Sunday, July 31, 2016

Daniel Pipes, "Disinformation", the KGB, and Islamists

We're still working our way through the book "Disinformation" which was written by a former top Soviet-bloc intel guy who ran the Romanian version of the KGB and was therefore heavily involved with the Russian KGB.

Anyhow, in that book he mentions that for at least the last 40 (!!) years, the KGB has been sending  agents provocateur into Islamic countries, and by 1985 there were at least 400,000 of them emplaced by Russia throughout the Middle East.  Their assignment:  to demonize the US and Israel, principally through identifying the US Congress as "The Elders of Zion," and working with youth in those areas to foment resistance and violence.  (That "Protocols....Elders.." document was written by the KGB, by the way.)

This is something that Putin, a lifelong KGB operative, knew about.

So.  How does Daniel Pipes figure into this?  Easy.  He put his finger on the Islamist problem in an interview with Germany's Global Review (HT:  PowerLine):

...GR: Many people say that Islam is not a religion but a reactionary, totalitarian and repressive ideology comparable to fascism and communism; and that Islam cannot be reformed. Other people say that Islamism had nothing to do with religion and Islam. What do you say about relations between Islam and Islamism?

DP: Both these statements are silly. Of course, Islam is one of the major religions of the world; what is there to argue about? Islamism, a modern movement, however, shares much with fascism and communism. Islamism is a form of Islam. Denying this would be akin to saying that the Jesuits are not Christian....

*Click*  Another piece of the puzzle falls neatly into place. 

Donald Trump may believe that Putin is malleable, but other stupid Western diplomats and MSM wingnuts believed the same about Andropov and Gorbachev--that they were 'reformers.'  Nothing could be further from the truth, of course.

Now think about it this way:  what if "Arab Spring", ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood, (et al) are really creations of the KGB?  What if the real 'black hat' is on the KGB?  

Recall that Obama's formation was from Frank Marshall, a card-carrying Communist.

Does that explain anything for you??


Saturday, July 30, 2016

Laura Ingraham Wants 'Princess of Wales' Title

Ms. Ingraham, who bills herself as a 'conservative Catholic', apparently would like to succeed Richard Rich in Wales.

"Why Richard, it profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world... but for Wales?"

OK, Laura.  Hope you like the climate.

Thursday, July 28, 2016

Charlie Gets His Gravitas On

Charlie Sykes got all serious this morning while discussing Trump's remark about Clinton's 30,000 missing emails.

(Trump was wrong about one thing:  the MSM will NOT 'reward' the Russkis if they release those emails.  The MSM will hate on the Russkis for destroying their alter-ego, Hillary.)

About all the rest?

Any sentient citizen knows damn well that the Russkis, ChiComs, Iranians, and others have been trying to hack US Government systems since....well.....forever.  It's reasonable to assume that they have been successful in many--but not all--instances.

We know it.  They know it.  It's part of the game.  (That's why anyone who believes in total security passes information ONLY verbally, person-to-person.  Nothing electronic, nothing by phone, nothing on paper).

Now, then.  

The Russkis have the information--which was HANDED to them by Hillary. 

So, Charlie:  when would you like the Russkis to play the card?  After HRC gets elected, when Putin will use it to blackmail her?  Or before the election, when it will (probably) knock her out?

I know what I would do if I were Putin.

Meantime, Charlie, get off the "Gravitas" act.  The horse is out of the barn and in the next state already.  Live with it.

#NeverTrump

Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Hey, Vlad!!! Release the Emails!!

Should anyone actually think about it (something the Democrat party and their wholly-owned subsidiary MSM are incapable of doing), the very best outcome for the USA will be that Putin releases all of The Hildebeeste's emails.

Now.

The alternative, if that miserable pustule Clinton gets elected, is that Putin & Co. have blackmail material by the bagful sitting on their desks.

And they will use it.

Which do YOU want, American citizens??

You Don't Want Cops? Fine!!

There's some band called "Florida Georgia Line" which told the local LEO's that 'no police were allowed backstage' during their show.

OK, then.

When the band then asked for a police escort to leave town, the cops told them to put their request where the sun never shines.

Heh.

Self-Defense/Family Defense: Obligatory

Just to get this straight:

...The Catholic Church has always maintained that the defiance of an evil force is not only a right but an obligation. Its Catechism (cf. #2265) cites St. Thomas Aquinas: “Legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for someone responsible for another’s life, the common good of the family or of the State.”

A father is culpable if he does not protect his family. A bishop has the same duty as a spiritual father of his sons and daughters in the church, just as the civil state has as its first responsibility the maintenance of the “tranquility of order” through self-defense....

If that defense requires force of arms, so be it.  Foppish 'love and peace' bleatings--whether from political "leaders" who slobber  'that's not who we are' or from Bishops who frankly don't have a clue--are at best ill-advised, and at worst, suicidal.


Tuesday, July 26, 2016

No Standard Except the Double Standard

Good ol' Reince Priebus demonstrates his law-school training by exhorting Democrats to "Vote Your Conscience."


Monday, July 25, 2016

Free Trade: "Conservative"?

Here's the money quote from Pournelle.  It follows the sequence of plant relocation/unemployment/welfare payments:

...Is paying people not to work more Conservative than trying to keep their jobs – and manufacturing capabilities and potential here, bot dismantling it and leaving its former site to rust away – Conservative?

And is encouraging people not to work – at least making it easier and more possible – building a Conservative nation?

What, precisely, is being conserved here?
...--quoted at Vox

That's a question that Mark Levin, Rush Limbaugh, and other "conservative" RadioMouths have yet to answer.

Paul Ryan won't, of course.  He hasn't even ASKED that question, has he?

Sunday, July 24, 2016

Chuck Toady Todd

Time to put on your Shocked Face.

