Trump's first anniversary shutdown, brought to you by Democrat pols

Yep.

Democrats are far more concerned with Illegal Immigrants than they are with our great Military or Safety at our dangerous Southern Border. They could have easily made a deal but decided to play Shutdown politics instead. #WeNeedMoreRepublicansIn18 in order to power through mess!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 20, 2018

It's a Schumer shutdown, no doubt about it. Do you think it's a coincidence that it happened on the first anniversary of the Trump presidency? The president is right - this is like an anniversary present but the media will rush to blame it on the Republicans as they always do. They'll say the GOP controls the congress, senate and the presidency, but as we all should know - the senate required 60 votes and the GOP has only 51 potential GOP senator votes. The Democrats did this by playing politics. They should be held to account for it. Just as they blamed the Republicans in 2013 and in the 2015 battle, for that shutdown, FOR THE SAME REASON.

Friday Musical Interlude - Evil Girls

Escondido performing their song Evil Girls, live in a backyard somewhere. I believe the song was from 2013.

Friday Musical Interlude - Stolen Dance

Milky Chance's Stolen Dance from 2013.

Friday Musical Interlude - Thrift Shop 1920's style

More Postmodern Jukebox this week.  This might be my favorite cover they've done.  They've taken the Grammy winning Macklemore & Ryan Lewis rap hit and made it accessible to a broader audience with their 1920's jazz style cover.

The original is catchy no doubt.  But the cover does it better in my opinion.

And the original again for comparison (warning: language content)

Friday Musical Interlude - Best Miley Cyrus Cover EVER

Last week I posted a doo wop cover of a Ke$ha/Pitbull song by Postmodern Jukebox.  They do an even greater job covering We Can't Stop - the Miley Cyrus song.  It's fantastic. Better than the original.  It goes to show you the talented writing behind a song can be brought out in the music if the 'right' creative thought is brought to bear on the song at hand.  

And it's still not even their best re-working.  Some of their flapper-era jazz covers are truly fantastic.  More of this innovative retro-style band to come in future weeks.

Here's Postmodern Jukebox's version.

And here's the original for comparison.

Friday Musical Interlude - 57 Bel Air

57 BelAir - worth singing about.

Heidi Feek's "57 BelAir", from her 2013 album, being performed live.  It's a beautiful song, with a country/Chris Isaak vibe.  

2013 - some personal reflections and looking beyond

2012 was a bad year for me, a lot went wrong in my personal life and in my career. 2013 turned out to be even worse in a number of ways.  I'm quite frankly glad this year is almost over.  I've always been an optimist and have always tried to see the glass half full or the silver lining on the dark cloud.  The past two years have really tested my resilience but I'm still here. I'm thankful that my loved ones and I have made it this far given the struggles over the past while (2011 was slightly on the down side of mediocre too).  I'm sure someone up there is looking out for us.  Testing us perhaps, but they certainly haven't abandon us.

Gee, that paragraph seems fairly bleak upon reflection.  I'm optimistic for 2014.  I said that about 2012 and 2013 too, but there's reasons for hope both personally and politically.  I won't get into the personal side of things, but I do want to share that I think 2014 will be good year for Republicans mainly because Obamacare will continue to be a train-wreck.  

The one good thing about that (Obamacare) is that there could be a true groundswell in November such that Republicans end up with a super-majority in the House and Senate in 2015.  I'm not saying it will happen but the potential is there.  Smart political operatives in the Republican party would be wise to focus on that rather than fending off the Tea Party.  There is so much more alignment between the GOP and Tea Party and libertarians than there are differences.  Seeking common ground is the smart thing for all concerned.  The greater issue is to defeat liberal Democrat enablers of progressivist liberalism.  United we stand and all that.

The downside of a resounding victory in 2014 is the possible backlash in 2016 and another Democrat inhabitant of the White House until 2020.  Still, if the GOP govern as they should, that isn't a guaranteed outcome.  And in either case, that presents no reason to try to maximize the election results for Republicans in 2014.  If you think that they are simply the lesser of two evils consider this - how successful would you be for example, in holding John Boehner's feet to the conservative relative to president Obama's.  Boehner might move to the right,Obama will not under any circumstances.  For that matter, an emboldened Hillary Clinton would not do so either, despite all of the talk about Bill Clinton's smaller government movement and the triangulation of voters stuff.  Hillary Clinton will govern only slightly to the right of president Obama were she to be elected president.  She's no moderate.  Don't get suckered in by the inevitable slick marketing.

