Tag: Democratic Party

Minneapolis: another American city destroyed by Democrats

9:55 am

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.

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Democrats make no gains in special elections

9:40 am

Despite their screaming and protesting since the election of Donald Trump, the Democratic Party’s effort to win elections continues to falter.

The Democrat resistance may be generating a lot of noise in Washington, D.C., but so far in 2017, it has shown little impact on elections in the states. Even with hefty financial investments and high profile Democrats lending star power to state-level candidates, Republicans won control of every district they previously held across multiple states that Democrats have won in the last three or more presidential elections, including as recently as yesterday in Connecticut.

Read the whole thing. Essentially, the protests and wild mindless opposition to Trump by Democrats nationwide has failed to persuade anyone who voted for Trump or the Republicans to switch their votes. In fact, the failed Democratic election effort, which included significant campaign spending in some very small local elections, suggests that the voters have been turned off by their almost hateful opposition. Not only did vulnerable Republicans win their special elections, they appear to have generally done so comfortably.

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The fascist and violent intentions of the left

8:59 am

Link here. The article takes a look at what a variety of anti-Trump organizations, tied to the various protests in recent weeks, say they intent to do in their opposition to Trump. And what they intend is not peaceful or a recognition that a lawful election was held and Trump won. No, their intention is the overthrow of the American government. One example:

A website called Ungovernable 2017 helped coordinate DisruptJ20’s DC efforts with anti-Trump protests around the country. Some groups endorsed a pledge to never give Trump the “chance to govern.”

“As we resist, we will create new governing institutions, new economic relationships, and new ways of being human,” the pledge reads. The pledge was endorsed by a number of left-wing figures including: the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, a black nationalist organization with chapters in eight cities across the country; activist and 2008 Green Party vice presidential nominee Rosa Clemente; and Lamis Deek, lawyer and a New York board member for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR).

I link these violent protest groups in with the entire left and the Democratic Party, since it is apparent that the Democrats have almost identical goals. None of them appear willing to accept the election results. All now require that all elections end as they want them to, and will work to overturn any election defeat with violence and total opposition.

In other words, they are behaving exactly the same as the fascists from the 1930s.

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Democratic party leaders endorse obstruction as political tool

6:03 pm

In a Politico article today about the political state of the Democratic Party, it appears both party leaders and the base are increasingly leaning to a “a take-no-prisoners posture” aimed at a continued and total opposition to all Trump policies.

Leading Democratic strategists warn that the first signs will appear in midterm elections, in which the primary electorate will demand more than just marching outside the White House or grabbing a bullhorn at an arrivals lounge. They’ll be expecting something close to 100 percent rejection of Trump’s agenda — making the coming years complicated for members of Congress, who have to vote on it, rather than the governors and mayors who get to assume a more offensive posture.

Essentially, it appears that the Democratic Party is coalescing around a strategy similar to that used in Wisconsin against conservative Republican Governor Scott Walker, a strategy based on no compromise and no negotiation and included legislative boycotts, demonstrations, protests and occupations inside the statehouse.

In Wisconsin that political strategy was a total and utter failure. Not only did the Democrats fail to stop any of Walker’s policy initiatives, their actions apparently helped shift that state into Trump’s hands in the November Presidential election. I suspect it will result in the same utter failure in the 2018 midterm elections, which do not favor the Democrats anyway.

It is especially amusing to note the political experts the Politico quotes for its analysis. Mark Longabaugh was a senior strategist for Sanders, who lost. Jason Kander ran for a Senate seat in Missouri in 2016. He lost. Anne Caprara ran a PAC that strongly campaigned for Hillary Clinton, who lost. She also held important strategy positions in the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee from 2010 to 2014, a time period when the Democrats lost control of the Senate. Margie Omero has been a very visible pollster on television who consistently predicted that Hillary Clinton was almost certain to win the election. As we all know, Clinton lost.

And there’s Bob Shrum, who is given the most quotes, and says in support of the obstructionist strategy,

“This is a grass-roots reaction at a level of intensity that I haven’t seen in the Democratic Party since Vietnam,” said Shrum. “It even exceeds the reaction to Iraq, which was more a slow simmer than this kind of explosive reaction.”

