Sunday, April 30, 2017

It looks like Emmanuel Macron has become Marine Le Pen's chief advocate

He's pointing at his head, but he's not using it.
Macron, quoted here:

“When the rights and values of the European Union are not respected, I want sanctions to be taken.”

“In the three months after I’m elected, there will be a decision on Poland.”

“You cannot have a European Union which argues over every single decimal place on the issue of budgets with each country, and which, when you have an EU member which acts like Poland or Hungary on issues linked to universities and learning, or refugees, or fundamental values, decides to do nothing.”

Friday, April 28, 2017

Rush is right: Congress' mission now is to deny Trump any significant legislation

And we thought the Democrats couldn't accomplish anything.

Now the Republicans wouldn't.

NeverTrump lives.

The difference between the 3% economy Trump wants and the one he's got

$428 billion.

Current dollar GDP just increased $137.9 billion in 1Q2017, about 0.73%.

At 3% the increase would have been $566 billion.

Laugh of the Day: Stupid liberal shackle dragger actually believed in her messiah, Barack, until he took the banksters' money

Here, in The Sydney Morning Herald:

This one seemingly greedy act has put all that in jeopardy. He's no different from all the others. Just another money-grubbing politician. I can scarcely believe it. I certainly don't want to. It's just weeks since he said, just before he left office: "I won't stop; in fact, I will be right there with you, as a citizen, for all my days that remain."

"And lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age", or the banks open at 0900.

Thursday, April 27, 2017

Phyllis Schlafly correctly understood natural born citizenship to turn on the question of jurisdiction

Here is Schlafly in 2004:

The extensive litigation concerning American Indians illustrates that consent rather than place of birth is what controls citizenship. Indians did not receive citizenship until conferred by congressional acts in 1887, 1901 and 1924, long after ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The Constitution states that "no person except a natural born citizen" is eligible to be President. Everyone recognizes that this provision disqualifies the Governors of California and Michigan who were born in Austria and Canada, respectively.

On the other hand, then Michigan Governor George Romney, whose birthplace was Mexico, ran for president in 1968, and Senator John McCain, whose birthplace was the Panama Canal Zone, ran for president in 2000. Both were "natural born citizens" because their parents were U.S. citizens and subject to the jurisdiction of American sovereignty.

It's not the physical location of birth that defines citizenship, but whether your parents are citizens, and the express or implied consent to jurisdiction of the sovereign.

Trump's territorial tax plan gives no incentive for business and manufacturing to relocate to the US

What's up with that, huh? Maybe he's not really serious about bringing the jobs back here after all.

From Phyliss Schlafly here in 2011:

Although the Perry plan's most striking feature is its anti-marriage bias, his proposal for corporate income is equally pernicious. Perry would shift businesses to a "territorial" tax system, which means that corporations would be taxed only on the profits they earn inside the United States. 

We should do exactly the opposite. We should reduce or eliminate taxes on businesses that employ Americans producing goods and services inside our own country, while increasing taxes on the profits that corporations earn by outsourcing or manufacturing overseas. 

Above all, we should eliminate the foreign tax credit, a self-destructive provision that allows corporations to pay China or Venezuela or Saudi Arabia the money they would otherwise owe the U.S. government. Let's also cut out the deductions that U.S. corporations take for hiring foreigners to do work that Americans can do. 

Those who support a territorial business tax argue that it will encourage multinational corporations to bring home the profits they earn overseas, but that's unlikely so long as it remains more profitable for them to invest in cheap-labor countries. Of Republican presidential candidates, only Herman Cain and Rick Santorum understand that what corporations need is lower taxes on their operations inside the United States rather than on the profits they earn in other countries. 

"Middle class" according to Pew Research Center is just trying to make everyone feel better

MarketWatch here says that Pew estimates middle class household income for a family of 3 at between about $35,000 and $105,000 for 2011.

To understand how too liberally defined that is, consider that in 2011 almost 60% of individual wage earners made $35,000 or less . . . about 91 million wage earners out of 151 million.

Actually the middle third of all those paycheck earners, 50 million, made between just $15,000 annually and not quite $40,000, the average of which is about $27,500. Make over $40,000 and you were already in the top third of individual wage earners that year.

A couple making $27,500 can survive in this world, but it wouldn't have been able to buy the median priced home of $225,000 in 2011. Just financing that without a down payment, an impossibility, at the average 30-year rate of 4.5% in 2011 would have meant 50% of income going to principal and interest.

Putting 10% down would drop that to 45% of income, still hardly affordable. And who do you know making $27,500 with $22,000 saved for a down payment on a house?

They'd be renting, most likely, and not yet solidly middle class.

In 2016 the average median sales price of a home in the US soared to nearly $314,000, putting the American dream even farther out of reach than ever before for the majority.

US drone captures Afghan men having their way with a couple of goats

And you thought retired US Supreme Court Justice David Souter was a goat-fucking child molester.

We should have blown these sick bastards to kingdom come 16 years ago and not wasted one drop of American blood on them.

Video here.

