The AOC/marxist wing of the present Democratic Party seems to have little in common with the rest of them; the Blue Dogs, Yellow Dogs, Zionist liberals, other liberals, true Greens, etc. The AOC led wing of the party refuses cooperation with one and all. They have virtually paralysed the Pelosi/San Francisco leadership. Last week they would not vote for a supplemental appropriation that included money for HHS use on the border to support the human wave washing up on our desert shore. Yesterday, 15 of the neo-bolsheviki went as a Congressional Delegation to a Border Patrol facility and emerged screaming (literally) that women and children were being starved in filthy conditions by the Border Patrol fascists. Today, a delegation of evangelical Hispanic pastors visited the same facility and said that conditions were nothing like that and that the BP was doing the best job it could with the money it has. So, my conclusion is that the AOC neo-bolsheviks are interested in agitprop for the revolution to come and not in legislative compromise to improve the present situation.
As I have written before, IMO this extreme left group are forsworn in that they falsely and with an intention to deceive took the oath of office to enter Congress swearing to uphold the Constitution of the US and laws legally derived from it. IOW, they are a revolutionary subversive group like Antifa.
Does the Democratic Party really want them?
It seems clear that the neo-bolsheviks do not want the rest of the Democrats.
They should form a new party. This would enable them to dump all the embarrassing (for them) baggage of Democratic Party history as the old-timey party of the slave holding South and such people as Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson.
I suggest that the name could be the "Global Progressive Party" This would be more truly representative of their ultimate goals. pl
With all due respect Colonel, I think you are “misoverestimating” the lady. I see no Ulyanov or Trotsky, or for that matter no Che Guevara, characters that you may deeply dislike but quite successful at their undertakings. The DNC will take care of her, they had no problem with the more experienced Bernie.
Let me present an alternative view. I can’t say this in any way that doesn’t sound nativist. The “neo-bolsheviks” are the new Democratic Party. Bernie Sanders’s entourage has overwhelmed the old line Democrats.
Most of these “neo-bolsheviks” were not reared in culturally American households. They were reared in Puerto Rican, Somalian, and Palestinian households in Puerto Rican, Somalian, and Palestinian neighborhood attending schools taught by people who were ashamed of American history.
Colonel,
I think that characterizing AOC and her fellow travellers as neo-bolshevik is a little bit strong. Harold Wilson’s Labour government famously imposed a top marginal tax rate of 95% on the UK, yet they never joined Comecon nor introduced central planning.
DNC Chair Perez has said that AOC is the face of the new Democrat party. She seems to be what the Ds want. So I think the old style Democrats, if there are any truly remaining in a year, are the ones that will have to create a new party. The insurgents have won. Their morale was boosted by Bernie’s good showing in 2016. They think Bernie could have actually beaten Trump if not for Hillary’s interference.
Dave Schuler,
Exactly. Diversity is our strength? – don’t know if I should laugh or cry.
I wouldn’t be so sure about the DNC stopping this.
It looks to me like the Democrat party has been forced to drop its decades old mask by AOC and the rest of the looney tunes.
The mask being that for a long time, a healthy majority of Democrats (and the media, BIRM) actually have agreed with most of the socialist hate- America garbage being openly pushed now.
I agree with Col. Lang. People make the mistake of thinking leftists are warm and fuzzy.
Pol Pot fitted that description, his young idealistic Khmer Rouge party murdered at least 2 million people. I see little difference between AOC and him.
These “Global Progressives” will learn it the hard way that nationally, they have potential for about 10-20% of the votes, just like the various Green parties in Europe. Good enough to win some major urban centers in a first-past-the-post system where their supporters are concentrated, but far away from winning national majorities.
The worm can turn powerfully fast. Look in the UK at how quickly the Brexit Party attained critical mass and threatens the outright destruction of the Tory Party because Brexit exposed the party as frauds. The new bolshie wing of the Democratic Party is no more representative of the traditional American working man than is the AFSCME or are the Federal employee unions. Neither was the Democratic Party that came to be led by the Clintons, Obamas, Schumers, Pelosis. The traditional labor unions have a lot to answer for in that regard. The question is can the Democratic Party continue to survive as a viable national Party as a money driven party of government, snowflakes, and coastal elites. Trump seems to have intuited this, guessed it, lucked into it, whatever, but he appears to be blowing it with his terrible appointments and incoherent FP. He almost certainly win reelection because he has been blessed by political opponents that are entirely out of touch with the mainstream values of America (I hope), but he’ll leave behind nothing memorable, or worse. He appears to be grooming his daughter for the job – ridiculous. The only upside of that is that it might motivate him to avoid a really dumb war.