Bob Shrum is also known as the man who has backed nine presidential Democratic candidates during the past three decades, all of whom lost. His record is so bad that it is known in Washington as the Shrum curse. The streak continued hilariously in the November election, when he announced just after Labor Day that the election was over and that Hillary Clinton was now certain to win. His curse immediately kicked in, as that was the exact moment her polls started to drop. And as with all of Shrum’s other political picks, she lost in the election.

As I noted last week, Einstein’s definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. This is more evidence that the Democrats are following this mental path.

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How past fascist dictators took power

3:45 pm

Link here. The process as described in this quote should sound very frightfully familiar:

Under the leadership of Benito Mussolini, the Fascist Party of Italy seized control of the country in 1922 with the “March on Rome.” Before marching on the nation’s capital, Italian fascists committed violent acts across most of northern Italy. The king of Italy, fearing more bloodshed, appointed Mussolini Prime Minister of Italy. No election took place, and the Italian fascists used violent tactics to achieve power.

Spanish fascists came to power through a military coup, after the military leadership did not like the results of the most recent election, and the coup resulted in a civil war lasting from 1936 to 1939.

In Germany the fascist path to power was longer and more complicated for the National Socialists, or Nazis. Hitler attempted to mimic Mussolini in 1923 with the Beer Hall putsch, an attempt to overthrow local authorities. It did not succeed and resulted in a few deaths and the arrest of several Nazis, including Hitler. After the failed coup, the Nazis decided to use the democratic process to take over Germany. Yet not until the election of July 1932 did the Nazis become the largest party in the German Parliament. Despite winning a plurality of votes (37 percent), the Nazis did not receive a majority of the votes needed to form a government. The Nazis refused to join any coalition, which resulted in another election in November 1932. In that election the Nazis again won a plurality but not as large as before (only 33 percent). Despite the loss, the Nazis refused to form a coalition until Hitler was made chancellor, which occurred in January 1933. Once Hitler was chancellor, he ordered another parliamentary election.

In March 1933, the election was held and the Nazis again received only a plurality of the votes (43 percent). This would be the last open election until after World War II, because Hitler decided it would be easier to consolidate power through terror, fear, and even political murders, rather than trying to work with other parties.

So, what’s the pattern? How do fascists take power? First, they are angry with election results or how the country is being run. Then fascists use militant tactics to force the population into supporting, or acquiescing in, their cause, even though most citizens don’t actually support the fascist agenda. [emphasis mine]

This is a detailed educated illustration why I use the term fascist to describe the behavior of much of the most militant wings of the left and the Democratic Party. It is what they have become, and what they are doing.

I pray that in America we will not do what was done in Italy, Spain, and Germany, and acquiesce to the use of violence and terror to make us bow to the will of dictators.

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Democrats pick Pelosi again

11:46 am

Nancy Pelosi has fought off a challenge to her position as the House Democratic leader, winning 134 to 63.

Considering how badly the Democrats have fared in elections under her leadership, her victory here indicates strongly the bankrupt state of the Democratic Party. They seem unable at all to accept any blame for their losses, which would be the first step in reforming their increasingly corrupt party. Instead, they have been doubling down on the same rejected leftwing and race-based policies. Note also how the Democratic Party has become entirely dominated by its urban and coastal regions. While those areas have become almost one-party states run unopposed by the Democratic Party, their influence is very regionally limited and has been strongly rejected by most of the rest of the country. Even so, the Democrats continue to pick as their leader an extreme leftist from the extremely leftist San Francisco area.

None of this bodes well for either the Democratic Party, or the nation on the whole. To have a healthy democracy you need a healthy opposition party. Right now we do not have it.

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Democrats look in all the wrong places to explain their losses

9:35 am

The Democratic Party is attempting to analyze the recent election to try to find out what has been causing their significant losses in order to prevent further election defeats and bring about a recovery.

Not surprisingly, they are blaming everything and everybody but their own policies.

Party insiders are reluctant to blame the popular Obama but cite plenty of reasons for the decline. These include a muddled economic message; an overemphasis on emerging demographic groups such as minorities and millennial at the expense of white voters; a perception the party is elitist and aligned with Wall Street; a reluctance to embrace the progressive populism of Senator Bernie Sanders, the former presidential hopeful; and failure to field strong candidates in key states.

