FMJRA 2.0: Man, I’m Tired Of Paying Them Dues

On the other hand, imagine how much safer Baltimore or Chicago would be if we used the Crown Prince’s policy. Probably wouldn’t take too many beheadings to get the tough-on-crime message across.

Category: Saudi Arabia

Three Scary Words

Posted on | April 26, 2019 | 1 Comment

“President Eric Swalwell”:

Former congressman Trey Gowdy blasted 2020 presidential candidate Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., Friday for continuing to claim that President Trump is a Russian asset.
“President Eric Swalwell, that ought to scare the ever-living hell out of you,” Gowdy told “The Story with Martha MacCallum” while reacting to a clip of Swalwell on MSNBC.
The Mueller report published last month revealed that investigators did not establish evidence that the Trump campaign had conspired with Russia.
Swalwell seems to think otherwise.
“Here’s what we know. The Russians helped Donald Trump,” Swalwell said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “The Beat with Ari Melber.”
“Sure, but to be clear you are no longer maintaining that he is effectively a ‘Russian asset,'” MSNBC host Ari Melber interjected.
“No, I think he acts on Russia’s behalf and I challenge him to show me otherwise,” Swalwell responded.
Gowdy accused Swalwell of playing politics.
“His last sentence is exactly the difference between a prosecutor and a politician. Prosecutors prove that you did something, politicians make you prove you did not. Did you hear his last sentence? ‘I challenge President Trump to prove that he did not do something.’ That’s what politicians do,” Gowdy said.

By the way, Marianne Williamson’s campaign now has about 87% of the 65,000 donors needed to qualify for the first round of DNC debates.

Category: Democrats, Election

Friday Fiction: 100 Word Challenge

Posted on | April 26, 2019 | Comments Off on Friday Fiction: 100 Word Challenge

by Smitty

Three hour drive. The hike from the parking area, where he left the phone with the jeep (barely one bar, anyway) was five miles, mostly uphill.

The waves of stress rolled off during the trek. He’d return on the morrow for the supplies.

For now, the task was to get to the cabin, crack the place open, and get the heat on.

He’d sleep soundly for the first time in weeks, wake up, eat, move the aforementioned supplies, and then sit down with pen and spiral notebook, completely unplugged from the grid and contemporary distraction, and sink into his opus.
—
via Darleen

Category: Friday Fiction

It’s Very Simple

Posted on | April 26, 2019 | Comments Off on It’s Very Simple

Many of our country’s problems can be traced to a single factor:

Two headlines splashed across adjoining pages of the Wall Street Journal this week underscored a desperate but largely uncommented-on challenge facing America.
“Red Ink Seen for Social Security by 2020,” screamed one, as the program’s outlays will exceed income next year — and its trust fund will be insolvent by 2035.
And directly to the right: “High Court to Take Up LGBT Rights,” discussing three Supreme Court cases that will determine whether the 1964 Civil Rights Act covers sexual orientation or gender identity.
What links these headlines?
Simply this:  Social Security is going broke because we’re in a slow-motion demographic train wreck. As Chief Actuary Stephen Goss put it back in 2011, “Lower birth rates are the cause of (the) substantial and permanent shift in the cost of Social Security as a percent of GDP from 2008 to 2040.”
America’s total fertility rate hit the lowest rate ever recorded in 2017 at just under 1.8 children per woman in her lifetime. The stork’s been in free fall since 2010 — and baby-making is cratering in particular among women 20-29, prime reproductive years.
It gets worse. The Journal coverage estimated that old age benefit shortfalls will “account for 90% of larger budget deficits.” Wonder why America is patrolling the seas with a deteriorating fleet half its size compared to the 1980s?  Why there’s no money for infrastructure?  Or why, despite the Trump boom, we may return to economic secular stagnation?
Dare one paraphrase the 1992 Clinton campaign watchword?  “It’s the fertility, stupid!”
So why the plummeting birth rates?  Largely, according to Lyman Stone of the Institute for Family Studies (IFS), because marriage in America is in critical condition.
Stone writes that fertility among married women in 2016 remained above 4.0 per woman across child-bearing years. Yet “a smaller proportion of women are married during (their) peak-fertility years.”

In my experience, when you try to talk to young people about this problem, what you get in response are economic arguments — they can’t afford to get married and have children, they say. However, this argument is easily rebutted by the observation that, first of all, marriage itself costs nearly nothing. My wife and I will mark our 30th anniversary Sunday. On April 28, 1989, we went to the courthouse in Gordon County, Georgia, and were married by Probate Judge Johnny Parker, with two of our friends in attendance as witnesses. You don’t need a big expensive ceremony to get married and, proverbially, “two can live as cheaply as one.” Furthermore, very poor people have more babies on average than do the college-educated middle class, so that income and assets are inversely correlated to fertility. Thus, the claim that young people can’t get married and have children because of their economic circumstances is exposed as a self-justifying rationalization.

