Ever since Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, or AOC (All Out Crazy) came out with her nutty Green New Deal, the whacky pack of Democrat presidential candidates nearly all have declared their support for the plan.  To recap, the Green New Deal is a Pie in the Sky wish list of Socialist bull crap, all dressed up as a solution to the global warming, climate change hoax.  Much like all Democrat boondoggles, it has a catchy title that hides it’s true purpose.  “Green,” because who could object to anything they call Green.  And “New Deal” to appeal to imbecile Democrats who are longing for the good old days when Democrats “saved” America from the Great Depression.  Like they say, when the facts conflict with the legend, repeat the legend.  Like it or not, the Old New Deal created social welfare programs at a time when no social safety net existed.  Latter day Democrats rail on and on about social welfare spending as though we aren’t already going broke funding existing programs.  But I digress.  The Green New Deal purports to be a “fix” for climate change, which is a collosal Leftist exercise in arrogance.  It’s unclear whether man is responsible for today’s rising temperatures any more than he was responsible for the drastic temperature increases 12,000 years ago, and real scientists say that, if all man made CO2 contributions were stopped i.e.,if all people croaked, the CO2 level would go down by only 3%.  Anyhow, the Green New Deal proposes to end all fossil fuel use.  Close down the coal and oil industries, mandate “renewable” energy, wind, solar, pond scum, etc. No more internal combustion or diesel engines.  Electric cars, trucks and buses.  Mandated refits of all buildings for energy efficiency.  And let us not forget outlawing cow farts, so no more beef.  If this sounds like a radical plan to deal with a situation  that it has no chance of making any better, that’s only because it is.  AOC’s former political director let the cat out of the bag, admitting that the plan really had nothing to do with climate, but instead was a ruse to permit the government to gain control of the entire economy.  In other words, Communism/Socialism wasn’t selling on its own, so they disguised it as environmentalism.  As I’ve noted before, when the Berlin Wall came down, all the Reds turned Green.  The AOC Green New Deal would cost trillions of dollars that we don’t have.  Bernie Sanders, the redest of all the greens, has proposed his own Green New Deal, with what Bernie calls, “an historic $16.3 trillion price tag.”  Ruinous is more like it.  Bernie the Red makes no attempt to disguise his plan as anything but good old-fashioned Communism, pledging “a wholesale transformation of our society.”  Under Bernie’s Old Red Deal, fracking would be outlawed, and there would be no more oil drilling offshore or on public lands.  No more oil pipelines, and no more nuclear power.  All electricity and transportation would run on renewable energy. We will spend $1.52 trillion on renewable energy and $852 billion to build energy storage capacity.  “I’m cold, get me another $800 billion battery!”  All homes will use electric heat.  That’s the most expensive heat you say?  Not to worry, the government will winterize all homes, and the government will keep prices stable.  Uh huh (you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan).  What’s more, after 2035, with “public provision of renewable” energy, electricity will be free.  (Just like college tuition).  Bernie promises to prosecute fossil fuel companies for criminal activity.  Just like his mentor Joe Stalin, “Show me a profit, and I’ll show you a crime.”  If companies think they can do business overseas, think again.  The IRS will “monitor all investments” and will sanction any company that threatens the “global emissions goals.”  Sounds like fun.  What about all those workers Bernie is putting out of work?  Fear not.  Bernie’s giving them a 5 year “wage guarantee,” “a 4 year college education,” and early retirement.  In other words, Welfare for All.  And don’t worry, if anyone actually chooses to work, Bernie says he will be creating 20 million new jobs. (No doubt for winterizers, IRS agents and windmill repairmen).  They all will be good union jobs, comrades.  Bernie says he’ll pay for this nonsense by using the defense budget.  It’s for the best.  I don’t think solar powered airplanes and electric tanks would scare anybody.  Bernie the Red doesn’t give much detail about taxes in his plan.  He says the 20 million new workers will pay taxes.  I’ll bet. If these are the same 20 million he’s putting out of work, that might be a wash, though.  He says the rich will pay their fair share.  We might finally find out what the fair share is.  How about 90%?  Bernie says he will take on the fossil fuels billionaires.  I wonder if he includes Tom Steyer in this one?  Why are we going to destroy our economy and way of life, just when we finally have reached the energy independence that even Democrats demanded that we get to?  We have no choice.  There’s a climate emergency, and “we will end the injustice of 100,000 Americans dying every year from air pollution.”  Now the CDC does not list air pollution as a cause of death.  There are some 160,000 deaths a year from “chronic lower respiratory disease,” but these consist mostly of COPD, emphysema, and other smoking related maladies.  Interestingly, Bernie doesn’t propose outlawing smoking.  Government can’t give up all that tax revenue.  Besides, we may have to burn all the bodies just to keep warm.  One more thing, Bernie is concerned only with “winterizing” homes, not with cooling them.  The plan for Summer is sweat.  But then again, since we won’t have to work anymore, who’s going to sweat?  We might sit in the cool grass, but wait, there’ll be no grass (lawns anyway), because Bernie plans to make you transform your lawn into a family farm or forest.  I think the pixies came out of the forest and stole what was left of Bernie’s brain.  If one of these nuts gets elected, God help us.

