Category Archives: What goes around comes around

Monday Morning Review

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Quote of the Day:

John Kerry: metaphor from Hell

John Kerry broke his leg. Riding a top-of-the-line bicycle (and presumably festooned in spandex that shows off his 71-year-old body). In France. Going nowhwere. He broke his leg at very low speed. He broke it upon hitting a curb.

One can’t help but notice that Kerry’s accident is an apt metaphor for the foreign policy of the Obama administration.— Erick Erickson, June 1st 2015

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A story appeared today concerning a training seminar held by the People’s Democratic City Government of Austin, Texas. The seminar was to help female city employees deal, “with a new leadership dynamic: a female-dominated City Council.” The ensuing controversy forced the (male) Assistant City Manger to resign.

Why? Because the seminar dared say that women are different from men and, in some circumstances, react differently than men. Austin’s City Council declared that to be heresy and demanded a (male) head. They got one, a (male) sacrificial scapegoat.

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Have you been watching the financial news? The EU, specifically Greece, has a problem. They’re broke, the debts are due, and they can’t pay. Greece seems to expect another last-minute bailout by the EU (how many times has the EU done that?), but the EU does not appear to be ready to repeat the failures of the past.

In so many ways, Greece is emulating California…perhaps that should be the other way around. California is our Greece.

Tsipras accuses Greece bailout monitors of making ‘absurd’ demands

Peter Spiegel in Brussels

Greece’s chances of striking a deal to access a much-needed €7.2bn in rescue aid looked even bleaker on Sunday after Alexis Tsipras, prime minister, accused bailout monitors of making “absurd” demands and seeking to impose “harsh punishment” on Athens.

Mr Tsipras’s accusations, made in Le Monde newspaper, came only days after his government claimed an agreement was imminent. They have increased the sense of chaos around negotiations in the week many believe a deal is needed to avoid a Greek default.

On Friday, Athens is scheduled to make a €300m loan repayment to the International Monetary Fund that is being closely watched by creditors after some Greek ministers hinted that it might not be met without bailout aid. A further €1.2bn of IMF payments fall due over the subsequent two weeks.

…

“The lack of an agreement so far is not due to the supposed intransigent, uncompromising and incomprehensible Greek stance,” Mr Tsipras wrote. “It is due to the insistence of certain institutional actors on submitting absurd proposals and displaying a total indifference to the recent democratic choice of the Greek people.”

The criticism appears directed at the IMF, which has taken the hardest line of the three institutions, particularly regarding cuts in public sector pensions, which Mr Tsipras described as already having been excessively slashed. EU leaders, including Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, have specifically warned Mr Tsipras that no deal is possible without IMF approval.

Apparently, if you read through all the accusations and counter-accusations, the IMF and two other bailout monitors wants Greece to cut spending. Greece says that have. The IMF says not enough. Greece has a hissy-fit.

If you change Greece to California and the IMF to Congress, imagine the hissy-fit California would have if Congress would cut all federal funds to California, ALL federal funds, not just some, until California complies with federal law—like those pertaining to illegal immigration and ending practices like issuing free driver’s licenses, free education to illegals, allowing illegals to register to vote (motor-voter) and ending the existence of sanctuary cities throughout California?

California has created their current ‘water crisis’ through their state EPA regulations that blocked the creation of new reservoirs since 1972, and diverting water to some ‘endangered species’ instead of to the existing reservoirs. Rather than dealing with the root sources of their water crisis, California has cut water rations to their citizens by 25%…except for the Elite, of course.

Greece, like California, created their crises. Now it is time for them to deal with those crises instead of looking for another bailout that will change nothing.

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Friday Follies for May 29, 2015

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This story could correctly be entitled, “Cycles.” For most of the 20th Century and the first decade and a half of the 21st, we’ve watched this cycle occur in our foreign and defense policies. It began with Wilson, continued with FDR, Carter, Clinton and now Obama. Each iteration of liberal polices led to disaster. It always seem to require a conservative administration to put our house back in order…until the next liberal administration betrays us once again.

Disavowing the appeal of the appeaser

The next president will be forced to face down tyrants whom Obama ignored

By Victor Davis Hanson – – Wednesday, May 27, 2015

For a time, reset, concessions and appeasement work to delay wars. But finally, nations wake up, grasp their blunders, rearm and face down enemies.

That gets dangerous. The shocked aggressors cannot quite believe that their targets are suddenly serious and willing to punch back. Usually, the bullies foolishly press aggression, and war breaks out.

