Old School Politics

Alright, alright; enough about my column from last week where I called out several RNC staffers by name because of their total disloyalty and disrespect towards me.  No more jokes about me being introverted and never speaking my mind.

I will admit last week’s column was very pointed and blunt—by design.

I came into the Republican Party in the middle of the Reagan administration; right after I graduated from Oral Roberts University.

But I really cut my political teeth during the Bush 41 campaign and subsequent presidency.   I got a chance to see the Reagan and Bush administrations up-close, which is why I am the person I am today.  Last week’s column reflected that influence.

The disrespect shown to me by this RNC would have never been tolerated by team Bush.  I had something similar happen back in St. Louis while Bush was seeking the presidency and the Bush family personally shut it down immediately and let everyone know in no uncertain terms that I was part of the Bush team and they would not allow anyone to disrespect me or the Bush campaign by extension.

This is why the Bush family is so beloved by everyone, even Democrats.  They put a premium on loyalty and will protect those who are part of their team.

I learned the art of politics from the likes of my former Senators Jack Danforth, Kit Bond, and John Ashcroft.  I had the honor of sitting at the feet of luminaries like former secretary of state Jim Baker and former secretary of commerce Bob Mosbacher.

Can you imagine a kid from the hood of St. Louis being able to call people like these friends?  I am still in touch with the Bush family and all those who were instrumental in my political career.  I am even still in touch with many of my high school and college teachers.

Unfortunately, today’s politics are totally transactional and not personal.

By transactional I mean people only deal with you because you have the right title or you have something a person needs and people deal with you strictly on the basis of that paradigm.

These types of relationships are totally foreign to me.  Former senate majority leader Trent Lott, former house majority leader Tom DeLay, and former congressman Tom Davis are good friends who I stay in regular contact with.  The reason I still stay in touch with them is because our relationship was never predicated on their titles; but rather on a personal friendship.

Over the years, some of my friends ended up going to jail because they crossed certain ethical boundaries.  I helped some of them get jobs or consulting contracts after they served their time.  I gave some of their family’s money when everyone else had turned their backs on them.

So, let’s just say I was very heartened last week with all the phone calls and emails of support after my friends found out what I was going through.

Maybe one day these RNC staffers will learn the value of relationships; because I would never hire any of them for any job.  If they will screw over me, what makes you think they won’t do the same thing to you?

Now I hope you have some insight into what made me write last week’s column, beside all the obvious reasons.

Old school politics are about relationships that should last a lifetime.  Old school politics is why I created the Black Republican Trailblazer Awards luncheon in the first place.  Every honoree I have ever chosen has a personal story of how they have impacted me.

I will continue to host these awards every year to promote Black Republicans who have left an indelible mark on the Black community, the Republican Party, and America.

The Republican Party has a great story to tell relative to Blacks, but they seem totally uninterested and incapable of communicating that story.  The Black staffers in the RNC have absolutely no institutional memory or curiosity of who the Black trailblazers are.

Black Republicans role in civil right have been allowed to be erased from the history books because of the Republican Party’s ineptitude in telling their own history.

Why do Republicans continue to go to groups like the NAACP or the Urban League for validation in the Black community when they need look no further than Black Republicans like Bill Coleman, Bob Brown, Bob Woodson, Kay James, Allegra McCullough, etc.?

No one will tell our story better than us.  The Trailblazer awards is my vehicle to communicate this story and we will continue to use this vehicle to make America aware that the Republican Party has always been intimately involved in every major stride the Black community has made in this country.

The reason Blacks find this hard to believe is that we have allowed Black liberals to totally erase us from the historical record.

United Nation’s Homosexual Stamps create outrage among member nations

Josh Craddock in an email reports:

The United Nations issued new LGBT stamps celebrating homosexuality and transgenderism.

The six new stamps show same-sex couples kissing, homosexuals with a young child, and a butterfly figure apparently representing transsexuals.

The U.N.’s unilateral decision to promote LGBT “sexual rights” offends the sensibilities of the majority of nations and contradicts many member states’ cultures, traditions, religious beliefs, and laws.

I didn’t think the U.N. could surprise me with their uselessness and anti-family agenda… But this event shocked me! C-FAM reports that the stamps were revealed after the NYC gay men’s choir sang “against the backdrop of a giant painting of naked figures dancing around a fire presided over by a nude statue of the Greek God of the sea Poseidon.”

The U.N.’s “Free and Equal” initiative, which sponsored the new stamps, promotes a “right” to engage in sodomy and enter into same-sex “marriage.” Of course, there isn’t any such “right” under international law or U.N. treaties. “Free and Equal” has never received support from a majority of United Nations member states. The controversial initiative is mostly funded by Scandinavian countries and channelled through the Secretary General’s human rights agency.

EDITORS NOTE: Those readers wishing to protest this unilateral move by the United Nations may sign a petition by clicking here.

Ted Cruz is NOT a Legal U.S. Citizen at all

The debate over whether or not Senator Ted Cruz is eligible for the U.S. Presidency is about to end. It has now been confirmed that Senator Ted Cruz is neither a “U.S. natural born Citizen” or a “legal U.S. citizen.”

According to all relative legal citizenship documentation available at present, Senator Ted Cruz was born Rafael Edward Cruz, a legal citizen of Canada on December 22, 1970 and maintained his legal Canadian citizenship from birth until May 14, 2014, 43 years later.

The Cruz Campaign for the U.S. Presidency has claimed that Senator Ted Cruz was a “citizen at birth” via his U.S. mother and a “dual citizen” of both Canada and the United States in 1970 and that by renouncing his Canadian citizenship in 2014, he would become eligible for the Oval Office.

There are several problems with this claim… which make the claim false

  1. “citizen at birth” is a 14th Amendment naturalization term based upon “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.”

Senator Cruz was born in Canada, subject to the jurisdiction of Canada. Further, any U.S. citizen by virtue of the 14th Amendment only, is a “citizen” and not a “natural born Citizen,” as you will see below. (Source is Cornell Law on the 14th)

  1. “dual citizenship” was prohibited in Canada in December 1970. (Source is Canadian Law)

From May 22, 1868 until December 31, 1946, all residents of Canada were British subjects. There was no such thing as a Canadian citizen or Canadian citizenship until January 1, 1947.

From January 1, 1947 until February 15, 1977, Canadian law prohibited “dual citizenship.” Foreign parents giving birth to a child in Canada in 1970 were forced to choose between Canadian citizenship only, or citizenship in another country, and to declare that with Canadian officials at the time of birth. The parents of Ted Cruz chose and declared “Canadian citizenship” for Rafael Edward Cruz.

