Senate panel suspends a rule to OK Trump Cabinet picks

Once again, Democrats are undone by their living in an eternal present, with no thought of yesterday or tomorrow.  What the GOP did here was follow a precedent set by Harry Reid, when he showed that you could bypass important checks and balances through a simple rewriting of the Senate rules.

Reid had no respect for precedent and now the GOP have followed suit.  Reid quite amazingly abolished the filibuster for all but approval of SCOTUS judges.  That insouciance has now come back hard to bite the Donks on the butt.  They set a dangerous precedent for temporary gain and now are virtually disarmed in resisting Trump appointees

This is of course not the end of Senate scrutiny for the appointees but it clears away a roadblock.  And final approval should now follow easily


Republicans muscled through committee approval of President Donald Trump’s nominees for Treasury and Health on Wednesday, suspending a key Senate rule in the latest escalation of partisan tensions in Congress.

Democrats boycotted a Finance Committee meeting and Republicans responded by temporarily scuttling a rule requiring at least one Democrat to be present for votes. The committee then approved Representative Tom Price to become Health secretary and financier Steve Mnuchin to be Treasury secretary.

SOURCE

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Hoyer: U.S. Should Not Give Priority to Refugee Claims of Persecuted Christians

Hoyer is Jewish.  I'm guessing that he would make an  exception for endangered Jews.  When Britain controlled Palestine, they tried to send back Jewish refugees.  Does Hoyer agree with that?

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that the United States should not give priority to the refugee claims of persecuted religious minorities.

Doing so is one element of the execuitive order that President Donald Trump issued Friday to protect the United States from entry by foreign terrorists.

At his weekly Capitol Hill press briefing, CNSNews.com asked Hoyer: “President Trump’s order on protecting the U.S. from foreign terrorists calls for prioritizing the refugee claims of persecuted religious minorities. Do you agree that the U.S. should prioritize refugee admissions for persecuted religious minorities?”

“No,” Hoyer said. “I think the criteria should not be religion.”

SOURCE

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Levin on Trump’s Refugee Executive Order: Nobody Has a Right to Come Into America – None

On his nationally syndicated radio talk show Monday, host Mark Levin ripped the Left for their onslaught against Donald Trump’s executive order on refugees saying, “Nobody has a right, of any kind, to come into America – none.”

“Nobody has a right, of any kind, to come into America – none,” said Mark Levin. “Now I know the crackpot ultra-Libertarians and the crackpot ultra-Leftists seem to think that people can come willy-nilly, but they’re wrong. That’s never been American history, and no nation can survive that. None. That’s why no nation does it. None.”

Below is a transcript of Levin’s comments from his show:

“Now, let’s start from the beginning so I can unravel all of this and then ram it down their throats.

“What’s the purpose of government? Its primary purpose is to secure America and to protect the life, liberty and property of the American people. I said, the American people.

“What’s the purpose of immigration? It is to improve America, to improve America.

“No society is immortal. None. No nation is immortal. None.

“And yet, there are people who keep preaching the transformation of America. They’ve been eviscerating our Constitution. They are eviscerating our borders, and they’re doing the latter through immigration. They lecture us about the Constitution.

“Foreign citizens who’ve never set foot in America don’t have constitutional rights. Seven billion people who aren’t Americans don’t fall within the jurisdiction of our Constitution or our statutes.

“Nobody has a right, of any kind, to come into America – none.

“Now I know the crackpot ultra-Libertarians and the crackpot ultra-Leftists seem to think that people can come willy-nilly, but they’re wrong. That’s never been American history, and no nation can survive that. None. That’s why no nation does it. None.

“All you’ve heard today is about the poor, would-be immigrant – not the actual immigrant – the poor, would-be immigrant from seven countries, six would be for a four-month temporary ban, not permitted to come into the country. In Syria it would be indefinite, until the situation settles down.

“And you would have thought Donald Trump was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. You would have thought Trump was rounding up Muslim-Americans and Americans of Muslim decent, ordering his military to issue an order like 9066, rounding up Muslim-Americans and bringing them to internment camps in the center of the country.

“Did he do that? No.

“No, he didn’t do that.

“He hasn’t violated anybody’s rights. He hasn’t violated anybody’s due process. There aren’t any rights. There isn’t any due process. The people aren’t even here yet. The people aren’t even here yet.

“And they say this is un-American. What’s un-American. There’s nothing un-American about this.

“I don’t know what the courts will do now, but in the past the courts have upheld every single syllable of what Donald Trump did with his executive order.

“Nobody has a right to come into this country. Nobody has the right to demand to come into this country. I don’t give a d--- what their faith is, or their race, or their ethnicity.

“This country belongs to the American citizen. The citizen of America comes first, not the citizen of Yemen, or Libya, or the Sudan, or Iran, or all the rest of it.

“The problem we have, ladies and gentleman, is that we have people who are trying to blow up our cities and cut the throats of your children, and we can’t simply identify them because they won’t self-identity. They don’t wear scarlet letters.

“They’re terrorists. And terrorists, unlike a standing military, secrete themselves among the people. They hide among the people in order to slaughter the people. So when you have people coming into this country from parts of the world where we cannot be sure who they are because there’s no effective government, or there’s a hostile government, or there’s no effective database, what’s a president of the United States supposed to do? ‘Hey, come on in. We’ll ask you 12 questions.’ And that will be that.

“Trump is trying to prevent carnage in the United States of American citizens on his watch, and he’s being brutalized for it. He’s being attacked for it. “I’ve never seen anything so disgusting.”

SOURCE

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The Left are full of fake horror over an affectionate pat on the bottom

Ivanka's husband still finds her attractive



It is good to see such magnetism between them after years of marriage and three children

Very selective horror.  By contrast, ripping a baby out of its mother's womb and killing it is no trouble at all to the Left.

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Ivanka still Daddy's girl too

How idiotic are the feminists who say Trump is a misogynist



Trump took her with him when he made an unannounced trip to honor the returning remains of a U.S. Navy SEAL killed during a weekend raid on an al-Qaida base in Yemen

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Columbia invited Iranian President Ahmadinejad to speak. He spoke. Milo Yiannopoulos got the reception below at UC Berkeley.  The Nazi-Left prevented him from speaking



The demonstrating Left and their supporters are the true heirs of Nazism in America today



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A Trump supporter was giving her statement to ABC7 News when someone pepper sprayed her on camera

BERKELEY, Calif. (KGO) -- Violent protests moved through downtown Berkeley Wednesday night after the cancellation of a speaking engagement scheduled for controversial Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos.

There were plenty of sub-plots at the protest against Yiannopulos, but also against people who were protecting the suppression of free speech. The conflict arrived in the form of polytechnics, smoke, strife, and anger--not only about the speaker and what he might say, but also about his right to say it, even in the birthplace of the free speech movement.

"Well I carried my sign, Free speech is protected even for Milo," said Mike Sherman, a protester.

The protests began at U.C. Berkeley in front of the Martin Luther King Student Union around 5 p.m. and left only after U.C. Berkeley police threatened to arrest anyone who remained.

As to what happened in between, there may have been 400 active protesters and some 300 people looking on. Some of them came hoping to hear the speech.

Kiara Robles braved the crowd wearing a red "Make Bitcoin Great Again" hat in the style of President Trump's red hats, which made her and our crew a target. The video in the player above shows the graphic exchange between a protester and Robles, who was pepper sprayed. "I'm looking to make a statement by just being here and I think the protesters are doing the same. Props to the ones who are doing it non-violently, but I think that's a very rare thing indeed."

She later told ABC7 News she was alright.

She was not the only person attacked at the protest Wednesday. "I hope I don't have a broken nose over this," said Joe Scherer, an observer. "The first amendment is fundamental to our Constitution."

By 9 p.m. protesters had taken to the streets of Berkeley carrying protest signs. Some marched while others threw rocks at buildings. A Chase location and a Wells Fargo location were vandalized. Broken glass could be seen flying into the streets from Sky7.

The violence and vandalism spread far beyond the school's campus.

U.C. Berkeley police and university officials issued warnings to the students not to exit their dorms. A shelter-in-place was ordered as well.

In a free country with free speech in iconic Berkeley, no matter what a person's politics we were all witness to violence

SOURCE

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

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

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Message to the Trump-haters

by Paul Genova

I'm noticing that a lot of people aren't graciously accepting the fact that their candidate lost. In fact you seem to be posting even more hateful things about those who voted for Trump. Some are apparently "triggered" because they are posting how "sick" you feel about the results. How did this happen you ask? Well, here is how it happened!

