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What is life really like for Americans living in poor households?

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Investigation in progress
Investigation in progress

This article is from the Daily Signal.

Excerpt:

Today, the Census Bureau will release its annual poverty report. It will almost certainly report that over 40 million Americans “live in poverty.”

But what does it mean to be poor in America? To the average American, the word “poverty” suggests significant material deprivation. But the actual living conditions of those the government defines as poor differ greatly from this perception.

According to the government’s own reports, the typical American defined as poor by the Census Bureau has a car, air conditioning, and cable or satellite TV. Half of the poor have computers, 43 percent have Internet, and 40 percent have a wide-screen plasma or LCD TV.

Far from being overcrowded, poor Americans have more living space in their home than the average non-poor person in Western Europe. Some 42 percent of all poor households actually own their own homes; on average, this is a well-maintained three-bedroom house with one and a half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, only 4 percent of poor children were hungry for even a single day in the prior year because the family could not afford food. By its own report, the average poor person had sufficient funds to meet all essential needs and was able to obtain medical care for his family throughout the year whenever needed.

The left likes to claim that the U.S. has far more poverty than other advanced nations. But those claims are based on comparisons that set a higher standard for escaping poverty in the U.S. than elsewhere.

When a single uniform standard is used, the U.S. is shown to have poverty rates that are very similar to other advanced nations, slightly higher or lower depending on the exact measure used.

I think we definitely want to be careful about the outcry on the secular left about “poverty”. Their solution always seems to be that we need to move in the direction of socialism. And socialism means that the government gets bigger by taking money and liberty away from families, churches and businesses.

As a Christian, my goals are all gospel-centric. My interest in politics is because I want to live in a society that respects my right to work, earn and save, so that I can spend and give in a way that advances the gospel. My job is not to transfer my money to lazy people in their dependence on government. I go to work so that I can have the fuel I need to respect God in my decision-making. The secular government is interested in other goals – like getting elected. I don’t want them using my money for their goals. I have my own goals.

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Democrats and corporate media press racist attacks against Senator Tim Scott

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I added a new section to the blog to track by appearances on podcasts. In those podcasts, I’ve been explaining about my race, culture and immigration story. My ancestry is West Indian black. We have a culture that is more like Asian culture with respect to education, career and finances. I run into a lot of white progressives who accuse me of “acting white” because of that.

This is actually not uncommon. White progressives get very confused when they encounter black men who are conservative and successful. It makes them very angry. In fact, the only real racism you’ll ever see from whites comes from white progressives, when they meet a black conservative.

Here’s an example, featuring South Carolina Senator Tim Scott. He gave the response to Biden’s recent State of the Union, and the white progressives were not pleased that their little black pets were straying off the reservation.

Here’s the video:

Let’s start with a little bit of his speech:

When I was a kid, my parents divorced. My mother, my brother, and I moved in with my grandparents. Three of us, sharing one bedroom.

I was disillusioned and angry, and I nearly failed out of school. But I was blessed.

First, with a praying momma. Then with a mentor, a Chick-Fil-A operator named John Moniz. Finally, with a string of opportunities that are only possible here in America.

This past year, I’ve watched COVID attack every rung of the ladder that helped me up.

So many families have lost parents and grandparents too early. So many small businesses have gone under. Becoming a Christian transformed my life — but for months, too many churches were shut down.

Most of all, I am saddened that millions of kids have lost a year of learning when they could not afford to lose a day.

Locking vulnerable kids out of the classroom is locking adults out of their future.

Our public schools should have reopened months ago. Other countries’ did. Private and religious schools did. Science has shown for months that schools are safe. But too often, powerful grown-ups set science aside. And kids like me were left behind.

The clearest case for school choice in our lifetimes.

So that’s where he’s coming from. He’s trying to get people to succeed through family, Christianity, school choice and private sector jobs.

In fact, he thinks that’s what all Republicans want:

Just before COVID, we had the most inclusive economy in my lifetime. The lowest unemployment ever recorded for African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans. The lowest for women in nearly 70 years. Wages were growing faster for the bottom 25% than the top 25%.

That happened because Republicans focused on expanding opportunity for all Americans.

We passed Opportunity Zones, criminal justice reform, and permanent funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities for the first time ever. We fought the drug epidemic, rebuilt our military, and cut taxes for working families and single moms like mine.

The Federalist noted how the Democrats on social media responded to his speech:

The words “Uncle Tim” began trending on Twitter, tying Scott to the pre-Civil War slave character “Uncle Tom” in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s 1850s abolition book “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” “Uncle Tom” is used as a slur against black people. Yet the racially offensive trend was amplified by Twitter in its trending topics for hours following the speech.

