James L. Paris's Blog, page 102

Convicted Felon, Jesse Jackson, Jr. Receives $138,000 In Annual Govt Benefits

On this episode - Jim shares the shocking news report that convicted felon, and former Congressman, Jesse Jackson, Jr., receives $138,000 in annual government benefits. Is France the next country to leave the European Union? Bitcoin hits record breaking levels. J.C. Penney closing 140 stores, HH Gregg prepares for bankruptcy, and Dance Mom Abby Lee Miller headed to prison.

 

Trump Will Skip White House Correspondents Dinner

If you were wondering if there was perhaps a thaw in the offing in the frozen-solid relationship between Donald Trump and the mainstream media, you can wonder no more.

There isn���t.

In fact, not only is there no chance that relations will improve anytime soon, it appears things are deteriorating further.

The latest: As has been widely reported by a variety of media outlets, including Fox News, President Trump announced that he will not be attending this year���s White House Correspondents��� Association (WHCA) dinner, an annual event that has traditionally featured the presence of both the president and vice-president. For his part, however, Trump said he will not be going, and made the news public in a tweet on Saturday:

���I will not be attending the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner this year. Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!���

A perfectly civil message, but given the well-publicized animus that characterizes the relationship between Trump and much of the media, the decision not to attend will surely make what is an already bad relationship even worse.

Although the polite roasting of the president by a featured comedian is a traditional hallmark of the gala, and most of the attention, overall, is paid to the presence of the chief executive, WHCA president Jeff Mason said this year���s dinner will still go off without a hitch even though the current President of the United States will not be there.

���We look forward to shining a spotlight at the dinner on some of the best political journalism of the past year and recognizing the promising students who represent the next generation of our profession.���

As recently as Friday, Trump was very much on his soapbox about the media, saying to a large crowd at last week���s Conservative Political Action Conference that the ���fake news��� put out by much of the media makes it ���the enemy of the people.���

Yeah, that probably would have been an awkward dinner date.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

Military Officer Corps Becoming More Political, Risking Loss of Public Trust

There was a time that the U.S. military sat comfortably above the political fray. That is no longer the case, and it is social media, perhaps more than anything else, that is responsible for the greatly-increasing politicization of America���s armed forces.

In a poll conducted by the National Defense University, the results of which were shared with the news site POLITICO, 500 West Point cadets and active duty military officers were surveyed as to the role politics played in their lives within the context of their careers.

Among the findings, 75 percent of respondents said they had seen social media posts or reposts by other officers that pertained to political articles and/or ideas.

Additionally, one-third of respondents said they ���regularly��� witness officers promote a political candidacy and/or criticize that of another.

According to Col. Heidi Urben, USA, a political scientist who helped assemble this study last year, these survey findings are a bad sign.

���Such behavior threatens to erode the trust in which the public holds the military, leading to it being viewed as just another interest group,��� says Urben. The colonel also points out that leadership ���must do a better job of communicating why this matters.��� Referring to Gallup poll numbers that say the American public continues to have great trust in the American military, Urben notes, ���Those trust and confidence levels, in part, relate to the fact that we are viewed as nonpartisan.���

Retired Lt. Col. Jason Dempsey, USA, a researcher for think tank Center for a New American Security, says, ���It (the military) is the most trusted institution, but a great deal of that is because the military is seen as above the political fray and is interested in the mission without a political ideology getting in the way. What happens when you open that can of worms and the military is perceived as captured? Its reputation will plummet.���

Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

 

MSNBC���s Brzezinski Says It Is ���Our Job��� to ���Control Exactly What People Think���

In an effort to re-legitimize the mainstream media in the face of an ongoing barrage of attacks against it by President Donald Trump, MSNBC���s Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski recently made an offhand comment that suggests those suspicious of the media, including Trump himself, may have things right after all.

As reported by RealClearPolitics.com, during Wednesday morning���s show, Brzezinski was discussing Trump and his view of the media when she said that ���he is trying to undermine the media and trying to make up his own facts. And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, he could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think.���

Then she followed up with this:

���And that, that is our job.���

Come again, Mika?

It���s your ���job��� to control what people think?

