DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen Is Leaving Wednesday. Will Her Replacement Be Worse?: Reason Roundup
Plus: The U.K. wants to be "the safest place in the world to be online," and Mike Gravel is running for president.
An impossible job? Kirstjen Nielsen announced Sunday that on April 10, she'll be stepping down as head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Customs and Border Protection chief Kevin McAleenan will then become acting secretary of DHS.
Nielsen's resignation comes less than a year and a half after she replaced John Kelly. Kelly went on to become President Donald Trump's chief of staff, but he left that position in January. "With McAleenan's appointment, Trump now has an acting homeland security secretary, defense secretary, interior secretary and chief of staff," notes Axios.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen will be leaving her position, and I would like to thank her for her service….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 7, 2019
Nielsen "has arguably been the most aggressive secretary in the department's short history in cracking down on immigration—with her legacy likely to be defined among progressives by the 'zero tolerance' prosecution policy of late spring and early summer 2018 that resulted in the separation of thousands of families at the US-Mexico border," writes immigration reporter Dara Lind. Alas:
None of it appears to have been enough for Trump.
Nielsen's resignation was preceded on Thursday night by the abrupt withdrawal of the nomination of acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement director Ron Vitiello to formally lead the agency, with Trump telling reporters Friday morning that he wanted to go in a "tougher direction." While it's not yet clear whether Trump requested Nielsen's resignation or not, it certainly appears as if that "tougher direction" is extending to a new DHS secretary….
[W]ith nearly 100,000 migrants apprehended by Border Patrol agents along the US-Mexico border in March, Trump is yet again ruminating angrily and obsessively over immigration, riffing in speeches about telling migrants "we're full" and "go back."
Nielsen couldn't make that happen, because no one could, because it's impossible. The US can't—even with a wall—physically prevent the entry of unauthorized immigrants onto US soil. And once on US soil, they have certain rights—including the right to request asylum.
The one silver lining here seems to be that there's not much more McAleenan, or any Nielsen replacement, can legally do.
Even during Kelly's tenure as DHS head, "the low-hanging fruit of deterrent immigration policies had been picked a long time ago," writes Lind. She continues:
US immigration law is a balance between the desire to minimize unauthorized entry into the United States and the desire to protect vulnerable people who may be fleeing harm and persecution. Both US and international law prohibit the US from refusing entry to people who are in danger of prosecution in their home countries; both US statute and court settlements offer extra due-process protections to asylum seekers, children, and families.
The policies Trump wants, and the outcomes he has promised, aren't within the power of the White House or the Department of Homeland Security.
As for Acting Secretary McAleenan's prospects: He's shown no particular signs of being better or worse than the average border hawk. He has presided over some of the worst immigration actions and abuses of the Trump administration, while refusing to endorse the very worse of Trump's rhetoric. He's "not an ideologue or fire breather," an anonymous DHS officially tells CNN.
Kevin McAleenan is a career border officer. He "looks the part" better than Nielsen. But he's not the dude who blames Ds for everything or talks of "invasion." & he—like any other human on earth—can't physically stop migrants from setting foot on US soil. https://t.co/YMKG55w4Pi
— Dara Lind (@DLind) April 7, 2019
FREE MARKETS
"The safest place in the world to be online." A new internet regulation proposal backed by U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May would give regulatory bodies there "unprecedented powers to issue fines and other punishments if social-media sites don't swiftly remove" offending content. British authorities are touting it as a way to ensure the U.K. is "the safest place in the world to be online." Right now, the proposal "comes in the form of a white paper that eventually will yield new legislation," reports The Washington Post:
Early details shared Sunday proposed that lawmakers set up a new, independent regulator tasked to ensure companies "take responsibility for the safety of their users." That oversight—either through a new agency or part of an existing one—would be funded by tech companies, potentially through a new tax.
The agency's mandate would be vast, from policing large social-media platforms such as Facebook to smaller web sites' forums or comment sections. Much of its work would focus on content that could be harmful to children or pose a risk to national security. But regulators ultimately could play a role in scrutinizing a broader array of online harms, the U.K. said, including content "that may not be illegal but are nonetheless highly damaging to individuals or threaten our way of life in the U.K." The document offers a litany of potential areas of concern, including hate speech, coercive behavior and underage exposure to illegal content such as dating apps that are meant for people over age 18.
FREE MINDS
Raunch-rhetoric realignment? These are words I never thought I'd type but…an interesting Matthew Yglesias thread:
Here's a hypothesis I have without much hard data.
There's been a decades-long debate in the US between Christian conservatives and feminists but also a third force in the debate that rarely articulates a self-conscious ideology — a sort of raunch culture.
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) April 7, 2019
More here.
ELECTION 2020
Mike Gravel is officially in:
It. Is. On.
Sen. Mike Gravel has officially filed to run for president. Our only aim is pushing the field left by appearing in the Democratic debates.
Donate as little as you like, but help us get to the necessary 65k donors! Official launch is April 8.https://t.co/eDC2ykdaL3
— Mike Gravel (@MikeGravel) April 2, 2019
QUICK HITS
- "A pregnant mother is facing disorderly conduct charges in Georgia for allowing her 3-year-old son to relieve himself in public," reports AP.
