Here's the speech (which I haven't watched, not yet anyway):
Grackle responds:
It is fear. They know he is systematically ending their game. It must be difficult to contemplate obscurity after so long on top.
I would like President Trump to tweet (favorably) about Jordan Peterson and Scott Adams. Both Peterson and Scott are NOT “conservatives.” Both extremes of the political spectrum (radical Left, radical Right) are condemned by them. Neither of them are “ideological” in any classical sense of the word.
Scott is a self-professed casual classical liberal who favors socialized healthcare and is merely an explainer of the Trump phenomenon and who provides some useful analytical tools to help those who are interested to understand Trump.
Peterson is a bona fide intellectual who at the moment is attacked by the Left and is thus mostly concerned with them but who has no love of the radical Right. This is not immediately evident since the radical Right is mostly leaving him alone and he doesn’t have to respond to them. Peterson, for instance, is conservative on sex and pornography. He advises never to have sex on the first date (or second or third, for that matter), to be cautious with new encounters and to ignore pornography which he believes is dangerously soul-killing. Keep in mind that the man is a practicing clinical psychologist, as well as a university professor.
A tweet from Trump regarding either of them would detonate the usual ideological Leftist shitstorm and that is good. The more of these shitstorms Trump can generate the better because they serve to reveal the true nature of the neo-Marxist Left – which is most of the MSM, educators, intellectuals and Democrats and which is arbitrary, totalitarian and anti-intellectual.
And Trump himself is anti-ideology. Trump is a slightly right of center pragmatist. And he is pulling the Right more toward the middle of the spectrum – which is also good because the radical Right (alt-rightists and white supremacists), while small at the moment, could grow quickly into a larger movement, which would be very bad. If most of the Right is near the center of the spectrum it would marginalize the radical Right. Eventually I believe Trump will also pull the Left more toward the center. This is where I want the bulk of the political class to be – near the middle.
The only things I think that can stop Trump now is assassination (which I worry about constantly) and an unpopular war, which I doubt will happen.
Posts
100 comments:
I like presidents who don't get assassinated.
Trump is alt-right. You can't stick all alt or dissident right into a little box full of white supremacists. The key aspect of dissident or alt right groups and people is nationalism and borders, for which Trump is the worlds leading advocate.
Jordan Peterson is something of a dogmatist in charge, so not a savior.
A dogma vs dogma fix.
I cite his dismissal of Derrida. Weird for a psychologist but he's hard to read.
The best you can do is good readings, not authority.
I'm listening to Russell Brand and Peterson now
https://www.russellbrand.com/podcasts/
via maggie's farm.
Trump cannot be described with simplistic political labels. He is unique. He wants to solve problems. He is non-ideological. This is why he is hated and attacked from all sides.
-sw
Glad that Althouse called out Grackle who is calling on Trump to call out two of the more sane and effective characters out there.
I liked the Trump speech. He is driving the right people nuts.
#Resist ... his charms.
The leftist are either beyond stupid,(evidence is mounting) or just refuses to engage on an intellectual level. President Trump has no ideological bent. The eyes shut screaming they do is just tribal signaling to their peers so they are accepted. What the President is doing on things like guns, and immigration sound a lot like planks from the democrat platform.
Pres Trump is a problem solver, and doesn't care which of the standard "sides" he takes to solve a problem, as long as it gets solved. He doesn't put up with the traditional political bullshit that gets in the way of solving problems. If the Demos were smart, they could use that to their advantage, and go a long way towards accomplishing some of their goals. Interestingly, the same thing with the "establishment" Repubs. But both those groups have blinders on, because it's Trump. And they can't stand that.
Meade,
So you're not a Lincoln fan?
iowan2 said...
refuses to engage on an intellectual level.
Written without irony.
And please remember the Grackle Portal to Amazon whenever you need to buy anything on line.
Could it be Meade was appropriating Trump's comment during the campaign about McCain? Or is that obvious to everyone already?
-sw
Tank said...
Trump is alt-right. You can't stick all alt or dissident right into a little box full of white supremacists. The key aspect of dissident or alt right groups and people is nationalism and borders
Tank is right.
Dogs turn around ten times before lying down to make themselves dizzy.
"Or is that obvious to everyone already?"
I assumed it would be obvious to everyone already.
"So you're not a Lincoln fan?"
I especially like presidents who don't let themselves get shot in the head.
And... Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan is right that Beloved Commenter Tank is right.
Funny I was thinking the same thing as Tradguy about Trump.
His detractors are heavily invested in Mueller.
So where do you come down on it then, beloved? Are you against borders? Do you think they should be abolished? Is a desire for sovereign control over our little piece of a planet some kind of banal evil?
