Good evening comrades, today’s post will go over all the wonderful deeds and accomplishments that President Obama has achieved for the United Socialist States of America. Our current piece of pictorial propaganda comes from the fine folks at Occupy Communists Democrats:
“In 2013, there were 26.5 births for every 1,000 adolescent females ages 15-19, or 273,105 babies born to females in this age group.[1] Nearly eighty-nine percent of these births occurred outside of marriage.[1] The 2013 teen birth rate indicates a decline of ten percent from 2012 when the birth rate was 29.4 per 1,000.[1]The teen birth rate has declined almost continuously over the past 20 years. In 1991, the U.S. teen birth rate was 61.8 births for every 1,000 adolescent females, compared with 26.5 births for every 1,000 adolescent females in 2013. Still, the U.S. teen birth rate is higher than that of many other developed countries, including Canada and the United Kingdom.[2]” (emphasis added)
I guess that President Obama is responsible for a twenty year trend?!
If you look down the article a little further you see that it’s Southern states that have the highest teen pregnancy rates. But before comrades use this as evidence that the dumb, gun and religion clinging, xenophobic, KKKonservatives and Rethuglicans are hypocrites let’s take a look at some state data. In this case, I’ll use Texas.
Let’s accuse the racist white folks of hypocrisy without looking at the data more closely…
Why is it that evil RethugliKKKans and KKKonservatives, and Losertarians continue to oppose Shillary Hillary? How could fiends even as wretched as those individuals possibly oppose such an enlightened progressive? Why haven’t these losers looked at Hillary’s voting record and television interviews to see just how much she pushes the progressive agenda from the Wrar in Iraq, to marriage, the TPP, and to the evil gender wage gap. Let’s take a moment to look at the stunning achievements that Hillary has championed, shall we?
Hillary would never, ever flip-flop on issues just to garner votes. That’s simply beneath her. Let’s hear what she has to say about sexual assault victims:
Look at the confidence that people have in Hillary’s statements!
Remember, as a proud and loyal Party member you must partake in the “two minutes of hate” every day against Bill Cosby. Any defense given by him or his lawyer must not be accepted. The charges are simply too serious to do otherwise.
The Republican War on Womyn™must be fought and their will broken.
I suppose that Hillary and the President won’t talk about the religious angle of the shooting. They’ll talk about “common sense” gun controls laws. But of course, Dear Leader hasn’t actually said during his speeches what such legislation would look like. He just complains that Congress isn’t doing what he wants it to and that the majority of citizens want “common sense” gun control laws.
Let’s hear Dear Leader Obama discuss his thoughts on the shooting:
Let’s break down some of what the President had to say about this matter:
“It’s not enough. It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel. And it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America,”
“Somebody somewhere will comment and say, ‘Obama politicized this issue,'” and “This is something we should politicize. It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic.”
At least this part of his speech is honest. Is the President going to politicize the gunman’s hate for Christians? Silly thought, only Muslims and persecuted LGBT party members receive such consideration from progressives.
“The notion that gun laws don’t work, or just will make it harder for law-abiding citizens, and criminals will still get their guns – it’s not borne out by the evidence,” and “We know that other countries in response to one mass shooting, have been able to craft laws that almost eliminate mass shootings.”
Of course, Dear Leader doesn’t take the time to cite any evidence. I wonder how citizens of Chicago feel about this? In 1997 Australia enacted the National Firearms Agreement in response to the Port Aurthur massacre. There were actually “mass shootings” in Australia prior to In the years immediately following the extremely tight (though not complete ban) gun control laws, violent crime didn’t go down. Perhaps the reasons for crime are more complex than simply allowing citizens to carry guns?
Let’s take a look at some of what is written in this document:
“Because of the large proportion of violent crime that is unreported (that is, what criminologists call the “dark figure of crime”), the dramatic increases observed in violent crime as measured by the police may be directly related to improved effectiveness and efficiency with which the police record crime. In other words, the police may be recording more crimes of violence because they are recording crimes that in previous times would not have been recorded. Increases in police records of violent crime might reflect the shrinking of the dark figure of crime rather than an increase in underlying violence in the community.”
