Are The Democrat And Republican Parties Doomed?

As much as I wanted to believe that any schism within the Republican Party wasn't as bad as I had originally thought, I found that belief to be mistaken.

Not that I wanted that particular schism to be minimized. Far from it. But I find it is worse than I thought, particularly with some of the more recent events. Between John Boehner's labeling Ted Cruz as “Lucifer in the flesh” and former US Senator Judd Gregg piling on by calling Cruz “a demagogue's demagogue” on one side, and the constant denigration of Donald Trump by much of the GOP establishment on the other, it looks to me as if the schism has widened and isn't like to heal any time soon.

It's one thing if this was limited to just the GOP as it seriously needs to clean out the deadwood that has made it barely distinguishable from the Democrat Party. But the Democrats are getting their share as well, with the differences between Hillary and Bernie showing the deep division between the Left (Hillary) and Progressive/Marxist Left (Bernie) within the party becoming broader.

But what has become more evident to anyone paying attention is that both parties are becoming irrelevant to a large swath of the American people. Certainly that is the finding by former US Senator Tom Coburn, who stated “America doesn’t trust you anymore. That’s the truth... and that’s not one party, that’s both.”

Why should we trust them? Congress certainly hasn't lived up to its promises, hasn't reined in profligate federal government spending, bureaucratic overreach, rogue federal agencies, and worse, a president who seems to think he's a king and can rule by decree. Is it any wonder Coburn has found the people aren't happy with Congress and the political parties in power?

Here's Coburn speaking before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs:


With the exception of the political coastal elite, no one is happy with the federal government. Everyone is angry at being marginalized, denigrated, and ignored by our “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” It seems it has deliberately isolated itself from the wants and needs of the American people, making decisions that more often that not hurt those very same people, yet telling us “It's for your own good.” Yeah. Right.

I have a feeling that both the Democrat and Republican parties as they stand now are doomed. They no longer represent us, nor do they wish to change in order to become relevant to us again. So maybe it is time to either go forth with a hostile takeover, or move past them and let them end up on the “trash heap of history” because of their irrelevance.

Private Versus Government Investment - A Primer

Have you ever wondered why private investment works and government investment doesn't?

Wonder no more.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The level of activity here at The Manse has increased as we move into Spring Cleaning mode. A number of non-functional items made their way to the local Lion's Club Electronic Waste Collection Day. While it is possible to dispose of electronic waste year round at out local transfer station, the Lion's Club charges a fraction of what of the transfer station charges for the same item.

There's also a considerable amount of junk to be removed from the basement, something that will be occurring over the next 4 weekends or so.

It never ceases to amaze me just how quickly we can accumulate stuff we either no longer need (donated to Goodwill, the Salvation Army, or St. Vincent DePaul) or is no longer serviceable. We're hoping to have reduced the amount of stuff in our basement by at least 50% by the time we're done.

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Skip gets into the details fascism and its need to destroy the individual for the sake of the collective. (Here's where fascism and the various forms of socialism agree 100%.) As Skip writes, “They just can't leave anyone alone, can they?”

The picture which he also includes breaks it down to an even simpler terms (you can go to his post to see it).

Conservative: Leave Me Alone.

Liberal: No.

Paraphrasing what I wrote in my post yesterday, we're looking for a government that will leave us the hell alone and let us get on with living our lives and making a living free from Nanny State interference.

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Here's another interesting post from Granite Grok, this time from Steve MacDonald on the issues of pregnancy, abortion, child support, and his call for the equivalent of an End User License Agreement (or EULA) that covers sexual intercourse, in this case the Vaginal Use Liability Verification Agreement, or VULVA.

The VULVA will stipulate the following. It’s yours. Your decision to treat it like a drive-thru is your business and your responsibility.  And that despite all precautions real or implied, pregnancy is a common outcome of intercourse. If the use of said Vagina results in an unplanned pregnancy (and therefore a potential additional unplanned use of the same vagina as a result of that pregnancy), the user of the vagina will in no way be held financially responsible for any decision made by the mother. This is based on the presumption of the in-force femi-nazi code which states that “men have no say whatsoever in whether or not the woman has an abortion because men cannot get pregnant.” If men cannot get pregnant then these women shall not facilitate the following double standards regarding secondary uses of the same vagina for which men also have absolutely no control. Like birth.

Seems reasonable to me. I know of quite a few people who should have had such an agreement in place before going forward with their sexual relationships. But that's just me.

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You know the Department of Education Office of Civil Rights “Dear Colleague” letter has caused far more harm than it has prevented when a male college student was expelled and his scholarship canceled due to a sexual assault accusation even though no sexual assault took place.

A third party reported the alleged assault, though the two people involved have both said no assault took place and that all sexual activity was consensual.

This witch hunt, for that's what it is, must stop. When it devolves to the point that a third party accusation made by someone who wasn't even an eyewitness carries more weight than that of the supposed victim who states over and over again that she was not a victim because the sex was consensual (and did not involve alcohol), then it's gone to damn far.

People need to be sued, ruined, and jailed for bearing false witness.

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Hmm.

Cause and effect, or coincidence?

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The definition of irony:

UC Berkeley supports $15 minimum wage. Governor Brown signs the new $15 law. Berkeley then lays off hundreds of workers.

Nothing to see here, folks. Move along...

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where thoughts of boating intrude regularly, yard work is piling up, and where there's always more work to be done on the boat to get it ready.

