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Democrats have big big plans for you — 70 Comments

1. Lunatics, but very very dangerous lunatics. I hope that their grandchildren survive the Chinese, Iranian and Russian attacks and live long in slavery.

2. Small correction: “Imagine” is not a Beatles song. It’s John Lennon’s, post-Beatles (1971). The Beatles never would have recorded such a terrible song.

3. FunkyPhD:

   Good point. I will correct it.

4. Ok…they’ve asked for the stars.
   Will the GOPe give them the moon as bipartisan consolation?
   Will the rest of us do something differently?

5. “It’s unclear if we will be able to decommission every nuclear plant within 10 years, but the plan is to transition off of nuclear and all fossil fuels as soon as possible.”…

   This is the clear sign of a person driven by dogma, not reality. There is one currently possible way to largely transition of fossil fuels, and that is to go all out on nuclear.

   To oppose both oil and nuclear is effectively to oppose modern life, because it cannot exist without power, and the alternatives to those two are hopelessly inefficient and unreliable.

   If they were truly worried about global warming, they’d be all for nuclear.

6. The anti-nuclear hysteria is the most successful KGB operation of all time. It is still running long after the USSR is gone.

   Their wish list will die in the Senate but 2020 will be a good indicator if the country will survive.

   If they were truly worried about global warming, they’d be all for nuclear

   Of course,

7. Today [Feburary 6, that is], House Democrats are holding hearings on a monstrous, 571-page election- and campaign-finance-reform bill called the “For the People Act of 2019.”

   The page count is a red flag that it’s a compendium of carve-outs for their favored clientele.

   The otiose Republican congressional leadership is bereft of ideas, of course. A proper repair to the current mess that is federal election law would be a statute which (1) repealed extant legislation, (2) debarred campaign committees from accepting donations from corporate bodies other than political parties and PACs, (3) debarred PACs from accepting donations from anyone but individuals, (4) required disclosure of party and PAC donations by campaign committees, (5) required disclosure of personal donations in excess of a certain threshold (a threshold which would be adjusted each year in accordance with changes in personal-income-per-capita), (6) debarred straw donations, (7) required campaign committees, PACs, and political parties to periodically put balance sheets and income statements (audited by a CPA) on file, (8) required federal elections to be held the Friday and Saturday after All Saints’ Day, with the polls for federal balloting open from 6:00 pm to 10:00 pm Friday and 7:00 am to 6:00 pm Saturday; (9) required that postal ballots in federal elections arriving in the mail after 5:00 pm be deemed invalid, and be mailed back to their source household, unopened; (10) required that hand-delivered postal ballots in federal elections be deemed invalid, and rejected by officialdom; (11) limited voting by post in federal elections to servicemen, U.S. government employees stationed abroad, spouses of the two foregoing residing with them, college students, and elderly and disabled persons who meet a definition of ‘shut-in’; and (12) required that primary elections for congressional seats be held precisely 70 days prior to the general election. Such an enactment would not require 571 pages, or even 1/10 th of that. It’ll never happen, of course.

8. “…what sounds far-fetched and ridiculous today can become mainstream tomorrow….”

   Maybe.

   Or could be “…can become rip-snorting, head-shaking, laughingstock tomorrow….”

   Could also be: “…can become, once again alas, catastrophically destructive tomorrow….”

   Depends on whether the Democrats and their media pit bulls will succeed in inspiring/persuading/cajoling/compelling/forcing/threatening the majority of voters to be as bat-shite insane as the former have shown themselves time and time again to be. (Give ’em credit for consistency?)

   “We can overcome, we can overcome, yes we can overcome—life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—someday!”

   = = = = =

   “For the People Act”.

   It’s an act, alright. (But for which “people”?)

9. This is the problem with political jokes; they, too often, get elected.

10. Two big lies that have been established through propaganda.
    1. 97% of climate scientists agree that AGW is caused by CO2.
    2. That CO2 is a dangerous pollutant.
    Large numbers of people accept those lies as fact. Those lies are the basis of the demand for a “Green New Deal.” The left will not even countenance a debate on the issues. Anyone that challenges the truth of these lies is smeared as a climate denier.

    The way forward is through open debate and study of the issues, but that will not happen. Their minds are made up. Like children hoping for a nice shiny Christmas present from Santa Claus, they are convinced that some genius is going to discover a way to store wind and solar energy so that they will become practical. The fact that disproving some of the laws of thermodynamics is required does not discourage them, it shows how naïve they are in their hopes for a break through technology.

