Take It From a Former Hollywood Liberal: Giving Up the Democratic Party Won’t Hurt as Much as You Think

 Daily Signal  

"Like Maxine Waters and the elites at Harvard who were not just arsonists, but sociopaths celebrating gangbangers hitting innocent white truck drivers in the skull with cinder blocks." . . .

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., speaks to reporters at a protest in Los Angeles on June 14, 2025.

Dear Democrats in Los Angeles, Mind if we have a little heart-to-heart?

Oh, I hear you. “You’re a Trump supporter. You don’t have a heart.” No, I’m not offended. If I can deal with high school friends who think I stink like sweaty socks from a boys’ gym locker because of my politics, I can deal with you. After all, I was you.

Yes, I was a Hollywood liberal. What’s more, I know what a lot of you were feeling deep down as you watched rioters torch and trash your city, attack your officers, shut down your freeways while waving the flag of a foreign country. Worse, I know there’s a check in your soul when you watch your Democrat leaders egg on the violence.

"Why? Because I’ve been there.

"Let me let you in on a little secret. Maxine Waters, the Los Angeles Democrat congresswoman, did more to make me a Republican than Rush Limbaugh.

"It’s 1992. The trial of the officers charged in the Rodney King beating was underway in Simi Valley. Day in, day out, Waters and other Democrats were pouring gasoline all over the LA Basin. “No Justice! No Peace! No Justice! No Peace!” Justice did not mean a fair trial with a jury reaching a reasonable verdict. Justice meant all four LAPD officers being found guilty. Anything less, Auntie Maxine implied, meant war.

" 'What are you doing?” I shouted at the TV. “You’re going to blow this whole place up!”

"Sure enough, the verdict came down. The match Waters lit flicked onto a city she’d saturated with fuel and rage. By the time the riot was over, 52 Angelenos were dead, over $1 billion in damage had been done, and countless businesses lay looted, gutted, and destroyed." . . .

Are you someone who stands for little kids getting their sexual organs destroyed, but won’t stand for a little kid with cancer? Someone OK with Jews being attacked in Westwood with the Democrat elites siding with the antisemites?

. . ."My hunch is many of you realize the “D” no longer reflects who you are and are wrestling with the distasteful fact that you’re more in line with the party you have long hated. I tell you again. I’ve been there. When I switched my registration, I felt I was filing for divorce from my old self. Trading in my Redskins jersey for a Cowboys jacket. My hands were shaking like Luca Brasi was holding a gun to my head.  

"And then? “That didn’t feel so bad.”

Biden Doctor’s Refusal To Answer A Single Question Blows Up The ‘Doctor-Patient Privilege’ Excuse

 The Federalist 

"“It defies belief that while the American people questioned President Biden’s cognitive and physical abilities, the physician to the president and other medical professionals told us there was nothing to worry about,” Williams wrote." . . .

"Joe, we'll just say not to look back, we want to look forward!"

"Joe Biden’s White House doctor refused to answer a single question during a congressional interview on Wednesday, raising more concerns about efforts to conceal the former president’s decline while in office.

"According to House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., Biden physician Kevin O’Connor pled the Fifth at his previously scheduled deposition with House lawmakers. The revelation came a day after the Trump administration waived executive privilege for O’Connor to sit down with members of the committee for the transcribed interview.

"According to a House Oversight Committee official, O’Connor did not simply plead the Fifth on questions related to doctor-patient privilege, but on any and all prospective queries posed by lawmakers.

“ 'The American people demand transparency, but Dr. O’Connor would rather conceal the truth,” Comer said in a statement. “Dr. O’Connor took the Fifth when asked if he was told to lie about President Biden’s health and whether he was fit to be President of the United States. Congress must assess legislative solutions to prevent such a coverup from happening again.”

Democrats aa they are

 

 NY Post; Former Houston mayoral appointee rages at flooded Texas girls camp for being 'white-only'   

The former Houston mayoral appointee who raged at a flood-ravaged Texas girls camp for being “white only” has been humiliated on a fundraising page — with many only paying the smallest amount possible to let them leave abusive messages of outrage.

Sade Perkins — who condemned Camp Mystic in an ill-timed rant, just hours after dozens of people died there in a devastating flash flood Friday — is described as “courageous” on the page, which asks supporters to donate for her “protection, legal support, and recovery.”

