Tag Archives: Hot Air

This Makes My Blood Boil

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On Thursday, Hot Air posted an article about Hamas’ release of the bodies of four hostages. The fact that Israel is backed into a corner and is releasing live terrorists for dead hostages is bad enough, but Hamas used to occasion as propaganda. It was disgusting.

The article quotes The U.K. Daily Mail:

Hamas has been condemned for parading the coffins of hostages in Gaza, with the United Nations rights chief saying the ‘abhorrent’ treatment of the October 7 attack victims ‘flies in the face of international law.’

Israelis are mourning the youngest hostages – baby Kfir Bibas and his four-year-old brother Ariel – as well as their mother Shiri and elderly captive Oded Lifshitz, whose bodies are believed to have been inside the caskets.

The four coffins were displayed to crowds in front of disturbing propaganda posters before being handed over to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) by armed Hamas fighters. 

I admire Israel’s restraint. If it were up to me, Gaza would be a radioactive parking lot by now.

The article at Hot Air includes multiple pictures of the transfer of the bodies of the hostages.

The article at Hot Air includes the following screenshot from X:

I agree.

UPDATE:

The woman’s body that was returned is not the mother of the two murdered children.

 

When The News Only Tells A Part Of The Story

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On February 13th, Hot Air posted an article illustrating the spin some of the media is using to try to sway public opinion about the cuts to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Although one of the stories sounds plausible, it really doesn’t show the entire picture.

The article states:

Sarah Newey, the global health security correspondent for the Telegraph based in Bangkok, Thailand, filed this report about the first victim of Elon Musk and DOGE’s USAID cuts. 

Here’s the takeaway.

A 71-year-old woman has died after her oxygen supply was cut off when the United States announced a freeze on aid funding. 

Pe Kha Lau, a refugee from Myanmar living in a displacement camp in neighbouring Thailand, died four days after she was discharged from a USAID-funded healthcare facility operated by the International Rescue Committee (IRC). 

She is thought to be one of the first people to have died as a direct result of Washington’s decision to freeze all funding for aid projects for 90 days. 

Her family told Reuters that she had frequently been sent to hospital in the last three years as she was dependent on a supply of oxygen, but was sent home after the IRC received a “stop-work” order in late January.

So let’s take a closer look.

The article continues:

…The NGO that was providing the money for the oxygen tank is the International Rescue Committee. They run the clinic Ms. Lau visited to get her oxygen. Here’s what you need to know about IRC.

Its president and CEO is David Miliband, a former Labour Party member of British Parliament who was in leadership, serving as Defence minister for a time. Being an NGO, they have to file 990 disclosure forms, which include the salaries of all senior officers. Mr. Miliband is bringing down, depending on the year, between $1.1 and $1.2 million dollars annually. The rest of the 11 named officers? None make less than $283,000 and range up to $440,000. 

Also, from their 990 submission, for the tax year 2021, the most recent data posted online, this was their financial status – a little over $1.3 billion in revenue, including $728.3 million in government grants. In 2021, they had $527 million in assets, $210 million of it in cash, and $119 million in securities. And yet we’re led to believe by the Telegraph that this woman’s death is on Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s hands because she was literally starved of oxygen to save a buck or two. The cost of an oxygen tank for personal consumption? Between $75 and $150 dollars.

So what have we gotten for the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on a former Labour MP’s charity? Antisemitism and a push for allowing more illegal immigration into the United States.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. I don’t think the problem here is Elon Musk freezing the USAID budget. I think the problem is misplaced priorities within the International Rescue Committee. I am not convinced that they are rescuing anyone except the people running the organization.

Pay Attention To Who Is Screaming The Loudest

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President Trump and Elon Musk have certainly shaken things up in Washington. You would think everyone would get on board with cleaning up fraud and waste in the government and cutting spending. It kind of makes you wonder why anyone would oppose those things. Well, we are starting to find out why.

On Wednesday, Hot Air posted an article about one group who is opposed to all of the sunlight currently shining on government expenses. I know that this is an incredible coincidence, but one of the groups opposed to looking into and cutting the spending has received a lot of money from the government agency doing the spending.

The article reports:

It might be easier to keep a list of who in the Establishment DOESN’T get USAID funding than those who do. 

As everybody in the Elite screams from the top of their lungs about the injustice of it all, it turns out that cuts to USAID are so offensive to them because USAID is nothing but a piggy bank for every damn one of them. 

The article includes the following:

That might explain the following:

The article notes:
Senator Kennedy, who can always be counted on for interesting comments, is quoted on X:
The article concludes:

I want to see where every dollar goes. Every self-righteous organization, by complaining, is outing itself as yet another grifter that subsists off the hard work of the people they are working to suppress.

This is a war between the Establishment and the people. Nothing less.

Stay tuned and get out the popcorn!

The Money Went Where??!!

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On February 6th, Hot Air posted an article the Democrats’ battle to save the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Aside from the fact that most Americans would like to cut government spending somewhere, the spending cuts the Democrats are protesting would probably be spending cuts most Americans would approve. This is not a smart battle on the part of the Democrats.

The article lists some of the specifics of the spending:

Here are a few more of the ridiculous projects on which they spent YOUR money:

— $7.9 million to teach Sri Lankan journalists how to avoid “binary-gendered language”

— $20 million for a new Sesame Street show in Iraq

— $4.5+ million to “combat disinformation” in Kazakhstan

— $1.5 million for “art for inclusion of people with disabilities”

— $2 million for sex changes and “LGBT activism” in Guatemala

— $6 million to “transform digital spaces to reflect feminist democratic principles”

— $2.1 million to help the BBC “value the diversity of Libyan society”

— $10 million worth of USAID-funded meals, which went to an al Qaeda-linked terrorist group

— $25 million for Deloitte to promote “green transportation” in the country of Georgia

— $6 million for tourism in Egypt

— $2.5 million to promote “inclusion” in Vietnam

— $16.8 million for a SEPARATE “inclusion” group in Vietnam

— ~$5 million to EcoHealth Alliance, one of the key NGOs funding bat virus research at the Wuhan lab

