With all that has been in the news lately, I thought I would share this. This is an excellent video made by high school students from a Catholic High School (Archdiocese of Hartford, CT) in response to a Senator's remark about "Where is God in all the tragedy in the world?"
#2
We used to recite the Lord's Prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance in public school. I can't see where any great harm came from this recitation and it is likely much good came from it. Sigh, but that was another time...
#3
God gave you free will. It's call taking responsibility to deal with it and fix it yourself. You just don't want to dirty your own little hands cause you will have to do nasty things yourself.
#2
One of my hopes when Trump got elected was that he would drive a stake in the heart of political correctness. Political correctness is the antithesis of freedom and free speech. But then again as we see daily, the barbarians would rip up the Constitution if they could.
[Bus Insider] A war between the world’s largest Democracy and the world’s largest Communist state may not seem likely to the casual observer. But not only is it possible, it’s happened before. Only things were very different back then.
China was facing an economic collapse in the early 1960s in the years following the Great Leap Forward. The country was struggling to feed its people, let alone support an all-out war.
India, on the other hand, was on an economic upturn. Militarily, however, India was unprepared and could only field 14,000 troops, compared to China’s exhaustive manpower.
In 1962, Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong invaded India for granting asylum to the Dalai Lama and not supporting the Chinese occupation of Tibet (Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was an outspoken critic of the occupation). The Chinese won the harsh mountain war, fought without Navies or Air Forces, at 14,000 feet.
Mao later told Sri Lankan and Swedish delegations the war was essentially to teach India a lesson.
[Fiscal Times] After corporate CEOs abandoned President Donald Trump, markets are worried Trump's key advisors and Cabinet members will be the next to leave him, threatening his economic agenda.
But political strategists doubt the key financial advisors like Gary Cohn, director of the National Economic Council or Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are close to resigning. The two former Wall Street executives have high credibility in the markets and are viewed as key drivers of the Trump economic agenda, particularly tax reform.
"For the first time, people are now questioning if he can get anything done policy-wise. His agenda is under threat," said Peter Boockvar, chief market analyst at The Lindsey Group.
Stocks slumped Thursday morning as rumors circulated that Cohn was leaving the White House. They recovered slightly after it was denied by the White House, but selling again accelerated and the Dow closed off 274 points at 21,750, its worst day in three months.
"I think it's Trump-related. People are worried about the unraveling of his team, his administration's authority and what this means for tax reform. Every day, he makes a new enemy in Congress. Today's he's picked a fight with [South Carolina Sen.] Lindsey Graham," said Boockvar.
#1
When 'big business' thought a corporate tax break was possible, they swooned over President Trump. Now that he's being betrayed by his own party as well as obstructionist dems, there appears to be little hope for tax relief passage.
#2
White House. How about a Trunk Congress that won't repeal the biggest albatross on business' necks or provide economic intensives that aren't solely oriented to rewarding political hacks.
The great German hyperinflation of 1923 is passing out of living memory now, but it has not been entirely forgotten. Indeed, you don’t have to go too far to hear it cited as a terrible example of what can happen when a government lets the economy spin out of control. At its peak in the autumn of that year, inflation in the Weimar Republic hit 325,000,000 percent, while the exchange rate plummeted from 9 marks to 4.2 billion marks to the dollar; when thieves robbed one worker who had used a wheelbarrow to cart off the billions of marks that were his week’s wages, they stole the wheelbarrow but left the useless wads of cash piled on the curb. A famous photo taken in this period shows a German housewife firing her boiler with an imposing pile of worthless notes.
Easy though it is to think of 1923 as a uniquely terrible episode, though, the truth is that it was not. It was not even the worst of the 20th century; during its Hungarian equivalent, in 1945-46, prices doubled every 15 hours, and at the peak of this crisis, the Hungarian government was forced to announce the latest inflation rate via radio each morning–so workers could negotiate a new pay scale with their bosses—and issue the largest-denomination bank note ever to be legal tender: the 100 quintillion (1020) pengo note. When the debased currency was finally withdrawn, the total value of all the cash then in circulation in the country was reckoned at 1/10th of a cent. Nor was 1923 even the first time that Germany had experienced an uncontrollable rise in prices. It had also happened long before, in the early years of the 17th century. And that hyperinflation (which is generally known by its evocative German name, the kipper- und wipperzeit) was a lot stranger than what happened in 1923. In fact, it remains arguably the most bizarre episode in all of economic history.
