Friday, April 4, 2025
Thought For the Day
Crooked Cory Won’t Shut Up
By Daniel Greenfield @ Sultan Knish Blog
Sen. Cory Booker’s 25-hour
congressional floor rant is being hailed as a major achievement, but
nobody has ever questioned Booker’s ability to talk endlessly. It’s his
greatest talent.
That and making other people’s money disappear.
The
25 hours of rambling summed up everything wrong with Booker as a
politician and a man. Booker and his media allies tried to bill it as a
filibuster, but it wasn’t because the senator from New Jersey wasn’t
trying to fight an actual piece of legislation, just calling attention
to himself.
Booker claimed that he was blocking the usual
business of the Senate, but the only thing he was slowing down was the
nomination of various officials, including Harmeet Dhillon for Assistant
Attorney General, Matthew Whitaker as the representative to NATO, and
Dean Sauer for the Solicitor General. In his 25 hours and 4 minutes,
Booker did not actually have much to say about Sauer, Dhillon or
Whitaker (who won his confirmation by 52-45 despite Booker’s ‘nay’
vote).
Cory Booker made a point of trying to break the record of
Strom Thurmond’s filibuster of the Civil Rights Act. Except that was an
actual filibuster of actual legislation. Booker pretended that just
running out the clock by talking for an hour longer than Thurmond was in
and of itself an accomplishment.
Why did Booker actually ramble for 25 hours in the Senate? To run for president.
As
stunts go, this was the most obvious one yet. Booker’s next Senate
election is in 2026, but he has a campaign page up which claims that “he
cannot stay quiet and complacent while Donald Trump and Elon Musk
shatter constitutional checks and balances” and urges, “Stand with Cory
by making a donation today.” But his obvious long-term goal is 2028.
There’s
a problem with Booker’s presidential aspirations. And it’s not just
that every time he speaks, he reminds everyone of an unsuccessful Obama.
It’s his corrupt track record.
While
Booker was boring the Senate, one of the staffers for the militant gun
control politician was being arrested by the U.S. Capitol Police for
carrying a gun without a license. The last time Booker ran for
president, he proposed a federal gun licensing program for all gun
owners that would expire and need to be renewed every five years.
Presumably his staffers are exempt.
Like Obama, you’re expected
to believe in Booker as a transformative politician, but even Obama knew
better than to massively defraud his donors before running for
president.
In 2010, Cory Booker, then mayor of Newark, went on
Oprah with Mark Zuckerberg. The Facebook boss wrote a $100 million check
to fix Newark’s schools. The money famously disappeared, including some
$20 million spent on consultants, some who were being paid $1,000 a
day, and grades actually declined. But millions were spent on polling
and focus groups.
“MZ’s money is not going in to classrooms,” a
Booker aide admitted in an email that was only released after a lawsuit
by the ACLU.
But what happened next was even more blatantly corrupt.
After burning through Zuckerberg’s $100 million, Cory Booker turned to Oprah and Dot Com donors to raise millions for Waywire,
a company that was supposed to be a “progressive” version of YouTube.
Waywire employed Booker’s Senate campaign social media consultant and
gave a board seat to the 15-year-old son of CNN boss Jeff Zucker.
As Freedom Center Investigates reported,
Waywire failed miserably and Booker sold his stock to the parent
company of FOX News, and donated shares of Yandex, Russia’s top search
engine, linked to Putin. (In his 25-hour rant and previously, Booker had
accused Trump of ties to Russia.) Waywire ended up with a Ukrainian
owner and no longer exists. Neither do Booker’s donors.
Booker
had burned through Silicon Valley cash through such blatant schemes that
his presidential campaign failed to launch. The big money just was not
there.
In the 2020 race, Booker didn’t qualify for the debate and
was left begging for money before dropping out. “It’s working,” he told
the media about his campaign “it’s not translating to people choosing
me in the polls.” That is as good a ‘Bookerism’ as any other.
But somehow neither of these two grifts represented Sen. Cory Booker at his very worst.
That would be the Newark Water Group.
During
his fake filibuster, Sen. Cory Booker bragged to the media that he had
gotten through it by “curbing his water intake”. Sadly, that was not the
case at the nonprofit tasked with managing the Newark water authority
where he appointed his political allies who stole millions “through kickbacks and outright embezzlement, bogus contracts, risky investments and excessive pay”.
Money
went to Booker’s law firm which was still paying him and contractors
contributed to his political campaign. The agency’s executive director,
who went to prison after taking nearly a million in kickbacks, told the
FBI that their job was to raise campaign money for Booker.
Booker
was sued by the reconstructed agency, but his lawyers argued that he’s
immune from lawsuits because he was doing his work as a “public
servant”.
“The consequence of a failure to uphold these
immunities would dissuade an even wider swath of individuals from
seeking to hold public office. This would impoverish our democracy,”
Booker’s attorneys argued.
This little speech about why not
holding a wealthy senator who wrecked a water agency that a minority
community depended on accountable is “vital for democracy” did not make
its way into Cory’s 25-hour speech.
Sen. Cory Booker claimed that
his 25-hour talk was about holding President Trump accountable for
violating democratic norms, but his idea of democratic norms is personal
immunity for his conduct.
In his last financial disclosure,
Booker revealed assets of around $1 million, but reporters know to take
his disclosures with a grain of salt. When he first ran for Senate,
Booker did not reveal his Waywire shares on his disclosure forms and
only admitted it when the media found out about them.
Booker told
the media that his campaign had “met requirements for disclosure and
transparency and we’ve gone above and beyond what most of the—all of the
candidates in this race have submitted to in terms of disclosure.” By
that he meant that his campaign handed the papers to reporters in a
hotel room, didn’t let them make copies, and then demanded them back.
Typical behavior for a politician who has gone above and beyond and has
nothing to hide.
Crooked Cory will talk for 25 hours about
Trump’s money, he won’t talk for even 1 minute about where his money
comes from. But Oprah knows. Mark Zuckerberg knows. And the people of
Newark know
And Linda Watkins Brashear knows. The former director
of the Newark Water Group got out of federal prison last year told the
FBI that contractors were expected to buy $500 tickets to Booker’s
campaign and his allies.
Funny how in 25 hours and 5 years, Booker never found the time to mention it.
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.
