Progressivism is inimical to Freedom

The United States was founded on an ideology that viewed the role of government as the protection of individual rights. That view of government was pushed aside by the ideology of Progressivism toward the end of the 1800s. The Progressive ideology envisions a government that not only protects individual rights but also looks out for people’s economic well-being.

A natural tension exists between Progressivism and freedom. Partly, this is because looking out for the economic well-being of some often lowers the economic well-being of others. Increasingly, Progressives also argue that people would be better off if government made their choices for them rather than giving people the freedom to make their own choices.

One motivation for the Progressive ideology was the perception that people who held substantial economic power were using that power to exploit those with less power. Thus, the Interstate Commerce Commission was established in 1887 to regulate railroads to keep them from exploiting shippers, and the Sherman Antitrust Act was passed in 1890 to limit the ability of concentrated economic interests to exploit others.

Government interventions into the economy like this may help those with limited economic power (this is debatable), but they clearly limit the economic freedom of everybody to engage in mutually agreeable transactions. If rail rates are regulated, or companies like Standard Oil are broken up, the freedom of those subject to these actions is obviously compromised.

Programs like these restrict the freedoms of some, nominally for the economic benefit of others. Increasingly, Progressivism supports “nanny state” programs that restrict everyone’s freedom, under the justification that the government can make better choices for people than they would make themselves.

Essentially, nanny state programs say, “We’re going to take away your freedom for your own good.”

Social Security is a good example of a nanny state program that restricts everyone’s freedom. Using the argument that people will not save enough for their own retirements, the government taxes people when they work and promises to pay them stipends when they retire. The government forces people to save for their retirements.

Leaving aside the fact that people would accumulate more for their retirements if they invested the amount they pay in taxes in the stock market themselves, the program clearly compromises people’s freedom to allocate their incomes, and their savings, as they see fit.

Minimum wage laws prevent low-skilled workers from finding employment and gaining experience, compromising their freedom to work under mutually agreeable terms. The FDA prevents people from buying unapproved products, compromising people’s freedom to choose what they want to buy and sell.

Increasingly, Progressives are trying to take away freedom of choice, nominally for our own good. They dictate what safety equipment we have to have on our cars, limit our access to sugary drinks, and control what we can smoke. (They don’t want people smoking tobacco, but seem to be OK with marijuana consumption!)

From a utilitarian perspective, one can debate whether government really makes better choices for people than they would make on their own. From a libertarian perspective, there is no doubt that Progressivism compromises freedom.

Freedom is meaningless if we are only free to make choices that meet with government approval. The Progressive ideology compromises freedom and takes away the individual rights that at one time justified the existence of our American government.

Progressivism is a direct attack on freedom.

SOURCE

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Hitler with Ginger hair



British Leftist leader Neil Kinnock's famous speech to the Labour Party Conference, Bournemouth, October 1985

Anybody who has watched Hitler's speeches will be struck by how much Kinnock learned from Hitler.  His rhetorical technique is near identical.  The content of the speech was similar too:  Vilifying his opponents and promoting extreme socialism.  Kinnock lost that election, thankfully.  He is still alive, in a comfortable job with the EU

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The Truth Has Been (Omitted)

By Ben Shapiro

Barack Obama is a dramatic failure.

His economy has been a slow-motion train wreck. His domestic policy has driven racial antagonism to renewed heights and divided Americans from each other along lines of religion and sexual orientation. On foreign policy he has set the world aflame in the name of pretty, meaningless verbiage and a less hegemonic America.

But there's good news: At least he controls the information flow.

This week, Attorney General Loretta Lynch told Americans to believe her rather than their own lying eyes. First, she openly admitted that the FBI would censor the 911 phone call of the jihadi Omar Mateen who murdered 49 Americans at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The FBI, she said, would remove explicit references to ISIS, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Islam.

The resulting transcript was a masterpiece of hilarious redaction. Here's just a taste: "In the name of God the Merciful, the beneficial (in Arabic) ... Praise be to God, and prayers as well as peace be upon the prophet of (in Arabic). I let you know, I'm in Orlando and I did the shootings. ... My name is I pledge of allegiance to (omitted). ... I pledge allegiance to (omitted), may God protect him (in Arabic) on behalf (omitted)."

This memory holing would make George Orwell cry. In this iteration, Allah becomes God (See, Islam is just like Judaism and Christianity!), but we can't mention terrorist groups and their leaders. In fact, more than a week after the attack, Lynch told the press she didn't know the jihadi's motivation — a motivation clearly stated in the transcript she released.

Insanity.

But this is not unusual for the Obama administration. We know that in the run-up to the Iran deal the Obama administration simply altered reality to fit its narrative: It had fiction writer and deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes cook up an account where negotiations with the terror state began only after the accession of "moderate" President Hassan Rouhani. Never mind that Obama and company had been negotiating with the mullahs behind the scenes for years before that. The narrative had to be falsified and upheld. When the State Department was forced to admit those lies in a press conference, the White House conveniently chopped out that section of the taped conference for public release.

We also know that the Obama administration lied openly about Obamacare. It knew from the beginning that you couldn't keep your doctor or your plan. It simply hid that fact for years. We know that the Obama State Department sliced out a section of transcript mentioning radical Islam when French President Francois Hollande visited the United States.

He who controls the information flow controls reality.

And the Obama administration is already rewriting reality for the historians of decades hence. We won't find out where they hid most of the political bodies until too late — just as we won't find out what Clinton hid in her private server until far too late.

This is why a government must not be trusted with massive power. Politicians have every incentive not just to lie in the present but to lie with an eye toward the future. The more power they have over us, the more power they have over the reality we see — and the more they think they can get away with manipulating that reality.

SOURCE

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Obamacare is turning America into a Fascist State

“One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project, most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can’t afford it.” —Ronald Reagan

“We have to pass the [ObamaCare] bill so that you can find out what is in it.” —former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in 2009

Well, Democrats did indeed pass ObamaCare — on a party-line vote in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve, after months of threats, arm-twisting and open bribery. Over the last half decade or so we have found out what was in it. We now know that the “in it” amounted to a giant, teeming, fetid cauldron of government-mandated, top-down, force fed, command-and-control socialized medicine where government bureaucrats, rather than doctors and patients, get to decide what kind of treatment you get. In other words, exactly what we warned before Democrats even introduced it.

By every objective measure, ObamaCare has been an unmitigated (and predicted) disaster. Contrary to Obama’s promises — “If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor” (a necessary lie according to ObamaCare architect Jonathan Gruber), or it would “bend the cost curve down,” or save the average family $2500 annually in health insurance premiums (ObamaCare costs have skyrocketed) — the reality is that his disastrous signature legislation has added trillions to the national debt, driven health care costs through the roof, made health care more unaffordable, and reduced access to doctors. More than half of the ObamaCare co-ops have gone bankrupt and failed, and the nation’s largest insurance providers are pulling out of ObamaCare.

On the bright side (if you are a fan of big government), ObamaCare has created jobs for thousands of government bureaucrats, empowered the IRS to intrude into the most intimate aspects of your life, and added tens of thousands of pages (more than 20,000 pages in just the first three years after passage) of new federal regulations, and placed the federal government in charge of your health care.

What could possibly go wrong?

Glad you asked! Because, as they say when hawking snake oil on the “As Seen On TV” commercials, “But wait; there’s MORE!” Now the government is once again trying to penalize every American who does not get on board with the Left’s idea of good health policy.

In 2012, liberals mocked Justice Antonin Scalia for bringing up broccoli during oral arguments in the lawsuit challenging the individual mandate (NFIB v. Sebelius). Justice Scalia noted that if the government’s argument regarding the legitimacy of the individual mandate could apply to health insurance, then surely the same argument could be applied to food, which is a more immediate need for every human than health insurance.

Said Scalia, “Could you define the market — everybody has to buy food sooner or later, so you define the market as food, therefore, everybody is in the market; therefore, you can make people buy broccoli.” Solicitor General Donald Verrilli tried to dismiss the comparison as inaccurate, yet now we see Scalia was exactly right. For if the government controls health care, and therefore is responsible for health care costs, then it has an obligation to keep costs down, which it will accomplish by dictating the diet and exercise choices of every American, and do so in very unexpected, intrusive ways.

The EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) finalized last month new regulations for employers in an effort to get America’s tens of millions of employees to comply with the federal government’s vision of health — discounts for people joining “wellness programs.” Not only that, but you must share weight, blood pressures, illnesses and medical records. If you refuse, no discount for you — and, worse, your premiums will probably go up.

With ObamaCare, the federal government can now force Americans to buy a product (health insurance) whether they like it or not. It can compel Americans, under threat of a financial penalty, to follow its declared regime for diet and exercise. It has already disrupted employment dynamics through the individual and employer mandates, which has led to higher unemployment and more Americans forced to work part-time. And government has tried to force Christian-owned businesses to fund abortion, and Catholic nuns to provide birth control.

These are not the things that occur in a free country. These are the things that happen in countries where the people are slaves to their government. Yet the political Left assures us it knows better than we do what is good for us, and that their compulsion is for our own good.

