George Rebane
Helped Jo Ann and friends work the Republican booth at the fairgrounds today. We were located between the Vietnam Veterans and the State of Jefferson’s booth with the NC Tea Party beyond them. It was kinda like old home week on Redneck Row the way we all were lined up with everyone flying several Old Glories to let the passersby get the drift of what we were all about. Had some interesting conversations with a couple of Dems who dropped in to tell us about our presidential candidates. They were nice people, but definitely related to the folks at LaMalfa’s do yesterday afternoon (see 11aug15 update here).
The Dems’ booth was tucked away a bit down and across the asphalt from us, real hidden like. If you looked hard inside you could see a couple of cutouts of Hillary and Bernie. But except for their sign, it was hard to tell they were an American political party – not one Old Glory in sight. When I asked about this from one of our Dem visitors, he got a bit red-faced and said he’d go over and ask that same question of the folks in charge. I didn’t tell him that I wasn’t really surprised since the Dems (now the unabashed Socialists of America) have long ago given up such blatant displays of patriotism because it might offend one of their many dependable ‘God damn America!’ groups of constituents. The times they are a’changin’.
Speaking of the Dems toppling leftward, I recommend a good read in Jason Riley’s ‘The Democrats’ Socialist Surge’ today. Riley points out that “Bernie Sanders drew a crowd of 27,500 in Los Angeles on Monday. In the age of Obama, a liberal with a statist agenda fits right in.” The rebranding of the Democratic Party is not without some heartburn as socialism takes a firm hold. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the head of the Democratic National Committee, was “visibly rattled” when asked recently to explain “the difference between a Democrat and a Socialist.” Her crickets rose to the occasion with, “The more important question is, ‘What is the difference between being a Democrat and being a Republican?’ ” Tough sledding ahead.
MSNBC is tired of being at the bottom of the ratings bucket with their constant drizzle of collectivist crap that no one watches. Its management is tired of selling advertising for pennies on the dollar because MSNBC draws about 50,000 pairs of eyeballs nationwide (not a typo) during times of the day when Fox has forty times as many glued to their cable channel. So they’re going to can over half of the regular lamestreamers – Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews will be saved – and convert to a “hard news” channel. And they’ve even hired ol’ Brian Williams, that intrepid war reporter, to spearchuck their rehabilitation. I guess they figure while they try to dust off their own reputation, they might as well do two for the price of one. We shall see how the new and improved MSNBC fares in the big boys club with CNN, Fox Business, and Fox News. (Hopefully this change will also help out our information compressed liberal readers.)
China devalues yuan in prep for its debut into the basket of the world’s trade currencies. The world’s markets go into semi-hysterics as they attempt to figure out how that is going to influence Team Yellen to go forward with the promised (wink-wink) interest rate hike in October. If the good lady ups the interest, then the dollar will be at an even greater disadvantage to the yuan, and we all know what that is going to do to the country’s current account, which isn’t all that healthy as it is. I guess it will be time to strap on the knee pads again and ask supreme leader Xi to buy more Treasurys – what’s $18T and change when $20T is such a nice round national debt number and within easy reach? Meanwhile America’s businesses are dusting off and hanging up their ‘Rig for Ram!’ signs.
RR readers have been in an understandable dust-up with the EPA spawned toxic waste water gusher that started in Colorado, and now promises to become an equal opportunity disaster across several western states (see comment stream here). Predictably some liberal commenters instantly weighed in with the diagnosis that this was all the fault of greedy capitalism, and the owners of the messed with mine should be held accountable. Well, there are almost 20,000 abandoned mines in the west, most with heavy metals water in them. The heavy metals are indigenous to the mineral strata of the mines, as is the water that fills the abandoned tunnels – in short, the ‘pollution’ in the abandoned mines is quite natural, and its repositories also quite stable unless you mess with it when you don’t know what you’re doing. And when it comes to messing, the EPA has demonstrated its arrogance and ignorance now for almost two generations. (Left-leaning local readers would be surprised at the kind of waters stored in the tunnels of Nevada County’s abandoned mines.) But all that don’t make no never mind to those used to lecturing ex cathedra about matters environmental. In any case, we’ll soon get to see whether Garrett Hardin’s tongue-in-cheek ‘The solution to pollution is dilution’ really works.
[13aug15 update] Given the latest emails revelations, Hillary is most certainly a criminal of a particularly high level. Men and women have gone to jail for a lot less when illegally handling classified materials and lying to federal investigators. We are told that she has now compromised TOP SECRET/NOFORN (with a bunch of letters thrown in) materials which are essentially the most secret and sensitive documents that our country can produce. Martha Stewart became a felon did time for lying to federal investigators and obstructing an investigation regarding securities trading. Over the past months and years Hillary has done much, much more from a position of national trust that now has compromised the entire country. An RR reader posted this link to the Daily Beast which really belongs here. Let's see what kind of an autocracy this administration has become that will keep her from being indicted and remanded for trial, instead of continuing to campaign for president.
rebanesruminations.com 
Leave a comment