...Further evidence of the DNC's extensive "content control" over mass media was revealed when Wasserman Schultz sent an email to NBC anchor Chuck Todd with the subject line "Chuck, this must stop," and set up a time for the two to talk about MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski calling on Wasserman Schultz to step down.....

Wouldn't be surprised to find similar stuff surfacing between Trump and Ailes, either.

'Put Not Your Faith in Princes....': (Nor Demagogues)

Nice catch at PowerLine!  A UMissouri prof discusses C.S.Lewis' observations on the polis.

Just one (there are six more at the link):

1. Our political institutions are vulnerable to tyranny partly because we no longer believe in a natural moral law. The “juristic key-conceptions” at the foundation of the Western tradition, Lewis noted, are “natural law, the value of the individual, [and] the rights of man.” But these ideas depend on belief in the reality of a universal moral law. “The very idea of freedom,” he reminded us, “presupposes some objective moral law which overarches rulers and ruled alike. Subjectivism about values is eternally incompatible with democracy.”...

We know that, of course.  But few of us want to recognize the natural consequence of ignoring objective moral law:  tyranny.

On the other hand, this year we are faced with two demagogues, neither of which gives evidence of believing in universal objective moral law.

This is a massive pile of Not Good.

And--by the way--it casts a very dark shadow on the Party Men like Walker (see below post.)


Scott Walker: Just Another Party Man?

It's possible that Scott Walker still doesn't get it.

Or it's possible that in his mind the Conservative movement is dead and the Party Man stance is correct.

Either way, it says a lot about Scott Walker, ain'a?


The Mindset of Hillary

This graf pretty well sums it up:

Presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who used a secret unsecured private email server to conduct government business during her entire tenure as secretary of State–and deleted of those 30,000 emails before government investigators could review them, demanded the passwords to every social media account of every family member of her potential vice presidential candidates, according to a report in Politico published Saturday evening....

As to YOUR email/social media accounts---well, I'll leave that to your imagination.

Saturday, July 23, 2016

Spending More, Enjoying It Less? Yup!!

Here's an interesting web page.

...The Chapwood Index reflects the true cost-of-living increase in America. Updated and released twice a year, it reports the unadjusted actual cost and price fluctuation of the top 500 items on which Americans spend their after-tax dollars in the 50 largest cities in the nation....

500 items?  Such as what?

...Starbucks coffee, Advil, insurance, gasoline, sales and income taxes, tolls, fast food restaurants, toothpaste, oil changes, car washes, pizza, cable TV and Internet service, cellphone service, dry cleaning, movie tickets, cosmetics, gym memberships, home repairs, piano lessons, laundry detergent, light bulbs, school supplies, parking meters, pet food, underwear and People magazine....

Looks like a fairly normal shopping list.   So why did this emerge?

...The inaccuracy of the CPI began in 1983, during a time of rampant inflation, when the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics began to cook the books on its calculation in order to curb the increase in Social Security and federal pension payments.

But the change affected more than entitlements. Because increases in corporate salaries and retirement benefits have traditionally been tied to the CPI, the change affected everything....

We note that was during the Reagan Administration, and was probably linked to Alan Greenspan's fabulism about "hedonic" prices, which, in short, postulated that Americans would simply adjust their spending by purchasing hamburger instead of steak, and would get more powerful chips in their computers for the same price as last year's less-powerful chips (etc.)

All well and good, but what if that American started with hamburger instead of steak?  Would they substitute fresh-cut lawn clippings for green beans?  Only someone like Greenspan could come up with such mumbo-jumbo.

The politicians loved CPI adjustments:  Clinton pulled the same trick during his regime.

Let's take Milwaukee.  The chart indicates that REAL cost-of-living increases in that town average 11.4% since 2011.  Compare to the FedGov's utterly ridiculous 2014 "0.8%" increase......well,  that's quite a swing, indeed.

The bad news:  no matter who gets elected, Gummint/Establishment figure-fixing will not change.

You lose.

HT:  RenMan

ObozoCare Slapped Down Again

A Fed court uses Hobby Lobby decision to slap down ObozoCare terms as applied to individuals.

Yesterday, a federal district judge in the Eastern District of Missouri granted a summary judgment in favor of Missouri State Senator Paul Wieland and his wife Theresa against the Obamacare abortifacient/contraceptive mandate, ruling that the federal government could not constitutionally compel them to pay for group health insurance for their family, including young daughters, that includes required coverage for medical services that they deem religiously objectionable....

No doubt that Obozo & Co. will appeal. 

Thursday, July 21, 2016

Moonbat Kerry v. Air Conditioning and Refrigeration

So, John, when will you turn off the air conditioning at the State Department?

Will Gina McCarthy turn it off at EPA offices?

Will they unplug their brie-and-wine filled refrigerators?

No.

But YOU, you miserable scumbag killers, YOU will.

Why Pence as VP?

Most pundits opine that The Donald picked Pence as a sop to conservatives--which Pence might well be.

But that's not what I think.  I think Trump picked Pence because Pence is a vanilla guy (albeit fairly conservative.)

Think of the other rumored possibles such as Gingrich and Christie.  Why didn't they make the cut?

Because THEY draw attention, which would distract attention from The Donald.  Pence will not draw attention after last night's speech.  None at all; and that's the way The Donald wants it.  UPDATE:  Wiggy calls this exactly the way I do!!)

Need more?  Watch the CBS interview of The Donald and Pence just after the announcement.  (IIRC, it was Ms. Stahl doing the questioning.)  Pence wasn't allowed to answer questions without The Donald opening his trap and stepping all over Pence.

