Hitler's Missing Speech

 

 

 

 By Nitzhakon

 

 So I’ve “gotten into it” any number of times about Hitler being a Socialist, that you can’t say NAZI without understanding it comes from “National Socialist German Worker’s Party”, and so on.  And there is plenty of evidence that he was, indeed, a Socialist.

I  was born and raised in the “People’s Republic of Marxachusetts” and grew up very, very liberal.  Name a Left/Right issue, I was on the Left.  No question.  Yet each time I abandoned a Left position to move Rightward, I can point to a seminal event or other piece of insight/learning that ushered in a reconsidering of my former position and – often – describe my thought process after that event as well as new insights and thought patterns that started to ascend.

As one example, still fresh in my mind despite (cough cough a long time), is the moment when I started to doubt the anti-gun teachings I’d been impressed with all my life (bolding in original):

I was living in the Midwest when my police officer neighbor remarked that I should get a gun for self-defense. Having been raised, all my life, to believe that civilian gun ownership was wrong, it shocked me to my core that – of all people – a cop was telling me this.

Unlike most Leftists – and have no doubt that I still was one – I didn’t dismiss this as a flier data point stated by a knuckledraggingslopedforeheadredneck, but rather it made me think those great two words that often stand at the threshold of a new insight: That’s weird…

I can also describe – and did – the thought processes and cascades that came from that moment.  As I can when I started to question my “pro-abortion” stance to move towards the pro-life view.  And many other shifts, including my transitioning from a climate alarmist to CO2-mageddon skeptic.  All of this ties back to something our host said some time ago on their old blog about humility.  In this context, the willingness to admit the possibility of error.  Humility is the opposite of Vanity, and while the Seven Deadly Sins – and Seven Heavenly Virtues – are Catholic constructs (not that there’s anything wrong with that!) I have found them to be useful intellectual tools. I have told my children, in teaching them my values, that it’s my belief that all humans have 1-2 sins that dominate a particular person’s weaknesses, that there are 1-2 that are “intermediate”, and the rest fall off Pareto-like into the trivial.

As noted in an excellent book I recently read, learning requires change, and change requires the humility to admit one might be wrong in one’s beliefs.  This is, as an aside, is something I would ask when doing interviews back in my days as a corporate slave, er, drone, um, I mean employee: Tell me about a time when you changed your mind on something significant.  Describe the background, your initial thoughts, what you changed to, and why you changed your mind.

If reworded a little, it’s also an excellent question to ask of a potential new boss.

 

If They Win In 2020, The Left Will Steal Your Home And Destroy Your Neighborhood

From this to this....👇

The American Dream has always been to own a home of your own in a decent neighborhood.

Do you own a home? Like your neighborhood? Guess what?  The 2020  election will decide if you are able to keep your home and what happens to your neighborhood.

The radical Left which now controls the Democrat Party has some plans for your home and your neighborhood if they get elected.

Let's start with Joe Biden's 2020 platform. It calls for ending suburban American communities by flooding them with forced low-income housing into every neighborhood and flooding them with immigrants, legal or otherwise.

This is the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force Recommendations, which would  give instant amnesty and a pathway to U.S. citizenship for the 22 million illegal aliens now living in America. And guess what, it would  also give legal status to any 'refugees' that want to come here whether their claims are legitimate or not.

But wait, there's more.

The Biden platform will also put Barack Hussein Obama's Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rules into practice. It would force communities receiving any federal funding, including FEMA disaster aid  to abide by strict rules mandating  "proactively examine housing patterns and identify and address policies that have discriminatory effects.”

The AFFH was a rule added by former President Barack Obama to the 1968 Fair Housing Act. Once revived by Joe Biden if he's elected, it is going to radically undercut the political and economic Independence of America’s suburbs...and that includes your neighborhood.

Or in other words, if your neighborhood doesn't pass their mandatory diversity  test, (and I'm sure you can imagine what that entails) you will be forced to do so...and this could include eminent domain on private houses, including yours,  to ensure that they're available for the government's preferred groups. Need I say more?

President Trump managed to curtail and make certain reforms to most of this, but of course those changes would all be rolled back in a Biden administration.

Think I'm kidding?

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez attacked “homeowners” just yesterday,  saying that they are hurting people that can’t afford to own land. Her rant comes as her fellow squad member congresswoman Rep. Ilhan Omar proposed a bill that would strip property owners of their property if the federal government deems it necessary. 

The law will put control of nearly every small town, local, municipal, and state powers and responsibilities under the power of federal control. That includes schools, police, housing and much more. It destroys zoning laws. If local governments don’t go along, the government will cut off all funds and very probably will use the Biden Department of Justice to file suit aganst communities and evenindividual home owners to make them comply.

The bill would also cancel all rent and mortgage payments regardless of income or employment throughout the duration of the Corona  pandemic.

And a  fund would be created “to fully finance the purchase of private rental properties by non-profits, public housing authorities, cooperatives, community land trusts, and states or local governments — in order to increase the availability of affordable housing . Guess who's going to pay for this...you are especially if you own a home. You are.

As socialists and communists like to say, 'Property is Theft...unless it belongs to us'!

You see, the Left doesn't like single family housing. They want people in multi family dwellings to give them more control of how you live. Essentially, they see middle class homeowners as Kulaks.*

The platform also states Biden would: “Ensure effective and rigorous enforcement of the Fair Housing Act and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act. Hold financial institutions accountable for discriminatory practices in the housing market.

As the platform states:

"Democrats will vigorously enforce the Fair Housing Act and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act and hold lenders accountable for discriminatory practices. We will use the federal government to enforce settlements against discriminatory lenders, and require communities to proactively review housing patterns and remedy local policies that have a discriminatory effect. Democrats will give local elected officials tools and resources to combat gentrification, penalize predatory lending practices, and maintain homeownership, including exploring targeted rental relief when exorbitant rent increases force long-term residents from their communities and tackling persistent racial bias in appraisals that contributes to the racial wealth gap.

