Trump support meant she was a right-winger? Unless she has changed 100% in four years, Roseanne Barr is left of Hillary Clinton. She’s out in the loony left with Bernie Sanders.  It makes me wonder what ABC, and Roseanne had in mind when they brought her show back spotlighting her as a Trump supporter.  
Maybe she’s a better actor than we all thought.

Trump Campaign Mole Had One Question

The cat is out of the bag.  The FBI did actually have a mole working with the Trump campaign.  Cambridge professor Stefan Halper was hired by the FBI and paid nearly half a million dollars by the DoD’s secretive Office of Net Assessment to gain the confidence of Trump campaign officials and inform on them to the FBI.  But the questions Halper asked had nothing to do with Russian collusion.  They wanted to know one thing: did the Trump campaign have Hillary’s emails.

According to reports, Halper asked George Papadopoulos and Carter Page if the Trump campaign had gotten Hillary Clinton’s emails from the Russians.  He wasn’t concerned about collusion, but rather if the Trump campaign had received those emails and was holding on to them for the opportune moment.  If the Trump campaign had those emails, it could spell doom for Clinton, the Obama administration, and the FBI.

Obama’s FBI had exonerated Hillary Clinton before they even began their investigation.  As part of the immunity deal with Clinton’s attorneys, they allowed for the destruction of evidence that might have established a timeline of when and how her emails were deleted.  Obama himself and other Obama administration officials like Loretta Lynch had emailed Hillary under pseudonyms.  The discovery of Hillary’s emails could be detrimental to the entire power base of the Democrat party.  Obama had just as much reason as Hillary to find out if Trump had them.  So that was Halper’s mission.

This wouldn’t be the first election espionage mission for Halper.  In 1980, Halper worked as a mole in the Carter administration, leaking foreign policy intel to the Reagan campaign under George H.W. Bush’s direction.  He was part of a group in the CIA who helped Reagan anticipate Carter’s foreign policy positions during an election year.  The scandal came to light a couple years later, but was quickly forgotten.  Halper also had connections with MI-6, the British spy agency that Christopher Steele used to work for.

The Bush’s have been against Trump from the start.  Stefan Halper was their former spy.  Even working for the Obama’s to help save Hillary, he was the perfect man for the job.

For those keeping score at home, this is another instance where Trump was proven right.  He said the FBI was tapping his phone.  After much ridicule, the FBI admitted that they were surveilling the phone lines at Trump tower.  Trump said the FBI used the phony Steele dossier to start the Russian investigation. The House investigation determined that in fact the dossier, which was paid for by the Clinton campaign, had been used to secure FISA warrants to spy on Trump.  Trump as recently as last week suggested there was an FBI informant working his campaign officials.  After being ridiculed again by the media and relentlessly fact-checked, the truth has come out and he was right again.

But the scariest thing is that Halper wasn’t investigating Trump or Russia, as former CIA director Brennan suggested.  Halper wasn’t there to find out about illegal Russian influence.  He was there to let the Obama administration and Hillary campaign know if there was going to be an October surprise.  His mission was to find out if Trump had Hillary’s emails.

 

Confirmed: The Fix Was In

The Washington Post is reporting this morning that James Comey knew the Justice Department was protecting Hillary Clinton, drafted a letter exonerating her in early May, then gave immunity to her aides who subsequentially confessed to lying and destroying evidence.

A month later, after Comey wrote the exoneration letter, Loretta Lynch met with Bill Clinton privately where they “talked about wedding plans”. They didn’t. The fix was in. All they needed for the show was to have Hillary be interviewed by the FBI. Bill needed assurances that the Justice Department still had her back and that Comey had already chosen to exonerate her.

Five days later, Comey interviews Hillary Clinton, with her aides who had been granted immunity allowed in the room to serve as her lawyers.  Two days later, Comey goes public with his exoneration letter as though he had just come to that decision.

September 28, Comey tells Congress that he did not make his decision until after interviewing Hillary Clinton.  He states emphatically that he did not make the decision until after interviewing Hillary Clinton.

Here is the Washington Post timeline:

Early March – Comey receives information from Russian sources that the Justice Department is working to ensure Hillary Clinton won’t be prosecuted.  Loretta Lynch had also spoken to Comey and asked him to call the “investigation” a “matter” instead so as not to make it sound so bad.

(Sidebar: why would Russia know anything about the Justice Department’s relationship to Hillary Clinton?  Perhaps because of how the Uranium One deal was covered up?)

May 2 – Comey drafts the exoneration letter

May 3 – Paul Combetta, Clinton computer specialist, admits to lying to the the FBI about knowing the emails should have been preserved and deleting them anyway.  Combetta is given immunity because Comey, apparently, wanted to move up the line to get someone more important.  AFTER he had already written the exoneration letter.

May 5 – The media reports that there is little evidence Clinton committed a crime

May 16 – Comey sends the draft of his exoneration around to other members in the FBI.  This is before Cheryl Mills is interviewed.  Part of the deal to interview Cheryl Mills becomes immunity and the destruction of her laptop, which likely contained evidence.

June 27 – Loretta Lynch and Bill Clinton meet privately on his jet.

July 2 – Hillary Clinton is interviewed by the FBI for 3 1/2 hours with her aides in the room serving as her lawyers.  The aides have immunity already.  They can confer and make sure they get their stories straight.

July 5 – Comey exonerates Hillary Clinton.

Anyone with any sense and understanding can clearly see the fix was in.  There was no way the Obama Justice Department was going to prosecute Hillary Clinton.  And Comey worked with the administration to make sure it never happened.  The investigation should be reopened, and prosecution of Comey, Lynch, the Clintons, Mills, Combetta, Abedeen, and Obama should be on the table for obstruction of justice and perjury.

Finland Needs Babies

Socialism is all fun and games until you run out of other people’s resources. In Venezuela things were going great so long as the state could fund itself by selling oil. Great of course being a relative term. If you’re a relative of someone in the government, then things are great.

In Finland, they are running short of a different commodity: babies. Finland’s social system is similar to US social security in that it is dependent on having a high taxed worker to non-working consumer ratio. In the US, the conundrum we have run into is that Social Security was stable when there were at least three workers for every retiree. By 2030 we expect to see two workers per retiree and Social Security will run out of money.

Finland is facing the same dilemma.  They are running out of workers to fund the free-loaders.  They are not making enough new workers to keep the socialist ponzi scheme going. This is driving them to adopt new policies such as increased maternity leave. They are even rethinking their progressive stances on family values. Of course, when the purpose of having more babies is to support the welfare state, this strategy can backfire. Additional maternity leave means more labor is needed to fill those gaps.

While some have suggested that nationalism is the barrier to admitting more immigrants, I have a feeling the true barrier is the fear of adding more dependents to a broken system. After all, in a state built on social safety nets and transfer of wealth who wants to volunteer to go there and work to pay for it all?

Margaret Thatcher said that the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.  In Finland, they have simply run out of other people.