Weekly finale: George Michael

With George Michael's death earlier this week, it is only fitting he should be the subject of this week's musical finale.

Michael started out in the pop duo Wham, which produced some fairly mindless pop. However, the song Careless Whisper was later covered by heavy metal band Seether, producing a very palatable song:



It wasn't until Michael went solo that he made some really good music. Unfortunately, that good music only consisted of one excellent album, Faith, and then occasionally decent singles.

Faith's title track is arguably the best song from his best album:



However, there is a hidden gem on the album, the song Kissing a Fool. Ironically, this was the working title for the album and was only changed later.



That is all from me until next year, or Monday. Happy New Years!

California gets one right

It isn't often that I agree with anything politically that comes out of California, but they got this one right.

From the Washington Examiner:

Beginning on Jan. 1, prostitution by minors will be legal in California. Yes, you read that right.

SB 1322 bars law enforcement from arresting sex workers who are under the age of 18 for soliciting or engaging in prostitution, or loitering with the intent to do so. So teenage girls (and boys) in California will soon be free to have sex in exchange for money without fear of arrest or prosecution.

This terribly destructive legislation was written and passed by the progressive Democrats who control California's state government with a two-thirds "supermajority." To their credit, they are sincere in their belief that decriminalizing underage prostitution is good public policy that will help victims of sex trafficking. Unfortunately, the reality is that the legalization of underage prostitution suffers from the fatal defect endemic to progressive-left policymaking: it ignores experience, common sense and most of all human nature — especially its darker side.

The unintended but predictable consequence of how the real villains — pimps and other traffickers in human misery — will respond to this new law isn't difficult to foresee. Pimping and pandering will still be against the law whether it involves running adult women or young girls. But legalizing child prostitution will only incentivize the increased exploitation of underage girls. 

If pimping and pandering is still against the law, how does freeing the victimized prostitute of legal consequences "incentivize" pimping and pandering? The truth is holding victims legally accountable for behavior they are being forced to perform is horrendous.

On top of this, prostitution is a victimless activity when performed by consenting adults. But even if we say minor age prostitutes ARE the victims, do we really want to bring down the full lethal force of law on minors for such activity? Making it a crime is the wrong disincentive.

There are many things we don't want kids to do. But making those activities a crime only forces the legal system to treat them the same as murderers, thieves, and rapists. Is this what you want for young victims?

The lame duck quacks: Today's news for December 30th

Fox News:

Putin spokesman says Russia weighs retaliation after sanctions

The spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday Moscow will consider retaliatory measures following the new round of U.S. sanctions put in place by President Obama.

Russia also continued to deny accusations by the U.S. that it hacked and stole emails in order to aide in Trump’s win. Trump commented on the matter saying the U.S. should move on. Trump is planning on meeting with U.S. intelligence leaders next week to learn more.

Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow that the measures signal Obama’s “unpredictable” and “aggressive foreign policy.”

The spokesman added that Putin would order “appropriate” retaliation for the sanctions.

In the first place, we have yet to see any proof that Russia did what they are being accused of doing. (See this post for the problems with the accusations against Russia.)

Even if they did do it, this action isn't an action taken by the U.S. It is an action taken by a lame duck administration controlled by a party which just lost the election. In other words, this is an aggressive action taken by the Democratic Party against the sovereign nation of Russia, and in no way represents what the majority of Americans want. It is international sour grapes, taking out their disappointment on anyone and everyone, including Russia.

It will be nice to have the brats out of Washington come January 20th.

By the way, here is yet another reason why Russia probably didn't do it:

The Atlantic:

How Trump Made Russia's Hacking More Effective

Sometimes, the Leftist media walks right past the reason they are wrong. The above article unintentionally gives a very valid reason why Russia would not have committed the hacking, or at least not been directly responsible for it:

Vladimir Putin took a fearful risk. If the Electoral College had taken a slightly different bounce on November 8, Putin would now be facing an enraged President-elect Hillary Clinton. Putin had every reason to expect that he probably would end up facing a President Clinton. Yet he took the gamble anyway, apparently doing something none of his Soviet predecessors had ever dared to do: mount a clandestine espionage and disinformation campaign on behalf of one candidate for U.S. president, and against another.

With a high risk of getting caught, and with a high probability of it not working anyway, why would Putin do it? If anything, this proves he didn't have a motive. While Putin may have wanted Trump to win, he had a strong disincentive for taking any kind of action, even clandestine action. The risk/reward factor made it prohibitively expensive.

The new Democrats

Looking ahead to the future of the Democratic Party, there are three people to watch: Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Cory Booker.

One might assume 75 year-old Bernie Sanders is done, but one would be wrong. From Quartz:

Democrats are planning their first major gesture of opposition to Donald Trump’s presidency, and Bernie Sanders is leading the charge.

Democratic members of Congress received a letter today calling on them to join the Vermont senator in organizing rallies across the country on January 15. The goal is to galvanize resistance to Donald Trump as Congress returns to work, just a week ahead of the next president’s inauguration.

The letter came from the party’s two top officials, Senator Chuck Schumer and Representative Nancy Pelosi, as well as Sanders, who joined the Democrat’s leadership committee for the first time ever this year.

Sanders, whose run for the Democratic presidential nomination this year emboldened the left wing of the Democratic party, has seen his cachet rise in a party looking for leadership following Hillary Clinton’s defeat in November. Amidst the recriminations and a messy race to head up the party’s national committee, it hasn’t been clear who would be the face of Democratic opposition to Trump. Now, we have an answer.

Don't expect Sanders to run for president again, but he will clearly be influential in the future of the Democratic Party. He might consider a vice presidency if asked.

(On a side note, I don't want to hear any more complaints from Democrats about Republican obstructionism during the Obama years. With this, you are now the same as the Republicans, so don't give me your "holier than thou" crap.)

Regardless, expect the Democrats to make a shameless turn to the far Left, with socialist/communist Sanders as the embodiment of this new "free lunch" stupidity.

Which leads us to the 2020 presidential front-runner, Senator Elizabeth "Faux-cahontis" Warren. From The Hill:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren is set to bolster her Senate resume next year, sparking early talk about a 2020 presidential bid.

The Massachusetts Democrat will join the Armed Services Committee in 2017, branching out beyond the tough-on-Wall Street message that made her a liberal favorite.

Warren has tied the decision to her family — her three brothers served in the military — and Massachusetts ranks in the top 10 states on military spending, according to a Pentagon report.

But the announcement spawned a wave of a media speculation that Warren is filling portfolio gaps to position herself for a 2020 presidential run.

And that is a very reasonable speculation too. However, such "portfolio gaps" are only important to the political talking heads. Where Warren shines is in the mainstream media's adoration for her. Just like the media's collusion with Hillary Clinton, it isn't a far stretch to imagine the MSM bending over backwards to coronate Warren.

However, there is one other candidate with strong 2020 potential: Cory Booker. From NJ.com:

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, who has called for a congressional investigation as to whether Russia intervened in the presidential election to help elect Donald Trump, will be getting a perch in the new Senate from which to continue his efforts.

Booker (D-N.J.) will sit on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when the 115th Congress convenes next month.

Barack Obama also served on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee before he ran for president. This is no coincidence.

To be honest, unless Booker stumbles, I would expect him to be a stronger general election presidential candidate than Warren, because he can get the black voters into the polling places in large numbers. That was a huge factor in Obama's election success. However, Warren has the rest of the Democratic Party's base on her side at the moment. In 2020, expect another tight Democratic race like 2008.

Debbie Reynolds too: Today's news for December 29th

Fox News:

Iconic actress Debbie Reynolds dies at 84

Iconic actress Debbie Reynolds died Wednesday at the age of 84, one day after her daughter Carrie Fisher died after suffering heart failure, her son Todd Fisher confirmed.

"She's now with Carrie and we're all heartbroken," Fisher said from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where his mother was taken by ambulance earlier Wednesday.

He said the stress of his sister's death "was too much" for Reynolds.

The entertainment website TMZ, without naming any sources, said Reynolds may have suffered a possible stroke. It also said she had been at her son Todd’s Beverly Hills home discussing funeral plans for Carrie when a call was made to 911.

This is too sadly morbid to comment.

Next topic...