And Daily Wire added:

MSNBC’s Tiffany Cross, the host of “The Cross Connection,” on Saturday dedicated an entire segment on her show to a “rebuttal” to Sen. Tim Scott’s (R-SC) speech earlier this week. According to Cross, Scott is “thirsty for white approval.”

“Let’s be clear: Tim Scott does not represent any constituency other than the small number of sleepy, slow-witted sufferers of Stockholm Syndrome who get elevated to prominence for repeating a false narrative about this country that makes conservative white people feel comfortable,” Cross claimed.

She called the black conservative Senator a “token”, a “dude”, a “slave”, and a “shame” to his ancestors. But she couldn’t refute any of his factual claims. She just called him names because of his skin color, the way racists do.

Daily Wire noted:

According to the MSNBC host, Scott had “many contradictions” in his rebuttal speech that she “could go into great detail refuting each of his asinine points.”

If the Left was serious about refuting Scott’s points, they would talk substance and not resort to calling him “Uncle Tim” or “token.” As the South Carolina senator previously said, the Left won’t “attack my policies, but they are literally attacking the color of my skin. You cannot step out of your lane according to the liberal elite Left.”

Don’t forget about black conservatives, especially ones like me who commit to Christianity and succeed. We don’t hate America like the racists in the corporate media.

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I’m not a Jehovah’s Witness for the same reason I’m not a global warming alarmist

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In the summer, a couple of Jehovah’s Witness ladies were going door-to-door and they stopped by my house while I was out mowing. I decided to talk to them. They asked me why I was an evangelical Protestant rather than a JW. Rather than go into a lot of theology about the Trinity and the Watchtower translation, I decided to to just tell them about the false predictions their group has made.

So, let’s just quickly review that using this article from Watchman fellowship, which quotes JW publications:

Initially the organization taught the “battle of the Great Day of God Almighty” (Armageddon) would end in 1914. Every kingdom of the world would be overthrown in 1914 which was “God’s date” not for the beginning but “for the end” of the time of trouble.

“…we consider it an established truth that the final end of the kingdoms of this world, and the full establishment of the Kingdom of God, will be accomplished by the end of A.D. 1914” (Watchtower founder, Charles Taze Russell, The Time is at Hand, p. 99).

“…the ‘battle of the great day of God Almighty’ (Rev. 16:14), which will end in A.D. 1914 with the complete overthrow of earth’s present rulership, is already commenced” (Ibid., p. 101).

“CAN IT BE DELAYED UNTIL 1914?…our readers are writing to know if there may not be a mistake in the 1914 date. They say that they do not see how present conditions can last so long under the strain. We see no reason for changing the figures – nor could we change them if we would. They are, we believe, God’s dates not ours. But bear in mind that the end of 1914 is not the date for the beginning, but for the end of the time of trouble” (Watch Tower, 15 July 1894, p. 226).

Clearly, the world did not end in 1914, and it did not end at subsequent JW predictions, either, e.g. 1925, 1975.

So, as the title of the post says that I can’t be a global warming alarmist for the same reason I can’t be a Jehovah’s Witness: failed predictions.

Here’s an excellent article from Daily Signal by famous black economist Walter Williams, who explains the connection:

As reported in The New York Times (Aug. 1969) Stanford University biologist Paul Ehrlich warned: “The trouble with almost all environmental problems is that by the time we have enough evidence to convince people, you’re dead. We must realize that unless we’re extremely lucky, everybody will disappear in a cloud of blue steam in 20 years.”

In 2000, David Viner, a senior research scientist at University of East Anglia’s climate research unit, predicted that in a few years winter snowfall would become “a very rare and exciting event. Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.”

In 2004, the U.S. Pentagon warned President George W. Bush that major European cities would be beneath rising seas. Britain will be plunged into a Siberian climate by 2020. In 2008, Al Gore predicted that the polar ice cap would be gone in a mere 10 years. A U.S. Department of Energy study led by the U.S. Navy predicted the Arctic Ocean would experience an ice-free summer by 2016.

In May 2014, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius declared during a joint appearance with Secretary of State John Kerry that “we have 500 days to avoid climate chaos.”

Peter Gunter, professor at North Texas State University, predicted in the spring 1970 issue of The Living Wilderness:

Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions. … By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.

Ecologist Kenneth Watt’s 1970 prediction was, “If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000.” He added, “This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”

Williams concludes:

Today’s wild predictions about climate doom are likely to be just as true as yesteryear’s. The major difference is today’s Americans are far more gullible and more likely to spend trillions fighting global warming. And the only result is that we’ll be much poorer and less free.

We have known for decades that the Earth’s temperatures were much warmer during the “Medieval Warming Period”, hundreds of years ago. But some people are just having irrational fears about overpopulation, resource shortages, etc. and so they will promote nonsense to try to scare people into doing what they want. World history is full of pious-sounding attention-seeking hoaxsters who try to scare the gullible masses into giving them money and/or power. It’s not new.