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Middle Class: The 30-30-30 countries according to wealth distribution are primarily Germanic

The following are the countries with relatively equal sized lower, middle and upper classes in 2013, meaning roughly 30% have wealth under $10,000, roughly 30% have wealth $10,000 to $100,000, and roughly 30% have wealth in excess of $100,000 up to $1M:

USA: 31-33-31

Austria: 28-32-37

Germany: 29-33-35

New Zealand: 26-34-38

Qatar: 25-38-35

Taiwan: 23-45-31






He ain't dead yet: Ted Cruz sees Trump's Wall, raises him one


"El Chapo led the Sinaloa drug cartel," Cruz explained. "There is a sense of justice. A sense of, this is what is right, that the people who are violating the border like crazy, we should use their ill-gotten gains [$14 billion] to finally build the wall, and to finally ensure we have the assets to secure the border."

Republicans to fund Planned Parenthood, but not The Wall

Republicans. Doing the opposite of what they promise, just like Democrats.

Story here.

Trump's Mick Mulvaney is letting the Senate's 60-vote rule stand in the way of funding The Wall

Screw the 60-vote rule.

It's a rule dating to 1917, last revised by the Democrat-controlled Senate in 1975.

It's not in the constitution, and the Senate can change the rules any time it wants.

Now would be a good time, but Trump, McConnell & Co. seem content to leave some water in The Swamp, the better to bog down what the people want, my dear.

Mulvaney, quoted here:

MICK MULVANEY, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT & BUDGET: Yes. The problem is the Senate rules, people forget this sometimes, that the spending bills are different than the budget. The underlying budgets sort of move through the House and Senate differently. Anything that passes on reconciliation moves differently. But most bills, including spending bills, take 60 votes in the Senate.

TAPPER: So you need eight Democrats. 

MULVANEY: Got to have eight, which means that Chuck Schumer and the Democrats have a place at the table. We recognize that. But that's why we just can't do it on our own.

TAPPER: A source close to efforts to avoid a government shutdown tells CNN that the Republican proposal in the House will not include funding for President Trump's border wall with Mexico. 

Is President Trump willing to sign a government spending bill that does not include that money? 

MULVANEY: Yes, because I think the bill -- at least the offer that we received from the Democrats the last couple of days included a good bit of money for border security. The Democrats said they would go to the mat and shut the government down over the border wall, the bricks and mortar. 

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Laugh of the Day: The top one percent in brains tend to become our senators

Gotta be a typo.

Seen here:

Reflecting on the latest findings of longitudinal studies on gifted students, Jonathan Wai, a psychologist at the Duke University Talent Identification Program, concluded that children with early cognitive ability “control our society…The kids who test in the top one percent tend to become our eminent scientists and academics, our Fortune 500 CEOs and federal judges, senators and billionaires.”

Michael Savage: There's an easy solution to the shortage of lethal injection drugs, just give 'em an overdose of street heroin

Beautiful!
And clean out all the death rows already.

I've been workin' on the railroad . . ..

The Wall delayed is justice denied


As socialist Venezuela starves, remember Bernie Sanders once said that's the American Dream

Equal poverty for all!

Here, August 2011:

These days, the American dream is more apt to be realized in South America, in places such as Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina, where incomes are actually more equal today than they are in the land of Horatio Alger. Who's the banana republic now?

Marine Le Pen is popular with France's multitudes of unemployed youth

From the profile, here:

Part of her allure is rooted in the plight of young people in the world’s sixth-largest economy, nearly a quarter of whom are unemployed. On the eve of Le Pen’s rally in Metz, 20-something supporters from across the country came together in the city’s party headquarters to discuss their plans for the following day. It had more the feel of an awkward school dance than a strategy session – they had put out bowls of potato chips and bottles of soda.

Emilien Noé, a former Socialist who coordinates the youth movement in the region, says young people are drawn to the FN’s promise to restore French glory, something they’ve never known. “A lot of young people are living abroad instead of in France, and this is sad for a country like ours,” he says.

Le Pen #I'mWithHer


MOAB left Afghan tunnels used by ISIS "apparently undamaged"

Should have bombed the damn dams of Afghanistan instead.

Put out their lights for good, waste all their water. Send them back to the Stone Age where they belong. And leave.

From the story here:

Afghan special forces troops entered one of the caves used by suspected Isil fighters and found the tunnels apparently undamaged by the explosion. ... Afghan officials claimed that nearly 100 militants and no civilians were killed by the blast but those claims have not been independently verified.

Illegal alien workers in US get $4.2 billion in tax credits: Times five years is plenty to pay for The Wall

From the story here:

[A] July 2011 report by the Treasury inspector general for tax administration ... said individuals who are not authorized to work in the U.S. have been paid $4.2 billion in refundable tax credits.

Monday, April 24, 2017

Marine Le Pen sounds just like Michael Savage, calling on France to choose French borders, language and culture

Quoted here after coming in 2nd in the first round of the French elections yesterday: 

It is a very simple choice for France. Either we carry on towards total deregulation without any borders or protection, and all that entails. With international unfair competition, mass immigration, the free trade, and the free circulation of terrorists. 

