Author: Patrick

Short Bio: I started blogging about politics in 2006, as a populist, skeptical left of center type, with a blog called simply, "The Populist."I suspect, but cannot prove; that my blog might have been hacked by some evil neoconservatives. I cannot prove that at all and also too, around the same time. Hackers from China where attacking wordpress blogs. I believe either the Neocons or the Chinese got my site. I don't know honestly know which.Either way, by 2007, I began to see that I really did not fit within the Democrat Party and liberal circles and after my blog was hacked; I created a blog called "Political Byline" and I kept writing; first as a Centrist and then as a Conservative PopulistFor my long bio, see the "About Me" section on this blog.

Video: Mark Levin turns on Trump

This is not going to bode well for Trump at all. If Levin turns on Trump, it’s gonna be tough for him. Levin has influence.

The Right Scoop has the video: (H/T HotAir.com)

[powerpress]

Also too, keep in mind, I’m not Mark Levin fanboy here, okay? I find the guy to be shrill and annoying. But, the guy has influence and that is important. Conservative talk radio has come to influence elections; especially in red states.

Of course, you all know why I rescinded my support of Trump.

Here’s my video commentary on this subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD7pNRC7GUQ?rel=0

Chuck Baldwin speaks some very important truth

I was reading Chuck Baldwin’s Weekly Column and man does he ever hit the nail on the head.

In his column, “where do we go from here?”, He writes:

A sizeable percentage of the professing patriot community today is doing more to cause their own enslavement than they are to prevent it. They create self-fulfilling prophecies and then refuse to take any responsibility for it.

The Internet is awash in half-truths, rumors, hearsay, baseless accusations, and downright lies. In the name of God, so-called prophecy “experts” repeatedly predict divine pronouncements that never come true. And without retraction or apology, they continue to spew forth more and ever-exaggerated predictions. False reports are regurgitated ubiquitously. And even worse, there is an element within the patriot community that has NO desire to be objective and honest; there is no room in their minds for critical thinking. If the truth doesn’t fit their preconceived agenda, they make up a lie that will.

If we are going to make any progress toward the restoration and reclamation of constitutional government in this country, the patriot community must start being honest with itself. Hyperbole, sensationalism, self-aggrandizement, and pandering only serve to accommodate oppression. They do nothing to further the cause of liberty.

Many patriot Internet bloggers and radio talk show hosts seem to pander as much to their audience as politicians in Washington, D.C., do to theirs. Rather than facing issues objectively and honestly, they slant or spin the story to fit what the audience wants to hear. It’s the same thing the SPLC and the politically correct establishment do–only in reverse.

The dark side of government and the media spin stories to fit their agendas. Many patriots do the exact same thing.

Big Government toadies love to lump all patriots (those could include Ron Paul supporters, Donald Trump supporters, pro-life people, conservative Christians, military veterans, people who believe in the Constitution, creationists, Second Amendment advocates, ad infinitum) into one big “anti-government” group. And many self-serving patriots love to lump all policemen, federal agents, and public servants into one big “tyrant” group.

And please remember, many of these so-called “patriots” who are continually promoting their own particular brand of hatred for government are in reality agent provocateurs who are attempting to incite people with strong emotions and weak minds into doing something criminal so as to further categorize all of us as “anti-government extremists.” And far, far too many of us are far, far too easily manipulated.

The problem in the patriot community, as I see it, is the same as it is in the big-government community: a herd mentality. It seems that almost no one is willing to distance him or herself from the crowd. Whatever my peers expect me to be, I will be. Whatever they expect me to do, I will do. Whatever they expect me to say, I will say. This is a problem on both sides of the aisle.

Too many good people in government are not willing to stand against the tide of popular opinion among their peers. Even when they recognize that the popular opinion of their peers is wrong, they sheepishly surrender to it. Many professing patriots do the exact same thing. They are unwilling to stand against the tide of popular opinion among their own peers. Even when they recognize that the popular opinion of their peers is wrong, they sheepishly surrender to it. So, who is worse?

