We are the drain the swamp people

Seems that the hallowed Supreme Court of the United States has gone beyond its designated role as “decider” on matters of the Constitutionality of government legislation or actions. President Trump

With this decision, the Court is deciding whether the “thinking” by some who support government action is “acceptable” or not…not whether the pending action by a duly elected Executive Branch is Constitutional or not!

Gee! Tell me I’m wrong, Yale or Harvard law professor. I’m just a US citizen and can’t be expected to ‘understand’ the “nuance” of Constitutional law. I’m naively influenced I guess by what the Constitution says. Silly me!

My first reaction on hearing of this decision and what Chief Justice Roberts gave as his reason for siding with the liberals was probably the same as yours: If the Court determined that the action the government was taking, in this case adding the citizenship question to the census, is Constitutional, legal, and within its authority, as Roberts indicated, then what does a reason given for doing it enter at all into the Court’s consideration?!

Roberts it seems “feels” that the reason given was “political”. As though the reason for those to oppose it isn’t also patently obvious…political.

Later I learned that Justice Thomas expressed essentially the same thought.

How I wish Justice Clarence Thomas were the Court’s Chief Justice.

And speaking of political, John Roberts is as political as one gets, he’s sort of ‘an Obama judge’, in my opinion.    DLH

Via Gateway Pundit:

President Trump Slams SCOTUS Decision to Block Citizenship Question on Census – Seeks to Delay 2020 Census

Chief Justice Roberts sided with liberals on Thursday — shocker!
The President is now seeking to delay the 2020 census.

“Seems totally ridiculous that our government, and indeed Country, cannot ask a basic question of Citizenship in a very expensive, detailed and important Census, in this case for 2020,” Trump said.

“I have asked the lawyers if they can delay the Census, no matter how long, until the United States Supreme Court is given additional information from which it can make a final and decisive decision on this very critical matter. Can anyone really believe that as a great Country, we are not able the ask whether or not someone is a Citizen. Only in America!” he said.

Of course the Democrats and open borders zealots don’t want the citizenship question on the census because it gives illegal aliens representation in Congress — illegal aliens don’t even have to be given voting rights, as long as they are counted as citizens, they are given a US Representative who fights for their interests over the interests of taxpaying Americans — this is precisely why the Democrats are fighting like hell to stop the Trump admin from adding this question to the census.

The census is taken every 10 years and is used to allot seats to the US House of Representatives in addition to distributing almost $1 trillion in federal funds

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So you think students are being taught to celebrate America’s exceptionalism today?

Well, think again, ‘highly privileged white person’! The possibility is highly unlikely!
—————-

Many people have heard of Howard Zinn and his out-sized influence on modern education in America. But many have not! In fact, most Americans do not know what kind of influence Mr. Zinn has had on their grandchildren and, still in this day, their children.

Zinn, a left-wing author, activist, and professor (at Boston University; You know, where Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez graduated from) died in 2010 at age 87. He left a legacy that will damage America for decades to come.*

Howard Zinn, we believe, can be, to a great extent, credited (or blamed) for today’s seemingly irreparable and irreversible cultural, racial, ideological, and generational division in today’s USA.

There is some dispute over how pervasive the Zinn view of American history is in our public schools. Rick Santorum, a few years ago claimed that Zinn’s “Peoples History” is the ‘most widely used text’ in schools nationwide. Apparently there has been no success in finding proof for this assertion. However, it does seem there’s general agreement that Zinn’s version of US history is very popular among high school and college students.

Our own belief is that, whether or not the Howard Zinn textbooks are widely used as official history texts in schools, a reading of his books contains so many ideas paralleling the loudly expressed views and themes of the radical left, word for word in many cases. There can be no question that Zinn’s are exemplary and have had a profound effect on our education system.

It is thus, very worthwhile to get a first hand look at exactly what product Mr. Zinn had been selling. Hopefully it will also stimulate parents of children now attending public schools to find out what, if any, influence this Marxist, anti-American historian is having on their kids, either through official sanction of schools and educators, or through other less ‘official’ channels.

Zinn has had an extraordinary influence world wide, informing (fomenting) anti-American sentiment

Below is a collection of excerpts taken from Zinn’s “A Peoples’ History of America”, ‘teaching edition’ These excerpts are only taken from the first chapter of the book, dealing with the earliest Europeans to come to the “New World”. In future posts on Veritaspac, we will offer excerpts from succeeding chapters as they address various other aspects of our nation’s history. While this report includes comments reflecting our views at Veritaspac, we strongly urge readers to give us your thoughts and comments.

The excerpts we present will not, however, be much of a positive or uplifting perspective on America and its evolution to today. One would have to look someplace other than a Howard Zinn presentation for that. What they do reflect, though, is Zinn’s effort to steer opinion of those he reaches with his book in a negative direction with respect to modern day America. He especially, it seems to us, aims directly at America’s youth (and of course teaching colleges and the educators they produce)

Apparently, Howard Zinn’s objective is to produce whole generations of Americans who believe as New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, who recently summed up the Zinn desired conclusion: “America Never Was Great!”

