Monthly Archives: November 2014

Sarah Palin spells it out

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The Republicans didn’t win, the Democrats lost. Now the aim must be to legislate like you mean it. Sarah Palin: It wasn’t a vote for the GOP

Sarah Palin took to Facebook early Wednesday morning to caution jubilant Republicans that voters cast ballots against Washington dysfunction, not necessarily for the GOP.

“The Democrats got mauled today, deservedly so,” Palin writes. “To prohibit that from happening to the GOP in 2016, it must learn the lesson from the last time Republicans held the Senate majority.”

She continued, “This time they must not retreat, and it’s our responsibility to hold them accountable.”

While Palin congratulated the winners and said that the midterm elections sent a message to President Barack Obama that was “undeniably received,” the former Alaskan governor and vice presidential candidate noted that Americans were voting against D.C, not for Republicans.

“Now, new Republican Congressional majority in the House and Senate, please realize that Americans were not necessarily voting FOR any party; they were voting AGAINST the continued dysfunction and corruption in D.C.,” her Facebook post reads. “We the People were saying ‘enough is enough’ to the scandals, crony capitalism, and utter lack of leadership in Washington.”

The green carding of America

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obama jobs americans wont do

Obama cares not in the slightest about anyone else or who he harms in getting his agenda through, and this applies to the Democrats as much as anyone else. His next act of sabotage will be the issuing of 34 million green cards to illegal aliens, some already in the US and others still to come.

The only mystery I find about Obama is that anyone finds him a mystery. He has been as transparent as a sheet of glass and has been from the first moment he came into view. He is still to some extent constrained by politics and the American constitution but not by much. He has ruined the medical system, subverted the economy, ground down America’s national defence (and therefore ours as well), and is now flooding the country with millions who may never assimilate. Not much more he really could have been expected to do if his mission was to undermine the United States and the West in general.

His personal motivations are somewhat obscure but only slightly. It is either the psychological damage of his early upbringing that has left him a seething mass of hatreds, or his ideological far left cast of mind that was formed at the hands of Frank Marshall, Saul Alinsky and Bill Ayers. Some combination of the two is most likely. But the end result is an America that will never be the same as it was in 2008.

He is a political con man whose great pleasure is to laugh at those who support him as the stupid fools he perfectly well understands them to be.

The Mid-Term Elections in the US

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While we sleep, the United States votes. Come morning we will find out how far the Dems have fallen and whether they had managed to fall far enough for the Republicans to hold a majority in the Senate to go along with their majority in the House. To keep up with the results, there is Real Clear Politics to keep you up to date.

In the meantime, you can commiserate with Mark Steyn’s reflections on Election Day.

YOU CAN ALSO FOLLOW THE ELECTION HERE: There is also a live feed from PJ Media.

HOW IT’S GONE: Republicans Surge to Control of Senate.

Riding a powerful wave of voter discontent, resurgent Republicans captured control of the Senate and tightened their grip on the House Tuesday night in elections certain to complicate President Barack Obama’s final two years in office. . . .

A shift in control of the Senate will likely result in a strong GOP assault on budget deficits, additional pressure on Democrats to accept sweeping changes to the health care law that stands as Obama’s signal domestic accomplishment and a bid to reduce federal regulations.

Obama’s ability to win confirmation for lifetime Supreme Court and other judicial appointments could also suffer.

The non-existent moral authority assumed by the left

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Stacy McCain on the assumed moral authority of spokespersons from the left:

The Left loves nothing more than to arrogate to themselves a pretended authority to speak on behalf of alleged victims of oppression. Covering themselves in secondhand martyrdom, figuratively brandishing the victim’s corpse as a shield against criticism, leftists start playing the Grand Inquistor, demanding that we respond according to the script. . . .

Because the vast majority of people never realize that they were programmed by skillful indoctrinators, as Buckley put it, they can’t figure out what’s really happening in these ginned-up media controversies. Well, everybody is against racism, sexism and homophobia. Nobody is in favor of “police brutality.” Nobody is pro-pollution or pro-poverty or pro-rape. So why do we find ourselves constantly subjected to these moralistic lectures, as if we need to be told for the umpteenth time how dreadfully oppressive our society is? The Daily Atrocity Parade in the liberal media is a continuation of the cultural Marxism programming everybody got in the Government Youth Indoctrination Centers euphemistically known as “public schools,” and we are supposed to react like Pavlov’s dog: “Racism! Sexism! Poverty! Global Warming! Vote for the Left!

