California Attacks Plastic Straws : Huge Fines And Jail Time.

California comes through again explaining what it means to be environmentally friendly. It appears there is no limit to the insanity that has a crushing grip on the socialist lunatics that govern the great state of California.

If one tries to understand the thinking of progressive liberal legislators in this state, it wouldn't take long before you would find yourself in a restricted white coat and being lead to the nearest rubber room.

California Bill Threatens Waiters With Jail for Providing Plastic Straws

Amy Swearer / @AmySwearer / January 29, 2018

Waiters could face criminal penalties for giving straws to customers if a recently proposed California bill goes into effect.

California Assemblyman Ian Calderon, the Democratic majority leader of the state Assembly, has introduced a bill into the state’s lower House that would make it a criminal offense for restaurant employees to provide patrons with single-use plastic straws unless a patron specifically requests one. The measure would only apply to sit-down restaurants, and not fast food or similar locations. Each such action would constitute a misdemeanor, punishable by up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Calderon argued in a press release that this bill was not meant to ban straws entirely, but constitutes a “small step towards curbing our reliance on these convenience products, which will hopefully contribute to a change in consumer attitudes and usage.”

As Christian Britschgi of Reason points out, this bill would not be the state’s first foray into banning single-use straws—the cities of San Luis Obispo, Davis, and Manhattan Beach all have city ordinances prohibiting their use in one capacity or another. Calderon’s bill, however, would be the first of its kind to impose criminal liability on restaurants and their employees.

The movement to reduce the use of plastic straws has received considerable support in California, with none other than the Los Angeles Times and celebrity astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson endorsing “straws-on-request” policies.

Proponents of these prohibitions claim that Americans use 500 million plastic straws a day, many of which end up harming fragile ecosystems when they find their way into waterways and oceans.

The Environmental Center of San Luis Obispo reported that the county’s 2017 Coastal Cleanup Day resulted in over 1,300 straws being collected from local beaches, while the California Coastal Commission has seen its annual Coastal Cleanup Day collect over 835,400 straws since 1988.

However, the validity of the “500 million straws a day” estimate is questionable. According to the National Park Service, the number comes from a recycling company named Eco-Cycle, which in turn credits the research of Milo Cress. Cress arrived at this number after conducting phone surveys of straw manufacturers in 2011—when he was just 9 years old.

Even operating under the assumption that the number of straws used is verifiable (a rather large assumption), there is absolutely no need to use criminal sanctions as a means of solving the “straw problem.” As it currently stands, California has more than 5,000 separate provisions in its criminal code, “covering almost every conceivable form of human misbehavior.”

This problem was highlighted by Gov. Jerry Brown, who vetoed nine bills in 2015 that would have otherwise created even more criminal offenses for Californians.

The addition of criminal sanctions for something as benign as giving straws to customers seems particularly counterintuitive in a state that has spent the last few years attempting to significantly decrease its incarceration rates. Attempts like this to hang prison sentences over the heads of average citizens for comparatively harmless actions are emblematic of an epidemic faced by the country as a whole—overcriminalization.

At the federal level alone, there are over 4,450 offenses listed in Title 18, which is the criminal section of the U.S. Code. This does not include the uncountable number of obscure agency regulations for which a person can face potential criminal penalties, even if they had no reason to know they were violating the regulation.

The desire to protect the environment and encourage the consumption of fewer single-use straws is certainly laudable, and Americans should continue striving to find ways to be better stewards of the earth. Threatening waiters with jail time over taking a typical customer service initiative, thereby increasing the odds that more Californians will be fined or imprisoned over actions that are not inherently immoral, is simply not a very efficient way of protecting either the environment or the citizens of California.

Transgenderism Is Off the Rails : What Happened to Common Sense and Reality?

And now ask her if she wants to become a boy. What's wrong with that?

What's next for children? Asking a 4 years old what our foreign policy should be? Or better yet, ask them for their opinion on what to do with immigration or how to fund our military.

Or if you think this is to complicated for them, then asked them to discus school choice or what is the best distribution of taxes within the community?

Over the top? If a 4 year old decides  to become a different sex then they were born with, and of course at 4 years old they have no idea what sex they are, this is enough for the parents to take them to a doctor to make this 4 year old wishes come true.

Now which of these scenarios is insane? Asking a 4 year old about foreign policy or complying with their wishes of a 4 year old to have a sex change?

