TP Runs an Exercise, Riots at 8

More than 40 arrested in Oakland as protesters block freeway, set fires after Ferguson cop not indicted - San Jose Mercury News:

It is very hard to imagine that the announcement last night being SCHEDULED for 8PM and then still delayed was not intended to cause rioting. The old rule is "never assume malfeasance when stupidity can explain it", but Federal, State and Local, AFTER they had taken previous actions to try to clear the streets after dark? It goes beyond credulity.

Those of us that have thoughts of riding out the final takeover by "The Party" (TP - Democrat) need to watch incidents like Ferguson closely. They are the model that TP intends to use as they take final control, and while one hopes it is early, this could even be it. This was a test run, a dress rehearsal -- the time of the announcement lets us know that.

Al Sharpton is a TP lieutenant now focused entirely on coordinating and fomenting racial violence. His $4.5 million in unpaid back taxes  is a badge showing the privilege of TP -- he had to make something like $8 M to owe that much, and we KNOW he is a TP member in very good standing to be walking around on the street when he owes that much. Those of us that are non-TP would be in the slammer if we were "behind' a couple K!

Al is just one of the lieutenants, playing a role to create the final "need for order" -- one or more of those may actually be martyrs to the cause as "order is re-established", but they won't know it going in.

When totalitarianism makes it's final move, it needs some "shock troops" to create the firestorm that the uses  "dear leader" finally uses as the excuse to take official dictatorial power "for the good of all".

BO's immigration decree is a superb preliminary. It gets people used to the idea that the other two branches are toothless and the executive is the position of ACTION! "Crisis" demands action! The choreography is impeccable:

First, the election -- seemingly a "big loss" for TP, BUT, his highness BO declares that all the people that didn't vote were the true "mandate"!

Then, BO seizes the "mandate". Takes ACTION to increase the size of TPs assumed vast majority.

Now coordinated unrest across the nation -- the kind of situation in which people look for leadership to step in and create order.

Again, I don't think this is "it", but it is a very transparent dress rehearsal. French Revolution, Russian Revolution, Nazi Revolution, etc, etc ... this is the script. We are watching the actors here in the US hitting their marks and gaining experience for the big event.

If there is unrest near where you are, then you are in the wrong area. Look to move ASAP.



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Rodgers Grape Crush

Aaron Rodgers 'crushes' Minnesota Vikings with post-game drink - JSOnline:



First of all, the Pack did not "crush" the Vikes -- damned lucky to get out of there with a W.



This gives just a TINY indication of how hard it is to be a public figure. Apparently, Rodgers always drinks Grape Crush -- but that doesn't mean that it couldn't cause a tempest. In some other context --- something completely innocent like "watermelon", or "Chop Suey" ... or really anything, can be pulled out of context and be "insensitive", "a slight", etc.



OTOH, we have all been treated to some dreadlocked, tattooed,  pierced specimen with a profanity filled rant and been told "it's just cultural, you gotta be a racist to even comment".



It's the world we live in.



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Franken's Courageous Support for Net Neutrality

Time Warner Donates to Net Neutrality Advocate Al Franken:



I understand capitalism. It really isn't hard to understand Franken's motivations ... just his morality.



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Law, Morality, Flat Tax

BO's unilateral action creates a precedent. In the SCOTUS, conservative judges have tended to be very reticent to undo precedent -- seeing it as only slightly more egregious that that original usurpation of the Constitution that created the precedent. Roe V Wade being the standard example.

The expected conservative opinion on BO's action would be that a conservative president ought not do the same thing -- wrong is wrong, and two wrongs don't make a right. However, I think we can all agree that BO has created a template here that WILL be re-used by left leaning presidents. After a midterm election, with a lame duck congress, decree some major action and have two years for it to become the de-facto law of the land before anyone really has a shot at changing it.

I'd argue, as I think many conservative / libertarians would, that our existing "progressive" tax system is one of the greatest abuses of freedom to date in the US. Private property is the cornerstone of freedom, and while to the founders, that primarily meant land, in the modern world it is investment and income. ANY suspension of equal protection is noxious to freedom, the equal protection attack on private property, has been and continues to be devastating.

So conservatives have a dilemma. The evil genie of monarchical decree, once released, is certain to be used again and again by the freedom destroying forces of collectivism and "progressivism"  as a powerful nuclear tool doing maximum damage to the fabric of the nation. Do we unilaterally disarm, or make use of this force to attempt good?

Imagine a Flat Tax, of say "25%" that replaced all other taxes including FICA. Income tax forms would be on a post card. ALL people would pay the same rate on ALL income.  If put in place in the same way that BO has just done, there would be a FULL THREE YEARS (providing the president made it retroactive when he decreed it), since even after the next election, the new president / congress would not take office until it was too late to enact anything for the subsequent election year taxes. By that time, the unholy alliance between accountants / lawyers / tax preparers and the IRS would have been broken -- those folks would have been forced to find new work. Their legions of tax code svengalis adding and modifying loopholes like demons in Dante's Hell would have moved on.

Yes, such change is likely to cause havoc in the economy, but make no mistake, since the genie is now released, we all have to expect changes as egregious and worse after every midterm election. In fact, taking the bull by the horns and going big fairly early may allow conservatives a chance to tilt the table in the favor of the nation.

We owe it to the future of America to give this serious thought. It is one of the few remaining ways I can see that we can turn the tide before the last wisps of inadequate restraint on Leviathan are fully released.

Anticipation, Black and White

Ferguson: A city on edge and waiting - CNN.com:

I believe everyone is pretty much in agreement on what is being anticipated:

1. No indictment or "insufficient indictment" -- Massive riots, destruction of property, violence against police and potentially others. 
2. Indictment -- Some columns written by "right wingers", maybe a couple of strongly worded letters to the editor. 

From the boarded up buildings in Ferguson and the National Guard at the ready, this basic dichotomy seems impossible to argue with.

Is it "prejudice"? Certainly it is -- we have a lot of prejudice. If we see a giant explosion, we expect a "boom", if we drop a glass on a tile floor we expect it to break and if the Packers play the Vikings, we expect the Vikings to lose -- well, those of us that are sane at least.

Prejudice is a deeply wired expectation of events, scenarios, people, etc. It is "what we expect" -- and while it CAN  be wrong, it is very often right -- that is why we develop it in general, it is adaptive.  Humans are wired to have prejudice -- it allows us to react quickly with limited time for thought and is passed down from an adaptive history of reacting to the lion without taking the time to admire it's natural beauty. Those that lacked prejudice proved to be lunch.

So we are all sitting around with pretty much the same prejudice relative to Ferguson, and for some reason -- apparently because it is so widely shared by both blacks and whites, and because there is near universal belief in it being accurate, it is completely OK and even CNN can be open about it.

Day to day however, we are expected to act as if the dichotomy between actions one and two does not exist. In fact, if a black man like Cosby comments on the fact of it, he needs to be destroyed.

Those that don't believe we live in a crazy world are really not paying attention.

*** NOTE!!! Neither I or Cosby claimed that the current situation relative to 1 and 2 is immutable/innate -only that it is a reality TODAY. In fact, Cosby's "sin" is the declaration that it is NOT immutable, so it could therefore and in fact should be CHANGED ... however, if it WERE changed, then blacks might no longer be largely wards of TP, which is NOT allowed!

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Pulling the Curtain, The Great and Powerful BO

E-mails show White House tried to muzzle Sharyl Attkisson « Hot Air:

Slightly long but worth the read. Normally we only see the RESULT of the MSM being pro-TP  (The Party-D) and can only make some basic guesses at how the relationship works (cozy). Here we get a glimpse behind the curtain of what happens when some reporter for an MSM outlet leaves the fold and needs to be reined in. "Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!"  Oh for the innocence of Toto to arrive and expose the "Great and powerful BO"!

TP has well demonized Fox, and has been largely successful in isolating them -- for TP folks in good standing, they NEVER listen to Fox, and anyone that does is an idiot, "brainwashed", etc. We all know that "brainwashing" is synonymous with having any thoughts not in direct line with TP! Being smart means only listening to one side on any issue!

The "common wisdom" on things like Fox, Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS scandal, etc has been drummed in by TP and while everyone certainly has heard it, the KEY is that you MUST BELIEVE it! If you so much as give a hint of knowing anything of the "other side" of these issues the sheep devoted to the MSM react with some combination of fear, confusion, shock, disdain or anger. (I tend to love the angry reactions -- but they tend not to last through the first calm response before they turn into some mixture of shock, fear and confusion).

