Thursday, March 31, 2016

Donald Trump for President -- My Anti-Manifesto

! ! ! This is not an official Western Hero Endorsement ! ! !
*** Personal opinion of Kurt Silverfiddle ***
~~ my penultimate blog post ~~

Trump’s popularity is a direct result of a tsunami of economic and cultural globalism that has flooded the shores of America over the last 25 years. (RCP - Bruce Haynes)

GOP Stool
Election 2016: A Guano-Filled Piñata

Vapid, outdated talk of the three-legged stool of GOP Conservatism (Defense, Economic, Social) makes me want to smash up the GOP saloon, shoot their piano player in the back and throw the stool through the front window...




The GOP Stool has Collapsed

Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rice burned the neocon leg off the stool in a failed Shock and Awe chemistry set experiment (Don't try this at home, kids!)...

The Free Market leg shattered and was found to be a fake Chinese knock-off made out of hollow balsa wood reinforced only by toxic lead paint...

And the nation has overwhelmingly rejected mean-faced, un-Christ-like social conservatism preached to them by a pharisaical clutch of angry hypocrites.

So, that leaves the GOP sitting on their asses on a little round wooden circle on the floor, goggled-eyed and slack-jawed, wondering what the hell happened.

No stool, no ideas, no concept of how to sell ideas if they had any, no charisma, no charity in their hearts, no clue...

And we wonder why Donald Trump is storming the ramparts and on his way to being the GOP's standard-bearer...

El Trumpo has elicited absurdities from the GOP such as...

* He will destroy the GOP brand among women, minorities and immigrants (I'll pause so the laughter can subside)

* Vote Hillary to save conservatism from Trump (this reveals the true GOP establishmentarian mindset: Reject millions of new GOP voters and go down in flames to International Crime Boss Hillary Clinton rather than win with Trump)

Trump is the Revolution we've been waiting for

The Republican Establishment hates Trump: The GOP (along with the Democrats) have whored themselves out to Wall Street, The Crony Chamberpot of Communists and global corporations. They have sold our birthright out from under us, all in the name of pristine economic theory that works great in a cold, sterile vacuum, but in reality has wrecked whole communities and the lives of millions.

The Democrat Establishment hates Trump:  An increasingly elite, upscale and uber-rich Democrat Party abandoned the working class years ago. The Democrats dance for the big money now, reaping millions and billions from Silicon Valley, Wall Street, corporations and urban professionals, even as they excoriate them and preach false populist demagoguery to the naive masses. So we now have a DC uni-party Peronism of the elite, by the elite and for the elite, and perhaps only a genuine bombastic populist demagogue can smash it...

Governments around the globe are quaking at the prospect of a President Trump: Why?  Because they know with Trump, the joyride on Uncle Sam's dime is over. A Trump America says to the world, no more mollycoddling, pull your own weight, fight your own damned wars.  We're ripping up trade deals forged by turncoat vampires who couldn't give a shit about American workers, and we're no longer taking in your human debris that washes up on our shores. America is done playing the Patsy.

The political Commentariate is wringing its wizened hands, but who cares? Face it, the world hates us, and they've always hated us.  On a person-to-person basis the many Europeans and Latin Americans I spent years living among, drinking and playing music with, enjoying warm, beautiful friendships... They are wonderful people. But writ large, on a macro level, Europeans and Latin Americans are resentful, whiny America-haters and they can shove it where the sun don't shine. They are screaming in outrage and "thinking again" about America?  One more reason to pull that lever for El Donaldo.

Damn the Tomatoes, Full Speed Ahead!

Trump's a liar? Don't care; Hillary's worse.
Bad people like him? Don't care; horrible anti-American organizations organize for Democrats.
He's never saw a low road he failed speed down with reckless abandon? Don't care; Hillary is an irresponsible warmonger.
No political experience? Don't care; Wall Street Warmonger Hillary Clinton is Dick Cheney in drag.
Idiot leftwing shit-stirrers get beaten up at his rallies? Don't care; they deserve it.
He can't do all those thing he says he will do? I Don't. Effing. Care.  Maybe we'll have the pleasure of watching him literally run over some intransigent Democrat lawmakers with a real steamroller in front of the Capitol.

I'm joining that ignorant legion, the millions of fellow voters who ignore facts and logic. Who needs intellectual analysis? We survived eight years of hollow man Obama; Trump can bring no worse. I'm joining the overwhelming majority of my fellow voters in making up my mind, slamming it shut and closing my eyes and ears to further evidence.

Trump: The "EFF YOO" Eye-Gouge from Hell

President Obama says "punish your enemies," and by Gaia, he's right. Few things are more satisfying to the human soul than seeing people get what they deserve...

So, this is our opportunity to... 

Eye-gouge the batwinged gargoyles; blast the flying monkeys out of the sky; kick the shit out of the DC Praetorian Guard; scald the red asses of the poop-throwing bolshevik baboons and their bullhorn brigades; throw a flaming pie in the faces of the progressive scolds; tar and feather the GOP Ayatollahs; show the one-worlders the door... and then slam their dicks in it. We can finally tell the foreign pisants and ankle-biters to get lost, go solve their own problems, and stop pestering such a grand and important nation as the United States of America.

Pull a lever and dance to the tortured screams of the Republicans, the Democrats, the DC Establishment, the Punditocracy, screaming loony leftards, conservative windbags, the Global Elites, and the craven foreign governments and their teeming, resentful masses who hate us but who all want to come here.

Donald Trump presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to nail them all in the nuts with one swift kick.

Register as early as possible, vote for Trump as early and as many times as possible, then say to hell with it all, disconnect from the idiotic political freakshow. Go do what you enjoy. Garden, play music, train gophers to reenact crappy SNL skits, build model airplanes, woodwork, write, juggle cats, draw, paint.  Get high, get roaring drunk, whatever.

In summary, with apologies to Timothy Leary...

Turn out, Tune out, Drop Out



Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Snakes and Blind Guides


I stopped being a Republican a year or so ago when I registered here in Colorado as a Libertarian.  I now officially declare myself Not a Conservative.

I remain a conservative person, as was Frank Zappa, but I no longer call myself  "a Conservative," so as not to be confused with the illogical, racist, hateful movement variety.  Although I also have some liberalism in me, I cannot call myself "a Liberal" either, for the same reasons.

