News of the Week for Feb. 17^th, 2020

• Election 2020
• Gun Rights
• Hide the Decline
• Obamacare
• War & Terror
• National News
• Economy & Taxes
• International News
• Opinion

 

Election 2020

 

Maximum Socialism: Bernie Sanders’ Plan For A “Maximum Wage”
If you think Bernie Sanders has some completely radical socialist views now, you should have seen him when he was a younger man coming up in Vermont politics. During an interview with Jake Tapper this weekend, Sanders was reminded of one of his really “out there” policies from back in the day. Tapper asked him about his proposal to have a maximum wage in the United States on top of the minimum wage we already have in place. Sanders was clearly not thrilled with being reminded of this and attempted to dismiss the question out of hand.

U.S. Senate candidate selects guillotine as “symbol of the work we have to do”
Bre Kidman said the campaign logo is meant to be a sign of revolution by the lower and middle classes, and is not meant to be taken literally.

Fracking and the Electoral College
Liberals openly hate the electoral college (and the Senate, but one thing at a time) because it is counter-majoritarian. To which the answer is: Yes, precisely. That’s one of its strongest points. It means a winning presidential candidate has to take in a broader range of local interests if he is to win a constitutional majority, which is superior to a mere numerical majority that may be lopsided in just a few regions (like the two coasts today).

Biden: ‘We Could Run Mickey Mouse Against This President and Have a Shot’
There’s a rule of thumb I’ve noticed over the years: Democrats want Republicans to shut up, and Republicans want Democrats to keep talking. This is particularly applicable whenever former Vice President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. opens his big yap. He’s one of the few candidates who’s been keeping this whole thing from being completely boring, because you just never know what he’ll say next. Even he doesn’t know what he’ll say next. And he doesn’t seem to realize what he just said after he says it. But odds are it’ll be completely embarrassing and counterproductive to his campaign.

Andrew Yang drops out of presidential race
Andrew Yang, a Democratic businessman who campaigned on giving every adult American a monthly check for $1,000, will end his campaign for president after a disappointing showing in the New Hampshire primary.

Influential Nevada union attacks Bernie Sanders
The Culinary Workers Union Local 226 and Bartenders Union Local 165 (“the Culinary Union”) represents 60,000 workers in Las Vegas and Reno, including workers at most of the casino resorts on the Las Vegas Strip and in Downtown Las Vegas. It is affiliated with UNITE HERE, which represents 280,000 workers in gaming, hotel, and food service industries in North America.

Sanders’ Supporters Attack Nevada’s Culinary Union After It Points Out He Would “End Culinary Healthcare”
The union stressed that “[W]orkers should have the right to choose to keep healthcare Culinary Union members have built, sacrificed for, and went on strike for 6 years, 4 months, and 10 days to protect.”

A Nevada Union Warned Sanders Would End Their Health Insurance Plan, Now The Union Is Getting Threats
Earlier today the Nevada Independent reported that the Culinary Union has been circulating a flyer which compares six candidates for president on a number of issues. The flyer warns that, if elected, Bernie Sanders would put an end to the health insurance the union has fought for over the years, replacing it with Medicare for All.

House, Senate Dems: Nominating Bernie Would Be An Electoral Disaster
But not the only one facing Democrats this mid-winter of their malcontents. They have a fragile House majority to protect in the fall, and a Senate minority with a golden opportunity to take control of the upper chamber. If the top of the ballot pits a mainstream Democrat against Donald Trump, Democrats feel confident about their down-ballot chances.

Nevada Poll: Sanders 25, Biden 18, Warren 13, Steyer 11
Two pieces of good news coming out of Nevada for Bernie Sanders over the last 24 hours

FiveThirtyEight Predicts ‘No One’ Will Win a Majority of Democrat Delegates
The last time there was a brokered convention was in 1952. Is the next one going to happen it 2020?

Too Good To Check: Bloomberg Eyeing Hillary For VP, Says Drudge
I’m as skeptical as you are. But.

