Two Paths For The GOP In 2023. One Leads To Hope, The Other To Disaster

opinion by Scott Morefield at TownhallVIP

With the dawn of a new year comes the traditional time for political pundits to prognosticate. Fortunately, or unfortunately, that’s never been as easy as it is right now. In sum, my crystal ball for pretty much everything spells out that things - and by ‘things’ I mean everything by every metric you can imagine culturally, economically, and politically - are going to be worse this time next year than they are right now. 

This isn’t rocket science and it doesn’t take any special skills other than the basic knowledge that, despite the slim House majority that will certainly herald a few good tidings on the preventative, investigative, and ‘symbolic legislation that has zero chance of becoming law’ fronts, Democrats and crazed leftists are in charge of far too much of the government for 2023 to possibly go well or even begin to show signs of improvement.

That said, there are two political paths the Republican Party will have to choose between by this time next year. One heralds a hope - however slim - for the GOP to retake the White House and begin to save the country. The other leads to the almost absolute certainty of yet another presidential election loss and another four years in the political wilderness being ruled by overlords hellbent on running what’s left of Western civilization in this country into the ground.

So, however, grim things may look now, there’s a lot at stake in 2023 that could make things either grimmer or herald a real light at the end of the tunnel. What paths am I referring to? You’ve probably already guessed: The choice between former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to lead GOP presidential aspirations in 2024. 

Sure, we may not officially know who will be the nominee by this time next year, but I submit that we’ll have a pretty good idea based on a set of 2023 happenings. But before we delve into that, let’s go over the stakes. On the one hand, we have a very likely scenario where Trump survives any disqualifying legal action against him and chooses to remain in the race. If you think the powers-that-be are going to purposely take him out of the game and throw away an almost certain electoral victory, I’ll have what you’re smoking. No, the only thing that’ll keep Donald Trump from remaining in the race is Donald Trump himself, and the only thing that would possibly make Donald Trump willingly withdraw is a clear vision of the possibility of a GOP primary loss via clear, consistent polling.

Absent such polling, Trump likely stays in the race. Should he win, this means an almost certain loss to President Joe Biden or whoever else the Democrats put forth, including Kamala Harris, John Fetterman, or an assorted eggplant. You can whine all you want, but the fact is that Trump, through his actions, has made himself unelectable to over 50% of the population, the vast majority of whom would rather see a random homeless person plucked off the streets of San Francisco occupy the Oval Office than him. And even if you wanted to dispute that, I’d like to see you explain how the former president is going to win Arizona (land of the McCain voter) and Georgia (Brian Kemp & Raphael Warnock country), two states he’ll have to win to even begin to have a shot. So that’s not happening. If Trump wins the GOP primary, the GOP loses the presidential election. Full stop. There is ZERO path for a second Trump term, and the sooner primary voters can dump the understandable 2016 nostalgia (I have it too!) and get this through their heads, the better.

Enter Ron DeSantis, the only politician with a snowball’s chance in hell of defeating Trump in a GOP primary. In a crowded race - and we’ll know just how crowded it is by this time next year - Trump has a shot to win the primary with his base of support, even if that support is just 25-35% of GOP voters. If you’ll recall, that’s exactly what happened in 2016. However, if DeSantis can emerge quickly and others choose to stay out of the race, he has an increasingly strong chance to build momentum with some early wins and knock Trump off his pedestal.

While a DeSantis general election victory certainly isn’t a given, the odds are astronomically higher than Trump’s. Sure, there will be cheating. There’s always some cheating. The key is to win outside the margins of shenanigans and make it as difficult as possible for them to take place. (The other keys are to avoid pettiness and offputting behaviors that turn people off and take one leftist scalp after another while running an important swing state that you recently turned blood red, but DeSantis already has those down pat.)

Depending first on whether the popular Florida governor chooses to run (he needs to, as this Washington Examiner piece makes abundantly clear), polling, and how many other Republicans choose to put their hats in the ring, my suspicion is we’ll have a pretty good idea this time next year of where the GOP, and the country, is headed. Let’s hope that the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t an oncoming train.

X22, On the Fringe, and more- Jan 2nd

 

I hate feeling congested, a lot. Anyone feel the same? Here's tonight's news:

The Baleful Cargo of Woke Diversity Worship ~ VDH

Just as uniformity can result in both stability and stagnation, so too can diversity sometimes ensure either dynamism or bedlam.

by Victor Davis Hanson for American Greatness

What do all our notable fabricators—George Santos, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Barack Obama—have in common? 

Well, quite like the Ward ChurchilIs or Rachel Dolezals of the world, one way or another, they lied about their identities. Or they sought fraudulent ways of suggesting their ancestries were marginalized. Or they had claims on being victims on the theory their constructed personas brought career advantages. 

George Santos claimed, apparently in search of a victimized status, that he was an “American Jew” and a “Latino Jew,” and a descendent of Holocaust survivors. 

Joe Biden lied that he went to “shul” as well as that he grew up in a veritable Puerto Rican household and just happened to attend a black college as well as being an honorary Greek.

Elizabeth Warren ended up a laughingstock for claiming her high cheekbones were proof of her Native-American ancestry—a lie she rode all the way to being the “first” Native-American professor on the Harvard Law school faculty. 

Somehow the half-white, prep-schooled Barry Soetoro, who had taken his Indonesian stepfather’s last name, rebooted in the university back to Barack Obama. The latter oddly did not catch his literary agent “misidentifying” him in a book promo as being born in Africa. And only as president, did we learn his “autobiographical” memoir was mostly a concoction.

This fixation with constructing identities is one of the great pathologies of our woke era.

When we obsess in neo-Confederate style on race, ethnicity, or religion as the defining element of who we are, and we do this to leverage political advantage, then we set off a chain-reaction of Yugoslavian- or Lebanese-style tribalism. Like nuclear proliferation, once one group goes tribal, then all others will strain to find their own deterrent tribal identity.

