Posts Tagged ‘Microsoft’
Friday, March 29th, 2019
The aftermath of [rock DJ voice] NO COLLUSION WEEKEND dominates today’s LinkSwarm.
It will take years to undo the damage of Russiagate:
Millions of Americans have been led to believe that President Trump committed treason, and any day he could be led out of the White House in chains. They wake up every day thinking this could be the day that Mueller gets Trump. These poor souls should be facing a tough reality this weekend. But hold the Xanax, at least for now. The media and Democrat Party have dug themselves so deeply in a hole, they must keep on digging. That’s absolutely terrible for this country, as has been this entire endeavor.
If our country is ever to recover from this mess, we can’t forget how we got here. Russians were attempting to hack both the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee in late 2015. Whether the DNC was ultimately hacked or suffered an internal leak, the truth remains that the DNC documents and emails obtained by WikiLeaks showed the entire country that Hillary Clinton, and those around her, were corrupt and would bend the rules (or worse) for power. There was never a real and fair contest between her and Bernie Sanders.
As soon as the Clinton campaign realized its misdeeds toward Bernie had been made public, they blamed Russia. They immediately began putting out a narrative that attempted to say Russia had acted to favor Trump, which included paying Fusion GPS—a notorious propaganda outfit with ties to loads of so-called journalists—to create ties between Trump and Russia.
Snip.
In short, the Hillary campaign peppered the Obama executive branch with allegations of Trump-Russia collusion. The Obama intelligence apparatus, pushed on by Obama’s Central Intelligence Agency director John Brennan, was only too happy to run with it. Jim Comey’s FBI then used those Word documents to get a warrant from a secret court to spy on Carter Page, a former Trump campaign aide, which allowed the FBI to spy on the rival political party’s presidential campaign.
The FBI’s involvement allowed Fusion GPS and the journalists it was working with to put out all sorts of stories before the election, meant to damage Trump’s candidacy. These stories alleged that the ties between Trump and Russia were so serious, the FBI was investigating them. For example, CNN and others ran stories about the FBI looking into Trump because there was supposedly a computer in Trump Tower that was communicating with a Russian bank.
Snip.
Once Trump won, all hell broke loose. There was talk of stopping him with the Electoral College, and protestors wrecked parts of DC. Obama’s deputy attorney general Sally Yates sent FBI agents to entrap Mike Flynn, at the time Trump’s national security advisor, using a 200-year-old law that is never enforced, unconstitutional, and routinely violated by every incoming presidential administration.
The mainstream media was just as deranged. For the entire year of 2017, anything that could damage Trump, no matter how outlandish, was published. Journalistic standards collapsed.
To MSNBC and CNN, every spurious and anonymously sourced report, which was always called a “bombshell,” was a sign that the “walls were closing in” on the Trump presidency. CNN famously reported on a Trump Jr. email, which could have shown collusion, until they realized they got the date of the email wrong. ABC News anchor Brian Ross produced a false report that caused the stock market to drop, and was eventually let go by ABC over the issue. These are but a few examples.
It’s a nice summary of the whole “Russian collusion” madness. Read the whole thing.
“50+ Journalists, Politicians, Celebrities, and Grifters Who Peddled the Russia Collusion Hoax.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Matt Tabbi of Rolling Stone is even more damning of the media that hyped the Russian collusion fantasy, and those partisans trying to ignore Mueller’s conclusions:
The report’s most-quoted line read, “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
In essence, Mueller punted the question of obstruction back to Barr, who together with Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein has already decided the report didn’t provide enough evidence to support a criminal charge in any of the “number of actions” committed by Trump that raised the specter of obstruction.
This isn’t surprising, given that Barr is a Trump appointee. The Atlantic is one of many outlets to have already cried foul about this (“Barr’s Startling and Unseemly Haste” is the name of one piece). But Barr’s letter includes a telling detail from Mueller himself on this issue (emphasis mine):
In making this determination, we noted that the Special Counsel recognized that “the evidence does not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference,” and that, while not determinative, the absence of such evidence bears upon the President’s intent with respect to obstruction…
In other words, it was Mueller, not Barr, who concluded there was no underlying crime, so if the next stage of this madness is haggling over an obstruction charge, that would likely entail calling for a prosecution of Trump for obstructing an investigation into what even Mueller deemed non-crime.
Snip.
MSNBC HOST Chris Matthews said something very similar. First, he recounted his dismay as he learned over the weekend there wouldn’t be new indictments of Trump family members, his inner circle, etc. From there, Matthews deduced, “There’s not going to be even a hidden charge…. They don’t have him on collusion.”
Members of the media like Matthews spent two years speaking of Mueller in mythical tones, hyping him as the savior who was pushing those “walls” that were forever said to be “closing in” on Trump. Mueller, it was repeatedly said, was helping bring about “the beginning of the end.”
Over and over, audiences were told the investigation had hit a “turning point,” after which Trump would either resign or be impeached, because as Brian Williams put it, “Donald Trump is done.”
This manipulative brand of news programming preyed upon the emotional devastation of liberal audiences, particularly the older people who watch cable. It told them the horror they felt over Trump’s election would be alleviated in short order. The median age of the CNN viewer is 60 and MSNBC’s is 65, and these people were urged for years to place their trust in Santa BOB, who knew all and whose investigation would surely lead to impeachment and “the end.”
All you had to do was keep turning in, because the good news could come any minute now! The bombshell is coming! Never mind that this is causing our profits to soar. Don’t wonder about our motives, even though outlets like MSNBC saw a 62 percent bump in viewership in the first full year of Russiagate coverage. Just keep tuning in. The walls are closing in!
