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WaPo Busts Kamala in Glorious Op-Ed Linking 'Communist' and Her Proposed 'Price Controls' – RedState
What are these “clear rules of the road” or the thresholds that determine when a price or profit level becomes “excessive”? The memo doesn’t say, and the campaign did not answer questions I sent seeking clarification. //
It’s hard to exaggerate how bad this policy is. It is, in all but name, a sweeping set of government-enforced price controls across every industry, not only food. Supply and demand would no longer determine prices or profit levels. Far-off Washington bureaucrats would. The FTC would be able to tell, say, a Kroger in Ohio the acceptable price it can charge for milk.
At best, this would lead to shortages, black markets and hoarding, among other distortions seen previous times countries tried to limit price growth by fiat. (There’s a reason narrower “price gouging” laws that exist in some U.S. states are rarely invoked.) At worst, it might accidentally raise prices. //
But more to the point: If your opponent claims you’re a “communist,” maybe don’t start with an economic agenda that can (accurately) be labeled as federal price controls. //
The "policy" is horrible, but you're just supposed to be vibing on how she's going to take care of the evil corporations. She apparently vetted this policy like she vetted her running mate Tim Walz — which is to say not at all or keeping her eyes covered about all the bad stuff. //
anon-aqyc Jerry's Middle Finger
an hour ago
They are just following the playbook of every Marxist since the beginning of time. Promise the world and when you get in power bring out the iron fist.
I am aware that Marx did not write about it until the 19th century, but the idea was not new with him. //
St. Joseph, Terror of Demons Jerry's Middle Finger
an hour ago
They know it doesn’t work and they don’t care. If everything fails, that means the elites get more money and more power. //
Donner’s Party
an hour ago
WaPo must have gotten the Memo from Bezoes, that Kamala’s new Joy policy wasn’t going to work for Amazon.
No Amazon, No WaPo, No Job.
"It's going to stop us from being builders, and we need to support the side that's going to let our civilization thrive," Lonsdale added.
That's always been the trouble with leftist policies; they are deeply and fundamentally anti-growth, anti-business, and anti-prosperity. Kamala Harris's policies (at least, what we know of them if you can keep track of her policy changes as they go by) include increasing taxation and regulation and attempting to make sure "everyone ends up in the same place," which smacks of socialism.
These are not things that investment bankers or tech moguls want to hear. //
anon-x8p1
8 hours ago edited
Don' you like the idea Kamala will pay millions of our tax dollars for armies of new government employees, just to track down the price of celery at your local super market?
Always, always, always ask how many new government employees (D) any Democrat program will require. That is the real name of the game - expand Big Government(D).
We are close to a critical tipping point where Big Government(D) finally swallows the rest of us whole. Yes, it is that critical.
The Democratic Socialists of America claimed credit for Walz being picked in a thread on X.
Harris choosing Walz as a running mate has shown the world that DSA and our allies on the left are a force that cannot be ignored. Through collective action, DSA and the US left more broadly have made it clear that change is needed. DSA members organized in our workplaces and unions to realign the labor movement to support Palestinian liberation.
The Uncommitted movement, in which DSA members played crucial roles nationally and in multiple states, pressured the Democratic establishment into choosing a new candidate and backing down from a potential VP with direct ties to the IDF and who would have ferociously supported the ongoing genocide in Palestine. //
But what the DSA is telling us by this is that they seem to believe Walz was the more left-wing choice. That tells you everything you need to know about him, because they sure don't sound like they think he's a "centrist," as the media is trying to pitch him.
It takes time. Normal people know transformation doesn't happen overnight. //
For 30 years, Argentines faced rising food prices every week.
Every week for 30 years.
Well, the libertarian free-market economist President Javier Milei has steered Argentina in the correct direction because, for the first time in 30 years, the country did not experience food inflation. //
Milei is obviously on the correct path. He is also the first Argentine president not to pass a new law in his first six months in office.
There is a billionaire who, for the most part, has gone under the radar pushing "reimagining capitalism." His name is Pierre Omidyar. Omidyar was born in France to Iranian parents. He later moved to the United States, where he founded eBay.
