Sunday, January 22, 2017

Does Love Trump Hate?

I thought about writing a thoughtful piece about The Women's March, its causes, and ramifications. But I soon realized that a mass protest like this is little more than a live performance of a meme.  Or more accurately, multiple memes.  

So instead of a long thoughtful piece, for which a temper tantrum would be unworthy, here's the three big memes all rolled-up into one: 

   




Thursday, January 19, 2017

Dear Trump Haters...

Dear Trump Haters,

Hatred is a counterproductive emotion.  It saps your energy, hurts you more than the target of your hate, and rarely results in anything positive.  Of course, if you disagree with policies and methods, you have every right and obligation to criticize and make counter proposals.  But raw hatred should not be part of the equation.  It makes you look unhinged, especially when the object of your hate hasn't even taken office yet!  

Look, you had eight years to demonstrate the superiority of liberal totalitarianism. It didn't work. Now it's time to give constitutional freedom a chance. Is that what Trump will bring? Who knows. That's certainly what his cabinet choices look like.  

So, let's give the new President a chance to enact his vision. If it turns out to be just another version of totalitarianism, then it's time to ramp up the protests. And I'll be right there blogging against it! In the mean time, try to be civil. That's what we, who opposed liberal totalitarianism, did when Obama was the new guy. You are looking very bad in comparison.  

And consider this:                 


P.S.  Your candidate didn't lose because of Russians, Fake News, James Comey, Julian Assange, Misogyny, Racism, Fox News, or any one of the lame excuses you have come up with.  Deal with it. You lost. Grow up.  

Sunday, January 15, 2017

Will The Real Hitler Please Stand Up?


Update:  
SEEN ON FACEBOOK: “While everyone was banging on about Trump being Hitler, Obama sent thousands of troops into Poland. The satire is writing itself these days.”  
(as per Glenn Reynolds at instapundit.com)  

Thursday, January 12, 2017

Dieselgate Update


The Obama DOJ has charged six VW executives and arrested one in the diesel emissions scandal plaguing the German automaker.   In other news, Fiat Chrysler has also been accused of it's own diesel emissions cheating scandal.   Oh, and don't forget Mercedes, which is being sued over diesel emissions as well.  What's going on here?

Here's the upshot from a piece about all the diesel models NOT coming to the U.S. from a site called gas2.org:    

For those of you keeping score, then, that means Volkswagen’s diesels are out. Audi’s diesels are out. Mercedes’ diesels are, apparently, on the way out now, too. As it stands, Jaguar is the only automaker ready to sell 2017 model year diesels in the US. Sure, BMW and GM (nee Chevy) are both anticipating their diesels to be cleared for sale before the end of the year. But that still just leaves Jaguar in the here and now. One brand, compared with nine brands offering twenty diesel models in the US this time last year.  

In other words, passenger diesel is dead.  How GM, BMW, and Jaguar are able to continue selling them is a mystery that the others may want to solve.  For all intents and purposes, emissions laws, justified or not, have made passenger diesels in the U.S. illegal.

It's almost like a trap was set for these companies.  The government set impossible emissions standards knowing diesels couldn't meet them, and then they fine the living crap out of these (mostly foreign) companies when they get caught!

I'm reminded of the book by Harvey Silverglate, "Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent." wherein he details how laws have morphed into oppressive micromanagement schemes that entrap all of us with often vague and unknowable parameters.

Car companies certainly knew what they were doing, but chose to cheat anyway because they were painted into a corner.  Businesses spend billions on R&D and cannot easily walk away from technology they spent years developing.  Somehow Europe, which runs largely on diesel power, was OK with the levels of NOX coming from these new "Clean Diesels".  Interestingly, only the U.S., which runs mostly on gas powered passenger vehicles, had a problem.

Bottom line is this:  If a majority of the companies selling diesels took the extraordinary risk of being fined, sued, arrested, and shamed in the public square instead of just walking away from the diesel business altogether, something was probably wrong with the emission standards.  Yes, I'm standing up for the cheaters, because at this point, I have zero faith in the U.S. government's ability to get anything right.        

