Saturday, January 27, 2018

Rush Limbaugh: What leftists do is "overstate a problem and work society into a frenzied state in order to justify their invariable big-government solution"



Rush Limbaugh on leftists:
"They overstate a problem and work society into a frenzied state in order to justify their invariable big-government solution."
Rush Limbaugh on illegal immigration:
"This bill is worse than doing nothing," Limbaugh said [of the May 2007 legislation to regularize the legal status of millions of undocumented immigrants]. "The thing about this that just doesn't make any sense is thar we're treating the illegals as though we are doing something wrong, as though we've been bad and we're guilty of something.  We want them to forgive us." 
Zev Chafets:
As Larry O'Brien, one of JFK's smartest aides, once observed, there are no final victories in politics.

What America has instead is a permanent argument between Federalists and Jeffersonians, progressives and traditionalists, conservatives and liberals.  This is an essential argument about human nature, and the balance between personal freedom and collective responsibility.
The presence of this debate is one of the vital signs that a society is open and free. Those who decry Limbaugh … "polarizing" ignore the fact that only totalitarian states are unipolar. Democracies are adversarial, and you don't get to choose the other side's advocates.

Thursday, January 25, 2018

Even liberals know that Haiti, El Salvador, and Africa are “shitholes”; in fact, it seems to be their recurring argument for why we need to prioritize citizens of those nations in our immigration policy


Will someone please get Cory Booker a tissue? 
asks Benny Huang, tongue firmly in cheek.
The senator from New Jersey claims that President Trump’s alleged “shithole countries” remark made him cry.

Yes, cry. This one-time All-American high school football star was so butthurt over a completely uncontroversial statement that he actually shed tears. Then he choked up again while recounting his first bout of weeping. “I hurt,” whined Booker before pounding his fists on the bench like a small child. “When Dick Durbin called me I had tears of rage when I heard about this experience in this meeting.”

Booker was referring to the ultraliberal Illinois senator who claims to have been in a meeting with President Trump when Trump said that America doesn’t need any more immigrants from “shithole countries” such as Haiti, El Salvador, and the entirety of Africa. He allegedly said that he would prefer Norwegians instead.

This set off a round of denials and counteraccusations. President Trump, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen, and two Republican senators have denied that Trump made the remarks while Durbin doubled down on his previous accusation.

On the one hand it sounds like something Trump would say, particularly if he were speaking off the record, while on the other hand liberal Democrats are constantly manufacturing incidents of faux outrage so that they can virtue signal to their base. Liberals need to be seen as vigilant warriors fighting a never-ending battle against “hate,” which requires an endless stream of outrages. It’s really tiresome.

Of course when the Democrats are in outrage mode so too are the news media—likely because there’s no clear demarcation line between the two. In the 24 hour period after Shitholegate broke, CNN used the term on air 195 times. That’s an average of more than eight times per hour. Wasn’t there any other news to cover?

It should be noted that this whole story may still be apocryphal. The fact that the news media present it as truth is a classic case of media bias. One Democrat is to be believed because he’s a Democrat. Four Republicans are not to be believed because they’re Republicans.

But if the president didn’t say what Durbin claims he said then I’ll say it for him. Haiti is a “shithole” and everyone knows it—even Dick Durbin, Cory Booker, and all their whiny reporter friends over at CNN. El Salvador is also a “shithole.” So is every African nation without exception.

That may be an impolitic thing to say but that doesn’t make it any less true. If we intend to craft a reality-based immigration policy we must retain the ability to speak candidly about the world as it actually exists—particularly in closed door meetings for cripe’s sake! That’s what closed door meetings are for. We can’t have candid conversations if little Dicky Durbin is going to tattle to the media every time he feels a case of the butthurt coming on.

Even liberals know that Haiti, El Salvador, and Africa are “shitholes;” in fact, it seems to be their recurring argument for why we need to prioritize citizens of those nations in our immigration policy. Turning away people who are fleeing the kind of violence, corruption, and disease found in such places would be heartless and frankly un-American!