There is an emerging consensus, they add, that the party has been too focused on winning national races and has not invested enough in local campaigns, along with a grudging admission that Republicans have done a better job of competing on the ground. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted text above shows how completely divorced from reality this Democratic Party continues to be. Most of the country rejects socialism, and it was the Democratic Party’s increasing tilt towards socialism that is hurting it badly and caused it lose control of almost all the state legislatures nationwide.. Do they recognize this? Absolutely not. Instead they want to become more socialist.

Moreover, most of the other reasons they cite for their losses either blame outside forces (such as Republican efforts to require an ID to vote) or poor messaging. It is never anything they did, such as impose Obamacare and run the government badly.

Moreover, that the Democrats continue to increase their dominance in the big urban areas should not be used by them as a sign that their policies are right. The big urban areas are also generally places with the worst quality of life, the most crime, the worst poverty, and biggest government deficits. Even if the citizens in those places can’t see how badly they are being ruled by Democrats, the rest of the country does. Moreover, it will be impossible for the Democratic Party to recover significantly as long as it relies solely on the voters in these concentrated urban areas. To get the rest of the country to consider them worth voting for again they are going to have to face their own policy failures and change direction. Sadly, I see no evidence that they are going to do this.

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The American city-rural political divide

9:10 am

Though the article at the link focuses on how in this year’s election the Democratic Party has lost its traditional support from white blue collar Democrats, I think it illustrates quite forcefully the increasing political polarization between the cities and the rural parts of the country.

“There are 490 counties in Appalachia technically, which is defined by federal law. Hillary Clinton won 21 counties in that region,” he said. And that is it. She did not win a single county in Appalachia that is mostly white, non-college-educated and has a population of under 100,000 people.

Not one county.

Looking at the map, the 21 counties she won were either college campuses like Virginia Tech, Cornell, Penn State and Mississippi State or counties in major metropolitan areas like Atlanta, Birmingham, Ala., Winston-Salem, N.C., Youngstown, Ohio, and Pittsburgh. And she also won five counties in Mississippi that are nearly majority black. “I went back and looked at the home precinct in Tennessee where I grew up and Bill Clinton wins it, Al Gore gets forty percent, Obama gets 28 percent and she got 18 percent. In short, Donald Trump got 80 percent of that vote,” he said, astounded at the cultural shift among Appalachians.

What does all of this data tell you about America? Todd says it is simple, “There are absolutely no more blue-collar whites in the Democratic Party. They just don’t exist, even the ones who want there to be have recognized there is no room for them,” he said. These voters had stayed with the Democrats forever and now 80 percent of them in Appalachia have voted Republican. “That means they don’t know anyone who voted for her,” he said.

This polarization also explains why it is becoming more common for the choice of the electoral college to not match the popular vote. Democratic voters are increasingly packed into big cities that cover very small amounts of area. The electoral college as well as Congress were specifically designed to prevent such concentrations from dominating elections.

These results also show that the Democrats are not doing a very good job convincing anyone to vote for them outside of their reliable core constituencies. In fact, if anything the policies of the Democratic Party has been repelling everyone away from it, except in those big cities where a large percentage of the voters are their direct welfare clients, dependent on government aid.

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Democrats blame lack of gun control for knife and bomb attacks

8:30 am

You can’t make this stuff up. Democratic Senator Dick Durbin (D-Illinois) told reporters on Tuesday that the Islamic knife and bomb terrorist attacks this past weekend in Minnesota, New York, and New Jersey were the fault of Republicans for blocking new gun control legislation.

Nor was Durbin alone. Harry Reid (D-Nevada) joined him in blaming Republicans and the lack of new gun control rules for the terrorist attacks.

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Millennials favor GOP, want Clinton imprisoned

11:51 am

There is hope: Despite oversampling Democrats, a new poll shows that millennials now favor the Republican Party, with a plurality calling for Hillary Clinton’s imprisonment.

Among ages 18 to 29, only 36 percent have a favorable view of the Democrat Party, and 47 have an unfavorable view. The low favorability number can likely be tied to young voters who were upset by how the DNC attempted to favor Hillary Clinton over millennial-favorite Bernie Sanders. And, some of these millennials are even saying they view the Republican Party more favorably. The GOP is leading the Democrats by 5 percent, scoring 41 percent favorability. Millennials have the most favorable view of the GOP versus other age demographics.

