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Opinion

ap-oregon-school-shooting

A boy prays at a makeshift memorial near Snyder Hall, the building on the Umpqua Community College campus where nine people were murdered. (PHOTO: JOHN LOCHER/AP)

The first details about the mass killer at the community college in Roseburg, Oregon, were that he was a young man, lonely and full of hate. Of course he was. They all are.

Lonely young men full of hate have been with us since there were lonely young men. The modern phenomenon of their acting out their madness on a large scale started almost 50 years ago, when Charles Whitman climbed the University of Texas Tower and shot to death 16 people down below. There have been similar assaults against innocents ever since, but what accounts for the current rapid pace of what used to be rare, horrific events?

One change may be the growth of social media, creating an online community to ease the loneliness of these mentally ill time bombs — and perhaps endorse their perverse fantasies. The community lets the killers know that after the deed, which usually includes their death, they will have lots of people following them.

Christopher Harper-Mercer, who slaughtered nine at Umpqua Community College, had made an online reference to Vester Lee Flanagan, who murdered two former colleagues from a Roanoke, Virginia, TV station while they were on the air. Flanagan had referenced Dylann Roof, a young white man accused of murdering nine people at an African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina. Flanagan was enraged at Roof and then copied him.

In between, there was John Russell Houser, a rare older mass shooter, 59, who posted his political ravings online before killing two and wounding nine others at a movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana. And he may have been copying James Holmes, who killed 12 and injured 70 at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado.

The natural response after these multiple shootings is to blame lax gun control. The appalled father of Harper-Mercer went on TV and did just that. Politicians agreed or not, depending on their fear of the National Rifle Association.

Yes, bans on weapons of war and gun sales to the mentally ill are desperately needed. Looking back at these massacres, most of the weaponry was legally obtained.

But perhaps as dangerous as the flood of arms are the fumes of paranoia spread by the NRA and other peddlers of gun mania. What better audience for the instant-empowerment-of-guns message than depressed, lonely men.

Ours seems to be the only culture that uses guns for psychotherapy, as was well-portrayed in the movie “American Sniper.” One creepy similarity between Harper-Mercer and Adam Lanza, who slayed 26 at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, was that their mothers took them out shooting.

Certainly in Lanza’s case, the mother bizarrely thought she could channel her boy’s sick obsession with guns into a bonding thing. Both mothers had left lying around the house the guns their deranged sons used.

In the meantime, these lonely men find companionship, however imaginary, in these online communities of gun worship, places that often validate their paranoiac thoughts. (Many also seek refuge in violent video games.) What they desperately need is real community to offer reality checks and interface with mental health professionals.

Some law enforcement is trying to withhold the perpetrators’ names to deprive the criminals of the celebrity they crave. These officers fully understand the motive, but their good efforts can’t go far. The curious public does want to know names and the killers’ grievances, however crazy, and media will provide them.

The bigger concern is the ugly public seething online, honoring killers past and certifying the most twisted worldviews. Social media have some very dark corners that encourage mass bloodshed, and what can we possibly do about it?

Of course the mass murder at the

Opinion

jobs-fair

American workers wait on a jobs fair line. (PHOTO: REUTERS)

One of the many painful signs of the mindlessness of our times was a recent section of the Wall Street Journal, built around the theme “What’s Holding Women Back in the Workplace?”

Whenever some group is not equally represented in some institution or activity, the automatic response in some quarters is to assume that someone has prevented equality of outcomes.

This preconception of equal outcomes requires not one speck of evidence, and defies mountains of evidence to the contrary. Even in activities where individual performances are what determine outcomes, and those performances are easily measured objectively, there is seldom anything resembling equal representation.

For 12 consecutive years — from 2001 through 2012 — each home run leader in the American League had a Hispanic surname. When two American boys whose ancestors came from India tied for first place in the U.S. National Spelling Bee in 2014, it was the 7th consecutive year in which the U.S. National Spelling Bee was won by an Asian Indian.

We all know about the large over-representation of blacks among professional basketball players, and especially among the star players. The best-selling brands of beer in America were created by people of German ancestry, who also created China’s famed Tsingtao beer. Of the 100 top-ranked Marathon runners in the world in 2012, 68 were Kenyans. The list could go on and on. Although blacks are over-represented among professional football players, even the most avid National Football League fan is unlikely to be able to recall seeing even one black player who kicked a punt or a point after touchdown.

