Are you voting Progressive in 2024?

You are voting progressive in 2024. These are the issues you wish to impose on me.

socialism
intersectionality
The national religion of woke
gender surgery for minors
abortion into the 9th month
freedom of speech restricted
religious rights restricted
2nd amendment destroyed
larger and more powerful government at all levels
inflationary income tax increases
taxes on unrealized gains
lawfare--weaponization of the law
laws and regulations based on skin color and ethnicity
males stealing athletic scholarships from females
sexually explicit books required for young readers
drag queen parades, shows and story hours
no national borders
destruction of democratic process for election of officials
packing Supreme Court
dismantling the electoral college so only largest metro areas vote

Thomas Sowell on famous American Racists

 Thomas Sowell TV provides a lecture on famous American racists, most of whom were academics, economists, socialists, journalists, progressives and leftists, just like today. https://youtu.be/Cbq145xnaSs?si=hKO--kj3WU6fXKeT

Edward A. Ross, Roscoe Pound, Francis A. Walker, Richard T. Ely, Madison Grant, George Horace Lorimer, George Creel, H.L. Menken, H. G. Wells, and Jack London.

How Biden's American Families Plan hurts the low income

I disagree with the premise of the headline of this article.  I think Progressives know exactly what they are doing and how their programs keep the low income at the bottom.  It keeps them dependent on the government and thus keeps the progressives in office.  I wrote a blog about this years ago using a fictional character and how she couldn't get ahead because her benefits would be cut if she accepted a promotion or a better job.    https://www.econlib.org/library/columns/y2021/richardsonmckenzieprogressives.html

 Progressives' Desires to Help the Poor Will End Up Hurting Them Instead

"How do no-income and low-income Americans pay “taxes” when they are welfare beneficiaries? Very simply. Public assistance programs are “means tested,” structured to target households below certain income thresholds. The level of benefits a beneficiary receives under a given program falls at some rate as earned income rises, eventually reaching zero dollars in benefits.

Consider a household that receives benefits from only two welfare programs, with one tapering off at 20 cents for each added dollar earned and another tapering off at 40 cents for each added dollar earned. Those cuts create an implicit tax rate of 60 percent, which means the worker has only 40 cents in additional spendable income for each added dollar earned. This implicit tax rate can be expected to affect work incentives in much the same way that a federal income tax rate does.

To further illustrate, consider a real-life, low-income single mother of two children in Forsyth County, North Carolina earning $10 an hour in a full-time job, which means she has a monthly earned income of $1,600 (or $19,200 annually). Suppose the single mother receives monthly benefits from five welfare programs: $425 in food stamps, $1,471 in subsidized childcare, $370 in housing subsidies, $180 in WIC benefits, and $493 in an earned income tax credit (EITC). Her monthly welfare benefits will total $2,939 (or $35,271 a year).

Now, suppose the single mother takes a new job paying $15 an hour, a 50 percent increase. Her monthly earned income will rise by $800 to $2,400 (with her annual income rising to $28,800 a year, an annual earnings increase of $9,600). However, she will face decreases in four out of her five monthly benefit streams, with each benefit reduction based on the same $800-increase in earnings (a problem known among welfare researchers as the “cumulative stacked effect”). The single mother will lose $231 in food stamps, $80 in childcare benefits, $216 in housing benefits, and $166 in EITC. Her total decrease in monthly benefits will reach $694 (which means her annual benefit total will drop by $8,328).4 Her implicit tax rate on her added monthly earnings of $800 is 87 percent—more than two times the highest explicit marginal tax rate proposed for the rich. (The details of our calculations are in a table we have appended to the end of this article.)

