Displaying posts published in

October 2019

Capitalism on trial: Profit is a good thing — except to the political left Rupert Darwall

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/467224-capitalism-on-trial-profit-is-a-good-thing-except-to-the-political-left

These are dangerous times for American capitalism. 

Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) Accountable Capitalism Act would oblige large corporations to obtain a federal charter requiring directors to consider the interests of all stakeholders — not only shareholders and customers, but also groups representing society as a whole, such as their employees, local communities and civil society, including non-representative, anti-business NGOs.

The chief justice of the supreme court of Delaware – where more than two-thirds of Fortune 500 corporations have their legal home – has written a book arguing that corporations should be run for the benefit of their workers. The Financial Times has launched a “new agenda” campaign that intones: “Capitalism. Time for a reset. Business must make a profit but should serve a purpose too.”

None of this would have come as a surprise to Joseph Schumpeter, one of the 20th century’s great economists. No one understood better the dynamic, propulsive nature of capitalism. But, unlike most economists, Schumpeter also had a deep, subtle appreciation of capitalism’s cultural effects — that, while a system of free enterprise creates successful and prosperous societies, it also plants seeds that can lead to its own demise. “Unlike  any other type of society,” Schumpeter wrote “capitalism inevitably and by virtue of the very logic of its civilization creates, educates and subsidizes a vested interest in social unrest.” 

And, as Schumpeter saw it, the publicly traded corporation, lacking the visceral allegiance of private property, was capitalism’s weak point: “Defenseless fortresses invite aggression especially if there is rich booty in them.” It’s a prophecy that we’re seeing come to pass. 

The Democrats’ impeachment inquiry is a doomed and desperate time-buying ploy Roger Kimball

https://spectator.us/democrats-impeachment-doomed-desperate/

They hope that talk of impeachment will buzz about Trump’s head like a cloud of horse flies

Oh no! The walls are closing in again on Trump! We’ve reached a ‘tipping point.’ This time, finally, at last, we have the fatal ‘bombshell’ that will destroy him. The testimony of Bill Taylor, Deep State apparatchik and acting Ambassador to Ukraine, has given ‘devastating‘, ‘explosive’ testimony to Adam Schiff. They’ve certainly got Trump this time. An establishment lifer with deep ties to Burisma, the corrupt energy company that was so generous to Hunter Biden, has said that Trump insisted on a quid in the form of probing cokehead Hunter and his dad, Joe, in exchange for the quo of $400 million in military aid.

Or was pelf the quid and the investigation of the Joe and Hunter show the quo? Our experts are working on untangling that.

How do we know about this devastating quid pro quo-ness? Schiff’s press outlets, from CNN to The Hill, have said so. No, you cannot examine the testimony, silly. It took place behind closed doors. For the most part, the lynching — er, the hearing — even excluded Republican lawmakers. Moreover, the bits that GOP congressmen were allowed to witness are covered (or covered up) in a shroud of ‘non-disclosure’. Still, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy did mention that in a mere ‘‘90 seconds’ Rep. John Ratcliffe ‘destroy[ed] Taylor’s whole argument.’ Quoth McCarthy: ‘Adam Schiff won’t let us talk about what happened.’ But the bottom line is: ‘There is no quid pro quo…the one thing that you find out in this process is all this information is just like that whistleblower…everything is second-, third-, and fourth-hand information.’

Of course, we all know now that ‘second-, third-, and fourth-hand information’ is just the underhanded sort of hand-me-down ‘evidence’ that the Dems like to parade before a weary public in order to justify their demand for Trump’s head. Remember Christopher Steele? Just like the Queen in Alice in Wonderland, it’s ‘Sentence first — verdict afterwards.’

It’s pathetic, isn’t it? The first time around, the anti-Trump fraternity at least had the solemn imprimatur of Special Counsel Robert Mueller with the weight of officialdom and all the echoes of Watergate that that process brought with it.

