Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
BIDEN DOES ANOTHER MAJOR GAFFE, AND THE DEMOCRATS STILL WANT HIM FOR THEIR PRESIDENT?
May 23rd, 2020 | 
Author: CNN Refuses To Cover Biden’s ‘You
Ain’t Black’ Jaw-Dropper On-Air
VIRGINIA KRUTA
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Former Vice President Joe Biden apologized Friday afternoon for a tone-deaf comment about black voters — and although it was hours later, CNN made no mention of the comments on air.
Biden, during a somewhat contentious interview for the “Breakfast Club” radio show, said to voters who were still undecided between himself and President Donald Trump, “you ain’t black.” Shortly after the video of the exchange hit social media, both Fox News and MSNBC ran segments covering Biden’s comments.
Juan Williams, during a segment of “America’s Newsroom,” called the comments “too direct for my tastes” but added that they were simply an example of Biden’s tendency to be “blunt.”
Harris Faulkner also addressed the topic on “Outnumbered,” saying that the comments were “hurtful” and represented a “blind spot” for Biden.
Fox News’ @HARRISFAULKNER on Joe Biden’s comments: “I’ve been fighting against this notion that you’re not Black enough unless you think a certain way, you vote a certain way, you speak a certain way, you do certain things, my whole life”
Biden’s communications director Symone Sanders offered an explanation, saying that Biden had simply been joking and meant to show the contrast between his own record and Trump’s.
Coverage of the comments continued on MSNBC as correspondent Trymaine Lee noted that Biden’s comments were problematic even if he was joking.
Fox News host and Daily Caller cofounder Tucker Carlson weighed in on the situation as well.
Daily Caller ✔@DailyCaller
“Running Joe Biden for president is like making your dog wear a dress. It may make for an amusing Instagram post but it’s wrong.”– Tucker Carlson
By Friday afternoon, Biden issued an apology of sorts, saying on a call with black business owners that he “shouldn’t have been such a wise guy” and assuring them that he did not take the black vote for granted.Through it all, there was no comment on air from CNN. In fact, as of 6:30 ET, according to the Grabien news clipping site, Biden’s name had only come up a total of five times since anchor Don Lemon’s Thursday night broadcast — and all five times occurred in the 12pm ET hour when host John King addressed the campaign’s search for a female vice president and mentioned an exchange Biden had with late night comedian Stephen Colbert.
CNN tweeted about Biden several times after the comments began making the rounds on social media — but the first tweet that addressed those comments was not posted until after the former vice president had already apologized.
CNN ✔@CNN
Joe Biden says he “shouldn’t have been such a wise guy,” hours after he told a popular African American radio host that “if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black” https://cnn.it/2TtmAU8
Posted in 
Fauci Flips On Lockdown
Fauci Flips On Lockdown: Staying
Home Too Long Could Cause
‘Irreparable Damage’
VIRGINIA KRUTA ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday that there could be “irreparable damage” if lockdowns due to the coronavirus pandemic went on too long. Fauci explained during a segment of CNBC’s “Fast Money Halftime Report” that there could be numerous unintended consequences to keeping the country shut down longer than necessary.
Fauci began by saying that his position had always been that states and regions should open as they passed certain benchmarks and could do so safely while still protecting the more vulnerable populations. “We can’t stay locked down for such a considerable period of time that you might do irreparable damage and have unintended consequences, including consequences for health,” Fauci explained, adding, “We are enthusiastic about reopening. I think we can do it in pace that would be reasonable and would get us back as a society from a morale standpoint as well as the economy.”
“I don’t want people to think that any of us feel that staying locked down for prolonged period of time is the way to go,” Fauci continued. “We had to do that when we had the explosion of cases, but now is the time depending upon where you are and what your situation is, to look at reopening the economy, reopening the country to try to get back to some degree of normal. I’m totally in favor of that if it’s done in the proper way in the appropriate setting.”
Fauci concluded by saying that he did still have concerns that some areas might bypass the benchmarks for safe reopening and cause an unmanageable spike in cases, but reiterated that it was time to consider taking steps to reopen as soon as your area could do so in a safe and responsible manner.
MAY VIDEO UPDATE FROM TOM DEWEESE – American Policy Center
MAY VIDEO UPDATE FROM TOM DEWEESE
Please help the American Policy Center continue the fight to protect private property rights! Help support APC now.
Please help the American Policy Center continue the fight to protect private property rights! Help support APC now.