— $20 million for a group related to a key player in the Russiagate impeachment hoax

— $1.1 million to an Armenian “LGBT group”

— $1.2 million to help the African Methodist Episcopal Church Service and Development Agency in Washington, D.C., build “a state-of-the-art 440 seat auditorium”

— $1.3 million to Arab and Jewish photographers

— $1.5 million to promote “LGBT advocacy” in Jamaica

— $1.5 million to “rebuild” the Cuban media ecosystem

— $2 million to promote “LGBT equality through entrepreneurship” in Latin America

— $500K to solve sectarian violence in Israel (just ten days before the Hamas October 7 attack)

— $2.3 million for “artisanal and small scale gold mining” in the Amazon

— $3.9 million for “LGBT causes” in the western Balkans

— $5.5 million for LGBT activism in Uganda

— $6 million for advancing LGBT issues in “priority countries around the world”

— $6.3 million for men who have sex with men in South Africa

— $8.3 million for “USAID Education: Equity and Inclusion”

— USAID’s “climate strategy” outlined a $150 billion “whole-of-agency” approach to building an “equitable world with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.”

The article notes:

For decades, USAID bureaucrats believed they were accountable to no one — but that era is over.

President Trump is STOPPING the waste, fraud, and abuse.

This is definitely a get-out-the-popcorn moment.

This Needed To Be Done

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There is some serious concern on the part of Democrats about the investigation and possible demise of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). On Tuesday, The Gateway Pundit posted pictures of Democrats demonstrating outside the Treasury Building to protest the investigation into USAID.

The article notes:

Democrat Reps. Ayanna Pressley and LaMonica McIver called for violence during the “Nobody Elected Elon” protest outside the Treasury Department.

“We will not take this!” Rep. LaMonica McIver shouted before attacking Elon Musk. “We will fight back! And goddammit shut down the Senate! We are at war!”

Sounds like insurrection to me.

But the story gets more interesting.

On Wednesday, Hot Air reported the following:

USAID has been funding terrorism–even our most dangerous enemies–and the USAID Inspector General in January warned that the agency was a danger to US national security.

…That’s not exactly a newsflash for anybody who has been following the revelations that have come out over the past few days, but it puts an exclamation mark on them. 

Just days before Elon Musk began a purge at the U.S. Agency for International Develop (USAID), the foreign aid agency was warned in a stinging memo from its own internal watchdog that it had created serious “vulnerabilities” by doling out billions of tax dollars to overseas countries and groups without fulling vetting for terrorists and fraudsters or demanding transparency from recipients of America’s largesse.

The memo, which was published by the Inspector General of the U.S. Agency for International Development in late January, details some long-standing concerns about how safeguards against misuse of funds and the proper authorities to hold violators accountable are missing from the Office of Inspector General’s toolbox. 

The article at hot Air includes the following post on X:

USAID needs to go away.

The Flak Is Always Thickest Over The Target

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The first two weeks of the Trump administration have been a whirlwind. That is probably because the President realizes that he needs to act quickly to prevent a major crash of the American economy. The best way to cut taxes is to cut government spending, and that is happening at breakneck speed. Not everyone is happy.

On Tuesday, Hot Air posted an article about the hill the Democrats are prepared to die on.

The article reports:

Of all the things Donald Trump is doing to upend the old order in Washington, it turns out that closing USAID, even temporarily, is the one thing that all Democrats can agree is egregious enough to go to war over.

Here are a few X screenshots from the article:

The article concludes:

Democrats are making it clear that they will fight like cornered rats to keep control of USAID and its massive funding stream.

We all know why, which is why Trump needs to win this battle one way or another.

This is a major step toward cutting government spending and lowering taxes for the American people.

A New Level Of Insanity

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On Tuesday, The Federal News Network reported the following:

Federal employees have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration’s Office of Personnel Management, after the agency created and began testing an email system meant to deliver mass communications directly to federal employees’ inboxes.

The lawsuit from two anonymous federal employees in the executive branch alleges OPM violated the 2002 E-Government Act by not releasing details of how the communication system will manage federal employees’ personal information stored in the system.

Kel McClanahan, executive director of the National Security Counselors law firm, filed the pro bono lawsuit on behalf of the plaintiffs, alleging that the email system poses security risks for federal employees’ personal information.

“A one-stop shop for information about every government employee in the federal executive branch is just a treasure trove for hackers, or even just curiosity seekers,” McClanahan said in an interview.

An article at Hot Air posted on Wednesday notes:

What personal information is at risk?

Their email address is hardly a state secret. It’s not like the president will be asking for their social security number and putting it in a database.

You can see the real reason that these people are suing–aided by a left-leaning group doing the work pro-bono–in the highlighted portion. They don’t want to get bad news and want to throw sand into the works.

The article at Hot Air includes the following chart:

No private company would put up with this. Why should the federal government?

This is really about the email the employees received offering them a buyout. The lawsuit is just to delay the inevitable.

Standing Up For America

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On Monday, Hot Air posted an article about the recent dust-up with Columbia about the return of Colombian citizens who were here illegally. After the planes carrying the illegals were in the air, the Colombian President Gustavo Petro announced that he would not let the planes land in Columbia. That really was not a very smart move.

The article notes:

As Ed wrote, it took 37 minutes for Columbia’s President Gustavo Petro to reverse himself on accepting Colombian deportees AND to offer his presidential plane to carry out the deportations. 

37 minutes, or three holes of golf for the president. Between the end of his third hole, when President Trump tweeted out his threats to President Petro and the sixth hole, the diplomatic dispute was resolved in our favor.

…The Pravda media and many in the transnational elite were horrified by what happened.

Donald Trump is so mean.

He bullied the poor, poor president of Columbia. Yankee imperialism in its worst form! Trump is a big mean bully who doesn’t respect our neighbors like Petro.