It’s late August, and this time of the year often has been called the silly season, because so many people are away on vacation that very little of consequence happens, leading to some strange news stories.  The Congress is on one of its many long recesses, a/k/a vacations.  This actually is a blessing, because the House, which is controlled by Democrats, only does things that harmful, crazy, or illegal.  The Senate, on the other hand, regardless of which Party controls that body, does nothing useful – ever.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, though, as legislative paralysis is far preferable to legislative mischief.  As a result, there is precious little news coming from the Congress.  Good.  The Democrat presidential candidates are still going at it hammer and tongs, or is that hammer and sickle?  So far, the Dem presidential wannabes have promised to provide all kinds of free stuff, including healthcare, college tuition and loan repayment.  They also promise the Green New Deal, open borders, higher taxes, welfare and healthcare for illegal aliens, less military spending, and more every other kind of spending.  The Dems agree on only one thing, they hate Donald Trump.  As usual, Joe Biden has managed to provide lots of newsworthy material.  Not because of any accomplishment or noteworthy statement by Joe, however, but because every time Joe opens his mouth he seems to insert his foot into his yapper.  First, Biden, who left office in 2017, claimed that kids from the 2018 Parkland shooting visited him as Vice-President.  Then, Joe doubled down on dementia when he announced that two of his heroes, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, were killed in the late 1970’s, which I guess proves that Biden is about 10 years behind reality.  Biden followed up this gaffe by telling everyone that he was a coal miner, presumably toiling away in the coal mines of Delaware.  President Trump spent a couple of weeks at his New Jersey golf club, so the fake news media had less material from the President to lie about.  The media did its best though.  In the midst of one of the most sustained periods of economic growth, with more people working than ever before, and unemployment at historic low levels, the media decided to stoke fears of recession.  You see, there is this inversion of bond rates, with the yields on longer term bonds lower than those on shorter term bonds, or was it the other way around?.  I don’t remember.  My head hurts just thinking about bond yields.  Anyhow, that meant that recession was on the way, so the media managed to get the stock market to drop 800 points on these phony fears.  It quickly bounced back, and not many noticed anyhow, as most stock brokers were out in the Hamptons, or on Martha’s Vineyard.  President Trump played along with the economic issue, first saying he was in favor of a payroll tax cut, and then announcing he was not in favor of such a cut.  This helped out the media, which got to report, “Trump changes his mind,” which means he either doesn’t know what he’s doing, or that he’s lost his mind and should be removed with the 25th Amendment.  It’s the silly season, remember?  The weather has been pretty hot, though, so President Trump cooled things down by talking about the last thing you would expect to hear about during the Dog Days of Summer – Greenland.  That’s right, Greenland, which any devotee of Jeopardy knows is the world’s largest island.  Out of the blue (or is it out of the white?), it was announced that the U.S. is interested in buying Greenland from Denmark.  No doubt a latter day Trump’s Folly.  Trump was scheduled to meet the Danish Prime Minister on an upcoming trip to Europe.  Then things went wrong.  The Danish PM was asked about the potential sale of Greenland, and she labelled it “absurd.”  President Trump, ever the arbiter of executive civility, took offense, announced that no melencholy Dane was going to be permitted to badmouth the United States, and cancelled his trip to Denmark.  That’ll teach them.  Yes, the silly season is upon us, but have no fear.  In about two weeks, Summer will be over.   Congress will come back to town and get down to the serious work of threatening to impeach a President who repeated investigations have found to be legally blameless.  I can’t wait.

