Filed under: Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economics, Education, Foreign Polidy, Free Speech, Freedom, History, Immigration, Intelligence, National Security, Politics, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: Free Citizens, Longtime Residents, Nationalism for America
In a speech at Hillsdale College in October, Victor Davis Hanson talks about Nationalism. Is is good or bad — and what are the lessons from history? It’s fairly long, but worth every minute, if you are satiated after turkey and all the fixings, and don’t want to move for a while… or save it for another day, but do watch it when you can. Lots of food for thought. important food for thought.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Environment, Global Warming, Intelligence, Junk Science, National Security, News, Politics, Science/Technology | Tags: Francis Menton, John Stossel, Who Do You Listen To?
And here is the Manhattan Contrarian answering the question “Who is Winning the Climate Wars?” Do we have to panic in the expectation that in just 12 years it’s all over? Greta Thunberg’s mother says her daughter’s ideas are important because she is able to see the Carbon Dioxide rising out of chimneys and the rising seas.
In spite of all the panic, the rising of the seas seems to take place in millimeters rather than feet. There are roughly 25 millimeters to an inch, so you can see the rise of the oceans are possibly not what some assume. I thought you would fine these two pieces interesting in the wake of the sainted Greta’s visit to the U.S, the UN and Hollywood.
Filed under: Blogging, Cool Site of the Day, Domestic Policy, History, Humor, Intelligence, Law, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: Ranking Member Devin Nunes, The Tiresome Schiff Sideshow, Waiting for a "Bombshell"
Devin Nunes is now the Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee, superseded by current Chair Adam Schiff. Congressman Nunes has been invaluable in the current miasma in that committee, and in Congress. Mr. Schiff continues to be an embarrassment as he strives ever more valiantly to find something, anything, for which to impeach President Trump. It provides daily entertainment for those with strong stomachs. Or at least it would if you could tolerate it. Do watch the whole thing, It’s not Long. Devin Nunes is very good!
From Scott Johnson at the powerline blog: Quotable quote: “They got caught trying to obtain nude photos of President Trump from Russian pranksters pretending to be Ukrainians….That is the Democrats’ pitiful legacy in recent years: they got caught.”
Filed under: Education, Environment, Free Speech, Freedom, History, Intelligence, Science/Technology, Technology, The United States | Tags: Great Minds, The Origin of Species, Theory of Evolution
Perhaps you have noticed on the web, some remarks about scholars challenging Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Here they are with the Hoover Institute’s Peter Robinson, explaining their deviance from what has been scientific orthodoxy. This is a fascinating and very interesting video, probing some of the country’s sharpest minds, though as it happens when all were in Italy:David Berlinsky, David Gerlernter, and Stephen Meyer. Enjoy, it’s very much worth your time.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Crime, Domestic Policy, Economics, Economy, Free Markets, Free Speech, Freedom, Heartwarming, Intelligence, Law, Regulation, Taxes, The United States, Unemployment | Tags: Adam Schiff, Go To a Focus Group, How To Impeach?
Speaking of “Extraordinary Popular Delusions”, an article from The Federalist by Adam Mill says that “Democrats are Embarrassed by Schiff’s Impeachment Tactics, And They Should Be.” Obama has spoken out to warn Democrats of moving too far to the Left. Another Federalist article says “Democrats Concede Their Impeachment Argument is Failing.”
CNN reports that in a private meeting this week, top Democrats conceded that the polls on impeachment were unlikely to shift, and that their basic message is failing to break through for huge swaths of Americans. This is very close to admitting that their ultimate goal, of removing president Trump from office will not be achieved.
The reason this would mean game over for the removal effort is that only a significant uptick for impeachment in polling, especially among Republicans who have been rock solid in support of Trump, could lead to GOP votes to convict in the senate. This may sound cynical, but why should Republican senators defy the wishes of the vast majority of their voters based on the Democrats’ vague and shifting arguments?
Even more telling than the concession that polls won’t be moving is the admission their messaging is failing. This can only really mean one of two things. Either Adam Schiff and his inquiry have failed to prove Trump engaged in impeachable and removal offenses or the 44 percent of Americans who oppose impeachment are too stupid, or brainwashed to accept the case for impeaching Trump.
We all know that Democrats are not as interested in Economics as the rest of us. Obama famously claimed that the American economy would never again reach as high as 3% growth — we were stuck at two for the foreseeable future. Oops!
From the Trump campaign rapid response team just today:
Impeachment “is about patriotism. It’s not about politics”, a very sad and somber Nancy Pelosi insisted again yesterday. “It’s not about anything political. It’s about patriotism.”
Actually, it’s about polling.
The Washington Post reports today that “Democrats have stopped using the term ‘quid pro quo,’ instead describing ‘bribery’ as a more direct summation of Trump’s alleged conduct.” Why?
“The shift came after the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee conducted focus groups in key House battlegrounds in recent weeks, testing messages related to impeachment. Among the questions put to participants was whether ‘quid pro quo,’ ‘extortion’ or ‘bribery’ was a more compelling description of Trump’s conduct. According to two people familiar with the results, which circulated among Democrats this week, the focus groups found ‘bribery’ to be most damning.”
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Energy, Environment, Intelligence, Junk Science, Media Bias, National Security, News, News of the Weird, Politics, Science/Technology, The United States | Tags: Extraordinary Popular Delusions, Greta Thunberg, The Climate "Crisis"
A sixteen year old schoolgirl suddenly gained fame because she tried to organize her fellow schoolmates to skip school to protest the climate crisis. Universities gave her honors degrees, and she was allowed by her parents to make the trip to the United States on a sailboat, so she could speak to the United Nations and ask for their cooperation in her crusade. She spoke.
