When This Blows Over

this compilation was
drawn from extensive
personal archives &
many hours of
exploration,
rummaging, research
and bemused /
befuddled awareness...
The concept,
organization, lay-out,
excerpt from
Lay Off Rafael, He’s a
Respectful Employee
and most of the
photography is mine -- the method, purposeful
-- therefore this unique unoriginal edifying essentially
plagiarized work is
© Copyright 2021
Take One Productions / Russ
cameravision161@gmail.com
20,000 copies read...
Here: yumpu.com/user/whenthisblowsover

When
This
Blows
Over

Sit down, sonny - I've answered
enough questions.
- George Burns, “Oh, God”

Q: Did you ever think we would have the Federal
Intelligence, the Federal Police involved in a political
spying campaign in 2016, 2017 - which probably will,
when we find out the full facts, overshadow
Watergate.?
…It’s different than Watergate in the
sense that it’s not an isolated branch of
government.
It’s not a rogue group -- it’s not a cover up. It’s a
systematic weaponization of the hierarchy in the
Obama administration…of the CIA, the FBI, the
Department of Justice, elements of the State
Department, and it follows on the heels of the
weaponization of the IRS, with Lois Lerner going
after the Tea Party movement.
With Watergate you had an adversarial press as a
self-appointed watch dog. We have a fusion now
between the DNC, the progressive movement and
the media.
So, all of a sudden, the media… We used to say that
they were the icons of civil liberties protection.

Now, they are saying you cannot investigate the
FBI. We do not want you to endanger the actions
coming out of the CIA. Don’t dare suggest that
members of the State Department or the DOJ were
involved. That’s new. That’s very scary because
freedoms are usually lost when the media joins the
government.
Whatever happened in 2016, and we still don’t know
the full extent of it… I don’t think there’s a parallel,
unfortunately, in American history. I’m afraid this is
going to be ranked as the biggest political scandal
ever.”
Q:
It is hard to credit that this scandal would simply
be the result of individual actors who suddenly
decided to do nefarious things out of the blue. There
has to be a broader context. How imperative were
radical Leftist ideologues and ideologies?
“In a general way, they enhance this sort of
arrogance, that these people were progressive social
warriors and they saw a chance for a 16-year regnum
[kingdom] of Obama and Hillary that would

fundamentally transform the nation, and therefore
the details of how that noble crusade would be
adopted were not as important as the crusade itself.
That gave these people like Peter Strzok or James
Comey or John Brennan – many of them just
bureaucratic careerists - it gave them a sense of
impunity or exemption from accountability.
The other thing is more banal, and that is, you have
to go back to the climate of 2015-16 when
everybody was saying that Donald Trump was
going to wreck the Republican Party, he had no
chance, he would not get the nomination; if he got it,
he would not be elected, if he’s elected he would
destroy the country. And so there’s a sense that,
well, as an insurance policy - to quote Andrew
McCabe - you could do all these things because
Hillary is going to be president. And what would
[ordinarily] be illegal behavior, given her reputation
would be rewarded as service to a noble cause.
These people were really in a competition to prove
to a president-elect Hillary that they were

esponsible for her landslide mandate. Once you
start looking at the whole thing in that prism or that
matrix, then it makes a lot more sense. It explains
why these people were not just arrogant, but so
careless in the manner in which they operated.”
Q:
I think this last point is very interesting, because
very few people ever mention it. There is a propensity
on the Right to jump to the deep swamp, uber
sophisticated, conspirators’ theory, but there really is
not just a level of arrogance but a level of
dilettantism… This really does undergird the analysis
that these people are nefarious, but also incompetent.
“Why would Andy McCabe think that after his wife
was a recipient of nearly $700,000 in Clinton related
PAC money that he would not - just a few weeks
later – that he would not have to recuse himself from
investigating her emails? Why did Hillary Clinton
think she could destroy 33,000 emails under
subpoena and destroy the devices with sledge
hammers and think she would get away with it?

There was something about the milieu or the attitude
of the country in 2015-16…We really have to
remember that Obama had kind of checked out; his
poor popularity had gone up the more people didn’t
see him, and they liked the idea of Obama’s
presidency, rather than the reality of it. Hillary was
supposedly the sober and judicious Democratic
stalwart whose time had come; everybody was
jumping on the bandwagon to prove they were more
loyal than the next and they were going to get a
better job than the other. All of that encompasses
such an outsider - an outlier – and that’s the climate
moment which this all took place.
So, they weren’t careful – they were arrogant; they
were sloppy, but they were also nefarious, because
deep down inside they felt that they had the right to
act against the Constitution of the United States.
They tried to destroy a campaign and tried to destroy
a presidential transition, and then they tried to
destroy a presidency.”

Q:
How much of this was a function of their unalloyed
belief that Donald Trump could not be President and
that when 63 million Americans chose him that they
chose the wrong candidate?
“I think almost all of it was. Remember that almost
immediately, we had an effort to sue in three states
to overturn the voting – claiming that the machines
were corrupt. And that didn’t work. And then on
Inauguration Day, there were protests. Madonna
promising - or dreaming I should say - of blowing
up the White House. Then there were articles of
impeachment. Then there was that weird appeal
earlier to the electors of the Electoral College not to
follow their mandate - that they should be renegades
to deny Trump.
And then we had the flirtation with the Logan Act –
they went after Michael Flynn. Then they had the
flirtation with the Emoluments Clause. Then the 25 th
Amendment - maybe we’ll get psychiatrists to
testify. And then finally the Mueller investigation
and we had the pseudo coup by Andrew McCabe

and Rod Rosenstein. There were a series of efforts
to destroy the Trump administration; they were all
based on the idea that this cannot stand because
these are not the right people to be in positions of
power – they’re not in the Brookings Institution,
they’re not in the Council on Foreign Relations,
they’re not from the Economics Department at
Harvard.”
Q: Let’s go to this phenomenon – I tend to agree with
General Mike Flynn, who I served with in the
transition team and in the White House, that on
November 16 th 2016 we saw a peaceful political
revolution in the United States. Donald Trump would
not have been possible, in my opinion, were it not for
the abject failure, the moral and technical bankruptcy
of the quote-unquote elite on both left and right. In
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, he gave a rally speech not
too long ago where he said basically, the elite are dead
and he pointed at the audience and said “You are the
super elite.” Is the quote-unquote “elite” dead in
America?

“There’s always going to be an elite in every
society. We’ve come to view it in the post-war
order - that is, the Ivy League degree elite, the
corporate elite, the globalist elite – I think they’ve
lost a lot of prestige. On the major issues of our
time, they’ve been on the wrong side. The mess we
see at the border… they were either - on the Left,
hoping for demographics from illegal immigration
that would enhance their power - on the Right, cheap
labor. They misread the American people and they
were discredited. When you look at China, what
you’re seeing now is the elite in the corporate world
and in the so-called humanitarian Left, they’re
scrambling, without evoking the word Trump,
to kind of emulate this tough approach to China.
Where did it come from? It’s only possible because
Trump threw a hammer in the glass, and now they’re
all suspicious of China. Same thing with the Iran
deal; same thing with moving the embassy to
Jerusalem.

Trump disrupted a lot of assumed status quo
pretension, and people were bewildered because
their orthodoxy said “you can’t do that”, and if you
do, chaos will ensue - and not only did chaos not
ensue, but foreign policy and economic successes
did. Now they’re trying to either piggy back on it or
deprecate Trump’s contribution, but whatever
they’re doing, the message is they could not do or
they would not do that and people are showing their
class tag.”
Q: Does that mean that the change is so tectonic in
2016 that the stranglehold of the Brookings
Institution, know-it-alls, the op-ed writers has been
broken for good or will we snap back to business as
usual when Trump is gone? How large is the impact,
historically, of the 2016 election?
“I think it’s pretty large. There are force multipliers
like the internet and blogging and Twitter that allow
messaging to go out, regardless of the imprimatur
from the elite – it doesn’t matter anymore.

You can see it in the Democratic Party – We’re not
talking about all these supposed senior statesmen of
the Democratic Party – they’re completely irrelevant
now. That elite has been discredited. There’s been a
Jacobin revolution on the Left – we’ve got street
fighters and brawlers and baristas; we’ve got
everybody in there – a mob. You’ve got a 77-yearold
socialist; you’ve got a 29-year-old basically
know nothing, and all the other candidates worry
that the Democratic establishment – the whole thing
– is in flux. You can see what happens when their
gatekeepers are overrun by the mob and the mob is
in the street, and that’s what’s happening to the
Democratic Party.
On the Republican side, I don’t think if Mitt
Romney or Jeb Bush weighs in, or George Will or
Bill Kristol – these were the voices of sober and
judicious Republican establishment – or the Koch
brothers – I don’t think anybody in Michigan or
Pennsylvania or the Central Valley of California
listens anymore.

They have just been tuned out, because it is sort of
like the boy who cried wolf one too many times.
Trump is a monster; Trump can’t be nominated;
Trump can’t be elected; Trump can’t succeed…and
after a while people think, “you know just go away.”
And I think that’s the attitude they have towards a
lot of those people.
I’m just thinking, maybe we can have a more
meritocratic elite – Where one went to school, or
what the letters are behind one’s name don’t matter
as much as the track record of the actual
performance. That would be welcome. There’s
always going to be a need; I just hope it’s not this
aristocratic East Coast-West Coast traditional
corporate media university elite.”
2019

Meet
the
Press
@MeetThePress
· May
10
Replying to @KerriKupecDOJ and @chucktodd
You’re
correct.
Earlier
today,
we
inadvertently
and
inaccurately
cut
short
a
video
clip
of
an
interview
with
AG
Barr
before
offering
commentary
and
analysis.
The
remaining
clip
included
important
remarks
from
the
attorney
general
that
we
missed,
and
we
regret
the
error.
Michael
Goodwin
@mgoodwin_nypost
·
May
10
Ok,
now
correct
your
commentary
too

“…These are the people who once upon a time believed
that when the government had railroaded an innocent
man, justice demanded that that person be released and
the government be held accountable. But when it
comes to someone close to Donald Trump, they’re happy to shoot
the innocent as well as the guilty. Michael Flynn never could have
been convicted at trial on this, because the government withheld
all of the evidence that would have shown he was not guilty.
That is what Attorney General Barr released.
The sudden re-appearance of Barack Obama on the stage to
criticize this and to criticize Trump’s handling of the pandemic, to
me, it’s instructive of how nervous he must be. The Flynn case
shows that the President – Barack Obama himself - was directly
involved in the spying: the spying we now know was
unauthorized. It had no legitimate purpose for law enforcement.
Barack Obama knew about it, had a role in it, discussed it. We
now know that for a fact. So, of course he’s going to try to
change the subject – The far left would rather have a few choice
words from their dear leader, than the facts of the case.
The idea that General Flynn pled guilty to something, ergo it must
be a crime…Would it be ok if you tortured him and then he pled
guilty? That’s in effect what they did by threatening his son. He
pled guilty to something that he didn’t do. That’s a show trial.
That’s what Stalin used to do. And the Nazis. That’s what makes
America different. We don’t do it that way. We don’t withhold
evidence and then pressure somebody to plead guilty for some
ulterior motive. That’s what happened in this case. The
government withheld important information, including the plot to
entrap him.”
Michael Goodwin

“You know folks, some days… sometimes… maybe…
just maybe… the good guys win. Just maybe. No time
to let our guard down. But the past 24 hours have been
revelatory, to say the least. The wizard’s been totally exposed
now. Now it’s time to double down and go after the real bad
guys.
This whole thing starts in the Spring of 2016, and in August
they get the idea that they’re going to go for a FISA warrant
to spy on the Trump team. That appears right now to be the
“insurance policy”: God forbid Trump gets elected, we’ll spy on
him now, we’ll have a dossier of information, and we’ll get him
out later.
Their reasons for opening up a case on Mike Flynn, which are
tragically hilarious…their reasons are so embarrassing that the
Department of Justice is going to be walking this back and
investigating people for decades after this.
We have the EC now – the FBI Electronic Communication
used to document the opening of a case – we didn’t have this
up until yesterday. We have the EC that they wrote up on
Mike Flynn. And it is tragic.
Notice what they write for their reasons…
He’s advising Trump – that’s clearly criminal. He knows
Russians. He’s a three-star military general, definitely criminal
there. And he traveled to Russia in 2015. As reported by open
source information. They Googled it. Lock this guy up.

Lock him up.
That’s their actual EC. Now you know why they were hiding
this? Is this a joke? Do you understand?... follow me, please,
for a minute here, because I know liberals with your 72-footthick,
titanium laden, vibranium coated skulls…none of this
makes sense to you because of your just uncontrollable rage
towards Trump…
Please replace Mike Flynn in that EC with anyone from the
Obama administration. Was Jim Clapper advising President
Obama as his Director of National Intelligence? Yeah. Does he
know Russians? You bet your ass. Has he traveled to Russia?
You bet your ass Part Two. Why isn’t Jim Clapper under
investigation? Because he’s not associated with Donald Trump.
John Brennan. Does he know Russians? Was he advising
President Obama? Has he traveled to Russia? He fits all three
criteria.
Are you grasping the severity of the Constitutional crisis we’re
in right now? Barack Obama’s Director of National Intelligence
– his chief intelligence official in the entire country – has never
seen any direct empirical evidence [of collusion between the
Trump campaign and Russia].
But don’t worry media people. Keep sweepin’ it all
under the rug.”
- Dan Bongino,
former Secret Service agent, author “Spygate”, daily commentator & show host

BOSS 350z 1 day ago
This divide may not be repairable... as I watch the media's response
to a three-star general who was railroaded, financially broken,
practically blackmailed into signing a false confession and wrongly
incarcerated by crooked cops for the sole purpose of political gain...
I can't help but feel like I am watching an enemy nation spreading
propaganda in my homeland... I honestly had held out hope, minimal
yes, but nonetheless, that once all of this went public, the media
would at the very least admit they were wrong... instead, they
double down and continue poisoning the well of liberty in this
nation, preying on people's ignorance... how can this end any other
way than a civil conflict? These people won't stop... their thirst for
power is insatiable... I fear for our nation and all of its people. These
people are evil incarnate.
Mephistopholese
20 hours ago
You have to stop making it sound like anybody was fooled, especially the
mainstream media. They were aware, but as with any propaganda entity,
they have to pretend that they were fooled if the truth comes out.
Paul Quintana 1 day ago
Dan, as you have said: they all know each other, which leads me to believe
that the people who deserve punishment won't get theirs. People are
forgetful. They don't remember all of the lies. I hope I am wrong, but with
this media giving “a” story and not “the” story, justice will never be done.
Melvin Wagner 23 hours ago
I really want to see "Journalists" who lied to our faces for
years be held responsible - taken to court for their part in the
coup. It would have no legs without them.

“ To all the talking heads out there who continue to go on
cable news and embarrass themselves and talk about Flynn –
these people who couldn’t blow Mike Flynn’s nose – they’re not
even worth the time. Mike Flynn’s a patriot – these people
don’t know what they’re talking about.
I ask you this: If there is evidence out there anywhere that
Mike Flynn lied to the FBI – besides the plea he withdrew,
successfully by the way… If there’s any evidence out there, why
hasn’t it been leaked? Where are the whistleblowers? We’ve
had whistleblowers for everything, including the leak of a
classified phone call – which is a felony. A felony… whoever
leaked Mike Flynn’s phone call.
Where’s the evidence? Why hasn’t it leaked yet? Where are
all the whistleblowers? Where are the FBI whistleblowers going
‘This case shouldn’t have been tossed out – I have direct
evidence Mike Flynn lied to the FBI.’ - Dan Bongino
Mark D. 8 hours ago
Just start a Go Fund Me page and build up a reward for
the evidence that Flynn lied. Put an expiration date on it.
If no evidence is produced by the expiration date, then
give the money to Flynn.
Jason Chicoine 21 hours ago
Stephen Colbert will give an apology to Flynn for sure?

“The left and journalists which is to say the left which is to say
journalists are outraged at the miscarriage of justice that has brought
justice to Michael Flynn who you’ll remember is the retired lieutenant
general who confessed to lying to the FBI after FBI agents held him
off the edge of the building and said confess to lying to the FBI. New
documents reveal that former President Barack Obama and former FBI
director James Comey conceived of this daring plan in hopes that Flynn
could be convicted of violating the Logan act, a law passed in 1799.
Only two people have ever been indicted under the act, one in 1802 and
one in 1852, both of them at the suggestion of Barack Obama and
James Comey. Now to understand why the Obama administration’s
dealings with Flynn were so corrupt you have to understand that Hillary
Clinton hired Christopher Steele to collude with Vladimir Putin to give
disinformation to John Brenan who gave it to James Comey who
decided that Donald Trump was colluding with Vladimir Putin by
Christopher Steele who’d been hired by Hillary Clinton. And since you
can’t possibly understand that, the left is screaming about a
miscarriage of justice in the hopes that you’ll believe them because
you’re ignorant and confused. In a speech given before donning a fake
mustache and buying a one-way ticket to Caracas, Barack Obama said
quote, “it’s a dangerous threat to the rule of law to expose the fact
that I’m a dangerous threat to the rule of law”, unquote. The New
York Times - a former newspaper - editorialized, quote, “Attorney
General William Barr has perverted the Department of Justice by
turning it into a department that seeks justice”, unquote. And CNN’s
Brian Stelter complained, quote, “Conservatives are seizing on the lies
we told about Russian collusion to distract America from the lies we’re
telling about the Chines flu”, unquote.’ Andrew Klavan

The Hill@thehill
Over 90 percent of protests this
report shows http://hill.cm/Gy5huZl
summer
were
peaceful,
Only 7 of the 100 jelly beans in the jar are poisonous. Enjoy!
Abraham Lincoln enjoyed 90% of the play
Over 90% of the Titanic's cruise was fun.
My oncologist told me I’m 90% cancer-free!
Mostly law abiding 21-year-old has only shoplifted on 220 days.
“Only 10% of protests are destroying the nation’s cities.”
O.J. didn't kill 90 percent of the people he saw that day.
Over 90% of people who got COVID this summer are mostly fine
Elizabeth Warren is between 1/64 and 1/1028 Native Indian ancestry.
99.9% of planes landed safely on 9-11
90% of the M&Ms in this bowl are not poisonous.
Only ten percent of leftists were hurling Molotovs and shooting people.
Charles Manson, John Wayne Gacy and OJ were peaceful 90% of their lives
More than 90% of the mostly peaceful protests were peaceful. Big win.
Over 99% of covid cases are mild
"Most of New York's skyline unaffected by September 11th attacks."
9-11 was Fiery but mostly peaceful.
99% of Manhattan's buildings weren't hit by airliners

97% of Planned Parenthood's procedures don't involve the death of an unborn child.
The Titanic was a mostly peaceful cruise
90% of what Hitler did was good for Germany.
90% of the world was peaceful from 1939-1945
“Over 90% of the 1865 Ford's Theater production of 'Our American Cousin'
was wonderful."
Over 90% of COVID deaths aren’t deadly.
90% of those murdered in George Floyd’s name were killed peacefully.
The Nazi party was peaceful to 90% of the people in Germany.
Over 90 percent of the year I am faithful to my wife, report shows
100% of the riots were riots.
Only 10 percent of Russians were sent to gulags and died.
Over 90 percent of Americans had a peaceful 9/11/2001.
A GUN is peaceful 99.99% of the time
The other 10% was just looting, riots, murders and arson
The riots were violent 100% of the time
The other 10% got a little out of hand.
“Think of all the property we DONT burn or the people we didn’t assault."
I’m positive they have infallible methodology.
“Just a few blocks at a time boys”
90% of the time, there were fine people on both sides
That used to be a “B.”
10% were unconstitutional.
“If you’re gonna cheer for failure, we’re gonna enjoy your pain”

Lee Smith
@LeeSmithDC
Yes the oligarchy wants us to know they sit atop a caste
system they designed. But useful to recall: History is nothing
but the chronicle of those who incorrectly assessed their
ability to project power.
Everyone in DC is corrupt, but the parties are different. Rs just don't have
the wild-eyed, take-over-the-world, gulag-if-you-disagree-with-me power
lust. They're like methed-out freaks, they never sleep, boundless energy,
true believers and they have a plan for everyone, or else
It is a mental illness that requires politics to give them a vehicle to
feel superior to the average slob who just wants to get to work on time
and pay their bills with a little left over for savings and a vacation
every once in a while
Translation: I lack self-actualization and a general sense of
purpose in life. So I spend my days being perpetually offended on
the internet, and because I am desperate for attention, I beg
others to hold the same opinion as mine, by asking folks to be
more miserable with me.

The twitlords trying to out one-liner their last one-liners is fucking
hilarious...soup takes a while to cook.
Bourbon Moon. me/mine/moon
@Goodnight_Mush
Replying to @BeckleyforTX
So brave. So very brave. Braving all over Texas. Braved on a
pilgrimage to the brave mecca of DC, where other bravers were
braving bravely
Nobody would have predicted that the Left would
regard George Orwell’s ‘1984’ as a user’s manual
- Roger Kimball
TheBetterManInBlack 14 hours ago
I take comfort in their hatred. Like the guy said, "Your boos
mean nothing to me, I've seen what makes you cheer."
If you can't explain it simply,
you don't understand it well enough"
~ Albert Einstein~

"A
system
that
ignores
feedback
will
eventually
be
shaken
to
pieces
by
repeated
violent
contact
with
the
environment
it
is
trying
to
ignore."
—
John
Gall,
The
Systems
Bible
The
End
Times
@TheAgeofShoddy
·
Dec
18
God
spare
me
from
the
pathetic
mewling
of
a
cadre
of
cosseted
and
cowardly
nonentities
lacking
any
conviction
beyond
what
sounds
good
on
twitter,
who
strip
mine
a
righteous
cause
for
what
they
can
extract
from
it
and
then
move
on
like
bored
tourists,
declaring
it
passé.
George
Babbitt
@plznosteponkek
20h
It's
important
to
ask
whataboutism
questions
that
implicate
the
politicians
that
we
don't
like
to
justify
the
same
behaviors
in
the
politicians
that
we
like

"I am so fake angry I can barely get the
words out in a convincing tone of voice !"
You're all literally highschool bitches that won't shut up
about what Becky said last week
…perhaps humanity would have become worse because it had
by now learned to transgress…. Forever sinning, it would be
forever in need of pardon and it would never be free.
-St. Athanaisus
If it’s for the greater good, you’re allowed to
fight future fascism with current fascism.
- the Good People
I take it this is sarcasm, however nowadays this could easily be
unironic le-leaning sincerity.

When the keepers of the ideological ism temples see the
ratio on this dollop of almost pitch-perfect stunning &
brave
There’s a big difference in me wanting to
“hear” your “story” and you needing me to
“hear” your “story”... and I’ll let the audience
decide which one is selfish
The End Times
@TheAgeofShoddy
·
Dec 20
You will rarely get a better look in the wild at the process
by which a person convinces themselves that they have
the virtue of compassion as a means to thereby permit
themselves any viciousness or brutality their heart can
dream of.
The hysteria of 2020 is what happens when a society
deliberately bred and trained to become a panicked herd,
kept in a constant state of terror and grievance by political
opportunists, gets hit by a genuine crisis. No one
remembers how to evaluate risk and cost rationally.
- John Hayward

“Everybody, everybody everywhere, has his
own movie going, his own scenario, and
everybody is acting his movie out like mad,
only most people don’t know that is what
they’re trapped by, their little script.”
― Tom Wolfe

The Devil, that proud spirit,
cannot endure to be mocked.
- Sir Thomas More

Voltaire
Johnny Hooker: “Then why
do you do it?”
“Seems worthwhile.”
- The Sting

This commemorative doorstop
began to be assembled about a year
before the arrival of the 2016
political / sociological hurricane --
initially nothing more than a very
loosely organized personal
“scrapbook” -- compiled solely for my own amusement
and occasional refreshment / enlightenment.
Along the way – actually, near the very end - it
morphed into a [groan]… “snapshot of an era” … “a
collage of conflicting ideologies” … “a barometer of
divergent political pressure” … …“A unique and
powerful blending of Founding Principles and
Contemporary Electoral Debate” … “a simplistic,
misleading jumble of random partisan opinion
clippings” …“a finger on the pulse of … [bigger groan]
…
Insert the obligatory over-used / over-blown tagline if
you wish, but in all honesty – almost right up to post
time - there was never an overarching (love that word)
…anything here. For as long as I’ve been around… I’ve
taken the temperature of environments, situations,
systems, things … routinely… just because… as a
matter of course… like drawing air into my lungs and
brushing my teeth. It just seems …worthwhile.

That this time the exercise happened to spawn a hefty,
sprawling diary that does, in fact, tell some sort of
wildly fascinating tragi-comic-edifying tale was a
last-minute revelation - not an original design.
Chronology is loose, to say the least, but not ignored
either -- Some clippings and topics are introduced to
give general bearings along an admittedly rough
timeline, beginning at election season 2016 and
flashing back again somewhere in the third (fourth?)
act. Poke around – have fun; dig deep or skim.
What was said then is the main attraction here…
Well-expressed viewpoints that clarify and counter
the mob narrative are generally favored, but I
consider myself more of a curious alien, than a rabid,
defiant partisan. As one media commentator wisely
observed, the whole concoction is best described as a
collective hallucination – not a coherent community.
I am a huge fan of Voltaire – less for his works, than
for his free-style attitude towards all things
sanctimonious.
Since this was never intended to be a “scholarly” work,
and I was (selfishly…) more interested in getting my
grubby hands on the daily prize/opinion than digging
for the identity of the wise soul who actually left it in
the box, there are unreferenced gems throughout.

Before anyone starts screaming about “journalistic
ethics” and “sloppy notation”, recognize that any
author omissions have their origins in public domain
comment sections … the new Gold Rush!... where opinions
are pounded out, blasted forth, thrashed about,
boomeranged back, and yes, even politely discussed in
(relatively) anonymous, ever-evolving
“conversational” threads. Typically passionate, often
eloquent, frequently devolving into varying degrees of
pointless character assassination, the best passages /
exchanges are valuable, illuminating, and, at times,
downright hilarious. While the ideas and opinions
may or may not be reflective of my own principles, they
surely belong to the individuals who penned and posted
them for all to see.
As I sifted through literally acres of this stuff,
I routinely saved the best nuggets for my private stash
… That gold mine is now housed under a more
structured, accessible roof -- supported throughout by
some of the wisest, most prescient individuals you’ll
ever “encounter” - if you’ll allow yourself to encounter
them… grapple with them… and hopefully, even
embrace and understand them. For all the warts and
inherent conflicts of their times, they saw far into the
future and set up a system that covered a whole lot of
bases… and has held up remarkably well over time.

The legion of modern-day “opinion makers” and
“keyboard warriors” is also formidable; the
compendium of ideas and debate is staggering…
Is what we’re witnessing here unprecedented? Does
any of it actually “matter”? Or is it little more than
empty “theorizing” and angst – now delivered on a
boundless, unfathomable scale?
What all of this opining and fervor means in the
moment or actually amounts to “in the end” is
anybody’s guess, but the kaleidoscope of thought - and
palpable energy behind it - seemed like it needed…
context?... surroundings? … knick-knacks? …
binding?... That’s all I brought to this table …
So, thank you, contributors -- this novel historical
work is yours, and I hope everyone is OK with a
missed or omitted credit here and there.
If someone spots their own uncredited comment /
opinion in these pages and wishes it acknowledged or
withdrawn, by all means contact me – just don’t come
looking for a prize...or a piece of something… because
all of this surely has not been about money.
This collection…this study… ( and it is indeed a
fascinating psychological study) … is carefully arranged,
deliberately fragmented and unavoidably out-sized
…tiny bites are not just advisable, they’re essential to
your health and well-being.

What started out as something of an afterthought –
a little addendum to a much larger educational
program that I have been developing for many years -
- ultimately ballooned into the 100,000+ word salad
behemoth before you… a revolting, revealing,
damning, jarring, inspiring, thought-provoking and
highly entertaining retrospective – “fine family fun”
for seasoned political junkies and newly minted
acolytes swept up in some pretty epic whirlwinds.
These pages loosely chronicle the genesis and arc of a
political era like none other and may be the best place
to start working on possible solutions. Or maybe just
drop anchor near your bathroom door and ignore all
of this. Be careful what you wish for.
My hope, always, has been for increased
awareness…of everything…again, it just seems
worthwhile -- a better approach than bumbling along
blindly (destructively?...) without a clue. Or worse,
trying to run something in that state.
R—

"Never attribute to malice that which is
adequately explained by stupidity"

Politics, of course, only pretends to lead society. Its role is captured by
a tried and true definition of a politician: someone who sees which way
the parade is marching and rushes to get in front of it.
That’s getting harder to do as the parade marches faster and makes
more sudden turns. The volume of social change is staggering and,
driven by technology, the speed is overwhelming.
Michael Goodwin
Politicians are the only people in the world who create
problems and then campaign against them.
__________________________________________________________________
What mental torture these people must put themselves through each
day. It’s obviously not enough to be guided and rooted in what you
believe. All of this… all of this is based on what other people think of
them. And what other people think of them apparently is superior and
more important than the core principles that they claim to have.
_________________________________________________________________
“We can’t fix anything…” - Russian diplomat on 2016
election meddling
“As a previous Houston Chronicle reporter, it breaks my
heart to see how far journalism has fallen from its
watchdog role. You may not change many minds, but you
will bring comfort to those shaking their heads at the
lunacy. Thank you.”

To the press alone, chequered as it is with
abuses, the world is indebted for all the
triumphs which have been gained by reason
and humanity over error and oppression.
- Thomas Jefferson,
Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, 1799
...I wish that I may never think the smiles of the
great and powerful a sufficient inducement to
turn aside from the straight path of honesty and
the convictions of my own mind.
--David Ricardo
...mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent...
--Adam Smith
If I could think that I had sent a spark to those who come
after, I should be ready to say Goodbye.
--Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

Certainly, it is a world of scarcity. But the scarcity is
not confined to iron ore and arable land. The most
constricting scarcities are those of character and
personality.
--William R. Allen
The gods mercifully gave mankind this little
moment of peace between the religious
fanaticisms of the past and the fanaticisms of class
and race that were speedily to arise and dominate
time to come.
-- G. M. Trevelyan (on post-WWII era)
The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role
in mass movement leadership. What counts is
the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of
the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance
of the world.
--Eric Hoffer

There are many who find a good alibi far more attractive
than an achievement. For an achievement does not settle
anything permanently. We still have to prove our worth
anew each day: we have to prove that we are as good today
as we were yesterday. But when we have a valid alibi for not
achieving anything we are fixed, so to speak, for life.
--Eric Hoffer
Alas, how many have been
persecuted for the wrong of
having been right?
--Jean-Baptiste Say
It takes considerable knowledge just to realize
the extent of your own ignorance.
-Thomas Sowell

agonistic : combative, aggressive
agora : (in ancient Greece) a public open space for assembly
amelioration : improvement, enhancement, amendment
antebellum : colonial, pre-war
approbation : approval or praise
arable : suitable for crops (arable land)
blinkered : narrow-minded
cudgel : bludgeon
detritus : debris
dyspeptic : disagreeable
imperious : domineering, authoritative
impertinence : lack of respect
invective : insulting, abusive or highly critical language
logos : means of persuading others to believe a particular point of view
loquacious : talkative
lugubrious : gloomy
mendacious : dishonest
meta-realm : “meta” in front of anything suggests that the “anything”
may be absorbed on more than one level … it is an abstraction…and an
abstract one at that…

mutatis mutandis : another abstraction, that has linguistic merit when
used properly (here) and contractual merit when not used lazily (in
some legal documents)...
essentially, “look at the topic in question and carry it forward into
the current circumstances, making any obvious, clarifying and
necessary changes”
nepotistic : displaying favoritism in filling competitive / plum positions
nihilism : negativism, anarchism, emptiness
obdurate : inflexible
prescient : perceptive, prophetic
pro-forma : as a matter of form or politeness
putative : presumed, acknowledged
rent : divided
sophistic : wise, scholarly (but with an implied element of deceit)
straw man
ˌstrô ˈman / noun
1. an intentionally misrepresented proposition or narrative that is set up because it is
easier to defeat / discredit than an opponent's real argument.
"Her familiar procedure of creating a straw man to cover her tracks, while temporarily
effective, continues to engender no long-term allegiance, admiration or respect"
2. a person regarded as having no substance or integrity.
sub-rosa : done in secret
supercilious : condescending
venal : indicating susceptibility to bribery

“…Politics today is the art of saying nothing with
great passion. Politics is the art of convincing
people you're something that you're not, and it's
disguised as super intellectualism, brilliance.
‘It takes a requirement of many years’
experience to understand these things. You
neophytes outside, yes, you're the voters, and,
yes, we love you, but you clearly don't know
And Trump comes along and his common sense is so
stark… it is so stark in comparison to what we get
from both parties in Washington that people are
just latching on to it because it's comforting, it's
common sense. It's spoken fearlessly.
So it's not simplistic… I think it's just because of the
stark contrast … the manner of speaking here, that
has overtaken Washington. It's one of the reasons
why there's so much distrust [of the Establishment].
You can't even for sure find out what those people
inside the Beltway really do think about
something. You get the impression that whatever
they're saying, it's designed to not anger you or to
not send you running away, but it doesn't at the
same time come across as sincere.”

James Madison to W.T. Barry / August 4, 1822
*

Color-Heads 3 months ago
39:19 "in matters of opinion debate is pointless"
REPLY
Hide 5 replies
Zee H 2 months ago
Absolutely ?
REPLY
Caspar 1 month ago
I don't know if I agree because what's a point worth if you can't debate it in
public; I mean it’s undebatable that a matter is just opinion and definitely
debatable if it’s in public, so no, you're wrong and I'm right.
REPLY
Color-Heads 1 month ago
@Caspar nice one! ;-)
As usual, everything you
knew before the fact,
came true. Except for the
things you got wrong,
which you would've
gotten right, if only things
had been different.

ONE
a liar, a loser, and a
psychopath
(walk into a bar…)

various euphemisms that have been used by the
press or members of the Obama administration
when they were caught lying or attempting to
promote a false narrative (which is political speak
for lying):
Rhetorically overreached
Spontaneously spoke
Colloquially spoke
Speaking metaphorically
Misremembered
Speak-O (typo with your mouth
not your keyboard)
Recalibrate message
Walks back words
S/he was joking...
Remark was misinterpreted
Mocking ironically
“The excitement of a campaign
event” (Madeline Albright)
Misinterpreted / misspoke
Terminologically inexact comments
My last tweet was satirical.
"I was taken out of context."
see more

After John Stewart soundly thrashed the media and
Republicans, David Axelrod asked him how he felt
about Hillary Clinton, and if she were on his show
what his commentary would be. He sighed, smiled,
then explained,
“I imagine her to be a very bright woman without the
courage of her convictions, because I’m not even sure
what they are. When I watch her campaign… She
reminds me of Magic Johnson’s talk show. Magic
Johnson was a very charming individual, but he was
not a talk show host… It never seemed authentic or
real in his personality, it seemed like he was wearing
an outfit designed by someone else, for someone else,
to be someone else. That is not to say that she is not
preferable to Donald Trump, because at this point
I would vote for Mr. T over Donald Trump. But I think
she will be in big trouble if she can’t find a way…
maybe I’m wrong, maybe a real person doesn’t exist
underneath there. I don’t know.”

"…People think that the arrival of Trump on the scene and the
success he's having has blown whatever alignment there was
between the so-called conservative movement and the
Republican Party, because what is happening here -- what is
being exposed, what's being demonstrated -- is that, yeah, there
are a lot of people who are conservative, but many will not call
themselves that, and they are not conservatives because of
conservative policy.
In other words, they're not wonks.
They don't understand all the ins and outs of classic
conservatism. They're just who they are. Therefore, it's not
conservatism that is the glue that has this group of people in
this coalition held together. It's quite a number of other things,
and right now the glue is an absolute opposition to the Democrat
Party, to the American left, to the worldwide left, and
everything they have done and want to continue doing.
If somebody comes along and convinces them that they're
serious about stopping this and reversing it, they don't care if it's
somebody from Mars!
It doesn't have to be a classical conservative promising this.
It can be anybody who makes them trust him, anybody with
credibility. So the fear is, when you get inside the Beltway,
that all of the conservative institutions -- in media and in think
tanks, you name it. All the various components are being
exposed as really unnecessary and irrelevant, and really haven't
done anything for people…
The Tea Party's a different thing, obviously.
So the Trump triumph, the Trump coalition is exposing the fact
that it isn't conservative orthodoxy, or conservatism, or any of
the hard work of the conservative elite in persuading people and
educating them and informing them that is causing people to be
conservative.

No, it's something really basic and simple. They are fed up with
the modern-day Democrat Party. They're fed up with Obama
and all of these people who have set out to transform, which
means destroy, this country and rebuild it in ways it was never
founded to be or intended to be. They want it
stopped. They've shown up at the polls twice, 2010, 2014, to
get them to stop.
The Republican Party establishment does not understand
this. They do not know who their conservative voters
are. They've overestimated their conservatism, and by that is
meant they think they're dyed-in-the-wool conservative
theoreticians absorbed in such things as the free market and all
these other bells and whistles, and they're not. They're not
liberal. They're not Democrat. Many of them do not want to be
thought of as conservatives, for a host of reasons. So somebody
who comes along and is able to convey that he or she
understands why they're angry and, furthermore, is gonna do
everything they can to fix it, is gonna own them.
So what's happening here, nationalism, dirty word, ooh, people
hate it, populism, even dirtier word. Nationalism and populism
have overtaken conservatism in terms of appeal. And when this
has happened, when it exposes -- what people in Washington are
afraid of -- and that is, you know, all this money we've asked
people to send us and all these donations people have made,
support this movement, promote that movement, where is
conservatism in Washington, they're asking. Where is it? The
Republican Party isn't conservative. Where are all these
conservative people that are contributing to policy being
implemented in Congress or in the Senate. They don't see it.”
_________________________________________________________________

…In short, Trump has become the Walmart version
of retail politics. His political message is easily
packaged and consumed with minimal
understanding of the intricacies of the issues. His
solutions to making America great again are simple
and appeal to voters' nostalgia for an era where no
country dared mess with the USA.
It would be easy to blame these voters for not doing
their homework and falling victim to a Ponzi scheme,
but democracy can be a messy process. By
definition, it requires deliberation, negotiation and
compromise. However, the American electorate
typically lacks a basic understanding or appreciation
for the democratic process.
Instead we would rather place our trust in
candidates to save the day. Political campaigns
encourage simplified messages based on style over
substance. The Obama campaign gave us hope that
he could unify the country, but that hope has failed
to materialize. Instead, partisanship in America
increased, and now some voters are simply looking
for the next unlikely hero to save America from itself.
- Jonathan Rothermel

"People can’t tell the difference between someone who sounds as if
he knows what he’s talking about and someone who is actually
serious about the issues."
This is an elitist view commonly shared by liberals… Liberals really
believe this supposed deficiency of American voters to be fact.
*Tellingly, that's how the Affordable Care Act was presented and sold to
the American public by its developers and President Obama.* Liberals
take it for granted that the public is stupid, ignorant, selfish and easily
swayed - it's the basis of all their entitlement laws, restrictions, policies
and bombast. Of course Trump is boorish - but to any clear thinker, so is
a Hillary Clinton; and she is far more skilled at bending the truth.
Maybe this speaks to the lamentable lack of obligation to good citizenship
of so many Americans. Many of these Trump supporters don't vote and find
it easy to condemn politicians in Washington. Yet Trump and other nonpolitician
aspirants have never done the heavy lifting of actual governance
or legislating and would almost certainly make awful political leaders.
In order to get a perspective on current events politically, perhaps two things;
either one might need to be born in the late '20's, or be a student of our history.
Love him, or hate him, Trump is forcing the political system to acknowledge
where they really stand ideologically. WWII brought this country together in one
common goal. One really had to live those years to understand the magnitude
of effort it took to mobilize on two fronts. We were as one. Not so much today. I
really view it much like the Middle East. We have polarized, and allowed
complacency to separate us in to 'tribes'. This is not the America that helped to
win WWII. This is the America that has not responded to the call of potential
invasion of a different kind. Yes, Trump is provocative, and unlikely to be
president, but he has definitely exposed the underbelly of what is eroding this
nation today.
What this all boils down to is an argument that says “Trump is saying and
doing all the right things, the things we want a leader to do, so, by god, we
have to find somebody else who will parrot his message.” Why is that?

