Out and About on a Saturday

Mark Noonan24 Comments

The longer I live the more convinced I become that any concentration of power or wealth is a threat to human liberty. I can’t say I’ve got the answers to how to fix the problem, but our Constitution provides a framework for making sure that no one gets on top of another in any long-term manner…but we on the right need to seriously and deeply consider just how we will change the Constitution when we obtain power (and we will: eventually, these Progressive nitwits will wreck everything and we’ll be called in to repair the world). Term limits (everyone who goes into politics long enough gets captured by the system…so don’t let anyone be there that long); strict controls on who is allowed to spend government money; beefed up protections for the dissenters…such things need to be built into our laws; and now that we’ve learned a few lessons, built in such a way that the con-artists will have a difficult time dismantling what we put in place.

What Media Bias? Part 200 – CNN blames the GOP for Archuleta being in charge of OPM:

…When she won Senate confirmation to lead the Office of Personnel Management, the chief objections from lawmakers who voted against her focused on Obamacare.

That was October, 2013, and the 62-35 vote reflected the political concerns at the time about how the agency, which serves as the federal government’s HR department, would implement parts of the health care law opposed by Republicans…

…Less attention focused on the agency’s role in handling government security clearances and how it safeguards some of the most sensitive U.S. government databases.

Even less was paid to why Archuleta — whose most recent job was as a national political director for Obama for America, the President’s reelection campaign — was the person to help fix what was an agency already struggling to deal with technology problems and serious data breaches.

Aides to Republican lawmakers who voted for her confirmation now acknowledge they didn’t pay enough attention to the importance of technology in the agency Archuleta was taking over…

One, small fact: the Senate was in Democrat hands when Archuleta was confirmed. 35 GOPers voted against her. All 55 Democrats voted for her. Even if all 45 GOPers in the Senate at that time voted “no” she still would have been confirmed. She’s a Democrat political hack put into office by Obama and a supine, then-Democrat-controlled Senate…and CNN wants LIV to believe that somehow the GOP failed here.

Does the United States need an exorcism? I’m no theologian – but, what the heck: give it a try.

South Carolina Republicans removed the Confederate Battle Flag from the State House today. It must be noted that Democrats put it there and Democrats never made a move to remove it.

The South Carolina shooter obtained his firearm via a loophole in the law – this loophole is called The Miserably Incompetent Big Government loophole. According to Progs, it can only be fixed by making the government bigger and more incompetent.

Everyone is agog over Fox’s Megyn Kelly calling out Obama on not commenting on the murder of Kate Steinle by an illegal immigrant in a sanctuary city. I guess it is nice that someone mentioned it, but it is also quite pointless. Obama isn’t commenting on it because no comment he can make will work to his political advantage. So, it becomes a non-event – and next week we’ll move on to the next story and in a month or two Obama will be back on the hustings pressing for “comprehensive immigration reform”. Fighting Obama in the political arena is not about calling him out on his dishonesty – it is about actually fighting him. Until someone steps up and says “no” to him, we’re just spinning our wheels.

A World Flying Out of Control

Mark Noonan13 Comments

I suggested that the Chinese government would just order their money bags to stay in the market – and I was right:

China’s securities regulator banned major shareholders, corporate executives and directors from selling stakes in listed companies for six months, its latest effort to stop the nation’s $3.5 trillion stock-market rout.

Oddly enough, right about the time this order came down the line, the New York Stock Exchange had a “technical glitch”, halting trading for a few hours. Don’t you just love completely unrelated coincidences? I know I do.

Obama may just give up on setting a dead line for the Iranians to agree to a nuke deal – I guess he figures it will take them a while to figure out just how much Obama is willing to surrender and he’s kindly giving them time to expand their wish list.

Greece is asking for a three year stay on financial execution – because if the EU just shovels more cash at Greece they’re sure to reform. Right?

Because the world is so peaceful, the Army has unveiled plans to reduce our active forces by 40,000 troops.

Russia and China are getting more buddy-buddy all the time. This is amazingly stupid on the part of Russia because only in alliance with the United States can Russia hang on to Siberia in the long term…but, meanwhile, this budding alliance is a threat to the United States. Which makes our Army reductions even more sensible. Right?

The murder rate in Baltimore has skyrocketed – so the mayor of Baltimore has fired the chief of police because Reasons.

