Category Archives: politics

This is Meeting a 2% Commitment?

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This is a pretty ugly performance by what used to be a top-drawer defense establishment.

Germany’s Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that only 39 percent of large items, such as tanks and helicopters, delivered to the Bundeswehr in 2017 did not require improvement before deployment.

That’s against an already shockingly low goal of a 70% Operational Ready status for already delivered military equipment—like those tanks and helicopters.

And this:

Only 27 of the 71 Pumas delivered last year; half of the eight A400M delivered; two among seven Tiger combat helicopters; and four among seven NH90 transport helicopters, were operationally ready last year….
Among four new Eurofighter combat jets delivered in 2017, one could be used.

Germany’s Left Party parliamentarian Matthias Höhn is right that this, as paraphrased by Deutsche Welle, is:

a scandal that [German Minister of Defense Ursula] von der Leyen “tolerates this arms industry’ slovenliness at the cost of taxpayers.”

Is Germany really serious about its NATO commitments?

Speaking of Censorship of Conservatives

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(See nearby.)  Republican candidate for Senator from Tennessee Marsha Blackburn has had her campaign ad censored by Google:

Unfortunately, we won’t be able to show your ads on Google, our search partners, or on Display Network placements until you edit your ads or keywords to make them compliant with our policies….

Here are the ads Google says is inappropriate.

It seems it’s a violation of Google’s policies to depict the Left in an unfavorable light.

This is the nature of “free” speech to which we can look forward if the Progressive-Democrats succeed next week or in 2020 or later elections.

“Sick and Tired”

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That’s what ex-Vice President Joe Biden (D) said about the Trump administration last Tuesday.

Three times this past week the forces of hate have terrorized our fellow Americans for their political beliefs, the color of their skin or their religion[.]

Forces of hate have always been with us, and they always will be—there’s evil in the world, and we’re humans, not angels.  But those forces have been spun up especially hard by the hateful, divisive rhetoric of the last couple of years, rhetoric that is an especially virulent rhetoric of the divisive rhetoric of the preceding eight years: cops act stupidly and are racist, Americans are nothing but bitter Bible-clingers and gun-toters living in flyover country, Americans are irredeemably deplorable racists and misogynists.

Americans are guilty as accused on the basis of that accusation (Judge, now Justice Brett Kavanaugh); asking why blackface on a child’s costume is racist (Megan Kelly); objecting to illegal aliens is racist; wanting to protect our national borders is racist; censoring Conservative speech on social media is appropriate; school shootings are an excuse to attack the 2nd Amendment; attempting to murder Republicans at a baseball practice is acceptable; the violence of Antifa and of the BLM is carefully overlooked; and on and on.  And all done for political gain and to signal personal virtue.

What I’m sick and tired of is Progressive-Democrats like Biden politicizing tragedy, politicizing mass murder, politicizing all speech for their personal political gain.  This is a time for mourning the murdered, for giving support and succor to the survivors and to the families of the murdered and survivors.  This is a time for mourning the survivors of tragedy and for supporting the families hit by tragedy.

This is a time for more speech, not of limiting it to “approved” speech.

What I’m sick and tired of is the rank hypocrisy of Progressive-Democrats.

Another Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

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There is a nascent movement, the #WalkAway movement, that for the last five months has been urging those disgruntled with the Progressive-Democratic Party to leave the party and form a different one.

Some said the Democratic Party has become hate-filled and hostile to opposing points of view while moving further to the left. Others say they were tired of the party’s “politically correct” culture.

The movement appears to have gained steam from the Kavanaugh hearing travesty.

Of course, it can’t possibly be a legitimate effort, though; it must be an effort by those Evil Republicans to break up the Progressive-Democratic Party.  CNN‘s David Love says it’s fake and a Russian ploy.  Because everyone knows those Republicans are in cahoots with Russia.

Republicans want to split up the Democratic political opposition and divide black and Latino voters. And Russia looks like it wants to help here, too.  The most recent example of this strategy is the #WalkAway hashtag, which is presented as a grassroots effort by former Democrats who are critical of the party’s alleged intimidation, confrontation and lack of civility and want people to walk away from the party.

And this bit of Love’s hysteria:

#WalkAway has also now been connected to Kremlin-linked Russian bots, and it is now the seventh most popular Russia-influenced hashtag.  The purpose of this now-astroturf campaign is to manipulate public opinion by creating the illusion that this is a popular movement. In reality, #WalkAway has become pure propaganda, a psychological operation.

It’s vast, and it’s right wing, and it’s fake, and it’s, it’s, it’s bad.

Fairness

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Various nations around Europe and Asia are looking at ways to add to the tax burden on multinational technology companies doing business in those nations.

Bruno Le Maire, French Minister of the Economy and Finance, rationalized the movement this way:

It is a question of fairness.

Leave it to a European politician to not understand the concept.

No. Fairness is cutting taxes, not raising them, thereby leaving more of the citizens’ money in their hands.

Fairness is cutting spending.  This would greatly reduce Government’s crowding out pressures against citizens’ businesses through competition for “customers.” This also would greatly reduce Government’s competition for inputs to production, competition which drives up the cost of those inputs to private businesses.

Fairness is cutting spending especially to be less than tax revenue, reducing the need for Government borrowing and its twin outcomes: driving up the cost of money for private businesses and increasing the likelihood of future tax increases for both the citizens and their private businesses.

And this is the Europe our very own Progressive-Democrats want us to emulate.