Miscellaneous

A federal lawsuit, based on California labor law, could kill Uber.  It would make employees of its drivers, thus driving it out of business, eventually.  But Uber has a way out.

The company’s supposed to be worth $50 billion.  One quarter of one percent of that amount, or $125 million, can get them out of danger.

If it is true, as I read, that Uber’s potential liability derives from California law, change California law through an initiative.  Call it the Freedom to Work initiative.  For a few million you gather the signatures.  Spend $100 million or so on a campaign to pass it.  Introduce the voters to the thousands of Uber drivers who make or supplement their living working when they’re able and willing.  Let the defenders of the nanny state tell all the Millennials that this service that they like so much they just can’t have.  Because?

It’s private sector vs. the government campaign.  Uber would win it, and in the process help every California Republican on the ballot, all of whom would support it.  If Rep. Devin Nunes runs for the Senate, this issue, along with the drought  — which Democrats have done nothing to ameliorate  — could make him competitive.

Somebody on the internet succinctly made the best argument rebutting Hillary’s email defenses.  As Secretary of State, she conducted business using her email account.  How do you conduct the business of being Secretary of State without discussing classified information?  You can’t.

The Queen continues to send signals to Uncle Joe.  The latest public wink and nod is a NYT story revealing that a high level intelligence team has concluded that at least two of her emails contained Top Secret information.  The source — the Queen  — is more important than the story.  Because Uncle Joe, and everybody else, knows the Queen can take Hillary down.  She’s telling him that, if he runs, she will.

It more and more looks like it’s coming down to Jill Biden.  She really doesn’t want to go through this. At all.  But she hasn’t said no.  And when she sees her husband of over 40 years coming home from a Labor Day Rally, all pumped up at the reception he’d received, she knows  what would make him happy.  I feel for her.

Because she’s such a God awful candidate, Hillary would be the ideal Democrat to run against.  But because you never know, I hope Biden beats her, just as I hoped Obama would beat her eight years ago.  The Clintons are thoroughly corrupt, a political crime family.  Even the most remote possibility of them returning to the White House must be avoided.  So go Joe!

Think about the dynamic of a Biden vs. Anybody But Bush as the Republican.  Biden (and Clinton, for that matter) are the defenders of the status quo.  They can’t run a Change campaign, because Obama’s been a perfect President, so what needs changing?   The Republican promises a wholesale reform of Washington, top to bottom.  Clean house, and start fresh, with new ideas and new people.  Biden has nothing to campaign on, except as a reactionary defending all the special interests which are on the tit.  It would be a Soak the Rich campaign, which isn’t going to sell.  Soaking the rich won’t give us 4% growth, which is the only thing that will save us.  Soaking the rich won’t get you a job.  Somebody once said, It’s the economy, stupid.

It still is.

I’ve noticed something about Ben Carson.  He’s black.

Watching news shows which discuss his rise in the polls, you wouldn’t know it.  He’s just another friendly, soft spoken brain surgeon.  Perhaps some commentators have also noticed he’s black, but they’re keeping it to themselves.  Since he’s impossible to dislike, a man of genuine warmth and real accomplishment, bringing up his race somehow diminishes him, which no one wants to do.

In fact, there is probably another brain surgeon out there, who’s just as nice and well spoken, who happens to be white, or Asian.  They wouldn’t be taken seriously.  People like the kindly Doctor because he’s the kind of black American we wish we saw more of.  Some may support him to demonstrate their lack of prejudice, but most, I think, do so because he holds the promise of bridging the black/white divide in this country.  We’d like to get along with all of our fellow Americans, including, particularly, blacks.

Like everybody else, I hoped Obama’s election would help race relations, but it was not to be.  It’s almost like the 60’s and the Civil Rights Act.  When it passed in ’65 it was thought of as a great leap forward, a great benefit to the blacks across the country.  A year later, life hadn’t changed in the northern ghettos.  The law had changed, but everyday reality was the same.  Blacks believed the law would improve their lives, and when it had no real effect they were angry and resentful.  A promise had been made, of progress, and it was broken.  So the great northern race riots of the 60’s ensued.  Detroit never recovered.

The poisonous state of race relations today may be a kind of repeat of the 60’s.  Obama’s election was a watershed moment for black Americans, and always will be.  But what benefit has the average black received?  Life in West Oakland is worse today than when he took office.  Wages, employment, housing are down.  There are a whole lot of very angry black people in this country.  Black Lives Matter is just another iteration of the Black Panthers from the 60’s.  So far we’ve had Ferguson and Baltimore.  The situation on the streets of our cities is ominous.  Cops are reluctant to do their job, and the thugs sense it, and take advantage.

Obama has a duty to address this situation, and I expect that he will.  But he is such a smarmy politician that he’ll make sure he encourages the maintenance of a certain level of animosity toward whites.  That’s what successful black (and Democrat) politicians do in this country. It’s reflexive.  But it’s not all the fault of the politicians.  That’s what a lot of black people want to hear.

After we finished my first year of law school I got a summer job at West Coast Detectives.  Babbie was crazy about this private detective on TV, Mannix, and I decided I could do that.  They got me a Teamster’s card and sent me to work in a food warehouse in the San Fernando Valley, Pacoima.  I’m undercover, and it’s a little dicey.  The place is about 20% white, 40% black, and 40% Chicano.  There’s definitely some racial tension.   I make friends with this guy named Buck Jump, a  big white guy.  For some reason the blacks liked this guy, and through him I got to know a few of them.  We got off work at 5:00 a. m. and one day we go to Buck’s place to watch some Olympics.  They had boxing on, and these black guys were the most racist sons of bitches I’d ever seen.  They’d go crazy rooting for any black guy, from any country, fighting any white guy.  They were rooting for a Nigerian over an American white.