The study of history is a powerful antidote to
contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover
how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us
novel and plausible, have been tested before, not
once but many times and in innumerable guises; and
discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.
--Paul Johnson

…Trump’s speech in Dallas, a 70-minute
stemwinder, came out like a zigzagging rocket
attack against the many sectors of the political
establishment. If, as Mario Cuomo said, a
politician campaigns in poetry and governs in
prose, we can shove that notion aside in the
case of Donald Trump. He campaigns in
poetry in much the same way a wild hog sips
chardonnay.
But what was more compelling to me about both the
speech and the spirit of the room was how nonideological
it all was. Other than undocumented
immigrants, who represent a go-to boogeyman for
the right, Trump’s targets consisted of a bipartisan
assembly of the ‘‘permanent political class’’ that
Joan Didion described in her book ‘‘Political
Fictions’’: that incestuous band of TV talkers,
campaign strategists and candidates that had
perpetuated the scripted awfulness of our
politics…

“Laurie piped up again. 'At State, everybody calls
diversity dispersity. What happens is, everybody has their
own clubs, their own signs, their own sections where they
all sit in the dining hall--all the African Americans are over
there? . . . and all the Asians sit over't these other tables? --
except for the Koreans? -- because they don't get along
with the Japanese so they sit way over there? Everybody's
dispersed into their own little groups -- and everybody's
told to distrust everybody else? Everybody's told that
everybody else is trying to screw them over--oops!' --
Laurie pulled a face and put her fingertips over her
lips -- 'I'm sorry!' She rolled her eyes and smiled.
'Anyway, the idea is, every other group is like prejudiced
against your group, and no matter what they say, they're
only out to take advantage of you, and you should have
nothing to do with them -- unless you’re white, in which
case all the others are not prejudiced against you, they're
like totally right, because you really are a racist and
everything, even if you don't know it? Everybody ends up
dispersed into their own like turtle shells, suspicious of
everybody else and being careful not to fraternize with
them. Is it like that at Dupont?” ― from “I am
Charlotte Simmons” a 2004 novel by Tom Wolfe

Always start off not believing something. Or, precisely,
not believing in something. Not believing in it doesn’t
mean it’s not true. It’s unproven. It’s like saying you
don’t understand it. If you don’t understand French
that’s not saying you don’t believe French exists.

Jekk Vizla
@JekkVizla
·
Jul 10
Replying to
@ZubyMusic
As a proponent of free speech she offends me, so by her
own rules should be de-platformed, but I'm against that
.
The genius of our
federal system is that
states and localities
serve as what the late
Supreme Court Justice
Louis Brandeis called
laboratories of
democracy that can “try
novel social and
economic experiments
without risk to the rest
of the country.”

Donald Trump’s rapid ascendency to the top of the Republican polls—and
the blinding media spotlight surrounding him that has rendered all other
2016 contenders seemingly mute—has baffled nearly every observer. Even
his longtime friends (and enemies) are fascinated. When I reached him this
week on vacation, Las Vegas developer mogul Steve Wynn, who has
been on both the enemies and the friend’s side of that equation with
Trump, said simply, “I am as mystified about it as you are.” As he
continued, “It certainly is a spectacular and perverse moment in
political history. There’s no precedent for this.”
“What I am certain of,” the gaming mogul averred, “is that when you and I
have this conversation next year, we will both agree unequivocally how
convoluted and how mercurial the events of the world are. Neither one of
us will have ever predicted the political environment of America [a year
from now] as surely as I know my own name.” Added Wynn, “Intervening
events will be dramatic and unpredictable. That’s the kind of world we’re
living in.” The Trump boomlet, too, Wynn insisted, shall pass.
But how it shall pass is a serious point of debate among campaign
observers. With some help from POLITICO MAGAZINE, Wynn’s challenge was
put to top political thinkers: how does Trump’s unprecedented campaign
end? Will Trump fizzle out soon, or endure for months? Will he succumb to
pressure from the RNC, the GOP establishment and other candidates? Or
only earn more attention as the race drags on? And is Trump ever truly
“done”—or would he jump back into the race as a third-party candidate?
“Maybe people will get tired of me,” Trump mused Friday in an interview
with Morning Joe. Or perhaps they won’t. *Below appear the best
*predictions collected from the respondents who dared speculate
*about how The Donald’s spectacular rise ends* – Jon Ralston,
POLITICO MAGAZINE contributing editor.
-DD' D-.D.D .D D
i iD- .E . . .EDiD.ED.-
By Bob Shrum, Democratic presidential strategist.
Trump is ripe for a Bentsen-Quayle moment in the first debate. Bush,
Rubio, et al—no longer reticent in the face of Trump’s pandering to the
basest elements of the base, the “crazies”—are preparing the putdown
right now. The question is who gets the right opening first.

But one candidate who won’t be looking for the opportunity is Cruz; he’s
angling to take the reins of Trump’s buckboard of bigotry when Trump falls
off and then ride it to the nomination.
He may have to wait. Trump can be scorched in the debate; but he won’t
flame out because he won’t run out of money, even if he is a few billion shy
of ten. He can hold on indefinitely, and he’s not the type to recognize reality
and retreat from the race. In the end, denied a nomination he can’t win,
there’s a more-than-reasonable chance that he pulls a Perot and runs
as an independent. That’s what I’m rooting for and would advise the
Great Bloviator to do. The “crazies” deserve a voice, and he’s it. And
the GOP deserves to pay a price—the presidency—for appeasing and
exploiting the politics of nativism and resentment that has spawned
and nourished the low, mean Know-Nothingism of Donald Trump.
" i k -
y y "
***
By Erick Erikson, frequent commentator, radio host and founder of the blog
RedState.
Congress goes on recess in August, you have the GOP debate and people
will start to take a look at all the other candidates in relation to Trump. I
think he begins a decline toward Iowa. If you delve into the polling, a lot of
people who are right now saying they intend to vote for Trump are really
saying they just like what he is saying. As others begin to get attention, he
fades. One caveat though: if the GOP keeps pounding Trump instead of
ignoring him, they buy him time. The longer the party elite bash Trump,
the more the base loves him.
'Donald Trump is not only not hurting the
G, he is a boon to it.'
By Mary Matalin, Republican political strategist.
With apologies to, and respect for, my conservative friends and colleagues,
Donald Trump is not only not hurting the GOP, he is a boon to it.
Candidates would be well advised to pay close attention to the forensics of
his approach, and apply their own unique personalities and policies to their
campaign efforts. And the GOP leadership should quit insulting him, giving
him an excuse to mount a third-party candidacy.

Among other strategic and tactical triumphs, Trump is exhibiting in pulsing
neon colors the contemporary political parallel universes of Common-Sense
America and Conventional Wisdom Establishment. *Common Sense*
*America is, and has been for some time been, so over the incompetent,*
*posturing national politicians as well as their irrelevant agenda issues and*
*their counterproductive policies. They are aching for candidates with*
authenticity who will address their everyday concerns. AND do not presume
a preference for their common sense world makes them redneck philistines.
Further, he is exposing the multiple fallacies of CW Establishment politics, to
wit: appealing to nontraditional GOP voters requires narrow and corrupt
Identity Politics tactics; message resonance demands mandatory acceptance
of any and all CW Politically Correct premises, including gratuitous, phony,
solicitous kowtowing to the media; that strict avoidance of
establishmentarian “third rail” issues is political kamikaze.
Once he gets to the debates, he will have to connect his bombastic
iconoclastic antics to authentic policy prescriptions, as well as demonstrate
his potential effectiveness by past performance metrics
B w: w d y
dewed.
‘He is the voice of the GOP. Hell, he’s even the
hair of the GOP.’
By Paul Begala, political analyst for CNN and counselor to President Bill
Clinton.
When it comes to Mr. Trump, I know this: he reflects the views of today’s
Republican Party. Here’s proof: 64 percent of Republicans agree with the
broader statement that, “President Obama is hiding important information
about his background and early life.” And 34 percent of Republicans go fullon
birther: saying 34% of Republicans think it’s likely that president Obama
is not a US citizen; that he was not born in America (Fairleigh Dickinson
Univ. poll, Dec., 2014). This, of course, is an issue Mr. Trump has
highlighted. 68 percent of Republicans say Mr. Trump is right on
immigration. (Fox News poll, July 17, 2015). This was after he said those
rather, umm, controversial things about Mexican immigrants. 22 percent of
Republicans even agree with his hateful attack on John McCain—saying
McCain was not a war hero (PPP Poll 7/22/15).
Mr. Trump is the face of the GOP: angry, white and male. He is the
voice of the GOP. Hell, he’s even the hair of the GOP.

‘How long? As long as he wants.’
By Joe Trippi, Democratic political strategist.
INever, ever ever underestimate Trump’s staying power and ability toI
Idominate media attention. In a field this large he could be around forI
Ia long time—potentially a lot longer than many of the other GOPI
Icandidates who have derided his chances of being their nominee.I
On running as a 3rd party candidate—someone should remind the GOP
that Trump is a tough as nails negotiator and he would have plenty of
leverage. How long? As long as he wants.
By Rick Wilson, national Republican message and media strategist.
The Trump show ends when the other candidates follow Perry and
Rubio, get off their asses and knock his dick in the dirt. Do a deep
oppo dive on Trump and go to work. Trump’s verbal incontinence prevents
him from being able to restrain himself, and as they start banging him on
his liberal political background, his casino deals, rickety real estate empire,
multiple bankruptcies, the Trump-U scam, and so on, Trump will respond,
over and over. He can’t sustain the weight of multiple attacks.
Exquisitely packaged Constitution, Declaration of
Independence, plus accoutrements, for presentation
to embassies worldwide (by celebrities : fanfare;
parchment, mahogany, glass cover, trimmings).
Here is our system – it’s worked for us, you try it!
May take a while; it’s hard work, but keep at it and
you’ll obtain positive results.

Jotun Dovreguben • 5 hours ago
Trump's foreign policy, his major points:
"America firstI will be the major and overriding theme of my administration."
"We went from mistakes in Iraq to Egypt to Libya. Many trillions of dollars
were lost as a result. A vacuum was created that ISIS would fill."
"Our resources are totally over extended...IWe're rebuilding other
countries while weakening our own."I
"The struggle against radical Islam also takes place in our homeland. There
are scores of recent migrants inside our borders charged with terrorism.
We must stop importing extremism through senseless immigration
policies."
"We're also going to have to change our trade, immigration and economic
policies to make our economy strong again. And to put Americans first
again. This will ensure that our own workers, right here in America, get the
jobs and higher pay that will grow our tax revenues, increase our economic
might as a nation, make us strong financially again."
"We have a massive trade deficit with China that we have to find a
way quickly to balance."
"Unlike other candidates for the presidency, war and aggression will not
be my first instinct."
"Instead of trying to spread universal values that not everybody shares or
wants, we should understand that strengthening and promoting Western
civilization and its accomplishments will do more to inspire positive reforms
around the world than military interventions."
"Americans must know that we're putting the American people first
again on trade."
"NAFTA has been a total disaster, literally emptying our states of our
manufacturing and our jobs."

"No American citizen will ever again feel that their
RoadKill
Jotun Dovreguben • 3 hours ago
He sounds like the Devil, no doubt! Crucify him!
LOL!
insprt • 5 hours ago
The coloreds and the spanish love him. They really, really
love him, the coloreds and the spanish.
Tmpl t • 5 hours ago
The 80% against Trump by Latinos' is easy to explain.
They've seen conservatives posting that the 'real' number of illegal
immigrants in the USA is 30/35/40 million, and they're terrified that when
Trump starts rounding people up and can only find 11 or 12 million, he's not
going to let something like citizenship get in the way of reaching the
number that the right 'knows' is true
The Latinos aren't against Trump because they're pro illegal immigrant.
They're scared of being the next Japanese.

o
Reply
Canuck Slr
Tmpl t • 3 hours ago
BS. If nothing else, the man will follow the rule of law –
unlike President Obama who has had the Supreme Court knock
down several of his 'pen and telephone' attempts to change how the
country operates.
Brian
Tmpl t • 2 hours ago
Do not compare the Japanese "rounded up" in WWII to
"illegal" immigrants of today. That minimizes the shameful
treatment of the Japanese 'legal' citizens’ at the time.
Get your history straight, and perhaps find a more apt
analogy to the 'Illegal" immigrant’s plight. There is no
legitimate analogy to the Japanese at the time. What a false
(and insulting) comparison.
matt • 4 hours ago
Do big city progressives see southerners and
Midwesterners as part of the American "we"? Based on my
recent visits to the northeast, I'd say no.
o 4
o •
o Reply •
o Share ›
• Twitter

matt • 4 hours ago
How do ethnic-identity politicos claim that ethnic and racial distinction
are both good and bad at the same time? It's a kind of collective
schizophrenia.
Of course, they aren't good, they are just bad. Race exists for the
purposes of racism and for no other reason. That's its history since it
began in the 17th century British Caribbean and North America.
Brian • 3 hours ago
IAs for suggestions that if Trump promised to subvert our immigrationI
Ilaws and made false promises to African Americans, he would be betterI
IoffI with the electorate: There is a wisdom there, borrowing from theI
IDemocrat campaign playbook. But Democrat's already have a monopolyI
Ion that strategy. A cynical playbook.II
So who desires a race to the bottom of political pandering? The answer is
not even debatable. Repubs cannot win at that game. Dems win that ruse
hands down.
Reply
Dana • an hour ago
The question isn't whether he'll lose, but whether he'll take the GOP
down with him?
Dudes, you had Rubio. Not the greatest, but he had a shot vs. Hillary.
Trump will crash and burn in the first debate.

o
Outlander 1 day ago
I'm betting on Trump's ego and stealth. If he is
handed the keys, he will take possession and treat the
United States' business-of-politics as his own. He's a
phenomenal poker player, and is highly skilled at pushing
people’s buttons to get results. Don't have to like him, just
appointing representation here.
Face it, there are too many people on this planet, and things
like terrorism and bigotry and radical religion are merely
manifestations of the natural animal response to thin the herd
when required. There's gonna be a fight. A big fight. The
government doesn't even bother to try and hide their
scheming and conniving anymore; they are above the
law since they control it, and seem to thrive on
keeping the world at a slow boil.
America will soon be at the mercy of the ideologies of groups
most hell-bent on procreation; imagine twice the population
(current growth rate it will take 60 years), 1/2 of them under
30, and on a constant diet of propaganda from whatever
faction rules their development. Whatever is left of the school
system will teach 10 different languages, and little else.
Rather than "plan" for such a dismal future with
open arms, why not throw a few wrenches in the
Establishment machine? Ever see that picture of the
crowd of thousands smashed against one side of a
ten-foot wall, and just one man holding the door to
the city shut on the other? Which side do you want to
be on?

Half the harm that is done in this world is
due to people who want to feel important.
They don't mean to do harm -- but the harm
does not interest them. Or they do not see it,
or they justify it because they are absorbed
in the endless struggle to think well of
themselves.
-- T. S. Eliot

We're told that Hillary Clinton is the most qualified woman -- uh, person --
who's ever sought the presidency. Barack Obama at the Democrat
convention told us that she is the most qualified person that's ever sought the
office, bar none -- Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Bill Clinton, you name it.
We've been told she's the smartest woman in the world. She's told us that she's
devoted 25 years in Washington to caring. She has devoted every ounce of her
being to children and to women. This is a woman uniquely qualified to be
President of the United States. This is the mumbo jumbo we're told.
"Hillary Clinton began conducting focus groups and polling swing state voters as
early as December 2014 to figure out how to brand herself and find a 'rationale' for
running for president. Nearly two years before the election, Clinton’s team
circulated a timeline of research objectives for which the nascent campaign would
spend $2 million on focus groups and surveys, according to recently released
hacked emails. A 'fundamental question' was how to brand Hillary as either
'Badass/hip,' or a 'Grandma.'"
Do you know what they call Hillary's campaign plane? Broomstick One. That's
the name for her campaign plane given by Secret Service and State Department
agents because of how rudely she treated them. This is in the emails as well, in
addition to forthcoming books, that she was mean and rude and had no time for
people she thought were there to serve her… foul mouth and liberal use of the
F-word in dealing with these people, and they named her plane Broomstick One.
Well, the latest email dump says that one of the ways they struggled was trying to
figure out how to brand Hillary -- remember, smartest woman in the world, most
qualified. They ought not have to brand her. They ought not have to tell people
who she is. She ought not have to fake behavior. She is so wonderful and so
accomplished and so good and we so need her that she should just be able to be
herself.
They had to test-market various reasons that she wanted to be president and run
those reasons by people and see how people reacted, and the number one reaction
would be the persona she would adopt. Now, why do you suspect nobody in the
Clinton campaign was comfortable just having her say, "I want to be President" for
whatever reason she really wants to be President?

'Cause it obviously wouldn't work. 'Cause she wants to be President... Folks, it's
all fake. The bottom line is everything that you're seeing in the Clinton campaign
is fake. It's strategized, it's marketed, test marketed, focus grouped. It's scripted,
and the script is prepared every day in coordination with members of the media
who attend dinners with the Clinton campaign team, where they coordinate
strategy. It's all in the emails! And this is not the first day this news has come out
about the media.
They are co-conspirators in this. What we can infer is that Mrs. Clinton has not
been honest with us about why she wants to be president, otherwise they wouldn't
have spent $2 million over two years focus-grouping it.
Apparently, they all concluded the real reasons she wants to be President; we can't
go with those. Is it because she's entitled? Is it because the Democrats owe her for
what she did for Bill by standing by him? Is it because she's power mad? It's
because it's her turn? Is it because...? What? We don't know, because everything
we have been shown as to why Hillary wants to be President is the result of testing
and focus group research. In other words, it's phony. It's fake.
Can you imagine Trump doing focus group research to find out who to be? Can
you imagine Trump doing two years of test marketing and focus-grouping to find
out how he ought to behave? Hell, his advisers are telling him, "Stay on
message! Do not start defending yourself against these attacks!" And he says,
"Nope. I'm gonna do it." He's real. Whether you like it or not, there's nothing fake
or phony, and when you're talking Clintons, you are talking fake and phony and
worse.
Lydia: “Daddy, are people who see things and daydream, are they, well, normal?”
John: “No, they’re much better than that. Why, for heaven’s sake, they’re the artists, the poets,
the bums, the cream of society. They get a lot more out of life than normal people. For one thing,
they’re never lonely or cold or hungry,
because they’ve got their imagination to keep them warm and to keep them company. And, don’t
you believe for a minute that because they see things that you don’t, that those things aren’t
there.” -My World and Welcome to It,
based, loosely, on the cartoons and writings of James Thurber

…The point is that while media puff pieces have portrayed
Mr. Trump’s rivals as serious men — Jeb the moderate, Rand
the original thinker, Marco the face of a new generation — their
supposed seriousness is all surface. Judge them by positions as
opposed to image, and what you have is a lineup of cranks. And
as I said, this is no accident.
It has long been obvious that the conventions of political
reporting and political commentary make it almost impossible to
say the obvious — namely, that one of our two major parties has
gone off the deep end. Or as the political analysts Thomas Mann
and Norman Ornstein put it in their book “It’s Even Worse Than
It Looks,” the G.O.P. has become an “insurgent outlier …
unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence,
and science.” It’s a party that has no room for rational positions
on many major issues.
Or to put it another way, modern Republican politicians can’t be
serious — not if they want to win primaries and have any future
within the party. Crank economics, crank science, crank foreign
policy are all necessary parts of a candidate’s resume.
Until now, however, leading Republicans have generally tried to
preserve a facade of respectability, helping the news media to
maintain the pretense that it was dealing with a normal political
party. What distinguishes Mr. Trump is not so much his
positions as it is his lack of interest in maintaining appearances.
And it turns out that the party’s base, which demands extremist
positions, also prefers those positions delivered straight.
Why is anyone surprised?...

Reading through this elitist, out of touch review of a 2-hour debate
and then concluding that everyone who is GOP or votes GOP is a
moron, is the reason why the DNC has LOST the last few elections
(and Congress).
To state that the GOP candidates are all below standard, while offering
up Hillary Clinton and Sanders - doesn't ANYONE see the irony?
The author’s hope that the feet on the street will bow down to the
academic elites on every Progressive opinion - from heavy
government intervention into the markets, to increasing
government debt, to climate change to the impact of supporting
illegal immigration - is the real conventional rhetoric.
What Mr. Elitist does not realize, is that the feet on the street NO
LONGER TRUST that government or the "experts" have their best
interests at heart. He is a big cog in the wheel of the government
debt; every voter knows that bill eventually comes due.
He is slippery to say government spending is the true stimulus, but
never provides the boundaries of when to stop spending, and
HOW to pay it back.
So yeah, continue to ridicule the voters, continue to believe that
the voters HAVE to trust the "experts" on government spending, on
climate, on illegal immigration, on environmental protections;
present the US voters the choice of HRC and watch the Dems lose
complete control.
Voters NO LONGER TRUST the experts; a thousand years of data
proves they are as often wrong as they are right.

Blulots LA 1 hour ago
When fascism (as opposed to the callous oligarchy we
have now) comes to America, it won't just be "draped
in the flag and carrying the cross." If it comes in the
next 30 years, chances are it will begin with attacks
on "political correctness" before proceeding more
openly.
I've been laughing at the Trump circus for a while now, but
it's worth pointing out that from the little we know of his
ideas -- hostility to "elites" who are only defined by the
degeneracy of their culture, never by economics;
scapegoating immigrants for crime and economic problems;
"running the country like a business;" "negotiating from a
position of strength;" "getting things done;" appeals to the
homeland and its glorious past, threatened by internal elite
treachery ("Make America Great Again") -- they basically
sound like textbook fascism.
The point isn't even that textbook fascism is
what Trump believes in, or would carry out. I'm
genuinely not sure if he believes in anything
beyond his own self-aggrandizement. It's the
fact that an insubstantial but skillful charlatan
sees these ideas as the best way to pander to
the masses that most disturbs me.

Reader Comment
The article makes the interesting point that Americans are afraid of the past
and don't want to look back on it, which is absolutely true. It's a good point,
but why then are they also so enamored with Donald Trump, who would do
nothing but take the country back into the past in so many different ways?
Certainly, Hillary's campaign slogan might as well be, "I Strongly Believe In
One Thing Or The Other!", but at least people can vote for her safe in the
knowledge that no matter what it is she believes today or tomorrow, odds
are it's going to be some indirect mashup of what is good for the country
mixed with what is good for the people.
Bryan ·
Indiana University
"but at least people can vote for her safe in the
knowledge that no matter what it is she believes today
or tomorrow odds are it's going to be some indirect
mashup of what is good for the country mixed with what
is good for the people. "
No, we can feel confident that she will believe (or
purport to believe) whatever is in the best interest
of securing her own power. That MAY in fact
coincide with the best interests of the country, but
then again, maybe not.

Red LaX 1 month ago
I will and the wall just got ten feet taller.
Kkn_2 weeks ago
This man made watching politics and political campaigns
really really entertaining, and fun.? i never thought in my
life I’d be so into politics.. Thanks to him now i listens and
realising how their policy's really run our lives and really
need to do research and educate yourself before voting.
jeff 1 week ago
Why do you attack Megan Kelly? Because every night she
attacks me, and to be honest, if she didn't, her ratings would
be lower than yours. Lol
Lalremtluanga
Ralte 1 week ago
I am from India and I love this man he is unique. Hope we
can have a President like him

You will never be able to convince me that The Donald has not crawled into bed with
the NRA and the military industrial complex behind closed doors
Who gives a damn about the NRA? They have nothing to do with
Trump’s campaign. He is self-funded. He is not bound by
lobbyists or PAC's. That's what makes him uniquely qualified. No
one owns him. And if you think your Democrats aren't having any
affairs with the same parties you're referring to, I think you should
really spend some time learning about politics. Politicians would
sleep with farm animals if there were votes and money in it.
He is likely to start a war with his big mouth!
Do you really believe that? He’s not going to get us into any more
trouble than we’re already in. And if you haven’t been paying
attention, we’re already at war, and in wars. It’s a non-issue really.
Trump is a risk, because he is both an outsider, and lacks
political experience in the traditional sense. I don’t think
with Trump there’s going to be a middle. His presidency
is either going to be an epic success or an epic failure.
Failure meaning business as usual in DC. No one knows
for sure what to make of it. I’m willing to put my vote on
the line for a chance at true political change, and to
possibly open the door for other outsiders. He’s breaking
that legal ceiling in DC, and possibly redefining who
qualifies for the job in the future.

@KS1... Yes, no doubt. But clearly, he does not have a
loving relationship with the Republican party. It's
downright adversarial if you ask me. The elites don't want
him to win. They've said that much already. Neither side
wants him to win. That's why I like him. It forces him to
the middle. Odd man out. He had to team with one side
or the other to have a chance. Obviously, a man like
Trump with business interests throughout the globe is going
to lean right. I'm a right leaning independent myself.
The issue is not whether the Republican Party
will nominate Trump or whether Clinton will
win the general election. The issue is what
conservatives will do after Clinton is
inaugurated. Pollsters and sociologists have
opined that Trump supporters and the rest of
those who oppose big government have their
backs to their economic wall.
If the analyses are correct, how far can those
who cling to their guns, religion and their
threadbare bank accounts be ignored before
they . . . do what?

The gloves come
off in the CBS
News Republican
debate
[CITE YOUR SOURCE HERE.]
Debate rips open GOP wounds, and
party risks tearing itself apart
GOP debate is most
watched debate of 2016

…Tell me truly—how does that spectacle not destroy the
credibility of the Republican Party for at least a decade?
How does that freak show not blow up the party's claim
to have serious policies to help govern the country? How
does that carnival of unimaginative invective add up to
a governing philosophy? How does that massive, chewy
clusterfuck add up to a single rational moment of
human thought? I don't care if these guys believe in
evolution or not, but they at least should try to
demonstrate while they're on TV that, somehow, we've
come a respectable distance as a species since we
tottered out of Olduvai Gorge. I've seen better
organized riots. I've heard more coherent dialogue from
cats mating in an alley. I once heard a squirrel being
eaten by a coyote. The squirrel had better manners
while it was being devoured, and was better spoken
besides. Christ above, somebody separate these clowns
before they hurt their brains some more. Tail gunner Ted
Cruz said more than he knows, not least because he
doesn't know what "literally" means…
…It was sadly fascinating to watch most of the
commentary on television in the wake of this rock fight.
The English language was torn to shreds in the attempts
by the folks on the electric teevee machine to avoid the
obvious reality that was lying there bleeding out from
every orifice right in front of them.
By Charles P. Pierce Feb 14, 2016 (excerpted)

After constantly characterizing Obama as weak and ineffectual, the
Republicans created a demand in their party for a Superman. Who
turned out to be Donald Trump. And to the GOP Establishment, the
Superman who showed up is their Frankenstein's monster, beyond
their control.
You think people are not only rational, but should be rational. Hence
your deep insights into what ought to happen is quickly followed by
your “utter (and daily) bewilderment” at what is occurring.
There is nothing wrong with the Republicans. They are revolting. This is
what a revolt among ideologues who are hurting looks like. Angry
people are not motivated by reasoned arguments of economists, or by
the effete and feckless Democrats, they are motivated by wrecking balls
on the left (Sanders) and right (Trump).
Trump will be done in September along with the Republican Senate
and the Supreme Court flips to liberal. Which is the most important
effect of the election. It's all on the line…
I'm not sure Trump is electable. But his ideas certainly are popular, along with
his "brand." And it's not so much Trump... I firmly believe he's a symptom of
our country's state of mind at the moment. It may have well been another -
but clearly our country is ready for radical change, and they're sending that
message to Washington. Jeb Bush has been beside himself in disbelief.
The media has become the instrument politicians use to brain
wash people. This is no longer a democracy based on the
constitution or the rules of law; this is a money motivated
parliamentary structure designed by the media and orchestrated
in Washington with the same musicians. Unless we liberate
ourselves from these corrupted politicians and set new rules for
the media, we are doomed. At this time - like many Americans -
I feel that Trump-Carson are our last hope.

The typical critique of politics today is that the ruling class
has been corrupted by
There's too much money
in politics; there's too much of a cult of access; the tropes
go on and on. Trump's not saying that. Instead, he's saying,
the ruling class has been corrupted by
The
problem isn't that "the politicians" have vanished behind
the velvet rope. It's that they've vanished up their own rear
ends. Obsessed with themselves, they have forgotten who
they are. They have lost their way — and ours.
Hard as it is to stomach or say, that is a kind of wisdom so
deep, so populist, and so potent that many conservatives
can't help but flutter toward it. Then again, neither can
many moderate or liberal Republicans, which is why Trump
performs well across all groups.
To be sure, in some ways Trump is a dreadful messenger for
this dreadful message. Then again, watching him at work up
there like a Soviet wrestler, it's clear this man is not riding a
fad or indulging a fantasy. An immense physical and mental
strain is involved in hitting his fellow candidates — hungry,
disciplined men — on issue after issue. He is delivering an
intense message that no one else has proven capable of
delivering with the requisite intensity: a shocking insight,
when you pause to think about it, but for the fact that in
this election year, nothing can shock anymore. - James Poulos

Why are Democrats so concerned
that Donald Trump might be the
Republican Party's nominee for
President that the NY Times trots
out editorials psycho-babbling about
his sleep deprivation?
This is hilarious stuff. Trump may
be all that the intellectual elite
deride him for. Guess what? The
people who support him don't care.
They are tired of being told how to
think by people who suppose
themselves to be their betters. They
will cast their votes and throw
their support behind whomever they
please, thank-you very much. That,
much to the chagrin of the
Progressive idealists who always
believe they know better what
people should need and want, is
democracy in action.

It may be ugly at times, but it is
much preferred over every other
form of governance.
In fact, articles like this, while red
meat for establishmentarian dogs,
serve only to strengthen Trump's
bona fides among his supporters.
And really, does Timothy Egan really
believe Donald Trump doesn't know
what he's doing or saying? Because
of sleep deprivation? Note to Mr.
Egan: Whatever is Trump's sleep
schedule, it seems to be working
well for him. He's winning.
S.D.Keith
Birmingham, AL 2 days ago

JOAN DIDION – EXPLAINED (very well): Though there have been other
essayists who share Didion's disdain for simplistic narrative, she really
does not belong to any tradition of American essayists.
and in order to make sense and impose order, traditional essayists
assume an authorial command over their material (which is often their
essayists do not present themselves as authority figures who have
the power to make sense of themselves and/or of the historical period
they are living through. The good ones know that ages do not have
Didion’s temperament is conservative (she wants things to make
sense, to cohere) but never governed by or determined by any ideological
preconceptions of how things should be or how we would like them to be.
Her work presents a challenge to what we know, as well as our ways of
knowing. Therefore, reading Didion is unsettling, discomfiting. Her essays
succeed precisely because she does not try to name the thing that she
writes about with nice clarifying titles or topic sentences, rather she
presents her own competing impressions and competing ideas about the
unnamable something that has her interest.
She is very good at conveying her own singular
impressions of particularly chaotic times, or, more
accurately, her own motions of thought and cognitive
insecurities during that moment in time when no
event or person encountered seems to be operating
according to rational or knowable laws. She is in
many ways our poet of the irrational. Instead of presenting her
observations in neat linear patterns that follow a single structuring logos,
she presents them as the myriad fragmented interventions that they are.
She leaves the sense-making, the imposition of order, to others.

3. Oct. 18, 2016:
In a Washington Post piece not labelled opinion or analysis,
Stuart Rothenberg reported that Trump’s path to an electoral
college victory was ‘nonexistent.’

TWO
I didn’t know

...you can never be happy and dress yourself solely
in the glass of other men's approval.
--Nicholas Flood Davis

_________________________________
Godwin's Law
A term that originated on Usenet, Godwin's Law states
that as an online argument grows longer and more
heated, it becomes increasingly likely that somebody will
bring up Adolf Hitler or the Nazis. When such an event
occurs, the person guilty of invoking Godwin's Law has
effectively forfeited the argument.

Facebook Comments Plugin
from the Washington Post article that is referenced -
"We define low-information voters as those who do not
know certain basic facts about government and lack
what psychologists call a “need for cognition."
Need for cognition is what I wonder about when
NFL linemen in a crucial third down jump off sides
because they forgot about that arcane and
complex rule.
Facebook Comments Plugin
Somehow I'm reminded of the quote usually attributed to
John Kenneth Galbraith: "Faced with the choice between
changing one's mind and proving that there is no need to do
so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof."
There's surely plenty of evidence that those with greater
cognitive ability use that ability to confirm and support their
existing views and not so much to question them.
_____________________________________
Gathering "information" is often confused with "thinking".
People gather lots of information; some people more than
others. That gathering of information doesn't necessarily
correlate to lots of thinking.

Mike said...
Everybody thinks people who disagree with them are "low
information" and the fact is we all pick our own
information sources.
The regular Rush Limbaugh listener isn't likely a regular
DailyKos reader, and they all are very well informed with
the information they curate to validate their worldview.
Sometimes many of them try to break out of their comfort
zones and see what the other side has to say, but they'll still
approach that with a more critical eye.
True "low information voters" don't follow any of it at all,
and give about as much a rat’s ass about political matters
as I do about Pakistani cricket heroes.
Your last sentence is exactly the description Rush used, as
stated by others above. Most people intentionally avoid news
and are therefore Low Information Voters. It's not a
pejorative, as Ms. Lehmann assumes, but the people she
thought were using it were using it as an insult.
The broader point you appear to make may be valid,
but studies have shown that conservatives rely on a
wide range of sources from liberal MSM which are
everywhere and unavoidable to the news consumer
- from academic journals, internet, and association
with other free-thinking types. Progressives tend to
cocoon themselves in places like KOS and HuffPo so
they do not encounter those rude people who think
differently.

Owen said...
"The ancient arts of rhetoric, including logic and
analysis, are not in the current curriculum. This is a sad
thing."
Word. I think the curriculum you speak of is ancient for a reason -- it
works. It is part of our toolkit as reasoning creatures to survive and thrive
-- particularly when many of the threats come from other reasoning creatures
who want our votes, our money, our bodies.
Many good comments here on a huge and important topic : how we
connect with what's outside our heads.
Matching the internal model to the external source/target.
Doing so efficiently. All that dopamine we give ourselves? It is an
adaptive signal: do more of this, less of that.
In a complacent life among fellow believers, there is perhaps a steady drip of
dopamine from the echoes and mirrored pleasantries.
There is NO incentive to look farther. Doing so will almost
certainly cause inconvenience or even pain: having to fit
new and conflicting data into a perfect or perfectly -
satisfactory model . So only the perverse intellect will go
there , starting fights and staying up late to worry about
competing hypotheses.
So it goes on. Until of course it doesn't.
I would argue that the greater the hubris, the closer to nemesis. One signal of
hubris is a refusal to engage challengers on the merits of their ideas; an
eagerness to attack them on their putative motives or character. Right now,
we see a lot of ad hominem dismissal of other viewpoints, much summary
condemnation of "fake news" channels. It suggests to me that the Progs
have consumed the entire design margin. In the analogy to the O-rings in
the Challenger disaster, they have burned all the way through.

The intuitive brain is fast, efficient, and transparent. The
analytical/contemplative brain is slow, inefficient, and
laborious. The extent to which people gather information
has nothing to do with their likelihood of analyzing it.
I know many people with brains full of news stories and TV
soundbites whose thinking never diverges from the social
preconceptions of their circle. Everything they think they
think is an echo.
The author thinks Low Information Voter is an insult, but it isn't necessarily.
Rational Ignorance : In an environment of rational ignorance,
broad themes matter most especially when delivered with the
aura of authority or expertise. This is why political radicals have
spent a century and a half trying to control the media and
academia, and why they won't tolerate competing views in
institutions they control.
Q: What produces "low information voters"?
A: Government.
If a person is powerless to effect a change, practicality
and sanity urge to just accept it and move on.
The less control the voter individually has over
Government, the less sense it makes for that voter to
invest in becoming informed about issues and candidates.
The more choices (for example, the purchase of medical care
insurance) that Government forcefully removes from the
individual, the less sense it makes for the individual to
become informed or concerned.

…The tail now wags the dog. Not long ago the DNC nobs
would collaborate with the ruling-class elitists to develop
talking points to be disseminated to, and broadcasted by the
propaganda arm of the DNC, the Main Stream Media.
Because the DNC is in such disarray, the Sorospeak narrative
now originates from the MSM and is then parroted by the
DNC. It is no longer a question of ‘who’ is the leader of the
DNC; it is the MSM.
____________________________________________________
I have to thank Matt Taibbi for this article and wish that he and
more like him would get on CNN and try to restore some sanity.
The other day Gloria Borger was going nuts over Trump allegedly
tweeting to Flynn - telling him to hang in there. She could not
believe that Trump would still be communicating with him, as if
Flynn had already been tried and convicted of treason or
something. Amazing that a simple encouraging word to a man
who has not even been charged with any crime would drive her
crazy.
Clearly there is no real crime to investigate or we would have
heard what it is by now. They are trying to kill Trump by a death of
a thousand cuts.
Like one sane individual once said...."“If the president puts
Russian salad dressing on his salad tonight, somehow that’s
a Russian connection.”

“…It all goes down in January, folks – January of 2017. A panic breaks
out. Donald Trump has been elected. President-elect since November of 2016.
He’s about to take office in just weeks in the middle of January and be sworn
in.
They’re in a panic – the FBI knows it has started a case because
of a fake dossier. The FBI knows it’s been lying about it.
Outgoing Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper has no
evidence. Outgoing National Security Advisor, Susan Rice has no
evidence that any of the stuff in the dossier is true.
They know Mike Flynn - the incoming National Security Advisor - an
experienced intelligence professional with decades in the military
and in the intelligence-space is going to uncover all of this.
They know Mike Flynn has gotten wind of some dirty dealings under
the table. And in January a full-blown panic breaks out.
January 4 th , 2017 : They’re about to close out the case against
Mike Flynn because despite all of their machinations and devious
plots to take General Mike Flynn down – they can’t find anything.
They’ve tried everything; they’ve thrown the kitchen sink at
Mike Flynn.
They’ve used spies against him. They’ve set him up. There is clearly some
kind of a FISA warrant up on Flynn or people in the Flynn orbit.
They are watching Flynn. They are listening to his phone calls.
And they’ve got absolutely nothing.
January 4 th, they freak out. They’re about to close the case.
They have nothing. They’ve thrown the kitchen sink at this guy
and they have zero derogatory information on Flynn.

And they decide at the last minute to give it one last shot.
Why?
Because they cannot…cannot…under any circumstances let
trained intelligence professional American patriot Mike Flynn see
what they’ve been doing…”
Dan Bongino, former Secret Service agent, author & radio show host
cliff ramsey 19 hours ago
If you want to know what’s inside the onion listen to Dan.
He peels it back all the way. Can’t wait to hear the bell again
SP TheGoat 22 hours ago
This truly is a blockbuster 15 season mini-series. Amazing.
James Andrews 23 hours ago
I was appalled by that montage of MSM coverage of General Flynn.
Shep 22 hours ago
Obama just overtook Nixon as the high-water mark for political corruption.
Dennis Smith 1 day ago
We need to add another 4 years for Trump. I want a redo.
We as Americans were totally scammed
.
OldManWinter 19 hours ago
Fantastic news stories, but without action it's all useless.

“…What are friends of the Flynn family saying
— why do you think Flynn did what he did? What have you heard that
explains Flynn admitting and copping the plea that he lied to
investigators? What’s the Drive-By Media telling you? They’re telling
us that he felt abandoned by Trump and he’s so hurt by that.
He was Trump’s original supporter, he was loyal to Trump, he did
everything Trump asked, he helped Trump win the nomination. Trump
has thrown him overboard and so Flynn is gonna drop the dime on
Trump and Jared and Ivanka and even Barron for doing whatever he did
to the swing set. He’s gonna unload on all of them, right?
That’s not what Flynn’s family and friends are saying.
Friends of the Michael Flynn family say he entered into the plea
agreement because he has been broken emotionally and
financially, that his family could not face another two to three
years of this. And what is “this”? “This” is Flynn as a reprobate,
degenerate, lying scumbag every day in the media for two to
three more years. They just couldn’t put up with it.
They were going after Flynn’s son as well, and Flynn wanted to protect
his son, so he copped the plea to stop them from also trying to destroy
his son. Because if Flynn hadn’t copped the plea, they wouldn’t have let
go of him until Trump is out of office. Believe you me, this is gonna go
on for as long as Trump is in office. They wore Flynn down.
This guy wore the military uniform in this country. He was a deep
patriot. He ran the defense intelligence agency, and look at him now
caught up in this massively powerful deep state federal justice system
that has been corrupted in this case to get rid of somebody the deep state
doesn’t want there, Donald Trump. Flynn’s sister and brother have
started a legal defense fund to pay for his attorney…” (early 2017)

Dan Bongino podcast
Russ 11:02 AM (0
minutes ago)
to Green Stanley, Moe Bender, Frankie Pistol Rings, Peetie Wheatstraw, Silas McGhee, Weezer, Uncle Fester,
Meret Oppenheim, Skinny Little Jack, Bandwidth Charlie, Heiney Dimples, Ignatio Coker, Donkey Hoty,
Alfred Barr, Dorothy Miller, Washboard Sam, Sen.Thomas Benton, Catfish Freddie, Dangerous Fool
The Destruction and Redemption of General Flynn
May, 8, 2020
His shows lately have been riveting. He's pissed and dialed in
https://youtu.be/ZUxi9oHlRb8

LeifOreilly1 day ago
The media knows perfectly well what happened to Mike
Flynn. They just think it was a good thing.
AtomicDog1 day ago
This was a coup. Plain and simple. People hang for treason.
AtomicDog1 day ago
I would accept tarring and feathering
Tina Arko1 day ago
Must suck to have to continually defend the indefensible,
especially when documents keep getting released making it such
an absurdity to do so.
Nick V1 day ago
This episode should be required watching by every citizen of
the entire world. Nice work, Dan.
Spectre3261 day ago
Damn fine synopsis, Dan. It's amazing how they thought
this would all remain buried. I'm going to enjoy the show.