Should there be an article titled: “What’s Holding Black Kickers Back in the NFL?” Could it be that blacks are more interested in playing positions where there is more action and — not incidentally — more money?

Should there be an article titled: “What’s Holding Back Whites in the National Basketball Association?” Or an article titled: “What’s Holding Back Non-Asian Indian Kids from Winning the Spelling Bee?” Lawsuits claiming discrimination have been won on the basis of statistical disparities far smaller than these.

Among the many reasons for gross disparities in many fields, and at different income levels, is that human beings differ in what they want to do, quite aside from any differences in what they are capable of doing, or what others permit them to do. Observers cannot just grab a statistic and run with it, though that is what is done too often in the media — and even in courts of law.

Particular opportunities are seized by some groups and used to rise from poverty to prosperity. But, for other groups, those same opportunities might as well not exist, because other groups are oriented in different directions, and those opportunities might not even catch their attention.

As regards statistical disparities in the representation of women in various occupations or at different income levels, a umber of outstanding female scholars, including Professor Claudia Goldin of Harvard, have shown many ways in which women’s circumstances and priorities differ from those of men.

Men, for example, don’t get pregnant. And where children are raised by a single parent, that parent is a mother far more often than a father. You cannot work the 60-hour weeks that are needed to reach the top in some fields when you have children to raise.

But we seldom hear about such facts, while we constantly hear charlatans loudly proclaiming numerical “gender gaps” in employment or pay, and suing for discrimination.

Charlatans are only half the story. The other half includes people who are gullible enough to be led around like sheep by those exploiting the prevailing political correctness dispensed in our schools, colleges and the media.

Moreover, the sheep in both high and low positions often also implicitly believe that the cause of statistical disparities must have originated wherever the statistics were collected, and therefore must be the fault of the employer — even though the factors behind those disparities may have originated far from the employer and long before the people involved reached the employer.

So long as there is widespread gullibility, there will be charlatans ready to exploit it for their own benefit, either politically or financially.

[mybooktable book=”wealth-poverty-and-politics-an-international-perspective” display=”summary” buybutton_shadowbox=”true”]

Sowell: So long as there is widespread

Polls

Pollster Ratings From the Most Accurate 2014 Midterm Election Projection Model

latest-polls-capitol-hill

People’s Pundit Daily, the most accurate 2014 election projection model on the Internet, released the first round of grades for the PPD Pollster Scorecard. Before we get into the ratings for the first few pollsters, we need to lay some groundwork for the article.

First and foremost, despite what may appear to be complicated, well-honed methodologies that can only be understood by those gifted in statistics or psephology, polling is more an art than a science. With the exception of a few, we consistently find that veteran pollsters with a niche–i.e. polling firms with long track records in a particular state or set of states–perform measurably better due to that experience. That said, we feel it is incumbent to express our deep dissatisfaction with the polling industry, as a whole.

While we shouldn’t be inclined to pounce on pollsters that get it wrong from time-to-time, we should also demand an explanation when one is necessary. To be sure, much of the polling during the 2014 midterm election cycle was abysmal, and downright indefensible. We find the utter lack of explanation and transparency post Election Day highly suspect, and are in agreement that the American voters deserved better than the widespread failure to offer meaningful insight into the state of the races. In fact, this is one of two reasons we have decided to drip-by-drip release the PPD Pollster Scorecard.

We like to think of the PPD Election Projection Model as a hybrid, but it is arguably more a big picture fundamentals model than anything else. Still, it is undeniable that pollsters–along with a horserace-loving media–have the power to influence. And though it may come as a surprise to some readers, it is often used for such unethical motivations. It’s time to hold them accountable considering they seem to think they do not owe the American people an explanation, and we find other prior attempts to do so insufficient. The second reason for releasing the grades on the PPD Pollster Scorecard, of course, should be obvious–transparency.

About the PPD Pollster Scorecard

Pollsters are generally assigned two grades on the PPD Pollster Scorecard, one an overall grade and another grade based strictly on raw performance. In the past, grading the polling firm on transparency was pretty much done by researching whether they are a member of the National Council of Public Polls (NCPP), a signatory to the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) Transparency Initiative, or a contributor to the data archive via the Roper Center. That is par for the course, as you might have seen with other pollster raters.

