Monday, September 2, 2019

Beto Hogg exposes his inner fascist

“There was a shooting in my hometown, therefore

I have the moral authority to infringe on your rights!”

I was wrong. Beto O’Rourke isn’t morphing into Eric Swalwell; he’s morphing into David Hogg. Of course, I did christen Eric Swalwell the David Hogg of Presidential Candidates. So maybe Beto Hogg is just picking up where poor loser Eric Hogg left off.

Much like the Pusillanimous Pompadour of Parkland, Beto Hogg doesn’t know what in the hell he’s talking about, but since a murder spree took place in his hometown, he thinks he has the moral authority to violate your Constitutionally-protected rights.

Spoiler alert: He doesn’t.

Yet ever since his floundering campaign decided to exploit the shooting in El Paso to goose his poll numbers, Beto Hogg has doubled down on his unconstitutional rhetoric.

And in doing so, he’s revealed his inner fascist.

And what kind of guns does Beto Hogg define as “assault weapons?”

Well, the most popular semi-automatic rifle in the country.

But how does one “buy back” something one never sold in the first place?

“Buy Back” is fascist-speak for gun confiscation.

Because, for Beto Hogg, if you refuse to “sell” your gun to the government, the government will take them by force and jail you for not complying.

Inevitably, Democrat can’t help but expose their inner fascist.

For them, Government rules over the people.

You are not sovereign individuals, but subjects.

For Beto Hogg, government is not derived from the consent of the governed. Instead, it is derived by centralizing power. And what better way to increase and centralize power over the people than by disarming them?

Beto Hogg truly does believe that Government bestows rights on its subjects. Rights are not unalienable (except apparently abortion). Rather our Rights are dependent on the whims of our rulers in Washington.

So if Washington decides you don’t “need” a semi-automatic rifle, then you don’t have a right to one.

And if you refuse to comply with a “mandatory buy-back” order, force is the inevitable next step.

This is exactly what the Second Amendment was supposed to prevent — a government that seeks tyranny over Liberty, force over Freedom.

Like the rest of the Democrat Party, it’s the Constitution that Beto Hogg has a problem with.

Our Constitution and Bill of Rights are what constrain the fascistic tendencies of people like Beto O’Rourke, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and the rest of the 2020 Democrat kooks.

Which is exactly why they seek to destroy it. They want unconstrained government.

Whether it’s the Electoral College, Free Speech, the Right to keep and bear arms, whatever constrains them from going full-on fascist has to go.

Democrats fear Liberty, Individual Sovereignty, and an armed citizenry.

Which is as it should be. We the People keep the Government in check.

And it’s that check that the Democrats object to.

They would prefer that the people fear the Government.

There’s a reason that every single proposed “agenda” or “plan” they concoct never increases your freedom.

They don’t want you free; they want you compliant.

So is it any wonder they don’t want you armed?

A free, armed citizenry cannot be controlled.

And for fascistic little cranks like Beto Hogg, controlling and constraining the people is the purpose of government.

The Down Vote Bots are Back!

The bots are coming! The bots are coming!

When Disqus decided to nuke the channel system, I looked for the silver lining. I was hoping that the assault of the Down Vote Bots would cease. I especially believed this to be true when my account stopped losing votes for a 12 hour period, before and after Disqus did their thing. I was wrong. It has started up again, and it looks like I will eventually have to start from square one again.

What has been the experience of others out there?

BREXIT falling into place...

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2019/09/as_boris_johnson_amasses_strength_strange_things_start_to_fall_into_place.html

As Boris Johnson amasses strength, strange things start to fall into place

U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has shown some phenomenal political nerve in first shutting down parliament, and then insisting on party discipline on penalty of expulsion from the wets and wobblies in his Tory Party who'd rather drag the Brexit farce out to keep Britain caged within the EU just a little longer. He's got his eyes on the prize, knowing that it's his job to ensure that Britain can leave the European Union as British voters demanded. Like President Trump, he means to keep his promises.

What's vivid now is that a whole lot of things he probably didn't expect -- and had nothing to do with -- are starting to fall into place for him from the outside.

