Author: Papa Giorgio

The Bible Assumes Private Property and Business Ownership

Published by Papa Giorgio

(Originally posted February 2011)

Here is a great quote from Dr. Grudem:

A. PRIVATE PROPERTY

According to the teachings of the Bible, government should both document and protect the ownership of private property in a nation.

The Bible regularly assumes and reinforces a system in which property belongs to individuals, not to the government or to society as a whole.

We see this implied in the Ten Commandments, for example, because the eighth commandment, “You shall not steal” (Exod. 20:15), assumes that human beings will own property that belongs to them individually and not to other people. I should not steal my neighbor’s ox or donkey because it belongs to my neighbor, not to me and not to anyone else.

The tenth commandment makes this more explicit when it prohibits not just stealing but also desiring to steal what belongs to my neighbor:

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s” (Exod. 20:17).

The reason I should not “covet” my neighbor’s house or anything else is that these things belong to my neighbor, not to me and not to the community or the nation.

This assumption of private ownership of property, found in this fundamental moral code of the Bible, puts the Bible in direct opposition to the communist system advocated by Karl Marx. Marx said:

The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: abolition of private property.

One reason why communism is so incredibly dehumanizing is that when private property is abolished, government controls all economic activity. And when government controls all economic activity, it controls what you can buy, where you will live, and what job you will have (and therefore what job you are allowed to train for, and where you go to school), and how much you will earn. It essentially controls all of life, and human liberty is destroyed. Communism enslaves people and destroys human freedom of choice. The entire nation becomes one huge prison. For this reason, it seems to me that communism is the most dehumanizing economic system ever invented by man.

Other passages of Scripture also support the idea that property should belong to individuals, not to “society” or to the government (except for certain property required for proper government purposes, such as government offices, military bases, and streets and highways). The Bible contains many laws concerning punishments for stealing and appropriate restitution for damage of another person’s farm animals or agricultural fields (for example, see Exod. 21:28-36; 22:1-15; Deut. 22:1-4; 23:24-25). Another commandment guaranteed that property boundaries would be protected: “You shall not move your neighbor’s landmark, which the men of old have set, in the inheritance that you will hold in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess” (Deut. 19:14). To move the landmark was to move the boundaries of the land and thus to steal land that belonged to one’s neighbor (compare Prov. 22:28; 23:10).

Another guarantee of the ownership of private property was the fact that, even if property was sold to someone else, in the Year of Jubilee it had to return to the family that originally owned it:

It shall be a Jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan (Lev. 25:10).

This is why the land could not be sold forever: “The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers and sojourners with me” (Lev. 25:23).

This last verse emphasizes the fact that private property is never viewed in the Bible as an absolute right, because all that people have is ultimately given to them by God, and people are viewed as God’s “stewards” to manage what he has entrusted to their care.

The earth is the LORD’S and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein (Ps. 24:1; compare Ps. 50:10-12; Hag. 2:8).

Yet the fact remains that, under the overall sovereign lordship of God himself, property is regularly said to belong to individuals, not to the government and not to “society” or the nation as a whole.

When Samuel warned the people about the evils that would be imposed upon them by a king, he emphasized the fact that the monarch, with so much government power, would “take” and “take” and “take” from the people and confiscate things for his own use:

So Samuel told all the words of the LORD to the people who were asking for a king from him. He said, “These will be the ways of the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to be his horsemen and to run before his chariots. And he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards and give it to his officers and to his servants. He will take your male servants and female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the LORD will not answer you in that day” (1 Sam. 8:10-18).

This prediction was tragically fulfilled in the story of the theft of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite by Ahab the wicked king and Jezebel, his even more wicked queen (see 1 Kings 21:1-29). The regular tendency of human governments is to seek to take control of more and more of the property of a nation that God intends to be owned and controlled by private individuals.

