How leftists help you By J.A. Frascino

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/03/how_leftists_help_you.html

Make problems. Solve problems with other problems. Repeat

Progressivism’s response to issues of concern to the proletariat:

Since 2010, GDP has increased 53%, from $15T to $23.4T.  Since 2010, total government debt has increased 157%, from $14T to $36T.  Government debt has increased three times faster than national productivity.  Not to worry…we handle that by raising the debt ceiling, selling treasuries, and printing money.

Household debt is $17T.  We’ll help by canceling student loan debt ($1.8T).  You can show your appreciation at the ballot box, or by early or absentee voting.

Inflation persists, triggered in large part by the post-COVID fiscal stimulus programs the government cavalierly infused into the economy after shutting it down in homage to “science.”  Maybe, but we can blame it all on Russia.

Recent bank failures have occurred, due in part to Fed-mandated interest rate hikes instituted to combat the inflation it helped start in the first place.  We’re on it.  We’ll bail them out, probably with your money, especially if they funded the Tech industry…big Democrat donors.

Middle-class share of the U.S. aggregate income has fallen from 62% in 1970 to 43% in 2018.  Yes, but we’ll continue to send blue-collar manufacturing jobs to Asia.  Let them be responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, not us.  And since most of the ultra-wealthy in the nation are now of the left, we’re no longer too concerned with income inequality.

Health care costs amount to 18% of GDP, due largely to drugs, devices, and end-of-life care.  Assuring universal access to health care through Medicaid expansion will somehow take care of that.

We have no border security…but lots of new potential Democratic voters.

College dropout rates are around 40%.  A lot of degrees now awarded don’t have any marketplace relevance anyway.  It’s all about indoctrination.

Male labor force participation rate has fallen from 86% in 1950 to 68% in 2022.  Only natural.  As we have evolved from a manufacturing-based to an information-based society, we now have a female-based workforce.  A man’s place is now in the home.

The White House is Whistling Past America’s Bank Graveyard by Lawrence Kadish

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19501/the-white-house-is-whistling-past-america-bank

Once I built a railroad, I made it run
Made it race against time
Once I built a railroad, now it’s done
Brother, can you spare a dime?

Once I built a tower up to the sun
Brick and rivet and lime
Once I built a tower, now it’s done
Brother, can you spare a dime?

Written by E. Y. Harburg and Jay Gorney during the height of 1930s, the song became America’s grim national anthem during The Great Depression.

As we watch the instability of our banking system unfold, those 90 year old lyrics may be more relevant than we wish to acknowledge.

Part of today’s banking crisis was instigated by the Federal Reserve whose micro-management of interest rates created a balance sheet gap for some regional banks, institutions that have played a crucial role in powering our economy by working with small and middle size businesses.

Another lit fuse in this crisis is a White House that has allowed crypto currency to be considered a genuine part of our economy. It is not. It is little more than a digital set of zeroes and ones with illusionary value, dictated hourly by an online marketplace. Then there is Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellin, who is currently engaging in a national theatrical performance seeking to convince Americans the banking system is secure. Her performance on and off stage leaves much to be desired.

Federal Court Rules Against NY Worker Fired for Refusing to Attend LGBTQ Training By Eric Lendrum

https://amgreatness.com/2023/03/16/federal-court-rules-against-ny-worker-fired-for-refusing-to-attend-lgbtq-training/

On Monday, a federal appellate court ruled that the firing of a New York man who refused to attend a pro-LGBTQ training session was legal.

As reported by the New York Post, Raymond Zdunski argued in his lawsuit that his employer, the Erie 2-Chautauqua-Cattaraugus Board of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES), attempted to “change his religious beliefs about gender and sexuality” by forcing him to attend a diversity training session focused on people who claim to be LGBTQ. His employer refused his request for a religious exception, citing his Christian beliefs.