Until we who call ourselves patriots are willing to be honest and objective with ourselves and have the personal courage and integrity to truthfully follow that honesty and objectivity wherever it leads us, and until we stop sheepishly acquiescing to the tide of popular opinion of our peers for the purpose of self-aggrandizement and personal profit, we only contribute to the advancement of our own enslavement.

We also need to become much smarter in the way we present ourselves to our uninformed neighbors and fellow citizens in our local communities. Hot-headed, knee-jerk, overly emotional outbursts and tantrums are NOT helping the cause. In the world of marketing and salesmanship, for example, bad breath and body order are NOT assets. A lot of what goes on in the name of the patriot community is tantamount to bad breath and body order. IT STINKS!

He’s right. This is one of the reasons why I have always kept a distance from the “Alex Jones” crowd. However, I have one little quibble with his bullet points at the the end of the column:

We need to stop gullibly buying into the half-truths, wild accusations, innuendos, exaggerations, duplicity, and downright falsehoods that are regurgitated on the Internet, on many talk shows, and in many periodicals–remembering that many of these falsehoods and hysterical overreactions are actually the work of our enemies posing as our friends.

From Chuck Baldwin’s article from November 19, 2015 called “THE PARIS ATTACKS: MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE“, where he basically blames the Zionists for the attacks in Paris, he says this:

Ask yourself, why would refugees seeking safety and protection in other countries want to murder hundreds of citizens within those countries? They know this would completely alienate the country against them and only serve to further endanger the lives of their families. The attacks in Paris were NOT committed by refugees; they were committed by CIA-backed, Saudi-backed, Mossad-backed, Turkey-backed, MI6-backed ISIS terrorists.

Even though the majority of refugees are doubtless harmless people who did not want to leave their homes and did so only for their very survival–and with the knowledge that western operatives have created a radical Muslim Frankenstein–and given the fact that our federal government is making no attempt to vet these refugees, it is foolish for states to accept them. Governors are right to refuse. (If the U.S. government was truly behaving in the interests of peace and was not an active participant in creating war and instability in the Middle East–and thus creating the refugee crisis to begin with–it would be a different story.)

In addition, how did those terrorists successfully pull off these coordinated attacks? How did they get fully-automatic rifles and bombs into Paris? These sand people are NOT that sophisticated. They do NOT have those kinds of connections. Do you think you could successfully get a group of people together and smuggle dozens of automatic weapons and explosives into a European country–and then successfully coordinate a large-scale attack in a high-security major downtown city? The only people capable of such a thing are Special Ops military personnel. In other words, ISIS had help, folks–a LOT of help.

I don’t know about you all; but, I am thinking Chuck Baldwin needs to take his own advice.

Update: I did a video on this subject.

Merle Haggard RIP

Looks like another country and western Legend has left us.

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This ought to be the Republican Party official song:

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Via NYT:

Merle Haggard, one of the most successful singers in the history of country music, a contrarian populist whose songs about his scuffling early life and his time in prison made him the closest thing that the genre had to a real-life outlaw hero, died at his home in Redding, Calif., on Wednesday, his 79th birthday.

His death was confirmed by his agent, Lance Roberts. 

May he rest in peace. 🙁

Guest Voice: James Hall: SunEdison Green Power Bankruptcy Inevitability

SunEdison Green Power Bankruptcy Inevitability

For all those sun baked brains that see salvation in renewable nirvana, the imminent demise of SunEdison is the latest case that creative green economics is the path to insolvency. After studying the tangled web of cross collateralization and rehypothecation of debt, the WSJ announcement is inevitable, SunEdison Said to Be Preparing to File for Bankruptcy. “Solar-energy company SunEdison Inc. plans to file for bankruptcy protection in coming weeks, a dramatic about-face for a company whose market value stood at nearly $10 billion in July.”

Take the tour of the SunEdison: A Timeline of the Biggest Corporate Implosion in US Solar History, and understand that the solar and wind industry is founded on a Ponzi scheme of investor hype and government subsidies.  Forbes investigates the convoluted and intertwined relationship in Reconsidering The SunEdison YieldCos, TerraForm Power And TerraForm Global.

