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Friday, June 7, 2019

A Coward Is Always A Coward

Political Cartoons by Steve Kelley

Nothing Is Free But It Sure Sounds Good, Until You Realize You Have Given Away Your Freedom


Voters should ask, What exactly is the cost of “Free” under Socialism?


The GOP’s Duty: Explain the Cost of ‘Free’
Republicans can’t outbid Santa Claus, but they can make the case for honesty, liberty and aspiration.
www.israel-commentary.org
Redacted from article by Bobby Jindal
Wall Street Journal May 30, 2019
Progressives are changing the Democratic Party’s focus from building stronger safety nets for the disadvantaged to subsidizing everything for everybody. Whereas Barack Obama once appeared radical for subsidizing health-care costs for the middle class as well as the poor, Democrats now promise free college, free health care and more—for everyone. 
Republicans can’t outspend Democrats, but they can make the case for freedom and against the idea that everything is “free” without sounding like Scrooge.
The Republican ideal isn’t penny-pinching but an aspirational society. The American Dream is to get a good job and live better than one’s parents; becoming dependent on government is the American nightmare. Even Howard Schultz, the man who brought America $5 coffee, realizes promises like Medicare for All are unrealistic and too expensive.
Yet Republicans have to do more than mock the Green New Deal’s bans on air travel, targeting of flatulent cows and subsidies for those unwilling to work if they want to persuade young voters of the case for limited government and personal freedom. Many Americans remember the Great Recession but not the Reagan Revolution, and they may find the false promise of government-provided economic security tempting, not having seen a better alternative.
In reality, “free” means more government control at the expense of consumer autonomy. When progressives promise government will pay for health care and college, they are really saying government will run medicine and higher education. Medicare for All explicitly calls for the abolition of private health insurance. Whereas Mr. Obama falsely promised that Americans who liked their plans could keep them, progressives now say if you like your plans, too bad.
Progressive health, education and energy policies would result in government interference in larger parts of the economy, affecting more people’s lives in profound ways. Consumers have a hundred choices of coffee but won’t be able to choose their health plans. Government paying for college would result in even more political interference with academic freedom. Progressives admit they want government to take ownership stakes in the projects mandated by their energy plan.
pastedGraphic.pngpastedGraphic.pngIt is one thing for Ford to tell consumers they could have any color Model T, as long as it was black, and quite another for government to tell citizens they cannot choose their health plans. Consumers and workers rightfully resent their decreasing bargaining power against large, sometimes oligopolistic companies, but the answer is not to consolidate power further in the hands of an even less responsive government bureaucracy. 
The correct response to reduced competition is more capitalism, not less. The way to resist consolidation in corporate America is to enforce existing antitrust laws and, especially, to reduce the regulatory pressures that cause consolidation in the first place.
“Free” means less efficiency, more expense and lower quality. While progressives highlight the unpopular aspects of private insurance, they won’t tell voters the private sector is more likely to promote innovation without concern for lobbyist-armed special interests and rent-seekers. Think of how long it took for the federal government, via Medicare, to pay for prescription drugs, ambulatory surgery and other outpatient services. It already takes tens of thousands of pages of regulations to administer Medicare, whereby the government sets thousands of prices in thousands of counties for millions of beneficiaries.
The top-down, one-size-fits-all Industrial Age approach is especially ill-suited to the constantly changing health care and education sectors. Hence the popular support for Medicare Advantage, charter schools, Veterans Choice and other programs that empower consumers with more control and harness the efficiency and creativity of the private economy to deliver public benefits.
“Free” means robbing from America’s children. It is one thing to take money from the present-day wealthy. It’s another to take it from future generations. Despite proposed marginal rates as high as 70% or even 90%, none of the tax plans Democrats have put forward would raise nearly enough revenue to pay for the promised spending. It is immoral for adults to force their children to sacrifice their quality of life and pay higher taxes to subsidize today’s spending. Good parents sacrifice to give their children more opportunities. This is the opposite.
Progressives aren’t willing to let America’s $22 trillion debt slow them down. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez objected to Congress’s pay-as-you-go rule, already honored more in the breach than in the observance; and progressives have conveniently discovered a monetary theory that allows them to ignore deficits and simply print whatever they want to spend.
Republicans have lost credibility on fiscal responsibility. Spending vastly increased on their watch. Even so, Medicare for All’s $32 trillion price tag makes even today’s appropriators look miserly. Republicans must remind voters—and themselves—that deficits are a drag on the economy, with interest payments crowding out private investment and government spending. It wouldn’t hurt for the GOP to act as if deficits matter when they govern, not merely when they’re in the minority.
Republicans can’t outbid Santa Claus. Americans are willing to work hard and sacrifice for a better life but need to know how pro-growth policies benefit them. Voters may be tempted by progressives’ crazy plans because they desperately want more affordable health care, reasonable tuition costs and a sustainable environment. They will embrace effective market-based solutions that promote freedom if Republicans offer them, but voters will only wait so long.
Mr. Jindal served as governor of Louisiana, 2008-16, and was a candidate for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

