Bernie Sanders pumps Dems' "Medicare for All" plan; implies it's free health care

On CNN (a.k.a. the Communist News Network), Dem presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was asked about this faaabulous new "totally free!" offer from the Democrats, called "Medicare for all."  Specifically, he was asked 'If you socialist rat-bastards wonderful, compassionate, brilliant, caring Democrats manage to ram this disaster through pass this wonderful piece of compassionate socialism, will Americans who like their current private health insurance be able to keep it?'

Bernie answered "No, BUT...," but proceeded to tell CNN's audience something so misleading as to amount to a lie:  "BUT they won't be paying ANY private health insurance premiums either!!"

"WOW, FREE MEDICAL CARE!! YAY!!"

But think for a second:  Unless the socialist/Democrats plan to cut the total amount of health care, the total cost won't drop a penny.

"Wait," I hear my liberal PhD friend say.  "Since companies wanna make a profit, if the Democrat law takes all the companies out of the loop, we save all the money that would have gone into the companies' profits!  See??!  Geez, you Trumpkins are so stupid!"

Ah.  But just a second, doc:  How many people do ya think the gruberment will have to hire to manage all the records and payments for health care for all 340-million Americans (including illegal aliens)?  Cuz unless you think the private insurance companies are paying employees to sit on their ass and surf the internet, it's gonna take about 20 percent MORE gruberment employees to do the same job as their private counterparts.  And the retirement alone for gruberment employees is roughly 70 percent more than their private-sector counterparts.

So if the gruberment takes it all over, it's gonna cost more, not less.

But let's be generous and say it's a wash--that the cost won't change.  Then if no one is paying insurance premiums, where will all the money come from?

You may notice that Bernie, AOC, Kamala Fear-this, Fauxcahontas and Booker are being VERY coy about this point.  Cuz the truth is, the cost will be covered either by higher taxes (a long-time Democrat goal) or more government borrowing.

So if costs won't drop a penny, why did Bernie loudly tell the audience--shaking his finger for emphasis!--that "You won't be paying any private health insurance premiums"?

Because they WANT their dumb base to believe that under the proposed Dem law, they'll get health care for FREE (YAY!!!)  In other words, the "you won't pay" was deliberately intended to make dummies think they'd be getting their health covered for FREE.

Well, we'll admit SOME U.S. residents will get free health care:  illegal aliens, and those who refuse to work.  Helluva deal, eh?

This, students, is the constant siren song of socialism:  "Vote for us and we'll give you stuff for FREE, citizen!"

That was how Chavez came to power in Venezuela--which once had the highest per-capita income in all of Latin America.  Now they're starving, having eaten all the zoo animals years ago.

But don't worry, citizen:  Bernie and Kamala Harris and AOC are planning to head to Venezuela next week and show 'em the RIGHT way to do socialism!  Maduro has said he welcomes the help from the best minds in the Democrat party.

Curiously, Maduro is NOT welcoming actual food aid from the U.S.  Seriously, he's ordered his troops to prevent civilian trucks groaning with tons of food donated by the U.S. from entering his country.

Cuz as one U.S. leftist put it last week, "Stories of starving Venezuelans are all fake news, put out by the Trump administration to make Americans wary of socialism!"

Yeah, I'm so believing that.  Aren't you?

Here's Bernie:

California's refusal to cooperate with ICE enables illegal alien to ambush female deputy

Illegal aliens?  Democrats say "no problem," and that people who support a border wall are just responding to "scare tactics" by the GOP.   According to the Dems it's all a "manufactured crisis."

Sound familiar?  It should, if you've been paying attention.

So..."manufactured crisis," eh?  Tell that to Riley Jarecki.
 
Last week in California (a.k.a. Mexifornia) a female sheriff’s deputy--Riley Jarecki--walked up to a suspicious car in a parking lot.  As she was speaking with the driver the man pulled out a handgun and fired at least four shots at her--all captured on her bodycam.

Jarecki pulled her service weapon and fired at least 15 shots--again, all captured on her body camera--killing the driver.  And astonishingly, Javier Hernandez-Morales was an illegal invader--euphemistically referred to in EVERY news article as an “undocumented immigrant.”

Hernandez-Morales had been deported three times.  ICE had issued four separate detainers, asking any officers who picked him up to hold him for deportation yet a fourth time.  But of course the illegal-alien-loving politicians in Cali have a state law that bars any state employee from cooperating with ICE in any way, so the guy kept getting released--which was how he was free to try to kill deputy Jarecki.

Watch the video below and try to claim this wasn't attempted murder by the illegal:


Given the insane politicians and judges of Cali, we wouldn't be surprised if Jarecki ended up being charged or disciplined for "using excessive force."  Cuz according to the dimwits in Cali, the deputy should have responded to the guy trying to kill her by trying to reason with him, or some equally absurd crap.

Watch the damn video again.  This was TOTALLY predictable.  And amazingly, the Democrats want to open our borders to an unlimited number of these crazy bastards heavily-armed invaders.

NYC "human rights commission"--out-of-control thugs

New York is run by Democrats, from school boards to the communist mayor.  And being Dems, they constantly try to out-do each other in setting up all manner of "commissions" to force hapless citizens to do as they demand--such as by forcing them to call biological men women, and vice-versa.  And to use female pronouns for men.

And by "forcing" I mean having the regulatory authority of being able to levy a huge fine on anyone who fails to do as they demand.

Naturally when most people hear this--like my liberal professor friend--they think this is hyperbole.  Just could NOT be true, cuz America, free speech and so on.  When I mention this to libs, they sneeringly dismiss this as "crazy right-wing conspiracy theories."  My professor friend says conservatives are simply "obsessing over the news."

And ya know what?  I tend to get pretty damned concerned when crappy Dems/liberals/"progressives" start demanding that people call men women, or anything similar.  Kinda prickly about "free speech."  So...back to New York:

The city set up a "human-rights commission."  New Yorkers were thrilled, cuz who isn't for something called "human rights," eh comrade?

