'Donald trump on DaTechGuy's reporting "…It's nonsense nobody reports that, but you do that's why I like you"
The teaser for this week’s commentary is titled “They behaved as if ‘Twere flat”
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I’ve long had the opinion that there is no sense in having complicated campaign finance laws.
The limits on campaign contributes and the rules on dinners and where you can fund raise simply create Byzantine schemes to defy or skit the law. It’s a full employment scheme for consultants and lawyers who make a good living taking their clients as close to the sidelines of the law as they can without going out-of-bounds.
I’ve always found this wasteful, impractical nonsense, particularly in an internet age. My thought has always been: No limits, full disclosure and huge penalties for non-disclosure. That increases the incentive for people to openly give what they want and full disclosure means when a candidate or sitting pol is being bought you know it.
This plan rests on two pillars:
The people. If the people have access to this information via the net, they can discover who is paying what to who. This gives every voter has the ability to make an informed decision if they choose to.
The press: It would require little effort for the press to access such a public database, in fact one would assume a large city paper would assign at least a few people to monitor it. A smaller paper might do the same for their member of congress and senators and the members of the state legislatures in their district. It assures them of a nice three-story sequence with commentary to wit:
Reporting of said contribution: “Amalgamated Widgets of Walla Walla today make a large contribution to congressman Igot Bigpockets (R-Walla Walla) in the amount of $35,000. Congressman bigpockets sits on the committee that supervises the export of proprietary widgets to Asia.”
Reporting of comments or lack thereof: “Amalgamated Widgets had no comment on their large contribution to the campaign of congressman Bigpockets yesterday. When asked for comment congressman Bigpockets spokeswoman I. Candi said: ‘The congressman appreciates the support of an employer of so many in his district and will fight to help keep those jobs in Walla Walla.'”
Analysis of the moves: “With a bill relaxing widget export rules in committee congress, Amalgamated Widgets is taxing no chances. With the environmental group AOTBS (American Opposed to Building Stuff) lavishing dollars on committee members to keep the bill stalled Amalgamated decided it was time to go all in.”
and commentary: from the left: “The apparent ownership of congressman Bigpockets by amalgamated couldn’t be more clear if it was 1767 and he was a man named Kunta Kinte standing on a block in Virgina.” and from the right: “The Irony of the activists of AOTBS deriding industry while chattering away on cell phones and tapping on their tablets is only exceeded by their ultra rich supporters with large stakes in Xai Widgets International who stands to lose most from this bill.”
Such a system in theory would work fine, the data would be out there, active and involved voters will get the information and act on it, while thanks to the press reports on it more passive voters will have at least an inkling of what is going on.
However the more I see how far the left the press has gone where we’ve reached a point where sex scandals involving US Senators and underage hookers are not newsworthy while videos can be altered to create outrage to support an issue and where “Look at the ass on her” doesn’t draw a comment from Feminist authors. I must conclude there is little or no chance under the system I envision of money going to liberal pols from liberal contributors from business or groups on the left to enter into the conversation.
Given that situation, these lousy and incomprehensible laws are the only restraint on the influence or restraint to the outright purchase of the pols of the left.
Until and unless we of the right gain a stronger voice in media and culture we will have to settle for the law to provide the stick that the press will not.
This decision, is exactly the wrong one.
And so it was that I was scheduled to appear at a Catholic Men’s Conference in Worcester, Massachusetts on March 16, until today, when the Roman Catholic Bishop of Worcester, Robert McManus, directed that my appearance be canceled. McManus was under pressure from Islamic supremacist groups who were calling and emailing the diocese demanding that he cancel my appearance. I’ve been informed that they were asked to call the diocese and demand the cancellation by a Boston Globe reporter named Lisa J. Wangsness, who contacted me this morning and appears to have instigated the entire controversy.
It will win us no friends and simply embolden those who hate the church and wish to bring us down.
I know Robert Spencer, he’s a good and honorable man, Bishop Robert McManus is a good man and has been an excellent bishop but the key word here is “man” and every man makes a bad move on occasion.