  1. United States laws make it possible to be a legal U.S. citizen by only the following means…
  1. a) NATURAL BORN CITIZEN – “As the society cannot exist and perpetuate itself otherwise than by the children of the citizens, those children naturally follow the condition of their fathers, and succeed to all their rights. The country of the fathers is therefore that of the children; and these become true citizens merely by their tacit consent.” (The Natural Law as understood by the Founders in Article II of the US Constitution)
  1. b) NATIVE BORN CITIZEN – All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. (The 14th Amendment definition for “citizen”)
  1. c) NATURALIZED CITIZEN – the legal act or process by which a non-citizen in a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done by a statute, without any effort on the part of the individual (aka anchor baby), or it may involve an application and approval by legal authorities, (such as a Consular Report of Birth Abroad (CRBA) form filed with the US State Department at the time of birth). (This includes “anchor baby” or “citizen at birth” born here or abroad, under the 14th) Source is U.S. State Department
  1. “dual citizens” are prohibited from being “natural born Citizens” as it pertains to Article II requirements for the Oval Office.

As the stated purpose of the Article II “natural born Citizen” requirement for the Oval Office is to prevent anyone with foreign allegiance at birth from ever occupying the Oval Office, and all “dual citizens” at birth are born with “dual national allegiance” at birth. The mere condition of “dual citizen at birth” would be a direct violation of the known purpose and intent of the natural born Citizen requirement in Article II. Source is a letter from Founder John Jay in proposing the NBC requirement for the Oval Office.

Now, Senator Ted Cruz has repeatedly stated that he has never “naturalized” to the United States, which eliminated the possibility that Ted Cruz is a “naturalized” U.S. Citizen.

Senator Ted Cruz has also documented the fact that he was not a “native born citizen” of the United States, but rather a “native born citizen” of Canada on December 22, 1970, who maintained his legal Canadian citizenship until May 14, 2014.

The Harvard opinion letter written by two of Senator Cruz’s Harvard friends, Neal Katyal & Paul Clement, a mere “commentary” on the subject, relies upon the 14th Amendment naturalized citizen at birth concept, despite the fact that Ted Cruz was not “born in or under the jurisdiction of the United States,” was never “naturalized” to the United States, and completely ignoring the fact that Canada prohibited “dual citizenship” in 1970, as well as the fact that “dual citizenship” alone would prevent him from “natural born U.S.” status.

All of this explains why Senator Ted Cruz has no legal U.S. citizenship documentation of any kind. He is not a “natural born” – “native born” or “naturalized” citizen of the United States. Because someone must be one of the three in order to be a legal citizen of the United States, Senator Ted Cruz cannot possibly be a “legal U.S. citizen” of any form.

Only days ago, a 17-year-old first time voter at a New Hampshire town hall meeting for Senator Ted Cruz asked a very reasonable question… “How and why, until recently, were you unaware that you were a Canadian citizen?”

As the young man explained, this is not an eligibility question, but a credibility question… which Senator Cruz refused to answer, preferring instead to regurgitate the talking points carefully crafted by his Harvard friends and eventually, shouting the young man down, after a Cruz fan in the audience shouted “better a Canadian than a Kenyan!” (VIDEO) Meanwhile, a growing number of Constitutional Law Professors agree, “Cruz is NOT eligible.”

Of course, Senator Marco Rubio is also “ineligible,” as a “native born citizen at birth” by virtue of 14th Amendment “anchor baby” policies only.

In the end, the only possible way to consider Senator Ted Cruz eligible for the Oval Office is if every “undocumented resident alien” is eligible for the Oval Office, which I personally believe is the real agenda of both political parties, as they work to meld the USA into the global commune where there is no legal difference between “natural born Americans” and “undocumented aliens.”

The fact that so many Americans do not know or care to know the truth about the Constitutional “natural born Citizen” requirement for the Oval Office, demonstrates just how far down the road of “hope and change” for the destruction of the Constitutional Republic, the enemy within has already achieved.

Soon, “natural born Americans” will be in the American minority… and they will be ruled by foreigners who have no legal U.S. citizenship at all.

That Voice

So many issues, so little time, which is why I am studiously avoiding any issues about Hillary other than that voice!

I am definitely not going into the terminal dishonesty thing, you know, when she told the American public, and also the parents of the murdered victims in Benghazi, that the four patriots who lost their lives to a savage Islamic attack was because of an anti-Islam video; that Wall St. and specifically Goldman-Sachs is not donating to her campaign and that, according to Dick Morris, FEC reports say that Hillary has received $21.4 million from the financial and insurance industry––almost 15 percent of the total $157.8 million she raised, and she’s still trolling them for big money.” How about that she won a smashing victory in Iowa (by six coin tosses that magically landed in her favor)? Dozens of websites have catalogued Hillary’s lies,  starting decades ago with her debut on the political scene. Also here and here and don’t miss this one. Not going there.

I’m definitely not going into the incompetence thing, the colossal failure of her secretly-conducted socialized-medicine initiative as First Lady, her stunning lack of accomplishments in the U.S. Senate, or, most damning, the dangerous state of the entire world under her tenure as Secretary of State, which has resulted in a chaotic, devolving Europe, saturated in Islamic-terrorism; a catastrophic Middle East, also inundated with Islamic terrorism; and the mysterious loss of six-billion dollars! Uh uh, not going there.

Also definitely not going into the crook thing, the perjury thing, the slush fund thing vis-à-vis The Clinton Foundation and the zillions she extorted––oops, accepted––from thug nations and tin-pot dictators throughout the world while, ahem, representing our country. Or the e-mail thing and the threats to our national security her fecklessness brought about, or the laughable denials, or looming Leavenworth. Not going there.

Most definitely not going into the abused-wife syndrome, the paranoid streak, the harassment and attempts to destroy the women assaulted by her, ahem, better half, or the laughable notion of her being a role model for any woman, much less the millions of American women who earned their way without the taint of scandal and criminality. Sooo not going there!

And definitely not going into Hillary’s disturbing laugh, which according to writer Elspeth Reeve, has been covered extensively. A few years ago, Reeve cited the National Journal which compiled “The Comprehensive Supercut of Hillary Clinton Laughing Awkwardly with Reporters” and The Washington Free Beacon, which created “Hillary Clinton’s Interview Tour: A Laughing Matter,” to name but two out of hundreds of articles that have covered Hillary’s aberrational trait over the years. Nope, not going there.

WHERE I AM GOING

For years I’ve wondered what that clap-your-hands-over-your-ears assault weapon is that emanates from Hillary Clinton’s mouth, specifically her wince-evoking, cringe-producing, decibel-shattering voice.

I don’t mean ear-splitting shrillness or the screech of a banshee, although God knows those are prominently featured in her vocal repertoire, but rather the shrike-like, hectoring tone that suggests that Hillary was born without the normal fluttering of the vocal cords, a function that helps to moderate speech sounds. This results in campaign speech in which every promise sounds menacing. Quite a feat!

I’m going to produce more jobs, Hillary says, get incomes rising again, make Obamacare work, improve early-childhood education, pay down student debt, fight for more abortions (oops, “defend a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions”), on and on, and yet every word comes out sounding like the patronizing, finger-wagging lecture of a screech-owl harpy.

