Ocasio-Cortez: U.S. Can Fund Socialism with ‘Large Amount’ of New Tax Revenue

American Thinker

National Review  "During a Thursday night appearance on The Daily Show, Democratic congressional candidate Alexandria-Ocasio Cortez explained some of the mechanisms she believes can provide sufficient government revenue to fund the many costly promises she’s made to voters.

"Asked by host Trevor Noah how the debt-addled federal government can fund Medicare-for-all and no-cost college tuition, the avowed Democratic socialist suggested that if people “pay their fair share” in taxes, and the government makes some “back of the envelope” budgetary adjustments based on “our values,” the government will have the requisite revenue to pay for her campaign promises.

“ 'If people pay their fair share, if corporations and the ultra wealthy, for example as Warren Buffet likes to say, if he paid as much as his secretary pays, if he paid a fifteen percent tax rate,” Ocasio-Cortez explained. “If we reversed the tax bill but raised our corporate rate to 28 percent. If we do those two things and also close some of those loopholes that’s $2 trillion right there.”

“ 'Now, if we implement a carbon tax so that we can financially incentivize people away from fossil fuels, that’s an additional amount, of a large amount, of additional revenue that we can have,” she added." . . .

Russianism: Trump’s critics need a scapegoat to explain why they haven’t managed to vanquish him.

Victor Davis Hanson

Russianism is a psychological malady in which furor at Donald Trump’s election victory and presidency — and the ensuing depression resulting from the inability to abort it — finds release through fixation on Russia.

. . . "Obama’s 2009 reset was birthed as a correction to George W. Bush’s modest sanctions against the Putin government for going into Ossetia. What then followed during the Obama administration was the embarrassing red reset-button rhetoric that was usually couched in anti-Bush-administration snark.

"Or, as Hillary Clinton put it:

We believe that there are a lot of challenges and threats that we have inherited that we have to address. But there are also opportunities, and we are being extremely vigorous in our outreach. Because we’re testing waters, we’re determining what is possible. We’re turning new pages and resetting buttons. 

"Then we witnessed a “turning new pages” effort by the Obama administration to downplay Russian aggression and emphasize its own new creative outreach to Putin. They thought the Russian strongman would be charmed by humanitarian sanctimoniousness and the hope and-change charisma of Barack Obama. Instead, Putin, true to character, saw weakness accompanied by pious sermonizing. That is always a fatal combination when dealing with a brute.
And so, Putin proceeded to gather up his easy pickings.

"What variously ensued was the inadvertent hot-mic offer of quid pro quo collusion with Putin by President Obama when he was up for reelection. Obama more than fulfilled this promise. . . "

The American Left's Selective Outrage

Lloyd Marcus

The American left is filled with angry, bitter people without a Godly moral compass. Insidiously, leftists divide Americans into supposedly victimized voting blocs. Leftists consider their duped voters to be useful idiots, mere pawns in furthering the American left's anti-Christian and anti-America agendas.

"Repeatedly pointing out the American left's obvious dishonesty, hypocrisy and selective outrage seems pointless. And yet, I feel compelled to do so.

"For example: Fake news media created a 24/7 media firestorm over Trump's alleged affair with porn star Stormy Daniels before he became president. Due to recordings by Trump's lawyer, CNN has excitedly gone 24/7 in making the case that Trump is unfit to serve because of his private life before he was elected.

"Hypocritically, CNN told us that Bill Clinton's private life was none of our business while he was president. The American left did everything in their power to downplay President Clinton's affair with an intern while he was president; using cigars as sex toys, hiding a semen-stained dress and lying about his adultery. The American left (Democrats, Hollywood, and fake news media) trashed the character of all men to minimize president Clinton's reprehensible behavior. They said no man could resist a young woman coming on to him.

"The left's lie was particularly offensive to me. At that time, my Dad was pastor of a large congregation and my brother was county commissioner of a youth football league. When approached with similar opportunities, neither my dad or brother behaved like President Clinton." . . .

