DISSECTING LEFTISM MIRROR

This document is part of an archive of postings on Dissecting Leftism, a blog hosted by Blogspot who are in turn owned by Google. The index to the archive is available here or here. Indexes to my other blogs can be located here or here. Archives do accompany my original postings but, given the animus towards conservative writing on Google and other internet institutions, their permanence is uncertain. These alternative archives help ensure a more permanent record of what I have written. My Home Page. My Recipes. My alternative Wikipedia. My Blogroll. Email me (John Ray) here. NOTE: The short comments that I have in the side column of the primary site for this blog are now given at the foot of this document.

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28 February, 2020

Quality of medical care

A message from a reader who is a retired anesthesiologist:

Recently, Dems (especially mini-Bernie) have emphasized the NEED for “better healthcare”.

In my not so humble opinion, as an expert in medical care (largely based on my own experience), is that it can’t get much “better”.

Retired, with Medicare and United Advantage from my former employer, I have had GREAT CARE. In fact, the “county hospitals” (mostly teaching hospitals) have provided better care than any private hospitals I have been in.

In truth, “the poor” get better hospital care than “the rich”.

The argument that “minority women” don’t have good pregnancy outcomes is because of “lack of access to care”. Nonsense; most cities have multiple satellite clinics in “poor neighborhoods).

Much illness is no doubt preventable. For example, untreated high blood pressure can be damaging or fatal; yet this cannot be the fault of doctors. Blood pressure can be measured FOR FREE at many stores. Treatment is cheap ($4/month for most common medications), much less than the price of cigarettes.

And not smoking is not under the control of doctors.

In summary, the “need for better care” is a fantasy for mini-Bernie and his kind.

Via email

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LIBEL: Trump Campaign Sues New York Times Over Article Claiming an 'Overarching Deal' With Russia

President Donald Trump's re-election campaign filed a libel lawsuit against The New York Times on Wednesday, accusing America's newspaper of record of defamation in an article claiming that Trump's 2016 campaign had an "overarching deal" with Russia regardless of the fact that Special Counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence of collusion.

"Today the President’s re-election campaign filed suit against the New York Times for falsely stating the Campaign had an 'overarching deal' with 'Vladimir Putin’s oligarchy' to 'help the campaign against Hillary Clinton' in exchange for 'a new pro-Russian foreign policy, starting with relief from ... economic sanctions,'" Jenna Ellis, senior legal aid to the Trump campaign, said in a statement.

"The statements were and are 100 percent false and defamatory. The complaint alleges The Times was aware of the falsity at the time it published them, but did so for the intentional purpose of hurting the campaign, while misleading its own readers in the process," she insisted.

The article in question, "The Real Trump-Russia Quid Pro Quo," an op-ed by Max Frankel (executive editor of The Times from 1986 to 1994), claimed that there was a clear deal between Trump and Russia.

"There was no need for detailed electoral collusion between the Trump campaign and Vladimir Putin’s oligarchy because they had an overarching deal: the quid of help in the campaign against Hillary Clinton for the quo of a new pro-Russian foreign policy, starting with relief from the Obama administration’s burdensome economic sanctions," Frankel wrote. "The Trumpites knew about the quid and held out the prospect of the quo."

The lawsuit explains that this article is entirely false.

"The Defamatory Article does not allege or refer to any proof of its claims of a 'quid pro quo' or 'deal' between the Campaign and Russia. Rather, the Defamatory Article selectively refers to previously-reported contacts between a Russian lawyer and persons connected with the Campaign. The Defamatory Article, however, insinuates that these contacts must have resulted in a quid pro quo or a deal, and the Defamatory Article does not acknowledge that, in fact, there had been extensive reporting, including in The Times, that the meetings and contacts that the Defamatory Article refers to did not result in any quid pro quo or deal between the Campaign and Russia, or anyone connected with either of them," the lawsuit explains.

NYT Columnist Condemns Facebook for ... Adopting NYT's Ad Policy
"The Times’ story is false. The falsity of the story has been confirmed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Report on the Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election released on or about April 18, 2019 (the “Mueller Report”), and many other published sources, that there was no conspiracy between the Campaign and Russia in connection with the 2016 United States Presidential Election, or otherwise," the campaign's lawsuit argues.

The First Amendment defends freedom of speech and freedom of the press, but there are limits to both. Defamation of character is one such exception, although it has been highly limited by the Supreme Court decision New York Times v. Sullivan (1964). In the case of alleged defamation against a public figure like the Trump campaign, the campaign would have to prove malicious intent and a reckless disregard for the truth.

The lawsuit cites evidence of bias against the Trump campaign and claims both maliciousness and that reckless disregard.

"There is extensive evidence that The Times is extremely biased against the Campaign, and against Republicans in general. This evidence includes, among other things, the fact that The Times has endorsed the Democrat in every United States presidential election of the past sixty (60) years. Also, Max Frankel, the author of the Defamatory Article, described himself in an interview as 'a Democrat with a vengeance,'" the filing states.

"The Times obviously had a malicious motive, and also acted with reckless disregard for the truth. Extensive information, including stories in The Times published before the Defamatory Article, had put The Times and the world on notice that there was no conspiracy between the Campaign and the Russian government, and there was no 'quid pro quo' or 'deal' between them," the lawsuit argues. "Moreover, extensive information, including stories in The Times published before the Defamatory Article, established that, at most, there had been isolated contacts between individual Russians and some persons associated with the Campaign, which did not result in any 'deal' or 'quid pro quo.'"

It is important to note that the Trump campaign, not President Donald Trump himself, filed this lawsuit. The organization, not the president himself — in neither his personal nor his official capacity — is bringing this legal action against The Times.

The New York Times is currently facing another defamation lawsuit, albeit a far less high profile one. Immigration hawk and VDARE founder Peter Brimelow sued The Times for defamation after it echoed the Southern Poverty Law Center's claim that he is an "open white nationalist," in contrast to its own journalistic ethics.

SOURCE

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Claims of Russian Election Meddling Are Still a Scam

If you can’t handle some memes or misleading ads, you probably shouldn’t be voting.

The fearmongering over Russian election “interference” might be the most destructive moral panic in American political life since the Red Scare. Then again, to be fair, those who prosecuted the post-war hunt for Communists had the decency to uncover a handful of infiltrators. We’ve yet to meet a single American who’s been brainwashed or had their vote snatched away by an SVR Twitterbot. Probably because no such person exists.

Nevertheless, millions of Americans believe that a handful of terrible memes — and I mean the most amateurish and puerile efforts imaginable — on social media were enough to overturn a presidential election in the most powerful nation on earth. Or, more likely, most pretend to believe it. As Donald Trump’s fortunes have turned somewhat in recent weeks, and socialist Bernie Sanders looks poised to take the Democratic Party nomination, the Russians are once again coming to snatch your vote.

There were lots of “wows” from journalists on Twitter last week when the New York Times reported that members of the House Intelligence Committee were warned by an aide to Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire that Russia would be meddling in the 2020 campaign in order to get President Trump reelected. When Trump found out, the Times reported, he was furious that briefers had given Adam Schiff ammunition for political attacks.

First off, this isn’t an absurd concern. In his effort to undermine the public’s confidence in the elections for partisan purposes, Schiff has shown an ugly and cynical propensity to exaggerate and lie about Russian attempted meddling. He’s done more harm in undercutting American trust in “democracy” than Putin.

He’s not the only one.

“Putin’s Puppet is at it again, taking Russian help for himself,” Hillary Clinton, still struggling to come to terms with her devastating loss, said Friday. “He knows he can’t win without it. And we can’t let it happen.”

“We are now in a full-blown national security crisis,” tweeted former CIA Director John Brennan, one of the leading culprits perpetrating the Russia fraud. “By trying to prevent the flow of intelligence to Congress, Trump is abetting a Russian covert operation to keep him in office for Moscow’s interests, not America’s.”

As if often the case in Trump era, the initial thinly sourced story and subsequent freakout was quickly tempered by additional reporting. CNN’s Jake Tapper, for instance, reported that there was no intelligence showing that Russians would interfere for Trump, only that they likely had a “preference” for Trump because he was “a dealmaker.”

Here is Bloomberg’s Eli Lake:

In fact, Schiff — who was present at the briefing in question — knows that there is no formal intelligence finding that Russia is meddling on behalf of Trump. Administration and House Republican sources tell me that the intelligence official who was briefing the committee went “off script” when asked about Russia’s preference for Trump in the presidential election. No other representatives from the intelligence community at the briefing backed up her assertion, these sources say, nor did the briefers provide specific intelligence, such as intercepted emails or conversations, to support the claim.

The Washington Post also reported on Friday that Sanders had been briefed by U.S. officials warning that Russia was trying to help his presidential campaign. Democratic Party operatives took to the Sunday shows to blame Russia for supporting Sanders — all in an effort to get Trump reelected. Never mind that Bernie could easily have won the nomination in 2016. Never mind that Sanders has built an impressive national movement over the years. Never mind that the champions of the Democratic Party establishment are astonishingly weak. Never mind the party’s base has been dramatically moving Left for years. It’s gotta be Putin!

The Washington Post piece is thin on specifics, which should lead us to believe the story is a politically motivated leak meant to slow Sanders’s momentum. (Then again, Bernie was implying that the Russians were responsible for the toxic campaign behavior of his Bro-sheviks, so maybe he deserves it.)

There are few people who detest the candidacy and philosophy of Sanders more than I, yet I’m positive that the KGB can’t give him the Democratic Party nomination any more than they can install Donald Trump in the White House. Only voters can.

It’s likely that Russia, as it did in 2016, will engage in amateurish efforts to foment divisions among some American — as if we needed any help. If they actually “hack” an election — a word incessantly, and erroneously, used by journalists at the height of the Russia scare in 2017 — we’ll know.

But the Russian hysteria plays into a long-standing liberal conviction that feeble-minded conservatives vote against their own interests only because they’ve been hoodwinked. It might be the doing of a foreign power. It might be the plutocrats. It might be “special interests.” It might even be domestic tricksters, like the ones in the much-discussed recent McKay Coppins piece in The Atlantic, “The Billion-Dollar Disinformation Campaign to Reelect the President” — a piece that offers over 8,000 chilling words describing traditional political operations as something dark, undemocratic, and new. Be prepared for a flood of similar pieces. Democrats never lose elections. Elections are only stolen from them. Nothing but Trump stepping down and admitting he’s a Putin asset will stop Democrats from questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

Of course, if you can’t handle some memes or misleading ads, you probably shouldn’t be voting, anyway. You’re clearly not prepared for the civic responsibilities that come with an open debate, which is often messy and ugly, rather than hermetically sealed in a media-approved bubble.

SOURCE

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IN BRIEF

MARKET STATE OF HEALTH: Coronavirus fears continue to spook markets; CDC warns of "inevitable" spread in the U.S. (The Washington Post)

"TAKING THE NECESSARY STEPS": San Francisco declares state of emergency over coronavirus (Fox News)

ABANDONING THE PARTY OF SOCIALISM: Eight Mississippi elected officials leave Democrats and independents, join GOP (The Daily Wire)

A WHOLE NEW WORLD: Disney's Bob Iger steps down as CEO, will remain executive chairman through 2021 (Fox News)

CULTURE OF DEATH: The Senate on Tuesday rejected two Republican abortion bills, one that would outlaw abortions after 20 weeks and another that would attempt to raise the standard of care for newborns born alive after botched abortions (National Review)

BLEXIT: Poll from black-led PAC: Blacks getting fed up with Democrat Party (The Daily Wire)

DAMAGE CONTROL: ABC News suspends reporter on eve of Project Veritas exposure (The Daily Caller)

POLICY: When it comes to raw power, few have more of it than central bankers (Mises Institute)

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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

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27 February, 2020

Canada: A Dead Country Walking

Canada is presently in the throes of social and political disintegration. A left-leaning electorate has once again empowered a socialist government promoting all the lunatic ideological shibboleths of the day: global warming or “climate change,” radical feminism, indigenous sovereignty, expansionary government, environmental strangulation of energy production, and the presumed efficiency of totalitarian legislation. Industry and manufacturing are abandoning the country in droves and heading south.

Canada is now reaping the whirlwind. The Red-Green Axis consisting of social justice warriors, hereditary band chiefs, renewable energy cronies, cultural Marxists, and their political and media enablers have effectively shut down the country. The economy is at a standstill, legislatures and City Halls have been barricaded, blockades dot the landscape, roads and bridges have been sabotaged, trains have been derailed (three crude-by-rail spillages in the last two months), goods are rotting in warehouses, heating supplies remain undelivered, violent protests and demonstrations continue to wreak havoc—and the hapless Prime Minister, who spent a week swanning around Africa as the crisis unfolded, is clearly out of his depth and has no idea how to control the mayhem.

No surprise here. A wock pupper politico in thrall to the Marxist project and corporate financial interests, Justin Trudeau is generally baffed out when it comes to any serious or demanding concerns involving the welfare of the people and the economic vitality of the nation. Little is to be expected of him in the current emergency apart from boilerplate clichés and vague exhalations of roseate sentiment.

Still, Trudeau may have been right about one thing when he told The New York Times that Canada had no core identity—although this is not what a Prime Minister should say in public. Canada was always two “nations,” based on two founding peoples, the French and the English, which novelist Hugh MacLennan famously described as “two solitudes” in his book of that title. But it may be closer to the truth to portray Canada as an imaginary nation which comprises three territories and ten provinces, two of which, Quebec and Newfoundland, cherish a near-majoritarian conception of themselves as independent countries in their own right. Newfoundland narrowly joined Confederation only in 1949 and Quebec held two successive sovereignty referenda that came a hair’s breadth from breaking up the country.

The latest entry in the exit sweepstakes is oil-rich but hard-done-by Alberta, a province which suffered under the National Energy Program introduced in 1980 by the current PM’s father Pierre Trudeau, and is currently struggling under a concerted left-wing campaign, sponsored by Green-progressivist foundations (American consortiums masking via proxies as Canadian coalitions), clueless Nobel laureates at their virtue-signaling best, and a Liberal government ideologically aligned with the NDP (New Democratic Party) and the Greens, to prevent the development of its vast oil reserves. Alberta has always resented the indifference to and domination of the Canadian West by the so-called Laurentian Elite comprising “the political, academic, cultural, media and business elites” of central Canada. There is now a Wexit movement gathering momentum.

It might just as plausibly be argued that Canada is composed of a veritable congeries of competing, self-identified mini-nations—English, French, Islamic, Chinese, Sikh, native tribes with multiple patrimonies and unpronounceable names, and sundry political constituencies affiliated with the global left. Contributing factors like indiscriminate immigration from dysfunctional countries, metastasizing socialist doctrine verging on nascent totalitarianism, a state-funded national broadcaster and a deeply compromised print media subsidized by the Liberal government added to the destabilizing brew. Meanwhile, to quote lawyer and former philosophy professor Grant Brown, “the education system invites Extinction Rebellion kooks into the classroom to terrify the children” (personal communication). An army of little Gretas will carry the country-killing revolution even further.

George Grant’s 1965 Lament for a Nation argued that Canada had ceased to be a nation, having surrendered its identity to the continental thrust of American dynamism and to the historical progress of the “universalist and homogeneous state [as] the pinnacle of political striving.” He goes on to argue that the “impossibility of conservatism in our era is the impossibility of Canada,” especially as the country falls ever more under the sway of “the Canadian establishment and its political instrument, the Liberals.” The book has been extremely controversial and may appear a little dated, shrouded in the mists of nostalgia for “the narrow provincialism and our backwoods culture”—although, no doubt tongue in cheek, suggesting that “Perhaps we should rejoice in the disappearance of Canada.” Lamenting or rejoicing, we are looking at a fait accompli.

It is often noted that America is a nation evenly divided between progressivist and conservative populations, a civil dilemma not easily resolved. But Canada is divided approximately 65-35 by these constituencies, and if one considers that the federal Conservative Party in its present manifestation can fairly be described as Liberal Lite, the breakdown is more like 95-5. This means there is no chance of reconciliation between our political disparities, such as they are, and Canada is doomed to plummet down the esker of every failed socialist experiment that preceded it and, indeed, that is presently on display in various foundering nations around the globe—North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and counting.

Trudeau père invoked the War Measures Act in 1970 to quell the Quebec separatist movement, the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ), after a series of bombings and murders. It is obvious that the son has neither the political smarts nor the strength of character to act decisively against those who are busy reducing an already patchwork country into a heap of shards and rubble.

And there we find the proof that, whatever Canada may once have been and whatever the talking heads may incessantly proclaim, Canada is no longer a viable political construct. It is a dead country walking.

SOURCE

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Britain's NHS Tribalizes Healthcare

A warning: It's adding protections to make sure the "wrong" ideas aren't communicated by patients

The leading presidential contenders in the Democrat Party all favor eliminating private healthcare insurance by different means, and the machinations they use to get there are about what Democrats are always about: The acquisition and maintenance of power by any means necessary. Equally contemptible? Democrats have long made it clear that anyone who disagrees with any part of their agenda is unworthy of consideration. Those wondering what such a combination would yield in terms of healthcare need wonder no more: Beginning in April, Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) will be able to refuse nonemergency care for “sexist” and “racist” patients.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who believes “no act of violence or abuse is minor,” wrote to all NHS staffers, “Being assaulted or abused is not part of the job. Far too often I hear stories that the people you are trying to help lash out. I’ve seen it for myself in A&Es, on night shifts, and on ambulances.”

To implement his new program, Hancock has reached a joint agreement with police and the Crown Prosecution Service. It will grant the police greater powers to investigate and prosecute cases where NHS staffers are presumably victims of a crime. “All assault and hate crimes against NHS staff must be investigated with care, compassion, diligence and commitment,” he declared.

No sane person would argue that healthcare providers must endure people who threaten them with violence or are actually physically abusive. In fact, staff can currently refuse to treat such people. Yet the additional measures are pure pablum aimed at assuaging progressive sensibilities. As Sky News puts it, the new protections will “extend to any harassment, bullying or discrimination, including homophobic, sexist or racist remarks.”

Defined by whom? Some hypersensitive snowflake indoctrinated to believe “white privilege,” gender “fluidity,” “social justice,” or any other manifestation of the “woke agenda” should be part of the criteria for determining who gets treated and who doesn’t?

Apparently so. While a 2019 survey of 569,000 NHS employees revealed that 15% have experienced physical assault, rising to 34% among ambulance staffers, more than one in four stated they had experienced harassment, bullying, or abuse over the past year. “Racism was the most common form of discrimination, but 2019 also saw the highest levels of reported sexism and intolerance of religion and sexuality,” the Daily Mail reports.

“All colleagues in the NHS deserve to work in a safe, caring and compassionate environment,” Hancock insists. “You deserve a working environment that supports your physical and mental health, and helps you be the very best you can be.”

Again, with a large exception for safety, this is utter nonsense. There is no perfect world where patients, already injured, impaired, and/or stressed enough to seek care, will comport themselves solely in a manner that uplifts the entire consumer-provider relationship and helps the provider to be “the very best you can be.”

As for a compassionate and caring environment, who’s kidding whom? In 2008, British medical ethics expert Baroness Warnock asserted that people suffering from dementia are a burden on the NHS and should be allowed to opt for euthanasia, even if they are not in pain.

Four years later, Professor Patrick Pullicino, a consultant neurologist for East Kent Hospitals and professor of clinical neurosciences at the University of Kent, asserted that the “Liverpool Care Pathway,” which provided palliative care for terminally ill patients, was killing off 130,00 people per year, because they were difficult to manage — or to free up beds for other patients.

In 2017, the NHS decided to single out obese people and smokers. Those with a body mass index over 40 were denied nonemergency surgery unless they lost weight. Smokers had to quit for at least eight weeks and then had to be tested to detect the levels of carbon monoxide in their blood to make sure. Also in 2017, the NHS took away the parental rights of Chris Gard and Connie Yates so their gravely ill son, Charlie, could “die with dignity” rather than receive experimental treatment in America.

Thus, while the latest agreement precipitated by Hancock refers to the possibility that NHS staffers may be abused by people in crisis or with neurological conditions who will ostensibly be handled appropriately, the track record of antipathy toward “certain” types of patients — as in those insufficiently attuned to progressive sensibilities — is impossible to ignore.

The group most likely to offend? “Elderly people make up most of the patients in any health care system,” explains columnist Andrea Widburg. “They are also the people least likely to be ‘woke.’ Without malice, they may use old-fashioned phrases that are now considered offensive when referring to women, homosexuality, or race. They probably don’t even have a vocabulary for ‘non-binary’ people.”

Even more to the point, conditions like early onset dementia and Alzheimer’s engender serious changes in behavior, often manifested as hostility. How will those patients be “appropriately handled”? Columnist Paul Joseph Watson illuminates the arc from the present to a highly dystopian future — one that isn’t solely about lack of treatment for the elderly. “First it was deplatforming people from social media websites, then it was deplatforming people from bank accounts and mortgages.” he writes. “Now it’s deplatforming people from hospital treatment. Literally eliminating people’s right to basic health care because of their political or social opinions.”

Right now, when Americans go to a hospital for nonemergency care, they are usually asked to present proof of insurance and/or another from of identification, such as a driver’s license. Will those politicians who champion a system similar or identical to the NHS ultimately require patients to submit access to their social-media accounts as well?

As columnist Laura Hollis explains, “The new NHS rule is intended to protect health care workers from insults and slurs. But it is easy to see how something similar in the United States could be twisted for political advantage, particularly given the widespread tendency in some quarters to treat every political, policy or cultural disagreement as an expression of hate: racism, sexism, homophobia or other bigotry.”

That would be progressive quarters where “microaggressions,” “triggering,” and “implicit bias” are seen as reasonable ways to determine “improper” behavior.

Yet even Hollis somewhat misses the point. In certain professions, putting up with annoying or tough customers is part of the job, and the notion that anyone could err to the side of hypersensitivity with regard to refusing someone healthcare is absurd. Moreover, unlike Britain, we have a First Amendment that allows for free speech, even if — or especially if — it is offensive.

In reality, the NHS is embracing an exclusionary political agenda sold as compassion. That’s not healthcare. It’s tribalism.

SOURCE

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IN BRIEF

GLOBAL RESPECT: President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi got a raucous welcome when they held a rally at the world's largest cricket stadium (Daily Mail)

PRO-LIFE WIN: Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rules Trump admin stripping funding from abortion clinics is constitutional (The Daily Caller)

PIVOTAL DECISION: Supreme Court to hear case on gay "rights" and foster care (The New York Times)

DOUBLING DOWN: Sanders garrisons Castro comments by defending communist China (The Daily Caller)

JEWISH IN NAME ONLY: AIPAC blasts Sanders after 2020 frontrunner says he'll skip conference (Fox News)

HERE WE GO AGAIN: U.S. Women's National Soccer Team files $66 million "gender discrimination" lawsuit against U.S. Soccer Federation (MRCTV)

POLICY: Will the U.S. and India play the long game on trade? (Hudson Institute)

POLICY: Weinstein and the complicated legacy of #MeToo (The Federalist)

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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

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26 February, 2020

Study Insists Journalists Aren't Swayed by Leftist Bias

A recent research paper published by the University of Virginia dubiously concludes, “There is No Liberal Media Bias in the News Political Journalists Choose to Cover.” While the researchers did find that the vast majority of mainstream journalists lean hard to the left — to the left of even socialist Bernie Sanders — they still maintained that this reality doesn’t skew their reporting.

Of course, if this were genuinely the case, the political leanings of mainstream-media journalists would be a mystery to us — at least insofar as their reporting is concerned.

“The funny thing about this study is that it purports to show that even though journalists are overwhelmingly liberal, their political bias doesn’t affect the stories they choose to cover or not cover,” observes Power Line’s John Hinderaker. “Which is why the press paid a hundred times as much attention to the biggest political scandal in US history, the coordinated effort by the CIA, the FBI and the Department of Justice to swing the 2016 election to Hillary Clinton, or, failing that, to disable the Trump presidency, as to the entirely fabricated, implausible and politically paid-for fantasy that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. Right?”

The fact of the matter is, an individual’s political bias is both inescapable and influential — and journalists aren’t somehow magically exempt from human nature. This bias can only be mitigated if it is recognized, acknowledged, and balanced with competing ideological perspectives. If mainstream-media journalists continue to maintain the fiction that their reporting is impervious to their personal bias, they’ll continue to earn the enmity and deep distrust of the American people. And rightly so.

SOURCE

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Time to End the Tyranny of District Court Judges’ Nationwide Injunctions

"The real problem here is the increasingly common practice of trial courts ordering relief that transcends the concurring cases before them," wrote Justice Neil Gorsuch, pictured in 2017, recently. "Whether framed as injunctions of 'nationwide,' 'universal,' or 'cosmic' scope, these orders share the same basic flaw—they direct how the defendant must act toward persons who are not parties to the case."

Question: What is the difference between God and a federal judge?

Answer: God knows that He isn’t a federal judge.

On Feb. 6, U.S. District Judge Loretta Biggs of North Carolina issued an injunction barring the Trump administration from implementing a new policy that changes how the government calculates the duration of an illegal immigrant’s unlawful presence in the country.

Although an injunction is the correct legal tool to stop someone from doing something, Biggs had a choice in how broad that injunction should be.

She could use an injunction that prevented the government from using the new calculation on the plaintiffs who sued, or she could use a so-called nationwide injunction that barred the government from using the new calculation against anyone, anywhere.

Biggs chose to issue a nationwide injunction. Actually, that’s a misnomer. These are better called “universal” or even “absent-party” injunctions, because they aren’t limited either by their geographic scope or the parties they cover.

Instead, they stop the government from enforcing a law or policy against anyone, anywhere.

These universal injunctions are controversial. U.S. Attorney General William Barr denounced them in a speech last May. Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen did so in a speech on Feb. 12, and Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch have criticized them as well.

So, what exactly are these strange things, and are they legal?

As always, it’s wise to start our analysis with the Constitution. The Constitution defines the judicial branch’s role in our system of government. Judges don’t pass laws or set broad policies, because that’s the job of the other branches.

Instead, according to Article III, judges decide “Cases” and “Controversies,” which are actual legal disputes between specific parties. Whether civil suits between private parties or criminal cases involving the government, these disputes are brought by the parties, and judges settle them for the parties.

It makes sense, therefore, that when a judge issues an injunction in the process of deciding a particular case, that injunction will not cover more than is necessary.

Historically, when a plaintiff successfully challenged a law as unconstitutional, for example, the judge would most often block the government from enforcing the law against the plaintiff, rather than completely wipe that law from the books.

But the judiciary has grown more powerful than America’s Founders intended and, since the 1960s, this has included issuing universal injunctions.

This type of injunction has become increasingly common over the past few decades as political activists try to enlist judges to make the kind of widespread policy changes that the legislative or executive branches are designed to handle.

Like a gavel thrown into a well-oiled machine, these universal injunctions cause a host of problems for our constitutional government—and for the judiciary itself.

First, they empower judges to exercise power over the entire government, rather than just the parties who brought a case before them.

Second, universal injunctions give individual district judges far more power than they ought to have. Even if 1,000 judges have upheld a law, or limited their injunctions only to the parties in specific cases, one granting a universal injunction means that the law cannot be enforced anywhere.

Third, they undermine public confidence in the judiciary by giving activists judges near limitless power to undo the laws and policies of the democratically accountable branches of government.

One infamous activist judge, the now-deceased Stephen Reinhardt, once joked of his lawless decisions that “they [the Supreme Court] can’t catch them all.”

Finally, universal injunctions lead to what Gorsuch calls “rushed, high-stakes, low-information decisions.” Oftentimes, judges issue universal injunctions at the beginning of a case, even before resolving legal and factual issues.

When that happens, the Justice Department often appeals on an emergency basis. That’s not good, because it doesn’t give the higher courts, including the Supreme Court, the time they need to make sure they get the answer right.

The Supreme Court, in particular, prefers to weigh in on a legal issue only after many lower courts, lawyers, and legal scholars have had time to discuss it. That debate sharpens the arguments and refines the issues. Emergency appeals, however, eliminate that.

The criticism of universal injunctions has reached a boiling point, and now it’s likely that the Supreme Court will step in. On Jan. 17, the Supreme Court accepted the case of Trump v. Pennsylvania.

One of the questions presented there is whether the court of appeals erred when it affirmed a universal injunction striking down regulations that would have allowed employers with sincere religious or moral objections to opt out of providing contraceptive coverage in employers’ insurance plans.

The high court should take this opportunity to end the practice of issuing universal injunctions. It should remind the lower courts that their power is limited to resolving cases and controversies, and that they are not gods sitting in judgment over the rest of the government

SOURCE

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Bernie's Wrong: We Are Better Off Today Than We Were 45 Years Ago

A record-high number of Americans — 90% — say they are satisfied with their personal lives, according to Gallup. And 74% are optimistic that they will continue being financially satisfied moving forward. Needless to say, the United States will never be a utopia, but for the vast majority of its citizens, most things are going in the right direction.

During the Democratic presidential debate last night, Bernie Sanders, lamenting how a once-prosperous society had been hollowed out by capitalism, claimed that we are no better off today than we were many years ago. It’s a shame that not a single debate moderator ever challenges this farcical assertion. In Sanders’ telling, “people … after 45 years of work are not making a nickel more than they did 45 years ago.”

For those who weren’t alive then, the 1970s were largely a crime-ridden decade of stagnant economics, city bankruptcies, crushing energy prices, sky-high interest rates, institutional rot, garbage and retirement-destroying inflation. Though it was a far better place than the Communist hot spots Sanders praised during those years, it certainly was not ideal.

And a big part of the post-‘70s economic boom we’re still experiencing today — the one that certain progressive and some statist right-wingers like to disparage — was propelled by policies that freed Americans from overbearing technocratic oversight, intrusive regulations and stifling taxes that undermined growth.

The alleged “wage stagnation” to which Sanders and others are constantly referring is a myth. For one thing, “wage stagnation” fails to take into account the health care benefits, pensions, vacations, family leave and other perks now embedded in job packages — somewhere around 30% of an employee’s overall benefits. Once those benefits are added, Americans probably have seen about a 45% wage increase since 1964. More important, the amount of time we work to buy things we need is less. What we buy does more, and it’s of higher quality. Does anyone believe that a dollar spent on medical care in 1975 equals a dollar spent today?

Partly because of a worldwide retreat from collectivism, extreme poverty has dramatically decreased. Massive new markets have opened to us. Despite the perception of many, medium household incomes are at an all-time high. The middle class is growing — especially the upper-middle class. In the past 50 years, spending on food and clothing as a share of family income has fallen from 42% to 17%. Your house is probably more expensive than the average house was in 1975, but it’s also more comfortable and safer.

The year Sanders graduated from college, less than 6% of his fellow Americans — the majority of them wealthy, very few of them minorities or women — were enrolled in higher education. In 1975, only around 11% were enrolled in college. According to the Federal Reserve study, millennials are the most educated generation, with 65% of them possessing at least an associate’s degree.

Better education, soaring productivity and technological advances allow an increasing number of Americans to pick vocations that are safer, less monotonous and more rewarding.

In 1970, around 14,000 workers were killed on the job in the United States. That’s somewhere around 10,000 more deaths yearly than the number of those who perished in the entire Iraq War. Although the workforce had more than doubled since then, the number of occupational deaths in the United States has dropped to around 5,100.

There’s a decent chance that Sanders’ heart attack would have killed a 78-year-old man in 1975. If not, it would have required dangerous surgery. Despite a small dip recently, life expectancy has skyrocketed in the United States over the past 45 years — adding more than six years since 1975. The cancer casualty rate has fallen more than 27% in the past 25 years — which adds up to more than 2 million deaths averted during that time. We’ve been able to mitigate the damage of so many diseases and ailments over the past 45 years — allowing millions to lead longer, more active and less painful lives — that it would take a book to lay out the miraculous number of advances properly.

Most of these developments, not incidentally, were brought to us by profit-driven companies.

In 1975, the child mortality rate was 18.8 per 1,000. In 2019, it was 5.7. Fatalities due to weather events have plunged. Deaths due to air pollution — surely near its smoggy height in 1975 — have fallen, as well. We have cleaner water and cleaner streets.

In 1975, Sanders’ hometown of New York City saw 1,645 murders and rampant criminality. In 2017, there were 286 homicides in NYC. Vehicular fatalities per 100 million in 1975 were at 3.35; now they’re near a historic low of 1.13.

Also, you have a supercomputer in your pocket that offers you instant access to all of human knowledge.

Yes, some Americans still suffer, and some of our goods and services are more expensive than they once were (usually due to market intervention). But we are, by nearly every quantifiable measure, collectively better off today than ever before. And what sufferings millennials do experience today often are a result of their making different choices than their parents did. Bernie should understand this better than most. It’s not in every country that a professional revolutionary can afford to buy a dacha on Lake Champlain.

SOURCE

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IN BRIEF

MEANWHILE... Shelby Pierson "misled" lawmakers about Russia helping Trump win reelection (Townhall)

STATE VISIT: President Donald Trump tours Taj Mahal, draws large crowds in India (CNN)

DAMAGE CONTROL: Michael Bloomberg agrees to release three women from nondisclosure agreements his firm signed over comments he made (The Hill)

MORE FAUXCAHONTAS DOUBLE STANDARDS: In about-face, Elizabeth Warren welcomes super PAC help she once shunned (The Washington Free Beacon)

SNUBBING THE RULE OF LAW: Greyhound bans immigration checks on buses (Hot Air)

POLICY: Why Chinese communism could be the final casualty of the coronavirus (Foundation for Economic Education)

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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

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25 February, 2020

Democrats And Race: Seems Like Old Times

Wayne Allyn Root

On January 14, 1963, Alabama’s Democratic Governor George Wallace delivered his inaugural address that included the infamous line, “In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” As unimaginable as it seems to us now, that was the Democratic Party’s position just 57 years ago. While modern Democrats denounce the bluntness of Wallace’s speech, the sentiment behind it remains the key to their power.

I’m accusing Democrats of being white supremacists, as they were then, but they are still the party of segregation. Gone are the politicians standing in the doorway of a college, blocking entry to minority students, as Wallace did, now they stand there in the name of “diversity,” still separating people by their differences.

If you watched any of the Democratic primary debates (which ratings for most of them suggest you haven’t), you’ve seen all the candidates, at one point or another, declare their plans to “help” people based on immutable characteristics. In other words, to treat people differently based on things about them over which they have no control.

This is the cornerstone of bigotry – that people are different and should be treated differently because of their skin tone, sexuality, etc. Democrats a generation ago found their path to power through preaching the superiority of one group over another. Whether they all believed it or not is a question for history to answer, it was simply a tactic that worked.

When that position became electorally untenable, the party flipped. Or so it seemed.

Segregation was a powerful motivator for voters in the South. Democrats, in the name of power, merged their desire for it with the path of least resistance for obtaining it. It wasn’t a difficult move, the Democratic Party was the party of slavery; when Republicans banished that to the dustbin of history, they created segregation and Jim Crow Laws to keep its sentiments in place. When that fell out of favor, they adapted to what they are today.

Each of these tactics have the same result – dividing people to make it easier to manipulate them.

After the legal destruction of Democrats’ segregation, the United States was on the path to becoming a “melting pot,” where individuals were treated as such; where Americans were Americans, regardless of ancestry. This tended not to favor Democrats.

The popular narrative of the left is this idea that all the Southern racists suddenly, after Civil Rights legislation, switched to the Republican Party. That’s not true. Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” is credited with this conversion. But the South didn’t switch to GOP control until 1994, and only 2 elected Congressional Democrats actually switched parties in the years following the Civil Rights Act. Jimmy Carter won the South, as did Bill Clinton.

It took Democrats some time to reconstitute itself after the Republican Revolution in 1994, after years adrift following the collapse of their segregation tactic, but now they have. And if it seems like old times, that’s because it is. It’s segregation again.

Separate dorms for students based on skin color, sexuality, or national origin. Separate graduation ceremonies, separate admission and hiring standards, etc. “Tolerant” leftists promise and implement targeted government spending and programs based on those same characteristics. The phrase “especially (X group) of color” is uttered with regularity on the campaign trail. We’re being taken from a melting pot to a series of chafing dishes.

People separated – trained to identify with people they don’t know because they look like them – are easier to manipulate. The word “community” has been redefined to apply to immutable characteristics and not geography. Your neighborhood, all manner of people around us, were our community; now the left would have you care more about what happens to someone on the other side of the country because they happen to share your ethnic heritage, than what happens to someone living across the street who doesn’t.

The target of this new “tolerance” is young people; millennials. It’s easier to instill in people the fear and hatred necessary for this tactic to work than it is to change the minds of people who instinctively know it’s garbage. That’s why the protests, the chants, the screaming of victimhood emanate from there. It’s also why fake hate crimes do too.

I wrote in my book about the phenomenon of fake hate crimes and why they are so prevalent. The kids reporting them have been inundated with the idea of this grand conspiracy; an omnipresent hidden hand working to oppress them. They set out to destroy it, but can’t find it because it doesn’t exist. But they’ve been told by people in positions of trust that it does exist. Rather than question what they’ve been told, they create it so they can expose and fight it. Buying a can of spray paint and writing slurs on walls is much easier than accepting you’ve been lied to.

But they have been lied to. America is not a “fundamentally” insert your favorite “ist” or “phobic” word here country. When a college student stands up to announce there are too many white people in the new multicultural student center and it’s making her feel uncomfortable, this is the fruit of that poison tree . That it wasn’t roundly condemned for the racism it was is fertilizer.

Democrats need people divided, groups of people are easier to manipulate than large numbers of individuals. The alternative would be trying to win people over with failed policies that empower elites at the expense of individuals, and that’s still a tougher sell.

In pursuit of power, Democrats have always been willing to do anything. Gone is the dream of Martin Luther King that his children would be judged not on the color of their skin, but the content of their character; replaced with “anything for a vote.”

Democrats have gone from separating people by irrelevant characteristics in the name of hatred to separating people by irrelevant characteristics in the name of tolerance. The tactics have changed, the objective never has. It was racist in the past, and it’s racist now.

SOURCE

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Obama didn’t build that. Trump will be judged by the present state of the economy in 2020

“Eleven years ago today, near the bottom of the worst recession in generations, I signed the Recovery Act, paving the way for more than a decade of economic growth and the longest streak of job creation in American history.”

That was former President Barack Obama in a Feb. 17 tweet touting and crediting his administration’s policies with enabling the recovery of the U.S. economy from the financial crisis and Great Recession more than a decade ago.

President Donald Trump responded the same day, tweeting, “Did you hear the latest con job? President Obama is now trying to take credit for the Economic Boom taking place under the Trump Administration. He had the WEAKEST recovery since the Great Depression, despite Zero Fed Rate & MASSIVE quantitative easing.”

This naturally led to a news cycle debating whether President Trump could take credit for any of the economic successes being seen right now—sustained growth, the lowest unemployment in 50 years, rising wages, etc.

But why can Obama take credit for his first few years in office but not Trump?

Here’s the truth.