That was bad enough, but now that the Mueller dream seems to have died, news organizations are acting like they didn’t hype Mueller as savior.
“Robert Mueller was never going to end Trump’s Presidency,” says Vox.
Matthews, in a tone that suggested he was being the sober adult delivering tough love, completed his thought about how “they don’t have him on collusion” by saying, with a shrug of undisguised disappointment:
“So I think the Democrats have got to win the election.” He added, “There’s no waiting around for uncle Robert to take care of everything.”
I know no one cares how this sounds to non-Democrats, but this is a member of the media looking sad that Democrats would have to resort to actual democracy to win the White House back.
Given that “collusion” has turned out to be dry well, to the ordinary viewer it will look a hell of lot like the MSNBCs of the world humped a fake story for two consecutive years in the hopes of overturning election results ahead of time. Trump couldn’t have asked for a juicier campaign issue, and an easier way to argue that “elites” don’t respect the democratic choices of flyover voters. It’s hard to imagine what could look worse.
(Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
Even the New York Times‘s Bret Stephens says Democrats and the media blew it:
The fiasco was to assume that the result of Mueller’s investigation was a forgone conclusion. And to believe that the existence of dots was enough to prove that they had to connect. And to report on it nonstop, breathlessly, as if the levee would break any second. And to turn Adam Schiff into a celebrity guest. And to belittle or exclude contrarian voices.
Last July, I wrote of the special counsel’s inquiry: “The smart play is to defend the integrity of Mueller’s investigation and invest as little political capital as possible in predicting the result. If Mueller discovers a crime, that’s a gift to the president’s opponents. If he discovers nothing, it shouldn’t become a humiliating liability.”
Instead, as Matt Taibbi perceptively observed last week, what we have is a W.M.D.-size self-inflicted media disaster, which ought to require some extensive self-criticism before we breathlessly move on to Trump’s latest alleged idiocy. Assume for a moment that Trump’s odd Russia behavior, including the obsequiousness toward Vladimir Putin and the routine eruptions against Mueller, was merely a way of baiting journalists for years.
If so, he could hardly have played us better: He’d be the Keyser Söze of media manipulation. To adapt a line, perhaps the greatest trick Trump ever pulled was to convince the world his brain didn’t exist.
(Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
Lee Smith in Tablet was even more critical of the media:
The media criticism of the media’s performance covering Russiagate is misleadingly anodyne—OK, sure the press did a bad job, but to be fair there really was a lot of suspicious stuff going on and now let’s all get back to doing our important work. But two years of false and misleading Russiagate coverage was not a mistake, or a symptom of lax fact-checking.
Russiagate was an information operation from the beginning, in which dozens of individual reporters and institutions actively partnered with paid political operatives like Glenn Simpson and corrupt law enforcement and intelligence officials like former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and senior DOJ official Bruce Ohr to smear Trump and his circle, and then to topple him. None of what went on the last two years would have been possible without the press, an indispensable partner in the biggest political scandal in a generation.
The campaign was waged not in hidden corners of the internet, but rather by the country’s most prestigious news organizations—including, but not only, The New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, and MSNBC. The farce that has passed for public discourse the last two years was fueled by a concerted effort of the media and the pundit class to obscure gaping holes in logic as well as law. And yet, they all appeared to be credible because the institutions sustaining them are credible.
Michael McFaul was U.S. ambassador to Moscow—he knows everything about Russia. He wouldn’t invent stuff about national security matters out of thin air. Jane Mayer is a national treasure, one of America’s greatest living journalists who penned a long profile of Christopher Steele in the pages of the New Yorker. Susan Hennessy is a former intelligence community lawyer, who appears as an expert on TV. And how about her colleague at the Lawfare blog, Benjamin Wittes, a Brookings Institution fellow and a personal friend of James Comey? You think he didn’t have the inside dope, every time he posted a “Boom” GIF on Twitter predicting the final nail just about to be hammered in Trump’s coffin?
Many more jumped on the dog pile along with them, validating each other’s tweets and breathless insider sourcing. The point was to thicken the echo chamber, with voices from the right as well as the left in order to make it seem real. Hey, if this many experts are saying so, there must be something to it.
Except, there wasn’t—ever.
American democracy is premised on a free press that does its best to provide the public with information. Misinforming the public is like dumping toxic waste in the rivers. It poisoned our democracy—and it continues to do so. In fact, the most important thing for the public to understand is that Russiagate is not unique. It’s the way that the expert class opines on everything now, from immigration to foreign policy.
(Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
“The report showed that the so-called Trump Dossier, which was compiled by a former MI6 spook, Christopher Steele, and funded by the Clinton campaign and the DNC, is a total work of fiction. There was no collusion. There was no blackmail or any of that innuendo. If anything, this operation executed on behalf of Democrats shows collusion between Russia, Steele, DNC, and the Clintons.”
Scott Adams enjoys the media freakout over the Mueller report’s total vindication of President Trump.
It turns out that lying to your viewers constantly for two years is not a great business model.
Speaking of the media getting it wrong: “USA Today Blacklists The Federalist For The Crime Of Getting The Trump-Russia Story Right.”
“Mueller Orders Trump To Sit On Scale To See If He Weighs The Same As A Duck.”
President Trump held what appeared to be a very well-attended rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan:
I keep thinking I should do an update on Brexit news, but there isn’t really any. Parliament, having stripped Prime Minister Therese May of the power to negotiate Brexit, will neither shit nor get off the pot.
“Transgender “Women” Bully Rape Crisis Center, Get Funding Pulled.” What’s real rape compared to the crime of using the wrong pronoun?
“The REAL Collusion, Part 2: What Is the Connection Between James Clapper, Victor Pinchuk, and CTO of Only Company To Work on Hacked DNC Server?”
