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The Right’s Self-inflicted Political Wounds

We all are accomplices to the Left’s political crime of indoctrination.  We were the ones who accepted the myth that leftists are “liberals.”  We were the ones who accepted the hoax that Republicans (and right-wingers in general) are associated with the color red.  We were the ones who became obsessed with the fairness of the “mainstream media.”

So they like to be called “liberals”?  There is nothing liberal in the non-tolerant, neo-Marxist Democratic Party, who borrowed the idea of Antifa from Benito Mussolini’s Blackshirts.  The ideas of classical liberalism of the 18th century, and liberalism of American’s Founding Fathers, are referred to in the 21st century as conservatism.  Conservatives are the true heirs to the title of liberalism.  Anytime we call leftists “liberals,” we incur a self-inflicted political wound.

Are right-wingers “red”?  It is well known that the color red is traditionally assigned to the leftists (Marxists, socialists, communists, fascists, Democrats, Trotskyists, Maoists, and others).  The attempt to map red to right-wingers happened relatively recently — back in 2000 — and it stuck.  Remember the massive “red wave” versus “blue wave” agitprop during the 2018 elections?  Any time we cheered the “red wave,” we incurred a self-inflicted political wound, because traditionally, red was the color of the enemy.

“Mainstream media”?  There is nothing mainstream about the far-left outlets in our center-right country.  Referring to them as “media” does them a favor and provides them a cover, for they are just propaganda outlets serving their masters from the Democratic Party and a multitude of other American left-wing parties.

There are many other examples; some of them are relatively new, but some are pretty old.

Associating the National Socialism of the Third Reich with right-wing ideology was a smart trick they pulled, and it affected a lot of unsuspecting people.  They converted universities into Marxist indoctrination centers while leaving the original name intact, thus confusing even more people.  They created the U.N. under the pretense of “solving international problems” without telling us it is just a branch of the Socialist International on American soil.  (Most people do not know that the Presidium of the SocIntern traditionally happens on the premises of the U.N. and at the same time as the U.N. General Assembly.)  In the 1970s they pushed for a “global cooling” narrative (which in the 1990s was substituted by “global warming,” and then in the 2000s with “climate change”) without telling people it is just a novel scheme for world wealth redistribution.

“Trump is Putin’s marionette,” they said.  ”Hillary Clinton has a 97% probability of winning the presidency,” they said.  ”Twitter does not shadowban conservatives,” they said.  ”Facebook does not suppress alternative points of view,” they said.  They warned us about an imminent World War III if Trump relocated the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem or discarded Net Neutrality.  Well, the leftists are masters of such tricks.

Leftists successfully pulled a trick with their progressive tax scale.  Let us recall that this was the crucial second goal in Marx’s Communist Manifesto.  On top of that, they managed to plant the idea that Progressives are somehow associated with human progress.  In fact, Progressives got their name due to their support of Marx’s heavy progressive taxation scheme.  They have nothing to do with human progress.

The party of pussy hats and farting cows managed to hijack not only the label of liberals, but also unions, including government unions, and a sizable section of academia and pop culture.  Despite their successes, the (D)emocrats show many signs of (D)ecadence.  The leftists had a good run, but their recent initiatives are a clear indication of strategic failure.

To be fair to Democrats, let us come to an agreement that they are quick learners.  They learned a lot from their predecessor and ideological cousin Joseph Goebbels, and they methodically follow his famous advice: “Make the lie big, keep it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.”

Well, let us stop believing it.  The time has come for the right-wingers to stop being unwitting accomplices of left-wingers.

The king of shared bathrooms and open-to-everybody women’s locker rooms, community organizer Barack Hussein Obama, must not be called a Democrat.  In reality, he is a socialist.  (Perhaps, John Kennedy was the last president from the same party who could be called a Democrat.)  We should avoid calling the recently failed anti-Trump palace coup d’état Spygate; the more appropriate name would be Obamagate.  Finally, we should reassign the color red back to Democrats, where it traditionally belongs.

The right-wingers, the loose term for the conservative ideology of small government, small taxes, and big freedom, will greatly benefit from such clarity.

Gary Gindler, Ph.D. is a conservative blogger at Gary Gindler Chronicles.  Follow him on Twitter.

We all are accomplices to the Left’s political crime of indoctrination.  We were the ones who accepted the myth that leftists are “liberals.”  We were the ones who accepted the hoax that Republicans (and right-wingers in general) are associated with the color red.  We were the ones who became obsessed with the fairness of the “mainstream media.”

So they like to be called “liberals”?  There is nothing liberal in the non-tolerant, neo-Marxist Democratic Party, who borrowed the idea of Antifa from Benito Mussolini’s Blackshirts.  The ideas of classical liberalism of the 18th century, and liberalism of American’s Founding Fathers, are referred to in the 21st century as conservatism.  Conservatives are the true heirs to the title of liberalism.  Anytime we call leftists “liberals,” we incur a self-inflicted political wound.

Are right-wingers “red”?  It is well known that the color red is traditionally assigned to the leftists (Marxists, socialists, communists, fascists, Democrats, Trotskyists, Maoists, and others).  The attempt to map red to right-wingers happened relatively recently — back in 2000 — and it stuck.  Remember the massive “red wave” versus “blue wave” agitprop during the 2018 elections?  Any time we cheered the “red wave,” we incurred a self-inflicted political wound, because traditionally, red was the color of the enemy.

“Mainstream media”?  There is nothing mainstream about the far-left outlets in our center-right country.  Referring to them as “media” does them a favor and provides them a cover, for they are just propaganda outlets serving their masters from the Democratic Party and a multitude of other American left-wing parties.

There are many other examples; some of them are relatively new, but some are pretty old.

Associating the National Socialism of the Third Reich with right-wing ideology was a smart trick they pulled, and it affected a lot of unsuspecting people.  They converted universities into Marxist indoctrination centers while leaving the original name intact, thus confusing even more people.  They created the U.N. under the pretense of “solving international problems” without telling us it is just a branch of the Socialist International on American soil.  (Most people do not know that the Presidium of the SocIntern traditionally happens on the premises of the U.N. and at the same time as the U.N. General Assembly.)  In the 1970s they pushed for a “global cooling” narrative (which in the 1990s was substituted by “global warming,” and then in the 2000s with “climate change”) without telling people it is just a novel scheme for world wealth redistribution.

“Trump is Putin’s marionette,” they said.  ”Hillary Clinton has a 97% probability of winning the presidency,” they said.  ”Twitter does not shadowban conservatives,” they said.  ”Facebook does not suppress alternative points of view,” they said.  They warned us about an imminent World War III if Trump relocated the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem or discarded Net Neutrality.  Well, the leftists are masters of such tricks.

Leftists successfully pulled a trick with their progressive tax scale.  Let us recall that this was the crucial second goal in Marx’s Communist Manifesto.  On top of that, they managed to plant the idea that Progressives are somehow associated with human progress.  In fact, Progressives got their name due to their support of Marx’s heavy progressive taxation scheme.  They have nothing to do with human progress.

The party of pussy hats and farting cows managed to hijack not only the label of liberals, but also unions, including government unions, and a sizable section of academia and pop culture.  Despite their successes, the (D)emocrats show many signs of (D)ecadence.  The leftists had a good run, but their recent initiatives are a clear indication of strategic failure.

To be fair to Democrats, let us come to an agreement that they are quick learners.  They learned a lot from their predecessor and ideological cousin Joseph Goebbels, and they methodically follow his famous advice: “Make the lie big, keep it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.”

Well, let us stop believing it.  The time has come for the right-wingers to stop being unwitting accomplices of left-wingers.

The king of shared bathrooms and open-to-everybody women’s locker rooms, community organizer Barack Hussein Obama, must not be called a Democrat.  In reality, he is a socialist.  (Perhaps, John Kennedy was the last president from the same party who could be called a Democrat.)  We should avoid calling the recently failed anti-Trump palace coup d’état Spygate; the more appropriate name would be Obamagate.  Finally, we should reassign the color red back to Democrats, where it traditionally belongs.

The right-wingers, the loose term for the conservative ideology of small government, small taxes, and big freedom, will greatly benefit from such clarity.

Gary Gindler, Ph.D. is a conservative blogger at Gary Gindler Chronicles.  Follow him on Twitter.

via American Thinker

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.americanthinker.com/

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The Notre Dame fire: Conclusions enforced before the evidence was examined

The recent fire in Notre Dame Cathedral has highlighted the attempts of the powerful to control the news.