Monday, January 9, 2017

Meryl Streep's Golden Melt-Down



And, no Meryl, Donald Trump did not make fun of a handicapped reporter's handicap.  He used that same exaggerated spastic gesture to mock Ted Cruz, as well as several other non-handicapped critics. It's one of his stock mannerisms when imitating critics.  Moreover, the handicapped reporter he was quoting at the time has a deformed hand, and is not spastic.

Watch here:

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Russian Hacking? We've Seen This Movie Before...


The news today is that Barack Obama, with a fortnight left in office, has positioned U.S. special forces in Lithuania at the Russian border in a signal to Vladimir Putin that things like "hacking" our elections will not be tolerated.  Seems legit, right?

Except we've seen this movie before.  The difference is,  last time we weren't saber rattling with a nuclear power, and the administration didn't have a shelf life shorter than a ripe banana.  This is extremely dangerous and reckless behavior.   

Remember Benghazi?  This Russian hacking meme, and the responses to it, are just like what happened after Benghazi.  Back then, the ploy involved an anti-Muslim YouTube video instead of Russian meddling, but the goal was the same: divert attention to cover-up an ugly reality.  

There are always some "tells" with these tactics:  
  • Instantaneous determination of the culprit.
  • Unanimous talking-point buy-in from all Democrat operatives.
  • Over-the-top denunciations of routine behavior.
  • Convenient deferrals to the "intelligence community".  (Which, of course, has been thoroughly politicized in the Obama era.)
  • Disproportionate and decisive remedial action taken.
  • Inability to provide any proof.  
  • Claims that proof exists, but exposing proof would jeopardize secret national security sources and methods.
Like Benghazi, there was an instantaneous determination of complicity after WikiLeaks began releasing DNC and John Podesta emails.  It took the Obama administration several years to finally figure out that Major Hassan, screaming "Alahu Akbar" while murdering U.S. military personnel, was actually committing an act of terror.  Yet somehow the administration knew instantly Russia, and specifically Vladimir Putin, was to blame for the emails.  The same administration that couldn't competently launch an Obamacare website with an unlimited budget and years to prepare, knew instantly and with absolute certainty that the easily disguised tracks of a phishing scam led directly to Vladimir Putin.  Does this add up?    

So unanimous was the adherence to this meme, that it became a standing joke whenever a Democrat operative was interviewed during the campaign.  The interviewer would ask a question about some innocuous topic, something like, "So, how's the food on the campaign trail?", and the op would figure out a way to squeeze in a reference to Russians meddling in our election! Anyone paying attention could tell this was a meme being pushed for political expediency...just like the Benghazi YouTube diversion.

Remember after Benghazi how every Democrat operative referred to the YouTube video as "reprehensible",  and then would go on to distance the U.S. government from having anything to do with it?  That was classic straw-man stuff, as no one ever claimed the U.S. government had anything to do with the video in the first place.  With this Russian "hack",  operatives have been using superlatives for how evil and against international norms this alleged hack has been.  Oh really? Not long ago, WikiLeaks disclosed the U.S. government was actually listening to Angela Merkel's cell phone! Now that deserved some superlatives.  And during the last election in Israel, Obama spent a pile of U.S. taxpayer money in an attempt to overthrow Bibi Netanyahu.  All of it wasted, of course. Yet somehow we are to believe Putin is doing something reprehensible?  Putin actually invaded a country recently, and Obama's response?  Nothing.  Remember Anna Chapman?  She was a real Russian spy with an entire spy ring living in the U.S. who got caught in 2010.  Obama's response? Nothing - except she was asked to leave.  Now someone figures-out Podesta's "ultra-secure" password is actually... "password", and Obama is expelling people and sending troops?  Does this make logical sense? 

The intelligence community was somehow coerced into mentioning the YouTube video as a possible irritant for the murders in Benghazi.  We now know that line was Bravo Sierra.  Similarly, the same intelligence community is now pedaling the line about Putin and the Ruskies.  Just as credible, and just as political as last time.  And in both cases, there were dupes in both parties who sincerely bought into the ploy.  

To make the Benghazi ploy look legit, Obama actually did imprison the hapless guy who made the YouTube video.   If only we had a first amendment or something to protect videomakers from being imprisoned for speech!  Oh wait...  Now we are invading countries and expelling diplomats to make the same diversional ploy look legit.  And to sabotage the incoming administration.  

