Sunday, August 30, 2015

More Proof Things Aren’t Bad Like You’ve Been Told

I’ve been pointing out for some time now that things aren’t so bad as you’ve been led to believe. Basically, if you listen to Talk Radio and the hysterical MSM, the world has gone to hell. Education is indoctrination. The military is almost disbanded. Gasoline is banned. Blacks and whites are killing each other in the streets. And Millennial are all bisexual morons who can’t find America on the map, who think Kim Kardashian is President, and who... well, you get the picture. Anyhoo, this is all crap. And now we have one more bit of telling evidence.

This week, it was reported that Harris did a poll (which I sadly cannot find to see their data). Anyways, what the poll found was that 74% of respondents age 18-34 “were irked by” bad spelling and bad grammar on social media.

Interesting, no?

No?! Well consider this... we’ve been told that modern generations since mine (Xers) have been taught that things like spelling and getting math answers right don’t matter so long as we stroke up some self-esteem in trying, right? I’ve heard this crap for decades now treated as gospel by Talk Radio. In fact, this little claim has been the Alpha and Omega of Talk Radio’s attack on education in America. And their counterparts on the left seem to celebrate it.

But do you know what? I’ve never seen any evidence of this. Sure, sometimes, you get a moron liberal administrator who will say this line, but I’ve never seen parents or students or even teachers accept it. Now we get this poll.

This poll tells us not only that at least 74% of the public never bought into this argument, but 74% are actively bothered when other people can’t spell or use proper grammar. That is super telling. Why? Because that means that this issue is so important to supposedly brainwashed Millennials that even though they aren't supposed to care about grammar anymore, seven in ten actually get pissed off when they run across someone who does it wrong. So much for the brainwashing. Even better, we’re talking about social media which is notorious for mouthbreathers saying things like: “he done loosed the game when there qb thru the ballz their’re.” In other words, in the land where we’ve been told people are most tolerant of the idiotic misuse of language, more than seven in ten people get pissed off about the misuse of the language!

Why is this important? Because it means that those 7 in 10 people get angry when people fail to conform to a societal normal that we’ve been told has been wiped out by liberals. That is damning for the idea pimped by Talk Radio that society is going to hell because no one respects the rules anymore and it shows how little progress the self-esteem types have made.

Further, keep in mind, those 7.4 in 10 are the ones who get upset. They aren’t the only ones to whom good grammar matters. In fact, the other 2.6 should break down into three groups: (1) the anything goes crowd, (2) those who didn’t express an opinion, and (3) those who don’t like people being wrong, but who don’t get angry about it. That means that we are probably looking at 8 or 9 people in 10 who respect grammar and spelling rules.

So much for the collapse of society.

Now let me add some anecdotal evidence to this. In the 1980s, when it was becoming clear that a significant chunk of black kids couldn’t speak English because black culture had adopted 1970’s pimp speak, the black establishment tried to hide this by declaring “ebonics” a real language and saying it should be accepted as being the equivalent of English. At the same time, the left was pushing the idea of educating Hispanic kids in Spanish, with English only as an extra field of study.

Both of those ideas have all but vanished these days because black and Hispanic parents didn’t want their kids being handicapped. As proof of the difference, look at the NFL and compare the black players who joined the league in the 1990s and who needed to be translated by reporters into English, see e.g. Mike Vick, with amazingly well-spoken guys like Russell Wilson, Colin Kapernick, and RG3 today. Watch Hard Knocks on HBO, which is following the Texans this year or the Falcons last year, and you will see a group of black athletes whose English is excellent and whose interests are stunningly erudite: painting, classical piano, visiting museums, nerd pursuits. None of these guys is a ghetto gangbanger. Ditto for the black characters you see on television, black actors and even black entertainers... where nerds and businessmen are becoming the new “in” thing for black characters. And show me a single news agency who has hired people who don't speak excellent English. Even ESPN and the NFL Network are drifting away from the gibberishers and replacing them with guys like Eric Davis, who speak clearly and intelligently.

This is not the world we were told was coming in the 1990s when we were assured that black kids would be taught ebonics, Mexican kids would never be taught English, white kids were taught that spelling and grammar rules didn’t matter, and when we were assured that “r u their lolz” meant that future generations would be imbeciles destined for welfare.

Add this to the polls I showed you about race not mattering to anyone except increasingly small fringes on either side... to the fact our education is actually world class... to the fact our economy is world class... to the fact our military in unique in the history of the world... to the flood of advances today in all fields... and to all the polls that continue to show that Americans still believe the things that made America great.

Finally, let me throw one more thing out there. I’ve been talking to one of our friends of the site about the state of modern “art.” There is this perception that modern “art” has gone to crap. And to the extent that we are talking about the “pure art” crowd, yeah, that stuff is garbage and they know it. But that’s only a tiny fraction of modern art. Think about this... there is amazing modern classical music being made by the likes of John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith, modern storytelling as seen in films over the past few decades and video games far exceeds the quality of all but a handful of classic tales, modern image art as seen in book covers or online or what ends up on film is absolutely stunning, the sculpture work done for presidents, sports heroes or by guys like Fernando Botero or local but world renown cowboy artist Michael Garman are amazing, check out “So You Think You Can Dance” for amazing modern dance in all categories, etc.

This is a time of amazing achievement, and the current generations are strongly demanding that everyone obey the rules that keep society cohesive. The end of America not only never came, there’s not even a foundation upon which that dystopian jerk-off fantasy can be built. America is not going down hill. There are just people who tell you that because it serves their purposes.

Thoughts?
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Friday, August 28, 2015

Friday's Thoughts: Reading List

By Kit

I’ve been doing some reading over the summer and the past year or two and to conclude the summer I’ve picked out a few non-fiction books I’ve come across that I felt were good for conservatives.

Now, with one exception, these are not “foundational texts” of conservatism so that means no Bible or Federalist Papers and no Chesterton, either. Mostly because I’ve not read through all of the Federalist Papers yet (on my list). Anyway, it is just 5 books I think are good for conservatives of the modern era to have read or be reading.

1.) The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek: The one “foundational” text I’m posting was written in 1944 warning Britain about the dangers of big government is still worth a read. He articulates how the necessities of centralized economic planning inevitably do damage to political freedom. Amazon.com
2.) Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell: A bit of a cheat here as I have not actually finished this book, it is a lengthy tome, and I own the Fourth Edition, not the Fifth I listed in the Amazon link, but I’ve read a sizable chunk of it and what I’ve read tells me that this should be by your desk or otherwise prominently displayed. It is the Bible of Free Market economics, explaining just why the big government schemes are doomed to fail. If you want something shorter then I recommend Henry Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson. I’ve also heard good things about Sowell’s Economic Facts and Fallacies. Amazon (5th Ed.)
3.) Life at the Bottom by Theodore Dalrymple: If there is a more searing indictment of the impact of the Welfare state I have not read it. This collection of essays, composed while Dalrymple (real name: Dr. Anthony Daniels) was working as a doctor in the poorest parts of London are fascinating, depressing, and sometimes downright infuriating. It is also on Kindle for $3.99. Amazon
4.) Conservatarian Manifesto by Charles C.W. Cooke: Here National Review’s Charles C. W. Cooke, touching on a variety of issues from federalism to abortion to foreign policy, crafts a brilliant manifesto for the Right in the early-21st century. Even if you don’t entirely agree with everything he has to say, it is a great jumping off point for discussion. Amazon
5.) The World America Made by Robert Kagan: The foreign policy one was tough but I had to settle on this one since it makes the case for why America must not retreat from the world. It punctures holes in the claims of liberals who think a multipolar world would be just as, if not more, free and safe and libertarians who think America can retreat from the world while still engaging in free trade, arguing that it is a unipolar world under American dominance that ensures those things. Superpowers craft countries in their own image and an American-dominated world means a more free world while a world dominated by countries other than the US, say Russia or China, may mean a less free world. We should not trade in the good in the vain pursuit of the perfect. Amazon