The masses are well taught by TP. On all the scandal stories "old news, unimportant, already covered, nothing there, just trumped up ...". Then, out of the the blue on any given day, anyone that listens to NPR will get a "retrospective" on Watergate, Iran Contra, or some other "important lesson giving scandal of the past that we need to remember".

Indeed.

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Cosby Toast, Clinton Toast of Town

Bill Cosby Gets Warm Welcome At Florida Show:

We don't know if Cosby is guilty of any of the 40+ year old charges.

We DO know that Slick Willie was guilty of at least Paula Jones (he admitted it as part of plea deal) and Lewinsky . Defenders will say "Lewinsky was consensual". Anyone that has been in any supervisory position in a US business knows that there is NO SUCH THING between any sort of supervisor and a lower status female. Such relationships are banned by US sexual harassment law.

We don't "know" about the other relationships ... Kathleen Wiley and Juanita Broderick come to mind, with Broderick being an actual rape charge. Horse apiece with Cosby.

We  do have a completely clear example of how the ideal of freedom of speech and thought actually operates in a society that has abandoned transcendence.

It seems highly likely to me that a society is ALWAYS somewhat in this state.  We can observe the treatment of things like gay sexual relations, interracial marriage, support of communism, support of blacks (especially in the Democrat Jim Crow south), anti-Christian beliefs (now somewhat similarly, Christian beliefs or anti-Muslim belief), women smoking (pretty similarly now, anyone smoking), etc, over time. It is a long list.

So social strictures are part of society -- nobody really enjoys a stinky fart in public.

The DIFFERENCE is what is the level and how specifically proscribed or protected are various opinions and actions.

It is likely true that at one time a white male, married, "one of the boys" was probably protected from squeezing breasts and butt "at some level" relative to lower status females -- waitresses, secretaries, etc. The protection was without regard to political or religious beliefs beyond "not being some weird religion", but was probably for white males only.

Today we see that we have "evolved", so that for at least very high ranking member of TP ( Slick Willie, Teddy Kennedy,  John Edwards (for a good while), Al Gore ("massage gate" barely reported) ...) females may be similarly treated up to and likely including rape and quite possibly murder (chappaquiddick)  with impunity.

OTOH, if you are a black male that does not 100% maintain the TOTAL TP party line and  is so much as accused of ANY level of "impropriety" ... in the case of Clarence Thomas, the "charges" being allegedly mentioning an X-rated movie in one case and making reference to a possible pubic hair on a can of coke in another ...  TP and it's media arm will make every possible attempt to destroy you both personally and professionally without statute of limitations.

Given human nature, any expectation of the absence of social strictures is misplaced and very likely not even mildly to be desired. There WILL be social norms and strictures, and they will have sanction. For those with some level of memory, the rather curious phenomenon of a fickle social pendulum becomes obvious.

"Gay" goes from there being fairly mild sanctions against, to being celebrated in the public square, and those that fail to join the party, bowing down to the new gay order -- actual Christians being the most prominent example with Muslims strangely exempted,  now receive more stringent sanction that the Gays originally received ... eg. boycotts, loss of employment (if you say your are not in support of "gay marriage" at IBM you will lose your job), fines (as in wedding chapel operators, cake makers, etc),  and public admonishment / shunning.

Apparently the human wiring for sanctity/degradation  ("The Righteous Mind" covers all this) is immutable. We are stuck with it, so we will always have rewards and sanctions, and for most of the general public, the specifics of these will be invisible. The vast majority of people will simply "know" that Bill Clinton and Bill Cosby are different cases and find the iconoclast view (mine) to be very uncomfortable to deal with.

"Why can't you know enough to follow what is RIGHT? Do you WANT to be treated like Bill Cosby or something? !!"

To which I respond that the only way to transcend human nature is to believe in the transcendent, which I believe to be ultimately Christ Alone. Human attempts at same will only move the pendulum between which groups are rewarded and sanctioned and can never approach the still far shot of Heaven, earthy potential for universal love and redemption for all.


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The Reagan Did It First Lie

http://thefederalist.com/2014/11/20/no-reagan-did-not-offer-an-amnesty-by-lawless-executive-order/

The media arm of TP decided they ought to make up a cover lie for Emperor of Stench,  BO -- so it somewhat standard TP nursery school moral reasoning we have "Reagan did it first!".

The moral argument that "X did it first" has severe shortcomings. Hitler did a number of things first. Even otherwise "good" men have done disastrous  things -- FDRs internment of Japanese, Churchill's Gallipoli debacle ... one hesitates to even begin. The list is long and horrid and the infantile moral reasoning of "X did it first" is nothing but an embarrassment as to the depths of TP fatuity.

Given TP media normal treatment of Reagan, you REALLY know they are up to something if they are trying to use him as a GOOD example!

Then we have the stupid factor. If "Reagan had done the same thing", those of us that were alive at the time know we would have witnessed a media firestorm on par with Watergate and likely beyond -- "Constitutional Crisis", IMPEACHMENT! would have been being shouted from every paper day after day! Dan Rostenkowski, in his pre "orange is the new suit of House Ways and Means chairs from IL" guise would have shut down all funding and WON!

It gets to be embarrassing to even think how stupid TP media thinks we are!

But of course, as the linked article explains not nearly as simply as they could, it had NOTHING to do with ANYTHING even REMOTELY like what BO has just done!

In the '80s, CONGRESS passed an amnesty law that failed to take the children of those being granted amnesty into consideration.  So  the executive branch contacted congress and AGREED that the children of those granted amnesty should not be deported! That is that! HW Bush granted more time in an extension of the same AGREEMENT -- which congress still agreed with.

How can it be that we have slipped so very far that

Cosby Takedown, How About Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, etc

In Re: Bill Cosby | Power Line:



I covered the dichotomy with Slick Willie and Cosby here.



PL does a good job over covering it and adds in the aspect of other Hollywood types that were rapists in one form or another but were not sanctioned in their careers in the way that Cosby now is since he was courageous enough to express his beliefs on the need for black personal responsibility



Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, Michael Jackson, Aaron Copeland ... those are just the two from PL and a couple off the top of my head. In general, unless you sin against TP, the media treats even grossly illegal personal behaviour as "personal" and totally separate from "art".







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BO Leaves the Presidency

Go down, Barry | Power Line:

The Presidency is a Constitutional position -- no Constitution, no President. Having a Constitution meant that we had a nation bound by rule of law. We no longer have that.

Last night was a watershed night for the area of land between the countries of Mexico and Canada. The status of the area formerly known as "The United States" had been moving away from rule of law since the Civil War ... destruction of equal protection by the "progressive" income tax, forced participation in socialist schemes like FICA and recently BOcare,  plus a host of "administrative law" regulations with de facto force of law not passed by congress to name just a few of the more egregious parts of the slide.

Last night a man occupying the former office of President, one of the three formerly co-equal branches of the government of the old nation, directly usurped the Constitution and took naked dictatorial power. Last night the nation formerly known as the US officially became subjects of BO -- ruled by power, not law.  Any opposed to BO now have the natural and moral right to deodorize by any and all means. There is no operative rule of law save might being right.

The content of his utterance is meaningless -- It could have been "I decree ice cream to be good". Free men care not for the decrees of tyrants, especially those already well proved mendacious.

Where we go from here is completely unknown. The other two branches of the old government, Congress -- formerly the law MAKERS, and SCOTUS formerly the law INTERPRETERS hold the responsibility to remove the self-proclaimed "law giver", a position not recognized by free men except from their Creator.  The military should also no longer obey the tyrant. If We the People still understood the gift that had formerly been bequeathed by creator, founders and previous generations, the Secret Service would immediately leave their posts. They are bound to protect the occupant of an office that no longer exists.

All free men are now sacredly charged to end this tyranny and form a new nation under the rule of law! Pray for justice!

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Six Canons of Conservative Thought

The Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk is one of the books that I'm going over again and this is one that is going to take more than a few blogs to cover.

His six canons of conservative thought from early in the book:

1. Belief in a transcendent order, or body of natural law, which rules society as well as conscience. Political problems, at bottom, are religious and moral problems. 
2. Affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of human existence as opposed to the narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems. 
3. Conviction that civilized society requires orders and classes, as against the notion of a "classless society". Belief in order. 
4. Persuasion that freedom and property are closely linked: separate property from from private possession and Leviathan  becomes master of all. Economic leveling is not economic progress. 
5. Faith in prescription and distrust of "sophists, calculators and economists" who would reconstruct society on abstract designs. Custom, convention and old prescription checks both upon man's anarchic impulse and on the innovators lust for power. 
6. Recognition that change may not be salutary reform: hasty innovation may be a devouring conflagration rather than the torch of progress. 