She was highly touted for the Noble Peace Prize, but that went instead to an African gentleman who actually did something serious to advance Peace.
In California, Greta Thunberg met with Leonardo Di Caprio and former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Now a gigantic portrait of the pigtailed young girl has been painted on the wall of a downtown San Francisco office building. California is going to spend $2.4 million on Climate change themed art. The state’s Clean Air agency has commissioned the world’s largest installation, to appear in the common areas of the California Air Resources Board’s new headquarters in Riverside, opening in late 2021. Someone or other went on about “climate justice” but I had lost interest at that point.
If you scroll down a bit you can see two videos, one featuring Dr. Richard Lindzen, and another featuring Dr. William Happer. Dr. Happer explains that the world is in the midst of a Carbon Drought. We simply do not have enough carbon in the atmosphere. These two distinguished gentlemen are world-renowned climate scientists, who have spent their whole careers studying climate.
Here’s another interesting fact, the very first thermometer was invented in 1714.
The book Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Scottish journalist Charles Mackay was first published in 1841, a study of crowd psychology. It came in three volumes “National Delusions,” “Peculiar Follies,”and “Philosophical Delusions.” You may be able to find a copy at your public library.
As they say, there is nothing new under the sun. Perhaps it’s something in the water.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Communism, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economics, Economy, Election 2016, Election 2020, Immigration, Intelligence, Media Bias, News the Media Doesn't Want You to Hear, Politics, Progressivism, The United States | Tags: Defeat the Enemy by Being Informed, The Need to Impeach, The Perils of Social Media
I wrote a couple of days ago a post about people seeming to get dumber. When you read quite a bit of opinion, you become sure of it. Rasmussen, the big polling company, said today that, and I quote, “Democrats really don’t like America and think it’s time to move on from the culture that got us here,”
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that just 38% of Likely Democratic Voters believe American society is generally fair and decent. Fifty-one percent (51%) say it’s unfair and discriminatory.
By comparison, 74% of Republicans and unaffiliated voters by a 49% to 36% margin view American society as fair and decent.
Look, let’s get back to basics. You should have learned by the time you are five or six, at least,that Life Is Hard. You fall down and get hurt, you don’t like the food your mother made you eat. You can elaborate far beyond that. Bad marriages, people you love die, disappointments, problems, failure, owing money, illness, disease. It’s just not all sweetness and light. With time, you can get the good stuff to outweigh the bad and shrug off the rest of it.
It’s not just Twitter, though they are a problem. How many pictures have you seen of young people seated somewhere, each and every one interacting with their phone, ignoring those around them? ‘Social Media’ but not much is social about it. We’re told that our young people in college think it would be fine to change our form of government to Communism. They reached 18 years of age and know nothing? Nothing at all. We are deeply in trouble.
Adam Schiff is basking in his moments of fame, and trying desperately to hype up his moment. A Vice President of the United States has used his position to get his kid a job on a foreign country’s Energy Company’s Board of Directors at an enormous salary of $83,000 a month, for which he has no qualifications whatsoever, and we are supposed to think it’s all about his father (the former Vice President of the United States) being a rival for the 2020 election? Perhaps Mr. Biden had no felonious intent, and just thought it was nice that these people wanted his son on the board because they liked him and…Sorry, there is no way that does not smell to high heaven. Yes, we know that former government officials get big payoffs from the private sector, book deals, fancy estates, from those looking to use the influence of a big name. But that’s not the way it is supposed to be. We honor our past presidents, even the ones we didn’t like.
George W. went on home and led outdoor trips for wounded vets, and painted their portraits. After it was discovered that Harry Truman was living off his army pension and little more, and had the integrity to avoid post-presidential money grubbing, Congress increased presidential pay significantly and a pension was provided so that future presidents were protected from any possible penury.
The news from the Trump presidency is pretty outstanding. Did you know that? The increases in median household income under Donald Trump are very large. Based on Census Bureau monthly data, from January 2017 when Donald Trump entered office through August 2019, middle-class household incomes have risen from $61,000 to an all time high of $66,000 — in 2019 dollars, adjusted for inflation.
The left freaked out for understandable reasons. They are especially agitated because median household incomes have risen by $5,000 under Trump, compared to $1,100 in seven years under President Barack Obama. The data also undermines the case against Trump. Elizabeth Warren likes to say in every speech, “The middle class has been left behind by Trump’s policies.” That’s flat-out wrong.
The self-proclaimed “fact-checkers” on the left went to work to try to discredit the numbers. This includes The Washington Post, PolitiFact and others.
As an aside, we have a big problem in America when the “fact-checkers” are all playing for the liberal team. A case in point is the liberal PolitiFact, which used the screaming headline “Trump’s Shaky $5,000 Boast.” The Post gave Trump two Pinocchios for claiming these income gains and said “Trump Inflates His Economic Record.”
A standard complaint is that these numbers are assembled by a private organization called Sentier Research. But the two Sentier statisticians who analyzed this month’s Census Current Population Survey — a gold mine of economic information — are probably the most knowledgeable people in the country on this data.
Stephen Moore, whose commentary this is, goes on to show how the media has tried to spin this news. If you are interested in liberal spin, this is an excellent example. Do they really just want to get Trump out of there before anyone catches on to what an outstanding job he is doing? You might also enjoy The American Mind’s explanation of the Culture War 2.0, and the changing Rules of Engagement. It’s a 12 minute read, they say. (I told you, they are having to go to great lengths to get unwilling people to read, and we are getting dumber. ) We have to read to get informed, to know what is true and what is not, and how we are being manipulated. We have to fight back.
“Occasio-Cortez Dismisses Fears Democratic Party Moving Too Far Left: “We Are Bringing the Party Home” Yesterday’s headline at Breitbart.