Written without irony.
Said the guy who chucks eggs mostly in drive by comments, or posts talking points written by others. Better than TTR, I guess, who goes full “toilet paper the trees” mode.
Here is a funny one from our betters. After Trump made a nice comment about Norway, now a Norwegian flag flown under the American flag for the Olympics is a “Confederate Flag” and the newspaper had to be called!
https://www.dailywire.com/news/27472/seattle-residents-complained-about-confederate-emily-zanotti
Here is the Seattle Times version, which I should have given first.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/both-have-crosses-so-norwegian-flag-mistaken-for-confederate-flag/
I bet it was the American flag that really annoyed them. Blood and soil fascism!
I agree with grackle. I also watched the video of Peterson linked at Maggies Farm, which I check every day.
I sent his book to my daughter who was a Bernie voter (I think) wondering if she would read it. She called me two days after she got it to tell me how much she loved it.
The "alt-Right" definition is pretty loosey goosey. It's a bit of a Venn Diagram.
Good political assessment by Althouse.
I used to describe myself as "conservative," but that depends on what you're trying to conserve.
I do think there are many aspects of American culture and tradition that are worth conserving. To that extent, Trump and I are in complete simpatico.
Trump's critique of at least 3 traditionally "conservative" policies has also caused me to rethink said policies: (1) aggressive foreign military interventions in a post Cold-War era, (2) trade policy and how it effects American blue-collar workers, competing against low-wage/low-skill countries and (3) immigration policy and whether serving business interests to import cheap immigrant labor is good for the country as a whole.
Trump is a pragmatist, who loves his country. Yes, his style and tone can be off-putting to some. But if you ignore his tone and style, and focus on what he's done and seeks to do, in my judgment he's done quite well.
"Writing laws and stuff is, like, really hard"
Much of this is a result of McCain-Feingold which put the staffs in charge of writing legislation and made the "members" do fund raising 24/7.
They call it "Dialing for Dollars." It's all they do.
It's a bit like having law clerks write all opinions.
Trump is exposing one thing, yeah that we knew, but still. That is that Congress has zero interest in solving problems. They like to make speeches, go on teevee and go to fancy events sponsored by donors. Writing laws and stuff is, like, really hard and not nearly as much fun!
For example, what do backbenchers in the House like Maxine Waters actually do? Other than give pressers?
It's a real problem as into the legislative vacuum, meddlesome bureaucrats and judges serve as defacto lawmakers, only without the pesky trappings of accountability.
The baggage you carry through life you carry because it doesn't fit under the seat.
And see, Scott Adam's latest Periscope on YouTube. Scott sees Trump as entering a new level with that Speech. He calls it the Trump Capitulation Phase.
Trigger warning: It started with an NRA ad.
Trump’s critique of at least 3 traditionally "conservative" policies has also caused me to rethink said policies: (1) aggressive foreign military interventions in a post Cold-War era, (2) trade policy and how it effects American blue-collar workers, competing against low-wage/low-skill countries and (3) immigration policy and whether serving business interests to import cheap immigrant labor is good for the country as a whole.
Exactly. All three of those policies are there to protect the interests of the “American is Already Great!” crowd you find concentrated in rich suburbs and the priciest precincts of wealthy cities like New York, Boston, and San Fransisco.
One of the most infuriating things in life is to be confronted with truths you were in denial about, over an over. This is what drives them crazy about Trump. He’s like “remember when Democrats used to believe this stuff?” And they know it’s true.
From now on, I might call Trump “Fearless Leader” It fits!
I wonder what the over/under is on an assassination attempt this term. Some bookie in the UK probably has the odds. If someone would shoot an inoffensive President like Garfield I'm thinking someone is bound to take a pot shot at Trump.
They miss Obama’s soothing lies.
But Trump didn't critique them, he echoed a primal howl. He has been rolled on these issues by the GOPe who made a priority out of taking health care from the poor and giving tax cuts to the rich.
Trump's lack of intellectual investment means he is unable to sustain coherent arguments over long periods of time to actually influence policy.
Is this all a longer version of Ann Althouse's statement about Trump (I always regarded as a reason for Althouse's favorability toward Trump): "I think he's pro-gay and being cagey about it..."?
I always thought that Althouse was right about that. That deep down, Trump is pro-gay and being cagey about it. And it seemed clear enough to me, that it was an understandable reason why she would favor such a candidate and why I would loathe and distrust such a candidate.
Now, will Trump be "pro-assault weapons ban, and be cagey about it"?
Is Trump "pro-amnesty and being cagey about it"?