Monday, June 3, 2019

Will Kerry Soon Be Wearing Orange?


JAILED!? John Kerry’s in SERIOUS legal trouble…

Former Secretary of State John Kerry could be in very big trouble if he’s meddling in the U.S.-Iran negotiations — because President Donald Trump has already mused the idea of jailing the former Obama insider.
The Daily Beast reported that anonymous officials from former President Barack Obama’s administration have been coaching Iranian leaders on how to negotiate with Trump’s White House.
The anonymous insider has also been meeting with Congressional Democrats to get the party — and Iran — on the same page… against Trump.
“This would explain how they all ended up echoing the same talking points about [White House national security adviser John] Bolton and warmongering at the same time. Obama administration officials have been shuttling between [Capitol Hill] and Iranian officials to help make sure everybody is on the same page,” a congressional staffer working for the Republican Party told the Washington Examiner.
If this anonymous Obama insider that’s friends with top Democratic Party leaders is Kerry, it could mean jail time. For years, there have been calls to prosecute Kerry for his Iranian actions since leaving office.
Kerry admitted to violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act in December, just months after Daniel Greenfield of Frontpage Magazine accused Kerry of violating the Logan Act.
Greenfield noted a report in the Boston Globe from last year that said Kerry met with Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif for what the newspaper called “unusual shadow diplomacy.” Kerry even admitted he was trying to salvage the Iran nuclear deal and had met with Iranian officials a number of times.
“Kerry has been on an aggressive yet stealthy mission to preserve it, using his deep lists of contacts gleaned during his time as the top US diplomat to try to apply pressure on the Trump administration from the outside,” The Globe reported.

