Email redux/Updated

On July 15, 2016 I published a post that I cannot link to directly, entitled

The Curious Case of James Comey and Donald Trump/Updated 

analyzing, to the extent I am able, Mr. Comey's "Emperor's New Clothes" justification of the FBI's failure to recommend that DOJ  prosecute HRC for her obvious criminal negligence with respect to the private server she used during her tenure as Secretary of State.

Today, according to the New York Times the investigation is being re-opened.

As one who had interpreted the FBI's decision as a catastrophe for the rule of law, I am very grateful. Hopefully the organization will redeem itself. On the other hand, perhaps I am just playing Charlie Brown to Comey's Lucy, again. We will see. UPDATE: I am Charlie Brown, again!

It is interesting to note that the impetus for the re-opening of the investigation appears to have come from emails discovered during the FBI investigation into Anthony Weiner's sexting a minor.

As an avid consumer of crime novels and movies it often appears that the criminal masterminds featured in these entertainments are brought down by seemingly irrelevant and or serendipitous events.

Here's hoping.

The Clinton Method/Updated

The AP reported here on the number of meetings that HRC had with "...people outside of government". More than half of them were Clinton Foundation donors, according to the report.

The implications are clear that either:
a) If you want to meet with the Secretary of State to pitch your case you need to donate to the Clinton Foundation and/or,
b) If you are already a donor you can demand access in exchange for an undertaking to keep donating.

In either case, as is so often the case with the Clintons, the whole thing stinks.

Scott Johnson, one of the proprietors of the Powerline, blog writes today of a telephone interview HRC did with Jake Tapper of CNN last night. UPDATE: It appears that the interview was with Anderson Cooper, not Tapper

Mr. Johnson writes, correctly in my view, that HRC's attempt to explain all these meetings with donors away as innocuous is "pathetic". 

It is actually an excellent example of the Clinton method. Here is the gist of her explanation as reported by Mr. Johnson.

“I know there is a lot of smoke, and there is no fire. This AP report? Put it in context. This excludes nearly 2,000 meetings I had with world leaders, plus countless other meetings with U.S. government officials when I was secretary of state. It looked at a small portion of my time,”.

In time honored Clinton fashion she did not answer the obvious question of the appearance of impropriety. She answered a question that was never asked. I don't recall any commentators wondering why she was wasting her time with these meetings. They want to know why they happened at all.

The answer is unfortunately obvious to anyone with eyes and the willingness to see what is before them. The woman is hopelessly corrupt.

As Mr. Johnson says of her explanation, " One doesn’t need to be a genius to see through it." I guess I just proved his point!

Black Lives Matter, Again

I have written about the BLM movement before . I have also proposed a way to address the real problems that plague so many in the black community .

Today, through Instapundit.com, I came across this bit of nonsense. It includes this hilariously self-righteous self-parody:

"I think there are several police officers who are good people."

Several? Wow, how thoughtful of you. There are more than 900,000 law enforcement officers in the USA. Nice to know that "several...are good people".

How does any publication allow such a spectacularly stupid sentence to appear in print?

I don't know.

Socialism Again, Again

I have written before about socialism and its utter failure every time it is tried. I devoted a post to it on June 12, 2016 if you would like to have a look. I can't link directly to it.

This 2013 Salon article written by David Sirota was brought to my attention recently. I can't remember where it was linked and apologize for being unable to attribute it properly.

Mr. Sirota wrote,

"No, Chavez became the bugaboo of American politics because his full-throated advocacy of socialism and redistributionism at once represented a fundamental critique of neoliberal economics, and also delivered some indisputably positive results. Indeed, as shown by some of the most significant indicators, Chavez racked up an economic record that a legacy-obsessed American president could only dream of achieving."

Mr. Chavez's legacy doesn't look too good today. I can't find any recent articles by Mr. Sirota on the subject. Sean Penn  has been pretty quiet too.

Time, as they say, tells all. Mr. Chavez and his hand picked successor ran into Margaret Thatcher's Law:  "The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."

From the Los Angeles Times (via Powerlineblog.com),

"But 2006 also was the year that President Hugo Chavez nationalized 10 of the 16 privately owned sugar refineries and turned them over to worker cooperatives, part of his “21st Century Socialism” agenda. After taking office in 1999 and until his death in 2013, Chavez also seized thousands of acres of sugar cane plantations and made them communal properties.

Comradely gestures to be sure, but sugar production has rapidly declined ever since the seizures. In May, scarcities got so bad that Coca-Cola temporarily suspended production of its popular line of soft drinks, saying it couldn’t buy enough supplies of the industrial sweetener."

The LAT article documents the complete wrecking of Venezuela's private economy through nationalization. For "nationalization", read, the taking "of other people's money".

The money runs out every single time and then you get the partially shared misery which is the real promise of socialism. The elites of socialist countries never participate in the misery. To paraphrase Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit.com, in free market systems the rich become powerful. In socialist systems the powerful become rich.

As I posted this past June:

"Take a close look at any socialist country and what you find, once the veneer has been removed, is a kleptocracy. The rich and connected become richer, the poor poorer and the middle class disappears.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3192933/Hugo-Chavez-s-ambassador-daughter-Venezuela-s-richest-woman-according-new-report.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/21/fidel-castro-lived-like-king-cuba

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/18/north-korea-luxury-goods_n_4808823.html"

I keep writing about the disaster that is socialism because I think it is important that it be described as what it is, not what Mr. Sirota and so many people on the left want it to be. It is a very seductive ideology. What decent person would not prefer that poverty cease to exist, that everyone has everything they need and a lot of what they want?

None. Trouble is, as I have explained before, socialism relies on the unicorn that is the expulsion of human nature from the economic equation. As Venezuela's unfortunate citizens have shown us again, human nature is immutable and cannot be ignored. Socialism cannot work. I wrote, in the June 12 post,

"  Why? Because socialism cannot co-exist with human nature. It is counter-intuitive to a human not to take advantage of every opportunity to improve the quality of his own life. Thus, every socialist regime becomes brutal when persuasion is insufficient to suppress human nature and people refuse to countenance the shared misery absent coercion." Forced labor is now on the agenda.

Even the fervent Socialist, Bernie Sanders is not immune to the demands of human nature.

 http://www.people.com/article/bernie-sanders-600k-summer-home-vermont

Socialism in action as opposed to in thought.

Human Nature, Again

I have long advised that policies and philosophies that ignore human nature are bound to fail. If your goal is to persuade those with a surfeit of the laziness component of human nature to become productive members of society, removing work requirements from welfare programs is not going to help you achieve your goal.

This fact, proven many times over, has been ignored by liberal policy makers many times over.

This article is just the latest in an endless supply of examples of the immutability of human nature. Add a work requirement to a welfare program and watch two things happen.

First, participation plummets.