One we know about is that Johnson's Tories have started to soar in the polls. I wrote about that a few days ago here.

But there's more, way more.

How's this for 'betcha didn't see this coming?'

The lefty Archbishop of Canterbury, who's the highest prelate in the Church of England (the head of the church is actually the queen), who of course opposed Brexit, has now had a weird change of heart. Here's the report from the U.K. Sun:

The Archbishop of Canterbury has urged Remainers to “stop whingeing” and accept the result of the Brexit referendum.

Most Rev Justin Welby said those who voted to stay in the EU must now “take seriously the fact that the majority voted Leave”, stating: “We may not like it, but that is democracy.”

Wow. Just wow. Can you imagine one of our Catholic archbishops saying something comparable about the voters' will on the border wall and their right to having a nation ruled by law? That's pretty much what this lefty archbishop's change of heart amounts to.

Here's another one, from the U.K. Express:

Bern is hoping to ramp up research with London as its relationship with Brussels starts to disintegrate after their failed talks to strike up a permanent economic deal. Swiss leaders don’t believe “dogmatic” eurocrats are willing budge on their final three demands, making a deal being reached this year highly unlikely. The deadlocked talks have left relationships with Brussels, who blocked EU-based investors from trading on Swiss exchanges, strained over the summer.

Failure to strike a permanent treaty could also see Swiss researchers blocked from the single market.

Economy minister Guy Parmelin said this could lead the country’s top scientists to turn to new markets, including Britain after Brexit.

He said: “I think the EU would weaken itself, it no longer cooperated with Switzerland on research.

“We are then forced to seek alternatives, perhaps along with Britain, if the EU remains dogmatic.”

So Switzerland has had it up to here with the European Union same as Britain did, and now it's making itself an ally of Britain. Britain can use these kinds of non-supplicant, totally out-of-the-blue, not even asked-for, yet totally welcome, allies against the arrogant monster in Brussels.

The forces are amassing, and if Switzerland does this very publicly, you can bet a lot of them inside the EU and unhappy are thinking about it, too.

Here's another one Boris didn't ask for, a voice of reason -- and encouragement -- from a market bigfoot:

Here's a tweet crowing about it - can't tell if it ran in a tabloid or the person was just happy about it and expressing himself:

But the content speaks for itself. Deutsche Bank represents big money and the chief economist says Brexit is foreseen as a good thing for Britain, not the screaming crash the left, the European Union, and its allied doomsayers are howling about. The headline claims that Germany and France are afraid of this (something the economist did not say) but an inference that is likely correct. This kind of talk can only serve as wind at Boris Johnson's back. The video link is here.

Which brings up a fourth thing that is probably helpful to Boris. The tabloids seem to be on his side, exuberantly reporting all of these good developments. It's not the main press, of course, but having the popular press in one's tree again amounts to an unasked-for gift.

Funny how Johnson's show of strength has this unintended consequence -- of a cascading chain reaction of 'events' (as Churchill once said) all moving to support Boris Johnson's direction.

Beto O’Rourke’s Presidential Campaign Suddenly Has A Purpose

Article written by Molly Hensley-Clancy in "Buzzfeed":

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA — It was a question that Democrats had faced for years. As Beto O’Rourke traveled around the country calling for gun control, a reporter asked, how would he reassure lawful gun owners who were afraid that the government would take their assault rifles away?

“So, I want to be really clear that that’s exactly what we’re going to do,” O’Rourke said, speaking to journalists under the late August sun in a city that had been torn apart two years earlier by white supremacist violence. “Americans who own AR-15s and AK-47s will have to sell them to the government.”

In the wake of a mass shooting targeting Hispanic immigrants and Mexicans in El Paso, the city he once represented in Congress, something has changed about Beto O’Rourke the presidential candidate.

In recent weeks, he has broken through the Democratic primary’s noise with expressions of raw, visceral, and expletive-laden anger over issues like gun violence and racism. And he has taken a stance that no other major Democratic presidential candidate has touched: calling for mandatory assault weapon buybacks.