Or look at this item from Leon Wolf.  The Donald's unquenchable desire for attention shows up here, although it's between the lines:

...in response to the news that Cruz was going to make a speech that did not explicitly endorse him, Trump intentionally chose to escalate the situation by leaking the news to friendly delegations and instructing them to boo Cruz to make this a bigger deal that it otherwise would have been. If Trump's delegates had not booed and caused a ruckus, but instead had remained silent or applauded at Cruz's exhortation to vote for down ticket races, everyone today would be talking about Pence and his speech, and the discussion would be about positive things associated with Trump and Pence and how they are going to move forward after the convention to  at least possible victory....

Wolf almost got it.  Wolf's smart; eventually, he'll come to the same conclusion:  there is no ego on Earth--even Obozo's--which surpasses that of The Donald.

Pray for the country.

Wage History Contradicts "Free Trade" Yappers

The Free Trade yappers insist that US policy in the early 1900's was badbadbadbad and screwed US workers.

That's not the reality of the situation.

...As detailed in the U.S. government’s authoritative Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, from 1900 to 1929 – when the Great Depression struck – the annual earnings of U.S. employees adjusted for inflation increased by a total of 68 percent....

 It's also interesting to note that during the same period, there were lots of immigrants--more, as a percentage of the workforce than today--but wages still increased.

It's possible that "free trade" is a good thing.  For some people.

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Should Hillary Be "Shot for Treason"?

Baldasaro is right.  She should be shot for treason.

But there should be a trial first, of course.

Tuesday, July 19, 2016

Obozo Screwed the Health Co-ops, Too

Obozo the Community Organizer did what most Community Organizers do:  made sure that he got his, and then screwed the community.

From an item describing the perilous situation of the Milwaukee (ObozoCare) health co-op, Common Ground Healthcare:

...The situation for Common Ground and the other cooperatives only got worse as the rules changed several times and as fewer people, particularly healthy people, signed up for their health insurance plans than projected.

"These guys had little margin for error," said Sabrina Corlette, a research professor at the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University....

...The biggest rule change was when Congress limited the payouts from one of the programs designed to help stabilize the market in its first years.

Common Ground expected to receive $44 million through the program. In October, it was told it would receive $5.7 million....

(That "cutback" was not really a cutback.  It was following the law that Obozo signed. This is called sloppy-ass/propaganda journalism.)

...almost from the beginning, the program was cut back: The $6 billion initially allocated for the co-ops eventually was reduced to $2.4 billion. And Corlette, the Georgetown professor, said the Obama administration was never particularly invested in the cooperatives' success.

"These guys were left to twist in the wind," Corlette said. "They were orphans from the beginning."...

Yes, indeed.

Note the pattern:  Obozo "organized" in Chicago, which will set an annual record for the number of dead black people in its streets.  There are also a large number of dead black babies following Obozo's "organizing" on behalf of Planned Butcherhood.

Meantime, Obozo has spent about $10 million/year (taxpayer money) on his family vacations, golf, and 'campaign' trips. If he had sent that money to Common Ground Healthcare, they would be solidly in the black.

Sunday, July 17, 2016

Robert P. George and Magic Dirt

Robert P. George is an exceptionally solid pro-life lawyer and lawprof.

But he doesn't like Gingrich's observation that 'if a Muslim thinks Sharia law should be implemented in America, that Muslim should be deported.'

This leads one to believe that Robby George believes in "Magic Dirt theory" which boils down to 'if someone is here in America, they are good citizens until proven otherwise.'

Well, innocent-till-proven-guilty is a Constitutional thing, granted.

But Sharia law is absolutely, positively, antithetical to the Constitution, and for that matter, to any Western governmental scheme.

Now, then.  Can someone be "a citizen" of a country when that someone does not and will not accept its Constitution and the laws flowing therefrom?  (I'm not talking about the inanities which occasionally flow from SCOTUS, of course.)

Seems to me that Prof. George thinks that just by being here one is automatically a 'good citizen.'  That's Magic Dirt theory.  But that's like saying that one is a 'good' spouse while committing serial adulteries.  Legally, a spouse, yes.  But 'good'?  Entitled to all the usual spousal privileges?

Hmmmmm???

The Prophet Huntington

Most of you are aware of Prof. Huntington's work as a social scientist.  He was dead-on.  But his last book, published in 2004, was not very popular with The Elites of both parties because he nailed it again.

In fact, the angst of Flyover Country which resulted in Trump was described very well--which is why The Elites didn't like the book at all.

Trump is not the solution, of course.  At the same time, one wonders if the (R) Party poohbahs will pay attention for a change.  (We know that the (D) poohbahs don't give a rat's ass.)

More Illinois Madness

For the time being, Wisconsin is (mostly) a safe harbor from Nuts In Gummint.

Not Illinois.

...the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has decided that gun owners are unfit to adopt children....

No word on whether terrorists are similarly barred.

Yup. You're Losing Ground

Kinda think, back-of-the-envelope, that you're losing ground in the "buying-stuff" department?

That's because you are.

...According to the Labor Department, core inflation (i.e., prices with food and energy costs omitted, since they’re exceptionally volatile) rose 2.26 percent between June, 2015 and last month. How did inflation-adjusted wages do for the private sector? They rose only by 1.52 percent....

So for every price increase of $9.00, you saw a wage increase of $6.00.

...Workers did a little better between the previous Junes. Core inflation increased by 1.76 percent, and their price-adjusted wages improved by 1.84 percent....

Did that cheer you up a bit?  Well, then, read this part:

But between June, 2013 and June, 2014, the story was substantially different. While core prices were increasing by 1.96 percent, real wages weren’t increasing at all. That is, they were completely flat....;

OK, then.  The ObozoConomy!!

(Here's the most intriguing--and sadly, un-explored--factoid in the piece:

...(The Labor Department doesn’t include government workers’ wages in these statistics, since they’re determined by politicians’ decisions, not by the fundamental state of the economy.)...

Wouldn't it be interesting to know THOSE numbers??)