So let’s look at some of Petro’s history. The article notes:

At age 17, while studying economics at Externado University of Colombia in Bogotá, Petro was recruited by the 19th of April Movement (M-19), a Marxist guerrilla group that took its name from the date on which the group argued that the 1970 Colombian presidential election had been “stolen.” The group often resorted to audacious militant actions, including the kidnapping and murder of a labour leader in 1976, a raid on a Bogotá arsenal in 1979, and the kidnapping of cocktail-party guests at the Bogotá embassy of the Dominican Republic in 1980. …In October 1985, while disguised as a woman, Petro was arrested and incarcerated after he was found to be in possession of firearms, homemade explosives, and propaganda. Some three weeks later, while Petro was still behind bars, the M-19 undertook its most notorious operation: an invasion of the Palace of Justice in Bogotá, where it took scores of hostages. In the subsequent military assault on the building, some 100 people were killed, including half of Colombia’s Supreme Court judges. In March 1987 Petro was released from confinement, and he helped promote peace talks between the M-19 and the Colombian government. In 1990 he demobilized along with the rest of the M-19 after negotiations with Colombian Pres. Virgilio Barco led to amnesty for members of the group, which then transformed into a legitimate political party, Alianza Democrática M-19.

If the people sent here from Columbia illegally were so bad that Colombian President Gustavo Petro didn’t want them in his country, we certainly don’t want them in our country.

Please follow the link to the article for further details.

Help That Is Neither Needed Or Appreciated

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On Friday, Ed Morrissey posted an article at Hot Air about the Senate Democrats’ offer of bipartisanship on the border. They wrote a letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune that they would be glad to provide input on any border security bill under consideration by the Republicans. Really?!!? I would love to know what the Democrats’ definition of border security is. The last bill the Democrats proposed for border security allowed for 2500 illegal entries per day in exchange for a gauzy promise to maybe build the wall at some point in the future. Somehow I don’t think they are serious about border security.

The article reports:

The push came in a Jan. 22 letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., which was led by Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., and signed by 12 other Democrats, mostly from politically competitive states.

“We understand that Senate Republicans have discussed using the budget reconciliation process to advance border security budget measures without any Democratic input. While that’s your right, in working together on a bipartisan basis, we can achieve the best outcome for the American people,” the Democrats wrote. “We remain ready to work with you in good faith to craft legislation that can achieve bipartisan support and 60 votes in the Senate.”

…Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., laughed out loud when asked about the letter and whether Republicans might accept their overture.

“That’s a letter we will ignore,” Johnson said in an interview. “We’re not going to wait for them. If they want to secure the border, they could have done that,” he added. “That’s not what they want.”

…Republicans have gotten burned on this issue repeatedly. Democrats spent years playing them as racists for wanting the border secured and illegals deported, but Joe Biden’s disastrous term in office made it clear that Donald Trump and the GOP are the mainstream point of view on illegal immigration, and that voters consider Democrats incompetent or worse on the issue. That’s why several Democrats rejected their leadership to vote for the Laken Riley Act, after having attempted to hijack it last year to push for relaxing asylum rules and enshrining stampede-levels of illegal border crossings as thresholds for “emergency” treatment. 

NBC also notes why Democrats have suddenly found an interest in getting on the right side of immigration enforcement:

Democrats in battleground states and districts are breaking with the bulk of their party on immigration, as they believe that the positions of progressives and leaders of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus are out of touch with their voters. The rightward shift comes after Democrats got clobbered on the issue of immigration in the 2024 election, and lost Latino men to Trump.

Asking the Democrats for help with the border would be like asking a fox to help design the hen house.

Racing Toward Irrelevance

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I think most Americans are willing to let bygones be bygones in terms of the mainstream media. Americans are a forgiving bunch and have not yet totally tuned out the mainstream media yet. However, the mainstream media is not helping their cause.

On Tuesday, Hot Air posted an article titled, “And the New Hoaxes Begin….” Unfortunately, that is an accurate title. Some of the mainstream media is already shouting that the Trump administration is made up of Nazis. I really am tired of everything the liberals don’t like being labeled ‘Nazi.’

The article reports:

Did Elon Musk give a Nazi salute at an inaugural rally with Trump supporters? In a sane world the question would be absurd to even consider, but we live in the Truman Show.

…If you believe the Pravda Media and the left-wing hoaxers, you might think he did. I took a quick break from watching X and the festivities to lie down yesterday afternoon and was greeted by a torrent of tweets insisting that Elon Musk has liberated his inner Nazi and spoke at the Nuremberg rally or something.

Here are some screen shots of the posts at X about the matter:

Note that the first screenshot is from PBS. We paid for that. It’s really sad that the mainstream media not only finds this necessary, but begins it hours after the swearing in of a new President. The other thing to watch for is the use of ‘Mr. Trump’ in reporting rather than ‘President Trump.’ That is still going on.

I Guess They Have Different Priorities

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On Saturday, Hot Air posted an article about part of the confirmation hearings for Kristi Noem. Senator Blumenthal thought that he had laid the perfect trap for the nominee. Unfortunately for him, it totally backfired.

The article records part of the exchange; the rest is on X:

RICHARD BLUMENTHAL: “Will you help me reunite children with their parents who were separated by Trump’s family separation policy?”

KRISTI NOEM: “What I’m alarmed by is the over 300,000 children that went missing during the Biden administration.”

BLUMENTHAL: “Let’s put aside the labels and what happened in the past. There are still 1,000 children who were separated and waiting to be reunited. I’d like your commitment to continuing the effort to reunite them with their parents.”

NOEM: “Well, I can’t put aside 300,000 children. Keeping families together is critically important to me and to this country. I’m concerned about Laken Riley’s family and that they no longer have her… We will uphold our laws and make sure we are doing everything we can to keep children safe from the trafficking and drug epidemics.”

One of the ways that the Trump administration was fighting child trafficking was to take DNA samples at the border to make sure that the child in question was indeed traveling with his/her family. One of the first things the Biden administration did was to end that testing.

The article notes:

For years, the Democrats have moved heaven and earth to enable the world’s biggest human trafficking operation and have been shipping at taxpayer expense unaccompanied minors to fake “relatives” who spirit them away to God knows where. They haven’t just let it happen; they have been subsidizing and encouraging it, along with the importation of fentanyl. Their policies have enriched the drug cartels to the tune of billions of dollars, and they are proud of it.