Hillary fan Geraldo Rivera speculates that this unfortunate trait might result from a hearing loss, the kind that makes people who don’t hear very well think that other people need to be shrieked at to hear their message.

Steven Hayward from Powerline.com simply describes her pronouncements as “cackling.”

Writer Elspeth Reeve asks: why do so many people hate the sound of Hillary’s voice? “It’s just so loud and annoying. Or maybe it’s like a nagging wife…inauthentic—that phony Southern accent! Those flat Midwestern vowels! Whatever it is, her voice is burned into your brain.” Maybe “she sometimes SPEAKS SO LOUDLY in hopes of conveying ENERGY and FORCEFULNESS.”

Republican pollster Frank Luntz explains to Sean Hannity: “Forget the words. Listen to the way she communicates. It’s ALL AT THE SAME LEVEL…her voice turns people off. Because they feel like they’re being lectured.”

Journalist Peggy Noonan compares Hillary to an irritating landlord. “She lately reminds me of the landlady yelling up the stairs that your kids left their bikes in the hall again.”

According to writer Kathy Miller, Hillary hired a voice and drama coach, Michael Sheehan, after her last unsuccessful presidential run in 2008, paying him $7,500. Yoo hoo, Hillary, ever consider a malpractice suit?

THEN THERE’S THE AFFECT THING

A person’s emotional affect is simply the way they display their feelings. They can be manic or flat, bubbly or dour, sincere or snarky, relaxed or intense, serious or light-hearted, on and on.

Once you see someone three or five or 10 times, you “get” what they’re all about. Unless, they have distinctly different affects…the stern executive during the day and the party girl at night; the all-American dad on the weekends and the internet troller of child porn during his working day.

Most of us fall along this spectrum. But few of us, in our travels, change our speech patterns when we go from state to state.

Not so of Hillary, who segues from high-falutin’ Wellesley girl when she’s courting East Coast donors to plantation Southerner when she’s addressing a black audience, for instance when she cited the hymn of James Cleveland: “Ah don’t feel nowhere tired….” Talk about cringe-producing!

Then there’s her affect of sincerity––eyes a little too wide open, gaze a little too fixed, head a little too bobbling, smile a little too plastered, the tacit message a little too “get me away from these irritating hicks!”

And there, too, is old Bubba, standing behind her…stooped, skinny, wizened, looking not a little out of the loop, applauding on cue, still too narcissistic to want her to win, but still counting on her to perpetuate the gigantic Ponzi scheme they created.

NATURE VS. NURTURE?

Was Hillary born with that weaponized voice of hers, or did she acquire it along the way? My bet is on the latter. It’s not uncommon for people who are essentially––when all the layers of the onion are peeled back––inauthentic to appropriate behaviors of other people, the better to make themselves appear to be the real thing.

It’s as if Hillary looked around and observed how a regular person or even an animated character acts when he or she is angry or impassioned or wants to get a point across or appeal to someone, and she said to herself, “Aha, I’ll take Alec Baldwin’s anger from Column A, Ida B. Robinson’s passion from Column B, Johnny Appleseed’s ardor from Column C,” on and on, and then adopts whichever behavior fits the occasion.

But it never works, never comes across as authentic because, well, it isn’t! Hence the strangely hyena-like laugh, the hectoring tone, the weird meet-and-greet affect, and, occasionally, the bursts of raw anger––“What difference does it make?”––in which the public gets a vivid and decidedly unpretty picture of what lies beneath the phony façade.

WHERE IS THIS ALL GOING?

Looming over the entire Clinton agenda is ole genuine Bernie Sanders, grabbing the young vote, the far-left vote, the entitlement vote, the socialist and communist votes, and now we learn the woman vote, effectively telling the largely anti-Semitic world that American Democrats prefer a Brooklyn-born Jew to a female career-politician with an alienating affect, a scandal-ridden past and present, and indictments of downright treason hanging over her head,

Yes, Hillary’s dishonesty thing looms large with voters, as does her incompetence thing and crook thing and abused-wife thing and weird laugh thing,

But nothing is as predictive of her ultimate defeat as the voice thing, even though she can’t help it, anymore than someone afflicted with barnacles. Millions of people may want a woman in the White House, so much that they overlook Hillary’s Mt. Everest heights of deficits and failures. In and of itself, as even her advocates grudgingly admit, living with that voice for the next four years will compel every man in America to buy earplugs and every woman in America to wonder what the entire estrogen fetish was all about.

I predict that nothing––not the trendiest public-relations firms or the most credentialed drama coaches––will stop the American public from voting against Ms. Hillary because of that voice!

Open Letter to Catholic Charities USA

Dear Catholic Charities,

Many thanks for all the good work you do helping fellow Americans.

Some questions.

Are you still taking tax payer money from the U.S. State Department via the former President Jimmy Carter, Senators Joe Biden and Ted Kennedy created Refugee Act of 1980 to help Syrian refugees get established in the United States?

Are you willing to give up land belonging to the Catholic Church on which these “Refugees” can build their mosques?

What is your opinion of the sexual assaults and robberies and physical assaults on German citizens who are coping with over 1.3 million Muslims invading their sovereign land, as assisted by George Soros and the German government?

Your brothers and sisters in the Catholic Church in Germany are reaching out to the German government and calling for a reduction in the influx of refugees arriving in Germany, saying the country cannot take in “all the world’s needy,”

Kardinal Reinhard Marx, Erzbischof von München und Freising und Vorsitzender der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz, blickt am 21.09.2015 zu Beginn der Herbstvollversammlung in Fulda (Hessen) in die Runde. Zu Beginn des traditionellen Herbsttreffens der katholischen Bischöfe stehen Beratungen über die Flüchtlingskrise im Mittelpunkt. Foto: Arne Dedert/dpa +++(c) dpa - Bildfunk+++

Cardinal Marx did recognize the growing problem for Germany and Europe in September 2015, but didn’t sound as worried as he sounds now.

“As a church we say that we need a reduction in the number of refugees,” Cardinal Reinhard Marx, chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, told the Passauer Neue Presse daily. Germany cannot “take in all the world’s needy,” Cardinal Marx added.

The question of how to respond to the migrant crisis, he asserted, should not solely be a matter of “charity but also reason.”

So as you continue to take tax payer money from Secretary of State John Kerry who sits in his office on the 7th floor of the State Department to assist Muslims to enter this country will you be willing to ensure the following:

  • That they get employed at jobs that do not permit the transportation and or consumption of alcohol?
  • Will you ensure they get to pray 5 times a day during working hours?
  • Will you ensure all their food is prepared Halal and meets strict Islamic requirements?
  • Will you ensure these Muslims understand this nation operates under Constitutional Law not Sharia Law and explain to them we don’t behead, stone or cut off body parts in this nation to pay for crimes?
  • Will you pay for any damages monetary, emotional, physical and or structurally from these Muslim refugees if they inflict said abuse on this nation’s citizenry and infrastructure?
  • Will you cover the cost of re-educating these Muslims and explain to them they cannot shack up here and then fly back home to fight Jihad?
  • Will you explain to these folks they cannot date 6 year old and marry 9 year old children?