* It is very un-conservative to attack other regions and sow chaos, leaving anarchy in your wake. It is not conservative to blow money you don't have, while rewarding Wall Street gamblers who shot craps, and getting in bed with corporate vampires who destroy American communities in the name of saving a few bucks, all justified by economic theory ripped from all reality and context.

* Liberalism (True liberalism--not the "creepy progressive virtue signaling" that has gutted liberalism and is now wearing its skin) stands up for the little guy, the oppressed and the Voltairian right to do and say things you disagree with.  But not anymore.  American "liberalism" is an angry punch-list of screeds, creeds, speech codes and buzzwords. Defending the rights of others has devolved into mob rule and angry social media pogroms driving heretics from the privacy of their own consciences out into the public square for public confessions, executions or banishment.

Both ideologies have been abandoned and gutted.  Only their names remain, as bold-faced labels on True Believer checklists of two opposing camps.

Theoretical Bullshit grows Ideological Weeds

White lab coat conservatives launch their little remote-control economic and nation-building experiments, and when they crash into reality and explode in a fireball, destroying jobs and the lives of millions, the "conservatives" patiently turn back to the CPAC cameras and repeat the cold, sterile, theory that worked 30, 60 or 200 years ago, and they receive waves of adulation from the hooting throngs.

If you can't explain your economic theory to unemployed workers in a rust belt bar without getting beaten up, it's not a good economic theory.

"Whitewashed Sepulchers" 

"Christian Conservatives" shake with purple-faced rage at gay marriage, yet see no problem with the state allowing heteros to marry as many times as they want, in direct violation of a plainly-stated teaching of Jesus.

How about a little charity in action, Christian Conservatives? How about getting into low income areas and bringing them conservative, practical free-market solutions they can use to improve their lives? Do you realize some people's very lives depend upon social services and government assistance?

Can you understand why black people in Ferguson, Baltimore and other places are protesting? Can you separate the misery of real people being abused from the noisy political activists?

"Woe to You"

"Conservatism" has collapsed into a congeries of cult-like repetition of shorthand phrases, sterile economic theory that eats American workers, foreign interventions and fundamentalist tent revivals.

I can no longer defend it. "Conservative" activists need to reacquaint themselves with Russell Kirk, wipe that mean smirk off their faces, learn how to talk pleasantly to Americans they disagree with, and then maybe they'll get me back on board.

When the rotten, verminous GOP edifice collapses, I hope Turdblossom Rover and the rest of the political malpractice perpetrators are trapped in the rubble.

A "Brood of Vipers"

I leave you with the famous "Seven Woes," spoken by Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in Matthew 23.

23 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, 3 so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice.4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear,[a] and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger. 5 They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, 6 and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues 7 and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi[b] by others. 8 But you are not to be called rabbi, for you have one teacher, and you are all brothers.[c]9 And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. 10 Neither be called instructors, for you have one instructor,the Christ. 11 The greatest among you shall be your servant. 12 Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.[d] 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell[e] as yourselves.

16 “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ 17 You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? 18 And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’ 19 You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20 So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. 21 And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. 22 And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.

23 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law:justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others. 24 You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!

25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.

27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are likewhitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous,30 saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. 33 You serpents,you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?34 Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, 35 so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah,[f] whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. 36 Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Why Trump?

“I think there are a lot of secret Trump fans”

McClean's published an interesting article entitled, "How Donald Trump Happened." It's a good piece and I recommend you go read it, but Yahoo, to their credit, published an in-depth look at why people are voting Trump, and it ain't just angry klansmen...

Who's Really Voting for Trump? Portraits behind the Polls:

Despite conducting their lives in a conservative manner, the average Trump voter is not a social conservative and not anti-government. They are by and large economic populists who oppose foreign military adventures. They also also "scored higher on measures of anti-Hispanic and anti-black prejudice..." *

*- Go read the linked Rand study. It's an America-first, anti-crime sentiment, not the nazi armband white hood variety, and the article provides no support whatsoever for its unfounded assertion of "anti-black prejudice."

Yahoo sifted through polling data and studies, tracked down real Trump supporters, and profiled six of them who are representative of their larger cohort.

Security Mom:

“This nation is like a home,” she said. “In my home, I have locks on my doors. I have blinds on my windows. I let people into my home who I want to be let in my home. The illegal immigrants need to stop. … We need to stop letting these people in who are not welcomed, who are intruders, who are violating us, who (are) violating our children.


Independent Voter:

“Economically we’ve fallen apart the last 20 years. I mean, here I am. I’m a calculus class away from a BS in business. I have BA in history. Minor in speech communications. I have a CEBS degree. And I’m driving a taxi for minimum wage.”

“Boy, does he say some stupid stuff,” Vance admitted. “But Trump’s not as nutty as everybody thinks he is. He’s just playing the game. The guy has good common horse sense. Those buildings didn’t go up in New York City by themselves. I can’t even imagine what Trump had to deal with — how many documents, negotiations, politicians, protesters, contracts.”


Latina Lawyer:


“If you’re an intelligent person, you would be supporting Trump because it would mean you've actually researched the difference between fair trade and free trade...”

Delgado is offended by the assumption that expanding immigration is the main concern of America’s Latinos. She says the community has “all the same concerns, and needs, and wants, and worries as Anglo Americans.”

“There’s a myth that … they do work that Americans won’t do. ... No, they do work for a price that Americans won’t do it at,” Delgado said. “They’re willing to do work at third world rates, so you’re obviously going to displace an entire demographic.”

“He sounds like a mechanic sometimes. I absolutely love that, that he has that ability to communicate with Americans on their level,” said Delgado.


Working Man:


Friends he knows in his community stay unmarried to keep receiving government-funded health care benefits for their children. One friend of Neal’s has so abused his body with drugs and alcohol that he now is unable to work and is on disability, collecting benefits that he spends on his addictions.

Now he drives through a subsidized housing neighborhood near his house, and sees BMWs parked on the street. “To see somebody that’s living in fixed-income housing but yet can buy 25-inch rims and drive nicer cars than me — by all means, I’m not jealous of it, what other people have doesn’t define me — but it’s just another one of those things that’s like, ‘Are you kidding me?’”

