States Moving To Remove Biden from Ballot (Tit-4-Tat)

I warned you via David Frum back on August 29, 2023, when I quoted the Atlantic piece:

  • Republicans will hunt for Democrats to disqualify, and not only for president, but for any race where Democrats present someone who said or did something that can be represented as “aid and comfort” to enemies of the United States. Didn’t progressive Representative Ilhan Omar once seemingly equate al-Qaeda with the U.S. military? Do we think that her political enemies will accept that she was making only a stupid rhetorical point? (RPT)

ALAN DERSHOWITZ MAKES THE PROPHECY 2-WEEKS AGO:

RPT’S “thinking”: You play stupid games; you get stupid prizes!

  • Harry Reid changed the Senate rules? GOP took advantage of it and due to Trump we have one of the better Courts in a long while. (RPT)
  • Dems placed two people on a committee illegally [J6]? GOP should do the same. (RPT)
  • Trying to Trump from the ballot? Get Biden off the ballot! [Story Below]
  • DNC charges guy for memes as election interference? Charge the DNC! (AP NEWS)

The GOP should counter Dems craziness with Dem craziness!

Tit for Tat!

Here is more from ACE OF SPADES post titled Republicans Threaten to Throw Biden Off the Ballot in Missouri… and Florida

[BTW… THE VIDEO WITH RON DESANTIS BELOW IS BY CNN, WHO THINKS

THIS IS SOME KINDA RESPONSE I GATHER? IT MERELY CONFIRMS]

The left is rigging the election on the pretext claim that Trump tried (and failed) to rig one first. Or rather, the claim that he attempted to un-rig the 2020 election that they had worked so hard to “fortify.”

Republicans are calling for President Joe Biden to be removed from the 2024 primary ballot as former President Donald Trump is facing challenges to remove him from ballots in multiple states.

As challenges are brought to disqualify Trump from 2024 GOP primary ballots in more than 30 states for allegedly instigating an insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, Republicans are suggesting that Biden should be removed from the ballot in response, but because of the increased volume of illegal immigrants entering the U.S. through the southern border.

The challenges against Trump have been made under the insurrection clauses of the 14th Amendment, a Civil War-era amendment that hasn’t previously been used to disqualify a presidential candidate, Axios reported. The insurrection clauses do not specify whether a criminal conviction is necessary as a prerequisite. There have been candidates — albeit on the fringes — who have appeared on presidential ballots despite criminal convictions. Lyndon LaRouche ran his 1992 campaign from behind prison bars after a fraud conviction, and more famously, Eugene V. Debs ran his 1920 campaign from prison after being convicted of sedition. He garnered nearly a million votes.

[….]

Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (R), who is running for governor, posted on X on Friday following the Supreme Court taking up the Colorado appeal, saying the same standard should be applied to Biden as Trump.

“What has happened in Colorado & Maine is disgraceful & undermines our republic,” Ashcroft wrote. “While I expect the Supreme Court to overturn this, if not, Secretaries of State will step in & ensure the new legal standard for @realDonaldTrump applies equally to @JoeBiden!”

Missouri state Sen. Bill Eigel (R), who is also running for governor, announced on Friday that he plans to introduce legislation that would disqualify Biden from the Missouri ballot.

“By the Democrats’ own standard, Joe Biden should be immediately disqualified and removed from the ballot for the ‘aid and comfort’ he has given our enemies,” Eigel said in a press release, citing the treason clause in Article III of the U.S. Constitution.

“Our country is being invaded, because Joe Biden has swung our southern border wide open. President Biden has allowed more than 8 million people to stroll across our border illegally, causing more harm to this country than any other president in American history,” the state senator continued.

[….]

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who is running in the GOP presidential primary race against Trump, said on Friday that he’s looking at blocking Biden from the ballot.

“This is just going to be a tit for tat and it’s just not gonna end well,” DeSantis said. “You could make a case — and I’m actually looking at this in Florida now — could we make a credible case” to block Biden from the ballot “because of the invasion of 8 million. And again, I don’t think that’s the right way to do it.”

[….]

Last month, following Colorado removing Trump from the ballot, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) also suggested that Biden be removed from the ballot.

“Seeing what happened in Colorado tonight … makes me think — except we believe in democracy in Texas — maybe we should take Joe Biden off the ballot in Texas for allowing 8 million people to cross the border since he’s been president, disrupting our state far more than anything anyone else has done in recent history,” Patrick said.

[….]

Despite the claims of the Democrat-Media Junta that Trump planned to join “his troops” at the Capitol and seize power, just-released Secret Service documents show he never had any plan to go to the Capitol at all.

It has become one of the enduring messages of the House Democrats’ final report on the Jan. 6 riot: Donald Trump had a plan and an intention to go directly to the U.S. Capitol to join those disrupting the certification of the 2020 election results.

“The Committee’s principal concern was that the President actually intended to participate personally in the January 6th efforts at the Capitol, leading the attempt to overturn the election either from inside the House Chamber, from a stage outside the Capitol, or otherwise,” the committee wrote in its final report in December, 2022.

“The Committee regarded those facts as important because they are relevant to President Trump’s intent on January 6th. There is no question from all the evidence assembled that President Trump did have that intent,” it added.

Lawmakers, pundits and journalists have all echoed that line in the months before and after the report’s release.

“I imagine that he thought that he would enter like Mussolini being carried on the shoulders of his supporters and enter the Capitol,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., said, comparing Trump to Italy’s fascist leader during World War II.

