The Clintons Just Don’t Get It

June 24th, 2014

Hot on the heels of Hillary Clinton claiming that her family was dead broke in 2001 (for certain values of “dead broke” that include being worth more than $20 million) comes news that Hillary has doubled down on the “shucks, we’re just regular folks” gambit.

In an interview with The Guardian, Clinton said she isn’t “truly well off”:

But with her huge personal wealth, how could Clinton possibly hope to be credible on this issue when people see her as part of the problem, not its solution?

“But they don’t see me as part of the problem,” she protests, “because we pay ordinary income tax, unlike a lot of people who are truly well off, not to name names; and we’ve done it through dint of hard work,” she says, letting off another burst of laughter. If past form is any guide, she must be finding my question painful.

The full quote is actually more damning than just the “not truly well off” bit because it suggests an even more radical disconnect from the economic reality most Americans face every day. Evidently Hillary is suggesting she gets a pass from class warfare envy because: A.) She and Bill have actually deigned to obey the law by paying taxes, and B.) Americans know just how hard it is for Bill to give $103 million worth of speeches.

A few choice reactions:

Moreover, Hillary’s daughter seems to have picked up on her mother’s entitlement issues. It seems that the woman married to a former Goldman Sachs manager who started his own hedge fund, the woman who owns a $10 million Manhattan apartment, the woman who was given a $3 million wedding and the woman who MSNBC paid $600,000 a year to (or $26,724 for every minute she appeared on-air) says she doesn’t care about money.

At least one pundit has suggested that Hillary’s clan suffers from “Status-Income Disequilibrium”, in which people with All The Right Opinions suddenly realize how much wealthier fellow members of the Overclass are. Or, as Rush Limbaugh puts it, “in [Hillary]’s world, $50 million is peanuts.”

Let’s give Bill Clinton one small piece of praise in all this: As far as I can tell, on this particular subject he’s apparently been smart enough to keep his mouth shut…

Texas Statewide Races Update for June 23, 2014:

June 23rd, 2014

Some Texas statewide race news to start your week with:

  • Her campaign manager twitched her whiskers, then jumped off the USS Wendy Davis. Speaking of which, remember her old logo?

  • Of the move, liberal MSM fossil Paul Burka says it’s about time: “The Davis campaign has been a disaster.” Also:

    Democrats have already started describing the Republican slate as the “Abbott, Patrick, Paxton ticket.” There is always a “be careful what you wish for” component to these races. Patrick in particular is a very shrewd operator who has widespread support from the conservative base. He is a dangerous opponent. Democrats who underestimate him do so at their peril.

  • The fact that Greg Abbott is kicking Wendy Davis’ ass in polls is no surprise. The fact that Dan Patrick is kicking Leticia Van de Putte’s ass by an even bigger margin is.
  • Davis’ political obituary is already being written: “Privately, many of her supporters are resigned to her losing. And, already, some political operatives are pondering how she can stay politically relevant beyond November.” As I’ve said before, I think in 2015 she’ll host her own show on MSNBC.
  • Don’t give up, Wendy Davis! “Republicans needed her to be sucking up Democratic donors’ dollars all year long.”
  • Davis continues to raise funds where she’s most beloved: outside Texas.
  • More on that theme.
  • Abbott’s first ads against Davis are running in Spanish during the World Cup. It’s a sign of Abbott’s strength that he feels no need to secure his own base, so he can cut into Davis’ base right out of the gate.
  • Davis and Van de Putte are getting together to celebrate the one year anniversary of her abortion filibuster on Wednesday.
  • Abbott and Davis agree to two debates.
  • Abbot is not a big fan of corporate welfare.
  • Protestors March Against UK’s Non-Existent Austerity

    June 21st, 2014

    I see that #NoMoreAusterity is trending on Twitter this morning. It seems the usual leftist protest sorts are rallying against the Cameron government’s “austerity.”

    The only problem is it doesn’t exist.

    Real austerity is cutting government spending until it matches receipts. Under David Cameron, deficit spending has merely gone from 11.4% of GDP in 2010 to a projected 5.8% in 2014. So the UK government hasn’t practiced austerity, it’s merely slowed the rate at which it’s digging its own grave.