A recent addition to the annals of the “Liberals can dish it out, but can’t take it” department is the hilarious viral video of CNN’s Chris Cuomo, threatening a man on Shelter Island because the man dared to approach him and call him by the name “Fredo.”  Cuomo went nuts, and in so doing, proved that he doesn’t deserve to be referred to by that appellation.  All I can say is, “Fredo, you broke my heart.”  Some explanation is in order for those who may not have been aware of the Fredo nickname.  Fredo, of course, was the second son of Vito Corleone, affectionately known as The Godfather.  In the movie, Fredo is a not too bright, bumbling, incompetent boob, who is not trusted to handle important Family business.  In the film, Fredo sits idly by while his father is shot five times in the street, unable even to get his gun out of his pocket.  He then sits down on the curb, sobbing, “Papa!”  In short, Fredo is what the Sicilians would call a “citrulu,” literally translated as, a cucumber, but meaning someone who is dense, and possibly intellectually challenged, hence, a vegetable.  Chris Cuomo was given the nickname Fredo by none other than Rush Limbaugh, who, after a number of his stupid political pronouncements, declared Chris to be “the dumbest of all the Cuomo’s.”  The name stuck, and was taken up by others in the conservative media.  President Trump even got into the act, once describing Cuomo as “an unchained lunatic,” “perhaps the dumbest person in broadcasting.”  This all led up to the confrontation on Shelter Island.  A man approached Chris Cuomo and asked, “Hey Fredo, can I take a picture with you?”  Now, the man claims that he knew Cuomo only by the name “Fredo” and that he thought that really was his name, but that’s clearly nonsense.  Simply put, the guy was a wiseacre provocateur.  Cuomo, political commentator for CNN, and host of the CNN show Cuomo Prime Time, fancies himself a moderate voice of reason, “The only reason I do this job is to call bullshit on people and to be a witness to history.”  How noble.  Proving that we live in a world where there is an alternative universe, parallel to our own, in which there is an alternative reality, in January 2018, Rolling Stone magazine did a puff piece on Chris Cuomo, in which it touted him as, “CNN’s toughest news anchor.”  The Rolling Stone writer, clearly a denizen of the parallel universe where down is up and good is bad, wrote, “He’s brash, brusque and completely disinterested in partisan spin.”  This on CNN no less (and there is no less).  For its readers who recoil at the prospect of hearing two sides of an issue (no, not that!), the magazine went on to note that “CNN often goes out of its way to present both sides.”  Uh huh.  It’s true, CNN presents commentators from both sides.  Some say President Trump is a traitor who should be hanged, drawn and quartered, while others offer the opposing view that the President is merely a minor criminal, who ought to be imprisoned for the rest of his life.  But back to Fredo Cuomo.  On hearing the wiseacre call him “Fredo,” Cuomo erupted, telling the man he was going to have a problem.  The moderate voice of reason shouted, “I’ll fucking ruin your shit!  I’ll fucking throw you down these stairs!”  He called the guy “a punk-ass bitch.”  A measured response to be sure.  Then, in true progressive fashion, Cuomo cast himself as a victim.  He claimed that the name “Fredo” is an ethnic slur, the equivalent of “the N word” to Italians.  CNN immediately supported Cuomo, announcing that he “defended himself from a verbal attack with the use of an ethnic slur.”  Apparently asking a liberal a question is “an attack.”  But CNN, as a journalistic slur, must know about slurs.  It was all very dramatic, and also dumb.  I’m not sure there is a slur for Italians quite as vitriolic as the “N word,” but if there was, I suppose, guinea, dago, greaseball or wop might be a bit more insulting than “Fredo.”  Anyhow Chris, as the moderate voice of reason that you claim to be, wouldn’t the better response to the provocateur have been to simply walk away?  After all, it’s what you said Nick Sandman and the other Kentucky kids should have done when the old Indian starting banging his drum.  And for that matter, if it’s so insulting to be called “Fredo,” because it compares you with a mobster, do you really think acting like a more violent mobster than Fredo ever was was the best way to handle the situation?  What’s more, if “Fredo” is the equivalent of throwing around the N word, then why do you and your CNN cohorts use that word to descibe others?  