As someone who made a successful career in Real Estate, allow me to translate what this will mean.

Home loans used to be underwritten based on the borrower's credit record, what were known as 'ratios' meaning what  the amount of the mortgage payments would add to already existing debt the borrower had and whether the borrower would b e able to afford to make all of his payments and not default. Another factor was the borrower's overall credit record...things like consistent late payments, items at collection agencies, foreclosures, repos, things like that. Job history and length of time on the job would also be looked at. In other words, to avoid having to foreclose, lenders would underwrite to make sure the borrower was likely to  repay the loan and had the income to afford to pay the mortgage along with any other debts they had. It was sound, common sense and it worked.

That ended thanks to changes in the laws during the Clinton and Obama Administrations that forced lenders to make loans to people who didn't meet sound underwriting standards and had poor credit. These new standards were based a great deal on exactly what the Biden platform plans to base it on....the borrower's race and/or ethnicity.  As I'm sure you'll remember, this led to a lot of  bad loans and foreclosures. And when these bad loans were bundled with other loans and sold on the secondary market (Which is what banks do with them normally) it contributed a great deal to the 2008 recession. And the banks didn't pay for it, you did. President Barack Hussein Obama simply raised the maximum amount Government financed FHA and  similar loans could be financed at to allow a lot of these bad loans to be refinanced at little cost to the owners, but at the expense of  the taxpayers.

Let's look at the rest.

'Gentrification' merely means that as a neighborhood gets nicer and more desirable, the price to live there increases. The Biden plan is to allow Left wing goons like the current mayors of various blue controlled cities like Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, New York, Chicago and Los Angeles legal tools to prevent those neighborhoods they and their cronies don't live in from becoming nice and desirable places to live. What they will use is forced low income multi family dwellings, housing projects, mandatory rent control where it doesn't already exist and eminent domain to take over houses occupied by people they feel aren't entitled to 'privilege.' They will then use their own city employed  appraisers to decide what the owners will be paid and I guarantee you, it will be less than market value. Some of this has already occured in some Blue run cities.

Picture how your own  your own neighborhood will change once this goes into effect. Living in the same area with a housing project and what that usually brings in terms of crime, vandalism, a drop in property values and a general lower standard of living...and especially think about it in terms of defunding your police department, something that's also on the way if these people get in power.

It will also result in a lot more difficulty in even finding housing, unless you're one of the preferred groups of people this is aimed at. And thanks to corporate America gobbling up homes and renting them out, owning your own home might just become a dream denied. 

A Trump administration might abrogate this. A Biden Administration assuredly won't.

Even though the voters in California voted down  a proposition on the ballot for mandatory rent control, the Democrat controlled state legislators simply voted it into law. Ask anyone you know who lives there how hard it is to find housing. Also, since the new Biden program will be exploring targeted rental relief when exorbitant rent increases force long-term residents from their communities.   In other words, if you have rental property you will not be able to decide what your property will rent for, whom you may rent it to or whether you can increase the rent to compensate for increased property taxes. Which are definitely on the way

Another thing about appraisers...notice this: tackling persistent racial bias in appraisals that contributes to the racial wealth gap.

Appraisers are trained and licensed  professionals. They use standardized  methods to come to an opinion of value which includes using other similar property sales in the area to determine value of the property in question, and they are strictly regulated.   What the new Biden platform plans to do is to force them to lower sales values so that the favored ethnicity can buy your house...because it's racist for you to own property anyway, right? And of course you will have to settle for what these diversity appraisers say your property is worth, even if the house next door almost exactly like yours sold for a lot more before the Dems took over.

This is part of what's at stake in the next election among other things. Think about it when you vote, not just for president but for congress and your state legislators and governors. Your home and your neighborhood are at stake.

*Kulaks are what the Communists called the prosperous middle classes of professionals, artisans, shop keepers and  wealthy and successful farmers who employed hired labor or their own possessed farm machinery. They were treated as oppressors and class enemies and were forced to give up their 'privilege.'

Rob Miller writes for Joshuapundit. His articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Examiner, American Thinker, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The San Francisco Chronicle, Real Clear Politics, The Times Of Israel, Breitbart.Com, Yediot and other publications

Defund The Police? Sure, Why Not?

The latest demand by the folks at Black Lives Matter is to defund the police departments in the cities they and the Antifa pals have rioted in. The carnage in these cities is supposed to be a message and a warning, I suppose.

And why not? Apparently some politicians seem to like the idea just fine. So do a number of celebs, who are busily raising funds to promote this.

Richard Vogel/Ap

In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti referred to the LAPD as 'killers', took to his knees in surrender

in front of a number of 'protestors' and promised to defund the LAPD.

He has in fact defunded the LAPD to the tune of $150 million and cancelled a budget increase that had already been approved. He also pledged to cut another $250 million "to be focused on our black community here in Los Angeles, as well as communities of color, and women, and people who have been left behind, for too long.”

Every city department will be affected by major budget cuts to satisfy the people who rioted and looted the city.

“We all have to step up and say: What can we sacrifice?”

Racial justice, he said, was “worth sacrificing for.”

Of course, Asians, Jews, Latino, Black and White business owners who saw their businesses go up in smoke are not included.

Spokespeople for the LAPD said that aside from reducing manpower, the cut may mean firing all or most of the civilian employees...like 911 operators.

The director of the Los Angeles Police Protective League, Jamie McBride responded, to no real avail:

Eric, do you really believe that Los Angeles police officers are killers? The same officers that provide you 24-hour security at your residence 365 days a year? The same officers that gave you political rescue when crime was out of control, when shootings were exploding? The same officers you sent to address your failure to get homelessness under control?