The Paris prosecutor, Rémy Heitz, has decided the fire was “likely accident, not arson.”  When reporting his decision, it is easy to eliminate the word “likely” for the sake of brevity. (Please excuse the sarcasm.)  Luke Baker, Reuters’s Paris bureau chief, tweeted, “Fire at Paris’ Notre Dame cathedral was started by accident and is related to ongoing work, according to France 2, citing police.”  There it is, the orthodox truth.  If you don’t accept the “orthodox” story you are a “conspiracy theorist,” an Islamophobe and a racist.

Deviance from the orthodox view must be silenced.  Fox News’s Shepard Smith invited the French media analyst Philippe Karsenty for an eyewitness interview while the fire was still raging.  Karsenty said, “Of course you will hear the political correctness, that it’s probably an accident, but … ”  Before he could finish Smith interrupted, “Sir, sir, sir, we’re not going to speculate here of the cause of something that we don’t know,”  Karsenty continued: “I’m just telling you, you need to be ready …”  Smith cut him off with, “No, sir. We’re not doing that here,” Smith declared. “Not now. Not on my watch! Philippe Karsenty, it’s very good of you to be here.”

Fox’s Neil Cavuto had a similar experience in his interview with William Donohue, president of the Catholic League.  Donohue was skeptical about the accident claim.  He commented, “forgive me for being suspicious. Just last month, a 17th-century church was set on fire in Paris. We’ve seen tabernacles knocked down, crosses have been torn down, statues.”  Cavuto responded, “We don’t know that. So if we can avoid what your suspicions might be.”  Dohohue then stated, “When I find out that the Eucharist is being destroyed and excrement is being smeared on crosses. . .”  At that point Cavuto decided to terminate the interview, “Wait a minute.  I love you, Bill, but we cannot make conjectures about this. So, thank you. Bill, I’m sorry. Thanks very much. I do want to let people know, and again we’re not trying to be rude to our guests here.”

Muslim desecration of Christian churches has a long history.  In her book, ”The Rage and the Pride,” Oriana Fallaci relates how Somali Muslims desecrate Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral in Florence.  “The yellow streaks of urine that profaned the millenary marbles of the Baptistery as well as the golden doors.  With the yellow streaks of urine, the stench of the excrements that blocked the main entrance of San Salvatore al Vescovo.”  French churches have experienced nearly 2,000 attacks in the past two years. The was an arson attack on Saint-Sulpice church in Paris, feces smeared on a wall in Notre-Dame-des-Enfants in Nimes and the vandalization of the organ at Saint-Denis basilica. 

In light of the large number of attacks on Christian churches it should not be unreasonable to suspect that the fire was an act of arson.  There are also credible people who believe the accident theory makes no sense. Among them is Benjamin Mouton, former Notre Dame Cathedral architect (2000 to 2013). Mouton explained that the oak timbers that made up the cathedral’s roof had become hardened after more than 800 years and wouldn’t burn easily.  Mouton also claimed the theory of an electrical source for the fire was unlikely.  One possible source of the fire is a short-circuit by electrified bells near the spire.  Nicolas Gueury, who electrified a set of bells in the cathedral in 2007, thought about that possibility but has ruled it out.

Investigators were allowed inside the cathedral for the first time on Thursday.  They will determine what kind of accident took place. It certainly must be determined to be an accident.  This was the decision arrived at by the politicians and the media while the fire was still raging.  If the investigators were to determine that the fire was indeed arson, the media and politicians would be further discredited.  They cannot afford that.

Photo credit: LeLaisserPasserA38

John Dietrich is a freelance writer and the author of The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy (Algora Publishing).  He has a Master of Arts degree in International Relations from St. Mary’s University.  He is retired from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.

The recent fire in Notre Dame Cathedral has highlighted the attempts of the powerful to control the news.

The Paris prosecutor, Rémy Heitz, has decided the fire was “likely accident, not arson.”  When reporting his decision, it is easy to eliminate the word “likely” for the sake of brevity. (Please excuse the sarcasm.)  Luke Baker, Reuters’s Paris bureau chief, tweeted, “Fire at Paris’ Notre Dame cathedral was started by accident and is related to ongoing work, according to France 2, citing police.”  There it is, the orthodox truth.  If you don’t accept the “orthodox” story you are a “conspiracy theorist,” an Islamophobe and a racist.

Deviance from the orthodox view must be silenced.  Fox News’s Shepard Smith invited the French media analyst Philippe Karsenty for an eyewitness interview while the fire was still raging.  Karsenty said, “Of course you will hear the political correctness, that it’s probably an accident, but … ”  Before he could finish Smith interrupted, “Sir, sir, sir, we’re not going to speculate here of the cause of something that we don’t know,”  Karsenty continued: “I’m just telling you, you need to be ready …”  Smith cut him off with, “No, sir. We’re not doing that here,” Smith declared. “Not now. Not on my watch! Philippe Karsenty, it’s very good of you to be here.”

Fox’s Neil Cavuto had a similar experience in his interview with William Donohue, president of the Catholic League.  Donohue was skeptical about the accident claim.  He commented, “forgive me for being suspicious. Just last month, a 17th-century church was set on fire in Paris. We’ve seen tabernacles knocked down, crosses have been torn down, statues.”  Cavuto responded, “We don’t know that. So if we can avoid what your suspicions might be.”  Dohohue then stated, “When I find out that the Eucharist is being destroyed and excrement is being smeared on crosses. . .”  At that point Cavuto decided to terminate the interview, “Wait a minute.  I love you, Bill, but we cannot make conjectures about this. So, thank you. Bill, I’m sorry. Thanks very much. I do want to let people know, and again we’re not trying to be rude to our guests here.”

Muslim desecration of Christian churches has a long history.  In her book, ”The Rage and the Pride,” Oriana Fallaci relates how Somali Muslims desecrate Santa Maria del Fiore Cathedral in Florence.  “The yellow streaks of urine that profaned the millenary marbles of the Baptistery as well as the golden doors.  With the yellow streaks of urine, the stench of the excrements that blocked the main entrance of San Salvatore al Vescovo.”  French churches have experienced nearly 2,000 attacks in the past two years. The was an arson attack on Saint-Sulpice church in Paris, feces smeared on a wall in Notre-Dame-des-Enfants in Nimes and the vandalization of the organ at Saint-Denis basilica. 

In light of the large number of attacks on Christian churches it should not be unreasonable to suspect that the fire was an act of arson.  There are also credible people who believe the accident theory makes no sense. Among them is Benjamin Mouton, former Notre Dame Cathedral architect (2000 to 2013). Mouton explained that the oak timbers that made up the cathedral’s roof had become hardened after more than 800 years and wouldn’t burn easily.  Mouton also claimed the theory of an electrical source for the fire was unlikely.  One possible source of the fire is a short-circuit by electrified bells near the spire.  Nicolas Gueury, who electrified a set of bells in the cathedral in 2007, thought about that possibility but has ruled it out.

Investigators were allowed inside the cathedral for the first time on Thursday.  They will determine what kind of accident took place. It certainly must be determined to be an accident.  This was the decision arrived at by the politicians and the media while the fire was still raging.  If the investigators were to determine that the fire was indeed arson, the media and politicians would be further discredited.  They cannot afford that.

Photo credit: LeLaisserPasserA38

John Dietrich is a freelance writer and the author of The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy (Algora Publishing).  He has a Master of Arts degree in International Relations from St. Mary’s University.  He is retired from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Department of Homeland Security.

via American Thinker Blog

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/

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Now we know for sure that Trump is the better man

Those of us who live in solid Democrat strongholds amidst single-minded leftists will know what it is like to attempt a civil conversation about President Trump.  This is especially true if one encounters those true-blue Dems in the wealthiest areas of California, NY or DC.   Because they are wealthy, successful, often educated at one of the prestige colleges, they know, with every fiber of their being, that they are smarter, wiser and better than any of us lowly, deplorable Trump supporters.

Inauguration Day 2016 (Photo credit: Jack from Leesport PA)

If they are Jewish and you ask them if they appreciate Trump’s support of Israel, they will look at you, roll their eyes as if you are even more yclept than they thought.  They hate Trump more than they love Israel.  If you ask them if they are bothered by the open acceptance of anti-Semitism by the Democrat Party, they will shrug at the lunacy of your question and say something like “anti-Semitism has always been with us.”  They will deny to their death its escalation across the world at this moment in time, despite the obvious overt escalation and implicit approval of and by the global left.  Their identities since the 2016 election are defined by their opposition to Trump.  They have sold their souls because their candidate lost the election.  

Ask them if they are not pleased with his phenomenal success regarding the economy.  Are not the economic developments under Trump great for them, their 401ks, their stock portfolios?   Have not his foreign policy maneuvers been successful? Are we not immeasurably better off overall than under Obama?  Again, they will regard your question with disgust and disdain.  As many others have observed, they hate the President more than they love this country, this country that made their privilege, wealth and safety possible.  