Dodging DOGE
By Terry Payne Published on March 26 in The Cherokee Scout
Editor's Note: This is one of the commentaries selected from Robin's weekly newsletter Patriot Neighbors. If you wish to get the full edition, E-mail her at PatriotNeighbors@yahoo.com to get on her list, it's free. RK
Liberals are railing against many of President Trump’s policies. They describe him as a “bully and authoritarian.” Criticisms span from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), to Ukraine, and finish with the Gaza Strip. Following President Donald Trump’s joint address to both houses of Congress, many liberals were nicknamed the Dour O’Crats.
President Trump leads a de facto third party rising from the rotting corpses of the Democrat and Republican Parties, or if you prefer, the Washington D.C. Uniparty. President Trump is destroying these party brands forever. It’s cooler to be a proctologist than a Democrat and Republican Uniparty member nowadays.
Criticisms of Donald Trump and DOGE are simply fine. In a republic, everyone who holds public office, runs for public office, or exercises any form of public responsibility is fair game. As Elon Musk has acknowledged, DOGE has made some mistakes, while trying to take aggressive action in the face of nearly $37 trillion in federal debt. The DOGE audits have uncovered government waste, fraud, and abuse that affects our national security. DOGE has confirmed one universal fact:
“When you trim the fat, pigs squeal.”
However, ad nauseum, in a constant stream of hysterical hand wringing, the absurd anti-Trump “resistance” sounds pointless desperate alarms. The cabal of nitwits expressing trepidation that President Trump is a fascist because he’s “single handedly rewriting the US foreign policy” and simultaneously wailing in unison that Trump is “seizing control of the military” are intentionally ignoring the U.S.Constitution’s, Executive Branch, Article II powers of the president. One of the worst offenders is The View, which Wall Street Journal’s Andy Kessler recently called:
“a gaggle of Greek mythology’s human-tormenting screeching harpies with a TV show.”
DOGE, inferior officer Elon Musk’s, appointment has been ruled constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court under the U.S. Constitution’s Appointments Clause. Congressional approval or legislation isn’t required for Elon Musk’s temporary 18-month appointment by the chief executive. DOGE teams at federal agencies aim to identify spending cuts and “modernize federal technology and software to maximize governmental efficiency and productivity.” DOGE is not coming after your money, they’re coming after the people that are “stealing” your money. Those people are squawking the loudest against DOGE audits. As we acclimate and tune out this meaningless gibbering, President Trump becomes insulated from criticism. Are they both an Ostrich Party and unconscious? No one is making Donald Trump more untouchable than his “critics.” Here’s a quick poll:- Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who deceitfully claimed serving in Vietnam.
- Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who lied about an FBI informant’s account that Vice President Joe Biden accepted a five-million-dollar bribe.
- Adam Schiff (D-CA), who fabricated evidence to destabilize a duly elected president, CNN.
- The Atlantic warns the Trump administration has done something deeply troubling.
Who takes notice? Or are you so bored that you roll your eyes so hard that you nearly pass out?
Imagine you pay for car insurance every month. Then one day, someone rear-ends you, but the insurance company doesn’t help you pay for damages, and instead buys a Rolls Royce for someone who doesn’t have insurance. That’s how we get treated as the American taxpayer. And then the cheaters will call you a racist, fascist, or worse for noticing. DOGE has already identified over $100 billion in wasteful spending and has until July 4, 2026, to conduct its mission.
Let’s review the politicians, policies and programs that liberals voted for on November 5th:
· Voted for the worst presidential candidate in history – dishonest, lazy, and incompetent. Kamala Harris was a walking neon sign for Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI).
- Voted for a political party which is anti-woman, anti-American, anti-peace, and delusional. · Allowed fraud and embezzling of funds for Covid relief aid totaling 10 percent of the disbursed $4.2 trillion by the U.S. government.
- Allocated $42.5 billion to connect people to high-speed internet; but, no one was configured to high-speed internet.
- Allocated $22 billion to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for free housing and cars for illegal aliens.
- The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) granted $20 billion in subsidies to green energy charlatans.
- Allocated $12 billion to the Navy for submarines but not one submarine was built.
- A “popup NGO shell” company, “Climate United Fund,” linked to Democrat Party activists, was awarded with a whopping $6.97 billion grant.
- Allocated $101 million for DEI contracts at the Department of Education.
- Allocated $60 million for Indigenous peoples and Afro-Caribbean empowerment in Central America.
- Allocated $59 million for illegal alien hotel rooms in New York City.
- Allocated $45 million for DEI in Burma.
- Allocated $42 million for social and behavioral change in Uganda.
- Allocated $40 million to improve the social and economic inclusion for sedentary migrants.
- Allocated $32 million for left-wing propaganda in Moldova.
- Allocated $20 million for Arab "Sesame Street" in the Middle East.
- Allocated $14 million for improving public procurement in Serbia.
- Allocated $10 million for male circumcision in Mozambique.
- Allocated $8 million for LGBTQI+ promotion in Lesotho, South Africa.
- Allocated $8 million for making mice transgender.
- The Veterans Administration paid $56,000 to have a “plant contractor” water eight potted plants.
- Hired more than 85,000 new IRS agents to extort money from conservative voters.
- Removed restrictions on billions of Iranian assets and regime sanctions -- the biggest funder of terrorism in the world.
Liberals now control only 20 big hellhole crime ridden cities. The reason they are going the way of the dinosaur is President Trump and his sidekick Elon Musk are killing their income streams.
Tip O’Neill said it best: “Money is the mother’s milk of politics.” Without money a political party or candidate is finished. Democrats, or if you fancy, Dour O’Crats, have just lost all their best sources of income because of President Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE.
Events Around the Nation and The World
By Robin Itzler
Editor's Note: This is one of the commentaries selected from Robin's weekly newsletter Patriot Neighbors. Any cartoons appearing will have been added by me. If you wish to get the full edition, E-mail her at PatriotNeighbors@yahoo.com to get on her list, it's free. RK
Events From Around the Nation:
Florida: Before you rent a U-Haul to leave a blue state with insane leftist politics, consider that some of the “utopia” destinations have their own issues. For example, Florida real estate is not selling because prices have risen along with ever-increasing property taxes and homeowner’s insurance (IF you can get homeowner’s insurance). From Yahoo Finance on March 15:
For-sale inventory in the state has reached the highest levels on record, and homes are staying on the market longer even as peak home buying season kicks off. In many parts of the state, prices are starting to fall. The turning market comes as migration to the Sunshine State slows, and a combination of hurricane fears, rising insurance and tax bills, and a steady supply of new construction has given buyers more leverage.