A Society of Lies

There are warning signs all around us of our fate to come if we do not stop this nihilism: Latino members of the Los Angeles City Council caught on a hot mic of matter-of-fact venting tribalist hatred and mocking of non-Latino tribes—blacks, gays, indigenous people, and whites. Or the Jussie Smollett farce, both the lies he concocted to promote his victimhood, and the lies the Chicago prosecutor office initially promulgated to ensure initial preferential treatment for Smollett based on his race. Read the comments posted below news stories of rampant swarming smash-and-grab, knockout game, or carjacking crimes—and be warned of the venomous and tribalist backlash to venomous tribalism.

In a world in which there are too many oppressed for the static number of oppressors, then it is perfectly logical that an Elizabeth Warren on the one hand would fabricate an advantageous identity for careerist opportunity, and a Jussie Smollett on the other hand would invent mythical white MAGA demons to ensure he was victimized and deserving of careerist reparations for his suffering.

Yet the tribal problem is not just an epidemic of false identities and fraudulent victims. Entire areas of social and political reality are now set off and exempt from rational discussion. We are currently witnessing an upsurge in black-male crime, often descending into disproportionate hate crimes perpetrated against Asians and Jews. Yet any discussion of this violence is taboo, lest one is deemed racist or illiberal.

Questioning the morality of allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports and to destroy decades of striving for equal female athletics likewise is put off-limits. 

So are discussions about the epidemic of illegitimacy and the negative effects of fatherless families contributing to problems in some minority communities.

Even the national challenge of epidemic obesity is racialized, as if worries about unhealthy weight of all Americans derive somehow from mythical white “body shaming.”

So are inquiries about how the states in tough economic times are to house, feed, care, educate, and instruct 5 million entrants across the southern border, arriving en masse and illegally, all without simple background checks, knowledge of English or a high-school diploma, and in non-diverse fashion. If the first thing an immigrant does is to break U.S. law by illegally crossing the border, and the second thing is illegally residing in the United States, then it is only logical that he concludes further illegal activity will be similarly exempt. Illegal immigration is not a noble endeavor but a crime against its host.

In sum, woke tribalism inevitably turns us into fabricators and society itself becomes a liar. 

Against Meritocracy

The old 1970s cynical canard that racial quotas would not extend to pilot training or neurosurgery is no longer true. Some of the major airlines have announced mandatory non-white acceptance quotas for pilot training, and not predicated on competitive résumés or standardized test scores. Many universities and professional schools are considering adopting pass/fail grading on the theory that affirmative action admissions must become synonymous with guaranteed graduation.

Yet what is the alternative once one travels this pathway? Suppose the idea of quota-based admissions is declared valid and salutary. In that case, grading must likewise be recalibrated along this long chain of anti-meritocracy to continue ensuring equality of results.

Licensing boards are next. If one is admitted to universities on diversity, equity, and inclusion concerns rather than demonstrable achievement as quantifiably determined by competitive grades and test scores and other definable exceptional achievements, and one is further graduated on the assurance that grades either will not be issued or will be inflated, then the logical next step is that licensing exam standards in law or medicine must likewise be relaxed so as not to interrupt the ever-lengthening wokeist chain. 

In other words, soon where one went to medical school, or what one did in medical school, or where one did his residency, or his certification by a medical board of examiners will become rather irrelevant. The point is not to recruit applicants with the most competitive records and to ensure that they all are subject to the same standard of rigorous instruction and assessment to ensure the public can have confidence in the medical profession, but to make sure that profession measures up to some artificial notions about diversity, equity, and inclusion. The relationship between these metrics and health is beside the point.

We forget that what once separated the Western world from the rest was not race, climate, or natural bounty, but its gradual creation of meritocracies replacing the pre-civilizational rule of the clan, the tribe, or the race. The old inherited and stubborn obstacles remained: aristocratic privilege, class chauvinism, and plutocratic clout that warred with qualifications. They were the ancient impediments to merit whose power in the West slowly was also dethroned. 

How ironic in their places, the reactionary Western world has simply created new exemptions and privileges, calibrated on premodern criteria such as race and sex that will set off chain tribal reactions as we degenerate into Hobbesian factionalism.

Anytime perceived merit, or something close to merit, was not the standard, a society either imploded or became impoverished and calcified. The racial, one-drop categories of the Old South or the Third Reich, or the colorized spectrum of the old apartheid South Africa, or the racial chauvinism of the new tribal South Africa, or the commissar system of the Soviet Union, or the religious intolerance of fundamentalist Islam, or the familial gangs and clannish tyranny of prewar Sicily ensured that all were dysfunctional societies, and often much worse than that. Opportunity was instead guaranteed, and excellence defined, by something other than demonstrable talent and achievement. 

There will be no exceptions granted to the United States from these rules of history. There are many talented black women in the corporate world, private sector, and elsewhere who would have made excellent vice presidents given their race was incidental and an afterthought to their achievement and talent.  

The Best We’ve Got?

But Kamala Harris is not among them. She was selected by Biden’s braggadocio not because of any past stellar record as a Bay Area prosecutor, an accomplished senator, an effective orator, or a superb presidential candidate, but because a frightened Joe Biden amid the George Floyd riots announced in advance that he would preselect his running mate exclusively on the basis of race and sex, sort of in the fashion of the white male-dominated world of the past. 

Ditto Pete Buttigieg, who, in his dismal record as a rather inconsequential small city mayor and failed presidential candidate, had never evidenced aptitude for transportation issues—other than occasionally and ostentatiously riding a bike. He was never expected to seriously address problems like spiraling auto fuel prices, the bottlenecks at our harbors, the wild-west train robbing at the port of Los Angeles, the Southwest Airlines implosion, or our clogged freeways. Instead, he was appointed Transportation Secretary because of the diversity of his sexual orientation and his woke rhetoric that almost immediately surfaced in wildly out-of-pocket lectures about “racist” freeways. 