These are arrogant people who, like most leftists today, see nothing good in America worth preserving.  They are supremely confident that none of the nonsense policies being promulgated by the crazy gaggle of Democrat presidential candidates will ever affect them.  The widespread contamination of San Francisco’s streets with human feces and discarded needles does not seem to bother Nancy Pelosi one bit, as she has opposed every possible solution.  She continues to encourage migrants from Central America to make their way to her sanctuary city.  

As long as the border remains a thorn in Trump’s side, the Democrats are willing to see the country invaded.   So what if the criminals among them maim and kill innocent Americans?  They won’t likely be roaming about in their neighborhoods.  There is a quote of Ben Carson’s that perfectly describes such people:  “What you’re saying is that ‘I, the superior elite, will take care of you.’ Why? Because, you see, that superior, elite group needs to feel superior and elite. And they can’t be superior and elite unless you have a whole lot of people down there groveling around. So you keep them down there by feeding them.”  This sums up our disagreeable left to a T.

Dennis Prager has written at length in six columns about the Left, (Explaining the Left, Parts 1 – 6) all of which are worth reading, but his most succinct essay on the subject is “Whatever the Left Touches in Ruins.”  He rightly calls leftism, as opposed to liberalism, a nihilistic force.  He addresses the damage done by the Left to university educations, the arts, sports, late-night comedy, religion, gender confusion, and America’s once-sacrosanct reverence for the First Amendment; there will be no more free speech if the left gets its way.  

Karin McQuillan has written an excellent column that nails this single-minded, blinkered crowd to the cross. It is a must-read.  She writes:  “The Democrats don’t believe in our two-party system anymore. They utterly reject American civic norms of treating the president with a modicum of respect and cooperation…. They think theirs is the only party that deserves to be elected.”  That fact should be crystal clear to every Trump supporter by now who has tried to have a friendly discussion with a sanctimonious Trump hater.  They now favor voter fraud, the invasion of the country by illegal migrants for obvious reasons, late-term and post-birth abortion, no citizenship question on the census, etc.  They absolutely believe the ends justify the means; they will cheat any and every way they can (vote harvesting) and project onto republicans what they in fact do as a matter of course.  The last line of McQuillan’s column:   “The Democrats are into the dismantling of America for the long haul.  It is a national tragedy and it must be stopped.”  Read the whole thing.

The nation is virulently divided, but all the virulence is coming from the left.  They have become so desperate, especially in the wake of the betrayal of the Mueller Report.  They were so sure it would be the nail in Trump’s presidential coffin.  As it turns out, Trump is perhaps the most investigated President in US history and thus the one with the cleanest bill of political health!  As has now been proven, the whole Russia-collusion meme was a set-up from the outset, an attempt to bait the President into obstructing a trumped-up investigation.  Their grand plan has backfired and hopefully the schemers, so sure of their own moral supremacy, will be indicted and tried for their many crimes against the President, the Constitution and the American people. 

May this long nightmare of their invention soon be over and may all those parochial people who for over two years have been willing to sacrifice everything Americans once held dear to unseat a President who simply offends their sensibilities be shamed for their bigotry for that is what characterizes them; sheer, unmitigated contempt for no reason other than Trump is not one of them.  No, he is not. He is by far the better man.

Those of us who live in solid Democrat strongholds amidst single-minded leftists will know what it is like to attempt a civil conversation about President Trump.  This is especially true if one encounters those true-blue Dems in the wealthiest areas of California, NY or DC.   Because they are wealthy, successful, often educated at one of the prestige colleges, they know, with every fiber of their being, that they are smarter, wiser and better than any of us lowly, deplorable Trump supporters.

Inauguration Day 2016 (Photo credit: Jack from Leesport PA)

If they are Jewish and you ask them if they appreciate Trump’s support of Israel, they will look at you, roll their eyes as if you are even more yclept than they thought.  They hate Trump more than they love Israel.  If you ask them if they are bothered by the open acceptance of anti-Semitism by the Democrat Party, they will shrug at the lunacy of your question and say something like “anti-Semitism has always been with us.”  They will deny to their death its escalation across the world at this moment in time, despite the obvious overt escalation and implicit approval of and by the global left.  Their identities since the 2016 election are defined by their opposition to Trump.  They have sold their souls because their candidate lost the election.  

Ask them if they are not pleased with his phenomenal success regarding the economy.  Are not the economic developments under Trump great for them, their 401ks, their stock portfolios?   Have not his foreign policy maneuvers been successful? Are we not immeasurably better off overall than under Obama?  Again, they will regard your question with disgust and disdain.  As many others have observed, they hate the President more than they love this country, this country that made their privilege, wealth and safety possible.  

These are arrogant people who, like most leftists today, see nothing good in America worth preserving.  They are supremely confident that none of the nonsense policies being promulgated by the crazy gaggle of Democrat presidential candidates will ever affect them.  The widespread contamination of San Francisco’s streets with human feces and discarded needles does not seem to bother Nancy Pelosi one bit, as she has opposed every possible solution.  She continues to encourage migrants from Central America to make their way to her sanctuary city.  

As long as the border remains a thorn in Trump’s side, the Democrats are willing to see the country invaded.   So what if the criminals among them maim and kill innocent Americans?  They won’t likely be roaming about in their neighborhoods.  There is a quote of Ben Carson’s that perfectly describes such people:  “What you’re saying is that ‘I, the superior elite, will take care of you.’ Why? Because, you see, that superior, elite group needs to feel superior and elite. And they can’t be superior and elite unless you have a whole lot of people down there groveling around. So you keep them down there by feeding them.”  This sums up our disagreeable left to a T.

Dennis Prager has written at length in six columns about the Left, (Explaining the Left, Parts 1 – 6) all of which are worth reading, but his most succinct essay on the subject is “Whatever the Left Touches in Ruins.”  He rightly calls leftism, as opposed to liberalism, a nihilistic force.  He addresses the damage done by the Left to university educations, the arts, sports, late-night comedy, religion, gender confusion, and America’s once-sacrosanct reverence for the First Amendment; there will be no more free speech if the left gets its way.  

Karin McQuillan has written an excellent column that nails this single-minded, blinkered crowd to the cross. It is a must-read.  She writes:  “The Democrats don’t believe in our two-party system anymore. They utterly reject American civic norms of treating the president with a modicum of respect and cooperation…. They think theirs is the only party that deserves to be elected.”  That fact should be crystal clear to every Trump supporter by now who has tried to have a friendly discussion with a sanctimonious Trump hater.  They now favor voter fraud, the invasion of the country by illegal migrants for obvious reasons, late-term and post-birth abortion, no citizenship question on the census, etc.  They absolutely believe the ends justify the means; they will cheat any and every way they can (vote harvesting) and project onto republicans what they in fact do as a matter of course.  The last line of McQuillan’s column:   “The Democrats are into the dismantling of America for the long haul.  It is a national tragedy and it must be stopped.”  Read the whole thing.

The nation is virulently divided, but all the virulence is coming from the left.  They have become so desperate, especially in the wake of the betrayal of the Mueller Report.  They were so sure it would be the nail in Trump’s presidential coffin.  As it turns out, Trump is perhaps the most investigated President in US history and thus the one with the cleanest bill of political health!  As has now been proven, the whole Russia-collusion meme was a set-up from the outset, an attempt to bait the President into obstructing a trumped-up investigation.  Their grand plan has backfired and hopefully the schemers, so sure of their own moral supremacy, will be indicted and tried for their many crimes against the President, the Constitution and the American people. 

May this long nightmare of their invention soon be over and may all those parochial people who for over two years have been willing to sacrifice everything Americans once held dear to unseat a President who simply offends their sensibilities be shamed for their bigotry for that is what characterizes them; sheer, unmitigated contempt for no reason other than Trump is not one of them.  No, he is not. He is by far the better man.

via American Thinker Blog

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/

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‘Nobody Will Go Back’: Christians Flee Middle East After Fall of Islamic State

The number of Christians in the birthplace of their faith, the greater Middle East, continues to plummet months after the Islamic State, which waged a genocidal campaign against Christians, lost its “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria, Breitbart News learned from various experts, including an archbishop.

“Unfortunately, it can be stated that the Islamic State group’s anti-Christian campaign was very successful in Iraq, and to a certain extent, successful in Syria,” John Hajjar, the co-chair of the American Mideast Coalition for Democracy (AMCD) and co-director of the Middle East Christian Committee (MECHRIC), told Breitbart News.

“I think we have no more hope,” Archbishop Vicken Aykazian, the diocesan legate in America’s capital and ecumenical director for the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Orthodox Church of America, also told Breitbart News, referring to the future of Christianity in its Middle East cradle. “Middle East Christians have no nation that protects them openly.”

