Archive for the ‘Border Control’ Category
Thursday, June 2nd, 2016
Time for another Texas vs. California update:
Once again, Texas is ranked as the best state for business by CEO Magazine, while California is ranked the worst. (Hat tip: Rider Rants via Pension Tsunami.)
This OC Register piece offers an good restatement of the general problem:
California has earned quite a reputation for being openly hostile to business, as confirmed by numerous studies and surveys. Its plethora of taxes and regulations are driving away legions of entrepreneurs and workers, but they are doing wonders for one segment of the economy: the moving industry. It is almost as though that industry is secretly lobbying the state Legislature for its anti-business policies.
Joe Vranich, as president of Spectrum Location Solutions, an Irvine business relocation consulting firm, knows all about what drives businesses’ decisions to give up and leave for greener pastures. According to his research, in just the past seven years, approximately 9,000 businesses have decided to leave California or expand their operations out of state. Companies leaving California typically save between 20 percent and 35 percent of operating costs, he concluded.
Texas has been the biggest beneficiary of California’s business exodus.
Snip.
California’s litigious climate has become a common complaint of business owners. No wonder the American Tort Reform Foundation once again named California the No. 1 “Judicial Hellhole” in the nation last year, based on the state’s excessive laws and regulations and a flood of disability access, asbestos and food advertising and labeling lawsuits, frequently more opportunistic attempts at extortion than legitimate attempts to seek justice for victims who have been truly harmed.
California has proven to be a particularly harsh climate for manufacturing businesses. “Even if California were to eliminate the state income taxes tomorrow, that still would not be enough,” CellPoint Corp. CEO Ehsan Gharatappeh told the Dallas Business Journal of the Costa Mesa company’s move to Forth Worth.
General Magnaplate Corp., which has made reinforced parts for the aerospace, transportation, medical, oil and other industries for 36 years, decided to shut down its California facility in Ventura altogether. “This is a very sad day for our employees and for my family, who have a long history of job creation in this area, but the simple fact is that the state of California does not provide a business-friendly environment,” CEO Candida Aversenti said in a press release. “Increases in workers’ compensation costs and government regulations, combined with predatory citizens groups and law firms that make their living entirely by preying on small businesses, have left us with no other choice but to shut down our California facility. This is in stark contrast to our New Jersey and Texas facilities, which are flourishing in small business-friendly environments created by the respective local governments and environmental agencies.”
Tech layoffs double in the Bay area:
Yahoo’s 279 workers let go this year contributed to the 3,135 tech jobs lost in the four-county region of Santa Clara, San Mateo, Alameda and San Francisco counties from January through April, as did the 50 workers axed at Toshiba America in Livermore and the 71 at Autodesk in San Francisco. In the first four months of last year, just 1,515 Bay Area tech workers were laid off, according to mandatory filings under California’s WARN Act. For that period in 2014, the region’s tech layoffs numbered 1,330.
How did the California city of Irwindale rack up the largest per household market pension debt in the state, at $134,907 per household?
Low and negative interest rates means that CalPERS must make risky investments to even come close to hitting their yield targets:
The nation’s largest public pension fund, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, has one-fifth of its assets in bonds and is down 1.3% since July 1, according to public documents. The system, known by its abbreviation Calpers, also has 53.1% of its assets in stocks, 9% in real estate and 9.4% in private equity. In 2015, Calpers posted a return of 2.4%, below its target rate of 7.5%.
Nor is CalSTARS doing much better:
The nation’s second-largest public pension plan, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, has shifted a significant amount of money away from some stocks and bonds to protect against a downturn. It moved assets into U.S. Treasurys and so-called liquid-alternative funds, which mimic hedge-fund strategies. Calstrs, as the pension is called, reported gains of 1.5% during a choppy 2015, with returns on its fixed-income investments up just 0.6%.
(Note: WSJ link, so you may need to do the Google thing.)
News: Former CalPERS chief executive Fred Buenrostro convicted of bribery. California: Buenrostro will continue to receive his CalPERS pension while in prison. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
Overview of the Texas budget.
UnitedHealth exits California’s Obamacare exchanges.
Despite that, California wants to offer ObamaCare subsidies to illegal aliens.
California also wants to spend more money to send illegal aliens to college.
And those illegal aliens with California driver’s licenses still aren’t purchasing liability insurance.