With over six billion dollars in personal wealth, he founded the Omidyar Network to influence not just the private sector but, more importantly, to inject human capital into the federal bureaucracy. His intent seems clear: to make structural changes. What type of changes? It’s no secret that Omidyar has his acolytes who are all-in on equal results, not equal treatment. In 2020, his Network produced a pamphlet titled: “Call to Reimagine Capitalism in America.” On its opening page, it calls for:
A more democratic economy is one in which the real creators – working people, consumers, individuals, small businesses, and families – can have equal voice, hold power, and get ahead.
Further into the manifesto, it laments that America is rife with badness:
“structural racism, colonialism, paternalism,”
It calls for:
“an explicitly anti-racist and inclusive economy.” //
Since 2004, the Omidyar Network has spent $1.89 billion on social justice causes. //
The top-heavy influence of the Omidyar Network and related and funded entities and the injection of ideologues is unknown. Soros has had a remarkable influence on local politics by targeting district attorneys and local politicians. Omidyar is influencing policy at the federal level. //
anon-m0b0
15 hours ago edited
So a rich billionaire with buckets of money wants to create a society where he has more power and the people he says he is "helping" will be totally impoverished by the time he is done.
Its almost as if he accidentally created eBay and made money from it. Because he doesn't really believe in free markets.
James Madison is the Father of our Constitution, and the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at Madison’s Montpelier provides educational programming for teachers, law enforcement officers, and others.
That seems appropriate. After all, not only did Madison—our country’s fourth president—help draft the Constitution, but he also served as a key delegate at the Constitutional Convention, authored the Bill of Rights, and urged ratification of the Constitution through his practical and philosophical arguments in The Federalist Papers.
But these accomplishments are, at best, downplayed at his historic home. Montpelier has no exhibits dedicated to Madison and his contributions.
Worse still, Montpelier is equipping educators to teach Marxist-based theories to elementary, middle, and high school students. And the programs doing this are, in part, funded by the state of Virginia. //
It’s sad that Montpelier has chosen to focus on a Marxist-motivated movement fueled by critical race theory, instead of on the many astounding achievements of the home’s former owner and the Father of our Constitution, James Madison.
It’s a disservice to the public, teachers, and students.
Bill Whittle’s newest season of ‘What We Saw’ on Daily Wire Plus dips its toe in the oceans of blood Russia’s Communist revolution released.
The true crime genre is not big enough for what Communists and socialists did in Russia in the 20th century. It demands a new genre — perhaps call it true horror.
Bill Whittle’s newest season of “What We Saw” on Daily Wire Plus dips its toe in the oceans of blood Russia’s Communist revolution released. It’s grisly and difficult to take in. Whittle attempts to quantify the myriad forms of mass killings by comparing their death tolls to the erasure of several U.S. cities, yet still the numbers are numbing.
What’s not numbing is the question he includes in the season’s trailer comparing the Nazi Holocaust with the Soviet mass murder of an estimated 20 million: “Why are we encouraged to never forget one, and then intentionally taught to forget the other?” //
While it’s difficult to probe such manifestations of supernatural evil, doing so should be required of every human being. That’s because we need to look at evils like these and attempt to understand how they happen and what they say about human nature and history. Such knowledge is a fortification against it happening again — creating, for example, common knowledge that evil and corrupt governments often baselessly accuse their opponents of terrorism.
Here are four other things one can learn from studying Soviet history, as horrifying as that exercise can be.
1. Misery Is Normal in Human History
It’s hard to believe that when you’re an American and all you’ve ever known is clean and hot water coming out of the tap at a turn. But it’s also important to keep in mind. For one thing, it produces appropriate gratitude. For another, it should discipline hasty desires to “tear it all down,” and cultivate contempt for people who use the same lying words and policies as Communists.