Incumbents are always judged by the present state of the economy. It’s how the American people hold politicians accountable. Just ask Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush if they think the economy had any bearing on their political fortunes. Both had recessions occur during their first terms in office, which turned out to be their last. No amount of blaming their predecessors would have made a difference.

If the economy were to have entered a recession during President Trump’s watch — recall the headlines from last summer when short term interest rates briefly inverted with long term interest rates — you can bet that President Trump would have been blamed for it.

It stands to reason then that with the economy doing so well, and Americans becoming wealthier, that Trump will undoubtedly receive the lion’s share of the credit when the American people go to vote in November. Voters will likely point to the President’s policies on tax cuts, deregulation and America first trade with new fair and reciprocal trade deals with Mexico, Canada, China, South Korea and Japan as playing a key role.

Obama didn’t build that.

At this point in 2012, the U.S. economy had not produced a single job during the former President Barack Obama’s administration from when he took office in Jan. 2009. It was still down 568,000 jobs, and yet Obama would go on to win the 2012 election.

Was it because Americans blamed Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, for the state of the economy and the 8 million jobs that had been lost in the Great Recession?

Possibly, but the fact is, as tepid as the recovery following the Great Recession were, by 2012, the charts were pointed in the right direction. From the low of 138 million Americans employed in Dec. 2009, by Jan. 2012, it was up to 141.5 million Americans with jobs — a jump of 3.5 million.

If the numbers had kept on sinking throughout Obama’s first term, it might have easily only been a one-term proposition. But things were getting better, albeit slowly, and Obama was reelected fairly easily.

Comparatively, since Jan. 2017 when President Trump took office, the economy has produced 6.5 million jobs in the household survey compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics and unemployment remains at a 50-year low of 3.5 percent.

The biggest gains have been made by working age adults, [LNS11300060]with labor participation for prime working age 25-54-year-olds jumping from 81.5 percent when Trump took office to 83.1 percent today, representing an additional 2 million prime working age Americans in the economy than would have been had participation remained the same. That same participation rate for 25-to-54-year-olds had dropped every single year during the Obama administration until it finally bottomed at 80.7 percent in 2015. There was some recovery in 2016, and then most of the gains occurred starting in 2017 to present.

But somehow, like contortionists, the American people are supposed to discount the gains made during the early Trump years because those were really Obama’s accomplishment, even as Obama takes credit — and took credit on the campaign trail in 2012 — for the jobs created since the Dec. 2009 low, attributing it to the legislation he signed into law.

The fact is the American people will be judging President Trump on the present state of the economy when they go to the polls in November, not former President Obama.

The only question that matters is as Ronald Reagan once put it: Are you better off than you were four years ago?

And Trump has a good story to tell in 2020 about the economy. Is that really surprising to anyone who follows politics? When things are bad, the incumbents get blamed. When they’re good, they get credit.

Which is exactly what’s happening now. The latest Real Clear Politics average of recent polls has President Trump’s job approval on the economy above 55 percent. And that’s even before all of the early primaries for the Democratic nomination have even been completed. That leaves Trump in commanding position in the presidential race as the blue-collar economic boom taking place continues. Stay tuned.

SOURCE

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IN BRIEF

COUNTERATTACK: President Donald Trump slams Michael Bloomberg at Phoenix rally, pushing MAGA message during Democrat debate (Fox News)

ECONOMIST/YOUGOV SURVEY: Trump takes 2020 lead, 52%-48%; all Democrats "probably lose" (Washington Examiner)

REMINDER: Denmark tells Bernie Sanders it's had enough of his "socialist" slurs (Investor's Business Daily)

PURGE CONTINUES: John Rood, top Defense Department official who contradicted Trump on Ukraine, latest to be ousted after impeachment saga (The New York Times)

DEFAMATION: A group of Covington Catholic High School students are suing nine media personalities over tweets and commentary about the incident at the Lincoln Memorial last year (Cincinnati Enquirer)

SCOTUS BOUND? A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday it was unconstitutional to force Florida felons to first pay off their financial obligations before registering to vote, siding against state Republican lawmakers who imposed the restriction last year (Tampa Bay Times)

SOME 200 VICTIMS: Pennsylvania diocese, facing more abuse claims, files for bankruptcy (The New York Times)

POLICY: Reconciliation with Turkey should only come with a price (Washington Examiner)

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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

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24 February, 2020

ICE Throws Down the Gauntlet, Arresting Two Illegal Aliens in a California Courthouse

ICE agents arrested two illegal aliens in a courthouse in Northern California, defying a state law that says they needed a warrant from a judge to do so.

ICE flouted a new state law that requires the warrant before arresting an illegal on courthouse grounds. After the predictable outcry from courthouse officials and others, ICE calmly gave their rationale.

Los Angeles Times:

ICE said in a statement that California’s law doesn’t supersede federal law and “will not govern the conduct of federal officers acting pursuant to duly enacted laws passed by Congress that provide the authority to make administrative arrests of removable aliens inside the United States.”

“Our officers will not have their hands tied by sanctuary rules when enforcing immigration laws to remove criminal aliens from our communities,” David Jennings, ICE’s field office director in San Francisco, said in the statement.

In other words, ICE is telling critics to go climb a tree.

ICE's actions follow the deployment of Customs and Border Patrol agents to sanctuary cities and states. The state government of California bitterly criticized that move, but find themselves unable to do anything to prevent it. The Department of Homeland Security, the agency under which ICE and CBP operate, can send its personnel anywhere they see fit to send them.

Critics of the arrests dragged out the usual excuse: illegals will now hesitate before helping the police or participating in the legal system.

Sonoma County Dist. Atty. Jill Ravitch, Public Defender Kathleen Pozzi and San Francisco Dist. Atty. Chesa Boudin condemned the arrests for undermining public safety. Sonoma County Counsel Bruce Goldstein called ICE’s actions lawless because the agents had no warrants.

“It’s now going to put total fear in the community,” Pozzi said in an interview with the Press Democrat. “People aren’t going to come to court. Victims will refuse to show up. Witnesses will refuse to show up … cases will have to get dismissed.”

ICE said both men had been arrested by immigration officers numerous times from 2004 to 2010 and returned to Mexico several times.

The illegals don't respect the judicial system anyway. If they did, they wouldn't be illegal in the first place.

There is a real constitutional issue involved here. The Supremacy Clause (Article VI) makes state law that conflicts with federal law inoperative. There are no strictures ever passed by Congress on where immigration arrests can be made. And while the feds usually give way as a courtesy to states, they are under absolutely no obligation to do so in this case.

California is likely to find a friendly judge who will slap an injunction on ICE until the courts resolve the issue. But unless the United States Congress acts to restrict ICE from arresting illegals in a specific place, like a courthouse, the state is bound to lose.

SOURCE

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Can Liberals Be Reached in 2020?

A story of convincing a woman that the Democrat Party doesn't do what she believes in.

Willie Richardson

We have all been in that situation at church, work, a community event, the barber shop, a doctor’s office, or sitting at the table at Thanksgiving dinner. That moment when awkward silence looms large and the room seems like the air has been sucked dry. That moment when someone says something negative about a political candidate/party you support, not knowing they are targeting you.

Last week, I encountered two similar situations. Assuming I was the typical “black Democrat,” one woman spoke negatively about President Donald Trump while performing my routine physical, and the other was offended by a meme that depicted liberals as being, um, liberals. The latter woman was a retired high-school teacher who came up to me after I spoke at a local high school for Black History Month about Frederick Douglass. She wanted to understand the difference between “liberals and conservatives.” I obliged, smiled, and said, “Let’s talk.”

She immediately said, “Look at this! I’m offended by this. That’s not me!” As I read over the meme, it was a depiction of general conservative versus liberal ideology. I had to disappoint her because the meme was a rather accurate generalization. I said with a smile, “Well, um, this is actually pretty accurate if you ask me.” She was flabbergasted.

The meme read:

If you ever wondered what side of the fence you sit on, this is a great test!

If a conservative doesn’t like guns, he doesn’t buy one. If a liberal doesn’t like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.

If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn’t eat meat. If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.

If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation. A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him.

If a conservative doesn’t like a talk-show host, he switches channels. Liberals demand that those they don’t like be shut down.

If a conservative is a nonbeliever, he doesn’t go to church. A liberal nonbeliever wants any mention of God and Jesus silenced.

If a conservative decides he needs healthcare, he shops for it or chooses a job that provides it. A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his.

If a conservative reads this, he’ll forward it so his friends can have a good laugh. A liberal will delete it because he’s “offended.”

Just from knowing this woman, I would never figure she was a liberal. She believes in personal responsibility, limited government, the right to life, and fiscal accountability. “Growing up, we were poor,” she shared. “My mom received assistance and that’s why I vote Democrat. I believe they are for the poor.”

I understood her allegiance to the Democrat Party was a heartstring that had been pulled as a young daughter. Although assistance was helpful, she grew up believing in creating the life she wanted instead of waiting on the government to do it for her. I shared the values of the Democrat Party and she said, “I’m a Christian and don’t believe in this platform!” I looked at her and said, “But you vote for it.”

She became sober-minded and realized her decision to vote for liberal policies went against everything we both knew she stood against. “You’ve really helped me understand some things,” she told me. “I thought my conservative friends were just crazy, but when I think about it I believe the same things.”

I allowed her to draw her own conclusions. If you are ever cornered between a political wall and a hard place, remember these three easy steps to reaching liberals, especially if they are professing Christians:

Listen more than you talk. Liberals like to complain about almost everything. The president, the economy, schools, guns, and tolerance. Let them get it all out and even if you’re tempted, don’t say a word. Let the awkward silence happen a few times. When you keep quiet you actually gain leverage when your voice is heard.

Stay in control of your emotions. Don’t let your feelings affect your messaging. If you begin to attack or defend your position out the gate, you will ruin your chances of having meaningful dialogue. Grin and bear the erroneous emotional rant you hear. Smile and shake your head in affirmation as you listen. It doesn’t mean you agree, it means you’re listening with self control.

Intelligently speak your position. Wait until they say something you both know he/she doesn’t agree with — same-sex marriage, forcing children to attend failing schools, abortion, gun laws, big government, and the destruction of the traditional family.

When you speak, remind them of the facts about the economy. Remind them of the beauty of school choice or Opportunity Zones. Remind them of the points in the State of the Union Address.

You will see how they begin to agree with the facts and all you’ll end up doing is nodding your head in agreement. Tell them, “You certainly don’t sound like a Democrat based on what you believe in. Has anyone told you that before?” A close family member or friend has always said something to them about their liberal political leanings to no avail, until now!

There are levels to reaching a liberal. Do not count them all out because many of them vote based on feelings and not facts. Bring the facts to the conversation and leave it there.

If they trample on Trump, help them to decipher between political personalities versus political policies. This woman told me, “But Barack Obama was so smooth and polished. Trump just comes out with it all.” I told her being smooth allowed our former president to get away with policies that would not be accepted otherwise. She agreed and realized that it is not about the personality of the president but what he actually puts into policy.

This exchange of ideas was productive. I learned how to calmly approach those who have different political ideologies. I believe she learned what she actually believes doesn’t line up to what she votes for. Win-win situation!

SOURCE

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Political Midgets

Slander, lies, and rumors are now daily staples of political campaigns nationwide.

When I first began to draft this article I was not thinking about Mike Bloomberg, but as my momma used to say, “If the shoe fits, wear it!” But more on little Mike later. In recent years, politics has taken a very critical turn. For the Left it has become all-out warfare! If they lose elections, it’s only because Republicans cheated. It can’t be because of flawed policies.

Slander, lies, and rumors are now daily staples of political campaigns. And it’s not just on the national level, but in local elections as well. Because there is no such thing as truth in advertising anymore, you have to really do your homework to find out who’s lying and who’s telling the truth.

The current campaign for the Democrat nomination has been something to behold, especially for a Baby Boomer like me. The entire field of candidates is proposing policies that will destroy our nation’s economy, civil rights, free speech, and Second Amendment rights. Do you think I’m being paranoid?

We have candidates that want to give free healthcare to illegal immigrants and some want to tear down the border wall, allowing unrestricted immigration. All want abortion right up to birth and several think it would be okay after the baby is born to kill it. Two candidates have publicly said there’s no room in the party for pro-life Democrats. Joe Biden has changed his position on so many things it’s hard to keep up with what he believes today — except he hates Trump!

Bernie Sanders, the communist sympathizer who never met a dictator he didn’t like, wants to undo everything that caused our economy to become a global powerhouse. He hates greedy millionaires — well, billionaires now that he is a multimillionaire himself. Elizabeth Warren is now a millionaire, too, but she doesn’t want you to be one.

Then, there’s the New Green Deal that will destroy our economy, though we’re told that we’ll all die in 12 years if we don’t do something NOW. No one can tell me why our country’s economy needs to be destroyed because the biggest polluters, China and India, are not going to destroy their economies. The Green New Deal won’t change the climate, but we have to take drastic measures now!

Their message: “Raise the minimum wage, even though it will mean cutting jobs. Raise everyone’s taxes and take healthcare away from more than 160 million workers and go to single-payer coverage. And the best part is, it will all be free if you vote for us.”

But suddenly, hope has arisen for us all! Mike Bloomberg has bought his way … I mean, he’s thrown his hat in the ring. We’re saved! An old white gazillionaire has decided to save the country from Donald Trump. The man has spent hundreds of millions to take our guns and, as mayor, told New Yorkers how much soda they could drink, made racially insensitive and misogynist remarks, and is an elitist who thinks anyone who works with his hands is stupid and worthless. But hey, he’s a BILLIONAIRE! The Democrat Party is suddenly changing rules and moving the goalposts so little Mike can play. Is this a great country or what?

Something to think about?

SOURCE

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IN BRIEF

LOOKING GOOD: GOP fundraising record: $60.5 million in January; RNC nearly doubles DNC (Washington Examiner)

KEEP AMERICA GREAT: "National satisfaction" reaches 15-year high, "greatly increases" Trump reelection chances (Washington Examiner)

BELIEVE IT WHEN YOU SEE IT: U.S., Taliban agree to landmark ceasefire en route to aspirational peace deal (The Washington Free Beacon)

DESPITE MARQUEE GUN LAWS: Nine killed by "deeply racist" shooter in Germany (BBC)

POLICY: Social Security cannot survive in its present form (Mises Institute)

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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

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23 February, 2020

The problem isn’t capitalism. It’s capitalists like me

SAM HILL has a point below. He does not have much of an answer to it but he sees that unevenly distributed economic rewards must cause envy if not anger. And anger is a powerful motivator that can cause attacks of various kinds on what causes the anger. The large number of communist revolutions in the 20th century are powerful evidence of that.

The customary way of preventing too much of that anger was redistribution, invented in 19th century Britain by Disraeli and in 19th century Germany by Bismarck -- both strong and patriotic conservatives. And all advanced societies to this day do redistribute income extensively.

But is redistribution enough? The undoubted appeal of the borderline insane Bernie Sanders suggests not. Clearly, a lot of anger and call for change remains.

It helps to understand the Sanders upsurge if we look beyond redistribution to the other influences that have so far reinforced social stability. And we can see that most clearly in the two large countries which have been most immune to the materialistic temptations of Communism. Both Britain and the USA have never in their history had economically motivated revolutions or much parliamentary success for extreme-left parties.

So what makes the UK and the USA different? Two main things: Patriotism and the church.

For a long time in Britain, all respectable people went to church on Sunday. And the one bit of religious guidance that they undoubtedly received was the famous Ten Commandments. And one commandment that received attention was "Thou shalt not covet". Envying the prosperity of others was morally and religiously wrong. The commandment specifically ruled out communism. So that was a useful influence in Britain for a long time.

It is still a useful influence in the parts of the USA to this day, despite the general decline of Christian commitment in most of the Western world. The fact that Christianity has suffered a big decline is one of the reasons Sanders has so much appeal. One of the barriers to Sanders' ideas has largely crumbled.

The second traditional barrier to civil war was patriotism. Consciousness of being a part of a significant and high-achieving national whole engendered warm feelings in people that were totally at variance with any desire to rip everything up and start again.

But patriotism has been in the doldrums too. The Left have done their best to wreck it. It was however only lying low. Britain and the USA do have great historic reasons for national pride so when Donald Trump and Boris Johnson reauthorized it, there was an explosion of support for it that propelled both men to power. So that patriotic core is still strong and will continue to do in the USA and the UK what is needed to keep the destructiveness of socialism at bay.

I am a capitalist because I remember socialism.

I was converted to capitalism by a few years at the University of Chicago and a few decades working internationally and seeing socialism up close and personal. Until recently, I was confident that we need not worry about trying that experiment again because socialism had been tested and had failed. It looks like I was wrong. Socialism is on the rise. Don’t blame Bernie and Elizabeth. Blame ourselves. Here’s why.

The version of capitalism we have implemented is a flawed one. Capitalism is based on the idea that enlightened self-interest and free markets produce the best possible allocation of resources and opportunities. When socialist economies began to fail in the late ‘70s, capitalists figured that if less socialist regulation was good, none at all would be even better. We’ve been working toward that end ever since. According to the Financial Times, 2018 had the lowest enforcement of antitrust regulation in almost a half-century. Even Adam Smith argued that capitalism needs rules. Without them, capitalism quickly dissolves into cronyism and eventually Russian-style kleptocracy.

We also rigged the system.

Capitalism is a $30 trillion game of Monopoly, with few winners and many losers. That’s okay. That’s the nature of the game. But we’ve fixed it to make sure the same people win all the time. We’ve created a twotier educational system that stymies upward mobility. We have taxation that lets capitalists pay too little for the public resources that led to their success. We’ve put in laws that protect industries and shield corporations from true competition. And we have played off one disadvantaged group against another. What we have now is a game where some players get extra rolls of the die and their own stack of Get Out of Jail Free cards.

We have been hypocrites about socialism. At its core, socialism is redistribution of wealth by the government. As Karl Marx put it, “to each according to his needs.” The U.S. has gotten the redistribution part down, but in our case we redistribute to each according to his voting clout—that is, we transfer wealth from urban areas to rural ones, to farmers, to older people and to industries with enormous lobbying budgets, like Big Pharma. All the while denying that’s what we’re doing. We’re increasingly being called out by have-nots who want a turn at the trough, like The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson who asks, “Boomers have socialism. Why not millennials?” If capitalists are against socialism, then we need to be against it all the time. If we are not really against it, then we need to stop demonizing people like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

We have refused to listen to criticism, especially around income inequality. Technically, everyone in America (and most people in the world) are much better off since the ascendancy of capitalism. But they don’t feel better off. It’s biology. Let’s say tomorrow morning I drive across the street to Randy’s house and drop off a million dollars and then head down to George’s and drop off 10 million. You’d think Randy would be pretty happy. But I doubt it. Instead, he’ll come over and ask why George got more. According to the journal Science, the brain is more responsive to relative wealth than absolute wealth. Rather than trying to understand why people are frustrated, we have, for the most part, dismissed complaints about the wealth gap as sour grapes, or in the case of congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as childish naivete.

And throughout it all, we have been less than gracious. Instead of being modest about our good fortune, we have often been boastful and accused the less fortunate of bringing it on themselves through sloth, profligacy or being unwilling to take risks.

Principled, fair capitalism remains the best and fairest system for everyone. It is far superior to socialism, “democratic” or otherwise, particularly for the poor and disadvantaged. Socialism would reduce inequality in America not by lifting the poorest up, but by forcing everyone toward a miserable mediocrity. (Although probably not billionaires. They’d move to Monte Carlo.) However, principled, fair capitalism isn’t really on the menu. We have created a type of capitalism and a class of capitalists that are very hard to like. If we want to know why socialism is making a comeback, we need only look in the mirror.

SOURCE

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Delivering Truth to Secular Conservatives

Dennis Prager

In the latest edition of “The Rubin Report” podcast, two people I adore, commentators Dave Rubin and Heather Mac Donald, dialogue about some of the great issues facing America. Interestingly, though both are secular, Rubin opened the interview by asking Mac Donald about God and religion.

She began by saying that she is not conservative because of religion but because of her commitment to empirical truth. It is empirical truth that leads her to affirm, for example, “the necessity of the two-parent family” and “most traditional values.”

Mac Donald is right that one cannot be committed to empirical truth and be a leftist (though one can be a conservative or a liberal).

Left-wing assertions that are false include that men give birth; that America was founded in 1619 (when the first enslaved black was brought to the American colonies); that people can be lifted from poverty on a mass scale without capitalism; that there are no innate differences between men and women; that America is a racist nation; that women are paid less than men for the same type and amount of work because they are women; and innumerable others.

But although a secular conservative may be committed to the two-parent family because of empirical truth, marriage and family are not “empirical truths” nearly as much as they are religious values.

Few secular arguments to get married and/or have children are as compelling as religious ones. That’s why religious people are so much more likely to get married and have children.

Mac Donald said: “People who I respect enormously … whether it’s Dennis Prager or Michael Medved … are making the argument that you cannot have a moral society without a foundation of religious belief.”

That is precisely the argument nearly every founder of America made. Not all were Christ-centered Christians, but virtually every one believed that inalienable rights come from the Creator, and only from the Creator. And none (except perhaps Thomas Paine) believed that America could endure if it were to become a godless society.

Mac Donald said:

Part of my resistance to this is simply I don’t find claims of petitionary prayer and the idea of a personal loving God consistent with what I see—what I call the daily massacre of the innocents.

To me it’s a very hard claim to make that I should expect God to pay attention to my well-being when he’s willing to allow horrific things to happen to people far more deserving and innocent than I am.

So, for me, it’s partly just a truth value. I cannot stomach what appears to me to be a patently false claim about a personal, loving God.

I agree with her premises, but not with her conclusion.

I have never believed that God has any reason to pay more attention to me than to any other innocent human being. And I, too, “cannot stomach” the “daily massacre of the innocents”—so much so that I have written how I find the commandment to love God the hardest commandment in the Bible.

But what I also cannot stomach is the thought of a universe in which the horrible suffering of innocents is never compensated by a good and just God: The good and the evil all die; the former receive no reward and the latter no punishment.

The problem of unjust suffering troubles every thinking believer. But the Jewish theologian Milton Steinberg offered a powerful response: “The believer in God has to account for unjust suffering; the atheist has to account for everything else.”

Between the two, I would argue that the atheist’s burden is infinitely greater. And insurmountable.

Mac Donald said: “The idea of what started the universe—we can’t really answer that. I think to say, ‘God’—that’s just a placeholder for ignorance. That doesn’t help.”

Maybe we really can’t answer what started the universe. But as Charles Krauthammer, a great secular conservative, said, “The idea that this universe always existed, that it created itself ex nihilo—I mean, talk about the violation of human rationality. That, to me, is off the charts.”

God, therefore, is not “just a placeholder for ignorance.” Since science can never and will never answer the question “Why is there anything?” attributing the origins of the universe to an intelligent force (which we call “God”) strikes me as the most rational explanation.

Rubin: “I might have to get you in here with Prager.”

Mac Donald: “I’d love to.”

I’d love to, too.

Mac Donald asked: “Where are we all headed? What is the meaning of life? To me, anybody who claims … he doesn’t find meaning in life when there is Mozart and Haydn—to invoke a Dennis Prager favorite—or Beethoven or John Milton or Aeschylus or Anthony Trollope—”

Rubin: “Or just waking up with purpose for whatever you do.”

Mac Donald: “Exactly … trying to do the best you can do. I don’t find life meaningless for one second.”

Joseph Haydn began every manuscript with the Latin words “in nomine Domini”—”in the name of the Lord”—and ended each with the words “Lauds Deo”—”Praise be to God.”

I would ask Mac Donald and other secular conservatives: Do you or don’t you identify the steep deterioration of the arts with the death of God and religion? Is a secular society capable of achieving artistic achievement equal to that which was accomplished in tribute to God?

As for meaning, you—and I—may find meaning every day in trying to do the best we can do, or in great works of art. But, as I know you will agree, that does not mean life has any ultimate meaning. If there is no God, we are nothing more than self-conscious stellar dust. And stellar dust has no meaning.

We really need to continue this dialogue. In the meantime, for what it’s worth, I want to say to both Dave Rubin and Heather Mac Donald, who do so much for our country: God bless you.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

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21 February, 2020

South Bend Residents Have a Message for America: Don't Elect Pete Buttigieg

South Bend, Ind., is a grimy industrial city of 100,000 people located on the St. Joseph River. It's known for being the "home" of Notre Dame University -- which isn't really true since Notre Dame is technically located in Notre Dame, Indiana.

But South Bend, whose second claim to fame is the Studebaker National Museum downtown, is the home of Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg. The highly ambitious Buttigieg is seeking the presidency despite serving two terms as mayor of a small city.

A job that most would see as entry-level employment in politics as a stepping stone to the presidency? That's sort of like a burger flipper applying for the CEO position at McDonald's.

There are many South Bend residents who wonder about that too.

New York Post:

When residents of this city’s impoverished West Side reflect on Pete Buttigieg’s two terms as mayor, a few things come to mind:
A spike in violent crime, development that largely ignored the African American community and how their only well-lit street is the one that leads to Notre Dame University.

So how, they wonder, can Buttigieg possibly be trusted to run the country?

“If he’s the next president, I fear for our country. He couldn’t run our city. How can he run the United States?,” said Michelle Burger, 42, a stay-at-home mom who lives in South Bend’s impoverished and predominantly black West Side.

Much has been made of Mayor Pete's trouble with "people of color." There appears to be something to that criticism as economic development during Buttigieg's tenure in office seems to have been lagging in the black community.

Another West Side resident, Cornish Miller, 62, said of Buttigieg, “Rating him 1 to 10, I’d give him a 2.”
“Buttigieg talked about all the improvements he made, but he hardly made a dent,” said Miller, who works for a military supply company.

“The West Side is the most neglected part of town. The street I live on is the only street around here that has lights. That’s because we’re a gateway to Notre Dame.”

Young, articulate, attractive -- and gay. Is that why Democrats are taking this guy seriously? To go from being a mayor of a city with at $350 million budget to running a country with a $5 trillion budget would seem to be a leap too far.

But he's a Democrat and he's gay so he's got that going for him.

Taking credit for the work of others is part of politics but Buttigieg appears to have taken the concept a bit too far.

But Indiana Republican Party Chairman Kyle Hupfer countered that while Buttigieg “certainly had a few economic development wins,” he actually had “little, if anything, to do with that.”

“I found it ironic that when he announced his presidential run, he did it in front of Studebaker Building 84, which had sat vacant since 1963,” Hupfer said.

“But it was $3.5 million from then-Gov. Mike Pence’s Regional Cities Initiative that made that project go.”

Hupfer said increased employment in the area covering South Bend — where the unemployment rate dropped from 9.3 percent in 2012 to 3.6 percent in 2018 — was largely a function of “statewide economic strength under Republican leadership.”

Rush Limbaugh had the temerity to point out that Buttigieg's election to the presidency would be extremely difficult due to his homosexuality. We can bemoan the unfairness of it, criticize those who wouldn't vote for him because he's gay, and make fun of those with religious objections to his lifestyle.

But you cannot deny the reality that Pete Buttigieg will lose a presidential contest against Donald Trump because he's gay. And South Bend residents say we should breathe a sigh of relief because of it.

SOURCE

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Whopper Alert: 'Study' Finds Medicare for All Would Save $450 Billion a Year and 68,000 Lives

A study by researchers at the Yale School of Public Health shows that contrary to just about every other study published on the subject of Medicare for All, the program would actually save $450 billion a year and 68,000 lives.

Now really, who could ever vote against that? Will this study elect Bernie Sanders president?

How did they come to those conclusions? Smoke and mirrors, of course.

The Fiscal Times:

Previous estimates of the cost of Medicare for All have reached significantly different conclusions, ranging from a roughly 16% increase over current national health-care spending levels to a 27% decrease. This latest study relies on a new analytical tool to measure the impact of different provisions within Medicare for All as applied to real-world data (you can review and adjust the parameters of the analysis in the Single-Payer Healthcare Interactive Financing Tool).

A "new analytical tool"? "Real-world data"? Sounds impressive. Sounds like they actually know what they're talking about. Is M4A the Holy Grail we've been praying for?

Not exactly. One of the most widely quoted studies on the true costs of M4A tells quite a different story.

The leading current bill to establish single-payer health insurance, the Medicare for All Act (M4A), would, under conservative estimates, increase federal budget commitments by approximately $32.6 trillion during its first 10 years of full implementation (2022–2031), assuming enactment in 2018. This projected increase in federal healthcare commitments would equal approximately 10.7 percent of GDP in 2022, rising to nearly 12.7 percent of GDP in 2031 and further thereafter.

Doubling all currently projected federal individual and corporate income tax collections would be insufficient to finance the added federal costs of the plan. It is likely that the actual cost of M4A would be substantially greater than these estimates, which assume significant administrative and drug cost savings under the plan, and also assume that healthcare providers operating under M4A will be reimbursed at rates more than 40 percent lower than those currently paid by private health insurance.

The Yale study proceeds from some very different assumptions that don't sound very "real-world" to me.

The researchers found that the proposed system would reduce total health-care expenditures by about 13% based on 2017 spending levels. Savings would come from a variety of sources. Here are some of the major savings the researchers found with Medicare for All, based on the 2017 total health care expenditure of nearly $3.5 trillion:

Reducing pharmaceutical prices via negotiation: $219 billion

Improving fraud detection: $191 billion

Reducing reimbursement rates for hospitals, physician, and clinical services: $188 billion

Reducing overhead: $102 billion

Eliminating uncompensated hospitalization fees: $78 billion in savings.

Get this now: Healthcare expenditures are rising at about 6 percent a year. And yet, M4A will reduce costs by 13 percent?

How did they figure 68,000 lives saved? Easy. Everybody knows that if everyone has health insurance, no one will die. Well, that may be a slight exaggeration. But perhaps the most bogus stat in this entire debate is that insurance coverage leads to treating disease early, thus "preventing" deaths.

The problem with that? In order to be treated early, a disease has to be diagnosed. And for that to happen, people actually have to go to the doctor when they're feeling bad. Even with insurance, most of us don't.

Radicals like Sanders will continue to try and sell this snake oil. But even if Democrats win the White House, the House, and the Senate, Medicare for All will never become the law of the land.

SOURCE

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Bill Barr Derangement Syndrome

Can the republic survive Attorney General William Barr?

That’s the question that has seized the media and center left, which have worked themselves into a full-blown panic over an attorney general who is, inarguably, a serious legal figure and one of the adults in the room late in President Donald Trump’s first term.

Some 2,000 former Justice department employees have signed a letter calling on Barr to resign. An anti-Barr piece in The Atlantic opined that “it is not too strong to say that Bill Barr is un-American,” and warned that his America is “a banana republic where all are subject to the whims of a dictatorial president and his henchmen.”

This is impressive heavy-breathing over an AG whose alleged offense doesn’t hold a candle to the greatest hits of his predecessors:

Woodrow Wilson’s attorney general A. Mitchell Palmer carried out raids to arrest suspected leftists in the wake of World War I.

Bobby Kennedy, serving as his brother’s attorney general, authorized the wiretapping of Martin Luther King Jr.

William Barr changed the sentencing recommendation of Roger Stone from its original, excessive call for a sentence of seven to nine years.

It’s not clear why the country would collapse into dictatorship if Stone is sentenced to fewer than seven years in prison, especially given that the judge has complete discretion to impose whatever sentence she sees fit.

The suspicion is that Barr was doing Trump’s bidding, but the attorney general maintains — and he hasn’t been contradicted — that he was surprised by the initial, maximalist sentencing recommendation and he intended to amend it prior to Trump’s fulminations about the matter.

If Barr were truly Trump’s henchman, he would have squashed the Stone case rather than merely recommending a little less jail time at the end. Indeed, Barr said in an ABC News interview last week that he considered the Stone case a “righteous” prosecution.

Barr allowed the Mueller probe to reach its conclusion unmolested. The extent of his alleged interference was, prior to the release of the report, summarizing its findings in a way that wasn’t harsh or detailed enough for Trump’s critics.

Finally, he declined to prosecute former Department of Justice official and frequent Trump target Andrew McCabe for lying to investigators. If Barr is really Trump’s Roy Cohn, his personal enforcer masquerading as a top law enforcement official, nailing McCabe would have been his Job One.

No, all the evidence suggests that Bill Barr is doing his best to render fair justice in the treacherous environment created by a president of the United States who routinely comments on pending criminal cases and investigations and by the Justice department’s own politically fraught, overly zealous intervention in the 2016 election and its aftermath.

Anti-Barr polemics dwell on the parade of horribles that might come from his tenure at Justice, without pausing to consider that a norm-busting violation of the rules targeting a politically inconvenient individual already occurred — it was the abusive FISA surveillance of former Trump campaign official Carter Page.

The supposed institutionalists and civil libertarians who are piling on Barr are more outraged that the attorney general wants to get to the bottom of this abuse — and related 2016 investigatory over-reach — than by the abuse itself.

It’s no wonder that Barr has a poorly disguised contempt for his critics, many of whom are so inflamed by their opposition to Trump that they’ve lost any sense of standards. In a peppery speech to a Federalist Society conference last year that is now one of the counts against him, Barr rightly warned that “it is the left that is engaged in a systematic shredding of norms and the undermining of the rule of law.”

At the end of the day, they really don’t want Trump to have an attorney general, but that’s not going to happen. If they force Barr out — or more likely, Trump’s continued tweeting pushes him over the edge — they’ll miss him when he’s gone.

SOURCE

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IN BRIEF

CLOSING ARGUMENTS BEFORE THE CAUCUS: The ninth Democratic presidential debate is set for Wednesday in Las Vegas, and it will feature a new billionaire on the stage (NBC News)

MEMO TO MICHAEL: Bloomberg School of Public Health says there's no evidence "assault weapon" bans reduce mass shootings (The Daily Wire)

NOT ISOLATED EVENTS: Plymouth Rock, other historic monuments vandalized on anniversary of Pilgrims landing (The Federalist)

LEFTISM FATIGUE: Secession in the Pacific Northwest? Some Oregon residents petition to join Idaho (USA Today)

POLICY: The hammer and sickle should be treated like the swastika (Foundation for Economic Education)

POLICY: School vouchers improve public schools (National Review)

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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

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20 February, 2020

Why the Left Really Wants to Kill America

The century-long attempt to kill capitalism in America gained a dramatic head of steam in the 1960s with the rapid ascendency of progressivism, a Marxist movement that would quietly seize control of the Democratic Party over the last half-century.

Which was something different. For most of America’s 244-year history, the dominant political parties that evolved had a common goal constantly working to improve the country they both loved. In the 1860s, a Republican president went to war to end slavery. A century later, a Democratic president launched another well-intentioned war, a war on poverty. Democrats and Republicans alike largely saw their country as a force for good, both at home and abroad.

Beginning in the 1960s, that widely- shared view began to show cracks as the progressive movement began tightening its grip on the modern Democratic Party. Democrat icons of the 1960s -- Adlai Stevenson, Henry “Scoop” Jackson, Sam Nunn, Hubert Humphrey and JFK, to name a few -- were genuine patriots who loved their country, a sentiment that was shared by a large majority of that era’s rank and file Democrats. Such is no longer the case. Here are four ways Democrats are looking to end the idea of America altogether:

Killing America by replacing patriotism with socialism

In October 2018, The New York Times reported that 69% of progressive Democrats are ashamed of being American. Increasingly influenced by the progressive wing of their party, Democrats as a whole have moved sharply away from that love of country, and veered toward socialism that sounded like communism: In February 2019, Public Opinion Strategies found that an astounding 77% of Democrats who plan to vote in 2020 self-identify as socialists. Aided and abetted by the complicit mainstream media, the modern Democratic Party has been remarkably successful at driving down patriotism: Gallup found that less than a third of Democrats are extremely proud of their country. That's less than a third, and trending sharply downward.

Killing America by making citizenship meaningless

Why has the modern Democratic Party worked so diligently to erode patriotism? Because love of country is a major impediment to convincing voters to support what they really want, which is yielding their nation’s sovereignty to an international governing body, ultimately the United Nations. With patriotism marginalized, a society’s populace can more easily be led to no longer see themselves as citizens of their country, but as “citizens of the world.” (In his July 2008 speech in Berlin, progressive presidential candidate Barack Obama told an adoring crowd of 200,000 cheering Europeans, “I come to you as a Citizen of the World.”)

In Europe, the long-standing national identity of every progressive-run nation is already being intentionally erased, and it stands as a sort of bellwether of things to come over here.

Government-encouraged mass migration is its instrument, and the same thing is being attempted in America by the modern Democratic Party. This particular phenomenon is particularly associated with billionaire globalist George Soros. The Hungarian-born "stateless statesman" is the most prolific financier of the progressive push for a world without borders.

In his anti-capitalist best-seller, The Crisis of Global Capitalism, Soros sets out the progressive strategy. Complaining bitterly about “the sway of sovereign nations,” Soros has advocated for, and since spent immense sums each year fostering “open society alliances” among sovereign nations. The goal of these alliances is to indoctrinate citizens of western nations to accept the high-mindedness of doing away with national identities in favor of a collectivist world identity.

With national identities erased, people no longer see themselves as patriotic citizens of their countries, but as united citizens of an enlightened global society. People who oppose the unfettered influx of migrants and refugees are shouted down as racists and xenophobes. Once open-border alliances have been solidified, the last obstacle is cleared for a borderless world governed by the UN. For global governance to become a reality, the sovereignty of every western nation, including America, must be eliminated, Soros believes.

When the election of Donald Trump dealt a calamitous setback to the near-term realization of fundamentally transforming America, Soros penned an angry rant comparing Trump to Hitler, and calling him a racist and a xenophobe. Known as “the puppet master” because of the enormous influence he exerts on Democratic Party hierarchy, Soros’s foremost target in taking down sovereign western democracies is the crown jewel of them all: the United States of America. In working toward the culmination of that takedown, the billionaire globalist mastermind has powerful allies at the highest levels of the modern Democratic Party.

Killing America through identity politics

To overthrow a capitalist society, The Communist Manifesto calls for fomenting a titanic struggle by pitting an alleged victim class against an alleged oppressor class. In the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Bolsheviks rose to power by pitting the proletariat against the bourgeoisie.

Over the last half-century, the Democratic Party has taken the concept of Marxist/Leninist dialectical struggle to new heights through its use of identity politics. The term refers to politically subdividing the electorate into multiple factions (voting blocks), whose members are told they are singled out for persecution by a bigoted and unjust society. To wit: People of color are persecuted by racists & white supremacists, women by sexists & misogynists, refugees & illegal immigrants by nativists & xenophobes, Muslims by Islamophobes, gays & lesbians by homophobes & religious bigots, the 99% by the 1%, and so on. The goal of identity politics is to turn a majority of the American electorate against their country.

The self-serving narrative of identity politics is that caring, inclusive and tolerant Democrats will righteously defend the members (voters) of each identity group from the constant onslaught of outrages inflicted on them by an oppressive society. Identity politics is used as a political bludgeon to deceive Americans into believing their country is an incurably unjust place where things can be set straight only by killing off its existing economic and governing systems.