“The guy is a genius when it comes to building companies. He’s like a mad scientist,” Neal said. “I really do think he knows how to change things to make our economy a lot stronger than what it is.”

“And I think once our economy gets stronger, a lot of things will get better,” he said. “We all know how it is when money gets tight. Everybody gets bitter.”


The Apprentice


What he learned from Trump’s books, and from the Trump University classes he took was that “if you have the desire and there’s nobody out there saying no to you, it’s amazing what you can do.”

Cruz is not an angry Trump voter. ...Cruz is voting for the sober dealmaker, not the ranting bully, the optimist who will make America great again, not the xenophobe who thinks the country has to be rescued from the brink of collapse. 

Cruz thinks the candidate’s inflammatory remarks about Mexican immigrants “probably could've been said a little differently.” But while “the hateful people in the world are going to think of [Trump’s rhetoric] as hate … the silent majority, or the majority that’s out here, realize that what he’s saying isn't hate, it’s that we’re all in this together. We’re Americans, and we want to be Americans, and we want a united country.

Trump and the Rise of the Unprotected
There are the protected and the unprotected. The protected make public policy. The unprotected live in it. The unprotected are starting to push back, powerfully.
The protected are the accomplished, the secure, the successful—those who have power or access to it. [...] they are protected from the world they have created. [...]
If you are an unprotected American—one with limited resources and negligible access to power—you have absorbed some lessons from the past 20 years... -- Peggy Noonan
~~~

"The events of history have aligned to give the people this fleeting chance to bust up the oligarchy – to take back control from the 'Masters of the Universe' return it to the good and decent and patriotic citizens of the United States." -- Senator Jeff Sessions
Sic Semper Tyrannis Elitist
In both Middle America and Middle England, among both rednecks and chavs, voters who have had more than they can stomach of being patronised, nudged, nagged and basically treated as diseased bodies to be corrected rather than lively minds to be engaged are now putting their hope into a different kind of politics.
And the entitled Third Way brigade, schooled to rule, believing themselves possessed of a technocratic expertise that trumps the little people’s vulgar political convictions, are not happy. Not one bit. (Brendan O'Neill - Spectator)
~~~
Well, that’s certainly true. Both America and Britain have developed a ruling class that is increasingly insular and removed from — and contemptuous of — the people it deigns to rule. The ruled are now returning the contempt. (Glenn Harlan Reynolds)
The global elites who rule us, hate us. Yes, libs and progs, they hate you too. They're just using you. We can't bring the hurt to the elites they so richly deserve, but El Donaldo can. That's why the elites are soiling their dainty panties over his rise...

Keep calm, and Donald on...

Monday, March 28, 2016

Doing the Job the Democrats Just Won't Do

From the Wall Street Journal...
In 36 States, Unemployment Rates Still Linger Above Prerecession Levels
The recession is over, but it’s certainly not forgotten across most of the U.S.:

The average annual unemployment rates in 36 states plus D.C. in 2015 were higher than the average unemployment rate for those states in 2007. The recession began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009.
Unemployment rates in just 14 states had returned to or fallen below their 2007 averages in 2015: Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota,Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Vermont and Wisconsin.
Regardless of the outcome of Election 2016, we could be witnessing the front-edge of a big political realignment. Ol' Ross Perot, poppin' that hood open and pokin' around inside was a precursor, as was Patrick J. Buchanan, albeit to a lesser extent.

I stumbled across an interesting article about how back in 1996 a Patrick Buchanan advisor predicted the rise of a Donald Trump. The author opens the article with this quote from now deceased Buchanan advisor:
[S]ooner or later, as the globalist elites seek to drag the country into conflicts and global commitments, preside over the economic pastoralization of the United States, manage the delegitimization of our own culture, and the dispossession of our people, and disregard or diminish our national interests and national sovereignty, a nationalist reaction is almost inevitable and will probably assume populist form when it arrives. The sooner it comes, the better… [Samuel Francis in Chronicles]
The article also has some tough realizations for conservatives... 
Middle American forces, emerging from the ruins of the old independent middle and working classes, found conservative, libertarian, and pro-business Republican ideology and rhetoric irrelevant, distasteful, and even threatening to their own socio-economic interests.
It was all a lie wrapped in Chicago School of Economics theory...
For decades, people have been warning that a set of policies that really has enriched Americans on the top, and likely has improved the overall quality of life (through cheap consumables) on the bottom, has hollowed out the middle.
Chinese competition really did hammer the Rust Belt and parts of the great Appalachian ghetto. It made the life prospects for men — in marriage and in their careers — much dimmer than those of their fathers.

Libertarian economists, standing giddily behind Republican politicians, celebrate this as creative destruction even as the collateral damage claims millions of formerly-secure livelihoods, and — almost as crucially — overall trust and respect in the nation's governing class. Immigration really does change the calculus for native-born workers too.
The Left is No Help

After decades of screaming and carping that America was being ripped off by billionaire plutocrats, Team Sport Democrats shout down and deride such talk when it emanates from their right.  It throws shade on the Obama economic "recovery," so they dismiss this legitimate criticism as nothing more than white people whining about losing their lofty status. They also tell those aging whities who are dying at an alarming rate from diabetes, obesity, alcoholism and drugs, to check their privilege.

I believe we are witnessing the front edge of a big political realignment. Left-Right has lost much of its relevance.  In some ways, it has almost flipped. Don't laugh, Democrats.  Once the Berning mad Sandernistas realize the party politburo long-knifed them, they will Bern the place down, and as the #OWS and #BLM movement-types come to realize it's all been lip-service from the Democrats, they will trash the joint. Not this year, but most certainly by 2020.

Even if Hillary or a Republican establishmentarian (same difference) becomes the next president, I still agree with Crackpot Pat Buchanan on at least one thing:  Donald Trump’s Rise Is Rejection of a Quarter Century of Bush Republicanism.

Related:  Harry Dent: Civil Unrest is Coming to America

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Happy Easter


Friday, March 25, 2016

First World Problems

Yesterdays thread gave us this pearl of wisdom from Ducky  "Hundreds of channels of crap and the suckers call it choice." First World Problems! So on that theme:











Thursday, March 24, 2016

Zero Zero Zero



Tom Steyer...  Bill Gates...  Mark Zuckerberg...  International supervillain George Soros... Davos Men...