However, considering the less-than stellar performance by many of these pollsters in 2014, we now consider whether they answer our inquiries directly, provide us with detailed data upon request, consistently post more bias results one way or the other depending on their sponsors, etc.

Overall Grade

The overall grade considers a pollster’s responsiveness, transparency, methodologies, as well as their ability to get in front of trends (or movement) that other pollsters either miss or end up being slower to the roll. The overall rating also factors in whether we believe a pollster is up to something unethical. That is to say, without beating around the bush, we think they’re political hacks and completely full of it.

There are obvious varying degrees of this behavior. Generally speaking, it can range from suspected to repeated concern to blatant ethical misconduct. The less severe end of the spectrum typically means the polling results are penalized for being suspect, while the other end means they are no longer worthy of consideration, at all.

If we suspect ethical misconduct, it will have a significant negative impact on that particular pollster’s overall grade on the PPD Pollster Scorecard. If we come to such a determination, which is somewhat rare, we will dub that pollster a “political hack,” write about it for everyone to read and discount their polling, altogether.

How might we consider weighing something so serious and potentially damning?

Example 1

If the PPD average on our ObamaCare Approval Rating Index is -10, and a pollster coincidentally releases a poll a few days before the Supreme Court hears or decides a landmark case on the president’s signature health care law showing Approve +whatever, they might be up to something unethical.

Example 2

If a candidate says something utterly stupid about women’s bodies naturally aborting pregnancies as a result of rape and virtually every poll confirms a severely damning impact on that candidate’s support, yet a pollster consistently shows him or her still ahead because they may want them to get a particular party’s nomination, they might be up to something unethical.

Predictive Value Grade

The second grade, as previously stated, is strictly assigned based on predictive value. That is, did that pollster accurately predict the winner/outcome of the election and did the results come within the margin of error, typically 3 to 3.5 percentage points or less? Worth noting, we do weigh pollsters when determining the status of races analyzed on the PPD Election Projection Model. Also, we will be releasing more on the specific data and research associated with each polling firm, as well as other firms, shortly. Now, without further ado, here are the ratings with an expanded explanation on each.

[table id=18 /]

Let’s start with Seltzer & Company, quite frankly the only pollster currently enjoying two A+ grades on the PPD Pollster Scorecard. J. Ann Seltzer runs the firm that is the industry gold standard, plain and simple. For those who do not know, the firm is based out of West Des Moines, Iowa and pretty much sticks to what and who they know best–Iowa and Iowans. In 2008, Seltzer was the first to catch the surge from then-Sen. Barack Obama during the Democratic nomination and ended up nearly nailing his 7.8% margin over Hillary Clinton to the tee.

“If I was a gambling man and Ms. Seltzer’s poll was 20 points off the average spread, I would bet it all on them,” says PPD’s senior political analyst Rich Baris. “Her firm isn’t afraid to release bold polling results that challenge so-called conventional wisdom. They’re transparent, they’re polling practices are solid, proven, and they get results that match reality. ”

Fast-forward to 2014, and they again showed the rest of the industry they aren’t afraid to publish results that may not comport with the average. The final Des Moines Register Poll showed now-Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, defeating Rep. Bruce Braley, D-Iowa, by 7 points. She beat him by 8.5%, putting Seltzer & Company easily within the margin of error and far more accurate than the average 1.8-point nail-biter spread. Including the 2014 Iowa Senate race, Seltzer & Company has an almost immeasurable and certainly statistically insignificant Democratic slant.

The Quinnipiac University Poll, sometimes referred to as the Q-Poll, is similarly worthy of praise for consistently producing reliable polls with significant predictive value. Based out of Connecticut, the pollster conducts minimal national polling, presidential swing-state polling and a handful of other states in which they have a long and proven track record.

“Douglas Schwartz and Tim Malloy run a top shelf polling operation,” Baris says. “When political pundits were shading now-red states with Democrat incumbents blue, the Q-Poll was firing warning shots nobody heard. Their proven results in 2014 only added to their already solid record of predictive results and transparency. Quinnipiac is everything a pundit wants in a pollster.”

