July 12, 2019 · 12:14 pm

Antifa

Antifa’s name sounds like something out of Orwell’s
1984 Ministry of Truth. It means “anti-fascist” but they actually behave like–and clearly are–fascists themselves. The name Antifa apparently came from post-war Germany in 1946, created to combat lingering Nazism. The name was subsequently picked up when Trump was elected.

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This outfit is only the latest manifestation of various left-wing, anti-capitalist groups going back to the early 1900s. Leaning toward communism, they justify their efforts these days as fighting “white nationalism,” or more vaguely the alt-right or “white supremists”. In reality they are a left-wing terrorist organization that has absorbed the anarchists. They are also the culmination of the Occupy Wall Street and Black Lives Matter movements.
The first direct-action groups got started in the UK. The ALF (Animal Liberation Front) was a violent group supposedly defending the rights of animals. In the US, this secretive, loosely-organized group became the ELF or Earth Liberation Front. They committed a number of violent crimes like burning down a ski lodge, some condos in CA and a plant research lab in Wisconsin where a young student was killed. The FBI got called in and they eventually arrested a bunch of them and the rest went deep underground.

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The Anarchist Federation came into prominence in the UK in 1960 and later started protesting the WTO, who promoted free trade through the Multilateral Trading System. The left, unions, communists and environmentalists opposed “globalization”, essentially free trade, and started violent protests. The anarchists started traveling all over Europe to wherever their meetings were being held.
In the fall of 1999 the WTO meeting was scheduled for Seattle and a massive protest got organized. In addition to the usual suspects in objecting to “globalization”, unions, environmentalists and the Black Block (anarchists) formed into the DAN, or Direct Action Network, a confederation of anti-corporate, anti-authoritarian and anarchist groups. They had a detailed plan on what they were going to do and the police were totally reactive, outnumbered and overwhelmed. They blocked the intersections and the hotels where the delegates were staying, preventing them from getting to the meeting. They rampaged through downtown damaging business, starting fires and overturning cop cars. Governor Locke called in the National Guard to quell the riot. Only 24 of the protestors were charged and the liberal prosecutor turned them all loose.
These direct action organizations are the overt manifestation of the attitude now pervasive on college campuses where speakers of conservative leanings are routinely shouted down by self- absorbed, ignorant, pampered snowflakes. Free speech? If you disagree with them, you have no right to voice your opinion. First Amendment? Furgetaboutit!
The Antifa low-life get a pass from the left wing media because they are deemed to be fighting white nationalism. The truth is, they violently oppose conservatives. It no longer matters to them if you simply have a different point of view, they want to beat the shit out of you, if necessary, to silence you.
The anarchists now have a safe place to hide with covered faces and to wreak havoc with impunity. The liberal press and local governments give them a pass.
The battle at Berkley, black dressed and masked Antifa protesters raged through town in protest of conservative Milo Yiannopoulos. OK, Milo is a bit over the top, but these days if you don’t like a speaker’s point of view, you make it impossible for him to speak. No more of the “let’s have a debate”. Nope. You won’t be allowed to even open your mouth or you will be drowned out. The radical students call this “deplatforming”; shouting down to battle “fascism and Nazism.” University administrators are so spineless (and probably agree with the students anyway) that they do nothing. The cost to the university for security cost a million dollars and many times that for the damage to local business and property.
The latest violent outrage by these cowards happened recently in Portland, a city that is not new to Antifa protests.


Andy Ngo, a reporter for the Quillette online newspaper that focuses on science, technology, culture and politics, was filming a protest by Antifa in downtown Portland. Andy is Asian, gay, and maybe weighs 130 lbs with his pockets full of sand. He is also a conservative, and for that, the Antifa bullies decided to beat the shit out of him and steal his camera equipment. The police stood by and watched him get pummeled and did nothing to help the guy. He wound up in the hospital with bleeding on the brain.
The Portland police chief says the Mayor Ted Wheeler had told them to stand down. Considering the other stuff that goes on in this town, I tend to believe the chief.
These guys are getting out of hand and need to be stopped.
With faces covered and dressed from head to toe in black, it’s difficult to identify them, and now they are taking to wearing helmets, carrying shields and armed with heavy sticks. They are itching to bust some heads and break something.
There are federal laws that give police grounds to arrest them. 18 USC 241 allows for the arrest for “anyone depriving anyone of their rights on the highway or premises”. Further, 42 USC 1985 (3) allows for the arrest of anyone wearing a mask or disguise while committing the violation. That one was put in to combat the Ku Klux Klan wearing their masks.
The 18 USC 241 does not require an overt act and is always a felony violation. A felon loses his right to vote and to own or carry a firearm. You cannot go to Canada and travel outside the US is difficult but not impossible. Serious shit and one of these round ups should cool the passion of the Antifa crowd.
The next one of these outrages gets started, the police, en masse, should swoop in and round them all up. They might need the National Guard to do the job or call in the police from every surrounding community. They’d probably have to drive them into a box canyon in the city to corner all of them and pull them out one at a time to arrest and haul away. Probably have to use tear gas and fire hoses to keep them from breaking out. Photographed and finger printed and locked up until their hearing might sober them up a little.
You couldn’t count on the mayors of west coast cities to do this. These are federal crimes and should be stopped by the feds and prosecuted in federal court. Enough is enough.