CNN has called Donald Trump the “Fredo” to Valdimir Putin’s Don Corleone.  CNN has called Devin Nunes “Trump’s Fredo.”  On Chris Cuomo’s own show, Ana Navarro has called Donald Trump, Jr. “Fredo.”  Vanity Fair magazine (in which fairness is seldom encountered), has said that “Anyone connected with the Trump Administration is an absolute Fredo.”  So maybe a “Fredo” is just a weakling.  No matter.  The hypocrisy rolls on.  Chris Cuomo had no sympathy for conservatives like Sara Sanders, Pam Bondi or Ted Cruz, when obnoxious protestors hounded and drove them from public places.  But, some wiseacre dares to shout “Fredo” on a crowded island, and Cuomo becomes the Italian equivalent of Rosa Parks?  Give me a break.  Chris Cuomo’s performance on Shelter Island did prove two things.  First, he can dish it out, but he can’t take it.  And secondly, he’s much more aggresive and violent than Fredo Corleone ever was, so he shouldn’t be called “Fredo” anymore.  Since little things make him lose control of himself, maybe he now should be called “Sonny.”

Last week I explained why it’s so important for Democrats to brand Donald Trump as a “racist.”  President Trump has driven black unemployment to historic lows, and wages are rising.  Polls have suggested an increase in black support for Trump.  As a result, the media is working night and day to brand Trump a “racist.”  Its main tactic is lying, to turn any utterance of the President into a racist slur.  So when Trump speaks of “fine people” on each side of the dispute over Confederate war memorials, this becomes, “Trump calls white supremecists “fine people.”  When Trump notes that Baltimore is infested with rats, it becomes, “Trump calls blacks in Baltimore an infestation.”  They have to lie.  Democrats have no other message.  The problem is that the Dems (which of course includes the media), have applied the “racist” label so often and so broadly that it no longer has any meaning.  This is dangerous, because vile racists still exist.  If all political opponents are labeled “racist,” then you have no credibility, so in effect, none are racist.  Case in point, in addition to calling Donald Trump a racist, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, AOC (All Out Crazy) has called Mitch McConnell racist, along with anyone who supports the President.  She wasn’t done, though.  AOC also suggested Nancy Pelosi is racist, along with Democrat lawmakers who didn’t vote for her loony agenda.  It’s almost like the old Dr. Pepper commercial, “He’s a racist, she’s a racist, everyone but me’s a racist, wouldn’t you like to be a racist too?”  So what does “racist” really mean?  Merriam-Webster, a real dictionary, say it’s “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” Proving that the term “racist” is overused, and that the internet is not a dependable source of information, Dictionary.com lists as synonyms of “racist” “xenophobe” and “chauvinist,” and as an antonym “multicultural.”  These words have nothing to do with race.  A xenophobe is opposed to outsiders of any race.  A chauvinist believes his own country is best, such as Democrat Woodrow Wilson, who proclaimed, “My country right or wrong.”  But that may be a bad example because Democrat Wilson was a true racist.  Likewise, culture transcends race.  The government recognizes 5 races: American Indian or Alaska Native;  Asian; Black or African American; Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander; and White.  Hispanic isn’t a race, but an ethnicity, meaning people descended from Spanish speaking populations including that of Spain.  But it’s confusing.  I have 2 uncles who were Spaniards, so my cousins are Hispanic.  I, however remain a white European oppressor.  It seems Spanish Hispanics aren’t as important to politics as other Hispanics.  The Hispanic Network recognizes a subgroup, “Latinos,” who are from Latin America.  But this also breeds confusion.  My grandfather’s sister was from Argentina, so she could be considered a Latina.  All her descendants, who are my cousins, are both Latinos and Hispanic, and yet I remain a white European oppressor.  Maybe, rather than fighting identity politics, we should join it.  I recently got my DNA profile.  The majority of my DNA is Italian, so I should be considered Italic.  Italics have been discriminated against.  As a prosecutor in Alabama, Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, about to try an Italian defendant, reportedly pulled down the shades in the courtroom to make the defendant appear black.  