Later in the poll, we might have found out why: a plurality of millennials believe Clinton should be in prison. In fact, millennials are the only age demographic where more voters believe she should be in prison than those opposed to arresting her. 40 percent of millennials want her jailed, while just 39 percent oppose it (21 percent not sure).

For the past century the Democratic Party has had a lock on young voters. No matter the issue or candidate, voters under 30 routinely voted for Democrats in large majorities. For this poll to show such a trend away from the Democratic Party suggests that maybe the youngest voters are finally waking up to the reality facing them, due largely because of that Democratic Party.

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A good summary of the Wikileaks DNC emails

10:09 am

Link here. This Reddit post essential lists several dozen links to specific DNC emails at the Wikileaks site, all illustrating some pretty unsavory behavior by Democratic Party officials and politicians as well as a number of so-called journalists.

Many of these stories are simply the ordinary dirty business of politics, laid bare to see. Others though reveal the significant levels of corruption that permeate the Democratic Party, levels I think that far worse than anything one could find among the Republicans, bad as that party’s leadership happens to be.

Above all, the emails that document the close teamwork between the press and the Democratic Party are probably the most important. It is not that this is surprising. The emails merely prove it beyond a shadow of doubt. MSNBC and its head Phil Griffin especially are revealed to be nothing more than Democratic operatives, working closely with the DNC to push its agenda.

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Trump considers funding super-PACs to defeat Cruz and Kasich in later elections

4:48 pm

Update on the November Democratic primary: Donald Trump is considering creating two super-pacs expressly focused at destroying the political careers of Ohio Governor John Kasich and Texas Senator Ted Cruz.

During an event in Cleveland on Friday, Trump hinted at the prospect of funding an outside group against Cruz in the future.“Maybe I’ll set up a super-PAC if he decides to run,” Trump said of Cruz. Turning to his running mate Mike Pence he asked rhetorically, “Are you allowed to set up a super-PAC…if you are the president, to fight someone?”

The source close to Trump’s thinking indicated that Trump would consider forming the super-PAC whether or not he wins the presidential election in November.

This sure doesn’t sound like the actions of a Republican and conservative looking for allies within his party. Instead, it sounds like a Democrat who, having gotten the Republican nomination for President, can now stop pretending and begin the process of using his position to destroy the conservative movement in the United States in order to make it easier to impose liberal policies.

Trump’s supporters keep screaming that Cruz should have endorsed Trump for party unity. Well, the same applies to Trump — to bring the party together — only more so, since he has the nomination for president and as such is the de facto leader of the party. Moreover, while Cruz’s speech could have been more carefully worded, it nonetheless laid out the arguments for voting against Hillary Clinton and supporting all Republicans nationwide, even Trump (though unstated). Trump however is clearly doing the exact opposite, considering the investment of millions of his own money to actively work to defeat two of the party’s more conservative Republicans.

But hey, Trump can win! Who cares what he stands for!

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New evidence that Lois Lerner released confidential taxpayer information illegally

3:08 pm

Working for the Democratic Party: In her effort at the IRS to harass conservatives and anyone opposing the Democratic Party, newly released documents now suggest that Lois Lerner broke the law when she provided more than a million pages of confidential taxpayer information in 2010 to the Obama Justice Department.

Hmm. The Democratic Party calls for the nullification of the first, second, and fifth amendments of the Bill of Rights. Its allies in the IRS and Justice Department team up to illegally access confidential tax records of their opponents, for the purpose of possibly prosecuting those opponents. Furthermore, this same party is advocating the prosecution of companies who disagree with them on the subject of global warming.

Seems there might be a pattern here. Seems this political party is hell bent on oppressing those who oppose it. Seems this behavior is kind of like the behavior of the fascists in Europe in the 1930s. Maybe that suggests they might have a lot in common?

Nah, can’t be true. They care about us, and that’s all that matters!

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Judge rules No-Fly list unconstitutional

7:09 pm

A federal judge ruled last week that the method by which the federal government places people on the no-fly list is inherently unconstitutional, and must either be changed, or cease.

Specifically, U.S. District Judge Anna Brown said the process doesn’t give Americans on the list an effective way to challenge their inclusion. The Oregonian reports: “In a 65-page opinion issued Tuesday … Brown ordered the government to come up with a new way for the 13 plaintiffs to contest their inclusion on the list that prohibits them from flying in or through U.S. airspace. The government must provide notice to the plaintiffs that they are on the roster and give the reasons for their inclusion, Brown wrote. She also ordered that the government allow the plaintiffs to submit evidence to refute the government’s suspicions.