I do not automatically see myself voting for Candidate Ivanka if she decides to run.
But if she were to run and win, I would hope that Hillary and Chelsea are both still alive and sentient to witness the election of Ivanka Trump as ” America’s First Woman President”.
Colonel …. Great Idea..I agree..Its Time for the All These First Generation,,No Generation..Half Generation and Even 2nd Generation Senators and Congress Persons with Strange Profiles (and Chinese Drivers with pockets full of Thumb Drives ) To Fess Up and form their own Party….The “GPP”..Gran Polo Patrioico…Just like the GPP that formed in Venezuela ..Brought Nicolas Maduro to Power 2012-2013..and United 35,000 movements and Collectives…I also think the United States Government should start publishing the Long List of Comminist/Socialist/Marxist Front Groups operating inside The United States like it Used to..That Bernie The Stork Sanders..should run as a Socialist because he is..One..and the Only thing “Progressive” has been the Stink..Lies….and Corruption .. Deception and Betrayal of the Democrat Party …
First Likud President.
What centrists don’t realize is that whatever you want to call these people, they can out-organize, out-theory, and out-rhetoric whatever ‘reasonable’ force you consider to be the appropriate middle ground. They’re still a lesser force, but they are one of the ascendant ones.
That 10 to 20 in Europe is growing, and in the same way on the right UKIP forced the centre right Tories to hold a vote on the EU, these individuals can force the social democrats to move further left or hemorrhage votes.
I see this attitude alot among grassroots conservative types – the ‘loopy’ woke AOC cashing in her ‘identity politics’ card to have a lark on the taxpayers dime in ‘liberal New York.’ She’s crazy compared to ‘real America.’ (And she can’t get anywhere because she doesn’t even understand ‘basic economics’ according to the Daily Wire and political philosopher Benjamin Shapiro)
Whatever the merits of her economic views, she and the people behind her understand power: what it is, how to get it, and the imperative of hegemony. Moreover, they have conviction and will, which counts for more than polling.
http://www.unz.com/akarlin/green-black-wave/
http://www.unz.com/akarlin/radical-ideologies-of-21st-century/
She’s a radlib who doesn’t believe in expropriating the means of production, but the people behind her are honest to goodness communists (same with Bernie).
I think the diversity is our strength concept is yet another really terrific observation about a specific time and place in American history that has turned into…well, I don’t know exactly what, but something more cheapened in today’s political discourse by its application to the more general and frightening events occurring in the domestic US polity. To me, the key words of diversity and strength have become so malleable that mischief of a grievous sort is afoot.
Let me try to clarify if I can.
I’ve always thought that diversity is our strength was an accurate and ennobling observation originating from, and specifically directed toward, the contributions of the US to defeat Nazi Germany; that is, toward the ability of the armed forces of this military, industrial, resource-rich, and agricultural powerhouse-comprised of scrappy guys and gals from everywhere USA (immigrant and born-here)-bringing skills, education, and cultural backgrounds together to defeat a Germany determined, with its partners in Italy and Japan, to impose a homogenous Aryan culture on Europe and ultimately the US.
To me, diversity is strength always meant e pluribus unum: out of many, one. And in a very good way. I guess things have changed.
AOC is a candidate chosen by a sub-group of the Democrat Party called Justice Democrats. In conjunction to running candidates for public office, their goal is to pull the party radically to the left. There is a handful of JDs (how fitting an acronym) serving in the House. The Justice Dems are tired with the slow progress of reform and call for revolution. Bernie was the first serious candidate in modern times to campaign on a revolution–somewhat tamer than JD’s and their eager disciple AOC. Here’s a summary from their website:
“Fighting for the Green New Deal, Medicare for All, free college, ending mass incarceration and deportation and rejecting all corporate PAC money. It’s time to usher in a new generation of Democrats who represent our communities and will fight for solutions that match the scale of our crises.”
Free college will mass produce unemployed revolutionaries, make us like Central and South America, and most likely a dictatorship. I know living in Portland exacerbates my perception of the likely-hood revolutionary political insanity eventually devouring the nation. I hope so but I think immigration over time has degraded us.
