P&D and The Week That Was

 Truth is the Sublime Convergence of History and Reality

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De Omnibus Dubitandum, (Everything is to be questioned!)

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This Link will take you to My Commentaries.

By Rich Kozlovich

 

Well, it seems clear AOC is running for President in 2028, which should make Little Chuckie Schumer happy since she won't be running against him for his Senate seat.  And the Democrats and their catspaws in the Pravda media will resoundingly proclaim she's remarkably qualified.  Like Whoopie Goldberg claimed Jill Biden should be Surgeon General because she was a great doctor.  Except her degree is in education.  

However, AOC graduated cum laude from Boston University with a bachelor's degree in international relations and economics.  And she so impressed potential employers in those fields, she got hired to be a bartender.  What better qualifications could there be to run the world's biggest economy and military?  Right?  

But a legitimate military man, Hegseth, is unqualified to be Secretary of Defense. Ya just gotta see the humor in that, and the flack he's taking is hot and heavy against him.  So he must be doing something right, because when a bomber is directly over the target, that's when the flack is the heaviest.  

Senator Kennedy recently said the strategy for defeating AOC was to just let her talk, and that she’s the reason they have directions on shampoo bottles. An astute observation.  But…… beyond that …… the Democrat party has ….. baggage…. lot’s of baggage. Baggage she, or whomever they choose will have to defend, and the Pravda media can’t bail them now since no one cares or believes what they say. In my view the only concern Republicans have is voter fraud.

The back room boys know they’ll have to get Scotty to replicate and beam down hundreds of thousands of false ballots to win with their bench. Cory Booker, Gavin Newsom, AOC, Buttigieg, Walz, Rahm Emanuel, Kamala, Jasmine Crockett, and Josh Shapiro. What a bench.  It will be interesting to watch how they overcome all that baggage, and each other. 

I think this cartoon defines their situation. No leader, no message, and no agenda.  Rude, crude, and stupid isn't a winning strategy.

What’s interesting is Trump has only been in office for three months, an incredible three months I might add, and we’re already talking about the 2028 election. 

Wow!  A major announcement!  It's possible life been discovered on a distant planet!  Nah, as you read this it becomes obvious what they really found was nothing. On a personal note, I love all this kind of stuff, but so what? Here’s what it’s really about. Funding. Ya can’t keep getting billions of dollars and find nothing. And when they find something, it still turns out to be nothing. But nothing can be reinforced with speculation, which makes nothing look like something, and something generates a lot of talk. And a lot of talk generates funding, which really is something.

Pope Francis has died, and we're seeing accolades pour in, and we're seeing history being cited about who he supported and what he supported, that are not so laudatory.  Unlike the type of responses vile leftist cretins spew out when a conservative passes,  conservatives will not be dancing in the streets over his passing, and no one should.  Having said that, I have huge files on just about everything that faces humanity to use as source pieces, and I will have my own commentary on his history.  History is everything, and history will not be kind to this Pope.  As Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a very traditional Catholic who he had excommunicated says, "he will have to account for the crimes he's committed." 

Recently Little Chuckie Schumer who is desperate to get back into the good graces of the radical base stated that if Trump “disobeys” SCOTUS there will be consequences", which is rich since during the Obama and Biden administrations they went out of their way to get the most radical and corrupt political hacks appointed to the federal bench, and then threatened anyone who disobeys their corrupt rulings.

For those interested, I’ve tried to keep track of all these judges and their decisions. The rot is deeper, farther, and wider than we realized until now.   There are two options to fix this effort in judicial insurrection.   Congress steps in and exerts their Constitution authority to determine the jurisdiction of the courts, which the judiciary has been unconstitutionally usurping by making up the rules over jurisdiction to enhance their power without Congressional input or approval, and that needs to be brought to an end.  

If that doesn’t happen I have to believe in order to save the nation the Trump administration will have to invoke the Jacksonian strategy. “They made their decisions, now let them enforce them.”  No matter what clabber these judges spew out, the Constitution gives the federal judiciary no enforcement authority at all. Constitutionally all enforcement authority is in the domain of the Executive.  All of which needs to be followed up with a Constitutional amendment that imposes term limits and more clearly defines the jurisdiction of the courts. 

I have nine posts of my own and twenty three by others today.  I've really devoted most of my efforts on the Pravda media, and I think you will find them worth a look or two.  

My very best wishes to all those of good will and honest hearts.

My Commentaries

1. Media Collapse is Inevitable, and it's a Good Morning in America! Useful Idiots and Paid Lackeys, Part XIV
2. Media Collapse is Inevitable, and it's a Good Morning in America! Print Media, Part XIII
3. Media Collapse is Inevitable, and it's a Good Morning in America! Big Tech Internet, Part XII
4. Media Collapse is Inevitable, and it's a Good Morning in America! MSNBC, Part XI
5. Media Collapse is Inevitable, and it's a Good Morning in America! CNN, Part X
6. The Judiciary is Out of Control: Judges
7. Elections, and the Democrats Have Baggage.
8. Cartoon Roundup
9. Thought For the Day

