The Bully Partym- Dilbert

The Bully Party

Posted October 25th, 2016 @ 9:14am in #Trump #Clinton

I’ve been trying to figure out what common trait binds Clinton supporters together. As far as I can tell, the most unifying characteristic is a willingness to bully in all its forms.

If you have a Trump sign in your lawn, they will steal it.

If you have a Trump bumper sticker, they will deface your car.

if you speak of Trump at work you could get fired.

On social media, almost every message I get from a Clinton supporter is a bullying type of message. They insult. They try to shame. They label. And obviously they threaten my livelihood.

We know from Project Veritas that Clinton supporters tried to incite violence at Trump rallies. The media downplays it.

We also know Clinton’s side hired paid trolls to bully online. You don’t hear much about that.

Yesterday, by no coincidence, Huffington Post, Salon, and Daily Kos all published similar-sounding hit pieces on me, presumably to lower my influence. (That reason, plus jealousy, are the only reasons writers write about other writers.)

Joe Biden said he wanted to take Trump behind the bleachers and beat him up. No one on Clinton’s side disavowed that call to violence because, I assume, they consider it justified hyperbole. 

Team Clinton has succeeded in perpetuating one of the greatest evils I have seen in my lifetime. Her side has branded Trump supporters (40%+ of voters) as Nazis, sexists, homophobes, racists, and a few other fighting words. Their argument is built on confirmation bias and persuasion. But facts don’t matter because facts never matter in politics. What matters is that Clinton’s framing of Trump provides moral cover for any bullying behavior online or in person. No one can be a bad person for opposing Hitler, right?

Some Trump supporters online have suggested that people who intend to vote for Trump should wear their Trump hats on election day. That is a dangerous idea, and I strongly discourage it. There would be riots in the streets because we already know the bullies would attack. But on election day, inviting those attacks is an extra-dangerous idea. Violence is bad on any day, but on election day, Republicans are far more likely to unholster in an effort to protect their voting rights. Things will get wet fast.

Yes, yes, I realize Trump supporters say bad things about Clinton supporters too. I don’t defend the bad apples on either side. I’ll just point out that Trump’s message is about uniting all Americans under one flag. The Clinton message is that some Americans are good people and the other 40% are some form of deplorables, deserving of shame, vandalism, punishing taxation, and violence. She has literally turned Americans on each other. It is hard for me to imagine a worse thing for a presidential candidate to do.

I’ll say that again. 

As far as I can tell, the worst thing a presidential candidate can do is turn Americans against each other. Clinton is doing that, intentionally.

Intentionally.

As I often say, I don’t know who has the best policies. I don’t know the best way to fight ISIS and I don’t know how to fix healthcare or trade deals. I don’t know which tax policies are best to lift the economy. I don’t know the best way to handle any of that stuff. (And neither do you.) But I do have a bad reaction to bullies. And I’ve reached my limit.

I hope you have too. Therefore…

I endorse Donald Trump for President of the United States because I oppose bullying in all its forms. 

I don’t defend Trump’s personal life. Neither Trump nor Clinton are role models for our children. Let’s call that a tie, at worst.

The bullies are welcome to drown in their own bile while those of us who want a better world do what we’ve been doing for hundreds of years: Work to make it better while others complain about how we’re doing it.

Today I put Trump’s odds of winning in a landslide back to 98%. Remember, I told you a few weeks ago that Trump couldn’t win unless “something changed.” 

Something just changed.

A Lesson in Cognitive Dissonance - Dil ert

A Lesson in Cognitive Dissonance

Posted October 27th, 2016 @ 8:46am in #Hillbullies #Trump #Clinton

A few days ago I tweeted a message that induced cognitive dissonance in a lot of Twitter users and some of the bottom-feeding media (Salon, HuffPo). This is a good case study for understanding the phenomenon. Here’s the tweet:

Cognitive dissonance happens when you are confronted with a truth that conflicts with your self-image. To reconcile the conflict, your brain automatically triggers an hallucination to rationalize-away the discrepancy. 

To be clear, that is the way normal brains work. Cognitive dissonance is happening to all of us on a regular basis. It’s just easier to spot when it happens to someone else.

I engineered the offending tweet to make the point that ISIS appears to prefer a Clinton presidency. That puts Clinton’s supporters on the same side as ISIS, at least in the narrow sense that they might prefer the same candidate. That creates a conflict between Clinton supporters’ self-image as good people and the uncomfortable reality that they might prefer the same candidate as ISIS. If my point is credible, the predicted result is that it would induce cognitive dissonance and a literal hallucination.

