This Is Sad

The Daily Wire posted an article yesterday about some recent comments by former Vice-President Joe Biden. His mental decline under the pressure of campaigning is sad to watch. Because his campaign has announced that he will not be campaigning between now and the election, that decline will generally be hidden from voters.

The article reports:

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden warned on Sunday that next month’s election was the “most consequential” in a long time because of what would happen if there were “four more years of George,” an apparent reference to former President George Bush. Biden, after saying “George” twice, corrected himself.

“This is the most [consequential], not because I’m running, but because who I’m running against, this is the most consequential election in a long, long, long time,” Biden said. “And the character of the country, in my view, is literally on the ballot, what kind of country we’re going to be.”

“Four more years of George, uh, George, uh, he, uh,” Biden said, “gonna find ourselves in a position where if Trump gets elected we’re gonna be, we’re gonna be in a different world.”

The article includes another interesting statement:

Secondly, we’re in a situation where we have put together, and you guys did it for President Obama’s administration before this, we have put together, I think, the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics. What the president is trying to do is discourage people from voting by implying that their vote won’t be counted. It can’t be counted. We’re gonna challenge it and all these things. If enough people vote, it’s gonna overwhelm the system. You see what’s happening now. You guys know it as well as I do. You see the long, long lines in early voting.

This is simply sad to watch.

When Facts Get In The Way Of A Good Narrative

Yesterday Investor’s Business Daily posted an editorial about the situation on our southern border. I guess you might even call the editorial a fact-check on some of the things we have been told recently by the mainstream media.

The editorial reports:

NPR’s “fact check” — like countless others — dismissed Trump’s claim as false because “illegal border crossings in the most recent fiscal year (ending in September 2018) were actually lower than in either 2016 or 2014.”

What they aren’t telling you is border patrol agents apprehended more than 100,000 people trying to enter the country illegally in just October and November of last year. Or that that number is way up from the same two months the year before.

Nor do they mention that last year, the border patrol apprehended more than half a million people trying to get into the country illegally. And that number, too, is up from the year before.

NPR may call that a fact-check, but it seems to me that it is more like political spin.

The editorial continues:

Trump’s critics certainly don’t bother to mention that those figures only count illegals the border patrol caught. It does not count the ones who eluded border patrol agents and got into the country.

The Department of Homeland Security claims that about 20% of illegal border crossers make it into the country. Other studies, however, say border agents fail to apprehend as much as 50% of illegal crossers.

Even at the lower percentage, that means that 104,000 illegals made it into the country in 2018 alone.

Is that not a crisis at the border?

I strongly suggest that you follow the above link to read the entire editorial. It contains a lot of important information that is not necessarily being reported.

The editorial notes that previous Presidents noted the crisis and promised to fix it:

Here’s another problem with claims that we don’t have a crisis at the border.

Past presidents all treated it like one.

In 1982, for example, President Ronald Reagan said that “The ongoing migration of persons to the United States in violation of our laws is a serious national problem detrimental to the interests of the United States.”

President Bill Clinton said in his 1995 State of the Union address that “All Americans … are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country.” That’s why, he said, “our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders.”

President George Bush, in a prime-time Oval Office speech in 2006, declared that securing the U.S. border is a basic responsibility of a sovereign nation. It is also an urgent requirement of our national security.”

Bush also promised to end the practice of catch-and-release “once and for all.” He said that “people will know that they’ll be caught and sent home if they enter our country illegally.” 

President Barack Obama in 2005 declared that “we simply cannot allow people to pour into the United States undetected, undocumented, unchecked.” And in 2014 even he admitted there was a crisis on the border — one that he did virtually nothing to fix. (Apprehensions at the border last year were almost the same as in 2014.)

The editorial concludes:

Yet despite repeated promises by presidents and Congress for the past three decades, the border remains nearly as porous as ever. And catch-and-release is still alive and well. Is it any wonder so many try to cross the border illegally every month.

Isn’t the failure of leaders to do what they all say is necessary to protect national security interests the very definition of a crisis at the border?

Democrats, it seems, want to label everything a crisis. We have a health care crisis. A clean water crisis. A “food desert” crisis. An infrastructure crisis. A homelessness crisis.

Democrats label just about everything a crisis. Why? Because they want to whip up public support for bigger, more expensive, more intrusive government programs.

Everything, that is, except for the very real, long-standing crisis posed by a porous border that each year lets in tens of thousands of illegals.

The current government shutdown is about border security. Any other discussion is irrelevant spin. The Democrats simply do not want President Trump to have a border wall, and the Republicans do not want to see an end to cheap labor. That is the impasse.

Mourning A Past President

I am not former President Bush’s biggest fan, but the fact remains that he was a patriot who served his country in various ways. I am amazed at how the very members of the press who treated former President Bush very unfairly during the time he was President have now bestowed sainthood on him while using that sainthood to attack President Trump. I am totally convinced that in the eyes of the media, the only good Republican is a dead Republican.

A TMZ article posted at November 30 posted the following about President Bush’s accomplishments:

Along with being President, Bush also served as the 11th director of the CIA and 43rd Vice President of the U.S. under President Ronald Reagan. Bush was inaugurated as President on January 20, 1989.

Foreign policy — in particular the Gulf War, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolving of the Soviet Union — was the centerpiece of Bush’s presidency. Among his other accomplishments — instituting a ban on importing semi-automatic rifles and signing the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act and 1991 Civil Rights Act.