It was insane of Nazi Germany and its Axis partners to even imagine that they could defeat the Allied trio of Imperial Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States.

But why not try?

Hitler figured that for a decade America had been unarmed and isolationist. Britain repeatedly had appeased the Third Reich. The Soviets initially collaborated with Hitler.

Hitler met no opposition after militarizing the Rhineland. He annexed Austria with impunity. He gobbled up Czechoslovakia without opposition.

Why shouldn’t Hitler have been stunned in 1939 when exasperated Britain and France finally declared war over his invasion of distant Poland?

Six years of war and some 60 million dead followed, re-establishing what should have been the obvious fact that democracies would not quite commit suicide.

By 1979, the Jimmy Carter administration had drastically cut the defense budget. President Carter promised that he would make human rights govern American foreign policy. It sounded great to Americans after Vietnam — and even greater to America’s enemies.

Then Iran imploded. The American embassy in Tehran was stormed. Diplomats were taken hostage. Radical Islamic terrorism spread throughout the Middle East. Communist insurrection followed throughout Central America. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. China went into Vietnam.

Dictators such as the Soviet Union’s Leonid Brezhnev and Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini assumed that Mr. Carter no longer was willing to protect the U.S. postwar order. Or perhaps they figured that the inexperienced American president was too weak to respond even had he wished to do so.

Then, Ronald Reagan defeated Mr. Carter in 1980 on the promise of restoring U.S. power. At first, both America’s friends and enemies were aghast at Reagan’s simplistic worldview that free markets were better than communism, that democracy was superior to dictatorship, and that in the ensuing struggle, the West would win and the rest would lose.

Foreign media damned Reagan as a warmonger for beefing up the U.S. defense budget, reassuring America’s allies and going after terrorists with military force.

The column continues onto a second page with Hanson’s analysis of Obama. The pattern is well established. Liberal, i.e., democrat administrations, weaken the nation, creates choas within our military with massive cuts and misappropriation of funds, thus allowing our enemies to become emboldened. The problems resist until a conservative administration is elected to fix the problems the liberals have created.

The column ends with this final statement:

The Obama foreign policy cannot continue much longer without provoking even more chaos or a large war. Yet correcting it will be nearly as dangerous.

Jumping off the global tiger is dangerous, but climbing back on will seem riskier.

Now you know why I said this section could rightfully be titled, “Cycles.”

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Here is an item where the ACLU and Missouri conservatives agree. The use of ‘StingRay’ technology should be banned within the state. The St Louis Post Dispatch published this editorial on Wednesday.

Editorial: Secret use of StingRay technology could backfire on St. Louis police

May 27, 2015 4:07 pm  •  By the Editorial Board

http://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/stltoday.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/e/1e/e1e8581f-afef-5885-bf81-13720cd549d9/55319997d8573.image.png?resize=620%2C368

Last summer, as the American Civil Liberties Union was standing side-by-side with Missouri Republicans supporting the passage of a constitutional amendment that sought to protect “electronic communication and data” from unreasonable search and seizure, the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department was sitting on a secret.

In cooperation with the FBI, the St. Louis police had been using a cellphone tracking device known generically by the brand name of one such device: StingRay. The high-tech gadgets allow police to mimic a cell tower. They screen and track nearby digital data, determining the specific location in a building, for instance, of the cell phone they are tracking.

Last month, as first reported by the Post-Dispatch’s Robert Patrick, prosecutors dropped more than a dozen charges against three defendants in a case where the technology was employed. Defense attorneys believe the charges were dropped because police don’t want to reveal details about their new high-tech toy.

But in Missouri, there may be a bigger problem. It has to do with that constitutional amendment that the strange bedfellows of the ACLU and Missouri Republicans were promoting.

A plain reading of the language of Amendment 9, passed by 75 percent of the voters who turned out on Aug. 5, suggests that it is now unconstitutional in Missouri to use a StingRay device — at least without a warrant that offers significantly more detail about the data being sought.

The column continues at the website. As the editorial admits, the Post-Dispatch opposed the passage of Amendment 9 last year. They are reconsidering that opposition now that it appears the St Louis Police Department is actually using StingRay technology in defiance to Federal, and now, Missouri law.

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Well, shoot!

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I had a nice post all planned out for today until I ran into one of those pesky little issues that so many ‘real’ journalists ignore. There is a story floating around the internet first published by this website. I even shared it on FB (my bad.) The story highlights a column that supposedly appeared in late April in the New York Times.