- "When people ask me, how the Trump era is adjusting my political views, my answer is simple: It's making me more libertarian," writes David French at National Review. "It's making me more concerned about the fate of the Constitution. I trust the government less, I'm more appalled at its sweeping assumptions of power, and I see more clearly what happens when its leaders—possessed with unwavering self-righteousness—believe that the ends justify the means."
- In China, a new app called Study the Great Nation pumps out Communist propaganda all day, directly to citizens' smartphones, and awards them for reading. "Many employers now require workers to submit daily screenshots documenting how many points they have earned," says The New York Times.
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Customs and Border Protection chief Kevin McAleenan will then become acting secretary of DHS.
Poor bastard.
Hello.
Sad Beard.
/sad trombone.
Trump is a results-oriented, no excuses guy, just like Abraham Lincoln was.
In the same way that Lincoln had to keep on firing generals over and over and over again until he finally found a few who were actually willing to carry out his desires to win the Civil War, Trump is going to continue to fire people until he finally finds some who are going to carry out his policies instead of giving him excuses why it can’t be done.
Especially if the excuse is that something literally cannot be done.
Yes, “It can’t be done” is exactly what a lot of Lincoln’s early war generals told him.
His response to that was “Bullshit, it can and it will”. And history of course proved him right.
A “triumph of the will,” if you will.
Lol, nice!
“No other terms than unconditional and immediate surrender. I propose to move immediately upon your works. ”
-Ulysses S. Grant
Grant does seem like a real lacky or “Riefenstahl”.
More specifically, the response was “It can’t be done without killing hundreds of thousands of people on both sides.”
And history proved the generals right.
Wow, that’s some good shit right there. Don’t bogart that blunt!
I mean, you’re holding up a guy who suspended habeas corpus because it was inconvenient for him as your role model.
British authorities are touting it as a way to ensure the U.K. is “the safest place in the world to be online.”
Unless you say something that is subjectively thought of as offensive.
Our only aim is pushing the field left by appearing in the Democratic debates.
Um…
Trump may end up funding this guy’s campaign for him.
I think they might be referring to an actual antiwar position, since that seemed to have been the main thrust of Gravel’s campaign the last time he ran. More antiwar candidates are always good in the debates.
“Lefter! Lefter I tell you!”
smdh
Whew, they dodged a close one there. The Democratic field was obviously dangerously close to some kind of right wing extremism.
If they could actually see a position held by Bill Clinton during the 1990’s they’ve veered off to the alt-Right.
A pregnant mother is facing disorderly conduct charges in Georgia for allowing her 3-year-old son to relieve himself in public…
Well, if he’s like every other 3-year-old, he likely dropped his pants to his ankles to do so.
Wait, are you saying it’s only normal for toddlers to pee with their pants pulled all the way down. I guess that explains all the offended looks I get when I use the women’s restroom.
Feels Good Man
The Georgia Uniform Traffic Citation (UTC) was filled out by a T. Beasley of the Richmond County (Augusta) Sheriff’s Department. The RCSD has a Todd Beasley listed as a deputy on their website.
Is the world going crazy, or am I just getting old?
You’re not going crazy. You’re going sane in a crazy world!
The correct answer was, “Yes.”
When people ask me, how the Trump era is adjusting my political views, my answer is simple: It’s making me more libertarian…
It should do that for anyone left of center, too. If someone like Trump could be elected (and possibly re-elected) then a smaller, less powerful federal government – particularly executive – might be the cure. But that’s not the thought process.
Spoken like a true Nazi sympathizer.
The only cure for this sort of authoritarian nightmare is to more tightly restrict political speech. It is known.
We need a cabinet level Minister of Truth to reign in the authoritarian impulses of Trump and his ilk. This is why Zuckerberg and his cohort have been forced to step into the void created by the lack of regulation from the government, and why they are calling for the government to stop shirking its duties in controlling dangerous speech.
This is why we must pass the Green New Deal immediately. It is only a first step, but a necessary one. The Republicans must be forced to stop blocking the Green New Deal and allow the people to take back their country!
Kirstjen Nielsen announced Sunday that on April 10, she’ll be stepping down as head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
All the hot women keep leaving.
I miss Hope Hicks.
I hope hicks miss.
I, hick, miss hope.
I’ve mishoped a lot of things.
PALO ALTO WOMAN FIRED AFTER SHE SCREAMS AT AND DOXXES OLD MAN IN MAGA HAT
Both Mankey and the old man commented on how no one else in the Starbucks cafe spoke up and sided with either of them.
This may be hard to believe because Starbucks, but sometimes people just want to buy a fucking coffee and get on with their day.
Well, he was very dangerous.
Commies are so easily triggered by a MAGA hat these days.
I’m tempted to get one that said “Made You Look” just to see what kind of reactions I get.
You may know that such hats are in fact available.
https://etsy.me/2FW70ZM
Wow, lady. That’s nuts. The sad part is, this is not nearly the only person thinking this.
It’s Palo Alto. Granted I’m a bit surprised no one else was screaming along with here, but the attitude that one is duty bound to scream at people for wearing hats is there. Everything else must have been Stanford students just trying to get a degree, and not native to the city.
I’m trying to remember the last time I saw an post about anyone screaming in the face of a pussy-hat wearer in Chik-fil-a.
Can you imagine being her husband?
Ugh. Now I need the brainbleach.
This dumb bitch is 47 years old, and she’s shrieking at a total stranger in a Starbucks like a drug-addled homeless person.
