AEI Ideas: James Pethokoukis- 'If You Want Government to Spend Like a Nordic Nation, it Also Has to Tax Like One'

Source:The New Democrat- American Socialists, or European Socialists?

Source:The New Democrat 

"One difference between these two candidates’ [Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders] platforms and the social-democratic agenda in your book is that both are talking a lot about raising taxes on the rich, while in the Nordic countries, the middle and working classes pay more in taxes, too.

The tax strategy that these countries have tended to pursue is to spread the tax burden around, and in fact, their overall tax systems are pretty much flat. Almost everybody pays roughly the same share of their pre-tax income in taxes. You have a progressive income tax, but that’s offset by regressive payroll taxes, and especially regressive consumption taxes, which are very large in these countries." 

From AEI Ideas 

"Self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders on his 2016 presidential primary challenge against Hillary Clinton." 

Source:ABC News- U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (Democratic Socialist, Socialist Republic of Vermont) the only self-described Democratic Socialist member of Congress. But not the only Socialist in Congress.

From ABC News

One thing with having a not only a Democratic Socialist, but a self-described Democratic Socialist running for president for the Democratic Party and doing well, (Bernie Sanders is not the first Democratic Socialist Democrat to run for president) is that you have someone with the political guts to say, ‘taxes will not only go up if I’m president, but they’ll go up on the middle class.’ 

Bernie Sanders, is a very smart guy whatever you think of his politics. He knows that there’s only so much that you can tax the rich and only so much the IRS will ever see from that for a couple of reasons. The rich won’t want to pay all of these new taxes, especially to pay for the cost of living of middle-income workers. And they’ll send their money oversees to countries where they wouldn’t be taxed as high. Senator Sanders, knows this, but the question is will he share that with voters.

So of course middle class taxes would go up in a democratic socialist administration, if somehow a President Sanders could get his programs through Congress. A new Democratic Senate wouldn’t be enough, he would need a new Democratic House as well. With a lot of new so-called Progressive Caucus members, or Democratic Socialists being elected to both chambers, which won’t happen. I mean Paul Ryan will be Speaker of the House in the next Congress. Even if Democrats win back the Senate in the next Congress. 

But putting that aside voters who are looking at Bernie Sanders, especially middle-income and lower middle-income, people making lets fifty-thousand-dollars a year, or less, need to know what voting for a Democratic Socialist for president comes with. A bigger more centralized government in Washington. With a smaller private sector and higher taxes on everyone.

As Jim Pethokoukis mentioned in his blog post, taxes in Scandinavia even if their welfare states are progressive, are regressive. They’re roughly flat and come with high sales and payroll taxes, to go along with flatter income taxes. Where everyone pays taxes including lower-income workers. So forget about the ten-percent tax rate in America which is our lowest tax rate. That would be more like 20-25, maybe, 15, would be probably be the best to hope for. 

But if you’re making forty-thousand-dollars a year right now and are lets say a teacher, or police officer, you’re currently paying ten-percent. Under a President Sanders if he got his economic plan through Congress, that worker would at least be looking at a fifty-percent tax increase. With the promise of better public services. Even if they can no longer make those decisions for themselves in the private sector.

Socialists (so-called Progressives in America) point to Scandinavia all the time that there high tax, big centralized government, big welfare states work so well over there. So we should do that here. While always leaving out some really huge facts. Let's take Norway and Sweden: physically big countries roughly, especially Sweden which is roughly the size of Turkey and Afghanistan. But in Sweden’s case only have about ten-million people. Sweden is also a large energy producer with oil and gas, the same thing with Norway. They’re not just large energy producers, but large energy exporters. 

Scandinavia government’s bring in a tone of revenue for their government’s and can afford to be very socialist and generous’ with their taxpayers money. America, huge country with a huge population, that still imports energy from other counties. We can’t afford to that generous with our taxpayers money.

For the life of me I don’t understand why Hillary Clinton is not making this argument with blue-collar voters. Whether it was in Iowa, or New Hampshire and wouldn’t she then take that to South Carolina and Nevada. And tell voters in these states that they would be looking at steep tax increases even if a President Sanders could get his economic plan through Congress. That this plan is not just radical, but it's unrealistic, but it also wouldn’t work. 

