‘C’ Is for Corruption

‘C’ Is for Corruption - WSJ:

... and as the article points out at the end, also for CLINTON, which is really just a synonym for corruption. The article covers what we need to know about the "Panama Papers".

The central summary paragraph is here:

"But nobody can be surprised by any of this. And nobody should look away from the central lesson of the scandal, though they’re trying. To wit, the story here isn’t about tax evaders and offshore accounts, deplorable as they may be. It’s about public policies and incentives that make a career in politics an expedient route to personal enrichment. "

The Clintons established the rule in the US that another "C" ... Character was not something required in a president.

In a world with no moral standard and a general agreement that "truth is relative", it is hard to even fully understand what someone means by "corruption". Slick and Hildebeast have amassed at least many 10's and probably hundreds of millions after leaving office by various "fees, honorariums, kickbacks,  retainers, etc". Certainly the BIG payoff will come if she gets the White House.

Everyone knows that BO will be doing the same. When you are a member of "The Party" (TP-D) in the US, the current situation is a lot more like Putin in Russia than it is for Iceland's President who had to resign. Looking at the history and current Clinton operation, it is clear they are completely above the standards of "normal Americans" as is BO.

The article is a good read -- essentially, the Clinton  / BO consortium proves that the US is pretty much "Brazil" at this point relative to corruption.

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A Rehab Challenge

Texas man set to die said he drank 12-year-old victim's blood - CBS News:

We live in a wonderful society where people are basically good and can be rehabilitated by proper treatment.

Vasquez told detectives he took a ring and gold necklace from Cardenas and that Chapa, using a shovel, also participated in trying to decapitate the boy. "The devil was telling me to take (the head) away from him," Vasquez said, adding that "it couldn't come off."

I keep wondering if BO doesn't have similar voices; "The Devil was telling me to destroy the morality of the nation, kill the work ethic and remove any future hope in the population -- it was hard to get it all done in just eight years, but I did my masters bidding to my greatest ability so expect great rewards ..."

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Racially Undesirable Wages

http://www.latimes.com/la-oe-0405-leonard-minimum-wage-20160405-story.html

Regular readers likely know that "progressives" in the early 20th century were largely racists and politically leaning more toward Fascism, which was popular right up till things went bad in WWII and it didn't turn out so well, at which point they became "liberals" which used to mean "small government, lots of personal liberty".

They were well aware that raising the minimum wage priced entry workers out of the labor market entirely, and at that point they unabashedly called that a bug rather than a feature. They ran Jim Crow in the South and White Supremacism was a major part of their operation right up to the 60's (See Voting Rights Act and Robert Byrd).

In 1910, 22% of the U.S. workforce was foreign-born. A Who's Who of American economic reform warned that immigration was leading to “race suicide,” what President Theodore Roosevelt in 1907 called the “greatest problem of civilization.”

It's a good article covering what minimum wage laws actually do to the labor force and business. At this point in history, the left is on the "have over half the population on the government payroll and we win!" model, so throwing people out of jobs -- black, white, brown, green or whatever is a WIN!

Today, "Climate Change" is the "greatest problem of civilization" if you believe "progressives".

Get Trans-Serious **NOW**!!!!

http://m.townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2016/04/05/when-did-it-become-controversial-to-keep-men-out-of-the-womens-bathroom-n2143586?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad

I suspect that many people feel about the gender / bathroom thing as I felt about the "gay thing" for decades. "Yucky, tiny number of weird people out in San Francisco, it's a fad, it will blow over -- and if it doesn't, it is so unhealthy even without AIDs that they will die off ... or some variation".

**** WRONG !!!!!!!

Imagine how many alcoholics we would have if we treated alcoholism like gays or not transgender? "Hey, you were born to drink -- you would be untrue to your nature if you didn't drink! ... HAVE AT IT! ... the State ought to provide you with booze and a place to drink!!!!"

Go read the whole linked article ... but I thought the following was especially good. With PayPal deciding not to go to NC because they demand genders use their own bathrooms, this latest madness is RAPIDLY gathering steam!

Unfortunately, when it comes to transsexuals we make two huge mistakes. 

First, we encourage them to embrace their mental illness. We don’t do this with depression, schizophrenia, paranoia, multiple personality disorder or almost anything else because it’s a terrible idea. It’s like telling someone who’s depressed that he’s worthless and everyone else would be better off without him. We would be appalled if anyone did that; yet encouraging someone to mutilate himself in a futile attempt to change genders is an even more horrible thing to do to another human being. 