“No U.S. attorney I ever worked with would have
tolerated for two seconds the behavior that I saw
that caused me to write this book. They all were
adamant that we do it right, that we seek justice,
that we be fair and that we carefully exercise our
discretion to prosecute only cases that we had all the
evidence and were sure the person was guilty. We
didn’t have time to go - or interest in - looking to find
something to pin on someone. That was not our job. No U.S. attorney I
ever worked with believed that was our job.”
- Sidney Powell, seven years before exposing the perjury trap set up against
former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn
…House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff’s claims on his many
television and media appearances during the early days of the Russia collusion
narrative have aged poorly. *
In early February 2017, Schiff fanned the narrative that former National
Security Adviser Michael Flynn may have sought to undercut President
Obama’s sanctions on Russia during a phone call with the Russian
ambassador and should be prosecuted under the Logan Act.
“Trump’s team, through Flynn, reaches out to the Russian ambassador and potentially
says, 'Don’t worry about those sanctions. We’re going to take care of business. We’re not
going to bite the hand that fed us.' That’s something that needs to be investigated. That’s
hugely consequential,” Schiff told The Atlantic magazine in Feb. 14, 2017.
By the time Schiff uttered those words, the FBI agent who had investigated
Flynn’s contacts with Russia had already concluded on Jan. 4, 2017 that there
was “no derogatory information” about Flynn’s contacts and recommended
closing down the case, according to recently declassified FBI memos.
- John Solomon, 2020
directly contradicted by intelligence evidence in recently declassified or released FBI and
Justice Department memos and reports

THREE
Orange
Crush

“I’m a bluesman; he’s from Long Island”
- Willie Brown,
“Crossroads”

Why Hillary Clinton would make the perfect
US president
Deborah Orr --
The Guardian April 13 2015
Hillary Clinton will be the youngest woman ever to be president of
the United States if she makes it to the Oval Office. She’ll be less
tainted by the scandals and mistakes of previous administrations
than any woman ever has been. She’ll be the first American
president who has experienced childbirth, or even admitted to
wearing a bra. She’ll be the first spouse to have followed her
partner into office. She’ll be the first president to have prompted
the need for an answer to the question: who is that guy then, if he
isn’t the first lady?
And that’s a question that needs answering. First lady? Eh? No title
could better advertise the longstanding structural fact that the
White House is open only to men. The idea is that any American
can be president. The truth is that when the founding fathers came
up with this lovely idea, what they actually meant was that any
American of the same sex as they were could be president. Their
institutionalized sexism has proved enduring.
After announcing her decision to seek the Democratic nomination,
Clinton will visit states whose initial lack of support undermined
her entire campaign in 2008.
So, it’s interesting that so many people are fretting now that United
States politics has become too elitist, too dynastic. Critics may
complain that it’s grim that again Americans may well be deciding
between a Clinton and a Bush. But you do have to ask yourself
why, if it helps so very much simply to be a member of certain
families, such advantage hasn’t thus far managed to put any
woman from one such a family into the White House.

America does have a number of problems with lack of accessibility
to public life. But the biggest one is that women have historically
had no actual access to the presidency at all – rich, poor, black,
white, young, old, experienced or fresh. This problem needs
sorting more urgently than any other. Happily, the means by which
the sorting can start have been, since Sunday, easily to hand.
Nothing would break the male monopoly on the US presidency
quite like a female president would. Quite clearly.
But the plain truth is that it has proved impossible up until
now for a woman to be head of the US. (Or the “free world”,
as they like, hypocritically, to put it.) The US may have been
offered a choice between a Bush and a Clinton before. But
they’ve never been offered a choice between a man and a
woman, let alone opted for the latter. Some Americans are
more free than others: which, in the land of opportunity, is
catastrophically appalling, a huge, oppressive stain on the
world.
And I do mean the world. How can America complain about the
treatment of women in other countries and cultures – which it does
– when its own democratic system is so manifestly inadequate in
this regard? America’s biggest problem is that it over-idealizes its
own perfection, and therefore believes that what it has to offer is so
perfectly precious that corners can be cut in inducting the rest of
the world into its joys. America still kills and tortures because it
believes its moral authority is impregnable. It’s quite astounding
that a country that still refuses to be led by a person who is a nonman
believes that its own pure and refined liberal democracy is
ready to be gifted to the rest of the globe.
No doubt many people consider it wrong to believe that Clinton
should be president “just because she’s a woman”. No doubt many
feminists are troubled by the way that Clinton is following in
footsteps trodden first by her husband.

No doubt many people would prefer a candidate less steeped in
what Nick Clegg was once able to call “the old politics”. But
sometimes you have to concede that monopolies are hard to break
and that compromise is needed if you hope to do so.
The US has got to start somewhere in addressing its historic
problem with male hegemony.
I’m troubled myself by all the issues I have listed above. I’ve never
been a big Hillary fan. I don’t expect her to be the best president
ever. In my book, anything more than competence would be a
bonus. But who knows how many times really wonderful
presidential minds have remained entirely unrecognized because
the bodies that contained them also contained some ovaries? Men
and women must feel equally able to enter public life because it
doubles the possibility that splendid leaders will emerge. That’s
not feminism. That’s probability.
Gender bias – any identity bias – is a wanton waste of human
potential. The US has got to start somewhere in addressing its
historic problem with male hegemony and Clinton is the one
appointment that could kickstart the change most quickly and
strongly. That’s why the symbolic power of her appointment
transcends all else. Anyone who doesn’t understand that, in this
one respect, Clinton is an absolutely perfect presidential choice, is
simply refusing to acknowledge reality.
There is no perfect female candidate and there’s no more time to
wait for one. God knows, anyway, that the US has long enough
been happy to overlook its propensity for anointing imperfect
males. There is no choice between a woman laden with baggage
and a woman unencumbered with it. But there is an opportunity to
signal to all women, everywhere, that “anyone” can mean them.
Hillary Clinton is still standing after all these years. And that is
good enough.

Reader Comments
When Branch Rickey moved to integrate baseball, he
knew that if he backed a failure, the cause of integration
would be set back a generation. Rickey very consciously
selected Jackie Robinson for the task, knowing that
Robinson had both the baseball skills and the personal
attributes to take on the challenge and keep on coming.
By contrast, if Hillary Clinton -- false, fleeting, perjurious
Hillary -- is the first woman president, she will be the last.
She is simply not in the same league as Diane Feinstein,
Olympia Snowe, Madeleine Albright, Condoleezza Rice
and a large number of women whose political
accomplishment extend beyond riding hubby's coattails
even as she provided cover for his sex crimes.
India had a woman Head of State, Indira Gandhi, and it
remains unchanged. Firmly in place is a culture of a cruel
abusive criminalized system of lawless male
disparagement of women with vicious and murderous
power over women, deeply tolerated and protected and
cast in cement. This lawless male barbarity to women
stretches to all classes, educated, uneducated, rich or poor,
high or low "caste".
Maggie Thatcher was Head of State in Britain and the
nation regressed under her ruthless onslaught of
disenfranchisement of whole communities which affected
women deeply and made them even more vulnerable to
male domination and power, and poorer, much poorer.

Just by being a woman Hillary Clinton will bring nothing to
set up a fairer society for women in the US. Her candidacy
has to be judged by other values, and Hillary Clinton lacks
vision or wisdom.
Hillary Clinton plays the same arrogant and shallow power
game in Washington DC as most male politicians,
including her husband.
She brings zilch relief to women in the US or anywhere
else.
She is very ordinary and below par in her understanding of
the world.
whatdidyouxpekt
13 Apr 2015 15:36
She'll make a great president because she's got
tits and a fanny - is that it?
Reply | Pick
o
muttlee79 whatdidyouxpekt
13 Apr 2015 15:46
Congratulations for slipping that one through past the
Guardian mods!

It’s amusing to me that outlets like NYT always quote liberals who
are perplexed at how Hillary’s handled the email situation.
As if the problem is that she should be able to perfectly navigate
out of this, but she’s bungling it for some inexplicable reason.
She’s doing what she has to do, because the content of her email
server would destroy her and probably many others politically, if
not criminally.
All that can be said is she will hopefully do no worse
than Dubya did to cause colossal damage worldwide or
the damage his brother is likely to do if he is President.
She plays the game just like any man does, for power
and from knife-edged ambition and little else in vision,
and from that never will grow any new rights for
women anywhere.
Reply | Pick
• Need I remind you that no candidate for US
presidency would be remotely eligible for
consideration unless she or he was cynical, amoral,
utterly ruthless, 100% reliable in terms of readiness to
serve the interests of corporate and military power
and the super-rich. Clinton ticks all of these boxes,
and brings an added dimension of mendacity,
arrogance, disregard for international law or decency:
and as regards her well established, belligerent
support for Israeli crimes, her election would be very
bad news for world peace. An odious nasty piece of
work, totally irrespective of gender.

joejukkee
13 Apr 2015 15:37
This is preposterous nonsense. Why is it so hard for
certain people to believe that one might dislike Hillary
Clinton (as a politician, that is) for reasons that have
nothing to do with her gender? Her politics are
loathsome, pure and simple, from supporting the
invasion of Iraq, to supporting the Patriot Act to
supporting the bank bailouts, to a hundred other
things one could name. But apparently nothing of that
matters, because her gender alone qualifies her to be
president. That's not feminism, that's madness.
Reply | Pick
o
Rdrcitizen
13 Apr 2015 17:38
Imagine 8 years of that kind of madness,
during which no one can criticize the holder of
the most powerful office on the planet without
being slandered by radical feminists, who will
not tolerate any criticism of their Great Leader.

BlgrAnarchist
13 Apr 2015 15:39
Why not just put the US back under the British
Crown? Then they'd have a female leader without
even bothering to have an election - hurrah and an
end to the Clinton and Bush Dynasties.
Reply | Pick
BgBenBoy
13 Apr 2015 15:40
By the same logic, Sarah Palin would have been the
perfect vice-president and, potentially, president. Her
symbolic value as a female candidate was the only thing
that mattered.
o
DayseePetunia BgBenBoy
13 Apr 2015 15:59
I couldn't stand her either.

Reply | Pick Report
wndrby 13 Apr 2015 16:27
Mike Littwin frames the larger issue for the
Democratic Party
If many Democrats love Bernie and love Bernie’s passion but
fear that Bernie can’t win, and if they don’t love Hillary and if
Hillary is faced with a long slog against a message candidate
and winds up too damaged to win, where does that leave them
— other than with a cleared-for-Hillary field that doesn’t
provide any alternatives? No Biden. No Warren. No time for a
1968-style Bobby Kennedy intervention. Even Martin O’Malley
has dropped out.
Having put all of their eggs in one basket that best reflects the
1990s as opposed to 2016, where does that leave Democratic
voters?
I have no problem with whatever damage the demographic
supporting Bernie Sanders wants to inflict on Hillary
Clinton. She's a lousy choice made by a group of party insiders
who have utterly no use for the voters in any age group.
Sanders' supporters are welcome to cripple her any way they
see fit. But, if people are increasingly fed up with the LOTE-
VOTE [lesser of 2 evils] option, the alternative is to stay home,
and I genuinely can't blame people for making that choice;
particularly, voters under 40.
Share Like Reply

Trump_Fedaykin
4 months ago
"You're gonna make the same if you do as good a job." -The Donald
Zen Of Tupac 1 month ago
The woman at 4:00 I’m sure thought she was really
participating in a moment that would become
motivational, but upon re-watching ... I wonder if she
sees how badly she came off? The hands on hips and
head tilt killed her credibility.
grannypat → Nick • 11 hours ago
No woman will ever be president.
Ignorant men and stupid women
will do ANYTHING to defeat or
destroy an intelligent woman.
bendix20→ grannypat • 11 hours ago
Same old same old. If you don't agree with Obama you are
a racist. If you don't agree with Hillary you hate women.

“All at once Sherman was aware of a figure approaching him on
the sidewalk, in the wet black shadows of the town houses and
the trees. Even from fifty feet away, in the darkness, he could
tell. It was that deep worry that lives in the base of the skull of
every resident of Park Avenue south of Ninety-sixth Street—a
black youth, tall, rangy, wearing white sneakers. Now he was
forty feet away, thirty-five. Sherman stared at him. Well, let him
come! I’m not budging! It’s my territory! I’m not giving way for
any street punks! The black youth suddenly made a ninetydegree
turn and cut straight across the street to the sidewalk on
the other side. The feeble yellow of a sodium-vapor streetlight
reflected for an instant on his face as he checked Sherman out.
He had crossed over! What a stroke of luck! Not once did it
dawn on Sherman McCoy that what the boy had seen was a
thirty-eight-year-old white man, soaking wet, dressed in some
sort of military-looking raincoat full of straps and buckles,
holding a violently lurching animal in his arms, staring, bug-eyed,
and talking to himself.”
― Tom Wolfe, “The Bonfire of the Vanities”

feelings Aren’t Arguments 1 week ago
@Knowble Phantasm Funny to see the left cry about fascism. Yet
when they encounter a right leaning minority, they see them as
traitorous apostates who must be silenced and destroyed... Kanye
West was a great example of this: he knew the backlash he would
face and still came out for Trump. Hopefully the left’s reaction
opened the eyes of other black Americans. The left has become
little different than the religious ideological right during the 90's.
They have become authoritarian, couching their collectivist
totalitarian dogma in pretty words. Equality, now means identify
as an ally or be cast off as an apostate to be silenced and
destroyed. I legitimately feel sad for those who have been
emotionally manipulated through race baiting and propaganda.
For the sake of power, they will keep minorities poor and angry;
they have mastered identity politics, and our nation will reap the
whirlwind before it's over...
Reader David P articulated the same sentiment in a broader context,
writing, “It occurred to me that this election might actually be a
referendum on the media and its role in today’s world events.”

experiment43 3 weeks ago
Trump says he'll create more jobs. Trump wins Presidency.
Thousands say they are leaving the country. Trump just created
those jobs.
17Seventysix 3 weeks ago
George Soros paid protesters; you can say Trump
has already created jobs

Pete Buttigieg
We're in danger of a majority of Justices on the Supreme Court
being chosen by Presidents who didn't even get the majority of
the popular vote. Any way you look at it, we're getting less
democratic by the day.
UNI
In ONE of the last 7 elections, a Republican has earned the most
votes. That is ridiculous. Abolish the electoral college.
the kahoona :: That's enough, Mr. Kahoona. ::
Again. It's like the World Series, if your team outscores my team 100-0 in
three games, but my team wins the other four games by a single run each,
my team wins the trophy. Winning the sh*t out of a few populous states
doesn't matter to the final outcome. Every state matters.
kaw
We’re not a democracy, we are a constitutional republic, Pete. Sheesh,
Civics 101
6% Dagney
Thats a pretty weak argument, Petey. The electoral college is there to
ensure that the smaller states are represented and eliminate mob rule.

1979
We’re a Republic Mr Buttigieg! You know, if you thought it through, a 100%
“democracy” as you call it would mean politicians would only have to
appeal to the most populated states thereby subjugating the remainder to
mob rule. Federalism is the most practical and fairest model!
NotJohn
A judge is supposed to make a decision fairly based on the Constitution
and the law. It shouldn't be relevant who the president that appointed
them is. That you think that it is a problem is a problem itself.
Shibu
Sir, you have got to go study the federal government you're a part of,
about how it works, and about the constitutional law it follows. It was set
up to prevent the tyranny of the majority that you and your comrades so
badly desire.
Noneya
I’m getting tired of repeating myself. We don’t live in a democracy. The
United States of America is a republic. Mob rule is for the literal, lowest
common denominator.
GoGo
That's how the founders set it up brother. Thank God they were
far smarter than the sort we have today!

Mike
Ever hear of the ELECTORAL college? Why should a small part of
the country dictate to EVERYONE!!!?????
Charity
I Pledge Allegiance To The Flag Of The United States Of America, And To
The REPUBLIC, For Which It Stands, One Nation, UNDER GOD, Indivisible,
With Liberty And Justice For ALL. Our Constitution PROTECTS us from MOB
RULE. Deal With It
When successful politicians who know better say things like this, the word
for it is “demagoguery.”
Patrick
Tyranny of the majority will not stand and is resisted as it rises.
The right combo of being right and being popular rules our
republic.
Vibhuti
As a legal immigrant from India, that had “Socialism” inserted in the
constitution during draconian Emergency, only TWO states controlled
India’s destiny! It’s in US I appreciated the value of Electoral College
wherein the voice of smaller states had value!

Get That Crap Off Your Face
Popular vote means exactly nothing, Peter. Thanks for playing.
Nick
Well @PeteButtigieg, here in the United States of America, presidents are
not chosen by popular vote. If they were, elections would be decided by
NYC, LA, Chicago, basically the large cities. Small states would have no
voice. Also, we are a Republic, not a Democracy.
Mental mis en place
Replying to@PeteButtigieg
That’s called an “opinion” and “hyperbole” for those playing at
home.
Eye.Q.
Looks
Pretty
Popular
to me

I am not celebrating the Trump victory, because I have
huge concerns about what his election will mean for the
country and the conservative movement at large. But before I
go deeper there, let’s be very honest about what happened last
night. The Democrats nominated a God-awful candidate, with
abysmal baggage, non-existent trustworthiness, and someone
who represented everything this election turned out to be
against – cronyism, insiderism, establishmentism, and
whatever else you want to call it.
The left faces an internal crisis in the years ahead
that I think will be brutal. In short, they are going to
have to come to terms with what they did – they
nominated a totally corrupt and scandal-plagued
person when almost any level of a normal, measured
candidate could have won the race.
And let’s be clear here – I do not mean that James Comey or Trey
Gowdy or Donald Trump got to unfairly pin a corrupt label on her –
I mean she is corrupt. The left decided to ignore the content of
the WikiLeaks emails, and I really do not know why. They showed
in clear English for anyone who cared to read that she and her
husband were running a Clinton Inc. enterprise that was riddled
with pay-to-play, quid pro quo, and nefarious, dirty, ugly
activity. Did Comey ever produce emails from Hillary
that represent a criminal indictment? No. But can we please put to
bed once and for all why those emails are not
forthcoming? Because she deleted them. 33,000 of them. And
then took bleach and hammers to the whole residue apparatus.

I am the furthest thing from an alt-righter and from a
conspiratorialist, but these things are not up for debate: Hillary
brought the email scandal on herself because she was hiding
something, and you know it. If you are a liberal Democrat who
hates Trump, you still know it. If you are a conservative
Republican repulsed by Trump (like me), you know it. Hillary is
the reason Donald Trump is the President elect. Period.
Let’s gladly go to where some of you want me to go with this
piece. I thought Hillary would beat him anyways. Yep. And
based on the fact that nearly every Republican race
OUTPERFORMED Trump in the key states he won, I’d say the
data backs up the major thesis I have always had: Trump was
the least likely to beat Hillary (look at how much Rubio won by
in Florida and Portman in Ohio, etc.), and that was empirically
and demonstrably true. Now of course, where I and everyone
else was wrong, was that him being the least likely candidate to
defeat Hillary meant that he wouldn’t do it. He did do it. The
rather remarkable string of catastrophic self-induced mistakes
he made proved not to be enough to defeat him. So I celebrate
Hillary’s loss, admit I predicted wrongly on Trump’s outcome,
celebrate the GOP Senate victories, and then turn now to the
future.
Here are the major takeaways I have had throughout the night:
(1) The concerns I have about Trump’s competence,
temperament, and reliability are real and justified. That does
not mean I will ROOT for him to be incompetent, unmeasured,
and unreliable. I genuinely and prayerfully hope he will
surround himself with wise and intelligent people, and that his
worst instincts will lose out to his best instincts, and that his

genuine love of his country (which I do not question) will enable
him to realize that he lacks policy gravitas, and needs men and
women of experience and wisdom and conviction to advise
him. I won’t spend this article telling you what I predict is going
to happen. I will just say that it is a given that I am rooting for
him to defy conventional wisdom and outperform expectations.
(2) I have been an outspoken, unrepentant opponent of
Trump’s from day one, and that is because I have
been appalled by his vulgarity, immaturity, narcissism, and
instability. I can’t think of one point I have made about his
business biography or personal character that is untrue. And
yet, even an anti-Trumper like me found myself
almost rooting for him when held up against the
disgusting arrogance and smugness and elitism and
foolishness of the Hollywood culture opposing him. Beyoncé
and that silly Fight Song video and all the pop culture
elites threatening to leave our country repulsed voters, and
made people want to vote for Trump. That is a fact. They are
the big losers last night…
George S 3 months ago
"Rats panicking. Timing is everything. Enjoy the show."- Q

The good news is that we dodged a bullet in
this election. The bad news is that we don’t know
how many other bullets are coming, or from what
direction.
A Hillary Clinton victory would have meant a third
consecutive administration dedicated to dismantling the
institutions that have kept America free, and imposing instead
the social vision of the smug elites. That could have been the
ultimate catastrophe — not just for our time, but for
generations yet unborn.
In one sense, Donald Trump's victory was a unique
American event. But, in a larger sense, it represents the
biggest backlash among many elsewhere, against smug elites in
Western nations, where increasing numbers of ordinary people
are showing their anger at where those elites are leading their
countries...
- Thomas SowellI
…This was a whitelash. (pause) This was a whitelash against a
changing country. It was a whitelash against a black president
in part. And that's the part where the pain comes. And Donald
Trump has a responsibility tonight to come out and reassure
people that he is going to be the president of all the people who
he insulted and offended and brushed aside…
--Van JonesI, Election Night 2016

John F
5:38 PM EST
Trump won because the American people rejected the failed policies of the Liberal
Democrats. Joblessness, homelessness, high medical insurance deductibles, drugs
being smuggled thru an open border, and jobs leaving our country. It was about
policies, not race. Aren’t you a racist, Van for saying that?
LikeReplyShare
Arthur Fonzarelli
5:01 PM EST
How did Van explain to his kids what Donna Brazille did and how dirty it was for
Hillary to cheat and accept Debate Questions beforehand that Auntie Donna got at
CNN where Daddy works?
LikeReplyShare
DiamondGirl
4:44 PM EST
I am a woman, I am Jewish and a registered Democrat and I voted for Trump. I
can't stand Hillary Clinton and her lies, her arrogance, her attitude that laws do not
apply to her. I work in the government and know if I mishandled classified
information the way she did I would probably be in jail. Finally, she gets what she
so heartily deserved... a "NO MORE"!
LikeReplyShare
AmzgGrce
4:52 PM EST [Edited]
You will never understand it Van because to you it's all about race and race was
not the issue nor was gender. You and your liberal friends propped up a liar and
completely corrupt candidate who almost got away with it with the media's help,
but in trying to fool the public you ended up fooling yourselves. Now Deal with it
.
LikeReplyShare
Dan in Ga
4:44 PM EST
Come on, Van. This was about people wanting a change in economic direction and
not having confidence in Clinton to lead it. You know better.

"My accomplishments as Secretary of State? Well, I'm glad you
asked! My proudest accomplishment in which I take the most
pride, mostly because of the opposition it faced early on, you
know, the remnants of prior situations and mindsets that were too
narrowly focused in a manner whereby they may have overlooked
the bigger picture and we didn't do that and I'm proud of that. Very
proud. I would say that's a major accomplishment."
-
Hillary Clinton
An Arkansas man has requested in his obituary that loved
ones do not vote for Hillary Clinton in the 2016
election, making him at least the third individual to do so
since Clinton launched her campaign in April.
The obituary for Richard Buckman of Beebe, Ark., reads,
“In lieu of flowers, please do not vote for Hillary,” mirroring
text that was included in a recent obituary for a deceased
New Jersey woman. Buckman died on Aug. 22 at the age of
75, three days after news broke that the obituary for 63-
year-old Elaine Fyrdrych of Gloucester Township, N.J.,
advised funeral goers, “Elaine requests, ‘In lieu of flowers,
please do not vote for Hillary Clinton.’”
Indeed, such requests have become something of a
trend. The obituary for a 81-year-old North Carolina
man who died the day after Clinton launched her
presidential campaign also asked loved ones to refrain
from voting for the Democratic presidential candidate.
“The family respectfully asks that you do not vote for
Hillary Clinton in 2016,” the obituary for Larry Darrell
Upright read.

lakeusa
4:57 PM EST
A WHITE LASH ?
Really.
It's a lot more than Black and White.
After 8 years what specifically did Obama do for inner cities and black
people --- look at Chicago, look at Rahm Emanuel his former Chief of
Staff as Mayor... crime up, drugs up, murders up.... it’s really bad.
Van - it's called Democracy. Explain this to your friends and children.
L B
5:17 PM EST
I think you misunderstood. The City of Chicago regardless of race, gender,
socioeconomic status or crime rates primarily voted for Clinton, not Trump.
African Americans across the country overwhelmingly voted for Clinton not
Trump. Van Jones was making a point that the election results might be a backlash
of whites who had been uncomfortable with people of color gaining political clout
and influence against the establishment that allowed it to happen. I don't know that
I agree with that. I don't think a vote for Trump necessarily means the voter was
voting against African Americans. Each voter has their own reasons for casting
their ballot.
Many who voted for Trump did so out of loyalty to their party. Many
out of concern for the Supreme Court. Many to make a statement that
the establishment isn't doing a very good job of representing their interests.
And quite a few, I imagine, out of an extreme dislike for the Democratic
candidate. So personally, I think it is unfair to characterize the outcome as
a backlash against people of color gaining political power and influence.
Cal35
4:57 PM EST
Jones is just as bad as Trump himself calling those he disagrees with
stereotypic names like 'racist', 'homophobic' and 'xenophobic' while using the
tool of PC to silence opposition voices---that is not inclusive talk. It reminds
me of Clinton's damaging language - disregarding the whole middle of the
country… seeing herself innately superior to those that disagree with her----
they are both hypocrites.

Note: I am not even a Trump supporter but I am constantly embarrassed by this
elitist attitude of so many of us liberals who see ourselves as superior and don't let
people with different voices also be seen as legit people -- TRUE diversity means
not just accepting those we agree with (Blacks, Hispanics and women's rights
types) but letting working class whites and less educated whites know that their
fears and complaints are also real -- we won't get together on this until we
(liberals/democrats) expand to be truly inclusive of those 'deplorables' who have
real gripes and fears and who were rightly offended by Clinton's East Coast private
university worldview that only the upper middle and upper classes and the
educated from the coasts are worthy people who have legitimate worries. She
deserved to lose and we deserve what we get now…
Mark1234
But Cal, when someone is a member of the KKK, they ARE racist. When they
belong to a pray-away-the-gay group, they ARE homophobic and when they want
all the immigrants to be deported, they ARE xenophobic. And all the members of
those three groups are vocal Trump supporters. It's not divisive to call them what
they are any more that it would be divisive to call you black if you were, or male if
you are. It's just a statement of fact.
If you can find where Jones said ALL Trump supporters were racists or
homophobes you might be on to something, but he never did, and all the
members of those groups ARE Trump supporters…
Cal35
5:10 PM EST [Edited]
you missed the point--not all who were leery of Clinton deserved to be called
those terms---that was my point ok.
Also, I repeat, those like Jones like to bandy about those terms to scare reasoned
people away from speaking--and that is intentional--that's what the misuse of PC
does. It's a form of censorship and I don't like left wing nor right wing censorship
(the Right constantly has used PC --not called PC however- when they silence antiwar
types by calling them 'anti-American' or 'anti-Christian' and so forth). Both
sides overuse and misuse PC and this needs to stop so that we can get some real
dialogue going on race and class without using PC to stall debate and therefore
action. People who want more class equality are not necessarily 'socialists' and
people who may not like every aspect of Affirmative Action are not necessarily
'racists'--my point…

Bill Maher shares his takeaways from the 2016
election and delivers advice to the Democratic party
Friday night on the season finale of his HBO program Real Time.
Maher zeroed in on political correctness, discarding white people
problems as "mansplaining," and the inability for Democrats to
acknowledge Islamic terrorism for what it is.
"They made the white working man feel like you're problems aren't
real because you're 'mansplaining' and check your privilege," Maher
said Friday. "You know, if your life sucks, your problems are real.
What should I do? Cut my dick off and check my privilege?"
"Don't be mean to Muslims instead of how can we solve the problem
of shit blowing up in America," is not a good political policy, Maher
said.
Guest panelist Ana Marie Cox of MTV News accused Maher of
wanting to cater to "white men" by calling Islamic terrorist attacks for
what they are.
"The problem with American politics is we don't cater enough to
white men?" a bothered Ana Marie Cox asked the host.
"No, I didn't say that," he responded.
"You did, actually. You literally did. You literally did, actually!" Cox
said back.
"Democrats have become to a lot of Americans a boutique
party of fake outrage and social engineering and they're
not entirely wrong about that," Maher said.

…It's all Talmudic BS. It's an ideological supremacist minority
who've erected an aggressive intellectual framework, to
delegitimize a people they've always hated. Full stop.
These nobs deny their own history, they do not acknowledge
that it was an *explicit* strategy to name "whiteness" and then
delegitimize it. As in 1000's of words committed to paper to
elucidate and propagate the strategy. Non-white immigration is
an explicit tactic. Non-Christian is an explicit tactic. Nonheterosexual
is an explicit tactic. The stuff is written by their
own "thought leaders".
What Talmudic BS will they now offer to assuage the whites
they've endeavored to attack? Maher says "TV is very
important". Uh huh.

Brutus873 Scott M. • a day ago
Great game. Cubs are the WORLD SERIES
CHAMPIONS!
No one remembers the losers.
see more

“There’s been a sense in the media that Trump’s
election constitutes a kind of national emergency
because he’s such an unqualified character and so
likely to lead us off of a cliff that it is the job of the
media to join the resistance and find out what must be
behind his election.”
“Yeah, part of that’s true, that they can’t believe how
it happened. They thought they had the election
wired. Hillary was gonna win hands down. They’ve had
to concoct the excuse to explain why she and they
lost. But I don’t think that the media gives a whit
about the country falling off a cliff. I don’t think they
have the capacity to care about that. I don’t think
that’s what the resistance to Trump is all about. I don’t
think the resistance to Trump has anything to do with
these people worried about what it means for the
country.
I think it all has to do with them being worried about
what it means for them. These people all think they’re
elites! You know, when you get inside the Beltway,
when you get inside the Washington establishment,
it’s kind of like going to Davos. Class distinctions don’t
exist inside the establishment. You’re either in it and

you’re an elite or you’re not. There’s not elite level
one and elite level two and elite level three.
You’re just in or you’re out. And it doesn’t matter if
you’re in media or at a think tank or the State
Department or in the administration or on the staff of
an elected congressman or senator - you are an elitist.
You’re there. You’re in the club. You’re in the
establishment. And that’s what they think is
threatened here. They’re worried that their little
fiefdom is gonna be blown sky-high. They’re worried
that their little protective club where everybody’s
looked out for and protected and their futures are
guaranteed - that’s what they’re worried about.
Plus, they’re worried about their own influence and
effectiveness. How could this have happened? They
own everything, in their minds. They own public
opinion. How could this guy survive everything they
did to take him out? They’re taking it personally.
They can’t believe it. And they’ll be damned if it’s
gonna happen again and damned if this guy’s gonna
succeed. They can’t afford for him to succeed at
anything! It blows up the illusion that only they have
the brains and the smarts to run things.”
_________________________________________

tragicliform 3 months ago
This man’s balls have balls of their
own.
Catherine A 2 months ago
tragicliform ???
Hahahaha. I cannot unimagine that
g s 2 months ago
sam 1 year ago
They hate him cause they ain't him.
Serge 6 months ago
If your life is built on lies, brutal honesty is kryptonite.
A Diaz 3 days ago
@cerebellum dome As Katie Hopkin's said best "I'd rather
be grabbed by the pussy than have a pussy for president"
Aggy 774 months ago
This man is on a whole other level of thuggery
?

Elise 1 month ago
We just need regular people in office. Representatives. Trump is
hysterical and us everyday people love him.
Sneja Hiham 1 month ago
I totally enjoy watching Donald J Trump and his brutally honest views.
He is very blunt with his opinions, but at least he speaks his heart out
without political filters. We need more politicians like him in this world.
Marvel - Movie clips 1 month ago
Sneja Hiham
Same here
Trump must deliver improvements in the US business
environment to fulfill his promise to improve middle class
employment prospects. Trump supporters believe he is
dedicated to that mission. Given the level of opposition from
Congress and the MSM, it is expected that many course
reversals and coalition shifts will occur as the broken field run to
mission accomplishment takes place. While opponents can
criticize tactical shifts as inconsistent with campaign
statements, supporters see pragmatic tactical shifts that move
closer to mission goals. "Consistency" is the last refuge of the
unimaginative - It’s also a key to "gotcha" politics.
Try harder to understand use of the "bluff" in statesmanship.
Trump contacts Taiwan, accuses China of being a "currency
manipulator", and suggests that tariffs could be employed. We
are now talking with China about NK, our key issue, the other
non-issues magically drop.
Trump acts methodically, but you can't see it...

Sherry B 11 months ago
The elite know it on some level, but can’t fake it...we can tell the
difference because we are focused on what’s important....and it’s not the
packaging.
Red Trek 11 months ago
The really funny part is Trump is a left-brain liar and
right-brain soothsayer. When it comes to numbers and details
everything is as exaggerated as possible. When it comes to
the big picture and his underlying ethos, he's spot on.
majungasaurusaaaa 11 months ago
Being ostracized by swamp dwellers is not a bad thing.
4TrueTime 11 months ago
The "Lofty" Academics, reminds me of what my Aunt told me in regards to
a very smart religious person I was holding in high esteem. "Let's hope this
religious person is not so heavenly, they are of no Earthly good."
Lepepelepub 11 months ago
Didn't vote for Trump, I thought the same things many thought. I didn't
like the whole NY reality show gimmick. However, can't argue with
results. There is a certain satisfaction in seeing Trump go after obvious
issues and sanctimonious institutions that people thought were
untouchable and still require a national conversation. Social media is not
representative of anything. I was hopeful for the Democrats after the
election, because there was a lot of soul searching and there were actual
conversations on why they lost. *Trump’s gleeful abrasiveness to theI
IDemocrats (easy to do, admittedly) sent them further left. Not sure ifI
Ithat is a purposeful strategic move on Trump's part, and if it is, I hope
Ithis is not one of those instances which will be disastrous in theI
Ifuture, like how the Germans put Lenin on board a train to Moscow.

…Strategically, Trump is correct: Russia is a paper tiger
apart from its nuclear weapons, has a GDP smaller than
Canada’s, and Putin is conducting a clumsy imitation of
Charles de Gaulle’s elegant restoration of France as a
serious power by being a nuisance to the Anglo-Americans
in order to redeem the fiasco of the French surrender to
the Nazis in 1940.
The danger with Putin is to drive Russia into the arms of
China and Iran, and the goodwill of the Kremlin can be
had by the United States for less than continuing the
present NATO pocket-picking. NATO can be reformed
and Russia can be made a semi-cooperative state of
convenience. These are reasonable goals and they are
attainable.
Yes, There Was Illicit Meddling in the 2016 Election
What makes this controversy so unique, riveting, and
infuriating, is the ability of the palsied Democratic leaders,
with their media accomplices and dupes, to keep this dead
pigeon of collusion alive by pretending Mueller is
conducting a serious investigation; and that they may ride
the traditional wave of midterm congressional losses for the
administration to distract and paralyze the government with
a fraudulent impeachment debate and hopeless Senate
trials, consuming much of 2019 and deferring the day of
reckoning for the culprits of the Clinton campaign and the
Justice Department and intelligence agencies.

They are trying to cover up the greatest illicit meddling
in an American election in history: by American
intelligence agencies. In their desperation since the
defeat of the candidate they covertly supported, who
would have covered it up for them, they have been
trying to maintain the fraud of collusion and conflate it
with the trivial and routine interventions of some
Russian operatives in the 2016 election.
The president saw that the only way to resolve this is to
campaign energetically in the midterms (which no
president has really done before), in opposition to open
borders, a rollback of tax cuts, and this dishonest and
unconstitutional skullduggery. He should celebrate Labor
Day by ordering the release of what the congressional
committees have been demanding from Rosenstein for
many months.
Trump could have handled things better in Helsinki, and
should not have provoked a clarification from National
Intelligence Director Dan Coats. But fundamentally he is
right. And he will win.
If you hate Trump, you’re instantly an expert
- Mark Simone

It is the highest impertinence and
presumption, therefore, in kings and
ministers to pretend to watch over the
economy of private people, and to restrain
their expense… They are always, and
without any exception, the greatest
spendthrifts in the society.
- Adam Smith “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes
of the Wealth of Naons”, 1776

from…
“A Defense of the
Constitution of Government
of the United States of
America “
1787 - 1788

…It is impossible to paste a classified document into an unclassified
email accidentally, because the three computer systems (Unclassified,
Confidential/Secret, and Top Secret) are physically separate networks,
each feeding into an independent hard drive on the user’s desk. If a
classified document appears in an unclassified email, then someone
downloaded it onto a thumb drive and manually uploaded it to the
unclassified network — an intentional act if ever there was one.
One of Clinton’s emails suggests that downloading and uploading
material in this fashion was a commonplace activity in her office. In
June 2011, a staffer encountered difficulty transmitting a document to
her by means of a classified system. An impatient Clinton instructed him
to strip the classified markings from the document and send it on as an
unclassified email. “Turn into nonpaper w no identifying heading and
send nonsecure,” Clinton instructed.
On three separate occasions staffers got sloppy and failed to strip the
“nonpapers” of all markings that betrayed their classified origins.