At what point have we come completely of the rails of common sense and logic. When was logic and realty replaced with insanity.

Transgender Ideology Hurts Kids

Ryan T. Anderson / @RyanTAnd / January 29, 2018

Properly understanding sex, gender, gender identity, and gender dysphoria will continue to be pressing concerns in 2018. A proper understanding is a prerequisite for properly forming people in the truth and properly ministering to people in need.

As new gender ideologies are promoted throughout America, their lies will impact not only those who suffer from gender dysphoria, but all children who need to mature in their self-understanding as a boy or girl, man or woman, a potential husband or wife, father or mother.

In 2007, Boston Children’s Hospital “became the first major program in the United States to focus on transgender children and adolescents,” as its website brags. A decade later, more than 45 pediatric gender clinics have opened their doors to our nation’s children.

Parents are told that puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones may be the only way to prevent their children from committing suicide. Never mind that the best studies of gender dysphoria show that between 80 and 95 percent of children who express a discordant gender identity will come to identify with their bodily sex if natural development is allowed to proceed.

Never mind that “transitioning” treatment has not been shown to reduce the extraordinarily high rate of suicide attempts among people who identify as transgender (41 percent, compared with 4.6 percent of the general population).

Never mind that people who have had transition surgery are 19 times more likely to die by suicide.

These statistics should be enough to halt the headlong rush into “transitioning” and prompt us to find more effective ways to prevent these tragic outcomes. Most of all, we shouldn’t be encouraging children to “transition,” or making heroes and role models of those who have done so.

For more on how to understand transgender issues, get a copy of Ryan Anderson’s new book “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment.”

We should be tolerant—indeed, loving—toward those who struggle with their gender identity, but also be aware of the harm done to the common good, particularly to children, when transgender identity is normalized.

Transgender activists are not merely asking for tolerance or kindness. They are demanding affirmation, not just from adults but from children and adolescents who are already challenged by the normal process of sexual development.

In a culture where transgender identities are not only affirmed but celebrated, everyone will be compelled to construct their own gender identity, unaided by a common understanding of sex differences and why they matter.

In my new book “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment,” I show that the best biology, psychology, and philosophy all support an understanding of sex as a bodily reality, and an understanding of gender as a social manifestation of bodily sex. Biology isn’t bigotry.

A sound understanding of gender rejects sex stereotypes on the one hand and androgyny on the other. The virtuous mean is a view of gender that reveals meaningful sex differences and communicates the difference they make—a view that takes sex differences seriously while upholding the fundamental equality of the sexes as complements to one another.

The most helpful therapies do not try to remake the body to conform with thoughts and feelings—which is impossible—but rather to help people find healthy ways to manage their tension and move toward accepting the reality of their bodily selves.

My book provides a nuanced view of our sexed embodiment, a balanced approach to policy issues involving transgender identity and gender more broadly, and a sober and honest survey of the human costs of getting human nature wrong.

Junk Science Destroying Individual Rights : Sexual Assault Investigations

Junk science is a tool to be used to take advantage of the unaware and ignorant to gain an advantage over others. Climate change is one of the best examples where lies and deception is the order of the day to steal the general public blind of their rights and their tax dollars.

The 'trauma-informed-investigation' legislation is still more of the same. When ever the word ''science'' is invoked as the basis driving evidence for an agenda, even when there isn't any proof, moves the general pubic to turn away confused and conflicted. The fraud wins the day.

This bill now processing  in congress that will eliminate the rights of the accused, is just more of the progressive liberal attack against the rule of law that was designed to protect the innocent from those that wish to rule by fiat.

They believe there is no law other then what they say it is. It is the rule of law supported by ones power of position in the community of other subservient and capitulant actors deeming them selves as the final arbiters of high learning and experience in the greater civil society, and therefore no need to look further for justice then us.  

Case in point. Remember the Duke Lacrosse team case where several of the team members were accused of raping an dancer at a party but it was proved, over a period of several years, it never happened. The accused had no creditability. They were destroyed by progressive liberal social ideology where victims rights are supreme.

How about the writer from Rolling Stones Magazine making accusation of rape that were totally unfounded. But no matter the media picked it up and ran with it. Yeah later they had to apologized but non the less it was by design. They didn't care. Again it the seriousness of the charge that mattered.