    I have a proposal for them. Establish a colony of 5000 people living in a new Green environment with only solar and wind for energy. Build their super insulated homes, have everyone ride bicycles or horses, establish organic farms to provide food using only horses to work the land, and have everyone share in the work and rewards. Get back to us in five years on how well the colony is doing. If it becomes a fully self sufficient, modern entity; then their “Green New Deal” might have some merit and could be studied further. If it doesn’t succeed, leave the rest of us alone. I know I would not be too worried about the outcome.

    How to make a breakthrough in disputing the two big lies is a problem I have no answer for. The blogosphere has good sites that refute the lies (Watt’s Up With That, Climate Depot, Roy Spencer, Judith Curry, etc.) but the MSM has propagated the lies so widely that only a small percentage of people are well informed about the issues. Only if the MSM has a change of heart will any progress be made. Not counting on that. So, we must hope that enough people are attached to driving their cars that they will resist the desires of the AOCs of the world to take their living standards back to the 19th Century.

11. Art:

    One way in which we might reduce the power of money in Congressional elections is to follow Article One, Section Two of the Constitution: “The number of representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each state shall have at least one representative.” Assume we legislated thirty thousand people in each Congressional district. In 2016, about 60 per cent of eligible voters did so, which means 18,000 voters in each district. Assume they’re half Democrat, half Repulblican. An energetic candidate could realistically meet, shake hands with, and talk to, fifty voters a day over the course of 300 days, without spending any where near the amount of money now infecting our democracy.

    It is said that no small town ever elects the town drunk as mayor. A community of 30,000 is more likely to have shared values, and it is more likely to know the history, reputation, abilities and even the family, of the candidates. Which is what I think The Founders had intended.

    While I cannot imagine 10,290 members in the House of Representatives . . . could it be any worse than what we currently have? Plus, the cost to the lobbyists of buying off 6,000 Congresspersons would be a great deal more than buying off 218.

12. Rather should be called the Permanent Democrat Dictatorship Act.

13. So they’re making it very clear they oppose free speech and any elections that don’t go their way. They also favor an energy regimen which will beggar their citizenry and isn’t technically possible. And large numbers of people will vote for them.

14. One way in which we might reduce the power of money in Congressional elections is to follow Article One, Section Two of the Constitution: “The number of representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand,

    I don’t think a federal legislature with 10,000 members would be a functioning legislature.

15. Rather should be called the Permanent Democrat Dictatorship Act.

    Something like that is probably the intent. Partisan Democrats fancy it’s illegitimate to organize contra their interests. The whole discourse in re the Koch brothers and the American Legislative Exchange Council reflects that assumption. The complaint in re Citizens United is that corporations other than the Democratic Party’s approved corporations (labor unions and media companies) get to say what they think.

16. As I see it, there are two fundamentally false premises which underlie the entire issue of climate change (let’s be serious the bogeyman is anthropogenic global warming, not climate change).

    The first is the arrogance of climate changers who think that the planet needs us to save it. Where have they been for the last four billion years? The planet has changed on its own from a molten ball to an inhabitable world all by itself. If, in fact, we turn out to be not good stewards of the planet, it will eventually fix itself. Now “eventually” might mean 400,000 years, but that’s a drop in the bucket to a billion plus year old world.

    The second false premise is that climate changers see the world as it is now as the way it should be kept. Keep the sea levels from rising, keep the temperature from rising, don’t mine minerals, don’t use the environment for human gain. Why?

    The earth is a dynamic engine creating new lands and eroding old ones, creating new species and ending old ones all the time. Those who support climate change actually stand athwart nature with a museum mentality wanting to freeze nature in place. They falsely conflate the earth as they know it as if this is the way it always was.

    And to those who say they are “just” trying to correct the problems that we, human beings, have ourselves created, again I ask why? So if it leads to the extinction of the human race, then why delay it? There are already climate changers calling for human demise and reducing population to “save the planet”; there are those who actually claim that the would be a better place without human beings. Let that sink in for a moment; without human beings to appreciate it, the world would not be “better” it would just “be”. Even their condemnation of the human race would ceaase to exist with out a human race to self-loathe, but most noticeably, they fantasize about the end of human beings while refusing to be the first in line.

    Alternatively if we don’t lead ourselves to human extinction then why shouldn’t human beings be just as much a part of part of the ongoing multi-billion year dynamic of change as the butterfly which flaps its wings?

    As Glenn Reynolds has pointed out more than once, regardless of which environmental hysteria is currently in vogue, the solution is always the same; more government spending and more government intrusion on daily life; we would be led by C.S. Lewis’ omnipotent moral busybodies.

17. Cap’n Rusty,

    “It is said that no small town ever elects the town drunk as mayor.”

    Horsefeathers. My home town (pop. 1800 at the time) did exactly that. Everybody knew him; he was also the town doc.