Excerpts from “Peoples History of America”, chapter 1:

“Women were important and respected in Iroquois society. The women tended the cropland, took general charge of village affairs while the men were always hunting and fishing. (Our Note: “… the men were always hunting and fishing…”; Does this sound a tad condescending. As though, while the women were doing the hard, intelligence-demanding work, the men were always off “hunting or fishing” or presumably perhaps, watching sports on television”).

“Thus power was shared between the sexes and the European idea of male dominancy and female subordination in all things was conspicuously absent in Iroquois society.” (bold face ours)

“Not only the Iroquois but other Indian tribes behaved the same way.”

Lives ruled and ruined by defunct agenda driven “historians”

—–
The following are excerpts exclusively regarding Columbus’ arrival in the New World, his behaviors, motivations, and inspirations.The entire section involving Columbus is “unflattering”, to say the least. The “Indians” he encountered, whom he brutally murdered, and enslaved are invariably depicted as intelligent, resourceful, warm, loving, generous, helpful folk.

Easy to see why young people, influenced by this account of “history”, encouraged and guided and schooled by true Zinn believers would demand that, in this modern era, any monument or tribute to such a ‘despicable’ person as Christopher Columbus must be removed from public display, if not destroyed:

– “Behind the English invasion of North America, behind their massacre of Indians, their deception, their brutality, was that special drive born in civilizations based on private property. It was a morally ambiguous drive; the need for space, for land, was a real human need. But in conditions of scarcity, in a barbarous epoch of history ruled by competition, this human need was transformed into the murder of whole peoples.”

– (Zinn asks:) “Was all this bloodshed and deceit–from Columbus to Cortez, Pizarro, the Puritans– a necessity for the human race to progress from savagery to civilization?”

– “Beyond all that, how certain are we that what was destroyed was inferior?”

– “Responding to the different environments of soil and climate, they (the some 25 million Indians scattered over North America) developed hundreds of different tribal cultures, perhaps 2000 different languages. They perfected the art of agriculture and figured out how to grow maize…which cannot be grown by itself and must be planted, cultivated,… They ingeniously developed a variety of other vegetables…”

– “While many of the tribes remained nomadic hunters and food gatherers in wandering, egalitarian communes, others began to live in more settled communities where there was more food, larger populations, more divisions of labor among men and women, more surplus to feed chiefs and priests, more time for artistic and social work, for building houses.”

I think one can conclude from such samples of Zinn’s historical analysis that, had Columbus and all those other ‘murderous’, ‘greedy’ European explorers not come to the “New World”, the “ingenious, resourceful, ‘social justice-sensitive’ indigenous peoples (the ‘native Americans’) would have built a much more compassionate, brilliantly industrious, creatively superior society by this time than all those white descendants from the ‘exploiters’ have.

As Zinn asks: “Was all this bloodshed and deceit–a necessity for the human race to progress from savagery to civilization?”

He answers his own question for the enlightenment of all those young, budding ‘Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezes’ he hoped to reach: Of course not! … the USA today would be a land far more ‘civilized’ in its approach to ‘social justice, gender equality, compassionate distribution of wealth’ and would have far more ‘ingenious, intelligent, and creative infrastructure than present day which only serves the ‘rich’.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – — –

Below is another collection of excerpts from Chapter 1 of “A Peoples History of America”. Beneath them, and specific to, is part of an introduction to “A Peoples History..” by another leftwing author, educator, who also offers some “teaching suggestions” as part of this edition of Zinn’s book. We think you’ll find that section interesting.

– “These Arawaks of the Bahama Islands were much like Indians on the mainland, who were remarkable for their hospitality, their belief in sharing.

– “These traits did not stand out in Rennaisance Europe, dominated as it was by the religion of popes, the government of kings, the frenzy for money that marked Western civilization and its first messenger the Americas, Christopher Columbus.

– “Columbus wrote:’As soon as I arrived in the Indies…I took some of the natives by force in order that they might learned might’ve me information whatever there is in these parts.’

– “The information that Columbus wanted most was: Where is the gold? He had persuaded the king and queen of Spain to finance an expedition to the lands, the wealth, he expected would be on the other side of the Atlantic– the Indies, and Asia, gold and spices.”

– Zinn goes on to explain: Spain’s population was mostly poor peasants, worked for the nobility (2% of the population which owned 95% of the land). Spain “had tied itself to the Catholic Church, expelled all the Jews, driven out the Moors. Spain sought gold”.

– According to Zinn, Columbus had been promised 10% of the profits for bringing back gold and spices. He would be made governor of the new lands, and fame and a new title would be his.

