Do They Really Care?

Let me posit this hypothesis, liberalism is the new secular Puritanism. Instead of believing in a just and almighty God they believe in government. Instead of basing their beliefs and religion on the Bible they base it on their own – ever expanding – belief system: the principles of government. The Puritan ideal of living a life of pious, consecrated actions translates for the new Puritans to insisting that YOU live a pious life, consecrated to THEIR principles. Because you were born too stupid to determine what’s best for you. Hence the need for social engineering; here’s an example of that at its finest:

Portland to create ‘equitable mobility’ task force to investigate how to charge people to use local roads.

Portland City Council approved a plan Wednesday to study short-and-long-term strategies to charge people to use city streets, an effort intended to reduce congestion and curb carbon emissions as the region expects as many as 500,000 new residents by 2040.

The city will create a Pricing for Equitable Mobility task force to study and recommend potential road user fees – such as cordons, where drivers are charged to use certain streets in the city center or potentially more robust freeway tolls in the area…

Commissioner Chloe Eudaly, who oversees the transportation bureau, said the city must take bold steps to try and get people out of their cars. “We are going the wrong direction on transportation,” she said.

In other words, they are going to pursue (taxpayer funded) ways to manipulate you to do what we want you to do, which is “get our of your cars.”  No matter how they attempt to package and sell it, its always about control. And it’s always them, controlling you.

Portland expects an increase of half a million people in the next 2 decades. I suspect more than half of that is due to illegal immigrants but that’s beside the point. If you’re expecting that kind of increase in population (Portland’s current population is 632,000, the whole county is 808,000) 500,000 is nearly an 80% increase. I don’t think bikes are the answer.

I would think they would be doing something more  than figuring out how to legislate you out of your car. Like maybe adding new highways and/or expanding the ones you have to accommodate that kind of increase. How about expanding public transportation, the left’s normal go-to device to control your driving habits? But no, they prefer to manipulate you through taxes and regulation. It’s way more lucrative and fun. 

To be fair Portland isn’t the only municipality failing to expand the road system to accommodate increased traffic due to population growth. Around here they are constantly doing construction but over the past two decades it has been predominantly repair and replace, not expand. So if we had 2 lanes in 1970 by 1990 we might have gotten 4 lanes. But now, if we had 4 lanes in 1990…we still have 4 lanes - unless they convert one of the traffic lanes to a bike only lane.

And whether the bureaucrats like it or not, traffic has increased geometrically since the 90s. Roads and highways around these parts are crazy. At any given hour the expressways and surface streets around here look like what was once only rush hour. Rush hour looks like LA, which is to say gridlock. Our construction budget has been diverted to patching and then eventually paving over existing roads and spending the rest on creating new roundabouts that everybody except traffic engineers, concrete contractors and road builders hate, hate, HATE!

Yeah, this makes more sense than a traffic signal. And look, a greenspace! (that nobody can get to)

Oh, and new bike lanes on existing roads which further deceases the traffic load they can accommodate.

I’ve got an idea: let’s take a 4 lane street and turn it into a 3 lane street with a bike lane! And concrete boulevard!

It’s no coincidence that you keep hearing that Millennials don’t want to own cars. It’s just something else they’ve been brainwashed into. Cars are bad! Therefore let’s not waste our time trying to figure out how to actually accommodate the traffic load that comes with an increasing population and a good economy. After all, getting new right-of-ways for new roads is hard! And new roads cost a lot of money we’d rather spend on other stuff, like welcoming illegal immigrants into our community. Besides, most problems can best be solved by writing regulations to control your behavior. It’s both fun and easy!

How about your communities? How much repair and replace v. expanding road capacity? Just curious.

That’s What Push-Back Looks Like

Rep. Clay went on to say “I find it juvenile, their tactics, and I find their ignorance to be beyond belief about American history…how dare they try to play the race card at this point, it shows you the weakness of their arguments.”

Why, Rep. Clay sounds like a Republican.

And then there’s this:

The creators of “women must be believed” #Metoo are now shocked and offended that a candidate is banning a female journalist from “shadowing” him. The journalist whose request to accompany the candidate was rejected immediately accused Foster of sexism, thus squaring the circle as only the left can do.

