The latest liberal fear? Robots

You want to know how out of touch the Democrat Party is? Let me first give you some background. In a recent Rasmussen poll 72 percent believe parents should be required to prove they are legal residents when registering their kids for school. Eighty-one percent oppose granting in-state tuition to illegal aliens. Sixty-six percent believe gaining control of the border is more important than amnesty for illegals. Yet there he was. Keith Ellison, the deputy chairman of the Democratic National Committee, on May Day in Minnesota sporting an ‘I don’t believe in borders’ t-shirt.

By the way, May Day is an anti-capitalist socialist/communist celebration. It was a very important holiday in the old Soviet Union. It’s also a mandatory holiday in communist China, and prior to 2008 lasted for three days. The socialists love to try and mask it as “pro-labor” but its celebration by communists all over the world tells the true story.

The socialists/communists have always plowed in the fertile field of labor. This is where it’s easiest to sow discontent. And that’s not to say that much of that discontent hasn’t been legitimate. However, socialism/communism was never the answer. The Democrats have a long history of peddling in fear. Fear of Big Business. Fear of global warming. Fear that the mean ole Republicans are going to take away your Social Security. Fear that Trump is going to pull the safety net out from under you.

Do you remember what Nancy Pelosi said was going to happen if Congress passed Trump’s tax cuts? Armageddon. It was going to be the end of the world as we know it. Just a few months after its passage we see unemployment at an 18-year low. Black and Hispanic unemployment are at historic lows. Confidence in the housing market is at an all-time high. Companies are moving back to the United States and pouring billions into the economy. Workers are getting raises and bonuses.

So, what’s the next big fear from the left? Robots.

I’m not kidding. The left is trying to sell this story to the millennials that they won’t have any jobs because of robots. Therefore they have to support the universal basic income. A piece from futurism.com provides a list of at-risk jobs because of robots. For instance, they claim 99 percent of insurance underwriter jobs are at risk. They say 88 percent of construction jobs and 79 percent of truck driver jobs could be replaced by robots. The solution, of course, is a universal basic income. 

They admit it will cost upwards of $3.2 trillion annually, but they have a plan to pay for it all. Carbon taxes, higher income taxes, a VAT (value-added tax or national sales tax), more taxing on earnings from investments, and decreased military spending.

They also highlight the story of Harper Lee being given an envelope in 1956 with a year’s salary in it. She was told she had a year to write anything she wanted. She, of course, wrote To Kill a Mockingbird which went on to sell 30 million copies worldwide. They act as though the only way to write a bestseller is through socialism. Harper Lee is the exception, not the rule. Most successful novelists succeed through hard work and not hand-outs. The same for successful people in general.

We have had robots for decades and they’ve always made our lives better. The Democrats are counting on mind-numbed robots to follow them over the socialist cliff. Hopefully the recent prosperity has opened their eyes.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Mitch McConnell is the problem

If you are a fiscal conservative like me I’m sure you share my frustration with the latest budget that was passed by a Republican Congress and signed by a Republican president. Not to give President Trump too much of a pass, but he was obviously frustrated when he signed it. He did so, he says, because the six-month budget gets much-needed funding to the military.

What’s disturbing is the glee which Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi took in voting for the bill. Any time those two are happy it’s a sure bet it’s a bad deal for America. But just who is to blame?

Many point to Speaker Paul Ryan who reached across the aisle to pass a bipartisan piece of legislation. Bipartisan sounds nice and fuzzy but it’s code for capitulation. The Republicans were sent to Washington to drain the swamp and stop the reckless spending. They failed miserably. And there’s one reason why. Mitch McConnell.

The senate majority leader has refused to kill the ridiculous filibuster rule. This is the arcane senate rule that allows the majority to threaten a filibuster and it takes sixty votes to override it. The minority never really has to actually filibuster. They just have to threaten to. Proponents of this insane rule claim that if the Democrats take control of the Senate they’ll dispense of it to pass their agenda if the Republicans do it to them. Fox News Alert: They’re going to ditch that rule the first time it gets in their way no matter what the Republicans do now.

Despite the spin from both parties, the filibuster super majority is not constitutional. The Constitution only requires a senate super majority when voting on impeachment, expelling a member of Congress, overriding a presidential veto, ratifying treaties, and proposing constitutional amendments. Requiring a three-fifths vote to stop a filibuster was a rule change in 1806, and even then was infrequently used until 1970. That’s when the Senate adopted the so-called “two-track” procedure intended to keep the filibuster from derailing all Senate business. It didn’t take too long before the actual filibuster itself became a mere formality and the Senate became a 60-vote institution.

