Tag: policy

Trump begins to “evolve”

9:37 am

The betrayal begins: At the debate last night Donald Trump noted that he is already beginning to consider easing his hardline immigration stance.

In Detroit, Fox News’ Megyn Kelly pointed out that Trump’s campaign website has a strong statement against increasing the number of H-1Bs, saying it would “decimate American workers,” and yet in one debate Trump spoke favorably of the program. “So, which is it?” Kelly asked.

“I’m changing,” Trump said. “I’m changing. We need highly skilled people in this country, and if we can’t do it, we’ll get them in. But, and we do need in Silicon Valley, we absolutely have to have. So, we do need highly skilled,” Trump continued, “and one of the biggest problems we have is people go to the best colleges. They’ll go to Harvard, they’ll go to Stanford, they’ll go to Wharton, as soon as they’re finished they’ll get shoved out. They want to stay in this country. They want to stay here desperately, they’re not able to stay here. For that purpose, we absolutely have to be able to keep the brain power in this country.

“So you are abandoning the position on your website?” asked Kelly.

“I’m changing it,” Trump said, “and I’m softening the position because we have to have talented people in this country.”

I’ve said from the beginning that Trump is not a reliable conservative, that his roots are liberal, even if they aren’t radical leftwing, and that once he gets in power he will be no different than either George Bush or even Bill Clinton.

Thus, I am not surprised that he “softening the position”. What surprises me is that he is revealing this now, even before he has gotten the Republican nomination. I wonder if anyone will really notice.

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Businessman found innocent of all charges after years of persecution by the Justice Department.

9:22 am

Our fascist government: A medical company and its head was pursued and persecuted for five years by the Department of Justice, based on a false accusation by a former employee, only to lose its case when it finally presented its case to a jury.

It all started when one of our salesmen became upset he didn’t receive a promotion. So he quit and filed a baseless complaint with the U.S. attorney’s office in San Antonio, alleging a multitude of offenses to try to justify a $20 million claim. Simply by hiring a lawyer and making wild accusations, this former employee with an ax to grind became entitled under the law to receive 20 percent of whatever money the government could “recover” from Vascular Solutions.

The government lawyers reviewed his allegations and chose to pursue just one. I offered to meet with them to correct their misinformation, but two days before that scheduled meeting, they called my lawyer and canceled it. And they never would reschedule. So before deciding to bring criminal charges, these prosecutors never heard my side of the story.

Instead, they subpoenaed over 2 million pages of our documents and interviewed over 60 customers and employees. In the process, they received evidence that conflicted with the story told by that money-motivated former employee. But instead of changing their conclusions to fit the evidence, these prosecutors engaged in obscene tactics to try to change the evidence.

In conversation with our lawyers, they called conflicting statements by witnesses “a line of sh*t.” They referred to one employee as “a poor f***er” who needed to return “on bended knee” to “fix” his testimony. They told a female employee to think about what would happen to her firstborn son if she were indicted because she refused to “cooperate.” And by “fix” and “cooperate,” I mean retract their prior testimony and support the government’s case.

Granted, this is written by the man whom the government was trying to prosecute. Still, I believe him, especially because of one key fact he outlines once they went to trial:

In the end, after I endured four weeks sitting in a San Antonio courtroom while still running Vascular Solutions in Minnesota, the jury rejected each and every allegation. And that was without hearing from any of our 20 witnesses, since we made the decision to rest immediately after the government finished its case. So the government’s own witnesses proved our innocence — simply stunning.

The company says it spent $25 million defending itself. It is now calling for an investigation and a firing of these Justice Department lawyers. How many of you expect the Obama administration to follow through with this? I don’t.

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Trump winning open primaries, Cruz winning closed ones

10:14 pm

Link here.

If true, why does this matter? Because so far the primary calendar has been heavily tilted toward open primaries. But there have been four closed elections: the Iowa caucus, the Nevada caucus, and Super Tuesday’s Oklahoma primary and Alaska caucus. Ted Cruz won three of those four closed elections.

This suggests that, as a number of polls have indicated, Trump’s victories have largely been aided by moderate Democratic voters crossing over to vote for him, mostly I suspect out of disgust at the extreme leftist tilt of their own party.