MARILYN PENN- A REVIEW OF “PARASITE”

http://politicalmavens.com/

Parasite bears an immediate resemblance to Jason Peele’s US, a horror film in which underground tunnels are the habitat of dopplegangers cloned by our government in a failed experiment and condemned to live below eating rabbit meat. In the Korean film, things are a bit better – there is a window to the street above the basement dwelling but the view is of a repeat urinator who chooses that corner for his daily excretions. To summarize the plot, we have a family living in close quarters who manage to insinuate themselves into excellent jobs working for a wealthy family living in the most architecturally dazzling house in recent film history. That and the score are two sufficiently good reasons to see the movie but there are more.

One of the best features is that the characters are not generic – the parents and two children in the basement are lively, attractive people with back stories and ambitions and we are not surprised when they become assets to the wealthy couple, both of whom are somewhat dim despite their good looks and affluence. The best part of the screenplay is in the denouement of how the poor deceive the rich in a fully satisfying way for all concerned. There is a troubled young boy who needs special care and the clever, artistic basement daughter is perfect for that role. The wealthy daughter requires a tutor and the wily basement son is central casting for that. Best of all are the father who becomes the chauffeur and his crackerjack wife who takes over the role of housekeeper with super-human speed and efficiency.

CAIR BANQUET

The United States Department of Justice (USDOJ), in the largest terrorism financing trial ever successfully prosecuted in American History, identified CAIR as a member of the U. S. Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee, which is Hamas in the U.S. CAIR cunningly bills itself however, as a “civil rights” group, or an “advocacy group.”  Evidence says otherwise.  Hamas/MB/CAIR’s objective is to overthrow the U.S. Government. CAIR is a propaganda/influence operation arm of Hamas, and Marriott in this case is being used as a venue to further their operation and objective.

If you need information that CAIR is Hamas, you can go to the following link-
https://www.understandingthethreat.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/CAIR-is-Hamas-May-2019.pdf

It is also noted that the “special guest” is one U. S. Congresswoman, Ilhan Omar, who has used anti-Semitic slurs/stereotypes, and is suspected of having committed immigration fraud.

The Three Main Questions About Ukraine and Impeachment By Charles Lipson

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/10/24/the_three_main_questions_about_ukraine_and_impeachment___141565.html

Democrats are ecstatic over the latest closed-door testimony by U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bill Taylor. They say it damns the president.

We’ll have to take their word for it — or not. For us poor folks not on the guest list of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, it’s impossible to know what’s happening behind closed doors. The testimony has not been released, even though no classified materials are involved. It’s not even clear why Schiff’s panel, rather than the House Judiciary Committee, is leading the investigation. Like so much about this process, it is unprecedented, with ad hoc rules made up along the way. All we know about the testimony is what trickles out in fragments, leaked by each side to advance its case. This kind of secrecy is shameful in a democracy. So is the refusal to let the accused call his own witnesses or even send his attorney to the proceedings.

Given this “fog of secret impeachment,” it helps to step back and ask what the debate is really about. I see three main questions so far. All are related to President Trump’s phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the delay in providing U.S. aid to Kiev.

(1) Did President Trump demand a quid pro quo? That is, did he require Ukraine to do something specific before the U.S. would release aid money? Or did he simply request it?

(2) Did Ukraine’s leaders believe that aid would be withheld unless they complied with Trump’s dictum? Apparently not, at least until several weeks after the phone call. “How can there be a genuine quid pro quo,” Trump supporters ask, “if the people allegedly being coerced don’t know about it?”

Quid pro quo in Ukraine? No, not yet BY Sharyl Attkinson,

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/467079-quid-pro-quo-in-ukraine-no-not-yet

Quid pro no.

The current impeachment debate is being framed in terms of whether or not there was a “quid pro quo”— as if that is the bar that will determine whether or not President Trump did something egregious.

There are big flaws with this framing, as well as with the use of the term. 

Diplomatic quid pro quo — requiring certain actions, behavior or “conditions” in return for U.S. aid — is common, according to current and former diplomats I spoke with, and foreign policy guidance. “Under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, the President may determine the terms and conditions under which most forms of assistance are provided.”

