The American Empire and Its Media: get the NAMES

 

the unreadable chart

It’s a big news day in the media.  Don Lemon is out at CNN, and Tucker Carlson and Fox News have parted company.  While going through reader comments at Conservative Treehouse, I came across this link to “The American Empire and Its Media; click here.  For Dr. Harold W. Pease’s introduction to this chart, click here.  Among the non-media names that appear in the network are Presidents Bush, père and fils, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Eisenhower, and Hoover.

The chart shown above shows the connections between major media and (1) Bilderberg Meetings;  (2) Council on Foreign Relations;  and (3)  The Trilateral Commission.  Many of the names on the media list are easily recognizable, no matter what programs or publications you access. However, it was impossible to read the fine print.  After a few tries, I was able to persuade this household’s webmaster to convert the teeny tiny print to a readable word document.  The complete list, with abbreviations, disclaimers, and the like appears below:

Note:  Transcribed electronically, so some transcription errors will appear; list includes current, former, and deceased individuals.  Disclaimer at end of this list:  “Based on official participant lists and membership rosters; non-exhaustive; no liability assumed.”

Journalists and media executives:

New York Daily News and U.S. News & World Report 1: Mortimer B. Zuckerman, publisher |

Slate 2: Jacob Weisberg, group editor |

The Nation 3: Katrina VandenHeuvel, publisher |

Foreign Affairs 4: James F. Hoge, former editor 5: Gideon Rose, editor | Foreign Policy 6: Moises Naim, editor |

The National Interest 7: Jacob Heilbrunn, editor |'

American Interest 8: Francis Fukuyama, executive chairman |

Financial Times 9: Martin Wolf, associate editor & chief economics commentator 10: Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator |    

Reuters 11: Stephen J. Adler, president & EIC; 12: Tom Glocer, former CEO 13: Harold M. Evans, editor-at-large 14: David Schlesinger, former EIC

Politico 15: Robert Allbritton, publisher; Garrett Graff, former editor

Bloomberg 17: Michael Bloomberg, owner & CEO 18: John Michklethwait, EIC of Bloomberg News, former EIC of The Economists. Matthew Winkler, former EIC of Bloomberg News 20: Daniel Doctoroff, former CEO

Forbes 21: Randall Lane, editor

Los Angeles Times 22: Doyle McManus, Washington bureau chief 23: Shelby Coffey, former editor and EVP

Nc Corp 24: Rupert Murdoch, executive chairman

Fox News 25: Maria Bartiromo, news anchor 26: Heather Nauert, former news host 27: Dan Senor, commentator 28: Trish Regan, television host 29: Linda Vester, former news host

Wall Street Journal (News Corp) 30: Peter Kann, former publisher 31: Karen Elliott House, former managing editor 32: L. Gordon Crovitz, former publisher 33: Rol Bartley, former editor 34: Paul A. Gigot, editorial page editor 35: Alan Murray, deputy managing editor 36: Daniel Henninger, deputy editorial page director 37: Gerald Seib, Washington bureau chief 38: Peggy Noonan, columnist 39: Paul Steiger, former managing editor (1991-2007)

NBC 40: Pamela Thomas Graham, former CEO of CNBC 41: Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric (for owner of NBCUniversal) 42: Cesar Conde, chairman of NBCUniversal International Group 43: Steve Capus, former president of NBC News 44: Tom Brokaw, news anchor 45: Mika Brzezinski, MSNBC news host 46: Andrea Mitchell, chief foreign affairs correspondent 47: Richard Engel, chief foreign corr. 48: Brian Williams, NBC chief anchor 49: Joe Scarborough, news host 50: Bianna Golodryga news anchor 51: Ayman Mohyeldin, reporter

The Economist 52: Lynn Forester de Rothschild, co-owner and board member 53: John Elkann (Agnelli family), co-owner and board member 54: Zanny Minton Beddoes, EIC 55: Rupert Pennant-Rea, chairman of the Economist Group 56: Vendeline von Bredow, business correspondent 57: Adrian Wooldridge, foreign correspondent 58: Bill Emmott, former EIC 59: Megan McArdle, journalist

