You know how American leftists claim socialist Denmark is paradise on earth? Yeah, not so much. “Denmark’s suicide rate has averaged 20.8 per 100,000 during the last five decades, with its highest level of 32. The American suicide rate averaged only 11.1 during the last five decades, and has never exceeded 12.7. Danes are deeply deprived, driven by severe narcissism, and so more than 11 percent of adult Danes – the supposed happiest people in the world – are on antidepressants.”
The Arab–Israeli conflict is a bitter and ugly one. My own view of it is that the Palestinian Arabs have some legitimate grievances, and that I stopped caring about them when they started blowing up children in pizza shops. You can thank the courageous heroes of the Battle of Sbarro for that. Israel isn’t my country, but it is my country’s ally, and it is impossible for a liberty-loving American to fail to admire what the Jewish state has done.
And that, of course, is why the Left wants to see the Jewish state exterminated.
Greece approves new “austerity” measures that they’ll no doubt continue to cheat and ignore while spending money they don’t have.
Speaking of Greece, “More than one in five school-aged refugee children in Greece have never been to school, a study has revealed. Child refugees stranded in Greece have been out of school for on average 1.5 years, and many of them ‘cannot even hold a pencil.'”
Why feminists hate sex: “The new feminist puritans see heterosexual sex as confirming and reinforcing outdated gender roles. That men and women not only have sex but enjoy it is a threat to the notion that both gender and sexuality are merely social constructs, to be crafted and rejected as instinct takes us.”
Why did 16 Republican Senators save the agency that’s hell-bent on creating instant public housing slums across America?
More proof that Social Justice Warriors hate everything, no matter how cute.
World’s oldest woman, and last living American born in the 19th century, dies. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Listeria outbreak among frozen fruits and vegetables. “Some of the affected products were sold under brand names such as Earth’s Pride, Panda Express, Signature Kitchens and Trader Joe’s.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Rehab for Internet addiction. “The program costs $25,000 for 45 days at the center.” Obviously I can’t be addicted to the Internet, because there’s no way I could afford the rehab…
“The National Rifle Association threw its weight Friday behind Donald Trump, as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee personally assured the group’s members he would protect Second Amendment rights if elected – and claimed that likely Democratic rival Hillary Clinton would threaten them.”
Will it help unify the Republican Party behind Trump? Some. Gun owners and Second Amendment activists are a significant part of the GOP coalition. But Clinton and the Democratic Party are so clearly hostile to civilian gun ownership that it’s hard to imagine any NRA members voting for her, and culturally most gun owners seem to hail from the fraction of GOP primary voters which has already embraced Trump.
Trump’s official policy statement on Second Amendment rights is fine, and whoever wrote it (clearly not Trump) has a firm grounding in the issue, and Trump has even said he has a concealed carry license himself. Whether Trump follows through or not remains to be seen, but he already starts so far ahead of Clinton on the issue that I’m not sure his past support of the idiotic “assault weapon” ban some 15 years ago really matters anymore. (And even then he was saying “Democrats want to confiscate all guns, which is a dumb idea because only the law-abiding citizens would turn in their guns and the bad guys would be the only ones left armed.”)
If Trump wins in November, Republicans will almost certainly retain the House and possibly the Senate, which means no anti-Second Amendment legislation will be headed to his desk for at least two years. Trump could do absolutely nothing on guns during his presidency and still be a vast improvement over Obama or either Clinton.
Someone has to talk about Gary Gates’ dishonest direct mailer campaign against Wayne Christian in the Railroad Commissioner runoff, and since I’m a Texas blogger, and since early voting ends today, I guess that someone is me.
While Christian garnered endorsements from conservatives like Michael Williams and Donna Campbell, Gates has been endorsed by liberal Republicans like Byron Cook and Charlie Geren. Says radio host Robert Pratt: “He’s endorsed and backed by the worst of Speaker Straus’ top leadership team.”
Indeed, Gates’ direct mail campaign has been so fundamentally dishonest that I wonder if former David Dewhurst staffers have been behind it.
I’ve been suspicious of Gary Gates since his “Texas Citizens Coalition” newsletter highlighted Straus-supporting legislators like Giovanni Capriglione, Tan Parker, Drew Springer and Jason Villalba. His dishonest scorched-earth flyer campaign is yet another reason why Texans should vote for Wayne Christian for Railroad Commissioner today or May 24.
(In other Railroad Commission news, the The Dallas Morning News didn’t endorse anyone in the Republican runoff, but did mange to endorse…Grady Yarbrough.)
Remember how gun control advocates said violent crime would soar when more people were armed? Hasn’t happened. Both rates and absolute numbers of violent crimes in Texas have been falling since 1991, even as Texas population increased by almost 10 million people. Says CHL bill sponsor Jerry Patterson: “I’d say those who predicted shootouts at four-way stops need to apologize to the rest of us.”
If you’re wondering why more law-abiding citizens carrying guns has coincided with dropping crime rates, the book linked below might have some answers for you…
When socialists run out of other people’s money, everything falls apart. In Venezuela, socialism is killing babies:
By morning, three newborns were already dead.
