tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7447855484008732942024-03-06T19:45:55.560-08:00In The Land Of Fruits And NutsWill the last patriot to leave California please turn out the lights...Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger589125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744785548400873294.post-23282700313169838602022-11-14T20:53:00.002-08:002022-11-14T20:53:40.528-08:00And as Kari Lake in the next state starts losing her lead, as votes are "found"<div>This happens in every close election, doesn't it? The count is delayed, new votes of dubious origin are "found", and the Left candidate wins! 💀</div><div><br /></div>Remember that Election Day is close to Christmas!<br /><br /><div>"Cheating Democrats, Cheating Democrats, <br />Right down Democrat Lane<br />Provisional ballots, and non-citizens<br />Pullin' on the reins!<br />Media ringin', Media singin' <br />"All is merry and bright" <br />Recount ballots and say your prayers <br />'Cause Democrats come tonight! <br /><br />"Cheating Democrats, Cheating Democrats, <br />Right down Democrat Lane <br />They've got boxes that's filled with new votes <br />Dead people rise again!<br />Hear them bleat that "All votes count", <br />Oh what a dubious sight <br />Don't go to bed and cover your head <br />'Cause Democrats come tonight! <br /><br />Cheating Democrats, Cheating Democrats, <br />Right down Democrat Lane <br />Claiming that "the disenfranchised poor" <br />Need no IDs again!<br />Democrats "know" that they're all citizens <br />That makes everything right <br />So don't report those ballot results <br />'Cause Democrats come tonight! <br /><br />Cheating Democrats, Cheating Democrats, <br />Right down Democrat Lane <br />They come around when the media rings out <br />That it's a Democrat lead again! <br />Nanny state will come to all <br />If you just follow the light <br />So Don't give thanks to the Lord above <br />'Cause Democrats come tonight!" <br /><br />Apologies to the late Gene Autry.<br style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, geneva, lucida, "lucida grande", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;" /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744785548400873294.post-77584795110348692012022-09-10T02:26:00.002-07:002022-09-10T02:30:19.235-07:00Greg Gutfeld nails it<p> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyzqBzxlpjs">Gutfeld: The killer was a Democrat - YouTube</a></p><p>17 minutes and 29 seconds of brutal, yet painfully funny, truth:</p><p>0:35 REPEAT machete and bear spray attacks by leftist "womyn" activist, not reported by media.</p><p>1:40 REPEAT gunman, thanks Liberals. Gun violence only matters when the proper people do it.</p><p>2:29 Investigative journalist, writing about corruption, stabbed to death by politician. Guess. That. Party! The lamestream media omitted it in all reporting. "They erased the party affiliation like it was a biological woman."</p><p>6:03 Jussie Smolett revisited.</p><p>6:45 "No Cash" Bail. Thanks Democrats!</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744785548400873294.post-41474402381877973032020-09-12T14:44:00.011-07:002020-09-12T14:55:23.163-07:00No, "Cuties" is not pedophilia. However...<p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihYJ8CoTFT_-3lsL168MMFxMEXd9rqRuFZhbSDlmUdVtyLJ2scnVvg5TxUByh6xwHRdxWGcLEO5bNc4D3fZW8TJQZEEb246TYQVHSwN8HBIXk6rcUjIg2QatYXOY6gAU7zXdOiFHhTc6w/s293/Cuties_poster.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihYJ8CoTFT_-3lsL168MMFxMEXd9rqRuFZhbSDlmUdVtyLJ2scnVvg5TxUByh6xwHRdxWGcLEO5bNc4D3fZW8TJQZEEb246TYQVHSwN8HBIXk6rcUjIg2QatYXOY6gAU7zXdOiFHhTc6w/s0/Cuties_poster.jpg" /></a></div><br /><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #334d5e; font-family: inherit;">OK, I watched </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuties" style="font-family: inherit;" target="_blank">the thing on NetFlix</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #334d5e; font-family: inherit;">. I have been pondering quitting NetFlix for a while now, because while they do have interesting documentaries and some interesting comedies and dramas, they also have Leftist propagandistic crap. But my fellow right-wing patriots are off in their criticisms of it, although there still is definitely something to criticize.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, is it pedophilia? No, quite the contrary in the way it is filmed; however, the message is still disturbing, because it reflects how the trashiest elements of ghetto culture are popular and even celebrated, and not enough emphasis upon how destructive that can be.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">(a few spoiler alerts ahead, but I will try to avoid giving it all away)</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">The film is French, with English subtitles. It is about a Senegalese-French immigrant girl who gets involved with and wants to fit in with classmates who want to enter a dance competition, classmates who also have adopted the worst aspects of ghetto culture. The setting is clearly the lower classes of France and she and one other girl of that group clearly live in a tenement or housing project.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Along the way, the protagonist experiences her first period, teasing by peers, and other grade school bordering on middle school sad experiences and traumas. And yes, that teasing involves innuendo and disturbing aspects of children trying to grow up way too fast. The director herself, </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma%C3%AFmouna_Doucour%C3%A9" style="font-family: inherit;" target="_blank">Maïmouna Doucouré</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, is Senegalese-French, and I suspect the film was meant to be autobiographical. Anyway, my fellow Americans, *never* think America has cornered the market for ghetto problems, (multi)cultural dysfunction, and immigration issues, the French clearly have these problems too.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Is the film pornographic? No, definitely not the way it was shot. Yes, their dance contest outfits and "twerking" or "freak" moves are disturbing, but it was not in any way cinematography filmed in such a way as to make that appealing. To the director's credit, you can see LOTS frowning parental faces when the girls do their terrible dance routine at the competition, and the protagonist does have a "OMG, what the hell am I doing here?" moment, after which she quits and runs off the stage. To quote a US Supreme Court justice, Potter Stewart, in an old Court case, </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobellis_v._Ohio" style="font-family: inherit;" target="_blank">Jocobvellis v. Ohio</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lovers_(1958_film)" style="font-family: inherit;" target="_blank">which was also about alleged pornography</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">, "</span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it" style="font-family: inherit;" target="_blank">I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.</a><span style="font-family: inherit;">"</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">However, that such trashy culture is prevalent and pervasive in society today is disgusting to be sure, and THAT is what really creeps me out about the film. I suppose the director will use the "Hey, I'm just the messenger, not the message" defense, but I don't see an ending where rejection of trashy culture is emphasized. At the end of the film, the protagonist Amy, abandons both the traditional Senegalese wedding dress (her father's bigamy a sub-plot in the movie) and her sexy dancer's outfit, and, in normal pre-teen girl jeans and a t-shirt, her hair down, she goes out to play jump rope with a group of girls. Which is better, but a rejection of trashiness is *not emphasized enough* in my mind.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: inherit;">So, while the film is not as bad as it has been made out to be, the message is clearly *not good*.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744785548400873294.post-73916874410189978882020-08-25T22:13:00.003-07:002020-09-12T14:50:38.862-07:00Lessons for the GOP From ‘Mr. Republican’<p><a href="https://spectator.org/robert-taft-mr-republican/?fbclid=IwAR2RVrcYM-kISNPNNJh5-tcm3mRfAqEE4XFdx-2VBtdGBi3wMpaCTWxaIbI">A great American Spectator piece about Robert Taft</a>, by author Lee Edwards. <br /><br />He is perhaps forgotten today, but before Donald Trump, before Ronald Reagan, before Barry Goldwater, there was Robert Taft. All of whom took on an out-of-touch "Eastern Establishment", what today we call Republican Globalists. <br /><br />Indeed, the intra-party fights in the GOP truly are "deja vu all over again": Trump vs. the Bush dynasty, Reagan vs. Ford (and the beginning of the Bush dynasty), Goldwater vs. Rockefeller, Taft Vs. Dewey.<br /><br /></p><blockquote>Lessons for the GOP From ‘Mr. Republican’<br /><br />Bob Taft 2.0 is sorely needed, to stand up for liberty under law.<br /><br />Before there was Ronald Reagan, there was Barry Goldwater, and before there was Barry Goldwater, there was Sen. Robert A. Taft of Ohio. From 1938 until his unexpected death in 1953, Taft led the Republican resistance to liberal Democrats and their Big Government philosophy. During the 2020 Republican National Convention, the GOP should consider the lessons of Robert Taft’s legacy.<br /><br />Taft called himself a conservative, by which he meant someone “who knows and appreciates the importance of stability.” Echoing the 18th–century British parliamentarian Edmund Burke, he explained that “while I am willing and ready to consider changes, I want to be darned sure — darned sure — that they are really better than what we have.”<br /><br />He was a federalist who insisted that the role of the federal government be limited to that of “a keeper of the peace, a referee of controversies, and an adjustor of abuses; not as a regulator of the people, or their business and personal activities.” The guiding principle of a legislator should be whether a policy “increases or decreases the liberty of our people.”<br /><br />He looked to the Constitution as his North Star and agreed with the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal. He supported an “equality of opportunity” whereby all men and women can rise from poverty and obscurity (as his grandfather Alphonso did) according to their ability and ambition. He was a consistent supporter of civil rights, supporting anti-lynching laws and desegregation of the armed forces, opposing the KKK and state poll taxes. He approved the Supreme Court’s decision requiring states to furnish equal education to citizens of all classes.<br /><br />Taft insisted that any proposal for federal action must be judged by its effect on the liberty of the individual, the community, industry, and labor. “Such liberty,” he said, “cannot be sacrificed to any theoretical improvement from government control or government spending.” But he was not a radical libertarian; he accepted a limited welfare role for government. He sponsored modest federal aid to education, health, and housing with the condition that the administration of the programs be placed in the hands of state and local authorities, not the federal government.<br /><br />In the political summer of 1948, every poll reported that if President Harry Truman sought reelection, he would be defeated. The polls were very wrong. In the most unexpected outcome in modern presidential politics, Truman beat New York Gov. Thomas Dewey by more than two million popular votes and by 305 to 189 in the Electoral College.<br /><br />Conservatives hoped that the party had learned a crucial lesson: Do not nominate someone who waffles on the issues. Taft argued that the Republican Party could not survive unless it turned away from “the Deweys and the Eastern internationalists in general.” He was certain that “millions of his kind of Republican had not been voting for years in presidential elections” because the candidates were always Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Here was the argument for courting the Forgotten American, the Silent Majority, the Moral Majority, the Tea Party, and Midwest populists that would be advanced by Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, and Donald Trump in the decades ahead.<br /><br />Going into the 1952 national convention, Taft was the almost certain nominee with over 500 delegates pledged to him, with 604 needed to nominate. But he faced an immensely popular opponent — Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had led the Allies to victory in World War II. The delegates appreciated all that Sen. Taft, “Mr. Republican,” had done for the party, but every poll showed Eisenhower easily defeating any Democrat by a wide margin. Republicans loved Bob Taft, but they loved victory more. Ike was nominated on the first ballot.<br /><br />With Taft’s all-out help and a united Republican party, Ike defeated liberal Democrat Adlai Stevenson easily, gaining 55.4 percent of the popular vote and sweeping the Electoral College by 442-89. His long coattails helped produce Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. For the first time since 1930, Republicans controlled both the executive and legislative branches of government. It seemed that a moderate president and a conservative senator would forge a unique alliance for the good of their party and the country. Tragically, in just six short months, Robert Taft, the requisite link between the White House and Capitol Hill, was dead of cancer.<br /><br />But his principled approach to politics lives on. It’s preserved, for example, in John F. Kennedy’s best-selling work, Profiles in Courage, his popular study of eight consequential senators in American history, which is required reading in many high school history classes. Taft and his principles are the subject of an excellent study by the conservative historians Russell Kirk and James McClellan, who discuss his most significant accomplishments.<br /><br />Taft revived the GOP during the postwar period and restored an opposition when parliamentary government had fallen into decay throughout much of the world. He stood for liberty under law — “the liberties of all classes of citizens, in all circumstances.” He contended for “a humane economy,” in which the benefits of American industry would be extended to every citizen. He helped restore the balance between management and labor with the Taft–Hartley Act.<br /><br />In a Senate eulogy delivered after Taft’s passing, Kennedy nominated Taft for Man of the Year, remarking that like Churchill, his character and personality were so powerful that his influence would “continue to endure after death.” In Profiles in Courage, Kennedy praised Taft for his succinct definition of liberty: “When I say liberty, I mean liberty of the individual to think his own thoughts and live his own life.”<br /><br />That was the creed by which Sen. Taft lived, Kennedy said. More than that, Robert Taft sought to provide an atmosphere in America “in which others could do likewise.” Given the toxic atmosphere that now pervades our politics and our culture, the need for another Bob Taft grows more urgent with every passing day.</blockquote>Unfortunately, Robert Taft still got smeared by a toxic atmosphere in politics even then. For example, a rather mild statement cautioning against "victor's justice" in the Nuremburg Trials led to accusations of anti-Semitism, even though his strong support for the foundation of Israel was well known. Others took him to task for his previous isolationism and hesitancy about the USA taking on more a global role, although after Korea he changed there too.<p></p><div class="meta-bar" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #231f20; font-family: merriweather, serif; margin-bottom: 5px; margin-top: 5px; position: relative; text-align: center; width: 1150px;"><div class="author" style="box-sizing: border-box; float: left; font-family: freightmedium, serif; line-height: 16px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 10px;"><br /></div></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744785548400873294.post-72442471672961595402020-06-01T12:37:00.000-07:002020-06-01T12:37:04.423-07:005 months or so to Election Day 2020 - A prophecy <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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What will happen between now and then?<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Democrat Party Deep State, along with the "NeverTrump" GOPee quislings, are going to:</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">1) Inflame civil unrest</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">2) Stoke racial tension and violence</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">3) Commit mail-in and non-citizen ballot fraud</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">4) Increase technological censorship of patriots
</span><span style="font-family: , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">5) Extend the pandemic panic, when it is utterly unwaranted given the damage it will do to must of us
</span><span style="font-family: , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">6) Hurt economy with #5 above
</span><span style="font-family: , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">7) </span><span style="font-family: , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stage fake "White Supremacist" terror events