And it did.

But first, some background. The reasoning behind the tweet is as follows:

1. Trump gains popularity when people are thinking about terrorism because the public perceives Trump to have the stronger anti-terror position. ISIS would have learned that by watching the reaction to earlier terror attacks this year.

2. It only takes one terrorist with some guns and ammo to capture American headlines.

3. It is highly likely that ISIS could inspire at least one suicide terrorist in the United States or Europe between now and Election Day if that was their intention. 

4. If Homeland Security thwarts a big terrorist attempt before election day, we would hear about it. So even if an attempt is unsuccessful, we would still get a feel for ISIS’ intentions.

5. ISIS probably follows American presidential politics because it matters to them. Clinton and Trump are sufficiently different that it makes sense ISIS would have a preference. For example, Trump is likely to better partner with Russia, restrict immigration more, and focus more on the persuasion game against ISIS. (That last one is what they might fear the most. They too are Master Persuaders.)

6. ISIS has used Trump’s rhetoric as a recruiting tool, and that makes sense for them while he is a candidate. But a President Trump would actually have power to implement his war preferences, and that’s a different calculation for ISIS. Recruiting is a lower priority than war strategy, so it makes sense that ISIS would prefer the candidate that gives them the best odds – in their opinion – of defending their Caliphate and winning in the long run.

7. Given the assumptions above, it follows that if ISIS preferred Trump to be leading the war against them, they could greatly increase the odds of that happening by activating a headline-grabbing attack between now and election day in Europe or the United States. (Here I assume I am not telling ISIS anything they don’t already know.)

Obviously there are no absolutes in this world. Maybe our immigration vetting and security services are already so good that no bad people have slipped in. But that would mean those services suddenly got a lot better than they were earlier this same year. That’s possible, but unlikely.

It is also possible that ISIS isn’t thinking about American elections because they are busy defending the Caliphate. But that means the lull in attacks for the past few months is happening for some reason other than influencing our politics. What other reason can you imagine for them to take a pause? Assuming they have the capability (one guy with a gun and ammo) and the motive, why else would they take a break? From the terrorist’s perspective, more is always better.

You can see how this line of reasoning would make Clinton supporters uncomfortable. Terror is high on everyone’s list of national priorities, and no one wants to be backing the same candidate as ISIS. So if my point in the tweet seemed rational to Clinton supporters, it should – in theory – trigger them to hallucinate in order to rationalize-away their discomfort in being on the same team as ISIS (in this limited sense).

And sure enough, hallucinate they did.

The most popular hallucination is that some folks see my tweet as “praying for a terror attack” so Trump can get elected. No rational person would believe I expressed a public preference for more terrorism. But that’s what many Clinton supporters saw. They literally imagined (hallucinated) that I would be delighted with a new terror attack. That’s a big hallucination. (Just to be clear, I don’t want any terror attacks for any reason whatsoever.)

Watch the ongoing Twitter battle at @ScottAdamsSays as I trigger the #Hillbullies to annihilate their moral authority by acting on their cognitive dissonance and coming after me in full-bully force. It is good entertainment. 

Clinton donor got State Department invite — and Bill got $17M.

PAY-TO-PLAY:

Clinton donor got State Department invite — and Bill got $17M.

The head of a for-profit university that donated up to $5 million to the Clinton Foundation was rewarded with an invite to a high-profile State Department dinner at the request of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Doug Becker, CEO of Laureate International University, got his senior VP, Joseph Duffey, into the meeting of world-class academics at the August 2009 dinner because Becker was someone “who Bill likes a lot” and his school was “the fastest growing college network in the world,” Clinton wrote in an e-mail to her chief of staff revealed on WikiLeaks.
“It’s a for-profit model that should be represented.”
Roughly nine months later, the university signed Bubba to a sweet deal as an “honorary chancellor,” paying him $17.6 million over five years until the contract ended in 2015 as his wife launched her presidential run.
Analysts said Duffey’s presence at the dinner likely opened doors to the school that otherwise might have remained closed.

You don’t say.