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June 12, 2019 · 8:54 pm

Something Worth Worrying About

    At his college graduation party Ben Braddock, Dustin Hoffman’s character in “The Graduate”, was uncertain about what to do with his life.  One of the party-goers offered some advice.  He said, “One word: plastics,” which was probably good advice in 1967 when the movie was made.  We use the damn stuff in everything and it has become a serious problem.

    If you are a regular reader of this blog you already know I am not a big believer in global warming, to say the least.  I subscribe to the Bjorn Lomborg school of thinking.  In other words, while it may be getting slightly warmer, it is not such a massive problem that we need to destroy our economy in what is likely a futile attempt to prevent it.  Also, there is a lot of junk science and outright misrepresentation of the facts oft repeated by politicians and the hard left to get people riled up.  The schools are especially bad at brain washing the children.

    If you want an environmental issue to worry about that is a real and more immediate threat than climate change, consider the five massive patches of plastics floating around in the oceans.  The largest is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch between Hawaii and California.  This is also called the Pacific Trash Vortex, caused by the interaction of several ocean currents.  This floating mass of plastic is about twice the size of Texas and is larger than four other ocean garbage patches in the oceans of the world.  These massive accumulations of floating garbage are formed by “gyres” or large systems of ocean currents that act like slow moving whirlpools.

Ocean Gyre

    Besides the GPGP (aka the South Pacific Gyre) the other major garbage patches are the North Pacific Gyre, the North and South Atlantic Gyres and the Indian Ocean Gyre.  Garbage from coastal countries floats or is dumped into the ocean and the currents accumulate the stuff into these islands of mostly plastics.  Of course, there are also fishing nets torn loose and lost that entangle turtles, fish and sea birds.  Larger fish and mammals ingest some of the larger items that accumulate in their digestive systems and eventually kill them.

Great Pacific Garbage Patch

    The bigger problem is the longevity of these plastics that take decades or hundreds of years to degrade.  Wind, sun and wave action break them down to smaller and smaller fragments called micro plastics and eventually they enter the food chain through absorption by plankton and then to fish and finally to us.  Reportedly 93% of Americans tested positive for BPA, another plastic used in bottles and other common products.  No one knows the long-term effects of ingesting this stuff and the science on it is in its infancy.

    A couple of years ago two grammar school kids became famous for starting a movement to ban plastic straws.  Seattle quickly banned the things followed by California*.  Of course, straws are the least of the plastic crap dumped into the garbage that makes its way into our oceans.  35 billion water bottles enter each year, joining some 500 billion already there.  These suckers take hundreds of years to deteriorate into what?  Particles so small they cannot be seen or removed!  China and Indonesia account for 20 of the plastics dumped each year; the US ranks a very distant 13th on the list of top polluters.  Only 9.5% of plastic bottles are recycled.

    The US has spent $350 billion so far combating global warming (climate change) and will spend $35 billion per year for the next decade.  Much of that is pissed away. (Think Solindra and the others where Obama wasted $780 million).

    Damage to marine ecosystems is estimated to cost $13 B per year, no doubt less that it would cost to make a massive effort to round up the floating garbage patches and haul them to recycling or incineration.  They estimate that it would cost $122M to $460M to hire the boats per year to send them to scoop up the GPGP, a mere fraction of the annual expenditures on climate change**.

There can be arguments made that climate change is natural and not man caused but there can be no argument that the floating ocean garbage patches are the responsibility of humans.

Let’s clean up our own mess.

*Seattle’s plastic straw ban was later overturned to accommodate people with disabilities. Plastic straws must now be provided on request.

**Editor’s note: it was my idea that a floating incinerator be sent out to the garbage patch and use the energy from the burned waste to power the boat. Of course, filters would have to be put on the smokestacks to avoid creating air pollution while cleaning up the water.

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February 18, 2019 · 10:26 pm

Such A Deal

It is unsettling that Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, the freshman congresswoman from New York, would come up with the “Green New Deal”. Although, considering some of the other idiotic pronouncements coming out of her mouth, it is not surprising. What is surprising is that all the declared Presidential candidates for the Democrat nomination so far (Gillibrand, Harris, Booker and Pete Bittingieg….. who?) plus Dear Bernie, who has not yet announced, have embraced this idiotic and destructive plan. (I had to look up who Mr. Bittingieg is and discovered he is the mayor of South Bend, IN, a position that makes him more than qualified to run the US.

Rex Murphy, a commentator for the National Post in his brilliant 2/12/19 piece has dubbed AOC (I’m not going to write out that name again) “the Thomas Jefferson of the infantile progressive left.” She has taken over this lofty role despite being in Congress only 38 days. Quite an achievement but certifies the Democrats wholesale stampede to the far left.