A 'walk away' movement might not be strong enough

Russ Vaughn . . . " In the true homeland of Abraham Lincoln, fully two thirds of the state's twelve million population reside in the Greater Chicago Metropolitan Area and as a result, the fiscally irresponsible and constitutionally nullifying liberal Democrats who govern that city and control the statehouse have all but bankrupted the entire state while legislating away the citizens' Second Amendment rights.
. . . 
"Just as the Founding Fathers had the wisdom to prevent the more densely populated states from dominating the more rural and agrarian, it is time for America's huge majority (2,600 voted for Trump of 3,100) red counties to overthrow the liberal tyranny of blue urban majorities by finding ways to adopt systems similar to the federal Electoral College, but based on counties within the states.  Had such electoral provisions been in place in all states in 2016, Trump could well have added several states such as New York, Maryland, Virginia, Illinois, Minnesota, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington to his electoral victory.  Had that happened, Trump would have buried hapless Hillary in an Electoral College landslide, perhaps sparing us the constant carping of the deranged media about an illegitimate president.  Let us hope for more counties to begin defending the rights of their citizens against tyrannical state governments."

The Blue-State Housing Bubble  . . . "The bubble is bursting right now in Illinois and in CA, PA, MA, CT, NJ, NY, and all other big Blue states. California alone has a half-trillion-dollar unfunded pension liability. The financial mechanics are the same and cannot be stopped."

Why Trump Will Survive the Cohen Tape

Rich Lowry   "Trump’s advantage is the power of low expectations. It's a symptom of our time that a tape of the future president of the United States discussing machinations related to an alleged affair with a former Playboy Playmate isn’t truly a blockbuster.

"The brief snippet of conversation between Donald Trump and his lawyer Michael Cohen about buying the story of former Playmate Karen McDougal, who says she had a ten-month-long affair with Trump beginning in 2006, is certainly of interest.

"How often do you hear a future president speaking so frankly, if cryptically, about such a salacious matter? And the tape is part of the storyline of Cohen flipping against Trump that will be an ongoing media obsession.

"But what would be a potential torpedo to the bow of any other presidency is a relative trifle, because tawdry scandals have been built into the Trump baseline.
"Past presidents have needed fixers (John F. Kennedy had his at the top of the Justice Department, his brother Bobby) and have had shady associates (Richard Nixon and Bebe Rebozo; Bill Clinton and almost everyone he knew from Little Rock, it seemed).

"Still, Trump’s relationship with Cohen, a lawyer so disreputable that no one else would want his representation, is off the charts. Q: What kind of lawyer tapes his client (as Trump has asked in recent days)? A: Cohen, whose lack of standards is what made him so useful in the first place. The tape’s political effect is muted because everyone is dug in. " . . .

A great silliness descends on our nation: "Professor: I ‘DEMAND That White Editors Resign’ "

Benjamin Franklin was [said to be] approached by a group of citizens asking what sort of government the delegates had created. His answer was: "A republic, if you can keep it."  Is this nation still worthy of its history? TD

"Randa Jarrar has previously made headlines for

 celebrating the death of former first lady Barbara Bush."

National Review

Since when did it become okay to disqualify someone from a job because of their skin color?

. . . " Obviously, Jarrar is not accepting this apology, as she commented on an apology tweet from Burt with the word “Resign.” It was one minute after posting this tweet that she posted that follow-up tweet stating that, in fact, all white editors should resign, regardless of whether or not they had actually done anything wrong.
"This is ridiculous. It’s one thing to call out specific editors for making specific mistakes; it’s entirely another thing to suggest that an entire race of people cannot be editors only because of their race.
"Unfortunately, however, this sort of idea is far from unheard of. In fact, the tendency of many social-justice warriors to want to silence some voices — particularly the voices of white males — has become so pervasive that Barack Obama recently commented on it." . . .  Katherine Timpf

By the way, because this, um,  lady is a leftist, she can get away with calling people "sweetie", as you will see here. But I digress. TD