In addition, the single mother will be required to pay an added $185 a month in federal and state income taxes on her added earned monthly income of $800, which is an explicit tax rate of 23 percent. Adding the 87 percent implicit tax rate to the 23 percent explicit tax rate leads to an overall tax rate of 110 percent. Her raise has left her $79 per month poorer in lost wages and benefits—surely a strong disincentive for her to take the higher paying job.5

But the total (implicit plus explicit) marginal tax rate on poor and low-income workers can be worse, and actually spikes to 1,400 percent at an earned income of around $43,000 (which is known as the “welfare cliff”).6 However, studies in different areas of the country show that the total marginal tax rate on poor and low-income workers within an annual earned-income range of $15,000 to $80,000 moves between 28 and 53 percent for full-time workers earning up to an annual earnings of $24,000 (or $12.50 an hour). The implicit tax rate for workers earning between $24,000 and $40,000 jumps to 90 percent.7"

Other sources:  https://taxfoundation.org/american-families-plan/

https://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2012/09/how-to-keep-woman-poorgovernment.html

China will judge all citizens on behavior by end of 2020

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-21/beijing-to-judge-every-resident-based-on-behavior-by-end-of-2020

Michael Smith writes:  “I don't know why people are so shocked at what China is doing. America already has a program to judge people - it's called progressivism and it is 100% owned and operated by the Democrat Party.

If you are not a progressive, you are judged by the central committee to be racist, sexist, bigoted, homophobic, xenophobic, transphobic and a selfish hoarder of resources. If you aren't with the progressive program, you will not allowed to speak at universities, you will be hounded out of restaurants and banned from social media. You will never teach at a major university where diversity of thought is forbidden. Your books will never show up on the New York Times' best seller list. Your belief in God and your practice of religion is ridiculed and often outlawed by the courts (bake the damn cake). You are assaulted daily by the media and the party organs headquartered in the major cities.

Due to your thoughtcrimes and wrongthink, you are literally and figuratively not fit to be a citizen.

We even have a card and an identifying number thanks to the Social Security Administration.

I think it is hilarious there are Democrats shocked, shocked, I tell you that China is doing this when they would start issuing formal citizen behavior report cards tomorrow if they thought they could get away with it.”

Maybe later

Message for progressive woke white women from Michael Smith

Michael Smith, an oppressive, heteronormative, patriarchal male who lives in Utah has a message for "woke" white women.

"Dear Super-Woke Supercilious Progressive White Yentas, Here's Your New Year's Resolution(s):

1. Stop Treating Racial Minorities As Your Pets. 

Stop inducing them to do stupid pet tricks so you can use them to advance your progressive agenda. Progressives do more to dehumanize racial minorities than any other group. You aren't a member of a racial pet rescue group.

2. Stop Your Oppressive Helicopter Progressive Parenting Of POC's (People of Color).

You aren't their mommies and daddies. Minorities can speak for themselves, they don't need your smug asses stepping in to speak for them. Adopting a black orphan baby from the Sudan may be trendy - but it doesn't imbue you with a right to tell every other black person how to live, nor does it insulate you from criticism when you do. Every time you "woke" morons speak for a minority, you are minimizing them - treating them like a child who isn't old enough, smart enough or mature enough to speak for themselves. Stop it with your condescending patriarchy/matriarchy. Just. Stop.

3. Don't Make Every Situation The Combined Equivalent of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, The Great Flood And Whole Foods Running Out Of Organic, Free Range, Non-GMO, Locally Sourced Kale.

Stop treating every comment or action as if it was the beginning of the zombie apocalypse. Stop seeing everything - and I mean everything - through the lens of race. News flash, not everything is about race. Sometimes people (of color OR pallor) are just assholes - but that doesn't make all people of color or pallor assholes. I don't expect praise for common decency any more than I expect a nuclear holocaust if I use the wrong pronoun. Get. Over. Your. Self.

Respectfully submitted (without the permission of my wife)."

White hoods and black hoodies--who are the real fascists?