</span><span style="font-family: , , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">9) Weaponize their media further than they already have.</span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744785548400873294.post-76075079652579789522020-04-07T14:16:00.001-07:002020-06-01T14:42:52.790-07:00Before you vote for "higher education" funding....<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
....think again. You or your children will be made dumber by going to the University of California system unless you or they pursue a strictly STEM curriculum. Exhibit number - I lost count:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu2paLtZ-AKF3FadjOYkpnZ09QvVlS09wl-rDiNGuciNVGyJSK0NMpf40BVeBa_wh77u9JWgzoBcEvq6GKFkxWArhL-3Oi-f0XI-5gvjKEgldjzrl4lIb9hNW0dJkfwo9MG6m_q9zRCQU/s1600/Clipboard01.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="936" data-original-width="699" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu2paLtZ-AKF3FadjOYkpnZ09QvVlS09wl-rDiNGuciNVGyJSK0NMpf40BVeBa_wh77u9JWgzoBcEvq6GKFkxWArhL-3Oi-f0XI-5gvjKEgldjzrl4lIb9hNW0dJkfwo9MG6m_q9zRCQU/s640/Clipboard01.gif" width="477" /></a></div>
<br />
Because OF COURSE there would be a "Virtual Healing Circle". Like that would do any damn good to stop ZOOM hacking, if any actually even happened.<br />
<br />And this is on the MERCED campus, which is the smallest and among the most rural of the UC campuses, with the lowest percentage tenured faculty, in an area heretofore not left-wing in any sense of the word. In fact, back in Cold War days, the region had Castle Air Force Base.</div><div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
And yet, every other year in every other ballot initiative election there is some Proposition asking for more funding for the UC and CSU systems. If even a cent goes to nonsense "administrators" like these, vote NO.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744785548400873294.post-50175116411943420542020-02-25T15:11:00.001-08:002020-06-01T15:54:37.178-07:00More nonsense from The University of California<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
And again, this is from UC Merced ,the smallest, least radical, and least tenured of campuses. You or your children will be taught how misspell and how not to think critically at all:<br />
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<b><span style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">From:</span></b><span style="font-family: calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion <<a href="mailto:diversity@ucmerced.edu">diversity@ucmerced.edu</a>><br /><b>Sent:</b>
Wednesday, February 19, 2020 1:00 PM<br /><b>To:</b><br /><b>Subject:</b>
Help Us Celebrate 150 Years of Womxn in the UC</span><span style="color: #26282a; font-family: helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">
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<span style="font-size: 1pt;">A Message from the Office of Equity,
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<span style="font-size: 1pt;"><img border="0" id="_x0000_i1026" src="https://r20.rs6.net/on.jsp?ca=a18648c8-84ec-4070-b931-61b4bb72fcc3&a=1123346678410&c=ab690430-c06e-11e5-b88b-d4ae529a8250&ch=ac977210-c06e-11e5-b89b-d4ae529a8250" /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "book antiqua", serif;">Dear Campus
Community, </span><span style="color: #333333;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "book antiqua", serif;">The UC Regents passed
a memorial resolution on Oct. 3, 1870, “that young ladies be admitted into the
university on equal terms in all respects with young men.” A UC Berkeley
committee has been working to coordinate a yearlong celebration of 150th
anniversary of that resolution, and we have been invited to join
in. </span><span style="color: #333333;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "book antiqua", serif;">One of the central
aspects of this celebration is a UC-wide history project designed to examine the
history of womxn and diversity on the all the UC campuses and to disseminate
this history widely as part of a permanent archive. The project will feature the
contributions and lives of notable students, alumni, faculty, staff and friends
of the UC campuses.</span><span style="color: #333333;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "book antiqua", serif;">I would like to invite
you to submit names (photos and short bios are welcome, too) of notable womxn
associated with UC Merced, which will be considered for inclusion on
</span><span style="color: #333333;"><a href="https://gcc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fr20.rs6.net%2Ftn.jsp%3Ff%3D001NcTh3vD_KtuOdLN2ctA0ciEceRnYs1NEvd1Am5B8rjBZINGueO20N37SMTr89UKkpUIHSCJcgXjssox5a5FIPp70KSZqSAkz_bexCZoT9UN_QO3_4fzotlAalPUZyDr96WhatnmN14KuLyP-yr5wzQ%3D%3D%26c%3D4194CeWpGCPGw5x32dgLwPEHYwHBQAPKCuObR0ghxVKEemhB_tXI0A%3D%3D%26ch%3DeXdMtO_6M2Cfdp99BuIurMsXEB8EyxiXtvbafzqkreE9LDX2uxVsVQ%3D%3D&data=02%7C01%7Cnicholas.byram%40dhcs.ca.gov%7C26fa7e3fae9d414ec89908d7b58bdd83%7C265c2dcd2a6e43aab2e826421a8c8526%7C0%7C0%7C637177484664471681&sdata=JGsdiDMr3oGv0DKbOij2MfDgSB3A8dDn5PRyujOKtvw%3D&reserved=0" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0078c1; font-family: "book antiqua", serif;">the 150W
website</span></a></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "book antiqua", serif;">.</span><span style="color: #333333;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "book antiqua", serif;">For
example: </span><span style="color: #333333;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 30pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: symbol; font-size: 10pt;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "book antiqua", serif;">womxn who have made a
profound different at UC Merced;</span><span style="color: #333333;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 30pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: symbol; font-size: 10pt;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "book antiqua", serif;">institutional “firsts”
(e.g. first womxn Ph.D., first tenured womxn, first womxn dean, etc.);
or </span><span style="color: #333333;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 30pt; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: symbol; font-size: 10pt;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 7pt; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">
</span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "book antiqua", serif;">names of womxn (alumni
or past/current employees) who have significant national or international
accomplishments.</span><span style="color: #333333;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "book antiqua", serif;">We know it is not
possible to submit the names of all womxn associated with our campus, and thus I
encourage you to select a representative subset which illustrates the wide range
of womxn who have been a part of UC Merced.</span><span style="color: #333333;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "book antiqua", serif;">Please send the above
information to </span><span style="color: #333333;"><a href="mailto:diversity@ucmerced.edu" target="_blank"><span style="color: #0078c1; font-family: "book antiqua", serif;">diversity@ucmerced.edu</span></a></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "book antiqua", serif;"> by 5 p.m. Tuesday,
Feb. 25, for review by members of the 150W steering committee at
Berkeley.</span><span style="color: #333333;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "book antiqua", serif;">Thank you for helping
us ensure our celebration is inclusive.</span><span style="color: #333333;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "book antiqua", serif;">Dania
Matos</span><span style="color: #333333;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "book antiqua", serif;">Associate Chancellor
and Chief Diversity Officer</span><span style="color: #333333;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "book antiqua", serif;">Pronouns:
She/Her/Hers</span><span style="color: #333333;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I remember when the Leftist militant lesbians insisted upon calling themselves "womyn", but "womxn" is even stupider than that.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
And this kind of nonsense goes on in a followup email. I am sure no instructor there, let alone any student, would dare to call this nonsense out:</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: left;">From: Equity, Diversity and Inclusion <</span><a href="mailto:diversity@ucmerced.edu" style="text-align: left;">diversity@ucmerced.edu</a><span style="text-align: left;">></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: left;">Sent:
Tuesday, February 25, 2020 9:00 AM</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: left;">Subject: Comment Period for Policy: Gender
Recognition and Lived Name </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: left;">A Message From the Office of Equity,
Diversity and Inclusion </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: left;">Dear Campus
Community,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: left;">The University of California Office of the
President invites comments on a proposed Presidential Policy: Gender Recognition
and Lived Name. It is proposed that the policy be fully implemented by UC
campuses and locations by July 1, 2021, and it includes the following key
issues:</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: left;">The university must provide three equally recognized
gender options on university-issued documents and information systems — female,
male and nonbinary.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: left;">The university must provide an efficient process for
students and employees to retroactively amend their gender designations and
lived names on university-issued documents and in information systems.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: left;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: left;">The
legal name of university students, employees, alumni and affiliates, if
different than the individual’s lived name, must be kept confidential and must
not be published on documents or displayed in information systems that do not
require a person’s legal name.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: left;">The proposed policies are
posted on UC Merced’s Policies website. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: left;">Employees who want
to provide comments on the proposed revisions can submit them to the UC Merced
Policy Office by May 14, 2020, by emailing </span><a href="mailto:policy@ucmerced.edu" style="text-align: left;">policy@ucmerced.edu</a><span style="text-align: left;">. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: left;">Best regards,</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: left;">Dania
Matos</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Associate Chancellor and Chief Diversity Officer</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Pronouns:
She/Her/Hers</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
University of
California, Merced | 5200 N. Lake Road, Merced, CA 95343 </div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744785548400873294.post-36061545536101370902019-11-26T10:20:00.000-08:002020-06-01T10:33:58.333-07:00But Trump increased the national debt! Waaaah!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=384492">Originally on Ace of Spades blog</a>, but it so bears repeating. Especially since this Strange New Concern about the national debt was utterly unmentioned when the Obama Administration was unrolling each and every massive new government social(ist) spending program:<br />
<br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; margin-bottom: 0px; text-align: left;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Fake-conservative politicians and pundits have been unmasked in the Trump era, and now another scam perpetrated by the GOPe and Conservative Inc seems to have run its course – the “Budget Hawk” fraud is over. For much of the past 40 years, fiscally conservative “budget hawks” have ensured that no conservative priorities are ever tackled because everything is subordinate to “the budget crisis.” A crisis they never did anything about. The key to the scam was “political capital” – it had to be reserved for the big battle to reign in “entitlements.” GOP politicians would refuse to tackle issues such as securing the border, or exiting from climate agreements, or pressing our deadbeat NATO allies to pay their dues, because it would waster precious political capital. Even worse, the “fiscally conservative budget hawks” refused to even cut “minor” wasteful spending such as aid to foreign despots who hate the USA, or funding for public radio leeches who also hate the USA. The budget hawks told us cutting these dollars were just “drops in the ocean.”</blockquote>
<blockquote>
Ace wrote a great post about a dozen years ago explaining that the only way Americans would allow entitlements to be cut is if we eliminated every drop-in-the-ocean sacred spending cow first, so that people would realize that entitlements were the only thing left to cut. But our cowardly politicians also figured this out. Refusing to cut funding to PBS isn’t a bug – it’s a feature. They KNOW they will never have to cut entitlements, because it CANNOT happen if the small stuff isn’t cut first. And they won’t let you forget – cutting drop-in-the-ocean spending programs would waste that valuable political capital that must be reserved for the big budget battle. Even worse, the only time the budget hawks will oppose “drop in the ocean” spending is if it is for a conservative priority. They can find money to give to the PLO, but they oppose funding border security for fiscal reasons. Similarly with tax cuts – the budget hawks anguish about every lost dollar of tax revenue if taxes are cut, but they sure don’t mind tax dollars being steered to fund Planned Parenthood – dollars that could be cut to offset the tax cuts.</blockquote>
<blockquote>
Donald Trump may not be championing fiscal responsibility, but he is actively advancing the rest of the conservative agenda. There is a very long list of conservative agenda items that Trump has followed through on, most importantly border security, but so much more - exiting the climate accord, moving the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem, Keystone, tax cuts, regulatory reform, refugee screening, the travel ban, etc. None of this would happen with a President McRyanBushRomney, because they’d conserve their valuable political capital for the big budget battle that was never going to happen.</blockquote>
<blockquote>
Conservatives are sick of the budget hawk fraud so we elected someone who will at least advance the rest of our agenda if budget restraint isn’t going to happen. And not to belittle the deficit issue, but for 40 years I’ve been promised that apocalypse is imminent if I don’t keep electing GOP budget hawks. They did nothing and the apocalypse hasn’t happened. It’s a little like the imminent climate catastrophes that haven’t happened. Yes – governments can spend themselves broke (see Greece & Illinois) but conservatives have come to understand that “the deficit” is also an excuse for not fulfilling any other promises made to conservative voters.</blockquote>
</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744785548400873294.post-53973450975756406822019-10-04T09:35:00.003-07:002019-10-04T09:35:57.559-07:00The Televised Speech Donald Trump Should Make<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; font-size: 12.8px;">DJT needs to hold a televised address to the American People, and lay out the following, as an explanation of what Your President is doing, and to address the loose talk of "betraying the Country" being advanced by Congress:</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; font-size: 12.8px;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; font-size: 12.8px;">1. That the Russia investigation was an intentional hoax by Hilliary Clinton, Barack Obama, and the Democrat Party, that wasted millions of dollars of taxpayer money, and pitted American against American in a cynical attempt to overturn a lawful election.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br style="font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; font-size: 12.8px;">2. That the American Republic requires that all parties to the process accept the outcome of duly held elections. Which did not occur post 2016, evidenced by the Russia-collusion hoax. As such, those who pushed the fake collusion narrative are in fact threatening the foundations of our Republic.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br style="font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; font-size: 12.8px;">3. Therefore, it is of the highest importance for the US Government, with full force of the Executive and the Attorney General, get to the bottom of the origins of the Russia hoax, including obtaining information from an investigation that was already undertaken on this by Ukraine prior to any US request.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; font-size: 12.8px;">4. That to this purpose the President has asked, and will continue to ask, for assistance of Ukraine, for all information it has as to any hacking of US servers, and origins of the "Russia collusion" hoax.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; font-size: 12.8px;">5. This is all the more so as the DNC never even let the allegedly hacked server be investigated by the FBI, role of Crowdstrike, and that Donna Brazile has admittedly destroyed the server. So having destroyed the direct evidence, we must now rely on other sources. But this was their doing.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; font-size: 12.8px;">6. It is dishonest to characterize requests for appropriate information from any/all governments, so the US can get to the bottom of actual crimes, including as to who hacked what, or if it was covered up, as "impeachable" or "betraying the US"</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; font-size: 12.8px;">7. If there were US officials such as former VP Biden engaging in selling his office and pressuring Ukraine on behalf of his son, it is also in the interests of the US to know this, and to be sure this is punished so that US diplomacy can be trusted abroad.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; font-size: 12.8px;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; font-size: 12.8px;">8. Anyone claiming that investigating what appear to be actual crimes is "impeachable" is simply trying to deflect and obstruct justice, and can go pound san</span></span><span style="background-color: #eeeeee; font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; font-size: 12.8px;">d.</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744785548400873294.post-62898443983142707992018-11-06T15:11:00.000-08:002018-10-31T09:06:46.785-07:00Election Guide, November 2018 edition<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