You created "us" when you attacked our freedom of speech.
You created "us" when you attacked our right to bear arms.
You created "us" when you attacked our Christian beliefs.
You created "us" when you constantly referred to us as racists.
You created "us" when you constantly called us xenophobic.
You created "us" when you told us to get on board or get out of the way.
You created "us" when you attacked our flag.
You created "us" when you took God out of our schools.
You created "us" when you confused women's rights with feminism.
You created "us" when you began to emasculate men.
You created "us" when you decided to make our children soft.
You created "us" when you decided to vote for progressive ideals.
You created "us" when you attacked our way of life.
You created "us" when you decided to let our government get out of control.

You created "us" the silent majority.

You created "us" when you began murdering innocent law enforcement officers.
You created "us" when you lied and said we could keep our insurance plans and our doctors.
You created "us" when you allowed our jobs to continue to leave our country.
You created "us" when you took a knee, or stayed seated or didn't remove your hat during our National Anthem.
You created "us" when you forced us to buy health care and then financially penalized us for not participating.

And we became fed up and we pushed back and spoke up.
And we did it with ballots, not bullets.
    With ballots, not riots.
    With ballots, not looting.
    With ballots, not blocking traffic.
    With ballots, not fires, except the one you started inside of "us".
    "YOU" created "US".
    It really is just that simple

Via email

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Trump travel ban: Prince Charles says we are in danger of forgetting the lessons of the past

He seems to have forgotten the lessons of the present:  worldwide Jihad

The vast worldwide shrieks by Leftists and comfortable elites drown out a lot of ordinary people who think it is about time that Muslims got some of their own back.  There is majority support for Trump's order

Prince Charles has warned the "horrific lessons" of the Holocaust and World War II "seem to be in increasing danger of being forgotten" in what is being interpreted as a veiled reference to the rise of nationalism, populism and US President Donald Trump.

The heir to the throne, who was speaking at a fundraising dinner for the World Jewish Relief charity in London on Monday night, also urged people of faith to "extend a helping hand" "across the boundaries" of their own religions to wherever aid is needed.

In his speech, the Prince of Wales paid tribute to the work of the charity as well as a number of Jewish refugees and survivors of the Holocaust he had met throughout his life, including champion weightlifter Ben Helfgott.

"To meet Ben, and others who, like him, have endured indescribable persecution, is to be reminded of the danger of forgetting the lessons of the past," he said.

"The work of World Jewish Relief enables us to rally together, to do what we can to support people practically, emotionally and spiritually – particularly at a time when the horrific lessons of the last War seem to be in increasing danger of being forgotten."

SOURCE

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The Left have no principles and no shame



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Donald Trump way ahead of his critics

By Rita Panahi, an Iranian-born Australian

IF THE Left wants to see Donald Trump elected to a second term, it should continue its current antics. Every Trump move, no matter how benign or insignificant, has been met with a reaction ranging from agitation to full-blown hysteria.

There’ll be plenty more protests to come as the Trump administration implements its “America-first” policies. The so-called “Muslim ban”, which is, in fact, nothing of the sort, has elicited the strongest response and much of it is based on misinformation, half-truths and imagined injustices.

For the record, I don’t support blanket bans on travellers from particular countries, or religions, but only a naive fool would deny that Trump’s policy is popular among voters — and not just in the US. Trump is doing precisely what he promised during the marathon presidential election campaign.

He is executing policies, including limiting migration from terror hot spots, until improved vetting practises can be established.

Did Trump’s political opponents think he was bluffing or expect him to abandon the populist policies that got him elected?

According to the independent Quinnipiac University Poll released earlier this month, 48 per cent of Americans support “suspending immigration from terror prone regions, even if it means turning away refugees”, while 42 per cent are opposed.

Of the Republican voters polled, 72 per cent supported the bans with only 17 per cent opposed.

The poll also showed that 53 per cent backed “requiring immigrants from Muslim countries to register with the federal government”, with 41 per cent against the idea.

A poll released on Tuesday by Rasmussen Reports, considered a conservative polling company, showed even greater support for the measures. Of likely US voters, 57 per cent were in favour of the bans on refugees until the federal government can better screen potential terrorists, with 33 per cent opposed to Trump’s policy.

The bans were hugely popular with Republican voters (82 per cent) while 59 per cent of voters not affiliated with either party also backed the move.

It’s worth noting that the seven countries affected by the 90-day travel ban — Iran, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Yemen and Syria — not only support terror but most have chaotic governments unwilling or simply incapable of providing pertinent information about citizens travelling to the US.

Trump’s immigration crackdown also included a ban on refugees from the seven banned countries for 120 days and the suspension of the Syrian refugee admissions program indefinitely.

Those countries were selected not because they are Muslim-majority but because they were identified by the Obama administration as “countries of concern”. The asinine argument that such measures will lead to the “radicalisation of more Muslims” are best ignored; there has never been an anti-terror policy that has not been derided as “playing into the hands of terrorists”.

I wonder if the Left realises how Islamophobic it is to suggest that otherwise peaceful Muslims will become jihadis if they are banned from entering the US for a few months. The same people who tell us terror has no religion are warning that Muslims will react with violence to the bans.

Why do so many progressives use the bigotry of low expectation when speaking about the Muslim world? Do Israelis, banned from multiple Muslim-majority countries, turn to terror? Indeed there are many Muslim nations that ban anyone who has been to Israel from entering their country, which is why the Israelis no longer stamp the passports of visitors.

Despite the reports of worldwide chaos, there were relatively few passengers, a few hundred, immediately affected by Trump’s sudden announcement.

By Monday night the media was becoming desperate for tales of traumatised passengers caught up in the confusion. The Independent reported on Iranian-born BBC journalist Ali Hamedani being detained for two hours and “subjected to invasive checks” before being released.

Two hours? I’ve been held up longer in Heathrow and as for the invasive checks, the US officials checked Hamedani’s phone and social media accounts.

For a couple of days there were about 110,000 Australians, including my parents, born in the banned countries who may have been affected. However, on Tuesday the Turnbull government confirmed that Australian dual citizens would be exempt from the visa restrictions. It remains to be seen whether the negative media coverage will sway public opinion.

One wonders why we didn’t hear sob stories from those affected by the Obama administration’s visa restrictions and record number of deportations. Yes, Obama, hero of the tolerant Left, deported more people than any other US president — but that wasn’t met with massive protests and media campaigns.

Trump is clearly not the type of politician to be swayed by political protests, nor will he try to appease those who loathe him.

One significant achievement for which he deserves praise is securing agreement from Saudi Arabia’s King Salman to set up safe zones in Yemen and Syria, a move that would ease the refugee crisis.

SOURCE

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Just How Much Voting Fraud Does Exist?



Early this week Donald Trump leveled the claim that three to five million illegal votes were cast during this past election, and he has called for an investigation into voter fraud. That stunning accusation — stunning only for the high numbers claimed — predictably brought howls of outrage from the Leftmedia, which lambasted Trump for yet more fake news and baseless claims. Hypocritically, the Leftmedia offered no evidence to prove that Trump's accusation was "baseless."

And it's not as if there are no facts supporting at least the need for a greater investigation into voter fraud, as several recent lawsuits brought by the Public Interest Legal Foundation demonstrate. In fact, why did the government see fit to pass the National Voting Registration Act of 1993 if it wasn't intended to combat potential voting fraud? In other words, it would be ridiculous to assert that voter fraud didn't happen. The real question is just how bad of a problem it is. If no comprehensive investigations are done, then the argument merely continues to be the spitting contest it currently has become.

It's rather dubious for the Leftmedia to call out Trump as a liar and yet argue against investigating his claims. The truth is, the Leftmedia isn't interested in knowing the actual number of illegal immigrants who voted or how many votes dead people cast or how many individuals voted multiply times. So long as official data is unavailable, leftists can continue to claim voter fraud is really not a problem — that it's simply the boogie man conservatives like to drag up as a political scare tactic designed to disenfranchise minority voters. The Leftmedia's stance essentially cheapens the unique privilege of American citizenship.

SOURCE

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

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

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Psychopathy and IQ

Leftists such as the Clintons have a lot of psychopathic traits and it is clear that most psychopaths don't get into trouble with the law and can be fairly successful in business and politics.  So it is a condition that we do well to know about.