Or, as C.S. Lewis perfectly describe such situations, “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

SOURCE

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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The Brexit hysteria continues

The anti-democratic thinking of many of the establishment people behind the "Remain" vote is now clear.  Many of these miserable elitists are agitating for the exit not to be implemented.  Parliament could do that but it would create an unprecedented  constitutional crisis.  The Brexit MPs would simply not allow it.  They could bring parliament to a standstil by voting "No" to every government bill until the referendum is honoured.  So it's all just big talk from little people.  If they persist with their agitation it will only brand them permanently as the worms they are.

The EU mandarins are clearly furious and are suggesting that Britain will not get a good trade deal when it exits.  But in the end they are just public servants and it is the national governments that will have the final say.

France is once again making highly sympathetic noises: 'We must put an end to this sad and finicky Europe. Too often it is intrusive on details and desperately absent on what's essential,' [Prime Minister] Valls said. 'We must break away from the dogma of ever more Europe. Europe must act not by principle but when it is useful and pertinent.'"

And the German motor vehicle manufacturers are arguing emphatically for free trade arrangements to continue.  They sell 800,000 cars into the British market every year so you can understand why:  "German manufacturers last night demanded that Britain be allowed to continue trading with the EU without any barriers. The car-making industry said punishing Britain makes no sense – and it called on the German chancellor to give the UK a favourable trade deal

It is clearly in the best financial interests of both Britian and the EU to continue free trade arrangements so it will happen. Britain buys quite a lot more from Europe than it sells into Europe so a collapse of free trade would actually hit the EU the hardest

There is an extraordinarily pessimistic article here in which a Brussels-based journalist argues that Britain will get a very harsh deal on exit -- but he is obviously listening to the EU mandarins only, not the national leaders.

He draws on the Greek experience to argue that the EU will be very demanding.  But I think he draws exactly the wrong conclusion from the Greek experience.  Greece had many billions of its debts written off -- and the EU got very little in return.  The EU can clearly be very forgiving if it thinks it is worthwhile -- and free trade was the very foundation of the EU.

It's amusing that the Brexit vote has spooked sharemarket investors worldwide.  British shares were down a bit on the most recent reports but  the losses in other countries were mostly much bigger.  It's just nervousness on the part of shareholders who don't understand what is going on.  The businesses underlying the shares are still there much as before so the "losses" will mostly be reversed in the not too distant future --JR.



Chancellor George Osborne says robust contingency plans are in place for the immediate financial aftermath of #Brexit

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This courageous vote is our best chance to reshape Europe’s future

Liam Halligan

Brexit clearly caught financial markets on the hop. With opinion polls, betting odds and the “conventional wisdom” all pointing in one direction, the vast weight of money thought the UK would stay in the European Union.

 That’s why, when reality hit in the small hours of Friday morning, the pound plunged violently, enduring its biggest one-day drop in living memory. And when the London stock market opened later, the FTSE 100 dropped a stomach-churning 8.7pc –again, showing the extent to which traders had previously backed Remain.

What was striking, though, was how quickly the markets bounced back after the initial shock. Shares ended the day down a relatively unremarkable 1.9pc. Sterling also pegged back, as the Bank of England, for weeks central to “Project Fear”, switched back to “Project Reassure”.

It also became clear, despite weeks of “morning after Brexit” scaremongering, that for some time this Leave vote changes little. The UK won’t invoke Article 50, sparking the two-year exit negotiation process, until October at the earliest. And, before that, what with an impending Conservative leadership contest and Labour’s dramatic implosion, there’s an awful lot of domestic politics to resolve before the UK’s leaders –whoever they turn out to be – fully engage in the task of unpicking our 43-year relationship with the EU.

That political reaction has, so far, been unedifying. David Cameron’s laudably dignified resignation speech quickly gave way to a determination among his supporters that the battle for the Tory crown is even nastier than the referendum. A “Stop Boris” unit, it appears, is compiling a “revenge dossier” on the private life of the former London mayor and lead Brexit campaigner, with the sole intention of blocking his path to No 10.

Labour, meanwhile, has gone into self-destruct mode with even more abandon, as party high-ups scramble to avoid blame for a collective failure to recognise the most basic concerns of millions of traditional Labour voters – concerns which ultimately tipped the national balance in last week’s historic vote to Leave.

Most disgraceful, though, has been the response of numerous Remain supporters who are now attempting – from a combination of anger, pique and an extremely over-developed sense of their own entitlement – to reverse this vote.

All weekend, on the airwaves and across social media, the “referendum re-run” drums have been beating. No sooner had 17.5m voters secured a clear victory in a hard-fought but ultimately fair referendum than self-appointed arbiters of the national mood were dismissing them as “ill-informed” and “manipulated” in a bid to justify another vote.

Demands by bitter MPs that Parliament overturn this “advisory” referendum are extremely dangerous. Look-at-me virtue-signalling petitions undermining a decisive democratic outcome are nothing short of incendiary. And to argue that older voters who backed Brexit “should count for less” is, quite frankly, beyond the pale.

What next, an upper age-limit on voting? And how about the notion that far from dissing the views and experience of older people, we pay them particular attention?

Should a referendum outcome be scrapped because it was driven in part by people who live in the east Midlands rather than Richmond-upon-Thames? Who shop at Lidl rather than Waitrose and eat “dinner” or (heaven forbid!) “tea” at night, not “supper”?

The reality is that this courageous Brexit vote, for all the doubts and tensions it raises, represents a precious opportunity for the UK to shape not only our own future, but influence the direction of Europe. Far from leaving the UK at the mercy of other EU nations and assorted eurocrats, it’s already clear that there is much appetite to do deals with a Brexited Britain.

There is “no need to be nasty” in negotiations with the UK, said German Chancellor Angela Merkel over the weekend. “We want a good, objective atmosphere,” said Europe’s most powerful politician. “It’s important we work together to get the right outcome.”

That outcome, of course, is one keeping UK markets open for French wineries, Italian furniture-makers and German car producers. Britain’s trade deficit in goods with the EU – which surged to a record £24bn during the three months to April – represents hundreds of thousands of continental jobs and billions of euros profit.

Even before our Brexit vote, the main German employers’ organisation was publicly calling for trade with the UK to “remain free”. Of course it was, because that’s what makes commercial sense for both sides. Brexit gives us the chance to spread our trading wings way beyond Europe, rediscovering –almost a half century since we last cut a bilateral trade deal – the UK’s inherent genius for buying and selling.

For all our mercantile heritage, we currently trade less with the big four emerging markets – Brazil, India, Russia and China – than with Belgium. This is ridiculous. The UK desperately needs to turn far more diplomatic and commercial attention to the world’s fast-growing markets.

For now, membership of the European Economic Area, a Norwegian-style deal, is a useful and available stopgap. Be in no doubt, though, given our large economy and display of electoral resolve, the UK has considerable bargaining power. Brexit is galvanising voters across the EU, and could well provoke, before our Article 50 negotiations are over, several copycat referenda. It is the European Project, rather than the UK, which is now on the back foot.

SOURCE

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How Did I Become the Bad Guy?

Steve Noxon

Once again, a radicalized Muslim decided it was time to commit another act of terror on American soil and, almost as if it were part of a script, the media and the left have again blamed me for his actions.  “Oh no,” they tell me, “The shooter was not motivated by Islam, you bloodthirsty, crazed bitter clinger!  It was YOU!  You are the problem, don’t you see?”

Perhaps it happened prior to September 11, 2001, but it seems to me that that day created a huge paradigm shift in how blame was assigned in the leftist’s mind.  It was September 12 when I heard a liberal radio talk show host ask what we had done to make them so angry at us.  I was stunned.  Not only did this remark strike me as callous and vile, as we were still searching for survivors in the rubble of the Twin Towers, but it also exposed an amazing ignorance of history.  Radical Islam has hated the United States since its founding and to wonder why is to ignore what they have clearly told us for centuries.  They hate us for our freedom and our success.  They believe that they are the rightful rulers of the planet and anyone who disagrees is considered their enemy.  Seriously, it’s not really all that complicated.

And we used to understand this.  But no longer, it seems.  “Our betters” have decided that the people doing the shooting and who have very clearly stated their reasons for their actions are not the problem, I am.    Whenever a follower of this murderous ideology commits another vile act of terror, “our betters” put the pedal to the metal and work feverishly to point their scolding fingers at me and make me out to be the bad guy.  They tell me that I have somehow created a “hostile environment for the LGBT community,” because I believe people have the right to practice their faith, while they ignore the fact that Islam calls for the actual murder of gays.  I am the bad guy because I believe in the right to defend myself from those who wish to do me harm, like oh say maybe a crazed radical Islamist with a semi-automatic rifle who is on a mission from Mohammed.  I am the bad guy because, for some bizarre reason, I have come to the conclusion that the repeated attacks on innocent people by a very specific group of “lone wolves” might actually be tied to a larger threat that needs to be addressed.

Look, I’ve been married for over 25 years, so I’m used to being blamed for everything.  But the behavior of everyone on the left, including the New York Times and President Obama has taken this tactic to a new level over the last few years.  Every single time there is an obvious act of Islamic terrorism, the usual suspects race to the cameras or their keyboards to start assigning blame.  And invariably, it is me, a white male conservative Christian NRA member, someone who simply loves his wife and kids, lives in an ethnically diverse community, gets up and goes to work every morning to feed my family and keep a roof over our heads, who is to blame for these atrocities.