"Maine, one of the most proactive states in reinstating work requirements for food stamps, saw its caseload of able-bodied adults without dependents decrease by 80 percent within just a few months after re-establishing the work requirement."

 Second, those forced to work or starve find work and end up much better off than they were while accepting the unrestricted handouts.

"The Foundation for Government Accountability identified that nearly 60 percent of Kansans who left the food stamp rolls following the establishment of food stamp work requirements found employment within 12 months and, “their incomes rose by an average of 127 percent per year.”"

Once more with feeling:

"One nice thing about being a liberal is, no one expects you to learn from experience."
 http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/06/what-happens-when-liberal-heroines-crumble.php

Peace Loving "Palestinians"

I am no fan of the New York Times. The ethics of the editors appear to be almost entirely situational, they change opinions without ever acknowledging the change, those of their "reporters" almost non-existent, they will "report" almost anything their liberal friends tell them.

Occasionally they surprise us. This is one of those times.

"In an effort to appeal to Palestinians ahead of hotly contested elections, the party of President Mahmoud Abbas listed one of its main achievements as having “killed 11,000 Israelis.”"

The NYT and every other main stream newspaper have been telling us for years how Abbas is a "moderate". I guess this is the proof. His opponents have probably killed more of us.

To any of you who believe that there is any current path to a two-state solution, please stop talking and try thinking until you have something to say that is worthy of discussion.

The leadership of the "Palestinians" is divided between awful (Fatah in the West Bank) and worse (Hamas in Gaza).

Then there is Israeli leadership. I am an acquaintance of one opinion shaper in Israel. Donniel Hartman is president of the Shalom Hartman Institute. I attended a private meeting with him in 2013 during which he lamented that we should be doing more for the "Palestinians" and our failure to do "more" is one reason for the continuing troubles. He failed to define "more".

I am reading his latest book, "Putting God Second, How To Save Religion From Itself". It contains at least one example of the moral relativism (I am only on page 43 of 170) that results in a belief that the reason the people who have sworn to kill you and all your brethren and brag of their buddies killing 11,000 of you, is that you didn't do enough for them.

"As more and more people are being killed daily in the name of one god or another, I often wonder about the religious sensibilities of these pious perpetrators of murder and pain." P.43

To my knowledge there is only one god in whose name "more and more people are being killed daily". His name is Allah, his prophet is Mohamed and if you publish a funny picture of Mohamed you will be threatened with death and, perhaps,  killed .

To borrow Rabbi Hartman's construction: I often wonder about the rationality of intellectuals who seem unable or unwilling to understand the obvious.

Islam, again

I have linked to Andrew McCarthy of NRO before. He  recently wrote about Islam and why our policies with respect to identifying the problems it has and dealing with them have been such a failure.

He has more than a passing familiarity with Islam and its practitioners having been the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York when the "Blind Sheik" tried to take down the World Trade Center in 1993 . The "Sheik" and his minions remain in jail.

In his recent article he makes a distinction that I think is very important and had not previously occurred to me.

"...it should by now be perfectly obvious that that there is no “Islam,” at least not if we are talking about a monolithic belief system. There are sects of Islam, all vying for supremacy in what is, in the main, a conquest ideology — with the various splinters having very different ideas about what conquest entails, and with no papal analogue to impose order by decreeing orthodoxy and condemning heterodoxy."

His context for this assertion is the vacuousness of our current administration and its unwillingness to identify the problem. Some major Islamic factions are our enemies and ought to be identified as such. Claiming, as Mrs. Clinton did in the immediate aftermath of the Nice massacre: "Let’s be clear: Islam is not our adversary. Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism." is just wrong.

 

Major factions of Islam are our adversary and we would do well to understand this as clearly as Mr. McCarthy does.

Affirmative Action

As I shake my head in confusion at the policy decisions being made in the name of equality I tend to make predictions. I often wonder if my predictions will be accurate.

Men in the ladies' room? An obviously terrible idea fraught with entirely predictable danger.

ObamaCare? An idea so bad it is impossible to understand how anyone with a brain could think it a good idea.

Abandoning, for whatever high-minded set of ideals, the incredibly successful criminal law and policing regimes of the past twenty-five years, is an astonishingly stupid idea. Crime rates are a fraction of what they were in the 1990's. No, we have not accomplished this by incarcerating an entire race of people. Any guesses as to what happens now?

Treating college students like precious snowflakes in order to cushion them from the devastating blow of hearing something they find insulting.

The list goes on and on. Most of them are so obviously wrongheaded to me because they defy human nature. I described my thoughts on human nature here (scroll to the 2nd post).

I often wonder whether my analyses are correct and look for evidence that they are, or not, in an effort to stay honest and avoid confirmation bias.

I am joined by multitudes in concluding that Affirmative Action programs in higher education were always a bad idea. Some people knew just how counter-productive they
would be from the start. One man predicted, in 1969, exactly where we would find ourselves as a result of installing Affirmative Action programs. His name was Macklin Fleming and at the time he wrote his incredibly prescient letter he was a Justice on the California Court of Appeals.

He was writing the Dean of Yale Law School (his alma mater) about the school's announced intention to admit 38 black students who could not qualify under the school's normal standards.

The letters between the Dean and Fleming, as well as analysis can be found here .

I will share some excerpts taken from the link.

"If in a given class the great majority of the black students are at the bottom of the class, this factor is bound to instill, unconsciously at least, some sense of intellectual superiority among the white students and some sense of intellectual inferiority among the black students... The fact remains that black and white students will be exposed to each other under circumstances in which demonstrated intellectual superiority rests with the whites.

...No one can be expected to accept an inferior status willingly. The black students, unable to compete on even terms in the study of law, inevitably will seek other means to achieve recognition and self-expression. This is likely to take two forms. First, agitation to change the environment from one in which they are unable to compete to one in which they can. Demands will be made for elimination of competition, reduction in standards of performance, adoption of courses of study which do not require intensive legal analysis, and recognition for academic credit of sociological activities which have only an indirect relationship to legal training. Second, it seems probable that this group will seek personal satisfaction and public recognition by aggressive conduct, which, although ostensibly directed at external injustices and problems, will in fact be primarily motivated by the psychological needs of the members of the group to overcome feelings of inferiority caused by lack of success in their studies. Since the common denominator of the group of students with lower qualifications is one of race this aggressive expression will undoubtedly take the form of racial demands–the employment of faculty on the basis of race, a marking system based on race, the establishment of a black curriculum and a black law journal, an increase in black financial aid, and a rule against expulsion of black students who fail to satisfy minimum academic standards."

Exactly what has occurred. Re-segregation. It is inconceivable to me that a large number of people, including those promoting the policy, were not able to see its short comings and pitfalls. They subscribed to it anyway.

