Tag Archives: decline

If You Were Surprised

29 Sunday Mar 2020

Posted by in Legal/Political Columns

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

You weren’t paying attention. There is no pretense anymore about fiscal (or other) responsibility in DC. The next time someone warns that you have to vote Republican or else the Democrats will win, just remind them about this tiny little stimulus Act:

Republicans who have spent the past decade howling about the danger of ballooning deficits embraced the coronavirus rescue package approved by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump, shrugging off past concerns about spending in the face of a public health crisis.

In many cases, the conservatives who backed the $2 trillion bill — the largest economic relief measure in U.S. history — were the very same who raged against the nearly $800 billion economic stimulus package backed by the Obama administration.

But facing the unprecedented threat of a global pandemic — and working under a Republican president who has largely brushed off concerns about debt and deficits — the GOP was willing to overlook an unprecedented flood of taxpayer spending. Leading budget hawk Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., who insisted in 2009 that government cannot spend its way out of a recession, this week joined a unanimous Senate majority that approved what he described as “the biggest government intervention in the economy in the history of the world.”

“This is a response to an invasion,” he told reporters. “This is the kind of thing you’d have to do if we were at war.”

Oh, silly me. I forgot we are at war. That totally justifies sacrificing everything to the very real and visible viral enemy that invaded and took complete control of the dead nation. Carry on!

The GOP is Dead

27 Friday Mar 2020

Posted by in Legal/Political Columns

≈ Comments Off on The GOP is Dead

Tags

, , ,

It no longer exists, if it ever did in other than but theory. The one Representative trying to live up to all the lies the Republicans told in days gone by is the one they want to get rid of. Tweeted the Marmalade Moron:

“Looks like a third rate Grandstander named @RepThomasMassie, a Congressman from, unfortunately, a truly GREAT State, Kentucky, wants to vote against the new Save Our Workers Bill in Congress,” Trump wrote. “He just wants the publicity. He can’t stop it, only delay, which is both dangerous …& costly. Workers & small businesses need money now in order to survive. Virus wasn’t their fault. It is ‘HELL’ dealing with the Dems, had to give up some stupid things in order to get the ‘big picture’ done. 90% GREAT! WIN BACK HOUSE, but throw Massie out of Republican Party!”

Well, might as well do so; he’s just making them look semi-responsible. As an accelerationist, I, of course, support the boondoggle (and the coming versions too).

To fairly spread the blame, I just heard the worthless Italian wonder, Andrew Cuomo (rhymes with “go-home-o”), whine about “the enemy” in this “war” “targeting” – do you see the pattern? – the most vulnerable. This, from the “man” who recently legalized infanticide.

You’re running out of elections to play with, so enjoy what you can. You have ruined your nation.

Let’s Hope So

27 Friday Mar 2020

Posted by in News and Notes

≈ Comments Off on Let’s Hope So

Tags

, , ,

This could be the return to civility America really needs. Or Not. But, I’m not sure God will be all that happy with the way it’s presented here:

Could a plague of biblical proportions be America’s best hope for religious revival? As the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II approaches, there is reason to think so.

Three-quarters of a century has dimmed the memory of that gruesome conflict and its terrible consequences: tens of millions killed, great cities bombed to rubble, Europe and Asia stricken by hunger and poverty. Those who survived the war had to grapple with the kinds of profound questions that only arise in the aftermath of calamity. Gazing at the ruins from his window at Cambridge University, British historian Herbert Butterfield chose to make sense of it by turning to the Hebrew Bible.

“The power of the Old Testament teaching on history—perhaps the point at which the ancient Jews were most original, breaking away from the religious thought of the other peoples around them—lay precisely in the region of truths which sprang from a reflection on catastrophe and cataclysm,” Butterfield wrote in “Christianity and History” (1949). “It is almost impossible properly to appreciate the higher developments in the historical reflection of the Old Testament except in another age which has experienced (or has found itself confronted with) colossal cataclysm.”

War again. Notice? Drool for the bell. The hoax to end them all led to the JUDEO-Christian awakening? What? The lens of the Old Testament only. Hmmm. This is starting to smell.

I’m not sure who the next target is – likely China and/or Russia. Whoever it is, I am firmly against the next war. This one won’t go as planned, nor will the next. Kids, resist the urge to “serve,” especially in the Navy, unless you’re just dying to see the ocean floor. I’m also against all these blasphemous comments and taglines. Talk about a colossal cataclysm in the making.

Clown World: Mo Money, Fewer Rights

26 Thursday Mar 2020

Posted by in News and Notes

≈ Comments Off on Clown World: Mo Money, Fewer Rights

Tags

, ,

When the largest bailout in human history isn’t enough.