The New Republic 60: Walter Lippmann, co-founder 61: Chris Hughes, former publisher 62: Peter Beinart, former editor 63: Morton Kondracke, former executive editor 64: J. Peter Scoblic, former executive editor 65: Ronald Steel, journalist & professor

Time 66: Norman Pearlstine, chief content officer of Time Inc. 67: Michael Duffy, deputy manag. editor 68: Nancy Gibbs, managing editor 69: Henry Luce, founding publisher 70: John Huey, former EIC 71: Richard Stengel, former managing editor 72: Joe Klein, columnist 73: Ian Bremmer, foreign affairs columnist & editor-at-large 74: James Gaines, managing editor (1993-95) 75: Jason McManus, managing editor (1985-87) 76: Henry Grunwald, managing editor (1968-77)

The New York Times  77: Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, former publisher (1963-92) 78: Arthur Hays Sulzberger, former publisher (1935-61) 79: Joseph Kahn, managing editor 80: Andrew Rosenthal, former editorial page editor 81: Serge Schmemann, international affairs editor 82: Susan Chira, former deputy executive editor 83: David C. Unger, former foreign affairs editor 84: David Sanger, Washington correspondent Thomas Shanker, assistant Washington editor and former Pentagon correspondent 86: Thomas Friedman, foreign affairs columnist 87: Ethan Bronner, former deputy foreign editor 88: Andrew Ross Sorkin, financial columnist 89: Carol Giacomo, foreign affairs editor 90: Michael Gordon, chief military correspondent 91: Robert B. Semple, associate editorial page editor 92: Judith Miller, Washing bureau reporter 93: David Brooks, op-ed columnist 94: Nicholas Kristof, op-ed columnist and former associate managing editor

The Washington Post 95: Eugene Meyer, former publisher (1933-46) 96: Jeff Bezos, owner (since 2013) 97: Katharine Graham, former publisher (1969-79) 98: Donald E. Graham, former publisher & chairman (1979-2013) 99: Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor 100: Gl Kessler, diplomatic correspondent and fact checker 101: Anne Applebaum, former editorial board member 102: Walter Pincus, national security journalist 103: Jackson Diehl, deputy editorial page editor 104: Charles Krauthammer, columnist 105: Robert Kaiser, former managing editor and senior correspondent 106: David Ignatius, associate editor 107: Eugene Robinson, columnist and chair of Puli. Prize Board 108: Karen DeYoung, associate editor 109: Marc Thiessen, columnist 110: Richard M. Cohen, columnist 111: Jim Hoagland, associate editor and columnist 112: George F. Will, columnist

CNN (Time Warner) 113: W. Thomas Johnson, former president 114: Walter Isaacson, former CEO 115: Ellana Lee, SVP of CNN International and managing editor Asia-Pacific 116: Mark Whita former EVP and managing editor of CNN Worldwide 117: Fareed Zakaria, foreign affairs show host 118: Erin Burnett, news anchor 119: Sanjay Gupta, chief medical correspondent 120: David Gergen, senior political analyst 121: Christiane Amanpour, chief international correspondent 122: Judy Woodruff, news anchor 123: Peter Bergen, national security analyst 124: Kitty Pilgrim, former news anc and correspondent 125: Paula Zahn, former news anchor 126: Elise Labott, global affairs correspondent 127: Ali Velshi, former chief business correspondent 128: Jake Tapper, chief Washington corr. 129: Sam Feist, SVP and Washington bureau chief 130: Jeffrey Toobin, legal analyst

CBS News 131: Laurence A. Tisch, former CEO of CBS 132: William Paley, founder of CBS 133: Joseph Calif Jr„ CBS director 134: William Cohen, CBS director and former Secretary of Defense 135: Dan Rather, former news anchor 136: Bob Schieffer, news anchor and chief Washington corr. 137: Charlie Rose, talk show host 138: Lesley Stahl, news reporter 139: Margaret Brennan, White House & senior foreign affairs corr. 140: Reena Ninan, news anchor 141: Edward R. Murrow, former broadcast journ.

