I like Keith Richards’ take on the looseness of the beat in this
Rolling Stone magazine interview:
You’ve always managed to kind of screw with sounds and come up with something new, like removing the E string for a five-string guitar and popularizing open-G tuning. I tried to learn “Before They Make Me Run” once with a band, and figuring out where you skip beats and go into the chorus a bar early can be really hard to follow!
[Laughs] It is, yeah. The beat is something to be played with, moved around. The beat isn’t there as some solid, concrete “one, two, three, four.” It’s something to shift and fly and move. I’m very jazz-like — [I like] Philly Joe Jones. I love looseness.
Michael Scheuer, former CIA bin Laden unit chief, reports to readers, “Mrs. Clinton’s unencrypted e-mail communications were stolen by all of America’s enemies—Russia, China, Israel, Iran, probably the Islamic State, etc.”
For each of these foreign governments it would be singularly unproductive to use this great, once-in-a-lifetime intelligence asset before the presidential election. Foreign leaders would gain little but the acute embarrassment of Mrs. Clinton and the outgoing Obama regime from pre-election publishing in either their domestic media or via leaks to Western journalists.
The impact of pre-election publication, moreover, might cost Mrs. Clinton the presidency and she is—far and away—the favorite candidate of the Russians, Chinese, Israelis, and Iranians precisely because they each have stolen her communications and can use them to compromise her in the very same Oval Office that played host to feminist-hero Bill’s suborning of a young female
intern.
More on the FBI investigation into Sec. Clinton’s emails:
Obamacare’s health co-ops—government-sponsored nonprofits that Americans were told would increase competition—are causing the greatest insurance disruption in decades. As the 10 November WSJ notes:
The majority of ObamaCare’s insurance co-ops—12 of 23—have now folded, and their $1.24 billion in federal loans has all but vaporized. More will fail, nearly a million Americans may lose coverage, and now the contagion from their failures is spreading.
The co-ops are also exposing the larger ObamaCare problem. Contrary to popular belief, the exchanges aren’t profitable for insurers.
You don’t have to be a bankruptcy specialist on par with Donald Trump to understand that loading up on clients who are consuming health care but aren’t paying close to full freight is unsustainable.
Kevin D. Williamson wrote recently in NRO that Obamacare is an economic shambles, a political mess that has introduced nothing to the American health care system except chaos. Read more from Mr. Williamson here.
Pat Buchanan alerts readers to the
warning of Hungarian President Victor Orban: “A modern day mass migration is taking place … that could change the face of Europe’s civilization. … If that happens that is …irreversible. … There is no way back from a multicultural Europe. … If we make a mistake now, it will be forever.”
He [Orban] erected a 110-mile fence on the Serb border, redirecting hundreds of thousands of migrants away from Hungary to Croatia, thence to Austria and Germany.
Sunday, after a third of a million had passed through, Croatia replaced a center-left with a rightist party. A fortnight ago, the right-wing eurosceptic Law and Justice Party won a landslide victory in Poland.
Support for Angela Merkel, who has opened Germany to a million migrants, is plummeting. Bavaria’s CSU, sister party of Merkel’s CDU, is in rebellion. Bavaria has been the main port of entry for the hundreds of thousands of arriving migrants.
…
As long as Europe’s borders remain open, they will come. And the people who wish to come number not just in the millions but the tens and scores of millions. And they know how to get there.
I have been writing for many years about the emerging power of Marine Le Pen and Front National in France. It’s a take-no-prisoners crowd, as Debbie and I have witnessed first hand in Paris with the group’s disturbing, music-energized marches. FN means business and is stridently against both the EU and immigration, especially immigration from radical Muslim North Africa. Le Pen is well connected with the Russians and has spoken often in favor of Iran and against the big brother
approach of the U.S. France has its next presidential election in 2017. Just a few years ago, it would have seemed folly to suggest that such a radical, far right and divisive figure as Marine Le Pen could actually make a presidential run, never mind emerge victorious. We were in France in the fall and saw the powerful sentiment for change and resistance to immigration. Nationalism was in the air. The same swing to nationalism is happening all over Europe, especially in Russia, where
nationalistic firebrands like Alexander Dugin are making steady inroads (Read more about Dugin
here, here, here, and here
).