Our second mistake is that instead of having sympathy for people in that position, wishing them well and hoping for their recovery, we insist that everyone else cater to their mental disorder. There’s no law that says you have to stop cutting your hedges because your paranoid neighbor is suspicious of it. There’s no law that says you have to ask a person with multiple personality disorder whom he’s speaking to so you don’t shock him if you call him the wrong name. So, why are we willing to violate the privacy of half the population at one of their most vulnerable points during the day in order to cater to a mental disorder that afflicts a fraction of a percent of Americans?

How BO Lost The West

Deterrence: How America Lost It:



An excellent column covering in about as short a form as possible the foreign disaster of BO. Summary paragraph here, but a worthy read. It isn't just BO that doesn't know what happened -- it is the vast majority of Americans. But just like a bullet speeding toward your head, not knowing about it doesn't mean that the impact isn't really messy.

In Obama’s sophomoric view of the world, there is no connection between the 21st-century appurtenances that he takes for granted as president — trips on state-of-the-art Western planes, predicated on a global air-traffic-control system, run on sophisticated Western gadgets and all underwritten by Western free-market capitalism — and an established postwar Western order led by the United States. He will see no contradiction between his rhetoric and his own looming lucrative, hyper-capitalist post-presidency and the sources of capital that will fuel it. Instead, capitalism, national security, and globalization are seen as occurrences that just arose out of nowhere (cf. his recent advice to Argentina to adopt tenets of either Communism or capitalism, as if they were simply morally neutral choices), as if Nairobi designs new smartphones, Lima offers the world new ideas in municipal sewage treatment, China’s pharmaceuticals are superior to Western counterparts — or Islam taught us about medicine, navigation, and religious tolerance.

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The Wages Of Philosophic Incoherence

The scary illogic of pro-life - The Washington Post:

As I argued last week, if abortion is murder, then Trump was right about penalties for women having abortions. If it is not murder, then it ought to be legal.

In movies such as “The Silent Scream,” the antiabortion movement has for years provided gory and inaccurate details of the pain and violence of an abortion. So, if abortion is the violent murder of a human being, why not follow this twisted logic and punish women for having one? We don’t hold the perpetrators of any other violent act harmless unless they are insane or acted in self-defense, and the antiabortion movement hasn’t argued women who have abortions fall into either category.

While consistency is never an issue when the LEFT takes positions, they are very good at pointing out inconsistency from the right, and we ought to thank them for that. To be inconsistent is very human, but that doesn't make it "right", nor possible to sweep under the rug and still live morally and consistently.

The treatment of prostitution might be a model, only abortion is even LESS "victimless". In the old days, only the prostitute was prosecuted ( I see them as the abortionist ), but the "John", the customer was not. Today, there are sanctions against both parties. I could see the penalties for women seeking and obtaining abortions as similar to those for men who make use of prostitutes.

At least that is a place to begin a discussion. The left is correct, there is no way to philosophically hold the position that abortion is a form of murder, but the person who hires the killer (the woman) receives no sanction  from the state.



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Never An Author, Things Not To Read

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/04/04/gods-work?mbid=gnep&intcid=gnep

The not recommended linked article is a short little fable bathed in teen angst, religious/moral confusion, value free life and sexual tension. The title drew me in "God's Work" -- and curiosity about how the author would treat the "Jehova's Witness" style door to door proselytizers.

Here is a link to the author talking about it a bit. Things that go through my mind about this piece:

1. There is VERY little in it that I liked -- I nearly quit after what I found to be a gratuitous overly flat reference to innocent / accidental sexual voyeurism in the young male character. 
2. It seemed utterly purposeless -- no admirable characters, no real positive statements on either the rather extreme religiosity of the mother and son, nor anything positive about the atheistic drug addled father / girl pair. 

But, having been only critical, I realize it WAS published in the New Yorker, AND they found it worthy to have a discussion with the author.  This struck me ... 

This always sounds deranged, but I had no idea what would happen when I set these two in motion. The sense of discovery only comes when I’m making discoveries alongside the reader. It feels crucial for me to not know too much about how things will turn out. So I try to develop strong characters with recognizable desires and put them together with other characters and see what happens. I can’t know the outcome in advance without the life just draining out of a scene.

Perhaps if I want to create characters I need to do more than just "read"? At least so far in life, my brain has not worked to really understand the "making discoveries alongside the reader" ...

Creating characters is a stumbling block -- but thanks to the internet, EVERYTHING can be turned to an easy 10-point cookbook, so now I have no excuses!