Meanwhile, all across America, men were high-fiving each other. Because let’s face it feminists, you really can’t have it both ways.

You should be a little more careful about who and what you demonize because sometimes there’s going to be a little blowback. 

Sorry Dems, but once you choose which door you’re going to open, you own whatever’s behind it.

So I’m afraid you own the racist slur, the “patriarchy,” feminist backlash, gender confusion and soon…you’ll hold exclusive rights to Russian collusion as well. Expect it all to be used against you because President Trump pushes back. And so do we.

Things They Don’t Tell You When You Audition For a Part

OMG! You expect me to work for my $170,000 salary!!? That’s like, like… putting children in cages! Inhumane!

Watch AOC share her deep thoughts, starting with her complaint that she has “to work all the time” and doesn’t even have time to buy a chair (Life Tip #1: Wayfair) then proceeds to work-all-the-time by running her mouth on everything from domestic crises to climate change and the destruction of earth. Spouting non-stop nonsense as she live-streams every thing that passes through her brain as a thought. She does so while demonstrating her awesome millennial multitasking life skills of talking and chopping jicama at the same time.

It’s a shame she doesn’t pay a little more attention to what her boss wants her to do instead of auditioning for her next role, Evita.

It’s a shame that she has to work so hard within a political system that she knows so little about. (Hint: it’s a constitutional republic my dear, not a democracy, if numbnutz like you don’t prevent us from keeping it.) That means it’s even harder than tending bar.

But back to Evita’s boss-lady: in an attempt to keep AOC under control Ms. Pelosi tried to direct her efforts towards actual work for the Democratic party. AOC is not happy about not having enough unfettered time to Tweet, Instagram and Facebook her deep thoughts.

"I was assigned to some of the busiest committees and four subcommittees. So my hands are full. And sometimes I wonder if they’re trying to keep me busy."

Well, idle hands, devils workshop and all.

Official issue Congressional fidget spinners

Clearly Madam Speaker is not happy with AOC or the rest of her yung-uns right now, telling Leslie Stahl:

“All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world. But they didn’t have any following. They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.”

Official Yung-un spokesmouth AOC immediately responded that Pelosi’s comments were – wait for it – racist!

“When these comments first started, I kind of thought that she was keeping the progressive flank at more of an arm’s distance in order to protect more moderate members, which I understood. But the persistent singling out — it got to a point where it was just outright disrespectful — the explicit singling out of newly elected women of color.”

Oy! Out-of-control party members are no longer the exclusive purview of Republicans, that bodes ill for the Dems. Only they could “hire” someone to play the part of democratic socialist who can’t even stay on script.

The Speaker lowered the boom, telling the pipsqueaks:

"You got a complaint? You come and talk to me about it."

I suspect that the 4 horsewomen of the Resistance will continue to air their grievances via Twitter and Instagram. It’s much easier to reach their base that way.

If I can’t get your attention any other way I’ll just post my review on YELP.

P.S. directed towards AOC: If there is still any question in your head please, DO NOT have children. Trust me, the world will thank you. Besides, you work so hard you don’t have time to raise children.

Every. Single. Time.

Not withstanding my recent rant against the Wall Street Journal, I do still read it (hint, you can get it online through your local library link). It does still contain have some worthwhile material, like this op-ed: What Socialism Meant for My Great-Grandfather. It is written by Helen Raleigh, an immigrant from China, is the owner of an investment advisory firm.

A few excerpts:

After the Communist Party took over in 1949, it pushed for “land reform” to win the support of the country’s 300 million landless peasants. The Party claimed landowners were class enemies and exploiters of the poor, and that unequal land ownership was the main cause of social injustice.

“Land reform” might also be called “leveling the playing field” in the parlance of America’s neo-communists.

Though many villagers shared similar economic conditions, a government worker came to my great-grandfather’s village and divided everyone into five classes: landlords, rich peasants, middle peasants, poor peasants and laborers. Then a work team organized “speak bitterness” struggle sessions so the poor could vent their frustration against the “rich.”

