New Study Finds Red States Have Best Economic Outlook In 2018

As long as the blue state locust stay away.

Via Washington Examiner:

Go somewhere with low tax burdens, light regulation, and limited government, young man. Grow up with your country in a red state.

That’s the conclusion of the annual “Rich States, Poor States” report from the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council, set to be released Tuesday.

Nine of the ten states with the best economic outlook for 2018 are red, mirrored inversely by nine of the ten states with the worst economic outlooks that are blue. Local politics and the fiscal policy they produce, the analysis suggests, determine whether or not a state economy will thrive.

It’s a large part of the reason why Utah is No. 1 on the list and New York, No. 50, explains ALEC Chief Economist Jonathan Williams.

“You do see a focus on a limited government philosophy, lower taxes, and many of the things Republicans generally run on in those states,” says Williams. “Look at those states, and they’re very fiscally conservative guided states, and they have been for a very long time.”

In its eleventh edition, the annual report looks at 15 different factors from tax burdens, regulations, and labor policy. Along with Williams, the analysis was authored by Art Laffer and Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation, both economists and both, at one time or another, advisers to President Trump.

The breakout star of this edition is Idaho, which rose eight spots to come in second this year — a direct result of their reaction to the president’s federal tax reform.

The tax cuts led to an unexpected windfall of cash due to the elimination or reduction of many deductions, allowing more income to be taxed, a development that Williams likens to the post-Ronald Reagan tax cuts of 1986 where a number of states used that unexpected revenue to cut local taxes even further.

Keep reading…

via Weasel Zippers

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Starbucks Forced to Apologize Over ‘Ridiculous’ Treatment of Two Black Men

There’s always something inherently enjoyable about watching a liberal individual or entity getting eaten alive by its own constituency.

Take, for instance, when the folks at Facebook were improbably being grilled for throwing the election to Donald Trump by not catching a small group of Russians with a rather modest budget sowing discord during the 2016 election.

Or consider actress Lena Dunham’s rather forceful ejection from the sisterhood of the traveling social media when she decided to defend a white male colleague accused of sexually assaulting an African-American woman.

These are all serious issues, but the point is that each of these assiduously liberal entities ended up getting torn apart by the very people and principles they’ve supported, all invoking at least some level of schadenfreude from conservatives.

And to this list — which is much longer than just the two examples listed above, mind you — one can now add Starbucks.

Yes, the conspicuously liberal coffee chain famous for its anti-conservative politicking and wading into the culture wars more than once is now in a world of viral hurt after a video emerged online of two black men apparently being arrested in a Starbucks in Philadelphia while they were waiting for a friend.

According to Fox News, the two men were taken into custody Thursday after they asked to use the bathroom and were denied access by the manager. They then refused to leave when he told them to.

The manager proceeded to call 911, Philadelphia Police Commissioner Richard Ross said. The manager reported the two men for “trespassing.”

Do you think this arrest was warranted?

When police showed up, the two men were taken into custody, but not without a video of the incident being taken. The video quickly spread on social media, bringing plenty of invective with it.

Ross said the men were asked by police three times to leave before they were arrested but refused. A man who says he was coming there to meet them arrived and backed up their story, but police took them away nonetheless.

The police commissioner, who is black himself, made it clear early on that whatever blame there was lay with the coffee shop.

“As an African-American male, I am very aware of implicit bias; we are committed to fair and unbiased policing,” Ross said.

“If a business calls and they say that ‘someone is here that I no longer wish to be in my business,’” Ross said, officers have “a legal obligation to carry out their duties and they did just that.”

RELATED: Mother Weeps in Court After Allegedly Recording Herself Giving 16-Month-Old Child Drugs

Things began getting worse for Starbucks. According to The Washington Post, the individual the two men were there to meet, Andrew Yaffe, is the head of a real estate development firm and was there to meet with the two men about investment opportunities.

