THE END OF PARTY DISCIPLINE IN THE AGE OF GLOBAL CATASTROPHES, REAL AND IMAGINED

Since 9/11, party discipline has broken down, globally.

• Blair was ousted by Browne.

• Obama stole Hillary's chance in 2008, and Bernie Sanders is doing the same in 2016.

• In Australia - since 2010, there has been a series of intra-party coups with Rudd being overthrown by Gillard and then Rudd returning the favor followed by the election of the other party's leader - Abbott who has just been tossed by his caucus for Turnbull.

• Marine Le Pen,  the most popular politician in France and leader if the National Front, recently tossed her undisciplined and antisemitic father out of the party.

• The Labour Party in Britain, just elected as leader an extreme left-winger - who has promised to undo Blairism: Jeremy Corbyn; this after a very nasty intra-party contest. Many long-time labourites think this could be the end of the Labour party.

• In the House of Representatives, the right-wing base of the GOP has basically overthrown the Speaker AND his heir apparent.

I think these instances are similar and reveal something about the political era we are presently living through: the age of global catastrophes, some real and some imagined - but all exerting powerful effects on our politics and of course our lives.

In simplest terms, the last 15 years have been filled with horrific events which portend worse events and which politicians have relentlessly campaigned on, and the mass media has hysterically reported on year after year.

This hysteria about impending crises and catastrophes is why there is less party discipline and more intra-party fighting all over the world.

In the USA, the left feels that we are about-us to suffer an imminent global climate catastrophe, that black men are under systematic and nearly genocidal attack by cops, that women are paid 75% of what men earn, that there is a rape epidemic on our college campuses, that the 1% have pillaged the economy, that we have a mass murder epidemic fueled by weak gun laws, that voter ID laws are a massive and racist attempt to disenfranchise millions of blacks and Hispanics, and the GOP will take away your right to abort your pregnancy.

And they say if you vote for the GOP, then the end is near. And their followers believe them even though NONE are true:

1. The global climate is stable the last 18 years despite the fact that CO2 has doubled.
2. Black men are mostly killed by other black men and not by cops - whose presence in the ghettos of the USA actually reduces crimes against blacks.
3. Job for job, women and men make the same salaries in the USA. The oft-cited figure of 75% comes from comparing what all women make and what all men make and comparing the two numbers - but this doesn't take into account that men and women tend to work at different types of jobs with different levels of average income.
4. The rape epidemic statistics appear high - as if 20% of women who go to college are raped - only because the surveys which have generated this high number define rape down so that any unwanted advance is tantamount to rape.
5. US Census figures reveal that there has not been an increase in so-called income inequality.
6. There has been a decrease in mass murders in the USA, not an increase even though there are more guns than ever.
7. Voter ID laws target fraud, not blacks or Hispanics - who are just as capable of getting photo ID as whites. And, despite what leftists claim, there is lots if voter fraud in the USA, almost all by the left.
8. Abortion rights are limited in Enlightened left-of-center Europe to the first 12 weeks, but when GOP politicians suggest limiting it to 20 they're called fascist chauvinist pigs.

But the facts - all linked to above - do not matter: leftist voters believe the leftist spin and think the right has put us on the edge of an abyss. The constant harping, by leftist politicians and their allies in the media, on these "looming catastrophes" has created a feverish urgency, and this is what fuels the intra-party divisions on the left. It is tougher to get people to toe the party line when they believe so much is at risk RIGHT NOW. The outsider, socialist Bernie Sanders, appeals to the urgency more than the party's heir apparent, Hillary Clinton. And Biden can only stop Bernie if Biden runs with the radical Warren.

A similar urgency exists on the right, but - unlike the bogeymen of the left - these urgencies are real:

• Iran really is a growing global threat.
• Global jihadist terror really is a global threat.
• Putin really is a growing global threat.
• Our national debt really is a growing threat.
• Our economy and the global economy really are teetering toward recession, barely propped up by central bank's moves that are all having diminishing returns.
• Organized disrespect for police has led to a lack of law and order, and this is leading to a resurgence of violent crime.
• Unchecked immigration without assimilation really is lowering wages and increasing social disintegration and reducing social cohesion.

Most people sense these are true; they don't need politicians or media talking-heads to tell them. And they know what needs to be done:

• more defense spending and a more assertive foreign policy which is more supportive of our allies; 
• spending cuts; tax cuts; reduction of regulations; 
• support for our policemen, border patrol and all law enforcement; 
• and control of our borders.

People on the right see real, urgent problems with simple and principled solutions, and the fact that these simple and principled solutions have not been fought for by the GOP leadership has made the right extremely frustrated and it is this frustration which has led to the intra-party battles on the right.

