Via Ace of Spades

Can The GOP Be Reformed? Some Say No, Others Are Wrong.

You may have noticed that I'm not a fan of the GOP. No, it's true. I think it's clear that small government conservatives are ill served by hitching their wagon to the GOP. Better to focus on a longer game of changing the dominant political culture in the country. If you want to extract the occasional concession for a Republican, fine. But the only way is to make withholding your vote your default position. Let them pander in deed, not just word to earn your case by case transnational support. As a party, the GOP simply has nothing to offer anyone interested in shrinking government.

Jay Cost on the other hand still thinks the GOP is worth reforming and that it might be possible to do so. This worries me because Jay is a very smart guy. But even smart people can be wrong.


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I recently posted this about the bike lanes on Riverside Drive in Memphis, Tn....

To make a long story short, a lot of people aren't happy about the "traffic calming" remedies of the green central planners...

The number of accidents on Riverside Drive have almost doubled and a lot of people showed up at the last public meeting in opposition of the dangerous bike lanes...

Do the green central planners care? Nope. Central Planners gonna plan...

I received this in my email from Livable Memphis...

Dear ****,

The current debate about the trial design of Riverside Drive in Downtown Memphis has prompted some heated discussion about how we access our most valuable public space – the Mississippi River front. We think the current trial design that allows space for automobiles AND safer access for pedestrians and people on bikes is a vast improvement over the speedway that once was Riverside Drive. (Pay no attention to the doubling of car accidents, that would be inconvenient) Mayor Wharton and the Memphis Division of Engineering should be commended for the amount of public engagement on this project, (If by public engagement you mean those who work for the government, those who work for a bureacracy in the government, those who receive grants from the government ...then yes that is what you call planned public engagement and it works out as well as centrally planned government which is to say....not very good) and for using innovative design compromises to balance the needs of our riverfront. (You see how that works comrade? design compromises? Meaning we are sorry for the doubling of car accidents but it is all for the collective good of society...)

Unfortunately, this debate has also prompted some of our elected officials to question the value of the bicycle lane program city-wide in Memphis. (Oh my, you mean the plebes have been contacting their leaders and telling them to return the lanes to the 13,000 cars that drive through there everyday? Do they not care about the 18 bikes (average) that ride through there? Sheesh, those selfish drivers not wanting to compromise so we can continue to get our government crack money to centrally plan their lives and do what's best for the collective good. I can see some education camps will be needed here in Memphis soon...). 

Despite what the data says or how you might feel about Riverside, I think we all can agree that the work the city has done to rebuild our streets for people on bikes, people walking and rolling, has been a huge win for Memphis. It would be extremely short-sighted to let one pilot project affect the future of both bicycling and safer, more accessible transportation in our city! (Ummmm more accessible for the 18 bikers? The accident rate has doubled! If you return the bike lanes to traffic lanes I have a feeling though it's just a feeling, bikers will still bike though probably not on the extremely busy thoroughfare that is Riverside Drive. I think we can all agree that you have an agenda that doesn't agree with a majority of residents who live downtown. Shortsighted? Says who?)

In five years we’ve seen a boom in riding for both transportation and recreation among Memphians as diverse as the city itself. (Yes, and a boom in car accidents, don't forget that...) A lot of Memphians either don’t have reliable access to a car or spend a huge part of their income owning one. One by one, we’re redesigning streets that are safer for pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers, and that connect people to transit and the places they need to go every day. (Ummmm, how is doubling the car accidents safer to drivers? They will then have no car to drive so they will have to walk or bike which will then keep them from being in another car accident? Please explain...)

We’re asking you to write AND call Mayor Wharton and your members of the Memphis City Council and voice your support of a continued vision of safer, more accessible streets for ALL Memphians. The benefits of our growing network of “complete streets” are many and include:

•          Safer speeds and easier street crossings for people walking and rolling: The majority of our streets are overbuilt, sometime with single lanes as wide as 20 feet! Reclaiming some of this space for people on bikes and walking leaves plenty of room for vehicles while vastly improving safety for everyone. (Except for drivers)
•          Building on our successes: Memphis has moved from the bottom of the barrel – we were named “Worst City for Cycling” twice running – to being a national model for economical, innovative approaches to better transportation (you know, the GOOD lists!). This didn’t happen overnight, and it wasn’t unintentional – people like YOU spoke up and demanded better from our leaders. Memphis is now a bigger draw for new business, new development, and tourists – and bikes are part of that equation! (People are speaking up and they want the Riverside Bike lanes removed)
•          Bicycling and safer streets are for ALL Memphians: (Except for Drivers, sheesh, why do you keep skipping that fact?) the number of people riding to work (the best data source we have for comparison) has increased across all demographic groups in the city, and more and more people are using bikes to access transit. In fact, the neighborhoods with the most people commuting by bike are Klondike-Smoky City and Binghampton. We aren’t building a network just for recreation – we are getting people where they need to go, however they get there!

