Watching the president's press conference on Fox News yesterday, I saw Yamiche Alcindor's insipid question. Alcindor asked whether, because President Trump has said that he is a nationalist, he is a white nationalist.
This is not a question that reflects basic knowledge necessary to be a competent journalist. Hence, the question arises whether PBS is functioning as a legitimate, nonpartisan news organization entitled to tax exemption. No other major network enjoys a tax exemption. The presumption is that PBS performs at a higher level than other networks, but the low quality of Alcindor's performance evidences a lower-level, partisan performance.
The term "nationalist" is broad, but its application to President Trump suggests trade and international relations issues. Advocates of tariffs in trade and of unilateralism in international relations are traditionally called economic or international relations nationalists. In the 1930s Senator Robert Taft, Herbert Hoover, and other Republicans were nationalists in opposition to internationalists like Wendell Willkie, and President Trump continues in this tradition. This is basic history, basic economics, and basic current events--knowledge that is necessary to competent journalism.
Unfortunately, like many reporters in television news, Ms. Alcindor lacks knowledge necessary to competent journalism. This raises the question as to why PBS would employ someone who lacks minimal skills and who instead of functioning as a journalist raises shrill, bigoted questions in a press conference.
PBS is a not-for-profit corporation that claims to be nonpartisan, but it is clearly partisan. It is time to reconsider longstanding subsidization of Democratic Party publicists in the media and in higher education who masquerade as professors and journalists, fraudulently securing tax subsidization through Section 501(c)(3). Section 501 (c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code is inapplicable to ideological or partisan organizations, and claims that Ms. Alcindor is a journalist or that PBS is nonideological and nonpartisan are disingenuous.
Showing posts with label donald trump. Show all posts
Showing posts with label donald trump. Show all posts
Thursday, November 8, 2018
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
Why I Support Republicans in 2018 and Trump in 2020, and Why I Oppose Sissified Democrats
Last year Tom Ross wrote a piece in the Examiner in which he quoted William Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts and the 2016 Libertarian Party vice presidential candidate, as claiming that data showed that 75% of LP voters would have voted for Trump rather than Clinton. As a result, Trump would have won a net majority in the absence of minor parties.
I am one of the culprits who did not vote for Trump. Until recently, I tended not to vote in presidential elections. When I did, I supported the Libertarian candidate. However, I served on my county Republican committee, worked for the Republican Party locally, and voted during the three nonpresidential years. I have opposed the evident corruption in the GOP both locally and nationally, but I have also contributed to GOP candidates.
As a libertarian, there were three features of Trump's candidacy that turned me off: his proposed wall, his animus toward immigration, and his suspicions about free trade. These are anti-libertarian positions, and I still oppose them.
However, there are two areas in which Trump has demonstrated valuable instincts: his attitudes toward political correctness and the media. Political correctness is a polite name for the totalitarian control and authoritarianism that have always been associated with socialism, communism, and the left in general. One does not advocate a strong government because one is shy of control; one who desires control is as likely to desire it with respect to civil as well as economic matters.
The left's thoroughgoing and consistent authoritarianism is seen in its rationalization architecture. Scholars like Adorno call all who oppose left-wing authoritarianism "authoritarian"; meanwhile, Herbert Marcuse advocates intolerance. A movement that claims to be intolerant in the name of opposing authoritarianism is a spinning top capable of anything. Indeed, the left, when it gains power, has accomplished every horror imaginable, beginning with mass murder in the nine digits.
Accelerating left-wing totalitarian patterns have been evident to me since I entered higher education in the early 1990s, and they continued to escalate up to the point when the Obama administration began to prosecute professors for expression of views that had no connection to teaching or the campus. Laura Kipnis was accused of creating a hostile environment at Northwestern University simply because she wrote two articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
These rules have now changed. The Trump administration is the first in my lifetime to reverse the march toward totalitarianism in American universities. The exclusion of Republicans from leading universities, which I have studied, is symptomatic of Democratic Party-subsidized groupthink. In turn, the subsidization reflects a historical impetus from corporate-linked foundations, which were eager to homogenize education and eject Christianity from American colleges in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The media has a similar history. It was consolidated by investment banking interests, and the centralization and left orientation received subsequent support from the Democratic Party, which censored libertarian positions during the New Deal. The centralization and homogenization of higher education and journalism converge on the needs of large financial institutions and one of their twin handmaidens, the Democratic Party.