I didn’t get to know these guys that well.  But it opened my eyes.  There’s a lot of black racism in this country, and I’m afraid it’s getting worse.

I don’t have a good feeling about all this.

Here’s the link to my piece in AT:

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/09/jeb_and_the_donald_need_to_go_one_on_one.html

If Jeb!’s people have a better idea we haven’t seen it.  But they’re highly paid professionals, so I’m sure they’ve got something really clever they’re working on.

A friend of mine told me about a black kid he knew in Oakland.  A good kid, soft spoken and a little shy.  There was one kid in particular who bullied him, stole from him, and just made his life miserable.  So he got a gun and killed him.  He didn’t know what else to do.

I was reminded of this watching Gingrich on a Sunday show.  They asked him what he would do if he was running against Trump.  He said he had no idea.

I’ve admired Gingrich since his historic win in ’94.  He made his bones, and nobody can take that away from him.  He turned out to be erratic, and something of a drama queen, with an unseemly love of himself.  But he’s always been a smart guy, and when he said he didn’t know what to do with Trump I took that as a personal challenge to come up with something myself.  I submitted it to American Thinker and will either link or publish tomorrow.  The inspiration was that black kid in Oakland, who I imagine to be Jeb!  His tormentor is the Donald.  No, I did not suggest Jeb! pull a gun on him.  I think Jeb! does need to challenge him to a one on one face off, with Rush as the moderator.  Newt always liked to think outside the box.  This is something a little different.

The point is, Jeb! has to do something.  He can’t continue on his current path  — it leads nowhere.

Kindly Dr. Carson is tied with Trump in some poll.  All this tells you is that the polls, insofar as they predict an actual outcome, are worse than useless.  They’re a distraction.  While they don’t predict, the polls inform.  The kindly Doctor has great appeal to the Republican electorate.  He’s the antithesis of Trump, and proves that decency and personal honor are still political winners.  Girls like to have a fling with the macho, macho man.  But they want to marry a kindly doctor.

We’re in a flood tide, and it surges unabated.  The disarray in the enemy camp is more evidence.  If I’m a Democrat I’m tearing my hair out.  Hillary says she was too busy to think about things about email accounts when she became Secretary.  I guess that’s why she went to such great lengths to hire and pay a guy to set up her private server.  The scary thing, for the D’s, is that she thinks people might believe such crap, and that the sycophants who surround her are no better.  It’s odd, she’s been with Bill for so long, and still she doesn’t know how to tell a convincing lie.  It’s a gift, and she just doesn’t have it.

The nice thing about having Trump in the race is that he makes everyone else look normal.  When he does fall by the wayside, and a winner emerges, whoever that is will be mainstream in comparison.  It will be something of a relief to have this boisterous showman off the stage.  A return to normalcy.

Actually, I’ll miss the Donald.  I’ve been in politics 50 years and I’ve never seen anyone like him, at least in this country.  Schwarzenegger was a pussy in comparison.  I hope it doesn’t end badly for the Donald.  I like to think that, at least in part, he’s running because he’s worried about our country.

And he really does want to make it great again.

The Village People say everybody ought to be a macho, macho man.  But not everybody can.  Take Jeb!  Please.

The real macho, macho man called him out.  It was a challenge he couldn’t ignore, and one he couldn’t handle.  His response to this insult to his manhood is to point out that his tormentor has not been a consistent conservative.  Pretty strong stuff, Jeb!  He’s throwing punches in a knife fight.

So how do you handle a macho, macho man?   Ridicule.  Apparently, in addition to a lack of balls and brains, the Jeb! team doesn’t have a sense of humor.  Trump is, in fact, ridiculous.  Everything about him is so outlandish he’s a sitting duck for some biting sarcasm.  Make fun of him, in a light hearted way.   Talk about his hair, or his women, or his egomania.  Mock him, with a gentle touch.

Macho, macho men don’t like to be laughed at.  It provokes them into doing stupid stuff.  Trump is no exception.  If you want to see him lose it, and go over the top, it will happen when someone pokes fun at him and the audience starts laughing.  Real men are not macho, macho men.  A macho, macho man is trying to prove, to flaunt, his manhood.  Real men don’t do that.  They just act like men.  But to act like a man you have to be a man, and maybe that’s really Jeb!’s problem.  I don’t know much about the guy, but I wonder if he’s ever really manned up?

There are a lot of really bright people working in all these campaigns.  The next debate is a week and a half away.  Somebody will come up with some zingers for the macho, macho man.  If somebody paid me I’d do it myself.

Another thing that will eventually bring down The Man is his ignorance about politics, governance, and the Constitution.  The questions Hugh Hewitt asked him were bullshit, gotcha stuff.  Nobody cares if he doesn’t know the leader of Baluchiistan.  But I don’t think he knows diddly squat about the Constitution.  I could be wrong, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard him criticize Obama for violating the Constitution.  That would never occur to him.  He doesn’t have a favorite Bible verse because he’s never read the Bible.  Has he ever read the Constitution?  Probably not, and when that is exposed  — and it will be  — he’ll look like a dope.

People are starting to wonder if Trump could actually be elected.  I guess they’re serious.  Well, on the other hand, there were supposedly bright and well informed people who told me, six months ago, that Jeb! was a lock for the nomination, and everybody else was wasting their time and money.  People say the darndest things.

I wish I knew somebody at Saturday Night Live.  They must be doing stuff on Trump, of course they are.  But that song, “I’m a Macho, Macho Man!”, is so perfect for a skit that it’s got to happen.