And Garcetti's capitulation is by no means enough for the  'activists.' They are insisting that the police budget be cut by 90% . I kid you not.

Of course, now that thousands of criminals have been freed in California and New York just prior to the riots, it's a perfect time to defund the police, right?

And it's not just LA.

In Minneapolis it got even more phantasmic.

Mayor Jacob Frey, who jumped all over his own police force also went to capitulate to the mob, without success. They basically chased him out of their 'protest' and no matter how many boots he licked it wasn't enough. Not even for his own city council, let alone the mob.

According to Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender"If you are a comfortable white person asking to dismantle the police I invite you to reflect: are you willing to stick with it? Will you be calling in three months to ask about garage break-ins? Are you willing to dismantle white supremacy in all systems, including a new system?"

The new system, of course, will be police free  or at best have a small group of disarmed security guards for the well connected.

Of course, you should be willing to abandon your right not to have your home broken intot. Otherwise, you're a Racist. Right? Especially if you do call the cops..oh wait, there won't be any cops, remember?

You see, your either an 'ally' willing to beg on your knees, express shame for your white privilege and cheerfully allow the people who have broken into your home to make off with whatever they want or you're a white supremacist.

Understand?

Unfreakingbelieveable.

As a matter of fact, serious conversations are being held right now about defunding the police forces in  Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Seattle, and Portland. My my, all Democrat run cities that had major riots and places where Antifa and Black Lives Matter are welcomed warmly by these cities politicians for the most part and literally can get away with murder.

Now this actually might work. Cities that wish to do this should be allowed to, but only under the following conditions:

1) The inhabitant of these cities should be allowed to vote on whether they still want police. Of course, if the city government decides to defund police no votes are necessary in true socialist style. Who wants to hear from those racists anyway?

2) Those inhabitants of the city who are stinking racists and decide they want police should have a designated time, say a month or two to leave the city limits.

3) Now that these cities no longer have these white supremacists...and probably a number of black, Asian and Latino citizens who also like the idea of a fully funded police force like the race traitors and Uncle Toms they are, we can proceed.

4) These cities would be independently run and governed. The inhabitants could vote (even felons, and illegal migrants, there might be quite a few of those) in municipal elections but not in federal elections.

5)  Since the police would likely leave since they no longer would have jobs, they can be hired by the feds or the state to maintain barriers around these cities. They would not be permitted to enter these newly autonomous cities, nor would the inhabitants be allowed to exit without special permits and positions.

 6) This would also have the benefit of satisfying those inhabitants who are woke and like the idea of no police to limit their activities. Whatever system the 'government' of these cities decide to enforce what's left of any laws they still have is their business. Also, since some inhabitants have left, there would be ample empty housing available for section 8, crack houses, or what have you as well as for the citizens to live in.

7) The Federal government or state governments where these cities are located would not be responsible for financial aid or law enforcement. Exceptions would be Social Security and pensions for those people now receiving them who continue to reside in these autonomous cities.  In every sense these cities would be autonomous enclaves. They would not be allowed to exercise the rights and powers already  under the jurisdiction of the Federal  government under the Constitution. That would include foreign policy, postage and currency, immigration , etc.

8) The Federal and state governments where these newly independent enclaves are situated would enter into negotiations with these new autonomous enclaves to come to a fair and equitable settlement for payments or arrangements for  state or federal facilities and buildings.

This could actually work. These people would no longer be a real part of a country they consider racist, sexist, fascist, capitalist, what have you.  On the other hand, the rest of the United states of America would no longer be responsible for the welfare, financial help, law enforcement or government of these independent enclaves. They would be able to live out their socialist dream.

Rob Miller writes for Joshuapundit. His articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Examiner, American Thinker, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The San Francisco Chronicle, Real Clear Politics, The Times Of Israel, Breitbart.Com, Yediot and other publications.

Seattle Wealth Tax Approved On Incomes Over $250K

 

The Seattle City Council voted to approve a wealth tax on total income. The vote was unanimous, 9-0. The new Seattle wealth tax is 2.25% over $250,000 per year for a single person and $500,000 per year for a married couple filing jointly.

The city estimates that the new Seattle wealth tax would raise $140 million per year, and would cost between $10-13 million to set up and $5-6 million per year to assess, manage and enforce. Those figures will almost certainly prove top be optimistic, as I'll explain.

For those familiar with Seattle and what it costs to live there, the dollar guidelines for the new wealth tax target quite a few people who hardly qualify as 'rich' especially small business owners since it targets total income. Also, given the nature of Seattle's city government, this tax is likely to be raised more and more as time goes on.

One of the attractions of living in Washington State is that it has no state income tax. So there will likely be a legal challenge to the new law once Mayor Ed Murry signs it into law, since it violates the state constitution. But Washington being a Blue State, there's no guaranty it will be successful. Mayor Murry's argument is that Washington's tax system is "antiquated and regressive, causing people with less money to pay more of what they have."

The Mayor thinks it's time Seattle and the whole State "adopted a progressive income tax."

This is a curious argument, although the Left has been repeating it ad nauseum.This is not a 'progressive income tax' no matter what Seattle's mayor and his socialist buddies claim. A progressive tax affects everyone in varying degrees according to their income and situation. This one does not, only affecting people above a certain total income.

And if people are already not paying state income tax at all, how are they paying 'more of what they have?' The sales tax in Seattle has now been raised to 10.1%, one of the highest in the nation. There's been absolutely no talk about using this new windfall from the rich to lower that tax and I can guarantee you there won't be. Ditto with Seattle's relatively high property taxes, which are levied by King County anyway, not the City of Seattle. So that won't be changing either, at least not as a result of this new Seattle wealth tax.

