That perfect paragon of journalistic ‘objectivity’, the Washington Post, introduced a new rating for lies. We applied them to the left.

The Washington Post has developed a new rating system – the ‘Bottomless Pinocchio’ – for a false claim repeated over and over. This is somewhat ironic since the leftist media excels in the practice. While we will try to keep this to the more egregious and discrete lies of the left, a few notes on their other types of lies are in order.

The labeling and language lies of the left

Even the labels they apply to themselves – aside from being socialist – are falsehoods. These are people who work against the cause of liberty on a daily basis while pretending to be liberal. It’s a post-modernism community that has the false front of being ‘progressive’, that would prefer to use the judiciary to impose their socialist national agenda rather than democratic means.

Then there is the game of lying by language the left plays to excess. Time was, global cooling was the existential threat to woman and mankind, until it stopped getting cooler. Then global warming became the existential threat until it stopped getting warmer. Accordingly, they hit on the deception of working against it doing either, so no matter what happens, they can claim they are right because the climate has always changed. This also gave them a nice bonus in tarring any who opposes their control agenda as being a ‘climate change denier’ – even though no one actually denies the climate changes. Better yet, they have been able to shorten it up to the ultimate insult of labeling their opposition as ‘climate deniers’ as if people would actually deny reality itself.

These will be the top 5 ‘Bottomless Pinocchios’ of the left. These are lies that are recycled repeatedly by the left in their effort at distorting reality to the point where gun free zones actually keep people safe, no one is starting a conversation about gun confiscation and societal slavery can really work.

 Bottomless Pinocchio 5: People have a ‘right’ to health care

This is one of the left’s favourites in trying to reshape (or ‘reform’) reality. Like many other variations of the ‘people have a right to’ line, this stems from the concept of Coercive or Collective Rights, whereby people have the ‘right’ to force others to provide them with the vestiges of this ‘right’. These are contrasted with Natural Rights possessed by everyone, the right to self-preservation, the right to property, the right of freedom of expression.

Having a ‘right’ to health care, or ‘right’ to feel safe, or a ‘right’ to not be offended, generally entails that someone else has to provide for this ‘right’. In the case of healthcare, providing this ‘right’ would mean that medical professionals would be required to sacrifice their time and labour in this effort. Citizens would also be forced to contribute their property. There is a word for when people are forced to provide their time and effort to others. It’s called slavery.

In point of fact the phrase should really be people have a ‘right’ to enslave others. But the folks who pretend to support liberty can’t say that directly, hence they use the ‘right to’ lie.

Bottomless Pinocchio 4: Gun free zones work as advertised

This one is slightly different from the others in that even leftists know they will be laughed off the public stage if they said this out loud. Rather, they imply the idea with their policy agenda of incessantly working towards gun confiscation, supposedly rendering the entire world a global ‘gun-free’ zone such as the latest example in France.

Expanding what doesn’t work always seems to be a hallmark of the left. Never mind that something doesn’t function in one area, extend it elsewhere so it’ll work… somehow.

Anyone familiar with logic can easily see why these don’t work, since those bent on evil will tend to go where they will have little opposition. Unfortunately, as with the fact that there are only two genders, leftists don’t seem to be able to comprehend that which is bloody obvious. They seem to have the misguided idea that a rule or a sign will stop a mass murderer.

The facts bear this out given that most mass shootings take place in ‘gun-free’ zones. This has been the situation for almost 30 years.

The problem for the left is that they can’t actually admit to their absolute failure in this area. Were they to do this, it would mean an end to their whole gun confiscation agenda. Thus they perpetuate that it’s a myth that defensive gun uses exist or that a ‘good guy (or gal) with a gun’ will deter these tragedies. It means that they continue to put people at risk for the sake of their disarmament agenda, without the hint of guilt on their part.

Bottomless Pinocchio 3 : No one is talking about gun confiscation

Finding cases where leftists have demanded gun confiscation has become as easy as shooting fish in a barrel (pardon the pun Peta). The past few years have seen an increase in these demands from the left to the point that it’s occurred more than 70 times – not counting excerpts, syndication and reprints. Repeating this lie enables leftists to keep the discussion to the next incremental step instead of their final solution to the liberty problem.

Still, the liberty grabber left persists in propagating this enormous lie. It does several things for them. It short circuits the negative effects of gun confiscation such as leaving the innocent defenseless against criminals and the government. It lulls some into a false sense of security as to the left’s long term goal for the cause of liberty.