DJ website:
https://www.justicedemocrats.com/candidates/
I only respond to one point of your comment: you may be surprised that those of us who voted for Trump can also say emphatically that we definitely didn’t vote for Ivanka or Jared. Or, for that matter, Pence. But on the 2016 vote for Trump himself, I think that’s turned out ok so far. We’ll have a chance to stay or change the course in November 2020.
When all is said and done, Cortez is just one more front for the teachers unions – just a little more flashy than the other government union tools. She wants open borders.
Teachers unions need open borders to fill their failing classrooms. They are more in synch than meets the eye. Filled classrooms means a steady stream of teacher union due to fund Democrat campaign coffers. Can you find a more plausible explanation for this aberrational Democrat craziness? Border is no problem has morphed into border is such a problem everyone has to be let in now. Same net result – open borders.
Who benefits immediately and directly from open borders? The teachers unions .Follow the money. The biggest expenditure illegal pick up for free as soon as they break cross the border: SCOTUS mandated free K-12. Teachers unions love open borders. Democrats love the teachers unions.
The last time organized labor showed any real muscle within the Democratic Party was when they pushed Walter Mondale forward to be Carter’s running mate, then propped him up again in 1984. It’s been all neoliberals and DLC types since then. The AOC types can make lots of noise but they will not be effective unless they understand and take heed of the dissent going on on the other side of the aisle. Until then, they’ll just be fighting for a few symbolic perks from their party’s power brokers – at least until the power brokers can shunt them off the scene entirely.
Yeah, something tells me that Trump’s popularity–such as it is–will not necessarily transfer automatically to Ivanka.
yah the one thing i always here from fellow white american is the problem with palestinian refugees, if only their was a place to send them back too?
tpcelt,
An all white Christian US military would have done just as well against the Nazis and Tojo, would have built the railroads, settled the West, etc. The fact that some troops were black or English as a second language is merely incidental. It added no value as far as I can see (Relax. My own father was an ESL troop in WW2).
As I see it, diversity is fine, if it is relegated to naunces within European or Asian cultures. Once it begins to include the third world caution is advised. Take on too much at once, and the country becomes the third world as opposed to the third worlders becoming American – a point we have now achieved.
Generally the slogan is just a stupid phrase repeated by stupid people (i.e. liberal democrats) that means nothing without context. How diverse? Head hunting cannibals? Should they be allowed to practice their culture in Times Square? How about Nazis? Aren’t they part of the great patchwork quilt of humanity? How much immigration is good. If a million a year is good, then 10 million must be better? How about 100 million/yr?
tpcelt,
” the contributions of the US to defeat Nazi Germany….”
The US at that time was 90% white, 9% black and 1 % everything else. The majority of whites and blacks were Christian.
Factotum,
Steady employment for currently employed teachers is important to the teachers themselves and paying union dues is not a given. The consequences of Janus vs. AFSME have just started to be felt. The Republican Party as an organization should start making some efforts in recruiting teachers to their point of view on a local basis. They’ll get a lot more influence that way.
https://www.npr.org/2018/06/30/624513403/labor-clout-takes-a-hit-in-supreme-court-ruling-on-dues
The main push from the Justice Democrats is they want to get money out of politics. The Justice Democrats are also the main force in the left that oppose the neoconservatives and the neoconservatives Likudnik policies. If you watch Kyle Kulinski (a founder of the Justice Democrats) on youtube he spends half his time railing against Bolton and praising Tulsi Gabbard.
I have a friend who grew up in Zurich. Under the Swiss system – university is free but it is very competitive. If you don’t make the grade you half to study somwhere outside of Switzerland. This system rewards brains and hardwork – but unlike the US system it rewards the brains and hardwork of the kids not the parents.
Relatively few people on the left hate America. The overwhelming majority of us agree with Tulsi Gabbard that we have to stop the regime change wars because they are not good for America, and they are not good for Iraq/Afghanistan/Syria/Venezuela either. The establishment fears Tulsi more than any other candidate because she has broad appeal to both the left and the right.
Here is a YouTube video by “Mr. Reagan” (a nom de plume) explaining how AOC was selected from a group of ‘applicants’ to play her role by her backers… it’s ~23 minutes long and now has almost 2.5 million views, a huge amount for what was at the time a very small YouTube channel. The key point, as always… follow the $$$ and the ideology behind it.
