“The short memories of American voters is what keeps our politicians in office.”  Will Rogers

George Rebane

In ‘By Whose Rockets’ Red Glare’ I doubted NK’s ability to do the engineering development and testing of the missiles they have been launching.  Now it looks like others are beginning to agree and find evidence of where those critical missile components came from.  I don’t feel alone anymore 😉  (more here and here)

Senator Pocahontas Warren (D-MA) proclaimed proudly today that the Alt-Left has won and that her wing of the Democratic Party is no longer a wing, but today forms the “heart and soul of the Democratic Party.”  This has been visible for most of us for the last several years after Barack Obama won the presidency.  It now remains for the local grassroots idiots who have maintained the ideological constancy of their party to swallow hard and fess up.  All the movement that they have attributed to the Republicans moving right has been simple bullcrap.  The Republicans are still composed of independent thinkers who can’t come together sufficiently to repeal and replace Obamacare.  Such unanimity is not found among the goose-stepping Democrats.

A ‘Charlottesville …’ commenter is puzzled about who in America are the ideological descendants of Stalin and Mao, and asks whether Democrat luminaries such as Comrades Bernie, Lizzie (aka Pocahontas), Nancy, Mad Max, … might be included in that group.  Let’s make the answer very clear – YES!  While they don’t yet dare put Marx/Engel’s Manifesto on the table and assemble to sing the Internationale – “the standard of the socialist movement since the 19^th century” –  in tight four part harmony, they are doing the next best thing in their vigorous work to create an ever expanding leviathan that will answer the demands of the compliant mob voting in a pure democracy to sweep all dissent from their path.  You see, it’s got nothing to do with race or even anti-Semitism, for Marx, Engels, et al were lily white, and (along with the USSR’s ideological intellects) they were Jews.  But since the Left has never been able to openly debate their ideology, their perennial redoubt has been to simply accuse their opponents of being racists and anti-(fill in the blank), and then retire from the field.

And here’s a significant quicksand trap that can catch the unwary today.  A leftwing mantra is that ‘Hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment.’  Now who again defines hate speech?  The debate on this is long-running and no less important now than it was 50 years ago.  Here are some thoughts from reason.com entitled ‘‘No Free Speech for Fascists’ Is a Truly Terrible Idea’.

[17aug17 update]  Riskalyze hires new CFO.  I don’t say much about Riskalyze in these pages.  But longer time RR readers know a bit of my role with Riskalyze – we started the company in our dining room back in 2011.  In any event, the company continues to be the leader in its fintech sector, and has been growing like a weed.  Since Riskalyze is now regularly covered in the press, here’s more.  https://www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/news/2017/08/17/auburn-based-fintech-company-recruits-cfo.html?

[19aug17 update]  Ramirez again explains it to us.

[20aug17 update]  The lamestream (e.g. CNN) accepts Southern Poverty Law Center’s expanded list of ‘hate groups’ (here is their “Hate Map”)  Today that list is expanding with the names of conservative organizations that range from simply being conservative to those who also publish events in the expansion of Islam in the west.  Included in their hate list are “Christian Identity” groups and any group that is critical of the government.  The schism continues to deepen, while the most on the Left diminish this division by still referring to the now expanded groups as being ‘fringe elements’.  More and more it turns out that Senator Pocahontas’ claims about the new Alt-Left ideological center of the Democratic Party appear to be true.  I wonder what is the largest fraction of a population that can still be labeled as being on its fringe.  (more here and here)

On this matter Rush Limbaugh noted that “black people and white people who were never slaves are fighting white people and others who were never Nazis over Confederate statues erected by Democrats,” and added that “somehow it’s all Donald Trump’s fault.”