Response To A Progressive Tool

It was while crafting a reply to one of our local Progressive academic's recent rants in our local paper that I thought that both his 'deconstruction' of the TEA Party as nothing but another form of fascism and my response would make a decent post. So here goes.

First, the self-professed fount of Progressive thought showing his outright hatred of anything with which he disagrees.

The fascism we are most familiar with began with Mussolini in 1919 Italy and spread. These regimes arose in very different times but echoes of fascism can still be heard in right-wing rhetoric. Fascism at its core is uber-nationalistic. It expresses and demands patriotism on the scale of religious fanaticism. Fascist propaganda specializes in patriotic mottos, songs, and slogans. Flags, flag symbols and flag clothing are to be ubiquitous. Fascism glorifies the nation and the military. Fascists promote an aggressive foreign policy and tend to disproportionately fund their military when the money could be better spent elsewhere. This nationalist militancy bleeds over into a love of paramilitary organizations and militias.

Hate speech and fear mongering about "others" is a tool that promotes obsession regarding national security and traditional values. Robert Paxton, foremost expert on fascism noted, "The use of ethnic stereotypes and exploitation of fear of foreigners is directly out of a fascist's recipe book.

"Making the country great again" sounds exactly like the fascist movements. Concern about national decline, that was one of the most prominent emotional states evoked in fascist discourse, and Trump is using that full-blast...". Right-wingers use ethnic and religious stereotypes to attack Mexicans, Muslims, immigrants, etc. Fascism remains feverishly anti-immigrant. "English only" is an American echo of the Nazi's "German only" agenda.

What I find fascinating is that he does not recognize that the very thing he preaches against is exactly what his fellow travelers are guilty of doing. It is right out of Alinsky: Accuse your opponents of doing what it is you yourself are doing. Then again, maybe he knows exactly what he's doing. He goes on in this vein for an additional eight paragraphs. Rather than giving him any more coverage here, you are free to go read his diatribe at the link above.

My response to him is considerably shorter.

Your definition of fascism is so broad that it includes anyone who does not fully embrace the morally bankrupt Progressive cause. By your definition Ronald Reagan was a fascist. So was John F. Kennedy. So was FDR. So was one of your Progressive heroes, Woodrow Wilson.

If you include the TEA Party's push to reform government such that it will become one that will forcefully and rigorously leave people alone to live their lives as they see fit with little or no interference, then it is indeed fascist. If its call for the government to follow the Constitution of the United States and stay within the limits as defined by it as fascism, then it is indeed a fascist organization. If the TEA Party's demands that the government actually follow the law and do away with the increasing overreach and burdensome administrative rules, regulations, and laws fostered by cronyism created by the numerous agencies and departments in the Executive branch that go far outside the laws as created by Congress and outside their charters, then it is indeed a fascist organization.

That members of the TEA Party have a deep seated and justified distrust and, dare I say, hatred of Marxism, socialism, and Progressivism (all branches of the same ideology) isn't in dispute. They have such feelings for those tyrannical political beliefs because of what history has shown us, with one aspect of which is the blood of millions of innocents they have spilled, all in the name of building some “bright future” that always devolves into oppression, imprisonment, slavery, and murder as instruments of achieving the delusional and unreachable socialist utopia.

I realize this will not sway this true believer in the Progressive cause, will not cause him to re-evaluate his beliefs or core assumptions about his cause or those of the people who oppose his beliefs. He has faith his convictions are the only correct ones and that no others need apply. He is what Lenin called “a useful idiot.” And should his Progressive 'utopia' ever come to pass here in the US, he will be one of the first to be put up against the wall and shot because he will have outlived his usefulness to the cause, just as the Bolsheviks did to their useful idiots after they took power in 1917.

Bill Whittle Opens Some Minds

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” - Winston Churchill

I began this piece with one of my favorite Churchill quotes as it fits rather nicely with what follows a little later. While the younger generation seems willing to embrace socialism - mainly because they really don't know any better - they really have no understanding of what it truly entails or its bloody history.

With that in mind I have to quote another man who has a full understanding of socialism and its failures, in this case Bill Whittle. It was while speaking at high school in Palos Verde, California that he was able to get past any incipient hostility the students felt towards a conservative speaker and show them some long ignored truths about some of the things they believed. One of the subjects he covered was socialism and he explains how he addressed the subject in response to a question from one of the high school students, a Bernie Sanders “true believer”.

And this kid couldn't understand it.  He couldn't understand it, and I finally said, "Listen.  Socialism and Bernie Sanders is based on the politics of envy." And I have come up with – most of the work is so derivative. Mostly it's just regurgitating things that Dr. Hansen says over there and trying to find a way to elaborate on it like it's actually my stuff, but this particular analogy I came up with on my own, because I wanted to demonstrate to these kids the power of envy.  And how, if you understand the power of envy, you understand what drives the socialist impulse throughout history.