Similarly, upon appointment as press secretary, we were immediately told Karine Jean-Pierre was the nation’s first black, gay press secretary rather than being asked to recognize any prior achievement that earned her such a coveted spot. Few said her appointment reflected a successful record as chief of staff for Kamala Harris’ not-one-delegate presidential campaign, or national megaphone for an ossified Moveon.org, or her stellar work as an MSNBC pundit. 

What will a university like Stanford do when it admits much of its 2026 class largely on the basis of tribal considerations? It does not release who of the admitted opted not to take the now-optional SAT. It seems proud, in fact, that it has rejected in the past 70 percent of those applicants with perfect SAT scores. So why would one believe that Stanford truly deplores its past Jewish exclusionary quotas, when it easily trumps them in the present—and uses the same argument of diversity to excuse prejudice and disqualifying those who, by its own former standards, had earned admission? 

Diversity is neither a strength nor a weakness. Diversity of thought can be helpful, or become chaotic as orthodoxy. Hitler’s 3.7 million soldiers who charged into Russia were especially diverse, but that fact did not make the invaders less murderous.

A multi-religious India is certainly diverse, but is not always calm or humane. Yugoslavia was diverse, and so is current-day Lebanon. Was either country a kinder, gentler, or more successful society than decidedly nondiverse Japan or Poland?

Just as uniformity can result in both stability and stagnation, so too can diversity sometimes ensure either dynamism or bedlam. In all these cases, the emphasis on tribalism is the critical determinative. If a 95 percent Asian or white country defines itself in blood-and-soil terms as did Japan of the 1930s and early 1940s and Germany between 1933 and 1945, then it becomes toxic, unlike a more natural assumption that race is incidental, not essential, even in a racially uniform society.

The same is true of diversity. Accentuate it; sharpen differences; treat individuals as part of tribal collectives—and a descent into violence and anarchy is assured. But consider tribal differences superficial, and human commonality more important than racial difference, then diversity can be enriching through voluntary contributions to the whole in terms of varieties of food, music, art, fashion, and literature. But again, envision diversity as iron-clad calibrations of identity in which the individual cedes to the collective tribe, then a tribally regressive America will be no different from the world elsewhere and our fate is assured.

So, we are headed, dangerously so, into an historically ugly, hateful, and volatile place—all the more so because we lie that it is utopian when it is pre-civilizational and reactionary.

Government by Gimmick Won't Last

posted by J.B. Shurk at American Thinker

The system's too powerful!  You can't beat a "big brother" police State!  The globalists control all the money and have all the leverage!  I've heard every reason under the sun why individual liberty will continue to lose out to the rapidly advancing technocratic surveillance structure extinguishing Western freedoms today.  I say, "So what?"  The bigger they come, the harder they fall.

Our whole human story is a repeating pattern in which power accumulates, empires emerge, power corrupts, divisions grow, and empires come crashing down.  Anyone who thinks an international oligarchy of corporate behemoths, central banks, and Intelligence Community spy chiefs will succeed where the Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Carolingian, Byzantine, Ottoman, Yuan, Ming, and British empires all failed makes the mistake of giving today's power brokers more credit than they deserve.  International oligarchies commanding unbeatable militaries and hoarding unparalleled wealth are nothing new.  The "unbeatable" are always beaten.

When we are overwhelmed by those who choose to torment us, we tend to unfairly reward them with even more semantic power by referring to them as an ever-shifting, all-knowing, globular "they" that cannot be tamed, let alone specifically named.  Individual politicians, companies, institutions, and agencies end up looking so invincible that they are treated as omniscient gods.  Well, they are not divine; they are just ordinary men and women who have acquired tremendous wealth and power over others; and they exist at the top of society's artificially constructed hierarchical pyramid only so long as society chooses.  Their authority is neither fixed nor eternal; it disappears the moment enough ordinary people recognize the illusion of power as mere delusion.

They control the news, social media, the banks, the food supply, the flow of gasoline, and they're set to use the excuse of tracking our "carbon footprint" as a means to monitor and control us throughout our lives.  Well, that sounds scary, but those aren't exactly new powers being wielded for the first time in history.  Aztec priests engaged in human sacrifice to appease their gods during pandemics and droughts; "climate change" priests seeking to control population growth by stifling food and energy production are not at all different.  Just because population control has been freshly weaponized behind digital computer systems, facial recognition technology, and artificial intelligence platforms does not alter the age-old power structure of a group of "rulers" claiming the "divine" prerogative to tell a group of "subjects" what they can and cannot own, say, or do.  Whether some high priestess from the Stone Age, a First Dynasty pharaoh, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, King Louis XIV, Napoleon, Stalin, or Klaus Schwab's World Economic Forum, those who presume to have the power to command others what to believe and how to behave do not last.  

What is more powerful than the people who appear so powerful?  Ideas.  Give my enemies more weapons, money, and soldiers to wreak havoc and conquer what is not theirs.  I'll take the power of an idea over a blade in any conflict at any time.  Force is effective only in achieving momentary compliance; ideas upend whole systems like trickling water seeping through tiny cracks never before seen.  You plant the seeds of a new idea, give that idea room to spread, and let it grow right through the floorboards of a system of power unable to fend off attack — that's how real revolutions unfold.

The Marxists have been playing this game for over a century, except the seeds they have planted throughout the West are nothing but poisonous weeds.  They slowly took over the arts, institutions, schools, churches, and corporations until, unbeknownst to most Westerners, Marxist socialism had become their lands' dominant species.  Because so few defenders of freedom cut back against Marxism's invasive growth, its weeds spread over everything, and the only way now to remedy the immense damage is to sow such powerful ideas that vibrant, healthy growth overtakes the twisted, parasitic rot.  

