‘Tis The Season For Duplicitous & Dopey Republican Pledges

Democrats, Elections, Politics, Republicans, Taxation

Government taxes you indirectly, through spending, borrowing and inflating the money supply. The upshot is that your money’s purchasing power is drastically reduced overtime. That you can take to the bank.

Every Bill the overlords pass, moreover, “requires” more hirees and more salaries in perpetuity, that is if you take into account the generous overtime payments, pensions and other benefits the oink sector awards itself. Government is a tax-increasing scheme. This is why when the Republican presidential hopefuls make a song and a dance out of pledging to Americans for Tax Reform not to raise taxes on the American people; they do so with impunity. They are, nevertheless, full of it. Besides, didn’t they make similar pledges during the previous election cycle? Or was it the midterm prior?

Chris Christie Wednesday became the latest Republican to sign a pledge to “oppose and veto any and all efforts to increase taxes.”

Americans for Tax Reform has been urging presidential candidates to sign the pledge. In 2012, all Republicans except one, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, did.

Christie, the governor of New Jersey, is the ninth of the 17 prominent 2016 Republican candidates to agree to no tax increases. Also making the commitment are Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Rick Perry, former governor of Texas, former business executive Carly Fiorina, former Sen. Rick Santorum, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, and Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas.

Christie’s fiscal record has also come in for criticism from some conservatives. The Club for Growth Tuesday didn’t list Christie as one of its acceptable 2016 candidates.

“The Club for Growth praised the governor for winning concessions from public employee unions and withdrawing from a multistate compact designed to curb emissions contributing to climate change,” reported NJ.com. But, the group added, “there are enough warning signs in Christie’s record to give fiscal conservatives pause,” such as his decision to expand Medicaid coverage as part of the Affordable Care Act.

Optics, that’s all this is.

Speaking of the season for dopey pledges, I agree with Rachel Maddow, for once, that Trump signing the GOP pledge not to run as a third-party candidate is “a giant screwup.” Trump may have lost “a lot of leverage.” Bernie Sanders, who serves as an independent in U.S. Congress, but caucuses with the Democratic Party—he has not felt the need to sign any pledge to adhere to the Democratic Party’s do’s and don’ts.

UPDATED: ‘Camp Of The Saints’ Scenario (#1,359 On Amazon)

Europe, Government, IMMIGRATION, The West

The Camp of the Saints by Jean Raspail is on the minds of those of us with an historic memory and some insight. (Thanks to Amazon’s magnificent cookies, this prophetic book is grouped with my own.) Charles Burris’s description of the novel and its relevance to the refugee crisis underway in Europe (the handiwork of Bush, Obama and Hillary) is impossible to best:

“… one cannot not help but be reminded of the stentorian warning to the West emblazoned in the apocalyptic novel by Jean Raspail, The Camp of the Saints (.pdf). In one of the most divisive and controversial works of the 20th Century, Raspail chillingly predicted and prophesized [sic] forty two years ago precisely what is occurring and its suicidal consequences for the diseased remnants of that civilization. It is unquestionably the most powerful novel I have ever read. Insidious egalitarianism, destructive welfarism, aggressive multiculturalism, cultural Marxism, Third World invasions by the wretched of the earth, militaristic imperialism posing as humanitarian liberation, and mindless parousiatic atheism in the name of a hallowed pluralism, have blended into a banal omnipresent doxology. The most recent expression of this syncretic mélange is taken directly from Jean Raspail, Pope Francis’ appeasement policy regarding the tsunami of ‘migrants’ flooding Europe. Other prophetic voices have followed Raspail: Oriana Fallaci, Pascal Bruckner, Bruce Bawer, and most notably Patrick J. Buchanan. The culture vultures have indeed come home to roost and are flailing away at the twisted torso of the corpse that was once the West.”