As I pointed out in my 12/20/16 post “Doubling Down on a Losing Hand”, when the Democrats lose a presidential election their reflex is to lurch hard left. A 12/19/16 WSJ piece by Dan Henninger pointed out that after Humphries lost to Nixon they went hard left and ran McGovern who got a whopping 17 electoral votes in the next election. In Reagan’s second election in ’84 the Dems reverted to form and nominated Mondale who managed 13 electoral votes. So here we go again. Every one of the Democrats who have entered the race so far are borderline socialists. Maybe it’s because of the success of Bernie Sanders in the contest with Hillary. It’s hard to believe all these supposedly educated politicians don’t understand the ramifications of this absurd Green New Deal.

On the other hand perhaps it’s because they anticipate that the kids coming out of high school and college these days have been so indoctrinated in the blather of global warming and have no understanding of how the economy actually works. Yeah, I know, it’s called Climate Change now because it polls better but it is still based on the same idea…the planet is getting warmer. Global warming is a harder sell when we are in the middle of a historic cold wave, especially this late in the season.

The charismatic Ms. AOC has laid out the specifics of her Green Wet Dream, er, New Deal because she in her vast wisdom knows exactly how much time we have before the planet burns up. Twelve years. Her prescription to save the planet is for the US that produces 20% of the world’s C02 to go to zero C02 by 2030. This would require elimination of all internal combustion engines….. cars, trucks, tractors, bulldozers, etc. Airplane travel has to be eliminated as much as possible. (Congressional junkets, and attendance at climate change conferences excepted, of course.) Eliminating all fossil fuel would require the closure of all coal and natural gas electrical generating plants. Heating all buildings and homes and powering all vehicles with electricity would require a lot of wind- and solar power-generated electricity. Good luck with that fantasy.

Of course, this massive transformation of society would put countless millions of Americans out of work. Not to worry, AOC’s Green New Deal guarantees everyone a living wage, plus free medical care and free education, plus a guaranteed retirement. This total destruction of the American economy will be gleefully cheered by China until they realize that their biggest market just disappeared.

The Climate Change/ Global Warming movement has never been about the planet getting warmer because there is nothing we can do about it even if it is happening. The movement is an excuse to slide the country into socialism, to give the bureaucrats more control over the everyday lives of the citizens.

My real concern is not about the ignorant ranting of AOC but the fact that so many of her Democrat colleagues are endorsing this suicidal plan. I have come to the conclusion that a test should be required before a person can run for office comprised of four sections: Economics, science, history and government. My first question on the science section would be, “describe photosynthesis and why it is important”. If they can’t answer that one they would be disqualified immediately because that would mean they have no clue of the carbon cycle and how important C02 is to the survival of all living organisms.

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January 21, 2019 · 6:08 pm

Alice and the Sword

That title sounds like a Disney movie but it’s not. It is the story of how I came into possession of my Naval Officer’s ceremonial sword.

I came home at 18 from my freshman year at Cornell in 1960 to discover that my mother had run off again. This time to be with the loser who would be husband Number Three. That sounds like something from a stupid TV game show, but it’s not.

She had done it before. She had left Husband Number One, my birth father, when I was 2 or 3 years old. Actually, I don’t know who took off first because Hubby One, Bill Doran, disappeared at the same time. I never saw him again until I was 18 and looked him up. Never did find out where the two of them went.

I was turned over to the custody of my great aunt Lottie and her husband Paul. They were broke and we moved around from one relative and farm to another.

My mother returned when I was in the 3rd grade with Husband Number Two, Clyde Draper, and we moved to a slum in Pittsburgh while he attended watchmaker’s school. We then moved to Woodlawn, NY, an industrial area where we lived in Clyde’s brother’s cheap hotel. Actually, I spent much of my time on my uncle’s farm where my aunt Lottie now lived.

Clyde took my Mother’s departure hard. He ranted and raved and would not stop talking about it. Frankly, Clyde was not an easy man to live with before the divorce. He had been a Marine in the Pacific and participated in several landings. As I think about it now it seems likely that he suffered from PTSD before it had a name or was widely understood. He could hardly be described as a warm man and he was cheap. I had to save my money from my paper route and babysitting jobs to buy my baseball glove and bow and arrow. For my four years at Cornell he gave me a total of $400. Not quite enough. At the end of my Freshman year I quit my job waiting tables to study for finals the last two weeks and that ended my food program. I lived on wheat germ and sugar I stole from the cafeteria. Pete told me years later that if Alice had known that she would have had a fit!

He didn’t beat me at least not physically. It’s just that he wasn’t THERE. Although we eventually had a cottage on Lake Erie I do not remember a time when he took me fishing and he never took me hunting or attended any of my sporting events. That was OK, but now the situation had become miserable and impossible.

A friend of mine, Pete Gannon, and his family lived in a big house in Lakeview and they offered me a place to stay. I had a room on one end of the house all to myself and the Gannon’s home would be my home for the next six years. Pete and I had been good friends for several years in high school and along with another good friend, Bill Vogt, formed what we called “The Constipated Trio”.