SOCIALISM likewise is the taking over of private property, industry, and the capital of a man’s labor. Here is a good working definition of socialism followed by Professor Richards describing it as well:

In order to have a “favorable” view of socialism one must have either forgotten what the entire world learned about socialism from the late nineteenth century on, or have never learned anything about it in the first place. The latter is obviously true of much of the younger generation.

Socialism started out being defined as “government ownership of the means of production,” which is why the government of the Soviet Union confiscated all businesses, factories, and farms, murdering millions of dissenters and resisters in the process. It is also why socialist political parties in Europe, once in power, nationalized as many of the major industries (steel, automobiles, coal mines, electricity, telephone ser­vices) as they could. The Labour Party in post-World War II Great Britain would be an example of this. All of this was done, ostensibly, in the name of pursuing material “equality.”

In the foreword to the 1976 edition of his famous book, The Road to Serfdom, Nobel laureate economist Friedrich Hayek wrote that the definition of “socialism” evolved in the twentieth century to mean income redis­tribution in pursuit of “equality,” not through govern­ment ownership of the means of production but through the institutions of the welfare state and the “progres­sive” income tax. The means may have changed, but the ostensible end—equality—remained the same.

Hayek’s mentor, fellow Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises, explained in his classic treatise Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, that the wel­fare state, the “progressive” income tax, and especially pervasive government regulation of business were all tools of “destructionism” in the eyes of the socialists of his day. That is, he observed that the proponents of socialism always employed a two-pronged approach: (1) the government takeover of as many industries and as much land as possible, and (2) attempts to destroy existing capitalist societies with onerous taxes, regula­tions, the welfare state, inflation, or whatever they thought could get the job done.

Thomas J. DiLorenzo, The Problem with Socialism (New Jersey, NJ: Regnery, 2016), 4-5.

On Puerto Rico, Trump Is Right (UPDATED)

Published by Papa Giorgio

This is all POWERLINE, but soo important for the “Mantra Busting” that …. here ya go:

…This is what is going on: Some “scientists”–read anti-Trump Democratic Party activists–constructed a theoretical baseline of how many deaths would be expected to occur in Puerto Rico during the months after Hurricane Maria. They then compared this baseline to the actual number of deaths, and voila! The actual number was higher than their hypothetical guess by 3,000. So all of those deaths–whether caused by cancer, car accidents, or whatever–are attributed to the hurricane. These activists have not made any attempt to count the actual number of hurricane-related deaths.

No one would use such a foolish methodology except for political reasons. This is more fake news propagated by anti-Trump activists. The fake news media, like CNN, have attacked President Trump for disputing the “scientists” who came up with the 3,000 number. Sadly, some Republicans have joined them, probably because they are ignorant about what is actually going on here.

For what it is worth, Hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico in September 2017, and Puerto Rico’s death rate declined in 2017, after years of increases:

(click to enlarge)

So, following the logic of the Left and the #NeverTrumpers, MORE hurricanes should hit Puerto Rico. Just sayin’ — I love the holes dug by these early reactors to the MSM. Some article to preserve:

…Excess mortality studies have been used to measure everything from the life expectancy of smokers to “temperature-related stress” in the Netherlands. The problem is that such studies are inherently reliant on conjecture. There can be other problems as well, namely politics, as I learned a decade ago while poking holes in an excess mortality study in Iraq published by the Lancet.

An article in the British medical journal estimated some 650,000 “excess” Iraqi deaths in the 40 months following the U.S. invasion. This figure was seven times higher than the toll based on body counts. It was based on field surveys supposedly done by a former health official in Saddam Hussein’s government and was authored by outspoken critics of the Iraq war — and of George W. Bush. It was also timed to come out just before the 2006 midterm elections.

To some neutral observers, the controversy underscored the importance of actually documenting wartime casualties. I don’t know how much Donald Trump knows about this topic. But he apparently is aware that “excess mortality” is not how U.S. authorities have previously tallied storm deaths. The National Hurricane Center, for example, estimated that 1,833 people died in Hurricane Katrina, most from drowning.