Or you choose the France with borders that are going to protect her, employment, and a national identity. 

So you have two choices. ...

I am the candidate of the people. I appeal to all sincere.. patriots to join us and abandon old-fashioned quarrels and particpate in the best interest of our country... and the survival of France. We will unite behind the project of renewal and they will be our brothers.

Saturday, April 22, 2017

Single deadliest attack in 16-year Afghan war, perpetrated by just 10 Taliban, kills over 140

This is payback for the MOAB attack. 

So bomb the water supplies in Afghanistan now. Cut off the money they make from well-irrigated opium.

From the story here:

Dressed in military uniforms, a squad of 10 Taliban militants drove in two army Ford Ranger trucks past seven checkpoints. They arrived inside northern Afghanistan’s largest military installation just as hundreds, perhaps thousands, of unarmed soldiers were emerging from Friday Prayers and preparing for lunch.

For the next five hours, the militants went on a rampage, killing at least 140 soldiers and officers in what is emerging as the single deadliest known attack on an Afghan military base in the country’s 16-year war. Some assailants blew themselves up among the soldiers fleeing for their lives, according to survivors, witnesses and officials.

Pat Buchanan still believes 3,407 votes "mistakenly" cast for him in Palm Beach County made W president


[Buchanan] won 3,407 votes in Palm Beach County, Florida—a liberal, heavily Jewish community—thanks to the “butterfly ballot” famously confusing many voters. George W. Bush won Florida by 537 votes, and Buchanan makes no bones about what happened. “The Lord intervened,” he says, grinning. “We sunk Al Gore and won the election for Bush.” 

Like Nader wasn't to blame, or the libertarians, or "other".

There are many ways to cut the cake George W. Bush ate:

Florida Results  Election 2000
Palm Beach County Results Election 2000

Tim Alberta profiles our old general, Pat Buchanan: This is the last chance for our ideas

Here in Politico Magazine.


Hungarian razor wire border fencing like this has cut illegal immigration to a trickle, so to speak


Mark Cuban's friend must read my blog

Mark Cuban's friend told him Trump was like chemo for the political system.

Way ahead of those guys.

Friday, April 21, 2017

Here's the Nenana Ice Classic Ice-Out Data for the last hundred years


Tanana River Ice-Outs in Alaska have been getting gradually earlier in the last 100 years


Nenana Ice Classic 2017: When will the ice go out this year?


It's official: Trump disappoints us, tells AP he's not going after Dreamers

Trump's official policy?

He specifically campaigned on rescinding Obama's two immigration executive orders.

So he's flipflopped. He's disappointed us.

Expect lots more of that.

Here, today:

President Donald Trump says young immigrants shielded from deportation - often referred to as "dreamers" - should "rest easy" about his immigration policies.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Trump says he is "not after the dreamers, we are after the criminals." He says "that is our policy."

President Barack Obama changed enforcement priorities to protect many young people brought to the country illegally as children from deportation.

Attorneys say 23-year-old Juan Manuel Montes was recently deported to Mexico despite having qualified for deferred deportation. Montes sued Tuesday for access to records on his deportation.

Trump says Montes' case is "a little different than the Dreamer case," though he did not specify why.

Good idea: Remove public funding from any university failing to insure free speech everywhere on campus


Thursday, April 20, 2017

CNBC's resident libertarian calls GOP's new Obamacare repeal bill cowardly and small-minded

From the story here by Jake Novak:

Of course the waiver option is all about shifting the political heat if people start losing coverage. By making the individual states apply for waivers, the Republican Congress thinks it can effectively blame the governors and state legislators if things don't work out in the states that get those waivers. Not only is that craven politics, it's delusional. Anyone who thinks the Republicans in Washington won't own every aspect of the results of this new law if it's enacted is totally clueless. ... In short, we need courage and smarts. And this new Republican plan is cowardly and small-minded.


Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Drudge lies with a headline to encourage the Trumpsters who read him

There is no order to curb foreign workers, only an order to reevaluate the program. Actually Trump is slow-walking his promise to end the import of foreign workers who take away jobs being done by Americans.


Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Stupid Georgia Republicans let 11 candidates run for Tom Price's seat


Trump slow walks H-1B visa reform, signs executive order to review the program

Story here.

Alt-right hero Julius Evola was essentially suicidal, at least until 1945

From the translator's introduction by Guido Stucco to Evola's The Yoga of Power here:

The first few years of Evola's life following the end of [WWI] were characterized by spiritual restlessness and by an intense search for an ideological self-identity. Evola began a personal quest for ultimate transcendence, which he believed could be found beyond the ethical and spiritual limitations of bourgeois prejudices. ... At this time his quest led him also to experiment with hallucinogenic drugs. His longing for the Absolute, for radically intense feelings, for what the Germans call mehr als leben, ("more than living") which was frustrated by the contingency of human experience, almost induced him, at the age of twenty-three, to commit suicide. ...