HELP SUPPORT APC NOW
About the American Policy Center
The American Policy Center is one of the original organizations to dedicate its mission to stopping the enforcement of Agenda 21 in order to preserve American property rights. APC President Tom DeWeese has traveled to nearly every state speaking out on the threat of UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development Policy. He has testified before local and state elected officials, while appearing on countless national and local radio and television programs. He has written three books on the subject including the best-selling book Sustainable: The WAR on Free Enterprise, Private Property and Individuals, ERASE, a fictionalized political thriller that is being considered as a movie project, and his first book titled Now Tell Me I was Wrong, which details a wide variety of related issues including property rights, radical environmentalism, public education and personal privacy issues. In addition, DeWeese has written hundreds of articles that have been published in national and local publications reaching millions of readers. The American Policy Center is supported by individual donations from approximately 100,000 citizens from across the nation providing small, personal donations. APC’s website, www.americanpolicy.org features one of the most detailed archive of articles on the subject, and is visited by readers from almost every nation in the world.
APC has helped in winning several recent property rights battles including stopping three National Heritage Area land-grabs in Virginia, Colorado, and Louisiana. Local activists educated by APC were able to lead the fight in a small town in Alabama called Bayou-La Batre, where the city council voted 5–0 to stop an Agenda 21 inspired Eco-tourism scheme that would have destroyed property rights and local industry. A team of county commissioners, using APC materials, were elected in Carroll County, Maryland by opposing Agenda 21 policy. The National Republican Party used APC materials to prepare and include an anti-Agenda 21 plank in its platform. The State of Alabama used APC materials to become the first state in the nation to pass legislation to ban Agenda 21. APC is now working with both landlords’ and cattleman’s associations across the nation to stop the destruction of these vital industries that have become victims of sustainable policy. Activists in Denmark have produced several anti-Agenda 21 videos featuring APC materials, including distributing Tom DeWeese’s book, Sustainable to Denmark’s Prime Minister and to every mayor in Denmark. A senator in Australia has used APC materials to build opposition in that country. In Brazil, APC materials have been translated to Portuguese and widely distributed to help build a large opposition in that country. The American Policy Center is the only national organization that has made the stopping of Agenda 21 its prime mission. The battle is growing.
WATCH: Israeli scientist creates 1-minute corona breathalyzer test
Professor Gabby Sarusi of Ben-Gurion University of the
Negev developed a one-minute COVID-19 breathalyzer
test with a 96% accuracy rate.
WHY THE BLUE STATES WANT A BAIL OUT FROM YOU
SENATOR RICK SCOTT (FL-R) AND JESSICA ANDERSON:
explaining why liberal blue states want a bailout from you, the federal taxpayer.
Oppose State Bailouts
Contact your Senators and Representatives tell them NO!
Follow up from Hispanic Community Call with President Trump
Good Afternoon,
Thank you to those who joined our call with President Trump yesterday. Watch here as Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, during her press conference, talks about the President’s call with the Hispanic community. Below is the President’s tweet and the READOUT about the call for you to share with your friends, family and colleagues. If you re-tweet or put out a message about the call, please send us the links to those social media posts.
READOUT of President Trump’s National Hispanic Community Conference Call
From the White House:
The President held an hour-long call with thousands of Hispanic community, business and faith leaders and individuals from across the country today. He recognized the many contributions of the Hispanic community to our country and addressed important issues such as how to re-open their businesses and rebuild the greatest economy in history again. Hispanics were the fastest growing small businesses in the country- especially among Latinas pre-COVID-19 and the President discussed with them innovative approaches so their business can not only survive but thrive.
He recognized the commemoration of Cuban Independence Day and his commitment to a free and democratic Cuba. He mentioned the fact that he spoke with 11 presidents from the Western Hemisphere, including Mexico, Honduras, and El Salvador and pledged support in our battle with the coronavirus.The President also addressed issues relates to Venezuela, infrastructure, combatting socialism, USMCA, Puerto Rico disaster and COVID relief and the re-opening of our churches.
The following individuals joined the call:
The White House
President Donald J. Trump
Ambassador Debbie Birx, M.D., White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator
Kellyanne Conway, Counselor to the President
Jennifer Korn, Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of the Office of Public Liaison
Trump Administration
Administrator Jovita Carranza, Small Business Administration
External Participants
5,000 Hispanic faith, business, and community leaders
Who needs to be invited to our next call? If you know of other Hispanic leaders that would benefit from call like these, please let me know.
Best,
Andrea R. Ramirez, Ph.D.
Special Assistant to the President and Director of Hispanic Engagement
|White House Office of Public Liaison
Andrea.R.Ramirez@who.eop.gov
Who will fight for your rights?