    He was especially known as a good man if you were having a baby. Mother used to say, “Doc W. could be drunk as a skunk, but when he got to the delivery room his hands were steady as rock.”

    He served at least two terms, I’m pretty sure. Maybe more. But he never quit bending his elbow; and he wasn’t always the jolliest drunk.

    (Blanket rules almost never are.™ *g*)

18. “They put out extreme ideas that they know have no chance of passing, in order to accustom the public to these ideas and desensitize people, particularly young people who might be most attracted to them and least likely to think about the expense. unfortunate consequences” — Neo

    Now it also applies to all of their social engineering.

    Which is why Alexander Pope said:

    “Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
    As to be hated needs but to be seen;
    Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
    We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”

    Case in point:
    https://amgreatness.com/2019/02/06/why-liberals-dont-call-out-democrat-hate/

    The left is tearing America apart on purpose, because they want a revolution. It’s normal for them.

    What is not normal is for regular Democrats, once sincere liberals, to follow their leaders down into the sewer of cultural Marxism, pretending it doesn’t smell. Once normal Democrat politicians, journalists, Hollywood and sports celebrities are leading a revolting break down of civility and decency.

    In each and every case, normal, decent Democrats choose not to look. If forced by too many headlines to notice the odious behavior, they justify it.

    The stench of their hypocrisy is in all our nostrils.

    In the case of the Covington boys, their own high school and bishop in Kentucky—people who knew the boys and their milieu and should have assumed their decency absent overwhelming evidence to the contrary—automatically and swiftly joined the accusers of the innocent boys.

    Liberal Catholic and Christian clergy have long been turning a blind eye to the intense bigotry of Democrats against their own religions. Liberal Jews are tolerating their party’s anti-semitism, since it is integral to identity politics and multiculturalism. This seems freakish, but it is all too human.

19. Same ballpark:
    https://amgreatness.com/2019/02/06/the-return-of-ancient-prejudices/

    What once helped to diminish ancient prejudices was the American creed that no one had a right to discriminate against fellow citizens on the basis of race, gender, class or religion.

    And what fuels the return of American bias is the new idea that citizens can disparage or discriminate against other groups if they claim victim status and do so for purportedly noble purposes.

    The more attitudes and agendas may change, the more they stay the same.

20. I don’t think a federal legislature with 10,000 members would be a functioning legislature.

    And the present one is ? There was an assumption early on that voters would be men and property owners. Read an 1860 newspaper. The level of discourse would be incomprehensible to a present day college student.

    Television has, of course, been the great corrupter. I was in college when Kennedy was running. It was interesting to see his effect on college women, some quite sensible.

    Now, we have a president who is a master at TV, just as Reagan was a master at TV and movies. His years as a TV host for GE were the graduate course that put him the White House.

    There is not much that is nice about getting old but not having deal with the consequences of the present public pathology is one.

21. Aesop Fan,

    Thanks fro the link. Good essay. I think that McQuillan’s last line, though, deserves more attention:

    Adopting fascism is entirely comfortable. Everyone they know is doing it. They’re the good people. Everyone they know says so.

    And we used to wonder how the German people could tolerate the Nazi’s and brownshirts without doing anything about it.

22. “…false premises…”

    That’s the MO.

    To believe in lies and insist that everyone else do the same.

    If they don’t, you are morally obligated to ostracize them. Tar and feather them. Destroy them.

    For they are Enemies of the People(TM).

    (Plays have been written about this.)

    Conscience be damned. In fact, conscience is another Enemy of the People.

    (One reason why Dershowitz—who stresses that allegiance to the Constitution and adherence to the Law is essential, is not open to debate—is so despised by his “fellow” Democrats.)

23. And more hilarious inanity from “the gift that just keeps on giving”, etc, etc….:
    https://dailycaller.com/2019/02/06/ilhan-omar-transgender-powerlifting/

    Two words: Don’t stop!!

24. This is why I consider AOC to be as dumb as a box of bricks. She is telling us that we can replace concentrated, high energy density, reliable power sources with dispersed, low energy density, unreliable power sources. It can’t be done. The Spanish government tried to create a green wind/water storage electricity system on the small Canary island of El Hierro. This ambitious project has cost over 11 billion dollars and it still can’t provide the needed power for a population of about 10,000 people. They still have to use diesel powered generators.

25. Ya know, when they had control of both the House and the Senate, the supposed Conservatives and “Republicans” in the last Congress could have done a lot of good things, solved some major problems—passed a lot of useful, effective legislation—but they didn’t.

    And now, when they’ve lost control of the House, and have only a razor thin margin in the Senate, they could still, at least, try to pass such legislation.