"At the annual party rally held in Nuremberg in 1935, the Nazis announced new laws which institutionalized many of the racial theories prevalent in Nazi ideology. The laws excluded German Jews from Reich citizenship and prohibited them from marrying or having sexual relations with persons of "German or related blood."" (Wikipedia)

"Yes, there is a fascist threat in America—but that threat is from the Left and the Democratic Party. The Democratic left has an ideology virtually identical with fascism and routinely borrows tactics of intimidation and political terror from the Nazi Brownshirts." (Dinesh D'Souza)

D'Souza in his book The Big Lie says to implement the Nuremberg Laws used the laws implemented by Democrats in the U.S. to determine racial identity, except they modified the "one drop" rule--the Nazis thought that was excessive.

Today Progressives suppress their nasty, vile history, and have moved fascism to the right wing column and distance themselves. If they admit it, it is simply "America," and not the Democrat party of the 19th and 20th century who imposed Jim Crow.  Today, we have Antifa--which is basically fascism, and Democrats won't denounce them. No free speech for fascists, right? Word play and twisting. And increasingly, Trump's Jewish children are being attacked, as bankers were in the last administration, because "everyone" knows who controls the banks. The Jews. The pattern continues.

The leftists who got tired of crying "Russia, Russia, Russia" and now realize Obama hacked the election, have turned to KKK smears, white supremacist links, nationalism, etc. Do Democrats remember the KKK was their terrorist organization and how many years Republicans fought their lynching terrorism? Democrats also know, from electing Donald Trump with constant negative publicity, they can do the same with the KKK. Encourage its growth by giving them free advertising. They are the modern fascists--who else would require citizens to purchase a crappy product and then fine or jail them if they refused?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9YRmWFPZH0

Michael Smith comments on the role of the left in the assassinations attempt by Hodgkinson

A percentage of the radical left are hailing James T. Hodgkinson as a "patriot" for trying to kill Republicans in his fight for freedom.

Remember this: Hodgkinson wasn't killing for freedom, he was killing for more government. He was a supporter of the socialist Bernie Sanders for goodness sake.

It is not a fact that "both sides do it" - and it isn't so much the rage of one party or the other that is the issue. It is the fact that everything these days is politicized. When nothing is personal and everything is political, personal situations that should remain personal are subject to scrutiny by people who have no business scrutinizing anything. This is what happens when collectivism creeps in and the collective is given veto power over the rights, beliefs, thoughts and speech of the individual.

Democrats are progressives and progressives are collectivists. James T. Hodgkinson was not in Washington to fight for more independence, freedom and liberty, he was there to kill members of the party that is trying to prevent liberty from slipping away. Hodgkinson was there in anger because his party was not achieving MORE control over individuals and thereby reducing independence, freedom and liberty.

Progressivism is to blame, not any specific political party - because there are progressives in both. Progressivism kills. It always has, it always will.

When a progressive says "FREE"

In commenting on "free NY college" Michael Smith does some translating for us (on Facebook):

"Anytime a progressive announces a "free" anything, you can bet:

1. It will come with many, many strings attached...
2. It will only be "free" for a very small and select group
3. That very small and select group will be Democrat voters
4. The true cost of the "free" stuff will never be disclosed
5. The cost of the "free" program will be borne by taxpayers
6. Most of the taxpayers who pay for the "free" program will not be eligible for it
7. The media will never investigate it and will always tout its "freeness" in every report
8. The "free" program will be a failure but it will live on as money continues to be pumped into it
9. The "free" program will not accomplish any metric or milestone projected for it
10. The politicians and their media enablers will call it a success and it will be touted as a resume enhancer to support the politician's future political aspirations

And I would add #11. The progressive will also find a way to say that Jesus said it first, especially if it's around Easter.

It would be the same if we had a President Cruz

Detroit's Liberal Nightmare

"What happens when a city buys the liberal dream hook, line and sinker? Just take a look at the City of Detroit. The once-great city lost 237,493 residents over the last decade according to the 2010 Census, bringing it to 713,777 – a population plunge of 25%. That's its lowest population since 1910, and it marks the city's fall from a 1950s peak of two million, over 60%. And that’s just the people who can afford to leave."