In his speech at Valley Forge on Friday reviving his argument that Trump and MAGA supporters pose a threat to democracy, President Joe Biden pointedly avoided making the claim. In fact, he took the opposite tact and suggested a cowardly Trump declined to join his supporters storming the Capitol.

“He promised he would right them — right them. Everything they did, he would be side by side with them. Then, as usual, he left the dirty work to others. He retreated to the White House,” Biden said.

Such conflicting portrayals may be confusing to voters. That confusion is also rooted in an undisputed fact: Trump never actually went to the Capitol after his speech on the Ellipse.

The House Democrats’ claims are based on two pieces of testimony. Some Trump aides recalled to the committee the 45th president mentioning in a meeting on Jan, 4, 2021, that he might want to go to the Capitol.

And then former aide Cassidy Hutchinson Madison Cornbread claimed in a disputed account based on hearsay that on the way back from his speech Trump lunged at the driver of the presidential limo to commandeer it and take it to the Capitol. The Secret Service and Trump deny that happened, and no evidence has emerged to validate Hutchinson’s claim. That did not stop the account from making its way into mainstream media.

The Democratic Party’s narrative is further undercut by internal Secret Service documents reviewed by Just the News, which show there was no plan heading into the Jan. 6 event to take Trump to the Capitol.

He didn’t go, and there was never a plan to go.

But the media which will get you deplatformed for “misinformation” continues lying, claiming he was going to cross the Mall like it was the Rubicon and crown himself as emperor.

The CNN video was funny in it’s disconnect…

want more non-self auditing?

AOC PROJECTS

 

Filibuster Hypocrisy: Biden Supported It, Harris Led It, Dems Used It

DAVID HARRIS JR. expands on the facts mentioned above in the video:

According to the Democrats, anyone who uses the filibuster is a racist, If that is true then Democrats in the Senate. Last year alone the Democrats used the filibuster over 300 times. The KKK did not block anything. That must mean that the Democrats are much worse than KKK. I’m just kidding.

The reason that Democrats used the filibuster over 300 times is their ideology, not their racism.

Now, the Democrats want to kill the filibuster so that they will have a dictatorship in order to control the masses. The Democrats claim that slave owners were the people responsible for the filibuster.

But, that s a lie.

The filibuster was put in place in 1806, 55 years before the civil war. Slavery was the law of the land them. There was no need to put the filibuster in place due to slavery.

The filibuster is the only thing standing in the way for the Democrats to have total control of the government. That should scare you and it is a dangerous thing for them. What happens when the Republicans take control with no filibuster?  They could make crossing our border a felony and anyone who aids them could be tried for aiding and abetting the illegal aliens. They could cut all funding for Planned Parenthood and other budget items.

The Washington Examiner reports:

Democrats used filibuster 327 times, compared to only once by GOP in 2020: Report

President Joe Biden has been increasingly critical of the Senate filibuster, calling it a Jim Crow relic and saying it has been widely abused despite Democrats using it over 300 times in 2020, compared to once by Republicans.

    • “After @POTUS @JoeBiden denounced the rampant abuse of the filibuster last year, we did some digging,” Fox News anchor John Roberts tweeted Friday. “Republicans used it once. Democrats used it 327 times.”

Remember when Kamala Harris said she would get rid of the filibuster to pass AOC’s socialist, job-killing Green New Deal. (See more at DAILY CALLER)

BREITBART:

Harris said, “Here’s the thing. first of all, let me tell you, I think about this issue about this, my nieces are one-and-a-half and three-years old. When I look at those babies, and I think about what the world will be like in 20 years if we don’t act. I’m really afraid. And as it relates to those Republicans in Congress where I’ve now been for two and a half years, every one of those members needs to look at the babies, the grand babies in their life and then look in the mirror and ask themselves why have they failed to act?”

She continued, “On the issue of this climate crisis, I strongly believe this is a fight against powerful interests. and leaders need to lead. So lead, follow, or get out of the way. Get out of the way starting with Donald Trump. So yeah we need to work across the aisle. I’m going to tell you, I’ve been there two years and some months. I see no evidence of it. I kid you guys not. In the United States Congress, I was part of a committee hearing during which the underlying premise of the hearing was to debate whether science should be the basis of public policy. This on a matter that is about an existential threat to who we are as human beings.”

She added, “So again back to the United States Congress, here’s my point. if they fail to act as president of the United States, I am prepared to get rid of the filibuster to pass a Green New Deal.”

People Never PAID 90% in Taxes (Economic Myths)

This is posted for adding to a conversation from FACEBOOK where I repeatedly noted no one ever paid 90% in taxes after it was brought up by my antagonist — hoping the operative word “PAID” would sink in — (conversation reproduced at the end of this post for clarity — JUMP.) Other Posts that discuss related issues:

90% MYTH

(From the video):

  • “economic historian Phil Magness, of the American Institute for Economic Research, says that progressives miss an important fact: The high tax rates that America had in the past actually didn’t bring in much revenue. When rates were at 70 percent, Magness tells John Stossel, ‘A millionaire on average would pay 41 percent’.”

Even “CheckYourFact” says this:

  • While the top marginal income tax rate was over 90 percent [92%] while Eisenhower was president, few people were subject to that rate due to deductions and other tax loopholes. Top income earners paid much lower average tax rates.