After months of campaigning without a clear, cohesive narrative or signature issues for voters to latch onto, with sometimes wobbly answers on why he is different from the 20-some other Democrats running for president, O’Rourke has a message and an explanation for why he is the person to deliver it: what’s happening now in America is f***ed up, and he has seen up close both how much that hurts and how to fix it.

In two days in Virginia this past week, O’Rourke could sometimes look like the same candidate who has struggled to win over Democratic voters. He has spent months snaking across the country speaking mostly about unity and bipartisanship, not President Donald Trump, and tacking solidly towards the middle of the Democratic field on most policies.

He also showed flashes of something different.

In a tightly choreographed trip through Virginia, O’Rourke embraced the bogeyman of the Democrat seeking to take Americans’ guns away, saying he was willing to take a politically unpopular stance he believed was the right thing. At an event the same evening, his voice rose as he spoke about the country’s “f***ed up” acceptance of mass shootings, a speech that ricocheted across the internet.

Alyssa Short, a stay-at-home mom who wore a bright red T-shirt for Moms Demand Action, a gun control group, thought O’Rourke’s call for assault weapons buybacks was a “fantastic idea — I think it’s necessary.”

But politically, she acknowledged, it would be “very risky.”

“I don’t think it’s something he should do his first year in office,” Short said. “It’s something he should work towards. And in order to do that, he’s going to need to build a lot of trust with gun owners, and there’s so many gun owners out there who want common sense gun laws.”

Polling shows that mandatory assault weapon buybacks are among the least popular gun control measures — the only one, in a recent poll, that wasn’t supported by a majority of Americans, though Democrats favor it by wide margins.

O’Rourke tried to find something of a middle ground on assault weapons at the start of his campaign, saying only that they should not be sold. “If you own an AR-15, keep it. Continue to use it safely and responsibly,” he said in Iowa in March. “I just don't think that we need to sell any more weapons of war into this public.”

It is not yet clear what kind of impact his new assault weapons stance could have for O’Rourke in Texas, a state with high levels of gun ownership. On the primary trail, O’Rourke pitches himself as the only Democrat who could win the state in the general election.

MSM promotes mass shooters

https://www.dailywire.com/news/51287/report-details-stunning-amount-free-publicity-ryan-saavedra

Report Details Stunning Amount Of Free Publicity Media Gives Mass Shooters

Ryan SaavedraSeptember 2, 2019

An op-ed published in The Los Angeles Times on Sunday documented the staggering amount of free media publicity that news organizations like CNN give mass shooters in the wake of tragedies and how that free publicity is driving the frequency and lethality of the tragedies.

The article was authored by James Densley, a sociologist and professor of criminal justice at Metropolitan State
University, and Jillian Peterson, a psychologist and professor of criminology and criminal justice at Hamline University.

"Studies estimate that in the aftermath of their attacks, mass killers receive approximately $75 million in free media coverage, a level professional athletes and Hollywood actors would envy," Densley and Peterson wrote. "For men who feel angry, alienated and anonymous, the incentives to perform are appealing. And bigger body counts mean bigger headlines. One recently thwarted shooter posted that, 'A good 100 kills would be nice,' and another wanted to 'break a world record.'"

Other researchers, who have been admitted gun-control advocates, have found that gun-control is not the answer and will likely solve nothing with respect to the mass tragedies that are happening.

Statistician Leah Libresco wrote in The Washington Post in 2017 that she used to wish that "the National Rifle Association would stop blocking common-

sense gun-control reforms such as banning assault weapons, restricting silencers, shrinking magazine sizes and all the other measures that could make guns less deadly."

"Then, my colleagues and I at FiveThirtyEight spent three months analyzing all 33,000 lives ended by guns each year in the United States, and I wound up frustrated in a whole new way," Libresco wrote. "We looked at what interventions might have saved those people, and the case for the policies I'd lobbied for crumbled when I examined the evidence. The best ideas left standing were narrowly tailored interventions to protect subtypes of potential victims, not broad attempts to limit the lethality of guns."