Detroit's Liberal Nightmare | The Foundry: Conservative Policy News.

Other articles by Mike Brownfield

And look at what Hiroshima, which we destroyed in 1945, was able to accomplish by embracing the free markets in about the same period of time, compared to Detroit which took the "easy" progressive road. And now Obama and the Democrats want that for the whole nation. Looks like they will get it too, with the help of the union thugs, socialists and Muslims mixing it up in Madison and Columbus.

Glenn Reynolds law: "The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them." via Belmont Club

Or maybe it was Union greed?

RealClearMarkets - Who, or What, Killed Detroit? Union Greed

Why the Tea Party can't trust the Republican Party

President Johnson, a Democrat, declared a war on poverty, and poverty won (NYT declares War on Poverty lost, 1999). I remember reading the book by Michael Harrington in the 1960s that supposedly started that war. However, President Nixon, a Republican, was even more liberal than Johnson. He tripled anti-poverty spending, and promoted "The New Federalism" giving us the huge environmental regulatory agencies which strangle growth to this day. How does that help the poor? Under Nixon, Medicare spending rose by 246% and he took us off the gold standard. The two Bushes were Republicans but they were not conservatives. Clinton's increase in the Federal budget was 12%. George W. Bush's was 42%.

Also, don't trust racialist labels. Nixon wasn't a racist (although he didn't like gays), but Johnson was. Before he became President, Johnson had voted against virtually every bill that wouldn't have helped blacks. Both hurt the African American family by encouraging men to leave the home through various "poverty" programs like AFDC. Despite his spending habits, George W. Bush with his stance on abortion and stem cell research, at least was morally and ethically for the black community which with only about 14% of the population is having 42% of the abortions, including the late term horror that we've recently witnessed in Philadelphia.

Since 1961, with the exception of Ronald Reagan, we've only had Progressive Presidents--JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Bush I and II--men who grew the government and broke their promises. If the Tea Party-supported new members of Congress don't want to get Beltway Fever and eat pork, they need to distrust the Republicans, and ignore the Democrats, toss out the word "bipartisanship" and "civility" and get down to the business of America, which is business.

The New Left and today's liberal progressives

This article, about why the voters are so deeply dissatisfied with Obama and his policies, plays around with terms. He left out Communists and Socialists when describing the splits in the Democratic party. There's nothing "new" about the New Left, and there's nothing progressive about a liberal. Look at any American city attempting to enact their policies and you see more poverty, more crime and more hopelessness than ever before.

Henry Olsen at AEI.

What makes the leftists unhappy about Obama

Although they don't seem to mind his spending trillions for more socialism, it's his spending it and getting the same ol' same ol' that ties their shorts in a knot.

"Somehow the president has managed to turn a base of new and progressive voters he himself energized like no one else could in 2008 into the likely stay-at-home voters of 2010, souring an entire generation of young people to the political process. It isn't hard for them to see that the winners seem to be the same no matter who the voters select (Wall Street, big oil, big Pharma, the insurance industry). In fact, the president's leadership style, combined with the Democratic Congress's penchant for making its sausage in public and producing new and usually more tasteless recipes every day, has had a very high toll far from the left: smack in the center of the political spectrum."

I had that spotted in 2007. Even with strings to a puppet master, it's hard to get an empty suit to dance. Although unlike Drew Westen at Huff'npoof, I think he's still way left of center. I still think he's a marxist; it's just that he had a few ethical, smart and patriotic Democrats in his own party that he hasn't knocked over yet or bribed into silece. And Drew--Joe Wilson still did and said the right thing, "You lie." Only now you libs know it too.

Why is a political organization in the public school?