Because of some prominent examples of psychopaths who have high IQs, there has developed an impression that psychopaths are generally of above average IQ.  It is always unsafe to generalize from a few examples, however, so a paper that looks at a full range of the evidence on the subject is very welcome.  And the finding (see below) is that ON AVERAGE, psychopaths are in fact a bit dim.

There is a fuller discussion of the matter here


On the relationship between psychopathy and general intelligence: A meta-analytic review

Olga Sanchez de Ribera et al.

Abstract

Over recent decades, a growing body of research has accumulated concerning the relationship between indicators of general intelligence and the personality construct known as psychopathy. Both traits represent key correlates of life outcomes, predicting everything from occupational and economic success, to various indicators of prosocial behavior (including avoiding contact with the criminal justice system). The findings to date regarding the association of the two traits, however, have been somewhat inconsistent. Thus, there remains a need for a more systematic investigation of the extant empirical literature. The current study reports a meta-analysis conducted to evaluate the direction and overall effect size of the relationship between these two constructs. Our analyses revealed a small, but significant, negative effect of intelligence on psychopathy. The results and impact of possible moderating variables such as type of intelligence test used are discussed. Finally, the study limitations, and possible directions for further research on this issue are detailed prior to concluding.

Source

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Is Donald Trump a Fascist?

There was much vitriol surrounding the inauguration of Donald Trump as the 45th President of the United States. One thing that struck me was the frequency with which commentators threw around the words fascism and fascist. For example, The Huffington Post warned that Trump’s Emerging Fascism Threatens the Nation; Salon chastised the country with the headline Congratulations, America– you did it! An actual fascist is now your official president; The Nation predicted that Anti-Fascists Will Fight Trump’s Fascism in the Streets. There is even a website called refusefascism.org that urges Americans to “stay in the streets to stop the fascist Trump/Pence regime.”

With all the voices warning of the rise of fascism in America, it would serve us well to define fascism to ensure we understand each other and can discuss the matter with intelligence and civility. Our friend Sheldon Richman is helpful on this point with his thorough entry in The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics. Here is an excerpt:

"As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer. . . . Fascism substituted the particularity of nationalism and racialism –”blood and soil”–for the internationalism of both classical liberalism and Marxism. . . .Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. . . . Under fascism, the state, through official cartels, controlled all aspects of manufacturing, commerce, finance, and agriculture. Planning boards set product lines, production levels, prices, wages, working conditions, and the size of firms. Licensing was ubiquitous; no economic activity could be undertaken without government permission. Levels of consumption were dictated by the state, and “excess” incomes had to be surrendered as taxes or “loans.”

Trump is undoubtedly a nationalist and protectionist and proudly declared during his inauguration address that he would put “America First.” Inasmuch as nationalism is a critical ingredient of fascism, it is indeed present. But notably absent from the Trump agenda is cartelization of American business, planning boards, or control of economic activity or consumption. Instead, Trump seeks to reduce government regulation, has imposed a hiring freeze on federal agencies, and advocates cutting taxes–the lifeblood of the state.

While there are many criticisms one can raise about Trump and certain of his policies, fascism is not one of the them. Unfortunately, fascism has become a label attached to anything a speaker does not like. Modern use of “fascism” is empty and imprecise. If you want to criticize Trump feel free to do so—but please offer reasoned arguments rather than lazily labeling the man as something that he clearly is not.

SOURCE

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That Time Clinton Got Tough on Illegal Immigration

If Trump is a reprobate, what does that make former president Bill Clinton?

Said Bill:

“All Americans, not only in the states most heavily affected, but in every place in this country are rightly disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public services they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. That’s why our administration has moved aggressively to secure our borders more, by hiring a record number of new border guards, by deporting twice as many criminal aliens as ever before, by cracking down on illegal hiring, by barring welfare benefits to illegal aliens. In the budget I will present to you, we will try to do more to speed the deportation of illegal aliens who are arrested for crimes, to better identify illegal aliens in the workplace as recommended by the commission headed by former Congresswoman Barbara Jordan. We are a nation of immigrants. But we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it.” —Bill Clinton, 1995 State of the Union

Compare Bill’s remarks to Hillary’s immigration platform. Contrary to the Left’s narrative that accuses today’s Republicans of being hostile and unsympathetic, it’s liberals whose worldview is now unrealistic and, as Bill put it, ultimately self-defeating.

For the record, The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberley Strassel points out: “Barack Obama put a pause for six months on refugees coming from Iraq back in 2011. I don’t remember protestors and I don’t remember lawsuits.” There’s hypocrisy alright — on the Left.

SOURCE

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A changed tune from a leading Democrat



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Behind the Immigration Ban Hysterics

Trump's travel ban on foreigners is not what the Left claims it is

From references made by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) to the Statue of Liberty crying to CNN running the headline, “Trump bans 134,000,000 from the U.S.,” the Left and the mainstream media are jumping up and down in hysteria over Donald Trump’s Friday executive orders on vetting refugees. Adding fuel to the controversy were stories of green card holders being prevented entry, forcing the administration to offer a clarification, with Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly stating,

“In applying the provisions of the President’s executive order, I hereby deem the entry of lawful permanent residents to be in the national interest. Accordingly, absent the receipt of significant derogatory information indicating a serious threat to public safety and welfare, lawful permanent resident status will be a dispositive factor in our case-by-case determinations.”

Even The Wall Street Journal headlined a story that read, “Donald Trump’s Immigration Ban Sows Chaos.”

So what’s the deal here? Are Trump’s actions as “extreme” as the mainstream media insists? Has the White House been taken over by a nativist? Is Trump Hitler 2.0? The facts reveal quite a different story from the hysteria currently being peddled by the Leftmedia.

First, motive. Trump maintained during his entire campaign that the safety of Americans would be a top priority. The order states in part, “In order to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its found principles. The United States cannot, and should not, admit those who do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American law.

In addition, the United States should not admit those who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred (including "honor” killings, other forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice religions different from their own) or those who would oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation.“

His actions on Friday are yet another example of him following through on his promises. Trump has correctly assessed that Washington’s politically correct attitude toward immigration has created a climate ripe for a Trojan horse-like infiltration taking advantage of the nation’s lax controls. His order is not an attack on a religion, ethnic group or region of the world.

Trump’s concerns or actions are not new or unprecedented, as Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and, yes, even Barack Obama enacted similar temporary bans, and justified those bans out of concern for the safety of Americans. And Trump is rightly acting within the president’s legal authority.

Second, the "extreme” adjective that has been bandied about by media pundits from all sides is quite simply absurd. A quick look at history and numbers confirms this. Trump’s capping of refugees at 50,000 per year is nothing new. Both George W. Bush and Obama averaged the same number until 2016, when Obama expanded the number significantly. In reality, Trump is simply bringing the numbers back down to previously established levels. If anyone is to be faulted for extreme actions on refugees, it’s Obama.

Third, the order will seek to revamp the refugee processing in order to prioritize those of minority religious groups fleeing the persecution of radical Islamists. This will specifically help Christians but also other minorities who have suffered from rising persecution over the last few years. This is a significant change from Obama’s policy that did not favor minority religions in the refugee processing.

Fourth, the ban is temporary — 120 days — as DHS determines the “information needed from any country to adjudicate any visa, admission, or other benefit under the INA (adjudications) in order to determine that the individual seeking the benefit is who the individual claims to be and is not a security or public-safety threat.” And the ban has an exemption clause: “Secretaries of State and Homeland Security may, on a case-by-case basis, and when in the national interest, issue visas or other immigration benefits to nationals of countries for which visas and benefits are otherwise blocked.”

In reality, the Leftmedia’s exasperation over Trump’s actions is a strategy aimed at delegitimizing Trump in a effort to subvert his unapologetic “America First” policy. The Left is committed to its globalist vision and will do everything it can to derail Trump.

In hindsight, Trump may have acted too quickly, especially if he failed to fully vet the plan internally. This has allowed the Leftmedia to unleash a barrage of misinformation that is proving to sow confusion and creating the false perception of the order being extreme.

