Envy of success

A nice looking couple from a wealthy background get married but they reveal too much of their privileged background in the wedding announcement.  In an envious world I suppose that was crass but they were just doing what was normal for them.  And why should they hide their background? Their announcement has however attracted much criticism

Envious people could perhaps reflect on John F. Kennedy Jr., a very privileged person  who married a privileged lady, Carolyn Bessette.  They became the focus of society attention, including being invited to the White House by Bill Clinton. So they surpassed the couple below in social success.  But, like many of his class, Kennedy owned a light plane that he liked to fly. On  July 16, 1999, Kennedy crashed it, killing both of them.  Carolyn was only 33 at the time.  Light planes are always dangerous and Kennedy was probably coked up when he crashed it so "privilege" is not always what it seems, is it?

Imagine the distress of Carolyn's parents -- to have seen their beautiful daughter taken to the heights of social eminence, only to die young without even leaving the consolation of a child

THERE’S a specific type of upper class New Yorker who gets their wedding announced in the New York Times. They’re usually white, blonde, Ivy League educated and very, very rich.

Grace Hays Holcomb du Pont and Conor Jackson Sutherland — yep, those are their real names — fit those criteria perfectly. She’s a teacher and he’s an investment banker.

They were married on Saturday and their hilariously obnoxious and out of touch wedding announcement in the Times went viral on the weekend.

“Nothing at all elitist about them. Just your average Americans, offspring of ordinary hardworking billionaires, falling in love and deciding to walk through life hand-in-hand together,” wrote one Facebook commenter.

Another declared it, “The greatest white person wedding announcement of all time.”

The announcement:

Grace du Pont, Conor Sutherland



Grace Hays Holcomb du Pont was married Sept. 30 to Conor Jackson Sutherland in Manhattan. The Rev. J. Donald Waring performed the ceremony at Grace Episcopal Church. The bride and groom both graduated from Princeton, she cum laude and he magna cum laude.

Mrs. Sutherland, 26, was until Thursday at Achievement First Apollo Middle School, a charter school in Brooklyn, where she worked on special projects as a member of the operations team. From 2012 to 2014, she taught sixth-grade science with Teach for America at Ranson Middle School in Charlotte, N.C. She also received a master’s degree in teaching from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte.

She is a daughter of Jean Young du Pont and Pierre S. du Pont V of Tarrytown, N.Y. The bride’s father is a partner, in Manhattan, at HPM Partners, an investment and wealth management firm. Her mother was until 2016 the president and chief executive of the Garden Conservancy, an organization in Garrison, N.Y., and is now a legal, strategic and development consultant. The bride is a descendant of Éleuthère Irénée du Pont, the founder of what is now known as the DuPont Company. She is also a granddaughter of Pierre S. du Pont IV of Rockland, Del., who was the governor of Delaware from 1977 to 1985, and is a great-great-granddaughter of Llewellyn Powers, who was the governor of Maine from 1897 to 1901.

Mr. Sutherland, 30, helps buy, manage and sell companies in the portfolio at Apollo Global Management, an investment firm in Manhattan.

He is the son of Denise Jackson Sutherland of Glen Cove, N.Y., and the late Donald J. Sutherland. His mother was a principal dancer with the Joffrey Ballet in Manhattan from 1969 to 1986, and served from 1987 to 2014 as a trustee of the Professional Children’s School in New York. His father was the founder and chief executive of Quincy Partners, a leveraged buyout firm that was in Glen Head, N.Y.

The couple dated at Princeton, but had met a few years earlier, in 2007, in North Haven, Me., when Ms. du Pont offered a ride to Mr. Sutherland and a friend, whom Ms. du Pont knew. The two men had just moored their sailboat and were preparing for a long row back to the dock, whereas she was piloting her family’s motorized tender. They took the ride.

SOURCE

Some wisdom from ancient times summarizes the matter: "Envy not the glory and riches of a sinner: for thou knowest not what his ruin shall be". (Sirach 9:16, Douay)

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Trump and the Pax Americana

Tom Switzer

After July's G20 summit in Hamburg, the ABC's Chris Uhlmann remarked that President Trump cast an "uneasy, lonely, awkward figure" who had "pressed fast forward on the decline of the United States as the global leader." The television clip went viral online. But was Uhlmann right?

It is certainly true Donald Trump has unnerved many people around the world. His strident 'America First' campaign rhetoric, taken together with his decisions to withdraw the U.S. from both the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris climate accords, raised doubts about the Pax Americana. The U.S. is also bogged down in a crisis of confidence, exacerbated by its toxic polarisation and hyper-partisan political culture.

But it is also true Trump has reaffirmed the security alliances with Japan, South Korea and Australia in Asia, Israel and the Saudi-led Sunni Gulf states in the Middle East and -- albeit grudgingly -- NATO in Europe. So much for withdrawing the U.S. from the world. Nor has he imposed the 45% tariffs on China or 30% tariffs on Mexico that would have pushed the global economy into recession.

Although the U.S. will not command the kind of strategic and economic pre-eminence it has held since the 1940s -- a trend  Richard Nixon recognised as early as the early 1970s -- America will remain the most powerful state in the world for the foreseeable future.

America has the largest and the most technologically superior military in the world. It has the most diverse and technologically advanced economy. Global tech platforms, such as Google, Microsoft and Facebook, are used by more than a billion people. All dominate their respective markets; all are American.

America is demographically vibrant: its fertility rates surpass those of its competitors Japan, Europe and China. It has transformed itself into an energy superpower: the shale gas 'fracking' revolution means energy self-sufficiency and independence.

To be sure, a clash is taking place between Trump (who is apparently attacking the liberal international order) and U.S. foreign-policy elites (who champion American global leadership). In the meantime, as the University of Chicago's John Mearsheimer has argued, this produces an American foreign policy that is discombobulated and hard to understand. That unnerves allies.

If the U.S. is committed to keeping in check a rising China -- the only true rising hegemon capable of destabilising regional order and American primacy -- it needs a president who is thinking strategically and working closely with regional allies. But that is not happening, because Trump is widely perceived as a loose cannon and strikingly ignorant of the world -- a potentially deadly combination.

SOURCE

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The Leftmedia Love Affair With Totalitarianism

The New York Times is praising Mao Zedong for his "progress" with feminism, while ignoring his genocide.

One of the greatest benefits of living in the U.S. is the constitutional protections of individual rights and freedoms that all Americans enjoy. But it is precisely those individual rights and freedoms that place limits on officials within government. The Left views such limits to government as socially problematic rather than beneficial. Witness the growing sentiment among college and university students who are actively questioning the value of freedom of speech — not only questioning it, but even calling for it to be prevented, with violence if necessary. For these social “justice” crusaders, individual freedom should always be subservient to collectivist “progressive” values.

It is in such a climate as this that one of the primary Demo/MSM propaganda fronts, The New York Times, is promoting communism (overtly this time), in a series of praise articles including, “When Communism Inspired Americans,” “Why Women Had Better Sex Under Socialism” and “The Little Red Book for Children.” This series, highlighting the “glory days” of communism, omits references to the countless millions of civilian men, women and children who were murdered or starved under these regimes.

The latest entry in this series purports to portray how women fared under Red China’s communist regime, asserting, “The communist revolution taught Chinese women to dream big.” When it was not slaughtering them and their children, that is. It praises China’s former totalitarian strongman Mao Zedong for his efforts in promoting feminism. The author, Helen Gao, is an American of Chinese descent, and she writes glowingly of her grandmother’s opportunity to work as a journalist during the early days of the “People’s” Republic. A brief side note here. To have been a journalist at that time in China, Gao’s grandmother would have been obligated to spout Communist Party propaganda without freedom of the press protections Gao herself enjoys here in the good old U.S.A. But we digress.

Seeking to somehow dispel the obvious objections readers might raise regarding her willingness to praise the vision and efforts of a murderous tyrant responsible for the deaths of 45 million of his own people, Gao quotes her grandmother’s saying, “The communists did many terrible things, but they made women’s lives much better.” There — problem solved. Noting the absurdity, one humorist responded, “NYT next week: For all its flaws, Hitler’s Nazi movement brought healthy vegetarian meal planning to the Reich.” Except, of course, the NYT doesn’t like to highlight that the Nazis were also socialists.

Notably, this latest example of the NYT’s communist dezinformatsiya campaign comes in the midst of nuclear threats from Red China’s nuclear puppet — NoKo’s communist nut Kim Jong-un. Move on, nothing to see here!

SOURCE

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DOJ files suit against company for allegedly not hiring Americans

The Department of Justice announced Thursday it has filed a lawsuit against a Colorado corporation for allegedly discriminating against U.S. workers.