The FBI recovered one email, for example, that contained a “C” in
parenthesis in the margin — an obvious sign that the corresponding
paragraph was classified “Confidential.” When an agent personally
interviewed Clinton, on July 2, he showed her the document and asked
whether she understood what the “C” meant.
For anyone who has ever held a security clearance, “C’s” in
the margins are more ubiquitous than “C’s” on water
faucets — and no more baffling. But Clinton played the
ditzy grandmother. She had simply assumed, she said, that
the “C” was marking an item in an alphabetized list.
In the 2,500-year life of the alphabet, this was a first: a list that started
with the third letter and contained but a single item. The explanation was
laughable, but any sensible answer would have constituted an
acknowledgement of malicious intent. Her only out was the “wellintentioned
but careless” script that Obama had written for her. In other
words, she lied to the FBI — a felony offense.
Before she ever told this howler, however, Comey had already prepared a draft of
his statement exonerating her. The FBI let Hillary Clinton skate.
But give Comey his due. If he had followed the letter of the law, the trail
of guilt may have led all the way to Obama himself. As Andrew C.
McCarthy has demonstrated at National Review Online, Obama used a
dummy email account to communicate with Clinton via her private
server. Did this make Obama complicit in Clinton’s malfeasance?
Anyone in Comey’s position would have thought twice before moving
to prosecute her — and not only because the case might have ensnared
President Obama himself.
excerpted from “The Real Collusion Story”

FOUR
you’re not
welcome here

“Poor Richard's Almanac”
1758

Dallas15m ago
It's like crying wolf, but worse.
The article fails to correctly address WHY there's a 'deepening
bond' with Trump voters and in doing so exposes her own bias.
It's not about being "numb to outrage" in the sense that the
author describes (that the outrage is true), it's about being
numb to repeatedly hearing an outrage, investigating its
validity, and repeatedly discovering that the outrage of the
day is based on a lie.
Take the migrant crisis, for example. A little research (god forbid
'respected reporters' have to do such a thing) by 'us rank amateurs'
reveals that the separations were (1) a result of the Wilberforce Act
(2008), (2) Flores vs. Reno (as in Janet Reno, Clinton's AG), (3) that
Obama not only supported the policy, he expressly advocated it as a
way to punish and "discourage" law breaking/abuses by the
immigrants (the rationales of (1) and (2) were to stop sex
trafficking/child slavery). Once you learn the facts, while you may be
outraged, you wonder why the heck it's directed at Trump (other than the
obvious answer -- which is the media hates him (HATES!) him).
So a 2 year old crying is a tragedy? This is the standard? I've
raised six kids and have a 2-year-old grandson. Believe me,
2-year-old kids will cry over dropping a potato chip on the
floor and the dog eating it before they can pick it up. TIME
MAGAZINE is a bad joke.
• Diane Reynolds (Paul.)|6.20.18 @ 4:54PM|#

At least we're not talking about guns. Man, that
Hogg kid is probably gonna need therapy now
that he's been kicked so far to the curb.
• Earth Skeptic|6.21.18 @ 10:57AM|#

• Gear Grimrud|6.20.18 @
8:28PM|#
•
Yeah I absolutely disagree with
Trump's southern border policies.
Freedom of movement is a natural,
individual, human right. Period.
Any law or policy that prevents
people from attempting to create a
better life for themselves is
illegitimate. But after the 11th or
12th article in Reason mimicking
hundreds of other hysterical
articles in the MSM perpetuating
the latest TDS cause du jour until
the next outrage takes over the
news cycle, I started to get weary.
I'm pretty sure next week will
bring yet another Trump scandal
that will lead to an unprecedented
level of weeping and gnashing of
teeth. Meanwhile I can still buy
vaping juice, I just got an
individual health insurance policy
for half of the Obamacare
exchange price, and business has
never been better. If Reason's
favored alternative to Johnson had
been elected, I wouldn't have any
of those things and we'd still have
shitty immigration policies, a
WOD and probably a shooting war
with Russia in Syria. If that labels
me a Trump supporter it's just
another cross I'll have to bear.
reply to this
log in or register to reply
• Jeff70241|6.21.18 @ 8:08AM|#
Freedom of movement into my home or
across national borders is emphatically
not a human right. Anyone in favor of
Go through anything this approximating process about true once open a
month or borders so and is eventually either nuts or THEN incredibly you
get numb naïve. to the I served Outrage in seven of the third-world Day.
dystopias, four of them Islamic visions
Does anyone of what have can any only doubt be described that if Obama as Hell
had been on the Earth, target I of kid similar you not. (even With open
legitimate)
borders
headlines,
the movement
there would
would
be 'fresh
almost
faces' in the
entirely
newsrooms?
be one-way, from the
undeveloped world to the developed.
I'm not exaggerating when I say that
with open borders the developed
nations would effectively be destroyed
• Gear
within
Grimsrud|6.20.18
fifty years, tops.
@
8:28PM|#
According to one U.N. population
Yeah I absolutely
growth model
disagree
the
with
population
Trump's
of Africa
southern border
is projected
policies.
to increase
Freedom
from
of
1.3-billion
movement
today
is a natural,
to 4-billion
individual,
by 2100.
human
If America
right. Period.
& Europe
Any law
were
or
to
policy
each
that
take
prevents
5%, 200-
people from
million,
attempting
they would
to create
quite
a better
literally
life
be
for themselves
destroyed,
is illegitimate.
no exaggeration,
But after
and
the
the
11th or 12th
remaining
article in
3.6-billion
Reason mimicking
wouldn't even
hundreds
notice
of other
they
hysterical
were missing.
articles in the
MSM perpetuating the latest TDS cause du
jour until
The
the next
Japanese,
outrage
in
takes
particular,
over the
understand
news cycle,
something
I started
about
to get
homogeneity
weary. I'm pretty
& social
sure next
trust/cohesion
week will bring
and
yet
demographics
another Trump
&
scandal that
destiny
will lead
that the
to an
West
unprecedented
collectively does
level of weeping
not.
and gnashing of teeth.
Meanwhile I can still buy vaping juice, I just
got an individual
reply to
health
this
insurance policy for
half of the Obamacare exchange price, and
business has never been better. If Reason's
log in or register to reply
favored alternative to Johnson had been
elected I wouldn't have any of those things
and we'd still have shitty immigration
policies, a WOD and probably a shooting war
with Russia in Syria. If that labels me a it's
just another cross I'll have to bear,

44. April 1, 2018:
AP’s Nicholas Riccardi reported that the Trump administration had
ended a program to admit foreign entrepreneurs. It wasn’t true.
48. May 16, 2018:
The New York Times’ Julie Hirschfeld Davis, AP, CNN’s Oliver Darcy
and others excerpted a Trump comment as if he had referred to
immigrants or illegal immigrants generally as ‘animals.’ Most
outlets corrected their reports later to note that Trump had specifically
referred to members of the murderous criminal gang MS-13.
49. May 28, 2018
The New York Times’ Magazine editor-in-chief Jake Silverstein and
CNN’s Hadas Gold shared a story with photos of immigrant children in
cages as if they were new photos taken under the Trump administration.
The article and photos were actually taken in 2014 under the Obama
administration.
52. June 21, 2018
Time magazine and others used a photo of a crying Honduran child to
illustrate a supposed Trump administration policy separating illegal
immigrant parents and children. The child’s father later reported that
agents had never separated her from her mother; the mother had taken
her to the US without his knowledge and separated herself from her
other children, whom she left behind.
*Gold numbered / dated entries (here and elsewhere) are excerpted from
Notable Mistakes and Missteps in Major Media Reporting on Donald Trump
By Sharyl Attkisson

J Burrten @JBurrtenPX
What kind of upside-down, nightmare
world are we living in where the President
is deploying troops to secure our own
borders rather than random stretches of
Middle Eastern desert halfway across the
world from us

FIVE
maybe they
should get a
forklift

…With respect to the framing of Trump, however, the second-sight scam
required elaborate orchestration, the work of many hands. The key was
the double-tracking of the dossier. Hillary Clinton’s enablers
channeled it simultaneously into the press and into the government.
They then recruited people inside government to verify to the
outsiders that it was a serious document, a guide to the intelligence
that reporters were not allowed to see. Without this double-tracking
and official or quasi-official authentication, journalists would never
have believed that they were catching a glimpse of what Brennan and
the FBI saw in their crystal balls - pardon me, their top-secret
monitors.
And without leaks about investigations,
journalists would have had no dossier-related
news to report. Official statements that the
dossier “was being looked into” transformed it
into a legitimate topic for reputable news
outlets.

This con failed in its primary goal of preventing
the election of Trump, but it was nevertheless a
partial success. It instilled in a significant portion
of the American public the conviction that Trump
indeed conspired with Putin. This conviction is
especially prevalent among the lofty-minded — a
class of people that includes Republicans as well
as Democrats.
The bipartisan character of the delusion was the greatest factor that
legitimated the appointment of Robert S. Mueller III, the special
counsel leading the investigation into Trump’s alleged relations with
Russia. The lofty-minded have greeted every indictment that Mueller
has handed down as confirmation of their collusion delusion. In
reality, those indictments only prove that a phalanx of crack
investigators armed with nearly unlimited resources, a grand jury, and
an expansive mandate can draw blood almost at will.
If a similar phalanx were to target Hillary Clinton and the
shenanigans surrounding the Clinton Foundation, how much blood
would flow?
In other words, Mueller’s indictments are just the latest form of the
non-verification verification.
Regardless of Mueller’s intentions, his probe serves as precisely the
kind of “insurance policy” that Strzok seems to have been discussing
with his lover, Lisa Page, in August 2016. Trump cannot shut down
the Mueller probe and excise the rot in the DOJ and the FBI without
appearing to obstruct justice. In practical terms, then, the Mueller
probe is the cover-up.

Of course, the lofty-minded refuse to see it this way. The
political damage that Mueller’s team is inflicting on Trump
helps explain why a surprising number of people mount
passionate and sincere defenses of the dossier and the super
spy who compiled it. The logic of partisan politics will always
lead a significant percentage of people to insist, with varying
degrees of true belief, that a sow’s ear really is a silk purse.
But partisanship is not by any means the only factor at work
here. Even people with well-deserved reputations for
intellectual seriousness passionately defend the integrity of
Christopher Steele, a man whom the New York Times insists
on calling, despite all contrary evidence, “a whistleblower.”
For a complete understanding of the
dossier’s tenacious hold on lofty minds,
one must supplement conventional
political analysis with psychology. What
we are witnessing is nothing less than a
textbook case of denial and projection —
the most perfect case imaginable.
• excerpted from “The Real Collusion Story”

Garrett 6 hours ago
So on top of the irrational #Resistance folks that just do drive-by
dislikes, we've got Trump diehards that will support him 100%
REGARDLESS and are hysterical at the slightest criticism...who all of
a sudden think Trump and their zero experience in cyber intrusion
attribution know better than our entire intelligence community. Go
read a CrowdStrike report or something because you're just
embarrassing yourselves with your conspiracy theory nonsense.
Steven 5 hours ago
"…who all of a sudden think Trump and their zero experience
in cyber intrusion attribution know better than our entire
intelligence community."
No, I don't claim to know better than our intelligence community.
They have just proven themselves to be terribly partisan hacks, and
untrustworthy. I don't think I am a better airline pilot than the
jihadist terrorists who ran the planes into the World Trade center,
but if given a chance to be in the cockpit flying a plane or them, I'd
choose me.

…Trump's gravitational pull is such that he
causes his opponents to overplay their hands. In
effect, he trolls them into adopting positions so
far out of the mainstream that they become selfdiscrediting.
Take, for example, the crisis at the
southern border. With the policy of family
separation, Trump found himself on the wrong
side of a 70/30 issue. His administration spent a
lot of time explaining, which in politics means you
are losing an argument. But within days the
president went on offense by signing an executive
order and urging Congress and the courts to
regularize asylum and detention law. The
Democrats? They quickly found
themselves arguing for releasing anyone who
crosses the border illegally with a child— not
only a dumb idea, but also one that would
incentivize future crossings and
even child trafficking. It's
unpopular to boot…

To me,
Most
writers
are
told to
write
about
what
they
know,
but I
still love
the adventure of going out and reporting

Because Trump isn’t part of the club (the ‘club’ George
Carlin states that we’re not a part of nor will we ever be.)
Trump is too brash and doesn’t buy in to the ‘clubs’ party
line. The ‘club’ wouldn’t be able to control him. Trump is
reframing the entire spectacle and not one of the other
candidates have a clue as to what he’s up to. Scott Adams is
right on with his analysis. I also subscribe to Ann Barnhardt’s
claim that ‘anyone running for higher office is a psychopath’.
The ‘club’ would claim that ‘yes, he’s a psychopath but he’s
our psychopath.’ Trump is most likely a psychopath as well,
but no one can claim, except maybe his supporters, that ‘he’s
our psychopath.’ I keep remembering that there’s no one on a
white horse coming to save us, and we’re not going to vote
ourselves out of the mess that’s been made. I continue to take
Carlin’s advice of ‘getting my favorite beverage, pulling up a
comfortable chair, and watching the whole edifice come
tumbling down.’
I’m pondering the similarity between this attitude and the “I
wish I could meet a guy just like you” attitude that
attractive women often exhibit – towards guys who are
totally available to them, but don’t meet the requirements
they don’t want to acknowledge to themselves

READER COMMENT
Every other politician is speaking "politically
correct"… Political Correctness forces you to deny
logic, truth, reason, morality, common sense in the
name of "not offending"
People realize that this is merely the EXACT same
tool as "NEWSPEAK" from “1984” to try and
control/suppress freedom of expression.
It's the government, media and the few (but extremely
loud) Social Justice Warriors aka Useful Idiots, who buy
into this dogma, and light up like a Christmas tree
when they hear their favorite liar pay them lip service.
When somebody like Trump... rough around the
edges, improper and most importantly POLITICALLY
INCORRECT, simply speaks the harsh, inconvenient
(to the Establishment), bare bones TRUTH... it's nearly
impossible for anybody with a moral compass NOT to
support what he says, whether they support him or
not!
"I can NEVER apologize for the truth...
ESPECIALLY if it offends you."

Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government.
It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote
themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that
moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates
promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the
result that a democracy always collapses over lousy fiscal
policy, always followed by a dictatorship.
The average of the world’s great civilizations before they
decline has been 200 years.
These nations have progressed in this sequence: From
bondage to spiritual faith; from faith to great courage; from
courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance
to selfishness; from selfishness to Complacency; from
complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from
dependency back again to bondage." -Alexander Fraser Tyler
your quote is from Alexander Fraser Tytler (not Tyler) who died in
1813 & was a Scottish university professor-- I think our democracy has
done pretty well over the past 203 years since he died, including twice
ending world wars

“The car won’t start.”
“Look for the symptom
code on the dashboard.”
“All I see is a guy
sitting on a toilet
bowl.”

SIX
Happiness is not
permitted

jaz • 18 minutes ago
This is a Cat-5 Panty twist. Best to just look
the other way.

A guy in a hot air balloon was lost. He lowered the
altitude, spotted a man down below and descended a bit
more and then called out to him. He said, “Excuse me,
can you help me? I promised a friend I’d meet him an
hour ago and I don’t know where I am.” The man on the
ground consulted his GPS and replied, “You’re in a hot
air balloon approximately 30 feet above ground
elevation at 2346 feet above sea level. You are 31
degrees, 14 minutes north latitude; 100 degrees, 49
minutes west longitude.” And the guy in the balloon
said, “You must be a Republican.” And he said, “I am.
How did you know that?”
He said, “Well, everything you told me is technically
correct but I have no idea what to make of your
information. The fact is I’m still lost — and, frankly,
you haven’t been very much help so far.”
The other guy said, “You must be a Democrat.” He said,
“I am. How did you know that?” He said, “Well, you
don’t know where you’re going or where you’ve been.
You’ve risen to where you are on hot air. You made a
promise which you have no idea how to keep. You
expect me to solve your problem. The fact is you’re in
the same place you were before we met and now it’s my
fault!”

Progressive, Tenure Track
A College Town 7 hours ago
Attacking Trump is a fool's errand. If we in the
Resist# movement really want to make an impact,
we need to attack his supporters and shame them
out of the debate.
I've already been doing this, by cancelling holidays
with family who support him, by attacking any
students of mine who express Trump-favorable
positions in class (or at least by passive-aggressively
dismissing them if they happen to be physically
large or self-confident and articulate enough to
threaten me - physically or mentally), and by
boycotting any and all Trump-friendly business
owners.
The key is to establish opinion corridors, a common
practice in more advanced societies, particularly
those in Scandinavia. The idea is that if someone
airs an "un-woke" or unsanctioned opinion, we
should immediately deny them respect and contact,
to prevent the odious thoughts from being aired.
Trump is clearly odious, but his wealth, power, and
ability to steal elections with foreign support make
him immune to our resistance.

And while criticism of his supporters from afar may
be psychologically soothing on a personal level, it
doesn't truly counter the damage that he's doing. So
I suggest we target the very people who continue to
support him, by being as shrill, obnoxious, and
aggressive towards them as possible. Many of his
supporters are small minded, unaware, ignorant
rubes. They crave love and affection. If those of us
with superior compassion, love, intellect, and
wealth reject them, they'll dump Trump.
PittsburghSteelersFan
Pittsburgh, PA 6 hours ago
Entertaining satire. I’m sure there are many
vainglorious academics who actually think that
way.
NY 2 hours ago
The perfect satire on "progressives"
❖ Flag
❖ Reply
❖ Recommend
❖ Share this comment on FacebookShare this comment on
Twitter

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised
for the good of its victims may be the most
oppressive. It would be better to live under
robber barons than under omnipotent moral
busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may
sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some
point be satiated; but those who torment us
for our own good will torment us without
end, for they do so with the approval of their
own conscience.
-- C. S. Lewis
History doesn’t repeat, but it
often rhymes
- Mark Twain

…Behind the social justice warrior’s outbreaks of
self-righteous wrath is a distinct if somewhat
amorphous ideology… At the center of this
worldview is the evil of oppression, the virtue of
“marginalized” identities—based on race, ethnicity,
gender, sexuality, religion or disability—and the
perfectionist quest to eliminate anything the
marginalized may perceive as oppressive or
“invalidating.” Such perceptions are given a nearabsolute
presumption of validity, even if shared by a
fraction of the “oppressed group.” Meanwhile, the
viewpoints of the so-called “privileged”—a category
that includes economically disadvantaged whites,
especially men—are radically devalued.
Because Social Justice Warriors are so focused on changing
bad attitudes and ferreting out subtle biases and
insensitivities, (without for a moment considering their
own deficiencies and delusion) their hostility to free speech
and thought is not an unfortunate byproduct of the
movement but its very essence. You can be welcoming,
respectful, and hard-working, yet still be demonized --
your loyalty to the party line is how you are measured.

Some conservatives describe Social Justice Warriors as
“cultural Marxists”; the “movement” has also been
compared to Maoism, and particularly to the Cultural
Revolution, with its focus on re-education and public
confessions of ideological errors. But, as atheist blogger
Rebecca Bradley has argued, the movement also has many
elements of an apocalyptic religious cult that sees the world
as mired in sin and evil except for a handful of the elect. A
popular post on Tumblr, a major Social Justice hive,
laments, “being on Tumblr all the time gives me such a
deluded view of the world. I start believing that everyone is
pro-choice, open-minded, have moral compass…care about
sexism, racism, body shaming, etc, but then I walk out my
front door and realize that everyone is still just as moronic
as they were two years ago.” This is a classic cult mindset.
There is a word for ideologies, religious or secular, that
seek to politicize and control every aspect of human life:
totalitarian. Unlike the proponents of most such ideologies,
the Social Justice “movement” has no fixed doctrine or
clear utopian vision. But in a way, its amorphousness makes
it more tyrannical.

While all revolutions are prone to devouring their children,
the Social Justice movement may be especially vulnerable
to self-immolation: Its creed of “intersectionality”—multiple
overlapping oppressions—means that the oppressed are
always one misstep away from becoming the oppressor.
Your cool feminist T-shirt can become a racist atrocity in a
mouse click. And since new “marginalized” identities can
always emerge, no one can tell what currently acceptable
words or ideas may be excommunicated tomorrow.
- Cathy Young

NOVEMBER 23, 2013
improved signage at my university’s
construction site

❖ That’s just vandalism. Not protesting, not making a
statement, not progressing feminism or equal rights
in any way.
❖
❖ And people wonder why feminists are despised by
most of the world.
❖
❖ So you took a sign meant to caution people that it may
not be the safest area to walk through and made it worth
a double take… maybe worth getting closer to because
naturally, people are going to want to see why a sign
they’re used to seeing is suddenly different.
Congratulations, you’ve been counterproductive and
probably endangered a rubbernecker.
❖
❖ You know in all my years in construction I’ve never
seen anyone who identified as a woman pick up a
hammer. I’ve seen them in the office, but not on the
actual job site.
❖
❖ I feel so empowered and liberated because you defaced a
sign that was truthful and made it about your precious
feelings! ….. You are just being an eyesore. Unless you are
going to university to actually become one of those
construction workers, then sit the fuck down and complain
about Blurred Lines some more.
❖
❖ Ugh. I’m really ashamed to call myself a woman thanks to people
like this. Literally, what was your fucking point you useless
aluminum can?

Tim
@bprg
Jan 13
I'm very sorry to have to share this video with you.
All of it, every part of it.
Carpe Donktum
@CarpeDonktum
·Jan 14
Replying to
@bprg
Man, I just can't believe how bold some of these Hollywood
people are becoming, first Ricky, and now Vince. If this keeps up
people might realize that they live in a free country, and it's ok to
have different opinions than the ones shouted at you on TV.

Creation Evolution 3 days ago
Competence and compassion, solidarity with trust. Sounds so
wonderful. Now, who fragmented us? Who brought us identity
politics? Who are the elites not held accountable? I am a black
woman who was so relentlessly targeted with Anti Trump
Propaganda, I got suspicious...and now, I am a proud American,
not a bitter minority. I'm ready for a fresh start, to work hard, and
get our country back!
Show less
“Forgive me for virtue signaling here, but I'm a gay man.
If a church told me that my partner & I couldn't hold a
ceremony there, well first of all, I would've done my
research ahead of time, but who cares if they don't want it
held there! For the past few years, I've been sitting here in
shock watching this authoritative leg of the
LGBTQIAK+++++2+ community slowly destroy all the
progress made in the past. Why can't we just accept each
other's differences, and just move on? Why does the
government need to be in control of everything? All I
wanted in life was to be treated like a normal person, but
these progressives & their so called "liberal" counterparts
won't be satisfied until I have a large rainbow-colored neon
sign above my head saying "c*** sucker."

@larklcs
Sick of Cold Coding
·
Mar 3
Replying to
@lhanO
Here's a wild thought. What if progressives, instead of
berating people they deem moderate for not liking 1 guy,
organized with them around issues, realizing that the
differences are miniscule compared to left vs right? And they
stopped thinking twitter is the electorate?
5
23
219
I like to think of it as a blessing really. I remember the old days
when people hid who they really were. Now with TDS you can
tell who the jerks are, right off. No more trying to make friends
with people your parents would have told you to stay away
from
If you were my husband I’d poison your coffee.
If you were my wife, I’d drink it.
-Winston Churchill to a heckler

There is nothing so useless as doing
efficiently that which should not be done at
all. – Peter Drucker
“Knowing others is
intelligence;
knowing yourself is true
wisdom.
Mastering others is strength;
mastering yourself is true power.”
— Lao-Tzu

PRESIDENT PUMPKINHEAD
It's over, America. Trump is the nominee and Clinton is the
president. Cry harder, crybabies. Let me hear the music of your
whining, your mewling, your pathetic infantile responses to the
outside world. You're voting for a game show host because
you've spent your whole life watching reality television in your
trailer and you're too stupid to make decisions for yourselves.
Republican politicians know better than anyone that Republicans
are infants who are too stupid to make decisions, and that's why
they play their constituents for fools.
In reply to:
President Pumpkinhead
First, you predict the future. Next, you explain what other people
do. Finally, you explain how politics works. Not one word about
what you think or feel, except in resentment of others. You must be
pretty frightened.
In reply to:
President Pumpkinhead
Incoherent, hateful rhetoric. Please go back to your bomb-making
table and let the adults talk.
Actually, scratch that. Please keep talking. Please keep supporting
Hillary in your "patriotic" fashion.

You are such a PRIME example of the average socialistic
revolutionary that is supporting Hillary, that every word you type
causes most reasonable, free-thinking voters to question whether or
not they want to be on the same side as people like you.
So please.
Keep it up.
In reply to: Mike-1299632 #6.1
You sound pretty angry. And you should :) Because the world
is not what you think it should be anymore. You guys still live
and think like it's 1820! But your world is gone forever (Not
coming back ever). It is people like you, uneducated, tattooed,
redneck trailer-trashes that ruined that Grand-(but very)-Old-
Party! :) You blame everybody but yourselves for the woes of
your lives! The fact that you are bigots, racists and
uneducated is your problem. The world is getting less
favourable to narrow-minded, uninformed minds like yours :)
But it's ok for Democrats to subjugate black Americans
by convincing them that the keys to their salvation and
prosperity lie with the Democrat party - essentially telling
them that they are too stupid and incompetent to
accomplish success on their own or think for themselves.

This is the height of racist thought - disguised as compassion.
It's condescending and patronizing. Yet, it's the Republicans
who are racists.
I think it's time for the Democrat plantation slave masters
who've corralled black Americans into their Democrat-run
housing project plantations within their Democrat-run
impoverished cities to start talking to minorities differently.
Spoonie Gee • 6 hours ago
Democrats have done such a good job of creating strong
communities and a promising future for the black
community -- how could they vote differently?
Dependence on government has strengthened families,
lowered crime, reduced poverty, and provided a model for
the rest of the country. Go to Baltimore, Detroit, or
Chicago and see the success of 40 years of liberal
dominated politics. Without concern for Republicans
thwarting their initiatives, the politicians who control the
black community have created a near paradise.
The community has been taught that class warfare,
anti-business sentiment and more government will
make things better. Given the obvious success of this
strategy -- how could they open themselves up to
other ideas?

Steve to jerry p • 8 hours ago
The "right wing" and "left wing" establishments are
just illusions intentionally created to deceive us into believing
that we have a "choice" between two options. We don't.
that both sides were
(the globalists), and our slave masters, we
would revolt. And of course, they don't want us to revolt.
They want us, instead, to fight with one another
(left vs. right), rather than fighting against them.
And as long as the blinded sheep of this country continue to believe
they are fighting with one another (right vs. left), they'll continue to
blame one another instead of blaming those the establishment
who are actually responsible, and who are controlling our lives and
our future. It's quite brilliant, and it's worked out perfectly for them
for 100+ years.
And as long as people continue to only wise up just before
growing old and dying, while continually being replaced by yet
more young and naive fools, who are oblivious to their game, it
will continue to work. The masses are clueless... exactly the way
they are supposed to be.
Just look at all the commenters here arguing over whose party is
the "good one" and whose is the "bad one"... instead of lashing
out against the real culprits who control both and screw us over,
time and time again, yet remain blameless. It's genius on the
establishment’s part.

SEVEN
we don’t want that kind
of familiarity here

…you live in a bubble; you are unable to
distinguish between actual lies and actual truth
from both sides —
like a pathetic little league parent who criticizes the
opposing team’s kids, but refuses to ever acknowledge
whenever one of their own kids does anything wrong.

“…Here's a woman who has written a whole
book about -- not a whole book about how
wrong she was, but about how her eyes have
been opened about white middle-class
people who used to be dyed-in-the-wool
Democrats and aren't anymore. And to me
what's fascinating about it is, you expand this
to Trump supporters and what people like this
think of Trump and Trump supporters.
These are the people who are in the media.
These are the kind of people who are opinion
leaders. These are the people who write
columns at newspapers and online. These are
the people who teach your kids. They're
closed-minded and they're wrong about
everything when it comes to who we are and
values. And they're also very afraid. That's
the thing that I really got. They're scared to
death of what they are wrong about. I found it
fascinating. But it explains and illustrates
what we are up against, and she admits her
intolerance and how shocked she was -- the
people she thinks that are intolerant were just
the exact opposite. “

…Southern antebellum chauvinists once
claimed that the culture south of the Mason-
Dixon Line was innately superior to the
grubby, industrial wasteland of the north. A
two-class system of masters and slaves
allowed an elite the leisure and capital to
pursue culture without the rat-race
competition of a striving middle class. So
blinkered was southern arrogance that its
pre-war youth insisted that southern
manhood, with its innate moral superiority,
could defeat a much larger, richer, and more
industrial North — a myth dispelled early on
at Shiloh.
Now the new cultural divide is not North vs.
South, but the blue-state coasts versus the
red-state interior.

The map has changed, but the new mindset
of the chauvinist, mutatis mutandis, is eerily
the same. In their blue-state doctrine, a
sinking middle class in the interior is seen as
inferior to an upscale, hip and cool
professional elite, properly thriving on the
East and West Coasts as never before — itself
often supported by legions of poorly paid and
mostly minority gardeners, housekeepers,
and nannies who free up their supposed
betters to pursue higher things without
tending to the drudgery of mundane chores

60. Oct. 14, 2018
NBC News falsely reports that President Trump praised Confederate General
Robert E. Lee. Actually, Trump had praised the Union General Ulysses S. Grant.

“…Here's the irony of it. You call yourself a traditional
liberal. I call myself a conservative. And what I'm trying to
conserve is liberal principles. I'm trying to conserve liberal
principles. People think “What”? When people were being
held as slaves - I'm a liberal. When women are deprived from
holding office or deprived from jobs at the same pay - I'm a
liberal. I'm liberal on all of these things. But when I become a
conservative is when this situation goes too far. Well, what do
you mean by too far? When it’s equality of opportunity and
equality under the law and when Martin Luther King says “I
have a dream that my children will be judged not by the color
of their skin but by the content of their character” -- I'm a big
old liberal when it comes to that. But when you get to a place
where then you say things like “Black people can't be racist” or
that we need “set asides” or that we should hold people to a
lower standard or whatever -- you've gone too far. Now I want
to conserve these principles. I want to conserve traditional
liberalism. Classical liberalism is not what many people on the
far left would agree with today. Right now, free speech is
number one. Free speech - number one.
The fundamental idea of classical liberalism is: I should be able
to say whatever I damn well want to; you should be able to say
whatever you'd damn well want to -- and you hurting my
feelings is not the same as assaulting me physically. My
feelings getting hurt by you is my problem - not your problem
- and this is a traditional core value of liberalism which
conservatives are trying to conserve in the face of these
progressives who want people to shut up and if they don't
agree with them, they hit them on the head with a tire lock.”

“…We’re in this enormous upheaval. Why are the sides
diverging so much? We're not even looking at the same
news stories anymore. Why is it that half the country thinks that
Donald Trump should be impeached immediately and the other half
says that CNN's already admitted there's nothing to this story? Why
can't the two sides hear each other? You know the word “meme”--
before it meant a cat with an impact font at the bottom of it… A meme
was the idea that a thought could be transmitted the same way as a
gene could. It could be passed on, essentially. So, I think you can get
a pretty good analogy out of genetics on this. If you have a population
that lives “here” and a significant number of people move over
“there” -- and now there's a mountain range between them --
something happens. When everybody is living together – mixing,
socializing, marrying -- they share the exact same gene pool.
When people go over to a second location, now “those people” have
the same gene pool as “these people”, but… if they are no longer
intermingling with each other, the normal evolution that one group
has isn't affected by the other. They now have a whole ‘nother
evolutionary path, and what you find is: you find this genetic diversion
-- and they'll continue to divert -- and will divert until they become a
different species, because the genes are not communicating.
We're over here evolving ; they're over there evolving -- and this split is
irrevocable unless you can remix the populations.
I think it's the same thing with memes. We basically hear - as
conservatives - we hear news; we hear stories; we hear
interpretations, all of it -- that has become part of our memetic code.
And liberals have a memetic code, too. And we're getting very close to
the point now where these two things can’t even breed anymore. You
know, you come to a point when the species diverge enough so that…
that's the definition of a species… is one that can no longer
interbreed with the other… And this is bad…. this is bad, bad, bad
because even though this divergence is happening so much, we're
living next to each other. These are not continents that are
going their separate ways. We're literally living it…”

“I
think
things
are
so
acrimonious
now
because
what
is
not
being
seen
underneath
all
the
Trump
Obama
/
Obama
Hillary
blahblah…
underneath
all
of
this
-- way
underneath
it -- is
human
beings
are
going
through
something
that's
only
ever
happened
twice
before
in
all
of
human
history.
We
are
straddling
a
worldwide
fundamental
change
in
how
the
world
is
built.
You
could
make
the
case
with
so
many
wars
and
empires
and
governments…
kings
and
battles
and
so
on…
that
the
only
things
that
have
really
happened
in
history
are
the
Invention
of
Agriculture,
the
Industrial
Revolution,
and
the
Information
Age.
When
we
talk
about
things
like
our
cities
being
these
murder
pits
- it's
not
an
easy
problem
to
solve.
The
reason
the
cities
are
murder
pits
is
because
the
jobs
are
going.
The
jobs
are
going,
because
America
is
now
fully
in
the
Information
Age
and
industrial
era
jobs
have
gone
to
where
they're
less
expensive
-- this
is
a
fundamental problem.
This
is
the
same
problem
that
farmers
had
to
face
four
hundred
years
ago, where
farmers
were
saying
“Well,
we
can't
feed
ourselves.”
“Yeah,
you
got
to
go
work
in
a
factory
in
the
city”,
and
they
didn't
want
to
do
that.
It
caused
tremendous
upheaval,
but
that's
what
we're
seeing.
It
used
to
be
that
you
could
get
off
a
boat
and
walk
through
Ellis
Island,
come
out
on
the
other
side
and
get
a
job
in
a
factory.
I
mean
no
disrespect
to
factory
workers
whatsoever,
but
essentially
an
assembly
line
job
meant
that
your
job
is
to
take
this
bolt
and
tighten
this
bolt
in
this
location
-- and
essentially
anybody
can
do
that
– anybody.
So
industrial
era
jobs
being
relatively
repetitive
gave
people
who
are
hardworking
and
then
oftentimes
very
smart -- people
who
were
new
here
-- people
who
needed
a
chance
to
get
started…
it
gave
them
a
chance
to
do
some
work
and
get
some
decent
jobs out
of
it.

For example, Baltimore - for a brief period there -- the neighborhoods
were integrated; there were people who'd been there for quite a while,
plus a lot of black workers who’d come up from the South after the
war -- but everybody was working at the factory; everybody's working
hard. Everybody had a vested interest in making their yard look nice;
everybody was going to more or less the same churches. They were
hanging out together. Didn't last very long, but it was there.
And it was there because the economic opportunities were there. And
it's not like some company decided “Hey you know what, we make
more money in China.” That’s in fact what happened, but it was due to
a fundamental change. And you can't get people into the information
economy as easily as you could get them into the industrial economy…
… I think there is a fundamental difference between the two camps
that we call liberals and conservatives today. I'm sure that people are
going to find this a self-serving explanation, but nevertheless here it is. I
believe that liberals would rather feel good about things, even if they
do harm, and conservatives would rather do things that made sense,
even if it made them look bad.
The minimum wage is a perfect example. Everybody would like
people to make $15 an hour. If health care were free, I'd be in favor of
free health care. What kind of an animal would I be – “No health care
for you… I don't like the way you look… your skin's a little dark for
me… no health care for you…
go off and die in a ditch.”
Well, I would be the kind of
person that people assume I
am if it were free, but it's not
free -- so since it costs money,
we have to figure out how to
pay for it. “We have to figure
out how to pay for it” means
things like competition. All of
a sudden, you're conservative again - so this is the point of it.

To just feel good about things because everybody else tells you
“You should”… “I'm in favor of this…” “I support that…” “I've got a
bumper sticker on my Prius - it says Free Tibet …see!… see how I care
about Tibet and I'm deeply concerned about the people of Tibet”.
And I don't doubt that they are, but if you want to free Tibet you
need a bumper sticker that says The United States Marine Corps
or National Rifle Association or something like that, because that's
what it would take to actually “Free Tibet” and that's not a pleasant
thought and nobody likes to admit it. And if you had somebody say
that, you'd get a lot of grief for it, but it's the reality of the world. And
so sugarcoating the outcome in order to preserve this sense of this
warm fuzzy feeling I have about myself to me is a form of vanity and
hypocrisy that I can't afford anymore...”
Scott Adams@ScottAdamsSays
Yesterday my most well-informed and highly educated Democrat
friend told me there is no such thing as "fake news," it is an
invention of the right. I gave him six examples off the top of my
head. By tomorrow his brain will have flushed the memory of
them. #CognitiveDissonance
Beorn@Beorn2000
Replying to @ScottAdamsSays
Sounds more like compartmentalization. You have
wrestle with an idea to have cognitive dissonance.
to
actually

“…I don't want a conservative media. I want a fair media. If we had a
conservatively biased media, we would then fall into the exact same
errors that the Left falls into, because then we have The Ring of
Invisibility. Andrew Klavan pointed this out: what the press bias does is
it gives Democratic politicians the ring of invisibility - they know
they're not going to get caught, and so when people have a sense of
invisibility, they do things that they would never do otherwise. This is
why sometimes in Mardi Gras or something
like that -- when people are wearing masks
-- they'll perform behaviors that would
never ever enter their minds, because they
don't feel directly responsible. This is the
great failure of the modern age.
I want a press that is looking 24 hours a day
to find out whether there is impeachable
information on Donald Trump. I want them
looking all the time constantly to see if
Donald Trump is colluding with the
Russians, to see if impeachable offenses are
there. But I would also like that done for
Barack Obama and
Hillary Clinton and I don't want them to
suppress a story. Not just not cover it -- but
suppress it - because then you've got an
autoimmune disease. If the press’ job is to go
through the political bloodstream and attack
pathogens and destroy them, and it turns out
that it's not doing that, but is in fact a way that
ideology and pathogens are coming into the
system, then the country’s got AIDS --
intellectual AIDS -- the mechanism designed to
defend us is now the mechanism that is in fact
bringing in the contagion…”

“…But there's good news and bad news. The bad news is: it’s too late
to change it. The good news is: it is going to change. I know that
sounds paradoxical. The mainstream media and the entire media
complex and all of this is so heavily invested now -- they’re pot
committed. They've got to play this card. They’ve got to play the hand
to the end of the game. And it is so massive that you can't change it, but
the good news is: You don't have to, because for the first time… I kept
wondering: Why do civilizations collapse? They struggle on the way up
-- there's a struggle… struggle… struggle… and when they finally
reach dominance… you know when Rome finally defeats Carthage
and there's nothing in the way, and it should be pure “off they go”…
And they just collapsed. And I think they collapse because the elites get
bored. But this is the first time in history when common people have
had the means to actually influence other common people in large
numbers and circumvent not just the priesthood of the churches or the
media or the politicians, but also just talk directly with each other.
And that, I think, is our saving grace. Because now there's 160 million
people walking around with high-definition television cameras in their
pockets. They've also got news vans in their pockets – can send up a big
mast like big radio used to…post an
event online. We're in the world of
absolute truth. Once we get video,
we're out of the world of “What
you think of what I think.” There it
is -- you know, “Pics or it didn't
happen, right?” I mean, there it is.
You can't argue with seeing it.
There is the inherent risk of “the
system will have to fight back even
harder against us now.” It's the
inevitable consequence…
- Bill Whittle, on The Rubin
Report, July 2017 (Scott Adams - page break)

John 3 years ago
"You can't argue with seeing it there" ... tell that to the Project Veritas
deniers
Jervis Lambi3 years ago
Common sense is derided by people who have a vested interest
in telling themselves how important they are.
Hairy Pixels 3 years ago
I have far more respect for a less intelligent person who works
hard and succeeds than I do an intelligent person who has
accomplished nothing but still demands respect for simply being
intelligent.
Something Fishie 3 years ago
Whittle says our phones will give us absolute truth, or a near
approximation. On the contrary, we are about to find out just
how deceptive individuals who get paid by views can be, as they
stage interactions to make political points. What we all see on
video is not always all there is to see, and he KNOWS that.
pop9095 3 years ago
Sure, we have the ability to communicate directly and we use it
for showing our friends the burrito we just ate or "political"
nonsense without real validation. Simply having the ability to
communicate does not magically make people 1) give a shit,
and if they do 2) suddenly become well educated or reasonably
intelligent and, and if they are 3) willing to evaluate concerns
based not on ideology but on rational logical analysis.

Mister Mograph 3 years ago
sorry pal, but it is extremely dishonest and frankly naive to say
that Conservatives do things that "make sense". Yes, Liberals do
things that make them feel good, but so do Conservatives, in
fact, they were the pioneers of it in modern day culture cough
Religious Right cough. See, this is why I feel like people
belonging to either of the 2 camps are biased. Because they say
absolutely silly shit, like this. Self-serving indeed sir.
>I
mastercilander 3 years ago
feel like people belonging to either of the 2 camps are biased
You feel? Interesting. Everyone's biased btw, which he admitted and
has nothing to do with a binary. I'm not a part of any political group and
even I can see the Right tends to be more evidence driven as a rule.
Mister Mograph 3 years ago
not at all. it's just popular right now to highlight that the Left
dictates their decisions via feelings and so, by default paints the
Right as doing the opposite. But that's just not so. Among the
general population of conservatives, how many base their
decisions in religious reasoning? Almost always driven by their
feelings. Like abortion for example. While the arguments given in
this interview were more sound for either side, most actual people
from either side don't use this same reasoning. Both sides are
emotional. Both sides do things based in how they feel. Just in
very different ways. Trying to absolve (general) conservatives of
this as if they weren't trying to abolish marriage equality by using
God as their basis makes his statement fall apart.

NerfGanondorf 3 years ago
Conservatism isn't founded through the religious right; it goes way past
that. Religious Right was founded on Conservatism.
Mister Mograph 3 years ago and I never said that it did. But you have to
admit at this point in history, among many Conservative compatriots,
Christianity has become a moral mainstay.
Tyler 3 years ago
Well, not sure about the others, but I have to agree that the [common
sense] statement was garbage. You can easily find a news story every
week about a politician from either party being proven a hypocrite.
theaudiocrat3 years ago
the irony in what you espouse is that liberalism (in the classical sense)
can only thrive in a moral and responsible society where there is a high
amount of social capital provided by institutions such as patriotism,
family and (you guessed it) faith. I'm not religious by any stretch of the
imagination, but I see the importance of it in terms of social cohesion
Jonathon Peterson 3 years ago
Wait, what about Christianity/religious Right is convenient? On the one
hand, lefties, you have everyone patting you on the back for doing
nothing except casting the right vote or expressing the right opinion and
getting jerked off by Hollywood and the mainstream media for saying
the popular thing. On the other, you have a bunch of people dedicated to
living a disciplined and moral lifestyle that they get mocked for in their
own country, states, and towns, on the radio, on TV, on the internet, and
on TV... How is that even remotely comparable? You don't have to
agree with their lifestyle, but it certainly isn't moral grandstanding when
you're rejected whole sale by the culture and it costs you acceptance and
belonging...