The number of Christians in Middle East-North Africa (MENA), as a component of the overall Muslim-majority population, has dropped substantially — from about ten percent in 1900 to between two and four percent now.

There are different estimates for the overall number of Christians that vary from about 12 million in the Middle East alone to about 20 million in MENA, Breitbart News learned from the experts and data from U.S. government and independent sources.

“The future for Christians right now is terrible — a Middle East without Christians. We are going to have churches without Christians as museums for tourists. There will be no Christians left,” the archbishop warned, echoing other analysts who have constantly cautioned that Christianity is on the verge of extinction in the Middle East.

“The number of Christians in the Middle East has already dropped extensively,” he further declared, accusing church leaders of inflating the actual numbers of Christ followers in the region to minimize the fact that Christianity is on the brink of extinction.

The bishop urged U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration to do even more to help Middle East Christians.

Contradicting assertions by the Trump administration, the Church leader said, “People are not coming back. I can assure you that nobody will go back.”

The Trump administration has disbursed billions in funding to help victims of ISIS genocide, namely Christians and Yazidis, but the bishop told Breitbart News it is “not enough.”

“Trump is going to be a hero for the Christians in the Middle East if he takes more action,” he said.

Addressing President Trump, Archbishop Aykazian added, “Please help the Christians. They need your help and once you move one of your fingers the entire Arabic world will thank you. If he does such a thing, it is going to change everything. If he doesn’t, they will suffer.”

“The ball is in Trump’s court,” he further said.

In Iraq, which experts say has experienced the most dramatic drop in Christians due to jihadis and Iran-allied groups, Aykazian told Breitbart News that number has decreased from 1.6 million to less than 100,000, marking a drop of more than 90 percent.

“A similar situation is taking place in Syria’s Aleppo where there has also been a drop of more than 90 percent in Christians, from 360,000 to about 25,000 now,” he said, noting, “The church leaders don’t want to say those statements because they fear their followers will be disillusioned.”

ISIS’s genocide campaign targeted religious minorities in Iraq and Syria, primarily Christians and Yazidis, killing tens of thousands of them and taking some hostages as sex slaves.

“They [ISIS] realized just how insecure they are,” Nina Shea, a religious freedom expert at the Hudson Institute, told Breitbart News. “Their own governments fail to protect them, and ISIS gained popular support within some neighboring major Sunni areas, like Mosul.”

Archbishop Aykazian said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi “so far has been the best leader in the Middle East for defending Christians.” he said, adding, “The biggest Christian majorities are in Egypt.”

Shea pointed out, “Egypt retains ten million Coptic Christians. That is the only place where I see a certain future for them [Christians].”

“In a generation, Egypt may be the only remaining country with a robust Christian community that traces its roots to the earliest Christian church,” Shea added. “Elsewhere in the Middle East, only remnants of these ancient communities may survive.”

Nevertheless, Shea and the bishop acknowledged that, even in Egypt, Christians are confronting the spread of Sunni extremism and anti-Christian bigotry.

The ongoing war against Islamic terrorism continues to kill, wound, and push Christians out of their historical homelands in the greater Middle East, even in Egypt.

“More recently, after the Arab Spring and with the rise of ISIS, tens of thousands of Christians were killed in Iraq and Syria,” Hajjar said. “Close to 1 million Christians in the region have gone into exile.”

“Following multiple terrorist attacks in Egypt against the Copts, many Christian Egyptians also emigrated from their country,” Hajjar continued. “We can estimate that more than 25-30 percent of Christians in the Middle East have been affected by the recent wars and conflicts.”

The experts also attributed the ongoing demise of Christianity in the Middle East to certain governments’ disdain towards followers of Christianity and their refusal to protect them.

In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has reportedly designated Christians as “enemies of the state.” In Iraq, the country that experienced the sharpest drop in the number of Christ followers in recent years, Baghdad-sanctioned Iran-allied Shiite militias have reportedly taken Christian lands and are harassing them.

Referring to the countries that have experienced the largest decline in Christians, Hajjar named Iraq, Syria, Iran, and Lebanon. Similar to Hajjar’s list, the bishop said, “Iraq is number one, Lebanon is number two, and Syria is number three.”

The experts conceded that the Trump administration had done more to help Middle East Christians than his predecessor, but they argued that Christians are far from protected and more can be done.

via Breitbart News

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WATCH: Poway Synagogue Rabbi Reveals What Trump Said To Him Following Shooting

Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein revealed on Sunday that President Donald Trump called him and personally comforted him following the tragic terror attack that happened at his synagogue, the Chabad of Poway synagogue, on Saturday which left one dead and three others injured.

“I received a personal phone call from our president, Donald Trump,” Goldstein told reporters. “I was amazed to answer the phone and say the secretary of the White House was calling. And he spent close to 10, 15 minutes with me on the phone.”

“It’s the first time that I have ever spoken to a President of the United States of America,” Goldstein continued. “He shared with me condolences on behalf of the United States of America. And We spoke about the moment of silence. And he spoke about his love of peace and Judaism and Israel and he was just so comforting that I’m really grateful to our president for taking the time and making that effort to share with us his comfort and consolation.”

WATCH:

“Lori Gilbert-Kaye, 60, a long-time member of the Chabad of Poway synagogue where the shooting occurred, died from her injuries,” NBC San Diego reported. “Her rabbi, 57-year-old Yisroel Goldstein lost his index finger when he put his hand up as the gunman approached him.”

“Almog Peretz, 34 was declared a hero after he was shot in the leg while shuffling out a group of school-aged children — one of them was eight-year-old Noya Dahan, who described the shooting in an interview with NBC News,” NBC San Diego continued. “Both Lev and Kaye’s friend Audrey Jacobs said that as the rabbi was being wheeled into surgery, he said, ‘Let everyone know Lori Kaye saved me.'”

An off-duty U.S. Border Patrol agent who was at the synagogue opened fire on the suspect and is credited with helping prevent a worse tragedy from taking place.

NBC San Diego reported the “off-duty U.S. Border Patrol agent who was in the synagogue at the time of the shooting opened fire on the suspect, missing the man but striking his vehicle.”

Poway Mayor Steve Vaus stated: “This shooter was engaged by people in the congregation and those brave people certainly prevented this from being a much worse tragedy.”

President Donald Trump praised the agent on Twitter, writing: “Sincerest THANK YOU to our great Border Patrol Agent who stopped the shooter at the Synagogue in Poway, California. He may have been off duty but his talents for Law Enforcement weren’t!”

EDITOR’S NOTE: The name of the suspect has been withheld from this article. Recent studies suggest that “media coverage of mass shootings can have a significant impact on the psyches of potential mass shooters — that such potential mass shooters have a cognitive craving for attention, which they know they will receive for committing atrocities.” For this reason, The Daily Wire no longer publishes names and images of mass shooters as it has become increasingly clear in recent years that “the value of public knowledge regarding specific names and photographs of mass shooters is significantly outweighed by the possibility of encouraging more mass shootings.”

via Daily Wire

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Now That the Dust Has Settled, True Toll of $15/hr Min. Wage Can Be Seen

Fighting for $15? Believe that it won’t significantly change employment patterns at restaurants? Well, according to a survey released earlier this month, you can eat your heart out — provided, of course, you can find a server.

According to the survey by Harri, a company that provides workplace management software for the hospitality industry (including, of course, restaurants), 64 percent of restaurants say that they’ve reduced employee hours and 43 percent say they’ve eliminated jobs since higher minimum wage laws went into effect in their states.

The report, released April 10, included “a wide range of restaurant operators from approximately 4,000 restaurants and over 112,000 employees across the U.S.,” drawn from 173 chains and other outlets.

“Central to the report is analyzing the impact that new minimum wage legislation, enacted by states across the U.S., is having on the restaurant industry, and how operators responded to these new laws,” a Harri news release stated.

The impact is clear.

TRENDING: Americans Just Sent Democrats a Loud and Clear Message About Impeachment: Don’t Do It

“Restaurants and hospitality organizations across the country are facing unprecedented challenges in maintaining the economic integrity of their business,” Luke Fryer, the founder and CEO of Harri, said in the release.

“Since nearly 50 percent of states imposed changes to the minimum wage policy on January 1st, 2019, markets like New York have been driven into a recession-like environment.

“These findings reveal an alarming industry snapshot as many operators are forced to make lose-lose decisions, including reducing employee hours and even eliminating jobs altogether. Ironically, the legislation that was intended to improve employee conditions in the hospitality industry is having a direct, adverse effect.”

The report found that 45 percent of restaurants surveyed saw labor costs go up by 3 to 9 percent, with 26 percent showing an increase of between 9 and 15 percent. Twelve percent of restaurants surveyed saw costs go up by over 15 percent.