These are set against 4 common means of attack used by the forces collectivism, utilitarianism, positivism, and the other "isms" ... socialism, communism and fascism since 1790:

1. The perfectibility of man and the limitless progress of society: meliorism (belief in the positive direction of "progress" and human ability to make it so)  Radicals believe that education, positive legislation and alteration of environment can produce men like gods. They deny that humanity has a natural proclivity for violence and sin. 
2. Contempt for tradition. Reason, impulse and materialistic determinism are preferred as guides to social welfare, more trusted than the wisdom of the ages. Formal religion is rejected and various ideologies are presented as alternatives. 
3. Political leveling. Order and privilege are condemned; total democracy, as direct as practicable is the professed radical ideal. An eagerness for centralization and consolidation. 
4. Economic leveling. The ancient right of property is attacked by nearly all radicals and attempts are made to collectivize it. 

It is difficult to pin radicals down because much of what they propose is based on current impulse and tends to look to the future even if current progress on a stated goal is questionable (eg. the 18 year "pause" in AGW, the "glitches" in the BOcare system). 

Since the main article of faith is that the present is better than the past and the future will be better still, there is not a lot of reason for deep thought on causes, effects and such. A book that covers this well is "A Conflict of Visions". 

The vision of the future tends to be "clear in the abstract" -- it will be "free", "just", "happy", "needs will be met" ... but as to specifics, the vision tends to be extremely weak. 

The primary way to recognize the radical is their love of "change" ... the more nonspecific the change desired, the more certain you may be that you are talking to a radical. 

Is It The QB or the Receiver?

Greg Jennings Fantasy Stats | RotoWire Fantasy Football:



I'm terrible with names and even worse with keeping track of players after they leave my beloved Packers -- however, when they go to the Vikes ... I know Jennings is not the only example in the last 20 years of excellent QBs at GB, but he is the one that just popped up.



So here we have Jennings stats with the Vikes. Once he was at least as good as Jordy Nelson, suddenly he is CLEARLY not ...



My opinion is that the difference wears number 12.



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Obstructionist on Keystone and Business

Who’s Obstructionist? | Power Line:



We often hear Republicans referred to as "obstructionist" by the media,  senators or the president. Typically, it is just a word -- they just say "obstructionist", they don't say what specific program they are trying to put forward and why it is that passing it would be helpful or even popular with the American people. It is just assumed to be good and being obstructed without reason.



Sometimes it was immigration -- but again, we didn't hear what the Democrat or presidents specific proposal actually was -- outside of "reform". Much like "hope and change", Democrats pretty much live off from general terms waved around like talismen -- "reform", "jobs", "the environment", "fairness" ... usually with no detail at as to what the actual ements of the legislation are.



Often, as we have found out relative to BOcare, the content of the legislation is not well defined ("We have to pass it to know what's in it"), or it is purposely written to be obscure as we have learned explicitly from Jonathan Gruber.



This week we yet again saw the Keystone XL Pipeline go down, this time on the basis of a single vote of obstruction. A specific private sector physical asset with significant jobs and energy effects and no negative environmental effects since the oil is being pumped and burned anyway -- the question is just here or China.



Similarly, the issue of "Tax Inversions" -- as we saw with Burger King, Medtronic, and a host of other companies; HQ are moved overseas due to US tax policy and trillions of dollars are spent overseas rather than repatriated to the US to build jobs here, yet the democrats obstruct specific efforts to fix this problem.



As the linked article questions, why? It is very hard to see why this would be so save for gross incompetence or out and out anti-American sentiment -- much the same as we often saw in the Cold War.



That is in fact where I have settled -- many Democrats see the US as having been too successful and carry some sort of "survivors guilt", feeling that it is "someone elses turn". During the years of the Cold War, one could hear giddy NPR reporting from Cuba or the USSR over some supposed triumph of the communist system. When the wall came down, there was shock and dismay -- their favored system had somehow failed, it was unbelievable to them.



So their only answer seems to be  suicide for the US and the West. One of our own political parties sees our system as "corrupt, unfair, harmful to the planet, damaging to human dignity, etc", so they are doing their best to get the shotgun in Uncle Sam's mouth and end the US.



They continue to do a hell of a job.



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The Hawaiian Shirt Of Enlightenment, Hillary Nutcracker

How to Turn a Cool Moment Into a #ShirtStorm | TIME:

"The Enlightenment" is a time in the late 1700's when mankind supposedly turned from "absolutes" (like God) to "reason, empiricism, science, liberty, democracy" and was thus "enlightened.

Man became "the measure of all things" -- good and evil could be decided by physical measurement, experience, trial and error,  or a simple vote.  "Man" forgot that designation would now include "woman" with the feminizing "virtues" being applied at levels beyond sleeping on the couch. Exit the age of "mighty men", knights, poets, sages, wizards and the like -- enter the age of trashy romance novels and "the sensitive guy".

We seem clearly past the pinnacle of what was once a bold new direction. Large signs -- 100's of millions dead from the Godless "isms" of the 20th century, vast hordes of drugged, drunk, distracted masses completely purposeless, drifting to the next hit/high/distraction and horribly suicide / overdose prone. Governments mired in massive debt, corruption and pseudo-science like AGW.

And also small signs -- like the shirt.

Man was once supposedly about great things -- an eternal soul, the image of God, bravery, chivalry, romance, glory, wisdom --- but no longer. An accomplished scientist, scion of the "enlightenment" is brought to tears because he wore a shirt his girl friend made for him. He chose poorly -- in wardrobe.

We know little of the back-story of this but anyone that has went through our education system, corporate system, or pretty much any organization in the modern world knows that "respect for the individual" has become "respect for the resource" -- and let's face it, the net of that is often a solid knee-lift to the balls from some mid-level bureaucrat with the personal honor and competence of a slug, but the full weight and power of the modern "enlightened" system behind them.

No doubt the poor sap in the shirt was faced with the loss of his job/career/mission or his manhood , so he knelt and whimpered. Hail, the "enlightened man"!

I believe that the shirt leads us to potentially the  penultimate symbol of the "enlightenment" -- perhaps we might re-think the loss of transcendent truth just a wee bit?

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"Fair Share", By Quintile -- Killing Success

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/11/203641-2-chart-new-definition-fair-share-20-americans-pay-almost-100-everything/

As of 2011, the quintiles for US income were:
0  -  $20K
$20K - $38K
$38K - $62K
$62K  - $102K
$102K and up

"Quintile" means divide the population up into 5 equal sized groups using a variable -- in this case income. The same number of Americans are in each of those 5 groups, roughly 64 million people each.

This chart makes the decline of America extremely easy to understand. Want to place any bets on how "sustainable" this is?

On average, if you make much over $100K, you pay something just below $50K into the FEDERAL government. What the chart doesn't show is that you ALSO pay something close to 10% of your income into the STATE if you live in a blue or purple state.  If you don't feel like a tax slave, you need to look at the chart a while longer.

Any one having trouble understanding why our workforce participation rate is the lowest since the '70s? People pull that train for a few years and they figure out that the cars behind are a lot more comfortable than the providing pedal power for engine.

Other small fact -- notice that "The Party" (TP-D)  doesn't throw the most money to the bottom -- the votes are in the 2nd and 3rd quintiles! The folks at the very bottom are often too old or too unmotivated to even do the handed to them mail in vote, so the money goes to those that make from $20-$62K ... the fact that more per capita goes to the $38K-$62K group than to the 0-$20K group would be especially galling to anyone that cared about "the poor" more than votes!

I case you are reading this and saying "but I pay income taxes", remember that this is NET -- if you get FICA, housing assistance, BOcare, Earned Income Credit, etc, that is deducted from what you "pay".

The linked article has one more fact worth repeating --- 40% of US households now get more than HALF of their income from transfer payments! 

Chelsea Clinton's Felon In Law

snopes.com: Ed Mezvinsky - Father of the Groom:

The level of bias in the US media still finds a way to shock me!

Chelsea's FiL is an ex congressman, convicted felon -- pretty much the flower of TP so I'd expect that the in-laws ought to get along superbly. Two sets of feckless felons! The sordid linkages and the character of Mezvinsky are worth reading the Snopes link -- we already know the Clinton's character, and that it is officially "not an issue" according to the TP controlled media.

I'm sure they would treat it just the same if one of W's daughters got married to an ex-congressman Felon! (every day needs some humor)

The problem here is that the MSM would cover this if a Republican offspring was being similarly wed -- because Republicans would react with shock and horror and it would be a big smudge on even the girls parents. The DIFFERENCE is that the very business of TP is criminally defrauding the american people! They just typically have enough power to prevent prosecution -- but even when they are found out, it is considered to just be "an occupational hazard".