Their complacency was probably a combination of fear of being judged racist and the "hope" that their good intentions would usher in their desired result. "Hope" as we all know, is not a strategy. Human nature, while ameliorable, in my opinion, simply cannot be ignored. Ignoring it is just a short-cut to ensuring its assertion and the failure of the  preferred policy.

Learning Nothing from Experience

"One nice thing about being a liberal is, no one expects you to learn from experience."
 http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/06/what-happens-when-liberal-heroines-crumble.php

John Hinderaker, the author of the quote above, has a nice habit of often getting things just right.

I have written a couple of posts about socialism recently. In all of those words I never came close to the clarity of Mr. Hinderaker's brief statement.

 http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2016/05/research-review-universal-preschool-may-do-more-harm-than-good

The Curious Case of James Comey and Donald Trump/Updated

 On Tuesday July 5, 2016, FBI Chief James Comey gave a speech. As many others have mentioned, there seemed actually to have been two, unconnected, Comey speeches.

https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b.-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clintons-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system

 The first speech gave us a detailed description of lawless activity clearly in violation of  18 U.S. Code § 793 - Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information. 
(f) Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national defense, (1) through gross negligence* permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, or (2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer—
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both. (Emphasis added) https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/793

Comey, in the first speech, characterized Clinton and her associates as having been "extremely careless" in their handling of her emails in general and classified ones in particular. As far as I know "extremely careless" is not a legal term, although "carelessness" is defined in Black's Law Dictionary in part as,

"...The careless person is the person who does not take the care he ought to take: never mind whether he felt careful. He can be held to be negligent in making a perfectly honest mistake". Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Edition, P. 205. (Emphasis in the original).

When used by an experienced lawyer like Mr. Comey, it may or may not be a euphemism for gross negligence. From all I have read and from my own viewing experience I had the impression that he intended it to convey the depths of his contempt for Clinton and company's disregard for the norms of behavior in the handling of state secrets.

The reason for his use of the expression in lieu of gross negligence became clear to me in the second speech, the one that said, essentially, nothing to see here. Had he used "gross negligence" in the first speech he would have materially reduced the already limited coherence of drawing the no prosecution conclusion in the second. An already incoherent conclusion would have been rendered more incoherent.

As you can see from the statute above, the intentions of the subjects being investigated have no relationship to the breaking of the law in subsection (f). This contrasts (f) with (a) and (b) which require intent as part of the crime.

In his second speech Comey said:

 In looking back at our investigations into mishandling or removal of classified information, we cannot find a case that would support bringing criminal charges on these facts. All the cases prosecuted involved some combination of: clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information; or vast quantities of materials exposed in such a way as to support an inference of intentional misconduct; or indications of disloyalty to the United States; or efforts to obstruct justice. We do not see those things here.

Far more authoritative voices than mine have called foul on this. It just doesn't ring true. Andrew McCarthy at NRO http://www.nationalreview.com/article/437643/fbi-director-james-comey-testimony-clinton-defense-crumbles-under-scrutiny
demolishes Comey's assertions in detail.

We are left to wonder why Mr. Comey, of apparently spotless reputation, chose to humiliate himself in this manner.

None of the wondering leads anywhere we want to go.

 The presidential election of 2008 ushered in, in my opinion, our Emperor's New Clothes era (ENC). Mr. Comey continued it, in grand style, with his speech.

We elected a black President, have had two black Attorneys General, a black man sits on the Supreme Court, a black man heads Homeland Security, we have dozens of black mayors, congresspersons, thousands of black state legislators, city council members and judges (I found no firm figures but extrapolated from this http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/3/29/1372225/-Just-how-many-elected-officials-are-there-in-the-United-States-The-answer-is-mind-blowing )and descend into racial chaos because we are racists.

We know we are not racists and the evidence is everywhere and overwhelming, but, we must admire the ENC. Among the most overwhelming evidence we have of this is that at 13.125% of the population, black people cannot elect anyone without a great deal of help from us racists. source

We  are told of a great new deal with Iran that will stop them from building a nuke, but we aren't allowed to see the whole deal...because it is so good. But, we must admire the ENC.
UPDATE: Now we know that the part we weren't supposed to see will allow Iran to halve, to six months, the time it will take them to build a bomb when the deal expires . Who could have guessed?

We are told how brilliant our President is but we cannot see his college transcripts...because they are so great. ENC.

Unemployment is at pre-2008 levels Hooray! Not! ENC source  

Everybody knows that right-thinking Americans have always supported gay marriage, and not agreeing makes you a neanderthal.
Right. source  Note the relationship between Obama's change of heart and the 2012 election. ENC.

The list goes on forever. Black is white, white is black. ISIS is not an Islamic organization. We are not sure what motivated Mateen. Hillary didn't do anything she should be prosecuted for and, according to Mr. Comey, a statute that says gross negligence is the required level of responsibility to complete the crime doesn't really mean that.

Which brings us to Donald Trump. I am, at the moment, an extremely reluctant supporter. Among the reasons for my reluctant support is that I can't take being told black is white and white is black anymore.

As I have written before, good luck to all of us.

*Gross Negligence is defined in part as ...A conscious, voluntary act or omission in reckless disregard of a legal duty and of the consequences to another party. Black's Law Dictionary, 7th edition, P. 1057

A lot has been written about conservatives' discomfort with the threshold of gross negligence as sufficient for a criminal conviction. The reason for the discomfort is the exploding number of new crimes being minted by government agencies. Using gross negligence as the replacement for criminal intent places ordinary citizens in jeopardy.

Hillary Clinton is not an ordinary citizen. She signed several documents confirming that she understood the rules. She was grossly negligent in carrying out her duties and should be prosecuted for that malfeasance.




  








      

Black Lives Matter. Problem solved.

Steven Hayward at powerlineblog.com reminds us today of a timely Chris Rock video. He also reminds us that in today's America it would probably not be made, unfortunately. Enjoy.

The Declaration of Independence

Thanks to Scott Johnson at Powerline http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/07/the-eternal-meaning-of-independence-day-2-2.php the following passage from Calvin Coolidge's July 4, 1926 speech has once again been brought to my attention. This time I was actually paying attention.

I will reproduce the section that Mr. Johnson displays in his post with several additions of emphasis.

"About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers."

Could there be a clearer statement of the truth?

Clintonworld

The AP reports that Bill Clinton had a private meeting with Loretta Lynch, Attorney General of the United States. https://www.yahoo.com/news/clinton-lynch-met-privately-phoenix-airport-133019729--election.html

Yes, the woman who will ultimately decide the fate of HRC. She also happens to be the woman who will certainly be out of a job if HRC does not win the Presidency and, given the often reported hostility between the Obama and Clinton camps, would probably have been out of job even if HRC did win. I wonder how Bill made her the offer she couldn't refuse and what it consisted of. His mega billion dollar foundation might be a perfect soft landing, if  the investigation finds nothing to prosecute. On the other hand, it may have included keeping her AG spot if HRC wins. Of one thing I am absolutely certain; grandchildren did not enter into the conversation.

