Sarah Sanders Takes To Her Kitchen, Bakes Haters At 375°F For 30-45 Minutes After Fake Pie Controversy

Content originally published at iBankCoin.com

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders took to her kitchen to strike back at Thanksgiving allegations that she faked making a pecan pie, after she tweeted what appeared to be a generic stock photo. 

I? dont cook much these days, but managed this Chocolate Pecan Pie for Thanksgiving at the family farm! pic.twitter.com/rO8nFxtly7

— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) November 23, 2017

CNN"s April Ryan in particular took umbrage with Sanders" pie post, challenging her to "show it to us on a table" with "folks eating it and a pic of you cooking it." 

I am not trying to be funny but folks are already saying #piegate and #fakepie Show it to us on the table with folks eating it and a pic of you cooking it. I am getting the biggest laugh out of this. I am thankful for this laugh on Black Friday! https://t.co/ifeSBlSZW7

— AprilDRyan (@AprilDRyan) November 24, 2017

While Sanders" full time personal photographer appears to have missed this Martha Stewart moment, Sanders took to Twitter Wednesday night to show haters she"s got the chops to bake four Pecan Pies, asking CNN"s Ryan "with or without bourbon?"

It’s pie time! With or without bourbon @AprilDRyan? #piegate pic.twitter.com/2xw58FDFg6

— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) December 14, 2017

Thanks to @VP Chief of Staff @Nick_Ayers for supplying the pecans from his family farm in Georgia #piegate pic.twitter.com/Lx7LpMwF4V

— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) December 14, 2017

Ingredients all mixed up and pies in the oven! @AprilDRyan let me know if you need further documentation #piegate pic.twitter.com/OVYLg1gBgO

— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) December 14, 2017

Sanders then posted a picture of her four pecan pies on a table, wishing the White House press corps a Merry Christmas...

Excited to share these at tomorrow’s press potluck. Merry Christmas to the WH press corps! pic.twitter.com/PKqfHk3nXJ

— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) December 14, 2017

Ryan tweeted back to Sanders, saying she "I will check it tomorrow but won"t eat it!," adding "I can"t wait to see them!" 

Okay I want to see the pics and videos. I will check it tomorrow but won’t eat it! https://t.co/5dcXVNzcuC

— AprilDRyan (@AprilDRyan) December 14, 2017

Oh I can’t wait to see them! They look pretty! https://t.co/TMaj0f6PU1

— AprilDRyan (@AprilDRyan) December 14, 2017

We can only hope that Sanders" pies convince the MSM that things like extra scoops of ice cream, sipping water during a speech, and now #piegate are perhaps best left alone. 

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As Venezuelan "Bread War" Escalates, Maduro Warns Bakers "You Will Pay, I Swear"

With its people resorting to eating flamingoes, the Venezuelan government has decided to find yet another thing to blame for the collapse of the socialist utopia - the bakers!

As The BBC reports, the Venezuelan government says it will expropriate bakeries which fail to abide by new government regulations aimed at tackling bread shortages.

In a growing row between the government and bakers, officials said that bakeries could face fines if people had to queue to get their bread. Severe shortages of basic goods mean that Venezuelans often have to queue for hours to buy essential items.

The government says the shortages are caused by an "economic war".

Venezuela does not produce wheat and relies on imports bought in by the government which it then sends to mills where it is ground and then distributed.

The government blames bakers for the bread shortages, accusing them of using the flour allocated to them to bake pastries rather than simple baguette-style bread in order to maximise their profits.

Croissants and other sweet baked goods are more expensive than baguettes and French-style breads, as the prices for the latter are controlled by the socialist government.

So the government has decided that more price controls will fix the problem and has unveiled new rules for bakers...

• Use 90% of flour to bake savoury bread and only 10% for pastries and cakes


• Provide a constant supply of bread throughout the day from 07:00 to 19:00


• Ensure next day"s supply by holding over bread from the previous day

And the rules will be strictly enforced...

On Sunday, President Nicolas Maduro announced that inspectors would be sent to 709 bakeries in the capital, Caracas, to ensure they were complying with the new rules.

He said that those "speculators who hide the bread from the people will face the weight of the law".

"They"re going to pay, I swear. Those responsible for the bread war are going to pay and they better not complain that it was a political persecution," he added.

Vice-President Tareck El Aissami warned that "bakeries which do not follow [the rules] will be occupied by the government".