Why would these politicians and so-called “thought-leaders” put so much effort into making me the villain?  Simple.  Because if I am the villain, then their policies are not complete and abject failures.   And their policies couldn’t possibly be wrong, could they?  They are the smart ones.  That’s what they tell themselves at their little dinner parties, as they surround themselves with those who hold a wide variety of opinions from hard-left to extreme-left. It can’t be that reality doesn’t align with their world-view.

If I can be made out to be the villain, then the solution is easy.  Fewer rights.  Less freedom.  Bigger government unfettered by interference from the people.  More control. A further and further tightening of the yoke.  And it goes without saying that they would be the ones in control, since they are the smart ones.  Far smarter than those who, when they hear a radical Islamist declare that he is killing in the name of Allah, actually believe him.  They went to the right schools and they think the right way, so of course it is their birthright to be the ones behind the protected walls, making the rules for the rest of us to meekly follow.  Honestly, who could possibly disagree with that arrangement?

Me. The bad guy.

SOURCE

There is a  new  lot of postings by Chris Brand just up --  about Brexit, immigration and such things

A recent picture of Chris Brand


The latest from Edinburgh:  Chris is now elderly so his health is letting him down.  But he still had time for a sociable beer with the glamorous Mrs J. and her children.  His glamorous Taiwanese wife is beside him

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Reflections on Brexit

The most extraordinary thing about Brexit was the immediate and unreasoning hysteria it provoked.  A lot of very foolish people acted as if their lives had immediately changed -- when NOTHING will happen for at least a year. For anything to happen, laws have to be changed -- and I am sure that we all know what a glacial process that can be. Still, the dishonest predictions of disaster put out by the establishment in the lead-up to the vote must bear some responsibility for the panic.

And the very first indicator of disaster has already reversed itself.  The stockmarket plunged, only to bounce back to end up on the week.  Though some shares are still down of course.  The stockmarket is like that. If you think there's anything simple about it, you are headed for a fall.  I have seen people who had all the answers lose big money.

So people will have plenty of warning about changes before they change and will be able to make any adjustments to their affairs that they may see as needed.

So what are the likely changes?  Not much.  Some money now going to Brussels will probably be diverted to to where it is desperately needed -- the public hospitals -- so the hospitals  might not bump off grandma as quickly as they have been doing -- but that is probably about it.  The new Prime Minister will almost certainly be the popular Boris Johnson and party politics will return to their accustomed ways.  Everyone from David Cameron down has been promising that, though there will undoubtedly be a few sore-heads.

A threat that some people have made much of is that Scotland might secede.  Scotland voted solidly to stay in the EU. But that is nonsense.  If Scotland were to become an independent country with different immigration arrangements, the border between England and Scotland would become an international border to be marked by a fence and passport controls.  Free movement between the two countries would be halted for the first time in hundreds of years.

And Scotland would no longer be able to use the British pound as its currency so would probably have to adopt the troubled Euro -- possibly leading to an overnight drop in the value of Scottish savings.  If Nicola Sturgeon thinks she can get Scots to agree to  that she has haggis for brains.

The big threat that hung over the whole campaign was the possibility of British industry losing markets for its goods and services.  When Britain leaves the EU, will the EU abandon free trade between itself and Britain and start putting tariffs and other import restrictions on British goods headed for Europe?  It's most unlikely.  Trade wars almost always provoke retaliation.  And Britain has plenty to retaliate with:  a market of 60 million  people, to be precise.

As I have said previously, If Britain's tariff-free access to Europe were cut off by  some big-bottomed bureaucrats in Brussels, Britain could very rapidly and very effectively retaliate.  A Prime Minister, Boris Johnson could and probably would announce a complete embargo on the importation of European farm products into Britain.

That would be particularly disruptive to France, including the already-stressed French wine industry.  The Brits now buy twice as much Australian wine as French wine but Britain is still a major market for French wine. And one cannot imagine the French farmers taking that lying down. And French farmers always get their way.  One imagines them getting into their tractors and blockading the Berlaymont building, the primary seat of the EU Commission in Brussels. And when cut off from their supply of beer, chocolate and stinky cheese, the Brussels bureaucrats would undoubtedly cave in. "Temporary" or "transitional" arrangements would be made.

In short the EU will, as far a Britain is concerned, revert to being what it originally was:  A free trade area with Britain inside it.  Norway already has a free-trade-only agreement with the EU so a model for such arrangements already exists.

What about visa-free travel?  That's less certain.  There have always been visa-free travel arrangements between some countries and it would certainly be highly desirable to retain such arrangements between Britain and the countries of Europe.  Hundreds of thousands of French and Italians have moved to London to find work and hundreds of thousands of Brits -- mostly retirees -- have moved to France and Spain for the better climate there.  So both of those groups would be inconvenienced by a cessation of the existing travel arrangements.

So why might there NOT be visa-free travel arrangements?  That takes us right to the whole heart of Brexit.  I put up yesterday on POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH four lengthy essays that attempted to explain why the British people voted to leave the EU.  And they all did a reasonable job of it -- "unresponsive elites" and all that.  But in fact there was really only one standout issue between the people and their establishment:  Immigration.

Let me summarize the whole issue in the language of the people:   "The politicians are letting too many bloody wogs into the country".  In formal English: "The politicians are letting too many accursed foreigners into the country".  And most of those "wogs" got in under EU rules. Brexit was about giving England back to the English.

So, given that aim, any new immigration arrangements will have to be restrictive -- and that will almost certainly include at a minimum passports and visas for everyone entering Britain.

So is that racist?  You would have to define racism very broadly to say so.  But Leftists do define it extremely broadly.   Any awareness of group loyalty at all can attract cries of racism from them.  They use the ghastly memory of the socialist Hitler to imply that any degree of racial or ethnic consciousness is only a hairsbreadth away from genocide.  So something as simple as patriotism becomes racism in their unending outpouring of hate  for normal people.

They fail to take into account that it was patriotism, Russian patriotism, that defeated Hitler.  Something like 80% of German military casualties in WWII were incurred on the Eastern front.  And Russians to this day refer to that war as "The Great Patriotic War".

So the resentment that many Britons feel towards the influx of foreigners might in part be due to a love of England as it was but there are also huge practical reasons behind the resentment. The millions of foreigners who have arrived in recent years have put a strain on basic services -- hospitals, housing and transport facilities -- that the British government has done little to address -- because of the large costs involved.

So parents find that they cannot get their kid into a nearby school, they constantly get stuck in traffic jams, they can find standing room only on commuter trains and rushed hospital staff make errors that lead to serious harm and even death. And the price of housing has become unaffordable to many would-be buyers. There is no irrationality in wanting to stop further deterioration of that already dire situation

Finally, what are we to make of the age difference between "Remain" and "Leave" voters?  The older the voter was, the more likely they were to vote "Leave".  The cause is fairly straightforward.  Older voters remember a time when Britain did quite well on its own, thank you very much, and could see no reason why Britain could not do so again.  Younger voters, on the other hand have known nothing but the EU and accept it as normal, warts and all.  They were afraid of what was to them the unknown.

There is however some anger among young people about not getting their way and that will hopefully be a good lesson to a spoiled generation.

An amusing footnote:  "Quebec Separatists See New Hope After Brexit Vote".  I guess I shouldn't laugh -- JR.

UPDATE:  A good comment from Peter Hargreaves:

If Brexit sent world markets into turmoil it underlines the importance of the UK. This essentially means we will get every deal we want.

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Brexit Vote Has Huge Ramifications for U.S. Politics

BY ROGER L SIMON

News flash: The revolt against elites is real in the UK and America and it's only getting started. Maybe there will always be an England.

In a surprise, Leave won the Brexit referendum on whether to stay in the European Union by an equally surprising amount. British sovereignty won. David Cameron lost. Jeremy Corbyn lost. The EU lost. Bureaucrats lost. Angela Merkel lost. Barack Obama lost. Globalism lost. Authority figures almost everywhere lost. And, most of all, unlimited immigration lost.

So what happened to the vaunted British betting market that is almost invariably correct and was predicting by 80 percent a Remain victory? Or all those recent polls that were tilting Remain?

Answer: Those same elites had convinced each other they would win and therefore convinced the usual suspects—media, pollsters and, sadly, financial markets—that they were right. They were wrong. Watching them now on the BBC they still cannot comprehend  what has happened. The peasants have revolted—oh no, oh no. There must be some mistake. Didn't they get the memo? The sky would fall if they left the EU.

Earth to elites: Citizens of truly democratic countries don't want unlimited immigration into their countries by people who couldn't be less interested in democracy. They also don't want to be governed by the rules and regulations of faceless bureaucrats whose not-so-hidden goals are power and riches for themselves and their friends. Simple, isn't it?

Will There Always Be an England?

This vote is of immense help to Donald Trump if he is smart enough to seize it properly and doesn't bobble the ball. Many, probably most, Americans feel exactly the same as their brothers and sisters across the pond. They despise the same elites and want to save their country. Trump, now fortuitously in Scotland (I know—they voted Remain, but not in the numbers they were supposed to), should show his support. The  UK is America's closest ally.  We should be the first to extend a hand, negotiate free trade, etc., and get her rolling again.