The following was the main headline at CNN:

CNN:

How Trump's victory turns into another 'Lost Cause'

After President-elect Donald Trump's recent victory, some of his supporters celebrated by flying Confederate battle flags from pickup trucks and waving them at rallies.

But Trump's victory may mark the resurgence of the Old South in another more sinister way: The return of "racial amnesia."

That's what some historians are saying as they watch a familiar storyline emerge. Trump's triumph is now being roundly described as a revolt by white working-class voters; racism, sexism and religious bigotry had little, if anything, to do with it.

People making this argument are following a script first honed by another group of Americans who made history disappear. After the Civil War, "Lost Cause" propagandists from the Confederacy argued the war wasn't fought over slavery -- it was a constitutional clash over state's rights, they said; hatred toward blacks had nothing to do with it.

It was an audacious historical cover-up -- to convince millions of Americans that what they'd just seen and heard hadn't really happened. It worked then, and some historians say it could work again with Trump.

"It's already happening again," says Brooks D. Simpson, a leading Civil War historian who teaches at Arizona State University. "A lot of people are saying we're going to have to unite behind the new guy and forget what he had to say. People who feel that they are part of those populations targeted by Trump are going to be told by whites to get over it."

First, this is not a news story. It is progressive propaganda parading as "news analysis".

Second, slavery was a secondary issue in the Civil War. Lincoln and most of the North didn't give a rat's behind about slavery. He only signed the Emancipation Proclamation to spite the South and encourage the media's support for the war (Horace Greeley, founder and editor of the New York Tribune which was the largest publication in the U.S. at the time, was fervently abolitionist). History wasn't re-written by the losers.

If anything, the Yankees used the end of slavery to give their war crimes a nice glossy veneer. Nearly half the deaths from military conflicts in U.S. history have come from the Civil War. Can you justify the freeing of nearly 4 million slaves with the deaths of 620,000 people? Maybe it is just me, but I have to believe that if you wanted to free the slaves, there had to be a better way than war. Even in a good cause, that is a lot of people to kill.

The truth here is that it is CNN re-writing the history by quoting Yankee apologists. The alleged "racial amnesia" is a problem from the big government supporters, who like to use the Civil War as a justification for a strong central government over more localized politics.

Third, this news analysis takes this flawed premise and tries to turn it into some kind of statement about how white Americans elected Donald Trump based on "racial amnesia". You can tell this news analysis is going to be one doozy of a lie when you get to this statement:

There is some evidence, though, that explains how a white voter who supported Obama can still be driven by racial resentment.

Think about that statement: How could anyone possibly vote for a person when they resent that person's race?

Then the article proceeds to show a study of how white people can be uncomfortable with people of other races. Discomfort is a far cry from resentment.

From Merriam-Webster, the definition of "resentment": "a feeling of indignant displeasure or persistent ill will at something regarded as a wrong, insult, or injury". If someone resented Obama for the color of his skin, they could never possibly vote for him, certainly not when his opponents were supposedly of the "right" color (which is the underlying assumption of the CNN article).

The longer and more complex a political opinion piece is, the more likely it is to be wrong. This CNN editorial proves that.

Wednesday wisdom: Carrie Fisher

"I don’t want life to imitate art. I want life to be art."--Carrie Fisher, from Postcards from the Edge

Automation is coming

The biggest problem in the world today is  a lack of foresight into what the future holds. A fantastic example of this is is in the Factor's article, "TIME TO FACE UP TO REALITY AND STOP LOOKING FOR SCAPEGOATS: AUTOMATION IS COMING":

On the day of the 2016 US elections, when Americans up and down the country were queuing up to vote for Donald Trump, three experts on world affairs gathered at Web Summit to discuss the reality we now live in.

José Manuel Barroso, former president of the European Commission, former Prime Minister of Portugal and now the non-executive chairman of Goldman Sachs, was joined by Roberto Azevêdo, director-general of the World Trade Organization, and Mogens Lykketoft, former president of the United Nations General Assembly and former Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs...

According to Azevêdo, the real source of our problems is staring us in the face; and it’s time we faced up to it.

“If we’re honest with each other and we look at the marketplace and we know what’s happening, it has nothing to do with trade,” he says.

“Two in 10 jobs that are lost in advanced economies today are due to trade and to imports. Eight out of 10 or more, it’s about new technologies, it’s about higher productivity, innovation.”

In summary, automation and other productivity gains are driving job losses and a lack of opportunities, and that isn’t something you can legislate against.

“Those things, you cannot fight them, you cannot be against them, you have to embrace them, you have to see that that is the future and to adapt and be ready for that,” urges Azevêdo, adding that there is far more to come.

“What are you going to do when you have a full-scale delivery of parcels by drones? Or when you have self-driven trucks delivering cargo?” he asked, adding that the first automated deliveries are already being made.

“Now in the US alone there are three and a half million truck drivers. Those guys are going to lose their jobs and it’s not only them, it’s all the roadside assistance, hotels, cafes, restaurants, service stations. What you going to do with all those people?

“Now don’t tell me a few years from now that you didn’t know this was going to happen. This is going to happen. And what do you do, how do you handle that?” 

If you need to understand why neither Donald Trump nor Hillary Clinton offered real solutions in the last election, re-read that quote above. So while the Left is wasting its time trying to paint Trump as some kind of Russian-loving white nationalist, and the Right is working on expanding the government in the wrong direction, neither political side is prepared for the big change coming. Since the economy is made to protect the wealthy, the next elections will see more and more people losing their jobs and looking for new solutions. As history has foretold, it is only a matter of time before democracy falls to dictatorship.

Leia lives! Today's news for December 28th

CNN:

Carrie Fisher, 'Star Wars''Princess Leia, dies at 60

Actress Carrie Fisher, whose grit and wit made "Star Wars'" Princess Leia an iconic and beloved figure to millions of moviegoers, died Tuesday in Los Angeles. She was 60.

Iconic is an apt description of Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia. Star Wars was a cultural phenomenon, and Fisher was at the heart of the main trio of characters: Leia, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), and Han Solo (Harrison Ford).

But the importance of Leia cannot be understated. I was 12 when Star Wars was released, and she was the first strong female lead I can recall seeing. Certainly, she wasn't the first in film history, but she was the first to many in my generation.

Her first major scene in Star Wars shows why Leia became iconic. Even Darth Vader didn't intimidate her:


Leia was a character of great inner strength, which stands in juxtaposition to Fisher herself, who was about to fall into an abyss of drug addiction as she tried dealing with her bipolar condition.

While Fisher did recover from her drug problem, it took its toll on her. Even at the age of 60, she looked and acted older, although no less feisty than she ever was. However, Princess Leia's return in The Force Awakens revealed a character who had mellowed with age, and was even somewhat sentimental, especially in her scenes with Han Solo. Perhaps Fisher had mellowed with age too?

Even with her death, we haven't seen the last of Carrie Fisher or Princess Leia. With her CGI appearance in the recent Rogue One, plus her upcoming appearance in Episode VIII (she had finished filming it before her death), expect more to come. Fisher may be physically dead, but Leia lives. Isn't that the true immortality we all seek? That some part of us continues to live even after we have passed?

The tax reform camel

There's an old joke that says a camel is just a horse designed by a committee. With the Republicans looking to reform the tax code in 2017, expect a platypus instead of a horse.

(hat tip to Disciplehood for the pic)

Here is a summary from the Associated Press:

Congressional Republicans are planning a massive overhaul of the nation's tax system, a heavy political lift that could ultimately affect families at every income level and businesses of every size.

Their goal is to simplify a complicated tax code that rewards wealthy people with smart accountants, and corporations that can easily shift profits — and jobs — overseas. It won't be easy. The last time it was done was 30 years ago.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., have vowed to pass a tax package in 2017 that would not add to the budget deficit. The Washington term is "revenue neutral."

It means that for every tax cut there has to be a tax increase, creating winners and losers. Lawmakers would get some leeway if non-partisan congressional analysts project that a tax cut would increase economic growth, raising revenue without increasing taxes.