The good news: man's yearning for liberty is as fierce as any inherent need, and when conditions are right, nothing can stop its vigorous bloom.  You open a population's eyes to its own enslavement, reawaken its forgotten thirst for freedom, provide it with the seeds for rejuvenation, and the lifeblood of liberty beats harder and flows stronger the longer it has been denied.  How do you eradicate the thorny weeds of Marxist globalism destroying the West with pernicious strains of totalitarianism in the twenty-first century?  You plant the seeds of liberty and let them grow into such tall trees that Marxism can find no sunlight, water, or soil beneath freedom's canopy.  How do you bring down an unhealthy system that nonetheless presumes to be all-powerful?  You let those trees of liberty flourish into wild orchards that overgrow all else.

We are right now in an interim period that might best be called a kind of government by gimmick.  Nothing our "leaders" say is bound by much truth.  Three years of pandemic lockdowns, forced experimental injections, government-sanctioned censorship, and other unconstitutional COVID-1984 measures were moronically justified as necessary because government health bureaucrats and politicians were acting at the "speed of science."  What kind of nonsense is that?  When has real science ever been anything but methodical and slow?  Yet that authoritarian policy directive has justified three years of reckless tyranny across the West, and too many minds squeezed by Marxism's weeds simply complied.  

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security habitually lies about America's borders being "secure," even though illegal immigration has never been worse, and so long as corporate media parrot government lies, reality is ridiculously distorted.  Climate change, which is an immutable planetary phenomenon, has been transformed into irrefutable proof that centralized government authority must intervene in all economic activity — the exact policy objective, coincidentally enough, that forms the foundations of Marxist power.  When Elon Musk's recent "Twitter Files" release confirmed that the FBI has been actively directing policies of censorship and speech punishment against the American people, the lawless law enforcement agency accused anybody with eyes and brain sufficient to comprehend the Bureau's constitutional betrayals of being "conspiracy theorists" pushing "misinformation."  Why should federal police confess to crimes when only they, not the people, have the power to make arrests?

Not only have Western governments partitioned free speech into new categories of "mis-," "mal-," and "dis-information" that have miraculously lost any legal protections, but they have also decided to ban all "hate" speech outright — which again, completely coincidentally, includes any anti-government language governments would naturally hate.  So the same Western governments that pretend to be bastions for freedom and democratic principles inexplicably insist that they can both declare what kinds of things the people may freely say and whether what the people ultimately say will be tolerated.  In the not so distant past, such government actions were understood as prima facie examples of tyranny, but in this era of government by gimmick, Western governments have simply redefined their tyranny as "protecting democracy."

By distorting the meaning of words, Western governments have destroyed their legitimacy.  For this reason, Westerners who wish to fight back can start by doing three things: (1) reject appeals to authority; (2) embrace the role of "conspiracy theorist" or any other derogatory label governments use when they seek to manipulate the public; and (3) consciously choose to elevate virtue, morality, and the pursuit of excellence in life.  

Appealing to authority, instead of truth, has always been a false path.  Today, however, when our "leaders" embrace obvious lies and the redefinition of words, positions of authority should hold no special value.  When those who commit crimes call the innocent criminals, no Westerner should be cowed by government name-calling.  And the fastest, most direct road back to a prosperous civilization grounded in personal freedom rejects Marxist relativism and embraces steadfast virtue.

Elon Musk's Beautiful Dunk on a Leftist Shows Just How Hypocritical They Can Be

Nick Arama reporting for RedState 

I find the left’s hatred of Elon Musk such a revealing window into how empty and cult-like they can be.

They all used to like him. Why? Because he was behind things like Tesla and electric cars which fit into their worldview. You had folks like very liberal actress Alyssa Milano idolizing him, even listing him as one of the people in all of history who she’d like to have dinner with.

That was until he bought Twitter, then advocated for free speech and the importance of everyone being able to speak in the virtual “town square.” Suddenly, that made him the enemy because he believes that even those with whom he disagrees have a right to have a voice.

He was still the same guy, still the guy behind the electric cars. Yet now he was the guy they were supposed to hate. Now you have crazy folks like former magazine editor John Blumenthal who wrote an op-ed about in the Los Angeles Times that he was worried about driving a Tesla and what people might think of him for it. He seemingly bought the car to virtue signal, but now he’s worried people might think he’s embraced far-right thought.

Karma is a hard mistress.

Never mind that Musk doesn’t embrace far-right thought and no one but Blumenthal’s leftist buddies would care what the heck he drives, but we’re not talking logic here.

Musk’s response to their mania? Humor, which makes them even more crazed that he isn’t intimidated by efforts against him. He even wished everyone a happy New Year, with the wry comment that it was likely not going to be “boring.”

Who could be offended by that fairly innocuous tweet?

But leftist Brianna Wu took a stab at it with an obnoxious attempt to put Musk down.

“You worked hard this year and lost over 200 billion,” Wu said. “I believe that this year you will surpass yourself with even worse decisions.”

Wu runs a progressive PAC along with former “Young Turks” guy, Cenk Uygur. So that tells you a lot about her right there. She was a video game development and media person. She also failed at a run for Congress, not even winning her primary in 2018.

I’m thinking that she can’t even begin to hold a candle to what Musk has achieved in his life. And I sacrificed myself a bit for you to go to her PAC site and check out the juvenile videos they put out so you don’t have to. So meh, not exactly investing your life in doing anything beneficial or anything that’s even likely to move leftists.