And as in so many cases, the ruling class of progressive disciples in the justice system and Duke University, the team members had no place in the proceeding. They had no rights to justice. The ruling by media and justice system was the progressive standard of accusation, it was 'the seriousness of the charge'. The facts were not important.

This Junk-Science Approach to Sexual Assault Cases Would Trample on Rights of the Accused

Amy Swearer / @AmySwearer / January 24, 2018

A group of bipartisan congressmen have introduced a bill in the House of Representatives that would award monetary grants to law enforcement and related agencies that use so-called “trauma-informed investigation” for handling cases of sexual violence and stalking.

The money distributed under H.R. 4720 would directly fund training programs that instruct relevant personnel on a “trauma-informed” approach to crimes of sexual violence, informed by “the fundamentals of the neurobiology of trauma [and the] impact of trauma on victims.”

H.R. 4720 pursues the admirable goal of promoting justice in the interests of victims. However, despite these good intentions, it fails to achieve that goal and instead promotes a scientifically unsound pseudo-science and a criminal justice theory completely at odds with well-established concepts of procedural due process. Congress should reject this effort to fundamentally alter the role of the impartial police investigator.

What is a ‘trauma-informed’ investigation?

Trauma-informed investigative practices are an offspring of the “Start by Believing” campaign, launched in 2011 by End Violence Against Women International as part of its goal to “transform the way we respond to sexual assault.” As the name suggests, the basic premise of the campaign is to dramatically reconstruct the role of law enforcement officers, detectives, and other investigators of sexual assault by training them to focus on how the complainant could be telling the truth despite evidence to the contrary.

Under this approach, investigators should no longer be neutral, third-party fact-gatherers, but agents of the person alleging sexual assault. They should assume all complainants are genuine victims and must find ways of making even inconsistent, inaccurate, and exculpatory evidence support the complainant’s allegations.

“Trauma-informed investigation” theory attempts to cloak “Start by Believing” with an air of scientific credibility, instructing investigators and adjudicators of assault claims to consider the “neurobiology of trauma” and how it affects an alleged victim’s behaviors and ability to recall information.

Proponents of this theory claim that trauma—such as being sexually assaulted—often causes a disabling physiological response that severely inhibits victims’ memories of an event, limits their cognizance of time frames, and results in actions otherwise considered abnormal by a passive observer.

In layman’s terms, “trauma-informed” investigators are told to ignore standard red flags, such as inconsistent accounts, counterintuitive behavioral responses, and even factually wrong statements, because these things are normal from trauma victims. In fact, because these are the exact type of responses expected of “real victims,” their presence should be interpreted as evidence that the complainant experienced psychological trauma and must be telling the truth.

‘Trauma-informed investigation’: Scientifically and legally problematic

There are two substantial problems with the use of a “trauma-informed” approach to criminal investigations. First, it is based on “junk science” with no grounding in reality. Second, its use necessarily destroys very important due process safeguards, effectively stacking the deck against any person accused of sexual assault and increasing the risk of erroneous convictions.

It is absolutely true that victims of trauma will respond to the experience in a variety of ways, some of which may be out of step with how even the victim thought he or she would react. It is also true that people who experience the most severe cases of trauma—such as those who spend time in war zones—may have gaps in their memory of the events. Such gaps can also exist due to the presence of drugs or alcohol, which limit the brain’s ability to form and retain memories.

However, there is no scientific support for claims that victims of trauma store infallible, but “fragmented,” memories, as proponents of the neurobiology of trauma contend. In fact, many studies seem to indicate an opposite conclusion. As Richard McNally, a Harvard psychology professor and expert on trauma and memory, notes in his book “Remembering Trauma,” extreme stress is known to often enhance the subsequent recall of life-threatening incidents.

This is not to say that this enhanced recall will always be present, but it is certainly not evidence tending to support a theory that victims of trauma suffer from memory-recall problems as a general rule.

Equally disturbing is the apparent lack of concern from proponents about the well-documented malleability of memory, or the very real likelihood that complainants can be vulnerable to post-event suggestions that lead them to label consensual acts as rape.

As one writer from The Atlantic has noted, the neurobiology of trauma theory is eerily reminiscent of the “repressed memory” scare of the 1980s and 1990s, which is now widely regarded as “psychiatric folklore devoid of convincing empirical support.”