In the old days, the rich who wanted to get richer hired strong men to build cars, mine the earth, and haul goods around the world. Women got in on the game as secretaries, accountants, and in the secondary markets all that economic activity spurred.  They were school teachers, shop keepers and hairdressers, and they now join men in every field of endeavor.

I hate to use loaded terms, but such an economy "trickled down" wealth, and people "spread it around." Our fortunes were intertwined. Today, not so. The super rich succeed while millions are mired in misery.

Today, the greedy globalist plutorcrats lap up American luxury, outsource information services to third-world slave labor, hide their money from taxation, and owe allegiance to no one and no government. They are international privateers.

They are not fueling economic activity with their cash hordes. They are not starting productive businesses that provide useful products and employ American men and women. They are importing cheap labor and snatching our birthright out from under us.

Financial markets have become an end unto themselves.  The further financial markets have gotten from the look 'em in the eye handshake that brought entrepreneurs and financiers together, the more corrupt and out of control they have become. Even worse, thanks to computer technology and mathematical modeling, the market is now a voracious beluga whale, vacuuming up the money, hopes and dreams of millions of pensioners, small investors, independent entrepreneurs, Main Street banks and mom and pop businesses.

A Historical Inflection Point

We are witnessing an epochal shift in world history, one of those points where events move fast enough that you can actually see them happening.

Europe is finished, due more to demographic collapse than the myriad other factors which besiege it. Many believe the migration north from the failed societies of North Africa, Middle East and Central Asia will turn into a deluge of perhaps a billion people over the next decade.  Does anyone seriously believe feckless, ball-less European "powers" could stop such an invasion of human misery?

Global Institutional Failure.  The institutions so patiently built by governments around the world no longer work.

Global corporatists, billionaire robber barons and World Economic Forum Plutocrats roam the earth like a plague of vampires, masking their nefarious activities with "charity..."

The "charity" of the Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg types is nothing more than a tax dodge and a means for them to personally suborn whole governments and peoples.  Plutocrats and private organizations are slowly overtaking weak, decrepit, bankrupt governments as the world's movers and shakers that drive global events and decide the fate of billions of people.

DC:  Peronism, North America-Style

The US Federal Government serves the Global Corporations and the uber-rich even as they ritually vilify them. The District of Criminals has lapsed into a comfy bi-partisan Peronism. I would love to see Sanders and Trump bern down the rotten edifice that is our DC political establishment.

Why the title, Zero Zero Zero?

I take if from the informative book by Roberto Saviano of the same title.  He explains the international drug trade via various stories and character-based vignettes.  The wake up call for me came at the end.  How do they move all that money around?  Easy.  Via our international banking  system. You know, the one that won't allow foreigners to open bank accounts in any nation. The banking system that reports everything about you to the government, including if you withdraw more than $10,000 of your own money, heaven forbid, in cash.

Yeah, that banking system, supposedly supervised by the US government. Bankers worldwide like Citi move drug money. On the rare occasions they get caught, they say "oopsie," pay a fine, nobody goes to jail, and life goes on. Cost of doing business.
Perhaps it's time now to stop mapping political differences along the left-right dichotomy. The great political, intellectual and emotional chasm of our world runs between transnational elites with access to diverse forms of social, economic and cultural power, and masses who feel left out from the global party and who express their fury and resentment through social media and xenophobic movements.
We have entered a perilous new era in politics, where a whirlwind of raw emotions is blowing away all the verities of the past. (Right & Left Revolt against Elites)


Wednesday, March 23, 2016

When is an invasion not an invasion?

Photo: Ggia

To quote one of our presidential candidates: 

What difference does it make?
 
Telegraph

Telegraph

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

War on Citizens

A Cashless, Ball-less Society
War on Cash - One of the progressive trends of the last decade has been a gradual transition towards a 'cashless society', where all good and services will be bought and sold by an electronic debit and credit system.
Today, we are closer than ever to this becoming a reality. In the US, top banks like Chase have already begun restricting the use of cash. What next? Will the government want to tax cash, and eventually move to prohibit the private storage of cash altogether?
As Zero Hedge states, "We keep being bombarded by moves to restrict the use of cash and demands to ban it altogether. These demands seem to mainly revolve around two arguments: one is that 'only criminals need cash', which is on a par with the absurd assertion that we should all be fine with Stasi-like ubiquitous government surveillance 'if we have nothing to hide'." In this climate of fear and staged "ISIS" attacks, expect "terror" to be the main rally cry to ban the mainstream use of cash once and for all. (Sign of the Times - Predictions for 2016)
The International Banking Network is moving around billions in criminal cash, from arms smuggling, drug trade, 1%'er tax dodges, human trafficking and every other nefarious activity. Government can't stop it, so they turn on the little guy. Innocent citizens are so much easier to cuff around and intimidate. The end game is the criminalization of any non-electronic transaction not monitored by government.

This is what happens with rotten, tyrannical regimes...  

The DC Uni-Party Peronists have blown the national treasure on goodies for their cronies and bribes for the electorate. Our bureaucratic overlords have grown flabby and stupid, so the they turn on innocent citizens, because that's much easier that doing the hard work of improving the nation and snuffing evildoers who threaten our way of life and our existence.

You cannot have a foreign bank account unless you tell the government you have it, and because of onerous US reporting requirements, most foreign banks now simply refuse the custom of US citizens.

It is illegal to own property overseas and not tell the US government about it.

The federal government knows how much money you have and the value of all your investments.

Think you own your property? Try not paying your property taxes.

FAFSA? If you have kids in college, you know that filling out the FAFSA is like doing your taxes... while enduring a colonoscopy... and having a root canal done...

We are witnessing first-hand what happens when a government turns craven and incompetent.  It cannot catch international drug dealers, so it puts everyone's financial transactions under investigative scrutiny.

Government cannot keep bad people from crossing our borders and living here with impunity--usurping every benefit and privilege that rightly belongs only to US citizens and legal residents--so it turns the entire United States into a penal colony and treats us all as criminals.

Monday, March 21, 2016

A few Views on Political Correctness










I disapprove of what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it. Evelyn Hall - The Life of Voltaire.

Sunday, March 20, 2016

God on Our Side?