He did not hesitate to espouse an epistemological solipsism (though he rejected the term as "inadequate") whereby the individual stands alone in a world of maya, in which nature, things, and people are nothing but an illusion. ...

In 1945 he was in Vienna when, as a result of a Soviet air raid on the city, he was wounded in the spinal cord by a shell fragment. He later told a friend that instead of taking to an underground refuge, he had been purposefully walking the deserted streets of the Austrian capital. After spending a year and a half in a local hospital, Evola returned to Italy, destined to spend the rest of his life, a long twenty-nine years, in a wheelchair.

If DHS' John Kelly really cared about 4 tons of drugs coming in daily, he'd stop it

General Kelly here in the Boston Globe:

[Transnational criminal organizations] smuggle nearly four tons of heroin, cocaine, meth, and other illegal drugs across our border each day. In 2015, 52,404 people died from drug overdoses. It was the highest number of drug-related deaths our country has ever seen.

If our country really cared about it, we'd have ended opium production in Afghanistan yesterday. But it's been in our power to do for over 15 years. So obviously we don't do it because of the MONEY our corrupt country makes off the operation. And . . . it would be against LIBERTARIANISM, in which everyone believes more than saving Americans from the horrible consequences of drug addiction.

All we have to do is blow up the damn dams we built for those bastards after World War II.

17 MOABs and we're done. Over 90% of the world's opium production would end, just like that.


Hm, ISIS launches gas attack in western Mosul against Iraqi units with Australian and US advisers

You don't suppose ISIS could do that in Syria? No, Bashar al-Assad did that. Right.

Story here.

Trump adviser Jared Kushner's father was put in jail by Chris Christie

Byron York recounts the tale, here:

The short version is: In 2004, Jared Kushner's father Charles, a real estate magnate in New Jersey and New York, pleaded guilty to a tax fraud scheme in which he claimed hundreds of thousands of dollars in phony deductions for office expenses at the partnerships he created to manage the apartment buildings he owned. Kushner, a major donor to the Democratic Party, also pleaded guilty to fraudulently making hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions in the names of employees and associates who didn't know their names were being used. Finally, Kushner pleaded guilty to retaliating against a cooperating witness in the case — his sister. He did so by setting a trap in which he hired a prostitute to lure his sister's husband into a sexual encounter in a New Jersey hotel, where the action was secretly photographed and videotaped. Kushner sent the pictures and tape to his sister as revenge, apparently motivated by Kushner's belief that she and her husband were helping U.S. Attorney Christie and his prosecutors. ... [I]n a 2014 interview with the New York real estate publication The Real Deal, Jared called his father's treatment "obviously unjust" and said the experience had soured him on an earlier ambition to become a prosecutor. "If you're convicting murderers, it's one thing," Jared said. "It's often fairly clear. When you get into things like white-collar crime, there are often a lot of nuances. Seeing my father's situation, I felt what happened was obviously unjust in terms of the way they pursued him."

Monday, April 17, 2017

Trump White House appears to be backing away from Larry Kudlow/Steve Moore supply side tax plan from the campaign

Another bad sign for economic growth prospects.

From the story here:

"It's a little frustrating that they feel they have to write a new tax plan when they have a tax plan," said Steven Moore, an economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation who helped formulate tax policy for the Trump campaign.

Sunday, April 16, 2017

Maxine Waters is a discredited has been, got a federal TARP bailout for husband's bank

From the story in March, here:

During the height of the 2008 fiscal crisis, Waters helped arrange a meeting between the Treasury Department and top executives of a bank where her husband was a shareholder. Using her post on the House Financial Committee as leverage, she called Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson personally, asking him to meet with minority-owned banks.

When Treasury followed through, there was only one financial institution present: OneUnited. Had that bank gone under, the New York Times reported, Waters' husband would've lost as much as $350,000. Luckily for the Waters family, OneUnited received a cool $12 million in bailout funds.

After three years of special investigation, the ethics committee eventually ruled that Waters didn't technically break any rules. But that ruling came after unearthing her more than questionable family business practices, like making her grandson, Mikael Moore, her chief of staff.

Thursday, April 13, 2017

Mandela's legacy: Black South African government covers up racist tortures and murders of white farmers

Reported here:

In total, between 1998 and the end of 2016, 1848 people have been murdered in farm attacks — 1187 farmers, 490 family members, 147 farm employees, and 24 people who happened to be visiting the farm at the time. ... 

But any form of justice is incredibly rare, and white farmers are increasingly questioning their future. The number of white farmers in South Africa has halved in a little over two decades to just 30,000. Thousands more farms are up for sale. ... 

Since 2007, at the direction of the government, South African police have stopped releasing statistics about the race of the victims. Monitoring group Genocide Watch says the cover-up has been exacerbated by American and European governments, which have “remained silent about the problem, reinforcing the campaign of denial”. The rise in farm attacks has been blamed on increasingly anti-white hate speech, particularly from the ruling African National Congress.

In 2010, high-profile ANC member Julius Malema sang “Shoot the Farmer, Kill the Boer”, which Genocide Watch describes as “once a revolutionary song, but now an incitement to commit genocide”.

