Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economics, Economy, Education, Energy, Environment, History, Humor, National Security, Politics, Russia | Tags: Climate Doom, Listen to Skeptics
Democratic Debate last night. I did not watch, since I think they’re all loons. It was apparently a vicious time with everybody attacking everybody else. Bloomberg, Biden and Sanders all lead in different primary states.
President Donald Trump’s “Hire American,” low-immigration policy is giving American employees a larger share of company profits, so the federal government should raise the supply of foreign workers, according to a mournful editorial column in the Wall Street Journal.
“Corporate profits have been declining as employers increase wages to hire scarce blue-collar workers … corporate profits could soon drop to historic lows, which could reduce business investment and GDP growth,” says the editorial board’s complaint, titled “America’s Disappearing Workers.”
The candidates are not doing their homework, nor are their staffs. They hardly seem to know what is going on in the country. Part of it is illusion, about the Russians, the President, and of course the panic about climate doom. Nobody seems to want to study up on what the scientists have to say, if the saintly Greta Thunberg says it’s a problem, well there you go. Straight from the mouth of an autistic 17 year old.
Start with this: “Over 440 Scientific Papers Published in 2019 Support a skeptical position on Climate Alarm.” There is a great deal of doubt that anthropogenic CO² emissions function as the control knob of the climate. As I have remarked many times before, back in 2015, Christiana Figueres, who was general secretary of the IPCC (the International Panel on Climate Change) in early February remarked in a news conference that the object of the Climate Crisis was not to save the Earth from climate doom, but as the best chance they had to eliminate Capitalism from the world. And do read the post just below by Ian Plimer, about the history of world climate.
Bernie Sanders, Socialist candidate, wants to eliminate fracking, apparently unaware that the replacement of large amounts of oil and gasoline with clean natural gas has meant that the United States has eliminated more CO² than any other nation on earth, because of the vast plenitude of natural gas made available by the technique of fracking. I’m rather fond of Capitalism myself. Our huge supplies of natural gas are quite damaging to the Russian economy, and Iran, for they count on selling their oil to the Europeans, who would much rather have clean natural gas.
If you’ve got Fareed Zakaria doubting you, maybe there’s some hope.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economics, Economy, Election 2016, Election 2020, History, Humor, Law, Media Bias, Politics, Progressives, Progressivism, Russia, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: Her Moment of Fame?, Pelosi in the Spotlight, The Impeachment Idiocy
The Impeachment Circus has moved to the Senate for trial. Nancy Pelosi is operating under the illusion that everyone hates President Trump just as much as she and her cohorts do, because Democrats speak only to other Democrats and are unfamiliar with the ideas of conservatives. They just regard us as the enemy.
She made a big deal of appointing the Democrat judges for the Senate trial. She had special pens made up with her name on them, and handed them out on silver platters. (Really!) Clearly, she seems to believe that this is a very big deal and they will go down in history as ridding the American people of a terrible president. They have struggled so hard to find something to impeach him for. They were so sure in the first place that they would be able to get him for working with the Russians, and that didn’t work, though I think they still believe that was real and they just couldn’t find the evidence.
Nancy Pelosi tweeted on January 14: “American elections should be decided by the American people not by the Russian Government.”
The fairly obvious response is that the American election was decided by the American people. They chose Donald Trump!
You may have thought that Hillary Clinton was the better candidate, and that the first woman to be president would be a big deal, but a very large number of people thought Hillary was a compulsive liar, had been a remarkably poor Secretary of State, was very unlikable, drinks too much, and doesn’t do her homework. And then there was Benghazi.
I have never understood the Democrats’ seething hatred for Donald Trump. Sure he has a funny haircut, uses tanning creme, wears his neckties too long and tweets. So What? He has the American economy booming, the envy of the world. The greatest benefits of the thriving economy have gone to the poorest people, those who were unemployed and now have jobs. We are now a major oil exporter. We have a trade deal with our closest neighbors, Mexico and Canada. The Wall on our Southern border is going up, and the flow of illegal criminals and drugs is being reduced. And he has eliminated one of the world’s worst terrorists, whose plots will no longer threaten us here at home.
Perhaps that is the major reason they hate him. Obama was quite sure that in today’s times there was no possibility of getting economic growth above two percent. Democrats depend on buying votes. Medicare for all, free healthcare, free college, paid off student loans. And here’s this president that they hate and he’s doing all these things that Americans seem to like. They are terrified that he might even be reelected for another four years.
