The Democrat Party we grew up with

 

Ben Garrison cartoon

The Democrat Party that many of us grew up with in the 50’s and 60’s is long gone.  Long gone.  The Progressive left has taken it over.  At PJ Media, Victor Davis Hanson (VDH) explains why so many of our family and friends can’t see it:

President Joe Biden is now 80 years old. He will be 82 when he campaigns for the 2024 presidency — and a clearly debilitated 86 should he be elected and fill out his second term. He has been in government for over a half-century.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and current representative from California is 83.

Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the second-ranking Democratic House member behind Pelosi, was House majority leader until early this year. He is 83, and has been an elected official for nearly 60 years.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., is 72, with 48 years in elected government.

Democratic luminary and former chairman of the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence Committees, Senator Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is 89, and ailing — after 53 years as an elected official.

James Clyburn, D-S.C., is House minority whip and 82.

These are the official faces of the Democratic Party.

They came into power and maturity three decades ago during the Clinton years of 1993-1999.

Decades ago, they sometimes supported strong national defense, secure borders, gas and oil development, fully funding the police, and a few restrictions on partial-birth abortions.

Not now.

Their role has changed from that of liberals of the Clinton era to serving as the thin power-holding veneer that masks the new real Democratic Party.

The party has been changed beyond recognition by Senators Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., the so-called Squad, the Congressional Black Caucus, newly elected senators like the Georgia duo of Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock – and Antifa and Black Lives Matter.

Yet Biden and company are still familiar American faces.

Their final role is to acculturate the electorate to the new Democratic Party.

Its radicals are breathing down their necks to get out of the way. Yet for a while longer they still need such an ossified veneer of respectability to ease the transition to what is now essentially a socialist-European green party. . . .

A socialist-European green party”.  That’s putting it nicely.  Some might say the “Progressive left” is completing the “fundamental change” of America’s constitutional republic into the New World Order.  Global communism.    

VDH concludes:

The new majority of radical Democrats allows the old fogies to bask in the limelight until they drop — exempt from counter-revolutionary criticism or inter-party primary challenges or demands to retire.

In return, the codgers reassure the nation that old faces like theirs cannot possibly be polyester revolutionary socialists — despite their role in airbrushing and photo-shopping the radical catastrophe unfolding before our eyes.

Read all about it here.

# # #

The Progressive Left’s Playbook

 

Pat Cross cartoon

Wayne Allyn Root at Root For America thinks he’s figured out the grand plan:

By Arresting Trump, Democrats Want Either Civil War,
Martial Law, or Another January 6th

Democrats (i.e., radical communist traitors) in conspiracy with a corrupt, Soros-funded, communist DA, and weaponized government goons [includes the Capitol Police, DoJ, FBI, & then-Speaker Pelosi] intend to indict, arrest & perp walk President Trump this coming week. Why are they doing this? I know their playbook like the back of my hand.

1.    At the very least, they want a thousand new January 6 scenarios- so they can arrest and lock away thousands of conservative patriots for years- and brand conservatives patriots as terrorists.

2.    Their very best scenario is to incite civil war and rip this country apart. Then they can declare Martial Law, lock down the country, destroy all our jobs and businesses, and take away our freedom permanently.

3.    To slander, demonize and destroy Trump- and hopefully disqualify him as a presidential candidate. They’re THAT scared of Trump beating them in 2024.

4.    Most importantly, this is all a WMD- Weapon of Mass Distraction.

Look around. The country is collapsing. Trains derailing. The supply chain failing. Democrat-run inner cities in ruins. Our border is wide open - with millions of illegal aliens being waved in. Banks are failing. Inflation is raging. Crime is exploding. The national debt is out of control. Sudden deaths and heart attacks from Biden’s vaccine mandates are exploding all around us- it’s literally a vaccine holocaust. Your children are being brainwashed to change their gender. And the crimes, extortion and bribery of the Biden Crime Family are finally coming to light.

So, this is the perfect moment for Biden to unleash a “Weapon of Mass Distraction.” Indict, arrest and perp walk President Trump.

More of Mr. Root’s column is here.  And if President Trump IS arrested, here’s Mr. Root’s strategy:

. . .  All 80 million of us should go to Trump’s web site and contribute on the day he is arrested. We will make it the biggest fundraising day in the history of U.S. politics. That’s a powerful statement too. https://www.donaldjtrump.com

# # #

Biggest Lies of 2022

It’s almost the end of 2022 and time for all those year-end round-ups.  Here’s a good start from Gabriel Keane at Valiant News:

Tucker Carlson recounted some of what he believes to be the biggest lies told by the Democrat Party and the federal government over the course of 2022 in one of the last editions of his show this year.

