Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Jonathan Turley: It's not a Muslim ban

Basic principles of Americanism as understood by Mark Tooley

Here, from what is expected of applicants for US naturalization:


  • Embrace the principles of the US Constitution
  • Support the good order and happiness of the US
  • Reject communism, totalitarianism, Naziism, persecution, genocide and terrorism



Monday, January 30, 2017

New Rasmussen poll finds 57% support Trump's temporary ban on refugees

Reported here:

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 57% of Likely U.S. Voters favor a temporary ban on refugees from Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen until the federal government approves its ability to screen out potential terrorists from coming here. Thirty-three percent (33%) are opposed, while 10% are undecided. 

Dear President Trump, Fire 'em all . . . let the unemployment office sort 'em out



Trump fires acting attorney general who would not defend his immigration order

Now we're talking.

From the story here:

The acting Attorney General, Sally Yates, has betrayed the Department of Justice by refusing to enforce a legal order designed to protect the citizens of the United States. This order was approved as to form and legality by the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel. Ms. Yates is an Obama Administration appointee who is weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration.

Quinnipiac poll found plurality of Americans want immigration suspended from terror prone regions

But of course Americans also want infrastructure spending increased and their taxes cut.

From the poll, here:

A Quinnipiac University national poll conducted January 5 - 9 showed American voters support 48 - 42 percent "suspending immigration from 'terror prone' regions, even if it means turning away refugees from those regions." 

The independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University Poll also found in the January 5 - 9 survey that American voters support 53 - 41 percent "requiring immigrants from Muslim countries to register with the federal government." 

Mark Levin covers a multitude of sins tonight, reams Ben Sasse and Justin Amash in the first hour

Over their opposition to Trump's executive orders on immigration and refugees.

Black Lives Matter communist calls for killing whites, taking their property

Here. Also here. That woman should be in jail already.

If that's protected speech there will be blood.

Lock and load.

Kim "Smoochy Lips" Strassel doesn't remember protests and lawsuits over Obama's immigration ban

Me either.

Video here.

Obama denied Iraqi Abu Hassan a visa in 2011 but no one rallied for him

Story here and here.

"Where was the outrage when Obama was hurting innocent foreigners?"

Justin Amash raises hell over Trump's immigration ban in 2017, but not over Obama's in 2011 or 2016

. . . working on a movement
The reason?

Because Amash was basically on Obama's side on the broader immigration issues, that's why.

Justin Amash is soft on illegal immigration.


Because he's an open borders libertarian.

Reuters falsely reports Trent Lott hails from Missouri in slanted story on "Muslim" ban


By executive order on Friday, Trump banned immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries – Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen – and temporarily halted the entry of refugees.

Obama and Congress singled out the seven Muslim countries two years ago, not Trump

Seth Frantzman doesn't like it, but admits it, here.

The link for the  travel restrictions issued by Obama's DHS in February 2016, naming the 7 Muslim countries, is here

Sunday, January 29, 2017

Noah Millman at The American Conservative discovers the inverse of "Employment Population Ratio: 25 - 54 years"

Here, excitedly writing about the inverse of this chart which has been around for a long time:


















The problem with measuring employment with this chart, or unemployment with its inverse as Millman advocates, is that this cohort (25 to 54 years of age) has been shrinking due to declining birth rates. The meaning it conveys has changed over time for this and other reasons.

Rising birth rates of the Baby Boom until 1964 help explain the dramatic upward movement in the chart thereafter in the first place, along with the entry of Baby Boom women into the workforce at the same time, a second most important variable.

Additionally, at the peak of the Baby Boom in 1957, the birth rate was 25.3. Twenty years later in 1977 it was only 15.1 and has remained thereabouts and even lower ever since.

The lower birth rates have been winding their way through the employment statistics while female employment was peaking at the same time, like the inverse of a goat going through the belly of a snake but undetectable because of the female phenomenon. The peak in the employment population ratio of this cohort notably coincides with the 1957 peak of the Baby Boom hitting 20 years in the workforce in January 1999, shown above. They hit 30 years in the workforce in 2009, right in the middle of the Great Recession.

Ask how many 52 year olds lost their jobs that year (29.5 million of all ages lost their jobs in 2009), and then passed out of the range of this chart within two years, only to be replaced by . . . not enough people born after 1964.