We have all heard of the importance of politicians, judges and other government employees avoiding the appearance of impropriety.

I can think of few more perfect examples of the appearance of impropriety than a 30 minute private meeting between the nation's top law enforcement official and the husband of the subject of at least one of  her agencies' investigations. It has been rumored (unconfirmed as far as I know) that the Clinton Foundation is also under investigation.

Looking around for definitions and examples of the appearance of impropriety I came across this http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/impropriety

The definition is not unusual. It does have a bonus feature;

" Associated concepts: crime, violation"

Yes, associated indeed. A certainty in this case.

The mainstream media has been working overtime to spin this as no big deal but there are some dissenters this time. Some lefties for whom this is just too much water to carry. http://legalinsurrection.com/2016/06/mika-rips-media-blackout-on-clinton-lynch-meeting-people-too-afraid-to-talk-about-the-truth/

It is a big deal. All the participants in the meeting, by virtue of allowing it to take place, have clearly demonstrated their complete contempt for all of us. They are above the law, and they know it.

It is truly sad to be able to write the previous sentence in the United States of America and know that it is a common sentiment, not some conspiracy freak nonsense.

Gun Control

As everyone but the dead knows, the Muslim Orlando Massacre has made a lot of news.

As the left fulminates and plays hide the bean, professing to be confused about the registered Democrat Muslim murderer's motives, the usual dishonest gun control debates are front and center again.

The 2nd amendment gives us the right to own guns for the primary purpose of defending ourselves from the government.

The amendment was enacted in 1791. At that time, except for cannons and explosives, guns used by the military and police were, as far as I can tell, the same as those owned by citizens. One could argue that at that time gun ownership was an effective method of defense against governmental tyranny.

In 2016 (and long before) we are no longer effectively armed to defend ourselves from the government. Despite hysterical and disingenuous arguments to the contrary, it is already illegal for citizens to own automatic weapons. We can only own single shot weapons. That is not the case for our federal agencies.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/376053/united-states-swat-john-fund

While armed to the teeth federal agencies are a problem they are not, in my opinion, the primary problem with respect to defending ourselves against a tyrannical government.

This is http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-police-departments.html 

It is impossible for citizens to defend against even local governments now.

We have already been effectively disarmed and have been for quite some time.

As I said in my previous post, "Good luck to all of us". 

Election 2016

I have mentioned to a few family members and friends over the last few years that I believe a series of events may unfold that will culminate with the 2016 Presidential election postponed and Obama continuing in office for an indefinite period of time. This notion did not result from anything other than Obama's re-election in 2012 and my assessment of his character and actions.

As the election approaches I am, to my amazement, beginning to think I may be on to something.

I believe the disclosure by the AP that Clinton hid 75 meetings with donors and other private individuals during the time she was SS  will prove to be the last straw for her. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article85708367.html On top of the ever uglier mess her email issue is becoming, this latest is just not tolerable and even she will not be able to overcome it.

Over the last few months I have been thinking about scenarios in which Trump disappears from the race. Among the triggering events I have been considering is his assassination. Apparently someone tried just that a few days ago. http://www.politico.com/story/2016/06/trump-assassination-attempt-las-vegas-224643

It will take a while for HRC to give up, but I don't see how, even in 2016 America, she can hold on for long.

So, it's September, she is indicted or forced out of the race by a combination of humiliation and ill-health, Trump is killed.

Obama, as he has demonstrated constantly, has reached the reasonable conclusion that, except for the Supreme Court, no one has the nerve to stop him and the Court has no power of enforcement. He is not constrained by the Constitution. He has nothing but contempt for it. http://www.sunbeamtimes.com/2016/02/15/obamas-contempt-for-constitution-disqualifies-him-on-supreme-court-appointment/

That being the case he will declare a state of emergency and halt the election.

Sounds crazy, doesn't it. I know. On the other hand, look around you. It seems that every federal government agency is armed to the teeth. http://www.nationalreview.com/article/376053/united-states-swat-john-fund

Democrats in the House of Representatives are staging an illegal sit-in. Apparently they are so far gone that the irony of using a 60's style civil rights type sit-in to promote their intention to gut the 1st, 2nd and 4th amendments has not occurred to them. Nonetheless, whatever their tactics, these are elected members of the US House of Representatives and they want the 1st, 2nd and 4th amendments vitiated. They will certainly not complain should Obama put another tear in the Constitution. I think they might welcome it, makes accomplishing their goal that much easier.

The country's legions of social justice warriors, minted during Obama's reign, are on a rampage, intent on destroying every vestige of our history on the theory that the people, white men, almost exclusively, who are responsible for the most astonishingly successful culture in human history, are bad. The President is in their corner. Yes, I know.

Local police forces are now armed with military weapons. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/09/us/war-gear-flows-to-police-departments.html Why do they need these? I don't know why either. Read the whole thing.

Good luck to all of us.

Socialism, Again

The 2nd link below is to an AP story about Cuba which was brought to my attention by this Powerline post  http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/06/cuba-is-cursed-all-right-by-socialism.php.

The AP article's headline referring to Cuba's Curse is, of course, unintentionally hilarious. As John Hinderaker points out the article never does mention the real source of the curse. He is not so reluctant.

"Left unexplained is why a planned socialist economy couldn’t get along without foreign subsidies...Funny, too, how Cuba’s socialist benefactors bite the dust one after another."

 http://www.tbo.com/ap/cuba/cuba-hopes-detente-will-finally-break-curse-on-investment-ap_cuba-news6be9b13d4e134a73a4297afa5aa40328

Before anyone launches the US economic embargo argument as the source of the curse please keep in mind that the embargo prevented Cuba from trading with one country on earth. That left about 191 others it could trade with (the UN currently has 193 members).

Socialism fails every single time it is tried. This has been pointed out by far more authoritative sources than me.

I will mention again that the Scandinavian countries are not socialist. They are free market economies with very generous welfare regimes.

"The Nordic model (also called Nordic capitalism^[1] or Nordic social democracy)^[2][3] refers to the economic and social policies common to the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway, Iceland and Sweden). This includes a combination of free market capitalism with a comprehensive welfare state and collective bargaining at the national level.^[4][5]
Although there are significant differences among the Nordic countries, they all share some common traits. These include support for a "universalist" welfare state aimed specifically at enhancing individual autonomy and promoting social mobility; a corporatist system involving a tripartite arrangement where representatives of labor and employers negotiate wages and labor market policy mediated by the government;^[6] and a commitment to widespread private ownership, free markets and free trade.^{[7]Emphasis added)}
Each of the Nordic countries has its own economic and social models, sometimes with large differences from its neighbours.^[8] According to sociologist Lane Kenworthy, in the context of the Nordic model, "social democracy" refers to a set of policies for promoting economic security and opportunity within the framework of capitalism rather than a system to replace capitalism.<sup>[9] (Emphasis added)"  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model

Someone should bring this to Bernie's attention.