Her whole rant is a testimony to the solipsism and general psychosis of the modern progressive in their native habitat.
Joe Biden’s 2020 Ukrainian nightmare: A closed probe is revived
Two years after leaving office, Joe Biden couldn’t resist the temptation last year to brag to an audience of foreign policy specialists about the time as vice president that he strong-armed Ukraine into firing its top prosecutor.
In his own words, with video cameras rolling, Biden described how he threatened Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in March 2016 that the Obama administration would pull $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees, sending the former Soviet republic toward insolvency, if it didn’t immediately fire Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin.
…But Ukrainian officials tell me there was one crucial piece of information that Biden must have known but didn’t mention to his audience: The prosecutor he got fired was leading a wide-ranging corruption probe into the natural gas firm Burisma Holdings that employed Biden’s younger son, Hunter, as a board member.
Mueller is pretty much available to look into this, no?
He is in between jobs at the moment.
Identical twins both ordered to pay child support after inconclusive paternity test
Family law is an absolute shit-show.
The sad part is that they apparently both fucked the same woman, otherwise there wouldn’t have been a need for a paternity test for both of them to begin with.
Uh, that’s impossible.
If both twins had fucked the same woman, she would have been pregnant with quadruplets.
Don’t you know basic math?
*unzips pants*
*heavy breathing*
Easy, tiger, everyone will get their turn.
Yeah just go hang out by the punchbowl with Brett.
Yeah just go hang out by the punchbowl with Brett.
Yeah just go hang out by the punchbowl with Brett.
I saw that video. It is not as bad as you think. It is only MFM.
That a paternity test between identical twins proves inconclusive is anything but mystifying.
This pretty much sums it up: “Like other media outlets, we generally parroted #SPLC press releases. We also became friends with SPLC staffers, occasionally attending the center’s parties. Some of my reporters dated staffers at the center.”
Thousands in Britain left to go blind due to eye surgery rationing: Report
I’ve always appreciated our alleys across the pond being two steps ahead with the progressive nonsense. It tends to assist conservatives in keeping things sane over here.
*allies
“keeping things sane”
Ha, ha, ha, ha! Ooooh…. ha, ha!
Hilarious! Man, the sarcasm on HnR is the best….
Nothing to see here, move along.
Mick Jagger, who is if not a billionaire is close to being one, had his heart surgury in New York rather than in the socialist paradise of the UK because reasons!!
I thought he changed his citizenship to American long ago? I could be misremembering..
But he’s not the dude who blames Ds for everything or talks of “invasion.”
So what good is he then?
National board of science and technology in Mexico goes full postmodernism:
“Scientific, rational, hegemonic and colonialist thinking should be replaced with a transversal and multidimensional dialogue of knowledges.”
Something got lost in the translation.
When in doubt, blame the cartels
In China, a new app called Study the Great Nation pumps out Communist propaganda all day, directly to citizens’ smartphones, and awards them for reading.
Republicans here can do that with the Fox News app and Democrats, when in power, can do that with MSNBC’s or CNN’s or NBC News’ app. (I assume they all have apps.)
You can make any nation less productive with this one crazy trick!
Do they monitor citizens to see who is patriotically using the app and who isn’t?
“It’s making me more concerned about the fate of the Constitution. I trust the government less, I’m more appalled at its sweeping assumptions of power, and I see more clearly what happens when its leaders?possessed with unwavering self-righteousness?believe that the ends justify the means.”
But everything will be OK again once a leader with the right views is back in charge.
Mike Gravel is officially in
The clown car just got a little more full of clowns.
They’re not “clowns.” Everybody who is seeking the Democratic nomination brings something valuable to the table.
(Except Tulsi Gabbard.)
You are right. Clowns mean to be absurd.
DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen Is Leaving Wednesday. Will Her Replacement Be Worse?
By “worse” ENB means that fewer illegals will be allowed to cross the US Border.
Of course, what Americans want is “worse” too.
I didn’t know ENB’d come down with Shika disease. Is there anyone on the staff that isn’t infected?
California May Be Coming for You
That is….wow.
California is retarded beyond belief.
And probably some other states with sales taxes too.
More bad economic news.
Boeing shares fall 4% after Bank of America downgrades stock on 737 Max production delays
GE shares dive after downgrade by top analyst Tusa at JP Morgan; price target cut to $5
#DrumpfRecession
#UnbanPalinsButtplug
Baby boomers are dying at a faster rate under Trump than under any prior president!
Death rate of civil war vets is the best it’s ever been though.
Reality bites Beto after high-flying kickoff: The Texan is campaigning strong, but he’s no longer in the stratosphere.
Welch’s Beto Boner is still hard as a finishing nail.
Welch can get a boner?
Welch is going to get a new boner for Buttigieg. He is a scared homosexual. The entire reason staff must be weeping for joy at the prospect of voting for a gay socialist.
Watching the national news this morning, it looks like the DNC is seriously pushing this guy. They ran glowing profiles that could have been written by his staff on all of the networks I skipped by. Every single one prominently featured his military photos and his faith.
The guy is the mayor of a city that is worse than Camden or East St. Louis. How can being the failed mayor of one of the worst if not the worst city in America make you a Presidential contender?
They covered that on those broadcasts I mentioned.
He revitalized the city by tearing down over 1,000 homes that were standing vacant. He beautified the place and brought business back to town. He made no excuses and turned everything around!