Quinnipiac, with an overall A grade on the PPD Pollster Scorecard, can be counted on to ask probing, in-depth questions to respondents that allow us to gain a greater understanding of the electorate’s mood. In both Colorado and Iowa, for instance, early Q-Poll results–which actually showed Democratic incumbents leading–also tipped off the PPD Election Projection Model to vulnerabilities that other forecasters either ignored or completely missed. Q’s slight relative slant to the GOP is under 1 point and also statistically insignificant.

Relative newcomer Gravis Marketing, the only robocalling firm on today’s PPD Pollster Scorecard with an overall A- grade, came on the national polling scene in 2012. The Florida-based pollster quickly proved their home state advantage when they bucked the polling trend and published final polling results surprisingly favorable to President Obama. Gravis outperformed 3 of 4 of the final surveys in the Sunshine State, which showed Romney with a 1- to 6-point lead.

“Gravis and other pollsters who robocall respondents have faced considerable skepticism from pundits and other pollsters,” Baris says. “But they have undoubtedly proven their critics wrong, including me. Doug Kaplan and Co. are transparent, responsive and able to boast more accurate polling results in pivotal races than more-often cited, so-called reliable firms.”

Baris says he has been keeping a particularly close eye on Gravis Polls, which correctly called the North Carolina Senate race between incumbent Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., and now-Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., in their final survey of the 2014 contest. While the Fox Poll, CNN/Opinion Research Poll, and YouGov all gave Hagan the edge in their final surveys, Gravis understated Tillis’ support by just 0.7%.

“Kaplan’s firm caught what turned out to be real, last-minute shift toward Tillis when no other pollster even came close,” Baris added. “In Arkansas, other competing election models were still favoring incumbent Sen. Mark Pryor over now-Sen. Tom Cotton when PPD pushed back and argued that was wholly unrealistic. Gravis was not only inline with that correct assessment but was also the first to show Cotton breaking the ever-important 50% threshold. More recently, it was slow-going over the summer as far as catching on to Donald Trump’s surge in the crowded Republican field. Not for Gravis.”

With a slight relative slant toward Republican candidates coming in shy of 1.5 points, Gravis enjoys a B predictive value grade on the PPD Pollster Scorecard. Unfortunately, this is where the praise ends and the criticism begins. In the next article, we will explain why Pew Research and Public Policy Polling have a less admirable record.

People's Pundit Daily, the most accurate 2014

World

Vladimir-Putin-UN

Russia President Vladimir Putin gives his first speech to the U.N. General Assembly in a decade on September 28, 2015. (Photo: AP)

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on Monday held an emergency meeting with Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioğlu after a Russian fighter jet violated Turkey’s airspace over the weekend. The incursion comes as Pentagon officials confirm Russia violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty (INF) on Sept. 2 by testing its SSC-X-8 cruise missile.

“I just met with the Foreign Minister of Turkey Feridun Sinirlioğlu to discuss the recent military actions of the Russian Federation in and around Syria,” Stoltenberg said in a statement. “Including the unacceptable violations of Turkish airspace by Russian combat aircraft.”

The incident, which Russia characterized as a “navigational error” on Saturday, occurred near Yayladagi in the southern Hatay region around the Syrian border. The plane did vacate Turkish airspace after being intercepted by two Turkish F-16 jets. Russia began air support for Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad last week, which Turkey has called a “grave mistake.”

“I made clear that NATO remains strongly committed to Turkey’s security. I will convene a meeting of the North Atlantic Council later today to discuss the situation. Russia’s actions are not contributing to the security and stability of the region,” the secretary-general added. “I call on Russia to fully respect NATO airspace and to avoid escalating tensions with the Alliance. I urge Russia to take the necessary steps to align its efforts with those of the international community in the fight against ISIL.”

Meanwhile,  the INF treaty restricts nuclear missiles with ranges between 300 and 3,400 miles. Russia’s September test of the weapon didn’t actually extend beyond 300 miles, but officials say the U.S. will consider it a violation as it’s believed to have a range that falls within the range limited by the INF Treaty. However, it isn’t the first time Russia has engaged in such a test. The Obama administration, with the support of the intelligence community, declared an earlier test of the missile a breach of the INF treaty.

But critics, who point to multiple incidents of Russia aggression going back to September 2014, argue that isn’t a strong enough response for Russian President Vladimir Putin to respect. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on strategic forces, told The Washington Free Beacon he has been pressing the Pentagon to respond to the INF breach in a more forceable fashion. He said he isn’t at all surprised by the repeated Russian missile tests in violation of the INF treaty, considering the Obama administration’s lack of response.