If these real problems are not solved - and solved soon, the global implications are catastrophic because without an economically sound USA capable of, and willing to, lead the free world, the free world is doomed to fail under the pressure from global jihad, Iran, Putin and China.

To sum up, for the last 15 years we have faced continual stress: 9/11, the crash, the never-ending recession, Iran, ISIS, Putin annexing Crimea... 15 years of anxiety, and as a result there is global desperation in the world today.

And on the left, this has been sublimated into a desperate fear of phony crises, fears fomented by the leadership of the left which has created the hysteria on the left which has fueled the intra-party battles which threatens their coalition.

The intra-party battles on the right are fomented by the grass roots and are based on a correct reading of the real dangers facing us here and now... dangers we must start attacking as soon as possible or they will surely become catastrophes for us and our allies.

We can and should start this new offensive by electing a new and effective Speaker of the House.

UPDATE: via Glenn Reynolds, academic study reveals that there's more polarization on the left than on the right.

I am arguing above that this is caused by the hysteria fomented by the left's leadership and the mass media they dominate.

The left needs to deny that the real crises are real, (and that the public should only pay attention the ones they harangue about), in order to maintain the belief among their followers that their agenda is the only effective one.

The sad truth is that leftist policies have never succeeded to solve the problems leftists focus on even when they were real. Now the problems they claim their policies can solve are not even real, and therefore, nothing good can possibly come from them. At best they can only be a waste of resources and time, two things we do not have enough of anymore...

ObamaCare Comes Up Short

Get ready for major hikes in health-insurance premiums, notwithstanding all the promises from "The One."

From Obamacare shorts health insurers $2.5 billion:

Insurers will get far less money than promised from the federal government this year — and a few billion dollars less than they requested — to help pay for their sickest customers.

Insurers learned late Thursday [October 1, 2015] that they'll receive just $362 million out of the $2.9 billion in requested for 2014 for the program, according to an announcement by the Department of Health and Human Services.

That's because a program created under the 2010 Affordable Care Act hasn't brought in nearly as much money as it needs to pay out. As insurers enrolled more older, sicker Americans under the new healthcare law, they were promised some federal money to help cover their new costs, through a program known as risk corridors.

This shortage in funding ObamaCare was totally predictable, of course. People with chronic health conditions typically cost more in healthcare dollars. The cycle of life.  All the utopianism in the world can't change the natural order of the universe.

OBAMA IS THE GINGER ROGERS OF WORLD LEADERS

Measured in amoral terms and strictly by how effectively he has been at expanding his nation's hegemony, Putin is the world's most assertive and successful world leader.

This is an accomplishment which is only diminished by the fact that he has benefited greatly because the current potus, Obama, has acted as if he were the leader of a second rate banana republic and not the leader of the free world.

(The fact that Obama is rapidly transforming the USA into a second rate banana republic means that future presidents might be forced to appease our enemies the way Obama has been doing by choice.)

Putin has successfully gotten Iran a favorable nuclear deal, gobbled up Crimea and half of Ukraine and is actively supporting Assad's regime with an unopposed, no holds barred effort.

Meanwhile, as Putin sashays about the world, Obama retreats, and appeases. Bends over backwards.

Which reminded me of what Governor Richards said about women in her famous Democrat Convention speech in 1988. She said that "Ginger Rogers did every thing that Fred Astaire did - only BACKWARDS... and IN HEELS!"

It seems to me that as Putin throws his weight around, it's almost as if Putin is leading and Obama is dancing backwards and in heels.

SHOCKED, SHOCKED: Obama breaks another law he signed himself

Yawn. Obama breaks another law he signed himself.

You know, this means Obama violated two laws with his own Iran Deal.

The USA is no longer a nation of laws.

A SHORT LIST: "LIES OF THE LEFT" ... (23 so far...)

A FEW LIES OF THE LEFT:

1. Man-made CO2 is causing an imminent global climate catastrophe.
2. Women make 75% of what men make for the same jobs.
3. Black men are under violent and murderous assault by cops nationwide.
4. Without Planned Parenthood women and poor people would not receive health care or mammograms, and they do not perform many abortions or sell fetal or baby body parts.
5. Raising the minimum wage does not increase unemployment.
6. Israel is an apartheid state.
7. The nuclear deal with Iran doesn't need Congressional approval, and Obama doesn't need to submit all paperwork relating to it despite the fact Obama signed a law which says he does.
8. Iran can be trusted to keep the nuclear deal, and we should ignore their active military and terror and efforts in the region - and their vociferous calls for genocide.
9. Obama's overthrow of Kaddafy - without Congressional or UN approval was okay, but Bush's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq - which each had both Congressional and UN approval - were illegal and bad.
10. Obamacare will lower costs and insure all the uninsured.
11. Obama's stimulus program was filled with shovel ready jobs and it got the economy moving again.
12. China can be trusted not to hack us again.
13. Obama will remove Assad if he uses wmd.
14. Obama will not rest until __________ is fixed.
15. Obama never heard any controversial sermons in Wright's church.
16. Chicago machine politics might be filthy dirty, but Obama is clean as a whistle.
17. Obama was right to help oust Mubarak and side with the Muslim Brotherhood.
18. Obama has the right to enforce the laws any way he chooses and not to enforce the ones he doesn't like.
19. Obama will fulfill his 2008 promise and fix the V.A.
20. Obamanomics has helped the poor and the underclass, and blacks.
21. Obama has taken on Wall Street, the Big Banks, and made the financial industry better, and safer, and fairer.
22. Obama's foreign policy has made the world safer, more peaceful, and reduced the threat posed by islamo-terror worldwide and at home.
23. Obama was right to overrule his Sec Def Panetta and withdraw all forces from Iraq, and the resulting surge of the JV team, aka ISIS, was Bush's fault and not Obama's.

