Tucker Carlson takes on Robert Hockett, Cornell law professor and adviser to Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, over the details of the Green New Deal. #Tucker #FoxNews
CNN Tries To Explain Away Its Own Viewer Poll’s HUGE Numbers For Trump
By Patrick Howley
CNN’s David Chalian struggled to explain why President Trump scored 76 percent “somewhat positive” or “very positive” in the cable network’s instant poll. The poll only counted “speech watchers,” Chalian explained, so Trump’s supporters might have been over-represented because they were watching the speech.
CNN seems to be having a tough night. Incidentally, the CBS News viewer poll also clocked in at exactly 76 percent approval for President Trump’s State of the Union address.
President Donald Trump urged Americans to come together to “Choose Greatness” in his State of the Union address on February 5, 2019.
“Members of Congress, the State of our Union is strong,” President Trump said as members of Congress chanted “USA! USA!”
Trending: EXCLUSIVE: Roger Stone Names CNN Journalist Who He Suspects Tipped Network Off to Raid
“That sounds so good,” President Trump noted.
America is on a roll, and the only thing that can stop it is foolish wars, politics, and partisan investigations.
“We must reject the politics of revenge” and work for the “common good,” President Trump said.
“Together we can break decades of political stalemate, we can…build new coalitions.”
“The decision is ours to make. We must choose between greatness or gridlock…vision or vengeance, incredible progress or pointless destruction. Tonight I ask you to choose greatness.”
“We are just getting started.”
“Wages are rising at the fastest pace in decades, and growing for blue-collar workers.”
“Nearly 5 million Americans have been lifted off food stamps.”
“We are considered far and away the hottest economy anywhere in the world. Not even close. Unemployment has reached the lowest rate in nearly half a century.”
“African-American unemployment, Hispanic-American unemployment, and Asian-American unemployment have all reached their lowest levels ever recorded. Unemployment for people with disabilities has also reached an all-time low. More people are working now than at any time in the history of our country. 157 million people at work.”
“We are a net exporter of energy.”
President Trump focused on Christians’ ability to get off drugs. President Trump highlighted the story of Matthew Charles, the first man to be released from prison in accordance with President Trump’s First Step Act.
Relatedly, President Trump vowed to put the drug cartels out of business. Troops are at the border to meet the caravans. “This is a moral issue. The lawless state of our southern border is a threat…to all Americans,” Trump said.
Democrats live behind walls. Why can’t our country?
“Simply put: Walls work, and walls save lives,” President Trump said.
Women in the Democrat caucus gave a rousing ovation for Trump’s announcement that there are more women in the workforce than ever before. “You weren’t supposed to do that!,” the president joked. “Don’t sit yet, you’re going to like this! We now have more women serving in Congress than ever before.”
“USA! USA! USA!” Congress chanted.
“That’s great,” President Trump said.
President Trump demanded Congress pass a bill “to ban the late-term abortion of children who can feel pain in the mother’s womb.”
“We were born free, and we will stay free,” President Donald Trump vowed.
“America will never be a socialist country.”
“Great nations do not fight endless wars.”
“Our most thrilling achievements are still ahead.”
“Our biggest victories are still to come.”
“We do the incredible. We defy the impossible. We conquer the unknown. This is the time to re-ignite the American imagination.”
“This is the time to rekindle the bonds of love and loyalty…that link us together as American citizens, as neighbors, as patriots.”
“I am asking you to choose greatness…We must go forward together…We must keep America First in our hearts. We must keep freedom alive in our souls. And we must always keep faith in America’s destiny…”
“Thank you, God Bless you, and God bless America,” President Trump said.
SALTY: BEST DEM REACTION MEMES FROM TRUMP’S SOTU ADDRESS
Depressed leftists squirmed as Trump laid out America’s successes
Infowars.com – FEBRUARY 6, 2019
Congressional Democrats did not have a good time during President Trump’s State of the Union address, and the internet took notice.
Memes from all angles surfaced online following Tuesday night’s address, ranging from the Democrats’ sullen and angry expressions to the freshman class’s white outfits.
At one point, Trump declared that “America will never become a socialist country,” eliciting a red-faced scowl from socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Though they refused to clap for WWII heroes, cancer survivors, human trafficking arrests, astronauts, or victims of illegal immigration, they did manage to celebrate their own election victory as Trump acknowledged the historic number of women in Congress.