It’s time to close the border. But we do need to realize that part of the fentanyl problem is the users as well as the dealers. We need to find better ways to help drug addicts to save their lives and to get drugs off of the streets.

Unintentionally Or Otherwise, America Is Leading The Way

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The progressive movement is slowing down worldwide, if not stopping. On Saturday, Ed Morrissey at Hot Air quoted a Wall Street Journal article on the subject of the decline of the progressive movement.

The article reports:

This past year showed that the progressive politics that dominated most industrialized countries over the past two decades or more is shifting to the right, fueled by working-class anxieties over the economy and immigration, and growing fatigue with issues from climate change to identity politics. …

Part of the shift is the normal pendulum of politics swinging back and forth between established parties on the left and right. The difference this time is a strong strain of populism and a growing rejection of traditional parties. 

In country after country, many working-class voters—especially those outside the biggest cities—are signaling the same thing: They mistrust the establishment—from academics to bankers to traditional politicians—and feel these elites are out of touch and don’t care about people like them.

Years of increased migration and trade, coupled with low economic growth, have led to a backlash and a rise in nationalism, where people want more of a sense of control, political analysts say. The rise of social media has exacerbated divisions and led to an upsurge in antiestablishment parties.

The monopoly that the political left has had on the media ended on the radio when The Rush Limbaugh show went national and on the internet when Elon Musk bought Twitter. There is still some censorship on Twitter, but it is nothing compared to what it was before Elon Musk bought it.

The article at Hot Air reminds us:

Economics are part of this too, but are more of a symptom than a root cause. Western economics has suffered from climate-change hysteria pushed by the progressive Left as a means to seize control of energy production. Where that has succeeded, in Germany and the UK to some extent, it has produced economic hardship and promises more of the same for the future. Germany in particular has a crisis on its hands which will shrink its income and wealth unless it takes rapid steps to return to reliable and scalable energy production. The US went in this direction to a lesser extent in the Obama and Biden years too, but they didn’t have enough buy-in to do the kind of extensive damage that the radicals did in Germany.

Add in the lies about the pandemic, transgenderism, forced multiculturalism through open borders, and wokery in general. Those are the first causes of the rejection of the progressive “moment” and of the neo-Marxists who seized power through it. When it began to damage economies enough for voters to notice, not to mention all of the other quality-of-life indicators that matter to the electorate, then the rejection was not just predictable but long overdue.

People around the world welcome a change to work and become economically successful. The progressive movement historically has transferred wealth to a favored few.

Making America’s Economy Great Again

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On Saturday, Hot Air posted an article by Economist Stephen Moore with suggestions about helping the American economy recover from four years of the Biden administration.

This is the list:

1. Slash Job-Killing Regulations

2. Make the Trump Tax Cuts Permanent

3. Replace Welfare With Work

4. Use America’s Abundant Natural Resource

5. Cut Medical Costs by Demanding Health Care Price Transparency

6. Allow School Choice for All Families

7. Implement a Pro-America Immigration Policy

8. Revive America’s Great Cities

9. Pull the U.S. Out of the Paris Climate Change Treaty and Other Anti-America Agreements

10. Finally, Drain the Swamp

Please follow the link to the article for details. All of these are doable. All of these ideas benefit all Americans. It would be wonderful to see America’s cities return to being safe, clean places that are wonderful to visit.

About That Longshoreman’s Strike

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On Friday, Hot Air posted an article about the Longshoreman’s strike that is currently on hold. The hold will end, and the strike may resume on January 15th. One of the reasons the strike has not been settled is the debate over the automation of American ports. Oddly enough, President Trump has come out against automation.

Hot Air reports:

…The Biden administration was completely hands-off until the union physically shut the ports down. Even then, their participation only went as far as the Secretary of Labor finally flying in to meet with both parties to “urge” them to work through their differences and for the USMX to give a little to the union. That’s classic Scranton Joe for you there.

Public pressure and outrage, election upheaval, not to mention a looming economic disaster all probably served to cool some heated jets enough for a bit of progress to be made in a short period of time. The USMX agreed to something on the order of a 62% wage hike over 6 years. Then everybody agreed to get the docks reopened under the terms of the old contract while they hammered out other, thornier issues, but only until 15 January 2025.

The article notes:

This contract agreement is set to end five days before the inauguration – the 15th. Trump owes much of his support for winning to disaffected union workers who bucked their bosses and union tradition to vote for him. Trump IS the ‘workers’ president,’ and he knows it. Don’t forget, he even had a good meeting with curmudgeonly ILA head Harold Daggett before the election. He knows what their issues are, and he’s also an international businessman. Trump’s dealt with shipping companies, etc.

Trump also knows all about these guys – this is the foreign face of the USMX, the “alliance” that controls the ports. 

The article points out that the jobs that would be automated would not help with the bottlenecks that occur at our ports.

The bottleneck is caused by the rail capacity going in and out of the ports.

The article concludes:

So it makes you wonder if the foreign operators of these ports are simply looking to dump the dozen or so biggest salaries under the guise of efficiency when, in reality, nothing is going out of the gate any faster than it already is. It physically can’t.

One more angle Bingley thought of, and I thought it was brilliant.

The optics of a strike or a lockout.

These longshoremen want to work. Ostensibly, they are fighting not to be out of work.

If the ports shut down and Trump invokes Taft-Hartley, as Bingley said to me, 1) sending the National Guard in to force people to work (an ILA strike) versus 2) sending them in to unlock the gates to ALLOW people to work (a USMX lockout)?

The first is greedy union and zero sympathy.

In the second scenario, Trump becomes the America First president, acting on his promise of protecting American workers against powerful foreign interests. The same ones who, for too long, have taken advantage of liberal business policies and conditions here, destroying American jobs.

It’s BOX OFFICE GOLD.

So that’s our wild-eyed take on it. We could be way wrong, but then again…

I mean, crazier things have happened. 

Like…Trump’s gonna be president again, isn’t he?

Stay tuned.

