Oregon Defies Logic With Statewide Rent Control

It is often said by cynical economists and political commentators, usually of the right or libertarian persuasion, that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. There is no more odious and damagingeconomic policy that comes from the heart than rent control. For years, limiting the cost of living spaces was done at the local level, but one West Coast state aims to be the first to implement statewide rent controls.

Oregon’s Proposed Rent Controls

Oregon is set to pass SB 608, legislation that prohibits landlords from raising rents in the first year of a resident’s tenancy. The bill would also cap future rent hikes at 7% annually, plus inflation. This will target all rental properties 15 years or older but exempt units that are a part of a government housing project.

It should be noted that SB 608 does not have vacancy controls, which means buildings can jack up the rent by any amount once the tenant gives his or her notice. Because of this, the legislation bans no-cause evictions, so any landlord must offer a government-approved excuse for evicting a tenant.

With Democratic supermajorities in both chambers of the legislature, SB 608 is likely to pass, making Oregon the first state with statewide rent control.

Gov. Kate Brown (D-OR) is proud of the move, saying in her inaugural address:

“We also need to help Oregonians who have homes but are struggling with the high cost of rent. We can help landlords and tenants navigate this tight housing market. Speaker [Tina] Kotek and Sen. [Ginny] Burdick have innovative proposals that will give renters some peace of mind.”

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10 Best Superfoods to Protect Your Eyesight

Tens of millions of Americans suffer age related losses in at least one of their senses, according to a recent University of Chicago study. And experts warn that once you start losing any of your senses, including vision, you increase your risk of developing dementia.

“People are living longer than ever before in history and with these extended life expectancies comes the likelihood of sensory decline,” Dr. Gary Small, director of the UCLA Longevity Center and author of “The Mind Health Report” newsletter tells Newsmax.

“Sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste diminish in many older adults. In addition to impinging on the quality of life for these seniors, these losses also increase the risk for cognitive decline because less sensory input means less mental stimulation.”

According to the American Optometric Association, many adults begin to have problems with their vision beginning in their early to mid-40’s. These issues may be affected by health conditions such as high blood pressure or diabetes, a family history of macular degeneration or glaucoma, or certain medications such as antihistamines.

These foods may help protect your sight:

Conservatives Are Drinking The Kool-Aid

After Abysmal January Sales, Car Dealers Are Overflowing With Unsold Cars

We recently discussed the dismal sales start for the US automobile industry in 2019. Now, a follow up by the WSJ paints an even more pessimistic picture for the start of February.

According to the report, dealers are starting 2019 with a growing surplus of inventory of unsold vehicles, which will likely pressure them to cut output: there were 3.95 million vehicles in lots at the end of January, a 4% increase from December and up nearly 3% from last January.

And even though seasonality exists in the industry and the winter is traditionally slower for automotive sales, the inventory build up could be problematic because dealers are starting the year with more unsold inventory than they had when auto sales peaked three years ago. Back then, 17.55 million cars were sold and now, while the latest estimates expect less than 17 million vehicles to be sold in 2019.

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Racist Lynch Mob-Leading Virginia Governor Getting His Just Deserts

After a tumultuous weekend in which high-profile Democrats demanded that Virginia governor Ralph Northam step down after old photos of him in blackface surfaced, it is difficult to imagine the politician surviving the same vile race-baiting gotcha culture he and his fellow left-wing Democrats have fostered for years.

Oddly, Northam is being done in by leftist identity politics and not by the Kermit Gosnell-style infanticide he coldly supports.

Many conservatives believe that the sickening irony here is that Democrats are fine with snipping the spine of a nearly born black baby but go insane over blackface, an offensive practice that doesn't actually kill anyone.

The Left's current anti-blackface fetish is relatively new. Amos 'n' Andy, which ended in 1960, is one of the most successful sitcoms of all time despite its stereotypical depiction of blacks in Harlem that would today offend many Americans. But even the passage of decades did little to stigmatize the use of blackface.

Until fairly recently, left-wingers were fine with blackface and offensive stereotypical depictions of black Americans. No one protested Robert Downey, Jr.'s use of blackface in the 2008 movie Tropic Thunder or the blackface employed by Sarah Silverman, Jimmy Kimmel, or Howard Stern.

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No Kneeling During Super Bowl LIII National Anthem, but Still Plenty of Talk

ATLANTA — Dr. Bernice A. King, the youngest child of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, was brought out to midfield for the coin toss before Super Bowl LIII. She was joined by two other titanic civil rights leaders, Ambassador Andrew Young and Representative John Lewis.

Before the game began, the N.F.L. also played a video in the stadium that included images of Dr. King and other civil rights leaders, interspersed with images of N.F.L. players doing charity work.