If it becomes law and survives the legal challenge, here's what will change...Seattle's tax base. If you're a person with a gross income of $250,000, the new Seattle wealth tax will set you back a hefty $5,650, almost $500 a month.And remember, you might only come home with part of that $250,000 after federal taxes and expenses. If you're a professional or highly skilled, there's a good chance you'll move to some place like Kirkland, Renton or Kent or even a little further out and commute in. That's especially true if you live in Seattle but work for say, Microsoft in Redmond or Boeing's factory in Everett. And if you own a home or condo in Seattle, you'll either sell it or rent it if you don't need the sale to finance a new house. If you own a business, you'll either raise the prices you charge for good and services or close your doors and relocate. Especially as this levy on the 'rich' goes up, and rest assured it will.

 

This is very much yet another instance of the failed Blue State model, similar to Detroit, Chicago, etc. The only place this kind of nonsense can be imposed is when people have no choices available, ala' Venezuela. That isn't the case here, and what you end up with as people exercise those choices is a deteriorating tax base, less revenue and a declining city.

There likely are people willing to pay through the nose to live in the Emerald City. But I think that the numbers are unlikely to net anywhere near $140 million per year. And the city of Seattle is going to have to pay something like $15-$20 million to find that out. But hey, it's fun to got to Vegas with other people's money! If you gamble and lose, who cares?

Of course, what Mayor Murray and his socialist friends on the Seattle City Council are doing has nothing to do with actual economics. It's political red meat for their portion of the Seattle electorate.



Rob Miller writes for Joshuapundit. His articles have appeared in The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Examiner, American Thinker, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The San Francisco Chronicle, Real Clear Politics, The Times Of Israel, Breitbart.Com and other publications.

Follow him on Twitter here and on Facebook here.

How Obama Will Pay For 'Free' Community College - By Screwing The Middle Class

 


In tomorrow nights State of the Union speech, President Obama is supposed to announce his latest gimmee, two years of free community college for whomever wants it. Aside from the fact that this will cause community colleges to raise their tuition and fees dramatically ('hey, the government's paying!') just like most 4 year institutions, there's the question of how the Feds are going to pay for this.

Do I really need to tell you that the president plans to screw the middle class again? Over the holiday weekend, when no one was paying attention, the White House leaked its new plan for $320 billion in new taxes  including a major capital gains hike (particularly immoral since this money has already been taxed once as income) and a 20% increase in the death tax rate. But wait,there's more:

A new 7 basis point (0.07%) tax on the liabilities (not assets) of the 100 or so U.S. firms with assets over $50 billion. This will obviously be passed along to these firms' customers and employees, since businesses don't pay taxes--people do.

There would be a new cap in the amount one could accumulate in the aggregate in all IRA and 401(k) type accounts of $3.4 million. After that, you can't save any more new dollars. The idea is that this is enough to secure a $210,000 annual distribution in retirement, which the government apparently deems "enough" for a retiree.

So of course, no real incentive to save, as well as no accounting for inflation.

And of course, if you're an ex-president $210,00 isn't deemed to be nearly enough. Then your pension is $200,000, but it is the same the salary of a Cabinet secretary and geared to inflation..so it rises accordingly. And that's without figuring in free medical care , Secret Service protection, and reimbursements for staff, travel, mail, and office expenses for life.

And then there's this gem. A number of families have been taking advantage of what are called 529 plans, in order to save money for their children's college education. Under the current law, 529 plans work a lot like Roth IRAs: you put money in, the money grows tax-free for college and withdrawals and distributions are tax-free provided they are to pay for college. So that encourages people to save for their children's education.

Ah, but now this president wants to extend hope and change to this area.  Under the Obama plan, earnings growth in a 529 plan would no longer be tax-free. Instead, earnings would face taxation upon withdrawal, even if the withdrawal is to pay for college.

So what we have is yet another instance of the government changing the rules once people have already committed their money to these plans... to rob the productive and thrifty who have sacrificed for their children's education in order to 'redistribute' this money to those who couldn't be bothered.

What Municipal elections Look Like In A Solid Blue City

Some of you whom live in more normal locations may be interested in how 'democracy' works in a totally Blue dominated city. It doesn't.

The above is a voter guide for today's municipal election from a Los Angeles organization called Hancock Park Patriots, whom I neither endorse nor am a member of, but the above e-mail they sent me is of interest.

Notice the number of offices marked 'no recommendation'. There's a good reason for that, since in these cases there's not even a lesser of two evils.

The mayoral race (incumbent Antonio Villaraigosa is not running because of term limits)is between Wendy Gruel and Eric Garcetti, two long time Democrat insiders who chief battle is whom can promise the public employee unions more and/or pander to the Hispanic vote, a neat trick since neither have a Spanish surname.

The City Attorney's race is likewise between two long time Democrat pols. The incumbent, Carmen Trutanich has a decent record of incompetence, failure and caving in on large settlements that have cost the city millions while the challenger, Mike Feuer could be justly said to make Rep.Nancy Pelosi look like a centrist Republican and would almost certainly outdo Trutanich in costing the city money.

The school board and community college races are likewise a battle between ethnic pandering and public employee union activists. In the school board race in particular, your choice is between a very Left wing hardline teacher's union activist and a gentleman with a Hispanic surname who lists his profession as 'community organizer', with all that implies.

The Los Angeles Unified School District is one of the largest and worst run school districts in America. It only graduates half its students in spite of spending the second highest dollar amount per pupil in the country, and even a large number of those that graduate are unable to do simple math or read at high school levels. Like New York City, there are a fair amount of teachers sitting in what's known as the 'rubber room' a place where the District houses teachers at full pay and benefits because they have been deemed too risky to have in a classroom,but almost impossible to fire because of the power of the teacher's union and the arcane union contracts. It can cost up to $1.6 million to fire a single teacher, and the average cost to do so if it's even possible is about $500,000.

