If not for double standards, Democrat party leaders wouldn't have any

It was OK in the first decade of this millennium that Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) was considered the "conscience of the Senate" by his Demo colleagues, even though he had been an "exalted cyclops" in the Ku Klux Klan.

Last year it was OK that Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) was vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee at the same time he was an advocate for fellow Muslim racist Louis Farrakhan and his Nation of Islam black-supremacist haters calling for an "ethnostate."

Now enter Gov. Ralph Northam. Just days after earning infamy for his comments in support of infanticide, a photo was "discovered" of Northam from his medical yearbook page. There are two people in the photo, one in black face and the other in a KKK robe. Northam admitted he was in the photo but refused to acknowledge which of the racist characters was him — apparently trying to decide which one would be "less racist."

On Friday, Northam launched an apology tour: "I am deeply sorry for the decision I made to appear as I did in this photo and for the hurt that decision caused then and now. ... I understand how this decision shakes Virginians' faith in that commitment."

Really? This is not a teenager's high-school yearbook from 35 years ago, with a notation about "passing gas," for which then-SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh was relentlessly skewered by Democrats. This is an adult's medical-school yearbook. It is astounding that the mainstream media did not uncover this photo during his 2017 campaign for governor — when he was labeling his Republican opponent, Ed Gillespie, "racist," complete with an ad depicting minority kids being threatened by a guy with a Confederate flag on his truck. It would be interesting to know which media "journalists" suppressed knowledge of the photo. I have inquired with the editorial board of The Washington Post, but I don't expect an answer.

Given the fact that a disproportionate number of aborted American babies are black, and Planned Parenthood's founder Margaret Sanger was an advocate of racially selective eugenics to contain less desirable ethnic groups like black people, the irony of Northam's infanticide comments and now this photo is thick.

In what alternate universe does a major political party pressure its sitting governor to resign because he appeared in a 35-year-old racist photo but not because of his position (as a pediatrics specialist) advocating infanticide legislation? Fortunately, that bill failed to pass. Of course, the Virginia Democrat Party is controlled — as is the state — by suburban government bureaucrats who reside in northern Virginia and have no roots in the state.

Unbelievably, a day after declaring he was in the photo, Northam claimed he was not in the photo: "In the hours since I made my statement yesterday, I reflected with my ... classmates from the time and affirmed my conclusion that I am not the person in that photo."

He now recalls once darkening his face with shoe polish to portray Michael Jackson in a dance contest. "You remember these things," he insisted, after admitting he didn't. This pivot would be laughable if not so pathetic. The photo still appeared in his yearbook and he is likely under that hood or he NEVER would have admitted he was in the photo. The Jackson blackface story was concocted so Northam could "get out from under the hood." (Ironically, for the last two decades of his life, Michael Jackson strived to appear in whiteface.) Now that Northam has "reflected" with his political tribe and his classmates, two of them may come forward and claim they were in the photo.

So will Northam resign? I hope not!

The reason Democrats may insist he resign, regardless, is that if he stays in office, the photo undermines their "racist Republicans" mantra, especially on issues like Donald Trump's plan for what they consider an "immoral" and "racist" southern-border barrier.

And standing in the wings waiting to take Northam's office is Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, a black gubernatorial hopeful who has been stewarded by Al Gore and John Kerry. He is a DC native who moved to Virginia to support Demo Sen. Mark Warner. Fairfax will be a far more formidable leftist Democrat governor than Northam.

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How far left will they go?

The Democratic presidential primary contest is already the most left-wing in decades

Moderate democrats have had a good few months. They dominated the Democratic primaries ahead of the mid-term elections, duly delivered a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, and have been quietly getting their way there, too. For all the hoopla over Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the House agenda looks pragmatic, with a focus on fiscal prudence, infrastructure development and not impeaching President Donald Trump. House Democrats think this approach will keep on board the centrist voters they won last year. That looks like a more promising way to get rid of Mr Trump. So why are the early Democratic runners for next year’s presidential election flocking to the left?