Hate California traffic? Tough:
The newest outrage comes from the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research in the form of a proposed “road diet.” This would essentially halt attempts to expand or improve our roads, even when improvements have been approved by voters. This strategy can only make life worse for most Californians, since nearly 85 percent of us use a car to get to work. This in a state that already has among the worst-maintained roads in the country, with two-thirds of them in poor or mediocre condition.
Snip.
In essence, the notion animating the “road diet” is to make congestion so terrible that people will be forced out of their cars and onto transit. It’s not planning for how to make the ways people live today more sustainable. It has, in fact, more in common with Soviet-style social engineering, which was based similarly on a particular notion of “science” and progressive values.
(Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Toyota’s Plano headquarters takes shape.
The UAW is making a big push to unionize Tesla’s Fremont plant.
Speaking of Tesla, they’re approaching the grand opening of their giant battery factory…in Nevada.
McDonald’s CEO says a $15 minimum wage will make his restaurants shift to using robots. But what would McDonald’s know about minimum wage workers?
In the same vein, it’s no wonder that Whole Foods opened it’s first semi-automated Whole Foods 365 store in Los Angeles. “Promoted as a ‘chain for millennials,’ the new ‘365’ stores use about one-third less square footage than the company’s traditional 41,000-square-foot Whole Foods stores, but they also slash almost two-thirds of workers with robots and computerized kiosks.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Schedule for California high speed rail boondoggle pushed back four more years. Latest obstacle: wealthy equestrians. “Hey, this study says horses won’t mind a super-fast, super loud train zipping along right next to them.” “You mean the study from the institute that two bullet train authority members sit on? Get stuffed!”
“The State Assembly Subcommittee on Education voted Tuesday to delay funding to the UC system because of concerns with the UC Retirement Plan, proposed by UC President Janet Napolitano in March, which would cause the university to incur significant costs. The delay was announced after an actuarial report was released earlier that day by Pension Trustees Advisors, or PTA, which showed that the retirement plan would cost the university $500 million in savings, or $34 million a year, over the next 15 years.” (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
Maywood, California (which had previously outsourced services to the corrupt city of Bell) is on the brink of bankruptcy. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
“Two L.A. sheriff’s deputies convicted of beating mentally ill inmate.”
San Francisco liberals versus the city’s police union
“Another aviation company has decided to move its corporate headquarters to Fort Worth to take advantage of the Lone Star state’s business friendly environment and the city’s longtime history in the aerospace industry. The move is historic for Burbank, California-based C&S Propeller — an FAA and EASA certified repair station for propeller and airplane maintenance — which has been in California for nearly five decades.”
This one’s a wash: XCOR lays off employees in both California and Texas.
Tags:Autodesk, Border Controls, California, CalPERs, CalSTARS, CellPoint, Crime, Democrats, Fred Buenrostro, Ft. Worth, General Magnaplate, Irwindale, Legislative Budget Board, Los Angeles, Maywood, McDonald's, minimum wage, Nevada, ObamaCare, Plano, San Francisco, Tesla Motors, Texas, Toshiba, Toyota, UnitedHealth, Welfare State, Whole Foods, XCOR, Yahoo
Posted in Border Control, Budget, Crime, Democrats, ObamaCare, unions, Welfare State | 1 Comment »
Friday, May 6th, 2016
Still digesting the Trump victory and what it means. In the meantime, have some links:
Roger Simon thinks Republicans should take a time out. Pretty much what I said a few days ago, though Simon is saying we should take a week rather than a day. Still good advice. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“Trump is the warning shot. He’s the food riots before the revolution. He’s the stack of letters to the editor in protest over some issue. People do not go from happy to bloody revolt overnight. It’s a process and the early stages are warnings, at least they should be viewed as warnings. If the people in Washington insist on flooding the country with helot labor, despite what’s happening in the election, the people are going to insist on building scaffolds in Washington. The Trump phenomenon is the warning.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Five reasons why Trump might do better than expected. (Hat tip: Real Clear Politics.)
“The Hillary Story is far less entertaining than The Trump Story…Clinton is rich, and morally and ethically corrupt. So is Trump. But at least he’s entertaining.” Note: That’s from Jonah Goldberg, with whom Trump has exchanged numerous rounds of insults and putdowns. Goldberg seems much further along the Kubler-Ross cycle than his NRO compatriots…
How Hillary Clinton plans to disarm Americans. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
How the liberal welfare state destroyed black America. Not news to anyone who’s read Charles Murray’s Losing Ground (which came out over 30 years ago), but how many have? (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
North Carolina to the Obama Administration: Bite me.
Germany wants its own army controlling Europe. I think we’ve all seen that movie before…(Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Larry Correia visits Europe. “I would like to institute autobahn style rules on I-15 in Utah. Sure, a few thousand people would probably die in the first weekend, but after that it would be awesome….The Czechs are a fun people. They have this kind of to hell with it sense of humor that meshes really well with mine. They’re big on long meals and animated conversations. They really hate socialists.”
Former McDonald’s CEO says that a $15 minimum wage will mean replacing humans with robots and self-service kiosks. But what would he know about fast food? (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
Research following contestants on The Biggest Loser brings bad news about dieting: “As the years went by and the numbers on the scale climbed, the contestants’ metabolisms did not recover. They became even slower, and the pounds kept piling on. It was as if their bodies were intensifying their effort to pull the contestants back to their original weight.”
Everything you know about Ty Cobb is wrong. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, black, Border Controls, Czech Republic, diet, Donald Trump, Germany, Guns, Hillary Clinton, Larry Correia, McDonald's, Military, North Carolina, welfare, Welfare State
Posted in Border Control, Democrats, Elections, Guns, Military, Republicans, Welfare State | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, May 3rd, 2016
Today voters go to the polls in Indiana. If Cruz wins, we’re likely headed to a floor fight at the Republican convention. If not…
Ted Cruz: “A sterling Reagan conservative. A classical liberal. A believer in limited government, the rule of law, free enterprise, peace through strength, the right to life. A smart man, a decent man. A bold man, a persistent man. My friend (incidentally). The kind of person who ought to be president of the United States.”
“Donald Trump, who has run as the immigration scourge, is actually the amnesty candidate.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
“The media created this Trump phenomenon and then they don’t hold him accountable.”
Democratic campaign consultants are salivating at the thought of tying Trump around the necks of other Republican candidates. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Protestors carrying Mexican flags try to block Donald Trump from speaking, destroy police car.
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Border Controls, Donald Trump, Elections, Indiana, Media Watch, Republicans, Ted Cruz
Posted in Border Control, Elections, Media Watch, Republicans | No Comments »
Saturday, April 30th, 2016
The Texas voter ID law will remain in the books, at least for the November election, after the Supreme Court refused to issue an “emergency” request to suspend the law while the court case against it is being considered.
What this means in the short term: Democrats won’t be able to steal some down-ballot Texas races with illegal alien votes this year.
No wonder Democrats hate voter ID…
Tags:Border Controls, Democrats, Supreme Court, Texas, Voter ID
Posted in Border Control, Democrats, Elections, Supreme Court, Texas | No Comments »
Monday, April 18th, 2016
Time for another Texas vs. California roundup, with the top news being California’s hastening their economic demise with a suicidal minimum wage hike:
Jerry Brown admits the minimum wage hike doesn’t make economic sense, then signs it anyway. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
Who is really behind the minimum wage hike? The SEIU:
California’s drive to hike the minimum wage has little to do with average workers and everything to do with the Golden State’s all-powerful government employee unions.
Nationally, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is known for representing lower skilled workers. But, of the SEIU’s 2.1 million dues-paying members, half work for the government. In California, that translates to clout with much of the $50 million SEIU spent in the U.S. on political activities and lobbying spent in California. In fact, out of the 12 “yes” votes for the minimum wage bill in the Assembly Committee on Appropriations on March 30, the SEIU had contributed almost $100,000 out of the three-quarters of a million contributed by public employee unions—yielding a far higher return on investment than anything Wall Street could produce.
Unions represent about 59 percent of all government workers in California. Many union contracts are tied to the minimum wage — boost the minimum wage and government union workers reap a huge windfall, courtesy of the overworked California taxpayer.
“The impacts of the increase in minimum wage on workers at the very bottom of the pay scales might be just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the ramifications of the minimum wage increase.” (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
Indeed, that hike will push government employee wages up all up the ladder.
“California minimum wage hike hits L.A. apparel industry: ‘The exodus has begun.'” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“Texas’ job creation has helped keep the unemployment rate low at 4.3 percent, which has now been at or below the U.S. average rate for a remarkable 111 straight months.”
“Number of Californians Moving to Texas Hits Highest Level in Nearly a Decade”:
“California’s taxes and regulations are crushing businesses, and there are more opportunities in Texas for people to start new companies, get good jobs, and create better lives for their families,” said Nathan Nascimento, the director of state initiatives at Freedom Partners. “When tax and regulatory climates are bad, people will move to better economic environments—this phenomenon isn’t a mystery, it’s how marketplaces work. Not only should other state governments take note of this, but so should the federal government.”
According to Tom Gray of the Manhattan Institute, people may be leaving California for the employment opportunities, tax breaks, or less crowded living arrangements that other states offer.
“States with low unemployment rates, such as Texas, are drawing people from California, whose rate is above the national average,” Gray wrote. “Taxation also appears to be a factor, especially as it contributes to the business climate and, in turn, jobs.”
“Most of the destination states favored by Californians have lower taxes,” Gray wrote. “States that have gained the most at California’s expense are rated as having better business climates. The data suggest that may cost drivers—taxes, regulations, the high price of housing and commercial real estate, costly electricity, union power, and high labor costs—are prompting businesses to locate outside California, thus helping to drive the exodus.”
(Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
More on the same theme. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
It’s not just pensions: “The state paid $458 million in 2001 (0.6 percent of the general fund) for state worker retiree health care and is expected to pay $2 billion (1.7 percent of the general fund) next fiscal year — up 80 percent in just the last decade.” (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
Texas border control succeeds where the Obama Administration fails. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
California and New York still lead Texas in billionaires. But for how long?
“The housing bubble may have collapsed, but the public-employee pension fund managers are still with us. If anything they’re bigger than ever, still insatiably seeking high returns just over the horizon line of another economic bubble.” (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
How to fix San Francisco’s dysfunctional housing market. “Failed public policy and political leadership has resulted in a massive imbalance between how much the city’s population has grown this century versus how much housing has been built. The last thirteen years worth of new housing units built is approximately equal to the population growth of the last two years.” Also: “The city is forcing people out. Only the rich can live here because of the policies created by so-called progressives and so-called housing advocates.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
UC Berkley to cut 500 jobs over two years.
What does BART do faced with a $400 million projected deficit over the next decade? Dig deeper. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
Stanton, California, is the latest California municipality facing bankruptcy. “One of the main reasons the city can’t pay its bills without the sales tax is that it gives outlandish salaries and benefits to its government workers.” (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
Yesterday was Tax Freedom Day in Texas.
Politically correct investing has already cost CalPERS $3 billion. (Hat tip: Pension Tsunami.)
“A federal jury on Wednesday convicted former Los Angeles County Undersheriff Paul Tanaka of deliberately impeding an FBI investigation, capping a jail abuse and obstruction scandal that reached to the top echelons of the Sheriff’s Department.” (Hat tip: Dwight.)
Top California Democratic assemblyman Roger Hernandez accused of domestic violence.
Calls for UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi to resign, she of the supergenius “pay $175,000 to scrub the Internet of negative postings about the pepper-spraying of students in 2011” plan.
California beachwear retailer Pacific Sunwear files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
California retailer Sport Chalet is also shutting down.
75% of current Toyota employees are willing to move to Texas to work at Toyota’s new U.S. headquarters.
California isn’t the only place delusional politicians are pushing a “railroad to nowhere.” The Lone Star Rail District wants to keep getting and spending money despite the fact that Union Pacific said they couldn’t use their freight lines for a commuter train between Austin and San Antonio. The tiny little problem being that the Union Pacific line was the only one under consideration…
Tags:Austin, bankruptcy, BART, Berkeley, Border Controls, Budget, California, CalPERs, Chuck DeVore, Crime, Democrats, FBI, Jerry Brown, Linda P.B. Katehi, Los Angeles, Pacific Sunwear, Paul Tanaka, pension crisis, Roger Hernandez, San Antonio, San Francisco, SEIU, Sport Chalet, Stanton, Taxes, Texas, Toyota, UC Davis, unemployment, unions, Vance Ginn
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Budget, Crime, Democrats, Texas, unions | No Comments »
Monday, April 11th, 2016
Greetings, and welcome to the week known as “Damn, I better finish my taxes.” Here’s a LinkSwarm:
Obama’s foreign policy genius exemplified: “In Syria, militias armed by Pentagon fight those armed by the CIA.”