A Silver Lining
Who will fight for your rights?
Guest post by Robert Gore at Straight Line Logic
…we are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.
Ayn Rand, Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal, Appendix, “The Nature of Government,” 1967
We are no longer fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion, we’ve arrived. It is the stage of which every would-be dictator dreams, where his whims are absolute, and everything everyone else says, does, or thinks must comport with those whims, even—impossible though it would be—when they are contradictory.
Science is anti-whim. Nature, as Francis Bacon observed, to be commanded must be obeyed. Nothing illustrates the ultimate inversion of the official coronavirus response better than its leaders’ assault on science in the name of their “science.”
Doctors have been discouraged or prohibited from administering hydroxychloroquine, by itself or in conjunction with other medications, vitamins, and zinc compounds, to treat Covid-19. They have observed and documented the effectiveness of such remedies—mitigation or elimination of the disease’s symptoms—but their observation and documentation are dismissed. Only the validation procedure mandated by the medical bureaucracy—the expensive and complex multistage tests required of new drugs to establish their efficacy and safety—will suffice for official permission. It’s what their “science” demands of a cheap and seemingly effective remedy that’s been on the market for years as a treatment for lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and malaria.
So where were the tests and control-group studies for the pandemic models, lockdowns, social distancing, masks, flattening the curve, closing businesses, and contact tracing that have been the official coronavirus responses? Projections are hypotheses, but only one class of hypothesis was officially accepted—disaster scenarios that fed panic and paved the way for further expansion of governments’ power. The doomsday models have been discredited; cases and deaths have been orders of magnitude less than projected.
Countries that haven’t instituted lockdowns have fared no worse than countries that have. Andrew Cuomo, governor of hard-hit New York, recently expressed surprise that two-thirds of hospitalized coronavirus patients had been sheltering in place. As if locking people down—often families under close quarters—in apartment buildings that can’t control cockroaches would somehow protect dwellers against a microscopic, easily spread, fast replicating, and virtually infinite virus.
No science at all supports social distancing; six-feet is an arbitrary construct (i.e., whim) of some medical would-be dictator. Masks force the rebreathing of your own respiratory waste, weakening your immune system for the dubious benefit of that all-powerful totem: public health. The health you’re supposedly protecting is certainly not your own. It’s like eating your own feces or drinking your own urine for a purported public benefit.
Flattening the curve to ensure adequate hospital space for the wave of coronavirus patients that hasn’t happened has flattened the hospitals, leading to empty rooms and wards and layoffs for medical workers. Bankruptcies will follow.
Lost jobs and shuttered businesses are just collateral damage for our would-be emperors, who have waged senseless wars and inflicted grievous collateral damage on other countries for decades. Now the devastation and misery they’ve left in their wake have come home. Americans who’ve never asked themselves how it felt to be a victim of their government’s senseless wars are now victims of their government’s senseless war on a germ. After an unsustainable debt-propelled respite, the Greater Depression has resumed (it started in 2008) and will last for years. Its poverty and devastation will sicken and kill multiples of the people who will ultimately be afflicted by the coronavirus.
All this supposedly guided by “science,” yet its proponents commit the most unscientific offense—they corrupt their own data. By their own admission the tests they use give both false negatives and false positives. By their own admission they’re corrupting the death count. Doctors have been instructed to list Covid-19 as a cause of death if the deceased had any of the symptoms associated with Covid-19, even though those symptoms characterize a number of other diseases that singly or in combination kill people, especially people with compromised immune systems. Hospitals have a financial incentive to perpetuate this fraud. They receive $13,000 from Medicare for each Covid-19 patient and $39,000 for each patient put on a ventilator (Links here and here).
The coronavirus tyranny has nothing to do with science, medicine, or health, and everything to do with establishing that ultimate inversion: the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission. These past few weeks we’ve seen how our rulers attempted to discard the last fig leaf—democracy—covering their creeping, now galloping, totalitarianism and complete lack of legitimacy.
A camarilla within the nation’s intelligence services, the Department of Justice, and members of the previous administration, including Barack Obama, attempted to depose the democratically elected president of the United States. Such coups are the province of two-bit plotters in banana republics that make no pretense of observing or protecting rights, where might alone makes right. The United States has gone full banana—the stage of rule by brute force.
