Sunday, March 31, 2019

The Democrat platform for 2020

The 2020 campaign and platform for the Democrats, based on recent behavior of those in Congress and those who have declared:

1. Open borders.
2. Pack the polls with ex-felons, 16 year olds, and illegals.
3. Destroy the electoral college so Democrats can legally win all future presidential elections with 4 states they packed with #1 and #2.
4. Implement the Green New Deal so the public sector control and influence is greater than the private sector--aka socialism.
5. Infanticide and late term abortion for any reason.
6. Abortion's progressive outcome, euthanasia for the inconvenient, ill, disabled and elderly.
7. Ratchet up the hate, fear and distrust with more identity politics and intersectionalism.
8. Reparations for slavery.
9. Destruction of first and second amendments, with more regulations, more laws, especially on religion, speech, and assembly on college campuses which then infects the whole society as academe has been doing for 50 years.
10. Find more charges to bring against the President and his family.

During the campaign, because it pleases the gullible and fattens the purse, the emphasis will be #1 (worded in compassionate and Biblical terms), #7 and #10. The others are really distasteful for most Americans and will need to be more incremental with more changes in the language with talk of core values, ethics, etc., the best double speak they can find.

Friday, March 29, 2019

Why have Democrats abandoned Israel?

"[Hypocrisy and arrogance] can be found throughout the relationship between Democratic leadership and Israel/Jews since the 2018 election. Since its inception in 1948, America, and especially the Democratic party has been allied with Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East. But with the new media popularity of Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, and Omar, the leadership of the Democratic party has surrendered their values in favor of making these three freshmen representatives happy. Although all three have clearly and repeatedly demonstrated anti-Semitic behavior, especially Omar, the Democratic leadership has turned over the persona of the party to them in hopes of acquiring a younger base of voters.

These three women have defined Israel as “evil” and an “apartheid regime”, compared Gaza terrorists to civil rights activists, and idolized Louis Farrakhan, one of the most vocal and horrific anti-Semites of the last forty years. And yet, instead of apologizing for their behavior and making it clear that their words and actions are not representative of the traditional values of the Democratic party, the leadership has done the exact opposite. Instead of making amends, they have embraced these freshmen, even putting the most vocally anti-Semitic Omar on the House Committee on Foreign Relations. Speaker Pelosi poses proudly with them on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine, and Senator Schumer pulled back support of an anti-BDS bill in January that would have supported Israel as a result of their pressure. When a bill was proposed to condemn anti-Semitism and the hatred espoused by especially Omar, the bill was watered down to include all hatred without taking Omar to task personally." (Rabbi Michael Barclay of Temple Ner Simcha in Westlake Village, Calif) https://us1.campaign-archive.com/?u=bf141dbbd818f4f933816b13a=&idbd6e379

What is the role of non-profits?

The Special Olympics is in the news right now.  Betsy DeVos suggested budget cuts, and since it isn’t a government agency, she recommended cutting the $15 million it gets from the federal government.  I didn’t know they got any—but I should have.  It’s a worthy organization, doing a lot of good, and we contribute. For the last 50 years, the federal government has been “bullying” the non-profits, while also providing a large part of their funding.

"Until recently, our understanding of the development of the welfare state in advanced industrial coun­tries assumed that the hallmark of a progressive welfare state was a large public sector that regulated the private sector to a small residual role. In this view, the United States with its smaller public sector and larger private nonprofit sector com­pared unfavorably. The government contracting with nonprofit agen­cies calls the prevailing view into question. In the recent period, government has used nonprofit agencies to expand the boundaries of the welfare state in the United States in a host of service categories - from child abuse to domestic violence to homelessness. The result is a welfare state that is more expansive than would be the case if policy makers relied solely on the public sector." Political Science Quarterly, vol 104, no.4 1989-90.

This article is 30 years old, but the points still hold true--except for that part that non-profits don't have the bloated salaries of government workers. It wouldn't surprise me if the non-profit heads aren't making more than comparable level of government employees.

There is a revolving door in DC for one party's pooh-bahs to move to a non-profit when out of power, then be called back when they regain power. This really ballooned under GHW Bush--"Thousand points of Light."