As I stated back in June 2018, I wonder if I should bother, given the four recently
changed aspects of voting I mentioned last time around for the June primary, to
wit:<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1. The “Top Two Open
Primary”, or legally the Nonpartisan Blanket Primary, which means that the top
two contenders face off against each other in the General Election of November,
regardless of Party.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2. Mass voting by
mail, with the potential for outright fraud, with “late discovery” manufactured
and mailed in ballots and everything else,<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
3. A moribund
California Republican Party, which could not get to be the #2 primary winner in
all too many races, and <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
4. For State ballot
Propositions, the full and complete “TEXT OF PROPOSED LAW” is no longer there
in the Official Voter Information Guide.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But civic duty is still civic duty! So on I go…..<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
YOUR CONGRESS(WO)MAN, STATE ASSEMBLY, STATE SENATOR, OR EVEN
BOARD OF EQUALIZATION (EXCISE TAX) MEMBER:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
This image says it all:<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsW_zn-oxSrPvYuyfyvASbMA50NLVjSjb_PatK2bD_veliegp9TZmopBaAXf7JsNRxlTDwdSc0IbJ6qzxbkoae_f4ahQDA9-7jWT4Kz_g89sR-cK6j7f37UmgfbFsrABC1YLImyNkJBO0/s1600/voting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="672" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsW_zn-oxSrPvYuyfyvASbMA50NLVjSjb_PatK2bD_veliegp9TZmopBaAXf7JsNRxlTDwdSc0IbJ6qzxbkoae_f4ahQDA9-7jWT4Kz_g89sR-cK6j7f37UmgfbFsrABC1YLImyNkJBO0/s1600/voting.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
Now you are probably thinking, “But Curmudgeon, here you are
just telling us to Vote 100% Republican or Die, and all of the Democrats
are now Commiecrats, and yadda yadda yadda…”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Well, <b>in California that really is the case and the choices
really are that stark</b>. In California, the “Blue Dog”, “Boll Weevil”, or “Joe Six-pack”
moderate Democrats, that might exist in other Midwestern, Southern or Eastern
states, are *extinct*.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Even if you think “Make America Great Again” is a trite and
corny slogan, what is their response to it? Either “America Was Never Great”,
or worse “Make California Mexico Again”. I am not kidding. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Is the Republican Party’s new flamboyant standard bearer,
Donald Trump, uncouth? Sure, but I really don’t care, because that bar was
already lowered two decades ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And for
once, a Republican confronted by a media slanted against him *fights back*. As
Abe Lincoln said of the loutish Hiram Ulysses Grant, “I can’t spare that man—he
fights!” <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I prefer Uncouth Patriots to false Polite Traitors. I take
that back-- they NOT even polite Traitors anymore—witness the actual
“AntiF(irst)A(mendment)” Mob Violence many of them have been encouraging and
stirring up, from foaming at the mouth Maxine Waters to smarmy Charles Schumer. A Republican Congress
candidate in the East Bay area was actually physically attacked and beaten up.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
GOVERNOR: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John Cox,
or Perdition. The choice is that stark. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
His sadly favored by the polls opponent, Gavin Newsom, first
as mayor of San Francisco and then as Lieutenant Governor, epitomizes all that
is wrong and incoherent with California politics. He presided over a city that
in the name of ecology bans plastic straws, yet neglects the ecology of basic
sanitation, to the point where many city blocks *smell of human poop* from the
defecation of homeless people. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am not joking—try driving to an event or shopping in Union
Square, looking for parking in the nearby Tenderloin District, and walking back
to Union Square with block after block of this wafting odor, watching your step
along the way. Or ride the mass transit into Downtown San Francisco, come up
from the Market Street BART or MUNI subway routes, and smell it and watch your
step for block after block. Sometimes you will even see people in the act of
pooping and peeing. <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-snapcrap-20181008-story.html">Someone even created a computer phone application to report the poop, “SnapCrap”</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
And the solution to impoverished homeless people who cannot afford
a place to sleep in that city? Not rounding up and incarceration of any of the poopers,
nope, not that. As Lieutenant Governor,
Gavin Newsom offers “Sanctuary” (Sic) to more impoverished and uneducated
people, who are not citizens nor legal aliens, making the housing crunch all
the more severe. All. For. Votes.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Originally, in the June Primary, I had preferred Travis
Allen over John Cox, and I feared that John Cox was another wealthy dilettante
from another state who has not seen how legislation works its way through “the
Bill Mill” (or often does not). However, John Cox is hammering hard upon the
real issues, and Travis Allen is earnestly and loyally stumping for Mr. Cox. I
am pleased with this Republican Team Spirit, no matter how uphill the fight.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ed
Hernandez, Older and lesser of the two Evils<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Between DEM Party Stalinist apparatchik Eleni Kounalakis, and
DEM Party Trotskyite Ed Hernandez, it is a matter of which one is less
nauseous. Like Gavin Newsom, BOTH epitomize all that is wrong and incoherent
with California politics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However,
consider their ages. With Leftists, Youth (or the lack of it) matters. Eleni
Kounalakis is 51, and with her war chest and the nod of the Party bosses, she could
well entrench herself politically for years to come. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Ed Hernandez is 61 and ten
years older, has much less Party and money backing, and he might actually rub
the wrong way all of the special interests that have made their Faustian
bargains with the ruling Demunist Party. Like the people who supported the geriatric
dissenter Bernie Sanders for President over the entrenched and younger Party
apparatchik Hillary Clinton, I say that if you must vote for one of the two, vote
for Hernandez instead.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
SECRETARY OF STATE: Mark Meuser.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
An actual election law attorney will be very helpful here,
and he is one.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
CONTROLLER:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Konstantinos Roditis<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
TREASURER:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Greg
Conlon<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Greg_Conlon">Greg Conlon has tried for this office before</a>, and lost
before, to John Chiang in 2014 and to Phil Angelides in 2002 before that. He
has also tried for the US Senate, the State Senate, and the State Assembly. A
“happy warrior”, who gets back up when he is knocked down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let’s give him one last hurrah. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
ATTORNEY GENERAL:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Steven
C. Bailey<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
INSURANCE COMMISSIONER: Steve Poizner <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Another veteran of the California Political Psychic Wars,
like Greg Conlon for Treasurer above.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
U.S. SENATOR:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dianne
Feinstein, although I know it’s hard to stomach. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said, “Stick to the
Devil you know….””—Rudyard Kipling<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Like the Lieutenant Governor contest above, it is hard to be
happy with either DEM Party Stalinist apparatchik Dianne Feinstein, or DEM
Party Trotskyite <span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Kevin DeLeon. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">Moreover, it is
VERY tempting to punish Dianne Feinstein for her disgusting stunt with respect
to Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh’s hearing was made into even more
of a Kangaroo Court and even more of an accusation by false hearsay than the
hearing for Clarence Thomas was, and I did not think that was possible. False
and utterly bogus accusations not just going back to younger adult times, but
to adolescent minor times. I am waiting for the Demunists to try to destroy a
judge based upon alleged grade school bratty behavior next.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;">However, again
AGE is the decisive factor.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The “Very Old Guard” Dianne Feinstein is 85 years old. There
is even a chance, however unlikely, that a Governor John Cox could appoint her
successor when finally she steps down, or more likely, finally makes that trip
across the River Styx.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Meanwhile, her opponent<span lang="EN" style="mso-ansi-language: EN;"> Kevin DeLeon is only 51.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Better to have the Senator senile, no matter how revolting
her final actions have become.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT, YES OR NO REFERENDUM OR PLEBISCITE:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The principle here is:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Does the judge act as an Umpire or Referee in the Game of Politics, or
as a sleazy semi-permanent Player who can never be called out? With that
principle in mind:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Carol Corrigan:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>YES, keep
her.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Leondra R. Kruger:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>NO, dump her.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION: Marshall Tuck<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
His leading opponent, Tony K. Thurmond, is endorsed by Senator
Kamala Harris and all the teacher unions. I will leave it at that. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On a related note, Kamala Harris is a worse Senator than
even Barbara Boxer was, or Dianne Feinstein has become. At least the two old
witches won their election campaigns fair and square and did their homework
when pushing their agendas, however loathsome. Kamala Harris gained her first political
appointments, and then election campaign backing, by taking off her clothes and
spreading her legs and acting as a “sugar baby” mistress for DEM party “sugar
daddy” chieftains, most notably state Party Chairman Willie Brown. I am not
joking and I am not just writing that because I like to trash leftist Dems. She
literally *slept* her way to the top of the California political heap.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
NOVEMBER BALLOT PROPOSITIONS:<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Prop 1 - Unaffordable Housing Bonds: NO.</b> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Bonds, meaning DEBT, are only appropriate when an actual
capital intensive but long lasting public project (like a freeway, a dam, a
community center) is to be built. And there is a bit of that in this.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, government housing projects, where people live but
have no sense of community, have a wretched and unhappy track record. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-YtMwpY6Uc">As the old and sweetly sad reggae song went,</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-YtMwpY6Uc"> “I remember, when we used to sit, in a Government Yard {British and Jamaican speak for housing project}, in Trenchtown….No Woman, No {as in don’t} Cry….”</a><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
But most of this initiative isn’t even that. It is in large
part borrowing for tenant assistance programs, so they can better rent existing
housing stock. And the rest of you already trying to rent housing who don’t
qualify for those? You get to pay off the bonds and you get your rental market
bid up!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Prop 2 – Bonds for Homeless Shelters: NO. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
On
one level this *is* seductively tempting. Mentally ill Homeless pooping on the
streets? Why not build places with toilets for them to be placed where they can
defecate and maybe get the help that they need? And this is an initiative with bonds
funding actual construction capital projects.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, the money to pay off those bonds will come from an
existing tax which is currently used to fund mental health services for those very
same unfortunate people. This measure will take some money out of mental
health services and use it instead to pay off housing bonds. Result:
fewer mental health services.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Prop 3 – Bonds for Parks, AGAIN??? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>NO</b>, in fact hell NO.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
First, even if you like parkland watershed bonds like this, WE
JUST PASSED AN INITIATIVE JUST LIKE THIS ONE LAST JUNE. Are you telling me that
all those projects were already finished in a few months?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Second, nothing is more annoying than a proposition that
claims to have “water supply” provisions, that does not build a single dam to
store it. Acquiring more watershed park area is not truly increasing supply. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Third, the State cannot maintain the vast parkland area it
already has. It probably should be selling off the parks that hardly anyone
enjoys, or which have no known endangered species, and making them productive
ranches or something similar again.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fourth, Bonds, meaning DEBT, are only appropriate when an
actual capital intensive but long lasting project, like a Dam, HINT HINT, is to
be built. Borrowing for current maintenance of existing parks is folly. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Fifth, too many initiatives like this were approved in the
past, LIKE THE ONE LAST JUNE, and we are still paying those off. Vote NO. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Meanwhile, Governor Brown has already signed legislation aiming towards year-round
water restrictions of 55 gallons per person per day – about the per capita
water usage of Uganda – effective in two years, even if you’re bailing floodwaters
out of your living room one future winter day because the dams were not built
to trap and catch them.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Prop 4 – For the Children’s Sake Don’t: NO.</b> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
bond initiative, unlike other sham bond initiatives, is actually building new
public goods, so there is THAT in its favor. This will mean about $1.5 billion
in additional debt (about $260 per household in interest and principal) for
construction of children’s hospital facilities.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
However, there is an Elephant in the Room. How much of those
overcrowded children’s hospitals are due to illegal alien mothers making that
“anchor baby dash” to birth on American soil so they can definitely stay? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Prop 5 – Encouraging “empty nesters” to downsize: YES</b>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Proposition 13 capped property taxes at one percent of your home’s purchase
price, plus two percent per year. One problem: old people held on to bigger
homes they no longer needed in order to keep their lower property tax.
