Patterico at PJ Media: No, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: Socialism, not Capitalism, Is the “Irredeemable” System
I have a new piece at PJ Media. It’s a long one, coming in at over 3000 words. It’s a cri de coeur against socialism — a reaction to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s ridiculous comment that capitalism is “irredeemable.” The title is Meet Two Men Whose Lives Were Ruined by Socialism. Here’s how it starts:
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whom my guest blogger JVW memorably calls “everyone’s favorite daffy socialist niece,” has announced another dopey opinion: that capitalism is “irredeemable.”.
There are, of course, countless ways to refute this incredibly uninformed and ungrateful opinion. One could point out statistics showing that capitalism has brought more people out of poverty than any other system in history. Capitalism has saved billions of lives, even as socialism (the government ownership and operation of the means of production) has killed tens of millions.
But, as a famous socialist murderer (sorry for the repetition and redundancy) once reportedly said: “If only one man dies of hunger, that is a tragedy. If millions die, that’s only statistics.” So today, I will skip the statistics, and tell the stories of two men whose lives were ruined by socialism in North Korea: Shin Dong-hyuk and Masaji Ishikawa.
These two people share a rare distinction: they escaped the hell that is socialist North Korea and lived to tell about it. I recently finished books about their lives, and I thought I’d share some of the details I learned with you, the reader — because although we all know that North Korea is a bad place, these books provide a compelling picture of the reality that its citizens suffer through, both inside and outside the labor camps. And the books together paint a somewhat less than flattering picture of socialism, to put it mildly.
It is one of the grimmest posts I have ever written, but I hope you read it, and pass it along to others.
[Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.]
But Pat, capitalism only works for people who work to get ahead, it’s no good for deadbeats, drug addicts, and folks who just don’t want to work.
Kevin M (21ca15) — 3/11/2019 @ 12:40 amOccasio-Cortez isn’t just a Marxist. She’s also a Malthusian, giving a fusion of the two most incredibly WRONG social theories yet devised.
Kevin M (21ca15) — 3/11/2019 @ 12:46 amIf creative destruction capitalism was so great and free trade libertarianism was so beneficial to american workers capitalists wouldn’t need to continually try and stop them from voting. do you morons no why elections are held on tuesdays? to keep the workers from voting. that is why laws had to be past to allow workers to leave work and vote without losing their jobs. if medicare and medicade is evil socialism why don’t libertarian capitalist run on ending them instead of trump saying he will protect them. roosevelt protected capitalists from a date with a ditch in 1932 and they have been mad at him every since for saving their worthless lives!
lany (4ae6ff) — 3/11/2019 @ 1:28 amOver 3,000 words in the era of 280 characters?!?!
Wow.
“The medium is the message.” – Marshall McLuhan, 1964
__________
The question to ask is why there is a rise in revisiting interest again– especially w/t young; could be trickle down has failed too many and meant trickled on for far too many and their families for 40 years.
“Senator… don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining.” – Fletcher [John Vernon] The Outlaw Josey Wales 1976
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Conservatives have hurled spears at socialism – chiefly in the guise of attacking government social programs- for decades. ‘Barry Goldwater in 1960 called for Republican unity against John F. Kennedy and “the blueprint for socialism presented by the Democrats.”‘ -source, pinkwiki.
That went well, didn’t it. Today, a Trump Tweet would simply read: ‘Barry was a loser. I am a winner. No collusion! MAGA!”
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 2:15 amyour so woke, DCSCA, move to N. Korea.
mg (8cbc69) — 3/11/2019 @ 2:49 amGood post, Patterico.
nk (dbc370) — 3/11/2019 @ 4:21 amAOC knows very little about the fight Americans have to save this country. It is more than possible to turn this around. The voters are on the clock.
mg (8cbc69) — 3/11/2019 @ 4:39 amThe only part of capitalism Socialists abjure is having to work for the good life.
nk (dbc370) — 3/11/2019 @ 4:43 amOne might argue that…well….Finland is not exactly North Korea….or Germany is no China. And that some socialism does not lead inevitably to a Path to Serfdom. However, the push for “democratic socialism” has many insidious elements to it. First, it starts by building a perception that some “basic need” is not being met….be it housing, health care, education, food, or employment….or that the market allocation is fundamentally unfair or unequal. This then leads to the idea that a politician can design a better system…with the aid of someone else’s money. This despite the fact that government is hardly agile…..and it works as much on political calculations….as it does on non-ideological facts on the ground. Markets quickly resolve bullsh*t whereas politicians double down on it….spin it….and inevitably blame the other side for not investing sufficiently in their plan.
Some will argue that Medicare rebuts all of this….that the majority love it….and that this suggests medicare for all. Just do the math. California’s medicare for all would cost $400B annually; New York’s would cost $173B. You just can’t raise that money….I mean without a massive payroll or income tax increase. But then there are also waiting lists to see specialists and the inevitable drop off in innovation…especially the development of new drugs. Those that then pivot to a quasi-nationalized system need to be honest about who gets screwed by a two-tiered system. It seems that socialism becomes the end goal….having politicians get the power to dole out that basic need…in exchange for votes. Just keep electing me and I will protect your “free education” that I will give you with someone else’s money….
Socialism works on the premise of the well-intentioned (benevolent?) government expert who doesn’t have that evil profit-motive of the capitalist…just figuring out how to distribute resources….and pay for it all. It misses that it subtracts out so much creativity and dynamism that it is fundamentally inefficient. Some societies are OK with this inefficiency….they are collectively OK with a lower living standard. That just not what drives this country.
AJ_Liberty (165d19) — 3/11/2019 @ 6:37 amInteresting post. Judging by the off-hand comments made by a few of my nieces and nephews who are current college students or recent grads, they’ve been fed the virtues of socialism during the course of that education. I know they didn’t get it at home. I’ll be passing this along.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/11/2019 @ 6:39 am3 and 4… is that the best you’ve got? You read that post and that’s what you’ve come away with?
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/11/2019 @ 7:00 amHere’s to better days for the both of you.
He does remove all doubt, a link about pedro Luis boitel does not attach.
Narciso (d07d60) — 3/11/2019 @ 7:07 amA woman has twins and places them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named “Ahmal”. The other goes to a family in Spain; they name him “Juan”.
Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal.
Her husband responds, “They’re twins! If you’ve seen Juan… you’ve seen Ahmal.”
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/11/2019 @ 7:08 amof course certain facts are ‘unsafe’
https://www.thecubanhistory.com/2012/02/pedro-luis-boitel/
narciso (d1f714) — 3/11/2019 @ 7:29 amThe Cuban analog to the Cristeros one might surmise. Shame.
urbanleftbehind (1cb9fd) — 3/11/2019 @ 7:35 amSo I saw kids wearing the che shirt, I had to explain to them why that was inappropriate
Narciso (d07d60) — 3/11/2019 @ 7:50 amYou’ve been cribbing that new One Day at Time Netflix joint…the grandma had to school the hipsterish version of Schneider on the inappropriateness of such a shirt in the company of a Cuban-American family.
urbanleftbehind (5eecdb) — 3/11/2019 @ 8:08 amWhen we aren’t even allowed to associate the color red with the Left — see your nearest electoral map — associating North Korea with socialism/AOC/Bernie is sure to convince your average millennial.
And, about Finland:
Munroe (a257fb) — 3/11/2019 @ 8:10 amhttps://www.reuters.com/article/us-finland-government-idUSKCN1QP0R6
The word ‘men’ in the last paragraph of the quote is not in the original.
“So I saw kids wearing the che shirt, I had to explain to them why that was inappropriate”
It’s not inappropriate if they are trying to signal their historical ignorance.
harkin (e15868) — 3/11/2019 @ 8:24 amNo I dont need to, I witnessed it, then again there’s the people republic of Chicago coming up, probably Haywoodville.
Narciso (d07d60) — 3/11/2019 @ 8:28 amThe broken-clock lizards are supporting the same-sex married one, I think we’ll dodge somethings. They put up the wrong Daley, as your boy Lord Black intonated at the very end of the article from last week.
urbanleftbehind (5eecdb) — 3/11/2019 @ 8:35 amIf socialism is “the government ownership and operation of the means of production'”, how should we describe the military/Industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about?
It makes little sense to accept monopoly/oligopoly economic power under the cover of government “”regulation,” as a “free enterprise” good thing while railing against “Medicare for All” as a bad thing because it is is “socialistic.”
John B Boddie (66f464) — 3/11/2019 @ 9:53 amSo jew hatred and single payer, is there anything you’re not for:
Narciso (d07d60) — 3/11/2019 @ 10:02 amhttps://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/04/giving-the-boot
Well written, but like most systems there are degrees of implementation. The fact that we have some socialist programs (Social Security, Medicare, Public schools) doesn’t mean we’re inevitably going to become North Korea.