(MISES.ORG has an excellent article dealing with the 90% issue, as well as GREY ENLIGHTENMENT)

ALMOST CLASSICAL notes this in their “The 90% Tax Rate Myth” post:

So, let’s get more complicated. When there was a 94% top rate in 1944-45, there were so many deductions and exclusions that the taxable income was not comparable to someone’s entire income. First, the top rate started at $200,000, which today is equal to $2,413,059.90 — so the maximum EMTR would apply only to incomes of $2.5 million. But, that’s still taxable income, not earned income.

In 1944, you could deduct business meals, all business travel, all forms of interest payments, and much more. You could even deduct spousal travel expenses on a business trip! (Why travel alone?) Companies could also “loan” or “provide” almost anything to an employee, from an apartment to standard benefits. It was possible to shelter tens of thousands of dollars from taxable income. Three-martini lunches and expense accounts were important realities, skewing tax calculations.

As a result of deductions and exclusions, even the theoretical maximum Real Rate of taxation at 60% in 1944 overstates taxation dramatically. The reality? On earned income, the richest U.S. taxpayers paid close to 40 percent of their earned incomes in taxes in 1944. We simply didn’t count much of the compensation as taxable income.

Allow me to introduce you to Hauser’s Law. Published in 1993 by William Kurt Hauser, a San Francisco investment economist, Hauser’s Law suggests, “No matter what the tax rates have been, in postwar America tax revenues have remained at about 19.5% of GDP.” This theory was published in The Wall Street Journal, March 25, 1993. For a variety of reasons, we seem to balance tax collections within a narrow range.

Since 1945, U.S. federal tax receipts have been fairly constant in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), with taxes ranging from 15 to 20 percent of GDP. The graph is as follows:

When people demand higher taxes on the rich, usually phrased as paying a “fair share,” they are ignoring how our tax system has functioned historically. We could create more brackets, to tax the top 1% at a higher rate once again, but the net increase in tax revenues wouldn’t be dramatic. Why not? Because government spending is near historical highs: we are spending at near-WWII levels. It would be nearly impossible to tax enough to pay the federal bills, and doing so would likely crush the economy….

CREATING MORE REVENUE

So, what did JFK’s “the rising tide lifts all the boats,” Reagan’s tax cuts and Bush’s tax cuts show? (See: John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan Proved Tax Cuts Work“) That lower taxes brings in more revenue.

  • Should tax rates be higher? It’s the million dollar question! Up? Down? No change? Where in the world should taxes go? In election years, the question of tax rates fills the airwaves. In non-election years, the question of tax rates, again, fills the airwaves. So what’s the answer? UCLA Professor of Economics Tim Groseclose explains his research on the topic. Basically, there’s a certain point at which higher tax rates actually reduce the amount of revenue the government collects. What’s that point? When are tax rates too high? Learn a valuable lesson in economics, and public policy.

Which is why either a national sales tax or a flat tax would help fuel our GDP engine more. Thomas Sowell further explains via an excerpt (my scan from my book) of the “conclusion” of Thomas Sowell’s “The World of Numbers.” You can listen to the entirety of chapter 4 read via MIKE READS: Chpt 4(a) | Chpt 4(b).

I will also emphasize AEI’s PARTIAL QUOTE from my expanded quote — it has changed a bit due to my having the revised edition (as usual I add the references for people to further follow the rabbit trail):

THOMAS SOWELL

  • Thomas Sowell, Discrimination and Disparities: Revised and Enlarged Edition (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2019), 110-114; (references), 255-257.

IMPLICATIONS

The emphasis on complex statistical analysis in economics and other fields— however valuable, or even vital, such statistical analysis may be in many cases— can lead to overlooking simple but fundamental questions as to whether the numbers on which these complex analyses are based are in fact measuring what they seem to be measuring, or claim to be measuring. “Income” statistics which lump together annual salaries and multi-year capital gains are just one of many sets of statistics which could stand much closer scrutiny at this fundamental level— especially if laws and policies affecting millions of human beings are to be based on statistical conclusions.

What can be disconcerting, if not painful, are the simple and obvious fallacies that can pass muster in intellectual circles when these fallacies seem to advance the prevailing vision of what is called “social justice.” Among prominent current examples is French economist Thomas Piketty’s large international statistical study of income inequality, which was instantly acclaimed in many countries, despite such obvious and fundamental misstatements as one pointed out by Professor Steven Pinker of Harvard:

Thomas Piketty, whose 2014 bestseller Capital in the Twenty-First Century became a talisman in the uproar over inequality, wrote, “The poorer half of the population are as poor today as they were in the past, with barely 5 percent of total wealth in 2010, just as in 1910.” But total wealth today is vastly greater than it was in 1910, so if the poorer half own the same proportion, they are far richer, not “as poor.”66

In addition to speaking of percentages as if they represented a given amount of income or wealth over the course of a century, Professor Piketty also made such assertions as that, in income, “the upper decile is truly a world unto itself,”67 when in fact just over half of all Americans are in that upper decile at some point in their lives.68 When Piketty said that the top one percent sit atop the “hierarchy” and “structure of inequality,”69 he again verbally transformed a changing mix of people in particular income brackets into a fixed structure rather than a fluid process, in which most Americans do not remain in the same quintile from one decade to the next.

Such misstatements are different expressions of the same fundamental misconception. As an empirical study of the 400 richest Americans pointed out, Piketty “naively assumes that it’s the same people getting richer.”70 But the majority of the 400 richest Americans have earned their fortunes in their own lifetimes, rather than being heirs of the 400 largest fortunes of the past!71

Such misconceptions are not peculiar to Professor Piketty. Nor are these the only problems with his statistics. But that such simple and obvious misstatements can pass muster in intellectual circles is a problem and a danger that goes far beyond Thomas Piketty.