It states she needs money for help recovering “from the reputational and emotional harm she’s enduring.”

“Sade Perkins is being publicly targeted for telling the truth,” claims the ill-fated Givesendgo page set up by supporter Marian Hills." . . .

'Vile' Newspaper Cartoon Mocks Texas Flood Victims, Sparks Immense Backlash

  . . . Beyond the violation of basic human decency involved in publishing maliciously driven political attacks in the middle of an unfolding tragedy, the cartoon is just as offensive for its vacuous logic.

The knee-jerk liberal conceit that the Trump administration's budget cuts somehow contributed to the Texas disaster has no basis in fact. (Even a Texas Democrat had to point out that Trump's first federal budget won't go into effect until October.)

Those Marxist Democrats

  Issues & Insights  It goes unsaid that Mamdani's minions likely are those Keffiyeh-clad Hamas supporters rioting in the streets, oblivious of the fact that Hamas murdered, raped, and beheaded Israelis. The Jewish settlers who were enjoying life and hoping to be left alone with their families, un-raped and un-beheaded. TD

"In 2022, then-Senator Marco Rubio noted that a “bunch of Marxist misfits” were among those “who sadly today control the agenda of the modern Democratic Party.” Today, there are few real centrists left in the Democratic Party, as Mamdani shows."

"What will the Democratic Party’s 2028 platform look like? The way things are going, no one should be surprised if it looks like a manifesto written by a couple of bitter, revolutionary 19th century Germans.

"Marxism is no longer on the Democratic Party fringe. It is taking it over.

"We see this in the unpleasantness of Zohran Mamdani, the recent winner of the New York City mayoral primary.

"The callow Mamdani describes himself as a “Democratic Socialist.” Fact-checkers, who seem to never fact check the incessant claims by the media and Democratic politicians and operatives that President Donald Trump and other Republicans are fascists, say he’s no communist.

"While he might not be a card-carrying member of the Communist Party, several of his known positions are inarguably in line with Marxism.

"Like Karl Marx, the privileged Mamdani, who calls himself a “BMW Bolshevik,” sees the world through the lens of class struggle. The platform of the Democratic Socialists of America, of which he is a member, “fights” for “the abolition of capitalism” as well as the “social ownership of all major industry and infrastructure,” two Marxist principles that Mamdani supports.

"Mamdani is also promising “free stuff” for New Yorkers, from bus trips to child care; proposes to freeze rents (to stick it to those greedy capitalist landlords, no doubt); wishes to “shift the tax burden … to more expensive homes in richer and whiter neighborhoods“; and says there should be no billionaires, though he hasn’t said what he’d do with the 123 who live New York City.

"There has been some light pushback from within the party. A few Jewish Democrats in Congress have been “raising concerns about” him, says The Hill. But many in the party are aligning themselves with Mamdani, even Bill Clinton, whose “third way” policies melded ideas from both the left and right, and by today’s standards was an ultra-conservative Democrat.

"With a couple of notable exceptions – the New York Times and Washington Post editorial boards – the media have largely leapt upon the Mamdani express. The hard-left British Guardian seems happy to report that “many Democrats from across the ideological spectrum believe” Mamdani “might offer a roadmap for winning back the voters they have lost touch with.” Salon says Mamdani is “good for the world.” The New Yorker tries to make “The Case for Zohranomics.” The Wall Street Journal insists Mamdani is “a charming and exuberant young man who raps about his beloved Indian grandmother” and “displays an Obama-like magnetism that attracts young people” and “some old ones, too.”

"Regrettably, Mamdani is not the sole Marxist Democrat who has traction." . . .More...

NYC bodega owners worry Zohran Mamdani will put them out of business with city-run grocery store plan

If you think government stores are a good idea, you probably wear a keffiyeh and think Israel first attacked Gaza. President Reagan once said of these people that they aren't ignorant; they just "know so much that isn't so". TD

Rich Terrell

 NYC bodega owners worry Zohran Mamdani will put them out of business with city-run grocery store plan  

. . . “ 'It’s going to be a huge problem. You can’t force us to pay taxes and then be our adversary,” Rafael Garcia, owner of La Economica Meat Choice store on University Avenue in The Bronx, told The Post.