As for my family and I, I can only pray that we continue to persevere and that 2014 and beyond holds much for us that the last several years have not, and doesn't hold some of the things the last couple of years have held.  Well, pray, and keep working at it myself.  I'm not merely a bystander in trying to make life better.

2013 In review

Everyone puts out their year in review stuff this time of year.  Top 10 lists abound.  Why not participate?

Here's a list of the Top 10 stories from 2013 as reflected in my blog postings.

(10) A Top 10 List embedded in a Top 10 List?  The Top 10 liberal agenda websites you might not know about.  Not super important at first glance but a lot of memes and media focus come from these directions.

(9)  Back in April I noted that the Pope might be a socialist. It seems more evident today. I was slightly ahead of the curve.

(8) Government without brakes.  From EPA to NSA to IRS, this has not been a good year for liberty.  Government without a means to stop itself is like a car without brakes, at highway speed.

(7)  Let's not forget Benghazi.  People died needlessly.  And the administration conveniently had other scandals erupt.

(6) Snowden: not a black and white scandal.  4th amendment vs. national security has no simple answers.

(5) I did blow it on the government shutdown.  Then again, so did a lot of people, including the key players.

(4)  Is government too big to fail, or too big to succeed? Either way, too big.

(3)  Three problems with Obama in two paragraphs. What the president says, defines his shortcomings.

(2) Aristotle in action: What the philosopher would have thought about Obamacare is no secret.

(1) Are we just greedy capitalist pigs? According to some, yes.  But is that really fair?

Friday Musical Interlude Bonus

Hundreds of millions of hits for this silly song What Does The Fox Say?  I mainly put it up here so that when children ask me to see the video, it's easy for me to find.  If you haven't seen this Ylvis video, I bet you'll have it stuck in your head after listening through it once.  The chorus is frustratingly catchy.

Friday Musical Interlude - Chvrches

The Mother We Share by Chvrches:

Friday Musical Interlude - Pumpin' Blood

The 2013 release Pumpin' Blood from Swedish trio NONONO.  It's an uplifting song that I dare you to not find catchy. It was featured recently in an NFL pregame show (I don't recall which one).

Enjoy.

Friday Musical Interlude - Entertainment

A catchy tune from the band Phoenix: Entertainment, with an usual video.

Could Arcade Fire's New Video Save (or Kill) MTV?

Arcade Fire has a new video out for their new single.  MTV has moved away from being strictly a music video platform.  It's arguable that music videos offered a lot more to the youth of America than The Jersey Shore.  Should MTV be in the music video business only?  Should TLC be showing Honey Boo Boo?  Ratings drive content and unfortunately nobody wants to know about the fall of Rome and fewer people want to see the latest Katy Perry video on television (they can use Vevo for that) than want to see reality shows about trashy people.  That's a sad commentary on the viewers that drive ratings and hence revenue for television.

Nevertheless, bands still make videos and some of them still want to make waves with their videos.  That doesn't have to be done with scantily clad models or swearing or gunshots.  Here's a behind the scenes look at what might be the worlds first interactive music video.  From a technological perspective this is really cool.  From a standpoint of art, it is inventive.  Will it kill or save MTV?  Probably neither, but that doesn't mean that MTV isn't worth killing or saving.  They've certainly lost their way.

Arcade Fire's new song is called Reflektor.

Palin by request

A reader sent me a note asking about what Sarah Palin was up to these days.  While I haven't been paying attention much, since she has sorta disappeared, I do have an update.  Here's an update - from the Family Faith Coalition making a speech today.

For the guy who asked, you're welcome. (Hat tip Common Cents)

By Popular Request - A Friday Musical Interlude

A few years back I had Friday Musical Interludes to have some music break up the constant political ranting.  Since I don't use the Rule 5 Fridays advice that guarantees a million hits on your web page (not out of moral indignation - I'm married, it's a physical harm issue for me...), I decided long ago to use music instead.

