Democrats Abandon Working Class, Become Party of Freeloaders

The Democratic Party, long known as the party for working people, is now for freeloaders. Democrats want taxpayers to support people who refuse to get off the couch and get a job.

That's the major reason Democrats and Republicans in Washington were locked in a stalemate for weeks over hiking the debt ceiling. The biggest sticking point was whether people should be allowed to collect government assistance indefinitely to finance their nonworking lifestyle.

For everyone who toils for a living, the idea of paying taxes to support healthy people who won't work feels like a slap in the face.

House Republicans proposed requiring food stamp recipients and people on Medicaid to work 20 hours a week or participate in some job-readiness activity such as training, high school equivalency courses or substance abuse treatment. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy explained that government assistance programs are supposed to be "temporary, not permanent" and "a bridge to independence" rather than a lifestyle.

This isn't about denying benefits to children and their mothers, or the disabled, or pregnant women. This is about childless adults who are do-nothings. "Remember what we're talking about: able-bodied people with no dependents," McCarthy said. On Sunday, the two parties struck a compromise, giving Republicans a small victory. Food stamp recipients up to age 55 will have to work or participate in work readiness for 20 hours a week. Veterans and the homeless are exempt.

Democrats held firm against any work requirement for Medicaid. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called it a "nonstarter." Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) bashed the work requirement as "just cruel."

But count on Republicans to fight for it another time. About half of all Americans -- 156 million -- get their health insurance through a job. They or someone in their family has to work for it, and many stay in jobs largely for the health coverage. Why should able-bodied adults who choose not to work be handed Medicaid? It makes people who punch a clock for their coverage look like saps.

The new Democratic Party is repudiating its own history and the work ethic that has made America a land of opportunity even for people who start out poor.

In 1996, Democratic President Bill Clinton signed a reform that required welfare recipients to work or participate in work readiness. Then-Sen. Joe Biden voted for it. That reform slashed poverty among single-parent households by a staggering 62% by 2016. Childhood poverty was slashed more than 75%, proving that the best anti-poverty program for children isn't a handout. It's a working parent.

But in recent years, Democrats watered down Clinton's reforms, making it easy to collect cash assistance, housing subsidies, food benefits and healthcare that add up to more than what many unskilled jobs pay. A nonworking parent with two kids can get $24,000 or more in federal benefits. Work doesn't pay.

In 2021, Democrats pushed for the Build Back Better bill, which would have made monthly checks to parents -- $300 per child -- a benefit with no strings.

Thanks to holdout Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), it didn't pass. Manchin objected that "there's no work requirement whatsoever." Rep. Gwen Moore ( D-Wis.) denounced Manchin's emphasis on "the so-called dignity of work -- that's like hearing a fingernail on a chalkboard."

Millions of migrants are coming across the southern border looking for a chance to work, not freeload. But how long will their work ethic last? New York City Mayor Eric Adams and other Democratic mayors are offering them free hotel rooms, meal service, healthcare and legal assistance for up to four months.

That's sending these newcomers the wrong message, that there are in fact two American ways: work hard for success, or join the moochers and live off the welfare-industrial complex the Democrats are erecting.

Democrats argue that all human beings deserve dignity. Of course they do, but that shouldn't mean a lifetime seat on the taxpayer-funded gravy train.

Democratic mayors in dozens of cities are pushing for just that -- a guaranteed monthly income for the nonworking poor. Literally sending out checks to people for merely breathing.

The debt-limit showdown is a preview of a bigger fight to come.

Tell Democratic politicians that working people deserve respect, too.

https://townhall.com/columnists/betsymccaughey/2023/05/31/democrats-abandon-working-class-become-party-of-freeloaders-n2623861

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King James Bible pulled from multiple Utah schools 'due to vulgarity or violence' after petition called it 'sex-ridden'

The King James version of the Bible has been removed in several Davis School District schools in Utah, after it was determined that it contained "vulgarity or violence." A petition was made in response to state law that resulted in the removal of many books containing sexual content from school libraries.

Fox 13 Salt Lake City reported that the King James Bible was removed from an estimated seven or eight elementary and junior high schools after a district review committee decided to pull the Bible from all non-high schools. The committee found it contained "vulgarity and violence."

However, a district spokesperson reportedly said that the Bible "does not contain sensitive material as defined by Utah Code," but decided to pull it anyway because it was found to be inappropriate for some ages.

In March 2023, a Utah parent petitioned to have the Bible removed from schools and called it “one of the most sex-ridden books around." The parent claimed the historical book included “incest, onanism, bestiality, prostitution, genital mutilation, fellatio, dildos, rape, and even infanticide."

“You’ll no doubt find that the Bible, under Utah Code Ann. § 76-10-1227, has ‘no serious values for minors’ because it’s pornographic by our new definition," the parent said. The King James Bible was then removed from the aforementioned schools upon the subsequent review.

