It’s Monday, October 21st, 2019,…but before we begin, another classic cartoon from the great Stilton Jarlsberg:
In keeping with the season, of course.
Now, here’s The Gouge!
First up, if you weren’t aware of it, as Leah Barkoukis details at Townhall.com, America’s neighbor to the south is, for all practical purposes, in a state of anarchy:
Meanwhile, while Mexico melts down just across what amounts to an open border, Republicans like Mitt and Mitch are focused on “momentous” matters in the Middle East.
Keep in mind, both sides of the aisle are wringing their hands raw over the removal of a handful of troops from Syria, while the silence over the security threat posed by events in Mexico is positively deafening! The drug cartels are using truly military grade weapons (unlike anything Progressives claim the average American possesses) to rule huge swaths of the country, and the Mexican government is powerless to stop them.
Here’s the juice: there were over 33,000 murders in Mexico last year. That’s more than twice as many as were committed in the United States, including the victims of drug-related gang violence in America’s cities. Yet Mexico’s population is less than a third of ours.
There’s no question some portion of this violence spreads across into the United States. And there’s no question extra border security, particularly The Wall, would serve to significantly reduce it, along with the drug trafficking which generates it.
So puh-LEASE, until Congress gives OUR southern border the attention it so desperately deserves, don’t expect us to get overly excited about the U.S. Military not defensing the border between Turkey and Syria.
Next, writing at FOX News, Jim Breslo records how…
“…In November 2018, California voters defeated a statewide ballot initiative that would have extended rent control statewide. It was soundly rejected by an almost 20-point margin.Every county in the state except for San Francisco voted it down.
Even the Democrat running for governor, Gavin Newsom, indicated his opposition to the initiative. But now that he’s in office, the former lieutenant governor and former mayor of San Francisco has changed his position, insisting the state must respond to the homeless problem.
Last week we learned of at least one of the actions the governor plans to take. Newsom signed a statewide rent-control law, overturning the will of the people. He followed the progressive playbook by using the homeless crisis “to do things that you could not do before.”
Progressives assert that the homeless crisis is due in large part to a housing shortage, and that the best way to address the shortage is with rent control. The new law also protects tenants from eviction without good reason and provides compensation to tenants if they are evicted due to renovation.
“The housing crisis is reaching every corner of America, where you’re seeing high home prices, high rents, evictions and homelessness that we’re all struggling to grapple with,” said Assemblyman David Chiu, a San Francisco Democrat who authored the bill. “Protecting tenants is a critical and obvious component of any strategy to address this.”
It may be “obvious” to some, but any scratching of the surface of California’s rent law shows it to be utterly useless.
First, the law ignores the fact that the state’s epicenters of homelessness, Los Angeles and San Francisco, already have rent control on the books that’s even more stringent than what just passed.
In San Francisco, studies show the caps have sharply decreased the supply of rental housing, driving up rents citywide by 5 percent.That’s because landlords demolished properties and built pricey new ones to avoid the caps.
If rent control helps reduce homelessness, why is the problem so prevalent in the very cities that already have it? And how is extending it to the rest of the state supposed to address the issue?
…What politicians must acknowledge is that the real cause of most homelessness is the prevalence of mental illness and substance abuse in the homeless community. According to a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development report, 45 percent of homeless people suffer from mental illness. A University of Pennsylvania report, found that about half suffer from alcohol or drug dependence.
In addition, a U.S. Conference of Mayors report in 2014 revealed that only 18 percent of the homeless are employed. That means that for most, the cost of housing doesn’t really matter. They simply can’t afford it.
Rent control has been a proven failure in addressing housing problems. It prompts landlords to convert their properties into owner-occupied homes, and deters investment in the housing market, aggravating the shortages that caused them in the first place.
Further, when landlords are limited in their ability to raise rents and cannot freely evict tenants, they will be extremely careful in who they rent to. That has a significant adverse effect on the ability of low-income people to find rental housing.Europe has had such limitations for years, and it’s notoriously difficult to qualify for a rental property there.
Europe similarly requires “good cause” before terminating an employee; the thinking being that this will result in fewer layoffs and thus lower unemployment. In fact, it has the opposite effect.
The harder it is to fire someone, the more cautious employers are in hiring.
The same concept applies to housing…”
As longtime friend, frequent contributor and Portland-area resident Bill Meisen so insightfully observed:
Hard to disagree with that. Over the last two years Portland has doubled the number of homeless shelter beds. Here are the results:
– Homeless population down 4%
– Total number of homeless living in shelters down 23%
– Total number of homeless living in the streets up 34%
– Cost to the taxpayer of $75 million
Free housing, let alone affordable housing, did nothing to slow the growth of people living in the streets in Portland.
Please…they’re PROGRESSIVES…don’t confuse them with the facts!!!
Then there’s this rather interesting piece from the WSJ, interesting because while its headline is correct, its subhead offers facts not in evidence, and truths nowhere close to reality:
“America’s political polarization is almost complete. (TRUE!)Its two main political parties increasingly represent two different economies.(FALSE!) And they barely overlap. (FALSE!)
Democrats can be found in educated cities and suburbs where professional jobs are plentiful.(TRUE!)Republicans live in working-class and rural communities, home to agriculture and low-skill manufacturing(FALSE!)…”
No mention anywhere in the article about the tens of millions of destitute Dimocrats inhabiting the “educated cities“; nor the tens of millions of professional Republicans residing in the suburbs.