Time123 (b53270) — 3/11/2019 @ 10:12 amTo me, socialist means workers are told they collectively own and manage the means of production, even though it’s really the ruling party calling the shots.
Social Security, welfare, public schools are social programs.
harkin (e15868) — 3/11/2019 @ 10:42 amGreat post Patterico.
Whenever I debate some folks that we need ‘MOAR SOCIALISM’ by resorting to: Look at Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, Stalinist Soviet Untion… their retort is literally some variation of “but true socialism has never be tried!“.
I cant facepalm hard enough…
This is one of those things that we must constantly fight against. Especially at the polls… even if it means we vote for the GOP party where they have their own problems.
At this stage, I can see that the red states getting redder and the blue states getting bluer…and I can only pray that we can stem the rise of American Socialisms…
whembly (b9d411) — 3/11/2019 @ 10:57 am@5. Personal attacks ain’t an argument. AOC & Omar are click bait– so you bite.
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@8. That would have been news in coal mines and sweat shops. It’s just another back-to-basics-wedgie.
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@16. So somebody saw HS kids in OC’s affluent Newport Beach partying w/a swastika drinking game shouting Nazi slogans, too; Eva Schloss, Anne Frank’s half-sister, had to explain to them why that was inappropriate.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 11:00 am> capitalism only works for people who work to get ahead, it’s no good for deadbeats, drug addicts, and folks who just don’t want to work.
because the people of the rust belt whose jobs have moved overseas and who can’t get comparably paying jobs don’t want to work?
capitalism has many benefits, but it *does not* allocate success based on someone’s willingness to work — willingness to work hard is not sufficient to economic success; if you’re working hard to produce something that someone else can produce for less, you don’t get ahead.
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 3/11/2019 @ 11:01 amWanna know an effective way to get them to question ‘the virtures of socialism’?
This works well if they have some successes in college or recent grad:
-In school: “redistribute” their high grades down to a C to bring up otherwise failing students up to a C.
-Recent Grad: “pickup more tuition bills for other students in school” since they’ve ‘made it’ and can afford it.
Watch their heads go splodey. 😉 I’ve done this to neighbor’s kids with great success. 😀
whembly (b9d411) — 3/11/2019 @ 11:01 am10. Remind’em you’re now retired [congrats Colonel BTW] w/socialist SS and Medicare bennies to collect in your future. Or they will remind you. 😉
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 11:07 am“Wanna know an effective way to get them to question ‘the virtures of socialism’?”
Wanna know an effective way to get them to question ‘the failings of socialism?”
Call everything the government does socialism, call every democrat socialist, and dilute the word to the point where it’s meaningless.
Davethulhu (fab944) — 3/11/2019 @ 11:13 am…and this is why debates between socialism vs capitalism devolve.
I wish we can all understand by “what is it you mean by socialism” and “what is it you mean by capitalism”.
We have a blend between the two systems.
AOC (et. and el) is advocating full-on socialism to the point of Marxism. Not, swing the US “a little bit” towards some socialism.
whembly (b9d411) — 3/11/2019 @ 11:20 amAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a failed Entrepreneur whose business closed owing $1,870.36 in taxes to New York State.
She announced the company in a You Tube video on Oct 16, 2011:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pFAayEMqDM
This video site is still up, but who knwos if it’ll be taken down later?
Brook Avenue Press was supposed to publish children’s books. It was going to “develop and identify stories and literature in urban areas like New York, specifically communities like The Bronx.”
It never published any books, as far as the New York Post could tell, but not before getting some government help. It got some cheap office space courtesy of a city-subsidized program to help small businesses in The Bronx. Space there rented at $99 (for a “virtual office”) and $275 per month for local start-ups.
Here is a November 16, 2010 New York Post story about this planned “business incubator”
https://nypost.com/2010/11/16/bronx-business-incubator-to-open-soon
She was one of those mentioned in a later New York Daily News Jul 17, 2012 news story about it:
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bronx/diverse-group-startups-thriving-city-sponsored-sunshine-bronx-business-incubator-hunts-point-article-1.1115489
New York State dissolved the company in October 2016. The defunct company was slapped with a warrant for $1,870.36 in corporate taxes on July 6, 2017, by which time Alexandria Ocasio Cortez had already started running for Congress. The notice was sent to the company’s address on Garrison Avenue, from which, undoubtedly, it wss long gone.
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 3/11/2019 @ 11:27 amCritical You Tube video about Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (which collects I guess her greatest hits)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sMZNcxdoCA
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 3/11/2019 @ 11:29 amI think corporations have limited liability, so alexandria Ocasio Cortez may ahve been correct in ignoring these taxes. Withekld wages may be different, as is a personal guaranty of a business loan or rent, whcih she probably didn’t do.
What she also probably didn’t hsve was any kind of a realistic business plan. She apaprently expected to be paid for finding books. Without any real reason to suppose that she could find or develop good books, or for selling them to any publishers. Or for how to publish books. From her quites in the 2012 story, I think t this company was actually supposed to work like a literary agency, but it called itself a publisher.
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 3/11/2019 @ 11:37 am@32. Hardly a devolution; the wedgie is painting economic fear w/a political veneer. It’s a routine ploy. Simple; so simiple, Trump will run with it.
Like Dems hating Jews.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 11:43 am@32. Postscript. Of course it’s a mix. A mix that expands and contracts w/t times. AOC is just a little freshman congresscritter who lights up the camera. Louis Gohmert could only dream for her kind of saturation media attention.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 11:49 amwoke hate is the new norm
mg (8cbc69) — 3/11/2019 @ 11:52 amYou should also check out The Aquariums Of Pyongyang and In Order To Live, by escapees of NoKo.
Mitch (341ca0) — 3/11/2019 @ 12:00 pmTrump 101: bait ‘n’ hate.
‘Bout time for a ‘Rocket Man” to “disappoint” our Captain w/a missile launch; C’mon, NorKo, light that candle; the one on the pad, not in the homes of your people.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 12:03 pmHanlon’s Razor only goes so far and at some point you’re going to have to face the fact that these people aren’t ignorant, they’re evil. The Soviet Union didn’t last as long as it did because Russians are inherently stupid, it lasted as long as it did because it was built on a solid foundation of corpses.
Jerryskids (702a61) — 3/11/2019 @ 12:06 pmI address that very point near the end, you know.
Patterico (141030) — 3/11/2019 @ 12:08 pm30… thanks… looking at the amount of money both I and my employer put into both SS and Medicare over nearly 46 years, I look at it as an investment. In the case of SS, if invested even conservatively in S&P 500 over those years, that amount would’ve amounted to much more than my wife and I will collect in benefits… which is the beauty of compounded interest.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/11/2019 @ 12:09 pmHere is the response for non-clickers:
Maybe in a future post I will address the canard that Scandinavia does well because of socialism. Meanwhile I am surprised that no smartass has yet lectured me about Hayek’s support for a safety net…
Patterico (141030) — 3/11/2019 @ 12:14 pm“and dilute the word to the point where it’s meaningless.”
What is “Undocumented”, Alex…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/11/2019 @ 12:20 pm@9. “… they are OK with a collectively lower living standard.’
The U.S. is okay- given the size, ranked #13, behind #1 Denmark, #3 Finland, #8 Germany– not to mention #4 Australia, #2 Switzerland, #9 New Zealand and so on. But we’re sure beatin’ them big, bad Rooskies– they’re ranked #59!
https://www.numbeo.com/quality-of-life/rankings_by_country.jsp
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 12:20 pm@43. Unless you’d been lucky enough to have avoided the S&L mess, sold Enron early or invested in a Trump casino– and missed the ’87 and ’08 crashes. 😉
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 12:28 pmPatterico, thank you for a good essay. I think that folks just don’t understand about life under socialism. But then, our Media Overlords have been working overtime to sell it for decades.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 3/11/2019 @ 12:40 pm@48. Some do; lived in socialist country. Great medical, dependable transit– and their socialist media gave the world, among other things, Monty Python’s Flying Circus. OTOH, mutton makes for lousy eats.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 12:47 pm47… that’s all taken into consideration. Long-term investment is a winner and wealth accumulation spurred by compounded interest is, as well. That’s the ticket.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/11/2019 @ 12:58 pmI read the whole article, it was moving and well written but i don’t think you addressed limited socialism very thoroughly.
You wrote the part below.
I don’t want to get into a “No True Scotsman” debate. But I think the following are socialist policies or institutions to varying degrees
-Medicare
-Social Security
-Public Schools
-Public Roads
-Public assistance for the poor.