Gordon Gannon was a successful attorney in downtown Buffalo back when it was a thriving city. That was before Buffalo deteriorated into a town half the size it was before all the industry left. He was a great golfer and fantastic wing shot. A big gregarious Irish guy with an infectious laugh, he was easy to like.

Alice, his wife was a blunt, hard smoking and outspoken woman who played the role of the socialite and hostess with aplomb. The frequently abrasive façade hid a heart of pure gold. I think she thought of me as another one of her kids. I discovered that somehow she had gotten her hands on the commissioning picture of me in my dress blue uniform and it hung on her wall until her death. Then for years it hung on Pete’s wall. I often wondered where she got it since I didn’t have one myself. I finally figured out that her address was the one I used on all my Navy paperwork. It WAS after all my home address. So it was Alice who got the news release of my graduation from The Basic part of the training.
She sent it to the newspaper.

The plans for Loi and I to be married were proceeding while I was finishing up my training to become a Navy SEAL. The date was set for two weeks after I completed Army Parachute Training at Ft. Benning, GA. I had no role in those plans. Loi’s widowed Mom had little money and neither did I so the festivities were to be modest. Alice played a role as if she were my actual Mother. She called the etiquette writer at the Buffalo Evening News for some advice on how to arrange the seating chart for all my parents who planned on showing up for the wedding. I don’t have a clue who invited them but Bessie and her third husband, Clyde and his new wife and Bill Doran and his wife all planned to attend the “rehearsal dinner” that Alice had set up for the Wanakah Country Club where the Gannons were members. Gordon had been club champion several times. As for Alice’s carefully planned etiquette seating plan….. my various parents blithely ignored it!

For the wedding I planned to wear my dress white uniform that I had never had an opportunity to wear. It had been purchased along with all my other uniforms with my uniform allowance received when I was commissioned. I also planned to wear my dress ceremonial sword that I had received as a gift from Alice when I graduated from what is now called BUDS. She was the only one who showed up at Little Creek for the ceremony. I don’t know where Alice bought the sword but I suspect that her older son had a hand in it. He was an officer in the Marine Corps Reserve. A sword has been a fixture in a Naval and Marine dress uniform for over 500 years.

When I tried on my whites a week before the wedding I got a surprise. Since my commissioning and after 8 months of brutal training, I had gained a full inch in my neck and two inches in my chest! No way to tailor the whites to fit so it was off to the tux rental place.

I never got to wear the sword…… then or ever. For over 50 years it has knocked around damp basements and unheated garages accumulating corrosion and weathering. I recently sent it to an outfit near the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD and got it refurbished. I plan to give it to my grandson Malcolm, the only grandchild bearing my name. I am writing this so that when he reads it he will understand that it is a symbol of my affection and respect for the generous woman who gave it to me.

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December 12, 2018 · 12:58 am

Gilets Jaunes

I watched the rage of the “gilets jaunes” in France over the raising of gas taxes to fund their climate change agenda.  French taxes are already high and gasoline costs $7.00/ gallon.  I guess they figured enough is enough.  France also gets 75% of its electricity from nuclear that produce zero C02 but the Macron government wants to shut them down.  If you hate C02 why do you also hate nuclear power?

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Trudeau’s Liberals in December of 2016 decided to impose the Pan Canadian Framework on Climate Change.  There were a lot of regulatory issues in there but the key provision was a carbon tax.  The Feds wanted to impose a $20/ton tax on carbon emissions that would increase by $10 per year until it reached $50/ton.  I began to consider the carbon tax dispute in Canada.  A number of provinces are planning not to play ball with the Feds and Trudeau has vowed to stick one on them if they don’t do a carbon tax themselves.  Of course, our BC leaders are all-in on a carbon tax.  BC already has one that began in 2008 at $10 per ton and will hit $35/ton next year.

I started to wonder what a ton of carbon dioxide looks like and how much the average Canadian generated.  The best example I found was an analysis of a three-car family (a Civic, a Prius and a pick-up).  Driving 16,000 miles a year, their autos alone would generate 9 tons of C02.  At $50/ton that’s $450 just for the cars!

In the last election, no one had a majority, so the left leaning NDP joined forces with the Green party to form a government.  I get it that neither of the two leaders has any business experience whatsoever, so I should not be surprised that they seem intent on destroying the BC economy.  Early on, they passed the Medical Services Plan that shifted some of the modest health care fees from individuals to employers.   If an employer has a total payroll of $500,000 they pay 2.95% of their payroll.  If the payroll is over $1,500,000 they pay 1.95%.  That seems a perfect job-killing program.

Now the NDP/Greens have introduced a Clean BC and carbon-reduction plan.  It calls for reduction of C02 by 40% from 2007 levels by 2030.  They want every car sold in BC to be a zero emission vehicle by 2040.  It targets homes, offices and industry.  Not only is this going to be impossible, it will be tremendously costly in dollars and jobs.  What business would want to be in BC with this kind of stuff going on?

