Cowardice In The Senate

Our Senators and Congressmen are elected representatives. They are voted in by the people they are supposed to represent. A certain amount of transparency is expected from them so that the voters can decide whether or not to reelect them. Unfortunately, some of our cowardly Senators have learned how to get around that transparency and avoid taking responsibility for the votes they cast in the Senate.

Just the News posted an article yesterday that reported the following:

The Senate Armed Services Committee approved a $740 billion 2021 defense authorization bill on Wednesday that establishes a commission that would make recommendations on renaming military bases named after Confederate leaders and implement the plan within three years from the date the bill becomes law.

According to the office of the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Jack Reed, the committee passed an amendment by voice vote during a closed-door session that would create “a commission to study and provide recommendations” concerning the removal of “names, symbols, displays, monuments, and paraphernalia that honor or commemorate the Confederate States of America.”

The amendment was passed by a voice vote so that no one would know who voted for it and who voted against it. No one is actually taking responsibility for the vote.

The article continues, illustrating the further lack of transparency:

The amendment was approved during a “secret level” markup session that concluded on Wednesday evening. The full text of the amendment, which was introduced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), has not been made available yet. Warren’s office was not available for comment. The office of Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-Okla.) also did not respond before publication.

Inhofe reportedly said on Thursday that he would seek to change the language of the amendment so that renaming the military bases would not be a congressional requirement.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) tweeted on Thursday that he opposed the amendment and “spoke against it” during the closed-door, full committee markup of the defense bill.

“Congress should not be mandating renaming of our bases and military installations,” he wrote.

The House Armed Services Committee has a hearing scheduled in July for the defense authorization bill.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that Democratic leaders might include renaming military bases and removing Confederate statues from the Capitol as part of the defense bill or as standalone legislation.

The Civil War is a part of American history. There were many brave men who fought on both sides. All of the soldiers fighting for the Union were not fighting because they opposed slavery and all of the soldiers fighting for the Confederacy were not fighting because they supported slavery. There were multiple motives on both sides. Can we please get over ourselves and grow up?

Going Further Into Debt To Support Terrorism

On Friday, The Daily Wire posted an article about some of the recent discussions happening in Congress. The article notes the Senator Ted Cruz has criticized Senator Diane Feinstein because she is trying to appropriate money to send to Iran (the world’s major fund source for terrorism).

The article reports:

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz unloaded on his Democratic colleagues on Friday in response to Sen. Dianne Feinstein sending a letter to President Trump declaring that she is “disappointed” in his administration’s plan to block funding to the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, Iran. The Democrats’ demand of Trump to help Iran get $5 billion in aid, Cruz noted, comes “at the exact same time” that they are “blocking desperately need relief to small businesses in America.”

The article continues:

In late March, a group of Democratic lawmakers — among them Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Ilhan Omar (MN), and Rashida Tlaib (MI), and Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) — sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Sec. Steve Mnuchin calling for the easing of U.S. sanctions on Iran during the coronavirus pandemic, a request that was dead on arrival. Iran has since requested $5 billion in aid from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In response to the Trump administration indicating that they have no intention of allowing the terror-sponsoring state to get the massive infusion of money, Sen. Feinstein sent her own letter on Thursday expressing her disappointment.

The timing of the letter was unfortunate for Senator Feinstein:

Feinstein’s letter was issued the same day that Senate Democrats blocked an urgent request from Sec. Mnuchin to increase the amount of cash in the emergency small business loan program recently established by Congress from $350 billion to $600 billion.

In response to the pair of moves, Cruz called out Feinstein and the Democrats for what he suggested were some backward “priorities.”

When Secretary Mnuchin asked for more money to help small business, the  Democrats in Congress acted the same way they have in the past:

As the New York Post’s editorial board explains, instead of agreeing to the desperately needed increase in cash on Thursday, the Democrats “issued partisan demands”: “They insisted the new money include $60 billion for ‘community-based lenders’ that serve minorities, women, nonprofits and other groups. And the bill also had to OK an immediate $250 billion for cities, states, hospitals, food stamps and other needs.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) explained in response that “everything is an opportunity.” This was an “opportunity” to address “disparities” she suggested are plaguing the country.

“And if they don’t get their way, no one gets a dime more,” the Post’s editorial board noted. “Never mind that businesses face bankruptcy or that 17 million people filed for jobless benefits in recent weeks.”

We don’t need term limits–we need intelligent voters who remember these antics when they vote in November.

Elizabeth Warren Has Dropped Out Of The Democrat Presidential Race

Elizabeth Warren is no longer running for President. I am not sure who she will support–I suspect it will be Joe Biden. That is because I think she wants to be in the good graces of the party heavyweights who are supporting Biden. The Democrat primary is now between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden. It is interesting to me that both are blaming President Trump for everything that is wrong with Washington–they have been there more than forty years and he has been there three.

Yesterday Accuracy in Media posted an interesting article about what is going on behind the scenes in the Democrat primary.

The article notes:

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) claimed the 2016 Democratic Party primary was rigged in favor of his opponent, Hillary Clinton. President Trump made the same claim on behalf of Sanders, especially after the coalescing of moderate Democratic Party candidates behind former vice president Joe Biden.

President Donald Trump told the press, “I think it’s rigged against Bernie.” He said that Sanders is not out of the race yet and could “pull through” and win the nomination in the party’s convention. The president previously tweeted that the Democratic Party was “staging a coup against Bernie” on Monday.

…By all appearances, the timing of Buttigieg and Klobuchar exiting the primary race was unorthodox because the Super Tuesday primaries were taking place within 72 hours. Neither candidate indicated that they would leave the race after the South Carolina primary election.

Additionally, news reports said that Buttigieg suspended his campaign after speaking with former president Barack Obama, a Biden ally. NBC News said, “There appears to be a quiet hand behind the rapid movement: former President Barack Obama.”

Although it cannot be proven that the Democratic Party primary system is rigged against Sanders, there are indications that the party establishment is working against Sanders’ campaign. It also does not help that the media will not publicly question the theory that the party establishment is working against Sanders. For example, last week, NBC News claimed Sanders “’rigged’ the system against himself.”

