Monthly Archives: March 2015

Carly Fiorina Kills It

Business, Economy, Elections, Hillary Clinton, Politics

Former Hewlett-Packard chief Carly Fiorina, soon to be a presidential candidate, comes across as a genius compared to the low IQ Hillary Clinton (as Ann Coulter diagnosed The Hildebeest).

As libertarian economist Murray Rothbard reminded, there “are two mutually exclusive ways of acquiring wealth”—the economic means is honest and productive, the political means is dishonest and predatory. … but oh so very effective. Democrats, who respect only the predatory political way of making a living—will hammer Fiorina for her business career.

Fiorina is eloquent in this candid interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace.

WALLACE: Amid a crowded 2016 Republican field, the challenge now becomes finding a way to stand out. If she runs, former Hewlett-Packard chief Carly Fiorina would have no trouble doing that as the only woman in the GOP field. In recent weeks, she has also become a leading critic of Democratic front-runner, Hillary Clinton.

Ms. Fiorina, welcome back to “Fox News Sunday.”

CARLY FIORNIA, FORMER HEWLETT PACKARD CHIEF: Great to be with you. Happy Palm Sunday.

WALLACE: Well, thank you.

What are the chances that you’re going to run for president?

FIORINA: Very high.

WALLACE: You’re a former businesswoman. Give me a number.

FIORINA: Higher than 90 percent.

WALLACE: Really?

FIORINA: Yes, sir.

WALLACE: So what would prevent you? Why aren’t you willing to announce right here today, I’m a candidate for president?

FIORINA: Well, because, you know, we need — as other potential candidates are doing, we need to make sure we have the right team in place, that we have the right support, that we have the right financial resources lined up, just as all the other potential candidates are doing.

WALLACE: And when would you announce?

FIORINA: Probably late April, early May.

WALLACE: If you run, and it would be in a field of current and former governors, several current senators, why should Republican voters pick you?

FIORINA: Because I have a deep understanding of how the economy actually works, having started as a secretary and become the chief executive of the largest technology company in the world because I understand how the world works and know many of the world leaders on the stage today because I understand technology, a transformational tool, because I understand bureaucracies — how they work and how you need to change them and our government is a huge bureaucracy, and because I understand executive decision-making, which is making tough calls in tough times with high stakes for which you’re prepared to be held accountable.

WALLACE: OK. Let’s talk specifically about your experience as a business executive. Beyond the typical Republican talking points, not to say that they’re wrong, but what are your ideas that are different about the economy and about dealing with our national debt?

FIORINA: Well, I think we have two fundamental structural problems in our economy. One is that we have tangled people up in a web of dependence from which they can’t escape. We’re leaving lots of talent on the field. Secondly, we’re crushing small businesses now.

Elizabeth Warren is right, crony capitalism is alive and well. Big business and big government go hand in hand. But for the first time in U.S. history now, we are destroying more businesses than we are creating. And so, while we have 10 banks, too big to fail, now have become five big banks too big to fail, 3,000 community banks have gone out of business, and that’s where family-owned and small businesses get their chance. That’s important because small businesses create two thirds of the new jobs and employ half the people.

So, if we want mainstream and the middle class going and growing again, we’ve got to get small and family-owned businesses going and growing again. Washington, D.C. has become a vast unaccountable bureaucracy. It’s been growing for 40 years. We have no idea how our money is spent.

I think there are two things that would help tremendously. One, zero base budgeting, so we know where the money is spent. We’re talking about the whole budget and not just the rate of increase.

And two, pay for performance in our civil service. We have — how many inspector general reports do we need to read that say, you know, you can watch porn all day and get paid exactly the same way as somebody who is trying to do their job?

WALLACE: But, Ms. Fiorina, and you know this is coming, your record at head of Hewlett Packard, and you were the CEO for five and a half years, and you were the first woman to lead a Fortune 100 company, is going to be controversial. Let’s put up some of the things on the screen.

During your five and a half years, you laid off — the company laid off more than 30,000 American workers, many of those jobs went to India and China, and Hewlett-Packard stock fell 49 percent and the board of directors fired you.

Isn’t that a record that you’re going to get hammered with?

FIORINA: Well, I’m very proud of our record. We took Hewlett-Packard from about $44 billion to $88 billion in six years. We took the growth rate from 2 percent to 9 percent. We tripled the rate of innovation to 11 patents a day. We quadrupled cash flow.

We went from a market laggard to a market leader in every product category and every market segment. And we grew jobs.

It is true that I managed through the worst technology recession in 25 years. You will remember the NASDAQ has only now recovered to its dotcom boom highs after 15 years. So, virtually, every technology stock was down over that same period.