On television, CBS ran a public service announcement that showed Commissioner Roger Goodell and other league executives touring the Ebenezer Baptist Church and other landmarks associated with Martin Luther King Jr.

For the many Super Bowl viewers who do not closely follow the league, and perhaps many who do, such imagery probably came across as proper and right for a game played in Atlanta, known as the cradle of the civil rights movement.

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Illegal Entry by Caravan Migrants into Texas ‘Will Not Be Tolerated,’ Says DHS

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen said illegal entry into Texas by the most recent Central American migrant caravan “will not be tolerated.” The secretary also called on Congress to stop its “inexcusable failure to fully fund a needed physical barrier.”

“Approximately 2,000 aliens have arrived in northern Mexico as part of a ‘caravan’ seeking to cross the border into Texas,” Secretary Nielsen said in a written statement. “Illegal entry will not be tolerated and we stand ready to prevent it.”

Monday night, Breitbart News’ Editor in Chief Brandon Darby and border journalist Ildefonso Ortiz reported that nearly 2,000 Central American migrants were headed to the Mexican border cities of Piedras Negras, Coahuila, and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. The border region consisting of hundreds of miles of the Rio Grande River has zero miles of physical border barriers.

“The Department of Homeland Security has been working with the Departments of State, Defense, and Justice to ensure all possible resources are available to address this lawless caravan,” Secretary Nielsen explained. “DHS will take all steps to ensure the safety and security of law enforcement personnel on the front lines.”

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Sharifa Alkhateeb Talks About Using Public Schools to Convert America to Islam

The late managing editor of the International Institute for Islamic Thought's American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences, Sharifa Alkhateeb, talks about using U.S. schools to proselytize Islam & about making the state Islamic.

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Feast your eyes on this: Dark chocolate sharpens vision, study finds

Is there nothing chocolate cannot do? According to a new study in JAMA Ophthalmology, eating dark chocolate resulted in small improvements in visual acuity and contrast sensitivity for at least 2 hours.

“Contrast sensitivity and visual acuity were significantly higher 2 hours after consumption of a dark chocolate bar compared with a milk chocolate bar, but the duration of these effects and their influence in real-world performance await further testing,” wrote authors led by Jeff C. Rabin, OD, MS, PhD, professor and chief, Visual Neurophysiology Service, Rosenberg School of Optometry, University of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio, TX.

Other studies have suggested that flavanols in chocolate may enhance blood flow to the central and peripheral nervous systems, and improve cardiovascular function. For this crossover study, 30 participants (9 men, 21 women; mean age 26 years) were “dosed” a 47-g dark chocolate bar with 316.3 mg of flavanols. Later in the study, they ate a 40-g milk chocolate bar with 40 mg of total flavanols—8 times less than the dark chocolate bar.

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Bipartisan Support Builds For Israeli Sovereignty Over Golan Heights

As The Daily Wire has reported, Republican Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Tom Cotton (R-AR) have been actively calling for the United States to formally recognize Israel's annexation of the strategically sensitive Golan Heights region. The Golan Heights, which Israel first acquired in 1967's existential Six Day War defensive fight and formally annexed in 1981, has nonetheless languished since 1981 as a matter of formal U.S. recognition.

As The Daily Wire's Hank Berrien reported on December 18, the joint Cruz/Cotton Senate resolution thoroughly traced the modern history of the Golan's legal status, from 1967 through the bloody years-long civil war raging in Syria through the present day:

The resolution points out that "until 1967, Syria controlled the Golan Heights and used the topographical advantage it provided to attack Israeli troops and civilians"; that "in the Six Day War of 1967, Syria intensified its attacks against Israel from the Golan Heights, and Israel captured the area in a defensive war"; that "in October 1973, the Golan Heights provided Israel with critical strategic depth to repel a surprise attack by Syrian forces; that on September 1, 1975, President Gerald Ford offered a diplomatic assurance to Israel that 'the U.S. will support the position that an overall settlement with Syria in the framework of a peace agreement must assure Israel’s security from attack from the Golan Heights'"; and that "'the U.S. has not developed a final position on the borders. Should it do so, it will give great weight to Israel’s position that any peace agreement with Syria must be predicated on Israel remaining on the Golan Heights.'" ...

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News Alert: Mexico deploys militarized police to block 2,000 migrants from entering Texas

Hundreds of militarized Mexican police officers were standing guard Tuesday at the border between Piedras Negras, Coahuila, and Eagle Pass, Texas, to prevent nearly 2,000 Central American migrants from illegally crossing into the U.S.