The dis-invitation of Robert Spencer to this year’s Worcester Catholic Men’s Conference is not a sin, but it is a shame.
I have sent an e-mail urging the Bishop to reconsider this decision and I would further urge you to pray the Bishop be given discernment, (Perhaps the guardian Angel prayer).
Angel of God his guardian dear, to whom God’s love commits him here, ever this day be at his side, to light, to guard to rule to guide.
This btw is a prayer that should be used liberally for people and for yourself in times of temptation.
Chief Wild Eagle: This funny country, once only buffalo live here, Indian come, then paleface come, now paleface give $300 for land Indian take away from buffalo…could only happen in America.
F Troop Iron Horse Go Home 1965
I’ve been very busy with the new Syndicated Radio show so I haven’t had a lot of time to finish the excellent book my son gave me for Christmas Ships of Oak Guns of Iron on the War of 1812. The book jumps from land to see (the land war is often ignored In the 275 pages that I’ve finished as the chapters jump from land to sea there was a note concerning the Creek Indian Wars that leaped off the page 261:
The southern tribes were incurring burdensome trade debts with the United States in exchange for manufactured goods and foods and land concessions had become a common mechanism to extinguish the debt.
And that’s when it hit
Every day the Federal government, states and cities seize land from individuals and corporations for unpaid taxes, illegal activities etc etc etc.
All we have to do is, at fair market value, cede said land on the federal, state and city level to the recognized tribe whose lands at the time of the foundation of the nation were closest to the said land while the tribes assume a portion of the city, state or federal debt equal to the value of the land ceded.
In every public school our liberal friends inform our children how HORRIBLE we are, how America is built on land stolen from the American Indian, well under this plan the American Indian can get their land back piece by piece while retiring debts that our government can’t hope to repay otherwise.
Here’s the big chance for Barack Obama, Andrew Cuomo, Pat Quinn, Jerry Brown and Martin O’Malley to not only get their fiscal houses in order but to strike a blow for justice for the American Indian.
And for American Indians, here is a chance to get back the land of your ancestors and prove that you can certainly do better with it than a bunch of Europeans or even better to eschew all that nasty non-stone age technology and mechanics those interlopers brought with them and get back get back to nature with no carbon footprint for the eye to see.
Environmentalists, and Animals lovers will adore you as will the bear, wolf, and the bobcat who can return to those areas without worrying about those nasty evil guns used to drive them out in the first place.
It will be wonderful, Unless of course today’s American Indian has picked up certain bad habits:
Chief Wild Eagle:We can not lose business or my people will starve!
Corporal Agarn:What are you talking about chief? The woods are full of game, fish in the streams, nuts berries…
Roaring Chicken:Hekawis never learn to live off land
Chief Wild Eagle:Last time we have hunting party have to send out search party to find them
Roaring Chicken:Still waiting for search party to come back
F-Troop The Girl from Philadelphia 1965
Now I know what some of you are thinking: Such a deal gives an unfair advantages to tribes like the Narraganset, Delaware, Paiute, Mohave, the Winnebago, Miami, Shawnee, Chickasaw, Susquehannock, Powhatan and the Iroquois, whose ancestral lands are in blue states where budgets are doing poorly as opposed to tribes like the Apache, Comanche, Wichita and Kiowa, Dakota Sioux, Menominee, Creek and the united Seminoles as their states governed by people like Scott Walker and Rick Perry.
Have no fear thanks to the Urban areas run into the ground by Democrats who have an iron grip upon them those Red State Tribes can make deals with large democrat cities like Detroit to get prime spots in cities that were once Indian settlements in days past.
After all I’m sure the UN would approve.
Today on Morning Joe Joe Scarborough used an argument so convoluted that only an MSNBC audience could fall for it.
Joe attacked “the survivalist wing” of the NRA as he put it. He insisted nobody is coming for your guns and assured viewers that thanks to the 5-4 decision of the supreme court on guns, the right to bear arms is protected and any suggestion otherwise is fantasy.