The notion that there’s something inherently wrong with this sort of foreign-aid diplomacy is raising concern among some career diplomats. A former Obama administration State Department official told me that, by controversializing this common practice, “the Democrats are basically hamstringing any future president.” He adds: “That’s why this is a constitutional moment.”

It is true that few Americans would think it’s appropriate for a U.S. president to use his foreign aid diplomacy to set conditions to receive “dirt” on a political opponent. But the available information is proving to be a far cry from the original “whistleblower” allegations that Trump “solicit[ed] interference from a foreign country” in the 2020 presidential election, in quid pro quo fashion. 

Foreign aid is widely considered a tool to allow the U.S. “access and influence in the domestic and foreign affairs of other states,” particularly “national security policy.” It also “helps governments achieve mutual cooperation on a wide range of issues.”

The Case for Indicting John Brennan-He was a fount of criminal leaks during Spygate. George Neumayr

https://spectator.org/the-case-for-indicting-john-brennan/

Former CIA director John Brennan calls the Justice Department’s widening probe into Spygate’s origins “bizarre.” It has no “legal basis,” he bleats.

What’s bizarre is that the expanding inquiry didn’t happen earlier. Brennan’s responsibility for criminal leaks during the Obama administration’s investigation of Trump has been obvious for at least two years. Even Trump hater Peter Strzok, the FBI liaison to John Brennan, couldn’t believe the leaks coming out of his shop. Referring to Brennan’s agents as “sisters,” Strzok said to his mistress Lisa Page, “our sisters have begun leaking like mad. Scorned and worried and political, they’re kicking in to overdrive.”

The “leaking like mad” began in the thick of the 2016 campaign, as the feverishly partisan John Brennan sought to sabotage Donald Trump before Election Day. Has John Durham, the U.S. attorney assigned to the probe of the Obama administration’s spying on Trump, talked to Harry Reid about Brennan’s leaking? He should. Recall Brennan’s blatant disclosure of classified information about the investigation to the former Nevada senator in the late summer/early fall of 2016. Reid has told reporters that Brennan used him as the conduit for that leak against Trump during the campaign: “Why do you think he called me?”

Ruthie Blum: Benny Gantz’s Speech-statesmanship with deadly serious flaw

https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Right-from-Wrong-What-Gantzs-speech-revealed-605718

Upon officially receiving the mandate from President Reuven Rivlin to take a stab at establishing the next government, Blue and White Party chairman Benny Gantz put on a noteworthy performance.

After spending the past four weeks refusing to accept any of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposals for a national-unity coalition, Gantz took to the podium at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem on Wednesday night with the peculiar air of someone who had just won a landslide victory, yet delivered what can only be described as a campaign speech. He couldn’t have been more blatant about his belief that a third round of Knesset elections is in the cards if he had said so in no uncertain terms.

But then, waxing poetic and disingenuous is something at which Gantz has grown proficient since he first threw his hat in the ring ahead of the April 9 elections, and on which he greatly improved before the September 17 do-over – even with the occasional malapropisms that have provided the public, punditry and cast of the political satire TV show, Eretz Nehederet, with fodder for laughter, if not ridicule.

There was nothing funny about his mandate-acceptance address, however. On the contrary, it was a well-rehearsed exercise in feigned statesmanship with deadly serious flaws. Chief among these was Gantz’s effort to present himself as all things to all people: to the Israeli populace and the whole Jewish world, to the periphery and the center, to the ultra-Orthodox and National-Religious; to Arabs and Druze, to members of the LGBTQ community, and to the country’s young men and women whose military service earned them the right to enjoy chilling out at bars.

Gantz described Blue and White as a faction that came into being eight months ago to tackle “the schism and rift in Israeli society, out of a deep sense of responsibility on my part and on the part of my co-leaders, Yair Lapid, Moshe ‘Bogie’ Ya’alon and Gabi Ashkenazi. We put aside every personal consideration… and made a commitment to put Israel before all else.”