    For the protestors, this simply will not do. They want government to give them things, and if it means having the moribund economies of Greece and Spain, so be it.

    But unlike Greece and Spain, the UK won’t be able to get Germany to bail them out, nor to hold down the hyperinflation that is the inevitable endpoint of excess deficit spending.

    I Missed Hillary’s Austin Book-Signing

    June 20th, 2014

    I couldn’t make Hillary Clinton’s signing at Bookpeople today because I have to work for a living. Plus tickets were “sold out.”

    Fortunately, someone else was able to make it to her D.C. stop:

    Texas vs. California Update for June 20, 2014

    June 20th, 2014

    Believe it or not, there seem to be a few actual glimmers of sanity in California in the latest roundup:

  • Texas: Not just leading the nation in jobs, but doing it more equitably as well.
  • “The income gap between rich and poor tends to be wider in blue states than in red states.” More: “Texas has a lower Gini coefficient (.477) and a lower poverty rate (20.5%) than California (Gini coefficient .482, poverty rate 25.8%).” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Perhaps the biggest crack in the “Blue State” model this month was a state superior court judge ruling that California’s teacher protection laws were illegal, because they violated the equal protection clause for students. How the Vergara vs. California decision plays out on appeal is anyone’s guess, but just recognizing that union contracts that keep crummy teachers employed harms students is a huge step forward.
  • New California payroll and pensions numbers are now available. “The data shows that public compensation in California is growing more out of control, threatening the solvency of the state and local governments.” Let’s take a look at a few locales, shall we?
  • Will wonders never cease: CalWatchdog calls the just-passed California budget “fairly prudent.”
  • The legislature also passed a law almost doubling the amount of money school districts pay into CalSTARS.
  • But don’t let that fool you: California’s legislature is still crazy.
  • Especially since California Democrats just elected a new Senate leader guaranteed to pull them to the left.
  • But Republicans are poised to torpedo California Democrat’s Senate supermajority.
  • Desert Hot Springs is contemplating dissolving it’s police force to avoid bankruptcy. (By my count, 21 Desert Hot Springs police officers make more than $100,000 a year in total compensation. Including five officers who make more than the Police Chief…)
  • San Bernardino has evidently reached agreement with CalPERS in it’s ongoing bankruptcy case, but no details have been reported.
  • They also closed a gap in a yearly budget thanks to some union concessions. But one union is balking, and its members are threatening to join the SEIU instead.
  • The California town of Guadalupe considers bankruptcy. One problem is that the town has been illegally transfering money from dedicated funds (like water bills) to general funds. “If voters do not pass three new taxes in November, Guadalupe is expected to disband its police and fire departments, enter bankruptcy or disincorporate, meaning it would cease to exist as a city.”
  • Ventura County residents collection enough signatures to force a ballot measure on pension reform. Response? A lawsuit to keep it off the ballot.
  • Los Angeles 2020 Commission goes over what changes the city needs to avoid a future where “40% of the population lives in ‘what only can be called misery,’ ‘strangled by traffic’ and hamstrung by a ‘failing’ school system.” Response? “Meh.”
  • Sickout among San Francisco municipal bus drivers. Good thing poor people don’t depend on buses for transportation…
  • Huge growth in Texas apartment complexes.
  • California’s prison system illegally sterilizes female inmates against their will.
  • The Obama Administration Department of Education is driving the California-based Corinthian for-profit college chain out of business.
  • A Californian discusses why relocation to Texas might be attractive, and hears the pitch for Frisco, Texas.
  • “‘Building a business is tough. But I hear building a business in California is next to impossible,’ Perry says.”
  • California regulators can’t be arsed to come out and check flaming tap water.
  • California bill to add warning labels to soft drinks fails.
  • California-based nutritional supplement maker Natrol files for bankruptcy, mainly due to class action suits. I note this because I’ve found their 3mg Melatonin to be really effective as a sleep aid.
  • Ms. Magazine Comes Out Against the Presumption of Innocence and the Due Process of Law

    June 19th, 2014

    Instapundit linked to this Ms. magazine piece. (Yes, evidently they’re still publishing. Who knew?)