The Brains Behind AOC Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez https://youtu.be/1h5iv6sECGU
There is a follow up video (~20 min long), for those who want more, but not as important as his first.
The Brains Behind AOC Part II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-3_FGyhg4k&t=2s
JamesT
The “Justice Democrats?” Is that what you call the neo-bolshies? Sorry, your comrades. BTW, I would support Gabbard in spite of the bolshie crap she mouths of necessity, but, she has no chance at all.
Colonel,
You are of course right that Tulsi has no chance of becoming president … unless Bernie chooses her as his running mate thus setting her up to succeed him. I actually think that Tulsi would be the smartest choice he could make. I also think that Tulsi is smart enough that this is what she is aiming for.
Col,
I agree Tulsi hasn’t a chance. Even though she polled better than the other candidates in the first debate, the msm is ignoring her. The msm is more concerned with creating racial division than questioning the purpose of our wars or sanctions. Haven’t seen polls on the second debate.
JamesT,
Sure you don’t hate the geography of America – it’s climate is better than Canada’s or Russia’s, it has nice beaches and nice cities and roads that you’d like to keep. You just hate the system of governance and the people of the dominant culture.
And then there’s not being able to think past your wants to the consequences of getting them met. Like wiping out $600 billion in equity (share holders’ investment in stocks) in private healthcare insurance when you make that form of “freedom of choice” illegal (as the candidates, like Bernie, have said they will do). That’s some real “economic violence” as the Rev Jesse Jackson would say.
There’s the further constriction of the 2A to the point it becomes meaningless (your party’s candidates say they will executive orders to confiscate many type of guns on day 1 of their presidency. There’s the open borders, against the will of 70% or more of the population (probably evil racists that should be ignored if not sent to the People’s Potato Farm for re-education, right?). There’s all of the “hate” speech laws that constrict the 1A that your party would model after Euro-socialist countries. There’s confiscation of income and wealth from productive earners in the form of taxes, “reparations”, destruction of their businesses for various reasons (see the healthcare insurance example), global warming regulations. All for our own good of course. So it’s not hatred, right?
Nike thinks there’s enough haters to go ahead with marketing decisions based on the idea that the founders of the country were evil. Ditto local governments that are tearing down iconic statues.
None of that is about foreign wars in the least bit. Nice try.
Valissa,
Groups supporting things like this have been around a while. Paul Wellstone’s people put together a similar ideological group shortly after the Senator’s death in a plane crash. The new thing is the co-ordination of efforts which is a federal campaign violation. Probably against many state laws too. One additional thing they support is straight-line ticket voting like they have in Michigan.
https://www.wellstone.org
The Janus ruling barely dented the union enforcement goons from “persuading” everyone to keep paying their dues. Plus the Green New Deal demands all jobs be unionized regardless of the Janus ruling.
If we could only get competent student outcomes for “steady employment”, there would not be this struggle to fill classrooms with illiterate illegals, as more US citizens abandon public K-12 in droves.
It is time for the local teachers to get the message themselves, and not demand someone else recruit them to something other than the Democrat teacher union subversions. That is only evidence they remain unfit fo the job. They claim they are educators. Let’s assume they can actually educate themselves. It is their folly if they do not.
Form a new party? No problem. Now, get access to the ballot in our two party duopoly. Like pulling eye teeth.
I do not know the extent of the absolute cruciality of the Navajo Code Talkers to the US victory over Japan in the Island Hopping phase of the War.
But I know it is considered to have been very important in allowing various levels of war-fighting military to talk to eachother in the Pacific without the Japanese eavesdroppers being able to know what we were saying in militarily-actionable real time.
If there had been no non-White non-Christian navajophone Navajo, there would have been no possibility of Navajo Code Talkers. And whatever genuine benefit realized thereby would have been unrealizable.
https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2008-featured-story-archive/navajo-code-talkers/
Eugene Owens,
I am not sure who told Trump to pick Pence for VP. But whoever did that wanted a VP with the same kind of power and connections as Cheney but without the same kind of snarly affect or bad image. They wanted a stealth Cheney who could hide in plain sight.
Pence has been considered a kind of 3-way connector between Mainstream America, the Rapturanian-Armageddonite fundamentalist community, and the Business-Libertarian sector of the OverClass of the Koch Brothers and their allies and supporters.