And while it’s true that in a technology recession, we had to lay people off, many of those people were in Europe and elsewhere, and the truth is we outsourced more California jobs to Texas than we did to India or China, demonstrating we have to compete for every job.

WALLACE: But you know what’s going to happen. If you were the nominee, exactly what happened to Mitt Romney. There were 30,000 American jobs that were lost and they can get two or three or 200 people to go on and say, well, Carly Fiorina got a $20 million severance package, I lost my job. I mean, they’ll make you look like an unfeeling multimillionaire.

FIORINA: Well, first, I think you’re reading the Democratic talking points because it was not all American jobs. But of course, laying people off is the last resort. It’s a terrible thing to have to do.

But when you are managing through the worst technology recession in 25 years, sometimes there are tough calls that need to be made for the overall health of the enterprise. And in the end, we took a company that was really struggling and turned it into an exceedingly successful company where overall jobs grew.

WALLACE: You seem to take special delight in going after Hillary Clinton. And here is one of your greatest hits.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FIORINA: Unlike Mrs. Clinton, I know that flying is an activity, not an accomplishment. I have met — I have met Vladimir Putin, and I know that his ambition will not be deterred by a gimmicky red reset button.

Mrs. Clinton, please name an accomplishment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: That’s pretty good stuff. What is your basic case against Hillary Clinton?

FIORINA: Hillary Clinton lacks a track record of accomplishment. She is not candid, which suggests her character is flawed. And I think now in e-mail gate, we not only have a situation where she is clearly not being candid. I mean, her saying all those e-mails she erased were just her and Bill chatting is a little bit like Richard Nixon saying those erased moments on the tape were he and Pat talking. That’s ridiculous. There’s more than that.

But I also think there’s a confidence issue now. Anyone in 2015 to say you can’t have two e-mail accounts on a single device obviously doesn’t understand technology. When she talks about we had Secret Service agents guarding our server, for heaven’s sakes we’re not concerned about the server being stolen. We’re concerned about the server being hacked.

WALLACE: All right. Let me pick up on that, because Clinton’s lawyers, the latest development is late Friday, they told the House Benghazi committee, there’s no point going after the server because we have wiped clean all of the e-mails and so all of those 30,000 private e-mails, so-called private e-mails are gone. One, what do you make of it? Two, what do Republican investigators do now?

FIORINA: Well, I think it was part of the plan all along that the Clintons had. Look, I think it was very deliberate that they had a private server. I think it was very deliberate that she used a personal e-mail account. I think this clearly was a deliberate effort to shield her communications.

I don’t quite know what the investigators can do at this point, but I know this, we need a nominee who will bring this up in the general election. The reason Benghazi was not enough of an issue in the 2012 election is because, unfortunately, our nominee pulled his punches when he had an opportunity to remind the American people of the Benghazi tragedy and scandal.

WALLACE: So, what are you saying, you won’t pull your punches on Hillary?

FIORINA: Oh, I will not pull my punches — not now and not in a general election.

WALLACE: Some people have suggested, even as I ask it, it sounds sexist, you’re really running to be the running mate, that you would the person to lead the attack against Hillary Clinton. It would be easier for you as a woman attacking another woman and that you would in a sense neutralize the vulnerabilities the Republican Party has with women?

FIORINA: You know, I come from a world outside of politics where track record and accomplishments count, words don’t. If I run for president, it’s because I can win the job and it’s because I can do the job.

WALLACE: Would you even consider being the running mate?

FIORINA: Well, when you start asking all the other candidates that question, then maybe we’ll have that conversation.

WALLACE: Fair enough. Carly Fiorina, thank you for coming in. Always good to talk with you. And we will be following your big decision.

FIORINA: Thank you so much, Chris, for having me.

WALLACE: Please come back here, and let us know.

FIORINA: All right.

Ron Paul On The Indiana Law

Ann Coulter, Private Property, Religion, Ron Paul

Ron Paul on the right of private property vs. the demand to be served; the freedom to associate at will vs. forced association:

Although there are differences between your average housebroken conservative and his emphasis on religious freedom, as opposed the libertarian emphasis on property rights and the right of the individuals who own and control these businesses to use their property as they wish—Ann Coulter is thoughtful on the topic.

Watch her.

South Africa’s ‘Best & Brightest’ Stage A Poo Protest

Education, History, Propaganda, Race, Racism, South-Africa

The once proud University of Cape Town (UCT), my husband’s alma mater, is now home to the sort of students who collect their own bodily waste so as to throw it at a statue of Cecil John Rhodes, the man who donated the land upon which UCT stands. (Rhodes also founded the global mining giant De Beers, an enormous source of racial quota shakedowns for black South Africans, Black Economic Empowerment, or BEE, as affirmative action is known in my old homeland.)