    It starts off: “One in five college women are sexually assaulted, and only 12 percent of college rape survivors will report their rape to the police. And yet, some men accused of such assaults are playing the victim.”

    First, the 1-in-5 statistic is completely made up garbage:

    No crime, much less one as serious as rape, has a victimization rate remotely approaching 20 or 25 percent, even over many years. The 2006 violent crime rate in Detroit, one of the most violent cities in America, was 2,400 murders, rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults per 100,000 inhabitants—a rate of 2.4 percent. The one-in-four statistic would mean that every year, millions of young women graduate who have suffered the most terrifying assault, short of murder, that a woman can experience.

    Indeed, the Justice Department shows rates of 6 rapes or sexual assaults of women per 1000 on college campuses. That means that Ms.‘s rape estimates overstate the incidence by 42 times. That’s like saying “The average price of a fast food hamburger is around $100.”

    Secondly, if men are “falsely accused of sexual assault and unjustly punished by their college’s judicial system” because their college does not observe the due process of law, then guess what? They are the victims.

    Back to Ms. and their lies: “According to the FBI, only eight percent of rape reports are unfounded. And this is most likely an overestimate of false reports: the FBI counts cases as unfounded when deemed so by law enforcement officials, not when they are proven false through a trial.”

    First, the FBI statistics are meaningless in relation to the campus cases under discussion, because those statistics deal with charges which were brought up under the due process of the law, not the “men are considered guilty until proven innocent” kangaroo courts universities have imposed based on politicized and misguided Obama Administration guidelines. Second, the “not when they are proven false through a trial” negates the statistic. Indeed, one gets the impression that Ms. is upset that men are found innocent in real courtrooms at all.

    More Ms. blather: “While a false rape claim is undoubtedly detrimental to the accused…” Why yes, being falsely accused and branded a sex offender due to a complete lack of due process is indeed “detrimental.” How nice of you to notice.

    Due process, the rule of law, the burden of proof and the presumption of innocence are rights that protect all Americans, of whatever sex, color or creed. The desire to throw them out to meet the demands of radical feminist identity politics is an abhorrent perversion of justice that should be opposed by all Americans.

    LinkSwarm for June 18, 2014

    June 18th, 2014

    There’s so much news going on in the world that it’s hard to sit down and focus on one story to get a single blog post out of it when there’s another huge story coming down the pike. Iraq, Ukraine, the VA Scandal, the dog eating Lois Lerner’s emails (“Barack Obama has brought us Jimmy Carter’s economy and Richard Nixon’s excuses”); too damn much going on to focus on one thing. So here’s a LinkSwarm instead:

