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Are Democrats Pushing Sharia Law?

A fan thought I exaggerated when I wrote that Sharia law will spread like wildfire across America if Democrats win the White House. She feared my over-the-top statement about the spread of Islam will damage my credibility.

My statement is not an exaggeration. For crying out loud, the federal government illegally funded a national curriculum titled “Access Islam.” This indoctrination program outrageously teaches students how to become Muslim — how to pray as a Muslim, how to perform Islamic “daily worship,” and how to perform the “core duties” of being a Muslim.

A California school banned all Christian-based books from its library, including books by Christian authors. Superintendent Dr. Kathleen Hermsmeyer says they do not allow “sectarian materials” on their state-authorized lending shelves. Public schools are celebrating Islam while banning Christmas.

Public education is the battlefield of the culture war. Democrats use public schools to normalize the LGBTQ agenda in the hearts and minds of our kids. Upon infiltrating public schools, LGBTQ activists began molding and shaping students into their image beginning in pre-k.

Democrats continue to up the ante by expanding deviancy. Students are being indoctrinated to embrace numerous dangerous sexual perversions under the umbrella of “healthy sex education” — BDSM, rimming, anal sex, asphyxiation, gender-bending and more.

Beginning with portraying pedophiles as victims of our closed-minded society, Democrats are pushing to legalize pedophilia along with 11 other perversions. Civil unions granted homosexuals the same benefits as marriage. And yet, Democrats chose to use activist judges to destroy God’s sacred union of marriage. This is a long way down the road from LGBTQ activists claiming they simply wanted tolerance. Today, many Americans quake in fear opposing any demand of LGBTQ activists. Democrats want government to mandate that Christians throw away their Bibles to fully embrace Democrats’ anything-goes-sexually society.

Now Democrats are using government mandates to instill Islam in public schools while rooting out Christianity. Remember Democrat AG Loretta Lynch’s threat to jail anyone caught speaking badly of Islam? Lynch’s boss, Obama, was the most pro-Islam and anti-Christian president in U.S. history.

Democrats use blacks, women, homosexuals, and Muslims as useful idiots to further their extreme radical leftist agenda. For example. Democrats and fake news said that opposing Obama’s punish-America policies was racist. Had Hillary won, opposing her leftist agenda would be branded sexist. If homosexual Democrat presidential candidate Mayor Pete Buttigieg wins the WH, opposing his extreme radical leftist ideas will be branded homophobia. If one of the anti-Semitic Democrats win the presidency, opposing their hate-Israel rants will be branded Islamophobic. This tactic is called “shaming.” Democrats and fake news routinely use shaming to silence all opposition, while forcing their anti-American and anti-Christian agendas down our throats.

Judge Jeanine Pirro’s TV show was taken off the air for two weeks for daring to tell the truth about Muslim Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s rabid anti-Semitism. Rather than strongly rebuking Omar’s hatred for our ally, Israel, every Democratic presidential candidate decided to give Israel their middle finger by refusing to attend AIPAC.

Can you believe there are “Muslim Community Patrol” cars in Brooklyn, New York which look exactly like police cars? Disturbed residents are questioning why this is necessary because the NYPD is extremely diverse. These Muslim patrols are allowed to stealthily enforce Sharia law in their neighborhoods — no homosexuals, no women wearing short skirts and so on.

Respecting Islam, a California public school caved to Sharia law by forbidding students to draw images of Mohammed. And yet, Democrats defended the NEA funding “Piss Christ” which featured a crucifix submerged in urine.

My late dad was a Methodist pastor. Dad said that every year for decades LGBTQ activists brought ordaining homosexuals to the table at their annual conference. Due to the Bible’s clear rebuke, ordaining homosexuals was voted down. Then one year, it passed. We are seeing this same persistence tactic used to further Sharia law.

Thank God that Texas turned back the establishment of the first official Sharia court in America. But do not become complacent, folks. These people will never give up and will keep coming back at us.