16

‘Bill Clinton Inc.- Intersection of charity and personal income

Inside ‘Bill Clinton Inc.’: Hacked memo reveals intersection of charity and personal income

16 / 25

When top Bill Clinton aide Douglas Band wrote the memo, he was a central player at the Clinton

In doing so, Band also detailed a circle of enrichment in which he raised money for the Clinton Foundation from top-tier corporations such as Dow Chemical and Coca-Cola that were clients of his firm, Teneo, while pressing many of those same donors to provide personal income to the former president.

The system has drawn scrutiny from Republicans, who say it allowed corporations and other wealthy supporters to pay for entree to a popular former president and a onetime secretary of state who is now the Democratic presidential nominee.

Band wrote the memo in 2011 to foundation lawyers conducting a review of the organization amid a brewing feud with the Clintons’ daughter, Chelsea Clinton, who was taking a stronger role in leading the foundation and had expressed concerns about Teneo’s operations.

The memo, made public Wednesday by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, lays out the aggressive strategy behind lining up the consulting contracts and paid speaking engagements for Bill Clinton that added tens of millions of dollars to the family’s fortune, including during the years that Hillary Clinton led the State Department. It describes how Band helped run what he called “Bill Clinton Inc.,” obtaining “in-kind services for the President and his family — for personal travel, hospitality, vacation and the like.”

Band and his Teneo co-founder, former Hillary Clinton fundraiser Declan Kelly, declined to comment. But Teneo issued a statement saying that “as the memo demonstrates, Teneo worked to encourage clients, where appropriate, to support the Clinton Foundation because of the good work that it does around the world. It also clearly shows that Teneo never received any financial benefit or benefit of any kind from doing so.”

Spokesmen for Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton and the foundation declined to comment.

Hillary Clinton campaign spokesman Glen Caplin declined to comment on the memo, calling the material “hacked by the Russian government and weaponized by WikiLeaks.” Caplin declined to authenticate the memo, but he also did not dispute it.

Band, who grew close to Bill Clinton two decades ago as his personal aide in the White House and became the architect of his post-presidential activities, argued in the memo that he and his firm had benefited the former president and his foundation.

“We have dedicated ourselves to helping the President secure and engage in for-profit activities,” Band wrote. He also said he had “sought to leverage my activities, including my partner role at Teneo, to support and to raise funds for the foundation.”

Band’s memo provided data showing how much money each of Teneo’s 20 clients at the time had given to the Clinton Foundation, how much they had paid Bill Clinton and, in some cases, how he or Kelly had personally forged the relationships that resulted in the payments.

Band wrote that Teneo partners had raised in excess of $8 million for the foundation and $3 million in paid speaking fees for Bill Clinton. He said he had secured contracts for the former president that would pay out $66 million over the subsequent nine years if the deals remained in place.

For instance, Band wrote that Kelly arranged for the former president to meet the chief executive of Coca-Cola in January 2009 at the Clintons’ home in Washington. In all, according to Band’s memo, Coke had contributed $4.33 million to the foundation between 2004 and 2010.

A Coca-Cola spokesman said the company had supported the Clinton Foundation because it believed “in the great work that can be done when businesses, civil society and governments come together to solve problems.” He said Teneo had been hired to provide “business and communications” consulting.

Band also described how Kelly helped expand a fruitful relationship with UBS Global Wealth Management, introducing Bill Clinton to a top executive at a 2009 charity dinner. In the ensuing years, UBS upped its giving to the foundation, signed on as a Teneo client and agreed to pay Bill Clinton for speeches, Band wrote.

Records show UBS paid Clinton about $2 million in speaking fees between 2011 and 2015 for a series of appearances, generally alongside former president George W. Bush. The company also paid Hillary Clinton $225,000 for a 2013 speech.

UBS declined to comment.

Another achievement cited by Band: Laureate International Universities, a chain of for-profit international colleges, which donated to the foundation and agreed to pay Bill Clinton $3.5 million a year to serve as honorary chancellor.

Clinton has credited Band with conceiving of the Clinton Global Initiative, the glitzy annual meeting where corporate, government and nonprofit leaders gathered annually to talk about the world’s problems. Started in 2005, CGI became the best-known arm of the Clinton Foundation, which also operated education, environmental and health programs around the world. The final CGI meeting took place last month.

By 2011, the longtime Clinton aide was ready to strike out on his own.

That’s when Band and Kelly joined forces to form Teneo. At first, the firm remained closely linked to the Clinton network.