And of course the biggest thing is that they are no longer in control. They see themselves as morally superior, entitled to be in charge, and to have all the most important ruling roles.
Filed under: China, Communism, Economics, Foreign Policy, Free Markets, Freedom, History, Islam, Middle East, National Security, Politics, Russia, Terrorism, The United States | Tags: Call Your Library Today, Excellent Gifts, What We Need to Know
The new American history by Wilfred M. McClay has had excellent reviews and I’m giving it as Christmas gifts, but I haven’t read it yet.
Land of Hope: An Invitation to the Great American Story
Another I like is John Steele Gordon’s
An Empire of Wealth:
The Epic History of American Economic Power
Essential:
The Black Book of Communism
Crimes, Terror, Repression
Communism
A History
By Richard Pipes
The Black Book is huge, over 700 pages, Richard Pipes book is small at 160 pages, but dense. Read both.
It’s clearly time to know a lot more about China than we do. The unknown story of:
MAO
by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday
Two from Bernard Lewis:
The Middle East:
A Brief History of the Last 2000 Years
What Went Wrong
The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East
And I like this:
Voices of 1776
The Story of the American Revolution in the Words
of Those Who Were There
by Richard Wheeler
And let me add:
1491
New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
By Charles C. Mann
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, China, Domestic Policy, Free Markets, Free Speech, Freedom, History, Politics, Regulation, Russia, The United States | Tags: Democrats, Name-Calling, Power Grabs and Control
Daniel Henninger had a splendid column in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. “Democrat’s assaults on the Trump presidency roll in like the ocean’s tides. But the one that landed on the beach today that deserves to go under the microscope. It is the notion that Donald Trump is a dictator.”
He rolls on through Attorney General William Barr’s refusal to appear before the committee after being slandered and ridiculed the day before, noting the other Democrats who piled on. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) raged that “If a Democratic President acted this way. Republicans would be calling him or her a dictator. Henninger added that this is progress. We’ve moved on from Trump-is-Hitler to mere dictator, which is discussable.
Nadler added that what is at stake in the standoff between President Trump and the Democrats is “the very system of government of the United States is “the very system of government of the United States, the system of limited power…”
Henninger asked “When in the past 20 years has a national Democrat invoked “limited power”?”
He added:
Of late, the Democratic left has adopted a familiar post election strategy: Taint elections they lose, and then delegitimize the opposition in the public’s mind to win the next election. …
America’s political left is impatient for power. It is frustrated it hasn’t been able to achieve its agenda on issues like health-care nationalization or climate policy through the normal legislative process, so it is trying to force it—by redesigning the political system to give itself power long enough to impose what it wants. In short, by dictating policy change.
To get there, the left is pushing to abolish the Electoral College and expand the Supreme Court. As power grabs go, these are pretty naked.
That’s quite clearly what today’s Democrats are up to. They would prefer to be running the country, saving us all from the horrors of climate change to secure their perpetual control. Pay attention to China’s electronic control of the Chinese people, and treatment of dissidents. The Uighurs, a Moslem segment of the Chinese people, are essentially in a concentration camp to be re-educated. Putin has
adopted the Chinese system of computerized facial recognition, which he is putting into force in Moscow. The Russians are apparently to be monitored as the Chinese people are. Total control would seem to be not far behind. Live correctly and behave properly, and the government will allow you to use the government facilities like trains and planes, and perhaps even travel. I suppose such control is so enticing for dictator types that it would be hard to resist. It is up to Americans to be alert to what is going on around the world, and what the implications are for our freedom.
I natter a lot about human nature, and trying to understand that which is just human nature and not subject to being “fixed.”. We are a highly imperfect species, and many cannot resist the attempt to grab for more power and control. Bureaucracy is an enemy, not our friend.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economy, Foreign Policy, History, Humor, National Security, Politics, Russia, The United States | Tags: Bill Whittle, Mission Accomplished, The Mueller Investigation
I always enjoy Bill Whittle’s take on events. I’m not at all sure that we have completely digested the long, long Mueller investigation. Attorney General Barr says he will probably have the documents delivered to Congress in mid-April. Congress wants “everything,’ but much will be redacted as required by law. (Grand Jury stuff and some intelligence things). Democrats remain positive that Trump is really guilty, and someone’s trying to cheat them out of their deserved victory.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Communism, Economy, Russia, The United States, Venezuela
Last Saturday, two Russian air force planes arrived in Venezuela, outside Caracas, believed to be carrying nearly 100 Russian special forces and cybersecurity personnel. That appears to have escalated the political crisis in the country.