As you might expect, Brzezinski began getting clobbered on social media, and later sent out a message over Twitter that declared she ���said the media's job was to keep President Trump from making up his own facts, NOT that it's our job to control what people think.���

Except���that���s NOT what she said.

To make matters at least slightly worse, Brzezinski felt compelled to fire off a follow-up Tweet that read, ���Of course, that is obvious from the transcript but some people want to make up their own facts. SAD!���

The problem, of course, is that a look at the transcript simply verifies the accuracy of her on-air comment:

BRZEZINSKI: Well, I think that the dangerous, you know, edges here are that he is trying to undermine the media and trying to make up his own facts. And it could be that while unemployment and the economy worsens, he could have undermined the messaging so much that he can actually control exactly what people think. And that, that is our job.

So after the original statement, which was what it was, Brzezinski made a lame effort to deny it by telling people they got it wrong, when they clearly did not.

Some might even say that counts as an example of Brzezinski telling people what to think���which, you know, she claims she doesn���t.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

Hungary to Build SECOND Border Fence in Effort to Keep Migrants Out

Apparently, not every country thinking about building walls to help control its borders is riddled with angst over it.

Hungary has already raised one fence along its border with Serbia to help keep out migrants seeking a pathway to Western Europe. Not satisfied, it has decided to build another, according to Yahoo! News.

The Hungarian government announced on Thursday it would begin construction on a second fence along the same border. Prime Minister Viktor Orban���s chief of staff, Janos Lazar, calls the new fence ���a second line of defense��� to keep migrants and refugees out of Hungary. Orban remains dissatisfied with the European Union���s stance on immigration, which he believes to be soft, and it is predicted that the prime minister���s resolve in building a second barrier will likely worsen his relationship with that body.

Hungary���s decision to build the second fence is due to the fact that attempts to enter that country illegally, which were largely repelled just after the first fence was erected, have been on the rise of late. According to the prime minister���s chief security advisor, the first two months of 2017 have seen 1,142 attempts to enter Hungary illegally, and chief of staff Lazar says that the erection of a second border fence is essential to successfully stopping the relentless efforts of illegal immigrants trying to get inside the country.

Orban, like American counterpart Donald Trump, clearly remains unconcerned about what others think of him as he undertakes what he sees as the necessary steps to ensure the safety and security of Hungary. Taking a swipe at those who disapprove of his efforts to keep migrants out, Orban said in his Feb. 10 State of the Nation address that ���we were black sheep, but now we are a success story.��� The prime minister said, as well, that 2017 would represent, for his nation, a fight ���against globalists.���

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr, Editor At Large

 

David Horowitz: Democrats ���Doubling Down��� on All Ideas Rejected by Voters

Popular conservative writer David Horowitz says that in the wake of Democrats��� defeat in the recent presidential election, they have opted to ���double down��� on the extreme ideas that kept them from retaining the White House, and remain unable to get out of their own way.

As reported by Newsmax, Horowitz made his comments on the ���Politicking��� cable-based television show hosted by Larry King.

���They lost an election. People have rejected all the things they're doubling down on,��� said Horowitz.

He���s not wrong. Since the election, Democrats have been in a civil war, of sorts, with the strident voices of the party���s most progressive wing continuing to do what they can to shout down everyone else, including the moderates within.

Appearing with King in part to promote his latest book, Big Agenda: President Trump���s Plan to Save America, Horowitz was particularly critical of Democrats��� posture on the matter of public schools, pointedly reminding viewers that while representative politicians have been in charge of America���s largest cities for decades, students attending the schools located there continue to suffer because the party remains a slave to the teachers unions. According to Horowitz, the Democrats will back the broken public school system ���to the death,��� precisely because of its allegiance to the unions.

As for Trump, Horowitz declared on the show that he���s a ���game changer,��� saying, ���Everything he's done he said he would do in the course of the campaign.���

Continuing, Horowitz said, ���There is no other Republican who on national TV would look Hillary Clinton in the eye and say, ���You're a liar and a crook��� even though she���s both? That's liberation.���

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large 

Convicted Baby Butcher Kermit Gosnell Says He Delivered Actor Will Smith, and Now Wants His Help

The Daily Mail, in what it says is an exclusive to them, has learned that Hollywood megastar Will Smith was brought into this world by, of all people, nightmare abortion ���doctor��� Kermit Gosnell.