Malema was convicted for hate speech and the singing of the song was banned, but just seven months later president Jacob Zuma sang the song himself at an ANC event, in direct contempt of the judge’s ruling.

Malema was later kicked out the ANC, forming his own Marxist party, the Economic Freedom Fighters, which is now the third-largest party in parliament. Recently, Malema has been travelling the country urging black South Africans to take back land from “Dutch thugs”.

“People of South Africa, where you see a beautiful land, take it, it belongs to you,” Malema was quoted in The Telegraph as telling parliament.

Perhaps in response to populist pressure from Malema, Zuma earlier this month called for the confiscation of white-owned land without compensation. Zuma urged the “black parties” in the parliament to unite to form the two-thirds majority that would be needed to make the necessary change to the country’s constitution.

Last week, during a debate in parliament about the farm attacks, an ANC MP shouted “Bury them alive!” while MP Pieter Groenewald was speaking about the plight of white farmers.

“This is proof that the utterances of political leaders could lead to violence and murders and that the issue of farm murders is of little importance to the ANC,” AfriForum’s head of community safety, Ian Cameron, said in a statement afterwards. “Certain members of the ANC were chatting during the debate and not listening nor partaking at all.”

Mother Of All Bombs tested on the wrong target in Afghanistan, prolonging the 16-year war

They bombed caves. If they had meant to end the war, they would have bombed the Kajaki dam instead, ending electricity and opium production in Helmand Province instantly:


Conservative Tree House is kooky, calls China not joining Russia Syria veto in UN "historic" and a Trump achievement


No, it isn't historic, and it's not a Trump achievement.

There have been nine occasions where China has not joined Russia in the veto since 1992. China does what's good for China.

The only country getting realigned here is America under Trump, who keeps "learning" things and changing his stated positions.

Trump's in danger of giving away the store to China on currency, trade and the South China Sea in exchange for the promise of a denuclearized North Korea.

China thinks that might be a good deal, but it's a lousy deal, because the Chinese are the biggest liars on the face of the earth, the biggest thieves, and the biggest mass murderers in the history of mankind.

North Korea is their little pit bull keeping South Korea, Japan and the United States off balance.

Wake up and smell the coffee, guys.

Trump's just getting started, wait until you see his next flip-flop


Trump flips on Ex-Im Bank

Reported here:

His budget chief Mick Mulvaney said on CNBC (transcript via Reason) Wednesday that Trump was now pro-Ex-Im, and the president himself professed his love for Boeing's bank to the Wall Street Journal:

The president said he planned to fill two vacancies on the bank's board, which has been effectively paralyzed with three open seats on its five-member board.

"It turns out that, first of all, lots of small companies are really helped, the vendor companies," Mr. Trump said. "But also, maybe more important, other countries give [assistance]. When other countries give it we lose a tremendous amount of business." ...

"Instinctively, you would say, 'Isn't that a ridiculous thing,'" Mr. Trump said of the Ex-Im Bank. "But actually, it's a very good thing. And it actually makes money, it could make a lot of money."

Flashback Trump August 2015: Ex-Im Bank is unnecessary, I don't like it, It's not free enterprise, I'd be against it

Quoted in Bloomberg, here:

"I don't like it because I don't think it's necessary," the real estate mogul said. "It's a one-way street also. It's sort of a featherbedding for politicians and others, and a few companies. And these are companies that can do very well without it. So I don't like it. I think it's a lot of excess baggage. I think it's unnecessary. And when you think about free enterprise it's really not free enterprise. I'd be against it."

Flashback Trump 2012: Electoral College is a disaster for democracy

You said it, buddy.



And you thought everything Obama said came with an expiration date: Trump in March 2016 NATO is obsolete, Trump in April 2017 not so much

Here in March 2016:

TRUMP: I think NATO is obsolete. NATO was done at a time you had the Soviet Union, which was obviously larger -- much larger than Russia is today. I'm not saying Russia is not a threat. ... What I'm saying is NATO is obsolete. NATO is -- is obsolete and it's extremely expensive for the United States, disproportionately so. And we should readjust NATO. ... You know, there's nothing wrong with saying that a concept was good, but now it's obsolete or now it's outmoded. Now, it can be trimmed up and it can be, uh, it can be reconfigured and you can call it NATO, but it's going to be changed. I mean this thing was -- was done many decades ago. And there's nothing wrong with saying it's obsolete. But it is obsolete.

Here the same in January 2017:

Trump used the interview to restate his doubts about NATO. "I said a long time ago that NATO had problems," he said in the interview. "Number one it was obsolete, because it was designed many, many years ago. "Number two the countries weren't paying what they're supposed to be paying," adding that this was unfair to the United States.

But now in April, here:

"The Secretary General and I had a productive discussion about what more NATO can do in the fight against terrorism. I complained about that and now they fight terrorism. I said it was obsolete. It's no longer obsolete," Trump said Wednesday.

