Thomas Sowell: Biden is America's point of no return

 

The link here is to a composite of recent interviews with the brilliant economist Thomas Sowell.  It’s sobering and provocative.  It’s less than 10 minutes and worth every second.  At age 90, he remains a national treasure.

Video is here.

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Michael Anton on “The Coming Coup”

 

Michael Anton is the author of The Stakes: America at the Point of No Return. He was interviewed on Mark Levin’s “Life, Liberty, and Levin” on Fox.  He was a great guest, so I looked up his essay on American Mind, “The Coming Coup?”, which starts off:

Democrats are laying the groundwork for revolution right in front of our eyes.

As if 2020 were not insane enough already, we now have Democrats and their ruling class masters openly talking about staging a coup. You might have missed it, what with the riots, lockdowns and other daily mayhem we’re forced to endure in this, the most wretched year of my lifetime. But it’s happening.

It started with the military brass quietly indicating that the troops should not follow a presidential order. They were bolstered by many former generals—including President Trump’s own first Secretary of Defense—who stated openly what the brass would only hint at. Then, as nationwide riots really got rolling in early June, the sitting Secretary of Defense himself all but publicly told the president not to invoke the Insurrection Act. His implicit message was: “Mr. President, don’t tell us to do that, because we won’t, and you know what happens after that.”

All this enthused Joe Biden, who threw subtlety to the winds. The former United States Senator (for 26 years) and Vice President (for eight) has not once, not twice, but thrice confidently asserted that the military will “escort [Trump] from the White House with great dispatch” should the president refuse to leave. Another former Vice President, Al Gore, publicly agreed.

One might dismiss such comments as the ravings of a dementia patient and a has-been who never got over his own electoral loss. But before you do, consider also this. Over the summer a story was deliberately leaked to the press of a meeting at which 100 Democratic grandees, anti-Trump former Republicans, and other ruling class apparatchiks got together (on George Soros’s dime) to “game out” various outcomes of the 2020 election. One such outcome was a clear Trump win. In that eventuality, former Bill Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, playing Biden, refused to concede, pressured states that Trump won to send Democrats to the formal Electoral College vote, and trusted that the military would take care of the rest.

The full essay is here. 

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The mailbox and postal service hoax: Life Liberty and Levin

Mark Levin’s episode of Life, Liberty, and Levin this evening was outstanding.  His two guests addressed (1) the mailbox hoax and (2) the hydroxychloroquine “controversy.” Both guests were most excellent, and President Trump just linked to the first segment on the postal service with Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation (his second guest was Dr. Harvey Risch, professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at the Yale School of Public Health and Yale School of Medicine):

Click here for the President's twitter link. 

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Another misnomer: Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing

image credit: 123rf.com

Stanley Kurtz was the investigative reporter who went to Chicago during the 2008 election cycle to uncover the records from the now-defunct Annenberg Challenge, a foundation that funneled funds to far left educational programs and institutions.  It was noteworthy because future President Barack Obama and the terrorist Bill Ayers both sat on the board.

Last night, Mark Levin interviewed Stanley Kurtz on his hour-long Life, Liberty, and Levin.  Mr. Kurtz has turned his attention to the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing legislation, and this innocuous-sounding piece of legislation is, in fact, one of the biggest threats to our way of life.  Candidate Joe Biden is all for it.  The link for Mr. Levin’s broadcast web page is here (video page here), and if you have difficulty with access, here are a few paragraphs from Mr. Kurtz’s essay "Biden and Dems Are Set to Abolish the Suburbs" on line (at the Ethics and Public Policy Center):

. . . Biden has actually promised to go much further than AFFH [Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing]. Biden has embraced Cory Booker’s strategy for ending single-family zoning in the suburbs and creating what you might call “little downtowns” in the suburbs. Combine the Obama-Biden administration’s radical AFFH regulation with Booker’s new strategy, and I don’t see how the suburbs can retain their ability to govern themselves. It will mean the end of local control, the end of a style of living that many people prefer to the city, and therefore the end of meaningful choice in how Americans can live. Shouldn’t voters know that this is what’s at stake in the election?