Althouse, in 2016:
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2016/07/donald-trump-may-think-pence-is-safe.html?showComment=1468334209529#c6482441667197951534
Trump's a liberal, personally. He ran as GOP because that way he could win. He's never been conservative in his personal life. He's never been conservative in his public life.
In many ways, Trump is Nixon. I don't mean Watergate.
Michael K, the constant fund-raising and delegation to staff were going on long before the McPain Findgold abomination. No controlling authority!
Let me try to help you chuckleheads who cannot wrap your minds around why so many people despise Trump:
1. I am not a racist.
2. Anyone who disagrees with me about (most) policies is therefore a racist.
3. Trump and I do not agree about immigration (I favor open borders and unrestricted immigration; Trump does not).
4. Therefore Trump is a racist.
5. And therefore Trump is despicable.
6. And anyone who does not agree with points above is a racist and therefore despicable.
If someone would shoot an inoffensive President like Garfield I'm thinking someone is bound to take a pot shot at Trump.
Garfield was shot by a disgruntled office seeker. Who do you think Trump's principle enemies are today ?
Parkland shooting survivor Colton Haab's family shopped doctored emails with CNN to media outlets
Blogger exhelodrvr1 said...
"Pres Trump is a problem solver, and doesn't care which of the standard "sides" he takes to solve a problem, as long as it gets solved. He doesn't put up with the traditional political bullshit that gets in the way of solving problems. If the Demos were smart, they could use that to their advantage, and go a long way towards accomplishing some of their goals."
The Democrats no longer really want to accomplish their so-called goals. They want issues. They have a set of permanent issues they rely on to pander to the identity groups that comprise their base.
Fen's law applies: "The Left doesn't really believe in the things they lecture the rest of us about. "
Michael K, the constant fund-raising and delegation to staff were going on long before the McPain Findgold abomination.
No, not as bad. Read Caro's biography of Johnson. Senators really wrote legislation. Their staffs of course drafted language but they really planned the laws.
The FEC and the increasingly restrictive laws began with the 1974 post Watergate Congress which was as radical as any in recent history. They gave us the runaway inflation that Carter tried to stop with Volcker.
But Trump didn't critique them, he echoed a primal howl.
Maybe a primal howl is exactly what is called for to get the attention of the “America is Already Great!” Davos crowd. You know,, like Brexit. But better for the lumpenproles to shut up and take what is being dished out to them. Deplorables deserve a good beating, like Oliver Twist when he asked for “more.”
And thanks for the unthinking talking points! Wouldn’t have seen them anywhere else!
Fen’s law applies: "The Left doesn't really believe in the things they lecture the rest of us about. "
If anybody doubts that, just bring up how Mary Jo Kopekne suffocated in her car over four hours while Teddy sobered up before he called police when they say that Trump kissed some girl or something. They accuse us of fake compassion for women all they while being the ones who demonstrate fake compassion, over and over. cough cough Broaddrick.
I guess for folks who wear the orange colored Trump glasses they don’t see the decay at the center.
IMO the key to understanding Trump is that he has a genius level mind, and if he sees that in you too, then it doesn't matter at all if you are Gay, or Southern Bible Belt, or Hispanic, or Asian or Black...it's all about your using a high intelligence level. That is how he brings us together.
And he saw that same intelligence level in NYC, and in Alabama, and in China and Japan, and in Israel of today that was in Washington, Franklin, Madison , Jackson, Polk and Lincoln of 200 years ago.
... what do backbenchers in the House like Maxine Waters actually do?
Look after the interests of her family's bank.
Do you doubt that there will be a war, or do you think the war will be popular?
"Keep in mind that the man is a practicing clinical psychologist, as well as a university professor."
LOL. There are only about a million of those things around.
With the excited speech patterns of a guru, activist or salesman, Peterson seems to be dispensing something like (un-empirical) common sense to deluded college students.
Tommy Duncan said...
The Democrats no longer really want to accomplish their so-called goals.
This is not really true. They went to the mat to expand health insurance coverage, even when they knew it was going to hurt them politically.
roesch/voltaire said...
"I guess for folks who wear the orange colored Trump glasses they don’t see the decay at the center."
Floss. Damnit!
I guess for folks who wear the orange colored Trump glasses they don’t see the decay at the center.
Is this the kind of trenchant critical analysis you teach your students?
Hmmm. let me make a metaphor for how I feel then dress my feeling up in it and call it thinking! That’ will be 60k per year please!
I know a lot of leftists and liberals because they abound in my field.
They cannot wrap their heads around Donald Trump as POTUS.