In Puerto Rico, there were myriad problems getting accurate data, the biggest being that electricity was knocked out for so long. This inhibited the reporting ability of island health officials. It also led to deprivations that killed health-impaired residents months after the hurricane season ended. In that environment, excess mortality studies made sense. Inevitably, they would be imprecise, and perhaps just wrong. The first such study, by researchers at Penn State University, estimated the number of deaths at 1,085 – when the government in San Juan was still listing the official toll as 64. Days later, the New York Times, using island death certificates, produced an estimate of 1,052.

Harvard went next. Its study, trumpeted uncritically around the world, had problems. For one thing, its range of 793 to 8,498 excess deaths was unhelpful. So the media settled on the median figure, 4,645, which was little more than a guess. The bigger problem is that the methodology was a mish-mash. Harvard’s researchers compared actual deaths in 2016 to estimates based on interviews – polling surveys – in 2017. “The big thing is the methodology is so completely different, you don’t now what you’re dealing with,” said University of Texas biostatistics professor Donald Berry. “What you end up with is garbage.”

That’s the background when the governor of Puerto Rico tapped George Washington University’s school of public health to do another excess mortality survey. Like all such studies, it’s based on assumptions and guesswork – in this case assumptions complicated by the outward migration of tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans to the mainland after the hurricane. That said, I know of no evidence that would undermine its estimate of 2,975 excess deaths…

(REAL CLEAR POLITICS)

Self Reporting is the worst!

The difference between survey results and demonstrable realities was also pointed out by the author of Hillbilly Elegy: “In a recent Gallup poll, Southerners and Midwesterners reported the highest rates of church attendance in the country. Yet actual church attendance is much lower in the South.”

Thomas Sowell, Discrimination and Disparities (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2018), 23-25 (added references).

As Twitchy reported, the media went wild last week when a report from Harvard University estimated that nearly 5,000 people in Puerto Rico had died from Hurricane Maria.

The Washington Post’s Fact Checker blog, though, took a look at how Harvard, whose researchers admitted they conducted “a quick study on a limited budget,” came up with that number and found that the methodology was ridiculously flawed:

In effect, the researchers took one number — 15 deaths identified from a survey of 3,299 households — and extrapolated that to come up with 4,645 deaths across the island. That number came with a very large caveat, clearly identified in the report, but few news media accounts bothered to explain the nuances….

(TWITCHY)

Flashback: Puerto Rican Gov. admitted higher ‘death toll is only an approximation, not a concrete list of names’

The death toll is ‘a very broad estimate for the number of people who died above what you’d expect to see in a normal year’ – ‘But that number is not a count of the death toll in Puerto Rico caused by Hurricane Maria. Instead, it’s just the midpoint of a wide-ranging estimate of the possible number of deaths’

(CLIMATE DEPOT)

…It turns out there is no list of names.   There is no accounting of what causes of death were attributable to the aftermath of the devastating storm.  In fact, having now scanned the George Washington University report at the heart of this all, I have an itching feeling they missed a big statistical point.

The bottom line is that the researchers developed a model and made a projected estimate of the number of deaths to be expected on the island during the six months following the storm, based on previous year’s death numbers.   They then factored in the fact that a full 8 percent of the population, 280,000 people roughly, left the island following the storm.

With that population change factored in, the “expected” number of deaths was about 3,000 fewer than the 16,000 deaths which were recorded September through February.  Those 3,000 “excess” deaths above the projection are the one’s being attributed to the effects of the storm.  I’m rounding because their report admits the projection is not exact.  The chart I included above notes the higher death rate per 10,000 people.

There are not 3,000 death certificates noting hurricane-related causes (loss of electricity, stress, poor transportation response) and the authors chide the local medical community for not being sufficiently exact in filling out their death certificates.  So they are left with models and projections and estimates, which have translated into MSM-accepted Truth.

