Check your carnist ideology

Did you realize that you may be a carnist?  It sounds rather like a medieval theological stance but it is not.  It simply means that you eat meat.  All sorts of weirdos wash up on the shore of Psychology and strict vegetarians are among them.  So the research below is designed to find something wrong with "carnists'.

And it succeeded.  It found that carnists tend to be conservative!  And there is nothing worse that that to a Leftist.  And most psychologists are Leftists.  So from now on lots of Leftists will be sadly eyeing platters of bacon and eggs as they tuck in to their tofu burgers.

The research is actually rubbish.  One of their measures of conservatism (the RWA scale) does not correlate with voting for conservative candidates and the other is largely a measure of racism.  See here and here.  So the conclusions may be correct but the data is insufficient to show it.

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Why do right-wing adherents engage in more animal exploitation and meat consumption?

Kristof Dhonta &  Gordon Hodson

Abstract

Despite the well-documented implications of right-wing ideological dispositions for human intergroup relations, surprisingly little is understood about the implications for human–animal relations. We investigate why right-wing ideologies – social dominance orientation (SDO) and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) – positively predict attitudes toward animal exploitation and meat consumption. Two survey studies conducted in heterogeneous community samples (Study 1, N = 260; Study 2, N = 489) demonstrated that right-wing ideologies predict greater acceptance of animal exploitation and more meat consumption through two explaining mechanisms: (a) perceived threat from non-exploitive ideologies to the dominant carnist ideology (for both SDO and RWA) and (b) belief in human superiority over animals (for SDO). These findings hold after controlling for hedonistic pleasure from eating meat. Right-wing adherents do not simply consume more animals because they enjoy the taste of meat, but because doing so supports dominance ideologies and resistance to cultural change. Psychological parallels between human intergroup relations and human–animal relations are considered.

SOURCE

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The Arrogance of ObamaCare

ObamaCare hit a milestone Monday, as the Obama administration announced that five million people have now enrolled for health insurance under the law. That's approaching the six million that the Congressional Budget Office projected would enroll by March 31. But there's more than meets the eye here.

The White House still won't say how many people have paid their premiums (i.e., actually enrolled). It also won't tell us how many enrollees were previously insured. Millions of Americans saw their health plans cancelled because of the law's regulations. The law says plans must cover all kinds of “comprehensive” things, so when a plan changed slightly after the law went into effect, it then had to comply with all of ObamaCare's regulations – hence the cancellations. If new enrollments are substantially made up of previously covered but subsequently cancelled people, that's hardly a success. In fact, it's often replacing a decent plan with a worse one that costs more.

According to one recent survey, one in three uninsured Americans plans to remain that way. That's in large part thanks to skyrocketing premiums that will double in some parts of the country. The sticker shock is deterring many and causing those who do sign up to choose the bottom-rung “bronze” plans. Folks would rather pay the fine (ahem, the “tax”) of 1% of adjusted gross income and only sign up when they get sick. Who can blame them when the administration keeps delaying any penalties?

The White House has taken to entertaining, nagging and cajoling the young people ObamaCare must enroll in large numbers in order for it to “work.” To subsidize the old and sick, the law depends on 40% of enrollees being young and healthy. But only about 25% of enrollees are young and it's a safe bet they're not as healthy on average as their age suggests, which means they won't balance the additional costs of the old and sick.

One of the core problems with ObamaCare is the designers' arrogance. Congressional Democrats thought that in a nation of more than 300 million people only they were smart and benevolent enough to design a health care law to fit everyone. But it will only work if participation is mandated. It's hard to think of something more antithetical to the principles upon which the nation was founded. And it's no wonder it isn't working.

 SOURCE

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Vermont Democrats Labeling State's Single-Payer Health Plan a Failure

In 2011, Vermont passed the nation's first single-payer healthcare system, "Green Mountain Care." While the law was supposed to be fully enacted by 2017, it has become apparent that there's no solid plan in place to actually pay for the healthcare of all Vermont residents. Democratic lawmakers, citing missed deadlines and past failures, have begun to call for Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin to "shelve" the plan.

“The deadlines for proposing financing have been missed two years in a row now, so to me that’s very disappointing. It’s becoming clearer and clearer that there is no financing plan,” Condon told Vermont Watchdog.

The cost of one year of Green Mountain Care is estimated to be anywhere from 1.6 to 2.2 billion dollars. This is equal to the entire tax revenue of the state of Vermont.

Sen. Bobby Starr, another Democrat who voted against Act 48, told Vermont Watchdog in January there’s “no way” single-payer can work without new taxes. Indeed, no lawmaker has introduced any bill that would finance single-payer health care without also raising taxes.

It's foolish for Vermont to even entertain the thought of a single-payer system when its attempt at implementing an Obamacare exchange didn't go so well. Green Mountain Care is way too expensive for the state, and raising taxes is going to make an already business-unfriendly state even worse.

SOURCE

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They Even Regulate Transparency

According to a report from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Barack Obama has far surpassed his predecessors when it comes to regulation. Under Obama, the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), which is the “codification of the general and permanent rules published in the Federal Register,” has expanded by some 17,522 pages – an 11% increase. That's an average of 3,504 pages every year – and he still has three long years left in office.

Those regulations have cost the economy billions of dollars, heaping on additional burdens and making the Obama “recovery” historically sluggish. The president remains stubbornly determined to use his pen whenever Congress doesn't conform to his will. It's all part of his effort to “fundamentally transform” America, and he'll do it regulation by regulation.

At the same time, Obama and his red tape bandits have for years declared this White House the “most transparent in history.” We're shocked – shocked – to report that this claim just isn't true. A new report from Cause of Action, a watchdog group, says that in 2009, Barack Obama basically rewrote the Freedom of Information Act, and, oddly enough, he did so to limit the freedom of information.

As Cause of Action explains in the report, “FOIA is designed to inform the public on government behavior; White House equities allow the government to withhold information from the media, and therefore the public, by having media requests forwarded for review. This not only politicizes federal agencies, it impairs fundamental First Amendment liberties.”

With an administration that's cranking out regulations left and further left, transparency is sometimes the only warning. And the “White House equities” exemption frees the administration of uncomfortable news within the 20 days otherwise required by FOIA. Cause of Action notes that it's “still waiting for documents from 16 federal agencies, with the Department of Treasury having the longest pending request of 202 business days. The Department of Energy is a close second at 169 business days. The requests to the Department of Defense and Department of Health and Human Services have been pending for 138 business days.” A lot of damage can happen in the interim, and the White House can now take as long as it wants.

SOURCE

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Opposing Voter ID Laws in the Name of Race Is Insulting to Minorities

This is a headline we should never see in the United States: "Federal Judge: Yes, Arizona and Kansas Can Require Voters To Prove Their Citizenship."

The fact that this issue would be disputed at all is astonishing. That it is legally contested is stunning. That the prime mover in initiating the legal challenge is our own federal government, which has a compelling interest in ensuring the integrity of the election process, is mind-blowing.

Who would have imagined just a few short years ago that in 2014 the executive branch of the federal government and a good chunk of its legislative branch would be dominated by radical community organizers wreaking havoc on the rule of law and our cherished principles of equal protection under the law and the impartial administration of justice? I feel like I'm living inside some Red-conspiracy fiction novel that could never get published because it's too unlikely to survive the incredulity even of readers with a generous willingness to suspend disbelief.

Both Kansas and Arizona passed new voter-ID legislation requiring new voters to provide a birth certificate, a passport or other documentation to prove their citizenship. But the U.S. Election Assistance Commission rejected requests from these two states for help in changing federal election registration forms. The existing federal registration form doesn't require proof of citizenship, only that new voters sign a statement declaring their citizenship.

How do you think the Internal Revenue Service would respond if we all said it would have to take our word for our income and expenses based on our "declarations" and we were not going to furnish 1099s, W2s or expense receipts?

What would the NSA say if all airline passengers simply refused to show their driver's licenses at airport security checkpoints?

Is the integrity of our elections so unimportant to President Obama, Attorney General Holder and the rest of the Democratic cabal that they refuse to impose the slightest checks against voter fraud?

Well, some horrendously naive people take these leftists at their word that they believe voter fraud is a "rare" phenomenon, even though 46 states have prosecuted cases of voter fraud since 2000. Do you think they don't know about the pernicious activities of ACORN, with which they were joined at the hip?

Some people also take Democrats at their word that they believe initiatives for voter-ID laws are being driven by "racist" conservatives who want to suppress minority turnout in elections. This, too, is maliciously twisted thinking, most likely born of liberal projection. Democrats need look no further than their own consistent efforts to suppress the military vote.

I know a lot of conservatives, and I've never met one who thinks this way. What we want is to make sure the election process is fair, that only people who are eligible to vote are allowed to vote and vote just once.

I wish more minorities would vote for Republican candidates, but neither I nor any other conservative or Republican I've ever met would support suppressing minority votes just because they vote disproportionately Democratic.

Guy Benson of Townhall reports that after Georgia implemented its voter-ID law in 2007, which was upheld in court, the state saw an increase in minority voter participation in the next two election cycles.

How could any intellectually honest person maintain that it is unfair, unreasonable or unconstitutional to require all voters to provide documentation to verify that they are who they say they are before being allowed to vote?

What you need to understand is that with this bunch of Democrats everything is about politics. For them, the end justifies any means, and their paramount end is to get Democrats elected, and so they will pursue it, even at the expense of the integrity of the system. This is undeniable given their opposition to voter-ID laws.

What other conclusion can we draw from their opposition than they want to increase Democratic votes with voters who abuse the election process?

Unless you have a very low opinion of minorities, how could you conceivably argue that it is racist to require that all voters prove their identity as a condition to voting? If anything racist is involved here, it is in the suggestion that minorities are too incompetent to furnish their IDs. How could you disrespect minorities any more that that?

If people can't muster their ID — I don't care who they are — then they don't deserve the privilege of voting, and people who want to protect their right to do so without ID are on their face suspect.

It is a crying shame that our federal government is run by partisan Democrats who are waging war against the integrity of the election process, the rule of law and the sovereignty of the several states. I pray more people wake up to this reality.

More HERE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

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

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Founder of  Westboro Baptist Church Fred Phelps dies aged 84

Fred must have been as much hated as Osama bin Laden.  America loves its heroes -- rightly  -- and Fred poured scorn on them. But I wonder if any of those who condemn him have actually listened to any of his sermons?  He was an old-fashioned hellfire preacher who was careful to support everything he said by reference to Bible texts.  He was perhaps the last remnant of a once-dominant American preacher tradition.

There is no doubt that he aimed to shock and he certainly achieved that but theologically he was literally correct.  Fred didn't whitewash the Bible.  He preached it.  And if you doubt that read Romans chap. 1 to get God's attitude to homosexuals and Ezekiel 33 for God's expectation of his representatives.  God's  representatives had a duty to warn the ungodly about their sins and any failure to warn was itself a deadly sin.  Fred accepted that duty and discharged it.  There was nothing wrong with Fred's theology.

And if you think Fred was going over the top in warning that whole nations who defended homosexuality would be destroyed by God, ponder the fate of the tribe of Benjamin.  The homosexuals of Gibeah set in train a series of events which brought down great wrath and destruction on their tribe. The tribe of Benjamin was almost wiped out when it would not disown its homosexuals (Judges  chaps. 19 & 20).  America now is in a state of decline too.  Does it too need a moral reformation to save it?  Was the election of Obama a triumph  of the Devil?  Fred was in no doubt about all that.

If you believe in the Bible (I do not) Fred was right.  He was a faithful servant of his Lord.  I sometimes wonder if there are any real Bible students left

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Fred Phelps, who founded the Westboro Baptist Church known for its anti-gay sentiments and protests at soldiers' funerals, has died, his son said on Thursday.

The 84-year-old, who founded the church is 1955, died of natural causes in Kansas at 11.15pm on Wednesday, according to church spokesman Steve Drain.

Previously he said that that Phelps was being cared for in a Shawnee County facility.

His passing comes just days after another son, Nate Phelps, took to his own Facebook page to announce that his father was 'on the edge of death' at Midland Hospice house in Topeka.

Nate Phelps, who left the extreme Christian sect 37 years ago, said his father was excommunicated in August 2013 from the church for advocating more kindness toward its members.

Three of his own children ex-communicated their father, according to WIBW.

'I'm not sure how I feel about this,' Nate Phelps wrote on Facebook. 'Terribly ironic that his devotion to his god ends this way. Destroyed by the monster he made.

'I feel sad for all the hurt he's caused so many. I feel sad for those who will lose the grandfather and father they loved. And I'm bitterly angry that my family is blocking the family members who left from seeing him, and saying their good-byes.'

SOURCE

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Obamacare leaves Las Vegas man owing $407,000 in doctor bills

It looks like in this case that the computer company  -- Xerox -- who built the online exchange are going to be left holding the baby.  Their exchange failed to enroll a man anywhere even though it said it did so nobody else is liable.  So this is going to cost Xerox huge amounts  -- and may send them broke.  No wonder they are lawyering up. Nobody else is picking up the tab so Xerox is just delaying the inevitable at the moment.  All other Obamacre contractors must be running scared.

The hospital bills are hitting Larry Basich’s mailbox.  That would be OK if Basich had health insurance. But he doesn’t.

Thing is, he should be covered. Basich, 62, bought a plan through the state’s Nevada Health Link insurance exchange in the fall. He’s been paying monthly premiums since November.

Yet the Las Vegan is stranded in a no-man’s-land where no carrier claims him, and his tab is mounting: Basich owes $407,000 for care received in January and February, when his policy was supposed to be in effect. Instead, he’s covered only for March and beyond.

Basich has begged for weeks for help from the exchange and its contractor, Xerox. But Basich’s insurance broker said Xerox seems more interested in lawyering up and covering its hide than in working out Basich’s problems. Nor is Basich the only client facing plan-selection errors through the exchange, she added.

Basich said he began trying to enroll on Oct. 1, the day the exchange website went live. Like many consumers, he fought technical flaws during multiple sign-up attempts. In mid-November he finally got through and chose his plan: UnitedHealthcare’s MyHPNSilver1.  “It was like reaching the third level of Doom,” Basich said of the torturous sign-up process.

Basich paid his first premium on Nov. 21, and within days the exchange withdrew the $160.77 payment from his money-market savings account. Because Basich paid a month before the Dec. 23 deadline, his coverage was to begin Jan. 1.

Weeks ticked by, but Basich received nothing to confirm he had insurance. Nevada Health Link kept telling him he was enrolled, but UnitedHealthcare said he wasn’t in their system.

Basich’s predicament went critical on Dec. 31, when he had a heart attack. His treatment, which included a triple bypass on Jan. 3, resulted in $407,000 in medical bills in January and February that no insurer is covering.

Meanwhile, the exchange sent Basich premium invoices for January and February. He paid them both.

Basich has sought help at virtually every level of the system, from the Xerox customer-service reps who answer the phones at the exchange’s Henderson call center all the way to Gov. Brian Sandoval and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Both Sandoval’s and Reid’s offices have told him they want to help, Basich said, but there’s been no resolution so far.

More HERE

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The Government Is a Hitman: Uber, Tesla and Airbnb Are in Its Crosshairs

The real losers are not just the next generation of innovators but also customers who lose out on more ways of getting what they need or want

What the Invisible Hand of free-market innovation giveth, the Dead Hand of politically motivated regulation desperately tries to taketh away.

That’s the only way to describe what’s happening to three wildly innovative and popular products: the award-winning electric car Tesla, taxi-replacement service Uber, and hotel-alternative Airbnb. These companies are not only revolutionizing their industries via cutting-edge technology and customer-empowering distribution, they’re running afoul of interest groups that are quick to use political muscle to maintain market share and the status quo.

The battle between what historian Burton W. Folsom calls “market entrepreneurs” and “political entrepreneurs” is an old and ugly one, dating back to the earliest days of the American experiment. Market entrepreneurs make their money by offering customers a good or new service at a good or new price. Political entrepreneurs make their money the old-fashioned way: They use the government to rig markets and kneecap real and potential competitors. In his great 1987 book, The Myth of the Robber Barons, Folsom discusses how the 19th-century steamboat pioneer Robert Fulton quickly went from a market entrepreneur to a political one by securing a 30-year monopoly from the New York legislature for all steamboat traffic in the Empire State.

Especially in today’s sluggish economy, it’s more important than ever that market innovators win out over crony capitalists. Letting markets work to find new ways of delivering goods and services isn’t just better for customers in the short term, it’s the only way to unleash the innovation that ultimately propels long-term economic growth. After all, no country has ever regulated its way out of a recession.

Tesla has done the unthinkable not once but twice: First, it built an electric car that people actually want to buy despite a price tag north of $70,000 for its cheapest models. Second, it has the temerity to sell directly to its wealthy customers, rather than subjecting them to the ritualized hell that is known as auto dealerships. But because auto dealers account for as much as 20 percent of state sales taxes, their wishes often become legislators’ commands. At the top of their wish list? Don’t let carmakers sell directly to customers. The most glaring example of protectionism just took place in New Jersey, whose legislature added even more burdens to rules already banning the direct sales of cars to customers. Now Teslas effectively can’t be sold in New Jersey, reports The New York Times, all in the name of consumer safety and protecting competition.

News flash: Anyone who can afford a $70,000 car doesn’t need much protecting. And if you’re ready to believe car dealers when they argue that incredibly complicated rules that make it impossible for new companies to enter their market is about protecting competition, I’ve got an expensive undercoating package I want to sell you.

The app-driven car service Uber, which bills itself as “everyone’s car service” and connects drivers and riders in minutes, presents a similar threat to traditional taxi and ride services in the 30-plus U.S. cities in which it operates. Rather than fight for customers by cutting fares, increasing the number of cabs, or improving services, taxi commissioners and city councils from San Francisco to New York are instead trying to regulate Uber out of business on the grounds that it provides unfair and unsafe competition.

Never mind that Uber riders get to instantly rate their experience in a way no cab passenger ever does (just as amazingly, drivers get to rate passengers!). At the state level, California has already instituted a bevy of regulations on Uber, Lyft, and other new ride-sharing services. These range from mandatory criminal background checks for drivers, licensing via public utilities commissions, and driver training programs. Last year, Washington, D.C. officials unsuccessfully tried to squeeze out Uber with regulations on the types of cars that could carry passengers, what sorts of credit-card processing machines could be used, and how the company’s app operates.

Airbnb, a website that allows people to rent out everything from vacation homes to spare couches for short-term stays, works great for everyone but conventional hoteliers and cities trying to bilk travelers for tourist taxes. Operating in 192 countries and typically showing hundreds of thousands of offerings, Airbnb has faced stiff regulations in towns supposedly famous for their weirdness and openness to lifestyle experimentation, such as Austin, Texas (which charges hosts an annual licensing fee and limits the number of participants) and Portland, Oregon (which has banned the service in residential neighborhoods). In New York, rent-control advocates are teaming up with hospitality-industry heavyweights to try and shut down Airbnb and similar services.

If mobsters were pulling these sorts of stunts, we’d recognize the attacks on new ways of doing business for what they are: protection rackets, with state regulators rather than professional hitmen creating and enforcing rules to benefit well-connected businessmen. The real losers are not just the next generation of innovators but also customers who lose out on more ways of getting what they need or want.

Folsom’s study of political and market entrepreneurs also suggests that political entrepreneurs are ultimately unsuccessful. Indeed, in 1817, Fulton claimed that his monopoly meant that no one could ferry passengers to New York City from neighboring states. A young Corneilius Vanderbilt was hired by a Jersey businessman to challenge Fulton not in a court of law but on the Hudson River, ferrying passengers from Elizabeth, New Jersey and Gotham. Vanderbilt cheekily flew a flag from his ship that read, “New Jersey must be free.” While evading capture, Vanderbilt lowered prices and changed the business climate.

It turns out that New Jersey must be free again — to sell Teslas. And New Yorkers should be free to rent out their rooms if they want to. And Uber to drive you where you want to go. The Invisible Hand of free markets shouldn’t have to spend so much of its time slapping away the Dead Hand of political entrepreneurship.

SOURCE

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Federal ‘Motor Voter’ Forms In KS, AZ Must Include Proof of Citizenship

A federal judge ordered the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to immediately add state-specific instructions requiring documented proof of citizenship to mail-in federal “Motor Voter” registration forms used in Kansas and Arizona.

Both states have laws requiring applicants to prove they are U.S. citizens before they are registered to vote. The federal form only requires them to swear under penalty of perjury that they are U.S. citizens.

“Because the Constitution gives the states exclusive authority to set voter qualifications under the Qualification Clause, and because no clear congressional enactment attempts to preempt this authority, the Court finds that the states’ determination that a mere oath is not sufficient is all the states are required to establish,” U.S. District Court Judge Eric Melgren said in his March 19th ruling in Wichita. (See EAC - 2014-03-19 US Dist Ct Decision Kobach v EAC.pdf)

“This is victory not only for Kansas and Arizona, but for all 50 states,” Kansas Secretary of State Kobach told CNSNews.com. “Any one of those 50 states may now choose to follow our example and require proofs of citizenship when people register to vote. There are two other states that are doing it already, Alabama and Georgia, for a total of four states.

“And I would encourage more states to do so because anytime an alien votes, it effectively cancels out the vote of a U.S. citizen.

"And you have many cases all around the country of aliens [voting], usually being manipulated by some sort of group that wants to steal an election. They’re told falsely that they are eligible to vote and then they’re coached how to vote, and it’s happening all across the country. We’re stopping it in Kansas and Arizona.”

More HERE

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The TSA at work



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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

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

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Our Sociopathic Political Class

EDWARD CLINE below has some good points but is handicapped by his lack of background in clinical psychology.  While the distinction he proposes between psychopathy and sociopathy is reasonable, it is his own.  Normally, Sociopathy is simply the more modern usage  -- meant to stress that psychopaths are not "mad" in the sense of poor reality contact.  Psychopathy is not a psychosis.  Cline seems to think it is.  His list of psychopathic symptoms and suggestions about politicians embodying them is however pretty right.  I have written to that effect myself

In his March 10th FrontPage column, "Obama's Appeasement Leads to War," about how appeasing tyrants has and will continue to lead to war and more international strife, Daniel Greenfield wrote:

    "On the shield of the Strategic Air Command a steel mailed fist grips a lightning bolt and an olive branch. The motto of the organization that was the nightmarish obsession of every Cold War leftist was "Peace is our Profession."

    To the moviegoers who sat through Dr. Strangelove, to the earnest leftists who saw the world going up in a puff of atomic smoke because the military industrial complex was obsessed with killing people, to the pseudo-idealists who passed on atomic secrets to Moscow to avoid an American monopoly on the bomb, the SAC's motto was a demented joke. They knew that the only way to stop war was to disarm."

Coincidentally, I watched "Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" the previous evening on Netflix. The last time I saw it in its entirety was the year of its release in 1964, on Larson Air Force Base, 462nd Bomb Wing, in Washington State. And I saw it under the most unusual circumstances.

I was in the Air Police, charged with guarding the base and its B52 bombers, KC135 tankers, and U2 spy planes. Larson was also an ICBM base, but the silos had separate security.  One evening, after a regular 8-hour shift on the flight line, I was one of about eight other air cops selected to serve on a backup or reserve team. This meant that we could sack out in the reserve team's quarters, play cards, read a book, or indulge, as a group, armed with our carbines and sidearms, in some other diversion.

On my first night on the team it was decided to go to the base movie theater, to which we were admitted free. "Dr. Strangelove" was playing. As we sat in a back row behind the audience, the movie thoroughly confused me. My colleagues thought it was hilarious, especially when the motto, "Peace is Our Profession" was prominently juxtaposed with the noisy battle scenes between Army troops and Air Force base policemen.

That was my introduction to how the Left depicted the country and America. Director Stanley Kubrick, I learned later, was not so much a "leftist" as disturbed, obsessed with madness and irony and what he perceived as the ignoble baseness of man. But, that evening marked the beginning of an intellectual journey to investigate and report on what was so wrong with the country that its artists and novelists and filmmakers could so freely paint it in such disparaging and malicious colors with impunity. Were these people sociopaths? Or psychopaths? Was there a difference between the pathologies? Could an ideology inculcate a destructive pathology in a person, or are the pathologically-inclined inexorably drawn to a destructive ideology?

That question arose again, with a different focus, when I read a comment about Andrew Klavan's March 5th review, "A New Thing on Netflix," of the second season of "House of Cards":

    "Pa Deuce:  Fred Siegel has a new book out, "The Revolt Against the Masses: How Liberalism Undermined the Middle Class," that addresses this very problem. Elitists cannot express their elitism by repeating the same old things, such as the Constitution of the United States of America has produced the greatest nation on earth. In order to say something different and look smart, elitists take a leftward slant on everything. But the Left has an uninterrupted record of destruction and death. To cover the discrepancy, the Left lies about how bad the USA is and how good the noble Marxists are.

    Siegel's book tells what happens when the elitists are in charge. My take is that the Left is driven by mental disorders and displays the attributes of clinical psychopaths: irresponsibility, pathological lying, parasitic lifestyle, grandiose sense of self-worth, etc. Dr. Robert Hare has written extensively on psychopaths. Now we have a Marxist psychopath in the White House and he is as inefficient, incompetent, and corrupt as the Soviet Union."

Why are so many politicians sociopaths? I make the completely arbitrary distinction between a sociopath and a psychopath in terms of action: A psychopath is more likely to act out his obsessions and manias aggressively and destructively. Sociopaths can be said to be passive-aggressive, acting out their obsessions and manias vicariously by proxy through government force.

In vain I searched the Internet for a good article on the pathology of politicians (never mind of Hollywood directors and producers). I found a few, but while they made some insightful observations, a religious element in their analyses and conclusions spoiled them. For example, Patriot Post's "Pathology of the Left" of February 2006, penned by Mark Alexander, noted:

    "Recently, the American Psychological Association published a study by a few "academicians" from Cal-Berkeley and the University of Maryland. The study, entitled "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition," purported to have identified some determinants that are common to those holding a "conservative" worldview....

    The authors received more than 1.2 million of your hard-earned tax dollars from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation in order to, by their own account, "consider evidence for and against the hypotheses that political conservatism is significantly associated with (1) mental rigidity and closed-mindedness; (2) lowered self-esteem; (3) fear, anger, and aggression; (4) pessimism, disgust, and contempt; (5) loss prevention; (6) fear of death; (7) threat arising from social and economic deprivation; and (8) threat to the stability of the social system."

Alexander writes that these symptoms are more correctly observable and attributable to liberals and left-wingers than to conservatives. In practice these symptoms manifest themselves in obvious ways:

    "Liberals are uniformly defined by their hypocrisy and dissociation from reality. For example, the wealthiest U.S. senators - Democrats - fancy themselves as defenders of the poor and advocate the redistribution of wealth, but they hoard enormous wealth for themselves and have never missed a meal. They have always been far more dedicated to their country clubs than our country.

    Liberals speak of unity, but they seed foment, appealing to the worst in human nature by dividing Americans into dependent constituencies. What constitutes these liberal constituencies? They support freedom of thought, unless your thoughts don't comport with theirs. They feign tolerance while practicing intolerance. They resist open discussion and debate of their views, yet seek to silence dissenters. They insist that they care more about protecting habitat than those who hunt and fish, and protest for the preservation of natural order while advocating homosexuality. They denounce capital punishment for the most heinous of criminals, while ardently supporting the killing of the most innocent among us - children prior to birth. [This last "symptom" is where I part with religious conservatives.] They loathe individual responsibility, and advocate for statism. They eschew private initiative and enterprise while promoting all manner of government control and regulation."

Alexander offers an answer for the behavior of politicians and even for many in the news media:

    "Medically speaking, there is a diagnosis for Leftist over-achievers like Bill Clinton, Albert Gore, John Kerry, Barack Obama, et al. They are pathological case studies of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, as outlined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - the standard reference used for psychiatric evaluation.

    The diagnostic criteria for NPD includes a "pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts," which manifests as "a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements);" "a preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love; and a belief that he or she is 'special' and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)," and the subject "lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others...shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes."

It was an admirable attempt in mental diagnosis, but the religious angle sinks it. Two other sites, Activist Teacher and Fellowship of the Mind address the same issue but fail for the same reason. The second site does include a chronological list of instances of political sociopathy in and out of government, but it should be perused with reservations.

I did find one (nameless) site that broke down sociopathic and psychotic symptoms without interjecting superfluous conclusions. Because liberal/left politicians and news media personnel express their sociopathy publically but choose to have others do the deeds they deign not to perform themselves (Hitler and Stalin, for example, were sociopaths; the men who eagerly and without question carried out their murderous orders were psychopaths), I think it would be fair to propose a test to see if readers can identify one or more public figures in or out of government who match these symptoms:

*    Glibness and Superficial Charm: Barack Obama? Harry Reid? Nancy Pelosi? Hillary Clinton? Bill Clinton? Any TV news anchor? Anyone else?

*    Manipulative and Conning: They never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving behaviors as permissible. They appear to be charming, yet are covertly hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to be used. They may dominate and humiliate their victims. Barack Obama? Harry Reid? Nancy Pelosi? Hillary Clinton? Bill Clinton? Any TV news anchor? Jay Carney? Anyone else?

*    Grandiose Sense of Self: Feels entitled to certain things as "their right." All of the above, in addition to careerists in the welfare/dependency class?

*    Pathological Lying: Has no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them to be truthful on a consistent basis. Can create, and get caught up in, a complex belief about their own powers and abilities. Extremely convincing and even able to pass lie detector tests. Democrats are progressively losing their credibility with the electorate, and I don't think anyone of them is shrewd enough to fool a lie detector test. Knowing this, they would refuse to submit to one, which would be tantamount to taking the Fifth.

*    Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt: A deep seated rage, which is split off and repressed, is at their core. Does not see others around them as people, but only as targets and opportunities. Instead of friends, they have victims and accomplices who end up as victims. The end always justifies the means and they let nothing stand in their way. Obama's book-length catalogue of lies? Pelosi's? Harry Reid's?  Either of the Clintons'? And etc.? Has anyone ever seen any one of them blush when caught in a lie? No? Ever hear any one of them stammer in explanation? No? Well, maybe Jay Carney, Obama's newest press secretary and ventriloquist dummy. How many politicians do you think really envy Frank Underwood, the chief villain of "House of Cards," without their having to abide by Constitutional checks and balances, except when they can manipulate others and the rules to their favor (and not have to commit homicides)?

*    Irresponsibility/Unreliability: Not concerned about wrecking others' lives and dreams. Oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they cause. Does not accept blame themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed. You can begin with Obama, and work down your own list of candidates. First on the reader's list should be Barack Obama for Obamacare, which is wrecking countless lives and promises to wreck countless more. After all, you can't "transform" a country without breaking a lot of eggs, spirits, bank accounts - and even heads.

*    Lack of Realistic Life Plan/Parasitic Lifestyle: Tends to move around a lot or makes all encompassing promises for the future, poor work ethic but exploits others effectively. Remind you of anyone in particular? Golfing pictures? Flying off to his "main turf," Hawaii? Expensive holidays in exotic and expensive locales? Of course, except for Hawaii, these symptoms also are evident in "all of the above," as well. Remember that the chief motive of a career politician in today's political environment is to keep reality at bay by faking reality for himself and for others. And when the faked reality begins to crumble like a dry cookie, his congenital response is to add another layer of faked reality over the crumbling one. He can always depend on the cognitively-arrested and the habitually delusional to buy the new faked reality and not notice the crumbs at his feet. And in today's political environment (which arguably could extend back to the early 20th century), a "realistic life plan" is one contrived to be a professional parasite, most especially in politics.

Yes, there is a distinction to be made between sociopathology and psychopathology. There may even be gradations of functioning amalgams of the two pathologies which could be explored. But, to return to the questions posed above: Could an ideology inculcate a destructive pathology in a person, or are the pathologically-inclined inexorably drawn to a destructive ideology?

I hypothesize that they are mutually attracted to each other, and integrally codependent. The concocters of a destructive ideology, such as Islam, Communism, Socialism, and Nazism, count on the ideology attracting the pathologically-inclined in large enough numbers to make it a viable prospect and over whom to wield power. And the pathologically-inclined must have some rationalized ethic, no matter how primitive or complex, that will sanction their basic selflessness and vitriolic envy of those who are happy and ask only that they be left alone to live their lives. The pathologically-inclined are drawn to a destructive ideology because they need someone to tell them what to think and do. Their faked reality is the faked reality of their leaders and icons.

Without the pathologically-inclined, a sociopath's ideology is simply a wish for the unrealistic and unattainable; without a destructive ideology, the pathologically-inclined become self-aware flotsam and jetsam in "a world they never made." Many of the latter are driven by their self-made inner demons to become psychopaths.

Others enter politics and become members of a sociopathic political class.

The leitmotif and core essence of either pathology is a deeply buried and unacknowledged glop of evil.

SOURCE

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ELSEWHERE

Canceling Cancellations: "The Obama HHS has yet another “solution” to the woes created by ObamaCare. This time, a draft regulation says, “We propose that a modification made solely pursuant to applicable Federal or State law would be considered a modification of coverage rather than a product withdrawal.” In other words, HHS is trying to make it easier for a health insurance policy to be “grandfathered” in under ObamaCare. Millions of Americans have already lost coverage because slight changes were made negating grandfather qualification. The new regulation proposal would loosen those requirements. Anything to ease the burden on Democrats come November.

Gates: Don't Raise Minimum Wage: "Billionaire Bill Gates – a liberal but an entrepreneur nonetheless with a far better understanding of capitalism than most lawmakers, not to mention our president – spoke with the American Enterprise Institute and warned against elevating the minimum wage. “When people say we should raise the minimum wage … I worry about what that does to job creation,” he said. His critique contradicts most leftist economic talking points. Why? Because unlike the majority of policy makers on Capitol Hill, Gates understands the challenges of operating a business; meanwhile, Barack Obama, a career community organizer, has yet to even run a lemonade stand much less a company that employs hundreds or thousands of workers. And while liberals are quick to cite Gates on most progressive causes, don't expect them to heed his economic concerns.

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

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

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Mr Putin is a true leader of his people

Russian politicians and media were last night demanding Vladimir Putin goes further by grabbing back more former Soviet regions and states.

The nationalistic frenzy whipped up by the return of Crimea - in defiance of the West - has led to calls on state-run TV for Moscow to take back oil and gas-rich Kazakhstan and authoritarian Belarus as well as more slices of a battered Ukraine, already filleted by the Kremlin.

Putin was last night riding the crest of an adulatory wave after righting what many Russians see as an historical wrong and reintegrating Crimea and the Black Sea fleet headquarters of Sevastopol back in to Russia after a gap of 60 years.

Senior politicians openly mocked Western sanctions and discounted Putin's assertion that he did not seek more of Ukraine as long as the West stops seeking sway in his backyard.

The Russian strongman defiantly told a joint session of the Russian parliament that he would not accept NATO 'next to our home or on our historic territories'.

Accusing the West of hypocrisy in pushing for self-determination for Kosovo but denying Crimea, he said the peninsula had been 'robbed' from Russia in Soviet times while 'regions of Russia's historic south' were only now Ukrainian because of a Bolshevik blunder.

In an emotional and historic address he said: 'In the hearts and minds of people, Crimea has always been and remains an inseparable part of Russia.'

Putin has succeeded in uniting many of his foes behind him but last night it also appeared he had unleashed a tidal wave in favour of more land grabs.

Senior politician Sergei Mironov hailed 'the great day when the gathering of Russian lands began'.

Sergey Zheleznyak, deputy chairman of lower house, demanded Russian 'support' for other Ukrainian regions.  'We cannot feel calm and happy as long as we realise how our brothers in other regions of Ukraine are suffering,' he said.

More HERE

When a putz like Obama tells Putin it's illegal for Russia to absorb the Crimea which is mostly Russian, and then demands that Israel evacuate 300,000 Jews from historically Jewish Judea and Samaria to appease terrorists, what other reaction can one have but, HUH?!

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Was the Crimean vote "rigged"?

Contrary to the reports of 135 international observers from 23 countries, the Western media in chorus has suggested without a shred of evidence that the elections were rigged and that Crimea was under Russian military occupation.

The observer mission reports which include members of the European Parliament have been casually ignored by the mainstream Western media:

Mateus Piskorkski, the leader of the European observers' mission and Polish MP: "Our observers have not registered any violations of voting rules."

Ewald Stadler, member of the European Parliament, dispelled the "referendum at gunpoint" myth: "I haven't seen anything even resembling pressure. People themselves want to have their say."

Pavel Chernev: Bulgarian member of parliament: "Organization and procedures are 100 percent in line with the European standards," he added.

Serbian observer Milenko Baborats "People freely expressed their will in the most democratic way, wherever we were. During the day we didn't see a single serious violation of legitimacy of the process,"

Srdja Trifkovic, prominent and observer from Serbia: "The presence of troops on the streets is virtually non-existent and the only thing resembling any such thing is the unarmed middle-aged Cossacks who are positioned outside the parliament building in Simferopol. But if you look at the people both at the voting stations and in the streets, like on Yalta's sea front yesterday afternoon, frankly I think you would feel more tense in south Chicago or in New York's Harlem than anywhere round here," he said.

More HERE

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The Democrats' Dishonest Koch Habit

Democrats have escalated their attacks on Charles and David Koch, who donate a significant amount of their accumulated capital to conservative groups. The charge is led by Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), who now routinely takes to the Senate floor to angrily denounce these two private citizens. “I'm not afraid of the Koch brothers,” he thundered. “None of us should be afraid of the Koch brothers. These two multi-billionaires may spend hundreds of millions of dollars rigging the political process for their own benefit. And they may believe that whoever has the most money gets the most free speech. But I will do whatever it takes to expose their campaign to rig the American political system to benefit the wealthy at the expense of the middle class.”

A Democrat ad also recently demonized the brothers, accusing them of having an agenda to “protect tax cuts for companies that ship our jobs overseas.” That was too much even for The Washington Post's “fact checker,” Glenn Kessler, who gave the charge a full Four Pinocchios. Specifically, Kessler says, “The ad not only mischaracterizes an ordinary tax deduction as a special 'tax cut' but then it falsely asserts that 'protecting' this tax break is part of the Koch agenda. It turns out this claim is based on a tenuous link to an organization that never even took a position on the legislation in question.” The truth didn't stop Reid from repeating the same “tax breaks” lie.

This attack campaign is a clear sign that Democrats are very worried about November, and they're lashing out at anyone who's bankrolling the opposition. Americans for Prosperity, a political group founded with the Kochs' support, has spent $30 million already hanging ObamaCare around Democrats' necks. The attacks also reek of hypocrisy coming from a party well funded by leftist billionaires George Soros and Tom Steyer. And yet the effort is odd all the same because most people don't even know who the Kochs are, much less how they earned their money or how they use it. That means shutting them out of the political process is not very high on the list of the average American's concerns.

Reid wants to make this a class war, slamming the Kochs for having the “most money” and, therefore, the “most speech.” He aims to silence this speech because it endangers his control of the Senate, and the best way to do that is to follow Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals, Rule 12: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” The Kochs are the target, and polarizing them is intended to mobilize a demoralized leftist base.

But we'll let Democrats in on a little secret. The Founders wrote the First Amendment's bit about “free speech” in order to prevent the government from trying to dictate what or whose or how much speech is acceptable. If Harry Reid & Co. have the better argument on substance, let's hear it. Until then, the Kochs should be free to speak away – like everyone else.

SOURCE

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A Startlingly Simple Theory About the Missing Malaysia Airlines Jet

There has been a lot of speculation about Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Terrorism, hijacking, meteors. I cannot believe the analysis on CNN; it’s almost disturbing. I tend to look for a simpler explanation, and I find it with the 13,000-foot runway at Pulau Langkawi.

We know the story of MH370: A loaded Boeing 777 departs at midnight from Kuala Lampur, headed to Beijing. A hot night. A heavy aircraft. About an hour out, across the gulf toward Vietnam, the plane goes dark, meaning the transponder and secondary radar tracking go off. Two days later we hear reports that Malaysian military radar (which is a primary radar, meaning the plane is tracked by reflection rather than by transponder interrogation response) has tracked the plane on a southwesterly course back across the Malay Peninsula into the Strait of Malacca.

The left turn is the key here. Zaharie Ahmad Shah1 was a very experienced senior captain with 18,000 hours of flight time. We old pilots were drilled to know what is the closest airport of safe harbor while in cruise. Airports behind us, airports abeam us, and airports ahead of us. They’re always in our head. Always. If something happens, you don’t want to be thinking about what are you going to do–you already know what you are going to do. When I saw that left turn with a direct heading, I instinctively knew he was heading for an airport. He was taking a direct route to Palau Langkawi, a 13,000-foot airstrip with an approach over water and no obstacles. The captain did not turn back to Kuala Lampur because he knew he had 8,000-foot ridges to cross. He knew the terrain was friendlier toward Langkawi, which also was closer.

Take a look at this airport on Google Earth. The pilot did all the right things. He was confronted by some major event onboard that made him make an immediate turn to the closest, safest airport.

For me, the loss of transponders and communications makes perfect sense in a fire. And there most likely was an electrical fire. In the case of a fire, the first response is to pull the main busses and restore circuits one by one until you have isolated the bad one. If they pulled the busses, the plane would go silent. It probably was a serious event and the flight crew was occupied with controlling the plane and trying to fight the fire. Aviate, navigate, and lastly, communicate is the mantra in such situations.

There are two types of fires. An electrical fire might not be as fast and furious, and there may or may not be incapacitating smoke. However there is the possibility, given the timeline, that there was an overheat on one of the front landing gear tires, it blew on takeoff and started slowly burning. Yes, this happens with underinflated tires. Remember: Heavy plane, hot night, sea level, long-run takeoff. There was a well known accident in Nigeria of a DC8 that had a landing gear fire on takeoff. Once going, a tire fire would produce horrific, incapacitating smoke. Yes, pilots have access to oxygen masks, but this is a no-no with fire. Most have access to a smoke hood with a filter, but this will last only a few minutes depending on the smoke level. (I used to carry one in my flight bag, and I still carry one in my briefcase when I fly.)

What I think happened is the flight crew was overcome by smoke and the plane continued on the heading, probably on George (autopilot), until it ran out of fuel or the fire destroyed the control surfaces and it crashed. You will find it along that route–looking elsewhere is pointless.

More HERE

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Facts and Factions

Thomas Sowell

At a time when polls show public opinion turning against the Democrats, some Republicans seem to be turning against each other. Even with the prospect of being able to win control of the Senate in this fall's elections, some Republicans are busy manufacturing ammunition for their own circular firing squad.

A Republican faction's demonization of their own Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, is a classic example. If you listen to some of those who consider themselves the only true conservatives, you would never guess that Senator McConnell received a lifetime 90 percent ranking by the American Conservative Union -- and in one recent year had a 100 percent ranking.

Ann Coulter -- whose conservative credentials nobody has ever challenged -- points out in her column that Mitch McConnell has not only led the fight for conservative principles repeatedly, but has been to the right of Ted Cruz on immigration issues.

Someone once said that, in a war, truth is the first casualty. That seems to be the case for some in this internal war among Republicans. As the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, "You are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts."

Why should those of us who are not Republicans be concerned about any of this?

Fortunately or unfortunately, we have a two-party system in this country. And -- very unfortunately -- we are at a crucial point in the history of America, and perhaps approaching a point of no return.

The unfolding disaster of ObamaCare is only the most visible symptom of a far deeper danger from a lawless administration in Washington that unilaterally changes laws passed by Congress. President Obama has nearly three more years to continue doing irreparable damage to the fundamental basis of American government and Americans' freedom.

Only Republican control of the Senate can rein in the lawless Obama administration, which can otherwise load up the federal courts with lawless judges, who will be dismantling the rule of law and destroying the rights of the people, for decades after Barack Obama himself is long gone from the White House.

Once that happens, even a future Republican majority, led by people with the kind of ideological purity that the Republican dissidents want, cannot undo the damage.

The Senate's power to confirm or not confirm presidential nominees to the federal courts is the only thing that can prevent Barack Obama from leaving that kind of toxic legacy in the federal courts, including the Supreme Court.

Only Republican control of both houses of Congress can repeal, or even seriously revise, ObamaCare. And only Republican control of both houses of Congress plus the White House can begin to reverse the many lawless, reckless and dangerous policies of the Obama administration, at home and overseas.

This year's elections and the 2016 presidential election may be among the most important elections in the history of this country, and can determine what kind of country this will be for years -- and even generations -- to come.

Those Republicans who seem ready to jeopardize their own party's chances of winning these two crucial elections by following a rule-or-ruin fight against fellow Republicans may claim to be following their ideals. But headstrong self-righteousness is not idealism, and it is seldom a way to advance any cause.

Politics, like war, is a question of power. If you don't have power, you can make fiery speeches or even conduct attention-getting filibusters, but that does not fundamentally change anything. And it has accomplished nothing in this case.

No doubt there can be legitimate differences of opinion about tactics and strategy on particular issues. But, if you don't have power, these are just empty clashes over debating points.

Certainly there has been much for which the Republican leadership has deserved to be criticized over the years -- and this column has made such criticisms for decades. But, when the question is whether Mitch McConnell is preferable to Harry Reid as Majority Leader in the Senate, that is not even a close call.

If the rule-or-ruin faction among Republicans ends up giving the Democrats another Senate majority under Harry Reid, not only the Republican Party but the entire nation, and generations yet unborn, will end up paying the price.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

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

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Russians are Putin's concern

As I do, Pat Buchanan below argues that Putin is simply a Russian patriot who aims at least to protect Russians everywhere -- with an ideal outcome of bringing them all back under Russian rule.  And he is doing that cautiously, simply by supporting unrest among "severed" Russians.

The thing that amazes me is the worldwide dismissal of the vote by Crimeans to rejoin Russia.  Can someone tell me just why a democratic vote is being  disregarded in the West?  There have been no accusations of voting irregularities.  The vote seems perfectly genuine.  The only thing that might be urged against it is that over 90% of the vote was for reunion.  A degree of agreement that high happens only in an election rigged by a dictator, some might say.

But that is not at all true.  Britain got even higher percentages of agreement when it asked Gibraltarians and Falkland Islanders if they wanted to remain in union with Britain.  Were those British-run elections the rigged work of a dictator?  The fact is that "blood is thicker than water", much though the Left would like to deny it.  People tend to become very attached to their ethnicity and want to preserve it.  Russians in Crimea like being Russian just as Gibraltarians and Falkland Islanders like being  British.  Why is democracy OK for Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands but not for Crimea?

It is a sad day when a democratic vote of self-determination is mocked in the crony-capitalist nations of the West.


Vladimir Putin seems to have lost touch with reality, Angela Merkel reportedly told Barack Obama after speaking with the Russian president. He is "in another world."

"I agree with what Angela Merkel said ... that he is in another world," said Madeleine Albright, "It doesn't make any sense."

John Kerry made his contribution to the bonkers theory by implying that Putin was channeling Napoleon: "You don't just, in the 21st century, behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on a completely trumped-up pretext."

Now that Putin has taken Crimea without firing a shot, and 95 percent of a Crimean electorate voted Sunday to reunite with Russia, do his decisions still appear irrational?

Was it not predictable that Russia, a great power that had just seen its neighbor yanked out of Russia's orbit by a U.S.-backed coup in Kiev, would move to protect a strategic position on the Black Sea she has held for two centuries?

Zbigniew Brzezinski suggests that Putin is out to recreate the czarist empire. Others say Putin wants to recreate the Soviet Union and Soviet Empire.

But why would Russia, today being bled in secessionist wars by Muslim terrorists in the North Caucasus provinces of Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia, want to invade and reannex giant Kazakhstan, or any other Muslim republic of the old USSR, which would ensure jihadist intervention and endless war?

If we Americans want out of Afghanistan, why would Putin want to go back into Uzbekistan? Why would he want to annex Western Ukraine where hatred of Russia dates back to the forced famine of the Stalin era?

To invade and occupy all of Ukraine would mean endless costs in blood and money for Moscow, the enmity of Europe, and the hostility of the United States. For what end would Russia, its population shrinking by half a million every year, want to put Russian soldiers back in Warsaw?

But if Putin is not a Russian imperialist out to re-establish Russian rule over non-Russian peoples, who and what is he?

In the estimation of this writer, Vladimir Putin is a blood-and-soil, altar-and-throne ethnonationalist who sees himself as Protector of Russia and looks on Russians abroad the way Israelis look upon Jews abroad, as people whose security is his legitimate concern.

Consider the world Putin saw, from his vantage point, when he took power after the Boris Yeltsin decade.

He saw a Mother Russia that had been looted by oligarchs abetted by Western crony capitalists, including Americans. He saw millions of ethnic Russians left behind, stranded, from the Baltic states to Kazakhstan.

He saw a United States that had deceived Russia with its pledge not to move NATO into Eastern Europe if the Red Army would move out, and then exploited Russia's withdrawal to bring NATO onto her front porch.

Had the neocons gotten their way, not only the Warsaw Pact nations of Central and Eastern Europe, but five of 15 republics of the USSR, including Ukraine and Georgia, would have been brought into a NATO alliance created to contain and, if need be, fight Russia.

What benefits have we derived from having Estonia and Latvia as NATO allies that justify losing Russia as the friend and partner Ronald Reagan had made by the end of the Cold War?

We lost Russia, but got Rumania as an ally? Who is irrational here?

Cannot we Americans, who, with our Monroe Doctrine, declared the entire Western Hemisphere off limits to the European empires -- "Stay on your side of the Atlantic!" -- understand how a Russian nationalist like Putin might react to U.S. F-16s and ABMs in the eastern Baltic?

In 1999, we bombed Serbia for 78 days, ignoring the protests of a Russia that had gone to war for Serbia in 1914. We exploited a Security Council resolution authorizing us to go to the aid of endangered Libyans in Benghazi to launch a war and bring down the Libyan regime.

We have given military aid to Syrian rebels and called for the ouster of a Syrian regime that has been Russia's ally for decades.

At the end of the Cold War, writes ex-ambassador to Moscow Jack Matlock, 80 percent of Russia's people had a favorable opinion of the USA. A decade later, 80 percent of Russians were anti-American.

That was before Putin, whose approval is now at 72 percent because he is perceived as having stood up to the Americans and answered our Kiev coup with his Crimean counter coup.

America and Russia are on a collision course today over a matter -- whose flag will fly over what parts of Ukraine -- no Cold War president, from Truman to Reagan, would have considered any of our business.

If the people of Eastern Ukraine wish to formalize their historic, cultural and ethnic ties to Russia, and the people of Western Ukraine wish to sever all ties to Moscow and join the European Union, why not settle this politically, diplomatically and democratically, at a ballot box?

SOURCE

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Putin recognizes Crimean independence

Ignoring the toughest sanctions against Moscow since the end of the Cold War, Russian President Vladimir Putin recognized Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula as an "independent and sovereign country" on Monday, a bold challenge to Washington that escalates one of Europe's worst security crises in years.

The brief decree posted on the Kremlin's website came just hours after the United States and the European Union announced asset freezes and other sanctions against Russian and Ukrainian officials involved in the Crimean crisis. President Barack Obama warned that more would come if Russia didn't stop interfering in Ukraine, and Putin's move clearly forces his hand.

The West has struggled to find leverage to force Moscow to back off in the Ukraine turmoil, of which Crimea is only a part, and analysts saw Monday's sanctions as mostly ineffectual.

Moscow showed no signs of flinching in the dispute that has roiled Ukraine since Russian troops took effective control of the strategic Black Sea peninsula last month and supported the Sunday referendum that overwhelmingly called for annexation by Russia. Recognizing Crimea as independent would be an interim step in absorbing the region.

Crimea had been part of Russia since the 18th century, until Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred it to Ukraine in 1954 and both Russians and Crimea's majority ethnic Russian population see annexation as correcting a historic insult.

Ukraine's turmoil — which began in November with a wave of protests against President Viktor Yanukovych and accelerated after he fled to Russia in late February — has become Europe's most severe security crisis in years.

Russia, like Yanukovych himself, characterizes his ouster as a coup, and alleges the new authorities are fascist-minded and likely to crack down on Ukraine's ethnic Russian population. Pro-Russia demonstrations have broken out in several cities in eastern Ukraine near the Russian border, where the Kremlin has been massing troops.

Fearing that Russia is prepared to risk violence to make a land-grab, the West has consistently spoken out against Russia's actions but has run into a wall of resistance from Moscow.

Reacting to Monday's sanctions, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov declared that they were "a reflection of a pathological unwillingness to acknowledge reality and a desire to impose on everyone one-sided and unbalanced approaches that absolutely ignore reality."

"I think the decree of the president of the United States was written by some joker," Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, one of the individuals hit by the sanctions, said on his Twitter account.

The White House imposed asset freezes on seven Russian officials, including Putin's close ally Valentina Matvienko, who is speaker of the upper house of parliament, and Vladislav Surkov, one of Putin's top ideological aides. The Treasury Department also targeted Yanukovych, Crimean leader Sergei Aksyonov and two other top figures.

The EU's foreign ministers slapped travel bans and asset freezes against 21 officials from Russia and Ukraine.

"We need to show solidarity with Ukraine, and therefore Russia leaves us no choice," Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told reporters in Brussels.

Despite Obama's vow of tougher measures, stock markets in Russia and Europe rose sharply, reflecting relief that trade and business ties were spared.

"I guess the market view is that Russia forced their case in Crimea, pushed through the referendum, and the Western reaction was muted, so that this opens the way for future Russian intervention in Ukraine," said Tim Ash, an analyst who follows Ukraine at Standard Bank PLC.

On Monday evening Vice President Joe Biden was heading to Europe to meet with NATO allies. He was headed for Warsaw, where he was slated to meet Tuesday with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and President Bronislaw Komorowski. He was to meet separately with Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves. In Lithuania, Biden planned to meet with President Dalia Grybauskaite and Latvia's President Andris Berzins.

In the Crimean capital of Simferopol, ethnic Russians applauded Sunday's referendum that overwhelmingly called for secession and for joining Russia. Masked men in body armor blocked access for most journalists to the parliament session that declared independence, but the city otherwise appeared to go about its business normally.

"We came back home to Mother Russia. We came back home, Russia is our home," said Nikolay Drozdenko, a resident of Sevastopol, the key Crimean port where Russia leases a naval base from Ukraine.

A delegation of Crimean officials was to fly to Moscow on Monday and Putin was to address both houses of parliament Tuesday on the Crimean situation, both indications that Russia could move quickly to annex.

In Kiev, acting President Oleksandr Turchynov vowed that Ukraine will not give up Crimea.

"We are ready for negotiations, but we will never resign ourselves to the annexation of our land," a somber Turchynov said in a televised address to the nation. "We will do everything in order to avoid war and the loss of human lives. We will be doing everything to solve the conflict through diplomatic means. But the military threat to our state is real."

The Crimean parliament declared that all Ukrainian state property on the peninsula will be nationalized and become the property of the Crimean Republic. It gave no further details. Lawmakers also asked the United Nations and other nations to recognize it and began work on setting up a central bank with $30 million in support from Russia.

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If Obama thinks that sanctioning seven Russians is a sanction, he’s living in a different world

It didn’t take long after President Obama announced the implementation of sanctions against some of Russia’s high-ranking officials for Russia to not only respond in kind with sanctions against several U.S. senators but to openly laugh at the suggestion that the measures were any real skin off of their collective nose:

As Krauthammer puts it, “if he thinks that sanctioning seven Russians, out of a population of, what, 150 million, is a sanction, he’s living in a different world.” I don’t know about Dr. K’s suggestion that we could get the Europeans to join in on real, robust economic sanctions, given their degree of energy dependence on Russia, but today’s announcement definitely amounts to little more than weaksauce symbolic gesture:

    "He’s being ridiculed by Russia, especially, because the statement and the policy are ridiculous. He doesn’t have a lot of cards, but he has some cards, and if he thinks that sanctioning seven Russians, out of a population of, what, 150 million, is a sanction, he’s living in a different world. The one thing that we could do is to respond to the Ukrainian request, when the president was here last week, they asked the Pentagon for weapons, and we said no, because somehow, to arm the victim of aggression is a provocation. … This response of, you know, we are not going to calibrate, as if Putin is, they’re going to sanction 11 Russians now, so I’ll have to stop where I am, is really preposterous. Again, if you’re going to do something, do it. Otherwise, say nothing, but this really is a humiliating response by a president who can’t even get the Europeans to join him in effective sanctions, which we could do.

SOURCE

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

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

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Russia calls on Ukraine to become a federation of states (Like some other countries I know)



This is actually a moderate and compromising stand from Putin.  He clearly wants to avoid any war.  His ultimate aim is to reunite all the Russian speaking people of Eastern Europe under Russian rule and the Russian-speaking half of Ukraine is the big prize there.  But having Russian Ukraine substantially independent of the rest of Ukraine and free to develop closer ties with neighboring Russia would be a good compromise

Russia's foreign ministry is calling on Ukraine to become a federal state and call fresh elections.

In a statement posted on Monday the ministry urged Ukraine's parliament to call a constitutional assembly which could draft a new constitution to make the country federal, handing more power to its regions.

The foreign ministry said the proposals are part of its efforts to ease the tensions in Ukraine by diplomatic means.

Moscow insisted that Ukrainian regions should get broader autonomy and that the country should adopt a "neutral political and military status."

SOURCE

NOTE: The attitude of Ukrainian-speakers towards Russia is similar to the attitude of Canadians to the USA, to the attitude of New Zealanders towards Australia to the attitude of the Scots  towards England and the attitude of Koreans to Japan:  They don't like their big neighbor.  In the Ukrainian case that dislike is much multiplied by Russia's tendency  towards tyranny.  The ferocity of that dislike could be seen in the demonstrations that recently toppled their pro-Russian president.  Yet all of the pairs mentioned have a lot in common  -- a clear refutation of the Leftist "one world" dream.  Differences matter, even small ones

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Ukraine's economic problems

Still too Soviet;  Still poor

The dramatic events in Ukraine the past few weeks were ignited when Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, a Russian ally, said he would suspend efforts to bring Ukraine closer to the EU and thousands took to the streets to protest. Clearly, the threat of Russian political oppression was in the minds of the protesters, but the economic stakes were enormous as well. Indeed, a look at the data suggests that Yanukovych’s act was against the economic interests of his own people.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, former Soviet and Eastern Bloc countries chose between two distinct paths. Ten Central and Eastern European nations (the so-called CEE-10) made integration with the European Union a top priority. The rest, like Ukraine, moved much more slowly toward Western standards, and some even settled under a new Russian umbrella.

Prior to the breakup, Eastern Europe was underdeveloped relative to the West, mostly because of the failure created by central planning. When a market economy is unleashed in such a setting, “convergence” of the standard of living to that of the developed world can be quite rapid. If the U.S. wants to grow sharply, it needs to push the very frontier of what is possible farther out. A former Soviet or Eastern Bloc country, on the other hand, could grow rapidly simply by copying the developed world. Some did.

A large academic literature has emerged analyzing the impact of “going west.” The literature documents that those nations that assimilated into the EU saw dramatic economic growth. A recent EU study co-authored by Ryszard Rapacki and Mariusz Prochniak of the Warsaw School of Economics, for example, concluded that full convergence of the CCE-10 is so far along that it might be complete in as little as eight years.

The countries, like Ukraine, that failed to take that path have stagnated. The nearby chart documents how radically different their experience has been. The chart plots real per capita GDP (in 2005 dollars) for former Soviet and Eastern Bloc countries other than Russia. The purple and dark blue lines on the top illustrate the findings of the study just mentioned. Income per capita has grown sharply since the mid 1990s, more than doubling for the former Soviet countries, and increasing about 50 percent for the Eastern Bloc countries (such as the Czech Republic) that have joined the EU.



The three lines on the bottom of the chart depict what has happened to those nations that have not joined the EU. Each of these countries has stagnated, seeing a standard of living that has barely budged since the fall of the USSR. The experiences have been so different that the increase in welfare for citizens in former Soviet countries that have joined the EU is larger than today’s level of welfare for countries that have not.

Vladimir Putin’s desire to maintain a zone of influence has had a dramatically negative effect on the economic well-being of citizens of the affected countries. It is hard to imagine how anyone could look at such data and not conclude that Putin supporters outside Russia are traitors, if not to their nations at the very least to their compatriots’ prospects of economic security and prosperity

SOURCE

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The Tea Party Isn't Dying – The GOP Establishment Is

If the conservative insurgency has been crushed, why was Mitch McConnell walking around onstage at CPAC with a musket? He couldn’t have sucked up to the right any harder if he wore a tri-corner hat and had the Gadsden flag tattooed on his rear.

The death of the conservative revolution, the Tea Party, or whatever you call it, has not merely been greatly exaggerated. It’s been flat-out lied about.

It isn’t dead. It just changed, from a shoestring operation to one with real clout. And it’s well on its way to doing what it set out to do – arm-twist a flabby, comfortable GOP into fighting for conservative values instead of just talking about them at election time.

We conservatives have two very different opponents, opponents who sometimes operate in concert. After all, they both want us gone.

The first opponent is the left. They still call us the “Tea Party,” though we rarely use that term anymore. It’s fun to hear the liberals say it – it’s like listening to grandparents trying to sound cool. Yeah, those hepcats are sure hip with their cool jive, daddy-o.

Every day, the lefty punditry opines about the Tea Party’s death spiral. And every day, the Tea Party refuses to crash and burn.

These clowns really believe that we are a racist movement devoted to the beliefs of the late Democrat icon and KKK kleagle Senator Robert Byrd. It’s hard to imagine a bigger misunderstanding of one’s opponent.

The left is battling not the opponent it is facing but the opponent it wants to face. It’s so much easier to fight straw men than to address the fiasco of Obamacare, the zombie economy or the endless war on women waged by their horny Democrat heroes.

They just don’t get what we are about or what we want, which they will find is a problem. Take it from someone with a little bit of military experience – you really should try to understand your enemy. It helps keep you from being, say, humiliated in a Florida special election.

And that advice isn’t coming from some dead white male – Sun Tzu was saying it 2,000 years ago. So lefties should at least listen for the sake of diversity, but they won’t. They’re too invested in their unearned smugness. And they’re obviously racist.

We conservative insurgents have another opponent, but this opponent recognizes us for exactly what we are – a dangerous, existential threat. This opponent is the GOP Establishment, and its members hate and fear us for entirely different reasons.

The problem with the GOP Establishment is not its ideology – most of its members, in the abstract, probably generally agree with our positions. What they hate is that we intend to utterly upend their world. They have spent years in the Beltway, climbing the ladder, building careers, all within the system as it exists today. They are invested in that system just like the liberals, regardless of superficial differences over mere policy preferences.

They want to gather power within Washington then redistribute it after they take their cut. We want to re-wire the system so that Washington is left off the grid to wither back down to the miserable backwater it used to be – and should be.

D.C. is awesomely wealthy, full of fine clothes, sumptuous food, gleaming restaurants, and much more attractive people than when I interned there in 1986. The recession missed Washington, a town that produces nothing except problems for the rest of America yet is better off than anywhere else in America.

We want to end that. That we want to destroy the cushy status quo is why the GOP Establishment hates us. That we can influence elections is why it fears us.

There is a lot of propaganda about how the Tea Party ruined the GOP’s chances to take the Senate. There’s never any recognition of how conservatives are solely responsible for taking back the House. No one ever talks about the Establishment candidates who failed in places like North Dakota and California.

If the Establishment had its way, we’d have Senator Crist instead of Senator Rubio. Hell, if Crist turns back Republican next week, they’ll probably start backing him for president. That is, unless surefire winner Jeb Bush decides to run.

You always hear about a few eccentric Senate candidates the Tea Party gave us, like the Delaware sorceress and the Indiana gynecology professor, but you don’t hear about how their loser GOP primary opponents supported the Democrats in the general. So we should have supported clowns who turned traitor the moment they didn’t get their way? No thanks. If the Establishment wants loyalty, let’s see it show some.

We conservatives are forcing the GOP Establishment to at least start pretending to act conservative. Mitch McConnell didn’t shake his blunderbuss at CPAC because he loves mixing with peasants; he did it because he’s scared, and he should be. The surrender caucus didn’t retreat on guns and amnesty because they wanted to get slammed by the mainstream media. They did it because we’ll primary them at the drop of a hat.

And some of them – not all, but some – should be primaried. If Pat Roberts can’t deal with the fact that he’s not in Kansas anymore in the primary, he might lose in the general. If Thad Cochran can’t hold his Mississippi seat against an upstart after being a senator for a zillion years, then he doesn’t deserve six more.

Time is on our side. The old GOP is passing away into history. The energy, intellect and grit is all with us conservatives – anyone out there ever see a passionate squish? We’re pushing the party, kicking and screaming, to the right.

And, surprise, surprise, it looks like we conservatives are going to clean their pinko clocks in November, just like we conservatives did in 2010. Not too bad for a movement that’s been crushed.

SOURCE

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Government rail at work again

The multiple folds of irony are all most too much to handle. The nation’s government-run passenger rail service – which has never once in more than four decades turned a profit and relies on perpetual taxpayer handouts - plans to start offering free rides to writers. The idea, which stemmed from a New York-based writer’s tweet, will launch an official residency program for writers on its long-distance routes, coincidentally the least cost-efficient and most heavily subsidized in the Amtrak system. Amtrak is a perpetual loser, and it’s unlikely that this writers-ride-free gimmick will have a happy ending.

Perhaps no government program has embodied bureaucratic waste and inefficiency quite like passenger rail travel in the United States – a taxpayer-funded gravy train that has received $40 billion in federal subsidies, has never once made it out of the red, and entered last year well over a billion dollars in debt. Worse, the service asked for another $2.6 billion in federal funding for fiscal year 2014, and yet has the audacity to offer “free” rides to writers.

“I wish Amtrak had residencies for writers.” A simple tweet at the agency’s social media account is all it took for the service to offer the writer a free trip from New York to Chicago and back. According to CNN, up to 24 writers will be chosen, and all will be offered trips on “undersold long-distance routes.” The Northeast Corridor is only profitable portion of Amtrak in the entire country – leaving many options for the writers in which to get the creative juices flowing.

The service has resorted to offering free tickets, a bed, desk, outlets, “and a window to watch the American countryside roll by” to a lucky few, perhaps hoping to drum up a little positive copy for the increasingly unpopular and expensive rail service. Each writers package has an estimated at a retail value of about $900 – not exactly chump change. Needless to say, the prospect for return on investment is slim – and that shouldn’t be a surprise to most taxpayers. After all, this is an agency that managed to lose $834 million on food sales alone in the past decade.

Thankfully, some in Congress have taken notice. Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) and Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) penned an open letter to Amtrak President Joseph Boardman, questioning the logic behind the move.

“We are certain that there is considerable demand for free Amtrak tickets in any number of venues,” the lawmakers wrote. “Unfortunately, given Amtrak’s prodigious annual taxpayer subsidies, this plan raises multiple red flags…revenue from ticket sales was insufficient to even cover Amtrak’s operating expenses.” Hoping for return on investment on thousands of dollars-worth of free trips to help bridge this gap seems like a dubious plan, to say the least.

Amtrak offering free rides, with no metric by which to judge the success of the program, embodies perfectly the systemic problems with this government-run railroad.

Taxpayer-funded projects like Amtrak have no profit motive, no inclination to increase efficiency, and every incentive to continue shoveling taxpayer money into the proverbial firebox. That’s because for more than 40 years, Amtrak’s funding has been all but guaranteed regardless of performance.

Instead of expanding taxpayer subsidies even further and driving Amtrak even further off the rails of solvency, policymakers should be looking for ways to put a stop to what has become a Handout Express to the tune of $15 billion a year.

Not only should Amtrak begin to live up to its promise of getting back on stable financial footing by cancelling the free ride program, Congress should consider not re-authorizing the service at all – ending Amtrak’s free ride at our expense.

SOURCE

There is a  new  lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc

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For more blog postings from me, see  TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH,  POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC,  AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, and Paralipomena (Occasionally updated) and Coral reef compendium. (Updated as news items come in).  GUN WATCH is now mainly put together by Dean Weingarten.

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

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