The use of “trauma-informed investigation” in criminal cases also poses significant, perhaps even irreconcilable, constitutional problems. Under the Fifth and 14th Amendments, no person may be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.

Procedural due process ensures that a defendant facing criminal charges receives adequate and fair proceedings for the determination of his guilt or innocence. Although what constitutes “fairness” is relative and may depend on the circumstances of the particular defendant (Snyder v. Massachusetts), there are certain safeguards that the Supreme Court has determined are absolutely necessary to the provision of procedural due process.

The presence of an impartial investigator concerned with separating fact from fiction—one who does not take sides, but who gathers and analyzes evidence in a neutral light—is a principle vitally important to the concept of fundamental fairness. Like the presumption of innocence and the use of a reasonable-doubt standard, the use of neutral investigators is a prime instrument in reducing the risk of convictions based on factual errors.

But this is, in fact, the very purpose of “trauma-informed” investigation. In the words of Janet Halley, a professor at Harvard Law School, the intended effect of “trauma-informed” investigation training is “100 percent aimed to convince [training recipients] to believe complainants, precisely when they seem unreliable and incoherent.”

One poignant illustration of just how devastating “trauma-informed” investigations can be to due process is the case of a male former student at the University of Oregon who is now suing the school and several school officials after finally having his suspension for sexual assault overturned by a judge.

The student, known only as John Doe, was accused of rape by a female student, whose inconsistent—and sometimes blatantly false—testimony was either ignored or, worse, weaponized under the “neurobiology of trauma” theory as proof that she was raped. The stunning ways school investigators managed to ignore the overwhelming weight of the evidence is detailed in John Doe’s complaint, which was filed in federal district court.

If Congress is truly worried about helping victims of sexual assault, it will not fund training programs designed to obfuscate the due process rights of every person accused of this heinous crime. Due process safeguards are not obstacles to be overcome or avoided. They are, on the contrary, precious protections of liberty to be cherished in a free society that values justice and equality before the law.

Depriving defendants of due process rights does not make justice easier to obtain, but harder to obtain, because it taints convictions with the most conscience-damning burden known to a just society; namely, doubt.

When the even-handed and fair nature of a society’s justice system sits in doubt, its legitimacy as an institution sits equally in doubt.

This article has been corrected to reflect the political parties of the lawmakers introducing the bill.

Two of A Kind At Odds : An IRS Criminal And A Communist - Who Pays?

Hey, looking for a pair to draw to? Look no further.

WOW - this is a problem. One is a progressive democrat and a criminal with the IRS after him for tax evasion, hasn't paid millions in back taxes. He says he's broke!

And the other guy is communist that is demanding the other guy pay the check because he doesn't need money in a society that's free from all responsibility. Others do the work and pay the bills.

Besides the communists' wife has been arrested for bank fraud. Only in America!

U. Virginia Denies Free Speech : Bill of Rights No Longer Applies

And again, as is the case on so many college campuses today, what we are witnessing among the disciples of progressive liberalism at the University of Virginia is rampant fear of the loss of power to common sense and Constitutional law.

The progressives are not like ordinary people that live and work in reality. Their DNA does not allow them to recognize opposition to their personal agenda or ideology,  no matter what form it comes in. The totally blinded to intrusion of opposition thought.

There can be only one opinion, one thought process and or only one conclusion, and that is what ever the socialist liberal believes beyond any doubt it should be. No debate. No discussion.  All others must bend the knee or be destroyed.

University of Virginia Betrays the Legacy of Its Founder, Thomas Jefferson

Hans von Spakovsky / @HvonSpakovsky / January 25, 2018

The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, which is located in Charlottesville and is dedicated to “the defense of free expression in all its forms,” gives out annual awards called the “Jefferson Muzzles” to individuals and organizations responsible for “especially egregious or ridiculous affronts to free expression.”

The center’s first such award this year should go to the Jefferson-founded University of Virginia (which has close ties to the center) and Patrick D. Hogan, the university’s executive vice president and chief operating officer.

Hogan might also benefit from sitting in as an observer at one of the University of Virginia School of Law’s classes explaining the basic tenets of the First Amendment.

On Jan. 19, Hogan sent out a “community advisory” in an email to all students, faculty, and staff, warning them that the university was “aware of reports of solicitations by national organizations to encourage distribution of offensive flyers and memes at colleges and universities across the country during the upcoming weekend.”