Trump is the first elected official to threaten the status quo. Perhaps this was a ploy to gain votes--but perhaps Trump understands that the media, the universities, the so-called deep state, and especially the Democratic Party have interests that are as really aligned with the interests of ordinary Americans as the interests of Septimius Severus were really aligned with the ordinary Romans who received free bread.
By coincidence I have recently been listening to a lecture series about Roman history, and the thought occurred to me that a parallel might be made between the decline of Rome and the sissification of American culture, especially in the Democratic Party. I googled a related combination of words and came across a series of news items that tell a story similar to the dumbed-down attacks I have suffered at the hands of the fake-news media.
In 2011 the Italian historian Roberto de Mattei, based on a lifetime of study of Roman history, concluded that the decline of Rome was caused by a parallel process. De Mattei, who was head of the Italian Research Council, was treated to threats and calls for his sacking by Mussolini's fascio descendants, the Italian left wing.
America's dumbed-down journalists are tools of globalist financiers who delight in American indebtedness, decline, authoritarianism, and socialism. The delight about the indebtedness part ends when Republicans follow the same destructive policies as the Democrats, but it holds when the Democrats are in office
American journalists worry endlessly about their supposed freedom of the press, which is constrained to the point of zero by centralized credit, centralized financial controls, regulated cable television monopolies, regulated airwaves, and dumbed-down journalists, who are economic and historical illiterates trained by ideological, totalitarian institutions.
The Internet, which was originally thought to be a decentralizing force, is increasingly concentrated on social media that has proven even more authoritarian and subject to centralizing control than television.
Trump's use of Twitter turns this dynamic on its head. Bless him.
I am one of the culprits who did not vote for Trump. Until recently, I tended not to vote in presidential elections. When I did, I supported the Libertarian candidate. However, I served on my county Republican committee, worked for the Republican Party locally, and voted during the three nonpresidential years. I have opposed the evident corruption in the GOP both locally and nationally, but I have also contributed to GOP candidates.
As a libertarian, there were three features of Trump's candidacy that turned me off: his proposed wall, his animus toward immigration, and his suspicions about free trade. These are anti-libertarian positions, and I still oppose them.
However, there are two areas in which Trump has demonstrated valuable instincts: his attitudes toward political correctness and the media. Political correctness is a polite name for the totalitarian control and authoritarianism that have always been associated with socialism, communism, and the left in general. One does not advocate a strong government because one is shy of control; one who desires control is as likely to desire it with respect to civil as well as economic matters.
The left's thoroughgoing and consistent authoritarianism is seen in its rationalization architecture. Scholars like Adorno call all who oppose left-wing authoritarianism "authoritarian"; meanwhile, Herbert Marcuse advocates intolerance. A movement that claims to be intolerant in the name of opposing authoritarianism is a spinning top capable of anything. Indeed, the left, when it gains power, has accomplished every horror imaginable, beginning with mass murder in the nine digits.
Accelerating left-wing totalitarian patterns have been evident to me since I entered higher education in the early 1990s, and they continued to escalate up to the point when the Obama administration began to prosecute professors for expression of views that had no connection to teaching or the campus. Laura Kipnis was accused of creating a hostile environment at Northwestern University simply because she wrote two articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
These rules have now changed. The Trump administration is the first in my lifetime to reverse the march toward totalitarianism in American universities. The exclusion of Republicans from leading universities, which I have studied, is symptomatic of Democratic Party-subsidized groupthink. In turn, the subsidization reflects a historical impetus from corporate-linked foundations, which were eager to homogenize education and eject Christianity from American colleges in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The media has a similar history. It was consolidated by investment banking interests, and the centralization and left orientation received subsequent support from the Democratic Party, which censored libertarian positions during the New Deal. The centralization and homogenization of higher education and journalism converge on the needs of large financial institutions and one of their twin handmaidens, the Democratic Party.