THE LEFT'S ENTIRE AGENDA IS BASED ON LIES.

AND THEIR REMEDIES WOUND WORK EVEN IF THE PROBLEMS THEY CLAIM ARE REAL REALLY WERE REAL.

(I'D GUESS THAT THIS LIST IS NOT COMPLETE, SO: PLEASE OFFER MORE IN THE COMMENTS...)

[ASIDE: HERE'S A SHORT LIST OF THE LIES THEY TOLD ABOUT DUBYA.]

The House GOP needs to untie around a famous new Speaker

McCarthy has dropped out. He wants Ryan. We could do worse. BUT WE CAN ALSO DO BETTER!

We need a genuine, courageous conservative who is great on TV and has great legislative experience.

I nominate JIM DEMINT - who served in the House and the Senate and is now the president of The Heritage Foundation.

If the House elects another weenie as Speaker - who can neither lead the House or be an effective counter-puncher to Obama in the daily media battle, then we might as well go home.

WE NEED A SPEAKER WITH PROVEN NATIONAL CHOPS!

IT'S A NEW INTIFADA

This week's just seen a most alarming rise in jihadist attacks, mainly with knives, around Israel. You can find notes on terrorist attacks that occurred today here for starters. And here's more.

It's clear that Mahmoud Abbas has really done it this time with his incitement. And sooner or later, he'll have to pay a heavy price for all the damage he's caused.

THE LEFT SAYS IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO DEPORT 10 MILLION ILLEGAL ALIENS, BUT IT'S POSSIBLE TO TAKE AWAY 350 MILLION LEGAL GUNS

As usual, the left has things backwards.

If the illegal aliens got here on their own, then they can certainly leave on their own.

And taking legal and constitutionally permitted guns away from citizens would be impossible. (Video at link)

So why does the left persist in their views?

Simple. It's not about hope or change. It's about raising money and getting votes.

IT'S THE MACHINE, STUPID!

JERUSALEM: MUSLIMS SPAT ON THE STABBED WOMAN WHO SURVIVED THE KNIFE ATTACK WHICH MURDERED HER HUSBAND

The widow of one of the men murdered in the stabbing attack at the Old City recounted how Muslims in an area she ran through refused to help, and worse, condoned the assault:

“I ran several meters with a knife stuck in my shoulder, covered in blood,” newly widowed Adele (Benita) Bennett told Israel’s Channel 2 on Sunday, from her hospital bed in Hadassah-Ein Kerem. “And the Arabs watching applauded and spit at me, calling out, ‘You should die, too.'”

It's enough to vomit. She was lucky to survive, and if the murder supporters were filmed on security cameras, they should be tracked and charged with failure to prevent a crime or assist a victim in distress.

WELCOME TO OBAMAVILLE: LOS ANGELES DECLARES HOMELESSNESS STATE OF EMERGENCY

THIS IS RESULT OF OBAMA'S POLICIES:

Los Angeles recently declared a state of emergency over the city's growing homeless population - up 12% in two years. Residents of the city's main homeless encampment say a mix of drugs and rising rents are driving the problem.The City of Angels has another nickname: the homeless capital of America.

NYC AIN'T ANY BETTER. 

THIS IS WHAT HAPPPENS WHEN BREZHNEV SOCIALISTS RUN THE NATION - COMMIES WHO GIVE THEIR CRONIES MONEY AND THE MASSES 5 YEAR PLANS THAT INEVITABLY FAIL.

IT'S THE VENEZUELIZATION OF THE USA, BY HUGO OBAMA, OUR CHAVEZISTA IN CHIEF.

WE CAN FIX IT NEXT YEAR.... OR PERISH...