Zdunski subsequently sought $10 million in damages, as well as reinstatement and back pay. The lawsuit was originally dismissed last year by District Judge Geoffrey Crawford. The recent ruling by the Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with Crawford’s original decision, supporting BOCES’ decision to fire him.

In both cases, the judge and the court claimed that Zdunski was wrong to claim he was the victim of “unlawful religious discrimination.” Crawford’s original ruling specifically noted that BOCES was required to provide such diversity training by a state law, the Dignity for All Students Act, and thus claimed that to give Zdunski an exemption would be committing a state crime.

“It just seems like the country is against the Christian way of life, and it’s for everything else,” Zdunski said in response to the latest ruling. “We’re not allowed to practice our way of life but anyone else can, it seems.”

The company issued its own statement after the court’s ruling, saying that “we agree with the decisions of both the United States District Court and the Court of Appeals, and remain committed to fostering a safe and supportive environment for all students and staff.”

Victimhood Forever California’s preposterous push to offer reparations to blacks—in a state where slavery never existed—will inflame racial tensions. Soledad Ursúa

https://www.city-journal.org/california-victimhood-forever

In December 2022, California’s nine-member Reparations Task Force, formed by Governor Gavin Newsom two years earlier, estimated that, if a reparations program were ever adopted, each black person in the state descended from slaves could receive as much as $223,200 in compensation for past injustice. The projected total cost, to California taxpayers, could reach $569 billion—almost two and a half times the state’s current budget. The task force is due to give its final recommendations in June 2023, including the exact monetary amount of compensation. “We are looking at reparations on a scale that is the largest since Reconstruction,” said one task-force member.

And yet: California was never a slave state. It entered the Union as a free state in 1850 after its acquisition from Mexico, which had banned slavery in 1837. So the task force, while dictating that only descendants of slaves can receive payouts, has focused on housing discrimination that took place between 1933 and 1977, a period beginning 68 years after slavery was abolished in the United States. But this is just a baseline. Other areas—mass incarceration, forced sterilization, unjust property seizures, and devaluation of businesses—might warrant “future deliberation.”

Lawmakers in Democratic-controlled states such as Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Oregon have similarly introduced (or hoped to revive) proposals to study reparations; so far, only California has successfully advanced the cause. Its work could become a model not only for other states but also for a federal reparations plan. Meantime, San Francisco has introduced its own reparations initiative and has proposed a $5 million payment to each black resident.

California Democrats’ intention to pursue racially targeted financial payouts could prove politically risky.

Daniel Greenfield: San Fran Board of Supervisors Endorses Race Reparations to Cost Each Non-Black Family $600,000 Supervisors said they were surprised to hear pushback from politically liberal San Franciscans

https://www.frontpagemag.com/san-francisco-board-of-supervisors-endorses-race-reparations-to-cost-each-non-black-family-600000/

The slave state of San Francisco is moving forward on a plan to pay reparations for generations of slavery under the Bay Area Confederacy. And all it will take is $600,000 from every non-black family in the area.

“San Francisco’s African American Reparations Advisory Committee submitted a proposal to the city’s Human Rights Commission that would pay every eligible African American adult living in San Francisco $5 million. The report calls for 18 other financial recommendations, including the cancellation of personal debts, annual income supplements for 250 years, and the conversion of public housing to condominiums that would be gifted to recipients.”

The cost, “presented on a per-household basis, will be nearly $600,000 per non–African American San Francisco household.”

And that’s a conservative estimate.

The major cost component of the proposal is the $5 million payment for each eligible African American who is 18 years or older. The Census Bureau estimates there are 46,466 African Americans in San Francisco. Among them are about 35,445 individuals who are 18 years or older, given the age distribution of the African American population.

Paying $5 million to 35,455 individuals totals about $175 billion. To put this in perspective, the city’s budget for the current fiscal year is $14 billion, while this proposed sum exceeds the current state budgets of all US states except for California, New York, and Texas.