That is the observed pattern and it's important. It tells us why the 2020 elections will determine whether our free market Republic survives, or falls from within to single-party socialist rule.

SOURCE

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Trump Doesn't Mince Words After Obama Takes Credit for Booming Economy

On Monday Barack Obama laughably tried to link his American Recovery and Reinvestment Act with the booming economy claiming it paved the way "for more than a decade of economic growth and the longest streak of job creation in American history.”

President Trump didn’t mince words and accused Obama of "trying to take credit" for the Trump economy.

“Did you hear the latest con job? President Obama is now trying to take credit for the Economic Boom taking place under the Trump Administration,” Trump tweeted. “He had the WEAKEST recovery since the Great Depression, despite Zero Fed Rate & MASSIVE quantitative easing. NOW, best jobs numbers ever.”

“Had to rebuild our military, which was totally depleted. Fed Rate UP, taxes and regulations WAY DOWN," Trump added.

Simply put, Trump is right. There have been eleven recessions since World War II, each of which was followed by a recovery. We did experience an economic recovery under Obama—it just happens it was the worst one. Here are the facts: All jobs lost in post-World War II recessions were recovered after an average of twenty-five months. But, it took seventy-seven months for employment to return to pre-recession levels, making Obama’s recovery the slowest recovery of all of them, and by a wide margin. Obama is also the only president in U.S. history to have never had a single year of 3.0 percent or greater GDP growth.

Economic growth during Obama’s presidency was so bad that mediocre economic growth was considered the new normal. In September 2016, CBS News reported that "with U.S. economic growth stuck in low gear for several years, it's leading many economists to worry that the country has entered a prolonged period where any expansion will be weaker than it has been in the past."

Investor’s Business Daily noted that there was “no upward trajectory to the economy on anyone's radar when Trump took office,” but “now that the economy is outperforming everyone's expectations, Trump's critics want to pretend that the current boom was already baked in the cake.”

Obama trying to take credit for the Trump economy is almost as laughable as Obama claiming to be scandal-free.

If Obama thinks he can claim credit for the booming economy—and that it will work—he’s got another think coming. A recent Gallup poll shows that most Americans credit President Trump for the economy.

SOURCE

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She's Completely Lost It: Now Pelosi Is Claiming 'There Was No Acquittal'

Leftist denial of reality again

If you were wondering how Nancy Pelosi has been handling the events of the past few months, it's safe to say she's not taking it well. She's been keeping a low profile after making a spectacle of herself at the 2020 State of the Union address, but over the weekend she gave an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour that must be seen to be believed. If reality won't do what Nancy wants, she'll just deny it's happening to her.

She thought the footage you're about to see was so important that she shared it herself. After babbling for a bit to Amanpour about why she tore up Trump's speech at the SOTU, Nancy got even crazier:

Amanpour: What about, though, the fact that the president seems liberated? And this is about Democratic politics, so I'm not asking you to criticize here. But he was acquitted, his poll ratings are higher...

Pelosi: He was not... there was no acquittal. You can't have an acquittal unless you have a trial. And you can't have a trial when you have witnesses and documents. So he can say he was acquitted, and the headlines can say "Acquitted," but he's impeached forever. Branded with that and not vindicated. And even the senators were saying, "Yes, it wasn't right." But didn't have the courage to act upon that.

Amanpour: Except for?

Pelosi: Except for Mitt Romney. God bless him. And then the president criticized him for using his faith to do something he knew was wrong...

Well, at least Mitt can bask in the warm glow of Nancy Pelosi's approval. All is forgiven, Mitt! Forget all that stuff the Dems said in 2012 about you giving that woman cancer, and torturing your dog, and putting women in binders, and having an elevator for your cars, and all those other reasons they hated you. Water under the bridge. You're useful to them now.

Denial is the first stage of grief, and Nancy has been stuck there for over three years. Despite all her sputtering, Trump was indeed acquitted. She doesn't have to like it, she doesn't have to think it's fair, but it happened. She has no control over the United States Senate, and they don't answer to her. They voted. It's over. The End.

As for Trump being "impeached forever," so is Bill Clinton. If Trump isn't vindicated, neither is Slick Willie. And if the Dems had their way, Bill would be back in the White House right now!

I don't see how blatantly lying about Trump's impeachment is going to help the Dems in November, but then, I never understood why they impeached him in the first place. Is there anybody who voted for him in 2016 who isn't going to vote for him now that he's been impeached? Is there anybody who didn't vote for him in 2016 who would vote for him whether he was impeached or not? What did any of this accomplish? How did all this wasted time and money help anybody? What was the point?

Nancy Pelosi's logic is as shaky as her voice. But hey, don't let me interrupt that delusional old bat. The best thing she can do for the Republicans is to keep on yapping.

SOURCE

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Don't Look Now, But There Was a Huge Second-Amendment Victory in Virginia Today

Gun ban bill defeated! This morning the VA Senate Judiciary Cmte voted to table HB 961 for 1 year. Three sheriffs were present: myself, Sheriff Vaughn, & Sheriff Millirons. Our 2A patriots sent a message, loud and clear, on these bills. We cannot rest however. Other bills remain.

Former New York City mayor, former Republican, current presidential candidate, and never a fan of the Bill of Rights, Mike Bloomberg just saw part of his gun-control agenda suffer a major misfire in Virginia this morning.

Virginia House Bill 961 -- "a ban under the guise of compromise" -- was tabled for a full year by the state Senate Judiciary Committee. Townhall's Lawrence Keane warned last week that the bill would have banned "the sale of semiautomatic firearms that are commonly used for self-defense, recreational and competitive shooting and hunting, as well as suppressors." Worse, "standard capacity magazine possession would become a crime" under HD961 -- or would have, had it passed. That seemed the likely result just up until minutes ago.

It would be fair to guess that last month's huge Second Amendment rally weighed on committee members' minds as they voted to table 961.

The vote is a blow to Bloomberg's Everytown for Gun Safety lobbying effort to strip Virginians of their Second Amendment rights. Laura Vozzella reported on Sunday that Bloomberg and his organizations have "plowed more than $10 million into promoting Virginia Democrats," but it wasn't enough to move this particular bill out of committee. Is that a sign that the unearthing of some of Bloomberg's ...indelicate... pronouncements about women and minorities is limiting his juice with members of his own party?

Maybe, if this Valentine's Day tweet from Virginia Democratic Congressman Donald McEachin is anything to go by:

Michael Bloomberg Appeared To Blame Obama For Racial Division In 2016 | HuffPost. Unbelievable to blame Obama for racial division! President Obama held out the hand of reconciliation only to have it smacked away.

This morning's vote hinged on four Democrats who broke ranks to side with Republicans in opposition to HB961.

Keep in mind that the bill will come back for consideration in 2021. Since that isn't a presidential election year, it's a sure thing Democrats hope they'll be able to move HB961 forward again -- but under the radar.

Stay vigilant.

SOURCE

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IN BRIEF

GRAB THE POPCORN: Racially insensitive elitist Michael Bloomberg makes debate stage, facing bellicose Democrat rivals for first time (AP)

SHADY: Bloomberg funding network of climate lawyers inside state AG offices (Fox News)

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE: Reporter who caught Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch in their tarmac meeting says, "There's so much that doesn't add up" (RedState)

FOREIGN COLLUSION: Democrat senators reportedly held secret meeting in Munich with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif (The Federalist)

VIRTUE SIGNALING: Jeff Bezos commits $10 billion to fight climate change climate alarmists (The Washington Post)

UAE GOES NUCLEAR: First nuclear reactor in Arab nation cleared to begin operation (Washington Examiner)

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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

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19 February, 2020

Socialism Always Fails

"The Nation", which enthusiastically has supported every totalitarian communist regime that has existed in the past century (and that includes Pol Pot’s Cambodia and North Korea) is now firmly riding the Bernie Sanders bandwagon. This article, entitled “Why American Socialism Failed—and How It Could Prevail Today,” unwittingly gives away the mentality of American socialists which claims all economic issues as being “solved” by the implantation of socialism—regardless of the actual economic outcomes.

Three years ago, I wrote “The Goal of Socialists Is Socialism, Not Prosperity,” and this article follows some of the same themes. In that article, I argued that socialists do not necessarily believe that socialism produces better economic outcomes than capitalism—indeed, one would have to be willfully blind to fail to recognize the differences—but that socialists believe it doesn’t matter. Socialism is a moral imperative, and the only thing holding back the implementation of this system in the USA has been the failure of socialists to present a plausible alternative—something that socialists claim now is being done.

People who follow the arguments based in Austrian economics are intimately familiar with the economic calculation problem of socialism as laid out by Ludwig von Mises in 1920 and Murray N. Rothbard on numerous occasions, as well as the secondary “knowledge” argument presented by F. A. Hayek in 1945. Mises and Rothbard presented what clearly are irrefutable claims that the only kind of socialist economy that could exist would be a primitive, extremely basic economy that could not support any kind of complex economic activity. Even a die-hard socialist like Robert Heilbroner would admit to as much in his 1989 commentary in The New Yorker:

The Soviet Union, China & Eastern Europe have given us the clearest possible proof that capitalism organizes the material affairs of humankind more satisfactorily than socialism: that however inequitably or irresponsibly the marketplace may distribute goods, it does so better than the queues of a planned economy....the great question now seems how rapid will be the transformation of socialism into capitalism, & not the other way around, as things looked only half a century ago.

However, as I pointed out three years ago, the collapse of the USSR and the eastern European socialist states did not “convert” Heilbroner to becoming an advocate for capitalism, nor did China’s transformation from Mao’s giant commune to a quasi-capitalist economy (and subsequent economic growth) change his mind. Indeed, socialists seem almost impervious to factual arguments, and despite a gaggle of “what would a socialist economy look like” articles in publications such as Jacobin, socialists have never refuted the Austrian arguments. For that matter, socialists really cannot appeal to economics at all despite their claim that their goal is to provide a better economic society for those ubiquitous workers. Jacobin declares:

For socialists, establishing popular confidence in the feasibility of a socialist society is now an existential challenge. Without a renewed and grounded belief in the possibility of the goal, it’s near impossible to imagine reviving and sustaining the project. This, it needs emphasis, isn’t a matter of proving that socialism is possible (the future can’t be verified) nor of laying out a thorough blueprint (as with projecting capitalism before its arrival, such details can’t be known), but of presenting a framework that contributes to making the case for socialism’s plausibility.

(Note that the Jacobins are famous for unleashing the infamous Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, in which thousands of so-called enemies of the state were murdered. That American socialists today willingly associate themselves with genocide speaks volumes of what these people will do if they ever gain real power here.)

In other words, the implementation of a socialist order is not so much dependent upon a plausible model of a socialist economy, but rather is an exercise that depends upon convincing people that somewhere over the rainbow we can make the whole thing work, despite the failures of the past. And that is where the recent articles in The Nation and the Daily Mail reveal much about the socialist mentality.

In The Nation, Ross Barkan argues that the barriers to implementing a socialist system are political, not economic. Indeed, in “Why American Socialism Failed” he writes that there was just too much political resistance to reorganizing the United States into something like what at that time was being done in the Soviet Union. (It should be noted that he seems to view the Russian Revolution with much sympathy—and fails to note that perhaps Americans at that time were not interested in implementing a regime that would mirror the atrocities being committed by the Red Army and the new Soviet government.)

Instead of following the old political strategy of having people run as members of a socialist party, Barkan says that the better plan is for socialists simply to take over the modern Democratic Party by electing socialists from the presidency on down. He writes:

Today’s Democratic Party is a shell waiting to be inhabited by whoever claims the prizes of elected office. If Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist, is elected president of the United States, the Democratic Party will slowly become his party. And if he loses, inspiring still more DSA recruits and fueling down-ballot victories, socialists can continue to win council, legislative, and even congressional seats on Democratic lines, wielding tangible clout.

In New York, there is one socialist in the state legislature: DSA member Julia Salazar. She has helped lead campaigns for public control of power companies and a universal right to housing. Five DSA-backed candidates are seeking legislative seats this June, challenging establishment-backed Democrats. If they all win, they will start to gain back the momentum of the 1920s.

This time, there will be no reactionary legislative leaders to unseat the new socialists, no Red Scare to feed a public frenzy against their anti-capitalist views. Salazar is a member of the Democratic majority, an ally of the progressive block, unlikely to lose an election anytime soon. The DSA members seeking to join her will be free to advocate for radical change. It’s a future that would have surprised the class of 1920 because Socialists never took over New York, let alone America. But today’s socialists march into the 2020s without the daunting roadblocks of a century ago. They don’t need their own party anymore. They can just take someone else’s.

In other words, the entire question of socialism is political; socialists can speak about their utopian visions, be elected on those platforms, but really don’t have to explain how they actually will make a socialist economy perform in a way that will even begin to match the output of a private enterprise–based economy. Yet, when confronted with the reality of the actual performance of a socialist economy, all the writer can do is to appeal to the election of socialists, which should not be surprising, since the end of socialism is political power and nothing else.

The death of a Canadian teenager of leukemia while waiting for the government’s permission to have a bone marrow transplant speaks volumes both of the performance of socialist systems and the way that people under socialism submit to the system. Laura Hillier, 18, of Ontario died before she could receive a transplant, which is not particularly unusual in the Canadian system, as “standing in line” for care is the typical experience, even when a life is at stake. From the Daily Mail:

Laura might have experienced a few more milestones if a Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, hospital had been able to accommodate a bone marrow transplant for the young woman. Numerous donors were a match with Laura and ready to donate, but Hamilton’s Juravinski Hospital didn’t have enough beds in high-air-pressure rooms for the procedure. Hospital staff told her they had about 30 patients with potential donors, but the means to only do about five transplants a month.

Although Hillier’s obituary “slammed” the wait times in Canada, nonetheless, nothing will be done because Canada’s “single payer” system is both politically sacrosanct and a socialist politician’s dream. It is sacrosanct because it provides the “free healthcare” that socialists promise and a politician’s dream because it provides unending opportunities for “reform.” In reality, the economic calculation problem is front and center, making it impossible to “fix” the Canadian single-payer system, something no Canadian politician will admit.

One doubts that Hillier would have died in the same way in the United States. For all of the criticism American medical care receives from the left (and the current system hardly fits the claim by socialists that it is “free market”), one can be reasonably assured that a young woman here would not die because of a lack of hospital beds.

In Canada, however, such deaths are a matter of course, and for all of the “this shouldn’t happen” statements from both politicians and victims’ families, it will continue to happen. (Canada, perhaps not surprisingly, has relatively poor cancer survival rates.) Under socialism, one stands in line and does not challenge the system, since the system is based not upon the successful delivery of services, but rather on the prospect of such services being made available “to the people” for no fee, the product of a “compassionate” socialist state.

Note that at no point in his article does Barkan write of any way that socialism would improve the lives of Americans. Socialism is not about providing needed services to those who cannot receive them otherwise, nor is it about raising the living standards of the poor, despite socialist claims to the contrary. Socialists do not create goods and services; they commandeer them for political purposes, and such things are useful only as a means of putting and keeping socialist politicians in power.

No politician in Canada will be voted out of office for the premature death of Laura Hillier, nor will any hospital administrators be sacked. Had medical officials given in to sentiment and bumped Hillier up the transplant list, someone else would have died for lack of space. The enemy here is scarcity, and under socialism, scarcity is multiplied. Canadians have come to accept this situation, all the while convincing themselves that theirs not only is a morally-superior system to anything that exists in their neighbor to the south, but also enables them to receive medical services that they believe would be denied them if their government were not paying. They have become like the cave dwellers in Plato’s allegory, believing that the medical shadows they see on the wall represent the best care possible.

Socialists might well take over the Democratic Party; indeed, American voters are capable of putting someone like Bernie Sanders in the White House. They well could make the electoral gains that the writers at The Nation have coveted for decades. What they cannot do, however, is tell the truth about socialism. Another article in Jacobin, written by Sam Gindin, demonstrates this last point:

Murray Rothbard, a lifetime disciple of the archconservative Ludwig von Mises, lamented that when he entered grad school after World War II “the economics establishment had all decided, left, right, and center, that...socialism’s only problems, such as they might be, were political. Economically, socialism could work just as well as capitalism.” With socialism carrying such a degree of economic credence, the elaboration of the details of a functioning socialist society seemed decidedly less pressing for socialists than developing the politics of getting to it.

Gindin then goes on to “refute” Hayek’s “knowledge problem” critique of socialism (while ignoring the Austrian “economic calculation” issue). The rest of the piece essentially can be shortened into this one sentence: forget the past failures of socialism; this time we will make it work.

We have been hearing this kind of thing for more than a century. Socialists tell us that if the rest of us will give them total power over our lives, this time they will provide prosperity, and unlike previous socialist regimes, they won’t strip us of our liberties. We should have as much confidence in their words as the loved ones of Laura Hillier had in the empty promises of Canadian medical officials.

SOURCE

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Virginia Lawmakers Vote to Allow Illegal Aliens to Obtain Driver’s Licenses

Virginia lawmakers passed legislation in both chambers of the state Legislature that would allow illegal aliens to obtain driver’s licenses, a consequence of the state Capitol’s newly minted Democratic majority.

Amid a rush before the end of the Virginia General Assembly’s “crossover” deadline Tuesday, lawmakers in both the state Senate and the House of Delegates passed separate bills allowing illegal immigrants to legally drive on the state’s roadways. HB 1211 and SB 34 both passed their respective chambers Tuesday, the last day legislation could cross over to the other chamber for consideration.

State senators passed SB 34 by a margin of 22-18. The Senate version, which Democratic state Sen. Scott Surovell introduced, permits illegal aliens living in the state to obtain a standard driver’s license, but with certain conditions. The undocumented applicants must prove they’ve filed an income tax return, and the cards would also include text stating that it’s not a valid form of ID for federal, voting, or public benefit purposes.

The House version, which Democratic Del. Kathy Tran introduced, passed by a margin of 57-42 and is largely similar to its Senate counterpart. The House bill, however, goes further by calling for the IDs to be conventional driver’s licenses.

The unprecedented votes make Virginia poised to become the next state to allow illegal aliens to apply for driver’s licenses—following in the footsteps of 14 other states. New York implemented a similar law in December 2019, and the governor of New Jersey signed into law a related bill that same month.

The passage of such laws come as progressive states and localities across the country are pushing back against the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

Virginia Democrats have introduced similar bills in the past but have been unsuccessful under years of Republican rule in the state Capitol. That has changed since Democrats won full control of the Virginia Legislature for the first time in a generation.

Newly empowered Democrats have been busy this legislative session, passing a slate of progressive bills that include abortion access, LGBT rights, collective bargaining for unions, marijuana decriminalization, and other legislative activity.

Virginia Democrats also passed a package of gun control measures, including a ban on the sale of “assault weapons.”

Republicans in the state responded to progressive agenda.

“The United States needs to work on fixing the crisis at the southern border before we start granting rights to noncitizens,” Virginia GOP spokesperson John March said in a statement to The Daily Caller News Foundation.

It’s not immediately clear if Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam is prepared to sign into law a bill giving illegal aliens the right to drive.

SOURCE

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IN BRIEF

"ARBITRARY AND CAPRICIOUS"? Federal court strikes down Trump administration's commonsense Medicaid work requirements (NBC News)

HUSH MONEY: New details emerge in Rep. Ilhan Omar's marriage scandal (The Daily Wire)

DEMS' CREEPY PORN LAWYER AND PRESIDENTIAL PROSPECT GUILTY: Disgraced lawyer Michael Avenatti found guilty in Nike extortion trial (CNBC)

SNUBBING BLOOMBERG, THE $400 MILLION AD SPENDER: New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio endorses Bernie Sanders for president (AP)

SPEAKING OF SANDERS: Socialist proposes $4.35 trillion tax increase on "wealth" (CNSNews.com)

TIP OF THE ICEBERG: Joe and Hunter Biden's China connections under even closer scrutiny (Hot Air)

AND 1,700 DEATHS: China cases pass 70,000 as WHO mission gets underway (Deutsche Welle)

DOMESTIC THREAT: Top health official warns of "global pandemic" as 40 Americans test positive on cruise ship (Washington Examiner)

INADEQUATE RESOURCES & LEGAL ROADBLOCKS: Feds released 375,000 illegal immigrants who entered with family members in FY2019 (Washington Examiner)

TONE DEAF: Justin Trudeau faces backlash after shaking hands with and bowing to Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, whose country downed plane with 57 Canadians aboard (The Daily Wire)

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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

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18 February, 2020

Trump Demands Justice for Victims of Sanctuary Cities

It's time for leftist jailers who free dangerous illegal aliens to pay the price.

Crime victims harmed by dangerous illegal aliens should be able to sue the so-called sanctuary jurisdictions that unleashed them on an unwitting public in defiance of federal immigration authorities, President Donald Trump declared in his State of the Union address. At the same time, he endorsed pending legislation that would accomplish this goal.

This is another politically astute immigration-related proposal from Trump who demonstrates time and time again that he is one of the few Republican presidents in modern American history who actually knows how to fight the Left. It puts the illegal alien-coddlers and open-borders fanatics on the defensive and educates the public in clearly understandable terms about who the bad guys really are in this fight over the nation’s future. It comes almost a year after Trump proposed shipping immigration detainees to sanctuary cities, which are Democrat strongholds.

As FrontPage readers know, the sanctuary movement gave illegal aliens permission to rob, rape, and murder Americans by, among other things, stigmatizing immigration enforcement. Some left-wingers call sanctuary jurisdictions “civil liberties safe zones” to blur the distinction between citizens and non-citizens by implying illegal aliens somehow possess a civil right to be present in the U.S. Leftists also like to refer to all migrants, including illegal aliens, simply as “immigrants” in order to further muddy the waters. This helps the Left portray conservatives, who are generally not anti-immigrant –they’re anti-illegal immigration— as xenophobic bigots.

Sanctuary cities really ought to be called traitor cities because they are in open rebellion against the United States just as much as the Confederate Army was when it opened fire on Fort Sumter.

President Trump railed against the sanctuary laws of California in his address.

“Senator Thom Tillis has introduced legislation to allow Americans like Jody to sue sanctuary cities and states when a loved one is hurt or killed as a result of these deadly practices,” Trump said Feb. 4, referring to Jody Jones, a guest at the speech whose brother, Rocky Jones, was allegedly shot and killed by two-time deportee Gustavo Garcia, an illegal alien wanted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Local authorities in California ignored ICE and let Garcia go.

The December 2018 killing happened after California, which is home to more than 2 million illegals on which the state lavishes unearned benefits, enacted “an outrageous law declaring their whole state to be a sanctuary for criminal illegal immigrants — a very terrible sanctuary — with catastrophic results,” the president said.

The illegal, who had prior arrests for robbery and assault, was released under California’s sanctuary laws that mandate resistance to federal immigration law. Jones “was at a gas station when this vile criminal fired eight bullets at him from close range, murdering him in cold blood,” Trump said.

And Jones was just one of Garcia’s victims during what Trump called “a gruesome spree of deadly violence.” He killed another person, committed a truck hijacking, an armed robbery, and got into a firefight with police.

“Before SB 54, Gustavo Garcia would have been turned over to ICE officials,” Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux said previously, according to the Washington Post. “That’s how we’ve always done it, day in and day out. After SB 54, we no longer have the power to do that.”

California laws curb the power of state and local law enforcement to hold, question, and transfer detainees at the request of ICE, and punish employers for cooperating with the federal agency.

AB 450 prohibits private employers from voluntarily cooperating with ICE—including officials conducting worksite enforcement efforts. SB 54 prevents state and local law enforcement officials from providing information to the feds about the release date of criminal illegal aliens in their custody. AB 103 imposes a state-run inspection and review scheme on the federal detention of aliens held in facilities pursuant to federal contracts.

Legal challenges to the state’s sanctuary regime have not met with success.

In 2018 the Trump administration sued California, arguing state laws prevented ICE from enforcing federal law. The next year, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the suit, finding improbably that California law was not in conflict with U.S. immigration law.

Charter cities are allowed in some circumstances to enact legislation that differs from state law, according to the League of California Cities. There are 121 charter cities across the state, including Bakersfield, Chula Vista, Fresno, Irvine, Los Angeles, Palm Springs, San Diego, San Jose, and Vallejo.

But in January, a California appellate court overturned a lower court ruling, finding that Huntington Beach and other charter cities have to follow the sanctuary laws.

Orange County Sheriff Don Barnes blames the sanctuary laws for a surge in crime.

“SB 54 has made our community less safe,” Barnes said earlier this month, according to the Washington Examiner.

“The law has resulted in new crimes because my deputies were unable to communicate with their federal partners about individuals who committed serious offenses and present a threat to our community if released.”

“The two-year social science experiment with sanctuary laws must end,” he added.

The federal legislation touted by Trump could do just that, though with Democrats in control of the U.S. House of Representatives, the bill won’t go anywhere for the time being. Control of the House could shift in November, allowing the next Congress to approve it.

The bill Sen. Tillis introduced, S. 2059, the proposed “Justice for Victims of Sanctuary Cities Act,” would allow a victim of a crime committed by an illegal alien to sue the sanctuary jurisdiction that shielded the alien from ICE for compensatory damages.

Among the original co-sponsors of the bill are Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), and Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

S. 2059 would allow “a civil action [to be] brought against a sanctuary jurisdiction by an individual (or the estate, survivors, or heirs of an individual) who— (A) is injured or harmed by an alien who benefitted from a sanctuary policy of the sanctuary jurisdiction; and (B) would not have been so injured or harmed but for the alien receiving the benefit of such sanctuary policy.” (Its companion bill in the House is H.R. 3964.)

In addition to creating a private right of civil action for victims of sanctuary jurisdictions, the measure would allow the feds to cut off Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding to any jurisdiction that blocks victims from proceeding with lawsuits.

“If politicians want to prioritize reckless sanctuary policies over public safety, they should also be willing to provide just compensation for the victims,” Tillis said when he launched the bill.

“The Justice for Victims of Sanctuary Cities Act is commonsense legislation that will enhance public safety and hold sanctuary jurisdictions accountable for their refusal to cooperate with federal law enforcement.”

Meanwhile, Attorney General William Barr announced Feb. 10 that the U.S. Department of Justice is cracking down on sanctuary states and cities that have “policies and laws designed to thwart the ability of federal officers to take custody of these criminals and thereby help them escape back into the community.”

“These policies are not about people who came to our country illegally but have otherwise been peaceful and productive members of society,” Barr said at the National Sheriffs’ Association Winter Legislative and Technology Conference.

“Their express purpose is to shelter aliens whom local law enforcement has already arrested for other crimes. This is neither lawful nor sensible.”

Barr said the DoJ is taking legal action against New Jersey, King County in Washington state, and California.

Of course, it’s not enough, but it’s a good start.

SOURCE

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Are Americans Ready for a Homosexual President?

A glaring issue that few conservative pundits have hitherto dared to weigh in on was finally broached by Rush Limbaugh on his radio show Wednesday. Assessing Democrat voters’ options for presidential candidates, Rush observed, “You’ve got Fauxcahontas way back there in the background barely out of the tepee bringing up the tail end. Biden’s gone. So you’re faced with a dyed-in-the-wool socialist who’s not even a Democrat [and] a gay guy, 37 years old, loves kissing his husband on debate stages.”

Limbaugh continued, “You’re looking at your options today, and you’re asking, ‘OK, can we win with Klobuchar? We don’t want to put Klobuchar up there because she doesn’t have a prayer.’ Then they’re sitting there, and they’re looking at Mayor Pete, a 37-year-old gay guy, mayor of South Bend, loves to kiss his husband on the debate stage. And they’re saying, ‘OK, how’s this gonna look — a 37-year-old gay guy kissing his husband onstage next to Mr. Man Donald Trump? What’s gonna happen there?’” He then wondered, “[Democrat leaders] gotta be looking at that. They’ve gotta be saying that despite all the great progress and despite all the great ‘wokeness’ and despite all the great ground that’s been covered, America’s still not ready to elect a gay guy kissing his husband on the debate stage. … They have to be saying this, don’t they?”

Predictably, the Leftmedia ran to the fainting couches, labeling Limbaugh “homophobic” for daring to ask a legitimate and cogent question — a question that no doubt Democrat leadership is quietly considering as well: “Is an outwardly homosexual candidate electable?” To be clear, the question is not whether Buttigieg can win the Democrat nomination; as we have observed in the past, Democrat women in general strongly support homosexuals. (Ironically, should Buttigieg win the presidency, there would be no First Lady or female represented in the White House, but we digress.) In fact, a good argument can be made that the only reason Buttigieg finds himself in contention within the Democrat field is because of his homosexuality, as he checks the Left’s “sexual minority” identity box. However, Buttigieg’s homosexuality may also be a deterrent for a large number of voters who are sick and tired of the mainstream media constantly shoving its homosexual agenda in their faces. The bigger question Limbaugh is addressing is whether the majority of Americans have a problem with a homosexual in the White House.

One who wouldn’t have a problem voting for a homosexual is … President Donald Trump. “I think it’s great,” he said Thursday. “I think that’s something that perhaps some people will have a problem with. I have no problem with it whatsoever. I think it’s good.” And while there’s no indication that Trump didn’t give a genuine answer, it’s also illuminating. First, it negates the “homophobic” smear that would be leveled against him no matter who he faced in the general election, but especially if it is Buttigieg. Second, this also may be Trump tipping his hand as to whom he views as the Democrats’ weakest candidate and the one he would most prefer to run against. In fact, his recent back-and-forth with Michael Bloomberg may be an indication that Trump views Bloomberg as his biggest threat.

Finally, the moral hypocrisy charge with which the Left and many anti-Trumpers love to blast conservative Christians for having voted for Trump given his past indiscretions would only be proven to be the political canard that it is. These self-righteous hypocrites voice their support for an openly proud homosexual like Buttigieg.

SOURCE

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Justice Ginsberg throws cold water on the Left's decades-long push of the Equal Rights Amendment

Last month, the Virginia state legislature, currently under Democrat control, passed the controversial Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Why does that matter? It makes Virginia the 38th state to ratify the long-defunct 28th Amendment that Congress passed in 1972, which is seemingly significant because Virginia becomes the final state needed to push the ERA over the required ratification threshold of two-thirds of states for the adoption of a constitutional amendment.

There are, however, a couple of major roadblocks that make it highly unlikely that the ERA will become the 28th Amendment to the Constitution anytime soon. First, when Congress passed the ERA, it gave the states a 10-year deadline to reach the two-thirds ratification threshold needed for adoption. That deadline passed way back in 1982. Second, following the failure of the necessary number of states to ratify, five states have withdrawn their ratification. (The House is voting today to make a new deadline, for whatever difference that will make.)

For those reasons, even the Left’s favorite Supreme Court justice, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, believes the ERA’s chance of becoming the 28th Amendment is dead. “There’s too much controversy about latecomers. Plus, a number of states have withdrawn their ratification,” she says. “So if you count a latecomer on the plus side, how can you disregard states that said, ‘We’ve changed our minds’?”

While the ERA was packaged to sound fair in theory — with its calls for protecting “equality of rights” between the sexes — in reality it would have created a massive backdoor opening for the injection of socialism, enshrining abortion rights in the Constitution, and eviscerating the difference between the sexes to the detriment of women. Fortunately, even a feminist champion like Ginsberg recognizes the irony in seeking to break the law in an effort to enforce a new law. If only she always believed in that principle.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

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17 February, 2020

Trump Administration to Deploy Elite Tactical Units to Sanctuary Cities

Elite tactical units from the Customs and Border Patrol will be sent to sanctuary cities for several months, the Department of Homeland Security announced yesterday. The elite CBP agents are normally used to deal with smugglers and other violent offenders.

This is the latest in the escalating war against sanctuary cities and states by the Trump administration. And the sanctuary cities can't do anything to stop them.

“This is transparent retaliation against local governments for refusing to do the administration’s bidding,” said Naureen Shah at the American Civil Liberties Union.

The New York Times reported that Customs and Border Protection is sending 100 agents to assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. CBP usually handles border and port matters, while ICE is responsible for interior enforcement and deportations.

The ACLU is correct -- it is retaliation. It's retaliation for years of sanctuary cities thumbing their noses at the law and generating enormous fear and hostility against Washington among both legal and illegal alien communities alike. They thought this just one big game. They are finding out otherwise.

ICE, though, has increasingly struggled against sanctuaries, which while they vary in their exact policies, generally restrict cooperation between local authorities and federal immigration law enforcement.

The most extreme of jurisdictions refuse all communications, including refusing to tell ICE when illegal immigrant targets with criminal records are being released from jail. ICE says it wants to be on hand to pick them up and deport them, getting criminals out of communities.

Sanctuaries argue that if they cooperate with ICE it will scare immigrants from reporting other crimes.

I am tired of that excuse. Illegals are terrified of the police. What little cooperation the cops get comes only after the illegal is threatened by the police to be handed over to ICE.

If the left wants to use the heartbreaking story of illegals to gain sympathy for their cause, two can play at that game.

Mr. Trump, in remarks at the White House Friday afternoon, blasted sanctuaries and gave a platform to Daria Ortiz, whose 92-year-old grandmother was slain earlier this year in New York City in a death the president blamed on sanctuary policies.

Reeaz Khan, the Guyanese illegal immigrant accused of killing Maria Fuertes, had been released by New York in November in defiance of an ICE detainer request.

Ms. Ortiz broke down in tears as she recalled her grandmother, a legal immigrant from the Dominican Republic. Mr. Trump put his arm on her back to comfort her as she spoke.

“The tragedy is my grandmother’s not ever going to be here again,” Ms. Ortiz said. “The man that is responsible for this should have never had the opportunity to do this.”

The courts may not force sanctuary cities to cooperate with the federal government, but they aren't going to tell Washington where it can deploy its agents. This war is a long way from being over.

SOURCE

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President Trump praised for draining National Security Council swamp

Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement praising President Donald Trump and National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien for removing 70 Obama holdovers from the National Security Council:

“More than three years into President Trump’s first term, his National Security Advisor is finally ending the bloated National Security Council structure inherited from the Obama administration. And it’s about time!

The National Security Council personnel were quoted by the New York Times during the first year of the Trump administration bragging that they saw their job as being to block President Trump’s policies and the recent set of leaks associated with the impeachment are evidence that the NSC continues to be a politicized nest of ideologues who oppose the President’s foreign policy.

It is important to have dissenting on foreign policy within any administration, however, the dissenting views must cease once the President has set a policy direction. Unfortunately, the Obama holdovers have been simply trying to run out the clock on the Trump presidency rather than serving and supporting the administration’s goals.

Hopefully, this long-needed downsizing of the bloated NSC will result in an effective operating team as opposed to being the heart of the resistance against President Trump.”

SOURCE

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Bernie Sanders single-payer healthcare system failed in his own state

Bernie Sanders is now the Democratic front-runner, but to win the party’s nomination, he must convince moderate primary voters that his signature policy, Medicare for All, is a worthwhile venture. But before he can do that, he must prove that it’s realistic, too.

Sanders’s home state, however, is proof that it’s not. Vermont was supposed to pave the way for a single-payer healthcare system. The Democratic-controlled state legislature drafted the bill in 2014, and Democrat Gov. Peter Shumlin was ready to sign it into law. But then Shumlin realized he had a problem: He couldn’t pay for it.

The 11.5% payroll tax on small business and sliding premiums of up to 9.5% on people’s incomes “might hurt our economy,” Shumlin admitted.

“These are simply not tax rates that I can responsibly support or urge the Legislature to pass,” the governor said at the time. “In my judgment, the potential economic disruption and risks would be too great to small businesses, working families, and the state’s economy.”

The system Vermont’s bill proposed would also have added even more administrative complexity to an already complex system. It made certain exemptions for large businesses, reducing the funding necessary to get the program running. And it was never clear whether or how citizens already enrolled in federal plans, such as Medicare and Medicaid, would have been integrated into the system.

In short, Medicare for All was too expensive and too complex for Vermont.

This should be a red flag for proponents of Sanders’s policy: If an individual state was unable to implement a single-payer system, why should we believe the federal government will be able to?

Politically, there were very few obstacles standing between Vermont and Medicare for All. The problem is that Medicare for All is an obstacle in and of itself. Unfortunately for Sanders, the factors that guaranteed the bill’s failure in Vermont have not changed: It’s still too expensive and too complex.

The simple truth is that the majority of Americans still prefer to choose their healthcare plans, especially when higher taxes and increased regulation are the alternatives. Medicare for All might be more popular today than it was several years ago, but not by much. Sanders doesn't seem to care, but if he wants his campaign to progress, he'll need to.

SOURCE

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Bloomberg — Authoritarian, Not Racist

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump deleted a tweet calling Democrat presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg a “total racist.” Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez did not delete her tweet saying the same thing. This came after leaked audio surfaced from 2015 when Bloomberg said, “Ninety-five percent of murders — murderers and murder victims — fit one M.O. You can just take a description, Xerox it, and pass it out to all the cops. They are male minorities, 16 to 25.” Cue the outrage mob.

That remark would’ve quickly ended Bloomberg’s candidacy were he (still) a Republican, but given that’s he’s a Democrat bent on beating Trump, it’s just old news. But after the clown-show caucuses in Iowa and the uninspiring follow-up primary in New Hampshire, the gun-grabbing former New York City mayor stands poised to save the party from itself.

MSNBC correspondent Joy Reid believes Bloomberg is the only remaining candidate who resonates with blacks. And without the overwhelming support of that key voting bloc, neither Bernie Sanders, nor Pete Buttigieg, nor Amy Klobuchar can hope to beat Trump in November.

This is why everyone from Trump to Bloomberg’s fellow Democrats seems to be taking shots at him. And there’s a growing chorus, including prominent conservatives Newt Gingrich and Peggy Noonan, who think he can pull it off. Bloomberg may in fact be the biggest threat Trump faces.

We’re not sure the “RACIST!!!!” charge will stick. We can sift through the political past of any candidate and find racially insensitive comments here or there. Yet some black leaders are quick to dismiss Bloomberg’s history regarding minority crime. This week, three members of the all-Democrat Congressional Black Caucus endorsed Bloomberg, thereby plugging the hole in a public-relations dam that was about to burst.

Given Joe Biden’s weak performances in Iowa and New Hampshire, black voters had already begun to shift their support to Bloomberg according to recent polling. That’s why his “racist” comments suddenly “leaked.” Next up: Relitigating his #MeToo moments.

Yet maybe instead of going after Bloomberg on race (or sex), we should shine a light on his authoritarian instincts.

As Brad Palumbo writes at the Washington Examiner, “[Bloomberg has] intruded on the lives of New Yorkers in the pettiest and most paternalistic ways, such as a nanny state ban on large-sized sodas. Now, Bloomberg is running for president on a platform of toxic, big-government centrism.” Bloomberg also has been critical of a free press, and his own Bloomberg News has stopped covering him altogether during his presidential run.

It is his anti-Second Amendment crusade, however, that is most tyrannical. Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety is the Leftmedia’s go-to source of misinformation regarding crime committed with guns, and Bloomberg — ignorant though he is about firearms themselves — wants to take away Second Amendment rights.