If Republicans end up with a brokered convention, expect Ted Cruz, not Paul Ryan, to win the nomination. “[We’re] learning more and more about who those delegates are now that they’re being chosen. They’re not members of the Washington ‘establishment.’ Instead, they’re mostly grass-roots activists, and many of them want Cruz to be their next president.”
“Ted Cruz on Saturday clinched the support of every pledged delegate in Colorado, capturing all of the final 13 delegates who will go to the national convention in July and demonstrating his organizational strength in the all-important delegate race.”
Indeed, Team Trump screwed up in lots of places:
From Thursday to Saturday, Trump suffered setbacks in Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, South Carolina and Indiana that raise new doubts about his campaign’s preparedness for the long slog of delegate hunting as the GOP race approaches a possible contested convention. He lost the battle on two fronts. Cruz picked up 28 pledged delegates in Colorado. In the other states, rival campaigns were able to place dozens of their own loyalists in delegate spots pledged to Trump on the first ballot. This will matter if Trump fails to win a majority of delegates on the first ballot in Cleveland, as his delegates defect once party rules allow them to choose the candidate they want to nominate.
If Donald Trump is as smart as he keeps telling us, how is it he can’t seem to hire anyone smart enough to know how each state’s delegate selection process actually works?
Hillary Clinton defends Israel against Bernie Sanders. Hillary finally takes the right side in an issue debate, but what do you want to bet that it hurts her, given the naked anti-Israel/pro-Palestinian bias among the Democratic Party’s activist base?
Thanks to the Magic Power of Socialism™, Venezuela is where Zimbabwe was 15 years ago. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Modern liberalism is dedicated to altering language to advance their agenda, not to mention hiding their many failures.
Naval security under Obama looks like it’s just as good as security in the rest of the Obama Administration. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
America assimilates Muslims much better than Europe.
Gun sales soar but “per capita criminal homicides committed with firearms are at their lowest point ever recorded since the FBI began formally tracking that information in 1960.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Millionaires are fleeing France. “Polls have shown that about 50% of all French people 18-34 years old, not just the millionaires and billionaires, would leave France if they could.” Why? “Blue model rot, deeply set in across Europe, is pervasive in France.”
“70 Tries After Seattle Raised Its Minimum Wage, I Still Can’t Find A Job.”
Conservative Rebecca Bradley defeated liberal activists Joanne Kloppenburg for a seat on the Wisconsin supreme court.
Thanks to global warming, sea levels are rising. And by “rising” I mean “falling.”
Dallas trying to screw property owners yet again.
Several ESPN writers are predicting an Astros-Cubs World Series. And the moon became as blood…
“New York taxi drivers to be banned from flirting with or ejaculating on passengers.” One of these things is not like the other/One of these things just doesn’t belong…
“Understanding Movement In Composition Through The Work Of Akira Kurosawa.”
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Astros, Bernie Sanders, Colorado, Dallas, Donald Trump, Global Warming, Guns, Hillary Clinton, Israel, Jihad, Joanne Kloppenburg, LinkSwarm, minimum wage, movies, Rebecca Bradley, Republicans, socialism, Syria, Ted Cruz, Venezuela, Wisconsin, Zimbabwe
Posted in Border Control, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Global Warming, Guns, Jihad, Military | No Comments »
Thursday, April 7th, 2016
Obama’s unlawful “Deferred Action for Parents of Americans” (DAPA) backdoor amnesty program wouldn’t just shield illegal aliens from deportation. According to this brief filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, it would circumvent both statutory law and congressional will to bestow a number of government transfer program benefits to to those illegal aliens.
DAPA is unlawful because the Executive exceeded its statutory authority.
The power to establish when aliens are lawfully present is “entrusted exclusively to Congress,” which enacted “extensive and complex” statutes governing lawful presence. Arizona, 132 S. Ct. at 2499, 2507. Congress has never given the Executive carte blanche to grant lawful presence to any alien it chooses not to remove. Congress would have needed to delegate such power “expressly,” because this is “a question of deep ‘economic and political significance’ that is central to [the INA’s] statutory scheme.” King v. Burwell, 135 S. Ct. 2480, 2489 (2015). After all, DAPA removes eligibility bars for numerous significant benefits—such as Medicare, Social Security, and the Earned Income Tax Credit. Yet Congress in 1996 amended immigration statutes expressly to deny benefits to unlawfully present aliens whom the Executive chooses not to remove. DAPA flouts that congressional directive.