Ukraine is getting as much press as Russia these days

“While the 2016 presidential race was raging in America, Ukrainian prosecutors ran into some unexpectedly strong headwinds as they pursued an investigation into the activities of a nonprofit in their homeland known as the Anti-Corruption Action Centre (AntAC). The focus on AntAC was part of a larger probe by Ukraine's Prosecutor General's Office into whether 4.4 million in U.S. funds to fight corruption inside the former Soviet republic had been improperly diverted. The prosecutors soon would learn the resistance they faced was blowing directly from the U.S. Embassy in Kiev, where the Obama administration took the rare step of trying to press the Ukrainian government to back off its investigation of both the U.S. aid and the group...It turns out the group that Ukrainian law enforcement was probing was co-funded by the Obama administration and liberal mega-donor George Soros. And it was collaborating with the FBI agents investigating then-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort’s business activities with pro-Russian figures in Ukraine. ”

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/435906-us-embassy-pressed-ukraine-to-drop-probe-of-george-soros-group-during-2016

Thursday, March 28, 2019

The War on Black Marriage

"Black demographics" (web site) is very pro-Obama, but has some good information. "In 2012 The U.S Census Bureau released a report that studied the history of marriage in the United States. They discovered some startling statistics when calculating marriage by race. They found that African Americans age 35 and older were more likely to be married than White Americans from 1890 until sometime around the 1960s. Not only did they swap places during the 60s but in 1980 the number of NEVER married African Americans began a staggering climb from about 10% to more than 25% by 2010 while the percentage for White women remained under 10% and just over 10% for White men."

So, what happened in the early 1960s? It seems the instability in the black family doesn't trace to slavery days, but to the so-called "War on Poverty" when Uncle Sam became a step-father to thousands. Now if you look the comparative wealth of whites, blacks, Hispanics and Asians, you see that Asian Americans have the greatest household wealth, highest rate of education, and the lowest child poverty. And--the highest marriage rates. Who knew? Apparently we did--until the government stepped in to help.

I have not been able to locate the Census report of 2012 cited in the article. https://blackdemographics.com/households/marriage-in-black-america/  But I’ve heard Jason Riley site the same statistics in False Black Power. https://www.hoover.org/research/jason-riley-false-black-power

Juss-tice

I was listening to a Chicago talk show host in the car during the church mail run (didn't catch his name), and he'd done some research on hate crime hoaxes. It turns out, he said, it's not that unusual to be let off with a slap on the wrist. Don't know the source of his information.
But because our culture is fascinated by victimhood we reward the hoaxers. Because intersectionality outranks all the rest, the Chicago guy thinks the light sentences encourage this. (Intersectionality means a lesbian Hispanic with one leg who is also low income and working as a maid ranks higher in victimhood than an Appalachian straight woman who works in a coal mine and is abused.)

Even with a video of the 2 Nigerian guys buying red hats and ropes and their check from Jussie Smollett, the media want us to just say, "we'll never know" what happened.  This may be the first time I've ever agreed with Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago who says it's a complete whitewash. Kamala Harris "is confused," and although when the hoax first came out she said it was "a modern day lynching," now she says we don't have the evidence.

Jon Miller, talk show host, says its privilege.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgLNz4Y7jF4 

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

The middle class isn't going to disappear

"America’s middle class is disappearing but it’s because they are moving into higher income groups not moving into lower income groups. Between 1969 and 2017, the share of US households making $100,000 or more (in constant 2017 dollars) has more than tripled from 9% to 29.2%, while the share of households making $35,000 to $100,000 decreased from 53.8% to 41.3%. And the share of households making $35,000 or less decreased from 37.2% to 29.5%." Carpe Diem

 https://www.aei.org/publication/monday-morning-links-29/?

The Smollett crime



Project 21, a conservative black think-tank opined: "Washington, DC - After prosecutors dropped charges against actor Jussie Smollett in the case of an alleged Chicago hate crime hoax, members of the Project 21 black leadership network are condemning the situation as a crass display of "celebrity privilege" harmful to both race relations and the reputation of the law enforcement community. Project 21 continues to maintain that the NAACP should drop its nomination of Smollett for an honor at its upcoming Image Awards ceremony.

