There are plenty of things about the Jussie Smollett scandal that should disgust us. The instant reaction by celebrities, politicians, and the media is right there at the top, especially when we consider how many are now saying, “let’s wait for the facts.” The notion that a successful gay black man thought it appropriate to make himself seem like a victim is also up there.

As One America News Network’s Liz Wheeler points out, we should also be disgusted that Smollett chose this victim status over being a strong leader and role model for less privileged black and gay people who could have looked up to him for his strength instead of now being scornful of his weakness.

What does that say about America when the left tries so hard to build the narrative that everything is wrong, they’re unwilling to recognize the real problems that are plaguing America. Why? Because they’re the biggest part of the problem.

It’s been an up-and-down couple of weeks for proponents of the Green New Deal. Before details were released, it was already being heralded as the greatest thing since President Obama’s election. Then, the details came out and even many on the left were taken aback by the ambitious and incoherent provisions of the deal as detailed in a FAQ section on Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s government web page.

But that was just a draft. They took it down. At least that was the story.

Unfortunately for proponents, they were caught a little flat-footed as questions started pouring in about, well, all of it. Even if we dismiss the less-draconian concepts such as eliminating air travel or the less-sane ideas like taking care of those who are unwilling to work, the left is still stuck with a proposal that the most frugal estimates put at costing around $7 trillion while other’s consider the decade-long cost to be in the HUNDREDS of trillions of dollars.

This is, of course, ludicrous. There’s not enough money in the entire world to pay for the proposal if its cost is somewhere between the lowest and highest estimates, but that hasn’t stopped leftist media from regrouping. Now that the dust has settled a little bit, they’re doing everything they can to recommit to this concept. It’s not that they suddenly believe in this fairy tale. It’s that they don’t want this to be the issue Republicans attack in the 2020 elections.

One article in particular that I read from CNN (yes, sometimes I need to see what the other side is thinking) really struck me for its honesty about the situation. Though I stopped reading it in paragraph two when it referred to “non-partisan” PolitiFact, I went back to it just now to digest the awfulness fully (see the sacrifices I make for our readers!).

I tried to read this article. I really did. But @DeanObeidallah lost me in paragraph two when he referred to the "non-partisan" Politifact. https://t.co/bjRAXbN2b0

— JD Rucker (@JDRucker) February 19, 2019

To be clear, much of what this article says is correct. It asserts the GOP will take the tenets of the Green New Deal and use it to scare voters into thinking it’s even worse than Obamacare. From 2010 through 2016, Republicans attacked Obamacare incessantly and it worked, giving them the House in 2010, the Senate in 2014, and the White House in 2016. Unfortunately, they stopped there and didn’t actually go after Obamacare with the same fervor they held in their campaign rhetoric and now the Democrats have turned the issue on its head.

But here’s the thing. Obamacare may have been bad, but the Green New Deal truly is worse. It’s not even close. Even if we take at face value the notion that the Green New Deal is simply an ambitious framework around which real legislation can be forged, we have to look at the core issues entailed in order to see the true damage it can do. This is a socialist document. It’s a call for the same levels of insanity that drive the Medicare-for-All movement. Within its frivolous attempts to change perceptions of air travel, cows, and job creation is a deep-rooted desire to convert Americans to needing more government.

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The Green New Deal represents the far-left’s desire to make more American dependent on government. At the same time, it aims to increase the levels of dependency for those who are already in need of assistance. It wants Democrats to latch their wagons on the notion that if we become a militantly environmentalist nation, that will serve the dual purpose of giving us fulfillment while saving the planet.

I believe most leftist journalists understand this, but they see in the ridiculous framework a path through which Republicans can be defeated wholesale in 2020 as long as the left can control the narrative surrounding the Green New Deal. They fear another Obamacare counterinsurgency that would wipe out the anti-Trump gains they made in 2018, so they’ve adopted a stance that the Green New Deal isn’t as bad as Fox News says it is. Meanwhile, they’re doing everything they can to say, “look over here and not at the Green New Deal.”

Don't misread leftist media's resurging push to defend the Green New Deal as actually believing it's a good idea. Their big concern is if they don't nip it in the bud now, it'll harm Democrats in 2020. So they say "it's good, don't worry," and move on to another subject.

— JD Rucker (@JDRucker) February 19, 2019

The politics behind what the Green New Deal represents is more in play than the tenets of the proposal itself, at least in the eyes of leftist media. It’s not that they want to promote the concept. They simply don’t want the concept to derail their party in the next election.

There’s nothing pleasant about asking people for money. Over the last six months, we’ve experimented with various types of revenue streams to see what could help propel this site to more people. In a society dominated by fake news and leftist media, getting a foothold as a limited-government conservative news outlet is challenging.

Unfortunately, there seem to be only three options. The first one is a non-starter – corporate sponsorships. There are very few organizations, PACs, and companies we trust enough to allow to be corporate sponsors, and while we may someday work with the few that we trust, we don’t have the luxury of waiting for them. We’ve had some corporate sponsorship offers, but invariably they want a say in the editorial component. Some want all-positive Republican coverage. Others want more positive Democratic coverage. Our goal has been and always will be to present the news, opinions, and quotes from a pro-American perspective. That means we call it how we see it.

Option two has been a disaster for multiple reasons. Most websites are driven by advertising, which is fine as long as it both pays the bills and doesn’t flood the site with spam. We’ve used Google, Amazon, and a handful of smaller ad networks to try to generate enough revenue, but it’s challenging when we have limited control over what’s being served. I’d get emails regularly saying we were advertising for Planned Parenthood or Ashley Madison or other websites that didn’t match our values at the site. This may be the easiest way for the site to pay its bills, but it’s not worth the trade-off.

Option three is the tough one. It’s the way that requires me to do what doesn’t come naturally – asking for money. We want to be 100% crowdfunded. That means we need you, the readers, to donate whenever possible. It can be single donations to give us a boost. It can be a recurring donation to help us plan for the future. Literally anything and everything helps.

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Here are some of the upcoming expenditures we need covered in order to keep the site moving forward:

• $25/article – Paid writers and expenses. Currently, all of our writers are volunteers. We appreciate their efforts and we want to reward them. We also need to hire more freelance writers in order to expand the perspectives. Eventually, we will need to budget around $12,000 per month for full-time staff writers, but just getting started with around 1/5th that amount will be a wonderful down payment.
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This started out as a labor of love, but over the last year we’ve been accepted into Google News and have strong followings sharing the content on social media. It’s time for this site to branch out and start making more of an impact on American society, presenting conservative, Christian ideas that this world needs now more than every.

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