Paul Ryan will read the above Labor Department numbers and come to the conclusion that we need a helluvalot more un-skilled immigrants.  Obozo will lie like Hell about the stats.  Silicon Valley and Microsoft will tell you that 'now you can get cheaper computers!!'

But in flyover country, the rebellion is only beginning--because Trump or Hildebeeste are NOT the answers. 

#NeverTrump NOT Dead

Many people, myself included, agree wholeheartedly with this manifesto.  Here's a part:

...Donald Trump is no lover of liberty. Donald Trump is no respecter of the law. And Donald Trump is certainly no man of character.
 
 We do not believe he is emotionally stable; we do not believe he is personally decent; he appears to be neither principled nor even particularly competent. And we believe the record shows, and his unreleased tax returns would further demonstrate, that he is not even a big business success – aside, that is, from having proven abilities at product branding, and at being a successful reality-TV showman. Apart from those two skills, Trump has a serial record – to use one of his favorite words – of being a loser....
 
And please, don't puke the Common Core Math that 'not voting for Trump is actually voting for Hillary' (who is an equivalent dumpster fire.)

Saturday, July 16, 2016

Ford's Financing of the Communists

The Ford Foundation has put many millions into Communist-front organizations, which in turn have created and managed "Black Lives Matter."

On this posting, Ford absolutely puts Soros to shame.

Think of that next time you buy an F-150. 

By the way, that "Marguerite Casey" umpty-$$ donor is UPS money.  Let's take a second look at FedEx, eh?

Gingrich Is Right. Obozo Is Wrong, Again

Gingrich finally stated the obvious.

...In the aftermath of the terrorist attack in Nice, France, Gingrich said, “We should, frankly, test every person here who is of a Muslim background, and if they believe in Sharia, they should be deported. Sharia is incompatible with Western civilization.”...

That is true.  Sharia IS incompatible with Western civilization.  Sharia adherents should be deported.

Obozo, from behind his armed guards and walled compound, squeaked in rage.

Obama called Newt Gingrich’s plan to deport sharia-adhering Muslims in America “repugnant and an affront to everything that we stand for as Americans.”

Actually, Obama is repugnant and an affront to everything we stand for.  While we have the airplanes spooled up, let's deport him, too.

Friday, July 15, 2016

Abp. Cupich: BS Done Badly

It's very difficult to BS your way through an answer to a pointed question.  Here's the transcript of a Q&A featuring Abp. Cupich (Chicago):

If someone is in a gay relationship, should they be able to have any leadership positions within a local parish? 

I think that if a person is in a, uh, in a, in any kind of relationship that does not, um, uh, that, that is not, uh, a relationship that, uh, is uh, is open to, uh, the three promises of marriage, any kind of relationship outside of marriage, that is a cause of concern that the, the individual, uh, should take serious what the teachings of the Church are with regard to living that kind of life. Uh, we do have people who, uh, are, uh, in so-called irregular situation, in a situations that are working with their pastors in trying to, um, ah, look at their situations individually, in an individual cases. But, uh, to make a blanket statement would be, uh, I think ignoring the fact that you have to, uh, make sure that you see where people are, and then you go from there
.

So the answer to the question is..........????

The Archbishop is a favorite of Pp. Francis.  Pray for Chicago, and pray for the Church.

HT:  Mahound

Yoo-Hoo!! RoJo!! Where Are You???

It is reported that Sen. RoJo is the "Chairman, Homeland Security Committee."  One might think that the knowledge he gains from this position would show itself in his voting record.

One would be wrong.

RoJo was AWOL on a Senate vote instructing a conference committee to ......ahhhh......encourage a (potentially) unlimited immigration of Afghans into the US.  Yes, Afghans.  You know them:  they're the folks that brought you the Taliban Muzzies.

Twelve (R) Senators voted against this, among them:  Grassley, Vitter, Inhofe, and Cruz.

Not RoJo.  Nope. 

All that "Homeland Security" stuff does not include prudence, I guess.

So, Ron:  how's Nice this time of year??


Thursday, July 14, 2016

US Bishops' Gun-Control Drivel

As one would expect, the US' Catholic Bishops' Conference has been into the gun-control thing for years.  A recent example of their thinking on the matter came from Abp. Cupich of Chicago.  His editorial is a *cough* target-rich compilation of mis-statements and historical gibberish--so much so that I won't bother to fisk it.

More interesting is the research of The Bear, who tells us who sits on the US Bishop's social policy committee which, directly or indirectly, has shaped the Bishops' statements on gun control.

...The list of those serving on the USCCB's committee on domestic policy that produced the USCCB gun-grab policy paper is quite fascinating. Billionaire George Schmidt, Google ex-boss and massive supporter of President Obama, etc. etc;  John Sweeney, head of Democrat Socialists of America, former SEIU, AFL-CIO boss and recipient of Presidential Medal of Freedom; Sister Janet Mock, LCWR; Sister Miriam Mitchell, LCWR; Sister Carol Keehan, President of Catholic Health Association and vocal supporter of Obamacare while drawing a $962,467 salary from CHA; Ray Boshara, former Senior Fellow at New America Foundation, which has George Soro's son Jonathan on the board, is anti-gun, pro-Obamacare, and funded by left-wing heavyweights such as George Soros, through his Open Society Foundation. Anthony Williams, vociferously anti-gun ex-mayor of Washington D.C....

That's a solid list of The Usual Suspects which tells you all you really need to know.  One wonders what Cdl. John Carroll would have to say, eh?

The US' Horrible Race Relations

No surprise here.

A new poll conducted by The New York Times and CBS News finds the American public is more sour on race relations than it has been at any time in Barack Obama’s presidency.

Not only that, but the public is just as pessimistic on race as it was after the deadly Los Angeles riots in 1992.

Some might blame this on Obama.  Well, maybe. 