American companies and foreign companies, would conclude that America is simply too expensive to invest in. But not only that, because their workers, who still have jobs, because their employers managed to stay in the country, don’t have to spending money to buy our products anyway. And then Hillary should say she has a much better plan for the middle class. That is about higher wages and job creation. Not higher taxes and bigger government. But maybe this is what she’s struggling right now.

Steven Crowder: 'MYTH BUSTED: ACTUALLY, YES, HITLER WAS A SOCIALIST LIBERAL'

Source:Quote of The Day- Socialist-Nationalist Adolf Hitler.

Source:The Daily Review 

"A favorite tactic employed by leftists is to describe the Nazis as "right wing," with Adolf Hitler, their leader, as the grand leader of this "right wing" movement. Rewriting history is pretty common for leftists, as their history is littered with injustice (the KKK was founded by Democrats, did you know?). Injustices they claim to fight against today. Awkward.

But thanks to this nifty thing called "history" in combination with "the internet," we can bust this myth once and for all. Thoroughly. Or until a leftist insists on ignoring it. Then we'll hold them down and tape their eyes open. Just kidding, that's only what a leftist would do. For those who'd rather watch this column in video form, there's one below. For those who prefer reading, yuck. But scroll down." 

From Steven Crowder 

"A favorite tactic employed by leftists is to describe the Nazis as “right wing,” with of course, Adolf Hitler as their leader. Rewriting history is pretty common for leftists, but thanks to this nifty thing called “history” in combination with “the internet,” we can bust this myth once and for all...  

Source:Steven Crowder- calling Adolf Hitler a Liberal. Give me a break!

From Steven Crowder

I hope Steven Crowder isn’t a professor of political history, or German history, because his students would leave his class knowing less than what they knew going in. Crowder, knows less about Socialist Liberals and socialist liberalism, then Ben Carson knows about foreign policy and Donald Trump, knows about national security and Norwegians know about NASCAR and Texas rodeos, combined. 

Adolf Hitler, wasn’t just a Socialist, but a Marxist. Nothing liberal, or democratic about the man. Socialist Liberals, believe in democracy and personal freedom, with a big welfare state when it comes to economic policy, but not a Marxist command and control government-run economy. 

This idea Crowder throws out that Hitler was an inspiration for the KKK and other Southern Anglo-Saxon racist Democrats, again, not Liberal Democrats, but right-wing, Neo-Confederate Democrats who are and would be Far-Right Republicans today.

Hyper-partisan Tea Party Republicans, seem to believe that the only way they can look good is if Democrats and people they see as Liberals look bad. So they don’t talk about communism and socialism anymore, but instead one big mother ideology that they call liberalism, that they probably made up when they were getting high in their pickup trucks in South Carolina, or some place. They may officially be against marijuana and legalization, except for themselves. 

But of course the New-Right in America always leaves out actual liberal ideas and values that most of the country including Conservatives actually support: equal rights, equality under law, tolerance, judging people individually and not as members of groups, personal freedom, economic opportunity for everyone, public infrastructure, and education, etc.

Adolf Hitler, was monster who didn’t believe in liberal values and conservative values either. Who just didn’t hate Jews, but Slavs, Gypsies and I’m sure Africans as well. Not that Europe had much of an African population back then. This idea that any of these hateful policies would be liberal, when he was completely against the actual liberal values ( that I mentioned in the last paragraph) would be like saying the Saudi Kingdom is run by Conservatives, because they have a state religion and are not just fundamentalist, but have a state religion and treat women as second-class citizens, as well as ethnic minorities in Saudi Arabia. When the fact is Conservatives not only believe in a republic, but Separation of Church and State, as well as Freedom of Religion. Which all includes all religions. 

The Tea Party, just sounds like hyper-partisan desperate liars, when they need to compare Liberals with a evil man like Adolf Hitler.

If you want to call Adolf Hitler a Liberal, don’t wine when someone on the Left who might be as stupid as you (and perhaps you could settle that in a debate) compares Ronald Reagan with a Saudi, or Iranian theocrat. Because Ron Reagan was pretty religious, at least after he bombed in Hollywood as a b-actor and got into politics instead. Which many times actually has less truth in it than Hollywood. 

If you’re going to describe someone’s politics, here’s an idea: know what their politics first and then be able to explain them. Instead of comparing saying everyone on the Left is a Liberal, or everyone on the Right is a Conservative. I realize that could cost you ratings and subscriptions from people who were passed up when brains were being passed out. But at least you could be educating people instead of contributing to the state of ignorance in America.