Here’s my question, the itch not addressed in the report, that I saw:   Who left?  Who departed following the storm?  Would the elderly, infirm and impoverished have been the ones to decamp to the mainland?  Or would they have been the one’s left behind?  Doesn’t the shift in the baseline also at least in part explain this?  The death rate really only jumped dramatically when you reduce the baseline population…

(BACON’S REBELLION)

Weather Ruckus (Mundane Monday)

Published by Papa Giorgio

Remember this FLASHBACK to exaggerating weather?

Well, there is a new contender… and then the responses on Twitter (give em’ a sec to render). FIRST, the weather reporter going for the Golden Globes:

NOW THE RESPONSES – LOL

ANDERSON COOPER’S DRAMA


More Lisa Page Testimony Enlightens Capital Hill

Published by Papa Giorgio

  • “Lisa Page left me with the impression, based on her own words, that the lead investigator of the Russian collusion case, Peter Strzok, had found no evidence of collusion after nearly a year.”

– U.S. Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Texas

In other words… when Mueller was appointed, no crime was found to be committed, the opposite of how a Special Council should be appointed. U.S. Attorney John Huber will convene a Grand Jury, have a crime put into the books that was committed, from the evidence of crimes committed, whether duping a FISA Judge (James Comey, Rod Rosenstein, Andrew McCabe, Sally Yates) or leaking classified information to the press (James Comey, Lisa Page, Peter Strzok, Andrew McCabe). THE SPECIAL COUNCIL will act once a crime has been found. No crime was found to start Mueller’s case.

Now, if the Manafort case stands (even though the criminal evidence was ultimately found in an illegal manner), then a whole can of whoop ass is about to be unleashed…

…CNN reported Friday that attorney Greg Craig, who was White House counsel from 2009 to 2010, is under scrutiny over whether he lobbied for Ukrainian leaders without registering as a foreign agent.

The investigation also touches on the firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, where Craig was a partner at the time.

Craig’s actions were taken after he left the White House, according to the report.

Connections between Manafort, the firm and Craig were revealed in filings in the Manafort case….

(WESTERN JOURNAL)

Two lobbying firms, including one owned by Democratic superlobbyist Tony Podesta, knowingly worked with Paul Manafort at the direction of the Ukrainian government, according to an indictment released Friday by the special counsel’s office.

The indictment, which was released ahead of an expected plea deal for Manafort, the former chairman of President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, says that as a part of his “lobbying scheme,” Manafort solicited two lobbying firms in February 2012 to lobby on behalf of then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

“Various employees of Companies A and B understood that they were receiving direction from MANAFORT and President Yanukovych, not the Centre, which was not even operational when Companies A and B began lobbying for Ukraine,” reads the indictment. The Centre is a reference to the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, a Brussels-based non-profit that the government says was used to support Yanukovych.

Company A has been identified as Mercury Public Affairs, a lobbying shop operated by former Minnesota Republican Rep. Vin Weber. Company B has been identified as Podesta Group, the firm that Tony Podesta founded with his brother, John, the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s campaign….

(DC CALLER)

Closing In On DOJ/FBI Collusion

Published by Papa Giorgio

“He will have the full authority of a federal prosecutor,” said Richard Painter, former chief ethics attorney for President George W. Bush. “If he looks at this and finds someone in the DOJ lied to a government official, he would be able to convene a grand jury, compel testimony and even prosecute them.”

(WASHINGTON TIMES)

“The leaks that have been coming out of the FBI and DOJ since 2016 are unconscionable,” said retired FBI supervisory special agent James Gagliano. “There’s a difference between whistleblowing and leaking for self-serving or partisan purposes.”

“Former Obama officials and their press allies can call it a ‘conspiracy theory’ or whatever they want,” a senior U.S. official — familiar with how Obama holdovers and the media jointly targeted Trump figures — told RCI. “But they can’t say it’s not true that former Obama officials were furiously leaking to keep people close to Trump out of the White House.”