I think it worth noting that Israel tried socialism too. The Kibbutz regime of co-operative farms failed completely. I had the opportunity to visit the remnants of one two years ago. They failed for the same reason socialism always fails. It is inconsistent with human nature. Human traits are, in my experience, quite evenly divided among any group of humans. 

Socialism quite naturally appeals to those with a surfeit of the laziness trait, a considerable number of the total of any human group. After all, what could be better than being licensed to do as little as possible to provide for one's self and be fully provided for by the effort of others.

The others, the productive people seduced by the nobility of the socialist ideology, play along for a while, suppressing another common human trait, self-interest. Until they get fed up watching the lazy live off their effort.

In uniformly socialist countries, once the productive get fed up with watching the lazy live off their effort, a police state develops to coerce the productive into cooperating with the authorities. USSR, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela. It never ends well. 

Happily, at least in this respect, Israel was a hybrid. Now it is not.</sup>

Socialism

Among our many older friends of long standing is a very smart (as an objective matter), funny and socialist lady. It is my experience that socialists can be very smart. It is also my experience that they tend to be ill-informed and/or choose to ignore the catastrophic shortcomings of their creed by virtue of their complete inability or unwillingness to perform any sort of analysis. They also tend to be multi-millionaires, as is our friend. This last has always puzzled me.

This lady recently underwent hip replacement surgery. She lives in a socialized medicine jurisdiction, Canada.

My wife called her last week to see how she was getting along. In the lady's usual, humorous way she described a post surgical interaction with one of her socialist (naturally) grandchildren. Apparently the grand daughter was outraged that our friend jumped the queue and had her surgery before less well connected Canadians would have.

The grand daughter wanted her granny to share the misery of her socialist sisters and, had she the influence, would have forced her granny to wait, in misery. Her own grandmother. Shared misery is, after all, what socialism always results in. See Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, North Korea, the former Soviet Union etc. (Please note that the Scandinavian countries are not socialist. They are free market economies with generous welfare regimes, as is Canada.)

This story also highlights another ubiquitous aspect of socialism. The connected do not actually live under the socialism they prescribe for everyone else. They jump the queue.

Why? Because socialism cannot co-exist with human nature. It is counter-intuitive to a human not to take advantage of every opportunity to improve the quality of his own life. Thus, every socialist regime becomes brutal when persuasion is insufficient to suppress human nature and people refuse to countenance the shared misery absent coercion. Cuba and North Korea are giant prisons, as was the USSR. What else do you call a place, no matter how large, that one is forbidden to leave without the blessing of the authorities?

There have been a few individuals in human history who appear to have been able to overcome human nature in some respects. Jesus and Mother Theresa come to mind. I know, small list.

Take a close look at any socialist country and what you find, once the veneer has been removed, is a kleptocracy. The rich and connected become richer, the poor poorer and the middle class disappears.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3192933/Hugo-Chavez-s-ambassador-daughter-Venezuela-s-richest-woman-according-new-report.html

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/21/fidel-castro-lived-like-king-cuba

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/18/north-korea-luxury-goods_n_4808823.html

Censorship Continued/Updated

Yesterday I wrote about MSNBC's censorship of a Tea Party photo in order to show the opposite of what it really was. (Reminds me of a saying I attribute to a much admired family friend of long standing; "He is such a liar even the opposite of what he says isn't true!")

You may have read about the Ben Rhodes interview published in the New York Times Magazine last week http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/08/magazine/the-aspiring-novelist-who-became-obamas-foreign-policy-guru.html?_r=2.

It has caused a stir quite amusing to those of us not on the political left. In essence Rhodes, a top aide to Obama, proudly confirmed what many of us already new. The Obama Administration peddles lies to an ill-informed (according to Rhodes and me) White House press corps which then dutifully publishes the lies. There are many unamused lefty reporters in Washington and New York. http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/05/with-rhodes-as-my-witness.php

A lot of the article revolves around the Obama/Rhodes strategy for selling the Iran nuclear agreement to us. In that regard a Fox News correspondent, James Rosen, comments on his involvement with the issue. At a press briefing on that agreement he had questioned a State Department spokesperson on one of the issues touched on in the article. His report is below.

Toward the end of the report he shows us that the State Department has disappeared his portion of the briefing. For the authoritarians running the country at the moment, making unpleasant and embarrassing questions disappear is standard procedure.

https://youtu.be/YZMrCh74zQI

Sometimes even totalitarians have to acknowledge popular outrage. The video has been restored to the State web site

https://pjmedia.com/trending/2016/05/10/the-curious-case-of-the-missing-state-department-tape/

"The Obama administration's Stalinist-level propaganda never looked so obvious and incompetent. No wonder the beltway media (AKA the White House "echo chamber") is hopping mad. No, not at Ben Rhodes, the White House's Chief Propagandist, but at David Samuels, the NYT journalist who brought this all out and made them all look like such willing dupes"

Coming to America

Courtesy of mind-numbingly stupid "progressives" who are determined not to see the obvious, this lovely demonstration of Muslim sensitivity and love of freedom:

https://youtu.be/_TaLiHll0Ag

It may well be that there are Muslims willing to live and let live. I do not see how, given the orthodoxy of their religion, but I am told they exist. Unfortunately, if they do exist, they are neither the face nor the dominant element of their religion. 

From all I have seen and read, Islam and freedom, as we understand it, are mutually exclusive.

An Essential Explanation

My complaints about the censorship of the news by "news" organizations have been frequent. I have read countless articles claiming that both sides of the political isle complain that the news is slanted in their opponents direction so things must, after all, be in balance and my complaints are nonsense. Nonsense.

I have mentioned Bill Whittle before. A brilliant guy, in my opinion. His clip below illustrates a routine example of censorship by a "news" organization which succeeds in using a picture to convey exactly the opposite of what it conveyed, pre-censorship.
(The photo in question was also used by countless other outlets including, if memory serves, a Newsweek cover.)

My reflex had always to give the benefit of the "good intentions" doubt to those who are found to be stretching the rules. The transgressions of "progressives" over the last thirty years or so (by which I mean since I have been paying attention) have eroded that instinct to the point of erasing it. They do not have good intentions. They do not operate in good faith, as I have mentioned before. Perhaps they never did.

It is impossible for me to believe that the MSNBC reporters discussing the Tea Party in the clip below did not know what the picture in question showed before it was censored. No good intentions. No good faith.

The censorship is not the most important part of the clip below. The most important part is Mr. Whittle's explanation of the how and the why.

Enjoy.