Notes On Liberty: Edwin Van de Haar- Liberalism & Sovereignty

Source:The New Democrat-

Source:The New Democrat

Here’s another interesting piece and discussion from Notes on Liberty. And something The New Democrat debates all the time in the Classical Liberalism group on Google Plus. If you’re on Google Plus which we are and are interested in classical liberalism, I suggest you check that group out. Just look for the photo of the great Classical Liberal Milton Friedman.

Because when you’re talking about liberalism, what are you talking about exactly. Are actually talking about liberalism, or are you talking about libertarianism, or socialism, or Marxism. Because these are all different philosophies. Or are you talking about socialist liberalism, which combines social liberalism with a heavy belief in personal freedom. But with economic socialism and a huge welfare state that is financed through heavy taxation.

I and this blog fall into the Social Liberal camp. A heavy belief in both personal and economic autonomy, but with a limited government there to not only protect our individual rights and freedom, but to help people in need help themselves so they can to also live in freedom. So we separate from the Bernie Sanders Democratic Socialist, or Socialist Liberal camp, but also separate from the Ron Paul Libertarian camp. Where government is there just to protect the borders, defend the homeland and prosecute criminals when they hurt innocent people.

Social Liberals, share things in common with Libertarians. Because both factions believe in a lot of personal freedom short of hurting innocent people, but also holding people personally accountable for their own decisions. And we both believe in a lot of economic freedom. With low taxation to encourage economic investment and success. But we apply the don’t treat on me belief to both social and economic policy. As long as you aren’t hurting anyone from either a personal and economic standpoint, your business is just that. Social Liberals believe in a regulatory state not to run business’s, but to protect consumers and workers. And that is where we separate from Libertarians.

And I could get into people who are called Modern Progressives, who believe in both the welfare state and the nanny state, but now also have a speech state. That says government should decide what speech is appropriate and what isn’t. The so-called political correctness warriors. So-called Progressives that believe its the job of government not to expand freedom, but to be the national parents of the country and even protect us from ourselves. But this philosophy has nothing to do with liberalism and looks more like Neo-Communism, or Marxism, with a capitalist economic system and political freedom. When you’re talking about individual freedom it really gets to social liberalism, libertarianism, what is called conservative libertarianism and to a certain extent even socialist liberalism.

Human Events: Mark Skousen: 'If Megyn Kelly & Fox News Want to be Taken Seriously'

Source: FNC-Megyn Kelly-

Source:The Daily Review

Before I make Megyn Kelly sound like a dumb blonde from Beverly Hills, or the valley in Los Angeles where she competed with Britney Spears for Valley Girl of The Year and even beat her, I’ve been with her on the so-called Donald Trump debate. She’s been damn right about The Donald from the beginning and along with Chris Wallace and Shepard Smith and perhaps Charles Krauthammer, the only people at so-called Fox News, (Tea Party News in actuality) who’ve gotten The Donald and his realty show for a presidential campaign right from the beginning. That he’s a one-man reality show and when he says he’s not a politician you better believe him, because he should have nothing to do with politics and government. Because the man only says and does things to be popular whether he believes in them or not.

The other positive thing I would give the Valley Princess, I mean Megyn Kelly credit for is that she and Chris Wallace, I believe have both done a great job with the Republican presidential debates. Chris Wallace, is actually a journalist and perhaps he, Shep Smith and Carl Cameron, perhaps get lonely at FNC for being the only real journalists there. With the rest of the FNC crew sounding and looking like Human Events, Washington Times, or Washington Examiner, columnists. Before I watched the first GOP debate I was expecting FNC to set up Jeb Bush with a lot of softball pitches so he could swing for the fences and hit a lot of home runs. Why they bash The Donald and the Far-Right candidates, in order to make the GOP look better. But they’ve done a very good with all the candidates.

Now as far as the bimbo image at Fox News. I agree with Mark Skousen, but I would put it differently. When you’re lead anchorwoman says that White Christmas, ‘is just for White people’, you have a problem. When you say Santa Claus, who doesn’t even exist by the way, (sorry kids) ‘must be White’, you have a problem. Or claiming Jesus was White and I could go on unfortunately, but Megyn has made all of these claims in the past. It would be one thing if she was doing this on some public access channel in Huntsville, Alabama, but she has a big voice on FNC. And when she throws out this nonsense, it gets out and makes herself and the network she works for look like they’re dumb as bricks and are not in touch with the real world. Because you’re not if you actually take any of these quotes seriously and believe them.