Maine: You knew it. We knew it. Everyone with gray matter between their ears (so that leaves out liberals) knew that Maine’s progressive Governor Janet Mills would cave about keeping MALES out of FEMALE sports. The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that the Pine Tree State agreed to keep transgenders out of female sports … so they could keep federal funds coming their way. To share your thoughts with Gov. Mills:
Email: Click here Phone: 207-287-3531 Write: 1 State House Station Augusta, ME 04333
Minnesota: Republicans want Trump Derangement Syndrome accepted as a mental illness: “TDS means the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction the policies and presidencies of President Donald J. Trump. Symptoms may include Trump-induced general hysteria, which produces an inability to distinguish between legitimate policy differences and signs of psychic pathology in President Donald J. Trump’s behavior.”
Read Elon Musk “DOGE” Modern-Day Robin Hood by Katherine Daigle.
Palestine, New Jersey: Its official name might be Paterson, but for all intent and purposes, the city is PALESTINE, New Jersey. This police officer revealed how the city has become an Arab city, not an American city. He is wearing the Gaza/Palestinian flag on his official UNIFORM. His patrol car highlights it is pro Gaza/Palestinian.
Outside of work, the police officers can wear whatever they want, but on their POLICE UNIFORM? Mayor Andre Sayegh fully agrees with this police officer as he has publicly stated:
"Paterson is the capital of Palestine in the United States of America."
"Paterson is the fourth holiest city in the world: Jerusalem, Mecca, Medina, and then Paterson, New Jersey.”
If the once blue-collar city of Paterson, New Jersey can become Gaza, it can happen anywhere in the United States. Maybe even to YOUR city. To share your thoughts with Mayor Sayegh that the only flag on an American police uniform should be the flag of the United States of America:
Email: feedback@patersonnj.gov Phone: 973-321-1600 Write: Paterson City Hall 155 Market Street Paterson, NJ 07505
Click here to watch the two-minute interview with the police officer.
Events from around the World
Hungary: Oy vey! What should we do when a Jewish person seizes the word “deportation,” as in the Trump administration is deporting criminals in vicious gangs, and connects it to the Nazis deporting innocent Jewish men, women and children? Hungarian pianist Andras Schiff has stupidly announced he will not play in the United States during Donald Trump’s presidency because ...
“My family, my Jewish family, was deported — some to Auschwitz, and some to other concentration camps.”
Japan: If you think the relatively homogenous Japanese culture is immune from the mentally ill trans syndrome, you will want to read this Savvy Tokyo article. “LGBTQ+ in Japan: Women Dating Women.”
Trump Axes Globalization With Sweeping Tariffs
Happy Liberation Day to all who observed.
By | Apr 3, 2025 @ Liberty Nation News, Tags: Articles, Economic Affairs News, Opinion, Politics
In the classic 1924 Giacomo Puccini opera Turandot, the famous “Nessun Dorma” aria concludes, “At dawn, I will win! I will win! I will win!” It was not at dawn, but President Donald Trump did declare victory against the globalist machine when he unveiled the contours of his sweeping tariffs. At an April 2 White House Rose Garden event, the president released details of his long-awaited pursuit of reciprocity.
New Tariffs Are in Town
President Trump will impose a universal baseline tariff of 10% on all imports, effective April 5 at 12:01 a.m. Higher but discounted reciprocal tariff rates will be implemented on countries making the “worst offenders” list; those will go into effect on April 9 at 12:01 a.m. Soon after his speech, Trump signed an executive order to begin the process of enacting tariffs. “Reciprocal. That means they do it to us, and we do it to them. Very simple. Can’t get any simpler than that,” he said.
The trade measures go beyond just tariffs. Trump and senior administration officials emphasized that non-monetary trade barriers – currency manipulation, government subsidies, import restrictions, domestic tax policy, and other pillars restricting US goods – played a significant role in assigning rates to countries worldwide.
The Trump team estimates that these barriers cost the US industry tens of billions of dollars annually. “Monetary tariffs and non-monetary tariffs are two distinct types of trade barriers that governments use to regulate imports and exports,” the White House said in a fact sheet. “President Trump is countering both through reciprocal tariffs to protect American workers and industries from these unfair practices.”
So, while the rest of the world will endure an across-the-board levy, major US trading partners will be hit with two-, three-, or four-times higher rates. The most notable ones were Cambodia (49%), Vietnam (46%), China (34%), India (26%), Japan (24%), and the European Union (20%). Of course, several small countries were dinged on the head with enormous reciprocal tariffs, including Lesotho (50%), Madagascar (47%), the Falkland Islands (41%), and Liechtenstein (37%).
Trump did follow through on previous comments that he would be “flexible” and “lenient” when designing this comprehensive tariff strategy. “We will charge them approximately half of what they are and have been charging us,” said the president at the press conference. “So, the tariffs will not be a full reciprocal.”
His latest round of tariffs was made possible by declaring a
national emergency through the International Emergency Economic Powers
Act (IEEPA). This 1977 law authorizes the chief executive to enact trade
restrictions on foreign countries, primarily through tariffs. Trump
invoked this act in February when he slapped import duties on Canada,
Mexico, and China based on drug and illegal immigration issues. The US
Senate passed a resolution to end the national emergency declared to
imposed these tariffs hours after the president’s speech, with one
Republican not voting and four others joining all the Democrats to
achieve a 51-48 majority. It was, however, essentially a symbolic vote,
as it’s unlikely the GOP-controlled House would follow suit.
Canada and Mexico were spared from the Liberation Day announcement. However, the country’s North American neighbors will still be punished under the previous 25% tariff regime due to illicit drug and illegal immigration flows. In addition, previous Section 232 measures, such as tariffs on foreign automobiles, car parts, steel, and aluminum, will not be subjected to these latest actions.
While the White House stopped short of providing revenue projections, one official was bullish on his expectations. In a recent Fox News interview, Peter Navarro, the president’s senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, predicted the US government would collect $6 trillion in tariff revenue over the next ten years. This assumes that current global trade flows remain the same.
Wall Street Panics
US stocks finished the April 2 trading session in positive territory. However, the leading benchmark averages started tanking minutes into Trump’s press conference. Following his announcement, the tech-driven Nasdaq Composite Index crashed as much as 4.5%. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average tanked 1,100 points, and the broader S&P 500 erased 3%.
Government bond yields plummeted, with the benchmark ten-year falling toward the 4% mark. The US Dollar Index (DXY) cratered 0.7%. US crude oil prices fell below $70. Bitcoin dropped about 2%. Gold was the only asset that extended its gains, as the precious metal inched toward $3,200 per ounce. However, in the metals market, silver and copper fell.