That was before I gave it up to focus on Search Engine Optimization considerations.  Unsuccessfully.

Recently I was bombarded with requests - well, okay one request - to bring back the Friday Musical Interludes.  Maybe just this once...

James N. Common's Rumble and Sway released in March of 2013, it's an "Americanized Southern swamp gospel blues" song style (from a British artist) that is as catchy as anything I've heard recently. I've always enjoyed the music of the southern United States - blues, rock, gospel, country, zydeco or whatever. Given that and the fact that I just posted about rednecks earlier today, I guess this is an appropriate song choice.

Enjoy.

Palin at CPAC 2013. Full speech

I'm not as enamored of Palin as I used to be, or others, but this is still a speech with some very worthwhile moments and Palin still has some cache.  Her opportunity for the presidency may have passed, but she still makes sense and can make points effectively -  at times, very effectively.

Here's her speech from yesterday.

Happy 2013 Everyone!

Wishing all of you a happy new year and a wonderful and successful 2013.

Descent Trajectory 2013-2016

I've been game theory playing out some of the scenarios for the fiscal cliff negotiations and I could not come to any outcome where the negotiations were successful prior to hitting the cliff deadline.  What I was able to conclude, was that it's not a cliff.  If it truly were a cliff, there would not be negotiations, only action to halt it. If you were in a car headed towards a cliff, you would not be in a debate about whether to turn the steering wheel or hit the brakes.  So take as a given that a deal does not get reached - barring complete capitulation by the Republicans, which seems to be not entirely out of the question.  Indeed at this point even if enough Republicans were to side with Democrats, it's too late to stop the car going over the cliff Thelma and Louise style.

Jobs: What Obama COULD do without Congress

The president plans to run against a do nothing Congress for not supporting his jobs bill (aka stimulus 2).  He put out a ludicrous and 'unbreakable' bill that he knew the GOP wouldn't approve (for that matter Senate Democrats stalled on it too).  The second phase of his re-election plan was to say, okay we'll break it into smaller pieces and try to pass it that way.  The third phase was to say, "look, we can't wait for Congress, I'm going to see what I can do without them."

Here's a clue Mr. President - Approve the Keystone pipeline project now, not in 2013 (or never) - that's 20,000 jobs right there.

The bluster about him (and only him) being all over the jobs issue is simply hot air.  He's not.  He's all over his re-election effort and the hypocrisy on Keystone proves it.  When supposedly he pivoted to jobs, he was pivoting to his own re-election efforts.  Shameful.  The irony is that by trying to win green voters, he's probably angered union voters in equal or greater numbers.  These were not McJobs, they were skilled labor roles, engineering jobs, construction jobs.  

Nice work Mr. President - wrong on all counts, even your re-election bid.

Recapping the Ryan plan

In a great piece entitled "Don't Blame the House", at The American Spectator, Peter Ferrara succinctly explains in the first three paragraphs, the Ryan plan, why it's worth it, and why Democrats so vigorously oppose it.

The indisputable facts show that Congressional Republicans have done their job. Months ago, the House Republican majority passed the budget proposed by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI). Ryan's budget provided for $6.2 trillion in spending cuts for its first 10 years alone. Over the long run, it drives federal spending to 15% of GDP, well below the postwar historical average of 20%.

Ryan's budget included tax reform to get the economy booming again, with a 25% top income-tax rate for incomes over $100,000 a year, and a 10% rate for incomes below that. The internationally uncompetitive federal corporate tax rate of 35% would be reduced to 25%, which would return federal taxes to their long term, postwar, historical average of 18% of GDP. Because that figure is higher than our spending, the Ryan budget eventually pays off the national debt entirely.

Yes, that takes decades. $14 trillion is a big debt to pay. It takes that long because the careful reforms are designed so that no one is actually hurt by the changes -- senseless Democratic rhetoric to the contrary notwithstanding. The Democrats just don't like it because by reducing government dependency it threatens their political machine.

Read the whole article. The Ryan plan - 2013 should see its resurrection.