SOURCE

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

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

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Some comments about the Left from a Christian psychologist who works in counselling and social services

Counselling is an area heavily populated by the Left so he sees them close-up daily

I am well aware of the amount of hatred in the world, in both the non-western world and the hatred that the left has for the western world and western society. Western society, free society, Christianised society, is the target of the world’s hatred. The overall force of hatred in the world is directed at us. Other hatreds are secondary, reactionary and minor in comparison.

The Left really does hate us. They want to see our society collapse. I hear all types of leftists say so frequently. Whether economic, social, political, spiritual or religious leftists, they all want and foresee the collapse of western society as we know it. Socio-political leftists-feminists (including psychologists, counsellors, social welfare workers, most teachers, university academics, media workers, lesbians and homos) are convinced that if they keep working at it that they will turn society into a socialist, non-white, non-capitalist, non-Christian, non-patriarchal, equalised society, where even gender will not exist.

The “spiritual-but-not-religious” leftists fantasise that a utopian society will come about when our current society collapses. That people will live in happy little villages without technology and close to nature.

Leftists are generally ignorant of how things are and how things work, and the smarter ones amongst them are determined to dumb others down, they deprive students of learning true political history, they discourage morality, teach that there is no truth, no right or wrong, no good or bad, they teach emotionalism as a religion, they encourage feeling in place of thinking, they indoctrinate children and youth with a sense of un-fairness and resentment, and with a sense of ignorant knowing better how things should be, they encourage cannabis use, homosexuality, ill-discipline and hatred in all its forms.

Just as anger always feels itself to be in the right, so does hatred always feel itself to be right, always feel good and justified. Leftists teach that feeling right is being right. They teach jealousy, resentment, anger and hatred as being feel-good emotions, as guiding personal lights. They teach jealousy, resentment and hatred as if they are good emotions to have, as if they are love and caring. They teach a sick kind of false love and caring driven by hatred, that is not love at all, just hatred dressed as love and caring.

They lead naive people astray, into a delusion of false virtue. And they teach these awful things to primary children, youths, university students, to women and mothers, to counselling clients, to people in all sorts of support groups, corrections rehabilitation programs, drug and alcohol programs, through the media, and through every avenue they can.

It all gets me down. Most of the time I soldier on in my little life, doing what I can to relieve hardship on others, to encourage in my fellow humans a love of freedom, and individual strength and virtue. I create my own little bubble of goodwill around me that, along with prayer, protects me from the oppressive radiance of disguised hatred that exists around me, for hatred by definition is the desire to harm, the desire for destruction, and lefties I mix with have lots of that.

But sometimes my protective bubble seems to burst and I feel the hatred and the false virtue of the world come upon me like finding oneself deep under the sea with no air to breathe, just water. My heart aches for something but I don’t know what for – for a home? Where could that be? Where is there a place like me? Possibly nowhere. I expect it will pass. I will walk and do my prayers and fortify myself, rebuild my protective bubble of forgiveness for others that enables me to work amongst deluded lefties who hate society and want it destroyed while believing they are society’s good people, the caring ones, and I will get back to work doing what I can, at least until another change comes along.

Now we have Trump on the scene, a man at the helm who vows to fight back against the illogicality of leftism, promising to take the fight to the forces of destruction and defeat them.

Other leaders like him are stirring in other parts of the western world. Not all of these rising anti-leftists are truth attuned, some are reacting emotionally against what they see as the illogicality of leftism, and in so doing are themselves expressing a different form of leftism just as prone to error as the leftism they oppose. So leftism fights leftism.

Emotions seldom make good decisions. I cannot see how it is possible to turn the tide of leftism without bringing things to a head. Great societal pendulums don’t swing back without great social upheavals. I doubt that Trump can do what he says he will do. Only people en masse can do that. If he tries to turn things around on his own, out of synch with the turning of sufficient masses, then he will fail.

I think success or failure will be in the timing. And either way there is sure to be conflicts and upheavals. Through history left and right have been steadily becoming more intelligent, more polarised, and more powerful. Leftist intelligence manifests as cunning.

Now, with instant communications between individuals and leaders, and rapid transport of individuals, armies, and goods, the world has become one great stage, no longer many stages as it has been through history. The opposing forces of left and right, of emotion and reason, of false and genuine goodness, that exist in potential in every individual, are now manifesting collectively and positioning themselves across the entire world stage like never before. Like a giant chess game.

I think the beginning game is past, and the mid game is building. And I think every seven billion of us, each in our own way, in our own sphere of influence, play a role in this battle.

I think it is the great battle between desire and better judgement from which all other battles stem. I think what we are seeing is the collective human organism living itself out as a result of how each individual is living themselves out.

Via email

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Reforming CFPB Isn't Enough. Eliminate It

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has a positive-sounding name. But in five and a half years since its creation, the CFPB has proven that the agency is merely an excuse for a massive expansion of federal regulatory power. The CFPB doesn’t protect consumers, as its name suggests. Rather, the American people need protection from the CFPB.

It’s time to end this failed experiment. Let’s return the CFPB’s regulatory responsibilities to the specific departments and agencies covering the relevant industries, and of course, to the states that have been responsible for basic consumer protection for a long, long time. I should know. As a former attorney general of Virginia, I took my responsibility to protect consumers seriously.

The Dodd-Frank Act created the CFPB as an unaccountable agency, with a director that could not be removed, a budget from the Federal Reserve that was self-determined, and sweeping legislative, judicial and executive powers vested in the person of the director. Indeed, this design was such an affront to the U.S. Constitution that a U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit declared the agency’s single-director structure unconstitutional. In what should be an unsurprising development, the CFPB has abused its unaccountable power.

SOURCE

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When will drug prohibitionists learn what alcohol prohibitionists found out?

January marks the 97th anniversary of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which in 1920 banned the manufacture, sale, and transport of “intoxicating liquors.” Backers hailed Prohibition as a cure for many of society’s problems, arguing it would reduce crime and corruption, prevent the disintegration of American families, and lower the tax burden from prisons and poorhouses.

Despite these good intentions the 18th Amendment failed. Although alcohol consumption sharply decreased at the beginning of Prohibition, it quickly rebounded. Within a few years consumption was between 60 and 70 percent of its pre-Prohibition level. The quality and potency of bootleg liquor varied greatly, resulting in deaths from poisoning and overdoses.

Barred from buying legal alcohol, many former drinkers switched to opium and cocaine. Organized crime flourished.
In light of all those failures, Prohibition was repealed in 1933 by ratification of the 21st Amendment.

The idea that banning a product can stop its sale and use should be laughable even to those untrained in economics. Alas the 18th Amendment wasn’t the government’s last foray into prohibition. For more than 40 years, the U.S. government has waged the War on Drugs.

Proponents of drug prohibition promise many benefits, like reducing crime, preventing the spread of drug-related illnesses, and dismantling criminal cartels. Just like alcohol prohibition, however, these policies have failed. For example, overdoses have skyrocketed.  According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 1980, 2.7 deaths per 100,000 people in the United States were drug-related. By 1990 that toll rose to 3.4. But in 2014, 40,055 people died of overdoses—14.7 per 100,000 people.

As alcohol prohibition showed, crime thrives in the black market. Today organized drug enterprises like Mexican cartels flourish. Joaquín Guzmán, better known as “El Chapo,” sells more drugs today than the notorious Pablo Escobar did at the height of his cocaine empire.

The problems associated with U.S. drug policy have not lessened under the Obama administration. In 2010 President Obama launched a new National Drug Control Strategy, which was to lower overdose deaths, overall use, and use by young people, among other things, by 2015.

By its own measurements, however, the administration’s strategy has been an utter disaster. Between 2013 and 2014 alone, heroin overdose deaths increased 28 percent. They are 440 percent higher today than they were under President Bush. And despite Obama’s goals, prescription-opioid deaths have also increased.

Marijuana use by high school students remains roughly constant, though it was supposed to decline by 15 percent. For 18-25-year-olds the “past-month” rate of use was projected to fall 10 percent. Instead it increased 12 percent. Other statistics tell similar stories. “Lifetime” drug use by eighth-graders, for example, is up 8 percent since 2007. Driving under the influence of drugs has also increased.

It’s unclear whether drug policy will improve under the Trump administration, but many are pessimistic. In a recent interview Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a well-known drug-policy-reform advocate, expressed concerns over the appointment of John Kelly as secretary of homeland security, stating that “the Trump administration looks like bad news for almost every element of drug policy reform—from sentencing to marijuana … to the international aspects, to the you name it.” In another interview, Nadelmann referred to Sen. Jeff Sessions, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, as a “drug war dinosaur.” He noted Sessions’s support of Nancy Reagan’s antiquated “Just Say No” campaign despite overwhelming evidence of failure. More than 1,200 law professors published an open letter opposing his nomination, citing among other issues “regressive drug policies.”