Prop. 60 partially improved this, allowing seniors (older than 55) to keep
their lower assessment if they moved into a smaller home. This measure
says they can keep it wherever they are moving, even if they move into one of
those “Mello-Roos” special property tax assessment areas which were established
as an end run around Proposition 13 of 1978. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Prop 6 – Stop Paying Through the Nozzle: YES</b>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If I saw lots of new road projects being built with the higher gasoline taxes
recently imposed (thinking of the proposition passed last June attempting to
restrict gas taxes to just road construction and maintenance), I could vote NO
here. But I don’t. I see a useless “high speed” (sic) choo-choo getting a new
lease on life. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And the existing taxes are only scheduled to soar ever
higher. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When fully phased in and
combined with previous taxes, you’ll be paying $2 per gallon in taxes before
you buy your first drop of gas. <a href="https://taxfoundation.org/state-gas-tax-rates-july-2018/">Californians already have the secondhighest state taxes per gallon for gas (only PA exceeding, and PA does not have environmental fuel blend costs on top of that)</a>, but we’re always at the bottom
in per capita spending for roads. That isn’t the fault of taxpayers for
not paying enough taxes.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Prop 7 – Let’s change “Daylight Savings Time”: YES.</b> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If you are tired of the utterly pointless “spring-ahead-fall-back” ritual, this
prop’s for you. Initially it was six months of spring forward and six
months of fall back, but lately it has been nearly eight months of spring
forward and just over four months of fall back, ostensibly to “save” more of
that precious daylight. This initiative would allow the legislature to adopt
daylight savings time in California year-round. And let’s just do that. I
would rather go to work in the dark than come home in it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Prop 8 – Price controls for Dialysis: NO. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This
is price control for dialysis – it purports to limit dialysis prices to 115
percent of costs. Dialysis prices – in fact, all health care prices – are
far too high. But does this initiative increase dialysis supply, or decrease
dialysis demand? No and no. It is the same Commiecrat Rent Control Mentality
(read on for Prop 10 below). This proposition assures that any new
investments in dialysis care won’t be made in California – leaving patients
with fewer options to get treatment. That’s why this measure, which
promises to help kidney patients, is opposed by the National Kidney Foundation.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Prop 9 – (Not forgetting it; the courts struck it off the
ballot).</b><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Prop 10 – Allowing Local Rent Control again: NO</b>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Demunist repertoire of terrible ideas rise again. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have not heard much of bad ideas like rent
control for over two decades. That is because back in 1995, when Republican
Pete Wilson was still Governor and enough Republicans could still win
legislative office, The Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act was passed, which
nullified local rent control initiatives and laws, on the grounds that cities
and counties that passed such laws were only dumping housing problems onto
adjacent cities and counties. Such laws can now only happen by state
legislature level action, effectively locking them into a Political Crypt. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What
this initiative does is open the locked political crypt again, remove the
wooden stakes, and allow Local Rent Control Vampires to once again rise. Keep
the wooden stakes firmly in place and the crypt locked.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I live in an area with Slavic immigrants. Among them, there
is an old Soviet-era saying, “What good is a free bus ticket in a city with no
buses?” The same is true of rent. Rent controls are very effective
at drying up the supply of rental housing in any community where they’re
imposed. Those currently renting do very well, but they hold on to their old
apartments and landlords stop building new ones. Presto: nothing to rent
– but at a very affordable price.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Prop 11 – Breaks for Ambulance workers: ??? </b> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The
argument for this is that California’s idiotic labor laws forbid ambulance
crews from responding to an accident during lunch and other breaks. However,
how enforced is this actually and how many emergency personnel actually do not
drop what they are doing if true tragedy strikes?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Prop 12 – Tiny Houses for Food: NO. </b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here’s
the latest from the “animals are people too” crowd. Back in 2008,
Californians foolishly passed an initiative forbidding caging livestock and
poultry in spaces smaller than their behavioral preferences, because, after
all, who wants a grumpy steak? Among other things, California egg
production dropped, prices surged 33 percent and it still sucks to be a
chicken. This makes matters worse by imposing square footage requirements
– think of it as a “Tiny House” mandate for your dinner, paid by you. Remember
that the same people pushing this want you to eat like you live under Pol Pot.</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744785548400873294.post-86121987976422905442018-10-31T13:37:00.002-07:002018-10-31T13:37:21.158-07:00Halloween pre-election day food for thought<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="background-color: white; border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(136, 136, 136); font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; margin-bottom: 15px; padding-bottom: 10px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://acecomments.mu.nu/?blog=86&post=377873#c29738656">From the Ace Of Spades blog earlier today</a>:</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(136, 136, 136); font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; margin-bottom: 15px; padding-bottom: 10px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://acecomments.mu.nu/?blog=86&post=377873#c29738656" style="color: #990000;">215</a> The Left is trying to incite the whole plot point of <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_III:_Season_of_the_Witch">Halloween III Season of the Witch</a></i>.</span><span style="font-weight: normal;">Posted by: <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/8k4zdgw9" rel="nofollow" style="color: #990000; text-decoration-line: none;">Anna Puma (HQCaR)</a> at October 31, 2018 03:51 PM (V9pqX)</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span><br />
<div style="background-color: white; border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(136, 136, 136); font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; margin-bottom: 15px; padding-bottom: 10px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(136, 136, 136); font-family: Georgia, "Century Gothic", tahoma, verdana; margin-bottom: 15px; padding-bottom: 10px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">Looking at their strategy of incite and smear, this really sums it up!</span></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744785548400873294.post-54240120150330565072018-06-18T21:07:00.002-07:002018-06-19T20:48:40.436-07:00The Howling About Separating Illegal Immigrants From Their Kids Is Just An Attack On Enforcing Immigration Laws<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://www.redstate.com/streiff/2018/06/18/howling-separating-illegal-immigrants-kids-just-attack-enforcing-immigration-laws/">Leftist liars are treasonous and dishonest. And so are so many so called "Conservatives" here</a>:</div>
<blockquote>
"The Trump administration is currently under attack by people from both sides of the political aisle for trying to actually administer federal law as written by Congress. The law, of course, is federal immigration law and the problem is that an alliance of administrations, Republican and Democrat, decided, for different reasons, that ignoring illegal immigration, or making a show of enforcing it for us rubes who are concerned about it, was preferable in every way to actually enforcing the law of the land. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
Unfortunately, the Trump administration seems set on carrying out President Trump’s campaign promises and that is causing angst everywhere. And predictable hyperbole.<br />This is, as I see it, the situation. It really isn’t complicated. It is a very basic exercise is what in military operations is known as “branches and sequels.” (Keep in mind that persons following the law and presenting themselves at border crossing points and declaring they are seeking asylum are not separated from their children. This is solely about illegal immigrants.) Actions take place that lead to either alternative steps or next steps.</blockquote>
<blockquote>
When people cross and they are apprehended, what do you do? Do you send them back across the border, if they are Mexican, and let them try again at some other place? If they are other than Mexican (OTM), do you detain them or do you cite them an let them go? Or do you, as has been our policy since April 18, detain all crossers, charge them with a misdemeanor offense, get a guilty plea, and deport them?</blockquote>
<blockquote>
If you are asking why anyone would bother showing up for a hearing that will result in their deportation rather than simply disappearing, then you have just identified the key reason why we are unable to control illegal immigration.</blockquote>
<blockquote>
If you want to detain illegals then you have to decide what to do with them. Unaccompanied adults isn’t a problem. Unaccompanied children, like those who swamped the border during the last couple of years of the Obama administration, really aren’t a problem either. The problem is minors accompanied by adults, who may or may not be related to them, which are classified as “families.”</blockquote>
<blockquote>
When a “family” is apprehended crossing illegally you have a whole new range of problems. The adults are going to be charged and processed and deported. What do you do with the children while this happens? You have three options. You can parole the children to relatives already residing in the US legally. This brings with it another array of issues. Before the government can do that, it has to do at least a cursory background check on the “relatives” to ensure they are related to the children and that the home is suitable. So you still have the “what do we do with them now?” problem. You could, in theory, establish “family” detention centers. This, of course, brings its own difficulties. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
We know a non-trivial number of the adult members of these family groups aren’t actually related to the children, they are smugglers. Statistically, a certain number of the adults will be criminals. How do you run a co-ed (“mothers” and “fathers” will be detained here) facility with children and protect the vulnerable from being assaulted, sexually or otherwise? What about those cases, which exist, of children being brought across in sex trafficking operations? Do you want to house them with their captor?</blockquote>
<blockquote>
This leads us to the obvious solution in which the paramount concern is the safety of the child. Your options are either a pre-certified foster care facility or a more industrial scale mass detention facility. In both cases, “families are ripped apart.”</blockquote>
<blockquote>
At one time, we conservatives mocked liberals for trying to make policy based on feelings. And yet, in this case, that is exactly what is happening. If you read Laura Bush’s op-ed today, it is a triumph of feelings over reality. At no point in the op-ed does Mrs. Bush pose a solution..other than returning to the status quo ante where crossing into the US with children was a get-out-of-jail-free card if you were apprehended. What the Trump administration is doing is correct. If Congress doesn’t like the optics, Congress should act. We should not make people who drag their kids across the border into martyrs of government oppression. These people have exactly one person to blame for their kids being taken away for a few days. Themselves.</blockquote>
<blockquote>
Placing adults of unknown background and children in a detention facility together is going to lead to a lot of very bad things happening. This will lead to another outcry about the inhumanity of detaining “families” altogether. This will lead to the return of the catch-and-release policy. This creates more DREAMers. And makes crossing into the US with children the preferred method of travel. </blockquote>
<blockquote>
It is difficult to view this debate, and who is saying what, and not come to the conclusion that this is more of a reaction to the Trump administration’s attempt to be serious about protecting our borders than it is about anything to do with separating children from alleged parents. It is much more about preventing the Border Patrol and Immigration from doing their job than it is about any kind of humanitarian impulse."</blockquote>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744785548400873294.post-66530207355339186722018-06-15T08:45:00.000-07:002018-07-20T08:46:34.830-07:00Leftist Lesbians Share The Truth<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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In light of the recent Court victory for freedom of religion in the face of the Gay Goons, one picture says it all:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEWO_vz6mmOsYi5XnaD1UOK340PpWZ9fGv3jpHc90i1aVcthh-zBkv3SwEUxJOvQD99POZcoG7sPnG1JCunZYiaks9dF7CydhyRahOjRwgLnzIYZSWEHh_QAvyFxLHBUfKijcE4Xpxqr0/s1600/not+about+the+cake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="316" data-original-width="475" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEWO_vz6mmOsYi5XnaD1UOK340PpWZ9fGv3jpHc90i1aVcthh-zBkv3SwEUxJOvQD99POZcoG7sPnG1JCunZYiaks9dF7CydhyRahOjRwgLnzIYZSWEHh_QAvyFxLHBUfKijcE4Xpxqr0/s640/not+about+the+cake.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Ace of Spades blogger Oregon Muse nails it:<br /><br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Look at the sign in the photo...No doubt the person holding it is a brainwashed progressive, but despite that, I actually agree with it. Because if it were "about the cake", homosexuals can easily find other bakers to design wedding cakes for them. It's not like Christians have a lock on the bakery business. It's not about baking a cake, it's about forcing your political enemies to submit to your terms and then rubbing their faces in it. Normal people can easily imagine a country that is big enough to serve both groups, where the owners of bakery 'A' do not want to do gay weddings, but bakery 'B' down the street is happy to do gay weddings, and there needn't be any quarreling about it. Everybody can live happily side by side. But progressives don't want this. The very existence of people who think differently than they do fills them with mindless fury. Even if the country were divided between 99% progressives and 1% normal people, the progressives would be constantly whining and crying about that 1%. Because in their view, forced unanimity is better than freedom."</blockquote>
And worse than that, in some cases, we must affirm their delusions too--OR ELSE:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDOHBZz6lQZ9yBvcPxU3SYStVkf-_t9jGkejVld7cvg0gBIhQPXyEgRXq6cOO7g5PEn7GinlzWBrxfYUjeSQON-0gsyRDbLE4fMxJ9hCF-Q51GHaYvMM7osLAQKlfiqv9P2BZ07gVGFDA/s1600/feminism+-+i+am+a+woman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="527" data-original-width="450" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDOHBZz6lQZ9yBvcPxU3SYStVkf-_t9jGkejVld7cvg0gBIhQPXyEgRXq6cOO7g5PEn7GinlzWBrxfYUjeSQON-0gsyRDbLE4fMxJ9hCF-Q51GHaYvMM7osLAQKlfiqv9P2BZ07gVGFDA/s640/feminism+-+i+am+a+woman.jpg" width="546" /></a></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744785548400873294.post-21369428744477256602018-06-05T00:01:00.000-07:002018-05-17T23:19:31.694-07:00For What It's Worth: California Primary Voting Guide<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Election time again, although I wonder if I should bother. In the past, I always thought that if I did not vote, then I had no right to complain about the aftermath. However, FOUR recently changed aspects of voting have changed my thoughts on this: <br />
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1. The “Top Two Open Primary”, or legally the Nonpartisan Blanket Primary, which means that the top two contenders face off against each other in the General Election of November. <br />
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This system is vulnerable to chicanery and “sabotage voting”, and a well-entrenched incumbent can effectively “pick” his or her opponent for the November election, by covertly lending “Support” to whom said incumbent will easily defeat in the General Election. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonpartisan_blanket_primary#Louisiana_governor's_race,_1991">The corrupt weasel Governor Evin Edwards of Louisiana (another state that has such a wretched primary process) did this in 1991, allowing an otherwise inconsequential creep named David Duke his 15 minutes of fame</a>.<br />
<br />
We need Real Primaries again, where Republicans pick a primary Republican, Democrats pick a primary Democrat, and other parties pick whoever they pick for their party primaries. <br />
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2. Voting by mail. <br />
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The potential for outright fraud, with “late discovery” manufactured and mailed in ballots and everything else, is significant here. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Voter_Registration_Act_of_1993">As if “Motor Voter”, also known as the National Voter Registration Act of 1993</a>, which made in-person registration less likely and also opened the door to more voter fraud, was not bad enough.<br />
<br />
3. A moribund California Republican Party.... <br />
<br />
....which could not even bring itself to get a nominee on the ballot for my State Assembly district and my House of Representatives Congressional District. If I had known about this in advance and it was not too costly (in terms of either money or time) to do so, I would have thrown my own name on the ballot, even with no chance of winning, just for giggles. Maybe when I can retire—if I am still in this state and have not given up on California altogether and moved to Reno—I will see what I can do if I have time to throw at it. <br />
<br />