Most seem to have regressed to a fantasy land where:
1. Trump will be impeached and removed from office,
2. Trump will get us into nuclear war and destroy the world,
3. Trump will get us into a needless land war and sons, daughters and grandchildren will die,
4. Trump is mentally unstable and/or on the verge of dementia. He will crash soon.
5. Trump will have a major heart attack or stroke because he eats poorly and doesn't exercise
6. Trump will be assassinated by someone who wants to save the world from the next Hitler, and
7. Yadda, yadda, yadda ...
even when they knew it was going to hurt them politically.
OK, you are big on the intellectual sophistication of your posts here. That implies that you have looked at the evidence and thought them through. Do you have any evidence from the time that Democrats really believed that it would hurt them politically? Of course it would all have to be based on the obvious fact that every public word out of their mouths was lies, at the time.
If they REALLY cared about expanding coverage, and didn’t care about the fallout, they wouldn’t have thrown in all of the political gimmicks that worked against the “affordable” part. They might have gone after the trial lawyers too.
Here I will write your response for you: “Stormy ‘The Squirrel’ Daniels.”
Impeaching or assassinating Trump will work out about as well for Democrats as crucifying Jesus did for the Romans. Probably felt good at the time, but right up until this last Pope, 2,000 years later, a Christian has sat at the head of a sprawling empire in fucking Rome.
I am not comparing Trump the man to Jesus the man, but Trump is mythic in his own way. He is more like Gilgamesh.
“Let us taste of your manhood Gilgamesh, come and touch our vulva.” - Queen Ishtar.
Maybe he is like Odysseus. “Odysseus was a man who was never at a loss.”
Grackle - brilliant.
Agree in every aspect. I would add:
"Trump is a slightly right of center on most issues of priority to his base, while slightly left of center on social issues. A pragmatist, to the extent we can discern any true principles he personally holds as absolute. Unlike his long personal life, he seems intent on dancing with the date who brought him to this dance."
I am daily amazed at the number of conservatives of the Weekly Standard variety who continue to view him personally instead of looking at what he has done. Romney ran a fiscal conservative message, warning (rightly) of disaster at the national debt, and it was rejected by the voters. Elections are not won on dreams. Even the National Reviewers mostly ignore him personally, regret the tweets, but focus on what gets done, to different levels of enthusiasm.
Well more like Caesar,policy wise he is more conservative a republican than Nixon or bush, probably up with Reagan. Hes an assimilationist more like tr (perhaps that is why the latters tenure as police commissioner is being tarnished in the alienist series) Reagan did push some tariffs and quotas, but we know what prestowitz and choates view was on this.
The Democrats attempt at health insurance was not based on any reasonable model. Personally, I think France has the best model for us but they didn't do that.
Supposedly, Hillary's task force used Germany as a model but Germany's health program is too idiosyncratic and based on German cultural traditions.
What Reid and Pelosi did was turn loose a group of Insurance company lobbyists and 25 year old staff lawyers.
The Democrats concluded that Hillary's plan failed because the insurance companies were excluded by her secret commission.
Therefore, Harry and Nancy decided to let them write this one.
The trouble was that the numbers didn't add up.
Then they sent Obama, who has no idea about anything not Marxist., out to lie about it.
BC ARM said regarding the Democrats wanting issues rather than accomplishments:
"This is not really true. They went to the mat to expand health insurance coverage, even when they knew it was going to hurt them politically."
That was eight years ago. Obamacare was a factor in their shift in strategy.
Romney ran a fiscal conservative message, warning (rightly) of disaster at the national debt,
Disaster is coming. It has been inevitable ever since Clinton “solved” his debt crisis by borrowing short term at lower interest rates. “Apres moi, le deluge!” Now the whole structure of the debt has been built on keeping what are naturally volatile short term interest rates low. The way to do this was to limit economic growth, of course. Trump has pulled the stopper off of the growth jug, and I think that we are in for a crash. Maybe we needed all of these imported scabs to keep labor costs low to stave off inflation, I don’t know. That doesn’t feel like a complete thought.
Seriously, the Libs views on Trump today are hyper sensitive. They have gone out of their minds and are doing Kamikaze stuff to save their world view.
There is a lurking fact of 13,000 sealed Federal Court indictments now awaiting the arrest of prisoners while the new expansion of 13,000 detention facilities are completed at Guantanamo Bay's USMC controlled Naval Base, all set up for trials by Military Tribunals.
How do the Libs and the MSM deal with that. The 12/21/17 Presidential Order still stands that calls for the Treasury Dept to confiscate the wealth stolen by corruption by the last 4 Presidential Crime Families and the CIA. That includes Trillions of dollars missing from the US Government and stashed away all over the world.