(SARA CARTER)

People forget that there is a Grand Jury in session and they are hearing about all this (and more) that will surely kick off a second Special Council where criminal proceedings against James Comey, Lisa Page, Peter Strzok, Andrew McCabe, and others will filter out. AMERICAN THINKER describes the below video thus:

  • The former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Joe DiGenova, knows what he is talking about when it comes to legal liability, and he has the guts to lay out in straight talk what really happened with the conspiracy to swing a presidential election, cover up the effort, and take out a duly elected president.

Back in April THE HILL noted this:

Questions surround the work of U.S. Attorney John Huber, who is playing a key role in one of the multiple investigations surrounding President Trump and the Justice Department.

Known as a no-nonsense prosecutor whose primary experience is fighting violent crime, the U.S. attorney for Utah is an appointee of President Obama whose job was saved by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) when Trump asked state attorneys to resign so that he could field a new slate of professionals.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions quietly tapped Huber — apparently last fall — to work in tandem with the Justice Department’s inspector general to determine whether conservative allegations of abuse at the FBI and the Justice Department merit investigation.

It’s an unusual arrangement, and one that fall short of demands from the right that Sessions name a second special counsel. That idea has generated controversy, with critics saying the second appointee would inevitably impede the work of special counsel Robert Mueller….

We will also know that when John Huber speaks with Bruce Ohr, the noose will be ready for a grand jury. Here is the latest per Joe diGenova:

Remember, both WOODWARD AND STARR said they have not seen COLLUSION in all the evidence and investigating they have done. Also, there is as of yet no evidence of OBSTRUCTION either. Here is CNN and Kenn Starr:

CNN:  “Do you think there is a case there?”

STARR:  “It’s too soon to tell. From what I’ve seen — and of course we don’t know a whole lot — the answer is no.  But it is going to be investigated and so we will soon know.”

“Obstruction of justice is really a very hard crime to make out.  It’s not just you want the investigation to go away, you suggest that the investigation goes away.  You’ve got to take really affirmative action and Director Comey said in his testimony that even though the expression was hope, he took it as a directive.”

“But what we know is, he didn’t do anything about it, right? That is that he did not dismiss the investigation or curtail the investigation. There’s an expression of hope, so it becomes an interpretation.”

[….]

STARR:  “We’re going to the intent of what is it that the President had in mind?  He was expressing, his literal language was ‘hope.’  And, I think that redounds to the benefit of the President.  That to me, just the language, is far removed from a directive.”

“My point is, the Director of the FBI then didn’t act on that.  He rather just continued as before and reported and memorialized it.  But he did not then say, ‘ok, ladies and gentlemen of the FBI, we’re getting rid of this investigation at the direction of the President.”

So, still no there “there” yet… but damning info comes out almost daily on the DOJ and FBI’s interactions with trying to throw an election. And the MANFORT plea deal is bad news for Republican and Democrat super lobbying machines. THE SWAMP IS GETTING CLEARED A BIT:

Two lobbying firms, including one owned by Democratic superlobbyist Tony Podesta, knowingly worked with Paul Manafort at the direction of the Ukrainian government, according to an indictment released Friday by the special counsel’s office.

The indictment, which was released ahead of an expected plea deal for Manafort, the former chairman of President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, says that as a part of his “lobbying scheme,” Manafort solicited two lobbying firms in February 2012 to lobby on behalf of then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych.

“Various employees of Companies A and B understood that they were receiving direction from MANAFORT and President Yanukovych, not the Centre, which was not even operational when Companies A and B began lobbying for Ukraine,” reads the indictment. The Centre is a reference to the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, a Brussels-based non-profit that the government says was used to support Yanukovych.

Company A has been identified as Mercury Public Affairs, a lobbying shop operated by former Minnesota Republican Rep. Vin Weber. Company B has been identified as Podesta Group, the firm that Tony Podesta founded with his brother, John, the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s campaign….

I will admit, if Podesta is brought into Mueller’s grasp, my thinking about Mueller will change. BUT BACK TO the topic at hand… new text messages released show collusion between the DOJ/FBI and the media to change the outcome of an election and presidency:

SEE CONSERVATIVE TREEHOUSE’S latest post for more:

“Unseemly And Unprecedented” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo

Published by Papa Giorgio

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on former Secretary John Kerry: “What Secretary Kerry has done is unseemly and unprecedented.” He also says: “Secretary Kerry ought not to engage in that kind of behavior.”

