SOCIALISM: The Empty Cupboards of Venezuela’s Families. “Now eating is a luxury, before we could earn some money and buy clothes or something, now everything goes on food.”
Archive for 2016
May 17, 2016
YOU KEEP USING THAT WORD; I DO NOT THINK IT MEANS WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS: ‘Objectively’? This snippet from a WaPo piece on Hillary is ‘perfectly wrong in all ways’ [screenshot].
WHY ARE OBAMA-SUPPORTING AUTHORS WRITING SUCH PROBLEMATIC LITERARY CESSPITS OF RAPE CULTURE?
Shot: Feminist Internet: Harry Potter Perpetuates Rape Culture: “According to a piece on Feminist Internet, the Harry Potter series perpetuates rape culture because there are love potions involved in a couple of the storylines — and that’s ‘glaringly problematic.'”
—Katherine Timpf, NRO, yesterday.
Chaser: ‘Harry Potter’ Author J.K. Rowling Dines With Obama in London: “Rowling has met the President several times and attended a banquet thrown by Obama and his wife for Queen Elizabeth II when the U.S. first couple visited Britain in 2011.”
—AP story, April 24th, 2016.
Eventually, the revolution runs out of ideological enemies to destroy, at which point it begins to devour itself.
QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED: “We’re living in an age full of possibilities. So why do so many of us feel like losers?”
Because you not only read the Guardian, you write for it, losers.
THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS, FONDLING OUR JUNK: Huge security lines force passengers to sleep in cots at Chicago O’Hare — where four thousand passengers have missed flights while waiting for the TSA this year.
FUNDAMENTALLY TRANSFORMED. ‘Wiped Out’: Air Force losing pilots and planes to cuts, scrounging for spare parts.
QUESTION ASKED: Has Europe had enough of Erdogan?
Yes.
THE “ACCIDENTALLY” IS A NICE TOUCH: CIA watchdog ‘accidentally’ deletes torture report, destroys physical copy.
Related: Here We Go Again … IRS Destroys Another Hard Drive.
More: Document theft and destruction nothing new for Hillary Clinton.
“I STRUGGLE WHERE YOU VACATION,” says headline on press release from the Huffington Post yesterday:
In one of the first collaborations between The Huffington Post and RYOT, comes this beautifully produced 360 mini-documentary titled, “I Struggle Where You Vacation” taking viewers inside the debt crisis* in Puerto Rico and how it is affecting ordinary citizens.
“We have seen the effects on the youth, we have seen the effects on the education. The people of Puerto Rico have shared the burden of this debt, mostly the working class. It’s directly related to our colonial status,” said Manuel Natal, Representative of the governing Popular Democratic Party. The mini-documentary shows areas such as the Caño Martín Peña River where lack of infrastructure is leading to health problems for more than 25,000 residents and the Ramón Vila Mayo School in Rio Piedras where the number of students has gone from 700 to approximately 370 in just five years and where flooding frequently prevents students from using the school classrooms.
Check out the full video here to see how ordinary citizens are taking matters into their own hands as the deb crisis deepens and legislators in Washington continue not to act.
That’s nice; now do a video on Cuba titled “I Struggle Where You Vacation.” Incidentally note the lie in the above statement: Washington is acting; but Puerto Rico’s politicians are refusing the terms, lest they be limited from unfettered spending of even more of their citizens’ money in the future.
DISPATCHES FROM THE HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE:
Shot: Vanita “Bathroom Czar” Gupta to Minnesota Law Grads: “Efforts like House Bill 2 in North Carolina not only violate the laws that govern our nation, but also the values that define us as a people.”
Chaser: “Minnesota Law School, Facing Waning Interest, Cuts Admissions.”
(Suggested by an Insta-reader.)
HOPE: Rift Between Labor and Environmentalists Threatens Democratic Turnout Plan.
The rift developed after some in the labor movement, whose cash flow has dwindled and whose political clout has been increasingly imperiled, announced a partnership last week with a wealthy environmentalist, Tom Steyer, to help bankroll a new fund dedicated to electing Democrats.
That joint initiative enraged members of the nation’s biggest construction unions, already on edge about the rising influence of climate-change activists. The building-trades unions view Mr. Steyer’s environmental agenda as a threat to the jobs that can be created through infrastructure projects like new gas pipelines.
The dispute, laid bare in a pair of blistering letters sent on Monday to Richard L. Trumka, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., underscored the tensions between the two pillars of the Democratic coalition.
There are plenty of these rifts to be exploited in the Democrat coalition, including Millennials vs the university system which exploits them, and African Americans vs the public eduction system which exploits them, too.