2. People Are Not Innately Good
A heck of a lot of people somehow believe that humans are innately good. //
Soviet Russia is a tire iron to the back of that idea’s head. There can be no excuses for what the Communists did. No amount of bad potty training or poverty can excuse the mass murder of 20 million people and the enslavement of countless tens of millions more in gulag concentration camps. //
3. Socialists, Nazis, and Communists All Make the Same Hell on Earth
The truth is, socialists, Nazis, and Communists engage in furious infighting, but they’re all ultimately on the same side. They fight with each other, not because they disagree about collectivism, but because they all want to be on top of the dogpile of bodies their sister collectivist ideologies cause. Communists are Nazis are socialists are communists.
Socialist true believers will seek their collectivist ends “by any means necessary,” including government-sponsored terror, killing fields, and concentration camps. Anyone who proclaims himself a socialist in the face of historical facts about the hell on Earth socialism has always produced is a fool and fellow traveler, if not a covert supporter of mass terror.
4. We’d Better Keep America From Full Socialism
Let’s be honest: The United States is already partly socialist. We’re a pension plan with an army, as Andy Biggs noted, and every few years some other collectivist program that ratchets up the socialism is increased or enhanced, like Obamacare.
Brazil is a demographic and geographical giant ruled by Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, perhaps the hemisphere’s best known Marxist leader. Lula is also the founder of the Foro de Sao Paulo, the world’s largest grouping of Marxist parties and organizations.
The Foro threw its support behind the march in Argentina. Its executive secretary, Monica Valente, not only promoted the Jan. 24 protest and other demonstrations since Milei took office. She also shared on social media a Zoom meeting that over 200 global leftist unionists held with leaders of the main Argentine unions on Jan. 18, six days before the protest. //
Freire insisted that he and other international participants on the Zoom call were taking their cues from the three main Argentine union bosses leading the protest efforts.
But the figurative call to arms was unmistakable. Freire and the others spoke in apocalyptic tones about what would happen to the rest of the world if Milei succeeded, so the Argentines had better stop him lest Mileism spring up everywhere. //
“Argentina is a global laboratory,” Argentine union leader Roberto Baradel said during his remarks. Baradel decried how Milei was making “the right to property the central right in our social, political, and economic life.” //
This is what is arrayed against Milei, who only took office Dec. 10. There was no street violence against him in this dry run, but that isn’t guaranteed going forward. Milei remains immensely popular, an asset he will need.
Americans and Europeans who agree with Milei’s slogan of “Viva la Libertad, Carajo!” (or “Long Live Liberty, [Expletive]!”) have an interest in him succeeding. That’s because if he does succeed, there is a chance that rational policies can be tried at home.
The Argentine president’s success against the Big Global Left also would give us lessons about a possible return of 2020-style, Black Lives Matter-sponsored violence.
It turns out that this was the first time an artificial intelligence tool translated a speech by a world leader in real-time. //
fscarn | January 22, 2024 at 9:48 am
When the Founders/Framers spoke of freedom, they meant freedom FROM government,
Javier Milei gets it.
“It wasn’t what government did that made America great; it was what government was prevented from doing that made the difference,
“What set America apart from all other lands was freedom – for the individual. Freedom to work, to produce, to succeed and, especially, to keep the fruits of one’s labor.
“America became great precisely because the stifling effects of too much government had been prevented [by means of Constitutional limitations].”
Part of narration of Overview of America,
https://jbs.org/video/featured/overview-of-america/?mc_cid=aab99f82ce
What do you do when you decide the Soviet Union and Red China aren’t communist enough and “real communism hasn’t ever been tried”? Well, you give it a try!
Estimates of the number of Albanians murdered by the communist dictatorship range from 5,000 to 25,000, including 1,200 killed while trying to escape the slave state. Albania, with abundant hydroelectric power resources and petroleum, was the poorest country in Europe with GDP per capita around US$ 750 in the 1980s.
Blake @_BlakeHabyan
·
New: Klaus Schwab Opens The World Economic Forum Annual Meeting By Speaking About The Importance Of ‘Rebuilding Trust’:
“There’s a fundamental need to embody trusteeship, which means to care for the greater good.”, Schwab says.
Why would The World Economic Forum… Show more
7:23 PM · Jan 16, 2024
Interesting choice of words. Trusteeship implies you have some responsibility and or control over us when we are a free people — you don't have such a relationship over us, except in your mind. And when people use the term "greater good," one thinks Communism and/or someone is about to try to sell you something you don't want.