Except the thuggish members of the commission, like assistant commissioner Sapna V. Raj, have decided tha anyone who fails to call trans-sexuals by the tranny's preferred pronoun is guilty of...wait for it...a "hate crime."  And the commission will take the hater to court, for a huge penalty.

In December of last year a lawyer with an outfit cunningly named the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)--which is actually a radical group that supports terrorists--saw a display in the window of a Prada store in New York City that featured two toy monkeys, one green and one red.

The green monkey wasn't a problem.  But the red monkey triggered Chinyere Ezie, the CCR lawyer, who used social media to declare that it was "blackface imagery"-- and thus a human-rights crime.

Of course Prada immediately apologized and removed the display.  Nevertheless the city's Commission on Human Rights sent a cease and desist letter to Prada, demanding that the company immediately stop displaying and selling the offensive toy.
 The commission issued a press release threatening that it had the authority to fine violators with civil penalties of up to $250,000 for willful and malicious violations of the law.

A government agency issuing an order to stop displaying an artistic product and threatening a huge fine is a blatant First Amendment violation, yet this abuse of power was applauded by NYC's virtue-signalling elites.

The commission also claims NYC ordinances allow the imprisonment anyone who impedes its activities.

Take a look at some of the things this thuggish "human rights commission" has done:

In 2014 the owner of a 25-seat restaurant posted an ad for an “experienced waitress."  The commission came down on the owner with full Nazi force.  Why?  Because he'd used the word “waitress” in his ad instead of “wait-person” or some similar butchery of the language.

The owner told the representative of the commission that he hadn’t done anything wrong and hung up, and in 2015 a city judge ruled he was guilty of "gender discrimination."  The final order was signed by commissioner Carmelyn P. Malalis, who has a B.A. in Women's Studies a seemingly boundless admiration for totalitarian regimes.

In another case the commission slapped a $10,000 fine on a restaurant owner who'd placed an ad for “waitresses” who could wear heels.

The commission also went after an Indian restaurant which had posted an ad for an "Indian waiter or waitress."  The commissioners were outraged!  "We cannot tolerate the owner of an Indian restaurant advertising for Indian staff!"  So they emailed an application using the name “George Harris.”  The commission determined that the email was opened, but the fictitious applicant didn't get a job offer--cuz the owner wanted authentic Indian servers, eh?

The restaurant went out of business, but the "human rights commission" kept pursuing the case, eventually assessing a fine four years later.  Commissioner -Nazi Carmelyn P Malalis declared that the owner's “failure to cooperate with the Bureau investigation...necessitates the imposition of civil penalties.”

The Indian restaurant and the jobs of all its employees had to be destroyed--because the Nazis on the so-called "human rights commission" unilaterally ruled that the restaurant owner could not be permitted to advertise for Indian servers.

Human rights?  No.  Bureaucratic thuggery.

The face--and the strategic thinker--of the New Democrat Party, apparently

If you're not a political junkie you may not know who Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is. She's a 29-year-old Dem socialist who got elected to congress from NY City. And she's the new darling of the Lying Mainstream Media. They're constantly interviewing her on TV.

She's also an idiot. And that's not metaphorical.

She's the one who introduced that faaaabulous "Green New Deal" that all the top Dem presidential candidates immediately supported. You remember, the one that said they planned to outlaw gas-powered cars and airplanes and replace with "high-speed rail." They also apparently want to kill all the cows (cuz cows belch methane).

And again, ALL the top Democrat presidential candidates for 2020 jumped to endorse this lunacy.

Well...AOC is SO dumb that a cottage industry has sprung up lampooning her gaffes. Here are a few:



For young readers the joke is that Armageddon is supposedly the battle that will indicate more or less the end of the world as we know it. But you'd have to know something about the Bible or movies to know that.

Another vid compilation of experts

These vids--of the totally brilliant so-called "experts" smugly, sneeringly assuring you that Trump could not possibly win the election--never get old.

Lying Media claimed one of these women was an "elegant" first lady, now sneers at the fashion sense of the other one

Can you guess which one was constantly praised by the Lying Media, and which woman it constantly vilifies?

Unless you're a Democrat you probably noticed that the Lying Mainstream Media constantly swooned over what they claimed was Moochelle's faaabulous fashion sense and muscled arms, but have never missed a chance to denigrate Melania in every possible way.

But...media bias? Fake news?  Perish the thought, citizen!

Need a laugh? Video of "elites" sneering at Trump and his chances of winning--this clip never gets old!

Unless you follow the antics of the self-proclaimed "elites" and the Lying Mainstream Media closely, you really don't have a good idea of what a huge percentage of them totally ridiculed Trump before the election, and his chances of winning.

I stumbled on the YouTube clip below, and you really should take a look so you can get an idea of how utterly the Democrat leaders and the elites ridiculed Trump, and absolutely promised he'd never be president.  It's absolutely astonishing--and appalling.  

Perhaps the most amusing is about 5 minutes in, showing emperor Obama ridiculing Trump.

So when all the elites and media "experts" turned out wrong, do ya think they'd admit it, maybe eat a bite of crow?  Are you kidding?  They simply amped up their hate and efforts to remove him from office in any way possible.  They call it the Resistance.

Anyway, take a look.

Why the Dems, the Lying Media and the Left instantly pushed the Smollett hoax as real

When gay black actor Jussie Smollett claimed to be the victim of a racist anti-gay attack at the hands of two Trump supporters, virtually the entire entire mainstream media and all the top Democrat presidential candidates for 2020 immediately said they believed him.  

And of course they demanded the rest of us do so as well.

Now, as Smollett's story is completely falling apart, with police sources having found two black Chicago brothers who say Smollett paid them $3,500 to fake the attack, the Lying Mainstream Media isn't retracting their earlier rush to believe the hoaxer, but is now urging "caution:"  We have to wait until the entire investigation is declared complete before we rush to judgment, eh?