Democracy is tyranny of the majority, a system that inevitably destroys individual rights. For the history-challenged, individual rights were the still revolutionary concept on which the idea—although not always the reality—of the United States was established. The logical consequence of the full protection of individual rights is the freedom to live your life as you see fit, as long as you don’t abridge the rights of others. Society or any other group of people has no rights apart from the rights of the individuals that comprise it. Governments have no rights, only the duty to protect the rights of individuals to live peaceably and freely. Government must be the servant, not the master, of its citizens. (See the Ayn Rand Appendix cited above, “The Nature of Government,” for a more detailed exposition of the proper role of government.)
We’re light years from that ideal. Individuals must receive permission to, among other things, leave their homes, hold a job, assemble with other individuals, attend houses of worship, visit parks and beaches, or patronize businesses. The governor of my state, Michelle Lujan Grisham, just decreed that masks must be worn by everyone outside of their own dwellings (I wrote STOP MLG’S TYRANNY on mine). Breathing fresh air is now at the sufferance of our overlords. Civilly disobedient soul that I am, I have yet to don my mask. Don’t think sheep don’t get angry—I get murderous looks from mask-wearers.
With every decree issued since this repression began, those who advocate for their individual rights or actually exercise them by violating the decree are denounced, shamed, censored, and in some cases arrested. Anyone who disagrees by word or deed is “selfish,” unwilling to sacrifice for the common good.
What do they mean by selfish? Is it selfish to fight for your rights? Is it selfish to want to work and produce? Is it selfish to be more concerned with your own welfare and the welfare of your family and friends than with the welfare of strangers, the public, or the government that supposedly represents that public? Is your desire for freedom selfish?
There are those who will tie themselves in intellectual knots answering those questions in the negative, but nevertheless asserting that individual rights and their exercise—free expression, free inquiry, free production, and free exchange—can all be justified as conferring the greatest public good. They then wonder why they never win arguments with those pushing collectivized notions of the public good. When might makes right, the public good is whatever the collective’s masters say it is—argument over.
Fighting for one’s freedom and all that flows from it is selfish, profoundly so. If you don’t fight for that which is yours—the individual rights that are the essential condition of your existence—who’s going to do it for you? Anthony Fauci? Bill Gates? Nancy Pelosi? President Trump? Joe Biden? George Soros? Jerome Powell? Adam Schiff? Mark Zuckerberg? Eric Schmidt? Santa Claus? The Tooth Fairy? When was the last time you even heard the term “individual rights” in polite, mainstream discourse? When individual rights are mentioned at all, they’re treated as a quaint anachronism.
And what do they mean by sacrifice? They mean that instead of selfishly fighting for your rights and freedom, you are to unselfishly place them on the sacrificial altar known as the public good. You’re selfish for resisting the sacrifice of that which is rightfully yours, but those collecting what is not rightfully theirs are selfless saints. If you voluntarily board that cattle car, you’ll secure your spot in the Unselfish Hall of Fame, along with millions of others who have lost their property, happiness, freedom, and lives without selfish protest or resistance. You might even be designated a Hero of the Public Good, posthumously of course.
If you find the world’s descent into evil unfathomable, it’s time to rethink the premises that the selfless is the good and the selfish is evil. Collectivist butchers, including the ones pushing the coronavirus hoax, always demand fealty to some cause greater than one’s self. Fall for that one and you’ve already lost two important parts of yourself—your self-respect and your ability to reason.
The precautionary principle—that no risks can be assumed if someone or something somewhere might be harmed—is anti-mind and anti-life, absurdly evil on its face. That philosophical abomination now excuses wholesale violation of individual rights and deadly economic devastation based on projections, bureaucratic whim, and political expediency. The precautionary principle would, if consistency applied, bring human progress to a halt, eventually rendering the human race extinct. Nothing is as unsafe as an insistence on absolute safety.
Risk is what makes life worth living—it’s the driver of human knowledge and progress. Imagine the choices that confronted early humans as they made their first choices. If we build a fire, will it warm us and cook our meat…or consume us? If we eat oysters, will they nourish or kill us? Will the canoe we’ve built float or sink? The forward steps of both our individual and humanity’s journeys have always involved unanswered questions, hypotheses, risk, experimentation, trial and error, tragedy, and triumph. It takes no imagination at all to envision potential risks. Make fear and safety paramount and none of those steps could have or will be taken.
To believe that risks can be eliminated by arbitrary edicts is delusional; to enforce those edicts tyrannical; to comply with them suicidal. Wars are always fought and tyrannies always established in the name of somebody’s safety. The betrayal of individual conscience and surrender of individual rights to a collective for safety’s sake never produces safety, only misery, destruction, despair, terror and death. That’s a lesson we’re set to relearn as we proceed through one of those darkest periods of human history.
