Category Archives: Conservatism

UPDATED: War Party Inc. Welcomes WikiLeaks Trade/Treason Revelations

Barack Obama, Conservatism, Neoconservatism, Regulation, Technology, The State, Trade

The War Party Inc. is forever raging against WikiLeaks and its heroic founder Julian Assange. Lo and behold, I heard Mark Levin approvingly mention the “secretive Obamatrade documents” uncovered by Wikileaks. Hmmm.

So, the liberty to scrutinize what tyranny is up to is not so bad after all?

Via Breitbart.com:

Discovered inside the huge tranche of secretive Obamatrade documents released by Wikileaks are key details on how technically any Republican voting for Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) that would fast-track trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal would technically also be voting to massively expand President Obama’s executive authority when it comes to immigration matters.

The mainstream media covered the Wikileaks document dump extensively, but did not mention the immigration chapter contained within it, so Breitbart News took the documents to immigration experts to get their take on it. Nobody has figured how big a deal the documents uncovered by Wikileaks are until now. (See below)

The president’s Trade in Services Act (TiSA) documents, which is one of the three different close-to-completely-negotiated deals that would be fast-tracked making up the president’s trade agreement, show Obamatrade in fact unilaterally alters current U.S. immigration law. TiSA, like TPP or the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP) deals, are international trade agreements that President Obama is trying to force through to final approval. The way he can do so is by getting Congress to give him fast-track authority through TPA.

TiSA is even more secretive than TPP. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill can review the text of TPP in a secret, secured room inside the Capitol—and in some cases can bring staffers who have high enough security clearances—but with TiSA, no such draft text is available.

Voting for TPA, of course, would essentially ensure the final passage of each TPP, T-TIP, and TiSA by Congress, since in the history of fast-track any deal that’s ever started on fast-track has been approved. …

MORE (if you can unstick this website.)

TiSA Annex on Movement of Natural Persons.

TiSA Annex on Movement of Natural Persons by breitbartnews

UPDATED (6/15): “The secretive wheeling and dealing on the massive 29-chapter draft [of the Trans-Pacific Partnership] (kept under classified lock-and-key and only a tiny portion of which have been publicly disclosed through WikiLeaks) make the backroom Obamacare negotiations look like a gigantic solar flare of openness and public deliberation. Fast-track Republicans, who rightfully made a stink when Nancy Pelosi declared that ‘we have to pass the [Obamacare] bill so that you can find out what is in it,’ now have no transparency legs to stand on. …”

Michell Malkin On “Why America Hates the GOP-Obamatrade Deal.”

And if “America” doesn’t yet hate the TPP, it certainly should.

My position: all legislation is bad unless it is legislation to repeal legislation.

From Purges At #NationalReview To #Duggar Pedophilia

Celebrity, Conservatism, English, Ilana Mercer, Neoconservatism, Republicans

“From Purges At National Review To Duggar Pedophilia” is the latest column, and one “of the few chatty columns I’m likely to write.” On The Unz Review. An excerpt:

Fellow Canadian Kathy Shaidle sends her latest Taki’s Magazine column, “Beta Male Suckiness at National Review.” In it I learn that Kathy’s benevolence approaches the saintly; only recently has she terminated her subscription to National Review (NR). I did so about 15 years ago. The Alberta Report, a Canadian paleoconservative publication with libertarian leanings, soon became the subscription of choice in the home of this budget-conscious, coupon-clipping, immigrant. (Scientific American was another guilty pleasure.) …

… from whom I learn that a National Review editor has terminated Mark Steyn’s print-magazine column. I still recall searching frantically for Florence King’s back-page “Misanthrope’s Corner,” which was retired in 2002. That’s how long ago I bid “adios” to NR’s print version (I access Kevin D. Williamson online, as do I appreciate Josh Gelernter’s mention of my work on South Africa).

But why retire the Steyn byline? Steyn is a star. He also supports wars and is extremely talented. To wit, he managed to both defend and diss columnist John Derbyshire, who himself was dismissed from NR (where he freelanced), for writing “The Talk: Nonblack Version,” published, too, at Taki’s.

By the time the “girlie boys” of NR came for Ann Coulter, I was unaware the magazine still appeared in print. Ann’s column was expunged from National Review after 9/11. The reason? Most real people had a 9/11 moment. Miss Coulter’s cri de coeur was particularly memorable. For exhorting, “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity,” she was given the boot. This was a puzzling purge, considering neoconservatives promptly adopted her recommendations, invaded Muslim countries and killed their leaders.