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Trump already lifted the federal hiring freeze he imposed, effective today

Story here.

Trump the Great Duodetrigintapus cuts off another of his 28 legs

Trump reverses himself and now won't designate China a currency manipulator.

Story here.

Here's the original 28-leg Gettysburg Address:

DONALD J. TRUMP CONTRACT WITH THE AMERICAN VOTER

What follows is my 100-day action plan to Make America Great Again. It is a contract between myself and the American voter – and begins with restoring honesty, accountability and change to Washington.

Therefore, on the first day of my term of office, my administration will immediately pursue the following six measures to clean up the corruption and special interest collusion in Washington, DC:

● FIRST, propose a Constitutional Amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress;
● SECOND, a hiring freeze on all federal employees to reduce federal workforce through attrition (exempting military, public safety, and public health);
● THIRD, a requirement that for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated;
● FOURTH, a 5 year-ban on White House and Congressional officials becoming lobbyists after they leave government service;
● FIFTH, a lifetime ban on White House officials lobbying on behalf of a foreign government;
● SIXTH, a complete ban on foreign lobbyists raising money for American elections.

On the same day, I will begin taking the following 7 actions to protect American workers:

 FIRST, I will announce my intention to renegotiate NAFTA or withdraw from the deal under Article 2205
 SECOND, I will announce our withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership
 THIRD, I will direct my Secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency manipulator
 FOURTH, I will direct the Secretary of Commerce and U.S. Trade Representative to identify all foreign trading abuses that unfairly impact American workers and direct them to use every tool under American and international law to end those abuses immediately
 FIFTH, I will lift the restrictions on the production of $50 trillion dollars’ worth of job- producing American energy reserves, including shale, oil, natural gas and clean coal.
 SIXTH, lift the Obama-Clinton roadblocks and allow vital energy infrastructure projects, like the Keystone Pipeline, to move forward
 SEVENTH, cancel billions in payments to U.N. climate change programs and use the money to fix America’s water and environmental infrastructure

Additionally, on the first day, I will take the following five actions to restore security and the constitutional rule of law:

 FIRST, cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama
 SECOND, begin the process of selecting a replacement for Justice Scalia from one of the 20 judges on my list, who will uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States
 THIRD, cancel all federal funding to Sanctuary Cities
 FOURTH, begin removing the more than 2 million criminal illegal immigrants from the
country and cancel visas to foreign countries that won’t take them back
 FIFTH, suspend immigration from terror-prone regions where vetting cannot safely occur. All vetting of people coming into our country will be considered extreme vetting.

Next, I will work with Congress to introduce the following broader legislative measures and fight for their passage within the first 100 days of my Administration:

1. Middle Class Tax Relief And Simplification Act. An economic plan designed to grow the economy 4% per year and create at least 25 million new jobs through massive tax reduction and simplification, in combination with trade reform, regulatory relief, and lifting the restrictions on American energy. The largest tax reductions are for the middle class. A middle-class family with 2 children will get a 35% tax cut. The current number of brackets will be reduced from 7 to 3, and tax forms will likewise be greatly simplified. The business rate will be lowered from 35 to 15 percent, and the trillions of dollars of American corporate money overseas can now be brought back at a 10 percent rate.
2. End The Offshoring Act Establishes tariffs to discourage companies from laying off their workers in order to relocate in other countries and ship their products back to the U.S. tax-free.
3. American Energy & Infrastructure Act. Leverages public-private partnerships, and private investments through tax incentives, to spur $1 trillion in infrastructure investment over 10 years. It is revenue neutral.
4. School Choice And Education Opportunity Act. Redirects education dollars to gives parents the right to send their kid to the public, private, charter, magnet, religious or home school of their choice. Ends common core, brings education supervision to local communities. It expands vocational and technical education, and make 2 and 4-year college more affordable.
5. Repeal and Replace Obamacare Act. Fully repeals Obamacare and replaces it with Health Savings Accounts, the ability to purchase health insurance across state lines, and lets states manage Medicaid funds. Reforms will also include cutting the red tape at the FDA: there are over 4,000 drugs awaiting approval, and we especially want to speed the approval of life-saving medications.
6. Affordable Childcare and Eldercare Act. Allows Americans to deduct childcare and elder care from their taxes, incentivizes employers to provide on-side childcare services, and creates tax-free Dependent Care Savings Accounts for both young and elderly dependents, with matching contributions for low-income families.
7. End Illegal Immigration Act Fully-funds the construction of a wall on our southern border with the full understanding that the country Mexico will be reimbursing the United States for the full cost of such wall; establishes a 2-year mandatory minimum federal prison sentence for illegally re-entering the U.S. after a previous deportation, and a 5-year mandatory minimum for illegally re-entering for those with felony convictions, multiple misdemeanor convictions or two or more prior deportations; also reforms visa rules to enhance penalties for overstaying and to ensure open jobs are offered to American workers first.
8. Restoring Community Safety Act. Reduces surging crime, drugs and violence by creating a Task Force On Violent Crime and increasing funding for programs that train and assist local police; increases resources for federal law enforcement agencies and federal prosecutors to dismantle criminal gangs and put violent offenders behind bars.
9. Restoring National Security Act. Rebuilds our military by eliminating the defense sequester and expanding military investment; provides Veterans with the ability to receive public VA treatment or attend the private doctor of their choice; protects our vital infrastructure from cyber-attack; establishes new screening procedures for immigration to ensure those who are admitted to our country support our people and our values
10. Clean up Corruption in Washington Act. Enacts new ethics reforms to Drain the Swamp and reduce the corrupting influence of special interests on our politics.
On November 8th, Americans will be voting for this 100-day plan to restore prosperity to our economy, security to our communities, and honesty to our government.