BANKRUPT CALIFORNIA UTILITY SHEDDING MORE THAN $40 BILLION WORTH OF GREEN ENERGY CONTRACTS
By Tim Pearce
Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) may shed more than $40 billion worth of power purchase agreements after the California utility was driven into bankruptcy by liabilities for sparking deadly wildfires, The Wall Street Journal reports.
PG&E wants the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in San Francisco to rule whether the company must honor $42 billion worth of contracts with about 350 different energy suppliers, mostly solar and wind plants.
The court’s decision could have a major impact on California’s renewable energy industry and power makeup. Many green energy suppliers only do business with PG&E, California’s largest utility. Shedding those contracts would likely drive those companies under and cripple California’s ability to meet energy goals set by the state government.
“A lot of companies are in that position, where PG&E is responsible for 100% of their revenues,” Credit Benchmark lead researcher David Carruthers told WSJ.
Former California Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation in September that mandated the state run on 100 percent green energy by 2045. It also bumped a previous target of 50 percent by 2030 to 60 percent. (RELATED: What Affect Will 100 Percent Green Energy Have On California’s Neighbors?)
The goals set by government officials were optimistic before PG&E filed for bankruptcy Tuesday. California’s grid operator has paid surrounding states on several occasions to take excess power off California’s grid caused by overproducing solar and wind farms.
The company’s plans to shed its losses to renewable energy suppliers may fail if the court rules that federal regulators, not the bankruptcy court, have the authority to deem whether such contracts still apply, according to WSJ.
PG&E filed bankruptcy as the “only viable option” to escape potentially $30 billion worth of liabilities for sparking major wildfires in 2017 and 2018. State investigators found the utility sparked a dozen major fires in 2017 through poorly maintained powerlines and equipment.
Wildfires in 2018 are still under investigation, including the Camp Fire that killed 86 people and all but destroyed the town of Paradise. The fire is the deadliest in state history.
ALL THE BEST PELOSI/SCHUMER MEMES FROM LAST NIGHT’S ADDRESS
Well, this backfired didn’t it?
JANUARY 9, 2019
WATCH: This Likely 2020 Dem Presidential Candidate Ups The Ante: Speaks Of 90% Tax Rate
Apparently unsatisfied with the suggestion of fellow Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez that wealthy Americans should be forced into a 60-70% tax rate, likely 2020 presidential candidate Julian Castro, who served as the Obama Administration’s Housing and Urban Development secretary, seemed to speculate on Sunday about the possibility of raising Ocasio-Cortez’s bid to 90%.
Appearing on ABC News’ “This Week,” Castro remarked that he could support Ocasio-Cortez’s suggestion, adding, “Oh, I can support folks at the top paying their fair share … There was a time in this country where the top marginal tax rate was over 90%, even during Reagan’s era in the 1980s it was around 50%.”
Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio, Texas, urged “that we get more serious about making sure the corporations pay their fair share. He continued, “During this campaign, if I run, I’m going to be very up front with the American people on how we would do that because I think that they are owed that, but it is worth it. It is worth it in this country for us to do that,” he said, vowing not to be “a single issue candidate.”
In 2015, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, never averse to raising taxes, also brought up the Eisenhower tax rates during the Iowa presidential debate. Sanders was asked about tax rates, “Well, let’s get specific, how high would you go? You’ve said before you’d go above 50 percent. How high?” He responded, “We haven’t come up with an exact number yet, but it will not be as high as the number under Dwight D. Eisenhower, which was 90%.”
But as the Tax Foundation explained in 2017, it is true that the top federal income tax rate was 91% for most of the the 1950’s, but the top 1% of taxpayers in the 1950s only paid about 42% of their income in taxes. The Tax Foundation explains that the 91% bracket of 1950 only applied to households with income over $200,000, the equivalent of roughly $2 million today. Additionally, the high tax rate only applied to income above $200,000, not to every single dollar earned.
An article in Forbes from 2015 estimated that $200,000 in the 1950’s would be equivalent to $1.7 million now, then added, “But general living standards have risen considerably over the past 60 years. Well more than doubled in fact more like four times … To be similarly high up the totem pole of relative incomes, assuming no change in inequality, you’d actually need that $8.9 million to live as large. And this is about right: living standards have risen some eight times since around 1900. That’s for everyone, not just the super rich … So, while $8.9 million might be equal to the general rise in incomes over the period, given the way that the very tippy top incomes have soared away, this only puts you in the relative income position of that $4.4 million to equate to the $200k. That is, $8.9 million isn’t as close to the top as $200k was then.”