The complaint alleges that in 2016, Crop Production discriminated against at least three United States citizens by refusing to employ them as seasonal technicians in El Campo, Texas, because Crop Production preferred to hire temporary foreign workers under the H-2A visa program.

“In the spirit of President Trump’s Executive Order on Buy American and Hire American, the Department of Justice will not tolerate employers who discriminate against U.S. workers because of a desire to hire temporary foreign visa holders,” Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement. “…

Where there is a job available, U.S. workers should have a chance at it before we bring in workers from abroad.”

This is the first complaint filed stemming from the “Protecting U.S. Workers Initiative,” which was launched on March 1.

A Civil Rights Division official told Fox News that since the initiative’s launch, the division has opened 29 investigations of “potential discrimination against U.S. workers based on a hiring preference for foreign visa workers.”

DOJ officials also told Fox News the department has reached at least one settlement with a company discriminating against U.S. workers in favor of foreign visa workers, and distributed over $100,000.

SOURCE

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

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Stupid Spanish machismo bad for their future


The face of modern Spain

Machismo is a personality disorder common in peri-Mediterranean lands.  It arises from the fact that most societies there are  mother-dominated or grandmother dominated.  The women concerned propagandize their sons about how much the sons owe them and insist that the sons act as "Mamma" requires.  Israel is of course a Mediterranean country and Yiddisher Mammas are well known for acting that way.  The Sheldons and Irvings of the world, however, seem to have better ways of establishing their independence and self-esteem rather than going macho.

Machismo is exaggerated displays of masculinity, toughness and  strength.  It is designed to deny that you are a "Momma's boy"  and assert your masculinity. So macho men are quick to take offence at any perceived slight.

And the Madrid government is lamentably and foolishly macho -- presumably reflecting what Spaniards tend to vote for. The folly of their approach is most easily seen in the case of Gibraltar.  It seems to be perceived by them as a wound in the body of the nation, a slight to their manliness.  So they never cease demanding that Britain cede it to them.

But they unintentionally make it easy for Britain to deny that.  The first step in "recovering" Gibraltar should surely be to get Gibraltarians on side.  Spain should make nice to Gibraltarians in every possible way, including substantial special concessions such as reduced taxes.  So does Madrid do that?  No way! They go out of their way to make life difficult on Gibraltar.  So, when given a vote on the matter, something like 98% of Gibraltarians voted to remain part of Britain.

And the shocking treatment of Catalans during their independence referendum described below is another example of stupidity inspired by machismo.

There were once some less emotional Catalans who saw advantage in remaining part of Spain.  And given a proper opportunity for discussion, they might have been in the majority.

Consider how Britain treated the call for Scottish independence.  Instead of trying to suppress a referendum they called one and enabled a proper and peaceful democratic discussion of the matter in Scotland. And despite the long-standing and vociferous calls for independence in Scotland, how did the vote turn out?  The majority of Scots voted to stay in the UK! Had Spain treated the Catalans as resctfully as the Scots were treated, the Catalan question might by now have been resolved in Spain's favour.  But brute force rather than respectful discussion is the macho way

So what will happen now?  Anti-Spanish attitudes in Catalonia will have become rock-solid and virtually universal.  And perceiving themselves as oppressed by Spain, Catalans will go down the well-trodden way to express that feeling:  Terrorism. Spain will soon have a fresh lot of domestic terrorists to deal with.  Clever!


Catalan officials claimed 90% of 2.2million voters had called for independence in an 'illegal' referendum blighted by violent scenes which left at least 888 people injured.

World leaders condemned the brutal scenes after officials revealed that hundreds of protesters have been injured so far.

Officers were seen stamping and kicking protesters as they stormed buildings and seized ballot boxes.

Footage captured in the village of Sarria de Ter in the province of Girona showed authorities using an axe to smash down the doors of a polling station where Catalan president Carles Puigdemont was due to cast his vote.

He said the region had won the right to become an independent state with the referendum results due in a few days.

And in Barcelona, the region's capital, officers fired rubber bullets at thousands of protesters demonstrating against their votes being denied.

Boris Johnson condemned the violent clashes but said that the UK saw the vote as unconstitutional.

The Foreign Secretary said: 'We are obviously worried by any violence but clearly the referendum, as I understand it, is not constitutional so a balance needs to be struck. We hope very much that things will calm down.'

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn earlier called on Theresa May to intervene with the Spanish government over the police crackdown.

Mr Corbyn condemned the 'shocking police violence' being used as he tweeted: 'I urge Theresa May to appeal directly to Rajoy to end police violence in Catalonia & find political solution to this constitutional crisis.'

Pope Francis also urged Europeans not to fear unity and to put aside nationalistic and other self-interests during a speech in Bologna in Italy.

He did not mention the police violence during Catalonia's independence referendum - but in a speech to university students, he recalled that the European Union was borne out of the ashes of war to guarantee peace.

He warned that conflicts and other interests were now threatening those founding ideals.

Francis said: 'Don't be afraid of unity! May special interests and nationalism not render the courageous dreams of the founders of the European Union in vain.'

Scotland's first minister Nicola Sturgeon – who has campaigned for independence for Scotland – tweeted: 'Some of the scenes in Catalonia are quite shocking and surely unnecessary. Just let people vote.'

European leaders also voiced their disquiet over the degree of violence used, and called for dialogue between regional and national leaders.

Belgian prime minister Charles Michel tweeted: 'Violence can never be the answer. We condemn all forms of violence and reaffirm our call for political dialogue.'

Spain's Prime Minister claimed the Catalonian referendum had been prevented amid the scenes of violent chaos across the country.

And tens of thousands of fans were banned from attending FC Barcelona's football match with Las Palmas in a protest against the violence.

Spain's Constitutional Court has suspended the referendum and the central government says it is illegal.

But regional separatist leaders pledged to hold it anyway and called on the area's 5.3million eligible voters to show up to cast their ballots. They later said 90-% of 2.2million voters had opted for an independent Catalonia.

Mr Puidgemont condemned the Spanish government's crackdown. He said: 'Police brutality will shame forever the Spanish state.'

But the Spanish deputy prime minister Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría said officers in Catalonia are acting 'in a proportionate manner'. She added that the Catalan government 'has behaved with absolute irresponsibility' by going ahead with the referendum.

Shocking footage from Barcelona shows police officers throwing voters down a flight of stairs and stamping on people as they raid a polling station.

FC Barcelona condemned the violence on the streets as it announced that its game today would be 'played behind closed doors'.

The club has long supported Catalonia's right for a vote on independence, without throwing its weight behind the yes or no camp.

It said in a statement: 'FC Barcelona condemns the events which have taken part in many parts of Catalonia today in order to prevent its citizens exercising their democratic right to free expression.

'Given the exceptional nature of events the Board of Directors have decided that the FC Barcelona first team game against Las Palmas will be played behind closed doors following the Professional Football League's refusal to postpone the game.'

The club's president Josep Maria Bartomeu said: 'It wasn't done for security, the security was guaranteed.  'We have done it behind closed doors so that everyone can see our opposition at what is happening.'

This morning in Barcelona, police forcefully removed a few hundred would-be voters from a polling station at a school.

Daniel Riano was inside when the police busted in the building's front door.

The 54-year-old said: 'We were waiting inside to vote when the National Police used force to enter, they used a mace to break in the glass door and they took everything.

'One policeman put me in a headlock to drag me out, while I was holding my wife's hand. It was incredible. They didn't give any warning.'

Ferran Miralles said a crowd scuffled with police outside as they formed a tight perimeter around the door. Miralles said: 'They were very aggressive. They pushed me out of the way.'

Elsewhere in the city, police arrested several people outside the Treball voting centre amid scuffles on the street. Officers dragged some of the protesters away and detained them.

SOURCE

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Trump's consistency over time

AN 18-YEAR-OLD newspaper clipping featuring Donald Trump, Bill and Hillary Clinton and even Al Gore has been unearthed by an internet sleuth — and much of it could have been written today.

North Korean nuclear weapons, dodgy Clinton donations and Mr Trump’s hands-on negotiation style all get a mention in the clipping from the 1 November 1999 edition of Wisconsin newspaper The Oshkosh Northwestern, which was discovered by Reddit user PresidentJohnMiller.

“It’s amazing how nothing has changed in the last 18 years,” they wrote.

The full-page “News Makers” section features a brief on Mr Trump, who at the time was considering a run for president as the Reform Party nominee, titled “Trump would be US trade rep”.

“Donald Trump said Sunday that as president, he personally would handle US trade talks and would restore respect from countries doing business with America,” it reads, adding that Mr Trump “took aim at North Korea and China for ignoring US overtures and building nuclear weapons” and “branded Cuba’s Fidel Castro as ‘absolutely a killer and should be treated as such’”.

