Last Friday the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, pulled the American Health Care Act from consideration. He knew he didn't have the votes to pass it. The press and pundits generally considered it a yuuuuge failure for Mr. Ryan and President Trump. They are half right, better than their usual score. Mr. Ryan has indeed suffered a huge failure.
I wrote of Trump's inaugural speech on January 20,
"I thought it particularly comical when the camera showed Paul Ryan and
Mitch McConnell smiling, clapping and nodding vigorously. They appear
not to understand that they are part of the problem and will either
acquiesce to the new regime or be driven from office."
Having given a lot of thought to the AHCA situation it occurs to me that the President played it perfectly. He let Ryan lead with his chin. If the bill passed, Ok, another promise kept, if imperfectly. If not, the defeat was Ryan's. Another win-win.
There is another element to the equation, I think. Ryan has been neutered. He took on a job for the President, no doubt confidently assuring the neophyte Trump of success and thoroughly botched it. He cannot any longer present himself to Trump as the Washington insider who knows which levers to pull and buttons to push. He will, from now on, be told what to do and how to do it by the White House.
Mitch McConnell is next on the list and the Gorsuch nomination, if botched, will do for him what the AHCA did for Ryan.
As things stand, to the best of my knowledge, a Democrat filibuster is a possibility. If that occurs McConnell will be expected to press the button on the nuclear option. I don't think he will. He is an old timer with a lot invested in the Senate and will be loath to undermine his beloved institution and his buddies. Outrage and derision will follow.
A failure to use the nuclear option will neuter him just as Ryan's failure has neutered him.
Two veteran legislators, much too deferential to Democrats and government business as usual will be toast. Donald Trump will be in charge.
Happily Trump's list of Supreme Court nominees is long and excellent. The next one will be confirmed, on way or another. McConnell will have no choice but to press the nuclear button in round two.
Don Surber is a writer whose work I have come across quite frequently. I find him generally to be thoughtful, smart and well informed. Yesterday he wrote,
"However, I realized it was a negotiating ploy to get a better deal. Not
only that, but I realized by calling for the vote, President Trump had
usurped House Speaker Paul Ryan's power."
Followed by a Trumpism,
"Negotiations 101: The best deals you can make are the ones you walk away from...and then get them with better terms."
Indeed.
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Sunday, March 26, 2017
The Narrative
I have written several times about the frustration of dealing with the Emperor's New Clothes era in which we live. I have suggested that this frustration on the right has led to the election (for which I am grateful) of Donald Trump. For years black has been white and white black depending on the narrative being spun by the mainstream media, democrats and far too many republicans.
False narratives are pervasive and, for far too many people, persuasive. "Hands up, don't shoot" is among the most famous and destructive. Donald Trump as, variously, Hitler, racist, anti-Semite, serial fabulist and tax evader among the most recent.
Jon Gabriel of Ricochet produced a very helpful chart to help us properly classify the news regarding violent crime as it is now reported.
Enjoy!
False narratives are pervasive and, for far too many people, persuasive. "Hands up, don't shoot" is among the most famous and destructive. Donald Trump as, variously, Hitler, racist, anti-Semite, serial fabulist and tax evader among the most recent.
Jon Gabriel of Ricochet produced a very helpful chart to help us properly classify the news regarding violent crime as it is now reported.
Enjoy!
Thursday, March 09, 2017
Science
Over the years I have saved many articles that have caught my attention. I go through them every so often to see how they read years into the future. I have referred to a number of them in other posts. One of my favorites is this one.
I have written before of my extreme skepticism with respect to the horrific outcomes projected for man made climate change. It occurs to me that if you did not live through the 1970's (there are fewer and fewer of us around these days!) you might not understand the source of my skepticism.
I offer a few quotes from the linked article as proof that the scientific community is often wrong in its evaluation of current conditions and almost always wrong about extrapolating their conclusions into the future. None of this seems to prevent many of them from continuing to opine and extrapolate. Worse still, none of this seems to prevent a credulous press from amplifying their statements. Keep in mind that these quotes are from 1970, the birth year of Earth Day.
“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”
• Life Magazine, January 1970
No doubt you recognize the construction of the opening phrase. The age-old appeal to authority. I imagine you have also heard that 97% of scientists agree that climate change is a man made problem. There is a small problem with that assertion. It is not true.
What is true is that a review of some 12,000 papers on the subject of climate showed that only 33% of them suggested a reason for climate change. 97% of those asserted that the cause was man. So, now we are down to 97% of 30%, 29.1%. Quite a different number than 97% .
Let's go get more of that 70's wisdom.