For a women to be a bimbo, you have to be really attractive and dumb at the same time. I’ll grant that Megyn is a very adorable and a beautiful women, but she’s skinny as a stick and looks like a Valley Girl on TV. And when she makes those dumb comments she just backs that image up as a dumb blonde. Whatever you think of MSNBC and their talk lineup, MSNBC at least their management is not nearly as Far-Left and socialist as they come off. They’re a business looking for ratings and if that means having a lot of Far-Left commentators in order to do that, then that is what they’re going to do. And maybe Fox News is the same thing with the Tea Party. And just has a lot of people on to speak for the Tea Party and showcase their point of view for the ratings. Even if their management is not that Far-Right.
TPTV: Megyn Kelly- 'Santa Is What He is'

The National Interest: Daniel McCarthy: 'The Ugly Truth of Barack Obama’s Last-Gasp Liberalism'

Source:The National Interest- President Barack H. Obama (Democrat, Illinois) speaking to a joint session of the 114th U.S. Congress.

Source:The New Democrat

I feel a little strange commenting on the Obama presidency and it’s impact on America and the rest of the world when it still has a about a year left in it. There are several president’s who’ve accomplished a lot for good in bad in their last year in office. President George W. Bush for example had to deal with the collapse of Wall Street and the banking system in his last year as president. But with Daniel McCarthy essentially arguing that liberalism American and otherwise is dead, I sort of feel the need to weigh in on this. Since again we still have a Center-Left president who is a Liberal, or Progressive, even if he’s a moderate one when it comes to civil liberties and freedom of choice issues.

When Barack Obama came to office, the American economy was literally collapsing. He inherited a budget deficit of over a trillion-dollars and a national debt that rose seven-trillion in the previous eight years and was a eleven-trillion when he took office. Plus the Great Recession just added to that with an economy shrinking at seven-percent and we were losing seven-hundred-thousand jobs in each of the last two months of the Bush Administration. Which adds to the unemployment rolls which adds to the deficit and debt with so many people who previously had middle-income and better jobs now receiving Unemployment Insurance from the Federal Government.

President Obama, had a lot to deal with in his first days as president, plus weeks and months. Like passing a Federal budget and the appropriations bills that the previous Congress and President Bush failed to pass. He had to get a stimulus bill through Congress to get the economy to stop dropping and buy it time to start recovering again. Which is what happened by the summer of 2009. America started creating jobs again by the spring of 2010. The President had forty-five-million Americans without health insurance and lot of those people simply couldn’t afford it. All of this on top of an economy that was falling. Which were the reasons for the auto bailouts, the American Recovery Act, the Affordable Care Act, Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform. All of this legislation in his first two-years as president.

And that is before you get to the President inheriting two wars in the Middle East. With no clear end to when either one would be over and the hundreds of billions of dollars that was borrowed from other countries to pay for those wars. Seven years later is America perfect and is every problem that the President inherited completely solved with nothing left for the future president to have to deal with? Of course not, but that is not how you judge presidencies. You judge them by the State of The Union from which the president inherited to how it was when they left office. Wages aren’t as high as we would like them and the size of the American workforce isn’t as large as it was in 2008. But the economy is no longer falling. The deficit is now 1/3 of what it use to be at around four-hundred-billion dollars. In April we will have seen six straight years of job growth and by the summer seven straight years of economic growth. More Americans now have health insurance than before.

I’ve always seen Barack Obama as a progressive pragmatist. Not as a Socialist, which the Tea Party loves to throw at him, especially the Birthers. Or a Neoconservative/Moderate Republican that actual Socialists like the Noam Chomsky’s of the world see him as. I see the President as Progressive who has big progressive goals and values, but won’t fight to the death for them and come up empty. So of course he’s not Bernie Sanders. He’s someone who goes issue by issue and looks for the best solution to each issue and then looks for the best solution possible. He had a Democratic Congress for his first two years and a divided Congress with a Republican House and Democratic Senate for the next four. And his last two years he’ll have a Republican Congress. So of course he’s had to compromise even with his own party in Congress a lot.