Disaster Ahead In NV: Bernie Leads — But Six Dems In Double Digits?
If Democrats hope to narrow the field in their presidential primary, they’ll have to look past Nevada’s caucuses. With a week to go — and with early voting set to start today — six candidates now poll in double digits in the latest Review-Journal/AARP survey. Bernie Sanders leads with 25%, but Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren are not far behind, with Tom Steyer, Pete Buttigieg, and Amy Klobuchar all getting 10% or more as well.

Documents reveal DNC was ‘intimately involved’ in development of troubled Iowa caucus app
While the Democratic National Committee over the past 10 days has tried to distance itself from the troubled app that threw the results of the Iowa caucuses into disarray, a copy of the contract and internal correspondence provided to Yahoo News demonstrates that national party officials had extensive oversight over the development of the technology.

Too Weird To Check: New Poll Of Nevada Has … Tom Steyer Leading, Klobuchar Second
This is an obvious outlier from other Nevada polls and probably shouldn’t be trusted given the small sample size of 256 voters. In fact, the tight clustering of the top five candidates here plus the sizable margin of error (5.7 points) means any one of them could be leading in reality.

Brawl Breaks Out in the Middle of a Bernie Rally
Keep it classy, Bernie Bros

 

Gun Rights

 

Virginia House Passes Ban on Semi-Auto Firearms and Suppressors in Hyperpartisan Vote
The bill has faced widespread opposition from legislators and citizens alike

Courts should overturn “Red Flag” law
A number of Nevada counties have passed Second Amendment sanctuary resolutions in response to state lawmakers passing a “Red Flag” law in 2019 that would allow persons accused of being a potential danger to themselves or others to have their firearms confiscated by order of a judge.

Don’t Look Now, But There Was a Huge Second-Amendment Victory in Virginia Today
Former New York City mayor, former Republican, current presidential candidate, and never a fan of the Bill of Rights, Mike Bloomberg just saw part of his gun-control agenda suffer a major misfire in Virginia this morning.

 

Hide the Decline

Environment &
“Green Energy”

 

Dartmouth lets Green New Deal activist crash classes to campaign
Professors “begrudgingly” comply with her requests to address students: report

Report: U.S. Led All Countries in Reducing CO2 Emissions in 2019
Despite being the scourge of the globalist community for daring to leave the Paris Climate Accord, the U.S. appears to be leading the way in reducing its “carbon footprint.”

 

Obamacare

Government in Healthcare

 

Investigating the International Guidelines for “Transgender” Children
Britain’s National Health Service has ordered an independent review into the use of puberty suppressants and cross-sex hormones on children. Currently, the NHS’s treatment model as applied at its only gender-identity clinic in London, run by the Tavistock trust, is based on international guidelines. However, a stream of scandals and legal action have called these guidelines into question.

Foreign Health Systems Don’t Make the Case for SandersCare
Senator Bernie Sanders often claims that other countries’ experience with health care shows that his Medicare for All plan makes sense. He’s at it again today, tweeting, “Remember: our ‘crazy idea’ of universal health care is a reality in” a long list of countries. The thing is, most of the people who think Sanders’s plan is crazy do not think it is crazy because it is impossible to have universal health coverage. They think that his plan is extremely unrealistic and cannot live up to the promises Sanders makes.

 

War & Terror

 

The Navy Now Wants To Retire The First Four Of Its Troublesome Littoral Combat Ships
These are exceptionally young ships to be pulled from service, underlining just how problematic and useless they truly are.

Space Force wants ideas “in good taste” on what it should call its members
Following its official creation this past December, the Space Force is looking for ideas on what the members of the newest branch of the US military should be called.

Submarines: Second Gen AIP
A French firm (Naval Group, formerly DCNS) has successfully tested what it calls FC2G (Fuel Cell 2nd Generation) AIP (Air Independent Propulsion) system for 18 days in a mock-up of the complete system in an 8 meter long circular structure identical to the space it would occupy in a submarine. The FC2G performed efficiently for three weeks. This test will be repeated several times as preparations are made to install FC2G in a submarine. The FC2G is safer, more efficient and easier to operate than earlier fuel cell AIP systems, including the widely used DCNS first-generation AIP.

 

National

 

Obama-Produced Film Wins Oscar, Producer Quotes Communist Manifesto In Acceptance Speech. Obama Praises.
The first Netflix film produced by former President Obama and Michelle Obama‘s production company won an award on Sunday during the Oscars and, while accepting the award, the filmmakers recited Karl Marx’s Communist manifesto.

