A Concise Deconstruction and Dismantling of President Lincoln's Cockamamie Negro Colonization Scheme

"He (Lincoln) tries to accommodate himself to the vulgar prejudice of colour by taking for granted that the negroes must all go away somewhere. He openly declares that he hopes the free blacks will go away with the slaves, and he holds this out as the great recommendation of the (emancipation) plan to the citizens of the North....The people are, by Congress, to give money to buy a territory somewhere, outside of their own country; and there the four millions of the slaves are to be transported, with as many free blacks as can be induced or compelled to go with them. There they are to be colonised, at the expense, and by the care of the people of the United States. Such is Mr. Lincoln's pretended scheme...The four millions of negroes would be carried away from shelter and food, to be set down in a wilderness to starve....This looks like insanity." The British periodical, "Once a Week", February 1862, piece entitled, "The Slave Difficulty in America"..............................................................................And this dude is the greatest President in American history? Really?

On the U.S. and its Total Lack of Moral Clarity, Consistency, Etc.

According to economic historian, Robert Higgs, the Japanese made numerous peace overtures to the United States in the years leading up to Pearl Harbor/WW2 and on every occasion FDR told them to take a long walk off a short pier. The sticking point obviously was China and the Japanese interventions there and, while, yeah, it does sound like a fairly reasonable position, when you compare it to the fact that the British and the Russians, our two prospective allies, had themselves perpetrated two of the most despicable genocides in all of human history (the Brits in India and the Russians in Ukraine) in the decades leading up to it (the French at least had the "decency" to save their respective genocide in Algeria until after the damn war), at the very bare minimum it does give me pause, a lot of it.

Proof-Positive that the North Wasn't Motivated Primarily By Racial Justice

Try, the very instant that that conflict was over they immediately went on a full-bore genocidal killing spree against the Plains Indians and then followed that up with an even bigger genocidal killing spree in the Philippines. Motivated primarily by racial justice, these psychopaths - LOL!!!!!

On Partisan Scholarship

The left has been peddling its wares in history for decades now (Eric Foner, James McPherson, Dean Sprague, Howard Zinn, Mark Neely, Arthur Schlesinger, Gary Wills, George Fletcher, Doris Kearns "I used to work for LBJ and vacationed with the Kennedys" Goodwin", etc.) and I have yet to hear a solitary clarion call to protest it. It was only when the libertarians started writing on historical subjects (ironic in that most of these writers has been every bit as tough on the Republicans as they've been on the Democrats) that the protesting started and it seems to be getting worse. My thoughts on the subject are clear; namely, that every damn side should be heard and what in the hell are we really worrying about here anyway?

Keeping Politics Out of History - Yeah, It's a Little Too Late For That

The history of the American Civil War hasn't changed very much at all in Europe. It continues to be one of ambiguity, balance, and, if anything, a slight tilting to the South. Compare this to America in which the analysis of the conflict (not to mention, Reconstruction) has changed from one of complexity and nuance to an almost 1970s wrestling style paradigm in which slavery isn't just one of the factors but the overriding factor and the South is consistently portrayed as the bad guy. My theory is that as the academies became more and more infested with Marxist and progressive professors, so, too, the story-line (more and more one of the government as savior with the enlightened North dragging the recalcitrant and Neanderthalish South into modernity). Thankfully, we still have a lot of the more vintage analysis available (Dunning, Coulter, Corwin, Bowers, etc.) and a spate of revisionists who haven't completely guzzled the Kool-Aide yet.

A Quick wd Update

I haven't read a single solitary thing that this asshole has written in well over two months now (I put a book over the comments section and when I see his jerk-off name I immediately click, delete). And yet he still continues to send me not just dozens of submissions but hundreds. I think that we just have to face the fact here that this is one virulently sick mother-fucker who obviously has no other options (he obviously isn't working in that the dude sends me comments literally around the clock and, besides, who in his right mind would ever hire such an individual?) and so he has to irritate multiple fellow bloggers who continue to care not one iota what he "thinks" about anything. I mean, I know that the blogosphere (which is massive) is probably chock to the brim with folks just like this but I can tell you for a fact that after over 30 years in the human services arena, this is easily THE most fucked up individual that I've ever encountered by a lot. Here's to hoping that he eventually gets some help.