“The company has been highly levered for some years now and management states that the recent increase in indebtedness will go towards funding of the company’s project pipeline.

Management expects the company to continue to lose money. However, it expects the cash generated by the two yieldcos under long-term contracts will begin to flow as early as the end of this year or beginning next year.”

At this point you must be asking just what is a ”yieldco”? Sun Edison Buying First Wind Scam provides a breakdown and crash course on how SunEdison used their corporate shell game to acquire a long failed and immensely indebted industrial wind scheme, lately known as First Wind.

“The lack of disclosure of ALL the debt for projects that cannot even satisfy minimum interest payments must less retiring the actual obligations, is indicative of an industry that is based upon fraud and uncompetitive costs.”

According to Law 360 the Nov. 2014: SunEdison and TerraForm acquire wind developer First Wind for $2.4 billion, does not tell the entire story.

“TerraForm picks up First Wind’s operating portfolio, which includes 521 megawatts of wind power assets, for an enterprise value of $862 million. That amount includes the equity purchase price, the assumption of debt for First Wind’s operating portfolio, certain swap and debt breakage fees and the purchase of a partner’s ownership stake in certain assets held by First Wind through a joint venture, according to regulatory filings.”

Now you need to enter into the looking glass and examine the rejected filing of First Wind with the SEC for their IPO. The links on Cohocton Wind Watch documents the actual degree of debt that this candidate for receivership held back in 2010. Why is this important?

The latest law suit from the investment banksters who financed First Wind gives the answer in SunEdison Legal Woes Mount With Suits Over First Wind.

“D.E. Shaw & Co. LP and Madison Dearborn Capital Partners IV LP say the funds in the TerraForm Power matter are owed as deferred payment for SunEdison’s $1.9 billion purchase of First Wind Holdings LLC in January 2015, and will be due “immediately” if SunEdison files for bankruptcy or restructures its debt, according to the suit filed in the Supreme Court of the State of New York.

First Wind was one of SunEdison’s biggest purchases, and made it the world’s biggest renewable-energy company. It was part of a massive buying spree that racked up $11.7 billion in debt by the end of September and helped drive the company to the edge of failure.”

Well, the immediate implosion of the SunEdison house of cards follows the same pattern of the crooked First Wind operation that cooked the books for years. Start with the notice that SunEdison In More Hot Water As SEC Investigation Begins & Bankruptcy Looms, “US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has begun its own investigation into the company’s disclosures to investors about its liquidity” and add in the Bloomberg reports that SunEdison Receives U.S. Subpoena on Vivint Deal Gone Wrong.

“The Justice Department’s subpoena comes about three weeks after the deal with Vivint, a takeover that drew the ire of billionaire investor David Tepper, was canceled. Vivint sued SunEdison shortly after, saying its officials had failed to meet financial obligations and work toward consummating the merger. SunEdison auditors had meanwhile started investigations into allegations made by former executives and a current employee about the accuracy of the company’s “anticipated financial position.”

The circular accounting circles never seem to reconcile. Just maybe the basic economics used to finance these dubious energy companies need a thoroughgoing over examination by the regulatory agencies and financial community.

Read closely the delusional flimflam From a SunEdison Press Release:

“TerraForm Power’s acquisition of the Invenergy wind plants leverages the power of SunEdison’s platform which was enhanced with our acquisition of First Wind in January of 2015,” said Ahmad Chatila, SunEdison chief executive officer and TerraForm Power chairman.  “The Invenergy transaction creates significant value for our shareholders through the accretion in our TerraForm Power ownership and the acceleration of our Incentive Distribution Rights (IDRs). Together with TerraForm Power, SunEdison’s development platform will change how energy is generated, distributed and owned around the world.”

No wonder that the SEC is investigating “the company’s disclosures to investors”. The public needs to wake up to the facts that the solar and wind industry promises much and delivers little. Anyone remember Solyndra and Evergreen Solar?

Who else but the Motley Fool to sum up the lesson of another failed “Green” utopian environmental illusion, What Happens to SunEdison Inc If It Goes Under?