So while we wait to learn the full story, it's worth noting that almost 3,000 people were shot in Chicago last year --including women and children.  Something like 700 died--but not one received anything like the attention the media has lavished on a relatively minor assault alleged by Smollett.

The reason none of Chicago's 3,000 shootings got much attention is that they weren't as useful to the Left as Smollett's claimed assault.

The Smollett story was perfect for a national media that long ago gave up the pretense of gathering news.  Journalism today has deteriorated into an explicitly political job, designed to enforce certain beliefs and punish anyone who disagrees.

The Smollett story was perfectly positioned to do both.  Journalists pretended to be horrified as they recounted the alleged attack, but secretly they were thrilled.

MSNBC talking head Miguel Almaguer was typical:

“There are many indications of a hate crime here. They are looking for two suspects who were wearing apparently wearing "Make America Great Again" hats though that has not yet been officially confirmed.”

Vox babbler Liz Plank was sure President Trump had something to do with the attack.

“We don't know what happened to Jussie, but what we do know is that racism is alive and well in this country,” Plank said. “There is real evidence of people who have done these crimes, who cite that the President has inspired them.”

Washington Post babbler Jonathan Capehart agreed with Plank that president Trump was surely to blame.

“The fact that [the attackers] reportedly said, ‘This is MAGA country,’ adds to sort of the atmosphere of menace that African-Americans in particular and people of color in general have felt since the advent of the Trump administration," Capehart wrote.

Finally, CNN’s Brooke Baldwin:

“He said his attackers hurled racial and homophobic slurs at him. This is America in 2019.”

And if you asked pointed questions, much less doubts, the elites were poised to attack you.  Sarah Gilbert (apparently an actress) weighed in:

“And the media has really cast so much doubt on his story which I find so personally offensive that a gay black man is targeted and then suddenly he becomes the victim of people's disbelief.  It is...outrageous....”

To the mainstream media, Smollett's story perfectly showed the expected results of Trump's policies and style--which led them to run with it even though most people suspected a hoax from the outset.  In fact Smollett's account began to fall apart within hours after a series of leaks from the obviously skeptical Chicago Police Department.

Smollett's handlers responded by getting him on a national cable show with an interviewer they knew they could trust:  Robin Roberts of "Good Morning, America."  Roberts surely knew there was ample evidence that Smollett was lying but didn't ask any uncomfortable questions. 

Both Smollett and Roberts turned out to be talented actors. Check out their performance on YouTube before it is scrubbed. You will never watch ABC News again. Virtually every word they utter is dishonest.

It was a great performance.  Here's Smollett:

“If I had said [my attacker] was a Muslim or a Mexican or someone black, I feel like the doubters would have supported me a lot much more [sic], a lot more.  And that says a lot about the place that we are in our country right now.  The fact that we have these fear mongers, these people that are trying to separate us and it is just not okay. [sic]”

Who is dividing us?  Smollett claims he was the victim of a race-based attack, and tells us that the main reason people doubt his story is that they don't like gays or blacks.  And as he relates this tragic story the rest of us nod as if this was true--because we are required to do that. 

This is how dishonest our society has become.  Everyone must lie all the time, pretending that hate crimes against blacks and homosexuals are common in what many Democrats seriously claim is the most racist, bigoted country ever. 

We nod and say nothing to counter the lies, because observant people have learned the unwritten rules:  That in most career fields, if you want to keep your job you have no choice but to nod in agreement.

But the fact is that the much-hyped, alleged epidemic of hate crimes we've all have heard so much about consists almost entirely of hoaxes by the alleged "victims."  The premise is absurd. America is not a hateful country, but is the most welcoming place on Earth.  That's why even as your children are being taught that Americans are bigoted, millions of foreigners continue to come here from around the globe, in search of a better life here.


So why does the left insist on inventing bigoted bogeymen waiting around every dark corner?  It's because stoking race hatred ensures continued power for the Democrat party.  Democrat leaders have gone all-in on socialism, and realize they can win votes by convincing every grievance group that the U.S. is a hateful, awful place. 

This is the point of "identity politics."  It's why they pushed the Smollett hoax--and all the others.  For the Dem politicians, hate crimes--whether real or fake--are a winning tactic

H/T Tucker Carlson.

California: taxpayers paid for liver transplants for illegal immigrants; now they need new ones

Ana Puente was an infant with a liver disorder when her aunt brought her illegally to the U.S. to seek medical care. She received TWO liver transplants at UCLA Medical Center as a child in 1989 and a third in 1998, each paid for by state taxpayers.  [The LA times says paid for "by the state."  Clever misdirection!]

But when Puente turned 21 last June, taxpayer-funded health insurance no longer covered her, so she was unable to continue treatment at UCLA.

This year, her third donated liver began failing again.  She applied for taxpayer-funded treatment via Medi-Cal, which is that state's name for Medicaid, the federal program in which taxpayers pay for health care for poor Americans.  In a rare move, the application was denied.

Last month Puente learned of another, little-known option for illegal aliens [the LA Times, wishing to hide the multi-billion-dollar cost of medical care and other benefits for illegals, simply says "for patients "]:  If she told U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that she was in the country illegally, state health officials might grant her full Medi-Cal coverage.

Puente did so, her benefits were restored and she is now awaiting a fourth transplant at UCLA.

Although Democrats are loathe to raise the topic, it's reasonable to ask whether American taxpayers should be forced by Democrat politicians to pay for liver transplants for illegal immigrants?

The average cost of a liver transplant and first-year follow-up is nearly $490,000, and anti-rejection medications can run more than $30,000 annually, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, which oversees transplantation nationwide.  Also, there's a big shortage of donated livers :  In California 3,700 people are on a waiting list for livers, according to the network.