Investors were hoping for two things ahead of the blueprint’s unveiling: a better-than-expected plan and clarity. One analyst suggested that traders received neither. “What was delivered was as haphazard as anything this administration has done to date, and the level of complication on top of the ultimate level of new tariffs is worse than had been feared and not yet priced into the market,” said Art Hogan, the chief market strategist at B. Riley Wealth Management, to CNBC.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent shrugged off the after-hours trading results, uttering a terrific line that will grace the pages of business publications for weeks to come. “The Nasdaq peaked on DeepSeek day, so that’s a Mag 7 problem, not a MAGA problem,” he said. Nice.
The Reaction
Bessent delivered a message to the world: Don’t. In an interview with CNN, the seasoned hedge fund billionaire urged countries not to retaliate with countermeasures. “Let’s see where this goes because if you retaliate, that’s how we get escalation,” he said. “Doing anything rash would be unwise.”
It might be too early for nations to issue responses. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo confirmed earlier in the day that she would not reply with tit-for-tat retaliation. The Vietnamese government pre-emptively slashed tariffs across a diverse array of US goods. India said it is considering lowering tariffs on half of US products entering the South Asian country. Israel vowed to abolish remaining levies on US imports.
Conversely, China threatened resolute countermeasures. In a statement published by the Ministry of Commerce, officials said the government “expressed strong dissatisfaction and clear opposition” and that “China urges the U.S. to properly resolve differences with trading partners through equal dialogue.”
The White House later clarified to reporters that the 34% tariff rate on China is on top of the existing 20% import duties. So, if you do your calculations and carry the one, Beijing will be slammed with a true tariff rate of 54%.
Upending Global Trade
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who vowed countermeasures, conveyed to reporters that Trump’s reciprocal tariffs will “fundamentally change the global trading system.” This is what the 47th president of the United States is banking on.
Liberation Day was about more than tariffs. The much-anticipated date on the calendar was the US “declaring economic independence,” marking a turning point for decades-long globalization. Perhaps historians will examine the time as the start of transforming global trade and rekindling the flame of free trade.
“For decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike,” Trump said. “Foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories, and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once beautiful American dream. We had an American Dream that you don’t hear so much about.”
A key part of his remarks was about how the public will hear grievances from globalists, outsourcers, special interests, and the fake news over the coming days. He urged the American people to ignore their thoughts. Why? “They were wrong about NAFTA [North American Free Trade Agreement],” he said. “[T]hey were wrong about China. They were wrong about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which would have been a disaster if I didn’t terminate it.” Economists will debate the veracity of these comments, but the Trump administration will point to towns destroyed by shuttered factories, plants, and mills.
Trumponomics
Trump has championed the same pro-tariff message since an appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s program nearly four decades ago, espousing that what has been going on is not free trade. Well, years later, the real estate billionaire mogul can declare victory against the elite. But will he usher in an oft-spouted “new golden age” that will create prosperity for all? It took many years for the United States to reach this point, so it could take as many years to eradicate the odor of globalization.
Liberty Nation does not endorse candidates, campaigns, or legislation, and this presentation is no endorsement.
Are Dems Stealing Votes Again?
There are strange results in PA
Joe Fried CPA Mar 30, 2025 @ Joe Fried CPA Election Central
Election analyst Seth Keshel recently issued an alarm. Keshel reported the surprising results of a special election that was held this month in the 36th Pennsylvania State Senate District (near Philadelphia). It appears likely that Democrats are engaged in wholesale cheating — again!
I say “again” because massive cheating in Pennsylvania took place during the 2020 election. That cheating involved over 100,000 ballots for which there were no registered voters. The subterfuge was analyzed and documented, but never rebutted. Details are available in an article I published in September and in an earlier, more detailed account.
The results in the 36th District should be a wake-up call to all voters concerned about election integrity — especially Republican voters. The 36th district, which lies entirely within Lancaster County, had 19% more registered Republicans than Democrats in November 2024, but in the recent special election the Republican candidate lost by a slim 482 votes.
According to a volunteer group called “Audit the Vote Pennsylvania,” the Republican candidate (Josh Parsons) received 816 fewer mail votes than GOP mail ballots that were completed and returned. On the other hand, the Democrat candidate (James Malone) “wound up with 1,745 more mail votes than Democrats who returned ballots....”
Those results could happen only if large numbers of Republicans decided to vote for the Democrat candidate.
Are we to believe that the Republicans in Lancaster County are unhappy that Republicans in Washington have closed the southern border? Or that Elon Musk is eliminating billions of dollars of waste? Or that men won’t be able to play in female sports? Polls show that a huge percentage of Republicans support those changes.
It also appears that Parson was a very acceptable candidate, as shown by this statement made by Seth Keshel:
“...Parson has been elected multiple times by the same voters in Lancaster County, and in November 2023, an off-year election, had the most votes ever for his position.”
For these and other reasons, Keshel wonders if “votes are being tossed in the trash.” So do I.
I highly recommend Keshel’s article, which is found here.
Government agency Stockholm Syndrome
Brainwashing writ large
Michael D. Shaw Apr 03, 2025 @ Mike's Point of View
|
The phenomenon has been explained as a sort of combination of the survival instinct, and gratitude that their lives have been spared. This gratitude can cause the victims to magnify small acts of kindness amid otherwise horrible conditions as good treatment. This distortion, in turn, morphs into the victims empathizing with the captors, making psychological links between the captors’ happiness and their own.
This empathy can quickly turn into hatred for police or other authorities, who might threaten the captive/captor relationship. And, this sort of brainwashing occurs quickly indeed, given the relatively short time frame of the Stockholm incident.
Interestingly, the American Psychiatric Association does not include Stockholm Syndrome in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)—although the seemingly related post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is included.
Indeed, the public has quite a conflicted attitude toward this sort of thing. On the one hand, virtually everyone was quick to blame the 1978 Jonestown mass suicides on 900 people being “brainwashed” by Jim Jones. On the other hand, a jury refused to accept that former hostage Patricia Hearst was anything but a willing participant in the 1974 Hibernia Bank robbery, along with other members of the so-called Symbionese Liberation Army.
Compare all this to the anguished cries of (mostly) leftists, who bemoan the fat-trimming currently underway at numerous government agencies. Among these, thousands of layoffs have been announced at the Department of Health and Human Services, including positions in the FDA and NIH.