Whether income differences are measured before taxes or after taxes can change the degree of inequality. If inequalities are measured both after taxes and after government transfers, whether in money or in goods and services, that can reduce the inequality considerably, when high-income people pay higher taxes and low-income people receive most of the government transfers.

Statistics on tax rates themselves can be grossly misleading when changes in tax rates are described in such terms as “a $300 billion increase in taxes” or “a $300 billion decrease in taxes.In reality, all that the government can do is change the tax rate. How much tax revenue that will produce depends on how people react. There have been times when higher tax rates have produced lower tax revenues, and other times when lower tax rates have produced higher tax revenues,72 as well as times when tax rates and tax revenues moved in the same direction.

During the 1920s, for example, the tax rate on the highest income Americans was reduced from 73 percent to 24 percent— and the income tax revenue rose substantially73— especially income tax revenues received from people in the highest income brackets. Under the older and much higher tax rate, vast sums of money from wealthy investors were sheltered in tax-exempt securities, such as municipal bonds. The total amount of money invested in tax-free securities was estimated to be three times the size of the annual budget of the federal government, and more than half as large as the national debt.74

Such vast and legally untaxable sums of money caught the attention and aroused the ire of Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, who declared it “repugnant” in a democracy that there should be “a class in the community which cannot be reached for tax purposes.”75 Failing to get Congress to take steps toward ending tax exemptions for incomes from particular securities,76 Secretary Mellon sought instead to lower the tax rates to the point where it would in fact lead to collection of more tax revenues.

Tax-exempt securities tend not to pay as high a rate of return on investments as other securities, whose earnings are taxed. It made sense for wealthy investors to accept these lower rates of return from tax-exempt securities when the tax rate was 73 percent, but not after the tax rate was lowered to 24 percent. In terms of words on paper, the official tax rate on the highest incomes was cut from 73 percent to 24 percent in the 1920s. But, in terms of events in the real world, the tax rate actually paid— on staggering sums of money previously untouchable in tax shelters— rose from zero percent to 24 percent. This produced huge increases in tax revenues received from high-income people, both absolutely and as a percentage of all income taxes collected.77

This increase in income taxes collected from high-income taxpayers was a result of the plain fact that 24 percent of something is larger than 73 percent of nothing. Tax rate cuts in some later administrations also led to increases in tax revenues!78 For example, a front-page news story in the New York Times of July 9, 2006 said: “An unexpectedly steep rise in tax revenues from corporations and the wealthy is driving down the projected budget deficit this year.79

However unexpected this increase in tax revenues may have been to the New York Times and others decrying “tax cuts for the rich,” this was precisely the kind of outcome predicted and expected by others in various administrations over the years, who had urged that tax rates be cut, in order to get money disgorged from tax shelters and invested in the market economy. This included people in the Coolidge, Kennedy, Reagan and George W. Bush administrations, where there were similar outcomes.80 But the very possibility that tax rates and tax revenues can move in opposite directions is seldom mentioned in the media— a crucial error of omission.

These are not simply arguments about history. Among the consequences in our own time is that proposals to reduce income tax rates are automatically met with objections to reducing income tax revenues. In the Wall Street Journal of January 31, 2018, for example, economist Alan Blinder objected to tax rate cuts on grounds that “the deficit is already too large!”81

This is in defiance of what the New York Times reported about the unexpected reduction of the deficit by increased tax revenues during the administration of President George W. Bush. It is also in defiance of a record-breaking budget surplus after tax rates were reduced in the 1920s— a surplus large enough to allow about one-fourth of the national debt to be paid off.82 Like many others, Professor Blinder proceeded as if it were axiomatic that tax rate reductions mean tax revenue reductions.

There is, of course, no guarantee of what any given tax rate reduction will lead to in a given set of circumstances. But Professor Blinder’s assertion was not based on any argument that a tax rate reduction under particular current circumstances would lead to a reduction in tax revenues. There was in fact no argument whatever on that point, nor apparently any sense of need to make such an argument. Similarly, a twenty-first century book on President Calvin Coolidge likewise asserted that, as a result of the tax rate cuts during his administration, “the bounty that the rich enjoyed sapped the U.S. Treasury of funds it might have used for other ends.”83 Thus a record-breaking budget surplus under President Coolidge was verbally transmuted into a deprivation of funds, with the turn of a phrase.

All the voluminous and detailed statistics on tax rates and tax revenues published by the Internal Revenue Service, going back more than a hundred years, might as well not exist, as far as many of those with the prevailing social vision are concerned. This is ultimately not a question about history, but about what such heedlessness implies for the present and still more so for the future.

REFERENCES

66 Steven Pinker, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress (New York: Viking, 2018), p. 99.

67 Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2014), p. 252.

68 Thomas A. Hirschl and Mark R. Rank, “The Life Course Dynamics of Affluence,” PLoS ONE, January 28, 2015, p. 5.

69 Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, p. 278.

70 Robert Arnott, William Bernstein, and Lillian Wu, “The Myth of Dynastic Wealth: The Rich Get Poorer,” Cato Journal, Fall 2015, p. 461.

71 “Spare a Dime,” a special report on the rich, The Economist, April 4, 2009, p. 4.

72 See, for example, Phil Gramm and John F. Early, “The Myth of American Inequality,” Wall Street Journal, August 10, 2018, p. A15. See also Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy, fifth edition (New York: Basic Books, 2015), pp. 426-427, 428.