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TP In Action: Keystone Fail Mary

Senate rejects Keystone bill - POLITICO:



Since TP controls the media, the facts are usually to be found only with the difficulty of following the ball on a 3 card monte game. The TP story on congress for 4 years now has been "the Republicans are obstructionist", when the fact was that hundreds of bills were stopped in the TP controlled Senate with no reporting.



But in a shameless case of naked political opportunism, TP wanted to give Mary Landrieu's run-off bid a boost by putting her name in front of getting the Keystone XL through the Senate. Keystone is hugely popular in Louisiana as well as 65% approval across the US.



They did get it to a vote, but they could not pass it! In what is one of the landmark cases of political incompetence, they attempted to put a feather in their candidates cap, but even with Republican help were unable to get the job done!



Corrupt and Incompetent -- the cornerstones of TP and government in general.







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BO "Lies In" On Grubergate

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/11/18/bret_baier_transparency_issues_plagued_obamacare_from_the_start.html

So HHS is paying Gruber $400K, yet it and the Democrats persist in quoting him ad nauseum as an "independent source". It gives criminal corruption a bad name -- mob bosses were far far more honorable than this.

There really are no words. "I just learned about this a few minutes ago" ... Arrogance, narcissism, complete lack of even a hint of truth,  and utter disdain for America and it's people.

The nation voted itself into the abyss and there is clearly no bottom.

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It's Below Freezing in Every State, Imagine a Similar Heat Event

Cold weather grips most of U.S.; heavy snow in North - CNN.com:



Just try to imagine the kind of coverage this would be getting if it was a heat event of similar proportions. It boggles the mind -- there would be nothing else on.



We have been getting a fairly steady diet of reporting on the completely meaningless "agreement" on carbon that BO signed with China as well as the "debate" over the Keystone Pipeline, here is a recent Hot Air article that is a good summary of the state of the "discussion" relative to the other side of the topic -- the side you can't get in the MSM.



Most of the MSM suppresses any contrary evidence -- they are done with it, they want to control carbon and that is that. Anyone that doesn't see it their way is "fool, denier, oil company stooge, etc"  -- pay no attention to record cold winters, Novembers, springs, late ice outs on Lake Superior, 18 year pause in warming, etc, etc ... the list goes on, just follow the link and read up on the basics.



One more topic where any hint of sanity has completely left the building.



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Bill Cosby, Bill Clinton

Woman accuses Bill Cosby of sexual assault in the 1960s - CNN.com:

Woman Accuses Bill Clinton of sexual assault in the 1970's

I see that 40+ year old rape charges against Bill Cosby have been in the news lately. I scanned one of the articles in amazement and could not help think of the Juanita Broaddrick charges against Bill Clinton that I linked to above, that were barely covered at the time they came out.

Bill Cosby has run afoul of TP ("The Party", Democrat) and it's media arm as a black man that believes that blacks need to live and act responsibly if they want to move forward. TP is of the opinion that blacks need to remain as wards on the happy TP voter plantation, rioting, doing drugs, and feeling outraged.

If one wastes the time to scan the kinds of charges, the similarities are rather striking -- dates and details are often smudged and what you most pick up are women telling you in some way that their trust was broken, they were outraged, they were afraid and they were under some "spell" in that they didn't report it at the time.

One can only feel sorry for these women no matter what actually happened in either case, but why oh why would such accusations be national news against Bill Cosby? Clinton OTOH was in the presidency with CURRENT accusations at the level that made one wonder if any women would be able to come forward and say " I was NOT sexually molested by the president"! Certainly any woman that had been attacked by him in the past, OR was just the kind of suggestable woman that might have trouble with reality was likely to come forward. The media of course did all it could to tamp down accusations in that case, and Juanita Broaddrick barely saw the light of day.

I can't see any reason that the Cosby accusations are  national news beyond yet another example being made of a black man that has had the courage to step off the TP thought plantation just a TINY bit. He is even on record not very long ago with a solid rant against "racist Republicans", but apparently that isn't enough to keep him in good standing!

ANY suggestion of blacks being able to take responsibility for themselves and break their chains of fealty to TP must be met with attacks. Here is an article where Cosby's call for blacks to break the violence in their community is mentioned. Ironically, the article is written by Juan Williams, himself banished from NPR for "insufficient blackness".

Thou shalt not question the authority of TP or you will be punished! Cleave on to TP and thy sins will be covered. Thus saith TP.

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Ideas Have Consequences by Richard Weaver

https://www.amazon.com/Ideas-Have-Consequences-Richard-Weaver/dp/022609006X

This book was first published in 1948 and it is scary to see how far we have tumbled down the predicted cliff toward the ultimate demise of Western Civilization since then.

Weaver points out that without first principles, there is no way to know where we went astray or why, and he is very clear and simple on the causes.

"This was a change that overtook the dominant philosophical thinking of the West in the fourteenth century, when the reality of transcendentals was first seriously challenged."

Since man moved away from the idea of transcendentals to the idea that "man is the measure of all things", the Whig theory of history quickly developed -- "the belief that the most advanced point in time represents the point of highest development".  Today this banner is carried by "progressives" -- the firm belief that the last drop of  hootch to be excreted from the still today is better than 40 year old Scotch.

"For four centuries every man has been not only his own priest, but his own professor of ethics, and the consequence is an anarchy which threatens even that minimum consensus of value necessary to the political state." 

At least he isn't always his own bartender! Weaver links transcendentals primarily back to Plato, although the connection with religion obviously seeps through. For the common man, the doctrine of Christianity is what would be infinitely more beneficial to both the eternal soul and temporal existence here on earth than the worship of the relativist pagan state.

"The issue ultimately involved is whether there is a source of truth higher than, and independent of man; and the answer to the question is decisive for one's view of nature and the destiny of humankind.  The practical result of nominalist philosophy is to banish the reality which is perceived by the intellect and and to posit as reality that which is perceived by the senses."

"The denial of everything transcending experience means inevitably -- though ways are found to hedge on this -- the denial of truth. With the denial of objective truth there is no escape from the relativism of man is the measure of all things .... The witches spoke with the habitual equivocation of oracles when they told man that by this easy choice he might realize himself more fully, for they were actually initiating a course which cuts one off from reality. Thus began the "abomination of desolation" appearing today as a feeling of alienation from all fixed truth". 

"Nominalist" meaning denying that things that transcend the physical universe exist. ("matter" is all there is) Not simply however "god" -- since our own abstract thoughts and to some degree language stretch the old meaning of "physical".

It is a book I could go on and on quoting from, but that breaks my promise to explain what the book means to me and encourage others to read it.

Ideas set humans apart and make us what we are. When we are focused at the highest levels of our brain --- reason, abstraction, ultimates, patterns, relations, connections, etc, we are most human in the sense of unique from animals -- with an eternal soul, a soul that wants those transcendentals. It drives us to look for ultimate and eternal causes, the explanation for WHY things are as they are.

When I was in college, a favorite professor described the difference between the university and the vocational school up the hill as basically "Down here we learn WHY the computer works as it does, up the hill they learn only HOW to operate or program following a specific path, not the reason why that path may be optimal, easy, efficient or what alternatives there are to the specifics being taught".

The reference is at about 7:30 in if you don't like the lead up ...

When there are no transcendentals (ultimate reasons "why"), then one way is hard to defend one view from another and we arrive at "my truth and your truth". It is all relative -- it is todays sense data that counts,  because it is assumed that is all there is. The physical shared reality (although that is less certain than it once was). We may be able to do a lot of "technology", but as is also covered in the book, much of it will only do more to distract us from that which is of ultimate value.

"Ideas" is a critical book about first principles to understand the universe, our place in it, and how to reach for "the good life", as in the spiritual life that has eternal meaning (although it is not a "religious" book).

"Ideas" is a cornerstone of what I'm re-reading and attempting to weave together as my personal "Canon of Christian Conservatism" at this point in my life -- the basis of what I have come to believe about life, the universe and everything! It was previously discussed here, as well as here.

At its base "Ideas"  is "God" (transcendence), Yes or No, and what is likely to happen to both you and your civilization depending on how you choose!

Shivers of Eternal Awareness

WATCH: After His Owner Died, Everyone Was Shocked By What This Dog Did. I Have Goosebumps. [VIDEO]:

I'm re-reading one of my favorite books on how to think about meaning / the universe, "Ideas Have Consequences". I'll do a review on it here in a few days, but the basic element is that how we live personally and even more importantly, as a society/culture, is defined by how we answer the question: "Is man the measure of all things, or are there "universals", "transcendentals" that provide the ultimate forms of our existence?".

