Author Archives: perrinlovett

Another Demographic Shift!

11 Monday Nov 2019

Posted by in Legal/Political Columns

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

“Heather” explains how to vote for someone based on your thinking that the candidate won’t/can’t win. Brilliant.

Three years ago, thousands of these Americans — many working-class, residing in the middle of the country — helped deliver the most astounding electoral surprise in modern history. Now, as they review the Trump presidency a year before his re-election, some are showing signs of turning on conventional wisdom again.

Heather, a local administrative assistant here who is married with a stroller-bound toddler, is still so embarrassed by her 2016 vote that she wasn’t comfortable revealing her last name.

“I’m ashamed to admit . . . But I’m of a more conservative bent and family. I just couldn’t vote for Hillary. But I also thought there’s no way Trump was going to win. This way, I could at least say, ‘Well I didn’t vote for her,’” she said. “I didn’t think I was doing any harm.”

While Heather isn’t sharing her conversion far and wide, she’s already decided “there’s no chance” she’d vote for Trump again. “Heavens no,” she said. “Trump basically turned me into a Democrat.”

The 2020 presidential campaign has been engrossed in a debate over which demographic groups Democrats should devote most of their attention to in order to reclaim the White House. African-Americans in urban areas? Rural voters who flipped from Barack Obama to Trump? Newly emerging but unreliable young people?

But the one pivotal group showing the most evident signs of splitting from the president are white working-class women, according to a review of polling data, focus groups and interviews with more than a dozen party strategists and voters like Heather.

There was the deal of 19: get the vote in exchange for learning to use it. Someone hasn’t kept her end of the bargain. Maybe the stellar GOP strategists will notice this trend too – maybe around 2024.

A Self-Policing 1984

11 Monday Nov 2019

Posted by in Legal/Political Columns, News and Notes

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

It’s probably too late by the time people start making recommendations like “academic freedom champions.”

Fewer than half of students consistently support freedom of speech and two fifths favour censorship and no-platforming of controversial speakers, research has shown.

A “culture of conformity” may also be having an effect on undergraduates, who are often too intimidated to espouse unpopular views on campus, according to a report by the centre-right think tank Policy Exchange.

Deep-rooted reform is needed at universities, which should establish academic freedom champions reporting directly to the vice-chancellor, it says.

And it’s not just in the UK. Depending on how one looks at the problem, the US is either a little better or much worse. The good news is that soon there will be nothing left to conform to.

Tom Ironsides on Veteran’s Day

11 Monday Nov 2019

Posted by in News and Notes, Other Columns

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

Literally, this is how Tom passed last Veteran’s Day. From Chapter 10 of The Substitute:

   He was just sitting down when Bolt addressed him by name:

   ‘Dr. Ironsides! Dr. Ironsides, please stand back up. In addition to holding a Ph.D., our favorite sub [many of the kids applauded that], our favorite sub also served in the Marine Corps, retiring as a Colonel, wasn’t it? And, many of you don’t know this, but he also worked for the CIA. Dr., Col. Ironsides, can you please say a few words? And, on behalf of all of us, thank you for your service!’

   Tom waited for the renewed applause to die down and then he spoke, without the need of any microphone: ‘You don’t know what I did!’ He hadn’t expected to say those words and they had a silencing effect on the whole room.

   ‘I spent almost thirty years as a warrior, destroying and killing as ordered. For the most part, I waged war so rich men could get richer. I watched poor men die. I killed many of them. Some of their wives. A few of their children. People much like you… You’re welcome.’

   The very few who knew, looked him in the eyes as he sat down. Most were shocked by the blunt and horrifying short speech. There was no more applause.

 

Realizations of the Very Stupid Party

10 Sunday Nov 2019

Posted by in Legal/Political Columns

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

Even the dumbest of conservatives are beginning to sense something is wrong. An article full of so many cliches that it’s hard to track them bemoans the very predictable GOP loses in VA.

RICHMOND, Va. – As Virginia election returns rolled in Tuesday night, Republican campaign manager Daniella Propati quickly realized two things: Her candidate for the House of Delegates, GayDonna Vandergriff, would lose, and calling their opponent a “socialist” hadn’t worked.