A more important factor to consider, however, is that the primaries will be increasingly shifting to closed primaries in the coming weeks. This weekend alone there are four primaries/caucuses, and they are all closed. No Democrats can vote in them. If Cruz tops Trump in most, it will indicate Trump’s true weakness within the Republican Party, a fact that could make it far more difficult for him to achieve the nomination than presently indicated.

And if Trump does well in these closed primaries? Then the nomination is likely his.

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India’s space agency ISRO gets a budget boost

9:37 pm

In its new budget approved by India’s government the country’s space agency ISRO was the only science agency to get a significant budget increase, approximately 7.3%.

In the short run this is good, as ISRO has been using its funds wisely and accomplishing a lot for a little, while trying to encourage private development in India’s aerospace industry. In the long run, however, this will not be good, as government agencies always grow more than they should while sucking the innovation and creativity from the private sector. This is what NASA did in the U.S.

Hopefully, India will see how things are changing in America with private enterprise reasserting itself after a half century of government stagnation in space development and copy what we are doing.

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The suicide of the GOP establishment

10:07 am

Link here.

Time and time again, grassroots and movement conservatives have expressed their opposition to all five of the key planks in Rubio’s platform. These Republicans do not support the Gang of Eight bill. They do not support Obama’s trade deals. They do not want to spend huge amounts of blood and treasure again in the Middle East. And they most certainly do not want the economy to look like it did in the fall of 2008.

These voters have tried, through every means available, to make their opposition felt. They are the reason that Eric Cantor is no longer in the House. They are the reason that the Gang of Eight bill didn’t pass. They are the reason that John Boehner is no longer speaker. And they are the reason that Donald Trump and Ted Cruz have dominated the polls for months.

Many people have urged the Rubio donor network, think-tank fellows and media supporters to back off on their policy demands — to do more than simply acknowledge “the voters are right to be angry.” In fact, Gov. Chris Christie advocated for compromise during a speech at St. Anselm’s College earlier this year. People such as former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan wrote recently that the GOP must be more sensitive to the concerns of working-class voters, whom she dubbed the “unprotected.”

Nevertheless, even today, the Rubio supporters refuse to budge.

The Rubio supporters are also the same people in the GOP who tried to push Jeb Bush on us. The real tragedy is that if they had thrown their support to Ted Cruz, they might have been able to quell Donald Trump’s dominance in the polls. Instead, they have refused to face the reality that the general public does not support they policies, and have run like lemmings to the cliff by splitting the conservatives between Cruz and Rubio.

The result: The Republican Party stands a very good chance right now of nominating as its Presidential candidate someone who is as liberal as Bill Clinton and as reliable in what he says. Worse, polls continue to show him losing to the worst Democratic candidates offered in decades.

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UC-Berkeley Chemistry College to shutter?

10:16 am

The coming dark age: The University of California in Berkeley is considering disbanding its College of Chemistry to deal with $150 million pf debt.

One commenter noted this key fact: “What about African American Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies? Are those programs going to be affected too?” with two others adding sarcastically, “No, they are essential,” and “Because they teach such marketable skills.”

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Brownshirts try to silence conservative speaker

11:48 am

The coming dark age: Ben Shapiro speaks at California State U, despite fascist mobs, violent threats, and an attempt by the college president to silence him.

Be sure to watch all three video clips at the first link above. One shows Shapiro speaking as the fire alarm goes off. The other two clips show the hostile mob outside. The contrast is striking. All the mob needs are pitchforks and torches to complete the picture.

That it was possible for the left to harness such a large mob so quickly in an effort to silence Shapiro’s dissent suggests strongly to me that we are heading for very bad times. In a few short years, the students in that mob, who far outnumber the peaceful students who came to listen to Shapiro, are going to have powerful jobs and influential positions. And these fascists are going to be eager to use that power to squelch their opponents.

Addendum: Be sure to read this comment at the link from someone who was there. It is really frightening. As she notes,

I know from this site and others that this is what goes on. But actually being there and being shoved and taunted and blocked from hearing a speaker … it’s just another dimension. You can’t believe the insanity. You can’t believe the completely undeserved sense of moral superiority coupled with the simmering threat of violence. Really, really disheartening. …

The Young Americans for Freedom gang are a brave, brave group. Just completely outnumbered. Talked with one of them from the Reagan Center and she’d met Professor Jacobson and Mrs. Jacobson when they were at the center last year.