So with better technology and better enforcement crimes are simply being reported more often? Seems reasonable enough.
“Furthermore, the increase that did occur between the 1951-70 period and the 1971-88 period is most likely explained by the changing demography of the Australian population. The proportion of the population accounted for by young males was at an historically low ebb during the middle part of the century and the resurgence in the strength of this sector is the most conservative explanation for the observed change in the homicide rate.”
People commit crimes, not guns. People can commit crimes with blunt objects, knives, vehicles, or make bombs with common chemicals. Crime occurred before the advent of handguns, shotguns, and “assault rifles”. One needs to look at why people are committing crimes, not just say that they did so because they had guns.
“A number of criminologists have argued that it is police productivity and not real increases in violence that explain increases in police recorded violence. For example, and most recently, O’Brien (1996) examined the differences between police records and victimisation survey findings in the United States. As in Australia, it is only the police figures that are suggesting increasing levels of violence, both the homicide rate and victimisation survey findings suggest the level of violence has not changed over the last 20 years.“
As stated earlier in the publication, changes in data collection and police enforcement can also affect crime statistics.
“Compared with other similar western countries such as New Zealand and Canada, Australia’s homicide rate is moderate, suggesting the prominent role of socio-cultural factors rather than any particular or peculiar aspect of Australia’s policy, practice or population.“
Progressives would apparently disagree with this statement. According to them, we could stop murder if we could just pass some laws.
“Australia’s homicide rate increased by a third between the 1951-70 period and the 1971-88 period. Similarly, between 1955 and 1971 the proportion of Australia’s male population that was aged 18 to 24 increased by a third. It is interesting to note that throughout the 20th century the proportion of Australia’s population accounted for by this sector has been steady or falling slightly.”
I’m OK with blaming rises in crime on baby boomers.
“Gartner and Parker’s analysis is important in illustrating that violence is not the result of a single cause or even a single category of causes. Rather, the rate of violence, as reflected in the homicide rate, is an expression of multiple factors and complex interactions. The pressure to conceptualise violence as the result of simple or singular phenomena needs to be resisted. Some of the relevant factors may be changing in such a way as to reduce violence while others are pushing in the opposite direction.“
Someone needs to inform the President of this. I would think that a college educated man would’ve heard that “correlation doesn’t prove causation” at some point. That’s not important when you need to politicize something before you have any facts though.
“This brief consideration of trends in violent crime in Australia has emphasised the complexity of the task and the inadequacy of the data. The limitations discussed point to the need for cautiousness in interpreting the rates. Certainly, and most importantly, the popular understanding that violence in this country has increased dramatically and consistently in recent years is unfounded. “
Really, someone needs to inform Mothers Demand Action about this. I guess that reason and logic aren’t as important as emotion though.
Back to what the President has to say though.
“I would ask that news organizations put facts forward, have news organizations tally up the number of Americans who have been killed through terrorist attacks over the last decade and the number of Americans who have been killed by gun violence; and post those side by side on your news reports. This won’t be information coming from me it will be coming from you.”
Why would the President care to present his own data or evidence on this matter? He’ll get the media to do it for him. I’m sure that MSNBS will be more than happy to comply.
“If you think this is a problem, then you should expect your elected officials to reflect your views. And I would particularly ask America’s gun owners who are using those guns properly, safely, to hunt, for sport, for protecting their families, to think about whether your views are properly being represented by organizations that suggested speaking for you.”
Considering that the Democratic Party did horrible in the 2014 election, I think that it’s safe to say that the Republican gains in Congress were a refutation of the policies Obama has instituted and wants to enforce upon the American people. I’m still wondering what “modest” gun control would look like to the President?
OK comrades, the fine Kommissars over at Economic Illiterates for Bernie Sanders 2016 have come up with some more Party propaganda to enjoy and spread amongst your progressive friends. But don’t be afraid to share them with your Neo-Kulak friends like: KKKonservatives, Losertarians, and RepubliKKKans who don’t believe in Communism Socialism. Don’t be afraid, any who oppose the will of the Party will be purged in the coming Cultural Revolution. Have fun proles citizens!