So what kind of changes are they considering to their theft from the American people? Here are a few of their ideas, followed by a 0-4 deck chair rating (based on "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic", with 4 deck chairs being the most pointless):

1. ...lower the top individual income tax rate from 39.6 percent to 33 percent, and reduce the number of tax brackets from seven to three. The gist of the plan is to lower tax rates for just about everyone, and make up the lost revenue by scaling back exemptions, deductions and credits. This gets a 3 deck chair rating for being a step in the right direction, but still mostly cosmetic, mainly because:

The plan, however, retains some of the most popular tax breaks, including those for paying a mortgage, going to college, making charitable contributions and having children.

Until you eliminate ALL deductions and tax breaks, the income tax rate is pointless. And before you squeal about that being "unfair", the most fair system of all charges EVERYONE the exact same tax rate, period, no exceptions. If our government is going to steal our money, at least let it be the same percentage from everyone.

2.  The standard deduction would be increased, giving taxpayers less incentive to itemize their deductions. This gets the big 4 deck chair rating. Everyone should always process taxes as if they were itemizing, and then compare it to the standard deduction. This saves no time for smart filers.

Get rid of deductions entirely, then we will talk.

3. Small business owners would get a special top tax rate of 25 percent. 3 deck chairs. A step in the right direction. Let me know when we hit zero. Taxing businesses on top of individuals is just double-dipping by the government, since businesses only pass on their costs to consumers, thereby taxing us twice.

4. Investment income would be taxed like wages, but investors would only have to pay taxes on half of this income. 3 deck chairs. Consider this: You work and then try to invest your previously-taxed income to make it grow. When you invest wisely and make more money, they tax you again. So you used your money to help the economy, you get rewarded for it, and then you pay taxes on it again.

Personally, I hope there is a special place in Hell for the politicians who let this happen.

5. [Trump] promises a tax cut for every income level, with more low-income families paying no income tax at all. 2 deck chairs. Anything that gets us closer to zero is a positive, especially because:

The Tax Policy Center says Trump's plan would reduce revenues by a whopping $9.5 trillion over the first decade, with most of the tax benefits going to the wealthiest taxpayers.

The only way to reduce government is to starve the leviathan.

6. ...cap itemized deductions for married couples making more than $200,000 a year. 4 deck chairs. This is just wealth envy writ large.

7.  ...tax carried interest, which are fees charged by investment fund managers, as regular income instead of capital gains. 4 deck chairs. Yet more wealth envy in action.

I certainly can appreciate why anyone would want investment fund managers to be taxed for their investment income, but this is just another money grab that will raise investment costs and push them even farther away from the average person. Do you want to make investing so cost prohibitive that only the wealthy can afford it?

8. Both Trump and House Republicans want to lower the [corporate tax] rate, and pay for it by scaling back tax breaks. 3 deck chairs. Only a step in the right direction. By the way, if you think corporations will lose any tax breaks, think again. I am sure the lobbyists are already lining up with the bribe money (aka "campaign donations") for the politicians.

9. House Republicans want to scrap America's worldwide tax system and replace it with a tax that is based on where a firm's products are consumed, rather than where they are produced.

Under the system, American companies that produce and sell their products in the U.S. would pay the new 20 percent corporate tax rate on profits from these sales. However, if a company exports a product abroad, the profits from that sale would not be taxed by the U.S.

There's more: Foreign companies that import goods to the U.S. would have to pay the tax, increasing the cost of imports. 

This gets a 2 deck chair rating for eliminating part of the tax. This part is positive. 

However, there is a huge negative here, in that this creates a 20% tariff on imported goods. Don't expect our trading partners to be happy with this. You can call it a corporate tax until you are blue in the face, but other countries will still see it for a tariff, which is what it is.

As Will Rogers once said, "Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for." I will be thankful when we aren't paying at all. Taxation is just a way for politicians to steal money from us.

By the way, to those of you who are progressive socialists, ask yourself: Do you really want Donald Trump to have access to all this money? Do you really love big government so much that you would hand it over to someone like Trump? 

To paraphrase the old Warren Buffett quote, "Always build a government so small that an idiot can run it. Because sooner or later, one will."

Goodnight, Thomas Sowell: Today's news for December 27th

WND:

MY FAREWELL COLUMN

Thomas Sowell looks back at quarter century of writing syndicated commentary

As you can tell from the headline, Thomas Sowell is retiring from writing columns, which he has done for as long as I can remember. His voice will be missed. He is 86 years old, so retirement is beyond normal. However, his reason for retiring is interesting:

Being old-fashioned, I liked to know what the facts were before writing. That required not only a lot of research, it also required keeping up with what was being said in the media. 

During a stay in Yosemite National Park last May, taking photos with a couple of my buddies, there were four consecutive days without seeing a newspaper or a television news program – and it felt wonderful. With the political news being so awful this year, it felt especially wonderful. 

This made me decide to spend less time following politics and more time on my photography, adding more pictures to my website (www.tsowell.com).

While I can appreciate what he is saying, I see the current political scene as rife with the need for commentary. Sadly, Sowell's commentary won't be part of it.

In other news...

CNN:

India tests nuclear-capable ICBM

India successfully tested its most powerful nuclear-capable missile on Monday, according to the country's Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO) and Defense Ministry.

The Defense Ministry said the test showed the increasing strength of the country's homemade missiles and will help as a deterrent.

"Successful test firing of Agni V makes every Indian very proud. It will add tremendous strength to our strategic defence," Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Twitter.

...Specifically, the development is likely most worrying for China -- with a range of more than 5,000 kilometers (more than 3,100 miles) the Agni-V is India's longest-range and puts Beijing within striking distance.

Although China probably doesn't want India, which is good because a war between those two countries would involve a significant plurality of the world's population.

From an American perspective, this doesn't really impact us. We wouldn't want a war with India, but we have good relations with them anyway.

Finally...

Reuters:

Singer George Michael of Wham! fame dies at 53

British singer George Michael, who became one of the pop idols of the 1980s with Wham! and then forged a career as a successful solo artist with sometimes sexually provocative lyrics, died at his home in England on Sunday. He was 53.

Although it has been quite a few years since Michael has had a hit song, his influence on music in the 1980's and 1990's is undeniable.

RIP George Michael. You have earned it.

Weekly finale: Michael Jackson

I am closing up my blog shop early for Christmas, but not before the usual weekly musical finale.

Today's featured song is a classic from 1972, that even got an Academy Award nomination for Best Song (it lost to The Morning After from The Poseidon Adventure). The song is Ben by a young singer named Michael Jackson. You may have heard of him.

Here is Jackson performing the song at the Academy Awards ceremony:



For those of you unfamiliar with Ben, it is from the movie of the same name. The movie "Ben" was a pet rat, who was "the rat leader of the swarm of rats trained by Willard Stiles". Willard Stiles was the title character of the 1971 film Willard, about a social misfit who trains a bunch of rats. Killer rat movies were a big thing in the early 1970's.

While nothing says "Merry Christmas" like a song from a movie about rats, I will add a separate seasons greetings to all of you. I wish all of you the best this weekend, and I will return Tuesday (I will be traveling Monday) for more blogging.

The Leftist prigs: Today's news for December 23rd

AFP:

Is the Iran nuclear deal already being violated?

Before Donald Trump has even arrived in the White House, Iran says the United States has already violated the nuclear deal and threatened to build atomic-powered ships in retaliation. Is the historic accord at risk?

Earlier this month, US lawmakers renewed a law called the Iran Sanctions Act (ISA), extending its provisions for another decade.

ISA, first introduced in 1996, aimed to cut off foreign investment in Iran's oil and gas sector to starve it of funds that might be used for its nuclear programme or to fund "terrorist" groups.

Key provisions of ISA were suspended in January when the nuclear deal between Iran and world powers came into force, although Washington has kept others linked to human rights and terrorism in place.

The White House said renewing ISA was pointless since it remains suspended so long as Tehran sticks to its promises to curb its nuclear programme.

Knowing it would pass anyway, President Barack Obama let the law through, but refused to sign it.

The president symbolically let slide a deadline to ink his name on the legislation -- which he has called unnecessary -- meaning the 10-year sanctions renewal will automatically become law.

Even if it were pointless, however, Tehran was up in arms, with both the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani calling the renewal a "clear violation" of the accord and lodging a formal complaint with the United Nations.

Translation: Obama knows the Iran deal was a completely symbolic treaty, and when the Iranians inevitably get nukes, he can point to this and say, "See? I knew the deal was going to be violated." Except for the fact he kind of helped it along through inaction.