That most elite of presidents, Barack Obama, who opened his morally narcissistic mouth supporting the Remain side and warning the British people, as he is wont to do, that there would be "consequences" if they voted to leave the EU, is in no position to do anything, even if he wanted to.  And he doesn't.

Hillary Clinton is so elitist she practically defines the term. She was probably up all night figuring out what to do about the situation. I have a suggestion—move to Brussels.

Meanwhile, Trump should take up the gauntlet for the U.S. and the UK now. Why wait? Act like the president—we could use one.  Donald has a natural ally in the leading Leave spokesperson conservative Boris Johnson. The two men are said to be similar and in many ways they are.

What Brexit Means

Long live the Anglosphere. Remember the Magna Carta and all that. This is a day truly to celebrate, even if stock markets are crashing around the world. They'll come back. Look on it as a buying opportunity. A bubble has broken, but it isn't a stock bubble. It's a human bubble consisting of elites who seek to govern in a manner not all that distant from Comrade Lenin, just hiding under a phony mask of bureaucratic democracy. They've taken a big body blow from the citizens of England. Churchill would be proud.  Time for America to follow suit.

But don't get cocky.  This is only one small victory—a non-blinding referendum—but make no mistake about it, still a victory after all.  Just follow the instructions of Sir Winston and "never, never give up."  Yes, I know the quote is falsely attributed, but it's good advice nevertheless.

SOURCE

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Trump on Brexit: America is next

British voters just shattered political convention in a stunning repudiation of the ruling establishment. Donald Trump is betting America is about to do the same.

The referendum campaign -- just like the U.S. election -- has boiled with populist anger, fear-mongering by politicians, hostility towards distant political elites and resurgent nationalism, and exposed a visceral feeling in the electorate that ordinary voters have lost control of the politics that shape their own lives. Its success raises the question of whether those forces will exert a similar influence in America in November.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who arrived in the UK to visit his Scottish golf courses just as the referendum result was announced, declared Friday that the U.S. is next.

"Come November, the American people will have the chance to re-declare their independence. Americans will have a chance to vote for trade, immigration and foreign policies that put our citizens first," he said. "They will have the chance to reject today's rule by the global elite, and to embrace real change that delivers a government of, by and for the people."

Pollsters in the UK underestimated the fury of grassroots voters outside metropolitan areas in a way that could be mirrored in the United States, where Clinton now enjoys a lead in national surveys.

Furthermore, "Brexit" forces triumphed partly because the Labour Party could not deliver its traditional working class voters in some big post-industrial cities for the "Remain" campaign, despite the support of party leaders.

It is not a stretch to wonder whether the kind of political message that was so powerful in the referendum -- featuring a harsh critique of free trade and a demands to "take our country back" -- could prove just as effective among blue-collar workers in rust belt states in the United States.

SOURCE

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Vive la France!

By far the best reaction to Brexit came from France.  Many European leaders rightly saw the Brexit vote as a repudiation of their policies but, instead of being humbled by it, were simply angry about it.  They were sure they knew what was best for the peasants and can't see where they went wrong  -- EXCEPT M. Hollande.  The French president rightly saw the excesses of the EU bureaucracy as a powerful motor behind British dissatisfaction with the EU. 

I also liked the reaction of Donald Tusk, representative of the heroic Polish people, who insisted: 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger'.  Being the ham in the sandwich between Germany and Russia, Poles have had to have that attitude. Some excerpts below of the European reaction.


European leaders have warned Britain to leave the EU quickly and avoid prolonging uncertainty.

The presidents of the EU's main institutions said in a statement today that they expect London to act on the decision to leave 'as soon as possible, however painful that process may be.'

As he demanded Britain make a quick exit from the EU, furious European Parliament President Martin Schulz said the U.K.'s relationship with the EU had been ambiguous, but was 'now clear.'

He added a prolonged exit was 'the opposite of what we need', adding that it was difficult to accept that 'a whole continent is taken hostage because of an internal fight in the Tory party'.

French President Francois Hollande has admitted the EU requires 'profound change' in the wake of the Brexit vote as German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed her dismay at the result.

Hollande said the UK's vote to leave the EU must act as a 'jolt' to the bloc to implement the change needed to address its troubles - adding he was 'sad' to see Britain sever relations.

The French President warned the remaining 27 member states that action was needed to reconnect with citizens. 'The British people have decided to leave. It is a sad decision but one which I respect,' he said.  'The vote puts the European Union in difficulties. It must recognise its shortfalls.

'A jolt is necessary. Europe must reaffirm it values of freedom, solidarity, peace. The EU must be understood and controlled by its citizens. I will do everything to secure profound change rather than decline.'

As leaders across Europe woke up to the news, France's far-right leader Marine Le Pen changed her Twitter picture to a Union Jack and told her followers the result was 'victory for freedom'.

'As I have been asking for years, we must now have the same referendum in France and EU countries,' she wrote.

This morning, Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, a member of the Le Pen dynasty and an FN MP,  tweeted 'Victory!'


Egregious, I know.  But this is a picture of Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, an anti-immigration member of the French parliament

The Le Pens are fiercely anti-Europe. They view an end to the EU as the best way of implementing their anti-immigration and anti-globalisation agenda.

French foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said he was 'sad for the United Kingdom' and that 'Europe will continue but it must react and rediscover the confidence of its peoples. It's urgent.'

Meanwhile the result also triggered Dutch far-right MP Geert Wilders to call for a referendum on EU membership in the Netherlands. Wilders, who is leading opinion polls, said if he is elected prime minister in March he will force a vote.

He said in a statement: 'We want to be in charge of our own country, our own money, our own borders and our own immigration policy. 'As quickly as possible the Dutch need to get the opportunity to have their say about Dutch membership of the European Union.

'If I become prime minister, there will be a referendum in the Netherlands on leaving the European Union as well. Let the Dutch people decide.'

SOURCE

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No wonder Trump looks happy - Britain's exit from Europe should leave Hillary Clinton shaking in her boots and Donald knows it!

I don't always agree with Piers Morgan but he is one of the few who know both British and American politics close up.  He is also an old friend of Trump and, despite some disagreements, is one of his few British defenders. So what he says below is worth a thought

Wow, wow, wow, wow, and WOW again. Not much shocks me after 33 years as a journalist in the news business, but Britain’s decision to leave the European Union is a truly staggering, historic and earth-shattering moment which I never thought would happen.

Full disclosure now it’s all over: I voted against Brexit and for Remain. My reason? The EU is indisputably a badly-run, antiquated organisation in desperate need of major reform, but to my mind that reform would be far better achieved by Britain staying inside it and leading the charge of change.

It wasn’t an easy decision, nor one I took lightly. The ramifications of this vote will play out for many years if not decades to come, and I’m not even remotely certain that I’m right in my assessment. In fact, the only thing I am certain about is that we’re now headed for a sustained period of uncertainty.

But mine was at least an honest belief based on careful study of all the facts and shamelessly scare-mongering claims laid before us by both sides.

I have four children and felt acutely conscious as I headed for my local electoral polling center last night that this decision would impact directly on them and their future lives, and those of their children and their children’s children.

This EU Referendum campaign, one of the most vicious, nasty and occasionally hideous in political history, split the British people like no issue I have ever witnessed before.

Many families, mine included, were bitterly divided. My father, sister and youngest brother voted to Leave the EU; my mother, wife and other brother voted to Remain. One of my two voting-age sons went for Remain, the other concluded he wasn’t persuaded by either side.

Passions ran very high and may take a long time to calm back down.

My Remain brother, a British Army officer who has serious concerns about what Brexit might mean for the security of Europe and the UK, actually warned his Facebook friends this morning that if any of them ‘gloated’ over this ‘bloody disaster’ he would never speak to them again. Interestingly, my sister’s husband, until recently also an army colonel, voted Leave.

Now though, it’s done, we are where we are and none of us really knows what will happen next. My guess is that things won’t be as bad as the Remain camp warned us nor as Utopian as the Leave camp promised.

We’ll all ‘keep buggering on’, as Churchill used to say, and it will probably all work itself out, somehow, in the end. Just as it did after World War 2.

More immediately, though, the fact Britain’s quit Europe will have a huge impact on global politics, not least in America which faces its own general election in November.

As the EU result came in, by eerie coincidence (though he obviously timed it deliberately to maximise publicity for the launch of his new golf course), Donald Trump flew into Scotland.

Trump and Vladimir Putin were the only two world political figures who publicly stated their support for Brexit.

So it was unsurprising to hear the Republican presidential nominee say how happy he was that Britons had ‘taken back their country’.

The parallels between Trump’s campaign and that waged by Brexit leaders Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage are obvious.

All three men are all anti-politicians, in the sense that they don’t behave or speak like conventional politicians. Their joint modus operandi is shooting from the hip and saying outrageous things to grab media attention.

They crack inappropriate jokes, belittle opponents often in a very puerile way, and have all been variously dismissed as ‘buffoons’and ‘idiots’ and even compared to Hitler.