Elizabeth Warren Calls For “Race-Conscious Laws”
The Massachusetts senator spoke Friday night at ABC’s Democratic debates in New Hampshire where she emphasized the need to correct racism within the United States. Her comments came after fellow candidate Bernie Sanders said at the same debate that “we have a racist society from top to bottom.”

My New Life After Transgender Despair
Last December, I received an early Christmas present that I would have rejected just one year earlier: an “M” for “male” on my driver’s license.

White male administrator resigns so faculty don’t have to censure his black female boss
Accused of creating intimidating environment as head of HR

“Percentage of Births to Unmarried Women”
Besides which country you are born in, in my view the most important factor by far in explaining disparities in all manner of life outcomes (poverty, unemployment, crime, education, you name it) is whether you were born out-of-wedlock. And since Americans are very interested in racial disparities, from time to time I post the federal government’s latest data on this topic.

Medical Journal Pushes Harvesting Kidneys from Dying Patients
The New England Journal of Medicine continually publishes advocacy articles that promote radical changes in medical ethics and public policies. For example, it uncritically published the Groningen Protocol, the infanticide bureaucratic checklist used by doctors in deciding which disabled or dying babies to euthanize in the Netherlands.

NASA’s experimental X-59 supersonic jet could be built by the end of 2020
It’ll test ways to shush sonic booms.

Texas State assignment asks future teachers to argue “whiteness is a construct of privilege”
Dean cites Southern Poverty Law Center in defending assignments

Wow: Plurality Of Utahns Feel Positive About Romney’s Vote To Remove Trump
It’s high time Utah broke free from this country and went its own way. I’ll fully support their right to do so.

Law To Protect Children From Transgender Intervention Fails In South Dakota
Some depressing news out of the Mount Rushmore State this week. State legislators there had been working on new legislation designed to protect children who are gender-confused from having invasive “gender correcting” medical procedures performed on them with the permission of their parents. These include hormone therapy unnatural to their growing bodies, puberty blockers, and even surgery. The legislation had already passed in the House, but a state senate committee somehow decided to kill the bill before it could even make it to a floor vote.

“We’re Talking About Babies”: Ben Sasse Says Born-Alive Bill Is Not About Abortion Access
Republican Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse defended a born-alive bill Tuesday and told lawmakers the legislation deals with babies born alive and not abortion access.

Parents Who Refuse “Gender-Affirming” Treatments Castigated as ‘Neglectful’
It’s one thing when adults decide to radically alter their bodies to accord with their identified gender. But when these body-altering interventions are performed on children — blocking normal puberty, mastectomies on 13-year-olds, etc. — that is a different kettle of fish.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Puts Nail In The Equal Rights Amendment’s Coffin
At Georgetown University’s Law Center Monday, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the manner in which Virginia passed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) is too controversial.

A transgender activist met with a public university’s leadership, but the school won’t say why
Trans professor met with ‘deans and academic leaders’

Wuhan Virus Watch: U.S. Military Approves 11 Coronavirus Quarantine Camps Next to Major Airports
Mislabeled sample resulted in release of San Diego coronavirus patient

Idaho GOP supports bill that would eliminate affirmative action in state hiring, contracting
Following a tense and confrontational hearing on Wednesday, the House State Affairs Committee voted along party lines to advance a bill that would eliminate affirmative action in state hiring and contracting.

Aggressors spit on College Republicans’ Betsy Ross flag, trash their display
Video shows College Republicans’ display attacked at UC Santa Cruz

‘Too many white people in here’: Viral video from UVA captures racially charged rant
A black female student announced to other students at UVA’s multicultural center that she was “uncomfortable” with the amount of white people.

Illinois Bill Would Ban Adults From Pumping Their Own Gas
Rep. Camille Lilly, who authored the bill, says her legislation will lead to more safety, convenience, and jobs.

Rasmussen: Plurality Of Republican Voters Oppose Expelling Romney From The Party, 39/43
Yesterday’s poll out of Utah surprised me but this national poll surprises me more. Especially since it comes from a Trump-friendly pollster in Rasmussen and involves a sample of likely voters, not Republicans generally. Likely voters are the people who are most amped up to defend the president, you’d expect.