Black Americans may feel they have nothing to fear from a Bloomberg presidency. But if Mayor Mike makes it to the White House, we’re sure to see an expansion of the nanny state — and an equal diminishment of American Liberty.

SOURCE

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UK: Boris Johnson vetoes mansion tax after backlash

The PM has 'cooled' on the idea to charge wealthy homeowners more in next month's budget

Boris Johnson has shelved plans to impose a “mansion tax” on owners of expensive homes, following a major backlash among Conservative MPs and grassroots.

The Prime Minister is understood to have "cooled" on the idea of including a new "high value property tax" in next month's budget, having previously discussed the proposals with Sajid Javid, who quit as Chancellor last week.

The Sunday Telegraph can disclose that the Treasury had also wanted to announce a nationwide revaluation of homes, which would have left millions of families with higher council tax bills.

Both policies are now "highly unlikely" to feature in the budget due to be delivered by Rishi Sunak, Mr Javid's successor, a Government source told this newspaper.

Mr Johnson and Mr Javid are both understood to have backed away from the proposal for a “recurring” wealth tax after this newspaper's disclosure of the plan last week sparked fury among senior Tories.

In a sign of the strength of opposition to the proposals, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal that Sir Graham Brady, the chairman of the influential 1922 committee of backbench Conservatives, warned Mr Javid about the "push-back" in the parliamentary party in a face-to-face meeting ahead of Thursday's reshuffle.The plans were first put forward by the Treasury as part of a list of possible "revenue raisers" that could help the Government stick to Mr Javid's fiscal rules - which could now be loosened, in a move likely to lead to claims of the Conservatives breaching their manifesto.

SOURCE

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IN BRIEF

"NECESSARY IN THE NATIONAL INTEREST": Trump administration diverts $3.8 billion in Pentagon funding to border wall (NPR)

DEMOCRAT MEDIA COMPLEX: YouTube nixes video of Rand Paul mentioning alleged whistleblower's name during impeachment trial (The Daily Caller)

BUDGET IMBALANCE: Federal taxes and spending set records through January (CNSNews)

FAMILIAR FACE RETURNS: Hope Hicks returning to Trump White House as senior adviser (ABC News)

ON TOP OF FRAUD, IP THEFT: Huawei charged with racketeering and defying U.S. sanctions in business with Iran and North Korea (National Review)

CHANGING TIMES: McClatchy, publisher of dozens of U.S. newspapers, files for bankruptcy protection (NBC News)

WHO'S REALLY DIVIDING US? Man arrested for attacking 15-year-old Trump supporter in New Hampshire (The Daily Wire)

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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

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16 February, 2020

Survey finds people who identify as left-wing more likely to have been diagnosed with a mental illness

Although this finding is a straw in the wind it is not by itself conclusive. The sample is not a random one so any generalizations from it may not be sound.

It is however consistent with all we know about Leftists. Their ability to ignore reality is definitional of them -- which indicates heavy use of such neurotic defence mechanisms as compartmentalization, projection and denial.

Even neuroticism may be a kind diagnosis, however -- as loss of reality contact is the core definition of psychosis. Looking at the evidence as a whole therefore I think a fairly safe conclusion does emerge.

Amusingly, ever since at least 1950, Leftist psychologists have also been projective in this area. They have labored mightly to show that conservatives are the maladjusted ones -- with results that are convincing only to themselves

The analysis below used data from a survey carried out by a Leftist -- who is greatly outraged at the impertience of that. He offers some criticisms of the analysis below but starts out with an outright lie while doing so. His reality denial is certainly going strong. He summarizes the findings below as "Both extreme rightists and extreme leftists are more likely than moderates to have been diagnosed with most conditions.'

But look at the graph below. Extreme Leftists (on the extreme Left of the graph below, as is fitting) are more than twice as nutty as extreme rightists. Extreme Rightists are in fact fairly average on mental problems.

We do have a very large problem with Leftists. When you add in the truly insane torrent of rage and hate that they direct at Mr Trump, you have to conclude that a Leftist government would be a government for the insane by the insane

A new survey of more than 8,000 people has found that those who identify with left-wing political beliefs are more likely to have been diagnosed with a mental illness.

Ann Coulter’s “liberalism is a mental disorder” catchphrase has become something of a clichéd meme, but the data appears to support it.

Carried out by Slate Star Codex, the online survey collected a wealth of data from respondents about their education, demographic, lifestyle and political views.

The results show that people who occupy the farther left end of the political spectrum are more likely to have been “formally diagnosed with depression, borderline personality disorder, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia.”

In addition, the results show that the highest percentage of respondents (38%) who admit being diagnosed with forms of mental illness also identify politically as Marxists.

In comparison, just 12.1% of conservatives say they have been diagnosed with a mental disorder.

While the survey is by no means scientific, it does give an insight into how disturbed people are more likely to be attracted to fringe leftist beliefs, which in a lifestyle sense usually encourage degeneracy and a lack of moral responsibility.

“It’s not a myth that left-wingers are more mentally ill,” said conservative commentator Milo Yiannopoulos. “And it’s not a surprise the internet has elevated crazy people with too much time on their hands to a central place in the national discourse. The “social web” is a social fucking catastrophe.”

SOURCE

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Florida Man Attacks Trump Supporters With ... a Cane Sword

Peaceful Florida citizens holding Trump signs were minding their own business in Dunnellon, Fla., last Thursday when a man rushed at them with a cane sword.

Police arrested 49-year-old James L. Whitehurst II and charged him with 10 counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and one count of disorderly conduct, the Ocala Star Banner reported.

Victims reportedly told police that Whitehurst had approached them during their peaceful assembly with what was described as a cane sword. The assailant allegedly pointed the sword in their faces and made threatening statements, holding the blade 6 inches from their faces.

Whitehurst confessed to having removed the sword from its holder and pointing it at the Trump supporters. He told police he meant no harm by the threatening action.

This assault took place amid a flurry of new attacks on actual or perceived Trump supporters. On Saturday, a man crashed his van into a tent where Trump campaign volunteers were registering voters. That driver later confessed his animosity to Trump and compared the president to "someone s****ing on your grave." Earlier this week, a woman sucker-punched a man in a New York City bar because he wore a MAGA-style hat reading "Make Fifty Great Again."

These attacks remind me of the assault against Minnesota state House candidate Shane Mekeland. An angry man sucker-punched him in the head in 2018, while accusing Mekeland of not caring about the middle class. Mekeland blamed Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and former Attorney General Eric Holder for instigating this kind of violence. "They're constantly driving this narrative of 'It's okay to be violent,'" he told PJ Media.

Waters called for activists to harass members of the Trump administration in public places like gas stations and restaurants. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) encouraged activists to "get up in the face" of Republican candidates and office-holders. Hillary Clinton said Democrats "cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for." Eric Holder declared, "When they go low, we kick them."

Liberals who routinely demonize Trump and his supporters as fascists or Nazis are fostering this culture of animosity and fear. Americans must return to civility.

SOURCE

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Media Is Complicit in Leftist Violence Against Trump Supporters

Leftists have been rationalizing violence for a very long time, long before Donald Trump ascended to the presidency. The unhinged cancer has metastasized these past three years, and will not be going into remission anytime soon.

The media’s role in letting the leftist violence get out of hand cannot be understated. There are both errors of commission and errors of omission.

Errors of commission happen when they do things like lie and insist that Antifa is a reasonable “anti-fascist” group of peaceful protesters.

Errors of omission occur when virtually no one in the mainstream media can work up any outrage for acts of physical violence committed against Trump supporters. The stories get a few minutes of daylight, then it’s off to the memory hole.

By contrast, these very same people refer to every verbal dig against reporters as “attacks” that are endangering their lives.

The media are enabling the riotous, violent behavior of the anti-Trump people. They keep the denigration of the president at a fever pitch and, when it spills over and manifests as violent behavior, turn a mostly blind eye.

One of President Trump’s greatest legacies will be his complete unmasking of the American mainstream media, forcing them to abandon any and all pretense of objectivity. Sure, all involved are still paying lip service to it, insisting that they aren’t swayed by personal political motivations, but their eyes are dead as they do so and it’s easy to tell that their hearts aren’t in it anymore.

They hate this president. They hate any Americans who support this president. And deep down, they all feel that anything bad that happens to Trump supporters is justified because Orange Man Bad.

Journalists were once brave seekers and defenders of the truth. Sadly, they’re now so emotionally damaged they feel morally justified in perpetually egging on a powder-keg mob.

But don’t call them any names, because that’s dangerous or something.

SOURCE

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The Glorious Alternative Reality of Leftism

Ben Shapiro

In 1966, there were 654 murders in New York City. The next year, that number increased by about a hundred. Then two hundred. By the mid-1970s, nearly 1,700 people were being murdered every year in New York City. That insane level of violence maintained until the early 1990s. Then, in 1994, the level of murder in New York City began to decline. It declined from approximately 2,000 people killed in 1993 to 289 in 2018 — a level not seen since the end of World War II. Needless to say, on a per capita basis, the murder rate had never been that low.

What, exactly, happened in the early 1990s? New York City residents were simply tired of living in a crime haven. They elected Rudy Giuliani mayor, and Giuliani pledged to enforce the so-called broken windows theory to clean up so-called quality-of-life crimes, stating: “It’s the street tax paid to drunks and panhandlers. It’s the squeegee men shaking down the motorist waiting at a light. It’s the trash storms, the swirling mass of garbage left by peddlers and panhandlers, and open-air drug bazaars on unclean streets.” In April 1994, Giuliani’s New York Police Department implemented Compstat, a data-driven program designed to deploy police to the highest-crime areas, preemptively targeting criminality, rather than reacting to it. Chris Smith of New York Magazine gushed, “No New York invention, arguably, has saved more lives in the past 24 years.” The NYPD also began to employ the “stop, question and frisk” policy, designed to allow police officers to spot people suspected o!

f criminally carrying weapons and frisk them for those weapons after questioning.

New York turned from a mess into a haven. But now Michael Bloomberg — Giuliani’s mayoral successor beginning in 2002 — is paying the price for a successful anti-crime record that followed in Giuliani’s footsteps. Bloomberg has defended NYPD policies as non-racially biased; in 2015, he told The Aspen Institute that supposedly disproportionate “targeting” of minorities was not disproportionate but based on criminal conduct and description thereof. In crude and insensitive but statistically accurate terminology, Bloomberg pointed out that “Ninety-five percent of your murders and murderers and murder victims fit one M.O. … They are male minorities 15 to 25.” This may have been a slight exaggeration, but only a slight one. In 2008, for example, 88.6% of murder and non-negligent manslaughter victims in New York were black or Hispanic, and 92.8% of murder and non-negligent manslaughter suspects were black or Hispanic, according to New York government statistics. And black and !

Hispanic suspects were actually under-arrested: By these same statistics, just 83.9% of arrestees for murder and non-negligent manslaughter were black or Hispanic.

Nonetheless, Bloomberg was widely blasted as a racist for his comments. That criticism came from both left and right. Bloomberg quickly apologized for his five-year-old comments, saying: “By the time I left office, I cut it back 95%, but I should’ve done it faster and sooner. I regret that and I have apologized.” But Bloomberg should have stood up on his hind legs and defended one of his only successful policies.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where the counterfactual can be entertained without reference to reality. Thus, we are informed that broken-windows policing, Compstat, and stop and frisk should never have been employed — and we are blithely told that even without those policies, crime would have precipitously dropped over the course of two decades. There is precisely zero evidence to support this supposition, but that’s the beauty of writing alternative histories: No evidence is necessary.

The same is true in the world of economics, where Bernie Sanders can spend his days living off the largesse of capitalism — the man has a lake house — while decrying the evils of capitalism. It’s easy to proclaim adherence to socialistic redistribution while living high on the hog of the free market. It’s shockingly easy to get away with maintaining that American prosperity would not have been undercut by policies precisely the opposite of the policies that have driven American prosperity for centuries.

The joy of alternative realities is that they can’t be disproved. We can never disprove the supposition that without anti-crime measures, crime would have dropped anyway; we can never disprove the supposition that without the free market, America would have prospered even more greatly than it has. The acid test of reality never applies to a world in which bad ideas were rejected for more effective ones. Which is why Bernie Sanders, who has produced zero things of consequence for decades but has successfully mooched off the public dime for nearly that entire period, may become president, while Michael Bloomberg, who has produced thousands of jobs and presided over a massive decline in crime in New York City, is in the hot seat.

SOURCE

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IN BRIEF

CORONAVIRUS UPDATE: China confirms 15,152 new cases, 254 additional deaths; consequently, Communist Party chief have been sacked (CNBC)

TROY PRICE OUT: Iowa Democrat Party chair resigns after caucus fiasco (NBC News)

"NUMEROUS CRITICAL ISSUES ... WERE IGNORED": House Republicans boycott intel hearing, accuse Adam Schiff of ignoring FISA abuse (Fox News)

CRACKING DOWN: Pentagon set to back Huawei restrictions (Politico)

**********************************

For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

**************************

14 February, 2020

Mr Trump's faults

The Left loathe and abhor Mr. Trump. The main reason for the torrent of verbal poison that they pour out at him is the way he has made America prosper. Almost from the moment his election win was announced in 2016, American multinationals started bring their money and their jobs back home. The American Left was trying all sorts of coercive measures to achieve that but all Mr Trump had to do was ask.

But America does not deserve to prosper according to the American Left. It is a deeply corrupt and racist country that lives off the sweat of the poor, according to the Left. So to them Mr Trump is doing the Devil's work, not that they would put it that way. To them, America deserves drastic reform, not prosperity.

They have to show some caution in expressing such hatred of their own country, however. America is still mostly a land of patriots and those deplorable patriots have a vote!

So the Left have to display their anger at Mr Trump in some other way.   And Mr Trump provides plenty of fodder for that. His personal style is such that he has redefined what "presidential" means. During his run for the presidency, the Left mainly mocked his hair, but they have now found many other faults in him. He boasts, he gets facts wrong and he fires back at those who attack him. He is frankly childish.

Mr Trump's personal style is so unattractive that many American writers -- including some psychiatrists who should know better -- have "psychologized" him. They have purported to show that Mr Trump has symptoms of mental illness. That he is a "narcissist" almost goes without saying.

But here's the thing: Conservatives can see all those symptoms too. They can see that Mr Trump's personal style is a great departure from what used to be called presidential. At a minimum he lacks dignity.

But that does not bother Republican voters. They look beneath the surface to his radical policies and very much like what they see there. His approval rating among them is 94% at the moment. As an example of Trump supporters being alive to his faults, take this quote from something I put up yesterday;

Trump, to be sure, is a strange guy. I have never witnessed anyone more in love with himself. If there is a world's record for narcissism, he holds it. I am reminded of Oscar Wilde's comment upon looking at himself in a mirror: "the beginning of a lifelong romance."

That does seem to me to be a reasonable statement but, being a psychologist, I want to put it into a larger context: Mr Trump actually needs to be like that. The torrent of attack and criticism that has been aimed at him would have crushed most people long ago. And yet, as far as we can see, it is all like water off a duck's back to him. To quote a popular metaphor, he "has got the hide of a rhinocerous'.

So you need someone with an extremely high level of self-regard and self confidence to survive what Donald Trump has survived. Narcissism can have a constructive place within the diversity of human society and Trump illustrates that. The great leap in prosperity that he has brought to America could not have been done by a more conventional man -- JR

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Financially Troubled Amtrak Is Taking Taxpayers for a Ride

Last November, several news outlets reported that Amtrak, the nation’s heavily subsidized passenger rail service, was on track to break even for the first time in the company’s history. After nearly 50 continuous years of operating in the red, covering all its history, 2020 may become its first year in the black:

Amtrak said it is on track to break even for the first time in company history in fiscal 2020 as record ridership led to an improvement in its financial results.

The government-owned rail carrier said 32.5 million riders took trips on Amtrak trains during its fiscal year ending in Sept. 2019, with its northeast corridor and state-supported lines experiencing record growth. The total marked a company record and an increase of 800,000 riders compared to one year earlier.

“We are growing and modernizing Amtrak. We have an industry-leading safety program and have invested billions in improving the customer experience, resulting in more people choosing Amtrak as their preferred mode of transportation,” said Amtrak Board Chair Tony Coscia. “These changes have put us on track to breakeven in 2020, which would be a first in Amtrak’s history.”

Bloomberg‘s Justin Fox was quick to throw buckets of icy, cold water on that claim, finding Amtrak’s accountants were claiming subsidies from state governments as part of their operating revenues.

Earlier this month, Amtrak announced a smallest-ever “adjusted operating loss” of $29.8 million in the 2019 fiscal year, which ended in September, and said it is on a “path to achieve operational breakeven in fiscal year 2020.” Along with the news that Amtrak ridership had hit an all-time high of 32.5 million, this garnered some nice headlines.

There are some other, less-impressive numbers, though, that the government-owned passenger railroad disclosed this week with no fanfare. Amtrak’s net loss according to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles was $874.8 million, up from $817.2 million in FY 2018. Amtrak also reported receiving $234 million in support from the governments of states through which some of its trains run; without that money, losses would have been well over $1 billion.

Since Amtrak is not a publicly traded corporation, it can skate by many of the financial reporting requirements that real businesses must comply with. In this case, that means being able to claim it’s on the verge of breaking even, although in a more truthful accounting, it is running through a deep, dark tunnel with almost no chance of ever breaking out into the sunlight.

Writing in the Washington Examiner, the Cato Institute’s Randal O’Toole takes on what he describes as Amtrak’s Big Lie:

Amtrak’s accounting system is so full of lies that even the pro-passenger train Rail Passengers Association calls it “fatally flawed, misleading, and wrong.”

The first lie is that Amtrak counts taxpayer subsidies from the states as “passenger revenues.” According to Amtrak’s unaudited report, 17 state legislatures gave Amtrak a total of $234 million in 2019. The taxpayers in those states were never allowed to vote on these subsidies, and the vast majority don’t ride Amtrak. These subsidies are no more “passenger revenues” than the subsidies given to Amtrak by Congress. Deducting these subsidies from revenues immediately increases Amtrak’s 2019 losses to $264 million.

An even bigger lie is Amtrak’s failure to report depreciation in its operating costs. Ignoring depreciation is an old railroad accounting trick aimed at misleading investors by boosting apparent profits.

It’s the kind of accounting that’s only approved by politicians and bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., for government-supported enterprises. For what it’s worth, Amtrak does report depreciation in its audited financial statements but does not state this in its press releases about its financial performance, so the problem draws little media coverage, which is another Washington, D.C., trick.

But wait, it gets worse:

Even with federal capital subsidies, Amtrak is deferring maintenance like crazy. Amtrak passenger cars have expected lifespans of 25 years, yet the average car in its fleet is well over 30 years old. The Boston-to-Washington corridor, which Amtrak has often claimed to be profitable, has a $38 billion maintenance backlog.

Fixing just these two line items in Amtrak’s accounting shows that Amtrak did not come close to earning a profit in 2019, it won’t earn a profit in 2020, and it never will earn a profit. This is because, after counting all subsidies, Amtrak spends four times as much to move a passenger one mile as the airlines. The difference between Amtrak and intercity buses is even greater, which means Amtrak can’t compete in any market without heavy subsidies.

Since Amtrak depends upon so many federal and state government subsidies to get anywhere close to breaking even, O’Toole does propose a remedy for better directing those subsidies in ways that might actually improve its business:

Rather than give Amtrak billions of dollars to restore or build infrastructure that it can’t afford to maintain, Congress should simply agree to pay Amtrak a given amount for every passenger mile it carries. This will give Amtrak an incentive to focus on passengers, not politics.

Over time, Congress should reduce that amount until Amtrak receives no more per passenger mile than airlines or highways. Any trains that can truly be profitable will survive, but if they do, it will be because Amtrak has found ways to efficiently transport people, not because of lies in its accounting system.

Federal and state politicians and bureaucrats have spent billions of taxpayer dollars over the past five decades to make Amtrak into the train wreck it is today, with no sign they intend to stop at any time in the next five decades.

If we’re going to flush so many billions down into Amtrak’s deep, dark accounting tunnel, shouldn’t we get its flawed accounting fixed and the government-owned train service focused on serving customers?

SOURCE

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Can Trump Win 20% of the Black Vote in 2020?

If you want to get the black vote, all you have to do is give a small percentage of black people options. Options that are long lasting and meaningful like funding historically black colleges and universities. Options that promote the welfare of their families like opportunity zones. Options that are expensive in taste, but at a low price like school choice. Options that give a voice to the voiceless like the First Step Act.

Well, how about that! The Trump administration has met all of the basic wants and needs of the black community. Generational wealth. Check. Better education in higher performing schools. Check. Reuniting with a loved one who got involved in nonviolent offenses. Check. Providing higher learning for first-generation college students. Check. All the boxes are being checked, and leftists' feet are to the fire.

Democrats have far too long had the black vote in their back pocket. It's like snow falling in the winter in Antarctica. You know what you're going to get.

Even Van Jones exclaims, "What [Trump] was saying to African Americans can be effective. You may not like it, but he mentioned [historically black colleges and universities]. Our black colleges have been struggling for a long time. A bunch of them have gone under. He threw a lifeline to them in real life in his budget. He talked about criminal-justice reforms. He talked about 'opportunity zones.' He talked about school choice."

Jones continued, "We've got to wake up, folks. There's a whole bubble thing that goes on, saying, 'Well, he said s—hole nations. Therefore, all black people are going to hate him forever.' That ain't necessarily so. And I think what you're going to see him do is say, 'You may not like my rhetoric, but look at my results — look at my record,' to black people. If he narrowcasts that, it's going to be effective. Trump will never win a majority of the black vote. But he doesn't have to. If he follows through on his current strategy, he has a massive opportunity to win a greater share of it in 2020 than the 5% to 10% that Republicans have received since 2008. If Trump gets even 20% of the black vote in swing states such as Michigan, Florida, and Pennsylvania, then Democrats will simply have no path to victory."

The Trump administration has already prepared the way to receive even more support from the black community. The State of Union address laid everything out perfectly. Trump supports the Philadelphia fourth-grader, Janiyah Davis, and her mother, Stephanie Davis, for school choice. The president surprised Janiyah and her mother with a scholarship so she could attend a better school. She had been formerly on a long waiting list. The president also honored a 100-year-old Tuskegee Airman, Charles McGee. During the Super Bowl a commercial aired that show the commuted sentence of Alice Marie Johnson by President Trump. The 63-year-old was released after serving 21 years of a life sentence for a first-time nonviolent drug offense and money laundering.

Trump is ahead of the black vote curve and if he can win 20% of the black vote in swing states, it's a wrap for 2020. The black vote is actually simple. You must preach "pocketbook politics" in a way that is economically measurable. You must preach "social justice" in a way that benefits those who cannot defend themselves. Finally, you must preach "educational opportunities" in a way that black voters can see the benefits for their children. I am excited for this election!

SOURCE

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IN BRIEF

AND THE WINNER IS... Bernie Sanders edges Pete Buttigieg in New Hampshire, giving Democrats two front-runners; Michael Bennet, Andrew Yang, and Deval Patrick drop out (AP)

MEANWHILE: Tuesday's primary gives Amy Klobuchar major boost, puts Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren on 2020 life support (Fox News)

NOT TO BE OVERLOOKED: Donald Trump's New Hampshire vote total more than doubles Barack Obama's in the 2012 primary (Washington Examiner)

HISSY FIT: Trial team quits Roger Stone case in dispute over DOJ's step to reduce sentence recommendation (AP)

DRILL, BABY, DRILL: Oil from federal lands tops one billion barrels as Trump eases rules (AP)

LOADED SWAMP: $100,001-plus salaries the norm in Washington, DC, for first time (Washington Examiner)

GOOD TREND CONTINUES: Illegal border crossings plummet for the eighth month in a row (Townhall)

LESSONS NOT LEARNED: Virginia House of Delegates passes sweeping gun-control bill (National Review)

SHENANIGANS GO BEYOND GUNS: Virginia House passes bill that would award electoral votes to popular vote winner (WHSV)

JUSTICE AFTER ALL? Jussie Smollett indicted by special prosecutor in Chicago (The Daily Wire)

AND NOT A MOMENT TOO SOON: Sudan to hand over Omar al-Bashir for genocide trial (AP)

POLICY: How to take on the deadly drug cartels that run the U.S.-Mexico border (The Federalist)

POLICY: Yes, David Brooks, the nuclear family is the worst family form — except for all others (Institute for Family Studies)

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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

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13 February, 2020

Hatred will re-elect Trump

As I watch opponents pound and pound, then pound again, on President Trump, I say to myself, "You're reelecting him; do keep pounding." I welcome the pummeling.

Trump, to be sure, is a strange guy. I have never witnessed anyone more in love with himself. If there is a world's record for narcissism, he holds it. I am reminded of Oscar Wilde's comment upon looking at himself in a mirror: "the beginning of a lifelong romance."

Caitlin Flanagan, writing in the May 2017 issue of "The Atlantic," put us onto the ironic paradox of victory through the vehicle of hatred. The title of her piece said it all: "How Late-Night Comedy Fueled the Rise of Trump. Sneering hosts have alienated conservatives and made liberals smug." She observed what the public sees in the comic mocking of the "deplorables" — "HBO, Comedy Central, TBS, ABC, CBS, and NBC. In other words, they see exactly what Donald Trump has taught them: that the entire media landscape loathes them, their values, their family, and their religion."

In January 2019, Flanagan issued this same paradoxical point to The New York Times: "You were partly responsible for the election of Trump because you are the most influential newspaper in the country, and you are not fair or impartial. Millions of Americans believe you hate them and that you will casually harm them. Two years ago, they fought back against you, and they won."

Then Flanagan added: "If Trump wins again, you will once again have played a small but important role in that victory."

The House impeachment hearings have enabled the same rise in public support of Trump. His poll ratings of late have reached the highest level of support in his tenure as president. Polls vary, but his favorable ratings now run anywhere between 46 percent to 50 percent. This owes to the intense hatred of him by the media and House Democrats.

Look at his presidential rallies since the poundings against him in the House: tens of thousands of supporters are showing up, many coming the night before and sleeping on the ground. The hatred has awakened the giant.

I don't much care for Donald Trump's character because his ego is larger than the Empire State Building. But I will vote for him because I very much like his many achievements as president. Haters don't want to acknowledge these achievements. They want to focus on what's wrong with a dream rather than what's right about it. If you show them a sheet of paper with dots on it, they will focus on the dots rather than on the otherwise full sheet of paper.

As I wrote this article, the Senate had just voted 51 to 49 not to have more witnesses testify. Democrats still want to draw out the final resolution of this trial. Ironically their slings and arrows will aid the president's reelection.

SOURCE

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By The Numbers: Trump’s New Budget Cuts EPA By 26%, Foreign Aid By 21%

President Donald Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2021 includes sweeping cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Commerce, and foreign aid, the White House announced Sunday.

White House officials confirmed to reporters that the budget will total $4.8 trillion, and assuming the economy grows at 3% each year, will reduce government spending by $4.4 trillion over the next 10 years.

The budget cuts funding to the EPA by 26%, foreign aid by 21%, and the DOC by 37%, though the majority of that could be attributed to the completion of the 2020 census. (RELATED: Is Donald Trump To Blame For Our Ballooning Deficit?)

Still, the budget requests funding raises for the Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Homeland Security, and NASA by 13, 3, and 12%, respectively.

For the first time, the fiscal year 2021 budget will feature a chapter devoted entirely to eliminating “wasteful” government spending, as previously reported by Daily Caller. (RELATED: New Trump Budget Includes First Ever Chapter Defining Government Waste, Targets Programs To Eliminate Entirely)

The proposal targets agencies with overlapping and similar goals, agencies that provide similar or identical services to the same group of recipients, programs without a clearly defined federal role, federal programs that mirror state-level initiatives and erroneous payments.

Additionally, the budget calls for the elimination of the following programs:

* National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s Education and Research Centers

* Department of the Interior’s Highlands Conservation Act Grants
National Park Service’s Save America’s Treasures Grants

* National Endowment for the Arts Endowment for the Humanities

* Corporation for National and Community Service (including AmeriCorps)

Acting Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought is expected to testify on the full White House proposal during a Congressional hearing on Wednesday.

SOURCE

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'Socialist and 'Atheist' Still Poison in American Politics—Unless You're a Democrat

A Gallup poll out today shows that a majority of Americans wouldn't vote for a socialist for president and only 60 percent would vote for an atheist.

This is in line with other polls that have shown a bare majority rejecting socialism.

But this poll shows some cause for concern. Seventy-six percent of Democrats say they would support a socialist for president while only 77 percent say they would support an evangelical Christian.

These findings are based on a Gallup question asking, "Between now and the 2020 political conventions, there will be discussion about the qualifications of presidential candidates -- their education, age, religion, race and so on. If your party nominated a generally well-qualified person for president who happened to be [characteristic], would you vote for that person?"

Gallup first tested Americans' willingness to vote for candidates who don't fit the traditional Protestant white male mold in 1937, asking that year whether they would support a well-qualified Catholic, Jew or woman for president. Support for a woman as president was only 33% at that time but has since grown, as has support for other diverse candidates added to the list over the decades.

Since 1958, the sharpest increase in voting tolerance has been for blacks, followed by atheists, women, Jewish candidates and Catholics. More recently, the biggest shift has been for gay or lesbian candidates.

The differences between the parties are striking.

Democrats express at least somewhat more willingness than Republicans to support most of the candidate types tested, with the widest gaps seen for Muslims, atheists and socialists. While at least two in three Democrats say they would vote for presidential candidates with these profiles, support among Republicans drops to just over 40% for Muslims and atheists, and to only 17% for socialists.

Republicans are more accepting than Democrats of evangelical Christians and candidates over 70. While President Donald Trump falls into the latter category, so do four of the leading Democratic candidates: Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Michael Bloomberg.

Republicans and Democrats are about equally likely to support Catholic and Jewish candidates.

We already know that younger voters are more willing to accept socialism. But Democrats over the age of 50 either don't remember the cost of socialism, or are simply going with the flow generated by their younger party members.

I think there are a lot of Democrats who probably don't support socialist policies but want to win elections. Then there are Democrats who don't want to be seen as "out of step" with others in the party.

The sad fact is, older voters -- most of whom oppose socialism -- are disappearing and the pendulum is swinging toward the radicals. I just hope I'm not around to witness the destruction socialism will cause.

SOURCE

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Illegal Immigration Has Outsized Negative Impact on Smaller U.S. States

A newly released report from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has revealed that the cost of illegal immigration on taxpayers is felt in states far from the U.S. southern border, and specifically in some of the country's least populated states. In fact, FAIR found that it costs 10 states with the fewest immigrants $454 million annually — or $4,000 to $6,500 per illegal alien.

As FAIR President Dan Stein explains, "In many ways, the influx of immigrants into less populous areas of the country has an even greater impact on long-time residents than it does in larger and more urban areas. These areas have neither the tax base, nor the economic and social infrastructure to accommodate the needs of the growing numbers of immigrants taking up residence."

Alaska, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming are the 10 states in which FAIR determined that of the 415,000 foreign-born residents living in them, 88,000 were illegal aliens. On top of that, 35,000 were children born to illegal aliens.

"Many local officials tout immigration, including illegal immigration, as a remedy to economic stagnation," Stein observed. "However, as this report reveals, the reality is precisely the opposite. Illegal immigration, in particular, drives down wages and inhibits job opportunities for legal residents, while bringing more low-skilled, low-wage workers to these states. In turn, this increases costs to state and local governments, and discourages investment by businesses seeking a skilled labor force and lower overhead."

Immigration constitutes a massive financial burden to taxpayers. CNSNews reports, "Nationwide, the immigration nonprofit calculated that taxpayers spend $59.8 billion educating LEP (limited English proficiency) students in 2016, up from $51.2 billion in 2010." Some schools in small communities have suddenly faced a dramatic uptick in the percentage of LEP students. For example, Lewiston, Maine, with a population of 40,000, has had its percent of LEP students rise from 5% to 30% in just five years.

As Stein concludes, "Americans, in every part of the nation, are being affected by antiquated and unenforced immigration policies, which is why it is at the top of the list of voter concerns heading into the 2020 elections."

SOURCE

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IN BRIEF

PRIMARY BEGINS: New Hampshire primary voting kicks off, with Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg locked in fierce battle (Fox News)

"SYSTEMATICALLY VIOLATING THE RULE OF LAW": Attorney General William Barr announces sweeping new sanctions, "significant escalation" against left-wing sanctuary cities (Fox News)

"GREAT NEWS TO REPORT": Funding secured for 1,000 miles of border barrier, White House officials say (The Daily Caller)

CYBERWARFARE: DOJ charges four Chinese military officials in connection with infamous Equifax data breach (The Daily Wire)

CLEANING HOUSE: Bigger than Vindman: President Trump scrubs 70 Obama holdovers from National Security Council (Washington Examiner)

BACKFIRE: Virginia Democrats are very good for Virginia gun sales (Hot Air)

OUT OF TOUCH: While Nancy Pelosi asserts "January jobs report shows the rot at the heart of the Trump economy," Americans say they feel the current economy is the best since the late 1990s (The Washington Post)

CORONAVIRUS UPDATE: China still mostly closed down as virus deaths pass 1,000 (AP)

POLICY: Trump budget cuts size of federal government, but bolder reforms needed (The Heritage Foundation)

POLICY: Obama promised a "middle class" economy; Trump delivered it (Issues & Insights)

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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

**************************

12 February, 2020

MSNBC Host Warns Against Socialist Executions, Bernie Bros Want Him Sacked

After the New Hampshire Democratic debate on Friday night, MSNBC host Chris Matthews uttered high heresy against the Bernie Sanders movement by remembering the Cold War and the threat of socialist and communist executions. He warned that if Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and the Reds had won the Cold War, "there would have been executions in Central Park, and I might have been one of the ones getting executed." As if to demonstrate the truth of this statement, Bernie Bros got #FireChrisMatthews trending on Twitter.

"The Democratic Party has to figure out its ideology," Matthews warned. He said he was part of the Liberal Party in Britain, but that party was "overtaken by the socialist party [Labour]" and Winston "Churchill went back to the [conservative] Tories." Indeed, Churchill rejected the Liberal Party in 1924, warning that Liberals should support the Conservatives to stop Labour and ensure "the successful defeat of Socialism."

"A lot of this will be sorting this out if the Democratic Party runs a socialist candidate. That’s a change to the Democratic Party," Matthews continued. He did not condemn the expansion of social programs, which he firmly distinguished from socialism. "The Democratic Party’s been to the left of the Republican Party on the issue of mixed capitalism, more social programs. They push Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, enormously popular programs. I think ACA/Obamacare, I wish they’d follow through with it, make it work. I think most Americans would be happy with ... a public option" in health care.

Yet the MSNBC host also remembered the Cold War.

"I have my own views of the word socialist, and I’ll be glad to share them with you in private. They go back to the early 1950s, I have an attitude about them. I remember the Cold War," he said. "I have an attitude towards Castro. I believe if Castro and the reds had won the Cold War, there would have been executions in Central Park, and I might have been one of the ones getting executed, and certain other people would have been there cheering."

"So I have a problem with people who took the other side," he continued. Matthews feared Sanders would be in this category. "I don’t know who Bernie supports over these years. I don’t know what he means by socialism. One week, it’s Denmark. 'We’re going to be like Denmark.' Okay, that’s harmless. That’s basically a capitalist country with a lot of good social programs." (Ironically, Denmark has been hard at work reforming its social programs in a more free-market direction.)

Matthews later brought up the question, "What does he think of Castro?" He noted that many Americans were originally excited to see Castro rise to power in Cuba, "and then he became a communist and started shooting all of his enemies."

Bernie Bros were not happy to see a liberal host speak the truth about the Cold War — and Sanders' dalliances with the oppressive Soviet communist side. After a few prominent liberals expressed disgust and blamed Matthews of anti-Semitism, #FireChrisMatthews started trending on Twitter.

Liberal writer and activist Shaun King suggested that any mention of Castro's murderous thugs in discussing Bernie Sanders would constitute anti-Semitism because Sanders is Jewish. He called Matthews' history lesson "one of the single most ignorant moments I've ever seen on [MSNBC]."

There is an immense difference between Matthews raising concerns about socialism by citing the Cold War and the character accusations of Sen. Joseph McCarthy. When McCarthy accused people of being closet Soviets, he was accusing them of treason (and ironically adopting a feature of communist governments).

Matthews was merely warning about the dangers of this kind of big government ideology, and noting Sanders' very public support for the Soviets and their allies during the Cold War — he honeymooned in the USSR in the 1980s and worked with various Marxist political parties during his time as mayor of Burlington, Vermont.

He endorsed Socialist Workers Party candidates for president in the 1980s when that party was pointing to Soviet-aligned countries like Nicaragua and Cuba as inspirations for policies in the U.S. So yes, it is entirely fair to ask Sanders what he thinks of Fidel Castro.

SOURCE

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Carville Blasts Leftist Dems; Candidates Hold 8th Debate

While Carville wonders if Dems are losing their minds, candidates appear to prove his point.

Following the Democrats’ Iowa caucuses debacle last week, former Bill Clinton campaign adviser and Democrat strategist James Carville publicly blasted his party’s candidates in interviews for their hard-left platforms. On MSNBC, Carville went on a rant over the Democrats’ poor performance, concluding that he was “scared to death” about the 2020 election. In a followup interview with Vox writer Sean Illing, Carville further elaborated on his concerns, bemoaning, “We’re losing our [darn] minds.”

Pointing to the lower-than-expected voter enthusiasm in Iowa, Carville observed, “Look, the turnout in the Iowa caucus was below what we expected [and] what we wanted. Trump’s approval rating is probably as high as it’s been. This is very bad. And now it appears the party can’t even count votes. What the hell am I supposed to think? … And now it’s like we’re losing our [darn] minds. Someone’s got to step their game up here.”

Democrats have gone to the extreme left, Carville charges, and by doing so they are turning off vast swaths of the country. “We have candidates on the debate stage talking about open borders and decriminalizing illegal immigration. They’re talking about doing away with nuclear energy and fracking. You’ve got Bernie Sanders talking about letting criminals and terrorists vote from jail cells. It doesn’t matter what you think about any of that, or if there are good arguments — talking about that is not how you win a national election. It’s not how you become a majoritarian party. … They’ve tacked off the [darn] radar screen.”

Carville also blasted Democrats over their “free college” platform, arguing, “Here’s another stupid thing: Democrats talking about free college tuition or debt forgiveness. I’m not here to debate the idea. What I can tell you is that people all over this country worked their way through school, sent their kids to school, paid off student loans. They don’t want to hear this s—. And you saw [Elizabeth] Warren confronted by an angry voter over this. It’s just not a winning message.”

The Democrats’ elitist and self-righteous attitude is not a formula for winning, Carville notes, as he laments that this “smugness” and “patronizing” would only lead to further Democrat losses. “We can’t win the Senate by looking down at people. The Democrat Party has to drive a narrative that doesn’t give off vapors that we’re smarter than everyone or culturally arrogant.”