On the North and Slavery

There isn't a single solitary thing that the North, the Republican party, and President Lincoln wouldn't have done to accommodate the South on the issue of slavery. NOTHING. That, and I will also point out that the vast, Vast, VAST, percentage of northerners were NOT anti-slavery (they were either pro-slavery - Wall Street, especially - or completely indifferent to it) and if anything the level of racism in the North was worse than it was in the South (the fact that the slave ships were virtually all from the North, the fact that multiple northern states had black codes which made it almost impossible for blacks to enter, the fact that the New York City draft riots probably killed more black folks than all of the slave insurrections combined, etc.). I mean, I know that the "official" story has changed over the years and the good guy, bad guy mentality certainly reigns supreme in the present but the record is the record is the record and there really isn't all that much that Lincoln boot-lickers like quasi-Marxist, Eric Foner (he writes for "The Nation", for Christ), can do to change THAT.

On the Zimmerman Telegram Being a Rationale For U.S. Involvement in World War 1

It was preposterous and almost (almost, I said) makes George W. Bush's reasons for the second Iraq War seem sophisticated. a) The telegram said that, if America declared war on Germany. IF. b) Mexico represented literally no threat whatsoever to the United States. NONE. And c) even if it was a threat, Mexico itself was in such a state of abject turmoil at the time (President Carranza fighting for his life against the miscreants, Villa and Zapata) that there was no way in hell a war with the U.S. was even feasible. And the fact that the American people bought this shit (a la the Maine, a la the Gulf of Tonkin, a la WMD, etc.)  apparently. That was the frigging scary part.

With Allies Like This

According to Adam Hochschild's book, "King Leopold's Ghost", the Belgians ended up slaughtering somewhere between 8 and 10 MILLION (many were shot, many more were worked to death as slave porters carrying hundreds of pounds of ivory and sap that was ultimately used for rubber products) Africans during their disgusting 20 year occupation of the Congo. To even imply that Belgium were one of the good fellas' during the first world war is uproarious and, me, I wouldn't have wasted one singular American soldier bailing their sorry asses out.

Making the World Safe for Democracy, My Ass

No historian sees through the bullshit and hypocrisy of previous U.S. Presidents quite like Jim Powell. Take, for example, his withering assessment of Woodrow Wilson and his "making the world safe for democracy" visions; "It was curious how Wilson could imagine himself making the world safe for democracy by allying with Britain and France, since both nations were determined to hold on to their colonial empires. France had rapidly expanded its colonial holdings since 1870, in Africa and East Asia. The French had a reputation for brutal colonial rule. In terms of global extent, the British Empire was unmatched in human history, with a presence in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. During World War 1, Britain was trying to suppress the Irish struggle for independence (he also mentions that our other ally, Russia, was being brutally ruled by a czar)."............................................................................................Of course, what makes this bald-faced hypocrisy all the more devastating is that Germany (admittedly, not a bunch of choir boys) didn't have anywhere near the empire of France and England, didn't murder people by the millions a la the Belgians (yet another of our allies), and was far less repressive (internally) than the Russian regime. I mean, I know that the Wilson apologists have been trying for decades to spin some sort of moral rationale for the fellow's actions but no, no.

On Larry the Cable Guy's Recent Commercials For Prilosec

Kind of ironic in that the fellow's act has been creating all sorts of heartburn for seemingly centuries now.

The Most Curious Case of David Frum

Mr. Frum is an intelligent and reasonable man and was easily one of the smartest folks in the entire Bush administration. And yet it was him who wrote that idiotic "Axis of Evil" speech in which he perplexingly lumped together three countries (Iraq, Iran, and North Korea) that literally had nothing to do with each other and two (Iran and Iraq) of which had actually fought an eight year war against each other less than two decades earlier. What in the hell was David Frum thinking?...........................................................................................And like I had pointed out in an earlier missive, the U.S. had actually made a fair amount of progress with both North Korea and Iran prior to Mr. Bush having made this speech and to say that this was a poison pill is really putting it lightly, me-buckos.