"This case stands for one clear proposition - regardless of color. In America today, people of wealth and privilege can escape accountability for the same acts that mainstream Americans cannot," said Project 21 Co-Chairman
Horace Cooper. "This deal stinks, and it makes a mockery of the idea that all Americans are equal before the law." "

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

Monday, March 25, 2019

Identity theft

The crime of identity theft happens more often to wealthier, white, females.

https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/vit16_sum.pdf

“Based on the 2016 survey, more females (13.5 million) experienced identity theft than males (12.5 million). However, males and females had similar identity-theft prevalence rates (10% each). Whites (12%) had a higher prevalence of identity theft than blacks (7%), Hispanics (6%), and persons of other races (8%). Whites and persons of two or more races (12% each) had a similar prevalence of identity theft. Persons ages 35 to 49 and ages 50 to 64 (12% each) had a higher prevalence of identity theft than all other age groups.

Also, persons in the highest income category (those in households with annual incomes of $75,000 or more, which includes 35% of all persons age 16 or older) had the highest prevalence of identity theft  (14% experienced it).”

The gender gap is a mommy gap

It's not a pay gap, it's a mommy gap. A choice gap. "43% of highly qualified women with children are leaving careers or off-ramping for a period of time." ("Lean in" by Sheryl Sandburg) And I know this is difficult to understand, but a baby is a whole lot more fun than attending meetings, rushing to catch a plane, or listening to office gossip. So many women cut their hours, at least for a period of time, to enjoy their children rather than put them in day care or send them off to grandma's. That of course, means their salaries don't keep up.

I see my doctor tomorrow--she's only working 2 days a week since she had a baby last year. And it's her choice--it's an all female practice, and I think they are all doing that. Now if you want to study gaps, check out the difference the all female clerical staff who work full time, make compared to the doctors who are working 2/5 time.

Today I watched CNN

Today I actually watched CNN. It was an interview with Sarah Sanders and she demolished the interviewer. When his last whine was "what about obstruction of justice?" She just said, "You can't obstruct a crime that never happened." It lasted over 5 minutes (seemed like 10) but this clip I found it the CNN website has been edited down to about 2.5 minutes, with the interviewer doing most of the talking and regurgitation the usual media lies. I can see why people who watch CNN are so confused and unpatriotic.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/03/25/sarah-sanders-mueller-report-newday-sot-vpx.cnn

Think of the damage done to the President, his policies and the people who elected him by the Democrats and the lapdog media:

"An analysis found that more than 530,000 web articles focusing on Russia, President Trump and special counsel Robert Mueller have been published since the special counsel's investigation launched in May 2017, Axios reported Monday."

The articles generated 245 million interactions, including likes, comments and shares on social media giants Twitter and Facebook. Since the majority of the articles about him were negative, and these articles go out world wide, you see how Russia and Putin damaged our country with the help of the Democrats and the American media who fell for (or in) the false Clinton opposition research about the phony dossier.

And it's still going on. I watched CNN this morning. I know.  They won't give this up. It's just too lucrative.

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/435608-more-than-one-half-million-web-articles-published-on-russia-trump-mueller

Dating violence in middle school?

My jaw dropped when I saw this study. Reducing dating violence/partner abuse among middle school boys. What?! And then it got even more strange--to participate they had to "identify as male" i.e. it's possible some of these were girls, and the parents had to speak English, which means in those schools, immigrants were probably not included.

Also interesting, but not surprising was 91% of the parents who participated in the focus groups with their sons were mothers. William Farrell in "The Boy Crisis" notes that boys without father involvement are more likely to be violent and in mass shootings like Adam Lanza, Elliott Rodger, Dylann Roof, Nicklas Cruz and Stephen Paddock.

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/252517.pdf

Yes, I know I read strange stuff—it’s a librarian thing.

Saturday, March 23, 2019

A perfect storm—Venezuela and a measles outbreak

Some people don't think that socialism in Venezuela is a problem, or they think the problem hasn't been caused by "real" socialism"; and others think no vaccines is not a problem. So when they meet, it's a perfect storm. This abstract is from Emerging Infectious Diseases, Volume 25, Number 4—April 2019. Keep in mind, that although the U.S. isn't a "neighboring country," we are at risk from unvaccinated people storming our borders.