There is a silver lining in all this: the curtain has been lifted, we now know exactly what we confront. Present governments and their many bootlickers and minions do not recognize—much less protect or hold themselves subordinate to the protection of—individual rights. Nor should we expect that they will do so within our lifetimes. Absent their replacement via revolution or abandonment via secession, we will continue to live in a political order where they are free to do as they please while we may act only by permission.
If we want our rights, our freedom, and our lives, we’re going to have to fight for them with word and deed. It has ever been so; it will ever be so. Those who choose to fight will have one important ally: rule by brute force is the agent of its own collapse. It has always failed, it always will. Whether we have the virtue and wisdom to replace it with it’s antitheses—freedom and individual rights protected rather than destroyed by government—remains to be seen.
Stay sane.
PROBE REQUESTED INTO WHO & CCP
Over 100 Nations Push for Independent Probe into WHO and CCP Virus Origin
ARMED FORCES DAY MAY 16, 2019
May was chosen as Military Appreciation Month because it includes many
military celebrations and commemorations, such as Armed Forces Day,
Military Spouse Appreciation Day, Victory in Europe Day
and, most importantly, Memorial Day.
“Word to the Nation: Guard zealously your right to serve in the Armed
Forces, for without them, there will be no other rights to guard.” — President John F. Kennedy
“The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other
bastard die for his.” — Gen. George S. Patton
WHERE’S THE BEEF- SUPPLIES GETTING LEANER, PRICES GETTING HIGHER STORED LIMIT ON PURCHASES
Let’s get to the meat of the matter — after
COVID-19, we have to change the way we eat
GETTY IMAGES
Beef shortages, because of the coronavirus’ impact on meatpacking plants, have led to higher prices in the supermarkets.
COVID-19 has changed everything, highlighting one of the meatier issues during this crisis: the politics of beef production and export. From ranches to feedlots, slaughterhouses to global markets, beef is now one of the most important products under threat in a high-stakes international food-supply game.
Meat supplies are so important, in fact, that President Trump intervened to order keep meatpacking plants in operation.
Meat consumption makes up a big part of Americans’ protein intake — with milk and dairy being the most important. Anything that threatens its availability on the market or dramatically raises its price is of national concern. Recent shortages and store limits on meat purchases have further raised the alarm. Supply and demand are strained. Cattle ranchers are certainly feeling the squeeze: Demand for beef has dramatically dropped as restaurants close. However, those fast-food chains and markets with customers seeking burgers and steaks are finding a stark supply reality — cattle can’t get from feedlots to fork because of supply constraints. Coronavirus outbreaks in factory slaughterhouses are hampering the ability to process, package and deliver the product.
With more than 4,900 meatpackers infected and 20 reported deaths, fewer animals are being butchered and processed. Less processing capacity means fewer heads of fattened cattle get churned through the system. Less processing capacity means lower demand for animals at the plants, dropping the price per head and significantly raising costs as stay-at-home cattle are expensive for ranchers and feedlots to keep. Fewer cattle entering processing plants also means fewer packaged meat products coming out. In the marketplace, that translates into shortages and higher prices in supermarkets. Not enough meat explains why 1,000 Wendy’s burger joints were suddenly short on patties.
The problem is not just at home. The human preference for beef is stressing a system that also depends on global markets. Australia’s producers, for example, rely heavily on beef and barley exports to China. This week, China cut off Australian exports because the island continent wants to investigate the Chinese origins of the coronavirus. Beijing is punishing Aussies for their alleged COVID-crisis finger-pointing, attacking food exporters through economic coercion. China is blatantly doing what other powerful countries often get away with — marrying trade policies to political goals. This linkage happens all the time. The Trump administration, for example, has vigorously reintroduced this into its own policy toolkit, making import tariffs a staple of creating economic leverage to achieve policy outcomes. From Europe to China, steel to cars, tariffs are this administration’s preferred means to extract trade concessions and political favor.
China’s move is intended to change Australia’s political posture and help put the Canberra government out to pasture. Beijing visibly winks, denying the politics of the beef ban, arguing instead that Australia violated food inspection standards. Both could, of course, be true. Food inspection can be spotty in the best of nations. America’s meat industry has a long and sordid history, highlighted early in the 20th century in Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle,” an eye-opening novel exposing the meatpacking industry’s unsanitary processes and unsavory labor practices. The novel generated a public uproar, and new safety and sanitation laws were passed, but the meat industry continues to have problems exacerbated by globalization.