“So here, ladies and gentlemen, are our favorite lies of 2022,” Carlson announced. “We had an awful lot to choose from in making tonight’s list from Paul Pelosi’s late night crime scene to the endless propaganda about the Ukraine war, to the million non-existent Americans who actually didn’t get new jobs in the third quarter of the year.”

. . .

“People are dying of COVID, Joe Biden told us, because you have questions about an experimental mRNA shot that doesn’t really work and whose long-term effects we can’t know,” Carlson said. “You are the criminal here, not the Chinese government, because you’re ‘unvaccinated.’ You must be punished. That was the message from the White House picked up and eagerly disseminated by Biden’s equally soulless stooges in the media.”

The Fox News host claimed that vaccinated people are four times as likely hospitalized for Covid as unvaccinated people, a statement corroborated by the CDC.

More here.

# # #

Neil Oliver: Trusting Authority

Below is the closing part of the transcript from Neil Oliver’s latest contemplation.  Usual thanks to Sundance for posting it at Conservative Treehouse.

. . . Rather than dismiss as yet another conspiracy theory the idea of cash being ultimately replaced with transactions based on the exchange of what amount to glorified food stamps that will only be accepted if our social credit score demonstrates that we’ve been obedient girls or boys … how about taking the leap and focusing on the blatantly obvious … that if we are not free to buy whatever and whenever we please, free of the surveillance and snooping of governments and the banks that run them, then we have absolutely no freedom at all.

And while we’re on the subject of money and banks, why not pause to notice something else that is glaringly obvious – which is to say that the currencies of the West are teetering on the abyss, and that one bank after another is revealed, to those who are bothering to watch, as being as close to bankruptcy as is possible to be without actually falling over the edge.

Then there’s the so-called vaccines for Covid – I deliberately say “so-called” because by now it should be clear to all but the willfully blind that those injections do not work as advertised. You can still contract the virus, still transmit the virus, still get sick and still die. Denmark has dropped their use on under-18s. All across the world, every day, more evidence emerges – however grudgingly, however much the various complicit authorities and Big-Pharma companies might hate to admit it – of countless deaths and injuries caused by those medical procedures.

And yet here in Britain and just about everywhere else, governments continue to try and get those needles into as many arms as possible, even the arms of the smallest and youngest. The ripe stink of corruption is everywhere. I trusted authority for most of my life.

Now I ask myself on a daily basis how I ignored the stench for so long. Across the Atlantic, the Biden White House sent the FBI to raid the home of former president Donald Trump. Meanwhile Joe Biden and his son Hunter – he of the laptop full of the most appalling and incriminating content – fly together on Airforce 1. No raids planned on the Obamas, nor on the Clintons. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi flew to Taiwan and onwards to China. Her son Paul, an investor in a Chinese tech firm and with seats on the board of companies dealing in lithium, was along for the ride, into that part of the world where three quarters of the world’s lithium batteries are made. Taiwan leads in that technology.

It is hard to think the unthinkable. It’s hard to think that all of it, all the misery, all the suffering of the past and to come might just be about money, greed and power. It is hard to tell yourself you’ve been taken for a fool and taken for a ride. It’s hard, but the view from the other side is worth the effort and the pain. Open your eyes and see. 

Read the full transcript (or watch the video) here.

# # #

January 6 propaganda

 

image of scary J6 mob via Substack

Glenn Greenwald’s article (The Histrionics and Melodrama Around 1/6 Are Laughable, but They Serve Several Key Purposes: As Kamala Harris compares 1/6 to 9/11 and Nancy Pelosi introduces the cast of Hamilton to sing about democracy, today’s inanity should not obscure its dangers.”) is extracted at Instapundit:

The number of people killed by pro-Trump supporters at the January 6 Capitol riot is equal to the number of pro-Trump supporters who brandished guns or knives inside the Capitol. That is the same number as the total of Americans who — after a full year of a Democrat-led DOJ conducting what is heralded as “the most expansive federal law enforcement investigation in US history” — have been charged with inciting insurrection, sedition, treason or conspiracy to overthrow the government as a result of that riot one year ago. Coincidentally, it is the same number as Americans who ended up being criminally charged by the Mueller probe of conspiring with Russia over the 2016 election, and the number of wounds — grave or light — which AOC, who finally emerged at night to assure an on-edge nation that she was “okay” while waiting in an office building away from the riot at the rotunda, sustained on that solemn day.