HumanPerson 3 years ago
One
of
the
characteristics
of
the
modern
Right
is
a
seeming
inability
to
accept
uncomfortable
facts. When
a
fact
is
inconvenient,
they
either
make
an
excuse
for
it
or
deny
it
all
together.
You
can
see
this
on
Fox
news
where
uncomfortable
facts
are
liberal
media
conspiracies;
it's
evident
in
Republican
politicians
and
commentators,
and
even
in
the
current White
House.
Blame
Obama
for
a
financial
crisis
he
wasn't
around
for,
blame
the
Democrats
for
a
deficit
that
was
created
under
a
Republican
administration,
ignore
various
important
facts
about
Trump's
business
practices
and
irrational
statements.
How
long
Republicans
will
defend
Trump
and
the
party
who
support
him
openly
-
no
matter
what
-
will
say
a
lot
about
who
the
Republican
party
are.
They
care
about
their
team
and
will
ride
this
train
right
over
a
cliff.
They
care
more
about
what
feels
true
than
what
is
true.
On
top
of
this,
they're
really
bad
at
owning
up
to
mistakes,
whether
it
has
to
do
with
Republican
policies,
erosion
of
civil
liberties
under
Bush,
voter
suppression
laws
etc.
Once
this
Trump
affair
is
over,
I
guarantee
the
Republican
party
and
the
majority
of
conservatives
will
blame
liberals.
I
am
willing
to
bet
my
life
on
this
era
being
rewritten
to
somehow
blame
liberals.
Jonathon
Peterson 3 years ago
How
long
will
Democrats
ignore
that
the
whole
Russia
debacle
developed
out
of
the
Democrats
attempt
to
steal
the
Democratic
nomination
and
got
caught
redhanded.
Let's
not
talk
about
the
facts
revealed
by Wikileaks;
instead,
let’s
talk
about
where
the
information
might
have
come
from.
Pay
no
attention
to
the
man
behind
the
curtain.
There
is
no
place
I
can
go
to
escape
criticism
of Conservatism
or
Republicanism.
All
you
have
to
do
is
turn
on
the
TV
and
get
fed
red
meat...
theaudiocrat 3 years ago
The
media
is
predominantly
liberal,
so
any
media
conspiracies
are
logically
going
to
be
liberal.
Obama
wasn't
responsible
for
the
financial
crisis
-
that
was
Clinton
(who
ironically
in
most
other
regards
was
fiscally
conservative)
with
government
intrusion
into
lending
practices
that
required
lenders
to
offer
mortgages
to
people
who
wouldn't
otherwise
qualify
for
them.
Obama
IS
however
responsible
for
TARP
and
the
ACA
which
are
even
more
damning
than
the
lending
requirements
for
which
Clinton
was
responsible.
Neither
of
which
can
be
remotely
evidencebased,
when
the
"evidence"
was
collected
after
the
initiatives
had
been
proposed,
and
only
after
the
data
was
massaged
to
paint
a
much
rosier
picture
of
the
legislation
than
the
naked
data
that
was
presented
to
them.
Jonathan
Gruber
was
caught
on
tape
saying
it
was
only
by
the
stupidity
of
the
American
people
that
the
ACA
was
passed
and
that
if
the
law
were
more
transparent
about
how
it
was
funded,
it
would
never
have
passed
the
Congressional
budget
office.

THX 1138 2 years ago
I just tune in to Bill because nothing else makes sense.
Sigusen 3 years ago
I'd just like to point out that supporting the NRA will never have any effect on
freeing Tibet. The NRA would only care if they could start selling guns to Tibetans.
Other than that, this was a great conversation.
REPLY
MyNameIsn'tDave 3 years ago
I completely disagree with much of what Bill Whittle says (a lot of cheap nationalist
rhetoric, pro-war ideologue foreign policy positions), but I find him so effortlessly
articulate, interesting and enjoyable to listen to that he's still someone I really like. I also
think he's massively exaggerating on the idea that an impartial media would consistently
deliver Republican landslides each cycle, although I agree [media bias] does give
Democrats an edge each election. I'm also disappointed that his view on the Civil War is
so painfully poorly informed and mainstream - the Civil War was about far, far more than
slavery; it was about the balance of power in the Union, and whether a state ought to
live under a federal government it does not support.
Main 1 3 years ago
The old GOP are people who advocate for rules in war: line up on each end of the
battle field and shoot each other while standing up. DEMS agree to the rule but
tell the GOP, let’s do this tomorrow. During the night, DEMS sneak into GOP camp
and slaughter half the GOP in their sleep. The surviving GOP look at this, and say,
we can't sink to DEM level, let’s go on the field tomorrow and fight like we agreed
to. This is why GOP is considered the stupid party by so many in the base
REPLY
Freedom Extremist3 years ago
So much bias in one comment

EIGHT
sure you wanna
go down this
path?

…The masterpiece book, Coming Apart, by
Charles Murray, described a sociological
phenomena that came to fruition in the electoral
realm in 2016. These are the areas in which all
of my attentions are focused – how the policy prescriptions and
ideas we believe in as conservatives can be applied to the
segments of society most suffering, so as to create a free and
virtuous society. I fear Trump has bitten off more than he or
anyone can chew, because he has falsely claimed that white
working America is suffering because of bad trade deals, as
opposed to real cultural milieu. Truth be told, the right needs to
listen to the plight of working America and offer solutions; and
those solutions cannot be nationalistic promises of protectionist
nonsense.
IThere are three major divisions now going on in ourI
Icountry that are the defining situations of thisI
Iage. First and foremost, rural America vs. urbanI
IAmerica, or that sociological/cultural divide that soI
Ipolarizes the electorate [outlined at **]I
rural
America
urban
America

• Secondly, the civil war in the left, which my liberal
friends do not yet know how massive it is about to
become. That radical progressive wing of Warren
and Sanders is going to go to war with center-left
moderates, and it is going to be nasty.
radical
progressives
center left
moderates
• And then the one which I believe will dictate so much
of the future of American political life: The civil war in
the right – the battle between populist-nationalists and
idea-driven conservatives. I am well aware of the fact
that Trump’s win grants appearance that the former is
winning over the latter. I am not so sure. The “across
country” wave of ideological conservatives who won
by much larger margins tells a different story.

populist -
nationalists
idea-driven
conservatives
I am convinced of this: The winner of this battle will
determine the fate of conservatism in this
generation. The latter must, must, must defeat the
former.
We found out in 2016 that there is such thing as an
Obama-Trump voter. Everyone wants to believe that the
government can solve their problems, or that a strong
man can. The Obama coalition fell apart for Hillary
Clinton because she was not credible, exciting, believable,
or desirable. Millennials don’t trust her. Working class
whites loathe her. And the African-American vote appears
to have voted for her in expected proportions but with
much lower turnout. But conservatives better admit this:
Trump picked up the votes needed to win for the same
asinine reason Obama initially did – novelty, and
messianic hope.

My prayer for Trump. I pray that he will forfeit all the
demagoguery that defined his campaign, and transition to an
ideas-based administration with competent and outstanding
people ready to execute for the betterment of our
country. I do not believe he will. But I do hope for
it. Stuffing a protectionist trade pact down our throat will
not help factory workers in Ohio who have been
technologically displaced, but it will be fatal if it creates a
trade war with China. There is a policy agenda that can
improve the situation in America dramatically, create
growth, and allow for some of the aforementioned rifts to
begin to heal. And then there is blustery vindictive
rhetoric. You must know what I am hoping for.

“Knowledge has to be improved,
challenged, and increased constantly,
or it vanishes.”
“Company cultures are like country cultures.
Never try to change one. Try, instead, to
work with what you’ve got.”
-
Peter Drucker

•donna TO Kordane • 12 hours ago
I will take exception to the leftist part of
your comment, because BOTH parties are
guilty of dividing this country by
demographics, and the Republicans were
founded on the southern strategy.
However, I agree that we have to stop
seeing race, color and religion and focus
on the fact that we are ALL Americans.
We took a wrong path when we started
hyphenating Americans. We are not
African Americans or Mexican Americans
or Asian Americans. We are Americans
period.

Kordane TO donna • 12 hours ago
The Republican Party wasn't founded on
the southern strategy. The Republican
Party was founded as an individualist,
pro-individual rights, slave-emancipation
party... against the collectivist, antiindividual
rights (i.e. collective rights),
pro-slavery Democrat Party.
The southern strategy was an attempt to
gain the southern states after racist
southern Democrats fled to the northern
and western states following the end of the
Civil War and the closing of the doors to
open borders immigration in 1929.
It was hoped that in capturing those
southern states that the Republican Party
could not only hold the west and the north,
but also the south too, and thus solidify a
total dominance over the whole of the
United States.

The problem with the strategy (and this is why I call
it foolish) is that the Republican Party diluted their
numbers across the whole of the United States, thus
allowing racist Democrats who fled to the west and
north to gain a political foothold in these rich, urban
states, eventually turning them into the Democrat
strongholds they are today.
If Republicans hadn't diluted their numbers, but
had fought hard to control the rich, urban states in
the north and west, then Democrats would not hold
control over them today.
The north and west are now held by a party that was
once pro-slavery and the south is held by the party
that was for emancipation. There was a switch in the
territory controlled, but not in the ideas and
principles that guide each party. The Left is still the
same old collectivist Left it always was, and the
Right is the same old individualist Right it always
was. Sure, there are some exceptions, but as a rule
it is true…
I would go further than you and say that we're
not even really Americans, but are all individuals
with unalienable rights.

NINE
We’ve
eliminated your
job – Get Well
Soon

“Twenty years from now you will be more
disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by
the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines.
Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade
winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
— Mark Twain

Unrestricted Warfare
…The new way of war – trade, economic, propaganda
and media – has now been unleashed to aid the Chinese
Communist Party. To better understand this, forget everything known about
how the world works. Instead, think of globalization and the internet turned
into a weapon, in a no-holds-barred assault of competitive aggression
unassociated with military might – and this is how China is waging war.
Following the Unrestricted Warfare thought, in CCP hands, globalization
becomes weaponized. The CCP has spent decades utilizing globalization
to slowly take control of the world’s trading system, dominate key industries
and markets, build a global media and internet presence, and deploy
subjects and diplomats around the world. Therefore, when the time comes
these elements can easily be brought together for three intentional actions
– deflect blame, cause panic, take advantage.
Deflect blame. Because the CCP controls Chinese language media
everywhere with an iron grip, they can rile an army of ‘victims’ to deflect
their own culpability for the corona virus pandemic. Chinese language
social media uses the often-utilized practice of crying racism and stoking
nationalism to instill fear and revenge in those inside and outside the
country. These activated citizens can then be spontaneous in their
response by creating “hug me I’m not a virus” campaigns. Meanwhile, the
citizens under lock-down are blocked from sharing their boots-on-theground
point of view as social media is further restricted and
censored. Abroad, a full media and diplomatic blitzkrieg can be levied to
ensure the virus is not named according to its origin, which gives way to
another campaign to establish that it came from another country. Finally,
flush with horded supplies the CCP can feign being good Samaritans as
they earn profits on price gouging the world on personal protective
equipment (PPE). Ultimately, deflecting blame props up the CCP
message about the superiority of their Communist system.

Cause panic. Fear is one of the strongest human
motivators. Since the CCP controls the supply chain, they can
activate internal and external actors to lock down the supply of
medical equipment, fueling fear. This is accomplished by denying
the export of certain items like masks, threatening to ban the
export of others like pharmaceuticals, and buying up any foreign
domestic stock using their networks abroad. The rest is done by
us. Fear is strengthened by hyper-inflated models that are
blasted 24/7 to add to a frenzy that incentivizes even more
media consumption. Panic buying, hoarding, and the political
blame game follow, adding to the cycle.
Take advantage. This is the true goal of weaponized globalization.
The CCP wages a global game of ‘Go’ with a constant focus and
intermittent opportunities for accelerated risk-taking for greater gains. The
first bold move on the Go board was during the 2008 financial crisis, when
the CCP stepped from the United States’ financial shadow. China was the
beneficiary of much of the fiscal stimulus the US created to get out of crisis,
because US banks flush with cash loaned it to China for real estate
development. The difference between the current #CCPVirus-inspired crisis
and 2008 is this time the CCP holds the advantage. They knew about the
virus beforehand and could therefore control the outflow of information and
people. Any Wall Street veteran knows a pandemic will cause a panic in
the market. Thus, the CCP was well-positioned to liquidate positions,
probably quietly before anyone was even paying attention. Their next
educated guess would have been that the US and others would enact a
vast stimulus bill, which would flow into China by virtue of the fact they held
all the supply chains – more profits pour in. Meanwhile, flush with cash,
they can shore up US and other companies with that cash further
solidifying control. As an added benefit, they may reverse or at least slow
down the US effort to prevent the deployment of the Chinese 5G
networks that will take all data back to China and fulfill Kai Fu Li’s dream of
becoming “the Saudi Arabia of data.”
Game. Set. Match.

Without understanding how the CCP views the world and their place in it,
one will never be able to anticipate the threat. In the West, each crisis is
tackled according to its circumstances.
Democratic governments rush to meet the needs of its citizens. But the
CCP’s expertly designed totalitarian system affords its leaders the
benefits of seeing past their subject’s welfare to furthering the CCP
with more power and advantage. They can impose harsh policies and
can comfortably accept the inevitable scorn of having allowed a
pandemic to escape their borders, because in a global game of Go high
risk yields high reward.
In the aftermath, we will endlessly debate whether the #CCPVirus
was deliberately created and released, or a freak of nature. The debate will
be used to deflect attention that the CCP deliberately created the global
pandemic. The United States also tends to project our democratic system
onto the CCP, and loses sight of the fact that controlling the vast
authoritarian enterprise is a mixture of entrepreneurship and direct action,
without the humanitarian spirit. In other words, most are doing it for the
money, while some are deliberately directed.
The book “Unrestricted Warfare” has documented this all. The work was a
perfectly designed guide for manipulating the post-Cold War world. Until
one can see the world from the adversary’s point of view, one will be ever
at a disadvantage. But all is not yet lost. It’s time to protect, encourage
and let loose the one antidote to the CCP pandemic, the enduring
American spirit to throw off and be free from tyranny.
Gen. Rob Spalding is a national security policy strategist, globally
recognized for his knowledge of Chinese economic competition and
influence. He has served in senior positions of strategy and diplomacy
within the Defense and State Departments for more than 26 years, retiring
as a brigadier general. IHe was the chiefIarchitect for the Trump
Administration’s widely praised NationaIlSecurity Strategy (NSS),
and the Senior Director for Strategy to the President at the
National Security Council.

The press takes him literally, but not
seriously;
His supporters take him seriously,
- Salena Zito
but not literally.

Post:
There's a great piece today, Salena Zito is
back, and she has a piece in The New York
“Populism isn’t ideology; it’s energy. It is entitled and
noble, naive and skeptical, good-willed, dangerous and
not going away anytime soon, all at the same time. Both
the Democrats and Republicans experienced it in the
primaries. But Republicans actually nominated a
populist candidate, in part because their party
leadership was seen as insufficiently concerned about
the kitchen-table and cultural issues driving a large
segment of the party’s grass roots.
Yet, if folks think this current variant of populism is just based
on economic resentment or racism, they’re vastly
oversimplifying it. Instead, they should be spending the time to
understand all the forces at work here.
Why are many people, particularly white working-class
men, attracted to Trump? Is it economics? Racism? Or
something deeper? There’s an important social and
cultural element to this populism that’s often
misidentified as simple racism. It is more what one
might call 'patriotic chauvinism,' reflected in Trump’s
'America First' rhetoric."

See, they're trying to impugn Trump supporters by
saying they're just a bunch of white racists who are
fed up with the fact that people of color are
becoming a demographic majority. That's what the
Democrat Party's putting out there. That's what
Hillary, her campaign, the whole Democrat
apparatus in the media, in trying to explain Trump,
they say his supporters are a buncha racists, they're
a bunch of old, toothless, white hayseeds worried
that colored people, brown people, red people,
black people, are taking over the country. They're
racist. That's what they're saying.
That is how they characterize the Trump
voter. And Salena Zito is saying they're missing it
as badly as it can be missed. It's not about
race. It's about what kind of country we're going to
have. It's about what they are doing to this
country. It is about how we define America in the
early twenty-first century.
It goes on to describe who Obama really is, a
community organizer, graduated from elite
universities, spent a lot of his youth growing up
overseas, abroad, first president to begin his term
by going to Europe and declaring himself a proud
citizen of the U.S. and a fellow citizen of the
world.

And while Obama's out there wanting to be
president, citizen of the world, we're losing to
China, we're losing to Japan, we're losing our jobs,
we're losing our border, while Obama and the
Democrats seem happy about it and think it's
progress. A lot of Americans don't think it's
progress. They think it's disaster. It isn't about
racism. Democrats like to reduce everything to
racism.
She writes that: "Today’s populist backlash began
in 2009 with the rise of the Tea Party movement,
whose own attempt to 'make America great again'
focused on constitutional restoration. Much of the
media sneered at that movement, using the sexual
innuendo of 'tea baggers' and dismissing critiques of
Obama’s Affordable Care Act as naïve. The Tea
Party movement arose spontaneously, without any
centralized structure." And because of this it
scared the hell out of people and it seemed to be
dissolving on its own.
There's no leader whose fortunes we can track, so
the Tea Party seems to have dissolved on its
own. But the anger and the sense that some things
are not right has not gone away. It's still out there
effervescing and soon to break through the surface
if it hasn't already.

Then here's the meat of this. She says, "A Trump
defeat will be incredibly difficult for his supporters
to accept. Not that all of them admire him as a
person." It isn't going to be that they are
personally devastated if Trump loses. Because --
and as I have pointed out continually on this
program -- it never really has been about Trump.
Trump is the vessel for what this is really about,
and that's why they are not going to succeed, the
left, in stripping Trump's supporters away from
him, 'cause it isn't about him. It's about what his
candidacy presents as an opportunity, and they're
not gonna let the left dispatch it and toss it aside
like they're able to toss every other Republican
candidacy aside.
Therefore, because Trump's campaign is much more
about what he represents than it is about him,
"pushing back against what those supporters see as
nothing less than the end of the United States as
they know it."
And that's why if Trump loses, it's going to be
profoundly tragic. It's gonna hit these people
hard. They're not gonna be sad Trump personally
lost. They're going to be devastated that this
candidacy represented nothing less than the last
chance to preserve the country as they know it.

I think she's right about this as regards many people
who are supporting and planning on voting for
Trump. And I will guarantee you that the elite in
the Democrat and Republican Party, this is foreign
language to them.
The idea that what kind of country we're gonna
have is at stake here? They laugh at that. It's
absurd, they believe. Last chance to preserve the
country as we know it? They think that's
insane. They don't think there's any kind of crisis
at all, particularly like that. That's why they've
never really extended a lot of effort to stopping
Obama. They don't think there's a crisis. And for
them there isn't. I mean, they're gonna have their
exalted membership in the establishment no
matter who wins.
Even if they, on our side, will be the Washington
Generals, they will still be in the club, and they
will still have their connections, and their kids'
futures will be okay. So for them, the idea that
this campaign is about the future of the country
and preserving it as we've known, they laugh at
that. It's just another reason why the whole Trump
persona and campaign totally escapes them.
(October 20, 2016)

63. Dec. 26, 2018
NBC reports that Trump was the first President since 2002 not to visit
the troops at Christmastime. But he (and First Lady Melania) did. NBC
added a note to its story but left the false headline in place.
99. Nov. 19, 2019
Agence France Press publishes a sensational story saying that more than
100,000 children are being held in migration-related detention in the
U.S. under President Trump. It turns out that was the number in 2015
under President Obama.

TEN

Newly released video clips of Democratic operatives
describing their own attempts to provoke violence at
Trump rallies, their sub-rosa coordination with the Hillary
Clinton campaign, and their active consideration of voter
fraud schemes, are ugly but not surprising.
Rather than try to adjudicate the factual underpinnings or
the journalistic rights and wrongs of this story, I’m going
to focus on Robert Creamer’s background. Creamer has
already made news by “stepping back” from the Clinton
campaign in response to the videos. So at this point, it’s
fair to comment on his background.
Creamer is a longtime Alinskyite activist and a leader in
Obama’s old community organizing network. Creamer
was a key figure in the work of Chicago’s community
organizer training center, the Midwest Academy, to which
Obama had close ties. I write extensively about the
hard-left ideology and hardball tactics of the Midwest
Academy, and Creamer’s role at the center of it all, in my
political biography of President Obama, Radical-in-Chief
(see Chapter 5, esp. 144-45; 186-88). The Midwest
Academy was founded by die-hard socialists who had
once been part of the radical ‘60s SDS (Students for a
Democratic Society).

An influential figure in Saul Alinsky’s early Chicago
operations, Creamer worked with the Midwest
Academy’s founders to persuade young socialist
revolutionaries in the ‘70s to adopt a more “pragmatic”
Alinskyite stance.
In other words, Creamer helped persuade these young
revolutionaries to organize, and provide quiet socialist
guidance, to movements that were liberal in appearance,
yet radical in their ultimate intentions and effects. While
retaining his ties to the Midwest Academy, Creamer rose
to become a prominent Democratic strategist and, as
numerous reports have indicated, a frequent visitor to the
Obama White House. Creamer was an important early
advocate of what we now call the healthcare “public
option,” an idea that appears to have been at least partially
inspired by one of the Midwest Academy’s earlier
organizing campaigns.
In Radical-in-Chief, and in my follow up, Spreading
the Wealth (see Chapter 3, esp. pp. 59-63), I show how
Obama played public good cop during his days in the
Illinois legislature, while coordinating behind the
scenes with Alinskyite allies who used questionable
voter registration tactics, and even intimidated

Obama’s Republican legislative rivals at their homes.
Given the latest videos, it’s hard not to wonder how much
of this sort of thing is going on today, and perhaps with
some of the same players as in Obama’s Illinois years. If
the upshot of these new videos holds up to scrutiny, it
would show that Saul Alinsky is alive, well and living
inside the beating heart of the Democratic Party.
Obama inaugurated the era of Alinskyite hardball at the
presidential level, and Hillary’s campaign organization
would at least appear to be carrying on. If anything, our
community organizers have gotten bolder. Nor is the
media any more interested in scrutinizing the questionable
tactics of the Democrats’ Alinskyite strategists or ground
troops than it’s been for the past eight years. The deeper
problem is the ideology behind all of this, which goes far
beyond the few operatives featured in the videos.
Alinskyite leftists quite simply do not believe in liberal
democracy, which is why they’re so willing to violate its
norms.
In 2007, Robert Creamer published Stand Up Straight!
How Progressives Can Win, a tactical handbook for the
left that he wrote while serving a prison term for tax
evasion and bank fraud.

Creamer’s advice on how to handle conservatives
(pp. 74-6) makes for interesting reading about now:
In general, our strategic goal with people who
have become conservative activists is not to
convert them—that isn’t going to happen. It is to
demoralize them—to ‘deactivate’ them. We need
to deflate their enthusiasm, to make them lose
their ardor and above all their selfconfidence…[A]
way to demoralize conservative
activists is to surround them with the echo
chamber of our positions and assumptions. We
need to make them feel that they are not
mainstream, to make them feel isolated… We
must isolate them ideologically…[and] use the
progressive echo chamber…By defeating them
and isolating them ideologically, we demoralize
conservative activists directly. Then they begin to
quarrel among themselves or blame each other
for defeat in isolation, and that demoralizes them
further.
October, 20, 2016
— Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
He can be reached at comments.kurtz@nationalreview.com
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/441270/

“Rank does not confer
privilege or give power. It
imposes responsibility.”
- Peter Drucker

Basically, I have no place in organized politics.
By coming to the British Parliament I’ve allowed the people
to sacrifice me at the top
and let go the more effective job
I should be doing at the bottom.
- Bernadette Devlin

You Tube Bernadette Devlin on Firing Line
with William F. Buckley Jr. 1972
Devlin is about 24 here – 3 years removed from being the youngest
woman to win a seat in the British Parliament - sitting across from as
staunch and outspoken a conservative voice as has ever existed.
Perhaps best known (now) for his lively debates with his polar opposite
Gore Vidal, Buckley could be off-putting in his arrogance & vicious to
his enemies, but was typically in command of facts and fiercely
protective of his principles.
Look past the ideological differences; Forget that these two very
quickly want to throttle each other – even disregard any unfamiliarity
with “The Troubles” and Devlin’s crusade. Check out the dynamics
here – the level at which this conversation is taking place… Substitute
contemporary advocates and contrast this ideological clash with just
about any similar modern encounter. And the comments are OFF…
R-

Lefticon: A lexicon of the terms, topics and
concepts of the left
by M.L.Wagner
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact : Russ / Take 1 Productions
email: cameravision161@gmail
ISBN: 9781729475645
With varying degrees of success (and inevitable pushback), countless social, historical and
political commentators have catalogued, critiqued, lampooned and harpooned a startling
assortment of new ideologies and buzzwords that have suddenly infiltrated our daily lives.
Missing in this barrage of collective interpretation is a thoughtful, respectful and exhaustive
work that actually ties important historical events and social developments to the movements and
principles that the new lexicon strives so mightily to represent, propagate and defend.
Thankfully, Dr. M.L. Wagner`s compilation fills that void --- Lefticon is long on substance and
short on denigration.
Neither a bland outsider’s commentary nor a sophomoric attempt at ridicule, Dr. Wagner has
assembled a pitch–perfect reference work that simply defines and clarifies the new vernacular
without being overtly disrespectful to it – educating without preaching, chiding without mocking,
explaining without confusing.
Predominately a serious, scholarly work, Lefticon is sprinkled with just the right amount of
subtle irony and underlying absurdity inherent in illustrating the subtle distinctions between
self-appraisal, self-awareness, self-conceptualization, self-confidence, self-criticism ,
self-objectification, and self-understanding.
With entries ranging from `Rentier Capitalism` to `Dictatorship of the Proletariat`, Lefticon is a
studied and definitive collection of `need to know` terminology for politically attuned, culturally
aware and genuinely baffled observers of a new, sometimes alien reality that has expanded and
morphed at light speed in recent years.
The over-used `Must-Read` actually applies here - This is the go-to source for
illuminating….make that unraveling….the oft-times baffling constructs and expressions
permeating our national discourse.
Lefticon will occupy a unique and ultimately safe space on any book self – serving as both a
valuable, enlightening resource and a timeless portrait of an era.

[an old clip and save…not my red markings, or even my opinion, per se – just
doing the “job”, I guess, as currently constituted… Several attempts to insert
and save various unmarked versions for illustrative purposes here crashed my
computer every time... Draw your own conclusions. ]
R-

Dean
SUBSCRIBER
1 hour ago
"... they [Democrats] want a nicer country"
The Democrats call anyone they disagree with a racist,
sexist, xenophobe, homophobe, bigot, or
deplorable. They are the meanest people in the country
and they love not only attacking but destroying anyone
else.
Likethumb_up11
ReplyreplySharelinkReportflag
Chris
SUBSCRIBER
Too many Democrats want a new and deeper
liberalism but not socialism
This is a distinction without a difference
ReplySharelink
EDWARD
SUBSCRIBER
1 hour ago
Love her or despise her writings, I’m always
impressed by the number of comments Ms.
Noonan’s columns get.

Whatever you think of her, you can’t not read
her opinion.
Keep on truckin’ Peggy.
Replyreply
SharelinkReportflag
J
J Y
SUBSCRIBER
19 minutes ago
Many of us spend 30 seconds skimming the
article and then 30 minutes in the comments,
enjoying the well-deserved beat-down she
receives.
ReplyreplySharelinkReportflag
Now he is a statesman, when what he really wants
is to be what most reporters are, adult delinquents.
- Peggy Noonan, without malice, on Dan
Rather’s initial conundrum taking over for
Walter Cronkite

SoWellSoRight • an hour ago
Shhh...... the less you comment the more intelligent you will appear. It's like magic.
see more

Interviewer*: “How do you explain how a sort of
backwoods country like this, with only three million
people, could have produced the three great geniuses
of the eighteenth century—Franklin, Jefferson, and
Hamilton?”
Gore Vidal**: “They had more time to think about
things. They stayed home on the farm in winter. They
read. Wrote letters. They apparently, thought --
something no longer done in public life. And they
didn’t spend all their time raising money.”
Interviewer*: “You know in this job I get to meet
everybody—all these great movers and shakers and
the thing I’m most struck by the lot of them is how
second-rate they are. Then you read all those debates
over the Constitution . . . nothing like that now.
Nothing.”
*(President John
F. Kennedy, 1961)
**(his stepbrother-in-law)
Interviewer: What’s it like being a
Beatle?
George Harrison: I don’t know…
What’s it like not being one?

“The aim of marketing is to
know and understand the
customer so well the product or
service fits him and sells itself.”
- Peter Drucker

Always
BeClosing1
Trump was elected because Hillary and the other
scumbags like her weren't worth entrusting the job
to. I believe most saw him as an asshole, but they
said "yep, he's the asshole for the job". I along with
many others actually like him. He's far from perfect,
just like the rest of us "deplorables", but he's no
nonsense and going to drain the swamp of sick-ass
corruption and attempt to save this goddamn
country. The craziest part of it is he's out to do good
for everyone, trying to give ALL a better shot at life,
yet they're consorting together and fighting him tooth
and nail. Don’t believe the fake news hype, 'cause
they are full of shit. And the one thing they hate most
is being called on it.
Show less
11
REPLY
whskyhmmr 89
@Always BeClosing the only people who still like
Trump at this point are suburban boomers,
so nice job out-ing yourself.
REPLY

Always BeClosing1
@whskyhmmer 89 I don't approve of every single
thing Trump says or does, fair to say that's sort of
impossible. Still he has tremendous support, they/we
just sit in the background. Most of us work our jobs,
carry on with our lives, our families, and ignore most
of the biased media circus. You know, same way he
was voted by an ELECTORAL MAJORITY of the
entire country. Most of us show up and do our
talking in the voting booth. When everyone else said
he was hated and it was impossible -- showed how
much they knew.
I'm not a "boomer" as you wish to label someone.
You as well as anyone else have a right to your
political opinion. But you shouldn't be surprised that
there are others that lean the other way. If you
yourself aren't happy with the current administration,
try voting in two years to change it. With any luck
you'll have a bunch of fat-ass angry broads with no
hair on your team, right in line behind you.

They might even be screaming that social
justice shit at the top o' their lungs, in which
case it would possibly be music to your ears.
Lynda
Bless your heart...can’t face the truth huh?
Trump would sell this country straight to Russia
and you’d be too indoctrinated into your trump
cult to realize it. Try loving your country more
than a draft dodging hack.
REPLY
@Lynda Well
Always BeClosing
there's no draft-dodging here as
we hail from a law enforcement and military
family widespread. We pride ourselves on
serving our great nation. However, we only
choose to support deadly force if absolutely
necessary.

Whenever peace and cooperative efforts can
instill prosperity among our own AND other
nations, it's known universally as the more
intelligent and nobler strategy. Blood is a
tremendous expense, and we applaud him for
trying to negotiate to get us out of these
constant wars we've found all Americans
tangled up in for decades now. The previous
administration and liberal leftists are pissed not
only from their loss, but want to instigate a
warpath momentum through the media to stoke
the fires and have everyone cheering for WW3,
at each other’s throats, the same way your ass
is coming at me and we don’t even fuckin' know
one another. Yet you'd like to pretend.
Look, I've already stated before that he didn't
win a personality contest. I think most see him
as an asshole, but chose to roll the dice on him
versus the already well-established criminals in
Washington. Let the man do his job, the same
way we had given Obama 8 years, 2 terms, in a
vain attempt that he wasn't a sellout.

Oh yeah, psst... Lynda, just in case you missed
it... the only one who has been actually proven
and caught SELLING anything to Russia was
your bitch-ass hero Hillary! And it was our
fucking uranium! That makes YOU the hack.
Jesus Christ. Fuckin' broad. Three strikes and
yer' outta here.
HarryO W Osborne • 5 hours ago
But who is the enemy? What I mean is, how do you
identify the enemy? They're not wearing uniforms;
they're mostly invisible and clandestine. Many identified
the communist/liberal policies and takeover years ago
while others just yawned and went on their way;
nothing happened because the enemy looks just like
them.
What you gonna do, just go out and shoot anyone who
speaks like a lib? This is not a ground war; this is a war
of intelligence and information and as a few have
noticed the commies have removed the intelligence
from many and turned information into fake news.
Again, many saw this happening decades ago but were
powerless or too lazy to stop it.

Blckmmba IlJuly 8
Times Pick
Donald John Trump is the honest logical embodiment of what America stands
for and represents shorn of the diabolical duplicitous historical hypocrisy.
Trump cannot be blamed on divine royal selection. Nor did Trump come to
power via an armed uniformed military coup. Trump won the votes of 63
million Americans. Including 58 % of the white American majority made up of
62 % of white men and 54 % of white women.
A nation built upon black African enslavement and separate and unequal
African Jim Crow deserves no blessings from any just God. A country that
colonized and conquered aboriginal humans is not a land of the free nor home of
the brave. A state that treats women as lesser human is not a moral paragon.
Trump trolls for the desperate despicable and deplorable white American
majority. A majority that is aging and shrinking with a below replacement
birthrate, A majority with a decreasing life expectancy due to alcoholism, drug
addiction, depression and suicide. Uncle Sam is the supreme troll demonic evil
aspect of our American nature.
476 Recommend
29 Recommend
Patricia commented July 8
Pat
California July 8
More than 200 years before Twitter existed, Alexander Hamilton warned the
new American nation against embracing a leader like the current occupant of
the White House: "When a man, unprincipled in private life, desperate in his
fortune, bold in his temper.... despotic in his ordinary demeanour—known to
have scoffed in private at the principles of liberty—when such a man is seen
to mount the hobby horse of popularity—to join in the cry of danger to
liberty—to take every opportunity of embarrassing the General Government
& bringing it under suspicion—to flatter and fall in with all the nonsense of
the zealots of the day—It may justly be suspected that his object is to throw
things into confusion that he may “ride the storm and direct the whirlwind.”
The full text can be read on the National Archives website.

ELEVEN
Sales on ONE,
please

from: The Loyal Opposition November 7, 2016
by Richard A. Epstein
via Defining Ideas (Hoover Institution)
…But lest one be too critical of Hillary, there is
Donald Trump, whose personal baggage means
that his election carries the risk of bringing
buffoonery, decadence, and political instability into
the Oval Office, as well as possible investigations into sexual
assault and fraud for his previous behaviors. On policy matters,
he talks as if he is still cutting real estate deals in Atlantic City.
• His erratic behavior leads many to fear his control over our
nuclear arsenal in his position of commander-in-chief and to
doubt his respect of constitutional norms on such key
matters as the rule of law and the separation of powers.
•
• His belligerent insistence on renegotiating international trade
deals could lead to a major trade war that would cause
incalculable damage to the United States and all of its many
trading partners. Trump, it appears, has never heard of the
principle of comparative advantage, and thus looks at
American trade deals exclusively through the lens of the
perceived “losers,” with scant appreciation of the systematic
gains from trade. It is no wonder that most corporate
executives have shunned his candidacy, given his apparent
willingness to freeze out international markets.
•
• Likewise, his shrill immigration policy threatens to make it
more difficult to run the domestic economy and stabilize his
relations with Latin America and Muslim nations.

• On most domestic issues, he is an empty vessel who has no
political experience or intellectual skills to guide the nation
forward.
•
• On social issues, he has the rare capacity to inflame racial
tensions without cause, and to engage in gratuitous sexual
slurs that further outrage public opinion.
•
• On foreign affairs, his oft-expressed disdain for treaties could
usher in pandemonium on the most central military and
economic issues.
** What makes the current situation still more
distressing is the polarizing impact that this campaign
has had on the American electorate. It takes no
sociological wizard to realize the deep antipathy that
ardent Trump supporters have for Clinton, whom they
think represents the bicoastal liberal elites and their
favored minority groups. Clinton supporters return the
favor by denouncing everyone who supports Trump as
racists, homophobes, and kooks.
Harsh talk like this has tended to abate during previous
presidential elections. Traditionally, Democratic
candidates tacked left while Republican candidates tacked
right during the primaries to secure the nomination—only
to both inch back to the middle in the general election in
order to appeal to the median voter, on whom the outcome
of elections was thought to hinge.

Unfortunately, this time around that movement to the center
does not seem to be taking place. Instead, both parties have
assiduously cultivated their respective bases in order to
increase their turnout in the national election. To the extent
that each tries to win over undecided voters, it is not with
appeals to policy, but with denunciations of the character
and temperament of the opposing candidate. And so the
electorate has become more split, guaranteeing that the
supporters of the losing candidate will bitterly resent the new
president. There will be no honeymoon period, no
reconciliation, only massive distrust.
... The job of the political and legal theorist
is to keep steady on the course, and to
demonstrate, time and again, the
necessity for classical liberal positions on
the full range of substantive issues.
That third voice has to be heard, and heard
often, in the impending political struggles
that are likely to engulf the nation in the
months and years ahead.
•

• COMMENTS POLICY
Join the Conversation
I'm more optimistic than Richard about Trump.
Clinton's incompetence and imperialism were far more to be feared
than any flaws—which are mostly aesthetic and overspun by an empty,
nattering press—of his. Trump was smart to focus on bad trade deals.
It symbolizes the point he is making about the incompetence of prior
administrations, both GW Bush's—in such intrusive and costly acts as
NCLB and the prescription drug benefit entitlement program—and
Obama's failures, like ACA and the whole field of foreign policy.
The US does trade deals, not treaties, precisely so the complex
regulatory details of those deals will be renegotiable, not fixed into
stone. Trump is instinctively a free trader. But he is also a good
negotiator who understands and respects his fiduciary duty to the
entity he serves. This is no longer true of America's political
"professionals," like the naive ex-community organizer amateur,
Obama, or the nepotistic, inert Mrs. Grundy, who could not pass the
D.C. bar, and who intervened in Libya at the behest of her pal, Sid
Blumenthal. Government has a severe incompetence problem. That is
because it has a severe agency problem. It also has a dereliction of duty
problem, as Trump noted with respect to Obama's failure to enforce
border control law. This was a brilliant policy moment. It showed that
Trump understands what the chief EXECUTIVE is supposed to do. To
enforce the law. Not promise to make large piles of new ones. Trump is
also correct that the best trade and contract talent in America now works
in the private sector, not in government. I look forward to the infusion
of new talent by a President Trump, and to the necessary shake-up of an
increasingly corrupt and sclerotic, and simply TOO LARGE federal
government, that a Trump victory would bring.

Terence B • 8 days ago
It occurred to me several weeks ago that the big
winner will be the loser. Whoever wins is going to
have to deal with big steaming piles of cr@p
domestically and internationally with no political
capital and the deserved hatred of millions of
Americans. The loser will be able to sit back and say
'I told you so' with every disaster/setback.
The big losers will be us and the rest of the world.
Severn • 8 days ago
What a load of pretentious, self-important
twaddle. I suggest you crack a history book
sometime, where you will discover that the
actual "classical liberals" were committed
mercantilists.
(the
above [excerpted]
article was published one day before Election Day 2016 -
“richard40” is the author, responding to reader comments)

ichard40 to Severn • 7 days ago
Since mercantilism says the goal of any trade should be a
trade surplus, it has an obvious flaw: only one side of any
trading relationship can practice it, basically making
mercantilist trade one sided and parasitic. If both sides are
Mercantilist, there can be no trade at all, harming everybody. A
two-sided free trading relationship is the only relationship where
trade is possible and does not harm one trading partner.
The solution is balanced trade: do not demand a surplus or block
imports as a default, just insist imports and exports are balanced
(within a reasonable 20% tolerance). Follow the “prisoners
dilemma”/ tit for tat strategy, default to free trade in hopes they
will do the same, allowing increased balanced trade that benefits
everybody. But then if you face any mercantilist behavior, you
exactly reflect their own mercantilism back at them, to balance
the trade again, until they start to abandon their mercantilism,
and ease barriers to US exports.
But as long as trade is balanced, comparative advantage works,
and trade benefits both sides (and this has proven to be true even
with differing average wages between nations); not allowing this
is the gross flaw of Mercantilism, and the reason it failed
miserably with Smoot Hawley.
I have to hope that Trump is in fact not the Mercantilist you
guys all hope for, since that will totally ruin worldwide trade
and produce a recession. I have to hope Trump the businessman
is sensible enough to shoot for balanced trade instead.

Micha to Severn • 8 days ago
Counter-example to your claim: Adam Smith.
Severn to Micha_Elyi • 8 days ago
Counter-example to your claim. The American
Founding fathers. And Adam Smith bore zero
resemblance to contemporary "free traders", who
would have seemed incomprehensible to him.
richard40 to Severn • 7 days ago
The founders could be mercantilist only because they found
trading partners who were not, otherwise they would have had
no trade at all. Mercantilist trade is parasitic on the nonmercantilist
partner - not very honest or sustainable. Even as it
is, mercantilism was definitely not good for the agricultural
exporting south, and that harm ended up being one of the causes
of the Civil War. But once we became a great industrial power,
mercantilism was no longer beneficial for our manufacturing
exports, and again it failed totally with Smoot Hawley*, being a
major cause of the great depression.
* 1930 Tariff Act derided by economic historians

- from Eureka: 81 Key Ideas Explained by Michael Macrone

• dnpbuckley
24 Apr 2017
9:43
It is peculiarly American (I think) to imagine that the
corrective to Entrenched Plutocracy is ... grass-roots democracy!
I wish you well, Mr. [Cornell] West, but fear it'll take
something more than brotherhood or sisterhood to save us
from our current predicament ... although you are undoubtedly
right that the Democratic Party is a hollow shell with no voice
and no constituency. Its only message is: "I'm With H-er"
(although she is with Wall Street).
plu·toc·ra·cy
/plo͞oˈtäkrəsē/
Noun
government by the wealthy.
"the attack on the Bank of England was a gesture against the very symbol
of plutocracy"
o a country or society governed by the wealthy.
plural noun: plutocracies
"no one can accept public policies which turn a democracy into a plutocracy"
o an elite or ruling class of people whose power derives from their wealth.
"officials were drawn from the new plutocracy"
American Plutocracy has a long and illustrious history. Its
tentacles are everywhere; its toxins run deep. There is no
known antidote, despite a long history of populist (and popular)
attempts -- by workers, by farmers -- to wrest control of the
country from the grasping hands of the well-heeled and the
well-connected. The Plutocracy straddles both parties and (like
Pepsi) co-opts all movements.