Short-term Gains At The Expense Of Long-term Gains

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On Sunday, John Stossel posted an article at Hot Air about America’s ports. In the fall, the International Longshoremen’s Association went on strike asking for higher wages and a ban on automation. A strike was avoided when the current contract was extended until January 15th. President Trump takes office on January 20th. The Longshoremen’s strike will be one of the first things he has to deal with. I am hoping he follows the example of Ronald Reagan’s handling of the air traffic controllers’ strike.

The article at Hot Air reports:

America’s ports have fallen behind. Not a single one ranks in the top 50 worldwide.

A big reason is that dock unions stop innovation.

This fall, the International Longshoremen’s Association shut down East and Gulf coast ports, striking for a raise and a ban on automation. They got the raise.

 Now union president Harold Daggett says longshoremen will strike again in January if they don’t get that ban on automation.

His statement in my new video makes it clear that he knows how badly his strike would damage other Americans.

“Guys who sell cars can’t sell cars, because the cars ain’t coming in off the ships. They get laid off,” says Daggett. “Construction workers get laid off because materials aren’t coming in. The steel’s not coming in. The lumber’s not coming in. They lose their job.”

Obviously, labor leaders aren’t necessarily “pro worker,” says Mercatus Center economist Liya Palagashvili.

“They’re saying, ‘We don’t care if these other jobs are destroyed as long as we get what we want.'”

Daggett is unusually clueless. He doesn’t understand that a ban on automation will also hurt his members.

As Palagashvili puts it, “They’ll save some jobs today, but they’ll destroy a lot more jobs in the future.”

The article also notes:

That’s because today’s shippers have options. Daggett’s union only controls East and Gulf coast ports. Shippers can deliver their products to ports that accept automation. 

“We’re going to see less activity in ‘Stone Age’ ports,” says Palagashvili.

“Stone Age?” 

“They want to ban automated opening and closing of port doors,” she points out, requiring workers to pull heavy doors themselves.

Weirdly, the union boss makes his demands while also pointing out that dockworker jobs are dangerous.

“Very dangerous … We’ve had 17 people killed in the last three years!”

That’s terrible, but it’s an argument for automation! Using machines instead of vulnerable humans protects human workers. Daggett’s arguing against himself!

I see why he wouldn’t agree to an interview.

“It’s backwards,” notes Palagashvili. “(If) you care about the safety of these workers, you should enhance their jobs and make them safer and better. And the only way you can do that is with technological advancements in automation.”

Other countries have used automated cranes for years. They’re 80% faster than the human-operated cranes in many American ports.

It will be very interesting to watch the outcome of this strike. If the union gets its wage hikes and ban on automation, business may go to other ports and the ports involved may lose traffic. If the unions go on strike, business will go to other ports. I think that if I were a union member, I would want a new leader.

Notre Dame Is Reopening On December 8

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On Wednesday, Hot Air posted an article about the reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. In 2019, the historic cathedral was seriously damaged in a fire. The article at Hot Air points out the significance of the invitation to President Trump to attend the ceremonies.

The article reports:

It will be a grand affair, attended by 50 heads of state, and Donald Trump is being treated as one of them even before he returns to power on January 20th, 2025.

That’s a big deal, because it is a symbolic acknowledgment that in the eyes of the world, including Europe, Donald Trump is already the president who matters. Joe Biden is PINO (President in Name Only).

It’s no secret that European leaders viewed Donald Trump as an interloper, an uninvited member who barged into their cozy little club in 2017. They disdained him, ridiculed him as oh-so-gauche, and breathed a sigh of relief when he left the world stage in 2021. 

And, it remains true that they would prefer a different president than the one they have coming, but not only are they reconciled to a Trump return, they may even be glad that it was he rather than Joe Biden or Kamala Harris who will be sitting in the Oval Office. After all, four years of Joe Biden have not exactly been great for Europe, with a hot war on their Eastern flank and turmoil on their Southern one. 

It is interesting that the current crop of European leaders do not appreciate the person of President Trump. When you look at the history of America vs. the history of Europe, you immediately notice that there is a streak of practical independence in America that does not always put pomp and circumstance first. President Trump is not going to bow down to European leaders. He will be polite, but will put the interests of America first (as President of America, he is supposed to do that). President Trump has already indicated that he is not interested in playing games–he wants to get America back on track as quickly as possible. Anyone who sincerely wants to help is welcome to climb aboard the train. Anyone who wants to stand in his way will probably get run over by the train. We need leaders like that.

How The Pilgrims Succeeded

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As someone who lived in New England for 45 years, the thought of coming to Massachusetts in November without the luxuries of central heating and indoor plumbing is horrifying. But somehow the Pilgrims survived. I recently posted the story of Samoset and Squanto (article here), but there was another aspect to the survival of the Pilgrims–private property rights.

On Sunday, John Stossel posted the following at Hot Air:

As we gather this Thanksgiving, it’s easy to take abundance for granted.

        Leftovers are practically guaranteed.

It wasn’t always this way.

For most of history, there were no Thanksgiving feasts. Hunger, if not starvation, was the norm.

Today, supermarkets are stocked with exotic foods from all over the world. Most of it is more affordable than ever. Even after President Joe Biden’s 8% inflation, Americans spend less than 12% of our income on food, half of what they spent 100 years ago

Why?

Because free markets happened. Capitalism happened.

When there is rule of law and private property, and people feel secure that no thief or government will take their property, farmers find new ways to grow more on less land. Greedy entrepreneurs lower costs and deliver goods faster. Consumers have better options.

Yet today many Americans trash capitalism, demanding government “fixes” to make sure everyone gets equal amounts of this and that.

But it’s in countries with the most government intervention where there are empty store shelves and hungrier people.

The article recounts some early American history:

This week, we celebrate the Pilgrims, who learned this lesson the hard way.

When they first landed in America, they tried communal living. The harvest was shared equally. That seemed fair.

But it failed miserably. A few Pilgrims worked hard, but others didn’t, claiming “weakness and inability,” as William Bradford, the governor of the colony, put it.

They nearly starved.

Desperate, Bradford tried another approach. “Every family,” he wrote, “was assigned a parcel of land.”