Band described in the memo how he combined his work for CGI and Teneo. He wrote that he had used a hotel room upstairs from the 2011 CGI gathering to meet with Teneo clients. He also acknowledged giving free CGI memberships to “target Teneo clients” being cultivated as potential foundation donors. Memberships generally cost $20,000 a year.

Teneo, meanwhile, named Bill Clinton its “honorary chairman.” Clinton had been initially tapped for a three-year arrangement in which he would provide advice to Teneo “regarding geopolitical, economic and social trends,” according to a separate June 2011 memo that Band wrote to the State Department seeking ethics approval for the former president’s employment.

Bill Clinton was initially paid $2 million by Teneo, according to “Man of the World,” a book written with the former president’s participation by author Joe Conason.

But Chelsea Clinton grew concerned when news leaked in late 2011 that MF Global, the hedge fund owned by former New Jersey governor Jon Corzine, had been paying the Clinton-tied firm $125,000 a month just before MF Global went bankrupt.

According to emails released by WikiLeaks, Chelsea Clinton complained in December 2011 to longtime Clinton aide John Podesta, who at the time was serving as an adviser to the Clinton Foundation, that she had been informed that a member of her father’s office staff who answered to Band had been making calls to British lawmakers “on behalf of President Clinton” for Teneo clients, particularly for the chief executive of Dow Chemical.

Chelsea Clinton wrote that the calls were occurring without her father’s knowledge and that the reactions she was hearing to them would “horrify” Bill Clinton. In another email, she wrote she feared Teneo was “hustling business at CGI.”

Chelsea Clinton’s concerns helped spark efforts at the foundation to adopt new policies governing outside consulting agreements designed to erect a more solid wall between Bill Clinton’s private and charitable activities. Emails show that Cheryl Mills, who at the time was serving as Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff at the State Department, was deeply involved in the foundation’s proceedings.

Bill Clinton also separated from Teneo, returning to the company all but $100,000 of the money he had been paid, tax returns show.

Emails show how the dispute between Chelsea Clinton and her father’s longtime aide led to personal hostility.

“I don’t deserve this from her and deserve a tad more respect or at least a direct dialogue for me to explain these things,” Band wrote to Podesta at the time. “She is acting like a spoiled brat kid who has nothing else to do but create issues to justify what she’s doing because she, as she has said, hasn’t found her way and has a lack of focus in her life.”

Band complained that no similar scrutiny was being applied to Bill Clinton himself. Band noted that he had previously signed a conflict of interest document for CGI.

“Oddly, WJC does not have to sign such a document even though he is personally paid by 3 cgi sponsors, gets many expensive gifts from them, some that are at home etc.,” he wrote.

The Band memo disclosed by WikiLeaks on Wednesday made no direct reference to Hillary Clinton.

But Band outlined that Kelly, his Teneo co-founder, had served simultaneously between 2009 and 2011 as an unpaid economic envoy to Northern Ireland appointed by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and as head of a separate consulting company whose clients included Coke, UBS and Dow. Band wrote that the arrangement was consistent with Kelly’s State Department ethics agreement.

Kelly’s multiple roles came together during one State Department event in 2010, when then-Secretary Clinton recognized Dow, among other companies, for creating jobs in Northern Ireland and thanked Kelly for his work on the issue.

Dow became one of Teneo’s first major clients. According to Band’s memo, Dow chief executive Andrew Liveris had been introduced to Bill Clinton over a round of golf with Kelly in August 2009.

The company then increased its Clinton Foundation support, contributing $705,000 in 2010 and 2011. A Dow spokeswoman said that the company’s participation in the foundation dated to 2007 and that the charity was “aligned to core business and citizenship strategies that have positively leveraged the resources and capabilities of our company.”

Dow paid Teneo $2.8 million in 2011, payments that then jumped to $19.4 million in 2012, according to internal Dow documents made public as part of a whistleblower complaint. The company later said in public filings that the increase reflected a cost-saving decision to consolidate several consulting contracts with one firm.

But the spike raised red flags for an internal company fraud investigator, who expressed alarm that it may be linked to Bill Clinton’s work with a charity founded by Liveris — a charge the company denied.

“It appears Dow is paying Teneo for connections with Clinton,” the investigator wrote.

Anu Narayanswamy and Alice Crites contributed to this report.