Cuba: "Negro, Are You Dumb"

Cuban Media: 'Negro' Obama 'Incited Rebellion and Disorder':

It's hard to overstate how excited and entertained our media was in '08 when W was attacked by having a shoe thrown at him in Iraq.

Needless to say, the dressing down of BO by Fidel Castro and some of the articles showing up in Cuban papers like the linked one are not getting much coverage.

Referring to BO as a "dumb negro" is in line with the administration in Cuba:

In a video declaration in 2015, Ladies in White dissident leader Berta Soler explains that, of known political prisoners, 60 percent are black. Black people are often forced to live in segregated neighborhoods and kept far away from tourism industry jobs (except prostitution). “To the government, the black person is a thief, a bandit, a troublemaker,” Soler argues, noting that the Cuban people are significantly less racist than the regime.

There is nothing surprising here. To the left, IDEOLOGY TRUMPS ALL -- consider the "love" for Islam which subjugates women and stones gays.  I love the fact that in Cuba, if you want to call someone really stupid you refer to them as a "Swede":

The article is titled “Negro, ¿Tu Eres Sueco?” which roughly translates to “Black Man, Are You Dumb?” (The idiom “pretend to be a Swede” means to play dumb, hence the title is literally asking, “Are you Swedish?”)

I happen to be of mostly Swedish descent, and the "big dumb Swede" putdown was a fairly common "friendly put-down" growing up in NW WI when I was young. Yes, in the days before PC, "friendly put down" among neighbors and friends was actually a common thing!

"Political Correctness" in Cuba is different -- the ONLY group you better be careful to not piss off is the government, or that will be the LAST time to make an insult!

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Climate Change Summary

The "Experts" mantra -- "Never in doubt, frequently wrong". 

I'd put some of the headings differently -- 2005, Katrina was the PEAK year for "we can expect an ever increasing number of larger hurricanes" ... after which we have had basically NONE. Even large storms like Sandy had to be "uprated to hurricanes", and PREDICTIONS had to be more and more dire as in last falls "strongest hurricane EVER!" 

CA Lowering Costs With Suicide

Taxpayers Asked to Pay for Assisted Suicide of Medi-Cal Patients | California Catholic Conference:

The State is not able to create life, but it can end it, and seeks to expand it's powers to end at least innocent life in greater and greater numbers both at the start and end of life.

Without fanfare or announcement, Governor Brown’s proposed 2016 Budget recommends $2.3 million dollars to allow California to purchase lethal drugs for Medi-Cal patients who want their physician to help them commit suicide.

California would pay an estimated $5,400 per patient just for the drugs yet Medi-Cal patients still have no access to palliative care (designed to improve the quality of life for patients and their family facing serious illnesses.) Even more incredibly, a recent study has shown that Medi-Cal recipients have only a one in three chance of even getting cancer treatments under the system and often cannot obtain second opinions.

The State finds palliative care to be too expensive -- assisted suicide quietly being made a  "better option".  If you lack personal resources, the choice is given that you may either suffer on in pain, or end your life with state assistance.

At some point I will research the theology and think a bit more of my "bottom line" on this issue, but my general thought at this point in life is that Christians are under no requirement to use "heroic measures" to maintain their life. Christ certainly "gave up his life" on the Cross -- being both God and Man, he had the power to preserve it, but dying was required.

The sad situation we are now being faced with is:

1. The State raises the costs of medical care to extravagant levels through subsidy, regulation, removal of competition (cronyism) and requirements for vastly increased coverage (pre-existing conditions, mental illness, etc) 
2. The numbers are arranged so that lower incomes get increasing subsidies, higher incomes pay ever larger premiums, co-pays, deductibles, percentage of coverage, lower limits on coverage, etc. 
3. The system becomes increasingly wired to impoverish all but the very rich prior to death unless they die VERY quickly (ie INSTANTLY in accident, stroke, heart attack)

Thus the the percentage of us who will be wards of the state at the end of our lives continues to grow, and the "compassionate State" gives us the choice of either a quick death, or a lingering painful death without palliative care.

Thus, a horribly painful or immoral death is increasingly the wages of our secession of our lives and  morals to the "care" of a faceless bureaucracy.

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The Baby Could Not Be Reached for Comment

Abortion Activist to Donald Trump: How Dare You Say I Should be Punished, I’m Glad I Aborted My Baby | LifeNews.com:

Abortion shouldn’t be seen as taboo and I can’t believe I even have to say in 2016 that women or doctors shouldn’t be ‘punished’ for carrying it out. If you’re having sex you’re always at risk of pregnancy. Some people are just unlucky.