– In Oct. 1492, land was sighted. A sailor called Rodrigo saw the “moon shining on white sands” of a Bahamas island. “The first man to sight land was to get a yearly pension of 10,000 maravedis for life, but Rodrigo never got it. Columbus claimed he had seen a light the evening before. He got the reward.”

– Approaching land, the Columbus party was met by the Arawak Indians, “who swam out to meet them.

– “The Arawaks lived in village communes, had developed agiculture of corn, yams, cassava.They had no horses or work animals.They had no iron, BUT THEY WORE TINY GOLD ORNAMENTS IN THEIR EARS”. (caps ours)

– Seeing their gold ornaments, “led Columbus to take some of them aboard ship as prisoners because he insisted that they guide him to the source of the gold.”

– Later, according to Zinn, Columbus reported that the Indians are so naive and so free with their possessions that no one who has witnessed…would believe it…they offer to share with anyone…”.

– Columbus concluded his report by asking the royals for help with his next voyage. In return would bring them “as much gold as they need…and as many slaves as they ask”.
———-

The above is only a collection of excerpts from the first chapter of “A Peoples History of America”,  and were chosen to respond to the “assignments” suggested for teachers to use.

Dr. Kathy Emery is a leftwing activist, author, and educator. In this book, Dr. Emery introduced Howard Zinn’s “A Peoples History of America”. In addition, Emery provides her suggestions and guidance for teachers who choose to use the Zinn story as the text in their US History classes.

Dr. Emery offers some “methodological suggestions” for teachers to consider in putting together their ‘method’ by which to use Howard Zinn’s “History”. These are “study guide”questions.

Below is an example of Dr. Emery’s “methodological suggestions” for teachers using the Zinn “History” as a class text:

2. “After reading the first chapter, choose two adjectives that describe Columbus, two that describe the Spanish, two that describe the English, two for the Arawaks, and two for the Powhatans:

CRUEL   NAIVE    HONEST   GREEDY

GENEROUS    KIND    BRAVE   IGNORANT

CIVILIZED    ADVENTUROUS    PRIMITIVE    INFERIOR

PRACTICAL    INTELLIGENT    HEROIC    THOUGHTFUL

ARROGANT    LAZY    DEDICATED

For each of the adjectives you choose:

a. Write down the definition that best describes the applicable group

b. Write 10 short sentences using the selected adjectives–one adjective for each sentence. For example:

– The Spanish were generous.

– Columbus was brave.

– The Arawaks were generous.

c. Then look for details/facts in the text that you think illustrate the definitions of the selected adjectives.
—————-

Here’s a challenge for our readers. Given the excerpts from Chapter 1, can you complete the teacher’s assignment, and can you then agree with your own conclusions given what information is provided you by Mr. Zinn? (As an example, as a young high school or college student, armed with information accurately reflected in the excerpts, write, “Columbus was brave”?, or, “The Spanish were generous”?)

A hint on Zinn’s direction in the next chapter:

“African slavery lacked two elements that made American slavery the most cruel form of slavery in history: the frenzy for limitless profit that comes from capitalistic agriculture; the reduction of the slave to less than human stature by the use of racial hatred, with that relentless clarity based on color, where white was master, black was slave.”

DLH  (to be continued)

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HOW LARGE A GRANT $$$$$$$ YOU ‘SPOSE THESE “SCIENTISTS” RECEIVED OR EXPECT TO GET ?

• We are sure some proximate urban sprawl has nothing to do with it, its got to be global climate change
• News flash, marble is not a strong material, never was, walk through a cemetery and look at some barely 50 to 100 year old tombstones

Add one more “dire” prediction if the US doesn’t put up a lot of cash to halt climate change!    DLH

Climate change is taking its toll on Greek monuments, say scientists
By Lefteris Papadimas and Idyli Tsakiri  at Reuters

Climate change is threatening ancient Greek monuments, among them the Acropolis, one of the most-visited archaeological sites in the world, “scientists” said (our bold and note marks).

Air pollution and acid rain are eroding marbles, while extreme weather phenomena such as droughts or torrential rains have led ancient walls and temples to develop structural problems.

Even though the Acropolis hill, where the Parthenon stands, is probably Greece’s best preserved archaeological site, there are signs that climate change has been increasingly affecting the monuments that stand on the hill.

“The walls of the (ancient) city have more erosion than in the past,” Maria Vlazaki, General Secretary in the Greek Culture Ministry, told Reuters.

The temple of the Parthenon on the rock of the Acropolis, located in the heart of Athens, dates back to the classical period of antiquity – the 5th century BC.

For decades there have been efforts to preserve and protect the Acropolis and its monuments, an operation that has been sped up since the mid 1970s. But the country has hundreds if not thousands of exposed archaeological sites.

“Every year, we have more cases… We give more money, unexpected money to protect the walls of the (ancient) cities that had no problems before, to protect the coastal area,” Vlazaki said.

