While We Were All Wondering About President Trump’s Campaign Spending Violations…

On Thursday, Newsbusters reported:

ABC, CBS and NBC took a stand on a potential scandal involving tens of millions in reportedly stolen money and former President Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign: We won’t report on this.

Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio testified on April 3 that Jho Low —a Malaysian financier tied to the Communist Chinese Party— plotted a scheme to funnel between $20-$30 million to Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign, according to the New York Post April 3. Low, a close friend of DiCaprio and now fugitive, allegedly recruited 90s rapper Prakazrel “Pras” Michel to “funnel the money to Obama’s reelection bid as foreigners cannot donate to US campaigns under federal election law.” 

According to the Post, “Much of the money was reportedly stolen. Low is accused of embezzling a whopping $4.5 billion from Malaysia’s” state investment fund. “‘It was a significant sum — something to the tune of $20-30 million,’ DiCaprio testified. ‘I said, “Wow that’s a lot of money!”’”

ABC’s World News Tonight, CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News however, treated the story like it didn’t exist during their April 3, April 4 and April 5 evening broadcasts, perhaps because it would involve making their darling former president look bad.

The article concludes:

Additional witnesses reportedly testified after DiCaprio’s testimony “that Michel had wired them thousands and asked them to make shadow donations to the [Obama] campaign.” Apparently, none of this damning information was worth any coverage by the Big Three.

We will not be able to elect people who will do their jobs until the mainstream media supplies the information Americans need to vote intelligently.

Information Or Disinformation?

On Sunday, The Daily Caller posted an article about a recent conference held at the University of Chicago centered on “disinformation.”

The article reports:

The university hosted a “Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy” conference featuring big names like CNN’s Brian Stelter, The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum and Jeffrey Goldberg, and former President Barack Obama. The conference was largely partisan with the exception of the token conservative, Jonah Goldberg.

Freshman Daniel Schmidt questioned The Atlantic’s Anne Applebaum about Hunter Biden’s laptop, to which the left-leaning journalist quickly dismissed the question.

“So, in 2020, you wrote ‘those outside the Fox News bubble do not, of course, need to learn any of the stuff about Hunter Biden,’ referring to his laptop, of course,” Schmidt began. “A poll later found out that if voters knew about the contents of the laptop, 16% of Joe Biden voters would’ve acted differently. Of course, we know a few weeks ago The New York Times confirmed that the content is real.”

“Do you think the media acted inappropriately when they instantly dismissed Hunter Biden’s laptop as Russian disinformation and what can we learn from that in ensuring that what we label as disinformation is truly disinformation and not reality?” he continued.

Applebaum quickly moved to dismiss the legitimate question.

“My problem with Hunter Biden’s laptop I think is totally irrelevant,” she said. “I mean, it’s not whether it’s disinformation or, I mean, I didn’t think that Hunter Biden’s business relationships have anything to do with who should be president of the United States, so I don’t find it to be interesting, that would be my problem with that as a main news story.”

It really isn’t irrelevant when a candidate for a major office has a son who is possibly involved in illegal activities and could be subject to blackmail. Also, why do they keep calling America a democracy–it’s a republic!

The article also highlights another question asked by someone who obviously wasn’t buying into the political agenda of the conference:

Freshman Christopher Phillips then asked CNN’s Stelter about his outlet’s role in pushing disinformation, saying “you’ve all spoken extensively about Fox News being a purveyor of disinformation, but CNN is right up there with them.”

Phillips then noted how CNN “pushed the Russian Collusion hoax, they pushed the Jussie Smollett hoax, they smeared Justice Kavanaugh as a rapist and they also smeared Nick Sandmann as a white supremacist and, yes, they dismissed the Hunter Biden laptop as pure Russian disinformation.”

Stelter claimed Phillips was “describing a different channel than the one I watch” but he understands “it is a popular right-wing narrative about CNN.”

I wonder if outsiders will be invited to the next disinformation conference?

This Could Be Very Interesting

This week will be the beginning of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on the Russia and Ukraine investigations. The first witness will be former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. It’s a pretty safe bet that he will not remember things or claim that he cannot answer a lot of questions because of classified information involved. We shall see.

Just the News posted an article yesterday that details nine items to look for. I am posting the list. Please follow the link to the article to read the details.

Here is the list:

1.) Will Rosenstein admit to failures and talk about the 25th Amendment fiasco?