So, thanks to Starbucks, the two men went for a meeting about investments and wound up spending the night in jail. They were eventually released without charges being pressed.

Starbucks had a public relations nightmare on its hands, and it wasn’t long before it was groveling before the public.

“We apologize to the two individuals and our customers and are disappointed this led to an arrest,” the statement read. “We take these matters seriously and clearly have more work to do when it comes to how we handle incidents in our stores. We are reviewing our policies and will continue to engage with the community and the police department to ensure these types of situations never happen in any of our stores.”

Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson also issued a statement that was critical of the store’s actions.

“Regretfully, our practices and training led to a bad outcome — the basis for the call to the Philadelphia police department was wrong,” Johnson said. “Our store manager never intended for these men to be arrested and this should never have escalated as it did.”

So basically, the police are blaming Starbucks, Starbucks is taking some responsibility but saying that when the manager called 911 to get the police involved, he never thought they would be, like, arrested — because clearly that never happens when you call 911 on someone.

Johnson also said he hopes “to meet personally with the two men who were arrested to offer a face-to-face apology.” That might be a start, but Johnson’s company will also have to deal with a whole lot of invective heaped on them, especially by their liberal clientele.

What do you think? Scroll down to comment below!

via Conservative Tribune

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Comey Fires Off Tweet After Trump Threatens Former FBI Chief With JAIL – Twitter Responds

Comey Fires Off Tweet After Trump Threatens Former FBI Chief With JAIL – Twitter Responds

President Trump unleashed on James Comey Sunday morning in a ferocious tweetstorm and even threatened the former FBI chief with jail for leaking classified information.

James Comey fired off a tweet a few hours later and Trump supporters on Twitter torched him.

Crooked cop Comey is set to embark on a book tour to peddle his fictional memoir “A Higher Loyalty.”

Excerpts of the book have made their rounds ahead of the April 17 release date.

Comey personally attacked President Trump by trashing his marriage to First Lady Melania and poked fun at his appearance.

The disgraced former FBI Director had the nerve to say Trump “is unethical, and untethered to truth and institutional values.”

Sunday morning Trump hit Comey hard and even threatened him with jail.

Trump tweeted: “The big questions in Comey’s badly reviewed book aren’t answered like, how come he gave up Classified Information (jail), why did he lie to Congress (jail), why did the DNC refuse to give Server to the FBI (why didn’t they TAKE it), why the phony memos, McCabe’s $700,000 & more?”

Round 2: Comey throws AG Lynch “under the bus!” Why can’t we all find out what happened on the tarmac in the back of the plane with Wild Bill and Lynch? Was she promised a Supreme Court seat, or AG, in order to lay off Hillary. No golf and grandkids talk (give us all a break)!

Round 3: I never asked Comey for Personal Loyalty. I hardly even knew this guy. Just another of his many lies. His “memos” are self serving and FAKE!

Round 4: Slippery James Comey, a man who always ends up badly and out of whack (he is not smart!), will go down as the WORST FBI Director in history, by far!

James Comey tweeted a few hours later about “ethical leadership.”

No Bible verses or cryptic philosophical quotes this time around, Comey?

Comey tweeted: My book is about ethical leadership & draws on stories from my life & lessons I learned from others. 3 presidents are in my book: 2 help illustrate the values at the heart of ethical leadership; 1 serves as a counterpoint. I hope folks read the whole thing and find it useful.

Comey’s sit-down interview with sycophant George Stephanopoulos airs Sunday night at 10 PM EST on ABC.

Trump supporters on Twitter torched Comey.

Comments

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via The Gateway Pundit

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‘Mission Accomplished?’: Networks Desperately Move the Goalposts on Syria

On Sunday morning, television news personalities begrudgingly showed a small degree of satisfaction with President Trump’s recent military action in Syria. Evidently disturbed by their support for anything Trump, cable and network media hosts collectively lifted the goalposts in unison and hurriedly ran them downfield. 