Carville’s interview was published last Friday, hours before the Democrat presidential candidates took the stage for their eighth debate. That debate made abundantly clear that Carville’s assessment was spot on. The Democrat candidates are simply uninterested or unable to concern themselves with any views outside of their narrow leftist ideology. As PowerLine’s Steven Hayward insightfully observed, “I watched the Democratic field show once again that it is running to be president of Twitter more than President of the United States.”

For example, not one of the candidates on the stage Friday night would have given the go-ahead, like Trump did, to take out Iran’s leading terrorist, Qasem Soleimani. Bernie Sanders strangely argued, “You cannot go around saying, ‘You’re a bad guy. We’re gonna assassinate you.’ And then you’re gonna have, if that happens, you’re opening the door to international anarchy.” Pete Buttigieg ridiculously asserted that “taking out a bad guy is a bad idea if you do not know what you’re doing.” Joe Biden suggested (without evidence) that “there’s no evidence yet of an imminent threat that was going to come from [Soleimani].” Never mind the fact that he had the blood of thousands of Americans already on his hands.

Regarding socialism, only one candidate on stage — Amy Klobuchar — raised her hand in rejection of the failed ideology. On the question of racism, every candidate brandished their “woke” talking points, deriding America as a racist country founded on racism. Sanders took the cake: “We have a racist society from top to bottom, impacting healthcare, housing, criminal justice, education — you name it. And clearly this is an issue that must be dealt with.”

Finally, one of the moments that most highlights the current divide between Democrats and Republicans was Biden’s chastising Trump for awarding Rush Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom. “By the way, Colonel Vindman got thrown out of the White House today,” Biden lamented. “[The president] should have been pinning a medal on Vindman, and not on Rush Limbaugh. I think we should all stand and get Colonel Vindman a show of how much we support him. Stand up and clap for Vindman!” Biden demanded.

These Democrats are so out of touch with much of America that they don’t seem to realize the majority of their attacks against Trump are in fact attacks against Americans. These Democrats do indeed appear to be losing their minds.

SOURCE

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Mitch McConnell wins through

Americans have just watched the impeachment drama meet its end in the Senate following orderly speeches, which was in stark contrast to the scripted-for-cable-news performances in the House demanding to remove President Donald Trump. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been vilified by the Left with terms like “ruthless” and “egregious” because he denied additional drama to the same folks who still can’t get over losing the 2016 presidential election. In the eyes of Republicans, the Senate has, again, done its job — as has McConnell.

But, as recently as December 2017, McConnell was under significant fire from within the Republican Party grassroots for, at the time, his role in fueling the fiery and failed special Alabama Senate primary race. Many grassroots conservatives blamed McConnell for the fact that a key Senate seat is now held by Doug Jones, a lone Democrat senator from the South. Many also called the Senate majority leader an albatross around the necks of the conservative cause — as Nancy Pelosi is to Democrats. The list of grievances included failure to deal with illegal immigration, failure to halt Planned Parenthood funding, and failure to repeal or replace ObamaCare.

Put simply, Mitch McConnell was not exactly hailed by grassroots Republicans.

That was until the unexpected death of Antonin Scalia in February 2016.

A month after Scalia’s passing, President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland. McConnell cited his former colleague Joe Biden’s own words in shelving the Democrat nomination by declaring no vacancy on the Supreme Court would be filled in the year of a presidential election. The “Biden Rule” originated in June 1992, when the then-Senate Judiciary Committee chairman argued that, should a vacancy occur when President George H.W. Bush was running against Democrat Bill Clinton, the deliberating body would “seriously consider not scheduling confirmation hearings on the nomination until after the political campaign season is over.”

McConnell’s move was a huge gamble, because nobody seriously thought Donald Trump would defeat Hillary Clinton. But, as it turns out, McConnell ensured that Garland’s nomination never received a Senate hearing, and he provided voters with a big reason to vote Trump. Once Trump took office, he and McConnell delivered, nominating and confirming Neil Gorsuch.

DC theatrics were in full swing when Trump made his nomination to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy with Brett Kavanaugh. Unlike the Gorsuch nomination, Kavanaugh’s nomination came ahead of a midterm election and shifted the ideological balance of the Court. But McConnell’s steady leadership came into focus as America watched over 48 hours of questioning and hysteria that ultimately solidified the Supreme Court with an originalist interpretation of the Rule of Law. While most will remember the Democrats’ shameful display that displaced anything resembling civility during the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, don’t overlook the importance of an earlier stance McConnell took that made this appointment as valuable.

These two Supreme Court justices are the shiny trophies promised by presidential candidate Trump. But, since his first day in office, President Trump has filled over 20% of the circuit-court seats in the country. His 34th circuit judge is being confirmed with three more in the queue for floor action. Compare this record to his predecessor, who appointed 55 circuit judges in eight years. Trump currently still has 128 District Court vacancies to fill.

Needless to say, the impact on the judiciary is already immense, with the guarantee of this campaign promise returning to the presidential trail in 2020. Yet this would not be possible without the Senate and the leadership of Majority Leader McConnell.

McConnell has embraced his role, recently declaring, “You’ll be pleased to know that my motto for the remainder of this Congress is leave no vacancy behind.” He’s doing the work to confirm women and men who are relatively young and intellectually skilled, many with experience as Supreme Court clerks. And their approach to the bench is “to follow the law and the Constitution.”

SOURCE

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IN BRIEF

SIGNALING PRIORITIES: Trump budget would cut $4.4 trillion in spending, boosting defense while slashing safety nets and foreign aid (Fox News)

BUTTIGIEG PREVAILS: Iowa Democrat Party awards Pete Buttigieg 14 delegates, Bernie Sanders 12 after caucus meltdown (Fox News)

IF NOT FOR DOUBLE STANDARDS... Buttigieg argues for end of Electoral College after Iowa "victory" without popular vote (Breitbart)

BIRDS OF A FEATHER: Buttigieg high-school essay praised "Profile in Courage" Bernie Sanders (The Daily Caller)

BRAVO: Actor Gary Sinise recognized with Congressional Medal of Honor Society's Patriot Award for supporting veterans (Washington Examiner)

WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE... Obama-produced film wins Oscar; producer quotes Communist Manifesto in acceptance speech (The Daily Wire)

COPS ATTACKED: Two New York officers shot in assassination attempts; Trump rips Mayor Bill de Blasio (USA Today)

POLICY: China's stranglehold on pharmaceuticals threatens Americans' health and national security (Issues & Insights)

*****************************

For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

**************************

11 February, 2020

The New McCarthyism Has No Sense of Decency

During CNN’s last presidential debate in Des Moines, Sen. Amy Klobuchar said Sen. Joseph McCarthy had “blacklisted people” and that Joseph Welch said to him, “Have you no sense of decency?” If anyone in 2020 found this reference puzzling, it would be hard to blame them.

Sen. Klobuchar repeats the common belief that Joe McCarthy headed the House Committee on Un-American Activities that investigated Communist influence in the movies. Actually, senators do not serve on House committees, and McCarthy never had anything to do with Hollywood. The Hollywood liberals who fought the screen Stalinists, sometimes in bloody street battles, considered McCarthy a hindrance to the anti-Communist cause.

McCarthy’s focus was government, and the “decency” comment came from U.S. Army Counsel Joseph Welch in the 1954 Army-McCarthy hearings, seven years after the HCUA Hollywood hearings and three years before the senator’s death. McCarthy was an unsavory, accusatory type who damaged the anti-Communist cause, but as M. Stanton Evans noted in Blacklisted by History, the Wisconsin Republican didn’t know the half of it.

“The curiosity is not that there were undoubtedly many Reds that made government their vocation, but that the entire Communist Party was not on the federal payroll.” That quote is from actor Robert Vaughn (The Young Philadelphians, Bullit) in his Ph.D. thesis published in 1972 as Only Victims: A Study of Show Business Blacklisting. Vaughn’s findings have since been substantiated by revelations from the Comintern and Soviet archives. For the case of Alger Hiss, a Stalinist agent in the State Department, see Perjury: The Hiss-Chambers Case, by Allen Weinstein.

Politicians like Amy Klobuchar decry Joe McCarthy but have no trouble with the vicious guilt-by-accusation tactics on display in the hearing for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. For the full story on that travesty, see Mollie Hemingway and Carrie Severino in Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Supreme Court. In those hearings, Sen. Klobuchar accepted the testimony of Christine Blasey Ford as infallible, pressed Kavanaugh about his drinking habits, and voted against him, claiming the vote was not political.

That’s the new McCarthyism, and those who deploy it show little sense of decency.

SOURCE

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Iran and the hypocrisy of the pacifist left

Leftists in the West routinely accuse the US of threatening world peace. And yet they readily and hypocritically turn a blind eye to the imperialist aspirations of other countries.

Take the case of Iran. At the beginning of this year, President Donald Trump ordered the killing of Qasem Soleimani, a leading general in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and the principal architect of Iran’s regional expansion. The Western ‘pacifist’ left did not hesitate to cry foul. The more ignorant among them expressed their sorrow over his death, seemingly oblivious to the blood on his hands. The more literate said the killing was a threat to Middle Eastern peace, despite the fact such peace is non-existent.

Their response ignores the fact that, for many in the Middle East, the death of Soleimani came as a relief. Sunni Muslims, from Iraq to Lebanon, who had long suffered at the hands of Soleimani-led, Shia militias, were only too happy to see his demise. Yet Iran’s regional interventions and imperial ambition, led up until now by Soleimani, do not trigger massive left-wing demonstrations in the West. And no Iranian flag is set alight by leftists outraged at Iranian imperialism.

Why is the Western left unaffected by the suffering of the victims of Eastern imperialism? And why is it, once again, standing up for a dictatorship?

It’s partly because some really are ignorant enough to believe that all wars are attributable to the bloodlust of Western powers. If they just laid down their weapons, so the magical thinking goes, their rivals in Moscow, Tehran and Beijing would lay down theirs. Yet even the Romans knew that whoever wanted peace had to be ready for war.

Very often, Western leftist ‘pacifism’ is rooted in a myopic loathing for America. When, under President Reagan during the 1980s, the US toughened its stance on the Soviet Union, helping to bring about its fall, Western leftists started calling out American imperialism. In doing so, they showed they had absolutely no regard for the Eastern Europeans living under the yoke of Russian imperialism.

Or take the case of Serbian aggression in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. When President Clinton led the NATO attacks on the forces of the then Serbian president, Slobodan Miloševi?, in 1999, the Western left started calling out American imperialism once again. They had no regard for the tens of thousands of Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and Albanians who were living in fear of Miloševi?.

Even when the US is reluctant to intervene militarily against Russian imperialism, as is the case now in Ukraine, a large part of the Western left is still concerned about American imperialism. And again, they show absolutely no concern for the Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars, South Ossetians, Georgians or Chechens who still live in the shadow of Russia.

The same thing is happening in the case of Iran. Even though it has been pushing an imperialist agenda in the Middle East, and has intervened in numerous sovereign territories, from Iraq to Egypt, the Western ‘pacifist’ left has remained silent. Leftists are happy to wave the Palestinian banner, while burning American and Israeli flags, but they show no interest in Iran’s bolstering of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, or its bloody work in Iraq.

Instead, they see Islamist Iran as mounting a legitimate rebellion on behalf of the Third World. Indeed, in much the same Third Worldist terms, leftists, from Paris to West Berlin, welcomed the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979 as a victory against the Great Satan of America.

For the Western left, it is as if being a part of the Third World excuses everything. As far as the left is concerned, Third World countries are free to act as they please, without being called out for committing the same acts as the West. The well-known leftist narrative is that the Third World is underdeveloped because it was colonised, oppressed and exploited by the dastardly West. Therefore its liberation can only come about dialectically. According to this interpretation, Third World countries are also compelled to colonise, oppress and exploit.

So, if Iran, China, Russia or Venezuela intervene anywhere in the world, it must be hailed as an act of international liberation. If the US, France or Israel does the same, then it is evil imperialism.

This is why the Western left regards Trump, and not the murdered Soleimani, as the main wrongdoer in the Middle East. After all, Soleimani was anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian, so he must have been a good man, right? Also, he hailed from a poor family, which is a prerequisite for being virtuous.

Not only is the Western ‘pacifist’ left hypocritical, calling out imperialism in some cases and accepting it as liberation at other times – it also goes against its own hallowed principle of international solidarity. So, just as Western leftists once supported the Kremlin, and betrayed the tens of millions suffering under Soviet imperialism, so today their pacifist heirs support Iran, unconcerned by the fate of the oppressed Persian people, the Iraqi Sunnis or the Sunnis and Christians of Lebanon.

There’s nothing wrong with choosing sides. However, the left should be honest with itself, stop claiming that it is acting in the name of ‘peace’ or ‘international law’ and admit what it is doing – namely, allying itself with Tehran.

SOURCE

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Man Deliberately Crashes Van Into GOP Voter Registration Tent

Law enforcement officials in Jacksonville, Fla., say a driver intentionally crashed a van into a tent where Trump campaign volunteers were registering voters Saturday afternoon.

Thankfully, no one was injured.

“We are investigating this as an aggravated assault,” Lt. Larry Gayle of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said. “Several people were in the area and could have been seriously hurt.”

According to Gayle, after plowing through the tent, the driver stopped, got out of the van, then took a video of the scene before flipping off the victims and fleeing the scene. Despite this, Gayle says they don't know the motivation of the suspect, "but, we are just starting the investigation."

Obviously they don't want to speculate, but the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office should be treating this incident as a potential hate crime—just as they most certainly would be if the victims were minorities and the suspect was caucasian.

The Duval County GOP posted images of the scene and detailed the incident on Twitter.

“We are outraged by this senseless act of violence toward our great volunteers,” said Duval GOP Chairman Dean Black. “The Republican Party of Duval County will not be intimidated by these cowards and we will not be silenced.”

Black added, “I call on every Republican in our great city to stand up, get involved, and show these radicals that we will not be intimidated from exercising our Constitutional rights.”

The Duval County GOP now plans to "redouble its efforts to register voters" and will continue with "renewed intensity to re-elect President Donald Trump."

Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel responded to the incident on Twitter. “These unprovoked, senseless attacks on @realDonaldTrump’s supporters need to end. I want to echo the @DuvalGOP in saying: We will not be silenced by cowards, and these disgusting acts will only make us work harder to win November.”

President Trump also responded to the incident. “Law Enforcement has been notified. Be careful tough guys who you play with!” he wrote on Twitter.

Senators Rick Scott and Marco Rubio both responded to the incident as well.

The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office is now looking into whether the driver of the vehicle has posted the video he took on social media.

Given the obvious political nature of this incident that targeted supporters of President Trump's campaign, every single Democratic candidate's campaign should condemn the actions of the suspect. I'd be willing to bet that none will.

SOURCE

The Perp has been arrested. Gregory Timm, 27, was arrested on charges of aggravated assault, criminal mischief and driving with a suspended license

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Life is good in Trump's America, and Democrats want to break it

Trump delivered a triumphant State of the Union address to Congress despite Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s distracting facial expressions and her melodramatic, almost ceremonial, ripping up of a copy of the speech. If I didn’t know any better, I’d suspect she didn’t like Trump all that much.

Pelosi’s attitude problem is a symptom of a much larger problem among Democrats, who are on the verge of falling into the same trap they fell into in 2016. They underestimated Trump as a candidate, and they have underestimated him as a president ever since. They assumed their personal opinions were the only correct way to view the world, took many of their own voters for granted, and, ultimately, lost big as a result.

The Trump administration has achieved significant policy victories that have improved life for everyday people. Democrats talk a big game about raising living standards for the “little man,” but the Trump administration is getting it done: from school choice, criminal justice reform, opportunity zones, record-low minority unemployment, and more. Democrats have promised reform on these issues for generations — but Trump is actually getting it done for disenfranchised urban communities.

Even CNN contributor and ardent liberal Van Jones admitted, to the shock of his colleagues, that Trump is helping black Americans in real life.

He warned the CNN panel that Trump’s achievements could appeal to groups outside the GOP’s typical coalition, including minority communities. “Wake up, folks,” Jones said. “What you’re going see him do is say, ‘you may not like my rhetoric, but look at my results.’ And if he narrowcasts that, it’s going to be effective.”

For once, Van Jones is absolutely right: This election is going to be about results, not rhetoric.

Which political party will earn the trust of struggling communities: the party that is creating jobs and getting criminal justice reform done or the party that is laser-focused on banning plastic straws and retrofitting every building in America?

Democrats so desperately want to paint a doomsday scenario where America is falling apart at the hands of Trump, and within the confines of their echo chambers on Facebook and MSNBC, they might be able to paint that picture. But it’s just not in line with reality. Consumer confidence is at a 20-year high. According to a recent Gallup poll, 90% of the public is satisfied with their personal lives, the highest number reported since 2003.

It’s a pretty great time to be alive, and Democrats are going to need a compelling argument for why voters should get off this train and opt for “big, structural change” — as it says on the back of Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s campaign RV.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

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10 February, 2020

If not for President Trump’s courage and fortitude, the deep state coup might have succeeded

President Donald Trump has been locked in an unprecedented struggle with intelligence agencies and a rogue Justice Department that sought to destroy him, his campaign and eventually his presidency, since before he was elected—an effort not only to disenfranchise then certainly but also demoralize the 63 million Americans who voted for him in 2016.

In many ways it was the greatest attempt at voter suppression in American history. It began as a campaign talking point. Republicans are committed Cold Warriors, and in 2016, Donald Trump said he thought the U.S. and Russia could get along better, and so, his political opponents and the national security apparatus in Washington, D.C. sought to portray him as being “cozy” with Russian President Vladimir Putin. This would theoretically drive a wedge between Trump and his supporters, and cause Republicans to back a more establishment candidate.

That’s how it started. But in the primary it was inconsequential beyond a few debate moments. Trump and his surrogates could easily point to the examples of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush as presidents who had successfully negotiated nuclear arms control treaties with then the Soviet Union: the Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty in 1972, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 1972, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty in 1987 and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in 1991.

Trump came across as a statesman in foreign policy who might be able to broker new agreements that could help to keep America safe and out of war.

In the general election, the narrative was weaponized by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, who in 2016 hired via law firm Perkins Coie, the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, who hired former British spy Christopher Steele, to concoct allegations against Trump and his campaign, that they were Russian agents and that they had conspired with Russia to hack the Democratic National Committee and put the emails on Wikileaks. None of the allegations were made public at the time even as they circulated power circles in Washington, D.C.

Taking on a life of their own, the allegations were then passed on to the FBI and the Justice Department, who initiated top secret surveillance of the Trump campaign beginning in Oct. 2016 and not ending until after Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed in May 2017.

Still, the “cozy” with Putin meme would be played again and again on the campaign trail by Clinton publicly. But it backfired. Trump successfully painted Clinton as a warmonger who might get us into World War III.

Turns out that was not too far off the mark. The false allegations against Trump being a Russian agent have nearly incapacitated the ability of not only President Trump, but future presidents as well, to deal effectively and flexibly with Russia, especially when a deal might keep us out of Armageddon. Summits, once a highly effective foreign policy tool for American presidents, are now subject to over-the-top allegations of treason.

And it was all completely avoidable, we now know from Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz. After Trump won the election, in Jan. 2017 before the President was sworn into office, the FBI finally got around to interviewing one of the primary sources used in the Steele dossier, who ended up contradicting Steele and creating a void of evidence for the most serious charges leveled by Steele. Their key witness had folded and so they had a choice to make to end the investigation right then and there and hope nobody found out, or to proceed into the breach and carry on a rogue investigation of Trump into the new administration they knew was seriously flawed.

We all know what happened. They carried on the investigation and hid the exculpatory evidence not only from the President but the entire country. They sat on it. They wrongly targeted Michael Flynn, Jeff Sessions and others. Former FBI Director James Comey lied to the President’s face about the extent of the investigation and thank goodness President Trump fired him for it, or else we might not have ever found out what really happened.

Really, if it was not for the fortitude of one man, President Trump, to stand up for the Constitution, his office and the American people, and grave, irreparable damage might have been inflicted on the republic — a dark alternate reality where the national security apparatus selects the President and political opponents are destroyed with malicious fantasies fabricated by secret political ops.

Instead, it all backfired. Comey was fired and although it led to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s appointment, it also led to Mueller finding there was no conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. Mueller punted obstruction of justice to Attorney General William Barr and then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein who found no crime.

The impeachment that followed — over the President’s freezing of military assistance to Ukraine while he considered both the national security implications and corruption in Ukraine —was a dagger at the heart of not just this President, but every president to keep us out of World War III.

A brief history lesson: In 2014, the Obama administration including Vice President Joe Biden pushed then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych out of power because Yanukovych opposed a trade deal with the European Union. The government was overthrown and the trade deal was adopted, but not before it led directly to the secession of Crimea and eastern provinces in Ukraine, which were taken over by pro-Russian forces. Suddenly there was a civil war.

When Trump ran for office, Steele or his sources concocted the allegation that the Republican Party Platform had been altered at Vladimir Putin’s behest to soften language on arms to Ukraine. So thoroughly convinced that Trump was a potential Russian agent, once elected, Congress forced U.S. arms to Ukraine — an amendment by the late Sen. John McCain who was fed the dossier by Steele via a surrogate — into the budget and made it a litmus test. If Trump questioned the arms or paused the assistance to Ukraine, even if it was meant to prevent an unintentional, catastrophic war, it proved he was a Russian agent.

But the only reason for the aid to Ukraine was to counter Putin’s master plan of the Manchurian Candidate Trump as a Russian agent. It was a countermeasure for a fictitious big lie.

In our right minds, we probably would have never sent military assistance to Ukraine but for the Steele dossier lies. The Obama administration never did.

And it is unclear how “vital”—quoting the now-failed articles of impeachment—the aid even is to Ukraine, when the Javelin missiles have not been used once on the eastern front of the Ukraine civil war. Instead, the anti-tank missiles are sitting in a warehouse in western Ukraine, far away from any fighting, as revealed by Foreign Policy Magazine’s Amy MacKinnon and Lara Seligman in October.

That’s what we are turning the country inside out over: Unused missiles in a civil war we never would have gotten involved with but for a conspiracy theory originally cooked up as a campaign talking point for Hillary Clinton.

No other president could have withstood this assault on our constitutional form of government and the basic ability to conduct foreign relations. President Trump is standing up for the Constitution, his office and the American people to secure liberty for everyone and to keep us out of war.

But the damage has been palpable. For years to come, this will create a real obstacle for this President and future presidents to deal with Russia diplomatically. Future presidents might cower from Russia hawks in future administrations who might use similar blackmail to strong arm policy, leading us potentially into a unnecessary conflict.

Under similar circumstances, with such allegations of treason pervasive against an administration, incidents like the Cuban Missile Crisis might not be able to be resolved peacefully, making this madness, this national or at least partisan hysteria about Russia a bona fide threat to national security. In the nuclear age, presidents must have the ability to deal diplomatically with other nuclear powers.

Believe it or not, President Trump might be the only person who can fix this. That is why he deserves the support of every American, regardless of party and who they end up voting for this year, that his administration and Attorney General William Barr get to the bottom of this failed deep state coup and what really happened, and if possible to repair relations overseas even with our adversaries — so that this never happens to any president ever again. There is simply too much at stake.

SOURCE

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BACKFIRE: 'I Will Never Vote Democrat Again,' Say Angry Dems on C-SPAN After Pelosi's Tantrum

This is the most satisfying video series you'll see all day. After Pelosi and her White Witches threw their little fits of rage last night at the SOTU, they felt very smug about themselves. Their voters, on the other hand, felt differently. It turns out that most Americans think you should stand up and clap for the good things that happen in America instead of sulk and pout on your butt like a spoiled child.

C-SPAN asked people to call in and give their opinions on the SOTU. What happened after that was brilliant. "I'm a Democrat, but I no longer will vote Democrat," said one caller. "I think it's outrageous that they sat there when all these good things are happening to our country and how much we love our country. And they looked like they hated our country...It's outrageous and I will never vote Democrat again." She went on to say that all her family voted for Hillary last time but this time they will never vote for a Democrat again.

But she wasn't the only one. A man called in and said, "Let me put it this way, I've been a Democrat for 70-some years and what I saw tonight was appalling to me...it was very disrespectful to this president and I didn't vote for him...but that man is the president and we should respect him." He continued, "What I've seen tonight of the Democrat party, I am changing my mind...I'll probably stay home. I'm embarrassed being a God-danged Democrat for what they did in the House today." Then he had me rolling on the floor with this. "They looked like a bunch of dadgum idiots sitting there." Hear, hear!

A woman from Mississippi called in to give the Democrats a piece of her mind. "I watched my president give a speech on everything great that's happening in our country but yet, Nancy Pelosi and the others who were dressed in white, I might add, just sitting over there, never standing, never clapping for anything that might be good for the country—I don't understand it. I used to be a Democrat, and I am no longer a Democrat." And there's more than that. It's a slaughter. Listen.

According to people who watched it live, there were many more calls saying the same thing. All the Democrats had to do was look normal, and they couldn't even do that. It's almost as if they have a death wish. I'm not complaining, but dang! That was some seriously bad optics, folks! Considering that the Trump rally in New Jersey drew a crowd of 25% Democrats (who were all cheering and screaming for the president) I think they are in big, YUGE trouble.

SOURCE

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CNN Portrays Trump Supporters as Illiterate Hillbilly Rubes

CNN’s Don Lemon giggled like a schoolgirl as panelists Rick Wilson and Wajahat Ali mocked President Trump’s supporters as a bunch of illiterate hillbillies.

Lemon, who is the defendant in a scandalous sexual-assault case, was dishing about Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s dustup with a NPR reporter who reportedly could not find Ukraine on a map.

“[Pompeo] also knows deep within his heart that Donald Trump couldn’t find Ukraine on a map if you had the letter U and a picture of an actual physical crane next to it,” Wilson said. “He knows that this is, you know, an administration defined by ignorance of the world. And so that’s partly him playing to the base and playing to their audience. You know, the credulous boomer rube demo that backs Donald Trump.”

That “credulous boomer rube demo” would be the gun-toting, Bible-clinging deplorables who sent Donald J. Trump to Washington, DC, to irrigate the Deep State Swamp.

If Donald Trump wins re-election this year, I’ll remember this brief CNN segment late one Saturday night in January as the perfect encapsulation for why it happened.

“‘Donald Trump’s the smart one — any y'all elitists are dumb!’” Wilson said with a fake southern accent.

“‘You elitists, with your geography and your maps and your spelling!’” Ali added.

“‘Your math and your reading!’” Wilson said. “‘All those lines on the map!’”

Lemon doubled over on the anchor desk with tears in his eyes, laughing like Anderson Cooper on New Year’s Eve. He had the look of someone who had just peed himself on national television.

President Trump, clearly disgusted by the blistering attack, responded on Twitter. “Don Lemon, the dumbest man on television (with terrible ratings!),” the president wrote.

The president speaks the truth — not even Brian Stelter or Oliver Darcy watch Lemon’s show.

Lemon and Ali are textbook examples of socially acceptable racists. The bosses turn a blind eye to the hate spewing nightly from Lemon’s mouth.

Imagine what would have happened had a white news anchor giggled uncontrollably as his guests mocked black people. They would’ve been run out of the country.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

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9 February, 2020

Trump’s State of the Union Address Affirms Americanism as Nation’s Guiding Ethos

Patriotism was one of the most important themes of President Donald Trump’s third State of the Union address on Tuesday night.

It was a night of high emotion and more than a few theatrics that began with Trump refusing to shake House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s hand and ending with Pelosi tearing up a copy of the speech. All this took place in the shadow of a highly charged impeachment trial that finally came to a close with an acquittal a day later.

Beyond Trump’s specific descriptions about the state of the economy, American health care, and a variety of other issues relating directly to his policies, he connected modern America to shared and celebrated triumphs from our nation’s past.

Using that patriotic theme—which Trump has interspersed in all of his major speeches, from his inaugural address to his latest State of the Union address—has been one of the undeniable strengths of his presidency.

It’s a quality that was once shared by presidents across the political spectrum, but in the age of social justice warriors, statue-smashing, anthem-kneeling, and cancel culture—aided and abetted by an array of institutions from the legacy media and Hollywood to academia—Trump’s brand of unapologetic patriotism stands out.

It was particularly pronounced at the end of Trump’s speech, in which he said that Americans have a “glorious and magnificent inheritance,” after naming and praising a long list of American heroes from throughout the country’s history.

He then hearkened Americans to embrace their pioneer, frontier heritage as we as a nation again push boundaries and reach for greater accomplishments, as we always have.

“Our grandest journeys are not yet made. The American Age, the American epic, the American adventure has only just begun,” Trump said. “Our spirit is still young, the sun is still rising, God’s grace is still shining, and, my fellow Americans, the best is yet to come.”

It’s hard to understate the importance of that message.

As I wrote in my book “The War on History: The Conspiracy to Rewrite America’s Past,” there has been a concerted effort to uproot and diminish America’s past as a means to replace traditional American ideals and principles with radical ones.

This effort is on full display with the 1619 Project of The New York Times Magazine, which creates a distorted and often inaccurate picture of American history, a history that at its core the magazine says is rooted in slavery and racism, not liberty.

At the heart of that way of thinking, which is now embedded deeply in American cultural institutions, is that Americans should feel shame, rather than pride, in their country’s accomplishments and that the bad things about our past negate the good.

That in part is why so many of those institutions are now being looked upon with skepticism, why Americans are in a populist mood, and why Trump’s message resonates with so many people.

Trump wisely chose to highlight both the heroes of our history—like Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, and the Wright brothers—as well as the ones still with us, such as 100-year-old Charles McGee, one of the few surviving Tuskegee Airmen, who he promoted to brigadier general.

The message was not simply that we must celebrate our past. Instead, it was about keeping Americans rooted in the best aspects of their past, while focusing their eyes squarely on the horizon.

That is a quintessentially American outlook. Often, it’s the very belief that our nation has a special mission in this world—that we are the unique pathfinders, trailblazing as no one else has—that has become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Though Americans, like any other people, are flawed and fallen, the United States was not created to be a nation like any other. We may not be perfect, but we are committed to a great cause, and it took many heroes—both remembered and forgotten—to ensure that that legacy would endure.

We look to that brighter future not because we are ashamed of our past, but because we are proud of what our country stands for and would like nothing more than to see it have a greater and even more triumphant future.

Today, as new and potent threats to our way of life emerge in the world, it is essential that Americans come to understand and deepen their appreciation of our history, reject the noxious identity politics that threaten to shatter the concept of e pluribus unum, and embrace an inclusive Americanism that can unite the country in the face of its challenges.

Trump’s State of the Union address affirmed that ethos.

SOURCE

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Romney’s Trump envy disappoints Utah

Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement blasting Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) for announcing he would vote to convict President Donald Trump:

“Mitt Romney has proven that his venal nature and envy over President Trump’s election has overcome any rational judgment when it comes to impeachment. Romney’s vote to convict reveals much more about his lack of character than it does about President Trump. While this is not surprising, it is disappointing in that prior to the 17th Amendment, the legislature of the state of Utah would have been able to immediately remove him from representing their state.”

SOURCE

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How experts plan to treat the new coronavirus

As the coronavirus outbreak in China continues to spread, having infected over 24,000 people so far, scientists around the world are racing to find a treatment. Most of the people infected with the new coronavirus, dubbed 2019-nCov, have not received a treatment specific to that virus — because there isn't one.

In fact, none of the handful of coronaviruses known to infect humans has an approved treatment, and people who are infected typically receive care mainly to help relieve symptoms, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). However, a handful of repurposed drugs, from drugs targeting Ebola to HIV, have already shown promise, according to new findings.

Until recently, there were very few effective antivirals, said Stephen Morse, a professor at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. That was especially true for RNA viruses — like 2019-nCov and HIV — which use RNA, rather than DNA, as their genetic material, Morse said.

That's changing.

"In recent years, perhaps encouraged by the successful development of HIV anti-virals, which proved it might be feasible to do more, our armamentarium has greatly expanded," Morse said. Even so, developing brand-new drugs requires a huge investment of both time and resources, he added. So "while you're waiting for the new miracle drug, it's worthwhile looking for existing drugs that could be repurposed" to treat new viruses, Morse told Live Science.

That's exactly the route doctors took to treat a 35-year-old man in Washington state, the first U.S. patient to have been infected with the new coronavirus. When his symptoms worsened, the man was given an unapproved antiviral drug called remdesivir that was originally developed to treat Ebola, according to a case report published Jan. 31 in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Doctors gave this drug to the patient by making a "compassionate use" request to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which allows experimental drugs to be given to people outside of clinical trials, usually in emergency situations. The patient, who was recently released from the hospital, didn't seem to experience any side effects of the drug.

In animal models, scientists have found that remdesivir can knock down similar coronaviruses, such as the ones that cause Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Despite its use in an emergency situation, the drug "has not been demonstrated to be safe or effective for any use," Gilead Sciences, the biopharmaceutical company that is developing the drug, said in a statement.

Recently, a group of researchers tested a number of antivirals in the lab for their effectiveness against the new coronavirus. They found that remdesivir stopped the virus from replicating in a lab dish. Similarly, the group found that chloroquine — an approved and widely used anti-malarial and autoimmune disease drug — was also effective in stopping the virus from spreading in human cells in the lab, the researchers reported in a short letter published Feb. 4 in the journal Cell Research. What's more, both drugs were effective at low concentrations, and neither drug was highly toxic to human cells.

"These findings were encouraging but not entirely surprising" because of the previous testing in Ebola patients, cell cultures and animal models, said Fanxiu Zhu, a professor in the Department of Biological Science at Florida State University who was not part of the study. Both drugs "maybe are worthy of trial in this unprecedented and devastating situation," Zhu told Live Science.

Though researchers expected the drugs to work, this group effectively proved they did, at least in the lab, in a short time frame, Morse said. Chloroquine "seems to need a higher concentration than remdesivir, but it's within the feasible range, and if it really works as well as the published in vitro results, it would be quite promising," he said.

Despite those results, testing antivirals in lab dishes "is the beginning, not the end of the process," Morse said. If it works in the lab, or even in animal models, "that's no guarantee it will work in a human patient." Gilead Sciences is now working with health officials in China to establish clinical trials to test the effect of remdesivir on patients infected with the new coronavirus, according to their statement.

"I think that there's a lot of hope with remdesivir having some effect, and I think we'll only find that out from clinical trials," said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease specialist and a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore.

SOURCE

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IN BRIEF

GRANDSTANDING WAS REHEARSED: Pelosi pre-ripped SOTU speech during Trump address (Fox News)

JUST SAYING: "I wasn't sure if [Nancy Pelosi] was ripping up the speech or ripping up the Constitution." —Mike Pence

DECORUM FOR THEE BUT NOT FOR ME: Democrat House minions rejects GOP resolution condemning Pelosi for ripping up Trump's speech (The Hill)

"HE SHREDDED THE TRUTH": Pelosi unloaded on Trump in private meeting after SOTU standoff (Politico)

AWESOME: McConnell, immediately after impeachment acquittal, files cloture on more judges to remake judiciary (The Daily Wire)

REMINDER: Top Romney adviser worked with Hunter Biden on board of Ukrainian energy company (The Federalist)

CLEARER PICTURE: Buttigieg, Sanders nearly tied as Iowa caucus results narrow (AP)

TRADE TRUCE: China cuts tariffs on $75 billion of U.S. imports (AP)

FOR THE RECORD: ObamaCare made things worse for patients with preexisting conditions (The Daily Signal)

RAINBOW MAFIA: "Sesame Street" to feature cross-dressing gay entertainer for impressionable preschoolers (The Federalist)

WHEN RITUAL IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN REUSE: Baltimore County admits it hasn't been recycling glass for seven years; it still encourages residents to recycle glass (Reason)

POLICY: The deregulatory achievements of the Trump Labor Department (National Review)

POLICY: As Trump said in State of the Union, demand for school choice is huge (Washington Examiner)

NO KIDDING: "I wish Romney fought as hard for voters in 2012 as he does against the Trump administration." —Dana Loesch

HOT AIR: "In the year 2020, how can a president of the United States give a State of the Union speech and not mention climate change?" —Sen. Bernie Sanders

AND LAST... "Democrats think President Donald Trump committed a high crime or misdemeanor the moment he defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. That is the original sin of this presidency." —Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell

AL-QAIDA IN THE CROSSHAIRS: U.S. kills another top terrorist, days after his group claimed responsibility for Pensacola attack (CNSNews)

INTOLERANCE: Pelosi omits Christians as she lists religious persecutions around the world (The Daily Signal)

BURISMA UPDATE: Senate gets "highly sensitive" Hunter Biden records after letter to money-laundering unit in Treasury Department (The Daily Wire)

AMAZING THE DIFFERENCE A HANDS-OFF REGIME MAKES: New high of 90% of Americans satisfied with personal life; Republicans, married adults are among the most satisfied (Gallup)

POLICY: What year did healthcare become a "right"? (Hint: never) (Mises Institute)

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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

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7 February, 2020

2019 Novel Coronavirus—Important Information for Clinicians

Coronavirus Resource Center

Only about 2% of those infected die of it. My rubrics below -- JR

In early December 2019 a patient was diagnosed with an unusual pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, China. By December 31 the World Health Organization (WHO) regional office in Beijing had received notification of a cluster of patients with pneumonia of unknown cause from the same city.1 Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei Province in central China, is the nation’s seventh largest city, with a population of 11 million people. Over the next few days, researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology performed metagenomics analysis using next-generation sequencing from a sample collected from a bronchoalveolar lavage and identified a novel coronavirus as the potential etiology. They called it novel coronavirus 2019 (nCoV-2019).2 The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) refers to it as 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV).3

As of February 4, 2020, more than 20?000 cases of 2019-nCoV have been reported, 98.9% of them in China, and the outbreak is linked to more than 400 deaths. As the epidemic is evolving and the situation is rapidly changing, up-to-date reliable information on the number of cases and recommendations on management of cases and preventive interventions can be found at various sites, including the webpage developed by the CDC.3 Currently the number of infections outside of China remains small (approximately 180), but cases have been detected in 26 countries, including 11 cases in the United States.

While it is unclear how many people are truly infected, a modeling study suggests that as of January 25, 2020, 75?815 individuals have been infected in Wuhan alone.4 The authors calculated the basic reproductive number (the number of cases one infected individual generates), R0, of this outbreak to be 2.68 (95% CI, 2.47-2.86) and that the epidemic is doubling every 6.4 days. Because of extensive travel between China and cities like Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, and Taipei, these locations have identified the majority of cases outside of mainland China. As testing becomes more frequent, the true number of cases and the full spectrum of disease will become more clear. However, for now, it appears that compared with the other 2 zoonotic coronaviruses that occurred in the last 20 years (severe acute respiratory syndrome [SARS] in 2002 and Middle East respiratory syndrome [MERS] in 2012), 2019-nCoV seems to have greater infectivity (eg, a higher R0) and a lower case fatality rate.1

From genetic sequencing data, it appears that there was a single introduction into humans followed by human-to-human spread. This novel virus shares 79.5% of genetic sequence with SARS-CoV and has 96.2% homology to a bat coronavirus.2 In addition, 2019-nCoV shares the same cell entry receptor, ACE2, with SARS-CoV. What is yet unclear is which animal is the intermediate species between bats and humans. For SARS it was civet cats, for MERS it is camels. While the source of 2019-CoV is yet unknown, early on the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market was linked epidemiologically.1,5

The incubation period of this virus has been reported to be 5.2 days (95% CI, 4.1-7.0),6 although there is suggestion that it may be as long as 14 days. It is unclear when transmission begins and, although cases have been reported that suggest transmission during the asymptomatic phase, it is likely that the majority of secondary cases come from symptomatic individuals.