The layman version of that is "God, yes or no"?

One of the questions that I have is if all people actually feel a shiver of extra awareness when they see the light hit the dog in the linked video, or if it is only some of us? Christians? Other? My belief is that it is universal and that some either deny or have managed to suppress / alter the natural "shiver of awareness" over the course of life to suppress that feeling or convert it to anger, hurt, derision, etc as they declare "it is just some trick", "it is an accident", etc.. They have "killed the shiver" and now it is a negative that makes them want to strike back and what they are convinced is "fake".

In song, my prayer for myself and those I love on this subject is well embodied in this song -- which I think hints at accepting and believing in the shiver -- if even some of them turned out to be "fake".

Naturally, it COULD all a be a big accident, and we no longer have to feel small beside the ocean  -- the transcendent does not force belief, yet ignoring it can be exceedingly hard I think. Hard enough to turn hopeful loving people into insolent haters -- because maybe there was something about Gods purity that made them feel smaller than they wanted to.

Our days on this rock have a number of  "light on the dog" or "stand beside the ocean" kinds of moments  -- all clearly explainable by coincidence, random chance, good wine or a momentary chill maybe. Phenomena like humor, music, love, consciousness, etc are all  "explainable" by "random selection" -- or  just "accidental artifacts, side-effects" ... nothing to see here, move along. Don't give faith a chance -- but really, it is just THAT faith that links us to the eternal that "the other" is going to work hard to get you to deny.

Our very existence remains a matter of faith. That the universe that we live in is teleological (goal directed/has a purpose), is rational, predictable and can be understood by reason/experience  are ALWAYS matters of faith! Those matters are not provable by experience -- induction can falsify, but it can never prove. We can ALWAYS deny -- 3 times, hundreds of times maybe, but no matter how angry that shiver may make some, does it ever really really go away?

Accepting the existence of God is called a "leap of faith". I personally find atheism, the ultimate faith in the non-existence of God to be a MUCH greater "LEAP of faith" since as Nietzsche explained when he lamented "God is dead", it is known by thinkers to be a lamentable decision. A leap and a tumble into the the abyss. No God, no center, no meaning, no purpose, no direction ... the faith of nullification. Indeed the HOPE of instant annihilation. But can even rejection really kill the shiver? I don't know, I certainly don't want to walk that dark path, but my sense tells me no -- the shiver will keep calling, keep trying to bring you home. At least I pray it does!

No doubt I will have to read the book discussed here, but the link is worth following for the "8 explanations of the universe" which I'll cover another time. The book is prompted by the fact that there are numerous features of our universe that must be "just so" (like the porridge in Goldilocks)  ... some of those values are:

• N (ratio of strength of gravity to electromagnetism), 
• Epsilon (force binding nucleons into nuclei), 
• Omega (ratio of universe mass density to critical mass density), 
• Cosmological Constant (starts being significant at 10 to -122), 
• D (number of spatial dimensions in spacetime) ... etc

Our scientists believe many of these were "set" during the Big Bang, and were they set to tiny different values we would not exist. But ALL of them were set "just right".  Again ... as the 8 ways to deal with that indicate, it COULD all be an accident ... in fact, the discovery of the precision of anthropic "setting" is one of the larger reasons that the "Multiverse Theory", where there are gigantic number of UNIVERSES -- like 10 to the 400 or so has gained consideration primarily because many scientists and atheists realized that something like that HAD to be true if their position of no God was to remain tenable.

Murdering the shiver can take a lot of ammo!

Do we all feel the "shiver of awareness"? I  believe we do -- for Christ came for ALL. I believe we all have both the "shiver" and free will -- thus the opportunity to make THE choice of eternal significance in all things, those as mundane as a dog in a picture or as immense as the cosmos itself.

Still just a small thing next to the power of God.

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SR-71 Cockpit Virtual Tour, Plane Geek Heaven

http://allthingsaero.com/military-aviation/museums-military-history/gallery-virtual-cockpit-tour-of-the-amazing-sr-71-blackbird

BOcare, Wealth Transfer And Lies

Jonathan Gruber’s ‘Stupid’ Budget Tricks - WSJ - WSJ:

A Republican President that had a single attempted program that benefited say business, or families, or energy, or hard work, or thrift -- any of the horrors of existence that the left rails against, and was somehow exposed as having knowingly used subterfuge to accomplish it would have been removed from office within a year of the discovery.

We know this. We witnessed the level of media outrage over W's supposed shortcomings as a fighter pilot 30 years prior to taking office, the absolute meta-falsehood of "Bush lied, people died" where at worst he merely took action on information at the time, and has since been proved correct, and even the complete farce of Valerie Plame -- the "secret agent" who drove to work each day at CIA HQ ("Deep Cover")!

As I've said, none of this is new -- it's been exposed since before the bill was passed. It is absolutely clear that Americans were lied to big time by BO, the MSM and Democrats in general, but what is new? I can only assume that most Americans are OK with that -- although they may not like actually having their elite "experts" call them stupid to their face. Anyone that doesn't realize that the lefty elites think of them that way is either willfully not paying attention, simply doesn't care, or is actually stupid. "Bitter Clingers" anyone?

“this bill was written in a tortured way to make sure CBO did not score the mandate as taxes. If CBO scored the mandate as taxes, the bill dies.”

Yes, BOcare was always and still is a massive tax increase largely on the middle class and young to transfer dollars to those that failed to insure in the past and are now stuck with no insurance and existing conditions.

So it is all old news, but is there actually a limit to how much voters will put up with? The first mistake that folks like myself and likely readers of this blog make is that something like a "majority" of voters are actually aware of this -- I doubt it is covered on Jon Stewart, I've not heard it on MPR (I don't listen 24x7, but a casual listener certainly could have missed their coverage), and I'm certain it is sparse to non-existent on MSNBC, Huffpo, etc. I suppose some of their folks take the Pelosi dodge of "he didn't write it, I never knew him" ... followed by, OOOPS, big praise for him!

Such admissions aren’t revelations, since the truth has long been obvious to anyone curious enough to look. We and other critics wrote about ObamaCare’s budget gimmicks during the debate, and Rep. Paul Ryan exposed them at the 2010 “health summit.” President Obama changed the subject. 

But rarely are liberal intellectuals as full frontal as Mr. Gruber about the accounting fraud ingrained in ObamaCare. Also notable are his do-what-you-gotta-do apologetics: “I’d rather have this law than not,” he says.

Yes, BOcare is nothing but a gigantic wealth transfer fraud perpetrated on the American people, but will a DIRECT ADMISSION made by one of their own have any effect on the discussion?

So they used a decade of taxes to fund merely six years of insurance subsidies. They made-believe that Medicare payments to hospitals will some day fall below Medicaid rates. A since-repealed program for long-term care front-loaded taxes but back-loaded spending, meant to gradually go broke by design. Remember the spectacle of Democrats waiting for the white smoke to come up from CBO and deliver the holy scripture verdict.

The "savings"? A lie! The cost control?  Also a lie!

Then again, Mr. Gruber told a Holy Cross audience in 2010 that although ObamaCare “is 90% health insurance coverage and 10% about cost control, all you ever hear people talk about is cost control. How it’s going to lower the cost of health care, that’s all they talk about. Why? Because that’s what people want to hear about because a majority of Americans care about health-care costs.”

It's 90% wealth transfer, but people want to hear "lower costs", so they faked the numbers and lied about the particulars of the bill so that the MSM would make claims that BOcare "controlled costs".

The only way it "controls costs" is by putting middle class people like myself that formerly had good coverage into high deductible Vegas Style HSA plans so we use less healthcare!

We certainly made a horrible choice to allow BOcare to pass -- was it because of not paying attention, being lied to, or being stupid? I suspect there are plenty of each in the mix.

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W Is a WAY Better Ex-President Too

Jimmy Carter Now Pimps For Tyrants, So Of Course Jon Stewart Loves Him:



But don't expect to hear it in the media! Good column that covers the fact that Carter really isn't a successful ex-president either, even if you give him HUGE credit for some Habitat for Humanity work.



W OTOH ... well documented in the linked article if you care. I've heard the AIDs stuff quite a bit and I like this Bono / Jon Stewart interaction:

Bono discussed Bush’s President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. He said, “We’re hoping very much that President Obama is going to follow through on what President Bush did.” Stewart cringed and Bono patted his hand and said, “I know that’s hard for you to accept.” He added, “It is amazing. People like John Kerry worked for this. Hillary Clinton, and eventually President Clinton did some extraordinary stuff renegotiating the prices of these very expensive drugs down. But George Bush kind of knocked it out of the park.”

