Elections

Election Day is Coming Up Fast

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Spare a thought for the stay at home voter
Empty eyes gaze at strange beauty shows
And a parade of the gray suited grafters
A choice of cancer or polio

–The Rolling Stones, 1968

 

I think quite a few people, including many conservatives/libertarians, are intending to sit this one out.  It’s an understandable sentiment–the “strange beauty shows” have not gotten any more substantive since 1968, quite the contrary, and the “gray suited grafters” have as a class become even graft-ier.  And there is plenty wrong with the institutional Republican Party…too much crony capitalism at the expense of the real free market, too much go-along-to-get-along behavior, too many lame candidates, too much incompetence in political marketing.

Nevertheless, I think it is of extreme importance for everyone who truly cares about the future of this country–and who understands the harm being done by Barack Obama and the “progressive” movement that he represents–to vote, and in almost all cases to vote for the Republican candidate.

Because what is facing us right now is not “a choice of cancer or polio.”  It is a choice between a chronic disease which is unpleasant, but may eventually be curable, and an accute disease that will kill or permanently cripple the patient in short order.

Free speech is under severe attack by the American Left.  There have been moves to have the FCC and/or the FEC regulate Internet expressions of opinion, further entrenching the monopolistic position of the establishment media…and even traditional media companies are finding considerable hostility from the Obama administration should they step the least little bit out of line.  “Political correctness” dominates many if not most university campuses.  People in the private sector have been driven out of their jobs because of their personal political opinions.  The administrative and police power of the State is being used against political opponent;  see for example the IRS case and the use of SWAT teams to invade the homes of Scott Walker supporters on highly questionable grounds–actions which, George Will argues convincingly, are politically motivated by a desire to intimidate Walker supporters and defeat him in the upcoming election. Direct violence or threats of violence by Leftists and their supporters, directed at purveyors of non-Left-approved opinions, also appears to be on the upswing; see for example the hundreds of death threats directed against a black Chicago pastor who had the audacity to endorse a Republican candidate for Illinois governor.

Perhaps most disturbing of all are the intrusions into the computers used by former CBS correspondent Sharyl Attkisson and the evidence that government agencies may have played a role in this–including the planting of false evidence against Ms Attkisson.  I do not think we can consider this verified at the present time-and may never know for sure who was behind this operation–but it is certainly consistent with the “progressive” pattern.

My point is that the window for deflecting the “progressive” takeover of American politics and institutions is rapidly closing.  Intrusions on free expression, and enablement of voting corruption, are likely to make it increasingly almost impossible to change directions in the future.  A Republican majority in the Senate, and a maintained or increased Republican majority in the House, together with a goodly number of Republican governorships, will not solve these problems, but will offer a far better chance of bringing them under control than will the alternative.

There are also very serious threats facing the United States and its allies on the international front: especially,  the prospective Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons.  There is every reason to believe that Obama intends to reach a deal which lifts sanctions without seriously dismantling Iran’s uranium-enrichment capabilities.  The likelihood of this happening is definitely increased or decreased by any increase or decrease in the political power of the Democratic Party.

I urge you most seriously to vote–to vote Republican (unless there is an alternative candidate who can really win, not just “make a statement”)–and to contribute money directly to your preferred candidates…you may not be able to match the very large contributions being made by Hollywood types and other wealthy Democrats and entities such as the teachers’ unions, but every bit helps.  Voting and contributing now helps ensure that you will have a meaningful opportunity to vote, contribute, and engage in political discourse in future elections.

3rd Ebola Case in Dallas, Texas

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There is a 3rd case of Ebola in Dallas among the 70 health care workers (HCW) that treated Thomas Eric Duncan at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, AKA “Presby” as it is known here in Dallas This makes it 1 on 35 of the HCW exposed to Ebola getting it using the inadequate “any hospital in American can care for an Ebola patient” Center for Disease Control (CDC ) protective personal equipment (PPE) standards, which were not well implemented at “Presby” in any case, see article In statement, nurses at Presbyterian Dallas describe confused response to Ebola case

Short form, it was SNAFU from the word go at Presby and it is likely that Presby is currently facing huge legal liabilities because the CDC ignored the experience of Doctors Without Borders and the health care systems in West Africa which showed that Ebola must be treated by Ebola specialists in separate healthcare facilities.