This is my pledge to you.

And if we follow these steps, we will once more have a government of, by and for the people.

Trump said "Iraq" when he meant "Syria", Maria Bartiromo corrects him but opines the cruise missiles were "unmanned"

Quartz captures the moment here.


Anonymous sources tell WaPo that FBI had FISA warrant last summer to spy on Trump adviser

Trump has maintained all along that Obama had his wires tapped.


Wikipedia vindicates Sean Spicer: "The Nazis did not extensively use chemical weapons in combat"






I knew there was something I didn't like about R. R. Reno

Once a radical, always a radical.

He admits to nostalgia for his former radicalism, here:

Jacobin, founded in 2010, is a Marxist quarterly that has gotten notice as the voice of youngish radicals. I took a subscription last year, wanting to know the thinking of the anti-establishment left. As a college student in the early 1980s, I was for a brief period the campus organizer of CISPES, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador. I’ll leave it to the historians to determine whether CISPES was a front organization under Soviet control, but I can report that my participation in meetings put me in touch with hard-core communists. So I enjoy a certain nostalgic pleasure when I read the occasional essay that speaks of “objective conditions” and “a working-class vanguard.”

Pompeo seat in Kansas remains Republican in special election

The Kansas City Star reports here:

[The Republican] Estes trailed Thompson early in the night, but began to pull ahead around 9 p.m. In the end, Estes prevailed with 53 percent to Thompson’s 45 percent. Libertarian candidate Chris Rockhold drew about 2 percent of the vote. ... Pompeo, a Republican who won by 31 percentage points in November, gave up his seat in the 4th Congressional District in January to serve as Trump’s director of the CIA.

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

I miss you, Dad: He would have been 102 today


Rush Limbaugh expresses excellent theory about Trump's posture toward North Korea

Rush opens the hour saying Trump is deliberately acting in an unpredictable fashion to counter North Korean unpredictability.

This is absolutely correct, even if Rush doesn't know much about the North Koreans, and even if Trump doesn't.

Spontaneous unpredictable outbursts of ferocity are central to North Korean self-identity. Trump is using their own value against them.

Beautiful, baby.

Researchers doubted US intelligence conclusions about 2013 "Syrian" gas attack, say rebels could have done it

McClatchy reported here in early 2014:

“I honestly have no idea what happened,” Postol said. “My view when I started this process was that it couldn’t be anything but the Syrian government behind the attack. But now I’m not sure of anything. The administration narrative was not even close to reality. Our intelligence cannot possibly be correct.”

Lloyd, who has spent the past half-year studying the weapons and capabilities in the Syrian conflict, disputed the assumption that the rebels are less capable of making rockets than the Syrian military.

“The Syrian rebels most definitely have the ability to make these weapons,” he said. “I think they might have more ability than the Syrian government.”

Both said they were not making a case that the rebels were behind the attack, just that a case for military action was made without even a basic understanding of what might have happened.

Monday, April 10, 2017

Peggy Noonan wins the Pulitzer Prize for commentary

Reported here.

Hey Trump, where's the Big Mac for Xi Jinping?

Here's Trump with O'Reilly in 2015 saying he wouldn't throw a dinner for China's leaders but give them McDonald's hamburgers instead.


The false question remains "Why did Trump win?"

Two examples from today.

Liz Peek of FOX reassured Steve Gruber this morning on his radio program in Michigan that Trump won in 2016 primarily because the voters were most concerned to ensure we had a Supreme Court seat filled by a Scalia clone.

And then Josh Brown assures his readers in the line up at Real Clear Markets that the most important reason was class warfare: a tax cut for the middle class and a big tax increase on rich speculators.

It's been five months since the election and we still can't agree about the political state of the country. Hint: libertarians don't agree about very much.

One could go on. Ann Coulter would tell you it was the promise of The Wall and an end to indiscriminate invasion by illegal aliens. Independent small business owners and self-employed people would tell you it was the promise of repeal of Obamacare. Veterans . . . veterans' affairs. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

These various opinions tell us more about the values of the individual coalitions Trump cobbled together to win, not why he won.

Meanwhile the narrow character of Trump's victory in key states, the result of former Democrat voters boycotting Hillary by the millions, goes underestimated by the winners . . . and the losers.

That's fairly typical, even for otherwise prudent presidents.