Former KKK member, Democrat Hugo Black, was a true racist.  Not good enough?  More than 10% of my DNA is from Western Asian, which includes the Middle East and Turkey, and who’s peoples are Arabs, Kurds, Persians, Azerbaijanis, and Anatolian Turks.  These are Semitic people, but with the rise of anti-Semetism in the Democrat party, this may not help me either.  Some of my DNA is North African, so might I be considered “African-American?”  I think not.  I even have more DNA from Senegal and West Africa than Elizabeth Warren has Native American DNA.  But, when you get down to Elizabeth Warren levels, that pretty much demonstrates the absurdity of your argument.  All identity politics is ridiculous and harmful.  Case in point, the aforementioned AOC has even identified racist vegetables.  I kid you not.  Commenting on a community garden, AOC denounced the planting of cauliflower.  “I don’t know, cauliflower or something, what you’re doing is that you’re taking a colonial approach to environmentalism, and that’s why a lot of communities of color get resistant to certain environmentalist movements, because they come with the colonial lens on them…”  It seems cauliflower too is racist.  As AOC explained, “black people don’t know how to cook cauliflower, and they don’t like it.”  If Donald Trump said such a thing, no doubt, it would be labelled racist.  Would planting collard greens be “colonial” and therefore racist?  I guess so.  Cauliflower was introduced to America in the 1920’s, but collard greens, which also derive from kale, were fed to the slaves in the South.  That must make collards racist.  But Michele Obama has a collard greens recipe in her cookbook, so does that make her racist too?  Wow!  Racism must be rampant.  It isn’t.  Racism surely exists, but applying that label to all opponents actually aids the true racists, who are able to hide among those who are falsely accused.  The Dems have adopted “racist” much as it was fashionable in 1950’s to denounce opponents as “communist.”  Of course, this is ironic, coming as it does from imbeciles who fancy themselves communists, a/k/a, Democratic Socialists.  It is a Stalinist tactic, denouncing an opponent as “anti-communist” or “counter-revolutionary.”  Throwing the word “racist” around is a Progressive attempt to enforce absolute political purity.  It’s ideological cleansing at its worst.  They divide us into groups by race and ethnicity not to pursue justice, but to pursue power.  Identity politics obscures our true identity, as Americans.  And whether you subscribe to the “melting pot” or the “salad bowl” view of the American experience, “American” necessarily includes people of all races and ethnicities.  So I’m satified just being “American.”  But, sadly, that doesn’t get you elected.

Another week and more “Trump is a racist” fake news.  Last week, Congressman and Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings, who has represented Baltimore for more than 26 years, took time out from his usual pass-time, threatening the Trump Administration and the President’s children with abusive Congressional investigations, to scream at Homeland Security Secretary McAleenan, accusing the government of mistreating children in detention facilities at the border  “What does that mean, when a child is sitting in their own feces?  Can’t take a shower.  Come on man, what’s that about?  None of us would have our children in that position.  They are human beings.”  Cummings’ allegations were baseless.  DHS is caring for thousands, despite the fact that the Congress (That’s you Elijah) has miserably failed to do the job of regulating immigration which Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution specifies is to be done by the Congress.  The detention facilities do provide showers, and when a child is sitting in his own feces, the DHS employees change their diapers, a task made necessary because the Congress (That’s you again Elijah) is guilty of nonfeasence.  DHS recently bought 2.2 million diapers to meet the demand.  President Trump did not take kindly to Cummings’ tirade, and Tweeted that that Cummings represents a rodent infested district in Baltimore, and might do better cleaning up the disgusting rat hole that elected him, rather than leveling baseless charges about the border facilities.  Surprising no one, all Hell broke loose in the media.  The President was lambasted for what were gratutitously labelled “racist Tweets.”  Once the media used the “R” word, Democrat imbeciles jumped right in and denounced Trump as a “racist.”  