The Ebola epidemic isn’t a matter of “Medical infrastructure” or “local cultural practices” — the two phrases being liberal terms of art for racism against West Africans in the Obama Administration public health community — it is a matter of treating a biohazard level four pathogen like a biohazard level four pathogen. Bio-hazard four pathogens require a separate medical system to deal with them, prolonged detention for medical screening, travel controls to support those medical detentions and further involuntary quarantine for a positive diagnosis, in other words, a positively controlled, 100% medical screening and detention, border immigration policy a ‘la Ellis Island.

Only a magical thinking “Open Borders” ideological cultist would do any different in ignoring the experience of the one medical organization that has treated the majority of Ebola cases in human history. Which the head of the CDC Dr Frieden now appears to be, in keeping with Obama Administration Central American minor immigration/Public Health Policies (See also the “Unattended Child Border Crisis” and the outbreak of Central American EVD68 in American public schools).

The Obama Administration is risking further epidemics of Ebola because it has done so already with EVD68, in order to increase the number of future Democratic Party voters.

I predict based upon the above, we will see we are going to see Frieden’s firing and/or the cut off of commercial air travel from West Africa to the USA as President Obama’s “Rumsfeld Replacement Moment,” after Republican’s take over the Senate in November 2014. Just in the way that the 2006 Congressional election results moved President George W. Bush to change Iraq War policy with the public disposal and replacement of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld.

The proximate reason for this is that the “R0” of the Ebola virus in Dallas is 2.0, even with CDC recommended PPE. “RO” — pronounced “ARRH Awwght” in public health speak — means the rate of infection for each newly infected person getting even more people sick. An “RO of 2.0,” causes the doubling of Ebola cases every three weeks (24 Sept to 15 Oct is exactly 3-weeks). That “RO” in Dallas will be higher, and the doubling time will be shorter, as more HCW who attended Thomas Eric Duncan come down with Ebol…thus keeping Ebola and policy for dealing with it as “front page news” or “attracting a lot of eyeballs” right through the 2014 Congressional election.

Sad, but true, the Obama Administration is not as concerned with controlling the Ebola outbreak in Dallas as much as it is concerned with “Controlling the Narrative” about the Ebola epidemic.

Obscuring the reality of the Ebola in Dallas means far more to them in terms of retaining political power, this close to the November Congressional election, as the policy/people/political contradictions of Obama’s Ebola policies are being shown to the low information voters Democrats count on far better than anything Saul David Alinsky ever thought of. As the news of the CDC scrambling to contract 132 airline passengers in Ebola Case #3’s Cleveland to Dallas flight yesterday makes abundently clear.

Could Obama go rogue if the Senate flips this fall ?

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Roger L Simon has an interesting column on the consequences of a GOP win this fall.

Barack Obama is a man unaccustomed to losing. Life has been exceptionally kind to him, sailing, as he did, through balmy Oahu sunsets, college, law school and career on into the presidency with scarcely a bump. He has been a protected man beyond any in recent memory, feted and praised virtually everywhere he went until the last couple of years. Even now, despite catastrophe after catastrophe, there are acolytes who continue to celebrate him, paying tens of thousands merely to have their photographs taken with him.

When such cosseted people are forced to confront failure, they typically do not do so with grace.

Obama’s style of governing seems to be quite unusual for modern presidents. He does not have a circle of “Wise Men” as most presidents have done, including Bill Clinton, who had Robert Rubin advising him on economics and the bond market.

Obama, instead, relys on a small circle of advisors with little or no experience in national affairs.

Insider books by Robert Gates, Hillary Clinton and Leon Panetta have appeared in rapid succession, implying or directly alleging that the president lives in a bubble, unwilling to listen to advice. He frequently threatens to — and sometimes does — go around the Congress to get his way via, often unconstitutional, executive fiat. We all know that he lies, constantly.