Apparently, in Hogan’s mind, saying something “offensive” is the same as committing a heinous criminal act. How do we know that? Because his email tells students to call 911 if they see someone “posting offensive flyers or other material.” No, really. Posting such material violates the university’s “posting and chalking” policy and is included in Hogan’s definition of “suspicious activity.”

Hogan was particularly concerned over any “offensive” material that might be distributed at “buildings and centers for under-represented groups, particularly Women’s Studies.”

In other words, if you decide to exercise your First Amendment right to speak at UVA by, perhaps, calling the “Women’s Study” program a faux social science curriculum, or by pointing out that its graduates may have a very tough time finding a job in which they can actually support themselves, then law enforcement officers will be called to come after you—a total abuse of the 911 emergency response system.

This is apparently UVA’s version of the “Thought Police” from George Orwell’s “1984.”

Hogan also apparently needs a remedial course on the man who founded his university. In 1787, Jefferson sent a letter to James Madison telling him that the failure to include a bill of rights by the delegates to the Constitutional Convention was a mistake:

''A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse.''

The right to free speech (even when offensive) is, of course, prominently guaranteed in the very first amendment of our Bill of Rights.

I have no doubt that the British Crown authorities found the Declaration of Independence, which Jefferson drafted, deeply offensive. If the 911 system had existed at the time, they would also have asked any colonist who saw the declaration being posted to immediately call law enforcement.

How sad that a great institution of learning like the University of Virginia, started by one of our greatest Founders, has so lost its way that it no longer understands the importance of being a place where there is vigorous debate, discussion, and civil disagreement on public policy and political issues.

While there is no doubt the university must guard against violence and threats of violence, that does not give it a license to curtail any speech that it believes, in the infinite wisdom of school administrators or even students, is offensive or provocative, or does not fit within the ideological orthodoxy that currently prevails on campus.

Identity Politics to Divide And Conquer: Trump's Census Bureau Makes Changes

Coming to together as Americans will not happen any time soon as the progressive socialist liberal democrats are wholly invested with the idea of 'divide and conquer' to establish a voting base that will be perpetual and enduring to bring them into office and keep them there for the foreseeable future.

The fight over immigration is case in point. Why does anyone think the progressive socialists want open boarders? Just imagine how many immigrants would arrive here that can't speak English and probably can't read or write in Spanish, knowing a life of no work but free health care, housing, food, clothing awaits them. And 'Chain Migration'!

Our country will be forever changed.

Trump Administration Strikes a Blow Against Identity Politics

Mike Gonzalez / @Gundisalvus / January 28, 2018

Americans who are sick of identity politics and yearn for a return to the unifying notion of “e pluribus unum” will cheer the Census Bureau’s recent move to reject changes to the decennial survey that were proposed by the Obama administration.

Briefly put, the Obama administration had proposed artificially creating yet another pan-ethnic grouping, for Americans of Middle East and North African descent. The administration also proposed reducing the choices of Americans of Latin American or Caribbean descent (the bureaucratically invented pan-ethnic group the census calls “Hispanics”) to identify themselves by a real race (such as black or white).

The Obama administration made this proposal in late September 2016, no doubt fully expecting an incoming Clinton administration to rubber-stamp it (pasted below is the balkanizing census question that was proposed). Then history got in the way.




The decision, announced last Friday by the bureau, to stop this further slide into becoming a fractured republic is welcome, if only because not doing a very bad thing is itself a very good thing.

But now the Trump administration needs to go much further to rid the country of the identitarian fever currently sweeping into all corners of society. It must start with the decisive step of getting rid of many of the silly ethnic boxes that since 1980 have found their way into the constitutionally mandated census. It must also break once and for all the lock that progressive organizations currently enjoy, through advisory bodies, on the formulation of the census.

These steps will no doubt require political courage, but the administration prides itself both in its boldness and on understanding the centrality of the nation’s identity.

The breakup of the country into government-created ethnic categories has been a negative byproduct of the civil rights era, and the opposite of the equality the 1964 Civil Rights Act itself set out to create. As one of the foremost historians of the period, University of California, San Diego professor John Skrentny, put in his book “The Minority Rights Revolution,” policymakers and bureaucrats:

''carved out and gave official sanction to a new category of Americans: the minorities. Without much thought given to what they were doing, they created and legitimized for civil society a new discourse of race, group differences and rights. This new discourse mirrored racist talk by reinforcing the racial differences of certain ethnic groups.''