It is no exaggeration to say that progressive urbanists have long dreamed of abolishing the suburbs. (In fact, I’ve explained it all in a book.) Initially, these anti-suburban radicals wanted large cities to simply annex their surrounding suburbs, like cities did in the 19th century. That way a big city could fatten up its tax base. Once progressives discovered it had since become illegal for a city to annex its surrounding suburbs without voter consent, they cooked up a strategy that would amount to the same thing.

This de facto annexation strategy had three parts: (1) use a kind of quota system to force “economic integration” on the suburbs, pushing urban residents outside of the city; (2) close down suburban growth by regulating development, restricting automobile use, and limiting highway growth and repair, thus forcing would-be suburbanites back to the city; (3) use state and federal laws to force suburbs to redistribute tax revenue to poorer cities in their greater metropolitan region. If you force urbanites into suburbs, force suburbanites back into cities, and redistribute suburban tax revenue, then presto! You have effectively abolished the suburbs.

Read the rest here.

Related:  Mr. Kurtz’s article “Suburbs Hold Key to 2020 Presidential Choice” is here.

This is a subject of concern to every friend, associate, or family member who lives in the suburbs. This is an excellent topic to share with them.

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Peter Schweizer on Fox/Levin tomorrow

Peter Schweizer has been making the rounds on the news shows, talking about his book, Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite (HarperCollins). I am partway through the book, and it’s both frightening and well-documented.  As I linked the other day, Rebecca Mansour at Breitbart reported that the

bombshell investigative book contains 1,126 endnotes totaling 83 pages of source material, Breitbart News has learned.

In addition, the book contains no unnamed sources. Instead, it is based on hard evidence and documents, including: foreign and domestic corporate and legal records, tax liens, lobbyist disclosures, property records, White House visitor logs, federal bankruptcies, and federal criminal trial records.

Anyway, Mr. Schweizer’s appearances on, e.g., Watter’s World, are frustrating, as most hosts do most of the talking. But Sunday evening (tomorrow), Mr. Schweizer will be on Mark Levin’s Fox broadcast at 8pm of Live, Liberty and Levin.  While I go hot and cold on Mr. Levin, his Sunday evening broadcasts on Fox are generally restrained, well-prepared, and designed to maximize the commentary by the guest. I’ll be tuning in.

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Guilty By Reason of Insanity

book cover via Regnery Publishing

We tuned in to Mark Levin’s interview yesterday, as his guest was David Limbaugh. Mr. Limbaugh is making the rounds to promote his book Guilty By Reason of Insanity, due out this week from Regnery Publishing. It was a compelling interview. And over the weekend, he published a column at PJ Media summarizing parts of his book. Here’s an extract from his column:

. . .

Take Rep. Adam Schiff, for example. How many times did this reckless, malicious buffoon swear, unchallenged, that he had solid evidence of Trump's "collusion" with Russia? Has he ever been held accountable for his lies? Has anyone in the liberal media showcased his misconduct?

To the contrary, Schiff is conducting secret hearings in a private room in the congressional basement in hot pursuit of another witch hunt. His Star Chamber proceeding facilitates his selective leaking of witness testimony to make third-hand hearsay sound like smoking guns and create the impression that this time, they really do have the goods on Trump.

Democrats act this way while not in control of both legislative chambers or the executive branch. Can you imagine what they'll do if they defeat Trump and capture the Senate in 2020?

Well, I can imagine, and it horrifies me, which is why I have written my new book, "Guilty by Reason of Insanity: Why the Democrats Must Not Win," to be released Oct. 29.

In the very beginning of the book, I dispel the myth that the political left and conservatives share the same goals for America but just have different ideas about how to achieve them. If this were ever true before, which I highly doubt, it is demonstrably false now. The left shows every day that it rejects the American idea and seeks to radically transform our system of government, our economy, and our culture.

The two parties have distinctly different visions for America, based on conflicting worldviews. I write: "Some will object that all Americans want everyone to be prosperous, safe, free, and to live in harmony, but I'm not sure that's even true anymore, given the left's anti-Americanism, its intolerance and authoritarianism, its romance with socialism, its hysterical environmentalism, its preoccupation with identity politics, its radicalism on race and gender, its attempts to erase our borders, its culture of death, its devaluation of the Constitution, its hostility to Second Amendment rights, and much more.