    And they could fight–tooth and nail—argue–hammering away, at every opportunity—against the Democrat Agenda and legislation, and pose and widely publicize “conservative” alternatives.

    But, they don’t even do that.

    It’s all supposedly about civility, “comity,” and “reaching across the isle”; mustn’t ruffle feathers among the members of our exclusive Congressional club.

    These members of Congress obviously have more in common with their wealthy and influential donors, and their fellow members of Congress—their tight and very exclusive little club—than they do with the people who elected them to office, their “sweaty, smelly” constituents. **

    From their statements and their actions, it is obvious that there are only a handful of actual Conservatives and/or Republicans in Congress.

    Instead, it is very obvious that many—likely a large majority of the so called Republicans in both the House and the Senate—are not on board with President Trump’s enunciated populist Agenda, which is favored by—and would benefit—a large percentage of the population, particularly those formerly neglected constituents in the heartland, in “flyover country.”

    It is also obvious that the vast majority of these so called Republican members of Congress are completely ignoring the needs and the wishes—their phone calls, their letters, their emails, their office visits—of their nominal constituents—most especially including those many tens of millions of them in flyover country—and are, instead, doing the bidding of their major donors, their actual constituents.

    When their actual wealthy and powerful constituents say “pass this” and “don’t past that,” from the evidence, that is what they do, and their nominal constituents and their needs be damned.

    The signs of decadence and decay are all around us. The sense of something bad—just over the horizon—and coming our way, is increasing.

    Nonetheless, there is a major opportunity for these “Republicans”—backing and in conjunction with President Trump— to change the course of this nation, of our “Ship of State,” and there that opportunity sits, ignored.

    Unless strong, principled, honest, and courageous people, devoted to the culture and the values of traditional America—and willing to defend and fight for them, unafraid and fierce fighters, actual Conservatives–and great numbers of them—are elected to Congress, no actual “conservative legislation” and no parts of Trump’s populist Agenda will be passed.

    Ever.

    And, frankly , I don’t see such passage happening.

    ** See this quote from former Democrat House Majority leader Harry Reed at: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/02/harry-reid-talks-about-sm_n_147765.html

    and video Read saying this again at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UP6qeBPl_HA

26. Oh, for heaven’s sake (re: males in female powerlifting competition). This transgender nonsense means the end of anything female by definition. It’s literally insane.

27. To an ideologue, truth doen’t matter in the least, and you cannot have a rational debate/argument with them.

    Plunk the truth in front of their eyes, and they will turn their head away.

    Speak the truth, and they will ignore, and likely attack you.

    Present irrefutable truth to them, and they will say that it isn’t and, in fact, that any such “truth” that is the product of our current “corrupt” system is illegitimate and, moreover, incorrect.

28. Though not in the Green New Deal resolution itself, but rather in the FAQs released by Ocasio-Cortez’s office about it, the goal of “Economic security for all who are unable or unwilling to work” strikes me as a very high degree of tone-deafness with regard to how most people would react to such unwillingness.

29. JJ,
    How about having them establish their environmental community in northern Alaska and forbidding that any building materials are flown in? When they turn to whale oil and whale blubber for their winter survival, we can send PETA ther to protest.

30. “Economic security for all who are . . . unwilling to work.” [Ann @ 4:34]

    Unwilling? The absurdity. “Around here ya don’t work, ya don’t eat” as Grandma said to Josey Wales.

    See Panera closing last of what-you-can-pay stores.

    https://hotair.com/archives/2019/02/06/panera-closing-last-pay-can-stores/

31. Ray:

    Do you really think that AOC believes all of this and that is evidence of stupidity? I disagree. There are many many other possibilities. I will list just a few.

    (1) She doesn’t think it’s possible, but is playing to those young people who don’t know better and who will give her extra points for being bold and well-meaning and willing to fix what’s broken, no matter what.

    (2) She doesn’t think it’s possible, but wants to get support from people who do, in order to get power in general. She has a lot of plans for what she will do with that power.

    (3) She thinks it’s possible in the same way the Communists thought their plans were possible, and she has zero interest in liberty. She wants to do what she wants to do, and if she beggars just about everyone with any funds to speak of, then so be it. Were the Communists “dumb as a box of bricks”? I don’t think that’s a good description.

    Fanatics believe what they believe, and some are willing to move heaven and earth to get it. Those who lust for power are willing to do and say anything to get power. Ignoring reality in terms of energy and what’s possible in the scientific sense does not make them dumb, it makes them deluded and power-mad.

    By the way, I’m not saying AOC is some sort of brilliant genius mental giant. But she’s not dumb, not in the ways that matter for politics, and she’s dumb in a way that appeals to a lot of people. However, she may be dumb enough to overplay her hand by revealing the extent of her leftism at this point.