Coronavirus Could Infect Two-Thirds of Globe, Research Shows
Disease scientist bases estimate on transmissibility of virus

This Valentine’s Day, UCLA promotes ‘Sex Squad’ performance
As part of a Valentine’s Day celebration, UCLA will host a presentation by the UCLA Sex Squad, a theater troupe that faciliatates conversations around “taboo topics.”

From Supporting Abortion to Not Opposing Infanticide
The Senate is planning to vote the week after next on S.311, “The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act.”

A 6-Year-Old Girl in Florida Was Committed to a Mental Health Facility After She Threw a Fit at School
The forced psychiatric evaluation was permitted under Florida’s controversial Baker Act, which allows a person to be involuntarily committed to a mental health facility for 72 hours.

Just Before Our Sun Dies, Its Light Will Shatter The Asteroid Belt to Dust
The light of a dying star is so intense it can reduce asteroids to dust. A new study indicates this will happen to most of the stars currently burning in the Universe, including the Sun, which will shatter its asteroid belt down to boulders in about 5 to 6 billion years.

San Francisco Middle School Descends Into “Lord Of The Flies” Environment
Aptos Middle School is located in San Francisco and, from the outside, appears like an ordinary school. But today the San Francisco Chronicle reports a small group of disruptive students, somewhere between 5 and 20, have turned it into something reminiscent of the Lord of the Flies. And, at least so far, school authorities seem unable to do much about it

Biologists Propose Radical Concept That There Are Only Two Genders/Sexes
I know a couple of people who are going to be in trouble with the Woke Science Community. Colin M. Wright, an evolutionary biologist at Penn State, and Emma N. Hilton, a developmental biologist at the University of Manchester, have collaborated on an article published in the Wall Street Journal this week. They put forth the revolutionary and highly controversial theory that human beings are born as one of two distinct sexes, male and female. And no amount of philosophical meandering is going to change the incontrovertible medical fact that sex is binary and does not exist on some sort of “spectrum.”

The Dangerous Denial of Sex
Transgender ideology harms women, gays—and especially feminine boys and masculine girls.

Trump Administration to Deploy Elite Tactical Units to Sanctuary Cities
Elite tactical units from the Customs and Border Patrol will be sent to sanctuary cities for several months, the Department of Homeland Security announced yesterday. The elite CBP agents are normally used to deal with smugglers and other violent offenders.

Pro-Life Protester Seeks Protection Order After Abortion Advocates Stalk, Threaten, and Even LICK Her
A pro-life woman who protests outside an abortion clinic in Bristol, Tenn., has faced harassment, stalking, and threats. Pro-abortion activists have bragged about their efforts to quash her free speech, physically blocking her sign with umbrellas, licking her arms, shouting obscenities at her, and pushing their bodies up against hers to prevent her message from reaching women as they go to the abortion clinic. The Thomas More Society has filed legal requests for a protection order to stop this harassment.

5 Year Sentence Recommended For Former Baltimore Mayor
Back in November, we learned that disgraced former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh had avoided a messy trial by pleading guilty to multiple counts of corruption and tax evasion. This all stemmed from her self-dealing scheme to “sell” hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of her self-published “Healthy Holly” children’s books to people and businesses who had dealings with the University of Maryland Medical System, where Pugh sat as a board member.

17 arrested as grad students block roadways, withhold grades in months-long strike
California grad students striking for more pay have now started a general strike in addition to their graditing strike that has been going on since December.

Ukrainian President Zelensky Calls Impeachment A TV Soap Opera
In a rebuke to Democrats, the Ukrainian president dismissed the impeachment of Trump as a television soap opera.

The Face Of Transgender Child Abuse
If you happened to catch last Wednesday night’s edition of NBC Nightly News, you may have seen the profile they did of 9-year-old Jacob Lemay. So what is it about a child of that tender age that would merit a chunk of NBC’s prime news space? Jacob wasn’t always Jacob, you see. And “he” was born a she. Yes, Jacob is a transgender child.

