Dem “Presidents” Gather to Blather Again

OBSERVATIONS ON TONIGHT’S DEBATE

by  John Hinderaker  at PowerLine:

Sure, I know it isn’t over. I didn’t watch it to the end. Who possibly could? My comments will be brief:

1) Joe Biden was the winner tonight. He pretended to be sane, and did a decent imitation.

2) Julian Castro–did anyone remember that he was on the stage?–is running to be Elizabeth Warren’s VP. He did her dirty work tonight.

3) It’s time to pull the plug on Bernie Sanders. It’s not just that he is a raving maniac–he is an extremely elderly raving maniac. I hope he made it through the night.

4) Early on in the campaign, I thought Kamala Harris had a good shot. I was wrong.

5) Andrew Yang showed himself to be the quintessential Democrat. He gets votes the old-fashioned way: he buys them. Unfortunately, he could only afford to buy 12.

6) I heard a rumor that Amy Klobuchar participated tonight, but I can’t verify it.

 

Observations On Tonight’s Debate

What Was SOCIALISM of the “Union of Soviet SOCIALIST Republics” of Fascist Venezuela, et alia?

WHAT IS SOCIALISM?

by  John Hinderaker  at  PowerLine:

Many, like us, are appalled that some politicians now openly advocate the failed system of socialism, while they and others try to deny the obvious fact that free enterprise has enriched the lives of billions of people. One is tempted to chalk such opinions up to an abysmal ignorance of history.

But something else is going on, too. The meaning of “socialism” has evolved; or, one might say, it is flying under a false flag. When Democratic politicians advocate socialism, they don’t talk about North Korea, Soviet Russia, Albania, Cuba (anymore) or Venezuela (anymore). Rather, they talk about Sweden, Denmark and Norway–countries that are not, in fact, socialist. One might conclude that they just want a slightly larger welfare state–accompanied, although they never say this, by a less progressive tax system and often more business-friendly policies.

Americas Majority Foundation has done some interesting polling on how Americans view socialism, as well as free market capitalism. Their report is embedded below; I recommend reading it in its entirety. Here are a few highlights:

We surveyed voters how they view the terms Socialism and Capitalism. On socialism, we asked “When you hear or read the term ‘socialism’, do you think of Scandinavian Social Democracies like Denmark and Sweden OR Venezuela, North Korea and the Former Soviet Union?” On Capitalism, we asked, “When you hear or read the phrase ‘free market capitalism’ do you think…It is an economic system that allows people to pursue their passions and create their own careers and businesses or do you think It is an economic system where those at the top benefit at the expense of the rest?”

That, I think, is a good way of posing the questions.

At the Top Line, 52% of all respondents associate “Socialism” with “Denmark/Sweden.” Simultaneously, 52% relate “Free Market Capitalism” to “pursue their passions.”

So there are a considerable number of voters who, in this sense, approve of both socialism and capitalism.

When we studied 18-65-year-olds, we found that overall voters view socialism closer to Nordic countries as opposed to Venezuela by 52% to 48%. 67% of Democrats viewed socialism as similar to a Nordic country compared to 38% of Republicans. 51% of Independents view socialism similarly to Nordic countries compared to 49% who viewed socialism as a worst-case disaster.

So the ships are largely passing in the night. When Bernie Sanders et al. say they want socialism, we think they mean Venezuela, while a large majority of Democrats think they mean Denmark. The problem is that the Democrats’ policies are far closer to those of Venezuela than to those of Scandinavia.

Free enterprise, the greatest engine in history for improvement of the human condition, is depressingly controversial.

Overall 52% of voters view free markets as benefiting the rich while 48% of voters viewed free market as allowing individuals to allow to pursue their dream. As you would suspect, 64% of Democrats view free market benefitting the wealthy while 69% of Republicans view free markets as a liberating force that allows them to pursue their dream. 51% of Independents agree with Democrats that free markets benefit the top 1% and 49% agree with Republicans on the benefit of the free markets in pursuing their dreams.