President Donald Trump Proclamation for Labor Day 2019

President Donald J Trump has issued the following proclamation in celebration

of Labor Day 2019 and the vitality of the American worker:

[White House] On Labor Day, we recognize the remarkable American workers who comprise the greatest labor force in the world. American workers are the heart and soul of our Nation’s economic resurgence. Since my first day in office, I have followed through on my promise to fight for an agenda that puts American workers first.

My Administration’s pro-growth policies have enabled countless Americans to reclaim the dignity of work and reap the rewards of our thriving economy. Since my election, the American economy has added more than 6 million new jobs, and for the past 17 months, the unemployment rate has held near record lows. In 2017, as the unemployment rate decreased, the rates of injuries and illnesses in the workplace also declined. Additionally, employers are paying higher wages, which are rising at the fastest pace in a decade. Jobs are consistently becoming available faster than people can fill them.

As the 21st century global economy evolves, my Administration is making it a priority to prepare the American workforce of tomorrow. Last year, I signed an Executive Order establishing the President’s National Council for the American Worker to ensure that students and workers have access to the affordable, practical, and innovative education and job training they need to be successful across high-demand industries.

We are asking companies to sign our Pledge to America’s Workers and commit to expanding programs that educate, train, or re-skill employees. In July, as of the 1-year anniversary of our pledge, more than 300 companies and organizations had already joined us in this effort, committing to more than 12 million new education and training opportunities for American students and workers.

We are also promoting expanded access to apprenticeships through the Industry-Recognized Apprenticeship Program, which will enable associations, unions, educational institutions, and non‑profit organizations to partner and create exceptional opportunities for apprentices to earn and learn through their careers. Additionally, we are seeking to expand Pell Grant program eligibility for high-quality, short-term education and training programs in popular career fields.

My Administration has been working tirelessly to renegotiate one-sided trade agreements to obtain fairer terms for American companies and workers. With the signing of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), we took bold and needed action to replace the outdated and unbalanced North American Free Trade Agreement.

Once approved by the Congress, the USMCA will support higher-paying jobs for American workers by enhancing the freedom of all American businesses across all sectors of our economy. We also significantly updated one of our most consequential trade deals, the United States-Korea Free Trade Agreement, bringing real benefits to American workers. And we are aggressively enforcing the well-established trade laws of the United States to protect American workers and businesses from unfair trade practices that harm them.

Today, we honor those Americans whose contributions have turned our country into an economic powerhouse, and we renew our commitment to create an environment that continues to foster and promote opportunity.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim September 2, 2019, as Labor Day. I call upon all public officials and people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities that honor the contributions and resilience of working Americans.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirtieth day of August, in the year of our Lord two thousand nineteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-fourth.

DONALD J. TRUMP

Marriage Helps Prevent Dementia

https://hotair.com/archives/latimestot/2019/09/01/marriage-helps-prevent-dementia/

Turns Out, Despite The Combat,

Marriage Helps Prevent Dementia

ANDREW MALCOLM Posted at 5:01 pm on September 1, 2019

Sometimes, married life seems to invite disagreements, disputes, arguments, the silent treatment, all sorts of personal discord and turmoil.

At least that’s what a friend tells me.

But, it turns out, the good news is that marriage also seems to help prevent dementia, that ominous omnibus diagnosis that covers memory loss, personality and behavioral changes and disorienting loss of reasoning skills.

The bad news is that divorced individuals
are more than twice as likely as marrieds to develop dementia, especially the men.

This is no minor concern. Experts on aging estimate nearly six million Americans currently live with Alzheimer and related dementias and their treatments cost some $290 billion annually

The new study was conducted at Michigan State University and is among the first such population-based U.S.
research of variations in dementia diagnoses based on marital status.

The study sample consisted of 15,379 respondents — 6,650 men and 8,729 women. All were at least 52 years old in 2000 and symptom-free and examined every two years.

Researchers closely looked at four categories of non-marrieds — separated/divorced, co-habiters, widowed and never married. The divorced came out the worst for dementia.

The study’s head researcher, Hui Liu, noted, “Marital status is an important but overlooked social risk/protective factor for dementia.”