VDH Response to Angry Letter

October 20, 2016 4:58 pm / Leave a Comment / Megan Ring

Comment from an Angry Reader:

Donald Trump’s campaign statements have consisted of proposals including, but not limited to:

 Violation of the NATO treaty by threatening to withhold assistance from allies based on alleged financial discrepancies;

 Ordering the US Military to commit first-degree murder of non-combatant civilians (“take out the families” of suspected terrorists) — a war crime in violation of the Geneva Conventions;

 Commandeering private and public property in Iraq; specifically, the seizure of their oil fields, pumping equipment, and crude oil — in other words, “pillaging” of conquered territory, which is another war crime in violation of the Geneva Conventions;

 Violation of Amendment One of the Constitution (freedom of the press) – specifically, threatening prosecution against journalists who publish information with which he disagrees;

 Violation of Amendment One (freedom of religion) – specifically, requiring Muslim-Americans to carry identification cards listing their religion;

 Violation of Amendments Five and Six – specifically, trying American Citizens via Military Commissions at Guantanamo, Cuba detention facility;

 Utilizing the Justice Department as a tool of personal vengeance, including the unprecedented and reprehensible threat to jail his opponent if he should be elected.

The above conduct, were Trump to be elected and follow through on these proposals, would comprise a minimum of seven separate, actionable offenses, including Violation of International Law; Breach of Ratified Treaty; Defying the US Constitution; and Abuse of Presidential Power.

This list does not even touch on his not-illegal but nonetheless shocking displays of racism; his slightly oblique (but certainly successful) exhortations to violence at several of his campaign rallies; and his boasting of, and history of, sexual predation upon women.

 A person who votes for a candidate whose campaign rhetoric indicates willingness, even eagerness, to break the law is either insane, hopelessly uneducated, or willingly complicit in the crimes. I’d say that multiple-choice array gives a pretty good clue as to where you stand.

I have long restrained myself from using the “F” word when it comes to a number of the farther-right politicians and commentators in this country, figuring that reasonable minds can disagree.

No more.  Not this time. Not with this candidate, and not when you write something like this:

“… if he were to win, he might usher in the most conservative Congress, presidency, and Supreme Court in nearly a century.”

Knock off the feeble attempts at subterfuge. You don’t mean “conservative,” and we both know it.

You are a fascist. And drowning people in would-be-Buckley word avalanches of self-justification, and hiding behind a variety of fake palliatives like economic arguments does not hide that.

You have no scruples whatsoever to back such a man.

I suggest you consider writing your future columns under the pen name of Philippe Pétain.

Sincerely,

Tom Edwards

Victor Davis Hanson’s Reply:

Dear Angry Reader Tom Edwards:

 It is always enjoyable to read an unprincipled and emotional leftist rant that suggests the moral high ground as the requisite excuse for descending into the swamp of calling someone a fascist.

 I have many disagreements with both Hillary supporters and NeverTrump Republicans—and Trump himself, but I don’t question their motives: if you prefer a liberal agenda, then by all means vote for Hillary and swallow her criminality; if you find Trump too vulgar and inexperienced, then simply do not vote for him. Neither is a fascist position. Nor is voting for him the lesser of two evils.

 The adolescent angry reader is incapable of such disinterested views.

 He also engages in projection (in the order he presented his “charges”):

Freedom of religion: Trump was quite wrong in his initial statement to ban entry from the war-torn Middle East on the basis of religion (although Christian Middle Easterners are less likely to be ISIS operatives); he was certainly correct, however, to use locale as a criterion (curtail all immigration for everyone from Syria, Libya, Iraq, etc. until we can properly vet applicants). On the topic of religious liberty, remember how the Obama administration sought to force the Catholic “Little Sisters of the Poor” to include a contraceptive clause in their health care plans contrary to their religious beliefs? The Podesta trove, likewise, reminds us how the Left sought to undermine the Catholic Church which it wrote off as medieval. Trump has not predicated relief for the dying (re: Haiti) on a contractor’s past contributions to the Clinton Foundation. He has not horse-traded with the FBI, hoping to have documents reclassified in exchange for space at US embassies abroad.

 On murder: Hillary Clinton (“I don’t recall…”) as Secretary of State according to more than one witness pondered the possibility of droning ( = assassinating) Julian Assange—but only when his Wikileaks project was damaging her own campaign. Barack Obama, remember, joked about droning possible suitors of his daughter. Funny stuff, blowing up someone from above?

