Tag: Good News

Pax For Cornyn?

Conservatism, Elections, Politics

Well now, this is interesting:

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Tuesday he is running to unseat Sen. John Cornyn in next year’s midterm elections.

“We have a great U.S. Senator, Ted Cruz, and it’s time we have another great senator that will actually stand up for Republican values, fight for the values of the people of Texas, and also support Donald Trump in the areas he’s focused on, in a very significant way,” Paxton told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham. “That’s what I plan on doing.”

Hoo boy:  if the Lefties think that Ted Cruz is a bad boy, wait till Paxton gets to the Senate.  (For those unfamiliar with Texas senators, John Cornyn is the Lone Star equivalent of South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham — occasionally on the side of the angels, but more than often not.)  Predictably, Cornyn’s staff has gone negative, which alone should disqualify the asshole.  But despite that:

Internal polls show Paxton leading by more than 20 percentage points over Cornyn.

Can’t wait for the primary later this year so I can do my civic duty and get the ever-unreliable Cornyn outta there.

My only regret is that Texas will be losing a kick-ass Attorney General, and maybe also (if she goes to D.C. with him) a fine state senator in his wife Angie, who represents District 8 in far northeast Texas.

Preparing For The Better

Business, Economics, Trumpism

We always talk about “preparing for the worst”, but there’s an equally-compelling reason to prepare for the opposite.  Here’s a good example of this.

I see that POTUS has increased the logging quota on federal lands by 25%, to the consternation of the Usual Idiots.  Ignoring their wails (which is good advice anyway), his reasoning is sound:

The new order serves two purposes. One is to control fires. President Donald Trump said in January that the Los Angeles wildfires were partly caused by California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s refusal to clear brush and dead trees.

The other purpose, though unstated, is likely to increase the supply of lumber and head off potential price increases due to tariffs on Canadian lumber, which could have a cascading effect on the American construction industry.

The second reason is actually the better one.  Of course we should not allow ourselves to be held hostage by the Canucks over timber — and in any event, the more self-sufficient a nation is, the better — but the very last sentence is equally telling.

You see, with Treasury yields falling (meaning that U.S. debt is being bought out — a Good Thing), what will follow the drop in yields is a drop in interest rates, which means that housing will become more affordable.  And the construction industry cannot afford to be choked of its timber supply if building costs are to be contained.

As it is, construction companies face potentially higher labor costs because all the cheap (illegal, lest we forget) laborers are being deported — meaning more citizens working ergo more taxes being paid as opposed to untaxed dollars just being sent south of the border — so if the builders get cheaper and more-plentiful timber supplies, everyone wins.

I don’t see too many downsides to this — it’s a “two (actually three) birds with one stone” scenario — but this is after all a fairly superficial overview because I don’t claim too much expertise in this area to dig more.  Am I missing something?

Dept. Of Righteous Stabbings

Righteous Shootings

Okay, it wasn’t actually a shooting, but I think everyone will agree with my bending the rules in this case.  Here’s the headline:

Schoolchildren disarm robber and stab him to death after being held at gunpoint

The 40-year-old man reportedly approached the two schoolchildren, a girl and a boy, on a bike. They reported that he was armed with a gun and knife and tried to steal their phones. The Public Prosecutor’s Office said that the victims got into a struggle with the man, with one of them snatching the knife off him. The man was stabbed two or three times but managed to get away on his bike. Shortly after he was found lying in the road.

I guess the moral of the story is:  Don’t mess with Chilean teenagers.

And this last item will come as a surprise to exactly nobody:

The prosecutor also confirmed that the deceased had previous criminal records.

…which ended right there, on a dusty street somewhere in Chile. [/Hemingway]

Great Idea; Never Gonna Happen

Economics

I beseech all of you to read this article in full.  Here’s a taste:

Put simply, Trump is trying to beat countries with a stick until they agree to dismantle red tape that is holding back global demand for US goods and services. America is resorting to tariffs for one main reason. Over the past four decades, many countries have followed the US in lowering their tariff regimes, but they have not torn down regulatory barriers, or dealt with anti-competitive distortions. 
Trump’s masterplan is to create a new “coalition of the willing”, with the world divided into those who welcome competitive dynamism and those who cling to stagnation.

Then the writer puts forward an argument which contains so much common sense that it makes adopting it a slam-dunk for even the most foolish and doctrinaire of governments.

Which is why Britishland’s Labour Party will never adopt it.

Keeping Up

Trumpism

I am a man of advanced years and much-reduced mental- and physical capacity thereby, so I’m having trouble dealing with all the MAGA / Trumpist / Musk-y goodness these days.  Quite apart from Saturday’s posts, there’s this:

Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Sec. Scott Turner has announced the end of Federal Housing Administration (FHA)-insured mortgages for any “non-permanent residents,” effectively eliminating illegal aliens’ access to the taxpayer-funded program.

…and this:

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is slashing 10,000 full-time employees as part of its effort to trim fat and reorient the department around Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Health Again” (MAHA) agenda.

“We aren’t just reducing bureaucratic sprawl. We are realigning the organization with its core mission and our new priorities in reversing the chronic disease epidemic,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “This Department will do more — a lot more — at a lower cost to the taxpayer.”

…not to mention this:

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that as many as 300 foreign students have had their visas revoked due to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Rubio confirmed the number of revoked visas when speaking at a press conference in Guyana.

“Maybe more, it might be more than 300 at this point,” Rubio said. “We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visa.”

Okay, let’s not let my enfeebled state and stamina be a hindrance to all this most excellent and long-overdue Chainsaw Activity.