73 Gene Smiley and Richard Keehn, “Federal Personal Income Tax Policy in the 1920s,” Journal ofEconomic History, Vol. 55, No. 2 (June 1995), p. 286; Benjamin G. Rader, “Federal Taxation in the 1920s,” The Historian, Vol. 33, No. 3 (May 1971), p. 432; Burton W. Fulsom, Jr., The Myth of the Robber Barons: A New Look at the Rise of Big Business in America, sixth edition (Herndon, Virginia: Young America’s Foundation, 2010), pp. 108, 115, 116.

74 Burton W. Fulsom, Jr., The Myth of the Robber Barons, sixth edition, p. 109.

75 Andrew W. Mellon, Taxation: The People’s Business (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1924), p. 170.

76 Gene Smiley and Richard Keehn, “Federal Personal Income Tax Policy in the 1920s,” Journal of Economic History, Vol. 55, No. 2 (June 1995), p. 289.

77 Burton W. Fulsom, Jr., The Myth of the Robber Barons, sixth edition, p. 116. The share of income tax revenues paid by people with incomes up to $50,000 a year fell, and the share of income tax revenues paid by people with incomes of $100,000 and up increased. At the extremes, taxpayers in the lowest income bracket paid 13 percent of all income tax revenues in 1921, but less than half of one percent of all income taxes in 1929, while taxpayers with incomes of a million dollars a year and up saw their share of income taxes paid rise from less than 5 percent to just over 19 percent. Gene Smiley and Richard Keehn, “Federal Personal Income Tax Policy in the 1920s,”Journal ofEconomic Histoy, Vol. 55, No. 2 (June 1995), p. 295; Benjamin G. Rader, “Federal Taxation in the 1920s,” The Historian, Vol. 33, No. 3 (May 1971), pp. 432-434.

78 Alan Reynolds, “Why 70% Tax Rates Won’t Work,” Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2011, p. A19; Stephen Moore, “Real Tax Cuts Have Curves,” Wall Street Journal, June 13, 2005, p. A13. Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz argued that the tax rate cuts during the Reagan administration failed: “In fact, Reagan had promised that the incentive effects of his tax cuts would be so powerful that tax revenues would increase. And yet, the only thing that increased was the deficit.” Joseph E. Stiglitz, The Price of Inequality (New York: W.W. Norton, 2012), p. 89. However, the tax revenues collected by the federal government during every year of the Reagan administration exceeded the tax revenues collected in any previous administration in the history of the country. Economic Report of the President: 2018 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 2018), p. 552; U. S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Part 2, pp. 1104-1105. The deficit reflected the fact that there is no amount of money that Congress cannot outspend.

79 Edmund L. Andrews, “Surprising Jump in Tax Revenues Curbs U.S. Deficit,” New York Times, July 9, 2006, p. Al.

80 James Gwartney and Richard Stroup, “Tax Cuts: Who Shoulders the Burden?” Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Economic Review, March 1982, pp. 19-27; Benjamin G. Rader, “Federal Taxation in the 1920s: A Re-examination,” Historian, Vol. 33, No. 3, p. 432; Burton W. Folsom, Jr., The Myth of the Robber Barons, sixth edition, p. 116; Robert L. Bartley, The Seven Fat Years: And How to Do It Again (New York: The Free Press, 1992), pp. 71-74; Alan Reynolds, ‘Why 70% Tax Rates Won’t Work,” Wall Street Journal, June 16, 2011, p. A19; Stephen Moore, “Real Tax Cuts Have Curves,” Wall Street Journal, June 13, 2005, p. A13; Economic Report of the President: 2017 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 2017), p. 586. See also United States Internal Revenue Service, Statistics of Income 1920-1929 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1922-1932).

81 Alan S. Blinder, “Why Now Is the Wrong Time to Increase the Deficit,” Wall Street Journal, January 31, 2018, p. A15.

82 The national debt, which was a little over $24 billion in 1920— the last year of President Woodrow Wilson’s administration— was reduced to less than $18 billion in 1928, the last year of President Calvin Coolidge’s administration. U. S. Bureau of the Census, _Historical Statistics ofthe United States, Part 2, p.1104. See also David Greenberg, Calvin Coolidge (New York: Times Books, 2006), p. 67.

83 David Greenberg, Calvin Coolidge, p. 72.


CONVERSATION


 

They Say Scandinavia But They Mean Venezuela (Prager U)

What do Democratic Socialists like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez want America to look like? They say they want America to emulate Scandinavian countries like Denmark and Sweden. But do their proposed policies reflect that? Or do they point down a darker path? Debbie D’Souza, a native Venezuelan and political commentator, investigates.

How People Can Vote For Such Policies Is Beyond Me

“We all better wake up no matter what side of the aisle you’re on… these issues will affect us all!” ~ David Harris Jr.

[fbvideo link=”https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=294262795339426″ width=”500″ height=”400″ onlyvideo=”0″]

Joel Pollack at BREITBART notes nine crazy policy positions of the Democrat presumptive nominee:

1. “Rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement … on Day One.” Even many on the left agree that the Paris Climate Agreement does little to slow climate change. It is a symbolic commitment by the rest of the world to reduce emissions, while most of the burden falls on the United States. Our economy has reduced emissions anyway on its own, thanks to the shift to natural gas and the advent of fracking technology, which the left hates and wants to phase out over time.

2. Shift the entire “fleet of 500,000 school buses to American-made, zero-emission alternatives” in five years. This is among the more wild-eyed proposals in the platform’s climate change section. It is not clear who will produce these buses (presumably to run on battery power), or what is to be done with half a million currently functional buses that run on ordinary fuel, and how local school districts are meant to afford the cost. The platform provides no further details.

