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WATCH: Venezuelan Children Fight Over Bananas Just to Avoid Starvation Thanks to Socialism

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“The children of #Venezuela no longer dream of piñatas and sweets, their reality is to fight among themselves and against adults for leftovers of bananas in order to survive,” Cristian Crespo tweeted today. Accompanying his message was a horrendous video out of the country torn apart by the devastating effects of socialism.

Professor Steve Hanke, an economics professor at Johns Hopkins as well as a senior fellow at Cato, pointedly commented, “A tragic scene out of the #socialist, horror movie. It’s real. It’s a documentary from the socialist paradise of #Venezuela.”

(Read more from “Venezuelan Children Fight Over Bananas Just to Avoid Starvation Thanks to Socialism” HERE)

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WATCH: Harris Makes Impossible Promise Not to Tax Middle Class to Pay for Socialist Health Care

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Democratic presidential candidate and junior California Senator Kamala Harris wants voters to believe that she’ll be able to pay for her “Medicare for All” plan without raising taxes on the middle class. The problem is the numbers just don’t support her pledge.

In an interview with CNN’s Kyung Lah that aired Wednesday, Harris tried to avoid talking about how she’d pay for the socialist health care plan that she introduced alongside Bernie Sanders, but eventually said, “I mean, I’m not in support of middle class families paying more taxes for it.”

Later in the interview, Harris outright said that she believes “there are ways to pay for” her over $30 trillion-dollar proposal “without a middle class tax hike.”

She explained, “Part of it is going to have to be be about Wall Street paying more. It’s going to have to be about looking at what we tax in terms of financial services. That’s part of it. The other part of it is to understand that this is about an investment which will reap a great return on the investment. We can’t only look at this issue in terms of cost without thinking about benefit. The benefit to the American public will be that people will have access to health care that right now they cannot afford. And we are all paying a price for that.”

Here’s the problem with that. The health care plan put forward by Harris and fellow Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, Vt., would cost the federal government an additional estimated $32 trillion over 10 years. That’s $3.2 trillion per year on average.

Now, let’s talk about taxing the rich here. Just on the back of the napkin, that almost doubles the total operating cost of the whole federal government, which is already operating at an almost $1 trillion deficit for this year, according to the Treasury.

Also, in case anyone forgot, the United States is still over $22 trillion in debt, with no foreseeable correction to that in sight. And, as I pointed out at the introduction of President Trump’s most recent budget request, we can’t even address the debt problem by taxation alone, much less take on a massive new health care program.

Here’s why: According to numbers from October, the 585 billionaires in the U.S. have a combined net worth of about 3.1 trillion (less than a year of Medicare for All). And even if some socialist scion were to seize control and tax those billionaires for literally everything they were worth, we’d have enough revenue to make about a 14 percent dent in the national debt or fully fund a 4.75 trillion federal budget for 237.4 days (just under eight months).

It’s also important to keep in mind that 37.3 percent of the total tax burden is already carried by the top 1 percent of earners.

Taxing Wall Street sounds like an easy place to put the cost burden, and the suggestion makes for a good sound bite, but the “speculation tax” proposed by Bernie Sanders earlier this year would only raise $600 billion over a decade, according to estimates. It would have to be about 50 times as burdensome to cover a $32 trillion bill over the same time period.

There is, however, one other option to pay for socialist health care without putting the burden on the middle class taxpayers it supposedly seeks to help: Blow up the national debt and force our grandchildren to deal with the cost of yet another federal boondoggle.

Put simply, the math just doesn’t add up. At least Bernie Sanders admits that he’d have to raise taxes to pay for this plan. (For more from the author of “Harris Makes Impossible Promise Not to Tax Middle Class to Pay for Socialist Health Care” please click HERE)

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Watch: Former Doc-Turned-Congressman Shares Experiences That Changed His Mind About Socialist Health Care

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Single-payer health care may seem like a great idea in the abstract to some, but it doesn’t work out that way for patients in the real world. So explained a former emergency room physician-turned-congressman on Wednesday.

During a hearing of the House Oversight Committee about the Trump administration’s ongoing Obamacare lawsuit, Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., shared the personal experiences he had as a doctor that turned him against the idea of government-controlled medicine.

Green’s remarks began with a story of a gang member who came into his ER with a gunshot wound in his lower abdomen.

“The guy was punching at the staff and yelling at us all; meanwhile, we’re trying to save his life,” Green said. “After giving this guy world-class care, I walked out thinking, ‘Man, at least with government-payer, I’d get paid for the risks taking care of this patient.’”

However, his shift wasn’t over after that, he said, and a later patient’s story gave him a different perspective.

“I had a woman who had just a few days prior gotten her dose of chemo” and was going through life-threatening complications as a result, Green continued. “With her were two children and a worried husband; the woman was only 35 years old; she didn’t have insurance.”