A judge is really upset at the way the Obama Administration has just ignored court orders, lied to him and essentially gone off in a lawless manner on Obama’s amnesty program. He has ordered the offending officials to appear personally in court to explain why they shouldn’t be held in contempt of court. Problem is, these guys are already breaking the law – I doubt they’ll mind breaking it, again, by not showing up as the judge has ordered. Here’s a little secret for you, boys and girls, the Judicial can only enforce its decrees with the voluntary cooperation of the Executive…in other words, all Judicial decisions are just words on paper unless the Executive decides to give force to them. To be sure, the Executive should obey Judicial orders, but if the Executive doesn’t, the only recourse is for the Legislative to impeach the Executive, which will never happen. Our government only works when people obey the rules. Welcome to a government which doesn’t obey the rules.

ISIS is crucifying people for not obeying the requirements of Ramadan. Once again, glad or Army is being reduced by 40,000 troops.

Israel and India are drawing together – faced with a lot of the same enemies, they probably figure this will be useful…and as neither of them can count on American support…

Everyone hates Donald Trump these days. He’s a blowhard. A clown. He doesn’t do politics right. To be sure, he’s not my choice for President, but the man does have guts. He’s actually losing deals and money because he’s taking a stand. Maybe it’s the wrong stand (remember: I’m the pro-amnesty guy), but he’s taking it…a little courage is refreshing. And single-handed he has taken the discussion on illegal immigration away from the “DREAMers” and put it squarely where it belongs – on the astonishing level of criminality surrounding illegal immigration. No one really has a word to say against someone who is coming to get a job – but because we allow illegal immigration – because, that is, we’re refusing to enforce our own laws – the law-breakers have completely taken over. That horrid murder in San Francisco (by an illegal immigrant, with an illegally-obtained weapon, in a gun-free zone, in a Sanctuary City) has, I think, started to focus the public mind on the real problem – and Trump was out in front on it. The GOP should stop jumping on Trump and start challenging Democrats over their lack of support for border security.

Remain Calm: All is Well!

Mark Noonan6 Comments

Just had to put this up from Zero Hedge:

China Bans Use Of Terms “Equity Disaster” And “Rescue The Market”

…And so, with every attempt to manipulate the (Chinese) market higher falling flat in the face of selling pressure from the hairdresser/ farmer/ banana vendor day trading crowd (which has now thrown in the towel on the whole “it’s easier than farm work” theory and now just wants to break even and head for the hills) the only thing left for China to do is “fix” the narrative.

In other words, when banning selling doesn’t work, the logical next step is to ban talking about selling…

…So apparently, Beijing will now prevent journalists from accidentally jawboning the market lower so that Party mouthpiece media outlets are free to jawbone the market higher.

Needless to say, we doubt if this hail Mary attempt to rescue the market will do anything at all to save China from its homemade equity disaster.

Indeed. I haven’t paid too much attention to the market slide in China because I just figured the Chinese government would order stocks to go higher – telling the money bags in China that they’d better buy or else, ya dig? But if China’s market has got a huge number of small traders who are now getting burned…well, you can shoot a dozen bankers who don’t cooperate: its a much more difficult prospect to shoot 100,000 small investors who are bailing out.

There is one thing I do know about markets – when average folks start borrowing money to invest in it because it will always go higher, then it is crash time.  We’ll see how this plays out – but China has already lost $3 trillion in stock value since June…ain’t looking too pretty.

The Problem With Bold, New Thinking: Its Rather Old and Worn Out

Mark Noonan9 Comments

Jeffrey Taylor in The Atlantic reviews Jerry Coyne’s new book, Faith Versus Fact and has this to say:

…Primarily, though, Coyne focuses on the epistemological. He notes that religion has always advanced hypotheses about the cosmos and the origins of life—matters that he argues belong within the realm of science. He bluntly evaluates faith’s record of teachings about the natural world as a “failure of religion to find out the truth about anything.” Worse, he states, faith from the start leads humans toward “thinking that an adequate explanation can be based on what is personally appealing rather than on what stands the test of empirical study.”

Coyne is clear in his argument that to understand the cosmos there is no need of a “Creator.” What science says about the temporal nature of our own solar system, in fact, renders more than improbable the existence of a divine plan for humanity. “Human tenure on Earth,” he writes, “will end when the sun … vaporize[s] the Earth in less than five billion years,” while the universe “will also end [through] heat death,” with temperatures falling to absolute zero. What does this say for those who insist there’s a divine plan for mankind on Earth? The “God of the gaps,” Coyne argues, is losing out as science fills in the missing pieces…

Gee? Really?  Well, that settles it – since this universe of ours is doomed to die, there must be no God.