Then they react with righteous indignation if anyone calls them “shithole countries.” Seriously? If they’re not shitholes then their residents have no special case to plead.
[RelatedWhat Kind of Startling Groups Might Tend to Agree with Trump About "Shithole Countries"?
 …/… How about the citizens of Haiti, the citizens of El Salvador, and the citizens of various nations in Africa? …/… Indeed, isn't the very fact that so many of these citizens are emigrating to America, or to the West, in the first place a pretty strong sign of what they think, if not in those exact terms, of the regions they were born in? …/…
(There is another, and an even more surprising, group — read the whole thing™)]
But Haitians receive preferential treatment under our immigration policy precisely because their homeland is in shambles–and  anyone who tries to end this preferential treatment gets their hand slapped by the liberal media.

In June of last year, President Trump openly considered ending the “temporary” refugee status of some 50,000 Haitians who were allowed to stay in the US after that country’s 2010 earthquake. A staff editorial from the Washington Post explained:
“The Haitians in question have been allowed to stay in the United States…as beneficiaries of a U.S. government program called Temporary Protected Status. TPS extends humanitarian relief to people from impoverished, war-torn or disaster-wracked countries who are already in the United States when calamity strikes their homelands.” [Emphasis added by Benny Huang.]
Sounds like “shitholes” to me!

The editorial went on to bemoan the cruelty of the Trump Administration for daring to send 50,000 people back to a country that is, by their description, “a special hardship case.” That’s a diplomatic way of saying that it’s a shithole.

The Post also admitted that Haiti will be a “special hardship case” for years to come:
“It’s fair to wonder whether there will ever be, in the foreseeable future, a right time to send more than 50,000 Haitians back to a country so beset with chronic problems. The honest answer is no…”
For once the Post said something that makes sense. Haiti will almost certainly remain the pity of the world for as long as my unborn grandchildren’s  unborn grandchildren are alive and would still be even if there had never been an earthquake. For that matter, the nation has been a “special hardship case” since its birth in 1804 and probably before that too. Haiti was, is, and ever shall be a horrible place filled with despotism, disease, and grinding poverty.

In other words, it’s a “shithole.” Saying that makes liberals nervous, of course, because it implies that not all cultures are equal, from which they draw their own racial conclusions. But it’s the truth.

Let’s look at infant mortality rates. Besides Afghanistan which has the world’s highest infant mortality rate, the top 24 highest infant mortality rates can all be found in African nations. The top 35 nations are all African except four. Then comes Haiti at number 36. El Salvador is number 96. Norway by contrast is number 221.

Or we could examine per capita GDP. Haiti’s is a mere $1,800, which makes it number 209 of 230 countries and the lowest in the Americas. Of the 21 countries that rank below Haiti two are small Pacific island nations and one is North Korea. All the rest are African. Norway is the thirteenth highest.

So why all the weeping and fist-pounding about some nations being called “shitholes?” The short answer is that liberals prioritize their feelings above all else. Cory Booker, for example, might be a little sensitive about the term “shithole” because it’s often associated with the state he represents in the US Senate. New Jersey has a certain reputation as a toxic waste dump with syringe-strewn beaches. I wouldn’t make that argument, of course, because I know that only part of the state fits that description. The entire Garden State isn’t like the really dumpy sections found across the Hudson from Manhattan in places like East Rutherford, Irvington, and Newark.

Say, wasn’t Cory Booker once the mayor of Newark? Yes, he was.

Newark also has a significant population of Haitian immigrants. Remember the 90’s hip hop ensemble the Fugees? Two of its three members were Haitian refugees who settled in the Newark area. Newark also has a good sized population of Salvadorans. The Archdiocese of Newark estimates that forty thousand Salvadorans live within its jurisdictional bounds.

But is Newark a “shithole” because of its Haitian and Salvadoran populations? Not necessarily. Newark has never been a nice place to live—not even before waves of Haitian and Salvadoran immigrants arrived. Still, they haven’t done much to spruce the place up.

A better explanation would be that the Haitians and Salvadorans landed in Newark because they were priced out of nicer communities. They then settled right into the urban Democratic wasteland. Politicians like Cory Booker pander to them and try to buy their votes with promises of government goodies. These politicians never solve their problems, of course, but that’s to be expected. If they did, what would they run on next time?

In short, Cory Booker is offended by Trump’s alleged comments because they strike a nerve not because they’re untrue. As the former mayor of a “shithole” city, filled with constituents who hail from some of the “shithole” countries Trump allegedly named, Booker takes the remarks as a personal insult. Or at least he pretends to. In reality he secretly agrees with the remarks, he just has to show his overwrought outrage publicly for the sake of Newark’s and New Jersey’s sacred honor.