The wider Athens area has been hit hard by deadly floods and forest fires over the last decade. A 2007 forest fire in the Peloponnese peninsula threatened to destroy the temples and stadiums of ancient Olympia, birthplace of the Olympic Games.

Christos Zerefos, a professor in the Academy of Athens said extreme weather events had become more frequent and the sudden swings from periods of flooding to drought were destabilizing the monuments.

Speaking on the sidelines of a conference on climate change and cultural heritage, Zerefos told Reuters Greece needed better shelter for its monuments, and a monitoring system that would help provide extra protection in case of extreme weather.

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On June 17 we posted an article related to the latest attack on members of the Trump inner circle. That was the charge that Kelleyanne Conway had “violated the Hatch Act”. The announcement of this latest “scandal” was breathlessly reported by the liberal media as a finding by the OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL COUNSEL”!!!

– ON MONDAY, ONE OF THE DEMOCRATS’ WANNABE TYRANTS IN CONGRESS, ELIJAH CUMMINGS, ‘INVITED’ KELLYANNE CONWAY TO APPEAR BEFORE THE ‘COMMISSAR’S’ HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE. (OF COURSE THE ‘INVITATION’ WAS ACCOMPANIED BY THE THREAT TO SUBPOENA MS. CONWAY IF SHE CHOSE NOT TO ACCEPT THE KINDLY MR. CUMMINGS’ “INVITATION”.)

– SEEMS THAT ELIJAH WANTS CONWAY TO ANSWER THE CHARGES THAT SHE VIOLATED THE ‘HATCH ACT’ AS “THE OFFICE OF THE SPECIAL COUNSEL” HAS CONCLUDED.

– AND HERE’S HOW THE MEDIA (THE DAILY MAIL) CHOSE TO REPORT THIS STORY: “The OSC is an independent federal investigative agency that is in charge of enforcing the Hatch Act and is run by Trump-appointee Henry Kerner , who House Democrats also invited to appear on Wednesday.”

– AS THE ABOVE MAKES CLEAR, THE DAILY MAIL IS STICKING TO THE PORTRAYAL OF “THE SPECIAL COUNSEL” AS, POSSIBLY, AN ARM OF ROBERT MUELLER’S ‘WITCH HUNTING’ PARTY, AS “INDEPENDENT”, AS NON-PARTISAN AS IT CAN BE, “IN CHARGE OF ENFORCING THE HATCH ACT” (on whose behalf?).
THERE IS NO MENTION RE: THE FACT WE NOTED IN OUR POST LAST WEEK:

“The “Special Counsel”… is actually a liberal Democrat “federal watchdog” organization, more commonly known as the “Citizens for Responsibility in Washington” (“CREW”). It is like any other partisan liberal, progressive “watchdog” group…”MoveOn.org, the “League of Women Voters”, the ACLU, Emily’s List, the “Progressive Majority”, etc.
“CREW’s founders were all liberal Democrats. The group was founded to counter conservative groups like Judicial Watch, which I contend would never stoop to such lowlife tactics…they neither need to nor are of such low character and mean spiritedness.”

FOR COMMISSAR CUMMINGS TO PUT ON THIS SHOW, USING A PHONY CHARGE BY A NON-OFFICIAL PARTISAN ORGANIZATION AS A BASIS FOR A ‘SERIOUS INVESTIGATION’ IS NOT ALL THAT ATYPICAL FOR THE DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS THESE DAYS (PERSONALLY I AM AMAZED THAT THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY VOTE FOR DIMBULBS LIKE CUMMINGS TO REPRESENT THEM). WHAT MAKES IT WORSE IS THAT A MEDIA ORGANIZATION LIKE THE DAILY MAIL WOULD REPORT A STORY LIKE THIS WITH A STRAIGHT FACE!

We have the same question as that we asked in the earlier piece: “Where is the RNC, conservative pundits, Trump supporters coming out to communicate exactly what a farce this “House “Oversight Committee” is?

And what a strutting, pompous, phony its chairman, Cummings, is?” DLH

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Same question for CNN reporter

And another thing (see article below).  Let’s say your lovely precious child hurts themselves on the swing, a quick unpredictable entanglement or fall such that severe but not life-ending disability ensues.  Perhaps due to metal fatigue or chance event. You didn’t want that to occur. Nobody wants disability for their child. What are you going to do. It is the same logical question and should have the same answer for the parents and the “medical community” engendered by legitimizing abortion for “disability”.

Via LifeSitenews

CNN host shocked on air that parents might not want to kill disabled children

 June 24, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — A CNN host repeatedly questioned a guest in a recent on-air exchange on why families shouldn’t be allowed to abort their unborn children for being disabled.

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Circus music played by the troop’s monkeys has more harmonious melody, and those same monkeys could type more sensical lyrics on the first run.

