About Me

In writing the "About Me" portion of this blog I thought about the purpose of the blog - namely, preventing the growth of Socialism & stopping the Death Of Democracy in the American Republic & returning her to the "liberty to abundance" stage of our history. One word descriptions of people's philosophies or purposes are quite often inadequate. I feel that I am "liberal" meaning that I am broad minded, independent, generous, hospitable, & magnanimous. Under these terms "liberal" is a perfectly good word that has been corrupted over the years to mean the person is a left-winger or as Mark Levin more accurately wrote in his book "Liberty & Tyranny" a "statist" - someone looking for government or state control of society. I am certainly not that & have dedicated the blog to fighting this. I believe that I find what I am when I consider whether or not I am a "conservative" & specifically when I ask what is it that I am trying to conserve? It is the libertarian principles that America was founded upon & originally followed. That is the Return To Excellence that this blog is named for & is all about.

Sunday, July 28, 2019

The Squad Causes Democrat Party Disarray

The last post pointed out AOC’s staged episode @ the southwest border a year ago when she looked through a chain-link fence past an empty parking lot as an upstart candidate for Congress, & saw an air conditioned tent city & children playing soccer that resulted in her feigning emotional distress. 


Despite the tremendous increase of fraudulent asylum seekers from the Central American Northern Triangle countries (Guatemala, Honduras, & El Salvador) that started in 2018 & has continued so far in 2019 as indicated on the graphic below, Democrats have denied there is a border crisis – that is until Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez & his twenty-three month old daughter, Valeria, were found drown on the banks of the Rio Grande in Matamoros, Mexico on June 24. 


Over the past year Democrats watched caravan after caravan, each of hundreds & even thousands of Central Americans, march to our southwest border to claim asylum & heard testimony after testimony from Border officials saying the system was overwhelmed – but in the long months of denial before Pelosi, Schumer, et.al., could even mouth a simple acknowledgement of the problem the above tragic photo appeared. 


A month after the above photo appeared Schumer joined a dozen Senate Democrats @ the southwest border & instead of saying the crisis was manufactured, as he had for months, now declared that the conditions are inhumane.  What is inhumane is that Congress has the ability to change the perverse incentives in our immigration & asylum laws that draw illegal immigrants to America – & that the corrections to our laws would take literally minutes to write.


But AOC is ever the opportunist, & after a year’s absence @ the southwest border, she returned with a delegation of congressional colleagues, this time to the Clint, Texas illegal immigrant holding center - from which she emerged by doubling down on her previous comments that the holding centers are exactly like Holocaust concentration camps, saying that she feared for her safety around the Border patrol officers, & claiming without any proof that women were forced to drink water from toilets to quench their thirst.


With regard to the drinking toilet water claim – the facility AOC visited contains prison-style toilets in which drinking water is dispensed from a fountain @ the top that’s attached to the toilet as part of a single unit.  It is certain that the purity of the influent water in Clint, Texas is higher than any water considered potable in Central America.


AOC was admonished for her concentration camp comments – first by NBC’s Chuck Todd, & then by NY Governor Andrew Cuomo.  And CNN’s Chris Cuomo thought that comparing the holding conditions @ the southwest border to Hitler’s concentration camps was out of line.


But the above criticisms were just the start of a rift between Democrat Party soulmates. 


The Democrat intraparty rift only got worse when Pelosi worked with the Republican Senate to pass an emergency $4.6 billion funding bill – nearly $3 billion of which would go to migrant child care.  Voting against the Pelosi bill was a group that calls themselves The Squad – Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, AOC, & Ayanna Pressley.  See photo below.


The problem that surfaced for Pelosi is that she had to rely on Republicans to join moderate Democrats in order to pass the funding bill.  Pelosi had previously been able to hold the Democrat Party majority together but the Squad was able to lead many to vote against the funding bill – Pelosi down played the Squad’s influence derogatorily saying “All these people have their public whatever & their twitter world ... but they didn’t have any following.  They’re four people & that’s how many votes they got.”  Pelosi did not want voters to come to realize that Democrats were insensitive to the drowning of the father & little girl shown in the above photo – i.e., Pelosi could no longer deny the humanitarian crisis @ the southwest border that Congress could fix in five minutes if they wanted to.  See table below where 95 progressive Democrats, led by AOC & the other Squad members, voted against the funding bill.  Click here to see the entire vote.


After the vote the Squad & other Progressives started taking public potshots @ the 129 moderate Democrats who voted for the bill saying things like the moderate Democrats were the “Child Abuse Caucus” who had chosen to “keep kids in cages.”  AOC’s chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti tweeted that the Democrat moderates were “hell bent to do to black & brown people today what the old Southern Democrats did in the 40s.”  He did not say whether he meant the 1840s or 1940s – but both apply to his tweet.


