POLITICS Comments turned off

Sanders Loses the Mask of Benignity

Posted By on March 4th, 2020

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/sanders-loses-the-mask-of-benignity/91036/

The sudden turn against Senator Sanders on Super Tuesday has us thinking of the Howard Dean Howl. Remember that outburst, in 2004, from another Vermonter who seemed like such a friendly, affable sort — a veritable Fred Rogers — until he suddenly sounded like, in Dr. Dean’s case, a werewolf? It knocked the country doctor right out of the race.

We wonder whether, looking back in the 2020 Democratic primaries, something like that won’t be seen to have occurred at Charleston. It would be, in our estimate, the moment when, in the Democratic debate there, Major Garrett of CBS asked the Jewish question. It was ostensibly about whether Mr. Sanders would move our embassy in Israel back to Tel Aviv from Jerusalem.

Mr. Sanders started his answer by saying that it was “something we would take into consideration.” Fair enough. It put him crosswise with an almost unanimous United States Congress, but fair enough. He also claimed to be proud of being Jewish. Then, though, he wheeled on the Jews, declaring the elected prime minister of Israel a “reactionary racist.”

It was an appalling error. Even if Mr. Sanders believes the libel, which we doubt, the remark was weirdly out of place — not only erroneous but off the point. What Mr. Garrett was giving Mr. Sanders the chance to show some adroitness in an emotion-packed policy debate. Instead, while claiming to be proudly Jewish, he kicked his co-religionists to the curb.

MEDIA Comments turned off

Donna Brazile Tells RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel to ‘Go to Hell!’ in Unhinged Rant on Fox Debra Heine

Posted By on March 4th, 2020

https://amgreatness.com/2020/03/03/donna-brazile-tells-rnc-chair-ronna-mcdaniel-to-go-to-hell-in-unhinged-rant-on-fox/

Former DNC Chair Donna Brazile exploded on Fox News Tuesday morning, accusing RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel of repeating Russian talking points and telling her to “go to hell!”

Brazile, a regular Fox News contributor, was on “America’s Newsroom” with Ed Henry and Sandra Smith to discuss the Super Tuesday elections, and was asked about comments McDaniel had made earlier in the day about the potential for a brokered convention on the Democrat side.

A brokered convention happens when no candidate has a majority of the delegates’ votes and the nomination is decided through a sketchy process of political horse trading.

Pundits of of all political persuasions have been speculating for weeks that Democrats may end up choosing their nominee out of a brokered convention.

McDaniel said that such a process would be “rigged against Bernie if those Super Delegates get their way on that second vote.”

Brazile was incensed.

“First of all, I want to talk to my Republican friends,” she said. “First of all, stay the hell out of our race. Stay the HELL out of our race!”

Brazile added heatedly that she gets “sick and tired” of listening to Republicans talking about the Democrats’ process, and then went on the offensive.

“First of all, they don’t have a process,” she charged, meaning the RNC. “They’re cancelling primaries. They have winner-take all. They don’t have the kind of Democracy that we see on the Democratic side.”

The longtime political strategist then dusted off the Democrats’ dog-eared RussiaGate playbook.

“And for people to use Russian talking points to sew division among Americans …. That is stupid!” she exclaimed. “So, Ronna, go to hell!”

ELECTIONS Comments turned off

Pierce Bush, grandson of former President George H.W. Bush, loses congressional bid in rare defeat for family in Texas

Posted By on March 4th, 2020

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/03/04/pierce-bush-texas-2020-primary-name-campaign/

The grandson of the late President George H.W. Bush failed to make the runoff in a crowded GOP race to represent Texas’ 22nd District. Experts say the reasons are more complicated than the decline of the Bush family’s political influence.

Incomplete results indicated the nonprofit executive was headed to either a third- or fourth-place finish in a 15-way primary race to represent the suburban Houston district, which had become a national Democratic target even before U.S. Rep. Pete Olson, R-Sugar Land, announced his retirement last July. The top two vote-getters in the race, Fort Bend County Sheriff Troy Nehls and technology consultant Kathaleen Wall, will face off in a May runoff election.