For Democrats, they get to create another 4 million voters and make them eligable for government transfer programs, all in one fell swoop, and get the American taxpayers to pay for it…
(Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Tags:amnesty, Border Controls, Illegal Aliens, Ken Paxton, Medicare, Social Security, Supreme Court, Texas
Posted in Border Control, Supreme Court, Texas | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2016
Another important primary day, part of what seems a never-ending stream of them. There’s a republican primary in Arizona and a Republican caucus in Utah today. Mots recent polls have Cruz with a big lead in Utah, and Trump with a small er lead in Arizona.
“If Cruz can win Arizona and Utah before moving on to victory in Wisconsin — another winner-take-all state where voters like politicians who play nice — he’ll pick up 140 delegates, bringing Trump’s lead under 100.” The problem? John Kasich. “Kasich must be betting that the party’s donor class and insiders will be so tickled by his pro-immigration, don’t-worry-about-religious-liberty stance that they will be willing to destroy the party by nominating him.”
Or, as Cruz suggests, maybe Kasich is auditioning to be Trump’s VP.
Ted Cruz was for building a border wall back when Trump was still supporting illegal alien amnesty. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Looks like Trump, just like Bill Clinton, was a fan of “Lolita Express to Orgy Island” sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Democrats shouldn’t be so sure they can beat Trump:
The Democrats are kidding themselves if they think they are going to be able to rely on their usual attacks on Republicans with Donald Trump at the helm. They aren’t going to be able to launch into the tired war on women or talk about how Republicans hate poor people and sick people, etc., and make that stick. Nothing even close to those charges has stuck to Donald Trump so far. On CNBC, I recently likened Donald Trump to the dark force from the movie “The Fifth Element.” He seems to absorb attacks and grow in strength rather than be wounded.
Trump isn’t just a counter-puncher; he uses rhetorical counter-force weapons to deprive opponents of their favorite attacks. Remember how Trump stifled and silenced Hillary’s attempt to launch an attack on Trump as sexist? I would guess we will be hearing a lot more in the general election about Bill’s indiscretions and her complicit role in helping him concoct the lies and demonize his victims. But that will just be Trump getting warmed up. Trump will routinely go after Hillary Clinton in ways the Democrats have always thought would be off-limits. And he will do so to her face. The email controversies, the odd arrangements Hillary staffers had with the private sector, the coordination between the State Department and the Clinton foundation, the money that poured in from foreign and corporate sources who wanted easy access to the Clinton world, a variety of Clinton’s flaws and previous gaffes – even Chelsea’s employment – will all come roaring out of the Trump campaign. The Clinton campaign will spend a lot of time on their heels.
Democrats try to comfort themselves with the idea that there is no such thing as an Obama voter from 2008 or 2012 who will turn around and vote for Trump in 2016. It is easy to say Trump can’t win a general election. But that is the kind of rational thinking that has been applied to Trump ever since his campaign started. And it’s the kind of thinking that has been proven wrong time and time again. I can imagine Donald Trump pulling into a predominantly poor African-American neighborhood, standing on a platform, pointing to his wealth and saying, “If you want a chance to get rich, vote for me – look around, and if you want the status quo, vote for Hillary!” It could strike a chord with some young black voters who want a shot at a better life, not promises of incrementally more dependence and servitude to the Democratic establishment. I don’t dismiss the idea that Donald Trump could find a foothold in the African-American community.
On the other hand, polls show Hillary leading Trump. In Utah.
Trump: “Hillary Clinton has been involved in corruption most of her professional life!” Cruz: “Then why did you contribute thousands of dollars to her?”
An amusing inside look at the dramatic collapse of Jeb Bush’s campaign from inside the confines of his Right to Rise Super-PAC. It’s a buffet of black humor. “It’s always darkest before it goes completely black.” “These people all used to have great careers in politics. Now we’re going to Kinko’s to print off some résumés. We understand there’s a job fair at Quiznos.”
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, amnesty, Arizona, Border Controls, Donald Trump, Elections, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Scandals, Jeb Bush, John Kasich, Right to Rise, Super-PAC, Ted Cruz, Utah
Posted in Border Control, Elections, Republicans | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2016
At least 31 people have been killed and dozens injured in attacks at Brussels international airport and a city metro station.
Twin blasts hit Zaventem airport at about 07:00 GMT, killing 11 people.
Another explosion struck Maelbeek metro station near the EU’s headquarters an hour later, leaving a further 20 people dead.
The Islamic State (IS) group said it was behind the attacks in a statement issued on the IS-linked Amaq agency.
An Islamic group responsible for a terrorist bombing? Inconceivable! Quick, someone Photoshop Brussels with a peace symbol! It’s vital Western Europe continue its Sacred Meaningless Gesture Rituals!
The New York Times has put the current death toll at 34. So in one day, Islamic terrorists have killed as many people as the Baader-Meinhof Gang/red Army faction killed in three decades.
One wonders if a bombing on its doorstep will finally shock the EU out of its complacency and denial regarding both the current wave of unchecked Islamic immigration and its refusal to deal systematically with the threat of jihad.
Tags:Bombing, Border Controls, Brussels, EU, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Jihad
Posted in Border Control, Jihad | No Comments »
Monday, March 21st, 2016
Instapundit tweeted a link to this Der Spiegel piece on the success of the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party against Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union. It’s a lengthy and illuminating piece.
The immigration crisis is just the final straw for conservative German voters who have watched the Christian Democratic Union drift leftward. “He then lists all of the things that the CDU has done wrong in recent years: abandoning nuclear power, introducing a minimum wage, same-sex marriage…It is a rebellion targeting a CDU leader who has continually led her party to the left.”
But it’s more than that.
At its core, the rise of the AfD is the story of strife and of growing alienation between the chancellor and a portion of the German electorate. The triumph of the AfD is nothing less than a revolt against Angela Merkel.
It is a rebellion targeting a CDU leader who has continually led her party to the left, stripping many conservatives of a political home. It also targets a chancellor whose open borders policy in the refugee crisis may be attractive to left-leaning Germans, but is one which strikes more conservative voters as high-handed. Hotelier Schäfer, for his part, thinks it is naive to believe that so many Muslim refugees can be integrated into German society. “We are endangering our freedom when we take in too many people who don’t want this freedom,” he says.
Above all, however, the revolt is aimed at the chancellor as a symbol of the country’s elite — an elite which has supposedly lost sight of the people and their concerns. For many in Germany, Merkel has become the personification of a “ruling class” — a class that not only includes the CDU, the center-left Social Democrats and the Greens, but also business leaders, union leaders and the media.
Sound familiar?
When Merkel took over the CDU, she took a dispassionate view of the doctrines and rites that defined her party. She cleaned out the CDU’s political platform the way others dispose of worn socks from their sock drawer.
Old CDU traditions were of secondary concern for the new party chairwoman; she was more focused on expanding her party’s electorate. Instead of seeing politics as the great battle over the shape of society and grand ideas, she reduced it to strategy and the consolidation of power. She moved her party so far to the middle that it soon became difficult to distinguish it from the Social Democrats. She didn’t wrestle with the SPD over political positions, she simply copied theirs — and took over popular elements of the Green Party platform as well. Under her leadership, the CDU became a kind of Germany Party that leaned neither right nor left. Rather, it was “alternativlos,” as Merkel liked to say — there was no alternative.
Snip.
A vital part of any healthy democracy is having alternatives and parties that are distinguishable from each other. At the moment, it’s no longer possible to tell what it is that separates the CDU from the SPD or the Greens. The party is whatever Merkel says it is. There are close to no correctives left in Germany and there is no longer a balance of power. The more Merkel tries to peddle her policies as being without alternative, the greater the anger within the populace will grow.
The entire political situation in Europe arises from elites doing all they can to insulate their institutions and power from the crass rabble know as “voters.” But voters across Europe and America are sick and tired of the Permanent Incumbent Party doing what’s best for elite interests and ignoring the will of the voters.
And the longer elites refuse to change course, the more terrible the reckoning will be when it comes…
Tags:Alternative for Germany, Angela Merkel, Border Controls, Christian Democratic Union, Elections, Foreign Policy, Germany, Illegal Aliens, Jihad
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