Our current racial and ethnic dispensation is more akin to apartheid-era South Africa than to anything the Founders intended, but it is strictly policed by special-interest ethnic organizations.

The outsized sway of these organizations is increasingly the subject of academic attention. As Alice Robbin of Indiana University describes it, “They can be influential beyond their numbers in the public policy process” and have now made America into an “interest group society.”

This actually understates the problem: there can be compromises, say, between labor and capital, but there cannot be compromises where identity, not money, is at stake (just witness the contradictory mess that is “intersectionality”).

The administration has shown it understands how liberal groups have insinuated themselves into policymaking over the past decades in other areas and has moved to limit their influence. The census deserves at least the same attention. The census “both creates the image and provides a mirror of that image for a nation’s self-reflection” is how Harvard professors Jennifer L. Hochschild and Brenna M. Powell put it.

Does President Donald Trump want to leave office knowing it has left progressive outfits such La Raza, NALEO, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, the Census Project, the Arab American Institute, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and many others in charge of determining who America is?

The success of these special-interest organizations depends on brainwashing individual Americans into sorting themselves out by ethnic and racial categories, and seeing themselves as members of victimized and alienated minorities who need government protection from a supposedly cruel and irredeemably racist society. Even with the best of intentions, the incentives are all wrong.

The Census Bureau itself tells you that “The information the census collects helps determine how more than $400 billion of federal funding each year are spent on infrastructure, programs, and services.”  In other words: “come and get it.”

These groups are now so used to mau mauing census officials that when the Census Bureau made its announcement last Friday they complained almost in unison, and promised to take their case to the U.S. Congress.

But the interest of any administration, right or left, should be to encourage Americans to see themselves as empowered citizens with agency and the ability to thrive in a country that, despite its faults, provides opportunities for those willing to take advantage of them. The goal for all Americans, especially for the left, should be social solidarity, a concept this president has emphasized, but that many in the left are now also understanding.

This is why all Americans, liberal or conservative, should welcome the census news, and ask for further steps.

Michael Wolff's Book : Deception And Delusion As Fact.(Videos)

None of this book has anything to do with facts - this is nothing more then political assassination with outright lies to gain an advantage when debate and discourse is impossible. It's the usual from the progressive socialist liberal play book, 'it's the seriousness of the charge', not about anything real or truthful, but forces the target to defend themselves against misinformation out right lies.

Yeah know, I don't know of a single book written by a Conservative that relies totally on misinformation and deception as a means to destroy any and all opposition to what can be seen as tortured and depraved logic.

How does this happen? when even the author stated at the beginning of his book that much of what is stated cannot be substantiated or proven as fact. But it doesn't matter, the media eats it up. It's what makes the progressives look forward to life from day to day.

And this author just suggest that Wolff is just a misogynist when in realty he is just another progressive socialist liberal monster.?An immoral and unethical vicious bastard! And worst of all, true democrat.

Remember the Dan Rather theory of news reporting? ''It's not true but it should be, so we will run with the story''.

Michael Wolff Is the Misogynist the Left Loves
Kelsey Harkness / @kelseyjharkness / January 26, 2018

Conservative women who work for the Trump administration just can’t catch a break. “Fire and Fury” author Michael Wolff displayed the worst kind of misogyny toward U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley last week, suggesting on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” that Haley engaged in an extramarital affair with President Donald Trump.

“I was absolutely sure [of the affair],” Wolff said. But “it was so incendiary.”

Wolff said he chose not to publish the account because he “didn’t have the blue dress,” referencing President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. Wolff didn’t name Haley during the interview, but dropped a trail of clues for readers to all but conclude he was referring to Haley. “You just have to read between the lines,” he said. “It’s toward the end of the book. … Now that I’ve told you, when you hit that paragraph, you’re gonna say, ‘Bingo.’”

Video : https://youtu.be/UqX_HjTCAbI

Online speculation quickly pointed at Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, and Wolff has done nothing to dispute that. According to Politico, which asked Haley about the rumors in its “Women Rule” podcast, Wolff wrote in his book that Trump had been spending “a notable amount of private time with Haley on Air Force One and was seen to be grooming her for a national political future.”