In both Benghazi and the email hack there is a conspicuous lack of proof to support the diversions. And none is forthcoming in either case.  Obama promised a swift response after Benghazi, and then said,  "The perpetrators will be brought to justice!".  Remember how every major network was able to interview the perps within weeks, but it took the Obama military, with a budget in the trillions, years to get one alleged attacker and bring him stateside?  His trial is conveniently scheduled for 2017, long after the election of 2016.  He would certainly know if the attack was really a film critique, and I'm sure he was offered a great deal to publicly finger the video on 60 Minutes.  Of course, any serious observer would know that the compound in Benghazi was attacked on multiple occasions long before the offending YouTube video was ever put online!

In the case of Benghazi, one poor schmuck actually spent a year in prison to divert attention from a terrorist attack and get Obama re-elected.  Now it is a diversion to delegitimize and sabotage the incoming President who threatens to undo eight years of Obama's totalitarian liberalism.  This time the ploy has turned sinister and dangerous.  I sure hope Donald Trump can gracefully dance around all the landmines Barack Obama is putting in his path, because if not, real people could get blown up.

(UPDATE: The company that found the alleged Russian hack, and on which the entire intelligence community assessment rests, is a Google linked company with strong ties to the Hillary Clinton campaign.  CrowdStrike was funded by a division of Google, and Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Googles parent, was a staff member and advisor to the Clinton campaign.)  






    

Thursday, December 15, 2016

Trump Drops Anchor on The D.C. Establishment





Yet another in the series of Caddyshack metaphors for Donald Trump and 2016.  (These work better as video loops than GIFs, IMHO.)  







Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Trump vs Obama's Legacy



Caddyshack, as readers of this site know, is the perfect metaphor for Donald Trump and 2016.  In this scene, Al Czervik, the Donald Trump metaphor played by Rodney Dangerfield, deposes the captain, takes the yacht's helm, gets distracted, and runs over this random hapless guy out fishing.  Metaphor and comedy gold!

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Voter Fraud Is So Massive You Can See It From Space!

States that Issue Driver's Licenses to Unauthorized Immigrants 





2106 Election Results Map



The two maps above amount to prima facie evidence of massive voter fraud in the 2016 election.  Of the 13 states and districts (including Washington D.C.) that issue drivers licenses to unauthorized immigrants, 12 of them voted Democrat. Only Utah bucked the trend, but that's because Utah requests a picture ID or equivalent, and the driver's license they issue to unauthorized immigrants is distinctly different from the one issued to citizens.

This occurred during a year when the Democrat candidate won only 21 states (including D.C.). 12 of the 21, or 57%, a clear majority, were the states that issue driver's licenses to unauthorized immigrants.  The odds of this being a coincidence are astronomical.

Only citizens are supposed to vote in national elections, but non-citizens are voting in such massive numbers you can see it from space!

This is not an accident.  Democrats have been on a decades long mission to encourage unauthorized immigrants to come here and vote. The reason is simple; immigrants overwhelmingly vote Democrat.

To further this along, Democrat President Bill Clinton signed a law in 1993 known as the Motor Voter bill, which basically automated voter registration for anyone who applied for a driver's license or other government benefit.  The problem, of course, is that unauthorized immigrants can obtain driver's licenses in the 13 states above.

Here's a picture of Bill Clinton signing the Motor Voter bill.  Notice the two people standing directly behind him?  They are Francis Fox Piven and  Richard Cloward in the green and grey respectively, two radical Columbia University professors who advocated collapsing the U.S. by overloading it with dependents and immigrants.




And here is Barack Obama, who studied at Columbia University while Cloward and Piven held court there, answering  a question with only one correct answer.   The question is essentially, "should illegals be afraid to vote?" His answer should have been, "they shouldn't vote because it's illegal".  That's not what he says though.  Watch:




Link: Here

So how many illegals and non-citizens voted in those 12 states? How many voted in all the other states? We'll never know because by Democrat design, when it comes to citizenship, voting is done almost exclusively on the honor system.

(This post is similar to, "Motor Voter and the Popular Vote", which was posted 12/1.)