-Pubic utilities
-Public ownership to natural resources
Do we disagree on the definition of the word? Or are you saying that the existence of these things in our society will inevitably lead to starving police state? I know there are libertarian arguments around children and natural resources but Social Security and public assistance are socialist policies.
Time123 (b53270) — 3/11/2019 @ 12:59 pmSimon, do you know where the word “parasite” comes from? The first parasites to be so named were humans. Athenians, in fact. Who would frequent the parasition, the Athenian communal dining hall, for a free lunch and dinner, more than was considered necessary for demonstrating neighborliness and social cohesion.
Socrates, in the sentencing portion of his Apology, asked that his sentence be a lifetime pension and a permanent table setting at the parasition. The Athenians consulted with their medical panels and decided that “palliative medications and death with dignity” would be more appropriate.
nk (dbc370) — 3/11/2019 @ 1:00 pmIf you can’t bear arms, your not a free country. You become a subject in a no go zone.
mg (8cbc69) — 3/11/2019 @ 1:04 pmbut they defend Maduro against a social democrat like guaido, which is standard left wing strategy since the 2nd international, where they did the same in germany, because they saw them as the greater enemy, jan valtin, aka albert krug, shows the mo in the union movement,
narciso (d1f714) — 3/11/2019 @ 1:15 pmthat must be some of that civility perry is always pushing,
https://dailycaller.com/2019/03/11/woman-gun-hearing-threatening-shoot-lawmaker-nra/
narciso (d1f714) — 3/11/2019 @ 1:19 pmIf you can’t bear arms, your not a free country. You become a subject in a no go zone.
How about owning land? Nobody except the Queen owns land in England and Wales. They lease it from the government. Great Britain is more of an example of a model farm than it is of a Socialist state, with the sheep hanging on in quiet desperation.
nk (dbc370) — 3/11/2019 @ 1:19 pmBrutal story. Thank you for writing it.
Unfortunately, the usual suspects will just say that it’s not the same socialism as what they desire. But you cannot change human nature.
NJRob (5d870a) — 3/11/2019 @ 1:20 pmhttp://www.foxnews.com/politics/cory-booker-says-meat-centric-standard-american-diet-not-sustainable.amp
NJRob (5d870a) — 3/11/2019 @ 1:22 pmspealing of animal farm
https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/03/gillibrand-aide-resigned-last-summer-over-handling-of-her-sexual-harassment-complaint/
narciso (d1f714) — 3/11/2019 @ 1:26 pmNon exploitive capitalism/welfare state keeps capitalists out of the re-education camp. Most americans want medicare for all and free public education including college. Capitalists want more defense spending and also spending on private prisions more law enforcement and less people getting health care in emergency rooms so they don’t have to wait in line. Otto von bismarck a conservative invented the welfare state in germany to stop the poor from constant revolutions and a lot of rich people being hanged in the street. Rich conservatives motto from lesmiserabal “the law in all its magnificent equality for bids the rich man as well as the poor man from sleeping under bridges!” Populism not milton friedman/ayn rand libertarian conservatism is republican partys future.
lany (05f90b) — 3/11/2019 @ 1:27 pm“This reality will not endear my home country to American socialists, but it’s better to be hated for the right reasons than to be loved for the wrong ones, as the saying goes. Being more like modern Sweden actually means deregulation, free trade, a national school voucher system, partially privatized pensions, no property tax, no inheritance tax, and much lower corporate taxes. Sorry to burst your bubble, Bernie.
Sanders isn’t completely deluded, of course. Sweden and the other Scandinavian countries have experimented with very big government and semi-socialist ideas. There’s just one problem: That experiment coincided almost perfectly with the region’s only sustained period of economic decline over the last 100 years.
Sanders’ image of Scandinavia is just like the rest of his policies: stuck in the 1970s. Until that decade, Sweden and Denmark had grown much faster than other European countries and had become richer than most other countries on the planet, in large part by limiting government and embracing markets. (Norway is a special case, because oil and gas make up 22 percent of GDP, just a few percentage points below Venezuela. So unless Sanders’ policy proposal is to strike oil, the Norwegian example is not relevant.)
During its laissez faire period, between 1850 and 1950, Swedish income per capita increased eightfold as the population doubled. Infant mortality fell from 15 to 2 percent, and life expectancy increased by a whopping 28 years. And all this happened before the welfare state was even a glint in the taxman’s eye.
As late as 1950, total taxes as a percent of GDP in Denmark and Sweden were not just lower than in other European countries but lower than in the U.S.: 20 and 19 percent, respectively, vs. 24 percent in America.
It was at this point, when we Scandinavians had satisfied our thirst, that we thought that we could turn our backs to the well. We began to regulate. We increased taxes and beefed up the public sector. It’s easy to see how foreigners observing the implementation of these unorthodox policies might confuse cause and effect. But those who think the semi-socialism made us rich would also probably look at a snapshot of Bill Gates and conclude that you become the world’s wealthiest man by giving your money away.”
Bernie’s Right—America Should Be More Like Sweden-But not in the way he thinks
https://reason.com/archives/2016/04/18/bernies-rightamerica-should-be/
Just a small taste of a very good article.
Read it all, very informative look at Scandinavian socialism.
harkin (e15868) — 3/11/2019 @ 1:35 pmwar communism came about when capitals as jfk said made peaceful change impossible and violent revolution inevitable. democratic socialism is northern europe. war communism is failing in venezuela. capitalism is failing in honduras el salvador guatamala where american capitalism thru are military/cia interventions installed pro capitalist governments.
lany (05f90b) — 3/11/2019 @ 1:37 pm@61 sweden doesn’t have to spend 30% of its budget on military spending to defend capitalism in client states around the world and keep more people in prisions then russia and china combined.
lany (05f90b) — 3/11/2019 @ 1:41 pmspeaking of socialism for the rich collusion has been proven! never trump pac right to rise took money illegally from chinese government shell company to attack trump.
lany (05f90b) — 3/11/2019 @ 1:47 pm44. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t Hayek’s “safety net” essentially to be implemented through churches and private charities anyway? “Charity” at the barrel of a gun isn’t charity; it’s more properly thought of as righteous theft.
Gryph (08c844) — 3/11/2019 @ 1:53 pmThe sheep with 4 legs are smarter.
mg (8cbc69) — 3/11/2019 @ 2:21 pmAnd hayek as well as von moses were reacting to the welfare statism propounded by Wagner and Moller.
Narciso (0faea5) — 3/11/2019 @ 2:25 pmNeither does the United States. The 2018 budget for DoD was $574 billion, with a total budget of about $4 trillion. That’s roughly 14.3%.
Chuck Bartowski (bc1c71) — 3/11/2019 @ 2:32 pmAnd tastier.
Look, all you’ve got to do to see what Real Socialism Which Has Been Tried For Three Generations is, is to compare the poundage of Kim Jong Un, who just had 90,000 bottles of vodka being smuggled to him seized, with that of the North Koreans Patterico describes in his post (have you guys read it?) who are eating grass roots, grubs and acorns.
You can also compare the North Korean who turned in his own mother and brother to the prison camp authorities for food, with Kim Jong Un, who had his brother murdered in Malasia so he would not be a threat to his daily menu, but that’s optional.
nk (dbc370) — 3/11/2019 @ 2:33 pmThe question is how were these lies (and.or completely unverified promises) allowed to circulate not contradicted enough?
Because, just as with the Soviet Union in the 1930s, they were known to be lies.
Did the Japanese government tolerate that because they wanted to reduce the Korean population??
And maybe wanted some money the North Korean government spent in Japan?
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 3/11/2019 @ 2:36 pm3. Elections are held on Tuesdays so they don’t conflict with anybody’s religion, or even a future religion maybe. (Jews have Saturday, Christians have Sunday, Moslems have Friday, maybe the thought was somebody will set aside Mondays.)
At the time they were scheduled few people worked with hours set by other people.
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 3/11/2019 @ 2:40 pmNo true Scotdman Department:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/omar-and-the-conspiracy-democrats-11552245502
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 3/11/2019 @ 2:42 pm@50. “… that’s all taken into consideraton.”
Jesse Livermore tried that, too.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 2:43 pm“Prison guards would choose women to rape — but if the women became pregnant, their babies would be beaten to death with iron rods, and the women would be executed”. Patterico.