Trump is the first elected official to threaten the status quo. Perhaps this was a ploy to gain votes--but perhaps Trump understands that the media, the universities, the so-called deep state, and especially the Democratic Party have interests that are as really aligned with the interests of ordinary Americans as the interests of Septimius Severus were really aligned with the ordinary Romans who received free bread.
By coincidence I have recently been listening to a lecture series about Roman history, and the thought occurred to me that a parallel might be made between the decline of Rome and the sissification of American culture, especially in the Democratic Party. I googled a related combination of words and came across a series of news items that tell a story similar to the dumbed-down attacks I have suffered at the hands of the fake-news media.
In 2011 the Italian historian Roberto de Mattei, based on a lifetime of study of Roman history, concluded that the decline of Rome was caused by a parallel process. De Mattei, who was head of the Italian Research Council, was treated to threats and calls for his sacking by Mussolini's fascio descendants, the Italian left wing.
America's dumbed-down journalists are tools of globalist financiers who delight in American indebtedness, decline, authoritarianism, and socialism. The delight about the indebtedness part ends when Republicans follow the same destructive policies as the Democrats, but it holds when the Democrats are in office
American journalists worry endlessly about their supposed freedom of the press, which is constrained to the point of zero by centralized credit, centralized financial controls, regulated cable television monopolies, regulated airwaves, and dumbed-down journalists, who are economic and historical illiterates trained by ideological, totalitarian institutions.
The Internet, which was originally thought to be a decentralizing force, is increasingly concentrated on social media that has proven even more authoritarian and subject to centralizing control than television.
Trump's use of Twitter turns this dynamic on its head. Bless him.
Saturday, July 28, 2018
The Tendency toward Self-Destructive False Equivalence
During the past year, I have heard many advocates of protectionism claim that without tariffs trade is not fair. The Chinese have tariffs, so we need to have tariffs as well in order to make trade fair. Trade must be equivalent. If they buy from us, we need to buy from them.
This reasoning makes as much sense as this: Since I buy from Wal-Mart but Wal-Mart doesn't buy from me, I should stop buying from Wal-Mart. It isn't fair that trade is one way.
That is mistaken, of course. If we buy from the Chinese, but they do not buy from us, the dollar will become weak, and the Chinese currency, the yuan renminbi, will become strong. The Chinese goods will become expensive, and Americans will stop buying them. That has not occurred because of the policies of China's communist dictators.
China's communist dictators believe that if they do not subsidize demand for their manufactured products, then their regime may collapse. If rural inland farmers who have migrated to the cities find themselves unemployed, then they will riot. As a result, the communists depress wages. In accordance with the law of supply and demand, low wages stimulate employment. The migrant farmers do not realize that their $8,000-a-year paycheck is small. They do not know that Americans who are less productive than they are earn $40,000 a year.
The Chinese use a few methods to keep wages low and to make their urban migrants suffer in exchange for social passivity. These include printing ever-larger amounts of yuan; using much of the printed yuan for valueless real estate, ghost cities, and pet projects; suppression of the yuan by directly purchasing US dollars; purchasing treasury bonds with purchased US dollars; and tariffs.
These are self-impoverishment strategies: They make the average citizen poorer because they weaken the yuan. At poorer wages, employment is stimulated, and citizens are too busy to riot, but most are poorer.
In exchange, Americans benefit from the option to purchase inexpensive merchandise that is cheaper than we could purchase without China's self-impoverishment strategies. The cost of that is that some manufacturing plants close, but the benefit outweighs the cost. If every American spends more on manufactured goods, the cost is enormous; if there is a 20% increase in manufacturing employment, the benefit is small.
Americans follow similar but more moderate self-impoverishment strategies. For instance, America's Federal Reserve Bank prints lots of paper money and hands it to unproductive Wall Street stock jobbers, investors who are so incompetent that they required a $29 trillion bailout ten years ago and continue to require ongoing monetary subsidization.
The ongoing subsidization of Wall Street makes Americans poorer, of course, because someone has to pay. At poorer wages, Americans enjoy full employment, but we don't go as far as the Chinese because our farms have been integrated into the modern economy.