With this clown dance going on, I began to wonder why the Feds and in particular, the BC government, seemed bent on destroying the Canadian economy over CO2.  Failure to build a pipeline to the coast alone is costing us $80 million per day.  I mused that Canada must be a big contributor of carbon dioxide to warrant such sacrifices on our economy?  It did not take much research to discover that Canada produces only 1.7% of the world’s CO2.  According to the Environment and Climate Change Canada Agency, BC produces only 5% of this total.  In other words, BC produces .00085 % of world C02.  If Canada stopped emitting CO2 tomorrow, if BC shut down every car and factory, drilling operation and killed every flatulent heifer in Canada, and reduced our carbon footprint to a single molecule, our impact of climate change would be…..  essentially zero!

If you are a true believer and are convinced that CO2 is the villain, why don’t you accept that Canada is also a net absorber of CO2.  According to a piece by F. Larry Martin in the Financial Post (March 2, 2016) Canada absorbs about 20 to 30% MORE CO2 than it emits.  Even if you live in the concrete enclaves of Canada’s cities you surely have to acknowledge that Canada has a Hell of a lot of trees out there that need C02 to survive and grow, not to mention vast fields of grain, hay and corn that need it too.  So, why would we impose destructive economic policies on Canadians when we are already carbon neutral?  Good question.  Perhaps this is a good time to “follow the money” and question our leadership on their financial and scientific ignorance.

Got any yellow jackets in your closet?

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December 2, 2018 · 12:23 am

Revenge of the Swamp

Well, the Democrats regained the House and will effectively put an end to Trump’s program to drain the swamp.  I expect nothing of consequence will get done in the next two years.  I think vengeful Democrats will keep Trump busy with one investigation after another and may even seek impeachment.  The Mueller report is sure to include enough bullshit and spin as to encourage Democrats to go after impeachment, even though they are sure they will never  get a conviction in the Senate.  It will, however, generate much breathless news coverage by their allies in the media.

The Democrats are experts at the combat of politics, you have to give them credit for that.  The last two years has been an exercise in resistance and attack.  The Professional Left has been more than willing participants in this campaign.  The media, Hollywood, pro- abortion groups and environmentalists have joined in attacking Trump.  Of course, Trump plays right into their hands with his outrageous tweets and bombastic statements. His instincts are that of a Brooklyn street brawler and it doesn’t play well with many Republicans who, while enjoying some of his achievements, find his behavior distasteful.

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In the mid-terms the Democrats were smart in selecting people to run who had a military background and professed more conservative views.  Among many moderate or conservative positions, most notable was that, if elected, they would not vote for Pelosi for Speaker.  The first test of their truthfulness will be the Pelosi vote for Speaker.

The other factor was the energy on the Democrat side.  The motivation to get out the vote and take back the House was strong, and women in particular are turned off by Trump, and they voted for the Democrats in strong numbers.  Hatred is a strong motivator.  Witness the Woman’s March held the weekend after Trump’s inauguration.  The hatred was palpable.  More recently, angry groups harassed cabinet members and Senators while they were out dining with their wives.  The left thinks it perfectly fine to shout down conservative speakers at speeches at universities.

The GOP candidates and Trump failed to communicate their achievements in their messaging, particularly by the national party.  Yes, they got the tax cuts through and cutting regulations and taxes spurred the economy to record highs.  But that was only the beginning.  Trump put the brakes on the out-of-control EPA.  Trump’s EPA ended the war on coal, axed the Obama Administration over-the-top car emissions rules, and reversed the Waters of the US rule that essentially gave the EPA control of every damp spot in the US.  The Interior Department proposed major changes to the Endangered Species Act that gave relief to tens of thousands of landowners. The western states should have been especially happy with both of those, but the GOP did little to tout them.

With tax cuts and a booming economy, two new Supremes and dozens of judges, plus the regulatory relief above, you would think that the message would have been clear.  But the GOP did not have a unified message and it was insufficient against the tide of anger and hate from the left.

Just think about how effective the Democrat strategy was on the eve of Trump’s election victory.  High-ranking Justice Department and FBI officials in the Obama administration, who were big supporters of Hillary, decided to promote the narrative that Trump colluded with the Russians to steal the election.  Democrats were quick to pile on to this excuse.   They managed to get a Special Prosecutor appointed who was a dedicated swamp dweller and he appointed almost all highly aggressive Democrat prosecutors to his staff.

This would have two purposes:  First, it would slow down Trump and keep up the narrative that he had somehow succeeded in stealing the election.  Also, and more importantly, it would insure that nothing would be done on the real culprit in election skullduggery committed by the Democrats and Hillary campaign.  It would also delay looking into the obvious issues with Hillary’s illegal server and the massive pay-for-play scheme of the Clinton Foundation.  Exposing all that shit would dog the Democrats for a generation.

The Democrats hoped to stall that exposure until the mid-terms when they hoped to regain Congress and then they could bury it.   It worked.

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August 2, 2018 · 8:10 pm

Hatred and Rage

When Trump was running against a dozen other Republicans for the nomination the press and the left were silent and hoping that he’d win. The press gave him a massive amount of exposure with nary a hint of criticism. They clearly thought he was the easiest for Hillary to beat and hoped he would win the GOP nomination. Then they’d get eight more years of far left/progressive politics and a two or three Supreme Court picks. That would lock in the progressive/socialist agenda for generations to come.