THEN practically in the same breath, he warned the GOP that if they stand against “sensible gun restricts” we will get a democrat in 2016 appointing liberal judges who will gut the 2nd amendment.
Here is my question:
“If nobody is coming for our guns, why would the 2nd amendment be in danger of being ‘gutted’ by liberal judges?”
Despite many people’s belief that liberal judges are created by Saruman fully formed in the depths of the earth of a scared Isengard, liberal Supreme court judges are created out of liberal federal circuit judges and liberal lawyers. They are created by liberal by liberal universities on liberal campuses financed liberally by grants by liberals and tax dollars provided by big government.
By your own argument therefore we must conclude the following: There is, in fact, a large cadre of liberals out to gut the 2nd amendment just waiting for the chance to do so.
Most Conservatives of course are smart enough to know liberals will try to disarm us regardless of what we do, but prolonged exposure to MSNBC must do things to some folks over time.
Bottom line while Joe Scarbrough is saying something like: Support gun control to keep a liberal supreme court from gutting the 2nd amendment the REAL argument he is making is this: “Give up your arms willingly or a liberal supreme court will come and take them.”
the proper answer to that statement of course is this:
Come and take them then. Who will be first?
Update: here is the video via Unedited Politics
Perchik: Money is the world’s curse.
Tevye: May the Lord smite me with it. And may I never recover!
Fiddler on the Roof 1971
A while Back the twin city tea party hosted Pat Barron who ran as an independent for Congress back in 2010 in what was at the time the 3rd Massachusetts district. He spoke about money in politics and noted that one of the real surprises that a lot of new members of congress face is the huge demands from the party to raise funds.
He described phone banking with long lists of potential contributes and thresholds that members are expected to attain. The mental picture is something like a giant telemarketing scheme that never seems to end with members of congress a direct cog in it
So when I read this story out of New Jersey…
An Elmwood Park man pleaded guilty on Tuesday to conspiring with his brother to violate federal election law by steering $21,400 in illegal campaign contributions to U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez.
Benedetto Bigica, 45, admitted that he worked with his brother, Joseph, of Franklin Lakes, from April 2005 to April 2008 to make the illegal contributions
…and this response from the Menendez campaign…
A spokesman for Menendez has acknowledged that the senator was the unnamed federal official cited in court papers in the case but said Menendez was a victim of Joseph Bigica’s.
“Senator Menendez’s campaign, a victim of the fraud that ensued, cooperated fully with the investigation,” Mike Soliman, Menendez’s state director and former campaign manager, said Tuesday.
…my head started to spin.
Pols like Senator Menendez routinely seek donations of large amounts of money, A businessman funnels a large amount of money to him and rather than an accomplice as a receiver of $98,000 in illegal campaign funds this makes Senator Menendez… a victim!
True it wasn’t until there was a guilty plea in this case that the Senator decided to abdicate victim status by giving the money to charity, but sometimes it takes time for victims to come forward.
What I find interesting is how little stretching of this elastic definition of “victimhood” it would take for Joseph Bigica to claim the title:
Joseph Bigica, 47, an insurance broker, was a prominent Democratic contributor who won millions of dollars in no-bid government contracts across North Jersey.
After all if the Senator is a victim for receiving tens of thousands by less that ethical means surely those millions of dollars make Mr Bigica an even bigger victim!
This story might be an alternative explanation as to why Senator Menendez abruptly left yesterday’s hurricane Sandy press conference, although it makes little sense. The press conference is about helping victims and the senator as a victim should have fit right in.
The victim status that comes from obtaining money from an illegal source also explains his silence to Kerry Picket concerning the underage Dominican Hooker Story
Two women from the Dominican Republic told The Daily Caller that Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez paid them for sex earlier this year.
In interviews, the two women said they met Menendez around Easter at Casa de Campo, an expensive 7,000-acre resort in the Dominican Republic. They claimed Menendez agreed to pay them $500 for sex acts, but in the end they each received only $100.
The senator’s alleged underpayment of these young ladies apparently was an effort to limit the degree of their victimhood.