The media was dishonest in its news coverage because it failed to emphasize the behind-the-scenes workings of the Democratic Party establishment to coalesce around Biden and hamstring Sanders. It cannot be proven by conjecture and news reports, but the coverage trends do not favor Sanders’ viability as a candidate fighting an internal battle against the party establishment.

I am having trouble believing that the media is unaware that Joe Biden is a horrible candidate. The only reason for having him be the candidate is to prevent Bernie Sanders from being the candidate. This is flawed logic–if Bernie Sanders is denied the nomination again, I doubt his supporters will vote at all. Young voters don’t have a great voting record to begin with and having their candidate denied the nomination unfairly might easily cause them to stay home. I really don’t believe that when all is said and done that Joe Biden will be the candidate. I am suspicious that someone will step in during the convention and take the nomination. I can’t imaging how that would happen, but Joe Biden seems to be so mentally incompetent that I can’t imaging putting him on the ticket. Can you picture a debate between Joe Biden and President Trump? Do you remember Admiral Stockwell?

The New Way Forward Act

The Daily Caller posted an article yesterday about The New Way Forward Act which was referred to the Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship on January 30, 2020.

The article lists some of the highlights of the bill:

The bill, among many things, calls for the decriminalization of illegal immigration, would make it more difficult to deport convicted criminal aliens, empower immigration judges to nullify deportation orders, and also calls for the return of previously deported illegal aliens.

…The decriminalization of illegal immigration was already becoming a more mainstream position with the Democratic Party. In fact, before the introduction of the bill, Democratic presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren both came out in support of the proposal. Sanders, a clear frontrunner in the nomination contest, has also voiced support for virtually ceasing all deportations.

The New Way Forward, however, takes these positions even farther.

Under the auspices of the bill, minimum prison sentences that require deportation would rise from one year to five years. This could mean that illegal aliens who are convicted of crimes such as car theft, weapons offenses and fraud — all crimes that carry average sentences of less than five years, according to Bureau of Justice Statistics — would not be required to be removed from the country.

The article concludes:

The president, during his address, also touted a GOP bill in the Senate that would allow victims of illegal alien crime to sue states that released the alien in defiance of an ICE detainer.

“Democrats in the House have prioritized open borders over the safety of citizens and legal law abiding immigrants,” Marguerite Telford, a spokeswoman for the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based immigration think tank, said in a statement to the DCNF.

Like the president, Telford also compared Democratic immigration priories with that of GOP lawmakers

“Contrast that with most Republicans who are worried about safety and focus on sanctuary jurisdictions, driver’s license laws, knowing who is crossing our border … and the rule of law in general,” she continued. “For example, Rep. Gosar has the Criminal Alien Removal Clarification Act which stands in stark contrast to the New Way bill.”

I guess the question is whether it is more important to protect the rights of American citizens or the ‘rights’ of those who are here illegally.

Inquiring Minds Want To Know…

Yesterday Breitbart reported that the book Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite hit #1 on Amazon Saturday, despite the fact that the book’s official release is still over a week away.

The article reports:

Very little is publicly known about the book’s contents. Government Accountability Institute President and Breitbart News senior contributor Peter Schweizer and his investigative team spent a year and a half researching it. A source close to the publisher said the book’s contents will “upend official Washington” and that Schweizer’s prior bombshell revelations about Hunter Biden were “just the tip of the iceberg.” The book is said to contain brand new evidence that five members of Joe Biden’s family—the “Biden Five”—scored “tens of millions of dollars” in taxpayer cash and guaranteed loans.

Mike Allen of Axios, who exclusively announced HarperCollins’ forthcoming release of Profiles in Corruption, reported that the book’s table of contents includes chapters on leading progressives, including:

    • Joe Biden
    • Eric Garcetti
    • Cory Booker
    • Elizabeth Warren
    • Sherrod Brown
    • Bernie Sanders
    • Amy Klobuchar

If Schweizer’s next book is anything like his four previous consecutive New York Times bestsellers, Washington will feel its shockwaves. Secret Empires exposed Joe and Hunter Biden’s Ukraine and China dealings, touching off a firestorm of coverage about Hunter Biden’s $83,000 a month work on behalf of Ukranian energy giant Burisma while Joe Biden led U.S.-Ukraine policy as vice president. Clinton Cash sparked an FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation and uncovered the Uranium One scandal. Extortion led to lawmakers retiring. And Throw Them All Out pulled back the curtain on insider trading by members of Congress and led to the passage of the STOCK (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge) Act.

I can’t wait.

Campaign Promises vs. Reality

The Gateway Pundit is reporting today that Elizabeth Warren has promised to get rid of the Electoral College during her first term in office. Has anyone told her what the steps are to amend the U.S. Constitution? This is not something that can easily be accomplished in four years. The promise also shows a lack of understanding (or possibly an ulterior motive) of the Electoral College. Without the Electoral College, America would be ruled by New York, California, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. Before you decide whether that is good or bad, you need to look at the budgets, taxes, and cost of living in those states.

The article notes:

Democrats want to do away with the College in order to take away power in smaller states and give states with large urban populations more clout.

Democrats like South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, author Marianne Williamson, and former Obama administration cabinet secretary Julian Castro want to abolish the Electoral College, while Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Kamala Harris and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard have voiced support for doing away with the College.

But just like a lot of other ideas from Warren — like her $52 trillion Medicare for all proposal — her plan is a non-starter. Doing away with the College would require a constitutional amendment, and that can only take place if a two-thirds supermajority in Congress passes an amendment, which is then ratified by three-fourths of the states.

Yeah, that ain’t happening. Just like so many of Warren’s other wacky plans.

The framers of the U.S. Constitution included the Electoral College to make sure that smaller states had some influence in American elections. To do away with the Electoral College would drastically change America (not for the better).

A Nightmare For Healthcare In America

Issues & Insights posted an article today about Elizabeth Warren’s healthcare plan for America.