Speaking of Obama, here is some more news about Leftist prigs:

Daily Mail:
REVEALED: The Brooklyn lawyer who chased down Ivanka on a JetBlue flight and his Hillary supporter husband who BOASTED about the verbal attack before they were thrown off

A Brooklyn lawyer confronted Ivanka Trump and said her father is 'ruining this country' while she was on a plane with her children.

Dan Goldstein and his Hillary supporter husband Matthew Lasner were thrown off of the JetBlue flight from New York to San Francisco on Thursday when they accosted the future first daughter and started shouting at her.

While holding a child in his arms Goldstein, 35,  began screaming: 'Why is she on our flight. She should be flying private.'

Ivanka paid as little attention as possible and tried to preoccupy her children with some crayons to diffuse the situation until the crew escorted him off the plane.

Lasner, said that was not what happened however on Twitter, writing: 'My husband expressed his displeasure in a calm tone, JetBlue staff overheard, and they kicked us off the plane.'

But just an hour prior to that Lasner wrote on Twitter: 'Ivanka and Jared at JFK T5, flying commercial. My husband chasing them down to harass them. #banalityofevil'

Lasner has been very vocal about his distaste for Trump on Twitter, writing shortly after the election about marching against the President-elect. 

If you want to understand why people hate the Left, here is a good example.

Here is another example:

Slate:

Wisconsin Republicans Want "Problem of Whiteness" Class Cancelled, Professor Fired

Republican legislators in Wisconsin are threatening to reject the University of Wisconsin-Madison's requests for additional state funding unless an elective course they find offensive is cancelled and its professor is fired.

Rep. Dave Murphy, chairman of the Wisconsin Assembly’s Committee on Colleges and Universities, told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel he believes the course “The Problem of Whiteness” contributes to “the polarization of races in our state.”

“I am extremely concerned that UW-Madison finds it appropriate to teach a course called, ‘The Problem of Whiteness,’ with the premise that white people are racist,” he said in a statement. “Even more troubling, the course is taught by a self-described “international radical” professor whose views are a slap in the face to the taxpayers who are expected to pay for this garbage.”

If this class was titled "The Problem of Blackness", the mainstream media would be screaming like a bunch of stuck pigs. Instead, it gets ignored.

But back to the class itself.

Rant on.

It amazes me when these Leftist prigs do things that the KKK would love to do, and then don't realize just how racist they are being. Notice I am not calling it "reverse racism"? It is past time to call out the Leftists for what they are doing, which is just racism.

Rant off.

In other so-called news...

Politico:

House report: Edward Snowden in contact with Russian agents

Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has been in contact with Russian intelligence agents since he stole troves of classified documents, a House committee alleged on Thursday.

“Since Snowden’s arrival in Moscow, he has had, and continues to have, contact with Russian intelligence services,” the House Intelligence Committee said in a report on the Snowden leaks released Thursday.

The declassified report, which is heavily redacted, did not offer proof of its serious accusation. It follows the committee's release in September of an executive summary of the then-classified document.

House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said in a statement that the report offers “a fuller account of Edward Snowden’s crimes and the reckless disregard he has shown for U.S. national security, including the safety of American servicemen and women.”

In other news, the sun went down last night. Scandalous!

Seriously, Snowden doesn't have any choice about being in "contact with Russian intelligence services". If he didn't voluntarily help them, there's a nice gulag in Siberia that could convince him otherwise. Plus, they likely visit him frequently.

Finally, if you think the Left's media is the only one running biased stories, here is proof the Right does it too:

New York Daily News:

Fake news story claims Jewish family 'fled' Pennsylvania town after being blamed for Christmas play cancellation

A Jewish family — initially reported to have fled their Pennsylvania hometown after being wrongfully blamed for the cancellation of a fifth grade Christmas play — actually just went on a pre-planned winter vacation, an investigation has revealed.

Putting on “A Christmas Carol” has been a holiday tradition at Centerville Elementary in Lancaster County for more than three decades, but the school pulled the plug on this year’s production back in November “due to the amount of instructional time,” according to a statement from the Hempfield School District.

However, a LancasterOnline report published Thursday falsely claimed that a local Jewish family had "fled" Lancaster after being blamed for supposedly demanding the play's cancellation upon finding out it contained the line, "God bless us, everyone!"

...Still, the story was picked up by national news outlets like Breitbart and Fox News, which claimed the show was canceled after “unnamed parents took offense at the words uttered by Tiny Tim.”

A Fox News Opinion piece by Todd Starnes blasted the decision. It reads, “I’m afraid Tiny Tim’s goose has been cooked by the ghost of Christmas intolerance.”

Fox had yet to issue a retraction to either its opinion piece or news story as of late Thursday.  

To be honest, such intolerance of Christian celebrations during Christmas isn't unusual. However, when a story is wrong, it needs a retraction, period.

5 Problems with CIA Claim That Russia Hacked DNC/Podesta emails

Everything you need to know about the whole CIA/Russian hacking allegations is in this short video:

Trump's biggest flaw: Today's news for December 22nd

If you want to find President-elect Donald Trump's biggest flaw, it isn't racism or sexism or Russian connections or the conflicts of interest from his businesses. It is this:

CNN:

Trump team floats tariffs

The Trump transition team is floating the possibility of an early executive action to impose tariffs on foreign imports, according to multiple sources.

Such a move would deliver on President-elect Donald Trump's "America First" campaign theme. But it's causing alarm among business interests and the pro-trade Republican establishment.

The Trump transition team didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the prospect of new tariffs. But a transition official said the team has discussed implementing a border adjustment tax measure under consideration by House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady, which would tax imports to spur US manufacturing.

So we kill U.S. import and export businesses so we can work on assembly lines, which will soon be roboticized anyway. This one gets the shark award for stupidity:

Trump's biggest flaw is his protectionism, which is far more dangerous than appointing a racist, or making derogatory comments about women, or even meeting with Putin.

Protectionism gave us the Great Depression. Specifically, the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act. When the world moved from agriculture to manufacturing-based economies, the world's politicians tried to protect their agricultural interests from foreign competition with tariffs. In the U.S., it was Smoot-Hawley that killed our economy. In fact, the worldwide response to America occurred long before the tariffs were enacted. It only took the bill's passage by the House of Representatives in May of 1929 to start boycotts and counter-tariffs from other countries. The stock market crash of 1929 was an indirect result of this protectionist stupidity.

Speaking of stupid Trump tricks...

Politico:

Schumer: Trump's trillion dollar infrastructure plan sounds good to me

Donald Trump's $1 trillion infrastructure plan sounds good to Chuck Schumer, the incoming Senate minority leader said Tuesday.

The president-elect has called for a $1 trillion investment into upgrading the nation’s roads, bridges, tunnels and airports.

“We think it should be large,” Schumer told ABC News’ Jon Karl and Rick Klein during their “Powerhouse Politics” podcast. “He’s mentioned a trillion dollars. I told him that sounded good to me.”

A trillion dollars sounds good? Why not two trillion? Or 500 billion? We all know the answer to that, and it has nothing to do with the amount needed, and everything to do with the political impact of large numbers.

Expect a trillion dollars to be spent, and a trillion dollars to be blown, because it isn't about fixing infrastructure. It's all about the next election.

In other stupid news...

US News & World Report:

Black Males 3 Times More Likely to Be Killed by Police

Black males are nearly three times more likely than white males to be killed when law enforcement officers use force, according to a new study.

Black males aged 10 years or older died at a rate 2.8 times higher in so-called legal intervention deaths in the U.S. between 2010 and 2014, the study says. Hispanic males, meanwhile, died at a rate 1.7 times higher than that of whites. About 96 percent of the deaths overall resulted from shootings.

The study, led by Dr. James Buehler, a professor at the Dornsife School of Public Health at Drexel University, was published this week in the American Journal of Public Health. It examined information on 2,285 fatal encounters with police between 2010 and 2014, as recorded in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention database. Ninety-six percent of those killed were male.

Excuse me, but black men were 3 times more likely than white men to be killed, but what about the men overall being 24 times more likely than women to be killed? Talk about burying the lede...

Seriously though, the study doesn't get at the cause. Is it racism? Is it black men being more likely to commit acts that put them in harm's way? Is it cops being over-aggressive? You can undoubtedly find examples of all of these within the numbers.