They could not have read this, nk.
mg (8cbc69) — 3/11/2019 @ 2:48 pm@51. The good ol’ post office may belong on that list as well- but let’s not drag dead Ben Franklin into it.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 2:51 pmAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez is sit at home. Is knock-knock on door. She say who is. Voice say is free tuition for College of Cardinals. Alexandria open door. Is not free tuition for College of Cardinals. Is Ilhan Omar. She turn over Alexandria to religious police for not wear hijab. Is very sad.
nk (dbc370) — 3/11/2019 @ 3:09 pmIn the extreme case where few (or no) people are required to produce all of a society’s goods and services, socialism makes sense as a way to distribute the largess and prevent social upheaval. But it’s an unhealthy situation reminiscent of later Rome, when slaves largely replaced citizens in the workplace. Decadence sets in pretty quickly, as does tension between the slave-owning (robot-owning) class and the pensioned-off citizenry.
Kevin M (21ca15) — 3/11/2019 @ 3:22 pm@63/@68“The 2018 Defense Budget was signed into law on December 12, 2017 by President Trump. The Defense budget authorizes just under $700 billion in defense spending and a 2.4% increase in military pay and a .7% increase in BAH. The $700 billion plan exceeded the budget cap of $549 billion as established Budget and Control Act (BCA) of 2011. On February 9, 2018, President Trump signed in law the final spending bill after two stopgap measures were passed.”
– source, https://militarybenefits.info/2018-defense-budget-overview/
‘A billion here, a billion there…’ etc., etc.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 3:25 pmAt the time they were scheduled few people worked with hours set by other people.
It would be far better to set Election Day aside as a national holiday, with service industries as dead as Christmas, than to spread out voting over such a wide time-span that people are voting without common information (e.g. is the candidate still alive?).
Kevin M (21ca15) — 3/11/2019 @ 3:25 pmIf you can’t bear arms, your not a free country.
The right to own weapons IS the right to be free.
Kevin M (21ca15) — 3/11/2019 @ 3:27 pmPatterico,
Part of the problem here is that everything down to subsidized postage rates has been called “socialism” when the term is best applied to state ownership of the economy. Medicare is not “socialism”, it is a government-paid benefit served by privately-owned providers who freely associate with the Medicare system. Even state schools are not socialism as there are alternatives. People who want the state to pay for child inoculations are not socialists, just a bit expansive with the state’s money.
It is the people who want to stamp out private alternatives or nationalize industries (or usurp ownership less honestly) that are the socialists. And those are ALL to be found in the Democrat Party. The Party should root them out and disown them — there aren’t that many — as many trade unions once did to the Soviet Reds. They won’t of course, and this will be their undoing.
Kevin M (21ca15) — 3/11/2019 @ 3:35 pmKevin M, at 79: doesn’t the widespread use of no-excuse absentee voting already create the problem of a wide time span without common information?
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 3/11/2019 @ 3:48 pm> Part of the problem here is that everything down to subsidized postage rates has been called “socialism” when the term is best applied to state ownership of the economy
This is certainly true, but it’s not the fault of the people pushing for non-socialist policies which are nonetheless called socialist by their opponents.
> People who want the state to pay for child inoculations are not socialists, just a bit expansive with the state’s money.
couldn’t the same be said about someone who wants the state to pay for college or health care?
aphrael (e0cdc9) — 3/11/2019 @ 3:49 pmmeawhile new York magazine reduces their payroll by 32, 16 full time staffers, I wonder who they cut,
narciso (d1f714) — 3/11/2019 @ 3:50 pmKevin M, at 79: doesn’t the widespread use of no-excuse absentee voting already create the problem of a wide time span without common information?
Yes. This is where the camel nose’s got into the tent.
Kevin M (21ca15) — 3/11/2019 @ 3:51 pmcouldn’t the same be said about someone who wants the state to pay for college or health care?
Not those who envision a state-run system with all the providers simply employees. For example, several candidates have spoken of taking over, or outlawing, private education. The original NHS system was pretty much socialist. They’ve devolved control a bit because it wasn’t working, but there are those that would damn Thatcher and her ilk for that.
Kevin M (21ca15) — 3/11/2019 @ 3:54 pmThere are also borderline cases. Until busing and unions and social proselytizing came along, there wasn’t a lot of call for private education from the middle class. It was a working, semi-voluntary “socialism.” They paid for schooling though property tax and were unlikely to want to pay double for something that was fairly good.
When it ceased to be fairly good (and when payment and control became unpinned from local property taxes), things changed. Between 1970 and 1990, the percentage of middle-class white kids in LAUSD dropped from a majority to nearly zero. Despite a number of reforms, the demographics are drastically tilted toward working-class kids and recent immigrants. Middle-class minorities increasingly go to private schools.
Kevin M (21ca15) — 3/11/2019 @ 4:02 pmFinancier W denies corporation X capital because of projected low-to-no ROI in a quarterly driven marketplace. So corporation X secures subsidies from government Y to develop services Z instead.
What could that be called… seed money?!? Socialism?!? Or maybe just a sucker bet.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 4:04 pmI wonder who they cut
The higher-paid older people, of course. People in their 50s are extremely marginalized in today’s workplace.
Kevin M (21ca15) — 3/11/2019 @ 4:04 pm@84. Haven’t you heard? Print is dead; it’s in all the papers. 😉
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 4:06 pmmeanwhile chuck ross gets banned for pointing out the dark money behind fusion, that’s just a coincidence,
narciso (d1f714) — 3/11/2019 @ 4:21 pm“The right to own weapons IS the right to be free.“
__ _
Just by coincidence:
“Introduced a few weeks ago by Florida state senator Jason Pizzo:
(1) A minor who posts or publishes a picture of a firearm, a BB gun, an air or a gas-operated gun, or a device displayed to resemble a firearm to a social media page, post, profile, or account that is openly viewable to the public commits a misdemeanor of the first degree, punishable [by up to a year in jail or a fine of up to $1000].
(2)(a) Any parent or guardian of a minor, or other adult responsible for the welfare of a minor, if the minor possesses a firearm in violation of this section, may, if the court finds it appropriate, be required to participate in classes on parent education which are approved by the Department of Juvenile Justice, upon the first conviction of the minor. Upon any subsequent conviction of the minor, the court may, if the court finds it appropriate, require the parent to attend further parent education classes or render community service hours together with the child.
(3) Any firearm that is possessed or used by a minor in violation of this section shall be promptly seized by a law enforcement officer and disposed of ….”
http://reason.com/volokh/2019/03/09/florida-bill-would-make-it-a-crime-for-m#comment
harkin (e15868) — 3/11/2019 @ 4:44 pmnk @52: THAT is why I love this aspect of the comments section. nk, that is so wonderful to have read; rest assured I am using that one in class.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 3/11/2019 @ 5:21 pmThe left may have a point that North Korea is not really socialist. However, it IS what socialism eventually leads to if fully embraced.
Darren M. (a4eb00) — 3/11/2019 @ 5:35 pmChavez faction was the movement toward socialism (mas)
Narciso (0faea5) — 3/11/2019 @ 5:42 pmhttps://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/03/venezuela-goes-dark.php
#47is quite simply an ignorant statement. Money put into SS, if invested in the S&P 500 index would still be worth much, much more than the what the government would pay in SS regardless of Enron, etc. I’ve been paying into SS since I was 10 years old and by my calculations if I had put that money into an S&P index fund it would be worth around $800K today.
JSkorcher (bbb023) — 3/11/2019 @ 6:03 pm@96. Except it’s not. But then, your hindsight is 20/20… isn’t it.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 6:07 pm“foreward”? Was the spell-checker on strike?
Darren M. (a4eb00) — 3/11/2019 @ 6:09 pmSo now that the new budget will trim some aspects of Medicare part d, well there will be support no.
Narciso (0faea5) — 3/11/2019 @ 6:11 pmExcept it is because I ran the flippen math. You are a very ignorant person who has no idea wth you’re talking about….Plus, you’ve never launched a rocket. But you know all about that as well. Sheesh.
Why are this bozo and commie lany tolerated around here but HF is banned? It’s absurd.
JSkorcher (bbb023) — 3/11/2019 @ 6:12 pm@96. BTW, in which state were you hired at age 10 w/FICA withheld and W2s on file.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 6:13 pm@100. Trump doesn’t know the difference between a missile and a rocket either; Kim does.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 6:14 pmExcuse me. Are you calling me a liar? Are you saying that children never paid FICA taxes? Are you truly that ignorant? Are you, punk?
JSkorcher (bbb023) — 3/11/2019 @ 6:22 pm@100. BTW, HF wasn’t “banned” by P – just granted a ‘time out.’
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 6:24 pm@103. You’re excused. BTW, you can answer which in which state you were hired at age 10 w/FICA and w2s on file any time. Child actor, perhaps. Still excel at tantrums, master thespian that you are.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 6:27 pmWhich state? You don’t know what FICA is then do you?