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And guess who pays for that? You, of course: 71 percent of outlets also say they had raised prices due to the increase in labor costs.

“In a people-centric industry that so heavily relies on its employees to drive sales and customer satisfaction, wage inflation pressures are forcing operators to make harmful, short-sighted decisions to offset rising labor costs,” Fryer said in the release.

“Whilst we’re an advocate of a steady and incremental rise in the minimum wage, it needs to be at a velocity that enables operators to take the right approach and adjust strategically. Instead, the unstoppable onslaught of employee-related challenges are only making our mission more critical than ever to deliver operators tangible, comprehensive solutions to discover labor cost-efficiency, fuel profitability, and drive business performance through employee performance.”

The report comes, as CNBC noted last week, as House Democrats are aiming to pass a bill that would raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour from the current $7.25. The legislation is profoundly unlikely to become law, but it’s potentially an issue we’ll see on the campaign trail in the coming year.

Meanwhile, six states have approved laws that would eventually hike the minimum wage to $15 an hour in phased increments. That includes Maryland, where the General Assembly overrode Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s veto on the matter late last month.

RELATED: AOC Sounds Like Jr. High School Girl as Most Ignorant Econ. Statement Yet Blows up in Her Face

In vetoing the bill, Hogan noted that it would “hurt Maryland’s competitiveness and push small businesses out of the state.”

“A recent study on the issue of a $15 minimum wage concluded that Maryland private sector employment would be reduced by over 99,000 jobs and our state’s economic output would decline by more than $61 billion over the next decade,” Hogan said, according to WBAL-TV.

“This same report estimates that more than half of the job losses would be in small businesses. I am extremely concerned that a dramatic and geographically disproportionate increase in our minimum wage will negatively impact our competitiveness and harm our state’s economy.”

This is economics so basic I can even let Paul Krugman, noted liberal economist and New York Times doomsayer, explain it for me:

“So what are the effects of increasing minimum wages? Any Econ 101 student can tell you the answer: The higher wage reduces the quantity of labor demanded, and hence leads to unemployment,” Krugman wrote in a 1998 book review.

(Krugman directly reversed himself from that reality-based thinking in a 2015 column that backed a minimum wage hike and pushed Hillary Clinton for president. That idea didn’t work out so well either.)

An inability to follow the most basic tenets of economics has disastrous results for low-skilled workers everywhere, especially those in the restaurant business. A study by the University of California-Riverside found that the phased rollout of the minimum wage increase in that state — scheduled to hit $15 in 2022 — had negatively impacted employees in that industry.

“Data analysis suggests that while the restaurant industry in California has grown significantly as the minimum wage has increased, employment in the industry has grown more slowly than it would have without minimum wage hikes,” the study, published earlier this month, states.

“The slower employment is nevertheless real for those workers who may have found a career in the industry.”

If you want to see where this is going, witness the one major restaurant chain that has stopped fighting a $15 minimum wage: McDonald’s.

For other restaurants, it seems, the answer to government artificially inflating the minimum wage is clear: Cut down on hours or employees.

Far from protecting those on the lowest rung of the employment ladder, all the fight for $15 does is punish them.

But it certainly looks good on a candidate’s resume.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

via Conservative Tribune

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Global Warming Going the way of Russia Collusion

Across the country in Denver, the weather won’t be much different, as The Denver Channel reports, “Mild through the weekend, cold, rain and snow next week!” What’s going on? I thought the planet was heating up, with melting icecaps, rising sea levels, and less than 12 years before the earth burns to a crisp?

YouTube screen grab

We have been hearing this song and dance for several decades now. The global warming chicken littles keep telling us that snow is a thing of the past and we had better get used to it, along with a warming planet.

In 2000, British newspaper The Independent ran this headline, “Snowfalls are just a thing of the past.” In 2014, The New York Times ran a sequel headline, “The end of snow?”

Yet here we are, at the end of April, planting our gardens and facing snow in much of the country. If this is evidence of global warming, then Bernie Sanders’s popularity is evidence that the Democrat Party has shifted to the right. Good luck selling that.

One important factor always neglected by the climate warriors is the Sun, a ball of fire a million times larger than the Earth, the source of life on Earth, as well as destruction if the fires ever were extinguished, or expanded. If we were a few million miles closer to or further from the Sun, life on Earth would cease to exist. Just look at Venus and Mars, neighboring planets either too hot or too cold, respectively, for life as we know it.

Even the Earth’s tilt toward or away from the Sun is enough to cause our seasons, with large temperature variations and the difference between food production or not. Yet climate warriors ignore the Sun, instead focusing on human activity, driving SUV’s, flying in airplanes, and running our air conditioners.

Sunspots, according to the National Weather Service, “Are areas where the magnetic field is about 2,500 times stronger than Earth’s, much higher than anywhere else on the Sun.” Sunspots are quite large, about the size of the Earth, and are several thousand degrees cooler than the surrounding Sun surface.

Sunspots lead to solar flares, surface explosions which “release as much energy as a billion megatons of TNT.” These flares emit x-rays and magnetic fields which blast the Earth as geomagnetic storms, disrupting power grids and satellites, and warming the Earth.

Sunspots are not random but instead follow an 11-year cycle, from a minimum to a maximum. Sometimes the cycles last longer, for unknown reasons, with a 70-year period of near zero sunspot activity from 1645 to 1715, called the Maunder Minimum, or Little Ice Age. Enough of science class, how is this relevant now?

As reported by the Express, we are now entering one of these 11 year cycles as the Sun enters a solar minimum. As they report,

During a solar maximum, the Sun gives off more heat and is littered with sunspots. Less heat in a solar minimum is due to a decrease in magnetic waves.

Fewer magnetic waves equates to the Sun being slightly cooler, and experts are expecting the solar minimum to deepen even further before it gets warmer.

With less magnetic waves coming from the Sun, cosmic rays find it easier to penetrate Earth’s atmosphere and are more noticeable to scientists.

While cosmic rays have little effect on our planet, one of the reasons scientists monitor them is to see when the Sun has entered a solar minimum.

Now, with cosmic rays at an all-time high, scientists know the Sun is about to enter a prolonged cooling period.

The bottom line is that decreasing sunspot activity translates to a cooling planet, contrary to the doomsday non-scientific pronouncements of Al Gore and Alexandria Occasional-Cortex. Sunspot activity typically follows an 11-year cycle, but as noted above, there may be other perhaps longer cycles as occurred in the 1600s leading to a 70-year mini ice age.

Then there are even longer climatic cycles, with real ice ages occurring every 100,000 years. These glaciations end with a 10,000 year inter-glacial warming period, the current such warming period soon ending, as distinguished scientist S. Fred Singer wrote in American Thinker.

Clearly there are factors at play in climate cycles that we barely understand and certainly cannot control. Some play out in shorter time spans, which we as humans can observe directly. Others are on a far longer and grander scale than human existence, much less our individual life spans, which are merely the blink of an eye by comparison.

Aside from solar activity and sunspots, there are volcanic eruptions emitting more greenhouse gas per eruption than years of worldwide human activity. What other forces are at play? That’s for scientists to discover. Our solar system is a mere speck in the Milky Way Galaxy, which is another speck in the vast universe.

It’s the ultimate in hubris to believe climate revolves solely around human activity. Yet politicians, rather admitting the obvious, that we don’t know far more than we do know, blame an ever-changing climate on everything from flatulent cows to processed meats.

Much like the Russian collusion hoax, the left creates a narrative to fit their agenda, putting conclusions before research and discovery. Instead they would be better served by applying the scientific method of observing, formulating a hypothesis, testing it against observations, modifying and refining the hypothesis, until after extensive testing it accurately predicts future events.

Otherwise it’s just more blather and fear mongering, just as we heard for over two years with Russian collusion fantasies that turned out to be nothing. Just as late April snow, in the eyes of the left, is further evidence of a warming planet.

Brian C Joondeph, MD, MPS, a Denver based physician and writer. Follow him on Facebook,  LinkedIn and Twitter.

The last thing we expect mid-spring is snow.  Yet that’s just what we have. As the Weather Channel reports, “It may be late April, but Winter Storm Xyler will make you forget that it is spring in the Midwest this weekend as it is expected to bring some unusually heavy late season snowfall.”

Snow is heading to New York as well, despite the state’s all-out effort to combat global warming by attempting to ban plastic straws and now hot dogs. From the New York Post, “Upstate NY may get up to 3 inches of snow this weekend.”

Across the country in Denver, the weather won’t be much different, as The Denver Channel reports, “Mild through the weekend, cold, rain and snow next week!” What’s going on? I thought the planet was heating up, with melting icecaps, rising sea levels, and less than 12 years before the earth burns to a crisp?