But nobody stops to ask: Maybe cops are enforcing far too many laws? If you hand an armed officer a huge book of reasons to justify shooting people, it becomes much easier to justify shooting people, regardless of skin color or gender. Failure to comply with the legal code is a justification for killing, and ignorance of the law is no excuse. Hence, you can be killed for nearly any reason, and you don't have to know why in advance. By the way, if you get killed by a cop for a reason which is outside the law, that factor doesn't help you, since you will be dead.

Wednesday wisdom: Clint Eastwood

"There's only one way to have a happy marriage and as soon as I learn what it is I'll get married again."--Clint Eastwood

Trump's "foundation": Today's news for December 21st

It seems President-elect Donald Trump has his own version of the Clinton Foundation:

The Center for Public Integrity:

Donald Trump's sons behind nonprofit selling access to president-elect

A new Texas nonprofit led by Donald Trump’s grown sons is offering access to the freshly-minted president during inauguration weekend — all in exchange for million-dollar donations to unnamed “conservation” charities, according to interviews and documents reviewed by the Center for Public Integrity.

And the donors’ identities may never be known.

Prospective million-dollar donors to the “Opening Day 2017” event — slated for Jan. 21, the day after inauguration, at Washington, D.C.’s Walter E. Washington Convention Center — receive a “private reception and photo opportunity for 16 guests with President Donald J. Trump,” a “multi-day hunting and/or fishing excursion for 4 guests with Donald Trump, Jr. and/or Eric Trump, and team,” as well as tickets to other events and “autographed guitars by an Opening Day 2017 performer.”

...A Center for Public Integrity review of Texas incorporation records found the Opening Day Foundation was created less than a week ago, on Dec. 14. Unlike political committees, such nonprofits aren’t required by law to reveal their donors, allowing sponsors to write seven-figure checks for access to the president while staying anonymous, if they choose.

The paperwork for the Opening Day Foundation listed four directors: Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Dallas investor Gentry Beach and Tom Hicks Jr., the son of a Dallas billionaire.

Beach and Hicks are reportedly close friends with Donald Trump Jr., and both men helped raise millions of dollars for Trump’s campaign.

While this is perfectly legal, it is no less disturbing. It is going to be a long four years.

On the other hand, it could have been equally long...

USAToday:

Lawyer: 'Appalled' by FBI warrant that shook Clinton

The FBI warrant that shook Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign in its final two weeks has been unsealed, and the lawyer who requested it says it offers "nothing at all" to merit the agency's actions leading up to the Nov. 8 election.

The warrant was released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by Los Angeles lawyer Randy Schoenberg, who wants to determine what probable cause the agency provided to suspect material on disgraced congressman Anthony Weiner’s computer might be incriminating to Clinton. Weiner is the estranged husband of Clinton’s top aide, Huma Abedin. Under the Fourth Amendment, search and seizure can only be granted when proof of probable cause of criminal findings has been documented.

You really want to open this can of worms again? Ok...

They had enough evidence to convict Hillary, but chose to leave it in the court of public opinion instead. With that in mind, this search was perfectly logical, considering Weiner was already in other legal trouble, and he was married to one of Clinton's top aides, even if you put aside the fact the FBI already knew what they would find (more classified emails).

Moving on to other Leftist topics...

BBC News:

Wisconsin teacher removed for essay defending Ku Klux Klan

A Wisconsin charter school teacher has been suspended after giving students an essay to defend the Ku Klux Klan.

The Milwaukee educator said in a letter to parents that the students would write a paper defending the white supremacy group.

The teacher, who is African-American, emphasised the goal was to teach seventh-graders to write persuasively.

The school withdrew the assignment, adding it believed there was no malicious intent involved.

In order to reason properly, one must first be able to look at all sides of an issue, and not just the sides with which they are comfortable. These parents and this school did their children no favors.

Missing racial relevance

Dan Wakefield's editorial, "Why Are We Still Reliving the Nightmarish Death of Emmett Till?" completely misses the point: Emmett Till's death is no longer relevant, and we should all thank God for this.

As Wakefield describes it:

In August 1955, a 14-year-old black boy from Chicago was tortured and killed for allegedly whistling at a white woman. His body was found in the Tallahatchie River with a 70-pound cotton gin fan tied around his neck with barbed wire. Less than one month later the two white men responsible were found “not guilty” by an all-white jury in Sumner, Mississippi.

Keep in mind, this incident was basically two racists acting outside the law, performing murder, and then allowed to get away with it by an equally racist jury. While this isn't necessarily impossible today, it is far less likely, to the point of being unheard of today.

But then Wakefield draws his faulty parallel:

If anything, we seem to have regressed. As police shootings of black men have become more commonplace (or at least more unignorable, since citizens carry cameras on their phones), we have to be reminded that “black lives matter,” and even that simple truth can be regarded as “controversial,” countered with shouts of “All lives matter,” a team cheer for the newly empowered white nationalists. 

How many differences can we draw?

1. Emmett Till wasn't killed by police.
2. Of the black men killed by police today, most were justified. All led to investigations. Many are still ongoing. All of the incidents, regardless of police guilt or innocence, created bad PR for the police.
3. Many of the modern police shootings led to black community protests and riots immediately afterwards. During Till's time, the black community was far too scared to attempt anything like a protest (although there were unfounded rumors of riots). 

If anything, Emmett Till's murder trial is almost the inverse of the O.J. Simpson 1994-95 murder trial.

In 1955, white racism was commonplace, and a strong part of the culture. In 2016, the mainstream media screams against every single slight aimed at a black person, even if it is deserved. If there is any parallel at all, it is the inverse: White people have to walk on glass around blacks, for fear of being called the "R" word. If you get labelled as a "racist", you become an instant cultural pariah, even for the most minor offense, and even if it wasn't intended.

In 1955, white people could get away with murdering a black. In 2016, if a cop shoots a black man, regardless of what the black man was doing, the cop will receive the "tar and feather" treatment from the media, followed quickly by mass protests and a few riots.

Anyone who tries to draw parallels between Till and today's black hoodlums is doing a severe injustice to the memory of Emmett Till. Till made an innocent mistake and paid the ultimate price for it. Today, when a hoodlum, black or white, gets killed for ignoring police authority (which is usually the cause of "death by cop"), one can complain about over-aggressive policing, but it is rarely because of skin color, in spite of the fact the media likes to play that up. Racism sells, probably because it is far more rare than the media would lead you to believe.

The meaning behind Islamic terror attacks: Today's news for December 20

Daily Mail:

'ISIS terrorist' who killed 12 after hijacking HGV, 

murdering driver and ploughing into Berlin Christmas market is 

'a Pakistani asylum seeker, 23, who has only been in Germany for few months'

A Pakistani asylum seeker believed to have used a hijacked 25-tonne lorry to murder 12 people and injure 48 more at a Berlin Christmas market had only been in Germany for months and was already known to police because of petty crime, it was revealed today.

The masked 23-year-old named as Naved B, who entered the country under a false name on New Year's Eve 2015, turned off the truck's lights before mounting the pavement at 40mph and ploughing through crowds of people enjoying mulled wine after work.

The vehicle laden with steel cargo ripped through stalls and shoppers at 7pm on Breitscheidplatz Square, outside the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church in the German capital's main shopping area.
Witnesses said victims were sent flying like bowling pins as the killer driver steered at them before jumping out of the cab and racing from the scene.

Police managed to take the masked terror suspect alive at a nearby zoo after a 'hero' witness in the Christmas market gave chase on foot while giving officers second-by-second updates on his phone. Naved B is in a Berlin police station today.

Police confirmed the lorry's original Polish driver, who was transporting steel beams into Germany, was last heard from at around 4pm yesterday and was found shot dead in the cab in an apparent murder hijacking.

German officials have said that the driver is a Pakistani national who entered Germany via the Balkans on December 31 and February as an asylum seeker. He was believed to be living in a refugee camp at Berlin's Tempelhof airport, which was raided by an elite group of armed anti-terror police at 4am this morning.

Contrary to the political Left's narrative, this incident lends credence to Donald Trump's narrative about the need for tighter border controls. How many of these incidents do we have to have until everyone recognizes that we are in a war with Islam?