If nothing else, the clipping highlights Mr Trump’s consistency.

As president, the billionaire has taken a hands-on approach to what he describes as “bad deals” including the Paris Climate Accord, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and the North American Free Trade Agreement.

In November, the president-elect was one of the first world leaders to respond to the death of the Cuban dictator, tweeting simply “Fidel Castro is dead!”, before describing him in a statement as a “brutal dictator” whose legacy was one of “firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights”.

SOURCE

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

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Russian Collusion?

We keep being told that President Trump is not normal. This much has been blindingly obvious. He had never run for office or otherwise served in a public capacity. He has been accused, not without reason, of breaking all manner of political norms. America’s most nontraditional president was never going to conduct business as usual from the West Wing. Less than a year into his first term, he has already caused much anguish in Washington. This should be no surprise—while running for office Trump repeatedly promised to “drain the swamp” and shake things up. Americans knew who they were voting for, and history will judge the results.

That said, Trump’s nascent presidency has coincided with perhaps the greatest violation of political norms this country has ever seen—a violation that has nothing to do with Trump’s behavior. Since the election last November, there has been a sustained, coordinated attack on Trump’s legitimacy as president following his victory in a free and fair election. This has the potential to cause far more lasting damage to America than Trump’s controversial style.

Democratic operatives and their media allies attempted to explain Trump’s victory with a claim they had failed to make stick during the general election: Trump had nefarious ties to Russia. This was a fertile area for allegations, if for no other reason than that Trump had been reluctant to express criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin. By contrast, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton repeatedly condemned Russia’s 2011 elections, saying they were “neither free nor fair” and expressing “serious concerns” about them. She publicly called for a full investigation while meeting with top Russian officials. This made Putin livid. “Mr. Putin said that hundreds of millions of dollars in ‘foreign money’ was being used to influence Russian politics, and that Mrs. Clinton had personally spurred protesters to action,” The New York Times reported.

Trump’s relationship with Putin was decidedly different. In December 2015, Putin called Trump “a really brilliant and talented person.” Trump replied: “It is always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his own country and beyond.” He added, “I have always felt that Russia and the United States should be able to work well with each other towards defeating terrorism and restoring world peace, not to mention trade and all of the other benefits derived from mutual respect.”

Then rumors surfaced in the summer of 2016 that Russia probably had something to do with the alleged hack of the Democratic National Committee email system, as well as the successful “phishing” of Democratic insider John Podesta’s inbox. Russia was also alleged to have tried to hack the Republican National Committee, but without success. It remained an open question whether the Russians were trying to help Trump or were simply trying to create chaos in the election. Regardless, these Democratic Party emails were published by WikiLeaks, and they confirmed what many critics had said about Clinton and the DNC—the DNC had engineered the primary to ensure a Clinton victory; the Clinton campaign had cozy, borderline unethical relations with members of the mainstream media; Clinton expressed private positions to Wall Street banks that were at odds with her public positions; and various other embarrassing details indicating her campaign was in disarray.

According to Shattered, a well-sourced book about the Clinton campaign written by sympathetic reporters, Clinton settled on a Russia excuse within twenty-four hours of her concession speech. [Campaign manager Robby] Mook and Podesta assembled her communications team at the Brooklyn headquarters to engineer the case that the election wasn’t entirely on the up-and-up. For a couple of hours, with Shake Shack containers littering the room, they went over the script they would pitch to the press and the public. Already, Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument.

The Russian collusion story involves a lot of details, but there are two basic tactics that Trump’s enemies have used to push the narrative: they have put seemingly innocuous contacts with Russians under a microscope, and they have selectively touted details supplied by a politicized intelligence apparatus. And this has all been amplified by a media that has lost perspective and refuses to be impartial, much less accurate.

Meetings with Russians
If most of us can now agree that Putin’s Russia is a potential threat to the United States, we shouldn’t forget that the Washington establishment regarded this as a radical opinion not so long ago. Shortly after President Obama was elected in 2008, Time magazine ran a cover with him asking a Russian bear, “Can we be friends?” The media generally celebrated Secretary of State Clinton’s attempt at a Russian “reset” in 2009. Obama was later caught on a hot mic promising Putin more “flexibility” once he was reelected. And during Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012, when his opponent Mitt Romney characterized Russia as our greatest geopolitical foe, Obama mocked him by saying, “The 1980s called. They want their foreign policy back.” The New York Times editorial page said of Romney’s Russia comments that they “display either a shocking lack of knowledge about international affairs or just craven politics. Either way, they are reckless and unworthy of a major presidential contender.”

Trump’s election changed all that. Not since the heyday of McCarthyism in the 1950s have so many in Washington been accused of consorting with Russians who wish to undermine American democracy.

More HERE 

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Challenging the Racist Cops Myth

The real controversy should not be over those protesting the national anthem but the perpetuation of the racism myth.

NFL players kneeling in protest during the national anthem was a movement steadily gaining momentum. It suddenly exploded last weekend after Donald Trump called out the protesting players for disrespecting the American flag. Now the Leftmedia elite are blaming Trump for causing “division.” But the truth is Trump hit upon an issue that has become deeply offensive to many Americans: Multi-millionaires are protesting supposed injustice and racism in America that is simply not backed up by the facts. Those protesting are demanding that Americans concede to accepting a reality that amounts to a lie. And what is that lie? That police across the nation are systemically racist against blacks. It’s the Democrat war on cops.

Any time an issue like racism is raised, it evokes high degrees of emotion and passion, because it hits at two fundamental truths. First, an individual has absolutely no control over their ethnicity; quite literally they are “born that way.” Second, people naturally gravitate toward and relate to those with whom they share the most in common. And neither of these truths are inherently wrong or evil. When these realities are raised as ultimate delimiters and primary identifiers between people, that’s when the ugly problem of racism emerges. In other words, friction happens when people are taught to attribute everything about themselves and others primarily to the lowest common denominator of race. For example, the reason you got in trouble was because you’re black, or the reason you got into a good school is because you are Asian, etc.

It is precisely this flawed race-based mindset that has been behind the current NFL anthem protests. When objectively looking at the actual data, an honest individual can easily see the flaw in these protesters’ objections. The truth is that police are not a bunch of racists running around seeking black men to kill or imprison.

In 2015, the number of individuals killed by police was 995. That’s out of a total population of 318 million people. Obviously, the bare fact that an individual was killed doesn’t tell the whole story, but of those killed only 90 were determined to be unarmed. Of those unarmed individuals killed only 4% were black men killed by white cops. In the vast majority of all police killings (three-quarters), law enforcement officers were confronted by individuals who were armed. One statistic often left out of the conversation is the number of police killed. In 2015, 124 out of an estimated 900,000 full-time federal, state and local officers lost their lives in the line of duty.

The objective data simply does not support the protesters’ message of a pandemic of racist cops. It is merely a popular myth perpetuated by those who ply their trade by convincing people that they are helpless victims and targets of some massively unjust society, especially the police.

Why is it that none of these NFL players or owners has the courage to actually stand up and challenge the lie that is being perpetuated? The greater problem is not players kneeling during the national anthem, it’s that no one is willing to step up and challenge the lie of systemic racism.

SOURCE

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3 Proofs That the Conservative Movement Is Alive and Well

For those who think the conservative movement is in disarray and may be even close to cracking up, I call attention to three anniversaries being celebrated this week.

These three anniversaries reflect organizations that have made a significant difference in our politics and our culture for half a century: the Media Research Center, The American Spectator, and the Fund for American Studies.

Led by the irrepressible Brent Bozell, the Media Research Center is marking its 30th anniversary of exposing the left-wing bias of the mass media by the simplest of methods—using their own words to hoist them high.

At its annual Dishonors Awards dinner, the Media Research Center presented the hysterical reactions of the networks’ finest to Donald Trump’s presidential victory. In their apocalyptic analysis, anchors and reporters alike did everything but urge their viewers to renounce their citizenship and move to Canada or the Cayman Islands without delay.

Rush Limbaugh, the King of Talk Radio with a weekly listening audience of 20 million, revealed that he first heard of Bozell while reading him in National Review, which was all the accreditation he needed. About the mainstream media, Limbaugh was to the point: “They’re dead wrong. They’re dead stupid.”

Radio talk show host Mark Levin summed up the evening by describing MRC and Brent Bozell as “national treasures.”

For half a century, The American Spectator under the editorship of R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. has been slicing and dicing liberals and progressives like Bill and Hillary Clinton at the hands of accomplished polemicists like P. J. O’Rourke, Ben Stein, Patrick Buchanan, and Malcolm Muggeridge.