America really at least since the 1960s with the Cultural Revolution and then add the Reagan Revolution of the late 1970s and early 1980s, has always been as Barry Goldwater like to say a big government out of our wallets, bedrooms, boardrooms and classrooms country. Which is why both Center-Left Liberal Democrats (the real Liberals) like Jack Kennedy, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and yes Barack Obama, have done pretty well politically in this country. And why Center-Right Conservatives (the real Conservatives) like Barry Goldwater, Ron Reagan, George H.W. Bush and you could add Dick Nixon as well, have done well in America as well. Because they’ve tended to know where the people are and share their values and what they can accomplish politically as president. Senator Goldwater, was obviously never president, but he fitted in well with the Center-Right.

Liberalism, is not dead. Assuming Hillary Clinton is the next Democratic nominee for president and she becomes president, whether she governs as a Liberal or a Progressive, she’ll try to move the country forward from the Center-Left. And if she does that she’ll pretty successful politically. As long as she knows where she wants to go and can avoid big government and political scandals and handles issues competently. So in this universe as long as Liberals are actually that and don’t try to govern, or win office as Socialists and even Democratic Socialists, Liberals as long as they stay as who they are and stay in the Center-Left as people who believe in both personal and economic freedom and creating a society where everyone can succeed and use a limited government to help create that, they’ll do very well politically. Which is the politics that Barack Obama has always represented.

Nome De Plume: Rita Hayworth- Put The Blame on Mame

Source:Nome De Plume- The Love Goddess Rita Hayworth.

Source:The Daily Review

I saw the entire Gilda movie for the first time last week and I really believe this is Rita Hayworth at her best. And she and Glenn Ford, are great together. Glenn Ford’s character in Gilda, reminds me of the Sam Rothstein character from Casino. Gilda, played by Rita of course, not that different from Ginger played by Sharon Stone in Casino. A women who marries rich to live well, but not in love at all her wealthy husband with her husband knowing that, but loves her to the point he plays like an over possessive father and not a husband. With Gilda almost being like a sixteen or seventeen-year old girl who wants to breakout and have her freedom.

Ginger, in Casino was not a singer, or an entertainer at all. More like a part-time gambler and former prosecute who gets Sam Rothstein’s attention played by Robert De Niro, at his casino. Gilda, played by Rita is a singer and dancer. Which a lot of Rita’s characters were. She was this red-hot adorable sexy goddess, with an incredible voice that helped keep her very young for a long time. She was great in Gilda again as a women who was really just trying to have a good time in Argentina and perhaps escape her past in America and live as well as she can. While having men around her that loved her perhaps too much and were very possessive of her. She does a great job in this video Put The Blame on Mame and just one reason to watch Gilda.

ABC News: 'Dark Days at The White House'

Source:ABC News- Dark Days at The White House documentary.

Source:The New Democrat

"Part of the ABC News Great TV News Stories series. From the VHS Tape - "The story of the President at the center of the Watergate Maelstrom, his near impeachment, his last dark days at the White House, and his sudden resignation in disgrace."

From ABC News

ABC News, wasn’t number three on the network news battles back in the early 1970s. But they were buried in last place which just happened to be third back then. Well behind CBS News and NBC News.

ABC would have been what the CW is today behind CBS, NBC, ABC and even FOX. They simply didn’t have the viewership of the other networks, because they didn’t have the affiliates and perhaps just barely qualified as a national broadcast network back then.

But ABC News was able to cover Watergate and did have their own nightly newscast and did have very good people working for them. Like Howard Smith, Frank Reynolds, Harry Reasoner, Sam Donaldson, Peter Jennings and a young Ted Koppel.

Watergate, was nothing more than a local Washington city burglary in the summer of 1972. At least that’s how it was portrayed early on. With some real differences even early on. 1972 was a presidential election year. It wasn’t the Watergate Hotel itself that was burglarized, but the Democratic National Headquarters that had their office at the Watergate that was burglarized.

The burglars had both CIA and White House connections with the Nixon Reelection Committee. The White House under President Nixon, involved themselves early on in this story in the summer of 72 when the President told his Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman to tell the FBI to get out of the story. Which wasn’t learned until the summer of 73 with the Senate Watergate investigation.

Without The Washington Post and a certain extent Walter Cronkite at CBS News, all of those stories that broke in the spring and summer of 73 about Watergate, do not come out. Because The Post was hammering away and digging into Watergate from day one. Because Watergate happened in their city and they had all the connections including in the Federal Government, but the local City Government as well to investigate this story.

And that is when you see organizations like The New York Times, CBS News, NBC News, ABC News, and others, starting to not just look into Watergate, but what else the White House might have been involved in and their other illegal operations back then.