Mind you, I would prefer we make peace with Islam, and get our forces out of the Muslim-controlled nations like Syria. Since that option doesn't seem to be on the table, that only leaves the option of fighting this silly war. And in war, you don't leave your borders open to the enemy. Germany is learning this lesson painfully.

Fortunately, we have a new ally in this war:

CNN:

Russian and Turkish officials to meet after envoy's assassination

Diplomats from Turkey and Russia will meet as planned on Tuesday to discuss the situation in the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo, one day after the assassination of Russia's ambassador to Turkey.

On Monday night, a Turkish police officer fired several shots at Andrey Karlov as the Russian envoy opened an art exhibition in Ankara, shouting "Do not forget Aleppo! Do not forget Syria." 

The assassination came at a time of thawing relations between Russia and Turkey, and at a pivotal moment for the war in Syria, where Russia has been instrumental in President Bashar al-Assad's push to retake rebel-held areas.

As far as the Islamic forces are concerned, Russia is firmly in the West's camp. Aleppo has clearly become a battle cry for radical Islamists, and possibly even a recruiting tool.

But at least Vladimir Putin doesn't take the silly Leftist view of such incidents:

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the killing was clear "provocation" aimed at undermining not just the normalization of Russia-Turkish relations but the "peace process in Syria" promoted by Russia, Turkey, Iran and other countries.

"The only response we should offer to this murder is stepping up our fight against terror, and the criminals will feel the heat," Putin said in televised remarks.

On the other hand:

"The important thing is to understand who is behind this crime," Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

"We are convinced that the main goal of those who planned this barbaric act [is] to undermine the process of normalization of relations between Russia and Turkey, largely in order to prevent an effective fight against terrorism in Syria. This goal is futile. It will not work."

Was it really to undermine "normalization of relations between Russia and Turkey"? I tend to see it in just the opposite way: It puts Russia on alert they are being lumped in with the West as targets for the radical Islamists.

Fortunately, there is always somebody who misses the point:

The Sun:

RUSSIA BLAMES WEST 

Key ally of Vladimir Putin claims shadowy Nato forces 

masterminded the assassination of Russian ambassador Andrey Karlov

THE assassination of Russian ambassador Andrey Karlov was masterminded by Nato secret services, a top Vladimir Putin ally has claimed.

...Today Senator Frantz Klintsevich, deputy chairman of the Russian upper chamber’s defence and security committee, said: “It was a planned action,” the Mail Online reported.

“Everyone knew that he was going to attend this photo exhibition. It can be ISIS, or the Kurdish army which tries to hurt Erdogan.

“But may be – and it is highly likely – that representatives of foreign NATO secret services are behind it.

“What has happened is a true provocation, a challenge. It is a challenge for Russia.”

It is obvious at least one Russian is seriously "challenged".

But what amazes me most is that Drudge Report had this story as its big headline this morning. If this is truly what "Russia thinks", Putin's comments in the previous article above don't reflect this. Drudge is hugely blowing Klintsevich's influence out of proportion.

Review: Rogue One

The newest Star Wars film Rogue One had a good weekend at the box office, making $290 million across the world, with $155 million of that in North America. In my opinion, it was a good movie, not great. (There are some minor spoilers ahead)

First, Rogue One is darker (both visually and in story) than most Star Wars films, which is appropriate. Remember, this is a story about the sacrifices made to obtain the plans to the Empire's Death Star weapon. There will be no dancing Ewoks at the end of this one.

However, developing this story is a bit too expositional. It is necessary, but it is a trudge through the early part of the movie. Make sure you get the caffeinated soda at the movie theater.

Fortunately, the ending pays off in a big way with arguably one of the best battle scenes ever made in a Star Wars film.

The movie has some nice Easter eggs planted throughout it. I won't spoil most of them. But there are two CGI appearances, with the most notable being Grand Moff Tarkin from Episode IV (the first Star Wars). He was played by Peter Cushing, who died in 1994. In my opinion, this was some very impressive graphics work to make him come alive (or is that "bring him back to life"?). I looked hard for the flaws, but I couldn't see them.

Speaking of Episode IV, if you are wondering whether there will be a sequel to Rogue One, Episode IV is the sequel.

Overall, Rogue One is definitely a film for Star Wars fans, and specifically fans of Episode IV. What is most appealing about Rogue One is that it lends some gravitas to the events in Episode IV, and deserves to be slotted as Episode 3.5 in the series. However, "3" is probably a better rating for it, out of 4 stars.

Happy Electoral College day! Today's news for December 19th

Washington Post:

In last-shot bid, thousands urge electoral college to block Trump at Monday vote

Pressure on members of the electoral college to select someone other than Donald Trump has grown dramatically — and noisily — in recent weeks, causing some to waver but yielding little evidence that Trump will fall short when electors convene in most state capitals Monday to cast their votes.

Carole Joyce of Arizona expected her role as a GOP elector to be pretty simple: She would meet the others in Phoenix and carry out a vote for Trump, who won the most votes in her state and whom she personally supported.

But then came the mail and the emails and the phone calls — first hundreds, then thousands of voters worrying that Trump’s impulsive nature would lead the country into another war.

“Honestly, it had an impact,” said Joyce, a 72-year-old Republican state committee member. “I’ve seen enough funerals. I’m tired of hearing bagpipes. . . . But I signed a loyalty pledge. And that matters.”

Such is the life these days for many of the 538 men and women who are scheduled to meet Monday across the country to carry out what has traditionally been a perfunctory vote after most every presidential election.

The Electoral College is only news because the mainstream media is desperate to somehow find a way to steal this election from Donald Trump. This is the first election year I can remember the media even covering the Electoral College.

On the bright side, the Leftist bias of the MSM is on full display for all to see. Consider:

The role of elector has intensified this year, in the wake of a bitter election in which Trump lost the popular vote to Democrat Hillary Clinton by a margin of nearly 3 million votes and the revelation of a secret CIA assessment that Russia interfered to help Trump get elected. 

The Washington Post is still pushing this narrative? Clinton's entire margin of victory in the popular vote came in California. Personally, I have no desire to allow the bowl of granola that is California (what ain't fruits and nuts, is flakes) to decide presidential elections for the rest of us.

As for the Russian hacking story, even the Democrats cannot get their stories straight:

Fox News:

Interim DNC chair Brazile appears to contradict Obama's hacking comments

The interim Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile said Sunday that cyberattacks against the party occurred every day through the end of the election.

"They came after us absolutely every day until the end of the election. They tried to hack into our system repeatedly," Brazile added.

Brazile’s comments were made on ABC News’ “The Week” and were apparently contradicting what President Barack Obama said Friday when he revealed that the hacking was halted in September after he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at an international summit and told him to “cut it out.”

Obama stopped short of saying Putin himself orchestrated the Russian hacking of U.S. political sites during the election – but he did say it was done at the highest levels of the Kremlin.

Democrat Hillary Clinton has even more directly cited Russian interference. She said Thursday night, "Vladimir Putin himself directed the covert cyberattacks against our electoral system, against our democracy, apparently because he has a personal beef against me."

Obama didn’t publicly back that theory.

So maybe Russia was hacking the DNC all the way through until the election, or maybe they weren't. And maybe Putin ordered it, and maybe he didn't.

And maybe the Democrats are using this as an excuse to try and invalidate the reality they lost the election to arguably the lamest Republican candidate ever.

Almost as pathetic as the Democrats is the "lamestream" media itself:

New York Times:

How a Putin Fan Overseas Pushed Pro-Trump Propaganda to Americans

Notice the headline? Americans were unknowing dupes in a Russian scheme! Or at least you might think that.

Even the story begins with a rather ominous-sounding description of a website:

The Patriot News Agency website popped up in July, soon after it became clear that Donald J. Trump would win the Republican presidential nomination, bearing a logo of a red, white and blue eagle and the motto “Built by patriots, for patriots.”

Tucked away on a corner of the site, next to links for Twitter and YouTube, is a link to another social media platform that most Americans have never heard of: VKontakte, the Russian equivalent of Facebook. It is a clue that Patriot News, like many sites that appeared out of nowhere and pumped out pro-Trump hoaxes tying his opponent Hillary Clinton to Satanism, pedophilia and other conspiracies, is actually run by foreigners based overseas.