Interestingly, employment for women in this cohort, while still not fully recovered, is off only 600,000 from the 2007 peak, but for men is off 1.8 million, both on an average basis through 2016. That's a deficit of 2.4 million, but based on declining birth rates I'd estimate most of them won't ever materialize in the future . . . because they never existed.

During the Baby Boom between 1946 and 1964, births per year averaged 4.0 million. But between 1965 and 1992, today's 25 to 52 year olds, births per year averaged just 3.6 million per year.

That's 11.6 million fewer people to take up today's slack.

This is probably as good as it gets.

Never Trumper David French calls Executive Order on refugees "a dramatic climb-down from his worst campaign rhetoric"


Trump’s order isn’t a betrayal of American values. Applied correctly and competently, it can represent a promising fresh start and a prelude to new policies that protect our nation while still maintaining American compassion and preserving American friendships. 


Ann Coulter v Obama judge from the Cow College of Law

Trump overwhelms the enemy just like the Alinskyite Obama, except Obama was lazy

With an outrage a day (to the left), sometimes two or three, Trump is overwhelming the enemy in the MSM and Democrat Party (but I repeat myself) just as Obama did us. Most of us were busy working jobs at the time, if we still had them, or trying otherwise to survive the transformational diktats with which that tag team of codependents sick with liberalism tried to subvert the country. We had no allies except ourselves.

The difference now is that Trump is the Energizer Bunny Obama could only dream of being. Trump isn't doing this just from 10AM to 2PM Monday through Friday hyphenated by lunch, content to have organized the hive to do the heavy lifting so that he can head for the links or the next soirée with the rich and famous. Which is another important difference between Trump and Obama. Trump is already rich and famous, and owns the golf courses. Been there. Done that. He doesn't need the presidency to gain access to that life. He has bigger fish to fry.

Trump's vigor has already made Obama's legacy the size of a golfball in the sand trap Newt Gingrich predicted, but after only one week in office not three months.

And he works weekends.

It's going to be a long eight years for the left.

And I hope the right can keep up.

Saturday, January 28, 2017

FOMC minutes from November 2011 show Federal Reserve presidents laughing at us, quick to blame unemployment on the unemployed

Including at the time Dennis Lockhart, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Charles Plosser, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, and Jeffrey Lacker, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

Story here.

Plosser
Lockhart


Lacker

Alan Blinder's alternative facts about the politics of GDP

Alan Blinder, Bill Clinton's Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve, quoted and discussed here:

“Here is an interesting historical fact. Since Harry Truman, the growth rate has fallen every time a Republican president replaced a Democrat and has risen every time a Democrat has replaced a Republican.”

No, not every time, in either case.

Nixon/Ford current dollar GDP growth (Republican) was better than previous JFK/LBJ GDP (Democrat), up 100% vs. 80%.

And Obama current dollar GDP growth (Democrat) was worse following Bush GDP (Republican), up 30% vs. 39%.

For best growth of current dollar GDP in the post-war, Democrat presidents own positions one and four covering 12 years, but Republicans own positions two and three covering 16 years:

Carter: 13.5%
Nixon/Ford: 12.5%
Reagan: 10.1%
JFK/LBJ: 10.0%.

Four Republican administrations lasting 8 years each have averaged 8.2% in the post-war, and four Democrat administrations lasting 8 years each have averaged 7.5%.

Democrat Carter's 4 years at 13.5% easily beats Bush 41's 4 years at 6.0%, but this hardly offsets the better Republican performance over the long haul compared with the Democrat (see here for the figures).

Current dollar GDP growth by president in the post-war shows Obama in last place as the Baby Boomers fizzle

Obama:   29.6%
Bush 43: 39.0%
Clinton:  56.3%
Bush 41: 23.8% (4 years)
Reagan:  80.9%
Carter:    54.1% (4 years)
Nixon/Ford: 100.0%
JFK/LBJ:       79.6%
IKE:       42.1%
FDR/Truman: 72.7%

Ranked by performance divided by years in office:

Carter: 13.5
Nixon/Ford: 12.5
Reagan: 10.1
JFK/LBJ: 10.0
FDR/Truman: 9.1
Clinton: 7.0
Bush 41: 6.0
IKE: 5.3
Bush 43: 4.9
Obama: 3.7