Nevertheless, Wall Street benefits from other self-impoverishment policies. The subprime crisis and excessive investment in technology both have benefited investors at the expense of American workers. However, Wall Street does not benefit from tariffs and trade impediments, which are also a self-impoverishment strategy.
The decision to establish tariffs would ordinarily make Americans poorer; however, do not underestimate the stupidity of the Chinese. They may decide to make their citizens poorer still by further purchasing additional dollars. This may result in Americans' becoming richer as the dollar strengthens; however, there will be further disinvestment in domestically produced importable merchandise--the opposite result of what Trump's supporters want.
The tendency toward self-destructive false equivalence is seen on the left as well as among Trump's supporters. Many leftists make this argument: America is the only country to have a political commitment to freedom; isn't that a reason to end the political commitment to freedom? Well, yes, the rest of the world has a history of gassing dissenters and Jews, and left-wing, social democratic regimes are in that long tradition. The left has a long history of self-destructive, delusional false equivalence. It is sad that the majority of Trump's supporters have adopted it as well.
This reasoning makes as much sense as this: Since I buy from Wal-Mart but Wal-Mart doesn't buy from me, I should stop buying from Wal-Mart. It isn't fair that trade is one way.
That is mistaken, of course. If we buy from the Chinese, but they do not buy from us, the dollar will become weak, and the Chinese currency, the yuan renminbi, will become strong. The Chinese goods will become expensive, and Americans will stop buying them. That has not occurred because of the policies of China's communist dictators.
China's communist dictators believe that if they do not subsidize demand for their manufactured products, then their regime may collapse. If rural inland farmers who have migrated to the cities find themselves unemployed, then they will riot. As a result, the communists depress wages. In accordance with the law of supply and demand, low wages stimulate employment. The migrant farmers do not realize that their $8,000-a-year paycheck is small. They do not know that Americans who are less productive than they are earn $40,000 a year.
The Chinese use a few methods to keep wages low and to make their urban migrants suffer in exchange for social passivity. These include printing ever-larger amounts of yuan; using much of the printed yuan for valueless real estate, ghost cities, and pet projects; suppression of the yuan by directly purchasing US dollars; purchasing treasury bonds with purchased US dollars; and tariffs.
These are self-impoverishment strategies: They make the average citizen poorer because they weaken the yuan. At poorer wages, employment is stimulated, and citizens are too busy to riot, but most are poorer.
In exchange, Americans benefit from the option to purchase inexpensive merchandise that is cheaper than we could purchase without China's self-impoverishment strategies. The cost of that is that some manufacturing plants close, but the benefit outweighs the cost. If every American spends more on manufactured goods, the cost is enormous; if there is a 20% increase in manufacturing employment, the benefit is small.
Americans follow similar but more moderate self-impoverishment strategies. For instance, America's Federal Reserve Bank prints lots of paper money and hands it to unproductive Wall Street stock jobbers, investors who are so incompetent that they required a $29 trillion bailout ten years ago and continue to require ongoing monetary subsidization.
The ongoing subsidization of Wall Street makes Americans poorer, of course, because someone has to pay. At poorer wages, Americans enjoy full employment, but we don't go as far as the Chinese because our farms have been integrated into the modern economy.
Nevertheless, Wall Street benefits from other self-impoverishment policies. The subprime crisis and excessive investment in technology both have benefited investors at the expense of American workers. However, Wall Street does not benefit from tariffs and trade impediments, which are also a self-impoverishment strategy.
The decision to establish tariffs would ordinarily make Americans poorer; however, do not underestimate the stupidity of the Chinese. They may decide to make their citizens poorer still by further purchasing additional dollars. This may result in Americans' becoming richer as the dollar strengthens; however, there will be further disinvestment in domestically produced importable merchandise--the opposite result of what Trump's supporters want.