Commentaries

1. American Political Thermometer: Is the United States MAGA Country? Mark Angelides
2. Harris on Swanky Circuit to Raise Funds and Test the Waters By Sarah Cowgill
3. Did Obama Try to “Hush” Rev. Wright for $150,000? — Updated By Susan Daniels
4. The world needs People Day more than Earth Day By Paul Driessen
5. Progressive Pitfalls: Judge Jailed After Housing Illegal Alien By James Fite
6. UK Supreme Court Finds Women Exist By Daniel Greenfield
7. Gov. Newsom’s $750M Gift to Hollywood Donors  By Daniel Greenfield
8. The Father of the Constitution Was Also the Father of Tariffs  By Daniel Greenfield
9. This One Weird Trick Let D.C. Judges Stage a Coup  By Daniel Greenfield
10. From Around the Nation and the World By Robin Itzler
11. What Happens This Year Builds to 2026 By Robin Itzler
12. Democrats Hate America  By Robin Itzler
13. Fake News Was and Is Their Weapon By Robin Itzler
14. Pope Francis Was No Friend Of The Poor By Francis Menton
15. Progress Report On Purging The Climate Scam From Federal Websites By Francis Menton
16. New York Just Can't Catch A Break On The March To Climate Utopia By Francis Menton
17. Socialism Is an Economic Cancer By Dan Mitchell
18. Greece and the 20th Theorem of Government By Dan Mitchell
19. Improved Data on Ronald Reagan’s Fiscal Performance By Dan Mitchell
20. Texas Expands the Feel-Good Map of 2025 By Dan Mitchell
21. Chuck Schumer a Likely Casualty of the Democrat Civil War By Graham J. Noble
22. With Cory Booker or AOC, Will Dems Cross the Rubicon in 2028? By Graham J. Noble
23. Bogus Beat: Big Money Left Funds Faux ‘Local’ Journalism Charade By Joe Schaeffer

Permanent Links

1. 45 Communist Goals to Destroy America as Listed in the 1963 Congressional Record
2. My Seven Rules of Geopolitics
3. The John Boyd Legion of Honor
5. Former White House Advisor: “Trump to Release $150 Trillion Endowment”

 No matter what anyone says, you can’t marginalize the truth!  You can suppress it, you can ignore it, you can avoid it, you can attempt to undermine it, you can attempt to subvert it, you can attempt to organize against it, you can even laugh at it, but if we have the courage and the fortitude to stand and confront the lies, irrespective of the personal costs, the truth will stand the test of time, because truth and time are on the same side.

Constant as the North Star

Media Collapse is Inevitable, and it's a Good Morning in America! Useful Idiots and Paid Lackeys, Part XIV

Does anyone doubt this is a conspiracy of useful idiots and paid lackeys?

By Rich Kozlovich, Tags:

In a letter by Thomas Jefferson to his friend Walter Jones he made clear his feeling about the abuses of the "free press" in 1814 saying:

“I deplore … the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed and the malignity, the vulgarity and the mendacious spirit of those who write for them… These ordures are rapidly depraving the public taste and lessening its relish for sound food. As vehicles of information and a curb on our functionaries, they have rendered themselves useless by forfeiting all title to belief… This has, in a great degree, been produced by the violence and malignity of party spirit.” 

Nothing has changed, nor it will ever change, regarding the lack of integrity in the media! It has been so from their founding, and will continue to be so until the end of time.  But right now, today, because of modern communications, they have more easily, and more thoroughly, corrupted the nation's perception of reality with the stench of their morality, and stunning level of hypocritical ignorance.  

Worse yet, they work diligently to prevent anyone from exposing their perfidy!  As an example, YouTube suspended  One America News Network channel for what they're calling misinformation violations for COVID-19 policy.  That's a convenient way of saying anything that disagrees with the leftist agenda, AKA, free speech, is misinformation and must be censored.    Yet they have little trouble promoting outright lies.  Those don't count because those lies promote false leftist narratives.

Calling them sewer trout would be an insult to trout and to sewers, since both serve a useful purpose.  

Useful Idiots

The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal,  NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, and CNN, all are losing readership or viewership in droves and being forced to scale back as a result.  Alot of big names and a lot of staff are being sent out into the cold, hard, real world, and it's been interesting to see the consequences for them.   When was the last time you heard anything from Chris Wallace after he decided to forego his seven million dollar a year salary in order to podcast.   

And why did Chris Wallace leave?  Because at 77, he was "eager to see what a transformed media environment has to offer, and neither he or his family want him to retire, and he wants more control over what he produces", which of course will undoubtedly be "unbiased".  

Yeah right!  While I'm sure he's more than financially secure, it still comes down to this.  If he had been able to carry his weight at CNN, he'd still be there, and since he couldn't, what makes him think he can carry the freight on his own?

In order to continue to parrot leftist themes there are shows like The View, which is:

".... one of the most insufferable programs on daytime television, the mecca from where the most miserable, wine-drinking liberal women come to cope and seethe about a second Trump presidency. It’s also prime territory for epic meltdowns, abject stupidity, racism, and all-around strangeness".

In one episode of The View Sunny Hostin claimed voter ID prevents blacks from voting, which implies black people are too dumb to figure out how to get an ID to vote.  Amazing!  Blacks don't seem to have a problem getting driver's licenses and bank accounts requiring ID's, so why would voter ID rules prevent them from voting?  But, she's on The View, which pretty much tell you all you need to know on the dumb chart.

Their Philosophy

The criminal's first rule is, "never give up on the con", and the media lives that.  The reason why Kamala lost the election was because TikTok stole Kamala’s presidency, and in spite of all the facts that have poured out about Joe Biden's mental condition,  a former CNN editor still tried to claim "the media did not act in bad faith".   Not in bad faith?  The only faith they have is bad, just like America's Smeagol, James Carville, who outrageously claimed Trump's White House argument with Zelenskyy was because Trump has syphilis.  How disgusting can they get?  There's no boundaries on the left. 

Is it any wonder the Pravda media is dying, and the reason why is simple, no one trusts them.  They're not devoted to truth, justice, and the American way, they're devoted to destroying Trump, and the traditional values that made America great, and now millions are abandoning them for alternative news sources, and those sources are now in charge of the news. 

But in spite of their woes, will the Pravda media reflect on their misdeeds? No! 

• Legacy of Lies: Scott Jennings Tells Abby Phillip Why Media Trust Is Cratering but She Refuses to Listen

A legacy of lies which Tim Pool drives home at a White House Press Corp meeting saying:

“Many of the news organizations represented in this room have marched in lock step on false narratives, such as the ‘very fine people’ hoax, the Covington smear,” Pool said, prefacing his first official question to Awesome White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. “And now, the ‘Maryland man’ hoax, where an MS-13 gang member, adjudicated by two different judges, I believe, is simply being referred to as a ‘Maryland man’ over and over again.”  “In an effort from the White House to expand access to new companies, you’ve created this New Media Seat. … I’m wondering if you can comment on that unprofessional behavior, as well as elaborate on if there’s any plans to expand access to new [media] companies.”