In a bid for something — anything — to take issue with in regards to the recent military strike in Syria, network hosts frantically coalesced around a common shelling point: the President’s Twitter account. Specifically, the point of contention was a tweet in which the President used the phrase, “Mission accomplished,” which as many talking heads helpfully pointed out, was the same ill-advised terminology President Bush had used to declare the Iraq war a success prematurely. 

ABC Chief Global Affairs Correspondent Martha Raddatz opined in regards to that Trump tweet: 

It’s not wise the to use the term mission accomplished in an ongoing conflict. If what you wanted was a limited, punishing strike, as safe for U.S and allied forces as you can possibly make it, with no unintended casualties on the ground and no escalation in the conflict, then the mission was accomplished. 

In other words, if the Trump administration had intended to accomplish exactly what these airstrikes had achieved, then sure, maybe the mission was technically “accomplished.” But, Raddatz shrewdly observed, the alleged destruction of Assad’s chemical weapons caches would not “change the dynamics of the war on the ground.” 

This Week host George Stephanopoulos neatly tied a bow on the cognitive dissonance inherent in Raddatz’s analysis: “Martha Raddatz said perhaps the initial mission was accomplished, but that the overall declaration of ‘mission accomplished’ is premature.” 

 

 

On CBS’s Face The Nation, Margaret Brennan pushed a similar talking point. “President Trump says the strike was perfectly executed and that the mission was accomplished, but some in Congress say the strikes didn’t go far enough,” she nitpicked. Brennan failed to mention that the members of Congress to whom she was referring were predominantly Democrats. But that was probably just an oversight. She continued, “Either way, the question remains — what exactly is the strategy in Syria and the conflict that’s now in its seventh year?”

Meet The Press host and NBC News political director Chuck Todd took the same angle, demanding to know what precisely the administration’s strategy in Syria would be. “I know they believe the tactical mission was a success, but do we know what the strategy is on Syria going forward?” he huffed. New York Times News Magazine chief national correspondent Mark Liebovich reiterated Todd’s assessment: “Mission accomplished is a short-term declaration, and when you tweet about it, this is not a substitute forefather a message or a strategy.” 

Though the tweet was the specific headline issue that hosts were criticizing, their talking points in panel discussions about Syria bore a curious resemblance to criticism of the strike voiced by Democrats in Congress. The main thrust of their arguments appeared to be that while they believed the airstrikes were a success, there would not be satisfied until a precise plan of action going forward was released. 

On CNN, the demands went a step further, with Inside Politics host John King appearing unlikely to be satisfied until Assad was either deposed or dead and the civil war in Syria was over: 

But the question is where are we today and what next? The Syrian Presidency tweeting out a picture of Bashar al-Assad walking to work, going to an office building, essentially trying to say nothing changed. The conversation among a lot of people, even Trump administration supporters, is that Assad has factored this in: “If once a year I have to take a rein of cruise missiles, but I get to stay in power, so be it.”

Moving the goalposts in a political discussion is not often regarded as an impressive strategy. But the sheer coordination with which Sunday’s cable and network news hosts managed to achieve this feat of across-the-board narrative shifting was enough to impress even the most blackhearted of cynics. 

via NewsBusters – Exposing Liberal Media Bias

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Forget ‘Climate Change’… Now It’s ‘Climate Restoration’

Same scam, different name.

Via PJ Media:

In the end, somehow we knew it would come to this. The Left, in the form of the think thank, RAND, has gone full Luddite:

Since the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, society has organized efforts to limit the magnitude of climate change around the concept of stabilization — that is, accepting some climate change but holding it within acceptable bounds. This report offers an initial exploration of the concept of climate restoration — that is, approaches that seek to return atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases to preindustrial levels within one to two generations. Using a simple integrated assessment model, the analysis examines climate restoration through the lens of risk management under conditions of deep uncertainty, exploring the technology, economic, and policy conditions under which it might be possible to achieve various climate restoration goals and the conditions under which society might be better off with (rather than without) a climate restoration goal. This report also explores near-term actions that might help manage the risks of climate restoration.

