The national government’s debt, again, hit a record high.
Washington (AFP) – More massive than the US economy, the national debt hit a new record of $22 trillion under President Donald Trump but Republicans who traditionally rail against debt and deficits have remained mum.
The sum of borrowing to cover chronic deficits as well as growing interest payments, this mountain of debt already stood at $19.95 trillion when Trump entered the White House, reaching the equivalent of US GDP for the first time since World War II.
The Republicans have not been silent. They’ve been Yea-ing along the whole time.
Facebook deliberately broke privacy and competition law and should urgently be subject to statutory regulation, according to a devastating parliamentary report denouncing the company and its executives as “digital gangsters”.
The final report of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee’s 18-month investigation into disinformation and fake news accused Facebook of purposefully obstructing its inquiry and failing to tackle attempts by Russia to manipulate elections.
“Democracy is at risk from the malicious and relentless targeting of citizens with disinformation and personalised ‘dark adverts’ from unidentifiable sources, delivered through the major social media platforms we use every day,” warned the committee’s chairman, Damian Collins.
“Companies like Facebook should not be allowed to behave like ‘digital gangsters’ in the online world, considering themselves to be ahead of and beyond the law. “
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Thirty-five percent of Americans name the government, poor leadership or politicians as the greatest problem facing the U.S. This is the highest percentage Gallup has recorded for this concern, edging out the previous high of 33% during the 2013 federal government shutdown.
But, dig a little deeper and it starts to look like that declining IQ in action.
The current percentage of Americans naming government as the most important problem is nearly twice as high as the 18% recorded in November. That increase likely reflects public frustration with the government shutdown that occurred from late December through most of January. Gallup observed a similar double-digit spike spanning the 2013 government shutdown, from 16% in September 2013 to 33% in October 2013.
Americans have different things in mind when they name the government as the most important problem. An analysis of the verbatim responses to the question from the latest survey finds that 11% of Americans specifically cite “Donald Trump” as the most important problem, while 5% name “the Democrats” or “liberals” and 1% “Congress.” About half of those who say the government is the most important problem — 18% of U.S. adults — blame both parties or cite “gridlock,” “lack of cooperation” or the shutdown more generally. The latter figure has grown from 6% in December and 12% in January.
If the government’s the problem, then why not celebrate it closing (even temporarily)?
Bottom Line
Federal government shutdowns have clear, negative effects on Americans’ views on a variety of measures, including their general satisfaction with the direction of the country. But shutdowns aside, Americans’ views of the government itself as a problem — rather than the means of solving problems — have increased over the past two decades. On one end of Gallup’s 2001-2019 trend is the record low of 1% naming the government as the greatest problem, recorded one month after 9/11. On the other end is the latest 35%, as the longest shutdown on record left bad feelings on both sides of the political aisle.
At the moment, Democrats and Republicans are aligned in this view, though likely for different reasons. For Democrats, the shutdown was a stalemate over a border wall they overwhelmingly reject — from a president of whom few in the party approve. For Republicans — who show an even greater recent increase in mentions of government as the top U.S. problem — the ramifications of losing control of the House of Representatives and the party’s inability to pass legislation it favors may be dawning on the party’s rank and file.
The people seem to sense some sort of odd issue emanating from the Democrats and Republicans. But they keep identifying as Democrats and Republicans. Einstein had a saying about this pattern of action. Also, there’s more cooperation at work than most people understand; the uniparty keeps the government going and the government keeps causing trouble. And, if one still believes that the United States Empire is in any manner democratic, then where does the ultimate blame lie? Maybe with the … people themselves?
A little good news from the other findings in this particular poll: the second biggest problem the wise citizens see is with immigration. However, given their track record with accurately assessing their own chosen number one issue, Lord only knows what they’re thinking about number two. My guess is that, whatever that is, it is also indicative of the general mental decline.
The Details is in the Decline: The Fall of the American IQ
We’ve known for some time that general intelligence is declining, at a rapid and alarming pace, in America and across much of the West. I mentioned it, here, earlier this year. This issue is important, critical to the survival (or death) of civilized society and is directly related to my other option for this week’s column – President Trump’s failure to arrest unchecked migration into the United States.
A new book, At Our Wits’ End, Dutton and Woodley, Imprint Academic, Exeter, UK, 2018, sheds damning light on the reversal of the “Flynn Effect” and what the precipitous decline in national IQs means for us and for our children’s future (it ain’t good).
One of the five major causes of the lowering average intelligence is: “Western elites are now deliberately sponsoring the colonization of our nations by vast numbers of low-IQ persons from Africa, Asia and Latin America.” The other causes are mind-boggling but this one touches on the invasion and Forty-Five’s failure to halt it.
In 1960, five years before the disastrous Celler-Kennedy Nationalization Act, some 85% of immigrants to America came from Europe, home to both Western civilization and to higher than world average IQs. In 2015, fifty years after the disaster, Euros account for only 13% of our new arrivals. The great majority of the others do indeed come from places with much lower than normative average intelligence, the exception being some immigrants from East Asia.
If Trump (and Limbaugh) think the Mueller team are criminals, then why aren’t they arrested as enemies of the state? We are under an emergency, aren’t we?
The IQ decline is a go for TPC. More on that soon; piece submitted.