But the rest of us have no obligation to pretend that Haiti, El Salvador, and Africa are nice places. They’re not. Anyone who believes that they are can prove his sincerity by taking his next vacation in beautiful, sunny Port-au-Prince. All others can quit the histrionics.

Wednesday, January 24, 2018

A First Lady's Miniskirt: Imagine the Uproar If Melania Trump Dared to Wear Such a Sexy Dress in Public!


Ohlalaa… Imagine the howls of outrage, in America as in the rest of the world (including France?), if Melania Trump appeared next to President Donald Trump in a similar low-cut dress (merci à Évelyne Joslain) — and let's not even get into the fact of the first lady appearing with a bottle of liquor, i.e., rouge (red wine), in her hand…

Update: it appears far from unlikely that the photo is a composite… Fake News! It got us again!

Questions to the Leftists: If Immigrants Are Such Paragons of Virtue, Why Not Support Sending Them Home to Their Countries to Become Productive Citizens Who Help Build Up Their Respective Nations?!


Long sleeves or short sleeves?
That is the question asked by rebels in African countries such as Sierra Leone before they chop off their prisoners' hands and arms, either at the elbow (short sleeves) or at the wrist (long sleeves).

Meanwhile, the Mexican government has published a list of no-go zones in its own country.

What do those things do but make, by any definition you choose, countries like that — and whatever the race or the color of the skin of their inhabitants — little more than shitholes?
RelatedWhat Kind of Startling Groups Might Tend to Agree with Trump About "Shithole Countries"?
 …/… How about the citizens of Haiti, the citizens of El Salvador, and the citizens of various nations in Africa? …/… Indeed, isn't the very fact that so many of these citizens are emigrating to America, or to the West, in the first place a pretty strong sign of what they think, if not in those exact terms, of the regions they were born in? …/…
[There is another, and an even more surprising, group — read the whole thing™]
In any case, the raison d'être of this post is that in view of the narrative of the leftists — that, unlike us other clueless, heartless, and racist neanderthals, they have the hearts and the compassion to see the virtues of the immigrants as well as the dignity of the countries they belong to — there are a number of essential questions that need answering, questions that they never seem to have paused to consider.

Again: the narrative is that liberals, unlike conservatives, are all-around compassionate, tolerant, and internationalist-minded, as eager to provide help to immigrants, legal or otherwise, as they are to interact with other nationalities and, say, to bring aid to Third World countries.

So this brings up the following questions:

• If immigration is such a wonderful concept, one indeed that will bring hope and change (sic) to the United States, why would immigration not be just as benevolent to all other countries in the world as well? In other words, what I am getting at is, why doesn't this lead you leftists to support precisely the opposite of keeping all the illegals in America, i.e., sending the immigrants home as a good thing (!) since, somewhere, somehow it will prove to be a boon to those nations, what with the very fact of immigrants moving to those (in this case, to their own) countries can only bring untold riches to said nations?!

• Indeed, if the Dreamers are such paragons of virtue, and if it is so evident that all of them go on to become productive citizens, Valedictorians, heroic soldiers worthy of the Medal of Honor, etc, why not let said jewels, why not encourage said archetypes to, go home in order to make their own countries great again?!

• If foreign nations are not shitholes at all — but even more if… they indeed are so (!) — in other words, whatever the status of the countries, won't they benefit even more than America allegedly does from all these Übermenschen returning home to engage in their diligent work and to improve the lot of all the others?

• Won't a return to their home countries prove to be a boon to said individuals as well, in view of the fact that, apart from being super-menschen, they return home with international experience, not least with English as a first language, and therefore with the capacity to get the juiciest jobs in their communities?!

• To conclude, think of the immigrants (become emigrants) and the countries that they return to (immigrants again): Isn't it manifest that everyone benefits from this?!  (Everyone but los Estados Unidos; but they are obviously racist trash profiting, and having always profited, from white privilege; so los Americanos deserve to suffer from the absence of all those wonderful immigrants!)