“The decision marks a big win for the plaintiffs, all U.S. citizens or permanent residents, and the American Civil Liberties Union, which argued the case on their behalf. The plaintiffs have all been denied boarding due to their placement on the list, they argue, despite never having been charged with a terrorism-related offense.”

This decision has nothing to do with the issue of gun control, but it demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt how unconstitutional the gun control proposals being pushed in the Senate are. If the list itself is unconstitutional, it certainly is unconstitutional to use it to deny people their second amendment rights under the Bill of Rights.

Not that any of this will matter to the Democrats and the people who support them. It is clearly their goal to limit the freedoms outlined in the Bill of Rights, and they intend to do so come hell or high water, unless Americans finally decide to throw them out of office.

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Democratic Party platform will demand prosecution of global warming skeptics

5:23 pm

Fascists: The Democratic Party, which has already unified behind legislation that would nullify the first, second, and fifth amendments of the Bill of Rights, has now decided that the party’s official platform should also call for the prosecution of companies that disagree with the Democratic position that believes in human-caused global warming.

A panel of Democrats voted Friday to approve a final draft of the party’s platform to promote “Progressive Democratic Values,” which apparently includes investigating energy companies who “misled” shareholders about global warming. “Another joint proposal calling on the Department of Justice to investigate alleged corporate fraud on the part of fossil fuel companies who have reportedly misled shareholders and the public on the scientific reality of climate change was also adopted by unanimous consent,” according to the Democratic National Convention’s website.

The drafting committee, led by DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Maryland Rep. Elijah Cummings, has decided to back ongoing investigations by mostly Democratic state attorneys general into ExxonMobil’s stance on global warming.

Make no mistake, the effort here by the Democrats has nothing to do with protecting the environment. Their goal is to make it possible for them to imprison their opponents, merely for daring to disagree with them.

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Democrats perform sit-in in Congress to protest 5th amendment of Bill of Rights

10:24 am

The fascist Democratic Party: For the past two days Democrats have been holding a sit-in protest in Congress against the idea that American citizens should have the right to due process before their rights under the Bill of Rights are denied.

Not 24 hours ago, Senate Democrats had the chance to vote on a bill that would have given them the core of what they want, namely, DOJ power to block gun purchases by anyone on a terror watch list. All they had to do was make a simple concession to due process by requiring the feds to go to court and show their work, proving to a judge within three days of the attempted purchase that the person on the list was actually dangerous. Too many innocent people have been put on watch lists erroneously to grant the federal government power to strip them of their rights with no judicial safeguard. That was the Cornyn bill; it died in the Senate, 53/47, when Democrats refused to give it the 60 votes it needed for cloture. The left killed the bill only because it provided due process to gun owners. [emphasis in original]

Previously the Democrats introduced a constitutional amendment to nullify the first amendment of the Bill of Rights, and this protest not only demands a nullification of the fifth amendment and due process, it is focused on nullifying the second amendment as well.

But I have been told I shouldn’t call these fascists fascists, because it might hurt their feelings. Well, I hope I hurt their feelings bad, along with the feelings of anyone even thinking of voting for them in the future. If you do, you are enabling the rise of oppression, and should be ashamed of yourself.

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FEC Democrats vote to punish Republican for a political joke

10:02 am

Fascists: Two Democrats on the Federal Election Commission have voted to punish a Republican presidential candidate for cracking a joke.

Over mocking objections from their own staff, two top Democrats on the politically divided Federal Election Commission voted to investigate one-time Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee for joking that he hoped supporters would shower him with million dollar contributions.

In the latest display of FEC Democratic efforts to regulate speech and target Republicans, Commissioners Ann Ravel and Ellen Weintraub backed a complaint against Huckabee, who made the joke during his May 2015 presidential candidacy announcement.

The vote failed, because all three Republicans and one Democrat on the commission voted to dismiss the complaint. However, the vote does tell us that two-thirds of the Democrats on this government panel — designed to regulate federal elections — believe it is proper to regulate the actual words of candidates.

