I WAS WRONG ABOUT BOLTON
Unlike Scott, I was never a full-on Bolton fan or supporter. Bolton was too much the warmonger, but he did things I admired on occasion. When Trump selected him as National Security Adviser, I felt he could offer a different perspective, one that Trump should hear. I did not think Trump would follow Bolton's positions because they seemed so different from Trump's. Bolton is a warmonger first and foremost, while Trump is an antiWarrior first and foremost. But what Bolton did is beyond the pale. During a time of cultural crisis in the nation, we need less, not more divisive rhetoric. Bolton is pouring fuel on the cultural war fires. But for what reason? Because Trump would not follow Bolton's drumbeats to war.
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A Football Field and a Hail of Bullets
Leave the city; really, this is no joke. The progressives want more violence. Move to defendable places where your neighbors are rational people who do not believe that the world should be run by mindless, illiterate, and violent mobs. No Noose
The supply, however, is minuscule and shrinking if one discounts antiwhite racism. Racism against Blacks and Coloreds is shrinking is to be expected; after all we won the war on racism in the 1960s. The sane and rational among us realized it would take perhaps seven to ten generations for racism to fall to background noise levels. This is how cultural change happens. Although the reduction seems to be about 50% per generation, so the actual reduction is very rapid, bringing the objective state of racism to a minimal level within three generations; the dog has a long tail, which takes much longer to eliminate. The current revival of racism is little more than status and virtue seeking. Court stops the railroading of General Flynn
Sullivan occasionally gets things right, but it appears that those are accidents. He knows little about the law as his foray into treason during the Flynn case demonstrated. I frankly wondered how any person who had taken a Constitutional Law course could not understand the basic law around treason. This is not a difficult area, it is covered in the Con Law course, and it is memorable. But not to Sullivan, obviously. So, the doofus blundered about as he is wont to do, and got a few things right and many other things wrong. I guess it is nice to have comic relief in the ranks of our federal judiciary. Or something. "Trading Sportsbooks for Brokerages, Bored Bettors Wager on Stocks"
Pick US-based funds like a Total Stockmarket index fund, or S & P 500 index fund, or a top 1000 index fund. I would think twice about the international funds right now, particularly the MSCI EAFE index funds. China has corrupted these indexes causing Chinese stock to be overweighted. China is a failed state. Sure it could go on for a long time as a failed state, and its companies stocks might do well for a while longer, but most of the value we see in the China stocks will be due to China's financial and monetary manipulations. That is a game best played by professionals or gamblers who understand the risk but find the potential reward as a sufficient offset. Years ago now, I knew a few day traders. They all followed the same path; they would discover a "strategy" for quickly flipping stocks, and then develop a scheme to sell their "strategy" to others. They promptly began making money by selling the "strategy." Within three years, they would disappear, sometimes they would resurface later. The facts were always the same, the scheme proved a bust, and now many people who had paid loads of money for the "strategy" were mad as hell, so the day trader had to move. It seemed evident to me that if the scheme was excellent, the day trader would simply have used it to maximize his returns and wealth. By diverting his time and energy to selling the "strategy" to others, he was tacitly admitting he knew it was little more than a lucky fluke or worse a fraud. "Five Ideas to Rein in Long-Term Federal Debt"
The problem is legislators would rather implement turnstile solution to political problems because a problem "solved" year after year with nonsense and palaver allows them to be perennial heroes to their constituents while solving the problem offers little if any long term benefit to the politician. The cure is to limit our politician's and bureaucrats terms of service as follows, President 8 years, Senators 6 years (and return the selection of Senators to the original Constitutional model), House representatives 6 years, and bureaucrats and politicians a total of 14 years of combined government services (once they achieve a specific pay grade in government service). The ideas that will never be implemented: "1. Longevity Indexing in Social Security. In 1983, Congress increased the normal retirement age in Social Security from 65 to 67, on a gradual basis. The improvement in lifespans since then calls for a further adjustment. On average, men at age 65 are now living 3.8 years longer than they were in 1983. Instead of a further ad hoc increase, Congress should index the retirement age, on a prospective basis, to maintain a steady ratio of retirement to working years across generations. Once in place, this provision would automatically adjust program spending to conform with the actual lifespan experiences of retired Americans. 2. Progressive Adjustments to Social Securit Benefits. Social Security already has a progessive benefit formula, but it could be made more so to provide a stronger safety net while also lowering long-term costs. Earnings in the third bracket in the benefit formula could be replaced at a 10 or 5 percent rate, on a prospective basis, instead of the 15 percent rate provided in current law. At the same time, the program could provide a higher minimum benefit payment to workers with credited wages spanning a minimum number of years (perhaps 25 or 30). The new floor might be set just above the poverty threshold to ensure Americans who have engaged in meaningful work before age 65 will have sufficient incomes in retirement to meet their basic needs. 3. Personal Accounts in Social Security. The introduction of small personal accounts as a feature of Social Security could improve program solvency. One option would be to increase the combined employer-employee tax rate, now 12.4 pecent, by an additional percentage point, and then devote 2.0 percentage points of the total tax rate to funding such accounts on a prospective basis. Workers would build balances in the accounts that could be used to partially offset what they are owed under the program’s statutory formula and partially to increase the total amount of their retirement income from their Social Securty tax payments. 