Cultural Appropriation

I wrote recently about White Privilege and explained what I think it is and why I think it exists. A parallel lament from our perennial whiners is "Cultural Appropriation", a phenomenon that posits that a person should not use the foods, clothing or other things from cultures he is not a part of. For example, not long ago a free yoga class at University of Ottawa was cancelled by the administration after complaints were received that the instructor was white, not Indian. http://www.metronews.ca/news/ottawa/2015/11/23/university-distances-itself-from-yoga-controversy.html

So it goes with any number of things. White people wearing dreadlocks? Sorry, no. White people owning restaurants selling non-white ethnic foods, er, no.

What progressives (white and non-white) seem to be doing is rebuilding walls between identifiable groups and promoting de-facto segregation. There are now "safe spaces" on university campuses where whites are not welcome. Yes, really. https://www.reddit.com/r/KotakuInAction/comments/3xhafz/oberlin_student_radicals_demand_racially/

I find all this very confusing. The same people who have promoted multiculturalism now seem to want to segregate cultures. I thought we were supposed to learn from our exposure to other cultures. After all, every culture is of at least equal value and people, particularly white people, need to learn from all the other much more enlightened cultures that abound on earth. I will confess that I have never understood what I was supposed to learn from an ill-educated Somali shepherd other than how to be a shepherd. Not one of my goals. Oh well.

Bill Whittle is, in my opinion, a brilliant and enormously talented man who has done us all the good turn of producing a video on the subject of cultural appropriation.

Enjoy.
https://www.billwhittle.com/firewall/appropriate

The Choose Your Gender Age

Watching the developing insanity with respect to inviting individuals to disengage from their randomly assigned gender and race has been at once horrifying and mesmerizing.

Apparently modern man has undiscovered humanity. I have written before that if Bruce Jenner wants to pretend to be a woman that is fine with me. If Rachel Dozier wants to pretend to be black that is also Ok with me. Gay and want to pretend to be married, no problem. Do as you wish up to the point that you demand my participation in your fantasy.

The "Bathroom Wars" are now underway. Otherwise apparently intelligent people, mostly "progressives", have decided that anyone who claims to identify as one gender or another, despite their physiology, is entitled to use the gender identified public bathroom of their choice. All but the most willfully blind among us can predict the outcome of this nonsense.

There will be a lot of men using ladies' rooms, not, by the way, because we identify as female but for the much more mundane and predictable reason that we are men, more than a few of us with poor impulse control (particularly under the influence of drugs or alcohol), and an opportunity to share intimate spaces with women has been offered free of consequence.

It is entirely predictable that instances of rape and lesser sexual assault will multiply exponentially if this ridiculous policy is allowed to continue.

For those of you who are confused about your gender, I have a solution:

(Hat tip, Powerlineblog.com)

Minimum Wage

Stephen Green is one of several guest posters at http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/. I have encountered his work many times over the years and have often found him to have very useful insights.

Yesterday he offered another useful insight. He made the point on Instapundit that the real minimum wage is zero.

The context was the discussion of restaurant owners' plans to adapt to increases in the California minimum wage. They boiled down to massaging menus to be as labor unintensive as possible and using fewer busboys and low level staff.

So, the result of a raise in the minimum wage, will, as always, be the killing of jobs. The minimum wage for those cooks, busboys and dishwashers now?  Zero.

Clinton experiencing life as a Republican

It is with no small amount of glee that I am watching Clinton experience a significant part of what it is like to be a Republican.

There is a quite famous cartoon which shows an elephant and a donkey pitching their platforms:
 



 The cartoon perfectly, in my opinion, points out the handicap Republicans operate under given the nature of humans.

Now Clinton is competing with the "Free Stuff" narrative and is getting creamed for the time being.

She does have the advantage of being able to persuade notable (to the left) economists to point out the idiocy of Bernie's assertions in the MSM. So at least she has that going for her.

Why we shouldn't believe in man made "Climate Change"

The first part of the post below was originally published  on 11/20/2008. The UPDATE below it is new.

Because the UN is telling us it is so.

The UN, the promoter of the worldwide Aids epidemic will shortly be reporting that their numbers are wildly wrong, according to the Washington Post today.

One of the reasons the numbers are so far off is:

"There was a tendency toward alarmism, and that fit perhaps a certain fundraising agenda," said Helen Epstein, author of "The Invisible Cure: Africa, the West, and the Fight Against AIDS." "I hope these new numbers will help refocus the response in a more pragmatic way." (emphasis added).

The same money driven agenda will be shown to be at work in the Global Warming Industry. It won't be long now. As Radar used to say in M.A.S.H. "Wait for it".

UPDATE 1/8/2016

A little more than 8 years later the hoax is both more and less effective.

More because so many people are making a good living from it. It has spawned entire new industries. Electric cars (subsidized by the government), solar panels (subsidized by the government), wind farms (subsidized by the government). Notice a trend there?

The bureaucrats and "scientists" employed in the effort to perpetuate the hoax are having a ball. Every year they have a global conference with themselves and various politicians and celebrities flying their private, gas guzzling, CO2 emitting airplanes to various exotic spots to eat, drink and play lavishly, all the while exhorting the rest of us to reduce our carbon footprints. The cognitive dissonance is lost on them, but not on us. "Climate change" is now very low on the priority list of most Americans, so low in fact, that it doesn't appear at all on this list http://www.gallup.com/poll/1675/most-important-problem.aspx .

Fundamental Matters

It seems that much of the problem in finding a way to peace in the Middle East is that both sides are telling the truth but only one side is being listened to.

Israel really wants to live in peace, in reasonable security and has no abiding antipathy towards Arabs.

The Arabs do not accept the legitimacy of the State of Israel and have a very vocal, visceral antipathy towards Jews.

For reasons best known to the non-Arab peace negotiators, including the Israelis, and most of the non-Arab public of the world they refuse to accept the Arabs at their vociferous word: We intend to destroy Israel and we intend to destroy the Jews.

They shout this from the rooftops of thousands of Mosques the world over. They shout this from every Arab Capitol . They shout this from every state run newspaper in the middle-east.

They don't just shout this occasionally. They shout it constantly. How is it that such a huge din goes unheard by so many?

Could it be the reluctance of so many to have the discussion that has to be had? Are we afraid to debate the legitimacy of the State of Israel? Are we afraid to point out, clearly, that the Arabs are a civilization bent on genocide?

That Israel is happy to live side by side in secure states isn't surprising. From the Arab point of view it is the same as having someone break into your house and offer to split it with you. A ridiculous proposition of course.

Until the Arabs are able to acknowledge that Jews have had a continuous presence in Israel from biblical times; that the Zionists bought and paid for their land and have a legitimate claim to it; and, that the 1948 partition was a legitimate exercise of political power by the Jews, there is little point to "peace talks".

If they can't acknowledge any or all of the above assertions the result will be perpetual war.