Well that sounds familiar. America’s leftists have been doing that, like, forever.

Hey dudes, don’t be sleeping through the class war, you could end up as collateral damage

At first, villagers hesitated to speak ill of one another, especially their kin, in public. But the work team was good at stirring up envy and greed and inflaming hatred toward any villager who owned property.

“You didn’t do that on your own, somebody else did that for you.” So you don’t get to keep it.

Very good indeed, “stirring up envy and greed and inflaming hatred” is the stock and trade of communist community organizers.

My great-grandfather often had to stand in front of the village with his head bent, listening to his neighbors and relatives accuse him of wrongdoings that were grossly exaggerated or plain false.

That’s why we love President Trump: he simply refuses to play their game.

Throughout China, landlords and rich farmers were rounded up and executed or sent to labor camps. Local governments confiscated their property and redistributed it to landless and impoverished farmers.

“Oh, it will never be like that here” the neo-communists tell us. The ones who actually believe that are too stupid to vote let alone rule.

Cubans didn’t think it could happen there either, neither did Venezuelans 

That’s why those of us who don’t believe it are staunch supporters of the Second Amendment.

In 1953 the Chinese government started a movement to collectivize agriculture. The land that had been handed to poor farmers was gradually returned to the state. By 1958 there was no private land ownership. Private farming was prohibited. Farmers were required to sell their produce to the government at fixed prices; no private sales were allowed. Farmers couldn’t choose which crops to grow. They had to follow the orders of local Communist leaders, many of whom didn’t know much about farming. Crops perished and millions of people starved.

And this is the model the Democrat elitists want to use for our medical system.

I sometimes feel as if I’m back where I came from. I want to scream every time I hear the American left’s eerily familiar slogans: “Make the rich pay their fair share,” “Level the playing field,” “You didn’t build that.” This is the same sort of rhetoric the Chinese Communist Party used against landowners like my great-grandfather. The policies advanced by that rhetoric ruined China’s economy along with millions of lives.

To be specific, Mao’s “Great Leap Forward” caused at least 50-60 million deaths before all was said and done.

The American left offers nothing new. Socialism always begins with a great promise and ends in disaster. It has failed every time and everywhere it was tried.

After an initial blush that looks like success socialism always fails. At that point it’s enforced by the barrel of a gun. Then it's called Communism.

Let’s not throw away American prosperity so that a few leftists can give it another go.

…said no Democrat presidential candidate ever, in this new brave world. They’ve got a hell of a platform, literally.  Good luck with that.

Don’t worry, we’ve got this!

If You Can’t Solve It, Celebrate It

Congress can’t find a way forward to address our illegal immigration problem because they don’t want to. That would be like shutting off the NPC voter spigot.

When you can’t even see your way clear to ask people if they are citizens on an official Census form – a concept that might have been considered not only non-controversial but essential as recently as 2 decades ago – you certainly won’t be able to solve the illegal entry problem on the southern border.

Maybe after Attorney General Bill Barr resolves the Census gridlock issue he can help Congress find a way to resolve illegal immigration too.

In a visit to South Carolina today, U.S. Attorney General William Barr said to expect the administration will present a legal path work-around that will allow a question on citizenship to be added to the 2020 Census.

Speaking to reporters after visiting a federal prison, Barr said “I think over the next day or two you’ll see what approach we’re taking and I think it does provide a pathway for getting the question on the Census.”

If all else fails maybe we could follow this guy’s idea on how to address a problem: if you can’t solve it, celebrate it’s birthday.

“Fellow Waldo neighbors, please help me celebrate the 3rd (month) birthday of this pothole I reported back in March yet is still not repaired,” Sereno wrote in a Facebook post.

The pothole was fixed a few days later. Maybe we should try the same stunt with the border, only it’s not months, it’s years.

Headed towards decades.

Happy Day-of-the-Dead Birthday Open Border!

Michelle Obama Shares Her Deep Thoughts

Ripley’s Mom linked this yesterday: Michelle Obama’s July 4th Weekend Message to Americans. I think it’s part of the Obamas’ Netflix deal - they plan to turn it into a series titled “Michelle Obama Shares Her Deep Thoughts.”