Teacher's antics aside, classroom discipline and safety is a major problem at a number of schools. In a typical response, the school board just voted to ban suspensions of trouble making and disruptive students, directing officials to use 'alternative disciplinary practices' instead because - wait for it - the board felt that suspensions of unruly students which allow the other, non-disruptive children to enjoy a safe and more focused learning environment 'disproportionally affect minority students and hurt their academic achievement'. even the notoriously partisan Los Angeles Times can't quite spin this particular bit of idiocy.

In today's election, a resident of Los Angeles has a choice between two people who will simply exacerbate this sorry status quo.

Then there are four ballot measures.

They all contain sweeping proposals to ease traffic gridlock, make Los Angeles more business friendly and deal with the city's ballooning $216 million deficit.

Kidding, kidding!

Actually,one of them is a meaningless partisan political measure and the the rest of them of them deal with one of the few growth industries in Los Angeles, medical marijuana dispensaries.

Proposition C is simply a resolution to support a constitutional amendment overturning the 'Citizens United' Supreme Court ruling in order to, as the supposedly neutral analysis says 'state that corporations do not have the same rights as human beings' and that 'all citizens, regardless of wealth have an opportunity to have their political views heard.' Here's a sample of some more of the supposedly neutral analysis:

" a YES vote means that you want the people of the City to support an amendment to the US Constitution that would limit the right of corporations so that spending money on campaigns is not constitutionally protected speech,and that ensures that all citizens can have their views heard."

In a city like Los Angeles with a high proportion of low information voters, who wouldn't vote to "ensures that all citizens can have their views heard"? Especially if those views are 'directed' by a public employee union, of course.

First Amendment what???

This is what the powers that be in Los Angeles saw fit to waste taxpayer dollars on as well as man hours that should have been devoted to the people's business.

Let's move on to marijuana...

Pot is pretty much de facto legal in Los Angles, although you do need to go to the trouble of doctor shopping to get a prescription, which I'm told is no great difficulty.

In response to this, a number of entrepreneurs have set up shop. They're getting as common as convenience stores and utilizing a lot of commercial space that would likely otherwise sit idle with 'for rent' signs on them.

The socialists who run Los Angeles have a solution to deal with these budding (no pun intended) capitalists. Propositions D, E, and F are slightly competing plans to vastly increase taxation on the dispensaries in addition to what they're already paying and to severely limit their number to 135.

The result, of course will be the same thing that always happens when you limit outlets and raise the cost of doing business for the ones that remain open - much higher prices for consumers and believe it or not, less tax money for the city as consumers go back to the Old School methods of obtaining marijuana - buying it from non-legal sources or growing it themselves. Of course, it also means those 'for rent' signs will go back up, ensuring even less money for the city. And that a lot of the patrons of the remaining stores will be MediCal patients who aren't cost conscious in the least, since the taxpayers are footing the bill,

I don't use marijuana, so this doesn't particularly affect me personally, but I think it's a superb example of the mentality at work here...find a growing industry or market and strangle it with taxes and regulation.

This is how the City of Los Angeles retains its title as the worst city in America to do business in.

Welcome to one party socialist rule!

The Media Isn't Talking, But Europe Continues To Implode Economically

 

The media hasn't been talking much about the European financial crisis, and is giving the impression that all's well. It isn't.

The ever prolific Tyler Durden over at Zero Hedge has a must read piece on the subject...must read because it's a red flag alert as to where America is headed if we continue on the path we're on:

The economic situation in Europe is far worse than it was a year ago, and it is going to continue to get worse as austerity continues to take a huge toll on the economies of the eurozone.

It would be hard to understate how bad things have gotten – particularly in southern Europe. The truth is that most of southern Europe is experiencing a full-blown economic depression right now. Sadly, most Americans are paying very little attention to what is going on across the Atlantic. But they should be watching, because this is what happens when nations accumulate too much debt. The United States has the biggest debt burden of all, and eventually what is happening over in Spain, France, Italy, Portugal and Greece is going to happen over here as well.

The following are 20 facts about the collapse of Europe that everyone should know...

#1 10 Months: Manufacturing activity in both France and Germany has contracted for 10 months in a row.

#2 11.8 Percent: The unemployment rate in the eurozone has now risen to 11.8 percent – a brand new all-time high.

#3 17 Months: In November, Italy experienced the sharpest decline in retail sales that it had experienced in 17 months.

#4 20 Months: Manufacturing activity in Spain has contracted for 20 months in a row.

#5 20 Percent: It is estimated that bad loans now make up approximately 20 percent of all domestic loans in the Greek banking system at this point.

#6 22 Percent: A whopping 22 percent of the entire population of Ireland lives in jobless households.

#7 26 Percent: The unemployment rate in Greece is now 26 percent. A year ago it was only 18.9 percent.

#8 26.6 Percent: The unemployment rate in Spain has risen to an astounding 26.6 percent.

#9 27.0 Percent: The unemployment rate for workers under the age of 25 in Cyprus. Back in 2008, this number was well below 10 percent.

#10 28 Percent: Sales of French-made vehicles in November were down 28 percent compared to a year earlier.

#11 36 Percent: Today, the poverty rate in Greece is 36 percent. Back in 2009 it was only about 20 percent.

#12 37.1 Percent: The unemployment rate for workers under the age of 25 in Italy – a brand new all-time high.

#13 44 Percent: An astounding 44 percent of the entire population of Bulgaria is facing “severe material deprivation”.

#14 56.5 Percent: The unemployment rate for workers under the age of 25 in Spain – a brand new all-time high.

#15 57.6 Percent: The unemployment rate for workers under the age of 25 in Greece – a brand new all-time high.

