Barack Obama, World’s Greatest Gun Salesman

Now The Gibson Guitar Raids Make Sense

Interestingly, one of Gibson’s leading competitors is C.F. Martin & Co. According to C.F. Martin’s catalog, several of their guitars contain “East Indian Rosewood,” which is the exact same wood in at least 10 of Gibson’s guitars. So why were they not also raided and their inventory of foreign wood seized?

Grossly underreported at the time was the fact that Gibson’s chief executive, Henry Juszkiewicz, contributed to Republican politicians. Recent donations have included $2,000 to Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., and $1,500 to Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn.

By contrast, Chris Martin IV, the Martin & Co. CEO, is a long-time Democratic supporter, with $35,400 in contributions to Democratic candidates and the Democratic National Committee over the past couple of election cycles.
Read More At Investor’s Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/052313-657569-gibson-guitar-raid-like-tea-party-intimidation.htm#ixzz2UDNTP9v1
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 Black and Blue in Chicago

Rather than focus on the school closures, angry residents should look at the blue policies that brought the city to this point. Years of broken and corrupt politics have left the city with a $1 billion budget deficit, a soaring crime rate, and constant tension between the government and unions. The pain has fallen worst on the poor and minority communities, and they are responding by getting out. Over the past decade, Chicago’s black population declined by 17 percent, as blacks fled the for the suburbs or the more promising economies of the South. The windy city is now at its lowest population since before 1920. No wonder the schools are closing.

Chicago’s problems are not unique. Approximately 1.3 million blacks left the North for southern cities between 2000 and 2010. Black populations in Atlanta, Dallas, and Houston have surged. Northern cities, once the promised land for the nation’s black population, have failed to create the kind of economic and social conditions necessary to build a stable black middle class.

We hear lots of talk about how brilliant liberal economic policies are, but we rarely see stories of millions of people emerging triumphantly out of poverty thanks to all the wonderful things expensive government programs are doing for the citizens of these places. Perhaps our President should spare a thought for what’s happening in the city he once called home.

When Obama was elected his supporters dismissed the importance of experience which their candidate had little of.

I am talking about the experience of leadership and running a large organization. Obama had never done this.  We were to be satisfied with good intentions and vague feel good slogans such as ‘hope and change’. But intentions and wishes are a dime a dozen; turning them into meaningful results is something else altogether.

If Obama knew about the Benghazi coverup, the IRS abuses, and the intrusion into journalists’ affairs then he is a partisan hack, another ideologue who believes that the ends justify the means. If he was not involved directly in these deeds then he is incompetent and irresponsible to have such abuses under his command. Either he failed to provide moral absolutes, and that is a prime function of a leader, or he delegated so poorly that he failed to be informed of problems until they were too far advanced: the problem was not the lapses but the fact they were uncovered.  The investigation will hopefully find out whether he is just another corrupt politician doing whatever is necessary to hold onto power or if he is a poor and inexperienced leader in way over his head.

He finds no problem that cannot be solved by more government, so he creates larger and larger government. Then he is excused because the government is too large to expect him to be able to control it.  Perhaps government is too big (it is) or perhaps he is just too small for the job.  But imagine any CEO using such lame excuses for the moral lapses in his company.

Inexperienced leaders love to talk about holding subordinates accountable, but this is often code for not holding oneself accountable for anything. Accountability sounds simple in the textbooks, but often translates poorly into practice.  Holding someone accountable in an organization with no moral center often means finding a scapegoat.

Experience is important. So is a leader with a moral center that guides him and his organization.  Perhaps we will remember that in the next election.

“Variations also act as purges. Small forest fires periodically cleanse the system of the most flammable material, so this does not have the opportunity to accumulate. Systematically preventing forest fires from taking place “to be safe” makes the big one much worse. For similar reasons, stability is not good for the economy: firms become very weak during long periods of steady prosperity devoid of setbacks, and hidden vulnerabilities accumulate silently under the surface—so delaying crises is not a very good idea. Likewise, absence of fluctuations in the market causes hidden risks to accumulate with impunity. The longer one goes without a market trauma, the worse the damage when commotion occurs.”

Excerpt From: Nassim Nicholas Taleb. “Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder.” Random House, 2012-11-27. iBooks.

This material may be protected by copyright.

Check out this book on the iBookstore: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/antifragile-things-that-gain/id522380506?mt=11

Kirsten Powers

One of my favorite quotes:

First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.

Then they came for the socialists.
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Catholic.

Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

This is a slightly longer version of the quote attributed to Martin Niemöller.

The point is profound and is central to protecting our freedoms: If we are not willing to protect the rights of others, even those whose opinion we find objectionable, then our own liberties will be at risk.

Kirsten Powers makes this point in her excellent article, How Hope and Change Gave Way to Spying on the Press in The Daily Beast.

Excerpts:

First they came for Fox News, and they did not speak out—because they were not Fox News. Then they came for government whistleblowers, and they did not speak out—because they were not government whistleblowers. Then they came for the maker of a YouTube video, and—okay, we know how this story ends. But how did we get here?

It’s instructive to go back to the dawn of Hope and Change. It was 2009, and the new administration decided it was appropriate to use the prestige of the White House to viciously attack a news organization—Fox News—and the journalists who work there. Remember, President Obama had barely been in office and had enjoyed the most laudatory press of any new president in modern history. Yet even one outlet that allowed dissent or criticism of the president was one too many. This should have been a red flag to everyone, regardless of what they thought of Fox News. The math was simple: if the administration would abuse its power to try and intimidate one media outlet, what made anyone think they weren’t next?

These series of “warnings” to the Fourth Estate were what you might expect to hear from some third-rate dictator, not from the senior staff of Hope and Change, Inc.

Yet only one mainstream media reporter—Jake Tapper, then of ABC News—ever raised a serious objection to the White House’s egregious and chilling behavior. Tapper asked future MSNBC commentator and then White House press secretary Robert Gibbs: “[W]hy is [it] appropriate for the White House to say” that “thousands of individuals who work for a media organization, do not work for a ‘news organization’?” The spokesman for the president of the United States was unrepentant, saying: “That’s our opinion.”

What all of us in the media need to remember—whatever our politics—is that we need to hold government actions to the same standard, whether they’re aimed at friends or foes. If not, there’s no one but ourselves to blame when the administration takes aim at us.

HKO

For years I have observed friends demonize Fox News as Faux News and respond to legitimate charges not with legitimate answers but with demonization of the source.  You, my friends, were the enablers and a big part of the problem you now face.

tips to bro in law Martin Carter

Why French Kids Don’t Have ADHD

The Apple Tax Diversion

It’s now a crime to have good accountants

Austerity and Stimulus—Two Misfires

The U.S. and EU made opposing choices. Both failed because the private economy wasn’t taken into account.

 Partisan Nation

 There is a limit to what any political movement can do out of greed or personal vendettas in a democracy, but there is no limit to what it can do when it combines these with a political ideology whose ends justify all means. There is nothing that it will not do because it is unconcerned with the long term consequences of its actions, only with the short term results. It has no long term investment in the existing system which it intends to destroy.

Corrupt ideologies treat men with no decency as valuable assets. Their lack of scruples proves their willingness to put ideology over all mores and norms. The more extreme the ideology, the fewer limits it accepts on its freedom of action against its enemies and the more such actions come to seem natural. And then why not punish your enemies by using the full force of government against them?