“Argue with neighbors, get in their faces… If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard… I don’t want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry. I’m angry…If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun. Because from what I understand folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans.”
American Ultra
This is a story about an unassuming young stoner named Mike in West Virginia. He works in a convient store and is prone to anxiety attacks. He also has a surprisingly hot girl friend. Mildly interesting, but not very gripping. Then the focus shifts to CIA headquarters, were two agents are in a turf war. The topic appears to be the young stoner, and why is so important to one of the agents that he be killed? This is where it gets interesting and gives a big hat tip the the Borne Identity series. Mike is actually a sleeper agent. The lone survivor of a program to produce deadly agents from three time loser “volunteers.” The former head of the program shows up and activates Mike with a series of code words. Now things go from interesting to violent. Starting with the two CIA operatives (from a competing program that trained violent psychopaths) who were doing something (just guess) to his car. Mike takes them out as they approach. He had just made some instant noodles, so the hot water goes in the face of one as he stabs the other in the neck with his spoon. Things escalate from there, from a police station filled with dead cops to a massive over reaction by the CIA. A little slow to start, but this flick picked up nicely with combined humor and action. Some excellent work by supporting cast members as well. Well worth the rental and popcorn.
Still haven’t cleared out all the tabs…
Powerline reports on Q415 economic growth.
Gross domestic product (GDP) expanded at only a 0.7% seasonally adjusted annualized ratein the fourth quarter of last year, the Commerce Department reported today. That’s quite weak.
2015 as a whole wasn’t so good either. GDP expanded at only 2.4%, the same as in 2014. That’s called limping along. For as James Pethokoukis points out, from the end of World War II through 2005, the economy grew at an average annual rate of 3.5%.
Yup, it’s the worse recovery since the Great Depression.
From the Daily Caller: Secret Fed Docs Show Obama Misled Congress, Public During Debt Limit Crises
No real surprise here. Barry’s entire time during the Occupy the White House Golf Tour has been mainly him lying to Americans.
Time to clear out all the tabs on my browser again.
Let’s lead with this article from the Foundation for Economic Education. It points out what is wrong with Trumps claims about manufacturing jobs, and how to fix the problem. It goes on to point out that Trump is the moderate on the subject when compared to Vermont Socialist Bernie Sanders. Sanders is completely divorced from reality on the subject, and his “solutions” have the high probability of making the thing he wants to fix even worse.
Socialists in America, like Bernie Sanders, used to point to Venezuela as the modern example of how socialism works. No so much anymore. Probably because socialism has created a Humanitarian disaster in Venezuela.
On the subject of 2016 Presidential candidates, the Washington Post reports that the FBI is granting immunity to person who set up Hillary Clinton’s private email server. In legal circles, this is what is known as a “bad sign.”
Modern Healthcare has a report on the Illinois Obamacare program. I’ll give you the short version, they operated at a $90.8 million loss in 2015. Remember back before the so-called “Affordable Care Act” was passed in the middle of the night right before Congress left Washington for Christmas? Come on, you remember. It was done using a procedure that even the democrats own resident high ranking Klansman objected to, in order to avoid a vote in the Senate. Something to do with the democrat stronghold of Massachusetts electing a Republican expressly to vote against Obamacare. There were some people, mainly those who had actually read the ACA, who objected to it, claiming it was economically unviable. They were uniformly called “racists”, which we now know means “anyone who disagrees with a democrat.”
Bill Clinton is on the campaign trail trashing Obama’s handling of the so-called economic recovery. Something he has in common with Bernie Sanders. What he is short on is how Hillary is going to a better job from federal prison.
A dose of economic reality from the Foundation for Economic Education. Read the whole article for the facts. I’ll just list the five debunked myths here.
Myth 1. The idea that economic growth helps the poor is trickle-down economics … it doesn’t actually help them.
Myth 2. Free trade doesn’t lead to better economic outcomes in the real world.
Myth 3. The government ended child labor. In a free market, child labor would still exist.
Myth 4. Countries like Sweden and Denmark prove that high taxes don’t harm economic growth.
Myth 5. Capitalism isn’t economically superior to socialism.
I’m going close with a few quotes from a former President who would be driven out of the modern democrat party on a rail.
“Every dollar that released from taxation, that is spent or invested, will create a new job and a new salary”
“It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now … Cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus.”
“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”
The former President I quoted was John F. Kennedy. The NRA Life Member who was shot and killed by a member of the ACLU.
“Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. ”
— President Ronald Reagan, who predicted our Dear Leader‘s methods well in advance
The Nevada caucuses are over for both parties, and the Republican primary has been run in South Carolina.
There is much angst in the hearts and minds of the establishment members of both parties.
Let us first take a look at the big hot mess the Republican side is.
Donald Trump is winning, and winning big. He is ahead in the delegate count. Not just in this race either. He is head of where Romney and McCain were at this point in the last two election cycles.
The Republican “leadership” is clutching their collective pearls and asking how in the name of a merciful God is this possible.
My advice to them is to take a long, hard look in the mirror. The Republican “leadership”, especially in Congress has been destroying their brand value for decades. They have worked long and hard to completely alienate their conservative base.
Speaking of that conservative base, in a rare instance of agreement with the party leadership, they are as confused over this whole Donald Trump thing as the leadership is. Not for the same reasons though. The “establishment” leaders of the GOP put a lot of money behind former Florida Governor Jeb Bush. In past Presidential elections, this would have been enough to give Jeb a pretty good shot at winning the primary battle. Not this time though, remember that whole alienating their voter base thing? So the people who think they run the GOP have had their candidate shot down in flames.