The tendency toward self-destructive false equivalence is seen on the left as well as among Trump's supporters. Many leftists make this argument: America is the only country to have a political commitment to freedom; isn't that a reason to end the political commitment to freedom? Well, yes, the rest of the world has a history of gassing dissenters and Jews, and left-wing, social democratic regimes are in that long tradition. The left has a long history of self-destructive, delusional false equivalence. It is sad that the majority of Trump's supporters have adopted it as well.
Monday, July 9, 2018
Ulster County, NY Vote Stronger for Trump Than for Romney
A comparison of the vote counts for Ulster County, NY (h/t Glenda R. McGee) reveals something interesting: The vote for Clinton was weaker than for Obama while the vote for Trump was stronger than for Romney.
Ulster County is a mixture of two elements: rural New Yorkers whose ancestors have lived in the region for generations and are chiefly Republican and transplanted New York City refugees like me. The New York City refugees are mostly Democratic.
Clinton stimulated less interest among the New York City element than Obama had while Trump stimulated more than Romney had. However, the numbers in the region are now overwhelmingly in favor of the Democrats because of the demographic shifts.
2012 Ulster County Presidential Votes:
Ulster County is a mixture of two elements: rural New Yorkers whose ancestors have lived in the region for generations and are chiefly Republican and transplanted New York City refugees like me. The New York City refugees are mostly Democratic.
Clinton stimulated less interest among the New York City element than Obama had while Trump stimulated more than Romney had. However, the numbers in the region are now overwhelmingly in favor of the Democrats because of the demographic shifts.
2012 Ulster County Presidential Votes:
Obama
Romney
2012: 47,752
29,759
Clinton
Trump
2016 44,597
35,239
Source: Glenda R. McGee
Source: Glenda R. McGee
Thursday, January 4, 2018
Rural Sectionalism and the Election of Donald Trump
A December 29 Wall Street Journal piece shows 20 charts that indicate how badly rural Americans have fared. The election of Donald Trump, mostly by rural voters, can be interpreted to be a reaction, and the campaign to eliminate the Electoral College a counterreaction.
Inflation-adjusted household income has declined since 2000, and it has declined the most in rural areas. Much of the decline occurred during the Obama years. That contrasts with the stock market, which has received massive public subsidization.
Those who foot the bill for "too-big-to-fail" banks are the same people who are dying at increasing rates.
Where I live, Olive, NY, New York City has long played an imperialistic role similar to that of any Roman-style power. It has done so to procure virtually free water; it chose to go the imperial route rather than purchase water ethically back in the 19th century.
In his book Empire of Water, David Soll outlines the 100-year history of theft, exploitation, and regulatory caprice that deprived the ancestors of many people I see each day of their homes and businesses, forcing many who had owned family businesses into becoming day laborers.
Environmentalists, dominant in the Democratic Party, have learned from New York City and since the 1990s have systematically attacked rural areas. This occurred most aggressively during the Obama years.
Not satisfied with increasing death rates in rural areas, Robert Reich, the American media, and their fellow Democrats campaign for more political power to be concentrated in urban centers by abolishing the Electoral College. The end of the Electoral College would mean even more extreme depredation of rural America than has already occurred.
Where I live, Olive, NY, New York City has long played an imperialistic role similar to that of any Roman-style power. It has done so to procure virtually free water; it chose to go the imperial route rather than purchase water ethically back in the 19th century.
In his book Empire of Water, David Soll outlines the 100-year history of theft, exploitation, and regulatory caprice that deprived the ancestors of many people I see each day of their homes and businesses, forcing many who had owned family businesses into becoming day laborers.
Environmentalists, dominant in the Democratic Party, have learned from New York City and since the 1990s have systematically attacked rural areas. This occurred most aggressively during the Obama years.
Not satisfied with increasing death rates in rural areas, Robert Reich, the American media, and their fellow Democrats campaign for more political power to be concentrated in urban centers by abolishing the Electoral College. The end of the Electoral College would mean even more extreme depredation of rural America than has already occurred.
