This is the story of how a tiny, magical creature was transformed into a cultural phenomenon by inventor, marketing genius and complicated eccentric Harold von Braunhut. Full of fun facts (both charming and disturbing), Just Add Water is a colorful short film about a half-century of marketing directly to children, the force of nostalgia in pop culture, and an unlikely meeting of flim-flam and hard science. A film by Penny Lane.
Author: Papa Giorgio
Where Does All The Governments Money Come From?
Did you know that the U.S. federal government collects more than $3 trillion in taxes each year? Where does all that money come from?
Tucker Carlson Deconstructs A Common Leftist Talking Point
Hat-Tip to AMERICAN NEWS
Trump Reverses An Obama Era Reg (Merry Christmas)
The DAILY CALLER discusses another great reversal of Obama Era regulations meant to choose winners and losers:
…..Wind turbines kill hundreds of thousands of birds every year, and thermal solar plants in California have scorched hundreds more. These killings are unintentional, and represent a small percentage of accidental bird kills overall.
But while wind turbines and solar arrays killed migratory birds, the Obama administration exempted them from prosecution for years.
The Obama administration prosecuted more than 200 cases from 2009 to April 2013 involving the taking of protected birds and eagles, but never brought wind turbines to task, the Associated Press found.
Obama officials, however, did fine oil and gas companies for unintentionally killing birds. For example, ExxonMobil pleaded guilty in a 2009 federal court case to charges of killing 85 federally protected birds and agreed to pay $600,000 in fines and fees.
PacifiCorp was fined in 2009 for killing birds and paid $1.4 million in fines and restitution for the killing of 232 eagles in Wyoming that were electrocuted by power lines.
In fact the Obama administration didn’t prosecute wind power producers until Nov. 2013 for bird deaths at wind farms when they ordered a subsidiary of Duke Energy pay $1 million in fines….
Abigail Disney Is No Princess
Michael Medved deconstructs Abigail Disney’s positions in her video activism attacking [mainly by straw-men] the new Tax law. (Abigail is the grand-daughter of Walt Disney’s brother, Roy O. Disney.) Many disagreeing calls are taken, per Medved’s habit.
Trickle Down Economics Myth |Updated|
Here are some excerpts of Thomas Sowell’s article, the TRICKLE DOWN LIE (emphasis added):
New York’s new mayor, Bill de Blasio, in his inaugural speech, denounced people “on the far right” who “continue to preach the virtue of trickle-down economics.” According to Mayor de Blasio, “They believe that the way to move forward is to give more to the most fortunate, and that somehow the benefits will work their way down to everyone else.”
If there is ever a contest for the biggest lie in politics, this one should be a top contender.
While there have been all too many lies told in politics, most have some little tiny fraction of truth in them, to make them seem plausible. But the “trickle-down” lie is 100 percent lie.
It should win the contest both because of its purity — no contaminating speck of truth — and because of how many people have repeated it over the years, without any evidence being asked for or given…
[….]
…Back in 2008, presidential candidate Barack Obama attacked what he called “an economic philosophy” which “says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down to everyone else.”
Let’s do something completely unexpected: Let’s stop and think. Why would anyone advocate that we “give” something to A in hopes that it would trickle down to B? Why in the world would any sane person not give it to B and cut out the middleman? But all this is moot, because there was no trickle-down theory about giving something to anybody in the first place.
The “trickle-down” theory cannot be found in even the most voluminous scholarly studies of economic theories — including J.A. Schumpeter’s monumental “History of Economic Analysis.”
[….]
[….]
But, contrary to Mayor de Blasio, this is not a view confined to people on the “far right.” Such liberal icons as Presidents John F. Kennedy and Woodrow Wilson likewise argued that tax rates can be so high that they have an adverse effect on the economy.
In his 1919 address to Congress, Woodrow Wilson warned that, at some point, “high rates of income and profits taxes discourage energy, remove the incentive to new enterprise, encourage extravagant expenditures, and produce industrial stagnation with consequent unemployment and other attendant evils.”
In a 1962 address to Congress, John F. Kennedy said, “it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now.”
This was not a new idea. John Maynard Keynes said, back in 1933, that “taxation may be so high as to defeat its object,” that in the long run, a reduction of the tax rate “will run a better chance, than an increase, of balancing the budget.” And Keynes was not on “the far right” either.
The time is long overdue for people to ask themselves why it is necessary for those on the left to make up a lie if what they believe in is true.