This same story appears in numerous postings on the internet. All lead back to here, one website. A single source. ‘Real’ journalists know they should have at least two or three corroborating sources, not just one. I don’t claim to be a journalist, but I do try to follow the same standards of journalism wherever I can. There is a difference between reporting and editorializing. Too many “real’ journalist ignore or were never taught that difference.

That column is interesting—if it is true. But I can’t confirm it and I’m beginning to believe it is just another piece of fiction fabricated to support an agenda. I don’t doubt there are some elements in the story that are true but once one piece cannot be verified, the entire story becomes, “fruit from a tainted tree.”

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This section could be called, “Actions have consequences.” After Baltimore’s Mayor and Prosecutor sided with the mob against the police, Baltimore’s crime—and death rate, had sky-rocketed while arrests have dropped by 50%.

Baltimore Residents Fearful Amid Rash Of Homicides

May 28, 2015 8:53 AM

BALTIMORE (AP) — Antoinette Perrine has barricaded her front door since her brother was killed three weeks ago on a basketball court near her home in the Harlem Park neighborhood of West Baltimore.

She already has iron bars outside her windows and added metal slabs on the inside to deflect the gunfire.

“I’m afraid to go outside,” said Perrine, 47. “It’s so bad, people are afraid to let their kids outside. People wake up with shots through their windows. Police used to sit on every corner, on the top of the block. These days? They’re nowhere.”

Perrine’s brother is one of 36 people killed in Baltimore so far this month, already the highest homicide count for May since 1999. But while homicides are spiking, arrests have plunged more than 50 percent compared to last year.

The drop in arrests followed the death of Freddie Gray from injuries he suffered in police custody. Gray’s death sparked protests against the police and some rioting, and led to the indictment of six officers.

Now West Baltimore residents worry they’ve been abandoned by the officers they once accused of harassing them. In recent weeks, some neighborhoods have become like the Wild West without a lawman around, residents said.

“Before it was over-policing. Now there’s no police,” said Donnail “Dreads” Lee, 34, who lives in the Gilmor Homes, the public housing complex where Gray, 25, was arrested.

“I haven’t seen the police since the riots,” Lee said. “People feel as though they can do things and get away with it. I see people walking with guns almost every single day, because they know the police aren’t pulling them up like they used to.”

Police Commissioner Anthony Batts said last week his officers “are not holding back” from policing tough neighborhoods, but they are encountering dangerous hostility in the Western District.

“Our officers tell me that when officers pull up, they have 30 to 50 people surrounding them at any time,” Batts said.

At a City Council meeting Wednesday, Batts said officers have expressed concern they could be arrested for making mistakes.

The column continues at the CBS website. The residents are beginning to realize that without police crime is without restraint. Now the citizens are beginning to learn the consequences of supporting criminals instead of supporting the police. It is a repeat of the adage, “What goes around, comes around.”

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Forbidden words

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In his 1972 comedy routine, George Carlin enumerated the “seven words you can’t say on television.” It’s been more then forty years since Carlin first listed them. I think I’ve heard all of them on TV at one time or another, some have become fairly common.

Hillary Clinton supporters have created their list of forbidden words, too. Those are words reporters, or anyone asking questions from Hillary, can use. those words are: polarizing, calculating, disingenuous, insincere, ambitious, inevitable, entitled, over confident, Secretive, “will do anything to win”, “represents the past”, and “out of touch”.

You have to wonder, looking at this list. Is “over confident” considered to be a single combined phrase, or two words, “over” and “confident” that neither can be used? Does that mean a reporter can’t ask, “Hillary, are you confident?”

Can’t ask that I suppose. Neither can you ask, “Hillary is your campaign over?”

It’s confusing. We have to get all this straight in order that we don’t offend Hillary’s handful of fans. Handful. Is that another of the forbidden words?

hillary-madIf we can’t use “over“, how about “uber?” as in, “Hillary, Uber Alles!” Would that pass the smell test for Hillary’s buds? Hard to say. Regardless, I’m not a Hillary fan, nor of her lyin’ hubby who should have seen some jail time for perjury.

In fact, I rarely think about Hillary at all and when I do, it’s more and more like that o a crone from Act I, Scene I from McBeth. That scene is what comes to mind whenever I come across a news item about her.

George Carlin was forever tagged with the “seven forbidden words.” Like Carlin, Hillary is now forever tagged with her twelve (or is it twenty-one?) forbidden words.

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Karma and other stories

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A woman in Idaho, an animal lover, killed a protected raptor, a Falcon, to save a duck. The woman saw the falcon take a duck out of midair.