2.) Will the ODNI declassify more documents, including former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes’ secret report to the CIA Inspector General highlighting flaws in the Intelligence Community Assessment of Russian interference in the 2016 elections? 

3.) What will the DC Circuit Court of Appeals do in the Flynn dismissal case?

4.) Who else will Graham’s committee interview or subpoena?

5.) Will any congressional committees zero in on former President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden’s conduct in the Russia case?

6.) Will Attorney General William Barr and the special prosecutors he named, like U.S. Attorney John Durham of Connecticut, to investigate the Russia case investigators bring any criminal charges?

7.) Will the Democratic strategy firm Blue Star Strategies comply with a subpoena in the Senate investigation into Hunter Biden’s Ukrainian business dealings?

8.) Who else might Johnson subpoena in the Ukraine probe?

9.) Will Johnson’s committee issue an interim report this summer on the evidence it has already uncovered about Hunter Biden, Joe Biden and Burisma?

This does have the potential of being a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing, but there is always the possibility that Congress might actually do its job and investigate the corruption that is Washington.

This Would Be Funny If It Weren’t So Sad

Fox News posted an article about some recently declassified documents today that really makes me wonder about the wisdom of choosing Joe Biden as the Democrat nominee for President.

The article reports:

Usama bin Laden wanted to assassinate then-President Barack Obama so that the “totally unprepared” Joe Biden would take over as president and plunge the United States “into a crisis,” according to documents seized from bin Laden’s Pakistan compound when he was killed in May 2011.

The secretive documents, first reported in 2012 by The Washington Post, outlined a plan to take out Obama and top U.S. military commander David Petraeus as they traveled by plane.

“The reason for concentrating on them is that Obama is the head of infidelity and killing him automatically will make [Vice President] Biden take over the presidency,” bin Laden wrote to a top deputy. “Biden is totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the U.S. into a crisis. As for Petraeus, he is the man of the hour … and killing him would alter the war’s path” in Afghanistan.

Bin Laden specifically wanted fellow terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri to shoot down Obama.

“Please ask brother Ilyas to send me the steps he has taken into that work,” bin Laden wrote to the top lieutenant, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman. Kashmiri wouldn’t get too far along in the plot, however; he was killed in 2011 in a U.S. drone strike shortly after bin Laden himself was shot to death by Navy SEALs.

I guess Joe Biden’s reputation internationally is not too wonderful.

Following The Money

Yesterday Newsbusters posted an article about the funding of National Public Radio (“NPR”). NPR has been often criticized for having a liberal bias.

The article cites one example of bias:

Recently, NPR was one of a string of media outlets that published stories hyping United Nations data that showed 100,000 migrant children being held in detention centers. One problem though: the stories were deleted after the data was revealed to have been from 2015, during former President Barack Obama’s (D) presidency. In September, NPR was also one of two taxpayer-funded outlets (the other being PBS), that interviewed Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) and failed to question his false “parody” of President Donald Trump’s July 25th phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The article includes the following chart:

Just for the record, the Foundation to Promote Open Society is a George Soros organization.

Most American media leans left, so this is not a surprise, but there are many listeners to NPR who believe they are getting unbiased news while they are actually getting misinformation. A strong republic depends on honest news sources. At present, we have very few of those.

The Quest For Relevance

Yesterday National Review reported  that former secretary of state John Kerry has endorsed Joe Biden for President. John Kerry cited Biden’s performance serving as vice president in the Obama administration as proof that he has what it takes to defeat President Trump. Wow. I don’t know where to start.

The article reports:

“The world is broken,” Kerry told The Washington Post. “Our politics are broken. The country faces extraordinary challenges. And I believe very deeply that Joe Biden’s character, his ability to persevere, his decency and the experiences that he brings to the table are critical to the moment. The world has to be put back together, the world that Donald Trump has smashed apart.”

Kerry’s announcement comes a week after news broke that former president Barack Obama reportedly said Biden “really doesn’t have it” in establishing a bond with the electorate.

Kerry seemingly disagreed with his former boss in describing Biden, calling him “the person for the moment.”

This is an amazing statement. John Kerry was elected to the United States Senate in 1984. He was sworn in as Secretary of State in February 2013. Joe Biden was a Senator from 1973 to 2009. President Donald Trump entered politics in 2015. If ‘the world is broken,’ I would tend to put the responsibility for that on those who have been in power for the longest time–not on the new kid on the block.

Is Lying Under Oath A Problem?