Many good Christians indulge in a doubt-free confidence that God specially-ordained this nation, or that he put us here as part of some Grand Plan of his. Such notions, here and elsewhere, have led to all kinds of mischief and downright evil, even in the midst of otherwise worthy human endeavors.

Material Bounty and Earthly Success  God's Blessing

American Christians now wring their hands and worry that perhaps God has removed his special blessing from this nation, but is there any evidence that we ever enjoyed his special attention? From my reading of the Bible, God will bless the righteous, but not always with earthly success and material wealth. Look at the 12 Apostles: One hanged himself, and ten more died gruesome deaths for preaching the Gospel. Did God hate them? Or did he love them?

Jews: God's Chosen, or God's Cursed?

Yes, God led his chosen people out of slavery and into the promised land, but what a long, strange trip it was. And once ensconced in the land of milk and honey, life for God's chosen was not a worry-free repose of relaxation and safety. It was just the beginning of another long struggle.

Six Million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.  They have lived a precarious existence ever sincer God called Abram. Slavery, pogroms, ethnic cleansing, ghettos, suspicion, scapegoating and hatred have stalked them throughout history.  Are they blessed?  Or cursed?

Christians:  Blessed or Punished?

Does God hate all those Middle Eastern Christians being murdered, enslaved, raped, burned and bombed out of their homes and churches by muslim fanatics?

Does God place the overstuffed lives of gluttonous, materialistic, cock-sure American Christians over the squalid lives of the poor souls suffering in Africa? Are we better than them? Is that why we enjoy God's material bounty and they do not?

Does God hate Christianity?

Christianity is dying here in the US, practically dead in Europe, and a confident Islam is ascendant. Based upon the evidence worldwide, Muslims could claim God loves them best. They are growing, spreading, He makes them fruitful and they multiply.

It is a dangerous and conceited deception to believe we are God’s Chosen, especially when the United States is not even mentioned in the Bible. 

Politicized Christianity is a Whitewashed Sepulcher

I reject it, along with its false prophets of fake plastic Jesus Movement Conservatism.

I stand with old Honest Abe...
Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right. -- Abraham Lincoln

g

Related: George Washington's Christian Faith

Friday, March 18, 2016

St Patrick's Day



A poem by William Butler Yeats set to music by The Waterboys in 1988.  The band later did an entire album of Yeats poetry set to music in 2011 "An appointment with Mr. Yeats".







Thursday, March 17, 2016

Three Revolts


Pollster Ron Faucheux says Three Revolts are Shaking American Politics, and I agree.

The first revolt [...] is an insurgency targeted against moral compromise and it is being waged within –– and, in some ways, against –– the Republican Party.

These conservative ideologues are tired of GOP candidates who don’t deliver on campaign promises, especially cutting government.

They loathe moderate Republicans who make deals with Democrats, and they view legislative bargaining as betrayal.

They see Barack Obama’s Washington as a foreign capital, much like Moscow or Beijing.

The second revolt is aimed at wealth inequality and corporate corruption. This revolt operates mostly within the Democratic Party, although many disaffected independents — especially younger voters –– find the cause appealing.

The third revolt is one directed at the political system itself.

While both the left and right share a growing contempt for politics as usual, the impetus for this popular uprising comes mostly from center-right voters upset by government paralysis and incompetence. It is a movement built upon cynicism –– and anger at dodgy politicians, broken institutions and increasing demands for political correctness. No longer content to just tweak the system, they want to knock it down.


McClatchy says America is Mad as Hell...

"More than 6 in 10 people think that either all or most Americans are angry with Washington"


* * *

“I plead guilty. I am angry,” Sanders recently told an audience in Maquoketa, Iowa, pushing back against former President Bill Clinton’s critique that voters need “not anger, but answers.”

Sanders continued: “I am angry and millions of Americans are angry. We are angry that our people are working longer hours for lower wages. We are angry that our criminal justice system is broken. And we’re angry that we have a corrupt campaign-finance system that allows billionaires to buy elections.”

The appeal resonates with voters furious over the role of money in politics: “I can’t even stand it, when I hear how much money they’re all willing to spend to run for office, but not provide day care for children,” said Monica McCarthy, waiting in a crowded union hall in Des Moines to hear Sanders speak. “It’s all rich guys who want to take over this country giving to other rich guys to help the rich.”
 
* * *

“I’m fed up,” Leake said, sporting a “Hillary for Prison 2016” button on his jacket as he waited in the cold to hear Trump speak. “I’m fed up with all the bull crap and all the lying. They’re spending us into debt and not doing anything they promised they would do.”

* * *

“Our politics have changed,” Miringoff said, adding “there’s a growing mistrust of institutions,” including government, the health care system, and the media and pollsters.

* * *
“The whole country is going to hell...”

"Roads and bridges in the U.S. are falling apart, jobs are scarce and the U.S. border is wide open..."

“We’re letting all these people into the country. No one even knows who the hell they are,” he said. “We don’t need any more Arabs. The United States, anymore, is just a dumping ground for everyone.”

* * *

“We have reached the point where many feel that the opposite side of the political aisle poses an existential threat to the country itself,” said Patrick Murray, director of the polling institute in West Long Branch, N.J. “It is not clear how Washington can be fixed when Republicans and Democrats don’t even agree on what the problem is.”


Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article57273748.html#storylink=cpy

Wednesday, March 16, 2016

Revolutionary Moment: We've been Screwed

Free trade and free movement of peoples only works when there is relative parity between the nations who engage in it.

Finally, we are waking up to the fact that the federal government has been encouraging global corporations and "American" businesses to dismantle entire industries and ship them lock-stock-and-barrel overseas.  Simultaneously, the federal government has been handing out slave labor importation licenses to "American" businesses so they can fire American workers and import scab labor willing to work for less than half of what an uppity American demands.