“As we stabilized her, I realized that early detection had saved this young woman’s life,” Green explained. “In Europe, socialized medicine has delayed early detection as care is rationed, and that’s why mortality rates for specific illnesses are far better in the United States than they are in Europe and Canada. That woman would not have received timely detection there, and her chances of survival would have been significantly less in a socialized system.”

Green did his residency in emergency medicine at the U.S. Army Aviation Center. He would later become a special operations flight surgeon. In 2009, he founded an emergency room management company.

During his Wednesday remarks, the House freshman also recalled the story of a Canadian CEO he once treated who “hopped on his personal jet, flew to Nashville, Tennessee, and came to my ER because he could have been seen faster flying to the U.S. than waiting on a government-run health care system in Canada.”

“True story,” Green continued with a scoff, “in Canada you can get an MRI for your dog that day because there’s a free market in veterinarian care, but you can’t get one for grandma’s knee; you’re gonna wait six months.”

During his remarks, Green also clarified that Obamacare is not government-run medicine in that it is insurance-based, but that it is driving the United States toward socialized medicine.

And that’s bad news for the United States, Green explained, because “socialized medicine does not work.”

“The government is not the answer,” Green concluded. “Government health care is rationed care, late detection, and worse mortality.”

Video of Green’s remarks is available here:

(For more from the author of “Watch: Former Doc-Turned-Congressman Shares Experiences That Changed His Mind About Socialist Health Care” please click HERE)

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2020 Candidate Comes out Against Socialism – the Crowd’s Response Is Concerning

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Former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper received an unwelcome reception at the California Democratic Convention on Saturday after the one of two dozen presidential candidates told the crowd that “socialism is not the answer” to defeating incumbent Republican President Donald J. Trump. For this remark, he received a loud and steady “boo” of disapproval from the audience.

“If we want to beat Donald Trump and achieve big progressive goals, socialism is not the answer,” Hickenlooper said to more than 4,500 delegates on Saturday, reports CNN. The otherwise quiet observers began to boo and voice their condemnation of the statement. Their reaction lasted more than 30 seconds. Hickenlooper tried to reason with the crowd, saying, “You know, if we’re not careful, we’re going to end up helping to re-elect the worst president in history.”

Finally, the crowd quieted down and then Hickenlooper really ground their gears when he suggested the Democratic party needed “pragmatism” moving forward on policy issues like healthcare and the environment.

“We shouldn’t try to achieve universal coverage by removing private insurance from over 150 million Americans. The booing the reinitiated. Nevertheless, he persisted, saying, “We should not try to tackle climate change by guaranteeing every American a government job.” (Read more from “2020 Candidate Comes out Against Socialism – the Crowd’s Response Is Concerning” HERE)

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According to This Poll, Americans Really Aren’t Cool With Socialism

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A Monmouth University poll released on Monday showed that only ten percent of Americans have a positive view of socialism.

The poll, broadly titled “SOCIALISM vs. CAPITALISM,” took a hard look at the sentiments of U.S. citizens regarding the rising popularity of Bernie Sanders-styled socialism in American politics. With few qualifiers, the results were clear: 57 percent of Americans said that socialism was incompatible with American values — only 29 percent believed otherwise.

As far as feelings toward socialism in general, the waters were only a little murkier: 42 percent had negative feelings toward it, 45 percent were neutral, and just ten percent had a positive view of this latest trend in progressive politics. However, their feelings toward capitalism were similarly lukewarm. Thirty-nine percent expressed a positive opinion of capitalism, 40 percent were neutral, and 17 percent were negative. . .

Another question specifically examining the subject of a “universal health care system” found that the idea is being disassociated with socialist philosophy. Fifty-eight percent of Americans expressed approval of the concept, and 53 percent asserted that it was not a socialist policy. The inconsistencies suggest to some that, while socialism remains stigmatized in America, its actual definition in the public eye may be evolving.

“We may be in a period of flux with how these economic systems are viewed,” said Monmouth’s Patrick Murray. “Socialism still carries a stigma, but many Americans feel they are being left behind by the current capitalist system. Policies that have traditionally been seen as socialist may be getting more popular even if the term itself is not.” (Read more from “According to This Poll, Americans Really Aren’t Cool With Socialism” HERE)

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Democrats Taking Over House Plan Massive Government Expansion, Higher Taxes, While Promising Free Everything for Everybody

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At noon on Thursday, Democrats officially take control of the U.S. House of Representatives. A short time later, the new majority will pick a Speaker, expected to be (once again) Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Californistan).

And a little while after that, they’ll start work on a bold “new” agenda to expand government, blanket business with new regulations, raise taxes on all Americans and push a new socialism that will deliver “free” health care and college tuition.