A name that seems to be in the news a lot lately is Marie Yovanovitch, who was appointed to be the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine by former President Barack Obama. She was fired by President Trump. Just for the record, ambassadors serve at the discretion of the President and can be fired for any reason. Marie Yovanovitch, however, had a reputation for saying negative things about President Trump and not supporting his policies. That is why she was fired.

Marie Yovanovitch was called before Congress as a witness in the faux impeachment hearings. She testified on October 11 in a closed-door session.

The Daily Wire posted an article today citing some problems with her testimony.

The article reports information obtained by the Tucker Carlson show:

“This show has obtained exclusively an email for that Democratic staffer for the House Foreign Affairs Committee sent by private email to the former American ambassador Marie Yovanovitch,” Carlson continued. “Yovanovitch, you know, is a key player in the Democrats’ impeachment probe and was recalled from her post in Ukraine by President Trump in May 2019 following allegations of serious partisanship and political bias.”

This is the content of the email:

I’m writing to see if you would have time to meet up for a chat — in particular, I’m hoping to discuss some Ukraine-related oversight questions we are exploring. I’d appreciate the change to ground-truth a few pieces of information with you, some of which are quite delicate/time-sensitive and, thus, we want to make sure we get them right.

The article continues:

Carlson noted that Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) asked Marie Yovanovitch about the email during her testimony and she allegedly stated that she never responded to the email.

“In fact, it turns out that she did respond,” Carlson revealed. “She said she ‘looked forward to chatting with [the Democratic staffer].”

“As Congressmen Zeldin pointed out, the ambassador’s original answer, which was dishonest, was given under oath,” Carlson concluded.

Zeldin confirmed Carlson’s segment on Twitter, writing: “It appears Ambassador Yovanovitch did not accurately answer this question I asked her during her ‘impeachment inquiry’ deposition under oath.”

The article concludes:

“I would highly suspect that this Democratic staffer’s work was connected in some way to the whistleblower’s effort, which has evolved into this impeachment charade,” Zeldin told Fox News on Thursday night. “We do know that the whistleblower was in contact with [House Intelligence Committee Chairman] Adam Schiff’s team before the whistleblower had even hired an attorney or filed a whistleblower complaint even though Schiff had lied to the public originally claiming that there was no contact. Additionally, while the contents of the email from this staffer to Ambassador Yovanovitch clearly state what the conversation would be regarding, Yovanovitch, when I asked her specifically what the staffer was looking to speak about, did not provide these details.”

“I specifically asked her whether the Democratic staffer was responded to by Yovanovitch or the State Department,” Zeldin concluded. “It is greatly concerning that Ambassador Yovanovitch didn’t answer my question as honestly as she should have, especially while under oath.”

Those attempting this faux impeachment need to remember that there are electronic records everywhere and Youtube videos of previous statements. They are in danger of being hoisted on their own petard!

Stacking The Deck To Steal An Election

Next year is an important election for America. The ‘fundamental transformation of America’ has been temporarily interrupted by the Trump administration, but there are those who are extremely anxious to see the transformation continue. They are fully prepared to manage the decline of America. Unfortunately President Trump is fully prepared to manage the reemergence of America as a major economic player. That will be the battle fought. Americans (knowingly or unknowingly) will be asked to choose between growth or decline. President Obama is sending his henchman Eric Holder to see if the scales can be tipped in favor of decline. In August I posted an article about this effort. Now that effort is officially coming to North Carolina.

On Thursday, Channel 5 in Raleigh reported:

Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder strategized on redistricting reform Thursday with left-leaning groups that are knee-deep in the issue in North Carolina.

Holder, who served under former President Barack Obama, met with activists in Raleigh and Greensboro. He’s chairman of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, making him the Democratic Party’s point man on redistricting reform, gerrymandering lawsuits and state legislative fights heading into the 2020 elections.

Those elections will decide control of state legislatures, and thus a decade’s worth of election maps for legislative and congressional districts across the country. His group, with backing from the former president, has funded lawsuits and election campaigns with the overarching goal of electing Democrats and undoing maps his side sees as unfair Republican gerrymanders.

When that’s done, Holder said Thursday, he hopes to see nonpartisan redistricting reform take hold in more states. He said he favors an independent commission that takes the power away from elected officials to draw their own districts.

“We’ve got to get back to a place where elections are simply fair,” Holder said.