The Saudis have rolled over on them.
Reagan wasnt for long drawnout interventions, why he thought the cpntras would do the job and proxy support to other regimes fighting guerrillas in. Central America, dellums and Co, pushed for impeachment after grenada, the whole party is at that crazy nexus now.
That was eight years ago.
I saw zero signs that they believed anything other than the idea that Obamacare would help them. They would have done a lot more with their majorities, had they believed that they were spending them on the one issue. It was obvious to the rest of us that they were pushing though an unpopular law, but where is the evidence that they believed it would be unpopular once implemented? They expected it to be the foundation of a permanent majority. This is just more hindsight adjusted rationalizations from Beloved.
Yes the Nicaraguan resistance, bob pagan when he was sane commissioned a study of how effective they had been and their peasant based organization.
Chris Dickey who the Friedman for central America, (meaning he was as clueless as athead on Lebanon) detested them, as he misses the point in north Africa and europe today.
"I know a lot of leftists and liberals because they abound in my field.
They cannot wrap their heads around Donald Trump as POTUS.
Most seem to have regressed to a fantasy land where:
1. Trump will be impeached and removed from office,"
Nah...that won't happen. It wouldn't help anything anyway, as then we'd be stuck with Pence.
"2. Trump will get us into nuclear war and destroy the world,"
Mmmm...it's not impossible, but then, this has never been impossible.
"3. Trump will get us into a needless land war and sons, daughters and grandchildren will die,"
We're already involved in several needless land wars (and have been for many years), and sons, daughters, and grandchildren are already dying...though mostly the ones we're killing.
"4. Trump is mentally unstable and/or on the verge of dementia. He will crash soon."
Nah...he's just a narcissistic, self-serving con man, as he's always been.
"5. Trump will have a major heart attack or stroke because he eats poorly and doesn't exercise"
Well, who knows?
"6. Trump will be assassinated by someone who wants to save the world from the next Hitler, and"
I really hope not. This would bring us Pence, and god knows what kind of extreme expansion of the American Police State.
"7. Yadda, yadda, yadda ..."
Yes, well..."yadda yadda yadda" would be the reality whichever major party candidate were in office, as it has been.
surfed said...
I wonder what the over/under is on an assassination attempt this term. Some bookie in the UK probably has the odds. If someone would shoot an inoffensive President like Garfield I'm thinking someone is bound to take a pot shot at Trump.
The big question is whether Obama subverted the Secret Service too.
Personally trump is sentimental about such things, he was a trailblazer in palm beach for latinos and women. Yes he was against the central park jogger suspect, any reasonable person would be. But he didn't have covenant restrictions like a certain set of scions had.
Trump's a liberal, personally. He ran as GOP because that way he could win. He's never been conservative in his personal life. He's never been conservative in his public life.
In many ways, Trump is Nixon. I don't mean Watergate.
2/24/18, 7:32 AM
And yet, he's turned out to be the most conservative President since Reagan... And honestly is fighting to put American's first, despite the howls from both the Democrats and the GOPe... It's sad that the vast middle only has a single champion in the entire political arena willing to stand up and fight for them...
We have tripwires on the dnieper as we did the fulda gap, on the Taiwan straits around those manmade islands at the dmz, probably at the Brazilian and Colombian borders
Cookie: "Nah...he's just a narcissistic, self-serving con man, as he's always been."
Sorry for the confusion. You are clearly talking about Obama. I was talking about Trump and his leftist Resistance.
Otherwise, we agree more than we disagree.
"I guess for folks who wear the orange colored Trump glasses they don’t see the decay at the center."
Maybe so. But, just for fun, let's look at the Dem party:
Pelosi? Schumer? Biden? Schiff? Harris? Gillibrand? Warren? Durbin? Clinton?
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
Interesting points by Grackle, however, I don't think a 'Classical Liberal' (if that's what Scott Adams is) would be a fan of socialized anything, let along healthcare. So there's a mixed up somewhere in there.
The entire 'Alt-Right' thing was made up from the beginning as a marketing pin by the Left. Alt-right was anything they wanted it to be at first. They waited for the market to sort of hone in on what it was. The 'market' being the media descriptors. They succeeded in paring the term Alt-right with White Supremacist. Then succeeded in claiming that if you had national pride, or noted that countries actually do have different cultures, and favored yours, and/or if you thought that, yes- sovereignty is a necessary requirement to staying a country, then you were now to be tossed into that Alt-Right/White Supremacist bucket. Love for Country = White Supremacy.
Of course it's utter bullshit and self-loathing at best.
bolivar di griz said...