Even if the bill passes, the story won’t be over:

    • We are likely to be in this same situation again, economists say — and soon.
    • Another stimulus bill will likely be necessary to get the economy running after the COVID-19 outbreak has been contained.
    • More immediately, it’s possible that a second massive spending bill will be needed just to stop further bleeding.

What it means: “This should not be thought of as a stimulus bill — this should be thought of as social insurance in a disaster state of the world for the most hard hit,” Jonathan Parker, professor of finance at MIT, told Axios during a virtual briefing with reporters Wednesday.

    • “The idea is to freeze time for a month or six weeks and let people emerge with not a huge amount of debt — not starving, not being evicted.”
    • This would ideally produce “a V-shaped recovery where people find themselves roughly where they were when we went in.”

This “V-shaped” idea is the craziest thing I’ve heard since they said a cold bug caused the depression. People entered into the V with a huge amount of debt – and no assets – and that is the problem. More free money, despite being what everyone says they want, is the opposite of the right answer.

What people do not want is any cumbersome freedom. There is no fear of losing civil liberties.

The orders seem prudent in the bid to thwart the spread of the novel coronavirus: Don’t go out, don’t gather with others and keep your stores closed. But growing segments of the U.S. population say state and federal governments are trampling on freedoms central to American life in the name of protecting public health.

The case is already being made. A church-goer in New Hampshire says prohibitions against large gatherings violate her religious rights. A Pennsylvania golf course owner argues that gubernatorial edicts shuttering his business amount to illegal seizure of his private property.

So, a few “nuts” care about freedom. What did Sallust say again? The majority couldn’t be happier to lock themselves down, so long as a little free cheddar is promised.

And, the lies. The past week and a half, I have watched or listened to more television bullshit than I have in the past ten years. Virtually everything I’ve heard has been a damned lie and an easily disproved damned lie. That so many people put faith in this foolishness says something unpleasant about the wreck of America.

This social distancing is starting to sound appealing. In fact, I’m investigating a way to make it permanent. I’d like to put as much distance between me and the social idiocy as possible.

The Schools: Corona 101

23 Monday Mar 2020

Posted by in News and Notes

≈ Comments Off on The Schools: Corona 101

Tags

, , ,

If nothing else, the COVID is shedding more light on the public schools:

Sherica Freeman said she has not connected with students in one of her American Literature classes since March 12, the day Georgia schools were told to close school buildings to curb the spread of COVID-19.

The DeKalb County School District, where Freeman works, was among the metro Atlanta school districts that decided to shift to online learning amid the shutdown. On March 13, she spent the day uploading lesson plans for her Stone Mountain High School students to use for the first two weeks of a shutdown now expected to last more than a month. So far, with at least one class, she said she’s got nothing to show for it.

“My whole fourth period doesn’t know where I am, what they’re supposed to do,” said Freeman, who has worked for the district as a teacher for 13 years. “It feels like there’s no real understanding of how these systems work … like we buy this software and never figure out how to use it.”

This is so much different than how Stone Mountain High normally operates! With 15% average total test scores and 22% literature scores. With 14% proficiency in math and 21% in reading they still somehow manage to graduate 69% of the seniors. This year, they’ll do it again, but with that trendy telecommuting! Indeed, there is no understanding of how these systems work.

Parents Should Have the Final Say

29 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by in Legal/Political Columns, News and Notes

≈ Comments Off on Parents Should Have the Final Say

Tags

, , , , ,

The LGBTP brigade is suing the state of South Carolina over one of the last shreds of sanity and decency in the failed SC government schools. All over the legally-mandated way that sex education is supposed to be taught to children. The state make-work idiots and conservatives have already conceded defeat. (Shock!)

State Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman, named as a defendant in the lawsuit, agrees that the law is on shaky ground.

She requested an opinion on its constitutionality from South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson. That opinion says “a court would likely conclude” that the law violates the equal protection clause requiring that people in similar circumstances be treated the same under the law.

“Whether we agree or not, the Constitution is the Constitution,” Solicitor General Robert D. Cook wrote in the opinion.

“I agree with the arguments and evidence presented in the opinion,” Spearman said in a statement. “I also believe that parents should continue to have the final say in whether or not their child participates in health education curriculum.”

State Superintendent of Schools. South Carolina. Hmm. It seems there was this guy in a recent novel who dismissed a similar official as a simpleton. Art imitating life or something. At any rate, the law was never enforced. From the CIA’s Scholastic’s Read 180 program to the social studies texts to clubs, libraries, etc., the LGBTP lifestyle is not only taught and tolerated but celebrated in SC public schools (in yours too). The preemptive caving is par for the conservative course. Why wait for the courts to invent new rights for the mentally ill? Better to force everyone else to bow immediately – even lower than they are already forced to. Really, what else can one expect from people who are adamantly anti-Christian and anti-civilizational?