What made the kipper- und wipperzeit so incredible was that it was the product not only of slipshod economic management, but also of deliberate attempts by a large number of German states to systematically defraud their neighbors. This monetary terrorism had its roots in the economic problems of the late 16th century and lasted long enough to merge into the general crisis of the 1620s caused by the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War, which killed roughly 20 percent of the population of Germany. While it lasted, the madness infected large swaths of German-speaking Europe, from the Swiss Alps to the Baltic coast, and it resulted in some surreal scenes: Bishops took over nunneries and turned them into makeshift mints, the better to pump out debased coinage; princes indulged in the tit-for-tat unleashing of hordes of crooked money-changers, who crossed into neighboring territories equipped with mobile bureaux de change, bags full of dodgy money, and a roving commission to seek out gullible peasants who would swap their good money for bad. By the time it stuttered to a halt, the kipper- und wipperzeit had undermined economies as far apart as Britain and Muscovy, and—just as in 1923—it was possible to tell how badly things were going from the sight of children playing in the streets with piles of worthless currency.
Continued on Page 49
[American Thinker] President Trump can rename the aircraft carrier USS John Stennis, which honors a 20th-century racist. He was a mere politician who never served in the armed forces.
Stennis was a zealous supporter of racial segregation. He signed the Southern Manifesto, which called for resistance to the Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education. He also voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
Name it after a genuine Navy hero whose name ought to be a household term: Robert Smalls.
Robert Smalls was born into slavery. He worked as a pilot in the harbor at Charleston when the Civil War started. Smalls was assigned to steer the CSS Planter, an armed Confederate military transport. He stole the boat while the boat's officers were asleep, and then he successfully sailed past Confederate forts that guarded the port. Later, Smalls was sent to see President Lincoln by the Union commander at Port Royal who was impressed with his skills. Smalls was given command of his old vessel, making him the first black naval captain of the war. As a slave he had planted mines, and he was now working to destroy railroad bridges.
#3
Accusing the President of taking a page from the Donk playbook? Next they'll accuse him of appealing to white blue collar workers. Oh wait, never mind.
#4
Can't rename a Navy ship -- ultra bad luck. During WW II a ship in the Pacific was renamed (can't remember the name) and it was sunk just a bit after the renaming!
#6
#4 well, there's this ship named after a PA congresscritter that falsely accused some Marines of committing an atrocity. (See - Leper Colony. 12 O'Clock High)
[The Hill] The American Civil War is an enduring one. Though formal hostilities ended on May 9, 1865, the divisions and strains that were both caused and produced by the internecine conflict have continued. The shocking resurgence of hate groups across America reminds us that old wounds can still cause fresh pain.
On the surface, it is easy to condemn the forces of hatred and bigotry that we see displayed at some of these rallies. It shocks the conscience to believe that deep into the second decade of the 21st century, an armed group bearing the battle flags of two sworn enemies of the United States (the Confederacy and the Nazis) would march through the streets of our cities spewing vile threats against their own countrymen. It seems incredulous that we need to remind ourselves how dearly a price in blood and treasure we paid to rid ourselves of the scourges of slavery and the encroaching horror Nazi atrocities.
While all Americans enjoy the constitutional right to speak freely and to bear arms, what is permissible is not always prudent. The confrontational nature of these rallies is designed to provoke and intimidate others. African Americans and Jews seemed to be the intended targets in Charlottesville, perhaps especially because the city is home to a large number of blacks, and its mayor, who happens to be Jewish, has endorsed a city plan to remove Confederate statues.
This hit home to me recently when I found out that my friends, Dr. Ben and Candy Carson, had their Virginia home vandalized with anti-Trump and racially derogatory messages. Dr. Carson, who is a man of uncommon grace, was reluctant to talk publicly about the incident. But when I heard about it I was driven to fuming and frustration. It seemed like a declaration of war by his political enemies. As their friend, I wanted to lash out to protect them both.