Video below:
The $1.2 Trillion College Debt Crisis Is CRIPPLING The Economy
By Mac Slavo
A whopping two-thirds of American college students graduate school already deeply in debt. But the decision to go into debt to pay for a college degree is a $1.2 trillion crisis that’s crippling the economy.
According to The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS) Project on Student Debt, the average borrower will graduate with $26,600 in student loan debt. That means, that before a dollar is made using the degree, most Americans will owe money to someone else. The trend is not doing the economy any favors either. One in 10 graduates will accumulate more than $40,000 in debt and 1% of graduates will accumulate over $100,000 in student loan debt.
According to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, student loan debt has reached a new milestone, crossing the $1.2 trillion mark — $1 trillion of that in federal student loan debt in 2013. That debt currently stands at a whopping $1.5 trillion. And according to a report by Forbes, this is a negative sum game for both the borrowers and the economy. Although taking out massive amounts of debt for college is now the new normal, it’s crippling the economy and the personal financial situations of millions of borrowers.
However, the Pittsburg Post-Gazette says there isn’t a student loan crisis in a recent op-ed. But this information is coming from those who profit off of student loans, such as college presidents. But others say that this is simply a matter of supply and demand and there is more demand than supply. Additional options should be presented to those who have become intent on debt rather than a mandated degree. Educating students on the power of debt should also be considered to help stave off and eventually eliminate this problem.
“There has been a big shift in terms of who should bear the burden of the cost of education,” said Benjamin Keys, a Wharton real estate professor with a specialty in household finance and debt. “We know the stories of our parents, that they could earn enough working as a lifeguard in the summer to pay for a semester of college. The growth of tuition costs relative to teen wages — indeed, all wages — has veered sharply upwards.”
“We’ve come to a place where most students have to borrow in order to pay the cost of completing a bachelor’s degree,” said University of Pennsylvania professor Laura W. Perna, executive director of Penn’s Alliance for Higher Education and Democracy.
Of course, that’s little consolation to those who cannot pay for the degree they went into debt to finance. The student loan dynamic is without a doubt changing the culture of the country. People no longer view debt as something they need to avoid to eliminate slavery to the lender, but something as “necessary” to get ahead. Perhaps this is also why people cannot imagine their life without enslavement to the government. They have been conditioned to believe this is “normal.”
Ocasio-Cortez Tax Plan Creates 82.7% Top Income Tax Rate for New Yorkers
By Alex Hendrie
In an upcoming 60 Minutes interview, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) will call for federal income tax rates of up to 70 percent as part of a proposal to create vast new government spending programs.
The current top federal income tax rate is 37 percent, so the Ocasio-Cortez plan will nearly double the tax rate for the top bracket.
New York State has a top income tax rate of 8.82 percent while New York City has a top rate of 3.876 percent. So under this proposal, her constituents would pay a top combined income tax rate of 82.7 percent:
Federal income tax rate: 70.0%
NY state income tax rate: 8.82%
NYC income tax rate: 3.876%
TOTAL: 82.696%
New Yorkers would not be the only ones suffering under the Ocasio-Cortez plan. California taxpayers would pay a top rate of 83.3 percent (70 percent plus the California rate of 13.30 percent).
In addition to this high income tax rate, taxpayers would remain impacted by other taxes including payroll taxes, taxes on capital gains income and dividends, and the death tax.
Further, while Ocasio-Cortez has not released details of any other tax hikes to pay for her plan, this would likely not be the only income tax increase if she had her way. For instance, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) proposed a $2 trillion 2.2 percent payroll tax on all families and a $10 trillion 6.2 percent payroll tax on all businesses as part of his socialized healthcare plan.
Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) have proposed numerous tax hikes including a new, 5 percent surtax on those making $500,000 per year and an increase in the Obamacare payroll tax from 0.9 percent to 4 percent.
Regardless of the specific proposal, it is clear that Democrats want higher taxes on the American people as they made clear when they changed the House rules to make it easier to raise taxes.
Just last night, Democrats rejected a proposal to make permanent the $2,000 child tax credit (up from 1,000) and the $24,000 standard deduction for families (up from $12,000).
Based on their record this will not be the first of many cases where Democrats oppose middle class tax relief and advocate for higher taxes on the American people.
THE ‘GREEN NEW DEAL’: A RADICAL MANDATE FOR GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF AMERICAN SOCIETY
By Tom Elliott
‘Ocasio-Cortez sees this plan is being a vehicle through which social equality might finally realized, as it will use reparations to right historical injustices’
Incoming New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez brings with her a massive online following, influence she says she’ll deploy only in support of candidates and politicians who support her plan for a “Green New Deal.”