Here are the list of questions Andrew Breitbart put together that should be put to those who assume such moral authority who are in every respect absolutely nobodies so far as having any right to lecture anyone else about their ethical failings:

Who appointed you as Grand Inquisitor?

What is the basis of your authority to interrogate me about this? What difference does my opinion make?

When were you elected as Our Moral Superior?

Where do you get the idea that I’m obliged to cooperate in this transparent political “gotcha” game you’re paying?

Why is it necessary that I answer your questions?

How much are you being paid to do this?

What empty windbags these representatives of the left actually are. We do need to begin striking back.

It’s the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November of an even numbered year

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The US is falling apart in so many ways that if it had an even relatively unbiased media, the ruling party would be completely routed. But when the votes are all finally counted, the president will still be president and it is only one-third of the Senate up for election. There is the possibility that the Republicans will end up with a 51-49 majority in the Senate, for all the difference that will make. But to do that seven Senate seats will have to turn, not impossible but still improbable, especially with the inbuilt voter fraud that is part of the Democrat MO. The front page at Drudge has it as kind of odds on but we will know tomorrow:

WASH POST: 96% CHANCE
CNN 95%
NYT: 70%

And while the past is prelude, the biggest issue is the one hardly mentioned, Obama’s plans to order 34 MILLION green cards for illegal immigration ‘amnesty’ is ‘confirmation of the crisis facing our Republic,’ claim GOP lawmakers. The story is from The Daily Mail, an issue barely mentioned by the American press. Of course, it’s not an announced policy. The US is already a different place from the one I once knew. This would make it unrecognisable.

Obama aims to be the most transformative president in history. Having a Republican House and a bare majority in the Senate will not stop him from doing what he has set himself to do. No more elections for him after this, but how much will it really matter by then?

Why didn’t the ABC put Patrick Moore on air?

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Because they are cowards, because they are ideologically red to the core, because they are inveterately dull witted and because they are afraid that their cherished beliefs will be shown to be absurdist lies. And you who watch and listen to the ABC’s biased lies, why do you watch or listen unless your aim is to avoid and evade coming to terms with your own vacuous beliefs which cannot stand up to decent debate. And as for you in the government, why do you put up with it? The ABC is biased in every important respect against everything Australia ought to stand for? Why is it not being downsized and made to raise the funds it needs from those who wish to listen to it or watch its programs.

US Congressional elections

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Of course in this country Romney was 6% so a voice of authority he is not. Yet his common sense comes across every time he speaks, as it did in 2012. So now the elections for Congress and one-third of the Senate are a salvage operation. For us it’s Melbourne Cup but for them its an even more important race. This is Romney trying to get the 53% to finally start to do what needs to be done. But what is most interesting about this article is not what Romney said but the comments that come after which now number around 2500!

Mitt Romney predicted on Sunday that a Republican Senate would break through congressional gridlock and pass legislation on immigration reform and trade.

Appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” the former Massachusetts governor and 2012 Republican presidential nominee warned that President Barack Obama would move after Tuesday’s midterm elections toward “amnesty” on immigration reform, a reference to the White House’s decision to delay executive action on immigration until after the elections. But Romney said a Republican Congress would pass a more conservative immigration bill focused on border security that the president would sign.

“You’re going to see a provision, first of all, to secure the border,” Romney said. “Second of all, to deal with those who come here illegally. And third, to make sure our immigration policies are more open and transparent. … That’s going to happen. You’re going to see a bill actually reach the desk of the president if we finally have someone besides Harry Reid sitting in the Senate. So, we’re going to get it done.”

UPDATE: I thought I’d put in a video of Mitt Romney speaking in the last few days just to add to the colour of the post but try finding something recent on Romney that is also positive. Not easy although also obviously not impossible.

Chesterton’s fence

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From the writings of G.K. Chesterton, some uncommonly good sense that will always be lost on anyone to whom this is addressed:

In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.

Roosevelt prolonged the depression in the US by seven years

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Here’s a story that has only ever been unknown to Keynesian economists: FDR’s policies prolonged Depression by 7 years, UCLA economists calculate. Whether they have properly explained what exactly Roosevelt did wrong is another story, but at least there is finally some acknowledgement that his economic policies were directly at fault a mere eighty years after the fact. It is laughable to see that the authors argue that up until now we had not known the reason for the delayed recovery. But it is actually more than that. Now that they have found something that removes the blame from the Keynesian policies FDR adopted, they are finally willing to state in print that Roosevelt’s policies actually were the disaster everyone always knew they were.