--snip--

And I said, "Fine, let's get to the envy thing," because this is the point I wanted to make.  Here's my example that I came up with.  I think it's a really good example.  I'm going to show you the power of envy and I'm going to demonstrate it in your own heart.  You're not going to have to look at it from the outside.  You get to feel it from the inside.  Here it goes. Ready?  Let's say that you worked in an insurance company for 25 years and you're up on the eighth floor and you're just one person in a cube of 100 cubicles and you've been doing this slog for 25 years. And at the end of the day on a Friday, the boss and the CFO come up to you and they say, "Bill, I just want to have a minute with you."  And you think, "Oh, God, what have I done?"  And he turns to you and he says, "Bill, we've been watching you for 25 years now.  You've worked your tail off for this company. You've done nothing but work hard. You've never complained. You've gone above and beyond the call of duty.  Everything you've done has been wonderful and to reward you for your hard work over a lifetime, I talked with our CFO here, and we want to present you with this check for $100,000.00.  Taxes have already been paid on it.  Thank you very much for everything you've done for us."  And off they go.  Well, what's your reaction to this?  Slightly more tony crowd than some of the crowds I've talked to, but $100,000.00 is $100,000.00 that you didn't have a minute ago and you did not expect that you were going to have.  You suddenly find yourself with a check for $100,000.00.  What do you do?  Well, you're elated, and you're elated because all of a sudden you have options you didn't have before.  You think about all the things that you can do, and you're as happy as you can be, so you get up, not wanting to be too much of a jerk about it, but you get up and you call everybody else.  "You guys, you won't believe it."  The rest of the staff comes around. 

--snip--

You say, "You won't believe it.  The President was just here.  He thanked me for 25 years of hard work and he gave me a check for $100,000.00," and everybody else in the crowd says, "He came to our desk and he gave us a check for $250,000.00."  Hold onto that thought.  Hold onto that thought right there.  That's the flaw in the human heart.  That's envy. Because if everybody else on the floor got $250,000.00 and you got $100,000.00, you're not $100,000.00 richer anymore.  You're $150,000.00 poorer.  That absolute total complete net gain that had given you so many opportunities and so much joy that was nothing but gain, nothing but good for you, that $100,000.00 bonus is now a source of pain for you because other people got more. And you don't think about what you could do with $100,000.00.  You think about what you could have done with $250,000.00 and then the thing really starts.  Then you start saying, "Susie got $250,000.00.  She's late every day. I do half of her work for God's sake.  John is an alcoholic.  I mean I'm correcting his work.  He gets $250,000.00 and I get a measly $100,000.00.  What kind of a cheap organization is this anyway?" 

And it flips your perspective and it's powerful, because when I said that business about everybody else getting a check, you could hear a groan go through the room.  I don't care what other people make.  I care what I make.  What they make has no impact on me, and the reason it hurts in this example is because it's a gift.  Somebody gifted you $100,000.00, but they gifted [someone else] $250,000.00, so that person thinks more of [them] than they do of you. But if it turned out that they gave it to Susie because she worked from 6:00 in the morning to 10:00 at night for 25 years and she'd been there on weekends and everything and she got $250,000.00 and you only got $100,000.00 you'd be okay with that because it would be based on merit.  So when you're handing out free stuff that's taken from other people by coercion, you're driven by the sense of envy.  They've got more than I do.  I should have some.  It's theft and you can make a case, and I believe it, that you could find a group of people who would say, if you took an entire group of employees at the insurance company and you said that everybody has to accept the check or nobody gets the check, you would find people, I'm telling you, who would turn down $100,000.00 tax-free because the idea of everybody else getting $250,000.00 is intolerable to them.  We call these people Democrats and there's something wrong with them.  There's something wrong with them.  They're busy thinking about other peoples' lives because they don't feel like they have any control over their own.  We want everybody to be free. We want everybody to be masters of their own destiny. We believe in the individuals. We believe if you protect the group, then that group can be protected and other groups are not. But if you protect an individual, everybody's protected.  If you protect the individual -- the first Jewish businessman in the beginning of the Nazi onslaught. If you have legal protections around the individual, the first time somebody tries to tell John Rabinowitz that he can't practice law, he says, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no.  You don’t get to do this to me.  I have inviolate personal freedoms and you can't touch me." And then you don't get the Holocaust.  When you protect groups, and you support other groups, now you have a target for your envy.  Is it the Jews?  Is it the Kulaks?  Is it the intellectuals?  Is it the one-percenters?  You've got to have somebody you can get ginned up and hate about.  Got to have somebody you can envy.  You've got to have somebody you can steal from and you've got to make sure that those people are perceived as having stolen their wealth, because if they earned their wealth, you taking it is stealing. But if they stole their wealth, you taking it is justice.  That's how it works.

Bill goes on to relate a very important point – the kids loved it. They got it. Bill Whittle undid years of programming performed upon those kids in indoctrination centers we call schools with one single example of how socialism uses envy as a justification to steal other people's stuff and 'gift' it to others as a means of gaining power, and with it, use it to steal even more stuff from those who earned it. He shows how it tries to destroy the individual and empower the collective even though it is the individual who has the power and the drive to enrich everyone else. All the collective does is bring everyone to the lowest common denominator, something to which no one should strive.

All I can suggest is to read the whole thing, or better yet, watch the video as it gives a better feel for what Bill taught.

Much Needed Changes

As the presidential primaries and caucuses continue and campaigns for the House and Senate start, I have to admit to feeling we will be seeing a crop of candidates that will fail to measure up to even some of the more minimal standards that define 'reasonably qualified', at least in my eyes.

Of all the elections years I have experienced over the past 44 years, I have to say that this one fills me with dismay...and perhaps a bit of dread.

I have to admit that one of my biggest gripes about our electoral system, at least at the national level, is there there is no way to show our displeasure at the candidates running except by two wholly inadequate means:

Voting for the 'other' guy even though they aren't all that much better than they guy we're against. (To be politically correct, by 'guy' I mean man or woman.)

Staying home and not voting at all.