Also interesting: they all covered his struggle with homosexuality and his proud defiance today in the same way – they prominently featured pictures and video of his military service while speaking about the topic.
I didn’t see any pictures of him with his husband or his wedding as they discussed those things. Only pictures of him in fatigues.
You want to know how I know you are a part of the propaganda machine? You all cover the topic of someone being proudly and openly gay and married by showing me pictures of him in his army gear and no pictures of him being openly gay and married.
No sane human says “we need a photo to go with the part of the story about him being a married gay man. Get me a shot from his army days!” The only sane shot would be his wedding photos – a smiling, happy couple being celebrated by their friends and family.
You don’t show Prince Harry’s marriage by pulling a photo from his days in the military. Yet every one of the outlets I saw used the same photos. I wonder how that happens?
The guy is the mayor of a city that is worse than Camden or East St. Louis. How can being the failed mayor of one of the worst if not the worst city in America make you a Presidential contender?
He’s also the son of a Marxist professor who pushed Gramsci’s works.
I read an article by Andrew Sullivan gushing over this guy and my first thought was “wait, is Andrew Sullivan gay?” He sure is. How boring and predictable. What will be interesting is to see how much coverage Drudge gives to this guy.
He is a scared homosexual.
What is he scared of?
Sacred. My mistake.
Ah… makes much more sense.
Still, he only checks one box, even if he checks it twice by being married.
He needs to convert to Islam and find some native american ancestry to really sew things up…
John always hides behind his typos.
What is A Typos?
I thought it actually worked really well the way you stated it!
Yeah, glossed right past that…. what is he supposed to be scared of? He doesn’t seem scared.
Although he does seem to want to litigate old gay rights issues. I suppose because public opinion has already factored those in, and if he can get someone to take the opposing view he comes out a winner?
He is a scared homosexual.
Pete Buttplug or Welchie Boy?
But he’s not the dude who blames Ds for everything or talks of “invasion.” & he?like any other human on earth?can’t physically stop migrants from setting foot on US
Its amazing people are dumb enough to actually believe this shit.
Here’s who owns everything in Big Media today
Ah…crony capitalism at work.
It’s the Jews, right? I hear they own everything now.
I know YOU hate Jews but the article explains which media giants own what.
I don’t hate Jews specifically, I hate everyone.
Ah.
“California Floats Proposal to Tie Corporate Tax Rate to CEO Pay”
[…]
“…Proponents of the bill argue the measure would push “companies to put less money into the hands of their CEOs and more into the hands of average employees.” But I’m not convinced the outcomes would be as proponents intend…”
http://taxfoundation.org/calif…..te-ceo-pay
I’m pretty sure it will lead to some really clever accounting and possibly the relocation of some HQs.
Yes. But as long as the IPOs keep coming, they don’t care.
http://www.ocregister.com/2019…..alifornia/
California has become like a third world petro state only with IPOs instead of oil.
IPOs and oil too.
I guess one thing CA has going for it is that when tech and insane government finally implode, they still have tremendous natural resources and do produce a lot of useful things like food and oil.
As a resident of Texas, I think we need to strongly encourage this sort of action by the California Legislature.
Fine, Texas can take the Californians then. Take the ones who moved to Phoenix as well.
http://www.americanthinker.com…..erlin.html
Obama shatters previous record by mentioning himself 467 times in one speech in Berlin. I don’t care what your politics are. That is messed up.
I know, right? He single-handedly pulled that bus out of the ditch and saved the world, all while being the most unifying leader in history. 467 mentions hardly does him justice…
I would love to see a comparison between the number of times he said “I” and the number of times he said “we” in speeches during his time as President. I bet the disparity is staggering.
Look, we didn’t build that by ourselves. So even when you say “we”, you really are implying that it was The Big O.
And Peace Prize!
Obama personally created the strongest 8-year run the American economy has ever had. Oh, and his foreign policy successes were so numerous that he won a Nobel Peace Prize. It seems justified to mention himself more frequently than the typical person does.
#UnbanPalinsButtplug
Obama personally created the strongest 8-year run the American economy has ever had.
Now that is comedy gold.
There’s nothing funny about the truth. Haven’t you read anything by our resident economic expert (Sarah) Palin’s Buttplug or his successor moneyshot?
It’s funny because so many people think it’s true. Ask people to link our economic success to what he did, and they get flustered.
Trump undoing ObamaCare regulation, is one of the biggest reasons why the labor participation rate is soaring.
You jest… but just go look at the historical record.
No, not economic figures…
Go pull the press reports. I double-dog dare you! Pretty much every day for his entire term you will find stories about the economy. They are all going to say how wonderful everything is. “Employment only at 8%!!!” “23,000 fewer jobless claims (as 100k workers leave the workforce)” etc.
The contemporaneous record is unequivocal. Meanwhile, look at today’s coverage. The economy is set to tank at any minute!
You cannot believe the actual numbers. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment jumped from about 4.7% to about 6.5% in the run-up to Obama’s election. Post election it surged, all the way to over 10% a year later. It had dipped below 5% by the time Trump took office, and is now nearing the all-dangerous “full employment” number.
This obviously does not tell the story. Only by looking at the contemporaneous record can you suss out the truth. Look at press reports today – more stories on homelessness than at any point in the Obama administration. More stories about inflation fears, market crashes, income disparity… every single economic indicator in the world of journalism studies is down.