Upper Arlington Progressive Action began as a John Kerry fund raising organization in 2004 and a way to thumb a nose at UA conservatives, then flexing its muscles moved on to Barack Obama's enthronment in 2008. Now it is "sponsoring" Earth Day at Wickcliffe School in Upper Arlington, which is supported by my real estate taxes, state taxes, and federal taxes. I can't think of any similar conservative organization (by name), political or religious, but I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be allowed in one of our public schools (or the library--remember that group that wanted to pray!) to promote a conservative agenda of free markets, capitalism, Constitutional interpretation, party candidates, and the economic fight against environmental regulation and cap 'n trade which promises to hurt children most. Nor would they be allowed, if it was part of their mission statement, to tell the children the story from Genesis about how God created the earth and that he loves them. So why does UAPA get to do this?

"Please join the Wickliffe Progressive School community, UAPA and Sustainable UA for an Earth Day Event on Saturday, April 25, 2009, at Wickliffe School, 2405 Wickliffe Road. These groups will be working together to get volunteers, Ohio-native plants and monetary donations for a community beautification event in celebration of Earth Day."

Also at the UAPA website is support for the Library levy, something we just went to the bank for 2 years ago, Jennifer Brunner, Democrat, and a tirade against Rush Limbaugh. He's the current go-to-guy-for-hate since Bush left to write his memoirs. Also he's on 610 and they are promoting a different AM station on their web site.

My thoughts exactly

Yesterday I was browsing a number of college-campus, liberal websites. What handsome, adorable young people. And so bright, talented, and apparently, well-heeled. Far more so than my generation. Just like that houseful of students that invaded Columbus to steal our election during voter golden week. Much more fashionably dressed and better teeth than even the college students I used to hire in the 80s. Their parents have worked hard for them--private schools, braces and dermatologists--the best our capitalist system could buy. They are truly the spiritual children of the 1960s radicals, like Diana Oughton of Illinois whose headless body with both hands missing was found in the rubble of that Greenwich Village townhouse in March 1970 with Terry Robbins' torso, the guy from Kent State. They had enough explosives to blow up the city block, but only killed three of their own Weather People, a group founded by Bill Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn. The unrepentant Ayers who say they didn't do enough to bring down the USA so they went into education.

Browsing the CampusProgressive.org site I noticed a review of the latest book about President Nixon, a man I never liked and never voted for, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. However, he did significantly change our relationship with Communist China and the USSR, so I'm not sure why he isn't an icon of the left. Oh well, who can fathom them? In the review I noticed this conclusion--arrived at from a different angle than my own--but everything the left wanted in the 60s they got. The right can only plug the dike from time to time but the steady stream of their views washes over us constantly.

While his electoral strategy remains popular, the success of Nixon’s ideology remains an open question. The burning issues of the 1960’s—civil rights, women’s rights, and the political agency of young people—have resulted perhaps not in complete triumph for the left, but the left’s vision has prevailed.

The whole anti-war thing, then as now, was just an excuse to get drunk, do drugs and burn a few flags before getting down to business. The problem we face in the 21st century is not the specter of a growing right wing (i.e. popularity of talk radio of Hugh Hewitt and Rush Limbaugh, according to these easily offended youngsters), but that today's students have to stretch and bend the edges and the constitution that much more than their baby boomer parents and college faculty did at the same age. They all want to out-do Dad and Mom in being big, bad liberals.

In all Fairness

Nancy Pelosi plans to strip you of your right to hear an alternate view to the Obamedia, and the DBS (Democrat Broadcast System). I don’t think she plans this for the left wing press, however. Today I picked up a copy of The Free Press, published by the Columbus Insitute for Contemporary Journalism, which according to the verso of the cover is “a 501(c)3 nonprofit tax-exempt organization, whose mission is to conduct, sponsor, encourage and support journalistic activity, including research, investigation, writing, publication and distribution of materials that addres contemporary social issues.” That’s a lie, or course, it’s beyond muckraking, in fact, gives that fine 19th century tradition a bad name. Now why is there no call for these rags to be balanced? Is it because no one reads anymore? I picked it up at my local library, which feels a strong need to stock free-circs but not Christian or conservative magazines and books.