"In some bodegas, about two-thirds of the business is from customers with government-financed food stamps and Garcia said there was no doubt those shoppers would flock to the lower-cost, city-run grocery stores.

"Francisco Marte, the president of the Bodega and Business Association, said at Monday’s press conference: “Socialism hasn’t been successful anywhere in the world. Even China has turned to capitalism. Come on, this is stupid.” Gristedes owner John Catsimatidis, who also spoke at the event at Second Avenue and East 40th Street said, “City-owned supermarkets don’t work. Cities do not know how to run a business.”

"Progressive Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson had considered launching a municipal grocery store in the Windy City after a study concluded it was “not only feasible but necessary.”

"But Johnson said he put the plan on hold after companies reached out and asked to join the venture, suggesting a public-private partnership to improve access in so-called food desserts or a public market instead.

"Government-owned grocery stores have been tried in smaller towns in rural America that lost their last grocers — with mixed results at best.

"A town-owned grocery store in 1,400-resident Baldwin, Fla. opened in 2019. The store operated at a loss and closed in March.

"A city-owned store set up in Erie, Kan., didn’t attract enough customers and sales to break even and was forced to change its approach. To lower costs, it leased out the building to a private operator to be the grocer, while the city retained ownership, Governing Magazine reported.

"Not every municipal grocery has gone belly up.

"Another Kansas town, 600-person St. Paul, bought its own store in 2013 after the last supermarket closed and nearest grocer was 17 miles away.

"The government-owned grocer is still operating there, a success story cited by Mamdani." . . 

Zohran Mamdani's government-run grocery stores won't lower prices; The democratic socialist's proposed "public option" reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of the market.

 Reason Magazine  

Even if you imagine corruption away, the conceit that New York City bureaucrats can run grocery stores at a lower cost than highly capitalized private firms enjoying massive economies of scale, decades of market experience, and complex supply chains is farcical.

"Andrew Cuomo has conceded defeat to 33-year-old progressive upstart Zohran Mamdani in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary. With registered Democrats making up over two-thirds of the city's electorate, Mamdani is in pole position to be the Big Apple's next mayor, which could spell trouble for New Yorkers struggling with the city's nation-leading cost of living.

"The campaign website of Mamdani, who self-identifies as a democratic socialist, says that he is running "to lower the cost of living for working class New Yorkers." In addition to offering free bus fare citywide, Mamdani is proposing to rein in "out of control" prices with "a network of city-owned grocery stores focused on keeping prices low, not making a profit." Mamdani argues that "without having to pay rent or property taxes, they will reduce overhead and pass on savings to shoppers."

"If lowering the price of groceries is Mamdani's goal, his "public option" is a poor way to accomplish this feat, especially given the structure of the city's grocery market.

"The grocery market, which includes bodegas, grocery stores, supermarkets, and online grocery delivery (like Amazon, Walmart, and ShopRite), is incredibly competitive in New York City, and its market concentration is extremely low. Based on 2016 market share data (the most recent year data are available) from Chain Store Guide, a provider of retail and foodservice intelligence, the New York metropolitan area's grocery market has a Herfindahl-Hirschman Index score, a measure of market competitiveness, of approximately 550 (an index score below 1500 is considered to be competitive).

"Despite the competitive market, food prices in New York City (and the rest of the country) have risen. The cost of food at home, a good proxy for the price of groceries, increased by 27.5 percent between FY 2019 and FY 2023 in the New York City Metropolitan Area, according to an April 2025 report from the Office of the New York State Comptroller using Bureau of Labor Statistics data. However, this price increase was not caused by the city's 1,002 grocery stores focused on "making a profit"—grocery store profits range from 1 percent to 2 percent, Adam Lehodey explains for City Journal—but by inflation caused by federal spending and supply chain crunches." . . .  More...

Why are the Democrats so bent on locking up Trump?

 Silvio Canto, Jr.

"Over the last few years, I've asked myself the question: Why are the Democrats so bent on locking up Trump? They tried everything, from Russia hoaxes to unleashing Fani to sham trials in New York City to feeding friendly newsmen negative information about Trump.

"For a while, I thought that it was the Supreme Court. In other words, they need judges to invent laws to implement what voters don't want. Or maybe it was abortion and this irrational idea that killing a baby is a woman's choice. Or maybe it was fear that a second Trump presidency would go after them the same way, i.e., payback New York streets style. Or maybe it was just a way of keeping their Trump Derangement Syndrome base busy with more addiction. Or maybe it was about protecting President Obama from something awful, such as directing a campaign to destroy his successor's presidency.