YouTube screen grab

We have been hearing this song and dance for several decades now. The global warming chicken littles keep telling us that snow is a thing of the past and we had better get used to it, along with a warming planet.

In 2000, British newspaper The Independent ran this headline, “Snowfalls are just a thing of the past.” In 2014, The New York Times ran a sequel headline, “The end of snow?”

Yet here we are, at the end of April, planting our gardens and facing snow in much of the country. If this is evidence of global warming, then Bernie Sanders’s popularity is evidence that the Democrat Party has shifted to the right. Good luck selling that.

One important factor always neglected by the climate warriors is the Sun, a ball of fire a million times larger than the Earth, the source of life on Earth, as well as destruction if the fires ever were extinguished, or expanded. If we were a few million miles closer to or further from the Sun, life on Earth would cease to exist. Just look at Venus and Mars, neighboring planets either too hot or too cold, respectively, for life as we know it.

Even the Earth’s tilt toward or away from the Sun is enough to cause our seasons, with large temperature variations and the difference between food production or not. Yet climate warriors ignore the Sun, instead focusing on human activity, driving SUV’s, flying in airplanes, and running our air conditioners.

Sunspots, according to the National Weather Service, “Are areas where the magnetic field is about 2,500 times stronger than Earth’s, much higher than anywhere else on the Sun.” Sunspots are quite large, about the size of the Earth, and are several thousand degrees cooler than the surrounding Sun surface.

Sunspots lead to solar flares, surface explosions which “release as much energy as a billion megatons of TNT.” These flares emit x-rays and magnetic fields which blast the Earth as geomagnetic storms, disrupting power grids and satellites, and warming the Earth.

Sunspots are not random but instead follow an 11-year cycle, from a minimum to a maximum. Sometimes the cycles last longer, for unknown reasons, with a 70-year period of near zero sunspot activity from 1645 to 1715, called the Maunder Minimum, or Little Ice Age. Enough of science class, how is this relevant now?

As reported by the Express, we are now entering one of these 11 year cycles as the Sun enters a solar minimum. As they report,

During a solar maximum, the Sun gives off more heat and is littered with sunspots. Less heat in a solar minimum is due to a decrease in magnetic waves.

Fewer magnetic waves equates to the Sun being slightly cooler, and experts are expecting the solar minimum to deepen even further before it gets warmer.

With less magnetic waves coming from the Sun, cosmic rays find it easier to penetrate Earth’s atmosphere and are more noticeable to scientists.

While cosmic rays have little effect on our planet, one of the reasons scientists monitor them is to see when the Sun has entered a solar minimum.

Now, with cosmic rays at an all-time high, scientists know the Sun is about to enter a prolonged cooling period.

The bottom line is that decreasing sunspot activity translates to a cooling planet, contrary to the doomsday non-scientific pronouncements of Al Gore and Alexandria Occasional-Cortex. Sunspot activity typically follows an 11-year cycle, but as noted above, there may be other perhaps longer cycles as occurred in the 1600s leading to a 70-year mini ice age.

Then there are even longer climatic cycles, with real ice ages occurring every 100,000 years. These glaciations end with a 10,000 year inter-glacial warming period, the current such warming period soon ending, as distinguished scientist S. Fred Singer wrote in American Thinker.

Clearly there are factors at play in climate cycles that we barely understand and certainly cannot control. Some play out in shorter time spans, which we as humans can observe directly. Others are on a far longer and grander scale than human existence, much less our individual life spans, which are merely the blink of an eye by comparison.

Aside from solar activity and sunspots, there are volcanic eruptions emitting more greenhouse gas per eruption than years of worldwide human activity. What other forces are at play? That’s for scientists to discover. Our solar system is a mere speck in the Milky Way Galaxy, which is another speck in the vast universe.

It’s the ultimate in hubris to believe climate revolves solely around human activity. Yet politicians, rather admitting the obvious, that we don’t know far more than we do know, blame an ever-changing climate on everything from flatulent cows to processed meats.

Much like the Russian collusion hoax, the left creates a narrative to fit their agenda, putting conclusions before research and discovery. Instead they would be better served by applying the scientific method of observing, formulating a hypothesis, testing it against observations, modifying and refining the hypothesis, until after extensive testing it accurately predicts future events.

Otherwise it’s just more blather and fear mongering, just as we heard for over two years with Russian collusion fantasies that turned out to be nothing. Just as late April snow, in the eyes of the left, is further evidence of a warming planet.

Brian C Joondeph, MD, MPS, a Denver based physician and writer. Follow him on Facebook,  LinkedIn and Twitter.

via American Thinker

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MMT: The Latest Liberal Economic Fantasy

A good definition of a liberal might be someone who tries to ignore the actual nature of reality. Thus, many politically correct formulations distort reality even to the point of denying the differences between the sexes.

Ignoring the nature of reality can get particularly dangerous when applied to economics. The nature of money calls for having sufficient control over the money supply to prevent the breakdown of the system. It calls for keeping debt levels low.  Some liberals are now trying to turn conventional economy policy upside down by changing all the rules.

The new economics is called Modern Monetary Theory or MMT for short. MMT is gaining traction among high-profile Democrats and other liberals that are looking for ways to finance social and ecological programs that they hope to implement in the future. The present monetary system with its $22 trillion-and-growing debt is too rigid and constraining. Something new is needed to provide more flexible and expandable financing. The answer is MMT.

The Basic Tenets of MMT

Critics say that MMT is neither monetary nor a theory. It more closely resembles a political opportunity, since it puts everything in the hands of enlightened politicians. Its promoters keep the theory sufficiently vague to avoid close scrutiny. They tend to stay outside of the mainstream economic journals and inside social media.

Nevertheless, liberal economist Heather Boushey claims that the theory has moved to center stage in the political debate. It is the catchphrase of economists, pundits, and politicians who “hold it up as the answer to our economic problems.”   Prof. Stephanie Kelton of Stony Brook University (with two co-authors) summarize the theory’s magic formula as “Anything that is technically feasible is financially affordable.”

The two basic tenets of MMT are dear to liberal hearts. First, governments can spend much more than they tax. Secondly, promoters claim that governments should uses taxes, not as a generator of revenue, but as an instrument of inflation control and achieving equality.

MMT advocates say that deficit spending does not matter for countries like the United States that borrow in their own currency. Governments can issue money using mechanisms like the Federal Reserve to self-finance their budgets.   

The MMTers claim that the present monetary policies of setting interest rates and controlling the money supply by the Fed are no longer needed as tools for balancing an economy.

The new tools for job creation and economic growth should be increased federal spending and taxation. When things get rough, the government can spend its way to full employment by printing up money. When the economy booms and inflation threatens, the government can contract the money supply by taxing it down to acceptable levels.

Creating a Climate of Instability and Distrust

MMT takes the control of policy out of the hands of economists and puts it into those of politicians. It replaces long-term planning with short-term spending. Such policies will have more immediate effects since increased spending impacts the economy directly. MMTers claims politicians will not abuse their newly acquired powers since they can be voted out if they err in judgment. More likely than not, politicians will probably be rewarded by the amount of MMT-funded pork that they can bring back to their districts.

Most conventional economists observe that failure to think in the long term creates an atmosphere of uncertainty and distrust that destabilizes markets. Moreover, the far-out ideas of MMT have never been tested, but, like deficits and taxes, that does not seem to matter. No one really cares that not even liberal economists like Paul Krugman give it much credence. Former treasury secretary Larry Summers, for example, called it “voodoo economics.”

It is a sad reflection of these Twitter times in which nothing has consequences, and everything runs on impressions and emotions. In the age of fake news, fake money makes sense. It is enough to “feel” and “believe” that it will work and finance the Green New Deal for it to gain acceptance.   

Meanwhile, no one answers the real question of who is going to pay down the federal debt.  

A good definition of a liberal might be someone who tries to ignore the actual nature of reality. Thus, many politically correct formulations distort reality even to the point of denying the differences between the sexes.

Ignoring the nature of reality can get particularly dangerous when applied to economics. The nature of money calls for having sufficient control over the money supply to prevent the breakdown of the system. It calls for keeping debt levels low.  Some liberals are now trying to turn conventional economy policy upside down by changing all the rules.

The new economics is called Modern Monetary Theory or MMT for short. MMT is gaining traction among high-profile Democrats and other liberals that are looking for ways to finance social and ecological programs that they hope to implement in the future. The present monetary system with its $22 trillion-and-growing debt is too rigid and constraining. Something new is needed to provide more flexible and expandable financing. The answer is MMT.

The Basic Tenets of MMT

Critics say that MMT is neither monetary nor a theory. It more closely resembles a political opportunity, since it puts everything in the hands of enlightened politicians. Its promoters keep the theory sufficiently vague to avoid close scrutiny. They tend to stay outside of the mainstream economic journals and inside social media.