32. (4) She doesn’t think it’s possible, but she looooves that publicity!! Especially because she knows it is totally not possible!! A perfect freebie and keep that juice comin!

    Buuuutttt…. Neo, she is a perfect example of the paradox of celebrity. She seems exciting at first, but the more exciting she seems, the more coverage she attracts, and the more obvious her limitations become. And AOC’s limitations are severe.

33. T — that’s a great post you made at 3:21 pm.

34. “. . . and she’s dumb in a way that appeals to a lot of people. ” [Neo @ 4:57]

    Did you mean to write “. . .and she’s not dumb in a way that appeals to a lot of people”?

    Some have written that AOC uses the same technique that Trump did to achieve the presidency. Many considered Trump a nitwit, too ( I was not among them). AOC may not be an intellectual, but she, like Trump, may well be very adept at playing the political game.

35. It’s almost humorous, isn’t it? Like a child’s fantasy.

    yeah, like most of modern feminisms…
    you can list hundreds of accepted falseities which exist cause its not worth the individual punishment..

    but… the ladies have no limits
    everything is the mens fault.. seriously
    so, there is no reason or stoppage or brakes

    until………….

    Note, now they are blaming the men for women freezing eggs!!!
    they wont be responsible
    and the ladies are acting like they have the house credit card
    which the guys cant stop them from using as in the past
    and who could really say no to them?

    oh, and neo, this will turn faster than you think..
    your not watching the collapsing demographics and all that
    but you can be sure they are, and they would not let this loose unless that was in their favor…

    Replacement Migration: Is It a Solution to Declining and Ageing Populations?
    http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/publications/ageing/replacement-migration.shtml

    too bad they let the ladies self exterminate BEFORE telling them they been lining up replacements that pretty much been told and taught to hate for decades….

    The total fertility rate in the United States dropped from 3.45 births per woman in 1950-1955 to 2.02 in 1970-1975.

    the proportion of the population aged
    65 or older rose from 8.3 per cent in 1950 to 12.5
    per cent in 1995, and the potential support ratio declined from 7.8 in 1950 to 5.2 in 1995

    see? people who dont have children arent the future of anything!!! and people who have a war with their mates accross society and spend 50 years demonizing them, find once they turn, they dont turn back again.. which is why demographic a la sanger was so important, you only had to convince people who are convinced polished rocks are magical, that wearing underwear outside is ok, that acting like a slut does not have any negs if it wasnt for the negs, and on and on…

    not to hard, you only had to tell them they were really smart, really able, and that the more progressive they were putting off births, attacing society and so on, the happier and bigger famlies and bright future they would have….

    ok… now what? all i see is a big belly laugh from the infinite goof as the people who had everything, decided having nothing was much better!!!!!

    The official United States estimate of (documented) migrants into the United States from 1990 to 1996 is about 1.1 million per year.

    Lots of Successful Women Are Freezing Their Eggs. But It May Not Be About Their Careers.

    Growing numbers of healthy young women are freezing their eggs to give them a chance of having children later in life, amassing huge debts in the process. But why?

    Why are women freezing their eggs? Because of the lack of eligible men
    New research on egg freezing has this week confirmed what single, well-educated women have instinctively known for years: there is a dearth of eligible men out there.

    [yeah, almost none in med school and those there are foreigners… ladies are hypergamous and the easiest way to make them infertile is to raise them up above the men… then every man is a loser that does less than she needs while in history, they always did more… ]

    Number of women freezing their eggs triples in just five years

    Careers aren’t driving most women to freeze their eggs. Men are.

    More Women Are Freezing Their Eggs, But Will They Ever Use Them?

    Glamorizing egg freezing can have devastating consequences

    Only 7 percent of social egg freezers have returned for fertility treatment at a large European center

    The Sobering Facts About Egg Freezing That Nobody’s Talking About

    [funny, but now they are waking up that the best eggs are, wait for it, when they are young and men want them and they want the guys and have not set enough to think all are no good… and on and on… ie. 14-25 is the BEST egg time… around 25 perimenopause starts (at least in the old med books before the ladies got to them), so by the time your 35, your not doing to good, and of course, raising kids when old means no grandparents to pass on information, they are like onions sprouting with no past]

    SAD we have to wait for the total crisis…

    and the people coming in are the kind that thought Chavez was good and AOC is great..

36. expat: 🙂 They would say it wasn’t FAIR! Long, dark winters and all.

    Along those lines: How many Alaskan natives would willingly give up their outboard motors, diesel generators, and snow mobiles in this day and age? None is my guess. Their living standards would plunge. And that is the point that AOC and her supporters either don’t get or conceal about the anti-fossil fuel campaign.