Once Trump got the nomination they turned on the attacks. Hillary figured she had it in the bag and the whole campaign was to tell everyone Trump was unqualified and attack him personally. As insurance the DNC and her campaign paid for concocted a phony dossier put together by a Russian who often worked for the FBI. That would finish Trump for sure.

But it didn’t. Trump won and the disbelief and disappointment were evident on the faces of the journalists covering election night. Some were even tearful as were the kids in colleges. The anguish and the horror of it all! The first woman president following the first black president was how it was ordained. Clearly, the election was stolen!

Right after the inauguration a 500,000 strong Woman’s March was held in Washington, DC. Also termed the Pussy Hat Project, the women wore pink knitted caps with small ears. The march supposedly represented every grievance group known to man and liberal film stars Ashley Judd, Scarlet Johansson and Madonna gave hateful and outrageous speeches. They were OK with men like Van Jones and Michael Moore but women with pro-life leanings were unwelcome.

This was the beginning of the Resistance Movement modeled after the resistance that took place in Wisconsin. The Democrats were going to vote against everything Trump was trying to do. They slow walked all the Presidential appointments. Protests organized and funded by rich liberals and socialists kept their hatred for Trump front and center while the Hollywood liberals pontificated and ridiculed. The mainstream news media dropped all pretense of fairness and openly displayed their distain for Trump.

The Swamp was fighting back. They wanted to perpetuate the leftist professional government and if they could do little with a Republican president, House and Senate the only way to slow things down was to use liberal federal judges.

The Left could not accept that Trump had beaten Hillary fair and square so he must have cheated. They concluded that the emails hacked from Hillary’s illegal server and those from the DNC were taken by the Russians and given to Wiki-leaks. Therefore, they reasoned, Trump must have colluded with the Russians. A special counsel was appointed and the “witch hunt” was on to get rid of Trump. That probe has gone on for 14 months with no signs of slowing down. The side benefit of this clown show was that the press and media could ignore the obvious illegal activity of the Clinton campaign.

Jack Minzey, Head of the Department of Education at Eastern Michigan writes that what the US is now experiencing is a civil war. When one side does not accept the results of an election and in the evenly divided US that is clearly what is going on. The Democrats did not accept the election of G.W. Bush either. Can anyone forget the absurd vote counting in Florida where teams of lawyers were searching for “hanging chads”?

The more successful the Trump administration, the more hysterical the Left becomes. I worry that this thing could erupt into mass violence. Of course, we already had the shootings at the GOP charity baseball practice where Rep. Steve Scalise was seriously injured. The shooter was a left wing activist as was the recent threats on the life of Rep. Lee Zelton and Trump. After anti-Trumpers harassed press sec-retary Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her family out of a restaurant and did the same to Sec. of Homeland Security Maxine Waters in a stupid rant encouraged people to do the same to any administration official. That sounds like inciting violence to me.
All this could end badly. If the Dems regain control of the House you can guarantee that not only will the Trump reform agenda stall out, they will move to impeach him. That’s a scary thought.

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May 11, 2018 · 9:58 pm

Russia Russia Russia

It is an article of faith among Democrats and the Media that Russia preferred Trump over Hillary. Nobody disputes it. To do so would get you curious stares like you had suddenly lost your mind. But it never made any sense to me. Trump promised to put the missiles back in Europe to dissuade Russian aggression. Hillary was never going to do that. Trump promised to build up the military. Hillary hates the military.

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But here’s the biggie….. Trump promised to unleash the oil and gas producers of the US, to approve the stalled pipelines and open up drilling in ANWR and other areas. Hillary surely would have done none of that. She came out against fracking to secure Bernie Sander’s endorsement and she would never cross the anti-oil environmental groups that form an essential part of her constituency. Russia gets half of its annual budget revenues and 70% of its export revenues from the sale of oil and gas to other countries. Does anyone seriously believe they would purposely try to put Trump in the White House knowing he would harm their business and indeed their very survival?

Now comes proof of just how far they are willing to go to frustrate drilling, fracking and pipeline building. As everyone knows (hopefully) New York, Pennsylvania and West Virginia sit atop a massive natural gas deposit called the Marcellus Shale estimated to have somewhere between 141 to 400 trillion cubic feet of recoverable gas by fracking. Pennsylvania and West Virginia allow fracking but New York does not which accounts for the disparity in prosperity between the counties in the gas producing states and those who do not.

It turns out that environmental groups opposed to fracking and pipelines received hundreds of millions of dollars from environmental foundations that get the money from a shell company in Bermuda, that got the money from (wait for it) the Russians. The exposure of this money-laundering scheme was exposed recently by Kevin Mooney, a Heritage Foundation investigative reporter and published an article in the “Daily Signal”, a Heritage publication on 4/22/18.

Mr. Mooney discovered that a shell company called Klein Ltd. was set up by a law firm called Wakefield Quinn and some Russian officials including Putin. The law firm runs Klein and a dozen other shell companies at the same address. The Russians give the money to Klein who in turn sends it to several environmental foundations like the Sea Change Foundation and the Energy Foundation. These groups then distribute the cash to activists groups like the Serria Club and the National Resources Defense Council and likely others including the anti-pipeline groups in Canada.