The clinical syndrome is nonspecific and characterized by fever and dry cough in the majority of patients, with about a third experiencing shortness of breath. Some patients have other symptoms such as myalgias, headache, sore throat, and diarrhea. The median age of patients is between 49 and 56 years.7,8 Cases in children have been rare. Although most cases appear to be mild, all patients admitted to the hospital have pneumonia with infiltrates on chest x-ray and ground glass opacities on chest computed tomography.8,9 About a third of patients subsequently developed acute respiratory distress syndrome and required care in the intensive care unit. This is particularly true for patients with comorbid conditions such as diabetes or hypertension.

When a patient presents with fever and respiratory symptoms (in particular a dry cough), clinicians should obtain a detailed travel history. If the patient has a history of travel to Hubei Province in the last 14 days, they should be considered a person under investigation (PUI)

There is little value to wearing a regular face mask absent a high probability of being exposed to coronavirus, but when there is a high degree of suspicion that a patient might have 2019-nCoV, they should have a face mask placed immediately and health care practitioners should wear N95 respirators.

To date, the management of infection has been largely supportive. Lopinavir/ritonavir is being investigated (Chinese clinical trial registry identifier: ChiCTR2000029308) based on previous studies suggesting possible clinical benefit in SARS and MERS. In addition, remdesivir, available through compassionate use, has also been tried and this latter antiviral was used in the first US patient identified.

In response to the outbreak, on January 23, 2020, Chinese authorities suspended travel in and out of Wuhan.10 Similar travel bans followed in other cities in Hubei Province, and in total close to 50 million people have been quarantined, an unprecedented effort to control any infectious disease. Similarly, other countries have responded by suspending travel to and from China and establishing screening at airports that have flights from China. The WHO on January 30 declared the outbreak a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (and the US State Department has increased the alert level to 4, recommending that citizens not travel to China).

On January 31 the Trump administration took the unprecedented action to suspend entry into the United States of all immigrants and nonimmigrants who have physically been in China, Hong Kong, or Macau in the previous 14 days. All US citizens and permanent residents who have been in Hubei Province in the last 14 days will also be subject to quarantine.

The effectiveness of these quarantines in curtailing the outbreak is doubtful because these measures have not worked in prior outbreaks, such as the 2009 influenza A(H1N1) or the 2014 Ebola pandemics, and quarantines are contrary to previously proven public health measures and the International Health Regulations.10

What interventions will ultimately control this outbreak is unclear because there is currently no vaccine, and the effectiveness of antivirals is unproven. However, basic public health measures such as staying home when ill, handwashing, and respiratory etiquette including covering the mouth and nose during sneezing and coughing were effective in controlling SARS. As a new outbreak confronts frontline clinicians and public health authorities, these groups must work together to educate the public by providing accurate and up-to-date information and by taking care of patients with respiratory illness in a timely and effective way.

SOURCE

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White House response to Trump acquittal

Today, the sham impeachment attempt concocted by Democrats ended in the full vindication and exoneration of President Donald J. Trump. As we have said all along, he is not guilty. The Senate voted to reject the baseless articles of impeachment, and only the President’s political opponents – all Democrats, and one failed Republican presidential candidate – voted for the manufactured impeachment articles.

In what has now become a consistent tradition for Democrats, this was yet another witch-hunt that deprived the President of his due process rights and was based on a series of lies. Rep. Adam Schiff lied to Congress and the American people with a totally made up statement about the President’s phone call. Will there be no retribution? Speaker Nancy Pelosi also lied to the American people about the need to swiftly pass impeachment articles they dreamt up, only to sit on them for a month before sending over to the Senate.

In the Senate, the Democrats continued to make their political motivations clear – Rep. Schiff proclaimed the issues “cannot be decided at the ballot box” – proving once again they think they know better than the voters of this country. This entire effort by the Democrats was aimed at overturning the results of the 2016 election and interfering with the 2020 election.

Throughout this wholly corrupt process, President Trump successfully advanced the interests of the United States and remained focused on the issues that matter to Americans. He spent his time achieving real victories for the people of this country, and the Democrats – once again – have nothing to show for their fraudulent schemes. The President is pleased to put this latest chapter of shameful behavior by the Democrats in the past, and looks forward to continuing his work on behalf of the American people in 2020 and beyond.

SOURCE

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‘Ripped Our Hearts Out’: SOTU Guest Whose Brother Was Murdered Reacts to Pelosi Ripping Up Speech

Leftist animals have no feeling for other people at all

A guest at the State of the Union address whose brother was killed by an illegal alien said it was heartbreaking to watch House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rip up President Donald Trump’s speech.

Appearing on “Fox and Friends” Wednesday morning, Jody Jones, whose brother was shot and killed by an illegal alien at a California gas station in 2018, recounted how he felt when Pelosi chose to rip up Trump’s speech at the end of the address, calling it “probably the most disrespectful thing I have ever seen in my life.”

“Felt like she ripped our hearts out. All the guests. We couldn’t believe it,” Jones said.

“I don’t care how you feel about somebody. That was probably the most disrespectful thing I have ever seen in my life. Because, when she did that, it just tore us up. We couldn’t believe it,” he continued.

It wasn’t lost on the Fox News hosts or Jones that his brother’s name, Rocky Jones, was on that paper.

Trump invited Jody Jones to be one of his special guests at Tuesday night’s State of the Union address in Congress. Jones’ brother, Rocky, was shot and killed at a California gas station in 2018 by an illegal alien, and his presence Tuesday night was used to highlight the deadly consequences of sanctuary city policies.

The illegal alien who was held responsible for killing Rocky had been arrested for a DUI by local California authorities just days before the shooting. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had placed an immigration detainer on the individual, but because of sanctuary policy laws in the state, the detainer was ignored.

Jones asked that the legislation responsible for his brother’s death, SB 54, be abolished, and called on Pelosi to be more respectful.

“First of all, let’s do away with the SB 54. I don’t care how you feel about somebody. Think of other people and the others involved, please. Because what you did was very disrespectful, and it really ripped our hearts out,” Jones said.

During his address, Trump called on lawmakers to support legislation introduced by Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, the Justice for Victims of Sanctuary Cities Act, that would allow people like Jones to sue sanctuary cities if a loved one is killed or hurt by such “deadly” policies.

As for Jones, he said this tragedy has affected his family tremendously, but it has not torn them apart.

“We are a pretty tight-knit family,” he said. “It’s really actually made us closer, and with the president inviting us, what an honor that was just to honor our brother and he sure did that.”

SOURCE

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IN BRIEF

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS: Susan Collins will vote to acquit Trump, saying he's "learned" from impeachment (CBS News)

2020 VISION: Trump job approval at personal best 49% (Gallup)

PROBABLY A GOOD IDEA: Nevada Democrats vow not to use the same app that contributed to Iowa caucus failure (National Review)

WHO'D A THUNK IT? Sacramento proposes homeless shelter near school. It doesn't go well. (Hot Air)

GOOD GUYS WIN THE SKIRMISH: Virginia Senate blocks another Northam-backed gun bill (Fox News)

CORONAVIRUS: Hong Kong and Taiwan, territories that China sees as its own, restrict travel from the mainland (The Washington Post)

POLICY: Impeachment shows the ethical difficulties of foreign assistance (The Hill)

POLICY: Brexit's three key implications for U.S. policymakers (The Heritage Foundation)

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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

**************************

6 February, 2020

Is Trump's Unorthodoxy Becoming Orthodox?

When candidate Donald Trump campaigned on calling China to account for its trade piracy, observers thought he was either crazy or dangerous.

Conventional Washington wisdom had assumed that an ascendant Beijing was almost preordained to world hegemony. Trump's tariffs and polarization of China were considered about the worst thing an American president could do.

The accepted bipartisan strategy was to accommodate, not oppose, China's growing power. The hope was that its newfound wealth and global influence would liberalize the ruling communist government.

Four years later, only a naif believes that. Instead, there is an emerging consensus that China's cutthroat violations of international norms were long ago overdue for an accounting.

China's re-education camps, its Orwellian internal surveillance, its crackdown on Hong Kong democracy activists and its secrecy about the deadly coronavirus outbreak have all convinced the world that China has now become a dangerous international outlier.

Trump courted moderate Arab nations in forming an anti-Iranian coalition opposed to Iran's terrorist and nuclear agendas. His policies utterly reversed the Obama administration's estrangement from Israel and outreach to Tehran.

Last week, Trump nonchalantly offered the Palestinians a take-it-or-leave-it independent state on the West Bank, but without believing that a West Bank settlement was the key to peace in the entire Middle East.

Trump's cancellation of the Iran deal, in particular, was met with international outrage. More global anger followed after the targeted killing of Iranian terrorist leader Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

In short, Trump's Middle East recalibrations won few supporters among the bipartisan establishment.

But recently, Europeans have privately started to agree that more sanctions are needed on Iran, that the world is better off with Soleimani gone, and that the West Bank is not central to regional peace.

Iran has now become a pariah. U.S.-sponsored sanctions have reduced the theocracy to near-bankruptcy. Most nations understand that if Iran kills Americans or openly starts up its nuclear program, the U.S. will inflict disproportional damage on its infrastructure -- a warning that at first baffled, then angered and now has humiliated Iran.

In other words, there is now an entirely new Middle East orthodoxy that was unimaginable just three years ago.

Suddenly the pro-Iranian, anti-Western Palestinians have few supporters. Israel and a number of prominent Arab nations are unspoken allies of convenience against Iran. And Iran itself is seemingly weaker than at any other time in the theocracy's history.

Stranger still, instead of demanding that the U.S. leave the region, many Middle Eastern nations privately seem eager for more of a now-reluctant U.S. presence.

For the last 20 years, much of the American orthodoxy had agreed with Europe that the increasingly anti-democratic, pan-continental and borderless European Union was the remedy to all of Europe's past 20th-century catastrophes.

As a result, American presidents did not do much when EU nations typically racked up large trade surpluses with the U.S., often a result of asymmetrical fees, tariffs and fines.

The U.S. largely ignored the increasingly anti-democratic and anti-American tone of the EU.

Nor did Americans object much when lackadaisical European NATO nations habitually welched on their defense-spending commitments.

Apparently, past U.S. administrations supposed that a paternalistic America would always be more eager to defend Europe than Europe would be to defend itself.

But then Trump again blew up more old assumptions.

NATO will now only survive if its members keep their word and meet their spending promises. An economically stagnant, oil-hungry and top-heavy EU will have to make radical changes, or it will sink into irrelevance and eventually break apart.

Trump got little credit for these revolutionary changes because he is, after all, Trump -- a wheeler-dealer, an ostentatious outsider, unpredictable in action and not shy about rude talk.

But his paradoxical and successful policies -- the product of conservative, antiwar and pro-worker agendas -- are gradually winning supporters and uniting disparate groups.

After all, the U.S. is beefing up its military but using it only sparingly. It hits back hard at enemies but does not hit first. For Trump, being conventional is dangerous; being unpredictable is far safer.

For all Trump's tough talk, his ace in the hole is American soft power -- based on a globally dominant economy, its global lead in the production of gas and oil, and an omnipresent cultural juggernaut.

For Trump the ex-television star, wars translate into bad ratings and worse optics. As a businessman, he believes needless conflicts get in the way of money-making and win-win deals.

The result of the new orthodoxy is that the U.S. has become no better friend to an increasing number of allies and neutrals, and no worse an adversary to a shrinking group of enemies. And yet Trump's paradox is that America's successful new foreign policy is as praised privately as it is caricatured publicly -- at least for now.

SOURCE

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Democratic Socialism: Straight Talk about Twisted Facts

Unless you’ve been living under a rock the last few years, you’ve likely noticed that “socialism” has become increasingly popular in the United States, particularly among young people.

When we first noticed this trend in 2016, it made economist Robert Lawson and I, pause, scratch our heads, and ask, “Could this really be a trend with a future?”

We knew that socialist countries had killed roughly 100 million of their own citizens in the 20th century. We knew that socialist economies stagnated.

While socialists preached equality, the reality was, as George Orwell put it in Animal Farm, that some animals were more equal than others in socialist countries.

Orwell’s point? The political elite in truly socialistic countries fare much better than ordinary citizens. Historians long ago discovered Karl Marx’s idea of equality always gets subverted by people who really just want power and, therefore, inevitably organize authoritarian regimes.

How could our fellow Americans, most of whom are intelligent, self-reliant, caring people, want a socialist economic system?

Bob and I have written more than one hundred academic research papers on the importance of economic freedom and how a free enterprise system operates.

Many of these are boring academic articles and even the ones that aren’t boring clearly haven’t significantly influenced the young people attracted to socialism.

So we decided we’d try something different. We got drunk and traveled the unfree world and wrote a book about it.

Socialism Sucks: Two Economists Drink There Way Through the Unfree World is an off-color, Anthony Bourdain style romp around the globe, where we explore the functioning and history of socialist, fake-socialist and mistakenly-identified-as socialist countries.

We take the economics and history of these places deadly seriously without taking ourselves too seriously. In the process we found out that a country’s booze ends up serving as decent metaphor for how the rest of the economy functions.

So, let’s get one thing straight. The term “socialism” meant/means something different to Marx, Lenin and economists like us who seriously study economic systems.

Measuring Just How Socialistic a Country Really Is

A socialist economic system requires collective (i.e. usually government), rather than private, ownership and/or control over the major inputs to the production process.

In practice, there are varying degrees of government ownership and control, but this is the margin or key indicator that measures how socialist a country is. The greater the degree of government ownership and control, the more socialistic a country.

By that standard, there are really only three countries in the world today that can accurately be labeled as socialist and they are all hell holes: North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela.

Wait, what? No Nordic countries? Nope, because the Nordic countries are mostly capitalist. The vast bulk of their economic activity is based on private ownership and their citizens have a high level of economic freedom.

Nordic countries do have high taxes and big welfare states which makes them less than perfectly capitalist. Those high taxes have consequences.

It has slowed their rates of economic growth and made their booze extremely expensive. But, at least, private ownership (as opposed to state ownership) of the means of production doesn’t impoverish a country the way socialism does.

Venezuela: A Case Study in Making the Wrong Choice

Venezuela was once an extremely prosperous country. Then they gradually chose socialism over capitalism. Today Venezuela is in shambles. They made the wrong choice.

When we traveled there in 2017, the country was facing dire food and medical shortages, frequent power outages, the world’s highest inflation rate, violent crime, serious political unrest and was in a declared state of emergency.

But only several years before, Venezuela was held up as an example of successful “democratic socialism” by many celebrities, social media sites, news publications and the like.

In 1998 Hugo Chavez was democratically elected, in what international observers classified as a fair election, promising his version of “Bolivarian socialism.”

Venezuela sits on the world’s largest proven oil reserves and, for a while, the government was able to sell oil on the international market and import enough stuff to make it appear to be prosperous.

But there’s a difference between appearances and reality. The socialist policies were destroying the ability of Venezuelans to produce at home.

When oil prices plummeted, the country was unable to feed itself. Even its beer producer, Polar, even had to cease beer production for lack of Barley.

Venezuela’s democratic freedoms have vanished. Socialism requires centralized control over the economy. With that control comes the power to punish political rivals and undermine democratic opposition.

Nobel Prize winning economist F.A. Hayek long ago argued in his 1944 book The Road to Serfdom that it is impossible to maintain a large degree of democratic freedom without also maintaining a large degree of economic freedom.

Simply put, that’s why all socialist economies soon become totalitarian dictatorships. Venezuela is the most recent to fall prey to the promise of utopian coddling and a large degree of economic freedom only to plunge down the road to serfdom.

In Conclusion

Our global tour took us to Sweden, Venezuela, Cuba, Korea, China, Russia, Ukraine, the Republic of Georgia, and then back in the USSA where we attended the largest socialist conference in the United States.

Most of the young people we met at the conference didn’t want the United States to become like the Soviet Union, but, not surprisingly, most of them also didn’t understand the link between economic and political freedoms.

Space doesn’t permit me to share more of our travels here. So, if you’re interested in learning more, pick up a copy of Socialism Sucks. Cheers!

SOURCE

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IN BRIEF

TIME FOR ANSWERS: Senate Intelligence Committee will call Ukraine whistleblower to testify, Lindsey Graham reveals (The Daily Wire)

IF IT HELPS THE NARRATIVE... Michael Bloomberg ad uses Obama-era footage of caged migrants to criticize Trump (The Daily Caller)

GET WELL SOON: Rush Limbaugh announces he has "advanced lung cancer" (Fox News)

EXPLOITING A VICTIM: Climate alarmists' teenage puppet Greta Thunberg nominated for Nobel Peace Prize (The Daily Signal)

NOT JUST VIRGINIA: Hawaii gun owners face tidal wave of anti-Second Amendment bills (Bearing Arms)

THANKFULLY, MOST OF THE COUNTRY ISN'T LISTENING: Democrats who use Twitter are more ideological and less willing to compromise (National Review)

POLICY: Hopefully, Iowa has failed the nation for the last time (Washington Examiner)

POLICY: How Keynesian ideas weaken economic fundamentals (Mises Institute)

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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

**************************

5 February, 2020

Race Relations Have Improved Dramatically Since Trump Took Office

The election of Barack Obama was seen as a watershed moment in America's history. The question of whether could elect a black man president had been answered, and some saw this as proof that America had moved beyond its past stains of slavery, segregation, and other racial injustices. While many debated the meaning of his election, an overwhelming majority of Americans (70 percent) predicted that Obama's presidency would result in significant improvements in race relations.

But that's not what happened at all. Polls that showed a majority of Americans believed race relations got worse under Obama. Because of Obama's divisive presidency, race relations actually reached an all-time low on his watch.

Obama's record on race relations was so horrible that it seems many have actually tried to blame his failure on Trump. Back in December, a USA Today columnist falsely implied that race relations improved under Obama and have been declining under Trump.

We now have new evidence that shows that Trump's record on race relations is far superior to Obama's as a new Gallup survey shows that satisfaction with race relations has increased 14 percent since Trump's inauguration. America's satisfaction with race relations went from 22 percent in January 2017 to 36 percent in January 2020, a remarkable jump considering the desperate efforts of Democrats and media to paint President Trump as a racist white nationalist.

There's still room for improvement, however. National Review notes that satisfaction with race relations "still remains 8 points lower than it was in 2001" and that a majority of Americans are still dissatisfied with race relations, but it's clear that Trump has been repairing the damage done by Barack Obama.

Americans may be more satisfied with the state of race relations, but Democrat attacks on Trump still have him well underwater with African Americans. According to a Washington Post poll, “more than 8 in 10 black Americans say they believe Trump is a racist and that he has made racism a bigger problem in the country. Nine in 10 disapprove of his job performance overall.” While African Americans may be convinced by the media Trump is a racist, they can't deny their situation has improved since he took office. Under Trump, African American unemployment is at its lowest rate in history. If Trump can adequately get the message out and convince them that he deserves the credit for this, his support amongst African Americans should increase in 2020, making him that much tougher to beat in November.

SOURCE

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SUSPICIOUS: Over 18,000 Extra Names on Iowa Voting Rolls

On Monday, Judicial Watch reported that eight counties in the state of Iowa have registration rates above 100 percent, adding at least 18,658 extra names to the Iowa voting rolls. The Iowa caucuses are to be held on Monday.

Of course, this phenomenon isn't limited to just Iowa. According to Judicial Watch’s analysis of government data, "378 counties nationwide that have more voter registrations than citizens living there who are old enough to vote, i.e., counties where registration rates exceed 100%."

House Democrats Pass Bill to Fight Voter ID Laws Nationwide
These 378 counties have a combined 2.5 million registrations over the 100% mark. This problem is even bigger considering that the Census Bureau estimated in 2014 that that 64.6 percent of eligible adults were registered to vote in 2014. There are many other counties with suspiciously high registration rates.

“Dirty voting rolls can mean dirty elections and Iowa needs to undertake a serious effort to address its voting rolls,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that states can purge their voter rolls of dormant and invalid voter registrations, in a ruling widely believed will hurt Democrats for the obvious reasons connected to voter fraud.

SOURCE

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Liberal know-it-all billionaires side with insurance companies on surprise medical billing

You may have never heard of them, but there is a new, young billionaire couple determined to leave their mark on society. John and Laura Arnold are not interested in the type of philanthropy that builds libraries and college buildings or feeds, clothes, shelters, and educates the poor. No, like George Soros, the Arnolds are on a mission to “change the country,” whether we like it or not.

When these arrogant elitists are not busy trying to erode our gun rights, promoting abortion, funding spying on citizens, or trying to upend our electoral system, they are busy trying to cut medical professionals pay. Specifically, the liberal power couple wants to address the issue of surprise medical billing by reducing the amount of money that medical professionals are paid for providing out-of-network care to patients.

It is unclear why a guy who made his fortune betting on natural gas prices and a lawyer who worked in the oil industry would feel the need to weigh in on medical billing. But apparently they do. Of course, due to the fact that they are siding with the insurance industry, it does raise questions about whether or not they are invested in any insurance companies and stand to grow richer if their policy wishes are enacted.

To be sure, surprise medical billing is a problem. Even if you go to an in-network hospital for care, you could be treated by an out-of-network doctor and wind up with an unexpectedly large bill. There are a couple main proposals to address the issue.

One proposal, which the Arnolds support, would force out-of-network healthcare providers to accept whatever an insurance company pays in-network providers for their services. It is claimed that this proposal would save insurance companies money and, in turn, reduce costs for consumers and the government. Of course, it could lead to more providers exiting the field, which could be particularly problematic for rural areas that already lack adequate access to health care.

Forcing medical care providers to take whatever an insurance company offers is concerning. If this were to be made an acceptable practice, what would stop the government from arbitrarily reducing prices of anything that it purchases?

Imagine the amounts of money that could be saved if the government required office supply companies and cleaning companies to sell their products and services at cost. While that might seem absurd, is it any more absurd than arbitrarily reducing medical providers’ payments? Just before Enron’s implosion, John Arnold received an $8 million bonus. While he’s happy to suggest that the government should pass legislation that would lead to medical professionals being paid less, one suspects that he would have objected to a law that reduced his bonus even if it saved the government money.

A better proposal would require binding arbitration if a health insurance company and a medical care provider could not agree on pricing. As with the other proposal, insurers and providers — rather than patients — would be responsible for resolving disputes over surprise bills. States as divergent as Texas and New York have already passed such legislation.

For a number of years the Right has been telling “woke” entertainers to kindly “shut up and sing.” Now it is time for the Right to deliver a message to the “woke” billionaires, like George Soros, Tom Steyer, and John and Laura Arnold: “Shut up and drink your champagne.”

Just because these liberal billionaires have been financially successful does not mean that they have any special insight into health care, abortion, law enforcement, or criminal justice policies. If they are not adequately fulfilled by their champagne-drinking and feel the need to give back to society, maybe they should reconsider feeding, clothing, sheltering, and educating the poor – even though they might find it boring or beneath them.

SOURCE

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Trump's Acquittal Won't Stop Democrats' Witch Hunt; More Investigations Are Coming

If you think that after Trump is acquitted by the Senate that Democrats are going to sit in a corner and lick their wounds, you have another thing coming. Trump's inevitable acquittal won't stop Democrats from trying to find some crime they can pin on him. In fact, Democrats have "a list of inquiries they plan to pursue when the impeachment saga is over," Bloomberg reports.

“The investigations and oversight will continue,” said Representative Carolyn Maloney of New York, the chair of the Oversight and Reform Committee. “We’ve got several cases.”

According to the report, "Democratic-led committees in the House will keep seeking a wide range of evidence and testimony as they look into Trump’s administration, his policies and his businesses and finances." They will also continue to investigate his dealings with Ukraine.

Democrats Already Preparing for a SECOND Impeachment of Trump

Democrats have been trying force the release of Trump's tax returns, despite him having no legal or constitutional requirement to do so, or the fact there is no evidence of any criminal wrongdoing on his part.

The House Ways and Means Committee, led by Representative Richard Neal of Massachusetts, is still seeking the president’s tax returns from the Treasury Department. The House Financial Services and Intelligence committees, chaired by California Representatives Maxine Waters and Adam Schiff, have been pursuing in the courts information from Trump’s lenders, including Deutsche Bank AG and Capital One Financial Corp.

One of the cases before the Supreme Court involves Maloney’s committee and centers on whether the Constitution prohibits subpoenas issued to Trump’s accounting firm, Mazars USA, LLP. The committee wants Mazars to provide non-privileged financial records relating to Trump and certain of his business entities.

Trump sued in April to block the panel’s subpoena for eight years of financial records held by Mazars.

The committee also is pressing in federal court for documents tied to its investigation into the Trump administration’s failed bid to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census.

The House Judiciary Committee is also attempting to gain access to secret grand jury materials from Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Apparently they expect proof of Russian collusion to be somewhere in there, despite Mueller's debunking of the Russian collusion hoax.

House Democrats are undeterred by the risks of voter backlash over their endless investigations. “We’re not going to back off,” said House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi.

SOURCE

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IN BRIEF

KEEP AMERICA GREAT: Trump's great Alice Johnson Super Bowl ad reminds us he deserves major credit for criminal-justice reform (Washington Examiner)

A BLIND SQUIRREL FINDS A NUT: NFL airs patriotic tribute to the American flag during Super Bowl (The Daily Wire)

LIES, DAMNED LIES, AND STATISTICS: Michael Bloomberg's claim about "children" killed by "gun violence" is off by 73% (Reason)

INDIVIDUAL-MANDATE UPDATE: Fifth Circuit declines to rehear ObamaCare severability case en banc (Reason)

CORRUPTION: Ilhan Omar paid additional $215,000 from campaign coffers to alleged boyfriend's firm (The Washington Free Beacon)

INTRAPARTY SQUABBLE, PART I: 2020 Democrats slam party rule change that could let Bloomberg debate (Washington Examiner)

INTRAPARTY SQUABBLE, PART II: Hillary Clinton blames Bernie Sanders for disunity in Democrat Party (Washington Examiner)

"FOREIGN NATION[S] ... MUST SATISFY BASIC SECURITY CONDITIONS": Trump expands travel ban to six new countries (The Washington Times)

DESPITE THE BAN ON "POINTY KNIVES": Just-freed terrorist killed by cops after London stabbing spree (The Daily Beast)

POLICY: The coronavirus is a big economic deal (American Enterprise Institute)

POLICY: Why American scientists take Chinese money (National Review)

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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

**************************

4 February, 2020

Sean Gabb on Brexit

(Sean Gabb is an English libertarian and a patriot)

Yesterday evening – that is, the 31st January 2020 – at 11pm GMT, my country left the European Union. We did so after four years of heated and often hysterical argument. Nothing much seemed to have changed this morning. I went out shopping, to see the same people buying the same things at the same prices. Since we are now in a transition period, lasting till the end of this year, in which we remain within the Single Market and subject to the rules of the European Union, it would have been odd if anything visible had changed. Yet, if nothing visible had changed, one very important thing has changed.

The ruling class has suffered its first serious defeat in living memory. The coalition of politicians, bureaucrats, lawyers, educators, media people and associated business interests who draw wealth and power from an extended state was committed to European Union membership. This coalition was never uniformly committed to membership. Some elements were strongly committed, others only mildly. But all were agreed that membership was good for them, so far as it blurred the lines of accountability and gave the exercise of power a supranational appearance. This was the position before the 2016 Referendum, which was not expected to go as it did. When the result was to leave, ruling class support for membership strengthened. Long before it ended, the referendum campaign had become a vote of confidence in the ruling class. Losing this vote was a shock. The people could not be given what they had asked for. It would set a precedent. Give them that, and they would start believing they lived in a democracy where votes counted for something. If this happened, the people might be inclined to start asking for other things – all things variously unwelcome within the ruling class.

The ruling class response to losing fell under two headings. One was to deny the validity of the vote and to demand another, and to make sure that this one was rigged in favour of remaining. The other was to deliver an exit so partial that it amounted to continued membership, and that could be upgraded to full membership after a few years of propaganda. These responses eventually merged into a single project of dragging things out so long that the people would get bored and stop demanding that their voice should be heard.

These responses failed. The people had spoken, and they continued speaking – eventually giving the Conservatives their biggest majority in a generation. Because of this, our departure yesterday was more definite than had previously been imagined. Immediately after the Referendum, I think most of us would have accepted a slow disengagement – perhaps including ten or twenty years of remaining within the Single Market, though out of the customs and political union. The next three years of bad faith killed any taste for gradualism.

I have mentioned the bad faith of our own rulers. But the European Union also overplayed its hand. It could have put on a sad face, and entered into one of those “constructive dialogues” that give negotiating parties nearly everything they think essential, and leave no bitter aftertaste. Instead, the central institutions and the member states put on very hard faces and insisted on treating us like a defeated or beggared nation with nowhere else to turn. It may be that they wanted to make us an example to any other member state inclined to leave. It may be that they saw the political deadlock in London as an excuse for paying us back for everything we had done to them since Crecy and Agincourt.

And so we are leaving. Since yesterday, we have been outside the political union. We have another eleven months inside the economic union. During this transition, we can try to arrange a satisfactory close relationship. If this cannot be arranged, we are at perfect liberty to walk away and trade with the European Union on the same basis as we trade with Ecuador and Vietnam.

A further point is that the series of political crises we have faced since 2016 has strengthened trust in our governing institutions. We are most definitely not what we could have become had the right choices been made after about 1910. Even so, we can take pride in the nature and resolution of the crises we have faced. Our ruling class did not want us to leave. It liked the European Union for sinister reasons. It may also have believed continued membership was in the public interest. To keep us in, it used every legal device the Constitution allowed. It ripped up centuries of convention in the House of Commons. It poured out a flood of propaganda. It appealed repeatedly to the biased judges of the Supreme Court. Yet it never stepped actually outside the law. Nor did my side lose its head. Given the nature of the dispute, there are few countries that would not have descended into violence or other illegality. In my country, we were finally allowed a general election, in which the votes were freely cast and honestly counted. The voice of the people could be shouted down after June 2016. It was not shouted down after December 2019. We left last night with a few peaceful demonstrations of joy or disappointment. Today, it was shopping as usual.

So far as libertarians and conservatives are at war with a bloated managerial state, we have won just a single battle. It is, however, a potentially significant battle. Since the end of the Cold War, we have been told with increasing confidence that we were living in a “post-democratic age,” where government would move inexorably upwards to the supranational level. Well, the people of a rather important country have now established that their voice must be heard and that government must be accountable to them.

I will end by slightly adapting the words of Pitt the Younger after the Battle of Trafalgar: “England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save the world by her example.”

The people of my country have stood firm. How firm will the American people stand this coming November?

SOURCE

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Dershowitz: ‘Pelosi Doesn’t Understand What Impeachment Is’: If Trump’s Acquitted, ‘The Impeachment Disappears’

“Nancy Pelosi doesn’t understand what impeachment is,” renowned Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz said Tuesday, debunking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) proclamation that, even if acquitted, President Donald Trump will be “impeached forever.”

An “impeachment” is simply a grand jury presentation and – just as being found innocent by a jury removes an indictment – a Senate acquittal makes an impeachment "disappear," Dershowitz explained in a Fox News Channel interview with host Sean Hannity:

“What she has said is, even if the president is acquitted, the impeachment stands - No." "That's like saying that, if a person is indicted and the jury acquits 12-0 in five minutes, he’s still indicted."

"No - the impeachment disappears. The impeachment is only a grand jury presentment."

Some Democrats even wanted to impeach President Ronald Reagan for “abuse of power,” Dershowitz recalled. If Reagan could be impeached for that, so could every U.S. president in history, he concluded.

SOURCE

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Dershowitz dismantled the Democrats’ impeachment arguments

Monday, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz dismantled the Democrats’ impeachment arguments. He argued that the two articles of impeachment do not rest on identifiable crimes, much less impeachable offenses. I’ll spare you his historical lecture and summarize his main points.

Democrats are attempting to impeach President Trump for “obstruction of Congress” because he refused to comply with many of their demands during the course of their impeachment investigation.

But what they see as “Obstruction of Congress,” others see as “Separation of Powers.” If defending the authority of the executive branch is a crime, then the founders were criminals. But the left probably believes that anyway.

When disputes arise over the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches, they go to the courts to decide the issue. But if it’s a crime for a president to resist Congress when it overreaches, then every president is going to be impeached.

The president is also being impeached for “Abuse of Power.” But that charge is what critics always say about their opponents. Even George Washington, the most admired of our founders, was accused of abusing his power.

Professor Dershowitz went on to cite 20 presidents, from Washington to Obama, who were accused of abuse of power. For example:

Thomas Jefferson dramatically expanded the size of the country through the Louisiana Purchase without congressional authorization.

Abraham Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War.

Franklin Roosevelt interned Japanese Americans during World War II due to concerns about national security.

Ultimately, Donald Trump is being impeached because he defeated Hillary Clinton, which the left considers a “high crime.” He’s also being impeached because he is doing what he said he would do.

He’s putting the interests of the country first with trade deals and immigration policies that put American workers first. He’s defending the sanctity of life and religious liberty by breaking the left’s stranglehold over our courts. Those are Trump’s “crimes,” which our political elites cannot tolerate.

Sadly, there is a group of Republicans who still think The New York Times is a legitimate news outlet. They should forget about John Bolton’s book. As Professor Dershowitz made clear, there is no impeachable crime here regardless of what is or is not in Bolton’s book.

By the way, Fred Fleitz, Bolton’s former chief of staff, published an excellent opinion piece calling on Bolton to withdraw his book until after the 2020 election.

SOURCE

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Fat Black Plans to Be President by 2040

Former erotic novelist Stacey Abrams is on a mission. Having never quite gotten over her defeat in the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election, she's still dreaming big, claiming in an interview released on Friday that she has a "plan" to be president of the United States by 2040.

"Do you think the country will elect a woman president in the next 20 years?" asked FiveThirtyEight reporter Clare Malone.

"Yes, absolutely," Abrams responded.

When Malone asked her if she thinks this country would elect a black woman, Abrams gave the same answer.

But then, Malone asked, "Do you think they'll elect you?"

Abrams replied, "Yes, I do. That's my plan. And I'm very pragmatic."

Abrams narrowly lost her election in 2018, and to this day refuses to concede that she lost. Many Democrats, including 2020 presidential candidates have claimed, without evidence, that Abrams' election was stolen because of Republican voter suppression. Abrams maintained notoriety in the Democratic Party for being a sore loser. Hillary Clinton, who said that if Trump didn't concede the 2016 election it would be a "direct threat to our democracy" even said this past September that "Stacey Abrams should be governor" of Georgia.

SOURCE

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Americans Are Feeling Pretty Optimistic

Trump's results more influential than Democrat wails

As the DC Demos' "Hate Trump" impeachment reaches its apex, the rest of the country is doing alright.

Amidst all the partisan rancor and hatred spewing from our nation’s capital — at the apex of the Democrats’ impeachment charade and as broadcast across the nation by their Leftmedia propagandists, most Americans are more upbeat about the country and their own prospects.

A Gallup poll this week revealed some fascinating findings. Most encouraging is this: An astounding 84% said they’re satisfied with “the overall quality of life,” and “Americans’ overall satisfaction with the country’s direction is at its highest point since 2005.”

Gallup also says, “Average satisfaction across 27 issues is higher than when [Donald Trump] took office.” Issues with wide satisfaction include the economy (68%), “the opportunity for a person to get ahead by working hard” (72%), and military strength (81%). All three areas have gained tremendously since Trump was elected.

It’s no surprise that there’s plenty of dissatisfaction, though. Income distribution, race relations, immigration, healthcare, abortion, poverty and homelessness, and “the moral and ethical climate” are all areas where dissatisfaction runs high. So, are politicians constantly talking about those issues because people are unhappy, or are people unhappy because politicians won’t leave those issues alone? We know it’s primarily the latter, because the Democrat platform is depends on fomenting division, hate and fear, and many of their constituents buy it.

We find it heartening that while one party is doggedly trying to impeach the president from the opposite party, most Americans see clearly the problems we face but have a positive view of the greatest nation on earth.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

**************************

3 February, 2020

Donald Trump set for impeachment acquittal after Senate votes to reject additional witnesses

Donald Trump is heading for a speedy acquittal next week after the Senate voted against bringing additional impeachment witnesses.

The US Senate has narrowly rejected Democratic demands to summon additional witnesses for President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, all but ensuring Trump’s acquittal in just the third trial to threaten a president’s removal in US history.

But senators pushed off final voting on his fate to next Wednesday.

The delay in timing showed the weight of a historic vote bearing down on senators, despite prodding by the president eager to have it all behind him in an election year and ahead of his State of the Union speech Tuesday night.

Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell spoke by phone to lock in the schedule during a tense night at the Capitol as rushed negotiations proceeded on and off the Senate floor.

The president wanted to arrive for his speech at the Capitol with acquittal secured, but that will not happen.

Instead, the trial will resume Monday for final arguments, with time Monday and Tuesday for senators to speak. The final voting is planned for 4pm Wednesday, the day after Trump’s speech.

Trump’s acquittal is all but certain in the Senate, where his GOP allies hold the majority and there’s nowhere near the two-thirds needed for conviction and removal.

Nor will he face potentially damaging, open-Senate testimony from witnesses.

Despite the Democrats’ singular focus on hearing new testimony, the Republican majority brushed past those demands and will make this the first impeachment trial without witnesses.

Even new revelations Friday from former national security adviser John Bolton did not sway GOP senators, who said they’d heard enough.

That means the eventual outcome for Trump will be an acquittal “in name only,” said Florida Democratic Representative Val Demings, a House prosecutor, during final debate.

Mr Trump was impeached by the House last month on charges that he abused power and obstructed Congress as he tried to pressure Ukraine to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden, using military aid as leverage as the ally fought Russia.

He is charged with then blocking the congressional probe of his actions.

Senators rejected the Democrats’ effort to allow new witnesses, 51-49, a near party-line vote. Republicans Susan Collins of Maine and Mitt Romney of Utah voted with the Democrats, but that was not enough.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer called that decision “a tragedy on a very large scale.” But Republicans said Mr Trump’s acquittal was justified and inevitable.

The Democrats had badly wanted testimony from Mr Bolton, whose forthcoming book links Mr Trump directly to the charges. But Mr Bolton won’t be summoned, and none of this appeared to affect the trial’s expected outcome.