The problems with the entire EU project stemmed from a number of really bad ideas.

The idea that you could cram people from very diverse cultures into a common financial union was flawed from the start, as was the idea that you can have a welfare society and an immigration society at the same time. As America is also starting to find out, you can have one or the other, but not both for very obvious reasons.

Another problem with a socialist nanny state nirvana that ultimately dooms it is the fact that people don't have children. After all, if you're essentially secular or even agnostic and your entire society is focused on cradle to grave management of all your affairs, children really just become a drain on your own hedonistic lifestyle, so why bother? In that kind of society, there's no point unless you love being a parent for its own sake. Certainly you likely won't have the pleasure of seeing them grow up to attain more than you did in life.

Lest you think this is strictly a European problem, keep in mind that one of the hallmarks of the age of Obama is a sharply lowered U.S. birth rate,coupled with an abortion rate of 337,000 last year by Planned Parenthood alone - about one every 94 seconds.

The European leftist elite figured that Muslim immigration would pick up the slack and pay for the party but as it turned out most of those immigrants ended up costing more in social welfare benefits than they provided in tax revenues. And the culture they brought with them involved incurring a number of uncomfortable and costly side effects as well.

The Europeans, especially countries in southern Europe then tried to finesse the gap between what they were spending and what was coming in by simply running huge deficits, with the obvious end results.

The sheer misery many of the people in Europe are suffering today amounts to more than just mere numbers and will effect them deeply for a long time to come. But they have one advantage over us.

Europe still has NATO and an American commitment to defend them - for now.Since the beginning of the Cold War, they have been able to avoid spending much on defending themselves because America cheerfully picked up the bill, not that we got much gratitude for it.

If America continues along the path we're headed on, we will eventually experience what Europe is going through now..except there's no one to farm out America's defense to.

Ah, Socialism!!

France's Minister of Industry Arnaud Montebourg made the headlines this week by saying the following:

Industry Minister Arnaud Montebourg, a member of the governing Socialist party, caused controversy last week when he said that the Indian company, which employs close to 20,000 people in France, should leave after it said it would have to close down a factory.

The French government announced on Thursday that it could nationalize the factory in question, with backing from an unnamed businessman.

The news raised the specter of the nationalizations of the early 1980s, which were instigated by Hollande’s predecessor Francois Mitterrand.

Montebourg told CNBC after a meeting with trade unions in Paris: “Barack Obama's nationalized. The Germans are nationalizing. All countries are nationalizing. I've also noticed the British nationalized 6 banks.”

What Monsieur Montebourg is talking about, of course, is Obama's nationalizing the financial services industry via the draconian controls of Dodd-Frank and of course GM, which was delivered to union ownership at a cost of a mere $80 billion that will not be recouped for decades, if at all.

Interesting that Montebourg easily recognizes what most of the American people and certainly the vast majority of the media have yet to admit...that he's a socialist and a redistributionist whose heading us towards European socialism.

And Europe is doing simply splendidly on that path, mais oui?

The unemployment rate continued its steady rise, reaching 11.7% in October, up from 11.6% the month before and 10.4% a year ago.

A further 173,000 were out of work across the single currency area, bringing the total to 18.7 million.

Royal Bank of Scotland's Alberto Gallo: "The real issue is we're in a two-speed Europe"

The respective fortunes of northern and southern Europe diverged further. In Spain, the jobless rate rose to 26.2% from 25.8% the previous month, and in Italy it rose to 11.1% from 10.8%.

In contrast, unemployment in Germany held steady at 5.4% of the labour force, while in Austria it fell from 4.4% to just 4.3%.

Our president, of course, is following the policies of southern Europe..massive spending and borrowing, high taxes to discourage economic activity, zero austerity in the name of 'growth' (which actually means government make-work hiring) crippling energy policies and large roadblocks of governmental bureaucracy to stifle business and job creation.

In addition, of course, we have the U.S. military to pay for and a mush larger problem with illegal immigration and its attendant social welfare costs Europe doesn't have, at least not anything near to America's.

If this headlong plunge to insolvency isn't stopped, there's only one way it can end. And it won't be pretty.

Real World Socialism Made Easy - 'You Didn't build That'

'You've got to destroy their sense of individualism while they're still young.'

(Hat tip, Radio Patriot via Bookworm Room)

Soros Funded Group Forces States To Fund Special Voter Registration Drives For Welfare Recipients

The Takers vs. The Makers indeed. It's what this election is all about.

The left is pulling out all the stops to win this one. Their latest gambit is using lawfare to force states to make special and sustained efforts to register welfare recipients...at taxpayer expense.

The key group involved is the ACORN affiliated Demos foundation funded by George Soros. It still lists President Barack Obama on its masthead as part of its founding board of directors.

What they've done is to find a poster child on welfare in various states who claims they were not offered a voter registration form, per Bill Clinton's 'motor-voter' legislation from the 1990's. Then they've sued, and forced state governments to spend taxpayer dollars to go to extraordinary lengths to register welfare recipients.

As Bill Jacobsen relates, what's happened in Massachusetts is particularly egregious,because the Massachusetts state government is not only actively complying but enthusiastically behind these efforts:

The news broke today that Massachusetts has taken extraordinary efforts in response to a lawsuit by a former ACORN affiliated, Soros-funded group to register 500,000 welfare recipients to vote (who would have thought there were that many people on welfare considering Mass has only 6.5 million residents).

Republicans cried foul, as this was a transparent attempt to register Warren’s base, while no similar efforts were made to register voters who might be more favorably inclined towards Brown.