Traditions, principles and values everyday Americans and Christians hold dear are under relentless attack by Democratic enemies within. As a Christian, I view the Democrats’ aggression as the Spirit of Anti-Christ. Jesus proclaiming himself our savior and Lord is as repulsive to leftists as is showing Dracula the cross. This is why even though Islam clearly hates homosexuals and suppresses women, Democrats overwhelmingly prefer Islam over Christianity. Democrats are banning Christianity in public school while quietly replacing it with Islam.

No, I do not believe Sharia law will overtake America. But if Democrats take the White House, Sharia Law will swiftly gain government-protected strongholds across America.

Lloyd Marcus, The Unhyphenated American

http://LloydMarcus.com

Help Lloyd spread the Truth

A fan thought I exaggerated when I wrote that Sharia law will spread like wildfire across America if Democrats win the White House. She feared my over-the-top statement about the spread of Islam will damage my credibility.

My statement is not an exaggeration. For crying out loud, the federal government illegally funded a national curriculum titled “Access Islam.” This indoctrination program outrageously teaches students how to become Muslim — how to pray as a Muslim, how to perform Islamic “daily worship,” and how to perform the “core duties” of being a Muslim.

A California school banned all Christian-based books from its library, including books by Christian authors. Superintendent Dr. Kathleen Hermsmeyer says they do not allow “sectarian materials” on their state-authorized lending shelves. Public schools are celebrating Islam while banning Christmas.

Public education is the battlefield of the culture war. Democrats use public schools to normalize the LGBTQ agenda in the hearts and minds of our kids. Upon infiltrating public schools, LGBTQ activists began molding and shaping students into their image beginning in pre-k.

Democrats continue to up the ante by expanding deviancy. Students are being indoctrinated to embrace numerous dangerous sexual perversions under the umbrella of “healthy sex education” — BDSM, rimming, anal sex, asphyxiation, gender-bending and more.

Beginning with portraying pedophiles as victims of our closed-minded society, Democrats are pushing to legalize pedophilia along with 11 other perversions. Civil unions granted homosexuals the same benefits as marriage. And yet, Democrats chose to use activist judges to destroy God’s sacred union of marriage. This is a long way down the road from LGBTQ activists claiming they simply wanted tolerance. Today, many Americans quake in fear opposing any demand of LGBTQ activists. Democrats want government to mandate that Christians throw away their Bibles to fully embrace Democrats’ anything-goes-sexually society.

Now Democrats are using government mandates to instill Islam in public schools while rooting out Christianity. Remember Democrat AG Loretta Lynch’s threat to jail anyone caught speaking badly of Islam? Lynch’s boss, Obama, was the most pro-Islam and anti-Christian president in U.S. history.

Democrats use blacks, women, homosexuals, and Muslims as useful idiots to further their extreme radical leftist agenda. For example. Democrats and fake news said that opposing Obama’s punish-America policies was racist. Had Hillary won, opposing her leftist agenda would be branded sexist. If homosexual Democrat presidential candidate Mayor Pete Buttigieg wins the WH, opposing his extreme radical leftist ideas will be branded homophobia. If one of the anti-Semitic Democrats win the presidency, opposing their hate-Israel rants will be branded Islamophobic. This tactic is called “shaming.” Democrats and fake news routinely use shaming to silence all opposition, while forcing their anti-American and anti-Christian agendas down our throats.

Judge Jeanine Pirro’s TV show was taken off the air for two weeks for daring to tell the truth about Muslim Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s rabid anti-Semitism. Rather than strongly rebuking Omar’s hatred for our ally, Israel, every Democratic presidential candidate decided to give Israel their middle finger by refusing to attend AIPAC.

Can you believe there are “Muslim Community Patrol” cars in Brooklyn, New York which look exactly like police cars? Disturbed residents are questioning why this is necessary because the NYPD is extremely diverse. These Muslim patrols are allowed to stealthily enforce Sharia law in their neighborhoods — no homosexuals, no women wearing short skirts and so on.

Respecting Islam, a California public school caved to Sharia law by forbidding students to draw images of Mohammed. And yet, Democrats defended the NEA funding “Piss Christ” which featured a crucifix submerged in urine.