3. “End cash bail.” The platform calls for eliminating cash bail across the country — a radical experiment in criminal justice reform that has only just begun in California and New York, with results that are deeply concerning. The idea is to reduce inequities, but in practice the end of cash bail means releasing violent criminals to commit more crimes. One suspect in antisemitic attacks in New York City late last year, for example, was repeatedly re-arrested after her releases.

4. “Stop the practice of arresting children for behavior that ought to be handled in the principal’s office.” The Democrats want to stop what they call the “school-to-prison pipeline,” arguing students of color suffer disproportionate suspensions and arrests (which would mean that liberal teachers are racist). But as Andrew Pollack points out, failing to arrest violent children could allow them to buy guns as adults, which is how the Parkland, Florida, shooting happened.

5. “We will repeal so-called ‘right to work’ laws.” It is not clear how Democrats will actually do this, since these laws are made at the state level. But “right to work” laws — freeing employees from being forced to join unions — have been a huge economic boost to states that have adopted them. Working-class Americans — especially minorities — have voted with their feet, moving from the highly unionized Rust Belt to the “right to work” South, where there are more jobs.

6. “Democrats will recognize unions with majority sign-up—via so-called ‘card check’ processes.” The “card check” violates the right to a secret ballot, and allows organizers to intimidate workers into voting to certify unions. The idea is so radical that even George McGovern, the left-wing Democratic presidential nominee in 1972 who lost to President Richard Nixon in a landslide, came out against it the last time Democrats tried to mandate it, in 2009.

7. “Oppose private school vouchers.” There is growing support for school vouchers that allow students to escape failing public schools in their local districts by choosing alternative schools — including private and religious schools. Vouchers are especially popular with minority families, who are desperate to escape the failing system in which the teachers’ unions have trapped their children. Democrats also want to restrict the expansion of charter schools, too.

8. Provide a “public option” toward universal health care. This idea was so radical ten years ago that Democrats left it out of Obamacare. But it is the beginning of “Medicare for All,” which Sanders wants to impose on everyone, and Biden wants to offer as a choice (for now). There is no thought of achieving universal health care outside government, building on the recent reforms under the Trump administration, such as tele-medicine — just more federal bureaucracy.

9. End the border wall and “provide a roadmap to citizenship for the millions of undocumented workers.” A Biden administration would stop the construction of the “unnecessary, wasteful, and ineffective wall on the southern border” — thus allowing an open border — while also giving voting citizenship to the eleven million-plus illegal aliens who are already here, permanently changing the American electorate and enshrining Democrats in power forever.

Cancel Culture Cancels America (Seattle Lost Real Estate)

As we’ve been reminded over these past 14 days, the culture is where the battle for our future will be won or lost.

HERE IS TUCKER’S TAKE ON SEATTLE

3-Questions Liberals Never Ask

(Originally posted Oct 2013)

(EXTENDED VIDEO)

1) compared to what?
2) at what cost?
3) what hard-evidence do you have?

As a bonus: If you run these three questions by every one of Democratic Representative-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s arguments, her platform immediately crumbles. (CONSERVATIVE TRIBUNE)

Blogger on Far-Left Website Thought He ‘Could Go Along’ With Obamacare – Now He Can’t Believe What’s Happening to His Health Insurance

As the realities of Obamacare continue to sink in, more and more people are getting letters from their health insurance providers telling them that their plans no longer comply with federal requirements under Obamacare. We just brought you the story of “Trick Shot Titus” and his family facing significant increases in the cost of their health care plans.

Now, a community blogger on the far-left Daily Kos website has penned a blog post complaining that both he and his wife are facing a nearly 100 percent increase in their monthly premiums. He claims he is canceling his insurance and refuses to pay any “f***ing penalty.”

Blogger “Tirge Caps” explains:

My wife and I just got our updates from Kaiser telling us what our 2014 rates will be. Her monthly has been $168 this year, mine $150. We have a high deductible. We are generally healthy people who don’t go to the doctor often. I barely ever go. The insurance is in case of a major catastrophe.

Well, now, because of Obamacare, my wife’s rate is gong to $302 per month and mine is jumping to $284.

I am canceling insurance for us and I am not paying any f***ing penalty. What the hell kind of reform is this?

The blogger also notes he and his wife may qualify for some “government assistance,” but that it’s just “another hoop” to jump through to get assistance that he may or may not be eligible for

CONSERVATIVE TRIBUNE brings it home for us:

Conversely, the right believes that, “Man is flawed from Day One, and that there are no solutions, there are only trade-offs. And whatever you do to deal with man’s flaws, it creates another problem.”

“But you try to get the best trade-off you can get. And that’s all you can hope for.”

So when presented with leftist idealism as to how to fix the world, here is the first question to ask: “Compared to what?” The leftist idea is the solution, compared to what?

Look at the argument for government healthcare. ‘Government healthcare serves the poor.’ Compared to what? Strong arguments can be made that the poor are better off in terms of care and options under a free market system.

The second question Sowell presented is: “At what price?” What price will be paid for the leftist ideal to be implemented? This leads to the discussion of if it is worth it or not … or even realistic.

For this example, consider the argument for open borders. Strong arguments based on “at what price” can be made against having open borders. There are financial costs, national security costs, personal safety costs, national identity costs, functional government costs, national economy costs, job costs, and many more.

The “feel good” concept of no borders is nothing more than a “feel good” concept. It cannot withstand close scrutiny in terms of cost and practical implementation.