On the 1st Amendment: a video maker was jailed by the Obama administration on the trumped up charge of inciting a riot abroad (proven false); AP reporters had their communications tapped by Eric Holder’s Justice Department. It is now apparently banal (Politico’s Glenn Thrush: “Because I have become a hack I will send u the whole section that pertains to u”) for journalists to send their stories first to the Clinton campaign to have them approved or for an operative to leak debate questions to the preferred candidate. “Equal Protection Under the Law” has become satire when one compares the criminal prosecutions of high-ranking military officers for leaking sensitive documents, after the Hillary immunity for doing far more damage.

Violation of American citizens’ rights: I think droning an American citizen is a bit harsher than interrogating one at Guantanamo. As far as citizens’ rights, the abuse under Lois Lerner at the IRS was aimed at denying US citizens’ their free speech rights.

Personal vengeance? Does the author remember the bullying tactics of press coordination with the White House of JournoList? The jailing of Dinesh D’Souza? Nakoula Basselely Nakoula?

 The author is incapable of comparing the agendas of the candidates and making comparisons (in this particular election) between their positions on the issues; instead we resort to the subjunctive mood to worry what Trump might do when we know what Clinton has done.

 As far as the other boilerplate: Trump campaign rallies? Maybe I missed the story of the resignation of Trump goons (frequent White House visitors?) who confessed to trying to stage riot and violence at Clinton rallies? I deplore racist language, but remember unfortunately the president’s “typical white person,” and Hillary’s 2008 appeal to “white Americans,” and the Harry Reid/Joe Biden discourse about “clean” blacks without “negro” accents.

 The law? This administration had broken the law with executive orders nullifying current immigration statutes, by allowing 300 entities to declare themselves “sanctuaries” immune from ICE jurisdiction, or to reorder creditors in bankruptcy laws; but that is minor in comparison to subverting the government email system, ranking times for personal appointments by payoffs, or divvying up federal contracts on the basis of donations.

 In sum, the author believes like Hillary Clinton that half of those with whom he disagrees are “deplorables,” and it is just such sanctimoniousness that leads to the sort of constitutional abuse witnessed during the last 8 years and throughout the Wikileaks trove. “Knock off the subterfuge:” you are not liberal-minded, merely confused, sadly uniformed—and strangely quite emotional as well.

 I feel quite sorry for you. I mean that sincerely as well.

 —VDH

The Coming ‘American Spring’

Bryan Crabtree

|

Posted: Oct 24, 2016

  In the future, businesses will be forced to step in and provide services to their local communities that government is incompetent to do.

Increasingly, government is becoming a regulatory body. Historically, government’s main role was to insure our security as well as help maintain an orderly system for innovators, creators and businesses to thrive. This has changed.

Increasingly, government is both corrupt and incompetent (federal, state & local). I’m not saying all government in America is corrupt or incompetent, but we are reaching a tipping point where it’s a majority.

Our schools have become institutions of liberal indoctrination, devoid of meaningful learning. We teach children that it’s okay to avoid painful discussions or situations and instead seek safe-zones devoid of reality. They aren’t teaching students how to adapt to the rapidly changing technological revolution. They are stuck in archaic principals rooted in massive ‘brick and mortar’ facilities limited by their avoidance of technology.

By contrast, countries like China, India and Mexico are taking our jobs, building more factories and inventing new and disruptive technologies. These countries are reinvesting the profits from these victories into educating their people and increasing their trade-skills.

American-based businesses are going to be forced to either move to these countries of lower-costs and increased productivity or to subsidize our liberal ‘government-schools’ with career counseling, business education and technical training.  

CARTOONS | GLENN MCCOY

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Our country is becoming so regulated that wages are stagnant. Instead of increasing worker’s salaries businesses are forced to spent thousands of hours of executive-level time renegotiating skyrocketing benefits packages and meeting with regulators and lawyers. You can thank ‘Obamacare’ regulations and its consequences for much of that. Instead of increased wages, employers are redirecting resources to maintaining benefits. It will be incumbent upon businesses to educate its employees on how to control costs with their doctor and how to mitigate damages caused by our burdensome government.

For instance, some employees are visiting ‘in-network’ doctors and learning that their annual physical is covered. In some cases, doctor’s are sending the blood-work to an ‘out-of-network’ laboratory for testing. The patient will later find that their insurer will not cover the lab-work resulting in a shocking-bill ranging from $1500-$3500. Our government created the vacuum and confusion that makes this both legal and possible through regulations such as ‘Obamacare.’