“Green New Deal” defeated in the Senate, with 0 votes for and 57 against, most Democrats voting “present.” Because actually calling your insane, economy-wrecking resolution for a vote is just a dirty trick…
Ilhan Omar Has Been Holding Secret Fundraisers For Groups That Support Terrorism.”
Omar recently spoke in Florida at a private event hosted by Islamic Relief, a charity organization long said to have deep ties to groups that advocate terrorism against Israel. Over the weekend, she will appear at another private event in California that is hosted by CAIR-CA PAC, a political action committee affiliated with the Council on American Islamic Relations, or CAIR a group that was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a massive terror-funding incident.
Hmmm: “Gerald Goines, the HPD officer at the center of a botched drug raid, retires.” “Goines’ retirement came a day after Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo confirmed that he expected more than one officer to be criminally charged for their actions in the ill-fated raid.”
Hmmm Part II: “Houston police investigator probing failed drug raid relieved of duty.” “Angel August was taken off duty with pay on March 13, according to a Houston Police Department spokesman. Officials have not yet publicly divulged the reason for their decision to bench August, who joined the department in 2011. August was the officer who filed the initial report a day after the Jan. 28 shooting at 7815 Harding Street that left two residents dead and five police officers injured, according to a police report obtained by the Houston Chronicle under the state open records law.” (Hat tip (for both): Dwight.)
“Video shows fired Paterson [New Jersey] police officer brutally assaulting hospital patient.” A patient who was flat on his back on a stretcher at the time.
Even the Illinois Prosecutor’s Bar Association condemned the Jussie Smollett dismissal as “abnormal and unfamiliar to those who practice law in criminal courthouses across the State.”
Two Mexican drug cartels clashed in Miguel Aleman, Tamaulipas, just over the border from Roma, Texas. “Both cartel factions used numerous grenades and incendiary devices in order to disable the other sides armored SUVs. The clashes left several burned-out vehicles throughout the city and the surrounding areas.” A nearby Mexican army base did nothing to stop the violence. (Hat tip: Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton on Twitter.)
Criminal pro-tip: When looking for a potential victim, try not to pick an off-duty policewoman:
“92 percent of illegal immigrant families ignore deportations.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“Homeland Missile Defense System Successfully Intercepts ICBM Target.” (Hat tip: John Bolton’s Twitter feed.)
A quicker Navy plan to get to 355 ships. But many questions remain. (Hat tip: CDR Salamander via The Other McCain.)
New Zealand bans guns. Result? “Of the 1.2M gun owners registered there, 37 have turned them in.”
Liberals are increasingly shocked that Joe Rogan has interesting people on his show and allows them to speak their minds. Link goes to the Althouse comments session rather than the article she’s linking to, since the comments are far more interesting. Today’s SJW-riddled liberals seem terrified and outraged by anyone allowing even the slight shred of heresy from their orthodoxy. I forget what the first Rogan interview I stumbled across was (probably one with Bill Burr), but he’s someone that actually let’s his guests just talk and express their ideas without trying to argue or interrupt.
Andrew Sullivan: “Maybe Hollywood should stop depicting working class white Americans as racist bigots if they want to avoid reelecting Trump.” Hollywood liberals: “Silence, blasphemer!” (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
“Microsoft takes control of 99 domains operated by Iranian state hackers.”
BOOM! (Hat tip: Dwight.)
“Sick And Tired Of All This Prosperity, Nation To Try Socialism For A While.”
Stephen Jay Gould fell pray to the same bias he thought he was condemning.
The scourge of fake wasabi.
Unwrapping a Gutenberg Bible.
Tags:2016 Election, Adam Schiff, Andrew Sullivan, Angel August, Benjamin Wittes, Bill Barr, Border Controls, Bret Stephens, Brexit, Brian Ross, Brookings Institute, CAIR, Cartel Del Noreste, Chicago, Chris Matthews, Christopher Steele, CNN, Crime, data security, DNC, Donald Trump, Eddie Johnson, Foreign Policy, Gerald Goines, Gulf Cartel, Guns, Hillary Clinton, Houston, Houston Police Department, Ilhan Omar, Iran, James Clapper, Jihad, Jussie Smollett, Lee Smith, LinkSwarm, Matt Taibbi, Media Watch, Mexico, Microsoft, Miguel Aleman, Military, missile defense, MSNBC, Navy, New Jersey, New Zealand, Robert Mueller, Rod Rosenstein, Roma (Texas), Russia, Scott Adams, Social Justice Warriors, Tamaulipas, USA Today, Victor Pinchuk, Zeta Drug Cartel
Posted in Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Media Watch, Military, Social Justice Warriors | 1 Comment »
Friday, May 12th, 2017
Lots of border control news at the top of today’s LinkSwarm:
“According to figures released yesterday, the number of illegal aliens crossing the U.S. southwestern border has dropped by an astonishing 76% since President Trump took office.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“Authorities Arrest 1,378 in ICE-Led Operation Targeting Gangs.” More: “The majority, 955, of those arrested were U.S. citizens, while 445 were foreign nationals from around the world.” Also: Three were Obama’s “Dreamers.”
“If the Trump administration is serious about controlling illegal immigration and illegal alien driven crime, it should begin by going after employers who hire illegal aliens. The move would not only help to prevent the exploitation of illegal immigrants, but it would also help to foster higher-paying jobs for American workers.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Maryland Democrats shocked, shocked to discover that legal immigrants who followed the rules aren’t wild about sanctuary city BS for illegal aliens. (Hat tip: Louder With Crowder via The Other McCain.)
“James Clapper: Still no evidence of any Russian collusion with Trump campaign.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
From the House to the Big House: Former Florida Democratic Representative Corrine Brown was found guilty on fraud and tax evasion charges.