This perennial lie is also necessary to get some to accept governmental overreach in controlling their personal property. They have used this same technique in getting people to register their guns accompanied by the solemn promise that they won’t use it to confiscate guns, after which their guns are confiscated.

Bottomless Pinocchio 2: Failed socialist experiments weren’t really socialist

It would seem this little ditty began when the socialist-left started trying to claim that a certain National Socialist German Workers’ Party wasn’t actually a National Socialist German Workers’ Party. The Left actually tried to reverse reality, making a party with a collectivist ideology of the left to one of an individualist ideology of the right. The problem for them is that those on the pro-liberty, conservative right, by definition favour lower taxes and limited government. Hardly something the Nazis were known for.

Leftists will often times try to deflect the facts of the matter given the very name of the party: ‘Nationalsozialistische deutsche Arbeiter-Partei’. But consider the words of the translator of Mein Kampf:

Finally, I would point out that the term Social Democracy may be misleading in English, as it has not a democratic connotation in our sense. It was the name given to the Socialist Party in Germany. And that Party was purely Marxist; but it adopted the name Social Democrat in order to appeal to the democratic sections of the German people.
James Murphy. Abbots Langley, February, 1939

Later on, they played this little game with virtually every other socialist regime. Miraculously enough, before these socialist regimes ran out of other people’s money the left labelled them as one of their own. Then in the blink of an eye, they would ping-pong from left to right almost overnight when they inevitably failed.

The problem for the left is that they have nothing on George Orwell. We’re supposed to simply ignore basic facts from history, beginning with the very words that socialists have used to describe themselves. These socialist regimes also followed collectivist precepts. But in an instant these facts are swept away, in favour of a new reality where Red is Blue and Blue is Red.

Bottomless Pinocchio 1: Socialism can actually work

This is a basic survival lie of the left. They cannot accede to the fact of 400 years of the failure of the ideas of their base ideology, so they must pretend it can work… somehow. Just as they can pretend to be liberal while working to tear down liberty, but that’s another subject.

Since their agenda of societal slavery has never worked, they have to deflect the argument with the aforementioned ‘socialism has never been tried before’ and ‘failed socialist experiments weren’t really socialist’ lies. Or pretending that non-socialist nations are really socialist.

The bottom line is that socialism can never work because it runs counter to basic human physiology. One will always see less of a behaviour that is negatively reinforced, while more will be seen with behaviour that is positively reinforced. The fundamental results of reward and punishment cannot be ignored, and yet this is what socialists have as the basis of their ideology.

Consider that the experiment of socialism has been conducted in situations around the world for over 400 years with the same result: failure. It should be obvious by now to most intelligent people that it cannot work, and yet the national socialist-left still persists in trying to turn that which is impossible into something that is possible, no matter who has to suffer and die.

The takeaway

In many ways the left should stay away from pronouncing judgement on falsehoods when they are so rife with them. Leftist lies keep them afloat in the sea of politics. We have shown that not only are they false, but they must be retold in order for the left to survive.

The congresswoman’s Jewish possible ancestors shouldn’t be a problem for anyone. But the idea that her leftist stands are somehow authentically Jewish is troubling.

(December 11, 2018 / JNS) At a time when DNA tests are a national craze, as well as source of political controversy, we shouldn’t be surprised about claims of Jewish identity from anyone. But when they come from someone as controversial as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the expressions of joy and dismay about her possible connection to the tribe were predictably partisan and downright foolish.

The incoming member of Congress from Queens, N.Y., made headlines when she told those in attendance at a synagogue Hanukkah party in her district over the weekend that “a very, very long time ago, generations and generations ago, my family consisted of Sephardic Jews.”

As she explained, the people of her native Puerto Rico are descendants of many different strains of immigrants, including those Jews who fled Spain in the 15th century. Within her family’s collective memory is some sense of having been descended at least partly from such Jews.

Those who already liked the young Democratic Socialist, who has become the rock star of her party, were thrilled that she could be claimed as part of the family. On the other hand, Jews who dislike her leftist politics were disgusted. It was a rerun of what happened when House Speaker Paul Ryan found out that his DNA was 3 percent Ashkenazi Jewish during historian Henry Louis Gates’s “Finding Your Roots” PBS TV program. Liberal Jews responded to that item with nasty partisan abuse, as well as declarations that he wasn’t wanted. Ocasio-Cortez’s detractors were quick to use the same sort of invective.