These are some highlights from the article:

So Warren simply waves her magic wand and makes $14 trillion in costs disappear. And how does she cut Medicare for All’s price tag by 41%?

By proposing:

    • impossibly deep cuts in drug prices,
    • devastating cuts in payments to hospitals and doctors,
    • and entirely unrealistic claims about overhead costs.

Even with Warren’s phony price tag of $20.5 trillion, the taxes required are truly astronomical. Warren says businesses would have to contribute $8.8 trillion in taxes to help finance Medicare for All. She says they should be grateful because under the current system they’ll spend $9 trillion on employee health benefits.  

But she doesn’t actually know that businesses will spend $9 trillion on health care over the next decade. It’s just a guess. And not a very good one, since businesses are finding new and better ways every day to keep their health costs under control.

Her plan is to pay for healthcare by doing the following:

Even the supposed business savings are phony since Warren would massively raise corporate income taxes. In her plan, she announces that she would:

    • repeal the Trump corporate tax cuts, reinstating the 35% tax rate that made U.S companies uncompetitive among industrialized nations,
    • enforce a “country by country” minimum tax of 35%,
    • and lengthen depreciation rules.

Combined, these and other new levies would raise corporate taxes by $2.9 trillion.And this doesn’t count the following:

    • the $800 billion tax on financial transactions she’d impose
    • the $100 billion fee on “big banks”
    • a 6% wealth tax
    • much higher capital gains tax rates
    • and a requirement that taxes be paid on cap gains every year, whether or not the stocks are sold

Guess who will be paying all those costs?

People need to remember that corporations do not actually pay higher taxes–they pass those tax hikes on to the consumer in the form of higher prices. Consumers pay higher corporate taxes and higher corporate taxes drive businesses out of the country.

The article concludes:

Meanwhile, drug companies would be entirely at the mercy of whatever price caps Warren decides to impose (namely, 70% cuts for brand name drugs and 30% cuts for generics), since they’d have no other buyers.

Pharmaceutical companies that don’t play ball, she says, would risk losing their patent protection (through compulsory licensing) while the government takes over drug manufacturing. Say goodbye to the pharmaceutical industry.

In sum, Warren is peddling a health plan that, if it were actually enacted, would devastate the economy, wreck the nation’s health care, and put the government in control of just about every business decision. And she has a good chance of claiming the Democratic party’s nomination. That’s frightening.

And right now, she is one of the leading candidates for President.

Where Some Of The Money Would Come From

Gregg Jarrett posted an article today which explains how Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders would pay for healthcare for people who are in America illegally.

The article reports:

Senator Warren and Senator Sanders have both publicly supported the dismantling of the United States healthcare system and want to rebuild it as a socialized government-run system. In this new system, illegal aliens would also be entitled to taxpayer-funded healthcare. Senator Sanders has admitted that to accomplish this, taxes on the middle class would need to increase. Senator Warren has refused to say how she plans to pay for such an expensive and expansive healthcare system.

The Washington Post interviewed a few “external economic policy advisers” to see what ideas they might be pitching to Senator Warren’s campaign. One advisor by the name of Robert Pollin suggested taking away money from the Department of Veterans Affairs and diverting it to a single-payer system.

“Robert Pollin, a left-leaning economist at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst who has worked with the Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) teams, said he believes two-thirds of the single-payer fund can be raised by redirecting existing public health-care spending from Medicare, Medicaid and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Pollin refused to discuss any details related to his conversations with Warren’s campaign.” – The Washington Post

So money will be taken away from the Department of Veterans Affairs to pay for healthcare for people who are in America illegally.

The article concludes:

Not only is Mr. Pollin suggesting that funds intended for the healthcare of America’s bravest be diverted to this new system, but also Medicaid and Medicare funds. This means that the government entities that are meant for the underprivileged, handicap, and elderly will lose funding. Even with redirecting all of these funds Mr. Pollin admits that they would need to raise an additional 600 billion dollars.

“Pollin suggests that the remaining third be raised by a $600 billion annual ‘gross-receipts’ tax on businesses.”

This means that in effect, taxes will go up on all citizens. If stealing money from the health plans of American veterans is their best solution, the American people will reject their radical ideas and reelect President Trump.

I hope so.

Does This Lady Not Know History?

Elizabeth Warren wants to revive ‘land for peace’ (because it has worked so well in the past). Let’s back up a little and see previous results.

On September 14, 2005, Boston.com reported:

NEVE DEKALIM, Gaza Strip — Palestinians looted dozens of greenhouses yesterday, walking off with irrigation hoses, water pumps, and plastic sheeting in a blow to fledgling efforts to reconstruct the Gaza Strip.

American Jewish donors had bought more than 3,000 greenhouses from Israeli settlers in Gaza for $14 million last month and transferred them to the Palestinian Authority. Former World Bank President James Wolfensohn, who brokered the deal, put up $500,000 of his own money.

Palestinian police watched yesterday as looters carried materials from greenhouses in several settlements, and commanders complained they did not have enough manpower to protect the buildings. In some instances, there was no security and in others, police joined the looters, witnesses said.

”We need at least another 70 soldiers. This is just a joke,” said Taysir Haddad, one of 22 security guards assigned to Neve Dekalim, formerly the largest Jewish settlement in Gaza. ”We’ve tried to stop as many people as we can, but they’re like locusts.”

The failure of the security forces to prevent scavenging and looting in the settlements after Israel’s withdrawal Monday raised new concerns about Gaza’s future.

Israel gave up the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians in the name of peace. They left the greenhouses there so that the Palestinians would have a source of income. Evidently the Palestinians would rather destroy their only hope of economic prosperity than accept that gift. Meanwhile, the Gaza Strip has become prime real estate for launching rockets into civilian populations in Israel. That is how successful ‘land for peace’ has been in the past. There is no reason to believe it will be any more successful in the future.

Yesterday The Washington Examiner reported:

Elizabeth Warren issued a warning to Israel if it continues building settlements in the West Bank.

The Massachusetts senator was asked after a town hall in Iowa whether she was open to making U.S. aid conditional on an agreement with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to halt construction in a territory Israel won in a defensive war in 1967, which is home to about 3 million Palestinians and roughly 400,000 Jews.