Neither is acceptable to me any more. It does not allow us to say to the nation “Both of these candidates stink! We don't want either of them!” This of course applies to elective offices where there are more than two candidates running for that particular office, but you get the picture.

I won't be the first one to voice this opinion. I doubt I'll be the last. But I think it's time to seriously consider this option, that being making “None of the Above” a legitimate selection on the ballot. Let me explain.

First, it would likely require an Amendment to the US Constitution, though I am not sure. It might only require a change in the election laws to do so. That is something someone versed in election law could address far better than I.

Second, any such amendment should be limited to federal elective offices which means the House of Representatives, the Senate, Vice President, and President. If the states want to follow suit, let them do so by amending their respective constitutions and/or state election laws.

Third, if “None of the Above” wins above all other candidates, then a new election will be required to fill the office. One important part of this is that none of the candidates on the first ballot will be eligible to run on the second ballot. An entirely new batch of candidates would be needed to run for the second attempt because we already know none from the first batch were acceptable to the voters.

More than a few folks I spoke to over the past few days about this are in favor of a “None of the Above” option. If nothing else it gives those who are presently unable to display their displeasure a voice that until now has been ignored.

Another thing for us to consider is changing how we elect our US Senators.

Since the ratification of the 17th Amendment, Senators have been elected directly by the voters, the same as members of the House of Representatives. This has, in my opinion, made the Senate nothing more than just a more 'uppity' version of the House. The senators are not beholden to their states or constituents, but to those who helped finance their campaigns. While the idea behind the 17th Amendment was to make the Senate more flexible and less beholden to the many states, it has proven to be (to me at least) a failure. The members of the Senate are, in fact, nothing more than 'super-representatives' in Congress. This was not the intent of the Founders.

I believe it is time to repeal the 17th Amendment and return election of senators to the state legislatures. Senators should be working for their home states, should be beholden to their home states and not to the likes of the various special interests who gave them millions in campaign contributions. The 17th Amendment is a dismal failure and has caused far more harm than it was supposed to prevent.

I think it is about time to seriously consider these changes because they are long overdue.

Thoughts On A Sunday

The warmer weather has returned to New Hampshire and we're loving it.

About the only downside is that the pollen count is rather high and ahead of schedule. We usually don't see this until early May. It certainly has been affecting BeezleBub as he's been dealing with his allergies. (It's ironic that a farmer suffers from hay fever!)

I will be getting to some outdoor chores today, but only some light cleanup as the ground is still rather wet and muddy in some places.

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I admit I haven't been paying a lot of attention to the presidential campaigns of either major party because I haven't been hearing anything new since the New Hampshire primaries back in February.

It's all boiled down to tit-for-tat, “He's a doody-head!” “No, he's a doody-head!” type of back and forth. Between the two old white socialists who really don't care about the middle class in one party and the outsider/insider/state governor three-way race in the other party, it all starts to sound the same.

I have had some discussions with the missus, with her stating she thinks Hillary has bought the election (well, she's certainly paid a lot of money for it, and I'm not talking about ad campaigns) and me countering about how she won't be able to run for office from federal prison, to our aligned opinions about Trump (“He's a loud-mouthed spoiled bully who doesn't like it when he doesn't get his way”) to Cruz (“We got nothin'”) to John Kasich (“John who?”).

This has got to be one of the least interesting yet scariest presidential election seasons I can remember. Not one of the remaining candidates in either party can be said to pique our interests. That's saying something from someone who has been very involved in the electoral process since 1974, the first year I could vote.

I've heard more than a few friends and a lot of the smarter pundits saying that those people who could truly be great presidents want nothing to do with the office, knowing what the job entails and knowing it requires living in a city that is a “wretched hive of scum and villainy.”

This is what makes me think the next president should be dragged kicking and screaming into office against their will. Anyone wanting the position should automatically be disqualified.

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The first real effects of the new state $15 minimum wage is being felt in California, with a number of garment firms pulling the plug and preparing to move their clothes-making operations out of the state.

One company, American Apparel, is planning to outsource clothes-making to another manufacturer out of state, making 500 jobs in Los Angeles disappear.

This will ripple through the California economy and will have just the opposite effect intended. But that won't matter to those who championed the new minimum wage because it wasn't really done to 'help' the poor, but to make themselves feel better.

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Here is a perfect example of Hollywood political hypocrisy.

There's nothing I can add to that except take up Glenn Reynolds' demand that we end the Hollywood tax breaks.

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Iowahawk nails this one.

“Capitalism” isn't a “system,” it's a word made up by an 1860's hipster dipshit to whine about people voluntarily buying and selling stuff.

Indeed.

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Though I've seen this on a number of other much more popular blogs, I feel compelled to add it here as well.

A Hippie Discovers Economics, And You'll Never Guess What Happens Next!

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Skip digs into how the socialist heart always gets broken.

They also have a short memory because they keep trying the same thing over and over again but end up with the same results.

I wouldn't mind it so much if they went somewhere else and tried it, but they have infested the American culture, are turning things upside down, and still can't figure out why none of their ideas to create the “Socialist Utopia” ever come to fruition. It certainly isn't for the lack of trying.

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I have again given one of my more cynical acquaintances the chance to try what I like to call “The News Experiment”.

This is where for one week they give up reading all of the 'normal' news dealing with crime, war, politics, death and destruction. Instead they can read only science and technology news for that week. Then compare and contrast the two.