Private property! Capitalism! Suddenly, more pilgrims worked hard.

Of course they did. Now they got to keep what they made.

Bradford wrote, “It made all hands very industrious.”

He spelled out the lesson “The failure of this experiment of communal service, which was tried for several years, and by good and honest men proves the emptiness of the theory … taking away of private property, and the possession of it in community … would make a state happy and flourishing.”

The free market works–crony capitalism does not. It will be the job of the Trump administration to restore the free market economy and end crony capitalism. It won’t be easy, and they may not be able to complete the job, but we need them to begin.

When The Powers That Be Don’t Like Your Definition

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On Tuesday, Hot Air posted an article about Alice Wairimu Nderitu, who has served as the United Nations Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide since 2020. Nderitu’s contract has expired. Normally, renewing that contract is routine. However, this time her contract was not renewed–she was essentially fired.

The article explains the reason:

Alice Wairimu Nderitu has served as the United Nations Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide since 2020. During that period, Nderitu has urged caution regarding the use of the term, telling the UN to only apply it when genocidal intent is both manifest and the only legitimate explanation, lest “genocide” get watered down into mere political fashion. That is especially true in clear counter-terrorism operations, Nderitu warned, specifically resisting the application of the term “genocide” in the war Hamas started.

According to The Wall Street Journal:

Her paper explains that the term “genocide” was coined in 1944 by Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin to describe massacres of entire ethnic groups with the intention of eliminating them. That definition, Ms. Nderitu has said, includes the Holocaust, the Hutus’ genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda, the Serbian slaughter of Bosnian Muslims, and may include the ethnic killings now unfolding in Sudan. 

As a legal matter, establishing a pattern of violence as a genocide requires demonstrating intent. Israel’s campaign of self-defense doesn’t qualify. The war against Hamas has had many deaths, but Israel’s strategy is intended to dismantle a terrorist regime, not eliminate an ethnic group. The Jewish state has gone to great lengths to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties, even as Hamas uses civilians as shields so their deaths can be used as propaganda.

That’s not what the anti-Israel cabal at the U.N. want to hear.

The article at Hot Air concludes:

To call this a genocide is absurd. The Israelis are taking far more care about protecting civilian populations than any of the belligerents in World War II did, the conflict that birthed the UN. They are the only army in history that is expected to feed the population that started a war with them while the war still rages, in population centers where belligerents still attack the Israelis from civilian infrastructure. 

Moreover, Hamas has made its genocidal intentions against the Israelis and Jews in general explicitly known and declared ever since its founding. After October 7, their representatives announced that Hamas would keep conducting such massacres and atrocities until they destroyed Israel and enslaved the Jews that managed to survive. IDF operations uncovered Hamas’ specific plans for the enslavement of the remnants.

There’s a genocide going on, all right. And the UN is siding with it. 

“Can anyone with integrity survive at the UN?” the WSJ editors wonder. Not for long, it seems. If they want to side with genocidal terrorism, what value is there in the United Nations, even as a debating society?

There is no equivalency between the violence of October 7, 2023, and Israel’s fight for its survival. The United Nations has become what it was founded to prevent–an organization acting in opposition to the defense of freedom.

I Guess It’s Not Okay To Be A Child Anymore

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I realize that the world has changed–when our children were growing up, they would ride their bikes to the town swimming pool or to the town general store where they sold penny candy. They understood that they needed to be home by the time the streetlights came on. I realize that the world has changed, but some of the changes are ridiculous.

On Thursday, Hot Air reported the following:

Brittany Patterson lives in a rural part of Georgia with her four kids. Her husband is a superintendent at a school in Montana and is away much of the time. Last month, Patterson had to take one of her children to the doctor’s office. She left her 10-year-old son Soren (he’s nearly 11) at home with her father, the boy’s grandfather.

At some point, Soren decided to go for a walk to a local gas station where he knew his best friend’s grandmother was working. He didn’t ask permission, he just went. Someone saw him walking along the road and called police.

The article quotes an article from The Free Press:

Lenore Skenazy, a parenting advocate who runs the nonprofit Let Grow and first reported Patterson’s story, told me that her case shouldn’t have even required police involvement.

The female stranger who first saw Soren walking down the road asked if he was okay, and was told yes, but the stranger called 911 anyway. “When the sheriff answered the call, that should have been the end of it,” Skenazy said.

The article at Hot Air continues:

Instead, local law enforcement picked up Soren and brought him home. A few hours later, police officers showed up and arrested Brittany Patterson.

…She was taken to the police station, stripped and put in an orange jumpsuit. She was initially told the charge was “reckless endangerment,” but there is no such offense in Georgia. The actual charge was reckless conduct, a misdemeanor which could land her in jail for up to a year. Patterson’s lawyer David DeLugas points out that under Georgia law parents can leave a child aged 9-12 with a caretaker for up to two hours. She left Soren at home with his grandfather for 90 minutes. And since she didn’t give him permission to walk to the store, there was no criminal act here.

The article at Hot Air concludes:

The world has changed a lot since we were kids but 10-year-olds will always need to wander off and explore things on their own. The fact that most kids have phones and can call for help if they get in trouble makes this a relatively low-risk activity these days. It’s part of growing up and not something that needs to be remedied with arrests, threats of jail and government mandated supervision of kids.

The cops in this case really just need to back off…

This is ridiculous. There is a find-my-friends app on most cell phones that can track the location of a child. What kind of a world has drag queens doing library story hour and won’t let a 10-year old walk down the street by himself?

The Biden Administration Continues To Get It Wrong On Israel

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Israel was brutally attacked on October 7th, 2023. At that time, Gaza was independently governed, Israelis were not present in Gaza, and many residents of Gaza were commuting to Israel for better-paying jobs. There was essentially a two-state solution. Obviously, Hamas was not satisfied with the status quo–they want control of Jerusalem. The Biden administration’s actions and policies toward Israel since that day have been a disgrace to our nation. Recently Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke out against the bad judgement of the Biden administration.