"The Democratic Party is a vehicle of leftist extremism that poses an existential threat to America as founded -- because it is at war with our first principles and traditions. It is anti-capitalist and rejects equality of opportunity in favor of a hierarchy of privileges for identity groups ranked according to their levels of alleged historical oppression. It's a brazenly anti-life party that promotes gender anarchy, militant feminism, and hostility toward traditional male roles and masculinity itself. It prosecutes a vicious culture war punctuated by an ongoing assault on Christians' religious liberty."

I go into great depth about the leftists' agenda and how they are conducting themselves, not only providing myriad examples of their insanity but exploring the intellectual and moral fallacies underlying their ideas on socialism, gender identity, race, immigration, abortion, and America's quintessential founding principles of liberty and limited government.

. . .

We ordered the book.

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Peter Schweizer on Joe Biden

Secret Empires: 

How the American Political Class 

Hides Corruption and Enriches Family and Friends

(image credit: Washington Times)

Trent Baker had three paragraphs at Breitbart summarizing Peter Schweizer’s appearance on Mark Levin’s show last night:

Breitbart News senior contributor and Secret Empires author Peter Schweizer joined Life, Liberty & Levin Sunday on Fox News Channel to explain Joe and Hunter Biden’s Ukraine connections.

Schweizer told host Mark Levin that the former vice president’s son was being paid by Ukraine despite not having expertise in the energy sector while Joe Biden was the “point-person” on former President Barack Obama’s administration in dealing with Ukraine.

“The key question here that nobody seems to want to ask in the media is: What was he being paid for? He wasn’t being paid for his expertise. What was he being paid for? And what were the Ukrainians expecting to get in return?” Schweizer stated. “I think when you overlay the financial payments with the fact that Joe Biden as point person on Obama administration policy to Ukraine was steering billions of dollars of Western money to Ukraine it becomes crystal clear exactly why they were paying him money. They wanted access and they wanted to influence Joe Biden. And Joe Biden has been around a long time here, and he had to know exactly why his son was being paid.”

Schweizer’s book Secret Empires is an excellent resource. If you are interested in his column-length reports, click here.

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Life After Fox News

Paul Ryan cartoon from Cagle Comics at Utah Independent 

Yes, Fox is moving relentlessly leftward, and in our household, we click the “Mute” button during prime time viewing -- or turn the channel. Judi McLeod at Canada Free Press quotes Breitbart to begin her report:

. . . Former House Speaker Paul Ryan, who currently sits on the board of Fox News Corp., and who, according to Vanity Fair, is reportedly urging Fox News to “decisively break” with President Donald Trump—news in the magazine’s report documenting the network’s “management bedlam”. (Tony Lee at Breitbart, Sept. 26, 2019)

Ryan, the longtime Trump antagonist, has reportedly been suggesting to Murdoch that “Fox should decisively break with the president” as Murdoch holds “strategy conversations with Fox executives and anchors about how Fox News should prepare for life after Trump.”

Downright laughable that while “strategy conversations” are taking place to decide how Fox News “should prepare for life after Trump” that legions in the unwashed masses are already preparing themselves for life after Fox News.

. . .

Full report is here. 

Related: While I find Mark Levin abrasive most of the time, he dials it down on his Sunday evening program on Fox. This Sunday, Peter Schweizer is the scheduled guest. Having read his books Clinton Cash, Extortion, and Secret Empires, I plan to tune in. Mr. Schweizer is the go-to source on the Joe Biden scandals.

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Socialism in a nutshell

Mark Levin’s guests on Sunday evening were talking about socialism in general, and free "Medicare for All" in particular. Prof. Robert Lawson explained the fallacy:

If you want to find out how expensive something is, make it free.

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Another Uniparty budget deal

image credit: foxnews.com

More bad news from the Uniparty's budget deal; this update via Ace of Spades:

'Indistinguishable from Democrats': Daniel Horowitz tells Mark Levin
what's behind Republicans' debt-exploding budget deal

Horowitz explained that the current spending levels are the result of the budget deals that congressional Republicans cut during the last session of Congress, “and now they’re looking for a repeat performance” in the current spending debate. They appear ready to hand Speaker Nancy Pelosi a debt-exploding deal that suspends the debt limit, busts spending caps, and “give away the president’s leverage on the border.”

[Ace comments:] Read the article...it's the usual gang of craven and shortsighted politicians who simply don't care about the future financial health of the country. Government spending has become so ridiculous that I wonder whether they are still trying to buy votes! How many voters actually pull the lever for the incumbent because he voted for some pork? Spending is out of control on all fronts, so how do people recognize directed spending vs. the background abomination that is the federal budget?