In fact, the neoconservatives at NR supported all Coulter’s recommendations save the peaceful one (Christian conversion). Still do. Clicking through the ENORMOUS icons on the new NR website reveals that Lindsey Graham, John McCain’s evil ideological twin, is touted alongside the Patriot Act, whose “expiration” is mourned. (Fear not, fearless ones, your metadata remains unsafe. The USA Freedom Act, to replace Section 215 of the Patriot Act, is a mere mutation. It privatizes the Patriot Act, by co-opting corporations into the service of the Surveillance State.) …

… Read the rest.“From Purges At National Review To Duggar Pedophilia” is the latest column, now on The Unz Review.

Ted Cruz And The Loretta Lynch Confirmation

Conservatism, Drug War, Elections, Law, Republicans, Uncategorized

Claiming that the cloture vote was “the only one that mattered,” the staff of Ted Cruz excused the senator’s conspicuous absence from the Senate’s final vote, today, to confirm Loretta Lynch for attorney general. Cruz was probably “en route to Texas” for a fundraiser.

Who am I to argue with Ted Cruz on Constitutional matters? He’s a superb scholar on that front. It is, however, fair to point out that Cruz’ failure to register a vote on this final and ghastly nomination was unseemly.

Eric Holder’s only redeeming feature as attorney general was that he put a crimp in the War on Drugs and in “mass incarceration.”

Lynch was actually a drug prosecutor. The other thing Lynch had no shame in doing was shaking down banks: she extracted a “US$7 billion settlement” from Citigroup.

“The Senate later voted 56-43 to confirm Lynch. Cruz was the only member of the chamber not to vote.” (Politico)

Michael Savage On Hillary Saga, Selma & A Soulless President

Barack Obama, Conservatism, English, Hillary Clinton

Michael Savage read my mind. I’ve been ruminating on the visceral hatred the liberal media harbor for Hillary Clinton, and have come to Savage’s excellent conclusion: “It’s because they want Elizabeth Warren to run. To them, Hillary isn’t liberal enough.”

“Savage added ominously, ‘If you think Hillary is bad, Elizabeth Warren is even worse.'”

To this I would add only that the media took the same tack with Barack Obama, once they anointed him as their man. The exact dynamics were at play, showcasing that while there was a “red/blue split in the Democratic Party that had become a gash”; there is no such schism in the media.

This from the June, 2008 column, “Mindless Monolith: Media Pick Obama”:

The top Democratic dogs finally got their way: Senator Clinton, who lost her party’s delegates but won the people, will concede the Democratic nomination. Media pack animals are also on top of the world.
From the AP’s Charles Babington to MSNBC’s Chris Matthews to Wolf Blitzer and his “best political team on television”: They had all worked their hearts out for Obama. …
… By now the red/blue split in the Democratic Party had become a gash. Clinton was getting the red, Reagan Democrats—seniors, whites, blue collar and rural voters. “Barack Obama,” in the words of another veteran news guy, the always-edifying William Schneider, “was winning the blue Democrats: young voters, upscale urban professionals, well-educated liberals and African-Americans.”
Red versus blue meant left versus right. Those who own guns voted for Hillary; those who don’t, and think you should not, voted for Obama. One more thing: Because they’re older, more blue collar, and more conservative …

Also via Kathy Shaidle’s WND, TALK RADIO WATCH column comes an overview of the rest of what the talkers on the right said this week. Kathy, no doubt, mined the best of the week. Other than Savage, there is nothing new, interesting or important in anything said by this lot. See for yourself.

Savage’s thoughts on Obama’s Selma speech are also insightful, contrast as they do with the milquetoast assessment at National Review. OK, not milquetoast, but fawning. If anything, NR writer Quin Hillyer—who echoes Chris Cillizza’s sentiments on the Selma speech—is the fine writer he claims Obama is. The paragraph Hillyer excerpts is vintage Obama in its hackneyed simplicity.

Back to Savage on Selma and on a soulless man (courtesy of Kathy): “’Obama’s Selma speech was a new low point in the American presidency,’ Savage said at the top of the week. Comparing it to ‘classic Soviet propaganda,’ he went on to say, ‘I’ve diagnosed what’s wrong with this man and his presidency: Obama doesn’t have a scintilla of forgiveness in his soul.’”