That number is zero. But just as these rather crucial facts do not prevent the dominant wing of the U.S. corporate media and Democratic Party leaders from continuing to insist that Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory was illegitimate due to his collusion with the Kremlin, it also does not prevent January 6 from being widely described in those same circles as an Insurrection, an attempted coup, an event as traumatizing as Pearl Harbor (2,403 dead) or the 9/11 attack (2,977 dead), and as the gravest attack on American democracy since the mid-19th Century Civil War (750,000 dead). The Huffington Post’s White House reporter S.V. Date said that it was wrong to compare 1/6 to 9/11, because the former — the three-hour riot at the Capitol — was “1,000 percent worse.”

Indeed, when it comes to melodrama, histrionics, and exploitation of fear levels from the 1/6 riot, there has never been any apparent limit. And today — the one-year anniversary of that three-hour riot — there is no apparent end in sight. Too many political and media elites are far too vested in this maximalist narrative for them to relinquish it voluntarily.

The orgy of psychodrama today was so much worse and more pathetic than I expected — and I expected it to be extremely bad and pathetic . . . .

Full article is here via Instapundit.

# # #

The Three Faces of the Republican Party?

 

At American Thinker, Patricia McCarthy comes close in her title:

The Three Faces of the Republican Party

…

Thanks to Donald Trump, we can all clearly see who among our officials actually represents the American people who elected them; which members of Congress are interested only in keeping their seats; and those who passively align themselves with the Democrats to push our republic into a version of communist China with a social credit system, struggle sessions, and mandatory submission to an all-powerful government that would make Mao and Stalin proud.  Far too many of them are sitting still for this.

The Republican Party is in serious disarray; it's fractured.  Yellow-bellies like Kevin McCarthy are the majority, and the open NeverTrumps are traitors to their constituents.  Where do they all seem to work together?  When confirming Biden's dismal appointees to high office within his illegitimate administration.  They are all awful!  William Burns for CIA has numerous links to the Communist Party of China; Susan Hennessey to the DOJ is a confirmed rabid Russia hoaxer.  Lisa Monaco probably ordered the raid on Giuliani.

On this one score, their three faces meld into one insipid like-mind that cravenly submits to the most radical administration in U.S. history.  Republicans never fight as the Dems do.  They capitulate.  The Democrats never capitulate; they fight like the thugs they are.

Under the Biden administration, those of us who continue to embrace Trump's America First policies that engendered the best economy for all demographics, who support securing our southern border, who were thrilled by the energy independence that Trump brought about and the de-regulation that energized so many small and large businesses, are even more deplorable to the left now than we were in Hillary Clinton's view.  Wanting a free and economically powerful America is anathema to the left.  The left means to indoctrinate our kids rather than educate them.  Leftists' totalitarian agenda demands "equity" rather than equality; skin color reigns supreme.  They mean to cripple this nation; no more oil exploration, no more secure borders, no more law and order, no more freedom of speech or assembly, no more Second Amendment.  The left means to destroy America as founded, and, though interrupted by Trump's presidency, the Soros-Obama plan is back in play.  China owns Biden, and he is speeding up America's decline in service of the communist nation and the globalists.

The left is by nature miserable.  Leftists will not rest until everyone is as miserable as they are.  And because our ruling class is thoroughly removed from reality, they believe that their prescriptions for the rest of us will never affect their oh, so privileged lifestyles.  The left suffers from dissociative identity disorder, too: "a mental illness that involves disruptions or breakdowns of memory, awareness, identity and/or perception."  That pretty much sums up too many members of our political class, left and right.  Think Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.  Think Joe Biden.

When the right does not fight back against the left's anti-American grand plan — its absurd erasure of biological sex, its primacy of criminals over law-abiding citizens — the right is as certifiably mentally ill as the left.  That the Republicans are not, as a whole, standing up against the pandemic nonsense — mask mandates and lockdowns — is so disappointing.  They should be fighting for the essential "my body, my choice" when it comes to vaccines!  Why are they not, as a cohesive group, opposing the very notion of vaccine passports?  Why can't the Republicans in Congress learn from governors like DeSantis?  They don't.  They are cowering in the corners of their congressional offices, terrified of the left media.  God forbid they be criticized by a mindless hack at the NYT or on CNN or MSNBC.

The Republican Party is suffering from an identity crisis.  What is a Republican?  For what principles do these people stand tall?  We know who the good guys are, but they are a minority.  Why aren't all of the elected Republicans on the same page?

The easy explanation:  Most of them belong to the Uniparty-R.  (Full article is here.)

# # #

 

What is a Xanatos Gambit?

Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/XanatosGambit

The reactions to Trump’s White House speech offering a compromise to get the Wall funded and stop the partial government shutdown were in many ways predictable. Ann Coulter was apoplectic, the mainstream media called President Trump more names, and Democrat leadership Schumer and Pelosi rejected his proposal out-of-hand. Some conservative commentators were of the opinion that Trump knew full well his proposal would be rejected by the Democrats, putting them in the intransigence column in order to pacify their hard-to-the-left base, while not seriously advancing any real concessions to Dreamers. Maybe.

But one of the more interesting takes was at Chicago Boyz and linked via American Thinker:

For those who are unfamiliar with the term, a ‘Xanatos Gambit’ is a plan for which all foreseeable outcomes benefit the creator — including ones that superficially appear to be failure.  

And here’s the theoretical application to the Wall stand-off:

President Trump’s “Big  Macs served at the White House” and grounding Speaker Pelosi’s Congressional Junkets on military transports during a government shut down over funding “The Wall” are both very much in that “Xanatos Gambit” frame work.  President Trump is staying on the offensive so House Democrats and the media cannot “get off a shot” over the Government shut down. 

More at all the links.

# # #

Update on Trump's border security speech

U P D A T E S

Yesterday's blog reported that the major TV networks were not sure they would broadcast President Trump's speech this evening on border security - and The Wall. Here are two updates, both via Breitbart: 

UPDATE: According to new reports, every major news network plans to televise President Trump’s first address from the Oval Office Tuesday night.

CNN, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox News and Fox Business all plan to air Trump’s address focusing on border security.

UPDATE: Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer to Deliver Democrat Response to Trump Address

# # #

Walls

Amidst all the pontificating about "The Wall" being "immoral" and useless, this one is making the rounds:

# # #

Precision Idiocy

 art credit: pixabay.com

From John Ellis at PJ Media:

As you file your taxes, try not to think too hard about the revelation that your hard-earned money is helping someone achieve their dream of becoming a clown. Because, apparently becoming a clown requires going to college, and going to college requires taxpayers footing the bill. Next time you're at the circus, demand a "thank you" from a clown.

CNS News provides more information about the bad news regarding the gross misuse of our taxes: "The federal government is funding a clown school located in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco-based congressional district that has classes and workshops on 'Precision Idiocy' and how to act like a 'Buffoon,'" CNS wrote. "The school, which is called the 'Clown Conservatory' and is part of the nonprofit Circus Center, received a $10,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts that runs from June 2017 through May 2018." Clown Conservatory claims to be “the United States' only professional training program for clowns and physical comedians.”

The rest of the report is here. And in related news at the LA Times:

Schwarzenegger, Kasich to team up in L.A.
for group seeking to reform California GOP

Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ohio Gov. John Kasich will headline an event to debut a new group seeking to reform the California Republican Party.

The pair will deliver speeches and participate in panels on March 21 in Los Angeles at an event for New Way California, a group formed by Assemblyman Chad Mayes (R-Yucca Valley).

“They will be focused on reminding the Republican Party we need them to be successful, but in order to be successful, they need to choose policies and messaging that helps them grow rather than continue to shrink,” said Daniel Ketchell, a spokesman for Schwarzenegger.

Cue: “Send in the Clowns.”

# # #

In Washington: Ethics are for Little People

From Tea Party Patriots -- 

In the real world, violating the law (or even the strong, likely suspicion of violating the law) brings down the wrath of one’s superiors. Apparently, not in Washington:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is standing behind Rep. Robert Andrews (D-N.J.) despite calls for the veteran lawmaker to relinquish his leadership post while he is investigated on ethics charges.

Pelosi and other members of the Democratic leadership, including Whip Steny Hoyer (Md.) and Caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra (Calif.), backed Andrews on Wednesday as he battles charges of using campaign funds for family trips.

What did he do? Merely use campaign dollars for a wedding trip:

In 2012, the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) released a report charging Andrews with tapping tens of thousands of dollars in campaign funds to pay for a 2011 trip to a wedding in Scotland and multiple jaunts to Los Angeles with his daughters.

….It referred the case to the House Ethics Committee last year, citing “substantial reason to believe that he improperly used congressional campaign and Leadership PAC funds for personal use.”

Andrews has argued the trips were political because the groom in the Scotland wedding and his daughters were volunteer campaign aides.

OCE sharply disagreed, stating that the House Democrat “engaged in no political activity, gave no political speeches, raised no campaign funds and did not discuss his campaign.”