Rob Eno of Red Mass Group, however, took the story to an entirely new level by discovering that the group in question is run by Elizabeth Warren’s daughter:

Elizabeth Warren’s daughter Amelia Warren Tyagi is leaving nothing to chance in the 2012 election for her mother. Warren Tyagi, the chair of the George Soros funded Demos Foundation, has bankrolled, through Demos, former members of ACORN in their pursuit to have the Commonwealth’s welfare agency perform a voter registration drive. The Boston Herald has the story, although they missed the Warren familial connection….

The article goes on to show that NEU4J ( New England For Justice United) was aided financially in this effort by Warren Tyagi, who runs...wait for it..Demos.

The name demos, by the way is a cynical but entirely accurate inside joke. In Greek, it means 'the mob'.

NEU4J, along with the NAACP New England Area Conference, reached an agreement with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts on July 5 — just two months after the suit was filed, which means they essentially rolled over and gave NEU4J pretty much whatever they wanted..

The deal requires state officials to mail vote registration forms to the 477,944 welfare recipients who were on the books between June 1, 2011 and May 31, 2012. The mailings will cost the state $275,844.

Massachusetts also agreed to run public service announcements on TV and radio stations from mid-July through mid-October publicizing the registration push. And welfare office waiting rooms, which will soon be equipped with TVs, must make announcements explaining how to register to vote.

The office of Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin, who was also named in the suit must take part in three voter outreach activities in communities with a high concentration of welfare recipients.

Let's chew this over for a minute..in a state with a close senate race at hand, the daughter and son-in-law of one of the candidates are in charge of spending tax payer dollars to register her base!

GOP incumbent Scott Brown had it exactly right:

“I want every legal vote to count, but it’s outrageous to use taxpayer dollars to register welfare recipients as part of a special effort to boost one political party over another,” Brown said in a statement this morning. “This effort to sign up welfare recipients is being aided by Elizabeth Warren’s daughter and it’s clearly designed to benefit her mother’s political campaign. It means that I’m going to have to work that much harder to get out my pro-jobs, pro-free enterprise message.”

Not only that, but the money and manpower the state of Massachusetts is spending could and should be considered campaign contributions.

Also, as Professor Jacobsen reveals: the claim was not that people were not offered registration forms, but that Mass officials should have take more steps after over 90% of welfare recipients said they already were registered to vote (far above the actual number). The Sec. of State attached to the Answer the steps which already had been taken to assure adherence with the so-called Motor-Voter law. Rather than defend the case, Mass just decided to agree to a mass mailing.

I'll just bet they did.

And it isn't just Massachusetts. So far Demos has sued 9 states, including the battleground states of Ohio, Pennsylvania and Nevada.

The cases are still pending in Nevada, Pennsylvania and Louisiana but settlements have been reached in Ohio, Missouri, New Mexico, Indiana and Georgia. Meanwhile, North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado and Mississippi have all agreed to comply without being sued.

This, of course isn't the Democrat's normal tactic of voter fraud. This is just a way of attempting to maximize their base..at taxpayer expense.

It remains to be seen how successful this will end up being on election day.

Hilarious! Obama Attacks Romney For Quoting Him

One of the more annoying traits President Obama has is one he shares with many on the Left...he thinks everybody is stupid except him.

Now that the president's insulting remarks on business ( 'you didn't build that, someone else did')have revealed his ideology and gone viral, President Obama is trying desperately to spin this..but he's doing it with an ad that attacks Mitt Romney for quoting him accurately. Not only that, but as my pal Gay Patriot remarked, the ad actually includes Obama's quote itself! Just watch:



Just for comparison, here's the entire video of both Obama and Mitt Romney, without the Obama Campaign's misleading cuts...



Could anything be more obvious? As I wrote previously, this president is so anti-business that he forgets something:

..those roads and bridges, his salary, his wife's five star vacations, the chef who cooks his $100 per pound wagyu steak and his greens fees were all paid for by taxpayers. And 71 per cent of those taxes came from the top 10 per cent of income earners...which includes a lot of those business owners he's claiming did nothing to 'make that happen.'

As Charles Krauthammer remarked,when you hear the entire quiote, it actually makes Obama look worse.

Speaking of which, could the president have made this sordid socialist screed happen without 'borrowing' from Princess Dances-With-Socialism herself,Elizabeth Warren? Yes it doesn't take a village, it takes a politbureau.

Per Professor Jacobsen over at Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion, Fake-A-Hontas not only acknowledges the linkage, but expands on it:

Warren said during a campaign stop in Dorchester yesterday, “I think the basic notion is right. Nobody got rich on their own. Nobody. People worked hard, they build a business, God bless, but they moved their goods on roads the rest of us helped build, they hired employees the rest of us helped educate, they plugged into a power grid the rest of us helped build,” she said.

This isn't going to go away, and President Obama,out of sheer arrogance, is making sure of it.

France's Wealthy Flee The Country And Go Galt

Here's the thing about the 'Evil Rich'. They know how to make money,they didn't get rich by being stupid and they certainly haven't stayed rich by being stupid either.

Which is exactly why they're fleeing the new French Socialist government and it's confiscatory tax rates in droves:

The latest estate agency figures have shown large numbers of France's most well-heeled families selling up and moving to neighbouring countries.

Many are fleeing a proposed new higher tax rate of 75 per cent on all earnings over one million euros. (£780,000)

The previous top tax bracket of 41 per cent on earnings over 72,000 euros is also set to increase to 45 per cent.

Sotheby's Realty, the estate agent arm of the British auction house, said its French offices sold more than 100 properties over 1.7 million euros between April and June this year - a marked increase on the same period in 2011.

Alexander Kraft, head of Sotheby's Realty, France, said: "The result of the presidential election has had a real impact on our sales.

"Now a large number of wealthy French families are leaving the country as a direct result of the proposals of the new government.{...}

Gilles Martin, a Swiss tax consultant, reported the same trend. "Since the socialists came to power in France, I have been deluged with inquiries from rich French people who would rather pay their tax in Switzerland," he told Switzerland's 20 Minutes newspaper.