For what it’s worth, 18 to 34 year old voters are among the most likely to be pro-free enterprise by this measure.

There is a great deal more, including some commentary and conclusions, in the embedded document, but for now I will add one more data point. What ethnic group do you think is most likely to associate socialism with Venezuela? Not whites or Asians, but Hispanics–probably because they are more aware of the Venezuelan catastrophe than the average American. This suggests a fruitful avenue for Republican candidates to appeal to Hispanic voters in 2020.

 

What Is Socialism?

(I spent a month in the good old USSR of 1966 when it wasn’t quite the land of  Stalinist “Socialist” murder anymore but of socialist fascist police state variety, nevertheless.   Although I spoke the elegant  tsarist accent variety, the pre-Soviet Russian language one,  the one I was taught by sons and daughters of tsarist Russians who fled their Manchurian sanctuaries from Chairman Mao’s troops in the late 1940s,  no Soviet person I met in 1966 was aware of the accent’s past.   I was allowed to roam freely….by the rules of the National Defense Education Act which was paying my way.

I returned to Soviet Russia, (the USSR), in 1990 to accompany  a Anoka area Protestant church group which had raised thousands of dollars to be given to hospitalized  victims of the Chernobyl nuclear plant disaster not far from Kiev.

It’s too bad that in today’s feminized CNN’s fascistic American education systems from K through college and their mouthy gangs of Socialist “Democrats” competing for the American presidency  couldn’t have spent a week or a day living in the Fascistic Socialist USSR world  they are now selling!   If they mouthed or demonstrated a complaint against the State, they would most likely have been  made to disappear…..even forever!

Why Do Our Conservative Supreme Court Judges so often “Judge” with the Fascist Left?

THE LIBERAL SUPREME COURT BLOC STANDS FIRM

by  John Hinderaker  at PowerLine:

Liberals constantly worry about conservative domination of the Supreme Court. Would that it were true: the Court’s conservatives have long been a diverse bunch, and, unlike the liberals, they have never formed a consistent voting bloc. I have sometimes wondered whether Democratic nominees go through a secret ceremony in which they pledge to vote the Democratic Party line in any case where the party demands their vote. Probably not, I suppose, but it often seems that way.

Ilya Shapiro of the Cato Institute has done the math:

There were 67 decisions after argument in the term that ended in June. In those cases, the four justices appointed by Democratic presidents voted the same way 51 times, while the five Republican appointees held tight 37 times. And of the 20 cases where the court split 5-4, only seven had the “expected” ideological divide of conservatives over liberals. By the end of the term, each conservative justice had joined the liberals as the deciding vote at least once.

That dynamic isn’t something that sprang up in the Trump era or with the court’s newest personnel. In the 2014-15 term, with Kennedy at the height of his “swing vote” power —the last full term before Justice Antonin Scalia’s death and resulting year-long vacancy — the four liberals stuck together in 55 of 66 cases, while the four conservatives (not counting Kennedy) voted as a unit in 39.

Shapiro makes this obvious point:

Speaking of politically fraught cases that end up 5-4, it’s notable that there’s never a question of how the liberal justices will vote. Speculation runs rampant over whether one of the conservatives will go wobbly — whether out of unpredictable moderation, minimalistic pragmatism or idiosyncratic theory — but the liberals are guaranteed to please their constituency.

While the liberal justices vote together in political solidarity, the more conservative justices have divergent approaches to jurisprudence which they actually try to apply with intellectual rigor. That may be commendable, but it explains why the Court as a body is more liberal than one might expect.

 

The Liberal Supreme Court Bloc Stands Firm

Answer seems rather obvious….For the past generation and a half Dems have chosen lefty leftists to the Supreme Court BAR…..the more Ginsberg-extreme, the better.

Half of today’s GOP Conservatives are only half Conservative and of the Big Business kind, the ones close to lots of $$$ and/or like majority Dems, never had to work for a living!