Russia and China have backed President Nicolas Maduro, along with Cuba. Communists stick together.
President Donald Trump called on Russia to pull its troops from Venezuela and said that “all options” were open to make that happen. Other Western countries support newly elected opposition leader Juan Guaido. In January, Guido invoked the Venezuelan constitution to assume Venezuela’s interim presidency, as according to the constitution, Maduro’s 2018 election was illegitimate.
“Russia has to get out,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, where he met with Guaido’s wife, Fabiana Rosales.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economy, Energy, Environment, Europe, Russia, The United States | Tags: Bringing Down a President, Looking for Collusion, Russian Interference
Ever since Donald Trump won the election, Democrats have been sure that he was elected because somehow the Russians interfered with the election and colluded with Trump to defeat Hillary Clinton who was destined to win the election and be a feather in the Democrat caps as the first woman president in America. They had just had the first black president, and envisioned a long string of firsts.
Many Democrats have been unable to put that story aside as a lost cause, and remain sure that they were nefariously betrayed by the horrible Donald Trump. And the deplorable Trump has kept rubbing it in with almost daily triumphs in a booming economy, full employment, rising wages, growing manufacturing and has the gall to brag about becoming the world’s greatest producer of oil and gas, and even got us out of the Paris Climate Accords to save the earth from the horrors of climate change. Clearly this miscreant had to be punished, driven out, impeached for his wrongdoing.
To that end Jerrold Nadler has embarked on a vast fishing expedition sending out letters demanding that President Trump’s children, and anyone who has ever worked for him, associated with him, or met him be prepared to be grilled by Congress, be ready to answer intrusive and improper questions, and be prepared to just try to avoid being charged with lying to Congress. The Mueller investigation may not have found evidence of high crimes, but three Democrat committee chairmen are determined to find not evidence of collusion, but evidence that there actually were any high crimes at all, which is so far, missing.
But to get back to the original question of Russian interference in our policies, yes they did. They have interfered, or tried to, ever since the Cold War. Do you remember the Cuban missile crisis? During the Obama administration they funneled money to U.S. environmental groups to hamper domestic efforts to expand oil and gas production, and expand natural gas exports. Russia wanted to encourage European dependence on Russian natural gas. Their efforts were ignored by liberal mass media, probably because the press dislikes fossil fuels, and wouldn’t write about anything that might help the hated Trump. In the last election they added messages on Facebook, and other social media but there is no evidence that anything was successful.
Many of these efforts were detailed in a 2018 House Science Committee report, one portion of which states, “the Kremlin manipulated various groups in an attempt to carry out its geopolitical agenda, particularly with respect to domestic energy policy.”
You might find this piece by Dr.William Lippincott, retired environment scientist, who wrote “I can’t believe I’m still writing about climate change. I’d have stopped long ago were it not for persistent calls to blow up the U.S. economy in order to save the planet.”– of interest. It’s a good piece.
Filed under: Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economics, Education, Free Speech, Global Warming, History, Humor, Intelligence, Junk Science, Law, Media Bias, Politics, Progressivism, Russia, Socialism, The United States | Tags: Cause and Effect, The Stories Behind the News, Under Stories
There are some “under-stories” in the news that are being ignored. The big event of the day, drowning out President Trump’s meeting with President Kim of North Korea was the appearance of Michael Cohen before Congress. His appearance was a bit odd, as he is a convicted liar heading for 3 years in prison for, among other lies, lying to Congress.
That would seem to be a good reason why he would not be so honored. However, with the Democrats winning the House in the mid-term election, Adam Schiff succeeded to chairing the committee, and Congressman Schiff has been obvious in his anxiety to get Cohen’s testimony. Schiff is certain that the very next witness will provide the key to impeaching Trump at once.
Like many hearings that are filmed for the public, the new, very young congresswomen wanted to show off a bit. It was embarrassing! They took the occasion to demonstrate their anxiety to find the last and best bit that could be found to bring down this president who was off in Korea trying to find some way to ease the tensions and the threat of a nuclear nation.
Another under-story is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. I think her rise is pretty much the Republicans doing. She first appeared when she defeated the long-time representative for the district to everyone’s surprise. But she is of Puerto Rican heritage in a district that is reportedly largely Puerto Rican.