You will notice that no one is making any sort of argument based on what a great job these agencies have been doing. Rather, the arguments describe generic functions of the positions or departments being cut, as if their mere existence establishes how excellent they must be. Additionally, the fact that the public has been paying through the nose must make the agencies all the more valuable.
Yet, the overall state of American health is abysmal, so why continue in this manner? Simple. Many of us are Addicted to the Process.
Many of us are also afraid to ask the hard questions: Who is responsible for the catastrophic failure of the government’s response to COVID? Why has our military not won a war since 1945? Why is there so much fraud, waste, and abuse in government agencies? Why—until very recently—do we tolerate massive trade imbalances?
Sure, some Beltway Bandits and corrupt politicians have been making money on all the graft, but too many “useful idiots” are defending the status quo. And, in this manifestation of the Stockholm Syndrome, the victims have been captives for all of their adult lives.
Thursday, April 3, 2025
P&D Geopolitical Edition
As is well known Hamas launched a surprise attack against an unarmed defenseless civilian population performing vile acts on men, women, and children, even baking a baby alive in an oven and filming it to the great pleasure of Gazans. They initially attacked wearing some form of uniform, but as soon as they became the targets they dumped those uniforms as they had no desire to have a standup fight with armed and trained military personnel. Killing defenseless men, women and children is so much easier.
Now it's a war of attrition, and some are questioning who will survive, Hamas or Israel? Get real, Hamas is doomed in Gaza, and even the Gazans are marching against them. Not in favor of Israel mind you, just in favor of their own self interests, they would still dance in the streets if more coffins with dead Israeli hostages were paraded through the streets. There are no innocents in Gaza, and in spite of Hamas claims 70% of casualties have been women and children, that's another lie, it turns out "72% of casualties are male, a demographic that aligns with Hamas combatants."
In Turkey President Erdogan arrested his political opponent in the upcoming election and Erdogan's regime has taking on all the ear marks of the Iranian model of government, and an awful lot of people are really unhappy about that, triggering massive demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands of people, as the author goes on to say:
The arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, the leading political rival of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on corruption charges — after being accused of both corruption and terrorism — marks yet another sign that Turkey is becoming the next Iran: A state where elections are tightly controlled, rigged in advance and reduced to a democratic façade without free and fair campaign conditions.
Turkey’s Islamist ruler has not yet established an official Turkish equivalent of Iran’s Guardian Council — a 12-member body that vets all candidates in elections and disqualifies those who pose a perceived threat to the mullah regime. However, the arrest of İmamoğlu, following the earlier imprisonment of popular Kurdish political leader Selahattin Demirtaş, who has been in jail since 2016, confirms that a de facto Guardian Council is taking shape in Turkey.
Turkey is becoming a state where elections are tightly controlled, rigged in advance, and reduced to a democratic façade without free and fair campaign conditions.
Notice the pattern playing out here worldwide. Erdogan weaponized the justice system, wants to rewrite their constitution eliminating their legislative structure to install him as the absolute ruler, a "theocratic dictator".
While there may be some validity to charges of corruption against İmamoglu, corruption is so wide spread in Turkey's political sphere that would be expected, but it's only allowed for those who support Erdogan.
Anything said by Erdogan that may sound reasonable and conciliatory, is simply not to be taken seriously. Remember, Iran is the model for what Erdogan is doing, and just like Khomeini who talked about bringing democracy to Iran and had no desire to become Iran's ruler, it was a deliberate lie. A lie that was reported by a gullible media, after all they really liked the idea the pro-American government of the Shah of Iran was deposed.
In Turkey Erdogan has manipulated the tax system to punish anyone who disagrees or challenges him and fines any newspaper massively for reporting the facts about his polices, aims, and goals. The media that remains spews out adoring accolades of Erdogan's greatness, and the tens of millions of children who've gone through their education system have been properly indoctrinated to be pro Erdogan supporters, all of which makes these massive demonstrations even more amazing.
Support for terrorist groups is part of Erdogan's foreign policy, and it's time the west recognized that, but
Turkey is a member of NATO and that can't be ignored. Their support of
violent terrorist jihadi groups has to be addressed by declaring Turkey
a supporter of terrorists, and such a designation should be the
touchstone for all negotiations and dealings with Turkey.
January 6 Was Not an Insurrection: The Truth is Coming Out: Part II
By Robin Itzler
Editor's Note: This is one of the commentaries selected from Robin's weekly newsletter Patriot Neighbors. Any cartoons appearing will have been added by me. If you wish to get the full edition, E-mail her at PatriotNeighbors@yahoo.com to get on her list, it's free. RK
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In August 2020, sarcastically called the “summer of love,” America was on fire from Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots. CNN’s national correspondent Omar Jimenez stood in front of a building that was engulfed in flames and reported on the “mostly peaceful” looting and rioting. As if that wasn’t enough, CNN’s ridiculously insane caption read: “Fiery But Mostly Peaceful Protests After Police Shooting.”
Leftists (including those in Congress) idiotically compared January 6 to 9/11 and Pearl Harbor. Let’s compare BLM 2020 riots to January 6.
Black Lives Matter “Mostly Peaceful” 500+ Riots in 2020:
· Lasted 7 months.
· 20+ murders.
· Thousands of small businesses destroyed across multiple states.
· 150+ Federal buildings damaged across multiple states.
· $2+ BILLION in damages throughout the country.
· More than 2,000 law enforcement officers assaulted.
· Most protestors immediately bailed out—many with help from Democrat politicians such as Vice President Kamala Harris.
· Media and leftist politicians encouraged the ongoing violence (many times by their silence).
· Downplayed or ignored by the leftist mainstream media.
· Reports of nearly 2,400 lootings, 600+ arsons and almost 100 cars destroyed.
· Reports show that protestors came to BLM events with Molotov cocktails, bricks, frozen water bottles, canned food, fireworks and lasers.
· Many politicians and law enforcement leaders spinelessly “took a knee” to George Floyd during these protests.
January 6, 2021:
· Protest lasted a few hours.
· NO murders by protestors. (Note: Capitol Police Officer Brian Sidekick died of a stroke on January 7.)
· Several January 6 protestors were murdered including Benjamin Philip, Rosanne Boyland, Kevin Greeson and Ashli Babbitt
· 140 officers were assaulted.
· Protestors who were arrested were frequently kept in solitary confinement (with reports of humiliation tactics and other awful treatment).
· Protestors were repeatedly condemned by leftist and RINO politicians.
· January 6 actions were repeatedly exaggerated by the leftist mainstream media.