Wait, what?

Gosnell is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of three babies at his abortion clinic, as well as for the death of a woman who expired during the course of one of his abortion procedures. He was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in connection with her death.

Stunningly, it appears that Gosnell is trying to use his ���connection��� to the actor in an effort to convince Smith to assist him in trying to win back his freedom. According to Phelim McAleer, co-author (with Ann McElhinney) of the recently-released book Gosnell: The Untold Story of America���s Most Prolific Serial Killer, Gosnell passed along for the authors��� review the letter he sent to Smith.

In the missive, Gosnell says at the end of the first paragraph that ���I���m fond of asserting that there could never be a Men in Black if I had dropped you on your head.���

(An aside: Given what we know now of Gosnell, had he, in fact, dropped the newborn Smith on his head, that would still have been far kinder treatment than that received by many of the doomed babies who had the misfortune to cross paths with this monster.)

In the letter, Gosnell references Smith���s consideration of a possible political career as the basis for reaching out to the actor, and says ���that my experiences with prosecutorial misconduct, misrepresentation by even paid attorneys and the ���frailties and inadequacies��� of the Criminal Justice System are common to many, many inmates.���

McAleer reportedly told the Daily Mail that Gosnell believes he was ���railroaded��� by prosecutors who were of the Roman Catholic faith, and that they were motivated not by adherence to the law, but by the tenets of Catholicism.

Not surprisingly, Gosnell has not heard from Smith on the letter. Additionally, according to the Daily Mail, although the media outlet reached out to Smith���s representative seeking comment, they���ve yet to hear back.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

Columnist: Strident Resistance to Trump Works to His Advantage

David Harsanyi, writing over at the outstanding libertarian website Reason.com, says that all of this over-the-top, hysterical resistance to Trump and everything he does is not only not standing in the way of the president, it is actually working to his favor.

The centerpiece idea of his article, ���Why the Resistance Is the Best Thing That's Happened to President Trump,��� is that Democrats have done nothing any more useful since the election ��� and, particularly, since the inauguration ��� than yell and scream and otherwise do their best to be obstructionist in tenor (knowing, of course, that their minority numbers in Congress mean they can���t actually be politically obstructionist), and that the histrionics are merely acting to alienate those who, while not necessarily Trump fans, are still interested in seeing a meaningful effort at improving much of that which ails the nation, presently.

The other, related issue, says Harsanyi, is that the Democrats themselves, precisely by devoting themselves solely to objecting to everything Trump says and does, are offering nothing in the way of sensible alternatives to Trump proposals and efforts.

���Sure, it matters that President Donald Trump has a historically low favorability rating,��� writes Harsanyi. ���Then again, disliking the president isn't exactly a courageous act. Plenty of Americans���many of whom supported the president during the general election���don't like Trump. They do realize that politics is a trade-off. Here's a more revealing question pollsters might ask people: Do you ���like��� any better Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) or Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), pussyhatted marchers griping about the patriarchy or the totalitarians blocking Education Secretary Betsy Devos from walking into a public school?���

I wrote about this previously when discussing Jim Webb, the former Democratic senator from Virginia who also served as Secretary of the Navy under Reagan and was awarded the Navy Cross, Silver Star and two Purple Hearts for his service in Vietnam. Webb is an interesting guy���one who, in spite of his conservative orientation in some areas, tends to hold more socially liberal ideas without being unhinged - i.e., doesn't see patriotism, love of country, and the rule of law, as well as the assumption of a pro-business posture, as being incompatible with a platform that also seeks to leave government out of the bedroom and that endeavors to make further progress in areas like civil rights.

Anyway, when this very bright, very interesting Democrat considered competing this time around for his party's nomination for president, he was essentially chased from the field by much of the Dems' "newer blood" before the race even started, because his values did not match their lunacy.

Now, plenty of conservatives would have surely not voted for Webb because of his positions on social issues, but the point is that he would have been a genuinely viable candidate for Democrats to field; someone who would have had the capacity to sway anti-Trump conservatives fond enough of his patriotism and pro-business views to look past his stances on social issues.