Since we’re on the subject of completely concocted “reporting”, in today’s installment of the Dan Rather Memorial “The Story Was Fake But Accurate” segment, this just in from FOX “News“:
“The first Chick-fil-A in the United Kingdom announced it would be shutting down in six months, just days after the popular American fast-food chain made its debut in the country, amid pressures from gay rights activists protesting the chain for contributing millions of dollarsto anti-LGBTQ groups.
Protestors swarmed The Oracle shopping center on Saturday holding a sign saying “GET THE CHICK OUT Say NO to bigotry and hatred on your High Street.”
The store opened its “pilot” location on Oct. 10 in Reading, which is about an hour and a half drive from London. A mall spokesperson said concerns raised by activists about the chain have made them determine “the right thing to do” is not to extend the restaurant’s lease beyond the “six-month pilot period,” according to reports by BBC.
The restaurant has long faced pushback from LGBTQ groups who have attacked CEO Dan Cathy after he repeatedly made comments condemning homosexuality and gay marriage and donating $1.8 million in 2017 to groups that spread anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, according to reports byThink Progress. (Yeah, $1,653,416 to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, $6,000 to the Paul Anderson Youth Home, and $150,000 to the Salvation Army!!!)
Chick-fil-A defended the donations saying they were intended to “help with economic mobility of young people by focusing on homelessness and poverty, education, and community revitalization, and is done with no political or social agenda,” according to a company statement in March.
Cathy has openly said that America is “inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at him and say we know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage,” in a 2012 radio interview. “I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude that thinks we have the audacity to redefine what marriage is all about,” he added at the time.
Cathy later doubled down on his comments saying he is “guilty as charged” in his discriminatory beliefs…”
And what, pray tell, are the heinous examples of anti-LBGTQRSTUVWXYZ rhetoric spread by these three repressive bastions of reactionary thought?!? As Think Progress reports:
“The Fellowship of Christian Athletes is a religious organization that seeks to spread an anti-LGBTQ message to college athletes and requires a strict “sexual purity” policy for its employees that bars any “homosexual acts.”
In other words, the FCA is a Christian organization which adheres to the teachings of GOD ALMIGHTY as set forth in the best-selling book in the history of the planet, THE BIBLE!!!
“Paul Anderson Youth Home, a “Christian residential home for trouble youth,” teaches boys that homosexuality is wrong and that same-sex marriage is “rage against Jesus Christ and His values.”
In other words, the Paul Anderson Youth Home is a Christian organization which adheres to the teachings of GOD ALMIGHTY as set forth in the best-selling book in the history of the planet, THE BIBLE!!!
“The Salvation Army has a long record of opposing legal protections for LGBTQ Americans and at the time of the donations had a written policy of merely complying with local “relevant employment laws.”“
In other words, The Salvation Army is a Christian organization which adheres to the teachings of GOD ALMIGHTY as set forth in the best-selling book in the history of the planet, THE BIBLE!!!
More importantly, neither the FCA, Paul Anderson Youth Home, The Salvation Army, Chick-fil-A or Dan Cathy has EVER opposed legal protections for LGBTQ citizens not afforded otherAmericans not, let alone advocated for any form of discrimination against same. They simply choose to follow God’s word as recorded in the Bible: that homosexuality is a sin and the holy bonds of matrimony should exist only between a biological man and woman.
To report or represent anything different is a LIE!!!
Besides, if opposing gay marriage constitutes “anti-LGBTQ rhetoric”, then right up through 2008, Barack Hussein Obama and Hillary Clinton were of the same mind as Dan Cathy and the organizations to which he contributes.
And in the EnvironMental Moment, in reaction to an amazing display of economic ignorance which rivals the collective fiscal consciousness of the entire 2020 Dimocratic field…
“…Robin Boardman, a spokesman for the protesters, said that if such action is necessary to make the government take notice of their climate change demands, “then this is what we must do.”
“None of us want to inconvenience ordinary people,” he said. “That’s why we’re doing this in the morning when it will impact business as usual, and not in the eveningwhen people want to get home to be with their loved ones.”
…one person could be heard shouting, “I need to get to work, I have to feed my kids.”…”
Further evidence, as if any were needed, of the total detachment from reality of The Left in general, and the EnviroNazis in particular. But if you’re still not convinced of their utter insanity, this item forwarded from Jeff Foutch should seal the deal…assuming you’re at all open to the truth.
Which brings us, appropriately enough, to The Lighter Side:
Then there’s this memorable meme courtesy of Jo-Jo Dunn:
Finally, we’ll call it a day with Yet Another Sign The Apocalypse Is Upon Us, courtesy today of, to our undying shame, our alma mater:
“A group of US Naval Academy midshipmen who subscribe to The Satanic Temple have requested that the academy honor their non-theistic beliefs like it does for other faiths. The Military Times Observation Post reports that an October 8 internal email leaked out which said “Satanic Services” would soon be offered there on the campus located in Annapolis, Maryland.
Cmdr. Alana Garas, an academy spokesperson, disputes that report, explaining the midshipmen wanted a “study group space,” the Military Times reported.“A group of Midshipmen with beliefs aligned with those practiced by The Satanic Temple…requested a space where they could assemble to discuss and share their common beliefs,” Garas wrote in an email.“The request was for a ‘study group’ space, not for holding ‘satanic services.'”…”
Soooo,…while there are no atheists in foxholes, there may well be some Satanists; John Paul Jones must be rolling over in his crypt!
By the way, before we resized the meme which accompanies this item to fit our format, no bullsh*t, it came out 666 pixels in width.
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