RAPTOR RAPPED
An Idaho woman’s overzealous sympathy for the hunted over the hunter may land her in jail, The Coeur d’Alene Press reports. In January, Patti McDonald allegedly meted out a dose of unnatural selection when she came upon Hornet, a falcon owned by hunter Scott Dinger. In his investigation of the incident which reportedly led to the bird of prey’s demise, Craig Walker, an Idaho Department of Fish and Game regional conservation officer said his office received a phone call from an unidentified woman who said she saw a falcon take a duck from the air and then went to the aid of the duck and tried to scare away the falcon. When the falcon remained in place holding the duck, the woman said she removed a scarf that had beads on it and beat the bird. “The woman later stated that she had been very upset about the duck being injured, but felt bad about injuring someone’s pet, because she “beat the crap out of it really hard,” the report states. If found guilty, McDonald could be sentenced to a maximum of six months in jail and $5,000 in fines. — FOX Newsletter, March 17, 2015.

This reminds me of the report from a year or so ago when a woman who had hit a deer in a deer-crossing zone, wanted the signs moved so the deer would cross elsewhere.

Sigh…

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Tyranny begets legislation. The City of Columbia has passed some ordinances to block businesses from performing background checks on new employees. I supposed the city wants to make Columbia a safe place for criminals to live and pursue their profession. This, and other ordinances passed by cities around the state has prompted the legislature to respond.

Gowntown versus Capital City is a feud over local control in Missouri, Kansas

By JASON HANCOCK, The Star’s Jefferson City correspondent, 03/16/2015 11:40 PM, Updated: 03/16/2015 11:40 PM

COLUMBIA

College-town politics don’t exactly match up with the increasingly conservative leanings of Missouri and Kansas.

That doesn’t stop leaders in the University of Missouri’s hometown from pushing on.

Since the beginning of December, the Columbia City Council has banned private businesses from conducting criminal background checks on job applicants and implemented regulations on ride-booking services such as Uber and Lyft.

It raised the age to buy cigarettes within the city to 21 and barred the indoor use of e-cigarettes.

…

Thirty miles south in Jefferson City, the Republican-dominated Missouri General Assembly has taken disdainful notice.

The implications of what happens next could be felt across the state, as a series of bills make their way through the legislature aimed at blocking or overturning local laws.

“This is about the role of government,” said Rep. Caleb Rowden, a Columbia Republican. “Columbia is off track and so we need to define the lines between the roles of local and state government.”

Several of the bills may be inspired by the actions of a college-town city council, but their impact won’t be confined to Columbia.

City, county and school district leaders have long complained about actions they deem as interfering with local control. But facing what some say is an unprecedented number of legislative challenges to their authority, local officials around the state are crying foul.

“Nobody knows local affairs better than the locals. Nobody is better able to respond to local needs better than the locals,” said Kansas City Mayor Sly James. “To have people, the majority of whom don’t live in the locale, trying to implement one-size-fits-all policies, I think is shortsighted and unwise at best.”

Columbia is a rabid enclave of ‘progressives’ in the middle of a conservative state. Like their counterparts in St. Louis and Kansas City, they want to impose their brand of liberal tyranny on their residents.  These are the same cities who fought tooth and claw against CCW and other conservative issues. Jackson County to this day imposes severe constraints on CCW applicants and those seeking a renewal in spite of state law. Columbia, like her two sister cities, continue to seek their version of progressive governance that further restricts our liberty and endangers our safety.

 

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Now what?

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The elections are over. The ‘Pubs have won and many of the new ‘Pubs at the state, local and federal level are new conservatives who subscribe to the same values as that of the various Tea Party groups.

We won and everything that we want will happen, right? No, unfortunately, they won’t…at least not immediately. Missouri had some significant wins. The Missouri House now numbers 118 ‘Pubs including a former dem, almost a DINO, who flipped parties after being re-elected unopposed. The ‘Pubs also maintained their possession of the Missouri Senate increasing their veto-proof numbers from 24 to 25. That’s bad news for Jay Nixon’s last two years in office.

Nixon’s will have more problems going forward due to the passage of Missouri Amendment #10. That amendment restricts Nixon’s ability to withhold funds allocated and approved by the legislature—like funds for Education. Nixon’s excuse is the need to have a balanced budget, another state constitutional requirement. However, Nixon’s authority to withhold funds has been a club, punishing some at the expense of others while shifting funds to other, ‘more praise-worthy’ agencies. He withheld education funds while other dems and the NEA claimed that Education was underfunded. The truth was that Education was well funded but Nixon refused to release the money.