No, Trump Has Not Ended Obama’s War on the Suburbs
The Obama administration’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule was arguably its most radical attempt to “fundamentally transform” the United States. As I wrote at the time, Obama’s AFFH gives the federal government “a lever to re-engineer nearly every American neighborhood — imposing a preferred racial and ethnic composition, densifying housing, transportation, and business development in suburb and city alike, and weakening or casting aside the authority of local governments over core responsibilities, from zoning to transportation to education.” Another way of looking at Obama’s AFFH is to see it as a way of allowing big cities to effectively annex their surrounding suburbs — siphoning off suburban tax revenue and controlling suburban planning as well.

Short Circuit: A Roundup of Recent Federal Court Decisions
Canine due process, feline endangerment, and civil contempt.

LA Mayor and Police Chief Record PSA Assuring Illegals They Can Get Away With Breaking American Laws
In what can only be described as giving the middle finger to the United States of America and law and order, the mayor of Los Angeles and his equally law-breaking police chief recorded a public service announcement letting illegal aliens know they will not be held accountable to U.S. laws while living in .LA.

Adult Film Shot At Santa Monica Public Library During Business Hours Sparks Outrage
A porn stunt apparently done to get clicks is provoking outrage after news surfaced that an adult film was shot inside a local public library.

Plymouth Rock Among Town Landmarks Vandalized Ahead Of 400th Anniversary Celebration
Vandals hit Plymouth Rock and other landmarks in town overnight. The vandalism comes as Plymouth prepares to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims arriving on the Mayflower.

Border Patrol released more than 375,000 illegal immigrants directly into US last year: report
More than 850,000 immigrants illegally entered the US in FY2019

Scientists switch monkey brains on or off using electricity in experiment
The animals were given strong anaesthetics but then shocked instantly awake using tiny probes to deliver electricity to a chamber deep in the brain

 

Economy & Taxes

 

Coronavirus: the spiraling economic impact
We’ve all seen the speculation about the coronavirus recently discovered (or should that be unleashed?) in China. The health issues are well-known, and are being very urgently addressed all over the world. What many people haven’t thought about (or, at least, not enough) is the economic impact.

Connecticut Democrats Want to Tax Insulin… Oh, Wait. It’s a Fee, Not a Tax. Or Something.
Ok, ok, it’s not a tax. It’s a FEE. That’s right, the Democrats in Connecticut have floated the idea of placing a fee on the manufacture and distribution of insulin in the state, calling it a price-capping measure. This would be one in a series of sweeping new laws to remake health care in Connecticut, including a revived public option bill.

AB5 Backfire
Barely a month old, California’s poorly designed “gig-work” law is already having unintended consequences.

California bullet train cost rises by another $1 billion
The estimated cost to complete California’s high-speed rail line rose another $1.3 billion, to $80.3 billion, while construction is on schedule to meet a 2022 deadline to have about 20% of the track laid, according to a new business plan released Wednesday.

 

International

 

Germany: Convicted sex offenders allowed to visit brothels as “therapy”
The Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (LWL) confirmed Friday’s report from Der Spiegel which said that patients at the psychiatric clinic in the penal system of Lippstad-Eickelborn were permitted to visit prostitutes in brothels as a part of their therapy, Kronen Zeitung reports.

McDonald’s branch forced to hire bouncers and ban kids over spate of violence
The burger joint in Ebbw Vale, South Wales has been forced to crackdown on younger customers after a rash of brawls at the fast food chain’s restaurants around the area

Justin Trudeau Is Up to His Old Tricks Again, as Canada Heads Down the Totalitarian Road
The true north strong and free, as the Canadian national anthem has it, is no longer true, strong, or free. It is still north, of course, but this is no cause for celebration. While retaining its position on the geographical compass, it has lost its place on the moral compass. Our “basic dictatorship”-loving Liberal Prime Minister, friend of the late Fidel Castro, is taking the country down the path of increasing socialist control and totalitarian closure: unsustainable debt, skyrocketing taxes, rising unemployment, media bribery, the stink of corruption, and—the cake under the icing—”totalitarian tendencies” and gradual police state governance.

Chinese man covers himself in gasoline while strapped to firecrackers after coronavirus cancels birthday bash: report
A man in China is facing criminal charges after he strapped firecrackers to his body and doused himself in gasoline when a ban put in place to prevent the spread of the coronavirus canceled his birthday party, reports say.