Democrats had a real shot at winning the Omaha Mayor’s race…until the DNC came in and pulled all support to punish pro-life heresy.
“Aetna, one of the nation’s largest health insurers, has announced that it will exit all Affordable Care Act exchanges in 2018 after experiencing massive losses in 2016 and 2017.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
On the Democratic Party’s civil war:
If Obama is really responsible for Democrat losses, then the party and its donors just bought first class seats on the Titanic. That’s why Democrat autopsies of the defeat remain so explosive. Blame can be apportioned to white people, to racism, Islamophobia and to Global Warming, but not to Barack Obama.
Keith Ellison was the best messenger Sanders had to take a shot at Barry. Black loyalty to Obama is still the third rail of politics. And Ellison is one of the few black people in the Sanders inner circle. Obama’s pricey Wall Street speech offered the opportunity for a more direct attack from Bernie Sanders.
“I just think it is distasteful,” Bernie slurred on CNN. “At a time when we have so much income and wealth inequality … it just does not look good.”
The attack went to the heart of his differences with Obama. Unlike the Clinton era, the split is no longer between the left and the radical left. Obama and Sanders are both representatives of the radical left.
But they don’t represent the same radical left.
Bernie embodies the old left. Its mantra is class warfare. There is a great deal of talk about billionaires, working people and the ruling class. Obama pays lip service to that same rhetoric, but his is the program of the intersectional left. The intersectional left is far more interested in identity than class. It defines its organization around a coalition of racial, sexual and other minorities. Where Bernie wants to talk to the working class, the intersectional left wants to hear from transgender Muslim women of color.
The differences aren’t just intellectual. They define the tactics and agenda of the Democrats.
When Tom Perez, Obama’s DNC boss, recently read pro-life Democrats out of the party, he was following the Obama blueprint. Bernie meanwhile went on campaigning for a somewhat pro-life Dem. Bernie does not really care about abortion, gay rights, transgender bathrooms and the social issues of the intersectional left. The old Socialist follows the older slogan of the hard left. No war, but class war.
Snip.
Democrats and the left had long ago replaced pure class warfare with identity politics warfare. Intersectionality entirely displaced and demonized the old Dem white working class base.
And the Dems paid the price.
Obama’s reign torched most of the last of that white working class base. Trump’s victories would not have been possible if the Dems had not become a party of wealthy bicoastal urban and suburban elites who were out of touch with the South and the Rust Belt. And who were proud to be out of touch with a bunch of “ignorant racist, sexist homophobes” still “clinging to their guns and religion”.
The clash between Bernie and Obama is also over the autopsy of Hillary’s defeat. Did the Dems lose because they failed to turn out the base as effectively as Obama had or because former Obama voters had come out for Trump? Should the Dems try to appeal to working class whites with a class warfare pitch or work harder to turn out the intersectional coalitions of minority voters?
(Hat tip: Director Blue.)
The U.S. is arming Syrian Kurds fighting the Islamic State despite Turkish opposition. Good. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
10% of French voters turn up at polls only to spoil their ballot in disgust.
Mark Steyn covers the French election:
The French have voted to postpone their rendezvous with destiny. But kicking the croissant down the road means another half-decade of demographic transformation that lengthens the odds against ever winning the numbers to halt it….
Yet the fact is that, with the arrival of President Macron in the charmed circle, the leaders of Europe’s biggest economies and of all the European members of the G7 are childless: Germany’s Angela Merkel, Britain’s Theresa May, Italy’s Paolo Gentiloni, and now France’s Macron.
This would have been not just statistically improbable but all but impossible for most of human history. Whatever Euro-politics is about, it’s not, as Bill Clinton was wont to say, the future of all our children. Indeed, of the six founding members of the European Union – France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg – five are led by childless prime ministers: joining Merkel, Gentiloni and Macron at the no-need-for-daycare Euro-summit are the Dutch PM Mark Rutte and the Luxemburger Xavier Bettel. Mark Rutte is single and childless. Xavier Bettel of Lux is married, but gay and, hélas, for the moment without progeny….
That’s the demographics of Western Europe writ small. The Eurocrats are a Continental version of the Shakers: They’re apparently forbidden to breed, and can only increase their numbers through conversion. From Nice to Cologne to Rosengård, a significant proportion of New Europeans seem to think that, au contraire, they’ll be the ones doing the converting.
“Sally Yates was the real blackmailer.”
Nevada Democratic Senator Catherine Cortez Masto wants choose senators based on diversity rather than all those annoying elections. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Canada arrests 104 men on child sex trafficking charges. The Other McCain notices a certain pattern to the names of those arrested that will be familiar to those that followed the Rotherham child sex trafficking scandal:
Suresh Patel, 49; Muhammad Jaffer, 22; Muhammad Sarchami, 31; Hernando Carvajal, 29; Intekhab Shaikh, 42; Sakhi Alekozai, 29; Shamim Abowath, 54; Ruchir Shah, 34; Nima Latifpour, 25; Sanjay Ninan, 42; Jaipal Sidhu, 26; Adeniran Adekola, 33; Ming Wong, 39; Zan He, 33; Segundo Fernandez, 54; Anpalagan Kanapathipillai, 39; Navaneetharan Packianathan, 25; Rajorshi Bhaumik, 34; Miguel Feliciano, 38; Virushan Premanathan, 25; Suhayl Rajan, 24; Sivanesan Veerasingam, 50; Jamshid Jalilian, 25; Zhi Situ, 22; Tejash Patel, 33; Quang Tran, 37; Ravikumar Ghandhi, 31; Ahmad Hassan, 21; Anshu Manocha, 33; Sivaratnam Sinnappillai, 39; Naidu Matas, 54; Paramjit Sandhi, 35; Hari Bhaskar, 55; Ramy Kawar, 39; Zu Liang Xiao, 28; Ali Mansourinajand, 24; Ramiz Multani, 25
AC-130 gunship now comes with a 105mm Howitzer option. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Wargaming a second Korean war. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
U.S. Air Force’s robotic X-37B space plane finally lands after circling Earth for “an unprecedented 718 days.”