McConnell and the Republicans changed the rule to exclude Supreme Court nominations. That’s after Harry Reid and the Democrats changed the rule to eliminate the filibuster on executive branch and judicial nominees. So it can be eliminated. McConnell just doesn’t want to.

Why?

My suspicion is McConnell actually wants a lot of the spending the Democrats want. Remember, McConnell is part of the swamp. This guy has become filthy rich thanks to the communist Chinese. As Peter Schweizer chronicles in his new book, Secret Empires, McConnell’s in-laws have deep financial ties to the Chinese government. China’s largest defense contractor set Elaine Chao’s family up in the shipping business. Elaine Chao is McConnell’s wife. She’s also the transportation secretary. Schweizer says McConnell’s father-in-law became filthy rich and gifted the senator between five and twenty-five million dollars.

Sounds rather swampish, doesn’t it?

What do you want to bet that an ordinary citizen like you or me wouldn’t get that sort of sweetheart deal from the Chinese government?

Trump’s tariffs on China are bound to be driving McConnell’s Chinese handlers crazy. Neither McConnell nor his wife seem to have any sway over the president on that issue. The Democrats focus on Russia but there is no doubt that China is the most dangerous country on Earth. And they have made our Senate Majority leader a multimillionaire. Can you say conflict of interest?

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Why the Schumer Shutdown backfired

We all know how the government shutdowns usually go. Democrats demand something unreasonable. Republicans awkwardly try to push their agenda forward. The left-wing media act as the PR firm for the Democrats. The Republicans get blamed. The government shutdown is over. Not this time.

What was different? Several things. First of all, trying to tie the DACA demands to a continuing resolution to keep the government functioning was transparent. DACA doesn’t expire until March 5. There was no need to throw it in the mix of a spending bill. Times past, however, the Democrats would’ve gotten away with it. They didn’t this time.

One of the reasons is the brilliant framing of the argument by President Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget. Mick Mulvaney so cleverly labeled this particular government shutdown ‘The Schumer Shutdown.’ The alliteration was irresistible to even the left-wing media who picked up the phrase and ran with it.

There was also President Trump himself. Nancy Pelosi cackled that the president had nothing to do with the negotiations. He had everything to do with them. Speaker Paul Ryan said as much himself. He said they were passing a bill that Trump would sign. In reality, the person who had nothing to do with the negotiations was Pelosi.

After the Schumer Shutdown took hold in the minds of the American people it was simply a matter of time. The longer the government stayed closed, the worse it became for the Democrats. They were stunned. They’ve never lost one of these. No matter the outcome, they were always able to pin it on the Republicans. This time they couldn’t.

Had we had any other president it might have been business as usual. If Trump knows one thing it’s how to negotiate. What the Democrats failed to recognize is he doesn’t have to have DACA. To Trump, it’s a bargaining chip. To the Democrats it’s everything. What they don’t know is they already have it.

The one thing the Senate Republicans did screw up was pushing the continuing budget resolution down the road only three weeks. That pushes it up near the deadline for DACA and Democrats will surely try to tie the two together again. That’s why having Trump involved is so important.

Remember where this whole Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals thing started. It was a ploy by President Obama to put a different face on illegal immigration. He could find some girl who was dragged over here at six months old who spoke perfect English and was the valedictorian of her school. That was supposed to erase the image of the tattooed MS-13 gang member who was butchering people in the streets for kicks.

The DACA folks (and they’re not kids any longer) were never in danger of being deported. Think about it. The only person who could’ve deported them was Obama. And he issued an order to protect them. From whom? Himself? No, it was all a publicity stunt to get the American people to believe they were in imminent danger of being deported. The Democrats have told that lie so long they now believe it.

So, Trump wants the wall. He wants an end to chain migration. He wants an end to the lottery visa. In order to get it he’s willing to give the Democrats something they already have. As I’ve said, it’s like selling New York the Brooklyn Bridge. They already own it.

The cards have already been dealt to give Trump what he wants. The House and Senate Republicans have to just not screw it up.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

The new entitlement class - artists

I was reading a piece in The Tennessean newspaper that “artists” were twice as likely not to have health insurance as the rest of us.  I rolled my eyes. I’ve known a few of these “artists.” They’re somehow not too proud to take a handout but much to proud to take a job.

I also learned from a caller to my radio show that the city of Nashville offers subsidized housing for these so-called “artists” so they can continue to work on their “art” while they wait for their government checks. I was reminded of what Nancy Pelosi said during the Obamacare debate way back when.  

“We see it as an entrepreneurial bill,” Pelosi said of Obamacare, “a bill that says to someone, if you want to be creative and be a musician or whatever, you can leave your work, focus on your talent, your skill, your passion, your aspirations because you will have health care.”