The author then says:

Other than the Doocy kid, why are all these lying people (He didn't say people here) allowed to sit up front when they should be standing in the back cupping their ears like nursing home patients late for Bingo?   Contempt. Contempt. Contempt. The legacy media only deserve contempt......which is crucial in our noble crusade to someday enjoy the lamentations of their women.

Why do they persist in their insanity?  This Current List of Media’s Anti-Social Positions Explains So Much About What Is Wrong With Them:

The national media outlets and the Democrats are currently mired in a conjoined, downward spiral. The public approval of both entities has been eroding, and the main cause is in the way that they are interlocked. Neither shows interest in addressing - let alone repairing  - the problem. Instead, the Dems and the press appear convinced their entrenched activism and anti-Trump positioning will see them through...

As for Public Broadcasting:

1. Law Professor Jonathan Turley Says it’s Time to Shut Down the Taxpayer Funded ‘Gravy Train’ for NPR
2. End the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
3. FCC’s Brendan Carr Advances Investigation into NPR, PBS Running ‘Prohibited’ Ads

Senator Kennedy of Louisiana once commented about our policy of giving money to nations who hate us asking, "Why are we giving money to countries that hate America? They should be able to hate us for free."   I think that's a philosophy that should apply to NPR and Corporation for Public Broadcasting also.

But, like criminals, they just can't give up the con promoting claims of doom and gloom, having epileptic fits over anything Trump says turning everything into a crisis.  Defending rouge judges who support illegal immigration and decisions that promote voter fraud, and the list goes on and on, but this time nobody is listening. 

Did Obama Try to “Hush” Rev. Wright for $150,000? — Updated

Did Rev. Wright get any USAID money?

By Susan Daniels Apr 25, 2025 @ Susan's Newsletter

Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who performed the marriage of Barack and Michelle Obama and were members of his church, Trinity United Church of Christ (TUCC), for twenty years, became persona non grata to the Obamas in 2008. He was capable of collapsing the candidacy of the shady Obama against the evil Hillary Clinton.

Rev. Wright came under fire when he said of the 9/11 attack that “American’s chickens were coming home to roost.” But his vitriolic sermons were his stock in trade long before then and Obama was afraid it would affect his 2008 run against Clinton.

Ed Klein interviewed Barack Obama’s Chicago pastor for his book The Amateur, and according to the New York Post (May 13, 2009), Wright told Klein: “After the media went ballistic on me, I received an e-mail offering me money not to preach at all until the November presidential election.”

“Who sent the e-mail?” (Klein) asked.

“It was from one of Barack’s closest friends.”

“He offered you money?”

“Not directly,” Wright said. “He sent the offer to one of the members of the church, who sent it to me.”

“How much money did he offer you?”

“One hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” Wright said.

“Did Obama himself ever make an effort to see you?”

“Yes,” Wright said. “Barack said he wanted to meet me in secret, in a secure place. And I said, ‘You’re used to coming to my home, you’ve been here countless times, so what’s wrong with coming to my home?’ So we met in the living room of the parsonage of Trinity United Church of Christ, at South Pleasant Avenue right off 95th Street, just Barack and me. I don’t know if he had a wire on him. His security was outside somewhere.

“And one of the first things Barack said was, ‘I really wish you wouldn’t do any more public speaking until after the November election.’ He knew I had some speaking engagements lined up, and he said, ‘I wish you wouldn’t speak. It’s gonna hurt the campaign if you do that.’

“And what did you say?” (Klein) asked. “I said, ‘I don’t see it that way. And anyway, how am I supposed to support my family?’ And he said, ‘Well, I wish you wouldn’t speak in public. The press is gonna eat you alive.’

“Barack said, ‘I’m sorry you don’t see it the way I do. Do you know what your problem is?’ And I said, ‘No, what’s my problem?’ And he said, ‘You have to tell the truth.’ I said, ‘That’s a good problem to have. That’s a good problem for all preachers to have. That’s why I could never be a politician.’

“And he said, ‘It’s going to get worse if you go out there and speak. It’s really going to get worse.’  “And he was so right.”

Wright’s church had a reputation of finding “beards” for gay men wanting an appearance of normalcy. Obama, who had Wright officiate at his 1993 wedding to Michelle, was in a gay relationship in 2007 with the choirmaster at TUCC, Donald Young. Young made the mistake of letting others know about their relationship.

On December 23, 2007, as Obama’s campaign for president was ramping up, Young was murdered execution style in his Chicago apartment. Three thousand mourners attended his funeral; Obama was not one of them.Two other gay friends of Obama and members of the church died during the last six weeks of 2007. Larry Bland was also executed and Nate Spencer died of AIDS.

Wright wisely retired in 2008 and what a retirement he got.  Wright moved into a 10,340 square-foot $1.6 million house in Tinley Park, IL, which was less than 2% black. Although a racist, he didn’t mind living among whites. His church paid for it and gave Wright a $10 million line of credit.

Wright already owned the property. He bought it in 2004 for $345,000. He sold it to TUCC for $308,000 in 2006. Those proceeds went into a living trust for him and his wife. So did he sell the property to himself?

While Obama gave the illusion that he had distanced himself from Wright, he only somewhat did. Obama said: “In sum, I reject outright the statements by the Reverend Wright that are at issue.”

In the Huffington Post, Obama said:

“Most importantly, The Reverend Wright preached the gospel of Jesus, a gospel on which I base my life. In other words, he has never been my political advisor; he's been my pastor. And the sermons I heard him preach always related to our obligation to love God and one another, to work on behalf of the poor, and to seek justice at every turn.”

Don’t laugh, Obama actually said that. He left out the part where Jesus was going to try to divide the country racially and return it to the ‘60s.