#1
Their next step is to drag people out of their homes when Antifa get a little more power and are elevated by the Democrats into positions where they are given Bearcats for 4am no-knock entries.
h/t Instapundit
Progressives used to pressure U.S. corporations to cut back on outsourcing and on the tactic of building their products abroad to take advantage of inexpensive foreign workers.
During the 2012 election, President Obama attacked Mitt Romney as a potential illiberal "outsourcer-in-chief" for investing in companies that went overseas in search of cheap labor.
Yet most of the computers and smartphones sold by Silicon Valley companies are still being built abroad -- to mostly silence from progressive watchdogs.
In the case of the cobalt mining that is necessary for the production of lithium-ion batteries in electric cars, thousands of child laborers in southern Africa are worked to exhaustion.
In the 1960s, campuses boycotted grapes to support Cesar Chavez’s unionization of farm workers.
Yet it is unlikely that there will be any effort to boycott tech companies that use lithium-ion batteries produced from African-mined cobalt.
Progressives demand higher taxes on the wealthy. They traditionally argue that tax gimmicks and loopholes are threats to the republic.
Yet few seem to care that West Coast conglomerates such as Amazon, Apple, Google, and Starbucks filtered hundreds of billions in global profits through tax havens such as Bermuda, shorting the United States billions of dollars in income taxes.
The progressive movement took hold in the late 19th century to "trust-bust," or break up corporations that had cornered the markets in banking, oil, steel, and railroads.
Such supposedly foul play had inordinately enriched "robber baron" buccaneers such as John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Mellon, Andrew Carnegie, and J. P. Morgan. Yet today, the riches of multibillionaires dwarf the wealth of their 19th-century predecessors.
Most West Coast corporate wealth was accumulated by good old-fashioned American efforts to achieve monopolies and stifle competition.
Facebook, with 2 billion monthly global users, has now effectively cornered social media.
Google has monopolized internet searches -- and modulates users’ search results to accommodate its own business profiteering.
Amazon is America’s new octopus. Its growing tentacles incorporate not just online sales but also media and food retailing.
Yet there are no modern-day progressive muckrakers in the spirit of Upton Sinclair, Frank Norris, and Lincoln Steffens, warning of the dangers of techie monopolies or the astronomical accumulation of wealth. Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook are worth nearly $1 trillion each.
...On matters such as avoiding unionization, driving up housing prices, snagging crony-capitalist subsidies from the government, and ignoring the effects of products on public safety (such as texting while driving), Silicon Valley is about as reactionary as they come.
Why, then, do these companies earn a pass from hypercritical progressives?
Answer: Their executives have taken out postmodern insurance policies.
Our new J. P. Morgans dress in jeans and T-shirts -- like the late Steve Jobs of Apple or Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook -- appearing hip and cool.
Executives in flip-flops and tie-dyes can get away with building walls around their multiple mansions in a way that a steel executive in a suit and tie might not.
The new elite are overwhelmingly left-wing. They head off criticism by investing mostly in the Democratic party, the traditional font of social and political criticism of corporate wealth.
In 2012, for example, Obama won Silicon Valley by more than 40 percentage points. Of the political donations to presidential candidates that year from employees at Google and Apple, over 90 percent went to Obama.
One of the legacies of the Obama era was the triumph of green advocacy and identity politics over class.
No one has grasped that reality better that the new billionaire barons of the West Coast. As long as they appeared cool, as they long as they gave lavishly to left-wing candidates, and as long as they mouthed liberal platitudes on global warming, gay marriage, abortion, and identity politics, they earned exemption from progressive scorn.
The result was that they outsourced, offshored, monopolized, censored, and made billions -- without much fear of media muckraking, trust-busting politicians, unionizing activists, or diversity lawsuits. Hip billionaire corporatism is one of the strangest progressive hypocrisies of our times.
#1
The new elite are overwhelmingly left-wing. They head off criticism by investing mostly in the Democratic party, the traditional font of social and political criticism of corporate wealth.
I'd say it went more than just the Democratic Party, but that's just me.
#4
End H1Bs tomorrow. That would send a message they'd understand. Oh, and tell them if they get in trouble with their overseas ventures, they're on their own.
This did not come from the mouth of a BLM, or an SJW, or other DMI (my abbreviation for, "drooling malicious idjit"); rather, from that of an ageing white male.