37. Kai Akker,

    Thanks. I appreciate the kind words.

38. Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, posts daily commentary on Youtube. (Search for Real Coffee with Scott Adams if you are curious.) He analyzes things from the perspective of persuasion theory and communication technique. He is the go to guy if you want to hear how Trump is playing 3D chess. He emphasizes the tactics of reframing the debate and negotiating by asking for way more than you expect in order to get what you want. I’m not convinced this is the most objective way to see things, but it is an interesting point of view to consider and sheds some light on events.

    Scarily, he has stated that Ocasio-Cortez is effective at using the same techniques and is therefore more dangerous than crazy. He said she is probably very intelligent and cunning; there is a method to her madness. Getting rid of airplanes is stupid, but now people will hear demands for ridiculous restrictions and taxes on air travel as more reasonable than before she moved the goalpost. Same for all her other misanthropic proposals; all cockamamie, all destructive to human well being, and all pole stars we get dangerously closer to when we don’t respond with more substance that just pointing and laughing at her idiocy. (Not that she doesn’t richly deserve to be shamed out of the spotlight.)

    The retort to her plan is not to say it is unrealistic or ridiculous, but rather to say that it is immoral, that capitalism is both moral (respects individual rights) and practical (leads to wealth, including for low-skilled people whose work is vastly more productive due to the inventions of innovators). It is dangerous and contrary to the facts of reality to concede the moral premise that industrialism and capitalism are bad. They are wonderful.

39. She definitely attracting a cult of personality and I have no doubts that she (and her handlers) will exploit every gram of advantage they can out of it.

40. Matthew M:

    I rarely read Scott Adams, and I certainly hadn’t seen what he’s had to say about AOC, but it seems we have independently arrived at much the same conclusions about her.

41. “This is why I consider AOC to be as dumb as a box of bricks. She is telling us that we can replace concentrated, high energy density, reliable power sources with dispersed, low energy density, unreliable power sources. It can’t be done. ”

    I’ve said it before…she’s NOT dumb! She is bringing to the national stage the “sustainability” movement which has been percolating on campuses for about 6-8 years.This movement seeks to advance all the progressive/socialist/Marxist agenda using as a core, the climate change scenario. It then expands “sustainability” to include not only environmental, but social ‘sustainability”. It claims that social justice cannot be accomplished without first fixing the environmental aspect. A key component is to eliminate all fossil fuel use and replace with solar and wind. Of course that would plunge the world into chaos, but these people don’t seem to care or understand that.

    If it wasn’t AOC, it would have been some other person around her age that has been indoctrinated with this “sustainability” nonsense on campuses. As the left totally controls higher education, to see what they have planned in a few years just spend some time on college campuses. That’s where they are testing out all their ideas and strategies.

    Thank God, I’m now retired, as I don’t think I could take many more years on a campus. The disadvantage is now not seeing what the bastards are up to.

42. “[Native Alaskans’] living standards would plunge. And that is the point that AOC and her supporters either don’t get or conceal about the anti-fossil fuel campaign. [J.J. @ 5:45]

    Central planners have been historically incompetent in assessing the collateral effects of their plans. Nothing new here.

43. This stuff is bananas.

44. I think that this is what Neo is implying and what Adams might be saying about AOC and Trump:

    feint
    n. A feigned attack designed to draw defensive action away from an intended target.
    n. A deceptive action calculated to divert attention from one’s real purpose.

45. JJ, can’t have bike either. They need rubber (petroleum) for the tires and a host of other parts of the bike. They are SOL.

46. physicsguy:

    I think you are absolutely correct.

    AOC herself did not come up with this, whether she’s smart or dumb. This is their dream scenario, and it involves a great many people in the planning and a great deal of time. If you read the actual document it’s very very broad and sweeping and Utopian. Beware!

    I will have more to say about it, maybe in a post tomorrow, but here’s a link to the full document setting forth the Green New Deal.

47. T – right on! Arrogance is exactly correct. I saw a news story about a year ago headlined something like “Siberians anxiously await Global Warning.” Who the hell do AOC and her band of little twerps think they are, that their climate is the one to be saved?

48. “How Green was my website…”
    https://www.chicksonright.com/blog/2019/02/07/aaaaand-the-green-new-deal-faq-page-got-taken-down/

49. neo on February 7, 2019 at 4:57 pm at 4:57 pm said:
    Ray: Do you really think that AOC believes all of this and that is evidence of stupidity?

    Ok, your missing everything in front of you…

    “If women’s liberation is unthinkable without communism, then communism is unthinkable without women’s liberation.” INESSA ARMAND, the first leader of the women’s department of the 1917 Russian Revolution….