In 2016 Hillary Clinton said Senator Bernie Sanders’s promise of universal state-provided health care could “never, ever come to pass”. Most Democratic candidates in competitive mid-terms races also rejected it. Yet all three heavyweights who have so far declared for 2020—the senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren—are for it. So are several big names expected to announce shortly, including Senator Cory Booker and Mr Sanders himself. Only Ms Warren and Mr Sanders among them have a record of taking populist positions. The rest have leapt to them. Indeed the uniformity of their proposals is striking.

Most offer some version of Mr Sanders’s free college pledge. All are for giving a federal job to whomever wants one, as first suggested by Mr Booker. These proposals are not necessarily crazy; the health-care system is a mess. But the idea that they could form a realistic agenda for a governing system choked by partisanship is absurd. The light-headed fashion in which the early runners are airing their proposals adds to that impression. Slammed on social media for having promised only two years of free college, Julián Castro—once Barack Obama’s centrist housing secretary—shot back that he’d push for four, then. Pressed for her view of private medical insurance, Ms Harris said she’d scrap it. She later tried to walk that back. Yet what was she—what are they all—thinking of?

Ms Ocasio-Cortez, for one. Inspired by the demise of the centralised party structure and the rise of social media, the left-wing activist world she represents has rarely been more vibrant or intimidating to the Democratic establishment. Some compare it to the supercharged activism that pushed the Democrats leftward in the 1930s and 1960s. The alacrity with which Ms Harris and Ms Warren praised Ms Ocasio-Cortez’s signature policy, the Green New Deal, supports that. (So does the fact that a 29-year-old freshman congresswoman is considered to have a signature policy.)

That is one of two structural changes behind the new populism.

The other is the growing importance of online fundraising, which most Democratic consultants think requires bold left-wing pledges, especially in a crowded primary field, in which cash-hungry populists will compete to be the boldest. That contest promises, in turn, to make online fundraising even more important to those involved, because it will make Wall Street donors less generous. Ms Warren’s proposed wealth tax on households worth over $50m has already given them something to hate. Still, the effect of these structural factors can be overstated.

As the mid-terms indicate, the activists are not in step with most Democratic voters, who appear more focused on opposing Mr Trump than on remaking the health-care system. Historical comparisons underline this. The leftward lurches of the 1930s and 1960s were also spurred by events, in the form of the Great Depression and the civil-rights struggle, which convinced millions of the need for radical change. There is little evidence that most Democratic voters think today’s more complicated socioeconomic inequities warrant the big expansion of the state that the populist candidates are promising. Even in fairly liberal states such as Colorado, voters have rejected proposals for a single-payer healthcare scheme. Mr Sanders’s better-than-expected run in 2016 said more about dissatisfaction with Mrs Clinton than the power of his ideas. This also suggests the consultants may be wrong to demand hard-left pledges for the purpose of fundraising. Of the three past masters of online fundraising, Mr Obama, Beto O’Rourke and Mr Sanders, only the last is an outright left-winger.

The disruptive effect of Mr Trump offers more fundamental explanations for the Democrats’ lurch to the left. Activists think his ideological nonconformity and unpopularity afford them an opportunity to shift the Overton window to the left. Establishment figures such as Mr Booker and Ms Harris still seem mesmerised by his ability to make headline-grabbing pronouncements with which Mrs Clinton could not compete for attention. This seems to underappreciate his subsequent weakness. Over half of voters— roughly the portion the Democratic candidate would need—say they will definitely not vote for him. It is not obvious why such voters, sick of Mr Trump’s antics, would warm to a Democrat offering a different set of implausible promises. “If we try to out-crazy the policy announcements of a troubled president, we will do nothing to restore confidence,” warns Senator Chris Coons of Delaware.