While we all ponder these questions, let me add as an aside that I read on the web that the Democrat Party can be summed up by what they call (and think of) various people — native-born American citizens are called Deplorables; illegal immigrants are referred to as Dreamers. There you have it in a nutshell…

Related: "Undocumented Worker" — The Left's Preferred Expression for "Illegal Alien" Is False and Misleading

Related: • Leftists fail to mention that what little illegal aliens do pay in taxes is dwarfed by what they cost the taxpayer both directly and indirectly

Illegal immigration is to immigration what shoplifting is to shopping

Liberals will bring in a slew of (mostly illegal) immigrants, transform them into wards of the state, and register them to vote, thus diluting the power of the Cable Guy voting bloc

• What Obama and his Democratic allies are attempting to do is to completely remake America into a government-dependent society, and importing millions of low-skilled low-educated aliens is central to that goal

• U.S. History has not been, as Obama implies, 200 years of sustained mass migration—and it certainly hasn’t been 200 years of lawless open borders, which is his actual goal

• No one talks about legal immigrants who are hard working men and women, who wait for the frustratingly slow process that seems to discriminate against those who want to do it by the book

• It So Happens That Every Illegal Alien in America Already Does Have Papers

• "Undocumented Worker" — The Left's Preferred Expression for "Illegal Alien" Is False and Misleading 

• No, Liberals, there Is Not a Single "Undocumented Worker" in the United States (or on This Planet)

Hostility towards mass immigration arises not just from fears of economic “progress”, but from various instructive experiences (such as cultural incompatibility, social disadvantage, imported crime and terrorism, and an uninvited threat to national identity)

• Sarah A. Hoyt on Being American

• Phyllis Schlafly's Rules for Addressing Amnesty

• If the U.S. were to treat Mexican nationals in the same way that Mexico treats Central American nationals, there would be humanitarian outrage

• What Obama doesn’t want is for people to draw the connection between immigration and the spreading of disease because it would be disastrous for his long term plans to change the demographics of this country

Sunday, January 21, 2018

Good-Bye, l'Ami — RIP Peter Mayle


Peter Mayle, the bestselling author of A Year in Provence is dead at the age of 78 after a brief illness.
The genius of Mayle’s breezy, entertaining writing lay in his ability to make readers believe that every day in Provence was like a lazy Sunday, even as he detailed the days when he could barely get through the doorway because of incompetent contractors, or the days when the mistral winds made it impossible to leave that doorway 
writes Bethanne Patrick, who heads her lithub piece with: 
For Peter Mayle, Retirement Became the Career 

DACA — The Democrats have been running this scam since time immemorial and it always turns out the same way: Republicans capitulate on everything in return for a promise that Democrats will yield on something else later

For once, I am in disagreement with Benny Huang. For one thing, I just got an email from the White House enjoining people to
"Tell Senate Democrats that YOU -- the American voter -- will ALWAYS remember the day that Democrats put illegal immigrants before American citizens." 
That may not mean much, some skeptics will scoff, but as far as I am concerned, the immigration deal did not go through, and I may be naïve, but I am wont to believe that when Trump made his DACA offer, he pretty much realized that the Democrats would turn it down. In that case, wasn't the offer for future political use, being able to spin (rightly) how open he was to compromise in contrast to how closed the Democrats were?

Was the Donald really going to give in to the Democrats or was he playing high stakes poker, "knowing" that the opposing player would walk away? Well, it may be wishful thinking, but in any case, I would think that Benny Huang would agree that we should at least hope that he is wrong and that I am right. Anyway, Benny Huang's warnings deserve to be heard, just as conservatives' warnings with regards to the Trump administration's Jeff Sessions regarding eminent domain deserve to be voiced:
There’s an old truism that says that Republicans win elections but Democrats win policy fights. I was reminded of this adage last week when President Trump hosted a televised negotiation session with congressional Democrats in which he seemed to concede everything on the issue of immigration—with nothing in return.

 … At one point in the meeting Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) posed a question that was moronic on its face. “What about a clean DACA bill now with a commitment that we go into a comprehensive immigration reform procedure?”

That sounds quite reasonable. Why don’t we just give the minority party its greatest wish on the condition that we later haggle over “comprehensive immigration reform?” That handy phrase is just code for an ever broader amnesty. Where exactly is the up side to this deal for anyone who isn’t enamored with the idea of being swamped with even more of the third world’s problem children?
Give us what we want now and in return we’ll have talks about how you can give us even more of what we want later.  
Sounds fair.

Not to be outdone, President Trump deftly replied:
“We’re going to come up with DACA, we’re going to do DACA, and then we can start immediately on phase two which would be comprehensive.”
“Phase two” will never happen if it isn’t part of this bill. It has to be quid pro quo, not one side’s quid for a very unlikely quo at an unspecified later date.