“Right now, Netanyahu says that he is going to take Israel in a direction of increasing settlements. That does not move us toward a two-state solution. It is the official policy of the United States of America to support a two-state solution. And if Israel is moving in the opposite direction, everything’s on the table,” she told reporters at Simpson College in Indianola on Sunday.

That is not a recipe for peace, that is a recipe for war and the killing of innocent civilians. Ms. Warren evidently does not know her history.

The Political Cost Of Impeachment

What the Democrats in the House of Representatives are doing is not impeachment. It might be called ‘impeachment light’, but it is not impeachment. Impeachment is something that is supposed to begin with a vote of the full House of Representatives. At that point, both parties are allowed to call witnesses and question witnesses. The accuser (or accusers) of the President is asked to step forward and state his case. What the Democrats are doing violates a number of basic principles in our Constitution. Our Constitution allows a person charged with a crime to face his accuser. Our Constitution allows for both sides of an accusation to be heard. Our Constitution allows for any exculpatory evidence to be heard. None of this is happening in ‘impeachment light.’ So what is the cost of this charade to the Democrats?

The Washington Times posted an article today that includes the following:

Independent voters are warming up to President Trump, says a new survey which finds that Mr. Trump is now besting Democratic front-runners in a theoretical matchup.

“A new IBD-TIPP poll shows President Trump has gained significant ground with independent voters in head-to-head matchups with the Democrat Party frontrunners for president,” wrote Matt Margolis, a contributor to PJ Media.

He cited the factors. Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, for instance, leads Mr. Trump by just one percentage point among independents, down from Mr. Biden’s 18 percentage point lead in September. Against Sen. Elizabeth Warren, 49% of independents backed Mr. Trump, while 43% favored the Massachusetts Democrat.

The article concludes:

“What caused such a dramatic swing in Trump’s favor with independents? Is it a coincidence that this poll was conducted after Nancy Pelosi formally launched an impeachment inquiry into President Trump? Not to me,” Mr. Margolis said.

“Impeachment is not exactly popular among voters, and only a minority of independents support it,” the analyst noted. “Many on the right have warned Democrats that impeachment fever will only benefit Trump in the long run — and they appear to be proven right by this poll.”

I am sure that the House Democrats are aware of these numbers. It will be interesting to see what they do about them.

What Voting Base Is She Trying To Appeal To?

Yesterday Breitbart posted an article about a plank on Elizabeth Warren’s platform. Ms. Warren has decided that people who are here illegally should receive back pay for work they have done in the past.

The article reports:

Ensuring employers can’t exploit undocumented workers and drive down standards for all workers: The 2002 Supreme Court case Hoffman Plastic Compounds v. NLRB held that an undocumented worker could not receive the backpay he was owed from an employer who had violated the NLRA. That 5–4 ruling is wrong and denies millions of undocumented workers redress for illegal firings or other retaliatory conduct by an employer. The case encourages employers to hire undocumented immigrants and exploit them in numerous fields, including construction and manufacturing, which could lower wages for all workers. I will fight to amend the NLRA to end this form of exploitation and ensure that all workers are protected. [Emphasis added]

The article concludes:

Absent from Warren’s workers plan is a mandate and punishment for employers and businesses who hire illegal aliens over American citizens, as well as a reform to the H-1B visa program whereby Americans are readily replaced by foreign visa workers to increase profit margins for multinational corporations.

Warren has not endorsed mandatory E-Verify — a system that prevents businesses from hiring illegal aliens over Americans — though it would decrease foreign competition against Americans, especially those most vulnerable to competing against illegal aliens in the labor market.

In contrast to Warren is President Trump’s populist-nationalist “Buy American, Hire American” agenda, which has sought to increase interior immigration enforcement to tighten the labor market and delivered wage hikes for America’s blue-collar and working class. Unlike Warren, Trump’s latest national immigration plan includes a nationwide mandate of E-Verify to prevent Americans from being forced to compete for jobs against illegal aliens.

Today, there are at least eight million illegal aliens holding American jobs in the U.S. economy that would have otherwise gone to American workers and legal immigrants. In most cases, these illegal workers obtain fraudulent work authorization documents or steal American citizens’ identities in order to take jobs.

The Democrats have become a party that favors people who are here illegally over American workers. Because Americans are supposedly the only people with voting rights, I would love to know what Ms. Warren feels she is accomplishing with this policy idea.

An Interesting Relationship With The Truth

In 1996, Fordham’s Law Review celebrated Elizabeth Warren as Harvard Law School’s “first woman of color.” That was because Ms. Warren had listed her heritage as Native American. Later DNA tests proved that this was not true. The latest tale told by Ms. Warren involves why she left teaching.

The Washington Free Beacon posted an article today that includes public records that indicate that Ms. Warren was not fired from teaching because she was visibly pregnant, but rather that the Riverdale Board of Education offered her a contract to continue what she had been doing. The minutes of the meeting are included in the article.

The article reports:

Toward the end of Warren’s first year on the job, in April 1971, the board approved her contract for the following school year, the meeting minutes show. Two months later, the meeting minutes indicate that Warren had tendered her resignation.

“The resignation of Mrs. Elizabeth Warren, speech correctionist effective June 30, 1971 was accepted with regret,” the June 16, 1971, minutes say.

There are no further mentions of Warren in Riverdale Board of Education meeting minutes, according to a spokesman for the board.

Scrutiny of Warren’s explanation for her jump from teaching to law comes months after the Massachusetts senator steadied her campaign after a rocky start.

In October, two months before her campaign launch, Warren executed a botched attempt to put questions about her claims to Native American heritage behind her by releasing the results of a DNA test. The results, which showed she has minimal Cherokee ancestry, did little to quell the controversy.

She went on to issue a public apology for taking the test in the first place.

“I have listened, and I have learned a lot. And I’m grateful for the many conversations we’ve had together,” Warren told a Native American audience in Iowa in mid-August.