(For the record, Haley told Politico she has “literally been on Air Force One once, and there were several people in the room when I was there.”)

Let's take a moment to recap this situation from the vantage point of those who live by identity politics: A middle-aged white man suggested a minority woman slept her way to the top, citing zero evidence.

And yet somehow that’s acceptable. Video : https://youtu.be/oS4TwTk0z9A

This man, who published a book that was filled with political gossip and factual errors, rose in fame thanks to countless interviews with journalists such as Savannah Guthrie (NBC), Joe Scarborough (MSNBC), Judy Woodruff (PBS), Christiane Amanpour (CNN), Don Lemon (CNN), Lawrence O’Donnell (MSNBC), and Chris Matthews (MSNBC). Thus far, from what I’ve seen, those journalists have been silent on the Haley accusations.

To be fair, the journalists might be thinking that since Wolff didn’t make the allegations on their TV shows, why would they be responsible? But that misses the fact that their attention helped give Wolff a big-enough platform to promote these kind of horrifying accusations.

It’s true that journalists and TV hosts can’t control what a sleazy gossip columnist says and does in his free time, but they can and do control whether that sleazy gossip columnist is taken seriously in the media. “The idea that these things come out, that’s a problem,” Haley told Politico in her class-act response to the rumors.

“But it goes to a bigger issue that we need to always be conscious of,” she added. “At every point in my life, I’ve noticed that if you speak your mind and you’re strong about it and you say what you believe, there is a small percentage of people that resent that and the way they deal with it is to try and throw arrows, lies or not.”

Michael Wolff is a sad character. Watching interviews, I have sympathy for a man who is so desperate for fortune and fame that he is willing to defame the character of a hardworking woman who has sacrificed so much for her career and country.

People like Wolff have always existed. What’s different now is that under the Trump administration, the media has a higher tolerance for tabloid news. In a desperation to delegitimize the president, they turn toward rumor-spouting hacks like Wolff, who admits to compromising longstanding journalistic norms at the expense of his victims.

Watch the video : https://youtu.be/65fcHgUxvf4

Maher deserves to be ostracized from the #MeToo movement. No one who supports women would laugh at such a disgusting, unfounded allegation. (Consider this: How does it promote women in the workforce to imply that one of the highest-ranked women in the United States is engaged in a sexual affair with her boss?)

As for the rest of the media who made Wolff headline news, they owe Haley an apology for legitimizing a man who would smear her career in such a sleazy way. For a moment there, I thought we were making progress in the #MeToo movement. Men were taking responsibility and promising change.

But after witnessing a late-night talk show host laugh at the suggestion that Haley slept her way to the top, and watching journalists brush it off like it’s not their fault this person is taken seriously, I realize we have a ways to go.

There’s nothing funny about a man reducing a woman’s career to a sexual encounter, and there’s nothing ethical about giving a gossip columnist a legitimate voice in our national debate.

Michael Wolff is a misogynist for suggesting Nikki Haley had an affair with the president of the United States without citing a shred of evidence. All those who’ve enabled him to get this far are at best complicit in this latest attack, and are at worst responsible for Haley’s reputation now being called into question.

Debbie ''Babblermouth'' Schultz And Pelosi : Tax Cuts Are Just Crumbs

Goodness. 'Give credit where credit is due'' can't happen unless it's a selling point for the progressive socialist democrat's agenda and ideology of income redistribution. It is really is about 'taking from the productive and giving it to the unproductive' as a political strategy establishing an ever increasing voter base. The more people that can be forced into unemployment as a means to receive benefits, the more people that will vote to remain unemployed and flush with free money.

I wonder how many democrat politicians have every had to work for a living, and those that have were elected to federal jobs, how did they become millionaires while being socialist politicians?

The democrats snicker about the $1000 dollar bonuses as crumbs, and for the democrats it is as they are use to having $millions at there beckon call, but to the rest of us, its a big deal. And having the minimum wage being raised to $15/ hour for some earners is a wind fall.

And the media was all agog about Barrrack's $40 dollar refund which really was all hype and nonsense. He knew it and used the press as a tool to marginalize the workers forcing them to become straw-men for the democrat collectives socialist ideology.

Still, the progressive socialists rage on about the tax cuts will only benefit the ''fat cats'' in the Republican party even though more then 60% of all the 'fat cats' in this country are democrats. 

Oh no, who knew?