“It is time for the White House to get out of the way of the [Defense Department] so that it can field military responses to this treaty violation,” Rep. Rogers said. “We must make sure the Russian Federation cannot obtain a military advantage from this or any of its other arms control violations. What’s more, the mullahs in Tehran are watching: when Putin gets away with cheating on INF, the IRGC gets ideas about what it will do under President Obama’s misbegotten nuclear deal.”

U.S. and UN officials are complaining that

Economy

service-sector-employee

A service sector employee sits at his desk. (Photo: REUTERS)

The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) Report On Business, a gauge of service-sector growth in the U.S., declined to 56.9 in September from 59 in August. The reading was lower than the 57.5 Wall Street largely anticipated, and is the lowest reading since June.

The ISM Non-Manufacturing Report on Business comes after manufacturing data posted contraction regionally in the month of September, and the Labor Department’s jobs report severely disappointed. The U.S. economy added only 142,000 jobs, the number of Americans in the labor force fell to the lowest level since October 1977, wages fell and the lowest number of men ever were working or seeking work.

The 13 non-manufacturing industries reporting growth in September — listed in order — are: Educational Services; Construction; Finance & Insurance; Health Care & Social Assistance; Utilities; Wholesale Trade; Real Estate, Rental & Leasing; Professional, Scientific & Technical Services; Management of Companies & Support Services; Accommodation & Food Services; Information; Public Administration; and Transportation & Warehousing. The four industries reporting contraction in September are: Mining; Arts, Entertainment & Recreation; Retail Trade; and Other Services.

ISM® NON-MANUFACTURING SURVEY RESULTS AT A GLANCE
COMPARISON OF ISM® NON-MANUFACTURING AND ISM® MANUFACTURING SURVEYS*
SEPTEMBER 2015
Non-Manufacturing Manufacturing
Index Series
Index
Sep		 Series
Index
Aug		 Percent
Point
Change		 Direction Rate
of
Change		 Trend**
(Months)		 Series
Index
Sep		 Series
Index
Aug		 Percent
Point
Change
NMI®/PMI® 56.9 59.0 -2.1 Growing Slower 68 50.2 51.1 -0.9
Business Activity/Production 60.2 63.9 -3.7 Growing Slower 74 51.8 53.6 -1.8
New Orders 56.7 63.4 -6.7 Growing Slower 74 50.1 51.7 -1.6
Employment 58.3 56.0 +2.3 Growing Faster 19 50.5 51.2 -0.7
Supplier Deliveries 52.5 52.5 0.0 Slowing Same 4 50.2 50.7 -0.5
Inventories 51.0 54.5 -3.5 Growing Slower 6 48.5 48.5 0.0
Prices 48.4 50.8 -2.4 Decreasing From
Increasing		 1 38.0 39.0 -1.0
Backlog of Orders 54.5 56.5 -2.0 Growing Slower 4 41.5 46.5 -5.0
New Export Orders 52.5 52.0 +0.5 Growing Faster 5 46.5 46.5 0.0
Imports 53.0 51.5 +1.5 Growing Faster 3 50.5 51.5 -1.0
Inventory Sentiment 65.0 69.0 -4.0 Too High Slower 220 N/A N/A N/A
Customers’ Inventories N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A 54.5 53.0 +1.5
Overall Economy Growing Slower 74
Non-Manufacturing Sector Growing Slower 68

* Non-Manufacturing ISM® Report On Business® data is seasonally adjusted for Business Activity, New Orders, Prices and Employment Indexes. Manufacturing ISM® Report On Business® data is seasonally adjusted for New Orders, Production, Employment and Supplier Deliveries.

** Number of months moving in current direction.

The Institute for Supply Management Report On

Politics

trade-cargo

Stacked shipping containers and cargo in U.S. trade port. (Photo: Reuters)

The United States and 11 Pacific Rim nations agreed Monday on the terms of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a historic but controversial and secretive trade deal. It was backed by President Barack Obama, though it created a partisan divide in Congress on a level not seen on any issue in years.