Sure, there are concerns about the future of Riverside Drive, but it is just a part of a larger picture that deals with how our city, our public spaces, and our transportation network serve and are accessed by Memphians (and visitors) of all backgrounds. Let them know that you support safer access not only to the Riverfront, where slower traffic makes for a much more comfortable visiting experience – but safer access to our neighborhoods city-wide, thanks to bike lanes and a complete streets approach.

Thanks for your support for building a more Livable Memphis!

John Paul

(They wrote this email for you to contact your elected officials and tell them to support the bike lanes but....you could contact your elected officials and tell them the car accident rate on Riverside Drive has doubled and please remove the bike lanes for the cause of safety. It's for the collective good!)

Your elected officials:

Mayor A C Wharton, Jr. – mayor@memphistn.gov – 901-636-6000

Visit www.memphistn.gov/government/citycouncil.aspx to find your 4 representatives (1 district and 3 super district) on the Council

Memphis City Council

District 1 – Bill.Morrison@memphistn.gov

District 2 – Bill.Boyd@memphistn.gov

District 3 – Harold.Collins@memphistn.gov

District 4 – Wanda.Halbert@memphistn.gov

District 5 – Jim.Strickland@memphistn.gov

District 6 – Edmund.Fordjr@memphistn.gov

District 7 – Berlin.Boyd@memphistn.gov

Super District 8

Joe.Brown@memphistn.gov

Janis.Fullilove@memphistn.gov

Myron.Lowery@memphistn.gov

Super District 9

Kemp.Conrad@memphistn.gov

Shea.Flinn@memphistn.gov

Reid.Hedgepeth@memphistn.gov

City Council Office Phone (all council members) – 901-636-6786

Via The Federalist

Operation Choke Point was never intended to be public. Instead of openly outlawing industries of which regulators do not approve, the government uses Operation Choke Point to extort financial service companies so that those unfavorable industries are cut off from the tools necessary to run a business. Wise said about the program, “If it wasn’t so dangerous, I’d applaud the government for their ingenuity. The fact is Operation Choke Point is ruining the lives of innocent Americans.”


Programs as outrageous as Operation Choke Point do not need reform—they need to be ended. On this note, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) introduced legislation to end Operation Choke Point in February. His proposal would fully defund Operation Choke Point and prohibit the incoming attorney general from restarting it or a instituting a similar program.


Americans should not have their livelihoods subjected to the whims of unelected bureaucrats who are operating outside of the law. If the administration will not act on its own, let us hope that Congress manages to close down Operation Choke Point.

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Via Ace of Spades

Of course.

I would seriously pin Apple's ears back over this. If you're a stockholder, write to them. Demand they stop selling iPhones in any country in which homosexuality remains a crime. (Homosexuality is an on-the-books crime in most countries, still, not just the ones where they actually stone gays to death.)

Tim Cook, and all the rest of the gay leftwing bullies, are of course bullying people.

As usual.

Few people ever refused service to gays at bakeries before gay marriage. There was not some great scourge of people refusing service to gays.

What people are doing is refusing to take part in a gay marriage ceremony.
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"In taking their action to evade or avoid providing information the administration unnecessarily raises the suspicion that it has something to hide, that it might use the claim of National Security to hide mistakes that are literally questions of life and death for Americans...

Via Washington Times 

IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said Tuesday that service at his agency has gotten so bad that they are ignoring more than 60 percent of taxpayers’ phone calls during this tax season.

Speaking at the National Press Club, Mr. Koskinen pleaded with more money, saying a budget boost would help them staff their overwhelmed customer service lines. He also said it would help reverse staffing cuts in their compliance division, where he said the government will lose $2 billion this year in money it would otherwise have been able to collect if it had better staffing.

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How are they supposed to target their enemies if they don't have enough money?
Commissar Koskinen has spoken: IRS may broaden rule to police political nonprofits

Via Don Surber

The National Black Church Initiative is a political umbrella for 34,000 African-American and Latino churches in 15 denominations representing 15.7 million Christians. Its policies are progressive. On Friday, though, it broke fellowship with the largely white Presbyterian Church USA, following the Presbyterians voting to accept gay marriage.