What say you ?

You want to help these people, this is great, but are you willing to help and pay for the damage they may inflict on America too?

RELATED ARTICLES:

German Catholic Cardinal: Germany must reduce the number of migrants

Did UPS plane(s) secretively bring “refugees” to America from the Middle East?

Tennessee: Refugee agency places Muslim migrants in jobs Americans would love to have!

Senate Homeland Security Committee worries about Canada’s Syrian refugee flood

Germany: Police raid refugee shelters thwarting ISIS terror plot

France bans protest march at Calais

EDITORS NOTE: To read more about refugee resettlement by our resident expert Ann Corcoran see the ‘Invasion of Europe’ archive here, and go here for more on Deutschland.

Dear Representative Lori Berman, (D-FL District 90), Communist Party of Florida

Representative Lori Berman, I thank you for sending me your email concerning Florida’s open carry bills. You stated that allowing concealed carry permit holders to carry openly their weapons in holsters on the streets and in public buildings gives you “great concern.”

You say they “pose a threat” to our “safety” in the community and to residents.

So that would be me and 1.4 million law abiding Americans who live in Florida with concealed carry permits that you are referring too, correct?

Seriously, please specify to me how an inanimate object in the hands of a well trained law abiding American poses a threat to residents and the community.

Please list for me all the threats that a holstered weapons poses. Give me 5 examples. List them 1 – 5.

I am an expert pistol and rifle shot. I have been federally and state screened to carry a concealed weapon. I was trained by the U.S. Navy to fire more weapons than your average person.

I am also a deadly shot so if a bad guy wants to play ball with me he will lose. I am not a threat to the community I am an asset.

People will feel at ease shopping in the store when they see my weapon in my holster. Bad guys will think twice about robbing the store I am in.

Ladies with a holstered weapon become secure in their surroundings knowing they have a means to defend themselves from bad people. 9-11 calls will drop dramatically.

It is you Representative Berman that is the threat to the community by refusing to uphold your oath of office to uphold and defend and protect the U.S. Constitution of the United States – the Second Amendment.

The Second Amendment gives me and every other law abiding citizen in this nation the right to carry a weapon for self defense and to protect others either concealed or in an open holster.

It is liberals like you who make the streets more dangerous with your policies, just look at Chicago. You agenda is to disarm us but you will retain “your” weapons.

Perhaps it is time for you to pack your stuff and leave Boynton Beach Florida and go back to the “Peoples Republic” of New York where you originally immigrated from.

Slap your Hillary Clinton sticker on your Michael Kors over night bag, affix your Hammer and Sickle lapel pin to your made in China jacket and take your left wing, pro socialist anti American ideology with you and stay there.

RELATED ARTICLE: Find Out If Your Lawmaker Voted to End Operation Choke Point

Bernie Sanders suspends campaign, endorses Clinton

Durham, NH – Senator and Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders abruptly suspended his campaign following tonight’s debate, and Hillary Clinton has graciously accepted his endorsement. As is often the case when a candidate withdraws from a race, the announcement came directly from his opponent during a post-debate interview with moderator Rachel Maddow. Clinton appeared distracted by her phone as Maddow questioned her on points made by Sanders regarding income inequality, but as Maddow concluded, Clinton exclaimed, “my opponent made valid arguments that I think merit serious consideration, but I am pleased to announce that he has dropped out of the race and given me his endorsement. I urge the supporters of Senator Sanders to honor his wishes and direct their enthusiasm to make a Hillary Clinton presidency a reality.”

The move is not totally unexpected, as Sanders had limited finances and little chance of carrying any state beyond New Hampshire. He has reportedly decided to take a much needed vacation after months of running a passionate, if largely fruitless, campaign.

Some commentators, particularly those on the Republican side, questioned the circumstances surrounding the announcement. Minutes after the debate, Clinton posted, “why hasn’t Sanders been fed into the hay baler yet?” on Huma Abedin’s Facebook wall, and Abedin responded, “five minutes. There was traffic.”

Stories of similar evidence of Clinton’s purported wrongdoing have never gained traction in the past, and the announcement clears the way for her to direct attention and resources towards the eventual GOP nominee.

“Bernie Sanders ran an honorable race and contributed valuable insights into the direction that we need to go, but his concession makes the party stronger,” tweeted Democratic Party Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, adding the hashtag #BernHillaryBern.

EDITORS NOTE: This political satire column originally appeared on The Peoples Cube.

America Declines At The Rate Of Rejecting Christianity

Have you noticed how America continues to decline as rapidly as she sheds our nation’s Christian Heritage?  From two major directions, the assault on Christianity and even the right of Christians to freely exercise their religious liberties continues to manifest.  The first major battering ram against Christianity in the United States is the government school system.  For many generations, the bigoted administrators and their educator lackies have systematically weaned generation after generation away from Christian influences.

That Carl Marx, John Dewey, Saul Alinsky influenced practice has helped change America into a mobocracy of dumbed down anti-Christian robots who are increasingly devoid of wisdom.  It is as if wisdom has taken wing and flown back to the one who long ago shed his grace upon our now troubled republic.  The bigoted progressive agenda of consists of throwing Christianity, patriotism, constitutional restraint upon government, personal and property rights and self-protection under the bus to be smashed into oblivion.  By the way, the bigoted progressives believe in free speech, as long as whatever is spoke is in concert with their narrow and society killing desires.

The Reverend Franklin Graham recently pointed out that this godless agenda is being pushed by government, politicians, and judges who are openly hostile to Christianity.  Due to the pressure and influence of President Ronald Reagan in 1989, the Berlin Wall was beaten into little rocks.  The world was fooled into thinking that life would continue to improve for individuals throughout the world.  Folks naïvely believed that communism/socialism would fade away and become a relic of the past.

Unfortunately, communism/socialism never went away.  Those promoting such madness never suspended their campaign for world influence, or dominance.  The hotbed communism/socialism has been further solidified in America via the lecture halls and classrooms of institutions of higher indoctrination known as colleges and universities.  Even high schools, middle schools and even elementary schools are dens of communist/socialist and in some cases, Muslim indoctrination.  That does not bode well for the future well-being of the onetime envy of the world.

Much like water dripping on a rock and eventually breaking the rock into sand, the steady stream of anything but what’s right for “We the People,” has cascaded through and overrun the influential pillars of society.  Whether it’s education, the economy, the media, the arts, the family, government, and even some church denominations, progressivism/socialism has caused untold damage which in turn has greatly contributed to the alarmingly massive decline of the U.S.A.  Unfortunately, the negative influences permeating society is hurling our republic toward an ugly crash with reality in the form of blatant immorality, the worst education quality among developed nations and a decline in the quality of almost every segment of society.