We'd suggest that menacing activities are more at fault.  "Organizing communities" to raise Hell will draw a reaction.

Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Tesla Moving Into Deep Doo-Doo

At one time, people who bought a Tesla were guaranteed a buy-back price after 3 years--by Tesla.

No more.

...the real sign that Tesla is concerned about flailing demand for its cars came later in the day, when Tesla said it had discontinued its resale value guarantee program that assured buyers that cars would retain value over time.

As Reuters adds, the discontinuation of the buyback program, as of July 1, shows the company stepping back on a pledge begun in 2013 that Tesla would buy back its cars financed through specified loan partners for a predetermined resale value after three years. The program was intended to help Tesla control its secondary market and assure buyers that cars would retain value.

This means that used Tesla values are dropping faster than the company had expected in its worst case scenario, and as a result it can no longer afford to fill the gap. With this program ending, demand for new vehicles is set to slump even more as concerns about resale prices emerge.
...

Well, then.  Maybe the market for self-immolating cars, or autopilot-unto-death cars, IS limited.  Who knew??

Wrong Question on Highways

Here's an essay which asks the wrong question on the Wisconsin highway-funding controversy.

Bet you didn’t know this:  a typical motorist in Wisconsin’s four neighboring states pays an average of 61 percent more in gas taxes and registration fees than a Wisconsin driver....

We don't doubt that assertion, so we won't argue about it.  But it's an answer to the wrong question.

At the very end of the essay, the right question appears (although veiled):

...Either increase the comparatively low costs that motorists now face or begin a program of disinvestment in adequate state roads.

Uh-huh. 

I guess that depends on the meaning of the word "adequate," eh?  Shall we examine the "adequacy" of Hy. 16 from Oconomowoc to Watertown--which should be "adequate" until the year 2080?

Like Governor Walker, we'd like to see a DOT proposal which meets needs, not wants, and which meets those needs without artificially-enhanced wages. Let's also remember that there is no Constitutional right to a 20-minute commute from anywhere to anyplace. 

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Paul Ryan "Leading" Wrong, Again

Paul Ryan is the un-indicted co-conspirator in this little charade.

The First Amendment Defense Act was introduced more than a year ago, but has been on the shelf in the House until just now.

Chaffetz and "the leadership" (read:  Paul Ryan) have kept it off the agenda--and even now, with hearings (FINALLY) scheduled, there will be no 'mark-up' session to move the bill forward.

Go ahead.  Read the linked essay.  Then try to explain Ryan's stall & delay game, because you can't, except to note that Ryan has no real principles.
One of the first responses to the growing trend of anti-religious bigotry was the First Amendment Defense Act (FADA), introduced by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah (A, 100%) and Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho (A, 95%) last June. - See more at: https://www.conservativereview.com/commentary/2016/07/chaffetz-and-house-leaders-stalling-religious-liberty-legislation#sthash.PiAkOUDM.dpuf

Sunday, July 10, 2016

How "Refugees" Are Selected. Bad News (!!)

In a few years--or less--Oshkosh will find out.

Since 2015 European nations have been comparing information on known Islamic terrorists with the lists of the most recent Moslem refugees it had accepted and has found more and more asylum seekers with Islamic terrorism backgrounds. This is most common in countries that accept these refugees via a UN resettlement program.

... Further investigation (often by journalists or other non-government groups) found that the UN run refugee camps were dominated by Islamic radicals who not only persecuted non-Moslem refugees but coerced the UN officials to select refugees for resettlement that were approved by the Islamic radical thugs
....quoted at Bayou RenMan

Nice.




Saturday, July 09, 2016

We Have a Suggestion for Obama

Speaking about the Dallas slaughter, the President:

...Obama shrugged off growing criticism that his own anti-cop statements helped trigger the shootings in Dallas and several other cities on Thursday and Friday. “It is very hard to untangle to motives of this [Dallas] shooter …  you have a troubled mind … what feeds it, what sets it off, I’ll leave that to psychologists and people who study these kids of incidents.”...

An exorcist would be better.

Friday, July 08, 2016

Can the Center Hold?

This is turning into a large-scale mess.

We have presidential candidates who are terrible.

We have LEO's who are dying under assault--and we don't know exactly by whom.

We have LEO's who are (at best) ill-trained and have made deadly judgment calls.

We have the country's principal LEO selling his soul for--really--no good reason.

We have various demi-riots, some by the Muslim horde.

And we have a country which is indisputably arming up.

T.S.Eliot would be in a cold sweat.

Thursday, July 07, 2016

Obozo's S.O.P.: Fraud and Deception

Just one more example added to the long list.

The Obama administration has been illegally funding Obamacare “Cost Sharing Reduction” (CSR) payments for years over the objections of IRS officials, according to a report released today by the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Since Congress launched its investigation, multiple agencies have refused to provide information, selectively applied the law, and even pressured one witness not to testify....

 He may have learned this from The Hildebeaste, of course. 

BONUS!  Once again, the oleaginous Koskinen is in it, up to his shifty little eyeballs.

Paul Ryan Slapped by Actual American Congressmen

Seems like Paul Ryan's perfidy 'no fly/no-buy' bill is going exactly noplace.

Good. 

See, Paul, That's Not Who We Are.

Wednesday, July 06, 2016

Walker's New Math

In Scott Walker world, it's (apparently) publikscrewels math:


Umnnnhhhh....no.  Zero never was equal to -1, nor equal to +1.

I'll vote for the cataclysmic meteor, thanks.

Come and Take It, Matt

Well, apparently it's Pipsqueak Day (see below post.)

Another pipsqueak, Matt Damon, would like the US to confiscate all weapons in 'one fell swoop.'

Stop by and try to take mine, Matt.  Just remember that you'll have to run faster than 900++ fps.

A Pipsqueak Barks!

We note that a locally-bred pipsqueak has barked.