Affair Mila: A French 16-Year-Old Criticized Islam And Set Off A National Debate About Free Speech
An opinionated 16-year-old girl has created a national debate in France over the line between freedom of speech and incitement against a religion. Her statements about Islam on social media prompted outrage, death threats, and eventually forced her to move schools. It all started with an Instagram livestream on January 18th in which the girl, known only as Mila because of her age, was showing how she does her make-up

Switzerland Votes to Criminalize Public “Hate Speech,” Discrimination Against Homosexuals
Voters in Switzerland have approved a referendum to include so-called sexual orientation in the country’s anti-discrimination statutes, prohibiting public “hate speech” and denigration of homosexuals, as well as inciting hatred through text or images. Violators could face up to three years behind bars.

UK Judge Compares Police To Gestapo Over Probe Into “Transphobic” Tweets
“We need to check your thinking,” police reportedly told 54-year-old defendant.

Free Speech Under Fire in the UK
Current cultural and political developments in the U.S. are so weird that I tend to assume we must be unique. But not so: in the United Kingdom, too, “wokeness” operates as an explicit threat to freedom. The situation is even worse there than here, in fact.

Wuhan Virus Watch: Chinese university researchers believe virus may originate from government laboratory
“… the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan”

China Uighurs: Detained for beards, veils and internet browsing
A document that appears to give the most powerful insight yet into how China determined the fate of hundreds of thousands of Muslims held in a network of internment camps has been seen by the BBC.

 

Opinion

 

Protecting California children from life
Under current California law, public school children in fifth, seventh and ninth grades are given a physical fitness test that measures everything from aerobic capacity to flexibility and upper body strength.

Liberals Versus the Constitution
It was jarring to the ears to hear Democrats piously invoking the words and “original intent” of the Founders during the impeachment farce, because as everyone knows liberals would re-write the Constitution wholesale if they had the power to do so. The list of things they despise in our Constitution is quite long, i.e. get rid of the electoral college, abolish the Senate, etc. I’ve seen lists with as many as 25 or more specific changes liberals want. See Larry Sabato’s book, A More Perfect Constitution: Why the Constitution Must Be Revised as an example. And Sabato is a moderate in academia these days!

Western Civilization, why it’s real and why it matters
Steve’s latest “Power Line Show” features my friend Stanley Kurtz discussing his new book, The Lost History of Western Civilization. Steve’s discussion with Stanley is well worth checking out.

A Bernie Sanders win spells the end of America’s center-left, which is already a global trend
The Democratic Party could soon be taken over by a leftist who has never formally been a member (even if he signed a pledge to govern as a Democrat should he make it to the White House).

“I imagine girls will drift back into not participating in competitive sports, which is the way it was when I was in high school. What’s the point anyway?”
“The inability to win is just one more reason to say no to athletic competition. Yes, decades of encouragement will fail, but on the positive side, there will be no mean rejecting of transgenders. As we noncompetitive softies like to say: Everybody wins.”

Now The Nuclear Family Is Insufficient?
Does the world you live in strike you as being filled with “bitterness and contradictions?” I would hope that, at least for most of you, it doesn’t. But that seems to be the baseline assumption in a couple of recent op-eds from the Atlantic and the Washington Post. You can take your pick between the original piece by David Brooks or the hearty endorsement it received from Robert J. Samuelson. Both gentlemen seem to agree that the world is in decay and one major contributing factor is our social reliance on the nuclear family which isn’t up to the task in the modern era.

Men and Women Are (Still) Different
How did basic biology become “controversial”? Girls have to file a federal lawsuit to prevent males from competing in girls’ sports, and you’re a bigot — a hater, a proponent of transphobia — if you take the side of the plaintiffs in what would seem like a slam-dunk case to anyone with an iota of common sense. Alas, common sense is prejudice, according to the High Priesthood of Wokeness in the Temple of Gender Ideology.

Push To Legalize Polygamy Uses Same Arguments As Push For Same-Sex Marriage
The “love is love” strategy was so successful for the gay marriage lobby, why should polygamists reinvent the wheel?