Seeing that in person, I think we’ve passed the point of no return. It’s not something you fix. It’s a stain you can’t get out … a complete mess. You cannot reason with people who refuse to listen to reason. At one point, one of the protestors was telling the guy next to me that Ben Shapiro was a racist and a supremacist because he was an Orthodox Jew, and thus should not be allowed to speak.

Tolerance. Behold.

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Our glorious Democratic leaders!

9:44 am

Dumb and dumber: When told that one of the Gitmo terrorists released by the Obama administration is now working for Al Qaeda recruiting more terrorists to attack the United States, Secretary of State John Kerry had a real smart answer: “He’s not supposed to do that.”

The link also provides some nice background, describing other absurd efforts of Kerry’s State Department to counter terrorism, such as when he enlisted a 1960s singer to serenade world leaders.

John Kerry was the Democratic Party’s choice to run for president in 2004. He is now the Obama administration’s choice to run the State Department. What does that tell us about that party? Could it be that they are all as dumb and incompetent as he is?

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The coming collapse of Obamacare

9:31 am

Finding out what’s in it: Link here.

I haven’t described this time any specific discovery about this monstrous law because the article at the link describes too many different examples where the law is failing. Here’s just one to give you a taste:

Insurers say they’ve also been hurt by customers who appear to be waiting until they become sick to buy coverage. The companies blame liberal enforcement of the ACA’s special enrollment exceptions. The law provides an annual enrollment window for several weeks starting in the fall. This is the main chance most people have to enroll or change coverage. But customers can enroll outside that window if insurance needs change because they’ve moved, gotten married or had a child, among other exemptions.

Exchanges have not been asking for birth certificates, marriage licenses or other proof of these life-changing events. Insurers say that leaves them vulnerable. The Montana Health Co-Op had a severely ill customer in a hospital sign up for its coverage in October and then drop a $250,000 bill on the insurer. CEO Jerry Dworak said he asked the exchange operator for details on whether the patient had a legitimate reason for the special enrollment. The exchange would only say that the patient changed ZIP codes.

“They’ve got to do something about the special enrollment because we just got killed on that,” Dworak said.

Read it all. The story also describes how the law’s health exchanges are failing, how healthy people are not signing up, how the law has caused health costs to skyrocket, and how it is causing heath insurance businesses to go bankrupt.

Other than these minor details, however, we all have been able to keep the insurance plans we like, and costs per family have dropped by $2500, just as Barack Obama promised! Let’s hire as our next President his former Secretary of State, who actually first conceived a similar Hillarycare proposal in the 1990s!

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Successful test of India’s GSLV rocket engine

9:54 am

The competition heats up: India has successfully completed a full duration static hot fire test of the cryogenic engine it is developing for its more powerful GSLV rocket.

The press release is very short and lacking in many details, including any detailed information about the engine being tested. However, this success bodes well for India’s plans to launch a new upgraded GSLV before the end of the year.

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Fraud in many science surveys?

9:37 am

The uncertainty of science: An analysis of scientific surveys suggests that one in five may contain fake data.

With few exceptions, they limited their analysis to studies that asked more than 1000 people at least 75 questions on a range of topics. And to be conservative, they forgave studies for which at least 95% of the data passed the test.

That made the results all the more worrying: Among 1008 surveys, their test flagged 17% as likely to contain a significant portion of fabricated data. For surveys conducted in wealthy westernized nations, that figure drops to 5%, whereas for those done in the developing world it shoots up to 26%.

To me the difference found between first and third world countries makes the results more believable. It suggests that survey companies who do these surveys have a problem that should be addressed. Instead, the research

is being hotly disputed by the Pew Research Center, one of the major funders of such surveys. And the organization has gone so far as to request the researchers desist from publishing their work.

Pew reviewed the questionable surveys and found evidence that the analysis produced some false positives. They used this as reason to reject its results entirely. That the analysis has also been successful in detecting fraud in several surveys apparently does not concern them.

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