I knew exactly what he meant. We had been discussing the SFs among the overmonied and underbrained in one of this city’s more prosperous neighbourhoods. Virtue signallers, the lot of them: unctuous and asinine to a fault. It’s true, we’re both prejudiced against these constipated caucasoids. And better yet, it costs us nothing. For we aren’t invited to their parties, anyway.
On the other hand, one is in a poor opening position when one must argue that one is not a neo-Nazi or a white supremacist. I dislike poor opening positions, so am inclined to omit them. Having been called everything in my time, even "a gentleman and a scholar" (exceptionally low blow), I happily admit to being a fascist, a leper, a racist, and a rightwing troll. I take particular pride in "Jew-lover," for in that case the description fits. (Twice I’ve been called that over a ’phone; and once, in the course of a single "debate," both an anti-Semite and a Jew-lover.) I am also every kind of phobe, and hater, including self-hater; a misogynist and misandrist, and a misandronist, to be perfectly inclusive (it’s like the difference between a racist and a racialist); people with slant eyes and people with round ones. And beyond the more pressing individual cases, I like to cultivate a general misanthropy in my spare time.
#1
Enjoyable read. A great effusion of language. We used to say of such writers and wordnicks when in HS: "What'd do, get hit in the ass with a dictionary?"
[Townhall] About a year and a half ago I was at an all-day event with friends that consisted of a lot of sitting around in lawn chairs, chatting, and eating too much food.
Since we were a group of my friends and their social acquaintances, it’s not surprising that eventually the conversation came around to a potentially divisive topic.
Someone brought up his recent trip to Northern Europe and how he thought it was (I’m paraphrasing) "so amazing that you never saw anyone there with a disability. They must be doing something right!"
This of course started a discussion on how Europeans haven’t somehow magically ended the occurrence of disabilities in the next generation, they’ve ended their births.
They’re aborting them. "Terminating their pregnancies," as they like to call it.
And they’re doing it because a test showed that those children weren’t quite "perfect." (A test that can be wrong, by the way.)
More simply put, they’re murdering their children.
Now, I know many people disagree that abortion is murder. I know, I know, the laws of those countries don’t call it murder. But the Bible calls intentionally killing a human being in any circumstance other than self-defense, capital punishment, and just warfare murder.
And I’ll take the Bible’s authority over that of any nation’s laws. After all, German law made killing Jews in concentration camps legal during Nazi rule.
And as someone participating in this discussion pointed out, those Europeans who are aborting all those Down syndrome babies "are completing the work of the Nazis."
#1
The Icesies are pretty close to 'you know who' when it comes to some of these issues. Like a little unsaid agreement that American forces stationed in Iceland wouldn't include people of a certain race as well. Pretty much a closed shop operation.
#2
I don't go along with the abortion as birth control or a fix for Down Syndrome, but it's their country, their decision, NOT mine. As for restricting certain personnel to the U.S. Air Base, (a policy that was strictly enforced), again their decision.
Appears they've somehow avoided some of the problems of Europe and the U.S. A true Babylonian marvel. How novel.
[Townhall] A U.S. appeals court reversed a ruling Wednesday that prohibited Arkansas from ending Medicaid reimbursements to Planned Parenthood.
Pro-life lawmakers in the state moved to defund the abortion giant after a series of Center for Medical Progress videos exposed Planned Parenthood selling aborted baby body parts.
Three women--all Planned Parenthood patients--challenged the decision, arguing that the state violated their rights under the federal Medicaid law to choose any qualified healthcare provider that offered the services they were looking for. U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker in Little Rock ruled in their favor, thus blocking the ruling.
The state appealed and by a 2-1 vote, the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals rescinded that decision Wednesday.
[Daily Caller] A taxpayer-funded professor of medieval literature at the City University of New York has announced that the use of standard grammatical English is wrongly privileged. Also, preferring standard English over other vernaculars is racist.
The professor, A.W. Strouse, wrote an op-ed about his concerns last week. The piece, titled "Why We Need Greater Linguistic Diversity," appeared at Inside Higher Education.
In his op-ed, Strouse objects to "linguistic monoculture," "for aesthetic reasons," and because he believes professors "need to vary our ways of speaking in order to avoid the precanned insights and stale platitudes that deaden thought."