Given the huge cost and shortage of donated organs, some say illegal immigrants should return to their home countries for care rather than receive organs and costly transplants ahead of legal residents and U.S. citizens.  Many Americans don't think the public ought to be funding any kind of benefits for people who broke U.S. law to enter the country.
Illegal immigrant children with certain severe, chronic illnesses are eligible for funding under a state program called California Children's Services. But the coverage ends when they turn 21. After that, they can receive free or low-cost treatment through county services for the medically indigent and, in some cases, emergency Medi-Cal. But in Los Angeles County, doctors said neither program covers liver transplants.

State health officials said California law is designed so there is no gap in coverage, so children move seamlessly from state-funded treatment to county care. But that doesn't always happen. When they become adults, illegal alien patients often have to switch doctors and hospitals, and may lose access to necessary care. 

Wow, they "often have to switch doctors"?  That's just...awful!  It's an outrage! 

Wait, isn't that exactly the same thing Obamacare forced on American citizens?  Remember when da emperor lied and said "If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor," which he knew was a lie when he uttered it?  Some of us still do.

Puente has learned the demand game well:  "It doesn't matter if I'm undocumented," she said. "They should take care of me at UCLA for the rest of my life because I've been there since I was a baby."

CNN Report: Millions Of American Voters May Have Colluded To Elect Trump

A new CNN investigative report claims that millions of American voters may have colluded with the Trump campaign to elect Donald Trump as President of the United States.

While Russia has been accused of interfering in the election, the breaking report indicates that the collusion may have extended to a significant portion of the U.S. population—“as many as 60 million citizens, and possibly even more.”

“The conspiracy goes much deeper than anyone expected,” said CNN reporter Jake Tapper on his news segment. “We’re talking tens of millions of people involved in a secret plot to make sure Hillary didn’t make it into the White House and to prop up Donald Trump as the winner.”

The CNN report does not accuse anyone of hacking or rigging the vote, but suggests that those who participated in the collusion plot may have simply walked into voting booths and cast their vote for Trump, giving him the electoral college victory.

“It’s far more sinister than we thought,” said a visibly disturbed Tapper.

------
H/T The Babylon Bee

As we predicted, Smollet story of a racially-motivated "hate crime" was a hoax

If you watch the mainstream media you may recognize the guy in the center below: It's hate-crime-hoaxer Jussie Smollet.  But who are the two other grinning fellows?



They're two brothers from Nigeria--one of whom is Smollet's personal trainer.  They were identified on surveillance video from the location of the alleged assault, nabbed by the Chicago cops and finally admitted that drama-queen hoaxer Smollet had hired them to fake the "attack"-- which he claimed was done by men wearing MAGA hats and shouting "This is MAGA country!"

You may recall that Smollet also claimed the so-called "attackers" also happened to be carrying a bottle of bleach and a rope around the streets of Chicago at 2am in 15-degree temperatures.  Cuz, doesn't everyone do that, just in case they might find someone to assault? 

Uh-huh.

But for two black Nigerians to have done the fake attack is...odd.  Cuz they just don't seem like the type to be wearing MAGA hats--let alone toting a bottle of bleach.

And yet the entire damn Lying Mainstream Media totally believed Smollet's absurd, ridiculous story--which no one with a functioning brain believed was plausible.  The entire media ran with the obvious fake story--because they knew it would damage the president.

The mainstream media is actively trying to get Trump impeached, and help the Dems win control of the senate and White House.

With the entire media having reported the alleged "hate crime" as fact, wanna take bets on how many of the rat-bastard mainstream media outlets broadcast or print the discovery that it was a hoax?  And a very implausible one.  And yet every media outlet unquestioningly ran the hoax story without a single critical question.

So utterly predictable.  If they'd do this, is there any lie they wouldn't support, as long as it hurt Trump?

Guy kills ex-girlfriend, dumps body, says accident. Tied hand and foot with mouth taped?

Last month, in the cesspool called New York City, a charmless thug murdered his former girlfriend, stuffed her body in a suitcase and dumped it by the side of the road in nearby Connecticut.

The alleged killer is one Javier Enrique Da Silva Rojas, and they've got him on surveillance video dumping the suitcase, and the car matches his.  He admitted dumping the body but claims his former girlfriend fell and hit her head on a coffee table during sex.

He didn't tell authorities why her body was found with tape over her mouth, and with her hands and feet bound.  That alone should be pretty much dispose of the case.  But he also failed to explain why, if she fell as he claims, he didn't immediately call an ambulance to get her to the hospital, nor take her himself.

What level of moronic killer would try such a bullshit story when he'd taped the victim's mouth and tied her hands and feet?  It's almost like the guy thinks we're all as dumb as he is, that he thinks his crappy story will actually fly.

The only time the Lying Mainstream Media let killers get away with BS tales like this is when the killer is an illegal alien.  But neither Fox nor the New York Post said a thing about him being an illegal in the original story, so I guess...

Wait...the guy is indeed an illegal.  But why didn't either of the initial stories say so?

Say, you don't think the media is covering up murders and robberies and drunk-driving killings caused by illegal aliens, do ya?  Cuz that would be...weird.

President signs poison-loaded "compromise" spending bill

Well, that was a disaster.  Trump signed the poison-loaded spending bill.

Worse yet, he signed it before declaring a national emergency.  See, the clever Dems inserted a statement that the president could not use contingency funds from other agencies to build the wall.  So if Trump does use those funds it strengthens the case for the legal challenge.

Had he declared the emergency first, his legal position would be slightly better, since the declaration would have been made before the bill became law, so in theory trying to bar the president retroactively would make it an "ex post facto" law--something specifically prohibited by the Constitution.

Of course Democrat pols and judges have long-since stopped claiming that the Constitution is the "supreme law of the land," so the Constitution is probably toast anyway.

This was a great country while it lasted.