Drug policy is the concern of all Americans. In 2010 the U.S. government spent some $50 billion on the War on Drugs—that’s $500 a second on policies that have failed.

When policies don’t deliver on their promises, policymakers have two options. They can repeal the policies and try something new or double down on their mistakes.  After 13 years, the failure of the 18th Amendment was clear for all to see. The drug war is now more than 40 years old. When will the prohibitionists learn?

SOURCE

NEWS:  Chris Brand is still in hospital and still recovering but still in good spirits, thanks in part to Shiou, his dedicated wife

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

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

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Politician does what he says he was going to do. World reels.

Leftists are a thousand times more upset at people from terror-linked countries being banned than actual Islamic terror attacks. Amazing.  

Funny, but the only time Leftists pretend to support religion is when a Republican President tries to protect America from Islamic terrorism

Obama banned Muslims entering the USA in 2011 for 6 months. Not a word

The elites are horrified at Trump leaping to keep his promises about immigration.  How gauche that is, they appear to think.

But the uproar the elites have created has provided billions of dollars worth of worldwide free publicity for the new policy.  It will immediately be known to just about everybody in the target countries.  In his election campaign, DT got immense publicity by saying "extreme" things.  Now he is getting immense publicity by DOING "extreme" things.  He is a master media manager.  So whatever happens subsequently everyone will know now that getting to America is no longer a soft touch.

And the elites have long ago shot their bolt with Trump.  They have abused him so often and for so much that they are now like the boy who cried wolf. Their bucketsfull of abuse will bounce right off as they always have from Trump.  Had they been polite and measured in their comments about him they might now have been listened to.  But they were not.  So Trump has no reason to respect their claims and arguments. He has every reason to ignore them.  The only question for Trump will be what his voters think.  And you can be sure that they will be ecstatic at his quickness to keep his promise

Note that there is in fact no actual Muslim Ban. There's a temporary ban for 90 days from 7 countries. That's it.


Top Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway took to Twitter to praise the president's executive actions halting refugee admission to the United States

"Get used to it. @POTUS is a man of action and impact," Conway tweeted, along with a link to a Fox News segment in which she talked about how Trump followed through on his campaign promise to implement "extreme vetting" of refugees and migrants from certain countries.

"I don't think Washington is accustomed to somebody who's just been a brilliant businessman, who's accustomed to delivering and producing results, who's accountable to, in this case, the people," Conway said during her Fox News interview.

"Promises made, promises kept," her tweet continued. "Shock to the system. And he's just getting started."

Donald Trump signed an executive order on Friday that banned refugees from entering the US for 120 days. Syrians have been banned indefinitely, and asylum-seekers from six Muslim-majority countries -- Sudan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Lebanon, and Yemen -- have been barred entry for at least the next three months.

Critics of Trump's refugee ban say it is discriminatory and violates the Constitution's religious freedom guarantees.

"Today's executive actions dishonor our values and do not address the threat of terrorism," said a statement released by House Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Friday. "Americans of all faiths must confront and reject any attempt to target for exclusion or discrimination anyone on the basis of their religion."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also slammed the president's executive actions. "Tears are running down the cheeks of the Statue of Liberty tonight as a grand tradition of America, welcoming immigrants, that has existed since America was founded has been stomped upon, taking in immigrants and refugees is not only humanitarian but has also boosted our economy and created jobs decade after decade," Schumer said.

He continued: "This is one of the most backward and nasty executive orders that the president has issued."

SOURCE

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Trump Immigration Ban Still In Place Despite Court Ruling, Says DHS

Hours after a federal judge issued a stay on President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily restricting entry to the U.S. from seven Muslim-majority countries, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and a senior White House adviser issued robust responses, emphasizing that the order remains in force.

In a statement issued in the early hours of Sunday, the Department said: "President Trump's Executive Orders remain in place — prohibited travel will remain prohibited, and the U.S. government retains its right to revoke visas at any time if required for national security or public safety."

The responses came just hours after federal Judge Ann Donnelly of the Eastern District of New York granted an emergency stay on parts of the order late Saturday. Her ruling came in response to a lawsuit brought by the ACLU on behalf of two Iraqi refugees who had been detained at New York's John F. Kennedy airport.

The stay will prevent the government from deporting citizens from the affected countries that had already arrived in the U.S.The ACLU estimated that around 200 people would be affected by the ruling.

For travelers outside of the U.S. however, even those with valid visas, the ruling will not change the restrictions imposed on them by the order.

SOURCE

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The hypocrisy of the Left still thriving



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A new alignment with Labor unions?

The picture of the new president sitting with some of his most ardent opponents from organized labor has got to send shivers down the spines of Democratic Party insiders.

Open Secrets reports that private sector unions contributed more than $25 million in political donations in 2016, with an overwhelming majority going to Democrats. But the real political power of labor unions within the Democratic Party is their established political network, which provides instant trained grassroots to benefit candidates they support.

Trump’s White House invitation and meeting threaten to rip asunder the out-of-power Democrat establishment’s precariously balanced coalition of environmental anti-economic-growth elitists and labor union-identifying blue-collar workers.

To date, the top-down rule of labor organizations has assured the Democratic Party the benefits of the money and muscle that these groups can provide, while increasingly losing their voters’ support.

In the first 100 hours of the Trump administration, Democratic Party hegemony through that top-down rule has been shaken, as many of the leaders who visited the White House received access they never had to Barack Obama, who was pivoting toward a loose coalition of millennials, Silicon Valley elites and identity politics-based voters, and away from the blue-collar voters who had been a mainstay of decades of electoral success.

The meeting with the labor leaders preceded Trump’s signature on a memorandum withdrawing the United States’ signature from the crown jewel of Obama’s trade policy, the Trans-Pacific Partnership — giving the union leaders a big win. Less than two hours later, Trump was signing another memorandum undoing the Democrat policy of administratively killing the job-creating Keystone XL pipeline, a high priority of many of the union leaders who were in the Oval Office.

International Brotherhood of Teamsters General President James Hoffa Jr. applauded President Trump, crowing in victory: “This is a major step toward putting more Americans to work, building the infrastructure that we need and creating economic prosperity.”

Just as Candidate Trump dismantled conventional wisdom by ripping through the Democrats’ vaunted Blue Wall of Rust Belt states, President Trump seems intent on moving forward with policies he perceives will help rebuild our nation’s manufacturing base. However, unlike those Republicans in the 1950s who declared that whatever was good for General Motors was good for America, Trump’s cry seems to be, whatever is good for the American worker who makes, builds and extracts wealth, is good for the country and the world.

SOURCE

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Anti Trump Leftists thought it would be cute to block a street. The police weren’t playing

A group of Portland, Oregon anti-Trump rioters who consider themselves “The Resistance” thought it would be fun to trap people on a bus as they blocked traffic.

Bringing downtown traffic to a halt, the protesters thought they would be greeted with cheers.  Boy, were they wrong.

Video captured by Fox 12 reporter Kelsey Watts shows the protesters surrounded by screaming commuters, who cursed at them and told them to stop blocking traffic.

And that’s when the police showed up. In riot gear.  The video shows armored police running into the mob of protesters at full speed, plowing them across the pavement like a bulldozer.  The protest was cleared in seconds. 14 liberals were arrested.

As police smashed their way into the protest the crowd in this notoriously liberal city…burst into wild cheers.  “Take them all down!,” shouted a man.  “Some of us just want to get home,” said a woman.

Between this, and Washington, D.C. charging anti-Trump leftists with felony rioting, it appears big cities are getting sick and tired of dealing with liberal lunacy.

SOURCE

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

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

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Left wing hate groups on the rise

I have been saying for a long time that hate is the chief identifier of Leftists so I am pleased that David Horowitz (below) has also taken up that theme -- JR

Last weekend's "women's marches" (which actually should have been called "left wing women's marches") had many elements that should make us shudder...

They were filled with embarrassing lewdness and obscenity.
They allowed speakers like actress Ashley Judd to make fools of themselves and showcased politically senile retreads like Jane Fonda and Gloria Steinem.