This is the new talking point against Musk — oh, he lost money after buying Twitter. Sure he did, as did many others, as the market is down for everyone. Thanks, Joe Biden. Musk is still the richest person in the world. Forbes had Bernard Arnault over him, but that’s including Arnault’s family. It’s funny that leftists who attack people having money want to use losing some of it as a jab.

But if anything that loss says a lot about Musk, and most of it is good. He’s put a lot on the line for his convictions, including his money, to ensure that Twitter is a freer place. He could have backed off when pressured by Democrats and attacked by leftists. But he hasn’t. He’s shown he wouldn’t be cowed and bow down to the Democrats, he’s been willing to stick to his guns so far, even if it might hurt his bottom line.

I think he’s also willing to bet that he’s going to change Twitter and Tesla will be going back up, that ultimately the bottom line will work out too.

However, Musk had a great response to Wu, which showed his humor.

That’s one of the most hilarious things of all. They all want to hate on him now, but then they give him $8 for the Twitter Blue subscription to make themselves look more important and by doing so, help to support the site. She has a Twitter Blue subscription so she’s giving him money. Other leftists have screamed about him, yet they’re still there on Twitter, they haven’t left yet.

That says so much about leftist hypocrisy.

AOC Flips out on Elise Stefanik as Dems Lose Their Minds Over Losing Power

Nick Arama reporting for RedState 

Democrats are upset that they’re about to be tossed out of leadership in the House.

So it looks like they’re throwing tantrums at the folks who are going to be in leadership for the GOP, including the number three Republican, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY). There’s a hit piece in the New York Times targeting her that’s going viral on the left. The aim seemed to be to try to sow division because they were angry at her support of President Donald Trump. They try to paint her movement from moderate to Trump supporter as some kind of denial of self. I’m not in her head, so I don’t know her thought process.

But what I do know is that many moved toward Trump when they had not supported him in the past, particularly after seeing the radical nature of the left over the past few years and seeing more sharply the dangers the left posed. The article fails to grasp that, and so misses out on understanding a good part of the electorate.

The article also claimed that she was pushing racist conspiracy theories because of ads she ran against illegal immigration and that said Democrats wanted to gain a liberal majority. Democrats ridiculously tried to blame Stefanik for the Buffalo mass shooting because of those ads. Stefanik denied that she had ever said anything racist, called the Democrats low for their take, and said that she was against mass amnesty.

But this is where Democrats and their liberal media sycophants are at now — that if you’re against illegal immigration, somehow that’s racist when the problem is the Democrats’ failure to properly apply the law.

The article was then followed by Democrats trying to amplify the attack on Stefanik.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) responded to the article with a juvenile jab on Stefanik. AOC often acts as though she’s the 15-year-old equivalent of a “Valley Girl” (just from New York, not California). But with a continual splash of “victim” in all she does. That’s a bit of a trip, considering she grew up in Westchester, the daughter of an architect.

Here’s her latest mean-girl tweet attack on Stefanik.

“What is it with people randomly blaming the mere existence of others for their own descent into embracing neo-nazism? Like girl you did that all on your own,” AOC whined. “Unless her suggestion here is she started endorsing great replacement theory because she couldn’t treat me like the help.”

Serious, “like girl,” what? Does anyone truly believe Stefanik is a neo-Nazi? AOC failed to lay out any evidence of how Stefanik was, but hey, why have evidence when you can just lie your head off? It isn’t Stefanik who’s the socialist, AOC.

But what’s funny is that AOC is so thirsty to involve herself in this supposed change of Stefanik’s. The article didn’t even say that AOC was responsible for the change, showing AOC didn’t bother to read it. All it says was that Stefanik was disturbed that AOC didn’t show her the respect that she thought she was due, without explaining what that supposedly references or relating it to the rest of the article about Stefanik’s move to the right. For all we know, that may mean that AOC was rude to her when she tried to say “hi.” Or it may have no validity at all since there’s no description of what it even references. It doesn’t even make any sense. Why would that make someone move to the right?

How twisted she is to think it’s all about how to “treat me like the help.” No, sometimes things may not have to do with you, AOC, the world doesn’t center around you. It’s childish and has no connection to reality. You and your other Democrats in Congress, as well as all the Republicans, are supposed to be serving all of us, you are supposed to work for us, not for yourselves, your own ambitions, or your childish tantrums. She also may do well to pay attention to her own constituents so she doesn’t continue to get shouted down by them at town halls.

But what the article and her comment reveal is the Democrats are going to continue down this tired-old path that has failed them in the past: everyone we don’t like and all our political opponents are neo-Nazis. If you follow the same path that failed you in the past, don’t expect a different result.

Democrats Are Relentless

posted by Derek Hunter at TownhallVIP

A normal human being will not harass another person, or badger them into submission. The era of “me too” killed the old joke about how someone had said “no” but really meant “yes.” In politics, however, when it comes to fundraising, Democrats are like Joe Biden alone in a Capitol corridor with a mid-level staffer: he does not take “no” for an answer, even when it means “no.” 

I suspect we’ll find out one day just how much like Bill Clinton Joe Biden really was (How sad is it that we’re a couple of generations away from Bill Clinton doing almost the same things Biden is accused of and still no Democrats give a damn?), but that’s not what this is about. This is about three last, desperate attempts to get money from the pockets of suckers before the calendar turned. 

Up first is the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “This is your last chance to show your support for President Biden this year!” they wrote. “From lowering costs for families to confirming Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, the Biden-Harris administration has achieved so much. But Mitch McConnell and Republicans are doing everything they can to block our progress!”

Inflation has exploded under Biden, but he’s “lowering costs for families”? To do what, have a subsidized abortion? And how dumb are the people at the DCCC to think Biden “confirmed” anyone to the Supreme Court? The Senate did that, he nominated her.