Bono is at the very least a strong Christian Sympathiser if not actually a Christian himself, WAY more talented than Jon Stewart, and wise enough to be very worthy to pat Jon's hand or head. Wisdom and class vs the spoiled adolescent.



Carter and Stewart have a lot in common (as they do with BO), as it seems that Bono and Bush do was well.



W was and is a good, decent, competent man. The country was lucky to have him as President 9-11-2001 and one really doesn't need to look at BO hard at all to see what a horrible mistake followed W in office.





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Obstruction, Stunts, Keystone

House, Senate to vote on Keystone XL pipeline - The Washington Post:

Canada is pumping oil from their oil sands, and the only question is where that oil goes to be refined. Overseas to China where the refining process is not under the watchful eye of the EPA, or to the US where American workers will be involved in the process and it will have at least SOME positive impact on jobs and energy prices. The president says very little, Canada, the oil industry and most voters say quite a lot.

Obviously the media finds Mr "Red Line" in Syria, "I did and didn't end the war in Iraq", and "You can keep your healthcare if you like it" to be a very trustworthy and thus believable source. Based on the election, it would seem that voters are generally not in agreement -- however BO and his true fans have decided that the appropriate electorate to "listen to" are those that stayed home on the couch.

Suddenly,  Mary Landrieu is a force for passing Keystone in the Senate. Imagine that!

For the first time in the six-year fight over the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, both houses of Congress will hold a vote on the proposed project, giving each side in a Louisiana Senate election a chance to boost its candidate.

So for 4 long years the Senate has been a firewall,  (2 years prior it was a partisan rubber stamp) along with the media, allowing BO to pontificate on issues without having to actually take the action of getting out a veto pen! The executive requirement to lead, follow, stand aside, or take some other specific action has been unscrupulously sidestepped! Harry Reid unilaterally controlled what bills passed by the house got a change to be seen in the Senate and surreptitiously passed enough "naming a new bridge" bills so that a pure comparison of numbers of bills passed by House and Senate would cover the tracks of his disingenuous ploy.

Naturally, in what is truly a monument to at least the inattention of the American People, the TP controlled media has run the nifty magic trick by which all problems with CONGRESS are converted to problems with THE HOUSE! The Senate, the supposed "greatest deliberative body", the "upper chamber" was nearly invisible save for occasional Harry diatribes on how bad things were in the House, the Koch brothers, or what life was like in Searchlight in medieval times.

The faint hope for the next two years is that BO will be given the opportunity to be an executive -- getting signed bills on his desk for things like Keystone, and we assume telling the shivering American public that the world has warmed significantly and is in the process of warming still more, so they ought to forgo heat to prevent that warming. Put on a sweater.

Perhaps, as he says this, a few Americans may take a couple minutes to consider that the ISSUE is ONLY about WHERE the oil gets refined -- and how it gets transported. The fact summary is:

• Not having Keystone is a windfall for Warren Buffett who owns the railroads -- since he is a BO supporter, TP regularly assures us his motives for opposing Keystone has nothing to do with owning railroads.  if you believe that wealth inequality is an issue, then you ought to support the Keystone! 
• The oil is being pumped and it WILL be burned. The only issue is if it is refined / burned in the US or refined / burned in China. If you believe in AGW, then it is BETTER to have the Keystone since the US is a more carbon friendly refiner and fuel user! 
• The ONLY people to which Keystone is bad is for are DEMOCRATS losing a wedge / funding issue! It has become a totem for low information voters to be against a pipeline that will HELP both the environment and wealth inequality -- supposed issues they care about, but apparently much less than fund raising! 

Congress needs to quit doing stunts -- the Landrieu bill is just a stunt to supposedly help her in her election, the bill won't actually make it out of the Senate, conference, or something. Stunts are part of Congress -- the difference is that when Republicans do it, the STORY is the fact that it is a STUNT!

There needs to be a signed bill on BO's desk so we can listen to whatever his lie dejour is once it gets there. Something new, or the same old spurious prevarication we have been listening to for 6 years now!








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Being Insulted To Your Face, BOcare Video Edition

Gruber strikes again | Power Line:

In terms of risk rated subsidies, if you had a law which said that healthy people are going to pay in – you made explicit healthy people pay in and sick people get money, it would not have passed… Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.

Transparency? Do you REALLY need to see all this to see the obvious that has been obvious from time immemorial? When you let government get too big and the folks that lust for POWER, not "service" take over, then "We the People" become "the proletariat", or "the masses", or "fly over country", or something derogatory, that basically means "stupid" -- unimportant, unaware, lacking power, basically scum.



Certainly not the people in charge! "The American voter" ... to be lied to, to be denigrated, to be treated like the serfs we have generally have become!



What part of "we have to pass it to find out what is in it"? (Pelosi) or the myriad of BO "modifications", "exemptions", "delays", etc -- none of which are legal under the Constitution. CONGRESS makes the laws -- the executive executes the laws AS WRITTEN!

I suppose our attention span is now so short that many actually have to watch the video.

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Bipartisanship, Pictorially

Let's face it, this pretty much covers it!

Oh, wait ... there is THIS! What happens when the after massive media pressure and a lot of assurances about "how loved" they will be if they ONLY play nice with the Democrats THIS TIME!

Naturally the Democrats in in the role of Lucy and the Republicans  in the role of Charlie Brown the blockhead!!

If you want to review a tiny bit of the sordid history of this, here is a start!

Detroit, New Orleans, Chicago, DC -- How TP Works

Did New Orleans PD not investigate alleged sex crimes? - CNN.com:



This specific case involves uninvestigated sex crimes against children in NO, but it could be any of TP's totally controlled centers of urban blight. Detroit is attempting to rise from bankruptcy, Chicago is murder central, and DC is the "Disaster of Columbia".

The detective in the case wrote in his report that the 2-year-old "did not disclose any information that would warrant a criminal investigation and closed the case," the inspector general's report said.

Gee, "the 2-year-old didn't disclose information". Imagine that -- 1,111 cases with no sign of investigation over a 3 year period. Hello single party government control!



It's worth a quick scan through this sorry report if you harbor any thoughts of government being some sort of solution to ANYTHING. This is local, major US city, no "new programs", advanced technology, partisan  politics, or any other of typical left wing excuse for why government doesn't work.



The fact is, it just doesn't, and people are hurt injured and die because of it.



Government CAN be IMPROVED (not fixed) via an ADVERSARIAL press and an ACTIVE two party system that keeps cronyism, featherbedding and just general corruption in check. BUT, when TP controls an area in total plus the media, the result is predictably NO, DC, Chicago, Detroit, etc.



Whis is it that this is hard for the left to understand????



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BOcare: King vs Burwell 87% Explained

Obamacare’s smoking gun | CharlotteObserver.com:

I've heard the SCOTUS decision to hear King v. Burwell" reported on NPR and other left outlets a couple of times. Their reporting is basically: "It is completely unclear why 4 judges would agree to hear this case. The INTENT of the law is OBVIOUSLY clear -- everyone gets subsidies!" ... followed by some thinly veiled assertions that the "4 judges" are probably politically motivated.I'm reminded of Asiana Flight 214 that clearly INTENDED to land safely on runway 28L at SFO, but did not. In the real world, "intent" and a couple bucks might get you a cup of coffee.

Oh, and BTW, about 5.5 million Americans have signed up for coverage in states where the Feds run the exchanges. And the vast majority of them, 87 percent, have received subsidies. ... now THAT is a figure that doesn't get much coverage! Taxpayers are paying a significant amount of the bribe to get 87% of the BOcare users to use this "successful" program! "Successful" at taking money from the pockets of earners and giving it to people that vote TP!

On its face this argument appears both plausible and reasonable. But it’s not. For openers you can be sure that the Senate Office of Legislative Counsel, which drafted Obamacare and which is made up of skilled lawyers whose independence and impartiality is above question, would have brought to the attention of the Senate Finance Committee from which the bill emerged the policy discrepancy concerning the section that placed the limitation on the subsidies. Had the language been a drafting error, it would have been rewritten. But it wasn’t.

"Intent" is notoriously hard to determine in laws -- in fact, SUPPOSEDLY, the SCOTUS interprets the "intent of the framers" in the Constitution. For more modern laws, the rule is "Congress can write laws that say what they mean". They are mostly lawyers after all, and they employ PLENTY of lawyers to write the laws in any case.