So put Pence in position to suggest to the President who should be appointed to this and that, and we will get the appointments we have gotten. However loudly Tucker Carlson can tell Trump that Pompeo and Bolton have to go, Pence can whisper louder that they have to stay.
So in Foreign Policy terms ( and their downstream effects on American Society), we already have the First Likud Presidency, if not exactly the First Likud President. And we got the First Likud Presidency when Trump permitted Pence to move behind Cheney’s Big Desk. The President would have to get rid of Pence before he could get rid of Pompeo and Bolton.
Of course that’s just my intuitive muh feelz about the politics of it all.
James T
College in Switzerland is free for international students but not for the citizens. Most, not all, of the universities are cheaper than the US. You say theirs are competitive. I take it they don’t admit students based on affirmative action formulas. The radleft wants free college for all. Does that mean there will be no standards for entrance? Will you be allowed to become a professional student? How many will take the easy route and graduate with degrees in ethnic and gender studies? Will the rest of us have to suffer through mandatory Charm School to wash our brains of impure thoughts? Elizebeth Warren made over $400,000 a year teaching and still manages to empathize with the students in debt. She should have taken a cut in pay to help them.
Kulinski talks about campaign reform and likes Tulsi. First, he is no longer affiliated with Justice Democrats. Second, did you read their platform? They are socialists, want open border, want all nonviolent criminals released from jail, decriminalize all drugs. My city, Portland, has already instituted these policies and it is a disaster. Portland is a sanctuary city where the cops are forbidden from asking a criminal his immigration status. Cops can only arrest violent criminals and they are released in a day or two unless it’s murder. The city supports a group that hands out free needles to the homeless junkies. Needles litter our sidewalks and parks near these homeless enclaves. Property crime and auto theft increase every year.
Too many people in Oregon suffer from pathological altruism. It’s what they’ve been taught in school. I they’ve even lost the survival instinct.
And I forgot to realize . . . Trump elevating Jared Kushner to Innermost Adviser status for “mafia family logic” reasons makes the current Trump Presidency somewhat Likudiform in certain areas already, even without taking Pence into account.
Jared Wormtongue. Grima Wormpence. Quite a pair there.
The Democrats over the last few decades of discovering new and wonderful leaders. Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and BO. And now AOC. Carter was sponsored by the Rockefeller’s (supposedly). Clinton had spooky sponsors. Obama seemed to be manufactured out of thin air. AOC? Same thing. She strikes me as a scripted actress. whose persona is created by the wizards of political left/right alchemy.
Fred, Fourth and Long
Yes, I’m sure this sort of thing has been done before many times. There’s a reason they call politics the 2nd oldest profession. I have often likened potential politicians and their backers to high school or college athletes and the scouts that look for the perfect fit for their org (in the oligarchy).
More to muse on… Ocasio-Cortez’s Wealthy Chief Of Staff Avoids Disclosing His Finances https://www.conservativedailynews.com/2019/06/ocasio-cortezs-wealthy-chief-of-staff-avoids-disclosing-his-finances/
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s wealthy chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, did not file a disclosure revealing his net worth and outside income earned in 2018, despite the congresswoman having the legal means to compel him to do so.
Chakrabarti cofounded two PACs — Brand New Congress and Justice Democrats — that were instrumental to the New York Democrat’s electoral rise.
The political action committees funneled over $1 million to an LLC Chakrabarti controlled during the 2018 midterms. A complaint filed in March with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) called the operation “an elaborate scheme to avoid proper disclosure of campaign expenditures.”
Ocasio-Cortez announced in February that she was capping her staff salaries at $80,000, meaning that nobody on her payroll, including Chakrabarti, would earn the senior pay rate of $126,000 that requires congressional staffers to publicly disclose their finances, the Washington Examiner previously reported.
——————
Regarding free needle distribution: It has proven to reduce transmission rate of appetite is B, C and HIV. It’s not only altruistic, it is cost-effective. Unless we decide not to create any homeless people with any medication ever, nor admit him to the hospital.
Rep. Johanna is one of these “Justice Democrats”. The latter define themselves as an opposition to “Corporate Democrats”. Rep. Ro Khanna is one such Justice Dem & at least in regards to foreign wars, he shares a similar vision, if I am not mistaken:
https://twitter.com/rokhanna/status/1146513693225754624?s=21
“Justice Democrats” arenas multifaceted as “Alt-Right”. Why not focus on points of agreement?