Yes he was against the central park jogger suspect, any reasonable person would be
Those 'reasonable' people let a murderer run free because of prejudice. The rapes and murder of the other women that Reyes committed are on the head of those 'reasonable' people.
"Sorry for the confusion. You are clearly talking about Obama. I was talking about Trump and his leftist Resistance."
It's applicable to both, but Trump is president now.
"Trump's a liberal, personally. "
Yeah, but what kind of liberal? I'd say a 1970's-era one, which probably puts him in the more moderate side of the Republican party these days. The Democrats have swerved so far to the left, Trump wouldn't even be on their right-most fringe now.
Alt right was originally as coined by gottfried a rejection of the neocon interventionism, mostly on foreign policy but also on some domestic grounds.
Richard Spencer in part because of his experience at duke, focused it mostly on racial question, an unfortunate choice in emphasis, but any cultural issue is nearly at that point, consider the events in Sanford then ferguson and Baltimore. 'Resist we much' was just getting started at the time of Getz and tawana brawley
So we have to retroactively cast impromptu distinctions as invidiouas as with the crack/powdered cocaine sentencing, some of the discussion about supsrpredators were along those lines, of course the real attack on law enforcement didn't get underway till the bush years.
This was around the time leahy Biden and Kennedy started ambushing circuit court nominees, sessions was a test case, podesta ran that operations
The discussion between Russell Brand and Jordan Peterson at Maggie's Farm that rhardin noted is instructive and edifying.. Peterson is remarkably sane, balanced and knowledgeable. He can even make sense of Russell Brand's word salads. Brand says stuff like "my epiphanies are coalescing". Tough to argue with positions like that, but Peterson finds the underlying meaning of Brand's words. He's impressive both as a teacher and as a psychologist......I suppose I'll have to buy and read his book. Be kind of a bitch if here in the last decade of my life I discover the true meaning and purpose of life,but better late than never.
Russell Brand was too crazy for Katy Perry. Think about that for a minute.
Peterson has a raft of you tube videos, some of which I have watched.
It's as if Great Courses had a course on sanity,
"Eventually I believe Trump will also pull the Left more toward the center."
Eventually, maybe. No evidence of that yet. Progs think they can win as progs. The Ocare debacle didn't chasten them. Bernie's run encouraged them. They think higher ed, the MSM, and young people's identity politics and pseudo-socialism will work in their favor. They are doubling down on immigration obstructionism--nothing centrist or semi-nationalist about it.
They are counting on a blue wave, riding nice suburban women's revulsion against Trump's personal foibles. If they are right, they'll double down on leftist crazy.
I agree and it is one more reason I am glad to be out of California.
"I guess for folks who wear the orange colored Trump glasses they don’t see the decay at the center."
But we DO see the rot (not just decay) at the center of our institutions. That accounts for the desperate gamble of electing President Trump. Drain. The. Swamp.
I check my favorite website and I see these comments:
Glad that Althouse called out Grackle …
Just for the record – the proper spelling is all lower case and nobody, including Althouse, calls out grackle. I haven’t had a boss since 1998. But you are correct that Trump is “driving the right people nuts.” It’s a wonderful sight to behold.
And please remember the Grackle Portal to Amazon whenever you need to buy anything on line.
I guess this is meant as irony. For the record, Althouse doesn’t know me, has never even mentioned me in a post as far as I can tell but I heartily agree that using the portal is always a good idea. Althouse has the freest comment environment of any of the major websites, a difficult situation to maintain and which is well worth rewarding.
I agree with grackle … [but] … The "alt-Right" definition is pretty loosey goosey. It's a bit of a Venn Diagram.
I see the alt-right as near the end of the spectrum but it doesn’t seem (yet) to be embracing white supremacy. I see Trump as an antidote to the extremes on both ends.
Grackle - brilliant. Agree in every aspect … I am daily amazed at the number of conservatives of the Weekly Standard variety who continue to view him personally instead of looking at what he has done.
I think the real problem that the NRO crowd has with Trump is that he is going to make the ideologues (eventually on both ends of the spectrum) politically irrelevant. The ideologues on the Right have been enjoying their ineffective yet cozy positions for a long time and Trump arouses their envy and malice by doing what they could never do.
Interesting points by Grackle, however, I don't think a 'Classical Liberal' (if that's what Scott Adams is) would be a fan of socialized anything, let along healthcare. So there's a mixed up somewhere in there.
“Classical liberal” is Adams’s own description. I suspect that Adams is like myself and like Trump. We don’t fit into an easy category. For instance I am a lover of the 2nd amendment but favor gay marriage. I try to examine each issue alone and without regard to its position on the spectrum. With most people I can ascertain their position on the spectrum if I know their stance on a single issue. This isn’t philosophy so much as groupthink.
