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Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Miscellany: 8/18/15

Quote of the Day
Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. 
Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. 
That's relativity.
Albert Einstein

Image of the Day

via Independent Institute

Capitalism and the Elite



Star Parker on the American Dream



Facebook Corner

(National Review). http://www.nationalreview.com/article/422664/trumps-immigration-plan-good-start-need-more-details
Anyone seriously believing this garbage is not only un-American betraying our open immigration history (pre-WWI), but economically illiterate. Immigration is not the problem--we need to have a temporary work visa program and an end of un-American and economically clueless quotas. Lose the crackpot ill-tempered, incompetent. unqualified, uncivil son of a bitch trying to buy the Presidency and run the US government into the ground like he's done 4 times with his own businesses.

(Cato Institute). "After some 5,000 airstrikes — with some 3,500 U.S. soldiers on the ground — Congress has yet to hold an up-or-down vote on authorization for our latest Middle East war. A year of illegal warmaking represents a new low in the erosion of constitutional checks and balances:..Yet that milestone garnered far less public attention than the clown-car wreck of the first GOP primary debate."
What the President is doing is clearly unconstitutional. Neither Syria nor Iraq constitute an imminent danger to the American homeland, the only legitimate condition to unilateral Presidential action without Congressional involvement. The fact that the man who claimed judgment in a 2002 speech against the US meddling in Iraq, who took credit for Bush's negotiated exit from Iraq doesn't have the judgment to get Congressional approval, which a Sen. Obama would have never tolerated.

However, I have no doubt that the neo-con Congressional leadership would have no problem building on the failures of Iraq and Afghan nationbuilding. As a principled non-interventionist, I want the President to cease and desist, to stop this vicious circle of violence, which doesn't win us friends or influence people--or safety. The violence only benefits anti-American propaganda.

(Lew Rockwell). Just the other day, Republicans had to favor inviting the world to come on down and go on welfare. Affirmative action, too. And vote yourself other people’s property. That’s changed overnight. It’s a lesson to all of us how fast public opinion can shift, though usually after years of stewing. As always, change also requires breaking the death grip of the establishment.
Of course, Ron Paul was never affected by the establishment meme. His excellent plan–no more birthright citizenship, no more naturalization, and no welfare or any other government “service,” including public schools, for immigrants–was the pioneer.
Lew Rockwell is getting senile. Only the position of "open immigration" is consistent with the classically liberal positions of free markets and free trade. Trump is an economically illiterate, thin-skinned authoritarian wannabe trying to buy the Presidency. Rockwell may be amused, but be really careful of what you wish for; this son of a bitch can't wait to launch trade wars and anyone who thinks this unprincipled demagogue is a libertarian is a damn fool.

(Rand Paul 2016). The Clintons believe they live above the law. The average person would be fired and imprisoned for such actions.
It is astounding that the Justice Department wants to take down Snowden over revelations of government secretly spying on citizens while Clinton conducts official government business of the highest level on a home server that foreign hackers could crack without breaking a sweat! Anyone who has ever watched a Bond movie has more common sense than Clinton. Anyone who has ever worked for the government or indirectly as a contractor knows that there is no expectation of privacy in using government resources, that making unauthorized use of or allowing unauthorized access to classified information is a punishable breach of contract. I don't know how it's possible that Clinton, who had the highest access to classified information short of the President himself, tried to work around government security policies. Like a lawyer she looked for a loophole to rationalize being above the law.

(IPI). Nearly 1 in 4 Metra regional rail conductors and assistant conductors made at least $100,000 last year.
Driverless trains and buses, which are making a big impact in London, could dramatically reduce the cost of Chicago’s expensive public transportation system.
Anyone who thinks that semiskilled work like rail conductors is worth six-figures must have his head examined. It reminds me of those corrupt union sweetheart deals Gov. Walker was talking about with a number of school bus drivers with overtime pulling down six figures...

So you know, those $100,000 a year conductors and engineers are working 60 and 70 hour work weeks and forgo their off days to make that amount. Some work split shifts that require them to take a four hour unpaid break at the terminal. So they are required to be gone from home as much as 16 hrs at a time. How much do you think they should be payed for those hours?
Unlike public parasites, I've usually worked salary, which means no overtime pay, period; even in contract positions where I was billable, the invoice would be capped at 40 hours/week for approval. I've routinely worked 70 or more hours a week, in academia and the professions. As I quoted before, in 2012, the average conductor was paid $56.8K. If you don't like the work conditions, quit.

Naturally, blame the unions! I'd love to see someone do the job for $12.00 an hour, be fired on the spot for something stupid and have crap insurance! Oh and don't forget about needing to work 30 years and until you turn 60 before you can retire! Ya, do the job for $12.00 an hour
Oh, shut the hell up! If these greedy union whores think that the city is an exploiter of workers, let them quit!!

(National Review.) Controversial to say the least.Do you agree with Donald Trump's plan for immigration reform? Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/poll/poll1/trump-immigration

Hell NO. Not a single bit of it. Only an idiot could propose or support this piece of polemical unconstitutional bullshit. Every legitimate economic study shows immigration is a win-win propostion. Donald Trump and his cultists are economic illiterates. The fact is our traditional open immigration policies corresponded to the highest economic growth in American history. As Griswold has pointed out, about 1M aliens were arrested trying to come across the border in the early 50's, when Congress approved the Bracero (temporary work visa) program; arrests went down 95%! INS warned if the Bracero program was discontinued (which happened under a Democratic Administration due to corrupt union pressure), that we could see a resumption to work around corrupt special-interest immigration policies.

There's nothing intrinsically good about policy that treats the symptoms vs. the disease--the wall that Pablo could tunnel under, the Big Brother e-Verify system that makes businesses the slave to Big Brothers, the heartless attempt to take away constitutionally protected birthright citizenship.

Never mind, as Milton Friedman pointed out, unauthorized workers contribute to our national economy, and he particularly welcomed Mexican workers.

The Know Nothings, the KKK, xenophobes, bigots and unions (against immigrant labor competition, which they believe undermines wages) have been a long ugly blot on American history. Donald "Four Bankruptcies" Trump , an intemperate, unqualified, economically illiterate, unprincipled populist who has corruptly used his own money to buy political favors is using his celebrity and this issue to dupe gullible cultists into supporting him, used to support immigration reform. He is trying to buy the Presidency by exploiting the issue in a politically radioactive way that dooms the GOP to defeat in 2016.

The fact is all of what these anti-immigrants have done has been counterproductive. There are studies that show Latino migrants have been among the least likely to stay permanently; the figures I've seen are 30% or more. But what tightening the border has done is lock migrants into place for fear they risk losing the ability to come back into the country and thus support their families. So what they do instead is send for their families to join them. Now what is easier to do--build an ineffective wall using money we don't have, or fix the broken policy, i.e., legalize temporary work visas

If you are a real conservative, you apply conservative principles. If you believe in free markets, you don't try to impose obstacles in hiring, businesses are not Big Government's bitches. Every legitimate economic study shows that immigrants pay their own way, especially in the long run. The plan to deport aliens is not only heartless and un-American, but it is economically counterproductive. We need real solutions, including a restoration of open immigration policies. Trump's "policies" are not a solution, but sheer insanity, unworthy of support by any real American

Political Cartoon

Courtesy of Bob Gorrell via Townhall
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists

Kenny Rogers, "The Vows Go Unbroken"