In other words, let’s encourage people to be irresponsible. I arrived in Nashville, Tennessee back in the ‘80s, as many young folks do, all starry-eyed and eager to make it in the music business. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the radio business took off for me and I ditched my dreams of being the next big thing.

Art is a relative term. What some call art others call trash, whether it be paintings, dance, music or filmmaking. I would love to make films full time but I’m not going to quit my day job to do it. At least not yet. People like Nancy Pelosi think that’s unfair. I call it being responsible. I have a wife and kids to consider.

Let me be honest. Twice as many artists are without health insurance because they’re bums. I know that sounds harsh but it’s the truth. Somehow somewhere along the way they were convinced that it was their god-given right to sponge off the rest of us in order to allow them

the freedom to chase their dream. I’m, quite frankly, offended by the notion that there are people who value their dreams more than their responsibility. Nothing wrong with dreams. I have a few of my own but pursue them when you’re financially able. Just because you want to be an “artiste” doesn’t mean I have to subsidize it.  Or, at least, it used not to mean that. I guess now in this post-Pelosi world it does.

A good 98 percent of those trying to be an artist will fail and there’s a reason for that. A good 98 percent of that 98 percent are fooling themselves into believing they really have talent. Or maybe they’re listening to folks like Nancy Pelosi.

I’ve got news for the dreamers. Everybody has a secret dream. Everyone has this deep secret of being someone or something else. It’s perfectly natural. It’s perfectly healthy. Some of us will break out of our mold and become that new person we always knew we could be. Most of us won’t. There’s no shame in either. The only difference is in how we go about it. There are more important things than self-servingly chasing a dream. If you have a family you’re obligated to them first. Even if you don’t you should have enough pride not to become a ward of the state. Pelosi wants you to be just that.

Far be it from me to rain on your parade. If you think you have talent, whether it be in music or dance or painting or filmmaking, go for it. Just go for it on your own dime.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

IRS misconduct no surprise to me

(This column originally appeared in Talkers Magazine)

The revelation that the IRS was targeting conservative groups came as a shock to much of America.  For me, it was all simply a confirmation of something I’ve been experiencing for some time. 

A couple of years ago I began getting inquiries from the IRS.  They wanted me to explain certain items I’d taken as deductions.  I had the same experience back in the mid-‘90s when I first moved to Philadelphia.  This was during the Clinton administration and I figured when I landed in Philadelphia to do talk radio I also landed on the administration’s radar.  Again, it was petty stuff like making me dig up receipts from prior tax years and fill out all sorts of annoying forms.  Once I satisfied the requests for one year another inquiry for another year would begin almost immediately.

So when this all started again with me a couple of years ago I decided to contact some of my friends in the talk radio business.  I e-mailed back and forth with some high profile talkers.  A couple of them admitted they were going through the same thing but told me in no uncertain terms that they did not want their names made public.  That’s how frightening the IRS can be.

I, on the other hand, was sick and tired of it so each time I got a letter I shared it with my listeners.  I knew I was running the risk of damaging my reputation.  After all, being investigated by the IRS puts all sorts of ugly thoughts in people’s minds.  I also knew I’d be inviting more ire from the IRS but I thought the story was important enough that I needed to tell my audience what was going on.

They began to target my mortgage interest deduction.  Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats had limited how much mortgage interest you could deduct.  The IRS disallowed all of my mortgage interest, not just what would’ve been above the limit set by Congress.  All of it.  And they sent me a bill for tens of thousands of dollars.  I knew they were wrong so I went through the pain of digging up the information they needed.  That wasn’t enough.  They wanted more documentation from the mortgage companies, one of which had been absorbed during the mortgage meltdown by another bank.  Once I provided the requested information they just moved on to another year and started the process all over again.

What’s amusing is after the third time they discovered that I had made a mathematical mistake to my detriment.  They sent me a check for several thousand dollars.  I could tell it was sent begrudgingly because the check arrived with no explanation, no note, no nothing.  At first I thought it was one of those tax scams since it came from out of the blue.  I called the IRS and, after working my way through the labyrinth of departments, finally got word that, yes, the check was real.

That was just a few months ago.  Now they’re on to another tax year, asking for the same information, asking me to fill out the same worksheets and the same forms.  To be clear, I’m not saying that Bill Clinton was behind my IRS harassment during the ‘90s and I’m not saying President Obama is behind it now.  What I’m saying is someone inside the IRS is misusing their power for political retribution, despite what the IRS is saying.  There are just too many examples of it.  We need to put a stop to this once and for all, no matter the political party in power.