If only someone had written a book about that…
THE CLOTHES HAVE NO EMPEROR: Gates Isn’t Sure There’s Anyone Left in Obama Administration Who Can Speak Truth to the President.
NO. NEXT QUESTION? Did it ever occur to the Times — or Obama, for that matter — that the president’s efforts to ‘end’ Bush’s wars are precisely what ended up extending them?”
When Obama took office he inherited a pacified Iraq, where the terrorists had been defeated both militarily and ideologically. Militarily, thanks to Bush’s surge, coupled with the Sunni Awakening, al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI, now the Islamic State) was driven from the strongholds it had established in Anbar and other Iraqi provinces. It controlled no major territory, and its top leader — Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — had been killed by US Special Operations forces.
Ideologically, the terrorists had suffered a popular rejection. Iraq was supposed to be a place where al-Qaeda rallied the Sunni masses to drive America out, but instead, the Sunnis joined with Americans to drive al-Qaeda out — a massive ideological defeat.
Obama took that inheritance and squandered it – withdrawing all US forces from Iraq; taking our boot off of the terrorists’ necks; allowing them to regroup and establish a safe haven in Syria; and then when they prepared their offensive back into Iraq, doing nothing while dismissing them as the “JV squad.”
As Gen. Jack Keane pointed out on Fox News this morning, in Iraq “Bush won the war. Obama lost the peace.”
Analysis: True.
BRAVE SIR RHODES RUNS AWAY: Ben “Lonesome” Rhodes won’t show today. Earnest: Wouldn’t Be ‘Fair’ for Rhodes to Testify Before GOPs ‘Who Lied About Iran Deal’; White House raises ‘constitutional concerns.’
What is this …Constitution… the White House speaks of?
May 16, 2016
AT AMAZON, shop the Poolside Leisure Event.
Plus, keep kids active with the Summer Toy List.
KURT SCHLICHTER: 11 Principles for a Free America After the Liberals Secede.
TRUMP IS ALREADY HAVING AN IMPACT, helping the Boston Globe learn to worry about executive powers.
FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS: Craigslist confessional: “One look at me, and people think I’m privileged.”
CHANGE: Traditional Publishers’ Share of E-Book Sales Shrinks. “In another look at e-book sales, Mooney reported that the Big 5 publishers’ share of e-book sales fell to 34% in 2015, down from 38% in 2014. In 2012, the Big 5 held a 46% of e-book unit sales. The loss of share of the Big 5 was made up by self-publishers and small publishers. Self-publishers’ share of the e-book market rose to 12% last year from 8% in 2014, while small presses accounted for 30% of e-book unit sales in 2015, up from 26% in 2014.”
All is proceeding as I have foretold.
WHY ARE DEMOCRAT-RUN INSTITUTIONS SUCH CESSPITS OF SEXISM?
Shot: Feminists Outraged CBS Cuts ‘Nancy Drew’ Show Because It Skews ‘Too Female.’
Hangover: “The Wire’s Wendell Pierce arrested for ‘attacking female Bernie Sanders supporter’…Pierce is a supporter of Hillary Clinton, so it’s speculated the incident was sparked after a political disagreement.”
Setting apart that last incident, it’s good to see SJWs calling out such cesspits of violence and reactionary sexism as Hollywood, college campuses, and literature, which have been dominated by the left for decades. They’re admitting that their ideology deserves a lengthy timeout from politics and other potions of influence for another four, eight or more years, until the culture of corruption has been thoroughly dismantled and reformed.
MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Don’t be a sucker for socialism: From the USSR to Venezuela, experience reveals Sanders’s socialism wouldn’t enrich anyone but a ruling elite. “George Orwell explained the phenomenon in his Animal Farm, many decades ago. But people keep falling for it: Like Ponzi schemes, socialism is an evergreen form of fraud, egged on by suckers eager to believe the lies hucksters tell them. Which brings me to Bernie Sanders.”
PRESIDENT CASTRO? HELL, THESE DAYS, WHO KNOWS? Julian Castro modifies HUD policy in apparent bid to be Clinton’s running mate.
Young people in North Korea appear to be joining their counterparts around the world – unapologetically rich teenagers who regularly flaunt their lavish purchases and brazenly boast about their wealth.
As reported by the Washington Post, North Korea now has its very own percent – and they can be found in ‘Pyonghattan,’ the ‘parallel universe’ frequented by the rich kids of the Democratic People’s Republic.
In this up-and-coming cosmopolitan world, North Korea’s ‘one-percenters’ enjoy wearing clothes from globally-recognised high street brands including Zara, H&M, Nike and Adidas.
In capitalism, the rich become powerful. In socialism, the powerful become rich. In fact, under socialism, being powerful is the only way to become rich.