  • Barack Obama is not interested in war, but war is interested in Obama.
  • Obama golfs while the world burns. “Oh Lord, I was born a golfing man!/I get in a round whenever I can…”
  • Obama Administration admits that ObamaCare will cost people more for health care, even with the subsidies.
  • Russia cuts off natural gas supplies to Ukraine.
  • Russian tanks appear in eastern Ukraine.
  • Russia’s top anti-corruption cop decides to take up flying.
  • One reason the IRS went after the Tea Party: Chuck Schumer asked them to.
  • “The Obama administration has reached levels of hitherto unknown incompetence.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • A majority of Americans do not believe that Obama is trustworthy. You don’t say.
  • Another day, another 48 people dead at the hands of Jihadists in Kenya. There are days when 48 people killed at a hotel would top the news…
  • The Obama Administration also released 12 Jihadists in Afghanistan.
  • Won’t someone please think about poor, impoverished Hillary Clinton?
  • The Obama Administration’s intentionally lax border control enforcement is letting letting Mexican gang members waltz into the country.
  • “Thousands of young, poor would-be immigrants—90,000 this year alone—have swarmed across the border, the logical fruition of the entire cynical approach of the Obama administration toward illegal immigration.”
  • Bill Gates wants to propagandize you into accepting illegal alien amnesty. Actually, what Gates and his high tech baron compatriots really want is more H1-B visas, but since that doesn’t help the Democratic Party as much as illegal alien amnesty, it gets rolled into the giant “comprehensive immigration reform” ball.
  • Should Obama have erased the IRS emails Nixon have erased the tapes?
  • Turning point in the Brat campaign: crashing a staged event to prove Cantor was lying about amnesty.
  • “Prostitutes more than double their earnings by moonlighting as currency traders” in Venezuela.
  • Argentina runs out of rope.
  • European cab drivers protest Uber by halting traffic. Result? Uber sees 850% increase in signups.
  • I’m going to boil this down to the essentials: Never open an account with a Georgia bank.
  • But maybe they need to seize your money to pay for all that food stamp fraud.
  • Does anyone really think West Virginia Democratic Senate candidate Natalie Tennant is any more “pro-coal” or “pro-gun” than Bart Stupak was “pro-life”?
  • Another year, another lefty writer caught plagiarizing the work of others. And not just any lefty writer, but a Pulitzer Prize winner to boot…
  • Chelsea Clinton got paid $600,000 by MSNBC. That worked out to $26,724 for each minute she was on the air. In other news, your betters in the overclass really don’t care what you think of the financial compensation one member of the class gives to another…
  • Millions in “urban redevelopment” money in Democratic-controlled Philadelphia ends up in certain people’s pockets with almost nothing to show for it. Try to contain your shock. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • South Carolina university professors: “How dare you make us teach the Constitution?”
  • Violence and subway strike in advance of Brazil’s World Cup.
  • New guidelines for ignoring due process in accusations of college campus sexual assault = Lawsuitapalooza!
  • Erick Erickson calls out Ted Cruz for not endorsing more conservatives.
  • Dwight does some gun geeking for you Smith & Wesson fans.
  • Dear anyone who’s ever self-published their own book: you’re a fascist Ayn Rand supporter, using your evil individualism to bypass the holy gatekeepers of traditional publishing.
  • And if you think that’s the stupidest left-wing essay you’ll read today, think again.
  • There was enough voter fraud in a Weslaco City Commissioner Race for the judge to order a new election. “Some of the disallowed ballots were cast by voters claiming Rivera’s childhood home as their address.” Note: Weslaco is down in the valley right next to Donna, Texas, which had its own voting scandal.
  • Doggies! (Patriotic doggies, no less.) (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • “This harlot-sized ensemble will make you the envy of your trampish posse on your fraudulent wedding day.”
  • More on ISIS

    June 17th, 2014

    For those who haven’t been following every twist and turn of the Syrian Civil War, the sudden rise of Islamic State of Syria and Iraq probably came as quite a shock. Yesterday you’d never heard of them, and today they’re capturing Mosul and Tikrit and advancing on Baghdad. No terrorist or guerrilla force grows that quickly without some sort of major financial backing. My suspicion that they were bankrolled by the Saudis and some of the other Sunni oil sheikdoms appears to have been more or less accurate.

    Over at The Daily Beast, Josh Rogin says that wealthy donors in Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia are funding ISIS.

    Under significant U.S. pressure, the Arab Gulf governments have belatedly been cracking down on funding to Sunni extremist groups, but Gulf regimes are also under domestic pressure to fight in what many Sunnis see as an unavoidable Shiite-Sunni regional war that is only getting worse by the day.

    “ISIS is part of the Sunni forces that are fighting Shia forces in this regional sectarian conflict. They are in an existential battle with both the (Iranian aligned) Maliki government and the Assad regime.”

    And therein lies the rub. The Syrian Civil War had already undertaken the character of a Sunni/Shia conflict that was drawing in Iran and Lebanon (and, by financial proxy, Saudi Arabia); their swift success in Iraq widens the scope of the war, but not the essential nature. Sunnis and Shiias have hardly needed an excuse to slaughter each other at the drop of a hat; indeed, the far more difficult task has always been to keep them from slaughtering each other.

    For what it’s worth, the exceptionally cynical and always-entertaining War Nerd says that ISIS has already peaked:

    This is one of those dramatic military reverses that mean a lot less than meets the eye. The “Iraqi Army” routed by ISIS wasn’t really a national army, and ISIS isn’t really a dominant military force. It was able to occupy those cities because they were vacuums, abandoned by a weak, sectarian force. Moving into vacuums like this is what ISIS is good at. And that’s the only thing ISIS is good at.