If you will take an honest look at our troubled land of rampant anti Christian bigotry, you will notice that matters in America have gone awry, perhaps fueled by president Obama’s mission of hope and change away from all that was good for the United States best interest.  We even have a president who refers to Jesus as “a son of God.”  Oh don’t worry, if your offended, I am not trying to force my Christian beliefs upon you.  One cannot ignore the fact that as America continues to turn her back upon the principles that made her great she will remain in grave danger of suffering a dramatic setback of some kind.

The father of our nation, George Washington implored America to always remain a society that maintains her good standing with God.  He also warned of the dangers that would set upon our republic if she would cease to seek God’s guidance and wisdom.  Yes indeed, our America is in deep trouble.  In fact, God could conceivably soon remove his hand of blessing altogether.  My fellow Americans, the upcoming election is of the highest importance.  I believe it will reveal if Americans is to remain on the current wide road of destruction, or turn right and follow the narrow road that leads back towards the Providential guidance that blessed our republic from it’s founding.

Just to give a little historical perspective, Jedidiah Morse (1761-1826) was a pioneer American teacher, clergyman, geographer, and the father of Samuel Morse, inventor of the telegraph and “Morse Code.”  After the American Revolution, he taught school while a graduate student at Yale.  His students needed a good geography text, so he wrote Geography Made Easy and published it in 1784. Young Jedidiah Morse also studied for the ministry. As time progressed he became disenchanted with the growing move of the Boston clergy away from Orthodox Christian doctrine.  One of the first sermons Morse delivered was “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?

Mr. Morse also stated “To the kindly influence of Christianity we owe that degree of civil freedom, and political and social happiness which mankind now enjoys.  In proportion as the genuine effects of Christianity are diminished in any nation, either through unbelief or the corruption of it’s doctrine, or the neglect of it’s institutions; in the same proportion will the people of that nation recede from the blessings of genuine freedom, and approximate the miseries of complete desposition.”

In other words America, if you turn your back on the virtues of the Christian doctrine and Providential guidance, do not be shocked if the blessings that came as a result of faith in God leave with him if he is permanently booted out of society by the progressive bigots.

Trump And The Burning Of The Boats by Gary Berntsen, former CIA Operations Officer

The current presidential campaign in the U.S. reminds us that politics is civilized conflict, but conflict none the less.

In 1518 The Conquistador Hernan Cortes, not a man known to seek votes, departed Cuba with six ships and 600 men. He landed at Vera Cruz, Mexico, refused orders to return to Cuba and burned his ships just prior to marching inland toward a bloody confrontation and victory over an Aztec civilization of several hundred thousand. En route to his battle with the Aztecs, Cortes defeated smaller vassal states, built a coalition, then marched on the Aztecs. This act of risk and defiance changed the course of history. The burning of his ships brought many of his men to tears. The act defined the reality that there would be no turning back. It would be victory or death.

Fast forward to the 2016 presidential campaign and political observers understand that a different type of coalition building is going on. On the right and in the center the electorate is horrified by a president that campaigned on “Hope and Change” but has wrought enmity domestically and chaos on the international stage. Despite a national news media establishment heavily vested in President Barack Obama, the internet, talk radio and other outlets have provided channels of news independent of the President’s media team. Enter billionaire builder, entrepreneur and media sensation Donald Trump into the political arena. Trump, having honed his branding skills in the market place and media skills on a lengthy and successful reality show “The Apprentice,” has demonstrated mastery in terms of communication with the masses. Trump has been a dominant factor in the Republican Presidential primary race.

A fair person must admit, the Republicans have a strong cadre of seasoned candidates. A number of the candidates have had long distinguished careers in public service. However, none of these candidates have been able to match Donald Trump’s ability to communicate and connect with the masses. I have spoken with a large number of blue-collar Democrats who have told me that they are voting for Trump! Again and again, their explanation, “he says what I am thinking.”

I am 58 years of age, served in the Air Force, the CIA, participated in campaigns, and even ran for the U.S. Senate. I have never seen anything like this. Trump is a non-traditional candidate with an uncanny ability to reach a significant portion of the population on both sides of the political spectrum.    

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gary berntsenABOUT GARY BERNTSEN

Gary Berntsen is a retired Senior CIA Operations Officer and Chief of Station.  Mr. Berntsen is the President of The Berntsen Group and bestselling Author of Jawbreaker, The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda where he recounts his leadership role in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan in response to the 11 September 2001 attacks.  Mr. Berntsen is the recipient of CIA’s Distinguished Intelligence Medal and Intelligence Star.

Mr. Berntsen regularly appears as a counterterrorism and national security guest commentator on Fox News, CNN, CNBC and Newsmax.

Who Won in Iowa? And Why? by Daniel Bier

On Monday, the political world watched as the early results trickled in from the Iowa caucuses. First, Donald Trump was ahead, then Ted Cruz overtook him, then Marco Rubio started creeping up. In the final count, Cruz won convincingly with 28 percent, Trump came in second with 24 percent, and Rubio took home bronze with 23 percent.

Commentators are scrambling now to read the tea leaves of these results. A lot of the alleged meaning depends on the hopes and expectations people had before. The last (and typically best) Iowa poll, released just two days before the caucuses, had Trump at 28 percent, Cruz at 23 percent, and Rubio at 15 percent.

Trump, it was thought, had run a lazy campaign and had very little grassroots mobilization, so maybe he would get crushed by better organized rivals. And though he did lose to Cruz, and barely beat Rubio, it’s hardly the death blow some hoped. It turns out that at least a quarter of the highly motivated GOP base in Iowa really do like Trump, in spite of his lackadaisical operation, and the polls that show him in the lead aren’t skewed or exaggerated.

Cruz’s triumph, driven by evangelical voters, might seem to bode well for his nomination prospects. Rubio did better than expected, so maybe that means something. Carson, Jeb, and Rand garnered very modest support; the rest of the pack did so poorly they didn’t received any delegates at all, and some are already dropping out.

This week, pollsters will be furiously dialing potential voters. Pundits will be scribbling and shouting, all angling for some unique or authoritative or contrarian perspective on these results.

But there’s one source of information that’s a better predictor of where the wind is blowing than polls, statistical models, or expert forecasts: the market. Specifically, betting markets, where people are forced to put their money where their mouth is.

With hard cash on the line, the incentive to be right is powerful — and, it turns out, pretty effective.

Here’s what the betting odds looked like for most of this endless campaign season. Early on, there’s a lot of uncertainty, but the odds of Trump actually winning the nomination were always consistently low, despite his huge leads in the polls. Bettors didn’t believe voters would really go for him, or that the party insiders would allow him to succeed.

But in the last month, something changed. Maybe it was because the party insiders didn’t seem to be doing anything to stop Trump. Maybe it was because the mainstream never coalesced around a “establishment” candidate. Maybe it was because Trump’s long-predicted crash in the polls never materialized.