Though many on both sides of the aisle counted her out due to her handling of the issue, Warren has managed not only to bounce back but to climb to the top of the field. Even President Donald Trump, who savaged Warren for her attempt to claim Native American ancestry, has said publicly he regrets drawing attention to her early on given that she has managed prevail—at least thus far.

“I did the Pocahontas thing,” Trump said to supporters at an August rally. “I hit her really hard and it looked like she was down and out but that was too long ago, I should’ve waited.”

If white privilege exists, why did Elizabeth Warren claim to be a Native American to advance her career?

Ignoring The Economic Implications

Yesterday Breitbart posted an article about some recent comments by Senator Elizabeth Warren about immigration. Senator Warren is either unaware of the impact of unskilled immigrant workers on American workers’ wages or she is simply ignoring the facts.

The article reports her comments:

We need a pathway to citizenship for the people who are here and here to stay. They are our neighbors; they are our brothers and sisters. They are here. We need a path — not just for DREAMers — but also a path for grandmas, and for little kids, and for people who came here to work on farms, and for students who overstayed their visas. We need a path that is fair and achievable. Bring people out of the shadows. It is good for all workers, and we need to get them into our unions. [Emphasis added]

The article notes:

Similarly, Warren is promising to expand legal immigration levels, which are already at historically record-high rates. About 1.2 million mostly low-skilled legal immigrants are admitted every year, not including the hundreds of thousands who arrive on temporary visas to compete against Americans for jobs.

…Research by analyst Steven Camarotta has found that every one percent increase in the immigrant portion of American workers’ occupations reduces their weekly wages by about 0.5 percent. This means the average native-born American worker today has his weekly wages reduced by perhaps 8.5 percent because of current legal immigration levels.

While Warren seeks to increase foreign competition against American workers in the labor market, President Donald Trump has pursued policy initiatives to decrease competition, increasing U.S. wages and giving American workers leverage over businesses.

I would like to see people who came here illegally ‘come out of the shadows.’ They need to have some sort of way that they can work to support themselves. However, I don’t want people who came here illegally to be put ahead of people who are going through the legal process to become citizens. That is simply unfair. I am willing to let people who come here illegally have access to legal employment, but I think people who came here illegally should be put in line to become citizens–at the end of the current line. Breaking the law should not result in special privileges.

Elizabeth Warren And Your Retirement Savings

Occasionally I post an article that I have no understanding of. This is one of those articles. I am posting it because the source and headline are an indication to me that this is important information.

Yesterday Forbes posted an article detailing how Elizabeth Warren intends to change your retirement funds if she is elected. Keep in mind that she is rapidly becoming the Democrat front-runner. The dust up about Biden and the Ukraine may be the party’s effort to remove Biden (because he is not looking electable) and replace him with Warren.

The article reports:

So, as it turns out, Elizabeth Warren’s Social Security expansion proposal is not the only one of her plans to affect Americans’ retirement well-being. But the proposal of hers which will affect Americans’ retirement savings, in their 401(k)s and their IRAs and the funded status of their pension plans (which might be irrelevant for single-employer traditional pension plans guaranteed by employers but matters considerably for multi-employer plans), is tucked away in a component of her platform with the harmless-looking title, “Empowering Workers Through Accountable Capitalism.”

It’s a proposal that’s a repeat of legislation she proposed in 2018, the “Accountable Capitalism Act,” which, as it happens, I dug into at the time on another platform. The most nebulous part of the proposal is the notion that large corporations would be obliged to pursue the “best interests” of a long list of entities, not merely shareholders but also employees, suppliers, customers, the local communities where the companies locations are based, and others, with the fundamental premise that such a corporation “shall have the purpose of creating a general public benefit.” But however much writers such as Kevin D. Williamson decried this as “the wholesale expropriation of private enterprise in the United States” this all appears to be aspirational and symbolic, without any enforcement mechanism included in the legislation, or administrative agency named to ensure the corporation is indeed “creating a public benefit.”

What is far more concrete is a requirement that such “United States corporations,” that is, those with over $1 billion in revenue, would be obliged to bring onto their boards of directors, representatives elected by employees, at a minimum ratio of 40% of the total board members. The website declares:

“Elizabeth’s plan gives workers a big voice in all corporate decisions, including those about outsourcing, wages, and investment,”

and references Germany as an example of a country with a similar approach.

In an abstract way, of course, directors are bound to represent shareholders; if 40% of board members no longer represent the shareholders, than this is, in effect, taking away from shareholders the ownership of 40% of the company. But this is more than just an abstract impact. How much of a difference would it make?

The article explains that Elizabeth Warren’s plans would reduce the value of the stocks. In the German model, only the wealthy own stocks

The article concludes:

Take a look at the estimates from Pensions & Investments: 80% of stock market equity is held by institutions: that means, mutual funds, pension funds, 401(k)s, and the like. In particular, 37% of stock is owned by retirement accounts; when subtracting out foreign owners of US stock (26% of the total), 50% of US-owned US equities are owned within retirement funds. And it should go without saying that there is no way to “punish” the wealthy by causing the value of only the stock they own to go south while somehow protecting the 401(k) and other retirement accounts for the rest of us. It’s cutting off your nose to spite your face and, as someone with a 401(k) account, I’d really prefer not to do this.

As I said, I don’t fully understand what this is all about, but I do know that as many Americans lose faith in our Social Security system, they are creating 401(k) accounts and other holdings in preparation for retirement. I have a feeling that if Ms. Warren is elected, none of us will be able to retire.

Some Presidential Candidates Don’t Understand Economics

The Gateway Pundit posted an article today about a recent tweet by Elizabeth Warren.

This is the tweet:

The article includes the following quote from an article posted at The Heartland Institute website on September 19, 2018:

A 2015 Harvard Business School/Boston Consulting Group study estimates fracking supported 2.7 million jobs in 2014, with the potential to grow to 3.8 million jobs by 2030. Similarly, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) prepared a report for the American Petroleum Institute that estimates the oil and natural gas industries supported 10.3 million jobs in 2015, an increase of about 500,00 compared to 2011.  The RAND Corporation projects the industries will support an additional 1.9 million jobs by 2035.  By the same year, a 2012 IHS Markit study estimates fracking will have created 3.5 million jobs. 