I'm a wife, mother, daughter, sister, retiree, Christian, conservative, friend, volunteer, painter, blogger, Lutheran, and an educated female, and there's not one thing in this publication for me! It's pure trash. But I think they should be allowed to publish their demands for impeaching Bush, digging up Columbus to find the original tracks for mass transit that were buried in a conspiracy, lies about an oil shortage, homage to Algore, quotes from Greenpeace, and a whole 2 pages of jokes by Cynthia McKinney, and Obama's inability to escape his race (has anyone but him mentioned it?). Oops. I just saw something I liked. An advertisement about voting with a paper ballot. That would be good.

Freepers, creepers,
Where’d you get those bleepers?
Whoppers, bloopers,
Where’d you get those lies?

Gosh, all mighty
Why y’all up tighty?
Commies, Marxists
Speaking lies to power.

4070

Wiki-wacky wonks and wobblies

Conservatives should be making a stronger presence in using wikis on the internet. Not all are Wikipedia. All sorts are cropping up in every field, but the liberals are running away with this genre. There is a new Encyclopedia of the Earth that is well financed, supported by liberal think tanks and non-profits, and because it is free, you just know that's where the school children will be going. There is a complete book included chapter by chapter, "Climate Change and Foreign Policy" by the International Institute for Sustainable Development, a Canadian (i.e. global) non-profit. Its agenda: promote the needs of the poor through limits set by the state on technology and social organization or some similar socialist/progressive/Marxist chatter.

I'm sure the contributors to the enclyclopedia will have a long line of credentials behind their names, drawing on our finest academic departments from our most liberal universities. Someone with more sleuthing experience than I, like American Daughter or Amy, needs to take a look at this.

I'm 100% in favor of taking care of God's creation--after all, it's the marching orders for Christians from the Bible, but not when animals, plants and political parties come before human beings in a pantheistic based faith promoted by the left.

PS: You won't want to miss the article on Totems (animal worship in the form of carved statues) and how it can be the basis for environmental laws. It's in the same section as fundamental legal rights for animals.

Progressive and radical librarians

aren't very different from any progressive and radical fill-in-the-blank folk. They are political first, second and third, and librarianship, if it exists in their thought process, ranks somewhere below. I don't know how many of the PARL are out there on the fringes of the profession, but their noise level is high because so many in the profession are liberals and Democrats, sort of the first cousins of the Progressives. However, like those food/drug reform groups (Center for the something of the something) or church committees (Council of the whatever for the thingamajig) they make a lot of noise and put out tons of announcements and pack their party faithful on the faculties of our tax supported institutions.

They are joining us with the United States Social Forum. They are against "value-neutral" libraries, whatever that is, because they sure want to see their values well represented on the shelves, like the 16 copies of a popular anti-Bush title, or 25+ titles of everything Michael Moore ever produced on film or in print at my public library, or fighting community groups trying to keep pornography out of the hands of children using libraries.

PARL never asks what can be done for the working librarians, the profession or the library user, only how can they mold the library culture into meeting their social reform goals. Annoyed Librarian has renamed them the Regressive Librarians, and it does beg reflection on just what the word "PROGRESSIVE" means when used by any American political group. Progressive does not mean better benefits or unionization of retail employees of very large companies, because they really want the company destroyed; progressive doesn't mean a safer and healthier environment if that means the US economy could survive; nor raising the income of the bottom quintile but bringing everyone else down to their level, and if that isn't successful, import more poor people (illegal immigration); a progressive value is not saving wild animals or habitat, but valuing animals above humans. It's not about cooperation among religious groups, but destroying any faiths and putting Marxist principles first. Their plans, methods and goals have brought misery in every country that tried them, but they are so progressive they are desperate for it to work here in the U.S. Now, what's so progressive about these folks' tired, failed ideas? Nothing that I can see?