Do people really believe this sort of thing?  Have the people who make such statements ever so much as cracked open a theological book? As for humanity surviving five billion years until the Sun vaporizes the planet – seriously? Anyone who is betting on humanity surviving 500 years is taking a sucker bet. If there isn’t a God who is going to save us by miraculous action, I wouldn’t be surprised if humanity was finished 200 years from now – we’re already dying off as a species at this very moment (one crucial aspect to survival of the species is having children; the global birth rate in 1950 was around 37.2 kids per 1,000 people; as of 2015, it was about 19.4…and if it keeps up, it’ll be 13.4 by 2050).

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In Congress, July 4th, 1776

Mark Noonan10 Comments

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness…

…We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Who is in Favor of America?

Mark Noonan30 Comments

Read a couple tweets yesterday from Charles Cooke (@charlescwcooke):

I don’t like its being done per se, but the fact that people can burn American flags with legal impunity helps to show me that I’m free. 1/2

And frankly I’m much more interested in that beautiful principle than in the people who choose to use it in a way that I dislike. 2/2

I replied:

Disagree; that we allow the burning of the American flag shows that there are people who want me unfree.

One burns what one does not want. The flag is an abstract symbol of freedom.

 

I like Cooke’s writing. I think he’s intelligent, well informed and far seeing. He’s a go-to guy for political commentary; so please understand I’m not actually going after Cooke. I get Cooke’s point – we must allow that which is disagreeable to us to ensure our own freedom. And, in fact, that disagreeable things go on proves that we are free. But is this really so?  Are we really free when we permit people to rampantly work for anti-freedom? Are we sure, that is, when we allow arguments against freedom to thrive that our freedom will survive?

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We Are Ten Years from Complete Conservative Victory

Mark Noonan19 Comments

Huh?  How’s that?  Wait a second, Noonan – are you nuts?  The Supreme Court just decreed that the law doesn’t matter. Furthermore, Hillary is the odds-on favorite to replace Obama so we’ll have four to eight more years of lawless liberalism imposed from on high…and even if we vote GOP, those spineless cretins will just roll over for it. You, sir, are ’round the bend – we are on the cusp of the Union of Socialist States of America.  Get used to it!

Well, not so fast. First off, it is well-known to all who study history (which pretty much excludes everyone on the left – but also a goodly portion of those on the right) that in human affairs what appears to be most strong is usually an inch away from crushing defeat while that which seems to be nearly extinguished is just about to flame into sublime victory. Looks are, indeed, very deceiving. The apparent triumph of liberalism ushered in on January 20th, 2009, is looking, upon close examination, rather rocky.  Think about it:  if liberalism was really the way things are going, then the Obama Administration would not have relied upon screwball re-writes by the Supreme Court to save their signature achievement – they would have brought it back to Congress, firm in the knowledge that liberalism is so popular that the Congressional GOP wouldn’t even dare tinker with it other than to enact what Obama demanded. Didn’t quite happen that way, now did it?  Liberalism can only win these days when there is a President who will just ignore the law and go ahead and do it…or when a bunch of lawyers find some way to twist the plain meaning of the law to suit their desires. People heading for triumph don’t act like that – people fighting a desperate rear-guard action to save themselves act like that.

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The Week That Was

Cluster22 Comments

It was a helluva week for the “fundamental transformation” of America brought to you by the fascist progressive minority and the newly minted fourth branch of government – the legislative wing of the Supreme Court. When CJ Roberts ruled on the individual mandate vs tax issue in 2012 I think everyone was a little surprised that he ignored the obvious intent of the legislation that the mandate was a “penalty”, not a tax, because the authors knew very well that selling a tax increase to pass the bill was not an option. Yet the tax angle was the only option to pass Constitutional muster, and Roberts was there to save the authors from themselves in the final ruling. Fast forward three years, once again CJ Roberts ignores the intent of the legislation as expressed by Jonathan Gruber to force State’s to set up exchanges or lose out on Federal subsidies. In order for the numbers to work, the Federal Government needed State’s to set up exchanges so they could pass on the financial burden of the subsidies, yet when many State’s refused to accept that financial burden, or went broke trying to set up exchanges, the entire ACA paradigm was in peril. Enter newly minted SC Legislator Roberts to save the day yet again as he magically waved his wand, reinterpreted the intent and made all the little fascists happy. It is obvious the SC no longer strictly interprets the constitutionality of legislation as it is written. They now have magic powers to see into the hearts of man, assess the intent and rule accordingly. And just a reminder, these folks are not up for election and serve in their positions for life, so in reality it wasn’t a good week for our “representative republic” at least on this issue.