What is interesting about the house for Wright is that the church took out the mortgage in 2006 to build the house and managed to pay it off four years later. Where does a church get enough money to pay off an expensive house and set up a $10 million line of credit for its former pastor? It all took place under the Obama administration. Should DOGE look into any payments made circuitously to the church by USAID?

Wright was a strong proponent of Louis Farrakhan, the head of the radical Nation of Islam, and groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League have defamed him. He is anti-semantic and hates whites.

From The New Yorker by Vinson Cunningham (January 28, 2018) “Farrakhan is the author of vile, uncountable, unreconstructed, cause-derailing anti-Semitic slurs, but his Million Man March made him and the Nation a stubborn, unignorable feature of the political landscape for black would-be public servants who came of age in the nineteen-nineties. 

Obama’s early career in Chicago was, in part, an exercise in performing an “authentic” blackness that opponents like the former Black Panther and current congressman Bobby Rush, who dealt Obama his first and only electoral defeat, in 2000, insisted he lacked. So he’s no exception to Farrakhan-induced headaches: Obama attended the March, and spent time during the 2008 campaign playing down an unwanted and wildly unhelpful endorsement from Farrakhan.”

Cunningham talks about the photo taken in 2005 by Askia Muhammad of Sen. Obama and Louis Farrakhan that was hidden for thirteen years which could have derailed Obama’s campaign.

Liberal lawyer and lifetime Democrat Alan Dershowitz said he never would have campaigned for Obama had he seen him with Farrakhan.

Progressive Pitfalls: Judge Jailed After Housing Illegal Alien

Sometimes when reality hits, it hits hard. 

By James Fite | Apr 25, 2025 @ Liberty Nation News, Tags: Articles, Opinion, Politics

What do you call it when a judge harbors an illegal alien and then tampers with the evidence in the ensuing investigation? If this were a joke, the punchline would be “a lack of judgement!” But for former Doña Ana County Magistrate Judge Joel Cano and his wife, Nancy, it’s called the end of a career and the beginning of a criminal case.

The former New Mexico judge and his wife were taken into custody on Thursday, April 24, and charged with evidence tampering amid allegations they harbored Cristhian Ortega-Lopez, a migrant who entered the US illegally and supposedly has ties to the Tren de Aragua gang. Catching a federal case over political activism? Chalk another one up to the pitfalls of progressivism.

From Judge to Judged

Back in January, the Department of Homeland Security reportedly began investigating Venezuelan native Ortega-Lopez. On February 28, two search warrants were executed at a home belonging to Judge Cano’s wife, Nancy. Ortega-Lopez and his roommates were arrested, and federal agents seized four firearms from the residence of April Cano, the judge’s daughter.

Judge Cano then resigned. In a letter dated March 3 – though the Supreme Court and 3rd Judicial District Court reported not getting the notice until March 31 – Cano wrote:

“This letter is to inform all of you of my intended resignation from the Dona Ana Magistrate Court as Magistrate Judge in Division 6.

My very last day at work will be on Friday, March 21, 2025 at which time I will have resigned my office.

Working with each of you has been a very rewarding experience for which I will remain eternally grateful.

All the best to everyone of you. I wish all of you a happy retirement once you are ready yourself.”

The New Mexico Supreme Court has since banned Cano from ever being a judge again, and on Thursday, Joel and Nancy Cano were both arrested after a raid on their home by federal agents.

Alien Encounter

As for Ortega-Lopez, investigators reportedly turned up gang-related clothing, tattoos, voicemails, and text messages as evidence of his involvement with Tren de Aragua, the violent Venezuelan gang. Ortega-Lopez was caught crossing the border illegally near Eagle Pass, Texas, on December 15, 2023. He was released on December 18 pending removal proceedings because the Border Patrol facility was overcrowded. He was issued a Notice to Appear, which kicked off the formal removal process.

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Cristhian Ortega-Lopez met the Canos when Nancy hired him for repair work. He was eventually invited to move into the guest house. After his February 28 arrest, Ortega-Lopez was deemed not a flight risk or danger to the community by US Magistrate Judge Damian L. Martinez in a March 3 court appearance, and he was released on April 8 pending trial for his new charge. What charge, you ask? Possession of a firearm by an illegal alien – for which he could face up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

Progressive Pitfalls

The now-former judge won his spot in the 2022 election. While it’s technically a “non-partisan” race, Ballotpedia does show Cano registered as a Democrat – not terribly surprising, given he’s accused of harboring an illegal alien and trying to cover it up afterward. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat herself, plans to appoint a replacement – presumably also a Democrat, never mind the “non-partisan” tag – to ride out the rest of Cano’s four-year term, which runs through 2026.

Give Cable TV the Boot – Check This Out!

And this may still only be the beginning for the progressive judge. In comments to WPMI, an NBC affiliate, former ICE Field Office Director John Fabbricatore uttered words that likely inspire dread in the disgraced magistrate: “Doña Ana County has been a hotbed of illegal immigration and drug trafficking, human smuggling for many, many years. To see that a judge would allow this to happen. It’s very concerning. It’s concerning. What else has the judge been doing?”

What else, indeed? And how much deeper will federal investigators dig?

Speaking of the feds, how did they know to look into the Canos to find their missing migrant? Photos of Ortega-Lopez holding and shooting firearms illegally – some of which were tagged in the post as belonging to April Cano – were found on social media sites online, along with images of him hanging out with the Canos. Did no one ever tell them the internet is forever and that, when committing crimes, it’s generally best not to publish photographic evidence of it? Or did they simply not care who knew because they thought, as a judge, Joel Cano could ensure no consequences would follow?

~

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Read More From James Fite Editor-at-Large

Socialism Is an Economic Cancer

April 24, 2025 by Dan Mitchell @ International Liberty

Building on my four-part series (here, here, here, and here) explaining the case against socialism and my five-part series (here, here, here, here, and here) on socialism in the modern world, today’s column will look at the economic argument against that statist ideology.