It is no small irony that he implies that some who criticize Pp. Francis' motor-mouth imprecisions are 'not qualified' to speak about them.  (We note that the "about-the-author" section avoids telling us about the author.)

Actual theological and canon-law heavyweights have addressed the issues raised during this pontificate.  Instructors at non-ranked colleges......well,........draw your own conclusions.

UPDATE:  The article has been pulled.  Quoting the Editor's note:

This post has been removed. The original text was posted without authorization and bypassed any editorial review.  The blog did not reflect the Register's editorial views.

Somehow or other little John Paul Shimek hacked NCR?  Or does he have a friend with the keys to that server?

HT:  Canon212

Actually, Hillary, It Is NOT "Resolved"

The oozing pustule's campaign states that 'the matter is now resolved.'

No, it's not.

Tuesday, July 05, 2016

Comey Becomes Oozing Slime, Too

The name "Comey" will live in infamy.

This should end all that crapola that 'he's a real straight arrow.'

Screw him.

Don't piss on him if he's on fire.  It's an insult to good piss.

18 USC.  Section 793 ffd.  See "Espionage Code."


Who Said This?

Here's a little quiz-show thing:  who said this?  (I removed some specifics to prove a point).

...And I needn’t remind you – but I will – that it’s been during Democratic years that our strength to deter war has stood still, and even gone into a planned decline. It has been during Democratic years that we have weakly stumbled into conflict, timidly refusing to draw our own lines against aggression, deceitfully refusing to tell even our people of our full participation, and tragically, letting our finest men die on battlefields (unmarked by purpose, unmarked by pride or the prospect of victory).

Yesterday it was [x]. Tonight it is [z]. Make no bones of this. Don’t try to sweep this under the rug. We are at war in [z]. And yet the President, who is Commander-in-Chief of our forces, refuses to say – refuses to say, mind you, whether or not the objective over there is victory. And his Secretary of Defense continues to mislead and misinform the American people, and enough of it has gone by....

Go on.  Take a stab at it.  The link is here, only AFTER you've guessed....

"We Owe Them Nothing........" (With a List of Slime!!)

When in the course of human events......

...It is high time to declare our personal independence from any remnant of obligation to those who have spit upon the rule of law. We owe them nothing - not respect, not loyalty, not obedience.

...The idea of the rule of law today is a lie. There is no law. There is no justice. There are only lies....

The oozing pustule that is Hillary Clinton is by far the leading example, but SCOTUS has four--or five--good ones, too.  It's no wonder that Clinton will not appear in large public fora, eh?

If you're looking for a more comprehensive list, Victor Hanson has provided it here.  As he says:  "Who [the hell] ARE these people?"

HT:  Grim   

"Free Trade Good!!" Really??

Now another moment of dissent about free trade.

...U.S. economic growth before the early 1970s, when the first crucial decisions were made to keep America open to the exports of a developed world fully recovered from World War II, was considerably faster (and by all accounts more inclusive) than it’s been afterwards. If you’re skeptical, take a look at these charts, which compare the best pre-1970s American economic expansion (during the 1960s), with the best post-1970s expansion (during the 1990s)....

The linked charts tell the story pretty well.  The fun starts at Chart Five, where it becomes clear that the US' growth pre-'free trade' and post-'free trade' are different.  Manufacturing simply doesn't have the traction post-NAFTA that it did in the 1960's, and manufacturing throws off a lot of free cash which then fuels the service and retail sectors.

Tonelson does not claim that free trade is the source of ALL woes.  But:

...Consider the data-supported claims that a big reason for recent growth woes (even before the financial crisis and ensuing Great Recession) has been weak domestic business investment. I’ve pointed to evidence that the problem hasn’t been feeble capital spending as such, but a growing tendency for that spending to be made on multinational companies’ foreign facilities. It’s clearly reasonable to argue that such spending has been made a lot more profitable by trade agreements that encourage these companies to supply the high-price U.S. market from super-low cost foreign countries in the developing world. ...

Is it only "labor costs" in those super-low-cost countries?  Hardly.  In the real world, the US assigns enormous burdens to manufacturers:  environmental costs, health-care costs, unemployment comp costs, tax costs, "equal opportunity" costs......the list is very long indeed.  (In fairness, these costs have an upside for lawyers.)

He concludes the essay thus:

...the big takeaway here is that the conventional wisdom on trade and growth is anything but unassailable – and that there’s an excellent chance that the trade-skeptic public understands the real relationship better than the self-appointed experts....

Indeed. 

By the way, there's an even more alarming essay on the genesis of "Free Trade" available at Cold Fury.

Monday, July 04, 2016

The Oozing Pusbag: Hillary

HT to Creative for noticing this:

The New York Times just reported "Democrats close to Mrs. Clinton say she may decide to retain Ms. Lynch, the nation’s first black woman to be attorney general."
So, you wouldn't know it from reading the Times article but what just happened there is that Hillary just promised a job to Lynch, the person who will decide whether to indict her.


Game over for the USA.

Buy.  More.  Ammo.

Justice Thomas v. SCOTUS

When the (Kennedy) dope-smokers are wrong, they are VERY wrong.

Can't summarize Thomas' dissent much better than what was done at the link above.  Thomas simply unloads a series of nuclear bombs on the majority regarding their Texas abortion-restriction decision.

Summary:   "The Court should abandon the pretense that anything other than policy preferences underlies its balancing of constitutional rights and interests in any given case … As the Court applies whatever standard it likes to any given case, nothing but empty words separates our constitutional decisions from judicial fiat."

This decision's errors are not ground-breaking for the Court.

Here's a question:  why haven't our "conservative" Congress-critters utilized that provision of the Constitution which allows the Congress to strip SCOTUS of jurisdiction in certain kinds of cases?

Here's the answer:  they have no balls and they have no intellectual cohesion.  Both, not "or."