When our eldest daughter was just a baby, my father came to visit my wife and I at our tiny little roach-infested rental home in Calhoun, Georgia. When I complained about our difficult financial circumstances, Dad laughed and said, “Son, if you wait to have children until you can afford to have children, you’ll never have children.” So true!

We ultimately had six children — our youngest is a high-school sophomore, while the oldest three are married with children of their own — and we have been struggling financially the whole time. A family like ours is only possible for those who reject a prejudice I call “middle-classism,” where people’s imagination of what is possible is limited by concern for material wealth and social status. If you believe children must live in a “good neighborhood” with “good schools” (these phrases are a sort of code, if not indeed a racist dog whistle), then you will find yourself within those those imaginary limits. On the other hand, if you believe children are a blessing from God, you will have more babies and figure some way to survive despite economic adversity. And you might be surprised to discover that, whatever the financial disadvantages or loss of social status your family experiences by rejecting the prejudice of “middle-classism,” your children actually do quite well in life.

However poor a large family may be (in relative terms, given the general affluence of American society), if you inculcate good values in your numerous children — especially a strong work ethic — they may well accomplish great things in life, far exceeding their more privileged peers who have fewer siblings but more social status. Religious belief is strongly correlated with high fertility, and it is not surprising that U.S. fertility has declined as atheism has flourished. I have often remarked that liberals, who never hesitate to declare their commitment to Science™ — particularly Darwinism, but also such totems of the intelligentsia as “climate change,” gender theory, etc. — generally seem to be failures at the basic biological task of procreation, whereas us ignorant Bible-thumpers are winning by Darwinian terms.

Those who speak of “overpopulation” tend to think of people as statistics — interchangeable units, without any individual value — and this dehumanizing conception fails to take into account the differences in human quality. However equal we may be, in terms of our basic rights, some people are more valuable to society than others. If you consider yourself a person of superior quality, as liberals obviously do, isn’t it logical to assume that you would be a superior parent? Your children would not only inherit whatever genetic advantages you might pass along to them, but also they would also benefit from being raised under your wise guidance and, it also logically follows, your children would grow up to be very worthwhile members of society. Yet liberals don’t act in accordance with this logic, instead preferring to avoid parenthood altogether, or else having just one or two children.

Whatever else might be said in favor of larger families, the need for future taxpayers ought to be something everyone could agree on, but instead we seem to be drifting toward fiscal catastrophe because of what Bob Maistros calls our “slow-motion demographic train wreck.”

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.)

Category: Contraceptive Culture, Family, Marriage, Religion

In The Mailbox: 04.26.19

Posted on | April 26, 2019 | 2 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
EBL: It Is The Economy, Stupid
Twitchy: Dana Loesch Drops Kamala Harris For Trying To Pick A Fight With Th NRA, And BOOM
Louder With Crowder: Beta O’Rourke Claims Planned Parenthood Saves Lives
According To Hoyt: What Does Blog Want?
Vox Popoli: A Commitment To Seppuku

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Friday Hawt Chicks & Links – The ANZAC Edition
American Greatness: Democrats Court Electoral Disaster With Trump Hearings
American Power: Joe Biden Dogged By His Handling Of Anita Hill During Clarence Thomas Confirmation Hearings
American Thinker: The Attacks On Christians And America’s First Freedom
Animal Magnetism: Rule Five Fifth Annual Commencement Speech Friday
Babalu Blog: “Socialist” Denmark Is Actually A Thriving, Free Market Capitalist Country
BattleSwarm: LinkSwarm For April 26
CDR Salamander: Russia Smartly Lets The Soviets Go
Da Tech Guy: Under The Fedora – Tales Of The Clown Car
Don Surber: Noonan Blames Trump For The Attempted Coup
Dustbury: Fark Blurb Of The Week
First Street Journal: The “Justice Democrats” – A Movement Of Fools
Fred On Everything: Pence A Christian? POMPEO?
The Geller Report: Obama White House Reportedly Sought Ukraine’s Help In Taking Down Trump, also, After Sri Lanka Easter Massacre, Media Deploys “Muslims Fear Backlash” Meme
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, The Truth Is Out There
Hollywood In Toto: Is Luminary The Netflix Or MSNBC Of Podcasting?
Joe For America: Maxine Waters Claims 90% Of Americans Want Trump Impeached
JustOneMinute: If You Lack For Worries
Legal Insurrection: College Students Horrified By Joe Biden’s Handsy Behavior, also, Expectations Smashed As U.S. Economy Grew 3.2% In First Quarter
The PanAm Post: Venezuela’s Constitutional President Claims There’s No Socialism (He’s Wrong), also, Left Pole Intolerance
Power Line: Swedes Don’t Care About Rape, also, Who Was Colluding With Whom?
Shot In The Dark: The Atlantic – Like Reading Shot In The Dark Years After The Fact
This Ain’t Hell: Beta Needs Some Gender Bending, also, Valor Friday
Victory Girls: The Obama Administration’s Problem With Spying & Trump
Volokh Conspiracy: Short Circuit – A Roundup Of Recent Federal Court Decisions
Weasel Zippers: Senator Grassley’s Letter To AG Barr Should Scare Obama And “His FBI”, also, Illegal Alien Previously Deported Five Times Beat Four Month Old Baby To Death
Mark Steyn: Biden – His Time?