The Greatest Lie in American History

You can take all of the lies of Bill Clinton, all of the lies of George W. Bush, and all of the lies of Barack Obama, put them together, and it still wouldn't add up to the one monumental lie that Abraham Lincoln (it was actually Daniel Webster's lie and Lincoln ran with it) told just prior to the Civil War; namely, that the Union preceded the States and that any State which attempted to secede from it was committing treason...........................................................................................I mean, I know that Mr. Lincoln was a powerful persuader and all but on this particular issue he was either rewriting history to suit his own political purposes (lying through his teeth, in other words) or he was a total ignoramus when it came to the Constitution and/or American history. a) Literally every founding father (including the statist, Alexander Hamilton) had acknowledged the right of a state or states to secede. b) The New England states had threatened secession several times early in the 19th Century and on none of these occasions did the central government threaten invasion. c) James Madison, the father of the Constitution, stated that, "not in the opinions or intentions of the body which planned and proposed it, but in those of the state conventions where it (the Constitution) received ALL THE AUTHORITY WHICH IT POSSESSES...". d) Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island all ultimately ratified the Constitution but only after they were given reassurances that they could exit it if they desired. e) The reason that the founding fathers approved of the right of secession was because they saw it as the ONLY check on a potentially tyrannical central government. f) Jefferson and Madison authored the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, a treatise which unambiguously declared the supremacy of the individual states in the federal system (an act to which they received virtually zero criticism). g) The Declaration of Independence referred to the 13 colonies as "Free and Independent States". And h) the colonists had just fought a war to shed the repression of a powerful central government and so it is extremely unlikely that they would have willingly consented to yet another one.............................................................................................Look, I get it. All Presidents lie (and, yes, the last three in particular have told some dandies). But when you get a lie that ultimately resulted in the killing or maiming of 5% of the population, a destruction of half the country's wealth, and a post-war occupation that thoroughly destroyed the possibility of healing between the races, you really gotta call the thing for what it is, and that I've tried to do.

Miserable 20th Century European Leaders - Volume 2; Kaiser Wilhelm the Second

This is the asshole who initially turned what should have been a small regional conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia into what was ultimately one of the greatest bloodbaths in all of human history (via the dude's alliance with/war guarantee for the former)......................................................................................And, no, his virulently bad judgement didn't stop there, either. In 1917, German chancellor, Theobald von Berthmann-Hollweg, put forth a peace resolution which passed in the Reichstag 212 to 126 and which stated that, "The Reichstag strives for a peace of understanding and a lasting reconciliation of peoples. Any violations of territory, and political, economic, and financial persecutions are incompatible with such a peace. The Reichstag rejects any plan which proposes the imposition of economic barriers (AKA, protectionism) or the solidification of national hatreds after the war." It was a very reasonable peace proposal and, while, no, we'll obviously never know for certain if the British or the French would have accepted it, the fact of the matter here is that the Kaiser (along, of course, with the German High Command) never let it get that far and hundreds of thousands of people died as a result of it. FUCK HIM.

Historian, Jim Powell, On the Senselessness, Stupidity, And Needless Tragedy of World War One

"None of this was inevitable. If the horrors of the Napoleonic Wars had remained fresh in people's minds - rather than having conquests glorified by 'progressives' - and if the laissez-faire policies of Richard Codben and John Bright (two British textile entrepreneurs who strongly opposed colonialism and imperialism and who strongly supported trade) had been continued, there never would have been a world war. Maintaining a separation of the economy and the state would have prevented politicians from turning business competition into political and military conflicts. There wouldn't have been nasty trade wars and empire-building, contributing to paranoia and the arms race. If governments had let people live their lives as freely on one side of the border as on the other, there wouldn't have been much political support for war. What would have been the point?"............Well said, Mr. Powell. Well said (especially the part about protectionism almost always leading to conflict).

Toward a Progressive Libertarian Grand Compromise

Economist, Charles Murray (a libertarian), has put forth what he considers to be a grand bargain to the progressives. He says that we, the libertarians (and, no, not every libertarian is completely on board with this), will give the left its big spending. But the left will have to give the libertarians much more economic freedom. His specific proposal (which is essentially a modified version of Friedman's negative income tax) would be to provide to every poor family a minimum monthly income (think of the Earned Income Tax Credit beefed up and spread out more) to which these folks could spend in the manner that THEY desire. The only catch here is that any help beyond this (say that a person spends their whole check in the first week on booze) would have to come from family, friends, charity, etc..............................................................................It's a pretty darn good plan, I think, in that it a) empowers the individual citizen, b) at least partially puts the private sector in charge of charity/welfare (the assertion here being that the private sector would be much more adapt at determining who deserves the assistance as opposed to a swift kick in the pants), and c) radically reduces the size of the federal bureaucracy in that the bulk of the money will be going directly to those citizens who need it. I mean, I know that this is a radical approach to some folks but maybe a radical approach is exactly what the country needs at this point just to break the damned logjam.