Paul Ryan's Other World

This is nice, slurpy, sentimental stuff.  But it's clearly not exactly true.

"...Our flag, and our Pledge of Allegiance unite us, and remind us why we love our country so deeply...."

Well, except for those natural-born American citizens who blew up the Boston Marathon, massacred a bunch of people in Orlando and San Diego, attacked fellow soldiers in Texas,.....etc.

Now what did THOSE people have in common, Paul?

Hint:  a cult and culture which is antithetical to that which gave birth to America.  Maybe you live in another world, Paul, but there are those of us who can see past the slurp and sentiment.

Why America Is Exceptional--So Far

Much has been said about the phrase "American exceptionalism."  Few understand the real basis for that phrase and sadly, many 'patriots' do not get it, either.

The late Mgr. Fulton Sheen did understand it.

...The essence of Americanism is not revolution, but the recognition of the sacredness of human personality and the inherent inalienable rights which every man possesses independently of the State. That is why, when our country began, our Founding Fathers were most anxious to find some basis for human rights, some foundation for human liberties, some guarantee of human personality which would be above the encroachment of tyranny and abuse.

...Where find the source of the liberties and the rights of man? On what stable foundation are they to be reared? What is their source? The answer they gave was the right one. They sought the foundations of man’s rights and liberties in something so sacred and so inalienable that no State, no Parliament, no Dictator, no human power could ever take them away, and so they rooted them in God. Hence our Declaration of Independence reads: all men “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights. . .among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
...
Therefore no power on earth may take them away. This is the essence of Americanism.

So how is it that 'many patriots do not understand' this?

...If human dignity and liberty come from God, then it follows that loss of faith in Him means loss of faith in those liberties which derive from Him. If we wish to have the light we must keep the sun; if we wish to keep our forests we must keep our trees; if we wish to keep our perfumes we must keep our flowers – and if we wish to keep our rights, then we must keep our God. It is just as vain to try to keep triangles without keeping three-sided figures, as to try to keep Liberty without the spirit which makes man independent of matter and therefore free....

Sheen's formulation is simple: forget God, then fuggedabout "America."

Want proof? Look at this year's Presidential candidates.

 Q.E.D. 

P.S.: Do I really have to explain why practicing Muslims do not 'get this'?

Remember Independence

A little of the 'operative language' from the Declaration....

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,...That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

The Founders did it once, and it can be done again.  Be prepared.

Sunday, July 03, 2016

Romney, the Tariffs Guy

Apparently that "free trade" crap doesn't apply to Establishment candidates.

"Mitt Romney has vowed to impose tariffs on China the day he becomes president," the liberal Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson wrote in late September 2011. And indeed Romney had.

The position that makes sense:  punishing Red China (among others) for mercantilist actions and stripping decent jobs from Americans CAN be held by such as Romney, but not such as Trump?

Don't get me wrong.  I'm #NeverTrump.  But I happen to be an American, not a Globalonist tweed-blazer-with-pipe-and-slippers twit.

Why Modern "Conservatives" Will Lose the Country

The essay from which I quote could be subtitled "Why the Catholic Church Had to Defeat Mohammedans"--which is to say, in brief, that cult is the antecedent of culture.  This will not be a happy read, folks.  It could also be subtitled "Why Donald Trump Won, (Even Though He Should Not Have.)"

...Conservatism, like contemporary Western civilization itself, seems to be in eclipse. But this is so only because its advocates cannot, or refuse to, speak on their own terms; instead, they accept the moral authority of leftist ideologues and thus handicap their own putative opposition to militant progressivism. Those on the so-called Dissident Right constantly remind their detractors that the present stewards of mainstream conservatism have repudiated their forefather’s legacy. These warnings are, however, almost universally dismissed in terms identical to the broader Left’s pejorative treatment of conservatism itself. Instead, mainstream conservatives declare that their fealty to liberal ends is more sincere than that of their explicitly leftist opponents....

In other words, modern "conservatives" such as GWBush, Paul Ryan, George Will, (etc.) have given up the 'high ground', conceding it to the Left.  That is why the Republican party fell to The Donald--who, in reality, is the uber-Modern Conservative:  dissolute, narcissistic, but most important, un-grounded.  There are no principles in his 'there,' but there is irony; while Trump represents no traditional Western values, he succeeded by mocking and flogging the larger camp of un-grounded 'conservatives:'  the Establishment.  The fact that he succeeded with only 35% of the (R) vote is significant--far more so than most understand.


The essay relates this to the Moslem threat by quoting Waleed Aly, a Left-leaning scholar/Muslim who reminds us that Mohammedanism, accurately described, actually IS 'fundamentalist.'  That is the cult which is antecedent to the culture of Islam.

The problem is that the modern 'conservative' (or neo-conservative) has given up the traditional Western cult in favor of 

....a post-Christian secular ideology, its technocratic and managerial theory of governance, and the liberal, universalist biases that accompany it. ...Aly reveals the ultimate folly of applying Western concepts to the historical experience of foreign cultures and the silliness of expecting similar sociological outcomes as a result. “This is, of course, perhaps the most well-worn and ill-informed cliché of Western discourse on Islam,” he writes. “The kind of thing people like to say when they want to sound serious but know almost exactly nothing about Islam, Muslim societies, or indeed the [Protestant] Reformation.