The final question is: “What hard evidence do you have?” This one is a doozy, since so much virtue signalling and “feel good” ideology is part and parcel of leftist ideology.

Oftentimes, even when “evidence” is presented, it is not authoritative, hard evidence. It is opinion or cherry-picked, out-of-context, questionable or even debunked in its “facts” and sourcing.

This presents a prime opportunity to then show hard evidence for the right’s argument. It may require time and patience, but if you have a willing audience, it can be well worth the investment to lead the way to why conservatives believe their answers are better.

Sowell noted that conservative arguments tend to be able to pass all three questions because “they don’t assume there is a solution out there.”

 

LaRouchites Recommend Eating Babies To Save The Planet

After having a run in with these guys a few years back in the SCV and noting that Texas voted in a Democrat from the group, I looked into them a bit. I ended up posting 3-times on them in the past (and as a warning, many of the links in those posts may be dead).

What I found out is that they do stuff to grab attention. In the past however, their tactics allowed the mainstream media to portend that the TEA Party peeps were right-wing racist by highlighting in their stories posters of Obama with a Hitler stache at the TEA Party events. But as my two June posts show clearly is that an elected Democrat was holding the same signs, as she was part of this organization. And the founder himself (Lyndon LaRouche) ran for office 7-times… as a Democrat.

Well, this Leftist Political Cult (more cult than Leftist) is at it again in grabbing headlines. What irked me is that many of the conservative sites I went to assumed this lady was an AOC fan. As soon as I watched the video I knew it was a prank of some kind… I just thought it was some comedian or radio morning show prank. The newly silk screened shirt gave it away. But I wasn’t tracking with it being a LaRouchite ploy.

Here is the video (look how caught off guard AOC looks — if anything, the look on her face meeting people from a crazier cult than she is from is priceless:

Here are examples of just how wrong people got the the “baby eating” troll by this LaRouchite chapter. GLENN BECK said this was an “environmentalist activist,” Emma Vigeland of THE YOUNG TURKS said this was a “Trump Troll.” Even Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claimed that the woman who suggested “eating babies” was a solution to climate change “was a Trump supporter.” Others claimed she was mentally ill.

As an aside, all the sites that say AOC should have clearly denounced cannibalism [eating babies] otherwise she by default supports it are wrong. She doesn’t have to denounce it because it is automatically assumed this position is sick and the nuance of publicly rejecting it is silly. JUST LIKE those asking Trump to continually reject “white nationalism” are just as silly as rejecting eating babies.

Here is the tracking down of this woman on Twitter and her affiliation with The Lyndon LaRouche cult:

THE DAILY CALLER had a good post on the group/incident. In it Shelby Talcott (the article’s author) rightly notes the following (EMPHASIZED):

The LaRouche PAC, a fringe political action committee, took credit for the stunt Thursday evening on Twitter. The group responded to multiple tweets on the incident, writing “it was us” repeatedly, The Washington Post reported.

[….]

THE GROUP’S STUNT IS “A FAIRLY WELL-ESTABLISHED TACTIC” FOR IT, MATTHEW SWEET, A HISTORIAN WHO HAS DOCUMENTED THE GROUP, SAID ACCORDING TO WAPO. CONSPIRACY THEORIST LYNDON H. LAROUCHE JR. FOUNDED THE LAROUCHE PAC.

“THEY’VE BEEN DOING THIS SINCE THE ’70S,”

Sweet told WaPo. “The tactic is you go to a political meeting and you create a disturbance that disrupts the meeting, and more importantly, that creates a kind of chaos.”

The article continues on with all the finger pointing going on in our “immediate” social media world. (I just told my own two sons to wait a couple of days to see where the chips fall.) The article then continues on with the more important issue of the groups history and aims:

LaRouche Jr. built up his following, which reaches across the world, “based on conspiracy theories, economic doom, anti-Semitism, homophobia and racism,” WaPo wrote in an obituary on LaRouche Jr., who died in 2019. He ran for president eight times between 1976 and 2004.

A judge sentenced LaRouche Jr., who once was a member of the U.S. Labor Party, to 15 years in prison in 1989 for defaulting on over $30 million in loans from his supporters and planning to defraud the IRS, The Associated Press reported.

He “has managed to attract a small but fanatical following to his conspiratorial view of the world,” the conservative Heritage Foundation said in a 1984 report according to WaPo. The cult advocates for economic recovery and wants to implement its four economic laws, according to its website.

LaRouche’s four laws are restoring the Glass-Steagall Act, making a new national bank, creating a crash program to develop fusion power and space, and increasing productivity for credit applications, Newsweek reported….

The instigator is right about the Swedish professor though. The professor spoke about cannibalism being a sustainable food source (the report in the Swedish language can be seen HERE) — and if you haven’t heard of this guy yet, here is CLIMATE DEPOT’S post on professor Söderlund’s ideas, pre-ceeded by Ezra Levent’s show with Marc Morano:

:

….A conference about the food of the future called Gastro Summit being held in Stockholm Sweden featured a presentation by Magnus Söderlund claiming that we must get used to the idea of eating human flesh in the future, as a way of combating the effects of climate change.

As reported by the Epoch Times:

In a talk titled: “Can you Imagine Eating Human Flesh,”  behavioral Scientist and Marketing Strategist Behavioral Scientist and Marketing Strategist Magnus Söderlund from “Handelshögskolan” (College of Commerce) argues for the breaking down of the ancient taboos against desecrating the human corpse and eating human flesh

Boy that makes me very happy I keep Kosher because humans don’t have split hooves and chew their cud, so I won’t be eating human flesh.