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Trump’s new finance chief donates 2x more to Democrats than Republicans

9:37 am

Researching November’s Democratic primary: The man Donald Trump just appointed as his finance chairman routinely donates twice as much to Democrats than he does to Republicans, and has deep ties with the Democratic Party’s most liberal wing.

Beyond his contributions, Mnuchin’s past employers don’t fall in line with Trump’s rhetoric on the campaign trail. Mnuchin is a former Goldman Sachs partner and worked for liberal mega-donor George Soros’s hedge fund. He also contributed to a group called America Coming Together, which was largely funded by Soros and unions.

But don’t worry. We now have two candidates who will fix Obamacare and make sure the foreign policy of the United States is run by the same people that have been doing it for the past eight years.

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The bigotry in the Democratic Party

10:53 am

The bigotry in the Democratic Party is not racial or ethnic. It is political. They hate Republicans so intensely that they are willing to let veterans die rather than work with Republicans to fix the problems at the Veterans Administration.

A federal employee union president is wracked with regret because veterans likely died at a time when she knew about gross misconduct within her Department of Veterans Affairs facility but didn’t tell congressional leaders because they were Republicans.

“If I would’ve gone to him two years ago, who knows what kind of lives could’ve been saved,” Germaine Clarno told a radio interviewer Monday, referring to the Republican leader of a VA subcommittee. Clarno, a lifelong Democrat and social worker at the Hines Veterans Affairs Hospital in Hines, Ill., has been president of the union representing doctors at the hospital since before the deadly wait-time scandal unfolded.

Several things about this story. First, my close reading of it does not indicate that this union official “is wracked with regret.” I think she is bothered, but not much more than that.

Second, as a union official she clearly works hand-in-glove with Democrats, who reciprocate that relationship. And in the case of the corruption at the Veterans Administration, that close working relationship between elected Democrats and unions was so strong that none of the Democrats this union official spoke to were willing to do anything to help sick vets, because to do so might do damage to the government unions and workers who were running the VA as their private little playground.

Third, the hatred of Republicans runs so deep in the Democratic Party and leftwing unions that not only were they unwilling to work with Republicans to help sick vets, they were willing to use the corruption at the VA to attack the very Republicans who had been the only politicians willing to deal with the problem. Consider for example this quote from the article:
» Read more

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“The Democrats’ theme for 2016 is totalitarianism.”

10:11 pm

There are those who have read Behind the Black who have been very offended when I refer to the policies and behavior of the Democractic Party and the left as fascist. This article provides a nice summary of their recent activity, which when read all together should make every freedom-loving American downright horrified:

Donald Trump may talk like a brownshirt, but the Democrats mean business. For those of you keeping track, the Democrats and their allies on the left have now: voted in the Senate to repeal the First Amendment, proposed imprisoning people for holding the wrong views on global warming, sought to prohibit the showing of a film critical of Hillary Rodham Clinton, proposed banning politically unpopular academic research, demanded that funding politically unpopular organizations and causes be made a crime and that the RICO organized-crime statute be used as a weapon against targeted political groups. They have filed felony charges against a Republican governor for vetoing a piece of legislation, engaged in naked political persecutions of members of Congress, and used the IRS and the ATF as weapons against political critics.

On the college campuses, they shout down unpopular ideas or simply forbid nonconforming views from being heard there in the first place. They have declared academic freedom an “outdated concept” and have gone the full Orwell, declaring that freedom is oppressive and that they should not be expected to tolerate ideas that they do not share. They are demanding mandatory ideological indoctrination sessions for nonconforming students. They have violently assaulted students studying in libraries and assaulted student journalists documenting their activities. They have staged dozens of phony hate crimes and sexual assaults as a pretext for persecuting unpopular organizations and people.

He keeps going. And with every statement he provides a link to a documented story that backs-up his accusation. Worse, he doesn’t even address the attacks on traditional religions and their practitioners.

The Democratic Party and the left have become the party of brownshirts and dictators. No wonder they often seem more sympathetic to Islamic terrorists and tyrants than they do to the innocent people those terrorists and tyrants have killed. They empathize with this oppressive behavior, especially because it appears to be attacking their own enemies.

Unfortunately, there are too many powerful Republicans who have little problem with this behavior, because they themselves see the behavior of the Democrats as useful because it also attacks their own enemies. It is thus imperative for the voters to aggressively vote against all these brownshirts, from either party, and support those candidates — who unfortunately appear to only be running in the Republican Party — who are dedicated to defeating these fascists.