Elon Musk didn't think much of what Schwab had to say; he's called him out in the past.
Elon Musk @elonmusk
·
The real issue is that Klaus wants to be emperor of Earth. He certainly dresses for the part!
And the policies that seem to emerge from this gathering don’t seem to make for an exciting future.
7:47 PM · Jan 17, 2024 //
Laocoön of Troy
23 minutes ago
Ya' know...God must be laughing at us. Who knew that Western Civilization and liberal democracy may end up being rescued by Musk...rumored to be an atheist or agnostic? Or perhaps JK Rowling or Rogan or Jordan Peterson or even Dershowitz?
God works in a mysterous way...his wonders to perform...
MILEI: Today, I'm here to tell you that the Western world is in danger. It is in danger because those who are supposed to defend the values of the West are co-opted by a vision of the world that inevitably leads to socialism and thereby to poverty. Unfortunately, in recent decades, motivated by some well-meaning individuals willing to help others, and others motivated by the wish to belong to a privileged class, the main leaders of the Western world have abandoned the model of freedom for different versions of what we call collectivism. We're here to tell you that collectivist experiments are never the solution to the problems that inflict the citizens of the world. Rather, they are the root cause. Do believe me, no one is in a better place than us, Argentines, to testify to these two points. //
The crowd at the WEF doesn't want to hear that, though, and Milei's urgings will certainly be dismissed. Still, it's important they are made. It's important people stand up to the onslaught that is coming from Klaus Schwab and company. If they have their way, freedom and upward mobility will no longer exist. People will simply become cogs in their machines as they continue to live the good life. Want proof? The big-wigs at the WEF are currently pushing the idea of a so-called "disease X" that will kill 20x more people than COVID-19. What's their solution? More control because that's always their solution.
There is no greater existential threat to freedom than the leadership class represented at the WEF. Terrorists aren't going to fundamentally change your way of life, but powerful heads of state all singing from the same sheet of socialist, anti-freedom music can and will. Milei is a much-welcomed voice in the fight against that. //
anon-62kn
2 hours ago
Not on the public agenda at the WEF are secret, backroom meetings with the sole focus to make sure Milei is a 1-term president, and that Trump does not win - or if he wins he is immediately neutered.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn dedicated his book about the end state of communism ‘to all those who did not live to tell it.’ //
My parents emigrated from the Soviet Union. From what they told me, I developed a deep reluctance to being frog-marched to Kolyma courtesy of unilateral disarmament peaceniks, who are nowadays called “woke” with alternate grievances but the same collectivist Borg mentality. //
In part I’s fourth chapter, Solzhenitsyn encourages humility about human vulnerability to evil. “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” //
In part VII’s third chapter, Solzhenitsyn excoriates apologists for Soviet misrule: “All you freedom-loving ‘left-wing’ thinkers in the West! … As far as you are concerned, this whole book of mine is a waste of effort. You may suddenly understand it all someday — but only when you yourselves hear ‘hands behind your backs there!’ and step ashore on our Archipelago.” He knew his disclosures would meet that era’s version of cancel culture. //
The will to dominate runs deep in the human psyche. Archipelago reminds us such despotic cruelty became commonplace in living memory with few held accountable.
Moreover, such atrocities continue today behind barbed wire in western China, North Korea, and elsewhere on the globe. Solzhenitsyn warns us all of the consequences should resistance to totalitarianism fail.
“Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
This is known as "bad luck.”
― Robert Heinlein //
California has created a government that depends on one percent of its citizens for 50 percent of its revenue. It is in the process of creating a situation where it has half the revenue and 99 percent of the people. That is not sustainable.
UNEXPECTEDLY: ADV. FREQUENTLY USED BY PEOPLE WHO DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING, TO DESCRIBE UNPLEASANT EVENTS OR SITUATIONS THEY HAVE CREATED.