It’s why the media are mostly propagandists. Reason included.
Obama.
Not gone enough.
He’s so spectacularly boring I don’t get why people would even bother going to listen to him.
You know who else referred to himself a lot while speaking in Berlin?
Saying that’s the result of rampant narcissism is calling the symptom the disease. What’s really behind all those “I’s” is that the man is an idiot. He really has nothing insightful to say on any subject other than himself, so of course he sticks close to home.
“DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen Is Leaving Wednesday….”
That’s it. It’s the beginning of the end. The walls are closing in.
Trump’s strategy with Jewish community won’t work
Except for the Jewish Coalition.
President Donald Trump told the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas Saturday that Democrats “are advancing by far the most extreme, anti-Semitic agenda in history.”
Uh-oh. Lefties are upset that they are losing members of their Party of slavery at an alarming rate.
I don’t think it’s Trump recognizing Jerusalem as the capital or the Golan Heights as part of Israel that’s driving Jews to rethink their support either. It’s probably more about SJWs, support for divestment from Israel, etc. within the Democratic party that’s driving them away.
The progressives still haven’t learned their lesson from 2016. If you keep telling everybody how much you hate the white, blue collar, middle class of the Midwest, eventually, the white, blue collar, middle class may start to think that you hate them, and it’s hard to get them to support Democrats after that.
Let the SJWs who run the Democratic party persist in showing everyone how much they hate Israel, and eventually, Jews may start to suspect that you’re serious.
I know you disagree but the Nazis were Socialists and Socialists are pushing out more centrist Democrats (if there are many left). Some of the same types of tactics and rhetoric the Nazis used to isolate disfavored groups are being used today.
I am always surprised when I meet Jewish folks who are Democrats. I usually ask “why”? If you are a Jewish business owner, Democrat politicians target you for all sorts of high taxes and regulation.
The Republican Evangelicals love Israel and want the USA to help Israel even if it is not in America’s best interests. Of course a subset of those people want Israel to attract the wrath of its Muslim neighbors resulting in Israel’s destruction bringing on the Apocalypse. There are religious Democrats too, so its not like it’s a GOP only thing.
John and I were talking about this the other week.
Going back to their days and Rome, and certainly their days in eastern Europe, leaving people free to do as they please has meant “pogrom”. They seem to support strong central government as an alternative to that, and they distrust the motives of who want to limit government power to small a sphere as possible. After all, everywhere they’ve gone since the diaspora, from Spain to England and from the Middle East to eastern Europe, people have abused them whenever the central government became too weak to protect them (or decided not to).
The state of Israel is younger than their grandparents. The idea that there needs to be a place where Jews are free to be Jews and guarantee their own protection is an understandable idea given their history. Unfortunately, because of their enemies, Jews still aren’t safe in their own country. If and when there’s a place where Jews can go to be safe and free, I suspect their thinking on the proper role of government may normalize. In the meantime, their thinking is probably still driven by the baggage they’re carrying, and they’ve been carrying an awful lot of historical baggage for an awfully long time.
Until the Nazis, strong central governments saved the Jews from the mob more often than they harmed the Jews.
You guys are probably correct about the strong central government strategy working until the Nazis. The Middle East has been fought over for millennia and that is where most Jews lived for a long time. it is probably more a location thing than some Hebrew hatred as Greeks and Romans have been under attack for millennia too.
Additionally, Jewish populations are relatively tiny so manipulating government to protecting them and their interests via bribes and political donations, has worked well.
America is a prime example of historically little central government and Jews were/are as safe or safer than most places of the World.
Sometimes relying on tradition and historical victimhood cause you to choose incorrectly.
I still cannot fathom that Jewish folks in America want to disarm Americans when the Nazis disarmed the Jews in German and left them defenseless to the horrors that came later.
I personally try and learn from my mistakes.
The Holocaust caused most of the Jews to basically abandon their religion and faith in God and replace it with Marxism. The fact that the Soviet Union played such a large role in defeating Hitler and liberating almost certainly had a lot to do with this.
Considering the horror of what they went through, I would even say this reaction was quite understandable at the time. But the passing of decades of time is supposed to bring a healthier and more proper and thoughtful perspective on the events of history, and that hasn’t really happened in their case, which is quite surprising for people who are generally highly intelligent and well-educated.
Even more surprising is that the USSR sided with the Nazis under the M-R Pact.
The USA helped defeat the Nazis too. While the USSR bore the brunt of the deaths versus the Nazis, the USSR would not have won without American trucks, supplies, and equipment, and the attacks of the Southern and Western territories of the Axis. German divisions were withdrawn from the Eastern Front to fight the Western Allies.
I think American Jews are still culturally recovering from the Holocaust. English speaking Jews were a small minority within the global Jewish population before the Holocaust. After it and the flight of Jews from Muslim-majority countries, Israel, Russia, and America contained the remnants of the Jewish people. The Bronx was the center of Jewish life, but government policies in the 1950’s greatly hurt it. In the 1960’s, the NYC teacher’s strike created more trouble.
In more recent years, there has been a rebirth in Jewish pride that might lead to less dependency on the Democrats.
“The policies Trump wants, and the outcomes he has promised, aren’t within the power of the White House or the Department of Homeland Security.”