Trumpish or anti-Trump

Trying to improve on Mrs Clinton may be a better strategy—and her proposals were the least of her problems. Voters rejected her because they didn’t like or identify with her, not because her jobs plan was small-bore. The new populists’ reluctance to grapple with that hints at a lack of confidence in their own ability to win voters’ trust. It is surely no coincidence that they represent the main cohort of hated Washington insiders in the contest. More outsiderish candidates—perhaps including Mr O’Rourke, who, like Mr Obama before him, is not primarily associated with Washington despite his time in Congress—may be better at talking to voters without promising them the moon. But there is no sign of them yet. For now the race is dominated by senators offering the moon on a plate, in Swiss cheese, pepper jack, or any other flavour.

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Prominent Restaurant Bans MAGA Hats, Compares Them to Swastikas

Patrons won’t be served at a Silicon Valley restaurant if they wear a “Make America Great Again” baseball cap.

J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, a chef-partner of the Wursthall restaurant in San Mateo, California, said in a tweet last weekend that he views the hats as symbols of intolerance and hate. “It hasn’t happened yet, but if you come to my restaurant wearing a MAGA cap, you aren’t getting served, same as if you come in wearing a swastika, white hood, or any other symbol of intolerance and hate,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported Thursday.

The tweet was no longer available Thursday but the newspaper reported it had more than 2,100 likes and more than 200 retweets as of Wednesday afternoon.

The red hats, which are sold on President Donald Trump’s campaign website, have become polarizing. The hats were worn by some Kentucky high school students involved in a Jan. 18 confrontation with a Native American elder near the Lincoln Memorial.

Lopez-Alt wrote the 2015 book “The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science.” He declined further comment to the newspaper, saying that his restaurant has received threatening emails following the tweet.

San Mateo resident Jamie Hwang, 42, told the newspaper she has mixed feelings about the ban, saying that San Mateo is diverse and members of her family support Trump.

“I see where he’s coming from, but I don’t think you should just keep people out because of a hat,” Hwang said.

Her dining companion Esther Shek, 39, said she believed the hats had “come to represent racism, intolerance, exclusivity.” But she added that refusing to serve Trump supporters would exacerbate a situation where talking about differences might be better.

“They already feel like they’re being demonized by what they call the liberal elite,” she said. “We shouldn’t add fire to that.”

Bao Agbayani, who was visiting from the Philippines, said the rule banning the hats wouldn’t keep him from dining at the restaurant. But he said he was alarmed by what the rule represented. “You’re discriminating against those with different political views,” he said. “That’s just not OK.”

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Germany’s Economy Cracking – Unemploymant rate for refugees up to 65 percent

Germany’s growth rate is cracking with a new estimate cutting the projected 2019 rate by 44 percent from 1.8 percent to a mere 1 percent.

Peter Altmaier, the Minister of Economic Affairs and Energy, is blaming BREXIT and global trade, specifically the row with the US. In fact, Germany’s growth rate has been on a steady decline since 2017, while its inflation rate has been rising from a low of 0.39 percent in 2016 to a projected 1.78 percent in 2019.

With low fertility rates, a short supply of labor, and a welfare system stretched to max point propping up a 65 percent unemployment rate for refugees, Germany has failed to mediate the problem and instead blamed false factors in an attempt to conceal and censor the facts.

It becomes apparent that the failed Iran Nuclear Deal is now even more vital than ever to prop up an economy that is close to slithering into a recession.

As such, Germany, together with France and the UK, has created a backdoor, a means of evading the US sanctions on business dealings with Iran.  The gamble is comprised of a clearing house system wherein money flows through a third party instrument labeled INSTEX.  Testing the efficacy of this channel through trade of nonsanctionable goods, Germany is waiting to see how Trump and his administration will react and whether fines and additional trade wars will erupt further.

Instead of negotiating with the US, Merkel is now putting Germany in the crossroads wherein weakened alliances could create a plummeting downward economic spiral that would not only take out Germany but the EU as a globalist power.

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