Practically speaking, this seems unnecessary. After all, we can simply look at the utter failure of socialist economies (think Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela).

But since there are still people who think collectivism is a good idea (especially naive young people!), let’s look at a new scholarly study in the Journal of Comparative Economics. Authored by Andreas Bergh, Christian Bjornskov, and Ludek Korba, it estimates the impact of socialism on economic performance.

Before looking at the findings, let’s first celebrate that far fewer people are suffering under socialism today. Here’s a chart from the study, based on two different methodologies, showing the percentage of socialist countries over the past 70 years.

As you can see, the first few decades after World War II were not good news. More and more nations fell into socialism.

Socialism then peaked at some point during the 1980s, but suffered a huge drop when the Soviet empire collapsed.

Now let’s look at some of what the authors discovered, starting with some introductory analysis.

From a neoclassical mainstream view, the problem with socialism comes mainly from the weak or absent incentives for work and investment in socialist economies and the suppression of the price coordination mechanism of economic activities.

To this can be added the weakened incentives for innovation and entrepreneurship … a forceful critique of socialism comes from the Austrian school, according to which the main problem with socialist planning is the waste of knowledge and creativity that is inherent in centralised decision-making…

This paper therefore looks at the effects of socialism, both using new and updated data covering a somewhat ignored group of 22 developing countries that turned socialist sometime during the time period 1950 to 2020. …we define socialism as a socio-economic model based on almost full social (state or quasi-state) ownership of means of production and the related command central plan.

Here are the key findings.

Our fixed effects estimates indicate that developing countries that transition to socialism lose on average approximately 2–2½ percentage points in annual growth relative to similar countries. …

These losses are qualitatively similar to those experienced by countries in Central and Eastern Europe that implemented socialist economies after WWII and imply substantial losses of human welfare over a typical socialist spell of one and a half decades in a developing country. …Our estimates are also politically relevant, suggesting sizable losses in income and human welfare from implementing a socialist economy in a developing country.

In a typical country in our sample that turns socialist, the accumulated loss over the first five years amounts to almost 400 USD per inhabitant and more than twice that amount in lost labour productivity. …Overall, we document that implementing a socialist centrally planned economy in developing countries has had dire economic and social consequences.

Given these statistical findings, and given what we see with our own eyes, I can think of no better way to end this column than sharing this quote from Thomas Sowell.

P.S. If you want to laugh at socialism, I have an entire collection anti-collectivism humor.

UK Supreme Court Finds Women Exist

By Daniel Greenfield @ Sultan Knish Blog

In the year 2025, the UK Supreme Court ruled that women exist.

The shocking ruling by two lady justices (Lady Rose and Lady Simler) and one lord (Lord Hodge) found for the existence of women and concluded that men do not become women by putting on dresses and getting a government document certifying that they’re female now.

The two elderly Jewish ladies and Scottish lord, who are presumably quite aware that they are ladies and lords, and not vice versa, concluded “that sex has its biological meaning.”

Furthermore that “Parliament in using the words ‘man’ and ‘woman’ …referred to biological sex” and that the Scottish government had not successfully “nullified the definition of ‘woman’”.

Akin to Galileo’s legendary “e pur si muove”, the lord and ladies tentatively laid out their shocking conclusion that women are not men and that men are not women in the gentlest of fashions to avoid shocking the delicate sensibilities of the woke who believe otherwise.

The ruling politely noted that the woefully misnamed Gender Recognition Act (GRC) of 2004 which provided men with a ‘certificate’ stating that they are really women… would be of a small comfort to women confronted with a man in a changing room or a rape counselling group.

“While many women in a female-only changing room or on a women-only hospital ward or in a rape counselling group might reasonably object to the presence of biological males, it is difficult to see how the reasonableness of such an objection could be founded on possession or lack of a certificate,” the ruling noted.

A piece of paper cannot make a man into a woman. No amount of pieces of paper, no matter how sharp, are likely to do that. The movements of pieces of paper do not change biology. All they certify is that government authorities expect everyone to pretend that a man is a woman. No ‘naked emperor’ fable is more naked than that we are expected to ignore the obvious sex of a man or woman because ideological fashion or government tell us that a man is a woman

A woman confronted with a naked man might, the likely ladies, point out, not be aware that he possesses a certificate which makes him a woman. 

“This is so especially when the distinction does not track physical appearance or presentation, and the woman is unlikely to have any information about the GRC at the point at which her objection might be raised.”

And if six foot tall men with beards who possess a certificate saying that they are women can use the ladies shower or show up to a rape counselling session, then what’s the basis for discriminating against six-foot-tall bearded men who forgot their ‘woman card’ at home?

The ruling therefore continues that “a service-provider is required to provide services previously limited to women also to trans women with a GRC even if they present as biological men, it is difficult to see how they can then justify refusing to provide those services also to biological men and who also look like biological men.” If you’re going to let Bob in, who has a GRC, what’s the reason for not letting in Steve, who doesn’t have a GRC, but looks just like Bob does?

Are women really supposed to be more comfortable with Bob because he has a piece of paper? (A piece of paper that he doesn’t even have to display on demand to prove he’s a ‘woman’.)

Sex, in short, is not a Monty Python routine in which GRC certificates and other bureaucratic paraphernalia determine reality. If the single-sex accommodations provided for by British law actually exist, then they have to be limited to women or the whole thing becomes a farce.

And that’s what the transgender movement has done by insisting that sex is a state of mind.

Scottish and other authorities had tried to pretend that a man is a woman by virtue of a certificate while the Supreme Court countered that “this would undermine the very considerations of privacy and decency between the sexes both in the availability of communal sleeping accommodation and in the use of sanitary facilities.” The demands for single sex privacy are not based on government certificates and can’t be fixed with them. A government certified woman is still a man and anyone who thinks otherwise is positively certifiable.

“Interpreting ‘sex’ as certificated sex would cut across the definitions of ‘man’ and ‘woman'” and be entirely absurd when applied to “pregnancy and maternity”.