They have been effective. Activist groups have been able to derail the Mariner 2 East and Constitution gas pipelines that would have pumped natural gas from the huge Marcellus Shale deposit to the East Coast where it could both help out with gas customers but also be liquefied for shipment over seas. The Russians continue to sell natural gas to several coastal states and, of course, have a strangle hold on some Eastern European countries.

In Canada the environmental activists have been successful in preventing the building of the Energy East pipeline and the Northern Gateway pipeline. The former would carry natural gas from Alberta and Saskatchewan to the east coast where it would be liquefied and shipped.  The Northern Gateway would have carried crude from the oil sands of Alberta to the northern coast for shipment. The Russians definitely don’t want Canadian oil and gas getting dumped into the world market for energy. Prices would come down and they would have competition.

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There may be some unintended consequences from blocking these pipelines, particularly the gas pipelines. During the unusual cold spells of the last two winters, gas supplies were extremely tight in eastern NA because of limited pipeline capacity. Couple that with the wholesale conversion from coal to gas fired electricity generation and you have a formula for blackouts during extended cold snaps. I read reports that it nearly happened last winter.

Right now we are having a major war over the building of a second pipeline next to an existing one that terminates at the Fraser River near Vancouver. It’s called the Transmountain pipeline. It would bring oil and refined gasoline to people of the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. There is currently a gas shortage here and gasoline costs $1.61 per liter. That’s $6.09 per gallon!

I’ve been curious as to how these protesters can spend weeks and months camped out obstructing the guys trying to build a pipeline. I ask myself, “How do they support themselves? How do they eat and pay the rent?” I guess the answer is….. from the Russians, indirectly. Unwitting stooges for Putin.

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January 26, 2018 · 3:21 pm

The Wall

All during the Trump campaign every speech included his promise to build a wall on the southern border. As President, he continues to vow to build it. Of course, the Democrats hate the idea and argue that it would not be effective and would cost too much.

The history of walls is long and rich. Perhaps the oldest are the walls of Jericho, but certainly the most famous is the Great Wall of China. Built beginning during the reign of Emperor Qin Shi Haung in 259 BC and continuing for centuries the wall spanned 5,500 miles. Originally conceived to keep out the marauding tribes from the north it also served to collect taxes and fees from the Silk Road trade.

Hadrian’s Wall was ordered by Roman emperor Hadrian in AD 122 and represented the furthest extreme of the Roman expansion in Europe.  It spanned the island from sea to sea some 60 miles south of the now
England/Scotland border. The purpose was to keep the crazy Picts from terrorizing the more civilized folks to the south.

Numerous examples of successful walls exist but a couple more include the wall around the Kremlin and the wall completely spanning Manhattan Island built by the Dutch to keep out the Native tribes. Guess where the name “Wall Street” came from?

Most walls are intended to keep the enemy out, but the Berlin Wall was intended to keep its citizens inside. The lure of the modern and prosperous West Germany served as a great motivator for the captives to escape the misery of East Germany. People risked their lives and often lost them in trying to escape.

North Korea also built a wall to keep its hapless citizens inside at the DMZ separating North and South Korea.

Two recent examples are the West Bank Barrier between Israel and the Palestinians on the West Bank. It has been very effective in nearly eliminating the terrorist attacks. More recently, the Hungarian Border Wall has been constructed to stop the flood of migrants from Syria and Africa that are inundating Europe and threatening the culture of European countries.

The argument that the wall would cost too much does not make much sense either when compared to the cost to society for all the costs of supporting the illegals like educating illegal youth, health care and welfare, not to mention crime. The Trump/GOP tax plan that was just enacted has prompted Apple to repatriate some $250 billion dollars. They are paying an additional $48 billion in taxes on that money. Part of that windfall would make a nice down payment on a wall.

We can never know how effective these ancient walls were in achieving their purpose but the modern examples; Berlin, West Bank and Hungarian were very effective. The Democrat argument that the wall will do nothing to retard the flow of illegals and drugs across our southern border is self-serving at best. The truth is Democrats cynically want illegals because they are counting on them to become loyal Democrat voters.

When your boat has a leak far from shore it makes sense to try to stop the leak before bailing. Otherwise, you fight a losing battle. The fact that some of these yahoos have been deported five, six or more times suggests that the leak is pretty serious. Build a wall to stop the leakage and then start bailing some of the undesirables out.

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December 23, 2017 · 9:56 pm

Random Stuff

A new speech affectation has replaced the “Valley Girl Lift”; raising the voice inflection, usually at the end of sentences. This also added the annoyance of making every sentence sound like a question.

The new one is called “vocal fry”, a creaky voice guttural vibration. Science magazine calls it “glottalization” and others call it “laryngealization”. I think I’ll stick with vocal fry. Until I discovered the official name for this affectation I called it “the strangled voice”.  Apparently, this manner of talking is accomplished by constricting the vocal cords to such a degree that the sound comes out at the bottom end of the vocal register.