North Richmond and the tony suburbs of Henrico County had once been a dependable backstop for the GOP, a place where statewide candidates found votes to offset Arlington and Alexandria. But the suburbs have undergone a metamorphosis in recent years – growing more socially liberal, more diverse, less interested in the red meat of the tea party and Donald Trump.

“Republicans – we’ve been running campaigns in Virginia the same way for 20 years,” Propati said. “We need to come together and say, ‘What do we need to do next time?’ “

That’s a question Republicans around the country are wrestling with after Tuesday’s elections revealed new troubles in suburbs from Memphis to Philadelphia. Nowhere has the problem been more pronounced than in Virginia, where Republicans have been all but wiped from power in the past decade.

A GOP candidate hasn’t won statewide office in Virginia since 2009. On Tuesday, Democrats gained majorities in both houses of the General Assembly for the first time in a generation; the House of Delegates swung from a 66-34 Republican edge in 2017 to a 55-45 Democratic advantage for next year’s session.

In presidential elections, Virginia has moved so swiftly to the left in recent contests that it barely paused to be a swing state.

“This is the nightmare scenario for a lot of people in the Republican Party,” said Ruy Teixeira, a demographer at the liberal Center for American Progress. “Virginia is an example of a possible future for some of the states that are now part of the Republican coalition.”

Virginia now stands as a fearful avatar for Republicans of what the nation’s unrelenting demographic and cultural changes mean for the party, as the moderate-to-liberal urban and suburban areas grow and more conservative rural areas lose ground.Similar shifts are starting to hit such states as North Carolina, Arizona, Georgia and Texas, as minority populations increase and white college-educated voters continue to turn away from the Republican brand.

“It ought to be a concern everywhere,” said former Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., whose northern Virginia district has been swept of GOP power. “These demographic changes are happening everywhere. They are not unique to Virginia.”

No, calling the opponent a socialist when you’ve allowed (helped) to flood the nation with socialists is not a winning strategy. Those cultural and demographic changes are unrelenting, but they were also stoppable. Maybe the GOP should have stop them. Maybe conservative is synonymous with stupid. Better luck last time.

An aside – I just had a conversation about this kind of thing in Georgia. There may yet be time to do something. If so, it’s a short time. And, it will require doing something.

Congratulations! You’re “Dating” a Nigerian Prince

10 Sunday Nov 2019

Posted by in Other Columns

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

I recently had the high honor of conversing with some teenaged American zombies. One of them boasted to his friends of a “girlfriend” he “met” through an App. He indicated the relationship was getting serious despite the 2,000 miles(!) between the pair. I casually mentioned the three very real girls seated nearby, the presence of which the boys seemed oblivious. Over the pecking of screens, I don’t think they heard me.

The sad news, if this isn’t all sad enough, is that the California dream girl on the App might not even be a real girl. Or even human.

Steve Dean, an online dating consultant, says the person you just matched with on a dating app or site may not actually be a real person. “You go on Tinder, you swipe on someone you thought was cute, and they say, ‘Hey sexy, it’s great to see you.’ You’re like, ‘OK, that’s a little bold, but OK.’ Then they say, ‘Would you like to chat off? Here’s my phone number. You can call me here.’ … Then in a lot of cases those phone numbers that they’ll send could be a link to a scamming site, they could be a link to a live cam site.”

Malicious bots on social media platforms aren’t a new problem. According to the security firm Imperva, in 2016, 28.9% of all web traffic could be attributed to “bad bots” — automated programs with capabilities ranging from spamming to data scraping to cybersecurity attacks.

As dating apps become more popular with humans, bots are homing in on these platforms too. It’s especially insidious given that people join dating apps seeking to make personal, intimate connections.

Please note that these bots are not the kind that looks like Scarlett Johansson. It’s just code in a phone some bum uses to con you out of a dollar. Ignoring real girls + Tinder bots = extinction-level event?

THIS! is what gets the Goldman???