So why does this law clearly say that ONLY states that set up exchanges get subsidies?>

Jonathan Gruber is an MIT economist who helped design Obamacare. After the law passed he consulted with numerous states concerning the establishment of their exchanges. Here is what he said in January of 2012: “What’s important to remember politically about this is if you’re a state and you don’t set up an exchange, that means your citizens don’t get their tax credits.”

Isn't that a big surprise? The BO admin and TP congress (at the time BOcare was passed) were doing their best to follow their standard rule of "reward political friends (with tax money) and punish political enemies". It didn't work very well ... 37 out of 50 (or 59 if you are BO) states declined the bribe. Talk about a "program that is working well"!

As I've covered WAY too many times, this kind of nasty politics is exactly why the framers wanted the Federal government to be VERY limited -- and up about "the income tax" in 1913, it was . After the fall of the current US, hopefully future generations will realize that taxes MUST follow "equal protection"! In fact, if people want to be free, ALL LAWS have to follow equal protection so the government isn't in the business of the coercive picking of winners and losers -- thus prohibiting standard Chicago crony "reward your friends and punish your enemies"!

King v. Burwell is nothing less than preserving the constitutional doctrine of Separation of Powers. The Obama administration will soon urge the Court to enable it to deem the plain language of a statute passed by Congress to mean what it does not say. That is a precedent that should send a chill down the spine of all Americans.

Most likely the left leaning judges on the SCOTUS will rule in BO's favor, and most Americans will see this as "a waste of time" -- because we no longer value freedom, and are just fine with TP rewarding it's political friends and punishing it's enemies.

Therefore, we are not a free people.

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The Unalienable Right to Not Get What You Pay For

Blog: Obama calls for more regulation of the internet. What could go wrong?:



The poor Internet has been operating under near zero government regulation. Anyone notice how that has been working? Compare the growth, operation, reliability, cost, innovation, etc of the Internet with something with long standing and vast government regulation -- say health care,  the general US economy, US highway system, etc, and you can get a hint of the extent of the suffering.



Oh the humanity!



Right now Netflix, Amazon, YouTube and many other bandwidth hogs are reaping giant benefits of the "one price for all" bandwidth rates. BO thinks the government should step in and make sure they can't pay to get superior service.



Isn't that brilliant? In the economy he wants to penalize success at any way shape or form it rears it's (to him) ugly head -- MAKE THEM PAY!



Why so different on this front? Seems pretty easy to me -- get the government regulation foot in the door. Start picking winners and losers, start punishing his political enemies and rewarding his political friends. In his view, it is a very successful way to operate -- hell, all the people that didn't vote agree with his position. Just ask him!











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Government Healthcare, Dead Women

Sterilization Horror Shows Indian Women at Risk for $10 - Businessweek:

Government healthcare is cheap -- sometimes free, or they even pay you $10 for availing yourself of it! Of course, if you are dead, as 10 Indian women turned out to be, then someone else will need to spend your $10 -- but hey, it was government provided! It's not like it is YOUR fault!

How could anything go wrong? Once you get rid of all competition, make being a Dr as honorable as being a postal worker, and prevent malpractice by not allowing the government to be sued, things HAVE to get better. Don't they?

I suppose that given the power of lawyers in this country, lawsuits are secure -- however, once it is completely nationalized, that likely just means nasty poor government employed doctors with a ton more lawsuits paid by the government! Deep pockets! Then anyone trying to spend less on government healthcare OR lawsuits is guilty of a "war on women"!

The women butchered on the operating table are kind of TPs version of "collateral damage", although military collateral damage is the folks that happen to be in close proximity to terrorists, while TP collateral damage are the very women voters that sell their souls to them for "protection". No matter, the ways of TP are insidious and highly spun!

TP is good -- BY DEFINITION.

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Soul vs Demographics As Destiny (Election results)

The shrinkage of the Obama majority | WashingtonExaminer.com:

TP (The Party-D) is always claiming that they are the party of the future because of demographics -- race, age, gender, etc.

TP is actually the party of soulless animals of which common humans are not even their preferred cohort, and they regularly state it directly.  (TP elite is of course "special" -- they deserve all honor, laud and worship in their minds)

TP is willing, anxious even,  to slaughter human babies by the millions, but will endanger human lives and livelihood rather than to risk potential harm to owls, snail darters or polar bears. TP demands that claims to an eternal soul or any "special status" of humans be completely dismissed and suppressed, while loudly screaming that extreme special status must be granted to demographic groups they see as "supporters"-- blacks, hispanics (especially the illegal ones), women, gays, transgender, etc.

So TP doesn't just forget, it out-right and loudly denies that humans are unique in our God-given soul, free will and reason. Thus, they mistake demographics -- race, age, gender, sexual preference, etc for destiny. Or so they say. In reality, as BO so smugly claimed in his press conference yesterday, TP "hears" the 2/3rds of the "voters" who didn't vote.

As with all single party control oriented ideologies of the left (communism, fascism, socialism, dictatorship, etc), voting is at best a temporary and easily ignored nuisance, and the goal is monolithic rule by whatever means it takes. No matter the facts in the linked article -- the drive to a total takeover will continue by ALL means -- fraud, using tax dollars to buy votes, attacks on opposition through the IRS, legal, regulatory and government surveillance apparatus ...

The linked article is well worth reading in total, but this is the core:

(2) In seriously contested races Republican candidates were generally younger, more vigorous, more sunny and optimistic than Democrats. The contrast was sharpest in Colorado and Iowa, which voted twice for President Obama. Cory Gardner and Joni Ernst seemed to be looking forward to the future. Their opponents grimly championed the stale causes of feminists and trial lawyers of the past.

Democrats see themselves as the party of the future. But their policies are antique. The federal minimum wage dates to 1938, equal pay for women to 1963, access to contraceptives to 1965. Raising these issues now is campaign gimmickry, not serious policymaking.

Democratic leading lights have been around a long time. The party’s two congressional leaders are in their 70s. The governors of the two largest Democratic states are sons of former governors who won their first statewide elections in 1950 and 1978.

"Conservative" means continuation of and even reverence for PRINCIPLES that are timeless. Recognition of the position of man as eternally (and obviously to any that have eyes that see) special in creation, and recognition that it IS creation -- ordered, comprehensible, purposeful, meaningful. The acceptance and joy of being part of an ultimate purposeful existence passed down in a chain of civilization thousands of years old, with an INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY to act as a link in that divinely blessed chain of history.

We WERE a nation that was completely in touch with that sacred history -- take a few minutes to look at and consider the list of the 23 law givers in the chamber of the US House . We still knew our identity as late as 1949!

TP wants to replace the reverence of divinity, ideas and principles with reverence for POLICIES. Replacing God, classical literature, and history with the worship of minimum wage, equal pay for women, abortion, unisex bathrooms, condoms, welfare, government health care ... etc. NOTE, I did not say that in all cases everything about these policies is bad, what I said is that like ALL human enacted policy it is AT BEST temporal and often flawed, even in the extreme.

Principles are timeless, policies are temporal -- unless totalitarians win and they are embalmed like Lenin.  The reason that capitalism and democracy tempered by a constitution worked is because of the ability for CHANGE BOUNDED BY PRINCIPAL -- "creative destruction" is the engine of capitalism, supply and demand, profit and loss are merely feedback mechanism! Private property is a bound that insures the destruction / reconstruction and next cycles of feedback will be moderated.

My personal project of reading the Classics and key works of modern political thought is now nearly 40 years old -- roughly a 1979 beginning. I'm thankful to Jimmy Carter for being hapless and hopeless enough to spur me to start down the path that began with William F Buckley (SUPERB initials!) and National Review, led through Ayn Rand, and then an avalanche of books ... "Road to Serfdom", "Closing of the American Mind", "Ideas Have Consequences", "Wealth of Nations", "Theory of Moral Sentiments", "The Conservative Mind", "The Liberal Mind", "God and Man at Yale" .... and the list goes on and on.

Ultimately God will win temporally as he has already spiritually through Jesus Christ, but for now, it is a story with the end yet unwritten. HIS story, but we get to play a little part. I strongly encourage finding the time to read whatever puny part of the script each of us is able to manage!

It's OK to bask a BIT in Tuesday's results, but we are still in very grave danger.

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97% Of Scientists Rape College Girls

The Left's Tactics -- a Personal Example on Creators.com:

The linked article is well worth the read -- gives good insight into the real origin of the oft quoted "1 in 5 women are raped on college campuses", and a little extra insight into the wonderful civility and interest in reasonable dialogue from the left. NOT!

The 1 in 5 comes largely from some surveys that redefine "rape" to be "sexual assault" and then broaden sexual assault to include "unwanted kissing" ...  putting the "should I kiss her good-night or not" decision in a whole new light.

