TP Propaganda In Action

The Most Epically Hypocritical Democratic Party Smear Ever! This Is One for the Record Books | Power Line:



I've documented a lot of examples of how TP (The Party - Democrat) uses it's near total media dominance to manipulate the public. What TP hates about Fox News is that it does similar ops on the conservative side on a much smaller scale and that should NOT be allowed! TP can ultimately only rule when there are NO ALTERNATIVES -- meaning the people who think differently are in the gulag or dead!



 If there are alternatives, then things like the VA, the ongoing tragedy of BOcare, the Climate Hoax, etc will be pointed out and it will  be clear to far to many people that TP is like the Wizard of Oz ... a fake and a humbug, and unlike the wizard, actually BAD!



The Koch brothers REALLY ARE demons! Pay no attention to the fact that the guy taking time out to castigate them and the Ordway  for putting on a children s theater day was not that long ago trying to do a couple million of business to point out how environmentally responsible they are!



Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!



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Economy Down 1% First Quarter

The Economy: Don’t Look Now, But . . . | Power Line:

So now we find that 1Q 2014 was negative growth -- if BO was an R, that would be a RECESSION! It used to be 2Qs of negative GDP for either party, but TP decided that the new rule is apparently AT LEAST 2 quarters if TP is in power, and 1Q of "something like negative growth" in the unlikely case of an R in the WH!

Not that it makes much difference, what counts for "growth" under BO is so tepid and so weighted to a few states that have economic policies in direct opposition to BO, that we have been basically in a recession all along.

Apparently, some are blaming the cold winter. I suppose that can be marked down as an example of "climate disruption"?

I heard on the news this AM that consumer spending was DOWN in April -- a normal sign of recession under way, so we will see. I'm sure that the general media will be doing all they can to minimize people's knowledge of the state of the economy as much as possible, as they have been doing since BO took over.

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Private Space Capsule Looking Good

BBC News - SpaceX unveil 'no runway' Dragon V2 space capsule:





NASA is one more giant government agency to flame out spectacularly ... it got us to the moon, which was amazing, but it only gives one more example of what government CAN do, all be it usually quite inefficiently and often with GREAT expense in both money and lives.



Single focus, TIME LIMITED projects --- War, Building a nuclear weapon (Manhattan Project), "Getting to the moon by the end of this decade" ...



When the project is open ended and less than PRECISELY defined -- "have a space program", "make people happy", "end poverty",  "provide health care",  the result is always disaster ... slow expensive crushing embarrassing disaster.



The NASA shuttle was a damned impressive thing in that it was huge and it worked at all, but it was obviously flawed from the start -- tiles and giant solid boosters tacked on the side ... both of which caused catastrophic failures with total loss of crew and craft. From the POV of any engineer, those items were "hacks" at best.



How good will Dragon be? No idea, this is the marketing release -- of course it looks good! But it does look very cool. Being able to land vertically sure sounds wonderful -- but having to carry enough fuel to do it back through the atmosphere at re-entry temps still makes me wonder if given chemical propulsion, parachutes aren't good enough ... maybe a parasail with some control and some thrusters to make a ground landing at a more predictable location and softer.





But at least it is private -- which makes the chances that they know what they are doing better.



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When TP (The Party) Attacks, You Are to SHUT U{P!

Reporters Shocked When Their Targets Talk Back | Power Line:



What TP (The Party, Democrat) hates the WORST about the Koch brothers! When you are slandered and attacked you are to SHUT UP! and the Koch brothers have the unmitigated gall to FIGHT BACK!



Our education and media system works long and hard in "the public service" to make it ABSOLUTELY CLEAR that if you don't tow the party line they will take your NBA team, your job and your reputation! You will be friendless and ostracized -- the IRS, NSA or other agency will be forced to go after you! You MUST SHUT UP!



Are people daft? If TP can't control people by "civil means", the US will be FORCED to go the same way as every other totalitarian government in history -- people like the Kochs are a THREAT TO AMERIKA! Are people too foolish to realize that if this "Fascism with a smiley face" doesn't work, TP is going to have to put some people down by "stronger means" .... clearly for the good of "all of us"!



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Support for Norms Is Not Exceptional

Obama’s insulting version of American exceptionalism | Power Line:

BO likes to SAY that he is for American exceptionalism ... we know he is not, and if it wasn't for the MSM, his attempts to claim that he is would be a laughing stock of the highest order.

In short, LIMITED GOVERNMENT is what once made America exceptional ... liberty that released  unprecedented human energy, innovation, prosperity and unprecedented wealth for a huge middle class!

America WAS once both Exceptional and GREAT! Now what we have is "history" ... and a strong case of BO.

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Another HUGE Antarctic Ice Melt! (9-19K Years Ago)

Antarctic Ice Sheet - It's Never Been Very Stable:



So why is it that the closest we can pin down a PAST event is within a 10K year window, but we have SETTLED a future event knowing that global temps will rise so many tenths of a degree in a century and a sea level rise of so many feet is CERTAIN in the next two centuries?



If there were "skeptics" in science or the public these days, one would think that a HISTORICAL event hitting a 10K window would be nigh on embarrassing. Could it be that the scientists that make OBSERVATIONS based on DATA have a lot less confidence in their infallibility than the ones that look at MODELS on their computer screens?



One almost wishes some of the latter would head out on the road armed with a google earth model and no windshield and see how that worked out for them!

The study in Nature documents that the Antarctic ice sheet is unstable and can abruptly reorganize Southern Hemisphere climate and cause rapid global sea level rise. 

Ya don't say! So much for "climate stability"! 



So sea levels abruptly rose 4 METERS in 100 years due to cave men lighting fires one can only assume! 



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Freedom = Inequality of Outcome

bob lonsberry dot com:


Nothing new here for readers of this blog ... just better said!

a teaser ...

And in a free society, free choices will lead to different outcomes.

It is not inequality Barack Obama will take away, it is freedom.

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Lake Superior Memorial Day Ice

Sometimes pictures are worth more than lots of reports and words.

The Mystery of BOcare Continues

I.R.S. Bars Employers From Dumping Workers Into Health Exchanges - NYTimes.com:

I can't understand what this article really says and I'm not sure that anyone can ... thus the continuing saga of manufactured uncertainty that craters business operations and individual planning in the current BO States of Amerika.

Many employers had thought they could shift health costs to the government by sending their employees to a health insurance exchange with a tax-free contribution of cash to help pay premiums, but the Obama administration has squelched the idea in a new ruling. Such arrangements do not satisfy Recent and archival news about healthcare reform.">health care law the administration said, and employers may be subject to a tax penalty of $100 a day — or $36,500 a year — for each employee who goes into the individual marketplace.

It seemed a certainty the way that the law was written that business would have little choice BUT to "dump employees onto the exchanges" since it would exchange a known fixed cost for a completely UNkown but growing future liability.  This was assumed to be the main reason that "the employer mandate" was delayed until late this year in hopes that the fallout of the 75% of Americans that have been covered under their employers finding that they no longer had coverage would be unhappy and vote accordingly ... the "other shoe" of the "if you like your healthcare you can keep it" lie of the year last year.

Andrew R. Biebl, a tax partner at CliftonLarsonAllen, a large accounting firm based in Minneapolis, said the ruling could disrupt arrangements used in many industries.
“For decades,” Mr. Biebl said, “employers have been assisting employees by reimbursing them for health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs. The new federal ruling eliminates many of those arrangements by imposing an unusually punitive penalty.”
When an employer reimburses employees for premiums, the arrangement is known as an employer payment plan. “These employer payment plans are considered to be group health plans,” the I.R.S. said, but they do not satisfy requirements of the Affordable Care Act.

Ok, so what has been working for 75% of the people for decades is now "not allowed", but what is?? At least I think we can all understand the following:

In a new regulation, the Department of Health and Human Services said it would provide financial assistance to certain insurers that experience unexpected financial losses this year. Administration officials hope the payments will stabilize premiums and prevent rate increases
 that could embarrass Democrats in this year’s midterm elections.

Certainly "The Party" (TP -- Democrat) doesn't want anything "that could embarrass Democrats in this year’s midterm elections." !! THAT we DO understand!! So there should be some major league payola to "do whatever it takes" to keep TP in as much power as possible! No matter what the costs to business and the 75% of folks that were doing just fine with healthcare prior to the BOcare fiasco!