On Tuesday, Hot Air reported:

Speaking to the Knesset today, Netanyahu ripped the guidance and pressure from Biden and Antony Blinken over the last thirteen months in the wake of the October 7 terrorist attacks. Every single strategic demand made by Biden and Blinken during that time turned out to be wrong, which echoes a warning made by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates about Biden’s supposed foreign-policy expertise.

…For those who don’t recall, Gates served both George W. Bush and Barack Obama as Defense Secretary. In his memoir Duty, Gates wrote that then-VP Biden has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” Biden has spent the last three-plus years proving Gates’ point, especially in his disgraceful rout out of Kabul and abandonment of 14,000 Americans to the Taliban. But Biden’s attempts to play general in Israel’s war against Iran and its proxies since the October 7 massacres provides ample proof of Gates’ insight as well. 

The article notes:

The Biden-Harris administration on Monday unveiled sweeping new sanctions on Israeli Jews, just days after it awarded another $230 million in taxpayer funds to the Palestinians. The back-to-back announcements signal that diplomatic relations between Israel and the outgoing White House will continue to sour until President-elect Donald Trump retakes office next year.

The new sanctions are the broadest to date, imposing unprecedented punitive measures on three Israeli organizations the administration accuses of fomenting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. They were leveled just days after a coalition of nearly 90 congressional Democrats petitioned the Biden administration to ramp up sanctions on Israel before leaving the White House.

The sanctions were announced just three days after the Biden-Harris administration awarded another $230 million in funding for humanitarian projects in the West Bank and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The American government has now sent more than $2 billion in taxpayer funds to the Palestinians since Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror spree on Israel—even as critics warn this cash is keeping Hamas on life support.

The Biden administration is currently on the wrong side of history and on the wrong side of the God of Israel. That’s not a good place to be, and hopefully the Trump administration will change things quickly in January.

This Is Not A Good Sign

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On Tuesday, Hot Air posted an article about what is happening to the Jewish population in Germany. The massive immigration of people from the Middle East into Germany and Europe has had a number of unintended consequences.

The article reports:

No doubt, there are plenty of wonderful Muslims who contribute in many ways to our society. I am not suggesting that all Muslims are terrorists or bad citizens, but if you can’t see that the mass importation of people who openly despise Western Civilization, declare their commitment to Islamizing our societies, and impose Sharia law on Westerners has turned out badly, I invite you to move to Iran or Syria.

America, due to its lack of proximity to the Middle East, has suffered the least from this self-imposed disaster. Europe, on the other hand, may collapse due to the idiocy of its elites. As a general rule, America does a better job of integrating migrants, and with a more dynamic economy, opportunities to rise up the socio-economic ladder made integrating a more realistic and attractive option than in Europe.

Germany and Sweden have helped lead the way in disastrous policymaking. And now, once again, Berlin has become unsafe for Jews and Gays.

Tolerance wins.

This is what is happening in Germany:

Jews and gay people should hide their identity in parts of Berlin with large Arab populations, the German capital’s police chief has warned.

“There are areas of the city, we need to be perfectly honest here, where I would advise people who wear a kippah or are openly gay to be more careful,” said Barbara Slowik.

“There are certain neighbourhoods where the majority of people of Arab origin live, who also have sympathies for terrorist groups,” she said, adding that they were often “openly hostile towards Jews”.

She told the Berliner Zeitung newspaper that “violent crimes against Jewish people are few and far between, but every act is one too many”.

A fortnight ago, a youth football team from Makkabi Berlin, a Jewish sports club, reported being “hunted down” by youths carrying sticks and knives after a match in an Arab neighbourhood of the city. The victims, aged 13 to 15, said they were spat at and insulted throughout the match.

Taking in large groups of migrants–too big to assimilate–from a place with a totally different culture is never a good idea.

Law Don’t Mean Anything Unless They Are Enforced

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On Friday, Hot Air posted an article about the ongoing vote counting in the Senate election in Pennsylvania. So far those counting the votes have ignored court decisions regarding which ballots can be counted.

The following screenshots are part of the article:

The article reports:

The board’s legal team suggested the commissioners reject the ballots because the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had given clear guidance about signatures being required for votes to count.

There were approximately 124 ballots that would not count because of missing signatures.

Republican Sen.-elect David McCormick won 48.93% of the vote and Democratic incumbent Bob Casey captured 48.50% of the vote, thus triggering a recount. 

However, as of Wednesday, there are approximately 80,000 left to be counted, including 20,000 mail-in and absentee ballots and around 60,000 provisional ballots. 

Counties must begin their recount on Nov. 20 and have until Nov. 27 to report their results to the Secretary of the Commonwealth. 

Casey, the third-term Senator, has not yet conceded the race. 

Philadelphia City Commissioners also voted to count a “relatively small number of undated and incorrectly dated mail ballots.”

“Republicans filed a petition to the PA Supreme Court against all counties to attempt to stop all counties from counting these ballots,” Philadelphia City Commissioners said in a statement to Fox News. “They also filed a statutory appeal challenging Bucks County’s decision to count undated and incorrectly dated mail ballots. We are reviewing the filings.”

An RNC official told Fox News that the decisions made by the county election boards were “ridiculous.”  The GOP has filed two lawsuits against Bucks County and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to stop the counting of these ballots.

The article concludes:

Post-election legal maneuvering is hardly unusual in close races, and most of the time, Republicans do a piss-poor job of fighting against the sophisticated tactics the Democrats and lying scumbags like Marc Elias use to snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat.

This year, though, Lara Trump and her crack team were prepared for the fight and won some big battles. In return, Democrats are now defying court decisions openly and on camera.

If you are a Democrat, do you support lawlessness? Should the rules for counting votes be applied evenly to both political parties?

The Latest October Surprise

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Today, Hot Air posted an article about the latest charge against President Trump–that he is an admirer of Adolf Hitler. As long as we are talking about Hitler, should we mention that Hitler was an admirer of Margaret Sanger, who is worshiped by Hillary Clinton and Planned Parenthood? Should we mention that abortion clinics are purposefully placed in minority neighborhoods in keeping with Margaret Sanger’s belief in eugenics and racial purity? However, I digress.