In fact, socialism is literally coming to the new House as democratic socialists, such as outspoken Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ​and Muslim Rashida Harbi Tlaib, join the 116th Congress. Their platform is increasingly similar to that of rank-and-file Democrats, including a “Medicare-for-all” program and “guaranteed jobs” programs, along with demands for a $15-an-hour minimum wage. Democrats will also push a “Green New Deal,” which would create hundreds of new regulations on businesses and the energy sector.

Some, like Ocasio-Cortez, want to see the end of capitalism. “I do think right now we have this no holds barred, wild west hyper-capitalism,” she said in July. “What that means is profit at any cost. Capitalism has not always existed in the world and will not always exist in the world.”

Democratic voters are also embracing socialism. “An overwhelming majority of respondents, 76 percent, said they would not vote for a ‘socialist’ political candidate, while only 24 percent of those polled said they would,” finds a July 24 poll conducted by The Hill and HarrisX. And an August poll by Gallup found that 47% of Democrats view capitalism positively, down from 56% in 2016, while 57% of view socialism positively. (Read more from “Democrats Taking Over House Plan Massive Government Expansion, Higher Taxes, While Promising Free Everything for Everybody” HERE)

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Old Socialists Should Exit the Stage — and Take the Ignorant Young Socialists With Them

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Old socialist John Dingell has a plan, after serving almost 60 years in Congress and handing his seat to his second wife. He claims that the people no longer trust the government and the Constitution has become a problem.

The Atlantic recently published some excerpts from Dingell’s book, “The Dean: The Best Seat in the House.”

In December 1958, almost exactly three years after I entered the House of Representatives, the first American National Election Study, initiated by the University of Michigan, found that 73 percent of Americans trusted the federal government “to do the right thing almost always or most of the time.” As of December 2017, the same study, now conducted by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center, found that this number had plummeted to just 18 percent.

Isn’t it funny how socialists never seem to think that they might be the problem? In fact, I defy you to find a socialist who will accept any fault for how his governance turns out. It’s a huge personality and ideological flaw for all communist wannabes.

Simply stated, for each of the 59 years Dingell served in Congress, confidence in the institution fell almost one percent, for a total of 55 percent according to Dingell’s own research. Seems quite instructive right there, yet Dingell doesn’t see it.

Nope, instead Dingell says that the Constitution has to be rethought. It was the same constitution in the 1950s as it is today, yet according to the socialists operating in the highest reaches of our government, it must be the reason so few people have confidence in government.

But John Dingell voted year after year for every leftist cause from the 1950s through 2014, and he claims we have to change the Constitution or we’ll never be able to keep our republic. So he suggests we abolish the Senate, get rid of the Electoral College, and only use public funds for elections. If we do all that, he believes minority factions will no longer stand in the way of legislation, and the America he wishes to see will finally prevail.

It’s a blueprint for mob rule, and it makes leftists salivate. Remember, Dingell famously said that the Obamacare mandate was necessary to “control the people.”

Abolish the Senate, Dingell holds, is a great “slogan” and a great and noble cause. After all, why should ill-populated Wyoming have two senators and over-populated California have two? Dingell says that the arrangement causes minorities to circumvent the will of the majority.

The socialist Democrats spend all their time gathering minorities for their majority, claiming all the while that the “people united will never be defeated,” only to cut minority representation and usher in iron-fisted government.

But what Dingell is truly suggesting is the loss of states’ rights. In this, he not only attacks Article I of the Constitution, but also the Bill of Rights. Dingell and his band of socialists hate that it was the states that created the federal government and it’s the states that check its power.

Rather than abolish the Senate, we should repeal the 17th Amendment, which changed the Constitution to prescribe electing senators by popular vote instead of by state legislatures. The closest representatives of the people housed in each state legislature are more apt to reflect the will of the electorate than senators who come home once every six years seeking support.

Dingell also wants to be rid of the Electoral College, like every socialist, to silence the voices of the minority.

In order for socialism to take hold, no matter what anybody says, whether Dingell or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the minority must be silenced. Never forget that. It plays out on social media, where leftists own the platforms: They silence the minority. It will play out in our nation unless government is taken back by the people who are uniquely qualified to govern themselves.

The only way this nation has a future is with open-minded defenders of the Constitution and the Founding of this nation. The future of an America to be proud of rejects socialism and communism and the power of the federal government. The future of America guided by divine Providence champions God-given freedoms and rejects the iron-fisted government that the socialists need to thrive.