Honorable Mention:
“What We Have to Lose” by Theodore Dalrymple: Just an article here but good enough. Written for City Journal in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, “What We Have to Lose” is a beautiful defense of civilization. It is in the anthology, Our Culture —What’s Left of It, also a good read. City Journal, Amazon
Invisible Armies by Max Boot: An excellent history of guerrilla warfare from ancient times to modern day, disproving the constant refrains that (1) guerrilla warfare is exclusively “Eastern”, when in fact it has been consistently used around the world by weak armies, and (2) it is unbeatable. Amazon
Seven Deadly Virtues, edited by Jonathan V. Last: This is collection of short essays, each written by a different conservative writer and edited together by Jonathan Last, is a fun, but also serious, tour through each of the virtues, starting with the Seven Virtues of Prudence, Temperance, Justice, Courage, Faith, Hope, and Love and continuing onto others such as Integrity, Fellowship, Chastity, and Perseverance. The writers include Jonah Goldberg (Integrity), the blogger Iowahawk (Hope), Christopher Buckley (Perseverance) and P.J. O’Rourke (the introduction). Worth a read. Amazon
Liberal Fascism/Tyranny of Clichés by Jonah Goldberg: You’ve probably read or heard of the first one, Liberal Fascism, which points out, with an incredible amount of research, the similar roots of fascism and progressivism. Tyranny of Clichés is sort-of a follow-up to Liberal Fascism, it hits a broader range of topics, though, but is more of a careful debunking, through logic and history, of liberal clichés that now pervade modern thought. Liberal Fascism, Tyranny of Clichés
“The Coddling of the American Mind” by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt: Another article, this one from The Atlantic. Lukianoff, head of the brilliant organization the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, and psychologist Jonathan Haidt point out just why the current campus obsession with speech codes and “safe spaces” is harmful to the psychological well-being of the students, including the ones being “protected”. Atlantic
Imperial Grunts/Blue Water Grunts by Robert Kaplan: These two-books, released in the mid-2000s, each provide a good overview of America’s presence overseas and debunk the Ron Paul false dilemma that in order to have a presence around the world we have to be constantly invading everywhere. Imperial Grunts, Blue Water Grunts

Any thoughts? Additions? (I hope so) Subtractions? (I hope not)
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Thursday, August 27, 2015

Bare Naked Ladies and Other Inequalities

August 26, 1920 was the day that women finally won the right to vote. Fast-forward 95 years to August 26, 2015, now there are some women in NYC who are fighting for the right...to walk around topless. Well, what can I say, somewhere along the long road to Equality, some women have veered off into a swamp.

For generations, women in the US have fought for the same rights and privileges afforded to men in education, business, finances and politics. By most reasonable accounts, women have made great strides towards equality. In education, women now comprise more than 50% of enrollment in colleges and universities. There are certainly more female executives, scientists, doctors, and business owners than there have ever been in human history. Women have more opportunities in almost every field that they want to pursue including the military's elite fighting forces. Just last week, two women completed the rigorous 61-day/3-phase program of endurance and survival training through woods, mountains and swamps that only half the men who enter complete. No grading on a curve either.

A major part of this fight has been not be thought merely as sex objects or the sum total of our lady-parts. And I can say with some authority that the right to go topless in public was never really one of the issues very high on the long list of grievances. I can say with even more authority that it wasn't even on the list. But here we are...GoTopless Day has arrived. [Oops, sorry, it was last weekend. Sorry, guys, I forgot to send the memo...] You may not know this, but in NYC going topless in public is not against the law as long as there is an artistic element. So it being legal and all, we hosted GoTopless Day, a national protest where women took off their tops and protested for the right to go topless. And Lord help the man who enjoyed the view because that's sexist and misogynist (and any other words they can think of).

I don't have a problem with nudity. If a woman wants to walk around without a top on, whatevs. But it's boring, self-indulgent, and superficial when there are women in the world who are not allowed to learn to drive or read, or when 14 years old girls are used as human incendiary devices for Boko Haram terrorists. But then again, maybe it is a sign that American woman have finally achieved equality in the big stuff.

On a related topic:This brings me to Times Square famously deemed the "Crossroad of the World". It took 20 years to clean up the area and create a family-friendly Disney-fied Main Street from what was once filled with drug dealers, prostitutes, strip clubs and X-rated movie theatres. It started during the Guiliani years and the Bloomberg years just made it more friendly. The area is teeming with tourists now. But since our present Adminstration has taken over, it has devolved into some kind of weird, alternate universe/Twilight Zone of giant matted Big Birds, multiple Mickey Mice, Super Heroes, and, worst of all, nearly naked women hawking themselves as photo opportunities for money. It has become a place where one cannot take children again. And worst, the many law firms and other similar legitimate businesses who have offices in the ares are moving out in droves because it is has become embarrassing for them. How can you meet with clients when they have to first walk through a see of aggressive naked women hawking their bare naked selves for money? Mayor de Blasio has finally noticed between trips to Italy and gym work-outs and vows to "do something".

Unrelated Topic: So you know all about the "safe spaces" and "trigger warnings" for reading list and conservative speakers on college campuses these day. Students just shouldn't be confronted with any kind of conservative ideas like speeches from Ayaan Hirsi Ali who might say something that challenge their liberal indocrination. Well, a funny thing happened on the way to that indoctrination...Christian students at Duke University are refusing to read "Fun Home", a novel and Tony-award winning play about a young lesbian's coming of age and sexual identity because it goes against their moral and religious beliefs. One would think that they had asked for a safe space or something with all the flack over this. How dare these students not want to expand their minds and go outside of their "comfort zone"!! How anti-intellectual of them! Why are they even bother to go to college. Oh, the irony...

Comments are appreciated and hey, no mention of Hillary!! Well, I did just there, but I won't mention Hillary again. Oops.

**Okay, if you must see, here is a video of Times Square...LINK - WARNING - DO NOT OPEN IF YOU AT WORK or IF THERE ARE CHILDREN PRESENT.
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Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Anal yzing Hillary

Any psychologist who will give a diagnosis without meeting a person in person and over the course of several sessions is a liar and an asshat... and very useful to journalists and defense attorneys. Anyways, some chickiepooh named Dr. Bond... Alma Bond... just did a number of Hillary Clinton. Dr. Bond is a psychoanalyst (psycho◦anal◦yst) from Columbia University. Allow me to translate the article discussing her psychobabble for your edification.

Hillary Clinton is a lonely woman who has trouble expressing her feelings.

So is Caitlin Jenner. Seriously though, this is no surprise. People with her personality type (asshole) tend to be lonely for reasons that are a complete and total mystery to them. As for problems expressing herself, yeah, we see that every time she opens her mouth. This woman couldn’t express her desire to exit a paper bag.

So says Dr. Alma Bond... She has been studying Hillary Clinton from afar for many years.

Alma is a lazy stalker... and pretty much disqualifies her opinion right there. Let us continue, however, for the sake of argument.

The Democratic presidential candidate has difficulty with men...

Yeah, no crap. One word: pantsuit. And if you don’t like that word, try some of these: asexual, lesbian, ugly, deeply unpleasant, cackles, nagger, man-hater, clingy.

...and she needs a woman friend on her same political level that she can share strategy or top secret events of the day.

Yeah, chicks are like that. But wherever will Hillary find another woman who got famous because of her husband and is now in the tail end of an incompetent, accomplishment-free political career? Where is Imelda Marcos when you need her?

Dr. Bond suggests that Hillary has unsuccessfully looked for a female equal for years, despite the closeness of her assistant and closest aide, Huma Abedin.

There is double meaning here. It means that Hillary is a lesbian... an old lesbian... an unsuccessful old lesbian... an unsuccessful old lesbian looking for more than a humma’.

Hillary cuts a lonely figure as she holidays in the Hamptons.

That’s because she went by herself. If she had gone with a girl gang like Taylor Swift, then people would be saying... well, “who knew Taylor Swift was a lesbian” but they might also be saying, “I didn’t know Hillary had friends!”

Abedin has helped to fill Hillary's void of loneliness...

Snicker snicker snicker. No she hasn’t... not possible. How do I know? Look, the 14 year old boy inside me finds that line rather humorous, but knows better than to explain what I mean. The 45 year old smart ass inside me, however, has no such problem and notes that Abedin cannot fill Hillary’s void of loneliness because she lacks the hardware. It’s no wonder a humma ain’t doing it for Hillary! Has no one explained this to Hillary?

Dr. Bond has drawn the conclusion that one of the Democratic presidential candidate's biggest problems is her inability to express her feelings and it all began back in her in childhood in Park Ridge, Illinois, a neighborhood devoid of Jews, blacks or Asians.

Yeah, I can’t express myself either without Jews in the hood. Oy yo.

Her father Hugh Rodham, a curtain salesman who died of a stroke... was a combative, working-class man from eastern Pennsylvania who was riddled with prejudices against anyone who wasn't like him.

So, Hillary’s problem is that her father (1) sold curtains, (2) was a man, (3) was from eastern Pennsylvania, (4) was working-class or (5) kept singing “One of these things ain’t like the f**ing others!” I’m no shrink, but I’m betting that each of these was not equally responsible for Hillary’s problem.

Hugh was a bruiser at home and excessively spanked the couple's three children. He verbally abused Hillary's mother, Dorothy, and Bond describes their relationship as 'sadomasochist'.

So Hillary likes spankings and she’s into S&M? Paging Christian Grey.

But Hillary never gave up trying to please Hugh and at five years old, asked him to marry her.

Wow... she’s a modern day Electra!

His response was to whack her in the butt and run off to find her mother who offered comfort in the form of a chocolate bar.

Wait a minute... is that a real chocolate bar or does it mean something else? And why does everything about Hillary have to do with her butt?

Dr. Bond suggests that as a result of the oppressive upbringing, Hillary doesn't express her feelings and it has made her ambivalent towards men as well as tolerant of a cheating husband.

So because she finds men oppressive, she’s cool with them doing whatever they want? How does that make sense?

With the stinginess in her early years, Hillary has no intrinsic talent for dressing well and never learned. She hasn't escaped the pants suits routine but she also doesn't believe it matters how she dresses anyway, the author surmises. She was 'the drab girl nobody gave a second look at until Bill Clinton came alone'.

She’s a bad dresser because she came from a broken home? Really? So if you come from a broken home, you have two choices... knock over liquor stores or become a bad dresser. What a world!

Dr. Bond believes Hillary is lonely at the top and craves a female equal.

Maybe she needs a “chocolate bar”?

Bond concludes that ultimately she believes Hillary is 'a wonderful human being with deep flaws, whom anyone would be lucky to call a friend'.

So was Hitler I’m told. And judging by how her friends have all died or gone to jail or had their careers implode, I’m thinking “lucky” ain’t the word for it. Also, where is there any evidence that she’s a “wonderful human being”? Seems like kind of an ass actually, and no one has ever called her wonderful to my knowledge.

She describes Clinton as 'a frank and outspoken person, rather than a truthful one. Like most politicians, she bends the truth for political reasons' – and she calls her a healthy narcissist as well ---interested in the welfare of the world and not just focused on herself.

Wow. Contradiction city. “Frank” usually implies truthful (or “hot dog”), but apparently she’s a frank liar (or she lies about sausages)... good luck wrapping your head around that. Alma also claims she’s a narcissist who cares about the world, even though narcissists by definition care only about themselves. Somebody is either very confused or they’re a liar.

Personally, I think Alma may be reading a little too much into the little she’s read about Hillary... or she’s not reading enough.

Thoughts?
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Monday, August 24, 2015

Don't Mind If I Do...

With Bev unable to produce an article tonight because, I am told, Obama himself came to her house and did his best to inspire her and now she's super depressed and contemplating emigrating, I figured I'd share two thoughts I had today. :) This whole stock market thing has actually shaken up the political race in a big huge way that no one has yet put together, plus China is exposed.

Thought One. Here's the deal: believe it or not, people equate the stock market with the economy and prosperity. This is because it is the only visibly measurable proxy available for the economy. In other words, you can't see hiring, you can't see under-employment, you can't see lack of pay raises or lack of investment. You can see it in your neighborhood or your own life, but you can't see it nationwide. You can, however, see the stock market. And by and large, the stock market is seen as a relatively trustworthy number which represents the national economic situation because it tracks the health of the nation's biggest companies.

When the market crashes, people see this as an economic disaster. They see this not only as evidence of a bad economy that has hurt these companies, but as evidence of future bad times and sometimes even of the good times having been faked. Said differently, when the stock market crashes, people feel that something significantly disastrous has finally been exposed and they expect problems.

And to a large degree, they are right to do so. For one thing, when the market crashes, consumers feel a lot poorer and will stop spending. That is devastating for a consumer driven economy. For another, when the market crashes, these companies generally go into survival mode instead of expansion mode and that means an end to hiring and promotions and usually a round or two of layoffs and cutbacks. Again, that hurts the economy. Third, there is an "elan" factor (as the French might say) in that when times are bad, people simply aren't willing to take risks. That means fewer companies being formed, fewer new products being offered, and fewer new projects being started.

Now we get to the point...

Before the market crash, the Democrats could reasonably argue that they had turned the economy around. Sure, it took 8 years and it's the weakest recovery ever, but there was a sense last week that we were finally moving beyond the economic troubles we've had for a very long time. That meant that the economic issue was at worst a neutral for them. But with the market crashing... and crashing in such a massive manner, people will now feel that the economy is headed straight back into recession if not depression... less hiring, lower housing values, less opportunity. They will think that the economic policies current in place have "failed" and they will turn away from the party that has "failed" them, and that is the party of the President.

I would argue that this massive pullback will have the effect of driving the final nail in the Democratic coffin, no matter who they choose. Barring some miraculous turn around early next year, the public will now decide to give the other guy the chance to fix things... and that means a Republican president.

What will be interesting now will be watching to see if any of the Democrats who were starting to circle the wounded Hillary still jump in or if they all read the tea leaves and bow out.

Thought Two. My second thought is this. I've been saying for some time now that China is a paper tiger. Their economy is much weaker than conventional wisdom will have you believe, their currency has risen too high for them to continue their growth, their demographics are a nightmare unfolding, etc. Well, people want to believe the opposite because they love to live in fear. Some have even gone so far as to invent a fake measure of economic activity to claim that China's economy is larger than ours even though it is only about 60% of ours at best.

Well, there was an interesting analysis by Merill Lynch the other day which compared the value of the stock exchanges of every nation out there. See the chart below where each country's size is represented by the value of its stock markets.
Notice that ours is first by a mile with 52% of the world's wealth ($19 trillion). Can you really doubt that's true? I would hope not. Then came Japan ($3 trillion), England ($2.7 trillion), France ($1.3 trillion) and Germany ($1.2 trillion)... France being ahead of Germany actually makes sense when you realize that France consists of multinational companies and Germany is built around "mittelstand" companies (medium-size closely-held businesses). China was 8th at $889 billion. What does this tell us? It tells us that we remain ultra-dominant, something reinforced in dozens of way. It further tells us that China's economy may appear strong, but it lacks the underlying wealth to back up the supposed economic story. This is a bit like seeing someone who appears to own a mansion but upon closer inspection has no furniture and lives paycheck to paycheck. Consider that we have the wealth to buy China 20 times over.

And this isn't the only proof of this. The exchange rate which China has devalued twice now in two weeks also tells us that China is worth only about 60% of what we are as an economy. And the fact they had to devalue tells us that their growth story is fraudulent. Add to this their lack of advanced technology in almost every field, their lack of powerful multinational companies, their inability to build a competitive military despite a decade of huge spending and their seeming impotence against "tiny" countries like Japan and Britain, and you are starting to get a glimpse of the reality of the China story.

So forget China ever being our masters. And I would say bet heavily against the Democrats winning the White House.

Thoughts?
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Sunday, August 23, 2015

Obama Has Destroyed The Democratic Party

Do you remember when I wrote about the defeat of all those Democratic princelings? How about all the articles where I pointed out that Obama’s legacy is crappola? How about the articles where I pointed out that the Democratic Party had serious electoral problems? Well, Jeff Greenfield has caught up to me! Observe.

Writing in Politico, Greenfield wrote that Obama’s legacy has left the Democratic Party old and weak. This is true.

In 2008, when Obama swept to power, the Democrats held a massive advantage in the House (257-178), a supermajority in the Senate (62-38), the Presidency, four of nine Supreme Court seats, and most governorships (28-22) and state legislatures (27-14 with 9 mixed) nationwide. Even worse, they held the benefit of the doubt of the voters.

Then came Obama.

The GOP now controls the House (247-188) and is projected to be guaranteed to keep it until 2020 at least. The GOP controls the Senate (54-46). The GOP has a better than 50% chance of winning the White House. Obama lost nine millions voters in his re-election. The GOP still controls 5 of 9 Supreme Court seats even after three Obama appointments.

The GOP now controls 70% of the upper and lower chambers of the state legislatures (30-11-9). They control 31 governorships. In 24 of 50 states, the GOP controls both the governorship and the legislature. There’s little evidence of any of that changing soon. Indeed, the Democrats use words like “decimated” when talking about their state parties.

Speaking of the White House, because the Democrats lost all their princelings, they are essentially short of candidates to run for President. The names that are left are uninspired and they are ancient. As Greenfield notes, Obama is one of the few who is not eligible for social security. Indeed, look at who they have: retread Hillary Clinton age 67... original socialist Bernie Sanders age 73... retard Joe Biden age 72. The rest of their leadership is no better: Pelosi (75), Hoyer (76), Clyburn (75) and Reid (75).

How about their governor of California, which is usually a solid launching point for candidates... Jerry Brown (77). Now name another Democratic governor other than Andrew Cuomo, who is in criminal trouble. See the problem? There simply are no Democrats who have name recognition and can inspire. They have no “bench” and their starting line up is crap.

Then add the political problems I’ve pointed out over and over again and you’ll see why their supporters are demoralized.
(1) The Democrats exposed themselves by voting on nothing when they had the power to actually pass laws.

(2) Obama tried to pass a ton of laws by Executive Order and they were all overturned. His eight years have essentially be rewound to the starting gates by the courts.

(3) Their one “achievement,” Obamacare is a millstone around Democratic necks.

(4) Obama’s reign began with the worst economy since the Great Depression and turned into the Great Recession for most of Obama’s years before becoming the weakest, jobless recovery ever, and now is in serious danger of slipping back into recession because of China and the stock market.

(5) Feminism collapsed under the resistance of regular women and the flogger of Fifty Shades of Grey, plus the exposure of a faked rape crisis. The unions got crushed by state budgets, Scott Walker, Obamacare regulations that killed the only reason people join unions, and the courts wiping out every ruling Obama had ever issued. The black victim industry collapsed when Obama let the Voting Rights Act die and when the public stopped caring about “racism.” Black Lives Matter is now adding “eye-roll” to indifference with the public. The gay lobby got what they wanted and are busy disbanding. Environmentalism died in Copenhagen. College students abandoned the left when Obama became demotivational instead of inspirational. Talk about demoralized.
This is Obama’s political legacy. When he took office, George Bush’s failures had turned the Democratic Party into a juggernaut that could never be stopped by conservatives again... until Obama drove it off the cliff with narcissistic indifference, sheer political and policy incompetence, and by throwing every Democrat who could challenge him under every bus he could find.

It’s funny how it took the MSM eight years to recognize that.

Thoughts?
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Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Circus of Thoughts

Come one come all, observe some thoughts on some recent headlines in the center ring... HEARREAD words of wisdom! SHARE your thoughts! MIND the elephant poop!

The Bearded Lady-Dude: LOLOLOLOL! Yet another "black" leader has been outed as a white dude. Remember the NAACP ("Not An Actual Colored Person") Spokeswoman in Spokane who turned out to be a honket who simply wanted to be black... oh, and used her fake blackness to score privileges to which honkeys are not entitled (after suing a black college for not letting her in because she was white -- "Little black pigs, little black pigs, let me in... I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll claim to be black so I win!")? Well, now there's a male version of her. This time it's Shaun King, a writer and "leading voice" against police brutality. Indeed, he is a Black Lies Matter organizer... huh, I lost a "v" somewhere. Anyways, King claims to be black, a claim he used to win an Oprah scholarship which paid his way through Morehouse College; these scholarships go only to black men. Oh, and Shaun claims to have suffered a vicious hate crime in high school because he's black... just like Rachel "White Girl" Dolezal, only his claim is much bigger BS involving multiple fist fights, jars of tobacco and being run over by a pickup truck. Well, old Shaun is a honkey. Yeah.

Snicker, snicker.

Oh Elephant Poop!: There is another scientific story making the rounds that sounds like BS. This one claims that sex and violence "don't sell." Specifically, they claim that companies who advertise during violent shows or sexy shows do much more poorly than those who advertise during "family shows" because violence and sex turns off some viewers and it essentially makes the others less likely to retain the advertised information. No data was provided to back this up, nor could I find the methodology, but we are assured that this is correct because WalMart has done their own study and decided that they will only advertise during family friendly fare... oh and team Obama decided not to advertise on violent videogames.

What a load.

Look, instinctively does this make sense? No. Everyone, even the Pope, is drawn to violence and sex. It is instinctual. Violence is our biggest danger in nature and sex is our driving purpose (sorry Huckabee, it's true). Hence, we are programmed to look to these things. That means they are attention getters. They turn on our awake parts of our brains and make us focus. That means that we are MORE likely to see what is going on and to remember it later than some sleepy show about a kid and a dog which doesn't pull us in at all. So instinctively, we know this is a false conclusion already. Further, television ratings tell us that we do indeed favor this kind of entertainment. So not only are we drawn to this subconsciously, but we pick it consciously in much larger numbers. Again, how could this cause us to tune out - in fact, it is more accurate to claim that family shows turn off viewers.

There is a world of anecdotal evidence too. For example, the vast, vast majority of advertisers use sex and/or violence as a means of advertising. That means this is a tried and true method that has had proven results for more than a century now. Further, people like magicians know that sex (see the scantily dressed woman) can be used to distract the audience as they do their sleight of hand. In other words, they know that sex has the ability to draw away our attention even from something we want to focus on. So why should we believe sex causes us to lose attention?

So what about WalMart? Did the study authors perhaps think that WalMart doesn't advertise on R-rated shows because its client base is mainly families? That's why WalMart does that because it means that (1) they won't reach as many people on R-rate shows, meaning their money is wasted, and (2) they court less controversy with their core clients by avoiding those shows. And what about Obama? Well, when he made that decision videogame violence was a liberal cause du jour (until it was linked with gun violence and then it had to be dropped so it wouldn't suggest that guns aren't the problem). Expecting Obama to put his ads with violent videogames would be a bit like expecting him to advertise on a pro-life website.

I guess the next study will tell us people hate cookies.

Misfired Cannon: A lot of people are wondering why Marco "The Brave" Rubio didn't quite fire out of that candidate cannon like they were expecting. It's not that hard to understand. When he embraced immigration reform, he instantly lost the fringe, and they won't take him back no matter what he does... dirty foreigner. But then once the attacks came, he freaked out and tried to dry hump the fringe's leg to make them love him. This lost him everyone who was hoping he would stand up to the crazies. So what exactly does that leave him as a base? Now add in that Bush has all the money sown up and Trump gets all the airtime and those looking for a diversity ticket have switched to Carly Fiorina, and he's basically irrelephant.

The Tentacled Snarktopus: Finally, Hillary is really mishandling this server thing. When you are accused of a crime that actually has people mildly upset and when polls show that the majority of people think you did it... and you are already seen as not trustworthy, the way to handle it is with a solemn, complete denial and then you say, "As there is an on-going investigation, I won't be commenting further. I look forward to having my good name finally cleared of this politically motivated smear." Then you try not to laugh as you walk away. She didn't do that, however. Instead, she's out there trying to crack jokes... like playing dumb on how you wipe a server. This is bad. People don't like to have things that do concern them, even if only slightly, laughed off. Also, it is never good to play into a negative personality trait. Third, Hillary wouldn't know humor if a joke bit her on the ass. The woman is about as funny as a recently-divorced school marm in a kid's movie... "I'll get you Harris Porter if it's the last thing I do!"

Thoughts... sexy thoughts?
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Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Open Thread

It is the "dog days of summer"* and it is just too hot to think. Since I am sure there must be something you may want to discuss, the floor is open.

But speaking of heat, the heat is really on Hillary this week now that the number of classified emails found in the 30,000 turned over has grown for 4 to over 300 emails. You know the ones she swore she never sent or received. With the added news that there have been an additional 17,000 "found" emails at the State Department. [This is beginning to look like those missing Whitewater files from the Rose Law Firm that suddenly appeared in the dining room at the White House.] In addition to the classified emails, there are rumors that there may be second backup hard drive floating around somewhere.

Ironically, August does not seem to be a very good month for the Clintons. For those too young to remember, on August 17, 1998 Bill Clinton took to the airwaves to admit that he did in fact have an inappropriate relationship with Monica Lewinsky, but it was "a private matter". Explaining why he had lied, he said he did it to protect his wife and daughter and himself from "the embarrassment of his own conduct." Looks like Hillary, who help craft his speech in August 1998, will soon have to "craft" her own speech.

Oh, yeah, and as if Hillary couldn't make things worse for herself, the following is a cut from her speech at the Iowa Democratic Wing Ding event this weekend...



Anyway, floor is open...

*Extra point if you know the derivation of the "dog days of summer"
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Sunday, August 16, 2015

Statistical Crap: Earth Overshoot Day

I have spoken many times about statistical claims that simply cannot be true because there is no way to actually know the data they crunch. Well, one of our loyal readers has sent me a link to a National Geographic article which promotes just such a steaming pile of fakeness. A group calling themselves Global Footprint Network has invented something called “Earth Overshoot Day” and it is utterly ridiculous.

According to GFN, Earth Overshoot Day is the day “the total combined consumption of all human activity on Earth in a year overtakes the planet’s ability to generate those resources for that year.” This supposedly happened on August 13... except it's crap.

It should be obvious right off the bat that this claim is utter horseship. Why? Because it logically cannot be true. They compare this to spending more than your yearly salary by that date and thus any further "spending" that you do during the year must be done on credit. But there is no bank holding natural resources which can be tapped. Indeed, if we eat all the world’s corn by August 13th, there is no one to loan us the corn that we eat in September and October and November? (Clearly, Santa provides for December.) So where does it come from?

Now, you could argue that maybe we’ve saved up corn somewhere so we are living on storage, except that this group claims that the first overshoot day occurred in 1970. So supposedly, for the past 45 years, we’ve been burning more resources than the Earth is capable of replacing. So how much storage can their be? And more to the point, doesn’t it seem odd that despite running a massive “debt” for 45 years that there are more forest lands now than ever... more food than ever... more clean water than ever... more oil reserves than ever? How can we spend more than the Earth can produce for 45 years and yet simultaneously our reserves keep going up? It’s not possible.

And that’s just one problem.

Another problem is that we have no idea what resources the Earth actually contains. Take the theory of “peak oil.” Since at least the 1970s, we’ve been told over and over that we’ve reached “peak oil,” meaning that we supposedly reached the point where all the oil has been found and we would now run out of reserves. Yet, every single year, more oil is found and “peak oil” gets pushed back. If you don’t know how many resources there are, how can you calculate when you will run out of those?

To get around this, these idiots use a theoretical measure of the Earth’s ability to produce resources. They take the amount of resources consumed and then multiply that need by the amount of space they think it takes to produce those resources. Hence, when their calculation leads to more land space than the Earth possesses, they conclude that we have exceeded the Earth’s capacity to produce resources... hence, Overshoot Day.

Yet, if this were at all accurate, how can it be that so much of the Earth remains unused even as we are living in times of massive surpluses? If these liars were right, we would be using every square inch of land and still struggling with scarcity. But we aren’t. I guess they forgot to carry a one somewhere.

Another problem with their method is that it does nothing to account for improvements in technology. This was the failure behind the scaremongering in the 1970s when leftists like this predicted the population bomb, the draining of the last drop of oil, and massive starvation. Those leftists pretended that science could not get more resources from less land, but that is exactly what happened.

They also clearly have no concept of substitutes. For example, we could drop oil and switch to natural gas where we have hundreds of years of reserves. We could switch power plants to nuclear and have thousands of years of reserves. Wanna bet they’ve ignored that?

This is the problem with theories like this: they are garbage. They only work if you take a static view of the world and you ignore lots of truths and you accept estimates that sound great on paper but make no sense if you do so much as peek out your window.

This is typical of environmentalists and it’s why they struggle to win over a public who should happily embrace their cause. You can’t win people over when your theories are such obvious BS that people instinctively know they are wrong before they even think about them. Sure, you can get some mindless leftist journalists to repeat them, but the public will never buy it. And ultimately, all you end up doing is discrediting your own side. Nice work Global Footprint Network.
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Thursday, August 13, 2015

We're From The EPA And We're Here to Help...Oopsie!

From what I have read, the contaminated water filled with arsenic and lead from the long-abandoned Gold King Mine in San Juan County, Colorado, had been contained since the mine was abandoned in 1923 (yes, almost 100 years). The contaminated water just needed to be safely removed, so the EPA paid a contractor over $381,000,000 to do the job. In the category of "A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words"...yeah, you know the rest...



The contamination from the Animus River is spreading to New Mexico and the odor from the toxic plume has reached Utah, but hey, EPA Chief Gina McCarthy is really, really sorry.

So far, no one has been fired, but then again, Bush has not been blamed either.

Comments?
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Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Hillary's Freefall Continues

It looks like Rick Perry is finished. He’s stopped paying staff. But this article is about the freefall Hillary is experiencing. Consider these problems Hillary has encountered...

● Freefall in the polls. Hillary has gone from widely respected and strongly supported in the polls to hardly respected and bleeding support. At this point in the political cycle, the Democrats are usually about 10-20% ahead of all the GOP challengers, but Hillary is actually losing to a couple, especially in battleground states.

● Infidelity. While Hillary has made herself sound like the only viable and the truly inevitable candidate, the left has never embraced her. Bernie Sanders is drawing massive crowds, while Hillary is struggling to fill even small venues. The leftist media is flirting with Joe Biden... fricken Joe Biden! Elitist leftists have been trying to convince the CEO of Starbucks to run. As an aside, the fact that BlackLivesMatter attack Sanders and O’Malley, but ignore Hillary suggest that they don’t see her as relevant either.

● Union Non-Support. Yesterday, a 185,000 member nurses union endorsed Bernie Sanders. Back when Hillary suddenly scored a very earl endorsement from one of the nation’s biggest teacher’s unions, the rank and file revolted because it reeked of an inside deal.

● Obamazuma’s Revenge. It sounds like Obama has decided to drive a knife into his biggest enemy... Hillary. Indeed, with amazing timing, the FBI has now decided to investigate Hillary’s email issue, an issue that has been known for years, for possible criminal violations. Obama wouldn’t be doing this unless he either (1) planned to issue a total exoneration of Hillary to clear her name or (2) he planned to destroy her. Obama doesn’t do exonerations.

● Trump Blowback. Hillary has waded into the Trump mud to defend Megyn Kelly. The reason she did so is that the media’s obsession with Trump has drown out her campaign, like yesterday when her college play was all but ignored by the media as they continued Bloodgate.

What’s more, the one thing that has kept Hillary afloat up to now has been the GOP fringe. Every time they squawk off something racist or just plane stupid, Hillary has been able to sound like a fairly competent leftist politician by attacking them. But lately, the fringe has gone silent as everyone watches Trump spew his clownish idiotology. The problem for Hillary is that nothing Trump says is being taken seriously as a GOP position, so when she counters him, she sounds like a moron who is stooping to take on a comedian. At the same time, her attempts to attack Bush and Rubio have fallen on deaf ears because Trump is the weirdo du jour.

● Always Playing Catchup. Hillary’s release of a $350 billion not-affordable college affordability plan was supposed to excite young people, except that every other Democratic candidate has already issued their own plans. This is a common theme for Hillary. She never adopts a position (gay marriage, minimum wage, etc.) until it has become widely accepted on the left. This has led to the impression that Hillary is not reliable as a leftist and it explains why she can’t inspire the left... because she “leads” by running after bandwagons. She also avoids controversies like the left’s summer of anti-cop outrage. As an aside, she still hasn’t taken a position on the Keystone Pipeline (an easy issue for right and left).

● Cheater. The DNC changed their debate schedule in an effort to give Hillary time to recover from her collapse and to try to drain her competitors of funds so they would drop out before she had to face them. They also limited the number of debates to reduce the risk to her. This hasn’t sat well with Democrats, who see this as an underhanded attempt to save Hillary.

● Liar. There is a sense that Hillary is a liar. This is reflected in polling results which show that less than 50% of the public view her as trustworthy. And she keeps making it worse, like how she claimed the other day that she barely knows Trump and then had to answer how that can be as she attended his wedding. What’s more, the email issue is adding to this as Hillary is constantly finding her name in the news next to words that suggest that judges don’t trust her and are making her certify the things she says.

She seems to be in a slow freefall with no skills to pull out of it.

Thoughts?
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Be Careful What You Wish For...

Yeah, there is a whole bunch of voters' remorse going on in NYC these days. Mayor de Blasio's approval numbers are so low that his likelihood of reelection are about as good as his mentor one-term Mayor David Dinkins. Bill de Blasio's most aggregious mistake has been making an enemy of Gov. Cuomo. But then again, Mayor Bill is not that interested in his role as Mayor of New York. He's busy trying to become a national public figure. Every week he's flying somewhere not related to New York or the US spreading his far-left agenda. His fight with Gov. Cuomo has been very public and very vicious.

It has only been exacerbated by our latest near disaster in the South Bronx - an outbreak of a serious bacteria called legionella that causes Legionnaires' disease, a severe form of bacterial pneumonia. The first infections were diagnosed in July 10 and has now been 113 confirmed cases with 12 deaths. Mayor de Blasio took too long to take any kind of action to determine the source of the outbreak, so the Governor finally had to call in the CDC. The CDC quickly found that the source are cooling towers on top of buildings. But it just highlights how de Blasio is unprepared to actually to handle a crisis. Fortunately, Legionaire's disease is not an airborne bacteria and cannot be passed from person to person.

That's just this week. Since he has taken the helm, crime is up by over 40% and climbing, the streets are awash with homeless panhandlers, and it looks like we are sliding right back to the pre-Giuliani era faster than a NY minute (which is about 49 seconds in flyover state time - okay, I made that up). His answer to the rise in crime is entertaining. It's to decriminize some crimes. Yeah, that's a really good plan because as we all know, if there are less crimes on the books, then crime will go down. Now, crime is still very low because of the work done by the Guiliani and Bloomberg administrations, but not for long.

Hey, it's not all bad. He gets to take credit for getting the minimum wage raised to $15 for fast-food workers by 2018. This is a win for the workers until they find out they will lose those government entitlement programs like in Seattle.

Of course his real problem is that he really believes that he won a mandate with that 75% win and ignores the reality that only 25% of voters bothered to vote. He doesn't listen to anyone who doesn't agree with him and that includes the press and blaming others for his own leadership failures. Sound familiar? {{{cough, cough...Barack...cough, cough}}} Right now, people are actually waxing nostalgic for those annoying days of Bloomberg's nanny-state of 16 oz soda ban threats.

I said it at the time of his election and I will repeat it again - be careful what you wish for because you just might get it. More importantly, sometimes you just have to give liberals what they want so they can learn the folly of their agenda. But I must say, even I am surprised at the speed at which NYC has declined.
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Sunday, August 9, 2015

Shooting "Unarmed Black Men"

The Washington Post ran an article this week whining about the number of unarmed black men who have been killed by the police recently. This article is the latest liberal attempt to get people to care about “police brutality.” Of course, the article is completely biased and, naturally, avoids or sidesteps all sorts of relevant information to make its biased point. Let’s discuss.

For starters, the article states that “24 unarmed black men” have been shot by the police this year. Without knowing anything else, that works out to 3 a month or 36 a year. That’s a tragedy, but it’s hardly an epidemic as the left wants to claim. Indeed, that represents only 0.0013% of the deaths in the country each year.

Moreover, compare that to other causes of death that don’t seem to upset liberals:
40 die each year from salmonella
2,988 die from ulcers
3,697 die each year from the flu
16,121 die from homicide
30,208 die from falls
46,471 die from drug overdoses
Sorry, but your 99,000 lives don’t matter.

Now, 36 death is certainly too many in my book, but it is hardly evidence of some vast anti-black conspiracy by racist cops. What’s more, it turns out that the cops actually shoot more people than blacks. In fact, in the same time period in which they shot these 24 innocent noble black males, the “racist” cops also killed 36 unarmed non-blacks. What’s more, they actually killed a total of 585 people in that period with most of those being killed being white or Hispanic. “Surprisingly,” The Post doesn’t actually give a percentage because that presumably distracts from the point they want you to believe.

The article also makes no comparison to other time periods. If, say, 1,000 were killed each year on average in the 1960’s, then today’s number is to be commended, not condemned. But again, that would interfere with the point if it showed dramatic improvement... as I guarantee you it does.

At one point, the article makes the shock-value claim that 40% of the unarmed people killed were black males, yet black males make up only 6% of the population! O... M... G!!! Well, if we’re going to play the game of misusing statistics, let me point out that zero of those killed were black females, whereas statistically at least 3.6 of those killed should have been black women. So what gives? Why aren’t cops shooting more black women? Are they pro-black woman? They don’t seem to shoot enough Jews or Asians or Muslims or white women either. What is wrong with cops?

Oh, wait, I know. You’re thinking that you can’t use statistics like that because groups choices make broad statistical comparisons like this invalid for predicting this type of behavior. In other words, what I said isn’t valid because black women (and Jews and Asians and Muslims and white women) simply don’t put themselves in situations where they are likely to get shot by a cop. Hmm. Yeah, that’s right. So why do we accept that black women do something to warp the statistics to make them less likely to get shot, yet we consider it impossible (or even racist) to think that black men are doing something that makes them more likely than others to get shot?

Interestingly, the article starts by identifying three or four of the unarmed blacks who were killed. The idea is to show the best case scenarios where the killing was the biggest outrage, and thereby to implant the idea in the reader that these blacks did nothing that could lead to the statistical bulge. But there are two problems with this.

First, by only listing a handful of the instances, it makes you wonder how “unarmed” and “innocent” the other 20 or so were.

In fact, secondly, looking at the ones they list already throws into question whether or not the cops were justified. One of the men was yelling and jumping in traffic; irrational, potentially violent behavior often leads to shootings. Another was “harassing” people on a beach. That suggests an aggressive demeanor. Two started their nights with the burglary of corner stores. Only one seems plausibly innocent, and he was driving without a front tag. Of course, we are not told if the car was stolen.

They even mention the shooting Friday of “Christian Taylor, 19, a promising defensive back on the Angelo State University football team.” Angelo crashed an SUV through the front window of a car dealership and seems to have acted violently.

This is the key point actually. If these blacks are doing something to provoke this, then the real issue is not “why are the cops shooting them,” it’s “what is wrong with young black males that they are forcing cops to shoot them.” See, the article glosses over that. It even starts with this utterly deceptive statement:
“I begins with a relatively minor incident: A traffic stop. A burglary. A disturbance. Police arrive and tensions escalate. It ends with an unarmed black man shot dead.”
I hate to break this to my retarded liberal friends, but “burglary” is not “a relatively minor incident.”

Moreover, let’s consider the idea of stopping a driver without tags. An Alabama Police Detective pulled over a young black gentleman this weekend for a moving violation. This would have been described by The Post as “a relatively minor” traffic stop. Yet, lo and behold, said unarmed black gentlemen, got out of his car, took the cop’s gun and beat him until he was unconscious. He then left him for dead. Oh, and it turns out that this innocent black gentleman had a prior record... assault, attempted murder, unlawful breaking and entering a vehicle, and robbery. Other than that, no doubt, he was an angel, and if he had been shot, he would be one of the “unarmed black men” The Post is lamenting.

Finally, for the record, 18 cops have been shot and killed this year so far. The Post mentions this at the end of its article in a throwaway line, but it doesn’t break down their killers by race, because that would probably make the 40% number seem tiny by comparison and might send the wrong impression about who is really at fault here.

Thoughts?
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Friday, August 7, 2015

Kit's Friday's Thoughts on the Debate

The first debate was last night. More later today, but here are my first thoughts.

The 9pm debate was… actually pretty good. And it wasn’t just enjoyable because of Trump. It was actually a fun debate to watch, probably the most enjoyable Republican Debate I’ve watched since I started watching them in 2008. Some people complained the moderators were too “anti-conservative” in their questions. Personally, as long as they don’t hand the Democrats an issue, I don’t mind.

There are, of course, people saying they went “easy” on the candidates they did not like. All were given hard questions.

But let's face it, you all want to hear about one man: The Trump.

Well…

He was Trump and, if Frank Luntz’s focus group is any indication, it hurt him. Two moments early in the debate killed him.
The first was when the candidates were all asked to raise their hands if they would not commit to supporting the nominee next year and only Trump raised his hand, eliciting the loudest boos I’ve heard directed at a candidate during a debate. The second was when he made his little snipe at Megyn Kelly that came across as childish and a bit whiny.
And that was only the beginning, as one member of the focus group said, “He dodged more questions than any politician I’ve ever seen.”

I’ll have the rest later today.

UPDATE:

Christie/Paul Clash: Those two feuded over NSA surveillance and it was EPIC. You’ve probably seen the clips and if you haven’t, you will soon. Now, as for who won, despite the claims by some that Christie won this round, I think it was a draw.

Ben Carson: He did poorly. It was quite painful for me to watch, actually. Only at the end, when he talked about his work as a surgeon in his concluding statements, did he pick himself back up.

Jeb Bush: He sort of faded into the background. I felt his only strong point came when he was asked about Common Core. The rest of the night he seemed nervous and tired. But this won't hurt him too much. He didn't have to hit a hem r he had to do was not strike out.

Marco Rubio: He did well. His most memorable moment came when he said, “God has blessed us with some very good candidates, the Democrats can’t even find one.”

Scott Walker: Ok night. He didn’t stand out a whole lot, however. He struggled, I think, on abortion and immigration. He stays in the race for the next debate.

Huckabee: He had a very good night. He won’t ride home with the nomination and, yes, I have problems with his emphasis on social issues but he reminded why he reminded why he has an enduring popularity among social conservatives. He had some very good one-liners, especially his Hillary joke, and had one of the best moments of the night with his attack on Obama for failing to get back even one of the hostages Iran is holding.

Ted Cruz: He was Cruz. He was very good but he is going to struggle against Trump. His best hope is for Trump’s voters if the Donald begins a decline.

Kasich: He’s clearly aiming for the liberal, moderate wing of the GOP. Getting them is good but it rarely helps you a whole lot unless you can grab the “Somewhat Conservative” branch (40-60% of the party). Just ask Huntsmann.


Predictions

Again, this is not about hitting home runs unless you are near the bottom. These elimination rounds are about staying in the race. It won’t start narrowing a lot until January-February 2016, when the first primaries hit, thought there will be some early drop-outs and hanger-ons like Bachmann and Perry in 2011-2012.

Huckabee will be the one grabbing up the Religious Right vote in the southeast, like he in 2008 and Santorum in 2012. Rubio will start dropping when the primaries hit and he doesn’t win any states.

Bush will stay in simply because he’s Jeb Bush. Rubio, Christie, and Walker did well enough to stay in at least until the next debate, maybe until early-2016 when they actually begin facing the voters. Only Ben Carson will drop out completely.

I think Rand Paul will stay in as the Ron Paul of this race. Like father, like son.

As for Trump? I think Trump will stay in for a few more months but begin declining, he has a box of 25%, the reason for his cheers, but given the loud boos he got for saying he might run as an independent, I don’t see him reaching out beyond it. But if he doesn’t really begin sinking before then, it will start in early-2016 when the primaries hit and people actually starting thinking about who the Republican Party will run in 2016.

Claire Berlinski pointed out in France that in polls Le Pen’s National Front will do moderately well until the last few weeks and months before the election because, “France likes to pretend it will do something really dramatic, like vote for Le Pen, but as soon as it scares itself with the thought that this could actually happen, this time–as opposed to the last forty times–it remembers that it has a perfectly serviceable conservative party.”

I see something similar with Trump happening. As soon as people start walking into the ballot box and realizing that Donald Trump could be the Republican candidate of 2016 they start voting differently. I highly doubt he will win any states in the late-winter and early spring. The only question that remains is will he run a third party election if he feels he has been treated “unfairly.”

For the 5pm debate, I think Fiorina won that one. She showed why she is so well-liked and getting in a good jab at Donald Trump. She might replace Ben Carson if he drops, as I think he will after tonight.

That is it. We'll have a clearer picture next week when the professional polls hit, instead of the online, self-selecting polls, which are subject to problems.

Any thoughts?
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Thursday, August 6, 2015

Stuff...

Just a couple of issues to talk about today.

So, did you hear the one about former Sec't of State Hillary Clinton and her email issue that has been deemed over and over and over as a "right-wing conspiracy"? Yeah, now it is getting full on criminal investigation by the FBI and DOJ. The Clinton campaign did not "immediately respond to a request for comment." I can't wait to hear the tortured, lawyerly excuse the Clintons will cook up. If nothing else, it will be entertainingly twisted.

Oh, and this is for the long list of how our governemt agencies waste the money we give them. The Census Bureau paid Dick Gregory a $1400 (other reports say it was cloer to $15,000 with "expenses") to give a crazy, conspiracy theory-ladened rant...er...motivational speech for Black History Month to the federal employees the Census Bureau. The embarrassed Bureau management posted an apology on their website:

May 15, 2015 — The Census Bureau’s Equal Employment Office invited Dick Gregory to speak at a Black History Month cultural emphasis program. Gregory was paid $1,400. He was invited to share personal recollections of the civil rights movement in a way that would be appropriate for a federal workplace.

We have informed staff that Gregory’s statements were not appropriate and we are taking steps to strengthen our policies for vetting outside speakers.

Judicial Watch posted the video and a copy of the document received as part of their FOIA request including a transcript. But my favorite part is that the ever so enlightened goverment ageny actually hired a sign-language interpreter to sign his "speech". Imagine what that poor guy was thinking why he was signing the "N-word" as a direct request from Mr. Gregory...

Lord help us... and please, please don't make it Donald Trump! The floor is open...
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Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Lions > Black People

Oh my. The left is truly a collection of whiny idiots who strive to find offense in everything. What makes them so entertaining... well, the only thing that is entertaining about them actually... is when one set of leftists piss off another set of leftists. These moments can be truly amazing as they pour hate out on each other for the most irrational reasons.

To give you an example, when I was a student, a black male raped a honky female at my college. This caused women's groups to emerge from their lesbian dens to demand the castration, lynching and immediate expulsion of said black male without trial. Responding almost immediately, the black thug union came out of wherever the hell they were hiding to demand that the school immediate apologize to the black male and promise not to punish him in anyway because... well, because. Apparently, blacks should not be punished for rape. In any event, it was a brutal fight between the two competing idiotologies and, believe it or not, the blacks won that round (at least until the Sheriff's department took him away for 25 years).

Anyways, these run-ins keep happening on the left because they're all a bunch of hateful retards who spin everything to offend them, and because they have no tolerance for any views but their own.

With that background, here's the latest, and it's HILARIOUS!

You've heard of the "Black Lives Matter" crowd, right? This is a group of black racists who want everyone to somethingsomething about all the blacks killed by cops... all five or six of them... while ignoring the vast number of blacks killed by other blacks. Even worse, this group whines and screams and shouts down anyone who suggests that the lives of people of other races matter too.

So get this.

Lately, the left has been outraged over the killing of a famous lion named Cecil in Zimbabwe by an American Dentist. Well, the other night, the people who run the Empire State Building projected a picture of the murdered Cecil on their building (they did it to promote some sort of environmental thing). No soon did they do this, than the Black Lives Matter crowd went insane(r). They are furious that someone would care about a lion when they should be dropping everything to whine about dead black people.... well, certain dead black people, please keep ignoring the ones killed by blacks. Hence tweeted idiots:
“Empire State Building put image of late lion Cecil but can’t put images of some of the lost black souls to discrimination #BlackLivesMatter.”

“If only people could react the same way for the people murdered by Police brutality.”
Excuse me while I laugh my ass off. One even said she should start wearing a lion costume so people would care about her when the cops shot her. Ha ha! Somehow I doubt that will help.