There’s this election thing happening in 2020, and early tea leaves from Wisconsin suggest that the Green New Deal, reparations for slavery, etc. isn’t playing well nationally. Meanwhile, if the economy holds up (and last i checked, the yield curve was no longer inverted), the president may have long coattails.
I’m not sure the Trump administration will need to act alone. They may just need to be patient.
I think the economy was so contracted from the Great Recession that it is just moving into a boom cycle that we would have had if there were not TARP bailouts and other government interventions that prevented a quick free market recovery.
4 years of an economy growth boom is not under heard of and I think Trump will have that. Anything could happen of course, but if the many stock market stocks shrugs off an 18% loss in 4th Quarter 2018 and have fully recovered and gained 1st Quarter 2019, its likely to go up for at least one more year.
Even if the economy flattened out in late 2020, more Americans are better off than 2016 and they would not necessarily lose wealth if the economy just did not grow at the rates it is.
I agree with the gist of this.
Any administration would have enjoyed a recovery boom. Delaying the recovery by several years through Keynsian economic policies ensured that. All the new administration needed to do was avoid any huge changes.
We had an entirely government induced recession followed by a recovery that was swashed by government. Just pull the cap off and the soda was going to explode. That’s why everything jumped on the day after the election – even though absolutely no government action had been taken. Everyone expected that the era of stealing companies from their stockholders and creditors to give them to the workers was over.
You’re nuts. Not saying a collapse is imminent, but interest rates were held near zero for an unprecedented time. And there has been no time to unwind all the harm that has done. AND, it’s not like interest rates are at a level that makes sense, even now.
I foresee a big correction. If I knew when, I’d be rich, but it certainly seems inevitable.
Smoking pot vs. tobacco: What science says about it
What!?! You mean Lefties are hypocrites who should not be believed when they ban smoking cigarettes and vaping for “health reasons” but smoking weed is A-OK?
The panic over vaping is criminal. Trying to ban something that is at least 95% safer than the current preferred method for using nicotine should be stupid enough that everyone just ignores your position. That it is becoming the preferred position of our government(s) defies all reason.
This from an avid non-smoker and opponent of all things tobacco for me and mine.
Criminal is a good word for it.
The vaping bans are clearly not really about health, but about disapproval of anything that looks like smoking.
“We’re trying to stop people from smoking all kinds of things. Why do you want to legalize marijuana?” a New York City councilman, Republican Peter Koo
Wrong question, Peter Koo. Should ask if there is any real compelling reason to use violence against people who choose to smoke weed.
Note that nicotine is both a cognitive enhancer and an appetite suppressant, while THC is the opposite.
In China, a new app called Study the Great Nation pumps out Communist propaganda all day,
Where they can learn about how communism gave the world the smart phone and wireless internet.
Considering the regime no longer has any “-ism”, what do you think “Communist propaganda” put out by the Chinese state consists of these days? Probably just vapid platitudes or the latest self-congratulatory releases, or maybe just China-rah-rah?selling their “brand”.
http://nypost.com/2019/04/05/h…..ge-growth/
Trump hasn’t officially agreed to raise the federal minimum wage above its current level of $7.25 an hour, but then again, he doesn’t have to. His policies are doing it all for him ? including restricting illegal immigration.
A piece by The New York Times highlighted what’s happening in construction, where a labor shortage is pushing worker salaries to something like $25 an hour.
This can’t be true. The wokeltarians assure me that the laws of supply and demand have no effect on the labor market and hard working, saintly immigrants only take jobs Americans won’t do like running food trucks and driving for Uber.
No question that less competition means higher costs for labor, but there are downsides to high labor costs, too. Labor is a resource, like oil, and seeing the price of gasoline go up is generally not good for the economy.
Sure there are downsides, if you are a consumer or an employer. If you are an employee, it is a good thing. The mistake Reason makes is that it assumes the interests of consumers and employers automatically has complete moral precidence over the interests of employees. They don’t.
You must strongly support the National Labor Relations Board and closed shop states using the rule of law to restrict competition in the labor market.
No. But I don’t think it is an immoral policy. The devil is in the details. Sometimes the employees win and sometimes the employers do. That is why we have a republic; to work these sorts of things out rather than just telling one side to go fuck themselves.
You must really have a hard time understanding the difference between saying an argument is morally legitimate and saying you necessarily agree with it. Must be nice to live in a world where everything you don’t like has no moral legitimacy and can be safely ignored.
No. But I don’t think it is an immoral policy.
So the reason you don’t like it is team/tribe/party related? Or, is it just the wrong method to restrict the supply of labor?
Must be nice to live in a world where everything you don’t like has no moral legitimacy and can be safely ignored.
How the hell can I possibly ignore these things?
Labor is a resource, like oil, and seeing the price of gasoline go up is generally not good for the economy.
Depends on how far the cost of gas goes up.
Regardless, there’s a cognitive dissonance that happens whenever the subject of wages takes place. The same people who brag about fast food restaurants implementing automated food machines and self-serve kiosks in response to minimum wage increases, seem to also believe that the service, agriculture, and skilled labor industries are completely unable to adapt to shifts in the labor market and must always employ primarily immigrant labor, now and forever.
My take is more along the lines of the idea that trade is a good thing and trade barriers are bad.
If I can buy cheaper avocados from Mexico, that’s a good thing.
If I can’t buy them because they’re across the border, that’s bad.