His closest advisor appears to be Valerie Jarrett who has no policy experience and who seems to be a Chicago insider.

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Bargaining with the Dragon: Some Straight Talk on Hong Kong

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Originally posted at The Scholar’s Stage on 6 October 2014.

Note by the author: I cannot take credit for most of the ideas and observations I present below. The protests in Hong Kong are now in their eighth day. Since they began last week a great amount has been written about why these protests are happening and what their eventual outcome may be. It has been disappointing to see astute voices and analysis  drowned out by fairly insipid primers and listicles. This post aims to remedy the situation by blending the best insights from the best China hands into one essay. If you would like to explore the material that inspired this post (or follow this story more closely in the future), I invite you to consult the “Further Reading” section at the bottom.

At the time of this writing Hong Kong has returned to a semblance of normalcy. The protests may flare up again before the week is over, but we can take advantage of the present lull to assess what has been accomplished thus far and what hope the movement has of compelling the government to meet its demands in the future. The last eight days have been an emotional affair. Most of the discussions I have had about the protests have also been emotional affairs—especially when someone from the mainland or from Hong Kong is participating. This post is different. I am not interested in arguing about which side is right or wrong but in assessing the probability of either side forcing the other to cede to its demands.

 Lets start with the protestors.

 What are the protestor’s demands?

  1. When the protests began the protestors rallied around two demands:
    Hong Kong chief executive Leung Chun-ying (hereafter CY Leung) will step down.

    2. .

  2. Hong Kong will institute a democratic system where candidates for popular election are  chosen by voters, not a committee selected by the Communist Party of China.


 The original body of protestors who demanded these things were organized by two groups, the Hong Kong Federation of Students (香港專上學生聯會, abbrv. 香港學聯, or just 學聯), composed of Hong Kong university students, and Scholarism (學民思潮), headed by 17 year old Joshua Wong and mostly composed of youth about his age. The famous photos of umbrella clad youth being pepper sprayed as they charged government lines were of these folks.

They were joined by a third group, known as Occupy Central with Peace and Love, or Occupy Central for short (讓愛與和平佔領中環, abr.佔中), on the second day of the protest. Occupy is a different sort of beast than the other two organizations; it is run by seasoned political activists and university professors who have been planning a civil disobedience campaign to protest the 2017 election reforms since early 2013. They had planned to start the protest on October 1st (the PRC’s National Day, the closest equivalent China has to the 4th of July), but when the clashes between students and police escalated on Friday (Sept 26th) they decided to abandon their original plan and join the protestors. Had they been in charge of the show from the beginning I am not sure they would have made the same demands—at least in the beginning—that the students did. But they came late to the party and have to deal with what the students’ demands hath wrought.

There are two important things about these groups we must remember when assessing the protestors’ strategy and the government’s response to it:

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Worthwhile Reading & Viewing

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The festival of lights in Thailand

Three Irish girls win the Google Science Fair  with an approach to bacteria-enhanced crop growth

Two versions of “Oklahoma” at Bookworm, with discussion

10 Disney cartoons from the 1930s, with link to an article on the evolution of Disney’s cartoons over several decades

The lost art of political persuasion.  This piece at Ricochet argues that politicians are now less about converting the opposition and persuading the undecided, and more about activating those who are already members of their choir.

Bill Whittle thinks  it’s time to talk about some good news  (video)

A recent study suggests that empathy can lead to scapegoating

Book giveaways during WWII contributed greatly to the popularization of reading and the subsequent growth of the publishing industry.

This article by a Wharton professor argues that “emotional intelligence is overrated” and, specifically, that it is overrated in sales.  He cites a study in which hundreds of sales people were tested both for emotional intelligence and cognitive ability, and their sales performance subsequently tracked…with the conclusion that cognitive ability was more than 5X as powerful as emotional intelligence in predicting sales performance.  (Actually, I’m pretty sure that the importance of cognitive ability and the importance of emotional intelligence both vary greatly depending on what you’re selling and who you’re selling it to, and also on what kind of resources the salesman needs to leverage within his own organization.)