The current Democratic gerontocracy [govt by elders] is
just as Plutocratic as its Republican counterpart, and
neither is capable of righting the ship. All their eggs are in
the Neoliberal basket. Both Parties have long since
abandoned all pretense of addressing an actual constituency
or dealing with social issues. They have put their trust in
the power of the "free market" and abandoned the notion
that government has any actual role to play, other than
the imperial one of fighting the so-called War on Terror.
There are no free market solutions to America's current
woes, any more than there are for Britain, or France, or any
other country trapped in the globaloney peddled by the
Plutocrats for the last thirty-odd years.
It is an error (to my mind) to deride The Donald as "fascist" while
refraining from such language when describing, say, Pelosi. Her nest is as
finely feathered as his. And what is at issue here is not classic fascism of
the militarized 1930s type. What we are all ensnared by is best described
as Free Market Fascism ~~ i.e. the illusion that "free markets" can solve
all social problems and governments have no real or essential functions.
That is the root cause of our current malaise. Everyone
drank the globalist kool aid because after all "Marx is Dead!"
and (we were loudly told) "there is no alternative". So: now,
we're waking up to find ourselves impoverished, in debt, and
in despair in a bleak, unsustainable landscape and we must
begin again the process of imagining alternatives. But: In
America, as in Europe, the corporatist voice has the
megaphone and the Plutocrats have the political reins.

(angry ideologue or stereo-typed fabrication? I’d sit down w/ both if I could…)
- R
pfb35 to 1Smith1 (…somewhere in 2017)
Don't waste my time with the new Left-wing BS spin... Boo hoo Dem's are
always known to be racist using blacks to get votes they done a real good
job in the cities they have controlled for decades. So go back to Huffington
Post or Snopes for your socialist spin on history... what a joke.. Good Bye
& Good Riddance
missk to pfb35 • 8 days ago
Like I have said before on this forum: yeah, right! It's the Dems
who are denying black people equality, suuuure! Wow, are you
a delusional creep!
pfb35 to missk • 7 days ago
Wow big tough words..... see the fantastic job the dem's have
done in Chicago, Detroit, Baltimore etc in helping the black
people... a typical socialist moron who hides in mommy's
basement ,... get a life

missk to pfb35 • 6 days ago
Dumb sh!t! I am the mommy! And you are, sadly, the worthless
troll.
The years of conservative, "We are above all others!" and "You
must remember your place!" have finally crashed about your
ears, honey. Wake up! Progressives constantly have to fix the
harms conservatives have wrought.
Can you tell me one piece of legislation the Connies have put
forward in the last two decades that have benefited the nonbusiness
owners in this country? Just one?
pfb35 to missk • 5 days ago
Dumb Sh*it guess your an expert at being one.. Like the rest of the
progressive trash you have no problems "Killing Millions of the Unborn".
Duhh weren’t for the business owners their would be no jobs for the Nonbusiness
people would there... Done wastin time with a Leftist troll bye bye
missk to pfb35 • 5 days ago
Exactly. You couldn't even come up with one thing the Connies
have done to help you or anyone else that doesn't own a
business.
Your deflection to reproductive choice is noted and laughed at.
Running away? That's the coward’s way out. Figures!

pfb35 to missk • 5 days ago
No just not wasting my time with a left-wing buffoon who has been brainwashed
by socialist BS... from Huffington Post, Media Matters and the G.
Soros ran propaganda sites.
What has the Dem-o-craps done but put this Nation 20 Trillion in debt.
What I laugh at is the stupidity of enlightened people who allow murder of
the unborn. Margaret Sanger the hero of the baby killers the beliefs of this
racist women in the 30's " Weed out the Undesirables" that's minorities for
you so-called left-wing brains I laugh at the useful idiots which you are one
of..
So get back to your pathetic life & let people who work for a living
and create jobs handle the important things..
missk to pfb35 • 5 days ago
Owned my own successful computer company for 30 years. You
couldn't even begin to keep up.
The Republicans have controlled the purse strings for most of
the last two decades. They also ran our economy into the
ground...do you remember all the way back to 2008 when
Bush's wars and banking buddies robbed our treasury?

Once again, your deflection to the absurdities about Sanger
and abortion are noted and laughed at even harder (you do
know that your facts are wildly off, right?).
I have a happy, success-filled life. And I'm a progressive (gasp!).
How 'bout you? You don't seem happy at all. I'm sorry for your
troubles and your sorrows, and I hope you feel better soon.
Can you give me one piece of conservative governing, just one
piece of legislation, that has helped average Americans who are
not business owners? Please, just one??
pfb35 to missk • 4 days ago
Does it matter no matter what I give like POTUS Regan dropping the
capital gain taxes & we had the greatest increase in growth in
decades... Guess you love Jimmy Carter who drove interest rates to
18% (But gee guess the socialist say it was the Republicans right) I'm
very happy & successful still making good 6 fig's so boo-hoo.. And
Sanger was a racist but I see how the new group-speak is rewriting
history... Progressives = Socialist… same immoral background & spend
everyone else’s money except your own (give any big checks to the gov
to share?). And what was your successful computer Co. name? did you
started back with the original Tandy's or Big Blue? Good bye not
wasting time with progressive anti-America socialist rants.. Your deleted!

missk to pfb35 • 3 days ago
Thank heavens you've blocked me! Phew! I'm not sure how
much more of your awful grammar and random, detached,
mumbling my educated mind can take. Yes, dear leader loves
the uneducated.
You may claim to be a successful person, but your ramblings
belie your beliefs. I assume by six figures you meant $9,999.99?
I just cannot help but comment thusly: I love how you Connie
trolls come to MMfA to converse, then you get all bruised and
upset when confronted with Actual progressives. You just freak
out. Your brains have been so consumed by Right Wing BS that
you don't even realize how unhinged you sound. 'Tis sad, really.
It's going to take a lot to bring our country back together
thanks to the loony right whiney fringe.
pfb35 to missk • 3 days ago
Funny! Your brainless retorts are amusing. Guess your PC company
like you was old & obsolete.. Since your BS is so amusing I'll pass it
on to those who love the ramblings of a socialist moron like
yourself... Bye Bye

danton5 to pfb35 • 2 days ago
Regan? Who is Regan?
Rummy Runner to missk • 3 days ago
I have a feeling you are more concerned with the
non-working than the non-business owner.
Recently they passed legislation that gives 9-11
Families the right to sue Saudi Arabia for their
complicity with 9-11. I personally think that is a
good one, made even better because Obama tried
to veto and lost. Is he more concerned with
protecting the Saudis, his Muslim brothers, than he
is with protecting American families? Only time
will tell.
Conservatives tried to defund Obamacare.
Unfortunately for all Americans, the Dems blocked
the effort and allowed the worst legislation of all
time to continue unchecked.

missk to Rummy Runner • 3 days ago
By the way, as I have learned, the legislation to which you refer
will now make it easier for foreigners to sue Americans, so,
yeah, thanks a lot for that.
missk to Rummy Runner • 3 days ago
1- I am very concerned about *working* people. Under Bush II's
reign, labor laws were changed so that millions lost their right
to overtime pay. Go back and read about those changes. And
listen to younger people when they wonder how long they will
have to give free hours to their bosses, without compensation,
because they are now "salaried" rather than hourly employees.
2- Obama's Muslim brothers? He is black but that does not
make him a Muslim. Your RW talking point is noted and, while I
find it to be a disgusting charge, appropriately laughed off.
3- The ACA is the same program put into place by a Republican
governor. Look it up. But, because the RW media doesn't like
Dems, it's "a terrible plot!" Check again, you'll discover the ACA
has done a great deal of good for millions. Would you agree
that we need to keep pharmaceutical and health insurance
companies in line?

Dems wanted that, Repubs did not. Repubs think profit is more
important than human lives.
Yes, I am also concerned with people who are unable to work.
It's very personal - after owning my own successful business for
30 years, my Multiple Sclerosis advanced to a point where I
could no longer work. I am now on full disability, tho' I'd rather
not be, and stuck with less than $800 a month. That amount is
supposed to cover all of the medical care, food, and shelter one
with MS requires. Yet, my family still wants me to be alive and
around. I still laugh and joke all day long. I still have much to
give - should I just die because I am now a "non-worker?" This
is a very serious question I am asking you here. What do you
say?
missk to Rummy Runner • 3 days ago
Rummy, where is the answer to my question? I'll ask again:
Should I just die because I am now a "non-worker?" This is a
very serious question I am asking you here. What do you say?
Rummy Runner to missk • 2 days ago
Am I such a dumb shit that you believe I would embroil
myself in a bullshit question like that? I have no opinion
on your life. Do not care one way or the other. That is
between you and your maker.

missk to Rummy Runner • 2 days ago
Coward. You start a discussion and refuse to carry it through to
its logical conclusion.
Noted: another conservative refuses to stand behind their
supposed beliefs.
My maker? My parents are both dead, so I guess that will be a
short conversation.
silly1 to missk • 4 days ago
Socialist dem policies have destroyed the black
community. The numbers don't lie. They only pretend to
care every 4 years.
missk to silly1 • 3 days ago
Your user name is an appropriate response to your
nonsense. Do tell, what has any conservative ever done,
just a single thing, to help minorities? Just one thing? I'll
wait........

silly1 to missk • 3 days ago
No. I'm not a conservative. I don't buy into this one-party
system masquerading as two. I think for myself.
silly1 to missk • 3 days ago
I will say this even though I'm not a conservative, but if
you ever travel outside your bubble and visit Chicago,
Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit you can see firsthand
the destruction liberal policy have rained down on
minorities. All of these fine examples of progressive
policy lay testament to the hard work they have done to
help people less fortunate.
missk to silly1 • 3 days ago
I travel this country full-time in an RV, visiting those places you
mentioned, as well as thousands of miles of back country
roads.

I have found, in my travels, that
1- People are kind and welcoming, no
matter what part of the country we are in;
and
2- We have spent many hours in the streets
of the cities you claim to be such problems,
even in the middle of the night, and, gee,
they're just not the hellholes you claim.
There's sections of town that are run down,
but guess what? The people who live there
are doing the same thing as you - making
meals, packing the kids off to school in the
mornings, going to work, and just trying to
get by.
Why do you insist the Dems have created
problems there? Is everything that Dems do
bad because that's what you hear on the
shill-news? Why else do you insist on
blaming the wrongs in the world on the
wrong people?

silly1 to missk • 2 days ago
To keep you folks from patting each other on the back all the
time and give you a different perspective. As for these grand
cities you've toured in your RV, I've lived in some of them.
Schools with no funding, swimming in debt, the highest crime
rates. As for blaming the wrongs of the world on the wrong
people, Obama increased every bad policy that you liberals
hated about Bush. It's amazing you can't see it. More war, more
debt, more drone strikes, more spying, more for Wall Street.
The cognitive dissonance you harbor is incredible. Hillary
Clinton is more of a hawk neo con Republican than a
progressive. There's no doubt she will be president and speed
up the decline we've been on. It's a one-party center right
system. Time to recognize that. And as for the election we don't
decide, the electoral college does and they will surely crown
her. The system is rigged. Time to recognize that as well.
GOPvsUSA2 to pfb35 • 10 days ago
Did I mention how much I love this new blocking feature that
allows me to make you gutless hidey-trolls with the hidden
profiles and hidden comment histories instantly irrelevant?
Gib@Gibstra·Replying to @iowahawkblog
If Twitter becomes a subscription platform, only die hard masochists will
stay, the rest of us cheap masochists will seek free humiliation elsewhere.

14. Feb. 14, 2017:
The New York Times’ Michael S. Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo
reported about supposed contacts between Trump campaign staff and ‘senior
Russian intelligence officials.’ Comey later testified ‘In the main, [the article]
was not true.’
24. December 2, 2017:
ABC News’ Brian Ross reported that former Trump official Lt. Gen. Michael
Flynn was going to testify that candidate Trump had directed him to contact ‘the
Russians.’ Even though such contact would not be in of itself a violation of law,
the news was treated as an explosive indictment of Trump in the Russia collusion
narrative, and the stock market fell on the news. ABC later corrected the report to
reflect that Trump had already been elected when he reportedly asked Flynn to
contact the Russians about working together to fight ISIS and other issues. Ross
was suspended.
28. Sept. 5, 2017:
CNN’s Chris Cillizza and other news outlets declared Trump ‘lied‘ when he stated
that Trump Tower had been wiretapped, although there’s no way any reporter
independently knew the truth of the matter, only that what intel officials claimed. It
later turned out there were numerous wiretaps involving Trump Tower, including a
meeting of Trump officials with a foreign dignitary. At least two Trump associates
who had offices in or frequented Trump Tower were also reportedly wiretapped.
42. March 13, 2018:
The New York Times’ Adam Goldman, NBC’s Noreen O’Donnell and AP’s Deb
Riechmann reported that Trump’s pick for CIA Director, Gina Haspel, had
waterboarded a particular Islamic extremist terrorist dozens of times at a secret
prison; and that she had mocked his suffering. In fact, Haspel wasn’t assigned to
the prison until after the detainee left. ProPublica originally reported the incorrect
details in Feb. 2017.

TWELVE
I don’t know
anything about
this

Your conduct speaks
so
loudly,
I can’t hear a word you are
saying.
- Vincent Bugliosi

Melancton mith
New York atifying Convention
1--

“... It makes Richard Nixon and what he
even thought about doing look like a
kindergarten Halloween party.
This is major, major stuff that's being revealed here, that these
people have engaged in! Just the financial aspects of this alone,
the finagling, the commingling of money, the selling of influence
to Mrs. Clinton as Secretary of State.
Foreign countries, foreign donors, the mechanisms that are
detailed by which Bill Clinton... One of the ways it works is that
they'll go out, they'll seek a donation -- the Clinton Foundation -
- say from Coca-Cola or from the Rockefeller Foundation,
Rockefeller Trust or whatever. I mean, they're hitting on
everybody, the Clintons are, and their aides, their employees at
the foundation. And one of the things that often is included is
say, "In addition to your donation, we would like you to hire Bill
Clinton as a consultant for $3.9 million a year to advise you on
strategic whatever."
They hit up various corporations, and the corporations have
done it - according to these emails. Corporations are paying Bill
Clinton three and a half, $3.9 million a year to "consult," after
also donating to the foundation. What do they think they're
getting for this? I mean, do they really like Bill Clinton so much
that they want to give him $3.9 million after donating another
number of millions to his foundation? For what? This is way
beyond the appearance of impropriety.IIt's just being coveredI
Iup and masked by the Drive-By Media who think it's a biggerI
Istory that somebody took a blowtorch to Trump's
star on theIHollywood Walk of Fame…”I

“There are days that he’s a buffoon. There are days he’s a great
president. Say what you will about Donald Trump. His outer voice is
indeed an accurate depiction of his inner voice, warts and all. I don’t
think Hillary Clinton’s inner voice and outer voice have ever even had a
cup of coffee together.”
- Dennis Miller

"Maybe she is an idea, a world-historical
heroine, light itself,"
• Virginia Heffernan, on Hillary Clinton
Nothing this nutty has been said by any of Trump's media
fanboys.
"Hillary is Athena," Heffernan continued, adding that "Hillary did
everything right in this campaign… She cannot be faulted,
criticized, or analyzed for even one more second."
That's a key cry of the Cult of Hillary (as it is among followers of
L. Ron Hubbard or devotees of Christ): our gal is beyond
criticism, beyond the sober and technical analysis of mere
humans.
I understand being upset and angry at your candidate's loss, but
this is something different; this is what happens, not when a
politician does badly, but when your savior, your Athena, "light
itself," is extinguished. The grief is understandable only in the
context of the apocalyptic faith they had put in Hillary. Not since
Princess Diana kicked the bucket can I remember such a strange,
misplaced belief in one woman, and such a weird, post-modern
response to someone's demise (and Clinton isn't even dead! She
just lost!).

It's all incredibly revealing. What it points to is a mainstream,
Democratic left that is so bereft of ideas and so disconnected
from everyday people that it ends up pursuing an utterly
substance-free politics of emotion and feeling and doesn't even
realize it's doing it. They are good, everyone else is bad; they are
light itself, everyone else is darkness; and so no self-awareness can
exist and no self-criticism can be entertained. Not for even one
second, in Heffernan's words. The Cult of Hillary Clinton is the
clearest manifestation yet of the 21st-century problem of life in
the political echo chamber.
Mercifully, some mea culpas are now emerging. Some, though
not enough, realize that Hillaryites behaved rashly and with
unreason. In a brilliant piece titled "The unbearable smugness of
the liberal media," Will Rahn recounts how the media allowed
itself to become the earthly instrument of Clinton's cause,
obsessed with finding out how to make Middle Americans "stop
worshiping their false god and accept our gospel."
Indeed. And the failure to make the gospel of Hillary into the
actual book of America points to the one good thing about
Trump's victory: a willingness among ordinary people to
blaspheme against saints, to reject phony saviors, and to sniff at
the new secular religion of hollow progressiveness. The liberal
political and media establishment offered the little people a
supposedly flawless, Francis-like figure of uncommon goodness,
and the little people called bullshit on it. That is epic and
beautiful, even if nothing else in recent weeks has been.
- Brendan O’Neill

THIRTEEN
you made this
whole thing up
in your head

After all, one knows one’s weak
points so well, it’s rather
bewildering to have the critics
overlook them and invent others.
- Edith Wharton

32. May 10, 2020
NBC's Chuck Todd on Meet the Press used a deceptively edited
comment made by Attorney General William Barr about the case
of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn. The network later apologized for the
error.
Kerri Kupec DOJ@KerriKupecDOJ
May 10, 2020
Very disappointed by the deceptive editing/commentary by
@ChuckTodd on @MeetThePress on AG Barr’s CBS interview.
Compare the two transcripts below. Not only did the AG make the
case in the VERY answer Chuck says he didn’t, he also did so multiple
times throughout the interview.

…This second part of Barr’s answer, in which he clearly states that
history should look back well upon his decision, is at complete odds
with Todd’s absurd question to Noonan. And that part of the answer is not
buried somewhere else in the interview. It is the very next thing Barr says.
It is always best, at least at first, in these instances to assume that the error
was the result of incompetence or laziness. Todd or one of his producers
saw the “history written by the winners” line and thought they had found
an angle. But it is hard to conceive of a situation in which whoever pulled
and created that clip did not also see the sentence in which Barr defended
his move to drop the case. It is almost impossible to imagine that those
words were cut for any reason other than to deceive viewers.
The irony of course is that Barr was making a joke when talking about
history being written by the winners. He is laughing as he says it, and the
joke is very much directed at just this kind of media hit job. Barr is basically
saying that the decision is fair and just, but some in the chattering class will
have their own nefarious version of events. Todd and his dishonest
producers could scarcely have done more to prove Barr’s point.
Time and again, “errors” occur regarding not just Barr but the entire Trump
administration. Last year this happened when Barr stated honestly that the
FBI had “spied” on the Trump campaign. Barr made it clear that spying is
often a legitimate part of the FBI’s job, but many in the media turned the
statement into some rant about the deep state, which it obviously was not.
The curious thing about these “mistakes” is that they always seem to
happen in one direction: the one that makes Trump and his administration
look bad. It is frankly not credible to believe this could be the case without
at least an implicit bias at work, and at worst a conscious effort to be
deceptive.
It is very hard to believe that the deceptive editing of this video was just an
honest mistake. Even if it was, the steady drumbeat of mistakes by leftist
media over the years, always to the discredit of the right, shows they have a
problem they are not willing to fix. Members of the mainstream media get
very upset when the president or anyone else calls them fake news. Well,
Sunday on the “Meet the Press,” Chuck Todd fully embodied that
description. David Marcus is the Federalist's New York Correspondent.

Commentary:
by Will Rahn
Last Updated Nov 10, 2016 12:01 PM EST
The mood in the Washington press corps is bleak, and
deservedly so.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that, with a few exceptions, we
were all tacitly or explicitly #WithHer, which has led to a certain
anguish in the face of Donald Trump’s victory. More than that and more
importantly, we also missed the story, after having spent months
mocking the people who had a better sense of what was going on.
This is all symptomatic of modern journalism’s great moral and
intellectual failing: its unbearable smugness. Had Hillary Clinton won,
there’d be a winking “we did it” feeling in the press, a sense that we
were brave and called Trump a liar and saved the republic.
So much for that. The audience for our glib analysis and contempt for
much of the electorate, it turned out, was rather limited. This was
particularly true when it came to voters, the ones who turned out by the
millions to deliver not only a rebuke to the political system but also the
people who cover it. Trump knew what he was doing when he invited
his crowds to jeer and hiss the reporters covering him. They hate us, and
have for some time.
And can you blame them? Journalists love mocking Trump supporters.
We insult their appearances. We dismiss them as racists and sexists. We
emote on Twitter about how this or that comment or policy makes us
feel one way or the other, and yet we reject their feelings as invalid.

It’s a profound failure of empathy in the service of endless posturing.
There’s been some sympathy from the press, sure: the dispatches from
“heroin country” that read like reports from colonial administrators
checking in on the natives. But much of that starts from the assumption
that Trump voters are backward, and that it’s our duty to catalogue and
ultimately reverse that backwardness. What can we do to get these
people to stop worshiping their false god and accept our gospel?
We diagnose them as racists in the way Dark Age clerics confused
medical problems with demonic possession. Journalists, at our worst, see
ourselves as a priestly caste. We believe we not only have access to the
indisputable facts, but also a greater truth, a system of beliefs divined
from an advanced understanding of justice.
You’d think that Trump’s victory – the one we all discounted too far in
advance – would lead to a certain newfound humility in the political
press. But of course, that’s not how it works. To us, speaking broadly,
our diagnosis was still basically correct. The demons were just stronger
than we realized.
This is all a “whitelash,” you see. Trump voters are racist and sexist, so
there must be more racists and sexists than we realized. Tuesday night’s
outcome was not a logic-driven rejection of a deeply flawed candidate
named Clinton; no, it was a primal scream against fairness, equality, and
progress. Let the new tantrums commence!
That’s the fantasy, the idea that if we mock them enough, call them
racist enough, they’ll eventually shut up and get in line. It’s similar to
how media Twitter works, a system where people who dissent from the
proper framing of a story are attacked by mobs of smugly incredulous
pundits. Journalists exist primarily in a world where people can get
shouted down and disappear, which informs our attitudes toward all
disagreement.

Journalists increasingly don’t even believe in the possibility of reasoned
disagreement, and as such ascribe cynical motives to those who think about things
a different way. We see this in the ongoing veneration of “facts,” the ones peddled
by explainer websites and data journalists who believe themselves to be curiously
post-ideological.
That the explainers and data journalists so frequently get things
hilariously wrong never invites the soul-searching you’d think it
would. Instead, it all just somehow leads us to more smugness, more
meanness, more certainty from the reporters and pundits. Faced
with defeat, we retreat further into our bubble, assumptions left
unchecked. No, it’s the voters who are wrong.
As a direct result, we get it wrong with greater frequency. Out on the road, we
forget to ask the right questions. We can’t even imagine the right question. We go
into assignments too certain that what we find will serve to justify our biases. The
public’s estimation of the press declines even further -- fewer than one-in-three
Americans trust the press, per Gallup -- which starts the cycle anew.
There’s a place for opinionated journalism; in fact, it’s vital. But our causal,
profession-wide smugness and protestations of superiority are making us unable to
do it well.
Our theme now should be humility. We must become more impartial, not less so.
We have to abandon our easy culture of tantrums and recrimination. We have to
stop writing these know-it-all, 140-character sermons on social media and admit
that, as a class, journalists have a shamefully limited understanding of the country
we cover.
What’s worse, we don’t make much of an effort to really understand, and with too
few exceptions, treat the economic grievances of Middle America like they’re
some sort of punchline. Sometimes quite literally so, such as when reporters tweet
out a photo of racist-looking Trump supporters and jokingly suggest that they must
be upset about free trade or low wages.
We have to fix this, and the broken reasoning behind it. There’s a fleeting fun to
gang-ups and groupthink. But it’s not worth what we are losing in the process.

November 13, 2016
To our readers,
When the biggest political story of the year reached a
dramatic and unexpected climax late Tuesday night, our
newsroom turned on a dime and did what it has done for
nearly two years — cover the 2016 election with agility and
creativity.
After such an erratic and unpredictable election there are
inevitable questions: Did Donald Trump’s sheer
unconventionality lead us and other news outlets to
underestimate his support among American voters? What
forces and strains in America drove this divisive election and
outcome? Most important, how will a president who
remains a largely enigmatic figure actually govern when he
takes office?
As we reflect on this week’s momentous result, and the
months of reporting and polling that preceded it, we aim to
rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times
journalism. That is to report America and the world
honestly, without fear or favor, striving always to
understand and reflect all political perspectives and life
experiences in the stories that we bring to you. It is also to
hold power to account, impartially and unflinchingly. We
believe we reported on both candidates fairly during the
presidential campaign. You can rely on The New York Times
to bring the same fairness, the same level of scrutiny, the
same independence to our coverage of the new president
and his team.
We cannot deliver the independent, original journalism for
which we are known without the loyalty of our subscribers.

We want to take this opportunity, on behalf of all Times
journalists, to thank you for that loyalty.
Sincerely,
Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., Publisher
Dean Baquet, Executive Editor
TeaPartyReaganConservative • 2 days ago
lol Rededicate itself.. lol The NY Times has been a leftwing democrat
propagandist rag for over a century, and now suddenly it wants to
reassure its readers it will turn over a new leaf and actually do real
objective non-biased reporting-"rededicating the paper to fair reporting".
lol
Please, the NY Times is a brain-washed leftist propaganda rag, and will
always be so.
"There is no such thing as a free press. You know it and I know it.
There is not one of you who would dare to write his honest
opinion. The business of the journalist is to destroy truth, to lie
outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon, and
to sell himself, his country, and his race for his daily bread. We are
tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are jumping
jacks; they pull our strings, we dance; our talents, our possibilities,
and our lives are the property of these men. We are intellectual
prostitutes."
John Swinton (1829-1901) - Head of the editorial staff at the
New York Times

Karlyn Borysenko has run out of effs to give
@DrKarlynB
Five truths about Trump supporters I did not
know as a leftist:
1) They are significantly happier than leftists
2) They are significantly funnier than leftists
3) They vary widely in their opinions
4) They welcome discussions with people they
disagree with
5) They are not racist

FOURTEEN
don’t hold it in…

I don’t want to beat up on Hillary Clinton. She thought
she’d win and she lost, embarrassingly, to a man she
considered deeply unworthy. At the same time, she won
the popular vote by 2.9 million. It would take anyone time to absorb
these things emotionally and psychologically.
But wow. Her public statements since defeat have been malignant
little masterpieces of victimhood-claiming, blame-shifting and
unhelpful accusation. They deserve censure.
Last weekend she was the commencement speaker at her alma mater,
Wellesley, where she insulted the man who beat her. This
Wednesday she was at the 2017 Code Conference, hosted by the
Recode website, where she was interviewed by friendly journalists
Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. She eagerly offered a
comprehensive list of the reasons she lost the 2016 presidential
election.
She lost because America is a hopelessly reactionary country in
which dark forces fight a constant “rearguard action” to “turn back
the clock.” She lost because Republicans are both technologically
advanced and underhanded. Democrats, for instance, use data and
analytics to target and rouse voters—“better messaging.”
Republicans, on the other hand, use “content farms” and make “an
enormous investment in falsehoods, fake news, call it what you will.”
Democrats “did not engage in false content.” She lost because of
the Russians: “Who were they coordinating with, or colluding with?”

She lost because of “voter suppression” and “unaccountable money
flowing in against me.” She lost because the Democratic National
Committee didn’t help her. “I inherit nothing from the Democratic
Party. I mean it was bankrupt. . . . Its data was mediocre to poor,
nonexistent, wrong. I had to inject money into it.”
She lost because FBI Director James Comey told Congress the
investigation regarding her email server had been reopened. “So for
whatever reason . . . and I can’t look inside the guy’s mind, you know,
he dumps that on me on Oct. 28, and I immediately start falling.”
She lost because she was “swimming against a historic tide. It’s very
difficult historically to succeed a two-term president of your own
party.” She lost because she was “the victim of a very broad
assumption that I was going to win.” She lost because the news media
ignored her policy positions.
And then there was sexism. “It sort of bleeds into misogyny. And let’s
just be honest, you know, people who have . . . a set of expectations
about who should be president and what a president looks like, you
know, they’re going to be much more skeptical and critical of
somebody who doesn’t look like and talk like and sound like
everybody else who’s been president. And you know, President
Obama broke that racial barrier, but you know, he’s a very attractive,
good-looking man.”
Oh my goodness, how she thinks.

Oddly, she seemed completely sincere, as if she believes her own
story. It tells you something about our own power to hypnotize
ourselves, to invent reasons that avoid the real reasons. It is a tribute
to the power of human denial. And at first you think: I hope it was
cathartic. Maybe these are just stories she tells herself to feel better.
But none of this, in truth, is without point. It is purposeful. It is not
mere narrative-spinning. It is insisting on alternative facts so that
journalists and historians will have to take them into account. It is a
monotonous repetition of a certain version of events, which will be
amplified, picked up and repeated into the future.
And it’s not true.
The truth is Bernie Sanders destroyed Mrs. Clinton’s chance of
winning by almost knocking her off, and in the process revealing her
party’s base had changed. Her plodding, charmless, insincere style of
campaigning defeated her. Bad decisions in her campaign approach
to the battleground states did it; a long history of personal scandals
did it; fat Wall Street speeches did it; the Clinton Foundation’s
bloat and chicanery did it—and most of all the sense that she
ultimately stands for nothing but Hillary did it.
In the campaign book “Shattered,” journalists Jonathan Allen and
Amie Parnes report they were surprised “when Clintonworld sources
started telling us in 2015 that Hillary was still struggling to articulate
her motivation for seeking the presidency.” Her campaign was “an

unholy mess, fraught with tangled lines of authority . . . distorted
priorities, and no sense of greater purpose.” “Hillary didn’t have a
vision to articulate. And no one else could give one to her.” “Hillary
had been running for president for almost a decade and still didn’t
really have a rationale.”
What is true is that throughout her career Mrs. Clinton has shown
herself to be largely incapable of honest self-reflection, of pointing
the finger, for even a moment, at herself. She is not capable of what in
Middle English was called “agenbite of inwit”—remorse of
conscience, the self-indictment and implicit growth, that come of
taking a serious personal inventory. People are always doing bad
things to her; she never does bad things to them. They operate in bad
faith, she only in good. They lie and exaggerate, she doesn’t. They
are low and partisan, not her. There’s no vast left-wing conspiracy
only a right-wing one.
People can see this. It’s part of why she lost.
It is one thing to say, “I take responsibility,” and follow that up with a
list of things you believe you got wrong. It’s another thing to say, “I
take responsibility,” and then immediately pivot to arguments as to
why other people are to blame. “I take responsibility for everything I
got wrong, but that’s not why I lost,” is literally what she said
Wednesday.

Walt Mossberg asked her about her misjudgments. What about
Goldman Sachs ? You were running for president, he said, why did you
do those high-priced speeches?
“Why do you have Goldman Sachs [at this conference]?” Mrs.
Clinton countered.
Mr. Mossberg: “Because they pay us.”
Mrs. Clinton: “They paid me.”
Mr. Mossberg noted they paid her a lot. Hillary replied she speaks
to many groups, she had been elected in New York, which includes
Wall Street. Then: “Men got paid for the speeches they made. I got
paid for the speeches I made.”
The worst part is that she insulted her own country by both stating
and implying that America is full of knuckle-dragging, deplorable oafs
who are averse to powerful women and would never elect one
president. Has she not learned anything? Does she never think
Britain had Margaret Thatcher in 1979 and Theresa May now, that
Germany has had as its leader Angela Merkel since 2005? Is
America really more backward, narrow and hate-filled toward women
than those countries? Or was Mrs. Clinton simply the wrong woman,
and the wrong candidate?

It would have been helpful if she’d spoken at least of those who’d
voted for her and supported her and donated to her campaign
precisely because she was a woman.
You should never slander a country that rejected you. Maybe it had
its reasons. Maybe her most constructive act now would be to quietly
reflect on what they might be.
__________________________________________________

FIFTEEN
“…book smart; life dumb…”

anot her
a
A USC Professor is on leave after students were offended that a
Chinese word he used during a lecture on foreign languages sounded
like an English racial slur. The school is now offering "supportive
measures" to students who were hurt by the Professor's language.

Pronouncement
of
experts to
the effect
that
something
cannot be
done has
always
irritated
me.
Leo Szilard, inventor of atomic energy

Who Are Wise, Who Not?
Insight often comes not from an Ivy League degree
but by way of animal cunning, instinct, and hard
work.
“Cleverness is not wisdom.”
— Euripides
At the height of the sophistic age in classical Athens, the
playwright Euripides asked an eternal question in his
masterpiece, the Bacchae:
“What is wisdom?” Was wisdom defined as clever
wordplay, or as the urban sophistication of the robed
philosophers in the agora and rhetoricians in the
Or instead was true wisdom a deeper and more modest
appreciation of unchanging human nature throughout
the ages, which reminds us to avoid hubris, tread
carefully, always expect the unlikely, and distrust the
self-acclaimed wise who eventually prove clever fools?

At the end of the play, a savage, merciless nemesis is
unleashed on the hubristic wise of the establishment.
Euripides would have appreciated the ironies of the 2016
election. Millions of Americans, far from the two coasts,
kept largely quiet.
They either did not talk much to pollsters or they politely
declined to reveal their true feelings. They tuned out
talking heads and ignored blue-chip pundits. They did not
listen to the shrill bombast of President Obama on the
campaign trail or pollsters who ad nauseam declared
Hillary Clinton the sure electoral-college winner. They
were not shamed or much bothered by the condescension
they receive from the media and the Washington elite,
who proved wrong or biased or both in their coverage.
They believed that free trade was not worth much if it was
not fair trade, that illegal and politicized immigration was
as subversive as legal and diverse immigration was
valuable, that real racists were those who used race and
ethnicity to encourage others to break the law for their
own political and elite interests, and that it was stupid to
trust their job futures to those who never lost their own
jobs while often losing those of others.

So, to return to Euripides, what really is wisdom in the
21st century? Is it to be judged according to the values of
those who inhabit the Podesta WikiLeaks archive?
Is being smart defined as being on lots of corporate
boards, having an impressive contact list of private cell
phone numbers, name-dropping one’s Ivy League
degrees, referencing weekends in the Hamptons or on
Martha’s Vineyard, or being ranked in the top 100, 1,000,
or 5,000 of some cool magazine’s list of go-getters and
“people to watch”?
Is there not wisdom in being able to drop an 80-foot pine
tree with a chain saw within a foot of the mark, or to take
apart a hydraulic ram in an hour, or to steer a bulldozer on
a narrow uphill road? Can MSNBC news reader Brian
Williams tell the truth any better than the Michigan lathe
operator? Is Lois Lerner, formerly of the IRS and now
enjoying a multimillion-dollar retirement, more likely to
file an honest tax return than the Wyoming rancher, or
would you feel safer knowing that Press Secretary Josh
Earnest was working on a high-voltage wire outside your
front door? Or is wisdom sometimes gained by losing the
polish on one’s hands? Is the wrinkled man’s face as
trustworthy as the thirty-something’s peach fuzz or the
Botox grin of the middle-aged metrosexual on the evening
news or the pollster who assures you that the election has
already been decided before the voting?

In this year of weariness with the elite and their definition
of success and wisdom, lots of such questions are being
asked. Where is John Podesta today — who was a master
of the universe such a short time ago? Is the Podesta name
a stamp of honesty and sobriety? Do obsequious media
still seek the latest gossip from Cheryl Mills or Robbie
Mook, the boy wonder from Columbia who was to
oversee the inevitable landslide victory? Do our demigods
in Silicon Valley ever grasp that even their cosmos is a
fragile and fickle place where yesterday’s wise are
rendered today’s fools? Is doing all the “right” things
often a guarantee of ensuring the absolutely wrong
things?
Will President Trump learn from the wise-fool President
Obama that hubris always incurs nemesis, and that there
is an all-knowing power who waits in ambush for us once
we deem ourselves gods? Is David Brooks still critiquing
the president’s crease in his pants leg, or are our
historians still wedded to the idea that Obama is a ‘god’
and the smartest man to have entered the presidency?
Ramming down Obamacare by lying about its provisions
did what exactly, and for whom? Did untruth ensure that a
simple Affordable Care Act website would work? What
was the wisdom or good of presidential guarantees of
reasonable premiums, deductibles, and choice to the
insured? Did it make Americans feel more secure in their
health care?

Did the sterling résumés of Jonathan Gruber* and
Ezekiel Emanuel prove to us that Obamacare was
both fair and smart?
What good did grifting for all those hundreds of millions
of dollars do for the Clintons in their sunset years? Do
they look healthier and haler for their frenzied pursuit of
lucre? Did they gain greater respect and acclaim, the
richer they became, or are they resting in peace with the
assurance of lives well lived? Are they finally deemed
successful for scamming that last $50 million in their
pay-for-play scheming? Did daily fibbing make Hillary
more virtuous? Can a Yale law graduate make a mockery
of the law in ways a tractor driver from Mendota cannot
— given the greater power to do good or evil that is a
dividend of greater education and status? Did Barack
Obama’s prize-winning Harvard professors teach him
about the constitutional limits of the presidency?
Or, instead, does moral regress sometimes come with
material and intellectual progress?
Size up the 2016 campaign, and our self-acclaimed wise
— defined by their ubiquity in the media, their glib ability
to assert that up is down, and down up, their tony school
brands — often became utterly foolish. A garish Donald
Trump did not need to hire supposedly brilliant politicos
to defeat supposedly brilliant politicos on the other side.

What good did all the Russian experts in his
administration over the last few years do for Barack
Obama? Trump is criticized now that he might be too soft
on Putin. Perhaps. Yet it was not Trump, but the Ivy
League Trinity of Obama, Clinton, and Kerry who “reset”
George W. Bush’s reset sanctions against Putin, who
canceled already-planned missile defense with the Czechs
and the Poles; it was Clinton who pushed a ridiculous
plastic reset button; and Obama who in a hot-mic quip
stealthily promised Dmitry Medvedev that he would be
more reasonable with Vladimir Putin after his reelection,
who invited the Russians into the Middle East after a
40-year hiatus, who mocked Mitt Romney when the latter
suggested that Russia was a threat to America, who loudly
announced faux “step-over” line ultimatums to the
Russians; it was Clinton who in pay-for-play greed
opened up North American uranium resources to the
Russians, and Obama who personally mocked Putin as an
adolescent school cut-up even as he appeased Putin at
every turn.
For now, Donald Trump has proved that the animal
cunning necessary to survive in the jungle of Manhattan
real estate — duplicitous and venal politicians, allpowerful
unions, incompetent and vindictive regulators,
fair-weather bankers and investors, and dozens of specialinterest
crusaders — trumps the definition of traditional
political wisdom: finding a young hip graduate from the

ight school with the right résumé to hire the right people
to run the right sort of campaign.
Trump instinctively sensed that to win, Republicans
would have to recapture the Rust Belt states, and to do
that, he would have to campaign on illegal immigration,
jobs, trade, and the economy. He sensed that populism
was a state of mind and speech, not necessarily net worth.
What good did it do for pundits to insist that a billionaire
could not appeal to the horny-handed when the billionaire
in fact talked and connected with the horny-handed? What
good did it do to deplore the loud vulgarity of Trump if
one’s own polish and sobriety could not hide the vulgarity
of the carnival grifter, glib plagiarist, and loquacious
fabulist? Is the local town paper in Wisconsin more or
less fair in its coverage than the New York Times? Did
the fact that well-spoken Fareed Zeke R snickered at the
crudity of Trump suggest that he was not himself a
Harvard-trained plagiarist?
For now, Donald Trump has proved
that the animal cunning necessary to
survive in the jungle of Manhattan real
estate trumps the definition of
traditional political wisdom.