Furthermore his continued silence on the matter in the face of a FBI investigation is clearly an effort by the senator to keep the embarrassment of these young ladies victim status away from the national press, or at least away from the members of the national press that finds it newsworthy.
And you thought Chivalry is dead?
Update: Chivalry or no, once Jay Leno starts joking
it’s hard to ignore it. Particular when the FBI is banging down doors:
FBI agents late Tuesday night raided the West Palm Beach business of an eye doctor suspected of providing free trips and even underage Dominican Republic prostitutes to U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J. — who has denied what he calls the “fallacious allegations.”
Agents gathered at the medical-office complex of Dr. Salomon Melgen, a contributor to Menendez and other prominent politicians, to start hauling away potential evidence in several vans.
Another contributor, Don’t tell me the Senator has been victimized again!
Hey Jewish democrats, remember at the convention when Democrats removed Jerusalem from the platform and it took three tries to put it back in. Remember when the Media and the party told you that it was just a bad political fluke and that the party and President Obama really Really REALLY supports Israel?
Well…PSYCHE!
Now that he has secured his second term, President Barack Obama has already secretly pledged to the Palestinians he will press Israel into a new round of so-called land-for-peace negotiations, a top Palestinian Authority negotiator told KleinOnline.
The negotiator said top members of the Obama administration told the Palestinians the U.S. president will renew talks aimed at creating a Palestinian state in the so-called 1967 borders – meaning in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and, notably, eastern Jerusalem.
If you want to be suckers that’s one thing but when you put an entire people at risk by being fools, it’s simply wrong.
There is a bit on the net this week on Fr Corapi, but while I like Fr. Longnecker and Mark Shea if I had to pick someone to comment on his situation, I’d pick this guy.
I urge you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree in what you say, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and in the same purpose. For it has been reported to me about you, my brothers, by Chloe’s people, that there are rivalries among you. I mean that each of you is saying, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Kephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?
Good advice to anyone too enamored
There is a reason why Pride is first on the deadly sin list, every priest no matter how skilled or right should keep this in mind.
A friend’s daughter recently started at a highly regarded boarding school. When her mother asked how she was enjoying the mixed-sex environment, the girl said quietly: “You have to give the boys oral sex or they get cross.” Reeling with shock, the mum protested that her darling daughter did not have to do anything of the sort. “Oh yes you do,” replied the girl. “And you have to shave down there or the boys don’t like it.”
That’s just a sample. There’s also:
Only last week, we heard the awful story of Chevonea Kendall-Bryan, who fell to her death after pleading with a boy on the pavement below to erase the recording of her performing a sex act on him. “How much can I handle? HONESTLY. I beg you, delete that,” texted Chevonea. She was 13.
The author of this article, Allison Pearson, talks a lot about the porn culture and the ready access to a “virtual world” (online, texting, etc.). But she misses the point. We could have thrown mobile phones at women in the 1860s, but no man would have dared to ask a lady to perform fellatio on him, because her dad would shoot him. As in, dual to the death, all members of her family lined up to protest the treatment of their sister. (I will note that some very backwards countries shoot the wronged woman, not the offending man.)
This is a sexual revolution issue. Once we started saying that promiscuity is empowering, that sexual experimentation is fun for women, that pregnancy is the only obstacle a woman faces in intimate acts, we gave young men license to treat young women like unpaid prostitutes. (Actually, worse – a man might understand if a prostitute said that she was off-duty for the night.)
The leaders of the sexual revolution – courted by men brought up with different standards than the ones espoused by the likes of Steinem – had it good. But their legacy to my generation, and the generation behind me, is men brought up to believe that only a repressed woman does not put out, that sex is their right, and that there is nothing emotional that happens to a woman when she performs intimate (and sometimes quite vulgar and undignified) sex acts on men who are not her husband. The logical result, no matter what the intentions of these Baby Boomer women were, is that men feel it is their natural right to sexually exploit all women.
Nice going, “feminists”. Nice going.