Time Warner 142: Jeffrey Bewkes, chairman & CEO 143: Gary Ginsberg, communications chief 144: Richard Parsons, former chairman & CEO 145: Gerald Levin, former chairman & CEO

ABC News (Disney) 146: Ben Sherwood, president 147: David Westin, former president 148: George Stephanopoulos, chief anchor & chief political corr. 149: Juju Chang, news anchor 150: Barbara Walt news anchor and show host 151: Peter Jennings, news anchor 152: Katie Couric, news anchor 153: Diane Sawyer, news anchor 154: Jonathan Karl, chief White House corr.

Disney 155: Michael Eisner, former chairman & CEO 156: Monica Lozano, director

The New Yorker 157: David Remnick, EIC 158: Amy Davidson, senior editor international affairs 159: Hendrik Hertzberg, principal polil commentator 160: Lawrence Wright, staff writer 161: Evan Osnos, foreign affairs writer 162: Jane Kramer, European correspondent 163: Mark Danner, foreign affairs corr. 164: Nick Paumgarten, staff writer 165: Mattathias Schwartz, staff writer 166: Robin Wright, contributor

The New York Review of Books 167: Robert Silvers, founding editor 168: Barbara Epstein, founding editor

Newsweek 169: Richard M. Smith, former CEO &, EIC 170: Jon Meacham, former EIC 171: Janine di Giovanni, Middle East editor 172: Evan Thomas, former Washington bureau chief

The Daily Beast 173: Tina Brown, founding editor 174: Barry Diller, chairman of IAC (owner of Daily Beast)

USA Today 175: Joanne Lipman, EIC & chief content officer 176: David Andelman, international affairs column

PBS 177: Donald A. Baer, chairman 178: Hartford N Gunn, founder 179: Jim Lehrer, former news anchor 180: Margaret Warner, senior correspondent 181: Bill Moyers, former news anchor 182: Jonathan Barzilay, COO

NPR 183: Vivian Schiller, former CEO 184: Gary Knell, former president 185: Tom Gjelten, correspondent 186: Dina Temple-Raston, national security corr.

Alphabet/Google 1 Eric Schmidt, executive chairman

Facebook 188: Sheryl Sandberg, COO and director 189: Marne Levine, VP of global public policy

The Atlantic 190: David G. Bradley, chairman of Atlantic Media. |

Based on official participant lists and membership rosters; non-exhaustive; no liability assumed.

Abbreviations:

B: Bilderberg meeting participant;

Br: Bilderberg meeting rapporteur;

C: CFR member (incl. term members and former members);

 D: CFR director;

EIC: editor-in-chief;

F: CFR fellow;

M: married to CFR member;

S: son of CFR member;

T: Trilateral Commission member (incl. former members).

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About that Chinese "spy" balloon

 

Speaking of not trusting the government, it turns out that the infamous Chinese spy balloon that the military took down was not spying, and China had alerted U.S. officials that severe weather had blown it off-course.  Moon of Alabama sets the record straight:

. . . One wonders how [New York Times reporter Sanger] can assert a lack of communication when the Chinese side insists with evidence that it in fact communicated a lot . As the Global Times writes:

The Chinese Foreign Ministry expressed strong dissatisfaction and protested against the US' use of force to shoot down a Chinese civilian unmanned airship, urging the US to properly handle the incident.

The Chinese side has verified the situation and communicated with the US side multiple times, saying the unintended entry of the airship into US airspace was due to force majeure and the incident was totally an accident, the ministry said.