But while most of those others seem be the work of young, apolitical opportunists cashing in on a conservative appetite for viral nonsense, operators of Patriot News had an explicitly partisan motivation: getting Mr. Trump elected.

Patriot News — whose postings were viewed and shared tens of thousands of times in the United States — is among a constellation of websites run out of the United Kingdom that are linked to James Dowson, a far-right political activist who advocated Britain’s exit from the European Union and is a fan of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. A vocal proponent of Christian nationalist, anti-immigrant movements in Europe, Mr. Dowson, 52, has spoken at a conference of far-right leaders in Russia and makes no secret of his hope that Mr. Trump will usher in an era of rapprochement with Mr. Putin.

His dabbling in the American presidential election adds an ideological element that has been largely missing from the still-emerging landscape of websites and Facebook pages that bombarded American voters with misinformation and propaganda. Far from the much-reported Macedonian teenagers running fake news factories solely for profit, Mr. Dowson made it his mission, according to messages posted on one of his sites, to “spread devastating anti-Clinton, pro-Trump memes and sound bites into sections of the population too disillusioned with politics to have taken any notice of conventional campaigning.”

Huh? This man's stories were shared "tens of thousands of times in the United States". All of the hits would have had to have been voters in swing states to have even made any difference. And then you have to prove those tens of thousands of voters actually switched their votes from Clinton to Trump based on this website's stories. This is so far-fetched as to be absurd.

Interestingly, the story links to an Ipsos poll which allegedly proves that fake news was influential in the election results. This poll has more holes than Bonnie and Clyde's last car.

For starters, half the poll's respondents voted for Hillary Clinton. Right there, you already have an overly suggestible base group. (Or as Lenin allegedly called them, "useful idiots".)

But the main thing is the poll doesn't prove voters were swayed by fake news. All it proves is there might be some influence out there. The poll makes no effort to link the fake news to a voter's choice, and then prove it in large enough numbers to sway the election. Applying statistics to a very speculative premise doesn't suddenly make it right. If anything, it only adds unproved gravitas to a speculative premise.

On top of all this, the New York Times seems to prove the lie in their own story:

Mr. Dowson claims to have reached millions of Americans across all of his online platforms in the run-up to the November presidential election, a number that could not be verified, in part, because he would not confirm all of his sites. Online visits to Patriot News did not come close to that, although when combined with several other sites that appear to be connected to Mr. Dowson, the total number edges above a million; most viewers were in Britain.

With that piece of information, there is no reason to run this story at all. They just disproved their main case.

Also buried in the article is this worrisome line:

Social media can amplify even the most obscure voices, giving them a stage from which to broadcast a distorted message to credulous audiences. 

While true, social media can also amplify obscure voices which otherwise would never get heard. Sometimes, those obscure voices might be the correct ones, instead of the ones merely parroting the talking points from certain left-leaning political parties. But we won't name any examples, will we New York Times?

In more positive, and verifiable, news:

NFL.com:

Raiders clinch first playoff berth since 2002 with win

The [Oakland] Raiders (11-3) are playoff-bound after knocking off the injury-riddled Chargers (5-9) on Sunday. 

I will add that I am a long-suffering Raiders fan, so I will break with my normal news objectivity to say: GO RAIDERS!

Weekly finale: Russian rock

With another week of blogging ending, it is time to head into the weekend with the usual weekly musical finale.

With all the talk about Russian hacking in the news, I decided it's time to reveal one of my guilty pleasures, Russian rock music.

One of the more famous Russian rock artists is the band Pussy Riot, who came to fame mostly for the trouble they got into with Vladimir Putin. However, they don't take sides internationally, as their song Make America Great Again takes aim at both Donald Trump and America (NOTE: The following music video might be disturbing to some viewers):



However, I am more fond of a band called Louna. Their music has an edgy rock sound, even though I cannot tell you what the lyrics say. I just know I like them. Here is their song Штурмуя небеса, (which translates to "Storming Heavens"):



(The rest of the song's lyrics are translated here.)

That just sounds like rock to me, and very good rock at that.

Maybe we should consider this when all we hear is about Russians hacking elections, which they didn't even do in the first place.

That is all from me this week, but I will return Monday with more stone cold blogging. Enjoy your weekend!

The wisdom of Frédéric Bastiat

Frédéric Bastiat was a 19th century French economist and author, and one of the greater lights of 19th century Western thought. From Wikiquote, here are a few of his less pithy thoughts (yet more elaborated) for your enjoyment, and hopefully inspiration:

• In the department of economy, an act, a habit, an institution, a law, gives birth not only to an effect, but to a series of effects. Of these effects, the first only is immediate; it manifests itself simultaneously with its cause — it is seen. The others unfold in succession — they are not seen: it is well for us, if they are foreseen. Between a good and a bad economist this constitutes the whole difference: the one takes account only of the visible effect; the other takes account of both the effects which are seen and those which it is necessary to foresee. Now this difference is enormous, for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favourable, the ultimate consequences are fatal, and the converse. Hence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good, which will be followed by a great evil to come, while the true economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil.
• "[The socialists declare] that the State owes subsistence, well-being, and education to all its citizens; that it should be generous, charitable, involved in everything, devoted to everybody; ...that it should intervene directly to relieve all suffering, satisfy and anticipate all wants, furnish capital to all enterprises, enlightenment to all minds, balm for all wounds, asylums for all the unfortunate, and even aid to the point of shedding French blood, for all oppressed people on the face of the earth...Who would not like to see all these benefits flow forth upon the world from the law, as from an inexhaustible source? … But is it possible? … Whence does [the State] draw those resources that it is urged to dispense by way of benefits to individuals? Is it not from the individuals themselves? How, then, can these resources be increased by passing through the hands of a parasitic and voracious intermediary?...Finally…we shall see the entire people transformed into petitioners. Landed property, agriculture, industry, commerce, shipping, industrial companies, all will bestir themselves to claim favors from the State. The public treasury will be literally pillaged. Everyone will have good reasons to prove that legal fraternity should be interpreted in this sense: "Let me have the benefits, and let others pay the costs." Everyone's effort will be directed toward snatching a scrap of fraternal privilege from the legislature. The suffering classes, although having the greatest claim, will not always have the greatest success.
• Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.
• If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind? 

Fact-checking the news: Today's news for December 16th

Business Insider:

Facebook is going to use Snopes and other fact-checkers to combat and bury 'fake news'

Facebook is going to start fact-checking, labeling, and burying fake news and hoaxes in its News Feed, the company said Thursday.

The decision comes after Facebook received heated criticism for its role in spreading a deluge of political misinformation during the US presidential election, like one story that falsely said the Pope had endorsed Donald Trump.

To combat fake news, Facebook has teamed up with a shortlist of media organizations, including Snopes and ABC News, that are part of an international fact-checking network led by Poynter, a nonprofit school for journalism in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Starting as a test with a small percentage of its users in the US, Facebook will make it easier to report news stories that are fake or misleading. Once third-party fact-checkers have confirmed that the story is fake, it will be labeled as such and demoted in the News Feed.

A company representative told Business Insider that the social network will also use other signals, like algorithms that detect whether a story that appears fake is going viral, to determine if it should label the story as fake and bury it in people's feeds.

"We've focused our efforts on the worst of the worst, on the clear hoaxes spread by spammers for their own gain, and on engaging both our community and third party organizations," Facebook News Feed chief Adam Mosseri said in a company blog post on Thursday.

In the first place, anyone who gets their news from one place gets what they deserve. As a frequent consumer of news, aka "news junkie", I can honestly say there is no single source of news which is above reproach. Drudge Report comes close, but even they have a slant in what they show, not to mention they are only linking to other people's stories.

That said, if media organizations employed objective and professional editors, instead of the bias monkeys they currently employ, then "fake news" wouldn't be an issue. Blaming Facebook for the failings of the news organizations in their News Feed misses the point.

Unfortunately, Facebook makes a rather false claim in the story:

Facebook has repeatedly said that it's not a media company, but rather an open technology platform that relies on media publishers and its users to share accurate information. 

“We do not think of ourselves as editors," Patrick Walker, Facebook's head of media partnerships, said during a recent journalism conference in Dublin. "We believe it’s essential that Facebook stay out of the business of deciding what issues the world should read about. That’s what editors do.”    