Mad Cow disease, the controversial use of hormones, targeted trade barriers and adversarial nations’ policies that undermine foreign agricultural sectors are just some of the attacks and inherent weaknesses of today’s fragile and globally interlinked food-supply chain. Vulnerabilities ranging from pandemic to political whim should motivate both consumers and policymakers to rethink the system of food production and delivery — independent of the many ethical considerations surrounding meat consumption.
Unreliable and bottle-necked supply chains alone have led to today’s beef shortages. Some countries have awakened to this challenge. China has a heightened sensitivity to food shortages, for example, as the nation suffers from a decimated pork supply, down 40 percent because of African swine fever. From a consumer perspective, we must reconsider eating habits that require enormous energy and resources to bring beef from hoof to hamburger. Thankfully, there are more and, increasingly, better options, including plant-and-lab based substitutes.
Governments, too, need to reconsider how to help deliver enough food to people with fewer dollars to spend and to markets with potentially fewer imported and transported foodstuffs. Just as all industries are reviewing their options to repatriate work and onshore manufacturing for profitable and strategic purposes, so, too, will the political leadership in several countries need to work harder to increase and diversify their food industries’ homegrown production and quality.
After all, COVID-19 has changed everything, including the way we eat.
Markos Kounalakis hopes Greek Kalamata olives still get shipped to America. He is a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution
NOT AMERICAN TAXPAYERS PROBLEM, WE SHOULD NOT PAY FOR ILLINOIS RETIREMENT PLANS OR ANY OTHER STATE!
Congress should not bail out fiscally
irresponsible states with COVID-19 relief
GETTY IMAGES
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a tragedy for our nation, but some states are now trying to use this crisis to force taxpayers to pay for years of irresponsible spending.
The death and destruction from this pandemic has disrupted our lives and devastated businesses big and small, causing layoffs and threatening millions of families’ livelihoods. Yet, lawmakers should be wary of another bailout that will benefit special interests over those who are hurting. The federal government has already provided at least $1.8 trillion in assistance to state governments intended to support individuals, businesses and states that were directly impacted by COVID-19. Although the majority of recipients are genuinely in need, some state-level officials are trying to take advantage of the assistance to bail them out of decades of fiscal mismanagement. Our state’s congressional delegation should reject these claims. Otherwise, Floridians will be left with the tab for other states’ irresponsibility.
On April 14, Illinois’ Senate Democratic Caucus requested $40 billion from the federal government, on top of the billions that state has already received. The request makes clear that $10 billion of these funds would go toward propping up the state’s floundering pension system for its government employees. Even before the COVID pandemic, Illinois’ pension program was straining the state’s finances, eating up 25 percent of the state’s annual general revenue expenditures. This was the result of multiple administrations in Springfield avoiding hard choices necessary to foster a responsible retirement system.
These pressures contributed to Illinois’ dismal bond rating, showing how little faith creditors had in the state’s ability to pay back its loans. All this left Illinois’ budget woefully unprepared for the economic shutdown resulting from the pandemic. Two major credit-rating agencies now rank the state’s outlook as “negative,” raising the possibility of a further downgrade of its bonds to junk status. While Illinois’ financial woes are well documented, other states face similar fiscal problems. Despite Florida having 2 million more residents than New York, its budget is less than half that of the Empire State’s, since it was willing to make tough budgetary choices over the past decade. Increased spending hasn’t improved New York’s fiscal position though, since it has a $136.6. billion shortfall, a burden of $20,500 per taxpayer.
If Congress grants the Prairie State and New York a bailout, others might be tempted to ask for one as well.
As the adage goes, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Everyone else will have to pay for years of fiscal negligence by those states. That includes Floridians who have elected, and held accountable, politicians who have managed our state’s finances well. According to the Florida Division of Bond Finance, as of April 10, Florida projected $3.8 billion in reserves by the end of this fiscal year. These reserves were built up despite not having a state income tax, unlike Illinois and many other states currently in the red.
We’ve made hard choices about Florida’s finances. We should not be punished for the mismanagement of others.
Skylar Zander is state director of Americans for Prosperity-Florida.