4. Premium Support in Medicare. Medicare allows beneficiaries to access their entitlement to covered benefits through enrollment in private insurance plans, called Medicare Advantage (MA). Other beneficiaries are assigned to provider-led managed care plans, called Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). Still other enrollees get their care through the unmanaged fee-for-service program (FFS). Medicare would be less costly if competition among these three options were strengthened. Beneficiaries should be given the choice annually to enroll in the type of coverage they find most attractive, with the government contribution set at the average cost plan in a market. Medicare beneficiaries would have an incentive to enroll in high-value, low-premium coverage because they would pay the difference between the government’s contribution and the toal premium charged by the plans they select. All of the coverage options offered in the Medicare marketplace would have an incentive to minimize their costs to remain price competitive. This reform could be applied prospectively by holding harmless current beneficiaries from premium increases above what is required under current law. 5. Mandatory Managed Care for Dually Eligible Beneficiaries. The most expensive enrollees in both Medicare and Medicaid are those who are eligible for both programs. They account for roughly one in five beneficiaries but a third of program spending. Most of the dually eligible are frail elderly who have very low incomes and require long-term care assistance. The cost of caring for these beneficiaries would be less if they were enrolled in effective managed care arrangements that minimize the need for expensive nursing home stays. Congress should require better coordination of the combined Medicare-Medicaid benefit, in part by mandating that the dually eligible get their care through well-managed health plans." "'The Six-Day Miracle': The 1967 War and How It Changed Israel"
Once the crisis is existential, then it can be done routinely. This is how we get recipients for the Congressional Medal of Honor. 'I Told You So,' Whispers Ghostly Image Of George Orwell Hovering Over Nation
We don't live in 1984; we live in Brave New World 1984, a witches brew of pleasure, vice, hate, and terror designed to destroy our humanity, and enslave us to the will of the elites. Welcome to the club, Tim. Relax, there are ebbs and flows in the historical war against totalitarianism. We are nearing the end of the totalitarian flow. When it ends, it is likely to be spectacular, kind of like WWII, the American Civil War, or the American Revolutionary War. Each was a shocking Sea Change in its time. Each required the complete rebuilding of the institutions of America and the entire World. This time will be no different. The end of the 2020 Culture Wars will be on par if not greater than any of the last three Crisis periods in American history. Tim has a good grasp of the basics of what is happening, particularly among the Millennials and GenZ. He does not have as good a handle on American history regarding how we have dealt with the totalitarian impulse historically. Historically, those who love liberty are loath to directly fight with the totalitarians, and we tend to allow them to gain ground incrementally over long periods. That continues right up to the point the totalitarians trigger serious violence. Only then do Americans have the epiphany that Tim had and realize the problem has become existential, and fight back. The positive in this strategy is that it reduces violent conflict for decades. The negative is that once the violence comes, it is full-blown winner take all violence, which ends up killing far more people and destroying more property. This is the problem of the bratty, entitled child because that is what the totalitarian tyrant is. The bratty child will push until the consequences for his actions become serious, often criminal, and then the consequences are dire, including imprisonment. Today we are watching the progressive left in America and around the World, decompose into mobs of angry, violent tyrants who want power, mayhem, and even murder. Fortunately, these spasms usually occur in progressive cities, so they amount to spoiled progressive adult children destroying progressive city and progressive business infrastructure. Mostly, we can live with this civil progressive war, which is the reason the progressive civil war spins out of control. The problem is it will become existential not just for the cities but for the country as a whole. We've arrived, and Tim Pool just realized it. He also realized that rational Americans are not acting as if this existential problem is existential. That frightened Tim enough that he lashed out at the common man for not standing up to the mob. But the video below is what happens to those who simply behave in a way the mob decides is not acceptable. Wisconsin State Sen. Tim Carpenter was not opposing the mob, he was simply video taping the mobs actions. For this, he was beaten down and seriously injured. The common man wants none of this; he realizes that the police have been told not to break up the riots, but to let them destroy, burn, loot, and create mayhem. The politicians we hire to manage and protect are in bed with the mob. The common man knows this and realizes the time is not yet right for the counter punch. That will have to wait for the progressive left to declare and engage in outright warfare or move the war to middle America. Once that happens, all bets will be off, and the progressive left will discover the consequences for "poking the bear." Democratic Wisconsin State Senator Tim Carpenter, 60, collapses after being 'punched and kicked in the head by ten protesters' Oregon county says non-white people don't need to wear face masks Because face masks don't work? Or because Lincoln county, Oregon wants Blacks to die? More likely because Woke politics run the show, and among progressives, Black lives matter less than political virtue points. |
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