Who else has never heard of “Empire” or this latest hoaxer before?
Why the hell is everyone going around “rapping” these days?! The IQ thing, maybe.
Today we can confirm that hereditary intelligence has been declining. Dutton and Woodley summarize the evidence, which includes deterioration in simple reaction times, color discrimination, the use of “difficult” words, working memory, special perception, child developmental schedules and—most critically—frequency of macro-innovations. In 2017, an Icelandic study found the first direct genetic evidence that a set of alleles predictive of g has been declining in frequency in that country’s population. More such studies can be expected in the years ahead.
According to a 2015 meta-analysis of studies conducted since 1927, IQ in the USA and the UK appears to be declining at a rate of 0.39 points per decade. Declines are also reported in Russia and a number of non-Western countries.
The authors emphasize five reasons (besides improved public health) why this is happening: 1) naturally gifted people have a tendency to trade mating and parenting opportunities for the opportunity to develop their abilities, e. g., through higher education; 2) being forward-thinking, such people are likelier to use contraception; 3) the modern welfare state taxes the more successful in order to support single mothers, who can often increase their benefits by having more children; 4) the modern movement for sexual “equality” has encouraged the brightest women to pursue careers and postpone marriage, often until it is too late; 5) finally, and most unforgivably, Western elites are now deliberately sponsoring the colonization of our nations by vast numbers of low-IQ persons from Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Declining general intelligence has been masked during the Twentieth Century by the so-called Flynn effect, an improvement in specialized mental skills independent of g. This may be one factor which made possible the continued technological progress of the twentieth century. But there is good evidence that the Flynn effect has now done about all it can do, and lower genotypic intelligence will increasingly make itself felt.
I calculated this several years ago in Cuckservative. The affects of our cognitively-challenged societies are already beginning to make themselves felt. The Age of Progress is over.
Sorry … just a straight ripoff. This may be the subject of this week’s TPC column. Not sure yet as I kind of covered the subject a few weeks ago. There’s the “emergency” and immigration failure. We’ll see.
As I see it, after ten years of collective effort, Hungarians once again have confidence in their future. Confidence in the future is a great treasure, which must not be squandered. This is why we must speak clearly about what our nation can expect from the future. What will it have to contend with, what tests of strength should it expect, how well is it prepared to compete in the world? Are the Hungarian people, the Hungarian state, the Hungarian nation, capable of survival and endurance, capable of emerging victorious from these tests of strength? This question is a serious one – indeed a deeply serious one – and it therefore demands an honest answer. My answer is that over the course of around ten years our nation got back on its feet. Its descent into the valley became an ascent of the mountain. It has regained the right to determine its own fate; and for this reason alone it stands ready to fight the battles awaiting it, and has the chance to win. In short, my reply is this: we shall win; we shall win again and again!
Ladies and Gentlemen,
For us victory is not when our party wins: for us victory is when our country wins. I am one of those who share the deep conviction that every Hungarian child will have a better life than his or her parents – and I believe that the great majority can take advantage of this opportunity. We are the community that has always wanted the life of every Hungarian to count, and for everyone to have their place in the Hungarian future. Our community stands on national foundations. We are not engaged politics in order to follow fashionable ideas, but to sustain the Hungarian nation and its continued life in the future.
…
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Migration boosts crime – in particular, crimes against women – and spreads the disease of terrorism among us. But we must not get bogged down in our fears. We must see beyond our fears. We must understand that the European peoples have come to a historic crossroads. Those who decide in favour of immigration and migrants – to whatever end they may do so – are in fact creating countries with mixed populations. The historical traditions of these countries are coming to an end, and a new world is unfolding. In immigrant countries a Christian-Muslim world is coming into being, with a continuously shrinking percentage of Christians. There are some who do not mind this, and there are some who dismiss the issue with a wave of the hand, because they believe that this will be a slow process. They are wrong, and they will be surprised. An ethnic group of 10 per cent will first increase to between15 and 20 per cent. Then everything will speed up, and the rest requires no imagination, just simple mathematics. Those of my age will live to see the rapid transformation of what were once great Christian countries. It makes our hearts ache, but we can do little to help. Once on the express train they will reach the final destination. And there is no return ticket. However, we Central Europeans still have our own future. We have our own future which is the continuation of the lives of our parents and grandparents, the preservation of the traditions of a thousand years, the protection of our economy, our families and our Christian culture. Such a future is also possible. To be more precise, such a future is possible for us.
America is far gone. There is hope, still, for Western Europe. Eastern Europe, having defeated Nazism and Communism and having rejected Globalism, needs no hope – they’re going to be fine. The future of the West is in the East. The fun of it too:
Hungarian Foreign Minister, Peter Szijjarto, shocked CNN’s Christine Amanpour:
“We reject multiculturalism”! “Hungary has been a Christian country for a millennium & will stay that way”
Hungary declares we will never allow an “invasion” & will defend our country’s sovereignty pic.twitter.com/YiUy6fAc47
State of emergency, indeed. This one is “wait and see,” in tandem with the ludicrous spending bill. Wait and see. Wait and see. Yes, getting a little old.
The awesome news is that, if he really wanted to, Trump could use this emergency to reverse the migration curse and drain the swamp simultaneously.
PERRIN LOVETT 
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