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What is their endgame?

image credit: theburningplatform.com

I go hot and cold on Mark Levin. But his column yesterday was the lead link at Doug Ross’s Director’s Blue blog, and it’s a good one. Here’s his conclusion:

Challenge socialists on this single point: What is their endgame?

When is enough government control enough? Why won’t socialists -- or Democrat Socialist -- share their blueprint for society? What industry is a “bridge too far” for socialism? Why can’t they tell us what their limits are on taxation, control of industry, and how much of society should be dependent upon their handouts?

Conservatives know their endgame: it is called the United State Constitution. These four pages of wisdom, condensed instructions gleaned from thousands of years of human experience, ended up germinating the most magnificent nation-state yet to arise from humanity’s tumult.

And a great percentage of our fellow citizens neither recognize nor appreciate the magnificent society with which they have been bequeathed. They take for granted this unique and precious anomaly in the context of human history.

Only education can help them. Not all of them, to be sure, but many: those who possess both open minds and a willingness to learn.

He asks a good question, one which my ultra-liberal friends and relatives might have difficulty responding to. The full article is here. 

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Mark Levin debuts on Fox

photo / image credit: pinterest.com

Last night, Mark Levin debuted his Sunday evening program on Fox:

On the Fox News Channel premiere of "Life, Liberty & Levin,"Mark Levin sat down for an illuminating discussion with prominent economist and syndicated columnist Walter E. Williams.

Levin recalled that when he was about 20 years old, he spoke with then-Sen. Paul Laxalt (R-Nev.), a close ally of Ronald Reagan.

"One of the things he said to me that has stuck with me ever since [was] 'every day Congress meets, we lose a little bit of our liberty.' It wasn't supposed to be that way," Levin noted.

. . .

Our household reluctantly tuned in last night -- and with low expectations. Levin is often strident and irritating on radio, and we did not sign on to CRTV after his disgraceful treatment/firing of Mark Steyn about a month after they started operations. However, last night’s program was a pleasant surprise. The distinguished economics professor Walter E. Williams was on for the full hour, so there was a sustained discussion instead of the usual 2-minute sound bite, cut off with the host/hostess saying “we’re out of time.”

There is a short video extract at the link (scroll down).

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Cleveland Tea Party Patriots does not endorse Ted Cruz

Photo credit: democracychronicles.com

Cleveland Tea Party Patriots does not endorse Ted Cruz

Jenny-Beth Martin sent out a message from Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund with the following:

After four rounds of national voting, the supporters and activists of Tea Party Patriots Citizens Fund have spoken. And they have decided to endorse Ted Cruz for President.

. . . [fund-raising pitch] . . .

Our mission now is to harness all the might and fury of the Tea Party movement to build a massive grassroots operation for Senator Cruz.

Unlike the TPP Citizens Fund,  Cleveland Tea Party Patriots does not endorse candidates. When we tabulate report cards on candidates based on positions related to the three core values of Tea Party Patriots, we leave it to the voter to decide for him/herself who to support.

In this case, Cleveland Tea Party Patriots emphatically rejects the above mandate that dictates that all Tea Party Patriots support Ted Cruz. What about patriots who support other candidates, whether, e.g., Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, or Donald Trump?

In particular, Cleveland Tea Party Patriots is dismayed with the endorsement of Ted Cruz for several reasons, including Cruz’s decisions and actions within the Republican Establishment (GOPe). Not too long ago, when Glenn Beck withdrew his support from Sen. Rand Paul and transferred that support to Sen. Ted Cruz [via Conservative Treehouse]:

Beck claims he became disgusted with the Senator [Paul] when he made a deal with Mitch McConnell. 

. . .

The deal was to go along with Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell’s overall objectives, electoral objectives AND legislative objectives, as the GOP entered into the 2014 mid-term election cycle.

. . . [BUT]

Both Rand Paul and Ted Cruz agreed to stay out of the mid-term elections for incumbents at the request of Mitch McConnell.

Remember, this agreement is the set up to the Mississippi fiasco of 2014 with Thad Cochran and Chris McDaniel.  The agreement gave both Rand Paul and Ted Cruz leadership approvals for their 2016 presidential race.

. . .

