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My February birthday fund-raising campaign for this website, Behind the Black, is now over. Despite a relatively weak initial three weeks, the last week was spectacular, making this campaign the second best ever.

 

Thanks to every person who donated or subscribed. It continues to astonish me that people who can read my work for free like it enough to donate money voluntarily. Words cannot express my appreciation for that support, especially in these uncertain times.

 

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Minneapolis: another American city destroyed by Democrats

Link here. Democrats will see this as a partisan attack. It really isn’t. It is instead another attempt to point out the stark fact that the leftwing policies put forth by the Democratic Party in the past half century have been routinely disastrous.

But by 1988, then-mayor Donald Fraser—a member of the DFLP—had grown troubled by the stark contrast he saw between the majority of his city and who were thriving economically, and a number of African-American neighborhoods where crime, teenage pregnancy, and welfare dependency were experiencing a growth spurt. Taking a page out of the same playbook other big city Democrat mayors were using, Fraser believed that the cure was redistribution of income. He decided to revamp the way in which social-welfare expenditures were allocated and believed, specifically, that federal and local agencies needed to focus more of their resources on the economic problems confronting unwed mothers (who were disproportionately black) and their children.



Fraser’s successors as mayors of Minneapolis—Sharon Sayles Belton (1994-2001), R.T. Rybak (2002-2013), and Betsy Hodges (2014-present)—have shared this same core belief in the importance of massive public expenditures on social-welfare programs and wealth-redistribution initiatives.

The result has been disastrous. As of 2015, the poverty rate in Minneapolis was 25.3%, nearly twice the 14% statewide rate for Minnesota and the 14.3% rate for the United States as a whole. In 2010, a study of 142 metro areas in Minnesota found that only 15 bore a heavier property-tax burden than Minneapolis, and that was before the city raised its property taxes by 4.7% in 2011.

More recently, Minneapolis property taxes increased by 3.4% in 2016, and by a crippling 5.5% in 2017.

 Notwithstanding the growth in revenues generated by these taxes, the government of Minneapolis has been incapable of balancing its budget. In 2015, for example, the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority’s budget included $84 million in federal subsidies and grants. In 2017, the Metropolitan Council—which describes itself as “the regional policy-making body, planning agency, and provider of essential services for the Twin Cities metropolitan region”—received $91 million in federal funding. That same year, the Minneapolis Public Schools operated with a budget deficit of nearly $17 million.



This pattern has repeated itself throughout the United States. For the past half century almost every urban area has been dominated politically by Democrats. In that same time period, those urban areas have seen a distinct worsening of their economic situation. Even as these American cities have imposed a higher and higher tax burden on their successful citizens, they have seen higher and higher deficits. At the same time, poverty and economic failure has increased.

The important thing to note here is that the policies of the Democratic Party are a failure. Since that party seems incapable of changing those policies, it is essential that voters stop voting for it, either to force a change within that party or to remove that party from any position of power. Those are our choices, if we wish to improve the future of the United States.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

9 comments

  • Orion314

    The REALLY important thing to note is that our political parties are nothing more than licensed/ criminal organizations. We must lose this idea , that , in any way, shape, or form, they believe in the rule of law. The only thing they believe in is that laws are for slaves. The fact that people like Pelosi or HRC will never see the inside of a jail is all the proof one needs…. For the American people to re-obtain a USG that respects the law, a butchers bill must be paid. Something the sheep no longer have the stomach for. Sad but true.

  • Noah Peal

    Democrats own the ghettos.

  • Steve Earle

    I’ll say it again, in order for the Law to be followed those who break it must GO TO JAIL, and it must be on the TV and Newspapers that SOMEONE WENT TO JAIL…..

    If millions of Tax dollars are missing, where did it go? That’s another thing these cities all have in common, deeply rooted corruption. And if no one is ever held accountable then why should anyone follow the Law?

    But I just found out that the Head of the IRS that gave the Congress the middle finger STILL HAS HIS JOB!?!?!

    So what do I know? LOL!

    http://nypost.com/2017/03/13/fire-the-irs-chief-already-mr-president/

  • Joe

    I think this is how these dem mayors want it, there is so much evidence that these policy’s don’t work, they just keep on instituting them, either insane or it’s purposefully done.

  • Cotour

    And this is an extension of the entire perversion of government by the Liberals.

    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TRUMP_TRAVEL_BAN_LAWSUITS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-03-15-20-00-53

    The president is no longer the Chief Executive of our country. This has gone on so long that they defacto own us all. They can demand our wealth by taxing and regulation and by passing requirements for things like exorbitant minimum wages that destroy the entry level work force and additionally drain the wealth from business.

    Trump will fight this fight every day, every day, this is a war that is long. But what must happen is that the republicans, after they rid themselves of the likes of Ryan and McConnell, have to play twice as hard as the left, manipulate their power to accomplish what must be accomplished. Come hell or high water, what ever it takes and let the chips fall where they may. I think we can agree that the leadership of both the Republican and the Democrat party’s are the problem here, they are allies and not adversaries looking for common ground and agreement.

    We The People are being held hostage in more ways than one! This requires take no prisoners Strategy, we will worry about Morality later.

  • Cotour

    Fools.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/15/world/europe/geert-wilders-netherlands-far-right-vote.html?_r=0

    Its probably too late for most of Europe, stick a fork in them, their done.

    This is exactly why Trump has so much potential, probably the most potential of any president since Lincoln, 155 years or so. Trump knows what the problems are and has the steel balls to get them done, if its also not too late for us as this Hawaiian court action demonstrates. Potential is one thing accomplishment is another, there is no other politician that might be able to break this Leftist / sovereignty surrendering trajectory besides Trump. You may not personally like him, but he it IT!

  • LocalFluff

    @Cotour In this election in the Netherlands, the social democrats (the Democrats of Europe, but more leftist, that historically has reigned half of the time in most European countries) dropped from 25% to 6%. Total collapse. And they were now in the NL in government together with the kind of left liberal party that in Europe is supposed to be on the other side of some imagined left-right line, although that has never been demonstrated in any actual policy, it’s just a definition that MSM makes to pretend that there are differences between political parties in Europe.

    Nationalist and LGBTQ rights defending Wilders only picked up 4% of those 19% the social democrats lost, and reaches only 13%. The Dutch don’t get it. They will suffer very bloodily from islamic violence during the next few years. Tens of thousands of Dutch voted for their own murder. I guess that we cannot help them, that we must let the idiots have themselves killed, in order to clean out the gene pool from the worst kinds of stupidity and hate. Mass death as a way to cure the people. The Middle East is fast and firmly extending to encompass all of Western Europe, but the top 1% or so most intelligent and life loving Europeans will survive as refugees in civilized parts of the world. 99% of all Europeans are letting themselves be stoned to death on the streets by the arape zombie hoards, whom they view as their untouchable holy cows.

  • Cotour

    Local, you know better than I, its a sad commentary on just how ignorant Leftist driven political correctness can make a people.

    This holy cow hero / Globalist / presidential office losing Senator is our version of the elite thinkers in Europe.

    http://www.mediaite.com/online/fireworks-mccain-rips-rand-paul-as-working-for-vladimir-putin/

    Time to retire Mr. McCain, get on board or get out of the way!.

  • Keith

    My daughter used to live in Minneapolis. I was amazed at the large number of beggars at major intersections going car to car panhandling. I’ve seen this in other cities, but there are definitely more in Minneapolis. To the extent this can be a measure of poverty in a metropolitan area, there seems to be more there than even in Newark, NJ and NYC, the metro area closest to my residence.

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