Julian, are you trying to sound ironic by calling Bennie Sharpiro a “political philosopher” just because he can talk fast and is consistent in regurgitating talking points? If you knew how “funny” It sounds to call him a philosopher, you wouldn’t have said it:
Enjoy the unraveling of your hero in a short version ( https://youtu.be/k6-TFpmix54 ) & If you really want to roll out laughing on the ground and ridicule this pseudo-intellectual, in a longer version, then check out the following: https://youtu.be/6VixqvOcK8E
What if those hated “diverse groups”, would’ve fought it against your father?
In other words, the brown Democrats are not from this “blut und bottem”. You are right that “they” have ZERO in common, whether because of idealism or pure self interest with the proponents of Reality Nativism.
By the way, your father’s contribution to defeat of Nazis was as little as you describe the “diverse group”s contribution to defeat of the Axis. The difference is that my statement is based on a fact: Wehrmacht was destroyed by the RED Army, with the help of material partially built by those “diverse groups”.
Would 2000000 souls by your own description be the difference between Pol Pot & AOC?
Why do you think of Pol Pot, who was supported by that arch-leftist Reagan as a leftist while ignoring that “the leftist” VN ultimately defeated his party?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/09/16/us-to-support-pol-pot-regime-for-un-seat/58b8b124-7dd7-448f-b4f7-80231683ec57/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9c6b5dd3220e
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-29106034
The msm is doing more than just ignoring her. The msm has dropped the Acoustic MuffleCone of Silence over her in hopes that not one single sign, sight or sound can get out.
Julian,
Your response seems to consist completely out of claims why you believe that progressives are a lot more capable than I believe them to be. You even link to the results of the 2019 European Parliament election (where the various green parties got about 10% of the votes) and seem to believe that this somehow refutes one of my points. Are you a grassroots progressive type, by any chance?
“they have conviction and will, which counts for more than polling.”
No. The will to power doesn’t count for more than election results. At least not in a democracy.
Cost effective is letting personal choices play out to their known and expected consequences. It is not cost effective attempting to rescuing those who continually make poor decisions. If addicts insist on using dirty needles in pursuit of their drug addictions, why should the US taxpayer be forced to intervene?
It should be a needle exchange and not just a needle giveaway, where the needles are left on the ground and endanger innocent people and pets, infecting them with disease. You should think about the impact on society as a whole–the fricking working people have rights too.
Pathological altruism is when a person, or persons, think they are helping another person but actually harming them. Junkies and mentally ill living on the street are killing themselves. The mentally ill need supervision. I saw a mentally ill man living under a tree in a park near my house surrounded by garbage. How is this good for him? A junky needs around $1800 a month to feed his habit, and he makes his money by stealing whatever he thinks he can sell. A man living in a tent with 10 bicycles isn’t practicing for the tour de france. Even if the police arrest him with stolen property he is released in a few days. Records show some of these thieves on the street have been arrested a dozen times or more. These people are more likely to die because Portland’s absurdly liberal policies keep them from hitting bottom, which, if you know anything about addiction, is when an addict realizes he needs to change his life around. And jail is a concrete bottom. Of course, once in jail you have to offer them treatment. A few men I know changed their lives around after spending time in jail.
They weren’t junkies, just on the wrong track.
Acoustic MuffleCone of Silence. I like that. The msm is the propaganda department of der borg.
Thank you for the kind words. Feel free to use it wherever you may think it appropriate. Perhaps it could become a launchable meme. ( I remember when ‘memes’ were viralizable ideas which could be expressed in words just as well as pictures.)
Some of the nicest people have relations with anomymous sex workers on the sly. If communicable diseases are rampant within that drug-addicted sex worker population, some of those diseases can be spread to some of those nicest people. If a small expense in needle exchanges can prevent such diseases from spreading around, the costs not incurred through cases of these diseases not happening would certainly make the costs of the needle exchanging cost effective.
Unless, of course, some of the nicest people decide to put a voluntary stop to their own sex-seeking behavior. Or unless, of course, we decide to let the personal choices of some of the nicest people play out to their known and expected consequences . . . meaning not spending any money treating their disease acquired from their own sex-seeking behavior.
I believe in Britain and Portugal, registered injectable-drug addicts are not permitted to self-inject wherever they like. They have to report to addiction containment-and-maintainance centers to get their maintainance injections one dose at a time behind controlled doors. Or so I have read.