A 2016 Chamber of Commerce study projects that if the fracking revolution of the previous decade had not occurred, 4.3 million jobs would not have been created, the U.S. economy would be $500 billion smaller and residential natural gas prices would be 28 percent higher. 

There is also the matter of national security. America now has the freedom to choose its friends without worrying whether or not our oil supply will be cut off. Some of us remember the 1970’s gas lines and high price of gasoline.

The world economy (that includes America) is currently based on fossil fuels. Countries who can supply reasonable priced energy attract manufacturing and businesses which create jobs. The end the production of fossil fuel and fracking in America is to reduce America to the status of a third-world (or lower) country.

Will Massachusetts Have A New Senator Kennedy?

The Washington Examiner posted an article today about Joe Kennedy of Massachusetts. Representative Kennedy has confirmed reports that he is considering running for the Senate to replace current Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey.  It will be interesting to see if he actually runs. Senator Markey is well liked among Massachusetts Democrats, and Joe Kennedy running against him might not be well received by the Massachusetts Democrat party.

The article concludes:

Earlier this month, when a Markey spokesperson was asked about the possibility of Kennedy primarying the senator, Giselle Barry, said, “Senator Markey is running for reelection no matter who enters the race. He is crisscrossing the state and will run his campaign hard every day.”

The other senator from Massachusetts is 2020 presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren. In the event she wins the 2020 general election, she would be forced to vacate her seat in the Senate. She stuck by her previous endorsement of Markey a couple weeks ago, while also calling Kennedy “an amazing reports” amid reports that the congressman could enter the race.

Elizabeth Warren is not up for re-election until 2024. This could get interesting.

False Statements That Create Division And Unrest

The mainstream media is not known for unbiased reporting, but every now and then even they have to correct something that is not only false but incendiary.

The Washington Free Beacon posted an article on Thursday about a recent lie by two political candidates that could easily be called incendiary.

The article reports:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) doubled down on her tweet that claimed black teenager Michael Brown was “murdered by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri,” saying Wednesday what mattered was an “unarmed man” was shot in the street.

Campaigning in New Hampshire, Warren was asked about her inflammatory tweet, which received the harshest “Four-Pinocchio” rating from the Washington Post.

“What matters is that a man was shot, an unarmed man, in the middle of the street, by police officers and left to die,” Warren said. “And I think that’s where our focus should be.”

Warren and fellow presidential candidates Sen. Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) and Tom Steyer all used the term “murder” to describe Brown’s death in 2014 at the hands of Officer Darren Wilson. The incident set off a debate about police violence and racial injustice. Although the notion that Brown was killed with his hands up and begging Wilson not to shoot was apocryphal, “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” became a mantra for protesters.

To Senator Warren and Senator Harris the narrative was more important than the truth. Rather than tell the truth, they lied in order to advance the idea that the police involved were racist.

The article concludes:

The Washington Post‘s Glenn Kessler said for Warren and Harris—he didn’t include Steyer in his story—to dismiss the Justice Department’s findings was “galling.”

“Harris and Warren have ignored the findings of the Justice Department to accuse Wilson of murder, even though the Justice Department found no credible evidence to support that claim,” Kessler wrote. “Instead, the Justice Department found that the popular narrative was wrong, according to witnesses deemed to be credible, some of whom testified reluctantly because of fear of reprisal. The department produced a comprehensive report to determine what happened, making the senators’ dismissal of it even more galling.”

The Massachusetts Police Union ripped Warren as well, saying she had unfairly accused police of harming society.

So what is the impact of these statements? Those Americans who are unaware of the Justice Department findings or the grand jury’s decision are left with the impression that the police in Missouri murdered a man without cause. How does that impact the opinion of law enforcement held by the people who believe this lie? How does this lie impact the amount of respect for law enforcement needed to maintain a civil society? The statements of Senators Harris and Warren are totally irresponsible. Even if they thought they were telling the truth, they owe those people who work in law enforcement an apology.

Socialism In The Nordic Countries

On Monday The Washington Post posted an article about how the economies of the Nordic countries work.

These are some of the things noted:

Undoubtedly, the Nordic nations, with their high incomes, low inequality, free politics and strong rule of law, represent success stories. What this has to do with socialism, though, is another question.

And the answer, according to a highly clarifying new report from analysts at JPMorgan Chase, is “not much.”

Drawing on data from the World Bank, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development and other reputable sources, the report shows that five nations — Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway and the Netherlands — protect property rights somewhat more aggressively than the United States, on average; exercise less control over private enterprise; permit greater concentration in the banking sector; and distribute a smaller share of their total income to workers.

“Copy the Nordic model if you like, but understand that it entails a lot of capitalism and pro-business policies, a lot of taxation on middle class spending and wages, minimal reliance on corporate taxation and plenty of co-pays and deductibles in its healthcare system,” the report notes.

This really does not sound like the utopia that Bernie Sanders is pushing–particularly the co-pays and deductions.

The article continues:

Sanders and other left-leaning Democrats promise to pay for tuition-free college and Medicare-for-all with higher taxes on the top 1 percent of earners. Most Nordic countries, by contrast, have zero estate tax. They fund generous programs with the help of value-added taxes that heavily affect middle-class consumers.

In Sweden, for example, consumption, social security and payroll taxes total 27 percent of gross domestic product, as compared with 10.6 percent in the United States, according to the JPMorgan Chase report. The Nordic countries tried direct wealth taxes such as the one that figures prominently in the plans of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.); all but Norway abandoned them because of widespread implementation problems.

The Nordic countries’ use of co-pays and deductibles in health care may be especially eye-opening to anyone considering Sanders’s Medicare-for-all plan, which the presidential candidate pitches as an effort to bring the United States into line with European standards.

His plan offers an all-encompassing, government-funded zero-co-pay, zero-deductible suite of benefits, from dental checkups to major surgery — which no Nordic nation provides.