On the other hand, in several races, more than one Republican is running for that office, dividing their minority party’s primary vote and insuring that it is Democrat vs. Democrat in the General Election of November, given the “Top Two” Open Primary mess described above. Moreover, in the Governor’s race, rather than champion an experienced Assemblyman or State Senator who has come up from the trenches, they chose another wealthy dilettante from another state (See Governor Endorsement below). <br />
<br />
For many points of view, there will need to be a “Pre-Primary” in order to pick the champion of said point of view in the Official Primary. The California Republican Party could have decided which one of theirs to officially endorse in the “Political Party Endorsements” section of the Official Voter Information Guide, but could not get itself together to even do *that*.<br />
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4. For State ballot Propositions, the full and complete “TEXT OF PROPOSED LAW” is no longer there in the Official Voter Information Guide. <br />
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This former staple of ballot initiative Propositions, with the changes to (and strikeouts of) existing laws as was appropriate and necessary, is no longer presented with the summary of each ballot initiative Proposition in the Official Voter Information Guide we receive, and you have to send away for it. <br />
<br />
While for many initiatives this is not necessary, as the initiative is simple and summed up well by the Legislative Analyst Summary and by the Official Arguments For And Against said initiative, in some cases it really does---and still no doubt will—pay to “read the fine print”, or the exact Text Of the Proposed Law, as the case may be. I sense the proverbial wool will be pulled over our eyes as a result, and perhaps we should just NOT have ballot initiatives or Propositions anymore and just go back to our representatives in the State Assembly and State Senate as was originally intended in the California Constitution, before the whole Populist idea of Initiative and Referendum plebiscites began in the late 19th and early 20th century, but that was a long time ago. We probably should repeal the 17th Amendment and no longer have direct election of Senators too, which would cause more things to be resolved at the state and local levels, but that is a done deal. <br />
<br />
As a result, the temptation to not bother with this is strong. On the other hand, Nick has a tradition to uphold! So on I go….. <br />
<br />
GOVERNOR: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_Allen">Travis Allen</a> <br />
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Of the two major Republican candidates with an actual chance on the ballot, Mr. Allen’s stances against so much of what has ruined California are refreshing, and he is in the State Assembly 72nd District, so he understands how “The Bill Mill” in Sacramento actually works, or does not work.<br />
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Unfortunately, it appears that rather than pick Mr. Allen, the Establishment of the California Republican Party, such as it is, has decided to endorse <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_H._Cox">John Cox</a>, another wealthy dilettante from another state who has not seen how legislation works its way through “the Bill Mill” (or often does not).<br />
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And what is truly sad about this is that, had the California GOP united behind one candidate, a Republican Governor might actually finish second in the “Top Two” Primary and be a possibility, given the FOUR major contenders running in the Dem lineup dividing up their vote: <br />
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1. The utterly smarmy Gavin Newsom (Dem-Stalinist) <br />
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2. The Reconquista 5th columnist Antonio Villaraigosa (Dem-Trotskyite) <br />
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3. The slightly better Delaine Eastin, whose record as State Superintendent of Schools was lackluster at best <br />
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4. The somewhat better John Chiang, but as a former State Controller and now Treasurer, he really ought to know better about California’s rickety finances. <br />
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Leave it to the California GOP Establishment to insure defeat. But we might as well show our support for Travis Allen and make it clear to them that we do not need another wealthy dilettante parachuting into California, and what we really need is a candidate coming up from the State Assembly or State Senate, who knows how hard it can be to be a minority party, and how laws are created. <br />
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LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR: David R. Hernandez. NOT to be confused with Democrat Ed Hernandez who is also on the ballot. <br />
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Sadly, the Dems are lined up behind Eleni Kounalakis, while the Republicans appear to have an “Amateur Hour” going on here, with 5 different and not well known contenders, so as with the Governor’s race above, this is probably a done deal. Still, I think Mr. David R. Hernandez, NOT Ed Hernandez, is the best of the lot. <a href="http://www.davidhernandezforltgovernor.com/">His webpage here</a>, and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/LTCA2018">his Facebook here</a>. <br />
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Anyone with a slogan “Make California Great Again” is awesome, anyone Mexican American who has not been demagogued on the immigration issue is awesome, and anyone who brought himself up by the proverbial bootstraps from humble origins is awesome. <br />
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SECRETARY OF STATE: Mark Meuser. <br />
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An actual election law attorney will be very helpful here, and he is one. <br />
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CONTROLLER: Konstantinos Roditis <br />
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TREASURER: <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Greg_Conlon">Greg Conlon</a> <br />
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<a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Greg_Conlon">Greg Conlon</a> has tried for this office before, and lost before, to John Chiang in 2014 and to Phil Angelides in 2002 before that. He has also tried for the US Senate, the State Senate, and the State Assembly. A “happy warrior”, who gets back up when he is knocked down. Let’s give him one last hurrah. Although I will say that another Republican contending on the ballot, <a href="https://www.jack4treasurer.com/">Jack Guerrero</a>, seems like a nice younger fellow, and I wish him luck after Greg Conlon retires.<br />
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ATTORNEY GENERAL: <a href="https://ericearly.com/meet-eric-early/">Eric Early</a>. <br />
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INSURANCE COMMISSIONER: Steve Poizner <br />
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Another veteran of the California Political Psychic Wars, like Greg Conlon for Treasurer above. <br />
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U.S. SENATOR: <a href="https://voteerincruz.com/platform">Erin Cruz</a> <br />
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Again it looks like “Amateur Hour” of multiple candidates from the GOP here. I wonder why GOP veterans, like Mr. Greg Conlon and Mr. Steve Poizner above, didn’t throw their hats in the ring here! And what is truly sad about this is that, had the CA GOP united behind one candidate, a Republican Governor might actually finish second in the “Top Two” Primary and be a possibility, given the two major contenders running in the Dem lineup dividing up their vote: <br />
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1. The “Very Old Guard” Dianne Feinstein (Dem-Stalinist) <br />
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2. Another Reconquista 5th columnist Kevin DeLeon (Dem-Trotskyite) <br />
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Anyway, of the amateurs, I find Ms. Cruz most appealing, and NOT because of her relative youth and beauty. She was a Tea Party activist back in 2010, and I heard her speak there first. I like her stances. And, when the Dirty Dems falsely claim that anyone with sensible border policies is somehow anti-Latino, then it is good to have a telegenic Latina lady advocating them. <br />
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SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION: Marshall Tuck <br />
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His leading opponent, Tony K. Thurmond, is endorsed by Kamala Harris and all the teacher unions. I will leave it at that. <br />
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BALLOT PROPOSITIONS: <br />
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PROPOSITION 68: Bonds for Parks - NO, in fact hell NO. <br />
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First, nothing is more annoying than a proposition that claims to have “water supply” provisions, that does not build a single dam to store it. Acquiring more watershed park area is not truly increasing supply. <br />
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Second, the State cannot maintain the vast parkland area it already has. It probably should be selling off the parks that hardly anyone enjoys, or which have no known endangered species, and making them productive ranches or something similar again. <br />
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Third, Bonds, meaning DEBT, are only appropriate when an actual capital intensive but long lasting project, like a Dam, HINT HINT, is to be built. Borrowing for current maintenance of existing parks is folly. <br />
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Fourth, too many initiatives like this were approved in the past, and we are still paying those off. Vote NO. <br />
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PROPOSITION 69: Promising to spend New Transportation Revenues for Transportation Projects – NO. <br />
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In the past, I would have voted YES. In fact, in the past, WE HAVE voted YES on initiatives like this. But it turned out those initiatives were toothless, and so is this one. Moreover, in the past, initiatives like this were “bait and switch”, where voters were promised freeway and other road improvements, but instead, were given light rail showpieces that didn’t go where most commuters needed to go. Worse, will the “high-speed” (sic) choo-choo, that won’t be high speed as it is going from SF to LA via Bakersfield, Tehachapi, Lancaster, and Palmdale, get bailed out from this? <br />
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PROPOSITION 70: Legislative Supermajority for Carbon Tax Fund spending – YES. <br />
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Sometimes, in his own special wacky way, Governor Brown takes on elements within his own Democrat Party. And this initiative is one of those times. <br />
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I like the idea of a “rainy day fund”, and a supermajority requirement for new spending, even if Governor “Moonbeam” Brown is behind this, and the carbon tax is based upon speculatively flawed “Climate Science” computer models that have been wrong for two decades now. (I remember the climate models that said water vapor from jet planes, and sulfur dioxides (besides causing “acid rain”), would block out sunlight and cause a New Ice Age). <br />
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Governor Brown has long wanted to create a “rainy day fund”, given that California’s “progressive” tax system, as burdensome as it is on most of us, still depends upon a handful of key industries and wealthy citizens for the majority of its revenue. If software apps and motion pics have a bad year, so does the state in terms of revenue. And the state economy is much less diversified than it used to be. Of course, this begs the question of how this “rainy day fund” would actually work: Money in the bank earning miniscule interest? Buying up and paying off the billions in bonds California has outstanding? <br />
<br />
Anyway, Republican Assemblyman Chad Mayes, although he no doubt thinks the carbon tax is flawed and horrid, decided that, if there IS to be such a tax, then let it finance Governor Brown’s “Rainy Day Fund”. And so he and Governor Brown both wrote the argument for the initiative in the Voter Guide. And I LIKE IT! Let’s sequester the money from this tax and use it to buy back California bonds. <br />
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And the opposition to this initiative? Various “environmental” leftist lobbies that want the money for their pet projects. <br />
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PROPOSITION 71: Delays Effective Date For Ballot Measures – flip a coin??? <br />
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Given that so many initiatives are subject to court fights after they are approved, and given the increased delays (and fraud risks) of more voting by mail, I suppose this initiative may be OK. Or may not matter. If you have a good argument for voting YES or NO, let me know. <br />
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PROPOSITION 72: Less Property Tax Assessment of “Rain Capture” systems – YES. <br />
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While “rain capture” systems are a piss-poor substitute for real dam building, they still have their place, and we should not jack up property tax assessments on people who install them.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744785548400873294.post-73047776065943695942018-05-31T15:43:00.000-07:002018-06-01T15:46:16.508-07:00Samantha Bee: So who really IS the "feckless c*nt"????<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">If anyone is a "Feckless C*nt", it would be Samantha Bee, for advocating a return to immigration policies that let gang members like MS-13 cross the border with impunity. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">And if Samantha Bee was put at the tender mercies of MS-13, her c*nt would end up, well, something more than feckless. </span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744785548400873294.post-68149381600645401012018-05-12T05:43:00.000-07:002018-06-15T05:48:05.188-07:00Trump’s 'lack of decorum, dignity, and statesmanship'<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/greg.petersen1/posts/10204308776476140">Marshall Kamena is the mayor of Livermore, California:</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #1d2129;">Trump’s 'lack of decorum, dignity, and statesmanship' By Marshall Kamena, Mayor of Livermore, CA.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">My Leftist friends (as well as many ardent #NeverTrumpers) constantly ask me if I’m not bothered by Donald Trump’s lack of decorum. They ask if I don’t think his tweets are “beneath the dignity of the office.”</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">Here’s my answer: We Right-thinking people have tried dignity. There could not have been a man of more quiet dignity than George W. Bush as he suffered the outrageous lies and politically motivated hatreds that undermined his presidency.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">We tried statesmanship.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">Could there be another human being on this earth who so desperately prized “collegiality” as John McCain?</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">We tried propriety – has there been a nicer human being ever than Mitt Romney?</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">And the results were always the same. This is because, while we were playing by the rules of dignity, collegiality and propriety, the Left has been, for the past 60 years, engaged in a knife fight where the only rules are those of Saul Alinsky and the Chicago mob.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">I don’t find anything “dignified,” “collegial” or “proper” about Barack Obama’s lying about what went down on the streets of Ferguson in order to ramp up racial hatreds because racial hatreds serve the Democratic Party.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">I don’t see anything “dignified” in lying about the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi and imprisoning an innocent filmmaker to cover your tracks.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">I don’t see anything “statesman-like” in weaponizing the IRS to be used to destroy your political opponents and any dissent.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">Yes, Obama was “articulate” and “polished” but in no way was he in the least bit “dignified,” “collegial” or “proper.”</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">The Left has been engaged in a war against America since the rise of the Children of the ‘60s. To them, it has been an all-out war where nothing is held sacred and nothing is seen as beyond the pale.. It has been a war they’ve fought with violence, the threat of violence, demagoguery and lies from day one – the violent take-over of the universities – till today.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">The problem is that, through these years, the Left has been the only side fighting this war. While the Left has been taking a knife to anyone who stands in their way, the Right has continued to act with dignity, collegiality and propriety.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">With Donald Trump, this all has come to an end. Donald Trump is America ’s first wartime president in the Culture War.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">During wartime, things like “dignity” and “collegiality” simply aren’t the most essential qualities one looks for in their warriors. Ulysses Grant was a drunk whose behavior in peacetime might well have seen him drummed out of the Army for conduct unbecoming.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">Had Abraham Lincoln applied the peacetime rules of propriety and booted Grant, the Democrats might well still be holding their slaves today.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">Lincoln rightly recognized that, “I cannot spare this man. He fights.”</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">General George Patton was a vulgar-talking.. In peacetime, this might have seen him stripped of rank. But, had Franklin Roosevelt applied the normal rules of decorum then, Hitler and the Socialists would barely be five decades into their thousand-year Reich.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">Trump is fighting. And what’s particularly delicious is that, like Patton standing over the battlefield as his tanks obliterated Rommel’s, he’s shouting, “You magnificent bastards, I read your book!”</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">That is just the icing on the cake, but it’s wonderful to see that not only is Trump fighting, he’s defeating the Left using their own tactics. That book is Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals – a book so essential to the Liberals’ war against America that it is and was the playbook for the entire Obama administration and the subject of Hillary Clinton’s senior thesis.