UPDATE:   One of the networks reported that he'd signed the bill before his Rose Garden speech, in which he said "I will be declaring a national emergency."  However, another source reports that he hadn't signed the bill before the speech, and in fact signed the emergency declaration before signing the bill.  I'll try to pin that down and will post the findings.

McConnell says Trump will sign spending bill, but then declare emergency to build the wall

THE SO-CALLED "COMPROMISE SPENDING BILL" IS A TRAP!  

It's 1200 pages long and contains at least 3 "poison pills"--provisions inserted by open-borders Dem congresscreeps that will give de-facto amnesty to millions of illegals.  

The president should NOT sign this until every one of these fatal provisions has been discovered.  Then the president should address the American people and point out each of the "poison pills" inserted by the treacherous, cunning, conniving open-borders Democrats.

If the president signs this bill into law as currently written, it will amount to amnesty.

As @JessicaV_CIS notes, there is a serious amnesty/sanctuary provision buried in Section 224(a) of the spending bill that would bar ICE from detaining or deporting anyone who has any kind of relationship (even just as a "potential sponsor") with any unaccompanied minor.

And it gets worse: Section 224 (a) says that ICE may not remove any sponsor, or "potential sponsor," or even a member of a household of a UAC [Unaccompanied Alien Child].  That's de facto sanctuary for any illegal alien who's anywhere near a UAC.

And there's more:  The "compromise bill" also gives $30 million in taxpayer funds to hire pro-migration groups that will guide migrants towards winning asylum.

Rush Limbaugh is saying the bill also contains language forbidding Trump from transferring money between agencies if he declares a national emergency, even though the Constitution gives the president such authority, and the Supreme Court has ruled that congress can't usurp powers granted by the Constitution.

It's worth asking whether the above provisions were known to the Republicans, and if so, whether they were ever discussed or negotiated.  It's hard to imagine any genuine conservative could possibly have agreed to these poisonous provisions--but then again, half the Repubs in congress are really Democrats in all but name. 

Trump has been sabotaged at every turn, both by Democrats and Deep-State holdovers and by people recommended for key staff positions in the White House.  But if ordinary citizens can find three poison pills in a couple of hours, competent, honest staff members should be able to do the same.

If Trump is told about these provisions and still signs this thing, he's toast.  And frankly I think that's one of the key reasons why the Dems inserted the provisions.

Mr president, DO NOT SIGN THIS BILL. 

Mitch McConnell can't be trusted.  His statement that he'll "support" a declaration of national emergency may well have been made to get Trump to sign a bill that McConnell knows has several poison pills in it.

The House Freedom Caucus--a group of conservative representatives--wants to pass just a one-week spending bill at current levels to give them time to read this monster bill and find all of its poison pills.  But with the Democrats controlling the House there's no way Pelosi will allow that. 

Instead she'll rush the current bill to a vote, claiming it was imperative to avoid another shutdown, and ignoring the option of a one-week extension.

Of course with the Republicans having control of the senate, McConnell could propose a one-week extension.  But he won't.  Indeed, by the time you see this the senate will almost certainly have already passed the bill.  My guess is that McConnell, like Pelosi and Schumer, doesn't want those poison pills stripped out.

H/T Ace of Spades 

More on the bill here.

 

Newest Dem proposal: Give everyone a monthly check *even if they're unwilling to work*

Yesterday I told you about the faaabulous "Green New Deal" being pushed by the socialist Democrat pols--including all the leading Democrat presidential candidates.  Part of that "deal" includes a thing called "universal basic income" or "guaranteed income."

Under this "deal" the Dem pols would give everyone a check every month--"no strings attached." 

That is, recipients wouldn't have to be trying to find a job, or be disabled (unable to work), to get the cash. They wouldn't even have to take a job if they were offered one.  The Dem pols' "Green New Deal" proposal actually said they'd give a check to people even if they were unwilling to work.

As you might guess, hard-working Americans have a real problem with the idea of their hard-earned tax dollars being taken by Democrats and given to slugs who aren't willing to work, but the Democrat pols couldn't care less, because they know that promising "free stuff" wins them millions of votes--even from college students and grads, who should know that such a policy is a recipe for total disaster.

You'd think that Dem congresscreeps and presidential candidates would know that too, eh?  But if they do, they're pretending they don't--in order to win the votes of tens of millions of lazy Americans. Because the real goal of this proposal is...political control and power.

Stockton, California--a city so poor or mis-managed that it was forced to declare bankruptcy five years ago--is planning to try a "guaranteed income" to see what effect it'll have on citizens.  At the urging of a "dynamic" black mayor, using a million bucks from by a liberal foundation, a few dozen families will get a check for $500 a month, with absolutely no strings attached.  The charming communists at National Public Radio interviewed Stockton's "dynamic" mayor Michael Tubbs to learn all the fantastic benefits of giving taxpayer money to people who won't work.

SHAPIRO: How is this going to work exactly?

TUBBS: So from now until June we'll do a community engagement process to come up with the selection criterion for the families who will be selected. Those families will receive $500 a month for the next year to 18 months with the idea to really elevate the story of working-class people everywhere. People are working very hard and struggling and unable to make basic ends meet. So we were able to get a grant of $1 million from the Economic Security Project to really test this idea.

SHAPIRO: So this is not going to cost taxpayers anything? It's being paid for by a grant?

TUBBS: It doesn't cost tax payers anything. It's paid from $1.2 million in philanthropic funding. So the idea is that in the next couple of years, we'll have some data that will tell us whether this is a solution that is viable or not.

SHAPIRO: One principle of capitalism is that if you work hard, you'll get ahead. And you can argue whether or not that that's true.

Notice how deftly the NPR interviewer reinforces the belief among his liberal/socialist/Democrat listeners that hard work does NOT help people get ahead in life.  Amazing, but true to form.