Hail to the Gal

Is it my imagination, or did the individual on top come off as a little more Presidential than the individual on the bottom the other day? Yes? No?

On the Upcoming Movie, "Batman Versus Superman" (2016)

Well, being that the caped-crusader is mortal, and short of the dude having a shitload of kryptonite, I'm probably going to have to go with the other fellow.

You Can't Be Fearful if You're Already Dead

This guy was aiming a gun at me and just before he pulled the trigger I ducked. I then got up and ran away and the fellow started yelling at me, "Hey, what are you so freaked out about, man? I didn't hit you." I relate this story (which is obviously fictitious) to underscore just how ridiculous it is for the Lincoln supporters to still claim that the Morrill Tariff couldn't have been a major cause of the Civil War in that the South had seceded only a month or so after its passage and never really had to have to pay the damn thing (supplementing of course the fact that a) the tariff issue was easily one of the most controversial topics during the hotly contested ballot for Speaker of the House in 1858 - the vote was deadlocked for over two months, b) the tariff itself was passed on a strictly North-South party-line-vote in which only one southern Congressman voted for it, and c) Lincoln owed pretty much the entirety of his Republican nomination to the fact that the dude ran a full-bore protectionism campaign all throughout the North with Pennsylvania obviously being one of critical states).

On John McCain Posing With a Trio of Thuggish Terrorizing Neanderthals While Thinking that They're Actually Freedom Fighters

I'm sure that the guy means well but if I'm going to take to task progressives for failing to see the unintended consequences of their policies, then I really need to do the same thing to these hawks and neocons....Mr. McCain is nuts, folks, and in the words of former President Reagan, there he goes again.

On Fox News Hottie, Alisyn Camerota, Leaving Fox For CNN

Uh, yeah, I'm gonna be watching.

Note to Colonel David Hunt

I would personally like to thank you for adding some much needed class to the Fox News family. While most the rest of folks over there are neoconservative Johnny One-Notes and wouldn't give Obama credit if he cured cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer's simultaneously, you continue to provide the viewers with a sense of fairness (the fact that you called out Colonel Peters, for example), measure, nuance, and realism and it's a total breath of fresh air. Please, continue to do so and know that there's at least one individual out there who appreciates it.

The Battle Hymn of the Tax-Collectors

According to tax historian, Charles Adams, the compromise tariffs of the 1830s and '40s represented approximately $107.5 million in total revenue; $90 million of which was paid by the South (just short of 84%). This was an extraordinary burden and when you also take into account the fact that a) the South had roughly half the population of the North and b) most of the revenue was being spent up North, it is exceeding easy to see why this was such a huge issue for the better part of 40 years (from the Tariff of Abominations of 1828 to the Black Tariff of 1846 to the Morrill Tariff of 1861) and a significant impetus for war (historian, Albert Bledsoe, quoting President Lincoln himself, "Let the South go! Where then shall we get our revenue?").

On the Minimum Wage

A boon to white middle-class teenagers living at home and a death knell to inner-city black youngsters who've dropped out of school. A racist law, in other words.

On the Republican/Whig 19th Century Concept of "Internal Improvement Subsidies"

They never had the balls to call it what it truly was; corporate welfare, graft, fraud, bribery, kickbacks, patronage, crony capitalism, etc., and so, no, not only were these ball-busters amongst the most corrupt politicians in all of human history, they we also a bunch of lily-livered cowardly liars to boot.

On Pancho Villa and President Wilson

While it is undoubtedly true that the former was a total piece of garbage (a murderer and a thief who had absolutely zero regard for the soldiers who followed him) and that, yes, Carranza was most infinitely preferable, the fact of the matter is that it wasn't until Mr. Wilson decided to offer American assistance to Carranza (which, quite frankly, Carranza never asked for and ultimately rejected) that those legendary Villa raids into Arizona and New Mexico really got percolating.....................................................................................And if that wasn't boneheaded enough, Wilson of course had to compound the matter by sending General Pershing and some 10,000 troops into Mexico looking for Villa in what was probably one of the most ludicrous foreign policy initiatives in U.S. history (and one that was also thoroughly condemned by Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, and most of the rest of Latin America); the fact that they literally had no idea where Villa was, utilized a rail line that was essentially useless, were totally humiliated at the Battle of Carrizal, etc..........................................................................................Of course, if it was simply just Mexico in which Wilson intervened, maybe, MAYBE, we could forgive the guy. But the fact that Mr. Wilson also intervened in Nicaragua (1914), Haiti (1915), and the Dominican Republic (1916) AND thoroughly got America enmeshed in what was an idiotic European bloodbath (World War 1) leads me to think that this guy really needs to be rated near the very bottom of American Presidents.

