Books, movies, politics, and whatever I want

Archive for March, 2016

Setting the tone for civility in political discourse

Wednesday, March 16th, 2016

“Argue with neighbors, get in their faces… If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard… I don’t want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry. I’m angry…If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun. Because from what I understand folks in Philly like a good brawl. I’ve seen Eagles fans.”

Barack Hussein Obama

Friday B-Movie Pick: American Ultra

Friday, March 11th, 2016

American Ultra
This is a story about an unassuming young stoner named Mike in West Virginia. He works in a convient store and is prone to anxiety attacks. He also has a surprisingly hot girl friend. Mildly interesting, but not very gripping. Then the focus shifts to CIA headquarters, were two agents are in a turf war. The topic appears to be the young stoner, and why is so important to one of the agents that he be killed? This is where it gets interesting and gives a big hat tip the the Borne Identity series. Mike is actually a sleeper agent. The lone survivor of a program to produce deadly agents from three time loser “volunteers.” The former head of the program shows up and activates Mike with a series of code words. Now things go from interesting to violent. Starting with the two CIA operatives (from a competing program that trained violent psychopaths) who were doing something (just guess) to his car. Mike takes them out as they approach. He had just made some instant noodles, so the hot water goes in the face of one as he stabs the other in the neck with his spoon. Things escalate from there, from a police station filled with dead cops to a massive over reaction by the CIA. A little slow to start, but this flick picked up nicely with combined humor and action. Some excellent work by supporting cast members as well. Well worth the rental and popcorn.

Friday B-Movie Archive

Round Up Post

Friday, March 11th, 2016

Still haven’t cleared out all the tabs…

Powerline reports on Q415 economic growth.

Gross domestic product (GDP) expanded at only a 0.7% seasonally adjusted annualized ratein the fourth quarter of last year, the Commerce Department reported today. That’s quite weak.

2015 as a whole wasn’t so good either. GDP expanded at only 2.4%, the same as in 2014. That’s called limping along. For as James Pethokoukis points out, from the end of World War II through 2005, the economy grew at an average annual rate of 3.5%.

Yup, it’s the worse recovery since the Great Depression.

From the Daily Caller: Secret Fed Docs Show Obama Misled Congress, Public During Debt Limit Crises

No real surprise here.  Barry’s entire time during the Occupy the White House Golf Tour has been mainly him lying to Americans.

 

 

Round Up Post

Thursday, March 10th, 2016

Time to clear out all the tabs on my browser again.

Let’s lead with this article from the Foundation for Economic Education. It points out what is wrong with Trumps claims about manufacturing jobs, and how to fix the problem.  It goes on to point out that Trump is the moderate on the subject when compared to Vermont Socialist Bernie Sanders.  Sanders is completely divorced from reality on the subject, and his “solutions” have the high probability of making the thing he wants to fix even worse.

Socialists in America, like Bernie Sanders, used to point to Venezuela as the modern example of how socialism works. No so much anymore.  Probably because socialism has created a Humanitarian disaster in Venezuela.

On the subject of 2016 Presidential candidates, the Washington Post reports that the FBI is granting immunity to person who set up Hillary Clinton’s private email server.  In legal circles, this is what is known as a “bad sign.”

Modern Healthcare has a report on the Illinois Obamacare program.  I’ll give you the short version, they operated at a $90.8 million loss in 2015.  Remember back before the so-called “Affordable Care Act” was passed in the middle of the night right before Congress left Washington for Christmas?  Come on, you remember. It was done using a procedure that even the democrats own resident high ranking Klansman objected to, in order to avoid a vote in the Senate.  Something to do with the democrat stronghold of Massachusetts electing a Republican expressly to vote against Obamacare.  There were some people, mainly those who had actually read the ACA, who objected to it, claiming it was economically unviable.  They were uniformly called “racists”, which we now know means “anyone who disagrees with a democrat.”

Bill Clinton is on the campaign trail trashing Obama’s handling of the so-called economic recovery.  Something he has in common with Bernie Sanders.  What he is short on is how Hillary is going to a better job from federal prison.

The American Thinker points out that NPR doesn’t want to actually admit in their in article on how Obamacare is a failure that Obamacare is a failure.

 

5 Economic Myths That Just Won’t Die

Wednesday, March 9th, 2016

A dose of economic reality from the Foundation for Economic Education.  Read the whole article for the facts.  I’ll just list the five debunked myths here.

Myth 1. The idea that economic growth helps the poor is trickle-down economics … it doesn’t actually help them.

Myth 2. Free trade doesn’t lead to better economic outcomes in the real world.

Myth 3. The government ended child labor. In a free market, child labor would still exist.

Myth 4. Countries like Sweden and Denmark prove that high taxes don’t harm economic growth.

Myth 5. Capitalism isn’t economically superior to socialism.

I’m going close with a few quotes from a former President who would be driven out of the modern democrat party on a rail.

“Every dollar that released from taxation, that is spent or invested, will create a new job and a new salary”

“It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now … Cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus.”

“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”

The former President  I quoted was John F. Kennedy.  The NRA Life Member who was shot and killed by a member of the ACLU.

Quote of the Day

Monday, March 7th, 2016

“Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. ”

— President Ronald Reagan, who predicted our Dear Leader‘s methods well in advance