Two UCLA economists say they have figured out why the Great Depression dragged on for almost 15 years, and they blame a suspect previously thought to be beyond reproach: President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

After scrutinizing Roosevelt’s record for four years, Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian conclude in a new study that New Deal policies signed into law 71 years ago thwarted economic recovery for seven long years.

“Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, we have always worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump,” said Ohanian, vice chair of UCLA’s Department of Economics. “We found that a relapse isn’t likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with ill-conceived stimulus policies.”

In an article in the August issue of the Journal of Political Economy, Ohanian and Cole blame specific anti-competition and pro-labor measures that Roosevelt promoted and signed into law June 16, 1933.

“President Roosevelt believed that excessive competition was responsible for the Depression by reducing prices and wages, and by extension reducing employment and demand for goods and services,” said Cole, also a UCLA professor of economics. “So he came up with a recovery package that would be unimaginable today, allowing businesses in every industry to collude without the threat of antitrust prosecution and workers to demand salaries about 25 percent above where they ought to have been, given market forces. The economy was poised for a beautiful recovery, but that recovery was stalled by these misguided policies.”

You need to read the whole article but let me take you to the very last para which has major implications for today:

“The fact that the Depression dragged on for years convinced generations of economists and policy-makers that capitalism could not be trusted to recover from depressions and that significant government intervention was required to achieve good outcomes,” Cole said. “Ironically, our work shows that the recovery would have been very rapid had the government not intervened.”

It’s a strange business since the article points out what I thought was common knowledge, that Roosevelt’s policies delayed recovery. But what it doesn’t do is put the blame on public spending which is where the blame truly belongs. It can therefore, in its own convoluted way, be taken as a defence of Keynesian policies since these were not the problem. Instead the blame for the astonishingly slow recovery is placed on industry policies which no doubt played their part. Eighty years from now someone will write a paper to argue that the Obama administration had been responsible for the slow recovery of the present moment but it will be blamed on something else instead – Obamacare maybe – rather than the fiscal and monetary policies whose effects will continue to be ignored just as they are ignored today.

The interventionists within economics is down to the last 95% of the profession but at least there is progress being made. The aim now is to save Keynesian economics, and if it requires finally admitting that Roosevelt had prolonged the depression, well that is how it will have to be. Since their conclusions take Keynesian economics off the hook, these results may end up being embraced as at long last solving a “mystery” that no one should ever have actually been mystified about.

Government attacking Sharyl Attkisson’s computer

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Lots of interpretations of what you see but the question is what if her explanation is the right one? Sharyl Attkisson releases video of alleged computer intrusion:

Former CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson has released to Politico a video clip that shows an alleged hacker attack against her Apple computer. The video’s release comes just days before the Nov. 4 publication date of her book “Stonewalled,” which inventories her efforts to hold the Obama administration accountable, along with providing a running narrative about intrusions into her home and work computers.

The video itself shows a computer with a moving cursor erasing words from a document. In the background, a voice — purportedly Attkisson’s — says “not touching it” and “just deleting everything.” At one point, the footage shows a partial view of the computer’s keyboard, which is free of hands.

In “Stonewalled,” Attkisson provides a blow-by-blow account of this moment. It’s September 2013 and White House officials Jay Carney and Eric Schultz both are complaining to CBS News higher-ups about Attkisson’s Benghazi reporting. In an e-mail to CBS News Washington Bureau Chief Chris Isham, Carney slights a piece by Attkisson that he calls an “exclusive preview of a Darrell Issa press release,” in reference to the California Republican congressman who chairs the House oversight committee. Schultz pitches another CBS News staffer, Major Garrett, on a story that contains “exonerating material.”

Right against these e-mails, things get dicey for Attkisson and her computer. Let her tell the story:

That very night, with Schultz, Carney, and company freshly steaming over my Benghazi reporting, I’m home doing final research and crafting questions for the next day’s interview with [Thomas] Pickering. Suddenly data in my computer file begins wiping at hyperspeed before my eyes. Deleted line by line in a split second: it’s gone, gone, gone. I press the mouse pad and keyboard to try to stop it, but I have no control. The only time I’ve seen anything like this is in those movies where the protagonist desperately tries to copy crucial files faster than the antagonist can remotely wipe them.

Attkisson grabs her phone and records video of the on-screen happenings. All manner of crazy things happen, including the disabling of a drop-down menu. “Eventually, I find that all I have the ability to do is close out the file,” she writes, noting that another open file starts undergoing ghost-driven deletions. Once she unplugs the computer from FiOS WiFi, the strangeness ends. Computer experts, she writes, “agree that [the video] shows someone remotely accessing my computer. Somebody who apparently wanted me to know it.”