When the Zionist movement was slowly filling much of pre-Israel Palestine with Jews the Arabs demanded the British do something about it. They did but the Jews kept coming anyway. Here in the USA we are watching the Southwest fill up with illegal immigrants. We understand what the Arabs felt like.

Refugee "Women and Children"

Mr. Obama assures us in his customary condescending manner that we are ridiculous, not to mention cowardly, for expressing concern about these "women and children".

Migrants queue on a street to enter the compound outside the Berlin Office of Health and Social Affairs (LAGESO) for their registration process in Berlin, Germany Photo: REUTERS

Hmm. I have noticed that our language has deteriorated in the recent past although I doubt it has descended to such depths that even the most progressive of newspeak language architects would apply the description of "women and children" to those in the photo above.

Meanwhile, it seems a few "women and children" are unaccounted for in Germany.

"German authorities are reportedly searching for 12 people who entered the country illegally as refugees using fake Syrian passports and then disappeared."

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/12064943/Germany-searching-for-migrants-who-entered-Germany-using-same-passports-as-Paris-attackers.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

The story never does get around to declaring the genders and/or age of the missing.

Indeed

"The whole system seems to have lost its mind. That there’s even a debate about whether security officials should be allowed to look at the social-media posts of immigrants is a sign that our bureaucrats have such open minds their brains have fallen out."

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/428712/terrorism-government-fails-americans

The Black Lives Matter Foundation

A large majority of the black American population is facing an existential crisis. Dope, family disintegration, poor education and a lack of infrastructure have been plaguing these millions for years.

They have been the target of large scale attempts to improve their environment. Some of Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" programs were targeted for black Americans (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Society). Then there was school busing and affirmative action and generous welfare regimes. The outcome is generally regarded to be a catastrophe with vast numbers of black Americans suffering from ever worsening drug, domestic, educational and infrastructure problems. 50+ years, countless billions of dollars and very little to show for it.

It seems obvious, given all that has been tried, that solutions which depend on conventional American policy preferences have failed miserably. Internecine  war is well underway and claiming new victims in black America every day.

During the period of time that has elapsed since the 1960's civil rights offensive  there has been another, parallel, development that has transformed a small but important part of the black community.

Racial barriers to success in sports and entertainment have been removed and declared dead. One noteworthy result of this development has been the accumulation of a vast amount of wealth by some black Americans.

• It is reliably reported that there are about 35,000 black American millionaires as defined by the IRS; assets - liabilities - the value of one's primary residence (Dr. D. Kimbro, "The Wealth Choice"). 35,000 millionaires means that they hold, cumulatively, at least 35 billion dollars. That is not assets it is net worth. The remainder after deducting their liabilities.

• We know that they hold a great deal more wealth than that. In fact, the ten wealthiest black Americans hold, between them, 14.6 billion dollars (http://www.techscio.com/richest-african-americans/), so the group of 35,000 can be said to have net worth of at least 49 billion dollars. If half of them have net worth of 10 million dollars and the rest net worth of 1 million dollars then the value of all their net worth would be at least 200 billion dollars. The total is likely closer to 350 billion dollars.

These black American millionaires and billionaires (there are only 2)  are easily identifiable. Many of the top 10 are household names; Oprah, MJ, Magic, Tiger and Bill Cosby. We can all name dozens of others; Charles Barclay, Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, Shaq, Kobe, Chris Rock, Morgan Freeman, Barack Obama and so on. No doubt there is a mailing list that identifies them all.

They should create and fund The Black Lives Matter Foundation and proceed to attempt the rescue of their brethren from an existential crisis.

That neither federal, state nor local governments are capable of dealing with the problem is apparent. That there are more black Americans succeeding in less spectacular ways than the millionaires is not arguable. At least that has been accomplished. That many millions more are trapped in an endless cycle of poverty and self-destruction is similarly not arguable.

There is precedent for the members of a community who have succeeded banding together to save those of their brethren who have not. Wealthy American Jews, that very small proportion of Jews who found great success, spent what had to be spent to save the rest of us. Government was no help. Antisemitism was rampant. Our benefactors built hospitals, schools, community centers, in other words, infrastructure. This was not accomplished overnight. But, as is obvious to anyone who cares to see it, it has been wildly successful.

It is, in my opinion, time for that newly minted class of extremely wealthy black Americans to coalesce, assert themselves and commit a portion of their vast wealth to saving their people, as ours were saved. The government has demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that it is entirely incapable of ameliorating these problems. Some of the reasons government fails so badly at these efforts are baked into the nature of government and the motives of politicians. Government is not a philanthropic undertaking. Politicians are motivated differently than private philanthropists. There is no one else to rely on but yourselves.

Privately funded community centers based on the Jewish Community Center model could provide, free of charge (or otherwise depending on your preferences) supplemental education, job skills training, productive living training, day care services, legal services, drug treatment, food, shelter and an oasis of safety in otherwise turbulent neighborhoods.

No decent medical services in  the neighborhood? Build some, we did. You have vast and rapidly growing resources, use them and save your people.

I have no doubt that many of our black American millionaires are very charitable. I believe their charity is being largely wasted in a low-key scattershot approach to  solving a problem of immense proportion.

You can do it. It has been done before. In fact we built and generously support an entire country, Israel. You are fortunate to have a country. So build your neighborhoods.

Do Black Lives Matter?

Yes, of course. But that does not appear to be the actual question posed. The question being asked is "Do Black lives matter more than other lives?" The answer is no. Emphatically.

I grew up in Canada. There were never any Black slaves in Canada. Black people, as I grew up, were just that, black People. There were not a lot of black People in Canada and I encountered few in the 25 years I lived there. Among those few I encountered was Marion Cumberbatch, our housekeeper of long standing. So, anecdotally I suppose you could say that they occupied the lower levels of society, much as they did/do in the USA. On the other hand, there was the white Scottish housekeeper who worked for a neighbor's family, so who knows.

Being a Jew I benefit from a long tradition of sympathy with oppressed people (we can talk about the "Palestinians" some other time) but I find myself less and less sympathetic to American Blacks as they continue to take advantage of  unconstitutional, in my opinion, so-called Affirmative Action programs while rampaging here and there in protest of the unfair treatment they claim to be enduring at the hands of White Americans.

The reason for my lack of sympathy is the Alice in Wonderland nature of their campaign. Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown were thugs who were killed in self-defense.

"Hands up, don't shoot" is a complete and ugly distortion of the facts.

As "presentism" (judging historical figures by today's moral standards) takes hold in America a lot of history is being revised or eliminated. Did you know that 268,000 mostly white Union soldiers died to liberate black slaves? Or that another 300,000 or so were wounded in the same pursuit? Or that more than 1.5 million mostly white men served in the Union armies? Did you know that those 1.5 million represented about 20% of the male population of the North? 1 out of 5 men served. Or that in 2015 dollars the Union spent $147,000,000,000 ($36,700 per slave of the 4,000,000 then in bondage) to liberate the slaves? Apparently even our hillbilly ancestors knew that "Black lives Matter". Too bad their sacrifice has been completely dishonored by the dreadful conduct of so much of the black community recently.