We at V’pac have critiqued rap music, its popularity and implications for society a number of times, particularly as championed by a certain former president and his “first lady”.  Oh the “dignity” they brought to the office, invited into their home and enthralled their daughters with — the fine impresarios like Drake, Chance the Rapper, and Kendrick.

Brave defiance of RWSM (rich white sexist males) . The music world is soooo “cutting edge” edgy. Why who else could impart such meaning in one gesture! Either that or her IQ report came in, tee hee.

Not desiring to be outsold or less relevant than those rich black guys, Kesha (white girl’s parents exercise cultural appropriation in naming daughter?) earlier this month released this monument to her educational and cultural understanding, “her truths”.   Our interest in the glorious cultural insight to be provided by Kesha was triggered by this article  in The Federalist by Emily Jashinsky  Kesha’s ‘Rich, White, Straight Men’ Tells Exactly Who The Left Despises 

Read it and weep

[Verse 1]
You could ride a unicorn to school
And if you fall off, you’d have healthcare
(No, you don’t)
And if you finish school, you’d go to college for free
That makes sense and that’s fair
(No, it’s not)
And if you were a lady
Then you own your lady parts
Just like a man goes to a dealership
And then he owns a car

[Refrain]
Vroom, vroom
Fuck you (Fuck you)

[Pre-Chorus]
What if life as we knew it was over?
Guess what? God is a woman, I know her

[Chorus]
What if rich, white, straight men
Didn’t rule the world anymore?
(Hahahahahahahahaha)
What if rich, white, straight men
Didn’t rule the world anymore?
(Hahahahahahahahaha)

[Verse 2]
If you’re from another land, then come here
You won’t have to climb a wall
(Yes, you will!)
And if you are a boy who loves a boy
You’ll get a wedding cake and all
(Not in Colorado!)
And if you are a lady and you do your lady work
Then you will make as many dollars as the boys
Not just two thirds

[Refrain]
Cha-ching
Fuck you (Fuck you)

[Pre-Chorus]
What if life as we knew it was over?
Guess what? God is a woman, I know her

[Chorus]
What if rich, white, straight men
Didn’t rule the world anymore?
(Hahahahahahahahaha)
What if rich, white, straight men
Didn’t rule the world anymore?
(Hahahahahahahahaha)

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From friends of V’pac:

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• Well she has achieved “recognition by initials” status. Sort of like J Lo, only not as smart.  But we suspect as much a reason for the initials status is nobody likes typing out her full name all of the time. 
• So upon reflection, Ms Cortez is valuable,  make that, “Upon reflection, Ms (ing) Cortex is valuable”
• Then again she reflects a sad level of cultural intelligence, dangerously overlapping more than her generation
• We conclude with a hopeful article by someone of AOC’s age group

Anyway we agree with the maxim “don’t interfere when your political enemies  are shooting themselves in the foot.”   But that does not mean disregard the absurdities or not comment on them.  The points above are well made by commentaries from the luminaries at Townhall and, even if apocryphal, from over the internet transom.

After pointing out the nonsense of AOC claiming the US is running “concentration camps” at the border, David Limbaugh in his article Please Don’t Shut Up, AOC  concludes: (excerpt)

But here’s the good news. AOC is unteachable, because she is unwilling to be taught. Full of hubris, she already knows everything and is the champion of every leftist cause. She leads with her unbridled emotions, happily ignorant of the facts. House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi would love to corral her but would not dare even hint at that, shrewdly recognizing the mob attraction AOC enjoys with the Party’s shrieking base. Pelosi knows better than to chastise AOC and so ducked the question when asked why AOC never shuts up.

Well, I’m with Pelosi, for different reasons. Please don’t shut up, AOC. We appreciate your drawing a sharp contrast every day between the noxious views of your party, which now dutifully embodies your extremism, and those representing responsible governance. Thank you for liberally exercising your First Amendment freedoms.

The depth of the absurdity and intellectual and historical corruption of AOC’s “concentration camp” description is well stated by David Harsanyi:

The Problem With Ocasio-Cortez’s Shameful Ignorance of History 

And then again . . . Paul Curry writes:

AOC, Tlaib, and Omar May Be a Triumvirate of Idiocy, But Every Conservative’s Best Friends    (excerpt)

Every time one of these mental samurais speaks, one can feel the seismic shift in the 40 House seats Trump won in 2016 but elected a Democrat to Congress in ’18. Every time the aforementioned whiz kids of the leftist class rear their heads, Trump’s 304 Electoral Votes looks like a Patriot’s half-time score before Tom Brady enters the game.

But Conservatives should embrace these three upstarts come 2020. Instead of countless dollars spent on political consulting and messaging, run a clip of AOC declaring “unemployment is so low because everyone has two jobs.” Rent airtime, playing on a continuous loop, of how she can work to ensure a living wage for all, despite her recent declaration that her $174,000 Congressional salary is not enough for her to live on.