If I can hire cheaper construction workers from Mexico, that’s a good thing, too.
If I can’t hire them because they’re across the border, what sense does that make?
Exactly.
And to back up the other half of RRWP’s take, if you artificially create barriers to obtaining those things, the market will respond.
People will grow more avocados in California, if the demand is there and supply is short, for example.
And if labor for laying sheet rock becomes expensive enough, automation will enter the field. It honestly wouldn’t be that difficult to do – most of the pieces probably already exist. If you can make a robot that can friction stir weld rocket parts with absolute precision, you can probably mud a joint.
And there becomes a threshold point where things cross over…. labor has to be expensive enough to justify the first generation of automation. So as burger flippers become pricey enough to justify automatic cookers and sandwich assemblers, those machines will get built. But subsequent generations will get cheaper and more efficient, pricing labor out of that market forever. Just like assembly line welding. That’s automated even in super-cheap labor markets now.
So if framing robots ever become price competitive due to labor shortages, strikes, or whatever… that’s it. Those jobs are automated and they don’t come back, even if the price of labor drops below the prior level.
If farming robots are coming, the existence of cheap labor isn’t going to stop them forever. So, when they do come, what do you plan to do with the hoards of low skilled workers you have insisted on importing?
The plan was to have them starve to death in city shelters while waiting to have their food stamp applications processed.
I suspect the framing robots will be (or likely already are) making pre-fabricated building parts in factories.
The wokeltarians assure me that the laws of supply and demand have no effect on the labor market
Who makes this claim? Seems to me that pro-immigration people tend to think it has a positive effect on the labor market. Or positive effects for employers. Isn’t a big part of the whole debate whether the net effect on labor market is good or bad? No one is saying it has no effect.
They deny that immigration causes wages to decline.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rr…..b020ee3eff
The permian basin is now the world’s top oil producing field. That is in the words of our former gropey VP, “a big fucking deal”. Remember, we can’t drill our way to cheap and available energy. A lightgiver once assured me of this.
+10
The Caps won’t have to play Tampa Bay until the division final, and they won’t have to play Pittsburgh until the second round–assuming the Pens get past the Islanders.
I know Tampa is supposed to have mad skills and crazy depth, but we saw the Caps dominate the stats every year only to get knocked out in the first round year after year after year after . . .
It takes a different kind of team to win in the playoffs, when you’re playing the same team seven times in a row. I don’t know that Tampa has that kind of team. I just know that Holtby needs to get it together.
They won’t have to play Tampa until the conference final. They will play Pittsburgh in the division final, assuming they both get out of the first round.
I’m almost more afraid of Pittsburgh. Just the history and the physicality. They’ll all beat the shit out of each other.
I think the Caps are more likely to advance against Carolina than Pittsburgh is to beat the Islanders.
Tampa Bay had an amazing year, but the Capitals know better than anyone how meaningless winning the President’s trophy is in the playoffs.
Pres trophy is usually not a good thing for playoff success. Of the last 14 pres trophy winners, only 2 won the cup. The last was the hawks in 12-13.
The prose in this article is God awful. It is long, wordy and meandering. It is a bit terrying to think this woman once not only taught English but thinks she taught it well. It is, however, at times entertaining and worth reading, despite the bad prose and the complete lack of self awareness by the author. It is good mostly because Flanagan, being an entitled rich person herself and just as awful as any of her subjects, really understands her subject, though she lacks the self awareness to understand why.
http://www.theatlantic.com/ide…..ls/586468/
+10
Your description of the article is spot on. I have thought, many times, after taking all the lit and writing classes I did, I finally stumbled on a Sci & Tech Writing class that set me straight. Teacher, who repeated he was not a Dr., had us write an essay. Gave it back to us, said, write it again, in half the size. Rinse & Repeat. After about 4 go-arounds, I had an short, punchy essay in about 35% of the space as the original. Has helped me throughout my working life.
As far as the topic goes, though, ugh. She’s spot on and clueless. And I have to say, something about “certain zip codes of New York City and Los Angeles, the percentage of untimed test-taking is said to be close to 50 percent” just chaps my ass when I’m trying to get my eldest ready to take the PSAT that so much scholarship money rides on.
Flanagan is the daughter of a famous novelist and tenured professor at Cal Berkeley. According to his Wikipedia entry, her father, Thomas Flanagan spent his retirement years split between Ireland and the Hamptons. “Good but not moneyed family” my @ss. Flanagan doesn’t have a modest bone in her body that isn’t false and manipulative. She is a spoiled rich girl who washed out of her PHD program, that her name no doubt had a lot to do with her getting into in the first place, and then went on to marry a rich husband and become a housewife in Beverly Hills. Yet, she is lecturing poor people who have lost their jobs about how they are just angry they have lost their “white privilege”. They should just stop whining and use their famous last name to get into a PHD program and then use their looks to marry a rich husband when they wash out of that I guess.
That story has 56 paragraphs. That’s most likely about 46 too many. But I thought that was SOP over at The Atlantic, no? They do stories rather than articles?