Did you know that the first president of the NAACP was White? Did you know that the chairman of the NAACP in 1914 was a Jew? No? I thought not. Can you think of a reason you don't know that? I know, you would rather not. Me too.

Here is some of the NAACP's history as it appears in Wikipedia:

The conference resulted in a more influential and diverse organization, where the leadership was predominantly white and heavily Jewish American. In fact, at its founding, the NAACP had only one African American on its executive board, Du Bois himself. It did not elect a black president until 1975, although executive directors had been African-American. The Jewish community contributed greatly to the NAACP's founding and continued financing. Jewish historian Howard Sachar writes in his book A History of Jews in America of how, "In 1914, Professor Emeritus Joel Spingarn of Columbia University became chairman of the NAACP and recruited for its board such Jewish leaders as Jacob Schiff, Jacob Billikopf, and Rabbi Stephen Wise."^[19] Early Jewish-American co-founders included Julius Rosenwald, Lillian Wald, Rabbi Emil G. Hirsch and Wise.
According to Pbs.org "Over the years Jews have also expressed empathy (capability to share and understand another's emotion and feelings) with the plight of Blacks. In the early 20th century, Jewish newspapers drew parallels between the Black movement out of the South and the Jews' escape from Egypt, pointing out that both Blacks and Jews lived in ghettos, and calling anti-Black riots in the South "pogroms". Stressing the similarities rather than the differences between the Jewish and Black experience in America, Jewish leaders emphasized the idea that both groups would benefit the more America moved toward a society of merit, free of religious, ethnic and racial restrictions."^[20] Pbs.org further states, "The American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, and the Anti-Defamation League were central to the campaign against racial prejudice. Jews made substantial financial contributions to many civil rights organizations, including the NAACP, the Urban League, the Congress of Racial Equality, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. About 50 percent of the civil rights attorneys in the South during the 1960s were Jews, as were over 50 percent of the Whites who went to Mississippi in 1964 to challenge Jim Crow Laws."^[20]
As a member of the Princeton chapter of the NAACP, Albert Einstein corresponded with Du Bois, and in 1946 Einstein called racism "America's worst disease".^[21][22] Du Bois continued to play a pivotal role in the organization and served as editor of the association's magazine, The Crisis, which had a circulation of more than 30,000.
Moorfield Storey, who was white, was the president of the NAACP from its founding to 1915. Storey was a long-time classical liberal and Grover Cleveland Democrat who advocated laissez-faire free markets, the gold standard, and anti-imperialism. Storey consistently and aggressively championed civil rights, not only for blacks but also for Native Americans and immigrants (he opposed immigration restrictions).

Yes, American slavery was an abomination. Yes,  there continues to be identifiable racism in the USA. There always will be. Just as there will always be anti-semites, anti-Irish, anti-fat, anti ugly and so on. Most of us keep fighting to make these anti's as marginal as possible.

Ugly, racialist movements like "Black Lives Matter" only serve to make those of us who believed in the fight for equality cringe and stand down. Apparently nothing is enough so why bother.

The Gay Marriage Fight Continues/Updated 9-6-15

I have written before about my opposition to gay marriage. It is, in my view, as simply impossible for two people of the same gender to "marry" as it is for Bruce Jenner to "be" a woman. He can never '"be" a woman. He is a man, now and forever.

That he wishes to imitate being a woman is fine with me. If gay people wish to imitate being married that is also fine with me. They cannot ever "be married" in any traditional way.

Which brings me to the kerfuffle in Kentucky. Kim Davis, Rowan County, KY clerk of courts is probably going to jail for refusing to marry gay people in defiance of the Supreme Court and a contempt citation from a local Federal Magistrate.

This is what happens when 9 people in robes decide to make policy rather than interpret the law. See Roe v Wade. 40+ years of controversy still going strong.

There is an interesting side note to this wee circus.

Those of us on the right have long been playing a game that has come to be called, "Name that Party". It stems from our almost universal observation that the main stream press, when dealing with malfeasance of Republicans, immediately mentions their party affiliation. When dealing with malfeasance by Democrats, well, not so much.

In this story  http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/09/03/rowan-county-ky-court-clerk-marriage-licenses-gays/71635794/ and many others covering the controversy, the political affiliation of Ms. Davis is never mentioned. Name that party? Why, Democrat, of course. http://www.dallasvoice.com/county-clerk-kim-davis-democrat-related-stuff-10203184.html

Given the nature of her objection the MSM gets a bonus by not naming her affiliation.
 Based on the subject matter of the controversy, not naming her party affiliation allows most people to default to the position that she must be a Republican.

After all who else could possibly be mean and stupid enough to oppose gay marriage. A two-fer.

UPDATE: This is just too precious. One of the NYTimes editors fell for their own ruse. This correction appears today:

All Men are Created Equal

It came to my attention during a discussion not long ago that the context of the phrase may have been lost.

The person I was speaking to, not an American, pointed out the obvious: All men are not created equal. Her example was that the son of a prostitute was not at all equal to the son of a doctor. True, except in one regard; we are all created with unalienable rights given to us by our Creator (see previous post for my use of Creator).

At the time that the Founders proclaimed our independence the civil rights regime of every society that I know of was based on God's direct relationship with the various monarchs extant then. The religion practiced by the monarch did not appear to matter. The structure was always the same.You have heard, I am sure, of the Divine Right of Kings. Further, the rights of his subjects were mostly comprised of the rights he chose to confer on them. For the most part they could be given and taken away at the whim of the monarch. (Until after WWII for example, the Emperor of Japan was believed to be the son of god.) There were some exceptions, the Magna Carta, for example, but not many.

For the first time, as far as I know, the American system disengaged the monarch and put the people, all of them, in direct relationship with their civil rights. The first time, ever.
In this respect, and this respect only, were the Founders asserting the equality of men. This was an incredibly revolutionary assertion.

The then existing institution of slavery does not, in my opinion, invalidate their assertion. At that time those who condoned the practice did not consider slaves human. That they were wrong is beside the point. At that time women were generally not considered the equal of men. That they were wrong is also beside the point.

In their context, in their time, the views they held were commonplace. That they were not as enlightened as we are today is entirely predictable and irrelevant. In case it has gone unnoticed, we evolve. Were it otherwise our creation would have been accompanied by the invention of cars, planes, telephones, modern medicine and personal computers. 10's of billions of us lived and died during the thousands of years that humans were such slaves to our needs and environments that there was no time for meaningful innovation.

When did that state of being change dramatically? The Industrial Revolution and the soon to follow establishment of the United States of America, where all men are created equal and a reliable rule of law, not the whim of monarchs, governs. At the time, the only such place on Earth.