Most of the info came from a presentation by pardoned J6er Jeffrey Brown.
Republicans Move Against Federal Judges Blocking Trump’s Agenda
Through legislative and other means, the president’s allies are preparing to deal with judicial overreach.
Congressional Republicans, perhaps many of them concerned about their modest majorities in the House and Senate if they don’t deliver on the Trump agenda before the midterm elections, are ready to take on the judges. Restraining orders and other types of injunctions, tying the hands of President Donald Trump’s administration, have been coming in thick and fast from federal judges across the country. Frustrated GOPers are now exploring various options for putting a stop to what increasingly appears to be a politically motivated sabotage operation being conducted through select courts and with the aid of complicit judges.
Since Trump began his second term, almost every action at the executive branch level has been met with an injunction of one form or another. At least a dozen such legal rulings have stymied the president’s plans. Several of the federal judges issuing these injunctions have been revealed to be Democratic Party donors, many with associations or family connections to various progressive special interests. The idea, then, that their decisions are based purely on law and have nothing to do with politics – according to some GOP lawmakers – is hard to swallow.
Backlash to Federal Judges Growing
An effort to impeach US District Court Judge James Boasberg is reportedly gaining momentum on Capitol Hill, even as Republican leaders hesitate. Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order to prevent the administration from using the Alien Enemies Act to deport illegal aliens. The likelihood of Boasberg or any of the other “activist” federal judges being convicted and removed from office in a Senate impeachment trial is more than unlikely. Such a course of action, then, might be seen as almost petty and would amount to little more than a slap on the wrist.
Grassley expressed one of the main concerns with the deluge of legal obstacles. “For a number of years, but particularly in the last few months, we’ve increasingly seen sweeping orders from individual district judges that dictate national policy,” the senator asserted in a statement. He elaborated:
“Judges are not policymakers, and allowing them to assume this role is very dangerous. The Judicial Relief Clarification Act clarifies the scope of judicial power and resolves illegitimate judicial infringement upon the executive branch. It’s a commonsense bill that’s needed to provide long-term constitutional clarity and curb district courts’ growing tendency to overstep by issuing sweeping, nationwide orders.”
Indeed, as Just the News reported, Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan – appointed by President Barack Obama – was herself concerned by this judicial (or perhaps extrajudicial) trend. Speaking at Northwestern University Law School in 2022, Kagan said, “It just can’t be right that one district judge can stop a nationwide policy in its tracks and leave it stopped for the years it takes to go through the normal process.”
Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) has a more ambitious idea. It is generally understood that federal judges are appointed to lifetime terms, but Biggs notes that the Constitution does not grant lifetime tenure. Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution states, “The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour,” and so there appears to be no barrier in the founding document to ousting a judge for “failing to maintain the standard of good behavior required of judges.” That quote is from the resolution the congressman has filed to remove Boasberg from office.
The bigger picture is a disregard for the democratic process. It is, to say the least, ironic that the people who constantly claim Trump is a threat to democracy are now using politically friendly judges to override the will of the people. American voters knew very well what Trump had planned for the country. They elected him and, according to the polls, remain supportive of the very actions these federal judges are blocking. It’s almost as if Democrats and progressive activist groups pursuing legal action to obstruct the Trump agenda have decided that election outcomes can and should be negated if their preferred policies are not being enacted
Dig Deeper Into the Themes Discussed in this Article!
Liberty Vault: The Constitution of the United States
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Don’t Cry for Elmo, He’s Filthy Rich
- “Elon Musk and Marjorie Taylor Greene are trying to defund Sesame Street and dismantle PBS and NPR,” Rep. Robert Garcia claimed during hearings on the two radical leftist organizations.
- “The Trump administration’s abrupt federal grant cuts have made their way to ‘Sesame Street’—and they risk pulling the rug out from under children,” Fortune Magazine claimed.
- “Sesame Street’s Future Is in Jeopardy”, Newsweek moaned.
- “Why Does Big Bird Look So Sad?” the New York Times asked. According to the paper, the Trump administration’s cuts to USAID “stripped Sesame Workshop of some valuable grants”.
Even assuming that there was some justifiable reason to spend $20 million making a Sesame Street for an oil-rich country which just passed a law legalizing adult men marrying members of the Sesame Street viewing audience, it has nothing to do with funding the American series.
And $20 million might be a big number somewhere, but it’s a drop in the Sesame bucket.
Every
time members of Congress discuss cuts to PBS, Democrats hide behind Big
Bird and Elmo, even sending the giant yellow creature to Congress in
the nineties, but only 4% of Sesame Workshop’s revenues come from the
federal government. If it all went away, even Count Von Count would
hardly notice. 4% of Sesame Workshop’s budget wouldn’t even cover the
salaries for its C-suite which were in excess of $6 million in the last
reported year.
Sesame CEO Stephen Youngwood makes over $1 million
a year, President Sherrie Rollins Westin earns $864,748 a year and
together with the rest of the top executives account for enough money to
bring Sesame Street to at least three different Islamic terrorist
states.
Sesame Workshop took in $187 million in 2023 and $271
million the year before that. The non-profit has assets of $607 million.
Over the last decade, those assets more than doubled.
A
non-profit with over half-a-billion is not about to disappear if we stop
funding Jihad Street in Iraq. The real question is why were taxpayers
ever subsidizing one of the wealthiest non-profit production companies
associated with PBS which can print money by selling merchandise?
20%
of Sesame Workshop’s revenues come from licensing. 50% from
distribution fees and royalties. Millions of dollars continue pouring in
from toy and music licensing.
Sesame Street already gets sizable
amounts of money from liberal foundations and billionaires like Michael
Bloomberg, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, the MacArthur Foundation, and
even CEO Stephen Youngwood chipped in under $49,000 of his million
dollar salary and Sherrie Westin under $100,000 of her nearly seven
figure salary to the Sesame Workshop.
And they can probably afford to chip in some more if Sesame Workshop is really in trouble.
The
real nightmare on Sesame Street came not from the end of its nonprofit
work or PBS productions, but the end of HBO MAX’s lucrative deal to
screen and showcase its episodes. The HBO deal made it clear that Sesame
Street was not primarily a public television property. But as
Discovery, HBO’s parent company, began cutting costs, the Sesame Street
deal was a casualty. It wasn’t Republican budget cuts that hurt Sesame
Street, but cutbacks by the Hollywood studio most closely associated
with funding BLM and other radical leftist movements.