Either way, Trump’s odds started steadily improving in January, and Christie, Cruz, and Rubio started slipping. On January 13, at 7:01 AM, Trump took the lead for the first time, and after that, his odds soared. On the day of the Iowa caucuses, bettors put his probability of winning the Republican nomination at over 50 percent.

But as the results started trickling in, and it became clear that Cruz would beat Trump, the markets reacted.

In just 90 minutes, Trump’s odds of winning the nomination cratered — falling from over 50 percent to about 25 percent — and Marco Rubio’s soared, from about 30 percent to over 55 percent. As for Cruz’s big win, it barely brought him back to where he stood two weeks ago.

According the markets, Rubio won in Iowa, and Trump lost.

If you’re concerned about the rise of Trump’s fascist, populist demagoguery — its virulent and xenophobic identity politics, economic nationalism, and lawless authoritarianism — this might seem to be good news, of a sort.

But the bad news is that Trump’s loss is probably due in large part to his rival’s embrace of Trumpism. At the Atlantic, Peter Beinart notes that Rubio “surged by borrowing Trump’s message while pledging to more effectively package it.”

In the final weeks before Iowa, Rubio grew markedly more anti-immigration. Having previously warned against using terrorism as a pretext to restrict legal immigration, the Florida senator in mid-January declared that because of the rise of ISIS, “the entire system of legal immigration must now be reexamined for security first and foremost.”

He also followed Trump’s lead on trade, suggesting that he might oppose the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement he had once praised.

Rubio echoed Trump when it came to the rights of Muslims, too. Asked in a January debate about Trump’s call for banning Muslim immigration, Rubio praised the billionaire for having “tapped in to some of that anger that’s out there about this whole issue because this president has consistently underestimated the threat of ISIS.” …The listener who didn’t already know Rubio’s position might well have thought he supports Trump’s plan.

When asked about Trump’s call for closing mosques, Rubio did Trump one better, declaring that, “It’s not about closing down mosques. It’s about closing down any place — whether it’s a cafe, a diner, an Internet site — any place where radicals are being inspired.”

… Having once pitched himself as a bridge between the GOP and the changing face of twenty-first century America, Rubio instead began appealing to “all of us who feel out of place in our own country.”

Here is the moderateestablishment candidate calling the whole system of legal immigration into question, attacking foreign trade, fear-mongering about religious minorities, calling to shut down and censor the Internet, and blowing tribalist dog whistles.

Of course, Rubio isn’t Trump: he’s a politician. If he captures the nomination, he’ll try to pivot from identity politics and emphasize his “moderate” credentials. He’s still an establishment figure, with the credibility of being sophisticated, eloquent, and (above all) “electable” — everything Trump isn’t.

But this is the larger problem. Trump has convinced the establishment that they need to embrace his priorities and methods in order to maintain control. Worse, he might be right. This may be the most troubling development in the whole Trump saga, and not just because the establishment won’t flatly repudiate a man conjuring up religious tests, concentration camps, and mass deportation.

By rallying long-suppressed nationalist factions, Trump has shifted the margins of acceptable debate more than any other political figure in recent memory. “Trump has redefined what “moderate” means,” Beinart argues.

In 2008 and 2012, Mitt Romney and John McCain never had to praise a rival for suggesting a religious litmus test for entering the country. During their presidential bids, Romney and McCain both shifted right on illegal immigration. But they didn’t backpedal on their support for legal immigration.

Trump probably couldn’t win the general election, and if he did, he couldn’t institute his agenda effectively without the network of interest groups that make policy happen. That’s what makes him so dangerous: he’s unconstrained by the traditional network of interests, compromises, and pressures of the status quo — nobody has any idea what he might try to do.

But that’s also what makes his candidacy a long shot. The more established candidates might very well win and effectively implement their agenda — pushing the bounds of executive power that Bush and Obama softened into playdough — without triggering an open constitutional or political crisis. Their embrace of Trump’s agenda is a troubling sign both of how the political landscape has shifted and what might now come from even a “moderate” presidency.

The ballots say Cruz won. The markets say it was Rubio. But, in time, we may find that it was Trump after all.

Daniel BierDaniel Bier

Daniel Bier is the editor of Anything Peaceful. He writes on issues relating to science, civil liberties, and economic freedom.

How to Avoid Being Raped? Just Say No

As they circle the drain, Western societies increasingly start to seem like parodies of real civilizations. It’s as if, to twist Shakespeare’s famous line, all the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players in a really bad comedy that won’t get past its first season. The latest chapter is a Finnish anti-rape video that, writes Jihad Watch’s Robert Spencer, teaches women that all they “have to do to keep from being raped is turn around, hold out their hand in a ‘halt’ gesture and say ‘Stop!’”

The video, shown below, portrays a woman being approached from behind by a man who appears to be a native Finn (maybe Huck Finn?) because, as we all know, Finnish men have suddenly decided to start preying on their women. The fact that the rising rate of sexual assault and concern about it coincide with the influx of Muslims into Finland is purely coincidental, I tell ya’.

In the video, the woman holds up her hand assertively shouting “Stop!” or “No!” and the alleged rapist backs off, completely cowed. Of course, though, I can’t speak Finnish, so I’m taking Spencer’s word for it on what’s being related in the video. But other possibilities do suggest themselves. Perhaps the women is,

  • using a Jedi mind trick: “No, you don’t want to rape me. You don’t want to rape me. You don’t want to rape me,” prompting the miscreant to back off, confused and repeating trance-like, “I don’t want to rape you.”
  • is saying, “I’ve told you thrice already, I don’t have the time!”
  • is telling her boyfriend, “No, Sven, I’m not going to show this video to the authorities and back up your claim you’re a Muslim migrant just so you can get more government benefits!”
  • is stating, “I don’t care if you’re going to visit San Francisco. You can’t borrow this purse.”
  • is protesting, “Don’t tell me where to go, that I shouldn’t walk into the Arab section. That’s patriarchal and Islamophobic!”

When the woman performs her arm movements, she also reminds me of a stewardess (if this offends people who now insist on the term “flight attendant,” good!) giving the pre-flight explanation of how to use the inflatable life jacket under your seat. And, interestingly, the kind of people likely to accost a woman in Finland can also be voted most likely to bring down an airplane.

It appears that Nordic countries are competing hard for the Darwin Award. Sweden currently is the top contender, but the others aren’t giving up on the race to the bottom. And whether it’s Sweden, Norway or some other land that reaches the nadir first, it’s not unreasonable to say they’re all Finnished.

Contact Selwyn Duke, follow him on Twitter or log on to SelwynDuke.com

UC Berkeley: White Students to Purchase ‘Free Speech insurance’

The University of California has adopted a new policy requiring all students who identify with being Caucasian to purchase mandatory “Free Speech Insurance” as part of enrollment fees, $1,000 per-semester, set to begin in the fall semester of 2016.