The article further explains:

Republicans have criticized Holder’s effort as a partisan one, geared toward electing Democrats whether the maps are fair or not. A spokesman for Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, with whom Holder sparred a bit on Twitter last month, asked Thursday “how many times Eric Holder has hosted a roundtable in blue states.”

“It’s probably equal to the number of blue states he’s sued, which is zero,” Pat Ryan said in an email. “Holder’s support for ‘fair maps’ is a phony front to help Democrats win more elections.”

Holder hasn’t shied away from the partisan nature of his effort. He told those gathered in Raleigh that “it sounds kind of strange, but this is a partisan attempt at good government.”

Sorry, Eric Holder, there is no such thing as a partisan attempt at good government. Remember, this is the man who ignored a video of the New Black Panthers intimidating voters in Philadelphia and dropped the charges. The video has disappeared from YouTube, but here is a still shot:

When I think of Eric Holder, I don’t think of good government.

Some Insightful Thoughts On The Democrat Party Primary

Tucker Carlson and Neil Patel posted an article at Townhall today about the Democrat Presidential Primary Campaign. The writers noted some changes in the Democrat Party that may be a problem in the 2020 presidential election.

The article reports:

This week, we were served some less-than-breaking news. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination. If you’ve never heard of him, that’s OK. Few Democrats have. He served in the Marine Corps for four tours in Iraq, but other than that, he hasn’t done much.

What’s interesting is why he’s being forced to drop out of the race. By any sane standards, Moulton is a thoroughly liberal Democrat. On every issue, he’s more left-wing than President Barack Obama was on the day he left office. Three years ago, Moulton would have been considered a liberal firebrand. But not anymore. By the lunatic standards of the modern Democratic Party, Moulton is now a flaming moderate, and that’s the kiss of death. Moderates are no longer welcome in the Democratic Party.

The article notes that when candidate Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, encouraged the Democrats at the debate to be more practical in their platforms, his comments were not well received.

The article also notes some of Vice-President Biden’s recent statements:

Biden: “My senior semester, they (Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy) were both shot and killed. Imagine what happened if, God forbid, Barack Obama had been assassinated after becoming the de facto nominee. What would’ve happened in America?” Imagine you’re Biden’s political director, sitting offstage. All of a sudden, Biden wanders into the unscripted territory and says, “Imagine the assassination of Obama.” This is not an attack on Biden, but he’s not going to be the nominee. So the actual race comes down to Warren’s and Sanders’ competing visions of how to achieve the same socialist fantasy. Warren is promising reparations based on skin color. That’s popular. Sanders wants a government takeover of the entire energy sector. They will be working to out-crazy each other for the next six months. That is a dynamic guaranteed to produce even more extremism. And it has some Democratic leaders worried. The Democratic National Committee voted on a proposal to hold a debate focused exclusively on climate change. Why wouldn’t they? Well, because the solutions the candidates would promise live on television are insane: spend $16 trillion, ban airplanes, seize control of the entire U.S. economy.

Finally, the article concludes:

The Trustafarians love stuff like that. Normal people find it terrifying. Even the party hacks here in D.C. don’t like it, and that’s probably a compliment. Do you really think Nancy Pelosi believes climate change is an existential crisis? Of course, she doesn’t think that. Plus, she flies private. Obama can say whatever he wants about carbon emissions. He can shake his chin and be concerned, but when you’re spending 15 million of your own dollars on a beachfront estate on Martha’s Vineyard, you’re not too worried about the oceans rising. But the Democratic base doesn’t get the joke. Democratic primary voters believe the talking points. And very soon, they will be powerful enough to nominate their own presidential candidate. And when that happens, it’s going to be a very different party.

The 2020 Presidential campaign and election will require serious amounts of popcorn.

 

How Is This Helpful?

CNS News posted an article yesterday about recent comments by former President Obama about the shootings over the weekend.

The article notes:

Former President Barack Obama issued a statement Monday expressing grief for the families of the victims of the El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, shooting massacres and calling for people to reject language from leaders “that feeds a climate of fear and hatred or normalizes racist sentiments.”

“Even if details are still emerging, there are a few things we already know to be true,” Obama tweeted on Monday. “First, no other nation on Earth comes close to experiencing the frequency of mass shootings that we see in the United States. No other developed nation tolerates the levels of gun violence that we do.