They were accompanied by violent mobs that trashed shopping centers and fought with police. They might have been dressed up in light heartedness, but the silly hats couldn't disguise the fact that they were hatefests in action.

But this shouldn't surprise us. Hatred is the lifeblood of the Left and has been since the French Revolution. Hate is the Left's political homeland and its reason for being.

You see, one of the biggest of the Left's Big Lies is that conservative political groups and movements are universally motivated by hatred – of blacks, Hispanics and other ethnic groups; of homosexuals, transsexuals and other gender minorities; of immigrants, Muslims and others who are "marginalized" and therefore vulnerable.

This Big Lie is an exercise in what Freud called "projection" and which psychologists define as denying abhorrent emotions in oneself by attributing them to others.

There are indeed haters on the Right, but for the most part they are on its fringe – demented individuals or tiny groups whose political apparatus consists of little more than an obscure post office box and a toxic website.

For the Left, however, hatred is a mass movement. Left hate groups swim successfully in the American mainstream.

And because of the Left bias in our culture and media, their followers, like those at the women's marches, can posture as idealists and protectors of the downtrodden while spewing hate. For them, hatred is no fault.

These groups don't operate in the dark. They spew their hate every day as proud members of the vast leftwing network that supported Barack Obama's efforts to "radically transform America" and they've already declared open war on the Trump administration.

Just look at the Southern Poverty Law Center that raises millions of dollars every year attacking respected conservatives like Charles Murray as "racists" and anti-Islamist intellectuals like Ayaan Hirshi Ali as "Islamophobes..."

Or how Black Lives Matters hate-filled rhetoric has had deadly consequences for police officers...

And let's not forget Students for Justice in Palestine, which has become the chief organizer and sponsor of anti-Israel hatefests that have become common occurrences on our campuses!

Via email.  See also the booklet "Left Wing Hate Groups" for more extensive coverage

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The two-faced Left

Ever thought of blowing up the White House? Madonna has. Addressing the Women’s March in Washington, the star said she’d thought about doing it “an awful lot.”

Imagine if Donald Trump had said that before he was elected president. Or if our own Pauline Hanson had made a quip about bombs and parliaments in Australia.

Live feeds from Sunday’s Washington march were cut by some networks when Madonna’s rant took an expletive-laced turn for the worse. Many were angered by her threats.

Newt Gingrich thought Madonna should be arrested for her remarks. He accused her of being part of “an emerging left-wing fascism.”

“I spoke in metaphor,” Madonna pleaded in self-defence. “I’m not a violent person.” She said she was simply trying to express the outrage she felt about the election of Trump.

The so-called ‘fascist Left’ does outrage well. During the campaign, candidate Trump prevaricated about accepting the election result. He was roundly condemned by the left.

But when the result became known, it was the tribunes of outrage on the Left who rejected the result. Thousands took to American streets in violent protest at Trump’s victory.

The Women’s March in DC, a circus of identity politics, was held days after the inauguration — before many appointments to the Trump administration had even been completed.

There was no basis for such a protest other than “perceived” fear and “perceived” threats said to be felt by women whose preferred candidate had been defeated.

Madonna said she hopes to effect change “with love.” But the American people have effected change already in a fully constitutional presidential election, without bomb threats.

Outrage, violence and vandalism are all now firmly established in the arsenal of the left who claim to be motivated by passion and love, and not hatred. Protest is what they do best.

The hatred of the protesting, fascist Left is not just emerging, as Gingrich suggested. It is already with us.

SOURCE

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Trump's America First Policy Is Conservative Policy

"My goal," said candidate Donald Trump, "is to establish a foreign policy that will endure for several generations."

He spoke these words last April in a prepared address delivered, not at a massive rally in a basketball arena, but before a few Washington insiders at the Mayflower Hotel.

After this speech, Inside-the-Beltway elitists scoffed at what they tried to depict as Trump's simple-minded views on foreign affairs.

The Washington Post was happy to report that Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina had tweeted: "Not sure who is advising Trump on foreign policy, but I can understand why he's not revealing their names."

Dana Milbank, a columnist for the Post, wrote: "This speech was at an eighth-grade comprehension level, five years beyond Trump's usual."

The Post's own editorial was headlined: "Trump's incoherent, inconsistent, incomprehensible foreign policy."

But whose policies have put America in greater peril in recent years?

The foreign policies of the last two administrations - one Republican and one Democrat - were not only simple-minded, but also disastrous.

"It all began with the dangerous idea that we could make Western democracies out of countries that had no experience or interest in becoming a Western democracy," Trump told the Washington insiders assembled at the Mayflower.

"We tore up what institutions they had," he said, "and then were surprised at what we unleashed."

One of President Barack Obama's defining moments in foreign policy was his unilateral and unconstitutional decision to order the U.S. military to intervene in Libya's civil war.

"Today I authorized the Armed Forces of the United States to begin a limited military action in Libya in support of an international effort to protect Libyan civilians," Obama said at the time.

The Constitution gives Congress the power to determine when this nation will use military force - except, as James Madison recorded in his notes on the Constitutional Convention, when it is necessary for the president to "repel sudden attacks."

Obama never argued he was acting in defense of the United States - or on congressional authority - when he intervened in Libya. He said he was acting in defense of a U.N. resolution.

"Actions have consequences, and the writ of the international community must be enforced," Obama said. "That is the cause of this coalition."

Obama's use of the U.S. military to defend the "writ of the international community" helped precipitate the fall of Muammar Qaddafi - an authoritarian one-time terror backer who had given up his weapons-of-mass-destruction programs and restored diplomatic relations with the United States. It also facilitated the rise of radical Islamic terrorists who murdered American diplomats-and, ultimately, the rise of the Islamic State, which demonstrated its own vision by beheading Christians on a Libyan beach.

In his second inaugural address, President George W. Bush expressed a vision consistent with Obama's intervention in Libya and his own invasion of Iraq.

"So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world," said Bush.

This vision, exemplified by Bush's removal of the secular Iraqi authoritarian Saddam Hussein, resulted in the rise of the Islamic State in Sunni-dominated regions in Iraq and Syria.

Now, the Islamic State is committing genocide against Christians there - and sending thousands of Sunni Muslim refugees, whose backgrounds and intentions cannot be adequately vetted, into Europe and the United States.

"We are going to finally have a coherent foreign policy based upon American interests, and the shared interests of our allies," Trump said in his speech at the Mayflower.

"We are getting out of the nation-building business, and instead focusing on creating stability in the world," he said.

"Our goal is peace and prosperity, not war and destruction," he said. "The best way to achieve those goals is through a disciplined, deliberate and consistent foreign policy."

It means following a prudential path that puts America first - not some utopian, unachievable internationalist ideal.

"Many Americans must wonder why our politicians seem more interested in defending the borders of foreign countries than their own," Trump said.

"Americans must know that we are putting the American people first again," he said. "On trade, on immigration, on foreign policy - the jobs, incomes and security of the American worker will always be my first priority."

"I will view the world through the clear lens of American interests," he said. "We will no longer," he said, "surrender this country, or its people, to the false song of globalism."

This is not a naive vision. It is a realistic, achievable conservative vision - that, if pursued as Donald Trump promised, can help preserve American prosperity and American freedom.

SOURCE

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

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

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The stockmarket thinks Trump is on the right path

The Dow Jones smashed the landmark 20,000 barrier for the first time ever this afternoon as optimism about Trump’s pro-growth policies boosted financial markets.

Resuming a rally that began in the wake of Donald Trump’s shock US presidential election win, the index rose by as much as 0.73pc to 20,057.89.

The rally was reignited by Trump’s signing of numerous executive orders since his inauguration on Friday. Last night, he also tweeted about his intention to build a wall on the Mexican border.

It has taken the index just two short months, or 42 sessions, to climb from the first close above 19,000 to 20,000. It’s worth noting the rise between 18,000 and 19,000 took some 483 trading sessions.

SOURCE

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Why Leftists are violent and more criminal



It follows from their personalities and beliefs.  It's basic to who they are

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Trump threatens the identity of Leftists

First there was the woman at Hillary Clinton's election night "victory party" who curled up in the fetal position and began crying after learning there was to be no victory. But that's just one person, I thought.