So far Americans are slow to catch on, but will. And it appears right now that the 2016 presidential candidate most likely to spread the word, and with force, will be Donald Trump.
In 1960 Allen (allentoussaint.com) joined Minit records as a producer. His first release was Jessie Hill’s “Ooh Poo Pah Doo.” Today, 55 years later, this New Orleans R&B classic featuring Allen along with Jessie, Lee Allen, Earl Palmer, and Alvin “Red” Tyler resides at #1 on my all time Juke Box Top 100 list. Thanks Allen!
Check out some of these great resources for more on the legendary Allen Toussaint.
As a producer, bandleader, arranger, songwriter, session musician and all-around musical eminence, Allen Toussaint impacted the New Orleans music scene of the Sixties in much the same way that Dave Bartholomew had in the Fifties. Toussaint, in fact, apprenticed under Bartholomew at sessions for such legends as Fats Domino, so it was a seamless transition when the R&B baton passed between generations in New Orleans. Born and raised in the
Crescent City, Toussaint left his stamp on the city’s contemporary R&B scene. His greatest contribution was in not allowing the city’s old-school R&B traditions to die out but by keeping pace with developments in the rapidly evolving worlds of soul and funk. In addition, he brought the New Orleans sound to the national stage, and it remains a vital and ongoing part of our musical heritage to this day.
“When I first started doing Joe’s Pub, every moment was reluctant,” he says. “It was tough for me. My comfort zone was the studio — I had that scene down, getting that environment and spirit right. But for them to announce you and it’s just you, and the people are right there, it’s a whole different world for me. The first few times, I didn’t know if I was
giving people what they deserve. I actually missed the arranged and produced versions of my songs, and seeing the backing voices working together. But I’m glad I had another chance to do it, and another. And I began to enjoy it. I’m glad to say it’s getting better and I even have a good time sometimes.”
In review, after review, after review Toussaint’s skills and impact on the New Orleans music scene are laid out.
The flat tax plans of Rand Paul and Ted Cruz would eliminate the payroll tax and corporate taxes—entirely—writes Stephen Moore in NRO. Most economists would agree that their plans are consumption-based tax plans that use the proper base for taxing business output. Each candidate’s proposed flat tax plan may not be perfect, but they are all good, Mr. Moore writes.
There are probably about a dozen different ways to craft a flat tax, everything from the 9-9-9 plan devised by Herman Cain to the national sales tax to the Paul and Cruz plans. They are variations on the same theme, and conservatives should be for whichever one of them is politically most salable and can pass. A circular firing squad on the right by those who only want their plan is
counterproductive.
Mr. Moore explains why a flat tax mentality of “my way or the highway” benefits only the Left,
and why he and Arthur Laffer in Return to Prosperity endorse what they call the “Complete Flat Tax.”
The easy winner: “ I want a government really,
really small, so small you can barely see it,” said Rand Paul.
Rand and Ted Cruz want to scrap the current tax code. Bush and Rubio would muddle with the tax code rather than dump it altogether. Carly Fiorina wants a three-page tax code. Donald Trump proposes a tax cut that would put federal collections at the lowest level since the early forties.
Mr. Trump managed to inject some levity into the night when he went after Mr. Kasich for dumping on Trump’s hard line immigration stance. Mr. Trump responded, “I built an unbelievable company worth billions and billions of dollars. I don’t have to hear from this man, believe me.” You really had to see it live!
Ted Cruz also took a hard line on immigration. “For those of us who believe people ought to come to this country legally, we should enforce the law, we’re tired of being told it’s anti-immigrant. It’s offensive.”
Rand Paul attacked what he referred to as Marco Rubio’s “welfare transfer payment.” “How is it conservative,” Rand asked, “to add a trillion dollar expenditure for the federal government that you’re not paying for. … How is it conservative to add a trillion dollars in military expenditures? You can’t be a conservative if your going to keep promoting
new programs you’re not going to pay for.”