UT stabbing spree followup: The stabber “was suffering from mental illness and didn’t seem to be targeting anyone in particular during his Monday afternoon spree, police said Tuesday.”
“‘Chicago Is A War Zone’: Police Suicide Rate Surges To 60% Above The National Average.”
Gun-blogger Bob Owens dead of apparent suicide. Unlike many in the blogsphere, I didn’t know Owens personally, but we did follow each other on Twitter. RIP.
Windows 10 on ARM supports x86 apps, and Microsoft says your 32-bit applications should run just fine. Won’t make me use it, but for some people…
Behold the #BowWowChallenge.
Bucket-eye view of critters drinking water.
Tags:abortion, AC-130, Aetna, Angela Merkel, Austin, Bernie Sanders, Bob Owens, Border Controls, Canada, Catherine Cortez Masto, Chicago, China, Corrine Brown, Crime, Democrats, DNC, Emmanuel Macron, Europe, France, fraud, Guns, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Jihad, Kurds, LinkSwarm, Mark Rutte, Maryland, Microsoft, Miltary, murder, Nebraska, Nevada, North Korea, nuclear weapons, Paolo Gentiloni, pedophilia, rape, Russia, Sally Yates, Social Justice Warriors, South Korea, suicide, Syria, Texas, Theresa May, Tom Perez, Turkey, Welfare State, Xavier Bettel
Posted in Austin, Border Control, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Foreign Policy, Guns, Jihad, Military, ObamaCare, Social Justice Warriors, Texas, Waste and Fraud, Welfare State | 2 Comments »
Monday, October 24th, 2016
The latest Clinton Corruption update pushed the LinkSwarm to Monday:
National Review published Victor Davis Hanson’s endorsement of Donald Trump. And the moon became as blood…
“Trump leading in poll that has best track record over last three elections.”
The poll with the best track record over the last three presidential elections gave Donald Trump a 2-percentage-point edge over Hillary Clinton on Saturday.
The Investor’s Business Daily/TIPP tracking poll has Trump with 42.1 percent and Clinton at 39.7 percent.
Thoughts on #NeverTrump: “They are putting a great volume of energy into bringing about a disaster, for which they will not take any ownership.”
No one trusts the media anymore. “Only one in nine Americans believes that Hillary Clinton is ‘honest and trustworthy.’ They don’t trust the media’s cover-up of her misdeeds, and the cover-up of the cover-up of the cover-up.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
“Why I Now Feel Compelled To Vote For Trump“:
More than anything, I can’t sit idly by and allow these perpetrators of fraud to celebrate and leak tears of joy like they did when they helped elect Barack Obama in 2008. I have to know I weighed in not only in writing but in the voting booth. The media needs to be destroyed. And although voting for Trump won’t do it, it’s something. Essentially, I am voting for Trump because of the people who don’t want me to, and I believe I must register my disgust with Hillary Clinton.
(Hat tip: Director Blue.)
And speaking of media bias, the Rolling Stone campus rape hoax case goes to trial. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Here’s a New Yorker piece on the failure of the Euro. It provides a good, but incomplete, overview of the Euro’s failure (nowhere does it note that Europe’s cradle-to-grave welfare state is unsustainable, and it fails to note that none of the nations practicing “austerity” in southern Europe have cut outlays to match receipts). And the myopic policy prescription offered is, of course, more central planning. But there are some good bits. Like this:
The U.S. unemployment rate hit ten per cent for a single month in 2009 and is now below five per cent; the eurozone unemployment rate hit ten per cent around the same time, and is still in double digits. In some European countries, youth unemployment is more than forty per cent. America’s economy is bigger than it was when the crisis hit. The eurozone’s is smaller. To take just one example, Italy, the third-largest economy in the eurozone, has a per-capita G.D.P. that’s lower than it was at the end of the last century.
Also this:
Stiglitz observes that if the countries that committed to the single currency in 1992 had known what they know now, and if people had had the chance to vote on the proposal, “it is hard to see how they could have supported it.” That’s a hell of an indictment.
Hey, remember how we were told California’s assisted suicide law would only apply to terminally ill people who wanted to die? Now insurance companies are enouraging suicide rather than pay for life-extending drug treatments.
Even The New York Times figures out that new gun laws wouldn’t prevent most mass shootings.
Russia is conducting nuclear survival drills. (WSJ hoops apply.) Good thing we have Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama running things rather than that warmonger Bush… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
College isn’t for everyone:
But if you’re not sure yet what you want to do, then take time to decide before you spend $30,000, $50,000, or $100,000 you don’t have for something you don’t need. In the meantime, start working. You’ll probably only find low-paying, hard-working jobs at first, but guess what? If you go to college, you’ll be working those same jobs when you get out, only you’ll be four years older and fifty grand poorer.
Scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee have discovered a chemical reaction to turn CO2 into ethanol. Better idea than corn subsidies…
The Large Hadron Collider “nightmare scenario has come true:
For the last ten years you’ve been told that the LHC must see some new physics besides the Higgs because otherwise nature isn’t “natural” – a technical term invented to describe the degree of numerical coincidence of a theory. I’ve been laughed at when I explained that I don’t buy into naturalness because it’s a philosophical criterion, not a scientific one. But on that matter I got the last laugh: Nature, it turns out, doesn’t like to be told what’s presumably natural.
Hamilton County, Tennessee doesn’t monitor parole tracking devices outside business hours. A good thing people never commit parole violations nights and weekends… (Hat tip: Fark.)
This just in: Democratic Representative Shelia Jackson Lee is still an idiot.
AT&T trying to buy Time Warner. I’ve got a bad feeling about this…
Internet-connected CCTV cameras made by Chinese firm Hangzhou Xiongmai Technology seemed to make up the heart of the botnet used in Friday’s DDoS attack.
Yuan hits all time low against the dollar.
Microsoft Surface sucks.
Texas is goat country.
Tags:#NeverTrump, AT&T, California, CO2, Crime, Donald Trump, Economics, Euro, European Debt Crisis, Eurozone, Guns, Hamilton County (TN), Hangzhou Xiongmai Technology, Hillary Clinton, Media Watch, Microsoft, Military, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, polls, rape, Rolling Stone, Russia, Shelia Jackson Lee, suicide, Texas, Time Warner, Victor Davis Hanson
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Economics, Elections, Guns, Media Watch, Military, Texas | No Comments »
Monday, May 23rd, 2016
This kept getting pushed out by other posts, so enjoy a heftier-than-usual LinkSwarm:
U.S. district court judge rules that House Republicans lawsuit against ObamaCare on separation-of-powers grounds can move forward. (Hat tip: Elizabeth Price Foley at Instapundit.)
You know how American leftists claim socialist Denmark is paradise on earth? Yeah, not so much. “Denmark’s suicide rate has averaged 20.8 per 100,000 during the last five decades, with its highest level of 32. The American suicide rate averaged only 11.1 during the last five decades, and has never exceeded 12.7. Danes are deeply deprived, driven by severe narcissism, and so more than 11 percent of adult Danes – the supposed happiest people in the world – are on antidepressants.”
Why the left hates the Jews:
The Arab–Israeli conflict is a bitter and ugly one. My own view of it is that the Palestinian Arabs have some legitimate grievances, and that I stopped caring about them when they started blowing up children in pizza shops. You can thank the courageous heroes of the Battle of Sbarro for that. Israel isn’t my country, but it is my country’s ally, and it is impossible for a liberty-loving American to fail to admire what the Jewish state has done.
And that, of course, is why the Left wants to see the Jewish state exterminated.
Vaguely related: “Frank Sinatra’s Love Affair With the Jewish People.”
Brazil’s President impeached.
This just in: Europe is still screwed.
Greece approves new “austerity” measures that they’ll no doubt continue to cheat and ignore while spending money they don’t have.
Speaking of Greece, “More than one in five school-aged refugee children in Greece have never been to school, a study has revealed. Child refugees stranded in Greece have been out of school for on average 1.5 years, and many of them ‘cannot even hold a pencil.'”
Hezbollah operations chief killed by Syria, but nobody’s entirely sure by who.
Why did the feds give Bill Clinton’s pedophile friend Jeffrey Epstein a sweetheart deal?
Elijah Woods says there’s widespread pedophilia in Hollywood. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
One billionaire moving to Florida is going to cost New Jersey $140 million in tax revenue.
Electric cars don’t lower emissions overall.
No sign of a down ballot Republican crackup.
Target has shed $10 billion in stock value since announcing its tranny bathrooms policy.
Why feminists hate sex: “The new feminist puritans see heterosexual sex as confirming and reinforcing outdated gender roles. That men and women not only have sex but enjoy it is a threat to the notion that both gender and sexuality are merely social constructs, to be crafted and rejected as instinct takes us.”
Why did 16 Republican Senators save the agency that’s hell-bent on creating instant public housing slums across America?
More than 300 UK CEOs come out in favor of a Brexit.
Eye-open infographic on mass public shootings from John Lott.
More proof that Social Justice Warriors hate everything, no matter how cute.
World’s oldest woman, and last living American born in the 19th century, dies. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Listeria outbreak among frozen fruits and vegetables. “Some of the affected products were sold under brand names such as Earth’s Pride, Panda Express, Signature Kitchens and Trader Joe’s.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Meet the vegan Bernie Madoff. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
Black Pimps Matter.
Safety tip: Try not to get killed over cutting in line for the taco truck.
Facebook bans conservative for saying that Facebook bans conservatives. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Canadian company working on 20km high space elevator.
Jim Geraghty visits NRRAM.
The Dallas convention center sucks.
Microsoft is gonna Microsoft redux. (Hat tip: Borepatch.)
Wikipedia editor contemplates suicide over toxic atmosphere of powertripping.
Rehab for Internet addiction. “The program costs $25,000 for 45 days at the center.” Obviously I can’t be addicted to the Internet, because there’s no way I could afford the rehab…
I’m stealing this from Ace of Spades HQ:
Tags:2016 Election, Austin, Brexit, Crime, Democrats, Denmark, Elections, electric cars, Elijah Woods, Facebook, feminists, Florida, Frank Sinatra, Guns, Hezbollah, Hollywood, Israel, Jeffrey Epstein, Jews, Jihad, Jim Geraghty, John Lott, Kevin D. Williamson, Lolita Express, Microsoft, ObamaCare, pedophilia, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Syria, Target, Texas, Trader Joe's, Tranny Bathrooms, UK, vegans, Wikipedia
Posted in Austin, Crime, Democrats, Elections, Guns, Jihad, ObamaCare, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | No Comments »
Monday, May 2nd, 2016
I expected to spend the weekend at the Levitation Music Festival here in Austin, but it got cancelled when it looked like t was going to be rained out. However, I did see a makeup show by Slowdive, which was the biggest reason I was attending anyway.