The Chinese foreign ministry asserts similar:

China strongly disapproves of and protests against the US attack on a civilian unmanned airship by force. The Chinese side has, after verification, repeatedly informed the US side of the civilian nature of the airship and conveyed that its entry into the US due to force majeure was totally unexpected. The Chinese side has clearly asked the US side to properly handle the matter in a calm, professional and restrained manner.

So China in fact had communicated with the U.S. and discussed the issue.

Its claim that the balloon went unexpectedly off course is, by the way, completely correct. The U.S. had long tracked the balloon over Alaska and Canada and was equally surprised when it suddenly turned south:

Another U.S. official said intelligence agencies began tracking the balloon several days ago, not long after it had left China and began its controlled drift toward the Aleutian Islands of Alaska. The official said American trackers continued to monitor the balloon as it progressed through Canada toward the continental United States, and were surprised when it crossed over into American airspace.

The cause of the surprising turn last week was a polar vortex over Canada that also brought a cold snap to the north-east:

We know the feeling when winter digs its heels in, and we get endless days below seasonal. When this happens, the jet stream becomes highly amplified with blocking mechanisms to trap the cold.

We often look to Greenland for strong blocking, but that wasn’t the case. The lobe of the stratospheric polar vortex was free to swing readily across Eastern Canada but then made a swift exit. A ridge of high pressure filled in behind, causing temperatures to rise as fast as they fell. . . .

Read the rest of Moon of Alabama’s report and analysis here. This information, needless to add, is not being broadcast or reported in the mainstream media.

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Don Surber's "unreliable and harmful clams"

 

Don Surber is in the process of closing down his blogspot and moving to Substack.  He’s wing-walking during the transition:

A reader sent me this graphic [above] mocking Google’s censorship of my blog posts for what Google called “unreliable and harmful claims.” Two recently censored posts relied on reporting by the New York Times and the Washington Post, so Google might have a point.

Readers know this Substack account is my response to Google censorship. Eventually I will abandon Google and my blog — https://donsurber.blogspot.com — in favor of Substack. The censors don’t bring me down. They are an annoyance. They are not even mosquitos. They are mere midges. Censoring is a sign that we are winning because they cannot handle the truths we tell.

Mr Surber goes through the laundry list of what he perceives as recent victories for conservatives and patriots.  I am still waiting to see how much election fraud there is in next month’s elections.  Still, this blog also plans to migrate over to Substack;  it is no longer possible to use a Google search even to find this blog -- you’ll eventually find a robot instead.  I also know from tracking the traffic patterns over the past year that someone has tampered with the algorithms.  So we’ll see.  Meanwhile, Mr Surber closes his column with optimism and another clam:

Be of good cheer. We are winning. We will — we will — rock them with our “unreliable and harmful claims.”

We won’t clam up.

Source link is here.

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The Biden Regime Has Made Us All Enemies of the State

 

J.B. Shurk at American Thinker (cross-posted at NOQ Report) starts off:

How can you tell we're slipping under the yoke of totalitarianism?  The New York Times has declared that the word "freedom" is merely an "anti-government slogan," and the Biden regime refuses to condemn Cuba's communist police state, even as it "disappears" Cuban dissidents during live video feeds.  I don't know how much clearer the State and its "news" propagandists can be.  If "freedom" is a dirty little word as meaningless as "hope and change," then everything upon which the United States of America has been built is dead, and if the Obama-Biden cabal running the White House find common cause with the same Castro-Guevara mass murderers who have tortured and summarily executed innocent Cubans in the name of "revolution" for sixty years, then the federal government cannot be trusted.  

This isn't a surprise to anyone paying attention.  Two months ago, the U.S. State Department draped embassies around the world with Black Lives Matter flags, and today BLM has pledged its allegiance to the communist Cuban regime while blaming the U.S. for Cuba's island prison of poverty, violence, and repression.  There has never been any doubt that BLM is a Marxist organization intent on destroying American freedoms, yet Democrats, corporate boards, and even Mitt Romney have sung its praises for years.  Hanging those insidious BLM flags on American consulates overseas was tantamount to hanging the hammer and sickle over the stars and stripes.  Their meaning was self-evident: the U.S. is under new Marxist management.  Still, too many corporate sellouts and political backstabbers honored BLM as some sort of paragon for civil rights, even as its members routinely engage in arson, larceny, intimidation, and murder.  