The negotiations took nearly six years to complete and, if ratified, is projected for better or worse to impact 40% of the global economy. Critics on both sides of the aisle say it will dictate the operations and give control to corporations of 40% of the global economy, as well as infringe on American sovereignty. The deal would completely eliminate tariffs that are considered barriers to free trade, a stipulation everyone from Republican frontrunner Donald Trump to socialist Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders argues will hurt American companies and workers. The White House, however, chose to focus only on the removal of more than 18,000 imposed on U.S. exports.

“This partnership levels the playing field for our farmers, ranchers and manufacturers,” Obama said. “It’s an agreement that puts American workers first and will help middle-class families get ahead.”

The bottom line, critics of the plan have cited the very real potential for currency manipulation and a result of fewer U.S. jobs. Still, the deal was reached Monday morning in an Atlanta hotel. Congress is not expected to vote on the deal until early next year, but the Republican-controlled Congress and big business Democrats are likely to move it forward, though not without a fight from wings of both parties.

The US and 11 Pacific Rim nations

US

U.S. Coast Guard spokesman petty officer Jon-Paul Rios confirmed the missing cargo ship with 28 Americans and five Polish nationals on board has likely sunk. Rios said during a news conference Monday morning there was still an active search and rescue operation for the El Faro because the crew are “trained mariners who know how to abandon ship” and they “will not discount someone’s will to survive.”

The ship vanished Thursday en route to San Juan, Puerto Rico, from Jacksonville, Florida as Hurricane Joaquin was pounding the Bahamas. Officials said they received notification that the ship had lost power around 7 a.m. ET Thursday near Crooked Island in the eastern Bahamas, which was one of the hardest hit islands. In addition to the crew, the 735-foot El Faro was carrying 294 trailers and automobiles in its hold, in addition to the 391 shipping containers on-deck, as it battled 20 to 30 foot seas.

The news comes after search crews reported spotting two debris fields on Sunday. The first was a 225-square-mile field of Styrofoam, wood, cargo and other items near the ship’s last known position. Earlier in the day, “multiple items” were seen in the water just before noon. Those items included containers, loose deck materials and oil sheen, crew members told WMTW-TV in Maine.

U.S. Coast Guard spokesman petty officer Jon-Paul

Video

[brid video=”17220″ player=”1929″ title=”Judge Jeanine United States Giving Up as the Worlds Super Power”]

On Justice Saturday night, Judge Jeanine Pirro said the United States of President Obama is giving up their long-held role as the world’s global superpower.

“I’ve got news for you folks: Vladimir Putin is not only a regional power, he is looking to be the world’s super power. And because of his cunning, military background and KGB training, he is setting himself up to be just that. And ironically, with Barack Obama as commander-in-chief, the United States is recklessly and pathetically giving up as the world’s super power.”

On Justice Saturday night, Judge Jeanine Pirro

Economy

Yeltsin-1989-TX-Grocery-Store

Whenever I need to explain the difference between socialism and capitalism, I start by noting that socialism technically is different from Obama-style big-government redistributionism and cronyism.

Socialism involves something more pervasive, involving government ownership of the means of production (which, if you read this postscript, is why Jeremy Corbyn in the United Kingdom is far more radical than previous Labour Party leaders). It also means eviscerating the competitive price system as a means of determining value and allocating resources, relying instead on politicians and bureaucrats to arbitrarily wield that power (some American politicians favor this latter approach in certain circumstances).

Needless to say, socialism has an unmatched track record of failure. It was such a disaster than only a few supposedly high-ranked academics (see this postscript) thought it worked.

But what about high-ranked communists who grew up under socialism. Did they think it worked?

The Houston Chronicle dug into its archives to produce a story about an incident that may have played a big role in history. It’s about a senior communist functionary who was exposed to a slice of capitalism.

Yeltsin visited mission control and a mock-up of a space station. According to Houston Chronicle reporter Stefanie Asin, it wasn’t all the screens, dials, and wonder at NASA that blew up his skirt, it was the unscheduled trip inside a nearby Randall’s location. Yeltsin, then 58, “roamed the aisles of Randall’s nodding his head in amazement,” wrote Asin. He told his fellow Russians in his entourage that if their people, who often must wait in line for most goods, saw the conditions of U.S. supermarkets, “there would be a revolution.” …In the Chronicle photos, you can see him marveling at the produce section, the fresh fish market, and the checkout counter. He looked especially excited about frozen pudding pops. “Even the Politburo doesn’t have this choice. Not even Mr. Gorbachev,” he said.