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">It is a book of such pure evil, that, just as the rest of us would dedicate our book to those we most love or those to whom we are most indebted, Alinsky dedicated his book to Lucifer.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">Trump’s tweets may seem rash and unconsidered but, in reality, he is doing exactly what Alinsky suggested his followers do. First, instead of going after “the fake media” — and they are so fake that they have literally gotten every single significant story of the past 60 years not just wrong, but diametrically opposed to the truth, from the Tet Offensive to Benghazi, to what really happened on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri — Trump isolated CNN.. He made it personal.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">Then, just as Alinsky suggests, he employs ridicule which Alinsky described as “the most powerful weapon of all.”... Most importantly, Trump’s tweets have put CNN in an untenable and unwinnable position. ... They need to respond.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">This leaves them with only two choices. They can either “go high” (as Hillary would disingenuously declare of herself and the fake news would disingenuously report as the truth) and begin to honestly and accurately report the news or they can double-down on their usual tactics and hope to defeat Trump with twice their usual hysteria and demagoguery. The problem for CNN (et al.) with the former is that, if they were to start honestly reporting the news, that would be the end of the Democratic Party they serve. It is nothing but the incessant use of fake news (read: propaganda) that keeps the Left alive.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">Imagine, for example, if CNN had honestly and accurately reported then-candidate Barack Obama’s close ties to foreign terrorists (Rashid Khalidi), domestic terrorists (William Ayers & Bernardine Dohrn), the mafia (Tony Rezko) or the true evils of his spiritual mentor, Jeremiah Wright’s church.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">Imagine if they had honestly and accurately conveyed the evils of the Obama administration’s weaponizing of the IRS to be used against their political opponents or his running of guns to the Mexican cartels or the truth about the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the Obama administration’s cover-up.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">So, to my friends on the Left — and the #NeverTrumpers as well — do I wish we lived in a time when our president could be “collegial” and “dignified” and “proper”? Of course I do.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;">These aren’t those times. This is war. And it’s a war that the Left has been fighting without opposition for the past 50 years.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #1d2129;"><span style="background-color: white;"></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #1d2129;">So, say anything you want about this president - I get it - he can be vulgar, he can be crude, he can be undignified at times. I don’t care. I can’t spare this man. He fights for America!</span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744785548400873294.post-82313768521699006432018-05-04T23:18:00.000-07:002018-05-17T23:24:05.323-07:00Neil Cavuto, Pantywaist<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Lest you think that Fox News is pro-Trump all the time, or even most of the time, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/IJRBlue/videos/2031968320393056/?hc_ref=ARRdLThw95PiPWEODRizIqiNHZH7WQwV7AQgGA7VgVWD3-xxZy4v-6m6GXQ6yqYnd5M&fref=gs&dti=525173777854210&hc_location=group">along comes Neil Cavuto with his pearl clutching and myopic virtue signaling</a>.<br />
<br />
Go clutch your pearls, Neil. That you even dignify trivial tacky matters from over a dozen years ago, back when "The Donald" was a private citizen and had yet to enter politics, says so much.<br />
<br />
We know about his messy private life past, and we don't care. It has nothing to do with his actions in the White House over the last year and a half.<br />
<br />
The Clintons set that bar over two decades ago, and frankly The Donald has undeniably raised it from where they set it.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744785548400873294.post-12722632745423784602018-05-04T16:05:00.000-07:002018-06-20T16:13:14.672-07:00How the Russian collusion myth was hatched by Team Hillary immediately after her loss<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="tr_bq">
<a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/may/4/how-russian-collusion-myth-was-hatched-team-hillar/">Larry O'Connor of The Washington Times lays it out in excruciating detail</a>:</div>
<br />
<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Russian Collusion mythology is the most dominant story in the news media and has been for the past eighteen months… dating back to November 7, 2016. And when one examines the contemporaneous reporting by Jonathan Allen and <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/amie-parnes/">Amie Parnes</a> in their excellent book <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=QqvNDAAAQBAJ&dq=Within+24+hours+of+her+concession+speech">Shattered: Inside </a><a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/hillary-clinton/">Hillary Clinton</a>’s Doomed Campaign.<br /> <br />Allen and <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/amie-parnes/">Parnes</a> had incredible access to the entire <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/hillary-clinton/">Clinton</a> campaign infrastructure because their book was really meant to be a historical account of the triumphant campaign for the first female president in American history.<br /> <br />As we know, it didn’t work out that way. And the authors’ account of the immediate aftermath tells us much about how the media were spoon-fed the collusion narrative: (emphasis added)<br />“She’s not being particularly self -reflective,” said one longtime ally who was on calls with her shortly after the election. Instead, <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/hillary-clinton/">Hillary</a> kept pointing her finger at Comey and Russia. “She wants to make sure all these narratives get spun the right way,” this person said.<br /> <br />And if the Clinton campaign was good at anything, it was making sure narratives were “spun the right way.” So, the entire team, within 24 hours of the devastating loss, assembled to hatch the story. The scene, as painted with amazing detail by Allen and <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/amie-parnes/">Parnes</a>, sounds like a writers’ room for a television drama. The creative writing team throwing lots of story ideas around to see which one the consensus likes the most.<br /> <br />That strategy had been set within twenty-four hours of her concession speech. Mook and Podesta assembled her communications team at the Brooklyn headquarters to engineer the case that the election wasn’t entirely on the up-and-up. For a couple of hours, with Shake Shack containers littering the room, they went over the script they would pitch to the press and the public. Already, Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument.<br /> <br />In Brooklyn, her team coalesced around the idea that Russian hacking was the major unreported story of the campaign, overshadowed by the contents of stolen e-mails and <a href="https://www.washingtontimes.com/topics/hillary-clinton/">Hillary</a>’s own private- server imbroglio.<br />Of course, the plan would only work if the media took the bait. They had that angle knitted up. All they had to do was focus their anger and ire at their friends in the press and accuse them of being at fault for Trump’s victory.<br /> <br />They also decided to hammer the media for focusing so intently on the investigation into her e-mail, which had created a cloud over her candidacy. “The press botched the e-mail story for eighteen months,” said one person who was in the room. “Comey obviously screwed us, but the press created the story.”<br /> <br />“It was all your fault,” they’d say to their pals in the press. And now, they had to make good.<br />Listen to the pertinent passage from the audio book that I played on my radio program on <a href="http://www.wmal.com/2018/05/03/the-larry-oconnor-show-05-03-18/">WMAL </a>in Washington DC.</blockquote>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744785548400873294.post-33993609339134168252018-04-05T09:34:00.001-07:002018-04-05T09:35:09.431-07:00Stephon Clark and the Black Liar Marxists<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://www.city-journal.org/html/unwarranted-certainty-15803.html">Read the whole thing</a>. The usual suspects are trying to burn the city of Sacramento to the ground and trying to make another "Dindo Nuffin" (who, in fact, DID do something) into a martyr.<br />
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<h1 class="title" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: CJ-PalatinoLT, PalatinoLT, serif; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: 1.3em; margin: 0px 0px 10px; max-width: 600px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Unwarranted Certainty</h1>
<span class="subtitle" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; display: block; font-family: , "futurabt" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 1em; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.4em; margin: 0px 0px 10px; max-width: 685px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Stephon Clark case is far from unambiguous.</span><br />
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<a class="author" href="https://www.city-journal.org/contributor/rafael-mangual_909" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span class="name" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; transition: 0.3s ease; vertical-align: baseline;">Rafael Mangual</span></a></div>
<span class="date" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #b5b5b5; display: inline-block; font-family: , "futurabt" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 0.875em; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 1.3em; margin: 0px 20px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">April 4, 2018</span><br />
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Public safety</div>
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Stephon Clark, holding a cell phone, was shot by police eight times and killed while in the backyard of his grandmother’s house in Sacramento. Black Lives Matter activists have seized on the story as the latest instance of a police war on young black men. But even at this early stage, facts should give us pause before rushing to judgment on the culpability of the officers involved.</div>
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Al Sharpton, not unexpectedly, disagrees. While <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/stephon-clark-funeral-sacramento-man-al-sharpton-eulogy-today-live-stream-updates/" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #00afcf; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">speaking</a> at Clark’s funeral last week, Sharpton said of police, “They have been killing black men all across the country. . . . it’s time to stop this madness.” But it’s far from clear that the officers who shot Clark acted unlawfully, or that the victim’s race played a role in the shooting.</div>
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The publicly available evidence is unclear as to whether the police who shot Clark knew of his race at the time, let alone that it influenced their decision to fire. Responding to reports that someone was smashing windows in the neighborhood, the street cops were directed by officers in a surveillance helicopter to Clark’s location. Body cam footage and helicopter video demonstrate that the incident took place in pitch darkness; it was the first night after a new moon, and the only illumination on the scene came from the officers’ flashlights.<a href="https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article206321429.html" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #00afcf; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"> On the audio</a> of the original 911 complaint, the operator asks the caller “is he black, white, Hispanic, Asian?” The caller responds, “He had a hoodie on. I couldn’t tell, ma’am.” The helicopter video shows that the officers weren’t face-to-face with Clark for more than a few seconds before firing, a period in which their attention was focused on what they apparently believed to be a gun that he was carrying. When the officers made their way up the driveway, Clark turned his back to run away. It wasn’t until he began walking toward officers in the backyard that they might have had an opportunity to see his face.</div>
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Most media coverage has pointed out that Clark was unarmed when he was shot. That does not preclude the possibility that officers sincerely (and reasonably) believed he was armed. What the police were thinking matters. <a href="http://www.sacbee.com/latest-news/article206212019.html" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #00afcf; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Videos</a> of the encounter show police entering the backyard of the house. Upon turning the corner around the back, the lead officer clearly stops short and then retreats behind the side of the house, yelling “Gun!” He pulls his partner backward into a covered position. The two cops then peer around the corner with their weapons drawn, and, from cover, fire ten rounds each, fatally striking Clark, who looked to be walking toward them. That the officers took cover after crossing the threshold into the backyard, and then fired from that position—as opposed to shooting from an exposed position—suggests that they thought Clark was armed. This chain of events weighs against the presumption that their actions were criminal. None of the media coverage has focused on either of these two points, both of which raise the possibility that the two officers (one is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/28/us/sacramento-stephon-clark.html" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #00afcf; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">black</a>) who shot Clark did so in response to what they reasonably perceived was a threat of deadly force posed by a suspect (race potentially unknown) who had been backed into a corner and was holding an object, mistaken for a gun.</div>
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Much has been made about the fact that the officers muted their body cameras after being directed to do so, seemingly by a superior officer, following the shooting. Yet once the shooting happened, the cops were under no legal obligation to make statements on the record without legal representation, given the possibility that they might face prosecution. These protections, codified in the Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution, are available to everyone, including officers of the law. Moreover, statements made in the immediate wake of a stressful situation can often be unreliable, as a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4183265/" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #00afcf; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">review</a> of relevant literature has shown.</div>
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None of this is to say that the two Sacramento police officers who shot Stephon Clark are innocent. But to speak about the March 18 shooting as if it were a clear case of murder, motivated by racial animus, is both unhelpful and unwarranted, given the facts currently available.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744785548400873294.post-460424573030910922018-02-12T21:10:00.000-08:002018-06-19T21:16:35.019-07:00I don't miss George W. Bush anymore<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://baldilocks-talking.blogspot.com/2018/02/i-dont-miss-george-w-bush-anymore.html">Juliette "Baldilocks" Ochieng says it better than I can</a>:<br /><br />"A few days ago, Former President George W. Bush said this:<br /><blockquote class="tr_bq">
Americans don’t want to pick cotton at 105 degrees, but there are people who want to put food on their family’s tables and are willing to do that. We should thank them.</blockquote>
<a href="http://victor%20davis%20hanson/">This brought to my mind the old slave-owner justification for black slavery. I’m not alon</a>e.<div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Bush put a 21st-century spin on 19th-century plantation owners’ pleas that they needed imported chattel African labor because American workers were neither acclimatized to heat nor inexpensive enough to pick cotton in scorching Southern temperatures.</blockquote>
Additionally, gentleman-farmer Hanson points out that there is more than one area in which the former president demonstrated his cluelessness.</div>
<div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
To wit, cotton picking (which I used to do as a child in the 1960s on my father’s small 40-acre cotton allotment) has been widely mechanized for over 50 years. And agriculture now only accounts for about 10-20 percent of illegal alien labor. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Mechanization has revolutionized farming, even in crops once deemed impossible to automate such as nuts, olives, raisins, and delicate Napa Valley wine grapes. New computerized and laser-calibrated breakthroughs will likely mean that even soft fruit and vegetables will soon be mechanically picked, matching ongoing labor reduction in weeding and irrigation.</blockquote>
<a href="https://amgreatness.com/2018/02/11/republican-embarrassments/">Read the whole thing</a>.<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Bush’s defense of illegal aliens – essentially a criticism of Donald Trump – wasn’t a surprise to me, though his location while doing it, in Dubai, was(!) After all, as president, he advocated the proposed Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007, which put many of his defenders in near revolt, including me.</div>
<div>
<br />Also, I remember when neither the former president nor most of his representatives would even try to rebut the Liberal/Leftist attacks on that administration and its policies. They left that up to the New Media: conservative bloggers. Stupid us.</div>
<div>
<br />After Barack H. Obama became president, GWB remained silent about his successor, even when the former repeatedly blamed him for bad things that happened from 2009 to 2017. I understood GWB’s stance at the time, and it also made me think that he was being consistent; he had little to say about his own predecessor, one William J. Clinton, even in the wake of the horror in 2001 which, in my own opinion, was the crowning achievement that rested on the many Islamic terror attacks on the US which occurred during the Clinton Administration and went unanswered by it. (That opinion is why I voted for George W. Bush in 2000.)</div>
<div>
<br />The silence during his own administration and the silence during the Obama Administration seemed characteristic of GWB. He let his actions do the talking, or so it seemed.</div>
<div>