But they share unshakeable self-confidence and have skilfully presented themselves as outsiders far removed from the political elite and ‘establishment’, who stand up for the average man and woman in the street.

They’ve also focused with laser-like, ruthless precision on hot button issues which they know many of those people are genuinely worried about, notably immigration and terrorism.

At his presser in Scotland this morning, Trump said: ‘People are angry all over the world. They’re angry over borders, they’re angry over people coming into the country and taking over and nobody even knows who they are. They’re angry about many, many things in the UK. It’s essentially the same thing that’s happening in the United States.’

Regardless of what you think of Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric, and his uncompromising talk of walls and bans, does anybody really doubt after this shock Brexit result that he’s right about the levels of anger?

It may not be obvious to the political and media elites living in their hallowed, protected homes in privileged areas.  But travel to the north of England, or to the middle of America, and you will find very real fury with government and very real concern over the impact of perceived immigration control failures.

There’s an increasing large gulf between the politically correct ‘cool’ and ‘establishment’ crowd who view any publicly stated concern about border controls as ‘racism’, and those who have to live at the sharp end of it.

The clear message from this sensational day for any politician or world leader is this: ignore the concerns of the people at your peril.

Britain’s Prime Minister Cameron assumed, arrogantly and patronisingly, that he would win this referendum by relying on the tried and tested vote-winning issue of the economy. But he seriously misjudged the mood of the nation.

In fact, it was immigration and ‘getting our country back’ which won it for the Brexiters.

Donald Trump is currently behind Hillary Clinton in most presidency polls, betting odds and Wall Street opinion - but so was the Leave camp for much of the EU campaign.

What none of the UK pollsters, bookmakers and city experts realised was there was a huge groundswell of anger which was going to tip the balance away from their presumed favourite.

If it can happen in Britain, it can most definitely happen in America. The issues are the same, and the cheer-leaders for change aren’t that dissimilar either.

SOURCE

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Trump Shows Just How Hard He'll Slam Clinton

It was a pair of dueling speeches, really, attack and counter attack. On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton feebly struck at Donald Trump’s economic policies in an attempt to discredit the real estate mogul’s past experience. The next day, Donald Trump made a speech designed to take on Clinton’s experience as secretary of state, her “best” résumé item for the presidency. “The Hillary Clinton foreign policy has cost America thousands of lives and trillions of dollars — and unleashed ISIS across the world,” said the presumed GOP nominee. “No secretary of state has been more wrong, more often and in more places than Hillary Clinton. Her decisions spread death, destruction and terrorism everywhere she touched.”

As several commentators noted, this may very well be Trump’s best strategy to unite the Republican Party after the divisive primary: Focus the firepower on Clinton. Hot Air’s Allahpundit writes, “If he had stuck to this message at his rallies and in his interviews over the last six weeks, there’d be no ‘Dump Trump’ contingent at the convention and his fundraising may well have taken off. Nothing unites the right, after all, like a forceful argument against the left.”

And there was plenty for Trump to slam — even without touching on the Clintons' personal lives. “Hillary Clinton has perfected the politics of personal profit and theft,” Trump said. He even found fault in her campaign slogan: “Her campaign slogan is, ‘I’m with her.’ You know what my response to that is? I’m with you: the American people.” By the time Trump is done with her, Clinton’s only accomplishment, if she’s elected, will be that she’s a woman. And as commentator David Limbaugh notes, what accomplishment is that for the Left, which thinks gender is subject to change?

SOURCE

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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British PM David Cameron resigns after Brexit vote

A very good speech.  A very correct speech.  A very British speech.  Worth listening to in full



David Cameron has resigned as Prime Minister after the UK public voted to leave the European Union in the referendum.  Excerpts from his speech:

A tearful Mr Cameron - with his wife by his side - said he had already spoken to the Queen about his decision.

The PM campaigned to remain in the EU but the public rejected his arguments and chose to leave the EU by 51.9% to 48.1%.

Speaking to masses of reporters outside Downing Street, the PM said a new leader would be in place by the Tory party conference in October.

'The British people have voted to leave the European Union and their will must be respected,' Mr Cameron said.

'The country requires fresh leadership to take it in this direction,' added the PM.

'I will do everything I can as Prime Minister to steady the ship over the coming weeks and months, but I don't think it would be right for me to try to be the captain that steers our country to its next destination.'

Mr Cameron said he had fought 'head, heart and soul' to stay in the EU but that voters had chosen a different path.

Tears in his eyes and his voice cracking slightly, Mr Cameron's final words were: 'I love this country, and I feel honoured to have served it, and I will do everything I can in the future to help this great country succeed.'

SOURCE

Thank God!

Brexit has won!  Britain is Britain again and not just an appendage of a disgusting bureaucratic State.  To many Australians, Britain is still "Home" in the sense that all our ancestry is from there.  So despite minor rivalries in cricket etc., we still wish Britain well and hope for her flourishing.  We can now resume hope of that.  Britain's last best hope has been seized despite a torrent of lies against it.  As so often in the past, Britain has left her fightback to the last moment, but, as in the past, she has triumphed over those who wished to subdue her

And particular kudos to Nigel Farage, who fought a long and often lonely battle for this.  And great credit to the Mackems and Geordies -- who delivered a massive 22-point win for Leave in Sunderland -- JR

Black hearts have better rhythm too -- and it's genetic

Atrial fibrillation is when the heart loses it's rhythm.  Whites are more prone to it

Genetic Investigation Into the Differential Risk of Atrial Fibrillation Among Black and White Individuals

Jason D. Roberts et al.

ABSTRACT

Importance:  White persons have a higher risk of atrial fibrillation (AF) compared with black individuals despite a lower prevalence of risk factors. This difference may be due, at least in part, to genetic factors.

Objectives:  To determine whether 9 single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with AF account for this paradoxical differential racial risk for AF and to use admixture mapping to search genome-wide for loci that may account for this phenomenon.

Design, Setting, and Participants:  Genome-wide admixture analysis and candidate SNP study involving 3 population-based cohort studies that were initiated between 1987 and 1997, including the Cardiovascular Health Study (CHS) (n = 4173), the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) (n = 12 341) study, and the Health, Aging, and Body Composition (Health ABC) (n = 1015) study. In all 3 studies, race was self-identified. Cox proportional hazards regression models and the proportion of treatment effect method were used to determine the impact of 9 AF-risk SNPs among participants from CHS and the ARIC study. The present study began July 1, 2012, and was completed in 2015.

Main Outcomes and Measures:  Incident AF systematically ascertained using clinic visit electrocardiograms, hospital discharge diagnosis codes, death certificates, and Medicare claims data.

Results:  A single SNP, rs10824026 (chromosome 10: position 73661450), was found to significantly mediate the higher risk for AF in white participants compared with black participants in CHS (11.4%; 95% CI, 2.9%-29.9%) and ARIC (31.7%; 95% CI, 16.0%-53.0%). Admixture mapping was performed in a meta-analysis of black participants within CHS (n = 811), ARIC (n = 3112), and Health ABC (n = 1015). No loci that reached the prespecified statistical threshold for genome-wide significance were identified.

Conclusions and Relevance:  The rs10824026 SNP on chromosome 10q22 mediates a modest proportion of the increased risk of AF among white individuals compared with black individuals, potentially through an effect on gene expression levels of MYOZ1. No additional genetic variants accounting for a significant portion of the differential racial risk of AF were identified with genome-wide admixture mapping, suggesting that additional genetic or environmental influences beyond single SNPs in isolation may account for the paradoxical racial risk of AF among white individuals and black individuals.

JAMA Cardiol. Published online June 22, 2016. doi:10.1001/jamacardio.2016.1185

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Trump nails it

Trump: 'I Only Want to Admit People Who Share Our Values and Love Our People'

Republican Donald Trump drew a sharp contrast between his own policies and those of Hillary Clinton on Wednesday, saying he would restrict immigration to people who "share our values," while she wants to "bring in people who believe women should be enslaved and gays should be put to death."

"Perhaps the most terrifying thing about Hillary Clinton's foreign policy is that she refuses to acknowledge the threat posed by radical Islam. In fact, Hillary Clinton supports a radical 550 percent increase in Syrian refugees coming into the United States, and that's an increase over President Obama's already high number.

"Under her plan, we would admit hundred of thousands of refugees from the most dangerous countries on earth with no way to screen who they are, what they are, what they believe, where they come from. Already, hundreds of recent inmmigrants and their children have been convicted of terrorist activity inside the United States."

Trump noted that the father of the Orlando shooter was a Taliban supporter from Afghanistan, "one of the most repressive anti-gay and anti-women regimes on earth."

"I only want to admit people who share our values and love our people," Trump said. "Hillary clinton wants to bring in people who believe women should be enslaved and gays should put to death."

Trump suggested that Clinton's motivation lies with the donations she's accepted from various foreign countries on behalf of the Clinton Foundation.

SOURCE

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Gay Lover Reveals the Roots of Orlando Terrorist's Rage

A man who claimed to be the lover of Orlando gunman Omar Mateen said the June 12 massacre at a gay nightclub was motivated by revenge, not terrorism.

In an interview with Univision, the man said Mateen was “100 percent gay” and that the two had carried on a “friends with benefits” relationship after meeting last year through a gay dating app. He said he had reported his relationship with Mateen to the FBI and had been interviewed multiple times. The FBI also confirmed to Univision that it has met with him.

The man, who wore a disguise in his interview with Univision and was identified only as “Miguel,” said Mateen’s attack at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub was the result of a sexual encounter with two Latino men, one of which Mateen later discovered was HIV positive. The attack, carried out at the nightclub’s Latino night, was Mateen’s attempt at taking revenge against a specific community of gay men who he felt had used and rejected him, the man said.

SOURCE

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Hillary Can't Best Trump's Economic Platform



Hillary Clinton attacked Donald Trump's plan to improve the economy, with a Tuesday speech high on rhetorical zingers and low on examples of her own economic prowess. Trump didn't have enough detail in his job creation plan, Clinton complained, "But maybe we shouldn't expect better from someone whose famous words are: 'You're fired.'"

Hilarious coming from a woman who made her fortune penning books, giving speeches and peddling influence — pastimes of the liberal elite. At least Trump created jobs.

Clinton's speech tried to paint Trump as "dangerous," a bull in the China shop of the American economy. "Just like he shouldn't have his finger on the button, he shouldn't have his hands on our economy," Clinton declared. But as commentator Ashe Schow points out, Clinton has a long record of using public money and her status to make herself and her family rich. Is she really the best advocate for the American middle class? It was just a few weeks ago where she admitted her policies would make coal miners lose their jobs.

As for Clinton's plan to get this Obama economy roaring back to life, Clinton suggested — what else? — massive government spending on the nation's infrastructure. But as Jim Geraghty points out, it's not like Obama didn't try that same trick in 2012 with $102 billion in roadway funding ("the largest new investment in our nation's infrastructure since Eisenhower") — and look where that got us. Clinton proposes nothing new. If she were to become president, expect four more years of dismal economic growth in a continuation of the Obama-Clinton stagnation.

SOURCE

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Ideologues Make for Dangerous Politicians

Victor Davis Hanson

Hillary Clinton is a seasoned liberal politician, but one with few core beliefs. Her positions on subjects such as gay marriage, free-trade agreements, the Keystone XL pipeline, the Iraq War, the Assad regime in Syria and the use of the term “radical Islam” all seem to hinge on what she perceives 51 percent of the public to believe on any given day.

Such politicians believe truth is a relative construct. Things are deemed false by politicians only if they cannot convince the public that they are true — and vice versa. When the majority of Americans no longer believe Clinton’s yarns about her private email server to the point of not wanting to vote for her, then she will change her narrative and create new, convenient truths to reflect the new consensus.

Donald Trump is an amateur politician but a politician nevertheless. He is ostensibly conservative, but he likewise seems to change his positions on a number of issues — from abortion to the Iraq War — depending on what he feels has become the majority position. And as with Clinton, Trump’s idea of truth is defined as what works, while falsity is simply any narrative that proved unusable.

Politicians glad-hand, pander and kiss babies as they seek to become megaphones for majority opinions. But ideologues are different. They often brood and lecture that their utopian dreams are not shared by the supposedly less informed public.

To gain power, of course, ideologues can temporarily become political animals. Barack Obama ran in 2008 on popular positions such as reducing the national debt and opposing gay marriage and immigration amnesties, only to flip after he was re-elected and no longer needed to pander to perceived majority opinions.

But otherwise, Obama the ideologue seems to believe that big redistributive government is always necessary to achieve a mandated equality of result — regardless of whether it ever works or should work in reality. He opposes a reduction in capital gains tax rates even though he concedes that such cuts might bring in more revenue.

The administration has deemed the Affordable Care Act successful even though Obama’s assurances that it would lower deductibles and premiums, give patients greater choices, and ensure continuity in medical providers and plans have all proven to be untrue.

No matter: Obamacare fulfills the president’s preconceived notion that state-mandated health care is superior to what the private sector can provide.

Abroad, Obama starts from the premise that an overweening U.S. is not to be congratulated for saving the world in World War II, winning the Cold War and ushering in globalization. Instead, its inherent unfairness to indigenous peoples, its opposition to revolutionary regimes and its supposed interventionist bullying disqualify it from being a moral and muscular leader of the world.

As a consequence of all this, facts often must be created to match pre-existing ideology.

A homophobic, radical Islamic terrorist in Orlando shouted “Allahu Akbar” as he mowed down the innocent in a gay nightclub. He called 911 to make sure the world knew that his killing spree was in service to the Islamic State. And in the midst of his murdering, he even called a local TV news station to brag on his jihadist martyrdom in progress. No matter. To Obama, who asserts that radical Islamic terrorism, which he refuses to identify in such terms, poses little threat (far less of a threat, he has said, than the dangers posed by accidental falls in bathtubs), the Orlando shooting was instead a symptom of a lack of gun control or endemic homophobia — anything other than what the killer himself said it was.

Guns, of course, had nothing to do with the 3,000 people killed on 9/11, with the Boston Marathon bombing, or with recent terrorist attacks in Oklahoma and at the University of California at Merced perpetrated by blade-wielding assailants. Tight restrictions on semi-automatic weapons could no more stop shootings in Europe than stop an epidemic of inner-city shootings in Chicago. No matter: The Orlando shooting must be ascribed to the availability of guns rather than to radical Islamic terrorism.

In both word and deed, Iran, Cuba and Turkey are revolutionary societies in turmoil that have often voiced anti-Americanism. But to Obama, who at times has warmed up to all three, those regimes fit his deductive notion that America’s past behavior has earned it understandable antipathy from countries with legitimate grievances.

Bipartisan analyses agree that the withdrawal of all troops from Iraq in December 2011 threw away the victory obtained by the American surge of 2007, eroded the foundation of the nascent Iraqi democracy, and helped to birth and empower the Islamic State.

But to an ideologue like Obama, the withdrawal simply reflected a universal truth that the U.S. must get out and leave the Middle East to its rightful owners — even if the president has been forced to send nearly 5,000 troops back into Iraq.

In general, politicians are rank opportunists, but at least most of them are malleable and attuned to public opinion.

But ideologues are far more anti-empirical — and thus dangerous.

SOURCE

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

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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

Democrat warmongering

Leftists love wars and revolutions

Some 50 State Department officials have signed a memo calling on President Obama to launch air and missile strikes on the Damascus regime of Bashar Assad. A "judicious use of stand-off and air weapons," they claim, "would undergird and drive a more focused and hard-nosed U.S.-led diplomatic process."

In brief, to strengthen the hand of our diplomats and show we mean business, we should start bombing and killing Syrian soldiers.

Yet Syria has not attacked us. And Congress has not declared war on Syria, or authorized an attack. Where do these State hawks think President Obama gets the authority to launch a war on Syria?

Does State consider the Constitution to be purely advisory when it grants Congress the sole power to declare war? Was not waging aggressive war the principal charge against the Nazis at Nuremberg?

If U.S. bombs and missiles rain down on Damascus, to the cheers of the C-Street Pattons, what do we do if Bashar Assad's allies Iran and Hezbollah retaliate with Benghazi-type attacks on U.S. diplomats across the Middle East? What do we do if Syrian missiles and Russian planes starting shooting down U.S. planes?

Go to war with Hezbollah, Iran and Russia?

Assume U.S. strikes break Syria's regime and Assad falls and flees. Who fills the power vacuum in Damascus, if not the most ruthless of the terrorist forces in that country, al-Nusra and ISIS?

Should ISIS reach Damascus first, and a slaughter of Alawites and Christians ensue, would we send an American army to save them?

According to CIA Director John Brennan, ISIS is spreading and coming to Europe and America. Does it make sense then that we would launch air and missile strikes against a Syrian regime and army that is today the last line of defense between ISIS and Damascus?

Does anyone think these things through?

Wherever, across the Middle East, we have plunged in to wage war — Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, Syria — people continue to suffer and die, and we are ensnared. Have we not fought enough wars in this Godforsaken region?

Last week, Russian planes launched air strikes on the rebels in Syria whom we have been arming and training to overthrow Assad.

Said John Kerry, "Russia needs to understand that our patience is not infinite." But why are we arming rebels to overthrow Assad?

Who rises if he falls? Moscow's alliance with Damascus goes back decades. Syria provides Russia with a naval base in the Mediterranean. Vladimir Putin's support for the embattled Syrian regime in the civil war being waged against it is legal under international law.

It is our policy that appears questionable.

Where did Obama get the right to arm and train rebels to dump over the Damascus regime? Did Congress authorize this insurrection? Or is this just another CIA-National Endowment for Democracy project?

Why are we trying to bring down Assad, anyhow?

U.S. foreign policy today seems unthinking, reactive, impulsive.

Last week, 31,000 NATO troops conducted exercises in Poland and the Baltic republics, right alongside the border with Russia.

For the first time since 1945, German tanks appeared in Poland.

Now we are planning to base four NATO battalions — one U.S.-led, one British, one German, and perhaps one Canadian, as the French and Italians are balking at being part of a tripwire for war.

How would we react if 31,000 Russian, Chinese, Cuban, Iranian and North Korean troops conducted military exercises across from El Paso and Brownsville, Texas?

How would we react if each of those countries left behind a battalion of troops to prevent a repeat of General "Black Jack" Pershing's intervention in Mexico in 1916?  Americans would be apoplectic.

Nor are some Europeans enthusiastic about confronting Moscow. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier called the NATO exercises "warmongering" and "saber-rattling." He adds, "Anyone who believes that symbolic tank parades on the alliance's eastern border will increase security is wrong. We would be well-advised not to deliver any excuses for a new, old confrontation."

Not only is Steinmeier's Social Democratic Party leery of any new Cold War with Russia, so, too, is the German Left Party, and the anti-EU populist party Alternative for Germany, which wants closer ties to Russia and looser ties to the United States.

This month, we sent the USS Porter into the Black Sea. Why? Says Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, "to deter potential aggression."

While there is talk of a NATO Black Sea fleet, Bulgaria, one of the three NATO Black Sea nations, appears to want no part of it.

The European Union also just voted to extend sanctions on Russia for annexing Crimea and supporting separatists in Ukraine.

Looking for a four-year faceoff with a nuclear-armed Russia?

SOURCE

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Heed Trump's Warning

One of Donald Trump’s political skills is giving widely condemned speeches.

His post-Orlando jeremiad fit the pattern, but the speech was a little like Wagner’s music as described in the famous Mark Twain line: Not as bad as it sounds. There is something so inherently inflammatory in Trump’s delivery that he could read the Gettysburg Address and some listeners would wonder how he could possibly say such a thing.

The kernel of Trump’s speech was rather obvious: “The bottom line is that the only reason the killer was in America in the first place was because we allowed his family to come here. That is a fact, and it’s a fact we need to talk about.”

The reaction of much of the opinion elite was nearly instantaneous: Whatever we do, let’s not talk about that fact.

Countless articles have been written on how much better we are at assimilating Muslim immigrants than Europe is, usually with back-patting over our openness and fluidity as a society in contrast to the self-defeating insularity of a country like France.

This may be true, but the assumption that we have the magic formula is under stress now that we’ve repeatedly suffered mass killings by second-generation immigrants.

The Islamic State model of inspiring “lone wolves” already here is dependent on loosely assimilated American Muslims susceptible to its hateful appeals. Disturbingly, it is finding takers.

In six months, terrorists have killed more than 60 people on our shores; two of the perpetrators were the sons of immigrants, and one an immigrant herself.

One of the reasons we have avoided the problems of a France may be sheer numbers. France has 50 percent more Muslim immigrants than we do, even though it is a much smaller country. Only 1 percent of the U.S. population is Muslim; 7.5 percent of the French population is.

The Somali community in Minneapolis, seeded with refugees and then replenished with chain migration, has proved a rich recruiting ground for Islamist extremists. This suggests that when we have our own enclaves of poor Muslim immigrants, the experience isn’t a happy one.

On the current trajectory, we will take in 1 million Muslim immigrants or more over the next decade. It can’t be out of bounds to ask whether that’s a good idea.

Or it shouldn’t be. The immigration debate is so encrusted with unexamined pieties that any suggestion that we reduce the number or the composition of the current immigrant flow is taken as an attempt to kneecap the Statue of Liberty.

At bottom, the Trump doctrine on immigration is that our policy should serve our values and interests, and the status quo fails on both counts. That said, his proposed Muslim ban is a mistake. It communicates a hostility to all Muslims and, besides, is unworkable.

Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies outlines a more sensible course. He suggests a return to a Cold War-era ideological test for new arrivals, geared to the struggle against radical Islam. It would ask potential immigrants questions such as whether they support killing religious converts or homosexuals. Anyone answering “yes” would be excluded. Applicants could lie, but at least the exercise would send a signal about what constitutes a lowest common denominator of American civic life.

Responsibility for Omar Mateen’s heinous act is all his own, but it is certainly relevant that his Dear Old Dad supports the Taliban and hates gays. He is exactly the kind of immigrant you would hope to deny the priceless privilege of coming here.

Krikorian also proposes to reduce legal immigration. If we eliminated the visa lottery, tightened the criteria for family unification and accepted fewer refugees, we would diminish the number of low-skilled immigrants who have trouble thriving here, and at the margins, the number of new Muslim entrants.

Donald Trump does the cause of immigration restriction a disservice by rendering it in caricature. But the questions he raises won’t go away, and they shouldn’t.

SOURCE

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Liberal Reporter Attempts to Buy "Assault Rifle" to Prove How Easy It Is, Gets Rejected

In the wake of the Orlando massacre, Chicago Sun Times reporter Neil Steinberg set out to buy an “assault rifle,” presumably to prove how easy it is. But the process didn't exactly go as planned.

In his column titled "Would-be Terrorists Can Buy Guns, But a Reporter? No," he points out how a journalist in Philadelphia was able to buy an "assault rifle” in less than 10 minutes. He also noted the percentage of gun transactions in America that don’t go through a background check, and so on.  But not at the gun shop he visited. After filling out the required paperwork asking if he was an illegal alien, a fugitive, or whether he had been convicted on charges of domestic abuse, the reporter handed over $842.50 for a Smith & Wesson M & P 15 Sport II. He'd just made his first gun purchase. Since Illinois has a 24-hour waiting period after buying a firearm and taking possession of it, however, Steinberg had to wait.

Unfortunately for him, the gun store later called to say they were canceling the sale, but initially did not say why, as is their right.

Steinberg insisted it was because he’s a reporter. “[H]ating the media is right behind hating the government as a pastime for many gun owners,” he writes. “They damn you for being ignorant then hide when you try to find out.”

Later, the gun store sent Steinberg’s newspaper a statement, which read in part: “it was uncovered that Mr. Steinberg has an admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife.”

Everyone in Chicago knows about his escapades as a drunk and a wife beater because he wrote about it, the staff at Maxon knew about his past and they denied his purchase based on Steinberg’s own admissions in his writings about it. The firearms dealer has the final say in whether you get a gun or not and because of Steinberg’s local reputation, they decided not to take a chance on him.

More HERE

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Pro-choice



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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Brexit vote could liberate the world

With the vote for or against Britain leaving the EU due at the end of this week, the look below at what it implies from economic historian and retired merchant banker Martin Hutchinson is valuable.  A British exit could have a similar effect to the Trump revolt: Rejection of a tired and oppressive consensus. As such, Martin rightly sees global implications for the British vote

One point that everyone seems to be overlooking is that British trade arrangements are unlikely to be much disrupted by a Brexit -- for the excellent reason that the British market is an important one for Europe.  If Britain's tariff-free access to Europe were cut off by  some big-bottomed bureaucrats in Brussels, Britain could very rapidly and very effectively retaliate.  A Prime Minister Boris Johnson could and probably would announce a complete embargo on the importation of European farm products into Britain.

That would be particularly disruptive to France, including the already-stressed French wine industry.  The Brits now buy twice as much Australian wine as French wine but Britain is still a major market for French wine. And one cannot imagine the French farmers taking that lying down. And French farmers always get their way.  One imagines them getting into their tractors and blockading the relevant building in Brussels. And when cut off from their supply of beer, chocolate and stinky cheese, the Brussels bureaucrats would undoubtedly cave in. "Temporary" or "transitional" arrangements would be made.

And there is of course NAFTA.  NAFTA would be a much better fit for Britain than the EU.  Blood is thicker than water and the legal and cultural similarities between the UK and the USA are still large -- not to mention the ease of a common language.  And an influential group of 11 U.S. congressmen have already made moves toward opening trade negotiations with Britain. The signatories to the letter include Devin Nunes and Pat Tiberi, two former chairmen of Congress’s Ways and Means Subcommittee on Trade.

Sadly, however, I doubt that there will be any change.  Australia and Britain are demographically and culturally very similar so the Australian experience with referenda is instructive. We have had rather a lot of them and they are always lost unless there is a broad consensus about their desirability.  There is no such consensus in Britain at the moment.   I would however love to be surprised -- JR


The purely economic costs and benefits of a British vote next Thursday to exit the EU are quite finely balanced. There are undoubted advantages to membership of a large free trade area, which it will be a pity to lose. While the EU leaders are pushing the union in a direction Britain does not and should not want to go, politically or economically, they could probably mostly be resisted. The short-term costs of Brexit could be considerable, if only in a “menu-changing” sense. Yet for Britain and for the world as a whole a vote for Brexit will constitute a fightback against a global consensus that badly need to be fought, for the sake of all our futures.

A year ago, this column published a piece headlined “Brexit divorce needs a good lawyer, hot new girlfriend.” It never got either. There is no assurance whatever that a British exit from the EU will be negotiated in an atmosphere of goodwill on both sides – indeed part of the Remain campaign’s “Project Fear” has been dire threats from various EU functionaries about how Britain’s departure must be made as unpleasant as possible to deter other countries from trying to follow the same path. Add to this indication that the negotiation will be a tough one the likelihood that Britain’s smoothest negotiator, David Cameron, will rule himself out of the exit negotiation by resigning (or will be ruled out by Brexiters’ distrust) and you can see that the “lawyer” problem is nowhere near being solved.

As for the “hot new girlfriend,” that has manifestly failed to appear – although if Donald Trump wins the Presidency a Trump-led United States, raising barriers against others but trusting a Brexiting Britain, would certainly qualify. Indeed, a United States that had poor relations with the politically correct EU, raised trade barriers against much of Asia, but regarded Britain as an old and valued ally, might be the hottest of all possible new girlfriends, a gigantic market suddenly cut off from many of its other trading partners to which Britain now had preferred access.

However, that possibility is currently no more than a gleam in the eye, with at most a 50-50 chance of appearing. Meanwhile the Brexit campaigners’ have failed to open discussions with plausible resource economies in Latin America or Africa, or with fast-growing Asian economies with a thirst for British exports. Thus there is no glorious prospect to dangle before the voters’ eyes, and a likelihood that the exit negotiations will be tortuous and the exit terms unpleasant. In those circumstances, one could entirely forgive the notoriously timid British electorate for wimping out of Brexit, and clinging to the skirts of the hag-like EU nanny they know.

Economically, the Brexit decision is quite a close one. While a Brexit would be economically advantageous in the long run (because Britain would be able to eliminate excess regulation and reorient its economy towards supplying countries with decent growth) it would unquestionably have substantial costs of renegotiating treaties and re-making economic arrangements, just as the entry into the EU did in the 1970s. While it is very clear that entry into the EU was a major economic error on the part of some especially feeble British prime ministers, the balance of economic factors for exit is much closer.

Politically and strategically, however, the arguments for Brexit are much stronger. Britain had a moderate amount of influence in EU councils in the years leading up to the Single European Act, which established a continent-wide market coming into effect in 1992. However ever since the Presidency of Jacques Delors (1985-95) and the 1992 Maastricht Treaty, Britain has been the odd man out, occasionally joined by one or other of the tiny East European states but otherwise dragged unwillingly down a road that the vast majority of Britons do not want to travel.

There is a minority of opinion formers in London that wishes to welcome their new insect overlords in Brussels, but that minority is both tiny and unrepresentative. It does however wield a considerable amount of influence and is not open to argument, whether from British democratic traditions or otherwise. Thus the extraordinary editorial in Reuters Breakingviews, generally reflective of “enlightened” London opinion, which advocated cancelling the Brexit referendum at the last minute. Throwing away 800 years of British political freedoms is just one of the sacrifices the pro-EU fanatics are prepared to make in the interests of their perverted ideology.

For the great majority of Britons, free trade with the EU is attractive, though there are doubts about the “free movement of labor” in EU treaties, especially as continental countries seem incapable of or unwilling to control their borders. But the feeling that the EU project has a huge hidden agenda, that is to be imposed on the British people without their democratic consent, has propelled the Brexit campaign to a level far in excess of that justified by simple economic considerations.

If the Brexit decision were a purely economic one, based only on the marginal advantages or disadvantages of membership of a trade area that was not especially suited to British needs, then Thursday’s vote would not be especially significant, except for the British themselves, and even then, the losers could console themselves that life would go on very much as before whichever way the vote went. But the hidden agenda of the EU’s leaders and the contempt for democracy evident in the more extreme of its supporters, indicate that the Brexit vote has a meaning far beyond the relatively limited confined of the European Union.

Over the past 20 years, an economic consensus has arisen among the world’s policymakers, that appears impervious either to argument or to democratic rejection. It involves extreme monetary policies, forcing interest rates far below their natural levels, to negative real rates and now even now negative nominal rates. It also involves running massive budget deficits, apparently without end – who could have imagined even a decade ago that a Republican Congress, in a period when the economy was running close to full employment, would do nothing whatever to bring down a budget deficit that runs year after year at around $500 billion, with every prospect of rising above $1 trillion in the next decade, without any recession intervening. It involves unlimited immigration, of both skilled and unskilled, so that domestic wage rates even in rich countries are forced down to global subsistence levels. Finally, it involves massive environmental and other over-regulation in the interests of crony capitalists who enjoy political favor, so that the playing field is no longer level but is tilted sharply towards those with political connections — crony capitalism at its most insidious level.

The result has been the slowest sustained period of rich country growth since the 1930s, with only the politically connected and those with access to massive amounts of cheap leverage doing well. The consensus policy is imposed by all major “respectable” parties, so that the electorate has no chance of getting it reversed, even if it had the economic understanding to want to do so.

The globalist consensus project is meeting increasing voter resistance, partly because of its manifest failure (which the consensus-globalist media does everything to conceal from voters.) The best chance to oust it was in this year’s Republican primaries (or, by all means in the Democratic primaries – Bernie Sanders represented an alternative to it, albeit an even worse one.) The Republican primary electorate rejected the globalist-consensus policy, as represented by every Republican candidate back to the first George Bush, but unfortunately replaced the consensus with Donald Trump, a man who having made his fortune in real estate, is uniquely blinkered against the need to replace funny-money Fed policies.

There will thus be no further chance to replace globalist-consensus policies until 2021 in the United States. In Britain, the globalist-consensus David Cameron is apparently in place until 2020. In Japan, nobody is advocating better policies than Shinzo Abe’s, merely worse ones. As for the EU, that polity is so undemocratic that even victory after victory for anti-consensus nationalists in individual countries merely causes it to dig in harder and demonize the assault.

The Brexit vote offers the one chance we have in 2016 to prize off the dead hand of global consensus that is holding the world economy by the throat. Should Britain vote to leave the EU, it will be a massive blow to consensus supporters both in Britain and the EU. It will also encourage separatist and nationalist movements elsewhere in Europe. If David Cameron feels the need to resign from Number 10 on a Brexit vote, Britain may have a chance to get rid of the expensive and useless Bank of England Governor Mark Carney, who has held down the British economy by persisting in ultra-low interest rate policies, thereby killing British productivity growth. A Brexit vote would also encourage the supporters of Donald Trump in the United States, who will get rid of many of the globalist consensus policies even if he is unsound on the central question of interest rates.

Economic trends, in particular a rise in inflation, may dislodge the global consensus before 2020, even if the British electorate fails to take the chance offered to it. However, if the British vote for Brexit, it will represent one fairly modest step for Britain in regaining its freedom, but has the potential to represent one great leap for mankind as a whole.

SOURCE

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Statins bite the dust again

Association Between Achieved Low-Density Lipoprotein Levels and Major Adverse Cardiac Events in Patients With Stable Ischemic Heart Disease Taking Statin Treatment

Morton Leibowitz et al.

ABSTRACT

Importance:  International guidelines recommend treatment with statins for patients with preexisting ischemic heart disease to prevent additional cardiovascular events but differ regarding target levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C). Trial data on this question are inconclusive and observational data are lacking.

Objective:  To assess the relationship between levels of LDL-C achieved with statin treatment and cardiovascular events in adherent patients with preexisting ischemic heart disease.

Design, Setting, and Participants: Population-based observational cohort study from 2009 to 2013 using data from a health care organization in Israel covering more than 4.3 million members. Included patients had ischemic heart disease, were aged 30 to 84 years, were treated with statins, and were at least 80% adherent to treatment or, in a sensitivity analysis, at least 50% adherent. Patients with active cancer or metabolic abnormalities were excluded.

Exposures:  Index LDL-C was defined as the first achieved serum LDL-C measure after at least 1 year of statin treatment, grouped as low (≤70.0 mg/dL), moderate (70.1-100.0 mg/dL), or high (100.1-130.0 mg/dL).

Main Outcomes and Measures:  Major adverse cardiac events included acute myocardial infarction, unstable angina, stroke, angioplasty, bypass surgery, or all-cause mortality. The hazard ratio of adverse outcomes was estimated using 2 Cox proportional hazards models with low vs moderate and moderate vs high LDL-C, adjusted for confounders and further tested using propensity score matching analysis.

Results:  The cohort with at least 80% adherence included 31 619 patients, for whom the mean (SD) age was 67.3 (9.8) years. Of this population, 27% were female and 29% had low, 53% moderate, and 18% high LDL-C when taking statin treatment. Overall, there were 9035 patients who had an adverse outcome during a mean 1.6 years of follow-up (6.7 per 1000 persons per year). The adjusted incidence of adverse outcomes was not different between low and moderate LDL-C (hazard ratio [HR], 1.02; 95% CI, 0.97-1.07; P = .54), but it was lower with moderate vs high LDL-C (HR, 0.89; 95% CI, 0.84-0.94; P < .001). Among 54 884 patients with at least 50% statin adherence, the adjusted HR was 1.06 (95% CI, 1.02-1.10; P = .001) in the low vs moderate groups and 0.87 (95% CI, 0.84-0.91; P = .001) in the moderate vs high groups.

Conclusions and Relevance:  Patients with LDL-C levels of 70 to 100 mg/dL taking statins had lower risk of adverse cardiac outcomes compared with those with LDL-C levels between 100 and 130 mg/dL, but no additional benefit was gained by achieving LDL-C of 70 mg/dL or less. These population-based data do not support treatment guidelines recommending very low target LDL-C levels for all patients with preexisting heart disease.

JAMA Intern Med. Published online June 20, 2016. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.2751.  Commentary here

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

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or  here -- for when blogspot is "down" or failing to  update.  Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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