Mind if I ramble?

Boots on the ground

An interesting opinion over at USA Today, Before you complain about patriarchy by University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds. I copy the lion's share.

...In academia, we have a saying: Personnel is policy. If your history department hires a bunch of Marxists, you’ll have a Marxist history department. If the law school hires a bunch of law-and-economics types, you’ll have a law-and-economics based law school. And because most people tend to stay for a long time, and because people tend to hire people like themselves, those changes will be long-lasting.
Which brings me to the unprecedented mass-migration being experienced at present by Europe and, to a lesser degree, by the United States. Hundreds of thousands of people — soon, it seems likely to be millions — are coming from countries where the patriarchy really is a thing. These are places where honor killings, female genital mutilation and the legal and social subordination of wives and daughters to husbands and fathers are considered the norm. (The Dutch are already getting upset about the Syrian refugees who are bringing child brides with them.)
Some of these people, of course, will eagerly adopt the culture of their new lands, and try their hardest to assimilate. But many more will not. They will, as people tend to do, cling to their native culture and customs regardless, either ignorant of (or more likely) feeling superior to the traditions of their adoptive countries. (This is normal for all sorts of people: When Americans do that, they’re called “ugly Americans.”)  And to the extent that their behavior is visible, some percentage of the native population will adopt it, at least to some degree, especially if it seems that it is successful.
The end result will be that patriarchy will be back in the West. Because personnel is policy, and immigration is all about who will be staffing your nation in the future. Keep that in mind as these things are debated.

His comments resonate with me because I have been reading about some of the problems they are already having in Malmo, Sweden, where convert or die graffiti is starting to show up in arabic on buildings and there have been recent attacks against kurds from sunni transplants and purportedly isis supporters. The new migrants have their own ideas about what constitutes rape and on the propriety of marrying children. This new cultural marriage might prove a little messy.

It is foolish to think that Europe will not be fundamentally changed with this new influx, I fear for the worst. Thank god we have a large ocean sitting between the United States and the new migrant masses. For now we get to watch what happens in Europe. Because people are not going to leave their old animosities and cultural tendencies at home. Unfortunately sectarian strife is rampant throughout Africa and the middle east and look for the conflict to be exported to a new battleground.

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Imam tells Muslim migrants to 'breed children' with Europeans to 'conquer their countries' and vows: 'We will trample them underfoot, Allah willing.'

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GOP Blues

The Republican party is in shambles. While in pretty good sorts from the local to the congressional level, demographics and being on the wrong side of certain issues will make it hard for them to win a national election for the foreseeable future. When the head of the Chamber of Commerce is bemoaning the great hole in the middle and the lack of moderates on your team, you have a problem.

And a principal problem is that the party is so fractured today, a disparate patchwork of social conservatism, fiscal conservatism, hard right, tea party conservatives, anti immigrant, white evangelicals, etc. They have little binding them together at the moment with the exception of a hatred for the left and progressives. So it is little wonder they are struggling so hard to find a standard bearer that can speak to all the factions. Such a person doesn't exist.

John Boehner did Paul Ryan a big favor at taking the debt ceiling vote off the table. America doesn't like brinkmanship and they don't like being extorted. We needed another one of those pissing matches like a hole in the head.

We see way too much of this heavy handed, brute force politics with minority groups like the Freedom Caucus who want to stomp their feet like babies when they don't get their way.

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I won't vote for Bernie Sanders for a variety of reasons but the principal one is that we need a leader who will help broach the chasm separating the two american camps, not further widen it. I don't think we can afford a war on the rich, or Wall St. anymore than we need to become the new Denmark. There are enough unfunded entitlements around.

We need true bipartisanship and to somehow meet in the middle. And Cruz, Carson, Trump and Bernie are all located out on the fringe somewhere. Liked the idea of a Hillary-Kasich ticket. Country needs some healing.

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Carson is of course, enjoying current polling success for one reason; he's evangelical and a lot of people are solely interested in identity politics. Note that I am not one of them, you don't see me backing Bernie.

I have a hard time considering a candidate who thinks satan is behind evolution, champions a 6 thousand year old earth and a literal six day creation, is against abortion at any time, for any reason, says being gay is a choice, wants Congress to remove judges who voted for marriage equality, believes Obama wants immigration reform so that he can get more people on welfare and also wants to double down on the drug war. I think the nation is going in the other direction but we shall see.

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Boo to Dianne Feinstein for championing the new CISA cybersecurity bill which will provide immunity for companies that "voluntarily" share your private data with the government. Feinstein, along with co sponsor Richard Burr, discouraged any amendments to mitigate what many are concerned are unreasonable invasions of privacy in the new bill. Bill still needs to pass the house.

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No help at the edge

Hillary's numbers have really taken off since the Benghazi witch hunt. Trey Gowdy did her a big favor. Benghazi was a disaster, I wrote about the perfidy in real time but there was no criminality extant and after nine different investigations it is time to give it up. I too would like Susan Rice's head on a plate but it just isn't going to happen.

And one must remember that the GOP voted to cut embassy funding by $300 million dollars. You can't have it both ways.

O’BRIEN: Is it true that you voted to cut the funding for embassy security?
CHAFFETZ: Absolutely. Look, we have to make priorities and choices in this country. We have — think about this — 15,000 contractors in Iraq. We have more than 6,000 contractors, private army there for President Obama in Baghdad.
And we’re talking about can we get two dozen or so people into Libya to help protect our forces? When you’re in tough economic times, you have to make difficult choices how to prioritize this.

All this tsuris over Benghazi. Why not a similar tribunal to find out why the Bush administration did nothing after receiving the August Richard Clarke memo that described plans for muslim terrorists to fly planes into our large buildings?

So now what does the House GOP want to do? Planned Parenthood hearings. In a country where a clear majority supports the right of choice and supports Planned Parenthood, which provides a panoply of health services for women, often the only care they receive, this is a loser. It might help with the base but it is not going to help in a national election, it will have the same effect as the Donald going off on the mexicans. Have at it. The converts both parties need are in the middle, they get no help from the edge.

Privacy and Wikileaks

I think it is ridiculous for anybody to be sifting through and publishing CIA Director John Brennan's emails. Our leaders and agents deserve the same privacy protections that we all deserve and they should be allowed to keep their private documents private. The world does not have any right to see his position papers and the vital work he is doing on behalf of our country. God forbid the inmates start running the asylum.