August 2015 – Ben Weingarten

In Economy, Government, Politics

I grant that ISIS may be more knowledgeable about the “enslaving, imperialist dollar” than it appears, given that they feature a clip from former Rep. Ron Paul in their latest propaganda video about bringing down our currency and replacing it with ISIS’ gold money, but one gets the sense that the jihadists are unaware of The Fed’s historical record.

Namely, since its founding in 1913, The Fed has utterly debauched the dollar.

Had ISIS consulted the handy US Inflation Calculator, they would have learned that it takes roughly $2,400 today to purchase what would have cost $100 at the inception of the Fed.

A Response to Jim Geraghty on Republicans’ Willingness to Prevent the Iran Deal (or Lack Thereof)

In Foreign Policy, National Security, Politics

National Review’s Jim Geraghty asks an essential question in a recent edition of his Morning Jolt that every member of Congress — not just Republicans — should have to answer: “[W]hat are you willing to do to prevent a mushroom cloud either in the Middle East or closer to home?”

As it pertains to members of the GOP, the proof is in the pudding: The party will prove pusillanimous — unwilling to exhaust every avenue to block an Iran deal disastrous for the entire West.

How do we know this?

Sen. Bob Corker’s Iran legislation in and of itself was a complete and utter abdication of Senatorial prerogative, and perhaps the crowning act of Failure Theater of this Republican Congress.

For a refresher, as Geraghty’s colleague Andrew C. McCarthy noted in April:

The Racialist Obama DOJ Uses Taxpayer Dollars to Fund Democratic Dominance

In Politics

Behold the latest handiwork of J. Christian Adams and Hans von Spakovsky on the DOJ’s voting rights ~~crusade~~ charade, over at National Review.

Amazingly, therein we find the below nugget on the Justice Department’s subsidizing of Catalist in connection with its failed litigation efforts over North Carolina’s election rules:

The Justice Department also pumped untold thousands of dollars into a database run by a company called Catalist. This database has been populated with data provided by the Democratic National Committee, unions, and other liberal organizations and is used to help them win elections. Catalist’s infrastructure and database are expensive to maintain, but fear not, the Justice Department, in the North Carolina trial and elsewhere, has provided federal tax dollars to its expert witnesses so that they could purchase Catalist’s proprietary data. Yes, federal dollars were used to fund a database that will be used next year to try to win the 2016 election for Democratic candidates.

What’s more:

For all the resources expended, the Justice Department’s entire case was built on speculative claims. Not able to produce a single eligible voter who was or would be unable to vote, the plaintiffs relied on hypothetical statistical arguments to claim that the turnout of black voters would be “suppressed” because they might use early voting and same-day registration slightly more than white voters, and because black voters are “less sophisticated voters.” DOJ experts actually made the borderline-racist argument that “it’s less likely to imagine” that black voters could “figure out or would avail themselves of other forms of registering and voting.” That’s a shameful way to enforce a law that was used to protect real victims of real discrimination in the Deep South.

Luckily, reality trumped racialism:

The Feds Are Doing Such a Good Job, They Deserve a Raise

In Government

The most dumbfounding part about civilian Federal employees getting a 1.3 percent pay raise isn’t that they are getting the raise, but that according to The Washington Post:

It prevents what would be a much higher raise from being paid under the complex laws governing federal pay raises should no raise number be enacted into law by the end of the year.

Good work if you can get it.

H/T: The Transom.

Featured Image Source: 20th Century Fox.

Obama Bends the Arc of History Towards Justice by Renaming Mt. McKinley to ‘Denali’

In Government, History, Politics

Because the West is simply the worst:

President Obama announced on Sunday that Mount McKinley was being renamed Denali, using his executive power to restore an Alaska Native name with deep cultural significance to the tallest mountain in North America.

The move came on the eve of Mr. Obama’s trip to Alaska, where he will spend three days promoting aggressive action to combat climate change, and is part of a series of steps he will make there meant to address the concerns of Alaska Native tribes.

It is the latest bid by the president to fulfill his 2008 campaign promise to improve relations between the federal government and the nation’s Native American tribes, an important political constituency that has a long history of grievances against the government.

Denali’s name has long been seen as one such slight, regarded as an example of cultural imperialism in which a Native American name with historical roots was replaced by an American one having little to do with the place. [Emphasis mine]

Changing the name of a mountain from the surname of a U.S. president to ‘Denali’ is an apt symbol for the Obama presidency, which views the West as the world’s foremost oppressor.

Whether in rewarding our enemies, punishing our allies or elevating Native Americans over Americans, for our morally relativistic Dear Leader this is moral. This is how President Obama corrects for what he perceives as our sins of the past. This is how he makes the arc of history bend towards justice.

It’s a safe bet that

7 Minutes With Jim Grant Tells You All You Need to Know About World Markets Today

In Books, Business, Economy, Podcast

A must-watch interview with the publisher of the great Grant’s Interest Rate Observer conducted by Reason’s Matt Welch:

For a much deeper dive with Jim Grant from several months back, check out my interview with him on the insightful and ever-relevant The Forgotten Depression.

I spoke about it with TheBlaze’s Mike Opelka starting at 21:43 below:

Featured Image Source: YouTube screengrab/Reason.

ISIS Isn’t Winning So Much as America Is Mentally Defeated

In Defense, Foreign Policy, National Security

In an age of victimology, moral relativism and a supreme lack of confidence in Western Civilization, you get comments like this from senior military officials:

“In testimony on Capitol Hill this year, Lt. Gen. Vincent R. Stewart, the [Defense Intelligence] agency’s director, said sending ground troops back into Iraq risked transforming the conflict into one between the West and ISIS, which would be ‘the best propaganda victory that we could give.'”

Lt. Gen. Stewart’s statement fittingly comes from the Times’ exposé on the alleged politicization of intelligence estimates regarding our nation’s supposed military campaign against ISIS in Iraq.

The half-hearted effort against ISIS as dictated by President Obama — more political than substantive in nature — is a symptom of which Stewart’s demoralized mindset is part of the cause.

We are in a war in which Islamic supremacists are and have been fighting infidels worldwide for multiple decades, while the infidels cower.

We do not need to transform any conflict into one between the West and jihadists because the jihadists have already defined their war with us as such.

We are losing today to ISIS and to Islamic supremacism more broadly not so much because we lack the capability to destroy them

No Worries, the Would-Be French Train Terrorist’s Mosque Wasn’t Radical…Women Can Pray There

In Defense

In the wake of the courageous takedown of a would-be (likely) jihadist on a Paris-bound train by three Americans, the New York Times published a piece on the Spanish mosque to which Ayoub El Khazzani belonged.

I think the following excerpt speaks for itself:

But while the authorities point to the mosque as a crucial part of Mr. Khazzani’s transformation from onetime petty hashish dealer to someone suspected of being a radical, Mr. Mohamed Ahmed said the preaching here was not to blame.

“Women are also allowed to pray here,” he said, “which certainly wouldn’t happen if this was a radical place.”

Methinks that Mr. Mohamed Ahmed is lacking in self-awareness.

Ahmed’s defense of Khazzani is perhaps even better:

Jorge Ramos: A “made-for-television La Raza protest”