“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.'”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
Watt also predicted that,
“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
And, from the ever reliable Sierra Club ,
“We are prospecting for the very last of our resources and using up the nonrenewable things many times faster than we are finding new ones.”
• Martin Litton, Sierra Club director
If you follow the link immediately above you will see that they have not mended their
Malthusian ways.
I don't think I have ever seen an acknowledgment from any of these people that they have ever been wrong about anything.
Be skeptical of those who assert our imminent destruction. Their assertions seem, curiously, almost always to be attached to pleas for money. I can't imagine why.
I have written before of my extreme skepticism with respect to the horrific outcomes projected for man made climate change. It occurs to me that if you did not live through the 1970's (there are fewer and fewer of us around these days!) you might not understand the source of my skepticism.
I offer a few quotes from the linked article as proof that the scientific community is often wrong in its evaluation of current conditions and almost always wrong about extrapolating their conclusions into the future. None of this seems to prevent many of them from continuing to opine and extrapolate. Worse still, none of this seems to prevent a credulous press from amplifying their statements. Keep in mind that these quotes are from 1970, the birth year of Earth Day.
“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”
• Life Magazine, January 1970
No doubt you recognize the construction of the opening phrase. The age-old appeal to authority. I imagine you have also heard that 97% of scientists agree that climate change is a man made problem. There is a small problem with that assertion. It is not true.
What is true is that a review of some 12,000 papers on the subject of climate showed that only 33% of them suggested a reason for climate change. 97% of those asserted that the cause was man. So, now we are down to 97% of 30%, 29.1%. Quite a different number than 97% .
Let's go get more of that 70's wisdom.
“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.'”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
Watt also predicted that,
“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
And, from the ever reliable Sierra Club ,
“We are prospecting for the very last of our resources and using up the nonrenewable things many times faster than we are finding new ones.”
• Martin Litton, Sierra Club director
If you follow the link immediately above you will see that they have not mended their
Malthusian ways.
I don't think I have ever seen an acknowledgment from any of these people that they have ever been wrong about anything.
Be skeptical of those who assert our imminent destruction. Their assertions seem, curiously, almost always to be attached to pleas for money. I can't imagine why.
Monday, March 06, 2017
President Trump Does It Again
I have mentioned before that I have been thoroughly enjoying watching Mr. Trump bait the left. In an earlier post or two I borrowed a phrase from Powerline's John Hinderacker to the effect that being a liberal means you don't ever have to learn anything. Well, they are certainly proving him right again.
As everyone on the planet now knows, DJT launched a series of tweets on Saturday morning claiming that Obama tapped his phones during the elections. Predictably the left has set their hair on fire over this one.
There are so many stories on the subject that it is difficult to chose one to link to so I will stick with Mr. Hinderacker .
As you read the details of the various stories a very insightful comment from, if I recall correctly, Glenn Reynolds , is useful to explain what is going on here.
What Mr. Reynolds said, more or less, is that Trump's critics take him literally but not seriously and his supporters take him seriously but not literally.
We know, despite the aggressive wording of his tweet, that he did not mean, literally,
that Obama tapped his phones. To us it is perfectly clear that he means the Obama administration, in one form or another, did.
The press, meanwhile, is dealing with his tweets as though he meant, literally, every word in them and is trying desperately to disprove a case that Trump never intended to make, which is a very difficult thing to do.
Great fun indeed.
As everyone on the planet now knows, DJT launched a series of tweets on Saturday morning claiming that Obama tapped his phones during the elections. Predictably the left has set their hair on fire over this one.
There are so many stories on the subject that it is difficult to chose one to link to so I will stick with Mr. Hinderacker .
As you read the details of the various stories a very insightful comment from, if I recall correctly, Glenn Reynolds , is useful to explain what is going on here.
What Mr. Reynolds said, more or less, is that Trump's critics take him literally but not seriously and his supporters take him seriously but not literally.
We know, despite the aggressive wording of his tweet, that he did not mean, literally,
that Obama tapped his phones. To us it is perfectly clear that he means the Obama administration, in one form or another, did.
The press, meanwhile, is dealing with his tweets as though he meant, literally, every word in them and is trying desperately to disprove a case that Trump never intended to make, which is a very difficult thing to do.
Great fun indeed.
Why Hillary Lost
She lost because she is so thoroughly off-putting and corrupt that she couldn't even manage to attract the votes of large numbers of women.
"However the biggest surprise of 2016 probably relates to gender. The first major party female candidate for president, running against a notorious misogynist, captured the Democrats’ lowest share of female voters since 2004."
Indeed.
"However the biggest surprise of 2016 probably relates to gender. The first major party female candidate for president, running against a notorious misogynist, captured the Democrats’ lowest share of female voters since 2004."
Indeed.
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