So as near as I can tell, business and the rest of us are supposed to be left enough in the dark so that we don't discover the BIG LIE of BOcare screwing up healthcare for 75% of the people that used to be covered under their employers plans!
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BO Outs ACTUAL Covert CIA Agent

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/white-house-mistakenly-identifies-cia-chief-in-afghanistan/2014/05/25/ac8e80cc-e444-11e3-8f90-73e071f3d637_story.html

The disclosure marked a rare instance in which a CIA officer working overseas had his cover — the secrecy meant to protect his actual identity — pierced by his own government. The only other recent case came under significantly different circumstances, when former CIA operative Valerie Plame was exposed as officials of the George W. Bush administration sought to discredit her husband, a former ambassador and fierce critic of the decision to invade Iraq.

Well, slight differences: 

• Plame was in US driving in to CIA HQ at Langley every day, she was NOT undercover!
• She was NOT "exposed"  at all, she was NOT undercover!! Her name coming out was completely unrelated to any "attempt to discredit her husband". Not that it would take any work to "discredit him", his "report" to the CIA was 180 degrees at odds with what he published in the New Yorker!  The whole "discredit / punish his wife" was a media / TP fabrication that was in fact proven false by all the Special Council crap ...  the person that "inadvertently gave her  name"  was Richard Armitage, State Department  --

Somehow I'm absolutely positive that we can count on .00001% the interest in the BO link to ACTUALLY outing a covert CIA agent (a Federal Crime, 10 years in the slammer!), but it is clear that we can count on them for the same factual level of reporting!

Republicans Aren't American

More on “Republicans Aren’t American!” | Power Line:

This latest screech from Dean the Scream hasn't got all that much coverage -- likely so that the next time some Republican says something "uncivil", THAT can be reported to show how nasty the "right wing" is.

A couple points:

• Roosevelt points out "fascist", which of course is LEFT wing (National SOCIALIST Party, aka Nazi). He would have been more accurate having found himself a mirror, not that accuracy was ever one of his considerations. 
• None of the modern Republicans, even the Tea Party, are all that "right wing", meaning "small government". Sure, they don't want all healthcare to be less desirable than current VAcare, they would like to do something about yearly deficits of  close to $1T and they would like to see some sort of plan to make the current unfunded liability of $60T+ for FICA and Medicare square up eventually. Yes, that is what one calls "radical" these days, but it is FAR from anything that could even be imagined as "limited government".

So the latest Dean Scream will be mostly ignored in the press and the next time a Republican says anything less then fully worshipful of his holiness BO, they will be labeled "racist and reactionary" ... or just plain crazy.

Welcome to what used to be "America", 2014 edition.





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VAcare, BOcare? Are We Oblivious?

The Scandal at the VA Is Real, and Obama Is Ducking It - The Daily Beast:

There seems to be a certain lack of ability to make the obvious connection here. I thought we already had government health care for millions of our most honored, our veterans. I thought it was called the VA?

Isn't the VA an example of totally government managed health care that is SUPPOSED to be especially GOOD because it is provided to our veterans who risked their lives in defense of the nation and often suffered horrible wounds and other medical problems as a result???

Please tell me I'm wrong here, but if the VA, which has been around since the Civil War is so bad and so corrupt that 40+ veterans have DIED on the waiting list while the agency is busily trying to cover up how bad things are, while the erstwhile supposed leader of our nation finds out about problems on the NEWS,  what would the expectation of BOcare be??

I believe that anyone with their eyes open at all can already see. Constant delays in even getting a marginally operational website, sign ups well below projections, millions of people losing the healthcare they already had, costs way above projections, portions of the program delayed, and constant unconstitutional shifts in the law by executive fiat.  The list of woe is ALREADY is long and very nasty.

The VA has been around for 150 years! These problems are NOT "startup pains", they are part and parcel of bloated and out of control government bureaucracy that are well understood and have happened in EVERY government since at least the Roman Empire and were a SIGNIFICANT reason that America was founded with LIMITED GOVERNMENT. The list of things that government does "well" is pretty much "National defense, a common currency and a system of laws to protect private property and individual rights"!!

There are a number of reasons why limiting government is a VERY good thing!:

1. It produces vastly substandard quality of service
2. It is vastly more expensive
3. It is not responsive and in fact spends the majority of it's time covering it's failures and general corruption. 
4. It's primary function is GROWTH of itself and consolidation of it's power. 
5. Ultimately, unchecked government results in totalitarian control and/or the destruction of the nation that was so foolish to believe yet again in the siren song of "more stuff for me with someone else picking up the tab".

Folks, this is not rocket science! It ALWAYS happens! Maybe later, maybe it seems "hidden" (like the USSR for 70 years), but look at our balance sheet, look at what is happening over and over (IRS, NSA, Benghazi, Gun Runner, journalist records, etc). All we have to do is have our eyes open and THINK for OURSELVES just a TINY bit! Ignore the MSM weasels, they are just the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party (TP "The Party") anyway!

It seems that it is too late. Are neither we or our tiny remaining adversary media able to look at VAcare and BOcare and make the OBVIOUS connection!

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Cultural Euthanasia : Killing Memes, Amherst

History of biological warfare - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

Ran into a cultural meme being spread in our schools that has at least some basis in fact. APPARENTLY (I'm not going to take the time to look into this in detail) some BRITISH forces "knowingly" used blankets exposed to smallpox to purposely kill Indians. (the germ theory of disease was less well accepted than Global Warming currently is in the 17th-18th centuries, so "knowingly" is a stretch).

The meme is being spread in our schools as "AMERICANS purposely used exposure to smallpox to exterminate Indians". It came out as a "defense" of Islam's 9-11 attack and the potential of Islam using germ warfare against the West (possibly after having developed an antidote to either covertly inoculate their people a-priori, or to at least partially do so).

A few points need to be made:

• ALL people and cultures are at best a MIX of "good and evil". 
• Current media, past media, historians, educators, etc "pick and choose" what small percentage of the myriad of available "facts", "stories", "myths", "folk wisdom", "dreams", "analysis", etc will be poured into the mush that young people have to use as brains. 
• Current Arab schooling includes teaching their kids that "the Holocaust is a myth", along with the superiority of Islam, the Arab world view, the abuses heaped on their people by the Jews, the West, etc. 
• We actually USED to revere our Founders, the Constitution, even Columbus, "Western Civilization", Christianity, and the "American Dream". (how nasty of us!) 
• "Accuracy" in culture is and always will be WAY less settled than something simple like "Is the planet warming or cooling, and for extra credit, why?". 
• "Success" and "Accuracy" in things like culture have a very low, and possibly negative correlation. The same is true of individuals -- virtually everyone thinks that they are an above average driver, have above average intelligence, etc, AND it turns out that people with those very natural human beliefs turn out to be happier, better adjusted, have more friends, live longer, etc than those who have more "rational" (statistically valid) beliefs about their driving, intelligence, looks, etc. 

I find it questionable if any culture in human history has been so quick to pull out the negative cultural meme weapon, point it directly at their most vulnerable cultural location (their kids), turn it on "auto", and initiate steady fire at their own culture and country! 

In the thousands of years of human history there are many thousands of incidents of absolutely abominable pieces of behavior by individuals, tribes, religions, countries, areas, etc. On balance, one would have a very difficult time finding a nation that is on balance "BETTER" than at least the US was historically, and would have ZERO trouble finding thousands and thousands of WORSE cases ... this BTW includes treatment of "indigenous peoples" (see Genghis Khan for just one example) and slavery (See past and current Africa, current sex slavery, etc) . 

The aggressive euthanization of American culture by the left has to stand as the greatest destruction of a civilization since the Roman Empire! Perhaps once we turned to our own Holocaust of mass abortion of our most vulnerable, our suicide was just a matter of time. If you will willingly and legally kill your unborn, perhaps poisoning the minds of your youth is just par for the course.