She added:

This research is important because the number of unmarried older adults in the United States continues to grow, as people live longer and their marital histories become more complex.

Other studies have shown that unmarried individuals have a higher risk of death from heart disease. One of those authors, Dr. Arshed Quyyumisaid, of Emory University said:

I was somewhat surprised by the magnitude of the influence of being married has. Social support provided by marriage, and perhaps many other benefits of companionship, are important for people with heart disease.

That companionship theme may have some under-appreciated health advantages. Previous studies have shown that owning a pet like a dog can extend human lifespans by promoting more social interaction and physical activity and reducing depression.

Elderly people with dogs, especially single elderly, were 33 percent less likely to die early. Quick plug for adoption: Google “pet rescue” with your Zip for the nearest shelter for dogs and cats. They’re lonely too.

Twin Panda cubs born

https://thehill.com/homenews/459633-twin-panda-cubs-born-at-berlin-zoo

Twin panda cubs born at Berlin zoo

Chris Mills Rodrigo09/02/19 01:06 PM EDT

A set of twin panda bears were born at a Berlin zoo, the first such birth in Germany, the Associated Press reported.

Zoo Berlin said Monday that Meng Meng gave birth to a hand-sized pink cub on Saturday.

An hour later, the twin was born.

“She placed the tiny creature gently on her belly and began to warm it lovingly with her big paws, warm breath, and the soft fur of her cheeks," the zoo wrote in a statement obtained by AP.

Meng Meng and her partner Jiao Qing arrived from China in June of 2017.

Debra Messing: Loyal Totalitarian Apparatchik

Debra Messing is the very thing she claims she’s fighting against.

re-blogged from Patriot Retort

If you could measure the level of Projection among the Left by using a Geiger counter, any time you got around a Hollywood celebrity, the clicking would be so rapid, you wouldn’t be able to tell where one click ends and another begins.

For all their claims that Donald Trump is a totalitarian and a fascist, these assholes are the real totalitarians.

Take television actress Debra Messing.

When it was revealed by the Hollywood Reporter that the Trump reelection campaign would be holding a fundraiser in Hollywood, Debra Messing and her ~~comrade~~, I mean, costar Eric McCormack demanded to know who in Hollywood is attending so they can blacklist them.

Naturally, sane people were disgusted by this Soviet-style, totalitarian attempt to expose and punish those committing WrongThink.

But like every loyal totalitarian apparatchik, Debra Messing doubled down.

Ah, yes. The standard obtuse response to demanding to know who Trump supporters are so you can make their lives a living hell.

It’s possible Debra Messing is just indescribably dumb.

But imagine being so oblivious that she thinks this is a good argument for exposing Trump donors in Hollywood so she can shame, blackball and destroy them.

Imagine being this obtuse.

“Golly. I’m in lock-step with my like-minded comrades and I’m not afraid to say so. Why do those evil monsters I seek to utterly destroy not want people like me knowing they donate to Trump?”

Simple answer?

But Comrade Messing wasn’t done.

She has her marching orders: Destroy All WrongThinkers.

So like any good Totalitarian Apparatchik, she will do so. And she will enlist others to join her.

Yes, Comrades!

Find them.

Name them.

Shame them.

Then destroy them!

You’d think someone who believes she is trying to stop a Fascist Totalitarian wouldn’t be such a fascist totalitarian.

But that’s the Left for you. They are the very thing they claim to oppose.

Like most members of the Hollywood ResistanceLOL, Debra Messing is a fool and a useful idiot.

But the modern-day Democrat Party is fueled by useful idiots.

For all their witless prattle about standing up to totalitarians, they have a totalitarian mindset.

For them, power is derived by crushing their enemies under their heels.

If they truly believed their ideas were wildly popular and could easily win at the ballot box, they wouldn’t need to resort to such vicious intimidation tactics.

Debra Messing won’t take a nano-second to reflect on who just might take her up on her call to “find who donated to Trump in your area.” She won’t stop to consider that there are some seriously dangerous people out there who would happily turn up at people’s homes or businesses to harass, terrorize or even physically harm them.