Honest liberals see it...  Trump and Sanders are attacking the same rotten establishment from two different directions...
All of the quote ‘better people’ who’ve been sitting in their ivory towers, economists, saying, ‘oh, free trade is good for you,’ whatever…

Well, the American people have figured out that they’ve been screwed.”
"I am telling you, we’re in a new paradigm. This is a revolutionary moment,” he said, describing it as a “historical moment of evolution in our political process” whose outcome could not yet be predicted… especially by politicians and poll-addicted pundits who have misunderstood the Trump-Sanders moment thus far. (Pat Caddell)
Sanders Supporter Camille Paglia: I was Wrong about Donald Trump
Trump’s fearless candor and brash energy feel like a great gust of fresh air, sweeping the tedious clichés and constant guilt-tripping of political correctness out to sea. Unlike Hillary Clinton, whose every word and policy statement on the campaign trail are spoon-fed to her by a giant paid staff and army of shadowy advisors, Trump is his own man, with a steely “damn the torpedoes” attitude.
Primary voters nationwide are clearly responding to Trump’s brand of classic can-do American moxie. There has been a sense of weary paralysis in our increasingly Byzantine and monstrously wasteful government bureaucracies. Putting a bottom-line businessman with executive experience into the White House has probably been long overdue. If Mitt Romney had boldly talked business more (and chosen a woman VP), he would have won the last election.
Republican voters are finally waking up to what liberal democrat voters have been saying for decades...
“Republicans, and independents following Republicans, even more than Democrats are anti-free-trade… or, I should say, they have had it with trade deals, just as they've had it with the Washington establishment.”
Caddell said the “overwhelming sentiment” among Republican and Democrat voters alike is running against backroom deals, especially the kind voters fear will be coming their way as Republicans cave to Obama during his final lame-duck year.
Long after Trump Fever fades and the Clinton Crime Syndicate has crushed Bernie under its tank tracks, the anger will remain...
... many streams of discontent flowed into the river of “economic nationalism,” creating a unified focus for a huge number of Republican voters – and an impressive number of Democrats – who feel the incestuous political and Big Business elite no longer serve their interests. Indeed, a good deal of Washington culture is actively hostile toward them.

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Do You Realize?

By Hugh Farnham








Clip from "The Uncanny Valley"

Monday, March 14, 2016

Fascism

Read this article about the Chicago Trump Rally turned melee and tell me where fascism lies...

What is fascism?
“Fascism is the pursuit of a transcendent and cleansing nation-statism through paramilitarism.” -- Professor Michael Mann
“Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a massed-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external explansion. -- Professor Robert Paxton
"...as Mussolini told Franco in October 1936, what the Spaniard should aim at was a regime that was simultaneously ‘authoritarian’, ‘social’, and ‘popular’. That amalgam, the Duce advised, was the basis of universal fascism.” -- Professor R.J.B Bosworth
Superficial signs of Trump's Fascism:  

Critics point to his pompous behavior, unabashed "America-first" nationalism, incendiary bombast, criticism of uncontrolled immigration, and the violence at his rallies (sparked by agent provocateur agitators who infiltrate his events to incite said violence).

Anti-Trump Agitators display Fascistic Tendencies:

Crashing political rallies and provoking people by getting up in their faces, shutting down their opponents' events with mob action and threats of violence are also fascist tactics (all in the name of fighting hate...).  Hive-mentality enforced unity, speech codes and credos one must sign on to, zero tolerance for dissenting points of view...

I took all the quoted information from an article by Chuck Anesi. Here is his definition of fascism:
“Fascism is a form of political and social behavior that arises when the middle class, finding its hopes frustrated by economic instability coupled with political polarization and deadlock, abandons traditional ideologies and turns, with the approbation of police and military forces, to a poorly-defined but emotionally appealing soteriology of national unity, immediate and direct resolution of problems, and intolerance for dissent.” (Chuck Anesi, 2008)
Whatever is going on in America, from #OWS to #Black Lives Matter, to the Anti-Establishmentarian Trumpites, it is an intellectual dissipation and a waste of time to try to fit the other camp's actions into an early 1900's European phenomenon.

Various strata of society are disaffected, and each has its legitimate reasons.

What's really going on?



Sunday, March 13, 2016

The Dichotomy of Liberal Thought

Freedom of speech = Silencing Others

"All opposition must be stamped into the ground" -SA

10,000 people attend a political speech to listen to Donald Trump, a thousand others attend to "exercise their freedom of speech", their stated aim... to prevent Donald Trump from speaking,  through speech, violence, and intimidation.

You may disagree with what Trump has to say, I disagree with what Trump has to say, he does however have the right to say it.

"We shut s*** down"

"We stumped Trump."

"F--- Trump!"  

"We stopped Trump!"

We came in here and we wanted to shut this down.

"It feels amazing" to have stopped Trump from speaking at his own rally."

Congratulations, and you call Trump a fascist! What you deserve is 30,000 Trump supporters showing up at the next Sanders or Clinton rally.


Friday, March 11, 2016

The Songs Candidates Should Be Using

Donald Trump



Hillary Clinton



Bernie Sanders





Marco Rubio



Ted Cruz



John Kasich



Well, those are my picks... can you think of any?

Thursday, March 10, 2016

2016: Road to the White House

2012 Final Results
Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

Who is your candidate, and how can they win the minimum 270 Electoral College votes to make him or her the next president?

If you're a Hillary Democrat, the answer is easy...

You hold on to states won by Barack Obama, and she's got room to lose a few, since President Obama won with a whopping 62 more electoral votes than he needed.

I posed this question to Cruz supporters in various threads and got no response, probably because it would take a miracle for him to win a national election. Any GOP candidate will have to flip some states President Obama won in 2012. 

The Maps

The links that follow go to electoral college maps.  They are interactive and you can click on a state to turn it blue or red, and the tally at the top keeps score.

You can start with the 2012 Election Result Electoral Map

Or, if you are a Cruz fan, you can use the Hillary-Cruz 2016 Map that starts out based upon current polling.

The Big Three 

If a GOP candidate could flip Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania, he would win, but that is way harder than it sounds.

Pennsylvania is a perennial GOP disappointment, so fuggeddaboudit. Rubio could take Florida, Kasich could take Ohio, but neither is on-track to get the nomination.

Virginia, Colorado, Nevada and perhaps even Michigan could be flipped by the right GOP candidate, but I don't see anyone other than Trump doing it.  Even if a GOP candidate did take those states, it still wouldn't be enough to win. Throw in Florida, and you're looking at a GOP president, but Michigan is another far-off fantasy for Republicans.

Lastly, I don't see Hillary flipping any 2012 GOP states, so really, it comes down to, which states will Hillary fail to hold on to, and will she lose enough to give the GOP candidate the win.