"Venezuela’s tumbling economy and authoritarian rule have precipitated an unprecedented humanitarian crisis. Hyperinflation rates now exceed 45,000%, and Venezuela’s health system is in free fall. The country is experiencing a massive exodus of biomedical scientists and qualified healthcare professionals. Reemergence of arthropod-borne and vaccine-preventable diseases has sparked serious epidemics that also affect neighboring countries. In this article, we discuss the ongoing epidemics of measles and diphtheria in Venezuela and their disproportionate impact on indigenous populations. We also discuss the potential for reemergence of poliomyelitis and conclude that action to halt the spread of vaccine-preventable diseases within Venezuela is a matter of urgency for the country and the region. We further provide specific recommendations for addressing this crisis."

From the article: "In Venezuela, circulation of wild measles was interrupted in February 2007 after a mass vaccination campaign that followed outbreaks in 2001 and 2006 (15). However, since 2017, measles has reemerged in Venezuela, particularly within vulnerable indigenous populations, and has subsequently reached neighboring countries (Figure 1, panel A) (16). As of October 23, 2018, Venezuela had contributed 68% (5,525/8,091 cases) of the measles cases reported in the Americas and most of the measles-related deaths (73/85) (16). Genotyping of the measles virus isolated from patients from Venezuela (imported cases) in Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru confirmed that the strains were genotype D8, lineage MVi/Hulu Langat.MYS/26.11 (16). The D8 genotype is associated with endemic transmission in Asia and the Pacific (17) and is the main lineage circulating currently in South America (16)."

https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/25/4/18-1305_article?

Mueller Report

I don't care what the Mueller Report says. The Democrats, the media and the Department of Justice have done far more damage to our country than Russia could have dreamed of.

The media, in collusion with Adam Schiff and the Democrats in Congress will want the investigation to go on and on and on and on, because it brings in so much revenue when people click on or buy the ads supporting their lies. NYT, LATimes, WaPo, CNN, MSNBC, the alphabet networks and HuffPo, Vox and Big Tech may hate Trump but they love the money he brings them.

Collusion isn't a federal crime. If we had to attack every government that tried to interfere in our elections, we'd have no allies, and if the U.S. had to stop interfering in other nations' elections, we'd have no military bases on foreign soil.

I saw that Rachel Maddow had tears in her eyes in reporting this. Someone on Twitter made fun of her and lost their right to post.   I feel sorry for anyone who was depending on CNN or MSNBC for “news.” Like the Electoral College, the presumption of innocence is a fading concept for Democrats. It's just a roadblock on the way to socialism.

Pre-mow

Driving home from church this morning I heard a good tip from Ron Wilson on 610 a.m. https://ronwilson.iheart.com/ I certainly can't use it. He said today is a good day to do a "pre-mow." Set the mower down a notch and mow your yard. It will vacuum up all the crud and cut off the brown areas, making your yard look great. You won't need to mow regularly for a few more weeks, but this gives you a head start on the neighbors.

Newt Gingrich on the Mueller report, March 21

“President Donald J. Trump is right: Every American should be able to see what Robert Mueller and his team have been doing for the last two years.

As the President said on Wednesday, “Let it come out. Let people see it.”

For two years, virtually every media outlet – and every left-wing political organization – has been opining, speculating, and fantasizing over what dirt Mueller’s team of Anti-Trump lawyers could dig up on the President and his associates. Again and again, they have used the investigation as a cudgel to attack the Trump administration and rally the so-called “resistance.”

However, with each new indictment and each new case that Mueller has handed off to various district courts, it’s become increasingly apparent that the special counsel’s office has simply been using the power of the Department of Justice to conduct an inquisition on anyone in Trump’s orbit – and do whatever was necessary to gain their cooperation or put them in jail.

Retired General Michael Flynn, who had worked as Trump’s national security adviser, was interviewed by Mueller’s team for hours. They kept him talking until they could find any inconsistencies, and then they charged him with lying to federal investigators. Then, they threatened to go after his son if he didn’t sign a plea deal.

Paul Manafort’s house was raided. He was kept in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day. The ultimate charges against him had nothing to do with his work on the Trump campaign. They were all process crimes and financial crimes related to Manafort’s previous business dealings.