Another
crisis was caused by the Professional Employees International Union
(OPEIU), one of those baffling conglomerate unions of bureaucrats that
includes everything from Canadians to minor league umpires to
leatherworkers, trying to unionize Sesame Street employees.
These
much more serious blows to Big Bird came from lefties, including
unions, not Trump, but you won’t see Democrats talking about how unions
are trying to kneecap Elmo.
The USAID grant to make Sesame Street
in Iraq does point to one source of the organization’s financial
problems, which is that it spends too much of its budget on
international programming while getting little in the way of its
revenues for licensing everything from toys to puppets in international
markets. Sesame Workshop brags about all the work it’s been doing in
Ukraine, Lebanon and India. And that’s work that American taxpayers and
audiences subsidize.
Sesame Street needs to decide whether it
wants to make puppet shows for American kids or for the children of the
world. Big Bird and Elmo remain lucrative in America, but there’s no
reason for American taxpayers to be subsidizing Sesame Street’s outreach
to Syrian migrants or teaching children in India about gender equality.
Democrats
used to pretend that budget cuts to PBS threaten Sesame Street, now
they admit that they’re no longer using Big Bird as an avian or puppet
shield for PBS but for USAID. Elmo isn’t just being used to defend
subsidies for American public television, but for Iraqi public
television, and even families with faded Grovers in the house will draw
the line there.
Sesame Workshop needs to choose between Sesame
Street and Iftah Ya Simsim, Sim Sim Hamara and the other Sesame Streets
for the Muslim world. The Pakistani Sesame Street previously had its
funds cut off in 2012 over allegations of fraud and Sharaa Simsim, the
version that airs in the Muslim terrorist-occupied territories in
Israel, after its leaders rejected a joint production with Israel, had
its funding cut over its problematic content.
Daoud Kuttab, the
executive producer of Sharaa Simsim, the ‘Palestinian’ Sesame Street,
wrote that the “Hamas’ operation against Israel on Oct. 7 was carried
out on the basis of the internationally sanctioned right of people to
resist” and that Hamas leaders did nothing wrong.
His ‘Palestinian’ Sesame Street, was funded by USAID,
Kuttab,
who often pops up representing the ‘Christian’ point of view, also
claimed that the Hamas attacks were a response to “Jewish supremacy” for
offending Muslim religious sensibilities by praying at a Jewish holy
site claimed by Islamic conquerors as a mosque.
But when funds
for Jihad Street were previously pulled, Brookings published an op-ed
claiming that, “Congress Makes Elmo Cry by Defunding Palestinian “Sesame
Street”. And Kuttab recently resurfaced in the New Republic with an
op-ed titled, “I Worked on the “Arab Sesame Street.” It Was Not a Waste
of Money” in which the terror apologist claimed that American taxpayer
funding for it encouraged “peace and tolerance among children of the
Middle East”.
If ‘Palestinian Elmo’ didn’t want to cry, he
shouldn’t have joined Hamas. And if the Sesame Workshop wants to justify
its $6 million C-suite salaries, it should stop working on
international shows and go back to its original mission of entertaining
and teaching American children.
Merchandising and licensing makes
Sesame Street financially viable and quite profitable in the United
States and some western nations. The real problem is that Sesame Street
became a vehicle for foreign aid and government grants in the third
world.
And that is what’s threatening Big Bird and making Elmo sad.
Sesame
Workshop is in trouble because it puts American kids last. Sesame
Street should go back to being a street in the U.S.A. and not in
Pakistan, Bangladesh or Hamastan.
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.
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
Observations From the Back Row
By Rich Kozlovich
Well, the Wisconsin Supreme Court election has been resolved, the far left radical, Susan Crawford has won, which was characterized with verbiage the outcome would "affect the entire destiny of humanity," because it would impact the outcome of the midterms. Well, three things. First, I think that's hyperbole. Second, Wisconsin has an issue with voter fraud, so the outcome shouldn't be that much of a shocker. Third, Wisconsin isn't going to carry the the nation or the world anywhere.
It's clear neither Russia, Ukraine, or the rest of Europe want a peace deal, and there's even been talk if it looks as if Russia starts running over Ukraine, they'll explode their nuclear plants making Ukraine uninhabitable. Now that's really insane.
We already know about the corrupt efforts in the US to put Trump in jail to prevent him from running for a second term, and the corrupt judicial coup d’etat’ Democrats are employing to destroy Trump's presidency, and this is clearly a pattern of behavior for leftists/tyrants worldwide. Lawfare, corruption of the rule of law, and worse against political opponents. In Russia Putin's rival, Alexei Navalny, was arrested and died in prison, and no one doubts he was murdered. In Brazil they've arrested Jair Bolsonaro for allegedly plotting a coup and asks, where's my crime?
Romania arrested Câlin Georgescu, which halted elections because it looked as if he was going to win. In Turkey the demonstrations are huge, numbering hundreds of thousands, and some are claiming over a million, because Erdogan arrested his opponent, Ekrem Imamoglu, on trumped up charges, and now in France's Le Pen has been found guilty of embezzlement and the court is forbidding her from running in the election. But this is France, and Le Pen is surging in the polls and she's adamant she will not let the election be ‘stolen’ by judges.
One outrage after another: Europe is lost - From banning Marine Le Pen from the French presidency to negating Romania's election, Europe is a mess.
Vance Vindicated: Warnings About EU Proven Prophetic After Le Pen Ban - Vice President JD Vance was correct in warning of attacks on democracy and liberty in Europe, supporters claimed, as populist National Rally leader Marine Le Pen was banned from running in the French presidential election..
Democracy Denied - Democracy is imperiled across what used to be known as the Free World. In France, Marine Le Pen, who likely would have won that country’s next presidential election, has been prosecuted and found guilty of embezzlement, and barred from running for office for five years–until after the 2027 presidential election, in other words............In Brazil, former President Jair Bolsonaro is charged with attempting a coup, after some of his supporters “stormed” government buildings following his 2022 re-election defeat. Bolsonaro was out of the country when the alleged “storming” occurred. ............In Germany, the entire political system has been distorted to achieve a single goal: keeping the Alternative For Germany...............
From the beginning of the covid scare I stated it was scare mongering for political purposes, and it wasn't long before we knew these shots were not vaccines, but genetic manipulating chemical compounds that were going to impact humanity negatively for many years to come. I had said this was our thalidomide era, only much, much worse, and every week more information comes forth to prove that to be true.