Buses dropped off the migrants in Piedras Negras, a city of around 250,000 residents, late Monday. By Tuesday morning, federal police in full military gear were lined up in two long parallel rows outside of the facility to keep them from leaving the country, according to tweets from Mexican officials.

Read the full story here.

Nolte: 50% Of Virginia Democrats Still Back Blackface Northam

What exactly does a Democrat have to do to lose favor with Democrat voters?

Hang out with a domestic terrorist? Nope.

Have his photo taken with Louis Farrakhan? Nope.

Have sex with a 21-year-old intern in the Oval Office just a few feet away from his wife and daughter? Nope.

Leave Americans to die in Benghazi? Nope.

Put Japanese Americans in internment camps? Nope.

Launch the war in Vietnam? Nope.

Lose a won war in Iraq? Nope.

Leave a woman to die under the water in your car? Nope.

Run all your State Department emails through a secret, unsecured server located in your bathroom? Nope.

And now we come to my two favorites…

What if a Democrat politician is into blackface and baby killing? Nope, nope, nope.

According to a Morning Consult poll taken after Gov. Ralph Northam (R-VA) was hit with two wowser scandals, his support with Virginia Democrats only dropped from 70 percent to 50 percent.

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Roberts' Obamacare decision looked more political than judicial

The mystery of why Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts switched positions on the constitutionality of Obamacare continues. But switch he did, in a way that looks more political than judicial. The switch still does not speak well of him.

These reflections come, it must be said, from a third-hand report. The March issue of the Atlantic will feature a review by liberal Chicago lawyer Michael O’Donnell of a forthcoming biography of the Supreme Court leader. The book, titled “The Chief: The Life and Turbulent Times of Chief Justice John Roberts,” is by CNN legal analyst Joan Biskupic. It sounds like a good one. For now, what’s most interesting in the review, and what is certain to get the most attention when the book comes out, is Biskupic’s reporting on Roberts’ role in salvaging Obamacare.

Biskupic’s biography will confirm the original, contemporary reporting of CBS’ Jan Crawford, to the effect that in conference, Roberts eventually sided with the four other justices who found Obamacare’s individual mandate unconstitutional. Then, just as Crawford had reported, he changed his mind and decided that what had once been a bit of a side argument – that the mandate was a “tax,” and thus (due to some logical somersaults) allowable after all – was indeed one he could hang his hat on, and one that could save the health law.

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LA Goes 'Medieval', Suffers Outbreak Of Flea-Borne Disease Typhus

Residents and officials in the city of Los Angeles, California are horrified that their city has descended into a third world hellscape of poverty and disease. The typhus outbreak raging through the city is a flea-borne disease often reserved for socialist and poverty-stricken dystopias such as Venezuela.

But that’s modern Los Angeles. Typhus is spread by fleas hitching a ride on rats. While the general population struggles under the weight of the government (local, state, and federal in LA’s case) and the homeless population continues to climb up, the same cannot be said for the rats that carry fleas the cause typhus. The rat population in LA is doing just fine, however, as piles of garbage dot the cityscape, making it Thanksgiving Day every day for the city’s fat, happy rodents, wrote the American Thinker.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention‘s website, Murine typhus, is also called endemic typhus or flea-borne typhus, is a disease caused by a bacteria called Rickettsia typhi and it is spread to people through contact with infected fleas. People will get sick with murine typhus when infected flea feces are rubbed into cuts or scrapes in the skin. In most areas of the world, rats are the main animal host for fleas infected with murine typhus. Murine typhus occurs in tropical and subtropical climates around the world where rats and their fleas live. Yet now, it seems that the disease is taking over and spreading, along with Hepatitis A, through Los Angeles thanks to the socialist policies that enrich the political elite and enslave and impoverish everyone else.

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WashPost: Warren ID'd Herself for Texas Bar as 'American Indian'

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., identified herself on a 1986 registration card for the State Bar of Texas as an "American Indian" — a previously undisclosed example of her claiming an Indian heritage, The Washington Post reported.

Using an open records request during a general inquiry, the Post obtained Warren's registration card that was filled out by hand in blue ink, signed and dated April 1986 — the first document to surface showing Warren making the claim in her own handwriting, the Post reported.

The Texas bar registration card is significant, among other reasons, because it removes any doubt Warren directly claimed the identity. In other instances, Warren has declined to say whether she or an assistant filled out forms, the Boston Globe reported.

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Democrats Are the Party of Destruction

The first image that came to mind after viewing the 2019 expression of exultant joy by New York Democrat representatives when Governor Cuomo called for a constitutional amendment to shore up abortion for New Yorkers was the 1939 jubilation by the German Reichstag when Hitler asserted that the end of world Jewry was his ultimate goal.