JSkorcher (bbb023) — 3/11/2019 @ 6:32 pm@99. That budget is DOA. But yet another proposed bump in defense appropriations at the expense of social pgms., and an $8 billion ask for American taxpayers to fund a wall Mexico was supposed to pay for should make for some fun episodes of Trump: Season III, TeeVee theatrics.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 6:34 pm@77. Meh. Rome?! There’s place where decadence is SOP; where roughly 95% of the $ goes to the above-the-line, top 5%. The 95% below-the-line crowd feeds off the loose change. It’s called Hollywood.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 6:45 pm#47: If you had bought 1000 shares of Amazon (for $18K) at the IPO price, and held them through the 12x split and three separate crashes, you would STILL have about $20 million in Amazon stock today. At no time in between would you have been down.
Cherry-picked example, sure, but so are your horrors.
Kevin M (21ca15) — 3/11/2019 @ 6:58 pmcory booker says meat centric standard american diet not sustainable
As I said, Malthusians. “Wrong since 1798″™
Kevin M (21ca15) — 3/11/2019 @ 7:04 pmWhen asked why he finds the Green New Deal “terrifying”, Patrick Moore, co-founder and former Greenpeace Executive replied, “Well, because it would be the end of civilization.”
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/11/2019 @ 7:10 pmEnough with the personal attacks, Pops.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/11/2019 @ 7:12 pmHe is often wrong, but never in doubt.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/11/2019 @ 7:14 pmSo now that the new budget will trim some aspects of Medicare part d, well there will be support no.
Near as I can tell, Medicare Part D is sold and marketed by private companies. The only government part is that you either sign up right away, and stay signed up, or you pay a penalty rate forever once you DO sign up. There are some subsidies for poor seniors (low income and few resources), and for those with super-expensive life-saving drugs. And this is the extent of federal costs.
But for the majority of Plan D subscribers, their premium covers their part of the costs to the insurance company. Plan D premiums have actually come down in the past 2 years, due to Federal jawboning and intrayear switches to new generics. In part, the mandatory subscription (it can be as low as $8/month) keeps average costs down.
Kevin M (21ca15) — 3/11/2019 @ 7:22 pmI guess they could cut the expensive-drug subsidy. That would save a few billion. The low-income (150% of poverty and no more than $20K in assets) seems harder to adjust down. Probably the best way to cut costs overall would be to decrease the availability (or cost) of brand drugs. Although many buy them from Canada.
Kevin M (21ca15) — 3/11/2019 @ 7:26 pm@109. No, those horrors were pretty much across the board— the Big Board.
@114. B-b-b-b-ut Trump promosed never to cut Medicare. You mean… he lied to us?!
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 7:26 pm@111. He’s an impostor: the real Patrick Moore is dead.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 7:29 pmSocial security returns are tied to t Bill’s and other relatively inelastic products, stocks and bonds offer some growth but at a risk premium. Regardless the program is deeper underwater than where they found the meg.
Narciso (0faea5) — 3/11/2019 @ 7:30 pm@113. He called it Reaganomics.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 7:33 pm@118. In Trump We Trust- said the monkey as he peed into the cash register; that’s gonna be all over our new borrowed money; should match his watercolor scheme for AF1 nicely.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 7:39 pm117.. not true. Google’s your friend.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/11/2019 @ 7:56 pm@121. The real one rests w/his stars.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 8:12 pmAgain, not true.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/11/2019 @ 8:30 pmPatterico-
That was really good.
Thanks
steveg (a9dcab) — 3/11/2019 @ 8:35 pmTry again; the real Patrick Moore, 1923 – 2012.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 9:24 pm@110. A reminder; never let him forget: Spartacus was a loser who got crucified.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 9:27 pm125…
Description: Patrick Albert Moore is a Canadian businessman, nuclear energy advocate, environmental consultant and former president of Greenpeace Canada.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/11/2019 @ 10:24 pmBorn: 1947 (age 72 years), Port Alice, Canada
Education: The University of British Columbia
Movies: Sharkwater
Parents: Beverly Moore, W. D. Moore
Organizations founded: Greenpeace, CO2 Coalition
100 – Skorcher
mg (8cbc69) — 3/11/2019 @ 10:27 pmBeen wondering the same.
Those woke punks are sick.
@127. LOL My Moore’s better than your Moore. 😉
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 10:53 pmanother failed launch
mg (8cbc69) — 3/11/2019 @ 10:58 pmHaiku, he be at 90% approval within t/GOP and rated 46% nationwide this week. Look past the forest through the trees and survey the field ahead; it’s full of 15 or 20 little weasels and a few ol’ long-in-the-tooth, hair-plugged hedgehogs. Unless he handed Vlad the missile codes on a thumb drive in Helsinki, he’s gonna beat any Mueller rap even as his underlings become pokie-men. And Nancy Pee has broadcast she won’t press to impeach – ’cause he’s not worth it’ – which fits in oh-so-many-ways. No patriots in the GOP Senate either; they’d never convict.
So unless Oprah runs, he’s in a’gin.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/11/2019 @ 11:10 pmharkin — hopefully that gets tossed by the courts as a violation of the first amendment the first time it comes in contact with the courts.
aphrael (3f0569) — 3/11/2019 @ 11:12 pmRegardless the program is deeper underwater than where they found the meg.
Hardly. The demographics are just fine. The great fear was that the GIANT BOOMER COHORT would retire on the backs of the baby-bust GenX, but [legal] immigration over the last 30 years has filled in GenX nicely. The current GenX cohort is not very different than the Boomers in size. And the Millennials are larger than either. It will work out. The only real adjustments will be for increasing lifespan. You might ahve to work until you are 68 for the full benefit.
But then there is this: The younger you are now, the statistics favor a longer life. Medicare is your friend as it puts a pot of gold out there to find cures for diseases of old people. By the time you get there, this will be useful.
Kevin M (21ca15) — 3/12/2019 @ 1:03 amDCSCA has his trolling shoes on today.
Kevin M (21ca15) — 3/12/2019 @ 1:05 am@134. Better to speak for yourself.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 1:11 am@86. Nothing remains static; but it worked well; still does. Timing- and the Falklands- saved Maggie’s bacon.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 1:25 ammeatless mondays for DCSCA and lany.
mg (8cbc69) — 3/12/2019 @ 4:33 amharkin — hopefully that gets tossed by the courts as a violation of the first amendment the first time it comes in contact with the courts.
It won’t even make it to the floor of the Florida Senate. Jason Pizzo is a 42-year old goombah from New Jersey who moved to North Miami Beach and went into politics. He beat the Democrat incumbent in the Florida Senate primary and ran unopposed in the general — that’s how Democrat that place is. He probably has his eye on Donna Shalala’s seat in the 27th Congressional District and is building his Orthodox Democrat resume for that primary in 2020.
nk (dbc370) — 3/12/2019 @ 4:36 amI concur with DCSCA’s assessment at #131; and for those at home bleating about Sun Belt demographics, the GOP dual-in-migration bell cows of AZ-TX-GA-FL have only gone D twice out of a possible 20 times I. The quadrennial presidential elections since 2000 (FL twice, 2008 and 2012).
urbanleftbehind (1cb9fd) — 3/12/2019 @ 5:54 amI read your piece over at PJMedia and think every one who supports socialism should read it and the books upon which it is based. It’s depressing to think there are so many people in this country who want to turn the US into a socialist country along with all of the problems that entails.
Rochf (877dba) — 3/12/2019 @ 7:22 amYour faith in reason is cute. But that’s not the problem. Socialism is on the rise because so-called conservatives are either fakes or they lack the guts to fight the battle that needs to be fought. They are too afraid of what others may think of them if they align themselves in any way with the icky Joe the Plumber types or the Kurt Schlicters or the Happy Feet. They will take abuse from the left an then attribute their own suffering to some sort of penance for the “sins” of the icky ones. Because principles.
JSkorcher (bbb023) — 3/12/2019 @ 7:58 amIf Pelosi is giving a thumbs-down to impeachment, one can make a good guess that the polling is terrible on the subject.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/12/2019 @ 7:59 am… and the NothingBurger anticipated in the “Mueller Report”…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/12/2019 @ 8:09 amRIP Hal Blaine, one of the BEST!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/12/2019 @ 8:17 amThere is a rule from Patterico about personal attacks. Or unnecessary rudeness. Patterico is pretty tolerant until he gets too far.
The current comments section is actually much less ridiculous these days.
I know better than most that some trolls are difficult to ignore. But if a troll has gone too far, just notify Patterico.