AOC’s failures are not limited to her clear problems with math and economics. Take her recent statements on race and immigration (which is only racist to a confirmed racist). She is a legislator who publicly declared concentration camps exist on our southern border. That’s right, she did liken our taking families destined for life on the streets, in bus stations, or under bridges, to the world’s greatest evil ever seen marching human beings into camps for the sole purpose of extermination, of murder. Perhaps history and logic were not her best subjects either.

The self-absorption, the historical ignorance of the AOC’s is evidenced in  Michael Barone’s commentary:

Yes, AOC, Your Generation Has Seen American Prosperity

But this well-stated item that came to us via HP, original source unverified but attributed to an Alyssa Ahlgren, at least suggests some of AOC generation have a head on their shoulders:

“I’m sitting in a small coffee shop near Nokomis trying to think of what to write about. I scroll through my newsfeed on my phone looking at the latest headlines of Democratic candidates calling for policies to “fix” the so-called injustices of capitalism.

I put my phone down and continue to look around. I see people talking freely, working on their MacBook’s, ordering food they get in an instant, seeing cars go by outside, and it dawned on me.

We live in the most privileged time in the most prosperous nation and we’ve become completely blind to it. Vehicles, food, technology, freedom to associate with whom we choose. These things are so ingrained in our American way of life we don’t give them a second thought. We are so well off here in the United States that our poverty line begins 31 times above the global average. Thirty. One. Times.

Virtually no one in the United States is considered poor by global standards. Yet, in a time where we can order a product off Amazon with one click and have it at our doorstep the next day, we are unappreciative, unsatisfied, and ungrateful.

Our unappreciation is evident as the popularity of socialist policies among my generation continues to grow. Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently said to Newsweek talking about the millennial generation, “An entire generation, which is now becoming one of the largest electorates in America, came of age and never saw American prosperity.”

Never saw American prosperity. Let that sink in. When I first read that statement, I thought to myself, that was quite literally the most entitled and factually illiterate thing I’ve ever heard in my 26 years on this earth. Now, I’m not attributing Miss Ocasio-Cortez’s words to outright dishonesty. I do think she whole-heartedly believes the words she said to be true. Many young people agree with her, which is entirely misguided. My generation is being indoctrinated by a mainstream narrative to actually believe we have never seen prosperity. I know this first hand, I went to college, let’s just say I didn’t have the popular opinion, but I digress.

Let me lay down some universal truths really quick. The United States of America has lifted more people out of abject poverty, spread more freedom and democracy, and has created more innovation in technology and medicine than any other nation in human history. Not only that but our citizenry continually breaks world records with charitable donations, the rags to riches story is not only possible in America but not uncommon, we have the strongest purchasing power on earth, and we encompass 25% of the world’s GDP.

The list goes on. However, these universal truths don’t matter. We are told that income inequality is an existential crisis (even though this is not an indicator of prosperity, some of the poorest countries in the world have low-income inequality), we are told that we are oppressed by capitalism (even though it’s brought about more freedom and wealth to the most people than any other system in world history), we are told that the only way we will acquire the benefits of true prosperity is through socialism and centralization of federal power (even though history has proven time and again this only brings tyranny and suffering).

Why then, with all of the overwhelming evidence around us, evidence that I can even see sitting at a coffee shop, do we not view this as prosperity?

We have people who are dying to get into our country. People around the world destitute and truly impoverished. Yet, we have a young generation convinced they’ve never seen prosperity, and as a result, elect politicians dead set on taking steps towards abolishing capitalism. Why?

The answer is this, my generation has ONLY seen prosperity. We have no contrast. We didn’t live in the great depression, or live through two world wars, or see the rise and fall of socialism and communism. We don’t know what it’s like not to live without the internet, without cars, without smartphones. We don’t have a lack of prosperity problem. We have an entitlement problem, an ungratefulness problem, and it’s spreading like a plague.

With the current political climate giving rise to the misguided idea of a socialist utopia, will we see the light? Or will we have to lose it all to realize that what we have now is true prosperity? Destroying the free market will undo what millions of people have died to achieve.

My generation is becoming the largest voting bloc in the country. We have an opportunity to continue to propel us forward with the gifts capitalism and democracy has given us. The other option is that we can fall into the trap of entitlement and relapse into restrictive socialist destitution. The choice doesn’t seem too hard, does it?”

Our conclusion: AOL and her generation are victims to an extent, although their obligation to be better informed is not, but they are victims of the multi-generational influence of the NEA and parents who put up with the corruption.

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Promise her anything

Alexandria Occasional-Cortex* is probably enthralled with the idea that in the socialist paradise she advocates she would be exalted in a position of power and privilege as she is celebrated now. Well maybe, but never in charge, she is just too stupid. She has already risen to the level of her incompetence (loud-mouth bartender to Democrat congressman is not much of a leap anyway).

