Author: Jim Bowman

Jim Bowman covered religion 1968-78 for the Chicago Daily News, since then has written books, articles, etc., mostly on corporate history but also on religion (Company Man: My Jesuit Life, 1950-1968), and more recently on politics (Illinois Blues: How the Ruling Party Talks to Voters -- Lulu.com, Kindle). Longtime Oak Park, Illinois, resident, he lives now on Chicago's North Side, where four of his and Winnie's six children live close by.

A brief look at the Obama-Kerry disaster

It’s f-word Israel today in America, thanks to President Nitwit and his legacy-hunting. Hell, it’s f-word America in America. Day of infamy, anyone, when the hand that holds the pen (and has a phone) has stabbed Israel in the back, and America too.

Details below, excerpted from Frederick Kagan’s op-ed in Wall St. Journal. Read them and weep.

* The document [signed and sealed, Sun-Times headlines] doesn’t mention the 60-day window for review by the U.S. Congress, and the language in this section suggests that action in the U.N. will not await any congressional vote.

. . . .

It is again noteworthy [after the proviso: “pending ratification by . . . the Iranian parliament”] that no mention is made of any action to be taken by the U.S. Congress, despite the nod to Iran’s legislature.

Noteworthy and damnable. F-word Congress.

Nothing in the text of the agreement itself supports President Obama’s assertion that the [international arms] embargo will last for another five years, although he may have that time frame in mind.

He can afford to toss that out, safe in knowing how little will be made of it by the Third Estate.

The U.S. is not in a very strong position to engage the Russians on [the arms embargo], since the Obama administration must get the resolution through the Security Council quickly or risk having the entire nuclear deal fall apart.

Hurry, hurry, ignoring Congress.

Read the rest of it here: Why They’re Cheering in Tehran – WSJ.

From destruction economic benefits? Not on your tintype.

Break something, pay to have it fixed, fixer uses fee to buy things, etc.? Not quite.

The Broken Window Fallacy and “Blessings” of Destruction in the Real World

  • Mises Daily July 14 2015
JULY 15, 2015

TAGS Booms and BustsHistory of the Austrian School of EconomicsPhilosophy and Methodology

In the early nineteenth century, Bastiat posed the story of a young man who throws a brick through the window of a baker’s shop. We’re told that this may have a bright side — that the baker must now pay a glazier to fix the window, who will then use that income to spend elsewhere, creating a ripple effect that benefits many.

Such thinking is reminiscent of what would later be used to justify the logic behind the Keynesian multiplier. Keynes would later write in the General Theory, “Pyramid building, earthquakes, even wars may serve to increase wealth.”

The Opportunity Cost of Fixing Things

As many readers already know, such logic fails to take into account the opportunity cost of the broken window. Had the window not been broken, the baker wouldn’t have paid the glazier, but maybe he would’ve spent the money on a pair of shoes instead. The shoemaker would then have income to spend elsewhere, and the same multiplier would take place — but society would be better off by exactly one window.

Read all about it here.

He loves America. Scott Walker’s hat in ring

Some items from his speech, emphasis on specifics:

Wisconsin in a paragraph:

In Wisconsin, we took on the unions and big-government special interests and won. We cut spending and transformed an inherited $3.6 billion deficit into a surplus. We cut taxes by $2 billion, reducing the burden on individuals, employers and property owners. We enacted lawsuit reform and regulatory reform. We defunded Planned Parenthood and enacted pro-life legislation. We defended the Second Amendment by passing castle doctrine and concealed carry. And we now require a photo ID to vote.

Nutshell statement on, of all things, welfare:

Some have said we’re making it harder to get assistance. But in truth, we’re making it easier to get a job.

Welfare as family-support issue:

Strong families with two involved parents are central to a child’s success. But for too long, the federal government has penalized families through the tax code and structured welfare to discourage the involvement of fathers. It’s time we end the marriage penalty and fix the damaging programs that replace parental involvement with government influence. [italics
added]

Jobs and taxes:

we have a plan to help the people create more jobs and higher wages. . . . . We need to lower the burden on taxpayers to raise take-home pay.

Foreign-policy matrix:

We have a President who drew a “red line” and allowed Syria to cross it. He called ISIS the JV squad and Yemen a success story. Our current leaders think Iran is a place America can do business with.

The greatest threat to future generations is radical Islamic terrorism. We must defeat ISIS and the threat of radical Islamic terrorism before it threatens the homeland. We need to acknowledge that Israel is our ally and start treating them like one. We need to stop Russian aggression. We need to stop China’s cyber attacks, slow its advances into international waters and speak out about its abysmal human rights record.

How to conduct war:

the first and best way to honor fighting men and women is by fighting to win. Our goal is peace, and we secure peace when every foe knows that if they start a fight with the United States, they will be defeated.