Play around with the maps and give us your predictions.  We may pull them out after the election and award meaningless, valueless prizes for the best predictions, while ridiculing those whose predictions really sucked.


Related:
RCP Polling
HuffPo Polling

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Next Up: The Democrat Debacle


Dan Balz writes:
At the core of Donald Trump’s political success this year are the grievances of a sizable and now vocal block of disaffected voters, many of them white and working-class, and a Republican Party that has sought and benefited from their support while giving them almost nothing tangible in return.
The same can be said of the Democrat party and its voters, but we'll get to that in a moment...

Leftwing loonies see in Trump the rise of Rightwing Racist Fascism, but there is zero evidence Trump is any of the three. Dan Balz continues...
Others, however, say that Trumpism, no matter how much it threatens the existence of the modern-day Republican Party, is a broader manifestation of the uneven impact of globalization on a significant segment of the population, a rejection by these voters of institutions and elites in both parties, whom they see as having failed to listen to or respond to their plight.
Does anyone really believe it's only middle-aged unemployable white people and uneducated hicks driving Trumpism?  Only those 1%'ers--rich enough to wall itself off from the societal ills their policies have fostered--are unaffected by the changes illegal immigration and globalization have wrought.

So, if the next president--whoever she may be--results in no material change, the Democrat party will be in flames. Nobody but liberal women over 70 feel any special connection to Hillary, so she will be easy to revolt against.  

The Democrat party has been talking a good game, but the people will demand they finally deliver on the leftwing punchlist the Democrat party has given so much lip service to:

* Verifiable equal pay for women
* Equal rights for undocumented residents
* Citizenship for Dreamers
* Reparations for slavery
* Housing equality
* Parity in government money spent for minority neighborhoods
* Tangible government action on White Privilege and Social Justice
* Stop the trend of government killing and jailing of young black men
* Equitable distribution of wealth
* Higher taxes on the rich, to include taxing the wealth they hold
* Federally-enforced police reform
* Free College
* Criminalization and prosecution of hate speech
* Jobs, jobs, jobs

Laugh all you want at the list, but dedicated leftists have done an excellent job socializing these issues and placing them in the mainstream of our social conversation.

If those stupid white crackers can wake up and figure out they've been screwed, don't you think the Democrat constituency, including minorities, can figure it out as well?


Tuesday, March 8, 2016

Trump-Webb 2016



Jacksonian Democrat James Webb has said no way in hell will he vote for Hillary, but offered that he may vote for Trump...
“If you're voting for Donald Trump, you may get something very good or very bad,” Webb said. “If you're voting for Hillary Clinton, you're going to be getting the same thing.”
I read Walter Russell Mead's essay, Andrew Jackson, Revenant, and Webb came to my mind, although Donald Trump's political success inspired the article.

Rise of the Jacksonians

Trump aside, it is one heck of an essay, and Mead diagnoses the situation among Jacksonians quite well. The entire essay is thought-provoking, but here are a few ideas that stuck out at me...

Who are the Jacksonians?
For President Barack Obama and his political allies in particular, Jacksonian America is the father of all evils. Jacksonians are who the then Senator had in mind when, in the campaign of 2008, he spoke of the ‘bitter clingers’ holding on to their guns and their Bibles.
It is Jacksonians who, as I wrote in Special Providence back in 2001, see the Second Amendment as the foundation of and security for American freedom. It is Jacksonians who most resent illegal immigration, don’t want to subsidize the urban poor, support aggressive policing and long prison sentences for violent offenders and who are the slowest to ‘evolve’ on issues like gay marriage and transgender rights.
Historically, Jacksonian America has been the enemy of many of what President Obama, rightly, sees as some of America’s most important advances.
Jacksonians have come a long way on race, but they will never move far enough and fast enough for liberal opinion; liberals are moving too, and are becoming angrier and more exacting regardless of Jacksonian progress.
Progressives hate Jacksonians
Virtually everything about progressive politics today is about liquidating the Jacksonian influence in American life. From immigration policy, touted as ending the era when American whites were the population of the United States, to gun policy and to regulatory policy, President Obama and his coalition aim to crush what Jacksonians love, empower what they fear, and exalt what they hate.
Trump is to Jacksonians as Obama was to Progressives...
"Donald Trump, for now, is serving as a kind of blank screen on which Jacksonians project their hopes."
Trump's appeal to Jacksonians?
"Jacksonian voters are less dogmatic and less conservative than some of their would-be political representatives care to acknowledge."
Please follow the link, read the essay, and tell me what you think.


Monday, March 7, 2016

Muslim Monday

http://chersonandmolschky.com

While Muslim refugees in Europe complain about the food, the weather and shoddy treatment, some are self-deporting.  Western Civilization, a hollow culture led by hollow people, continues its sad decline, the senile, sick man of the world, too timid to stand for anything and too frail to do anything about it anyway.

There is no liberalism anywhere Muslims have a majority.  There is no spot on earth whose society, economy, culture or people have been improved by Muslims taking over.

The Muslim world is an open sore. Medieval men with medieval mindsets forcing women to dress in medieval costumes and look at the world through eye slits. No arts, no culture, no scientific achievements

Can you blame people for escaping to the West?

More importantly, can anyone explain why so many want to turn their new home into the same toilet they escaped from?

Where is the self-reflection of the refugees? 

The price of entry should be the realization and public confession that their islamic culture has wrecked their homeland so badly that they chose to escape it. Islam has poisoned their societies, brought them cultural and economic devastation and made Muslim lands some of the most backwards on earth, to include the Muslim nations with money.

Western governments need to tell newcomers to their faces that we don't want their societal cultural bigotry and religious obscurantism here. We are a liberal democratic society where the rights of all are equal, and that includes the rights of booze vendors, hog butchers, pornographers, sour-faced God-mockers, flaming homosexuals, skanky booty shakers, mouthy women, and sarcastic Muhammad-mockers.

By all means, worship however you choose, but we will not adapt or cater to the backwards, destructive cultural practices that have destroyed the muslim world. There may be no female doctor to examine your wife's goodies, and a female police officer may tell you to sit down and shut your pie hole; and she may crack you over the head, slam you to the ground and completely humiliate you if you refuse to comply.  That's how it works here.

On the other hand...