Some babies are REALLY "unlucky".





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Nonessential State Travel Ban

Gov. Dayton Bans Nonessential State Travel to North Carolina | KSTP TV - Minneapolis and St. Paul:



Will somebody ask Governor Doofus what percentage of state travel is "non-essential"? It's like all the damned "non-essential" federal "workers".



I am SICK of paying for NON-ESSENTIAL ANYTHING for the government!



From some of the past federal shutdowns I gleaned this little gem:

Federal agencies have the power to designate their employees’ status in the event of a government shutdown. The last time Congress and President Obama stalemated, in 2011, the administration estimated that 800,000 of the 2.1 million employees in the federal workforce would be furloughed.

So only about 1/3 of the current federal bureaucracy is "essential" IN IT'S OWN MIND! So I bet in the real world it is EASILY more like 20% TOPS! You ever meet anyone who didn't think they were an "above average driver"? Guess what? I guarantee you that 1/2 of the population is of below average intelligence!



So when Gov Doofus talks about banning "non-essential travel" to a place where men use men's bathrooms and women use women's bathrooms, does it even DAWN on him how much taxpayers like paying for such travel ANYWHERE?



If the governorship was essential, Doofus would have been replaced LONG ago, so that is somebody that can CLEARLY stay home!





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Rome, Europe, America -- Living In A Corpse

http://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2016/03/28/for-america-the-fall-of-the-roman-empire-is-the-best-case-scenario-n2139579/page/full

The decline covered in the linked article is old news to readers of this blog -- I found the following paragraph to be especially well put.

And now our civilization is likewise demonstrating its own shortness of breath, with Europe a few decades ahead of us on the downslope. Europe is utterly exhausted. It believes in nothing – its churches are empty and that hopelessness has translated into a demographic death spiral. Europe does nothing new and merely feeds off of the fading triumphs of the last century. Its politics are frozen in a cycle of failure even as the barbarians it unwisely invited into its midst establish their own internal kingdoms. The elite is no longer composed of citizen-soldier-politicians in the mode of the ancient Roman patricians, or even the modern Winston Churchill. Instead, it is all bland bureaucrats, terrified of losing power and using their regulatory cudgel to squelch the unrest by marginalizing the unsatisfied and outlawing the speech of the uncooperative.

Nuke Submarine Surfaces Through Arctic Ice

Watch a Nuclear Submarine Punch Through Arctic Ice - The Drive:



Kind of a cool video in the linked article.

And with the Arctic Circle sitting right between North America and an increasingly belligerent Russia, the Navy needs to be sure its subs and crews can handle the conditions.

Russia? BO assured us in 2012 that "the cold war has been over for 20 years".

For some reason, BO's good buddies in the Kremlin aren't taking part in this weeks "Nuclear Summit" either.


Everyone loves BO.



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Chicago Police Stops Drop 90%, Dirty Laundry

CHICAGO police stops plummet 90% -- CPS teachers walk out today -- Van Dyke rehire ‘slap in the face’ - POLITICO:

Chicago is on track for 700 murders this year under BO crony Rahm Emanuel.

Chicago police stops have dropped 90 percent -- from more than 157,000 up to this point last year to roughly 21,000 so far this year. No coincidence that the city is experiencing its bloodiest start in nearly two decades. The latest data shows violence has not relented since January, with both shootings and murders sharply rising.

BO is pardoning criminals and police forces around the nation are battening down the hatches as they are hyper-scrutinized for even protecting their own lives from the rising tide of increasingly violent thugs.

"The Party" (TP-D) is pretty certain they have successfully wired the demographics this time by immigration and killing any form of voter ID, thus allowing massive vote fraud, that they will be able to prevent any rise in the "law and order voter".

Even discipline in school is now "racist", and on the mean streets, cops are far better served to just stay in their cars and let the thugs kill each other -- hoping that the collateral damage will be minimized and they can just move in after the fact and pick up the bodies.

Detroit is the model for the the "TP city" -- DC, Baltimore, St Louis, Memphis, New Orleans and Chicago are cities on the way to "The Detroit Model" -- here in Minnesota, our own N Minneapolis is a local version.

I'll take my chances in Emmetsburg Iowa, I don't need a front row seat like the liquor store owner in this little promo for the ObamaNation. (abomination)

Eventually, even a very slow nation will learn the difference between "justice" and "punishment".

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