In both cases, the elation was about death. It is not really surprising, since it is becoming patent that the "D" in Democrat stands also for "destruction." Democrats may couch their destructive tendencies in euphemisms like "social justice" and "women's rights," but one thing is clear: there is no objection from any Democrats as the party embraces the most radical left-wing ideology, meant to result in the demise of America. Success is to be destroyed; advancement is to be suppressed. Babies are expendable. Hubris under the cloak of social justice slogans runs amok.

It extends to each issue the Democrats embrace. Every city that has come under Democrat control is proof positive that instead of raising the standard of living for the occupants, the city falls to crime, gangs, and drugs. In fact, "America is awash with troubled, dysfunctional cities that have been electing Democratic mayors for decades."

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Catholic Clergy: Making Themselves Irrelevant

The beliefs of the Catholic Church are defined by two thousand years of careful writings and a slow process of understanding the revealed truths. This has brought us our Catechism, our Creed, encyclicals such as Humanae Vitae, and other solid references which provide a foundation for living well, especially in stressful times. One role of the clergy is to guide us Catholics in these teachings.

The Church is not defined by whatever a priest in Paducah happens to say on Tuesday, and its faithful are under no obligation to take direction from misguided clergy. But how do we determine when to ignore? For Catholics using their rational minds and their God-given free will, it’s been happening for centuries. Some (unfortunately) leave the church altogether, some walk to the next parish over, and some simply ignore the bad advice and view their priest as just a delivery vehicle for the sacraments. Sadly, what we’re seeing now is an unprecedented amount of incompetence, and it exists at all levels of the church.

Let’s start at the top. Pope Francis continues to astound the Catholic faithful with his ridiculous, fact-denying comments, from global warming as the world’s most pressing problem, to his undying support of soul-deadening socialism/communism, to his purge of pro-life advocates within the Vatican, to his intentionally nebulous writings on serious matters of faith, to his most recent act of squelching the U.S. bishops in their efforts to address the child abuse problem within their ranks. Some could argue we’re expecting too much from this man, given the stellar theological minds which occupied his position the prior 30 years. But I disagree -- we’re simply asking for several logical statements, based on fact, not feelings, which can hold up to the scrutiny of an intelligent high-school senior. His inability to hit this low bar drives Catholics to ignore him.

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General: U.S. Has Funded Excellent Border Security--in Jordan

Gen. Joseph Votel, commander of the U.S. Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that Americans would be "very proud" to see the kind of border security their tax dollars have produced -- in Jordan.

"Last week I was in Jordan. I had an opportunity to visit the border -- up along the border between Jordan and Syria. And I had an opportunity to witness the investments that our country has made in their border security initiatives -- equipment, training, command and control for this. And what I witnessed there I think would make any member of Congress or indeed, any American, very proud to see.

"It was extraordinarily professional, it was very effective; they had very good situational awareness and understanding of what was happening along their border. And everything that they were doing was sustainable."

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32 Religious Groups on Probation for Alleged Discrimination at University of Iowa

The University of Iowa has placed 32 campus religious groups on probation because they are supposedly in violation of the school's anti-discrimination policy. The public became aware of the list during arguments in federal district court last week involving a Christian student group initially kicked off campus.

Business Leaders in Christ (BLinC) brought together students for weekly discussions centered on prayer and biblical messages. The mission of the group is to form future business leaders who integrate the values of their faith into their work. BLinC's group leaders are expected to share its Christian faith.

In February 2017, a member of BLinC filed a complaint with the university after he was denied the chance to serve as the group's vice president because he was openly gay and disagreed with the group's views on marriage and sexuality. The student was told he could remain as a member but could not serve in a leadership role. Group leaders must affirm a statement of faith, which says they "embrace, not reject, their God-given sex" and support marriage between a man and a woman only.

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Liberal Operative David Brock Pitches More Dirt on Howard Schultz

A group led by liberal operative and Hillary Clinton loyalist David Brock is frantically compiling and pushing opposition research hits on former Starbucks chief executive Howard Schultz, as Democrats fear the billionaire could ensure Donald Trump's re-election if he enters the 2020 presidential race.

American Bridge 21st Century, a Washington, D.C.-based political action committee with an affiliated foundation, began digging into Schultz as soon as he floated a potential presidential bid and started pitching the research to publications.

The Daily Beast reported last week that Bridge sent the publication a file hitting the former chief executive on his family foundation, mainly focused on $400,000 the foundation had spent on furniture and a $21,000-per-month salary its executive director collected during the 2016 tax year, an annual salary of $252,000.

Despite Bridge criticizing the salary of the executive director at Schultz's foundation, Brock himself collects more than that amount from almost every foundation he oversees, including American Bridge.

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