The few other times I have challenged someone to do this and they've followed through, they are amazed at the difference in the outlook between the two. The science and technology news is far more upbeat and forward looking while the 'normal' news is almost always a downer.

And people wonder why I read a lot of the science and engineering blogs, magazines, and journals.

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Steven Hayward asks “Why do Democrats hate their own presidents?”

Writes Hayward:

you would think that Democrats would celebrate, and hope to emulate, the success of the Clinton years just as Republicans look back to and hope to recreate the Reagan years. Instead, Democrats are rushing to repudiate nearly all of Clinton’s successes.

Those successes being things like a balanced budget, a growing economy, more free trade, a major reform of a bloated and oft-abused welfare system, and a falling crime rate. Why do the Democrats hate these successes? Because it gives them even less control over the American people. Success equals failure in their eyes, because it means they will have less power over the electorate. Fewer poor means they have fewer people to bribe with government largess like subsidized housing, food stamps, and free health care (Medicaid).

It isn't just Bill Clinton they hate. They also have major dislikes of most of his predecessors going all they way back to Thomas Jefferson because “he not only owned slaves, but canoodled with one of them.”

There's just no pleasing these guys, is there?

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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Oh, yeah, this will work out well.

It is only a matter of time before someone will go a little two far and it will end up killing people, or worse, precipitate a shooting war.

Of course if we did something like along the lines of what the Russians have been pulling, I would almost rather have it be a scene out of Tom Clancy's book The Hunt for Red October, where the Soviet Navy was getting too close to US territorial waters. Fighters and fighter-bombers kept the Soviets busy on their radar while a flight of four A-10 Warthogs flew at wavetop level, then bracketed the Soviet flagship by dropping flares along each side and at the bow and stern of the ship to show them just how vulnerable they were.

As the Warthogs flew away, the flight leader got on his radio set on the guard channel and sent “This is Captain Barry Friendly. Thank you for flying Warthog Air!”

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This is something I have known for some time: The We-All-Hate-The-Evil-Humans-For-Creating-Climate-Change crowd have been ignoring a scientific fraud.

The fraud? That nuclear power is too expensive to build, too dangerous to use, and won't help reduce carbon emissions.

Of the three, the first two are by far and away the most overly fraudulent claims. Then again, the Green true believers don't want anything that will improve people's lives to be used. They want us back to live under early 18th Century conditions...except for them, of course. After all, they'll have to keep an eye on us to prevent us from progressing past that point.

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And that's thenews from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the woodstoves are cold, the woodpiles aren't shrinking, and where we can actually have our doors and windows open to let the warm air in!

The Poor Put-Upon Social Justice Warriors

As the whole PC movement has been pressing forward and the Social Justice Warrior shtick it has inspired have grown, my tolerance for the hypocrisy and intolerance that go with it has shrunk. I realize that some of those same SJW's will think my statement is some kind of microagression or show my racism/white privilege/intolerance for their sensibilities, but frankly I don't care anymore. Not that I ever did care, but I generally kept my thoughts about it to myself. Those days are now gone.

When one looks at everything the SJW's are demanding, particularly after you take a few steps back, what is it they are really looking for? What is the only thing that will truly mollify them and make them all safe and warm?

Treating them like the spoiled little children they are.

Think about it. What is it they keep demanding, both on college campuses and out in their version of real life?

No words that will make them sad or scared.

No bad pictures.

No one challenging their simplistic view of the world. (Imagine the world of a three or four-year old and you'll know what they're looking for.)

No bad people.

No bad ideas.

They want safe places, coloring books, and puppies.

They want ice cream.

They want it and they want it NOW!

What they really need is a spanking and a dose of harsh reality. If we look at them as spoiled, self-absorbed, selfish children, their problem becomes evident to everyone.

Who do we blame for this gawd-awful turn of events? That's quite simple: their parents, their schools, and their teachers, from kindergarten on up through college. No one has challenged them their entire lives, given them the opportunity to think things trough for themselves. If they had, it is highly likely the wouldn't have become SJW's to begin with because they would have seen what a stupid 'movement' the various social injustice opponents had joined.

About the only thing the various SJW's deserve is pity and ridicule...and maybe a spanking.

A New Word Discovery

Seen over at a post at Newsbusters:

Presstitute.

No definition need be supplied.

Hey SJW's! Appropriate THIS!!

Bill Whittle reminds the always aggrieved Social Justice Warriors whose latest grievance deals with 'Cultural Appropriation' that they should stop whining about what is one of our greatest American strengths.


“Jaysus, Mary, and Joseph!” indeed. If they truly feel that way, then they should divest themselves of everything they've appropriated from our Western culture. As the saying goes, “You first!” Otherwise they should shut the hell up, stop sounding like spoiled children who didn't get the toy they demanded, and grow up.

Of course we know the chances of that happening are somewhere between slim and none.

Maybe we should start defining the acronym 'SJW' to mean Social Justice Whiners.

Thoughts On A Sunday

Cooler than normal temps have arrived and will be sticking around for a few days, necessitating restarting the Official Weekend Pundit Woodstove.

I had hoped we wouldn't really need it again until this coming November, but Mother Nature had other ideas. While it is sunny here in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire, the daytime temps are below normal and the nighttime temps are near or below freezing.

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This is a perfect example of just how unprepared a good portion of our high school graduates are for the rigors of college.

Poor critical thinking skills, poor writing skills, and the inability to take justified criticism for their poor work seems to be the trademark of too many college freshmen these days.

It's grade-grubbing season again.  With it come nervous, angry, and very rude students.