    That statement is a perfect summary of the relationship between the fight for both socialism and women’s liberation–neither is possible without the other.

    AOC is a product of where/what? Our modern feminist dominated education system, in which women’s studies and other studies courses are mandatory. And since the ladies took over its gotten more and more what? communist totalitarian (communitarian)….

    AOC is one of many produced in our academia… however, lets ignore bella dodd, communist party and the union… then, once that was no longer remembered and if brought up, too old to care… lets remove most male teachers.. lets replace wrong thinking women teachers with younger more to the left with more convenient revolutionary morals…

    look what they did to our higher education…

    AOC was never taught multiple sides and so through reason chose her political position her political position was the only side she was given in our modern schools who have done what?

    AOC is feminist to her core, as were all the other white (suffragette) angels of the senate…

    So what is this brand of crazyness? the grandiosity and their belief they are centrists? do you ‘see’ it? they are modern Stalinist… Stalinism promoted the escalation of class conflict… “Enemies” included not only bourgeois people, but also working-class people with counter-revolutionary sympathies
    [edited for length by n]

50. If it wasn’t AOC, it would have been some other person around her age that has been indoctrinated with this “sustainability” nonsense on campuses. As the left totally controls higher education

    Antonio Gramsci planned all this almost a century ago.

    Orthodox Marxism had predicted that socialist revolution was inevitable in capitalist societies. By the early 20th century, no such revolution had occurred in the most advanced nations. Capitalism, it seemed, was more entrenched than ever. Capitalism, Gramsci suggested, maintained control not just through violence and political and economic coercion, but also through ideology. The bourgeoisie developed a hegemonic culture, which propagated its own values and norms so that they became the “common sense” values of all. People in the working-class (and other classes) identified their own good with the good of the bourgeoisie, and helped to maintain the status quo rather than revolting.

    Bourgeois culture is being destroyed, first in colleges and now in K-12.

51. As I sit here in blue, blue, blue California I pray that there are enough salt-of-the-earth folks spread out across this land to keep this lunacy in check. Like Sowell said, these are the kinds of ideas only an intellectual could get behind.

52. I just saw a video sound bite of Sandy-O defiantly marching up the Capitol Hill steps, and peevishly telling the reporter, “So the Revolution itself does not have a price tag on it!” Yes, and the Revolution will not be televised.

    If the Republicans had any brains, and they don’t, they would hammer away with these video clips night and day.

    Elsewhere she has said that cost is not the issue because we’ll be looking at ways to spend all the money resulting from the efficiency gains (paraphrasing).

    A Five Year Plan! A Giant Leap Forward! Comrades unite, The People’s Cube is occupying Capitol Hill. Soon everyone will be a Union member and their security guaranteed.
    ______

    While much of the lyrics to Lennon’s “Imagine” is the usual just-say-no-to-war stuff, the part that cuts to the chase is,

    Imagine no possessions
    I wonder if you can
    No need for greed or hunger
    A brotherhood of man

    Imagine all the people
    Sharing all the world

    Eliminate property rights. Pure Marxism.
    I’d rewrite that second stanza refrain:

    Imagine all the warlords
    Taking all the world
    _____

    Neo and Mike K mention the Senate and the 2020 election.

    While Trump bragged recently about how well the GOP did in the Senate elections in 2018, the Senate map was heavily tilted in the GOP’s favor. In 2020 (or is it 2022?) the map is heavily tilted in favor of the Dems. Be very afraid?

53. Rod Dreher’s post today that’s worth a read: “The Woke Menace”

54. The next election tells the tale.

    Steve Bannon is supposed to be holding a townhall south of Tucson tomorrow night, It was supposed to be open to all and we were planning to go to it.Today, it is announced (on facebook) that it is open only to Republican Club members, so we are not going. I assume Bannon knows his support does not come from Republican Club types but it is their event. We went to a Border Patrol benefit when he appeared last year.

55. Artfldgr:

    Once again, I have no idea why you persist in thinking people here are not aware of the leftist and feminist connection, and its relation to someone such as AOC.

56. M Williams,

    Us rural, “salt-of-the-earth” types endured some minus forty wind chills over the past couple weeks. We do that gladly, because it keeps folks from the deep-blue states away. Regarding California, our give-a-damn is busted. You can certainly come here, but expect to take care of yourself, and leave your California behind.

57. Art Deco on February 7, 2019 at 3:14 pm at 3:14 pm said:
    …
    I don’t think a federal legislature with 10,000 members would be a functioning legislature.
    * * *
    Made me think of the Founders of Democracy. If each citizen-voter were thought of as representing his non-voting family and dependents, plus some of the neighbors and of course the resident aliens and slaves, you could stretch that to fit the proposed US legislature.