Sex, an earlier British court might have said, is assigned by God, not by government certificates.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson of the United States Supreme Court was unable to define what is a woman, pathetically replying, “I am not a biologist.” Her far better qualified British counterparts appear to have overcome her handicap with biology and have defined what is a woman.

In the era of a thousand genders blooming in soy latte joints, the UK Supreme Court heretically insisted that “the concept of sex is binary, a person is either a woman or a man.”

Ketanji could learn from the court’s lesson in elementary biology and sanity.

In the throes of cultural insanity in the year 2025, the UK Supreme Court is forced to point out that “the meaning of the terms ‘sex’, ‘man’ and ‘woman’…is biological and not certificated sex.”

A century ago the notion of a government issuing certificates to men that they are really women on demand would have been imagined only as the grossest satire, but now a court ruling affirming reality is a vital and courageous statement that defies the dictates of the establishment.

As a certain Briton variously named Eric or more famously George once wrote, “we have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.” The existence of men and women has become one of those obvious things that must be restated.

J.R.R. Tolkien once said that “cellar door” is the most beautiful word in the English language. There is something even more simple and beautiful about the pure logical words in which the court states that “the ordinary meaning of those plain and unambiguous words corresponds with the biological characteristics that make an individual a man or a woman. These are assumed to be self-explanatory and to require no further explanation.” And thus it should have been always.

If beauty is truth and truth is beauty, then this is a beautiful ruling. It’s also beautiful to the women who fought long and hard to be recognized as members of a sex whose identity is innate, not bestowed on them by the ideological biases of a government agency. What is ultimately at stake in the debate over the definition of a woman is our individual humanity.

By reaffirming the existence of women, a lord and two ladies of entirely determinable sex have also reaffirmed the unwavering humanity of all men and women. 

Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine. Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation.  Thank you for reading.

 

 

Chuck Schumer a Likely Casualty of the Democrat Civil War

The party is broken – and once-integral cogs in the machine are slated for replacement.

by Graham J Noble | Apr 24, 2025 @ Liberty Nation News, Tags: Articles, Opinion, Politics

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has now perhaps become the most high-profile victim of the Democratic Party’s civil war – with less emphasis on the “civil.” A new breed of zealous progressives has been extending its influence over the party for at least the last decade, and President Donald Trump’s 2024 victory may have been the last straw for this radical faction. Schumer suddenly finds himself widely unpopular, and that may well bring an end to his leadership role and maybe even his political career.

The five-term senator has been trying to keep up with his party’s leftward drift. He has made a few less-than-convincing efforts to play the rabble-rouser at staged public protests against the Trump agenda – both recently and during Trump’s first White House term. But he is neither young nor cool, and that seems to be what Democrats are aiming for these days. Gov. Tim Walz also tried to pull off that act on the campaign trail as Kamala Harris’ running mate. Clearly, few were buying it, with predictable results.

Beginning of the End

The fall of Chuck Schumer began in March when he backed a continuing resolution that congressional Republicans negotiated with President Trump to avoid a government shutdown. After the vote, Trump took a victory lap and even praised Schumer for his last-minute support.

For the rising progressive disruptors, no cooperation with Trump is acceptable. Although it seemed clear that, this time around, Democrats wouldn’t be able to pass the blame for a shutdown, Schumer’s decision was seen as something of a betrayal.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) has announced her intention to challenge Schumer in 2028, and as things stand, she is in a strong position to deal Senate Democrats’ top dog a primary defeat. A late-March Data for Progress survey of more than 31,700 likely New York Democratic primary voters put AOC at 55% and Schumer at just 36%.

Rep. Ro Khanna, a progressive congressman from California, told CNN’s Dana Bash during a March appearance on the network that several House Democrats encouraged Ocasio-Cortez to challenge Schumer in the next general election. “When a company isn’t doing well you don’t keep the same team,” Khanna observed, without saying whether he was one of the Democrats he claims are backing AOC.

Schumer Touts His Judges

The growing rift within the Democratic Party – and the threat to the old guard – is not lost on senior elected officials, including Schumer. Perhaps attempting to maintain his standing, the senator from New York is touting the avalanche of legal obstructions to the Trump agenda.

Since Inauguration Day, almost every action taken by the Trump administration has met a legal challenge, and almost every one lands on the desk of a judge appointed by either Barack Obama or Joe Biden. With a few exceptions, these judges have issued some form of injunction to stop or delay the administration’s moves. It’s judicial activism on steroids, and Schumer is taking the credit. Appearing on PBS recently, the senator said the quiet part out loud – to borrow a now-popular turn of phrase. He admitted that the furious pace of appointing federal judges while he, Schumer, led the Senate during the Biden administration was driven by the Democrats’ desire to block Trump at every turn.

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“We did put 235 judges, progressive judges, judges not under the control of Trump, last year on the bench, and they are ruling against Trump time after time after time,” Schumer told PBS News Hour’s Geoff Bennett.

Your News – How You Like It!

Still, Schumer’s part in attempting to hijack the district and appellate court system to thwart the current president may not be enough to save him. A new Siena College survey gives Schumer a 39% favorability rating against an unfavorable rating of 49%. It is the first time this poll has shown a net unfavorable score for Schumer – and 10 points underwater isn’t merely a bad week.

It seems all signs are pointing to a new dawn for the Democratic Party – but the old establishment will not be making it to breakfast. Schumer’s number two in the Senate, Dick Durbin (D-IL), announced on April 23 that he would not seek re-election after serving in the upper chamber for nearly three decades. His final term will end in January 2027, so he won’t be around when (or if) Schumer launches a re-election bid. It seems that Joe Biden and Donald Trump – between them but in very different ways – finally broke the old Democratic Party. No one is too sure what it will look like when the pieces are put back together.

~

Liberty Nation does not endorse candidates, campaigns, or legislation, and this presentation is no endorsement.