When she appeared in public, Conservatives were fascinated with what she was saying because they found it so, um, ill-informed. She supposedly had a degree in economics and seemed totally unfamiliar with the subject. The more she talked, the more Republicans talked about what she was saying. The more they talked, the more media attention she got. The Media responds to public attention, because they want public attention as well. So there you go. She’s all the Republicans fault. So what do we do now?
Filed under: Afghanistan, Asia, China, Democrat Corruption, Economics, Election 2016, Europe, European Union, Foreign Policy, Free Markets, Freedom, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Latin America, Media Bias, Mexico, Politics, Russia, Socialism, Syria, The Constitution, Venezuela, Vietnam | Tags: President Donld Trump, Pretty Darn Good, The State of the Union
Oh excellent, excellent and most excellent. President Trump gave his best speech yet. Democrats were all prepared to go on and on about his lying and bragging. Not going to work. He explained his accomplishments for the country, why they needed to be done, and how they are working. He explained his hopes for the country and for the world, and asked for their help in getting it done.
I saw Nancy Pelosi all in white, but it took a while to realize that all the Democrat women were in white, symbolizing something or other. I apparently missed the explanation. I thought they were imitating Cuba’s Women in White, with their usual lack of comprehension of Communism, but I understand that they were thinking of themselves as “suffragettes” who nobody remembers and have nothing to do with white clothes as far as I can remember. I’m female, but definitely not a feminist, and find them embarrassing. They seemed to have lot of trouble figuring out when to stand and when to sit, when to smile and when to scowl. Speaker Pelosi seemed to have big chunk of lemon in her cheek which she bit down on in the more stressful moments. (The cheering, the shouts of USA, USA!)
Chuck Schumer said that Stacey Abrams was a wonderful speaker, so I was interested but completely unfamiliar with her. I guess nobody checked on what she was going to say. Yea Unions! Boo depriving the people of their votes? Huh? Nice family stories, but utterly ill-informed about what is happening in the United States, except for Democrat propaganda. Little children in cages and all that. Seems like a nice lady. She tried to make a big deal out of the government shutdown, which was an inconvenience, but ruined no one’s life. I’m afraid that she was chosen as the first African-American woman to give the response to a State of the Union speech. Democrats think like that. The actuality of what is said isn’t that important.
Really funny to listen to the media’s comments pre-speech. Senator Schumer’s anticipatory comments were an absolute disgrace. He should be ashamed. There is really no place for that. Schumer has been in Congress since 1981. The venom of the Left knows no bounds.
Filed under: Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economy, Freedom, Immigration, Intelligence, Law, Media Bias, National Security, Politics, Russia, The United States | Tags: An Obsession With Russia, Feelings not Policy, Tucker Carlson Tonight
I suspect most of us have marveled at the strange and vicious Leftist reaction to the election of President Trump. Yes, of course they all believed that Hillary would be elected, and they would remain in power. Barack Obama had been the first black president, which was a great feather in their caps, and Hillary would be the first woman president. It has seemed that they are not all that much interested in policy, as they are interested in the “first black president” part, which absolves them of any notion of racial prejudice now or in the past, and proves, once again, that they are good people.
Put baldly like that, it seems remarkably nutty, but a striking number of serious thinkers believe that Leftist politics is all about feelings. (Think about the outcry about “children in cages”and “little children ripped from the arms of their mothers”, the “sanctuary cities” movement). It is not about good policy, but about what makes them feel good. They actually seem uninterested in policy.
Tucker Carlson delivered a monologue on the cost of the “Russia fixation.” “So there’s been a cost to our Russia fixation, a massive one,” Carlson said. “Years later we’ll look back and wonder what happened. How did everyone in America with an Ivy League education go insane in a single year? Was there some kind of mass poisoning? Ergotism? Historians will sort it out.”
“For now, all we know that the people in charge have lost it,” Carlson declared. “Listen to them explain the intricacies of the Russia conspiracy. They’re mesmerized. It’s a tale so complex and riddled with internal contradictions, it sounds like eastern religion. Only they really understand it. To them, Russia is the touchstone. It’s the comprehensive theory of everything.”
We’ve called it “Trump Derangement Syndrome” but the Democrats have long reacted badly to losing an election, or an argument. They have been fixated on the Russian investigation, and the chance of impeaching Trump over it. Flynn was the first target of the Mueller investigation. The hunt for Russian spies on our soil has metastasized – there are now 17 separate Russia investigations being conducted by the Justice Department, not counting 4 Congressional inquiries.The Russians, we have learned, spent a total of $4,700 on Google ads during the presidential campaign. That doesn’t buy much.