Then, on the eve of his inauguration, New York Times columnist Charles Blow not only declared Donald Trump's presidency illegitimate, he addressed the president elect in this way: "You will wear that scarlet `I' on your tan chest for as long as you sit in the White House." Hmm, I guess that's just like Hester Prynne's scarlet "A." Okay, I thought, that's just one hyperbolic columnist and in one increasingly partisan newspaper - even if it is supposed to be "the paper of record."

But then there was a full-page advertisement in the Times (imagine how much that must have cost), in which activists, celebrities and intellectuals, including Bill Ayers, Deborah Messing, Alice Walker, Cornell West and "thousands more," signed on to this message: NO! IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY, WE REFUSE TO ACCEPT A FACIST AMERICA! The ad blared these words in 36-point type. It followed with: STOP THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME BEFORE IT STARTS.

Normally, as you go through the stages of grief, you are supposed to "get over it." But in this case grief seems to be feeding on grief, and it's spiraling out of hand. At last count, one-third of the Democrats in the House of Representatives boycotted President Trump's inauguration. Paul Krugman, writing in the Times, called the boycott "an act of patriotism."

The anti-Trump mentality has been showing up in the strangest places. The names of First Family members have long been a staple of crossword puzzles. The New York Times puzzles, for example, have routinely used clues for which Obama, Sasha and Malia were the answers. (Constructors love answers with lots of vowels.) But the other day, crossword blogger Rex Parker railed at length over the Times' use of Trump children's names in this manner. The practice "normalizes" the new president, he wrote.

So, what's going on? Is some sort of malady infecting the mental faculties of famous people and the media elite? Or, is the disease more widespread?

The latter it turns out. Facebook reports that liberals are six or seven times more likely to "de-friend" conservatives than the other way around. A doctor writing at Slate says that he and some of his colleagues are seeing quite a few cases of "Trump anxiety," including patients with suicidal thoughts. Now, if you are in the country illegally, I could understand some increased anxiety. But the affected patients included gays, blacks, Jews, women and others who are full-fledged citizens.

Now, for the record, throughout his presidential campaign Donald Trump made not one statement that could be construed as anti-black, anti-gay or anti-Semitic. How do I know that? Because if he did, the statements would have appeared on the front page of The New York Times and in just about every other newspaper in the country. Not only did he not display any of those prejudices, his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach opened to everybody - in the first major challenge to what has probably been the most discriminatory resort city in the whole country.

He did make out-of-bounds statements about women and may have engaged in behavior that was caddish, even brutish, in the past. But remember who he was running against. According to the late Christopher Hitchens (whose honesty no one questioned), there are a number of women who have made credible claims (only one that is public) that Bill Clinton raped them. There is nothing Donald Trump is accused of doing or saying that even begins to match that. Nor, in my opinion, does Trump's behavior even begin to match Hillary Clinton's role as supervisor of "bimbo control."

So how can we explain a women's march to protest the Trump inauguration? Or blacks who tell other blacks they are a "disgrace to their race" if they participate in the inauguration?

One thing seems likely. It has nothing to do with Donald Trump.

Dartmouth professor Sean Westwood and Stanford University professor Shanto Iyengar have been researching these issues and they have concluded that in the modern world, political is personal. People's identities are connected to their political affiliations. Writing in The New York Times, Amanda Taub explains: "Today, political parties are no longer just the people who are supposed to govern the way you want. They are a team to support, and a tribe to feel a part of. And the public's view of politics is becoming more and more zero-sum: It's about helping their team win, and making sure the other team loses."

If you think about the recent election, only one candidate ran on issues. And you probably won't have to think very hard to remember what some of Trump's issues were: trade, taxes, immigration, the way we treat veterans.

Can you say with any certainty what Hillary Clinton's position is on international trade? How about what she would do with the corporate income tax? How would she reform immigration policy? What would she do differently with the VA?

I bet you don't know. And even if you think you know, I bet that almost no one else you know knows - not even your spouse.

There is a reason for that. Hillary Clinton in particular and the Democratic Party in general did not run in this last election on issues. They ran on identity politics. And when they lost, people who bought into their message felt their identity threatened.

SOURCE

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Trump Wants to Slash Regulations by 75%. Here’s How Regulatory Reform Could Boost US

During a White House meeting with business leaders on Monday, President Donald Trump pledged to slash regulations by at least 75 percent.

Activists were positively apoplectic, of course, and media ridicule was swift. But exaggerated as the comment was, the larger point is incontrovertible: The unparalleled expansion of the administrative state is crushing America’s entrepreneurial spirit, productivity, and economic growth.

Monday was not the first time Trump stressed the need to reduce “out of control” regulation. As a candidate, he repeatedly vowed to cut regulation “massively” and “remove the anchor dragging us down.”

And he’s right about that anchor; the need for regulatory reform has never been greater. There is virtually no aspect of our lives over which laws and ordinances do not reign. Congress and federal bureaucrats routinely ignore regulatory costs, exaggerate benefits, and breach legislative and constitutional boundaries.

Independent estimates peg the cost of regulation at more than $2 trillion annually—more than is collected in income taxes each year. In the past eight years alone, the Obama administration issued more than 22,700 rules, which increased annual regulatory costs by more than $120 billion. (And that’s a lowball estimate.)

Combined with the regulatory burdens imposed during the administration of George W. Bush, the annual cost of red tape has increased by at least $200 billion in the past 15 years.

But the problem is not just the number and cost of regulation. It is also the approach.

Conventional wisdom has long held that government controls of industry are the best and only way to protect the public. We now know better. Forty years of command-and-control regimes have led to massive, ineffective, and unaccountable bureaucracies.

Based on fiscal year 2017 budget figures, administering red tape will cost taxpayers nearly $70 billion, an increase of 97 percent since 2000. A big part of the increase is the wages paid to regulators—who now number an all-time high of 279,000.

The bigger the federal government has grown, the more essential political influence has become, leading to corruption in the regulatory realm. All of this has weakened property rights, inhibited innovation, and increased the prices of food, fuel, fiber, and minerals.

States and the private sector can and should play a far greater role. It isn’t necessary—or wise—to allow Washington to control everything. States are better equipped to customize policies for local conditions, and land owners have greater incentives than the government to protect private property. Both groups can act regionally when there are cross-border components to regulatory issues.

A less centralized regime would also mean more direct accountability—taxpayers would have an easier time identifying the officials responsible for environmental policies, and the people making those regulatory decisions would have to live with the consequences. Property owners would be held accountable through common law.

Trump will need all of the means available to him to countermand the injurious policies inflicted on the nation by the Obama administration (with help from Congress) during the past eight years.

For purposes of steering regulatory policy, the president’s authority to appoint the heads of executive branch agencies (under the Appointments Clause of the Constitution) is among the most effective. The president also wields budgetary influence over regulatory agencies, and proposed funding should emphasize regulatory reform over the status quo.

Executive orders represent a direct means by which the president establishes his or her policies (although the president cannot override statutory directives to agencies unless the law expressly grants that power). We hope Trump will waste no time rescinding the numerous orders issued by Obama to sidestep Congress, on labor, immigration, and environmental issues, in particular.

The Trump administration also would do well to review all pending litigation and designate cases for settlement, including challenges to former President Barack Obama’s untenable Clean Power Plan; his radical transgender bathroom directive; and the Environmental Protection Agency’s egregious waters of the U.S. rule, which affects property rights

The ultimate White House influence on rule-making may well be the regulatory review process administered by the Office of Management and Budget.

Specifically, the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is responsible for reviewing proposed and final regulations; managing agency requests for information collection; and overseeing data quality government-wide. That is real power in an era of regulatory overload.

The Trump administration should replace the existing regime by imposing stricter standards for review, expanding the scope of review, and increasing transparency of the review process.

The end of the Obama administration—perhaps the most regulatory administration in history—greatly improves the outlook for regulatory reform. It matters little whether Trump errs in his rhetoric as long as his actions reshape regulation for the 21st century

SOURCE

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

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

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Moral conservatism and Nazism

I wrote the post below as an update to my big article on Hitler but I think it has a place here too

Nazis preached tradition and particularly traditional morality in a number of ways.  A well-known example was the role of women, with the traditional German conception of Kinder, Kueche, Kirche (children kitchen, church) being honoured.  And as is equally well-known, the Nazis persecuted homosexuals.