POWERLINE: “What Secretary Kerry Has Done Is Unseemly And Unprecedented”

Yesterday morning I revisited former Obama administration Secretary of State John Kerry’s coaching of the powers that be in Iran on the fine art of resistance to the Trump administration. Yesterday afternoon Trump administration Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was asked at a press conference (transcript here) about Kerry’s freelance diplomacy, as Michael Rubin calls it in this excellent New York Post column. Pompeo responded: “What Secretary Kerry has done is unseemly and unprecedented. This is a former Secretary of State engaged with the world’s largest state sponsor of terror…” Going further, Pompeo condemned Kerry’s conduct as “beyond inappropriate.”

Pompeo spoke firmly but diplomatically, as befits the office he holds, but how sweet the sound of Kerry being called out by a Secretary of State seeking to squeeze the Iranians into civilized norms of behavior….

(Watch Ari Fleischer’s reaction)

LEGAL INSURRECTION lays down the law:

“did not deny the suggestion he’s telling the Iranians to wait out Trump until there is a Democratic president again”

[….]

This is serious. Michael Rubin writes at the Washington Examiner:

John Kerry deserves jail for secret Iran diplomacy

Kerry has always been an arrogant and aloof man. During his long career on Capitol Hill, Senate colleagues on both sides of the aisle described him as the least-liked senator, an opinion repeatedly affirmed by his own office staff during his long career. He is disdainful of democracy. Simply put, he sees himself as above the law, deserving of privilege and special dispensation not only when he is in government, but also as a private citizen.

Perhaps Kerry believes he is not violating the Logan Act of 1799 which states that: “Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.”

Trump responded Thursday night. Brooke Singman reports at FOX News:

President Trump and John Kerry entered into a war of words on Twitter Friday, with the president suggesting the former secretary of state had “illegal meetings” with the Iranian regime, and Kerry suggesting the commander-in-chief should be more concerned with the Russia investigation.

“John Kerry had illegal meetings with the very hostile Iranian Regime, which can only serve to undercut our great work to the detriment of the American people. He told them to wait out the Trump Administration! Was he registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act? BAD!” Trump tweeted Thursday night.

The Way It Was – Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Published by Papa Giorgio

WEASEL HAT-TIP

GOP WAR ROOM:

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg criticizes how Judge Brett Kavanaugh was treated during his SCOTUS confirmation hearings. Discussing the modern Supreme Court confirmation process, Ginsburg called the hearings a “highly partisan show” and “wrong” while speaking at the George Washington University Law School on 9/12/18. Be sure to like, subscribe, and comment below to share your thoughts on the video.

Snowflake TV – Norm Macdonald Ostracized

Published by Papa Giorgio

Wow, welcome to Snowflake TV… even commenting on stuff keeps you from the late night shows. BREITBART reports on these millennials:

….The New York Post reports:

Macdonald said that he had arrived early at the late-night show to pre-tape a “True Confessions” segment with fellow guest Matthew McConaughey when “some people, from NBC or ‘The Tonight Show,’ I don’t know who they were,” stopped by his dressing room and questioned the prudence of doing that particular bit at this time.

[….]

Eventually, a “concerned”-looking Fallon himself stopped by Macdonald’s dressing room to ask, “How should we play this?” As Macdonald told Stern, “Part of the reason I love [Jimmy] is because he does nothing about the news. He’s just a song-and-dance man. He’s not a political comedian.”

[….]

Fallon and Macdonald agreed they would address his #MeToo remarks at the end of their interview, following some reminiscing about the late Burt Reynolds (whom Macdonald used to imitate on “Saturday Night Live”). After Macdonald rebuffed the producers’ idea to open the show with an apology, Fallon returned to say that he was feeling a lot of pressure from people, noting that some senior producers were “crying” over the idea of letting Macdonald appear on-air.