Read More From Graham J Noble Chief Political Correspondent & Satirist

Pope Francis Was No Friend Of The Poor

April 23, 2025 Francis Menton @ Manhattan Contrarian

Pope Francis passed away two days ago, on Easter Monday. He had been the leader of the Catholic Church for just over 12 years. He presented himself as a well-intentioned and deeply religious man, none of which I ever doubted. But good intentions are the paving stones of the road to hell. I often tried to find some positive things about Francis so that I could admire him. But unfortunately I think that his overall impact on the world and on the church was overwhelmingly negative.

Thinking that he was working to uplift the poor and downtrodden of the world, Francis accepted all the most destructive prescriptions of the international Left. I’m sorry, but I don’t find that acceptable in a man claiming to be a major religious leader and asserting moral authority to tell others how to lead a good life. After a century and more of the destructive horrors of socialism, people in major leadership roles in society have a responsibility to learn about that and understand it and not continue to spread it. Even with the Soviet Union long gone, Cuba and North Korea and Venezuela and China are still out there to observe. We have a responsibility to know about them — why they fail, why they perpetuate poverty, why their people suffer. Supposedly good intentions have long since ceased to be a sufficient excuse for ignorance of something so important.

In general, Francis embraced the collectivist view of economic relations. He began with advocating generosity and compassion toward the poor, but then took that to the next step and asserted the Marxist principle that private property is essentially theft. This is from his 2020 Encyclical “Fratelli Tutti” (We Are All Brothers):

119. In the first Christian centuries, a number of thinkers developed a universal vision in their reflections on the common destination of created goods. This led them to realize that if one person lacks what is necessary to live with dignity, it is because another person is detaining it. Saint John Chrysostom summarizes it in this way: “Not to share our wealth with the poor is to rob them and take away their livelihood. The riches we possess are not our own, but theirs as well.”

In multiple places, Francis blamed the ills of the world on what he called “unfettered” or “unbridled” capitalism, and asserted that the poverty of poor countries was caused by pursuit of money in rich countries. As an example, here is a piece in the Guardian from 2015 reporting on a speech that Francis had given in Bolivia:

Unbridled capitalism is the “dung of the devil,” says Pope Francis. . . . Quoting a fourth century bishop, he called the unfettered pursuit of money “the dung of the devil,” and said poor countries should not be reduced to being providers of raw material and cheap labour for developed countries. . . . [Francis] said he supported their efforts to obtain “so elementary ad undeniably necessary a right as that of the three ‘Ls’: land, lodging and labour.”

If Francis ever recognized the critical role of private property in enabling the poor to lift themselves up out of poverty, I can’t find it anywhere.

Nowhere did Francis go more astray than on the subject of climate change. His 2015 Encyclical “Laudato Si” smacks of Gaia worship and Neo-paganism. It contains essentially every climate-related talking point of the environmental Left, and reads like it was ghostwritten for the Pope by Greenpeace. The Encyclical basically accepts the entire climate scam uncritically, perhaps most importantly the piece about climate change disproportionately harming the poor. Francis never figured out that expensive energy harms the poor far more than a degree of temperature one way or the other ever possibly could. Excerpt:

Climate change is a global problem with grave implications: environmental, social, economic, political and for the distribution of goods. It represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day. Its worst impact will probably be felt by developing countries in coming decades. Many of the poor live in areas particularly affected by phenomena related to warming, and their means of subsistence are largely dependent on natural reserves and ecosystemic services such as agriculture, fishing and forestry. They have no other financial activities or resources which can enable them to adapt to climate change or to face natural disasters, and their access to social services and protection is very limited.

Most recently, Francis had decided to weigh in in a big way on the issue of mass migration — and once again, he picked the wrong side. On January 21, shortly after President Trump’s second inauguration, Pope Francis reportedly sent him a congratulatory message, but at the same time called Trump’s plans for large-scale deportations of illegal aliens a “disgrace.” Axios reported on that day that Francis condemned “deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution or serious deterioration of the environment ... .”  

In nothing that I can find did Francis ever recognize that there might be any limits to how many migrants America and the EU countries ought to take in. Was his position that once a migrant gets in, however illegally, then we are stuck with that person forever? It seemed never to occur to him that the poverty of the poor countries stems from failure of those places to honor rights in private property and free exchange (otherwise known as “capitalism” — or maybe “unfettered capitalism”).

Cardinals from around the world are now gathering in Rome to select Francis’s successor. Apparently Francis has appointed approximately two-thirds of those who will participate in this process. I hope that these people will have the good sense to back the church away from the woke adventures on which Francis embarked, but I have no confidence that that will occur.

Media Collapse is Inevitable, and it's a Good Morning in America! Print Media, Part XIII

By Rich Kozlovich, Tags:

 

As we watch the Pravda electronic media gasping it's last breaths and with a total lack of self reflection challenging alternative media types by asking if they think they're real journalists. Anyone who proclaims they're from the Pravda media, either electronic or print, is in effect publicly stating:

 

"I'm a corrupt lying brain damaged puppet, which is why for four years I not only covered up Joe Biden's dementia, I vehemently denied it existed.  Also, I arrogantly, and smugly ridiculed any who dared to question it, and I did it with a smirk!"

 

But the left will always be the left, and they're now trying to rewrite and twist the history of the Biden presidency, but it just ain't playing well.  There's a new sheriff in town, and things are changing, and he's gonna make-em pay!

 

Trump is suing CBS for $20 billion over an interview with Kamala Harris that he claims was deceptively edited. CNN reports that execs at Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS, have discussed a settlement in hopes of winning FCC approval for a proposed merger with Skydance Media, but the court battle is ongoing for now. (More 60 Minutes stories.)