The bottom line again for the attacks coming from the progressive liberals is about the fear the Republican tax reform will be a great success which not one democrat voted for. They know next November they will have to pay the price for their willing socialist demagogy and hatred for the middle the class that have to survive on the fruits of their hard work.

The progressive socialist hate the 'unwashed' and uneducated lower classes that reek havoc at the voting booth these days on democrats best efforts to stall success and prosperity for the 'little people' while the real 'fat cats' in the democrat sludge pools reel in the tax dollars swelling their personal bank accounts.

After all it is about the power and the more power you have the more money you are capable of stealing. Nancy Pelosi and her husband are multimillionaires. In 2016 alone, her wealth rose from $20 million to more the $35 million. I wonder why she thinks a bonus of $1000 dollars is crumbs?  Hmmmm

Really is what exactly? Now don't you feel bad about saying these things about the fat cats?

Here is a pair of criminals? Domestic terrorists? Or just democrats or both?

Debbie Wasserman Schultz Thinks Your Bonus Is No Big Deal

Jarrett Stepman / @JarrettStepman / January 25, 2018

In the latest good economic news following the passage of tax cuts, Home Depot announced that it would be distributing up to $1,000 bonuses to hourly paid workers. The list of companies now sharing the benefits of tax reform with employees is growing long.

In 2011, Democrats celebrated a temporary payroll tax cut that netted Americans about $40 per month. They even had a hashtag campaign on Twitter, #40Dollars. But that was during the Obama presidency. Their tune has changed with Donald Trump in the White House.

Despite the sudden boon for American workers, prominent progressives are publicly pooh-poohing the new bonuses and salary increases as no big deal, mere “crumbs,” as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D.-Calif., said. “In terms of the bonus that corporate America receives versus the crumbs they are giving to workers to put the schmooze on is so pathetic,” Pelosi said in early January.

The median household income in Pelosi’s home district of San Francisco, California, is about $100,000, so it’s natural a $1,000 bonus would seem like peanuts to her. She may be surprised to learn that nearly 7 in 10 Americans don’t even have $1,000 in savings, according to a recent study. So one can fairly conclude that a sudden $1,000 boost in one’s bank account would be a big deal for most people.

Pelosi wasn’t the only limousine liberal to dismiss the good news about bonuses. At the same event in which Pelosi bemoaned “fat cats” getting more than average Americans, former Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, said: ''Frankly, if you look at the bonuses, which I haven’t heard of a corporate bonus more than $1,000 so far. Which, by the way, is taxed, so it’s not $1,000. And then you spread $1,000 over the course of the year—to think of about how much that is—of course they get it all at once. But I’m not sure that $1,000 (which is taxed, taxable) goes very [far] for almost anyone.

It’s an odd thing to hear Wasserman Schultz blame income taxes for diminishing the size of one’s bonus. After all, not a single Democrat in Congress voted in favor of tax cuts. Certainly, this pessimism toward bonuses and pay raises can at least in part be chalked up to political partisanship. But there may be a deeper reason for their refusal to celebrate good economic news.

It’s the same reason that those who fiercely advocated a federal $15 minimum wage are now utterly dismissive of the significant benefits workers are now experiencing.

As The Daily Signal’s Fred Lucas recently reported, at least 21 companies voluntarily decided to raise their minimum wage to $15 an hour as a result of the tax break. This too received no recognition from liberal minimum wage backers.

The hard fact for progressives is that the economy now appears to be prospering despite their doomsaying, in large part thanks to the reduction in the overall government burden on society—or the expectation of further reduced burdens As taxes have been reduced, regulations eliminated, and pro-energy policies embraced, Americans are starting to reap the real benefits of a great and unleashed American economy.

This is problematic for progressives who rely on the narrative that the average person can’t do well in life without them swooping in to help, without the government ensuring success. It’s a rebuke of the “you didn’t build that” mentality of the Obama era that justified big government and redistributive policies based on the idea that the self-made man was a myth, and that free markets are simply exploitative.

It turns out that what Americans needed was not politicians to distribute goods from on high, but to ease up on weighty burden of taxation and regulation that had been strangling them. Hopefully, this pro-growth pivot is a sign that more bonuses, raises, and jobs are on the way.

It would be nice, for once, if leading progressives would acknowledge the obvious and give credit where credit is due.

This article has been updated since publication.