Note to Canada, Australia, And a Large Part of Europe

When you take away my liberty to think, to query, to speak my mind (and, yes, to defend my thinking), and to formulate my own beliefs, you've essentially taken it all and destroyed my spirit. You do realize that, correct?

On the Iraqi Soldiers Laying Down their Weapons and Running

And this caliber of bald cowardice is going to be rectified by U.S. foreign policy how exactly?

Hell Hath No Fury Like a "Good Guy" Scorned

Steven Spielberg loves to emphasize the horrors of war in his movies, and that's fine, but instead of simply focusing on the American soldiers and victims of the Holocaust, wouldn't it be nice if he occasionally showed the carnage that U.S. and British policies have had on civilian populations over the years during these wars; those British concentration camps during the Boer War, the atrocities committed by Sherman and Sheridan during the Civil War and later during the war against the Plains Indians, the barbarism committed by U.S. occupiers in the Philippines, the British hunger blockade of Germany during the first world war (an act that literally killed hundreds of thousands of civilians), the targeting of German and Japanese population centers by Churchill and FDR during WW2, the torching of entire villages in South Vietnam under the LBJ and Nixon regimes, the decade long sanctions policy against Iraq, etc.? I mean, I know that we're supposed to be the good guys and all and that, yes, the victors (of which we were except for Vietnam) generally get the final determination but, damn, a semblance of perspective, for Christ!

On 60s Sex-Kitten, Tuesday Weld

I'm just gonna mimic what the Macho Man, Randy Savage, would have said, "Ooooooooooooooh Yeaaaah!!!"

On the Notion that Hamas Cares About its Civilians

This one is so uproariously funny that it isn't even remotely funny in that these frigging lunatics actually launch their rockets FROM schools, FROM mosques, FROM houses, FROM thickly populated residential areas, etc.. That, and the fact that it's all a part of their sick, disgusting calculations (a belief on their part that as the civilian death toll rises, so, too, does the sympathy that they garner from the rest of the world), flies in the face of the fact they've constantly used suicide bombers (many of them adolescents), etc.. Oh, yeah, these assholes really care about their civilians.

So, How Frigging Boring IS Televised Poker?

It makes golf seem like the Hearns-Hagler fight of 1985.

On the Assertion that Bowles-Simpson is a "Conservative Plan"

Only in the warped, psychotic, brain-diseased, and idiotic mind of a lunatic leftist douche-bag would anything even remotely along these lines even be considered. The fact of the matter here is that the ratio of spending cuts to tax increases in Bowles-Simpson is only about 1.4 to 1, and the only reason that it's even this high is because of interest apparently having been included. Compare this to the ratios of the ACTUAL conservative debt consolidation packages which have consistently put forth a cuts to revenue ratio of approximately 5 or 6 to 1......or even to that deal which Obama almost had with Boehner which was pretty damned close to 4 to 1 and, if anything, Bowles-Simpson is probably a little bit to the left of center. Of course, if you yourself are so brazenly to the left that you actually consider people like Bernie Sanders, Van Jones, Francis Boyle, and Bill Ayers as mainstreamers, and even go as far as to quote Joseph Stalin, you're probably going to think that pretty much anything is "conservative", I would think.

On William Jennings Bryan's Favorite Snack Having Been Radishes

I'm assuming that that would have put the dude in a very small subset (that, and the fact that he was one of the very few sane people in the entire Wilson administration).

