Rebane's Ruminations

Sandbox - 14jan19

[Why would the president's AG nominee William Barr telegraph the preposterous statement that he will tell the Senate judiciary committee that he would unconditionally allow Mueller to finish whatever he's been doing in the attempt to bring down the administration?  gjr]

Sandbox - 8jan19

[Get ready for President Trump's speech from the Oval Office tonight in which he'll try to convince us that there is national security crisis on our southern border, and that spending money to reduce border porosity is now a national priority which the Constitution allows, nay, requires him to exercise executive powers to defend America against an unending influx of poor, ignorant, and destitute foreigners who are told they have the right to illegally enter the country and establish a new life in America.  gjr]

Sandbox - 3jan19

[A little while back I asked for feedback on the notion of moderating RR comments in the effort to cut out a lot of the naked ad hominem interpersonal crappola comments that contribute nothing to the discussion of ideas, issues, or events.  The plan would be to quit moderating again as soon as the ad hominems were promoted to at least high school, if not churchillian, levels.  The response from all you worthies was a massive yawn.  Silence is also feedback, so I take that as apparently no one cares.  Thank you. gjr]

Sandbox - 28dec18

[So, does a president's responsibility to keep the nation secure, in this case via increasing border security (aka reducing border porosity), constitute a sufficiently important issue to warrant standing firm on his request for a minimal amount of funding ($5B or less) to increase that security and plug our very porous border, which the assaulting migrants are now pouring through at historically high rates?  gjr]

Sandbox - 23dec18

[Another hectic week has passed in the Trump administration.  Even FN is aping MSNBC and CNN with gotcha questions to their talking heads, questions like, ‘Now that no person experienced in military affairs would consider serving under a nationalist president like Trump, how is he going get someone qualified to fill the SecDef position?’  To those afflicted with TDS, this question is raw meat, and they will make the most of it describing a hopeless situation that will now compromise US national security.  On the other hand, none of those not so afflicted have brains to say, ‘Whoa!  To begin, I don’t accept your preamble to that question.  You need to make that case before you ask anyone to accept your question.'  Instead, the best these innocent snuffies are able to gurgle up is something like, ‘Well yes, it is a difficult situation and we hope that someone qualified will step up to the job.’  gjr]

Sandbox - 19dec18

[Well, does Mueller have anything on Trump and the Russians, or are he and his boys just continuing to manufacture crimes so that in the end they can point to some accomplishments, while hoping to distract all from the charter that gave rise to their commission?  Sure would like to see what he would have escrowed when I first suggested it.  gjr]

Sandbox - 14dec18

[The Travails of Trump continue morning, noon, and night.  He and his family is daily indicted, convicted, and condemned without any evidence presented to the public save the constant repetitious ravings of progressive pundits who never retract anything, leaving their TDS audience believing that their offal is gospel.  gjr] 

Sandbox - 8dec18

[The commenting problem has been fixed.  Apologies for the inconvenience.  gjr]

Sandbox - 5dec18

[Watching President GHW Bush’s funeral pageant this morning brings to mind that now and then we still have occasions in America that bring us all together.  But such occasions can only happen in sovereign nation-states like America still is today, a unique country where we Americans can find common values and shared lives upon which we are then called to reflect and reveal the things that still unite us.  gjr]

Sandbox - 29nov18

[For those interested in an expansion of how we use words today, as promised, I have addended the 'Fake News Defined' commentary that opens with a retort to Mr Steven Frisch's most recent contribution to these pages. gjr]

Sandbox - 23nov18

["Policy makers should view the problem from the starting point of today, and resolve to take action on every front. America must restore the norm of gainful employment for all who are mentally and physically able and are not working in the home. The private and public sectors must share responsibility for equipping every American, college-bound or not, with marketable 21st-century skills. Congress and state legislatures should restructure public benefit programs to encourage work and ensure that workers earn a living wage. Finally, the nation must enact public policies that sustain the labor market through downturns, making it possible for every able worker to find a job."  From the dreams of disconnected policy pundits.  (more here) ]

Sandbox - 19nov18

[Apologies for letting the last sandbox get overfilled.  I guess time flies while you're having fun ;-)  Please continue adding to the recent topics on the fires, etc as appropriate. gjr]

Sandbox – 11nov18

[CA fires continue to kill, destroy thousands of homes, and cost billions to contain. In the meantime prescription burns to reduce fuel loads are proscribed because of the potential of litigation costs from accidental or claimed damages from such burns. And police point out that mass shootings invariably occur in ‘gun-free zones’ where legal guns that could prevent/reduce deaths are banned. And the state’s housing shortage and high cost continue to be maintained by regulations and codes that cater to liberal governance dominated by the ecology epidemic. Insanity running rampant and on the rise. gjr]

Sandbox - 2nov18

[In the last sandbox Bro Gregory cites a WaPo story that brings up the notion that large, violent caravans heading north for the US border might become the norm.  My strong belief is that they will indeed become the norm if President Trump is not able to either get Mexico to disperse them before reaching the border, or that our border security fails (due to political pressures from our anti-American Left) and thousands of illegal new migrants suddenly find themselves successfully on American soil.  gjr]

