Tuesday, February 25, 2020
Stalin’s last laugh | Power Line
"Has Bernie Sanders ever lavished the kind of praise on the United States that he has heaped on the old regime of the Soviet Union, the dictators of Venezuela, or the Communist masters of Cuba?
Has he ever praised the United States, period?
When it comes to the United States versus its enemies, the guy is on the other side.
It’s probably past time to take Sanders seriously and take a look at the kind of foreign policy he is most likely to pursue.
It is certainly past time to get a clue about the deep meaning of Bernie Sanders.
AEI’s Marc Thiessen and Danielle Pletka take up the subject of a Sanders foreign policy in their latest What the Hell is Going On? podcast (embedded below).
They title this episode “WTH is going on with Bernie Sanders? What having a democratic socialist as president would mean for American leadership abroad” and provide this introduction:
They title this episode “WTH is going on with Bernie Sanders? What having a democratic socialist as president would mean for American leadership abroad” and provide this introduction:
Read all!After visiting Moscow in 1988, Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders praised the Soviet system and established a sister city relationship with his hometown of Burlington, Vermont. Throughout his time in office, Sanders regularly hobnobbed with and supported Communist, anti-American and anti-Israel leaders..."
The Perverse Panic over Plastic
The Campaign Against Plastic Is Harming the Planet and the Public.:
"Why do our political leaders want to take away our plastic bags and straws?
This question is even more puzzling than a related one that I’ve been studying for decades: Why do they want us to recycle our garbage?
The two obsessions have some common roots, but the moral panic over plastic is especially perverse. The recycling movement had a superficial logic, at least at the outset.
Municipal officials expected to save money by recycling trash instead of burying or burning it.
Now that recycling has turned out to be ruinously expensive while achieving little or no environmental benefit, some local officials—the pragmatic ones, anyway—are once again sending trash straight to landfills and incinerators.
The plastic panic has never made any sense, and it’s intensifying even as evidence mounts that it’s not only a waste of money but also harmful to the environment, not to mention humans.
It’s been a movement in search of a rationale for half a century.
During the 1970s, environmentalists like Barry Commoner wanted the government to restrict the use of plastic because it was made from petroleum, which we needed to hoard because we would soon run out of it.
When the “energy crisis” proved a false alarm, environmentalists looked for new reasons to panic..."
Read all.
"Why do our political leaders want to take away our plastic bags and straws?
This question is even more puzzling than a related one that I’ve been studying for decades: Why do they want us to recycle our garbage?The two obsessions have some common roots, but the moral panic over plastic is especially perverse. The recycling movement had a superficial logic, at least at the outset.
Municipal officials expected to save money by recycling trash instead of burying or burning it.
Now that recycling has turned out to be ruinously expensive while achieving little or no environmental benefit, some local officials—the pragmatic ones, anyway—are once again sending trash straight to landfills and incinerators.
The plastic panic has never made any sense, and it’s intensifying even as evidence mounts that it’s not only a waste of money but also harmful to the environment, not to mention humans.
It’s been a movement in search of a rationale for half a century.
During the 1970s, environmentalists like Barry Commoner wanted the government to restrict the use of plastic because it was made from petroleum, which we needed to hoard because we would soon run out of it.
When the “energy crisis” proved a false alarm, environmentalists looked for new reasons to panic..."
Read all.
Trump's 'Public Charge' Immigration Rule Upheld by Supreme Court | News and Politics
Trump's 'Public Charge' Immigration Rule Upheld by Supreme Court | News and Politics:
Donald Trump's rule changes the so-called "public charge" rule that withholds green cards from immigrants dependent on government services. Federal immigration law says that immigrants desiring permanent legal status can be denied if they are likely to become a "public charge."
Previously the government defined "public charge" as anyone receiving cash benefits. Those getting food stamps or housing assistance were exempt. The rule change means that green cards will only go to those who are free of dependency on government.
Donald Trump's rule changes the so-called "public charge" rule that withholds green cards from immigrants dependent on government services. Federal immigration law says that immigrants desiring permanent legal status can be denied if they are likely to become a "public charge."Previously the government defined "public charge" as anyone receiving cash benefits. Those getting food stamps or housing assistance were exempt. The rule change means that green cards will only go to those who are free of dependency on government.
"The science is settled!"-----New Study: A Massive Cooling Of 2C In 8 Years (2008-2016) Has Jolted Large Regions Of The North Atlantic
New Study: A Massive Cooling Of 2�C In 8 Years (2008-2016) Has Jolted Large Regions Of The North Atlantic
- From 2008 to 2016 a widespread cooling ranging from 0.6°C to more than 2.0°C has chilled effectively the entire oceanic region from E. Canada to N. Iceland to S. Europe.
- The cooling persists year-round and extends from the surface down to depths of 800 m.
Image Source: Bryden et al., 2020
A year ago scientists revealed a large swath of the North Atlantic surface had cooled at a rate of -0.78°C per decade between 2004 and 2017 (Fröb et al., 2019).
The cooling has recently sprawled into the Arctic regions, as the upper ocean waters in Disko Bay (West Greenland) have just been hit with a ~2°C cooling since 2014 (Khazendar et al., 2019)...
Read all.
Scalise: Dems Trying to Rig Process Against Bernie Again Because 'They Want to Quietly Embrace Socialism'
House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), a victim of politically motivated domestic terrorism nearly three years ago, warned of the dangers associated with Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) supporters, both ideologically and what might happen if the Democratic Party rigs the process against Sanders during an interview on Fox News on Saturday.
According to the Louisiana congressman, those supporting Sanders’ candidacy have a very different vision in mind for the country.