“He was very broken up about it, he didn’t want this,” the comedian told Stern. “Jimmy said, ‘Come back whenever you want, but I think it will hurt the show tonight,” to which Macdonald replied, “‘Jimmy, that’s the last thing I want to do, is hurt your show.’”…

Ben Ferguson Shows CNN What Common Sense Means

Published by Papa Giorgio
  • “Remember, Colin Kaepernick was a guy that wore socks depicting all cops as pigs,” he said, referring to one of the now-former NFL quarterback’s more infamous antics.
  • “He has worn shirts supporting Fidel Castro, a dictator and tyrant who oppresses people all the time, as someone he, I guess, admires by wearing that T-shirt.”
  • Ferguson also pointed out that “the biggest day of protests in the NFL’s history was after Donald Trump called out the players.”

~ Ben Ferguson (CONSERVATIVE TRIBUNE)

Net Neutrality Succinctly Explained

Published by Papa Giorgio

For months, it seemed nearly every media figure was in hysterics over the impending repeal of net neutrality. Then, net neutrality was repealed… and nothing much changed. So what exactly is net neutrality, and why do so many people have such strong opinions about something they don’t understand? Jon Gabriel, editor-in-chief of Ricochet.com cuts through the hysteria to bring you the facts.

California Falls Off Alternative Deep End

Published by Papa Giorgio

WTH is wrong with California?? Oh yeah, D E M O C R A T S:

Due to moonbattery, California is headed off the rails; let’s hope it doesn’t take the rest of the economy with it. The irresponsible kook Gavin Newsom — who has promised free healthcareto any illegal aliens who can sneak into the state — hasn’t even taken office as Governor yet, and plans to impose absolute lunacy are already underway:

The state assembly on Tuesday passed S.B. 100, a proposal to transition California to 100 percent emissions-free electricity sources by 2045.

You can’t run the world’s fifth largest economy on wind turbines, solar panels, and pious green thoughts….

(MOONBATTERY)

Next Level Politicking (This Is Still In The Mix)

Published by Papa Giorgio

UPDATED!!

President Donald Trump said Friday that he’s considering using military resources to finish construction of his long-promised border wall instead of relying on Congress to fund the project through the Homeland Security Department’s budget.

He also wouldn’t eliminate the possibility of a government shutdown if Democrats continue to confound his efforts to appropriate money for the project on the U.S.-Mexico border.

‘We have two options,’ he told DailyMail.com aboard Air Force One as he flew from Billings, Montana to Fargo, North Dakota. ‘We have military, we have homeland security.’

He was asked specifically about using the Army Corps of Engineers as a taxpayer-funded construction crew.

Trump said he would prefer to fund the ambitious construction ‘the old-fashioned way – get it from Congress – but I have other options if I have to.’

He’s seeking about $25 billion….

(DAILY MAIL)

(Originally posted in March 2018)

Here is an update due to some discussion on my Facebook for the skeptics. This first article excerpt from THE HILL dated December 2011:

The Obama administration won’t be bound by a gun-control ban in the $1 trillion spending bill for 2012, the president said Friday.

The funding provision for the federal Health agency says that “none of the funds made available in this title may be used, in whole or in part, to advocate or promote gun control.” The language aims to ban taxpayer dollars from supporting gun-safety research.

“I have advised the Congress that I will not construe these provisions as preventing me from fulfilling my constitutional responsibility to recommend to the Congress’s consideration such measures as I shall judge necessary and expedient,” Obama said in a statement as he signed the bill into law…..

And this comes from POPULIST WIRE:

….It’s not an official ‘Federal Budget’. It’s an Omnibus bill…not a Budget…He outsmarted them again…Congress basically screwed themselves by not passing a Budget…

Per the Constitution…the President must adhere to a Budget set forth by Congress and direct the expenditures as provided therein.

This is another one of those big Porkulus Bills, like they gave Obama for 8 years. This is not a Budget..

