FCC Repeals Net Neutrality (AP Exposes Left-wing Bias, Again)

The Net Neutrality Rules have been repealed by the FCC.

The media will point out that party-line vote which shut down the government overreach which promised fairness, yet would have ended up creating massively more unfairness.

Big Business loves more regulations, of course, because they can hire more lawyers and purchase politicians to throw things their way.

But every individual citizen and small business owner should rejoice that the FCC repealed the net neutrality nonsense pushed by President Barack Obama and legion of progressive trolls.

Of course, the AP had to throw their uneducated bias into the mix when reporting on the decision:

BREAKING: The FCC votes on party lines to undo sweeping Obama-era `net neutrality' rules that guaranteed equal access to internet.

— The Associated Press (@AP) December 14, 2017

When will they learn?

We are not going to be lectured to or  intimidated by a decaying, declining media. They embrace left-wing talking points and liberal agendas, and the widespread readership in this country knows full well not to trust what they have to report.

The brazen editorializing in the tweet above says it all

"Rules that guaranteed access"? As if!

Let FCC Chairman Ajit Pai explain what net neutrality would have really done, and why we should be glad that it's gone:

Social "Conservatism" Matters -- Here's Why (From Carlos Flores)

The movement among Blue State Republicans is to abandon social issues, or cultural concerns. They are too divisive, and make it more difficult for conservatives to appeal to the "young generation", since most people are more progressive.

Right? Then again, since when has expanding abortion or welcoming the destruction of marriage and family ever counted as progressive?

So, should we give up on "social conservatism"?

Maybe it just needs rebranding, or better yet, why not make the case with facts, logic, and evidence?
Social conservatism not only matters, but is essential to our culture, to our society. Without it, there would be no fiscal discipline, no fiscal conservatism for men and women to fight for.

Carlos Floresm Senior Social Policy Editor for The Millennial Review, provides an exacting and excellent article on the essential necessities of social conservatism.

Let us begin with his definition of social conservatism:

So what is social conservatism? Social conservatism, I submit, consists of (1) the recognition of the family as the most important unit of the polity and (2) the project of securing the social conditions that make strong families possible.


I would add the protection of life, which speaks to abortion, assisted suicide, and if some pundits insist, the death penalty.

Check out this profound statement on the importance of family:

The social conservative understands, often instinctively, that the primacy of the family unit makes the existence of the state possible. Adults who are ready to engage in political activity do not just spontaneously come to be, after all; men must have their intellectual, moral, and social capacities and characters formed before they are ready to participate in a political endeavor.

Before there was government, there was family.

Before there was family, there was marriage, the union of one man and one woman.

Not two men, and not two women.

Every essential aspect for our culture, for our civilization depends on the transmission of values, of shared goals and aspirations. The government cannot provide this institutional passage of knowledge. Only the family can do this, and it takes a family to raise children and ensure the survivals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

The state cannot exist without the family.

Flores asserts this truth perfectly:

To the social conservative, it is clear that abortion, same-sex marriage, and transgenderism all constitute threats to the family, and hence to society.

Flores follows this statement with incredible commentary:

[T]he transactions that make up an economic system presuppose the existence of virtuous persons who are disposed to engage in them well. Marriage is not irrelevant to this project—on the contrary, it is the means by which human beings are raised into virtuous persons who have the rational, social, and ethical virtues that allow them to engage in such transactions.

Virtue cannot be imposed by government fiat, however. The capacity to trust, to ensure mutual transaction, plus the necessity to hold and expound sweet customs--all of this does not come about through force or government excess. These values result from culture, from shared values. These values are transmitted through education, not indoctrination.

[W]hat is desired in an economic system is that the persons who engage in the transactions will be already disposed to engage in them well even in the absence of deterrents imposed by law against improperly engaging in transactions, just as it is desirable—and conducive to the common good—for citizens to be disposed to engage lawfully and morally even in the absence of deterrents attached to actions that are immoral (like murder). Penalties and benefits, then, should be best understood as complementary policies that provide additional reasons to engage in transactions well, not as stand-alone systems that can by themselves replace the rearing of children in accordance with virtue.

A free market cannot be free if men and women do not feel free to engage in transactions in the marketplace. No one is going to open up a business or engage in mutual transactions if there is no certain of peace and prosperity. Many businesses, small and large, leave cities and even countries because the rule of law is absent, and the costs of conducting business through massive defense and security measures is just too costly.

What is the point of going into business if the owner has to spend most of his time protecting his business through frequent imposition of force? The values, the mores of trust, integrity, appreciation of value, conflict management do not come about out of nothing. These are essential practices to trade and freedom which cannot be imposed or infused by state power.

It takes a family.

Also ... Flores lists the exorbitant costs associated with the loss of human capital because of fatherlessness, at approximately $99 billion a year. For fiscal-only conservatives, one has to ask how prudent it is to ignore the concerns about life and family, when such a price tag looms as a consequence. The Patrick Moynihan study revealed that the break down the family, specifically the black family, was leading to the skyrocketing poverty and incarceration rates among those populations. 

Who ends up paying for these costs? We the People, the taxpayers, including the social conservatives who had warned our fellow fiscal conservative colleagues. Not very conservative in a fiscal sense, now, is it? Life matters, natural marriage matters, and family matters. Conservatives cannot claim to be fiscally conservative if they reject social conservatism.

Commie-fornia Democrats Hit a Wall on Single-Payer

There is so much winning for taxpayers, concerned citizens, and conservatives in general in the state of California. The slow but steady victories in this blue bastion of progressive insanity should raise hope for all of us. After all, the Left loves to gloat that what happens in California is most likely to pop up all over the United States.

