Billionaire Despots
It used to be that when one referred to left-wing enclaves, the reference was to the uberliberals of New York, Chicago, and Hollywood or the brie-noshing, wine spritzer tree-huggers of Marin County, but they have been replaced by the electronic barons of the Silicon Valley.
It used to be that when one referred to left-wing enclaves, the reference was to the uberliberals of New York, Chicago, and Hollywood or the brie-noshing, wine spritzer tree-huggers of Marin County, but they have been replaced by the electronic barons of the Silicon Valley.
It’s the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Jack Dorsey, and Jeff Bezos who now determine the direction of the Democratic Party. It’s they with the deepest pockets. Their billions dwarf the millions commonplace in Hollywood.
Perhaps even more importantly, they control the flow of information by deciding which individuals and which news outlets will be promoted on their platforms and which will be denied a voice and sometimes even a presence.
Tim Cook, for example, the CEO of Apple, announced that those people “who seek to push hate, division and violence, have no place on our platform.”
By “those people,” he was referring to those of us who don’t subscribe to the Silicon agenda of open borders, same-sex marriages, abortions on demand, the confiscation of guns, special rules for transgenders, and politically correct speech.
The Lords and Ladies of the Silicon Kingdom are also the most influential zealots when it comes to promoting the climate-change hoax.
Although he is not directly connected to the electronic industry, except geographically, San Francisco hedge fund manager Tom Steyer handed over $100 million to liberal candidates in the recent midterms so long as they made the environment their number one campaign issue.
The oddest thing about the weather hoax is the fact that in spite of the fact that none of the dire threats Al Gore predicted in the 1990s have taken place, the enthusiasm has never abated among the most fervent tree huggers.
The next oddest thing about their endless crusade is that they insist that the world will go up in flames if the average temperature rises a single degree, although weather is never constant and is constantly fluctuating from year to year. And yet nobody has ever seen a state incinerate because of an uptick in the temperature.
They might point to the wildfires that have plagued California over the years, but everyone except Tom Steyer knows they have been caused by a combination of drought and decades of resistance by people like Steyer to cut down dead trees and clear out forest underbrush.
Unfortunately, these schmucks are also a major force when it comes to keeping the borders porous. As a result, one in four Californians are foreign-born, and 72% of noncitizen households receive welfare, which helps explain why we have the highest state taxes in the country and are currently paying nearly $4 a gallon for gas.
Which reminds me of an email I recently received from Joe Neuner, which read: “Last year, 449,000 Californians replied to a jury summons by stating ‘I am not a citizen and therefore cannot sit on a jury.’”
As Neuner points out, “The number one source for potential jurists is the Voter Registration list. Think about that.”
Mazie Hirono, the senator from Hawaii who came to fame during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, explained why so many people remain Republicans in spite of all the media-bashing Republicans and President Trump receive on a daily basis: “We Democrats are too smart for most people.”
That’s pretty much what I figured, but it’s nice to have my suspicion confirmed by someone as brilliant as Sen. Hirono, who quickly determined that Kavanaugh was a serial rapist “because he was a man.”
Bob Hunt suggests that illegal aliens should be America’s #1 export. Do I hear an amen?
Among the wiser things to come out of the prolonged farewell to George Herbert Walker Bush was Bill Bennett’s response to an interviewer asking: “How would you compare President Bush to President Trump?”
Bennett, who had served as Bush’s drug czar, replied: “The world is an ever-changing place; sometimes you need Mother Theresa and sometimes you need Dirty Harry.”
When one of my subscribers sent me one of those things that periodically goes viral, I let him know that he was eighth or ninth person who had passed it along to me. I noted that the old saying “what goes around comes around” has always been true, but it is truer than ever when it comes to the Internet.
Someone sent me a cartoon of Barack Obama standing in the middle of a men’s room and saying: “Tear down this stall.” The caption read: “Obama’s only legacy…transgender bathrooms.”
LeRoy Foster, who still fondly recalls Bob Hope, sent along a bunch of his memorable one-liners:
On turning 70: “I still chase women, but only downhill.”
On turning 80: “That’s the time of life when even your birthday suit needs pressing.”
On turning 90: “You know you’re getting old when the candles cost more than the cake.”
On turning 100: “I don’t feel old. In fact, I don’t feel anything until noon. Then it’s time for a nap.”
On giving up his early career as a boxer: “I ruined my hands in the ring. The referee kept stepping on them.”
On golf: “Golf is my profession. Show business is just to pay the green fees.”
On his family’s early poverty: “Four of us slept in one bed. When it got cold, mother would throw on another brother.”
Another quotable individual, and one who wrote all his own best lines, was economist Milton Friedman. Among the best of those sent along by Ray Bastings were:
“The most important single central fact about a free market is that no exchange takes place unless both parties benefit.”
“Government never learn. Only people learn.”
“The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate voluntarily is through the free market. And that’s why it’s so essential to preserve individual freedom.”
“Most economic fallacies derive from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another.”
“Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.”
“What kind of society isn’t structured on greed? The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm; capitalism is that kind of a system.”
“History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly, it is not a sufficient condition.”
“The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a greater measure of both.”
As I mentioned during the midterms, I made modest donations to 12 candidates, eight of whom won.
I would like to commend two of those people. They are the ones who sent me thank-you letters after the election.
The first was from Marsha Blackburn, who was elected to the Senate in Tennessee.
The second was from Dave Brat, who had pulled off an upset victory over Eric Cantor in 2014, only to lose in Virginia’s 7th district this year to Abigail Spanberger.
I appreciated hearing from both, but it’s one thing to be a good winner; it’s much more difficult to be a gracious and grateful loser.
I hope that Mr. Brat doesn’t give up on politics. The profession needs more people like him.