The idea had been bouncing around for about a year until the UC Board of Trustees was able to put all the logistics in place. The concept of mandatory Free Speech Insurance (FSI) is based on the belief that “free speech” and “safe spaces” on campus are mutually exclusive as they stem from fundamentally different belief systems that are diametrically opposed to one another.

“Words that express unadulterated individual thought are by definition hurtful to those who do not experience such thoughts,” stated professor Lilly Barnes, instructor in Modern Ethics and Safe-Think during an open forum dedicated to explaining the new policy to students. “Only by suppressing individual thought and following standards of pre-approved collective thought prepared for you by caring academic professionals, can we achieve the safety of thinking in unison and make our campus a safe space for everyone. This is what my mandatory course in Safe-Think will help you to achieve.”

“The problem with this country,” continued Barnes, “is that freely expressed individual ideas almost always lead to delusional thoughts and perceptions that can be described as anti-progressive, racist, sexist, bigoted, or Islamophobic. Unfortunately, we can’t yet jail people for unfiltered expression of their Caucasianism as it exists in their unguided and dangerously delusional minds. As a result, many minority students are constantly bombarded with white and heteronormative micro-aggressions, which causes them to suffer extreme mental and emotional traumas. So the next best thing to arresting all white students is to make them purchase mandatory Free Speech Insurance that will be used to compensate for any emotional damage minority students may suffer in accidents caused by unapproved speech or any other expression of non-safe individual thought on our campus.”

“Minority students will be exempt from purchasing FSI because we believe they are incapable of individual thought and don’t have the capacity to reason and act independently,” Barnes said. “But a white mouth that is free to speak, is no less dangerous than an assault machine gun. I see it everywhere I go on this campus. I become alarmed whenever I see a group of white students standing around without a single minority in their midst. I am not deaf, I can clearly hear them talk about things like movies, or video games, or even sports – without acknowledging how their white privilege provided them with those opportunities. It makes me want to vomit.”

Professor Barnes further illustrated her point with a recent example of the damages caused by unregulated freedom of expression on campus. It happened when an African-American student overheard a group of Asian students saying that the boycott of the Oscars was “ridiculous” while they were all having lunch in one of the University’s cafeterias. The fact that this blatant microaggression did not come directly from Caucasian students made things even worse, as the well-trained African-American student was still able to detect white racism compounded by cultural appropriation, which raised the incident classification to “aggravated assault.” This made the African-American student so emotionally distraught that they could not attend class for three weeks and now they require costly biweekly therapy visits.

That is where Free Speech Insurance will come in. It will cover the cost of the therapy and rehabilitation of victims of unregulated, freely expressed Caucasian ideas. Even in cases when the offensive speech does not come from white students directly but is culturally appropriated from them by misguided minorities, the burden of payment will still be distributed among the Caucasians whose fault it is that offensive ideas exist in the first place.

To further the University’s goal of making the campus “a universal safe space,” the institution has also announced that it will be removing courses that focus on the Constitution and the Bill of Rights since those documents are believed to “encourage division and bigotry among the student body” by promoting criminally delusional ideas of individual freedom, thought, and expression. These courses will be replaced with professor Lilly Barnes’s collectivist “Safe-Think” and other classes that promote intellectual unanimity and emotional awareness of hurtful and offensive speech, all of which should lead to lower FSI premiums in the future.

According to the official statement, the school administrators are hopeful they will live to see the day when Free Speech Insurance will no longer be required as all students will be properly trained in collectivism and unanimous thinking, providing a safe learning environment for everyone on the UC Berkeley campus.

RELATED ARTICLES:

Portland Community College to devote an entire month to ‘whiteness’-shaming

University of Connecticut creates black-only living space as activist groups brand move towards segregation as ‘troubling’

kommissar of viral infectionsEDITORS NOTE: The political satire originally appeared on The Peoples Cube. The author is the Kommissar of Viral Infestions, Hero of Change and Prophet of the Future Truth.

Marshalltown, Iowa: The Town a Foreign-owned Company Changed Forever

This is one more in a long sad line of American towns and cities changed forever due to the needs of greedy global corporations (not just meatpackers!) and their appetite for cheap immigrant labor.  They get the cheap labor, we get the poverty and extra welfare expenses, not to mention the cultural upheaval!

Trump and Arpaio 2

Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio endorsed Trump in Marshalltown.

Be sure to see an earlier post on how JBS Swift (a Brazilian owned company) is destroying the American middle class in Marshalltown.

And, don’t miss my post of only a couple of weeks ago about foreign-owned companies like JBS Swift changing America by changing the people.

“Taking food out of our [American] mouths!”

From Philly.com thanks to a reader:

The blue-collar city, which has shed manufacturing jobs, epitomizes the economic squeeze of the American middle class. And Marshalltown has grappled for years with immigration, the issue that fires up conservative GOP base voters almost as much as terrorism.

Today, about a quarter of Marshalltown’s population of 28,000 is Latino. By contrast, Hispanics make up about 6 percent of Iowa’s population. A number of Burmese and Sudanese immigrants also have settled here.

Job cuts

In the 1980s the meatpacking industry mechanized production, boosting output and slashing wages. Meat processors already faced a labor shortage as the U.S. rural population shrank and fewer Americans wanted the repetitive, dangerous jobs, the industry says. Packers turned to Mexico and the rest of Latin America for workers.  [B.S. they could have paid a decent salary and kept American workers!—ed]

“It’s like they’ve got a sign on the border, ‘Come to Marshalltown,’ ” said Mike Foreman, 66, who worked at the meatpacking plant until 2000, when a back injury forced him to retire.

“The company paid them less than they paid us,” he said last week at the city’s senior citizens center. “The way I look at it, they’re taking food out of our mouths.”

Continue reading here.

See all of our posts over the years about meat packers by clicking here.

Voter Fraud: We See Dead People

It’s true folks. Patriot sister Sharron “Braveheart” Angle has taken on battling voter fraud; sounding the alarm that it is running rampant in America. What good is winning the hearts and minds of voters if we allow Democrats to steal elections?

Sharron suffered the devastation of election corruption when she almost defeated Harry Reid in 2010. Illegals voted for Harry Reid. There is evidence that Reid possibly stole the election from Sharron Angle using dead voters, people in prison and illegals. 

Romans 8:28 says “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose.” I suspect Sharron’s painful loss has made her a passionate crusader; committed to cleaning up the electoral process.

Remember the Black Panther Party thugs who stood outside the polls armed with clubs? Though charged with voter intimidation, Obama’s DOJ arrogantly and without apology outrageously dropped the charges because the perpetrators were black. Can you believe that folks? Meanwhile, Obama looks down his morally superior nose at us, proclaiming himself a defender of equal justice.