The Democrats have been running this scam since time immemorial and it always turns out the same way. Republicans capitulate on everything in return for a promise that Democrats will yield on something else later. Democrats always break their promises and pat themselves on the back for doing so.

 … What Trump is essentially saying is that he will sign anything. He will ask for nothing in return and he won’t use the power of an impending veto as leverage. He’ll just trust everyone to do the right thing.

That’s not “winning,” which is what this man promised. It’s unconditional surrender.

My only consolation is that the president has gifted me an “I told you so” moment. I knew this man had no principles and I said as much. Caving to the Democrats was not a question of if but when.

As I wrote in August 2016:
“If Trump were to be elected president… nothing will change in this country in regard to immigration, illegal or otherwise. The lawless open border will remain lawless and open, the Border Patrol we pay to pretend they’re enforcing the law will continue to play make-believe, and the rule of law will continue to be a big joke. Don’t believe me? Donald Trump admitted in the same FOX News interview that his policy would be a continuation of his two predecessors. ‘What people don’t know is that Obama got tremendous numbers of people out of the country. Bush, the same thing. Lots of people were brought out of the country with the existing laws. Well, I’m going to do the same thing.’”
For making this accurate prediction I was accused of being an amnesty shill, a despicable Never Trumper, and a corporate lackey—none of which is true. I’m as tough as anyone on the question of illegal immigration. The law is the law and illegal aliens broke it. Send them all home. In regards to legal immigration I am a firm believer that we Americans should be able to pick our immigrants based on our best interests not what’s best for our prospective guests. My criteria would exclude anyone who is likely to become a ward of the state or to displace an American worker.

The backlash I experienced was intense enough to make me wonder if conservatives were falling prey to the same cult of personality so common among liberal Democrats. People on “my side” were matching the Democrats’ foolish idolatry with their own.

It wasn’t as if our only choice was between Trump and an actual amnesty shill like Lindsey Graham. We could have nominated, for example, Senator Ted Cruz, who is also not a member of the WWE Hall of Fame. Cruz led the revolt against the lousy Gang of Eight “pathway to citizenship” deal.
As Cruz said in 2013:
“Unfortunately, all of the concerns that have been repeatedly raised about this bill remain: it repeats the mistakes of the 1986 immigration bill; it grants amnesty first; it won’t secure the border; and it doesn’t fix our broken legal immigration system.”
In other words, the Gang of Eight bill was a dud because it contained all of the same elements that we’ll likely see in whatever bill comes across Trump’s desk this year. The only difference is that Trump will sign the 2018 version of the Schumer–Rubio monstrosity. He’ll sign anything.

Amnesty now in exchange for the faint possibility of enforcement later? Sold!

The reason we’re in this no-win situation is because some conservatives have succumbed to one of humanity’s worst vices: idolatry. After eight horrible years of Barrack Obama they were looking for a messiah and they found one in a shady businessman and life-long liberal Democrat named Donald J. Trump. …

This idolatry was never more apparent than when one of my favorite political writers, Ann Coulter, published a book titled “In Trump We Trust: E Pluribus Awesome.” … The title was an obvious takeoff from the national motto but with Trump’s name blasphemously replacing God. Has there ever been a more ridiculous title? Trump is not my God and I don’t consider trust in politicians to be a virtue. Ann’s fan girl enthusiasm was repellent.

Luckily, she seems to be coming around.

 … All I can say is that I warned her. She should have known that Donald Trump operates based on interests rather than principles. He’s a living, breathing example of why principles are so important. It isn’t enough for a candidate to say the right things, he has to mean it.

Donald Trump clearly didn’t and for that we’re all worse off.
Benny Huang knows that I was as skeptical about Donald Trump during the election cycle as he was/is, and if I have changed my mind, it is only because of being pleasantly surprised by the facts again and again — Neil Gorsuch, Jerusalem, climate change exit, ISIS whuppin', the ObamaCare mandate repeal, the tax bill, putting trust in the military, etc… Like I said, I may be engaging in wishful thinking, but most of my own I told you sos have been (mercifully) proven wrong and I am starting to trust, I am hoping, that Donald Trump has been seeing through the Democrats and has been playing (admittedly) high stakes poker with them, as he has before. Let us hope that I am right…