Nevertheless, liberal economist Heather Boushey claims that the theory has moved to center stage in the political debate. It is the catchphrase of economists, pundits, and politicians who “hold it up as the answer to our economic problems.”   Prof. Stephanie Kelton of Stony Brook University (with two co-authors) summarize the theory’s magic formula as “Anything that is technically feasible is financially affordable.”

The two basic tenets of MMT are dear to liberal hearts. First, governments can spend much more than they tax. Secondly, promoters claim that governments should uses taxes, not as a generator of revenue, but as an instrument of inflation control and achieving equality.

MMT advocates say that deficit spending does not matter for countries like the United States that borrow in their own currency. Governments can issue money using mechanisms like the Federal Reserve to self-finance their budgets.   

The MMTers claim that the present monetary policies of setting interest rates and controlling the money supply by the Fed are no longer needed as tools for balancing an economy.

The new tools for job creation and economic growth should be increased federal spending and taxation. When things get rough, the government can spend its way to full employment by printing up money. When the economy booms and inflation threatens, the government can contract the money supply by taxing it down to acceptable levels.

Creating a Climate of Instability and Distrust

MMT takes the control of policy out of the hands of economists and puts it into those of politicians. It replaces long-term planning with short-term spending. Such policies will have more immediate effects since increased spending impacts the economy directly. MMTers claims politicians will not abuse their newly acquired powers since they can be voted out if they err in judgment. More likely than not, politicians will probably be rewarded by the amount of MMT-funded pork that they can bring back to their districts.

Most conventional economists observe that failure to think in the long term creates an atmosphere of uncertainty and distrust that destabilizes markets. Moreover, the far-out ideas of MMT have never been tested, but, like deficits and taxes, that does not seem to matter. No one really cares that not even liberal economists like Paul Krugman give it much credence. Former treasury secretary Larry Summers, for example, called it “voodoo economics.”

It is a sad reflection of these Twitter times in which nothing has consequences, and everything runs on impressions and emotions. In the age of fake news, fake money makes sense. It is enough to “feel” and “believe” that it will work and finance the Green New Deal for it to gain acceptance.   

Meanwhile, no one answers the real question of who is going to pay down the federal debt.  

via American Thinker

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Senator Wyden’s Very Bad Idea for More Taxes

Oregon’s liberal Democratic senator Ron Wyden most likely knew from the get-go that his idea for new taxes on assets and investments wouldn’t get a lot of traction — so much so that a news release, tweet, or bulletin taking credit for his own proposal can’t be found on the senator’s official website.

Yet Senator Wyden, who is the ranking member of the Senate’s Finance Committee, in early April told the financial press he is developing a “mark-to-market” approach to tax unrealized capital gains.  In simple terms, he proposes a levy — a tax — on investments (like real estate or stocks) based on valuations of their holdings each year, with all annual gains treated like income — even gains that have not been realized.  This “mark-to-market” accounting practice of updating the value of an asset would tax all capital gains like income at a maximum rate of 37 percent.

The present capital gains tax functions this way: when capital assets like stocks or real estate are bought, the purchase price becomes the “cost basis,” and when they are sold, the difference between the cost basis and the sale price becomes a “capital gain.”  With a couple stipulations involving the length of time an asset is held (i.e., long- or short-term) and breakpoints based on a taxpayer’s overall income, the current capital gains tax in the U.S. ranges between 15 percent and 23.8 percent.  When an asset is sold for a profit after a year or more, it is taxed at long term rates, while rates if assets are sold after less than a year — i.e., short term — generally equate to ordinary income tax rates.

So what could possibly go wrong with systematic annual taxation that would be extraordinarily difficult and complex to implement, while loaded with potential to disrupt and devastate the nation’s financial markets?

First and foremost: compliance and its associated costs.  Would it even be humanly possible to annually value the wide array of capital assets that constitute our nation’s economy?  How do you go about fairly valuing — without transactions to price them — everything from venture capital to private debt to stock options to cyclical businesses to illiquid real estate and beyond?

Then, what kind of drain on the U.S. economy would such annual fiscal gymnastics impose, as everyone’s asset and money managers maneuver to value assets, particularly illiquid ones, with the objective of tax efficiency?  (Of course, Senator Wyden promises, but has not yet provided, a detailed explanation of exactly how all this will work.)  Some, if not many, investors would just not bother and take their capital elsewhere.

Another problem: How would smaller investors — even otherwise moderately wealthy investors — pay taxes on investments that have not yet returned cash to them?  Senator Wyden must know that Americans saving and investing for the future do not possess surpluses of cash in addition to those assets to pay additional taxes.  The obvious is that only when a stock, real estate, or another asset is sold does an investor obtain the cash to monetize the gains of his investment.  There is good reason why we presently tax only realized gains in America — and not notional ones — because one is a tangible gain, while the other is only an abstract number on paper until it is sold.

Senator Wyden, with a worldview common among liberal Democrats, further sees the issue in terms of binary economic and class distinctions.  In announcing his proposal, he asserted:

There are two tax codes in America.  The first is for nurses, police officers, and factory workers — those who earn wages and pay taxes with every paycheck.  The second is for millionaires and billionaires — those who use their wealth to build more wealth, paying what they want, when they want … Everyone needs to pay their fair share.

That statement by itself ignores the facts that the top one percent already pay a greater share of individual income taxes (37.3 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (30.5 percent), or that more Americans than ever own stocks and almost two thirds of Americans own their homes.

Additionally, many Americans are not rich and wealthy like Wyden’s pejorative “millionaires and billionaires” and do not fit neatly into either group.  They are America’s so-called “middle class.”  Yes, they earn wages and pay taxes with every paycheck, but over time, they are fortunate enough to save some of the money the government has allowed them to keep.  They go on to invest their dollars, sometimes well and other times not so well.  Over the years, the growth and appreciation of those assets enable them to raise families, pay their bills, even enjoy life and increase their likelihood of making it through retirement without running out of money.  Just where would an always benevolent federal government draw the line on who and what is taxed — and for how much?

Critics mostly agree that Wyden’s proposal has little chance of passing any time soon, but it is a siren call to those lured by its potential to raise vast sums to feed the seemingly insatiable demands of government spending — funds that could otherwise remain available to taxpayers to circulate in the economy as they see fit.

Is it too much to expect the senior Democrat on the Senate’s Finance Committee to understand that such a tax proposal disregards the lifeblood of our economy: investment?  Senator Wyden’s proposal, if implemented, would discourage capital formation, increased productivity, investment risk-taking, and wealth creation.  Such an idea embodies an entire party’s diametrically different political philosophy of wealth as a divisive political wedge and “millionaires and billionaires” as a populist foil instead of concentrating on growing the economy and creating jobs for the benefit of all Americans.

Maybe Vice President Mike Pence said it best with his remarks at CPAC, the annual conservative convention, in March: “The truth is, we [conservatives] want to make poor people richer; they [the Democrats] want to make rich people poorer.”  Senator Wyden’s proposal is just a very bad idea that all Americans — regardless of their politics — could agree should never see the light of day.

Chris J. Krisinger (colonel, USAF ret.) served in policy advisory positions in both the Pentagon and the State Department.  He was a National Defense Fellow at Harvard University.

Oregon’s liberal Democratic senator Ron Wyden most likely knew from the get-go that his idea for new taxes on assets and investments wouldn’t get a lot of traction — so much so that a news release, tweet, or bulletin taking credit for his own proposal can’t be found on the senator’s official website.

Yet Senator Wyden, who is the ranking member of the Senate’s Finance Committee, in early April told the financial press he is developing a “mark-to-market” approach to tax unrealized capital gains.  In simple terms, he proposes a levy — a tax — on investments (like real estate or stocks) based on valuations of their holdings each year, with all annual gains treated like income — even gains that have not been realized.  This “mark-to-market” accounting practice of updating the value of an asset would tax all capital gains like income at a maximum rate of 37 percent.

The present capital gains tax functions this way: when capital assets like stocks or real estate are bought, the purchase price becomes the “cost basis,” and when they are sold, the difference between the cost basis and the sale price becomes a “capital gain.”  With a couple stipulations involving the length of time an asset is held (i.e., long- or short-term) and breakpoints based on a taxpayer’s overall income, the current capital gains tax in the U.S. ranges between 15 percent and 23.8 percent.  When an asset is sold for a profit after a year or more, it is taxed at long term rates, while rates if assets are sold after less than a year — i.e., short term — generally equate to ordinary income tax rates.

So what could possibly go wrong with systematic annual taxation that would be extraordinarily difficult and complex to implement, while loaded with potential to disrupt and devastate the nation’s financial markets?