As The Miami Herald notes, two bakeries were already seized for 90 days for breaking a number of rules, including selling overpriced bread.

Juan Crespo, the president of the Industrial Flour Union called Sintra-Harina, which represents 9,000 bakeries nationwide, said the government’s heavy hand isn’t going to solve the problem. “The government isn’t importing enough wheat,” he said. “If you don’t have wheat, you don’t have flour, and if you don’t have flour, you don’t have bread.” He said the country needs four, 30-ton boats of wheat every month to cover basic demand.

The notion that bread could become an issue in Venezuela is yet another indictment of a socialist economic system gone bust.

This Is How The Status Quo Unravels

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Fragmentation, discord, discontent, class war: this is the inevitable result of a shrinking pie.

The politics of the past 70 years was all about horsetrading who got what share of the growing pie: the "pie" being cheap energy, government revenues and consumption, sales and profits.

Horsetrading over a growing pie is basically fun. There"s always a little increase left for the losers, so there is a reason for everyone to cooperate in a broad political consensus.

Horsetrading over a shrinking pie is not fun. Everybody is shrilly demanding their piece of the pie should either grow or be left untouched; any cuts must come out of someone else"s slice.

Everyone turns on their most compelling emotion-based defense: "we wuz promised" is a reliable standard, as is "we need more money to defend the nation from the rising threat of XYZ." "Help those in need" plays the heartstrings effectively--as long as the "help" comes out of somebody else"s pocket.

Everyone sharpens their knives, the better to carve a slice off somebody else"s slice of the pie. A passive-aggressive free-for-all ensues as everyone reacts with aggrieved defensiveness to any attempt to diminish their slice, even as they launch shrill attacks on everyone else"s defense.

As the pie shrinks, the motivation to join a broad consensus vanishes like mist in Death Valley. Any cooperation is merely a brief tactical move designed to carve a big chunk off another player"s slice. Once that"s accomplished, the alliance quickly splinters as the survivors battle over the meager spoils.

Any victory is temporary, as a new alliance will arise to decimate the previous winner. Winners in the zero-sum game of divvying up a shrinking pie merely set themselves up as the juicy target for the next ferocious attack by the resentful losers.

Political survival boils down to masking the cuts behind illusory "victories" and bogus projections of solvency. Some modest policy tweak will be heralded as "saving Social Security," meanwhile the end result is a reduction in the purchasing power of whatever benefits remain.

You may well get "what we wuz promised" but it will only buy 50% of what it did a few years ago, after taxes, inflation and "adjustments" are factored in.

Every compromise will be projected to restore solvency to imploding entitlement programs, but it will all be illusion. In two years, insolvency will rear its ugly head again.

The debts, unfunded liabilities, demographics and diminishing pools of income to tap are beyond policy tweaks and minor cuts. Take a look at these charts to grasp the unwelcome realities: sorry, we can"t "grow our way out of debt" because the debts and unfunded liabilities are simply too large and expanding at too fast a rate.

Here"s the current federal spending pie: 55% is entitlements and interest. Both of those are set to soar as the populace ages and interest rates rise.

Massive, ever-expanding deficits will push federal debt much higher, pushing interest rates up. Everybody wants to raise taxes on "the rich," but a funny thing happens when tax revenues soar above a threshold--the economy spirals into recession, and employment, profits and tax revenues all plummet, forcing even higher deficits.

Entitlement program deficits are exploding higher, and all the conventional policy fixes are like building sand castles to stop a tsunami.

The problem is global: as we consume the cheap energy, what"s left to extract and refine is more expensive, so energy costs rise. As the population ages, entitlements soar. As the "growth fixes everything" model fails under the burden of skyrocketing debts, the harsh reality becomes unavoidable:

We haven"t "grown" at all. What we"ve done is borrow from future generations to create the illusion of growth.

Here"s another look at debt: the global bond market has soared from $10 trillion to $100 trillion.

Fragmentation, discord, discontent, class war: this is the inevitable result of a shrinking pie. Our political, social and economic systems have no history or memory of how to navigate this systemic Degrowth successfully. Everyone will blame someone else for the insolvency and failure, and that is not a recipe for successful adaptation.

Here"s a taste of what lies ahead:

Welcome to the new dark ages, where only the wealthy can retire

As I always say, don"t focus on retiring comfortably; focus on working comfortably.