In fact, it appears this is exactly what Republican voters appear to be doing, illustrated by their consistent support for outsider-type candidates like Trump and Cruz.

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The Democratic Party’s disconnect from reality

12:07 pm

Three stories today once again illustrate better than anything the leftwing Democratic Party’s profound disconnect from reality:

The first story is a new poll of the public’s opinions on the subject of gun control and the idea of banning “assault weapons” (whatever those might be). Not surprisingly, the public opposes future bans, and the trend lines show a continuing and nonstop shift away from gun control and towards gun rights that has been on-going since the 1990s.

A majority of Americans oppose banning assault weapons for the first time in more than 20 years of ABC News/Washington Post polls, with the public expressing vast doubt that the authorities can prevent “lone wolf” terrorist attacks and a substantial sense that armed citizens can help. Just 45 percent in this national survey favor an assault weapons ban, down 11 percentage points from an ABC/Post poll in 2013 and down from a peak of 80 percent in 1994. Fifty-three percent oppose such a ban, the most on record.

Indeed, while the division is a close one, Americans by 47-42 percent think that encouraging more people to carry guns legally is a better response to terrorism than enacting stricter gun control laws. Divisions across groups are vast, underscoring the nation’s gulf on gun issues.

The second story describes how, despite the above very broad and obvious poll numbers, ninety-one House Democrats today introduced a bill to ban the sale and manufacture of “assault weapons”. In announcing the bill, its lead sponsor, David Cicilline (D-Rhode Island), made this vague effort to define “assault weapon”:
» Read more

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“There are kindergarten classes with more realistic assessments of cost-benefit tradeoffs than the crowd watching this debate at the Wynn Las Vegas.”

10:58 am

Link here. The headline, noting how the Democratic Party debate revealed it to be an openly socialist party, is hardly news. The Democrats have been radically communist since 2004, when the party thought Joe Lieberman was too much a moderate for their taste. Since then, their candidates and policies have all be very hardcore left, demanding everything be controlled and run by the government.

The sad thing has been that the voting public has either been blind to this, or actually has wanted it. I don’t know which is worse.

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The terrible political consequences of Iran deal to the Democratic Party

9:55 am

Several stories in the news today outline for me the terrible political consequences faced by the Democratic Party by their support for the nuclear deal with Iran:

This quote from the middle article however highlights how bad the consequences for the Democrats will be:

if Obama is left with a deal that is opposed by a majority of either the Senate or the House, the Democrats will be stuck with it. They will then be on the defensive with every hostile move Iran makes with the $150 billion the mullahs are going to get.

Like Obamacare, only Democrats are going to support this Iran deal. They will own it entirely. Thus, the first time Iran does something to violate the treaty or to use the $50 billion or more of cash they will get for signing the deal to promote terrorist attacks, it will be Democrats and only Democrats who will share the blame.

Yet, like Obamacare, the Democratic Party seems oblivious to these political risks. Come hell or high water, they are, as described in the first story, working as hard as they can to get the votes to sustain an Obama veto and make this deal law.

As much as I want these Democrats kicked out of office, I think having the Iran deal approved will be worse for the nation and the world. It will immediately dump billions of dollars into the hands of Iran’s radical terrorist leaders, surely resulting in more violence against many innocents across the globe. And it will announce to the world our willingness to allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons, which will almost certainly instigate a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and probably prompt Israel to attack Iran, possibly with its own nuclear weapons.

None of this is good. Better that the Democrats should save themselves the political cost and oppose this horrible deal.

Unfortunately, I am not hopeful. The track record of today’s Democratic Party is that of a group of people willing to put ideology ahead of everything, even if it means they will lose elections like crazy afterward. I see nothing to make me think they will do different here.

Our only option afterward then will be to throw them out of office. I pray that come 2016, the election results will make the Republican landslides of 2010 and 2014 look like mild rebukes in comparison.

15 comments

Pro-crime policies work!

6:37 pm

Link here.

Despite a generation in which radical anti-crime policies such as enforcing the law and locking up criminals slashed murder rates, there’s still plenty of debate over whether anti-crime policies work.

But no one can argue over whether pro-crime policies work.