Regardless, I very much appreciate the improved tone, and I am sincerely thankful to the people who have made a effort to be more civil. Truly.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 3/12/2019 @ 8:33 amIn @145, I meant:
“…Patterico is pretty tolerant until a commenter or troll goes too far…”
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 3/12/2019 @ 8:35 amHow many leftist vs trump trolls have been banned here, anyone want to hazard a guess? And no hiding behind the “it’s a suspension not a ban” canard. If people must grovel before being allowed back in, it is effectively a ban.
JSkorcher (bbb023) — 3/12/2019 @ 8:45 amJSkorcher, I am not pointing at you. I did not like how you were treated.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 3/12/2019 @ 8:54 amHow many leftist vs trump trolls have been banned here, anyone want to hazard a guess?
Nobody has been banned for being either a leftist or a trump troll. They have been banned for being assholes and not stopping being assholes after being told to stop being assholes. If Trumpkins are the majority of assholes that were banned, that’s because the majority of Trumpkins that drive by here are assholes.
nk (dbc370) — 3/12/2019 @ 8:58 amAnd please don’t lump happyfeet in with any of them. He does not belong in any of those three categories. He is neither a leftist, nor a Trumpkin, nor an asshole. He is unique.
nk (dbc370) — 3/12/2019 @ 9:03 amHow about this criminal bribery scandal involving elite universities?!?!
Wowzers!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/12/2019 @ 9:09 amColonel, that just outraged me. I know that bribery is an old problem. But the details are ridiculous.
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 3/12/2019 @ 9:22 amAn outright bribe is gauche – you’re supposed to donate a building or help with some offering like a weight room or rehearsal space. Or you come as a package with an athlete or academic genius (some rapper’s sons who are more like Urkel or Lucas on the playing field are given partial scholarships or preferred walk-on status if they bring a friend that can ball).
urbanleftbehind (5eecdb) — 3/12/2019 @ 9:24 amColonel, this will make you laugh or cry or both.
https://twitter.com/FelicityHuffman/status/768888270772064256
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 3/12/2019 @ 9:25 amYale could use an International Airport, Mr. Burns.
Davethulhu (fab944) — 3/12/2019 @ 9:37 amSo major university admissions people are like Illinois politicians? You can buy them very cheaply?
nk (dbc370) — 3/12/2019 @ 9:42 amMore like mar-a-lago memberships.
Davethulhu (fab944) — 3/12/2019 @ 9:48 amnk, the question, as always: do they stay bought?
Simon Jester (c8876d) — 3/12/2019 @ 9:49 am@150. Mr. Feet is entertaining to be sure, but the obsession w/digs at the late Mr. McCain was a little disturbing. Six months after his passing, it sorta shudda died down.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 9:51 amI don’t even know who Felicity Huffman (doesn’t she look a lot like Christine Blasey Ford?) and Lori Loughlin are. But out of “50 people indicted”, they’re the two named in the clickbait headlines.
nk (dbc370) — 3/12/2019 @ 10:05 amHuffman was the plainest of the Desperate Housewives and she’d have to gain weight to play Christine Blasey Ford.
Side note, a frat brother of mine was a key figure in uncovering the U of I pay to play scandal.
urbanleftbehind (5eecdb) — 3/12/2019 @ 10:21 am148. OK, thx then. Simon, I don’t always agree with what you say but I do respect your positions.
149/150.*I* don’t lump HF in with any trolls. But that is not the way he’s seen around here in general from what I see. But then I only drop in here once a month or so. Why, if he’s something unique and thus not an a hole, is he prohibited from posting?
JSkorcher (bbb023) — 3/12/2019 @ 10:22 amShe did vamp it up for her Twitter Page, its like Hannah Storm or Linda Cohn in a non-sports anchor context.
urbanleftbehind (5eecdb) — 3/12/2019 @ 10:23 am@141.@152- Focusing on Loughlin and Huffman is too easy- the full list makes for quite an interesting spread of wealth, professions and backgrounds; should be a busy day for Google:
https://www.justice.gov/uao-ma/investgations-college-admissions-and-testing-bribery-scheme
‘Course it takes the limelight off our Captain for a cycle or two; but then he’d never use cheating or bribery in his anything-to-win-universe– would he.
____
@141. Socialism is being revisited- particularly by the young- because 35 years of trickle down has failed for too many. You really don’t understand what’s going on here; 90% of the current GOP supports Trump; chasing out the ideologues is the long term strategy. It’s 1964 redux. He’s a man folks love to hate; a despicable soul– yet like what he’s doing. A second term outta finish boxing ’em up and put ’em back in Goldwater’s attic. If only you’d beleived in science- you could have cloned Reagan…
@148. And I did not like how I was treated. But thanks for not coming to my defense; your slip is showing.
@156. It’s a pretty elaborate scheme- they targeted the sports departments which in these times is a soft underbelly at big schools– they want a winning team; recruitment tool, alumni donations…big bucks, TV contracts and such. The testing services have to be in on it too, which is all the more disturbing.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 10:29 am@164. Oops- dropped a letter:
https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/investigations-college-admissions-and-testing-bribery-scheme
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 10:32 am“35 years of trickledown” as you call it, while knowing nothing about economics, has only failed the losers who would lose anyway. I started out 35 years ago with far less than most people and today am fairly well off. I did it by ignoring the ignorant fools such as yourself who constantly whine about how things can’t be done and never do anything yourselves. Again, you have no earthly idea what you are talking about. Just like with NASA and such. No clue as to how things really work.
JSkorcher (bbb023) — 3/12/2019 @ 10:36 amIt is more less a battle between Socialism for Us versus Socialism for the Less-Us-The-Better.
urbanleftbehind (5eecdb) — 3/12/2019 @ 10:37 amRush Limbaugh said Felicity Huffman played one of the characters in “Desperate Housewives” but he didn’t say which one.
I see she played Lynette. The oldest one. They were in advertising.
She stands accused of bribery and tax evasion. I’m not clear about the bribery. It said that SAT and ACT administrators (?) were bribed and also people involved in athletic recruitment.
There was this one person who sold college admissions to very selective colleges. I am not sure this required bribery of school officials (except maybe for information) but other brbery might have been done too. Maybe that cost the parents more.
The way the athletic version of this worked, is that the students would pretend to be interested in (and maybe good at) some relatively rare activity which the school was interested in expanding, maybe because of Title IX, which has been interpreted to mean that sports opportunities and also participation should be used as much for girls as for boys. (after all the students are supposed to be primarily students, not athletes, amateurs and aren’t allowed to be paid except with scholarships)
So anyway one sport where there is some lobby to expand girls’ team is rowing – called crewing because there’s a difference between rowing as in Venice and the sport of crewing. So they would say they were interested in crewing, or maybe even experienced at it, get in, and then the student would immediately not participate.
Either they would outright quit (and maybe they had to because they had no skills) or they would complain of an injury.
So, Rush Limbaugh argues, the students had to be in in it. (they were lying when the occasion called for backing up the story. They had to know they were supposed to pretend interest and ability and then not do anything.)
Colleges may be hard to get into but once in they will very rarely revoke admission, except maybe for someone like an orphan who wrote about her difficult life but conceals the fact that she murdered her mother (if it gets into the newspapers I mean.)
The tax evasion is because you are not supposed to deduct something as a charitable contribution if you get any benefit from it. The exceptions are college football tickets and intangible benefits. Not gaming college admissions.
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 3/12/2019 @ 10:41 am@142. Colonel, CNN released an Iowa poll noting impeachment was way down the list behind climate change and economic issues but there aren’t enough GOP votes in the Senate to convict. A show trial is an award Trump would wear as a badge of honor. Pelosi isn’t going to waste time and resources for Trump’s benefit– unless Mueller truly unearths a few smoking guns. But Trump cronies caught up in his wake are screwed– ‘loyalty’ is a one-way street w/him.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 10:43 am@166. Again, you really don’t understand what’s going on here; which is to the advantage of change.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 10:45 amThe tax evasion is because you are not supposed to deduct something as a charitable contribution if you get any benefit from it.
Tawdry all the way.
Innocent me, when I saw you mention “tax evasion” at the top, I thought: “We’re now required to file a 1099 for bribes?”
Hmm, maybe we are?
nk (dbc370) — 3/12/2019 @ 10:46 amHow about this criminal bribery scandal involving elite universities?
The schools I heard being identified don’t really qualify as elite: BU, BC, Northeastern, USC. Perhaps USC comes closest. Name recognition and competitive admissions, but the first three are not elite, even if you overlook their proximity to Harvard and MIT.
Is there a full list of the schools somewhere? Those I mentioned are the only ones I heard of. Perhaps some other schools on the list do qualify as elite.