I put some pictures up from actual Bernie Sanders’ supporters. Don’t lie, you couldn’t tell the difference between reality and satire. Remember, we don’t need freedom. What we need as proles citizens is central government control of the economy to ensure that all citizen’s needs are met just like in: Detroit, Zimbabwe, Rhode Island, or Venezuela. Once the government controls political speech and spending, all will be fair in our elections. Indeed, it will be a true progressive utopia. Let’s close this post out with an actual debate with a Bernie supporter:
One of the least thought out memes that I’ve come across lately comes from a lady who calls herself The Bitchy Pundit. Here are her thoughts on how the U.S. Federal Budget is spent:
There are some easy ways to counter the sheer stupidity of this picture. The Congressional Budget Office produces plenty of fine information about the state of the U.S. Federal budget. I’ll be citing some data from the following publication: The Budget and Economic Outlook:2015-2025. On page 66 it is shown that for FY 2014 the total budget was about $3.5 trillion, with Mandatory spending taking up about $2 trillion. Such spending covers programs like: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and health insurance subsidies. Discretionary spending was about $1.2 trillion; of that about $600 billion went to Defense spending while the other approximately $600 billion went to miscellaneous funding such as: transportation and infrastructure, education, and various research programs, amongst many other projects. The discretionary spending data can be found on pages 82 and 83.
So, unless there’s a $10 trillion item on the budget specifically meant for corporate subsidies that isn’t mentioned in the CBO report (or in any budget document for that matter), this number is not actually based on real data and is just some statistical hyperbole. There are two sources mentioned at the bottom of the picture, one from the White House’s website and the other from a progressive website called CommonDreams. Let’s take a look at what’s there.
Based upon this picture, no single item actually reaches $4,000 and corporate subsidies are not listed anywhere on the webpage. I’m also not certain how Bitchy Pundit acquired her numbers for Medicare (2.9% tax, half paid by the employee), the Military, or really any spending since they don’t seem to match up to what is listed by the data on the White House tax receipt webpage. It seems safe to say that this citation is at best, severely distorted by Bitchy Pundit.
Moving on the to CommonCommunismCommonDreams article by Paul Buchheit leads an article that claims the average household pays about $6,000 every year in corporate subsidies. Once again, the data presented on the picture isn’t the same as it is in the citation. In this case, it’s supposedly even worse but let’s take a few minutes to analyze the claims in this article. Here’s the first claim that the author makes:
“The Cato Institute estimates that the U.S. federal government spends $100 billion a year on corporate welfare. That’s an average of $870 for each one of America’s 115 million families.”
“It does include payments to 374 individuals on the plush Upper East Side of New York City, and others who own farms, including Bruce Springsteen, Bon Jovi, and Ted Turner. Wealthy heir Mark Rockefeller received $342,000 to NOT farm, to allow his Idaho land to return to its natural state.”
Look, it’s Hero of Socialist Labor Bruce Springsteen. This man needs you to buy his albums for $9.99. Remember, he cares about the proles.
Enough of making fun of that no-talent hack Springsteen, lets move onto the next part of the argument:
“It also includes fossil fuel subsidies, which could be anywhere from $10 billion to $41 billion per year for research and development. Yet this may be substantially underestimated. The IMF reports U.S. fossil fuel subsidies of $502 billion, which would be almost $4,400 per U.S. family by taking into account “the effects of energy consumption on global warming [and] on public health through the adverse effects on local pollution.” According to Grist, even this is an underestimate.”
I took a look at the IMF publication and it’s very apparent that the half-trillion figure is for the entire world, not the U.S. specifically. This is made apparent throughout the paper, but here are some screenshots for those who aren’t interested in reading the entire report:
I’m not certain how the author came up with a figure of $502 billion. The author either made up the number and didn’t actually read the report or is simply lying. Next!