Now that BLM has made its allegiance to America's communist enemies abundantly clear, will any of those corporate or political invertebrates walk back their support for BLM's pro-Castro movement?  Surely not.  They've chosen a side; they're totalitarian appeasers now, giving aid and comfort to those who wish America harm.  Is that too harsh?  Is it unfair to accuse American companies and politicians of casting their lot with the intellectual heirs of Stalin and Mao?  A man should be judged by his deeds, not his words, but as far as I can see, none of these pro-BLM sycophants has done or said anything while the Biden administration embraces Cuba's police state tactics here at home.  Their inaction speaks volumes.  

. . .

Read the full article here.  So we are current with what we are up against . . .

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The future belongs to those who show up

 

Mark Steyn has been on record for years pointing to demographics and birth rates as the primary issue facing civilization.  In his column today, he revisits the issue, quoting liberally from his 2006 book America Alone.  Mr. Steyn begins:

Happy Whit Monday to my Commonwealth cousins throughout the Caribbean and the Pacific, and to our readers in much of Continental Europe. And of course to my fellow Canadians a happy if locked down Victoria Day. Enjoy it while you can.

Front page news from yesterday's New York Times:

World Is Facing First Long Slide in Its Population

Me in my international bestseller fifteen years ago:

The single most important fact about the early 21st century is the rapid aging of almost every developed nation other than the United States: Canada, Europe and Japan are getting old fast, older than any functioning society has ever been and faster than any has ever aged... These countries – or, more precisely, these people – are going out of business.

The Times front page yesterday:

All over the world, countries are confronting population stagnation and a fertility bust, a dizzying reversal unmatched in recorded history that will make first-birthday parties a rarer sight than funerals, and empty homes a common eyesore.

Me in 2006:

The salient feature of Europe, Canada, Japan and Russia is that they're running out of babies. What's happening in the developed world is one of the fastest demographic evolutions in history... This isn't a projection: It's happening now. There's no need to extrapolate, and if you do it gets a little freaky, but, just for fun, here goes: By 2050, 60 per cent of Italians will have no brothers, no sisters, no cousins, no aunts, no uncles. The big Italian family, with papa pouring the vino and mama spooning out the pasta down an endless table of grandparents and nieces and nephews, will be gone, no more, dead as the dinosaurs. As Noël Coward remarked in another context, 'Funiculì, funiculà, funic yourself.'

The Times yesterday:

Maternity wards are already shutting down in Italy. Ghost cities are appearing in northeastern China. Universities in South Korea can't find enough students, and in Germany, hundreds of thousands of properties have been razed, with the land turned into parks.

Me fifteen years ago:

[In Japan] the shortage of children has led to a shortage of obstetricians...

[China's] population will get old before it's got rich...

The 'experts' of the western world are slower to turn around than an ocean liner, and in Europe they were still yakking about the 'population explosion' even as their 1970s schoolhouses, built in anticipation of traditional Catholic birthrates, were emptying through the Nineties and Oughts...

One can talk airily about being flushed down the toilet of history, but even that's easier said than done. In eastern Germany, rural communities are dying, and one consequence is that village sewer systems are having a tough time adjusting to the lack of use. Populations have fallen so dramatically there are too few people flushing to keep the flow of waste moving...

The Times yesterday:

The strain of longer lives and low fertility, leading to fewer workers and more retirees, threatens to upend how societies are organized — around the notion that a surplus of young people will drive economies and help pay for the old. It may also require a reconceptualization of family and nation. Imagine entire regions where everyone is 70 or older...