This random trip to a typical supermarket may have changed history.

About a year after the Russian leader left office, a Yeltsin biographer later wrote that on the plane ride to Yeltsin’s next destination, Miami, he was despondent. He couldn’t stop thinking about the plentiful food at the grocery store and what his countrymen had to subsist on in Russia. In Yeltsin’s own autobiography, he wrote about the experience at Randall’s, which shattered his view of communism, according to pundits. Two years later, he left the Communist Party and began making reforms to turn the economic tide in Russia. …“When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons and goods of every possible sort, for the first time I felt quite frankly sick with despair for the Soviet people,” Yeltsin wrote. “That such a potentially super-rich country as ours has been brought to a state of such poverty! It is terrible to think of it.”

Since the Soviet Union was mired in poverty at the time, Yeltsin presumably was speculating about the potential wealth of his country.

And the good news is that the rigid communism of the Soviet Union is gone. Heck, the Soviet Union doesn’t even exist. Reagan was right when he predicted  the triumph of freedom, with Marxism being relegated to the “ash heap of history.”

But the bad news is that Russia (the most prominent of the 15 nations to emerge after the crackup of the Soviet Union) is a laggard on economic reform. There was a shift away from close-to-pure communism in the 1990s, to be sure, but the country still has a long way to go before it can be considered capitalist.

Here’s a back-of-the-envelope “statism spectrum” that I created. It’s designed to show that there are no pure libertarian paradises, not even Hong Kong. And there are no pure statist dystopias, not even North Korea (though that despotic regime is as close to pure evil as exists in the world).

Russia, I’m guessing, would be somewhere between China and Mexico.

And this gives me a chance to close with an important point. Perfect economic policy almost surely is an impossible goal. But that’s fine. We can still enjoy good growth so long as we strive to at least move in the right direction. As I explained back in 2012, the private sector is capable of producing impressive results so long as it has sufficient breathing room to operate.

P.S. If you want a simpler and more amusing explanation of different economic systems, here’s the famous “two cows” approach.

P.P.S. The United States isn’t a socialist nation, but we’re not fully immune to that destructive virus. After all, we have a government-run rail company in America, a government-run postal service, a government-run retirement system, and a government-run air traffic control system, all things that would function far more efficiently in the private sector.

The Houston Chronicle dug a story about

Opinion

Enemy Within

Soviet-Union-Victory-Banner

Soviet Union and Russian Victory banner

OK, watch out! Incoming! I’m going to let them have it, full bore. Having just spent a month in the former Soviet Union, specifically Russia and Ukraine, I’m going to say some things that many Americans won’t want to hear. But these things need to be said.

As the old saying goes, truth is the best medicine.

America is suffering because she has lost her love of freedom, internally, and the torch for freedom internationally. America will never be great again until we regain this focus, this passion, this love of freedom, and the will to spread it, support it, nurture it overseas. America will only regain her power, when this torch is recovered.

The Soviet model

In the Soviet Union, there were many evils. The main crime, which bred all others, was to extinguish the inner soul of a person, to make him or her just like everyone else, to make him or her a slave to Big Brother, to kill the human spirit. The human suffering continues. In fact, many of these old evils are returning in various forms. Many of the people are zombies, glued to the television and believing what they are told to believe. There is very little independent thinking. Those who want to be free, for the most part, have left.

At the end of the day, communism was nothing but a way to control others. While studying the Russian language in college, I fondly remember my instructor telling a story of a bunch of Soviet peasants standing by the side of the road as a limo sped by, carrying a government official dressed in an expensive suit, while the peasants struggled to survive. “At least he is enjoying communism,” they laughed out loud. This reminds me of our limousine liberals today, preaching a pseudoscience, climate-change agenda, while riding in their large SUVs and flying around the world in their carbon-belching private jets.

The liberal agenda is about control. It is about making others do as they say, not as they do. It is wrong. It is communism. It is Marxism. A lie told often enough becomes the truth.

I have a friend who grew up in communist Vietnam, before escaping as a young adult. His quote to me was, “I grew up under communists. I know how they think. I can smell a communist. Barack Obama is a communist.”