The conservative base is scratching the collective heads because they don’t consider Trump to be an actual Republican. Take a look at his record. He has self-identified as a democrat in the past, and has supported a lot of democrats. As I have pointed out before there are some strong similarities between some his policies and those of the admitted socialist Bernie Sanders. Their policies on legal and illegal immigration for example. There is another reason to believe that Trump is not a Republican. He knows how to handle a hostile press.
So why is Trump so far ahead? Simple. He is perceived as a “Washington outsider.” The voters are sick and tired of “business as usual” inside the Beltway. They don’t want to throw away a vote on the same old, same old once again. Look who is second place, Texas Senator Ted Cruz. He is not just hated by the congressional Republican leadership, they actually fear the concept of him in the Oval Office. He doesn’t “play ball” and cozy up to the democrats. He actually tries to keep his promises to the people who elected him, which makes him a renegade maverick in Washington, regardless of the letter after his name.
I’m not a Trump fan, but his run for the Presidency is fascinating for a political junkie. Not only is he appealing to pissed off GOP voters, he has actual cross party support. Polling has consistently shown that 20% of his supporters are Blue Collar democrats. What used to loyal democrats who have been thrown under the bus by their party over the past seven years. He is also doing better than the typical GOP candidate in traditionally democrat demographics. Namely hispanics, blacks and women.
To see why Trump is doing well with those traditional democrat groups, just look at how the democrats have been treating their base since they started the Occupy the White House Golf Tour in January 2009.
There has been mild, sporadic and slow economic growth since the recession ended in July 2009, despite our Dear Leader’s best efforts to kill it. Most people have benefited from this. Except for blacks. They have gotten the shaft, despite all the promises made back in 2008. Just take a look at the very detailed information on employment, and unemployment, at the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. You can find breakdowns by race, gender, and age. As Senator Sanders has pointed out in his stump speeches, unemployment among black Americans is significantly higher than those of white Americans or any other group of American. This has not gone unnoticed by black single parent mothers, who are now working three jobs to send their kids to private school instead of two. Why they are sending their kids to private schools instead of public schools is left as an exercise to the reader in yet another way the democrats have been alienating their base.
Americans of Hispanic descent who are registered to vote (i.e. legal immigrants, and remember that Mexico is the number one source of legal immigrants to America), are hearing Trump’s call to secure our border. They have observed our Dear Leader’s policy of not enforcing our immigration laws, and the results of that policy. Things they left Mexico (which is in a violent narco civil war) to get away from, are showing up here in America. Drug Cartels, kidnapping, and armed gangs working for the cartels. In more and more cases, these violent criminal organizations are found using semi-automatic weapons supplied to them by our Dear Leader’s “Fast and Furious” program. They don’t like it, and are turning to Trump and Sanders, both of whom want to enforce the law in regards to our southern border.
Which leads us to the question being raised by the establishment democrat leadership wondering what happened to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s comfortable stroll to primary victory they were predicting. No surprised here, as I’ve pointed out, they have been working hard to alienate their base as well. Plus the fact that HRC is extremely unlikable, and massively corrupt. So democrat voters are also looking for an outsider. Thus the support for the socialist from Vermont from everyone who doesn’t like or trust Hillary Rodham Clinton. Given her high negatives, and history of massive corruption, is a significant number of democrats. This does not speak well of Hillary. She was correct when she said that Sander wasn’t a democrat until he decided to run for President. He has always run openly as a socialist. While in the Senate, he caucused with the democrats, but was not officially a member of their party.
However, you aren’t seeing the runaway victories that Trump has been seeing in the Republican primaries. This is because of another thing the doddering old socialist has gotten right. The system is rigged. The DNC has been blatantly in the tank for Hillary Rodham Clinton in this cycle. HRC is well ahead in the delegate count because the party made sure she had the super delegates wrapped up long before those pesky citizens could possibly muck up their coronation of Queen Hillary the First.
The Emperor in the Cities of Danger [The Amazing Adventures of the Emperor #4] by Charles Jackson Lee II
This book is actually collection of stories. All of which take place in different major cities. Seattle and San Francisco for example. The tales of the Emperor are delightful pulp stories with a light hearted touch. The hero, one Charles Jackson Lee, is an actual superhero, with super powers. He goes by “The Emperor”, but his “Empire” consists mostly of himself, which is enough. 🙂 He doesn’t go for costumes or secret identities. He prefers a suit and tie, and makes movies when he isn’t fighting crime. I find these stories fun to read, and I enjoy the other pulp genre references. This includes the time he ran into Spencer and Hawk while at a party in Boston. If they made movies of these stories, Job Bob would say check ’em out.
The Disinherited by Steve White
This is Steve White’s first solo novel. My first printing of this book has a 1993 copyright. It’s a straight up space opera, and fans of the classic SciFi RPG Traveller, and the closely related 2300AD game will some familiar concepts. It is also a first contact story. A group of Terrans, a mix of Americans and Russians working in the Asteroid Belt are contacted by beings from another star, with advanced technology. Both sides are more than a bit freaked out to find out they are both human. The alien humans have a problem, namely a very aggressive species of actual alien that makes up for a slightly lower tech base with a fracking lot of resources. The space faring Earth humans go to assist the other humans. They might as well, since the Earth had been poisoned by what Mr. White had correctly identified 23 years ago as the toxic ravings of the so called “social justice” movement, which has a more dangerous level of Antisemitism than it does today. Heroic stuff happens, and there is even a surprise twist at the end. Just to top this tale of adventure in deep space off, there is a mad scientist and his beautiful daughter.
I don’t know who first said this, but I agree with it.
There is no Bob Dylan song that someone else has not done better.
Given that, Tangled Up in Blue is probably my favorite Dylan song performed by Bob Dylan.
I do like this live version performed by Charlie Daniels. Not sure if it is better, but is good.