"Well, have you seen this? This is from Margot Cleveland:

President Barack Obama. Not CIA Director John Brennan. Not Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. And not FBI Director James Comey. But President Barack Obama. The 44th president of the United States, directed the intelligence community to interfere in the peaceful transition of power to his successor -- Donald Trump. And for that Obama should forevermore be considered a pariah in presidential history. 

Last week, CIA Director John Ratcliffe released the agency’s review of the Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) on “Russia’s Influence Campaign Targeting the 2016 US Presidential Election.” The CIA’s review exposed extensive problems with “the procedures and analytic tradecraft employed” by the intelligence community in crafting the ICA, revealing at the same time the role Brennan, Clapper, and Comey played in the corrupt process.

"So it was a full effort, and Obama was in the middle of it.

"Will anyone in the media ask him where he was on December 6, 2016? I'd like to hear from him, especially now that the information is rather interesting."

Trump takes on the Federal Judiciary

 By Halting The Federal Judiciary’s Left Turn, Trump Has Saved America

Despite his many accomplishments, rescuing the United States from the clutches of a radicalized and runaway judiciary places Donald Trump in the same pantheon as Abraham Lincoln in saving the Republic.

"What Donald Trump has achieved in the first six months of his non-sequential second term borders on the unprecedented. The most lasting and impactful accomplishment will be Trump’s ongoing victories in permanently reining in a rogue and increasingly radicalized federal judiciary. His electoral victory in 2024 and uncompromising battles with the judiciary have rescued the United States from an irreversible decline and fall.

"Over the past 70 years, the federal judiciary has increasingly assumed the extra-constitutional role of arbitrarily setting the boundaries of congressional and presidential authority. This has been an evolutionary process that reflected the American left’s long-term strategy of appointing collectivist judges to the federal judiciary.

"All Marxist-inspired despots of the twentieth century understood that party or state control over the judiciary is a key factor in successfully transforming a nation into a one-party socialist or communist state. This process was dramatically accelerated in the United States after Barack Obama became president. During his two terms in office, he and the Democrat party, per the Marxist blueprint, were singularly focused on radicalizing the federal judiciary."

"This single-minded determination culminated in Obama and his minion, Joe Biden, appointing vast numbers of radical left-wing judges during their combined twelve years in office. The unabashed and unconstitutional lawfare directed at Donald Trump and the January 6th protestors was a manifestation of their success." . . .

Obama-Appointed Judge Backs Trump DOJ in Grant Funding Clash   "An Obama-appointed federal judge has sided with the Department of Justice (DOJ) in a closely watched legal dispute.

"The judge ruled that the Biden-era practice of funding violence prevention through nonprofit organizations can be lawfully replaced with a law enforcement–centered model backed by the Trump administration.

"U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta denied a request from five liberal-leaning organizations that sought to block the DOJ from canceling over $800 million in previously awarded grants. "

"These decisions come as President Trump continues to assert broader control over the federal bureaucracy." 

DOJ Launches Criminal Investigations into John Brennan and James Comey Over Russia Hoax Malfeasance

 American Greatness  

"Fox News reported in October 2020 that Brennan had “briefed former President Obama and administration officials on intelligence that then-Democrat nominee former Secretary of State Clinton was stirring up a plan to tie Trump to Russia.”

"The Department of Justice has launched criminal probes into former CIA Director John Brennan and former FBI Director James Comey over their alleged roles in the Trump–Russia hoax, Fox News reported Monday evening.

"The FBI is looking into allegations of potential perjury and conspiracy against both men, according to Fox’s sources.

"CIA Director John Ratcliffe last week declassified a “lessons learned” review on the discredited 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) which alleged Russia sought to influence the 2016 presidential election to help then-candidate Donald Trump.

"The review found that the creation of the ICA was rushed and filled with “procedural anomalies” that diverted from intelligence standards and the “decision by agency heads to include the Steele Dossier in the ICA ran counter to fundamental tradecraft principles and ultimately undermined the credibility of a key judgment.”