But those who accused her of attempting to steal Jewish identity weren’t being fair. This is unlike the antics of fellow Democrat Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who attempted to back up her claims of Native American identity with a DNA test that showed that, at best, she was 1/64th descended from either the Cherokee or Delaware tribes. Ocasio-Cortez wasn’t pretending to be Jewish or trying to show that DNA was identity, let alone to justify using it for personal advancement as the senator allegedly did when she claimed to be the first “woman of color” to be named a professor at Harvard Law School.

Attacks on her for mentioning her Catholic family’s memories of their partial Jewish past were inappropriate. We know that 20 centuries of post-exile persecution has resulted in many branches falling away from the Jewish ancestral tree, so her story is hardly uncommon. It is also a heartening sign of the times that prominent non-Jews are proud about their Jewish roots, rather than—as would have been the case in the not-so-distant past—feel shame about it.

The tenuous connections between her family, or that of Ryan and any long-lost Jewish ancestors, are merely intellectual curiosities. Still, two aspects of the issue are worth some comment.

One is the danger that someone with some claims to Jewish identity will use it selectively in order to justify taking a stand against Israel. Over the decades, we’ve seen that happen with a number of writers or politicians who have few ties to their Jewish heritage, yet trot it out as a credential that enables them to express anger, embarrassment or outrage about the conflict in the Middle East. The “not in my name” meme in which Jews who know next to nothing about Israel and its geopolitical dilemmas seek to disassociate themselves from Israelis fighting for their lives is despicable. If Ocasio-Cortez were ever to use such a rhetorical device to justify siding with her close allies—incoming House Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib—who are supporters of the anti-Semitic BDS movement that seeks Israel’s destruction, that would be outrageous.

Yet there’s another more serious argument to be addressed. It’s the theme sounded in the Forward after the latest Ocasio-Cortez story broke—that the Socialist politician is actually more authentically Jewish because of her politics than conservative or Zionist Jews.

Part of this mindset is the notion that modern American political liberalism and Judaism are interchangeable. It’s more than just an old joke to say that many American Jews conceive of their faith as more or less the Democratic Party platform with holidays thrown in. While it’s an insult to Judaism to conceive of it as nothing more than an elaborate theological justification for partisan politics, it’s also true that many American Jews see their faith as determining their votes. In that sense, there are Jews who see American Jewish conservatives or supporters of the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as representing a point of view that is alien to their conception of what it means to be Jewish.

More troubling is the idea that a loose sense of identity in which a multicultural frame of reference about the world—as opposed to a strictly Jewish one—is more representative of the way young Jews think today. Given the demographic implosion of non-Orthodox Jews in the United States, it is hardly surprising that some Jews think this way, but the consequences in terms of a decline in a sense of Jewish peoplehood are obvious and serious. If we begin to worship inclusion and diversity to the point where Jewish parochialism and nationalism, even in its most benign forms, are rejected as illiberal, then we will be part of a community that stands for nothing and is incapable of sustaining itself.

The real tragedy is that too many young Jews see Jewish observance or Zionism as antithetical to their progressive political views. If we get to the point where Ocasio-Cortez’s sensibilities about Israel or those of others on the left who might falsely regard Zionism as a form of racism because it contradicts their intersectional beliefs are accepted as legitimate Jewish perspectives, that will be a disaster. If such views are seen as more authentically Jewish than that of a typical Israeli or an affiliated Jew, then we will have arrived at a point where Jewish identity in this country for all too many of us will be nothing more than a meaningless percentage on a DNA test.

Jonathan S. Tobin is editor in chief of JNS — Jewish News Syndicate. Follow him on Twitter at: @jonathans_tobin.

The gauntlet has been thrown. President Trump took ownership of the impending government shutdown, saying he won’t sign a CR without wall funding attached. Democrats seem almost giddy about having a shutdown now that the President has claimed it as his own.

If we don’t get the wall funded now, it’s not going to happen for a long time. That could mean two years. That could mean not in our lifetimes.

It could mean never.

Despite the President’s claims of ongoing wall construction and fence upgrades, as well as his claim that the wall doesn’t have to cover the entire 2000 mile stretch of our southern border, we’re still no closer to having real border security than we were two years ago. Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) may be correct when she says this is a “political promise,” but she neglects to point out it’s the promise that won him the GOP nomination and ultimately the White House.

People expect him to keep that promise. Now that he appears to be done with waiting around for funding, Congress is the last obstacle. It isn’t going to get any easier once Democrats take over next session.

If the President sticks to his guns and refuses to fund the government until the wall is funded, we might get to see a wall. If he caves to pressure, the wall is done. We won’t see it now. We won’t see it in the near future. We may never see it at all.