And just read this, “confirming Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first Black woman on the Supreme Court.” Was she confirmed as “the first black woman on the Supreme Court” like that was up for discussion or the position for which she was nominated? Or was she the first black woman confirmed to the Supreme Court? Words and the order in which you place them matter…unless you know your audience is a bunch of morons. 

Then Nancy Pelosi, who has made more money while in office than pretty much anyone ever, wanted to suck Democrats dry one last time in 2022. “I hate to bother you again, but I need ONE last push of help from my strongest supporters,” she wrote to someone who’s never giving her a penny. “I am hoping for just 2 more gifts from your zip code before my monumental End of Year Deadline when the clock strikes midnight. If we can blow our End of Year goal out of the water and HIT our target for 2023 Democratic Memberships, we'll have the resources we need to support our INCREDIBLE Democrats in the next election and beyond to continue the work we started. Can I count on you to be one of the final grassroots donors I am counting on from your zip code in these final hours of 2022?”

What’s the point of setting a goal if your intention is to “blow” it out of the water? Did you set it deliberately low so you could surpass it? Or is there no goal, really, it’s just a gimmick to con poor suckers out of a couple more dollars? We know the answer.

Finally, someone who must’ve just purchased a fundraising list I had signed up for because I’d not gotten any emails from him before, Chucky Schumer. 

“Derek, it's Sen. Schumer,” it starts, like he saved my life in ‘Nam. “I'm between meetings, so I'll make this quick: Your name is on our list of inactive Democratic memberships for December, and I need to make sure you activate your membership by tonight’s public, year-end fundraising deadline. If we want to save the Senate and stop Mitch McConnell again in 2024, we need to begin laying the groundwork immediately. Voting rights, reproductive justice, President Biden's judicial nominees, and our ultra-slim Democratic majority are all on the line. We can't afford for anyone to sit on the sidelines! Your membership has never been more critical.”

This email was sent on New Year’s Eve at 7:34 pm. Does anyone think Chuck was jetting between meetings at that time on that day, then just stopped to take a moment to compose a quick email to anyone before heading off to kiss the rear ends of more mega-donors? Maybe dumb people would.

And that’s who these people live off of: dumb people. Well, not exclusively dumb people. The main source of their money is not the low-dollar sucker maxing out a credit card because they’ve been convinced Kevin McCarthy is hiding in the closet ready to force them to live their lives freely, it’s the left-wing billionaire looking to get even richer through government grants, contracts and influence. Democrats need the small dollar donors to dilute their numbers and make it seem like monetary support for them is widespread. In other words, the con job in fundraising is ultimately to cover up the con job that Democrats are funded by grassroots supporters. This was true in 2022, it’ll be true in 2023 and beyond. 

Bank of America Economist: Housing Currently in Recession, 2023 “Will Be Difficult Year”, with Continued Financial Pretending

Sundance reporting for Conservative Treehouse 

The New Year brings a look of forward-looking economic perspectives from major financial institutions.  Unfortunately, if the perspective of Bank of America Chief Economist Michael Gapen is reflective of the larger institutional analysis, the financial pretending is anticipated to continue.

[Side Note: Notice how they will all start talking about ‘deglobalization’ in 2023. There’s a reason for that that I will touch on in the IMF interview to follow]

Appearing on Face the Nation Gapen accurately indicates the U.S. housing market is already in a steep economic recession, housing prices falling rapidly with a considerable amount of distance to go (-30% range), and the overall housing market will likely be in this situation for around two years.  On a macro level the Bank of America indicators line up with the general housing trajectory.  From a lending standpoint, Gapen would have specific insight.

Beyond the housing sector, Mr. Gapen starts to get sketchy.  He anticipates inflation taking 24 to 36 months to lower to the norm 2% range.  That is generally in line with CTH expectations; however, nowhere in the analysis does Gapen even mention energy costs and the overall impact to the economy from energy policy.  You will note this absence will be present in almost all financial punditries.  Mentioning “energy policy’ as a cause of economic pain is a third rail amid his peer group; it is simply not permitted.

Astute readers will note the great financial and economic pretending that surrounds the Build Back Better and Green New Deal climate change agenda will not be discussed by anyone, ever. The massive price impacts, the supply side inflation pressures, are baked into the western global economic outlooks.  It is strictly verboten to talk about climate change policy being stopped, modified, reversed or even, well, gasp, removed.  WATCH:

[TRANSCRIPT] – […] BANK OF AMERICA CHIEF ECONOMIST MICHAEL GAPEN: Happy New Year as well. Thank you for having me on.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You know, a majority of voters polled by The Wall Street Journal say that the economy is going to look and feel worse in 2023. What is your forecast?

GAPEN: So I think that’s probably true. I think we’re in a situation where the risk of recession is high, may not be a deep and prolonged one. But we’re in a situation where the economy has recovered very rapidly from- from COVID, and it’s come with a lot of inflation. And the Federal Reserve is trying to slow down the economy, to bring inflation down. And in the past, more often than not, that’s coincided with some sort of recession in the US economy and the U.S. labor market. It’s not baked in. It’s not for certain. We may be able to avoid it, but I would agree that the outlook by most people who sit in the position that I do think 2023 could be a difficult year for the U.S..

MARGARET BRENNAN: So we may be able to avoid recession?

GAPEN: Yes.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Or it could be mild?

GAPEN: That’s right. So in the past, we have been able to raise rates, cool inflation, without pushing the economy into a recession. In the mid 1990s we were able to do it. It’s just that the path to that is very tricky and sometimes involves a little more luck than than it does skill. Many other times in the past, again, more often than not, when we’re tightening policy, pushing interest rates higher to slow down the domestic economy and bring down inflationary pressures, that often means we get a period of-of higher unemployment rates and what would be characterized as a recession. In this particular case, I think it doesn’t have to be deep. It doesn’t have to be prolonged. I think what we just need to do in some ways is take the edge off an economy that’s emerged from the pandemic with a lot of strength and brought too much inflation with it.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So we’re currently at an inflation rate of about 7.1%. There is, though, increased concern that that’s going to stay sort of sticky, stay where it is for a while. How long do we have to stomach higher prices? When does it feel better for the average American?