An Omnibus Spending Bill may have some ‘instructions’ as to how the money will be spent…but Obama ignored them. He spent the money, or didn’t spend it, however, he wanted to. And Congress didn’t do a thing about it! Because they couldn’t..”

As some suspected Trump had an “Ace up his sleeve”.  Sunday on Social Media, the President verified that he had indeed kept his promise to stay focused on the “Building the Wall”….

Democrats View of Trump’s Game

Donald’s Real Game

The morning after Trump signed the ominous OMNIBUS bill, a friend and I were very disappointed, to say the least. Below is our conversation… and let me say, I was wrong and not in tune with what this business man was after. And he was after getting his way because he loves America. My buddy is the orange boxes, I am the light colored boxes:

And it is that “what if” at 10:53am that got me thinking that Trump just may have bitch-slapped that evil grin on Schumer’s face off! And speaking for myself as an Evangelical conservatarian, I am reinvigorated — greatly.

How I now see it… The Omnibus Bill is a temporary spending procedure to keep the government funded for a while (I don’t know how long? 6-months? a year?). It was a mess of funding every pet project the Dems wanted to continue to fund, like Planned Parenthoood, NPR, etc. The bill may have even increased spending in some of these areas. But again, this is a t-e-m-p-o-r-a-r-y fix, and can be revisited in the future. It has to be.

A REAL BUDGET passed by the Congress and signed into law has to allocate money specifically to earmarked results — so if monies were said to go to the “a”, they couldn’t then be used for “a(i)”. So the monies allocated to these projects are more “malleable,” so-to-speak. Especially if the executive “declares” something that this office has power over. Congress would have a much rougher go at it, as they would have to collectively agree on what they have authority over, and THAT ain’t happening anytime soon.

So Trump’s Monday Tweet was as follows:

The “M” me thinks (hat-tip to Rush Limbaugh BTW) is the military. What that Tweet shows are the two requirements needed to use the military funds and know-how to build a large portion of the wall. A humanitarian emergency (crime, rape, drugs, etc. — related to the border and at the border) as well as a national security threat (terrorists being able to easily enter through our Southern border).

And walla, the ARMY Core of Engineers can get to work.

And he knew this from the get-go.

So 5-hours before he signed the bill he said he was going to veto it. Naw, that was a head-bob and weave. After he signed it he said never again. That is because he got what he wanted/needed.

The graphic to the right is for me: “Oh ye [me] of little faith.”

I could imagine this happening behind closed doors:

Schumer and Pelosi and others are in a private “backroom” gloating, having martinis and a few smoking cigars. Schumer’s aid walks in unannounced and comes over to Schumer, he bends down and whispers something in his ear. Schumer looking perturbed, being the egotistical ass he is, out loud says they put an iron-clad aspect in the bill to not pour concrete with the 33-million they allocated to “Trump’s wall.” He was shooed from the room.

  • * laughter from the back of the room is heard* and murmurs of how they will make sure unions get the job… and then the 33-million will only get them a couple miles of fence with all the overtime.

A few minutes later Pelosi’s aid walks in unannounced and rushes over to Pelosi and whispers something in h-e-r ear. She laughs and shoos her out of the room. Schumer asks what that was about. Pelosi said that Trump is planning on using the 33-million to grade the land for the wall to prepare the building he will access from the military budget.

Laughter and small talk turns to heads tilting and serious debate. Aids are told to bring in precedence and a legal team.

What was once a happy and giddy time soon turned into wailing and gnashing of teeth.

My Tweet regarding the 33-million the Dems gave Trump:

Even if the above is not true to the “tee”… it has to be true in some respect. The Democrats got played. And I bet they are pissed! So are the spineless GOPers! (A two-fur one)

Trump strengthened the military greatly, and he can now come at North Korea and Iran with a stronger military and a bigger bargaining chip — and keep China’s ambitions with their Navy to a minimum. And, he gets his wall. AND he routed the Dems. Awesome! I am not worthy: