Sex as a motivator and its role in Islam

Sigmund Freud's speculations and formulations are not widely accepted by psychologists today but any reader of his "Psychopathology of everyday life" will surely conclude that he was a keen observer.  I think everybody should read that book.  The things he reported there were real even if his theories about them are disputable.  When I was doing my Master's degree in psychology at the University of Sydney, one of my tutors was the highly regarded John Maze, who was as much a philosopher as a psychologist, and it was his view that Freud alone was actually doing real psychology.  The rest of us were behaviourists or what not.  So that may be another reason why I have more time for old Sigmund than most contemporary psychologists do.

And one thing that stands out in Freud's thinking is the overwhelming importance of the sex drive.  Freud called it "libido" and put it behind almost all human behaviour.  And I think there is no doubt that he gained that impression from the counselling sessions he did with troubled people in his clinical practice.  So I take it as one of Freud's acute observations that the sex-drive is a pervasive and super powerful influence on human behaviour.

And the history of Islam bears that out.  Polygamous societies generally, including traditional Mormons, are known for the difficulties they create in young men.  If rich older guys have all the women locked up, what are the young men supposed to do?   Mormons mostly just kick the young men out into the secular world but Islam provides no alternative like that.  But it DOES provide a choice:  Die fighting the infidel and you will get your women in heaven.  The birthrate in heaven is apparently much more skewed than it is on earth.

And that is exactly what enabled Islam to be militarily successful for many centuries.  When non-Muslim armies faced Muslim armies comprised of unmarried young men, they were up against something quite alien to their own thinking:  Men who WANTED to die, fearless warriors.  That was very hard to combat for normal people with a fear of mortality.

Now, however, that does not work as well.  Western armies have advanced military equipment that makes a great rushing charges by fanatics simply obsolete.  The machine gun alone does that.  But young Muslim males still have the same sexual frustrations as ever.  So some do set out to be killed productively -- in killing unbelievers.  That is why many flock to ISIS.  ISIS enables them to become once more the men of old, who sacrifice their life for the promise of a heavenly future.

But it is still only a tiny minority who go that far for their faith.  I think it is clear that only a small minority of Muslims are certain of their heavenly future. So what do the doubters  do?

They molest non-Muslim women.  The vast scandals in Britain about mainly Pakistani men who made sex slaves of dumb young white British girls were perhaps the best known examples of that until the recent events in Cologne became known.

Speaking of the young men who make up most of the recent "Syrians" who have entered Europe as refugees, Geert Wilders describes them as "testosterone bombs" and that is a good and well founded application of libido theory.  Freud was right.  Libido is such a powerful motivator that it goes close to being unrepressible.  The young Muslims of Cologne essentially could not help themselves.  They MUST get some contact with females, even if they do it in a totally wrong way.

And it is not in fact in the West alone that they behave that way.  Young men are very predatory towards women even in Muslim countries.  That is one reason why men and women are kept drastically separate in such countries.  So young Muslim males are a very unsatisfactory immigrant group for any Western country.  They should all be sent home to the hellholes their foolish religion has created.

There is some further useful background on Muslim sexual hangups and the events in Cologne  by French female journalist Laurence D'Hondt here.  I translate her article roughly below.  She obviously knows the Arab world well:

Huge sexual frustration is at the root of the violence in Cologne

Events in Cologne recall the violence in Tahrir Square in Cairo. Both events reflect a sexual frustration that haunts the Arab world. With the rise of Saudi Wahhabism and the lack of economic prospects, young people no longer have access to the women of their own country.

We may recall the story of the French journalists who covered  the events of Tahrir Square in Cairo.  They were pushed,  touched and  in some cases, raped. Despite their knowledge of these countries, these experienced women journalists were shocked by the sudden violence expressed from these men who were there for  other purposes.

The events that occurred during the night of New Year in Cologne resemble the violence experienced in Egypt: men surrounded a  number of young women on which they literally melt with the aim of touching, pushing their hands where they can, because female  company is so difficult to access. Rape in this case is rare and usually the result of an isolated man with a deliberate intention to take action.

It is a unique form of violence that is basically unknown in European countries, but is, in contrast, common in Arab countries where the local police, knowing this, immediately intervene with  batons or other weapons. The lack of immediate reaction from the German police is probably partly linked to the incomprehension of what was going on in Cologne overnight on New Year's Eve.

Most young men -and women- young people growing up today in the Arab-Muslim societies have a totally restrained sexuality. Their literature and film are full of stories of their small and big frustrations. Whether taking the Egyptian film, "Women bus" whose story revolves around young men that rub against the body 'too' closely' to young women on transport in Cairo. Whether we read author Khaled El Khamissi which in "Noah's Ark", tells how a youth is deadlocked when he finds the lack of access to the labor market and a fortiori to sexuality, because he lacks the means to marry a woman.

According to a UN report conducted in April, 99.3% of Egyptian women and young girls were victims of sexual harassment, a phenomenon described as endemic. A similar situation in Yemen.  And that becomes commonplace in Iraq or Syria where the collapse of state structures gives free rein to violence against women. Even in the very liberated Lebanon, the author Rachid El Daif, tells in "Show me your legs Leila", how sexuality is disconnected from reality and how men and women are found only in fiction where the woman should aspire to virginity and the man to the omnipotence. The first victims of this frustration are Arab and non-Western.

In the Arab world today, sex is more than ever padlocked.
There are several reasons for this. They are economic firstly. Indeed,  in most rural and even urban areas of the Arab-Muslim world, marriage, which gives access to sexuality, is possible only by having the means to offer women the amount required by her family as a bride price. With no means due to the lack of economic opportunity, men are forced to remain living with their families and have only one outlet for their sexuality to try their luck with prostitutes or foreigners.

In recent decades, these economic blocks have been reinforced by restrictive religious considerations modeled on the Saudi Wahhabism: men and women are forced to live in separate worlds where diversity is seen as an invitation to debauchery and where any offender behavior or attitude is considered un-Islamic.

Thus it is not rare in Arab countries to meet men of 30 or 35 years who have never had the opportunity to touch a woman. This sexual frustration, told by literature and cinema is one of the engines of the violence today in the Arab world.

It was 20 years ago, that a Syrian lady offered ​​this reflection to me: "But I do not understand how men and women in Europe may lie next to each other on the beaches without pouncing on each other".  Yet she was 60, was Christian and Syrian by origin, living in Cairo ...

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Obama regrets polarized rancor. He should

by Jeff Jacoby

ONE OF the "few regrets" of his presidency, President Obama said dolefully in his State of the Union speech, was "that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better." Were he endowed with "the gifts of Lincoln or Roosevelt," he remarked, he could have done more to bridge the partisan divide. But he pledged to "keep trying to be better so long as I hold this office."

Did you experience a touch of déjà vu when the president said that? Four years ago, when he was in the home stretch of his first term and running for a second, he said much the same thing.

"I'm the first one to confess that the spirit that I brought to Washington, that I wanted to see instituted, where we weren't constantly in a political slugfest . . . I haven't fully accomplished that," Obama told an interviewer in 2012. "My biggest disappointment is that we haven't changed the tone in Washington as much as I would have liked."

Did he even try?

From his earliest days as a presidential contender, Obama had held himself out as a healer — as a visionary who would never "pit red America against blue America," who committed himself to ending "a politics that breeds division and conflict and cynicism." That uplifting promise was at the very heart of Obama's appeal; it was what led so many voters to invest so much hope and faith — even love — in the prospect of an Obama presidency.

Yet in his first term, American political life grew more bitter, not less. Unity and goodwill receded even further. As measured by Gallup, Obama supplanted George W. Bush as the most polarizing president ever. Democrats and Republicans blamed each other for the nastiness and distrust. The president often took the low road; his opponents often did too. Deeply controversial legislation, especially Obamacare, was rammed through on party-line votes. The rise of the Tea Party prefigured sweeping Republican gains in the 2010 midterm elections, which led both parties into an even more toxic relationship.

By the time Obama ran for re-election in 2012, little remained of 2008's optimistic candidate of hope. In his place was a snappish incumbent grimly focused on winning a second term by any means necessary. Even liberal media outlets remarked on the disparity. "Obama and his top campaign aides have engaged far more frequently in character attacks and personal insults," Politico reported.

But when voters renewed Obama's lease on the White House, they also gave him a fresh opportunity to make good on the signal promise of his rise to power. A second term offered this most polarizing of presidents a chance to extend olive branches — and to eschew the ad hominem attacks that so infuriate his critics. Democracy doesn't work "if we think the people who disagree with us are all motivated by malice," the president said in his address to Congress this month. "It doesn't work if we think that our political opponents are unpatriotic or trying to weaken America."

That's exactly the right message. If only Obama had heeded it.

Let's be clear: The president is not to blame for the polarization of American life. The "mushy middle" has been dwindling for years. With Democrats moving to the left and Republicans moving to the right, there is far less overlap between the parties than there was a generation ago. In a recent study, the Pew Research Center found that 92 percent of Republicans are now to the right of the median Democrat, and 94 percent of Democrats are to the left of the median Republican.

What's worse — much worse — is how intensely hostile the antipathy between right and left has become. Large swaths of each camp say the opposing party is not merely misguided, but an explicit threat to the nation's well-being. Obama could have led the way in suppressing this corrosive tendency. Instead he inflamed it.

It would not have required "the gifts of Lincoln or Roosevelt" to eschew the ridicule and taunts that so pollute modern political discourse. The gifts of Gerald Ford would have done nicely. Like all presidents, Obama has been frustrated by partisan opponents. But no chief executive in modern times has been so quick to impugn his critics' motives, or to resort to mockery and demonization when amicable persuasion would serve so much better.

Obama routinely speaks of his critics as if their motives couldn't possibly be rational or decent. When Republicans balked at his proposal to allow 10,000 Syrian refugees to enter the United States (a proposal I favor), Obama jeered. "Apparently they're scared of widows and orphans," he said. "That doesn't sound very tough to me."

When GOP lawmakers resisted raising the debt limit, Obama tweeted: "Are they really willing to hurt people just to score political points?" Efforts to repeal Obamacare he attributed to cruelty — the "one unifying principle" for Republicans, the president told reporters, is "making sure that 30 million people don't have health care."

With Obama, there seems to be no possibility of honorable disagreement. Oppose something he wants, and you are a bought-and-paid-for stooge, or a denier of science, or a peddler of fiction, or a scoundrel who puts party ahead of country. He isn't the only one who talks this way, not by a long shot. But he is our only president, and how he expresses himself matters. When presidential rhetoric is mean and contemptuous, the whole public square is befouled.

It can always get worse, as Donald Trump demonstrates daily. But an awful lot of Americans, Republicans and Democrats both, want it to get better. Obama insisted he was going to heal the divide, but never even made the effort. He still has a year in office. It's not too late to start.

SOURCE

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

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

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The New England Journal of Medicine promotes research secrecy

Charles Murray comments: "NEJM editors: Bullshit. If your data can't be shared, along with coding documentation, you've got something to hide"

Another Facebook commenter: "My favorite line: "other researches might "even use the data to try to disprove what the original investigators had posited." This is so stunning I have no words to express it.

NEJM and JAMA are the two most prestigious American medical journals so what they do and say is widely noted.  But both journals still publish a lot of rubbish.  See e.g. here, here, here, and here.

So I was not totally surprised at the latest NEJM article excerpted below. They advocate abandoning one of the basic  safeguards of science:  data transparency.  Science exists on  trust.  If a scientist reports a set of findings, other scientists will always believe what he says.  But, with various levels of self-awareness, scientists will sometimes misrepresent their findings. And that is no mean problem.  Around two thirds of research findings reported in leading journals have been found to be "unreplicable".  In other words, other researchers doing  the same thing fail to confirm the original finding. So two thirds of what is reported is apparently wrong.

Not all the erroneous findings are conscious and deliberate fraud.  Most commonly, the problem is that the author takes a rosy view of what is in his data.  There is something in his data that suits his preconceptions so he reports that and ignores other information in his data that is contrary to his expectations.

So to be sure that his data has been fully and dispassionately analysed, a scientist has long been held responsible for making his data available to other analysts.  It's a basic safeguard.  And if a scientist refuses to make his raw data available that basically tells you all you need to know: His work is faulty and he knows it is faulty.

So, now that we know how serious the unreplicability problem is, some journals are taking steps to circumvent it -- such as asking authors to pre-register their hypotheses to defeat data dredging.  But NEJM is doing the opposite.  They want to make it harder to check on the soundness of a research report!  That is so amazing that I am inclined to apply the usual suspicion:  I am inclined to suspect that the authors of the article (Dan L. Longo  and Jeffrey M. Drazen) have things in their own research past that they don't want to see the light of day.

And the reasons they give for what they advocate are so specious as to border on the hilarious.  They fear, for instance, that other scientists might "use the data to try to disprove what the original investigators had posited".  But why fear that?  That possibility is what data openness is all about.

And there is no doubt that closer scrutiny of many findings WILL "disprove what the original investigators had posited".  I have only once requested raw data from another researcher  -- a request that was refused -- but that was mainly because there was very often enough information in the statistics provided to show that the conclusions did not follow from the data.  I did and reported that often in my 20 years as an active social science researcher  and I still do it often on my blogs. I pointed to an example of it just yesterday.

So NEJM is in the position of defending crap science.

But why?  Are there any non-personal motives involved?  I suspect that it might have something to do with the battering Warmists have taken over their refusal to release their data.  And the reason for Warmist secrecy is plain.  The classic case was Michael Mann's "hockeystick" picture of climate history.  When he did inadvertently let  details of his data and methods leak out, skeptics showed that his procedures were so faulty that just putting random numbers through Mann's computer program would produce a "hockeystick".  Since we in fact live in a era of exceptional temperature stability (with year to year temperature averages differing by only hundredths of one degree), the Warmist claim that we live in an era of dangerous warming was always going to need heroic lies to support it.

And academics do generally support Warmism (It gives them a golden shower of research grants) so I think our medical authors may be wading in to give some skin of defensibility for the chronic Warmist secrecy

The aerial view of the concept of data sharing is beautiful. What could be better than having high-quality information carefully reexamined for the possibility that new nuggets of useful data are lying there, previously unseen? The potential for leveraging existing results for even more benefit pays appropriate increased tribute to the patients who put themselves at risk to generate the data. The moral imperative to honor their collective sacrifice is the trump card that takes this trick.

However, many of us who have actually conducted clinical research, managed clinical studies and data collection and analysis, and curated data sets have concerns about the details. 

The first concern is that someone not involved in the generation and collection of the data may not understand the choices made in defining the parameters. Special problems arise if data are to be combined from independent studies and considered comparable. How heterogeneous were the study populations? Were the eligibility criteria the same? Can it be assumed that the differences in study populations, data collection and analysis, and treatments, both protocol-specified and unspecified, can be ignored?

A second concern held by some is that a new class of research person will emerge — people who had nothing to do with the design and execution of the study but use another group’s data for their own ends, possibly stealing from the research productivity planned by the data gatherers, or even use the data to try to disprove what the original investigators had posited. There is concern among some front-line researchers that the system will be taken over by what some researchers have characterized as "research parasites."

More HERE  

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Assimilation Nation No More -- The American pot that no longer melts?

America has always been a melting pot. We are a nation founded by people from all over the world who came here seeking a better life for themselves and their families. So why is immigration such a hot-button issue?

To be sure, it has often been steeped in bitter controversy at various points throughout our history. Certain ethnic groups have bravely borne the brunt of suspicion and hostility — and proven their ability to become good, patriotic Americans. But today, the issue seems to have taken on a harder edge. Why?

I think it’s because something fundamental has changed at the heart of what it means to be an immigrant. For the first two centuries or so of our history, individuals found success in the United States through assimilation, while simultaneously maintaining their heritage. Today, however, that is less and less the case.

And this is no accident. As Mike Gonzalez documents in his book, "A Race for the Future: How Conservatives Can Break the Liberal Monopoly on Hispanic Americans," for at least the last four decades, the federal government has been inflaming the balkanization of our country by encouraging immigrants to view themselves more as aggrieved ethnic groups than as aspiring Americans.

This flies in the face of what our nation’s Founders said was crucial for the success of the American experiment: for us to become one people dedicated to the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. Mr. Gonzalez writes: "E Pluribus Unum, the official motto in the Great Seal of the United States, demonstrated this urge for unity. In Latin it means ‘Out of many, one,’ and it has been through the centuries a reminder of the imperative of uniting different groups."

Today, though, a victim mentality prevails — one that affects even those who have been American all their lives. Ask yourself: Are there many Americans nowadays who love their country so much that they are willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for it?

Former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan thinks there are, and I agree. But she also fears that their numbers are steadily diminishing. As she once observed in a speech to the Heritage Foundation: "We are living in the beginning of what I believe is post-patriotic America. The ties that bind still exist, but they are growing frayed and tired and attenuated."

She went on to indict our educational system for no longer fostering a sense of patriotism:

"Nobody is really teaching our children to love their country. They still pick it up from their parents, from here and there, but in general, we have dropped the ball. The schools, most of them, do not encourage patriotic feeling. Small things — so many of them do not teach the Pledge of Allegiance. Bigger things — they do not celebrate Washington’s Birthday and draw pictures of him and hear stories about him as they did when we were kids.

"There is no Washington’s Birthday; there is Presidents' Day, which my 11-year-old son was once under the impression was a celebration of Bill Clinton’s birthday. Beyond that the teaching of history has changed and has been altered all out of shape. My son is instructed far more in the sins of racism than in the virtues of an Abe Lincoln.

"There is a school in Washington — and I almost moved there so my son could attend — that actually had pictures of Washington or Lincoln on the wall. On the walls of my son’s classroom they had a big portrait of [Mexican artist] Frida Kahlo."

We sometimes hear it said that our diversity is our strength. Actually, our strength lies in our historical excellence at forging one nation out of such a wide array of people. We’re different, but we’re united in the essentials.

At least we used to be. The question that lies before us is how to regain the wisdom of our Founders on the nagging question of immigration, and find a way to restore the ideal of "E Pluribus Unum."

More HERE  

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One Hospital Tells You What You Will Have To Pay -- Before The Surgery

Don’t take our word for it. You can try this out yourself. Just google Surgery Center of Oklahoma and here is what you will find. For Achilles tendon repair, you will pay $5,730. That’s not an estimate with a huge variance around it. It’s a package price that includes doctor, nurse, anesthesia, room, drugs, supplies – everything.

For rotator cuff repair, the price is $8,260.  For carpal tunnel release, it’s $2,750. All these prices are posted online for everyone to see. 

The center is owned by Dr. Keith Smith, an Oklahoma anesthesiologist who started posting prices about the same time the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) was enacted. Since then he has adjusted his prices (downward!) five times.

As Steven Brill so eloquently explained on 60 Minutes and in his book, America’s Bitter Pill, the average patient has no idea what anything is going to cost when he enters a hospital and no idea what he is being billed for when he leaves. Based on what payers actually pay, there is a three to one difference in spending for essentially the same services among the 306 hospital referral regions across the country. Within those regions, the differences are even greater. At the hospital level, there is a twelve to one difference across the country in what payers pay for an MRI scan of lower limb joints!

How refreshing, therefore, to find a hospital that quotes package prices in advance and is willing to compete for patients based on price and quality. Why are they doing it? For the simplest reason of all: to attract patients.

Recommended by Forbes

Five years ago, Dr. Smith was frustrated. His surgery center had the best surgeons, the best outcomes and the lowest prices (sometimes by as much as 80 percent). His lobby should have been packed. Patients should have been beating down his door. But they weren’t. In fact, the patient flow was stagnant. He was outperforming his competitors, yet no one knew it. So, Dr. Smith started posting his prices online, while at the same time calling his center "free market-loving, price-displaying and state-of-the-art."

So what happened? Nothing happened. At least not initially. Nothing? Nothing.

Like other cities around the country, Oklahoma City is a place where employers routinely complain about health care costs. But not one of them bothered to notice that they could improve outcomes and cut their costs in half by choosing Dr. Smith’s center instead of the alternatives.

In fact, it took two whole years before the employers realized a huge opportunity was located right in their own backyard. It began with Jay Kempton, a third-party administrator whose company contracts with many of the local banks.

Fast forward to today. Not only are Kempton’s clients using Dr. Smith’s surgery center, but so is Oklahoma County and soon (if not already) Oklahoma State employees will be using it as well. The Alaska Teachers Union has offered to fly teachers and an escort all the way to Oklahoma for their surgeries. Canadians are also customers, choosing to travel to Dr. Smith’s surgery center rather than endure lengthy waits for free care back home.

There is more good news. Dr. Smith is no longer alone. Other surgery centers around the country are also posting prices, including Monticello Community Surgery Center in Charlottesville, Virginia, Ocean Surgery Center in Torrance, California, Orthopedic Surgery Center of Clearwater, Florida, and newer centers in Ohio and South Carolina.

 Here is something surprising. The prices that these centers are posting are all competitive with each other. Some of Monticello’s prices in Charlottesville are lower than Dr. Smith’s Oklahoma City prices, while others are higher – just like the price differentials you’d expect to find between grocery stores in the same town. But all of these prices are lower than the expected costs at nearby large hospital systems. The centers seem to be aware that they are all within a quick plane ride of each other and therefore they are all potential competitors for the medical tourist market.

Then again, maybe that’s not surprising. That’s the way markets are supposed to work.

More HERE  

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

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

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Poverty and IQ again

Charles Murray showed a couple of decades ago that the poor tend to have lower IQs.  And it was hardly a surprise that being dumb might keep you poor.  But the Left purport to love the poor so Murray was furiously attacked over his findings -- though he had not in fact said most of the things he was alleged to have said.  It was a very cautious and  scholarly book rather than any kind of polemic. The Leftist rage at Murray finally exhausted itself but Murray still has his marbles and is an active Facebooker so I imagine that he could give you more details of the "controversy".

Murray seems to have won the war, however. Leftists do now  occasionally mention the inverse correlation between lower social class and IQ.  Rather than say that low IQ causes poverty, however, they try to prove that poverty causes low IQ.  I dealt  with the latest such attempt a couple of weeks ago.

There was another attempt in that direction back in 2013 that I commented on at the time.  It claimed that poverty was very stressful and that the stress prevented your brain from working properly. I would have thought that middle-class careerists were under the greatest stress but let's leave that for the moment.  The title of the article was "Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function".  There is a journalistic rendering of the claim here.

I put the findings in context at the time, showing that the conclusions did not follow from the reported evidence.  I was not aware, however, that Jelte Wicherts also looked at the study around the same time.  Now that J.P. Rushton is deceased, Wicherts is probably the man who knows the research on IQ better than anyone else.  And he is fair.  If someone puts up a celebratory claim about IQ, Wicherts will look at that critically, and if someone puts up claims that disrespect IQ Wicherts will look at that critically too.  So I have a very favourable impression of Dr. Wicherts.

I have now come across his criticism of the 2013 study and it does not disappoint.  I reproduce the abstract below:

"Mani et al. (Research Articles, 30 August, p. 976) presented laboratory experiments that aimed to show that poverty-related worries impede cognitive functioning. A reanalysis without dichotomization of income fails to corroborate their findings and highlights spurious interactions between income and experimental manipulation due to ceiling effects caused by short and easy tests. This suggests that effects of financial worries are not limited to the poor"

Kapow!

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Rush's Take on Trump

Rush Limbaugh seems to have realized that this election is coming down to Trump/Cruz, and it seems like he's getting worried. Yesterday, Rush talked about what this means for conservatism:

    On his show on Wednesday, conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh offered his analysis of Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump’s rise, which he argued wasn’t a sign that conservative orthodoxy was winning the day, but instead it is a pushback against the modern-day Democratic Party and President Barack Obama.

    And that according to Limbaugh is a sign of the rise of nationalism and populism overtaking conservatism.

    "What’s happening here, nationalism, dirty word, ooh, people hate it, populism, even dirtier word," Limbaugh said. "Nationalism and populism have overtaken conservatism in terms of appeal.  And when this has happened, when it exposes — what people in Washington are afraid of —  and that that is, you know, all this money we’ve asked people to send us and all these donations people have made, this movement, promote that movement, where is conservatism in Washington, they’re asking.  Where is it?  The Republican Party isn’t conservative.  Where are all these conservative people that are contributing to policy being implemented in Congress or in the Senate?  They don’t see it."

Is Rush right? Trump is, for all intents and purposes, new to or alien to conservatism, but his rise has been buoyed by the support of conservative talk radio hosts like Rush, Levin, and Michael Savage. Perhaps this is a sign that no one trusts the GOP to actually govern conservatively

SOURCE

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Sanders Admits What Other Democrats Won't



Just as populism seems to have overtaken the Republican base, more overt socialism is gaining momentum among Democrats. The party has long had a socialist bent, but Bernie Sanders actually has the integrity to call it what it is.

Although Hillary Clinton, a closet socialist, remains the Democrat frontrunner, mentions of avowed-socialist Sanders as the potential nominee unfortunately no longer induce uncontrollable laughter. Clinton deserves as much credit as anyone for Saunders' surge. After all, pretty much anyone stands a chance against a candidate with so many scandals under her belt that even the lefty Atlantic saw fit to print a "Clinton Scandal Primer." And attitudes about sexual assault have changed enough on the Left that the "progressives" over at Vox have a thorough and damning recap of Bill Clinton’s history of rape accusations.

Still, the fact that a significant number of Americans would truly consider electing an outright socialist as leader of the free world moves into the realm of downright outrageous, but it’s not without precursor in American history.

How is Sanders peddling his socialist wares? As we wrote last year, he’s invoking Franklin D. Roosevelt, who "redefined the relationship of the federal government to the people of our nation" and "restored their faith in government.” One might credit Mussolini with the same, but we digress.

In truth, as Mark Alexander has noted, Sanders' Democratic Socialism is "nothing more than Marxist Socialism repackaged. It seeks a centrally planned economy directed by a dominant-party state that controls economic production by way of taxation, regulation and income redistribution."

This fits Sanders to a T. His view of a government-defined and government-run nation flies in the face of Liberty as expressed in our Declaration of Independence and codified by the Constitution.

Free health care for everyone? Check. Free college for all? Check. Free government-run child care? Check. Actual freedom? Oh, you’re out of luck there. Besides, free things are quite expensive. His proposal to pay for all this "free stuff" is $19.6 trillion in new taxes over the next 10 years, which would represent a 47% increase in the overall burden. That defies logic and approaches insanity.

Sanders claims he wants to make the rich pay their proverbial fair share, but a look at his menu of tax hikes shows they’re being served to Americans rich, poor and everywhere in between. As the Washington Examiner reports, Sanders' taxes include a business health care premium tax ($6.3 trillion), an end to tax breaks for employer health insurance ($3.1 trillion), an individual health care premium tax ($2.1 trillion), an increase in marginal income tax rates ($1.1 trillion), a payroll tax hike ($319 billion), a death tax hike ($243 billion), and an energy tax on oil companies ($135 billion). And that’s just a partial list.

Despite Sanders' rhetoric, his taxes would hit regular workers, business owners, energy consumers (higher costs are always passed to consumers), and just about everyone else. Thanks to his death tax, even dying won’t rescue you from Bernie’s tax grab. Of course, as the Examiner notes, Sanders revenue estimates are highly questionable. Were he to succeed in completely dismantling the economy by taxing into oblivion everything that moves and then taxing corpses to boot, it’s unlikely he’d be able to squeeze 19 cents out of economically parched Americans, let alone $19 trillion.

Still, Sanders is plowing ahead with his open attempt to sell America on his brand of socialism. As The Wall Street Journal notes, his frankness is winning over some Democrat voters. Indeed, few can deny Sanders has shifted the Democrat primary debate decidedly left. Despite Hillary’s surname, the Democrats have fallen a long way from Bill "The Era of Big Government Is Over" Clinton.

And with Clinton looking more like the challenger in this primary race and less like the party’s favored daughter, it’s not entirely impossible that Democrats will pin their party logo to a red hammer-and-sickle flag. It would at least finally be truth in advertising.

SOURCE

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More history

When Bill Clinton was president, he allowed Hillary to assume authority over a health care reform.  After threats and intimidation, she couldn’t get a vote in a democratic controlled congress.  This fiasco cost the American taxpayers about $13 million in cost for studies, promotion, and other efforts.

Then President Clinton gave Hillary authority over selecting a female attorney general.  Her first two selections were Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood – both were forced to withdraw their names from consideration.

Next she chose Janet Reno – husband Bill described her selection as "my worst mistake."  Some may not remember that Reno made the decision to gas David Koresh and the Branch Davidian religious sect in Waco, Texas resulting in dozens of deaths of women and children.

Husband Bill allowed Hillary to make recommendations for the head of the Civil Rights Commission.  Lani Guanier was her selection.  When a little probing led to the discovery of Ms. Guanier’s radical views, her name had to be withdrawn from consideration.

Apparently a slow learner, husband Bill allowed Hillary to make some more recommendations.  She chose former law partners Web Hubbel for the Justice Department, Vince Foster for the White House staff, and William Kennedy for the Treasury Department.  Her selections went well: Hubbel went to prison, Foster (presumably) committed suicide, and Kennedy was forced to resign.

Many younger votes will have no knowledge of "Travelgate."  Hillary wanted to award unfettered travel contracts to Clinton   friend, Harry Thompson – and the White House Travel Office refused to comply.  She managed to have them reported to the FBI and fired.  This ruined their reputations, cost them their jobs, and caused a thirty-six month investigation. Only one employee, Billy Dale was charged with a crime, and that of the enormous crime of mixing personal and White House funds. A jury acquitted him of any crime in less than two hours.

Still not convinced of her ineptness, Hillary was allowed to recommend a close Clinton friend, Craig Livingstone, for the position of Director of White House security. When Livingstone was investigated for the improper access of about 900 FBI files of Clinton enemies (Filegate) and the widespread use of drugs by White House staff, suddenly Hillary and the president denied even knowing Livingstone, and of course, denied knowledge of drug use in the White House.  Following  this debacle, the FBI closed its White House Liaison Office after more than thirty years of service to seven presidents.

Next, when women started coming forward with allegations of sexual harassment and rape by Bill Clinton, Hillary was put  in charge of the "bimbo eruption" and scandal defense.  Some of her more notable decisions in the debacle was:

She urged her husband not to settle the Paula Jones lawsuit.  After the Starr investigation they settled with Ms. Jones.

She refused to release the Whitewater documents, which led to the appointment of Ken Starr as Special Prosecutor. After $80 million dollars of taxpayer money was spent, Starr's investigation led to Monica Lewinsky, which led to Bill lying about and later admitting his affairs.

Hillary’s devious game plan resulted in Bill losing his license to practice law for 'lying under oath' to a grand jury and then his subsequent impeachment by the House of Representatives.

Hillary avoided indictment for perjury and obstruction of justice during the Starr investigation by repeating, "I do not recall," "I have no recollection," and "I don’t know" a total of 56 times while under oath.

After leaving the White House, Hillary was forced to return an estimated $200,000 in White House furniture, china, and artwork that she had stolen.

What a swell party – ready for another four or eight year of this type low-life mess?

Now we are exposed to the destruction of possibly incriminating emails while Hillary was Secretary of State and the "pay to play" schemes of the Clinton Foundation – we have no idea what shoe will fall next.  But to her loyal fans - "what difference does it make?"

Via email

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

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

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Tensions in the GOP

The GOP establishment believes in compromise with the Democrats but, in their self-righteousness,  the only compromise the Democrats usually accept is a complete GOP backdown.  And they get it, to the anger of the conservative grassroots

The party of the American establishment is undergoing the biggest revolt against its own establishment since at least 1964. Two ferociously anti-establishment figures are dominating the Iowa caucuses, accounting, if polls are to be believed, for half the GOP vote. The three main establishment candidates together account for only 13 percentage points. Statewide, according to the latest Fox News Poll, 57 percent of Republicans believe they have been betrayed by their own party.

In an interview the other morning, commentator Patrick J. Buchanan, who ran two insurgent campaigns for president and won the 1996 New Hampshire primary, told me "the Republican establishment is a church whose pews are empty."

In earlier Republican upheavals, the rebels were defeated in nomination fights (1952, 1992 and 1996), rejected in a brutal general election defeat (1964) or merged with the establishment (1980). This time businessman Donald J. Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas are conducting White House drives that, unlike the Barry Goldwater campaign of 1964, do not so much aim to take over the party as they seek to ridicule, repudiate and renounce its leadership.

"The civil war in the Republican Party of the United States," Theodore H. White wrote in his "Making of the President" volume for 1964, "is one of the more fascinating stories of Western civilization." If White, who died 30 years ago, were here today, he might argue that that sentence applied even more so to the 2016 race.

The difference: This time it is not a faction that is in rebellion but the majority of the party.

The Democrats, famous for their internal feuds, have not in modern times faced an insurrection remotely like the one the Republicans are experiencing right now, except perhaps at the end of the Lyndon Johnson years. But even then, the party establishment moved in rough alignment with the party base, and the rebels left the Johnson camp with reluctance and regret.

Not so this time with the Republicans. "The people I know are relishing the discomfort this is causing with an establishment they can’t stand," said Buchanan. "The base of the party is totally estranged from the establishment."

The Fox Iowa poll shows that nearly two-thirds of Republicans with no college degree feel betrayed by their party, which might lead to the conclusion that this rebellion is class-oriented and in fact fueled by new Republicans who do not fit the party’s traditional mold. But that is not the case; more than half of Republicans with college degrees feel betrayed by their party, too – – and nearly three in five of those who say they will "definitely" attend a party caucus two weeks from now share that bitter sentiment.

This reflects another important shift in the character of Republican politics. A quarter-century ago, the Republican Party had a share of issue-oriented activists who were less concerned with victory in the general election than with their own special causes, often involving social issues such as abortion.

Indeed, at the party’s 1992 convention, when Buchanan spoke of the "culture war" that was enveloping the nation, those issue activists played a key role in the platform fight at the party’s Houston convention. In a study published in the Political Science Quarterly, the Colby College political scientist L. Sandy Maisel found that their determination to shape a document that customarily is soon forgotten resulted in their successful exclusion of moderates from the platform committee.

Now these very same activists — or their next-generational legatees — are determined to prevail in the election itself, and their rhetoric, especially from Cruz, is full of disdain for the establishment candidates they say always get the nomination but never get, or keep, the presidency. Their examples are Gerald R. Ford and George H.W. Bush, who were defeated for re-election in 1976 and 1992, respectively, along with nominees Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas (1996), Sen.John McCain of Arizona (2008) and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts (2012).

The roots of this rebellion actually go back to 1976, with the challenge Ronald Reagan mounted to the nomination of Ford, an accidental president but as a former House minority leader and a creature of moderate Grand Rapids, Michigan, politics, a sturdy symbol of the Main Street strain of the Republican establishment. Ford was a Rotarian, and in fact his hometown club now bears the name Gerald R. Ford Rotary Club.

The Reagan rebellion of 1976 bore fruit four years later, when the former governor of California won the nomination and defeated President Jimmy Carter. Reagan’s appeal and political skills papered over the divisions in the GOP for his two terms and for the first half of the elder Bush’s single term. But since then the tensions have simmered and in the past several years have boiled over, fortified by a pervasive public frustration with politics.

"This is a special case of a broader sense of dissatisfaction and frustration with government," says John J. Pitney Jr., a Clare-mont McKenna College political scientist widely regarded as a leading student of GOP politics. "The anger is particularly intense on the Republican side because they have control of Congress and haven’t been able to do much."

Now the Republicans are energized with the conviction that there is much they can do. The result is a rebellion that is transforming not only their politics but the broader political system as well.

SOURCE

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SCOTUS to Review Obama's Unilateral Amnesty

Finally, after a year of legal hurdles in the lower courts, the Supreme Court will determine the constitutionality of Barack Obama’s unilateral amnesty. On Tuesday, the justices agreed to hear United States v. Texas, the subject of two executive actions. "One, known as Deferred Action for Parents of Americans (DAPA), would halt deportations and offer work permits to the parents of U.S. citizens and permanent legal residents," The Hill explains. "The other would expand Obama’s 2012 program — the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative — which provides the same protections to some high-achieving illegal immigrants brought to the country before age 16. The expanded program would simply extend DACA eligibility to a greater number of people."

Twenty-six states sued to stop Obama’s amnesty shortly after it went into effect. U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen issued a temporary injunction last February, correctly accusing Obama of exceeding his executive authority. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit agreed in November and upheld the injunction. But the Supreme Court will ultimately have the final say.

The timing is interesting to say the least. The Hill notes, "If the justices had declined to [take up Obama’s amnesty] in the next round of cases, it would have solidified the Fifth Circuit’s injunction through the end of Obama’s White House tenure." Since a Republican president could undo these actions as early as next January, the justices' decision to take up the case leaves open the possibility that they have enough support to uphold Obama’s amnesty. The administration’s track record in cases regarding executive overreach, however, suggests otherwise. We’ll find out by June.

SOURCE

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Establishment support for Trump?

How did it come down to Trump vs. Cruz? And what about the framing of Establishment versus Outsider? Trump has never held elective office, so he is perceived as an outsider. But he has long been a backer of Democrat politicians and has held a number of progressive views (New York values, one might say) that don’t match the conservative base of the party. So does that make him Establishment?

Cruz is a senator in Washington, so by comparison to Trump, is he Establishment? Hardly, considering that Cruz has made his name by tweaking the nose of the GOP establishment (including calling Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a liar on the Senate floor) and generally taking on what he calls the "Washington cartel." He is arguably the most resolutely conservative of all the Republican candidates, and his voting record and his public stance on the issues bears that out.

Take Cruz’s stance against ethanol subsidies. He refused to pander to Iowa power brokers, while other candidates dutifully bowed to King Corn and the mandates and subsidies that undermine the free market and exceed the government’s constitutional role. Trump on Tuesday called for increasing the ethanol blended into gasoline.

If there are any other questions as to whether Cruz is indeed the outsider candidate, just take a look at Iowa Republican Governor Terry Branstad’s words on the subject: "Because as Iowans learn about his anti-renewable fuel stand, and that it will cost us jobs, and will further reduce farm income, I think people will realize that it’s not in our interest. I don’t think that Ted Cruz is the right one for Iowans to support in the caucus."

Traditionally, Iowa governors, regardless of party affiliation, have steered clear of offering opinions of the caucus. But Branstad’s son runs a group that’s part of the ethanol lobby, so he couldn’t remain silent.

The establishment’s rejection of Cruz is due to his solid conservatism and his combativeness with his fellow Republicans in Washington. In fact, there are reports that the establishment is beginning to coalesce around Trump — not because he represents the establishment GOP, but because he is the leading Not-Cruz. The establishment would rather have a dealmaker who boasts of having bought politicians and, more importantly, a moderate-to-liberal candidate, than a principled conservative.

Republican donors and consultants now don’t seem so quick to write off a Trump nomination. Is it because his momentum now makes him more viable than originally perceived? Is it because of the staunch support of his base? Yes, on both counts.

Trump’s supporters are an important asset that cannot be underestimated if Republicans want to win the White House this year. They are motivated because they are fed up with the establishment in Washington. But if that is truly the case, then who would better serve those voters' interests: Trump or Cruz?

Sarah Palin chose Trump, endorsing him Tuesday. The former vice presidential candidate has been a standard-bearer for the Tea Party movement since she emerged on the national stage in 2008, so her endorsement of Trump is important.

At first glance, it’s also a puzzling move, though it shouldn’t be. On April 15, 2009, a big day in the early life of the Tea Party, Trump said, "I don’t march with the Tea Party." He also said Obama "really has made a great impact on people," and, "I think he’s doing a really good job."

But Palin says, "Enough is enough. These issues that Donald Trump talks about had to be debated. And he brought them to the forefront. And that’s why we are where we are today. … We are mad and we’ve been had."

Given Palin’s supposed conservative bona fides, she should have endorsed Cruz, particularly when one takes into account Trump’s previous progressive stances on some issues. And Cruz rightly credits Palin with helping secure his Senate seat. Yet Palin went with The Donald, signifying that she has been more populist than conservative from the beginning. Nevertheless, perception is everything, and her endorsement will only help Trump and hurt Cruz, especially in Iowa.

Republicans are highly motivated to win the White House this year. After eight years of Obama, and a potential four years of Hillary Clinton, the GOP needs to be prepared to do whatever it takes to win. However, the party needs to guard against leaving the bedrock principles of conservatism to be trumped by nationalistic populism. Otherwise a White House win will be a pyrrhic victory.

SOURCE

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Hidden Costs of Obamacare’s Slacker Mandate

Obamacare’s so-called "slacker mandate"—which requires that health plans include dependent children up to age 26 on their parents’ policies—has had an unintended but predictable consequence: it has raised unemployment for young adults by eliminating the need for their own health coverage. The mandate has, as the Washington Post puts it, "helped millennials chill out." A study from the National Bureau of Economic Research has even estimated how jobless young adults are spending their extra time: about 10 minutes more are spent exercising, 20 minutes sleeping, and 30 minutes socializing (for 23-25 year olds). The slacker mandate also has other unintended consequences, explains Independent Institute Senior Fellow John R. Graham.

Parents pay for the mandated coverage for adult dependents through higher premiums. But parents are not the only ones who pay. Another study from the National Bureau of Economic Research finds that "the slacker mandate reduced wages among workers without children by $210 a month," Graham writes, "but it did not reduce wages among workers with children (either minor or adult) by a statistically significant amount."

"The latter result makes sense, because the working parents simply paid higher premiums to keep their adult dependents on their employer-based plans," Graham continues. "The former result is shocking. How to explain it? I suspect it is easy in the short term to impose these costs on workers without kids because of the high information and friction costs to those workers of learning and responding to the cost of the mandate." Indeed, the cost shifting may have been a prime reason behind the political push for the mandate, Graham concludes.

SOURCE

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

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

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Could a Movie Derail Hillary Clinton for Good?

Benghazi. Four Americans killed. A film with the recurring theme of a fading superpower that trades on its still-existing military power while trying to figure out its purpose. A movie depicting men who were denied everything yet gave everything they had to protect their fellow Americans.

“13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi” is the title of this newly released movie and it tells the story of what happened during the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. consulate from the perspective of American fighters on the ground. According to The Washington Post, Paramount insists the film is “not political,” but the Post argues that it is political — even though former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is not mentioned by name and Barack Obama is mentioned only in passing. The Post has a point, but that’s only because Obama and Clinton politicized the attack from the beginning.

Further, while the movie does not directly attack the Obama administration, it does show the general incompetence, corruption and sluggish bureaucracy in Washington. And it shows what our guys on the ground went through having been abandoned by Obama and Clinton.

National Review’s David French, an Iraq war veteran, notes, “The Benghazi controversy is the story of three great failures — the failure to either fortify or evacuate Benghazi when threats increased, the failure to adequately protect and support American personnel during the attack itself, and the repeated lies told the American public after the attack to minimize both the nature of the jihadist threat and the scale of the administration’s incompetence.”

As we have known from the start, the attack in Benghazi was not because of a YouTube video. Obama and Clinton lied in blaming a video because Obama desperately wanted to cover up his administration’s failure to recognize the escalating threat to American security in Benghazi and the Middle East generally, as well as the failure to respond to the attack with military force.

Further, Obama and Clinton lied in order to secure Obama’s re-election. And now, Clinton, whose role with Benghazi among other scandalous activities should disqualify her from even being able to run for president, is still the leading contender for the Democrat nomination. That is absolutely appalling.

Equally appalling is that there are several Democrat politicians who have essentially accused our Special Forces who were on the ground in Benghazi of lying. That’s right, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) are accusing Kris Paronto and John Tiegen of lying about the order to “stand down.”

There is ample evidence from multiple testimonies that a “stand down” order was given. The CIA officer who was in charge at Benghazi denies having given the order as the movie alleges. Security operators interviewed by the author upon whose book the movie was based said the CIA chief did give a stand down order. Did he or didn’t he, and if so, was he directed by Washington?

When asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper if she had plans to see the movie, Clinton replied that she was “too busy campaigning.” Yet she isn’t too busy to appear on the Jimmy Fallon Show, the Ellen DeGeneres show or to be interviewed by YouTube stars. She even had the audacity to mention that she had given testimony before Congress about Benghazi for 11 hours — as if the number of hours was a point in her favor.

So we have another lie. She isn’t too busy; she doesn’t want to see the truth. Perhaps she is using the two-hour time slot to come up with more lies for when she’s questioned by potential supporters. Her hopes that her role in Benghazi would fade have not turned in her favor.

On a final note, the movie illustrates some policy challenges for Republicans, too. National Review’s Stanley Kurtz writes, “13 Hours ends by noting that Libya has become a failed state and a training ground for ISIS, subtly pointing the finger at Hillary’s misjudgment on the Libya campaign in a way that most Republicans so far have not.”

That’s because some of them favored intervention.

Republicans candidates had better be clear on their vision of foreign policy. They must make it known whether the United States will or won’t be in the business of removing dictators (like Libya’s Moammar Gadhafi), and whether America’s national security must be at stake before making such a move. And if we do remove a dictator, there should be clearly defined strategic objectives and follow-up actions in place.

Obama’s policy of removing Gadhafi with no strategic objective in mind was exactly wrong, as evidenced by the continuing turmoil there. And he undermined our objectives in Iraq by prematurely withdrawing. Republican candidates need to seize the opportunity to zero in on the failed foreign policies of Clinton and her former boss. If there is ever a chance to beat the Islamic State, then we must first beat Clinton.

SOURCE

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Why Are the Media’s ‘Consumer Interest Groups’ So Leftist and Anti-Consumer?

The Media’s double standard when describing political advocacy organizations is as obvious as it is unsurprising.

The Media rarely if ever identify Leftist entities as Leftist – instead assigning them non-ideological descriptives.  Often, it is the ridiculous “consumer interest group” – as if the anti-free market side of the equation is pro-consumer, and the defenders of freedom are against the purchasing public.

Never mind that no one is more pro-consumer than a private company – after all, they are the ones trying to please as many consumers as possible.  It would then stand to reason that the organizations defending private companies from government overreach are also pro-consumer.

Because these “consumer interest groups” are in fact “government interest groups” – every “solution” they push results in larger, more interfering government.  Which is about as anti-consumer as you can get.

How’s ObamaCare treating consumers?  The Veterans Administration?  The Department of Motor Vehicles?  Would you rather head there – or to Amazon.com or your neighborhood deli?

Meanwhile, the Media almost always identify Conservative groups as conservative – that is, when they mention them at all.  Often, marketplace political stories only quote Leftist groups – and company representatives.

Which is itself biased.  It depicts the debate as a struggle between the plucky little “consumer interest” groups (who actually often have very large [George Soros] money behind them) – and the evil Industry Titans.

There are perhaps dozens of conservative/free market groups out there – yet the Media often can’t seem to find room for any of them in their stories.

The latest bit of wireless phone news is a fabulous case study.

AT&T Dials Up Toll-Free ‘Sponsored Data’: The company on Monday introduced “Sponsored Data,” or data that is paid is for by a business that wouldn’t count against a subscriber’s capped plan. Think a toll free 1-800 number or free shipping for the delivery of data.

Here in Reality, this should be a non-news story – other than the good news for consumers.  They will be getting more data for the same money – which will in a great many instances allow them to actually purchase less data, saving them coin.

This model exists…well, everywhere.  As stated above, companies via 800 numbers pick up the tab for your call.  Many then after you call to place an order pick up the tab to ship it to you.  The examples of this free market paradigm are nearly endless.

AT&T and Verizon Wireless in particular have been aggressive in getting their customers to switch to tiered plans that require people to pay more to get more data.

Again, here in Reality when we use more – we pay more.  You pay more for ten steaks than you do for two.  It costs more to gas up an Escalade than it does an Escort.

So if the companies providing the biggest data-chewing content were to pay for it – it would in fact be a tremendous consumer boon.  Imagine car makers paying for your gasoline – oh wait, some do.  Isn’t Reality great?

But this is the Media and the Left – they don’t reside in Reality.  "Consumer advocate group Free Press" has already criticized the plan.

There are those magic Media words – “consumer advocate group.”  Never mind that Free Press was co-founded by a self-avowed Marxist – they are “consumer advocates.”  This story quotes Free Press and AT&T only – not a conservative group to be found.

Then there’s this: "AT&T Sponsored Data Plan Threatens Open Internet, Consumer Groups Argue"

In which Free Press and their fellow Media Marxist joint Public Knowledge are quoted.  As is AT&T.  And that’s it.

FCC Ready To Step In On AT&T’s Sponsored Data Plan: "Like a toddler with a pet dog, AT&T (NYSE:T) has a history of poking the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) until it turns around and barks. And that’s just what it’s done now."

That’s an objective opening paragraph.  Keep in mind that the last time AT&T “poked” the FCC, it was when they wanted to buy T-Mobile.  The Media Marxist chorus screeched their opposition, and the FCC blocked the deal – issuing an error-riddled report in defense of its decision.

But this “news” story ignores all of this.  Instead it portrays AT&T as a serial government instigator.  And pretends the government’s bark is worse than its bite – when it’s chomping huge chunks out of the private sector.

A few months ago, ESPN was also discussing possibly paying for delivery of its digital content. "Why We’re Praying That ESPN Does Not Begin Subsidizing Wireless Plans"

Handout recipients having their cell phones and plans (ObamaPhones) entirely paid for by a fraud-riddled government?  With money the government gets by taxing consumers’ phones?  Outstanding.

Consumers having their cell phone plans “subsidized” – incentivized – by private companies?  Awful.

This “news” story appeared (with apparently unintentional irony) at Consumerist.com.

The Media aren’t reporting on these choice-and-wallet-expanding possibilities – they are choosing the anti-free market side against them.  And providing cover for the government interest “consumer interest” groups lining up likewise.

The Media and the Left together pretend to look out for the Little Guy – all the while making it ever more excruciating for him.

SOURCE

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Another Nutritional Supplement may do more harm than good

I wonder if Bill Quick is using this stuff in his daily medicinal cocktail?

Chromium is most frequently used in supplement form for weight management, body building and type 2 diabetes. Now UNSW and University of Sydney research has revealed that chromium is partially converted into a carcinogenic form when it enters cells, prompting concerns about commonly taken dosages.

The Australian National Health and Medical Research Council recommend 25-35 micrograms of chromium daily as an adequate adult intake. The US National Academy of Sciences advises that a maximum of 200 micrograms of chromium a day is considered safe.

Some commercially available tablets have been found to contain up to 500 micrograms of chromium each.

The research, published in the chemistry journal Angewandte Chemie, was conducted on animal fat cells, which were x-rayed to allow scientists to observe the behaviour of chromium within the cell.  "We were able to show that oxidation of chromium inside the cell does occur, as it loses electrons and transforms into a carcinogenic form," said UNSW's Dr Lindsay Wu.

"This is the first time oxidation was observed in a biological sample with the same results expected in human cells."

The researchers say more study is needed to conclusively say whether the supplements significantly alter cancer risk.

SOURCE

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

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

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Donald Trump's Bold Promise

Donald Trump went to speak at Liberty University today, where he made a promise to the student body:

    "Donald Trump took the stage at Liberty University on Monday, drawing comparisons between himself and its iconic founder, Jerry Falwell, and vowing to "protect Christianity."

    The front-running GOP presidential candidate spoke to 13,000 people attending the speech at the Virginia school, after a glowing introduction from the late founder's son, Jerry Falwell Jr., who said the politically incorrect real estate mogul reminded him of his father.

    The speech was broadcast on Newsmax TV.

    "I knew his father a little bit," Trump said. "To be compared to his father is really an honor for me. I want to thank Jerry for saying that."

    Trump drew one of his biggest applause responses for denouncing the persecution of Christians in the Middle East.

    "We're going to protect Christianity," he declared. "I asked Jerry and some of the fold, 2 Corinthians 3:17: 'Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty'," he said. "It is so true … so representative of what's taken place."

    "Christianity is under siege," he added. "Very bad things are happening … Somehow we have to unify, we have to band together, we have to do really in a really large version what they've done at Liberty ... You band together, you've created one of the great universities, colleges anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world, and that's what our country has to do around Christianity."

It's a speech that's sure to assuage the concern of voters who might be leaning towards Ted Cruz in the wake of last week's showdown.

SOURCE

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Life under an iron fist

Federal government overseers threaten property and livelihoods of hardworking westerners

Paul Driessen

Activists protesting federal land mismanagement and the imprisonment of Dwight and Steven Hammond recently occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge headquarters building in Oregon. Some facts, context and perspective may help people understand what’s really going on here.

At its core, this is about the often callous, iron-fisted hand of the federal government being slammed down on American citizens. Examples abound – from the IRS targeting 200 conservative groups, to the seizure of cars and bank accounts of innocent business owners, to heavily armed Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) agents bursting into Gibson Guitar facilities over phony exotic wood violations, to EPA destroying tens of thousands of coal industry jobs to “prevent climate chaos.” Making these outrages even more intolerable, those responsible are almost never held accountable, much less liable for damages.

Problems like these can become exponentially worse for people in one of the twelve western states where the federal government controls 30% (Montana), 49% (Oregon) or even 85% (Nevada and Alaska) of all the land. These government lands total 640 million acres: 28% of the entire 2.27-billion-acre United States.

Though they are often, incorrectly called “public” lands, the “public” has no fundamental right to enter them or utilize their water and other resources. They are federal government reservations, administered and controlled by agencies that increasingly want economic, motorized and many other activities prohibited and eliminated – under laws interpreted, implemented and imposed by officials in the FWS, Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Park Service and other federal agencies.

The feds also exercise effective, often punitive control over millions of acres of state and private lands located next to or in the midst of these government fiefdoms. People living in those areas rely on the federal reserves for forage, water, timber, energy, mineral and other resources that are increasingly made off limits, on the ground that “beneficial uses” might impact wildlife, scenic or environmental values.

However, millions of people do have valid, existing, longstanding, protected rights to these lands and their resources, in the form of “appurtenances” conveyed to them by deed or will from the first settler or miner. The forage, water rights, range improvements, easements, rights of ways, mineral rights and other property interests that the first settlers created or were granted to these western lands are constitutionally protected and have been preserved in every federal land law ever enacted by Congress. Those rights cannot be summarily taken away – though federal agencies increasingly try to do so.

As an 1888 congressional report explained, the original idea for these lands involved use and protection: settlements, harvesting of commercial quality trees, watershed protection, and no land monopolies. Various laws allowed mining, oil drilling, ranching, farming and other activities, to supply food, energy and raw material needs, while early environmentalists wanted certain areas preserved as national parks and wilderness. Of course, modern resource use and extraction methods are far more responsible and environmentally sound than their predecessors, so impacts can be much better limited and repaired.

Nevertheless, “wise use” or “multiple use” is under attack, and such uses are now rare or nonexistent across many western and Alaskan government lands. Landowners who remain are barely holding on.

Imagine the feds owning half of Ohio or Pennsylvania – and gradually, systematically closing off access, taking away water and forage rights, banning economic uses, charging higher fees for remaining rights, forcing landowners into years-long courtroom battles, and refusing to pay up when courts order them to compensate owners for attorney fees and lost income. That’s the situation facing rural westerners.

The Hammonds got in trouble because they started a “backfire,” to burn combustible material, create a “fire break” and protect their home and ranch from a raging fire. They accidentally burned 139 acres of federal land before they put the fire out. Now they are serving five years in prison, even though Senior Federal Judge Michael Hogan felt a year or less was fair and just under the circumstances.

They could have been charged under a 1948 law that provides for fines or jail terms up to five years for setting a fire on government lands without permission. But they were not. Instead, the Obama Justice Department charged them under the 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act – as though what they did, in an honest attempt to protect their property, was an act of deliberate terrorism. That law requires a minimum five-year sentence. Judge Hogan’s lighter sentence was thus overruled.

Why would the DOJ do that? Probably because the feds never forget or forgive. Some years earlier, the Hammonds had removed a barrier the BLM had installed to block access to water they thought was legally theirs. Turns out it was. But they had failed to fully adjudicate their rights to the water – an oversight that they then fixed, thus safeguarding their rights. The Hammonds were also the only ranchers who refused to go along with a BLM “cow-free wilderness” plan. The feds were determined to get even.

Why would the Hammonds just give up and go back to prison? Because the DOJ wouldn’t budge, and they could not afford the huge expense of continuing to battle a vindictive federal behemoth. So now a middle-aged mom and elderly grandmother must run their 6,000-acre ranch, pay $200,000 more in fines, and hope they can avoid bankruptcy, which would result in BLM getting the Hammond ranch.

It is absurd, outrageous and infuriating. The Obama DOJ refuses to call Fort Hood, Boston, San Bernardino and other massacres terrorism – but it labels a backfire “terrorism.” But it gets worse.

Harney County, Oregon, where the Hammonds live, is over 6.4 million acres (over 10,000 square miles, ten times the size of Rhode Island), and 72% of it is controlled by the federal government. A 2012 wildfire in the county burned 160,000 acres! A 2015 fire in the county next door burned 800,000 acres!

Still worse, the BLM has often lit fires in Harney County and elsewhere (often on private land) that got out of control, burned extensive private property and even killed cattle. No one can recall the feds ever compensating ranchers for their lost livestock, fences or forage. In 2013, the Forest Service started two “prescribed burns” in South Dakota that blew out of control and torched thousands of acres of federal and private land. No federal employee has ever been prosecuted for any of those destructive fires.

To top it off, many of these fires are ultimately due to lousy management practices that restrict or prohibit tree cutting, tree thinning and insect control. That leaves vast tinderboxes of dry, rail-thin trees and brush ready to explode in superheated conflagrations that immolate wildlife and incinerate soil nutrients and organisms, ensuring that what’s left gets washed away in storms and spring snow melts. So the feds “protect” our treasured national forests from ranchers and miners by letting them go up in smoke.

But despite all these outrages, and not content with its already vast landholdings, the feds are trying to gain absolute control over all private lands still left in Harney County, and elsewhere. As Congressman Greg Walden noted in a January 5 speech, they are trying to drive ranchers and even joggers out of the Malheur Refuge. Failing that, President Obama might turn 2.5 million acres into a national monument.

The twisted saga is reminiscent of travesties under Stalin, Mao, Castro and other dictators. And it is just one of hundreds, some of which I will profile in future articles. It’s no wonder people are frustrated and angry – and some support Ammon Bundy and other activists who took over the Malheur headquarters. History will judge whether that peaceful occupation of federal property was wise, helpful or justified.

But many in the Obama Administration, news media, academia and general public certainly support or justify the seizure of college administrative offices, Occupy Wall Street encampments, and even Black Lives Matter kill-the-cops rants, Ferguson, Missouri riots, Palestinian attacks on Israelis, and Obama BFF Bill Ayers’ criminal activities. John Kerry went so far as to say, with Charlie Hebdo there was “perhaps … a rationale … [and] you could say, okay, they’re really angry because of this and that.”

So twelve Hebdo staffers murdered by Islamist terrorists is “rational” or excusable, but occupying a federal building is intolerable. We are dealing with a festering, growing, open wound. Congress, the courts and our next president need to heal it, and address the root causes, before things get out of hand.

Via email

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Clinton Supporters Sign Petition to Repeal Bill of Rights

Supporters of Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton eagerly signed a fake petition calling for a repeal of the Bill of Rights, in a video highlighting the mindlessness of the average Clinton voter.

“Hillary Clinton has announced a plan to help repeal the Bill of Rights for the New World Order and progress America and help with the government,” media analyst and social prankster Mark Dice babbles to a curious passerby before pointing to a clipboard and saying, “Just print birthdate, signature to support Hillary’s plan to repeal the Bill of Rights.”

Unaware he’s being filmed, the man signs and verbally endorses the pretend plan to eviscerate the first 10 amendments in the US Constitution, asserting, “She’s gonna lead us.”

“We’re gonna go in the right direction,” he says.

Approaching a couple walking, Dice again inquires, “Support Hillary’s plan to repeal the Bill of Rights to help modernize the New World Order.”

“You probably saw her primary campaign promises to repeal the Bill of Rights, part of the new freedom for the New World Order,” Dice remarks, to which the man signing the petition says, “I did.”

Dice then riffs on the fictitious petition’s premise.

“You know it’s a woman that’s gonna finally repeal the Bill of Rights, we’re hoping, but we still needed some signatures just to show that the people are behind her finally to have someone do that,” Dice says, to which the couple nods in agreement.

While the petition may be fake, Clinton has already proven herself an enemy of the Constitution.

The former secretary of state threw her support behind recent executive orders by the Obama administration toughening firearm background checks, largely seen as infringements on the Second Amendment.

Last November, the Clinton campaign was also accused of going after comedians who poked fun at her in a compilation video uploaded by comedy studio Laugh Factory.

SOURCE

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

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

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A quiz

Who said:

1) "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."
    A. Karl Marx
    B. Adolph Hitler
    C. Joseph Stalin
    D. Barack Obama
    E. None of the above

2) "It's time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few, and for the few, and to replace it with shared responsibility, for shared prosperity."
    A. Lenin
    B. Mussolini
    C. Idi Amin
    D. Barack Obama
    E. None of the above

3) "(We) can't just let business as usual go on, and that means
something has to be taken away from some people."
    A.  Nikita  Khrushev
    B.  Joseph Goebbels
    C. Boris Yeltsin
    D. Barack Obama
    E. None of the above

4) "We have to build a political consensus and that requires people to give up a little bit of their own in order to create this common ground."
    A. Mao Tse Dung
    B. Hugo Chavez
    C. Kim Jong II
    D. Barack Obama
    E. None of the above

5) "I certainly think the free-market has failed."
     A.  Karl Marx
     B. Lenin
     C. Molotov
     D. Barack Obama
     E. None of the above

6) "I think it's time to send a clear message to what has become the most profitable sector in (the) entire economy that they are being watched."
    A. Pinochet
    B. Milosevic
    C. Saddam Hussein
    D. Barack Obama
    E. None of the above

And if you think that Barack Obama said all these things - think again!  All were said by Hillary

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Reflections on Wise and Suicidal Immigration

By Victor Davis Hanson

Legal immigration has historically been classically liberal and a great boon for the United States.  Immigrants often bring in energy and fresh ideas.

In the past, newcomers from around the world were eager for a second start in the United States. They nearly all worked hard, reminding American-born citizens that that they can never rest on their laurels.

Immigrants honed American competition and helped to keep the nation productive.

Immigrants were typically hyper-patriotic. They reminded complacent Americans how lucky they were to be born in the U.S.

No one knew better how uninviting were the alternatives abroad than did those who had been forced to live under fascism, communism, totalitarianism, tribalism, or endemic poverty and corruption. Most immigrants believed that they always had been Americans in spirit, just unfortunately born in the wrong country.

Immigrants characteristically had rejected their native cultures and were eager to adopt a new American identity. So they were not foolish enough to question what had made America attractive to them in the first place: constitutional government, the rule of law, personal freedom, free-market capitalism, and an independent judiciary and press.

Instead, immigrants often enriched that immutable Western core with diverse contributions of food, music, literature, and art.

Through integration and intermarriage immigrants quickly became part of the American dream. The path from Italian to Italian-American to American usually was completed in two generations.

What then were the ingredients of past successful American immigration policy?  Four enlightened rules.

One, immigrants came legally. Breaking the law was a lousy way to start American residency. How can an immigrant continue to respect and follow his adopted country’s legal system when his first act as an American resident is to mock federal law?

Two, immigration was blind and diverse. It did not favor one particular group over another. The more diverse the immigrant blocs, the less likely they were to form lasting separate communities. There were, of course, mass influxes of immigrants in the past, but they were quite diverse: gobs of Germans, hordes of Irish, masses of Italians and Sicilians, huge influxes of Poles and Jews, lots of Japanese and Chinese, large arrivals of Mexicans. But note how diverse and varied were the immigrants’ places of origin and how destined they were to bump into each other upon arrival. Each group was wary of the other trying to use immigration as a crass tool to boost their own political fortunes by bringing in more kin than their rivals.

Three, immigrants usually arrived in manageable numbers; mass arrivals were usually periodic and episodic, not continuous and institutionalized. Only that way could the melting pot absorb newcomers and avoid the tribalism and factionalism that had always plagued so many prior failed multi-ethnic national experiments abroad. To avoid the fate of Austria-Hungary or Yugoslavia, immigrants—geographically, politically, culturally—by needs were soon intermixed and intermingled.

Four, both hosts and immigrants insisted on rapid Americanization. Immigrants learned English, followed all the laws of their host, and assumed America was good without having to be perfect. Otherwise they would have stayed home.

Unfortunately, 21st century immigration policy has forgotten these old rules and become illiberal and tribal. Is it any surprise that foolish immigration practices are proving as reactionary and destructive as wise ones were once enlightened and beneficial?

Immigration is now often in violation of U.S. law. There are somewhere over 11 illegal immigrants currently living in the United States. Breaking the law should be the last not the first act of a new immigrant.

Under political pressure, entire cities have declared themselves immune from federal immigration laws—apparently on the theory that immigrants’ children and those given amnesty will vote for their enablers. Well-connected ethnic elites will have more careerist opportunities if they can pose as self-appointed representatives of masses of the unassimilated and poor.

In recent years, a third of all Texas murders were committed by unlawful immigrants. There are nearly 300,000 aliens in the nation’s state and local prisons.

A staggering one-quarter of all federal inmates are now aliens. There are over 20,000 unlawful immigrants in California prisons alone.

Immigration is growing less diverse. Over half of all immigrants come from a single country, Mexico. Over 70% of all unlawful immigrants come from Central America or Mexico.

Such an absence of diversity shorts immigration aspirations from dozens of other countries. We reward the unskilled who illegally cross into the United States, and punish the doctor or architect who waits patiently for a legal invitation. The lack of variety among immigrants makes integration and assimilation more difficult.

The number of immigrants is at a near-record percentage of the American population. In absolute numbers, there are now nearly 50 million foreign-born residents—the largest in our history. Democrats are not shy in warning their conservative opponents that they have changed the political future of the country—convinced that their sponsorship of government largess and destruction of immigration law will create a permanently indebted ethnic bloc. Such hopes remind us that otherwise, progressives have no agenda that appeals to the majority of American citizens. Therefore, they must impede integration and assimilation in fears that a successful and empowered immigrant is likely not to remain beholden to Democratic pieties.

There were waves of 19th century immigration in the past. But what is different this time around is that the host America has largely given up on the multiracial melting pot for the multicultural salad bowl.

The result is that millions of new arrivals are not meeting enough with others outside their ethnic group. Assimilation, to the degree it is even seen as a positive, is delayed for generations. One in four American residents currently does not speak English at home–the former common tie that helped bind multiracial America. Careers are enhanced by accent marks and hyphenation. Ethnic identity is now essential not secondary to character.

Most immigrants still come to work. But the sheer size of the pool of new immigrants means that those who don’t seek jobs can pose staggering costs on the host. Currently about 30% of all immigrant-headed households are on some form of public assistance. That is not much of a problem when strapped middle-class taxpayers can be dubbed racists and xenophobes for opposing expansions of entitlements in a country $20 trillion in debt.

The mentality of many immigrants has changed as well from one of excitement at becoming an American, to sometimes resentment that the host has not measured up to particular agendas and expectations. When an immigrant is waved through the border without legality, he has less respect for the United States, whose magnanimity earns contempt as weakness not gratitude for caring. Cheering the Mexican national team and booing the U.S flag at a soccer match in Pasadena are what the host now expects of the guest.

Even unlawful immigrants routinely now sue universities to ensure discounted rates of in-state tuition, sue property owners for being in the way of their illegal migration pathways, sue states for not providing them with driver’s licenses, and sue the U.S. government for insufficient services. In contrast, the Mexican constitution prohibits immigration that imperils the ethnic essence of the Mexican people. Is such a racialist worldview shared by illegal immigrants in their eagerness to see racism as the cause for worry over open borders—on the logic of “our racist government does not let in others unlike ourselves, so why would they?”

The classically liberal ideals of legality, moderation, diversity, assimilation and gratitude explain why America’s immigration policies in the past were so beneficial to the growth of the United States.

Likewise, the lack of all that explains the present immigration chaos.

SOURCE

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Affordable Housing Mandates Are Costly and Unfair

The Supreme Court will do homebuyers a world of good if it strikes down a controversial ordinance in San Jose, California, mandating that housing developers sell a portion of their houses at below market prices. Affordable housing mandates-also called inclusionary zoning-are a textbook example of a government policy that does the opposite of what their supporters claim. Rather than make housing less expensive, they raise home prices-usually by tens of thousands of dollars. Their counterproductive effects have been confirmed by numerous studies, as Independent Institute Research Fellow Gary M. Galles explained last week in an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times.

Studies of the San Francisco Bay Area, Southern California, and Massachusetts, Galles shows, all found that after a city enacted affordable housing mandates, construction fell and home prices rose. The reason shouldn't be surprising: restricting supply in the face of growing demand is a sure recipe for pushing up prices. One can blame housing activists who are blind to evidence and logic, and one can blame politicians who seek reelection by repeating noble-sounding rhetoric. But another factor may also be at work.

"Perhaps the reason that inclusionary zoning mandates aren't more widely opposed is that they transfer so much wealth from real estate developers and homebuyers to people who already own property," Galles writes. "The mandates are portrayed as compassionate, but they survive because they have the opposite of the supposed intention, resulting in higher home prices, not lower." But not only do housing mandates benefit homeowners at the expense of homebuyers and developers, they also violate the Fifth Amendment's prohibition against the taking of private property without just compensation. The Supreme Court should move quickly to strike them down.

SOURCE

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

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

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