But for me all that has always been somewhat fluid and subject to new arguments and new information. For instance, Peterson’s views on relationships and marriage in general has me re-thinking gay marriage. I may not change my viewpoint significantly but I’ve learned that I should always entertain in a serious way the notion that I could be wrong. Over the course of my long life I have been wrong more times than I could count.
@tradguy ... Can we expect something like what MbS is doing in Saudi?
"I suppose I'll have to buy and read his book. Be kind of a bitch if here in the last decade of my life I discover the true meaning and purpose of life, but better late than never."
"Russell Brand was too crazy for Katy Perry. Think about that for a minute."
Thank you, William and Amadeus 48, for the morning's amusement.
Q: About Drain.The.Swamp - where goes the effluvium, how to containment and what digesting agent to neutralize the poison?
I missed these the first time around:
Do you doubt that there will be a war, or do you think the war will be popular?
I doubt that Trump will get the USA into a classical war – the uniformed army against uniformed army type. Most wars are popular until the body count becomes significant. The MSM controls the imagery and would automatically condemn any war started by any POTUS that is not a Lefty.
The Democrats attempt at health insurance was not based on any reasonable model. Personally, I think France has the best model for us but they didn't do that.
Yes. I dislike the idea of socialized healthcare but I also believe the American public has decided that healthcare is a “right” and that some form of it is politically inevitable. The best thing to do now is what Trump seems to be doing – as circumstances dictate and allow - usher in a better socialized healthcare than the European models.
Who expected we would have 17 years of war back in 2000, no one did, military interventions usually happen do to provocations. Panama Iraq Afghanistan.
The Democrats attempt at health insurance was not based on any reasonable model.
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The trouble was that the numbers didn't add up.
I managed to read the first 300 or so pages of the legislation, plus all of the snippets called out by the many blogs in my RSS feed, and the many perverse incentives in the legislation was quite obvious to me. A few examples:
Here you have a country trying to claw its way back out of a recession, and you pass a law that adds a heavy regulatory burden on companies with 50 or more full time employees, and it doesn't take a fortune teller to predict that lots of companies just over that threshold are going to try to get below that threshold. And lo and behold, full timers got laid off, to be replaced with part time workers. To add insult to injury those part time workers were now on the hook to buy a health insurance policy, or face a penalty from the IRS.
Prior to Obamacare, I had a catastrophic health insurance policy, with low premiums but a high deductible which I covered with pre-tax dollars in an HSA account. That policy changed slightly nearly every year, with some things being added to the coverage, some things being removed, and the premium would also change slightly from year to year. So the guarantee that my existing policy would be grandfathered was quite obviously worthless, because that grandfathering only holds as long as the policy remains exactly the same, which it never did. And now, the insurance company had an extra incentive to make changes to such policies every year - to forbid customers from holding onto grandfathered plans that would be less profitable than the mandated and subsidized coverage of the Bronze, Silver, and Gold plans.
If you distort the market by forcing a significant chunk of Americans to buy health insurance, and further distort the market by handing a significant chunk of Americans a subsidy to buy insurance, insurance companies are going to respond by raising their prices if only because they can.
Increasing demand for health care services by increasing the number of people with health insurance will create more of a demand that is already outstripping the existing supply of health care services, which will increase health care prices, not reduce them.
If you want to lower medical costs, you have to increase the supply of health care services. One idea: subsidize those seeking MD degrees, and maybe require those with subsidized degrees to work at reduced-cost health care clinics for a limited time afterwards.
You can try to explain the relationships between supply, demand, and price to people, but lots of those people think we can all have a free lunch and a free pony.
Good observations. Any plan that attempts to stay in reasonable limits financially should use market mechanisms.
Democrats abhor market mechanisms, which they consider cruel. Since Lyndon Johnson they have promised free stuff.
The Congress tried to include a market mechanism in Medicare by including a 20% deductible but co=insurance quickly took care of that.
The problem with Medicare is that it caps prices when it should have done was allowed higher prices but capped reimbursement as the French do.
Medicaid was worse because it included all sorts of loony services as political treats for voters.
Part of my proposal that is over at my blog was to include a gradual forgiveness of student loans if graduates accept lower fees.
The only things I think that can stop Trump now is assassination (which I worry about constantly) and an unpopular war, which I doubt will happen.