<br />But now Trump's presidency seems to have loosened GWB’s tongue.</div>
<div>
<br />Bush's criticism of President Trump itself isn't the point; it’s where he did it, his own hypocrisy, and most importantly, what his criticism is.</div>
<div>
<br />I have blogged here about how hard it is to get a steady job here in the sanctuary state that is California even with skills and experience. (I’m pondering a possible 2019 escape.) What about the other Americans citizens here who don’t have skills and experience – especially the very young? I guess they don't matter.</div>
<div>
<br />George W. Bush thinks we should all thank the illegal aliens for picking the fruit and vegetables that I can barely afford, does he? (I’m a huge berry fan. Strawberries run over $3 a pound. But if I wanted to eat shit, literally and figuratively, pennies.)</div>
<div>
<br />And, it’s a safe bet that the families of Katie Steinle, <a href="http://baldilocks-talking.typepad.com/baldilocks/2008/04/hidden-war.html">Jamiel Shaw II</a>, Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens would have two words other than 'Thank You" to say to illegal aliens and to George W. Bush.<br /></div>
<div>
On the other hand, one of those words *is* probably ‘you.’ Co-sign.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744785548400873294.post-7400441014369215702017-11-18T06:28:00.000-08:002017-11-20T22:33:43.194-08:00End State and Local Tax Deductions? Think again!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class=" UFICommentActorAndBody">I am waiting to see what the Senate does, but so far, for the first time with this Administration, I am not pleased.<br /><br />The proposed legislation to overhaul the messy tax system does have two very good points: <br /><br />(1) making corporate taxes less punitive so American industry does not go overseas. Even the high (individual and family) taxing Euros understand this concept, as their corporate taxes are low. <br /><br />(2) It is also wonderful to eliminate the messy and convoluted Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), something even people like me who prepare tax returns for a living often find surprising.<br /><br />The original motive for the AMT in 1969 was to insure that some wealthy individuals who had completely sheltered their income, often in government bonds, still had to pay up. However, inflation since then has now subjected millions of taxpayers to this byzantine mess. <br /><br />And frankly, if some wealthy Americans want to own nothing but Government debt, good for them. The rates of returns on such bonds are substantially lower than normal securities, and I would rather have wealthy Americans own the national debt than wealthy foreigners.<br /><br />However, there are some Republicans who are just giddy about removing or limiting itemized Federal deductions for state and local taxes, thinking they are punishing those higher tax (presumably Democrat) states. They really should think again: <br /><br />1. Don't we want more governmental programs handled at the state and local level. Frankly, I would be happy to watch all state taxes spike up, if, in return, certain Federal departments were abolished, and their functions returned to the states where they belong. (Education and Public Health as two examples). If we discourage state and local taxation, we discourage (New) Federalism, which is what I thought Republicans were all about. <br /><br />If government aid programs are to exist, they should be at the state and local levels as much as possible. Federalism matters. <br /><br />2. Lots of Republicans in "red" states pay higher state, local and property taxes too. A "tax cut" that causes the tax bills of millions of individuals to jump up, people who played by the rules as they best understood them, for decades, is political suicide. The people such a gambit hits are those like me who zealously itemize--and we vote Republican. <br /><br />Well, we vote for Patriots first, Republicans Second, and yes, lots of political bozos have an (R) after their names, but you get the idea. <br /><br />3. As my father has discovered, deducting medical expenses is something that typically does not happen for most taxpayers, but when it does, it does "Bigly", as The Donald would say.<br /><br />4. Moreover, isn't this double taxation? <br /><br />I know this idea seems like political dynamite to some pundits, but they really need to think it through, please.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744785548400873294.post-53292416602615252172017-03-24T10:20:00.003-07:002017-03-24T10:23:28.563-07:00Partial Obamacare Repeal? Think STEP ONE....<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
So many True Republicans are wailing and gnashing their teeth over an incomplete repeal of Obamunist Care that Trump is now behind.<br />
<br />
Let me humbly suggest a better way to look at this: <br />
<br />
Those or us disappointed with this partial repeal, although we are absolutely correct, should instead cheer it as "STEP ONE" and get to work on Steps 2 through....10? <br />
<br />
The left didn't get to Obamunist Care outright. They had Medicare, Medicaid expansion, Medicare Part D, covering minor out of pocket stuff like birth control, covering this for this group and that for that group, etc. <br />
<br />
Trump is a wheeler-dealer. We all knew that. He wants to partially repeal and declare some kind of victory. <br />
<br />
How to handle that? <br />
<br />
Get to work on a better bill that repeals more Obamunist crap, implements more market forces, brings health insurance costs down, avoids the "moral hazards" from "Pre-existing condition" caterwauling to demanding minor things like birth control be covered by insurance (gee-what would oil changes and car insurance cost if oil changes were paid by 3rd party car insurance?), and so on. <br />
<br />
And pass it and let Trump bask in the glory of signing THAT. <br />
<br />
And so on, and so on, and so on. <br />
<br />
Yes, dishonest Demunists and wimpy RINOs/Cuckservatives/Vichy Republicans will always be in the way. Duh. We knew that from the get go. <br />
<br />
Just repeat after me: STEP ONE.....<br />
<br />
NOTE: Don't think "half a loaf is better than nothing", which implies we are done with it. <br />
<br />
Think STEP ONE, which means another bill to undo more Obamunist damage. And another, and another. <br />
<br />
Or think, "Get the ball rolling...."</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744785548400873294.post-56986764784158915082017-02-14T09:00:00.000-08:002017-02-14T09:02:31.361-08:00Celebrate Valentine's Day--Leftists and Islamunists hate it!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I used to be very cynical about Valentine's Day. Another day to sell stuff, I grumbled, and I was embittered and cynical about romantic love back then. <br />
<br />
However, as <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/265796/hating-valentines-jamie-glazov">Jamie Glazov eloquently points out</a>, any event that both Leftist Dupes here and Islamic Savages over there bitterly oppose MUST have some good in it! They both bitterly oppose it for the same reasons as well, reasons that go beyond mutual hatred of Western Civilization (although that obviously is a motive as well).<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Happy Valentine's Day!!!!!<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Today, February 14, is Valentine’s Day, the sacred day that intimate companions mark to celebrate their love and affection for one another. If you’re thinking about making a study of how couples celebrate this day, the Muslim world and the milieus of the radical Left are not the places you should be spending your time. Indeed, it’s pretty hard to outdo Islamists and “progressives” when it comes to the hatred of Valentine’s Day. And this hatred is precisely the territory on which <a href="https://www.amazon.com/United-Hate-Romance-Tyranny-Terror/dp/1935071602">the contemporary romance</a> between the Left and Islamic Supremacism is formed.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The train is never late: every year that Valentine’s comes around, the Muslim world erupts with ferocious rage, with its leaders doing everything in their power to suffocate the festivity that comes with the celebration of private romance. Imams around the world thunder against Valentine’s every year — and the celebration of the day itself is literally outlawed in Islamist states.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This year, for example, the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4219162/Pakistan-BANS-public-Valentine-s-Day-celebrations.html">Islamabad High Court in Pakistan</a> banned the celebration of Valentine's Day in public places, and at an official level, and prohibited all electronic and print media from covering any festivities or mentioning of the occasion. <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-4219854/Pakistan-high-court-bans-Valentines-Day.html">Several cities across Muslim-majority Indonesia</a>, meanwhile, banned people from celebrating the day. In the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-4219854/Pakistan-high-court-bans-Valentines-Day.html">city of Surabaya</a>, a group of school students, which included many girls wearing the hijab, denounced Valentine's Day. In <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/afp/article-4219854/Pakistan-high-court-bans-Valentines-Day.html">Muslim-dominant Malaysia</a>, the group The National Muslim Youth Associationdirected females not to use emoticons and perfume in a pre-Valentine's Day message.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Last year, Pakistan also banned Valentine’s Day, calling it an “insult” to Islam and warning that "strict" action against anyone daring to celebrate the day in any part of Islamabad. In the past, Valentine’s Day activities were disrupted by Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan's main religious party, but in the last two years the state and court now get involved to ban celebration of the day. Back on Valentine's Day in Pakistan in 2013, supporters of Jamat-e-Islami <a href="http://www.thenews.com.pk/article-87788-Jamat-e-Islami-rallies-against-Valentines-Day">took to the streets</a> in Peshawar to vehemently denounce the Day of Love. Demonizing it as “un-Islamic,” the Muslim protestors shouted that the day had "spread immodesty in the world." Shahzad Ahmed, the local leader of the student wing of Jamat-e-Islami, <a href="http://www.thenews.com.pk/article-87788-Jamat-e-Islami-rallies-against-Valentines-Day">declared that</a> the organization will not “allow” any Valentine’s Day functions, warning that if Pakistani law enforcement did not prevent Pakistanis from holding such functions, that the Jamat-e-Islami would stop them “in our own way." Khalid Waqas Chamkani, a leader in Jamat-e-Islami, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2749667.stm">calls Valentine's a “shameful day.”</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
These Islamist forces in Pakistan cannot, of course, completely succeed in preventing couples from showing love to each other on this special day, and so many Pakistanis still cryptically celebrate Valentine's Day and <a href="http://www.citizen-times.com/usatoday/article/5447387">exchange presents in secret</a>.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In Iran, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia last year, and as always, Valentine’s Day was outlawed. <a href="http://www.jerusalemonline.com/news/world-news/around-the-globe/forbidden-love-valentines-day-outlawed-in-iran-19181">Under the Islamic regime</a> in Iran, for instance, any sale or promotion of Valentine’s Day related items, including the exchange of gifts, flowers and cards, is illegal. The <a href="http://www.jerusalemonline.com/news/world-news/around-the-globe/forbidden-love-valentines-day-outlawed-in-iran-19181">Iranian police consistently warn retailers</a> against the promotion of Valentine’s Day celebrations.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Over the years, Islamic religious leaders and officials in Malaysia have <a href="http://www.merinews.com/article/muslim-religious-leaders-hold-valentines-day-against-the-prophets-code-of-life/15904211.shtml#sthash.mTVjL8ik.dpuf">warned</a> Muslims against celebrating Valentine's Day. In Saudi Arabia, the morality police <a href="http://www.merinews.com/article/muslim-religious-leaders-hold-valentines-day-against-the-prophets-code-of-life/15904211.shtml#sthash.mTVjL8ik.dpuf">outlaw the sale</a> of all Valentine's Day items, forcing shopkeepers to remove any red items, because the day is considered a Christian holiday.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Malaysia and Saudi Arabia are carrying the torch for the Indonesian Ulema Council in Dumai, Riau, and for the Education, Youth and Sport Agency in Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara, both of which issue <a href="http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/02/13/muslim-organizations-warn-dark-world-valentine-s-day.html">a dire warning</a> each year to people against celebrating Valentine’s Day, stating that the Day of Love “is against Islam.” This is because, as the Indonesian Ulema Council <a href="http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/02/13/muslim-organizations-warn-dark-world-valentine-s-day.html">2011 judgment</a> explained, Valentine’s Day takes young people into a "dark world.”</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Malaysia's State mufti chief assistant Mat Jais Kamos always keeps his mind focused on that dark world and so, in 2014, a few days before Valentine's Day, he <a href="http://news.malaysia.msn.com/tmi/selangor-islamic-authorities-remind-muslim-students-not-to-celebrate-valentine%E2%80%99s-day-1">ordered</a> young people to stay clear of celebrating the Day of Love: “The celebration emphasizes the relationship between two individuals rather than the love between family members or married couples," he affirmed, and department officials backed up his command by distributing leaflets to remind Muslims of the 2006 ban on Valentine’s Day issued by the state fatwa council. In Islamic Uzbekistan, meanwhile, several universities habitually make sure that students actually <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/valentines-day-uzbekistan-discouraged/25262870.html">sign contracts</a> promising not to celebrate Valentine's.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
All these Islamic outcries against Valentine's Day reflect myriad other efforts to suffocate the day of love throughout the Muslim World. For instance, in Aceh province in Indonesia every year, <a href="http://www.jihadwatch.org/2012/02/its-that-time-of-year-again-muslim-clerics-warn-against-observing-valentines-day.html">Muslim clerics issue stern warnings</a> to Muslims against observing Valentine’s Day. Tgk Feisal, general secretary of the Aceh Ulema Association (HUDA), has stated that “It is haram for Muslims to observe Valentine’s Day because it does not accord with Islamic Sharia.” He has stressed that the government must watch out for youths participating in Valentine’s Day activities in Aceh. One can only imagine what happens to the guilty parties.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As mentioned, the Saudis consistently punish the slightest hint of celebrating Valentine’s Day. The Kingdom and its religious police always officially issue a stern warning that anyone caught even thinking about Valentine’s Day will suffer some of the most painful penalties of Sharia Law. <a href="http://www.danielpipes.org/1563/hating-valentines-day">Daniel Pipes has documented</a> how the Saudi regime takes a firm stand against Valentine’s every year and how the Saudi religious police monitor stores selling roses and other gifts.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Christian overseas workers living in Saudi Arabia from the Philippines and other countries always <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/valentines-day-makes-saudi-cops-see-red/">take extra precautions</a><a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/valentines-day-makes-saudi-cops-see-red/">,</a> heeding the Saudis’ warning to them specifically to avoid greeting anyone with the words “Happy Valentine’s Day” or exchanging any gift that reeks of romance. A spokesman for a Philippine workers group has <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/valentines-day-makes-saudi-cops-see-red/">commented</a>: "We are urging fellow Filipinos in the Middle East, especially lovers, just to celebrate their Valentine’s Day secretly and with utmost care."</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Iranian despots, meanwhile, as mentioned above, consistently try to make sure that the Saudis don’t outdo them in annihilating Valentine’s Day. Iran’s “morality” police <a href="http://www.jerusalemonline.com/news/world-news/around-the-globe/forbidden-love-valentines-day-outlawed-in-iran-19181">sternly</a><a href="http://www.jerusalemonline.com/news/world-news/around-the-globe/forbidden-love-valentines-day-outlawed-in-iran-19181"> order </a>shops to remove heart-and-flower decorations and images of couples embracing on this day — and anytime around this day.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Typical of this whole pathology in the Islamic world was a development witnessed back on February 10, 2006, when activists of the radical Kashmiri Islamic group Dukhtaran-e-Millat (Daughters of the Community) <a href="http://www.expressindia.com/news/fullstory.php?newsid=62679">went on a rampage</a>in Srinagar, the main city of the Indian portion of Kashmir. Some two dozen black-veiled Muslim women stormed gift and stationery shops, burning Valentine’s Day cards and posters showing couples together.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In the West, meanwhile, leftist feminists are not to be outdone by their Islamist allies in reviling — and trying to exterminate — Valentine’s Day. Throughout many Women’s Studies Programs on American campuses, for instance, you will find the demonization of this day, since, as the disciples of Andrea Dworkin angrily explain, the day is a manifestation of how capitalist and homophobic patriarchs brainwash and oppress women -- and push them into spheres of powerlessness.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As an individual who spent more than a decade in academia, I was privileged to witness this war against Valentine’s Day up close and personal. Feminist icons like Jane Fonda, meanwhile, help lead the assault on Valentine’s Day in society at large. As David Horowitz <a href="http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=19926">has documented</a>, Fonda has led the campaign to transform this special day into “V-Day” (“Violence against Women Day”) — which is, when it all comes down to it, a day of hate, featuring a mass indictment of men.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
So what exactly is transpiring here? What explains this hatred of Valentine’s Day by leftist feminists and Islamists? And how and why does it serve as the sacred bond that brings the Left and Islam together into its feast of hate?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The core issue at the foundation of this phenomenon is that Islam and the radical Left both revile the notion of private love, a non-tangible and divine entity that draws individuals to each other and, therefore, distracts them from submitting themselves to a secular deity.<br />
