Clinton and now Obama prove Republicans are not superior managers of our economy

Andrew Ross Sorkin's President Obama Weighs his Economic Legacy illustrates how little power a president has to change the economy but he has been a very good executive, better even than Mitt Romney who if he had won in 2012 and just coasted would have taken credit for growth in the economy and employment and dropping deficits, government payroll and energy costs that we experienced these past four years.  Democrats Bill Clinton and now Barack Obama prove that Republicans are not superior managers of our economy.

Biden's support for a unified Iraq has good soldier Colin Powell element to it

With Iraq Mired in Turmoil, Some call for Partitioning The Country but not Joe Biden who called for partitioning Iraq years ago. His Baghdad trip support for a unified Iraq had something of the good soldier about it, like Colin Powell's U.N. presentation making the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that later proved not to be there.

Trump and Kerry Share Thoughtless Status Quo Foreign Policy

Donald Trump's Foreign Policy is an incoherent mash up of platitudes hiding a thought less status quo agenda, but watching Secretary of State John Kerry on Charlie Rose about a month back summarily dismiss partitioning Iraq into its sectarian divisions of Sunni Arab, Shiite and Kurdish regions reflects an ignorance of our own history and the difficulties our forefathers encountered while at war with England and governed by a Continental Congress with fiercely independent states. The revolutionary war with England developed a sense of nationhood which finally prevailed.  Iraq's current struggle is for tribal dominance. Our foreign policy today is blind to the fact there is no nation building so that a unified Iraq could last.

VW's Authoritarian Discharge Similar to the G.O.P.'s

“In ‘06 Slide Show, A Lesson in How VW could Cheat” reads like Republican upper management bent on selling the idea that dropping income taxes for the wealthy has a trickle down growth benefit. Trump and Sanders exposed the fact that the electorate isn't buying it because they have been deep breathing the discharge for the last sixteen years. Yes cutting taxes is beneficial but not without cutting wasteful spending such as the war in Iraq.

Evangelism run Amuck: Doubtful Bathroom law remedies a NC rural contagion

Here’s a news flash: They’d still be breaking laws. You know, the ones against lewdness and harassing and molesting kids. The ones that govern a male sexual predator whose targets are boys and who already has access to the same urinals that they do.

There is no debate that North Carolina is allowed to make a LGBT phobic bathroom law, but what rural power crazed legislators appear to have forgotten is that they are meant to serve the people and not flummox them. It's doubtful that incidents such as what this latest law is to remedy are rampant in the rural communities of those who drafted this blunt instrument to incite a witch hunt.

Movimiento Brasil Livre libertarian political clout after Dilma Rousseff is out

"If she is to survive politically, Ms. Rousseff will have to present a clear vision to mend Brazil’s economy and to root out the type of corruption that has become business as usual in Brasília. Accomplishing that will require stronger leadership and clearer ideas than she’s been able to muster so far."

What the New York Times editorial board are asking for is the impossible. Dilma hasn't had a clear and corrupt free thought for so long now that there is no changing for her, her vice president and business as usual in Brazil.  The self organized libertarian Movimiento Brasil Livre made a presentation a Cato University last summer about impeaching Rousseff.  Possibly the movement will develop libertarian political clout after Dilma is out.  

Help Me In Syria, Pretty Please Mr. Putin

Obama Calls Putin to Help Reduce Violence in Syria As Peace Talks Falter reflects the weakness and illogic of the peace plan in the first place. The logic that Putin and Iran would understand is that their client Bashar al-Assad can't handle all of Syria so negotiate to partition Syria into its Alawite, Sunni Arab, Kurdish and various other enclaves.

No Confidence Vote to establish Libertarians for when Republicans Whig out

Watching Rachel Maddow about New York Republicans and their last gubernatorial candidate, Carl Paladino.  What's left of New York Republicans is totally nuts.  Apparently its the same in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut.  Trump's primary wins in these states will result in a big fat zero in electoral college votes. Sensible independent New England voters can go Libertarian this November and give the G.O.P. a big fat vote of no confidence confident that there vote will not change November's result but establish an alternative for when Republicans go the way of the Whig party.