“If we have an actual rule of law, then there will be a special prosecutor appointed to investigate Kerry’s collusion with Iran,” Greenfield wrote. “Any meetings between members of the Iran Lobby, both official and unofficial, will be eavesdropped on by the NSA and their names unmasked at the request of Trump officials.”
Despite the “shadow diplomacy” of Obama officials undermining the Trump administration, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Sunday that the U.S. is ready for unconditional discussions with Iran in an effort to ease rising tensions that have sparked fears of conflict. The United States will not relent in trying to pressure the Islamic Republic to change its behavior in the Middle East, America’s top diplomat warned.
Pompeo repeated long-standing U.S. accusations that Iran is bent on destabilizing the region, but he also held out the possibility of talks as President Donald Trump has suggested. Trump himself had raised the idea of talks “without preconditions” in July 2018, although that was well before tensions had reached their current point.
In the 11 months since then, the U.S. has imposed crippling sanctions on Iran, first in November and then again last month, targeting the most lucrative sectors of its economy. The action has drawn Iran’s ire and strong words of threatened retaliation.
Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, said the U.S. must return to the historic 2015 nuclear deal, which Trump withdrew from in May 2018. He was quoted by Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency as saying that if the U.S. “realizes that the way it chose was incorrect, then we can sit at the negotiating table and solve any problem.”
While the latest offer may not pan out, Pompeo made it during a visit to Switzerland, the country that long has represented American interests in Iran, as part of a European trip aimed at assuring wary leaders that the U.S. is not eager for war.
“We’re prepared to engage in a conversation with no preconditions,” Pompeo told reporters at a news conference with his Swiss counterpart. “We’re ready to sit down with them, but the American effort to fundamentally reverse the malign activity of this Islamic Republic, this revolutionary force, is going to continue.”
Pompeo thanked Switzerland, which serves as the “protecting power” for the United States in Iran, for looking after Americans detained there. Trump administration officials have suggested they would look positively at any move to release at least five American citizens and at least two permanent U.S. residents currently imprisoned in Iran.
Pompeo declined to comment on whether he had made a specific request to the Swiss about the detainees. But, he said the release of unjustly jailed Americans in Iran and elsewhere is a U.S. priority.
“If they want to talk, I’m available,” Trump said last week, even as Pompeo and Bolton were stepping up warnings that any attack on American interests by Iran or its proxies would draw a rapid and significant U.S. response.
The U.S. is sending hundreds of additional troops to the region after blaming Iran and Iranian proxies for recent sabotage to tankers in the Persian Gulf and drone attacks on Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure.
Some analysts believe Iran is acting to restore leverage it has lost since Trump withdrew from the nuclear deal and the U.S. reimposed sanctions that have hobbled Iran’s economy.
Last month, the administration ended sanctions waivers that had allowed certain countries to continue to import Iranian oil, the country’s main source of revenue, without U.S. penalties. The U.S. also designated Iran’s Revolutionary Guards a “foreign terrorist organization,” adding new layers of sanctions to foreigners that might do business with it or its affiliates.
Despite the U.S. withdrawal, Iran has remained a party to the nuclear deal that involves the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, Germany, and the European Union. Iran has continued to broadly comply with the terms, which called for it to curb its nuclear work in exchange for sanctions relief. On Friday, however, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog reported that Iran may be in violation of limits on the number of advanced centrifuges it can use.
Pompeo declined to comment on the findings of the International Atomic Energy Agency other than to say the U.S. is “watching closely” what is going on in Iran.
“The world should be mindful of how we are watching closely how Iran is complying with the requirements that were set out,” he said.


The Associated Press contributed to this article

I Was Thinking...

was thinking:

If only 11 million people have Obama-Care, how will 24 million people die if it is repealed? Will an additional 13 million people be randomly shot?

was thinking:
If Donald Trump deleted all of his emails, wiped his server with Bleachbit and destroyed all of his phones with a hammer, would the Mainstream Media suddenly lose all interest in the story and declare him innocent?

I was thinking:
If women do the same job for less money, why do companies hire men to do the same job for more money?

I was thinking:
If you rob a bank in a sanctuary city, is it illegal or is it just an undocumented withdrawal?

I was thinking:
Each ISIS attack now is a reaction to Trump policies, but all ISIS attacks during Obama's term were due to climate change and a plea for jobs.

I was thinking:
We should stop calling them all 'Entitlements'. Welfare, Food Stamps, WIC, ad nausea are not entitlements. They are taxpayer-funded handouts, and shouldn't be called entitlements at all. No one is ENTITLED to them. Social Security and Veterans Benefits, on the other hand, ARE entitlements because the people receiving them ARE entitled to them. They were earned and paid for by the recipients.

I was thinking:
If Liberals don't believe in biological gender, then why did they march for women's rights?

I was thinking:
How did the Russians get Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC to steal the Primary from Bernie Sanders? How did Russia get Donna Brazile to leak debate questions to Hillary Clinton in advance of the debates?

I was thinking:
Why is it that Democrats think super delegates are fine, but they have a problem with the Electoral College?

I was thinking:
If you don't want the FBI involved in elections, then don't nominate someone who's being investigated by the FBI.

I was thinking:
If Hillary's speeches cost $250,000 an hour, how come no one shows up to her free ones?

I was thinking:
The DNC is mad at Russia because they 'think' the Russians are trying to manipulate our election by exposing that the DNC is manipulating our election.

I was thinking:
If Democrats don't want foreigners involved in our elections, why do they think it's all right for illegals to vote?

I'm going to quit thinking for a while!  [Thank you!] 
Ray Vincent
"A mile of road will take you one mile.
A mile of runway can take you anywhere"