GAPEN: Well, I think we’re actually the evidence suggests we’re already past peak inflation. So the year on year rate of inflation should start to move lower. It already did towards the end of last year, and we think that will continue to happen. So right now, the trajectory is a more favorable one. It will probably take 2 to 3 years to get inflation back down to levels that we knew prior to the pandemic. In other words, low, stable and something we didn’t necessarily talk about because it wasn’t forefront on our mind. So I’d say directionally we’re headed in the right direction, but it may take another 18 to 24 months, maybe 36 months, to fully get us back to a situation where inflation doesn’t seem to be as pressing as it is today.

MARGARET BRENNAN: And that would get us to that 2% level that the Fed is targeting?

GAPEN: That’s right. So the Fed targets low and stable prices, low and stable inflation. They interpret that as roughly 2%. In essence, what they’re saying is we want inflation to be low enough where households and businesses don’t have to think about it when they’re making their their decision. So you and I aren’t here talking about inflation. So how low is low? That’s typically about 2%.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Although they admit they can’t control a lot of things at the Fed, like gas, like food prices.

GAPEN: Right.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was recently quoted in an op ed that she- she penned as saying, times can be tough, but Americans are tougher. From the depths of the crisis. We have bounced back and the president’s economic plan has bolstered the US economy’s resilience to today’s global challenges. So that’s the political plan, the fiscal spending that Congress can- can help them out with. Do you think on that front, we are on a steady path forward?

GAPEN: I do. I think what we’ve seen, the change that we’ve seen from, say, the fiscal policy side of the US economy is one where industrial policy is creeping back in again, where we’re trying to align our public sector interests with our private- private sector opportunities, the CHIP Act and protecting the supply lines for- for chips, for example, is is one of those sectors-

MARGARET BRENNAN: For semi conductors.

GAPEN: That’s right. For semiconductors, for which is a hugely important process for electronics and autos globally. And second, the Inflation Reduction Act has many components of a clean energy policy. So I think from a medium term perspective, we’re seeing greater alignment again with political objectives, public sector objectives and then private sector opportunity. We haven’t done that in the United States for several decades.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But in terms of more support for those in the economy who are getting pinched the hardest right now, I mean, do you think that this is a time to pull back on fiscal spending? You know, the criticism after the fact was that the government pumped $6 trillion in two years and that added to to prices going up.

GAPEN: Right. And I would say the spending under the CHIPS Act or the Inflation Reduction Act isn’t, you know, it’s spread out over over many years. So I don’t really think it’s something that would be boosting the economy meaningfully in the short term. You’re right. A lot of the the legacy of prior fiscal policy is still on household balance sheets in the form of a lot of excess saving, and that is helping the economy to continue to grow and continuing momentum in the economy. So I do think it’s time where we, you know, from a public policy perspective are saying we need to take a step back a little bit. We need to moderate the economy and get rid of some of the inflation that that came about.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Tighten the purse strings?

GAPEN: That’s right. Yeah.

MARGARET BRENNAN: In your newsletter, Bank of America’s economists admit to to being wrong about 2022.

GAPEN: It happens.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But so were the central banks, as you all point out, central banks were about six months late in hiking interest rates, the Fed stands out like a sour thumb in largely dismissing the hardest labor market in many decades. So if if all the experts were wrong, why should the public trust that you’re on the right path now?

GAPEN: You know, I think that the narrative I would give is we- Public policy plan for the worst, hoped for the best with the pandemic and plan for the worst. So we didn’t get the worst outcomes of-of the pandemic. Right. Some of those that were predicted early on, but we put a lot of fiscal policy support in. We kept monetary policy easy and interest rates low. And we just we kind of got too much of a good thing coming out. So now we’re just we’re course correcting that. So, yes, we were wrong on how much inflation we- we got. We had to kind of keep revising up what what we were thinking. But now the idea is what? We just need to turn the needle a bit and bring it back down. So. But that’s not easy to do. It’s not easy. And it raises the risk of a recession, particularly in the labor market. But the right long term policy is to get inflation back down, Right? The policy mistake would be not addressing this. So it may mean some pain for the economy in the short run. But if the Fed is successful at bringing inflation down, that means it’s a very good outlook for the US economy over the medium term.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But pain in the economy, I mean, let’s let’s say what that is. That’s likely job cuts.

GAPEN: Likely job losses yes.

MARGARET BRENNAN: There are 6 million unemployed people right now with a jobless rate about 3.7%. That’s a very strong jobs market. Right. Where do you think that jobless rate is going to go? How much pain are you preparing us for?

GAPEN: Right. Part of the problem in the in the labor market right now is lack of available labor supply. We do think for about three and a half to 4 million workers short of where we were prior to the pandemic because of things like lack of immigration and early retirement and so forth. So this is why if we want to, you know, reduce a hot labor market, cool it down a bit, it may involve some job losses. It could come in places like housing. The housing sector is retrenching. It could come in manufacturing the good side of the economy, which was strong in prior years. And it may come in in professional and business services and finance and other sectors like that. We will, of course, see and again, a recession is not guaranteed, but services inflation is strong. And typically the way you bring services inflation down is to cool the labor market.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But how severe? I mean, in terms of when we’re talking about people, Senator Elizabeth Warren has said the Fed is pushing hard to get more people fired. She called it extremist actions to raise interest rates. You’re characterizing this as necessary so that it doesn’t get worse.

GAPEN: That’s right. The–

MARGARET BRENNAN: But they are trying to get companies to stop hiring.