Peep this and learn how American Muslims are a cut above their religious confrères in other countries.  You'll also see how closely they track American Christians in attitude, views of their religious texts, and sabbath observance. Of course, our government is doing its best to turn this all around, by radicalizing people here, stoking victim-hood anger, and bringing in un-vettable people from the Islamic world's obscurantist swamps.

Muslim Critical Mass

We've seen a familiar pattern.  Muslims in small numbers thrive in the west, integrate and everybody's happy. Get enough of them together though, and a few bad apples poison the whole umma. William Kilpatrick writes in The Vast Majority Myth, how a passive, acquiescent Vast Majority is all it takes for a dedicated sliver of fanatical butchers to hack up a society.

Another troubling question:  Why aren't peaceful and modern Muslims in the west protesting against government importation of potential jihadis from backwards cultures?  If I or my parents had escaped an islamist dysfunctional freak-show, I sure as hell wouldn't want my new nation importing any of it.

Barely related...

When a Muslim gets jihadi fever, goes crazy and murders a bunch of people, everyone in his family and at his mosque claim they never saw it coming.

When a crazy white man snaps and shoots a bunch of people, all kinds of people, including family members, come out and say, "hell yeah, he was crazy, thought Google was spying on him through his car, that President Obama was a space alien..."  Neighbors describe being on edge, knowing he was going to blow, coworkers shake their heads and say they know he was a ticking time bomb...

Western 'leaders' are criminally insane for inviting in people from incompatible cultures.


Sunday, March 6, 2016

What happened to the Modern Whig Party?

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (okay it was 2012), we posted an article about the Modern Whig Party.  What happened to it?  

Billing itself as the spearhead of a pragmatic, centrist, solutions-oriented political movement dedicated to the restoration of representative government in our nation. It had great aspirations.  

At the time of the article they had ballot access in New Jersey, since then they've gotten ballot access in Kentucky.

Since the the first person running as a Whig in 160 years was elected in Pennsylvania: Robert Bucholz elected as Judge of Elections in the fifth division of Philadelphia's 56th ward (Interview).  Along with J. Brendan Gallagan elected to a school board in Westfield, New Jersey.

Can you name a Whig running for president this go around?  Neither could I.  Despite that they are having a convention 21 May at the Airport Crowne Plaza in Indianapolis.

What is with third parties in the US?  Are the failings theirs? Do the American people not want alternative parties or is it the machinations of the big two to exclude them?  Is it as Gary Johnson alleges... is the system rigged?

Here's a question for you all... are you happy with your party?  Do you feel that their behavior holds true to the platform and pledges they put before you and the rest of America? 

Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio... is this really the best that we can do?  Is this the best that we have to offer?   

 

Friday, March 4, 2016

Cease and Desist Friday

At least according to my sources candidates have been sent cease and desist orders by musicians for playing their music in this election cycle, here are the songs and the stories behind them.

Hillary Clinton sent a cease and desist order by Tobi Vail of Bikini Kill for using the song Rebel Girl. Hillary Clinton... Rebel Girl, uh yeah, right.



But Trump seems to be the king of cease and desist orders:  To Donald Trump "Adele has not given permission for her music to be used for any political campaigning,"



Along with Skyfall, the theme from the James Bond movie




Add in Steven Tyler's of Aerosmith's objection to Trump's use of Dream On:



And his use of:


Quote: "Neil Young, a Canadian citizen, is a supporter of Bernie Sanders for President of the United States of America".  Neil Young then offered Bernie Sanders use of the song which he readily picked up.

Not to be left out, Marco Rubio was sent a cease and desist order from Axwell for his use of Something New.






Thursday, March 3, 2016

The 2016 Libertarian Debate





Yes, we had one.

Gary Johnson is center and to his immediate right is John McAfee... yes, that McAfee.

I am familiar with John McAfee's story, and yes he's a bit out there, but I really liked his closing remarks that run 31:05 - 31:58

Give Gary Johnson a listen at 11:50 - 13:05 for his take on Islamic fundamentalism and the distinction between Islam as a religion and Sharia as a political system.

Good News/Bad News: In 1999 I was the highest ranking elected government official to call for the legalization of marijuana. Bad news in 2016 I am still the highest ranking elected official to call for the legalization of marijuana.      ~ Gary Johnson

As a marginal party the Libertarian Party certainly seems to attract a fringe element, everything from Austin Petersen issuing letters of marque and reprisal against Islamic terrorists to Darryl Perry refusing to take the oath to uphold and defend the constitution because he wants to disband the union.  Then again, one could just as readily categorize Bernie Sanders as a fringe element, in that he certainly isn't mainstream DNC.

My support for Gary Johnson stems not from devotion to the Libertarian Party (I'm a libertarian not a Libertarian) but from his two terms as the Republican governor of New Mexico during the time that I lived there.  What I can say is that I can no longer and will no longer support the Democratic and Republican parties, as Gary Johnson says in the debate... the system is rigged.  

Take a half hour and give them a listen, you undoubtedly won't like everything they say, heck... I don't like everything they say, but give it a shot.

 

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Sooper Dooper Toosday


As I write this the polls are still open, in fact the Colorado Caucus doesn't start for another six minutes and the media is forecasting Clinton and Trump to take six states so far excepting Vermont and Oklahoma (Sanders) and Texas and Oklahoma (Cruz). Hillary and Bernie are currently running neck to neck in Massachusetts.  No major surprises so far except for Oklahoma, I wouldn't expect Bernie Sanders to run well in the south but I am surprised that they are calling OK for Sanders who currently has better than a ten point lead over Clinton.

Yesterday Ducky described Sanders as a messenger of discontent,  so both parties have the same problem, exit polling indicated that 6 out of 10 voters were dissatisfied with their parties and the status quo.   Only difference is the Republican messenger is winning.


I lack the motivation or interest to stay up until all the results are final, let alone go down to the precinct to participate in Colorado's antiquated caucus system.  So what do you think? Any surprises yesterday?  

Update: If you're wondering what happened to Colorado Republicans...

Thousands of Colorado Republicans caucused during Super Tuesday, but the party's pick for presidential nominee won't be revealed until late March at the earliest.  Colorado's GOP will finalize the 37 delegates it will send to Cleveland for the National Republican Convention on April 8-9 during the congressional and the state conventions. Those delegates are required to file forms detailing which candidate they pledge to support by March 27.

The Coloradoan