…Second, while the motivations behind these shootings may not yet be fully known, there are indications that the El Paso shooting follows a dangerous trend: troubled individuals who embrace racist ideologies and see themselves obligated to act violently to preserve white supremacy. Like the followers of ISIS and other foreign terrorist organizations, these individuals may act alone, but they’ve been radicalized by white nationalist websites that proliferate on the internet. That means that both law enforcement agencies and internet platforms need to come up with better strategies to reduce the influence of these hate groups.

This is not helpful. We have had troubled people in our country since the founding of the country. While the media is focused on the shootings over the weekend, how many people in Chicago died during that same weekend? Why isn’t that mentioned? Hate groups are not the problem–mental illness is the problem. These individuals acted as individuals. There are indications that they were troubled before the shootings.

During his administration, President Obama perverted justice on numerous occasions. He was quick to condemn the police before the facts were known, and at the beginning of his administration he refused to charge the New Black Panthers with voter intimidation despite the fact that there was obvious video evidence. Undermining authority and unequal enforcement of the law creates a climate of unrest. Using the government against political opponents ( using the IRS to suppress conservative speach)  also undermines our republic

When Congress Becomes A Joke

PJ Media posted an article today about some recent statements by Congresswoman Maxine Waters.

The article reports:

Waters is the chairwoman of the House Financial Services Committee — the committee that regulates the banks.

During a hearing examining the practices of some of the nation’s biggest banks, Waters complained to a panel of seven bank CEOs that there are more than 44 million Americans that owe … $1.56 trillion in student loan debt.”

She added, “Last year, one million student loan borrowers defaulted, which is on top of the one million borrowers who defaulted the year before.”

She then demanded to know what they intended to do about this massive problem. “What are you guys doing to help us with this student loan debt?” she asked. “Who would like to answer first? Mr. Monahan, big bank.”

I guess she wasn’t paying attention when the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 (HCERA) which put the government in charge of all student loans. The band CEO’s she was questioning both stated that they had stopped making student loans long before 2010.

The article also states:

Waters then quickly changed the subject to small businesses.

The Obama administration put the federal government in charge of student lending in 2010, with the intention of saving taxpayer dollars by “cutting out the middleman,” as President Barack Obama put it.

According to the Washington Times, “student loan debt exploded from $154.9 billion in 2009 to $1.1 trillion at the end of 2017”  with current student debt “estimated at more than $1.5 trillion.”

Earlier in the hearing, Waters grilled the bank execs about their interactions with Russia.

This woman serves in Congress. She continues to be re-elected. That is beyond sad.

Misleading The Public About International Affairs

NBC News posted an article today about the relationship between President Trump and the nation of Turkey.

The article reports:

As Trump administration officials presided over the second day of an international conference in Warsaw dominated by calls to ratchet up pressure on Iran, one longtime U.S. ally and NATO member was noticeably absent — Turkey.

Snubbing the gathering in Poland, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday attended a rival conference in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, where he planned to meet his Russian and Iranian counterparts to work out a final settlement of the war in Syria.

The dueling summits illustrate President Donald Trump’s struggle to forge a united front against Iran, and reflect Turkey’s drift away from Washington as it finds common ground with Moscow and Tehran, experts and former officials said.

These three paragraphs are totally misleading and paint a negative picture of President Trump’ foreign policy that is totally inaccurate. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan became President of Turkey in 2014. He had previously served as Prime Minister from 2003 to 2014. As he moves Turkey in the direction of an Islamic State, it is only natural that his friendly relationship with America would deteriorate rapidly.

On July 28, 2014, The Jerusalem Post reported:

Harold Rhode, a senior fellow at the New-York-based Gatestone Institute and a former adviser on Islamic affairs in the office of the American secretary of defense, told The Jerusalem Post in an interview on Sunday that the real issue in the ongoing conflict is that Turkey and Qatar are supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas in their goals.

“[Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip] Erdogan has been associated with the Muslim Brotherhood long before he was prime minister,” Rhode said.

It should now be clear to all that Erdogan “is now out of the bag,” Rhode said, adding that US President Barack Obama does not speak to the Turkish leader anymore despite previously describing him as one of his closest friends among the world’s leaders.

“Erdogan is doing whatever he can to help Hamas,” he said, asserting that it will only hurt the Palestinian people in the end.

On January 7, 2019, Clare Lopez posted an article at the Center for Security Policy that stated:

As National Security Advisor John Bolton heads to Turkey today for discussions about President Trump’s announced decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syrian battle spaces, he might question Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan about his expressed intent to re-establish the Ottoman Empire and how Erdogan calculates U.S. policy in the region to figure into that ambition.