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Lake Superior Still Has Ice

Lake Superior Still Has Ice! | WOODTV.com Blogs:

Remember all the hand wringing on Lake Superior water levels being low due to Global Warming. I love the following quote:

"The Great Lakes in a lot of ways have always been a canary in the coal mine," Cameron Davis, the senior adviser to the U.S. EPA on the Great Lakes, said last week. "Not just for the region or this country, but for the rest of the world."

Well, they are now back to their historical average, and I don't think we need to worry much about HIGH temps in the lake this summer!

Please do your OWN climate thinking!

1. If the great lakes are a "climate canary" in ONE direction, can "settled scientists" figure out that it must work in the OTHER direction as well? 
2. If this was record EARLY ice out, do you think you would have heard about it? 
3. When they try to re-brand to "Climate Change" ... "Oh, we MEANT that it would just oscillate quicker", go back and read some of their "settled pronouncements" ... that is NOT what they said, the linked "canary article" is a good example.

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Thank Fox News Obama is Aware (Now)

White House says Obama only learned of VA wait-list scandal on TV (just like the IRS, Fast and Furious and reporter snooping scandals) | Mail Online:

I can't verify that the specific source for BO to find out about all these scandals was Fox, but let's face it, the rest of the MSM isn't very interested on reporting on anything that doesn't reflect positively on the Great and Powerful BO!

So he discovered the VA situation by listening to the news as well as the IRS scandal, DoJ seizing reporters phone records and his own plane doing low passes over Manhattan ! Those are the ones that he PUBLICLY CLAIMS  he "only saw on the news".

It is very hard to even remotely imagine what kind of a massive joke a Republican president who constantly "only heard it on the news" would be.

Perhaps the government ought to send Fox the same amount  of subsidy they send Public TV and radio considering how ill informed our chief executive would apparently be without Fox!

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Good AGW Summary

President Obama's Global Warming Calculated Deception Means Democrats Have Abandoned Working People:

Since Global Warming is a political construct, as it becomes more and more evident that it is a hoax, the perpetrators that make a very tidy living off the fun house which they want to force us all to live in go into maximum double down. We may have just had the coldest 12 month period in "recorded US climate" No doubt less cold than "the little ice age" from 1750 to 1850 ... unsurprisingly, our records start at about the end of that and (SURPRISE!) show some warming!!!

The linked article is excellent and wanted to have it out here for future reference, the part that I thought it put in a bit of perspective is the current "sky is falling!" (in 200 years) assessment of sea level rising 6.6 FEET due to the West Antarctic ice sheet "falling apart".

Sea level has been rising, in fact, since the end of the last ice age, 12,000 years ago! But there has been no acceleration in the rate of that sea level rise for at least 200 years, as accurately reported at the Hockey Schtick website on May 6. Over that past 200 years, the long term, stable sea level rise has averaged a mere 6.6 inches per century, as measured by major tidal gauge studies. Yet, the Obama Administration’s National Climate Assessment tries to tell us that global sea levels could rise by as much as 6.6 feet by 2100, which would be 12 times the current long term average rate over the last 200 years! Moreover, a 2014 peer-reviewed study just published by Cazenave et al finds the rate of sea level rise has decelerated by 31% since 2002. That is consistent with a slightglobal cooling trend since that time, which some senior scientists predict could last decades. Are you seeing the calculated deception now?

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97% Climate Change Consensus Explained

Breaking: The “97 Percent Climate Consensus” Canard | Power Line

Basically, "If you are the kind of person that likes that kind of thing, this is the kind of thing you are going to like!"

1/3 of all climate change papers directly endorse human caused global warming, eg AGW--Anthropogenic Global Warming.  Of the people that WRITE THOSE PAPERS, 97.5  are in agreement on AGW!

Talk about good way to pick your sample! I wonder what percentage of Scientists that are Concealed Carry permit holders in MN believe that Concealed Carry should be legal? See, you could do that survey and say "99.999% of Scientists believe CC should be legal" and you would be on just as good a ground as the 97% figure!

If you want to understand why even quoting a "poll number" is absolute proof you are not practicing science, see http://shar.es/VfcZF.

Why is it again that I recommend being skeptical of the government and the press?
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#BringBackOurBalls :: SteynOnline

#BringBackOurBalls :: SteynOnline:



A more appropriate # than Mrs BO.



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Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class

Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class: Ian Haney López: 9780199964277: Amazon.com: Books:

Shortly after I was married I realized that my wife read bags of  "romance novels", so thought maybe I ought to read one to see what was up. What I learned is that men will never understand women, and vice-versa -- the wiring is simply different.

From time to time I read some books with a far left / "liberal" bias and have much the same experience -- the world views presented are simply too far apart for someone of a Christian / Conservative / Western Civilization / White / etc perspective to fully understand what is being presented.

I can only try however, so I'll do my best to cover what this author appears to be thinking / saying, but I can fully imagine someone that is far left / radically liberal / Black / etc just not being able to understand what I am saying in any real way.

For starters, one could read "What's the Matter With Kansas" -  it's all about "fake" social wedge issues",  or "Don't Think of an Elephant" - it's all about "bad" frames of thought,  and then slide into "Dog Whistle Politics" (DWP) -- it's all about race!!

So I kinda like the Dog Whistle Politics, DWP acronym, it could also stand for "Driving With Pallor" ;-)

The idea of DWP is that very nearly ANYTHING said by someone that doesn't follow the complete "New Deal / Progressive" dogma can be labeled as "coded racism", and thus discounted. Kind of like a "dog whistle" that is at a frequency that only the dogs can hear. With DWP, the myriad of "coded appeals" are only heard by the "dogs" (racists) ... only sometimes, maybe most times, even the "racists" don't know what they are hearing, but still react to it as the "coders" intend.

So "Welfare Reform" is racist -- because it is REALLY about giving less to Blacks. "Tough on Crime" is racist because it is REALLY about putting more Blacks in jail. Oh,  Blacks don't commit any more crimes than anyone else -- the reason they have a higher incarceration rate is, DEFINITELY racism, and it is like Global Warming, Gay Rights, or a host of other things -- if you claim to "think differently", you are stupid, evil or both! Oh, and likely RACIST!

... for race constitutes the dark magic by which middle-class voters have been convinced to turn government over to the wildly affluent, notwithstanding the harm this does to themselves. This book’s primary goal is to grab the attention of middle-class readers, white and nonwhite alike, to awaken them to the importance of race to their fate. We will not pull government back to the side of the broad middle until we confront the power of racial politics.

In order to understand the above, you have to understand the liberal brain a bit. There is NO HOPE for "the middle class" outside of radical continuance and acceleration of "New Deal / Progressive Politics"! The government MUST transfer wealth from the more successful to the less successful! There is no other way that "helps the middle class". (getting a job is a really a stupid idea)

If you think anything else -- like culture, work ethic, two parent families, competitiveness, the incentive of people being able to keep what they make, ANYTHING other than progressive dogma, then this book says you are either racist or the victim of DWP making you act against your interests without knowing why. ("conservatives fooling people" is a major theme of this book as well as "Kansas" and "Elephant")

 "Kansas" said that "false wedge issues" like abortion, gay marriage, etc caused people to "vote against their interests", "Elephant" says that it is "clever framing", but ALL are completely agreed that "progressive" politics is 100% in the interest of the middle class -- pay no attention to the fact that except for the short period after WWII where we were the only standing economic power on the planet, the "progressive" approach has brought the "middle class" nothing but consistent decline! (see LBJ, Carter and now BO)

This makes racial dog whistling a more complicated phenomenon than other sorts of surreptitious politics . It involves, as we shall see, three basic moves : a punch that jabs race into the conversation through thinly veiled references to threatening nonwhites, for instance to welfare cheats or illegal aliens; a parry that slaps away charges of racial pandering, often by emphasizing the lack of any direct reference to a racial group or any use of an epithet ; and finally a kick that savages the critic for opportunistically alleging racial victimization.

The cool thing about DWP is that ANYTHING can be labeled a "code", so rather than have to discuss nasty things like issues, results, alternatives, etc, the politician merely has to claim that your distaste for "Sharia Law", "Voter ID", "Immigration Policy", "Welfare", "Higher Taxes", ANYTHING is in fact a "coded dog whistle" that proves you are a RACIST! (so SHUT THE F**K UP! ... the standard "progressive" argument)

So to parse what is said above:
 1). You make a claim that "people that vote ought to have an ID" -- the DWP expert will label that your "punch".