Because all that matters to loyal apparatchik Debra Messing is turning all of America into the same kind of like-minded bubble that Hollywood is.

She’s totally okay with ordinary Americans being terrorized for supporting the President while simultaneously whining that Trump is terrorizing the country.

Not that she always felt that way…

As with that totalitarian fool Joaquin Castro, what Debra Messing is doing is straight-up voter intimidation. She cares not what kind of terror she unleashes on American citizens like you and me.

But like everything the totalitarian Left does, this too shall backfire.

Rescue under way as 'boat on fire' with 30 on board in southern California .

The US Coast Guard has said it has launched a rescue operation to help more than 30 people "in distress" following a boat fire off the coast of southern California.
Tweets from the Coast Guard in Los Angeles said there were reports the people were on a boat that was on fire near Santa Cruz Island.
It said multiple rescue assets have been launched from local agencies to assist the 30 people on board on the 75ft yacht.

A group of crew members have so far been rescued, one with minor injuries, and efforts continue to evacuate remaining passengers.
The Ventura County Fire Department confirmed 34 people have died, KTLA in Los Angeles reported.
However the Coast Guard has not confirmed any fatalities.

The Daily Beast also quoted Captain Brian McGrath of the fire department as saying there were deaths but he could not give a number because the Coast Guard were still searching the water.
He reportedly said that five people had been rescued and that 34 people were still unaccounted for.
Santa Cruz Island is off the coast of Santa Barbara.

https://news.sky.com/story/rescue-under-way-as-boat-on-fire-with-30-on-board-in-southern-california-11800691

Beginning of US Slavery

An article written by Walter E. Williams in "NewsBusters":

The New York Times has begun a major initiative, the “1619 Project,” to observe the 400th anniversary of the beginning of American slavery. It aims to reframe American history so that slavery and the contributions of black Americans explain who we are as a nation. Nikole Hannah-Jones, staff writer for The New York Times Magazine wrote the lead article, “America Wasn't a Democracy, Until Black Americans Made It One.” She writes, “Without the idealistic, strenuous and patriotic efforts of black Americans, our democracy today would most likely look very different — it might not be a democracy at all.”

There are several challenges one can make about Hannah-Jones's article, but I'm going to focus on the article's most serious error, namely that the nation's founders intended for us to be a democracy. That error is shared by too many Americans. The word democracy appears nowhere in the two most fundamental founding documents of our nation — the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Instead of a democracy, the Constitution's Article IV, Section 4, declares, “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.” Think about it and ask yourself whether our Pledge of Allegiance says to “the democracy for which it stands" or to “the republic for which it stands.” Is Julia Ward Howe's popular Civil War song titled “The Battle Hymn of the Democracy" or “The Battle Hymn of the Republic?”

The founders had utter contempt for democracy. James Madison, the acknowledged father of the Constitution, wrote in Federalist Paper No. 10, that in a pure democracy “there is nothing to check the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious individual.” At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, delegate Edmund Randolph said, “that in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy.” John Adams said: “Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall observed, “Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos.”

The U.S. Constitution is replete with anti-majority rule, undemocratic provisions. One provision, heavily criticized, is the Electoral College. In their wisdom, the framers gave us the Electoral College so that in presidential elections, heavily populated states could not run roughshod over sparsely populated states. In order to amend the Constitution, it requires a two-thirds vote of both Houses, or two-thirds of state legislatures, to propose an amendment, and requires three-fourths of state legislatures for ratification. Part of the reason for having a bicameral Congress is that it places another obstacle to majority rule. Fifty-one senators can block the wishes of 435 representatives and 49 senators. The president, with a veto, can thwart the will of all 535 members of Congress. It takes a two-thirds vote, not just a majority, of both houses of Congress to override a presidential veto.

In addition to not understanding our Constitution, Hannah-Jones's article, like in most discussions of black history, fails to acknowledge that black Americans have made the greatest gains, over some of the highest hurdles in the shortest span of time than any other racial group in mankind's history. The evidence: If black Americans were thought of as a nation with our own gross domestic product, we'd rank among the 20 wealthiest nations. It was a black American, Gen. Colin Powell, who headed the world's mightiest military. A few black Americans are among the world's wealthiest. Black Americans are among the world's most famous personalities.