Rubio responded by trying to brand Rand an isolationist. Listeners are no doubt aware that Marco Rubio, a military/ industrial complex neocon of the highest order, counts among his best buddies leading Senate “ War Dogs” John McCain and Lindsey Graham. And for the record the two sponsors of last nights debate, Fox News and the WSJ, are steady promoters of a strongly interventionist foreign
policy.
Do you remember your first job? I forget what my father’s first job was, but I know he started working at a very young age scooping ice cream, pumping gas, and later selling Fuller Brushes. In addition to that, he was responsible for collecting rent from a number of his father’s rental properties in New Bedford, MA—where my dad was taught the most important lesson of all about money:
compound interest.
The rental properties, according to my dad, were not in the best neighborhoods and sometimes he was knocking on doors to collect late rent. My dad was instructed by his father to never knock standing in front of the door, instead knock while standing to the side. “You never know what’s coming through that door,” his father said. But he would insist that my dad keep knocking. My dad
didn’t like working for rents that were late, but he did the work. It was easier than coming home empty handed.
Instead of stressing out about collecting late rents, my dad worked at creating great relationships with the best tenants, often making them managers, and together they would run the different properties knowing which rents were going to be on time and which ones were going to be late. And thanks to his tight relationships with the managers, he would know why certain rents were going to be late and he
would plan accordingly. Knowing why was always important.
Why am I telling you this?
Well, there’s an important lesson in my dad’s story that relates to investing in stocks. Today, just like yesterday and tomorrow, there’s too much hoping out there that the stock market will go up, and not enough working and studying about simply collecting rents or, in the case of stocks, collecting and increasing dividends.
Why do stocks go up?
Well, if we think about my father’s father, he wasn’t buying rental properties for price appreciation. He bought them for income. And if he or my father managed the properties correctly, then income would increase year after year after year, like it so often did. And yes, eventually the properties were more valuable because the income was double, triple, or some higher multiple from where
they were purchased.
You, like my father and his father before him, want to think about stocks as a job, you are not buying stocks to sell them. You are investing for the long haul. You are managing your assets. You’re standing in front, sorry, to the side of the door. You are collecting rent. Occasionally the task will be stressful. But stay with it. Your dividends should increase year after year, as should the value
of your stocks. No reason to be a seller. Your stocks may be so valuable you might never dream of selling.
Pat Buchanan asks and answers: “Will Europe remain Europe if she is repopulated by Arabs, Muslims, Asians and Africans?…Can a civilization survive the replacement of the people who created it by people of other races, religions, and civilizations?…Ask the Native
Americans.”
Mr. Buchanan reminds readers that the 15 million immigrants who arrived in America from 1890 to 1920 were “Europeans from Christian nations coming to a country with a history of assimilation.”
Assimilation? Ask Front National’s (FN) Marine Le Pen about Muslim assimilation in France. It is Muslim assimilation or lack thereof, that has her hard-line political party marching in the streets. And as I’ve seen, it’s not a pretty sight. Now Le Pen and FN even have a shot a
prevailing in France’s 2017 presidential election.
Pat continues, “Last year, the Swiss voted to cut back on immigration…This year, with the UK Independence Party growing in popularity, Prime Minister David Cameron is demanding reforms in the EU charter, before the British vote on whether to leave the EU altogether. … The threats raised by the mass migration into Europe rise to the level of the
existential.”
Here at home, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, unlike the Obama administration, appear to have grasped the urgency of the immigration issue and are willing to do what is needed to protect America’s national heritage. As I noted from Pat in Part I of “Changing the
Face,” Europe is looking at immigration that has swelled to a “number not just in the millions but the tens and scores of millions.”
Europe, to temporarily fend off breakup, is going to have to junk the Schengen agreement that allows free movement from country to country within the EU. Without such a move, leaders like Germany’s Angela Merkel are certain to be tossed from office. And this will be just the start of a broad-based right wing European move toward nationalization, with each country in the current European Union
striving to maintain its own national identity, culture, religious base and national heritage.
Mr. Moore explains why a flat tax mentality of “my way or the highway” benefits only the Left,
and why he and Arthur Laffer in 