Sixty years of striving toward a socialist nation and failing to clinch it have inspired John Dingell to simultaneously give lip service to our Founding while attacking its very core. He may exit the stage and take his ignorant young re-warmed leftovers like Ocasio-Cortez with him. (For more from the author of “Old Socialists Should Exit the Stage — and Take the Ignorant Young Socialists With Them” please click HERE)

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Backfire: How a Stupendously Ignorant Tweet from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Undermines Single Payer Healthcare

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Before we delve into her new “argument,” I’d like to make a point about why the conservative commentariat sometimes seems fixated on Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. First, she entered the national spotlight as a media fascination and darling — a young woman of color who shook up the Democratic Party from the left by defeating an establishment fixture. She wasn’t randomly plucked from relative obscurity by right-wing writers or pundits for sport; she was elevated by a mainstream media that loves covering, and sympathizes with, rising liberal stars. And please recall the DNC Chairman referring to her as “the future of our party.” Second, because of the attention lavished upon her, she has built a massive online platform. Among the dozens of newly-elected Democrats arriving in DC to serve in the next Congress, Ocasio-Cortez has, by far, the largest social media following. . .

. . .

She also pretended that an obvious spoof video was insidious fake news, and somehow ‘proof’ that Republicans are ‘scared’ of her, or something. And don’t forget the time she claimed Ben Shapiro’s offer to debate her was tantamount to “cat-calling.” In other words, she’s a lightning rod with a very large press and social media following — and she’s leaning into the role. Which is why when she says things like this, a forceful response is warranted:

This astoundingly false talking point is rooted in a story from The Nation, a left-wing magazine, which attempts to track the Pentagon’s various accounting maneuvers, gimmicks, and tricks. Ocasio-Cortez, who either didn’t read the piece or lacks basic reading comprehension skills, gives her followers the distinct impression that by merely recouping $21 trillion in military accounting errors, the US government could fund two-thirds of “Medicare for All,” i.e., single payer healthcare (reminders: existing Medicare is going insolvent, and the realistic ten-year price tag for single payer is closer to $40 Trillion). This represents a distortion so ludicrous that it can be comprehensively debunked from multiple angles, starting with this one:

(Read more from “Backfire: How a Stupendously Ignorant Tweet from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Undermines Single Payer Healthcare” HERE)

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What Is Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal? It’s Utter Crapitalism

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Earlier this week, the newly-elected Democratic Socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez dropped by Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s Capitol Hill office. She was not there to say hello to her new colleague but to show support for a group of environmentalists hosting a sit-in in the potential Speaker of the House’s workspace. The move rankled party leadership and consultants. But what exactly was Representative-elect Ocasio-Cortez showing support for? It was the “Green New Deal”, a massive overhaul spending plan of the United States’ economy in an effort to supposedly combat climate change.

According to Politico, Ocasio-Cortez met with members from the Sunrise Movement, a nationwide coalition of young liberals concerned with climate change, in an effort to send a message to Rep. Pelosi that this was the true base of the Democratic Party. If the Democratic leaders wanted unity, they would have to listen and work with these young progressives.

“Should Leader Pelosi become the next speaker of the House, we need to tell her that we’ve got her back in showing and pursuing the most progressive energy agenda that this country has ever seen,” she told the sit-ins. “This is about unity. This is about solidarity.”

That solidarity is for a new resolution pushed by Representative-elect Ocasio-Cortez and other incoming Democrats. They want to force the new majority to establish a committee tasked with increasing the size of government and decreasing carbon emissions while also creating jobs for Americans.

From Politico:

“The Green New Deal resolution calls for a bevy of far-reaching liberal goals to decarbonize the economy within a decade by reshaping the electric power, agriculture and transportation sector, but it includes few details outlining how to get there. That is likely too ambitious even for many Democrats — and would stand zero chance of getting past Senate Republicans or President Donald Trump — but the concept has become an important rallying cry for the need to address climate change.

(Read more from “What Is Ocasio-Cortez’s ‘Green New Deal’? It’s Utter Crapitalism” HERE)

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Ocasio-Cortez Couldn’t Afford a Place in D.C. Now She Now Has a Generous Offer From…

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Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Democratic Socialist darling from the Bronx, couldn’t afford an apartment in Washington, D.C. until she begins making a salary in Congress.

Because members of Congress are required to live in both Washington, D.C. and their home district, that means Ocasio-Cortez would be spending a pretty penny in two of the most expensive cities, News Channel 5 reported. Rent in D.C. and Ocasio-Cortez’s district range between $1,500 and $1,800 a month. . .

Well, now she has nothing to worry about. Celebrity chef José Andrés has offered to let her stay Ocasio-Cortez stay with his family for as long as need be. Andres owns restaurants in Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles; Las Vegas; South Beach, Florida; Frisco, Texas; and Dorado, Puerto Rico.

(Read more from “Ocasio-Cortez Couldn’t Afford a Place in D.C. Now She Now Has a Generous Offer From…” HERE)

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