Scott Adams: “I give Clinton a 50% chance of making it to November with sufficiently good health to be considered a viable president.”
Hillary wants to make it illegal to criticize her.
Indiana governor Mike Pence endorses Ted Cruz.
Once again, Team Cruz wins the delegate selection fight, this time in Arizona, Missouri and Virginia.
Latest poll has Trump and Clinton tied.
Trump isn’t fighting the establishment, he’s part of it. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
It’s good for the sake of the world that Islamic State fighters are no-talent assclowns. Maybe they should have drilled them more on military tactics than reciting the Koran. See how many basic military squad function mistakes you can count them making in this video.
Obama releases Islamic terrorist who helped attack the USS Cole. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
How progressives embraced eugenics with the same fervor they embrace global warming today. (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
Waco biker fight update, including various (inconclusive) videos.
“More than two decades ago, we heard the ‘misplaced fears’ and predictions of shootouts in the streets of Texas because of the CHL law. It didn’t happen — and it won’t happen because of SB 11, either.”
Abortion clinics are closing in blue states as well.
Rabid Puppies dominate the Hugo nominations again. The science fiction establishment was given the opportunity to address Sad Puppies concerns, but instead they continued to doubled down by backing the Social Justice Warriors at every turn. This has turned Sad Puppy voters into Rabid Puppy voters. The 2015 Hugos: “There are problems, but Vox Day is an odious troll.” The 2016 Hugos: “You know what? Fuck them. They deserve Vox Day.”
Microsoft gonna Microsoft.
Dyson launches a new hairdryer. I really like their vacuum cleaner, which is wonderful for picking up golden retriever hair…
For a brief, shining moment, something interesting actually happened at a soccer game.
This time of year there’s just so much pollen in the air.
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, abortion, Arizona, Bandidos Motorcycle Gang, CHL, Cossacks Motorcycle Gang, Crime, Deadpool, Democrats, Donald Trump, Elections, eugeneics, Hillary Clinton, Hugo Awards, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Jihad, Microsoft, Mike Pence, Military, Missouri, Rabid Puppies, Republicans, Sad Puppies, Scott Adams, Social Justice Warriors, Ted Cruz, terrorism, Texas, USS Cole Bombing, Virginia, Vox Day, Waco
Posted in Crime, Democrats, Elections, Guns, Jihad, Military, Republicans, Social Justice Warriors, Texas | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 1st, 2015
So Hillary’s Super Secret Secure Server was actually hosted on the same server as the not secret and not particularly secure Clinton Foundation email system.
Which means any hacker that could pwn the Clinton Foundation server (and why wouldn’t they?) could almost certainly pwn Hillary’s private e-mail server, chock full of illegal classified national security information, through any number of exploits or privilege escalation attacks.
And evidently she was running her emails off an Exchange 2010 Server, which meant it was running on top of Windows, which means there were no end of exploits by which a dedicated hacker could gain control.
“Oh hey! I’m hosting this list of ISIS secret agents on my Doom III deathmatch server! I’m sure there’s no way that could possibly backfire on me!”
Or to put it in non-computer terms, she was storing classified information in an unlocked tin box under her bed that everyone in her neighborhood also knew contained bundles of unmarked $100 bills, and she was just hoping no one broke in.
She’s a major security risk that should never, ever be in the oval office…
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Crime, Democrats, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Scandals, Microsoft, technology
Posted in Crime, Democrats | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 9th, 2015
Hey, remember how Microsoft and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation were collectively the largest donor to the Clinton Foundation?
Well, guess who’s going to be providing the technical infrastructure to tally vote totals for the Iowa Caucuses?
On Friday, the state’s Democratic and Republican partiesannounced a new system that will be used to count the votes cast by Iowans during the complicated election process. Authorized precinct representatives will use new apps to report results to their party headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa’s capital, when the election takes place early next year.
The system is powered by Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform and was built by the tech giant in collaboration with its partner InterKnowlogy, which also made CNN’s Magic Wall election result reporting tool. It replaces a set-up that required precinct representatives to call into automated phone systems with no way of authenticating whether the person was authorized to do so and then record votes using their phone’s keypad. Representatives also mailed paper records to the party’s central office.
If I were one of Hillary’s primary opponents, I’d think I’d want to look at that source code before trusting those tallies to be fair and accurate…
Tags:2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Bill Gates, Clinton Foundation, Iowa, Microsoft
Posted in Democrats, Elections | No Comments »
Friday, May 1st, 2015
From the blind-squirrel-finds-an-acorn department, here’s another rare interesting and useful piece from Vox that actually lists 181 major donors to the Clinton Foundation that also had business with Hillary Clinton’s State Department.
Tidbits:
Microsoft/The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was the number one donor, giving at least $26,000,000, and possibly a great deal more, as no upper limit was reported.
The State of Qatar (and “related entities”) was the fourth largest donor, giving between $1,375,000 and $5,800,000. Rich Qatar individuals are also among the biggest backers of the Islamic State.
Goldman Sachs was the fifth largest donor, giving between $1,250,000 and $5,500,000. So much for all that “Occupy Wall Street” rhetoric from Democrats…
ExxonMobil was the ninth largest donor, and gave between $1,001,000 and $5,005,000. By liberal standards, shouldn’t this disqualify Hillary from talking about global warming ever again?
The “Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa,” of which I was heretofore unaware, was tied for giving the tenth largest amount, between $1,000,000 and $5,000,000. They’re a Gates Foundation-backed entity that appears (from cursory research) to be pushing genetically modified crops (including those from Monsanto and Cargill) as a solution to Africa’s hunger problems. The question is why the money flows from Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa to the Clintons and not the other way around. Except, of course, for the fact that the money always seems to flow to the Clintons, and not the other way around…
Monsanto themselves gave between $501,250 and $1,006,000.
The American Cancer Society gave between $100,000 and $250,000. Why is the Cancer Society giving money to the Clinton Foundation? Has anyone asked?
Semiconductor equipment giant Applied Materials (for which I worked for four years more than a decade ago) gave between $100,000 and $250,000. Doing business globally, there are many reasons they could have sought favorable rulings from the State Department. However, some semiconductor equipment (specifically ion implanters, and possibly others) can be used (with modification) to enrich uranium.
This just scratches the surface on a Clinton Foundation scandal where new revelations seem to be dropping every day. But it’s a solid jumping-off point for additional research.
Also, it offers a opportunity to troll liberals: “Do you think that Ted Cruz receiving money from Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil and Monsanto makes him a tool of big business?” Then after they answer…
Tags:2016 Presidential Race, Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa, American Cancer Society, Applied Materials, Bill Gates, Cargill, Clinton Foundation, Democrats, Elections, ExxonMobil, Goldman Sachs, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clinton Scandals, Microsoft, Monsanto, Qatar, Vox.com
Posted in Democrats, Elections | No Comments »
Friday, November 21st, 2014
Here in Austin, we’re enjoying a temporary respite from Winter in November, but I don’t expect it to last long.
Links!
All the lies of ObamCare:
The growing impression that politicians don’t play straight with their constituents is completely toxic, particularly to Democrats, who actually want to use government to improve people’s lives. It’s one thing to downplay unpalatable choices made in the law; it’s another to never disclose the consequences of legislation until it’s too late for anyone to react. Combine that with the moustache-twirling of a Jonathan Gruber, saying that the idiots should be happy for what they got, and you have basically every conservative stereotype about liberal elites confirmed.
Also: ObamaCare is designed for people buying insurance through it to get a nasty sticker shock in year two. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
House Republicans file suit over Obama’s unilateral actions on ObamaCare.
The administration is lying about ObamaCare signup numbers. Again.
“Why Texas Could Remain a Republican Stronghold for Another Generation.”
“The president’s promises have been proven to be worthless…How many illegal immigrants want to come out of the shadows and identify themselves to law enforcement based upon this promise?”
Jay Carney admits that with his illegal alien amnesty, Obama is doing something he previously called unconstitutional.
Mickey Kaus thinks the courts could very well act quickly to squash Obama’s illegal amnesty, much as they did with Harry Truman’s steel mill seizures.
Aaron Worthing thinks illegals will pass on Obama’s amnesty as a bad deal.
“These illegal aliens are willing to do the work that Americans will no longer do — namely, vote Democrat.”
How desperate are the Democrats? They’re saying Republican opposition to Obama’s illegal alien amnesty will lead to ethnic cleansing. (Hat tip: Moe Lane.)
Top Obama bundler arrested on child rape charges.
Lefty lawyer Alan Derschowitz on Harvard’s kangaroo court sexual assault rules: “Harvard’s policy was written by people who think sexual assault is so heinous a crime that even innocence is not a defense.”
How come Bill Cosby gets convicted in the media for rape allegations by Bill Clinton gets a pass? “There is more sympathy for a white southerner like Clinton than a black comic like Cosby.”
A giant leap backward for woman-kind.
Price of ground beef hits record highs.
Oh lovely: Microsoft is deploying Daleks.
Tags:Alan Dershowitz, Bill Cosby, Border Controls, due process, feminism, inflation, Jonathan Gruber, Microsoft, ObamaCare, rape, Regulation, Republicans, Texas
Posted in Democrats, Economics, Elections, ObamaCare, Regulation, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 24th, 2010
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Sadly, Jihad doesn’t wait for American holidays, so here’s a roundup of related news:
- 13-year old Pakistani girl gang-raped by members of the ruling party for her brother’s involvement in helping another woman get married to the man she loved (rather than an arranged marriage).
- Not wild about the Ground Zero Mosque? You might be paying for it.
- Even The New York Times notices Britain’s jihad schools. All it took was a program on the BBC. Maybe the Beeb could do a piece on how higher taxes and bigger government are actually unpopular among Americans…
- New “anti-bullying” law may just be another way to restrict politically incorrect speech on campus…including criticism of the Religion of Peace.
- Oppressive Middle Eastern regime with ties to terrorist groups stonewalling International Atomic Energy Agency about their nuclear program. Hmmm, for some reason that scenario sounds strangely familiar…
- Hezbollah threatens to take over Lebanon.
- It’s not a surprise when Pakistani officials defend the Taliban, since they were essentially created by the Pakistani ISI. However, it’s a bit more surprising when it comes from the Minister of Tourism.
- Of course, The Pakistani ISI are not to be confused with the Islamic State of Iraq terrorist group, which is currently railing against…Microsoft? (You have to be an MEMRI subscriber to see the full report. I may have to sign up…)
- This week’s winner in Irrational Fatwa Bingo is…blood donations.
- Finally, less a link than a question. Yesterday, in the course of fisking the latest WaPo gun control article, Dwight at Whipped Cream Difficulties linked to this table of law enforcement deaths over the last decade. The odd thing is that it shows 5 police deaths by terrorism in 2007, and despite racking my brain, I can’t think of any terrorist incidents that involved police officers that year. Can anyone figure out how and where those five deaths occured?
Tags:Free Speech, Ground Zero Mosque, honor killing, Jihad, MEMRI, Microsoft, nuclear weapons, Pakistan, Pakistani ISI, rape, Syria, This Week in Jihad, WMD
Posted in Crime, Foreign Policy, Jihad, Media Watch | 2 Comments »