Wednesday, June 7, 2017
Adam Kissel's Appointment Reflects Brilliantly on the Trump Administration
A friend just forwarded an article in Reason.com about Education Secretary Betsy DeVos's appointment of Adam Kissel to deputy assistant secretary for higher education programs. I worked with Adam on a grant several years ago when he was with the Charles G. Koch Foundation, and he was professional, knowledgeable, and effective. He had previously worked for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, where he also had done important work. Adam combines a restrained brilliance with integrity and a commitment to civil liberties. President Trump's appointments of Deputy Assistant Secretary Kissel, Secretary DeVos, and regulatory czar Neomi Rao augur well for the course the Trump administration will take.
Friday, June 2, 2017
The Trump Score Card
Four-and-a-half months into his presidency, Donald Trump has
been better than I thought he would be. He has appointed Betsy De Vos to head the
education department, and I believe that Gail Heriot still has a crack at the
Office of Civil Rights post. He has
repudiated a climate change treaty that deserves rethinking on Constitutional
grounds, as Seth Lipsky points out in his blog in yesterday’s New York Sun. Moreover, the president still seems serious
about regulatory reform. However, as I point out on Mr. Lipsky’s
blog, he has made his best contribution in the way he has rankled the press,
baiting them into one absurd impeachment cry after another.
I rarely watch TV news, but I work out in the Route 28 Gym in Woodstock, NY, and the local lefties inevitably have the TV tuned to MSNBC and Chris Matthews’s mug. The stridency of his and the other announcers’ carping, caviling, and cussing about President Trump has turned what once could have been fairly called a biased press into one that is shrill and hyperbolic. The silly Russian story is less serious than the racketeering in which Hillary Clinton engaged, but the MSNBC announcers harp on it and assume that their calls for impeachment will make a difference. They are discrediting themselves and eliminating any hope for resuscitation of their profession.
Perhaps Trump has encouraged this by design—as someone on
Facebook put it, he may have succeeded in goading the media to confusedly charge, much like a bullfighter waving the muleta or red flag at the bull. If that's not so, the end result will still turn out well.
The press now behaves much like the parties to any social
dementia, such as the Salem witch trials, the Negro Plot of 1741, the Red Scare during
World War I, or the public reaction to Orson Welles's War of The Worlds.
MSNBC’s Matthews is like the farmer who waved his pitchfork
at Welles’s flying saucer. What
we may be seeing is the discrediting of television news and the end of the mid-to-late 20th
century's centralized, broadcast news system. If so, Mr. Trump will have done
more than a little good on that score alone.
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Trump versus Sanders
The Wall Street Journal blog reports that Bernie Sanders aims to win Donald Trump's supporters' votes, for they are anxious about the economy, whose decline Sanders blames on greed. Greed, of course, has always existed, and there is no evidence that there is more greed now than there was in the free market period of American history, when real wages grew at 0.5% to 2.5% per year.
Tuesday, April 1, 2014
Donald Trump Says "Yes" to the Second Amendment
New York is too far gone for it to matter much, but it's nice to hear Mr. Donald Trump tell New York's politicians that they're bad guys and to tell Andy Cuomo, "You're fired!" H/t Mert Melfa.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Obama's Unpresidential Prank Is a Civil Liberties Threat
Two nights ago Mike Marnell, publisher of Kingston, NY's Lincoln Eagle, called me to tell me that he had just seen President Obama interrupt Donald Trump's reality television show, The Apprentice, to announce the death of Osama bin Laden. President Obama had singled out Trump's program because Trump had been rattling him about his unwillingness to release his birth certificate and his and Factcheck.org's past lies about the vault copy. Now that Obama has released the vault copy, Factcheck.org's claim that the COLB was the vault copy eliminates the pro-Obama site's very name. It should call itself "Liespreader.org."
I dislike Trump as much as Obama (that is, I both dislike Trump and Obama and I dislike Trump as much as Obama dislikes him). But singling out a specific citizen's TV show because of that citizen's protest is unpresidential. In effect, Obama has stooped to Trump's level in deliberately interrupting the season's final episode of The Apprentice. News as momentous as the bin Laden capture should not be used to play petty politics. Obama has once again demonstrated his pettiness, just as he did with his silly game over the birth certificate.