My late dad was a Methodist pastor. Dad said that every year for decades LGBTQ activists brought ordaining homosexuals to the table at their annual conference. Due to the Bible’s clear rebuke, ordaining homosexuals was voted down. Then one year, it passed. We are seeing this same persistence tactic used to further Sharia law.

Thank God that Texas turned back the establishment of the first official Sharia court in America. But do not become complacent, folks. These people will never give up and will keep coming back at us.

Traditions, principles and values everyday Americans and Christians hold dear are under relentless attack by Democratic enemies within. As a Christian, I view the Democrats’ aggression as the Spirit of Anti-Christ. Jesus proclaiming himself our savior and Lord is as repulsive to leftists as is showing Dracula the cross. This is why even though Islam clearly hates homosexuals and suppresses women, Democrats overwhelmingly prefer Islam over Christianity. Democrats are banning Christianity in public school while quietly replacing it with Islam.

No, I do not believe Sharia law will overtake America. But if Democrats take the White House, Sharia Law will swiftly gain government-protected strongholds across America.

Lloyd Marcus, The Unhyphenated American

http://LloydMarcus.com

Help Lloyd spread the Truth

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Dems And The Media Are Falling For An Old, Deceptively Edited Video Of Trump

It’s what they do. Same lie 2.0. Via Daily Caller: Democrats and members of the establishment media fell for a viral clip purporting that President Donald Trump called asylum seekers “animals” on Friday at an immigration roundtable. In reality, the clip in question is from an event in May 2018 when the president was clearly […]

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Senate Republicans Have Triggered the ‘Nuclear Option.’ They Were Completely Justified.

Most people
agree that our system of government depends on an informed, participating
citizenry. It can be hard enough to understand what Congress is doing, but it’s
even harder to grasp how Congress operates.  

And yet, rules
that govern how things get done often determine what those things end up being.
As such, it’s very important that Americans understand how the Senate majority
just changed—and hopefully, improved—the process for debating the president’s
nominations.

Senate
Republicans on Wednesday, in a pair of 51-48 votes almost entirely along party
lines, revised one part of that process. The move will expedite the
confirmation process for President Donald Trump’s district court nominees and
sub-Cabinet posts at federal departments and agencies.

The
Constitution doesn’t say much about this process, only that the president needs
the Senate’s “advice and consent” before he can appoint someone he has
nominated.

Then the
Constitution gives the Senate authority to establish “the rules of its
proceedings.” In other words, the Constitution assigns this role to the Senate,
but without telling the Senate how to do it.

The process of the Senate evaluating nominees and deciding whether to give its consent is often called the confirmation process, and it operated pretty smoothly for nearly two centuries.

But as the
federal government grew in size and power, the appointment of those who lead it
has become more important and, therefore, more contentious.

Though
designed to be the weakest branch, the judiciary has in recent decades become
the strongest. Its power to determine what our laws mean is magnified because
judges do not have limited terms. Once they are appointed, they serve until
they decide to leave, an average of nearly 25 years.

As a result,
the judicial-confirmation process has become particularly difficult. Until the past
couple of decades, 96 percent of federal judges were confirmed without even a
roll call, or recorded, vote, and 97 percent had no opposition at all.

Those days
are gone.

Trump is
making significantly more judicial nominations—and the Senate Judiciary
Committee is holding a hearing for far more of them—than under the previous
five presidents.

Final
confirmations by the full Senate, however, are off the pace. The cause is an organized
campaign, utilizing several specific tactics, by Democrats and their liberal
allies to make the rest of the process as slow and cumbersome as possible.

Senate
Republicans have now neutralized one of those tactics.

Senate Rule
22 provides for a process to invoke cloture, or end debate, which is necessary
before the Senate can vote on confirmation.

Even when
the Senate votes to bring debate to a close, however, Rule 22 allowed up to 30
more hours of debate.

Democrats had
abused that part of the Rule 22 process. First, they refused to shorten that
30-hour period of debate even for nominations they didn’t intend to oppose.
Second, they almost never actually went to the Senate floor and debated the nomination
being considered.