 

Finally an adult has decided it's time for 60 minutes to start dealing in facts, not opinions.   The result?  The Executive Producer Resigns whining.  A producer who John Nolte called a documented serial liar.  And Nolte goes on the list the number of names that are crashing or out the door, and it's impressive saying:

 

And so, we can now add Bill Owens to our ever-growing list of Regime Media elites who have committed career suicide or just plain given up due to Trump Derangement Syndrome — Yes, 20 self-deportations:

1. Ruth Marcus – Washington Post columnist resigns.
2. 538 – Disney/ABC’s wildly biased polling site shutters.
3. Paul Krugman – Always wrong New York Times columnist forced out.
4. Jim Acosta – CNN anchor forced out.
5. Norah O’Donnell – Failed CBS anchor out.
6. Chuck Todd – NBC’s former Meet the Press host DEI’d out.
7. Andrea Mitchell – NBC harridan ages out of job.
8. Chris Wallace – Son of Someone out at CNN.
9. Joy Reid – Racist MSNBC anchor too racist for MSNBC. Fired.
10. Neil Cavuto – Fox News anchor scurries away.
11. Alex Wagner – Demoted at MSNBC.
12. Ayman Mohyeldin – Lost MSNBC show.
13. Olivia Nuzzi – Out at New York Mag for allegedly stalking RFK Jr.
14. Katie Phang – Lost MSNBC show.
15. Jonathan Capehart – Lost MSNBC show. Steps down from Washington Post editorial board.
16. Lester Holt – Out as NBC Nightly News anchor.
17. One-third of New York Times Editorial Board – Say, bye.
18. Eugene Robinson – Washington Post columnist quits in snit.
19. Ryan Lizza – Scurries to Substack over credible misconduct allegations.
20. Bill Owens —60 Minutes chief resigns in crybaby disgrace.

The New York Times, with "All the News That's Fit to Print" motto, commonly called 'The Gray Lady", is not a lady, but a hag, and will always be the journalistic sewer it has been for the entire 20th century, and it will never change, and is still a hag.  

1.  Report: NYT Journalist Has Regrets over Kavanaugh Coverage
2. Charles Blow, Journalism’s Clunkiest DIE Hire, Out at the New York Times
3.  NYT piece is oozing with fear.
4.  New York Magazine crops black people out of Trump inauguration party photo, then reports "almost everyone is white"

On the other hand the L.A. Times heard the alarm clock and now they're really "woke". Woke up that is.  Legacy media giant reportedly shifting resources from left-wing paper to promote…a conservative press.  The publisher refused to allow his newspaper.... remember it's his newspaper.... to endorse Kamala Harris.  Why? Because it was clear she was in no way qualified to be President of the United State and he'd had enough, and demanded they print news, not their opinions.  And many quit.  

But the Washington Post is the best story regarding that kind of transformation.  

• So, is Jeff Bezos really seeing the light? - Suddenly, the post-Trump Post will turn its opinions page toward ‘personal liberties’ and ‘free markets.’  Speaking of “free markets,” some outlets (WaPo, MSNBC, L.A. Times, etc.) are shelving their most radical leftists in favor of more consumer-friendly material.  While I don’t believe for a minute that Jeff Bezos has had a come-to-Jesus, road-to-Damascus epiphany, I do believe that he’s recognized that his paper’s hard-left whackadoodle opinions ran afoul of normal, everyday Americans, and therefore posed a long-term drag on his paper’s fortunes.

Bezos is reshaping the paper's opinion section, and the editor quit, and staff reject liberty and free markets. Someone named Jen Rubin left WaPo in order to make her living continuing to belittling Trump, and is being joined by other WaPo staff.  People  I never heard of, just like Ruth Marcus.   I'm betting the vast majority of America never heard of any of them.   Well, good luck with that, if WaPo couldn't make money spewing out their views, why would they think they can make money away from WaPo spewing out their views?   Perhaps they need to start practicing saying, "Welcome to McDonalds."

So, is Jeff Bezos really seeing the light? - Suddenly, the post-Trump Post will turn its opinions page toward ‘personal liberties’ and ‘free markets.’  Speaking of “free markets,” some outlets (WaPo, MSNBC, L.A. Times, etc.) are shelving their most radical leftists in favor of more consumer-friendly material.  While I don’t believe for a minute that Jeff Bezos has had a come-to-Jesus, road-to-Damascus epiphany, I do believe that he’s recognized that his paper’s hard-left whackadoodle opinions ran afoul of normal, everyday Americans, and therefore posed a long-term drag on his paper’s fortunes.

Of course the staff was outraged, who does he think he is?  Well, “there is nothing less tolerant than a leftist scorned.” 

Here’s my take regarding his road to Damascus conversion. Believe it or not, I think this a schadenfreude moment for Bezos.  He’s a nerd who never dreamed of ever being a major center of attention in the world, and he likes it. So, he’s not going to do anything that will diminish that.  He has new hottie on his arm he’s calling his fiance, working out to try and have a new look, and now a new position at the table that affirms he's important.  

 

I have no doubt, given the self righteous arrogance leftists spewed out over all this, he was smugly looked down on by the hired help. He knew it!  He resented it!  And now he’s made it clear: They’re the nobodies. They’re just hired help, and they don’t count!  Only he counts, and that’s what he really believes in.  My view of Bezos?   You wouldn’t want to go into battle with Bezos, or for Bezos.  

 

Final thought.  No matter what's unfolding now, know the corporate media will never reform, no matter what shifts they may be taking now.  The Pravda media is arrogant, overpaid, under smart, and they lie constantly!   That's the history of the media from time immemorial. They have history, and it's ugly.   One has to wonder if the Pravda media even sane?   Perhaps we should ask if they're not only insane, but are they treasonous?  

 

 "Treason is an ugly word and an even uglier crime. In simple language treason is the act of betraying one’s country to those who would destroy it and enslave its people. This definition is so simple that leftwing sophisticated journalists sneer at it. To them treason is merely relative with one country’s traitor being another country’s hero. This is the appalling moral and intellectual state of current Western journalism. The moral rot runs so deep that one despairs of living long enough to see any improvement." Gerard Jackson 

Historically, that's the centuries long foundationally social paradigm of the media at it's core, and any improvement is merely a temporary blip on the radar.  It's never gonna change.