GAPEN: They are trying to reduce demand for labor. Yes. And- and it’s a fine line to walk on how much unemployment you might get out of that. The Fed’s forecast project, the unemployment rate could rise about a percentage point to about 4.6%. Private sector forecasters will range from maybe four and a half to five and a half. So that’s a big move from where we are currently. But the 20 to 25 year average unemployment rate in the U.S. is about 6%. So it would be kind of getting things back up to maybe a more normal environment, which would still be a pretty good labor market, just not as- as hot as it is today.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You know, you’re talking about going back to sort of standard models, but I think it’s really interesting what you said about retirements, that skilled workers took themselves out or left the workforce, maybe not by their choice, during the pandemic. We’re also seeing, in particular in child care, a severe shortage of workers. And that’s driving up the cost of child care as well. When do those dislocations get any better? Because those are hard things to make up for.

GAPEN: They are. They typically take years to- to make better. And sometimes it involves changes in, say, fiscal policy or the public policy aspect, not necessarily monetary policy. The Fed can induce labor- labor supply, but things like provision of health care or universal pre-K, right? Some of these elements in what was the Build Back Better agenda could be things that induce participation, right? Make it easier for parents, mothers and fathers, to participate in the workforce. But these things take- take time. And inflation is high now. And- and the risk is that what appears or should be a temporary, several year, increase in inflation turns into something that’s more prolonged. So the Fed really can’t wait for that.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Excuse me. I’m just going to take a sip of water.

GAPEN: I will, too.

MARGARET BRENNAN: I have a catch in my throat. So let’s just pick up here. When you talk about monetary policy, you’re talking about what the Fed can do.

GAPEN: That’s right.

MARGARET BRENNAN: For consumers, when the Federal Reserve keeps rates higher for an extended period of time. For folks who don’t watch Jerome Powell as closely as you and I do, they see the impact in their credit card statement or in the mortgage rate if they want to go out and buy a new home. When those Fed moves go up, the cost likely will go up for those other things as well. So if someone’s looking at the housing market, wants to go out and buy a home right now, do they also have to wait the 2 to 3 years you referenced for inflation to come down before they feel like they can afford it?

GAPEN: Well, housing is under a tremendous affordability shock right now. As you know, home prices nationally are still up about 40% relative to pre-pandemic times and–

MARGARET BRENNAN: There’s a bubble.

GAPEN: Well, I–

MARGARET BRENNAN: Jerome Powell said it was a bubble.

GAPEN: Well, okay. I would disagree with- with that. And mortgage rates are high. They’re- They were over 7%. They’re now above 6%. So, yes, I think the- home prices are starting to come back down. But, yes, it will take time to cool down the housing market and return affordability. Is it- Is it two years? You know, I don’t know, but it could be 12. It could be 12 months. Could be 24 months. Yes. The housing market currently is- is in its own recession at present. Activity has really slowed down, particularly as mortgage rates rose. It’s one of the most interest rate sensitive sectors in the U.S. economy.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You also, on a global scale, have to take into account some of those shocks. War in Europe. China reopening with its going from COVID zero to an influx of cases potentially of COVID infections. How do you account for that?

GAPEN: Well, I- I’m actually a little benefitted by being the U.S. economist because we’re still a large, relatively closed economy. Those shocks elsewhere tend to affect us less and in some ways the weaker the rest of the world is, the better it is for the U.S. because soft growth globally tends to bring down energy prices. And we’re seeing that now. Gasoline prices, prices at the pump are, you know, around where they were prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that actually supports consumer spending. So outside of that, though, certainly weaker growth means we have fewer places to export. So it weighs on growth through our trade channel. China’s reopening may actually start to push commodity prices higher. So it is, you know, it’s an all intricately linked system. And we just do our best to try and understand where these forces are at any point in time. But from the perspective of the U.S., we’re- we’re generally domestically driven, services oriented, domestically driven. Weakness in Europe or changes in China’s outlook, they don’t affect us all that much. It’s really about the domestic economy. And in fact, where are labor market conditions? Is the labor market hot? Does the labor market need more support?

MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to end on a positive note, if we can. I want to ask where you see sort of the best news in 2023. What makes you hopeful?

GAPEN: What makes me hopeful is not just in the U.S., but globally, central banks have gotten the message on inflation. They reacted very quickly. Inflation is now on- on a downward trend and we think that will continue. So we think we’re kind of past the peak worry in terms of- of inflation. And I suspect we will have this conversation less and less going forward. At least that’s certainly the hope. And the other area I would say is I’m still very optimistic about the long run prospects for the U.S. economy. And in that regard what I mean is, in a world where, you know, we’re pulling back from globalization a bit and we’re fracturing a bit, and- and it’s more about spheres of influence and major economic powers operating in their region.

MARGARET BRENNAN: You’re talking about China without saying China.

GAPEN: Yes and Russia. But also there’s a surge in Brazil and India. There’s a lot more players on the scene than there was in the past. And in a- if the world is breaking up a little bit, I think the positives of the U.S. actually become more positive. The U.S. becomes a better place for investment, returns to capital and the dollar’s strength in the world system will likely be preserved. So in some ways I think our positives become more accentuated in the current environment. So we’ve got a problem with inflation now. We will likely risk recession in 2023. But beyond that, I think it’s still a very positive outlook for the U.S.

MARGARET BRENNAN: All right. Thank you so much for sharing your outlook. [End Transcript]

The U.S-China dynamic is going to be very critical this year.  PRO TIP – Anything sourced from China is going to be scarcer and more vulnerable to disruption.  If you are associated with an industry that is dependent on Chinese goods, even as an employee – watch out.  China’s manufacturing and distribution is going to be extremely sketchy due to severe domestic issues associated with COVID mitigation amid their vulnerable population.  This is going to make the U.S and Canada issues with Mexico even more important.