I guess. It is not even a good story. There is some really good snark buried in it. My God is she narcissistic. It is a story about lunatic crooked parents, and Flanagan manages to make at least half of a 56 paragraph article about herself and her tenius connection to the story. If your eyes don’t glaze over and you slog through all of her flase modesty and tales of woe about the horrors of being a guidance counselor, you find out that Lori Laughlin’s daughter’s guidance counselor figured out the scam and was about to tell the school until Laughlin and her husband got the poor woman’s bosses to bully her into lying. There are several jaw dropping anecdotes showing how awful these people are. Sadly, they are buried in a sea of Flannagan’s bad prose and self importance.
How long has it been? Years? No, decades. If hope is the thing with feathers, I was a plucked bird. Long ago, I surrendered myself to the fact that the horrible, horrible private-school parents of Los Angeles would get away with their nastiness forever. But even before the molting, never in my wildest imaginings had I dared to dream that the arc of the moral universe could describe a 90-degree angle and smite down mine enemies with such a hammer fist of fire and fury that even I have had a moment of thinking, Could this be a bit too much?
Excuse me…
If hope is the thing with feathers, I was a plucked bird. Long ago, I surrendered myself to the fact that the horrible, horrible private-school parents of Los Angeles would get away with their nastiness forever.
Good God is that an awful sentence.
That paragraph is so bad, it is hard to know where to begin. What is “the thing with feathers”? A bird? If it is a bird, then why did she lose her hope after being plucked of her feathers. Is hope the bird or the feathers?
the arc of the moral universe could describe a 90-degree angle
How does an arc “describe a 90-degree angle? What does that even mean? If her point is that the moral universe has stopped being turned on its head, then 90 degrees doens’t cut it. It has to turn 180 degrees.
What is “the thing with feathers”?
It’s an Emily Dickinson reference.
Thanks Zeb. I didn’t get that reference
The poem put to music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73A6rBGDdAU
Goddamn. That woman’s sense of self-regard is off the charts.
As government servents go, Kirstjen Nielsen is pretty hot. Washington is an uglier place for her leaving.
“The safest place in the world to be online.”
Lagos?
David French at National Review. “It’s making me more concerned about the fate of the Constitution. I trust the government less
Welcome to the party Mr French. It’s astonishing to me that you didn’t have these concerns before Trump however… wtf
French is a big drug warrior and one of the most sanctimonous bible thumping supporter of blue laws on earth. He “trusts the government less” only insofar as the government is giving someone else a pony rahter than giving him his pony.
He is a medacious imbecile.
Proof? Are you sure?
Worse, he is an NBA fan.
The safest place to be online is 127.0.0.1
Right now, the proposal “comes in the form of a white paper that eventually will yield new legislation
Eventually, the leaders and legislators of the world will completely abandon arcane processes involving bills and passing laws. All law will be enacted by Tweet, PowerPoint slide, TED Talk, or white paper.
From the Indiana Daily Student -‘
LGBTQ+ Dungeons and Dragons club finds weekly comfort in fantasy adventure realm
“The club began in fall 2017 when the LGBTQ+ Culture Center’s former social work intern wanted to provide a creative space for members of the LGBTQ community.”
As with everything else in the world these days, the LGBTQuakers are given an outsized voice in how the hobby changes.
“PARIS: Three love letters from Napoleon Bonaparte to his wife Josephine, written between 1796 and 1804, were sold for a total of ?513,000 (US$575,000) on Thursday (Apr 4), the Drouot auction house said…
“The historically-themed auction run by the French Ader and Aguttes houses also included a rare Enigma encryption machine, used by Nazi Germany during World War II, which went for ?48,100.
“The items were part of a vast sell-off by the French state of the collection amassed by the collapsed investment firm Aristophil.”
One of Napoleon’s letters said, “when I come home, I’d like to march on my stomach like my army.”
Surprise popularity of King William gin
“When we released the first bottle last year it did well across the UK, but it really lit up in Scotland and in Northern Ireland and we were thinking ‘hello, what’s going on here?'”
The company spokesman went on to say that he’s had fans suggest that King William should have had some of this gin at the Battle of the Boyne.
Jacobites hardest hit.
Kirstjen Nielsen announced Sunday that on April 10, she’ll be stepping down as head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
I may be slow sometimes, but I eventually get the job done. Scaring my friend by knocking on my door while he is crashing at my place is simply rude.
Now, about that voicemail from my mom saying I should stop spray painting federal landmarks because there are cameras everywhere and the feds are watching …
Oh look, there’s a gay pride sticker. What looks like a wedding cake and is near my home?
“When people ask me, how the Trump era is adjusting my political views, my answer is simple: It’s making me more libertarian,” writes David French at National Review. “It’s making me more concerned about the fate of the Constitution. I trust the government less, I’m more appalled at its sweeping assumptions of power, and I see more clearly what happens when its leaders?possessed with unwavering self-righteousness?believe that the ends justify the means.”
He said waking up from his 40 year nap.
Obama weaponizing the IRS and entire DOJ didn’t make him question the power of government. But Trump banning travel from countries that are effectively hostile to the US really did it.
He is just a vapid moron.
I really don’t know how you can call zero tolerance a policy when it’s written in law and was left unenforced by Obama. I also don’t know how you can call it a policy when the same exact thing already happens to US citizens who commit crimes and have children.
There’s been a decades-long debate in the US between Christian conservatives and feminists but also a third force in the debate that rarely articulates a self-conscious ideology ? a sort of raunch culture.
Today’s “feminists” are even more anti-sex than today’s “Christian conservatives”. That’s one of the reasons “feminists” are so enamored of Islam.
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