10 Sunday Nov 2019

Posted by in Legal/Political Columns

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Forget about the Fed front-running, the election rigging, and the literal nation-wrecking. No, the problem with Goldman is their Apple Card Gender Algorithm…

In a series of Twitter posts starting on Thursday, David Heinemeier Hansson railed against the Apple Card for giving him 20 times the credit limit that his wife got, Bloomberg reported on Saturday. (https://bloom.bg/2X4IX2X)

Hansson, who is the creator of web-application framework Ruby on Rails, didn’t disclose any specific income-related information for himself or his wife but said they filed joint tax returns and that his wife had a better credit score, the report said.

New York’s Department of Financial Services confirmed that an investigation was being conducted.

Andrew Williams, a Goldman Sachs spokesman, declined to comment on whether Hansson had contacted Goldman regarding the concerns raised on Twitter because the bank does not discuss matters involving individual customers publicly.

The Apple Card, launched in August, is Goldman’s first credit card. The Wall Street investment bank has been offering more products to consumers, including personal loans and savings accounts through its Marcus online bank.

The Department of Financial Services “will be conducting an investigation to determine whether New York law was violated and ensure all consumers are treated equally regardless of sex,” a department spokeswoman told Reuters in a statement.

Now we need an investigation into that department spokeswoman for (correctly!!!) identifying “sex” as “sex,” rather than “gender.” Then, we’ll need to go after Reuters for assuming her gender with this “spokeswoman” business.

Graphing the Graft

09 Saturday Nov 2019

Posted by in Legal/Political Columns

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, ,

LRC has six graphs to put taxation and spending in perspective.

Combining state and local taxation with federal taxes, the increase is even larger. Taxation per capita at all levels combined grew 118 percent from $5,247 in 1960 to $11,461 in 2018.

The size and scope of government isn’t just growing to reflect population changes. After all, the US population only grew 81 percent from 1960 to 2018. And the federal government, embroiled in a global cold war amidst a rising tide of social programs, wasn’t exactly vanishingly small in 1960.

All six are eye-opening. But, as bad as they are, they’re still nothing like the rise in general inflation and the cost of usury sorcery. That 81% population increase is suspect as well, and for the same reasons associated with the money. Fake Americans and fake money make for a fake nation.

New “Education” Scores – from TPC!

09 Saturday Nov 2019

Posted by in Other Columns

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, ,

Rig For Red: Education Edition

 

A Note: Perrin went out carousing late Halloween evening, followed by a book launch dinner party thing Friday night, followed by a Saturday meeting of the Old Timer’s Cigar Club. The proverbial truck has runneth him over and he may have encountered the cold bug. Therefore, quality may be affected. Deal with it.

 

“Q” is back and advising of pre-battle stations tactical alerts, whatever that might mean. From whence I derived my title. Amidst all the mysterious, cryptic stuff, like “Rig for Red,” I am aware of two subjects about which the anons were dead right: a real-time satellite/Atlantic cable blackout, which I independently verified through multiple intel sources, and; a major shift in the K-12 teaching of Twentieth-Century history, which I myself verified. This column has nothing else to do with Q, rather being concerned with the K-12 “education” as provided by America’s public schools.

 

Every time I write one of these academic missives, I conduct a minimal amount of research. Based on my inquiries to The GOOGLE, I usually get results like these:

 

(American Conservative) Liberal Bias Starts Long Before College

 

(American Conservative) Should Conservatives leave Public Schools?

 

Unfortunately, those being AC pieces, they always immediately devolve into quotes from charlatans like Dennis Prager or drug addicts like Jordan Peterson. And they wonder why they have failed to conserve anything – the schools least of all. Anyway, the answer to that second title is a resounding “Yes.” Why? Well, there’s no need to take the word of neo-Trotskyites or tearful meth heads. The system itself does an alarmingly good job of self exposure.

 

Every single year, the stats come out by the dump truck loads. For instance, we have the US DOE [SIC] NCES 2019 Condition of Education report. (See also: 2018’s report).