The only thing that can stop Trump now is if wiretapping caught him saying something prima facie illegal (remember, Trump's go-to rhetorical tool is hyperbole), Manafort is forced into coughing up a backstory, and the FBI provides drip-drip-drip leaks a la Watergate. And don't tell me it will never stand up in court; impeachment requires nervous Republicans, not evidence.
Obama, Rice, and the Justice Department went all in on prosecuting Trump following the election. Mr. Occam says either they knew something like the above or it was a naked coup attempt.
The wiretap thing is nonsense.
The "Steele Dossier" was probably cooked up by Blumenthal and that is why the McCain guy is taking the fifth.
The Obama, Rice, Sally Yates thing was an attempted coup.
The FBI has gotten so sloppy, they can't even run a decent coup, which Mark Felt did fine.
Of course Felt had Nixon but Trump is more wary and cynical. He runs casinos.
Anybody see "Casino?" That should give you the idea. Nixon was a naif.
The only thing that can stop Trump now is if wiretapping caught him saying something prima facie illegal (remember, Trump's go-to rhetorical tool is hyperbole) … impeachment requires nervous Republicans, not evidence. …
My opinion is that if they have had anything on Trump it would have been revealed by now. I think squeezing low hanging fruit like Manafort and Gates is just Mueller trying to justify his investigation and doubt that either of them have anything significant on Trump.
At first I also worried about the hyperbole but the exaggerations are usually harmless stuff like the “greatest” this and the “greatest” that and “bomb the shit out of ’em.” These get a reaction from the SJW crowd but very few others.
And maybe, just maybe Trump is very, very crafty and is careful what he says in private that could be recorded. The Bush tape probably taught Trump a good lesson, yes? Of course anything NOT on tape is just hearsay.
I agree that the GOP in Congress from top to bottom is a bunch of nervous Nellies. That’s one of the reasons why they were cowed by the MSM and defeated time after time by their opposition during the Obama years. But I also believe they are smart enough to know that if they ever vote to impeach they will incur the wrath of millions of voters in their home bases.
But I also believe they are smart enough to know that if they ever vote to impeach they will incur the wrath of millions of voters in their home bases.
I don't think they are, Democrats are like rabid dogs. They can think of nothing but their hatred for Trump.
I think this is the reinvention of the McGovern campaign.
I think the Congressional elections will decide if we have civil war.
We will see if sanity can prevail. I'm not sure it can.
The Deep State will attempt to assininate President Trump.
It will happen as the noose starts to tighten on the FBI.
They will use a patsy like Lee Harvey Oswald and it will happen when his security is in the hands of the Broward County Sheriffs Department.
His only hope is that there are enough Secret Service agents are not drunk and did not lose their guns to a hooker the night before.
He really should have stuck with his own security.
I got very suspicious when Keith Schiller who was Trumps long term bodyguard was fired by a Deep State minion John Kelly.
They have systematically eliminated Trump loyalists who have the presidents personal security as their top priority.
It is very troubling.
I think the Congressional elections will decide if we have civil war.
Yes, I was just thinking that if people vote Coke instead of Pepsi this next election, I’m done with democracy and will start settling political differences by force.
Would you be happy with a threat assessment created by the FBI?
Counting on them to follow up tips?
The President should hire the Mossad or something.
At least the Israelis don't want to see President Trump harmed. unlike the FBI and the CIA.
Me, earlier: “But I also believe they are smart enough to know that if they ever vote to impeach they will incur the wrath of millions of voters in their home bases.”
I don't think they are, Democrats are like rabid dogs. They can think of nothing but their hatred for Trump.
So true, but I wasn’t referring to the Democrats. I was referring to the nervous Nelly Repubs. It is they who have to worry if they vote for impeachment. The Dems of course believe they are home free and need not have any fear of political repercussions. They may well be mistaken but they wouldn’t know that when/if the impeachment vote occurs.
But it will take at least a few Repubs for impeachment to pass. Any GOP pols voting for impeachment are committing political suicide and I think they know this. I see very little danger because I believe the GOP will retain their majority in the House. If they don’t then all bets are off.
Michael @ 3:19:
"If you want to lower medical costs, you have to increase the supply of health care services. One idea: subsidize those seeking MD degrees, and maybe require those with subsidized degrees to work at reduced-cost health care clinics for a limited time afterwards."
Here in CA, they had this idea to allow Nurse Practitioners to have greater autonomy from doctors. Nurse Practitioners are highly trained, having masters degrees, and would increase the supply of health care. Shot down, of course.
A recent idea I had is how about letting folks know up-front the cost of a medical procedure? That is, given your insurance, here is your out of pocket expenses. I can't think of a single thing that I buy outside of Medical and Dental where I don't know how much it is going to cost me. Frustrating.
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