In re: to SSM, I think public sentiment was clearly headed in this direction and despite the numerous failures at the State ballot boxes in recent years, SSM was on a trajectory towards acceptance. Enter the SC Legislative branch, who once again disrupt the natural evolution of democratic reform and impose their position on the issue upon the ignorant masses who are clearly not as evolved and wise as they are. Ironically, had patience won out and State voters were the impetus of change, this issue would not be the rancorous issue it has become. But that possibility was evidently not acceptable to the petulant progressive fascists who once again relied on the Legislative branch of the SC to impose their desires. Again, a bad week for our “representative republic”.

And while we are all adorn in rainbows, love and free health insurance, ISIS is having a field day in exploring new ways to slaughter innocent people. Remember them? I don’t even think Orwell could have envisioned this.

Government: Just a Word for Lines We Stand In Together

Mark Noonan10 Comments

Yep, the bigger we make government and the more power we give it, the better – via Hot Air:

The number of veterans seeking health care but ending up on waiting lists of one month or more is 50 percent higher now than it was a year ago when a scandal over false records and long wait times wracked the Department of Veterans Affairs, The New York Times reported. The VA also faces a budget shortfall of nearly $3 billion, the Times reported in a story posted online ahead of its Sunday editions. The agency is considering furloughs, hiring freezes and other significant moves to reduce the gap, the newspaper reported. In the last year, the VA has increased capacity by more than 7 million patient visits per year, double what officials originally thought they needed to fix shortcomings, the Times reported. However, the newspaper added, department officials did not anticipate just how much physician workloads and demand from veterans would continue to soar. At some major veterans hospitals, demand was up by one-fifth, the paper reported.

Our Big Government liberals will naturally call for more money and more bureaucrats. They will never understand that the primary purpose of government, as conducted by its officials, is to increase the power and wealth of government. Even when we restrict government to its most narrow, constitutionally-mandated powers, those in it will still be seeking after themselves, first – and the people, at best, a distant second in their concerns. It is just the way things are. People are like that. A bureaucrat has a choice in how to spend his day: vigorously working for the people (for which he will get no additional pay or benefits), or vigorously working the system to benefit himself. Guess which way things go? And this is true even if a majority of the bureaucrats are selfless – it only takes a few in the mix who are self-serving to ensure the whole system is screwed up.

The bigger the government gets the less capable it will be in doing what we want it to do. You see it, yourself, every day – schools that don’t teach; roads that are in disrepair, etc. We’re spending vastly more – in real dollars and per capita – on all things government than we ever were and things just keep getting worse. More run down, more difficult to accomplish, more lengthy in process, more expensive in the end. We need to spend a decade repealing laws and cutting down the size of government just to get to a point where the human mind can start to comprehend the scope of it and decide what to do.

Monday Morning Open Thread

Mark Noonan

Seems that the anti-Israel forces are gearing up for Gaza Flotilla III. What could go wrong? You know, you can pretty much bring all the food and medicine you want into Gaza…you just have to go thru Israeli security to do it as the Israelis have this bizarre, freakish desire to not allow arms into a place stuffed full of people who want to kill all the Jews. I know; weird.

The Russians are making a play for Greece – which reminds me that Russia has never liked the fact that they don’t control Constantinople and the Straights. The deal would be along the lines of Putin opening up a line of credit for Greece’s welfare state and Greece going into alliance with Russia. This is considered fearful, and it is – but it would actually be most immediately fearful for Turkey. In case you ever wondered why the British and the French allied themselves with the Turks to fight the Crimean War – this is why. Its a long time from 1854, but some things stay the same…and these days there is no French or British Empire with armies and navies worthy of the name.

Latest investment advice: stuff your mattress with cash.

Hillary is calling for gun control – which means if you’re a Democrat activist in a red State, don’t be expecting any visits from Hillary or campaign cash…she’s not even remotely interested in the States Romney won in 2012. Though it might work out rather funny if Sanders or someone ends up being credible in the primaries as Hillary would then have to win a vote in some red States…

In spite of electing Obama in 2008, it looks like the world is doomed.

Saw a claim on Twitter that Nixon was drunk during the Yom Kippur War – which did lead @RogerStoneJr to note this means a drunk Nixon is better than a sober Obama.

How about some quotes?

To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. – C. S. Lewis

It has been discovered that with a dull urban population, all formed under a mechanical system of State education, a suggestion or command, however senseless and unreasoned, will be obeyed if it be sufficiently repeated. – Hillaire Belloc

No weakness of the human mind has more frequently incurred animadversion, than the negligence with which men overlook their own faults, however flagrant, and the easiness with which they pardon them, however frequently repeated. – Samuel Johnson

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. – Mark Twain

The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man. – G. K. Chesterton