Saturday, April 5, 2014

CHICKENS ARE COMING HOME TO ROOST:

In Mozilla Case, The Left's Intolerance Is Out Of The Closet

Posted 04/04/2014 06:53 PM ET

Eich: Lynched by lemmings. AP View Enlarged Image

Intolerance: The left hounded a CEO from his job over a 2008 donation in favor of a California measure opposing gay marriage. So much for free speech and job performance. This is a descent into mob tyranny and mediocrity.

The dirty work of the left was achieved after Brendan Eich, recently appointed CEO of Mozilla, a software company based in Silicon Valley, was forced out of the company he helped found, all to feed the maw of political correctness.

Eich's "crime" had nothing to do with his job performance, let alone the inclusive work atmosphere he fostered at Mozilla. All it involved was free speech, through a $1,000 donation he made to express support of 2008's Proposition 8 ballot measure.

That triggered grandstanding and resignations from staff at Mozilla, a 70,000-strong petition from another group, and the dating website OKCupid blocking access by Mozilla's Firefox browser.

It was sickeningly out of proportion to what after all is a mainstream point of view held by millions of Americans — including President Obama, at least until last year — and has nothing to do with whether one likes or respects gay people.

No, it's all about the lemminglike groupthink agenda of certain gay lobbies and the ideological intolerance inculcated into the young by academic elites.

Moves like this serve to create fear and silence, and with it a court of artifice and hypocrisy — not openness, persuasion and dialogue. Did the baying mobs who chased Eich out change any minds? Nope.

All they did was get word out that dialogue is out of the question and that political correctness trumps merit, a very bad sign for a merit-oriented community like Silicon Valley, where nonconformity, wild ideas and hostility to formalities until now have fueled its dynamism.

With Mozilla's leadership now decapitated, the company, including its gay employees, will suffer.

And with political correctness ascendant, it's inevitable that Mozilla's gray, Soviet-style bureaucrats, mouthing the party line by heart and producing nothing of value, will become the stagnant norm there.

Friday, April 4, 2014

ADMIXTURE OF POLITICS AND BUSINESS. Such conjoining of interests has been going on forever, however it always ends badly for consumers and the taxpayer.

Ready to Smirk

How Comcast bought the Democratic Party

Barack Obama, David Cohen / AP

BY: Matthew Continetti
April 4, 2014 4:59 am

The communications giant Comcast announced in February that it would buy Time Warner Cable for $45 billion, creating the largest cable provider in America,with more than 33 million customers. That is about one third of the U.S. cable and satellite television market. FCC approval is required for the merger to go into effect. Critics of the deal say it would lessen competition and lead to even shoddier customer service. They are probably right, as all of us will soon find out, because there is little chance the merger will be stopped. Comcast, Time Warner, and their political fixers have spent years preparing for this moment—by buying off the Democratic Party.

Comcast, which employs more than 100 lobbyists, spent almost $19 million last year on lobbying activities. Its president and CEO, Brian L. Roberts, is a golf buddy of President Obama’s, and a Democratic donor who has contributed thousands of dollars not only to the president’s campaigns, butalso to the Democratic Party of Pennsylvania, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the DNC Services Corporation, and to Steny Hoyer, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Bob Casey. Roberts’ executive vice president, David Cohen, is a former aide to Democratic bigwig Ed Rendell. Cohen skirts lobbying regulations through loopholes, has raised more than $2 million for Obama since 2007, and in 2011 hosted a DNC fundraiser at which the president called him “friend.” Cohen has visited the White House 14 times since 2010, including two visits to the Oval Office. He attended the recent dinner for President Hollande of France.

Cohen plays a major role in the Comcast Foundation, which has disbursed more than $3 billion since 2001, primarily to “groups that serve African-Americans, Latinos, and Asians” and other segments of the Democratic coalition. You will be surprised to learn that many of the groups to whom the Comcast Foundation has donated now support the proposed merger. Of the $33 million Comcast has spent on political campaigns since 1989, more than half, or some $18 million, has gone to Democrats. Barack Obama is number one on the list of the top ten recipients of Comcast’s largesse. There are four Republicans on the list.

Comcast’s in-kind contributions to the Democratic Party are more difficult to calculate. In a media environment that already tilts leftward, the NBC networks, which Comcast owns, distinguish themselves as especially pro-Obama. Comcast has one channel, MSNBC, which is almost entirely devoted to furthering the president’s agenda and the broader priorities of the American progressive movement. How do you put a price on the contributions of the invaluable Ed, Al, Chris, Chris, Rachel, and Lawrence? Where would the Democratic Party be today without The Reid Report? They give so much.

MSNBC shares staff and resources with NBC News, whose chief foreign affairs correspondent is a personal friend and tireless advocate of Hillary Clinton’s. NBC Sports, which during its recent Olympics coverage bent over backwards to apologize for Russia, has on its payroll the liberal pink eye victim Bob Costas, famous for advocating gun control during a sporting event. President Obama and Michelle Obama are regulars on the Jimmy Fallon show, and Joe Biden was the first guest on Seth Myers’s Late Night. Biden is always good for laughs.