The significance of this is that in 1865, neither a slave nor a slave owner would have believed that such progress would be possible in less than a century and a half, if ever. As such, it speaks to the intestinal fortitude of a people. Just as importantly, it speaks to the greatness of a nation within which such progress was possible, progress that would have been impossible anywhere else. The challenge before us is how those gains can be extended to a large percentage of black people for whom they appear elusive.

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/walter-e-williams/2019/08/28/beginning-us-slavery

Labor Day Brings America’s Prosperous Economy Into Focus

Article written by Alfredo Ortiz in "Townhall":

Most people view Labor Day as a celebration of the “workingman’s holiday,” a chance to acknowledge the achievements of our American workforce as well as an opportunity to enjoy a final, long summer weekend. On this Labor Day, both sides of the political aisle should be giving credit where credit is due – to the Trump administration – for reviving America’s manufacturing sectors and generating a prosperous economy in which wages are rising and unemployment rates are near all-time lows.

But we hear nothing from the left regarding America’s prosperity and a booming economy. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Many Democrats in Washington deride the president every day and hope to scare us with unfounded predictions of recession and making demands for policies and government regulations that would return us to the economic flatline of the Obama years.

The crown jewel in the Democrats’ plan for economic disaster is what’s known as the “Green New Deal” (GND). GND is nothing more than a half-baked concoction of rules and regulations that will essentially destroy our domestic energy industry, idle millions of workers, and cost taxpayers multi-trillions – all under the guise of addressing climate change. GND is the invention of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and supported by a rising tide of self-described socialists within the Democratic Party.

According to Ocasio-Cortez, the GND is essential to fight climate change and save the planet. Who can forget AOC’s dire prediction that we only have a dozen years before the world ends if we don’t stop global warming now? On September, 4, CNN is hosting a televised town hall on climate change in which 10 Democratic presidential candidates are scheduled to participate. Tune to watch which candidates will trip over themselves to embrace the GND as the answer.

The only realistic aspect of the GND is the calamitous effect it would have on America. The GND bans the entire fossil fuel industry, including clean burning natural gas. The plan eliminates 99 percent of cars, it eliminates air travel, and calls for an “energy efficient” remodel of many buildings. The GND is actually a master plan for social engineering – as admitted by AOC’s now former chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, who foolishly explained how the true motivation behind the GND is to overhaul the “entire economy.”

“Do you guys think of it as a climate thing?” Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing,” Chakrabarti stated in front of a Washington Post reporter.

GND comes complete with its own charter, a list of what government is obligated to supply every citizen, including a job for everyone who wants one, single-payer healthcare, and free housing. According to a Competitive Enterprise Institute study, the GND would cost households in five states more than $70,000 in just the first year and place roughly 90 million small business jobs in jeopardy.

Mini versions of the GND have appeared in New York and California. In California, some businesses have started charging additional service fees due to the costly environmental regulations imposed upon them. CEO magazine consistently rates California as last in the nation of states that welcome and embrace new business development.

New York’s proposed mandate of net-zero emissions by 2050 will likely require solar farms larger than the city of Buffalo. New Yorkers already pay 50 percent more for electricity than the national average. Additional taxes to subsidize government-run solar plants will only add to the citizen tax burden in the state.

President Trump is doing all he can to drive additional economic growth and revive American manufacturing. The president’s tax cuts coupled with a decisive move to roll back many job-killing regulations are an unequivocal success. As a result, many Americans are entering the labor force for the first time or re-entering the job market after years of hardship.

Labor Day should serve as a reminder of how America became a manufacturing powerhouse and the leader of the global economy. Socialist plans like the GND or mini-versions of the GND must never be implemented in the United States if we hope to strengthen the economy and generate even more prosperity for working families.

https://townhall.com/columnists/alfredoortiz/2019/09/02/labor-day-brings-americas-prosperous-economy-into-focus-n2552426