The comments from the left were the expected ... "Praeger should be castrated", "Without rape, 80% of Republicans would be virgins" and other similar civil and  intellectually helpful fare. A linked US News article used DOJ numbers to arrive at 6 out of 1000 rapes OR sexulal assaults for girls during college -- which was likely a 60% overstatement based on their research -- so more like 1 in 200 than 1 in 5, a relatively small statistical error by liberal "standards" I guess.

The 97% in the heading refers of course to the OFTEN quoted 97% of scientists are human caused global warming believers --- the bottom line covered in PL is that 97% of the scientists that WROTE PAPERS ON HUMAN CAUSED GLOBAL WARMING (AGW) endorsed it. ... well, Duh. How the hell was it not 100%? This is quoted CONSTANTLY -- I heard it again this past week on MPR being stated as FACT! Anytime there is a percentage that large on human opinion, I get VERY suspicious -- how can any thinking person not? Perhaps you could get to 97% on "guys that don't want their penis cut off" -- but it is a HIGH figure for human agreement!

How have we become so insanely credulous? A bunch of lefty sorts have been posting pictures of the F35 all over FB with links on "The 1.5 TRILLION" fighter plane!

I guess we now know how stupid people are ... that figure is OVER FIFTY YEARS!  Each plane costs about $100M, which for reference can be compared with a 747 that costs $350M.  The 747 was designed in the 60's ... it's development costs are "well sunk", and BTW, it doesn't hover, take off and land vertically, nor break Mach 1 (although it would be damned impressive if it did!).

Apparently the third of the population that votes is generally smarter than these three fine examples -- but then BO also wants to take the two thirds that didn't vote into consideration -- somehow I suspect at least 4 out of 5 of them would be right on board with the 1 in 5 rape figure, 97% AGW and the F35 costing $1.5T!

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BO: Narcissist or Psychopath?

Obama persists | Power Line:

Unfortunately I ended up hearing part of his press conference in the car yesterday. I ought to have shut him off as I have ever since he dissed the SCOTUS sitting right in front of him being civil and proper at one of the SOTU addresses. I wanted to believe that the day after the American People had spoken LOUDLY, there would be SOME measure of recognition. There was not, I ought to have trusted my instincts.

The opening in the linked article about how BO can't even let a comment by an aging basketball star (Jordan) roll off his back gives one pause relative to the line between narcissism and psychopathy. Anyone that writes two autobiographies prior to turning 50 is clearly a narcissist. Listening to the part of the press conference that I heard, I'm afraid that it is worse that that.

Note that while psychopathy is definitely a dangerous mental illness diagnosis, they are all around us and you no doubt know one or two ... read the "Psychopath Inside" if you want a very entertaining, enlightening and a bit scary detective story (it's non-fiction) where the detective finds out that he is not who he thought he was.

One form Obama’s anger takes is disparagement of the election results. “[T]o everyone who voted, I want you to know that I hear you. To the two-thirds of voters who chose not to participate in the process yesterday, I hear you, too.” In the radio interview above, Obama describes the nonvoters as those sitting at home on their couches. What does he hear them saying? They aren’t saying, and neither is Obama.

The sitting president of the US "hears" what the 66% of Americans that didn't vote are saying? Really? What are they saying and what other voices is he "hearing"?

Try to even imagine BO having 1/10th the graciousness of this exchange which Peggy Noonan commented on (her column is linked in the PL column):

For those who think Mr. Obama has faced unusual levels of rhetoric, consider this question from a reporter to Mr. Bush:

“Thank you, Mr. President. With all due respect, Nancy Pelosi has called you incompetent, a liar, the emperor with no clothes and, as recently as yesterday, dangerous. How will you work with someone who has such little respect for your leadership and who is third in line to the presidency?” 

This is how Mr. Bush replied. “I’ve been around politics a long time. I understand when campaigns end and I know when governing begins. And I’m going to work with people of both parties. You know, look, people say unfortunate things at times. But if you hold grudges in this line of work, you’re never going to get anything done. And my intention is to get some things done, and soon—we’re start visiting with her Friday with the idea of coming together.”

I don't expect BO to come close to the standard of graciousness of W, but equating those that voted with those that didn't and claiming he "hears" both? Narcissists are VERY hard of "hearing" when it comes to what others say ... they pretty much only hear things that reflect positively on the narcissist.

Psychopaths OTOH have no anxiety or concern about what others say, no respect for external rules beyond using them for their own benefit (eg. the Constitution), are very willing to act boldly on their own with little concern for the future (BOcare?), AND ... exceedingly mean and very prone to revenge, especially secretly "getting the other guy" ... always holding a grudge and being unwilling to "let things go".

The sitting president of the US can't let an off-hand comment from an aging well loved basketball star go? Or, as I think anyone has a right to expect from a man in BO's position, turn it into self-deprecating humor ... "Well, Michael is a much better athlete and golfer than I, and even a better basketball player!"  ... it doesn't even have to be sincere -- it is a softball opportunity to get a political "hit" (looking humble and loveable like Underdog) that even minor league pols regularly hit out of the park.

But not BO. Perhaps we don't really want to know why. 

The next two years remain a very  dangerous time for America!

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Christianity, China, Blessing

Religion in China: Cracks in the atheist edifice | The Economist:

An extremely interesting article that is a worthy read as it is written -- as an atheist sociologists view of a cultural phenomenon, the growth of Christianity in China. It closes with this:

The paradox, as they all know, is that religious freedom, if it ever takes hold, might harm the Christian church in two ways. The church might become institutionalised, wealthy and hence corrupt, as happened in Rome in the high Middle Ages, and is already happening a little in the businessmen’s churches of Wenzhou. Alternatively the church, long strengthened by repression, may become a feebler part of society in a climate of toleration. As one Beijing house-church elder declared, with a nod to the erosion of Christian faith in western Europe: “If we get full religious freedom, then the church is finished.”

As a believer, I choose to give another perspective.

The church will never be "finished" -- Christ promised that it will stand forever against the powers of Hell. It has stood for over 2K years. The Catholic Church is the oldest continuous institution on the planet, and I believe that it will remain so. If the climate industry had 2K years of human carbon emission led global warming fully documented, I suspect that they would consider their position "settled"! Since they claim to not be "faith based" however,  it is amazing that the climate industry seems to lack grave doubts after 15+ years of a warming "pause", in direct repudiation of their prophets.

Freedom of at least Christian worship existed in Europe for the entire time from Christ up to modern times. The Reformation -- nearing it's 500th anniversary in 2017, meant significant freedom from mandatory CATHOLIC worship, but Christianity was still in ascension -- in Europe and increasingly around the globe as explorers and immigrants, often seeking freedom to practice Christianity as they believed, sought new lands -- including America.

It wasn't religious freedom that caused the decline of Christianity in the west, it was the rise of the new state religion of Secular Humanism. Christianity in the west isn't "finished", it is no longer the dominant religion -- a place that has been taken (for now) by Secular Humanism, but Christianity is still a major factor.

In fact, since the dogmas of Secular Humanism include abortion, birth control, gay marriage and general lack of children. The population outlook for Secular Humanism is less than stellar. It is a religion reminiscent of the Shakers who famously believed in a life of celibacy -- thus limiting their future to little more than a single generation.

No, Christianity will continue to be blessed, in the West and in China:

That is largely because many officials see advantages in Christianity’s growth. Some wealthy business folk in Wenzhou have become believers—they are dubbed “boss Christians”—and have built large churches in the city. One holds evening meetings at which businessmen and women explain “biblical” approaches to making money. Others form groups encouraging each other to do business honestly, pay taxes and help the poor. Rare is the official anywhere in China who would want to scare away investors from his area.

The founders of the US were aware that the free society they were founding was impossible without the people being strong in religious belief -- generally, to their minds, Christianity. Personal responsibility, strong families, honesty, thrift, non-violence, vocation as service to God and a desire for a life ordered by God -- these and many other elements mean that a Christian population is highly prized, if not required for a growing successful nation that allows major individual freedoms -- freedoms that seem to be required for economic growth! Without such a religion, the state must be oppressive merely to keep the amoral population under control -- which is not conducive to economic growth!

Secular Humanist America and Western Europe are and will continue to fail -- and that is ultimately a blessing, because Christianity will rise from those ashes yet again and continue to be blessed.

How can Christians with 2K years of documented history that continues to fulfill prophecy in places like China today have less faith than Global Warmists with a scant 30 years of history --  with the last 15+ years of it failing to follow their prophecy?


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