The article also notes:

Bush’s zinger during his election campaign, “Read my lips: no new taxes,” became an unforgettable moment … something he reneged on during his presidency.

Those new taxes were the result of a budget agreement brokered with the Democratic Congress. The agreement was supposed to help deal with the deficit. President Bush was praised for his courage in passing those taxes and was actually given the 2014 Profile in Courage Award by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation for the tax increase. Yet that tax increase caused a recession even though the tax was only on ‘luxury items.’ No one in Congress stopped to consider that taxing those items would have a negative impact on the people who built them. George Bush lost the 1992 election because the Democrats blamed him for the recession that followed the tax increase. Somehow the Democrats avoided taking responsibility for their part in brokering the budget deal.

At any rate, may President Bush rest in peace.

 

These Numbers Just Don’t Add Up

On Tuesday, Investor’s Business Daily posted an article about the Veterans Administration scandal that is the Obama Administration’s scandal de jour. The treatment of our veterans by the Veterans Administration hospitals is a disgrace and is inexcusable. However, some of the excuses given by the Obama Administration and its supporters simply do not hold water.

The Washington Examiner today quoted Nancy Pelosi on the scandal:

Pelosi took a shot at Bush while saying that the scandal is a high priority for Obama. “He sees the ramifications of some seeds that were sown a long time ago, when you have two wars over a long period of time and many, many more, millions more veterans,” she told reporters during her Thursday press briefing. “And so, I know that he is upset about it.”

The actual numbers tell a different story–it really isn’t George Bush’s fault.

Investor’s Business Daily has the chart:

The number of veterans is declining and the spending is going up, so what is going on?

The article at Investor’s Business Daily explains some of where the numbers on the chart come from:

Some will argue that the increase in health spending was the direct result of all those wounded warriors coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan.

But these vets aren’t driving VA costs higher.

A Congressional Budget Office report found that they cost $4,800, on average, in 2010 compared with $8,800 for other veterans who used the system.

It also found that while these Iraq and Afghan vets account for 7% of those treated, they were responsible for only 4% of its health costs.

…What’s more, the main reason for the growth in enrollment in the VA’s health service wasn’t those two wars; it was the Veterans’ Health Care Eligibility Reform Act of 1996, signed by President Clinton, “which required the VA to provide care to certain types of veterans, such as those with service-connected disabilities, and permitted VA to offer services to additional veterans if funding permitted,” the CBO report noted.

…That points to the fact that, unlike Medicare, Medicaid and, now, ObamaCare — which rely on private doctors and hospitals to provide subsidized or free care — the VA is a completely government-run system, with its own hospitals, clinics and providers.

As the department notes, it operates the nation’s largest integrated health care system, with more than 1,700 hospitals, clinics and other facilities.

For years, proponents of a single-payer health care system lauded the VA for this very reason, saying it was a model for the rest of the country.

“Yes, this is ‘socialized medicine,'” wrote liberal economist Paul Krugman in 2011, “But it works — and suggests what it will take to solve the troubles of U.S. health care more broadly.”

At best, the VA hospital scandal is the proof that socialized medicine is exactly the wrong prescription to solve the problems in the healthcare system in America. It’s not George Bush’s fault–the failure in the VA is due to the fact that socialized medicine does not work.

 

The Double Standard At Work

Yesterday Breitbart.com posted a story about the recent controversy regarding a rodeo clown at the Missouri State Fair. The clown wore a President Obama mask.

Breitbart.com reports:

On Tuesday, the Missouri State National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) issued a statement asking for federal involvement in the case of a rodeo clown who wore an Obama mask and then asked the crowd if they’d like to see Obama run down by a bull. “The activities at the Missouri State Fair targeting and inciting violence against our President are serious and warrant a full review by both the Secret Service and the Justice Department,” said State President Mary Ratliff. “Incidents involving individuals acting out with extreme violent behavior in movie theaters, schools, churches, political appearances, and outdoor events in general speaks volume to the irresponsible behavior of all the parties involved with the incendiary events at the Missouri State Fair.”

To be honest, I think the rodeo clown with the Obama mask is tacky. I think it was tacky when rodeo clowns wore George Bush masks. However, free speech is a part of American life. Where were all these people demanding investigations when this was done to George Bush? Why is this any different because President Obama is black (actually half black if you want to be technical)? If we had true equality of races, there would be no distinction between making fun of President Obama and making fun of President Bush. However, this is not really about race–it’s about politics–the political left always cries fowl when they are treated the way they routinely treat the political right.

There is nothing racial in this–the same thing was done to President Bush. I think it is tacky whatever race is involved. It may be considered satire in some circles, but it is definitely tacky.

Enhanced by Zemanta

Posted On Facebook By A Friend

MICHELLE CARUSO-CABRERA: Does the country have a spending problem sir? Does the country have a spending problem?

REP. STENY HOYER (D-MD), HOUSE MINORITY WHIP: Does the country have a spending problem? The country has a paying for problem. We haven’t paid for what we bought, we haven’t paid for our tax cuts, we haven’t paid for war.

CARUSO-CABRERA: How about what we promised? Are we promising too much?

HOYER: Absolutely. If we don’t pay, we shouldn’t buy.

CARUSO-CABRERA: So how is that different than a spending problem?

HOYER: Well, we spent a lot of money when George Bush was president of the United States in the House and Senate were controlled by Republicans. We spent a lot of money.

(Squawk Box, February 12, 2013)
Enhanced by Zemanta