Kishnevi (b1c03d) — 3/12/2019 @ 10:47 amGiven the impeachment mania®, that will require a ruthless crushing of the fever dream lefty masses!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/12/2019 @ 10:48 am@170. Says the guy who has demonstrated time and time again here his ignorance of launching rockets, stock market valuations, economics, what a FUCA tax is, among numerous other subjects. But hey, troll away. I need to get back to work. Something I’m guessing that you’re not too familiar with. At least in any productive capacity.
JSkorcher (bbb023) — 3/12/2019 @ 10:50 am@72., Explaining my “No True Scotchman Department:” comment
https://www.wsj.com/articles/omar-and-the-conspiracy-democrats-11552245502
This is kind of No True Scotchman in reverse. According to Ilhan Omar
It’s not Juan Guaidó who is a Socalist – it’s only Maduro who is a Socialist. Although she probably doesn’t talk in these terms but only left and right (which to her are synonyms for good and evil)
Basically the people who support these dictatorships are akin to members of a cult. It has nothing to do with economics.
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 3/12/2019 @ 10:52 amOr FICA. FUCA may be more phonetically accurate though.
JSkorcher (bbb023) — 3/12/2019 @ 10:53 am@173. That’s just a Fox Nooze rouse; for eyes and clicks; they know the true lay of the land, ‘bdge of honor’ stuff; the numbers and such. He’s in through 2024. And ‘biding time’ won’t make it ‘Biden time’ either. If this was March, 1942, he’d be 95% close to deciding whether or not to declare war on Japan.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 10:54 am. I started out 35 years ago with far less than most people
And the many people who had even less than you.
Capitalism works fine if you have capital to invest: not necessarily only financial capital, but social and intellectual capital: relatives, friends, acquaintances who can help along the way, education to give you the nevessary skills, or some talent or ability that sets you apart from the crowd.
But if you are a kid from the inner city who has little or none of that, capitalism does not work quite as well.
Kishnevi (b1c03d) — 3/12/2019 @ 10:56 am171. If you a charity more than market value, you could deduct the excess. Of course this will mostly only come up in an audit.
nk (dbc370) — 3/12/2019 @ 10:46 am
Well, I know that if you embezzle money you are supposed to report it on your tax returns. And drug dealers are supposed to report all their income. But here the thing is it was accounted for and reported as a charitable contribution, but it really wasn’t, even if it was legitimate charity.
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 3/12/2019 @ 10:57 am@174. Love those personal attacks– it’s so- Noo Yawk Trump.;-)
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 10:58 am178. Kishnevi (b1c03d) — 3/12/2019 @ 10:56 am
The business plan also has to make sense, and you get confronted by reality.
Alexndria Ocasio’s Cortez’s business failed (see @33) because she probably she was missing some pieces that she needed to make it work – and it wasn’t a very good idea in the first place.
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 3/12/2019 @ 11:00 am@178. And this breaking college admissions bribery mess only reinforces your point, too.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 11:01 amThere was no example of somebody else running a successful business on these premises. She probably thought all books are the same – I’ll just change the subject matter. My guess is she had no idea how to find writers or publish a book. And didn’t hire someone who did.
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 3/12/2019 @ 11:03 amAlexandria Ocasio Cortez probably just thought it would happen. Especially since she was accepted as an entrepreneur. But it was an idea that sounded good to some politicians. She claimed her expertise at things Bronx was worth $500 an hour so of course it would be a success. People would flock to her company for advice on books. She was going to find people who had never written books before but had good story ideas.
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 3/12/2019 @ 11:10 amHer big mistake: A story isn’t good because of who and where it focuses on.
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 3/12/2019 @ 11:12 am@168. Rush best do some homework before cracking wise on the high profile Hollywood names, Sammy- they’re low hanging fruit. Some of the other names on that list may not fit his pistol all that well.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 11:15 amToday, firefighters union endorsed 1% Joe.
Tommorow, it’s the rotary phone makers of North America. Biden’s the Dem’s Dole.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 11:29 am154… that is highlarious, Simon!
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/12/2019 @ 11:33 am@172. See #165 for the list of individual involved. The schools vary- believe Stanford, USC- Yale are part of it- the sports programs targeted were more lower profile- sailing, crew, tennis and such. Parents, students, coaches– testing services involved. A sad mess.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 11:42 amThere was a high profile white shoe Lawyer, a dismissed wyn casino exec, among others
narciso (d1f714) — 3/12/2019 @ 11:47 amI think the Dems will have to be content with Diet Stroke and fast food do the work during the 2nd term. You need someone who can out-rally and and out-recover the old man for next years campaign. That might lead toward someone pugnacious but very wrong. Eric Swallwell and John Hickenlooper might pull that off, with Gabbard and Harris (relatively young and lots of cardio back in the day) would fit that bill.
urbanleftbehind (5eecdb) — 3/12/2019 @ 11:56 amFelicity Hoffman has been charged with felony conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services fraud (the latter is a kind of catch-all charge which sometimes runs into trouble at the appellate level)
She paid $15,000. Some people paid as much as $75,000 for various purposes. Another story says the prices ranged from $100,000 and $6.5 million per student, with most paying between $250,000 and $400,000 per student.
In a news story, athletic coaches from Yale, USC, Stanford, Georgetown, the University of Texas at Austin and Wake Forest are mentioned.
Fake athletic profiles were created. College coaches were paid to claim the prospective student would be a good recruit for their sports team. There were also some staged photographs with lying captions.
In other news: https://wgno.com/2019/01/09/bernice-sandler-godmother-of-title-ix-and-champion-of-womens-rights-is-dead-at-90
Not everybody did every thing, (and probably they had to pay extra for certain things) but this also involved third parties taking ACT and SAT exams, which are supposed to be hard to do now because they require identification – but I guess if you bribed the people in charge this would be possible. In other cases the students’ answers were corrected after the fact.
The indictment seems to have been filed in Massachusetts (did the investigation start at Harvard?)The scheme went on from 2011 till now. Probably the last year or two (or more? – the FBI loves long investigations) this was going on under FBI monitoring. But Joe Bonavolonta, FBI special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston field office, says it began last May (2018) when they became aware of it in the course of a different undercover investigation. What about that one?
Forty six people were arrested across the nation by 300 FBI and IRS agents. That’s 6 1/2 per person. Not as many as Roger Stone got.
The investigation had a co-operating witness who taped a phone call with Felicity Hoffmann. Probably separately, John Vandemoer, the head sailing coach at Stanford, is set to plead guilty today. the person in charge of the whole enterprise, admissions consultant William Rick Singer, who operated a non-profit college counseling group called “The Key,” also made a plea deal. he took in $25 million in “charitable contributions” from parents from 2011 through Feb. 2019. That’s gross, of course, not net.
Some parts of the investigation may have surfaced already. Last November, Rudy Meredith, resigned after 24 years as women’s soccer coach at Yale after he admitted a recruit who had never played soccer. He is now accused of taking a $1.2 million bribe (just for that?)
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 3/12/2019 @ 11:56 amThe blind leading the blind:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/03/socialism-and-the-experts.php
narciso (d1f714) — 3/12/2019 @ 12:08 pm@191. Well, as they say, ‘you are what you eat.’ He’s a physically large fella;similar in bulk to Tim Russert. The face-down-in-a-plate-full-of-chocolate-cake-between-two scoops-of-Dolly-Madison-vanilla scenario is not out of the question, but his doctors say he’s fit for two terms– and they’re the best money can buy. 😉
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 12:10 pm‘Tis a double hit for women’s collegiate athletics with this scandal, plus the transgender athletes starting to dominate events at the prep level.
urbanleftbehind (5eecdb) — 3/12/2019 @ 12:14 pmYale, USC, Stanford, Georgetown, the University of Texas at Austin and Wake Forest are mentioned.
Yale, Stanford, Georgetown certainly qualify as elite. Wake Forest admitted me, so it can’t be that elite. 😈
Kishnevi (c62fd3) — 3/12/2019 @ 12:17 pmI read Angela daviss bio for a sociology class, waterboarding would be less painful.
Narciso (7c74f0) — 3/12/2019 @ 12:18 pmSad but unsurprising:
http://thefederalist.com/2019/03/11/first-town-hall-tulsi-gabbard-came-off-leftist-not-centrist/
Narciso (7c74f0) — 3/12/2019 @ 12:21 pm@191. Postscript. They say Trump’s ‘out of his mind’ but remember, it’s 1% Joe who has actually had the brain surgery. Given the responsibilities and lives in the hands of public officials– and that includes 47-month-sentencing-judges as well– their ages and health need to be addressed and reviewed in some fashion, similar to what airline pilots and such have to go though. Longevity is obviously a good thing, but there are so many lives and so much property at stake w/decisions in these gigs.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 12:24 pm@195. The corrupt ‘collusion’ w/t parents and coaches is one thing– but the compromised integrity of the testing services is equally distressing. In what other disciplines can it be bought off? Sad stuff.