It became apparent that Nixon’s refusal to release funds was a political ploy when, after the election, he released some of the funds he had withheld. Nixon continues to use the excuse of insufficient revenues. However, Nixon’s projections conflicts with the projections made by the legislature as part of their due-diligence when they created the budget. Missouri’s revenues continually reach higher levels that Nixon’s projections. I would suggest Nixon fire his economic advisers and hire the ones used by the legislature.

Getting back to today’s topic, the ‘Pubs have won. Now what?

That is a good question. All too many think change can be made immediately, overnight. Well, that isn’t going to happen. Missouri is much more likely to enact more change than the ‘Pubs in Washington. The Missouri ‘Pubs have veto-proof majorities in both houses of the legislature. In Washington, only the House has a veto-proof majority. The Senate ‘Pubs only have a simple majority.

The bare truth is the the ‘Pub majority in Congress cannot override Obama’s veto. They can cut short Obama’s political appointments. Thanks to Harry Reid’s use of the Nuclear Option, the ‘Pubs don’t require a 60-vote majority for passage. (There is a push by the dems and some RINOs to reinstate that Nuclear Option. There is also a ground-swell of opposition to maintain Reid’s change. What was good for the dems should now be good for the ‘Pubs.)

Regardless, immediate change won’t happen. Obamacare won’t be repealed. Obama will veto any bill to repeal it and there aren’t enough votes to override Obama’s veto.

Mitch McConnell has already surrendered Congress’ primary weapon, the power of the purse. In an interview after Tuesday’s election, he was asked by a lib reporter if the ‘Pubs were going to shut down the government again. Instead of saying the Congress was going to send Obama a budget, the first in six years, if Obama vetos that budget, it would be him, not the ‘Pubs who would be shutting down the government. Instead, McConnell said he would cave in to Obama and the dems. If McConnell won’t use the power of the purse to carve off chunks of Obamacare, he concedes power to the liberals. The power of the purse is the only real power Congress has over the Executive…and Judicial branches.

So, what can be done? The voters won’t have any leverage now until 2016 and the RNC fought hard against their base to maintain their control of the party in this last election.

The first thing is to nominate a conservative for President, like Ted Cruz, and get him elected as President—WHILE MAINTAINING THE ‘PUB MAJORITY IN CONGRESS. Then, like Obama’s first two years in office, the ‘Pubs can pass and/or repeal bills and have a President in office who will sign them. Remember, it was a democrat controlled Congress and a democrat President that passed Obamacare, Dodd-Franks, and expanded the regulatory reach of government agencies. It will take the same degree of control to reverse those acts.

We have made progress in regaining control from the liberals. The ‘Pubs control more statehouses and governorships than ever before. 

We need to take control of Washington and keep that control while removing the built-up tyranny of federal agencies and federal judgeships across the country. We see every day acts of lawfare by liberals using federal judges to make changes the libs cannot make by legislative action. It is those judges who must be removed, one by one, to reverse the liberal corruption of our nation and culture.

As I said once before, “Rot begins at the head, recovery begins from the bottom.” With control of the state legislatures, we can make change via a Convention of States, if necessary, that will curtail progressivism and socialism before they become fatal. That is a last resort. In the mean time, let’s make all the change we can with the political power we have. If that means McConnell must go as Senate Majority Leader, let’s make it so.

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Aft Gang Agley

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One of the things I found I liked during college was reading literature as it was originally written, Shakespeare, Chaucer and Robert Burns’ poetry for example. Often, these pieces have been rewritten in modern english and lose their impact, especially Bobbie Burns.

One of Burns more famous pieces of Poetry is, “To a Mouse,” or as Burns originally called it, “Tae a Moose.”

Tae a Moose

Wee, sleekit, cow’rin, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty
Wi bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee,
Wi’ murdering pattle.

I’m truly sorry man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth born companion
An’ fellow mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
‘S a sma’ request;
I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,
An’ never miss’t.

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!
It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!
An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,
O’ foggage green!
An’ bleak December’s win’s ensuin,
Baith snell an’ keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
An’ weary winter comin fast,
An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro’ thy cell.

That wee bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble,
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turned out, for a’ thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the winter’s sleety dribble,
An’ cranreuch cauld.

But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

Still thou are blest, compared wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But och! I backward cast my e’e,
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!

“Aft Gang Agley,” or, “Oft goes awry.” That’s been my week. So instead of some pithy comments on local, state or national politics, I give you Bobby Burns, instead. You can find some additional information here if you need a translation of some of Burns’ term. If you find Burns too difficult to read, this link will help you.

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