When others on the right hesitated, the Spectator welcomed neoconservatives like Irving Kristol to its pages. When the conservative movement waxed lackadaisical and split into factions following the Reagan years, Bob Tyrrell delivered a kick to its pants with his book, “The Conservative Crack-Up.”

A special favorite of the Spectator was The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page editor Robert Bartley, an adviser to the magazine at the time of his death in 2003. At this year’s anniversary gala, the Spectator honored Bartley and featured remarks by Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., chairman of the House Freedom Caucus; Stein; and humorist Greg Gutfeld, host of “The Greg Gutfeld Show” on Fox News.

The American Spectator has weathered financial storms and revolutionary changes in journalism, but is still publishing its Menckenesque insights into American politics—although now in digital rather than print form.

The academic empire of the 50-year-old Fund for American Studies, with its 11 institutes that span the globe from Washington, D.C., to Hong Kong, attest to the old saw that a good idea can have exceedingly good consequences.

In 1967, former New Jersey Gov. Charles Edison—the son of the famed inventor Thomas Alva Edison—recruited Dr. Walter H. Judd, youth leader David R. Jones, political consultant Marvin Liebman, and editor/author William F. Buckley Jr. to build a program that would educate college students in American government, politics, and economics.

The group approached Georgetown University professor Lev E. Dobriansky about sponsoring a summer institute on comparative and political and economic systems at his university. In 1970, 57 students attended the first institute.

Today, more than 1,000 students annually attend course credit programs at George Mason University in Washington, D.C., the Czech Republic, Hong Kong, and Chile. The programs cover economics and politics, political journalism, business and government affairs, philanthropy, and legal studies.

In addition, the fund sponsors other educational programs and conferences for students and professors throughout the year, including a 15-week academic and internship program each fall and spring in Washington, D.C., as well as the Walter H. Judd Freedom Award, presented annually to individuals who have advanced the cause of freedom in the United States and abroad.

Russian dissident and chess grand master Garry Kasparov will receive the 2017 Judd Award. The fund will also honor at its 50th anniversary banquet this year former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Stephen Hayes, editor-in-chief of The Weekly Standard.

When we consider the manifold contributions of the Fund for American Studies, The American Spectator, and the Media Research Center over the years and reflect that they are but a part of the conservative movement, we can rest assured that the movement is alive and well and resolute in its goal to preserve ordered liberty in America, both for this generation and generations to come.

SOURCE

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

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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An earthquake in the Senate Tuesday night with Roy Moore win

The 2018 election map looks marvelous for Republicans. The Republicans only have to play defense in Nevada, and can put the Democrats on defense across the map. Out of the 25 Democrat-held Senate seats up for re-election, President Trump won ten of the states and lost two more by razor-thin margins. Surely the Republican Party is gearing up for a monumental election season. Surely the Republican elites are preparing to challenge Democrats in all twelve of those states. Surely the establishment is saving its money and wisely spending it to target Democrats. Lest we forget, these are D.C. Republicans?

On Tuesday, the Alabama electorate sent shockwaves through the Republican establishment elites of the nation. The underfunded challenger, Judge Roy Moore, soundly defeated the cash-rich incumbent, Sen. Luther Strange, in the Republican primary by over nine points. Strange didn’t just raise more money, he had the entire establishment behind him, including a few very powerful PACs.

The Senate Leadership Fund is Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) personal PAC. For this race, it doled out over $7.9 million for Strange according to Issue One, a nonprofit that analyzes money spent on elections. In total, over $30 million was spent by outside groups and the RNC to re-elect the establishment incumbent. This begs the question, why would Republican-leaning groups spend millions in a Republican primary?

For some unknown reason, it was believed that Moore would have a tough time in the general election. This is the same man that was twice elected to the Alabama Supreme Court. This is also in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat state-wide since 2008 and hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1992.

Now that the primary is over, surely we can all get along?

The McConnell fund issued the following statement, “We are proud to have fought alongside President Trump and the NRA in support of a dedicated conservative who has loyally supported this President and his agenda. Senator Strange can hold his head high knowing that he played a critical role in cleaning up the corruption in Montgomery, confirming President Trump’s choice for the Supreme Court, and strongly supporting the President’s priorities on border security and repealing Obamacare. While we were honored to have fought hard for Big Luther, Judge Roy Moore won this nomination fair and square and he has our support, as it is vital that we keep this seat in Republican hands.”

Despite the statement of support, McConnell’s fund still has negative stories about Judge Moore on its website, so it’s kind of hard to take them seriously.

If McConnell does wish to be taken seriously, we can expect millions to be poured into the state for Moore. After all, according to leadership, it’s going to be a tight race.

Aside from wasting millions, Republican leadership now has another problem. Because McConnell went negative against fellow Republicans, the damage must now be undone. McConnell constantly pushed negative stories about Moore and Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) from uber-liberal progressive news sources, in effect doing the work of the Democrats. McConnell attempted to poison the electorate to get the win. Now other PACs must come in behind leadership and spend money to rehab the image destroyed by the Republican elites.

At this point, donors have to be asking themselves, “Is my money being well spent?”

Aside from the race being a fiscal disaster for the Republican elites, the defeat has changed the landscape for the remaining incumbent Republican Senators.

In a statement, Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning blasted the development, saying, “Republican primary voters are sick of the do-nothing status quo which is leaving Obamacare intact, and sitting Republican Senators will face the brunt of this intraparty anger as we’ve already seen.”

Chris McDaniel is looking at Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Kelli Ward is looking at Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), and Danny Tarkanian is looking at Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.). Are Republican leaders willing to spend more money defending incumbent Senators from primaries in safe Republican seats than winning new seats?

The 2018 election map does look great for Republicans unless you are an incumbent. If an incumbent Senator is supported by McConnell and Republican leadership, that Senator is seen as part of the problem by the grassroots. The millions being doled out by leadership funds are seen as a signal to the base, that person is part of leadership. Republican leadership should recognize how their base feels about them and spend their money wisely. Concentrate on winning new seats, and let the primary process play itself out, otherwise, your one-million-dollar donation to an incumbent will do more harm than good.

SOURCE




Briefly: The GOP's tax framework

President Trump and congressional Republicans rolled out a sweeping tax overhaul proposal on Wednesday that won immediate praise from conservatives, uniting a party that had been divided over how to repeal ObamaCare.

Business groups and the far-right House Freedom Caucus both backed the GOP blueprint to slash business taxes and trim the number of individual tax rates as Republicans looked to quickly move on from another failure to repeal the health care law.

Trump and his congressional allies are salivating for a major legislative win after a year filled with losses and disappointments, most of them related to a failed effort to repeal and replace ObamaCare. Their new hope is tax reform, which on the surface at least offers plenty for Republicans to agree upon.

Trump, seeming more at ease discussing tax compared to health care, said the framework “represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reduce taxes, rebuild our economy and restore America’s competitive edge.”

The president stressed that the benefits would go to the middle class, not the wealthy, though Democrats disputed that assertion.

“I’m doing the right thing, and it’s not good for me, believe me,” Trump said at an event in Indiana to sell the plan.

“This is the right tax cut and this is the right time. Democrats and Republicans in Congress should come together finally to deliver this giant win for the American people and begin [a] middle-class miracle.”

The president traveled to Indiana with Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly, who is facing a tough reelection race in a red state. He pressured the senator to back his efforts, threatening to campaign against him if he declined.

The nine-page plan calls for three individual tax rates of 12 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent, while expressing openness to an additional rate that’s higher than 35 percent. The top rate is currently 39.6 percent.

The framework also would lower the corporate rate from 35 percent to 20 percent and would cut the rate for “pass-through” businesses whose income is taxed through the individual code, to 25 percent. It would also nearly double the standard deduction and would repeal the estate tax and the alternative minimum tax.

The blueprint gives Republicans a chance to turn their attention away from their failed efforts to repeal ObamaCare, a defeat in the skirmish over the debt ceiling, where Democratic leaders struck a deal with President Trump, and lack of action on Trump’s border wall.

The document was widely praised by GOP lawmakers, including the leaders of the conservative Republican Study Committee and Freedom Caucus, two groups that can act as thorns in leadership’s side.

“They’ve made a much better start than health care,” said Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), chairman of the Freedom Caucus.

Freedom Caucus members had wanted to see more tax details before voting on a budget resolution that will allow Republicans to pass a tax bill with only a simple majority in the Senate.

“President Trump has delivered a forward looking tax reform framework that will let hard working Americans keep more of their money, simplify our system, end carve outs for special interests, and will help make our businesses competitive abroad,” the group said.

The plan also won the backing of many outside conservative groups, some of which did not get fully on board with lawmakers’ ObamaCare repeal bills, as well as business groups.

“It’s definitely progress in the right direction,” said Brad Close, senior vice president of advocacy at the National Federation of Independent Business.

To be sure, the plan left many details — particularly about which tax breaks to eliminate — up to the congressional tax-writing committees.

“Yes, we have a lot of work ahead, but today marks a major step forward in that process,” House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) said.

Lobbying is sure to increase as more details are made known, but the business community is supportive of the main parameters of the plan.

“There’s going to be a bananas amount of advocacy once legislative language is released, but [Republicans are] doing a good job of getting people to buy into the goal,” said Rohit Kumar, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) who now leads the tax policy practice at PwC.

Still, some trade groups have started pushing back against parts of the framework.

A coalition that includes state and local government groups and labor unions came out against the proposal’s likely repeal of the state and local tax deduction (SALT).

“This plan is a Washington money grab that takes away the most popular tax deduction from 44 million taxpayers in all 50 states, most of them middle class,” the coalition, Americans Against Double Taxation, said in a statement.

Repeal of the state and local deduction is also a problem for GOP lawmakers who represent high-tax states, such as New York and California.

“Any tax reform legislation must retain the state and local tax deductions,” Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) tweeted. “Hard working New Yorkers must not be taxed twice.”

Some business groups also expressed concerns about the framework’s plan to partially limit the deduction for corporations’ interest expenses.

“Interest deductibility is an essential component of businesses which rely on debt financing — companies of all sizes and across all sectors,” said Mike Sommers, president of the American Investment Council, which represents the private-equity industry.

To counter criticism that the plan will largely benefit the rich, the framework leaves the door open for a top individual rate above 35 percent “to ensure that the reformed tax code is at least as progressive as the existing tax code and does not shift the tax burden from high-income to lower- and middle-income taxpayers.” 

Still, top Democrats blasted the effort, arguing that it would provide a windfall to the wealthy and increase the deficit. In particular, they focused on the plan’s repeal of the estate tax, the increase in the bottom tax rate and the lower rate for pass-through businesses.

“This is wealth fare. Wealth fare, helping those of great wealth with more tax breaks,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

Democrats also complained that they were not a part of the process of creating the tax framework. House Republicans met at a retreat at the National Defense University on Wednesday to discuss the plan, and Democrats had sought to be invited.

“This has been a partisan process from the start with virtually no Democratic input, as Republicans have put politics above policy and the economic security of hardworking Americans,” said House Ways and Means Committee ranking member Richard Neal (D-Mass.).

SOURCE

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An answer to Puerto Rico whining about Trump

The mayor of San Juan lashed out at Trump administration on Friday, decrying its relief effort in the wake of hurricanes Jose and Maria and saying if it doesn’t solve the logistics “what we we are going to see is something close to a genocide”.



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

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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Freedom for Catalonia!



I don't normally post anything today but this weekend is a referendum in Catalonia sponsored by the Catalan regional government that asks Catalans if they want to be an independent republic rather than part of Spain.

The Spanish government is doing all it can to prevent the referendum from taking place as it knows what the result will be -- a bit majority in favour of independence.  Agitation for Catalan independence goes back a long way

As a libertarian, I always support independence movements so I feel obliged to do my little bit here to support the Catalans. Catalonia has a population similar to Israel and is very prosperous.  They also have their own language.  An article below gives some background -- JR


BARCELONA — In a mass demonstration of youth and enthusiasm, thousands of students marched down the Gran Via here Thursday afternoon, presenting the well-scrubbed face of a separatist movement hoping to sever the Catalonia region from Spain.

The rally, the largest in recent memory, featured throngs of university and high school students draped in Catalan flags and protected by cadres of sympathetic firefighters in yellow helmets.

The young people took countless selfies, smoked a little marijuana and plastered signposts with posters featuring cartoon characters.

The atmosphere was festive, raucous, contagious — with folk songs from a generation ago. When elderly supporters came out on their balconies to bang pots and pans in support, the students stopped to honor them with chants, “No revolutions without the grandmothers!”

But the situation is growing serious.

The secessionist leaders here are pressing forward with their promise to stage a controversial referendum Sunday that asks a seemingly simple question: Do you want Catalonia to become an independent state, in the form of a republic? Yes or no.

The central government in Madrid, led by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of the conservative Popular Party, says the plebiscite violates Spain’s 1978 constitution that declares the country indivisible — and therefore is illegal.

The Rajoy government, backed byconstitutional court rulings, has vowed to stop the vote, and it has deployed thousands of national police and paramilitary Guardia Civil officers to the region.

“We have no idea really what will happen Sunday. But it’s hard to see a peaceful ending, no?” said Pablo Sanchez Crespo, 21, a psychology major hunkered down in the courtyard of Barcelona University, which has been occupied by striking students sleeping on mattresses and swinging in hammocks.

“If they want to stop the vote, they are going to have to put many, many cops at the polling stations, and if the people still want to vote? I don’t know,” he said. “I think there will trouble.”

A few minutes earlier, Jordi Graupera, a professor and pro-independence activist, was conducting a 2017 version of a U.S.-style 1960s teach-in in the courtyard, explaining to the students the concept of civil disobedience and telling them about the winning tactics of Martin Luther King Jr.

“You don’t have to attack anyone,” the professor said. “But you have the right to resist.”

He encouraged the students, if they were willing, to occupy and defend polling places — school gymnasiums, community centers, city halls — and to bring plenty of food and water.

The professor said they would not go to jail for forcing open the polling spots but might be fined.

The showdown between the prosperous but restive region of Catalonia and the distant central government in Madrid could become Spain’s most profound political crisis since the end of the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco four decades ago.

A lot depends on the next few days — and which side yields, and who is seen as oppressed or oppressor. Many editorialists in Catalonia describe the impasse as two locomotives rushing toward each other on the same track.

On Tuesday at a news conference, President Trump said, “I think that Spain is a great country, and it should remain united.”

A dozen Catalan functionaries have been arrested, charged and released. The police have raided warehouses and printing presses, and confiscated 13 million sheets of paper — including ballots.

Many of the students interviewed mentioned Franco and his 40-year oppression of Catalonia’s language, culture and autonomy as a rallying cry.

Asked what he knew about Franco, who died in 1975, a quarter century before he was born, Marc Garcia said, “We heard all about it from our parents and grandparents.”

Garcia and his friend Judit Marti, both 17, said they also had been informed and stirred by programing on the public broadcaster, TV3, which is sponsored by the Catalan government.

Some of the students said they thought the current standoff was a legacy of the Spanish civil war in the 1930s and all the unfinished business left after Franco’s long reign.

“Franco didn’t lose this war, he just died,” said Pau Subirana Garcia, 21, a computer science student. “All the people around him are still around.”

Subirana was carrying a black flag with a star and cross, which he said dated back to the 1714 Siege of Barcelona. “The black is about no surrender,” he explained.

The student said that many of his friends care less about whether Catalonia chooses independence than that they have the right to vote.

“Our ancestors gave their lives for these freedoms,” Subirana said. “It shouldn’t be a crime to vote,” he said. “We won’t do anything bad.”

Polls taken during the summer show that more voters in Catalonia would choose to remain in Spain than strike for independence — but moves by the central government considered heavy handed here might have shifted sentiments.

The students occupying the university and joining the rally spoke with passion, especially about their right to vote, but they were unsure exactly what independence would bring.

Catalonia pays an oversize share of its taxes to the central government, but the region enjoys fairly broad autonomy and controls its own police, education, health care, schools, parliament and media. The dominant language is Catalan.

There are now so many national police from outside the region in Catalonia that the Spanish government chartered two commercial cruise ships and docked them in the Barcelona port to berth the overflow.

One of the ships sports large cartoon drawings on its hull of Looney Tunes characters Daffy Duck, Wile E. Coyote and Tweety, and the yellow bird has been adopted by the students as their symbol of resistance.

At Barcelona University, a pair of large photocopy machines sat in the hallway, churning out ballots for Sunday’s election. The students had erected tables to pass them out. How such votes would be counted — and seen as legitimate — is unclear.

“I know lots of friends — they say yes or no about independence. But the response cannot be to send in the police against the people. That means force wins,” said Elisabet Lliteres Deia, a student who said this was the biggest youth rally she had seen in Spain.

She was marching with two friends. The three represented a mix of yes, no and unsure votes. They also believed that the referendum was not binding.

Catalan politicians, however, have vowed that if more than 50 percent of ballots read “yes,” the regional parliament will declare independence within 48 hours, no matter the size of the turnout or whether the vote is disrupted.

Many people in Catalonia and Spain suspect that this is a bluff and that low participation would weaken the leverage of separatists.

Can Madrid stop the vote?

On Thursday, Catalonia’s interior minister said the region’s own Mossos d’Esquadra police force will act to protect public safety, but it would be impossible to stop thousands from gathering to vote. Catalonia’s president, Carles Puigdemont, vowed the plebiscite would happen no matter what.

SOURCE

Bloodbath 2018

By Rich Kozlovich

It appears Judge Roy Moore - called a conservative firebrand by the media - won the vote against currently appointed sitting Sen. Luther Strange, in spite of the millions spent by the Republican Party to defeat him.  I'm not shocked!

I've stated a number of times in the past this midterm election is going to be a bloodbath for both parties.  Bigger than anything we've seen in recent years, and it will be pivotal in American history.  I've also stated this bloodbath will be in the general election for the Democrats, but in the primaries for the Republicans.  That's already being acknowledged by incumbent Republicans by retiring before being defeated.  What I don't understand is Trump's willingness to support Mitch McConnell in this.

McConnell is part of the problem, not part of the solution - and time for him to go home.  After the midterms he's going to be even more toothless than he is now.  As for the 2020 election when his term is up - If he runs and is re-elected he'll be sworn in by January.  He'll turn 79 in February.  He needs to go home.

Lindsay Graham is 62 currently and will also be up for re-election in 2020, and he's not all that popular in his state.  I think this will set the tone for a challenge in the primary. 

Then there's John McCain.  As I've said - the particular cancer he has is a death sentence with the average life span after diagnosis being 14 months.  I don't think he'll live out his term, and at some point he's going to be too sick to do anything.  Of course he could do the right thing and resign - but I don't think he will. I've outlined his career and life in other articles and I not impressed with his character.  Everyone seems to have forgotten he was part of the Keating Five scandal where he's referred to as "The most reprehensible of the Keating Five".  And there's still a hidden cloud about his military career since he refuses to release his records. 

I really think after the 2020 election there's going to be changes taking place we couldn't have imagined a few years ago.   The Republican Party is going through a metamorphosis from a party of faux conservatives to a party of real conservatives.  I also think those conservatives will have to attack the Republican party structure and elite to win, just as did Judge Moore. 

The Democratic Party is going to remain what it is today.  Irrational, leftist, Saul Alinsky radicals, and unelectable except in totally hard left districts.  Maxine Waters will continue to be elected as long as she can breath and act as their Mother Teresa.  Chuck Schumer will continue as the chief strategist and he's not up again until 2022.   Neither of them are going to budge an inch in their hard left approach as to how they think the world should work, and they won't let anyone change that in their party.  They're going to be the gifts that keep on giving. 

I also think Governor John Kasich is going to change parties. I think this will happen not long after the election.  He might do it before leaving office, but I don't think so.  I also think he'll do this in order to run for President of the United States as a Democrat.  Strange as it may seem - given the mess the Democrat Party is facing - I think the Democrats may accept him.  He has all the qualities they so admire in their leaders.  He's weird, he's arrogant, he's capable of talking unendingly without saying anything, and he's a heretic.  What more could they want?

Let me tell you!  They're going to demand he support abortion!  If he doesn't - he's done.  So this question remains: Is he going to be just like Dennis Kucinich?  Kucinich was a life long anti-abortion Catholic until he ran for President,  and then all of a sudden had an epiphany that abortion wasn't murder after all.  I think Kasich is capable of that kind of metamorphosis, but make no mistake about this - he knows that's what it will take.  Heresy!

I don't see Independents taking a place on the political landscape in a large way, even if a few RINO's decide to make a play in that direction.  And where they do show up - I think they'll impact the Democrats more than Republicans because the Tea Party types made up their minds long ago that forming a third party was totally counterproductive to pushing a conservative agenda.  Their goal was to take over which ever mainstream party that would accept the conservative values of less government, less taxes and less regulations. 

That's the Republican party.  Get over it!

SOURCE

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IRONY: CNN Calls Trump Racist While They're Getting Sued By 175 Black Employees For Discrimination,/b>

News personalities and writers at CNN repeatedly try to paint President Donald Trump as a racist, which is ironic considering that they’re being sued by 175 African-American former and current employees for racial discrimination.

Whether it’s Don Lemon claiming that anyone who supports Trump is “complicit” in racism or bitter Ana Navarro calling Trump a “misogynist racist bigoted pig,” CNN’s obsession with trying to connect Trump to racism is obvious.

Ironically, the network that desperately tries to portray itself as strongly opposed to racism is being sued for just that — racial discrimination.

The lawsuit, filed in December 2016, has gone largely unreported by the media as left-leaning news organizations would rather focus on the recent struggles of Fox News instead.

The lawsuit alleges racial discrimination by CNN against 175 former and current African-American employees:

Unlike the lawsuit against Fox News, the one against CNN and sister companies is much broader, claiming among other things that African-Americans receive lower performance ratings in evaluations, that there are dramatic differences in pay between similarly situated employees of different races and that the promotion of African-American employees is blocked by a "glass ceiling."

The complaint cites hiring and advancement statistics while alleging that African-American employees have endured slurs from superiors, including "It's hard to manage black people" and "Who would be worth more: black slaves from times past, or new slaves?" …

According to a plaintiffs' motion to amend that was filed March 23, "Since the filing of this action, counsels for the plaintiffs have been contacted by more than 175 people, both former and current employees of the Defendant, requesting to be members of the putative class action, all having similar complaints of intentional racial discrimination, discrimination impact and discriminatory practices employed by the Defendants."

Despite these allegations, CNN continues to attack Trump for his “racism,” using various innuendos they have concocted but that are not rooted anywhere in reality.

For example, CNN’s White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, insinuated that Trump’s remarks about NFL players kneeling during the national anthem were based on racism.

"Why is it that the president over the weekend is going after or seeming to go after African-American athletes?" Acosta asked White House press secretary Sarah Sanders on Monday. "And then this morning he's putting out a tweet praising NASCAR, which obviously is geared towards a different demographic, and the way they stand and respect and honor the flag. Is he trying to wage something of a culture war?"

None of Trump’s tweets have mentioned anything about the racial or ethnic backgrounds of any of the players or teams involved:

In addition to his tweets, none of the remarks made by the president on TV have referenced anything regarding race or ethnicity.

SOURCE

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Watermelons v. Cherry Pie

For news junkies there is one consistent story at the moment: an ongoing and systematic attack on President Trump from without and within. On the outside is a web of the Fourth Estate, the Democratic Party, the Republican Establishment, the Academy and Corporate America that see in the president a threat to the prevailing left-wing cultural agenda. On the inside are the reformers who by dint of influence persuaded the president to rid his staff of Trump partisans so that the administration is essentially anti-Trump in ideology and orientation.

Notwithstanding the internal purge, anti-Trump campaigners foment fear about the White House and the often erratic and impulsive behavior of the president. Here is a Watermelon alliance of Islamists and left wing ideologues that recognizes their victory will come only after American ideals and political identity are destroyed. The major tactic this alliance employs in cultural battle is reducing American groups to silos of sex, race and class. Categorical rights, in the emerging scenario, will replace individual rights, even though this is manifestly in opposition to Constitutional principles.

Steve Coughlin, the Defense analyst, among others, has argued for years that political warfare of the Left operates under the cover of non-violent methods ultimately designed to undermine morale and serve as a prelude to violent action. The game plan was organized by Antonio Gramci in the 1920's and is still used as the operational perspective against Trump. In fact, as George Orwell pointed out, the language of political discourse must turn logic on its head. Tolerance is seen as intolerance, war as peace, truth as domination. Through these post-modern constructs Islamist groups can reach a modus vivendi with the revolutionaries even though policy narratives have them in different camps.

One area that has already captured the imagination of many Americans is the "hate speech" narrative. Hate speech memes are coordinated through a variety of domestic and international forums reducing - in ways once though unimaginable - freedom of speech. From television programming to the State Department the "hate speech" position is front and center limiting what one can say about Islam, immigration, feminism, etc. In fact, the overall objective is a more powerful government than we now have to police the violators of this meme.

The propaganda success of the Left cannot be overemphasized. News cycles are in thrall to the Marxist agenda, without the slightest recognition of the ideological content. President Trump is routinely described as illegitimate and dishonest. Clearly his impulsive response to criticism often reinforces those judgments, but even without his defensive tweets, those claims are repeated so often that they appear to be incontrovertible.

There is little doubt Trump will face this critique throughout his presidency. However, these attacks are not only about President Trump. Those seeking to bury Trump see in this administration as an opportunity to suffocate a vision of America, to place before the public a stark contrast between a "new" America that embraces Marxist assumptions and a traditional America reliant on the rule of law.

Who would have thought that the Trump victory would yield a result of this kind? This America of 2017 often resembles 1984. One wonders if we are going back or going forward.

SOURCE

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

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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CNN’s Top 6 Hypocrisies and Lies in Defense of NFL Crybabies

If nothing else, the uproar over these spoiled NFL millionaires who work only 16 days a year but still feel the need to spit on the American flag and anthem, has proven once again that our national media is infected with a lethal dose of Groupthink.

Within the MSM, no one has shown the courage or even the ability to think for themselves. It is quite a thing to witness.

Just as fascinating is the media’s glaring, audacious hypocrisy — most especially from CNN. In its never-ending quest to destroy President Trump,  the leftwing cable network’s credibility-killing shamelessness has been on display for quite a long time. But in defense of these crybaby one-percenters, it has been especially shameless.

CNN’s Definition of ‘Divisive’

According to CNN, it is not at all divisive for a bunch of pampered millionaires to politicize a sport, to take a side in the culture wars during a football game, to openly disrespect the American flag and anthem.

No, according to CNN, this issue only gets “divisive” when you criticize this abominable behavior.

You see, in order to keep things from becoming divisive, normal people are just supposed to shut up and take it.

* Criticizing NFL Whiners Who Trash America Is … Raaaaaacist

While I believe Trump went too far in calling for NFL players to be fired, I personally cannot think of a more important role for an American president than to shame a bunch of millionaires expressing contempt for a country that has given them everything, including the freedom to disrespect that country.

But of course proven serial liars, like CNN’s Jake Tapper, have intentionally lied by insinuating Trump’s criticism is an act of racism.

Missing from this ongoing CNN smear is the fact that Trump also spent last week criticizing a number of white people, like Hillary Clinton, and even some white people in his own party, like Senators John McCain and Rand Paul.

* Trump Given Zero Credit for Criticizing His Own Billionaire Supporters

Does CNN not want politicians who are not bought?

Does CNN not want politicians willing to stand up against their own donors?

Does CNN not want politicians who are not puppets to big donors?

Then why is Trump getting zero credit for blasting away at the nine anti-American football owners who donated more than $10 million to his campaign and inauguration?

* Suddenly CNN Claims We Have First Amendment Rights in the Workplace

CNN’s Chris Cillizza, who is both breathtakingly dumb and a proven liar, best summed up the glaring hypocrisies at work here. In defiance of Trump and in defense of millionaires trashing America, Cillizza tweeted…

"The US is literally premised on the right of people to freely express their beliefs without fear of reprisal"

And this:

"But that is the athlete’s choice. If they want to speak out, they should be allowed to. That they are athletes is meaningless."

And this:

"That we shouldn’t be allowed to express our 1st amendment rights because you happen to play a pro sport? Really?"

One question…

Where was this very same CNN’s defense of Americans expressing their constitutional right to “freely express themselves without reprisal” when Christians bakers and florists protested participating in the sacramentalization of sin that is a same-sex marriage?

Well, as we all know, CNN did not defend those Christians; in fact, CNN spent countless hours smearing those Christians as haters and bigots.

Moreover, CNN mercilessly attacked Kim Davis, a Kentucky clerk protesting same-sex marriage by refusing to personally issue gay marriage licenses.

CNN was nowhere to be found in defense of Brenden Eich, the CEO of Mozilla, after he was bullied out of his job over his support of traditional marriage.

Where was the CNN campaign to defend the Google engineer fired just last month for expressing his pro-science opinion about gender?

And where was the CNN campaign to protect these very same NFL players when the league threatened to fine them for their free expression in support of police officers. 9/11 victims, and breast cancer awareness?

CNN so believes in the right to express yourself without fear of reprisal that CNN itself threatened to destroy a man’s life after he ridiculed CNN.

* CNN Claims Trump Is Distracted from Important Stuff

As I said above, I can think of nothing more important for a president than to defend our flag and country against a bunch of crybaby one-percenters.

But because this is a winning issue for Trump, and the left hates it when the right engages in the culture wars, CNN anchors are snidely and sarcastically criticizing Trump for his focus on “important things” — as though Trump cannot possibly do more than one thing at a time.

And yet, here was this very same CNN just last year gushing over President Obama’s annual NCAA tournament picks.

Oh, and here is CNN gushing over their Precious Barry’s 2015 picks. Man alive, you just gotta see this to believe it…



* CNN Used to Be Fine With Presidents Who Told The NFL What to Do

When President Obama told the Washington Redskins to change their name, here was CNN’s reaction. No freak out, no questioning of Precious Barry’s focus on priorities…

But when a president criticizes a football team for trashing the flag, CNN goes nuclear.

What does that tell us about CNN?

SOURCE

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Time to Base Nutrition Policy on Science

A recent article in the Washington Post details five nutrition “facts” we used to be believe. It ends by saying something that you rarely read but is entirely accurate: “In fact, we don’t have a lot of answers about nutrition, which is considered a relatively new science.” But to listen to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and popular food activists, you would think the only issue is that Americans just aren’t listening.

The real problems don’t start with consumers, they start with scientific and economic shortcuts. The consequences of bad policies are dire: poor nutrition is linked to chronic diseases such as diabetes, cancer, and heart disease. Unfortunately, one out of every two adults suffer from one or more preventable chronic diseases.

But the federal officials who are charged with making nutrition policies continue to make poorly informed decisions. In 2009, the USDA instituted a program that excluded white potatoes from the Special Supplemental Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), presumably to address obesity. They did this despite the fact that many Americans have shortfalls in potassium and potatoes are a great source of this nutrient. Five years later, they finally asked the Institute of Medicine whether this was a good move.

Predictably, one of the Institute’s findings was that “Intakes of … potassium … among low-income women, fall short of current nutrient intake recommendations.” The program may have slightly affected obesity in children, although it is not clear that it has anything to do with potatoes.

The FDA, meanwhile, just finalized its regulations to put calorie labeling in restaurants, theaters, and grocery stores. The rule was initially finalized in 2014 but put on hold by the current administration. Studies are mixed as to whether or not posting calories will do just a little bit or no good whatsoever. But science is not the reason this rule is going forward.

The National Restaurant Association supported the rule, originally as part of the Affordable Care Act, because there was a growing “patchwork” of local and state laws requiring it. This is a perfect example of how not to make scientifically based health policies. In letting the rule go, the Commissioner announced that the rule would institute “predictable, uniform federal standards,” precisely what industry needed. Again, the real problem was with that we did not pay attention to the first adopters, who demonstrated that the information wouldn’t help with obesity.

At least the five nutrition facts cited earlier were originally based on some science. One myth in the article was that “All fat is bad.” But it was only in 2010 when the Dietary Guidelines committee stopped recommending limits on total fats, although they still recommended reducing saturated fat. The original myth was about total fat, but recently multiple studies have found that polyunsaturated fats (and possibly monounsaturated fats) found in foods such as walnuts, salmon, and soybean oil are now considered good for you.

Even more recently, a 2014 study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine was unable to conclude that even saturated fats caused heart disease. Moreover, it remains unclear whether unsaturated fats are good for you. These are still controversial findings, and, without clear scientific backing, policymakers should proceed with caution.

More specifically, public health policy must always be preceded by both sound science and cost-benefit analysis.

Sound scientific evidence must be present for a positive public health benefit to be amply demonstrated. Had there been more research to indicate what manufacturers might do to replace animal fats in the 1980s, activists might not have campaigned so hard against trans fats. As for cost-benefit analysis: “Trying” out public policies, such as nutrition labeling, without credible analysis showing that benefits exceed costs, removes public resources that can be better spent addressing public policies that do pass such a test.

These problems are exacerbated in the case of the new science of nutrition. For diet and disease relationships, dietary guidance and nutrition policy based on memory-based recall data have been shown by professor Edward Archer to be “pseudoscience and inadmissible.” These data, which underpin most of the advice from the Dietary Guidelines, ask consumers to remember what and how much they ate in the last 24 hours. Unfortunately, well over half of consumers do not report eating enough to stay alive. If the data that go into diet-disease relationships are flawed, then the correlations between dietary choices and disease may be wrong. This means that much of the current advice and policies may be wrong. 

Taking shortcuts to policy without sound science and cost-benefit analysis leads to policy failures — resulting in poorer health and declining faith in nutrition policies.

SOURCE

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

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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The mystery of socialism’s enduring appeal

One of the mysteries of our age is why socialism continues to appeal to so many people. Whether in the Soviet Union, China, Eastern Europe, North Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia or Venezuela, it has resulted in the suppression of free speech, the imprisonment of political dissidents and, more often than not, state-sanctioned mass murder. Socialist economics nearly always produce widespread starvation, something we were reminded of last week when the President of Venezuela urged people not to be squeamish about eating their rabbits. That perfectly captures the trajectory of nearly every socialist experiment: it begins with the dream of a more equal society and ends with people eating their pets. Has there ever been an ideology with a more miserable track record?

Why, then, did 40 per cent of the British electorate vote for a party led by Jeremy Corbyn last June? It wasn’t as if he acknowledged that all previous attempts to create a socialist utopia had failed and explained why it would be different under him. There was no fancy talk of ‘post-neoclassical endogenous growth theory’ or ‘pre-distribution’, as there had been by his two predecessors. No, he was selling exactly the same snake oil that every left-wing huckster has been peddling for the past 100 years, and in exactly the same bottle. He reminded me of a pharmacist trying to flog thalidomide to an expectant mother while making no attempt to hide the fact that it has caused the deaths of at least 2,000 children and serious birth defects in more than 10,000 others. And yet, nearly 13 million Britons voted for Corbyn. Could it be that they just don’t know about all the misery and suffering that socialism has unleashed?

That’s a popular theory on my side of the political divide and has prompted a good deal of head-scratching about how best to teach elementary history — such as that more people were killed by Stalin than by Hitler. One suggestion is to create a museum of communist terror that documents all the people murdered in the great socialist republics — and full credit to the journalist James Bartholomew for getting some traction behind this idea. But is it really historical ignorance that prompts people to invest their hopes in Corbyn? An inconvenient fact for holders of this theory is that those who voted Labour at the last election tended to be better educated than those who voted Tory.

To try and solve the puzzle of socialism’s enduring appeal, we have to turn to evolutionary psychologists and in particular Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, two of the leading thinkers in the field. They contend that we don’t come into the world as tabulae rasae, ready to take on the imprint of whatever society we happen to be born into. Rather, we are more like smartphones that come pre-loaded with various apps, including a set of moral intuitions. The problem is, these apps haven’t been updated for 40,000 years. They were designed for small bands of hunter-gatherers rather than citizens of the modern world and prompt us to look more favourably on socialism than free-market capitalism. Why? Because in hunter-gatherer societies, where the pooling of resources is essential for survival, the principle of ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his need’ makes perfect sense. By the same token, we have a great deal of difficulty grasping that people acting in an individual, self-interested way can create huge communal benefits, as it does under capitalism. Back in the primeval forest, our survival depended upon distrusting people who weren’t willing to engage in reciprocal altruism.

In hunter-gatherer societies, goods are finite. If someone has more than his fair share of meat, there is less for everyone else. That’s not true of capitalist societies, where successful entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs create wealth without taking anything away from others; but because we’re programmed to think of resources in a zero-sum way we cannot easily understand this. Instead, we’re inclined to believe people like Corbyn when they tell us the rich only got that way by stealing from the poor.

This zero-sum thinking doesn’t just explain why people cannot readily understand the concept of wealth being created under capitalism; it also explains why seeing people with more than us can lead to envy and resentment. We look at their lavish property and, on some primitive, hunter-gatherer level, believe they’ve only come by what they have by depriving us of what we’re entitled to. All property is theft.

This thinking can often lead to a desire to tear down the person in question, to reduce their status so it’s level with ours. The anthropologist Christopher Boehm believes that this violent impulse underpins all egalitarian ideologies, which might explain why intellectuals, Jews and middle-class property owners are often interned in prison camps and/or put to death in socialist societies. (See Russia, China, Cambodia, etc.) Interestingly, Boehm points out that chimpanzees, with whom we share a common ancestor, are also prone to the same tall-poppy syndrome. I recommend his book "Hierarchy in the Forest: The Evolution of Egalitarian Behavior" if you want to learn more about the pathological roots of socialism.

So what’s the solution? Are we doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past? Hopefully not, but we need to tell a story about capitalism that is just as appealing to people’s 40,000-year-old moral intuitions as the sales patter of socialist snake oil salesmen.

SOURCE

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How crazy can California get as a sanctuary state?

By Printus LeBlanc

California is one step closer to full lunacy, and the final step is expected to be taken this week. Late last week the California State Assembly passed the California Values Act. Over the weekend the Senate followed suit and passed the legislation, and Democrat Governor Jerry Brown hinted he intends to sign the bill. What kind of nation can we have if states can choose which federal laws to follow and not follow, especially when immigration is clearly a federal issue?

What California is attempting to do is nothing more than nullification. The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution (Article VI, Clause 2) establishes that the Constitution, federal laws made pursuant to it, and treaties made under its authority, constitute the supreme law of the land. To put it simply, a state cannot make a law that supersedes federal law.

California has a history of prioritizing the needs of illegal and non-U.S. citizens over their own citizens. District Attorneys are intentionally reducing violent felonies to misdemeanors in order to prevent immigration enforcement from being notified. The Santa Clara DA ignored a woman being beating and tortured for years for fear if a felony was charged the immigrant would be kicked out of the country, obviously not caring about the woman was being subjected to on a daily basis.

Just one month ago Erick Garcia-Pineda was linked to the killing of a popular community volunteer in San Francisco. Garcia-Pineda was awaiting deportation when he was picked up by local sheriffs for battery charges. Upon his arrest, ICE sent a detainer to the sheriff’s department. The department ignored the detainer and released the violent criminal on the population. The result was the murder of 23-year-old Abel Esquivel.

Many like to argue that enforcing immigration law makes communities less safe, and the job of law enforcement harder. If only someone asked law enforcement. Bill Brown, the sheriff for Santa Barbara County who serves as president of the California State Sheriffs Association stated, “It’s a hazardous law for Californians and people sworn to protect and serve Californians and we would like to see it changed.”

Michael Durant, president of the Peace Officers Research Association of California, a union representing 70,000 law enforcement officers in California and Nevada, echoed his statements asserting, “I do believe those who voted for this law are making California less safe, and at some point, there is going to be an incident that is going to backfire on the legislature when one of these criminal aliens is released.”

President Donald Trump and Congress can help to fix this. H.Amdt 301 was introduced to the year-end omnibus to be voted on December. The amendment was introduced by Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) and passed with bipartisan support. The legislation would block federal funds from flowing into jurisdictions that interfere with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, including jurisdictions that do not honor ICE detainers.

Another option is the removal of immunity from local government officials. If a local official refuses to cooperate with federal officials and releases an illegal immigrant, the official can be held financially liable for crimes committed by the illegal immigrant after release. There is a bill in the Colorado General Assembly that does just that. It is time to bring SB17-281 to Washington D.C. Local officials will never change unless they feel the pain financially.

In the meantime, the Trump administration must be prepared to fight sanctuary jurisdictions like California in federal court to uphold the law of the land.

Illegal immigration was one of the top campaign issues across the nation that put President Trump over the top in 2016. He won on the issue of getting illegal immigration under control. Republicans were given control of the House and Senate for the purpose of backing up the President. They, particularly the GOP Congress, cannot afford ignore this threat to the Constitution and homeland security, or they will risk losing any credibility they have left.

SOURCE

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NASCAR draws line on protesting during national anthem

It appeared no drivers, crew or other team members participated in a protest during the national anthem to start the NASCAR Cup series race Sunday in Loudon, New Hampshire.

Several team owners and executives had said they wouldn’t want anyone in their organizations to protest. Richard Childress, who was Dale Earnhardt’s longtime team owner, said of protesting, “It’ll get you a ride on a Greyhound bus.” Childress says he told his team that “anybody that works for me should respect the country we live in. So many people gave their lives for it. This is America.”

Hall of Fame driver Richard Petty’s sentiments took it a step further, saying: “Anybody that don’t stand up for the anthem oughta be out of the country. Period. What got ‘em where they’re at? The United States.” When asked if a protester at Richard Petty Motorsports would be fired, he said, “You’re right.”

Another team owner Chip Ganassi says he supports Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin’s comments. Tomlin said before the Steelers played on Sunday that players would remain in the locker room and that “we’re not going to let divisive times or divisive individuals affect our agenda.”

SOURCE

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Liberal Revolt Threatens Democrats’ Entire Strategy

Democratic leaders fighting to enact the DREAM Act this year are taking fire from a surprising group: liberal immigrant-rights activists.

Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus sounded off last week after top Democrats cut a tentative agreement with President Trump to pair a version of the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act with tougher immigration enforcement measures.

More recently, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was heckled in her own district over the deal, with a group of young advocates urging Democrats to pass a “clean” Dream Act while protecting the other 10 million undocumented immigrants living in the country.

The episodes suggest the coming debate over immigration reform — a perennial headache for Republican leaders — will also be no small challenge for the Democrats.
Complicating matters further, the immigration activists are a multi-faceted force with their own internal disagreements.

SOURCE

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

Email me  here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or  here (Pictorial) or  here  (Personal)

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