Sandbox - 28oct18

[Apologies for the last sandbox getting a little rancid there.  We just returned from travel and I let things get away from me.  Well, now with all the additional stuff that's happened, there is a lot of catching up to do.  This morning NPR did a couple of hit pieces on President Trump, nimbly circling their innuendo wagons to blame him and the Republicans for all the current tragedies - happened and impending - while wondering why the other side doesn't stop "their hateful rhetoric" that is causing all this.  Of course, constantly pointing this out, their hands somehow remain clean.  gjr]

Sandbox - 19oct18

[WASHINGTON—President Trump is elevating the issue of immigration, which drove his 2016 campaign, with the aim of animating Republican voters in a midterm election that threatens to derail his agenda if Democrats retake the House.  Mr. Trump’s latest comments came Thursday as he warned about an “onslaught” of migrants reaching the southern U.S. border with Mexico and threatened to deploy the military if the caravan isn’t stopped.]

Sandbox - 11oct18

[The markets are finally correcting, as they do from time to time, and all the progressives are happy dancing in the streets.  Finally, since Mueller continues his sound of silence, they something to point at before the election that doesn't cause more Dems to reregister as Repubs. gjr]

Sandbox - 5oct18

[Is anyone still interested in the Mueller investigation now that the Judge Kavanaugh conflagration is passing from the ridiculous to the sublime?  gjr]

Sandbox - 29sep18

[The Kavanaugh cauldron continues to boil, and it ain't over 'til it's over.  gjr]

Sandbox - 23sep18

[A reader alerted me to another gem of the FUE's logic.  He takes to task those who criticize the People's Republic of Kalifornia, and still (gasp!) take their leisure at the state's awesomely scenic locales.  The man's brain cannot separate terribly gone wrong social policies from the state's natural beauty, as if eschewing one requires rejecting everything that is still good about the state, and that mainly because the progressives have yet to eliminate the last vestiges of such enjoyments (e.g. denying/limiting public access to TBD 'wildlands').  This thinking by local lefties is replicated in Sacramento, because those are the idiots that the gimmes all over the state have now voted into power.  And that California now has achieved the nation's highest poverty rate gives additional depth to the ignorance of these leftwing loonies.  gjr]

Sandbox - 17sep18

[No one, including Donald Trump, needs to attack Ms. Ford. She believes what she believes. This is not he said-she said. This is a case of an alleged teenage encounter, partially recalled 30 years later without corroboration, and brought forward to ruin Mr. Kavanaugh’s reputation for partisan purposes. ... Letting an accusation that is this old, this unsubstantiated and this procedurally irregular defeat Mr. Kavanaugh would also mean weaponizing every sexual assault allegation no matter the evidence. It will tarnish the #MeToo cause with the smear of partisanship, and it will unleash even greater polarizing furies.  17sep18 WSJ]

Sandbox - 11sep18

[On 11 September 2001 radical Islam carried out its most devastating attack on those they identify as infidels and kafirs, their name for the rest of us on this globe.  On this day of remembrance it is incumbent on us in the west to reflect on the state of Islam, and especially its quiet ongoing conquest of Europe, whose belated recognition of and opposition to what's happening is deemed racist by the Left.  Lest we forget, Europe is just the warm-up, with the battle cry 'Death to America!', an Islamic America is their main objective.  gjr]

Sandbox - 7sep18

[It's clear that our liberal readers have a wildly different conception of 'witch hunt' than the rest of us.  The WH effort to discover the self-declared anonymous leaker and resister who wrote the NYT op-ed is an existential and legitimate target of an internal investigation to ferret out someone who promises to make shambles of presidential executive privilege.  There is nothing here to compare with what Mueller is doing in his investigation of Trump which is based on allegations and no evidence of 'Russian collusion' after an 18+ month probe into the affairs of Team Trump.  There was no culpable evidence to launch the investigation, and its interminable continuation is also based on nothing but the hope of perhaps finding something in future.  Now that is a witch hunt.  gjr]

Sandbox – 1sep18

[Good-hearted Darrell Berkheimer, one of our Union’s several progressive columnists, is truly an exemplar of ideological low hanging fruit.  His most recent 1sep18 column is standard leftwing pap and a collection of its staple feel-good talking points, with no consideration of how any of such socialist goals can be achieved, either with living breathing human beings or available monies.  His solution for the latter is to defund the military, which to him and his is the ever-present and unnecessary burden that maintains an America which keeps globalism at bay.  If it weren’t for his effect on the even less-well-read of our community, Mr Berkheimer’s ignorance of history and economics could be gently dismissed as the simple outpourings of a concerned and kindly old gentleman.  gjr]

Sandbox – 27aug18

[I voted for John McCain in 2008, even though I considered him a weak entry by the Republicans.  But he was a man who had fought the good fight for America, and was a military hero in the true (old) sense of the word.  While not agreeing with all of his politics – especially that climate change should be a national security issue for the US – but he did hew sufficiently to the conservative views on property, security (e.g. US as world's white hat hegemon), and liberty.  His parting shot at President Trump will assure that his funerary plaudits will make political history.  Thank you for your service, and RIP Senator McCain. gjr]