Ted Cruz not Acceptable. Against Pursuit of Happiness

Cruz's Positions Would Tilt G.O.P. Sharply to Right makes many compelling points for Libertarian support of Ted Cruz, primarily his youth with study of Madison, The Constitution and F. A. Hayek.  So what's not to like?  Georgetown Constitution Law Professor Randy Barnett put forth in his Cato University lectures last summer the proposition that it is the individual inalienable rights of the Declaration of Independence that drives our Constitution, a form of government expressly written and ratified to nurture and protect these rights.  Ted argues for strict reading of the Constitution with which there is Libertarian agreement but he goes wrong by ignoring the driving force of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. From his study of 9th and 10th amendments he understand that rights are not delineated, spelled out.  He argues that the Constitution gives a State the ability to write a law against LBGT marriage very much in the same vein as a law prohibiting inter-racial marriage or even slavery before the 14th Amendment. A Libertarian on the other hand would not  gp down that road by supporting an ideologue that would restrict an individual's right to the pursuit of happiness.

Convention Turmoil: Trump Denied and Cruz Birthright Questioned!

It's a Grand Old Party wreck in slow motion. Get your peanuts here!

Saudi Whabbism is the Threat, Not their pulling U.S. Investments

Saudis Tell U.S. to back off Bill on 9/11 Lawsuits shows what a tin ear they have.  Every Congressman and Senator should question our alliance with a regime who fosters extreme Whabbi Islam, the root theology of ISIS. For the House of Saud to threaten pulling money out the U.S. is priceless since they are doing it now at a huge scale to pay for bills that low oil prices can't cover.

Republicans to fracture out of existence, Libertarian Party to take debate to authoritarian Democrats

Jefferey Miron's What it Means to Be a Libertarian hits the nail on the head, both Democrats and Republicans are Authoritarian. The true political difference is between libertarian and authoritarian. The Republican Party is about to fracture out of existence, no need to be sorry because the Libertarian Party is already there ready to take the debate against the authoritarian Democrats.

Cruz: Libertarian or an Authoritarian? He has to Pick because he can't be Both!

Cruz dodges question on person-hood is an example of what is wrong with mixing politics and religion. Ted Cruz has an original strict construction interpretation of the Constitution but then throws the founding fathers intent to separate church and state into the crapper.  He looks like a politician trying to thread a needle with an impossibly incompatible message, because he is.  Be the devout Christian you claim to be but don't wear it on your sleeve, bedsides person-hood is not a question for a Commander and Chief to ponder.

G.O.P.: Good Luck with that Election Machine

Watching Rick Riley, Trump's new recruit, on Chuck Todd's MTP Daily declaring what a great election machine the G.O. P. has got after the lesson learned from the blindsiding they got in Romney's 2012 run and then the sweep in 2014. But in 2016 Republicans have a scary lineup, stupid money and no idea what motivates their voters.

Un-Accounted External Costs are a Bitch

After Bankruptcies, Coal's Legacy Lives On is an example of external costs not accounted for.  When environmentalists make comparisons between energy sources external costs should be considered. Fracking gets bad press but it's external costs are much less than coal.  Incredibly its Nuclear that ranks lowest in unaccounted external costs even when compared with solar and wind. It's counter intuitive but solar and wind represent such a minuscule percent of our power that their external costs are experienced by few so as not to generate the bad press that they would when producing power at the percent level of coal.

Jordan Allying with Egypt. It's a bad sign

Muslim Brotherhood Vows Legal and Political Action as Its Jordan Base is Closed. 

G.O.P. Whigs Out; Liberty to Pick up Some of the Pieces

The surprise of Donald Trump’s primary sweep is that he secured the majority of southern Evangelicals despite his being the Devil candidate. The question is not whether American religious fervor has diminished, which it hasn’t, but whether it has the political influence claimed by the likes of Ralph Reed and his Christian Coalition.  This weakness of a supposed rock solid affinity group brings into question the Republican strategy to herd discordant single issue constituencies into the corral, especially if the cowboys are fat, nonsense talking and not adept with the lasso. Republican orthodoxies born in the 1980’s have ossified into caricatures of excess rarely tested with analytical rigor so fences are trampled over by mere blowhard comments by a celebrity candidate.  It makes no difference that Trump is the Republican nominee or someone other because by this summer’s national convention the party will reveal it has no truth to coalesce around.