First and foremost: compliance and its associated costs.  Would it even be humanly possible to annually value the wide array of capital assets that constitute our nation’s economy?  How do you go about fairly valuing — without transactions to price them — everything from venture capital to private debt to stock options to cyclical businesses to illiquid real estate and beyond?

Then, what kind of drain on the U.S. economy would such annual fiscal gymnastics impose, as everyone’s asset and money managers maneuver to value assets, particularly illiquid ones, with the objective of tax efficiency?  (Of course, Senator Wyden promises, but has not yet provided, a detailed explanation of exactly how all this will work.)  Some, if not many, investors would just not bother and take their capital elsewhere.

Another problem: How would smaller investors — even otherwise moderately wealthy investors — pay taxes on investments that have not yet returned cash to them?  Senator Wyden must know that Americans saving and investing for the future do not possess surpluses of cash in addition to those assets to pay additional taxes.  The obvious is that only when a stock, real estate, or another asset is sold does an investor obtain the cash to monetize the gains of his investment.  There is good reason why we presently tax only realized gains in America — and not notional ones — because one is a tangible gain, while the other is only an abstract number on paper until it is sold.

Senator Wyden, with a worldview common among liberal Democrats, further sees the issue in terms of binary economic and class distinctions.  In announcing his proposal, he asserted:

There are two tax codes in America.  The first is for nurses, police officers, and factory workers — those who earn wages and pay taxes with every paycheck.  The second is for millionaires and billionaires — those who use their wealth to build more wealth, paying what they want, when they want … Everyone needs to pay their fair share.

That statement by itself ignores the facts that the top one percent already pay a greater share of individual income taxes (37.3 percent) than the bottom 90 percent combined (30.5 percent), or that more Americans than ever own stocks and almost two thirds of Americans own their homes.

Additionally, many Americans are not rich and wealthy like Wyden’s pejorative “millionaires and billionaires” and do not fit neatly into either group.  They are America’s so-called “middle class.”  Yes, they earn wages and pay taxes with every paycheck, but over time, they are fortunate enough to save some of the money the government has allowed them to keep.  They go on to invest their dollars, sometimes well and other times not so well.  Over the years, the growth and appreciation of those assets enable them to raise families, pay their bills, even enjoy life and increase their likelihood of making it through retirement without running out of money.  Just where would an always benevolent federal government draw the line on who and what is taxed — and for how much?

Critics mostly agree that Wyden’s proposal has little chance of passing any time soon, but it is a siren call to those lured by its potential to raise vast sums to feed the seemingly insatiable demands of government spending — funds that could otherwise remain available to taxpayers to circulate in the economy as they see fit.

Is it too much to expect the senior Democrat on the Senate’s Finance Committee to understand that such a tax proposal disregards the lifeblood of our economy: investment?  Senator Wyden’s proposal, if implemented, would discourage capital formation, increased productivity, investment risk-taking, and wealth creation.  Such an idea embodies an entire party’s diametrically different political philosophy of wealth as a divisive political wedge and “millionaires and billionaires” as a populist foil instead of concentrating on growing the economy and creating jobs for the benefit of all Americans.

Maybe Vice President Mike Pence said it best with his remarks at CPAC, the annual conservative convention, in March: “The truth is, we [conservatives] want to make poor people richer; they [the Democrats] want to make rich people poorer.”  Senator Wyden’s proposal is just a very bad idea that all Americans — regardless of their politics — could agree should never see the light of day.

Chris J. Krisinger (colonel, USAF ret.) served in policy advisory positions in both the Pentagon and the State Department.  He was a National Defense Fellow at Harvard University.

via American Thinker

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.americanthinker.com/

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Black principal of Houston inner-city school lays down the dress code…on parents

A principal at a Houston high school has issued a memo that bans parents from entering her school who are not appropriately dressed.

Items banned from the building include shower caps, hair rollers, bonnets, satin caps … house shoes, undershirts (for men), and pajamas, or anything that could be construed as such, a topic on which the directive casts a wide net: ‘[A]ttire that could possibly be pajamas, underwear, or home setting wear, such as flannel pajamas,” it reads.

Items banned from the entire campus include hot pants and Daisy Dukes, cleavage-revealing dresses, saggy pants or ripped-up, overly revealing jeans, and leggings, another topic on which the order goes to some length to explain.  To warrant a ban, they must be “showing your bottom and where your body is not covered from the front or the back (rear).

Critics are calling this “a form of  ”respectability politics,” defined as “the way minority groups police their behavior to fit white standards of decorum and behavior.”  ”Coined by author Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, this tendency among African Americans has roots in the works of WEB DuBois and Booker T. Washington; curmudgeonly NBA commentator Charles Barkley, comedian Chris Rock, and even Barack Obama have been accused of practicing respectability politics.”

This may be the long awaited rebound of the decent against the indecent.  Principal Carlotta Outley Brown is black, and Madison High School is in the inner city.  She appears to be instituting a regime that prepares students for life after high school.  ”Respectability politics” seems to argue that anybody should be able to wear anything in any way he pleases.  This is a variation of sixties hippies, who dressed like bums to disrespect the system generally.

That disrespect is intended in the current context becomes clear when defiant attitudes accompany inappropriate dress.  Kids model their parents and imbibe the defiance along with the rest.  This approach to the world outside home is a recipe not for success, but rather for lifelong conflict.

One can’t escape the suspicion that such people really aren’t much concerned with their progeny’s success.  It’s one thing to “be your own man” and to dress to showcase your individuality, but this can be done without vulgarity and disrespect.  The opinions of others do matter.  Over time, the general opinion establishes rules of propriety.

The underlying principle is respect for legitimate authority, without which society (and high schools) breaks down.  That authority can be abused isn’t the issue here; the more basic need for rules, and for authority to establish those rules and exact compliance with them, is.

This gutsy principal has taken the bull by the horns.  We can be sure there will be a backlash during which she will be accused of racism, Uncle Tomism, etc.  In similar situations in universities, we’re accustomed to seeing the administration backing down, apologizing, and undercutting such brave souls, perhaps even firing them.

We can hope her district has the fortitude and clear-eyed vision that animate Mrs. Brown, to stand behind and fortify her decision.  Of her kind America needs more, not fewer.

A principal at a Houston high school has issued a memo that bans parents from entering her school who are not appropriately dressed.

Items banned from the building include shower caps, hair rollers, bonnets, satin caps … house shoes, undershirts (for men), and pajamas, or anything that could be construed as such, a topic on which the directive casts a wide net: ‘[A]ttire that could possibly be pajamas, underwear, or home setting wear, such as flannel pajamas,” it reads.

Items banned from the entire campus include hot pants and Daisy Dukes, cleavage-revealing dresses, saggy pants or ripped-up, overly revealing jeans, and leggings, another topic on which the order goes to some length to explain.  To warrant a ban, they must be “showing your bottom and where your body is not covered from the front or the back (rear).

Critics are calling this “a form of  ”respectability politics,” defined as “the way minority groups police their behavior to fit white standards of decorum and behavior.”  ”Coined by author Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, this tendency among African Americans has roots in the works of WEB DuBois and Booker T. Washington; curmudgeonly NBA commentator Charles Barkley, comedian Chris Rock, and even Barack Obama have been accused of practicing respectability politics.”

This may be the long awaited rebound of the decent against the indecent.  Principal Carlotta Outley Brown is black, and Madison High School is in the inner city.  She appears to be instituting a regime that prepares students for life after high school.  ”Respectability politics” seems to argue that anybody should be able to wear anything in any way he pleases.  This is a variation of sixties hippies, who dressed like bums to disrespect the system generally.

That disrespect is intended in the current context becomes clear when defiant attitudes accompany inappropriate dress.  Kids model their parents and imbibe the defiance along with the rest.  This approach to the world outside home is a recipe not for success, but rather for lifelong conflict.

One can’t escape the suspicion that such people really aren’t much concerned with their progeny’s success.  It’s one thing to “be your own man” and to dress to showcase your individuality, but this can be done without vulgarity and disrespect.  The opinions of others do matter.  Over time, the general opinion establishes rules of propriety.

The underlying principle is respect for legitimate authority, without which society (and high schools) breaks down.  That authority can be abused isn’t the issue here; the more basic need for rules, and for authority to establish those rules and exact compliance with them, is.

This gutsy principal has taken the bull by the horns.  We can be sure there will be a backlash during which she will be accused of racism, Uncle Tomism, etc.  In similar situations in universities, we’re accustomed to seeing the administration backing down, apologizing, and undercutting such brave souls, perhaps even firing them.

We can hope her district has the fortitude and clear-eyed vision that animate Mrs. Brown, to stand behind and fortify her decision.  Of her kind America needs more, not fewer.

via American Thinker Blog

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/