So why do so many young women affect this maddening manner of speech? Lots of theories, but who the hell knows? Why do styles and fads come and just as quickly burn out? Some theorize it’s a kind of tribalism thing between women. Others believe that making the voice deeper creates the impression of authority and competence.

One study estimates that fully two-thirds of US women are now using this method of talking and Bob Garfield believes it is particularly annoying to older white men. Being an older, white male I can attest to that belief. It drives me crazy.

Olga Kazen in an article in Atlantic magazine reports that studies at Duke University conclude that this manner of speech may actually hurt job prospects for young women. That’s not good, but certainly better than earlier reports that vocal fry would do permanent damage to vocal cords. Subsequent research has shown that to be untrue.

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Kneeling Update

Some NFL players continue to kneel during the National Anthem despite the ongoing deterioration of attendance at games and viewers on TV. LA Raiders running back Marshawn Lynch doubled the disrespect at a game played in Mexico. He knelt for the US anthem and then stood for the Mexican anthem. Having observed this asshole in Seattle for number of years, I was not surprised. Now the rest of the country knows what a jerk he is.

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The owners of these teams are understandably concerned about empty seats, reduced revenue from sales of team gear, and diminishing TV viewership. They are considering keeping the players in the locker room until the anthem is over. I seriously doubt that’s going to fool anyone. The TV networks have found a way not to show the protests and the fans in the stands booing the kneeling players: they all have decided not to broadcast the singing of the national anthem. I guess they figure if viewers don’t see it, then they will forget about it. Maybe that will work. I think the viewers will see through that ploy. Viewer-ship has continued to decline.

Frankly, I think the owners could have nipped this problem in the bud by simply telling the players who got this kneeling thing going, “Look, you are pissing people off. If you do it again you will be sent to the locker room and you will not get paid for that game.” Of course, if enough players did it the team would probably lose the game and piss off the fans. These guys are paid a lot per game. Missing a check would hurt.

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In midst of this bungled customer relations nightmare comes the debate over Roger Goodell’s contract. Roger the Dodger is, as all football fans know, the Commissioner of the NFL. He’s got a good gig going already. He made $31.7 million in 2015 and now he wants a new contract for $49.5 million/year, lifetime use of a private jet and lifetime health insurance for his family. True, under his tenure the NFL grew dramatically and the value of those franchises increased handsomely. Now with attendance and viewership declining alarmingly, ardor over Goodell might be cooling. Roger’s handling of the many domestic abuse issues with players, and his fumbling of the ball on this protest stuff may suggest some new blood might be in order. Someone with balls. How about Condoleezza Rice? She always wanted the job.

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Taxes

Much to my surprise the Republicans managed to get together and pass a tax cut plan. The Democrats, completely committed to their “resist” strategy, began to howl like scalded cats. Pelosi, as usual, was way over the top calling the plan “Armageddon”. Really? Cutting taxes is going to end the world as we know it?

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The Democrats rely heavily on the ignorance of the American voter. Schools don’t teach history or even basic economics anymore so the Dems confidently spew their misinformation in the hopes that the ignorant and the hyper-partisans will buy their bullshit. They blissfully pretend they don’t know what happened under the Reagan and GW Bush tax cuts. Jack Kemp (the Congressman from our home district outside of Buffalo) was the godfather of the Reagan tax strategy that brought about the great economic expansion of the 80s. But, say the liberals, “The tax cuts increased the deficit!” No, actually. As Thomas Sowell, the famous Stanford economist explains in his book, “The Vision of the Anointed,” the tax cuts greatly increased government revenues, but the Democrat controlled congress at that time, and they spent all that increase plus a lot more. I think the Trump White House (if they can maintain control of congress) plans to control spending and use the increased revenues for infrastructure, to rebuild the military and to reduce the deficit.

The Democrats standard howls of tax cuts for the rich and nothing for the middle class were momentarily muted when AT&T and Comcast immediately announced they would give every employee a $1,000 bonus. Together just those two companies employ 350,000 workers.  I suspect those folks will be very happy with an extra thousand bucks at Christmas time. A number of other companies also announced plans to expand, build new factories or otherwise improve things for workers. These announcements refuted the Dems claims even as they left their mouths.

The Democrats are betting the farm, their house and their first-born child on retaking control of congress on the November 2018. Their pipe dream of undoing the last election by drumming Trump from office via the Mueller investigation seems to be evaporating. First it was “collusion” with the Russians to steal the election. Then it became “obstruction of justice” until even Rachel Maddow couldn’t figure out a way to hang that one on Trump. Now, it has shifted to “sexual harassment” which has been weaponized to include everything from boorish behavior to rape and to attack opponents. Not that there have not been many men who crossed the line and taken advantage of their employees or junior associates. In Trump’s case the assertions are purely politically motivated and I doubt they are going anywhere.

In the deeply divided country, turn-out is everything and the Democrats are really motivated. There is nothing more dangerous than a cornered wild animal and if the Republicans do not do a better job of selling their accomplishments they could well get their asses handed to them next November.

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