Take a moment and try to grasp how utterly demented this is. So great is the cultural-Marxist hatred for modernity — Marx himself was a child of the Industrial Revolution and developed his crackpot scheme based on mid-19th century conditions — that, like the Luddite, they wish to return to some halcyon period before… well, you draw the line wherever you like.

Keep reading…

via Weasel Zippers

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MSNBC Paints NRA As Anti-Black, Ignores Work Defending Black Gun Owners

On Sunday’s AM Joy, during a discussion of her interview with pro-gun liberal rapper Killer Mike, host Joy Reid suggested that the NRA had railed against President Barack Obama because he is black, and MSNBC contributor Toure Neblett accused the pro-gun group of not doing anything to defend minority gun owners.

The segment seemed oblivious to a recent video released by NRA TV’s Colion Noir which recounted NRA’s history of defending gun rights for blacks, including in recent years helping residents of Chicago and Delaware sue for their gun ownership rights.

Toward the end of the show, after her interview with Killer Mike from the previous segment, Reid went to Neblett for his reaction, and he wrongly seemed to suggest that the NRA was founded as a reaction to the Black Panther movement of the 1960s. Neblett: “If he (Killer Mike) wants to talk about increasing gun ownership, right, where is the NRA for black and brown people? It starts as a reaction to the Black Panthers, as you note.”

After noting the cases of Philando Castile and John Crawford — innocent black men who were tragically shot and killed by police because of a misunderstanding — he continued: “Is the NRA there for black people? And we know that the NRA is consistently using black men as a boogeyman to motivate gun sales. Where are you on that, Mike?”

Reid soon complained about NRA reaction to President Obama:

Speaking of using black men to sell guns, you know, the NRA have been pretty explicit about the fact — gun manufacturers have been explicit that having a black man in the white house really helped gun sales. They scaremongered around Barack Obama — made a lot of money — they actually stockpiled guns to sell thinking then there’s going to be a woman who’s going to come and bring the black helicopters.

She lost, and now companies like Remington that make the AR-15 are financially down the tubes because they don’t have a black man to use to scaremonger.

But the NRA’s Noir recently recorded a commentary in which he responded to accusations by liberals that the NRA is racist, and recalled that the pro-gun group has a history of defending gun ownership by black Americans:

Where media engages in the most egregious form of willful ignorance is when they push the narrative that the NRA doesn’t care about minority gun owners. But the NRA has been fighting for the rights of all gun owners for more than 100 years, including minority gun owners. But because these so-called reporters with degrees from top universities are incapable of researching, I now have to do their job at the risk of pandering to my own people.

In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled that Chicago’s 28-year-old ban on gun ownership was unconstitutional. The case was brought in part by a 76-year-old black man who lived in a Morgan Park neighborhood that had been taken over by gangs and drug dealers. The NRA supported and argued on behalf of McDonald, a black man whose gun rights, according to the mainstream media, the NRA is not supposed to care about. 

Josephine Byrd, an elderly black woman, her building was overrun with crime, drugs, and prostitutes. Josephine wanted a gun for protection, but the Wilmington Housing Authority banned their elderly tenants from owning a gun for protection. Did any of the people who claim the NRA doesn’t care about minority gun ownership step up and help Ms. Byrd? No. But the NRA did. 

They helped her sue the housing authority where the Delaware Supreme Court ruled in her favor. Ms. Byrd was later specially recognized at the NRA membership meeting, and was also featured in a national TV ad paid by the NRA. And, as you guessed, most of the media ignored it.

via NewsBusters – Exposing Liberal Media Bias

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DA King: GOP Blocks Georgia Immigration Enforcement Bill, But OKs Traffic Cameras

The Republican Speaker of the Georgia House blocked a bill that would help deport criminal illegal aliens, but he pushed through a last-minute bill touted by his lobbyist son, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. 