“The subsidies mentioned above are federal subsidies. A New York Times investigation found that states, counties and cities give up over $80 billion each year to companies, with beneficiaries coming from …”
The Koch Brothers would agree, the market should actually be free rather than manipulated by the government. That being said, a subsidy can simply be a company paying less in taxes and not just the government giving money or land away. The Bitchy Pundit is conflating what your tax bill is with what she wants corporate taxes to be, which is simply dishonest. What if the government just lowered (or eliminated) many taxes, got rid of subsidies, and simply spent less money. Clearly, government distortion and command of the economy is a real winner. Let’s take a look at the next excerpt from this article:
“According to the Huffington Post, the “U.S. Government Essentially Gives The Banks 3 Cents Of Every Tax Dollar.” They cite research that calculates a nearly 1 percent benefit to banks when they borrow, through bonds and customer deposits and other liabilities. This amounts to a taxpayer subsidy of $83 billion, or about $722 from every American family”
I took a look at the Huffington Post article and it’s another obfuscation of the data. The $83 billion figure is not a direct subsidy, the banks mentioned aren’t actually getting tax breaks. One part of the Huffington Post article is a bit more pertinent though:
“Let’s start with a bit of background. Banks have a powerful incentive to get big and unwieldy. The larger they are, the more disastrous their failure would be and the more certain they can be of a government bailout in an emergency. The result is an implicit subsidy: The banks that are potentially the most dangerous can borrow at lower rates, because creditors perceive them as too big to fail.
Lately, economists have tried to pin down exactly how much the subsidy lowers big banks’ borrowing costs. In one relatively thorough effort, two researchers — Kenichi Ueda of the International Monetary Fund and Beatrice Weder di Mauro of the University of Mainz — put the number at about 0.8 percentage point. The discount applies to all their liabilities, including bonds and customer deposits.”
I took a look at the IMF Working Paper referenced and no specific U.S. banks are mentioned. That means the government controlled loan giants of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac counted towards this bailout/implicit subsidy figure. The Huffington Post article claims: “The top five banks — JPMorgan, Bank of America Corp., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. – – account for $64 billion of the total subsidy, an amount roughly equal to their typical annual profits …“. The Huffington Post article is making a claim that’s not substantiated by the data in the IMF Working Paper or presented in the article at any point. Besides, since when did progressives oppose bailouts? I wonder if Mr. Buchheit would support ending the Federal Reserve?
Our fine author then goes on to call bank and retirement fund fees a subsidy:
“This was a tough one to calculate. Demos reports that over a lifetime, bank fees can “cost a median-income two-earner family nearly $155,000 and consume nearly one-third of their investment returns.” Fees are well over one percent a year.”
I don’t understand how bank fees can be construed as a subsidy that taxes support. If you don’t want to pay excessive trading fees, don’t be a day trader. If you don’t want to spend money on actively managed mutual funds, pick stocks yourself or buy a mutual fund that is not actively managed. Fees associated with your accounts will be listed in the terms and if you don’t like them find a cheaper investment. I wonder if the author is in favor of a low Capital Gains Tax? Might reduce the fees that Mr. Buchheit is decrying so much.
In the next bullet point, the author calls patent laws a tax subsidy:
“According to Dean Baker, “government granted patent monopolies raise the price of prescription drugs by close to $270 billion a year compared to the free market price.” This represents an astonishing annual cost of over $2,000 to an average American family.
OECD figures on pharmaceutical expenditures reveal that Americans spend almost twice the OECD average on drugs, an additional $460 per capita. This translates to $1,268 per household.”
Point six is just a repeat of the first bullet point in the article:
“We’ve heard a lot about tax avoidance and tax breaks for the super-rich. With regard to corporations alone, the Tax Foundation has concluded that their “special tax provisions” cost taxpayers over $100 billion per year, or $870 per family. Corporate benefits include items such as Graduated Corporate Income, Inventory Property Sales, Research and Experimentation Tax Credit, Accelerated Depreciation, and Deferred taxes.”
Then there’s the progressive plan of convincing companies to keep their money in the U.S. by taxing them at 39% is an idea that surely wouldn’t backfire:
“U.S. PIRG recently reported that the average 2012 taxpayer paid an extra $1,026 in taxes to make up for the revenue lost from offshore tax havens by corporations and wealthy individuals. With 138 million taxpayers (1.2 per household), that comes to $1,231 per household.”
“Overall, American families are paying an annual $6,000 subsidy to corporations that have doubled their profits and cut their taxes in half in ten years while cutting 2.9 million jobs in the U.S. and adding almost as many jobs overseas.