The day had begun with the usual hazards: chronic shortages of antibiotics, intravenous solutions, even food. Then a blackout swept over the city, shutting down the respirators in the maternity ward.
Doctors kept ailing infants alive by pumping air into their lungs by hand for hours. By nightfall, four more newborns had died.
“The death of a baby is our daily bread,” said Dr. Osleidy Camejo, a surgeon in the nation’s capital, Caracas, referring to the toll from Venezuela’s collapsing hospitals.
Also this: “At the University of the Andes Hospital in the mountain city of Mérida, there was not enough water to wash blood from the operating table.” With a picture to match.
Is this the point where the bankrupt socialist regime changes course and implements economic reform? Of course not. “Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced a sweeping crackdown Saturday under a new emergency decree, ordering the seizure of paralyzed factories, the arrest of their owners and military exercises to counter alleged foreign threats.”
Naturally the democratically elected opposition refuses to knuckle under to Maduro’s unconstitutional decrees.
“Opposition leader Henrique Capriles also said the army must decide whether it is ‘with the constitution or with Maduro,’ a day before nationwide protests demanding the president’s ouster through a referendum.”
The Atlantic offers up a photo essay on how little food Venezuelans have to eat. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
The government doesn’t just control the oil industry, imposing windfall taxes as high as 50 percent on the few private sector projects that remain. The government has nationalized rice mills, large producers of agricultural products, and expropriated millions of acres of farmland; it has acquired some banks and shut down others; nationalized the cement sector; tried to nationalize gold miners; nationalized the country’s largest steel mill and the country’s largest telecommunications company; expropriated the nation’s largest power producer (remember those rolling blackouts?), and more.
People close to the regime have benefited from many of those deals. Corruption has skyrocketed since the beginning of Venezuela’s “Bolivarian revolution.” According to the Cato Institute, $22.5 billion in public funds have been transferred from Venezuela to foreign accounts with no plausible explanation. Relatives of President Nicolas Maduro have been implicated in drug trafficking, with suspicions of drug money used to finance his campaign.
Oh, and Venezuela’s capital has earned the distinction of being the murder capital of the world.
All of these tragedies were avoidable. They are all the result of a mentality that sees only nails for the hammer of government control. Chavez and Maduro kept saying that everything that was wrong with Venezuela was the fault of markets and that if the government either eliminated or regulated those markets, things would get better. They implemented their agenda and it has been a disaster. This socialist brand of economic authoritarianism had the predictable consequence of political authoritarianism, corruption, and a breakdown of the rule of law.
How many more babies have to die before Venezuela abandons its failed socialist experiment?
Today Kentucky and Oregon have Democratic Presidential primaries, make it possible that “inevitable” Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton could suffer two more losses.
Here’s a roundup of Presidential race links:
“If Hillary does win, if after a string of state losses, after a blundering, scandal-plagued, email-tormented, Benghazi-haunted campaign she limps, staggeringly and breathlessly, across the finish line ahead, where, really, is she? Where’s her party? The Democrats are playing against the laws of cause and effect. Hillary’s campaign is dead, and she’s winning. Bernie’s is alive, and he’s losing.”
Trump’s strength in Appalachia: “Of the 420 counties seen as sharing a culture that transcends state lines, Trump won all but 16, including a sweep of western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio and the western uplands of Virginia with potentially profound ramifications for the general election.”
Why Trump can win. “Hillary Clinton also seems to quietly dislike (a) people, and (b) America, and you don’t need an advanced degree in election analytics to know this is not good.”
Burlington College closes due to huge debt incurred under leadership of Jane O’Meara Sanders, Bernie Sanders’ wife. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
Liberal billionaire Tom Steyer, who wasted millions to no effect in 2014, wants to do the same in 2016. Tiny problem: Lots of unions object to his job-killing green politics and refuse to pony up. (Hat tip: Powerline.)
There’s so much news about the corrupt dealings of the Clinton Clan popping up that I need to do a separate roundup.
First up: Clinton Global Initiative money going to one of Bill Clinton’s “special friends“:
The Clinton Global Initiative, which arranges donations to help solve the world’s problems, set up a financial commitment that benefited a for-profit company part-owned by people with ties to the Clintons, including a current and a former Democratic official and a close friend of former President Bill Clinton.
The $2 million commitment was placed on the agenda for a September 2010 conference of the Clinton Global Initiative at Mr. Clinton’s urging, according to a document from the period and people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Clinton also personally endorsed the company, Energy Pioneer Solutions Inc., to then-Energy Secretary Steven Chu for a federal grant that year, said people with knowledge of the endorsement.
Snip.
Energy Pioneer Solutions was founded in 2009 by Scott Kleeb, a Democrat who twice ran for Congress from Nebraska. An internal document from that year showed it as owned 29% by Mr. Kleeb; 29% by Jane Eckert, the owner of an art gallery in Pine Plains, N.Y.; and 29% by Julie Tauber McMahon of Chappaqua, N.Y., a close friend of Mr. Clinton, who also lives in Chappaqua.