Amazon Warehouse Deals
Amazon Renewed – Like New Products
Kindle Unlimited Membership Plans

Category: Linkagery

New Trouble for High-Tech Totalitarians

Posted on | April 26, 2019 | 1 Comment

Earlier this month, we learned that Google was blacklisting The American Spectator. Tuesday, a former Google engineer published a column in the New York Times explaining that he left the company because of their cooperation with China’s Communist government. So, Communists good, conservative bad, according to Google, and you might suppose the executives of this multibillion-dollar tech giant would be experiencing some sort of cognitive dissonance about the dubious principles they’ve embraced. Nevertheless, they persisted:

A complaint has been filed with the National Labor Relations Board accusing Alphabet Inc.’s Google of violating federal law by retaliating against an employee.
The filing was made this week by an unidentified individual and the case has been assigned to the agency’s New York office, according to the agency’s website. It involved an alleged violation of a New Deal-era ban on punishing employees for involvement in collective action related to working conditions, according to a case summary posted online. An attorney listed as representing the complainant didn’t immediately comment in response to an inquiry.
It’s unclear who the complainant is. Over the past year, staff have protested over workers’ rights, a divisive military contract and the company’s handling of sexual misconduct. Tens of thousands of Google employees around the world participated in a November walkout, demanding changes. The company’s since addressed some of the organizers’ demands, announcing it would let employees pursue claims as class actions in court rather than forcing them into arbitration.
This week, the internet giant came under fire from two leaders of the walkout, who alleged in a message posted internally that the company has been retaliating against them — a claim Google has denied. The activists, whose message was first reported by Wired, announced a planned town-hall meeting on the issue Friday.

“Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen . . .”

Category: Economics

‘No One Could Have Predicted This Tragedy’ (But It Was Predictable)

Posted on | April 25, 2019 | 2 Comments

Say hello to Robin Steinberg, a feminist lawyer and “social justice advocate” who founded a non-profit that helps criminals get out of jail:

“The Bail Project is an unprecedented effort to combat mass incarceration at the front end of the system,” according to the group’s website. “We pay bail for people in need, reuniting families and restoring the presumption of innocence.”
The Bail Project is comprised of “passionate advocates” known as “Bail Disruptors and Client Advocates…many of whom have experienced the bail system firsthand,” according to the website.
“We believe that paying bail for someone in need is an act of resistance against a system that criminalizes race and poverty and an act of solidarity with local communities and movements for decarceration,” the page read.

Now, say hello to Samuel Scott, beneficiary of this “social justice”:

Just hours after a nonprofit group posted bail for a man accused of assaulting his wife, the suspect went to the woman’s home and brutally murdered her, according to prosecutors.
Samuel Lee Scott, 54, was arrested for domestic abuse on April 5, after he allegedly beat 54-year-old Marcia Johnson, injuring her cheekbone and ear, the Associated Press reported.
Scott also allegedly told Johnson that the “might as well finished what [he] started since [she] was going to contact the police,” the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office wrote in a probable cause statement.
On April 9, the court granted Johnson’s request for an order of protection, and he was notified that he was prohibited from going to her residence or within 300 feet of her, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Later the same day, the St. Louis Bail Project posted Scott’s $5,000 bail. . . .
Within hours after The Bail Project enabled Scott’s release, he made his way over to Johnson’s home, arriving there at approximately 7:45 p.m., the Associated Press reported.
He proceeded to violently assault her, then left her bloodied body lying inside her home, prosecutors said.
A friend found Johnson at approximately 11 p.m., and rushed her to a hospital.
“[She] was unconscious, had a broken eye socket, several broken ribs, and was bruised from head to toe,” according to court documents.
A family member said that the attack also left Johnson with “brain damage,” KTVI reported.
The battered woman died of the blunt force trauma injuries five days later. . . .
The Bail Project Executive Director Robin Steinberg said the group was “deeply saddened” by Johnson’s murder, but said that they were in no way responsible for what had occurred.
“No one could have predicted this tragedy,” Steinberg claimed, according to the Associated Press.

Really? “No one” could have predicted it? You could have asked me, or any other adult with the sense God gave a mule, and we’d have predicted it. You start turning criminals loose, bad things happen. But this is just more “violence against women” feminists will ignore, for some reason . . .

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.)

Category: Violence Against Women

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FMJRA 2.0: Man, I’m Tired Of Paying Them Dues

Public Beheadings in Saudi Arabia

Three Scary Words

Friday Fiction: 100 Word Challenge

It’s Very Simple

In The Mailbox: 04.26.19

New Trouble for High-Tech Totalitarians

‘No One Could Have Predicted This Tragedy’ (But It Was Predictable)

THE FULL METAL JACKET REACH-AROUND AWARD

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