The company Comcast wants to absorb shares its partisan leaning. Since 1989, Time Warner has given $29 million to political campaigns, and morethan half of that money went to Democrats. The top three recipients of contributions from Time Warner’s employees, their family members, and PACs are Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry. President Obama comes first, with more than $1 million. Hillary Clinton comes next, with some $400,000. (Sexism?) Time Warner’s PAC has given lavishly to the DNC Services Corporation, the DCC, and the DSCC.

Time Warner’s CEO, Robert Marcus, has donated $8,500 to Democrats since 2010. His giving also favors Democrats over Republicans. So far this cycle Time Warner and its employees have lavished support on Alison Grimes, Cory Booker, Kay Hagan, Mark Takano, and Henry Waxman. They are all—well, you know what they are. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, who has received donations from both companies, had to recuse himself from Senate business with the merger when it was revealed that his brother, Robert, wasrepresenting Time Warner. Comcast and Time Warner are on the list of companies subject to an ongoing Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Investigation. Will Reid and Schumer return the money donated by companies under investigation for shady business practices overseas?

The chairman of the FCC, Tom Wheeler, is a venture capitalist and former lobbyist for telecom interests. Obama appointed him in 2013. “Comcast Lobbyist Cohen Meets His Match in FCC’s Wheeler,” read a recent headline from Reuters, but the adversarial relationship implied therein seems to me to be vastly overstated. In fact “match” is a good word to describe the similarities between these two men. Both are influence brokers that have successfully navigated the highly complex and highly lucrative maze of telecom politics. Both are Obama campaign bundlers. Wheeler raised somewhere between $200,000 and $500,000 for Obama’s first presidential race, personally maxing out to the campaign and to the DNC, and bundled at least $500,000 for the president’s reelection. Fortunately, we can rest assured that none of this, not Wheeler’s ties to his industry, nor the specter of regulatory capture, nor the shared political agenda of regulator and “industry partner,” nor the prospect of future employment, will affect Wheeler’s decision in any way.

It is something of a political irony that Republicans, who for ideological reasons are pro-business, have not raised questions about, or objections to, the conjoining of two Democratic institutions into a media trust. If Republicans had any sense, they would wage war against Comcast and its Democratic enablers and turn the merger into a live issue. Needless to say they have not done so, perhaps in the wrongheaded and futile hope of scraps from the table of the Comcast cable beast, perhaps in the foolish and selfish notion that David Cohen may one day add another man to his company of lobbyists.

“I have been struck by the absence of rational, knowledgeable voices in this space coming out in opposition or even raising serious questions about the transaction,” Cohen said in a recent C-SPAN interview. I am struck by the same absence, but I am not surprised by it. At this writing opposition to the merger seems to be limited to the Writers Guild of America, Washington Postcolumnist Catherine Rampell, and Senator Al Franken of Minnesota. This is what happens when you buy one political party and disarm the other.

Imagine the noises from MSNBC if the merger involved Rupert Murdoch or Glenn Beck or Sheldon Adelson or the K-O-C-H brothers. Criticism would lead the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, Costas would interrupt aSunday Night Football game to decry corporate consolidation, Fallon would crack wise in his monologue. And who are the opponents of high prices, horrible customer service, and sub-standard Xfinity packages left with instead? Stuart Smalley.

HAVE FOLLOWED this blog OFF AND ON FOR YEARS. IT NOW RESTS IN THE BOSOM OF THE LEFT, WHICH JUST MIGHT BLOW A FEW MINDS

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

STATE OF RACE RELATIONS IN AMERICA: it's safe to say race relations have never been worse in the US since, well, perhaps since blacks were freed from the curse of slavery in 1863. This sad state of affairs, and its cause, are detailed in this article from the Jewish Review for all to read and weep. Clearly the Democrat Party has used race as its primary tool for winning election for many years. Clinton's claim he was the first "black" President is but one of many examples of the Democrat Party's basic strategy since the 1960's of divide and conquer. Anyone who thought and voted for Obama because his election would put race to bed in this country was sadly mistaken. Obama's choice of AG alone put the lie to this thought. The current epidemic of what was called "wilding" in the '60s, is the latest manifestation of dismal status of race relations in this country. It is doubtful this state of affairs will ever improve as long as the Democrat Party pursues its election strategy of identity politics which includes setting race against race.

FINANCIAL CRISES II? One has to wonder whether the current interest rate environment can continue, given the distortions artificially induced depressed interest rates produce. It seems like Japan has had decades of depressed interest rates and the performance of its economy has been dismal, to put it mildly. In the meantime life is good for homebuyers:

By Megan McArdle

Here are words that would warm the cockles of any financial reporter's heart: "It's easier to get a loan these days for a new home or new car than it's been in five years."

I mean, the financial crisis may have been hell on the rest of y'all, but for business journalists, it was the Full Employment for Reporters Program.

OK, so maybe we're not headed into "Financial Crisis II: The Legend Returns." But given all the damage done by loose loan standards, I think this is worth some heavy eyebrow-knitting.