Pelosi called a caucus meeting for the purpose of stopping the criticism of fellow Democrats & to explain that the Democrat control of the House in 2020 was in jeopardy if one group of Democrats gave Republicans ammunition to help unseat another.  AOC indignantly responded that she was not in Washington to count votes meaning she had her ideological platform to implement – first, foremost, & only & that Pelosi was getting in her way.  The Squad played the race & sex card against Pelosi saying that Pelosi’s lecture @ the caucus meeting persistently “singled out newly elected women of color,” was “outright disrespectful” & “demoralizing” & that Pelosi was insufficiently committed to resist Trump.  These comments prompted Maureen Dowd of the New York Times to join Chuck Todd & the Cuomo brothers in criticizing AOC.  So the rift expanded.


Enter President Trump who tweeted that an unidentified group of House lawmakers, thought to be the Squad, should “go back to the totally broken & crime infested places from which they came.” 


Pelosi saw this as an opportunity to placate the Squad taking to the House floor “condemning the President’s racist tweets” before introducing such a resolution that passed 240 to 187 – it took less than two days from start to finish to pass this resolution showing that Congress can successfully work on what is important to them.


But in trying to make amends with the Squad Pelosi’s speech had violated House rules. The Democrat presiding over the House chamber abandoned the chair so he would not have to strike Pelosi’s words from the record.  House Majority Leader, Steny Hoyer, finally took the chair & said Pelosi’s remarks “were out of order.”  The Democrat majority then placed two other votes clearing this mess up for them & the resolution condemning the Trump tweets stood.


Of course this did not satisfy the Squad but emboldened them to reignite their feud with Pelosi – in a joint interview on CBS the Squad threatened Pelosi telling her she had better be aware of what she’s doing the next time she singles out women of color.


In another sign that Pelosi is losing control of the House - shortly after the vote to condemn Trump’s tweets Texas congressman Al Green introduced articles of impeachment against Trump for the third time.  Pelosi is against such a measure fearing it could backfire on moderate Democrats holding seats in districts Trump won in 2016.  But the impeachment measure is gaining momentum.  This time it got 95 votes – see table below.  It got 58 votes the first time Green introduced it in December 2017 & 66 the second time in January 2018.


So now 40% of House Democrats support impeachment.  Click here to see the entire vote on motion to table.


Newt Gingrich summed up the border situation & particularly AOC’s involvement saying on FNC “People like AOC create the disaster, refuse to fix it, vote against the funding to help people, & then go down there to attack the people who are trying to help.”


Omar supports the anti-Semitic, Israel-hating Palestinian led BDS (boycott, divestment, & sanction) movement that does not think Israel has the right to exist. 


Omar tweeted in 2012 “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people & help them see the evil doings of Israel.”


In February, 2019, Omar said the people who supported Israel in Congress were motivated only by money tweeting “It’s all about the Benjamins, baby.”  After apologizing, Omar later wrote that American politicians who support Israel are advocating “allegiance to a foreign country” which prompted Pelosi to pass a resolution in the House condemning anti-Semitism but the resolution was so watered down that it did not mention Omar & in fact all four members of the Squad voted for it.


Omar famously cited the 9/11 terrorist attacks that killed over 5,000 initial victims plus first responders with latent deadly diseases saying “some people did something” & that her concern was that Muslims were starting to lose their civil liberties.
Omar claimed that CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) – the Muslim civil rights & advocacy group with suspected ties to the Muslim Brotherhood & Hamas – was founded after 9/11 to help Muslims in the civil liberties regard but in fact CAIR was founded in June 1994.


But click here to hear Dr. Emir Caner, President of Christian Truett McConnell University, & a convert himself from Islam to Christianity, explain that it is impossible to simultaneously support the American Republic & its democratic principles & Islam.


With regard to Omar & the recent controversial chant “send her back” @ the Trump rally, my position on Omar is even more basic than that.  How could Omar have passed the citizenship test & taken the oath if she held the above views when she became a naturalized citizen @ age 10 – Muslim children are radicalized much earlier in life than age 10.  Or, if Omar chose to take up & embrace the above radicalized Islamic views after becoming a citizen she has proven she really does hate America & is only here to fundamentally transform the country into something we would not recognize.


But some are catching on to what is happening with the destructive work of the Squad.  Click here to hear CNN pundit Fareed Zakaria explain the crisis with America’s asylum system.


The WSJ reports that Honduras spent $200 a year on average on healthcare for each of its citizens in 2016. Guatemala spent $241 & El Salvador $294.  The U.S. spent $9,870.


The World Economics Forum ranks Honduras 107th out of 137 countries in the quality of its primary education.  Guatemala ranks 130th & El Salvador 128th.


While Central Americans in the Northern Triangle countries cite fears of violence & corruption in their home countries the rate of rejection of asylum claims from people from these countries ranged from 85.5% in 2012 to 94.1% in 2017 meaning that the vast majority of illegal aliens seeking asylum know they do not qualify for asylum.


Over the July 4th holiday I saw photos of people who took the citizenship oath after following the prescribed long path to citizenship determined by Congress & compared that to the Central Americans who decide for themselves when to come to America – to earn on average $12 an hour, $96 per eight hour day, much of which is sent back to their home countries where people make $5.30 per day.