That was
just empty time, with the clock ticking for no purpose other than delaying the
inevitable. Nominations that would have been confirmed in a few hours took
several days.

On Tuesday, Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gave Democrats a final opportunity to dial back
such obstruction. The Kentucky Republican brought up a resolution to shorten post-cloture
debate for most nominations with limits very similar to those the Senate voted
78-16 to adopt for the 113th Congress (2013-14).

Democrats
supported those limits when they ran the Senate under President Barack Obama, but
filibustered them now that they are the minority under Trump.

On Wednesday,
McConnell achieved the same reform in a different way. He proposed lower limits
on post-cloture debate, not in the form of a written resolution, but as a
“point of order,” or a question of procedure that required an answer from the
Senate’s presiding officer.

The full
Senate then voted on whether to endorse the presiding officer’s decision.
McConnell used this approach because it could not be stopped by a filibuster
the way the resolution had been the day before.

Remember, that
is the very last step before a final confirmation vote. The Senate has already
voted, often overwhelmingly, that it wants to end debate. Making that final
period of available debate a little shorter is not, in the big scheme of
things, a significant step.

It can,
however, have a significant impact. When similar debate limits were in place in
2014, the Senate confirmed 89 judicial nominations, the second-highest annual
total in American history.

Even if
Democrats continue forcing the Senate to use the formal Rule 22 process to end
debate, the Senate will be able to do so for more nominees in a shorter period
of time.

Today, 142
positions across the federal judiciary are vacant, the highest number since
June 1991. Ninety percent of those vacancies are on the U.S. District Court,
the lowest level of the judiciary, where every case must begin.

No business
or organization could function properly if 17 percent of its workforce was absent,
yet that is the condition of the federal judiciary today.

The bottom
line is that the Senate’s process for considering nominations has become too
divisive and subject to abuse. The judiciary, and the American people who
depend on it, suffer as a result.

While controversies can arise about an individual nominee here or there, the process must be less cumbersome for the large majority, who should be easily confirmed.

Republicans have, in effect, opened one of the gates that have kept the process backed up. They need to seize this opportunity so that the government that Americans elected in 2016 can function as it should.

The post Senate Republicans Have Triggered the ‘Nuclear Option.’ They Were Completely Justified. appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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March back into the black: 196,000 jobs added, unemployment steady at 3.8%

So much for the winter doldrums. After an unexpected pothole in job creation in February, the US economy rebounded in March to add 196,000 jobs. Unemployment remained steady, although that came in part from a slight drop in the labor force. The news was especially good in the health-care industry:

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 196,000 in March, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.8 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Notable job gains occurred in health care and in professional and technical services.  …

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 196,000 in March, with notable gains in health care and in professional and technical services. Employment growth averaged 180,000 per month in the first quarter of 2019, compared with 223,000 per month in 2018. (See table B-1.)

Health care added 49,000 jobs in March and 398,000 over the past 12 months. Over the month, employment increased in ambulatory health care services (+27,000), hospitals (+14,000), and nursing and residential care facilities (+9,000). Employment in professional and technical services grew by 34,000 in March and 311,000 over the past 12 months. In March, computer systems design and related services added 12,000 jobs. Employment continued to trend up in architectural and engineering services (+6,000) and in management and technical consulting services (+6,000).

Wage growth continued at a modest pace, ticking up four dollars a week, and the average workweek expanded a little as well. For that matter, the revisions to previous months were all modestly positive, adding in 14,000 more jobs than previously reported in the last two months combined.

Although the actual figures in the Household survey for the labor force dropped a bit, that measure is notoriously volatile anyway. The labor force participation ratio remained steady at 63.0%, on the high side of a narrow spectrum over the past six years, and the employer-participation ratio remained even steadier at 60.6%. That measure hasn’t deviated more than a tenth of a point in the last six months.