That is not, however, who Democrats are, presently, and so fielding a sensible person like Webb was/is not an option. Instead, they are, simply, nuts, and apparently happy to be so. As Harsanyi puts it, ���Those who spend weeks after the election acting like the Electoral College was some kind of trick pulled on the country are not interested in rule of law. They're interested in Democrats.���

And as long as they remain in this posture, they will find themselves increasingly abandoned and isolated���and their party, eventually, fully marginalized.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

 

Bill Gates: As Robot Workforce Grows, They Should Be Taxed Like Human Workers

As automation becomes increasingly woven into the fiber of American manufacturing, many people are now spending at least a portion of their time considering the longer-term ramifications associated with such a seismic shift in the way work gets done.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates is one of those people.

In an interview with Quartz, Gates shared his thoughts on the possibility of a robot tax, of all things.

���Certainly there will be taxes that relate to automation. Right now, the human worker who does, say, $50,000 worth of work in a factory, that income is taxed and you get income tax, social security tax, all those things. If a robot comes in to do the same thing, you���d think that we���d tax the robot at a similar level.���

Later, Gates said:

���There are many ways to take that extra productivity and generate more taxes. Exactly how you���d do it, measure it, you know, it���s interesting for people to start talking about now. Some of it can come on the profits that are generated by the labor-saving efficiency there. Some of it can come directly in some type of robot tax. I don���t think the robot companies are going to be outraged that there might be a tax. It���s OK.���

Robots are obviously not going to pay any tax, but Gates imagines their producers (overseers?) paying it. That���s all well and good, until you remember who really pays all taxes ��� Joe Citizen. When a tax on a business goes up, what happens to the price of the good or service, generally? It also goes up.

Additionally, it is unclear what effect a robot-laden workforce will ultimately have on its human counterparts. If history is any guide - and it certainly should be - technological advancements tend not to eliminate jobs, in the net sense, but, rather, change the kind of work that needs to be done. There has, obviously, been all kinds of technological progress in just the last 100 or so years, and yet oodles of positions, in every community in America, remain unfilled.

The fact is, advances in artificial intelligence and robotics will be the source of plenty of new and interesting jobs, rather than the reason the human workforce goes the way of the wind.

Which means that liberal, billionaire hypocrites like Gates have nothing to fear ��� there will still be plenty of working taxpayers available to have their pockets regularly picked by the government.

No worries, right?

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large

Rightist French Politician Le Pen Won���t Wear Headscarf, Cancels Meeting with Lebanon���s Grand Mufti

As reported by Reuters, right-wing French politician Marine Le Pen, one of the leading candidates in that country���s upcoming presidential election, made waves on Tuesday for bowing out of a scheduled meeting with Lebanon���s Grand Mufti (the chief cleric for Sunni Muslims) Sheikh Abdel-Latif Derian, because she did not want to wear a headscarf for the occasion.

The reason for Le Pen���s visit to Lebanon is believed to be twofold: To help the candidate gain some gravitas in the area of foreign policy, as well as help her perhaps win over some Franco-Lebanese voters - the Lebanese Civil War from 1975 to 1990 saw close to a million people flee that country, and many went to France and gained citizenship.

In explaining to reporters her refusal to wear the headscarf, Le Pen referenced a previous visit to the Middle East, saying, ���I met the Grand Mufti of Al-Azhar (in Cairo, Egypt). The highest Sunni authority didn't have this requirement, but it doesn't matter.���

���You can pass on my respects to the Grand Mufti, but I will not cover myself up,��� she said.

The Sheikh���s press office reportedly told Le Pen���s aides beforehand that wearing the headscarf would be a requirement of the meeting, so they were, as they put it, ���surprised by her refusal.���

In other words, Le Pen may have been doing a little showboating for the cameras in order to fortify her credentials with the base that has propelled her close to the top of France���s list of presidential candidates.

Still, it is difficult to see Le Pen as anything less than sincere on the subject of battling Muslim influence in her home country. The politician has been outspoken on the subject for years, and seeks to expand France���s controversial headscarf ban, now limited to those who work in the public sector as well as to high school students, so that it applies in all public places.

The first round of France���s presidential election takes place on April 23.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large