South Carolina’s attorney general found evidence that at least 900 dead people voted in an election. Philadelphia flagged 50,000 duplicate registrations. Voting machines are changing peoples’ votes. A voter was caught registering six times. Meanwhile, Democrats act outraged and seek to shackle and flog Republicans in the public square for suggesting that all Americans must show a photo ID to vote; claiming it is an evil racist Republican plot to disenfranchise black voters. Fearlessly, along with fighting voter fraud, Sharron has a Voter ID initiative

As an American who happens to be black, I am highly insulted. In essence, Democrats are saying it is too challenging for us poor inferior simpleminded blacks to find our way to the DMV or other places to acquire a photo ID. It frustrates me that fellow black Americans remain blind to the truth that Democrats consistently talk down to them. Presented as compassion and fairness, Democrats always seek to lower expectations and standards for blacks; inferring that we are inferior. But, I digress.

Sharron Angle is leading the charge to stop voter fraud, producing “Not On My Watch”, a 90 minute documentary scheduled for nationwide release in theaters June 2016. The documentary will show undeniable evidence of voter fraud and smart ways to stop it. I’m excited folks.

Angle believes her documentary will be an integral part of a win for Constitutional Conservatism in 2016. She believes it will inspire voters to go to the polls and vote and volunteer to be eyes on the process.

True-the-Vote plans to have 1,000,000 trained citizens as poll watchers in place across America on Election Day 2016.

Sharron’s documentary is a grassroots, We the People project folks. She needs your help to git-r-done. Please go to the website and do whatever you can

Sharron has an LLC to take big donations that will fund the completion of the documentary with returns on those investments of $20,000 or more.

2 out of 3 American voters are wisely concerned about the serious problem of voter fraud; Democrats stealing the 2016 presidential election. We simply cannot allow that to happen folks. Every America loving voter must proclaim, “Not on my watch!”

Freedom and the integrity of our electoral process are under siege, hanging in the balance. All-hands-on-deck folks. Please, please, please rally behind our brave sister Sharron Angle; leading an army of patriots on her white horse, her sword-of-faith held high in the air while yelling, “Freedom-m-m-m!!!”

This presidential election is about changing the ungodly course that our country is on; crucial to the survival of our founding father’s vision of America. We must not tolerant honest election vote counters saying, “We see dead people.” 

RELATED ARTICLE: Hillary Clinton Campaign General Counsel Represented Group Investigated for Registering Dead People to Vote

Capitalism Promotes Equality: Equality in Consumption Is Now the Norm by Barry Brownstein

Highway traffic began to slow outside of Boston as we made our way to the airport. My wife was driving, so I took out my $100 Android phone and opened Google Maps. Google Traffic instantly showed me, in real time, the best route to avoid delays and estimated the number of minutes we’d save by altering our route. Thanks to Google, there was no threat of missing our flight.

It was not too long ago that we relied on traffic reporters in helicopters, and their advice was often useless by the time we heard their updates.

Have you wondered how Google Traffic does it? The answer is crowdsourcing. If you are among the two-thirds of American adults who own a smartphone, and if the GPS locator on your phone is enabled, you are generating real-time traffic information. Google Traffic measures how fast cars are moving compared to normal speeds and generates location-specific reports.

Rich or poor, most of the drivers on the highway that day had access to the same miraculous traffic report and the same opportunity to make better driving decisions. This is just one example of how the marketplace generates equality in consumption.

The cars we drive are another indicator of consumption equality. We were driving an inexpensive Subaru Outback. There are more expensive, comfortable, and bigger cars on the market, but the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says that there are none safer than the Outback.

Would a rich individual, on this same drive to the airport, have any noticeable advantages over me? He or she could hire a driver and use the drive time for something more productive, but even that advantage will dwindle as driverless cars become the norm.

In his Wall Street Journal commentary “The Rise of Consumption Equality,” former hedge fund manager Andy Kessler writes:

Just about every product or service that makes our lives better requires a mass market or it’s not economic to bother offering. Those who invent and produce for the mass market get rich. And the more these innovators better the rest of our lives, the richer they get but the less they can differentiate themselves from the masses whose wants they serve.

“What does Google founder Larry Page have that you don’t have?” Kessler asks pointedly.

Page’s income is unimaginably larger than most of ours. But in terms of consumption, the differences are negligible — which is remarkable, given how much Page and Google have improved our lives.

All-time football great Tom Brady earns roughly $10 million a year. His diet made the news recently. Does Brady enjoy health advantages not available to Americans with a fraction of his income? Brady hires a cook. Our family doesn’t do that, but we eat much like Brady — organic vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, and fish make up the bulk of our diet. From May to October, a local organic farmer provides an abundance of vegetables that are picked fresh for us based on an order we place the day before. In the summertime, our produce may be fresher than Brady’s. Compared to any of us, what real dietary advantage does Tom Brady’s income afford him? It is his commitment to a healthy lifestyle, not his income, that makes the difference.

In 1900, Americans spent approximately 50 percent of their household income on food and clothing; today, we spend closer to 20 percent. Today, fresh produce from all over the world, not even available to a king a century ago, awaits common consumers when they enter the supermarket.

In 1900, only 25 percent of households had running water; fewer still had flush toilets. It would be decades before such wonders as electricity, automobiles, and indoor plumbing were ubiquitous. The faucets in the famed Hearst Castle in California may have been gold plated, but was the water any better than what the average household received? The water running in my home comes from an artesian well over 400 feet deep. More evidence of consumption equality: my water is every bit as good, if not better, than a billionaire’s in a big city penthouse.

Wealth is not a good predictor of a rich life. Psychology professor Sonja Lyubomirsky found that only 10 percent of the variance in Americans’ happiness is due to income and other circumstances. “Happiness more than anything,” she writes in her book The How of Happiness, ”is a state-of-mind, a way of perceiving and approaching ourselves and the world in which we reside.”

And what of the elements of emotional intelligence that make life richer? In the book Big Magic, best-selling author Elizabeth Gilbert observes:

If money were the only thing people needed to live rich creative lives, then the mega-rich would be the most imaginative, generative, and original thinkers among us, and they simply are not. The essential ingredients for creativity remain exactly the same for everybody: courage, enchantment, permission, persistence, trust — and those elements are universally accessible. Which does not mean that creative living is always easy; it merely means that creative living is always possible.

The same universally accessible elements are essential ingredients for entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs persist, driven by their vision and by the equality of opportunity that capitalism affords. The entrepreneur’s choice to be persistent and courageous is the not-so-secret engine that drives success.

The essential consumption goods we couldn’t even imagine a hundred years ago are almost universally available in the United States today. The marketplace, aided by many creative, pioneering entrepreneurs and every person who strives to put in a good day’s work, is generating consumption equality.

Barry BrownsteinBarry Brownstein

Barry Brownstein is professor emeritus of economics and leadership at the University of Baltimore. He is the author of The Inner-Work of Leadership. He blogs at BarryBrownstein.com, Giving up Control, and America’s Highest Purpose.