Altogether, it’s a good but not spectacular report. The three-month rolling average now stands at 180,000, which exceeds the maintenance level needed for population growth but doesn’t indicate a rapid expansion. To some extent, we may not have the labor capacity any longer to feed a rapid expansion, with the growth over the last two years eating into the overhang from the Great Recession. The uptick in wages and hours also reflects that status as labor gets tight and employers have to offer more hours and better compensation to compete for it.

CNBC’s Jeff Cox also calls it a rebound, although he notes that wage growth slowed up a little:

Job creation posted a solid rebound in March, with nonfarm payrolls expanding by 196,000 and the unemployment rate holding steady at 3.8%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.

That was better than the 175,000 Dow Jones estimate and comes after a dismal February that had economists wondering whether the decade-old economic expansion was nearing an end. The unemployment rate met expectations.

Wage gains fell off the recent strong pace, increasing just 0.14% for the month and 3.2% year over year, below expectations of the 3.4% pace from last month. The average work week increased by 0.1 hour to 34.5 hours. …

Broadly speaking, the report is likely to restore some confidence in a labor market that had looked shaky and an economy whose prospects were equally uncertain.

Reuters also notes that wage growth slowed in March, but Lucia Mutikani writes that the overall report should rebut fears that the economy might be heading into recession:

U.S. employment growth accelerated from a 17-month low in March as milder weather boosted activity in sectors like construction, which could further allay fears of a sharp slowdown in economic growth in the first quarter. …

The economy has shifted into lower gear as stimulus from the Trump administration’s $1.5 trillion tax cut package as well as increased government spending fades. A trade war between Washington and Beijing, and slowing global growth have also taken a toll on the economy, which in July will celebrate 10 years of expansion, the longest on record.

The employment report added to fairly upbeat construction spending and factory data that led Wall Street banks to boost their growth estimates for the first quarter.

If Donald Trump can cut a deal with China, there may still be some untapped potential for bigger growth and with it more wage competition. That will likely not get settled in April, though, so perhaps we should expect this modest level of growth to be the best-case scenario for a while.

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Final frontier for campus thought police: Alumni reunions

The takeover of elite higher education institutions is nearly complete, with the vast diversity bureaucracies able to intimidate students and faculty into compliance with speech codes, and undergo thought reform, so that they never, for example, unthinkingly use the personal pronouns “she” and “her” just because a person obviously has two X-chromosomes.  But academia is known as an “ivory tower” because it is a separate universe from the society and economy that supports it. Only by monopolizing speech control on campus can the unwilling minds being force-indoctrinated into speech and thought entirely new in the history of civilization.

But there is danger for the progressive panjandrums ruling campus speech and thought:  what about alumni – especially alumni whose campus experience pre-dates the takeover of academia by the thought controllers? They have the potential to break the monopoly and introduce dangerous ideas. So, they must be controlled when they return to campus for reunions.

The result is something like this memorandum distributed by Cornell University to alumni telling them to follow their speech code when visiting (hat tip: Robert Shibley, Instapundit):

Aside from being patronizingly insulting, there is one major problem with this. The entire reason that campuses hold reunions of elderly alumni is to shill for donations, especially in the wills of the soon-to-expire former students. Telling them that they are ignorant, crude, thoughtless barbarians is not a good approach to wheedling a mention in the last will and testament of an alumnus.

This is not a purely academic concern (pardon me the pun) for me. Next month I am attending my 50th reunion at Kenyon College, which, alas, has fallen to the forces of political correctness just like every other elite (the ones US News and World Report defines as “highly selective” – which is what makes it worthwhile for parents to bribe their children’s way in) college and university. If they try anything this stupid, they will hear from me and probably from my classmate Richard Baehr, co-founder of American Thinker, as well as, I suspect, a number of other alumni in our class with whom I have remained in touch these many decades.  (In fact, they will hear from me anyway, but using other ammunition).

I intend to write about my experiences and my assessment of the changes in campus life over five decades, so you probably will see some commentary.  

The takeover of elite higher education institutions is nearly complete, with the vast diversity bureaucracies able to intimidate students and faculty into compliance with speech codes, and undergo thought reform, so that they never, for example, unthinkingly use the personal pronouns “she” and “her” just because a person obviously has two X-chromosomes.  But academia is known as an “ivory tower” because it is a separate universe from the society and economy that supports it. Only by monopolizing speech control on campus can the unwilling minds being force-indoctrinated into speech and thought entirely new in the history of civilization.