Me a decade-and-a-half ago:

Speaking for myself... I'd rather date Debbie Reynolds than Angelina Jolie. But even to put it in those terms is to become aware of how our assumptions about a society's health – about its innovative and creative energies - are based on its youthfulness. Picture the difference between a small northern mill town where the mill's closed down and the young people have moved away and a growing community in the Sun Belt. Which has the bigger range of stores and restaurants, more work opportunities, better school choice? Which problem would you rather have - managing growth or managing decline..?

In theory, those countries will find their population halving every thirty-five years or so. In practice, it will be quicker than that, as the savvier youngsters figure there's no point sticking around a country that's turned into an undertaker's waiting room. Not every pimply burger flipper wants to support entire old folks' homes single-handed...

Everything The New York Times finally got around to yesterday, I said in 2006. My book was an international bestseller, including on the Times' own Top Ten list. Yet it did not bother reviewing America Alone. . .

Read the rest here.

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You Are Being Tracked

image credit: digitalmarketingnetwork

Via Instapundit, a reporter at The New York Times did some searches to determine the extent of digital tracking. Farhad Manjoo’s article, “I Visited 47 Sites. Hundreds of Trackers Followed Me,” starts off:

Earlier this year, an editor working on The Times’s Privacy Project asked me whether I’d be interested in having all my digital activity tracked, examined in meticulous detail and then published — you know, for journalism. “Hahaha,” I said, and then I think I made an “at least buy me dinner first” joke, but it turned out he was serious. What could I say? I’m new here, I like to help, and, conveniently, I have nothing whatsoever at all to hide.

Like a colonoscopy, the project involved some special prep. I had to install a version of the Firefox web browser that was created by privacy researchers to monitor how websites track users’ data. For several days this spring, I lived my life through this Invasive Firefox, which logged every site I visited, all the advertising tracking servers that were watching my surfing and all the data they obtained. 

Then I uploaded the data to my colleagues at The Times, who reconstructed my web sessions into the gloriously invasive picture of my digital life you see here. (The project brought us all very close; among other things, they could see my physical location and my passwords, which I’ve since changed.)

What did we find? The big story is as you’d expect: that everything you do online is logged in obscene detail, that you have no privacy. And yet, even expecting this, I was bowled over by the scale and detail of the tracking; even for short stints on the web, when I logged into Invasive Firefox just to check facts and catch up on the news, the amount of information collected about my endeavors was staggering.

. . .

The full article is here. (I had no trouble accessing it, although I understand articles in the NY Times can sometimes disappear behind a paywall if you’ve accessed a quota of pages.) The takeaway: we have no privacy. 

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Inspiring Cartoon of the Day

 Ben Garrison cartoon at grrrgraphics.com via Conservative Treehouse

From the grrrgraphics website (a sort of an extended caption):

Citizen journalists are patriots who fight for TRUTH every day, whether as journalists like Thomas Paine or meme creators like Betsy Ross. It was Betsy’s meme that the colonists rallied around as the symbol of American independence. Those first American patriots put it all on the line for truth and freedom, just like modern citizen journalists who are proudly raising the flag.

The_Donald on Redditt has given a good foothold to plant the flagpole as Rush Limbaugh and Sundance at the Conservative Treehouse are raising the original Flag to its upright position, reinstating the intentions of the first American rebels and displaying the political union of the Original 13 Colonies.

Thomas Paine and Betsy Ross (American Intelligence Media) honor the flag and are ready for the war of independence from British tyranny. They have invited patriots around the world to join them in the pursuit of global peace and prosperity, freedom and liberty.

The “fake news” media is in ashes and shambles on the ground due to their continuous lies, propaganda, and deceit spewed on moral and decent people everywhere who reject their falsehoods and evil.

The opposition party’s fake news machines are spent, broken, and crumbled into a trash-heap of garbage.

. . .

More here. 

RELATED: This cartoon is Conservative Treehouse’s illustration for his post titled “The Restoration Alliance.” See here.