The highest objective of both Islam and the radical Left is clear: to shatter the sacred intimacy that a man and a woman can share with one another, for such a bond is inaccessible to the order. History, therefore, demonstrates how Islam, like Communism, wages a ferocious war on any kind of private and unregulated love. In the case of Islam, the reality is epitomized in its monstrous structures of gender apartheid and the terror that keeps it in place. Indeed, <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/248848/boys-taliban-jamie-glazov">female sexuality and freedom are demonized</a> and, therefore, forced veiling, forced marriage, <a href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/263192/why-17-year-old-mayar-mohamed-mousa-had-die-jamie-glazov">female genital mutilation</a>, honor killings and other misogynist monstrosities become mandatory parts of the sadistic paradigm.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The puritanical nature of totalist systems (whether Fascist, Communist, or Islamist) is another manifestation of this phenomenon. In Stalinist Russia, private sexual pleasure was portrayed as unsocialist and counter-revolutionary. More recent Communist societies have also waged war on sexuality — a war that Islam, as we know, wages with similar ferocity. These totalist structures cannot survive in environments filled with self-interested, pleasure-seeking individuals who prioritize devotion to other individual human beings over the collective and the state. Because the leftist believer viscerally hates the notion and reality of personal love and “the couple,” he champions the enforcement of totalitarian puritanism by the despotic regimes he worships.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The famous twentieth-century novels of dystopia, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We, George Orwell’s 1984, and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, all powerfully depict totalitarian society’s assault on the realm of *personal* love in its violent attempt to dehumanize human beings and completely subject them to its rule. In Zamyatin’s We, the earliest of the three novels, the despotic regime keeps human beings in line by giving them license for regulated sexual promiscuity, while private love is illegal. The hero breaks the rules with a woman who seduces him — not only into forbidden love but also into a counterrevolutionary struggle. In the end, the totality forces the hero, like the rest of the world’s population, to undergo the Great Operation, which annihilates the part of the brain that gives life to passion and imagination, and therefore spawns the potential for love. In Orwell’s 1984, the main character ends up being tortured and broken at the Ministry of Truth for having engaged in the outlawed behavior of unregulated love. In Huxley’s Brave New World, promiscuity is encouraged — everyone has sex with everyone else under regime rules, but no one is allowed to make a deep and independent private connection.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Yet as these novels demonstrate, no tyranny’s attempt to turn human beings into obedient robots can fully succeed. There is always someone who has doubts, who is uncomfortable, and who questions the secular deity — even though it would be safer for him to conform like everyone else. The desire that therefore overcomes the instinct for self-preservation is erotic passion. And that is why love presents such a threat to the totalitarian order: it dares to serve itself. It is a force more powerful than the all-pervading fear that a totalitarian order needs to impose in order to survive. Leftist and Muslim social engineers, therefore, in their twisted and human-hating imaginations, believe that the road toward earthly redemption (under a classless society or Sharia) stands a chance only if private love and affection is purged from the human condition.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This is exactly why, forty years ago, as Peter Collier and David Horowitz demonstrate in <a href="http://www.amazon.com/DESTRUCTIVE-GENERATION-Second-Thoughts-About/dp/0684826410/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265950493&sr=1-1">Destructive Generation</a>, the Weather Underground not only waged war against American society through violence and mayhem, but also waged war on private love within its own ranks. Bill Ayers, one of the leading terrorists in the group, argued in a speech defending the campaign: "Any notion that people can have responsibility for one person, that they can have that ‘out’ — we have to destroy that notion in order to build a collective; we have to destroy all ‘outs,’ to destroy the notion that people can lean on one person and not be responsible to the entire collective."</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Thus, the Weather Underground destroyed any signs of monogamy within its ranks and forced couples, some of whom had been together for years, to admit their “political error” and split apart. Like their icon Margaret Mead, they fought the notions of romantic love, jealousy, and other “oppressive” manifestations of one-on-one intimacy and commitment. This was followed by forced group sex and “national orgies,” whose main objective was to crush the spirit of individualism. This constituted an eerie replay of the sexual promiscuity that was encouraged (while private love was forbidden) in We, 1984, and Brave New World.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It becomes completely understandable, therefore, why leftist believers were so inspired by the tyrannies in the Soviet Union, Communist China, Communist North Vietnam and many other countries. As sociologist Paul Hollander has documented in his classic <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Political-Pilgrims-Western-Intellectuals-Society/dp/1560009543/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265950825&sr=1-1">Political Pilgrims</a>, fellow travelers were especially enthralled with the desexualized dress that the Maoist regime imposed on its citizens. This at once satisfied the leftist’s desire for enforced sameness and the imperative of erasing attractions between private citizens. As I have demonstrated in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/United-Hate-Romance-Tyranny-Terror/dp/1935071602">United in Hate</a>, the Maoists’ unisex clothing finds its parallel in fundamentalist Islam’s mandate for shapeless coverings to be worn by both males and females. The collective “uniform” symbolizes submission to a higher entity and frustrates individual expression, mutual physical attraction, and private connection and affection. And so, once again, the Western leftist remains not only uncritical, but completely supportive of — and enthralled in — this form of totalitarian puritanism.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This is precisely why leftist feminists today do not condemn the forced veiling of women in the Islamic world; because they support everything that forced veiling engenders. It should be no surprise, therefore, that Naomi Wolf finds <a href="http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=36177">thehijab "sexy".</a> And it should be no surprise that Oslo Professor of Anthropology, <a href="https://pjmedia.com/blog/pc-europe-now-blaming-women-for-provoking-muslim-rapists/?singlepage=true">Dr. Unni Wikan, found a solution</a>for the high incidence of Muslims raping Norwegian women: the rapists must not be punished, but Norwegian women must veil themselves.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Valentine’s Day is a “shameful day” for the Muslim world and for the radical Left. It is shameful because private love is considered obscene, since it threatens the highest of values: the need for a totalitarian order to attract the complete and undivided attention, allegiance and veneration of every citizen. Love serves as the most lethal threat to the tyrants seeking to build Sharia and a classless utopia on earth, and so these tyrants yearn for the annihilation of every ingredient in man that smacks of anything that it means to be human.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And so perhaps it is precisely on reflecting yesterday's Valentine’s Day that we are reminded of the hope that we can realistically have in our battle with the ugly and pernicious <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Unholy-Alliance-Radical-Islam-American/dp/089526076X">Unholy Alliance</a> that seeks to destroy our civilization.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This day reminds us that we have a weapon, the most powerful arsenal on the face of the earth, in front of which despots and terrorists quiver and shake, and sprint from in horror into the shadows of darkness, desperately avoiding its piercing light.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
That arsenal is Private love.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And no Maoist Red Guard or Saudi Islamo-Fascist cop ever stamped it out — no matter how much they beat and tortured their victims. And no al-Qaeda jihadist in Pakistan or Feminazi on any American campus will ever succeed in suffocating it, no matter how ferociously they lust to disinfect man of who and what he is.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Love will prevail.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Long Live Valentine’s Day.</blockquote>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
(To get the whole story on Islam’s and the Left’s war on private love, see Jamie Glazov's book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/United-Hate-Romance-Tyranny-Terror/dp/1935071602">United in Hate: The Left's Romance With Tyranny and Terror</a>.)<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744785548400873294.post-30103192828876061232017-02-13T09:24:00.000-08:002017-11-20T22:34:57.721-08:00The Obamacare taxes to repeal<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="http://www.modbee.com/news/article132369819.html">From the AP / Modesto Bee, today</a>. Let's look at them one by one:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
A look at the $1.1 trillion in taxes over 10 years imposed by former President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. The revenue helped pay for the law's expansion of coverage to millions of Americans.<br />
The revenue estimates are by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and Congress' Joint Committee on Taxation. They could differ significantly from whatever Republicans propose in their effort to erase the law and replace it:<br />
—3.8 percent tax on investment income over $200,000 for individuals, $250,000 for couples: $223 billion in revenue over 10 years.</blockquote>
This first one is not surprising for Democrats--Tax other people to pay for subsidizing health insurance. However, as the overwhelming majority of people already insured have discovered, their insurance costs have still skyrocketed. Why? Perhaps we should examine other taxes below for a reason why....<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
—tax penalty on larger employers not providing health insurance to workers: $178 billion.</blockquote>
This one appears to be the stick to eimployers, as well as a carrot to the health insurance industry.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
—annual fee on health insurance companies: $130 billion.</blockquote>
And here we go. We want health insurance to be more affordable, yet we impose taxes upon providers, which they will pass on in higher premiums, which will only drive the price of insurance up? How utterly counterproductive this is.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
—0.9 percent Medicare surtax on income over $220,000 for individuals, $250,000 for couples: $123 billion.</blockquote>
In effect, Medicare is now being "means tested" with this action, not in terms of who receives it, but in terms of who pays extra for it.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
—"Cadillac" tax on value of high-cost employer provided health insurance: $79 billion.</blockquote>
And here we go again. So if an employer has a generous health care and health insurance perk for their employees, the Obamunist government wanted to punish them. So benefits for these no longer lucky people will be cut. How utterly counterproductive this also is.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
—deductibility of medical costs exceeding 10 percent of people's income, raised from prior 7.5 percent threshold: $40 billion.</blockquote>
So when people get hit with a catastrophic emergency, they will find it much harder to deduct it on their income taxes, if at all. "Affordable Care Act", my ass. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
—tax penalty on individuals who don't obtain health insurance: $38 billion.</blockquote>
The Obamacare idea here was to compel more people to buy health insurance in order to spread the costs.<br />
<br />
And yet, the age upon which dependent children can live on their parents insurance has been raised all the way up to 26! Now while it is true that people 18-25 make few demands upon the health insurance system (other than anti-depressants, a notable exception), the effect of Obamacare, with its sop to Millenial Generation college and postgraduate kids, was to reduce the number of people paying into the health insurance systems, despite this act of punishing affluent people who did not buy health insurance.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
—annual fee on makers and importers of prescription drugs: $30 billion.</blockquote>
And here we go again! We want prescription drugs to be more affordable, yet we impose taxes upon said drugs, which will only be passed on in higher prices, which will only drive the price of them up? How utterly counterproductive this is. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
—2.3 percent tax on makers and importers of some medical devices, exempts consumer products such as eye glasses: $20 billion.</blockquote>
And here we go again! We want medical devices to be more affordable, yet we impose taxes upon said devices, which will only drive the price of them up? How utterly counterproductive this is. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
—$2,500 annual limit on employee contributions to flexible spending accounts for medical costs (cap grows with inflation): $32 billion.</blockquote>
Here's a thought: Why not treat Medical Savings Accounts like IRAs, with unused benefits that can be carried over--and invested--year after year? Naw<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
—10 percent tax on indoor tanning services: $800 million.</blockquote>
This is like a smoker's tax, only it is a sunbather's tax. Is there proof of sunbather's abuse and massive skin cancer outbreaks? And even if so, wouldn't measured doses in tanning beds be better than variable doses of laying around in the sun outside?<br />
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Although I must admit, while I have argued against excessive tobacco taxes before--past a certain point the taxes become punitive penalties rather than revenue raisers--here, they actually WOULD make a degree of sense, helping to finance health insurance and health care while discouraging an unhealthy behavior.<br />
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And frankly, since there is a push to legalize pot, THERE is a place to impose an array of new taxes, that could go to finance state and local health care programs for the poor stoners. After all, if tobacco smoke is bad for the lungs, how is weed smoke not?<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-744785548400873294.post-47278025296962184382016-12-31T08:50:00.003-08:002017-02-14T09:03:08.744-08:00The Left's New Fake Narrative: "The Russkies Did It!!!!"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Kudos to David "<a href="http://iowahawk.typepad.com/">Iowahawk</a>" Burge for pointing all this out <a href="https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/814907743828066304">in a series of Twitter tweets</a>:<br />
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To summarize and rephrase him as best I can:<br />
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Anatomy of the Left's Fake News scandal:<br />
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1. John Podesta, like 100% of everyone who has ever had a email account, received a password phishing email. He fell for it.<br />
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2. According to some accounts, the phishing email had Russian fingerprints/ characteristics in its metadata. This has yet to be proven, nor does using a global internet server somewhere else prove that its orgin was that area.<br />
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3. Whatever the case, the password purloiners downloaded his emails, which eventually got into the hands of Wikileaks, who made them public. These emails revealed a rather unsavory person with an interesting taste in art and interesting wealthy friends who had frequent sex with minors on their own small island, part of the US Virgin Islands, but more importantly,<br />
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4. The emails were revealing frequent out and out collusion and strategic planning between the Democrat Party and "objective" journalists. Mostly embarrassing to media.<br />
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5. At the time of their release (October, before the federal Presidential election) they were hardly covered by any media, and largely dismissed as a big fat nothing.<br />
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6. Not one of the people whose emails were revealed has ever disputed their authenticity.<br />
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7. Fast forward to December, and a lost Democrat federal Presidential election. The October nothing has now magically transformed into "vote hacking" and "election hacking."<br />
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8. New Leftist narrative: treasonous Trump operatives conspired with Putin to hypnotically mesmerize Clinton voters into pulling the wrong lever.<br />
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9. This is not from Alex Jones or angry conspiracy kook Facebook uncles, it's from the NYT, the WaPo, and our beloved State Radio, NPR.<br />
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10. How effective has this been? If polls are to be believed, 50%+ of Democrats believe the Russians literally modified vote tallies. (Then again 50%+ of Democrats actually believed Obama's "Hope and Change" rhetoric, and believed that a man who spent his whole life stoking and amplifying racial and class divisions could somehow heal them.) <br />
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11. And you know what? None of this is a really a defense of Trump, let alone Putin. It IS an indictment of our garbage narrative-driven media.<br />
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12. It shouldn't have to take a drunk internet nobody to point any of this out, but hey, here we are.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0