William Jennings Bryan - Man of Extraordinary Integrity

Mr. Bryan, during his tenure as Secretary of State, gave good advice after good advice after good advice to President Wilson, advice that could have easily kept us out of World War 1, AND WILSON WOULDN'T LISTEN (their biggest disagreement having to do with the fact that Wilson stubbornly insisted that even commercial vessels that were armed to the teeth had a right to operate in a war zone). Here is just a tiny sampling of the man's correspondence; a) "whether an American citizen can, by putting his business above his regard for his country, assume for his advantage unnecessary risks and thus involve his country in international complications. Are the rights and obligations of citizenship so one-sided that the government which represents all the people must bring the whole population into difficulty because a citizen, instead of regarding his country's interests, thinks only of himself?"............b) "What claim can this Government rightfully make for unintended loss which ordinary diligence would have avoided?"............c) Why be shocked at the drowning of a few people if there is to be no objection to starving a nation (by Britain's naval blockade)?"............d) "If we admit the right of the submarine to attack merchantmen but condemn their particular act or class of acts as inhuman we will be embarrassed by the fact we have not protested against Great Britain's defense of the right to prevent foods reaching non-combatant enemies. Our people will, I believe, be slow to admit the right of a citizen to involve his country in war when exercising ordinary care he would have avoided danger."............e) "It is not likely that either side will win so complete a victory as to be able to dictate terms, and if either side does win such a victory it will probably mean preparation for another war. It would seem better to look for a more rational basis for peace." (how frigging prescient was that one, huh?)........................................................................................Look, I'm not saying here that Mr. Bryan was perfect. He wasn't (the fact that he at least tacitly supported Wilson's idiotic measures in Mexico; the occupation of Veracruz, Punitive Expedition, that moronic operation at Carrizal, etc.). But the fact that he so thoroughly understood the dangers (and not just in the short term, either) of U.S. involvement in what was essentially a war between European imperial powers AND (unlike fellows like Colin Powell and Scott McClellan who opposed the Iraq War and who went along with it anyway) the fact that the dude resigned from office rather than compromising his principles makes me exceedingly admire him........................................................................................P.S. And, yes, countdown to somebody bringing up the Scopes trial.

On Congresswoman, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Asserting that the U.S. Border With Mexico is Secure

I'll take, "Just One More Pitch-Perfect Example of Why We Need to Vote Every Single One of these Cork-Soakers Out of Office", for a thousand, Alex.

The Road to Hell is Also Paved With Stupidity 5

According to the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, USA Today, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, and Science Serving Society, those increased CAFE standards that the federal government instituted in the 1970s and then beefed up considerably in the '90s have literally caused tens of thousands of additional highway deaths and hundreds of thousands of additional injuries. The reason for this is that the easiest way for a car company to achieve these standards is to make the cars significantly lighter and when a car is lighter (your wallet ends up a little lighter, too, in that another side-effect of these increased standards is cost) it is obviously much less safe....................................................................................And it isn't even as if these increased mileage standards have saved all that much in terms of energy. The fact of the matter (and, yes, we've pretty much known this for over 150 years now - the Jevons Paradox, named after the 19th Century British economist, William Stanley Jevons) is that increased energy efficiency simply paves the way for increased energy consumption (you get better gas mileage, you take additional trips) and the end result is round about a goose egg...........................................................................................So there you have it, folks, the government once again sticking its nose in our business and this time not just costing us money but our lives as well, and all to save not even one drop of oil. Gee, thanks, assholes.

On the Black Male Teen Unemployment Rate Being Close to 50% (It's Actually 92% in Chicago)

And increasing the minimum wage by a whopping 38% is going to help these unskilled and desperate for a first job individuals HOW exactly?....................................................................................P.S. And get a load of this article by Robert Murphy (yeah, he's the fellow who Paul Krugman is too chicken to debate). It totally demolishes this whole notion by illiterates such as Bernstein and Krugman who still unbelievably maintain that the minimum wage doesn't harm young, unskilled workers - http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2013/02/i-get-empirical-on-minimum-wage.html

On Political Correctness

I prefer to call it what it truly is; bald, unadulterated, virulent tyranny.

On Holocaust Deniers and Free Speech

Look, I'm not a big fan of these Holocaust deniers, either, but the fact that in most European countries (France and Germany, just to name a couple) you can't even challenge individual points in the narrative (the total number of deaths at Auschwitz, the manner of death at the various camps, evidence on the prevalence of cyanide and coke, etc.) without the fear of being fined and/or imprisoned is something that I would have to say is equally troubling. You have to have free speech, folks. You also have to have an open inquiry or we're just as bad as the tyrants, I would say........................................................................................P.S. And it doesn't just pertain to the Jews, either. Anybody who even attempts to criticize the impact of Muslim immigration on his or her respective country is also playing with fire, and if you don't believe me, just ask former French Interior Minister, Brice Hortefeux. After making what most people would consider to be a modest critique at best, not only was the dude forced to resign from his post, he was also brought before a Paris Tribunal for "public injuries committed toward an individual because of his race, his religion or his origin, by speech, writing, image or means of communication to the public by electronic voice."...Wow, can you even begin to imagine what would happen if Sam Harris or Pat Condell ever moved to Paris?