This shows the riff between white liberals and minorities over gay marriage. Minorities overwhelmingly supported the Proposition 8 ban on gay marriage in California, which passed in 2008.

Which may be why no news mainstream news organization has picked up on the press release. It exposes something that hurts The Narrative.


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Via Zerohedge

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain has called it a “gimmick,” and Democrats complain that larding up the separate war funding bill with extra spending amounts to an “abusive loophole.” Yet so far, the massive increase is likely to remain in this year’s budget.

Another major criticism of the process has been its common use to fund favored projects and other items not directly tied to the war — a trend that has steadily grown over the years as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan dragged on and the Pentagon loosened the definition of war-related spending.

From 2001 to 2014, nearly $71 billion of nonwar funding was provided through war appropriations, according to the Pentagon’s own definition, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service reported in December.

– From the Politico article: War Budget Might be Permanent ‘Slush Fund’

Many people will read this post, and posts like it, and shrug their shoulders saying that there’s always going to be corruption. True; however, there are degrees of corruption. When empires such as the U.S. attain a certain level of corruption that reaches the point where it becomes engrained within the fabric of society, and you couple that with zero accountability for the super rich and powerful, you have the ingredients for societal collapse. We are rapidly approaching this point, and I personally don’t think there’s any way to stop it.

The best we can hope for is to sound the alarm bells as loudly as possible right now, identify the culprits and their methods of systemic abuse so that when what Martin Armstrong calls “crash and burn” happens, we don’t respond counterproductively by elevating even greater sociopaths into positions of power (yes this is possible and as history shows, quite probable).

With all that in mind, I want to introduce readers to the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account, or what is being referred to as the “war slush fund.” You know something’s bad when even Crazy John McCain calls it a “gimmick.”

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Via Zerohedge

Yes, healthcare spending accounted for 40% of GDP growth in Q4!

With that we are happy to have unmasked the two great mysteries of the US economy in recent history: the first being why there is no wage growth, which as we showed previously is because all the wage growth was going to the 20% of the workforce that is supervisorsand bosses. For everyone else: better luck in a next life where you too get to "supervise."

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Via Zerohedge

Moving along, Mr. Munger provided some typically insensitive commentary at an event yesterday in Los Angeles. Bloomberg reports that:

(Bloomberg) — Charles Munger, who became a billionaire while helping Warren Buffett build Berkshire Hathaway Inc., predicted it’s going to get tougher for consumers to maintain their standard of living in coming decades.

“We should all be prepared for adjusting to a world that is harder,”Munger, 91, said Wednesday at an event in Los Angeles, in response to a question about the increase in the size of the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet since the 2008 financial crisis. “You can count on the purchasing power of money to go down over time. And you can almost count that you’ll have more trouble in the next 50 years than the last.”

“Somebody my age has lived through the best and easiest period that ever happened in the history of the world — the lowest death rates, the highest investment production, biggest increases in most people’s standards of living,” Munger said. “If you’re unhappy with what you’ve had over the last 50 years, you have an unfortunate misappraisal of life.”

There’s a staggering amount of offensiveness in such few words. First off, he says that: “We should all be prepared for adjusting to a world that is harder.” Who is included in the word “all” here. Certainly not his fellow oligarchs, who already bailed themselves out in incredible fashion and have been spending the years since protecting themselves from the horrible future they’ve created. No, he is speaking to the masses, the plebs, the serfs, the peasants, the ruled. He is telling them tough luck, just try to avoid cannibalism in the future. Meanwhile, if you get close to my castle I’ll have you shot down like a dog.

He then shows his cards once again with the statement: “If you’re unhappy with what you’ve had over the last 50 years, you have an unfortunate misappraisal of life.”

50 years of life? What about those us who haven’t had the pleasure of being alive so long. What about the millennials, the teenagers, and the babies being born right now? He couldn’t give a shit, which is exactly why he and his buddies went out of their way to protect the wealthy, older generations with their bailouts in 2008/09. Conveniently, this is the exact demographic he belongs to.

His comments are particularity striking when you take them in context of yesterday’s article from the Wall Street Journal: Executive Pensions Are Swelling at Top Companies. If you think these guys are going to be dealing with the “hard times” ahead like everyone else, think again.


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