But there is danger for the progressive panjandrums ruling campus speech and thought:  what about alumni – especially alumni whose campus experience pre-dates the takeover of academia by the thought controllers? They have the potential to break the monopoly and introduce dangerous ideas. So, they must be controlled when they return to campus for reunions.

The result is something like this memorandum distributed by Cornell University to alumni telling them to follow their speech code when visiting (hat tip: Robert Shibley, Instapundit):

Aside from being patronizingly insulting, there is one major problem with this. The entire reason that campuses hold reunions of elderly alumni is to shill for donations, especially in the wills of the soon-to-expire former students. Telling them that they are ignorant, crude, thoughtless barbarians is not a good approach to wheedling a mention in the last will and testament of an alumnus.

This is not a purely academic concern (pardon me the pun) for me. Next month I am attending my 50th reunion at Kenyon College, which, alas, has fallen to the forces of political correctness just like every other elite (the ones US News and World Report defines as “highly selective” – which is what makes it worthwhile for parents to bribe their children’s way in) college and university. If they try anything this stupid, they will hear from me and probably from my classmate Richard Baehr, co-founder of American Thinker, as well as, I suspect, a number of other alumni in our class with whom I have remained in touch these many decades.  (In fact, they will hear from me anyway, but using other ammunition).

I intend to write about my experiences and my assessment of the changes in campus life over five decades, so you probably will see some commentary.  

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Why All the Blame for Venezuela’s Woes Falls on Chavez and Maduro

After my recent Spanish-language column at Univision.com looked at the economic collapse in Venezuela, I heard from proponents of socialism who tried to blame the disaster not on the socialist policies of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro, but on American economic sanctions.

The past week saw even more terrible news from Venezuela, with a week-long power outage and images of people in a once-wealthy country now reduced to getting drinking water from tainted rivers.

It’s essential that we draw the right lessons—so that no one else makes the mistake of going down this same road.

The track record shows that long after Hugo Chavez was elected—and long after he imposed destructive policies that put Venezuela on the road to economic ruin—Venezuela continued to benefit from strong economic ties with the U.S.

The Maduro regime and its supporters abroad like to blame sanctions, but according to the Congressional Research Service, the first U.S, economic sanctions on the Caracas government did not begin until 2008, and even those were limited to only a few individuals and institutions. More serious U.S. sanctions came years later.

The numbers show that Americans and American companies continued boosting the Venezuelan economy with trade and investment well into the reign of Chavez.

American investment in Venezuela—investment that supported job creation—actually grew in the years after 2000—reaching $13.5 billion in 2008.

After a brief two-year dip, it began climbing again and exceeded $13 billion in 2013. So, American investors were committing resources to Venezuela in ways that helped increase economic opportunity.I

It’s a similar story with imports and exports. In the year 2000, total annual trade between the United States and Venezuela was under $24 billion. By 2008, two-way trade had climbed to nearly $64 billion—with more than $50 billion going from the United States to Venezuela in just one year to pay for imports from that country.

By 2012, trade between the two countries had slowed somewhat, but even then it totaled nearly $60 billion—still a large increase during the Chavez years.

We know that Chavez made major destabilizing changes in Venezuela long before. Chavez was first elected in Venezuela in 1998, vowing to fight corruption and make sure that national wealth was shared more broadly and fairly.

In 2001, he pushed through a land confiscation and redistribution scheme tthat failed, leading to reduced food production and increased need for imports.

The land “reform,” combined with the currency controls imposed in 2003, badly hurt Venezuela’s agricultural sector. Those failures weren’t the result of any outside interference; they were homegrown.

Chavez imposed numerous other changes as well, many intended to shut down criticism and concentrate power in his hands and those of his cronies. In 2002, he purged PDVSA, the national oil company, of dissidents and critics of his socialist policies and leadership, then continued purges the next year.