IMMIGRATION Comments turned off

Trump’s Immigration Policies And Border Wall Are Working Richard McCarty

Posted By on March 4th, 2020

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/03/04/trumps-immigration-policies-and-border-wall-are-working/

During the 2016 campaign, President Donald Trump ran on cracking down on illegal immigration. After years of border security being largely ignored, Trump made it a central issue. After three years in office, it is clear that he is getting results.

So far, more than 120 miles of border wall have been built, and hundreds of more miles of wall are expected to be built this year. Just last week, Mark Morgan, who leads U.S. Customs and Border Protection, told Congress that one section of border wall had reduced the number of illegal crossings there by more than 80%.

In addition, the administration’s Remain in Mexico policy that keeps asylum claimants in Mexico pending hearings is credited with slowing down migration as illegal border crossings continue to drop. This policy requires asylum seekers to wait in Mexico for their immigration court dates; previously, asylum seekers were allowed to wait in the U.S., but many simply disappeared and never reappeared for their court dates.

Thanks to the new policy, in January, the most recent month for which we have official numbers, the number of people apprehended or found to be inadmissible on the Southern border fell to 36,679. In May of last year, that number peaked at 144,116, but it has been declining ever since.

Americans for Limited Government’s Frank McCaffrey has reported from respite centers, bus stops and businesses along migrant routes on both the U.S. and Mexican sides of the border attesting that migrant traffic has slowed as the Remain in Mexico policy took effect.

The two policies, the wall and Remain in Mexico, are the heart of the administration’s success in combating illegal immigration but remain in constant legal wrangling thanks to lawsuits by left-wing organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the Southern Poverty Law Center and others who are suing to stop the wall and  Remain in Mexico.

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Democratic Ideals as a Religion Why leftists believe they can do no wrong. Bruce Hendry

Posted By on March 4th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/hendry-bruce-hendry/

I think it’s fair to say that America is the best place in the world for the average citizen to live and that it’s the best time in the history of the world to live in America as a black person, as a woman or as a homosexual.

In a religion there are shared values and shared mythologies. In a religion, if somebody challenges any of the orthodoxies they are attacked personally. Religions stay together because of these shared values and because, if you want to continue to be accepted by your group, you cannot challenge these shared values and mythologies. Progressives behave this way.

Religious people indoctrinate their children to believe in their orthodoxy, and we can easily observe that if you start the indoctrination early enough it will last a lifetime. Democrats have taken over our educational system from kindergarten to university and that kind of religious, socialist, indoctrination is going on, right now, in our schools.

Curiosity should be a community value but it is actually a community threat to those in power. Curious people who challenge religious ideas are not met with a kindly response but instead are met with an attack that is personal. By silencing those with different opinions, either by enforcing politically correct speech or verbally attacking the person that is trying to express a different opinion, you win the argument. This is basic strategy for Democrats. 

David Horowitz’s observation that progressivism is a religion explains a lot for me. Every society/culture in recorded history has had a religion. It’s the glue of shared values and shared mythologies that keeps the group together. Look at it this way. A religion needs three elements:

ANTI-SEMITISM Comments turned off

Progressive Big Lies Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past. Bruce Thornton

Posted By on March 4th, 2020

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/03/progressive-big-lies-bruce-thornton/

The “big lie” was Adolf Hitler’s term in Mein Kampf  for the propaganda tactic of telling a lie so “colossal” that nobody would believe anyone “could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” Far from being specific to Nazism, this technique of political persuasion has been to varying degrees universal. These days, the masters of the “big lie” are the Leftists and those progressives who, addled by Trumpophobia, regularly promulgate whoppers that today’s internet can easily discredit.