Their artistic taste was also conservative.  Rather ironically they organized the most visited art exhibition ever seen:  The exhibition of Entartete Kunst (degenerate art.)  They put up an exhibition of modern German art which they saw as disgusting, in the belief that most other Germans would also see it as disgusting.  We will never know, however, how many of the viewers actually liked what they saw. Below is one of the exhibits:



So how can we reconcile that with their being Leftist? In answering that I once again have to stress that the Nazis were Leftist BY THE STANDARDS OF THEIR DAY.  Most Leftists of the time were conservative in the ways I have mentioned.  With the exception of the role of women, even the Soviets were fairly conservative morally.  Right up to the implosion of the Soviet Union, Soviet representatives claimed that there was no such thing as homosexuality in Russia: "That was before the revolution"

But there is no doubt that the Nazis preached the "conservative" elements of their doctrine more vigorously than other Leftists of the day.  And again, context explains that. Weimar Germany of the 1920s was a time in which social, artistic, and philosophical revolutions took root and flourished.  It was extraordinarily "progressive" and contemptuous of all traditional rules.  The surreal became commonplace in German cinema. The cultural atmosphere at that time was in fact startlingly similar to modern times.  There was open homosexuality and sexual promiscuity generally and traditional mores were mocked.  So the Nazis had a lot to react against. They were just conventional Leftists, not avant garde Leftists.

What is Leftist in any era changes.  The focus can be on many things. But what abidingly defines the Left is their wish to "fundamentally transform" their society (To quote Mr. Obama). In Hitler's case, he wanted to fundamentally transform the world -- JR

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The Collapse of the Left:  A Marxist view

His characterization of the Democrats is pretty spot-on

The Left is not just in disarray--it is in complete collapse because the working class has awakened to the Left's betrayal and abandonment of the working class in favor of building personal wealth and power.

The source of the angry angst rippling through the Democratic Party's progressive camp is not President Trump--it's the complete collapse of the Left globally. To understand this collapse, we turn (once again) to Marx's profound understanding of the state and capitalism.

We turn not to the cultural Marxism that is passingly familiar to Americans, but to Marx's core economic analysis, which as Sartre noted, is only taught to discredit it.

Cultural Marxism draws as much from Engels as Marx. In today's use, cultural Marxism describes the overt erosion of traditional values--the family, community, religious faith, property rights and limited central government--in favor of rootless Cosmopolitanism and an expansive, all-powerful central state that replaces community, faith and property rights with statist control mechanisms that enforce dependence on the state and a mindset that the individual is guilty of anti-state thinking until proven innocent by the state's own rules.

Marx's critique of capitalism is economic: capital and labor are in eternal conflict. In Marx's analysis, capital has the upper hand until the internal contradictions of capitalism consume capital's control from the inside.

Capital not only dominates labor, it also dominates the state. Thus the state-cartel version of capitalism that is dominant globally is not a coincidence or an outlier--it is the the only possible outcome of a system in which capital is the dominant force.

To counter this dominance of capital, social democratic political movements arose to  wrest some measure of control out of the hands of capital in favor of labor. Social democratic movements were greatly aided by the near-collapse of the first version of cartel-capitalism in The Great Depression, when writing down the bad debt would have brought down the entire banking system and crippled capitalism's core function of growing capital via expansion of debt.

The decimated owners of capital realized that they faced a bleak choice: either resist and be toppled by anarchism or Communism, or cede some of their wealth and power to the social democratic parties in exchange for social, political and economic stability.
Broadly speaking, the Left favored labor (whose rights were protected by the state) and the Right favored capital (also protected by the state).

But over the past 25 years of globalized neoliberalism, social democratic movements have abandoned labor to embrace the self-serving wealth and power offered by capital. The essence of globalization is: labor is commoditized as mobile capital is free to roam the globe for the lowest cost labor. In contrast, labor is far less mobile, and unable to shift as fluidly and frictionlessly as capital to exploit scarcities and opportunities.

Neoliberalism--the opening of markets and borders--enables capital to effortlessly crush labor. The social democrats, in embracing open borders, have institutionalized an open immigration that shreds the scarcity value of domestic labor in favor of lower cost immigrant labor that serves capital's desire for lower costs.

Globalization and neoliberal financial / immigration policies signify the collapse of the Left and the victory of capital. Now capital completely dominates the state and its cronyist structures--political parties, lobbying, campaign contributions, charitable foundations operating as pay-for-play cash vacuums, and all the other features of cartel-state capitalism.

To mask the collapse of the Left's economic defense of labor, the Left's apologists and PR machine have substituted social justice movements for economic opportunities to acquire economic security and capital. This has succeeded brilliantly, as tens of millions of self-described "progressives" completely bought the left's Great Con that "social justice" campaigns on behalf of marginalized social groups were the defining feature of Progressive Social Democratic movements.

This diversionary sleight-of-hand embrace of economically neutered "social justice" campaigns masked the fact that social democratic parties everywhere have thrown labor into the churning propellers of globalization, open immigration and neoliberal financial policies--all of which benefit mobile capital, which has engorged itself on the abandonment of labor by the Left.

Meanwhile, the fat-cats of the Left have engorged themselves on capital's largesse in exchange for their treachery. Bill and Hillary Clinton's $200 million in "earnings" come to mind, as do countless other examples of personal aggrandizement by self-proclaimed "defenders" of labor.

Please examine this chart, which depicts labor's share of GDP (economic output), and tell me the Left hasn't abandoned labor in favor of personal wealth and power.

The Left is not just in disarray--it is in complete collapse because the working class has awakened to the Left's betrayal and abandonment of the working class in favor of building personal wealth and power. Anyone who denies this is still in the fatal grip of the Left's Great Con.

SOURCE

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Conservatives Must Stand Up to Fascist Bullies


The real haters

Inauguration Day was turned into Retribution Day as hordes of angry leftists set fires, smashed windows and clashed with police to protest President Donald Trump. Rampaging mobs caused mayhem across the fruited plain, but especially in our nation's capital. In several instances, conservatives were attacked outside Inaugural balls. Some were left bloodied and battered. Police were pelted with rocks and batteries. Many businesses were vandalized. Car windows were smashed and a limo was set ablaze.

It's all part of an effort to destabilize the nation and delegitimize President Trump's victory. The following day scores of self-described "nasty" women held profane gatherings across the country to protest the new president. Madonna told a crowd of protesters dressed in pink hats and Birkenstocks that she dreamed of blowing up the White House. "Yes, I'm angry. Yes, I am outraged. Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House. But I know this won't change anything," she told a crowd of adoring feminists. She later walked back the threat.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Madonna should've been arrested. "What you have is an emerging left-wing fascism," he told Fox & Friends. "She's part of it and I think we have to be prepared to protect ourselves. Frankly, the truth is she ought to be arrested for saying she has thought about blowing up the White House." I concur with Speaker Newt.

Our public universities have been turned into training camps for intolerant thugs hell-bent on silencing any speech they disagree with. And as they demonstrated on Inauguration Day, they will use any means necessary to accomplish that task. We are facing a clear and present danger to our families and the Republic. And we must prepare now to protect ourselves and our loved ones against these violent street thugs. Conservatives are a peaceful and law-abiding people. But we will not be intimidated. We will not be bullied. And we will not be silenced.

SOURCE

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Trump shows that economic efficiency is not everything

The interrelated complex of ideology, identity, solidarity, and collective action form the ground level in fruitful social analysis. Leaving out this complex, as both mainstream and Austrian economists usually do, means that one sacrifices the opportunity to understand what otherwise seems inexplicable or gets explained only by bizarrely twisting the standard model.

At least, so I have argued since the early 1980s, most fully in chapter 3 of Crisis and Leviathan, but with some elaboration and many applications in later works. I sometimes forget this lesson myself, lapsing into a too vulgar reliance on "following the money," but Elizabeth always calls me back to it. For just such correction, I suppose, God gives wives to husbands.

The events of U.S. politics during the past year present as glaring an example of my vision as anything I know. It's comfortable for many of us, especially those trained in mainstream economics, to suppose that economic self-interest is the bedrock of political and other collective action, but clearly-in my view, at least-it is not.

Ideology tells a person what is "in his interest"; he shapes and maintains his identity accordingly; and by acting publicly in conformity with the ideology's tenets, the person enjoys the psychological satisfaction of solidarity among the ideologically defined "good guys." As Sam Bowles once noted, people act for two distinct reasons: to get things, and to be someone. We would do well to remember the second motive, which plays a central role especially in relation to people's participation in large-group collective action.

SOURCE

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

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

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