With Michael Cohen, it seems Mueller just kept Cohen cycling through lies, until Mueller found the ones he liked.

Many have commented that Mueller is treating this investigation in the same way he went about taking down the Gambino crime family. Let that sink in. The special counsel’s office is treating the duly elected President of the United States and his associates as though they were a murderous, organized crime family.

This is why the report should be made public. The American people should be able to see how far Mueller and his team have been willing to levy the power of the government to torment people and extract cooperation from them – in a political investigation.

I realize that making Mueller’s report public would be a historic move on the part of Attorney General William Barr. Even the Watergate report by special prosecutor Leon Jaworski was not made public until 2018. But Mueller’s investigation has been a historic effort by the Left and the Washington Establishment to unseat a sitting U.S. President.

Of course, classified information and information that would endanger national security or human life should be excluded. Also, the names of regular people who have been unwillingly pulled into this hunting party should be left out. But the American people should see – in detail – all the lengths to which Mueller’s team went to get what they wanted. All the arm-twisting, threats, promises, and punishments – everything.

I have no doubt that the Democrats are going to cherry pick pieces of the report to serve their own purposes – and the media will gleefully amplify and echo them.

However, the American people have the right to see the investigation in full and decide for themselves whether this has been a legitimate investigation – or an inquisition carried out by bureaucrats who didn’t like the choice Americans made in 2016.”

Friday, March 22, 2019

Be cautious about that word “nonpartisan”

“The Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law is a nonpartisan law and policy institute that works to reform, revitalize – and when necessary, defend – our country's systems of democracy and justice.”

Obviously, not very nonpartisan.  In a publication about fighting terrorism put together by an intern, Sara Johnson, in the third paragraph we find this bigoted, inaccurate account of Trump campaign rallies.

“These concerns [about white supremacist terrorism] grew more pronounced as Donald Trump’s bigoted campaign rhetoric inspired rallies around the country in which neo-Nazis, white nationalists, proto-fascists, and far-right militias openly engaged in violence. This included beatings, stabbings, and shootings of counter-protesters and journalists, with little interference from law enforcement at the time and just a handful of belated federal prosecutions.3"  The footnote directs the reader to a PBS show and an LA Times article.  I was a librarian, and we wouldn’t have accepted those sources for a Freshman English class.

Really? No mention of people wearing MAGA hats being attacked on college campuses, in restaurants and parks?  No word about mobs shouting down conservative speakers on campus?  That isn’t terrorism when coming from Black Lives Matter or Antifa?

So I didn’t read any further.  What would be the point when Sara has concluded at the outset that Dylan Roof’s horrible crime can be blamed on President Trump, even though I’m guessing Baltimore’s high murder rate wasn’t blamed on Barack Obama by her or anyone else at the Brennan Center.

Thursday, March 21, 2019

Finding information sources

With social media giants silencing conservatives and Fox News lurching to the left, we may have to find alternate information sources. I like the Canadians like Jordan Peterson, Janice Fiamengo, Gad Saad, and talkers like David Rubin, Candace Owens, PragerU, Turning Point USA, Lowder with Crowder, Lionel Nation, Matt Walsh, Hugh Hewitt, Larry Elder, Sebastian Gorka. But all these can go away in a minute, with a change in ownership, or pressure from the socialist mafia.

Also listened to a new podcast, Red Pilled America. Excellent information, in depth reporting and heartfelt opinion. https://redpilledamerica.com/blog/episode-18/  "Silicon Valley monopolies have taken control of the digital public square and censoring voices based on their belief systems. And if you think the government has nothing to do with this censorship, you are mistaken. Twitter recently admitted that politicians from both sides of the aisle want Big Tech to police our behavior."

Why do Blacks vote overwhelmingly for Democrats? https://redpilledamerica.com/blog/demo-home/episode-2-remix/

Fox at 3 p.m. was always liberal land--Shep--so today I turned on Newsmax while I was changing the bed.  Pretty good.  Howie Carr.  Not sure who his sidekicks are.  I'm also thinking of re-subscribing to Glenn Beck.  His media empire has expanded. https://www.newsmaxtv.com/Shows/The-Howie-Carr-Show