Of course, from the Russian collusion fabrication to the Ukraine “quid pro quo,” the Dems have publicized numerous lies and distortions of facts. Now they’re at it again with hysterical attacks on Trump’s response to the coronavirus outbreak. During the last debate, Mike Bloomberg charge that Trump “defunded Centers for Disease Control, CDC, so we don’t have the organization we need,” a lie seconded by Joe Biden who added, “He cut the funding for the entire effort.” As the New York Post, commented, “It’s a lie that can only sow fear: The CDC budget is higher than when Trump took office. Same for the National Institutes of Health. And top career officials from both have been working with the White House for weeks to direct the US response.” This lie was so “colossal” that the AP––which was so skewed toward Democrats during Obama’s tenure that wags said AP stood for “administration’s press”–– ran a headline that read, “AP FACT CHECK: Democrats distort coronavirus readiness.”

This penchant for accepting lies as truth, however, has warped the minds of Leftists both hard and soft ever since New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty lied about Stalin’s engineered famines in the 1930s. They have accepted the Marxist, as in Groucho, stance “Who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?” One of the best examples is Bernie Sanders’ stubborn, unapologetic support for vicious totalitarian regimes like the Castro cartel in Cuba, based on a variation of the fascist excuse that Mussolini “made the trains run on time” combined with the old proverb favored by communists, and used in print by Duranty, that “you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”

POLITICS Comments turned off

While all eyes are on Democrats, Trump is the big winner across America By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on March 4th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2020/03/while_all_eyes_are_on_democrats_trump_is_the_big_winner_across_america.html

The obvious news is that many voters, after staring into the abyss of Bernie Sanders’ socialism and seeing Fidel Castro looking back at them, are turning to Biden as their preferred candidate. Biden, after looking like a loser last week, is looking like a contender this week.

The less obvious news, though, is that in many states there was a real fire among Republicans, even though Donald Trump is a virtually uncontested incumbent. People ought to be staying home but in several states they are voting for Trump in droves.

The following data is from Decision Desk HQ, as of 11:50 p.m. EST, with many votes still being counted. In those states in which Republican voter turnout exceeded Democrat voter turnout, the Republican numbers are bolded. In those states in which Republicans, while fewer in number than Democrats, still made a good showing, Republican numbers are bolded and italicized.

In Alabama, with 88.44% of votes counted, 387,762 people voted in the Democrat primary, with Biden winning. Meanwhile, 623,732 people voted in the Republican primary, with Trump receiving 613,799 votes.

In Arkansas, with 69.28% of votes counted, 216,840 people voted in the Democrat primary, with Biden winning. Meanwhile, 233,898 people voted in the Republican primary, with Trump receiving 227,078 votes.

In California, with only 12.37% of votes counted, 1,030,439 people voted in the Democrat primary, with Bernie winning. Meanwhile, 625,295 people voted in the Republican primary, with Trump receiving 573,611 votes.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

The Collapse of Intellectual Standards in Science By Norman Rogers

Posted By on March 4th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/03/the_collapse_of_intellectual_standards_in_science.html

Each year approximately $25 billion dollars is wasted paying for so-called renewable energy, overwhelmingly wind and solar. This is the excess cost of the renewable energy versus what it would cost to generate the same amount of electricity in existing fossil fuel plants. Because many states have accelerating legal quotas for renewable energy, called renewable portfolio laws, the money wasted each year will approximately double in the next 10-years to $50 billion each year. If the states fail to come to their senses and continue to pursue these laws, another doubling by 2040 to $100 billion per year is likely. In the state of Nevada, for example, the increasing cost of electricity will likely be equivalent to a 4% state income tax by 2030.

The renewable energy industry has powerful sources of support for its program to make money by fooling the public. There are many effective lies, repeated over and over. Long term contracts for wind or solar electricity at $25 or $30 per megawatt hour are touted as proving that renewable electricity is replacing “more expensive” fossil fuel electricity. A close examination of the cost of renewable electricity, either wind or solar, shows that the real cost of this electricity is not $25 per megawatt hour, but around $80 per megawatt hour. The difference is the federal and state subsidies. A good chunk of those federal subsidies are set to go away by 2022.