If you wish to understand the fraught history behind the propaganda, helped along by US media, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa” is a must read. The section titled “Tot Siens (Farewell) To The Taal (The Language),” in Chapter 2, explains what’s underway in poo-poo land.

An excerpt:

“He who controls the past controls the future.” So wrote Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four. The ANC now commands past, present and future. … It may be a trifling issue to deracinated sophisticates, but landmarks in the country’s founding history are slowly being erased, as demonstrated by the ANC’s decision to give an African name to Potchefstroom, a town founded in 1838 by the Voortrekkers. Pretoria is now officially called Tshwane. Nelspruit, founded by the Nel Family (they were not Xhosa), and once the seat of the South African Republic’s government during the Boer War, has been renamed Mbombela. Polokwane was formerly Pietersburg. Durban’s Moore Road (after Sir John Moore, the hero of the Battle of Corunna, fought in 1809 during the Napoleonic Wars) is Che Guevara Road; Kensington Drive, Fidel Castro Drive. Perhaps the ultimate in tastelessly hip nomenclature is Yasser Arafat Highway, down which the motorist can careen on the way to the Durban airport. …

MORE.

March Madness À La Myron Pauli

Bush, Foreign Policy, Iraq, Military, Terrorism

MARCH MADNESS À LA MYRON ROBERT PAULI

If there’s an activity that is definitely hazardous to my mental health, it is following the news. News item #1: The Army wants to courtmartial Generalissimo Bowe Bergdahl. He was a Private First Class when he apparently deserted but received “automatic promotions” to Sergeant since. Given enough time, he will be a Four-Star General! I stupidly asked: “If the Army promoted him twice, does this not indicate ‘reasonable doubt’ as to his desertion?” only be told that “automatic promotions” are the law!! Maybe it is me (who cites Grover Cleveland “public office is a public trust”) that doesn’t understand how Major Nidal Malik Hasan received the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal (thank you, Nidal) as well as two National Defense Service Medals.

As for our hero Nidal: None of the psychiatrists who served with him either sensed something wrong or could do anything about him. According to Wikipedia, Chief of Staff General Casey of the Army observed: “‘real tragedy’ would be harming the cause of diversity, saying, ‘As great a tragedy as this was, it would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty as well.” Several months later, in a February 2010 interview, Casey said, “Our diversity—not only in our Army, but in our country, is a strength. And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.” Not only is Nidal still alive (he should have been shot after his first shot by troops bearing arms, but that is another craziness), but he has been writing letters to ISIS from prison!

In Catch-22, Joseph Heller had a character named Milo Minderbinder who wound up having the Air Force bombing both sides in order to collect more profit. When the Iraq-Iran war broke out in 1980, I joked that under the CENTO Treaty (Baghdad Pact – the Middle East version of NATO), the US was obligated to fight for both Iraq and Iran. Well, as of this week, America’s now fighting WITH Iran against the ISIS Sunnis in Tikrit and fighting WITH Saudi Arabia against the Houthi Shiites in Yemen.

Of course, Iraq got completely destabilized by George W. Bush trying to bring “democracy” to Shiite-majority Iraq while Yemen got destabilized when Barack Obama tried to bring “democracy” to Sunni-majority Yemen. But, to quote Madeline Albright, “What’s the point of having this superb military that you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?” – even on both sides!

And Congress voted 338 – 48 to ship heavier weapons to Ukraine in order to help stick it to nuclear armed Big Bad Vlad Putin. I’m not sure where this insanity is going to end, up but I am imagining Major King Kong of Dr. Strangelove suiting up to ride that bomb down on Russia waving his cowboy hat and shouting yeehaw!

And while the Iranians, Saudis, and Ukrainians are “protecting our freedom,” I can at least salute the ACLU for defending a black pro-life conservative being silenced by “trademark infringement” for non-commercial speech calling the NAACP the “National Association to Abort Colored People.” The case went to Justice Raymond A. Jackson who decided that this criticism of the NAACP was NOT parody (because he said “it wasn’t funny”), but was “trademark infringement.” Justice Jackson is a distinguished jurist whose sister-in-law, Elaine R. Jones, was President of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (“surprise, surprise, surprise” said Gomer Pyle about this ubiquitous conflict of interest). Naturally, Justice Jackson could not recuse himself from this case because if 300,000 black babies were not aborted every year, one of them could grow up to be Justice Jackson! As for the silenced Ryan Bomberger, who objects to aborting 55 percent of all black fetuses; he clearly is a RACIST!

Lastly, the Republicans are holding up the nomination of Loretta Lynch to be Attorney General. For doing this filibuster, they are RACIST, according to Senator Durban and the Democrats who held up the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown to the Federal District Court for two years via a filibuster. I have to confess that I am looking forward to Attorney General Lynch. I can envision the headline: “Justice Department adopts Lynch rules.”