If “Make America Great Again” is not to end up like the
banal “Hope and Change,” if the Republican Congress of
2017 is not to wither away like the Democratic Congress
of 2009, and if the glitzy promises of 2016 are not to
prove as empty as the deceptions of Obamacare, the Iran
Deal, the stimulus, and “balancing the budget,” then
Trump will have to reflect on the nature of true wisdom:
Trust instinct as much as conventional wisdom, never
forget those who you serve, remember that cheap praise is
fickle and transient and those who traffic in it disappear
in extremis, quietly do what is promised to those who
were promised it, ignore the venom of critics, and do not
gloat over successes — and move silently, quickly, and,
above all, modestly.
Do all that, and Trump would prove wiser than the more
erudite who hate him.
*Gruber was a disavowed “architect” of the
Affordable Care Act …
You Tube Rep. Trey Gowdy questions Jonathan Gruber
(C-SPAN)
to witness his comeuppance R--

Gbiota One 1 year ago
Once you know Hanson is a farmer, that is,
a person whose ideas have to produce
results (in a domain of astonishing
complexity)…the rest is pretty much a
forgone conclusion.
55
REPLY
joseph olugbami 11 months ago
I’m listening from Nigeria, Africa. I like VDH.
Cool and deep. The left is waking up the
center right out of their slumber.
241
REPLY

SIXTEEN
Is that bad?

“The world was simply and sheerly divided into 'the
aware', those who had the experience of being
vessels of the divine, and a great mass of 'the
'unaware', 'the unmusical', 'the unattuned'...the aware
were never snobbish toward the unaware, but in fact
most of that great jellyfish blob of straight souls
looked like hopeless cases”
― Tom Wolfe, “The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test”
“The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and
their only reporting experience consists of being
around political campaigns. That’s a sea change.
They literally know nothing.”
- Ben Rhodes,
- Deputy National Security Advisor to Barack
Obama
Roger Gorden@dachs_dude
Replying to @greg_price11 and @dbongino
As Scott Adams said: "It used to be that you'd read the news and
then you'd decide what to think about it. Now, you read the news
and you have to decide if it actually happened."

From the weeds to the jungle…
Detour to:
if you wish to skip what may be an uncomfortable
expedition for some.
Open minded, discerning, Adventurers:
Note the date on the article. All of this is occurring long
before Donald Trump has been elected President.
Remember – this is a Washington Post piece. The
comment section is particularly illustrative.
Of what – one cannot be entirely sure, but the contents
of the following pages are a virtual…make that a
classic study –
- if you will…
whataboutism, turnaboutism, idealism, pacifism,
pragmatism, interventionism, heroism, militarism,
revisionism, narcissism, cynicism, alcoholism,
plagiarism………….. and yes, even journalism...
all along for the ride

Obama official says he pushed a ‘narrative’ to
media to sell the Iran nuclear deal
Ben Rhodes speaks to the media during a daily White
House briefing in February. (Carolyn Kaster/AP)
By Paul Farhi
May 6, 2016
One of President Obama’s top national security advisers
led journalists to believe a misleading timeline of U.S.
negotiations with Iran over a nuclear agreement and relied
on inexperienced reporters to create an “echo chamber”
that helped sway public opinion to seal the deal, according
to a lengthy magazine profile.
Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser for
strategic communications, told the New York Times
magazine that he helped promote a “narrative” that the
administration started negotiations with Iran after the
supposedly moderate Hassan Rouhani was elected
president in 2013. In fact, the administration’s
negotiations actually began earlier, with the country’s

powerful Islamic faction, and the framework for an
agreement was hammered out before Rouhani’s election.
The distinction is important because of the perception that
Rouhani was more favorably disposed toward American
interests and more trustworthy than the hardline faction
that holds ultimate power in Iran.
On Friday, White House press secretary Josh Earnest
disputed the notion that there was anything misleading
about the administration’s advocacy of the agreement.
“I haven’t seen anybody produce any evidence that that’s
the case,” he said at his daily briefing. “I recognize there
might be some people who are disappointed that they did
not succeed in killing the Iran deal. Maybe these
unfounded claims are the result of sour grapes. The truth
is, the administration, under the direction of the president,
engaged in an aggressive campaign to make a strong case
to the American people that the international agreement to
prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon enhanced
the national security of the United States.” House responds
to criticism of Iran deal's omotion
Rhodes, 38, said in the article that it was easy to shape a
favorable impression of the proposed agreement because
of the inexperience of many of those covering the issue.
“All these newspapers used to have foreign bureaus,” he
said. “Now they don’t. They call us to explain to them
what’s happening in Moscow and Cairo. Most of the
outlets are reporting on world events from Washington.

The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their
only reporting experience consists of being around
political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally
know nothing.”
Rhodes set up a team of staffers who were focused on
promoting the deal, which apparently included the feeding
of talking points at useful times in the news cycle to
foreign policy experts who were favorably disposed toward
it. “We created an echo chamber,” he told the magazine.
“They [the seemingly independent experts] were saying
things that validated what we had given them to say.”
The manager of the White House’s Twitter feed on Iran,
Tanya Somanader, said one reporter, Laura Rozen of
the Al-Monitor news site, became “my RSS feed. She
would just find everything and retweet it.”
*RSS is a web feed that allows users and applications to access
updates to websites in a standardized, computer-readable format.
Rozen, in an email, said she does not know Somanader
and that David Samuels, the author of the magazine piece,
did not ask her about the staffer’s claim before publishing
his story. “As I read it, [Somanader] says my Twitter feed
was a source of info for her . . . Samuels seems to
mischaracterize that to say the opposite.”
She said she has had a long interest in U.S. policy on Iran
and covered “over 20 rounds of the Iran nuclear deal
negotiations” over four years. “I do retweet lots of info,
from lots of sources” — including, she noted, the Russian
Ministry of Defense, “which I hardly expect most to take at
face value or as an endorsement.” She maintained that her

coverage of the Iran nuclear diplomacy “was certainly not
done as a favor to or in support of any administration.”
Rhodes’s assistant, Ned Price, told the newspaper that the
administration would feed “color” — background details —
to their “compadres” in the press corps, “and the next
thing I know, lots of these guys are in the dot-com
publishing space, and have huge Twitter followings, and
they’ll be putting this message out on their own.”
In the article, Rhodes speaks contemptuously of the
Washington policy and media establishment, including
The Washington Post and the New York Times, referring
to them as “the blob” that was subject to conventional
thinking about foreign policy.
“We had test drives to know who was going to be able to
carry our message effectively, and how to use outside
groups like [the anti-nuclear group] Ploughshares, the
Iran Project and whomever else. So we knew the tactics
that worked,” Rhodes says. Speaking of Republicans and
other opponents, including Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu, Rhodes adds that he knew “we
drove them crazy.”
In the piece, he also casts doubt on the moderate nature of
Iran’s regime: “I would prefer that it turns out that
Rouhani and [Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad]
Zarif are real reformers who are going to be steering this
country into the direction that I believe it can go in,
because their public is educated and, in some respects,
pro-American. But we are not betting on that.”

Rhodes’s boss, President Obama, has been a strong and
consistent advocate for the agreement with Iran, which
requires the country to curtail its nuclear program —
notably its ability to produce fissile material that could be
used in nuclear bombs — in exchange for the lifting of
economic sanctions. He reinforced the misleading
administration timeline in announcing the agreement last
July. “Today, after two years of negotiations, the United
States, together with our international partners, has
achieved something that decades of animosity has not,” he
said then.
Rhodes’s freewheeling and cynical comments reminded
several White House and national security reporters of an
infamous 2010 story in Rolling Stone magazine in which
Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander of U.S. forces in
Afghanistan, and aides mocked civilian government
officials, including Vice President Biden. McChrystal
apologized for the comments but later tendered his
resignation, which Obama accepted.
The Times article notes that Rhodes is a published shortstory
writer and aspiring novelist who is a skilled
“storyteller.”
“He is adept at constructing overarching plotlines with
heroes and villains, their conflicts supported by flurries of
carefully chosen adjectives, quotations and leaks from
named and unnamed senior officials,” Samuels wrote. “He
is the master shaper and retailer of Obama’s foreign-policy
narratives.”

575
Comments
Bill
5/17/2016 10:21 AM EDT
For whatever reason there's way too many folks, mostly reich wing
morons, who still believe it was a deal between just the United States
and Iran. The deal folks, or The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA) known commonly as the Iran deal, is an international
agreement on the nuclear program of Iran reached in Vienna in July,
2015 between Iran, the five permanent members of the United Nations
Security Council China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States
plus Germany, and the European Union.
It's no secret the reich wing has been against it from BEFORE the
negotiations even started so their latest attack is not surprising. Since
their latest "Congressional Oversight" committee investigation a la Trey
Gowdy is finally winding down after spending more than $20 million
with, again after SEVEN previous tries at the brass ring, zero results it's
simply another tail for them to chase. Watch as they fight for the lead
position - it's guaranteed to be amusing.
KH
5/10/2016 5:09 PM EDT [Edited]
Samuel's did a great job here--not so much in revealing the truth about
the Iran deal: everyone knew that--but in showing what clueless, gullible
and in-the-bag toadies the DC press are. They LOVE Obama and think
he is the greatest....and he returns that love with disgust and derision.
I got to side with Obama on this one.
LikeShare
2

sen drb
5/10/2016 1:35 PM EDT
The Obama narrative was that we could give away the nuclear store to
the Iranians because the moderates in Iran would later come around and
play nice. Iran could join the nuclear club, because moderates would
later run the country. Obama supporters used that line frequently to
justify Obama's bad deal, as did the administration. Turns out Obama
was lying all along, about the moderates, to facilitate nuclear weapons
for the world's greatest supporter of terror, run by hardliners. What is
wrong with this president? He favors Iran's radical Islamic terror regime
over U.S. interests, and has basically schemed so that Iran can be a
nuclear power. Is Obama evil, stupid, or just wildly anti-American and
anti-Israel? Is he drunk on his anti-neo colonialist ideology, or just a
fool? These are the only questions left to ask regarding this man.
K Rttr
5/9/2016 11:50 AM EDT
So now we have admission of the manipulation of useful idiots to further
a horrendous plan. Yet Obama feels the need to scold the press for not
reporting Trump "correctly" in his estimation. Please Mr. President. Tell
us all how you would like the media to characterize Mr. Trump? As a
dangerous narcissist who will stop at nothing to push his agenda? They
never said that about you, why would they say it about Trump?
wonderYrednow
5/9/2016 7:14 PM EDT
This compared to the previous FAILED Administration using the pliant
Press Corps to lie the Nation into TWO UNFUNDED Wars in Error in
the Muddled Waste....
K Rttr
5/10/2016 7:43 AM EDT
Yes, and how does that relate to this story? We hate Bush, We hate
Obama. Obama and Bush both hate Trump. WINNER!!!

Bill
5/17/2016 10:24 AM EDT
LOL, because K, it was not and is not true about Obama. We've not had
any more 9-11 style attacks but under Trumpy we'd more likely be
staring into the face of widespread nuclear proliferation with the spectre
of nuclear holocaust in our futures.
Zbgln
5/8/2016 10:43 PM EDT
The GOP threw down on Obama. Look at them now. The GOP's
strategy of obstructionism backfired. Idiots. Obama's legacy will include
imploding the GOP as a major contribution to National security.
K Rttr
5/9/2016 11:44 AM EDT
Obstruction? Ha! These repubs were nothing more than skid greasers.
What world are you living in?
Bill
5/17/2016 10:26 AM EDT
Unlike you K, we're living in the REAL world rather than the reich wing
world of fantasy and obsessive obstructionism.
Joe
5/8/2016 7:12 PM EDT
Ben Rhodes existence is unassailable proof that liberals are consummate
morons.
mike
5/8/2016 2:17 PM EDT
So what’s new here? Creating and exploiting compliant media echo
chambers has been a staple of politics, government and business for
ever. Bush did it for the Iraq war... Nixon and McCarthy did it...
Wikileaks and Snowden managed to do it and Trump and Fox news are
doing it. AIPAC and Bibi and Rubin do it continuously.

What
the
significance
of
Rhodes
boasting
is
or
what
he
hopes
to
achieve
by
it
I
don't
know,
but
it
isn't
going
to
alter
the
real
significance
of
the
Iran
nuclear
accomplishment.
LikeShare
2
bloggod
5/8/2016 2:13 PM EDT
“We
had
test-drives
to
know
who
was
going
to
be
able
to
carry
our
message
effectively,
and
how
to
use
outside
groups
"
"seeking
team
players"
is
the
euphemism
normally
employed....
bloggod
5/8/2016 2:03 PM EDT
"The
average
reporter
we
talk
to
is
27
years
old,
and
their
only
reporting
experience
consists
of
being
around
political
campaigns.
That’s
a
sea
change.
They
literally
know
nothing.”
ThraceThrice
5/8/2016 12:43 PM EDT
Of
course
the White
House
lied.
Their
lips
were moving.
They
lied
to
a
willing media
that
repeated
it
because
they
wanted
to
believe,
they
had
to
believe,
that
they
had
not
sold
their
souls
to
a
corrupt,
unwise,
legacyobsessed
president
(they
still
don't
want
to
believe
it,
by
the
way.)
The
White
House
is
always
about
spin,
always
about
the
latest
polls,
always
about
"the message"
on
Sunday
chat
shows,
always
about
appearance
being more
important
than
reality
(which
is
why
we
don't
hear more
about
the
hundreds
of
thousands
of
dead,
whose
blood
is
on
our
hands,
for
instance.)
wonderYrednow
5/9/2016 7:18 PM EDT
Obama
Derangement
Syndrome
is
a
treatable
disease.

SnnHckr
5/8/2016 2:22 AM EDT
typical repub drivel. take something completely innocent and turn it into
something evil
cloudshe
5/8/2016 7:13 AM EDT
why do you assume that there's something completely innocent about the
way Rhodes has been manipulating the press? oh I get it, another rightwing
conspiracy, Obama is the best president of our time and Hillary is a
lovely person who would never lie under oath. pls get a brain
mike
5/8/2016 2:33 PM EDT
The press can be too easily manipulated a lot of the time. That, however,
does not equate with being lied to. But if you insist it does, then you
should look into things like the Pentagon Papers, The Iraq War, the
McCarthy Hearings, and the Snowden leaks. And you are right, Obama
has been a good president in very trying times and Clinton has shown
some admirable, “lovely" qualities in difficult circumstances when
attacked by some very unlovely people in a nasty and dishonest manner.
Like
wonderYrednow
5/9/2016 7:19 PM EDT
Umm...perhaps because it has been a method of choice for 228, err....240
years.
Like
FordPrefect17
5/7/2016 10:23 PM EDT
Rhodes might want to wait for some signs of success before he tells
everyone how smart he is. I get why President Obama pushed the deal -
it's all consistent with his world view - however, I'm still curious what
they intend to say when Iran disappoints them, which they obviously
will. At that point, will we learn that President Obama actually wants

Iran to have a nuclear
Middle East?
weapon in order
to keep the
U.S. out of
the
MrFns
5/7/2016 6:02 PM EDT
Obama and his ministers of propaganda spin out lies to push his
progressive agenda. This progressive movement is doomed to fail
because it is built upon lies. The Iran deal cannot be good for America
predicated on lies.
if
YourWorstNightmar
5/7/2016 7:00 PM EDT
They're only lies because the dimwits opposing the treaty have no clue
on why they oppose it. If Obama did it, then it must be bad. Admit you
know nothing about the treaty.
columbiack
5/7/2016 7:55 PM EDT
Your ability to twist the truth is awe inspiring.
you a raise. Worst nightmare. Guffaw.
Your masters
should give
YourWorstNightmar
5/7/2016 7:04 PM EDT
Someone tell me why this is any different than when George
Washington's administration was in power. Reporters can't be expected
to know the ins and outs of complex treaties such as the Iran deal. Who
would expect that?
columbiack
5/7/2016 7:51 PM EDT
Well, to begin with, in the late 1700’s we had no Press Corps as we
know it today. The press was even more dishonest and partisan than they
are now. Second, Washington was highly against factionalism and all
that it involves, which includes this sort of shenanigans.

Third, Washington's sense of honor was light years ahead of the morally
unmoored, self-righteous lot we have today. Fourth, there was no mass
communication process as we know it now to support this sort of little
junket. I could go on, but the disingenuousness of your comment bores
me.
Spacer
5/7/2016 5:45 PM EDT
Rhodes may have been doing too much bragging about how he handled
the press, but the main thing that the WaPo and NY Times are outraged
about is that Obama "lied" us into peace. They were much more willing
to be lied into the Iraq war.
larry
5/7/2016 6:51 PM EDT
Nice spin, you epitomize the target audience for the Obama
administration...
Like
Spacer
5/7/2016 6:56 PM EDT
You epitomize Donald Trump's gullible target audience.
cloudshe
5/8/2016 7:20 AM EDT
just like Obama "lied" us into the "won't cost you a dime" Affordable
Care Act?
brupalf
5/7/2016 2:35 PM EDT
Ben Rhodes, the Jonathan Gruber of foreign policy. An administration
relying on cynical liars to accomplish "change". I'm amazed that this
president still has supporters.

INDY67
5/7/2016 2:40 PM EDT
The
only
thing
that
Obama's
supporters
want
is
"free"
everything.
The
truth
is
not
important.
Typical
Chicago-Style
politics
except
that
Obama
should
be
criminally
charged
on
the
Iran
deal,
Obamacare
and
the
rest.
It’s
amazing
that
the media
gives
him
such
a
free
pass...
oh,
it’s
because
they
help
elect
the
guy.
Meri
5/7/2016 1:13 PM EDT
[Edited]
I'm
only
half
way
through,
but
that
NYT
piece
is
fascinating.
However,
it's
so
unlike
the
summary
presented
here,
I
have
to
wonder
what
the
heck
this
writer
was
thinking.
Here's
the
section
on
Rhodes'
disdain
for
the
NYT
and
the Wash
Post:
One
result
of
this
experience
was
that
when
Rhodes
joined
the
Obama
campaign
in
2007,
he
arguably
knew
more
about
the
Iraq
war
than
the
candidate
himself,
or
any
of
his
advisers.
He
had
also
developed
a
healthy
contempt
for
the
American
foreign-policy
establishment,
including
editors
and
reporters
at
The
New
York
Times,
The Washington
Post,
The
New
Yorker
and
elsewhere,
who
at
first
applauded
the
Iraq
war
and
then
sought
to
pin
all
the
blame
on
Bush
and
his
merry
band
of
neocons
when
it
quickly
turned
sour.
Meri
5/7/2016 1:18 PM EDT
[Edited]
The
central
theme
of
the
piece
is
that
Rhodes
is
brilliant
at
conveying
other
people's
true
thoughts more
clearly
than
they
could
themselves.
He
started
out
as
an
aspiring
fiction
writer,
but
changed
course
when
he
saw
one
of
the World
Trade
Towers
come
down
on
9/11.
He
is
presented
as
having
virtually
no
personal
ego.
Apparently,
he
spends many
hours
each
day
talking
with
Obama
and
is
thus
able
to
convey
exactly
what
the
President
thinks
on
foreign
policy.

The notion of him having a "mind-meld" with Obama is used regularly
by other WH staff.
Meri
5/7/2016 1:25 PM EDT [Edited]
Well, wpid, I hate to disappoint, Here is the full paragraph that led to the
article above:
The job he was hired to do, namely to help the president of the United
States communicate with the public, was changing in equally significant
ways, thanks to the impact of digital technologies that people in
Washington were just beginning to wrap their minds around. It is hard
for many to absorb the true magnitude of the change in the news
business — 40 percent of newspaper-industry professionals have lost
their jobs over the past decade — in part because readers can absorb all
the news they want from social-media platforms like Facebook, which
are valued in the tens and hundreds of billions of dollars and pay nothing
for the “content” they provide to their readers. You have to have skin in
the game — to be in the news business, or depend in a life-or-death way
on its products — to understand the radical and qualitative ways in
which words that appear in familiar typefaces have changed. Rhodes
singled out a key example to me one day, laced with the brutal contempt
that is a hallmark of his private utterances. “All these newspapers used
to have foreign bureaus,” he said. “Now they don’t. They call us to
explain to them what’s happening in Moscow and Cairo. Most of the
outlets are reporting on world events from Washington.
The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting
experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea
change. They literally know nothing.”
Meri
5/7/2016 1:55 PM EDT
It's a great feature article, don't you think? Full of lines like the one you
chose -- some of which give you faith in Obama's WH and others that

suggest these guys delude themselves by thinking they are any different
from any other WH or the foreign policy establishment.
Spacer
5/7/2016 4:48 PM EDT
Sounds like the WaPo just published two articles on this non-story
because the WaPo neocons are resentful about the successful conclusion
of the Iran negotiations. They were SO hoping for a brand new war.
Like
INDY67
5/7/2016 4:55 PM EDT
You need a reality check. The Iran deal is bogus and most know it’s bad
except you and Obamanites.
Spacer
5/7/2016 5:10 PM EDT
You're engaging in revisionist history. The WaPo editorial after the Iran
deal was concluded did a lot of hand-wringing about how risky the deal
was. Their support for the deal was nothing like their eager endorsement
for the Iraq war, which they WERE misled into supporting.
Crickey
5/7/2016 12:56 PM EDT
So, should Roosevelt have done nothing deceitful
Germany defeating Britain?
even
if
the
cost
was
haunches
5/7/2016 1:05 PM EDT
Deceiving enemies, as in Roosevelt's case and especially with the threat
of Nazism looming, is one thing. Deceiving the American public to
support bad policy is quite something else.
If you really believe false narratives and deception are okay
helps the politicians you like, you are part of the problem.
as long as it

Crickey
5/7/2016 12:29 PM EDT
Lincoln's dealings with the Confederate "peace delegation" were a
masterpiece of deception. Every administration in history practices it at
some time or another. Looking at this one, the degree of deception was
objectively puny and the benefits to the US and the world, enormous.
Get over your fake indignation.
ZenMan1
5/7/2016 12:26 PM EDT
All administrations manipulate the press to their own advantage -- look
at Cheney outing Valerie Plame, and the "weapons of mass destruction"
story line in the run up to the Iraq war. Reporters must rely on "sources"
and the sources always have an agenda.
The fact that many reporters are so young and inexperienced accounts
for some of the ridiculous reporting of the 2016 election. It's also a
problem that most "journalists" are what IQ testers used to call "bright
normals." (Google IQs of Professionals) The "bright normal" person is
curious about the world and is a collector or "facts" and tidbits of
"information." However, like "normals" (who are not particularly
curious), they tend to rely on the opinions of their peers for what they
believe -- Truth is the consensus opinion of their friends.
Journalists are the "Huffington Post" of the intelligentsia for the most
part. They aren't smart enough (and are too busy) to really understand
the world they are reporting on, so they rely on reporting "both sides"
even handedly without having the smarts or perseverance to cut through
to what's really going on. So, Trump and Sanders are both "populists,"
and Hillary is a "liar" because a generation of Republican spin doctors
has been smearing her and there must be some truth to what they're
saying, right? "Bright normals" are often cynical but seldom insightful.

ITBFAN
5/7/2016 12:10 PM EDT
Rhodes and Gruber expose, glaringly by their own words, the contempt
of this administration for the truth and the American people. Should I
mention Susan Rice and the infamous video? The media fawn over this
idiot and, in turn, Obama makes them appears as fools...which they are.
wemillerii
5/7/2016 12:08 PM EDT
The irrepressible disingenuous and arrogance of Obama, Rhodes, and
Earnest is apparent to almost everyone except the lapdog press who
cover politics.
beansforbob
5/7/2016 10:57 AM EDT
The interesting thing about Rhodes's approach is the use of the
technology, that employed by comparative neophytes in the news
business, to accomplish injecting the WH's narrative into the
mainstream. Contrast this with the Cheney-Libby approach targeting
well-known and highly respected media figures (Russert, Mitchell,
Miller) into the narrative, a much more personal contact and subterfuge.
Crickey
5/7/2016 10:49 AM EDT
This is a petty personal feud between a jerkish staffer and some jerkish
reporters using their platform at the Post for some payback.
Embarrassing to watch. Grow up, dudes.
diogenes_jr
5/7/2016 10:49 AM EDT
Stenographers do not need
the 1st Amendment

Steve401
5/7/2016 10:47 AM EDT
So what Rhodes is essentially admitting, with a sense of glowing pride
no less, is to facilitate the goal of deceiving the American public. The
Obama administration relied heavily on the ignorance of young,
inexperienced journalists. The Gruber model is obviously a valuable tool
for Obama. This lends credence to Rush Limbaugh's oft repeated
assertion "The State-run media." There is a price to pay for this
incompetence, evidenced by dwindling reliance in traditional media for
the truth. People are literally refusing to buy blatantly biased
propaganda. So how will these reporters and the American media as an
institution react to the realization that a glib party apparatchik played
them for a bunch of fools?
Go back and read all of Meri’s posts… This is the danger with “pull
quotes.” There is a cautionary remark about pull quotes and ellipses in the
recesses of my brain somewhere that I could not yank out…The closest
approximation I could find was a random online observation stating that
“ellipses are the sluts of punctuation” (posted by a girl, BTW ). Analyze that
for a bit. I labored over pull quotes – grappled with context, potential
altered meanings - throughout this entire compilation. When I did slice text,
it wasn’t thoughtlessly or inadvertently.
In the big picture, I’m after, well … a big picture. An evocative wide-angle
aerial shot by an alien photographer with an antenna… “How do you folks
disseminate ideas and information; is it fair, is it accurate, is it stacked; how
do the recipients perceive the messages, what’s the damage, where are you
going from here, is humility involved at all? …self-awareness?... and does
any of it actually matter anymore…” It’s a different game here.
So this section isn’t about cheering that “your side” was right, victorious,
vindicated, etc, etc. Go back and look at the layers here. Starting with my
pull quote.
R-

“… I have long held that we need to redefine “smart” in
this country. Because there are a lot of stupid people who
do a lot of dangerous and dumb things. And they are considered
the smartest people in the world. Example number one is Hillary
Clinton. Example number two is Barack Hussein Obama.
Let me give you a side-by-side, A-B comparison to give you an
idea what I mean. One president breaks laws to get billions of
dollars flown illegally, pallets of cash into the hands of the people
who run the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, Iran,
and they export it. And this president does everything he can to
get them hundreds of millions of dollars in cash. This same
country to whom we gave this cash is committed to creating a
nuclear arsenal delivered by ICBMs, all of which are known to be
under development because this president enabled them to move
forward on their research.
The other president is working to stop all of this. The other
president is working to unwind this insane deal and do what he
can to prevent this state sponsor of terrorism from getting nuclear
weapons. Now, who’s the smart one and who’s the dumb one? Is
what Barack Hussein Obama did smart? No! It’s stupid! It’s
dangerous, and it’s idiotic. And the people around Obama should
have been petrified when he was doing this. The only problem is
they all think alike. They all act alike, and they all believe alike.
They’re so stupid and shortsighted they think the United States of
America is the problem. It’s unfair that the United States has such
an advantage. It’s only fair that the Iranians get nuclear weapons.
Nobody told us we couldn’t have them. Who are we to say they
can’t? That’s stupid! But the guy trying to prevent that from
happening is now said to be insane and unfit for office.

One president went out there and literally seized
one-sixth of the U.S. economy and lied to the
American people in doing it. He promised the
American people that if we would just entrust our
health care to him, somebody who doesn’t know
anything about it beyond being a theoretician in
the academic lounge. Somebody who’s never run a
hospital, who’s never talked to anybody who’s run a
hospital, who’s never had the slightest interest in
running a hospital took over one-sixth of the U.S.
economy along with the rest of his party, lied to the
American people to do it, claiming that if you like
your doctor, you can keep your doctor, and if you
like your insurance plan, you can keep that.
None of that was true. The American people were lied to 21 times
on this alone. One-sixth of the American economy seized by the
federal government, and the whole thing, Obamacare, led to an
implosion of the American health care system, which was by
design. Because this president wanted it to implode so the
government could take over all of it. The other president is doing
everything he can to unwind that and deregulate as much of the
Obama health care takeover as he can.

Who’s the smart one, who’s the dumb one? Who’s the dangerous
one, who’s the sane one? Who’s the man with whom we are in
better hands here? One president slow-walks and handcuffs the
military with stupid, dangerous rules of engagement preventing
our military from defending themselves or acting aggressively and
firing on bad guys. This allows ISIS to grow and expand while we
sit around and do nothing about it and basically say, “Well, who
are we to say they shouldn’t expand? Who are we to say?
Nobody told us we shouldn’t.”
ISIS, a brutally inhumane, militaristic gang which one president
said, “We’re doing everything we can. There’s not much we can
do. Get used to it. They’re here.” Destabilizing the Middle East,
destabilizing a victory in Iraq, leading to terror attacks around the
world.
The other president has systematically wiped out this
organization in under a year. Who is the smart one and who’s the
stupid one? Who’s the dangerous one and with whom are we in
safer hands?
One president spies on his political opponents. One president
knowingly takes opposition research from the presidential
candidate of his party, knowingly allows it to be used as legitimate
intelligence, when it’s lies and made-up BS, allows his Justice
Department to get a FISA warrant to surveil and spy on the
presidential candidate of the opposite party. The other president,
in the midst of an entire effort by all of
Washington to destroy him with this phony
dossier, exposes this.

Who is it that’s unraveling? Was it the Obama team? Was it the
Hillary team? Was it the Democrat Party? Is it the Washington
establishment unraveling, or is it Donald Trump perhaps getting
rid of the filth and the dirt and giving this country a working
chance again?
One president micromanages the economy into the ground and
tells the American people that our better days are behind us. He
says the great days of America’s past were not really legitimate.
They were built on phony policies, trickle-down economics from
the Reagans. We stole resources from other nations around the
world.
Our superpower status was not deserved. We now must manage
the decline. And I, Barack Hussein Obama, am the smartest guy
in the world to manage the decline of the United States and its
economy.
His replacement liberates the economy, unleashes the United
States economy to the point in under a year it is growing at twice
the rate it ever grew under Barack Obama. And yet we’re told
Obama’s brilliant, he’s so smart, we can’t even stay in the same
room with him. He’s so brilliant, we can’t keep up with the guy.
He’s so brilliant, all we can do is bow at his feet and try not to be
blinded by the light reflecting off him. Donald Trump is silly. He’s
insane. He’s obsessed. His unfit. We need psychiatrists
examining him. We need the
25th Amendment.

Who’s the nutcase, who’s the dangerous one, and who is, in
under a year, unraveling all of the mistakes borne of the either
poor ideology or just blatant stupidity of the previous
administration? We need to redefine smart, ’cause I’m gonna tell
you, it isn’t Barack Obama, and it certainly isn’t Hillary Clinton,
and it isn’t Bill Clinton. But the Washington establishment thinks it
is. The Washington establishment thinks intelligence is defined by
where you come from, what university, what professors you knew,
what degrees you have in common.
They’re incapable of understanding anybody not of
their world. Their arrogance and condescension
means that they make no effort to understand. They
simply rely on the fact that they are better than
everyone else and whoever doesn’t meet up is not
just wrong, but is sick. We have never had a more
spoiled bunch of arrogant snobs claiming to know
everything in such a fit of panic.
Many of the so-called conservative egghead
intellectuals are witnessing things that all they’ve
ever done is talk about. They get together in the
editor’s room, they get together in the faculty lounge,
they get together at the club, they get together on
Twitter — wherever they go — and they theorize
back and forth, and they rip to shreds anybody that
doesn’t get them. But that’s all they do is theorize.

They ask people to donate money so they can continue to
theorize. When it comes to implementing anything, don’t look to
them. They don’t think it’s possible. All good things remain
theoretical, “Because liberalism dominates, and there’s no way
we’re ever gonna beat it back. We just have to find our way in it
and try to live the best we can.” Somebody comes along and
doesn’t like the status quo and starts working overtime to banish,
to repair, to fix — and abject panic sets in!
And then when this new arrival actually begins to succeed, why, real
panic sets in! “This cannot be allowed. We cannot permit what we
theorized to actually happen when we aren’t responsible for it. This
guy’s gotta be stopped. This guy’s… He’s not fit to be implementing
our ideas. This guy’s insane. This guy’s stupid. This guy’s a
moron. This guy’s a child.” This guy is the only guy that’s gotten
anything done in I don’t know how many years you want to count. So
who’s smart, who is that moronic; who’s dangerous, who poses
threats; who’s worth it, and who’s worthless?”
January 2018, commentary in the wake of “Fire & Fury”,
another in an endless string of transparent & ultimately discredited hitjobs…
even MSNBC co-host Mika Brzezinski, of all people, scoffed at the
veracity of some of the wild allegations, liberally dished across 336 tedious
pages. Over-the-top sensationalism & outright fabrication (from an expert
at both) soon cast doubt on the integrity of this supposed “inside story”,
though not before it was lapped up by the media and “Orange Man Bad”
zealots far and wide. Some speculate that Trump’s ensuing immigration
round-table with key Congressional leaders & policy advocates – in full view
of traditionally excluded press & camera crews - was a counter-punch, as the
calm, confident, reasonable, empathetic conductor of the proceedings was
broadcast farther & wider by a mostly intrigued / astonished MSM
_________________________________________________________ R-

…told anonymous sources that they contained stunning revelations about the Trump
administration which could mark a crucial juncture of a defining event when those
stunning revelations come to light and are revealed to be truly stunning. The New
York Times, a former newspaper, declared “Bombshell’s” stunning revelations to be
a stunning bombshell and denounced Trump in what was either a front page news
story or an editorial on the Op-Ed page depending on which way you're holding the
paper.
The paper declared that this could definitely be the beginning of the end of the
beginning of the end of the beginning.
President Trump could not be reached for comment because he was busy bringing
peace to the Middle East.
“I'm going to be talking about The Middle East Peace Deal
today, which is important not just because of what it might
accomplish over the long run, but because it upends the
conventional wisdom about the region, and reverses the
ideas put forward by Barack Obama, whom as you know, the media
adored. Any honest observer would look at that and learn something.
They'd learn a lot about conventional wisdom, about Barack Obama,
about the media, and about Donald Trump.
A lot of my listeners get annoyed with me when I talk about things I
don't like about Donald Trump -- like his rudeness and his
bludgeoning unkindness in a fight. But I've always said that these are
tragic aspects of his personality, because on the one hand they make it
harder for him to get reelected, but on the other hand, they are
necessary for him to get things done in a Washington, DC that has
gone completely off the founding rails.
In an empire of lies, only a crazy man will tell the truth.
Trump is that man…”
- Andrew Klavan,
September 16, 2020

People criticize what they fail
to understand.
- Jimmy Page

Where do I go to get my reputation back

Like many others, I initially did not take
Donald Trump's candidacy seriously. I
dismissed him as a "carnival barker" in my
Salon column and assumed his entire political operation
was a publicity stunt that he would soon tire of. However,
Trump steadily gained momentum because of the startling
incompetence and mediocrity of his GOP opponents.
What seems forgotten is that everyone, including the
Hillary Clinton campaign, thought that Marco Rubio
would be the Republican nominee. The moment was ideal
for a Latino candidate with national appeal who could
challenge the Democratic hold on Florida.
Thus Rubio's primary-run flame-out was a spectacular
embarrassment. Under TV's unsparing camera eye, he
looked like a shallow, dithery adolescent, utterly
unprepared to be commander-in-chief in an era of
terrorism. Trump's frankly arrogant self-confidence
spooked and crushed Rubio—it was a total fiasco. Ben
Carson, meanwhile, with his professorial deep-think and
spiritualistic eye-closing, often seemed to be beaming
himself to another galaxy. With every debate, Ted Cruz,
despite his avid national following, accumulated more and
more detractors, repelled by his brittle self-dramatizations
and lugubrious megalomania.

There were two genial, moderate Mid-Western governors
who could have wrested the nomination from Trump and
performed strongly versus Hillary in the general—Ohio's
John Kasich and Wisconsin's Scott Walker. But they blew
it because of their personal limitations: On television,
Kasich came across as a clumsy, lumbering blowhard
while Walker shrank into a nervous, timid mouse with a
frozen Pee-wee Herman smile.
The point here is that Donald Trump won the nomination
fair and square against a host of serious, experienced
opponents who simply failed to connect with a majority
of GOP primary voters. However, there were too many
unknowns about Trump, who had never held elective
office and whose randy history in the shadowy
demimonde of casinos and beauty pageants laid him open
to a cascade of feverish accusations and innuendos from
the ever-churning gnomes of the cash-propelled Clinton
propaganda machine. In actuality, the sexism allegations
about Trump were relatively few and minor, compared to
the long list of lurid claims about the predatory Bill
Clinton.

My position continues to be that Hillary, with her
supercilious, Marie Antoinette-style entitlement, was a
disastrously wrong candidate for 2016 and that she
secured the nomination only through overt chicanery by
the Democratic National Committee, assisted by a corrupt
national media who, for over a year, imposed a virtual
blackout on potential primary rivals. Bernie Sanders had
the populist passion, economic message, government
record, and personal warmth to counter Trump. It was
Sanders, for example, who addressed the crisis of
crippling student debt, an issue that other candidates
(including Hillary) then took up. Despite his history of
embarrassing gaffes, the affable, plain-spoken Joe Biden,
in my view, could also have defeated Trump, but he was
blocked from running at literally the last moment by
President Barack Obama, for reasons that the major media
refused to explore.
After Trump's victory (for which there were abundant
signs in the preceding months), both the Democratic party
and the big-city media urgently needed to do a scathingly
honest self-analysis, because the election results plainly
demonstrated that Trump was speaking to vital concerns
(jobs, immigration, and terrorism among them) for which
the Democrats had few concrete solutions.

Indeed, throughout the campaign, too many leading
Democratic politicians were preoccupied with domestic
issues and acted strangely uninterested in international
affairs. Among the electorate, the most fervid Hillary
acolytes (especially young and middle-aged women and
assorted show biz celebs) seemed obtusely indifferent to
her tepid performance as Secretary of State, during which
she doggedly piled up air miles while accomplishing
virtually nothing except the destabilization of North
Africa.
Had Hillary won, everyone would have expected
disappointed Trump voters to show a modicum of respect
for the electoral results as well as for the historic
ceremony of the inauguration, during which former
combatants momentarily unite to pay homage to the
peaceful transition of power in our democracy. But that
was not the reaction of a vast cadre of Democrats
shocked by Trump's win. In an abject failure of leadership
that may be one of the most disgraceful episodes in the
history of the modern Democratic party, Chuck Schumer,
who had risen to become the Senate Democratic leader
after the retirement of Harry Reid, asserted absolutely no
moral authority as the party spun out of control in a
nationwide orgy of rage and spite.

Nor were there statesmanlike words of caution and
restraint from two seasoned politicians whom I have
admired for decades and believe should have run for
president long ago—Senator Dianne Feinstein and
Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi. How do Democrats
imagine they can ever expand their electoral support if
they go on and on in this self-destructive way, impugning
half the nation as vile racists and homophobes?
All of which brings us to the issue of Trump's
performance to date. The initial conundrum was: could he
shift from being the slashing, caustic ex-reality show star
of the campaign to a more measured, presidential
persona? Perhaps to the dismay of his diehard critics,
Trump did indeed make that transition at the Capitol on
inauguration morning, when he appeared grave and
focused, palpably conveying a sense of the awesome
burdens of the highest office. As for his particular actions
as president, I am no fan of executive orders, which usurp
congressional prerogatives and which I was already
denouncing when Obama was constantly signing them
(with very little protest, one might add, from the
mainstream media).

Trump's "travel ban" executive order in late January was
obviously bungled—issued way too fast and with
woefully insufficient research (pertaining, for example, to
green-card holders, who should have been exempted from
the start). The administration bears full responsibility for
fanning the flames of an already aroused "Resistance."
However, I fail to see the "chaos" in the White House that
the mainstream media (as well as conservative Never
Trumpers) keep harping on—or rather, I see no more
chaos than was abundantly present during the first six
months of both the Clinton and Obama administrations.
Trump seems to be methodically trying to fulfill his
campaign promises, notably regarding the economy and
deregulation—the approaches to which will always be
contested in our two-party system. His progress has thus
far been in stops and starts, partly because of the
passivity, and sometimes petulance, of the mundane GOP
leadership.
There seems to be a huge conceptual gap between
Trump and his most implacable critics on the left.
Many highly educated, upper-middle-class Democrats
regard themselves as exemplars of "compassion"
(which they have elevated into a supreme political
principle) and yet they routinely assail Trump voters

as ignorant, callous hate-mongers. These elite
Democrats occupy an amorphous meta-realm of
subjective emotion, theoretical abstractions, and
refined language. But Trump is by trade a builder who
deals in the tangible, obdurate, objective world of
physical materials, geometry, and construction
projects, where communication often reverts to the
brusque, coarse, high-impact level of pre-modern
working-class life, whose daily locus was the barnyard.
It's no accident that bourgeois Victorians of the industrial
era tried to purge "barnyard language" out of English.
Last week, that conceptual gap was on prominent display,
as the media, consumed with their preposterous Russian
fantasies, were fixated on former FBI director James
Comey's maudlin testimony before the Senate Intelligence
Committee. (Comey is an effete charlatan who should
have been fired within 48 hours of either Hillary or
Trump taking office.) Meanwhile, Trump was going
about his business. The following morning, he made
remarks at the Department of Transportation about
"regulatory relief," excerpts of which I happened to hear
on my car radio that afternoon. His words about iron,
aluminum, and steel seemed to cut like a knife through
the airwaves.