Then there is the matter of replacing fossil fuel electricity. Wind or solar electricity displaces some fossil fuel electricity, but they never replace the plants used to generate fossil fuel electricity. The fossil fuel plants are throttled back when the wind or solar is generating electricity. But sometimes wind and solar are asleep. At those times the fossil fuel plants have to power the grid without any help from the wind or solar plants. Nothing is replaced by building wind or solar plants. A dual system is created with dependable fossil fuel plants supplemented by erratically operating wind or solar plants. When fossil fuel plants are replaced, they are replaced by newer fossil fuel plants. Often natural gas replaces coal.

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

The Canadian Health Care Myth By Jeffrey T. Brown

Posted By on March 4th, 2020

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/03/the_canadian_health_care_myth.html

I recently had the opportunity to listen to two Canadian citizens discuss the Canadian health care system, and their personal experiences within it.  They were a very successful, middle-aged couple who had been involved in a motor vehicle accident in the United States while driving to Florida.  The accident in which they were involved was quite serious.  The wife suffered fractured ribs and a fractured sternum.  She also experienced pain in her shoulder, which wasn’t initially detected or diagnosed due to the extent of whole-body pain she was in.  She was taken to a nearby hospital.  Her husband, however, was more seriously injured.

He was trapped in the vehicle and had to be cut out by emergency personnel.  He was taken by helicopter to one of the premier shock trauma centers in the state, where he remained hospitalized for four days.  A broken leg, and a shattered wrist and forearm, necessitated surgeries, with hardware permanently implanted.  The husband received excellent care, as did the wife, though her injuries were not of a kind that are easily treated.  After four days, they returned to Canada, and began their recovery.

Had they lived in the United States, their recovery would have progressed entirely differently than it eventually did in Canada.  In the United States, they would have been seen within days by their primary care physician.  The husband would have been followed up by his surgeon.  Additional scans and studies, including MRIs, CT scans, and X-rays would have been performed to determine if his fractures were healing, if the bones were forming new growth where they had been joined with plates and screws.  The extent of any nerve damage would have been determined by EMG studies.  As soon as he was ready, he would have been started on a course of physical therapy directed to rehabilitating his many injuries, and returning him as closely as possible to his prior level of function, or that level that a maximum medical recovery would have allowed.  Such therapy would likely have been administered at least twice, and more likely three times or more, per week. The progress would have been recorded and the surgeon and primary care doctor, or other orthopedic specialist, would have been copied on the reports.  A team approach to this man’s healing would have brought about the greatest degree of recovery and resumption of function that it was possible to achieve.

POLITICS Comments turned off

Pretending Joe Biden Is Fine By Kyle Smith

Posted By on March 4th, 2020

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/pretending-joe-biden-is-fine/

As what appears to be a willful act of national make-believe sweeps the Democratic primaries, Alexandra Petri has a funny sarcastic column in the Washington Post: “I just remembered Joe Biden is fine.” She writes:

Please don’t show me any footage of Joe Biden saying or doing things. Or of me saying or doing things about Joe Biden, pointing out what I erroneously thought were major and obvious flaws in his candidacy. I forgot: They were not.

Biden has been trying to achieve the presidency since 1988. Even in his best days, he was not a strong candidate. And he’s much weaker today. Are Democrats just going to pretend that Biden didn’t look the other way while family members leveraged their connections to him to go into places like Ukraine and collect large paychecks? That Biden offers a coherent vision of where to take the country other than hokey nostalgia and bromides? That he wouldn’t be, on the day he takes office, older than any chief executive has ever been on the last day of his presidency? That his unscripted speech isn’t rambling, nonsensical, and bizarre? That he isn’t already showing signs of incipient dementia, ten months before his term would even begin? That he doesn’t make Grandpa Simpson look like a sage?