“Here’s the biggest question in a potential SunEdison bankruptcy: What is the renewable energy development business worth?

In theory, developing renewable energy projects should drive everything from the O&M business to yieldcos. But developing projects requires a lot of money, including debt, which SunEdison has found out the hard way. If that funding dries up, so does the business.”

Learn well and remember long. Generating electricity based on government subsidies is a fool’s game. Allowing quick buck artists to become developers and pitch their convoluted and Byzantine yieldco “re-use” collateral pledges is pure fraud. The public is continually being duped by opportunists, who are more skilled at ripping off the investor than producing any usable electricity. The forthcoming bankruptcy of SunEdison is another sign that energy policy under the cult of renewable production is not economically feasible.

For additional evidence that SunEdison’s Subsidy-Fueled Collapse, Robert Bryce nails the problem with a failed governmental energy policy.

“The biggest federal handouts — two of them totaling $200 million — were made in 2010 and 2011 to a subsidiary of SunEdison, First Wind, for the Milford Wind project in Utah. In addition to the federal subsidies, SunEdison got $30 million in subsidies from various state authorities, including $21 million from governmental entities in New York. On top of that, SunEdison also received $846 million in federal loans, loan guarantees, tax-exempt federal bonds, and federal insurance. The total government support for SunEdison comes out to $1.5 billion.”

The effort to shut down coal generation, decommission nuclear plants, limit hydro facilities and restrict natural gas turbines all lead to higher electric costs and ultimate brown outs. The true cost of continuing down this road of electric burn out by underwriting uneconomical “feel good” projects is punitive and ridiculous.

A SunEdison bankruptcy reshuffling is not about cancelling debt, but needs to be the liquidation of assets and accountability for fiduciary malfeasance. What does it take to admit that the renewal experiment is a bust? Cut the “Green” loses and get on with the business of generating reliable energy.

James Hall – April 6, 2016

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For more green articles like this one, Check out “Breaking All the Rules”

Internal Trump Campaign Memo proves that he’s a blowhard who should not be President

The Memo:

The story via The Washington Post:

In a private document that was circulated over the weekend and obtained by The Washington Post, Trump campaign senior adviser Barry Bennett revealed the mounting frustrations among the billionaire’s top aides as they closed what had been a tumultuous week.

Entitled “Digging through the Bull [expletive],” Bennett’s memo urged Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski — who was charged with battery last week for allegedly yanking a reporter — and others to ignore critics who have questioned whether Trump’s campaign for the Republican presidential nomination has waned.

“America is sick of them. Their idiotic attacks just remind voters why they hate the Washington Establishment,” Bennett wrote, citing tracking poll data favorable to Trump.

[….]

The “internal campaign memorandum,” addressed to “Corey and Team,” was given to the Post by a Republican familiar with the campaign who requested anonymity to pass on a communication from within Trump’s inner circle.

When reached by phone, Bennett confirmed that he wrote the memo and sent it to his colleagues in the campaign.

“Personally, it’s been a very hard time. You’ve got Republicans in Washington saying they’re keeping lists of people who work for Mr. Trump, who say you’ll never work in this town again,” Bennett said in a brief interview. “My point is that people should be pumped that the establishment is spinning.”

When asked whether his ire was directed more at the national media or the GOP’s establishment wing, Bennett said, “Both.”

“All of that is the establishment,” Bennett said. “The press is printing the narrative that the Republican establishment is setting. What’s necessary — what I’m saying here — is that we can’t let that influence how we see ourselves.”

A veteran of Republican campaigns, Bennett previously served as campaign manager for former Trump rival Ben Carson and made his way into Trump’s orbit in late January.

Sorry Bennet, But, when your boss decides to allow one of his friends, that being the National Enquirer smear a very well-known conservative voice and then your campaign manager promotes that smear; you lose me.