Jerry Newcombe writing at Townhall has a good column that we pull a few favorite (chilling) quotes from:  The chill extends from some recent polling that indicates just too much acceptance of socialism and or its proponents for comfort. Worse the Democrat Party is essentially socialist incrementally if not revolutionary.

What Is This Love Affair with Socialism? (excerpt)

The problem with socialism and communism is that it must be forced in order to put it into practice. The communists built the Berlin Wall to keep the residents of East Germany from being able to flee “the worker’s paradise” into the West. Trump wants to build a border wall—not to keep people in, but to keep undocumented people out. The fact that so many want to come here is, in part, mute testimony to the success of capitalism.

Dr. Paul Kengor of Grove City College is a best-selling author of many books related to communism. One of his most recent books is called The Politically Incorrect Guide to Communism: The Killingest Idea Ever (Regnery, 2017).

In that book he mentions a joking T-shirt given to him by one of his former students. The T-shirt read, “Communism has only killed 100 million people. Why not give it another shot?”

Kengor points out that we are told repeatedly that the problem with socialism/communism, which consistently fails to “deliver the goods,” only because the right people have not tried it.

Writes Kengor, “Again and again, we’re told that communist philosophy was never the problem. No, it was nasty leaders like Joe Stalin who have given communism a bad name. Stalin, you see, was an aberration. As were, presumably, Lenin, Trotsky, Latsis, Dzerzhinsky [founder of the KGB], Beria, Bulganin, Khrushchev, Voroshilov, Malenkov, Mikoyan, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, Chebrikov, Ulbricht, Ceausescu, Tito, Hoxha, Dimitrov, Zhivkov, Mao, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Minh, Mengistu Mariam, Kim Il-Sun, Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un, Fidel, Raul, and Che….” And, of course, this would also include Hugo Chavez and General Maduro, who have presided over Venezuela’s destruction, as it went from the best economy of Latin America to the worst—precisely because of socialism.

Kengor concludes: “You would think at least one commie, somewhere along the line, would have gotten it right. Why such ugly results if the theory is so pretty? Can’t these geniuses read?”

Kurt Schlichter also at Townhall writes in a positive vein

Trump’s Way To Victory   (excerpt)

Trump’s path to reelection is blazingly obvious – avoid mistakes (like some new war) while focusing on the new normal of economic prosperity. Ask the Reagan Question: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”

For Normals, the answer is yes, yes, yes.

Yet Trump remains the change agent in the campaign. It’s the Democrats who are the party of the status quo, the sorry state of the union pre-2016.

Decline.

Despair.

Declarations of how much we Normal people suck.

That’s their platform. It’s not very appealing in places where people have jobs that involve sweating and headgear. And while the Dems may run up 60%-70% margins among baristas and public employee union parasites in the blue states, who cares?

Electoral College, baby!

Thank you again, Founders, for the wisdom to set up a system to keep us from being ruled by the freaks in New York City and Scat Francisco!

I wasn’t a Trump supporter until he beat my guy Cruz. He earned my support by keeping his promises and running up the score. But my assessment of his chances is objective, not subjective. The competition is going to get crushed. That’s a fact.

Take their doddering frontrunner. Floppy Sleepy Gropey Joe has proven himself good at only one thing – accumulating unflattering adjectives. He’s been in Washington, DC, for 50 years and now he’s noticed that it’s a bubbling cesspool of incompetence, arrogance and failure? And he’s the one who’s going to fix it? Gee, what’s his hurry?

If it was some soft, effete Fredocon Republican running for the honor of losing like a gentleman, you know our nominee would never be so impolite as to mention how Pete E. Neuman or Pocahantas or whoever is promising to bring back an era of misery. But Trump will. He’s no sissy like Mitt. Can you imagine if Candy Crowley had piped up at Trump? He’d have crushed her with binders full of tweets.

Trump will trumpet his successes shamelessly, which is exactly what we need. We need a promoter, a loud and proud conservative who’s not worried that the swells at the country club might find him “Oh well I never!”

He’s not ashamed to win. In fact, he cannot conceive of doing anything else.

Has anyone ever said that about Jeb!?

Winning will happen because we are going to nominate a fighter, a guy who knows how to win, a guy who they said couldn’t beat Hillary.

He did.

Then they said he was going to be marched out of the White House by the Grand Wizard of the Supreme Court for treason and emoluments and stuff.

Mueller cleared him.

They keep counting him out.

But he keeps winning.

And the smart money is on him doing it again in 2020.

Of course, if Trump loses – if they manage to cheat their way to victory – we’re that much closer to the nightmare I write about in my action-packed yet super-snarky novels about the United States’ split into red and blue countries, People’s Republic, Indian Country and Wildfire. Not surprisingly, liberals and the sad Loser Boat crew from the failed Weekly Standard hailed my novels as “Appalling.” So make your vote count!