The Republican Party’s tin ear is best described as one which receives few voices from few contributors. The Citizens United decision by The Supreme Court, though considered a blessing for the easy big money it provides, is the root cause of their problem with the message.  Big money from few donors is stupid money.  Stupid in its formulation of low common denominator advertisements, more akin to selling soap, as well as with its reliance on broadcast television to spread the message.  It makes the Party a top down political machine with a hazy view of the electorate.  It’s a structure that is the antithesis of the internet and its new social media communities and given that this is the medium of the young and educated it bodes poorly for the G.O.P. as presently constituted.  Bernie Sanders’ campaign comes from the reverse of a Citizens United funded one where success is measured by the large number of donors of small donations.  It’s not just a phenomenon of the political left since it first appeared on the right with Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential bid and this year this self organized from the bottom up movement is giving fits to Hillary Clinton’s directed from above campaign to its less internet connected group of supporters. Given this upward trend for candidates who bubble up from below the prospects are not good for parties who formulate and direct from the top.    

The Republican strategy of corralling disparate constituencies ranging from libertarian free market to authoritarian evangelical philosophical backgrounds gives no positive message because it’s impossible to develop any other than a negative one from such a discordant grouping. Senator Mitch McConnell, the titular head of the party, called on Republicans to make Barack Obama a one term president and marshal opposition to everything Obama and so cast government as the enemy of everything.  What should be a bipartisan issue, immigration, has been pushed further and further into a corner without solution by strident unreasonable voices encouraged by the Senate Majority leader’s intransigence. It got so that the 2016 Republican establishment candidates felt the full brunt of the mob against them when trying to feather in a hint of minority inclusiveness suggested by the RNC’s Election-Autopsy.  If Ted Cruz the anti-establishment candidate were to win the Presidential election then he too would feel the mob’s resistance because he will embody government, what his constituents have been taught to hate.

The Grand Old Party  is doomed to wither away because it’s rural monopoly power from gerrymandered districts and restrictive voter registration is bad for business.  Rural power pondering issues akin to determining how many angels fit on a pinhead and then forcing that opinion with law onto economically vibrant urban centers is a conflict that the Chamber of Commerce will tire of resolving for the party.  Demographics will cause states such as Texas to fall off the Republican grid as Latinos overwhelm the political fences. Southwest states will gravitate back toward Barry Goldwater's conservatism of live and let live free markets; best represented by today’s Libertarian Party.  The Antebellum South’s strident intolerant tone as characterized by Ted Cruz’s evangelical crusade will embarrass northern Republicans enough to consider an alternative, again the Libertarian Party.  New England's electoral college outcome will be solidly Democrat so a protest vote for a closely aligned third party would be without consequence in 2016 but it might establish a party of the right to self organize in social media;  a party with a young and urban future as well as one which brings Washington back to a civil dialogue over liberty and authority.

                

Bad for Business: State law as local ordinance with no local demand for remedy

North Carolina State Senator Buck Newton, a Republican candidate for attorney general, urged them to “wake up” to a cultural battle being waged by liberals. “They insist on forcing us to bow and kiss the ring of their political correctness theology,” he said.

Monopolies have a tin ear to the market's message.  The Republican Party; the party of the managerial class, the party of business, as presently constituted with gerrymandered rural majority rule is proving to be bad for business by giving power to meddlesome busybodies battling for their theology.  The first question a legislator should ask is whether a law is necessary for good social order rather than as an armament for battle.  North Carolina's social order has rural and urban theological elements that do not coincide so that state law much like federal law is a blunt instrument.  LGBT mores call for discretion in rural communities yet that didn't stop rural legislators to force through  as state law a local ordinance for which there is no local demand to remedy.

Just after writing this, ran across the following observation in Christopher Buckley's Relic Master chapter 19: "It was a more arduous way, but the main roads were full of imperial busybodies. Land without a ruler is unpredictable."  BTW the book is a vision of feudal illiterates in charge and fearing witchcraft. Carolina, possibly? 