This is EXACTLY what they are doing in this story: Acting as an additional editor. In their defense, they are trying to get professional news organizations to assist in this process, but journalism as a whole has a big problem today, as their objectivity has been compromised to big business interests. Facebook cannot fix that.

In other news...

Fox News:

Obama says US needs to respond to Russian cyberattacks -- 'and we will'

President Obama said Thursday that the U.S. needs to "take action" in response to cyberattacks on Democratic officials during the recent presidential campaign, hours after his administration insisted -- without offering proof -- that President-elect Donald Trump "obviously knew" of the breaches, and suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin had personally authorized them. 

Yay! Obama is going to take action! What will it be? A strategic nuclear strike? Or maybe send a Navy Seal team into the Kremlin to remove all the toilet paper?

Get real. This is yet another "if you like your doctor, you can keep him" promise from the prevaricator-in-chief. He is trying to sound tough, even as he already has his bags packed for Hawaii.

On the other hand, in the "best news of the week" category...

Fox News:

Judge Napolitano Discusses Supreme Court Vacancy With Trump

President-elect Donald Trump has been busy since Election Day carefully choosing members who will fill his cabinet.  But in the midst of the rush to staff his administration, Trump took time for advice from Fox News Senior Judicial Analyst, Judge Andrew Napolitano. The judge outlined desirable qualities for a potential nominee who could fill an empty Supreme Court seat vacated by Justice Antonin Scalia who died in February.

The judge advised the president-elect on how to scope out the best candidates based on intellectual, ideological, and temperamental qualities.

“He was interested in a broad range of ideas and attitudes about the type of person who would best fill Justice Scalia’s seat,” Napolitano told the FOX Business Network’s Stuart Varney. 

While Napolitano himself would be the best choice possible, he is 66, so his age might be a limiting factor. However, at least taking advice from him is an excellent sign.

Why LGBT People Should Be Conservative

Theryn Meyer's "Why LGBT People Should Be Conservative" is a fascinating read, which reveals some inconvenient truths about the Leftists. I won't go so far as Meyer does to say LGBT people should be conservative, but they should definitely be on the fence between the Left and Right. (Then again, she is in Canada, so the definitions of Left and Right can be moved about 10 feet towards the Left. Or is that 10 meters towards the Left?)

Meyer's story begins:

Growing up a gender-atypical child in the politically broken and culturally fragmented country of South Africa, social acceptance and even basic tolerance was often hard to come by. Dealing with the growing pains of adolescence as an unworldly teenager is challenging enough. But doing so in the lonely corner after being shunned by everyone in the room – your family, your friends, your community, your tribe – can make life for a queer kid seem unbearable at times.

In this vulnerable state, liberalism offered me what I so desperately wished for. Not only was I accepted for who I am, but I was celebrated for that which makes me different.

Right there, Meyer gets at the whole appeal of the Left to the LGBT community: It isn't just acceptance for who you are, but celebration of it. That is pretty powerful when you come from somewhere that doesn't accept you, for whatever reason.

So when faced with the Left celebrating your sexual identity, versus the Right where some elements, specifically religious elements, tend to reject you being anything other than heterosexual, it is easy to know which way to go.

Meyer continues:

As I grew into adulthood, however, I soon realized that Mother Left’s generous promises of inclusion, acceptance, and shelter, were highly conditional. I was welcomed as a nestling as long as I parroted the leftist script of big government, open borders, gun control, and the insidious subversion of Western values.

It sounds almost like a cult. We accept you for who you are...as long as you support what we want, as Meyer describes:

At face value, I was allowed to be myself; a little gay boy, and eventually a transgender woman. But as soon as I was simply Theryn Meyer, with my own unique ideas and beliefs oft-contrary to the leftist script, I was branded a bigot and swiftly booted from Mother Left’s cushy liberal roost.

It is basically the same treatment blacks get from the Left: You are only black as long as you support our views, and then you are an "Uncle Tom" (even though the original meaning of "Uncle Tom" had absolutely nothing to do with political beliefs).

Then Meyer really hits the strong case for why LGBT people should be conservative:

Nevertheless, the account of my expulsion from liberalism only tells half the story of how I find myself here today; a male-to-female transgender conservative. I certainly do hold these political convictions in part because conservatives seem to be the only ones who care about the mass importation of rabidly anti-LGBT cultures...

Say what you will about Christians, but at least they are not so blinded by multiculturalism that they cannot see the dangers of Islam to Western culture and values. And Islam is arguably one of the most rabidly anti-LGBT belief systems in the world.

To be honest, the aspect of Western civilization which makes it tolerant to LGBT people is derived from Christianity's "love thy neighbor" belief, even if some on the Christian Right seem to have forgotten this was one of the two most important laws of Christianity.

Regardless, it is the Western values of our culture upon which both LGBT people and Christians can agree and find common ground politically.

In addition, Meyer adds another common value:

...and also because they seem to be alone in their concern for gay and trans people’s right to self-defense. 

I am reminded of this which came out after the Orlando shooting:

LGBT people have been targets of violence for millennia. Why shouldn't they have the right to self-defense? Of course, the Left believes only the government should be armed, which works in opposition to the needs of LGBT people. They should just wait for the police to arrive while they are being massacred, same as everyone else. Perfect equality!

But then Meyer mentions something which makes me think she is a bit more libertarian than conservative:

Characteristic of the left is to spew incessant streams of demands for the inclusion of, and the affording of various entitlements to, sexual minorities. They claim by fiat things like same-sex marriage and the use of washrooms that correspond to a person’s gender identity, to be “fundamental human rights.” But what is not quite as characteristic is to bring up, or acknowledge the existence of, any responsibilities that LGBT minorities may have to the society in which they seek tolerance and integration.

As a trans person, I recognize that I am an abnormality; an anomaly that makes up a minute fraction of the population. In a sense, I am an ‘outsider’. And much like if I were to move to Japan in hopes of being accepted as Japanese into the culture of the country, there are certain responsibilities that come with being an outsider seeking acceptance as an included member.

As an immigrant to Japan, I won’t gain acceptance by refusing to speak Japanese, and demanding of the natives to learn English so as to accommodate me. I won’t gain any tolerance by refusing to take my shoes off at the door when entering a Japanese household, and I’ll never be considered “one of us” by Japanese people if I try to push my western customs onto others at every opportunity.

Similarly, LGBT people will never obtain the acceptance they want by forcing a church by law to marry a same-sex couple; they will never achieve tolerance by decreeing a new definition of gender and mandating the use of manufactured pronouns; and they will never be understood as ‘one of us’ by the mainstream culture through lecherous public displays of erotic smut known as “pride parades.”

Conservatives like myself aren’t hesitant to just any kind of change. Moreover, we aren’t cautious of change simply for it’s own sake. Instead, we resist authoritarian and politically motivated revisions to the fundamental principles, customs and institutions that threaten to destabilize and even destroy the fabric of our prosperous western civilization. Traditional marriage, the nuclear family, and even the notorious “cisnormative, heteronormative gender binary,” aren’t institutions constructed simply to oppress women and minorities. Instead they form, in part, a framework of order, structure, and coherence upon which a society can operate functionally.

In truth, there are many "conservatives" who are actually "libertarians", but don't know it because all the mainstream media covers is conservatives and liberals (who should actually be called progressive socialists because traditional liberals would more properly be called "traditional conservatives" today).

Regardless of how we label our ideologies, does make a valid point that any minority group could apply:

Respect is a two-way street. Being reasonable, and using patience and perceptiveness to convince the common populace that you as a trans or gay person do not in fact pose a fundamental threat as an “outsider,” and that you are “one of them,” will get you much further than flinging accusations of homophobia and transphobia at every person who refuses to submit to your every whim.

This is why I reject the identity politics of the Left, and is also one of the big causes of our polarized politics today. Allowing yourself to be placed on a pedestal is the opposite of treating your neighbor with respect, and it will come back to bite you eventually. In a free society, nobody is entitled to a pedestal. Or as Meyer describes it so perfectly:

Eventually, once tolerant people will become fed up with their continued demonization and the systematic overthrow of their culture by a small minority of moral elites, and they will lash back with genuine intolerance – which is why the LGBT community is its own worst enemy.