The paper reported April 12:

Georgia House Speaker David Ralston delayed the end of this year’s legislative session past a midnight deadline so lawmakers could vote on a bill to allow speeding ticket cameras in school zones.

The bill was pushed by Ralston’s son, a lobbyist for an Arizona-based company, American Traffic Solutions, that sells the camera systems to local governments.

Ralston and Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, the president of the state Senate, agreed to continue working past midnight to allow the House to approve the bill after it had passed the Senate a few minutes earlier, said Kaleb McMichen, a spokesman for Ralston, a Blue Ridge Republican.

In contrast, Ralston refused to allow a vote on a public safety bill in the GOP-dominated House before ended its annual session on March 30. Corporate-funded anti-borders groups took credit for the defeating the bill, which would have required state officials to notify federal immigration-enforcement officers of illegal migrants in the state’s jails. 

GOP leaders offered excuses for blocking the popular immigration-reform bill

“We ran out of time before we had finished all the bills that were worthwhile,” said House Majority Whip, Christian Coomer. “Other bills took priority and SB452 wasn’t called before the clock struck midnight,” he told the liberal Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper. 

GOP Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle originally backed the immigration enforcement legislation but stayed quiet when the bill was narrowed to exclude migrants who did not commit “serious crimes.” But after the bill was blocked, Cagle issued a statement saying:

Law enforcement agencies at every level of government should work together to make sure that criminal illegal aliens who commit serious crimes are arrested, convicted, deported, and never allowed back inside our nation’s borders.

Cagle is one of four GOP politicians vying for this year’s gubernatorial nomination. 

Ralston faces a May 22 primary election against Margaret Williamson

Ralston is an attorney, with clients that include construction companies. Many construction companies rely on black-market labor hired by subcontractors. His website says:

The firm also represents the interests of both home builders and contractors, as well as home owners in litigation issues arising over construction.  With over 35 years of courtroom experience in the construction law area, our firm has successfully litigated and defended against a range of matters in the construction area.

Majority whip Coomer told excused the decision by telling the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the GOP establishment might approve a similar bill in 2019 and – if public pressure continues. 

“If the state’s interest in reasonable law enforcement approaches to criminal aliens and misdemeanor bail issues remains high, then another version of the bill may see movement next year,” he said. 

In its final version, the criminal alien measure required law enforcement to notify federal officials when police detained an illegal alien convicted of a felony, a ‘high and aggravated misdemeanor’ or DUI. Language in the legislation also would have required the state Department of Corrections to post quarterly reports on the immigration status and number of non-citizens in the state prison system.

According to federal estimates, Georgia is home to more illegal aliens than Arizona.

As Breitbart reported, the bill easily passed the Senate in a tougher form but was held up in the House when it was gutted in the Public Safety and Homeland Security sub-Committee led by GOP Rep. Heath Clark, who compared immigration enforcement to “Nazi Germany.” 

Clark later told Breitbart the Nazi term was ‘… definitely, probably a little far.” Clark eventually apologized for his remark to this writer and was reportedly willing to speak in support of final passage of the bill on House floor.

 When asked about the failure of the legislation and the likelihood of Georgians becoming victims of future criminal activity by illegal aliens in the Peach State, Billy Inman, father of Dustin Inman, a sixteen-year-old Georgia youth who was killed by an illegal alien in 2000, told me “one is too many.”

The illegal alien who skilled Dustin Inman and put Mrs. Inman in a wheelchair, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, is living in Mexico.

Inman condemned the lack of action by the Republican House and cited a 2003 book,  ‘A National Party No More: The Conscience of a Conservative Democrat’ written by former Democrat Georgia governor and U.S. Senator, Zell Miller. “As Zell put in his book, “no one in a position to do anything about it wants to do anything about it,” said Inman.

D.A. King is the founder of the Dustin Inman Society, which advocates for immigration enforcement in Georgia. 

via Breitbart News

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