NATIONAL FRIENDSHIP WEEK
What greater gift than friends and family.Happy Friendship week!HAPPY FRIENDSHIP WEEKFROM ONE FRIEND TO ANOTHERTake two minutes to read these sayings and be sure to readall the way to the bottom.Written by Andy Rooney, a man who had the gift of saying so much with so few words.Rooney has passed away but used to be on CBS’s 60 Minutes TV show.I’ve learned...That the best classroom in the world is at the feet of an elderly person.I’ve learned…That when you’re in love, it shows.I’ve learned…That just one person saying to me, ‘You’ve made my day!’ makes my day.I’ve learned…That having a child fall asleep in your arms is one of themost peaceful feelings in the world.I’ve learned…That being kind is more important than being right.I’ve learned…That you should never say no to a gift from a child.I’ve learned...That I can always pray for someone when I don’thave the strength to help him in any other way.I’ve learned…That no matter how serious your life requires you to be,everyone needs a friend to act goofy with.I’ve learned…That sometimes all a person need is a hand to hold and a heart to understand.I’ve learned…That simple walks with my father around the block onsummer nights when I was a child did wonder for me as an adult.I’ve learned...That life is like a roll of toilet paper.The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes.I’ve learned…That money doesn’t buy class.I’ve learned…That it’s those small daily happenings that make lifeso spectacular.I’ve learned…That under everyone’s hard shell is someone who wantsto be appreciated and loved.I’ve learned…That to ignore the facts does not change the facts.I’ve learned…That when you plan to get even with someone,you are only letting that person continue to hurt you.I’ve learned…That love, not time, heals all wounds.I’ve learned…That the easiest way for me to grow as a person is tosurround myself with people smarter than I amI’ve learned…That everyone you meet deserves to be greeted with a smile.I’ve learned…That no one is perfect until you fall in love with them.I’ve learned…That life is tough, but I’m tougher.I’ve learned…That opportunity is never lost; someone will take the ones you miss.I’ve learned...That when you harbor bitterness, happiness will dock elsewhere.I’ve learned…That I wish I could have told my Mom that I love her onemore time before she passed away.I’ve learned…That one should keep his words both soft and tender,because tomorrow he may have to eat them.I’ve learned…That a smile is an inexpensive way to improve your looks.I’ve learned…That when your newly born grandchild holds your littlefinger in his little fist, you’re hooked for life.I’ve learned…That everyone wants to live on top of the mountain,but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’reclimbing it.I’ve learned…That the less time I have to work with, the more things I get done.To all of you…Make sure you read all the way down to the last sentence.It’s National Friendship Week..Show your friends how muchyou care.Send this to everyone you consider a FRIEND, even if itmeans sending it back to the person who sent it to you.If it comes back to you, then you’ll know you have a circleof friends.HAPPY FRIENDSHIP WEEK TO YOU!YOU ARE MY FRIEND AND I AM HONORED!Now send this to every friend you have!This was sent to me by a friend.
Remember the day when You actually had to take a CIVICS COURSE in order to get your HS Diploma
From our friend, an excellent exposition…
Just think. except for that lying Adam Schiffless, there was no one more vocal or more on stage than former CIA Director . John Brennen, who was almost a daily guest on MSNBC..showing up at least weekly to proclaim the proof of RUSSIAN COLLUSION in some form or another..He even went so far as to accuse the President of the United States of TREASON..I actually watched that “event”..It was palpable. The penalty for “TREASON” is..execution according to the CONSTITUTION..My guess is, John Brennen has never read the CONSTITUTION ..As matter of fact, I would be willing to bet money that there are a whole bunch of people who work in the higher echelons of our government who have never read the CONSTITUTION ( the Governor of NJ has certainly never read it..it is above his pay grade!))..They don’t teach such very important things in High School any longer ( for more than 40 yrs it has been gone)..so why expect such knowledge to be floating around.
When I went to HS ( many centuries ago).It was required by the State of NJ..You actually had to take a CIVICS COURSE in order to get your HS Diploma..No matter how smart you were..everyone had to take the same course..Sort of like that stuff they USED TO TEACH in College ..We actually had required courses that were important..Such basic knowledge as WESTERN CIVILIZATION..I know that many people flinch in horror at such notions but the plain reality is..This country has ALL ITS ORIGINS from Europe and Western Civilization..Not Asia..Not Africa (as the NY Times would now have you believe)..
So back to John Brennen..He admitted “under oath” that there was NO RUSSIAN COLLUSION that he was aware of..Mind you, this was the Director of THE CIA and he says..NADA..If anyone would know the truth, it would be Mr Brennen..So exactly what has been going on with ALL THIS INTENTIONAL LYING..I say intentional because sometimes you can not be telling the truth but it is not intentional..You could be ignorant of the facts..But Adam Schiffless was most certainly not ignorant..The BAG LADY from Ca most certainly was not ignorant as she had access to everything due to her exalted position..James Clapper had access to the truth, he even stated under oath that there was NOT ANY RUSSIAN COLLUSION..So where does all this go?..