A friend told me that she recently had lunch with a local left wing activist who expressed considerable disappointment with President Obama. I am not disappointed in Obama. He has done everything that I said that he would. Now that Obama has entered a third war, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee might consider entering a different line of work. Perhaps the Nobel Peace Prize committee might consider donating its endowment to a worthy cause.
Obama's targeting of a specific citizen creates an unfortunate precedent. Given his complete failure in the economic realm, his massive expansion of wealth and income inequality through his unprecedented subsidies to Wall Street and commercial banks, his hamstringing of the American economy through his interference with oil and gas exploration, and his inability to refrain from increasing the number of wars in which the US is engaged, his inability to function in a presidential manner does not surprise me.
But there are additional dangers associated with his attack on Trump and on freedom of speech.
Update: Pinni Bohm gave me this link to Obama's speech at the White House correspondents' dinner. Obama is reaching new unpresidential lows.
I dislike Trump as much as Obama (that is, I both dislike Trump and Obama and I dislike Trump as much as Obama dislikes him). But singling out a specific citizen's TV show because of that citizen's protest is unpresidential. In effect, Obama has stooped to Trump's level in deliberately interrupting the season's final episode of The Apprentice. News as momentous as the bin Laden capture should not be used to play petty politics. Obama has once again demonstrated his pettiness, just as he did with his silly game over the birth certificate.
A friend told me that she recently had lunch with a local left wing activist who expressed considerable disappointment with President Obama. I am not disappointed in Obama. He has done everything that I said that he would. Now that Obama has entered a third war, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee might consider entering a different line of work. Perhaps the Nobel Peace Prize committee might consider donating its endowment to a worthy cause.
Obama's targeting of a specific citizen creates an unfortunate precedent. Given his complete failure in the economic realm, his massive expansion of wealth and income inequality through his unprecedented subsidies to Wall Street and commercial banks, his hamstringing of the American economy through his interference with oil and gas exploration, and his inability to refrain from increasing the number of wars in which the US is engaged, his inability to function in a presidential manner does not surprise me.
But there are additional dangers associated with his attack on Trump and on freedom of speech.
Update: Pinni Bohm gave me this link to Obama's speech at the White House correspondents' dinner. Obama is reaching new unpresidential lows.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Yer Blues: Beatles Celebrate Bin Laden Death
Mike Marnell called last night to tell me that Obama announced the death of Osama on Donald Trump's television show. The LA Times provides a blow-by-blow account. Video of attack on bin Laden h/t LA Times blog:
Friday, April 22, 2011
Donald Trump's Eminent Domain Empire
Michelle Malkin hits a home run with this blog (H/T Dennis Sevakis). If you have any doubt that Trump is a big government con man, take a look. Malkin's observations skim the surface. The corruption and looting in which Trump has engaged over a lifetime are a public disgrace.
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Mr. Sanders is right: There is little difference between Mr. Trump and him. Both are big government advocates. Mr. Sanders sees government redistribution as the cure to greed, an absurd, impossible plan, and Mr. Trump sees government immigration restrictions as the cure to job loss, an equally absurd non-sequitur.
While Hitler, like Trump, was a racist, he was also, like Sanders, a national socialist. The twenty-five-point Nazi plan of 1920 contains much overlap with Mr. Sanders's views, albeit Sanders's Brooklyn Jewish background may not have been to Hitler's taste.
Point six of the Nazi twenty-five-point plan, for instance, was nearly identical to Sanders's position on immigration: "Non-citizens may live in Germany, but there will be special laws for foreigners living in Germany."
The Nazis also agreed with Mr. Sanders's redistributionist schemes, as in points ten and eleven: "Every citizen should have a job. Their work should not be selfish, but help everyone. Therefore we say...No one should live off money from rents or other income unless they have worked for that money."
Like Sanders, the Nazis hoped to repeal greed. Since greed is a natural impulse like sexual desire or hunger, aiming to repeal greed opens the door to repression and ultimately murder, as has been the case with a long list of large-scale socialist states over the past century.
The Nazis' immigration policies, redistributionist schemes, and opposition to selfishness parallel Bernie Sanders's platform. The American left is a reincarnation of the Nazi movement, with the racist (but not anti-Semitic) element excised.