Al Sharpton no less, and there is no less, claimed Trump called minorities subhuman.  No Al, he’s talking about rats, and guess what?  Rats are subhuman.  The fact that the President never mentioned any person in Baltimore, much less the race of any person anywhere didn’t matter.  The media BS story was, “Trump calls blacks in Baltimore an infestation of rodents.”  Sad.  You see, in our disfunctional political climate, unlike in the law, truth is never a defense.  The truth, which seems not to matter, is that Baltimore really is a disgusting rodent infested rat hole, but not because Trump says so.  In July 2018, Baltimore’s Northeast Market was forced to close due to rat infestation.  In September 2018, a Baltimore Sun article quoted then-Mayor Catherine Pugh as saying that the problem was so extensive that “you can smell the rats.”  PBS even did a documentary about rat infested Baltimore, entitled Rat Film.  The Baltimore Sun said of the documentary that there has been “a decades-long fight waged against Baltimore’s rat population.”  Bernie Sanders even toured Baltimore and compared it to a Third World city.   So let’s recap.  The Baltimore Sun says the City is a rat hole.  The former Mayor says she can smell the rotting rat carcasses, PBS found the rat infestation to be so severe that it warranted a documentary on public television, and Bernie Sanders is appalled.  But when Donald Trump mentions the problem he’s a racist.  Trump has to be a racist, you see, because in 2016, he challenged African-Americans to give him a chance asking, “What have you got to lose?”  Trump was elected, and he delivered.  As a result, polls indicated that Trump’s support among African-Americans doubled.  Democrats can’t permit that to happen.  If Trump doubles his support among black voters, they lose.  Ergo, no matter what Trump says, Democrats will answer “Racist.”  If he says, “Hey Melania, Macy’s is having a White Sale.”  “Aha, Racist!” If he notes, “It’s always darkest before the dawn,” they’ll  find some black woman named Dawn who’ll claim he was referring to her.  The imbeciles even managed to get in a claim that Trump’s rodent infestation Tweets proved him to be a Nazi, comparing the Tweets to Nazi era anti-Semetic screeds like that of Julius Streicher’s Der Sturmer, which reviled Jews as an disease to be eradicated.  They didn’t have to go that far back, though.  Columbia Professor Rashid Khalidi warned that Jewish members of the Trump Administration would “infest the government.”  And if “infest” is the offending word, Elijah Cummings himself said his district is “drug infested.”  But Cummings is a black Democrat and Khalidi is a Leftist, and a Muslim, so they can’t be criticized.  The truth doesn’t matter, you see.  Trump’s Tweet was “a dog whistle.”  Once again, I must ask, if only Democrats can hear the whistle, what does that make them?  What Trump said was not only true, but an alarming indictment of our crime and pestilence ridden inner cities, which have squandered billions of federal dollars, leaving their inhabitants in unimaginable filth that would not be tolerated by any properly run government.  But Democrats have run Baltimore forever, so it’s alright.  Democrats run every one of the rat and crime infested cities in America.  And strangely, Democrats for some reason equate tolerating rats, filth, homeless encampments and piles of feces on the streets with compassion, rather than what it really is – a complete abdication of their responsibility, amounting to criminal nonfeasance.  Rats, apart from being the disgusting harbingers of social decay, carry a variety of diseases, chief among them, bubonic plague.  We haven’t had a decent plague outbreak since 1925 in Los Angeles .  When it breaks out again, Democrats should be so proud.  The Dems are concerned about the environment right?  Not always.  It is estimated that there are 60,000 people living on the streets of Los Angeles.  Unlike in the DHS facilities, there are no diapers, and the streets are awash with human feces, which is running directly into the water.  Imagine a city the size of Bismarck, North Dakota (which speaking of rodents, is home to the Racoon National Cemetery), discharging all its solid waste untreated, into the water.  Democrats wouldn’t tolerate that in Bismarck, but in Los Angeles or Baltimore, it’s progressive.  When America sees its first cholera epidemic since the 1830’s the Democrats’ work will be done, and we with it.  But don’t complain or you’re a racist.