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Our recent piece on M L King, in the aftermath of the “startling” revelations about him and what might be described as his “true character” was very pointed, but good, and appropriate.

This piece, from WSJ this AM, is equally good I think, but serves a different purpose, in a way.

The reason I like this one is not because it tends to rehabilitate King but because it makes an excellent point on the dangers of destroying a nation’s heroes (and ‘villains’) and history out of some misplaced ‘righteousness’. Robert E Lee, George Washington, Columbus, Harry Truman, Junipero Serra (sic), etc, etc, each has an important place in America’s history…despite however and whatever faults (some perceive) and personal shortcomings each had. (Even Zinn and Alinsky need to be known as part of our history…even tho, if any should be banned, it would be, to me, these two).

Read this and see if you think as I do about it.     DLH

A Reckoning With Martin Luther King 
Can America find grace and forbearance after shocking revelations about the civil-rights hero?   By Lance Morrow   WSJ June 17, 2019

How can one understand the behavior unearthed by Martin Luther King Jr. biographer David Garrow? Mr. Garrow has reported, in sometimes pornographic detail, on King’s assignations with some of the more than 40 women, single and married, with whom he is said to have had affairs. In the ugliest scene—difficult to comprehend or forgive—King stands by, and even laughs and offers advice, as a fellow minister rapes a woman. King is drunk, and he brags about it.

Mr. Garrow’s 7,800-word article had to be published by the British magazine Standpoint because American publications turned it down. Its revelations are from the mid-1960s, at the height of the civil-rights movement, the years before King was martyred and canonized, his name bestowed upon a national holiday and a thousand avenues and high schools.

Grown-ups understand—though children and ideologues do not—what F. Scott Fitzgerald meant when he said that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” We will now live with two contradictory and irreconcilable ideas of Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr. at a press conference in Cambridge, Mass., April 23, 1967.

Those close to King, including journalists covering the civil-rights movement, were aware of his womanizing and drinking—though they did not know the extent or, shall we say, the vividness of it. Some of his clerical associates, Mr. Garrow writes, joined him in group sex with women whom, using a private code, they called “parishioners.”

Reporters heard rumors at the time. They talked and sometimes joked about them. But they did not write about such things, for it was a different time, with different rules regarding the privacy of public figures. Reporters didn’t write about Franklin Roosevelt’s wheelchair, either, or about Joseph McCarthy’s drinking or John Kennedy’s sex life.
When King preached to his congregation, he often spoke of himself as a sinner. Unlike some preachers, he meant it. He knew that he was a flawed man. Maybe King’s conscience should be understood with the help of the novelist Graham Greene’s modernist Catholic conceit that great saints may find their path to salvation by way of egregious sins. Some psychiatric speculation suggests that the drinking and the sex were the result of manic depression.

On the exalted, public side of the ledger stands the moral leader who changed America for the better and who knew the price that he would pay for it. “I may not get there with you,” he said on the night before he was shot. “But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop.” That was the majestic King, the prophet. “I’ve looked over,” he said, “and I’ve seen the Promised Land.” He elongated the word “seen” so that it fairly quivered in the air.

Some historians and others defending King’s memory have suggested that Mr. Garrow’s evidence is tainted or racist. In the 1960s and later, many knew that J. Edgar Hoover’s Federal Bureau of Investigation had bugged King’s hotel rooms and offered the sex tapes to various media to discredit him.

Mr. Garrow’s information, however, appears to be solid. He is a painstaking, widely respected historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer. The material in his article is not based on hearsay (which one often finds in raw FBI files) but on newly released, vetted summaries of the FBI’s audiotapes, which are themselves sealed until 2027. A 1977 report from the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility confirmed the transcripts’ accuracy.

Mr. Garrow, by the way, is a man of the left, a self-described democratic socialist. He has always been an admirer of King. Besides, skeptics will not be able to impugn his scholarship for long. Any remaining doubts should be settled eight years from now, when the public will hear King’s familiar voice on the tapes. Mr. Garrow predicts that the shock will be considerable.

We are running out of paragons. I believe in Great Man theories of history—or believe, in any case, that the absence of moral leaders such as King is a catastrophe. A country without heroes becomes either savage or monstrously petty, and dull and mean. What we have today is a toxic compound of savagery and pettiness made even worse by the ruthless self-importance of identity politics. We have grown profligate in destroying heroes. I don’t think we can afford to lose Dr. King.

The way out, I’d say, is grace, if anyone believes in grace anymore. It’s become a rare thing in American public life. Martin Luther King was complicated, and some of his behavior was vile. Yet he gave his life—gave it knowingly—for the sake of the country, for blacks and also for whites. He deserves the grace of his country’s forbearance.
Mr. Morrow is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.

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