Something is terribly wrong with a government that allows & perversely incentivizes through our outrageous immigration & asylum laws, poorly educated people, who spend very little on their own healthcare, & possess no wealth producing skills of their own that will benefit America, to flood into our country whenever it suits them so that they can game our system making fools out of every citizen & legal immigrants who are in the process of following the legal path to citizenship.


Some Democrats seem to finally be catching on to this but the Squad has other plans that the next post will further explain.


Sunday, July 14, 2019

Freeing Yourself From Fake News

“Don’t believe anything you read on this web page or, for that matter, anything you hear on The Neal Boortz Show unless it is consistent with what you already know to be true, or unless you have taken the time to research the matter to prove its accuracy to your own satisfaction.” – a cautionary piece of advice that Neal Boortz regularly made on his live radio program & posted on his blog as he expressed his opinion on every controversial topic under the sun.  It is this same common sense lesson I learned from Neal that I regularly encourage readers of RTE to use in reading this blog – questioning & commenting are how we all learn & I thank everyone who makes the time to participate & contribute - or as John Adams said “We have been afraid to think . . . Let us dare to read, think, speak, & write.”


In my daily figurative travels through cyberspace over the past several years I have seen the above photo, & ones like it, many times – always with an accompanying warning that the photo was taken moments before disaster struck.  All I had to do was click on the photo to find out what happened.  And of course I never took the bait.  My sixth sense of writing these blog messages for over fifteen years told me that nothing disastrous had happened.
 
So my reaction was suspicious when I learned that an activist actress, whom I had never heard of, tweeted out the pictures below ungrammatically saying that “Trump administration is forcing children 2 sleep on cement floor with an aluminum blanket & lights on all night.”  The idea was to show the inhumane, overcrowded, & unsanitary conditions with which Trump was holding people who had violated our sovereignty by illegally entering America.


My suspicion that the actresses’ claim was false was based on remembering the release of the photos below about a year ago that decried similar alleged abuses of the Trump administration – one showing children in cages & two others showing the horrible conditions under which illegal immigrants were being held.  The problem for Democrats is that the photo of the children in cages was taken in 2014 in Nogales Arizona & the other two photos were taken in 2014 in Texas – all three under BO’s administration.  Accordingly the matter was soon forgotten by the hostile anti American media who then moved on to find another supposed outrageous abuse perpetrated by Trump.


Further, Thomas Homan, the former executive associate director of Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) under BO, says that he was present when the cages were built.  The cages are actually chain link dividers that keep children separate & safe from unrelated adults. 
So with the above background in mind it did not take much digging to realize that the timestamp on the photo presented by the activist actress was cropped out & that her photo too was taken under BO’s policies in 2015.  See below. 

Now there are episodes or accounts that are easy to unmask like when Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel intentionally misreported that a December 2017 Trump rally in Florida was sparsely attended by tweeting a photo of a half empty arena – a photo that had been taken hours before the event even started.  Of course the event was actually “packed to the rafters” as Weigel later apologized saying he had been told he had “gotten it wrong.”  Why would anyone who saw the false photo & then the overflow rally with people waiting outside ever want to hear from Weigel again? 
Other episodes or accounts take a little more intuition & questioning to learn the truth.  An example is the account I received from a blog I subscribe to that showed photos of AOC under distress @ the El Paso border about a year ago supposedly seeing suffering migrant children in cages.  Since AOC is standing next to a chain link fence the implication is that the children are caged on the other side of the fence.  See photo below.


But other photos below from another angle show AOC could have actually been staging the entire scene.  AOC was looking most immediately @ an empty parking lot or a tree & a car as seen below.  But this hypocrisy almost seems too easy to expose & understand.

 

A little more digging showed that an air conditioned tent city could be seen in the distance – housing about 2,800 migrant teenagers some of whom ABC showed on video playing soccer.  The seeming empty parking lot included a roadway leading towards the Tornillo Border Patrol station in this remote area.  So I leave it up to you to decide if AOC staged this event looking for publicity showing concern for children she really could not see or whether she was so overwhelmed @ the thought of these children’s sadness that she broke down emotionally as shown above.

One other point to consider – FNC quoted a social media critic of AOC writing “Excuse me while I take the time to put on bright red lipstick, a pristine white outfit, & a Movado watch before I go see little kids locked up in the desert.”  There is something to this criticism when you consider a majority of Movado watches cost over $750 & are targeted for the wealthy businessman or business woman.  At the time of the photos AOC was complaining that she could not afford a Washington DC apartment if she won her House race in the fall.


But getting back to the girl hanging from the rock above the water smiling while in apparent danger – thanks to a frequent contributor for letting me know that this one is a hoax too.  See photo below.

Fake news is all around us, but if you listen closely, follow up with a few questions & a little research, you can free yourself from it & even more important - those who present it to you.