2). The DWP guy "calls you out", tells you that you are using "coded racist appeals, so why don't you just say "N**R", because that is what you mean!" ... You, being a racist "dog whistler" of course will try to claim something lame  like "having people vote legally has nothing to do with race". The fact you tried to defend yourself is further proof you are a racist!

3). The KICK ... you may try to say something like "What the hell is going on? I talked about voter ID, you called me a racist, and now the discussion is supposed to be stopped because of the charge you made up? How can we have a discussion at all if everything is supposed to be about race?" ... which clearly PROVES you are a racist and are following a template laid down by Nixon in "The Souther Strategy". So there!

... to ensure broad prosperity government has four crucial roles to play: first, to help people weather the vicissitudes that easily plunge families into poverty, for instance job loss or ill health ; second, to provide escalators of upward mobility, such as quality schooling, higher education, and mortgage assistance; third, to build the nation’s infrastructure, thus laying the groundwork for the next great economic boom; and fourth, to rein in marketplace abuses through regulation , and to prevent excessive concentrations of wealth through progressive taxation.

The above is the core belief of the authors of this and the two other books I mention. GOVERNMENT is what does it all -- not culture, not capitalism, not technical expertise and competition, and certainly not entrepreneurship and innovation! NOPE, as BO let us know nobody does ANYTHING without MASSIVE help from the government! The people that deny that are "reactionaries", and usually racists (maybe always -- some of them may just not know/admit it yet). For the "progressive", just replace the Judaeo / Christian God with "government", and I believe that is pretty much their universe ... "Government is great, Government is good, we thank it for our daily bread ..."

What these three books say is that the quote above is obvious and totally true. To deny it is evil, just like denying Global Warming or Gay "marriage" (or lately not being just completely celebratory of a public gay kiss) ... there is simply no other way to think, and if you claim there is, then racist is one of the charges that can validly be leveled against you ... "coded hate speech", which may not be quite a crime yet, but if you read this book, it is very clear that it should be!

I DID read this book to the end ... I have a ton of highlights and notes from the entire book, but I've actually more than covered it here in it's particulars. What I didn't cover is the relentless grinding view that "it is all about race" and NOTHING about culture! Which often had me thinking in diatribe after diatribe of a few points:

• While other minorities ... Hispanic, Chinese, Japanese, etc are touched on, it is only in tiny and in fairly tenuous ways on specifics that would tie them to Blacks (eg the Japanese internment) What is NOT discussed is how all of the above have been FAR more generally successful in the US and elsewhere than Blacks due to CULTURE, not race! (more successful than whites too!)
  
• The focus on racism would make MUCH more sense if Africa was a model of great success to the planet yet Blacks in this country were struggling. Since that is NOT the case, it appears that although this author would STRONGLY argue that "race is primary", the real answer is in fact that culture and system of governance are what matter.
  
• I'd argue that Western Civilization, China, India, South Korea, East and West Germany (prior to unification), Hong Kong and on and on give us MANY examples of the importance of Culture and System of Government (and very clear differences due to System of Government with THE SAME racial/cultural content as in Germany), but NONE indicating that race is primary! This book seeks take a known failed government system (Socialism, which is the correct name for "progressivism) and to try change the subject to race for any that would question the guaranteed success of Socialism! (which has of course failed miserably again and again)

People need to be aware that this book (and the other two) exist in order to be aware of the basic dishonesty of the approaches, and to be prepared to be attacked by some who find this a way to cut off  discussion.

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Paying BO Works! GM $35 Million vs Toyota $1.2 Billion

GM to pay maximum $35 million fine for recall delay:

As I pointed out back in only March, I was pretty certain that GM CEO Mary Berra being a regular BO contributor and sitting with the First Lady at the SOTU was a good sign that GM would do MUCH better in the government intervention into their arguably much more serious and longer standing safety/recall issue than Toyota. There are lots of things you can do when your car starts "suddenly accelerating" (turn off the key, shove it in neutral, stand on the brake to name a few ...) ... when the key falls out, the column locks, and the engine goes dead on a corner at 60? Not so long a list!

WOW, was I right, and QUICK! I would have thought that BO and company would at least want to drag this puppy out until after this November, but I guess this is a solid indicator of just how much TP (THE Party, Democrat and MSM cronies) have the information cycle fully locked up. I suppose the other side is when you are shaking down your contributors, it is good to point out how well you take care of those that pay the man!

I can't even imagine the kind of legal fees this saved GM ... likely close to the amount of the Toyota settlement. Those lawyers like to GET PAID! ... and they have every right to it, they run the show as president, legislators, courts, and both sides of every legal dispute! Sweet! It makes the Mob seem like a bunch of schleps! They can only rough up or kill their adversaries ILLEGALLY, lawyers can take their money, jail them and even have them executed LEGALLY! Hey, it USED to be a free country, but we gave our liberties to the lawyers and now they have their way with us.

So how effective are well placed campaign contributions? Well in this case, unless Mary and company spent over $1.2B greasing BOs palms, they made out like BANDITS, because even not counting legal fees, their hit ought to have put Toyota's $1.2B to shame! Instead, they walk away with hardly a corporate "eye roll" at $35M!

Way to go GM! Bidness is bidness!

'via Blog this'

The BO Retreat Progresses

 China defiant as US warns over sea row with Vietnam - Channel NewsAsia:

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/barack-obamas-legacy-problem-nation-retreat-10453

Both nature and nations deplore a vacuum, so it doesn't stay around long.

The current Socialist States of Obama is reminiscent of the old Superman movie where Superman decides to give up his exceptional abilities to get the girl, and of course gets beat up, plus no longer able to save the world -- duh.

Russia, Syria, China, Iran,  ... and no doubt Pakistan,  Saudi Arabia, and lots of more minor players ... eg Venezuela are all feeling like it is "Power Christmas", and there will be more. The US is right where BO wants us -- in the prison yard in pretty pink shorts holding our ankles. Will we be "loved"? Well, in once sense of the word, certainly!

Needless to say, many around the world and here at home are currently very happy about the prostration of the US. BO is obviously pleased -- "The Dreams from His Father" is nearly fully achieved. A once great nation has been brought low. That is an achievement that any "Citizen of the World" is sure to be proud of. We were mean to Indians and Blacks, we clearly deserve whatever treatment we get!

At least we don't have to be concerned about the eternal question of "will they respect us in the morning".

Don't worry, they don't.

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When Robert E. Lee Met John Brown and Saved the Union - The Daily Beast

When Robert E. Lee Met John Brown and Saved the Union - The Daily Beast:





Yet another book to read. I love the description of Lee in the article, a man could do much worse!

“a foe without hate, a friend without treachery, a soldier without cruelty, a victor without oppression . . . a Caesar, without his ambition, Frederick, without his tyranny, Napoleon without his selfishness, and Washington, without his reward.”

The article covers a lot of the ironic particulars of John Browns raid at Harpers Ferry ... Robert E Lee being called on to command the force to deal with Brown, J.E.B. Stuart taking him the message and assisting him in the action, George Washington's great grand nephew being one of Brown's hostages, both "Stonewall" Jackson and John Wilkes Booth being in the crowd t the execution of Brown, and a few others.



Well worth the read --- and having not yet read a biography of Lee, it could be that this is the one!







'via Blog this'

Why The Moose is Fat (In addition to the obvious)

Why We Get Fat and What to do about it

It appears it may be at least in part essentially for the same reason that I froze on my SW Gold Wing trip. I'M GULLIBLE!

I've been a firm believer that it was 100% my fault due to "gluttony and sloth", although since I work out for an hour 4-5 days a week, it was never "heavy sloth". I certainly enjoy my food and have a good appetite, but nothing out of the ordinary -- I've known many much more slender folks that could out eat me.  I really saw no other option beyond 100% self blame (I'm not a martyr),  neither parent was heavy, it pretty much had to be gluttony and sloth!