So just who is Julie Tauber McMahon? Since 2014, many Clinton watchers have tabbed McMahon as “Energizer,” the Secret Service code-name given to Bill Clinton’s “attractive, busty” blonde mistress.
Paying off your mistress’s for-profit company with charity dollars isn’t exactly standard accounting practice.
After more than a year of research, a Wall Street analyst is arguing the Clinton Foundation’s books are riddled with financial inconsistencies that rise to the level of “fraud.”
Charles Ortel, who gained recognition for correctly identifying problems with General Electric’s financial statements in 2008, has prepared 40 reports highlighting discrepancies that he said proves the Clinton Foundation has covered up cash flow since 1997.
The financial whistleblower said his 15 months of research revealed gaps in the amount of money donors claim to have given and the amount of money the foundation claims to have received.
From 2000 until now, the Clintons were on their very best behavior, to preserve Hillary’s electoral viability.
In that period, they created a sham charity for personal enrichment and to pay off their cronies they could get government jobs for and put American secrets online for the Russian and Chinese and Iranian intelligence agencies to pilfer.
That was the Clintons at their finest.
What happens when they no longer have to care about the law at all?
A Daily Caller News Foundation investigation reveals that Bill and Hillary Clinton received at least $100 million from autocratic Persian Gulf states and their leaders, potentially undermining Democratic presidential candidate Hillary’s claim she can carry out independent Middle East policies.
As a presidential candidate, the amount of foreign cash the Clintons have amassed from the Persian Gulf states is “simply unprecedented,” says national security analyst Patrick Poole.
“These regimes are buying access. You’ve got the Saudis. You’ve got the Kuwaitis, Oman, Qatar and the UAE. There are massive conflicts of interest. It’s beyond comprehension,” Poole told TheDCNF in an interview.
Overall, the Clinton Foundation has received upwards of $85 million in donations from five Persian Gulf states and their monarchs, according to the foundation’s website.
And all this news is popping up just when the Clinton Cash documentary is about to debut at Cannes:
A few more Clinton Corruption tidbits:
Speaking of Bill Clinton, records show he took at least 26 trips aboard registered sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s Lolita Express. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Flashback: This piece, where the late Christopher Hitchens nails the sleazy antics of the Clintons, remains as relevant as ever:
What do you have to forget or overlook in order to desire that this dysfunctional clan once more occupies the White House and is again in a position to rent the Lincoln Bedroom to campaign donors and to employ the Oval Office as a massage parlor? You have to be able to forget, first, what happened to those who complained, or who told the truth, last time. It’s often said, by people trying to show how grown-up and unshocked they are, that all Clinton did to get himself impeached was lie about sex. That’s not really true. What he actually lied about, in the perjury that also got him disbarred, was the women. And what this involved was a steady campaign of defamation, backed up by private dicks (you should excuse the expression) and salaried government employees, against women who I believe were telling the truth. In my opinion, Gennifer Flowers was telling the truth; so was Monica Lewinsky, and so was Kathleen Willey, and so, lest we forget, was Juanita Broaddrick, the woman who says she was raped by Bill Clinton.
The Convention began on a negative note when controversial temporary rules were adopted. Sanders supporters had been worried about these rules for weeks and had collected delegate signatures to seek changes to the rules. According to Jordan Chariton of The Young Turks, this rule change involved going with the delegate count from the first tier vote and ignoring the delegate count from the second tier, which Sanders had won.
A vocal vote was held to determine if these temporary rules should be adopted as permanent. The rules were voted on through a vocal “aye” or “nay,” led by Roberta Lange, the party’s chairwoman. The video above shows the voice vote, which doesn’t clearly show a majority…If it’s not clear who gets the majority, then the convention is supposed to have a “vote of division of assembly,” reported Jason Llanes, who stayed at the convention all day, reporting live from Periscope. A division of assembly vote involves having people stand on either side of the room to indicate their vote, he said.
Lange, however, announced that the “ayes” won and that her decision could not be contested. The vote was taken at 9:30 a.m., while many delegates were still in line.
And if you don’t believe the report, take a look at the video yourself:
By the way, Roberta Lange is a Democratic Party superdelgate, though oddly enough, one that hasn’t officially pledged to Hillary. I don’t think there’s any question who she’s supporting now, is there?
Some Hillary supporters have basically responded by saying: Hey, the rule change only gave Hillary one extra delegate! Get over it! Oddly enough, the fact that Team Hillary would cheat so blatantly when the stakes were so low does not exactly fill me with confidence.
I’m seeing a lot of Sanders supporters saying that this has pushed them over the edge into supporting Donald Trump in November if Clinton is the Democratic party nominee.
There’s some talk among the #NeverTrump about just sitting November out. Pat Condell explains why that’s a mistake: There’s always someone to vote against.
Samples:
“Safe space crybabies, left-wing authoritarians, social justice warriors, progressive utopians—whatever these people want from an election, I want the opposite, in spades, and then some.”
“If you think group identity should trump individual liberty, I vote against you and against any group you identify with.”
“If you think feelings are more important than truth, I vote against your feelings and against your truth. And if you are usually the first person to mention race in a political debate, chances are you’re the racist. I vote against racism, and against you, you racist.”