SHAPIRO: But the idea is that it [getting a job?] gives people incentive to go to a job every day and earn money, even though it may be an unpleasant experience. This program [free money] and the idea of a guaranteed basic income seem to guarantee that people will get money whether or not they earn it. Does that undermine the incentive for people to have a job and be productive members of society?

This is called a "softball."  When the NPR dweeb phrases the question like that, he knows the dynamic black mayor will say, what?  "Yes, you're totally right, it'll undermine..."  Obviously not. 

TUBBS: I would disagree. But I also think...there are some things that you don't earn. Some things are rights. And I do think that people deserve a basic economic floor so the bottom doesn't fall out under them. People working 14-hour days, working incredibly hard and being rewarded with wages that haven't kept up with the cost of inflation over the past two generations, that's problematic for me as well.

So I definitely believe in the work ethic of working. And I don't think $500 a month, according to the research and evidence from other trials done over the past three decades, will make it so that people won't work.  In fact I think will make people work better and smarter and harder...

This, folks, is what passes for brilliant thinking in "progressive" circles.  'I think giving people a monthly check will NOT cause 'em to stay home and get stoned, but will actually get them to work harder.'  Uh-huh.  Does anyone other than "progressives" believe that?

...and also be able to do things like spend time with their families.  'Cause we're not robots. We're not just designed just to work all day and run a rat race. We're designed to be in community, to volunteer, to vote, to raise our kids. And I think the more inputs and investments we can give in people to do those things, the better off we are as a community.

SHAPIRO: Stockton declared bankruptcy five years ago. Right now this city of more than 100,000 people has 1 in 4 people living below the poverty line. By any measure, this is a place that is struggling. Do you imagine that a handout like this could turn those trends around?

TUBBS: Again, I would push back a little bit on the characterization as a handout.

So he's saying free cash--not based on disability or having reached retirement age after a lifetime of working--is NOT a handout?  This guy has a great future as a Democrat strategist.

TUBBS: I would say a hand up or an opportunity. And I would say I think this in concert with many of the other things we're doing will. So just two weeks ago, I announced a $20 million scholarship fund so that every kid who graduates from our larger school district, they get a guaranteed scholarship for four years....So the statistics you mentioned are definitely harrowing and mandate that we be bold and creative 'cause the status quo was failing and it doesn't work for anybody.

SHAPIRO: What's the end game here? If this is successful, do you imagine a scenario years from now where everyone who lives in Stockton gets this monthly check or where nobody needs it anymore, you graduate out of it? How does that work eventually?

TUBBS: Well, I think the idea is like in Alaska. So Alaska has this permanent dividend fund that's been around for a generation where just for being an Alaskan citizen, as being part of that social contract, you're given a check every year. And I think for something like this to work on a city level, it has to be a state or national policy. But again, before we can even call for that, we need to see if it works and we need to try it. And if it doesn't work, there's a conversation about, OK, well, why didn't it work and how can this apply to the next solution we need to implement?

SHAPIRO: Mayor Michael Tubbs of Stockton, Calif., thank you for joining us.

This, folks, is the wave of the future under Democrat socialism.  And the Dems are winning thousands of supporters every day with "free money!" proposals like this.

But of course, it's NOT free.  Certainly it's free to the recipients, but it has to come from somewhere. If you ask 'em where all the extra money will come from and you get either a blank look, or "We'll tax the rich."  Take all the wealth of the top 1 percent and you wouldn't even get close to having enough to make this crazy proposal work.

But of course, that's not the point--which is to win Democrats control of the entire gruberment.  And thanks to abysmally stupid voters, they've got a great shot at it.

Mainstream media swooning over socialist Democrat's crazy "Green New Deal"

One of the many cunning strategies used by wannabe-dictators to seize power is to harness the energy and anger of people who are a) idealistic; b) not well educated and c) convinced that it's impossible for them to live "well" under the current system.

In other words, young people.  And by "not well educated" I include college students and grads who majored in "--studies" or any non-technical field, since with vanishingly few exceptions they are both innumerate and essentially scientifically ignorant.

The latest effort by Dem strategists to harness the anger, fear or discontent of the young was just revealed last Friday.  They call it the "Green New Deal," and radical Dem congresswacko Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (known in college as Sandy Ocasio, but hey...) emailed the significant points to her allies at National Public Radio, and posted 'em on her official website.

And promptly pulled 'em off, after critics noted that among the many insane proposals was one to give every American (all ages) a government check even if they were able-bodied but unwilling to work.

Say what?

See, Sandy and her advisors felt this idea was so totes normal and unobjectionable that no one could possibly object to it.  And yet...  So they took it down and then her Cornell-law-professor advisor appeared on Tucker Carlson's show to claim that was NOT in the proposal.  No way!  They never proposed it!

Um...really?  But apparently Sandy's advisor forgot to tell her friends at NPR to take down the email AOC herself sent to 'em, so NPR kept the thing up for another 48 hours--giving everyone who knew about it a chance to see what it said.  And...well, absolutely unbelievably, sure enough the "government check to everyone" was in there.

Ooooh.  But didn't her law-prof advisor absolutely INSIST that they never said that?

Why yes, yes he did.  So there followed a marvelous kabuki-dance of "The eeeevil Repubs hacked us and change the document!"  "Oh, I thought you were talking about some OTHER document."  "This was just a draft, only posted by accident!"  "We never intended for this to be, like, definitive or binding or anything."

Another amusing scramble was about banning all carbon-based fuels, like oil and gas, to get "zero greenhouse gases."  And eliminating all air travel.  Seriously.  So let's see some of the other points in AOC’s Green New Deal:

[W]e are calling for a full transition off fossil fuels and zero greenhouse gases…we spell this out through a plan that calls for eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from every sector of the economy.

The law-prof advisor later said "We never said that.  We wanted to get to net-zero growth in CO2."  Really?  But just above it says "full transition off fossil fuels" and "zero greenhouse gases."  Don't law professors at Cornell have to read nowadays?  And he denied they wanted to get rid of air travel.  But keep reading...

