Venezuela tops the list: socialism on display

Monica Showalter at American Thinker reports:

It's no surprise to anyone that socialist Venezuela is an utterly miserable place - there's pictures showing that the capital of Caracas looks like a trash heap, there's the fact that hungry people eat from garbage trucks and drink sewer water, and there's the horrible reality that people are leaving  the country may see a full half of its population flee for any country that will take them.

But there are a lot of crappy places out there and maybe it's just bad press focusing on a few things, right?

Wrong. The sheer awfulness of socialism in Venezuela has been quantified, in hard numbers, by Johns Hopkins University Professor of Economics, Steve Hanke, whose global list, with hard data such as unemployment, inflation, interest rates, minus the percentage change in GDP per capita, quantifies the factors every year. 

Full article, with chart, is here. 

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How the Left is saving me money

image credit: businessingamble.com

James Mullin at American Thinker closed his column “How The Left Is Saving Me Money”:

So, I thought, what else has the Left ruined for me, and in the process saved me money?  Well, I no longer contribute a dime to my college alma mater. . . I attend the movies hardly at all anymore, thanks to Hollywood's antics.  I can't see the character for the repugnant actor or actress.  I also scaled back my cable subscription due to the disgust I have for Comcast and Disney.  I read more and learn more, instead.  Just last week, I chose a much more reasonable store brand sneaker over the odious Nike brand, after it made Kaepernick its spokesperson.  Likewise, I gave up Ben and Jerry's ice cream for store brand and chose AMAC over the costlier AARP as a retirement organization.  I wouldn't give a dime to Progressive Insurance, but in fact, I made a good deal on a less expensive policy from a competitor, with much better service.

Oh, and my savings?  It let me increase my contribution to Judicial Watch. 

To which I would add our own household decisions to change brands (no more Gillette razors or visits to Starbucks, etc.) And I like Mr. Mullin’s plug for Judicial Watch. Full column is here.

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John Boehner gets something right

From The Hill:

Former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he "wouldn't bother" launching a primary challenge against President Trump if he were former Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R). 

"No, I wouldn't — I wouldn't bother if I were him," Boehner said during an interview on NBC host Chuck Todd's podcast, "Chuck Toddcast," according to Politico Playbook.

. . .

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How the media manipulates the report

investigaction.net

Mark Steyn walks us through exactly HOW the media transmutes a news report into outright propaganda – step by step -- in his "Taqiyya for Easter." He starts off:

Let's say a fire breaks out at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris at the start of Holy Week, and just after two of the city's other most prominent houses of worship - St Sulpice and the Basilica of St Denis - have been attacked and vandalized.

Well, I think we can all confidently say as the first flames are beginning to lick the ceiling that it's undoubtedly an accident. Cigarette butt. Or maybe computer glitch. Probably just an overheated smart phone. We don't need to get in there and sift through the debris. We can just announce it.

On the other hand, when there are coordinated attacks on Easter services at several churches in Sri Lanka, it becomes a little more challenging to pass off multiple suicide-bombings killing nearly three hundred people as an electrical malfunction.

So, in contrast to the confident declarations of a week ago, on Sunday morning the media opted for a subtler narrative. Lead sentence from The Economist:

IT HAS BEEN nearly ten years since the guns fell silent in Sri Lanka's civil war. But bloodshed returned with a vengeance...

So it's something to do with the Tamil Tigers? Their guns fell silent, but now they've returned with a vengeance, eh?

Well, er, no, er, not, ah, precisely... But it's useful for "context", lots and lots of context. And, if you pile up enough context, you can bury the actual story. 

Do read the rest of the how-to analysis here.

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Happy Easter

image credit: redbubble.com

from Cleveland Tea Party

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Another cycle of Media Madness

art credit: cresincorporated.com

Newt Gingrich on “Mueller Media Madness”:

Watching the first wave of reaction to Attorney General Barr’s Press Conference and the release of the Mueller Report led me to conclude America is trapped in a cycle of media madness.

This media madness is crippling the country, maximizing partisan divisions, and absorbing so much time and energy that it cripples America in trying to come to grips with dangers that could destroy us.

Mueller reported after a nearly two-year effort which involved 19 lawyers, 40 staff, more than 2,800 subpoenas, nearly 500 search warrants, and around 500 witnesses. The investigation spent more than $25 million.

If the Mueller team could have found President Trump guilty, they would have. After all, Mueller recruited as his legal team – 14 Democrats, 12 of whom have contributed to Democrats. Of these lawyers seven were Clinton donors, one attended Clinton’s election night party, and one represented the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton herself.

. . .

When almost two years of digging by this anti-Trump wolfpack could produce no signs of guilt, it is reasonable to conclude that was because there were no signs of guilt.

However, the anti-Trump news media has too much invested in hating Trump to give up just because two years of work by 14 highly motivated, aggressive Democrat lawyers found no laws broken.

. . .

Meanwhile, the reality of the Trump presidency – and the renewed strength of President Trump as a vindicated innocent man – will continue to change America in a direction the country likes and the Left hates.

Read the rest here.

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Outlasting the daily assaults and memes

Pensive thoughts for Easter weekend from Richard Fernandez a/k/a Wretchard at PJ Media:

If a viral cocktail of political correctness, socialist dysfunction, and moral relativism is now besetting the West, then reason is as useless against it as Veritatis splendor [The Splendor of the Truth, an encyclical by Pope John Paul II expressing the Catholic Church’s role in moral teaching] was against the devil. The meme can continue to spread regardless of damage until it pulls the host down to its energy level. Is there a way out? The Roman Empire never solved the problem of how to dominate a malignant meme, but humanity found a way of outlasting it. "Western Christianity survived by clinging to places like Skellig Michael, a pinnacle of rock [seven] miles from the Irish coast, rising seven hundred feet out of the sea." The mission of the monks was to remember God -- to remember the truth -- until the mysterious workings of the system brought them forth again…

The rest of his column is here.

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