Geert Wilders is the one European politician who has not betrayed the interests of the people who pay is salary (courtesy of Diana West and Gates of Vienna):

0:00 Hello everyone. In The Netherlands
0:02 We’re overloaded with asylum refugees.
0:06 It’s an invasion threatening our prosperity and our country.
0:14 The Hague blandly abandons us.
0:17 Premier Rutte keeps our borders wide open for fortune-hunters.
0:20 We must save our country.
0:23 Of course real refugees must be taken care of.
0:27 However, that must be done in the region itself,
0:30 not here.
0:33 The Gulf states, Saudi Arabia, those sorts of rich countries,
0:36 take care of a meager couple of hundred refugees annually.
0:39 In The Netherlands, many thousands arrive every month.
0:45 That can no longer be done.
0:46 Every refugee costs us €36,000 annually.
0:52 They receive free medical care, a house,
0:55 government care.
0:57 Never have these people contributed a single cent to our economy.
1:00 Even so, billions are spent on them,
1:04 while our elderly are left out in the cold.
1:08 I can’t understand why we allow that.
1:12 Our borders must be closed.
1:17 We must send back every asylum seeker.
1:18 Only then will the flood stop.
1:20 Only then will unscrupulous smugglers lose their business.
1:25 Only then will no more people drown.
1:31 Let’s do what Australia does:
1:32 ”Send them all back”, send them all back.
1:36 Mr. Rutte doesn’t do that.
1:38 He neglects his duty.
1:40 Help the Party For Freedom save our country.
1:44 It’s time to close our borders.
1:48 It’s time to stand behind our own flag.
1:52 It’s time to stand up for The Netherlands.

UPDATE: A controversial, prophetic book, whose history itself deserves to be documented, has soared to #1,359 on Amazon.

Product Details

Paperback: 316 pages
Publisher: Social Contract Pr (December 1994)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1881780074
ISBN-13: 978-1881780076
Product Dimensions: 0.8 x 6.5 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (148 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,359 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
#26 in Books > Textbooks > Humanities > Literature
#138 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary
#362 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Literary

UPDATED: Traitors To Their People (Except For Bibi Netanyahu)

Classical Liberalism, Europe, Foreign Aid, Foreign Policy, IMMIGRATION, Israel, Nationhood

Agree or disagree with him, Benjamin Netanyahu stands alone on the world stage, right now, as a magnificent contradiction to the Angela Merkels of the world. Merkel, elected for life, or so it would appear, squints at small-town Germany from behind the all-too-familiar parapets of global government. By absorbing “an unprecedented influx of immigrants who will fundamentally change the country,” Merkel is intent on foisting a new identity on Germany without the broadest consent of her citizens. (SPIEGEL)

Netanyahu, on the other hand, is a patriot who knows that a government’s duty is first and foremost to the people it represents. The prime minister of Israel knows it is his obligation to work to ensure the viability and continuity of The Jewish State. Netanyahu thus vowed that,

he would not allow Israel to be “submerged” by refugees after calls for the Jewish state to take in those fleeing Syria’s war.

Speaking at the weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu also announced the start of construction of a fence along Israel’s border with Jordan, according to his office.

“We will not allow Israel to be submerged by a wave of illegal migrants and terrorist activists,” Netanyahu said.

“Israel is not indifferent to the human tragedy of Syrian and African refugees… but Israel is a small country — very small — without demographic or geographic depth. That is why we must control our borders.”

UPDATE (9/7): Remember the causes of the refugee crisis: “Bush, Obama And Hillary Destabilized The … World.”

The People’s House Or The Pope’s House?

Etiquette, Foreign Policy, Politics, Propaganda, Religion

What was noted in this space on 01.23.15 and years prior will be reiterated again, today: It was an abomination when Mexican President Felipe Calderon was allowed to address a joint session of Congress in May of 2010, it was as unseemly for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to have been permitted to issue forth in the same venue earlier this year, and every bit as improper for the Pontiff to insert himself into American politics by doing the same. Via Vatican City (AFP):

Pope Francis is gearing up for potentially his most politically charged trip yet, an eight-day whirlwind visit which will take him from Havana’s Revolution Square in Cuba to the headquarters of the United Nations.

The Argentine, who will become the first pontiff to address a joint meeting of Congress in Washington, has taken advantage of a summer lull at the Vatican to fine-tune his hotly awaited speeches, sources at the Holy See say. …

The American people’s representatives are the traitors here. For it is they who’ve permitted this reoccurring spectacle; it is they who’ve turned the American People’s House into a House for hire; a one-way exchange program for foreign dignitaries.

Of course, this is purely a no-partisan rule and has nothing to do with the fact that the anti-intellectual Jorge Bergoglio is shaping up to be a dreadful cur.