Democrats forced a series of new procedural votes late Friday to call Mr Bolton and White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, among others, but all were rejected.

In an unpublished manuscript, Mr Bolton has written that the president asked him during an Oval Office meeting in early May to bolster his effort to get Ukraine to investigate Democrats, according to a person who read the passage and told The Associated Press.

The person, who was not authorised to disclose contents of the book, spoke only on condition of anonymity.

In the meeting, Mr Bolton said the president asked him to call new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and persuade him to meet with Mr Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, who was planning to go to Ukraine to coax the Ukrainians to investigate the president’s political rivals.

Mr Bolton writes that he never made the call to Mr Zelenskiy after the meeting, which included acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House Counsel Pat Cipollone.

The White House has blocked its officials from testifying in the proceedings and objected that there are “significant amounts of classified information” in Mr Bolton’s manuscript. Mr Bolton resigned last September — Mr Trump says he was fired — and he and his lawyer have insisted the book does not contain any classified information.

There is no question, Senator Lamar Alexander said, that President Donald Trump actions were “inappropriate” when he asked Ukraine’s leader to investigate Democratic rival Joe Biden. But not bad enough, he said, to warrant Mr Trump’s removal from office, or even to hear from witnesses or other evidence.

That distinction has been embraced by other Republicans as the trial moves toward a near-certain acquittal of the president in the coming days.

It’s also in line with arguments from Mr Trump’s legal team, which after initially asserting that the president did “absolutely nothing wrong” moved toward insisting that Trump had done nothing impeachable — and attacked the trial as a partisan exercise.

The evolving arguments have allowed Republicans to cite political and historical grounds for acquitting Mr Trump without feeling compelled to condone his behaviour, a split-the-difference judgment that avoids a clean break with the president as he stands for re-election.

Mr Alexander, who is retiring from office at the end of the year, was the most vocal, saying he did not need to hear more evidence to conclude that Mr Trump was wrong to ask a foreign leader to investigate a rival.

“But,” said Mr Alexander, “the Constitution does not give the Senate the power to remove the president from office and ban him from this year’s ballot simply for actions that are inappropriate.”

Similarly, Senator Lisa Murkowski, an Alaska Republican whose opinions have been closely watched because of her centrist reputation, issued a five-paragraph statement Friday that declared her opposition to witnesses without mentioning Mr Trump once or registering any support for his actions.

“Given the partisan nature of this impeachment from the very beginning and throughout, I have come to the conclusion that there will be no fair trial in the Senate,” Ms Murkowski said. “I don’t believe the continuation of this process will change anything.”

SOURCE

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The Cult of Western Shaming

Victor Davis Hanson

An ancient habit of Western elites is a certain selectivity in condemnation. Sometimes Westerners apply critical standards to the West that they would never apply to other nations.

My colleague at the Hoover Institution, historian Niall Ferguson, has pointed out that Swedish green-teen celebrity Greta Thunberg might be more effective in her advocacy for reducing carbon emissions by redirecting her animus. Instead of hectoring Europeans and Americans, who have recently achieved the planet’s most dramatic drops in the use of fossil fuels, Thunberg might instead turn her attention to China and India to offer her “how dare you” complaints to get their leaders to curb carbon emissions.

Whether the world continues to spew carbons will depend largely on policies in China and India. After all, these two countries account for over a third of the global population and continue to grow their coal-based industries.

In the late 1950s, many elites in United States bought the Soviet Union line that the march of global communism would “bury” the West. Then, as Soviet power eroded in the 1980s, Japan Inc. and its ascendant model of state-sponsored industry became the preferred alternative to Western-style democratic capitalism.

Once Japan’s economy ossified, the new utopia of the 1990s was supposedly the emerging European Union. Americans were supposed to be awed that the euro gained ground on the dollar. Europe’s borderless democratic socialism and its “soft power” were declared preferable to the reactionary U.S.

By 2015, the EU was a mess, so China was preordained as the inevitable global superpower. American intellectuals pointed to its high-speed rail transportation, solar industries and gleaming airports, in contrast to the hollowed-out and grubby American heartland.

Now the curtain has been pulled back on the interior rot of the Chinese Communist Party, its gulag-like re-education camps, its systematic mercantile cheating, its Orwellian surveillance apparatus, its serial public health crises and its primitive hinterland infrastructure.

After the calcification of the Soviet Union, Japan Inc., the EU and the Chinese superpower, no one quite knows which alternative will next supposedly bury America.

The U.S. and Europe are often quite critical of violence against women, minorities and gays. The European Union, for example, has often singled out Israel for its supposed mistreatment of Palestinians on the West Bank.

Yet if the purpose of Western human rights activism is to curb global bias and hate, then it would be far more cost-effective to concentrate on the greatest offenders.

China is currently detaining about a million Muslim Uighurs in re-education camps. Yet activist groups aren’t calling for divestment, boycotts and sanctions against Beijing in the same way they target Israel.

Homosexuality is a capital crime in Iran. Scores of Iranian gays reportedly have been incarcerated and thousands executed under theocratic law since the fall of the Shah in 1979. Yet rarely do Western activist groups call for global ostracism of Iran.

Don’t look to the United Nations Human Rights Council for any meaningful condemnation of worldwide prejudice and hatred, although it is a frequent critic of both the U.S. and Israel.

Many of the 47 member nations of the Human Rights Council are habitual violators of human rights. In 2017, nine member nations persecuted citizens who were actively working to implement U.N. standards of human rights.

There are many reasons for Westerners’ selective outrage and pessimism toward their own culture. Cowardice explains some of the asymmetry. Blasting tiny democratic Israel will not result in any retaliation. Taking on a powerful China or a murderous Iran could earn retribution.

Guilt also explains some of the selectivity. European nations are still blamed for 19th century colonialism and imperialism. They will always seek absolution, as the citizens of former colonial and Third World nations act like perpetual victims — even well into the postmodern 21st century.

Virtue-signaling is increasingly common. Western elites often harangue about misdemeanors when they cannot address felonies — a strange sort of psychological penance that excuses their impotence.

It is much easier for the city of Berkeley to ban clean-burning, U.S.-produced natural gas in newly constructed buildings than it is to outlaw far dirtier crude oil from Saudi Arabia. Currently, the sexist, homophobic, autocratic Saudis are the largest source of imported oil in California, sending the state some 100 million barrels per year, without which thousands of Berkeley motorists could not get to work. Apparently, outlawing clean, domestic natural gas allows one to justify importing unclean Saudi oil.

Western elites are perpetually aggrieved. But the next time they direct their lectures at a particular target, consider the source and motivation of their outrage.

SOURCE

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IN BRIEF

ADDRESSING EXPLOITATION: Trump to sign executive order combating human trafficking (The Hill)

IDEOLOGY TRUMPS MORALITY: Warren vows to give "young trans person" veto power over her secretary of education pick (National Review)

MEMO TO DON LEMON: Trump supporters score higher on verbal ability tests (The Volokh Conspiracy)

ATTACK FALLOUT: Fourteen more U.S. troops diagnosed with brain injury following Iranian missile attack, bring the total to 64 (NBC News)

POLICY: Do subprime auto loans threaten the U.S. economy? (RealClearPolicy)

POLICY: Poverty stats greatly overstate how many Americans are destitute (Intellectual Takeout)

WHO'S READY FOR MORE DEBT? House Democrats release $760 billion "green" infrastructure plan (National Review)

SELF-AWARENESS FAIL: Elizabeth "Fauxcahontas" Warren proposes criminal penalties for spreading voting disinformation online (CNBC)

"I DID NOT LIE TO THEM": Michael Flynn takes on "egregious" FBI misconduct, little-known FBI agent in guilty-plea withdrawal (Fox News)

BEYOND IDIOTIC: Convicted of sex crimes as a man, felon no longer deemed threat because of gender change (Storm Lake Times)

SLOW BUT STEADY: Fourth-quarter GDP rose only 2.1% and full-year 2019 posts slowest growth in three years at 2.3% (CNBC)

APEX REACHED? Drug deaths fall for first time in nearly 20 years, buoying U.S. life expectancy (Washington Examiner)

THOUSAND TALENTS PLAN: Acclaimed Harvard scientist is arrested, accused of lying about ties to China (NPR)

OPEN BORDERS: MS-13 gang member deported five times found in U.S. again (The Daily Wire)

WHEN THEY CAN'T GO OVER THEY GO UNDER: Feds expose longest illicit cross-border tunnel ever discovered on southwest border (The Daily Wire)

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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Personal). My annual picture page is here. Home page supplement

**************************

2 February, 2020

Impeachment Is Killing Trump Derangement Syndrome

You can only hit the rage button so many times.

Daniel Greenfield

71% of Americans watched the Watergate hearings live. The Iran-Contra hearings beat regular programming on the big three networks which aired them live and without commercial breaks. 20 million tuned in to watch Anita Hill recite her dishonest smears against Justice Clarence Thomas.

Televised hearings had worked for the Democrats before. And they doubled down on them now.

Around 20 million watched Comey’s testimony and the attempt to ‘Thomas’ Justice Kavanaugh. Michael Cohen’s appearance took ratings down to 15 million. Mueller’s belated appearance brought them down to 13 million. The first day of the House impeachment proceedings was watched by only 13 million.

The first day of the Senate impeachment trial saw ratings fall to under 12 million. By the second day, they had fallen to 9 million.

This is the era of the internet. Are television ratings down because people are turning to websites?

Google Trends tracks impeachment interest as about a quarter of the level in late December. Taboola shows impeachment stories dropping from 20 million-page views to 15 million-page views in one week. Newswhip shows an even more dramatic decline from 80 million weekly engagements for impeachment content during the House hearings down to 22 million for the Senate trial.

While the media remains obsessed with impeachment, it’s well aware that the outbreak of the coronavirus and Kobe’s crash are drawing in far bigger audiences than the antics in the Senate.

The Democrats had spent years building up to this climactic moment, but now no one’s even watching.

The declining ratings tell the tale of a scam gone wrong. The media spent years promising a definitive takedown of Trump. Comey’s testimony was going to take down Trump. And then the Mueller investigation would see him in prison. Impeachment was going to be the grand finale. But it’s over.

It was always over once it was clear that Trump had the votes to survive a Senate trial.

And if he does, then what’s the point? The ratings declines reflect public sentiment that the trial is pointless and fatigue with Trump Derangement Syndrome that had buoyed the media for years.

You can only hit the rage button so many times. And then the rats will no longer stir from their cages.

The New York Times’ stock price tripled after Trump won outperforming the S&P 500 by six times. In the week after his victory, it added 41,000 subscribers. The paper went from an $8 million loss to a $13 million profit. Much of the growth was driven by the paper’s stream of exclusives targeting Trump.

But there are signs this year that the media’s free Trump ride is over. In November, the Times shocked investors with the news that ad revenues had fallen over 6%. In early trading, its stock was down 9%. While there’s still plenty of money coming in, turbulence is growing and growth is becoming more uncertain. And, more significantly, the New York Times has been losing the engagement battle.

In May, the New York Times fell out of the top three, displaced by the Daily Mail. By November, it had fallen to seventh place. Its Facebook growth fell from 25% in 2017 to 3.5%. Its Twitter follower growth also dropped from 50% annually to only 5%. Another way to see the 1619 Project is as a desperate bid for relevance and traffic even as the appeal of Trump Derangement Syndrome continues to crater.

The TDS crash was even more obvious on cable news where CNN closed the year with a 9% decline in viewers and MSNBC suffered a 3% drop. Numbers like these foreshadow a much bigger collapse.

National newspapers and cable news had been using Trump Derangement Syndrome to stave off the inevitable decline in their industry. And it worked. A handful of outlets grew and went on hiring binges even while their local and digital cousins held mass purges, shut down, or cut everything to the bone.

But everything has to end sooner or later.

Trump Derangement Syndrome is burning out the core audiences that made the media profitable. The Impeachment Eve rallies failed miserably with turnouts in the hundreds in Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia. A month later, turnout at the Women’s March had declined from the hundreds of thousands to the thousands. Even as impeachment was underway, the audience wasn’t there.

"Breaking Down the Big Impeachment Rally Mystery," an NBC News headline speculated. "Democrats have flooded the streets by the millions to protest Trump before. So why did the protests calling for his removal stay so modest?"

"I Don't Understand Why There Aren't Thousands of People Protesting the Senate Trial," Esquire fumed.

"Where the Hell are the Impeachment Protests?" Washingtonian demanded.

Same place as the ratings.

After Comey, the Kavanaugh hearings, and the Mueller investigation, burnout and defeatism has set in. Even as House and Senate Democrats pursued their misguided impeachment bid, their base was no longer showing up. Not in the streets or even on their television sets. They’re not up for it anymore.

Charlie Brown had finally figured out that he was never going to be allowed to kick the orange football.

Democrats finally understand that the battle to remove President Trump won’t be fought by Comey, Mueller, Schiff, and, Nadler, or any of the other grifters, but by a choice of extraordinarily poor 2020 candidates. While the media promised that Trump would be removed by misuse of the 25th Amendment, by Robert Mueller, or, finally by impeachment, the Democrats paid too little mind to 2020.

And, as a result, their best bet for taking down Trump has narrowed down to Biden or Bernie. Meanwhile good economic news is boosting Trump’s popularity and improving his chances.

Most Democrats now understand that removing Trump is a dead end. And defeating him now looks more unlikely than ever before. While they screamed in the streets, the election was already being lost.

This is what Trump Derangement Syndrome has wrought.

The only thing that years of concentrated fury have accomplished is the derangement and corruption of the Democrats. Trump Derangement Syndrome didn’t defeat Trump, it defeated the Democrats. Even as the election approaches, the party base is tired and feels futile. Every effort to bring down Trump has fallen short. Instead of using the 2018 election to build momentum, House Democrats squandered it.

And now they’re going to be heading into the primaries fresh off another defeat on impeachment.

Trump Derangement Syndrome has burned out Democrats. It hollowed out the media, turned the House victory sour, overshadowed the primaries, and put the party on a path to another catastrophe.

The mobs have left. The viewers aren’t there. Impeachment is the final act of Trump Derangement Syndrome. And the furious screamers aren’t sticking around for the miserable conclusion of the show.

Meanwhile the Democrats and the media that cultivated TDS are about to face their own reckoning.

Trump Derangement Syndrome was the weapon that was going to bring down Trump. Without it, they don’t have a plan to win. They’ve done their worst. And now there’s nothing else left for the Left.

SOURCE

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Democrats: Destroying America

From the 2016 election campaign right through the current travesty of impeachment, the Democrat Party and its march-in-lockstep media allies have made it clear that their hatred of Donald Trump — which necessitates his removal by any means necessary — transcends any resulting damage they have done to the nation. Damage that may be irreparable.

Let’s begin with a reality check. The current impeachment effort is only the latest vehicle being used to remove Trump from office. Previous vehicles included the emoluments clause, the Logan Act, the 25th Amendment, and the Russia investigation. Prior to his inauguration, the media campaigned for Democrats to reach a deal with Republicans and persuade Electoral College electors to defect, and The Washington Post reported efforts to impeach Trump had begun 17 minutes after he was sworn into office. Far more important, before Trump’s election, the Obama administration initiated its scandalous Crossfire Hurricane project to investigate Russian collusion with members of Trump’s campaign staff and the president himself.

Reality check number two: Any and all collusion that ostensibly occurred did so while the Obama administration was in charge. Moreover, rather than warn fellow Americans from the opposition party that the Russians might be seeking to influence the 2016 election, Barack Obama’s administration instead chose to assume those opposition party members were committing treason, thereby justifying all methods, even felonious ones, used to stop them.

On to double standards. The same Democrat/Media Complex that assured Americans for three years Trump’s collusion with Russia was incontrovertible were completely sanguine regarding Obama’s open-mic assurance to then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev that he’d “have more flexibility” regarding his relationship with Vladimir Putin. And they remained sanguine two years later, when Putin seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine.

That same year, then-Vice President Joe Biden openly bragged about getting Ukraine to fire a prosecutor investigating corruption at Burisma, an energy company paying Biden’s son, Hunter, $83,000 per month by threatening to withhold a billion dollars in foreign aid. By contrast, Trump allegedly threatened (belied by a transcript of the conversation in question) to withhold funds that weren’t ultimately withheld in return for an investigation that was never undertaken.

But Trump is the one guilty of a “quid pro quo,” and any investigation into the corrupt machinations of Biden and his son can precipitate impeachment proceedings?

Robert Mueller’s investigation was tasked with finding Russian collusion. Yet it somehow managed to avoid determining how the thoroughly discredited Steele dossier — bought and paid for by Hillary Clinton and the DNC — gained credibility among the highest echelons of the nation’s top law-enforcement agency.

The bigger picture? Does anyone seriously think President Trump could, among many things, gotten away with having members of his executive branch file warrants with the FISA Court under false pretenses; spying on members of Congress and the press; running weapons to Mexican cartel members; taking out an American citizen with a drone strike; selectively targeting conservative groups using the IRS; communicating with his secretary of state on an unsecured server; and sending pallets of cash to a nation sponsoring worldwide terror — without the deafening clamor for impeachment Barack Obama miraculously avoided?

Eight years of the Obama administration clearly demonstrated that the media are willfully blind — and justice is anything but. Yet the weaponization of impeachment has moved this nation into uncharted territory. Americans now live in a nation where private presidential phone calls with foreign counterparts “will be leaked and printed in the major media,” and impeachment will be a “casual affair” to be undertaken routinely, whenever the opposition party has a House majority, even if it is solely used for political gain, Victor Davis Hanson explains.

Moreover, as Nancy Pelosi amply demonstrated, timeliness is now irrelevant. “Once a president is impeached,” Hanson adds, “the writ may simply sit until the House majority feels that the climate or polls are ripe to refer the articles to the Senate for trial, whether in days, weeks, months, or years.”

Equally irrelevant is the “term high crimes and misdemeanors.” Nothing illuminates that better than charging Trump with obstruction of Congress, a nonsensical assertion borne out of the need for Democrats to keep impeachment front and center, rather than wait for the Supreme Court to ultimately decide what obligations co-equal legislative and executive branches of government have to each other.

“Whistleblower” is now a meaningless term. Going forward, anyone with second- or third-hand information, working in coordination with the opposition party, will be deemed acceptable and credible, even as their identity can remain secret indefinitely.

Investigations? Testimony can be taken in secret and selectively leaked to the media for partisan advantage, while witnesses can be prevented from answering questions posed by the opposing party. Law enforcement and intel agencies can hire foreign nationals, use operatives to co-opt the media, employ multiple “confidential informants” (read: spies) to glean information about members of the opposing party’s campaign, and unmask private citizens involved with those campaigns, all under the auspices of protecting national security.

To advance those investigations, any surveillance requiring a warrant can be rubber-stamped by FISA Court jurists, whose knowledge of being lied to will not precipitate legal consequences, but simply demands for “reform” — from the liars themselves.

Remarkably, Democrats and their contemptible allies have done it all while ignoring one of the oldest adages known to man: what goes around comes around. They have not only set the stage for the permanent paralyzation of government, they are well on their way toward making elections utterly irrelevant.

In fact, their point man in this charade, documented liar Adam Schiff, has made that abundantly clear. “The president’s misconduct cannot be decided at the ballot box,” he insisted. “For we cannot be assured that the vote will be fairly won.”

In other words, American voters are too stupid to be trusted, and unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats running the administrative state must prevail. Thus, an acquittal of Trump by the Senate will be deemed a “miscarriage of justice.” In turn, that miscarriage of justice will make the 2020 election “illegitimate,” unless a Democrat prevails.

If Trump wins? Additional impeachment proceedings. If a Democrat becomes president? The only flaw in Hanson’s argument is the traditional cowardice amply demonstrated by a GOP that would likely allow a Democrat Party to continue running roughshod over the Constitution, undoubtedly promoted under the absurd auspices of “saving the republic.”

By then, there will be no republic to save. “We are now on new anti-constitutional grounds, and the United States will probably never return to the constitutional customs and traditions of its first 233 years,” Hanson predicts.

Thus, Americans are finally discovering what fundamental transformation is really all about. A constitutionally contemptuous Democrat Party, suffused with a lust for uncontested power and thoroughly convinced of its moral superiority, has precipitated the ultimate irony:

Democrats had to destroy the nation in order to “save” it.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated), A Coral reef compendium and an IQ compendium. (Both updated as news items come in). GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten. I also put up occasional updates on my Personal blog and each day I gather together my most substantial current writings on THE PSYCHOLOGIST.

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Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party. And now a "Deplorable"

Social justice is injustice. What is just about taking money off people who have earned it and giving it to people who have not earned it? You can call it many things but justice it is not

But it is the aim of all Leftist governments to take money off people who have earned it and give it to people who have not earned it

Envy was once considered to be one of the seven deadly sins before it became one of the most admired virtues under its new name, 'social justice.’ - Thomas Sowell

At the most basic (psychological) level, conservatives are the contented people and Leftists are the discontented people. Conservatives don't think the world is perfect but they can happily live with it. And both those attitudes are largely dispositional, inborn -- which is why they so rarely change

The Left Doesn't Like Christmas because Christmas is just too happy for them

As a good academic, I define my terms: A Leftist is a person who is so dissatisfied with the way things naturally are that he/she is prepared to use force to make people behave in ways that they otherwise would not.

So an essential feature of Leftism is that they think they have the right to tell other people what to do. They see things in the world that are not ideal and conclude therefore that they have the right to change those things by force. Conservative explanations of why things are not ideal -- and never can be -- fall on deaf ears

Who is this Leftist? Take his description of his political program: A "declaration of war against the order of things which exist, against the state of things which exist, in a word, against the structure of the world which presently exists". You could hardly get a more change-oriented or revolutionary programme than that. So whose programme was it? Marx? Lenin? Stalin? Trotsky? Mao? No. It was how Hitler described his programme towards the end of "Mein Kampf". And the Left pretend that Hitler was some sort of conservative! Perhaps it not labouring the point also to ask who it was that described his movement as having a 'revolutionary creative will' which had 'no fixed aim, _ no permanency, only eternal change'. It could very easily have been Trotsky or Mao but it was in fact Hitler (O'Sullivan, 1983. p. 138). Clearly, Nazism was nothing more nor less than a racist form of Leftism (rather extreme Leftism at that) and to label it as "Rightist" or anything else is to deny reality.

The fundamental aim of Leftist policy in a democracy is to deliver dismay and disruption into the lives other people -- whom they regard as "complacent" -- and they are good at achieving that.

As usual, however, it is actually they who are complacent, with a conviction of the rightness and virtue of their own beliefs that merges into arrogance. They regard anyone who disagrees with them with contempt.

Leftists are wolves in sheep's clothing

Liberals are people who don't believe in liberty

Leftist principles are as solid as foam rubber. When they say that there is no such thing as right and wrong they really mean it.

There is no dealing with the Left. Their word is no good. You cannot make a deal with someone who thinks lying and stealing are mere tactics, which the Marxists actually brag about

Montesquieu knew Leftists well: "There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice."

Because they claim to have all the answers to society's ills, Communists often seem "cool" to young people

German has a word that describes most Leftists well: "Scheinheilig" - A person who appears to be very kind, soft natured, and filled with pure goodness but behind the facade, has a vile nature. He is seemingly holy but is an unscrupulous person on the inside.

The new faith is very oppressive: Leftist orthodoxy is the new dominant religion of the Western world and it is every bit as bigoted and oppressive as Christianity was at its worst

There are two varieties of authoritarian Leftism. Fascists are soft Leftists, preaching one big happy family -- "Better together" in other words. Communists are hard Leftists, preaching class war.

Equality: The nonsensical and incoherent claim that underlies so much Leftist discourse is "all men are equal". And that is the envier's gospel. It makes not a scrap of sense and shows no contact with reality but it is something that enviers resort to as a way of soothing their envious feelings. They deny the very differences that give them so much heartburn. "Denial" was long ago identified by Freud as a maladaptive psychological defence mechanism and "All men are equal" is a prize example of that. Whatever one thinks of his theories, Freud was undoubtedly an acute observer of people and very few psychologists today would doubt the maladaptive nature of denial as described by Freud.

Socialism is the most evil malady ever to afflict the human brain. The death toll in WWII alone tells you that

American conservatives have to struggle to hold their country together against Leftist attempts to destroy it. Maduro's Venezuela is a graphic example of how extremely destructive socialism in government can be

The standard response from Marxist apologists for Stalin and other Communist dictators is to say you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. To which Orwell retorted, ‘Where’s the omelette?’

You do still occasionally see some mention of the old idea that Leftist parties represent the worker. In the case of the U.S. Democrats that is long gone. Now they want to REFORM the worker. No wonder most working class Americans these days vote Republican. Democrats are the party of the minorities and the smug

"The tendency of liberals is to create bodies of men and women — of all classes — detached from tradition, alienated from religion, and susceptible to mass suggestion — mob rule. And a mob will be no less a mob if it is well fed, well clothed, well housed, and well disciplined." —T.S. Eliot

We live in a country where the people own the Government and not in a country where the Government owns the people -- Churchill

"Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others" -- Cicero. See here

The Left have a lot in common with tortoises. They have a thick mental shell that protects them from the reality of the world about them

Definition of a Socialist: Someone who wants everything you have...except your job.

ABOUT: Postings here from Brisbane, Australia by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party. And now a "Deplorable"

When it comes to political incorrectness, I hit the trifecta. I talk about race, IQ and social class. I have an academic background in all three subjects but that wins me no forgiveness

Let's now have some thought-provoking graphics

Israel: A great powerhouse of the human spirit

The current Leftist mantra

The difference in practice

The United Nations: A great ideal but a sordid reality

Alfred Dreyfus, a reminder of French antisemitism still relevant today

Eugenio Pacelli, a righteous Gentile, a true man of God and a brilliant Pope

Leftism in one picture:

The "steamroller" above who got steamrollered by his own hubris. Spitzer is a warning of how self-destructive a vast ego can be -- and also of how destructive of others it can be.

R.I.P. Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet deposed a law-defying Marxist President at the express and desperate invitation of the Chilean parliament. Allende had just burnt the electoral rolls so it wasn't hard to see what was coming. Pinochet pioneered the free-market reforms which Reagan and Thatcher later unleashed to world-changing effect. That he used far-Leftist methods to suppress far-Leftist violence is reasonable if not ideal. The Leftist view that they should have a monopoly of violence and that others should follow the law is a total absurdity which shows only that their hate overcomes their reason

Leftist writers usually seem quite reasonable and persuasive at first glance. The problem is not what they say but what they don't say. Leftist beliefs are so counterfactual ("all men are equal", "all men are brothers" etc.) that to be a Leftist you have to have a talent for blotting out from your mind facts that don't suit you. And that is what you see in Leftist writing: A very selective view of reality. Facts that disrupt a Leftist story are simply ignored. Leftist writing is cherrypicking on a grand scale

So if ever you read something written by a Leftist that sounds totally reasonable, you have an urgent need to find out what other people say on that topic. The Leftist will almost certainly have told only half the story

We conservatives have the facts on our side, which is why Leftists never want to debate us and do their best to shut us up. It's very revealing the way they go to great lengths to suppress conservative speech at universities. Universities should be where the best and brightest Leftists are to be found but even they cannot stand the intellectual challenge that conservatism poses for them. It is clearly a great threat to them. If what we say were ridiculous or wrong, they would grab every opportunity to let us know it

A conservative does not hanker after the new; He hankers after the good. Leftists hanker after the untested

Just one thing is sufficient to tell all and sundry what an unamerican lamebrain Obama is. He pronounced an army corps as an army "corpse" Link here. Can you imagine any previous American president doing that? Many were men with significant personal experience in the armed forces in their youth.

'Gay Pride' parades: You know you live in a great country when "oppressed" people have big, colorful parades.

A favorite Leftist saying sums up the whole of Leftism: "To make an omelette, you've got to break eggs". They want to change some state of affairs and don't care who or what they destroy or damage in the process. They think their alleged good intentions are sufficient to absolve them from all blame for even the most evil deeds

In practical politics, the art of Leftism is to sound good while proposing something destructive

Leftists are the "we know best" people, meaning that they are intrinsically arrogant. Matthew chapter 6 would not be for them. And arrogance leads directly into authoritarianism

Leftism is fundamentally authoritarian. Whether by revolution or by legislation, Leftists aim to change what people can and must do. When in 2008 Obama said that he wanted to "fundamentally transform" America, he was not talking about America's geography or topography but rather about American people. He wanted them to stop doing things that they wanted to do and make them do things that they did not want to do. Can you get a better definition of authoritarianism than that?

And note that an American President is elected to administer the law, not make it. That seems to have escaped Mr Obama

That Leftism is intrinsically authoritarian is not a new insight. It was well understood by none other than Friedrich Engels (Yes. THAT Engels). His clever short essay On authority was written as a reproof to the dreamy Anarchist Left of his day. It concludes: "A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means"

Inside Every Liberal is a Totalitarian Screaming to Get Out

Insight: "A man's admiration for absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him." —Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)

Leftists think of themselves as the new nobility

Many people in literary and academic circles today who once supported Stalin and his heirs are generally held blameless and may even still be admired whereas anybody who gave the slightest hint of support for the similarly brutal Hitler regime is an utter polecat and pariah. Why? Because Hitler's enemies were "only" the Jews whereas Stalin's enemies were those the modern day Left still hates -- people who are doing well for themselves materially. Modern day Leftists understand and excuse Stalin and his supporters because Stalin's hates are their hates.

"Those who see hate everywhere think they're looking thru a window when actually they're looking at a mirror"

Hatred has long been a central pillar of leftist ideologies, premised as they are on trampling individual rights for the sake of a collectivist plan. Karl Marx boasted that he was “the greatest hater of the so-called positive.” In 1923, V.I. Lenin chillingly declared to the Soviet Commissars of Education, “We must teach our children to hate. Hatred is the basis of communism.” In his tract “Left-Wing Communism,” Lenin went so far as to assert that hatred was “the basis of every socialist and Communist movement.”

If you understand that Leftism is hate, everything falls into place.

The strongest way of influencing people is to convince them that you will do them some good. Leftists and con-men misuse that

Leftists believe only what they want to believe. So presenting evidence contradicting their beliefs simply enrages them. They do not learn from it

Psychological defence mechanisms such as projection play a large part in Leftist thinking and discourse. So their frantic search for evil in the words and deeds of others is easily understandable. The evil is in themselves.

Leftists who think that they can conjure up paradise out of their own limited brains are simply fools -- arrogant and dangerous fools. They essentially know nothing. Conservatives learn from the thousands of years of human brains that have preceded us -- including the Bible, the ancient Greeks and much else. The death of Socrates is, for instance, an amazing prefiguration of the intolerant 21st century. Ask any conservative stranded in academe about his freedom of speech

Thomas Sowell: “There are no solutions, only trade-offs.” Leftists don't understand that -- which is a major factor behind their simplistic thinking. They just never see the trade-offs. But implementing any Leftist idea will hit us all with the trade-offs

Chesteron's fence -- good conservative thinking

"The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley"[go oft astray] is a well known line from a famous poem by the great Scottish poet, Robert Burns. But the next line is even wiser: "And leave us nought but grief and pain for promised joy". Burns was a Leftist of sorts so he knew how often their theories fail badly.

Mostly, luck happens when opportunity meets preparation.

Most Leftist claims are simply propaganda. Those who utter such claims must know that they are not telling the whole story. Hitler described his Marxist adversaries as "lying with a virtuosity that would bend iron beams". At the risk of ad hominem shrieks, I think that image is too good to remain disused.

Conservatives adapt to the world they live in. Leftists want to change the world to suit themselves

Given their dislike of the world they live in, it would be a surprise if Leftists were patriotic and loved their own people. Prominent English Leftist politician Jack Straw probably said it best: "The English as a race are not worth saving"

In his 1888 book, The Anti-Christ Friedrich Nietzsche argues that we should treat the common man well and kindly because he is the backdrop against which the exceptional man can be seen. So Nietzsche deplores those who agitate the common man: "Whom do I hate most among the rabble of today? The socialist rabble, the chandala [outcast] apostles, who undermine the instinct, the pleasure, the worker's sense of satisfaction with his small existence—who make him envious, who teach him revenge. The source of wrong is never unequal rights but the claim of “equal” rights"

Why do conservatives respect tradition and rely on the past in many ways? Because they want to know what works and the past is the chief source of evidence on that. Leftists are more faith-based. They cling to their theories (e.g. global warming) with religious fervour, even though theories are often wrong

Thinking that you "know best" is an intrinsically precarious and foolish stance -- because nobody does. Reality is so complex and unpredictable that it can rarely be predicted far ahead. Conservatives can see that and that is why conservatives always want change to be done gradually, in a step by step way. So the Leftist often finds the things he "knows" to be out of step with reality, which challenges him and his ego. Sadly, rather than abandoning the things he "knows", he usually resorts to psychological defence mechanisms such as denial and projection. He is largely impervious to argument because he has to be. He can't afford to let reality in.

A prize example of the Leftist tendency to projection (seeing your own faults in others) is the absurd Robert "Bob" Altemeyer, an acclaimed psychologist and father of a Canadian Leftist politician. Altemeyer claims that there is no such thing as Leftist authoritarianism and that it is conservatives who are "Enemies of Freedom". That Leftists (e.g. Mrs Obama) are such enemies of freedom that they even want to dictate what people eat has apparently passed Altemeyer by. Even Stalin did not go that far. And there is the little fact that all the great authoritarian regimes of the 20th century (Stalin, Hitler and Mao) were socialist. Freud saw reliance on defence mechanisms such as projection as being maladjusted. It is difficult to dispute that. Altemeyer is too illiterate to realize it but he is actually a good Hegelian. Hegel thought that "true" freedom was marching in step with a Left-led herd.

What libertarian said this? “The bureaucracy is a parasite on the body of society, a parasite which ‘chokes’ all its vital pores…The state is a parasitic organism”. It was VI Lenin, in August 1917, before he set up his own vastly bureaucratic state. He could see the problem but had no clue about how to solve it.

It was Democrat John F Kennedy who cut taxes and declared that “a rising tide lifts all boats"

Leftist stupidity is a special class of stupidity. The people concerned are mostly not stupid in general but they have a character defect (mostly arrogance) that makes them impatient with complexity and unwilling to study it. So in their policies they repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot; They fail to attain their objectives. The world IS complex so a simplistic approach to it CANNOT work.

Seminal Leftist philosopher, G.W.F. Hegel said something that certainly applies to his fellow Leftists: "We learn from history that we do not learn from history". And he captured the Left in this saying too: "Evil resides in the very gaze which perceives Evil all around itself".

"A man who is not a socialist at age 20 has no heart; A man who is still a socialist at age 30 has no head". Who said that? Most people attribute it to Winston but as far as I can tell it was first said by Georges Clemenceau, French Premier in WWI -- whose own career approximated the transition concerned. And he in turn was probably updating an earlier saying about monarchy versus Republicanism by Guizot. Other attributions here. There is in fact a normal drift from Left to Right as people get older. Both Reagan and Churchill started out as liberals

Funny how to the Leftist intelligentsia poor blacks are 'oppressed' and poor whites are 'trash'. Racism, anyone?

MESSAGE to Leftists: Even if you killed all conservatives tomorrow, you would just end up in another Soviet Union. Conservatives are all that stand between you and that dismal fate. And you may not even survive at all. Stalin killed off all the old Bolsheviks.

A Conservative manifesto from England -- The inimitable Jacob Rees-Mogg

MYTH BUSTING:

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

Just the name of Hitler's political party should be sufficient to reject the claim that Hitler was "Right wing" but Leftists sometimes retort that the name "Democratic People's Republic of Korea" is not informative, in that it is the name of a dismal Stalinist tyranny. But "People's Republic" is a normal name for a Communist country whereas I know of no conservative political party that calls itself a "Socialist Worker's Party". Such parties are in fact usually of the extreme Left (Trotskyite etc.)

Most people find the viciousness of the Nazis to be incomprehensible -- for instance what they did in their concentration camps. But you just have to read a little of the vileness that pours out from modern-day "liberals" in their Twitter and blog comments to understand it all very well. Leftists haven't changed. They are still boiling with hate

Hatred as a motivating force for political strategy leads to misguided decisions. “Hatred is blind,” as Alexandre Dumas warned, “rage carries you away; and he who pours out vengeance runs the risk of tasting a bitter draught.”

Who said this in 1968? "I am not, and never have been, a man of the right. My position was on the Left and is now in the centre of politics". It was Sir Oswald Mosley, founder and leader of the British Union of Fascists

The term "Fascism" is mostly used by the Left as a brainless term of abuse. But when they do make a serious attempt to define it, they produce very complex and elaborate definitions -- e.g. here and here. In fact, Fascism is simply extreme socialism plus nationalism. But great gyrations are needed to avoid mentioning the first part of that recipe, of course.

Three examples of Leftist racism below (much more here and here):

Jesse Owens, the African-American hero of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, said "Hitler didn't snub me – it was our president who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram." Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt never even invited the quadruple gold medal-winner to the White House

Beatrice Webb, a founder of the London School of Economics and the Fabian Society, and married to a Labour MP, mused in 1922 on whether when English children were "dying from lack of milk", one should extend "the charitable impulse" to Russian and Chinese children who, if saved this year, might anyway die next. Besides, she continued, there was "the larger question of whether those races are desirable inhabitants" and "obviously" one wouldn't "spend one's available income" on "a Central African negro".

Hugh Dalton, offered the Colonial Office during Attlee's 1945-51 Labour government, turned it down because "I had a horrid vision of pullulating, poverty stricken, diseased nigger communities, for whom one can do nothing in the short run and who, the more one tries to help them, are querulous and ungrateful."

The Zimmerman case is an excellent proof that the Left is deep-down racist

Defensible and indefensible usages of the term "racism"

The book, The authoritarian personality, authored by T.W. Adorno et al. in 1950, has been massively popular among psychologists. It claims that a set of ideas that were popular in the "Progressive"-dominated America of the prewar era were "authoritarian". Leftist regimes always are authoritarian so that claim was not a big problem. What was quite amazing however is that Adorno et al. identified such ideas as "conservative". They were in fact simply popular ideas of the day but ones that had been most heavily promoted by the Left right up until the then-recent WWII. See here for details of prewar "Progressive" thinking.

Leftist psychologists have an amusingly simplistic conception of military organizations and military men. They seem to base it on occasions they have seen troops marching together on parade rather than any real knowledge of military men and the military life. They think that military men are "rigid" -- automatons who are unable to adjust to new challenges or think for themselves. What is incomprehensible to them is that being kadaver gehorsam (to use the extreme Prussian term for following orders) actually requires great flexibility -- enough flexibility to put your own ideas and wishes aside and do something very difficult. Ask any soldier if all commands are easy to obey.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a war criminal. Both British and American codebreakers had cracked the Japanese naval code so FDR knew what was coming at Pearl Harbor. But for his own political reasons he warned no-one there. So responsibility for the civilian and military deaths at Pearl Harbor lies with FDR as well as with the Japanese. The huge firepower available at Pearl Harbor, both aboard ship and on land, could have largely neutered the attack. Can you imagine 8 battleships and various lesser craft firing all their AA batteries as the Japanese came in? The Japanese naval airforce would have been annihilated and the war would have been over before it began.