Now I read a book that makes a pretty good case that Global Warming is far from being the only scam being run on us! This book goes WELL down the way of PROVING it is a scam, and why. It extensively covers how we went from completely understanding that carbohydrates and sugars cause insulin to rise which causes our bodies to store fat, to forgetting that fact, telling everyone to replace fats and protein with grains, and then saying that if they were fat it HAD to be due to some mix of 1). Gluttony (eating too much) or 2). Sloth (not burning enough calories)

This book makes an EXCELLENT case with statistical documentation, biology, and common sense that too many carbohydrates is GOING to make most people fat, and it is impossible to burn off and keep off fat by exercise. Raise your carb intake and the body stores fat. Try to exercise, and your body is going to demand you eat more and/or make you tired so you burn less calories. The author finds it no coincidence at all that our "obesity epidemic" got under way pretty much as soon as we went ton the "low fat / increase exercise" bandwagon. NOTE -- He makes very clear that being active is good for OTHER reasons, just not for losing weight!

The message of eighty years of research on obese animals is simple and unconditional and worth restating: obesity does not come about because gluttony and sloth make it so; only a change in the regulation of the fat tissue makes a lean animal obese.
Taubes, Gary (2010-12-28). Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It (Kindle Locations 1486-1488). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

There is A LOT of evidence like this in the book ... for humans and animals.

There is also a lot of information like this that WE ALL need to keep at the VERY FRONT of our minds. Humans do science, and humans are VERY fallible!

A more insidious problem is that all involved— the researchers, the physicians, the public-health authorities, the health associations—commit themselves to a belief early in the evolution of the science, arguably at the stage at which they know the least about it , and then they become so invested in their belief that no amount of evidence to the contrary can convince them that they’re wrong.
Taubes, Gary (2010-12-28). Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It (Kindle Locations 2725-2727). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Scientists getting the idea that the planet is warming due to CO2 early on in there research --- nah, no evidence of that !

I was struck rather hard by the following personally, having religiously worked out 40-60min a day 4-5 days a week for 30+ years and having consistently had low HDL(the good cholesterol), a significant risk for heart attack, but having NEVER been told the obvious following fact by my doctor:

When you replace fat in your diet, even saturated fat, with carbohydrates, you lower your HDL, which means you make it more likely that you’ll have a heart attack, at least by this predictor of risk. Once again, if you give up scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast and replace them with cornflakes, skim milk, and bananas, your HDL cholesterol, your “good” cholesterol, will go down, and your heart-attack risk will go up. If you’re currently eating cereal, skim milk, and bananas and switch instead to eggs and bacon, your HDL cholesterol will go up, and your heart-attack risk will go down.
Taubes, Gary (2010-12-28). Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It (Kindle Locations 2759-2763). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

You may ask, "Oh, come on, why would a physician not give someone clearly beneficial possibly life saving information if they knew about it? " How about this?

Physicians who tell their fat patients to eat less and exercise more, and particularly to eat the kind of low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet that the authorities recommend, will not be sued for malpractice should any of those patients have a heart attack two weeks or even two months later. The doctor who goes against established medical convention and prescribes carbohydrate restriction has no such safeguard.
Taubes, Gary (2010-12-28). Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It (Kindle Locations 3200-3204). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 

Think about Global Warming -- if you start going against the "approved message" and you are in science or some related area, you become a "Denier" and ALL your judgement is called into question! If you are a Dr, it is WORSE, you may well be sued for malpractice and LOSE even though you are actually following true science rather than the current government funded "established medical convention".

So I enjoyed my bacon and eggs for breakfast this AM with no toast. I'm not going to "zero carbs", but I'm going to take a shot. I have a yearly physical coming up in early July where they always do blood work, so we shall see if there is any HDL improvement by then. I remember years ago when my LDL number showed up a little bad giving up ice cream as a common late night snack and going to cereal -- lovely. Both my weight and my numbers certainly got worse at that point, but the message was "must be age, or you are not working out enough"!

Why do I feel kind of like I did when I got caught in snow at Flagstaff all of a sudden?

In the meantime, please don't believe everything that ANYONE (even me) tells you, but ESPECIALLY not what Government / Academia / The Party (TP) tells you!!!

Regulating the Internet, "Net Neutrality" Rears it's Head

GOP lawmakers urge FCC to ditch effort to regulate Internet | Fox News:



The last set of rules that BO's FCC tried to slither through was struck down in January, but like the Terminator, they're back!

The FCC will hold a preliminary vote on the rules at Thursday's meeting. Wheeler aims to have a set of rules in place by year's end. An earlier set of rules from 2010 was struck down by an appeals court in January after Verizon challenged them.

We see the fundamental motion of the rise of totalitarianism here -- "Progressivism" is simply "More Government Control" ... it is about POWER for the elites and  TP "The Party" (really very very close to one in the same at this point). 



Al Franken has been EXTREMELY excited about "Net Neutrality" since shortly after he oozed into office with a margin of 315 freshly manufactures votes.


Neutral to whom"? Well, whoever "the government" increasingly TP (The Party ... Democrat") decides to be "neutral" to, since all the power all the time in agencies like the FCC, IRS, NSA, etc  is with TP, because all the workers are good AFSCME union folks. It gives TP a lot of benefit -- kickbacks to guys like Al, the ability to "help their folks" to make things "look right" from TP perspective, and eventually, if they are careful and crafty, control of the information content of the web!



Google and Wiki only and always bring you a view of "facts" completely sanctioned by TP! To Franken, Nirvana! No more embarrassing YouTubes of BO being the fool, no more charts that show Global Warming to be questionable at best, no more comparisons of BO's job record with Reagan's ... why, everyone would get along perfectly! Even better, if they don't, they "disappear" and if you look them up, they never existed!



Ending the USSR and giving America a 30 year economic 2nd chance were both HUGE things that Reagan accomplished, but being able to rescind "the fairness doctrine" may have been in the long run the biggest actual piece of hope he gave America. It gave rise to conservative talk radio and Fox News -- the opposition being able to be heard in mass media, which was GIGANTIC for children being aware that there were other ways of looking at the world than those sanctioned by TP through it's education system and once it's fully controlled media! I for one essentially didn't know such a thing as "conservatism" as anything but pure evil even existed until I stumbled on to National Review and Ayn Rand AFTER college.



But TP is relentless -- it wants Fox and Talk Radio shut down, and it wants the net to become "neutral" -- basically regulated to be another propaganda wing, SLOWLY of course! Don't want the sheep to get started!

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Party On Dude! Ocean Rise Inevitable!

Scientists Warn of Rising Oceans From Polar Melt - NYTimes.com:

I wonder how many Warmists will have to be rescued from being frozen in at the N Pole this summer? Guess we will have to wait for December or so for more intrepid geniuses to test the validity of their theories in the present at the S Pole. At least they have 200 years in the future SOLVED!

In the meantime they keep plastering this all over:

A large section of the mighty West Antarctica ice sheet has begun falling apart and its continued melting now appears to be unstoppable, two groups of scientists reported on Monday. If the findings hold up, they suggest that the melting could destabilize neighboring parts of the ice sheet and a rise in sea level of 10 feet or more may be unavoidable in coming centuries.

The same scientists that have said that Global Warming / Climate Change / Climate Disruption (appears to be the latest branding!) is SETTLED have now said IT IS UNSTOPPABLE!!

Whew, that is GREAT NEWS! There is nothing we can do! In a couple centuries it is GOING to happen!

Mankind has always been SUPER at making predictions 200 years in the future. Why, I personally remember thinking that 2001 A Space Odyssey was a bit on the pessimistic side relative to AI and space travel. An awful lot of people did. There have been a LOT of "certainties" predicted even 50 years in advance -- being out of oil, mass starvation, everyone having flying cars, vacations on Mars ... the list is long, and somewhat embarrassing.

But no, as we freeze our way through our second "record setting cold spring", after a previous record setter last year, and a record setting cold winter, these guys are ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN of what is going to happen 200 years in the future! (they are still quite vague on the weather next week, go figure)

So now that these "settled" guys have declared it is UNSTOPPABLE, why waste time and resources trying to stop it? We don't want to be "Deniers" do we?

I'm with them this time. It is settled, there is nothing we can do. Party On!

'via Blog this'

Liberalism's Wet Kiss

Liberalism and the NBA locker room | Power Line:

Couple of good descriptive quotes here on understanding "liberalism", which in the modern 1984 tradition of course is really totalitarianism, because our words now often mean the opposite of what they once did.