See here:

https://twitter.com/amandacarpenter/status/714557519587188736

The offending tweet:

This, my friends, is why I stopped supporting Donald Trump. Oh, yes, he does have some good promises on illegal immigration, trade and foreign policy. But that is about all they are — promises. Which most likely are lies being told to get elected, knowing Trump. Others have said it, and I will say it too; the guy is nothing more than a Authoritarian centrist, who will get elected and proceed to change nothing in Washington D.C. and will basically be as bad, if not worse than Obama and Bush combined.

This is why I am voting third party this time around. Because Ted Cruz is dangerous; but Donald Trump? He’s worse.

A perfect example of why I keep my distance from 9/11 Truthers, Haters and such

I make no bones about it; I am not a fan of Wilsonian foreign policy and neoconservatives — because it is what brought us the Iraq War and its ultimate failure. However, these people, as outlined in the blog posting below, go well beyond, what I, as a blogger, am against. The entire idea of the wholesale hatred of Jews is just not my cup of tea. As a Born-Again Christian of 35 years, I am not a person who hates people, because of who they are.

Check out : A Deranged Anti-Semite Accuses Me of Libel | Power Line

This is what these people are, natural born hatemongers. They combine hatred with conspiracy theories to buttress their hatred. It is a self-supporting system; a sort of infinite feedback loop, so to speak. This sort of a thing, my friend, is not my cup of tea.

This is why you will not see me constantly linking to Alex Jones or his websites. Because Alex Jones likes to traffic in conspiracy and I simply do not delve into that sort of stuff. This is what has bothered me about the Conservative media as of late. They, in some aspects, have hit the fifth rail, when it comes to the media and whom they offer up as factual reporting, and more importantly, reliable sources for information.

Now, to those of you, who would point out, that I do actually have Alex Jones links in my sidebar and to other such sites — I realize that I do. I also have a very large and obvious disclaimer, letting my readers now, that I do not endorse the stuff and that the reader’s mileage might vary as to the truthfulness as to what is written there as well.

As a blogger, and as a citizen journalist, as a political pundit of the internet sort, I like to deal with true, reported, and proven facts and then, give my take on it. As a Christian of 35 years, I happen to know who is behind all of the evil things that are happening here in America; and that is the prince of darkness himself: Satan. It matters to me not, who is being used as the instrument of that evil. I feel, that being wrapped up into whom the person or persons that is influenced by Satan to do these evil things simply is a distraction to the truth and the complete broad picture.

Therefore, this is why I keep a safe distance away from people of this sort. Do I believe that cultural Marxism is a real thing? Yes, I do. I believe that it is a tool of Satan himself, to destroy the Christian foundations that this Country was founded. It matters to me not, whom the people were, that were behind it; where they were from or their ethnicity. This, to me, is trivial.

What does matter to me is that there is a cultural war in this Country. There are truly evil people, who are, for the most part, a part of the political left in this Country; who wish to change the very foundation of which this Country was founded. They wish to stamp out the Christian morals and very fabric that this Nation was founded upon. They wish to see Churches, especially Fundamentalist Churches, closed and their Pastor’s jailed, because of hate speech; a creation of the Marxist left.

These people are the ones that created political correctness, as not only a term, but also a tool of control. They use this tool against those of whom they disagree and they wish to silence those who dare to dissent to their worldviews. This has really become apparent under the administration of Barack Obama; this is not a kooky conspiracy theory, this is factual truth.

This is why I created this blog and why I decided that I wanted to continue blogging, even after the Bush administration.  Because once I figured out that the Democratic Party was nothing more than a giant smoke screen and basically a party that is based upon a false premise, that somehow or another, everyone is entitled to everything and that capitalism is looked down upon and that people, like myself, who hold to Christian morals and compass, are somehow a threat. I left that side of the political fence and decided to join with those who defend that sort of a thing and this Country as a whole.

Not that I believe the conservatives or Republicans are perfect, far from it. However, I believe that defending the Republic and defending the values, of which this Country was founded is a noble cause and it is one that I do fight for here on this blog.

However, fighting for that sort of a cause does not entail, not for me anyway, embracing this sort of hatred, or peddling these sorts of conspiracy theories. It is foolishness and it misses the broader picture.