Low IQ levels, total indifference to learning,  no curiosity, specious logic, no in-depth training in critical thinking and writing – these are the real-life factors that face college instructors.  Low grades are frustrating for many students, because they truly don't know what they don't know. 

Too many instructors are reluctant to do their job because (a) the errors are so numerous that the work involved in correcting them is monumental, (b) they fear student retaliation, (c) often the chair of a department will not back up an instructor's decision, and (d) the status of teachers is so poor that we are viewed as mere facilitators rather than purveyors of knowledge.

It all goes down hill from there as many of the pathetic scribblings Professor Toplansky uses as examples become less coherent, off-topic, or both.

These are the kids that will be running our country in the future? If so, our Republic is doomed. It's Idiocracy come to life.

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I've seen a similar story before, but this one is present day.

McDonald's response to the outrageous minimum wage hikes: testing a self-serve McCafe coffee station/kiosk out in downtown Chicago.

If this works out well, it will merely be an addition to this action taken earlier.

As the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for.

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As more than one state has learned to its dismay, state income taxes are overly sensitive to changes in taxpayer's income. What makes it even worse is if one of the biggest single taxpayers in the state decides to pull the plug and move to a state with less onerous taxes. The latest victim of just such a move?

New Jersey.

One billionaire has pulled up stakes and relocated to Florida. His move has thrown the state budget into turmoil because he's no long contributing millions of dollars to the state tax coffers.

Billionaire David Tepper is moving from New Jersey to Florida this year — and so is his tax contribution to New Jersey, which is so large the move threatens his former home's state budget. 

The outsize dent one change of address can make sheds light not only on how much money America's wealthiest citizens can move, but also on how much the "1 percent" contributes to a functioning government.

Other states have learned this lesson in the past, and a nearby state – Connecticut – is already seeing an exodus of wealthy residents relocating to more tax friendly states and taking their money with them, along with one of their larger corporate taxpayers, in this case General Electric.

State politicians are learning an oft taught and forgotten lesson: residents and business are more than willing to vote with their feet when the burden becomes high enough.

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Free speech has been imperiled again, this time by what can only be called 'The Climate Inquisition'.

Anyone who disagrees with the AGW narrative can find themselves subject to a subpoena from a state Attorney General. The latest round of this inquisition has been the Competitive Enterprise Institute, target of yet another witch hunt to stifle anyone who disagrees with the Climate-Change-Is-All-The-Fault-Of-The-Evil-Humans narrative. No dissent can be allowed. Only the One True Path shall reign supreme...even if it is nothing more than a 21st century version of Lysenkoism rolled into McCarthyism.

Once politics becomes the dominating factor in science, science ceases to exist and there is only dogma.

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Skip shows us that the administration at Ohio State University has the right response to the demands of the Special Snowflakes infesting our college campuses after a number of protesters tried to occupy the space outside the University president's office: arrest and expulsion.

The administration is showing these idiots that actions have consequences, a long overdue lesson.

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And that's the abbreviated news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where we're waiting for warmer weather to return, preparing for the upcoming summer season, and bracing ourselves for yet another Monday.

Bernie Sold His Soul And All He Got For It Was A Lousy Tee-shirt

Looking at Bernie Sandres, past and present, one has to wonder when he became such a weather-vane, shifting his opinions and 'beliefs' when the Progressive Elite were horrified and chastised him for being and independent (but still Marxist) voice.

What caused him to sell his soul to the Left?

Expediency.

It became easier for him to pursue possible tenure in the White House once he started aligning his views with the Powers-That-Be within the Democrat Party. Once he started down that path, he lost his soul.

Bernie Sanders has thrived by abandoning whatever made him authentic and becoming a robot reciting dogma in a voice borrowed from Larry David. Hillary Clinton never had a soul, but Bernie Sanders sold his in the hopes of beating her. And he got a bad deal on his soul because he can’t even seem to do that.

Originally Bernie Sanders was an independent who held unconventional views on some issues and wasn’t tied down to the Democratic Party and its widely loathed identity politics. Instead he could just do his old time Wall Street Socialist shtick and score populist points with angry voters without having to pander to every group and cause in the progressive politically correct spectrum of stupidity.

That Bernie is long gone. He was once for securing our borders because without them it “says essentially there is no United States” and “would make everybody in America poorer.” Now he's taken just the opposite position because it fits the narrative he needs agree with in order to get any support from the Leftist elites.

By the time all of this is over Bernie will have given up on every belief and position he's ever held and done so just to have a shot at the Oval Office.

Not that I miss the 'old' Bernie. I don't. In many ways the old Bernie was worse than the “new and improved” Bernie, being someone who wanted to burn down capitalism and replace it with a system everyone who paid any attention to history knew to be nothing more than smoke and mirrors, one that always devolved into tyranny, misery, and poverty.

The new Bernie wants to tax the bejeezus out of everyone (to the tune of $15 trillion) and have Big Brother government give everyone “Free Shit”. However, the outcome of this would be the same as what the old Bernie advocated. It would just be repackaged.

And to think that Bernie sold his soul for this and all he'll get out of it at the end is a “Feel The Bern” tee-shirt.

Bernie Needs To Learn This

“T.A.N.S.T.A.A.F.L.”

Some of you out there may recognize this acronym, coined by Robert Heinlein in his book The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. If you aren't familiar with wither the acronym or the novel, let me translate it for you:

There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch.