Actually you can, and have it make perfect sense once you understand that modern liberalism isn’t about inclusiveness or preventing people from being offended. Modern liberalism has established a pecking order in which the rights and feelings of some groups trump the rights and feelings of others (often women), and in which the feelings of the group Wise belongs to are irrelevant.

Modern "liberalism" -- totalitarianism, is about POWER. Power to select what is right, wrong, appropriate, inappropriate, etc and to MAKE YOU CARE! Once, morality was a function of Religion, and that worked because the entire social structure, which was following the natural law also enforced morality. God was top, Government was next, the tribe/group/parish, Dad / Grandpa on the fathers side in the family and then you -- from cradle to the point you were the family patriarch if you were a male of certain order, to grave if not.

Sexist yes, but as the civilization crumbles around us, at least Christians will eventually understand that the whole thing was wired to work that way by the creator from Adam and Eve. We know Christianity will survive, because the Church and the Word will stand. But if I'm wrong and it was all due to accident on top of accident to the 10 to the 100th or more without any meaning? Well, then it is all meaningless anyway. I'm thankful that all that randomness generated a religion that counting Judaism and Christianity together lasted 5K+ years so I could have that supremely unlikely "illusion of meaning"! Wow, I really beat the odds!

ANYONE doing a wet kiss in public ala Michael Sam was always somewhat cringe-worthy.  A same sex couple (especially men, humans have always been loaded with biological double standards) doing it was disgusting at a visceral level, and recognized as so.  As modern brain researchers now know, even for the supposed "enlightened", it actually still is! Even the "enlightened" (subservient?) have to fight their impulse (we can watch it on a brain scan), put there by their creator (or millions of years of evolution, take your pick, it is there) to try their best to fit in with what the current power structure is telling them they MUST do!

This is the level of totalitarianism of the Holocaust! They can FORCE us to go against nature in order for us to be part of their power structure!  You WILL ignore the killing of the Jews or two males wet kissing or you WILL pay the price! Pay no attention to the fact you KNOW in your gut and soul that it is wrong! They  DEMAND that we obey the new order! Sig Heil!

Once we buy into this, we are OWNED, since we have suppressed our natural God-given internal compass and are then sheep waiting for direction from our masters!  We are already bowing down to our new lords as we force ourselves to stay silent as the bile rises in our very gut! We accept our spot in the pecking order. Gay, very high. Black, right up there. Woman, pretty darned good, even if white.

Republican? If Black, you have committed complete social suicide! Same for women. DON'T THINK THAT WAY!

White male -- so low that you can only get along if you follow complete subservience to the totalitarian demands.  Step out of line even so much that you question BO, or music in an NBA locker than says the Nword, and you may be validly ostracized by any with sanction from THE PARTY! (Sig Heil!)

Christian? Well, you have to be "the right kind" -- and VERY silent when it comes to the "gay issue". That one has become a true litmus test, and we will see it used to attack churches and individuals who refuse to fully bow to the new overlords for years to come. The process of defining just how deep you must bow to THE PARTY is still being fully defined, but I think the outlines are very clear.

Once you are willing to go against what you know in your own soul to be right and wrong, you are LOST at a new level beyond what we are all lost without Christ.We were once "One Nation under God", now we are a pitiful set of interest groups fighting over scraps of nothing as our nation and culture collapses around us.







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4 Foot Sea Rise is CERTAIN!

Antarctic glaciers melting 'past point of no return':



There you have it. Done deal, settled science! Just take that to the bank and wait for 200 years, and it WILL happen!



The weather next week? Oh, maybe freeze, be 70's, snow, rain, or be dry. Somehow it is just MUCH harder to "settle" that! Gee, I wonder why??



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Boku Haram, Freedom, Terrorism

Ruth Wisse: The Closing of the Collegiate Mind - WSJ.com:

Many that read this blog will recall that my favorite book outside the Bible is "The Closing of the American Mind" ... looking back in the blog I realize that it is time for me to re-read that book and do a blog on it. Here is a link to a column and discussion somewhat similar to this from last year for some background if interested.

The theme here is the ongoing destruction of Western Civilization, with the University being ground zero for the destruction of big L LIBERAL thought (allowing difficult, unpopular, ancient and often uncomfortable ideas to be discussed openly in the interests of true intellectual freedom. TRUE DIVERSITY, that of THOUGHT!)

But today, the university is on the side of Boku Haram:

Assaults on intellectual and political freedom have been making headlines. Pressure from faculty egged on by Muslim groups induced Brandeis University last month not to grant Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the proponent of women's rights under Islam, an intended honorary degree at its convocation.

The US left has no problems hammering on Christianity for any views on abortion, gay marriage, etc which the left dislikes, but it REALLY hates to see the US be critical of Islam in ANY way -- even Hillary's State Department couldn't bring themselves to admit that Boku Haram was a terrorist organization.

I love Ruth's closing paragraph. If we lived in a country with a free press, everyone ought to understand the links between American universities being fine with Islam not educating girls, the State Department being unwilling to go after an organization that obviously is a danger to girls seeking education, and that overall corruption of freedom of thought in our country. Something that was once a shared American value!

In short, let the university become as contentious as Congress. In Nigeria, Islamists think nothing of seizing hundreds of schoolgirls for the crime of aspiring to an education. Here in the United States, the educated class thinks nothing of denying an honorary degree to a fearless Muslim woman who at peril of her life, and in the name of liberal democracy, has insisted on exposing such outrages to the light. The struggle for freedom is universal; would that our universities were on its side.

Indeed. It would be nice to have the US State Department on the side of freedom as well!



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High Taxes *DO* Fix Income Inequality!

http://blog.heritage.org/2014/05/11/american-companies-escaping-europe/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

I DO believe that high taxes "work"!

"Tax what you want less of, subsidize what you want more of" is as true as the computer maxim "garbage in, garbage out", or the standard that we need to remember relative to the deficit and all forms of bubbles; "If something can't go on forever, it won't".  Reality still works, we just need to be SURE that we really want it to work!

The US has the highest corporate taxes in the world. If you follow the link it will take you to the very liberal "Poltifact" that is forced to admit it IS a true statement for CORPORATE taxes even though they try their best to soften the statement some by bringing other taxes. Guess what? If you are a CORPORATION, deciding to exit the country with the HIGHEST taxes on your INCOME is pretty much a no-brainer!
I know it is evil from the "liberal" perspective, but corporations are actually "in it for profit"!

The US is losing jobs, companies and high earners. I love the comment from the linked NPR article ... "This was not a gradual change. It was a sudden spike. It's a story of dominoes falling, one after another, leading to an unexpected outcome." Well, "unexpected" in their universe, where cause and effect relative to taxes was declared "repealed" ... right along with the thought that mortgages could be handed out with "affirmative action" and there would never be a housing bubble, we can keep running high deficits forever, etc. ... There tends to be a BIG difference between declaring reality to be repealed and it actually going away! 

The is a lot of "unexpected" in the NPR universe! Not a surprise to me or readers of the blog, I reported on it last year at this time as well. Last year there was some old data for 2010 that indicated 1,500 folks, last year it looks like maybe 3K ... and on it will go. The old blog reports on some conjecture that given the fact of income inequality, it doesn't take many to have a LARGE difference. Sorta like shooting the top 5 QBs in the NFL would really lower the level of QB play. (hopefully Vikings fans will not get any ideas! ... one has to be a bit worried about the mental faculties of folks that wear horn hats and goldilocks!)

Oh, and the US is well in the way to making "Income Inequality" here the equivalent of wanting to climb Everest ... all the way up you have to carry higher and higher tax rates, and as you near the top, there is every sign that they are going to try to kill you! Oh sure, if you are a TP member, you may get some grace, but unless you inherited it, or really lucked into it, a lot of the folks oriented toward taking the risks and doing the work of getting to high income are just not inclined to bow and scrape to the likes of BO and to live in fear of losing everything ala a Sterling if they happen to have one too many and say the "wrong thing"!  (as defined by the PC police on a given day). 