The dossier — an anti-Trump document filled with unverified and wholly inaccurate claims that was commissioned by Fusion GPS and paid for by Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the DNC — has been widely discredited. Last week’s review marks the first time career CIA officials have acknowledged politicization of the process by which the ICA was written, particularly by Obama-era political appointees.

"Records declassified as part of that review further revealed that Brennan insisted on the inclusion of the discredited Steele dossier, over the strong objections of the CIA’s two most senior Russia experts, who said it “did not meet even the most basic tradecraft standards.”

"In a newly declassified email sent to Brennan in December 2016, the former deputy CIA director said that including the Steele dossier in the ICA jeopardized “the credibility of the entire paper.”

“Despite these objections, Brennan showed a preference for narrative consistency over analytical soundness,” the CIA review states. “When confronted with specific flaws in the Dossier by the two mission center leaders – one with extensive operational experience and the other with a strong analytic background – he appeared more swayed by the Dossier’s general conformity with existing theories than by legitimate tradecraft concerns.”

"According to the review, “Brennan ultimately formalized his position in writing, stating that ‘my bottomline is that I believe that the information warrants inclusion in the report.’” . . .

People Will Die! "Remy channels his inner Elizabeth Warren to vilify the other side."

 

Reason

. . .Murders are bad. They have no defenders

yet many are committed by repeat offenders

I say lifetime in prison, whatever the crime

unless, of course, you want PEOPLE TO DIE! . . .

© 2024 Reason Foundation

Can Our Cities Be Saved From The Left’s Death Grip?

 Issues & Insights  

"But think about it: We are all paying the costs of urban blight and decay that Democrats have brought forth. We pay them in the form of larger housing subsidy costs, bigger welfare costs, deeper economic stagnation, and more widespread cultural rot."

"All the attention being thrown at New York’s mayoral primary race, won by socialist Zohran Mamdani, raises broader questions that deserve answers. Why do voters keep electing Democrats responsible for so much urban decline and decay? What will break the left’s stranglehold on our once great cities? Is the situation simply hopeless?

"Of the nation’s largest 20 cities, only two have Republican mayors – Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas. Republicans hold the mayorships of just 25 of the 100 largest cities. And that number is down from 30 in 2020.

"More mysterious is the paradox that, despite the fact that blame for empty stores, rising crime, and the exodus of people rests squarely on the shoulders of Democrats in most of these cities, voters rarely hand control over to Republicans.

"Look at the history of the 10 largest cities and despair. Los Angeles has had one Republican mayor since 1961. New York has had one and a half since 1969 (Michael Bloomberg had been a lifelong Democrat, but ran as a Republican in 2001 and 2005, and then left the GOP midway through his second term).

"Chicago has been electing Democratic mayors since 1931, and Houston since 1982.

"Phoenix has elected Democrats for 20 years (a Republican was twice appointed as an interim mayor).

"In Philadelphia, the last time a Republican was mayor was in 1948, and it’s been 24 years since San Antonio voters picked a GOP candidate for the city’s top office.

"The other three of the top 10 cities – Dallas, San Diego, and Jacksonville – have been notable exceptions, with each having a fair share of mayors from both political parties.

"Not only do voters in the nation’s largest cities keep electing Democrats, many of the ones winning elections today are more radical than their predecessors. Seven cities are today run by socialist mayors. Ten years ago, there was one." . . .read more

Ketanji Jackson’s wacko dissent to a Supreme Court order allowing agency heads to plan to trim their departments

 Andrea Widberg

  . . . "And given how poorly Jackson is performing, thereby demeaning the Court, blacks, and women, a wise Democrat would side with impeachment.

"It’s no secret that Joe Biden nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson to serve on the United States Supreme Court because she is a black woman.* In other words, she was not chosen for her judicial acumen, but for her political identity.

"That goes a long way to explaining the absolutely lunatic dissent she issued to a Supreme Court order. That order stayed a California district court judge’s ruling blocking President Trump from ordering agency heads to produce plans for possible “Reductions in Force.” What makes Jackson’s dissent even crazier than its lack of any intellectual foundation is her open hostility to her fellow justices and the president.

"This all began when President Trump issued Executive Order 14210 (Implementing the President’s “Department of Government Efficiency” Workforce Optimization Initiative). In the order, President Trump stated that he wanted to begin a “critical transformation of the Federal bureaucracy.” He would do this “[b]y eliminating waste, bloat, and insularity...”  More