It is one of the few Universal Truths. It doesn't matter whether you're black, white, yellow, brown, or some other color of the rainbow. Your religious belief has no bearing on it, nor your personal creed. It is a truth that cuts across all lines...except one.

Anyone care to guess which one?

No? Not even a guess? Here's a hint:

Bernie Sanders.

In case you can't figure it out, the only openly communist member of the US Senate, Bernie Sanders, has made the promise of “Free Shit” the cornerstone of his campaign.

I was sitting here, listening to the local news on talk radio (What can I say? The current wip requires talk radio.) when a soundbite had me seriously contemplating tossing the laptop through the window. Someone was explaining why he was going to vote for Bernie Sanders. His main reason was simple. He is a father and he’s going to vote for Bernie so his kids can have a free college education.

At that point, two things happened at once. I stopped — barely — before I grabbed the laptop and tossed it through the window and I wanted to bang my head against the wall. Following close behind those was a voice in my mind chanting “TANSTAAFL! TANSTAAFL!”

You see, that’s the problem I have with a lot of those who are so enamored with Bernie. They love hearing that their taxes will be decreased — or done away with — while those of the “Wall Street speculators” would go up. They love the idea of their children going to college without having to pay tuition. They embrace student loans without interest. What they don’t do is stop long enough to think critically about the promise of free education, even if only for state universities, and whether or not it would really be free.

Hence the chanting of “TANSTAAFL” in my mind.

No one has actually stopped to figure out how all these free things will paid for. After all, someone has to pay for it otherwise the supply of all that Free Shit will will dwindle away and disappear.

Of course Bernie has figured out that all he has to do is tax the bejeezus out of all of the Wall Street Speculators. However attractive that sounds, there are two major problems with that solution:

1. No way there will be anywhere near enough revenue collected to pay for it all even if he took every penny from them. Bernie and his fellow Marxists always seem to have a problem with math, being unable to figure out that the outgo to pay for it all will exceed income by a factor of a hundred or more.

2. All those 'greedy' Wall Street Speculators will get around paying those confiscatory and punitive taxes 'owed' to the Sanders Administration by doing one simple thing – moving out of the US and speculating in a different financial market outside the reach of the IRS.

Sanders, like all dyed-in-the-wool Socialists, assume the people with money will be willing to gladly pay for the government's generosity towards others while impoverishing themselves in the process. As anyone with half a brain knows, they won't. They'll flee the US and take all their money with them, leaving Bernie with no capitalists to steal from. His “Free Shit” experiment will go the way all previous Free Shit experiments – it will fail miserably, leave the economy in a shambles, and create a nation of over 300 million poor people impoverished by the very government who was supposed to give everyone “Free Shit”. The American people will hate him and his fellow Marxists with a passion. What's worse, he won't have a clue why the American people hate him for what he did. After all, he had good intentions...but we all know where that road leads.

TANSTAAFL, Bernie. TANSTAAFL!

(H/T Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit)

Proof

There's nothing I can add to this that won't diminish the message.

Thoughts On A Sunday

Winter-like temperatures and winds have returned to New Hampshire, with the highs for today not reaching above freezing here at The Manse.

Call it Mother Nature reminding us who's in charge.

Not that any of this is unusual as I've seen more than a few Aprils where winter weather has returned, if but briefly.

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If anyone needs proof that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it, all one needs to do is compare Venezuela today and Zimbabwe 15 years ago.

Visiting a supermarket in Venezuela is like entering Monty Python’s cheese-shop sketch. “Do you have any milk?” The shop assistant shakes her head. Sugar? No. Coffee? No. Soap? No. Cornflour? No. Cooking oil? No. Do you in fact have any of the products that the government deems so essential that it fixes their prices at less than what it costs to make them? No.

And they wonder why every day necessities aren't available. This is the legacy of socialism, from the time of the Pilgrims in Plymouth through the reign of terror that was the Soviet Union and up to today in Venezuela.

The thing is that the dyed-in-the-wool socialists never learn the lesson, particularly Bernie Sanders, who wants to make the same mistakes as his predecessors.

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As follow-up to the above, here it is, 2016, and we're still arguing whether Marxism works, despite almost a century of evidence that it doesn't, never has, and never will.

Marxism, like its similar sibling Socialism, is based upon false premises, the biggest being that human nature can be overcome and everyone can be made to be altruistic to a fault. The one thing the Marxists ignore is that the only group of people who were ever 'altruistic' 24/7 were slaves, and they had no choice in the matter.

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Yeah, this will work out well.

Fauxcahontas wants the Securities and Exchange Commission to “prohibit organizations from saying whatever they want about Washington policy debates.”

Which organizations? What businesses? While her actions are focused on a particular industry, it appears she'd be happy if every single business or organization of every kind were banned from speaking out on government policy changes that will affect them. Instead they'll be required to shut up and take whatever the government dishes out?

Yeah. Right.

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By their deeds ye shall know them.

That certainly applies to the Left as we've seen how they didn't let the truth get in the way of a good narrative. In this case it was a hate crime hoax they're blaming on Trump.

They should be careful because the old axion “What goes around, comes around,” still holds true.

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And the hits keep on coming. In this case, yet another one of Obama's favorite “green energy” firms is going under.

What's worse is that this one will be 5 times larger than Solyndra's failure and will likely leave the American taxpayer on the hook.

When will the people finally wake up to the fact that “green energy” will never be competitive, will never generate anywhere near it's 'official' capacity, will continue to suck up billions in taxpayer subsidies, and have, as part of its strategy, built in graft and corruption?