Remember the 2014 Mississippi Primary Fraud?

Here’s is a video/audio [Mark Levin on the radio] you must ABSOLUTELY listen to, in order to understand what’s going on today – AND – how radio host Mark Levin has been covering for Senator Ted Cruz for more than just a couple of months.

. . .

Senator Cruz states the campaign conduct in the Mississippi runoff was “incredibly disappointing” etc. and even goes on to say an investigation is warranted.

Eventually, [Sundance at Conservative Treehouse] found out who paid for those racist attack ads [against McDaniel], and who paid for the phone calls, and who paid for the Democrats to come out and support Thad Cochran in the Mississippi primary runoff.

. . .

It was the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC).

. . .

The NRSC, the actual Republican Party itself, was funding racist attack ads against its own party candidate, Chris McDaniel, in the runoff primary race.

Who was the Vice Chairman of the NRSC for Grassroots Outreach? TED CRUZ. Links galore to the videos of TV interviews, the FEC filing documents, and so on are here.

Treehouse predicted that Cruz would lose the Iowa caucus. As we all know, Cruz won. Treehouse’s prediction notwithstanding, the information on the blogsite is documented and linked. Check out the video and audio clips in particular.

For a previous CTPP blogpost on funding sources for Cruz’s campaign, go here.

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Cruz, Trump, Palin, Levin, and Beck at DC rally tomorrow: Stop the Iran “Deal”

art credit: TeaPartyPatriots.org

Cruz, Trump, Palin, Levin, and Beck at DC rally : 

Stop the Iran “Deal”

Update from Tea Party Patriots: 

By now you are no doubt aware that President Obama unilaterally joined into an agreement with Iran. You have probably read how dangerous this deal is and how this deal would give Iran the ability to build a nuclear bomb within the next decade. And you have probably heard that a growing number of American voters, Members of Congress, and national organizations are coming out in opposition to this deal.

But did you know that we have one final opportunity to stop this terrible Iran Nuclear Deal?

Thousands of Americans are coming to Washington, D.C. [today 9/9] for a rally in opposition to the deal.  We have an unbelievable speaker line-up for the event: Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, Sarah Palin, Mark Levin, and Glenn Beck are all confirmed! This is our chance to tell everyone on Capitol Hill why this deal must be defeated! . . .

If this event is streamed, we’ll post the link.

UPDATE 9/9: Here's the link.

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Is a Convention of States a good idea?

art credit: redmillenial.com 

The three decisions made this week (on Obamacare, gay marriage, and the Texas "disparate impact" case) by the Supreme Court of the United States have left many of us depressed and wondering what can be done. Can anything be done?

My own e-mailbox brings a daily flow of messages from organizations, political groups, and politicians, most of which are looking for money, most of which offer conservative talking points, and most of which propose solutions based on conservative talking points. Yet we have all become aware that conservative talking points are the stock-in-trade of not only groups, but also – and especially – politicians who have no intention of voting on the basis of conservative values once they are in office. That goes for politicians in Ohio and in DC.

One suggestion that has been gathering support from politicians such as Tom Coburn and Sarah Palin, is the Article V Convention of States. Mark Levin wrote a book about it entitled The Liberty Amendments in which he lays out a case for eleven Constitutional amendments to "restore the Constitution’s moribund chief components: federalism, republicanism, and limited government." 

It all sounds good and promising. But I don’t think it is going to make any difference, and the project is already diverting time, energy, and resources away from everybody’s backyard.

Back in December 2013, someone writing under the name of Suzanne Hamner wrote a piece, “Convention of the States – Good or Bad?,” for her website, Freedom Outpost, and here are two points that got my attention [emphases added]:

Our current government is operating so far outside the Constitution, ignoring basic tenets of the Constitution regarding presidential eligibility, enumerated powers, and restrictions placed on it, that another amendment is just more words for them to ignore.

. . .

It boils down to one thing and one thing only; there is no way to legislate values and principles. Yes, the Constitution provides a remedy for our current situation in Article V; however, every tenet of government is so corrupted with the atmosphere of “the flavor of the month” causes that the risk of further damage outweighs the benefit until the people reclaim their local and state governments, then work up to the federal level. That is, if we can at this point.

Read the whole thing here.

An Article V Convention of States can pass all the Amendments it wants. They will be no substitute for citizens taking daily action in their community.

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