Simply banning fossil fuels immediately won’t build the new economy to replace it – this is the plan to build that new economy and spells out how to do it technically. We do this through a huge mobilization to create the renewable energy economy as fast as possible. We set a goal to get to net-zero, rather than zero emissions, in 10 years because we aren’t sure that we’ll be able to fully get rid of farting cows and airplanes that fast...

Okay, there's "net-zero," but earlier it was "zero greenhouse gases" and "full transition off fossil fuels."  So which is it?  And above is that goal of getting rid of airplanes that the advisor said also wasn't part of the proposal.  Oh, and cows.  Gee, wonder what that'll do to the price of beef?  Or milk?  And the brilliant Dems might not know that if you kill all the cows, you also lose cheese.  Which means pizza would be...different.

So if they ban the use of all fossil fuels, that means electric cars.  (Or maybe they'll ban privately-owned cars regardless of power source?)  Of course electric cars require...wait for it...electricity.  And most of the electricity we use is generated by...wait for it...burning coal or natural gas.  So I guess they're gonna push good ol' nuclear power?  Uh...not only no, but they wanna scrap all existing nuke plants within ten years!  But at least they're candid enough to not be sure they'll be able to do that...

...but we think we can ramp up renewable manufacturing and power production, retrofit every building in America, build the smart grid, overhaul transportation and agriculture, plant lots of trees and restore our ecosystem to get to net-zero… It’s unclear if we will be able to decommission every nuclear plant within 10 years, but the plan is to transition off of nuclear and all fossil fuels as soon as possible.

The whole document is worth reading, partly for its almost-unhinged quality of boundless enthusiasm and complete lack of consideration of any physical and financial realities.  And yet the Dems are so solidly behind this that every Dem contender for the party's 2020 presidential nomination has already signed on as a co-sponsor.

To give you a taste of the document’s flavor, here are some of the more wild-eyed quotes.

Promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of frontline and vulnerable communities.

Don't worry if you've never heard the term "frontline communities," citizen.  It's a buzzword term for the Left/progressives/communists, and they'll explain it to you when they think it's time for you to know.  Sorta like Nanny Pelosi's infamous quote "We have to pass [the Affordable Care Act] so ywe can see what's in it."

Yes, she actually said that.  And that same insane, babbling idiot is now running one of the two chambers of congress.  Think about that for a minute.

Totally overhaul transportation by massively expanding electric vehicle manufacturing, build charging stations everywhere, build out high-speed rail at a scale where air travel stops becoming necessary, create affordable public transit available to all, with goal to replace every combustion-engine vehicle

Restore all our damaged and threatened ecosystems

Provide high-quality health care, housing, economic security, and clean air, clean water, healthy food, and nature to all

As crazy as many of those points sound, I think it’s a mistake to dismiss the GND as an unworkable total disaster.  Young people view these goals as both possible and highly desirable, and don't have enough education to see a single flaw in any of them.  Thus they believe they're all do-able, if only we have the will and dedication to do them.  

 

And of course, fearless Democrat/"progressive" leaders to direct us on the right path.

 The Green New Deal manifesto may sound ridiculous to most tech-fluent people at the moment, but it appeals to the idealism of the young or stupid.  And of course this was predictable, since virtually all highschools and universities are totally dominated by the Left.  If you haven't spent any time on college campuses--especially on the coasts--you have no idea how totally leftist they are.

Let's be very clear here:  Even if we could pay for these nutty ideas, how do you think life in the U.S. would change?  And would the radical change have a detectable benefit for the alleged "global warming" "climate change"?   

 

Consider this:  after other nations saw how the changes devastated the U.S. economy and quality of life, do you really think other nations would be willing to send their economies and quality of life down the tubes?  Yeah, no.

 

So the question of how AOC and her Cornell-law-professor advisor plan to pay for all this is only marginally relevant.  But let's ask it anyway:  

 

Not surprisingly, the document is, shall we say...a bit vague on this point.  Here's their plan:

“The Federal Reserve can extend credit to power these projects and investments and new public banks can be created to extend credit."

Gee, why didn't we think of that?  I mean, now that she's explained it, it's so obvious!  But AOC and her advisors don't rest on that gem of incisive reasoning.  Instead she (or someone) writes

“the question isn’t how will we pay for it, but what will we do with our new shared prosperity.”

It’s almost humorous--like a child’s fantasy.  But the radical Dems behind this masterpiece are totally serious about what they want.  And as all Americans should have learned by now, demands that sound absurd today can become the law or policy in a frighteningly short amount of time.  (Did anyone imagine a federal judge would not only ORDER our military not only to accept transgender troops, but would rule that the military (thus taxpayers) would have to PAY for their sex-change operations?  Yeah, didn't think so.)
 One of the reasons Democrat congress-creeps are pushing this radical, economy-destroying proposal is that young Americans have been primed to believe that a) the planet is warming to an extent that's both unprecedented and dangerous; b) that the greatest part of this dangerous, unprecedented warming is caused by carbon dioxide; c) that CO2 is a dangerous pollutant (it's not; plants must have it to grow); d) that virtually all CO2 is generated by human activity; and e) that because the U.S. uses more carbon fuels than any other nation, if we stop, the problem will be solved.

Young Americans--including college students and grads--find the above points persuasive and attractive.  And they don't have enough education to fret about whether the plan will kill the economy, let alone the feasibility of the Dems' proposed way to pay for it all.  Cuz the Democrats behind this tell 'em we can pay for it "just like we paid for WW2, or the interstate highway system."  And the young believe it. 

It’s a political version of John Lennon’s “Imagine.”  Difference is, Lennon couldn't drag us down that path.  But given 3 senate seats and the presidence and the Dems can start us down that disastrous path.