Below are two short clips regarding “Trickle Down.” One is a clip from Sowell’s audio book, “Basic Economics A Citizen’s Guide to the Economy 2nd Edition” (left – 4:25 minutes). The other is the same info but during an interview (right – 3:08 minutes):
HERE is the entire “Uncommon Knowledge” interview discussing “Trickle Down” rhetoric and “Taxing the Rich.” BELOW is a Reagan myth exploded in an interview of Tavis Smiley by Larry Elder:
~ BONUS ~
Ben Shapiro Explains REAL Russian Collusion
HOT AIR covers the POLITICO story:
Did the current administration “collude” with Russia? So far no evidence at all has emerged to support that hypothesis, but Politico’s Josh Meyer digs deep into another curious set of circumstances in the Obama White House and its own operations with a foreign power. Perhaps the media will start asking whether the previous administration colluded with Iran to let terrorists and drug dealers go free in order to score one of the worst deals ever in international relations.
Before Barack Obama decided to pursue the nuclear deal with Iran, the DEA had a major operation called Project Cassandra. This operation had identified Hezbollah as a major supplier of cocaine to the US and other countries, along with its usual terrorist activities on behalf of its sponsors in Tehran. The DEA and FBI had built criminal cases against major players in Hezbollah’s drug and arms networks, succeeding in getting sealed indictments and finding witnesses for prosecution.
And then the Obama administration stepped in to drain it of all resources, just to protect its deal with Iran:
One Obama-era Treasury official, Katherine Bauer, in little-noticed written testimony presented last February to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, acknowledged that “under the Obama administration … these [Hezbollah-related] investigations were tamped down for fear of rocking the boat with Iran and jeopardizing the nuclear deal.”
As a result, some Hezbollah operatives were not pursued via arrests, indictments, or Treasury designations that would have blocked their access to U.S. financial markets, according to Bauer, a career Treasury official, who served briefly in its Office of Terrorist Financing as a senior policy adviser for Iran before leaving in late 2015. And other “Hezbollah facilitators” arrested in France, Colombia, Lithuania have not been extradited — or indicted — in the U.S., she wrote. …
Asher, for one, said Obama administration officials expressed concerns to him about alienating Tehran before, during and after the Iran nuclear deal negotiations. This was, he said, part of an effort to “defang, defund and undermine the investigations that were involving Iran and Hezbollah,” he said.
“The closer we got to the [Iran deal], the more these activities went away,” Asher said. “So much of the capability, whether it was special operations, whether it was law enforcement, whether it was [Treasury] designations — even the capacity, the personnel assigned to this mission — it was assiduously drained, almost to the last drop, by the end of the Obama administration.”
Cassandra turned out to be an ironic code name for the operation. In Greek mythology, Cassandra, the daughter of King Priam of Troy, was doomed to utter accurate prophecies that went unbelieved by all who heard them. This years-long effort to identify Hezbollah’s drug and arms operations and to find their financial resources ended up going the way of Cassandra’s prophecies, too — being utterly ignored despite their truth. (In fact, the project name derived specifically, if indirectly, from this myth.)……………
The Failure of Russian Collusion (Includes Judicial Watch’s Commentary)
A caller notes the Left leaning [anti-Trump] publications saying there is no valid evidence or proof regarding “Russian Collusion.” Prager names some of these very anti-Trump orgs, and the possible real motive behind it all – obviously JUST political.
BONUS
More information is slowly being revealed regarding Department of Justice employees associated with Fusion GPS and the Clinton campaign, including a former associate deputy attorney general.
Corporations Pay ZERO% In Taxes
I feel like I shouldn’t have to upload this ECON 101 type stuff, however, many may not realize this fact… ESPECIALLY if they went to college. I clip Dennis Prager noting this truth and then add a classic from Milton Friedman (longer video is HERE). See as well Congressman Bill Posey make the same point on the House floor.
Rush Limbaugh Interviews Paul Ryan About The Tax Law
This interview took place minutes after the House passed the tax bill. There were things in this bill I had no idea were in there. Here is what I posted on my Facebook:
- I finally know why the Dems are Soo bent out of shape over the tax bill. I was listening to Rush Limbaugh interview Paul Ryan. Wow! Talk about a YUGE conservative win on many fronts. F-O-R INSTANCE – ANWR is opened up for energy resources! WOW! You know how many years Repubs and conservatives wanted this! Awesome.
Awesome Indeed.
Ben Ferguson Fills In For Mark Levin – And Hits Homers!
Ben Ferguson of the “Ben Ferguson Show,” filled in for Mark Levin. I really like the guy. I would love to help him prep responses! Anyhew, he took a call from a guy who says Trump’s deregulating certain aspects of government actions is destroying the environment. The Keystone Pipeline ended up being the topic of discussion. Enjoy.
While filling in for Mark Levin, Ben Ferguson of the “Ben Ferguson Show”, took a call from a guy who thought Trumps deregulations hurt the economy. Follow Ben on TWITTER.
Hollywood Wants Your Mind, And Money
Imagine a group so powerful they could beam ideas directly into your head. Well, you don’t have to imagine — it’s Hollywood. Ben Shapiro, Editor of the Daily Wire, explains the world’s largest mass propaganda machine.
FLASHBACK: