Nationalizing Our Elections! Oh My!

I wasn’t going to write about this because I don’t want to be accused of picking on Mark Levin, but then it got mentioned, so what the heck. Levin is “outraged” that Obama is trying to “nationalize the country’s elections!” Yep. And he’s right! To the bunkers! ...... Ok, for those of you still here, let’s talk about this because Obama did something interesting and we should think about this logically.

Here’s what happened. Two weeks ago, Obama signed an Executive Order establishing a Presidential Commission to deal with “election administration.” According to the Order, the Commission “shall identify best practices and otherwise make recommendations to promote the efficient administration of elections.” The commission will look at how to train and recruit poll workers, how to manage voter rolls, voting machines, ballot simplicity, English proficiency and absentee ballots.

Levin reacted angrily saying Obama used “falsehoods” about long lines “to nationalize elections” in a power grab to “further weaken our voting system at the state level.” Some election law expert even called this “a solution in search of a problem.” Are they right?

No. A commission like this has zero power. Presidents cannot make law and election laws cannot be overridden or amended by a commission like this. It takes an act of Congress to change election law and even their power is limited by various Supreme Court rulings. Thus, Obama’s commission is basically a “for entertainment purposes only” gimmick. . . like most of his agenda. So forget Levin because he doesn’t understand how our government works.

And what about this idea that this is a solution in search of a problem? Well, that’s wrong too. For one thing, this is not a solution since it’s powerless to do anything. Secondly, there is a problem here. Think back on the whining about voter fraud since 2000. The left squealed that Bush stole the election. The feds responded by giving money for electronic voting machines, which the left claimed were pre-programmed to vote for Bush. Starting around 2006, the right decided that the same voting machines were spitting out votes for Democrats. At the same time, the right became obsessed with illegal aliens and criminals stealing elections, black people voting without IDs, Black Panthers blocking polls, and so on. Blacks whine that they are kept from voting. Absentee ballots get delivered late. Etc. etc. For the past 13 years, we’ve all be screaming that we’re worse than a Banana Republic. So saying there is no problem when election integrity is vital to a democracy is pretty stupid.

Still, we should fight this, right, because Obama proposed it?

Well, let’s think about this. Right now, our election laws are about as rigged as they can possible get for the left. There are no requirements to vote. You can register anyone. You don’t need to show an ID. Liberals are constantly getting caught talking about voting multiple times and never get punished. Liberals are big on “finding” ballots to win elections, cutting off elections to stop conservatives from voting, keeping military ballots from counting, and getting recounts in liberal strongholds. What more could they possibly do to make things worse?

Moreover, when conservatives try to fix this, realize two things. First, the only states where they can fix things are states they already win, so the effort is pointless. Secondly, because those states are basically Southern states with a racist past and because conservative rhetoric has focused on “illegals stealing elections” and blacks committing voter fraud, the Democrats have been able to sell the idea that this is just conservatives trying to suppress minority votes.

Now imagine if rather than just attacking Obama’s commission, what if conservatives embraced a commission like this and forced their way onto it. Not only could they move election laws and administration to the right – since they can’t really go further left – but we could get things like Voter ID laws endorsed nationwide through the Congress without having to go state by state. That means we can reach the states we couldn’t normally touch because we aren’t even close to competitive in those states, and it means we can make this very rational change without facing the constant drumbeat that this is an attempt by Southern whites to control minority populations.

This is one of those things where conservatives need to stop thinking with their knees and work through whether or not this makes sense. It might not. I admit that. It could be there are some hidden dangers I don’t see. But from what I see right now, embracing this and joining it could only be very good for us.

Thoughts?

Oh, and obey the Hypno-toad.

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Doing Your Taxes Week Open Thread

"The taxpayer: that's someone who works for the federal government, but doesn't have to take a civil service examination."

-- Ronald Reagan

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Film Friday: Clue (1985)

With Scott reviewing Battleship, which is based on a board game, it’s time to review one of my favorite comedies, which also happens to be based on a board game: Clue. Clue was a box office bomb that his since become a cult classic for the same reason we discussed about Highlander becoming a cult classic, i.e. this was a good film which confused the generic public.

Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaFilms

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Science and Liberalism

Since many of us have just endured another interminable period of very cold weather, I thought this would be a good time to bring up global warming. And no, that's not really fair, but shut up. But also, I want to talk about the way in which the Left "does" science, and why it's so bad.

Where are we on the whole global warming/climate change/dead polar bears crisis? Well, as far as the broad outlines are concerned, there's not a lot I can tell you that you don't already know. It's early April and I'm still shivering in my long-sleeve shirts, so the temperature's not going up and up and up; impartial scientific measurements continue to show a plateau in global temps for the past decade or so; and as far as the public goes, belief in the reality and importance of global warming continues to remain steady or even decline somewhat, depending on who you talk to.

Likewise, although there has been some weakening in a few quarters, I'm sure I don't need to tell you that the general response from the Left to all this has been to double down. In particular, many climatologists and commentators like to claim that a significant cold snap is itself proof of the reality of global warming. As an example, a senior editor from Time, which surprisingly is still in business, explained the cold wave a couple weeks ago by saying that "the Arctic is warming faster than elsewhere" and this is causing a changing "temperature differential" that results in rapid changes of the weather, so it's not just "global warming" but "global weirding."

Uh....okay. First of all, that makes no sense. Second, it is nonetheless possible that changes associated with global warming, assuming it actually is happening, could cause a short-term cooling effect in some areas. (Although not on the ridiculous scale of The Day After Tomorrow.) Third, why am I even talking about this? Isn't it a given by now that liberals will just make up the rules of global warming or whatever they're calling it this week to keep pushing environmentalism? Well, yes it is, because that's liberals for you, but it also has a lot to do with some differing interpretations of science.

Now by "interpretations," I don't mean whether result X should be considered scientific. No, I'm talking about what it means for something to be considered science. There's actually a very deep philosophy about this, which I can't do much justice to, but in summary, there are a couple different schools of thought, generally known as verification and falsification. According to the former, science consists only of that which can be proven true (or verified), while falsification says it only consists of that which can be proven, well, false. I know it sounds like there's no difference between them, but there kinda is, and falsification is the one conservatives should go with.

Again, I can't explain why this is so without making myself fall asleep, but here's the bottom line: Proving something false (or ultimately failing to do so) requires a heck of a lot more rigor than does an effort to prove something true. The most famous example is that of swans. If you go with verification to prove the statement "All swans are white," all you have to do is find some swans, observe that they're all white, extrapolate to the general population, and voila! Statement proven. To prove it through falsification, though, you have to go out and find a swan that isn't white (there are, but they're in Australia or something).

Now what does this have to do with liberals and conservatives? Well, I'm not saying that each group adheres to one side alone, because most people don't actively think about this. But verification, with its looser standards, leaves a lot more room for pseudoscience and circular logic--the sort of thing that the Left specializes in. Consider AGW. At the very least, we can find a lot of data that suggests the earth is getting warmer, right? And that there's a connection between that and rising carbon dioxide levels, right? Boom! Theory verified. And this can apply to lots of theories. Evidence that rich capitalists are exploiting the poor? Boom! Marxism verified!

And the beauty of this approach is that non-evidence or contrary evidence is a lot easier to shoehorn into a verification of sorts. Rather than throw out your favorite theory altogether, you only have to modify it slightly. Thus AGW suddenly becomes responsible for global cooling AND global warming. Evidence of people acting for reasons having nothing to do with economics isn't evidence that Marxism was wrong, it's merely an instance of "false consciousness." And so on.

Now like I said, verification, falsification, etc. aren't terms you run across in everyday life. And most liberals, like most conservatives, probably aren't aware of how all this works. So why bring it up? Well, I think it's important not to underestimate the Left. Although liberal thinking is deeply flawed, there is some structure to it, and to challenge it, we need to understand it. And there's a lot of truth in the charge that radical environmentalism and other "causes" are just updated versions of old-line Marxism. Ideas come and go, but the assumptions that give rise to them haven't. To refute liberals, you can't just disprove individual claims, you have to get at why they came up with them in the first place.

Then again, pointing out it's really freaking cold outside isn't half bad if you're short on time.

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New York - Why Does Anyone Live Here??

Okay, I am going to start this off with a rant. Do you see that photo at the left? You all know who that guy, don't you? Of course, who doesn't by now. You would have to be living under a rock on Mars not to know. He has tried to interject himself into all aspects of our lives AND he thinks at some point he should be President. I was even in a small shop in my home town of Irving, Texas just a few weeks ago and two "good ol' boys" were talking about this guy like he was their Mayor!

Yes, Mayor Bloomberg is the one who has curbed our smoking, lowered our fat and salt intake, and made certain that we know that the Big Mac we crave will kill us one day. Well, he finally went too far with his attempted ban on sugary soda larger than 16 ounces. A very wise and fair NYC judge struck down his unilateral ban ruling that it was "arbitrary and capricious". And like any good tyrant, our little Benito had not bothered to go through the proper legislative channels like consulting the duly-elected representatives of the citizenry of our city, the City Council, for a public vetting. The judge was right on point. Oh, Bloomberg and his people will file an appeal, but it doesn't even have the possibility to be heard before the final (and blessed) end of his reign....er administration on December 31, 2013 at 11:59:50 pm!

But, you know, stuff like this doesn't slow our Mayor down one bit. He has moved on to his next target (pun intended) - guns. His next project is to ban guns around the world, starting everywhere! Guns are bad! Guns kill people and nobody should be allowed to own one. Well, except the guys who stand out in front of his home. Guess whose house this is...

Notice anything in front of that townhouse that is not in front of yours? I will give you no hints because it is rather obvious. That is Mayor Bloomberg's 24/7/365 ARMED security detail paid for by the taxpaying citizen he would deny their own protection!! And not just ANY armed security guards, mind you, but two NYC police officers from the best police force in the USA. These officers stand guard at the front entrance of Mayor Bloomberg's private residence (and I suspect at his back entrances as well) all the time, all day and all night, every day and every night.

I personally took this photo on Sunday morning around 11 am. So, to sum it all up, Mayor Bloomberg is flying around the country admonishing we mere mortals that we should not be allowed to own firearms to protect our families in our own homes, while this jackass has 24/7/365 armed protection for himself and his family and property paid for by the same people who are too stupid/violent/crazy to be allowed to own their own. Pardon me if I rage, but WHO THE HELL* DOES HE THINK HE IS??? Oh, I know, a hypocrite, but then we knew that, didn't we?

Okay moving on:

We're Number 1!! We're Number 1!! Well, or more accurately, We're No. 50!! In a recent study published by George Mason University, New York was found to be the least free state in the union!. Only California and New Jersey rank higher! (Gee, I wonder how THAT could be, Mayor Bloomberg???) Well, it's a very proud day for...no one except Mayor Bloomberg.


Moving on again:

A few weeks ago, we had a police shooting. Kimani Gray, a 16 year old was shot and killed by the police when he allegedly pointed a gun at them. Riots ensued for days. But what has me baffled is the statement by Gray's mother following the shooting. She swears that her son was an innocent victim because he "was too afraid to have a gun, he was like my coward." I don't mean to question or criticize any mother who has just lost a child, but what exactly does that mean "too afraid to have a gun" and "my coward"?

And finally in other news:

Did you really think I could get through a report about New York without adding more names to my ever-growing list of disgraced/arrested/incarcerated New York state elected officials? It just isn't possible. But this time it special! We probably one of the first ever recorded bi-partisan arrests in New York this week! Yes, graft and greed crossed the aisle for a two-fer this week with simultaneous arrests of a Republican AND a Democrat by the FBI in a joint bribery sting. And we thought Tammany Hall were the bad old days. Old Boss Tweed has nothing on modern day New York politicians.

State Senator Malcolm Smith (D) - Arrested for paying bribes to NYC Councilman Daniel Halloran (R) to secure a spot on the Republican ticket for the upcoming Mayoral election.

NYC Councilman Daniel Halloran (R) - Arrested for accepting a bribe from State Senator Malcolm Smith (D) for same.

Oh, plus "...five other politicians, three Republicans and two Democrats, were also arrested and charged with collectively accepting more than $100,000 in bribes in meetings that often took place in parked cars, hotel rooms and state offices..."

Just in case you are keeping score, here is the previous list from 2012-2013:

State Senator Shirley Huntley (D): pleaded guilty to embezzlement of $90,000 in taxpayer funds for personal shopping sprees.

State Assembly Vivian Cook (D): not yet charged; implicated in procuring funds to be funneled to Sen. Huntley and participating in personal shopping sprees.

State Assembly Jimmy Meng (D): pleaded guilty to soliciting bribes

US Representative Gregory Meeks (D): Currently under investigation for accepting $40,000 in unreported "loans" from Queens businessman Edul Ahmad. Ahmad has pleaded guilty and awaiting sentences in a $50 million mortgage fraud scheme.


State Senator Carl Kruger (D) - resigned his seat and pleaded guilty to charges of corruption and bribery. (2011)

State Senator Hiram Monserrate (D-NY) - of the 13th District, was expelled by the New York State Senate on February 9, 2010 in connection with a misdemeanor assault conviction against his girlfriend.

State Senator Efrain Gonzalez (D-NY) On May 25, 2010, Gonzalez was sentenced to 84 months (7 years) in prison, followed by two years supervised release, after pleading guilty to two conspiracy counts and two wire fraud counts in May 2009.

President of the New York City council Andrew Stein (D) - was convicted of tax evasion regarding a Ponzi scheme in November 2010.

Majority Leader of the New York State Senate Pedro Espada Jr. (D) - On May 14, 2012 a federal jury found Espada guilty of embezzling money from federally funded healthcare clinics, after 11 days of deliberation.

State Senator Nicholas Spano (R) - in 2012 Spano was indicted for Federal Income Tax evasion. Spano pleaded guilty to the single felony. He admitted that he under-reported his income — $42,419 in federal income taxes and $10,605 in state taxes — from 2000 to 2008. He is to be sentenced to 12 to 18 months in Federal Prison in June 2012.

*This wasn't my first choice of words...

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Guest Review: Battleship (2012)

by ScottDS
When the first trailer for Peter Berg’s Battleship hit the Internet, that sound you heard was a collective groan: “Really? A movie based on a board game*?!” It financially underperformed in the U.S. and most likely put an end to Taylor Kitsch’s sci-fi movie career (he of John Carter infamy). However, I’m pleased – no, surprised! – to say that the movie isn’t terrible. Dumb, loud, clichéd, stupid… yes. But not terrible, and infinitely better than the last two Transformers movies.

Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaFilms

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Female Teachers Are Sexist

One of the more interesting facets of political correctness is the number of contortions the politically correct must go through to avoid stating the obvious. The latest example involves a study which dances around the question of why girls do better than boys in school, but then do worse than boys on standardized (objective) tests and once they leave the school environment. The obvious answer from their study is that female teachers are sexist, but saying so is taboo.

Before we delve into this, here’s a quick reminder of how political correctness works. The politically correct separate people by race and gender and then assign goodness/badness based on those groups or genders. If you happen to be in a “good group,” then nothing bad may be said about you. In fact, to say bad things about you would be labeled racist or sexist. And if you happen to be in a bad group, then nothing good can be said about you or that would be labeled racist or sexist as well. Girls are in the good group. Boys are in the bad. Hence, thou shalt not criticize girls or praise boys. If there is a gap where girls do worse than boys, that is the result of bias. But if there is a gap where boys do worse than girls, that's because boys are bad students.

So what am I talking about?

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development just completed a study of 17 countries and they discovered something interesting. For quite some time now, it’s been true in most countries that girls get better grades in school. They graduate in higher numbers, get more degrees, and generally have better grades. Hence, girls appear to be better students. BUT there is this pesky problem that boys routinely beat girls on standardized tests and in the real world of employment. In fact, this study found that if you compare standardize tests to grades, the boys grades are way below what the standardized testing would predict. Up to now, the explanations offered by feminists have been to assume that the grades must be right because girls are good and thus a result which shows girls being better must be right, and they've explained away the standardized test problem as the testing being biased in favor of boys. They also claim that income disparity is the result of sexism.

Well, this study has uncovered a wee bit of a problem with this. According to the study, the gender divide in grades is the result of the teachers judging the girls to be better behaved... not better students. This is purely a subjective measure and the study actually termed this "bias." That's a huge step toward truth. Of course, they did their best not to call this gender bias/sexism, but that's what it is. Instead, they said it was bias toward the well-behaved and against the not well-behaved, but that's nonsense. For one thing, the label of which was well-behaved and which wasn't was subjective and is a tautology, i.e. circular reasoning: teachers favor the well-behaved, who are girls, because we have defined girls as well-behaved. Break that down logically and you will see that "well-behaved" is just another word for "girl" and you get "teachers favor girls."

And this is borne out by the standardized testing because it shows that boys do better than the girls in terms of what they really learn. That means that when the students are tested objectively, i.e. in an arena where the teachers cannot warp the grades, the girls do much more poorly than they do when the teachers are able to warp the grades. Logic tells us this means the teachers are favoring girls unfairly. Basically, women teachers favor female students because they like girls better even though the girls are not better students.

Moreover, this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The study found that because of this bias, the girls benefited from better grades which meant better opportunities and the boys were harmed because they were denied the opportunities and they were told to lower their expectations. Thus, the teachers set the boys up by giving them worse opportunities and then held that against them when they graded the boys. This, frankly, calls into question the validity of the entire system.

Think about this in terms of race because that will clarify this. Imagine if black students sat through classes taught by white teachers and they were marked down repeatedly, consistently and across-the-board by those white teachers on the subjective scoring system used by the teachers. But once those black students were allowed to take standardize tests, i.e. tests that do not know if a student is black or white or male or female and which the white teachers cannot grade in a way to favor the white students, the blacks suddenly did much better than the grades they were given and in fact outperformed the higher-graded white kids. How fast do you think everyone would start yelling racism? And don't you think they would be right?

Yet, because of political correctness, women are per se considered incapable of being sexist. Thus, even though the obvious answer to the facts presented above is that female teachers (who make up 84% of teachers) are systematically lowering male grades because they don't like the males as much as the females, no one is talking about that because they don't want to raise the issue of gender discrimination by female teachers. But that is exactly what is going on.

And to be clear, sexism doesn't even need to be intentional to make this happen. As has been shown in any number of contexts, bias can take many forms, including a simple lack of empathy or devaluing of traits that are more common with the other gender/race and overvaluing traits that are more common with your own race. Thus, for example, a creative writing teacher might grade a lousy essay on a subject they sympathize with higher than a brilliant essay on a subject they care little for. That's human nature, and study after study has shown that people do behave this way, even if they don’t think they do. So why do we ignore the obvious effects of bias when a system where 84% of teachers are females uses subjective criteria (like classroom participation) to determine that girls are better than boys even as objective criteria expose those subjective criteria to be wrongly applied?

If you want to improve the education system, the first thing to do, honestly, is to stop avoiding the obvious problems just because it's politically correct to do so. The problem isn’t that boys are somehow incapable of learning as well, it’s that female teachers favor girls. And the way to fix that is either to hire more male teachers and to make sure kids get both, or to separate kids by sex... or start using standardize tests to set grades (hint, hint).

Thoughts?

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More Evidence of the Anti-Immigrant Left

Interesting. A couple weeks ago, I wrote about an article (LINK) by a Harvard professor which struck me as the first shot laying the groundwork for the left to turn against immigration. The professor never said that specifically, but it was the only conclusion to draw from his study even as he steadfastly claimed not to reach any conclusion. So guess what I found last week? This time someone actually said what I concluded. Observe.

The article I wrote originally discussed a study by a Harvard professor who talked about why immigration could lead to a Republican majority rather than a Democratic majority. According to this professor, people get racist when they come into contact with people of another race. Thus, he believed that as more foreigners come to the US, whites will become more likely to vote as a block, which means they will vote Republican so they can oppose the new minorities. On the surface, this sounded like the typical “Republicans are racist” stuff. But it wasn’t. What was interesting about the Professor’s article was that he offered no solution even though his claims left only one possible conclusion: the left must turn against immigration if it wants socialism. This is what struck me as being the first attempt to lay the intellectual groundwork for an about face by the left on immigration.

So imagine my surprise to find an article in the Daily Mail (LINK), written by a Brit who described himself as a “left-leaning ‘Hampstead’ liberal,” which not only reaches the conclusion I told you was coming but says so in point plank language. Note this key conclusion found near the end of the article:

“The problem with mass immigration is that, without integration, it damages the internal solidarity of a country such as ours. And if values and lifestyles become more diverse, it becomes more difficult to sustain the legitimacy of the welfare state.”

Bingo. This is exactly what I was talking about. According to this author, the left must realize that importing massive numbers of foreigners makes it impossible to convince the public to accept the welfare state. As this author put it, it damages the “legitimacy” of socialism. How does it do that? Well, the author says that people are only willing to give up a “third of our income into a common national pool” because we have a “belief that, despite different interests, we’re also part of the same team.” Bringing in immigrants destroys this belief. Hence, socialism becomes a hard sell.

What this guy suggested was that the left needs to admit they were wrong to let so many immigrants into Britain, and he suggested that it was time to stop immigration cold. He also absolved the left in advance for making this change. First, he did what the left always does and he denied that the left was at fault. He claims that their immigration problem wasn’t something the left actually did, it just sort of happened when no one was paying attention. This is the classic leftist denial. He also blessed the change to a racist immigration policy by pointing out that while certainly some Britons are dirty racists, it was not racist to oppose immigrants because this was about the team spirit, not about race. Yeah, try parsing that one. He even suggested that majority whites should be allowed to feel the same sense of identity that minority groups do and that the majority has rights over the minority.

No doubt, you recognize each of these thoughts because you’ve heard the left call people who said them “racists”. But don’t worry, these things will henceforth not be considered racist because the left is preparing to adopt them.

This is all really interesting. Here we are in on the ground floor of a massive shift in the left’s groupthink and we get to watch the intellectual gyrations even before the hive gets their marching orders. In the space of a couple weeks, we’ve now seen the real reason for such a shift offered by a Harvard professor (quoted in the liberal Washington Post) and suddenly in Britain we have a leftist advocate the identical theory, but dressing it up with all the justifications the hive will need to feel smug about adopting positions they once demonized. This is going to be fascinating to watch.

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No Tin Foil Hat Shortage

Let’s debunk some idiocy. Did you know that the Department of Homeland Security bought up all the ammunition in this here country? Yep. Obama is using DHS to create a de facto gun control by buying up all the bullets so we reel ’merkicans can’t defend ourselves when DHS comes roundin’ us up. Yessir. Or not.

Right now, it’s very popular among paranoid idiots certain people, to talk about this amazing bullet conspiracy. They went down to the Gun & Smoke and found no ammo on the shelves. So they asked the clerk where all the ammo had gone. Said clerk responded that DHS bought all the ammo so there would be a shortage of ammo... something something... and we all end up in camps!

Mark “tinfoil hat” Levin added this:

“I’ll tell you what I think they’re simulating: the collapse of our financial system, the collapse of our society and the potential for widespread violence, looting, killing in the streets, because that’s what happens when an economy collapses. I suspect that just in case our fiscal situation, our monetary situation, collapses, and following it the civil society collapses, that is the rule of law, they want to be prepared. I know why the government’s arming up: It’s not because there’s going to be an insurrection; it’s because our society is unraveling.”

Get back on your meds Mark.

Anyway, this conspiracy theory is quite popular at the moment because IQs have dropped in recent years. It’s so popular that Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan) even asked DHS why they were buying up all the ammo. Do you know what DHS told him? Nuthing! They refused to answer! At least, that’s what Huelskamp told CPAC, “They have no answer for that question. They refuse to answer to answer that.” Problem is, that’s a lie. Not only did DHS respond to his letter, but they previously responded to an identical request from Sen. Tom Coburn.

Drudge then ran with this, using the following three headlines: “Homeland Denies Massive Ammunition Purchase,” “Won’t Answer Congress” and “Cover-up?”. These headlines are entirely misleading. DHS did not deny the purchase and they did answer Congress. In fact, if you read the links behind the headlines you will see that quite clearly. Be careful what you trust from Drudge.

So what is the truth? Let’s explain the ammo purchase.

First, the contracts in question are DHS contracts for the purchase of “up to” 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition over five years. That’s about 320 million rounds a year. That may sound like a lot, but consider this. DHS has more than 100,000 law enforcement personnel including border security (ICE). They use bullets in their jobs. They use bullets for training. They use bullets for quarterly qualifications. The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia, for example, uses 15 million rounds a year in training exercises, and that’s just one center. Last year, DHS used 148 million rounds. Over five years that would be 740 million rounds and that’s without them operating a single concentration camp for Glenn Beck listeners. Even the NRA has said this purchase is not excessive or unusual.

Moreover, when something like ammo is purchased, agencies often purchase for multiple agencies under the same contract. This creates economies of scale and lets smaller agencies piggyback on the expertise of larger agencies. You have no idea, for example, how much stuff the Army buys for agencies you would never imagine.

Further, what you need to understand is that a contract for “up to” 1.6 billion rounds is NOT a contract for 1.6 billion rounds. Government contracts don’t work that way. Requirements contracts typically dramatically overstate the actual purchase to be made because government procurement is a cumbersome process. For example, new contracts can be protested and delayed, whereas task orders under an existing contract can’t. Also, getting money for new work is difficult, especially across fiscal years, whereas using money already on a contract is easy. So it is simply easier to issue a massive, multi-year contract that covers every possible need plus a huge fudge factor and then issue task orders under that contract as needed, than it is to issue a new contract whenever a need arises. I can’t tell you the number of contracts I’ve seen that never reached even a tenth of their face value. The truth is, DHS will buy what they always buy and the rest of the contract will expire and it won’t be close to 1.6 billion.

Here’s the thing. This is all publicly available information which people like Levin and Huelskamp could have looked up if they cared about the truth. . . but they don’t. They would rather mix ignorance with paranoia and spin this crap to get your attention. And let me add that this fantasy has been going on for some time. In 2008, right after Obama got elected, these same people screamed about the army being retrained at Fort Polk, Louisiana to go house to house to confiscate guns. That didn’t happen. Then in 2009, they discovered the shortage of ammo for the first time and they attributed it to new regulations by the EPA intended to prevent the manufacture of bullets. Only, that didn’t happen either. Now it’s the great bullet purchase mystery.

This is nonsense. According to the NRA, there are between 10 and 12 billion rounds of ammunition produced in the US each year with “billions more imported.” Now do the math. That means there will be more than 50-60 billion rounds produced in the US over five years. In that same period, the feds will buy up a maximum of 1.6 billion rounds, or 2.5% of all domestically produced rounds. Is it remotely possible that the feds buying 2.5% of the domestically produced ammo will cause an ammo shortage in the country? Hardly. The shortage, if there is such a thing, is because people are panic buying because people like Levin are telling them there is a shortage.

By the way, Levin claims this 1.6 billion round purchase represents 24 times the number of bullets used in Iraq. Here’s his quote:

“To provide some perspective, experts estimate that at the peak of the Iraq war American troops were firing around 5.5 million rounds per month. At that rate, the Department of Homeland Security is armed now for a 24-year Iraq war. A 24-year Iraq war.”

This is being repeated in article after article now, but it’s total crap. According to the GAO in 2005, US troops were firing 1.8 billion rounds of small-arms ammunition per year in Afghanistan and Iraq (about 28 times what Levin claims), so the 1.6 billion round purchase wouldn’t even cover a full year... much less 24 years. Again, this information was out there if Levin wanted to check it.

Don’t believe this garbage. And more importantly, don’t trust people who push this garbage.

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Happy Easter/Bunny/Passover/March Madness

We're taking a week off to hunt rabbit eggs or to celebrate Easter/Passover/Kwanzaster. :)

While we're away, we're tossing the floor open to you. Tell us what's on your mind!

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Open Thread -

Tomorrow is Palm Sunday which, depending on how you celebrate, is the beginning of the holiest week of the year for Christians. And on Monday at sundown will be the first night of the eight days of Passover for the Jews. There is also some pagan element where we await the arrival of a large invisible bunny rabbit to deliver chocolate eggs to good little boys and girls. So let's open up the floor and feel free to share how you celebrate. Do you do anything special? What do you think of the new purple Peeps?

And speaking of religious stuff, has anyone been watching any of "The Bible" on the History Channel?

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Film Friday: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011)

Ok, so why am I reviewing this film? Am I going to tell you that this film is actually a hidden gem? Hardly. Have I found some moment of deep meaning within it? Nope. What I have found, however, is a film with some really interesting elements that just get horribly misused because the film lacks focus. That makes this film worth discussing.

Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaFilms

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Dealing With Morons

I’m sometimes asked by people who know me why I’m so intransigent toward liberals. (Actually, they don’t put it in those terms; what they ask is, “Why do you have to be such a jerk on Facebook?”) I often don’t know how to answer them…and then along comes a reminder of how idiotic liberals can get.

There was a small dust-up this week in the proud city of Columbia, MO (my current place of residence). It appears that the police department was asking the city government to purchase an armored vehicle for its use; Columbia has a population of 100,000+, and some neighborhoods are better than others, so this wouldn’t exactly be an idle investment. Anyway, for whatever reason someone in the city’s Police Officers Association decided to strengthen their case by posting an appeal on their Facebook page.

Here is the wording they used:

CPD wants a new armored vehicle. Partly b/c when you drive up in one, people surrender and come out of the house. BUT….if CPD rolled up in the new Mercedes 6x16, you KNOW all the boys in the hood would come running out the house – just to admire your ride! I say we ride up in style.

I don’t really get the humor and the grammar leaves a bit to be desired, but whatever. Worse pitches have been made, I’m sure. I only heard about this, though, because of the “controversy” that arose over the post. The Association quickly drew attacks because their statement was apparently—wait for it—racist. The Huffington Post (because why not) put the “story” up on their front page as an example of bad race relations among cops, and our dear mayor denounced it as “breathtaking racial insensitivity that cannot be tolerated,” further demanding a formal apology from the group.

Grrrrrr.

Okay, first off, this is not racist. I don’t know the feelings of these police officers, and I don’t care. It’s what they said that matters, not how they feel, and what they said isn’t racist. I did a quick info check; Columbia is maybe 11% black, and it’s not like they’re all either lower-class or the ones committing the crimes. And there was zero insinuation from these cops that that was the case. I don’t know if anyone’s noticed, but “the hood” is hardly a single-race category, and using the phrase does not automatically imply a black neighborhood. So I’m not even going to suggest that maybe they could have “chosen better language.” You know who’s at fault? The left-wingers at HuffPo, in the city government, and elsewhere who decided they were talking about black people.

More broadly, I wish to make a point about society in general. There are many things wrong with the world today, which I’m sure I don’t need to tell you guys. But if I could name one that really irks me above most others, it’s this paranoia we have about not hurting other people’s feelings. Truth is, I don’t think the race-baiters on the Left are really responsible for this or similar so-called controversies. These things happen because there’s a larger group of people who buy into oppression theory, multiculturalism, and whatever else that wing cooks up, and overreact to everything that might conceivably be construed as racist or sexist or homophobic or otherwise intolerant. These people—mayors, school board members, public advocacy groups—are enablers, and practically every lawsuit or instance of hand-wringing you can think of happens because of them, not because of the initial agitators.

I’d like to think I’ve correctly identified the problem. Even so, that doesn’t mean I know what to do about it. I would say, though, that you can’t really wage a “campaign” against these people. Rather, I think it’s more a matter of just refusing to play their game from the outset. If you say something that you know you don’t mean anything by, but someone says you’re being insensitive against whoever, reply with “Shut up, no I’m not.” Or better yet, “Who cares?” And no, I can’t say I always practice what I preach (in this or other matters). But maybe if more people start acting this way, those enablers will think twice before making reflexive denunciations like this one against the police. I guess what I’m saying is, this country needs more people who are just callous, unfeeling jackasses.


Note: As for the requested armored vehicle, that issue was tabled at the last city council meeting, held just after all this made the news. They’ll deny that the two are connected, but surely some felt they couldn’t just grant the request after all this came out. So a few shrill cries of racism against a group not even an active part of the police department trump a request for official equipment. Nice.

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Caption This: Obama In Israel

Hurry! Lock all of the doors and turn off all the lights. Maybe if we are really, really quiet, President Obama will think that we moved and won't come back! Okay, maybe that's mean. He is out there trying his darndest to make the Israelis like him and trust him. I think he is finding out that they just aren't that impressed with his One'ness. I mean, they know about Messiahs in Israel and, well, let's just keep it at not impressed.

So that being said, here's the photo of the week:

What could they possibly be chatting about? A nuclear Iran? Those pesky settlements? And who is the empty chair for? A surprise guest or Clint Eastwood?

Please feel free to expand the discussion.


FYI - I will be travelling today and will be checking in later.

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Toon-arama: The Secret of Kells (2009)

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day being right around the corner, let’s take a trip to the Emerald Isle. Or rather, since I can’t afford plane tickets for all of you, let’s bring Ireland here. The Secret of Kells is not only set in Ireland, but was produced by a promising young Irish animation studio—so it’s Irish all-around. The film is a beautiful and unique work of traditional animation, which alone makes it worth seeing. The story is quite charming, as well, though there is one incredibly glaring omission, which I will get to.

Click Here To Read Article/Comments at CommentaramaFilms

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Contest: Favorite Word

So today I am going to use the Commentarama "Way-Back" machine. [Yes, we have one, but don't tell anyone. It will be our little secret, 'kay?]*. Let's go back to a time when the world was calm and peaceful, and we were happy and carefree.

Back when...er...ummm, wait a minute. I forgot. Our "Way-Back" machine only goes back to real places, not imaginary, fantasy places that never existed. Never mind then.

Okay, since we can't go back to a time that has never existed, let's go back to a time at Commentarama that did and have some fun with our imaginations and our vocabulary! This is a simple contest that we did years ago [and, yes, I am stealing]*, and was kind of fun and revealing. Here are the rules...oh, who am I kidding. This is Commentarama. There ARE no rules even if we wanted there to be rules!

What is your favorite word?

Okay, there is just one rule that you must follow without question. Have fun with it!

And....go!

*FYI [anything that appears in brackets is top secret stuff, so don't tell anyone]

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Cynicism Reigns Supreme At CPAC

Tomorrow, I’m going to start the Agenda 2016 stuff. By way of contrast, I thought I would discuss CPAC today. CPAC depresses me. CPAC seems to be broken into three groups: (1) those who understand the problem, but not the solution, (2) drooling idiots/cynical liars, and (3) a couple people who might actually get it.

The first group consists of people who understand the problem conservatives are facing, but have no actual solutions to offer:

● Jed Bush. I HATE saying anything nice about Bush, so you better read this closely. Bush very accurately puts his finger on the GOP problem:

“All too often we’re associated with being anti-everything. Way too many people believe Republicans are anti-immigrant, anti-woman, anti-science, anti-gay, anti-worker and the list goes on and on and on. Many voters are simply unwilling to choose our candidates even though they share our core beliefs because those voters feel unloved, unwanted and unwelcome in our party.”

Bingo. But Bush offers no actual solutions because he’s a worthless turd. What Bush is doing is a con. He’s stolen the rhetoric of brighter people and he’s using that rhetoric as a cover for doing what the Bushes always do when they get into office.

● Scott Walker. Like Bush, Walker gets that the party has an image problem. It’s seen as a party of old white guys. But also like Bush, he offers no solution. His “solution” was this: “I’m not an old white guy” (actual quote). In other words, just like the insiders who label themselves outsiders, Walker hopes to convince you that HE is the answer you are looking for by telling you that he understands the problem and by assuring you that he is not the problem. . . or he suffers from gender/race dysphoria. Poor gal.

These guys get the problem, but they don’t have a solution. The next group, however, are snake oil salesmen. That group doesn’t want you to understand the problem because it doesn’t suit them to have you waking up to reality. So they play the victim card to keep you from using your brain and to deflect blame by trying to convince you that the reason conservatives keep losing is that we keep being betrayed by “establishment Republicans,” and if only we could wipe out the RINO pestilence, then victory will follow:

● Honey BooBoo Palin. Palin first repeated what thinking conservatives have been trying to get through the thick heads of people like Palin:

“As conservatives, we must leave no American behind. And we must share our message of freedom and liberty to all citizens, even those who may disagree on some issues. . . they’re not our enemies, they’re our sisters and brothers. They’re our neighbors and friends. It’s time we all stop preaching to the choir.”

True. But apparently, she doesn’t mean it, because she then did the exact opposite by claiming we need to overcome the “establishment Republicans” so we can purify the party and finally present a conservative message to the public. Yeah, nothing says “big tent” like purging moderates. More importantly, notice the idea that we are losing because “establishment Republicans” control the party and are undermining us. You’ll see this again and again.

● Newt Gingrich. Like Palin, private-jet-and-decades-of-insider-status Newt thinks that attacking the GOP is the way to go. First, he says the GOP needs to stop being “stupid” and “start framing its principles in a positive way that appeals to voters,” but he doesn’t define those principles. . . because he can’t. Why can’t he? Because if he tells you the principles he’s talking about, you will see that we have been running on those principles for decades and that would interfere with his victim strategy when he says, “The dominant wing of this party has learned nothing. It is as stupid as it was in 1976.” Yep, we are controlled by RINOs.

● The Superduper Magic Rush Limbaugh. Quoting Pat Caddell, Rush blames the “consultant, lobbyist, and establishment complex” for stopping the GOP from having a conservative message. This is a pretty clever bit of conspiracy theory logic because it allows him to escape the problem of not being able to name any politician who actually does what he claims the secret RINOs are doing. Basically, he’s attacking a phantom “THEY”. As an aside, he also claims we should stop trying to win over independents because we can win with conservatives alone. To back this up, he uses an inspired dose of delusion and bad math.

● Brent Bozell. Bozell told us, “Our days of playing second fiddle to moderates are over!” Drang nach osten! According to Bozell, we need to get rid of all those Republicans who “said all the right things to conservatives,” but then supported Obamacare (fyi, the total number of Republicans who supported Obamacare is 0.0). He also thinks that if we could just defund Planned Parenthood (or HHS) then something something victory!

There are more.

Ok, so the problem, according to these brainiacs and luminaries is that the GOP is dominated by RINOs who won’t let us poor, helpless conservatives ever present conservative positions to the public. Is this true? Consider this:

The platform is a Religious Right wet dream and Phyllis Schlafly is trying to get the GOP to refuse to fund any candidate who won’t support it dogmatically. The number of serious presidential candidates in 2012 or 2008 who didn’t sign all the abortion and anti-gay pledges the Religious Right wanted: none. Number who didn’t sign the Norquist anti-tax pledge: none. Number who didn’t try to outdo each other talking about defunding Planned Parenthood or the EPA: none. Number of Republicans in the House or Senate leadership who haven’t signed those same pledges: none. Number who advocated for amnesty for illegals (prior to this year): none. Number who voted for Obamacare: none. Number who supported any part of Obama’s agenda between 2008 and 2012: none.

See the problem? There are no RINOs, not in the leadership, not in the nominees, not in the rank and file. Sen. Rob Portman this week became the first GOP senator to endorse gay marriage. The Club for Growth has targeted all of eight House Republicans who they think aren’t sufficiently conservative enough on economic issues. . . 8 out of 232. Are McCain and Graham a pain in the butt? Sure, but they don’t control the party, nor are they liberal on most issues. And frankly, it conservatives can’t overcome two men, then conservatism is worthless.

The truth is this. These people are lying to you. Their agenda IS the agenda the GOP has been pushing since the late 1990s, and each year that agenda loses more people. But they don’t want to change because these issues are obsessions with them. So to keep you on board, they invented this phantom army of moderates who haven’t existed since Reagan changed the GOP and they lie to you about the moderates betraying their ideas. Just like liberals falsely claim liberalism has never failed because it’s never been tried, Rush and Palin and Newt falsely claim their agenda has never failed because it’s never been tried. That is garbage. Their agenda is identical to the agenda of every single presidential candidate, all of the leadership, almost all of the elected rank and file, all of talk radio, and all of the pundits (except a couple at the NYT), and it dominates the platform. Where is this RINO menace?

These people are pushing a paranoid conspiracy theory to keep you from thinking about the truth: “It’s not our fault, we’ve been undermined by secret enemies.”

If you want to know who at CPAC gets it, the guy is Artur Davis. Davis is a Democrat turned Republican and he laments the fact that many voters “think like us” but won’t support us. This is what I’ve found in talking to moderates as well. Here is the problem as he sees it:

“They just need to hear it from our politicians that our values will work for their lives and their circumstances. . . . for all that money [spent by Romney], we couldn’t find the language to tell enough Americans why our conservative politics and policies would work in their lives? We became the first Republicans since the ’30s who didn’t talk about middle-class tax relief. The first Republicans in my lifetime who didn’t have the self-confidence to talk about how our policies reduce the poverty and lift the poor out of dependency. The first Republicans since World War II who didn’t seem to get that in this competitive world, education is part of promoting the common defense. So is it any surprise that we are the first conservatives in the modern era to see the number of conservatives fall?”

This is exactly right. As you will see starting tomorrow, the problem with the “conservative” agenda is that it’s crap. It speaks to no one except pure ideologues. It offers nothing to average people who aren’t on a religious crusade or don’t own international corporations. It provides no jobs, no security, no opportunity. It does nothing to help people get ahead or keep what they’ve earned. It offers no help to people who’ve stumbled.

Rush, Palin, Newt, etc. are wrong. They are blind to reality and they have invented boogeymen to keep them from seeing the truth about what they offer. Tune in tomorrow and we’ll start talking about a better way.

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Any Good Conservatives Out There?

Okay, here’s the deal: I originally had planned what I thought would be a very interesting post about the concept of political rights and what that has to do with everything. Unfortunately, other events intervened. I have a mid-term exam today (yes, even in grad school, we still have those), and my computer’s had some viruses and other problems recently, so I’m skittish about using it too much anyway.

So for now, we’re going to have another question time/open thread post. Maybe I can get back to more lengthy discussions next week.

It’s no secret that few of us think much of the politicians in Washington, or of the leaders of the GOP, or of the non-official opinion makers. What I want to know is, who, if anyone, do you admire, and see as a great potential leader for conservatism? It doesn’t have to be an elected official; it can be a private figure like Dr. Ben Carson, or a talk radio guy who you think “gets it” (shut it, Andrew), or just whoever. Who would you like to see at the forefront of the conservative/Republican/libertarian movement?

Personally, I’m still holding a torch for Bobby Jindal, but he’s just one of many. If you’ve got someone you want to make a case for, persuade me. (Or persuade other people, too. I’m a well-known intransigent.)

Thoughts?

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When Is A Crime Really a Crime?

Okay, please feel free to discuss anything today because there is just so much going on, it's hard to focus on just one subject. So what do you want to talk about today? The new Pope? The recent meeting between President Obama and some random Republicans - the first in two years? Local news or just random thoughts? Let's talk, muse, discuss, or just randomly riff on whatever topic you want. Or this...

This week in New York Federal Court, a former New York City cop was convicted of the crime of conspiracy to kidnap, torture and commit cannibalism. Yes, cannibalism. Frightening and disturbing, but I am still trying to figure out what actually crime he committed. According to all reports that I have read, other than commiserating in great detail in writing with other like-minded cannibal wannabes on a cannibal chat site (yes, you can find just about anything you want on-line!), I am not exactly sure of what crime he actually committed. He was convicted of conspiring to kidnap, torture, and eat women without actually doing it or, from what I can tell, even getting close. But, please read this New York Times article and let's discuss.

Here's my question: When does or should a potential crime become a real convictable crime?

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Just Say No To More Bushes

There was an article at Politico the other day by some Republican strategist about the GOP’s elitism problem. He actually claimed that both parties suffer from this, though his reasoning against the Democrats was misplaced – his reason was their ideology rather than their people even though they are rife with nepotism and millionaire lawyers. The truth is that both parties suffer from an elitism problem and the GOP needs to fix theirs.

Elitism has long been a problem for the GOP. As far back as I can recall, our side has been represented by wealthy old men who were the sons of wealthy old men who held political office themselves. This is where the image of the country-club Republicans came from as these people were all from old-money and old-power. The Democrats were the same thing, but they were better at hiding it because:

(1) They claimed to represent the poor,

(2) They were smarter about highlighting their women and minorities to give the appearance of a meritocracy, and

(3) The Republicans never leveled the charge of elitism. Why didn’t the Republicans level the charge of elitism? Because the Republicans were elitists and didn’t really see elitism as being a bad thing. Who could object to young Winthorp following in daddy’s footsteps after all?

Reagan changed the image of the party, but he couldn’t change the mindset. Yes, modern Republicans all claim to be outsiders, but few of them really are. To the contrary, they keep picking Washington insiders for everything they do. The problems with elitism are this:

(1) Bad PR. Americans love merit, not accidents of birth. Elitism is unAmerican. Electing elitists turns our ideology into nothing more than a vehicle for entitlement, and that is death with American voters.

(2) The public knows the inbred kids of rich people are over-privileged morons who can’t be trusted with responsibilities. Moreover, elitism keeps out the smart and the capable in favor of the connected. That means the more of these people we have, the lower the brainpower of the party – essentially, we are surrounding ourselves with deadweight. Also, elitists cluster in bubbles so they don’t understand America or its citizens, which means they are a liability waiting to happen and they make our image problem worse.

(3) It’s impossible to point out how elitist/nepotistic the Democrats are when our side is the same thing.

Sometimes, it shocks me that anyone could seriously consider voting for another Bush. How many disasters does it take before conservatives get the message? And why would anyone vote for the son of Quayle? The wife of Dole? The GOP needs new blood. Seriously, no more Bushes. No more Doles. No more Quayles. No more Cheneys. No more Kristols. No more spouses or kids of people in power. No more political lifers. If you spend your life in politics, what can you possibly know about the real world?

The Republicans need to remake their image. They need to be seen as the party of small business, the party of entrepreneurs, the party of young workers and young families... the party of aspirations and the American dream. To do this, we need to get more people who fit that image and stop picking people who scream “privileged” and “nepotism.”

No more Bushes.

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