Tucker Carlson points out what happened last night on cable news, on MSNBC, the most serious news program that NBC offers on cable. The two people concerned are a man named Malcolm Nance, who identifies himself as a 35-year veteran of counter-intelligence work,(?) and his most recent book which was heavily promoted by MSNBC, is The Plot to Hack America. The other man is Brian Williams, the anchor of the NBC Nightly News. Williams is highly respected in the news business. He opens the segment by explaining that Russian “disinformation teams” have been working to divide America and convince the population that James Comey and Robert Mueller might have political agendas.
This is all completely insane. The John Birch Society? The KKK? The Christian Right (those religious people are dangerous), The Party of conspiracy theories? Steve Bannon? David Duke? Far-right conspiracy theories to suppress the African American vote? So much for Brian Williams being a respected newsman. The Left hauls these tiresome themes out of their emergency file for accusing Republicans when other accusations fail.
You’ve heard Hillary and her “basket of deplorables” and assumption that the people in the wasteland between the more intelligent coastal cities are obviously a bunch of uneducated dummies. So anyone who disagrees with them is a tool of a foreign power? You probably remember times in the past when they’ve hauled out theories of encampments of dangerous far-right, armed gun nuts ready to break out of the woods of Northern Idaho or Northern Louisiana to…..what? The KKK always seems to be lurking, but they seem remarkably few in number.
The Left expects to be in charge. They choose their candidates by race, skin color, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, not by the value of their ideas. Hillary was interesting as the first woman president, but when she lost, they lost interest. Kamala Harris has the quality of not only being part black, but being a woman as well. Elizabeth Warren was interesting as a woman who was part Native American, but after the DNA test, Democrats lost interest. And then there’s “Beto” O’Rourke. He has something of an all-American boy look, like John Kennedy, and a nice smile, but if he has any ideas, I haven’t heard what they might be.
We should be looking for ideas and policy, what’s good for the country, but what they’re interested in is looks and personality, not qualifications. Do read the whole thing and watch the short video, and puzzle over the obsession with Russia.
Filed under: Capitalism, Domestic Policy, Economics, Economy, Election 2016, Energy, Foreign Policy, Free Markets, Freedom, Middle East, National Security, Politics, Russia, Science/Technology, The Constitution, The United States | Tags: Freedom & Fracking, Over Saudi Arabia & Russia, World's Top Oil Producer
Do most people recognize that the United States has recently become the world’s largest oil producer? We have passed both Saudi Arabia and Russia as U.S. crude production has surged 20% in a year – and nearly tripled in the past decade. For nearly sixty years, OPEC has dominated the world’s oil markets by setting production quotas among its 15 members. In 2014, OPEC flooded the market with oil to try to break U.S. drillers who were pouring cash into innovation while they were already in debt. Seems like we knew what we were doing.
As oil prices fell below $40 a barrel in 2015 and 2016, many wildcatters folded or were absorbed by larger producers. The survivors became more efficient. They put technology to work, using drones with thermal imaging to detect any leaks along the line. Productivity went up. Over just the last five years, production per rig has more than tripled in the Permian basin and actually quadrupled in North Dakota’s Bakken Shale. The Bakken rig count has fallen by 70% and yet output has increased by a third.
In late 2015, the Republican Congress expanded the market for shale oil by lifting the export ban on crude oil in exchange for Obama’s demand to extend renewable energy tax credits.The biggest constraints on U.S. production have been distribution problems, but three new pipelines are expected to come online next year, capable of delivering 2 million barrels to the gulf coast and in 2020 two more pipelines will be completed.
The big news is that the U.S. Geological survey reported recently that the Permian’s Delaware basin holds more than twice as much oil and 18 times as much natural gas as the Midland region.
Barack Obama is claiming credit for the shale boom. (Why are we not surprised?) The Tax reform last year opened Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the Interior Department scaled back unneeded protections for the sage grouse, which allows drilling on nine million acres in oil-rich states. Last month at Rice University, Obama said “You know that whole suddenly America’s like the biggest oil producer . . . that was me, people.” It must be hard to see the hated Trump administration get credit for expediting pipeline and terminal permitting and opening new federal land to drilling, but there you go. Can’t have it both ways.
OPEC countries and our own politicians should take notice that America’s new energy prosperity comes from industry innovation, the importance of private property, and the wonders of the free market. We call it Free-Market Capitalism.
Confused by all the talk about “Fracking”? Here’s an excellent history and explanation from the oil industry.
American Elephants 