The nitwit brigade is ever with us as Yvette Clarke Chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus claims Trump and Musk are nuts getting rid of all these amazing people in these agencies since these bureaucrats are efficiency experts! Remarkable! Well, why were they caught destroying evidence of funding to the Taliban? Why was the FBI trying to suppress the Hunter Biden laptop scandal?
- Department of Education Investigates California for Allowing Schools to Hide Students’ ‘Gender Identity’ from Parents
- DOGE Updates Leaderboard Showcasing Savings of $130 Billion
- DOGE Leader Speaks Out About Waste, Fraud, and Abuse Musk: Law Says Money Can’t Be Wasted, Has to Be ‘Spent Correctly ‘One Outrageous Thing After Another’
- DOGE: Department of Labor Cancels $577 Million in ‘America Last’ Grants Includes Funding for ‘Gender Equity in the Mexican Workplace’
- State Department Officially Notifies Congress That USAID Has Been Dissolved
- DOL Cancels $577M in Useless Grants…
None of that seems to indicate competence at any level, or perhaps they were just dogging it? Personally I go for both, incompetence and sloth.
The real insurrection wasn't January 6th, it's the judicial misconduct that's destroying the rule of law.
“Currently, district court judges have assumed the mantle of Secretary of Defense, Secretary of State, Secretary of Homeland Security and Commander-in-Chief. Each day, they change the foreign policy, economic, staffing and national security policies of the Administration. Each day, the nation arises to see what the craziest unelected local federal judge has decided the policies of the government of the United States shall be. It is madness. It is lunacy. It is pure lawlessness. It is the gravest assault on democracy. It must end and will end.” —Stephen Miller, U.S. Homeland Security Advisor
Personally, I get a kick out of this. ICE Walks Into a Boston Courtroom, Arrests an Illegal Alien During His Trial and Hauls Him Away. Apparently the judge was outraged and found them in contempt, but I doubt if they care, this was a message that needed to be sent. You can't hide! We will find you, and we will arrest you! The secondary message is the courts may make pronouncements, but it's the executive that carries out enforcement. At some point the judiciary needs to start asking themselves some pertinent questions.
- What happens when the executive branch simply starts saying "no" to their pronouncements? The Pravda media can no longer help them as no one cares what they have to say.
- What happens when the Congress starts passing laws to restrict their jurisdiction, which the Constitution gives them the right to do?
- What happens when the public has so little respect for the judiciary they refuse to adhere their pronouncements? That's the question that should scare everyone.
Is western civilization on the verge of upheaval and pushback over the insanity the left has imposed on the world? thinks so saying:
American politics, not to mention European, has long been characterized by leaders who dared not stand up for Western civilization in an unequivocal way. At last, however, Americans may declare to the rest of the world where anti-Western forces are constantly on the lookout for signs of weakness: “You shall know us by our resolve.”
Front-Door Cronyism and Back-Door Cronyism
Three years ago, I shared two charts, one from the Wall Street Journal and one from the Economist, showing how rich people became rich in various nations.
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The main purpose of that column was to show – as depicted in the WSJ‘s chart -that cronyism was the main way that Russian billionaires amassed wealth, unlike in the United States.
And that led me to write that, “Russia’s ‘oligarchs’ are not like the self-made billionaires that we’re fortunate to have in the United States.”
Interestingly, the two charts showed that China’s billionaires did not rely on political connections.
But that didn’t seem right, So I wrote in a postscript that, “my gut instinct is that cronyism is a much bigger problem in China’s economy that we see in the data from the WSJ and the Economist.”
Well, my instincts may have been correct according a new article for Foreign Policy by James Palmer.
He starts by describing how attitudes toward wealth sort of changed after the horrors of Maoism.
…every billionaire’s fortune is built upon a thin foundation: the goodwill of the CCP. At every turn, the ultra-rich, especially since Xi took power, are reminded that their wealth exists at the sufferance of the party—and that it could all be taken away.
…Even after the abandonment of Maoism, the CCP has never been entirely comfortable with the wealthy. In the 1980s, Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping stated that it was fine for “a few” households and regions to “get rich first,” but he said it about peasants, not billionaires, and added that the rich had an obligation to lift up the poor. …Culturally, though, China embraced wealth from the 1980s on with the eagerness of a starving man falling on a banquet. …After two generations of deprivation and revolutionary austerity, the coming of money, and all the possibilities of money, seemed miraculous.
But Palmer explains that it is well nigh impossible to get rich in China without government favoritism in the beginning…or government exploitation later on (what could be called front-door cronyism or back-door cronyism).
In 2002, the CCP reversed its previous policy of shutting out entrepreneurs, who were previously seen as politically suspect. This didn’t lead to businesspeople flocking to the party but instead saw party members flowing into business, where their existing connections proved a serious advantage. Even as private initiative was celebrated, it depended on government backing. …The loans they needed…often came in turn from government-run banks, in a cycle of mutual profit. Officials welcomed GDP growth for their careers and bribes for themselves. …Yet unlike the legal firewalls and political pull enjoyed by U.S. billionaires, none of this success came with security. The newly wealthy were caught in a bind; their wealth let them buy off local officials, and eventually eclipse them, but as their fame grew, they attracted the attention of higher-ranking officials who demanded their own share of the pie. …It was impossible to rise cleanly: Even if your original business was honest, protecting it required not just bribery but participation in networks of mutual vice. …the authorities also regularly harvested them. Which billionaires fell was a matter of arrogance and chance… a ranking of the ultra-wealthy put together by British analyst Rupert Hoogewerf since 1999, became known as the “fattened pig list,” with the joke being that so many of its most prominent members were then picked for slaughter by the party.
Given some of his comments about billionaires in general, I think it’s safe to assume that the author is not a libertarian or conservative.
But he seems to recognize that America’s more laissez-faire approach is better than China’s government-centric approach.
In an era of unchecked billionaire power in the West, it might be tempting to think China has found a better way. But the tools of party power used against the ultra-wealthy are employed more frequently and more cruelly against the poor and powerless… And one class of the ultra-wealthy remains genuinely untouchable: the family members of party leaders. …the wealth of the party, like the power of the party, remains unquestioned.
I’ll close by once again stating that it is great that China engaged in partial economic reform starting more than 40 years ago. Severe poverty is no longer a problem and the nation’s economy is much bigger, which are impressive achievements.
But I’m worried about back-sliding toward more government (a global problem!). I very much hope that China engages in another wave of pro-market reform and can eventually join the club of rich, market-friendly countries.
P.S. Sadly (and unsurprisingly), the OECD and IMF are urging China to adopt bad policy.