It's also worth thinking about the secondary effects.

The obvious one is on house prices. As the U.S. housing market has slowly inched toward recovery (with a bit of a rocket boost in some areas), there's been one fly in the ointment: interest rates. Right now, they're near rock-bottom. What happens to home prices when interest rates finally, inevitably, start to rise? Any asset that is financed largely on credit is bound to have a little setback when the price of credit goes up.

On the other hand, right now credit has another "price": credit standards for loan issuance. If you can get a mortgage, credit is very, very cheap right now. But only people with very good credit scores can get loans at the moment. For the rest of the market, the price of credit is effectively infinite.

As those less-than-perfect buyers come back into the market, they'll increase demand somewhat. This may be enough to offset the downward pressure on prices from rising interest rates -- especially if higher interest rates make banks more willing to lend to those less-than-perfect prospects. After all, as real interest rates rise, there's more room in your profit margin to lose a few defaults.

For a while now, I've been watching my local housing market the way I watch a horror movie: with only one eye open, ready to shut them both tight when the mayhem starts. But if loosening credit standards go along with rising interest rates, we may have a few more reels before things get gory.

To contact the author of this post:
Megan McArdle at mmcardle3@bloomberg.net.

THERE'S MORE THAN JUST A LITTLE TRUTH IN THIS POINT:

Ted Kennedy, the most destructive leftist in the US government between FDR and Obama, is infamous as the driving force behind the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, an act of treason that has succeeded in disastrously altering America’s demographics by importing millions of Third-Worlders who lack American values and can be counted on to vote for the sort of socialist tyrants they left behind when they came to here to climb aboard the welfare gravy train. Amnesty for illegal aliens would double down on this insanity, almost certainly pushing us past the white minority tipping point that makes any advocate of limited government unelectable, as in California and New York City.

McCain is right that it would be appropriate to name an amnesty bill after Chappaquiddick Ted, if not Benedict Arnold. But appallingly, he means it as a compliment. McCain is fanatically in favor of amnesty, despite having insolently lied to his constituents before the last election that he hadlearned his lesson.

As Hot Air notes, this isn’t the first time McCain has praised the Liberal Lion while trying to shove through amnesty. From HuffPo, January 2013:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) hailed the late Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy on Monday as a bipartisan group of senators laid out new principles for comprehensive immigration reform — perhaps handing opponents a weapon.

Kennedy and McCain led the effort for broad-based immigration reform that failed nearly six years ago, and McCain said this new push was nearly the same.

“If we do succeed, and I think we will, it will be a testimonial to Ted Kennedy’s effort years ago that laid the groundwork for this agreement,” McCain said. “You will find that this agreement has very little difference from that of the legislation that was led by Sen. Kennedy some years go.”

WHO YOU GOING TO BELIEVE, ME OR YOUR LYING EYES?

President Obama is going to make a statement about Obamacare this afternoon. He’s likely to crow about that number that just magically appeared last night.

That number is so raw and unfiltered that it’s meaningless. Supposing that it’s even a real number and not something that this dishonest cabal just made up.

First, there are the cancellations. Fox counted up all the cancellations in each state that are directly attributable to Obamacare and came up with 6.2 million. Subtract that from the 7 million sign-ups and we’re at less than 1 million.

Some number of those who had their insurance killed by the man who promised they could keep it would have been expected to sign-up for a new plan within Obamacare. That RAND study we reported on Monday finds that two-thirds of Obamacare’s “new”sign-ups come from Americans who previously had health insurance. By that reckoning, then, maybe two million sign-ups under Obamacare are actually from people who did not have insurance previously. Then, we have to take into account that of the final number, some unknown number of them have not paid their first premium. The White House has claimed that it doesn’t even keep track of that number — even though it’s the most important number when counting sign-ups. Customers who have not paid have not actually bought the product. They’re not really enrolled. Additionally, some of those who lost their plans because of Obamacare have not been able to buy new plans. They were insured. Now they’re uninsured. Some of those who did pay their first premium failed to pay their second. Will Obama take any of these losses against the claimed 7 million into account?

So whichever way we go, the real number of new sign-ups is far lower than the 7 million goal that Sebelius stated and then denied, and about which the Obama administration is now crowing. President Obama, who is probably the most dishonest man to ever hold the White House, will come out this afternoon and crow about a false and deliberately falsified number. He will know that the number he is bragging about it is false. The media will know it too, but most won’t bother to do the math.

When the Democrats passed Obamacare, they claimed that it would do two things. It would help (or force) the uninsured to get insurance. It would also reduce costs for the average American family. Obama directly promised that it would reduce premiums for American families by as much as $2500 per year.

Judging Obamacare by its original criteria, not the sales job that Obama and his hirelings are using now, Obamacare is a failure. Costs have gone up. The number of uninsured after Obamacare will still be in the tens of millions. And the employer mandate has not even kicked in yet.

THE ABOVE WAS WRITTEN ON APRIL FOOL'S DAY BUT IT WAS SERIOUS. THIS ADMINISTRATION IS BUILT ON LIES BY CONSUMMATE LIARS.