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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Self-victimization as a means of gaining political power?

Yup.

Skip covers it, showing how the special snowflakes and crybullies are playing the “victim” card in order to gain political power. Too bad that much of that power is based upon what is nothing more than mental illness brought about by poor education (more like indoctrination) and parental nonfeasance.

Until these 'victims' can show us medical records that show that they are sane, cognizant members of the human race, they should be ignored...and pitied. If that doesn't work, then perhaps step it up to ridicule.

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David Starr reminds us that, in the end, the upcoming elections are really about one main topic.

What is it?

It's the economy, stupid!

Looking at polls, and just talking around,  the economy and the chances of keeping your job, are the top concerns among US voters, going into this election. 

That hasn't really changed in decades.

If the economy is in trouble, none of the other social issues matter. A strong economy helps salve many of the social ills we still experience. Some are trying to tell us everything is just hunky dory with the economy. Others say the numbers are deceiving and the Powers-That-Be are ignoring or burying the actual economic indicators. Which one is right?

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I agree with this wholeheartedly.

The Won's Nobel Peace Prize is looking pretty tattered these days, particularly in light of his failure to address the genocide in Syria perpetrated by both the Assad regime and the ISIS butchers.

What's worse is that it was entirely preventable.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the temps have plummeted, the winds are howling, and where spring has fled for the time being.

California Shoots Itself In The Foot...Again

If you thought the exodus from California gathering speed, it's likely to increase at an even greater pace now that the once Golden State has been pondering a change of its statewide minimum wage to $15 per hour. If Governor Brown signs the bill passed by the state legislature, the Law of Unintended Consequences will make its presence known with a vengeance.

Businesses that were already struggling under California's myriad of confiscatory taxes and business-stifling regulations are likely to see an artificial rise in labor costs to be the last straw. They will either lay off workers, move out of state, or worse, close their doors. The question is, how long will it take before the negative consequences of this minimum wage hike are felt?

Setting a minimum wage at $15 has plenty of critics.

"California may be the first state to pass a $15 minimum wage, but it will also be the first to find out why that's a bad idea," said Michael Saltsman, research director of the Employment Policies Institute, a conservative think tank opposed to minimum wage hikes. He argues that many businesses will have to cut staff or close because of the deal. "This pain from a $15 minimum wage will only be exacerbated in more troubled counties in the state."

The mistake Mr. Saltsman makes is that he believes the Powers That Be in California care one whit for the “more troubled counties in the state.” They don't. We've seen that already as countless farms were forced out of business when the state decided to send water originally slated for farms elsewhere, some of which was sent directly to the Pacific Ocean for feel-good nonsensical reasons. We've also seen it when the Coastal elite and their cronies in Sacramento do everything they can hurt large swaths of the state that aren't like them. Is it any wonder that more than a few people have suggested it may be time to break up California into a number of smaller states? Such an action would let the non-coastal portions of California decide their own fates rather than being dictated to by those in Sacramento who do not have their best interests at heart.

Another effect that California is purposely ignoring is the consequences the wage hike will have on those who will lose their jobs because they aren't worth $15 an hour, or will see their jobs automated out of existence.

Brown’s minimum wage scheme will, of course, artificially raise the cost of hiring the most at-risk workers. Though the robots are not ready to take over quite yet, an onerous wage floor only incentivizes further research into automation. This whole situation is a bizarre illustration of the layered contradictions contained in the blue coalition: anti-inequality crusaders want a radical minimum wage hike, which will likely have the effect of raising unemployment (and welfare eligibility) among economically deprived blue constituencies.

The only ones left in California will be the wealthy and the state-dependent poor. Everyone else will have either left for greener pastures or been condemned to poverty by their 'betters'. The wage hike will make the elite feel better about themselves, but will do none of the things those promoting the higher minimum wage have promised.

The Truth About 2016 Presidential Candidates

As the presidential primary campaigns make there way across the nation, I have become more disillusioned with the shrinking group of candidates. It's gotten to the point that I agree with the following sentiment:

'Nuff said.

How Low Can They Go?

As our accelerating decay continues, the overly sensitive snowflakes on our college campuses continue to make a mockery of the sacrifices made by those that went before them.

One such group is those who were involved in the Civil Rights Movement in the 50's and 60's. The present day crybullies try to diminish their works, the lives lost, and the final triumph of the movement. Few of them realize or even care that it was those brave souls who made it possible for many of them to attend the present day institutions of intolerance and indoctrination that many of our colleges and universities have become. I'm sure more than a few of them would be horrified to see what these self-important and willfully ignorant children have done with their legacy.

The latest target of their scorn?

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

At the University of Oregon, student leaders wanted one of the most powerful and poignant quotes from the Civil Rights leader removed from a wall on the school's student center. You know the quote:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream.

One might ask why these bastions of self-centeredness and intolerance would want one of the bedrocks of Dr. King's legacy to be removed?

Because it says nothing about discrimination based on gender identity.

Really? That's their gripe?

That begs another question: What the hell is wrong with these morons? Do they honestly believe that something that was said fifty years ago should somehow apply to a perceived problem that wasn't even in the public consciousness back then?

These kids should either be expelled for their idiocy because they are not capable of true cognition and as such should be kept away from the rest of the student body before they infect them, or institutionalized because they are insane and a danger to themselves and everyone else with whom they may come into contact.

One has to wonder just how low these snowflakes can go.