Sorry for the length of this, but, I really wanted to make this clear. I fight here on this blog for America and its values, not against any one person, ethnic group, or religious group.

 

Trump does a NYT interview with Modow

It’s your typical ego stuff too.

NYT:

WASHINGTON — YOU could hear how hard it was for Donald Trump to say the words.

“Yeah, it was a mistake,” he said, sounding a bit chastened. “If I had to do it again, I wouldn’t have sent it.”

I was telling him he lost my sister’s vote when he retweeted a seriously unflattering photo of the pretty Heidi Cruz next to a glam shot of his wife, Melania.

He repeated his contention that he didn’t view the Heidi shot “necessarily as negative.” But I stopped him, saying it was clearly meant to be nasty.

Trump also got into his schoolyard excuse of “he did it first” and “that wasn’t nice,” insisting that Ted Cruz wrote the words on the digital ad put up by an anti-Trump group aimed at Utah Mormons; it showed Melania in a 2000 British GQ shot posing provocatively and suggested that it was not First Ladylike. Cruz denies any involvement.

Truth be told, Trump said he “didn’t love the photo” of Melania. “I think she’s taken better pictures,” he said, also protesting: “It wasn’t a nude photo, either. It wasn’t nude!”

It’s ridiculous how many mistakes Trump has made in rapid order to alienate women when he was already on thin ice with them — and this in a year when the Republicans will likely have to run against a woman.

You see why I decided against voting for the guy? This here and Amanda Carpender‘s smearing was it for me.

Needless to say, he won’t be getting my vote. No sir. Not me.

Others: Washington Post, RedState, The Right Scoop, NBC News, Politico, Raw Story, The Resurgent, The Daily Caller, Mediaite, Guardian, Fire Andrea Mitchell!, Mother Jones, CNN and Page Six (Via Memeorandum) 

Video: “Park it anywhere!”

It’s all fun and games, until someone hits the deck…..or in this case, the dock.

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Ouch.

The story via LA Times:

A tourist’s video posted online shows the confused, then panic-filled moments when a whale-watching ship rammed into its dock at San Diego’s Embarcadero, injuring seven passengers, Thursday afternoon.

The 49-second YouTube video shows the 150-foot ship coming in to dock but failing to stop until it smashes into the dock’s wood planking and a railing with a thunderous crunch.

As the Adventure Hornblower approached the dock and a line of new passengers watched, waiting for the next tour to board, light-hearted chatter can be heard on the video.

“Park it anywhere!” a person shouts to laughter.

But a moment later, the man shouts something else: “I wouldn’t stand in front of it guys!”

The ship blasted its horn and then smashed into the dock, its hull digging several feet into the structure.

Seven passengers suffered minor to moderate injuries. Of those, three were sent to hospitals with neck, back or leg injuries, said San Diego Fire-Rescue Battalion Chief David Gerboth. The others were treated by medics and released.

There were 144 people aboard the ship at the time, although it was not clear whether that included the crew members.

Mike and Deb Ellis, from the Phoenix area, had come to San Diego to celebrate her 60th birthday. During the cruise Thursday they said they saw two waterspouts and a lot of dolphins. Deb Ellis was in the rear of the boat on the top deck when it crashed.

“It felt like we were coming in a little hot,” she said. “Then the boat hit the dock. The next thing I heard was four blasts of the horn …. We hit pretty hard.”

Mike Ellis said that people waiting in line at the dock ran to get out of the way as the bow slammed into the walkway.

Tables, chairs and people on the top deck of the boat fell down.

Also on the top deck were Osmond DeSousa, his wife and teenage son, who were visiting from New Jersey.

“I saw it coming in fast. It hit the dock, bounced off and continued too fast to stop. The woman next to me fell, she was hurt pretty bad,” DeSousa said.

“The crew were walking on the deck yelling, ‘Brace yourselves or hold on to something.’”

Allow me to make a mental note:  If I, by some miracle, I happen to find myself in California and someone asks me to go for a boat ride; say no way and run like heck in the other direction. 😆