He takes it to the libs, offers a choice not an echo, talks plain enough. Good man.

The holiest of fathers preaches revolution, says John Allen

Company Man

He’s a globalist with a program.

In a nutshell, the pope believes that to do greater justice to the poor, the entire architecture of the global economic system has to be rethought. He also believes powerful forces stand in the way of that happening.

In his recent encyclical letter on the environment, Francis takes several swipes at what he describes variously as “interests” and “powers” that prop up an unjust, and unsustainable, status quo. Though he never quite specifies who the villains are, it’s clear he doesn’t believe the global system can be relied upon to reform itself.

Instead, he believes the developing world must find new ways to assert itself, to stand up in defense of the planet’s impoverished masses. Francis also realizes he’s in a unique position to move the ball on that agenda in his own backyard.

Fuzzy Wuzzy was a pope, wasn’t he? Fuzzy notions, exaggerated…

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The Pope has mounted a massive campaign to reclaim Catholics in S. America, says religion expert

Company Man

It’s why he was elected, says R. Andrew Chesnut, Chaired Professor of Religious Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University:

Pope Francis was elected pope to reverse monumental Catholic decline in a region that is home to 40 percent of the world’s Catholics. The only way to do this is to target those sectors of the population who have most defected to the Pentecostal competition, the poor, Indigenous peoples, youth, women and prisoners. Whether or not the overwhelming popular enthusiasm shown for the Argentine pope in the three South American nations will translate into more parishioners in Latin American pews remains an open question.

Well, this makes him a traveling salesman to beat all, crafty and a trifle unscrupulous.

Anyhow, he wasn’t elected to shoot down free-market capitalism? I’ll be darned.

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Our holiest father not offended by gift of communist crucifix

Company Man

Pope Francis finds it hard to be offended by a left-wing dictator. Of course.

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (AP) — Pope Francis says he wasn’t offended by the “Communist crucifix” given to him by Bolivian President Evo Morales during his South American pilgrimage.

Morales surprised the pontiff with the unusual gift, a crucifix attached to a hammer and sickle, when Francis arrived in La Paz on Wednesday

It’s his leaning. The offenders have just leaned too far. Strayed from the path. Lost sheep.

Free marketers? Not so much.

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Fiery dissent from Supreme decision in same-sex case from a Louisiana supreme

Speaking for herself and two others, Justice Knoll tore into the nationals:

Justice Jeannette Knoll led the charge [fr dissent from what’s usually the routine incorporation of a decision], with a blistering criticism of “five lawyers” playing the “super-legislators” who imposed their “will over the solemn expression of the people.”

“Unilaterally,” she wrote, “these five lawyers took for themselves a question the Constitution expressly leaves to the people and about which the people have been in open debate — the true democratic process.”

Calling it a “mockery of rights” and an “utter travesty,” Knoll warns of the “horrific impact these five lawyers have made on the democratic rights of the American people to define marriage.”

It reminds me of Pope John Paul II telling theologians to stop discussing a woman priesthood.

The Supremes are too easily mocked as divines, telling the plebs what’s good for them. Adapting Pogo, we have seen the plebs and it is us.

Office-holders praising each other, fighting the fight, in the trenches — Eisenhower fix-up meeting, Brooks Middle School, 2013

Berkeley on the Prairie

Oct. 29 was the fix-Eisenhower meeting at Brooks. The senator had called it, announced it in the newspaper, had urged attendance with robocalls, ran it.

He set the tone at the start, standing at a podium in front of a big stage in the ample middle-school auditorium, facing a good-sized crowd. “Eleven or twelve years ago,” he a newly elected senator, “we [royal “we”?] were fighting this fight in Oak Park.” Military images predominate; there were more to come.

“It’s been a longstanding issue in our community, going back generations.” (To when Oak Park clout, then Republican, forced a narrowing of the roadway.) His honored guest the Sec Trans and IDOT director had been the “most responsive on this issue” of the four secretaries of transportation he had worked with in his eleven-plus years as senator. (Four in 11 years!)

Sec Trans responded in kind. The senator, she said, had…

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Oregon bakers see ante driven up by ZEALOUS apparatchik

More fuel to the bonfire of gay marriage supporters’ vanities:

In another sickening twist, the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries is ordering the family to pay their $135,000 fine by next Monday or the state will put a lien on their home. Apparently, Commissioner Brad Avakian is so fiercely committed to his agenda that he’s willing to put five kids on the street to prove it. Conform or go homeless. Sounds like tolerance to me! Like florist Barronelle Stutzman, whose home also hangs in the court’s balance, the Kleins are finding out how low the Left is willing to sink to demand conformity on their redefinition of marriage.

Out, out, damned spot of signal resistance for conscience’ sake.