A report earlier this year by London estate agents also showed France's richest people were heading to Britain to escape new higher taxes.

Yes, when the Socialist robber barons start salivating about stealing other people's money, there's usually someone else nearby more than willing to take in wealthy business people and take advantage of the availability of wealth creators and economic engines for a smaller slice of the pie.

As British PM David Cameron said, "If the French go ahead with a 75 per cent top rate of tax we will roll out the red carpet and welcome more French businesses to Britain and they can pay tax in Britain and pay for our health service and schools and everything else."

Don't think this phenomenon is limited to France.

France - A Preview Of A Second Obama Term?

France, which has already had socialist governments recently elected another one led by President François Hollande, a man who said publicly that he "does not like the rich" and has declared that "my real enemy is the world of finance".

President Hollande favors an EU-wide 'financial transaction tax' on every wire transfer, deposit, securities purchase or withdrawal, raising the top tax rates to 75% and lowering France's already liberal retirement age from 62 to 60. His solution to the eurozone crisis is not austerity and fiscal responsibility but 'growth', a euphemism for increased government spending.

There are some interesting parallels between Hollande's views and those of President Obama. After all, this president's stimulus was pretty much exactly what Hollande and others in Europe are talking about when they speak of 'growth' and the class warfare rhetoric is strikingly similar.

It occurs to me that we may be seeing something of a preview here of what a second term for President Obama might be like.

One of the first things President Hollande did, almost as a victory celebration, was to to announce a huge tax increase of 7.2 billion euros on households defined as 'wealthy' (anyone with net wealth of more than 1.3 million euros), on banks, energy companies and large corporations. Hollande's new laws, which includes major tax increases on stock options and dividends is almost certain be approved by the French parliament, which has a Socialist majority.

As I mentioned, Hollande also has promised to raise the marginal tax rate on incomes over 1 million euros to 75% and put into law a permanent 'wealth tax', which will include inheritance taxes.

Carbon taxes and taxes on financial transactions? Mais oui! France already has them, and the Socialists are already talking about raising them.

It need hardly be added that, like President Obama, Hollande has spent his entire career working in the public sector and feeding off the government teat.

Aside from taxes, Hollande and the Socialists are planning to make sure that there are even fewer of the 'rich' they hate left to tax. Beyond taxes, a new decree will limit the salaries of the chiefs of state-controlled companies such as SNCF railways, and nuclear energy groups EDF and Areva, to 450,000 euros. In some cases, that amounts to pay cuts of 80%.

The Socialists also rejected out of hand a request by Medef, the employers’ confederation, to lower high government charges on employment that increase labor costs and make French businesses less competitive.

There is very little in Hollande's proposals if anything about cutting spending, already at one of the highest levels in the developed world. In fact, Hollande wants to raise spending for 'growth'.

The early results of the Socialist's program are already quite evident.

Growth of the French economy has been downgraded and is now predicted to be static or even negative. The French government is actually reduced to peddling bonds with negative interest rates, believe it or not, bonds that actually cost an investor money to own.This is a drop from previous bond yields of - wait for it - an anemic .3 per cent.

And a great number of French businessmen, entrepreneurs and executives are now considering simply leaving:

Roger, a senior expatriate executive working for an international company in Paris, is thinking seriously of taking a walk down David Cameron’s “red carpet”.

The UK prime minister last month riled France’s new Socialist government when he declared he would lay on a five-star welcome for anyone moving to London to avoid the tax re­gime promised by President François Hollande – including his election pledge of a 75 per cent marginal rate on incomes above €1m a year.

“I’m very happy in Paris. My wife and I love Paris. We came here by choice. But I’m reconsidering our situation given the changes in the pipeline,” says Roger, who declined to be identified by his real name.

More than the 75 per cent rate, it is a move to higher wealth and inheritance taxes that worries him – and what he perceives as a cultural hostility to the rich. “The anti-wealth rhetoric is just not encouraging. I’d rather be in a country where I don’t have to deal with that,” he says.

It is not just expatriates who are concerned. Henri de Castries, head of Axa, the insurer, is one of France’s most respected business leaders. “I’ve listened to Mr Hollande. He wants to see more growth and lower unemployment. He wants to see business prospering. We want to see that, too,” he says. “The question is how to achieve these goals? There is no example, in modern economic history, of a country that has succeeded in reducing its deficits by bringing taxes to a confiscatory level. On the contrary, it leads to a decline in activity, and an increase in the deficits.”{...}

The chief finance officer of a big industrial company says the first question asked by investors – French and foreign – is now about the government’s policies and whether the tax rises will affect senior management. But he says the main effect will be to drive away owners of smaller businesses who fear not being able to cash in their wealth when they want to sell their companies. “It will be like the UK in the 1970s,” he says. “We will lose a generation and they won’t come back.”

Philippe Kenel, partner at Swiss-based tax lawyers Python & Peter, says that he relocated 12 people from France to Switzerland up to the end of April – just before Mr Hollande was elected. “I did in four months what I usually do in a year.”

Roger says another danger is that foreign managers will no longer be drawn to the country. “In the past five to 10 years, French companies have been attracting more international talent. But who would want to come to Paris to run a company in the current environment?”

Indeed, is there any incentive at all to even work in such an environment? Americans living in a country where the president regularly demonizes 'the rich and where recipients of food stamps (and yes, free government provided smart phones with internet access) are increasing by leaps and bounds should start asking themselves the same questions. Meanwhile, President Obama has already said he wants a tax increase on his version of 'the rich' - anyone grossing over $250,000 per year, including a lot of small business owners.

Just imagine President Obama in office for another four years, free from any worries about re-eelection and with a Democrat majority in Congress and I don't think the scenario of America as France is too far off.