I was discussing the GND with a liberal Democrat friend of mine.  He's a PhD with a science background, so I thought there was a chance he'd agree that the GND was an insane proposal.  Instead his reaction was to try to change the subject to bitching about how stupid Republicans were for wanting a wall--which he absolutely assured me couldn't possibly help, because "You can always climb over it." 

Wow, that's why PhD's get paid the big bucks, eh?  Cuz that never occurred to anyone else!  And it certainly totally demolishes the logic behind thinking a wall would be a significant deterrent.

The guy steadfastly refused to say a single critical word about the huge number of insane proposals in the Dem paper.  I couldn't even get him to agree that ANY of the specific proposals were crazy.  Instead he ignored the points in the proposal and just fulminated about what a horrible job Trump was doing.

And this, friends, is how 99 percent of academics think.  Whatever logic they ever used goes right out the window if they can blame Trump's administration for every woe both here and abroad.  Great economy, with record-low unemployment for blacks and hispanics?  Ignored, dismissed.

Record oil production, such that the U.S. is now a net exporter of energy--something Obama and the every one of the so-called "elites" unequivocally dismissed as absurd and impossible?  Ignored or dismissed as insignificant.

Fact that North Korea hasn't tested a single atom bomb or test-fired a single missile since Trump made it clear to Kim that the U.S. would no longer tolerate that behavior?  Ignored.

"We couldn't manage to roll out our own Green New Deal without lying about what it contained, and claiming Republicans hacked our website, but, like, you can totally trust us to make all the right decisions to run a $21 trillion economy and healthcare for 330 million people."

Sincerely, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and every Democrat presidential contender

Why do so many Dem political "leaders" ignore lawbreaking?

You may not have noticed, but one constant of Democrat politicians is that they push to ignore lawbreaking.  They do this for several reasons:  because they want to flood the U.S. with illegal aliens, or because they believe it's "just not fair" that some ethnic groups have a larger percentage of their members in jail than their percentage of the population, or because they're looking for votes from these groups.

I'll give you specifics in a minute, but first consider this:  When any level of government ignores lawbreaking, what effect do you think that has on young people?

For one thing, it increases cynicism, because people see that "everyone breaks the law without any penalty."  So what do you think happens as a consequence?

People break more laws more often.  This is an inevitable, easily-predictable outcome.

Examples of Democrat pols insisting that city, state or federal employees ignore lawbreaking include:

• Democrat mayors and governors ordering their employees not to notify federal immigration enforcement officers when they have an illegal alien in custody;
• Dem mayors ordering city employees not to arrest drug dealers (Minneapolis);
• Dem mayors ordering city employees not to arrest people using illegal drugs in public;
• Dem mayors pushing their city councils to establish city-funded and -staffed sites for junkies to inject I-V drugs (Seattle, Philadelphia);
• Dem congresscritters filing lawsuits to prevent states from purging voter registration lists of dead people and people who have moved out of the state; 
• The last Dem president ordering federal immigration agents not to deport illegal aliens unless they'd committed a *really* serious crime while in the U.S.;

Instructing police to ignore drug sales is particularly damaging, since addicts account for a significant amount of theft and robbery to support their addictions.  Hard to see why Democrat pols would want to do something absolutely guaranteed to cause more robbery, but there ya go.

H/T City Journal

How's the economy? January jobs report released, shows...DISASTER!! Wait...

As usual, on the first Friday of each month the Labor Department releases the jobs report for the month just ended.

Liberals, Democrat politicians and NeverTrumpers--who were all screaming that the gruberment shutdown was all Trump's fault (not a single media outlet assigned even a scintilla of blame to congressional Dems who shrieked that they would NEVER give Orangeman even a single dollar for the wall) had screamed that the shutdown was devastating the economy, so they predicted the jobs report would be a disaster.

And sure enough, the Labor munchkins reported that the economy added just 304,000 jobs in January.
 
Wait...is that good or bad?  What's an average number?  What number did Democrat leaders and supporters predict?

Unless you're a hiring exec or a political junkie you don't know any of these things, eh? 

As it happens, if the economy adds around 220,000 jobs in a month, that's very good.  So the creation of 304,000 jobs in January was a huge success.  It's also worth noting that economists had predicted just 165,000 new jobs.  Wow, they were low by about 80 percent.

You'd think any forecaster who's that bad should be fired, eh?

And note that this surge in hiring comes despite the longest government shutdown in U.S. history and growing concern about a global economic downturn.

Oh, and remember what economists and the Left and Dem congressional slugs were screaming when Trump went toe-to-toe with China and slapped a few billion dollars in tariffs on their products?  Yep, they were all screaming that the tariffs would utterly devastate the U.S. economy.  How'd that work out for 'em? 

So do ya think any reporter in the entire Lying Media will ever re-visit those horrible predictions of disaster and show you how badly the Dems missed that prediction (along with hundreds of others)?

Oh, you bet.  But maybe not soon.  Inside betting is they'll do that story in 2048.  Or maybe not.

Low-information Dem voter:

"Wait...you say "the government was shutdown" for the entire month of January, and yet somehow 304,000 new jobs were added?  That doesn't make sense!  CNN says the government is the source of jobs and prosperity.  Adding a near-record number of jobs during a shutdown would mean...would...uh...uh...would mean the government does NOT create most of the jobs, so is NOT the source of prosperity.  That's not possible!"

Here's a little experiment:  See if or how the Lying Media report this great performance.  Then imagine how they would have reported exactly the same event if it had occurred under Obama.

H/T Ace of Spades.

**Mandatory Google warning:  "We have not verified the above claims.  In fact, because 20 percent of the government was shut down for the longest time ever--a cruel, devastating 35 days--it's almost certain that any numbers released by the Labor Department at this time were rushed, preliminary, and likely wrong due to no one working there for 35 days.

   Remember, you should never trust claims made in 'blogs' by anonymous private citizens.  You should only trust news verified by Google or one of our Trusted Sources.  We are the only source of accurate news.  If it's not from us, it's likely fake."**