He might cite from Erdogan’s February 2018 assertion that “modern Turkey is a ‘continuation’ of the Ottoman Empire,” or ask exactly what Erdogan meant when, in November 2018 he declared that “Turkey is bigger than Turkey; just know this. We cannot be trapped inside 780,000 kilometers [Turkey’s total area].” He might perhaps ask also what exactly Erdogan meant by threatening the U.S. with an “Ottoman Slap,” in reference to American support for Kurdish forces fighting against the Islamic State.

Then there was the November 2018 “International Islamic Union Congress,” held in Istanbul. Headed by Erdogan’s chief military advisor, Adnan Tanriverdi, the event’s participants endorsed the aim of “unity of Islam” through establishing the “Confederation of Islamic Countries.” It was not entirely clear how or if such a “Confederation” would differ from a Caliphate or Islamic State.

Clearly, U.S. objectives for the region are not the same as Turkey’s.

I don’t think President Trump is the problem in our relationship with Turkey.

A Relevant Political Strategy?

Every Friday I have a brief conversation with Lockwood Phillips that airs on 107.1 WTKF some time between 6 and 7 pm. This week we talked about the Cloward-Piven political strategy. This strategy was developed by Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven at Columbia University in May 1966. A description of the strategy was posted in the magazine “The Nation” with the title, “The weight of the poor: A strategy to end poverty.” I think ending poverty is a wonderful idea, although I don’t think it is possible. Deuteronomy 15:11 says, “There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your fellow Israelites who are poor and needy in your land.” If you believe the Bible, we will always have poor people; it is our responsibility to treat them kindly and help them–not enable them to stay in poverty.

So what is the Cloward-Piven strategy to end poverty? It is a political plan to overload the U.S. public welfare system so that it collapses and then replace it with a system that provides a guaranteed annual income for everyone. Theoretically this will end poverty. Some of the people who have espoused this strategy are Bill Ayers, Saul Alinsky, Bernadine Dohrn, Frank Marshall Davis, and George Soros. Many of these people were very instrumental in the political career of former President Barack Obama.

So let’s look at where our welfare system is now (the figures below are from 2015):

  • Roughly $1 trillion annually is given to more than 107 million Americans who receive some type of government benefits–not including Social Security, Medicare or unemployment
  • Before President Obama took office there were 26 million recipients of food stamps. In 2015, there were 47 million. The number peaked in 2013, at 47.6 million. In July 2017, the number was 42.6. Economic policies make a difference.

In 2012, Forbes posted the following about President Obama’s welfare society:

  • An increase of 18 million people, to 46 million Americans now receiving food stamps;
  • A 122 percent increase in food-stamp spending to an estimated $89 billion this year from $40 billion in 2008;
  • An increase of 3.6 million people receiving Social Security disability payments;
  • A 10 million person increase in the number of individuals receiving welfare, to 107 million, or more than one-third of the U.S. population;
  •  A 34 percent, $683 billion reduction in the adjusted gross income of the top 1 percent to $1.3 trillion in 2009 (latest data) from its 2007 peak.

And let’s not forget new entitlements like Obamacare, which will result in government expansion and expenditures by 2022 to the tune of:

  • Federal expenditures on Obamacare will total $2.3 trillion, a $1.4 trillion increase from the program’s initial estimates;
  • The combination of budget cuts and sequestration will reduce defense spending by $1 trillion, while total government spending will increase by $1.1 trillion;
  • Taxes will be increased by $1.8 trillion;
  • Yet, the national debt will increase by another $11 trillion.

The Heritage Foundation summarized well: “In 1964, programs for the poor consumed 1.2 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). Today, spending on welfare programs is 13 times greater than it was in 1964 and consumes over 5 percent of GDP. Spending per poor person in 2008 amounted to around $16,800 in programmatic benefits.”

How will illegal immigration impact these numbers? What is the current financial situation of California? Do we want the financial situation in California to become the financial situation of America?

There are people in our government working behind the scenes to implement the Cloward-Piven strategy. The honestly believe that taking money from the people who earn it and giving it to the people who did not will end poverty. Most of the people working toward this goal are quite well off and somehow figure that their wealth will not be impacted. I guess if they succeed and are in control, it is possible that their wealth will not be impacted. Good luck to the rest of us.