They might want to change their minds.

First, an assemblyman in Commie East Bay Alameda County attempted to allow Communists to serve openly in our government. The South Vietnamese Community in Orange County and veterans throughout the state hammered this liberal nut. His bill to “update archaic language in the state code” died after getting a bare majority in the Assembly. Besides, the legislature is full of communists anyway. They just need to be voted out.

Then the infamous state senator who removed an exemption from forced school vaccinations tried to push a state-based resolution of children’s rights. This bill was really a subversive attack on parental rights. His proposal would invite more government intervention into the home. The proposal crashed and burned.

And now for the latest good news, and everyone needs to know about it. Single payer is dead in California—for now.

In spite of their strongest attempts, the two openly-gay, openly abusive and liberal state senators Ricardo Lara and Toni Atkins will not enact a single-payer system in California. Keep in mind that previous California legislatures had advanced single-payer to the Governor’s desk in years past.

The projected program would have expanded Medicare to every Californian (and the illegal aliens, too.) The projected cost reached $400 billion, but the cost of anything has never deterred the Bernie-crat progressives who have taken over the California Democratic Party, even if their new chairman is a corrupt crony who pays lip-service to progressive goals. All over the state, especially in the town halls I have attended—not crashed!—incessantly aggressive progressives were demanding single-payer health care—at all costs. Senator Dianne Feinstein says no, but the ultra-liberal Congressional representatives like Brad Sherman and Ted Lieu said “Yes!” The grassroots want socialized medicine. The progressive special interests and community activists want it, too. But guess what? The grand scheme to socialize health care in the state of California has been put into a coma.

I was genuinely surprised. Liberal, regressive proposals have been dying off in other otherwise Democratic strongholds. Hawaii and Maryland rejected assisted suicide bills, but California passed one, with Republican support. California tends to go all-in for these liberal schemes, but even they had to face facts. And their failure is not a singular one. Other states had flirted with socialized medicine, only to back away because of the exorbitant cost. Vermont had a Democratic trifecta three years ago, and former Governor “Putney” Pete Shumlin determined that his state would switch from Green Mountain Obamacare to Universal Healthcare. The tax burden proved too great, even for Democrats. They couldn’t afford it. Same was true for Rhode Island.

And then there’s California, where the state steals money from current and future generations to pay off over-generous pensions for the previous generations. They also spend money they don’t have protecting illegal aliens while leaving American citizens unsafe and uncared for. Sacramento lawmakers can’t even fix the roads. How could they ever manage healthcare, too? Even in California, regressive leftists are learning the limits, and even they must heed the stern advice of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to her collectivist, redistributionist opponents: “The problem with socialism is that the government ends up running out of other people’s money.”

Besides, Californians already voted to prevent government encroachment into medicine. Proposition 63 would have imposed price controls on pharmaceuticals, making a bad situation worse. Despite Bernie Sanders’ backing and lots of union money, Big Pharma and other business interests pushed back, and voters said “No!” They also oppose single-payer—even if it passed the state Senate. The state Assembly had no appetite to take the bill. Interestingly enough, Governor Jerry Brown was prepared to veto the medical monstrosity, too.

So, Speaker Anthony Rendon finagled to protect his peers from the wrath of the nurses’ union and keep the Democratic base happy. How? After all, he can’t say “I do whatever Big Business tells me to.” Instead, he blamed Donald Trump and the Republicans. “They’re going to repeal Obamacare. We need the federal funding through that program to fund our single-payer system.” Great politics, and it works for all of us who earn money and know how to count, too. He also placed blame on the state Senate. “They passed a bill that is incomplete.” WHAT? Yes, this insouciant incompetence is commonplace in Sacramento—and with the Democratic Party as a whole. Then Rendon bolsters the base once again: “We will reconsider the proposal at the next legislative session.”

Sure you will, Tony.

Actually, the Democratic legislature won’t try again. The $400 billion price-tag nearly rivals the looming pension liabilities. No matter how profligate they are, the Democrats have to budget for it. Certain issues matter, like “Who will pay for this? How?” Whether they like Trump or not, the California Democrats’ healthcare proposal depends on federal assistance for money and legal waivers. So much for The Resistance, right? Not only that but major tax increases and policy shifts would require an up and down vote from the voters. California voters are taxed too much already. They already rejected Prop 63. Did they think that a $400 billion tax increase (which nearly rivals the pension liabilities eating the state budget).

Why should the country rejoice about this latest Democratic defeat? Single-payer fantasies are the hill that Democratic trifectas die on. Obama and the Democratic Congress wanted a public option in 2009. They gave us Obamacare, then Republicans retook the House. Vermont has a Republican governor now, and the Democrats do not have a supermajority.

This one-year breather gives me pause, peace, and hope. Even in deeply self-destructive Democratic California, conservatives can celebrate a victory.

The Decline and Fall of Sears: Failing Company Sends Out Credit Card Renewal

Sears, Roebuck, and Company has hit on hard times.

From what I have seen at the Torrance Del Amo Fashion Center.

The entire south end of the wing is wasting away, and it looks like Sears will be on the chopping block next.

Unreal.

Even though the company is facing massive restructring, one wonders if they will survive!

I even received the renewal for my Sears card last week!

If Sears is on its last legs, one has to wonder why they are sending out renewed charged cards.

No wonder the company is in trouble!

What has happened to these large corporate department stores?

Let's focus on the following reasons why corporations like Sears are in big trouble:

1. High regulatory burdens

2. Forced wage hikes in key cities (and states like California)

3. Technological innovations, like online shopping

For Sears, the sad decline has been long in coming.

And that's too bad.