AFTER EXPEDITING THE PROCESS, IDF DEMOLISHES THE HOUSES OF TERRORISTS

The Israeli government's set a good example by destroying 2 houses belonging to the families of jihadists, and a third one's been sealed up:

The homes of two Palestinian terrorists were demolished by Israel, the IDF confirmed Tuesday morning, following a government crackdown on the latest wave of terrorism to hit the nation.

The homes belonged to terrorists who carried out attacks against Israel over the last year, with a room in the home of a third terrorist sealed off for possible demolition. The three terrorists were killed during or after they carried out their attacks, which left six people dead.

“Overnight, and in accordance with the directive of the Minister of Defense, Moshe Ya’alon, security personnel demolished the residences of Abu Jamil Ghassan Ben Muhammad and Muhammed Naif El-Jaabis and sealed off a room in the residence of Mu’taz Ibrahim Halil Hijazi in Jerusalem,” the IDF said in a statement.

[...] The demolitions come amid Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s vow to harshen measures against terrorists. On Monday, Netanyahu tasked Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked with expediting measures to shorten the legal process to demolish homes of Palestinian terrorists, a controversial policy that was first introduced during the Second Intifada.

“We are not prepared to give immunity to anybody, not to any rioters…or any terrorist, anywhere, and therefore there are no limits on the activities of the security forces,” he stated.

In addition to reenacting the policy of home demolitions, the prime minister has ordered the deployment of thousands of extra police and soldiers into Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria to restore security. He also ordered a more expansive use of administrative detentions for terror suspects and banning people who incite terrorism against Israel from the Old City of Jerusalem.

Some more on the topic over here. In a related subject, it's been discovered the PLO pays tons of money to terrorists:

Newly-revealed documents on Tuesday showed that the Palestinian Authority has been paying Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails hundreds of thousands of shekels over the past several years.

According to the documents obtained by Israel Radio, most of those receiving PA money are members of Hamas who were behind some of the bloodiest terror attacks in Israeli history, from the second intifada.

Those receiving these PA "salaries" are all serving time in maximum-security prisons for the crimes they committed.

One of the documents showed that Abdullah Barghouti, a Hamas bomb maker serving 67 life sentences, has so far received more than NIS 250,000 (almost $66,000).

Meanwhile, Ibrahim Hamad, who served as the head of Hamas's military wing in the West Bank and is currently serving 54 life sentences, was shown in the documents to have already received NIS 200,000 (almost $53,000).

Both Bargouti and Hamad were involved in some of the worst suicide bombings of the second intifada, including the bombings at a cafeteria at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem on July 31, 2002, the Sbarro restaurant bombing in Jerusalem on August 9, 2001 and a nightclub bombing in Rishon Lezion on May 7, 2002.

And that's one of the reasons why there's so much poverty under the PLO's regime. They pay all that money to cannibals while refusing to make any improvements in the living conditions for many people who're in bad situations.

And on another note, this one most disgusting too, some Muslim parents named their newborn son after one of the stabbers in the Old City. That just shows how evil they are.

2 MEN MURDERED IN STABBING AT OLD CITY

No sooner did the murder of two parents take place, now a jihad stabbing took place yesterday in the Jerusalem Old City that cost two lives:

The two Israeli men who were killed Saturday evening in a terror attack in Jerusalem’s Old City were named by police as Nehemia Lavi, 41, and Aharon Benet, 22.

The two died of their wounds shortly after being stabbed in Jerusalem’s Old City by a Palestinian terrorist.

Benet’s wife was in serious condition and their two-year-old baby was lightly wounded. She was taken to Hadassah Hospital Ein Kerem and was undergoing surgery. The toddler was taken to Shaare Zedek Medical Center for treatment where he remained in stable condition.

Lavi, a Jerusalem resident, leaves behind a wife and seven children. A rabbi at the Old City’s Ateret Cohanim yeshiva who lived nearby, he had rushed to the scene when he heard screaming in the street.

His funeral was scheduled for Sunday at noon at Har Hamenuhot in Jerusalem, also known as the Givat Shaul cemetery.

French-born Benet and his family lived in Beitar Illit. He was set to be buried early Sunday morning on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.

Lavi and Benet were stabbed in the upper body and were unconscious when paramedics arrived at the scene.

Benet was taken to Hadassah Hospital Mount Scopus where he died of his wounds shortly after the attack. Lavi was taken to Shaare Zedek Medical Center where he also died Saturday night.

When the attack began, Benet’s wife, though badly injured, managed to run and alert a group of Border Police forces nearby who arrived on the scene. The assailant had by this time grabbed a gun from one of those he had stabbed, and he fired at the cops, who shot and killed him.

Hundreds of police officers had been deployed in the Old City, for fear of attacks, but Jerusalem Police Chief Moshe Erdi said there had been no specific information regarding this attacker.

It's not enough to have security on patrol. The Religion of Peace has to be abolished.