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Re-writing History

 image credit: onenewsnow.com

Whether it’s Confederate monuments being torn down, or our language being corrupted into Orwellian terms, or educational institutions from K-12 to advanced learning becoming re-education centers of indoctrination, or jaw-dropping corruptions in the media and government at all levels, these are all interlocking pieces in a master plan. Thaddeus G. McCotter at American Greatness connects all the dots. He starts off: 

Some time ago, I noted the irreconcilable difference between the Left and the rest of America: the majority of our fellow citizens believe America is an inherently good nation that continues its pursuit of a more perfect union; the Left believes America is an inherently evil nation that must be transformed fundamentally into an oppressive socialist state—at best.

For the Left to win this existential argument, it must distort and revile America’s history to destroy the truth of American Exceptionalism. If the past is evil, the present has no choice but to reject America’s history and its defenders; and to embrace the dishonest leftist ideology and the agenda of those who loathe America.

This is a dangerous devolution of the classical American political paradigm, in which both antagonists, conservatives and liberals, agreed America was an exceptional, fundamentally decent nation but differed about how to effectuate a more perfect union. This devolution has several causes, but notable is the incestuous relationship between the leftist media and left-wing academics. 

. . .

What one can expect is this: the New York Times Magazine’s “1619 Project.”

According to Mara Gay of the New York Times’ editorial board, the 1619 Project “[i]n the days and weeks to come, we will publish essays demonstrating that nearly everything that has made America exceptional grew out of slavery.”

. . .

Now one understands why the Left rejects the Betsy Ross flag as a symbol of hate. Yet the hate is theirs, not ours. Ergo, why would anyone who rejects the hateful Left subsidize it with their hard-earned money, be it in subsidizing the Left’s brainwashing emporiums or subscribing to its propagandizing fanzines? As the esteemed Thomas Sowell instructs: “We are among the biggest fools in history if we keep on paying people to make us hate each other.”

The entire article is here.

Related: Lest the reader despair, a Millenial named David Grasso gets it, and there’s hope for everyone. From Mr. Grassos’s New York Post article:

. . . The new crop of self-proclaimed socialist candidates is promising a smorgasbord of programs that are intended to get us out of our “struggle-bus” reality.

Given such a journey, it is easy to see why socialism seduces young Americans. We desperately need change if we are ever going to progress as a generation. The problem is, what the socialists are proposing — more government — is exactly the opposite of what we need. In fact, many of the most prominent obstacles we have faced are the result, at least in part, of heavy-handed government interference.

. . .

I understand why millennials are seduced by populist politicians who promise a better life, but they shouldn’t fall for it.

Growing government is expensive and inefficient, and the government machinery already in place is frequently dysfunctional and prone to be hijacked by special interests.

In the end, our generation will be liable for the staggering bill for these programs. Nothing is free, and working millennials will stand to lose trillions of dollars of wealth if we sleepwalk our way into socialism.

Truth is, young people need exactly the opposite of socialism — pro-growth policies and restrained, common-sense regulation. This will create more economic opportunities and more avenues into the middle class. Socialist policies will only choke economic opportunity and make our tough existence far worse.

Sometimes it’s helpful to read somebody else’s perspectives to prepare for your next conversation with a liberal.

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Facts vs propaganda

image credit: legalzoom.com

New York Times, Washington Post, 

Wikipedia, Facebook, etc., etc.

I’m linking to this report by Monica Showalter at American Thinker – not because it’s about the Jeff Epstein-Bill Clinton scandal, but because it shows the blatant corruption in media and information platforms:

With the bust of longtime Democratic donor and Bill Clinton buddy Jeffrey Epstein on sex-trafficking charges, it's pretty amazing, the scope of the Left's effort to pin the whole thing on President Trump.

It's going on all over, as if directed by some Mighty Integral from far above, to borrow a phrase from Tom Wolfe from The Right Stuff.  It's orchestrated.  It's universal.  It's big.  And it's about as honest and fact-filled as the Russian collusion narrative.