Anyways, I'm hoping this leads to a bigger fight on the left. A few months fight between black racists and extremist environmentalists could be fun. The bigger point though is how easy it is to trip up leftists. This is the sort of thing we on the right should explore. The left is a volatile collection of idiots ready to tear each other apart on any number of hot button issues. It's time we found those and poked them.

Thoughts?
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Tuesday, August 4, 2015

What Is the Real Consequence of A $15 Minimum Wage?

Who could have predicted this could possibly happen? You may have read that several large cities have or will be raising their minimum wage to $15 by 2021 - LA, Seattle, and now the State of New York* as of last month. But now reports are coming out in Seattle and LA where the raises are already in effect, that raising the minimum wage actually is hurting some of those it was meant to help. One such report from Seattle says that some workers who are getting these raises are now asking for their work hours to be reduced because they are losing other benefits like welfare, rent subsidies, food stamps and, yes, even Medicaid/Obamacare health insurance subsidies. So far there are only "a few", but as the wages increase, most likely so will that number increase to more than "a few". Oops...

But then there's this. Last April, Dan Price, CEO of Gravity Payments, a Seattle-based credit card payment processing company with 120 employees, announced to the world that he was cutting his $1million salary and would now be paying everyone in his company $70,000. There was much cheering in the company meeting! Everyone was thrilled! What a guy! Heck, even Bernie Sanders weighed in about how this was the wave of the future!

But fast-forward three months later, and it's not going so well for the well-meaning CEO. First, he lost many long-standing client who feared drastic fee increases and frankly, didn't want to be judged by their own employees. Then, several of his most-valued employees who had been paid more because of their experience and longevity quit because they were no longer felt "valued" as employees anymore. And because of the lost revenue, Mr. Price is having problems making his own personal finances meet his needs and is having to rent out his home to cover the mortgage. That last one may be temporary, but it factors in as an unintended consequence.

Don't get me wrong and brand me some wack-job conservative who hates poor people, but I am a big believer that one increases one's wage and prospects by increasing one's value [translation: increased skill sets]. The turnover in the fast food industry is notoriously high and there is a reason for that. They are generally first jobs for teenagers, so they leave for many reasons. So decreasing the turnover rate in fast food jobs is a red-herring. But here is another issue - nothing that I have read (except for Gravity Payments where the top workers left for unfair wages for newer, less experienced workers) addresses what happens to the wages of fast-food workers who are now paid above the prevailing minimum because of their experience and longevity.

Let's discuss. But there was a Republican presidential candidate debate last night that I just could not bring myself to watch. Sorry, there just wasn't enough vodka available. But if you did and want to report, please feel free to report.

*So far in NY, the wage increase is only directed at "fast-food" establishments with more than 20 franchises. NY state's increases will increase to $15 by 2021; NYC will increase to $15 by 2018.
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Sunday, August 2, 2015

How To Use Video For Political Purposes

This is NOT an abortion article, so read on. What this article is is an explanation of why videos like the Planned Parenthood video will never resonate with the public, and what conservatives need to do to change this.

In pointing out why the Planned Parenthood video will never resonate with voters, I received an email in which I was asked what chance the GOP has “if the media can discredit any video they want.” But this is a false assumption. The media can’t discredit any video. The problem lies with conservatives.

There are three fundamental problems....

1. Credibility

First, any video produced by a political group will always be dismissed by the public as propaganda. Even worse, however, the right lacks credibility with the public on certain issues, i.e. those on which the right has gone batsh*t crazy (the left has a similar problem on issues like crime and the military). So any video created by someone on the right will always be dismissed by the public out of hand as being a political hit piece if it deals with those issues.

What the right needs to learn is to make use of independent videos. A great example of this is the Ray Rice video from the NFL. Here was a video that wasn’t produced by any political group, yet it was visceral and it allowed the left to use the video to attack their enemies. The right needs to learn to make use of video gifts like this.

Now, I know that many of you are saying, “but there are never any videos like that which help our side!” But this is wrong. The truth is that there are tons of such videos, but (1) the right has failed to lay the groundwork to make them relevant, so most of these videos are wasted, and (2) the right has blinded itself to the existence of these videos because it has become obsessed with the home run. Observe.

2. Lay The Groundwork

The first huge problem with the right is that they never lay the groundwork.

When the Ray Rice video struck, it did not appear in a vacuum. It appeared after decades of the left laying the groundwork through political speeches, turning faked studies into news reports, inserting messages into “nonpolitical” films and books, repeating leftist mantra about abuse mindlessly on the net, and staying on point through every other prior incident. Hence, by the time the Ray Rice video appeared, the left had primed the public for decades to the idea that the world is full of violent young males who live to beat their wives and girlfriends and must be stopped by government... and here came visceral proof of that. So when they attacked, everyone on the left knew what to say and said it because they had been telling the same fairy tale for decades, and the public saw the video as confirmation of things they were already primed to believe.

By comparison, the right does none of that. The right avoids the culture. It has fled the newsrooms, except for openly conservative news organizations which are seen as hopelessly biased. It rarely goes online and when it does, it doesn’t interact with the public and it doesn’t talk politics; I’ve never seen a conservative Facebook meme. So when a video comes along which makes a conservative point, no one knows what to say about it, the information does not get passed along, it does not get repeated on Facebook or Pinterest, and there is no foundation through which people will understand and pre-interpret the event. Basically, it becomes a new event, rather than yet more confirmation of conventional wisdom.

The difference is huge. And that’s not all.

3. Use An Appropriate Strategy

The other problem is one of strategy. Once you get something like a video, you need to exploit it properly. The right does it all wrong.

Human nature, human history and psychology tell us that the only way to achieve anything in the real world when you need a consensus is incrementally. Indeed, the death of a thousand cuts is the only way to win in politics. The left gets this. So when a video like Ray Rice comes up, they don’t try to turn it into an all-or-nothing proposition, they instead try to move the ball a few inches. The goal is to keep getting a little more each time until they have everything they want.

In that particular case, the left got everyone repeating their narrative about domestic violence and they did their best to get the NFL to change their policies related to domestic violence, which they hoped to parlay into other Fortune 500 companies changing their policies as well... who would eventually lobby to change the law.

The right doesn’t get this. When they get a video, e.g. the Planned Parenthood video, they demand a knock-out punch. In fact, if you suggest something less than 100% attack RIGHT F**ING NOW! then you are written off as a RINO. And in doing this they (1) create the all-or-nothing scenario which cuts off the chance for any victory other than total victory... which can never happen, and (2) they alienate the public, who will tolerate giving an inch, but will never give a mile. In effect, they have guaranteed failure.

What’s more, this strategy encourages grandstanding, which lets the frauds (like Trump) sell themselves with promises they know are false, which only makes the all-or-nothing issue more intense. It also brings out the worst ambassadors for our side, who then blur their own obsessions along with the video and make it impossible to win because the public no longer sees the video as being about the content of the video so much as being about the usual political fights which they don’t care about. In effect, our tactics neuter the video.

This issue about going all-or-nothing also keeps the right from adopting winning strategies. Consider the Planned Parenthood video. The GOP is planning to shut down the government to try to defund Planned Parenthood to shut them down. It will never work. In fact, it will blow up on the GOP because the optics are: “Obsessed right wingers use heavily edited and discredited video to try to kill company that provides birth control to poor women.”

But imagine if they had instead used the tape as a reason to cut funding only by 5% or 10%. Cutting 5% or 10% will devastate them. Trust me. Any decrease is hard on a business, and something as big as a 10% cut means the end of capital improvements, no pay raises, lay offs, and cash flow problems. Do a 10% cut two or three years in a row and the business will need to restructure completely to survive. And the best part is the optics. In this case, the optics aren’t “evil Republicans trying to shut down Planned Parenthood,” it becomes “Democrats demanding increase in abortion funding” and “Democrats demanding more money for company that sold human fetus parts,” because it will be the Democrats in the media demanding an increase in funding. Look at how that shifts the debate. It makes the Democrats the ones who are making the demands, it makes it impossible to explain how this will hurt Planned Parenthood, and it puts them in the position of demanding more funding for something the public doesn't much like. That's a win.

But you can’t have that when you are only willing to swing for the fences.
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