Who is going to inform consumers of this? If we can’t trust the government, then it must be America’s businesses who become the advocate for our citizens and our workers. They have the most at stake as the constant ‘regulation-spiral’ is usually first directed at them.

Sadly, many businesses are corrupt as well. It is going to be important that honorable business leaders escape the shadows to ‘blow the whistle’ on corrupt institutions within their respective industries.

When Wells Fargo can illegally repossess the cars of 400 active-duty, deployed military men (and women) and escape with only a fine, our system is broken. This was on the heels of the $185 million fine levied on them after they illegal opened over two million accounts. Wells blamed it on over 5,000 of its employees, of course!

We learned that Goldman Sachs shorted AAA-rated mortgage bonds in the immediate days following their sale of those bonds to unsuspecting investors. We’ve seen emails where bankers were joking about their ‘two-faced opinions’ of these bonds. Fines were paid, but no one was prosecuted. Is that because former Attorney General Eric Holder is now working for the law firm that serves many of these banks? Wasn’t he in charge of those prosecutions (or lack thereof)?

If our government can’t stop the corruption because it is itself corrupt, then powerful businesses must take over that role in order to maintain an orderly economy. 

Businesses could overwhelm the government’s corruption by offering free programs to train workers, teach them basic business skills and help people find their purpose. Our schools are failing miserably at this task. 

Once people become more economically empowered and enlightened, they will no longer be vulnerable to the politicians who have infiltrated our system, schools and culture with a vail of lies and distortions. These distortions distract many uninformed Americans from the true cause of our problems: corruption and incompetence in government.

We need an ‘American Spring’ where our citizens are given the tools, technology, acumen and empowerment to remove our corrupt politicians who thrive on our chaos.

Unless a community of powerful people, with tremendous resources can invade our country’s psyche with a message of hope, help and prosperity, we will have but a dim future.

I believe in the American Dream. I believe it can be found, even if these darker times. But, we cannot depend on our government and its corruption to deliver this message. American businesses and their leaders must both enlighten and save this country before it’s too late 

Philippine pivot to China is just the latest consequence of Obama’s feckless foreign policy

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE UPDATE:

Walter Russell Mead: The Philippine pivot to China is just the latest consequence of Obama’s feckless foreign policy.

As usual, the Obama administration was caught off guard and flat-footed. John Kirby, the spokesman for the State Department, said the move was “inexplicably at odds” with the U.S.-Philippine relationship. “We are going to be seeking an explanation of exactly what the president meant when he talked about separation from us,” Kirby said. “It’s not clear to us exactly what that means and all its ramifications.”
Kirby is right that the outlook in the Philippines is murky; lots of Filipino officials are as appalled by their president’s remarks as anybody in Foggy Bottom. But what isn’t murky at all is that President Obama’s faltering foreign policy has taken another serious hit. It is hard to think of another American president whose foreign policy initiatives failed as badly or as widely as Obama’s. The reconciliation with the Sunni world? The reset with Russia? Stabilizing the Middle East by tilting toward Iran? The Libya invasion? The Syria abstention? The ‘pivot to Asia’ was supposed to be the centerpiece of Obama’s global strategy; instead the waning months of the Obama administration have seen an important U.S. ally pivot toward China in the most public and humiliating way possible.
Duterte clearly thinks that humiliating Obama in this way is a solid career move. He certainly believes that China will support him against the critics at home and abroad who will wring their hands over his shift. He presumably has had some assurances from his Chinese hosts that if he commits his cause to them, they will back him to the hilt.
This points to a broader problem: Obama’s tortuous efforts to balance a commitment to human rights and the niceties of American liberal ideology with a strong policy in defense of basic American security interests have made the world less safe for both human rights and for American security. As the revisionist powers (Russia, China, and Iran) gain ground, foreign leaders feel less and less need to pay attention to American sermons about human rights and the rule of law. Death squads and extra-judicial executions on a large scale: the Americans will lecture you but China will still be your friend. Barrel bombing hospitals in Aleppo? The Russians won’t just back you; they will help you to do it. Obama’s foreign policy is making the world safer for people who despise and trample on the very values that Obama hoped his presidency would advance.

Who could have seen this coming?

98Posted at 10:30 am by Glenn Reynolds