He's speaking directly to the Bush-ite gang; that is even more clear in this passage:

...Abbott’s awkward foray into this debate illustrates a mindset almost identical to the secular liberal’s. The latter feels he is capable of declaiming what Islam really is, or ought to be — namely, a “religion of peace,” inherently humanitarian, tolerant, rational, and scientific. It is “betrayed” by its violent jihadi adherents who, despite their vehement claims to the contrary, have “nothing to do” with the explicit dictates of Mohammed or the unambiguous and disconcerting Koranic mandates regarding the treatment of, and relations with, kufars and dhimmis. Abbott’s call for a reformation within Islam likewise takes as a given the progressive, materialist, and therefore universal and egalitarian perspective wherefrom all cultures will, can, and must undergo the exact same historical development as they move toward globalized modernity. According to this view, any reluctance on their part is merely a failure to progress along an inevitable path toward a world where, as recent history has shown, the only belief system that merits public celebration is one centered on secular, technocratic, and scientific “values.”...

Jacobinism pure.

...the egalitarian, sentimentalist, and progressive utopia of the Left is equally as arrogant and dangerous as the no less egalitarian, rationalist, and determinist worldview of the contemporary Right....

Or, expanded:

...Aly is also correct in identifying establishment conservatism’s defects as a shallow commitment to the banal, which has cultivated a political rhetoric that, he writes, “has no traditional moral language; nothing that richly evokes concepts like empathy, courage, sacrifice, restraint, forgiveness, forbearance, humility.” The traditionalist might respond that, naturally, this is what happens when politics is replaced by a series of economic propositions whose fungible treatment of man differs from socialism only in nuance, emphasis, and degree — exactly the materialist reductionism that characterizes most Center-Right politics throughout the English-speaking world today. Ironically, the antithesis of conservatism has now come to define it...

Therein lies another key to Trump's success--the economic propositions of the neo-con/"conservative" camp have stripped a large number of Americans of their prosperity.  Trump caught on to that and capitalized with his "wall" and "tariffs" chatter.

But Trump misses the larger and far more significant target:  the 'technocratic/managerial' Governments we have built which have raised the cost of doing business in the US to a level in which business can no longer be done at a profit.  That's because Trump enjoys the fruits of that Government--see, specifically, his endorsement of eminent domain abuse and his enjoyment of gerrymandered tax laws.

It ain't the cost of labor.  It's the cost of keeping the labor, and the plant, here.

...Aly is certainly aware of its “slow-motion death” within a “hollowed out culture” when he writes that “it’s hard to believe the market should be free to exploit and commodify whatever consumers will tolerate — sex, culture, children — and yet pretend we are bound together by inviolable, sacred values” (Sydney Morning Herald, Mar. 4, 2016). However, many of Aly’s above-mentioned virtues are expressed in communities that share strong organic bonds and, therefore, have high levels of in-group trust and solidarity. Government policies in the post-World War II era have favored a hyper-individualist and subscriptive model of citizenship, but the underlying transnationalist ideology involves a push toward deregulated international labor markets that are facilitated by a concurrent push toward effectively borderless mass migration, as well as the resulting consumerism, alienation, and societal balkanization that these entail....

Read again the red-highlighted sentence above; that tells you why I chose the subtitle about 'the Catholic Church'.  Then go a few words further to the part about 'underlying transnationalist ideology' and you understand why the Rockefeller Republicans--which includes John McCain's War Party pals--cannot win national elections, either.  

...Should a government assume a more genuinely communitarian sense of public policy — one firmly based on the imperative to maintain its constituents’ cultural and historical legacy — the result would be a reassertion of a particularly Occidental polis from which Aly and his co-religionists would, logically, have to be excluded. To put it differently, where conservatism loses its own sense of cultural particularism, it ceases to be preservationist in any meaningful sense; hence its usurpation by populism and nationalism within a disaffected lower middle class, just as Sam Francis predicted over two decades ago...

Oh, yah, Sam Francis--the guy who was read out of polite society for just that sort of prediction.  He could be laughing, but it would be a bitter laugh, indeed.

...multiculturalism per se militates against the formation of a “cultural consensus” that can “bind society,” unless that consensus is based on deracinated, ahistorical abstracts — in other words, unless all political dispositions on the Right, however defined, surrender to the essential worldview and value systems of contemporary cultural Marxism. That Center-Right politicians today celebrate subscription identity and civic patriotism as the foundational principles of the modern state indicates that such a capitulation has already occurred. Unfortunately, such a “cultural consensus” is as enigmatic as the workers’ paradise of the Old Marxist Left. Like Soviet economics, it simply does not work, and it is Europe again (this time west of the Oder-Neiße Line) that will reap the bitter fruit of this latest attempt at re-engineering man and society according to the dictates of spiritually dislocated, utopian malcontents....

We note that both Paul Ryan and the Marxist Obama remonstrate "..that's not who we are..." when faced with embarrassing questions about importing Muslims.*  In that light, re-read the red-highlighted section above again.  Yup.  That means that Paul Ryan (and his multitude of sycophant platitude-mouthers) HAVE surrendered to the essential value systems of contemporary Marxism.  Shall we say "Jacobin" again? 

Read the rest, HT  Pertinacious

*Since Angela Merkel is also a card-carrying Marxist from her days as a Party functionary in East Germany, she began the flood-the-zone game in Europe.  That's worked very well for young German women, ain'a??

Saturday, July 02, 2016

Jobs for College Kids? Not So Fast!

The cold-eyed observer tells the Rest of the Story behind the Georgetown study which says that some college or a degree gets you a job.

In short:  yes, the college credential will help you get a job. 

But it ain't necessarily a GOOD job.

Between the lines?  The ObozoConomy sucks. 

Friday, July 01, 2016

Picture, 1,000 Words, and All That

Courtesy of Moonbattery:


McCain Whining Over Earned "Contempt"

Gee.  McCain is unhappy with Obozo & Co.

"...I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve dealt with Democratic presidents, Republican presidents, but never an administration that treats the Congress with not just disdain but contempt.

You've earned that contempt, John.  You--and the rest--rolled over for Obozo.  You're funding his every whim, every time.  You approve his nominations.  You tacitly approve his regulatory chicanery, you refuse to impeach his minions.......

Take your whining and go home.