_____
Diss-May-ed: Brexit deal defeated again in UK Parliament.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 12:31 pm“Airplanes are becoming to complex to fly…” tweets ‘ol stick-and-rudder-man-Trump.
And yet they do fly. Pilots, on the other hand, are merely “chauffeurs,” eh, Donald.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 12:47 pmIt’s probably a problem with the failsafe system.
Narciso (7c74f0) — 3/12/2019 @ 12:51 pm@202. They’ll know soon enuf- the 737-Max is well wired and they’ve got the boxes. But two new planes down in five months doesn’t seem coincidental– something is amiss. The FAA grounding the U.S. fleet would seem a prudent move– China grounded their fleet. Big hit to Boeing stock and such. Brings to mind those perplexing BOAC Comet crashes in the ’50s; design flaw; metal fatigue- cracks at corners of rectangular windows. Hence oval windows in jetliners.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 1:11 pm191… correction in Harris’s case, ulb: lots of teh ol’ pushn’pull.
Colonel Haiku (ead98c) — 3/12/2019 @ 1:16 pmBTW, read your essay- twice, Patrick. Well quilled passion piece. Though suspect ‘humor’ expressed toward NorKo is likely out of a sense of helpless frustration than frivolity. There are no good options there.
Writing is time consuming- and hard; especially crafting a long piece like that in an era of short burst copy and even shorter attention spans. And all the more rewarding when compensated for it in some fashion. Made a living at it for a time. Which makes what Dana, you and JVW contribute when posting a piece here all the more appreciated… and understood; you don’t have to do it.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 1:46 pm“He’s an impostor: the real Patrick Moore is dead.”
I think you might enjoy this, DSCA. Impostor Patrick Moore is very credible.
https://twitter.com/drmistercody/status/1105522839371694080
Davethulhu (fab944) — 3/12/2019 @ 1:53 pm@206. You might enjoy this- the genuine article is much more credible- and entertaining, rest his soul:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6t0exJznEZg
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 2:06 pm@206/207- postscript. Oops- mistyped:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6t0exJznEZg
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 2:09 pm“… I don’t want Albert Einstein to be my pilot…’ tweets Trump.
Not only was Einstein a socialist; he was a Jew, Donald. And he died in 1955, so no dead-stick landings for you, eh Captain, sir?!
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 2:22 pmHere’s who these poor, misguided ninnies are describing as a fake: https://bcbooklook.com/2016/02/02/112-patrick-moore/
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/12/2019 @ 2:32 pm203. DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 1:11 pm
The U.S fleet is safe provided that people really know what is causing the crashes.
Jake Novak said the problem is that Boeing installed an autopilot system that doesn’t work the same way as other autopilots. If pilots are trained on it, they can pilot that plan without a noticeable increase in the possibility of crashing. Pilots can often compensate for design flaws in planes.
I read or heard somewhere else that’s what’s going on is that the autopilot kicks in when it shouldn’t because the instruments are giving, or can give, false readinsgs
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 3/12/2019 @ 2:35 pm197 Jusse Smolett’s motehr isa close friend of Angela Davis.
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 3/12/2019 @ 2:39 pmRhodes is unclear on the meaning of irreversible… https://static.pjmedia.com/instapundit/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/ben_rhodes_global_warming_irreversible_3-12-19-1-800×662.jpg
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/12/2019 @ 2:44 pmAt some point the Darwin Effect must cleanse this third stone from the Sun! https://babylonbee.com/news/everything-is-bad-and-the-world-is-ending-and-you-shouldnt-have-kids-says-party-of-progress
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/12/2019 @ 2:47 pm200. DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 12:31 pm
You could give aquite about that:
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/23/same
It was popularized by Bill Clinton, and is nt really true.
It originated with the Narcotics Anonymous organization in 1981.
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 3/12/2019 @ 2:56 pm@211. Pilots can often compensate for design flaws in planes.
Test pilots do; it’s their job. But they also need to be aware that they’re test flying– [recall the Challenger hearings where a panel member noted, ‘If there was a chance a wing could fall off a plane, I think I’d tell the pilot.’]
Commercial pilots aren’t acting as test pilot and can’t be held responsible for flying an aircraft ful of paying pasengers which may have inherent design flaws – especially a new one- now in mass production, Sammy. That’s the responsibility of the manufacturer and the parties who certified the airframe for flight. The 737-Max is hugely backordered w/Boeing, too. If the aircraft has a flaw in design or a software problem, the fleet should be grounded and the problems fixed. China made the right decision– the FAA has yet to follow suit. Losing two new aircraft in 5 months in what initially appears to be similar mishaps in this day and age doesn’t seem coincidental. I wouldn’t fly on a 737-Max until the problem is revealed and fixed.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 3:00 pm@215. May’s toast; she can barely speak.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 3:02 pm“Why, if he’s something unique and thus not an a hole, is he prohibited from posting?”
Whether someone is or isn’t an a-hole is the assessment of Patterico alone when it comes to who posts here. Patt has repeatedly said that many commenters have left the site because they’re tired of HappyFeet’s schtick….and Patterico wanted to see if those commenters would return if HappyFeet went on vacation for a month. It seems to me that HF continues to push the line of what is acceptable….less to drive interesting discussion….and more to just push buttons…and self amuse. No one is owed a forum….and if Patterico wishes to tailor the commentariat to create more interesting engagement, then I can’t fault it. Personally, I think the comment sections have improved….though I still miss the many that have left…
AJ_Liberty (3c84de) — 3/12/2019 @ 3:03 pm154… Simon… given the involvement of William Macy’s wife Huffman, it may be appropriate to use the caper as the basis of a screenplay by David Mamet.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 3/12/2019 @ 3:12 pm@218. True. Agree. Found the McCain obsession, long after he’d passed, peculiar– if not slightly disturbing.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 3:20 pm217.
May is immunized from being removed because of rather new British procedural rules that prevent the same thing from being attempted over and over again..
She can’t be removed as party leader for anotehr year or so maybe because she passed a party vote (she did have to promise not to run in the next election which may take place as late as 2022.)
She also passed a no-confidence vote. All Tories do not want to give Jeremy Corbyn a chance to be Prime Minsiter.
She may resort to posting Britain leaving the EU for four months – then the UK will crash out of ti anyway in July.
The big problem is that they want two things and they can’t get both:
1) Limits on immigration from the European Union – and the thing about it, they really don’t need it. I mean, who and how many do they really want to exclude?
2) No customs and border inspection on the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
The EU will not give them both. (or it will provided you have customs and border inspections between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom.
They also want no customs and borders between England and the Continent but that’s not so important as the Irish border.
So what’s being proposed by some is to do everything seamlessly on the Irish border – but no such EZ Pass system exist.
In the meantime the offer on teh table from teh EU is the Irish backstop
https://fullfact.org/europe/irish-backstop/
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 3/12/2019 @ 3:22 pmspeaking of disturbing
mg (8cbc69) — 3/12/2019 @ 3:22 pm@221. She has been rendered ineffective.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 3:28 pmWhat lieawatha did is worse than what these parents accomplished.
mg (8cbc69) — 3/12/2019 @ 3:28 pm154 219. William Macy interview in Parade this January:
https://parade.com/732550/walterscott/william-h-macy-on-his-favorite-frank-moment-from-shameless-and-working-with-wife-felicity-huffman/
She might really be “killing it.” The admissions process turns down many good students.
What doesn’t make sense is trying so hard to get into a particular school. If they are willing to spend mloney, just enroll as a non-matriculaetd student. That will get her most of the activities.
She can get credit from an extrernal degree program, or maybe transfer in later.
College itself may be a scam
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 3/12/2019 @ 3:28 pmMost likely outcome: Brexit may be postponed for four months – asnd then Britain will crash out anyway.
Sammy Finkelman (102c75) — 3/12/2019 @ 3:30 pm@226. Agree. Crash-out seems likely.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 3/12/2019 @ 3:31 pmin other news:
https://outline.com/aS3LJK
narciso (d1f714) — 3/12/2019 @ 3:49 pmJust wanted to take a moment again to say thanks to Patterico for the article. Shared it on my IRL facebook and hopefully awakened a few to the dangers of socialist seduction.
NJRob (4d595c) — 3/12/2019 @ 10:33 pm