This is more than an insult. It’s a devastating attack on the livelihoods of tens of millions of American families. And Congress just lets it happen.”
I think that I’ve shown that such statements are false. Mr. Buchheit’s lies and misrepresentation of the data is an insult to my intelligence.
Today I just felt like discussing whether feminist ideals of using government power to force an equality of results really makes any sense. If it’s equality that feminists are interested in, why aren’t they calling for equal death? 92% of workplace deaths in the U.S. are men.
Some other specific claims that the authors makes are “A woman makes less than a man no matter much education she gets, what job she chooses, or where she lives“. Concerning the source cited for education, the document only looks at what educational attainment was achieved and no other factors were controlled for. The number of hours worked and experience were not accounted for, just gross averages comparing the wages of all men and women with the same education received (scroll down to page 11 of the document for the applicable portion). A Bureau of Labor Statistics infographic was cited for the “job she chooses” statement. Once again, this document only controlled for a single factor, in this case, the industry chosen. Education, experience, and the number of hours worked were not considerations, just the average of all men compared to women in a field. Concerning the “where she lives” statement, the same fallacy has once again been committed. The source is a Slate article that compares the earnings of women and men by state and controls for no other factors.
Further down the line, the author claims: “While some of the wage gap can be explained by things such as work patterns, job tenure, race, and marital status, some of it just can’t be explained by different life choices or characteristics and instead is likely thanks to discrimination“. The citation for this little gem is a General Accounting Office (GAO) report concerning gender differences in pay. While the author of the ThinkProgress article may claim that discrimination may be the cause for differences in pay (and for once, his source actually controlled for more than one factor) she offers no proof to substantiate this claim. I guess I’m just supposed to take her word on this, because the GAO doesn’t offer proof that discrimination is the cause. On page six they write the following:
In other words, Ms. Covert is implying a conclusion that the data does not claim. The Factual Feminist (a.k.a Christina Hoff Sommers) wrote an interesting piece on the Huffington Post concerning the “gender wage gap” that progressives just can’t ever shut up about. This article uses data from the fine folks at the AAUW to disprove the claim that women make 77% of what men do for the same work. As it turns out, you really do have to control for relevant factors to fully understand what the data is telling you. A man who has to support a wife and several children might work a few extra hours, which would explain the extra money made by married men that ThinkProgress laments so much. Let’s hear some more fun facts about the gender pay gap from Dear Leader and Comrade Carney:
Let’s here some more thoughts on why the wage gap exists and how it’s not the way feminists portray it:
For all of the feminists who claim that life is easier just because you’re a man, have you ever tried to live as a man does? A lesbian woman who decided to become a man for over a year turned back into a woman. Feminists certainly aren’t interested in liberty, but do they even want equality or just special privileges? Do progressives actually care about the suffering of all people equally? Or is it just special interest groups, votes, and power that matter to socialists/feminists/progressives?
Hopeful Democratic nominee for President Martin O’ Malley is sorry that he said “all lives matter” and now realizes that such a statement is unacceptable to the Democratic Party. Comrade O’ Malley has come to the realization that all lives do not matter, only the ones the Party deems appropriate or important. O’ Malley now realizes that it’s only OK to state that black lives matter, but specifically regarding interactions with law enforcement and problems caused by “society”. Any mention of all the murders going on in Chicago, Detroit, and Baltimore that are not committed by police or white people are not important.
Every good comrade knows (especially when going to a Nutroots convention) that all comments to the about the Party must promote racial division for the glory of the Party and that it’s really it’s the votes that matter. Anyone who disagrees with the Party narrative is a racist, bigot, sexist, homophobe, and deserves to be smeared. It’s not like O’ Malley had a chance against ShillaryBillaryChillary Hillary and Sanders anyway.
For those comrades reading this who happen to be white, feel free to grovel and apologize for your existence.
For anyone who still doesn’t understand the groupthink and doublethink, Communist News Network (CNN) Comrade Camerota explains in detail why Pamela’s horrendous actions should not have been performed. Perhaps it is time for the evil, imperialist, cis-gendered, racist, bigoted, and capitalist Pamela Geller to be report to the nearest Kommissar for re-education.
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