Here are the top three areas, and these aren't the only ones:

One, the press. 

The New York Times, the Washington Post, and other media outlets have attempted to pin the matter on President Trump as a matter of his knowing Epstein in the past and saying nice things about him, and the bum deal cut with Epstein earlier in Miami, which involved Trump's now–labor secretary, Alexander Acosta.

. . .

Meanwhile, over at the Wikipedia desk, item two, the second front on pinning-Trump has leftists are beavering away, eliminating all evidence of Democrats involved in the Epstein case, too.

And, three, at Facebook, posts are being censored for references to Democrats, particularly Bill Clinton, regarding the Epstein case.

The effort is strikingly global. Anything to protect Democrats, just as the original bad plea deal in Miami was a deal to protect Democrats (and their campaign money supply) by letting Epstein off.

One can only suppose that it's going to get worse as all the names of the Democrat "faves" start to roll out.

Full article with chapter-and-verse plus links is here.

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Medicare For All and socialism

image credit: americanliberalreview.com

There has been any number of articles and analyses concerning the proposed “Medicare For All.” A recent on-line report can be found at Forbes here; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “dodges questions” on how to pay for it here (spoiler: she doesn’t know); and the NY Times explains what is good about the policy here (what a surprise!).

Yesterday, Justin Haskins published an accessible analysis at Townhall entitled “Socialists Won’t Rest Until We Have Single-Payer Health Care. We Must Stop Them.” The quote marks are there because that’s the title of the article, but they could be interpreted instead as scare quotes. Excerpts:

The 2018 midterms could someday be remembered as the beginning of the Democratic Party’s full embrace of creating a single-payer health care system in the United States. For the first time in American history, a large number of Democrats, many of whom identify as socialists, openly campaigned for the creation of a government-run health insurance model.

For instance, Democratic Socialists of America member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who won 78 percent of the vote on Election Day, championed Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) “Medicare for All” proposal, calling it the “ethical, logical, and affordable path to ensuring no person goes without dignified healthcare.” According to Ocasio-Cortez, “Medicare for All will reduce the existing costs of healthcare (and make Medicare cheaper, too!) by allowing all people in the US to buy into a universal healthcare system.” 

Ocasio-Cortez says she supports a universal system that would include “full vision, dental, and mental healthcare - because we know that true healthcare is about the whole self, not just your yearly physical.”

The cost of enacting such a radical program would be astronomical. Researchers at the Mercatus Center say Sen. Sanders’ plan would cost $32.6 trillion in its first decade, and they note that even if Congress were to double taxes paid by individuals and corporations, it wouldn’t be enough to pay for the program. That should terrify you, especially since the U.S. government’s deficit for the 2018 fiscal year was $782 billion and the national debt now stands at a $21.7 trillion.

But as shocking as the price tag for single-payer health care would be, it pales in comparison to the numerous health care-related problems that would be created by such a model. For starters, the government has an absolutely terrible record of providing health care. One example is the Veterans Health Administration, which is run by the federal government. It routinely suffers from underfunding and long wait times, which has forced the agency to allow veterans to go elsewhere to receive care. As the Military Times notes, “About one-third of all VA medical appointments today are … conducted by physicians outside the department’s system.”

. . .

If the federal government can’t properly run the VA system or Medicaid—or even the Post Office—why does anyone think it could manage one of the largest industries in the United States today?

Much more about the VA, mortality rates, and other scary stats are here.

RELATED: Veterans in the greater Cleveland are scraping the bottom of the barrel. Via Breitbart:

The 10 worst cities for veterans included Ohio metros — Cleveland (#92) and Toledo (#95). California contributed San Bernardino (#94) and Fresno (#97). Also at the bottom of the pack were Philadelphia (#91), Baton Rouge (#93), Baltimore (#96), Memphis (#98), Newark (#99), and Detroit (#100).

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