On Obama as Recently as January Having Once Referred to these ISIS Terrorists as "Jayvee"

Yeah, he was little bit off on that one...................................................................................P.S. And, yes, I'm familiar with the fact that there are spinmeisters out in the blogosphere who are trying to tell us that the President WASN'T referring to ISIS in that comment but to other lesser splinter-cells. And to those folks I would simply counter with, fine, then why in the hell didn't that State Department spokeswoman say that when she went on Megyn Kelly's show? I mean, she obviously had ample opportunity to?

To the Mezzanine, Please

When the minimum-wage was practically doubled in 1949 (from 40 cents an hour to 75 cents an hour), not all of the manual elevator operator jobs disappeared immediately but, yes, within a couple of years they were all pretty much gone. This is what happens, folks, when the government tries to meddle in the price of things. In this instance, the technology (automated elevators) had been there prior to 1949 but because it was still cheaper to use human beings that's what they used and it wasn't until the government raised the price of labor by 87.5% that the machines became cheaper. Yes, of course, these jobs would have eventually gone away anyway, but just try telling that to the poor bastard who got a pink slip in 1951. I'm positive that the dude would be more than happy to thank you..............................................................................................P.S. And mark my word, if this 38% increase in the minimum wage that the President wants ever goes through, you just might be talking to a tablet or computer the next time that you order a Whopper or a Big Mac (we're already seeing it in grocery stores). Cheers.

James Buchanan - An Awful President?

Probably, but the fact that he was responsible for 700,000 fewer deaths than his successor was has to count for something, no?......That, and the fellow could really hold his liquor...................................................................................P.S. And then there's this little tidbit - http://gayhistoryproject.epgn.com/historical-profiles/james-buchanan-americas-first-gay-president/

On Why the Neocons and Traditional Hawks Don't Like Rand Paul

Probably because he hasn't signed on to the next 8, 10 wars that these people seemingly want to fight. Just a wild guess.

John McCain on Iraq (Reader's Digest Version)

"The place wouldn't have gone belly-up just as long as we had kept U.S. troops there for a couple hundred years."

On John McCain's Proposal of Getting Georgia Into NATO

This fellow isn't going to happy until WW3.

On President Wilson's Outrage Over the Sinking of the Lusitania

It was ridiculous. a) The ship was sunk in a war-zone. b) It was a British vessel (the Brits being one of the main belligerents). c) The Germans repeatedly warned the Americans to stay off of British vessels even to the point that they were taking out advertisements in New York papers. d) The British blockade of Germany (in the North Sea, all of which the Brits had considered a war-zone) was every bit as brutal as the German treatment of England and in many cases it was worse in that it even precluded the shipment of food (a total violation if international law). And e) it was ultimately revealed that the Lusitania was actually carrying hundreds of tons of armaments that the Brits were obviously going to use in their, hello, WAR EFFORT. I don't know, folks, the way that I see this thing, it was just another excuse (a la the Gulf of Tonkin, a la the Maine, a la the "mushroom cloud", etc.) by yet another power-hungry politician whose goal it was to extend American power, period.............................................................................................P.S. And according to historian, Martin Gilbert, approximately 750,000 German civilians perished because of this British hunger blockade, the offspring of which (undoubtedly embittered by the experience, I would think), you really don't have to wonder all that much, now do you?

Art (Quite Literally) Imitating Life (And Death)

Get this, folks. Not only is the Stanley Kubrick, Kirk Douglas classic, "Paths of Glory", one of the finest anti-war movies ever made, it's also one of the more accurate ones. According to numerous sources (historians, Jim Powell, Martin Gilbert, S.L.A. Marshall, and Johnny Mosier, just to name four) the German generals (during the first world war) were vastly superior and far less likely to squander the lives of their men than the French, British, and Russian generals were, the French, especially (frequently cited is a fellow named Joffre who literally served up tens of thousands of men a day in Champagne). Damn!..........................................................................................And if you think that it was no big deal if a soldier refused to offer himself up as machine-gun fodder, think again. Just like in the movie, French soldiers that refused these suicidal orders were routinely executed, without a trial and usually within 24 hours, courtesy of the French Ministry of War (and according to Gilbert, the Brits did likewise). Real humane, huh?....................................................................................That, and it wasn't as if these brutal measures ever resulted in any sort of strategic advantage. I mean, yeah, guys like Joffre would occasionally get a mile or two out of one of these onslaughts but for the most part it was bubkas and I still for the life of me can't understand why President Wilson was willing to put American soldiers into the middle of that grinder. Dementia maybe (I heard that the fellow was basically being fed by the end of his second term)?