Lets start with THE MEDIA. Good place to begin..They hate Donald Trump..even more than Democrats hate Donald Trump..You know why?..They simply DO NOT COUNT ANYMORE..There is almost nothing in life that is more devastating to ones mental state than to be advised ..YOU ARE NOW IRRELEVANT..YOU ARE NOT IMPORTANT..YOU ARE IMPOTENT ..Especially when your entire life is built on the fact that your very words can move mountains..To be told you don’t count is simply devastating..And Donald has thrown the media into the very cesspool they belong..
The proof..they cannot bring him down no matter how hard they try over 4 yrs..and G-D knows, they sure as hell tried..They are out to get him. Their very close and good friends in this cabal were the very willing Democrats..The Democrats could lie as long as the media called it TRUTH..After all..if the media says it is TRUE..it must be true!..The problem is..over the past 10 days or so we have all learned that they ALL LIED..AND LIED AND LIED..The lied so very much that they took us all into IMPEACHMENT ..
Think about all the broken glass as a result IMPEACHMENT, .The division it brought..and the Democrats said..”well, it is worth a try!”..after all WE HATE TRUMP and the media agrees that he should be convicted..he is guilty claimed the media! ..Except it was all a frame-up..brought to you by the most corrupt party to ever walk the grounds of our great country..If only they still taught CIVICS..we just might have not had to experience the garbage coming from THE MEDIA..THE DEEP STATE..and THE DEMOCRATS…BTW..it was Democrats and all their very liberal friends who have eliminated such educational subjects as CIVICS in our school systems……Now you know why!
Our anonymous writer spent 40 years in the news industry,
and has written several books.He has stated he prefers to
remain anonymous, is currently retired from the News business.
We Don’t Want’ Businesses To Reopen
Maxine Waters Admits ‘We Don’t Want’ Businesses To Reopen
Maxine Waters Accidentally Admits What Dems Really Want in COVID
Share on FacebookTweetEmailPrint
Maxine Waters has a habit of blurting out the truth Democrats try to hide. The Los Angeles Democrat was never shy about calling for President Donald Trump to be impeached, she openly advocated public harassment of Trump cabinet officials, and now she’s letting the word out about how liberals really feel about the country’s reaction to the coronavirus.
In short, she doesn’t want independent businesses to get back on their feet — and she has nothing but scorn for fellow Americans protesting their states’ decisions to keep them closed. In an interview Monday with the Southern California cable station Spectrum News 1 (video available at Breitbart News) Waters urged governors like California’s Gavin Newsom to “hold the line” against citizens demanding the freedom to restart their businesses.
And she essentially outlined a government takeover of the economy while she was at it.
Today in History, May 8, 1945: The War Ends in Europe
Today in History, May 8, 1945:
The War Ends in Europe
Video Transcript:
NARRATOR: Throughout the world throngs of people hail the end of the war in Europe. It is five years and more since Hitler marched into Poland. Years full of suffering and death and sacrifice. Now the war against Germany is won. A grateful nation gives thanks for victory. Hundreds of thousands crowd into American churches to give thanks to God. President Truman announced the official surrender
PRESIDENT TRUMAN: This is a solemn but glorious hour. I wish that Franklin D. Roosevelt had lived to see this day. Gen. Eisenhower informs me that the forces of Germany have surrendered to the United Nations. The flags of freedom fly all over Europe. For this victory we join in offering our thanks to the providence which has guided us and sustained us through the dark days of adversity and into light. Much remains to be done. The victory won in the west must now be won in the east. The whole world must be cleansed of the evil of which half the world has been freed. United, the peace loving nations have demonstrated in the west that their arms are stronger by far, than the might of dictators or the tyranny of military cliques that once called us soft and weak. The power of our people to defend themselves against all enemies will be proved in the Pacific war as it was proved in Europe.
NARRATOR: Historic pictures of the last days of the war in Europe show American and Russian troops as they joined at…on the River Elbe, splitting German armies in two. United States Gen. Reinhardt meets Red Army General Russakoff, a meeting that spelled out certain German defeat. At a live Mediterranean headquarters in Italy the Germans unconditionally give up all of Italy and southern Austria. In civilian clothes, representatives of the German army sign the surrender document. General W. D. Morgan representing Supreme Mediterranean Commander Alexander signs for the Allies. Preceding the final capitulation at Reims, this surrender eliminated a million German troops. Inside Germany itself the Allies seize the famous stadium or Nuremburg, seen of countless Nazi party rallies. With the capture of this famous, southern German city, the American flag blocks out the swastika. In a symbolic gesture American troops destroy the Nazi party emblem.
Ardennes National Cemetery Belgium
Utah Beach American Memorial
France