The Netherlands’ health insurance system centers on an Obamacare-like mandate to buy a private plan; individuals face an annual deductible of $465 (as of 2016), according to the Boston-based Commonwealth Fund.

Dutch consumers’ out-of-pocket spending on health care represented 11 percent of total health expenditures in 2016, according to the Peterson-Kaiser Health System Tracker — the same percentage as in the United States. In Sweden, meanwhile, out-of-pocket spending accounted for 15 percent of health expenditures. Who knew?

The article concludes by noting that the burden for these programs falls on the middle class–the rich will always have tax accountants to limit the amount of taxes they pay–the middle class has no such luxury. Bernie Sanders’ proposals will essentially rob the poor to pay the rich. I really don’t think that is what most Americans have in mind.

Our Ancestors Understood Human Nature A Lot Better Than We Do

From Vox June 23:

Sen. Bernie Sanders’s proposal to make college free in the United States just got bigger: He wants to erase all student debt too. All $1.6 trillion of it.

The Vermont senator will unveil the most ambitious higher education plan in the Democratic 2020 presidential primary so far on Monday. The proposal would make two- and four-year public and tribal colleges and universities tuition-free and debt-free, and erase the roughly $1.6 trillion in student loan debt currently owed in the US, paid for by a tax on Wall Street.

Currently, about 45 million Americans have student loans. This would cancel debt for all of them — regardless of their income or assets. That’s a notable difference from Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s free college proposal, which also provides broad debt relief but caps it for households with incomes over $250,000.

Sanders is proposing funding streams to states, tribes, and historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to allow them to eliminate undergraduate tuition and fees. The bill would also increase spending on work-study programs and build up federal grant programs for low-income students for additional costs related to getting an education, from housing and transportation to buying books.

The proposal would cost $2.2 trillion over 10 years, which Sanders says would be paid for with his Wall Street tax. He proposed a Wall Street speculation tax in 2016, which would raise small levies on buying and selling stocks, bonds, and derivatives; many experts estimate it could raise hundreds of billions of dollars annually. Sanders’s office cited progressive economist Robert Pollin’s projection that the tax would bring in $2.4 trillion in revenues over 10 years.

From The New York Post February 22nd:

Democratic presidential hopefuls Sens. Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren said they both support reparations for African-Americans affected by slavery.

Asked about the matter last week on the 105.1 FM show “Breakfast Club,” Harris agreed with the host that reparations are necessary to address problems of “inequities.”

“America has a history of 200 years of slavery. We had Jim Crow. We had legal segregation in America for a very long time,” she said on the radio show. “We have got to recognize, back to that earlier point, people aren’t starting out on the same base in terms of their ability to succeed and so we have got to recognize that and give people a lift up.”

From Alexander Fraser Tytler, Lord Woodhouselee (15 October 1747 – 5 January 1813), who obviously understood a lot more than all three of these Democrat candidates for President:

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage.”
Alexander Fraser Tytler
We have a choice of where we will be on that timeline.

Polling Voters On The Democrat Candidates

Breitbart posted an article today about a recent Quinnipiac poll.

The article reports:

Quinnipiac reported polling results showing that Biden is now at 38 percent support from Democrat and Democrat-leaning Americans, while Sanders only has 11 points.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is gaining in popularity, sitting in second place with 12 percent, while Mayor Pete Buttigieg is now at ten percent. Sen. Kamala Harris rounds out the top five with eight percent.

A big part of Biden’s appeal is his ability to win. Fifty-six percent of Democrats said that Biden has the best chance to beat President Donald Trump, while only 12 percent said the same about Sanders.

Forty-seven percent of Democrats say that Biden would be the “best leader,” while only 11 percent said the same about Sanders.

Any time you look at poll results, you need to consider who was polled.

The article lists the demographic of the people polled:

The telephone survey was conducted from April 26–29 including 1,044 self-identified registered voters – 419 of which included Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters with a margin of error of +/- 5.6 percentage points.

Forty percent of the people polled leaned Democrat. In January 2016, the Gallop Poll reported that 26 percent of Americans were Republicans and 29 percent of Americans were Democrats. The poll mentioned above was tilted heavily to Democrats, which may be fair since it is a Democrat race, but I question the results. Telephone survey? Land lines? Who has land lines? Who takes the time to answer telephone polls?

When Reason Takes A Vacation

I just returned from a vacation spent with people who hate President Trump for no apparent reason. It was an educational experience. They were not willing to give President Trump credit for any of the economic growth the country has experienced in the past two years. There was no acknowledgment of the President’s efforts to deal with the crisis on our southern border. All they knew was that ‘Trump was a bad man.’ That is so sad. That is what our media has done to Americans who depend on them for their news.

Townhall posted an article today about the attacks on President Trump and how the mainstream media and members of Congress are altering the facts to suit their purposes.

The article states:

The most significant take-away from my college education was learning to rely on evidence over opinion, hearsay, and rumor. “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion,” said Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “but not his own facts.” Never in a million years did I suspect that political correctness would come along and overrule Senator Moynihan’s famous dictum. That’s right—the geniuses of the Democratic Party Brain Trust are attempting to create their own facts.

We have a clear statement of two pertinent facts from the Mueller Report: (1) There was no Trump-Russia collusion; and (2) There is no basis for a charge of obstruction against the president. This comes after 2,800 subpoenas, 500 search warrants, and 500 witnesses over two years of investigation. Thanks to the mainstream media’s penchant for fake news, Mueller’s conclusion was the opposite of what the Democrats were anticipating. Trump was correct when he tweeted, “No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION.”

The article then goes on to cite examples of the Democrats telling us things that totally contradict that report as if what they were telling us were true.

Some examples:

House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler, interviewed by Chris Wallace after Mueller’s finding of no collusion, had the gall to insist, “We know there was collusion.”

…Similarly, Democratic presidential candidate “Beto” O’Rourke tweeted, “You have a president, who in my opinion, beyond the shadow of a doubt, sought to collude with the Russian government.”