Sultan Knish: How the 'Interpreter' Scam Brought 75,000 Iraqis and Afghans to America
Sultan Knish: How the 'Interpreter' Scam Brought 75,000 Iraqis and Afghans to America
"The latest battle over Special Immigrant Visas pitted Stephen Miller, President Trump’s senior advisor, against the Pentagon.
The military brass was lobbying for 6,000 special immigrant visas for Iraqis who worked for American forces in the country.
These visas were once again billed as helping “interpreters”.
That’s a lot of interpreters considering that there were only 5,200 American troops in Iraq.
How could there be more Iraqi interpreters for American troops than there are troops?
The Special Immigrant Visa scam has been sold for over a decade...
...The truth is that the military brass has wrongly used the incentive of Special Immigrant Visas to recruit local personnel and cut costs by promising them resettlement in the United States.
Considering the costs of resettling even the nicest Iraqi or Afghan families, it would have been cheaper to pay each of them a six-figure salary...."
Read all.
"The latest battle over Special Immigrant Visas pitted Stephen Miller, President Trump’s senior advisor, against the Pentagon.
These visas were once again billed as helping “interpreters”.
That’s a lot of interpreters considering that there were only 5,200 American troops in Iraq.
How could there be more Iraqi interpreters for American troops than there are troops?
The Special Immigrant Visa scam has been sold for over a decade...
...The truth is that the military brass has wrongly used the incentive of Special Immigrant Visas to recruit local personnel and cut costs by promising them resettlement in the United States.
Considering the costs of resettling even the nicest Iraqi or Afghan families, it would have been cheaper to pay each of them a six-figure salary...."
Read all.
More than a third of millennials polled approve of communism - MarketWatch
More than a third of millennials polled approve of communism - MarketWatch: - Biggest threat to world peace? 27% named President Trump, 22% said Kim Jong-Un, and 15% tapped Vladimir Putin
THE ENTIRE NONPROFIT WORLD IS A CESSPIT OF SLUSHFUNDS AND LIMITED ACCOUNTABILITY
"THE ENTIRE NONPROFIT WORLD IS A CESSPIT OF SLUSHFUNDS AND LIMITED ACCOUNTABILITY: ‘So shady and disgusting’: Florida’s nonprofit pay scandal is worse than you think.
I’ve been blogging about the sleaziness of the nonprofit world for a long time.--Posted by
Maduro Declares State of Emergency at State-Run Oil Company
Venezuelan dictator Nicols Maduro declared a “state of emergency” at the state-run oil company Petroleum of Venezuela (PDVSA) this week, warning that he needed to protect the country’s energy industry from escalating “imperialist aggression.”
Dear Resistance, listen to my lived totalitarian experience - you have no effing idea what you're talking about -
Dear Resistance, listen to my lived totalitarian experience - you have no effing idea what you're talking about -
"...Your identity is your argument; “You wouldn’t know what it’s like; you can’t tell me what I should think or feel”.
"...Your identity is your argument; “You wouldn’t know what it’s like; you can’t tell me what I should think or feel”.
...As a straight, white, Christian, right-wing, middle class male of European extraction I get told to shut up a lot.
you really have no idea, and I mean it with the greatest possible respect.
Actually, I don’t.
As you can imagine, this does not at all stop me from speaking out.
The white privilege clearly makes me both uncontrollable and insufferable.
But if lived experience is indeed the be-all-end-all that the identarian left considers it to be, there is one area where my lived experience without a doubt shit all over the lived experience of the woke folk.
Unlike all those among them who have been born and/or raised in the West and have zero or almost zero experience of living under anything other than a liberal democratic government (which is 99 per cent of them at least), I have lived the first 15 years of my life under the Soviet block-style communism, or “real socialism” as the Party used to call it.
...I do know a difference or twenty-two between a totalitarian or authoritarian society and a Western democracy.- ...To those who think that America is currently in a grip of fascism and are calling on the military to stage a coup to remove the President (that’s you Rosie O’Donnell, Sarah Silverman, Congressman Steve Cohen and others),
- To the celebrities and commentators, from Michael Moore to former security officials like John Brennan, who think the United States is on the brink of dictatorship,
- To all those who have compared Trump to Hitler,
- (And a special mention of those who really should know better – professional historians of the German and the Russian totalitarianism, like Timothy “Bloodlands” Snyder and Charles “Ordinary Men” Browning, who have been only too happy to – without quite comparing Trump to Hitler – talk about illiberal democracy, authoritarian leadership, and draw parallels between the 1930s Europe and the 2010s America),
you really have no idea, and I mean it with the greatest possible respect.
Actually, I don’t.
...P.P.S. (24 October 2018) The hottest take, from yesterday, from a former Reagan official who has since drifted left – Hitler was more honourable than Trump:
Much here, read all.
History for February 25
History for February 25 - On-This-Day.com
Pierre Auguste Renoir 1841 - Impressionist artist, Adelle Davis 1904, Millicent Fenwick 1910 - Human rights activists
Jim Backus 1913 - Actor (voice of Mr. Magoo, "Gilligan's Island", "Rebel Without a Cause"), George Harrison 1943 - Musician (Beatles) - In 1992, Harrison stated, "I only learned recently after all these years that the date and time of my own birth have always been off by one calendar day and about a half hour on the clock." Previously, Harrison thought his birthday was the 25th. His birth certificate indicates February 25., Sean Astin 1971 - Actor ("The Goonies", "The War of the Roses", "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring")
1836 - Samuel Colt received U.S. Patent No. 138 (later 9430X) for a "revolving-cylinder pistol." It was his first patent.
1913 - The 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. It authorized a graduated income tax.
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