“The Green New Deal” is something Ocasio-Cortez invokes frequently in media appearances and rallies.
So what’s actually in it?
Her office recently released the text of a proposed House rules change outlining the plan.
The proposed rule change for the upcoming 116th Congress would require the creation of a “Select Committee for a Green Deal” that would be responsible for creating the plan by January 1, 2020, with corresponding draft legislation soon after. The text of the rule change lays out the committee’s jurisdiction and required areas of action.
Its scope and mandate for legislative authority amounts to a radical grant of power to Washington over Americans’ lives, homes, businesses, travel, banking, and more.
Early on, under “Jurisdiction,” the document makes clear its grandiose philosophical vision: “The select committee shall have authority to develop a detailed national, industrial, economic mobilization plan for the transition of the United States economy to become greenhouse gas emissions neutral and to significantly draw down greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and oceans and to promote economic and environmental justice and equality.”
In addition to achieving its goal of “meeting 100% of national power demand through renewable sources,” the document also repeatedly states the Green New Deal will advance non-environmental projects, such as, “social, economic, racial, regional and gender-based justice.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s plan further claims it will (virtually) eliminate poverty: “The Plan for a Green New Deal (and the draft legislation) shall recognize that a national, industrial, economic mobilization of this scope and scale is a historic opportunity to virtually eliminate poverty in the United States and to make prosperity, wealth and economic security available to everyone participating in the transformation.”
More specifically, Ocasio-Cortez’s plan calls for, within 10 years, a series of lofty overhauls of American life [emphasis added]:
- The installation of a “national, energy-efficient, “smart grid.”
- “Upgrading every residential and industrial building for state-of-the-art energy efficiency, comfort and safety”
- “Eliminating greenhouse gas emissions from the manufacturing, agricultural and other industries” as well as from America’s transportation and infrastructure network
- Funding “massive investment” in reducing existing greenhouse gasses
Between its calls for “upgrading” homes and overhauling travel, public infrastructure, and even the way Americans consume electricity, the plan leaves virtually no facet of everyday life untouched. Think of how often you don’t use electricity to imagine how much of your average day the plan wouldn’t impact.
The proposed committee would also have seemingly total oversight of American industry, with a mandate for pushing union membership. Under “Scope of the Plan,” a section on labor states the committee’s final plan shall: “Require strong enforcement of labor, workplace safety, and wage standards that recognize the rights of workers to organize and unionize free of coercion, intimidation, and harassment, and creation of meaningful, quality, career employment.”
Later in the document, Ocasio Cortez’s plan imagines creating a national jobs force to help people participate in this “transition.” The Green New Deal, it says, shall “provide all members of our society, across all regions and all communities, the opportunity, training and education to be a full and equal participant in the transition, including through a job guarantee program to assure a living wage job to every person who wants one.”
The plan also imagines creating governmental support for “transitioning” minority communities. The deal shall: “ensure a ‘just transition’ for all workers, low-income communities, communities of color, indigenous communities, rural and urban communities and the front-line communities most affected by climate change, pollution and other environmental harm including by ensuring that local implementation of the transition is led from the community level.”
More, Ocasio-Cortez sees this plan is being a vehicle through which social equality might finally realized through the use of reparations to right historical injustices. The final Green New Deal will “mitigate deeply entrenched racial, regional and gender-based inequalities in income and wealth (including, without limitation, ensuring that federal and other investment will be equitably distributed to historically impoverished, low income, deindustrialized or other marginalized communities in such a way that builds wealth and ownership at the community level).”
And if that weren’t enough to ensure that Democratic Socialism could be fully realized in America, the plan includes failsafe in the form of universal income and Medicare for All: The plan, it says, shall “include additional measures such as basic income programs, universal health care programs and any others as the select committee may deem appropriate to promote economic security, labor market flexibility and entrepreneurism.”
Ocasio-Cortez clarifies that this plan would not only need to be financed by taxpayers, but also the Federal Reserve and other institutions the government can create. The end of the document contains a Q&A, one of which deals with the plan’s funding: “The Federal Reserve can extend credit to power these projects and investments, new public banks can be created (as in WWII) to extend credit and a combination of various taxation tools (including taxes on carbon and other emissions and progressive wealth taxes) can be employed.”
Ocasio-Cortez may not be in Congress yet, but she already has a plan to remake the way Americans drive, commute, live, work, and even use the financial system. Let there be little doubt how she aspires to wield power in Washington.
Editor’s Note: This post has been updated with grammatical fixes.
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