He cites another professor who praises the "the African-American vernacular" for its direct style of "’cussin’ out’ and ’reading people,’ as well as ’getting real’ and ’trash talk.'"
Trying to help students change their speech patterns is bad, Strouse says.
#1
A.W. Strouse is a poet and a medievalist. He holds a Ph.D. from the City University of New York (CUNY) and teaches medieval literature at CUNY and the New School.
Strouse’s works include My Gay Middle Ages (punctum books, 2015), Thebes (Jerk Poet, 2015), and Retractions and Revelations (Jerk Poet, 2014). He is also the author of many essays and peer-reviewed articles.
Ph.D., English, CUNY Graduate Center, 2017
Dissertation: “Literary Theories of the Foreskin”
Another Ph.D. desperate for tenure track position. No way Strouse. Gay is out, trans-gendered is in. And no whites with so many "qualified" ebony candidates.
#6
The irony is that this will further isolate speakers of Ebonics. They will have no luck at all speaking Ebonics in Asia, mixed results in Europe and South America, and anywhere else people study either British or American English. They will be stuck in their Democratic strongholds. Oh, maybe that's the plan ...
#7
You know, now that I thought about it - it may be just a (self-righteous & childish) temper tantrum because he was assigned to teach English to ghetto candidates.
[Strategic Culture Foundation] Every living nation needs symbols. They tell us who we are as one people, in what we believe, and on what basis we organize our common life.
This fact seems to be very clear to the current leadership in Russia, particularly to President Vladimir Putin, in restoring and reunifying a country rent by three generations of Red and White enmity to achieve a national synthesis. With regard to things spiritual, this meant first of all the world-historic reunification of the Russian Orthodox Church, between the Moscow Patriarchate and the New York-based Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. It also meant the rebuilding of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior dynamited by the communists 1931, not coincidentally the recent target for desecration by degenerates hailed by western «democracy» advocates.
Civic and military symbols matter as well. After 1991 there were those who wanted landmarks of the communist era to be ruthlessly expunged the way the Bolsheviks had themselves sought (in Solzhenitsyn’s description) to rub off the age-old face of Russia and to replace it with a new, ersatz Soviet image. Instead, wisdom prevailed. The national anthem adopted in 2001 retains the Soviet melody but with new lyrics (written by Sergey Mikhalkov, who with Gabriel El-Registan had penned the original lyrics in 1944!) ‐ Lenin and Stalin are out, God is in. The old capital is again Saint Petersburg, but the surrounding district still bears the name Leningrad. The red star marks Russia’s military aircraft and vehicles, while the blue Saint Andrew’s cross flies over the fleet. The red stars likewise are still atop the Kremlin towers while the Smolensk icon of Christ once again graces the Savior Gate. The red banner that was hoisted triumphantly on the Reichstag in 1945 is carried on Victory Day. The remains of exiled White commanders like Anton Denikin and Vladimir Kappel were repatriated and reburied at home with honor.
Continued on Page 49
#2
Where’s the Justice Department probe of civil rights violations by this organized, directed brutality? (Or maybe there will be one, including looking into George Soros’s connection. If not, what’s the point of having RICO?)
#5
Can someone in class explain to signals intelligence why someone would park out in the country in certain areas around a wind farm where signal over laps from at least six sources all sour rounded by fm frequency and move their vehicle to exact locations when a person can pick up voice on the dat dat dat of satellite and cable with a gov receiver over flights etc? Do they have people that actually do their fucking jobs and look for mom and pop operations ever wonder why Canada was always first out and so quiet 91.9 fm with multiple signals getting pushed in well define areas piggy backed by God knows what like people talking strategy about Iran between television stations you know what happens when you set up a small HAARP structure under power lines in a place like that the same exact shape holy shit look out! Perhaps the savvy KIDZ should start doing their jobs and quit harassing innocent people!
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Townhall] A U.S. appeals court reversed a ruling Wednesday that prohibited Arkansas from ending Medicaid reimbursements to Planned Parenthood.
[Strategic Culture Foundation] Every living nation needs symbols. They tell us who we are as one people, in what we believe, and on what basis we organize our common life.