The headline of the article is:

General Kelly, If You ‘Knew’ Trump Admired Hitler Why Didn’t You Resign?

The article notes:

It’s the elites toward which he aims his fire. And it is the elites who aim their fire at him, often using hoaxes. The Steele Dossier, the RUSSIA RUSSIA RUSSIA hoax, the “fine people” hoax, the inject bleach hoax, the 51 intelligence agents hoax… It has been hoaxes all the way down. All day, every day the transnational elites perpetrate hoaxes aimed at discrediting Donald Trump. It is what they do.

The article includes the following Tweets:

What the Democrats seem to forget is that President Trump was President for four years. He had a very successful presidency. He reduced taxes ON THE MIDDLE CLASS (statistics here), reduced regulation, and lowered the cost of insulin (which the Biden administration raised back up then claimed credit for lowering).

The article concludes:

After all, your evidence for this slander is thin and self-contradictory: one man says this when EVERYBODY around Trump denies it wholeheartedly. 

Either that man is lying, or he is a moral monster who knowingly worked for a Nazi. 

So your star witness is a man who admits he would work for a Nazi. Good luck with that. 

If you believe his story, you are a sucker and a loser.

Expect to hear more of this garbage in the coming days before the election. This is what desperation looks like.

Maybe Yahya Sinwar Was Not The Entire Problem

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On Friday, Ed Morrissey posted an article at Hot Air about some of the statements made after the killing of Yahya Sinwar. Those who fail to learn the lessons of history tend to repeat the mistakes.

The article reports:

So much for all of the fatuous demands from the Biden foreign-policy team for Israel to declare an end to the war. Both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris made remarks yesterday cheering the death of Yahya Sinwar in Rafah, a city that both had warned Israel not to enter at all for most of the winter and spring. Both proclaimed this a great time to declare the conflict over, as did the State Department — and all aimed at getting Benjamin Netanyahu to stand down:

As both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris celebrated Sinwar’s death, they also expressed hope that the moment would enable Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare victory in Gaza and bring Israeli operations there to a close, finally clearing the way to a hostage deal and easing the daily drumbeat of grim headlines: civilian casualties in Gaza, ongoing Israeli operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and a looming Israeli strike against Iran.

Biden’s statement made even less sense than Harris’, which at least sounded coherent. I clipped this strange remark from Biden in the Final Word post last night, but it’s worth considering here as well:

“This is a good day for Israel, for the United States, and for the world,” Biden said in a statement.

“To my Israeli friends, this is no doubt a day of relief and reminiscence, similar to the scenes witnessed throughout the United States after President Obama ordered the raid to kill Osama Bin Laden in 2011.”

The killing of Osama Bin Laden in 2011 really had little impact on anything except to bring some closure to the families of 9/11 victims. It really had very little impact on the war on terror–it was doubtful how much Bin Laden was controlling at that point.

The article notes:

Netanyahu isn’t the problem; Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran are the belligerents that started this war. And all three have declared that they intend to keep fighting it even after the deaths of the leadership in both Iranian proxies. Hamas confirmed Sinwar’s death and reiterated his position that they would not negotiate on hostages until Israel withdraws from Gaza and pledges not to return:

Israeli hostages in Gaza will not return until “the aggression” on the besieged Palestinian enclave stops and Israeli forces withdraw, Khalil Al-Hayya, deputy Gaza Hamas chief and the group’s chief negotiator, said on Friday.

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed by the IDF, Hamas official Basem Naim confirmed on Friday, Israeli media reported. …

“Israel seems to believe that killing our leaders means the end of our movement and the struggle of the Palestinian people. They can believe what they want, and this is not the first time they have said that,” he added.

Israel did not start this war. I hope Israel continues it until all of Hamas is wiped out. Until that happens, there will not be peace. Israel is not the problem–nor is Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Money From The Government Isn’t Really Free

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On Saturday, Hot Air posted an article about the cost of ‘free money.’ There really isn’t a free lunch.

The article reports:

Some politicians and activists are eager to give you “free” money.       

They call it universal basic income (UBI) — cash for everyone, no strings attached.

Comedian Dave Chappelle thinks UBI would “save my community almost instantly.”

In my new video, UBI activist Conrad Shaw agrees, “You would effectively get rid of extreme poverty immediately.”

He says a UBI will help people “start businesses, fix their homes or invest in sustainable gardens.”

Well, “sustainable gardens” might be nice, but someone still has to make stuff. And that requires work — often difficult work.

When I was young, If I hadn’t needed to work to support myself, I wouldn’t have pushed so hard to overcome my fears, my stuttering and my reluctance to speak publicly. I wouldn’t have become successful. I might have stayed in bed most of the day.

But Shaw disagrees. “I don’t believe you,” he says. “Nobody actually wants that … people find their passions not simply because they need to make money.“

The article cites the results of an experiment where people were given a UBI:

It turns out that Sam Altman, the guy behind ChatGPT, helped create such a test. His big study gave 1,000 low-income people $1,000 per month for three years — no strings attached. What happened?

Not the great things that were promised. After three years of getting $1,000/month, UBI recipients were actually a little deeper in debt than before.

Work isn’t always fun, but there is pride in doing a job well. Accepting free money and not having to work does not encourage one to be creative–it encourages one to be lazy and entitled.

The article concludes:

“If we were to get rid of unemployment insurance, food stamps, welfare and all the other insane policies we have, and just have a moderate universal basic income,” says Harvard economist Jeffrey Miron, “I think it would be a huge improvement.”

But that will never happen. Anytime anyone tries to cut any government program, people freak out. Imagine trying to cut all welfare.

“The chances politically that will happen are probably zero,” says Miron.

 Progressives want to add UBI to already existing programs.

“Adding more programs is insane!” says Miron. “It will make the entire country melt down. The people who will bear the brunt of that will be people who are poor. The rich will move to other countries … hide their assets. We will have a debt crisis like nobody’s ever seen before.”

 We already have a debt crisis like nobody’s seen before!

 Let’s not make it worse with a UBI.