On U.S. Foreign Policy Over the Past 64 Years

Not enough damned quagmires.

On Esther Williams

She had a sick body and the fact that it was wet for about 90% of the time that she was on the screen certainly didn't hurt. In the words of Les and Mr. Pacino, hoo-ahh!

On Bush and Obama

I'll take, "The Worst Back to Back Presidential Combination Since Hoover and FDR (Who in Turn Were the Worst Back to Back Presidential Combination Since Taft and Wilson)", for a thousand, Alex.

Operation Desert Bungle

According to David Crist's book, "The Twilight War", not only was Iran willing to cooperate with the U.S. after 9/11, they were practically desperate to. a) Their economy was in a shamble and they much needed to trade with us. b) Most of the Iranians were just as aghast as we were at the scope of the crime that al Qaeda had inflicted, and literally tens of thousands of Iranians took to the streets in a candle-light vigil in support of the West. And c) we actually shared a lot of the same miserable enemies; al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein, the Taliban (the Iranians always supported the Northern Alliance and were exceedingly pissed at Afghanistan over the drug issue).......................................................................................And it didn't appear to be just window-dressing, either, folks. a) Iran had made is perfectly clear (in lower level talks with Ryan Crocker that by most accounts were apparently making progress) that they were fully prepared to support American actions in Afghanistan to the tune of even allowing us to use their air-fields and ports. b) They also fully supported the concepts of Afghan elections and even a renunciation of terrorism (Antiwar.com's Scott Horton has even claimed that they would have been willing to ditch Hamas and Hezbollah). And c) They actually contributed more to the early reconstruction funding in Afghanistan than we did......................................................................................Look, I'm not saying here that the Iranians would have been perfect partners by a long shot (and, yeah, they may have ultimately stabbed us in the back). But the fact that President Bush failed so miserably to see the natural divisions between these various factions (he apparently didn't even know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite) is yet another example of the dude's ham-handedness, in my opinion.......................................................................................P.S. It's also another example of him not listening to the saner folks in his administration; Colin Powell, Richard Armitage, Ryan Crocker, Flynt Leverett, etc. (hell, I even think that Codi Rice was in this camp for a while) and caving to the neocons (Wolfowitz, Feith, Luti, Boton, etc.).

On that Douch-Bag Who Left His 18 Month-Old Child in a Hot Car for 7 Hours

At the very minimum he needs to be put away for stupidity and to prevent that it never happens again.

On Whether the Republican Party is an "Ideas Party"

Well, being that their last four standard-bearers have been Dole, Bush 2, McCain, and Romney, I'm probably going to have to vote ixnay on this one, folks (not that the Democrats have been appreciably better, obviously).

The Fountain of Misinformation in Chief

President Obama has given a bevy of speeches in which be claims that severe weather events are getting worse and becoming more frequent. This is false and every climate scientist on the planet who is honest knows that it's false....and yet he continues to say it and rarely if ever gets corrected (Roger Pielke being one of the few). I mean, I know that there's a lot of research money at stake here and all but eventually even piggly-wigs at a trough have to show some integrity, no?

The Axis of Ham-Handed Policies, Bush Style

According to Antiwar.com's Scott Horton, the the deal that President Clinton had made with North Korea (fuel oil, money, and light water reactors in exchange for them relinquishing their nuclear weapons enrichment program) was actually working and it wasn't until President Bush reneged on the deal (once again, not listening to Powell) in 2002 that the North Korean regime resumed it's weapons program. He also points out that the six bombs that the North Koreans now have are all 100% plutonium and, so, yes, the assertion made by Bush that the government was enriching uranium was undoubtedly false. This is all pretty damning stuff and if in fact it can ever be validated - "Bush Bombs" (what Mr. Horton refers to those six bombs as), indeed.