 

Things Haven’t Changed, But You Wouldn’t Know It If You Watch The Mainstream Media

This article is based on two articles, one from Breitbart posted today and one from The San Diego Union-Tribune, dated November 25, 2013. If you watch the mainstream media, recently you heard how inhumane it was to use tear gas on people trying to break through the southern border of America. No one mentioned that this was not the first time this approach was used, or that tear gas was probably the most harmless approach available to the border agents that were faced with people charging the border.

Breitbart reported today:

Five years almost to the day before President Donald Trump’s border officers blocked migrants with tear gas, authorities under President Barack Obama used identical tactics along the same stretch of border near the San Ysidro Port of Entry, according to 2013 press accounts.

From The San Diego Union-Tribune in 2013:

A group of about 100 people trying to illegally cross the border Sunday near the San Ysidro port of entry threw rocks and bottles at U.S. Border Patrol agents, who responded by using pepper spray and other means to force the crowd back into Mexico, federal officials said.

The incident has raised concerns among advocates on both sides of the immigration debate, as well as Border Patrol representatives.

…As the crowd kept advancing and throwing rocks and bottles, she said, more agents came to the scene and used other “intermediate use-of-force devices” to push back the group. The agents also contacted Mexican law enforcement.

Tijuana’s top police officer, Public Safety Secretary J. Alberto Capella, said “There is no information that we can provide.” He referred questions to the U.S. Border Patrol.

The spokesman for Tijuana police, Rafael Morales, said the agency’s officers did not intervene and had no knowledge of the incident.

Caston said several agents were struck in the arms and legs with rocks, and that one agent was hit in the head with a filled water bottle.

“While attacks on Border Patrol agents are not uncommon, the agents showed great restraint when faced with the dangers of this unusually large group, and fortunately no one was serious injured,” said Paul Beeson, San Diego sector chief for the Border Patrol.

The agency did not specify the time of Sunday’s incident.

This type of rush on the border has not been seen since the late 1980s and early ’90s, when groups of border-crossers would run into the U.S. while agents tried to apprehend as many people as possible. The practice mostly disappeared after Operation Gatekeeper began in 1994 and brought with it tall fences, walls and more agents.

How did the press treat President Obama during this incident versus how the press is treating President Trump during the recent incident? Double standard anyone?

Did You Know That Today Was “Equal Pay Day?”

Equal Pay Day is a day invented by those who still believe that women are paid less than men.

A website called nolo.com reminds us:

A federal law, the Equal Pay Act (EPA), requires employers to pay men and women equally for doing the same work — equal pay for equal work. The Equal Pay Act was passed in 1963 as an amendment to the Fair Labor Standards Act and can be found at 29 U.S.C. § 206. Although the Equal Pay Act protects both women and men from sex discrimination in pay rates, it was passed to help rectify the wage disparity experienced by women workers, and in practice, this law has almost always been applied to situations where women are paid less than men for doing similar jobs.

If you are a woman who believes you are being paid less than a man for equal work, you have legal recourse.

Today The Washington Free Beacon reported the following:

The gender pay gap in Sen. Elizabeth Warren‘s (D., Mass.) office is nearly 10 percent wider than the national average, meaning women in the Massachusetts Democrat’s office will have to wait longer than most women across the country to recognize Equal Pay Day.

Last year, Senator Warren tweeted out the following:

Evidently, the rule of equal pay does not seem to apply to Democrats:

“The game is rigged against women and families, and it has to stop,” Warren continued. “It is 2016, not 1916, and it’s long past time to eliminate gender discrimination in the workplace.”

Historically, 1995 was the last year where the national pay gap was comparable to the 2016 gap in Warren’s office, according to data collected by the group that founded Equal Pay Day.

Warren is far from the only politician who pays women less than men.

Most notable on the list is failed Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, who paid women less than men first as a senator, then as secretary of state, and as a presidential candidate. Her campaign viewed her tendency to pay women less than men as a campaign vulnerability.

Former President Barack Obama regularly spoke out about the gender pay gap, but women working at the White House were paid less than men.

Also paying women less than men were Democratic Govs. Jon Bel Edwards (La.), who last month held an “equal pay summit,” and Andrew Cuomo (N.Y.), who has signed two executive orders this year to eliminate the wage gap.

It seems odd to me that the political party that makes such a fuss over women’s issues accepts the fact that some of its leaders choose to ignore the law that say women should receive equal pay to their male counterparts.