George Herbert Walker Bush thought victory in Kuwait made him golden, promptly raised taxes after we read his lips, and was shown the door.

The same will happen to Trump if he doesn't deliver on his program.

And because his program is a Duodetrigintapus, the question is really "How many of my twenty-eight legs can I get away with chopping off and still have enough left to strangle my opponent with in 2020"?

He's already cut off three. Repeal of Obamacare has failed. DACA has not been reversed (what, did they run out of pens in the White House?), and suddenly we have to burn $100 million worth of cruise missiles because someone used a politically incorrect weapon.

What's next, an assault weapon ban?

There's still plenty of time for Trump to prove that he isn't some suicidal sea monster.

But at the rate he's going he'll be a legless jellyfish by Christmas.

Saturday, April 8, 2017

Bomb the airfields? Yes Ma'am . . . Sir . . . er


Trump's Council of Economic Advisors to be headed by Kevin Hassett, a pro-immigration, free-trading globalist

FTAlphaville (registration required) summarizes all his problems here, with links.

The libertarians are thrilled.

Looks like Donald Trump is proving to be the Manchurian Candidate Hassett thought Obama was.

Friday, April 7, 2017

Ann Coulter promoted Michael Savage's show on her Twitter feed today

Because he was ranting against Trump's attack on Syria.

I was listening anyway. It was a good presentation of our side of the story vs. Trump.

Good on her. Good on him.


Utterly ridiculous story speculates Pompeii victims were gay

Would you embrace your male friend on the ground as you were both gasping for air while suddenly being overcome and buried by a pyroclastic flow? In your house? In a bar? 

Just ask the survivors of the Twin Towers what men and women did for each other in those dire circumstances.

This story is pure clickbait.


Numbskull Hannity calls Syria strike "successful"

But Syrian jets are still using the runways.

One-two punch: GDP forecast for 1Q2017 tanks to 0.6% today after crappy jobs and vehicle sales numbers

According to the Atlanta Fed here.

The Obama economy is still in big trouble under Trump.

Congress is off for two weeks. Maybe things will improve a little.

Trump's attack on Syria has not prevented the enemy from using the airfield

So reports the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, according to CNBC here.

Gorsuch confirmed to Supreme Court 54-45

The roll call vote is here.

3 Democrats joined the Republicans in confirming despite the changing of the filibuster rule.

1 Republican did not vote.

ADP had private payrolls up 263,000 earlier this week, but we only get 98,000 from the BLS today

When the expected BLS increase to total nonfarm was 180,000.

What's up with that?!

Long story short: Forget ADP, and employment gains have slowed by 15% in the last year. 

ADP is designed to try to predict what the BLS is going to say, and is known to fail at this. It is questioned why ADP even bothers. I agree.

A government measure from the Household Survey, the sum of usually full-time and usually part-time, not seasonally adjusted, is up only 1.89 million (157,500 per month) year over year in March 2017.

Total nonfarm, on the other hand, from the Establishment Survey, is up 2.135 million, not seasonally adjusted (178,000 per month) year over year.

That last number, 178,000 per month, is what the BLS also says is the current 3-month average in March 2017.

Compare that to March 2016 when the 3-month average was 209,000.

There's the truth.

The soft number of 98,000 in the headline today contributed to the climb-down in the 3-month average this month. It will be revised next month, probably up because it's so low. But it's the revisions down for the previous two months totaling 38,000 which are the clue to look farther back.   

The absolute number is not important because we can't be certain about it. It is only an estimate anyway, not an actual count. But we can be certain that the long-term behavior of the estimates shows an employment slow down of about 15% year over year.

It was well underway before Trump even got elected.

You can see that in full-time employment gains. Measured in March year over year, full-time gains peaked in March 2015 at almost 3 million additions. Gains have steadily fallen since, to 2.5 million in March 2016 and just 2 million now in March 2017.

And the bottom line there is we've added about only 4.7 million full-time jobs since March 2008 on net.

After NINE years.

The country remains mired in shrunken conditions from which it has not escaped.

In a real recovery, the 10 million full-time jobs lost in 2009 and 2010 would have been fully replaced by 2013 at the latest. It took until 2015, and the momentum immediately started to recede.

Trump's little display last night burned up almost $100 million in cruise missile costs

The terrorists can bankrupt the US with every atrocity at this rate: $1.17 million per victim.


Drudge as Trump propagandist: Switches to "total employed" from "95 million not in labor force"

Drudge is excited about 5.6 million extra jobs . . . after 10 years
Trump ... goooooooood.

Obama ... baaaaaaaaaad.

The Deep State: Eisenhower knew it as the military-industrial complex

The military leadership is shot through with liberal neocons bent on perpetual war to keep the warriors busy.

What interest does its intelligence network have in telling the truth to a civilian commander in chief about who did what with which to whom in Syria?

They all lied about WMD in Iraq, as surely as Obama & Co. lied to us about Obamacare.

Trump's just their latest patsy to keep the money flowing to the underlying businesses.

Trump sets off Hillary's canceled fireworks display from last November, right after she advises this Syria attack