Not surprisingly, oil output in Venezuela began a multiyear decline during and after these purges.

In 2003, Chavez began imposing price controls. In 2005 came the breakup of large estates and regulations to punish critics in the media. In 2006, the outright nationalization of private companies began. That same year saw a military deal with Russia.

Yet through all of this, American investment in Venezuela continued and grew, and trade between the two nations actually expanded. American sanctions didn’t contribute to the growing economic problems during this era, because there were none.

In 2009, the government imposed production quotas for staples, leading to shortages. In 2010, Chavez devalued the currency, the bolivar, to try to boost oil revenues. Moves like that may produce short-term results, but they destabilize the economy and frighten investors, hurting growth in the longer term.

In 2012 came more price controls, and then Chavez’s victory in a fourth consecutive presidential election—but only after he pushed through the abolition of term limits, grabbing more power for himself.

And while Chavez and his successor, Maduro, imposed new and damaging policies on Venezuela’s economy, they enriched themselves at the expense of their people.

Chavez’s net worth was estimated to be more than $1 billion when he died in 2013, and his family had partnered with criminals to skim $100 billion from the national economy.

Nowadays, Chavez’s family members and those of Maduro flaunt wealth estimated to be in the billions, wealth that’s been sucked out of the Venezuelan economy over the years.

Chavez’s former bodyguard-turned-treasurer has admitted to receiving more than $1 billion in bribes. These private fortunes are the corrupt legacy of populists who promised to spread the nation’s wealth more widely.

When you look at Venezuela over the past 20 years, you see the result of leaders who were sure that they knew better how to manage an economy than millions of consumers and producers. These government experts tried to dictate prices and currency values, as well as what is produced and by whom.

They thought they could manage an incredibly complex economy, down to the last detail. They failed—as all government management is prone to when it becomes more complex.

And what is worse, when the failures became clear, Chavez and Maduro didn’t change course—nor did they learn a lesson. Instead, at every step, they doubled down. The result was a complete collapse of the economy and the nation in a disaster that is impoverishing millions.

We should all be able to see this collapse for what it is—and commit to not repeat these terrible mistakes.

A version of this column originally appeared in Spanish at Univision.com.

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WOW! This Will Blow You Away! Donald Trump 2020 Trailer — There’s Only ONE Choice (VIDEO)

This Donald Trump 2020 Trailer posted on Friday will blow you away.

The choice is clear.
Four more years of the greatest economic comeback in history — or open borders and Venezuela economic policies.

Via Jack Posobiec and Wojciech Pawelczyk.

And then there are the Democrat-Socialists who want to destroy the economy, open the borders, and jail political opponents.

The post WOW! This Will Blow You Away! Donald Trump 2020 Trailer — There’s Only ONE Choice (VIDEO) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.

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Buried lede: So now we have caravans loading up with migrants from Sri Lanka, Congo, Haiti…?

In its story about thousands of caravan migrants encountering a slow-walk for ”humanitarian” visas of passage to the U.S. from Mexican officials, Reuters let out a doozy of a detail way down in its story about the matter:

At the border town of Tapachula, near the southern tip of Mexico bordering Guatemala, another group included people from Sri Lanka, Congo and Haiti, a federal official said. Some migrants said Mexican officials had slowed down the process of awarding the visas or denied them outright without providing any explanation.

A small group lashed out at border officials in Tapachula on Tuesday over the delays, throwing rocks and breaking windows of a local migration institute building.

Lovely bunch, aren’t they, with their demands for instant customer service from Mexican officials.

They’ve obviously got a lot of money for plane flights to places like Mexico along with cartel smuggler fees, and therefore are accustomed to such service. In fact, they are convinced they are entitled to it, same as they get at the Hertz counter. When they don’t, the resort to road rage-style brick-throwing.

