May 04

Billings Gazette features fake photos of Greek “austerity”

The Billings Gazette delivers a steady stream of pro-government content.

Today, May 4, 2017, the Gazette featured a typical smattering of pro-government news commentary, local business stories and feature stories.

But at the bottom of the Gazette’s webpage there appeared a photo feature entitled: “Here’s what seven years of Greek austerity looks like.” See here.

“Austerity” means cuts in government spending and benefits. The Gazette’s photo feature showed scenes of homeless people sleeping on sidewalks, soup lines, and Greek families struggling in poverty.

While the pictures may show real homelessness and poverty in Greece, they do not depict, realistically, the effects of “austerity.” There hasn’t been any to speak of.

The Greek government spent much of the past few generations doing precisely what the editors and reporters of the Billings Gazette promote: growing government, creating new government agencies, and establishing government welfare and entitlement programs. When Greek officials became unable to pay the government’s debts, they turned to begging, complaining and protesting against more solvent creditor nations.

The Wikipedia page “Greek government-debt crisis countermeasures” provides details of the actual reforms made by Greek governors in recent years: such things as selling government-owned companies, limiting the growth of government salaries, raising VAT (value added taxes) from 5% to 5.5%, from 10% to 11% and from 21% to 23%, mild cuts to public employee benefits, and tax increases.

Although the word “austerity” appears frequently as a curse word among government trusters, it exists almost nowhere in the western world–no matter how badly it is needed.
–Roger Roots

May 02

Americans elect Republicans to cut government, and get . . . more government

Vast majorities of American voters have spoken. They want smaller, less intrusive government.

For years, Americans have elected “conservative” Republicans who promise to cut government.

Now, finally, Republicans control BOTH chambers of Congress, the presidency, the Supreme Court, the majority of state legislatures and the majority of state governorships.

But the most recent budget agreement passed by Congress grows government at a pace even greater than the previous budgets of Obama and the Democrats.

May 01

MIT climate scientist Richard Lindzen: Belief that CO2 controls global temperature is like belief in magic

“Science is a mode of inquiry rather than a belief structure,” according to legendary MIT climate scientist Richard Lindzen.

But many modern people are in the habit of claiming that their own beliefs about manmade global warming represent “science.” Moreover, an immense modern movement to SUPPRESS scientific inquiry has been launched in the name of science. See here.

May 01

The U.S. has the highest tax rates in the developed world

America rose to greatness and prosperity because of its low taxes, property rights and culture of nonregulation.

Over the past century, however, trusters of government have fundamentally altered America’s governmental structure.

Today, American economic growth is stagnant, and prosperity is increasingly elusive. See here.

Apr 29

Climate “scientists” call for boycott of New York Times after the Time hires climate skeptic writer

Government-funded climate “science” is more about politics and religious faith than about subjecting scientific hypotheses to rigorous testing or analysis.

Now one of the America’s most obnoxious and government-funded “climate scientists”–Michael E. Mann of Penn State–is cheerleading for a boycott by government-trusters against the New York Times.

The New York Times, according to Mann, has hired one (1) columnist who questions the government’s apocalyptic global-warming theory. See here.

Apr 25

New CIA director declares war on free speech rather than on actual adversaries of the United States

The Washington Post has published an essay by the courageous Julian Assange about Mike Pompeo, the new director of the CIA.

In “his first speech as director of the CIA,” according to Assange, Pompeo “chose to declare war on free speech rather than on the United States’ actual adversaries.” See here.

Pompeo described WikiLeaks as a “non-state hostile intelligence service.”

Apr 20

Pro-government “news” sources continue to plummet in readership and impact

Facebook and other government-supported media forums are plummeting in readership.

Here is a report indicating that some online publishers are losing impact from Facebook promotions. After Facebook launched its “fake news” elimination efforts two months ago (to aid the government in obscuring nongovernmental-approved content) readers have sought info from other sources.

Matt Drudge’s influential “Drudgereport.com” is touting a new report indicating that the once-alternative news headline site now tops foxnews.com, yahoo.com, google news and CNN as society’s go-to source for news. (Only msn news and espn news leads Drudge Report.)

Increasingly, the “mainstream news” is barely mainstream at all. Only hardline government supremacists still rely on such sources as CNN or CBS for their news information.

Apr 20

Venezuelans–formerly the wealthiest people in South America–are now too starving and poor to protest their socialist government

In just 20 years, socialism and government central planning raped and robbed the people of Venezuela of their rights, their wealth and their dignity.

During the early 1990s, Venezuelans were the wealthiest people in South America. Their market economy thrived and exported oil and other goods throughout the world.

Then the people voted for socialism and Hugo Chavez. Today the people line up in government lines to beg for crumbs. Grown men die in knife fights over pennies and dive through dumpsters to survive. Venezuelan prisoners have killed and eaten other inmates for survival. women and girls prostitute themselves for pennies, or boxes of diapers or tubes of toothpaste.

Now the Wall Street Journal reports that most Venezuelans are simply too hungry to protest their government. See here.

Apr 19

Socialist California leads the nation in pollution

Socialism pollutes and degrades the environment; while capitalism tends to clean the environment.

Look at East Germany versus West Germany. Or North Korea versus South Korea.

Or look at California, with its massive regulations, taxation, central planning and “environmental” laws.

6 of America’s 10 most polluted cities are in California. See here.

Apr 19

Antiwar.com wins small victory over unlawfull FBI surveillance

Antiwar.com is a courageous small news website dedicated to noninterventionism. Since 1995 it has published a wide variety of antiwar news items, columns and interviews. Antiwar.com is generally libertarian rather than socialist, as so many antiwar movements have been in the past.

Around 2012, Antiwar.com was the victim of a hack attack. The producers reported the attack to the FBI, which then FALSIFIED the report as a ‘threat by Antiwar.com to hack the FBI’! See here. (You can’t make this stuff up.)

The FBI then used its deceptive trick as an excuse to surveil and monitor the content of Antiwar.com.

With the help of the ACLU, Antiwar.com has successfully sued the FBI for its surveillance records.