 

Per this year’s NCES indictment, the average public school district spends approximately $12,800 per year, per student. That’s the second highest in the world, behind Norway’s $15,000 figure. The OECD average is about $9,500; many countries spend considerably less. (Note: Georgia, in general, spends below both the US and the OECD averages). 

 

You’re really getting your money’s worth, let me tell you. Check this out:

 

Reading proficiency: 4th Grade – 37%, 8th Grade – 36%, 12th Grade – 37%.

 

Math proficiency: 4th Grade – 40%, 8th Grade – 34%, 12th Grade – 25%.

 

Science proficiency: 4th Grade – 38%, 8th Grade – 22%, 12th Grade – 34%.

 

…

 

THE WHOLE THING AT TPC

Goodbye, 007?

07 Thursday Nov 2019

Posted by in Books For Sale, News and Notes

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

Tom Ironsides may have come along at just the right moment.

In London with the ‘No Time to Die’ actresses, part of The Hollywood Reporter’s Next Gen Talent list, as they open up about bringing James Bond into the #MeToo age: “There is an evolution.”

…

Never has that been so critical for a Bond film. When it’s released April 10, the $250 million No Time to Die will be the first entry in the series to land in a #MeToo and Time’s Up world. And while the $7 billion franchise may forever be best known for its womanizing namesake agent, director Fukunaga (True Detective, Beasts of No Nation) and producer Barbara Broccoli have worked hard with both Lynch and de Armas to create a new type of female Bond character who is much more fully realized than the “Bond girls” of films past.

“It’s pretty obvious that there is an evolution in the fact that Lashana is one of the main characters in the film and wears the pants — literally. I wear the gown. She wears the pants,” says de Armas, curled up in a chair in the lobby of London’s Charlotte Street Hotel.

Buy his debut novel, The Substitute, today.

PS: A fiction pro has completed his reading of the book and declared it both a success and a perfect depiction of the public school system. His review will be along shortly with more to follow.

Sorcery “Goes Back Decades”

07 Thursday Nov 2019

Posted by in News and Notes

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

It is QE Infinity! The New York Fed’s funny money giveaway program was supposed to end on Monday. Instead, today the WSJ treats us to uncannily shoddy journalist revelations of a continuing nature.

The New York Fed added $115.14 billion to financial markets via temporary operations on Thursday.

The liquidity additions came in two parts. One was an overnight repurchase agreement with eligible banks totaling $80.14 billion, and the other was via a $35 billion 14-day repo. Eligible banks didn’t take all the liquidity offered by the Fed in the one-day operations, but in submitting $41.15 billion in Treasurys and mortgages for the latter operation, their interest in securing liquidity exceeded what the Fed was willing to provide on Thursday.

Fed repo interventions take in Treasury and mortgage securities from eligible banks in what is effectively a short-term loan of central-bank cash, collateralized by the bonds. The Fed’s injections are aimed at ensuring that the financial system has enough liquidity and that short-term borrowing rates remain well-behaved.

Recent Fed market interventions aren’t designed to serve as stimulus. While the sizes of recent operations are large, the practice of adding and subtracting liquidity from short-term markets to manage short-term interest rates goes back decades. The Fed is also buying Treasury bills to increase the size of its balance sheet and to add permanent liquidity to the financial system, and it hopes that effort will reduce the need for large temporary interventions.

Not a stimulus, just a behavior modification. Okaaaaay. Adding massive permanent liquidity (to a supposedly healthy system, well-behaved) in lieu of temporary interventions. Hmmmm.

Make of all that what you will. At this point, the dates, numbers, and words simply cannot be trusted. It was $165 Bn per day for 50 days. Now, is it $165 Bn for 53? Or, is it $115 Bn for 53? Or something else forever? Splitting the crazy differences … $140 Bn for 51.5 days = $7,210,000,000,000.00*. Or, they are now printing the fiat at the rate of 1 2019 GDP every five months. Or! 1 2019 SLFR BASE every three weeks. King Midas would be jealous.

*If it is 165/53, then we’re at $8.745 Trillion through today.

Soon…