Söderlund refers to the taboos against it as “conservative.” Yep,  he claims those who don’t want to eat your dead relatives are old fogys who don’t want to save the planet.  He adds that people can be sold on the idea little by little, first by persuading people to just taste it. Tasting it? Over my dead body—-er maybe that’s not the correct phrase, but you get the idea.

Conflating resistance to eating human flesh with capitalist selfishness, the seminar’s talking points ask:

“Are we humans too selfish to live sustainably?

Capitalist selfishness? Just another reason to hate Socialism.

“Is Cannibalism the solution to food sustainability in the future? Does Generation Z have the answers to our food challenges? Can consumers be tricked into making the right decisions? At GastroSummit you will get some answers to these questions—and also partake in the latest scientific findings and get to meet the leading experts.”

In his talk, Söderlund asks the audience how many would be open to the idea. Not many hands go up. Some groaning is heard.  When interviewed after his talk, he reports brightly that 8 percent of conference participants said they would be open to trying it. When asked if he himself would try it, he replies: “I feel somewhat hesitant but to not appear overly conservative…I’d have to say….I’d be open to at least tasting it.

What about the fact that science has proven that eating other people can make you crazy.

[….]

It’s bad enough that fans of the climate change hypothesis want to destroy the economy for their worldwide redistribution of income scheme, but this is just too gross….


FLASHBACK WEIRDNESS


Mind you, this isn’t the first time a “wild eyed” proposal was made by crazies! The Guillotine was proposed by a Democrat Georgia House of Representatives, Doug Teper (D-61), as a better way to impose the death penalty on others. Rep Teper did receive an award: Honors and Awards Young Democrats of DeKalb DEDICATION TO THE ENVIRONMENT. 

In 1996 in the US, Georgia State Representative Doug Teper[37] unsuccessfully sponsored a bill to replace that state’s electric chair with the guillotine.[38]

[37] “Representative Doug Teper (D-61)”. Georgia House of Representatives. Retrieved 3 October2013.[permanent dead link]

[38] “Georgia House of Representatives – 1995/1996 Sessions HB 1274 – Death penalty; guillotine provisions”. The General Assembly of Georgia. Archived from the original on 4 October 2013. Retrieved 3 October 2013.

(WIKI ZERO)

Another blogpost post zeroes in on the possible animus for such proposals (and mind you, I am speaking of this partly to put into the record here at RPT these old proposals by Democrats to put them into the search history of my site to recall them in discussion):

The Arizona assembly considered a bill that would give prisoners a choice of their method of execution: lethal injection or having their organs harvested for transplant.  The bill was voted down in light of the American College of Physicians statement that physicians should not be involved in the execution process.

Georgia State Representative Doug Teper proposed writing legislation that would give prisoners a choice between death by electrocution or guillotine.  Those opting for the guillotine would be given the option to donate their organs. The legislation was never brought before the state senate

Utopianism at it’s most dreamiest.

AOC Fails Thermal Imaging 101 (Even Democrats Call Out)

NOQ had a good post relaying the Democrats slamming AOC:

As it turns out, the “toxic emissions” she thought she was viewing were actually just heat signatures and the “fracking” site she thought she was exposing wasn’t doing any fracking. This information came from multiple sources questioning her claims, most notably from a Democratic lawmaker in the area who scolded her for her false alarmism.

According to Mary Throne, a Wyoming Democratic public service commissioner, Ocasio-Cortez needs to stop ignoring “science and facts.”

Other experts chimed in as well.

“Statements regarding an infrared (FLIR) video tweeted by Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez yesterday evening are categorically false,” Brian Cain, a spokesman for Extraction Oil & Gas, told The Daily Caller. “In the short video, the congresswoman claimed to see ‘toxic emissions’ through a camera and stated that the air was being ‘poisoned’ by oil and gas development. In reality, the operations she was viewing have been lauded as among the best anywhere in the United States for their management practices and facility designs that protect air quality, public health and the environment.”

“Using an infrared camera, the Congresswoman claimed to see ‘invisible emissions,’ when she was actually witnessing a heat signature caused by high-temperature (200-plus degrees) synthetic drilling mud being circulated to the surface against cooler fall temperatures in Broomfield,” Cain continued. “In fact, the camera angle used in the video viewed an area of our site that does not even include a possible source for the types of emissions being claimed.”

The sad part about all of this is that after 13K retweets and 40K likes of her original post, there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of Americans who will see her original Tweet and think it’s real. As for Throne’s debunking Tweet, it has 6 retweets….

The Current State Of The Democratic Party | Dov Hikind

Former NY State Assembly Member DOV HIKIND comes on to THE LARRY ELDER SHOW to talk about the current state of the Democratic Party, AOC, the BDS movement, and more. (This is only a portion of the fuller interview.) Dov Hikind is a Democrat by-the-by. He is founder of Americans Against Antisemitism.

Here are a couple stories (and a TWEET) regarding Dov:

Here is the TWEET:

Liz Cheney’s AOC History Smackdown (CNN UPDATE)

(DAILY WIRE hat-tip) Below Liz Cheney’s linear thinking are some of the original videos which leads to Rep. Cheney on FOX… and may I say, AOC’s response to Cheney is bat-shit-crazy! (And may I say this emboldens VICTOR DAVIS HANSON”S article on Why We Should Study War!)


CONTEXT BELOW



CNN CRAZINESS UPDATE!