Factotum,
“goons from “persuading” everyone to keep paying their dues.”
Feel free to supply some actual evidence of that. Changes to state law in Wisconsin allowed thousands of employees to stop paying for union political activities via mandatory dues.
Because otherwise the US taxpayer is going to be forced to pay for anti-retroviral or anti-Hep B or now the even more expensive Hep C drugs, to treat these people who would not have been infected (if we prevent their first wrong choice to be compounded by a second wrong choice) if clean needles are distributed. Best way is to avoid risk altogether, da!
In the meanwhile, if you think all homeless people should not be treated in an ER, please clearly express your opinion and start a new political pressure group to push for that change. In the meanwhile, as the laws CURRENTLY stand and as we have an obligation to treat, preventing fire is cheaper that putting it down.
These developments, in both politics and the wider culture, were foreshadowed by the radicalism of the Weather Underground in the 1960s and 70s,
especially its hatred (definitely not too strong a word) for the values of the American establishment and population of the time.
For a reminder (or an introduction, for those not so old) to their views, please see
https://spectator.org/54386_patriot-larry-grathwohl-65-infiltrated-weather-underground-indicted-bill-ayers/
At the beginning of that is a reference to “a Hatchet Force unit of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division” in VN.
Colonel, have you ever heard of such a thing?
The far left end of the Democratic party has hijacked the Party. The Centrist are clearly fearful of challenging the AOC wing (Biden was a classic example). As much as anything, this shows the state of the Democratic Party. Their weak response to the far left boost Trump for 2020.
Thanks, I would have stolen it anyway. I also have culturally appropriated Hawiain Shirts.
You would need to follow the facts about “union thugs” on website Freedom Foundation, which tracks the teachers unions post-Janus. Freedom Foundation also just got a nice court settlement check from the SEIU for forging a signature to a union membership card. Lots of strong arm tactics used to keep the union dues flowing ,as well as proposed legislation to let the public unions skim it directly off the top of the government paychecks …again. Sign up for their printed newsletter “Living Liberty” to stay on top of this issue, since you are interested in the facts.
An acquaintance, a Baptist Pastor and Airborne/Ranger Infantry Combat Vet, went to the Border a while back before it became trendy. He was appalled by the conditions.
The Obama Administration did not have a handle on this and the Trump Administration has doubled down on this and cut the funding.
Someone needs to get a handle on this. This is a shanda.
Puerto Rico IS part of the United States, however.
AOC has a lot in common with Henry Clay.
Like Clay, she is the child of a successful, self-made man who over-extended himself and died young and in debt.
She comes from a group, as Clay did, who are just coming into political power.
Like Clay, she is a young person in a big hurry.
I would suspect, like Clay, she might be in too big a hurry and might not understand the need to consolidate her position, which (like Clay) might deny AOC the very top roles in government.
But the great thing about Clay was who he influenced in the next generation (Lincoln). One wonders who AOC will influence as time goes on?
I suspect that will be Harris or Warren.
If not Pompeo or Bolton, then who?
The people who could handle those positions (AND get confirmed, there are, of course. many Foreign Service Officers who could be good SecStates and lots of people from the IC, the Military and Academia who could be successful NSAs) are not enthusiastic about working for Trump, something considered to be a blot on the old CV.
I think that, as much as anything else, is what will ensure the Trump Presidency is a ‘one-term proposition.”
John Minehan
Freedom for Puerto Rico!
And they eliminated, in AOCs’ case, a White, Irish, Machine Pol, who had no more in common with that District than the man in the moon; it was basically a “Rotten Borough” situation like in early 19th and late 18th Century English politics.
AOC’s victory is analogous (with a more photogenic protagonist) to Dan O’Connell running for Albany County Assessor in 1919, still wearing his Navy uniform, and setting back the Sassanach (although O’Connell usually used them for front-men there after, they Irish were content to pull the strings).
The rise of people like AOC isn’t a grand Red conspiracy, it is the unfolding of American political history that brought you people like Dan O’Connell and Henry Clay in years past.
Factotum,
Severice Employees International Union does not represent teachers or government employees as I’ve pointed out to you a couple of times.
John,
The commonwealth has been run by Democrats for a couple generations.
John,
So she’s going to negotiate a “Puerto Rico” Compromise on how many immigrants come into the US or is she going to support tariffs to help domestic Industry – like Henry Clay?