We are actually WELL down the road of "fixing income inequality"! You are in the TOP 10% if your income is $115K today! Lots of calculations show that a single mother of 3 on 100% government dole in most states would need to make $70K in order to improve her "effective income"!  Why that is LESS than **2X**!!!  2x is a crappy $23K Honda Gold Wing vs $46K Harley CVO!! Sure, there are guys like Leno out there than can have every bike and car ever made, but is that REALLY bothering you??? That is 1%, you don't even have to SEE them if you don't want to. Plus, 90% of us are already separated by LESS than somebody making twice as much as you even if you are NOT WORKING! 

Why, this is nirvana! ... but I guess not, so we will have to siphon off a few thousand more top corporations and individuals so we can all feel better about everyone in the US being reduced to riding a Vespa ... I wonder if they make loud pipes and extra chrome for those?

Gestapo Fails to Get Walker

George Will: Wisconsin prosecutors abuse the law for partisan ends - The Washington Post:

TP (formerly Democrats) were using their enforcement arm, the Gestapo (formerly US "justice" system) in a naked ruse to harass, and if they got lucky, destroy Scott Walker. Walker, governor of WI is one of the last Americans to SUCCESSFULLY (for the moment) take on TP and it's Government Workers wing relative to the issue of the State Government being used as bag man to collect Party funds from TP members working for the government in unions.

So Walker has faced a recall effort plus all forms of legal and illegal harassment from the propaganda wing in the MSM as well as efforts like the one covered here for TP to hopefully destroy him, but at least send a STRONG cautionary message to others about what happens if you dare to take on TP!

Here is a nice summary from the article of a significant mission of major parts of the TP apparatus in all branches of government including "justice", as well as MSM and the "education" system:

The purpose of all this was to suppress conservative political advocacy by consuming the time and other resources of conservative leaders, and by making people wary of collaborating with those targeted by a secretive criminal investigation.

"Suppression of conservative political advocacy" as well as conservatives in general and conservative thought in all forms is pretty much the MAIN mission of TP. Naturally they claim it is "helping people", but "people" are TP members and voters (legal, illegal, dead, or imaginary) in their lexicon, and conservatives are "targets" for the NSA, IRS, "justice" system, regulatory systems, or just harassment and hopefully  destruction.

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Charles, Benghazi, TP

Charles Krauthammer: How to do the Benghazi hearings right - The Washington Post:



Politically, Benghazi is yet another case where the Rs (Republican) have already lost, and TP (The Party - Democrat) and it's propaganda wing (the MSM) are deciding how to best damage the Rs on the issue.



Two strategies present themselves, both of which will be used:

1. The current and standard one which will continue to be used is "boycott". If you only watch MSM, you don't even know the content of the new revelations that Charles covers in the article. All you MAYBE know is that the Rs are trying to create some sort of "investigation". Since Benghazi is a word so seldom used in the MSM other to say it is some "R fantasy" or something equivalently derogatory, it is hard for the standard American to even explain what it is all about. Independently of wether TP decides to actually boycott the hearings, the MSM will continue to boycott the story! 
2. Use the issue of the investigation to attack the Rs. Since TP and their minions in the MSM have no concern for "whatever" happened at Benghazi, since a few lives lost is a small price to pay for BO being re-elected, no matter what the circumstance, it is perfectly reasonable to morph any investigation as the R's "failing to focus on the economy and jobs". Someone astute might say, "Isn't that inconsistent when TP and BO have flitted from BOcare to, Climate Change, to Crimea, to kidnapped girls, to whatever -- including some hand wringing over Sterling's racial comments. To which I would remind you -- what part of Consistency IS NOT an issue!! are you failing to understand! 

As I've said many times, if you put this shoe on the other foot with an R in the WH in 2012, they would have CERTAINLY failed to be re-elected, because the "Sargent Schultz" defense used by BO along with the little "it was all the film, no Al Qaeda involved" would have yielded the litany of:

• If he doesn't know, he is incompetent 
• Since he didn't come clean right away about Al Quaeda, then he is LYING ... 
• and since he is LYING, then it is a COVER UP!!! ... and if you are an R, then you are "Nixon or worse than Nixon" ... and he would have been gone. 

But in this case, we see the TP version ... see one and 2, no problem!



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Cotton Explains Truth, Honor, Benghazi, BO

Tom Cotton Savages Democrats on Benghazi | Power Line:



If America ever stages a comeback, it's roots will be in the same kind of character that it has aways been. The kind of character that was once called "American".  THIS is the kind of character we once admired!!



The video is under 2 min, WELL worth your time!



'via Blog this'

BO Tells Big Donors "Too Much Money in Politics"

Obama says political cynicism could hurt Democratic turnout in November | Fox News:



How could people ever get cynical? The first thing to go when you are liberal is a total loss of your sense of irony. It would be impossible to make this up!

"Obama said the political system faces challenges from legislative procedures, a partisan media and too much money in politics. But he said the main cause for gridlock was fundamental differences between what Democrats believe and "what this particular brand of Republicans in Congress believes.""

Those that don't understand surrealism don't listen to BO enough. You are telling a bunch of rich folks at a 10-30K a place fundraiser that "there is too much money in politics"? Golly, I wonder if anyone could figure out how to remedy THAT???

Obama spoke before about 90 contributors who paid from $10,000 to $32,400 to attend. Among those attending were Hollywood luminaries Barbra Streisand, James Brolin and Jeffrey Katzenberg.

Clearly "The Party" (TP, formerly "Democratic") means that since there is ANY non-TP money and ANY "partisan media" (media not just 100% TP propaganda), well it "makes it tough! Not to mention, there are "challenges from legislative procedures", you know, like the filibuster, oh, damn -- got rid of that excuse already!  Well there is still that tired old Constitution and supposedly "checks and balances", although BO seems to pay no attention to that as he simply edicts changes in BOcare with no thought of consulting congress.



BO and his big donors see the finish line for them as not being very far away. There are a few pesky elected officials in Washington that have "beliefs" that BO doesn't like -- things like God, family, a work ethic, private property, freedom from being attacked by the IRS, NSA or other government agencies ... maybe even the privacy to hold a conversation and believe that if anyone is taping it, they are a criminal because they are taping it!



You know, that kind of stupid thinking -- BO is lamenting it isn't fully stamped out!

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Obsession, Easy to Reid

Harry Reid Sinks Deeper Into the Abyss | Power Line:



The video is 30sec ... Koch brothers are the two richest men on the planet! THEY are a major CAUSE of Climate Change???



Harry is clearly off his meds.



'via Blog this'

IBM Hursley, Places I've Been "In the News"

IBM Hursley Park: Where Big Blue buries the past, polishes family jewels • The Register:



Well, the slow day tech news at least. Somehow IBM Hursley was a place on my travel itinerary from the late '80s right up to the end of my career  for at least 5 trips I loved the big fat pheasants from the area, the little pubs, the "minces" at Christmas, and the myriad of accents.



The early April trip in the late '80s with a week of superb weather and a couple short excursions including Portsmouth where the "Ark Royal" British carrier was in port and London to see Parliament, Westminster, Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square in like "an hour"  ... the life of a business traveller --  "I was there". Well, sorta.



We almost always stayed right next to Winchester Cathedral at the "Wessex" ... I remember walking over there early in the AM before we headed into work and just being in awe of the age, the scale, the more than 100 year building schedule. The breakfasts were pretty good --  great sausage and bacon. Never got fully used to the baked beans or cooked tomatoes for breakfast. Oh, and on one trip the bartender (Chinese) at the Wessex had idea how to make a Martini! So much for "shaken, not stirred".



The little Dolphin Inn Pub right in Hursley Park is a classic, and it was there that I got to have "Doom Bar" beer on tap!



Oh, and the memory of being in all day business meetings, jet lagged to the max having just the devil of a time staying awake!



I do recall that we wandered through the museum the last time I was there in 2011 -- so at least "The Register" part of the MSM occasionally tells the truth!











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7% Of Journalists are Very Courageous.

The PJ Tatler » Just 7% of Journalists Identify as Republicans:



It takes a lot of balls to be a reporter and admit that you vote Republican (even "secretly" ... how many examples do you need of "it got out"). WTH, are you directly paid by somebody? Shouldn't you just be a lobbyist"?



I also find the 28% who self-identify to be at least more brave and honest than most!