What it suggests is that the caravans have gone global. They’ve been marketed in the press and by its NGO allies and by the Catholic Church as a Central America thing, but they’re now attracting far more than Central Americans now. The world was watching closely as President Trump dealt with the border debacle with the arrival of the first Central American caravan late last year – and they could see that leftist judges and congresspeople defeating him every time, unable to keep the illegal migrants out. And with Europe cracking down on the big migrant waves and sending the boats back to Libya and elsewhere, the migrants with money have decided they’ll come here through Mexico, too. They’ve concluded it’s a can’t-lose proposition.

They represent a far bigger migrant market – and cartel profit center than just the entire Central American bloc. So, instead of 1.5 million migrants from Central America expected to arrive here this year – the number can swell enormously higher. These global migrants can see the loopholes that enabled people such as ungrateful Honduran “Lady Frijoles,” recently charged with assault with a deadly weapon in Dallas, to come here scot-free. Asylum claims give any asker at least three free years of working in the U.S. as they await a judge’s decision about their claims, meaning, being sent back still yields three free years of working in America, and with instant customer service from U.S. officials, all at zero cost.

Compare and contrast to what U.S. legal immigration takes – 10 years of waiting in line for service, thousands of dollars of costs, lots of lost paperwork from U.S. officials, and no free time working in America as they await claims.

What’s a migrant going to do? Europe’s pulling up the drawbridge. America is letting everyone in for free. If leftist judges and U.S. congressional leftists thought that freebie for Cental Americans was going to stay with Central American migrants alone, they had another thing coming. Plane flights are cheap and frequent now.

Build an open border - and they will come.

 

Image credit: Ggia, via Wikipedia // CC BY-SA 4.0

In its story about thousands of caravan migrants encountering a slow-walk for ”humanitarian” visas of passage to the U.S. from Mexican officials, Reuters let out a doozy of a detail way down in its story about the matter:

At the border town of Tapachula, near the southern tip of Mexico bordering Guatemala, another group included people from Sri Lanka, Congo and Haiti, a federal official said. Some migrants said Mexican officials had slowed down the process of awarding the visas or denied them outright without providing any explanation.

A small group lashed out at border officials in Tapachula on Tuesday over the delays, throwing rocks and breaking windows of a local migration institute building.

Lovely bunch, aren’t they, with their demands for instant customer service from Mexican officials.

They’ve obviously got a lot of money for plane flights to places like Mexico along with cartel smuggler fees, and therefore are accustomed to such service. In fact, they are convinced they are entitled to it, same as they get at the Hertz counter. When they don’t, the resort to road rage-style brick-throwing.

What it suggests is that the caravans have gone global. They’ve been marketed in the press and by its NGO allies and by the Catholic Church as a Central America thing, but they’re now attracting far more than Central Americans now. The world was watching closely as President Trump dealt with the border debacle with the arrival of the first Central American caravan late last year – and they could see that leftist judges and congresspeople defeating him every time, unable to keep the illegal migrants out. And with Europe cracking down on the big migrant waves and sending the boats back to Libya and elsewhere, the migrants with money have decided they’ll come here through Mexico, too. They’ve concluded it’s a can’t-lose proposition.

They represent a far bigger migrant market – and cartel profit center than just the entire Central American bloc. So, instead of 1.5 million migrants from Central America expected to arrive here this year – the number can swell enormously higher. These global migrants can see the loopholes that enabled people such as ungrateful Honduran “Lady Frijoles,” recently charged with assault with a deadly weapon in Dallas, to come here scot-free. Asylum claims give any asker at least three free years of working in the U.S. as they await a judge’s decision about their claims, meaning, being sent back still yields three free years of working in America, and with instant customer service from U.S. officials, all at zero cost.

Compare and contrast to what U.S. legal immigration takes – 10 years of waiting in line for service, thousands of dollars of costs, lots of lost paperwork from U.S. officials, and no free time working in America as they await claims.

What’s a migrant going to do? Europe’s pulling up the drawbridge. America is letting everyone in for free. If leftist judges and U.S. congressional leftists thought that freebie for Cental Americans was going to stay with Central American migrants alone, they had another thing coming. Plane flights are cheap and frequent now.

Build an open border - and they will come.

 

Image credit: Ggia, via Wikipedia // CC BY-SA 4.0

via American Thinker Blog

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