A law passed in Utah in 2022 is the source of the controversy, as it sought to ban books that were sensitive to certain age groups. The law says that if a parent has made a formal request, schools must remove books that contain:

"Human genitals in a state of sexual stimulation or arousal";
"Acts of human masturbation or sexual intercourse";
"[or] fondling or other erotic touching of human genitals or pubic region."

Republican State Representative Ken Ivory remarked that characterizing removing some books as book-banning is really "an attempt to simply, you know, hyperbolize what's going on; we're simply clarifying age-appropriate limits."
However, Michele Edgley, president of the Utah Educational Library Media Association, told Fox 13 that she didn't think that parents had the right to get books banned.

“I don't think that most parents have either the right or the knowledge of the student bodies to be banning books for the entire school," she explained.

The decision to remove the Bible was swiftly appealed by another person who wants the book returned to every school. The decision now lies with the appeals committee to determine whether it is suitable to return.

https://www.theblaze.com/news/king-james-bible-utah-schools ?

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Chicago's crime crisis and the 'progressives'

This past Memorial Day weekend was a bloodbath in the streets of Chicago. Over the three-day holiday weekend, 53 people were shot, 11 fatally, as violence continues to plague the Windy City.

According to newly elected Mayor Brandon Johnson, "The violence our city experienced this weekend is intolerable. It produced pain and trauma that devastated communities across Chicago, and my heart breaks for everyone affected. That's why as mayor, I am committed to leveraging every single resource at our disposal to protect every single life in our city."

Unfortunately, Johnson's words ring hollow for Chicagoans who have been living in abject fear for several years while so-called progressive leaders constantly tout that they are doing all that they can to fight the steep rise in crime that has made the city practically unlivable.

Johnson's predecessor, Lori Lightfoot, echoed similar sentiments throughout her tenure as mayor. However, as the record shows, her progressive policies made matters far worse, not better.

Consider: over the past four years, according to the Chicago Police Department (CPD), the murder rate has increased by 23 percent, robberies are up by 28 percent, thefts have gone up by 46 percent, and motor vehicle thefts (also known as carjackings) have skyrocketed by an astounding 236 percent.

Since Lightfoot became mayor in 2019, Chicago has seen an uptick in criminal complaints every single year. And during Johnson's short time in office, this trend has continued. So far, under Johnson, every single category of criminal complaints has risen, including an 11-percent uptick in murder, a 16-percent surge in robberies, and a mind-boggling 137 percent increase in carjackings.

Both Lightfoot and Johnson have clearly stated that they favor defunding the police. For instance, Lightfoot slashed the CPD budget by $80 million in 2021, following national calls for less police funding in the wake of the George Floyd/BLM protests.

In 2020, Johnson articulated his stance on police defunding, saying, "I'm absolutely confident that we will be the generation that responds and reacts to the global movement that is calling for redirecting money away from policing and militarizing police forces and directing dollars into job opportunities, transportation, health care and housing for people."

Over the past few years, Johnson has doubled down on his defund the police rhetoric, declaring before the election, "I don't look at it as a slogan. It's an actual political goal."

Well, actions have consequences. And words carry weight. Since 2019, the CPD has lost 13 percent of its active-duty officers, which equates to 1,700 fewer police officers on the streets.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/06/chicagos_crime_crisis_and_the_progressives.html

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Do not surrender to feminism’s dystopia

Janice Fiamengo

‘The war between the sexes has ended, and rather than a co-operative future that could benefit all, it has turned out to be more like a lopsided win for the female side.’

So begins Joel Kotkin’s National Post op-ed Women have won the “war between the sexes”, but at what cost? It is a welcome but disappointing analysis that starts with a show of defiance and ends in quiet desperation. Of course, it’s good to find anyone in a major newspaper willing to cast a less-than-adulatory eye on The Future [that] is Female or to write sympathetically about men. Kotkin, a prolific author on cities and technocracy, proves his good faith on the strength of that opening statement alone. Aside from the wishful thinking of believing feminism to be winding down (was #MeToo a prelude to a ceasefire?) or ever having envisioned a cooperative future (he should take a look at Kate Millett’s incendiary Theory of Sexual Politics), Kotkin is to be commended for daring to name as a war the decades of post-1960s activism in which all the decisive victories have been claimed by feminists against men.

Kotkin, however, isn’t able to continue in the take-no-prisoners style he chose for his opening salvo.

The article stops short of targeting feminist ideology and policies, failing to name a single piece of debilitating feminist legislation or make reference to the many expressions of anti-male contempt that are now deeply embedded in our public culture. The result is a curiously disembodied discussion in which serious social problems linked to male decline are pointed to without saying exactly how they came about or how they might be reversed.