You do have the final say, however. So say something like: classical education, private school, church school, or homeschool. Maybe consider suing the state for stealing your tax money to indoctrinate other people’s kids in something that offends your freedoms?

More Benefits of Academic Inclusion

24 Monday Feb 2020

Posted by in Legal/Political Columns

≈ Comments Off on More Benefits of Academic Inclusion

Tags

, , ,

More Chinese spying. Also in Boston. Hotbed?

When a researcher from a Chinese military academy applied to study with celebrated Boston University physicist Eugene Stanley, he said her affiliation didn’t raise red flags.

“I’m not interested at all in politics. I’m a scientist,” said Mr. Stanley, whose wide-ranging research has included using artificial intelligence to decode financial markets and applying statistical physics to prevent diseases.

…

A range of U.S. agencies, from the Defense Department to the National Institutes of Health, have sounded alarms over Beijing’s alleged attempts to tap U.S. university expertise to boost China’s military and technological competitiveness.

U.S. officials accuse China of targeting academia, including by sending military researchers to American labs and using talent-recruitment programs to attract to China top-flight scientists, entrepreneurs and experts, as well as their intellectual property.

Yet, the Trump and the Mick still want more migrants. And, could that AI also be used to say, track or spread diseases? Heck with it, it’s XFL season!

Hawks Fly Away

20 Thursday Feb 2020

Posted by in Legal/Political Columns

≈ Comments Off on Hawks Fly Away

Tags

, ,

So long, fiscal hawks! These rare birds were to the national debt what conservatives, in general, are to everything else – useless.

But with Trump in office, “we’re a lot less interested as a party,” the former budget chief said, calling the growing deficit “extraordinarily disturbing.”

The White House budget proposal released last week abandons Trump’s deficit cutting promises and relies on economic growth assumptions most economists dismiss as unrealistic to pay down the debt.

The Congressional Budget Office predicts the deficit will surpass $1 trillion and government debt will reach 81 percent of GDP by the end of September.

“The fiscal hawks are clearly an endangered species,” Bill Hoagland, a former Senate budget staffer, told AFP. “I really can’t pinpoint anybody that’s willing to step up and clear the plate.”

This is going to end in disaster for America. It’s just a question of what kind of disaster and when. The debt will never be paid down. That raptor flew the coup long ago, back when the hawks still strutted and ruffled their own feathers. It’s going to be canceled – along with all the other fiat-usury-based garbage. Practical politics will fail again, leaving the dissolution to the market and to history. Cue the Breakup song! But, not today. Party today like it’s Trumpteen-99.

The Imperial Grand Strategy

18 Tuesday Feb 2020

Posted by in Legal/Political Columns

≈ Comments Off on The Imperial Grand Strategy

Tags

, , ,

At least there was a strategy. And it may have worked when the Empire was ascendant. Now, we daily see the painful retractions.

The United States has attacked, directly or indirectly, some 44 countries throughout the world since August 1945, a number of them many times. The avowed objective of these military interventions has been to effect “regime change”. The cloaks of “human rights” and of “democracy” were invariably evoked to justify what were unilateral and illegal acts.

The aim of the United States is to protect and reinforce national interests rather than to create a better world for all humankind. It is an “imperial grand strategy” of global dimensions designed to ensure unlimited and uninhibited access, notably to strategic resources, notably energy, and to markets. Rather than to establish a direct colonial presence, the preferred strategy is to create satellite states, and this requires constant, and often repeated, military interventions in countries around the world, irrespective of their political regime.

Other Empires in the past have had maps to rival the US’s. Oddly, none of them are still on the map.

An Indictment of America 2.0

15 Saturday Feb 2020

Posted by in Legal/Political Columns

≈ Comments Off on An Indictment of America 2.0

Tags

, , , ,

Donald Jefferies on the nationwide systemic corruption.

Corruption is defined in the dictionary as “dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power.” It can no longer be denied that in every area of government and business, present-day America fits this description like a glove. Throw in a decadent culture, and a beaten-down, largely amoral populace, and you have America 2.0.

Our legal system is a laughingstock. I am just starting to write a book about our injustice system, and the statistics and personal stories are stunning. Cops routinely harass innocent motorists or pedestrians (but never threaten gang members, for instance). Prosecutors cling to cases with no real evidence, and push forward to convict those they know aren’t guilty. It’s all about winning under our adversarial system. Juries rubber-stamp dubious cases with guilty verdicts most of the time. And politicized judges rule over the mess like feudal lords, with bias and inconsistency.

He goes on to hit most of the major players in the downfall. But, like he say, at least there’s plenty to write about.