Things like price controls have long been a staple in Argentina, and they've been an absolute disaster (just as they have been in every other country throughout history). Protectionist trade policies have also led to increased prices because of a lack of competition in the market (while allowing the left-wing unions to cash in). Also targeted are landlord policies that have forced owners to allow delinquent tenants to stay while limiting what they could charge for rent.
Of course, because Milei is making some tough choices to save his country that just so happen to clash with left-wing orthodoxy, he's being called a fascist. //
Apparently, one of the hallmarks of fascism is limiting the power of government. Who knew? Of course, that's nonsense. Milei is selling off the state-owned industries because they are failing under government control just as they did in Venezuela and elsewhere. He's selling off government housing and removing rent controls because the current housing market in Argentina was completely warped, making investment nearly impossible.
There is nothing fascist about that. On the contrary, fascism is marked by increased government control of every aspect of society. That control just occurs in a different way than communism, with the latter relying on direct ownership while the former relies on direct control. Anyone claiming that Milei is a fascist is either incredibly ignorant or shamelessly dishonest.
Cafeblue32
21 minutes ago edited
Education, healthcare, culture, women’s rights etc out (Afuera!)
Gee, I recall a time when the federal government didn't have agencies to control any of those things here. Yet we managed to be better educated in the basics, we still came up with cures for diseases, we had a culture that was both blended and separated naturally, and after 1920, women had the same voting rights as men to vote for change.
Government is supposed to be like a wedding venue- it provides the facilities, takes care of liability, and offers electricity, water and heat/air conditioning. It doesn't plan the wedding, officiate it, decide who the wedding party will be and their gender/color/queerness makeup, or MC the reception. //
TheAmericanExperiment
2 minutes ago
"or they can turn tail and run back to the socialists the moment things get difficult."
They elected Macri in 2015 whop ran on the same platform as Milei and after one term the "turned tail" elected a socialist to replace him. Argentina is probably already a failed state. I have friends there and they have all moved across the Rio del la Plata to Montevideo. It's completely unsafe there. The half of the population that hasn't sunk into abject poverty and hunger is becoming prey for those who have.
What is ultimately behind so many of the (manufactured) ills currently plaguing the West, from leftist lunacy and gender insanity to unnecessary lockdowns and wars?
In a word, the ultra-rich — the billionaire elite. So argues bestselling author Hanne Nabintu Herland, in her latest book, "The Billionaire World: How Marxism Serves the Elite."
In a series of brisk chapters, Herland — an African-born historian of religions and founder of The Herland Report in Scandinavia — traces all of the world’s major problems back to the billionaire elite and their use of Marxist repression and social engineering. //
According to Herland, “82% of all wealth generated in 2017 went to the richest 1% among us, while the poorest world population of 3.7 billion saw no increase in wealth.” //
[T]he richest among us made billions of dollars on the COVID-19 world tragedy, while the world’s poor plunged into unimaginable poverty… The shutdown strategy made the billionaires’ profit soar. In the span of just a few months in 2020, Bill Gates made $75 billion, Jeff Bezos $67.9 billion, Mark Zuckerberg $37.8 billion, and Elon Musk $33.6 billion. //
From a macro-historic perspective, the West is slowly regressing, and the ultra-rich are becoming “the globalist version of feudal lords, as the new Western slave class emerges beneath them.” //
The Marxist attack on historic Western values has weakened the very core of our culture, destroyed social stability and the family, quenched free speech and silenced the people—and thereby removed the obstacles for the billionaire class to gain centralized control.… The combination of strong private corporations coupled with political socialist ideologies has pushed for a radical groupthink model in which the population is expected to agree with the consensus—not unlike that which we witnessed during the National Socialism in Germany before and during World War II.
Todd Lewis
2 days ago
A proper education is so important on so many levels. Part of a proper education is that it be Christian education. In the past most educational institutions had a self-consciously Christian ethos. Part of that ethos is that men are evil by nature and must be restrained, if not transformed. It could easily be seen that history's struggle meant the restraining of evil and encouraging the good. But you also had to understand the difference. Most people don't understand the difference anymore. For example, if someone thinks there is such a thing as "better'' socialists and that they are able to get it right this time you are seeing a depth of ignorance that cannot be plumbed.