Let's face it, "independent" is pretty much "I always vote Democrat, but I like to claim I'm above political stuff!" which means that the number are about the same as always ... the MSM is 70%+ Democrat and in a good year around 10% Republican.



That is as level as the media playing field gets in this country!



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Snowpack Shrinks 86% in ONE YEAR!!

‘Houston, we have a dumbass problem’ | Watts Up With That?:

In case someone quotes this completely foolish item to you, at least now you know.

Now we are down toe ONE YEAR effects of "Climate Change"? Can we get better than that? I'm, HOPING that the variation between the warmest day of summer this year and the coldest day last winter is LARGE ... although I must say I'm getting a bit concerned it won't even come close to my hopes!

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TP (The Party) as Medieval Indulgence

Liberals: Exempt from Scrutiny | National Review Online:

 "We are told that the Kennedys, the Pelosis, the Kerrys, and others like them are noble because they vote against their class interests. But they really do not; they vote for them. Liberalism is now the domain of the elite, and antithetical to the aspirations of the upper middle class that lacks the capital and tastes of the 0.1 percent. The higher the taxes, the more numerous the regulations, the greater the redistribution, so all the more the elite liberal distances himself from those less cool who breathe down his neck, and the less guilty he feels about the growing divide between him and the poor he worries about, but never worries about enough to associate with.

Liberalism professes a leftwing ideology, but these days it has absolutely no effect on the lives of those who most vehemently embrace it. In other words, being liberal is professionally useful and psychologically better than Xanax, but we need not assume any more that it is a serious belief."

Good column that covers some of the specifics of Kerry, Elizabeth Warren, Paul Krugman and others -- as I've often said, you CAN'T really be a hypocrite when you don't truly claim to believe in anything!

Little long for the benefit, but generally worth it.

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It's Been Hot on BO's Home World

White House Report Says Climate Change Has Moved 'Into the Present' - NBC News.com:



I'm often mystified as to what the planet that BO comes from is like, but apparently it has been hot there recently!



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5-4, Heartland, Working for God Through Human Excellence

Supreme Court ruling allows prayer at New York town council meeting - NY Daily News:



The saddest part of slavery in the US was that if ended up forcing a trial over secession for the wrong reasons and unsurprisingly the trial ended with the wrong answer -- on secession, though not on slavery.



I'm not a believer in the maxim that "war (or violence) never solves anything" -- it solved Nazi Germany, the US break from England, and Saddam Hussein to name a few. But that DEFINITELY doesn't mean it typically or even frequently solves things. Perhaps fighting primarily over people (Hitler, Saddam, King George) may be more productive than fighting over ideas? A later discussion.



Anytime a court is deciding anything on prayer, the court believes itself to be WAY more "supreme" than it actually is. If it is getting correct answers unanimously, then there might be cause for optimism, but 5-4 says "Gird your loins", there is a court that is WAY beyond it's pay grade!



Prayer, political speech -- the right to be a "Denier" (freedom of thought),  2nd amendment ... these are non-negotiable. If another civil war is required to get some set of US states that still believe in "Under God", actual diversity of thought, and the right of free people to be armed, then so be it. Blood is a high cost, but it is cheap next to tyranny. There will be a point where HOPEFULLY the secession standard can be reset and done peacefully. Ideally with some connected "coterminous" column of states -- Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, TX and no doubt a few others.



Founding a Christian, pro-business, pro-economic freedom,  pro-competition, minimal social safety net, balanced budget, flat tax, gold standard ...  FREE republic with ACTUAL liberty and justice for those that agree with the principles. Those that do not can easily move to the "Socialist States".  Let's call it "Heartland" -- a heart with a cross on it and the north star maybe? (I may be getting ahead of myself)

Essentially, the original US Constitution with the nation being explicitly Christian this time, but STILL not establishing a state church. Definitely however making it absolutely clear that the God of the Bible is where the unalienable parts of freedom flow and are NOT subject to review by some court. If the people want to change the Constitution, fine ... 2/3 majority of both houses and then 2/3 of the states!



MUCH more power in the states and LOCALLY. MUCH reduced Federal government -- having a non-paid federal congress meet every two years is about right.



Economically, such a nation would  have the advantage of energy; fossil, wind, bio and solar as well as PEOPLE looking to compete and succeed in the world via hard work rather than handouts.  It would be one of the largest food sources to the world, Ideally this ought to be bloodless with an "American Union" and "NATOish" defense agreement linking the old failed socialist nation with the new capitalist reality / liberty based  future.

The decline of America in the world is tragic. Canada is now ahead of it on the business climate front, perhaps a strong relationship between Canada, "Heartland"  and even Mexico based on a real Ricardian comparative advantage rather than faulty political posturing could ignite a resurgence of North America to counterpoise the rise of China, India and Russia.



It actually looks like a nice day out! Perhaps the country we once loved isn't fixable, but maybe that is a good thing?  I didn't even get into a new education system, thorium reactors, everyone in the militia (the Oldster US is going to be HUNGRY -- perhaps their army will have walkers with weapons?) ... thinking of a bright future is so much more uplifting than decline and death under the crushing stench of BO!



A freedom based, excellence focused, heavily technological and hands-on system of education with no unions, purposefully competitive and vocationally focused is enough to get someone believing in very bright future all on it's own!

Europe and "The Socialist States of America" may well appreciate the foreign aid in the near future as their aging masses fall into the dustbin of history trying to tell people if they can pray or not!



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Never Enough: Americas Limitless Welfare State

Link to Book

A well written and fairly easy to follow discussion of how "liberals" have hi-jacked the American experiment, but it is far from ONLY a criticism of liberals. The author honestly set out to try to discover a limiting principle for "liberalism" and of course found none. Liberalism is like an invasive species with no predators -- it consumes all that is available until it's "niche" (the country or countries) that are it's host environment are destroyed.

Why? Because as Ayn Rand said, means are finite, but human desires are infinite.

or as Steven Hayward said in the foreword:

Ultimately what is at stake is not money or prosperity as much as self-government itself. Voegeli explains: “The danger liberalism poses to the American experiment comes from its disposition to deplete rather than replenish the capital required for self-government.” 

This book touches on the aspect that "liberalism" is an organism that abhors any kind of limits, so "limited government is anathema to it's existence:

When [FDR] took office in 1933 the separation of powers effectively ceased to function for the first time in a major domestic crisis other than civil war.

As I've stated in the blog many times, and one would assume would be obvious to the most casual of observers of Europe and the US:

“there is now a broad understanding that the social democratic project itself is unsustainable: that it has grown wildly beyond the principles of its inception and that the consequences of this are not only unaffordable, but positively damaging to national life and character.”16

I could go on endlessly quoting and there are close to 100 decent quotes along with a lot of excellent and very specific charts / analysis of US since FDR, the "Reagan attempt" that was the ONLY significant, yet still unsuccessful attempt to slow the Welfare State.

He then covers our current sad state --

• "limited government" Constitutionally destroyed as of the '30s and being trampled more each day. 
• A people addicted to benefits for the "most needy 100%" with all but the top 10% believing that they will be net importers of government largesse from others pockets. 
• The ever tightening screws on the smaller and smaller percentage of people still working, and detailed analysis of the futility of ever being able to transfer anything approaching enough money from that smaller and smaller group in order to "reduce inequality" -- in fact, why government transfers directly contribute to income inequality by rewarding behaviors that keep you poor (single parent family) and continually punish attempts to get off the bottom (marginal effects of moving up a level in income and losing government benefits)
• Lots of solid analysis of why libertarianism has no chance, and conservatism must be VERY careful if it seeks to have any power left at all ... 

In summary, while he doesn't state it as directly as I do, we are effectively screwed -- and likely were once we allowed FDR to sell us the false idea that "happiness" rather than the PURSUIT of happiness was a right -- it isn't, and of course it can't be!

MAYBE conservatives can slow the reckoning. MAYBE some other pair can come to where he says that Clinton and Gingrich were before the Lewinsky scandal broke --- supposedly in secret meetings trying to means test FICA / Medicare and allow private accounts. But he doubts it, as do I.

Essentially it is a book that does a better job of covering a lot of the stuff that I have covered over the years from a better writer, with a little more hope than I have been ground down to. I heartily recommend it.