    ISIS is a sectarian Sunni militia—that’s all. A big one, as militias go, with something like 10,000 fighters. Most of them are Iraqi, a few are Syrian, and a few hundred are those famous “European jihadis” who draw press attention out of all relation to their negligible combat value. The real strength of ISIS comes from its Chechen fighters, up to a thousand of them. A thousand Chechens is a serious force, and a terrifying one if they’re bearing down on your neighborhood. Chechens are the scariest fighters, pound-for-pound, in the world.

    But we’re still talking about a conventional military force smaller than a division. That’s a real but very limited amount of combat power. What this means is that, no matter how many scare headlines you read, ISIS will never take Baghdad, let alone Shia cities to the south like Karbala. It won’t be able to dent the Kurds’ territory to the north, either. All it can do—all it has been doing, by moving into Sunni cities like Mosul and Tikrit—is to complete the partition of Iraq begun by our dear ex-president Bush in 2003.

    Also this: “Insurgent groups go through leaders like Spinal Tap went through drummers.”

    This analysis of the situation strikes me as just cynical enough to possibly be true, especially given his thoughts on our non-friends the Saudis. But the fact that ISIS probably won’t be able to take Baghdad doesn’t mean they won’t try. And there’s no reason the Sunni/Shia civil war can’t widen and drag even more countries into it.

    Which is not to argue that we should be intervening at this point. Indeed, someone who was especially cynical might suggest that years of Sunnis and Shias killing each other might be just the thing to distract them from killing us…

    Dispatches From the Fall of Iraq

    June 16th, 2014

    There’s enough (bad) news coming out of Iraq to do a roundup of links on it, so let’s get to it:

  • Yeah, Iraq is pretty much screwed.
  • ISIS begins wholesale slaughter of Shias, government troops, Christians, and pretty much anyone else who’s standing around.
  • But what’s a little genocide when there’s important golfing to be done?
  • Tal Afir falls to ISIS.
  • And they’re getting close to Baghdad:

  • Hey, remember when Obama declared that “the war in Iraq is over”? (Hat tip: Powerline.)
  • Iraqis seem to have cut Internet service to the American embassy in Baghdad. Well, it’s a good thing the Obama Administration has such a sterling record of embassy security…
  • At least they sent an additional 100 marines.
  • Now would be a good time to listen to “Evacuation” from Mike Oldfield’s superb soundtrack to The Killing Fields, which played over the evacuation of the U.S. embassy in Phnom Penh…
  • I would says its surprising that Iraq’s own Parliament couldn’t be arsed to get together a quorum for an emergency session, but they were probably getting out of the country as fast as possible. After all, it’s hard to enjoy the fruits of your graft after you’ve been beheaded…
  • Not exactly psychic: Back in January, The Economist published this piece talking about how ISIS’s brutality was engendering a “backlash” against it that would make it easier to contain. Yeah, not so much.
  • But hey, the situation in Iraq is so farked up Obama actually used the word “Jihadists”! Progress…
  • Related:

  • Also, thanks to Obama’s transcendent powers of suck, Libya is now actually worse than it was under Gaddafi.
  • In closing:

  • The Illusion of a Consensus in Favor of Amnesty

    June 13th, 2014

    Polling keeps finding a majority in favor of vague “immigration reform” because of the way the questions are asked.

    Hint: Any question that asks “Do you support comprehensive immigration reform including enforcement…” is already a lie, since we know that the Obama Administration has no intention of enforcing existing immigration laws.

    Things immigration polls don’t ask:

  • Should we enforce existing laws?
  • Should we implement E-verify?
  • Is the Obama Administration faithfully enforcing immigration law?
  • Do you approve of the Obama Administration dumping tens of thousands of illegal alien felons onto America’s streets?
  • These are the things liberal MSM pollsters refrain from asking because they know they won’t like the public’s answers, and it won’t help their push to scare Republicans into passing illegal alien amnesty.

    Indeed, 72% of those polled last year “said they support reducing the illegal immigrant population by requiring employers to check workers’ legal status, fortifying the border, and getting the cooperation of local police.”

    But as an “enforcement first” approach appears to be off the table until Obama leaves office, the only responsible thing for Republicans to do is refrain from passing any immigration “reform” until such time as the White House is occupied by someone willing to actually obey the law.