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, speaking on ABC’s This Week, insisted there is “ample evidence of collusion in plain sight.” In fact, he added, “Every act that I’ve pointed to as evidence of collusion has now been borne out by the [Mueller] report.”

…Senator Elizabeth Warren, another deluded member of Congress, continues to insist that the Mueller Report justifies impeaching the president. “We cannot be an America that says it is OK for a president of the United States to try and block an investigation into a foreign attack on our country or an investigation into that president’s own misbehavior—so I have called on the House to initiate impeachment proceedings.”

The report is public. Are these people simply assuming people will believe them rather than the report of the summary of the report? This is irresponsible, dishonest,  and divisive.

Legislation That Will Be Harmful To Americans

Yesterday The Hill reported that Senator Cory Booker has introduced a bill in the Senate to legalize marijuana nationwide. The bill, S 597, is listed at Congress.gov, but the listing as of now does not include either the text of the bill or a summary of the bill.

The Hill reports:

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) introduced a bill Thursday to legalize marijuana across the country.

The 2020 presidential hopeful has made criminal justice reform and social justice issues central to his campaign and is framing the marijuana legalization bill as such.

“The War on Drugs has not been a war on drugs, it’s been a war on people, and disproportionately people of color and low-income individuals,” Booker said in a press release announcing the legislation. “The Marijuana Justice Act seeks to reverse decades of this unfair, unjust, and failed policy by removing marijuana from the list of controlled substances and making it legal at the federal level.”

A House version of the bill was introduced by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), who is co-chair of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus.

The bill, known as the Marijuana Justice Act, would remove marijuana from the federal list of controlled substances, where it is currently a Schedule I drug in the same class with heroin and LSD.

In case you think this is a wonderful idea, please read the following article posted on this site on January 26, 2019. Marijuana is not a harmless substance. The main reason for the push for legalization is the money involved. As states lose tax money from the sale of tobacco products, they can make up that loss by taxing marijuana sales. Just as tobacco proved harmful to public health, marijuana will prove detrimental to public health as well.

The article concludes:

Several of Booker’s most prominent challengers for the Democratic presidential nomination from the Senate are co-sponsors on the bill, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

Ten states as well as Washington, D.C., have already legalized the recreational use of marijuana, with many more states legalizing its medicinal use.

Booker’s bill would also incentivize states to loosen their marijuana laws by using federal funds.

From the rightwinggranny.com article cited above:

After an exhaustive review, the National Academy of Medicine found in 2017 that “cannabis use is likely to increase the risk of developing schizophrenia and other psychoses; the higher the use, the greater the risk.” Also that “regular cannabis use is likely to increase the risk for developing social anxiety disorder.”

…These new patterns of use have caused problems with the drug to soar. In 2014, people who had diagnosable cannabis use disorder, the medical term for marijuana abuse or addiction, made up about 1.5 percent of Americans. But they accounted for eleven percent of all the psychosis cases in emergency rooms—90,000 cases, 250 a day, triple the number in 2006. In states like Colorado, emergency room physicians have become experts on dealing with cannabis-induced psychosis.

Is legalizing marijuana in the best interest of Americans?

The Insanity Continues

The National Review is reporting today that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi will support a bill that would approve a commission to study the possibility of paying reparations to the descendants of American slaves. What about the descendants of the soldiers who fought to free the slaves?

The article reports:

“As you probably are aware, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee has legislation to study this issue, and I support that,” the California Democrat told reporters. “One of the things that we can do not only just in terms of trying to make up for a horrible, sinful thing that happened in our country in terms of slavery, but for our country to live up to who we think we are.”

Jackson Lee, a Democrat from Texas, reintroduced the resolution last year. It currently has modest support in the House, with 35 cosponsors, and Pelosi’s support comes amid renewed public discussion of the idea. But the speaker said that there are other policies that could make a more immediate impact on African-American lives.

“We have to reduce the disparity in income in our country. We have to reduce the disparity in access to education in an affordable way in our country, reduce the health disparities in our country,” she said. “So while we’re studying how we deal with the reparations issue, there’s plenty we can do to improve the quality of life of many people in our country.”

Several of the top candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, including Senators Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren and former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro, said last week that they support some sort of reparations. The policy has historically not enjoyed majority support within the Democratic party, and both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama previously declined to support it.

I suspect that supporting a commission is a way to prevent the idea from going anywhere before the rational Democrats (assuming there are some) come to their senses and realize that this is not going to win votes from American voters.

Recycling Bad Ideas

Hot Air posted an article today about Democrat Presidential hopefuls Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren. Both candidates have stated that they would be in favor of reparations for black Americans.

The article reports:

Last week, Senator Kamala Harris of California agreed with a radio host’s recent suggestion that government reparations for black Americans were necessary to address the legacies of slavery and discrimination. Ms. Harris later affirmed that support in a statement to The Times…

Ms. Warren also said she supported reparations for black Americans impacted by slavery — a policy that experts say could cost several trillion dollars, and one that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and many top Democrats have not supported…

“We must confront the dark history of slavery and government-sanctioned discrimination in this country that has had many consequences, including undermining the ability of black families to build wealth in America for generations,” Ms. Warren told The Times. “We need systemic, structural changes to address that.”

I would like to suggest that this might not be a winning issue. The article notes that last year Rasmussen found 70 percent of Americans opposed to reparations for slavery.

How would reparations be a positive thing? The money would have to come from somewhere. The people who paid increased taxes to pay reparations would resent it. Also, what about people in families that were not here during slavery? Also, how would you prove that a black person had ancestors who were slaves? How about reparations for the soldiers who fought against slavery? How about reparations for the Native Americans for the way they were treated? How about reparations for the Japanese interred during World War II? How about reparations for the Irish indentured servants who were treated badly?

As you can see, this would be the beginning of a journey down a very slippery slope. How about we make sure that all people of every color are treated equally under the law and given equal opportunity? How about we work to change the culture in low income communities of all colors to encourage intact families, a culture of learning, and a strong work ethic? Encouraging those three things would do more to increase the wealth of poor black communities than all the reparations in the world ever could.