How Dr. Fauci Shaped the COVID-19 Narrative And the question remains: why? by Jeffrey Gunter

https://www.frontpagemag.com/how-dr-fauci-shaped-the-covid-19-narrative/

We now know what we always suspected in the beginning. The Covid-19 virus was leaked from a lab in Wuhan that caused chaos worldwide. The death and destruction of Covid-19 was used as a political weapon and millions of lives were lost in the process. President Trump called it in the very beginning. He instinctively knew the origin behind the virus, and he was fearless in presenting this truth to the American people.

According to a memo released by the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, Fauci not only waved away concerns that the virus was a lab leak, knowing this was not the case, but also paved the way for ridicule and punishment of anyone would push back on his “faux medical propaganda campaign.”

The revelations revealed by the Congressional Subcommittee investigating the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic showed that the misinformation surrounding the lab theory and blatant suppression was intentional. CNN suppressed this. Dr. Fauci suppressed this. In so doing,

Fauci lied to those he swore to take care of, namely the American people.

The reports now clearly show that the media’s most beloved, Dr. Fauci, commissioned the “Proximal Origins” paper, to dismiss the theory that the virus originated from a lab in Wuhan. Fauci desperately used a premier scientific journal, “Nature” to spread his lies, while thousands of Americans were dying around the country.

Countdown To New York’s Rendezvous With Energy Impossibility Francis Menton

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2023-3-15-countdown-to-new-yorks-rendezvous-with-energy-impossibility

The race is on to see who hits the green energy wall of impossibility first. California, Germany and the UK (the “Poseurs”) might seem to have leapt early into the lead positions. But New York is now making a strong sprint to catch and surpass them, so it can be the first to splatter its citizens’ flesh and blood all over the impenetrable barricade.

The Poseurs accumulate vast green progressive virtue credits for ridiculous promises, but their promises all have dates so far in the future that today’s politicians will be long gone when the crash detonates. Germany promises 100% of electricity from renewables by 2035. Whoopie! Chancellor Scholz will be out tending his unfertilized Spargel gardens long before then. In California they don’t promise 100% renewable electricity until 2045, by which time Governor Newsom will likely be not just retired but dead.

Who has sufficiently pure cult adherence to set firm green energy deadlines with real consequences in the here and now? That task has fallen to the true climate heroes here in New York City.

New York City’s bid to create the first real test of an impossible green energy deadline is found in its Climate Mobilization Act of 2019, the key part of which goes by the name Local Law 97. LL97 (formal name: New York City Administrative Code Sections 28-320 and 28-321) imposes energy efficiency standards on large residential buildings starting in 2024 — next year. Buildings that fail to meet the standards are subject to large and accelerating fines starting right away.

It appears that the owners of these buildings are just now figuring out that the standards that have been set cannot be met, at least not in any remotely reasonable way. What next?

The Left’s Criminal Abuse Of The Young

https://issuesinsights.com/2023/03/17/the-lefts-criminal-abuse-of-young-people/

Democrats have long portrayed themselves as the great guardians of the children. In truth, they are destroying the young. The harm they’ve done to children, teens and young adults has spiked in recent years, from scaremongering about global warming to pandemic lockdowns that have unnerved a generation to teaching them a divisive, politically charged curriculum.

According to ​​an online medical journal, the University of Calgary has determined there was a spike “in emergency department visits for attempted suicide and suicide ideation among children and adolescents” during the period of “social isolation” that coincides with the pandemic lockdowns. The university conducted a meta-analysis of 42 studies representing more than 11 million pediatric emergency department visits in 18 countries, and compared “the data on visits prior to the pandemic with those that took place during the pandemic, up to July 2021.”

Researchers found “a 22% increase in children and adolescents going to emergency departments for suicide attempts, and an 8% increase in visits for suicide ideation,” even though there was “a 32% reduction in pediatric emergency department visits for any health-related reasons during the pandemic.”