Ojalá que, coronel; si Dios quiere . . . .
Amir,
He was USMC. He fought the Japs.
Amir,
Nah. It has been demonstrated repeatedly in scientifically sound studies that they have an avg IQ that is a standard deviation below white’s avg (100) and even farther below Jews and Asians. They simply can’t follow the bouncing ball. So they put their limited brain power to work trying to figure out why they perennially fail, even in the country of origin (heck entire continent in the case of Africa) and they conclude that their failure is due to racism.
John Minehan
Ojala que Puerto Rico sale manana.
Fred, you asked for evidence of union thugs trying to pervert the Janus ruling and I led you to the link regarding the court settlement with SEIU, as highlighted by the Freedom Foundation newsletter.
AFT and NEA are national teachers unions, along with many other local iterations of teachers unions such as the California Teachers Association – CTA. LAUTA in Los Angeles, etc, etc, etc. Freedom Foundation tracks the antics of teachers unions specifically, but does help litigants fight other over-reaching public sector unions as well.
Teamsters also now reaches into the education industry. Certificated employees will use separate bargainings agents from classified education employees. Let’s call them education industry unions, if “teachers unions” is too parochial. Yes, SEIU is well-embedded into the education industrial complex.
The future of Minnesota is in the hands of People named “Abullahi Gunderson” and “Sven Abdishakur” (and a multi-ethnic coterie of women named “Marianne”).
People of Somali lineage eating Luskfische! To (sort of) quote Garrison Keillor, it’s the road to run . . . or, at least Hibbing . . . .
Time will tell.
“he who enters the Conclave Pope, usually leaves a Cardinal,” which basically applied to Clay.
As Alcibiades and Talleyrand demonstrate, you never know what roles public people will fill.
“Tom: Do we give your son-in-law something important?
Vito: Never. Give him a living, but never discuss the family business with him.” The Godfather (1972).
Trump Presidency a ‘one-term proposition’?
If the Catfood Democrat Establishment forces the nomination of another Catfood Democrat nominee, Trump’s re-election seems likely. The smellier the Catfood, the bigger Trump’s margin of victory.
One of the 4 Decent Democrats ( Warren, Sanders, Gabbard or Gravel) would have a slight chance of winning if they were nominated. But the Catfood Democrats are doing everything they can get away with to prevent any Decent Democrat from ever getting nominated.
Independence for Puerto Rico, so it can join the other sovereign nations in the Caribbean.
The young far left has not figured out the big public employee unions hijacked the Democrat Party years ago. They are now the all union, all the time party and run a massive government administration operation, contrary to FDR’s warning not to unionize government employees.
The young Democrat radicals don’t know the Democrat Party SJW buzz words do not apply to everyone; just the government workers. They have not even figured out the Green New Deal was nothing but a trojan horse carrying the all jobs must be unions jobs mandate in its final pages.
As a tourist in Portugal recently, the number of zombie young people high on drugs was scary. Small but obvious, and scary. Not sure Portugal has handled this problem.
factotum
Yes! And as a sovereign entity they should take their debt with them.
Factotum,
“the Democrat Party SJW buzz words do not apply to everyone”
They apply to the inputs of the academic economic enslavement machinery known as higher education; and to dissenting teachers and professors as a means of discipline enforcement. Culutural marxism at its best.
Factotum,
You seem to be one of those west coast guys who likes to be creative with language. AFT, NEA, LAUTA and the Teamsters are all not SEIU. But nice try. Does the foundation pay you to post like this ’cause you’re beating a dead horse instead of trying to make an persuasive point.
If the zombie young people scare the non-zombie majority of young people to not be-like-that, then having the zombie young people on open display is serving as a use-uptake deterrent right there.
If supervised maintainance injecting of the zombie-addicts under containment has stopped diseases from spreading around via shared needle, then the expense of disease treatment has been reduced by just that much.
If the obvious zombie-condition of the regulated and maintained users has made getting addicted so un-cool and un-groovy that the majority young people just don’t want to do it, then the conveyor-belt of fresh customers for the Global Narco-Financial Industrial Complex has been stopped in Portugal.
If that has indeed happened, the Portuguese may have decided that the visual offence of some drug-zombie young people in open view is a price worth paying in order to take Portugal off the Global Narco-Financial Industrial Complex plantation.