‘The crux of the problem,’ Kotkin tells us to start off, ‘lies in the fact that as women rise, men seem to be falling.’ The phrasing makes male decline sound like a natural phenomenon, an illustration of the primordial principle of Yin and Yang. Or perhaps it is simply that men, with their allegedly fragile egos and hegemonic masculinity, haven’t been able to compete against all that female ability, once dammed up by the patriarchy, now finally being let loose on the world (though always with calls for more to be done to assist women).

At least we are not told, as feminists are wont to do, that what seems like ‘falling’ is just the reality of life without ‘male privilege’. Men really are falling, but we are left with the impression that nobody can determine why (in fact, ten years ago, two researchers at MIT provided a sober accounting of the decline, pinpointing fatherlessness as one of the main drivers of male disadvantage).

The rest of the article sets out to analyse the effects of a decades-long feminist campaign – a war, indeed, on male achievement, status, and self-respect – without naming specific feminist policies or legislative changes. Many articles on the subject are similarly concerned with ‘shifting rates of educational achievement’ that see fewer and fewer men attending college, but most pass over the feminist takeover of the college system, which has created an academic milieu in which the superiour achievements and abilities of women, as well as the predatory danger of men, are constantly asserted, or the hysterical Title IX legislation that has made college campuses hazardous for the dwindling number of men who are still venturing onto them.

Men are frequently referred to as being ‘left behind’ in the economy, but few acknowledge the decades of affirmative action in higher education and hiring (detailed by Paul Nathanson and Katherine Young in Legalizing Misandry, pp. 81-124) as well as draconian sexual harassment legislation that has made work life unrewarding and often punitive for men.

In Kotkin’s case, he stresses the loss of sexual amity and of willingness to marry, but avoids discussing the nightmare of family law that has made marriage or even cohabitation perilous for many men.

The sins of omission on this topic are widespread in the industry. Perhaps working on the assumption – not without basis – that any discussion of social problems will need to focus on women at least as much as on men, the article appears to backtrack on its earlier claim about women’s victory in the sex war, outlining instead a downbeat portrait of women’s troubles. Citing research by Jonathan Haidt, we are told that adolescent girls have been severely affected by depression and self-harm, that many young women, without reliable men to support them, have had to fend for themselves in a difficult economic climate, and that single mothers, left with few options, are unable to offer stability to their children. In my opinion, it looks as if the decline of men mentioned early in the article has mainly hurt women and their children.

Neglected by the wider community is the sad reality adolescent boys commit suicide at 4-times the rate of girls; that women are the ones who choose divorce in approximately 70 per cent of cases; and that divorced fathers are too often denied a real role in their children’s lives while being burdened past endurance by exorbitant support payments. In other words, for every sad woman held up for our concern, there is a plurality of equally sad men rendered invisible in the conventional reporting. The staggering statistics on male suicide provide a stark illustration regarding the casualties of the sex war – yet society has shifted to the now-obligatory concern about the trans threat to women’s sports.

Perhaps most importantly, is the suggestion from the community that the data on men is limited to ‘trends’, occurrences that came about through economic and demographic factors independent of the sex war initially evoked. But they aren’t. They flow directly from a feminist vision in which the family – explicitly understood by feminist leaders to be a source of abuse and oppression – must be transformed and women liberated from reliance on the fathers of their children. Under this vision, a more just and equitable world will be ushered in by women’s superior leadership once they are freed from their unpaid labour in the home and the many sexist barriers that hold them back. That freedom must be aided, according to conventional wisdom, through abundant contraception, unfettered abortion, collectivised childcare, no-fault divorce, programs and propaganda to urge men to do more housework, and non-stop encouragement to women – in movies, sit-coms, advertising, articles, and government equity programs – to give up on their men.

The whole process has been carefully, relentlessly engineered, not only by feminists, though certainly by them, but also by those who believe generally that families and the self-reliant men who lead them stand in the way of a preferable social order in which deracinated individuals, unmoored from family bonds and cultural traditions, can be increasingly directed, for their own good and that of the planet, by wise leaders. The result is, in Kotkin’s words, ‘…a dystopian future in which only the elderly population grows, while children and families become rarer and more stressed.’

Kotkin sees this nightmarish world coming into existence but doesn’t offer a concrete remedy for it; in fact, he leaves us with the impression that the approaching doomsday may well be inevitable.

It isn’t. It can be defended against by dismantling the destructive policies that weaken men and families, which include no-fault divorce, inequitable child custody decisions, affirmative action, and the sexual harassment industry; and by returning to fundamentals such as the presumption of innocence, meritocracy, free speech, due process of law, and fathers’ rights. I’m under no illusions about the monumental difficulty of pushing back against radical feminist victories; but I also know that if we’re unable to name what has brought us to our present moment, in which men and women regard each other warily across a divide of hurt and bitterness, we’ll be left with little to do but join in elegiac surrender.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/06/do-not-surrender-to-feminisms-dystopia/ ?

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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