108 people were shot in New York, Baltimore and Chicago over the weekend. Many of the casualties were saved from that terrible “school-to-prison pipeline” that bedevils promising young crack dealers and instead went straight to the morgue.

Read it all. We went though this leftwing socialist policy disaster before in the 1960s and 1970s. Some cities, like Detroit, never abandoned it. It now appears the cities that did, like New York and Baltimore, are moving to try it again. Woe on those decent citizens that live there.

Then again, they voted for these policies, so I suppose they are getting the government they deserve.

3 comments

“American cities are by and large Democratic-party monopolies [and] the results have been catastrophic.”

12:13 am

Link here. As the author bluntly notes, in referencing Baltimore in particular,

Yes, Baltimore seems to have some police problems. But let us be clear about whose fecklessness and dishonesty we are talking about here: No Republican, and certainly no conservative, has left so much as a thumbprint on the public institutions of Baltimore in a generation. Baltimore’s police department is, like Detroit’s economy and Atlanta’s schools, the product of the progressive wing of the Democratic party enabled in no small part by black identity politics. This is entirely a left-wing project, and a Democratic-party project.

When will the Left be held to account for the brutality in Baltimore — brutality for which it bears a measure of responsibility on both sides? There aren’t any Republicans out there cheering on the looters, and there aren’t any Republicans exercising real political power over the police or other municipal institutions in Baltimore. Community-organizer — a wretched term — Adam Jackson declared that in Baltimore “the Democrats and the Republicans have both failed.” Really? Which Republicans? Ulysses S. Grant? Unless I’m reading the charts wrong, the Baltimore city council is 100 percent Democratic. [emphasis mine]

Like Detroit, Atlanta, St. Louis, Chicago, and a host of other major metropolitan cities that are disasters for the middle class and the poor, Baltimore has been run by Democrats as a one-party monopoly for literally generations. The disasters we are seeing there have nothing to do with Republican policies, and everything to do with the terrible and failed policies of the progressive left. They are to blame, but they keep trying to spread that blame around.

It is time for Americans to see them for what they are — failures — and to stop voting for them. Republicans certainly don’t have all the answers, and should certainly be fired quickly if they fail to serve the public, but Republicans also have had nothing to do with the failures of the inner cities.

The most important thing a free person has is the freedom to choose. I pray that inner city Americans, both black and white, finally realize that it is time to choose differently.

2 comments

Two thirds of Obamacare recipients have to repay subsidies

2:12 pm

Finding out what’s in it: Two thirds of taxpayers have had to repay a significant portion of the subsidies they received through Obamacare this year when it came time to do their taxes.

And it ain’t gonna get better, only worse.

But don’t worry, it is really the Republicans’ fault for not writing or voting or even conceiving of this Democratic Party law. The Democrats are perfectly innocent of any blame at all for writing it, forcing it through (against the wishes of a majority of the population), and doing so without even reading the damn bill in the first place. If we vote for more Democrats and more laws like this, things have just got to get better!

7 comments

Liberals are the New McCarthyites—and they’re proud of it

11:16 am

Link here.

Some of the hallmarks of the original McCarthyism are popping up in today’s variant. Media companies were pressured in the 1950s not to hire people suspected of Communist ties. Today, pressure is being applied to isolate or sideline scholars who disagree with climate-change policies. In the 1950s, people accused of heretical views were sometimes unfairly attacked or threatened. Today, people who oppose gay marriage sometimes see their jobs or businesses put at risk. Ask Brendan Eich, who was forced to step down last year as CEO of Mozilla for making a six-year-old donation to a measure opposing same-sex marriage. Or the owners of the Indiana pizza parlor who had to close their doors after threats mounted when they said they would serve any customers in their restaurant but wouldn’t cater a gay wedding.

Read it all. It has become increasingly obvious in recent years that the left is no longer interested in civil debate. Disagree with them, and their answer is to try to destroy you.

4 comments

Senate Democrats consider boycotting Israeli leader’s speech

12:03 pm

Whose side are they on? When polled, almost no Democratic senator would commit to attending Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s joint speech to Congress in March.

Essentially, these partisan hacks are telling us that they are willing to put their party ahead of the nation and the threat from Islam. I think every liberal Jew who has voted with knee-jerk regularity for Democratic politicians should read this very closely and open their eyes.

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