And which party was almost fully responsible for forcing the young into isolation? It was the Democrats in this country and their ideological kin in others, with the encouragement and approval of their media department, who placed the young under virtual house arrest and closed schools, houses of worship, playgrounds and other settings where social interaction takes place. No wonder so many lost hope.

New Poll Shows What Voters Think About Trump and the 2020 Election By Catherine Salgado

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/catherinesalgado/2023/03/16/new-poll-shows-what-voters-think-about-trump-and-the-2020-election-n1679101

One man still Trumps other Republicans in popularity. A new Rasmussen Reports poll shows that the majority of voters believe Republicans and Democrats secretly worked together to sabotage Donald Trump’s re-election bid, and a significant majority of GOP voters still see Trump as the best leader of the Republican Party.

Rasmussen published survey results on March 16 with both surprising and not-so-surprising results. As most polls have shown consistently for years now, Donald Trump is still perceived as the most important leader of the Republican Party; 37% of all likely voters told Rasmussen that Trump was a better leader for the Republican Party, and 60% of Republicans also chose Trump (Trump has 77% favorability with GOP voters and 52% favorability among all voters).

More men (56%) than women (50%) voters had a somewhat favorable opinion of Trump, along with 48% of unaffiliated voters. And 51% of Democrats, 12% of Republicans, and 38% of independents had a “Very Unfavorable impression of Trump.” The poll did not ask specifically about the 2024 presidential primary.

But the Rasmussen poll also found that not only did more than two-thirds of Republicans, but a majority of all likely voters think it’s “somewhat likely” Republicans secretly colluded with Democrats to stop Trump’s re-election. It adds interesting data to the ongoing debate surrounding alleged voter fraud and controversial candidates in the 2020 and 2022 elections.

The Avignon Presidency, or the American Schism By David Solway

https://pjmedia.com/columns/david-solway-2/2023/03/16/the-avignon-presidency-or-the-american-schism-n1679061

When one surveys the American scene today, socially, culturally, politically, and economically, what may come to mind is a historical analog with what is known as the Western Schism that divided the 14th-century papacy between Rome and Avignon. Of course, analogical correlates are almost never fully cognate, yet they will often provide instructive parallels between past and present. What we are currently observing in the U.S. is a case in point.

A brief survey of the Schism may be helpful. The Western Schism refers to the fissure within the Catholic Church that saw pontiffs residing in Rome and Avignon, both claiming to be the true pope. As Edwin Mullins meticulously documents in The Popes of Avignon: A Century in Exile, the situation involving rival claimants to the Holy See was as complex as it was ferocious, the seat of theological power alternating between Rome and Avignon and leading eventually to the removal of the papal enclave to Avignon for forty years.

Altogether there were nine Avignon Popes, many of whom were called antipopes, but only two of whom, Clement VII and Benedict XIII, were canonically known as antipopes. Both, as P.G. Maxwell-Stuart writes in Chronicle of the Popes, were unsavory characters: Clement, a weak and unscrupulous man, who collaborated in the destruction of the Knights Templar, and Benedict who refused to resign, barricading himself in his castle and continuing to fraudulently elect new cardinals. The Council of Constance finally put an end to the reign of the Avignon popes in 1418.

Similarly, the political schism in the U.S. can be regarded as equally disruptive, entailing historic consequences that may ultimately destroy the life and continuity of a great nation. The presidential election of 2020 is frequently described as “irregular.” This is a patent euphemism. As many have come to believe, and as considerable evidence suggests, the election was mired in corruption, scandal, and covert manipulation. A system involving vote harvesting, absentee ballots, mysterious closures of voting stations in the dead of night, malfunctioning tabulators, suppression of critical information by the major digital platforms “to warp an election,” in the words of Victor Davis Hanson, and the furtive operation of hired mules, occurring especially in swing states, cannot be said by any stretch of the imagination to ensure an indisputable or reliable electoral outcome.