Release the Redacted 28 Pages of Saudi Treachery

The redacted 28 pages from the 9/11 Commission Report as reported on 60 Minutes is clearly to protect Saudi Arabia.  Its taken time but the re-assessment of this supposed ally is underway and those pages show the lie.  Most amazing is that Bush invades Iraq after 9/11 knowing what he did.

Thank you Gary Sernovitz for giving us Can Liberals Frack?

Can Liberals Frack?

The Undoing of a Coal Baron is the undoing of a grotesque authoritarian

The Undoing of a Coal Baron is the undoing of a grotesque authoritarian. The coal extraction business always has had a master slaves character. Coal's toxicity to air land and water compares poorly to nuclear. The twenty nine coal miners Mr. Blakenship killed are twenty nine more than lives lost at Three Mile Island, plus all the other miners killed, sickened and defrauded by this thug.

US foreign policy thoughtlessly interjected in Islam's Sunni-Shia divide

Watching PBS Newshour report on civilian casualties in Yemen from American support of Saudi blunt airstrikes shows how our foreign policy thoughtlessly interjects itself in Islam's Sunni - Shia divide.  We have no coherent grand strategy to pacify the region with which to judge a tactic, such as lending support to Saudi Arabia on a lunatic mission.

Trump's Revelation Evangelicals will vote for Devil good for separate Church State

Trump's Rise Indicates Waning Role for Religion is wrong by thinking people are less religious but correct in assessing it's political influence. Trump's revelation that Evangelicals will vote for the Devil if they are motivated enough is a good thing for a nation founded on the principle that Church and State be separate.

John Kerry Requires the Impossible Before negotiating and After

Secretary of State John Kerry on Charlie Rose tonight favors a unified Iraq and Syria. Its a preference for civil war that never settles. In Syria he negotiates for a transitional government dependent on the trust and goodwill of people in a fractured society where there is none.

Following day, April 6, Thomas L. Friedman's Impossible Missions editorial reports on the conclusion of Mission Failure: America and the World in the Post-Cold War Era by John Hopkins foreign policy professor Michael Mandelbaum which is in an era of easy communication there is a requirement for good consensual governance to pacify. Kings and dictators do not provide it anymore.  In this chaotic world after the Arab Spring Mandelbaum argues whether the people of the region are up to self organizing into states practicing good governance.  It's a question John Kerry should ask when proposing a goodwill gesture for treachery.

NIMBY makes pursuit of Wind Power a Folly

Making Way for Wind Power is the folly of enumerates among which the New York Times Editorial Board must be included. In order for wind power to make more than a tiny sliver of our power needs it would require carpeting the country and coasts with wind mills.  Not in my back yard (NIMBY) will keep wind the tiny sliver it is.

Voter Suppression is bad for Business

Red States take pride in their low tax pro business stance yet have miserable economic growth compared to Blue States where the representation is largely urban.  Voter suppression is a tool of monopoly.  Monopolies under perform in the delivery of economic good because they do not get good messaging from the market. Republican controlled states in general receive poor messaging so that clueless rural legislators have a power to over reach.  Recent examples are those where imagined LGTB incidents not likely to happen in a close knit community but must surely be rampant in the city and so make up laws that were not asked for and which generate useless judicial activity and urban, the source of growth, flight from the state.

Kurdistan in Iraq: Sacrificing a key ally to failed policy for re-unification

Watching the plight of Kurdistan on PBS Newshour. The kurds are the moderating force of the region yet our unrealistic policy for a unified Iraq is putting then at risk.  Baghdad's corrupt distribution of the area's oil wealth dissipates a key ally's force.

Trump, the bratty friend tells store owner W broke it, G.O.P parent denies it

Why Trump's Antiwar Message Resonates with White America is because it was white patriotic southerners who were a large disproportionate source of army enlistees who fought, died or were wounded and finally disregarded by the Veteran's Administration in an reckless losing adventure in Iraq.  "You break it you own it" was former Chief of Staff and Secretary of State Colin Powell's warning to George W. Bush and about Iraq. Today Donald Trump is the bratty little friend who tells the store owner that "W" broke it and the G.O.P. parent, denies it.