The OCE, which does not have subpoena power, also said Andrews failed to provide investigators with his congressional and campaign calendars and supplied credit card statements “after making significant redactions.”

Of course, Rep. Andrews is claiming innocence:

Andrews has maintained his innocence and says the charges against him are “politically motivated.” He said the Ethics Committee investigation that was announced on Tuesday would exonerate him.

“This review will confirm that I have always followed the rules and met all the standards of the House,” Andrews said in a statement. “I will eagerly provide answers to any questions the committee has. In the meantime, I will continue to work as hard as I can and serve my constituents and our country as a member and in any other capacity in which I am chosen to serve.”

The Ethics panel is notoriously slow-footed with its investigations — it could be months before the review of Andrews is complete.

In the meantime, he’s still pushing for more spending:

It appeared to be business as usual for Andrews on Wednesday.

He took to the House floor to defend the party’s budget, and his Rayburn Office doors stood wide open, with no reporters or cameramen stationed outside — a far cry from the mob scene that greeted New Jersey colleague Sen. Robert Menendez when separate ethics allegations against him gained attention.

Ethics violations are nothing new to Capitol Hill. The Center for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) named a full 16 Members as being under investigation for ethics charges in 2009 alone. Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY) is one of the most famous, of course, though others exist – Senator David Vitter (R-LA) called prostitutes on his taxpayer-paid phone.

It is notable that Rep. Andrews reimbursed his campaign committee and leadership PAC to the tune of over $30,000. In the meantime, the House Democratic leadership is defending Rep. Andrews, noting that he has only been charged with an ethics violation, not found guilty.

What do you think? At what point should a Member of Congress be forced to retire, or otherwise be held accountable for his or her actions? Does it matter that reimbursement was made? Let us know in the comments.

Hire Nancy Pelosi!

After suffering an electoral beat down of historic proportions and a complete rebuke of her progressive policies, soon to be former Speaker of the House Ninny Pelosi is angling to be Minority Leader of the Democrat Party.

We've taken away her gavel.... maybe we should let her keep her broom and bewitching power over the winged-monkeys progressives left in the Democrat Party as it will serve as a reminder of all the hard work we still have left to do...

From The Examiner --

Republicans that recently gave President and the Democrats a beating on November 2, 2010 are gleeful that Nancy Pelosi, who led 60 plus liberal members of the U.S. House of Representatives over the cliff, may soon be the Minority Leader.  The chant and banners are "Hire Pelosi" so she can be the symbol of voters who have rejected almost every bill forced through the house by her.

The latest polls show that Pelosi is favored by 8% of Independents who have become an important segment of the voting population. She has come to be the face of the worst part of the Democratic Party and still she has so much control that she may easily win the spot, even if challenged by a few Democrats who are realistically facing their own demise in 2012 under her leadership.

House Health Care Reform Bill; Lawyers get a Treat / We get Tricked!

It has pretty well been established by both sides (or at least we thought both sides) that some sort of tort reform on medical malpractice suits needs to be addressed in any discussion about fixing some of the problems with the health care problems in this country.

For obvious reasons, one being campaign donations, the left has done nothing towards addressing this problem in any of their versions of the so-called health care reform bills they are pushing.

In fact, in the latest 1,900 page House version, not only has Speaker Pelosi left out any tort reform, it appears the PVC Princess is shilling for the trial lawyers.

From Big Government --

"...check out this juicy morsel to the trial lawyers (page 1431-1433 of the bill):

Section 2531, entitled “Medical Liability Alternatives,” establishes an incentive program for states to adopt and implement alternatives to medical liability litigation. [But]…… a state is not eligible for the incentive payments if that state puts a law on the books that limits attorneys’ fees or imposes caps on damages.

So, you can’t try to seek alternatives to lawsuits if you’ve actually done something to implement alternatives to lawsuits. Brilliant! The trial lawyers must be very happy today!

While there is debate over the details, it is clear that medical malpractive lawsuits have some impact on driving health care costs higher. There are likely a number of procedures that are done simply as a defense against future possible litigation. Recall this from the Washington Post:

“Lawmakers could save as much as $54 billion over the next decade by imposing an array of new limits on medical malpractice lawsuits, congressional budget analysts said today — a substantial sum that could help cover the cost of President Obama’s overhaul of the nation’s health system. New research shows that legal reforms would not only lower malpractice insurance premiums for medical providers, but would also spur providers to save money by ordering fewer tests and procedures aimed primarily at defending their decisions in court, Douglas Elmendorf, director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, wrote in a letter to Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah).”

Keep up them calls -- we can stop this tragedy in the making!