Dinesh D’Souza was right. Mr. Obama does not love America. The agenda of his administration — whether it be the Iran nuclear deal, removing troops from the Middle East, pretending to be fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria — is something altogether different. It is about reducing American power. It is quite obvious Mr. Obama is a communist at heart, and a Muslim. His agenda fits quite nicely with the Islamist agenda worldwide. He is trying to change America alright. Why else would he go to a church where they chant, “God damn America?” Why else would he fill his administration with Muslims? Why else would he stand by as thousands of Christians are butchered around the world and not say a word?

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.

Islam is a movement

Recently, the president said during a speech at the United Nations, “I lead the most powerful military the world has ever known.” I was embarrassed to hear that. It is all about Barack. It’s not about freedom anymore. Mr. Obama’s speech was not elegant. His speech was tasteless and rabid narcissism.

President George W. Bush, for all his faults, was a principled man. You knew where he stood. The world knew where he stood. The world knew where America stood. We stood for freedom. Our veterans, throughout the last 250 years, fought for freedom. They didn’t fight for a way of life where others are controlled.

Now the communists, the Marxists, are here among us. They are attempting to change America, our way of life. They abhor it. Yes, I am talking, sadly to say, about the Democratic Party and all it represents. They no longer represent the America I knew. They see a different future, one controlled by an elite, one which will enjoy communism while the rest of us abide by their politically correct dictates.

Islam is not a religion. It is a political movement. It is about controlling others. It preaches death. It preaches control of others. Ben Carson was spot on. The teachings of Islam are against the principles of our Constitution and our way of life. That is not a racist statement, no matter what the liberals say. It is simply the truth. But communists abhor the truth, so they will attempt to discredit the truth teller. It’s an old Soviet tactic and it is working well in America today.

Houston, we have a Muslim problem. Open your eyes. They are killing us. They are attempting to change our Western way of life, our laws, our culture. This struggle against this political movement, Islam, is nothing new. Thomas Jefferson fought against it in the conflict against the Barbary Pirates. The struggle against this attempted domination is thousands of years old. I’m not a racist. I could care less the color of your skin. I care about the content of your character. I try and use a simple test: Is this person trying to control others; or is he supporting freedom of the individual? That is how you spot a communist, a Marxist, a cultural Marxist.

Communism and other “isms” are evil, slippery, lying, sneaky, cheating, evil. Speaking with a Ukrainian friend recently, he told me a story. On the day that the Russian military made it clear who was now in control in Crimea, the Ukrainian military units were gathered to give them a choice. They could sign allegiance to the Russian military in Crimea and keep their jobs, or they could return to Ukraine and leave everything. Then they read a list of soldiers to stand. Several Ukrainian men stood up when their names were called. These men were all recognized by the Ukrainian military as their close friends, brothers in arms. But now the new Russian leaders called them by different names, their real names. You see, they had been spies and were there all along. The Crimean invasion had been planned long before. “These men are your new commanders,” the Russians said.

Mining our youth

Our education system has been corrupted. Our universities are brimming with Marxists who fill our children’s heads with communist mush. And our children are buying it. The goal: Change America.

We have to change this system, as Scott Walker has attempted to do. This thing called tenure has to be abolished. There has to be accountability for what they are teaching our kids. Political correctness is simply a vehicle to control others — and it is working.

You have to re-educate your college students. You have to teach your son to be a man. Teach your daughters to stand up for the truth, to not be worried about offending others. Teach your children to follow their internal compass, to be free. Open their eyes to what is being taught in our “hallowed” universities. Our children today don’t even know what freedom is. They are zombies to Big Brother. Tell them there will be hell to pay if they bring home a Leftist for dinner.

I’m sure I will be called a McCarthyite. But I don’t care. Call me what you want. What I really am is a truth teller. The emperor has no clothes. It needs to be said. Many of our zombies need to have their eyes opened.

And, one more thing. One of the hallmarks of the Soviet way of life was corruption. Have you noticed how it has mushroomed under the Obama administration? The latest being the Secret Service leaking federally protected information about a congressman to settle a grudge? The VA, EPA, Secret Service, IRS, they are all corrupt. That is because the example comes from the top. It’s the communist way.

Help me, my fellow Americans, before it’s too late. Let’s stop this change and elect a leader who will stand up for freedom in 2016. I want my country back.

This article appeared first on The Washington Times

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