FDR prolonged the Depression. He certainly didn't cure it.

WWII did NOT end the Great Depression. It just concealed it. It in fact made living standards worse

FDR appointed a known KKK member, Hugo Black, to the Supreme Court

Joe McCarthy was eventually proved right after the fall of the Soviet Union. To accuse anyone of McCarthyism is to accuse them of accuracy!

The KKK was intimately associated with the Democratic party. They ATTACKED Republicans!

High Level of Welfare Use by Legal and Illegal Immigrants in the USA. Low skill immigrants receive 4 to 5 dollars of benefits for every dollar in taxes paid

People who mention differences in black vs. white IQ are these days almost universally howled down and subjected to the most extreme abuse. I am a psychometrician, however, so I feel obliged to defend the scientific truth of the matter: The average African adult has about the same IQ as an average white 11-year-old and African Americans (who are partly white in ancestry) average out at a mental age of 14. The American Psychological Association is generally Left-leaning but it is the world's most prestigious body of academic psychologists. And even they (under the chairmanship of Ulric Neisser) have had to concede that sort of gap (one SD) in black vs. white average IQ. 11-year olds can do a lot of things but they also have their limits and there are times when such limits need to be allowed for.

The heritability of general cognitive ability increases linearly from childhood to young adulthood

The association between high IQ and long life is overwhelmingly genetic: "In the combined sample the genetic contribution to the covariance was 95%"

The Dark Ages were not dark

Judged by his deeds, Abraham Lincoln was one of the bloodiest villains ever to walk the Earth. See here. And: America's uncivil war was caused by trade protectionism. The slavery issue was just camouflage, as Abraham Lincoln himself admitted. See also here

At the beginning of the North/South War, Confederate general Robert E. Lee did not own any slaves. Union General Ulysses L. Grant did.

Was slavery already washed up by the tides of history before Lincoln took it on? Eric Williams in his book "Capitalism and Slavery" tells us: “The commercial capitalism of the eighteenth century developed the wealth of Europe by means of slavery and monopoly. But in so doing it helped to create the industrial capitalism of the nineteenth century, which turned round and destroyed the power of commercial capitalism, slavery, and all its works. Without a grasp of these economic changes the history of the period is meaningless.”

Revolutionary terrorists in Russia killed Tsar Alexander II in 1881 (after three prior assassination attempts). Alexander II was a great reformer who abolished serfdom one year before the US abolished slavery. If his democratic and economic reforms had continued, Russia may have been much less radical politically a couple of decades later, when Nicholas II was overthrown.

Did William Zantzinger kill poor Hattie Carroll?

Did Bismarck predict where WWI would start or was it just a "free" translation by Churchill?

Conrad Black on the Declaration of Independence

Some rare Leftist realism: "God forbid if the rich leave" NY Governor Cuomo February 04, 2019

Malcolm Gladwell: "There is more of reality and wisdom in a Chinese fortune cookie than can be found anywhere in Gladwell’s pages"

Some people are born bad -- confirmed by genetics research

The dark side of American exceptionalism: America could well be seen as the land of folly. It fought two unnecessary civil wars, would have done well to keep out of two world wars, endured the extraordinary folly of Prohibition and twice elected a traitor President -- Barack Obama. That America remains a good place to be is a tribute to the energy and hard work of individual Americans.

“From the fact that people are very different it follows that, if we treat them equally, the result must be inequality in their actual position, and that the only way to place them in an equal position would be to treat them differently. Equality before the law and material equality are therefore not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either one or the other, but not both at the same time.” ? Friedrich Hayek, The Constitution Of Liberty

IN BRIEF:

The 10 "cannots" (By William J. H. Boetcker) that Leftist politicians ignore:
*You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
* You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
* You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
* You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
* You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
* You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
* You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
* You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
* You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative and independence.
* And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.

A good short definition of conservative: "One who wants you to keep your hand out of his pocket."

Beware of good intentions. They mostly lead to coercion

A gargantuan case of hubris, coupled with stunning level of ignorance about how the real world works, is the essence of progressivism.

The U.S. Constitution is neither "living" nor dead. It is fixed until it is amended. But amending it is the privilege of the people, not of politicians or judges

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong - Thomas Sowell

Leftists think that utopia can be coerced into existence -- so no dishonesty or brutality is beyond them in pursuit of that "noble" goal

"England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution" -- George Orwell

Was 16th century science pioneer Paracelsus a libertarian? His motto was "Alterius non sit qui suus esse potest" which means "Let no man belong to another who can belong to himself."

"When using today's model of society as a rule, most of history will be found to be full of oppression, bias, and bigotry." What today's arrogant judges of history fail to realize is that they, too, will be judged. What will Americans of 100 years from now make of, say, speech codes, political correctness, and zero tolerance - to name only three? Assuming, of course, there will still be an America that we, today, would recognize. Given the rogue Federal government spy apparatus, I am not at all sure of that. -- Paul Havemann

Economist Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973): "The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office."

It's the shared hatred of the rest of us that unites Islamists and the Left.

American liberals don't love America. They despise it. All they love is their own fantasy of what America could become. They are false patriots.

The Democratic Party: Con-men elected by the ignorant and the arrogant

The Democratic Party is a strange amalgam of elites, would-be elites and minorities. No wonder their policies are so confused and irrational

Why are conservatives more at ease with religion? Because it is basic to conservatism that some things are unknowable, and religious people have to accept that too. Leftists think that they know it all and feel threatened by any exceptions to that. Thinking that you know it all is however the pride that comes before a fall.

The characteristic emotion of the Leftist is not envy. It's rage

Leftists are committed to grievance, not truth

The British Left poured out a torrent of hate for Margaret Thatcher on the occasion of her death. She rescued Britain from chaos and restored Britain's prosperity. What's not to hate about that?

Something you didn't know about Margaret Thatcher

The world's dumbest investor? Without doubt it is Uncle Sam. Nobody anywhere could rival the scale of the losses on "investments" made under the Obama administration

"Behind the honeyed but patently absurd pleas for equality is a ruthless drive for placing themselves (the elites) at the top of a new hierarchy of power" -- Murray Rothbard - Egalitarianism and the Elites (1995)

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money. -- G. Gordon Liddy

"World socialism as a whole, and all the figures associated with it, are shrouded in legend; its contradictions are forgotten or concealed; it does not respond to arguments but continually ignores them--all this stems from the mist of irrationality that surrounds socialism and from its instinctive aversion to scientific analysis... The doctrines of socialism seethe with contradictions, its theories are at constant odds with its practice, yet due to a powerful instinct these contradictions do not in the least hinder the unending propaganda of socialism. Indeed, no precise, distinct socialism even exists; instead there is only a vague, rosy notion of something noble and good, of equality, communal ownership, and justice: the advent of these things will bring instant euphoria and a social order beyond reproach." -- Solzhenitsyn

"The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left." -- Ecclesiastes 10:2 (NIV)

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. -- Thomas Jefferson

"Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power" -- Bertrand Russell

Evan Sayet: The Left sides "...invariably with evil over good, wrong over right, and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success." (t=5:35+ on video)

The Republicans are the gracious side of American politics. It is the Democrats who are the nasty party, the haters

Wanting to stay out of the quarrels of other nations is conservative -- but conservatives will fight if attacked or seriously endangered. Anglo/Irish statesman Lord Castlereagh (1769-1822), who led the political coalition that defeated Napoleon, was an isolationist, as were traditional American conservatives.

Some wisdom from the past: "The bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent and respectable stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all nations and religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment." —George Washington, 1783

Some useful definitions:

If a conservative doesn't like guns, he doesn't buy one. If a liberal doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.
If a conservative is a vegetarian, he doesn't eat meat. If a liberal is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned for everyone.
If a conservative is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation. A liberal wonders who is going to take care of him.
If a conservative doesn't like a talk show host, he switches channels. Liberals demand that those they don't like be shut down.
If a conservative is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church. A liberal non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced. (Unless it's a foreign religion, of course!)
If a conservative decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping for it, or may choose a job that provides it. A liberal demands that the rest of us pay for his.

There is better evidence for creation than there is for the Leftist claim that “gender” is a “social construct”. Most Leftist claims seem to be faith-based rather than founded on the facts

Leftists are classic weak characters. They dish out abuse by the bucketload but cannot take it when they get it back. Witness the Loughner hysteria.

Death taxes: You would expect a conscientious person, of whatever degree of intelligence, to reflect on the strange contradiction involved in denying people the right to unearned wealth, while supporting programs that give people unearned wealth.

America is no longer the land of the free. It is now the land of the regulated -- though it is not alone in that, of course

The Leftist motto: "I love humanity. It's just people I can't stand"

Why are Leftists always talking about hate? Because it fills their own hearts

Envy is a strong and widespread human emotion so there has alway been widespread support for policies of economic "levelling". Both the USA and the modern-day State of Israel were founded by communists but reality taught both societies that respect for the individual gave much better outcomes than levelling ideas. Sadly, there are many people in both societies in whom hatred for others is so strong that they are incapable of respect for the individual. The destructiveness of what they support causes them to call themselves many names in different times and places but they are the backbone of the political Left

Gore Vidal: "Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little". Vidal was of course a Leftist

The large number of rich Leftists suggests that, for them, envy is secondary. They are directly driven by hatred and scorn for many of the other people that they see about them. Hatred of others can be rooted in many things, not only in envy. But the haters come together as the Left. Some evidence here showing that envy is not what defines the Left

Leftists hate the world around them and want to change it: the people in it most particularly. Conservatives just want to be left alone to make their own decisions and follow their own values.

The failure of the Soviet experiment has definitely made the American Left more vicious and hate-filled than they were. The plain failure of what passed for ideas among them has enraged rather than humbled them.

Ronald Reagan famously observed that the status quo is Latin for “the mess we’re in.” So much for the vacant Leftist claim that conservatives are simply defenders of the status quo. They think that conservatives are as lacking in principles as they are.

Was Confucius a conservative? The following saying would seem to reflect good conservative caution: "The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come. When in a state of security he does not forget the possibility of ruin. When all is orderly, he does not forget that disorder may come. Thus his person is not endangered, and his States and all their clans are preserved."

The shallow thinkers of the Left sometimes claim that conservatives want to impose their own will on others in the matter of abortion. To make that claim is however to confuse religion with politics. Conservatives are in fact divided about their response to abortion. The REAL opposition to abortion is religious rather than political. And the church which has historically tended to support the LEFT -- the Roman Catholic church -- is the most fervent in the anti-abortion cause. Conservatives are indeed the one side of politics to have moral qualms on the issue but they tend to seek a middle road in dealing with it. Taking the issue to the point of legal prohibitions is a religious doctrine rather than a conservative one -- and the religion concerned may or may not be characteristically conservative. More on that here

Some Leftist hatred arises from the fact that they blame "society" for their own personal problems and inadequacies

The Leftist hunger for change to the society that they hate leads to a hunger for control over other people. And they will do and say anything to get that control: "Power at any price". Leftist politicians are mostly self-aggrandizing crooks who gain power by deceiving the uninformed with snake-oil promises -- power which they invariably use to destroy. Destruction is all that they are good at. Destruction is what haters do.

Leftists are consistent only in their hate. They don't have principles. How can they when "there is no such thing as right and wrong"? All they have is postures, pretend-principles that can be changed as easily as one changes one's shirt

A Leftist assumption: Making money doesn't entitle you to it, but wanting money does.

"Politicians never accuse you of 'greed' for wanting other people's money -- only for wanting to keep your own money." --columnist Joe Sobran (1946-2010)

Leftist policies are candy-coated rat poison that may appear appealing at first, but inevitably do a lot of damage to everyone impacted by them.

A tribute and thanks to Mary Jo Kopechne. Her death was reprehensible but she probably did more by her death that she ever would have in life: She spared the world a President Ted Kennedy. That the heap of corruption that was Ted Kennedy died peacefully in his bed is one of the clearest demonstrations that we do not live in a just world. Even Joe Stalin seems to have been smothered to death by Nikita Khrushchev

I often wonder why Leftists refer to conservatives as "wingnuts". A wingnut is a very useful device that adds versatility wherever it is used. Clearly, Leftists are not even good at abuse. Once they have accused their opponents of racism and Nazism, their cupboard is bare. Similarly, Leftists seem to think it is a devastating critique to refer to "Worldnet Daily" as "Worldnut Daily". The poverty of their argumentation is truly pitiful

The Leftist assertion that there is no such thing as right and wrong has a distinguished history. It was Pontius Pilate who said "What is truth?" (John 18:38). From a Christian viewpoint, the assertion is undoubtedly the Devil's gospel

Even in the Old Testament they knew about "Postmodernism": "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" - Isaiah 5:20 (KJV)

Was Solomon the first conservative? "The hearts of men are full of evil and madness is in their hearts" -- Ecclesiastes: 9:3 (RSV). He could almost have been talking about Global Warming.

Leftist hatred of Christianity goes back as far as the massacre of the Carmelite nuns during the French revolution. Yancey has written a whole book tabulating modern Leftist hatred of Christians. It is a rival religion to Leftism.

"If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action." - Ludwig von Mises

The naive scholar who searches for a consistent Leftist program will not find it. What there is consists only in the negation of the present.

Because of their need to be different from the mainstream, Leftists are very good at pretending that sow's ears are silk purses

Among intelligent people, Leftism is a character defect. Leftists HATE success in others -- which is why notably successful societies such as the USA and Israel are hated and failures such as the Palestinians can do no wrong.

A Leftist's beliefs are all designed to pander to his ego. So when you have an argument with a Leftist, you are not really discussing the facts. You are threatening his self esteem. Which is why the normal Leftist response to challenge is mere abuse.

Because of the fragility of a Leftist's ego, anything that threatens it is intolerable and provokes rage. So most Leftist blogs can be summarized in one sentence: "How DARE anybody question what I believe!". Rage and abuse substitute for an appeal to facts and reason.

Because their beliefs serve their ego rather than reality, Leftists just KNOW what is good for us. Conservatives need evidence.

Absolute certainty is the privilege of uneducated men and fanatics. -- C.J. Keyser

Hell is paved with good intentions" -- Boswell's Life of Johnson of 1775

"Almost all professors of the arts and sciences are egregiously conceited, and derive their happiness from their conceit" -- Erasmus

THE FALSIFICATION OF HISTORY HAS DONE MORE TO IMPEDE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT THAN ANY ONE THING KNOWN TO MANKIND -- ROUSSEAU

"Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? there is more hope of a fool than of him" (Proverbs 26: 12). I think that sums up Leftists pretty well.

Eminent British astrophysicist Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington is often quoted as saying: "Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine." It was probably in fact said by his contemporary, J.B.S. Haldane. But regardless of authorship, it could well be a conservative credo not only about the cosmos but also about human beings and human society. Mankind is too complex to be summed up by simple rules and even complex rules are only approximations with many exceptions.

Politics is the only thing Leftists know about. They know nothing of economics, history or business. Their only expertise is in promoting feelings of grievance

Socialism makes the individual the slave of the state -- capitalism frees them.

Many readers here will have noticed that what I say about Leftists sometimes sounds reminiscent of what Leftists say about conservatives. There is an excellent reason for that. Leftists are great "projectors" (people who see their own faults in others). So a good first step in finding out what is true of Leftists is to look at what they say about conservatives! They even accuse conservatives of projection (of course).

The research shows clearly that one's Left/Right stance is strongly genetically inherited but nobody knows just what specifically is inherited. What is inherited that makes people Leftist or Rightist? There is any amount of evidence that personality traits are strongly genetically inherited so my proposal is that hard-core Leftists are people who tend to let their emotions (including hatred and envy) run away with them and who are much more in need of seeing themselves as better than others -- two attributes that are probably related to one another. Such Leftists may be an evolutionary leftover from a more primitive past.

Leftists seem to believe that if someone like Al Gore says it, it must be right. They obviously have a strong need for an authority figure. The fact that the two most authoritarian regimes of the 20th century (Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia) were socialist is thus no surprise. Leftists often accuse conservatives of being "authoritarian" but that is just part of their usual "projective" strategy -- seeing in others what is really true of themselves.

"With their infernal racial set-asides, racial quotas, and race norming, liberals share many of the Klan's premises. The Klan sees the world in terms of race and ethnicity. So do liberals! Indeed, liberals and white supremacists are the only people left in America who are neurotically obsessed with race. Conservatives champion a color-blind society" -- Ann Coulter

Politicians are in general only a little above average in intelligence so the idea that they can make better decisions for us that we can make ourselves is laughable

A quote from the late Dr. Adrian Rogers: "You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

The Supreme Court of the United States is now and always has been a judicial abomination. Its guiding principles have always been political rather than judicial. It is not as political as Stalin's courts but its respect for the constitution is little better. Some recent abuses: The "equal treatment" provision of the 14th amendment was specifically written to outlaw racial discrimination yet the court has allowed various forms of "affirmative action" for decades -- when all such policies should have been completely stuck down immediately. The 2nd. amendment says that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed yet gun control laws infringe it in every State in the union. The 1st amendment provides that speech shall be freely exercised yet the court has upheld various restrictions on the financing and display of political advertising. The court has found a right to abortion in the constitution when the word abortion is not even mentioned there. The court invents rights that do not exist and denies rights that do.

"Some action that is unconstitutional has much to recommend it" -- Elena Kagan, nominated to SCOTUS by Obama

Frank Sulloway, the anti-scientist

The basic aim of all bureaucrats is to maximize their funding and minimize their workload

A lesson in Australian: When an Australian calls someone a "big-noter", he is saying that the person is a chronic and rather pathetic seeker of admiration -- as in someone who often pulls out "big notes" (e.g. $100.00 bills) to pay for things, thus endeavouring to create the impression that he is rich. The term describes the mentality rather than the actual behavior with money and it aptly describes many Leftists. When they purport to show "compassion" by advocating things that cost themselves nothing (e.g. advocating more taxes on "the rich" to help "the poor"), an Australian might say that the Leftist is "big-noting himself". There is an example of the usage here. The term conveys contempt. There is a wise description of Australians generally here

Some ancient wisdom for Leftists: "Be not righteous overmuch; neither make thyself over wise: Why shouldest thou die before thy time?" -- Ecclesiastes 7:16

"Foreign aid is the process by which money is taken from poor people in rich countries and given to rich people in poor countries." -- Peter Bauer

Jesse Jackson: "There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery -- then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved." There ARE important racial differences.

Some Jimmy Carter wisdom: "I think it's inevitable that there will be a lower standard of living than what everybody had always anticipated," he told advisers in 1979. "there's going to be a downward turning."

Heritage is what survives death: Very rare and hence very valuable

Big business is not your friend. As Adam Smith said: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty or justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary

How can I accept the Communist doctrine, which sets up as its bible, above and beyond criticism, an obsolete textbook which I know not only to be scientifically erroneous but without interest or application to the modern world? How can I adopt a creed which, preferring the mud to the fish, exalts the boorish proletariat above the bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia, who with all their faults, are the quality of life and surely carry the seeds of all human achievement? Even if we need a religion, how can we find it in the turbid rubbish of the red bookshop? It is hard for an educated, decent, intelligent son of Western Europe to find his ideals here, unless he has first suffered some strange and horrid process of conversion which has changed all his values. -- John Maynard Keynes

Some wisdom from "Bron" Waugh: "The purpose of politics is to help them [politicians] overcome these feelings of inferiority and compensate for their personal inadequacies in the pursuit of power"

"There are countless horrible things happening all over the country, and horrible people prospering, but we must never allow them to disturb our equanimity or deflect us from our sacred duty to sabotage and annoy them whenever possible"

The urge to pass new laws must be seen as an illness, not much different from the urge to bite old women. Anyone suspected of suffering from it should either be treated with the appropriate pills or, if it is too late for that, elected to Parliament [or Congress, as the case may be] and paid a huge salary with endless holidays, to do nothing whatever"

"It is my settled opinion, after some years as a political correspondent, that no one is attracted to a political career in the first place unless he is socially or emotionally crippled"

Two lines below of a famous hymn that would be incomprehensible to Leftists today ("honor"? "right"? "freedom?" Freedom to agree with them is the only freedom they believe in)

First to fight for right and freedom,
And to keep our honor clean

It is of course the hymn of the USMC -- still today the relentless warriors that they always were. Freedom needs a soldier

If any of the short observations above about Leftism seem wrong, note that they do not stand alone. The evidence for them is set out at great length in my MONOGRAPH on Leftism.

3 memoirs of "Supermac", a 20th century Disraeli (Aristocratic British Conservative Prime Minister -- 1957 to 1963 -- Harold Macmillan):

"It breaks my heart to see (I can't interfere or do anything at my age) what is happening in our country today - this terrible strike of the best men in the world, who beat the Kaiser's army and beat Hitler's army, and never gave in. Pointless, endless. We can't afford that kind of thing. And then this growing division which the noble Lord who has just spoken mentioned, of a comparatively prosperous south, and an ailing north and midlands. That can't go on." -- Mac on the British working class: "the best men in the world" (From his Maiden speech in the House of Lords, 13 November 1984)

"As a Conservative, I am naturally in favour of returning into private ownership and private management all those means of production and distribution which are now controlled by state capitalism"

During Macmillan's time as prime minister, average living standards steadily rose while numerous social reforms were carried out

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see." --?Arthur Schopenhauer

JEWS AND ISRAEL

The Bible is an Israeli book

There is a view on both Left and Right that Jews are "too" influential. And it is true that they are more influential than their numbers would indicate. But they are exactly as influential as their IQs would indicate

To me, hostility to the Jews is a terrible tragedy. I weep for them at times. And I do literally put my money where my mouth is. I do at times send money to Israeli charities

My (Gentile) opinion of antisemitism: The Jews are the best we've got so killing them is killing us.

It’s a strange paradox when anti-Zionists argue that Jews should suffer and wander without a homeland while urging that Palestinians ought to have security and territory.

"And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed" -- Genesis 12:3

"O pray for the peace of Jerusalem: They shall prosper that love thee" Psalm 122:6.

If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy -- Psalm 137 (NIV)

Israel, like the Jews throughout history, is hated not for her vices but her virtues. Israel is hated, as the United States is hated, because Israel is successful, because Israel is free, and because Israel is good. As Maxim Gorky put it: “Whatever nonsense the anti-Semites may talk, they dislike the Jew only because he is obviously better, more adroit, and more willing and capable of work than they are.” Whether driven by culture or genes—or like most behavior, an inextricable mix—the fact of Jewish genius is demonstrable." -- George Gilder

To Leftist haters, all the basic rules of liberal society — rejection of hate speech, commitment to academic freedom, rooting out racism, the absolute commitment to human dignity — go out the window when the subject is Israel.

I have always liked the story of Gideon (See Judges chapters 6 to 8) and it is surely no surprise that in the present age Israel is the Gideon of nations: Few in numbers but big in power and impact.

Is the Israel Defence Force the most effective military force per capita since Genghis Khan? They probably are but they are also the most ethically advanced military force that the world has ever seen

If I were not an atheist, I would believe that God had a sense of humour. He gave his chosen people (the Jews) enormous advantages -- high intelligence and high drive -- but to keep it fair he deprived them of something hugely important too: Political sense. So Jews to this day tend very strongly to be Leftist -- even though the chief source of antisemitism for roughly the last 200 years has been the political Left!

And the other side of the coin is that Jews tend to despise conservatives and Christians. Yet American fundamentalist Christians are the bedrock of the vital American support for Israel, the ultimate bolthole for all Jews. So Jewish political irrationality seems to be a rather good example of the saying that "The LORD giveth and the LORD taketh away". There are many other examples of such perversity (or "balance"). The sometimes severe side-effects of most pharmaceutical drugs is an obvious one but there is another ethnic example too, a rather amusing one. Chinese people are in general smart and patient people but their rate of traffic accidents in China is about 10 times higher than what prevails in Western societies. They are brilliant mathematicians and fearless business entrepreneurs but at the same time bad drivers!

Conservatives, on the other hand, could be antisemitic on entirely rational grounds: Namely, the overwhelming Leftism of the Diaspora Jewish population as a whole. Because they judge the individual, however, only a tiny minority of conservative-oriented people make such general judgments. The longer Jews continue on their "stiff-necked" course, however, the more that is in danger of changing. The children of Israel have been a stiff necked people since the days of Moses, however, so they will no doubt continue to vote with their emotions rather than their reason.

I despair of the ADL. Jews have enough problems already and yet in the ADL one has a prominent Jewish organization that does its best to make itself offensive to Christians. Their Leftism is more important to them than the welfare of Jewry -- which is the exact opposite of what they ostensibly stand for! Jewish cleverness seems to vanish when politics are involved. Fortunately, Christians are true to their saviour and have loving hearts. Jewish dissatisfaction with the myopia of the ADL is outlined here. Note that Foxy was too grand to reply to it.

Fortunately for America, though, liberal Jews there are rapidly dying out through intermarriage and failure to reproduce. And the quite poisonous liberal Jews of Israel are not much better off. Judaism is slowly returning to Orthodoxy and the Orthodox tend to be conservative.

The above is good testimony to the accuracy of the basic conservative insight that almost anything in human life is too complex to be reduced to any simple rule and too complex to be reduced to any rule at all without allowance for important exceptions to the rule concerned

Amid their many virtues, one virtue is often lacking among Jews in general and Israelis in particular: Humility. And that's an antisemitic comment only if Hashem is antisemitic. From Moses on, the Hebrew prophets repeatedy accused the Israelites of being "stiff-necked" and urged them to repent. So it's no wonder that the greatest Jewish prophet of all -- Jesus -- not only urged humility but exemplified it in his life and death

"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here. For roughly two centuries now, antisemitism has, throughout the Western world, been principally associated with Leftism (including the socialist Hitler) -- as it is to this day. See here.

Karl Marx hated just about everyone. Even his father, the kindly Heinrich Marx, thought Karl was not much of a human being

Leftists call their hatred of Israel "Anti-Zionism" but Zionists are only a small minority in Israel

Some of the Leftist hatred of Israel is motivated by old-fashioned antisemitism (beliefs in Jewish "control" etc.) but most of it is just the regular Leftist hatred of success in others. And because the societies they inhabit do not give them the vast amount of recognition that their large but weak egos need, some of the most virulent haters of Israel and America live in those countries. So the hatred is the product of pathologically high self-esteem.

Their threatened egos sometimes drive Leftists into quite desperate flights from reality. For instance, they often call Israel an "Apartheid state" -- when it is in fact the Arab states that practice Apartheid -- witness the severe restrictions on Christians in Saudi Arabia. There are no such restrictions in Israel.

If the Palestinians put down their weapons, there'd be peace. If the Israelis put down their weapons, there'd be genocide.

Leftists are usually just anxious little people trying to pretend that they are significant. No doubt there are some Leftists who are genuinely concerned about inequities in our society but their arrogance lies in thinking that they understand it without close enquiry

ABOUT

Many people hunger and thirst after righteousness. Some find it in the hatreds of the Left. Others find it in the love of Christ. I don't hunger and thirst after righteousness at all. I hunger and thirst after truth. How old-fashioned can you get?

The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody. And I have NO investments in oil companies, mining companies or "Big Pharma"

UPDATE: Despite my (statistical) aversion to mining stocks, I have recently bought a few shares in BHP -- the world's biggest miner, I gather. I run the grave risk of becoming a speaker of famous last words for saying this but I suspect that BHP is now so big as to be largely immune from the risks that plague most mining companies. I also know of no issue affecting BHP where my writings would have any relevance. The Left seem to have a visceral hatred of miners. I have never quite figured out why.

I imagine that few of my readers will understand it, but I am an unabashed monarchist. And, as someone who was born and bred in a monarchy and who still lives there (i.e. Australia), that gives me no conflicts at all. In theory, one's respect for the monarchy does not depend on who wears the crown but the impeccable behaviour of the present Queen does of course help perpetuate that respect. Aside from my huge respect for the Queen, however, my favourite member of the Royal family is the redheaded Prince Harry. The Royal family is of course a military family and Prince Harry is a great example of that. As one of the world's most privileged people, he could well be an idle layabout but instead he loves his life in the army. When his girlfriend Chelsy ditched him because he was so often away, Prince Harry said: "I love Chelsy but the army comes first". A perfect military man! I doubt that many women would understand or approve of his attitude but perhaps my own small army background powers my approval of that attitude.

I imagine that most Americans might find this rather mad -- but I believe that a constitutional Monarchy is the best form of government presently available. Can a libertarian be a Monarchist? I think so -- and prominent British libertarian Sean Gabb seems to think so too! Long live the Queen! (And note that Australia ranks well above the USA on the Index of Economic freedom. Heh!)

The Australian flag with the Union Jack quartered in it

Throughout Europe there is an association between monarchism and conservatism. It is a little sad that American conservatives do not have access to that satisfaction. So even though Australia is much more distant from Europe (geographically) than the USA is, Australia is in some ways more of an outpost of Europe than America is! Mind you: Australia is not very atypical of its region. Australia lies just South of Asia -- and both Japan and Thailand have greatly respected monarchies. And the demise of the Cambodian monarchy was disastrous for Cambodia

Throughout the world today, possession of a U.S. or U.K. passport is greatly valued. I once shared that view. Developments in recent years have however made me profoundly grateful that I am a 5th generation Australian. My Australian passport is a door into a much less oppressive and much less messed-up place than either the USA or Britain

Following the Sotomayor precedent, I would hope that a wise older white man such as myself with the richness of that experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than someone who hasn’t lived that life.

"Remind me never to get this guy mad at me" -- Instapundit

It seems to be a common view that you cannot talk informatively about a country unless you have been there. I completely reject that view but it is nonetheless likely that some Leftist dimbulb will at some stage aver that any comments I make about politics and events in the USA should not be heeded because I am an Australian who has lived almost all his life in Australia. I am reluctant to pander to such ignorance in the era of the "global village" but for the sake of the argument I might mention that I have visited the USA 3 times -- spending enough time in Los Angeles and NYC to get to know a fair bit about those places at least. I did however get outside those places enough to realize that they are NOT America.

"Intellectual" = Leftist dreamer. I have more publications in the academic journals than almost all "public intellectuals" but I am never called an intellectual and nor would I want to be. Call me a scholar or an academic, however, and I will accept either as a just and earned appellation

Some personal background

My full name is Dr. John Joseph RAY. I am a former university teacher aged 65 at the time of writing in 2009. I was born of Australian pioneer stock in 1943 at Innisfail in the State of Queensland in Australia. I trace my ancestry wholly to the British Isles. After an early education at Innisfail State Rural School and Cairns State High School, I taught myself for matriculation. I took my B.A. in Psychology from the University of Queensland in Brisbane. I then moved to Sydney (in New South Wales, Australia) and took my M.A. in psychology from the University of Sydney in 1969 and my Ph.D. from the School of Behavioural Sciences at Macquarie University in 1974. I first tutored in psychology at Macquarie University and then taught sociology at the University of NSW. My doctorate is in psychology but I taught mainly sociology in my 14 years as a university teacher. In High Schools I taught economics. I have taught in both traditional and "progressive" (low discipline) High Schools. Fuller biographical notes here

I completed the work for my Ph.D. at the end of 1970 but the degree was not awarded until 1974 -- due to some academic nastiness from Seymour Martin Lipset and Fred Emery. A conservative or libertarian who makes it through the academic maze has to be at least twice as good as the average conformist Leftist. Fortunately, I am a born academic.

Despite my great sympathy and respect for Christianity, I am the most complete atheist you could find. I don't even believe that the word "God" is meaningful. I am not at all original in that view, of course. Such views are particularly associated with the noted German philosopher Rudolf Carnap. Unlike Carnap, however, none of my wives have committed suicide

In my teenage years, however, I was fortunate to be immersed (literally) in a very fundamentalist Christian religion. And the heavy Bible study I did at that time left me with lessons for life that have stood me in good stead ever since

Very occasionally in my writings I make reference to the greats of analytical philosophy such as Carnap and Wittgenstein. As philosophy is a heavily Leftist discipline however, I have long awaited an attack from some philosopher accusing me of making coat-trailing references not backed by any real philosophical erudition. I suppose it is encouraging that no such attacks have eventuated but I thought that I should perhaps forestall them anyway -- by pointing out that in my younger days I did complete three full-year courses in analytical philosophy (at 3 different universities!) and that I have had papers on mainstream analytical philosophy topics published in academic journals

IQ and ideology: Most academics are Left-leaning. Why? Because very bright people who have balls go into business, while very bright people with no balls go into academe. I did both with considerable success, which makes me a considerable rarity. Although I am a born academic, I have always been good with money too. My share portfolio even survived the GFC in good shape. The academics hate it that bright people with balls make more money than them.

I have no hesitation in saying that the single book which has influenced me most is the New Testament. And my Scripture blog will show that I know whereof I speak. Some might conclude that I must therefore be a very confused sort of atheist but I can assure everyone that I do not feel the least bit confused. The New Testament is a lighthouse that has illumined the thinking of all sorts of men and women and I am deeply grateful that it has shone on me.

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age. Conservatism is in touch with reality. Leftism is not.

I imagine that the RD are still sending mailouts to my 1950s address

Most teenagers have sporting and movie posters on their bedroom walls. At age 14 I had a map of Taiwan on my wall.

A small personal note: I have always been very self-confident. I inherited it from my mother, along with my skeptical nature. So I don't need to feed my self-esteem by claiming that I am wiser than others -- which is what Leftists do.

As with conservatives generally, it bothers me not a bit to admit to large gaps in my knowledge and understanding. For instance, I don't know if the slight global warming of the 20th century will resume in the 21st, though I suspect not. And I don't know what a "healthy" diet is, if there is one. Constantly-changing official advice on the matter suggests that nobody knows

As well as being an academic, I am an army man and I am pleased and proud to say that I have worn my country's uniform. Although my service in the Australian army was chiefly noted for its un-notability, I DID join voluntarily in the Vietnam era, I DID reach the rank of Sergeant, and I DID volunteer for a posting in Vietnam. So I think I may be forgiven for saying something that most army men think but which most don't say because they think it is too obvious: The profession of arms is the noblest profession of all because it is the only profession where you offer to lay down your life in performing your duties. Our men fought so that people could say and think what they like but I myself always treat military men with great respect -- respect which in my view is simply their due.

It would be very easy for me to say that I am too much of an individual for the army but I did in fact join the army and enjoy it greatly, as most men do. In my observation, ALL army men are individuals. It is just that they accept discipline in order to be militarily efficient -- which is the whole point of the exercise. But that's too complex for simplistic Leftist thinking, of course

A real army story here

It's amusing that my army service gives me honour among conservatives but contempt from Leftists. I don't weep at all about the latter. I am still in touch with some of the fine people I served with over 50 years ago. The army is like that

This is just a bit of romanticism but I do have permanently located by the head of my bed a genuine century-old British army cavalry sword. It is still a real weapon. I was not in the cavalry but I see that sword as a symbol of many things. I want it to be beside my bed when I die

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day and there is JUST ONE saying of Hitler's that I rather like. It may not even be original to him but it is found in chapter 2 of Mein Kampf (published in 1925): "Widerstaende sind nicht da, dass man vor ihnen kapituliert, sondern dass man sie bricht". The equivalent English saying is "Difficulties exist to be overcome" and that traces back at least to the 1920s -- with attributions to Montessori and others. Hitler's metaphor is however one of smashing barriers rather than of politely hopping over them and I am myself certainly more outspoken than polite. Hitler's colloquial Southern German is notoriously difficult to translate but I think I can manage a reasonable translation of that saying: "Resistance is there not for us to capitulate to but for us to break". I am quite sure that I don't have anything like that degree of determination in my own life but it seems to me to be a good attitude in general anyway

And something that was perceptive comes from the same chapter. Hitler said that the doctrines of the interwar Social Democrats (mainstream leftists) of Vienna were "comprised of egotism and hate". Not much has changed

I have used many sites to post my writings over the years and many have gone bad on me for various reasons. So if you click on a link here to my other writings you may get a "page not found" response if the link was put up some time before the present. All is not lost, however. All my writings have been reposted elsewhere. If you do strike a failed link, just take the filename (the last part of the link) and add it to the address of any of my current home pages and -- Voila! -- you should find the article concerned.

COMMENTS: I have gradually added comments facilities to all my blogs. The comments I get are interesting. They are mostly from Leftists and most consist either of abuse or mere assertions. Reasoned arguments backed up by references to supporting evidence are almost unheard of from Leftists. Needless to say, I just delete such useless comments.

You can email me here (Hotmail address). In emailing me, you can address me as "John", "Jon", "Dr. Ray" or "JR" and that will be fine -- but my preference is for "JR" -- and that preference has NOTHING to do with an American soap opera that featured a character who was referred to in that way

DETAILS OF REGULARLY UPDATED BLOGS BY JOHN RAY:

"Tongue Tied"
"Dissecting Leftism"
"Australian Politics"
"Education Watch International"
"Political Correctness Watch"
"Greenie Watch"
Western Heart

BLOGS OCCASIONALLY UPDATED:

"Marx & Engels in their own words"
"A scripture blog"
"Recipes"
"Some memoirs"
To be continued ....
Coral reef compendium.
Queensland Police
Australian Police News
Paralipomena (3)
Of Interest
Dagmar Schellenberger
My alternative Wikipedia

BLOGS NO LONGER BEING UPDATED

"Food & Health Skeptic"
"Eye on Britain"
"Immigration Watch International".
"Leftists as Elitists"
Socialized Medicine
OF INTEREST (2)
QANTAS -- A dying octopus
BRIAN LEITER (Ladderman)
Obama Watch
Obama Watch (2)
Dissecting Leftism -- Large font site
Michael Darby
Paralipomena (2)
AGL -- A bumbling monster
Telstra/Bigpond follies
Optus bungling
Vodafrauds (vodafone)
Bank of Queensland blues

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)

Some more useful links

Alt archives for "Dissecting Leftism" here or here
Longer Academic Papers
Johnray links
Academic home page
Academic Backup Page
General Backup
General Backup 2

Selected reading

MONOGRAPH ON LEFTISM

CONSERVATISM AS HERESY

Rightism defined
Leftist Churches
Leftist Racism
Fascism is Leftist
Hitler a socialist
Leftism is authoritarian
James on Leftism
Irbe on Leftism
Beltt on Leftism
Lakoff
Van Hiel
Sidanius
Kruglanski
Pyszczynski et al.

Cautionary blogs about big Australian organizations:

TELSTRA
OPTUS
AGL
Bank of Queensland
Queensland Police
Australian police news
QANTAS, a dying octopus

Main academic menu
Menu of recent writings
basic home page
Pictorial Home Page
Selected pictures from blogs (Backup here)
Another picture page (Rarely updated)

Note: If the link to one of my articles is not working, the article concerned can generally be viewed by prefixing to the filename the following:
http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/42197/20151027-0014/jonjayray.com/

OR: (After 2015)
https://web.archive.org/web/20160322114550/http://jonjayray.com/