Even with the new Jeri curls and cheek fillers she looks like an angry black woman

Here she is telling us how deeply emotional that last day in the White House was for her and her family:

“The truth is, on that day I was moving my children out of the only house they had really grown up in,” the former first lady told Gayle King of CBS News at the Essence Festival in New Orleans. “I think that gets lost on people.”

Gets lost on people? No. We simply didn’t care then and care even less now. But Michelle proceeded to spin a new backstory as to why she might have looked a bit disgruntled at President Trump’s inauguration.

Or it could just be gas

Best to have a story readily in place to explain such obviously boorish behavior – you know, in case the Democrats have to draft her to run for them.

She said she was rushing to get her daughters and their friends out of the White House after they’d had a sleepover the night before the inauguration.

“The girls didn’t get up,” she explained. “They’re all crying and they have their teddy bears and they’re moving slow and I’m like, ‘You’ve got to get up and get out of this house.’ And I don’t know where these kids are going, but they had to get up and out of that house. So you’ve got tears and I’m pushing people out a freight elevator and my kids are crying.”

More likely they were crying because our saintly Lady M was screaming at them like a banshee. I doubt they were too upset about finally breaking away from what can only be described as a teenager’s nightmare: round the clock surveillance. I admit, my initial reaction was “what kind of moron lets her kids have a sleepover the night before they are to vacate the premises, the day before they are to participate in the (supposedly) peaceful transfer of power to the new president? But then I remembered it was most likely a lie.

But my favorite from Gayle King’s (Oprah’s BFF) interview of  Lady M’s:

“And then we had to meet the Trumps. That day was very emotional and then to sit at that inauguration and to look around at a crowd that was not reflective of the country, and I had to sit in that audience as one of the handfuls of people of color, all that I had to hold on to over those last 8 years, and it was a lot emotionally. By the time I got on the plane, it was a release of 8 years of trying to have to show up as we all know we have to do not only perfectly, but a little bit better than perfect to even be considered equal.”

Got that? If you support PDJT, you are “not reflective of the country.” Well done m’lady, keep that good ‘ol grievance mentality alive. The Democrats are counting on it.

Permanent Grievance: Part of the Democrats Dream for America

All Communist Organizations Are the Same

I am certainly not surprised that Antifa issued guidelines to the media for their (always) violent “demonstration” in D.C. yesterday.

Nor am I surprised to learn that the group has “media liaisons” – what grass roots group doesn’t? Likewise, not surprised that they so glibly expect the media to follow their “guidelines,” they’ve been playing for the same team since Antifa’s inception. And I do love the “media who refuse to comply…will be removed” flourish. By whose authority? I won’t ask how, we’ve seen that part.

Andy Ngo after being “removed” from Portland Antifa “permitted protest area”

Still, expecting journalists to “ensure that you have explicit consent before capturing auto recordings or directly quoting interviewees” seems a bit of an overreach. I mean, we are talking about a public protest, presumably people come to these events to have their voices heard. And if you’re “interviewing” somebody haven’t they already implicitly consented?  Is there any way these people can make themselves sound stupider?

What does surprise me a bit is that they expect media members to maintain their “journalistic integrity if your raw footage, unpublished photos or notes are sought through a subpoena.” First of all what journalistic integrity?

What a quaint thought; that slipped away around the same time “journalistic neutrality” did. But even assuming such a thing does exist, how exactly does Antifa’s “media liaison” think that a journalist's sacred promise to protect the identity of a confidential source applies here? Do they honestly expect journalists to go to the mat, or more specifically, jail, to protect a bunch of nameless, faceless thugs? Good luck with that. They’re journOlists, not martyrs.

And perhaps they are unaware of the 1972 Supreme Court Ruling that a journalist had no right to refuse testimony where he or she had witnessed criminal activity. But hey, it’s worth a try: normally an emission from hive headquarters results in all the good little Borgs falling in line and finding their way home.

The Borg

All communist organizations are the same.