    Wikipedia:
    Estimates of the population of ancient Athens vary. During the 4th century BC, there might well have been some 250,000–300,000 people in Attica. Citizen families could have amounted to 100,000 people and out of these some 30,000 would have been the adult male citizens entitled to vote in the assembly.

58. Chester Draws on February 7, 2019 at 2:04 pm at 2:04 pm said:
    …
    If they were truly worried about global warming, they’d be all for nuclear.
    * * *
    Glenn Reynolds: “I will believe that global warming is a crisis when the climate alarmists start acting like it is a crisis.”

59. LYNN HARGROVE:
    “JJ, can’t have bike either. They need rubber (petroleum) for the tires and a host of other parts of the bike. They are SOL.”

    No problem. Metal wheels would do the trick. A hard ride, but it’s a hard life they envision. 🙂

    Anyone with a brain knows that modern society floats on a sea of energy that is provided primarily by fossil fuels. Take away the fossil fuels, the society quickly sinks into 19th Century living standards and mass starvation.

    Has anyone thought that AOC might be an agent of Putin? In his fondest dreams Putin never envisioned such a gift. Look for the Russians and the Chinese to push the Green New Deal as a great idea.

60. AOC: Knave or fool?

61. Maybe ‘plunge the world into chaos’ is the plan.

62. @neo & Kai Acker:

    (5) She believes that it ought to be possible, it should be possible, it’s morally imperative that it be possible, and any obstacles can be dealt with by just trying harder and believing harder, and if you point out and demonstrate how it’s impossible then you’re just part of the problem and probably obviously evil …

    I don’t know for sure that AOC thinks this way, but boy do I know a lot of leftists who do.

63. “Morally right” over true facts. Reality bounds – imagination is boundless.

    Physical laws are such an uninspiring answer to the RFK Camelot question “Why not?”

64. “…true facts.”

    TRUE?? FACTS???

    What is Truth? What are facts?? Seriously!

    I’ll tell you:
    Facts (like the maths and sciences) are clearly colonialist, imperialist—let’s throw in Zionist, why not?— anti-gaia, ecologically destructive, oppressive, toxic, privileged white male constructs.

    Who needs ’em?

    We must erase—obliterate—them all…and ALL those who believe in them…

    …and do the world a HUGE favor.

    Power to the People!!

65. Rod Dreher’s post today that’s worth a read:

    TL;DR

    All of Dreher’s posts are about his meals or about his emotional upset du jour.

66. “Artfldgr:

    Once again, I have no idea why you persist in thinking people here are not aware of the leftist and feminist connection, and its relation to someone such as AOC.” neo

    neo,

    You have the patience of a Saint. And the courtesy of a diplomat. You know full well that the motivation is an insecure ego that sees itself as unjustly victimized by a world grossly unappreciative of him, i.e. a classic superiority complex.

    My sympathy evaporated long ago with his incessant expressed contempt for the stupidity of those who frequent this blog. Which is his dysfunctional reaction to our not hanging upon his every word in awe.

67. As Snow on Pine points out @ 4:30pm, “you cannot have a rational debate/argument with them”.

    The ‘Stalinists’ know the truth but could care less since power and control is their motivation. While the ‘Trotskyite’ true believers are ideological fanatics immune to reason.

    Reality is the only ‘cure’, what shape their encounter with reality will take is still yet to be determined but that reality will have the final say is beyond dispute.

    I do not foresee reason prevailing and if not, of the three broad realities remaining; Civil War, 1984 or Islam… the horror of Civil War is the least destructive and the only one where liberty prevails. One way or another it’s going to come down to force because the Left will have it no other way. In the not-too-distant future it’s going to come down to “politics by other means” or for liberty to “go quietly into the night”.

68. (5) She believes that it ought to be possible, it should be possible, it’s morally imperative that it be possible, and any obstacles can be dealt with by just trying harder and believing harder, –Bryan Lovely

    All of the above!

    and if you point out and demonstrate how it’s impossible then you’re just part of the problem and probably obviously evil … and your appointment with the Committee of Public Safety is at 10 a.m. tomorrow, Regretfully yours, Alexandria Ocasio Robespierre

69. Francesca on February 8, 2019 at 1:50 am at 1:50 am said:
    AOC: Knave or fool?
    * * *
    Embrace the power of AND.

70. Cap’n Rusty-I don’t know what state you’re looking down on California from. Doesn’t matter because it’s already infested with leftists. They all are. The people of California are being cheated and lied to and hoodwinked and ripped off by “their” government and “representatives.” A great many of us are quite aware of this but stay and fight. You’re lucky; you get to watch … for now. Best to welcome allies. You’ll need them.

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