I later found the entire text on the White
House website. Some key passages:
‘ We are here today to focus on solving one of the
biggest obstacles to creating this new and desperately
needed infrastructure, and that is the painfully slow,
costly, and time-consuming process of getting permits
and approvals to build. And I also knew that
from the private sector. It is a long, slow,
unnecessarily burdensome process. My
administration is committed to ending these
terrible delays, once and for all. The
excruciating wait time for permitting has
inflicted enormous financial pain to cities and
states all throughout our nation and has
blocked many important projects from ever
getting off the ground…’
For too long, America has poured trillions and trillions of
dollars into rebuilding foreign countries while allowing
our own country — the country that we love — and its
infrastructure to fall into a state of total disrepair.

We have structurally deficient bridges, clogged
roads, crumbling dams and locks. Our rivers
are in trouble. Our railways are aging. And
chronic traffic that slows commerce and
diminishes our citizens' quality of life.
Other than that, we're doing very well. Instead
of rebuilding our country, Washington has
spent decades building a dense thicket of rules,
regulations and red tape. It took only four
years to build the Golden Gate Bridge and five
years to build the Hoover Dam and less than
one year to build the Empire State Building.
People don't believe that. It took less than one
year. But today, it can take 10 years and far more
than that just to get the approvals and permits
needed to build a major infrastructure project.
These charts beside me are actually a simplified
version of our highway permitting process. It
includes 16 different approvals involving 10
different federal agencies being governed by 26
different statutes.

As one example — and this happened just 30 minutes
ago — I was sitting with a great group of people
responsible for their state's economic development
and roadways. All of you are in the room now.
“One gentleman from Maryland was talking
about an 18-mile road. And he brought with
him some of the approvals that they've
gotten and paid for. They spent $29 million
for an environmental report, weighing 70
pounds and costing $24,000 per page…
I was not elected to continue a
failed system. I was elected to
change it.”
“All of us in government service were elected to
solve the problems that have plagued our nation.
We are here to think big, to act boldly, and to rise
above the petty partisan squabbling of
Washington D.C. We are here to take action. It's
time to start building in our country, with
American workers and with American iron and
aluminum and steel.”

“It's time to put up soaring new infrastructure that
inspires pride in our people and our towns.
No longer can we allow these rules and regulations
to tie down our economy, chain up our prosperity,
and sap our great American spirit. That is why we
will lift these restrictions and unleash the full
potential of the United States of America. We will
get rid of the redundancy and duplication that
wastes your time and your money. Our goal is to
give you one point of contact to deliver one
decision—yes or no—for the entire federal
government, and to deliver that decision quickly,
whether it's a road, whether it's a highway, a
bridge, a dam.”
To do this, we are setting up a new council to help
project managers navigate the bureaucratic maze.
This council will also improve transparency by
creating a new online dashboard allowing everyone
to easily track major projects through every stage of
the approval process. This council will make sure
that every federal agency that is consistently
delaying projects by missing deadlines will face
tough, new penalties…

“Together, we will build projects to inspire our
youth, employ our workers, and create true
prosperity for our people. We will pour new
concrete, lay new brick, and watch new sparks
light our factories as we forge metal from the
furnaces of our Rust Belt and our beloved
heartland—which has been forgotten. It's not
forgotten anymore.
We will put new American steel into the spine
of our country. American workers will
construct gleaming new lanes of commerce
across our landscape. They will build these
monuments from coast to coast, and from city
to city. And with these new roads, bridges,
airports and seaports, we will embark on a
wonderful new journey into a bright and
glorious future.
We will build again. We will grow again. We
will thrive again. And we will make America
great again.”

Of course, this rousing speech (with its can-do World
War Two spirit) got scant coverage in the
mainstream media. Drunk with words, spin, and
snark, middle-class journalists can't be bothered to
notice the complex physical constructions that make
modern civilization possible. The laborers who build
and maintain these marvels are recognized only if
they can be shoehorned into victim status. But if they
dare to think for themselves and vote differently
from their liberal overlords, they are branded as
rubes and pariahs.
In summary: to have any hope of retaking the White
House, Democrats must get off their high horse, lose the
rabid rhetoric, and reorient themselves toward practical
reality and the free country they are damned lucky to live
in.
_______________________________________________________
113. Feb. 26, 2020
Amid the coronavirus outbreak, multiple media
outlets imply or state that President Trump slashed, cut or gutted
the budget for the Centers for Disease Control. In fact, the CDC
budget has increased each year.

SEVENTEEN
I turned it off
before it ruined
my childhood

“the public’s need for this information outweighs the
ambiguity of anonymous sourcing” ...
journalistic integrity at its finest

The natural job of a child is to test the parent. This
is how a child learns right from wrong. Good
parents teach appropriate boundaries, which in
turn results in honest, well-adjusted adults.
Parents who fail at this oftentimes create neurotic
grown-ups incapable of happiness. In this respect,
governments and children are similar.
Along with access to enrichment through favors
(pay-to-play), government officials are empowered with
the authority to control others. Therefore, whether it is
a dog catcher or the American President, with their
hands on the levers of power, temptation is limitless.
And so, like children, it is only natural for politicians
and bureaucrats to test the boundaries of right and
wrong. This is where the media is supposed to act as
the parent. When a political media does its job, when
journalists hold government ethically accountable, the
result is an honest, well-adjusted government.

And while I can't speak for every locality, at the
federal level, the media is not doing its job.
Tragically, our national media now sees itself as part
of the government, and as a consequence, the media's
mission to hold institutions accountable has been
dropped entirely in favor of relentless agendapushing.
Even more insidious is the coordination.
Across a vast landscape that includes, but is not
limited to
ABCCBSNBCCNNMSNBCPBSNPRPoliticoWashington
Post LosAngelesTimes
ESPNUnivisionNewYorkTimesBostonGlobe, all the
same stories are covered in the same way (if you
disagree, watch the ABCCNNCBSNBC Sunday shows):
Central government is not suspect, it is good; Democrats
are virtuous, multiculturalism trumps e pluribus unum,
and anyone who disagrees is backwards, selfish, and
racist. The elite media has accomplished this through its
own professional blacklist.
If you are a journalist who does not subscribe to this,
you are Out, and even that is not enough. As a capital "J"
journalist or pundit (this includes most every so-called
conservative employed in the elite media), you must
prove yourself by using the approved language
("undocumented immigrant") and the approved approach
towards those who do not hold the approved opinions
(Christianity=bigotry, border security=racism, refusal to
violate your religious conscience=hate). Moreover, not
covered by this fiercely-policed clique are stories that
contradict the media's over-arching agenda. And by
"covered" I do not mean rote coverage.

One of the most dishonest tactics the media engages in
is pushing back against critics by pointing to page 11 or
a 30-second cable news segment from last Tuesday.
This, when we all know that the only thing that matters
is what the media focuses on -- The Narrative.
And here is the consequence of all this… Americans have
lost faith in something as seemingly inconsequential as a
museum, because, strictly for partisan purposes,
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was snubbed
by the Smithsonian. The taxpayer-funded museum of
our country's history has been politically weaponized.
How is this possible? Because the Smithsonian knows
the media will let them get away with it.
Imagine how much better everything would be if
taxpayer-funded institutions were held to the same
media standard as, say, Fox News or the NRA. Americans
have lost faith in, well, everything because violence
against us is now routine. How is this possible? Because
Democrats know the media will let them get away with it.
Imagine how much better everything would be if political
violence was toxified in the same way as mere words
coming from everyday Trump supporters.
We've lost faith in democracy itself because voter fraud is
now acceptable. Our own [former] president openly
encouraged it. How is this possible? Because Democrats
know the media will let them get away with it. Imagine
how much better democracy would be if every accusation
of voter fraud was treated like every accusation of
racism. The IRS persecutes us. How is this possible?

Because at first the media says it is a good thing and
then they allow Obama to say it never happened, when it
is still happening. Imagine how much better our
government would be if the media treated this behavior
as the McCarthyism we all know it is. We lost faith in the
entire federal government when we lost our insurance.
How is this possible? Because although the Affordable
Care Act clearly outlawed most existing insurance plans,
the media (especially the so-called fact-checkers) joined
in the "keep your insurance" lie to ensure their precious
Obama got a win and their precious central government
assumed more control over us rubes. And then there are
Obama's extra-legal executive actions…
Imagine if Obama was held to the same level of
accountability as George W. Bush. We've lost faith in
the rule of law because, although she set up an illegal
server in her bathroom to avoid Freedom of
Information Act requests, exposed national security
secrets to hackers and to an Internet pervert, and
repeatedly lied about it, Hillary Clinton was not
indicted. How is this possible?
Because the FBI and Department of Justice know the
national media will cover for them. Because the national
political media hates us so, American institutions -- our
own government -- are now allowed, with total impunity,
to lie to us, to cheat us, to commit violence against us, to
disenfranchise and replace us. In other words, these
institutions are now completely broken.

And if we don't sit here and take it, the political media's
cultural supremacists dehumanize us, target us, scream
"Witch!" at us -- and not only at powerful conservatives
and Republicans, but at everyday Americans just
minding their own business. It is not paranoia when
they are really out to get you.
-
[Anon.] clipped from a comment section sometime in 2016
__________________________________________
31. Nov. 6, 2017:
CNN edited a video that made it appear as though Trump impatiently dumped a
box of fish food into the water while feeding fish at Japan’s palace. The New York
Daily News, the Guardian and others wrote stories implying Trump was gauche
and impetuous. The full video showed that Trump had simply followed the lead of
Japan’s Prime Minister.

Jc Apb,
Jb Lp
Fby 11, 1815
Mku c
ucwc uc, c
c ucw uc.

THE ‘RESISTANCE' GOES LIVE-FIRE
June 14, 2017
The explosion of violence against conservatives across
the country is being intentionally ginned up by
Democrats, reporters, TV hosts, late-night comedians
and celebrities, who compete with one another to come
up with the most vile epithets for Trump and his
supporters.
They go right up to the line, trying not to cross it, by,
for example, vamping with a realistic photo of a
decapitated Trump or calling the president a "piece
of s---" while hosting a show on CNN.
The media are orchestrating a bloodless coup, but
they're perfectly content to have their low-IQ shock
troops pursue a bloody coup.
This week, one of the left's foot soldiers gunned
down Republican members of Congress and their
staff while they were playing baseball in Virginia.
Democratic Socialist James Hodgkinson was
prevented from committing a mass murder only by
the happenstance of a member of the Republican
leadership being there, along with his 24-hour
Capitol Police protection.

Remember when it was frightening for the losing
party not to accept the results of an election? During
the third debate, Trump refused to pre-emptively
agree to the election results, saying he'd "look at it at
the time."
The media responded in their usual laid-back style:
A 'HORRIFYING' REPUDIATION OF DEMOCRACY -- The
Washington Post, Oct. 20, 2016
DENIAL OF DEMOCRACY -- Daily News (New York),
Oct. 20, 2016
DANGER TO DEMOCRACY -- The Dallas Morning
News, Oct. 20, 2016
ONE SCARY MOMENT; IT ALL BOILED DOWN TO ...
DEMOCRACY -- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Oct. 21, 2016
"(Shock) spiked down the nation's spinal column last
night and today when the Republican nominee
threatened that this little election thing you got there,
this little democratic process you've got here, it's nice, it's
fine, but he doesn't necessarily plan on abiding by its
decision when it comes to the presidency." -- Rachel
Maddow, Oct. 20, 2016

"Trump's answer on accepting the outcome of the vote is
the most disgraceful statement by a presidential
candidate in 160 years." -- Bret Stephens, then-deputy
editorial page editor at The Wall Street Journal
"I guess we're all going to have to wait until Nov. 9 to
find out if we still have a country -- if Donald Trump is
in the mood for a peaceful transfer of power. Or if he's
going to wipe his fat ass with the Constitution." -- CBS's
Stephen Colbert, Oct. 19, 2016
"It's unprecedented for a nominee of a major party to
themselves signal that they would not accept -- you
know, respect the results of an election. We've never had
that happen before. ... This really presents a potentially
difficult problem for governing ..." -- MSNBC'S Joy Reid,
Oct. 22, 2016
"This is very dangerous stuff ... would seriously impair
our functioning as a democracy. ... This is about as
serious as it gets in the United States." -- CNN's Peter
Beinart, Oct. 20, 2016
"Obviously, it's despicable for him to pretend that there's
any chance that he would not accept the results of this
election; it would be -- in 240 years you've never had
anybody do it. ..." -- CNN's Van Jones, Oct. 20, 2016

Then Trump won, and these very same hysterics
refused to accept the results of the election.
Recently, Hillary announced her steadfast opposition
to the winning candidate using a military term,
saying she'd joined the "Resistance."
Imagine if Trump lost and then announced that
he'd joined the "RESISTANCE." He'd be accused of
trying to activate right-wing militias. Every
dyspeptic glance at an immigrant would be
reported as fascistic violence.
But the media seem blithely unaware that the
anti-Trump "Resistance" has been accompanied by
nonstop militaristic violence from liberals.
When Trump ripped up our Constitution and jumped
all over it by failing to concede the election three
weeks in advance, CNN ran a segment on a single
tweet from a random Trump supporter that
mentioned the Second Amendment.
Carol Costello: "Still to come in the 'Newsroom,' some
Trump supporters say they will refuse to accept a loss on
Election Day, with one offering a threat of violence.
We'll talk about that next."

In CNN's most fevered dreams about a violent
uprising of Trump supporters, they never could
have conceived of the level of actual violence being
perpetrated by Americans who refuse to accept
Trump's win. (See Hate Map.)
It began with Trump's inauguration, when a leftist
group plotted to pump a debilitating gas into one
Trump inaugural ball, military families were
assaulted upon leaving the Veterans' Inaugural Ball,
and attendees of other balls had water thrown on
them.
Since then, masked, armed liberals around the
country have formed military-style organizations to
beat up conservatives. In liberal towns, the police
are regularly ordered to stand down to allow the
assaults to proceed unimpeded.
The media only declared a crisis when conservatives
fought back, smashing the black-clad beta males.
("Battle for Berkeley!")
There is more media coverage for conservatives'
"microaggressions" toward powerful minorities -–
such as using the wrong pronoun -- than there is for
liberals' physical attacks on conservatives, including
macings, concussions and hospitalizations.

And now some nut Bernie Sanders-supporter
confirms that it's Republicans standing on a baseball
field, before opening fire.
In the media's strategic reporting of the attempted
slaughter, we were quickly told that the mass
shooter was white, male and had used a gun. We
were even told his name. (Because it was not
"Mohammed.")
But the fact that Hodgkinson's Facebook page
featured a banner of Sanders and the words
"Democratic Socialism explained in 3 words: 'We the
People' Since 1776" apparently called for hours of
meticulous fact-checking by our media.
Did reporters think they could keep that information
from us forever?
The fake news insists that Trump's White House is
in "chaos." No, the country is in chaos. But just like
Kathy Griffin and her Trump decapitation
performance art -- the perpetrators turn around in
doe-eyed innocence and blame Trump.
___________________________________________________

alida BlkBarry • 2 hours ago
Not everyone who uses the word
sheeple thinks they are smarter than
everyone else. Even an average
person can understand the danger of
being herded.

It’s 1968 all over again
Bitter political polarization is splitting the nation
Politics
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
Almost a half-century ago, in 1968, the United States seemed to
be falling apart.
The Vietnam War, a bitter and close presidential election, antiwar
protests, racial riots, political assassinations, terrorism and a
recession looming on the horizon left the country divided
between a loud radical minority and a silent conservative
majority.

The United States avoided a civil war. But America suffered a collective
psychological depression, civil unrest, defeat in Vietnam and assorted
disasters for the next decade — until the election of a once-polarizing
Ronald Reagan ushered in five consecutive presidential terms of relative
bipartisan calm and prosperity from 1981 to 2001.
It appears as if 2017 might be another 1968. Recent traumatic hurricanes
seem to reflect the country’s human turmoil.
After the polarizing Obama presidency and the contested election of
Donald Trump, the country is once again split in two.
But this time the divide is far deeper, both ideologically and
geographically — with the two liberal coasts pitted against red-state
America in between.
Century-old mute stone statues are torn down in the dead of night,
apparently on the theory that by attacking the Confederate dead, the
lives of the living might improve.
All the old standbys of American life seem to be eroding. The National
Football League is imploding as it devolves into a political circus.
Multimillionaire players refuse to stand for the national anthem, turning
off millions of fans whose former loyalties paid their salaries.
Politics — or rather a progressive hatred of the provocative Donald
Trump — permeates almost every nook and cranny of popular culture.
The new allegiance of the media, late-night television, stand-up comedy,
Hollywood, professional sports and universities is committed to liberal
sermonizing. Politically correct obscenity and vulgarity among
celebrities and entertainers is a substitute for talent, even as Hollywood
is wracked by sexual harassment scandals and other perversities.

The smears “racist,” “fascist,” “white privilege” and “Nazi” — like
“commie” of the 1950s — are so overused as to become meaningless.
There is now less free speech on campus than during the McCarthy era
of the early 1950s.
As was the case in 1968, the world abroad is also falling apart.
The European Union, model of the future, is unraveling. The EU has
been paralyzed by the exit of Great Britain, the divide between Spain
and Catalonia, the bankruptcy of Mediterranean nation members,
insidious terrorist attacks in major European cities and the onslaught of
millions of immigrants — mostly young, male and Muslim — from the
war-torn Middle East. Germany is once again becoming imperious, but
this time insidiously by means other than arms.
The failed state of North Korea claims that it has nuclear-tipped missiles
capable of reaching America’s West Coast — and apparently wants
some sort of bribe not to launch them.
Iran is likely to follow the North Korea nuclear trajectory. In the
meantime, its new Shiite hegemony in the Middle East is feeding on the
carcasses of Syria and Iraq.
__________________________________________________________
Is the chaos of 2017 a catharsis — a
necessary and long-overdue purge of
dangerous and neglected pathologies? Will
the bedlam within the United States descend
into more nihilism, or offer a remedy to the
status quo that had divided and nearly
bankrupted the country?

Is the problem too much democracy, as the volatile and fickle mob runs
roughshod over establishment experts and experienced bureaucrats? Or
is the crisis too little democracy, as populists strive to dethrone a
scandal-plagued, anti-democratic, incompetent and overrated entrenched
elite?
Neither traditional political party has any answers.
Democrats are being overwhelmed by the identity politics and socialism
of progressives. Republicans are torn asunder between upstart populist
nationalists and the calcified establishment status quo.
Yet for all the social instability and media hysteria, life in the United
States quietly seems to be getting better.
The economy is growing. Unemployment and inflation remain low. The
stock market and middle-class incomes are up.
Business and consumer confidence are high. Corporate profits are up.
Energy production has expanded. The border with Mexico is being
enforced.
Is the instability less a symptom that America is falling apart and more a
sign that the loud conventional wisdom of the past — about the benefits
of a globalized economy, the insignificance of national borders and the
importance of identity politics — is drawing to a close, along with the
careers of those who profited from it?
In the past, any crisis that did not destroy the United States ended up
making it stronger. But for now, the fight grows over which is more
toxic — the chronic statist malady that was eating away the country, or
the new populist medicine deemed necessary to cure it.
____________________________________________________________

This intelligence-testing business reminds me of the way
they used to weigh hogs in Texas. They would get a long
plank, put it over a cross-bar and somehow tie the hog on
one end of the plank. They’d search all around till they
found a stone that would balance the weight of the hog and
they’d put that on the other end of the plank. Then they’d
guess the weight of the stone.
- John Dewey
-Raph Wan Eone
Good humor may be said to be one of the best
articles of dress one can wear in society.
- William Makepeace Thackeray

Learning is acquired by reading books, but the much
more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world,
is only to be acquired by reading people, and studying
all the various editions of them.
- Lord Chesterfield

Ours is a world where people don’t
know what they want and are
willing to go through anything to
get it.
- Don Marquis

As the [social media] platforms age, their devotees
become more and more distinct from the regular
person. For more than a decade now, many people in
media and technology have been feeding an hour or
two of Twitter into our brains every single day.
Because we’re surrounded by people who live their
lives like this—and, crucially, because so many of the
journalists who write about the internet experience the
internet in this way—it might feel like this is just how
Twitter is, that a representative sample of America is
plugged into the machine in this way.
But it’s not. Twitter is not America. And few people
who work outside the information industries choose
to spend their lives reading tweets, let alone writing
them.
Twitter is a highly individual experience that works
like a collective hallucination, not a community.
It’s probably totally fine that a good chunk of the
nation’s elites spend so much time on it. What could
go wrong?
ALEXIS C. MADRIGAL

@literaryeric
Jun 4
Eric Nelson
How did the two sides of this debate become "let's teargas protestors"
versus
"looting is okay" when practically no one believes either of those
things?
Because we would always rather argue about framing than the issues.
https://forward.com/opinion/446541/are-americans-as-stupid-as-we-seem-ontwitter/
Karol Markowic z @karol
Jun 5
So good. "First, the banner that attracts the most people is
always the dumbest version of your opinion.
It has to lose all nuance to win over the most people."
SaraJessica Snarker
@SaraJessicaSnar
14h
Replying to @MattWalshBlog
Are they hypocrites or just young, stupid millennials parroting what
they have learned from leftists professors in order to prove they are
down with the struggle?

Matt Walsh
@MattWalshBlog
14h
Why not both?
Karol
Markowicz
@karol
1h
My black male friend just told me a white lady he barely knows chased
him down, while he was riding his bike in his mostly white Long Island
town, to ask him how he’s doing.
Skwint
@DCWinton
2h
“The soft bigotry of low expectations.” Nicely stated. Thanks. It
describes an entire universe of “polite” but noxious thought and
behavior that gets overlooked in most discussions of racism.
A 10-point font conversation lost amid a 60-point font shout fest.

NO WAY (ZERO!) Egg @cloudy_yah
Jun 3
"I used to be opposed to murder, but then people I don't
like started opposing murder, so now I’m pro-murder!"
Bo Winegard
@EPoe187
The proportion of people who condone or excuse
violent protests decreases rapidly the further from Twitter you get
until reaching virtually zero in the ordinary world.
Stevie-i-e-i-o @StevieOakley May 30
I
bet
Canada
feels like
they
live
in
the
Apartment
above
a Meth
Lab
right
about
now.
Laura Marie
@lmegordon Jun 2
I'm
not
equipped
to
handle
this much
tragedy.
I
think
I
shorted
out
two
tragedies
ago.
Jun 3 Replying to
@WorstCassie
2020's the girlfriend you can't take on a date to the bar because
she gets drunk, loud, obnoxious and tries to pick fights for her
boyfriend with some dude twice his size.

Rachel Noise @RachelNoise Jun 2
The country needs a Mom who’s had it
up to fucking here.
Shower Thoughts
@TheWeirdWorld Jun 2
Just like bacteria aren't aware of our existence, there could be
giants around us that we cannot see cause we are too tiny to
make sense of them...
EleeLew
@AxiomCatwalk
4h
Have you heard the joke about getting rid of COVID?? It's a riot!
Kurt Schlichter @KurtSchlichter
GENERAL MATTIS FACTS:
1. He was a great combat leader
2. His Marines revere him even if they disagree with him now
3. His analysis of the political situation is flawed because to get woke to
the reality of the establishment's perfidy would undercut his entire
worldview

Don Kilmer@donkilmer
May 25 Replying to @MZHemingway
Alternate questions for the #NeverTrumpers. If
the #RussiaHoax had managed to succeed in
removing Trump, and if by some miracle we found out later what
we know now, would you still be happy because a POTUS you
don’t like was taken down?
(╯°□°)╯ @lordnazh May 25
Weird question since they do know 'now' what we know
and they are still trying to get rid of him
Brad @Brad23987239
May 25 Replying to @MZHemingway
How dare you think differently than our beltway betters who work
at the dustbin. Their words might as well be law.
Rita Panahi Retweeted
Ron Milner @RonMilnerBoodle
17h
I would like to thank every liberal, Antifa, democrat, lowinfo
voter, crooked politician, Karen, professor, and left-wing freak
for showing the world that I made the right decision when I left
that godless diseased corpse of a party.

A Smith @atomic_ballsnot · Jun 4 Replying to @JohnRWoodJr
There's no recovery from this. It's too far gone. It will only
stop when one side 'wins' and both sides are destroyed.
John Wood, Jr.@JohnRWoodJr
Jun 5
They call that a pyrrhic victory. I'm not inclined to settle for it.
Heather E Heying@HeatherEHeying· Jun 16
Protect orthodoxy *and* heterodoxy. Society needs both the
established and the heretical. Much of what has come before is
still good, and foundational. Some is deeply flawed. Some of
those flaws could not be known at the time. #BurnItAllDown
tragically misunderstands humanity.
LORI HENDRY @Lrihendry Jun 2
Looking for some clarity here. Is Corona Season over and we are
on to Riot Season? I just need to know if I need a mask or a rifle.

Moderation in Excess @ModerationInXS
3h Replying to @BrookeSingman@SenRonJohnsonand 7 others
Our country is in turmoil, we are facing multiple domestic
crises, hundreds of thousands dead, millions out of work
and violence on our streets and the Republican Party is
going to spend its time investigating conspiracy theories.
SauerMelon @SauerMelons
3h
Right now our cities are burning, thugs and criminals are looting
& destroying livelihoods on the conspiracy theory of perpetual
systemic racism.....but an actual coup attempt by American
government officials.....on an incoming American
President......well....nothing to see here.
Alice @themodalice
7h Replying to@JesseKellyDC
Just remember, the left is like Scientology. They lull you
into the group, tell you not to look at any other
information but their own, shame you if you question the
narrative, then make your life a living hell if you try to
leave.

Handbaglvr
@UKWildcatgal 18h
I haven't heard anyone say "it
could be worse" in a while.
Alice @themodalice 2h
Conspiracy Theorists is a badge of honor and
was weaponized to unhinge free thinkers.
Ava @avainwordland 17h
We’re like The Jerry Springer Show of the universe.
tweeter dee @strategicplann7 Jun 2
I’m not adding this year to my age

Alice @themodalice Jun 1
Everything went downhill when we stopped roller skating
tsar-lord@BecketAdams 6h Replying to @BecketAdams
checking the style guide and I am a
little confused. are we going with "the
walls closing in” or “tipping point”
today?
@poutinesmoothie May 31
If you don't know the words to a song, just silently mouth
"honeydew cantaloupe" and usually nobody notices.
Catturd @catturd2 May 31
I’m old enough to remember the Coronavirus.
influencer
Buddawiggi @MarkBuckawicki May 27
don’t worry I’m an

Worst Cass Scenario @WorstCassie May 29
This isn't the roaring 20s we wanted.
SkyNews @SkyNews · May 29
Coronavirus: Monkeys 'escape with COVID-19 samples'
after attacking lab assistant
http://news.sky.com/story/coronavirusmonkeys-escape-withcovid-19-samples-after-attacking-labassistant-11996752…
Nathan Stolpman @lifttheveil411 May 29
Now this movie is just getting stupid.
@LittleJimmy61
Jan 25
Oh, I think I just shivered me timbers.
@topaz_kellkєllαlєnα
4h
Can’t tell if it’s my intuition or my anxiety that won’t stfu.
Worst Cass Scenario @WorstCassie May 29
I don't know why Girls Gone Mild never took off.

WineMummy @WineMummy Apr 20, 2019
I come from a long line of assholes so your opinion of me means
shit.
Not Hot. Not Bothered @hunbothered Jun 4
So many tantrums. Is it really
“bring your kid to Twitter” day
already?
Jarhead @Jarhead44 Jun 28, 2014
I love people that get offended on Twitter. They sort of make it
all worth it.
Serendipity @serendipitydon1 Jun 3
I have lost a lot of respect for some people in the last
several days and have come to like some people less.
People are revealing who they are. Believe them when they show
you.

Pugnado @LuvPug Jun 3
I knew you were an asshole, but I didn’t realize you were
that kind of asshole
WineMummy @WineMummy
Jan 9
I’m only here for the free stupid advice.
Tommy Go Irish @tcal1961 Jun 3
I can't believe it's riot season already. I still have my Covid
decorations up.
WineMummy @WineMummy
21h
We’re all attention whores here. This isn’t a competition.

WineMummy @WineMummy
I don't just play a hoe on the internet, I am one in real life
too.
Double D @dvel86 May 29
I'm not really a hoe I just play one on Twitter, oh
wait yes I am.
WineMummy @WineMummy 22h
I’m a hoe but I’m also an attention whore coz
balance.
WineMummy @WineMummy 23h
It’s hoe, you whore.
Sep 24, 2019
If you want to be angry and stupid, you've come to the
right place

Taylor Day@TABYTCHI Jun 7
Have we tried turning 2020 off and then back on again?
Farmdaddy@Farmdaddy1 Jun 3
Take it easy on yourself, it’s OK if you realize what an asshole you
were twenty years ago. That’s normal.
Dwayne Poulton
Wait till the media finds out that the malaria drugs do increase
the chance of survival but the side effects are they cure Trump
derangement syndrome.
Sunita @_1Sunita_ 3h
I'm wetter than a beavers ball bag. Cracking thunderstorm mind
Nancy Rommelmann@NancyRomm Jun 10
We are now a nation of raccoons, digging through each
other's trash

Sephora : Which of my sisters did you choose?
Moses : I made no choice, Sephora.
Sephora : She was very beautiful, wasn't she? This woman of
Egypt, who left her scar upon your heart. Her skin was white as curd,
her eyes green as the cedars of Lebanon, her lips, tamarisk honey.
Like the breast of a dove, her arms were soft... and the wine of desire
was in her veins.
Moses : Yes. She was beautiful... as a jewel.
Sephora : A jewel has brilliant fire, but it gives no warmth. Our hands
are not so soft, but they can serve. Our bodies not so white, but they
are strong. Our lips are not perfumed, but they speak the truth. Love
is not an art to us. It's life to us. We are not dressed in gold and fine
linen. Strength and honor are our clothing. Our tents are not the
columned halls of Egypt, but our children play happily before them.
We can offer you little... but we offer all we have.
Moses : I have not little, Sephora. I have nothing.
Sephora : Nothing from some... is more than gold from others.
Moses : You would fill the emptiness of my heart?

Sephora : I could never fill all of it, Moses, but I shall not be jealous of
a memory. The queen of Egypt is beautiful, as he told me.
Moses : Does your god live on this mountain?
Sephora : Sinai is His high place, His temple.
Moses : If this god is God, he would live on every mountain, in every
valley. He would not be the god of Ishmael or Israel alone, but of all
men. It is said he created all men in his image. He would dwell in every
heart, every mind, every soul.
Sephora : I do not know about such things, but I do know that the
mountain rumbles when God is there, and the earth trembles, and the
cloud is red with fire.
Moses : At such a time, has any man ever gone to see Him,
face-to-face?
Sephora : No man has ever set foot on the forbidden slopes of
Sinai. Why do you want to see Him, Moses?
Moses : To know that He is. And if He is, to know why He has not
heard the cries of slaves in bondage.

Mike Hoornstra@Mhoornstra Jun 5
Replying to @skimminginfo and @DigitalForests
My Granddaughters ages 2, 7 are mixed.
They’re beautiful, loving, and brilliant. We live in a small mostly white town
and never had a issue. The 7 yr old was just chosen citizen of the year. This
confuses her because no one told her she’s second class because she never
was.
Serotonin's Gone @SerotoninsGone
Jun 4
In reply to @DisrnNews and @ComfortablySmug
"Ya know, I was like totally racist and unaware
of the injustices of institutional racism until I
saw some sloppy graffiti” – literally no one ever
hunnet baby@JustinKirkland
Jun 4
It’s funny you guys will say a few bad protesters
taints the whole movement but a few bad cops
don’t represent all of police

JFK Jr. Faked His Own Death with the Help Of ‘Master Chess Player’
Donald Trump—And He’s Planning His Return Apparently
• by Max Page
. CelebMagazine May 24, 2020
Robfire,
June 1, 2020 @ 10:11 pm
You missed quiet a few bits out
o
Max Page, June 3, 2020 @ 6:07 pm Reply to Robfire
yeah, well it’s quite a feat to get anybody to read past just a
headline these days so there really is only so much you can
write about in one post.
• QFan,
June 2, 2020 @ 2:50 am
Wow, That was Disappointing!
o
Max Page,
Dad, is that you?
June 3, 2020 @ 6:00 pm Reply to QFan
•
Margaret, June 2, 2020 @ 3:15 am
and so you felt obliged to use Jesus Name in such a heinous way, WHY? there
IS no good reason…..it’s bad enough you chose to offend people of Faith with
your blasphemy, it’s BEYOND reason that you would do such a thing to
HIM……..your total disregard for the salvation of your soul is telling…..your
ETERNITY stands in the balance……WILL you continue to jeopardize your place
in Heaven by your total rejection of the Holy ?
or will you acknowledge that your choice of words is not working in your favor
and repent ? JFK Jr. was a strong Catholic young man……if he IS alive, I would
believe that he would be the first to correct you. Until he does appear, I’m
doing it for him. You don’t need to apologize to ME, you need to apologize to
GOD, and to His Son, Christ. DO IT…..and on your knees…..you only get ONE
chance in this life. Don’t mess it up. Good luck to you.

o
Max Page, June 3, 2020 @ 5:59 pm Reply to Margaret
I stopped believing in fairytales when I was around 8-years old, so
the salvation of my soul is the least of my worries. And, quite
frankly I would welcome being in what you believe to be in hell with all the
sodomites and thieves and “immoral” women than in your version of your
fictitious “heaven”. I actually studied theology extensively and came to my
own conclusions and my own beliefs. In reality, in my everyday life, I probably
act more like your Jesus character than the vast majority of self-proclaimed and
fervent Christians—I don’t judge, I welcome and love people of all colors,
backgrounds, and beliefs. I treat people as I wish to be treated myself, and I
actively help the poor each and every day, so, yeah, I’m all good on the morality
front, thank you very much. To me organized religion is like a man’s penis, I’m
really happy and glad that they have one, but DO NOT try and ram it down my
throat, unless I ask you to. I don’t need to apologize to “God”, (or anybody
actually) it would be a pointless endeavor anyway as I completely don’t believe
in him. So, I suggest you leave your lecturing and correcting and tone policing
for somebody who actually gives a fuck–because I genuinely give less than
zero.
o
Tommi, June 3, 2020 @ 1:53 am Reply to Margaret
For such arrogance laced with piety, I am amazed that you are not aware
that Christ isn’t Jesus’ name. It is a title such as Jesus the Christ or Christ Jesus. I
can only assume that you did more damage to your own soul with that
judgmental tirade than the author did to his with his one comment. I think
you committed more than one of the Seven Deadly Sins in this post. Worry
about yourself and leave others alone. Shame on you!
•
Joanna, June 3, 2020 @ 4:37 pm Reply to Tommi / Max Page
Frankly, I felt the same way as the person you were addressing above - so
tired of seeing my Lord’s name dragged through the mud - can I politely
ask what did He ever do to the article’s writer that he would talk about
Him that way? I notice no one uses Buddha’s or Krishna’s name or other
religious “icons” in such a despicable way. Just Jesus’ name. That’s
okay….in the end, He wins…King of Kings and Lord of Lords…

•
Max Page, June 3, 2020 @ 6:17 pm Reply to joanna
…I’m a big fan of using Allah and Jah and My Little
Pony too….. and if you think it’s despicable, you
need to get out there in the big real world my
friend and see the truly despicable things that are
happening each and every day. You’ve got no focus….. a fictional
book that was written centuries ago isn’t the key to life and to be
followed to the word (unless you are unable to think for yourself of
course). People are being murdered and tortured and bombed, all in
the name of religion, that’s where you should really focus and care–
it’s certainly what your Jesus dude would have done. Enough
already.
o
Max Page, June 3, 2020 @ 6:09 pm Reply to Margaret
I suspect you REALLY wouldn’t approve of what I’m usually doing
when I’m down on my knees lady.
•
sue,
June 2, 2020 @ 3:23 am
When the media of today tries to discredit something, you know it’s
true. We’re already way beyond “Is Q coming from the Trump
administration.” The drops about Antifa May 30th and 31st are
proof that Q knew the president’s declaration of Antifa as a terror
org was coming. So yes, Q is real and JFK Jr is probably alive. But
media trying to make it all seem “crazy.”

WineMummy @WineMummy Jun 2
Don’t forget to be a disrespectful piece of shit on the
internet today
Jake Vig
@Jake_Vig May 6
I’ve gone down so many bizarre rabbit holes on the internet
during the quaranne that even Google is like,
“You don’t want to search that. Go watch tv or something.”
The Getaway Girl @The_GetawayGirl 6h
i don’t even drink and i’m like a day away from being an
alcoholic.
Crow Magnom @distracted_monk
14h
At least no one’s keeping up with the Kardashians anymore...

John Hayward@Doc_0
Replying to@Doc_0
Do you really think the party that turned the streets over to mob
rule, the party that talks every day about using the power of
government to permanently suppress its "evil" opponents, is
going to start listening to its NeverTrump "moderate" friends after
it wins?
49 ♕ ☠
@contradiction70
Jun 4
My
Brain
is my
fucking
cleavage
Teighler
Jun 4
Westley
von Smith @TeighlerS
I DO NOT HAVE WHITE PRIVILEGE like once I was shooting seagulls
with my dad’s gun and this cop was like “can you stop that” and I was
like “no, fuck you pig” and he was like
“that was rude I’m telling your dad at our next poker game” and I was
grounded for a whole week so stfu

Lisabug BBQJonze @Lisabug74 Aug 16, 2014
My favorite sexual position is still the Heimlich maneuver.
Shellz
@HeyoShellz May 31
Let them have the streets. the rest of us can fight on the internet
@LukeEMiaPI
Jun 4
Luke E Mia
Others don't.
I never thought about how humor could be
called the sixth sense. Some people have it.
@StewartCBova Jun 2
We have an entire generation that worries about optics,
clout, and a fear of being socially ostracized for missing a trend.
We need to show the virtues of deeper values than likes on a
Stewart Carl Bova
page.

Joe on the Go Jun 1
The “take me back pose”
hahahahahaha
SWARM@SexWorkHive
·Jun 1
In the years before 1975, sex workers in Lyon had tried to hold
other protests in the city to speak out about policing and
working conditions and were laughed at - media articles at the
time mocked them for speaking out about their "little miseries".

SWARM @SexWorkHive
For International Whores' Day we call for the full
decriminalization of sex work, an end to the hostile environment,
funding for sex worker specific services, affordable housing, the
immediate release of those held in detention, and the defunding
of the metropolitan police.
Eleanor May 3
@garbagegman
My hypothesis is that social media has created human behavior
that seeks to replicate the chaos of a sim on fully autonomous
gameplay mode.
PamsMyth 3h
@mrsauntiepam
One time my dad hung a tire from a
tree in our yard and that was our whole summer. A tire.
Your Name Here @notittryagain May 27
Nothing scares a dishonest person more than someone
who knows the truth.

“We forgot about the flowers.”
Robbie Benson to Lynn Holly Johnson,
“Ice Castles”
@rising_serpent
5h
Replying to
@AOC and @PressSec
The
sign
of
embarrassed
true
by
stupidity
your
is
the
inability
own stupidity.
to
be

Greg Steinbrecher
@gregsteinbreche
· 20h
"We feel this need to plant fear into each
other's lives because if I can give you my level of fear then I don’t
have to have a greater level of courage.” Keep coming back to this
line from Sunday's sermon. Sneakily profound, methinks.
Chloé S. Valdary
@cvaldary
· Jun 13
If a person believes that America is irredeemable, by definition, they
believe that healing & reforming America is impossible. Be careful with who
you choose to follow. There are race peddlers out here chanting “justice,
justice,” when what they really want is power.
Rafique Tucker
@RiffRaf979
· Jun 13
Replying to @JohnRWoodJr
I think one of the mistakes certain people make is that they
assume those who are fighting to fix long-standing issues of
justice believe America is irredeemable. Most of us want to make
the country better. There are always hustlers in every cause,
however.

John Wood, Jr.@JohnRWoodJr
Jun 11
Race, racism and the relationship
between the black community and law enforcement are more
complicated than the mainstream conversation allows. Which
itself tragic.
is
John Wood, Jr.@JohnRWoodJr
Jun 16
Technology? Absence of meaning? Declining faith in liberalism?
Many things have led us to this radical moment. But if we can
re-weave the fabric of moral understanding I say we can rebuild.
Wilt'sAlarmClock
@JQxxxJQ
· Jun 11
Replying to @TessaMakesLove @BridgetPhetasy and @JohnRWoodJr
Eloquent and valuable words. Unfortunately, John Woods
identifies as a Black Republican, which means - sadly - his opinion
is worthless, and his life could be in danger. Should be read by all.
John Wood, Jr.@JohnRWoodJr
Jun 11
Thanks!...I think...

Seth Mandel
@SethAMandel
Best thing about Biden’s candidacy continues to be the complete
lack of fanatical supporters or personality cults. It’s like politics
before this country lost its collective mind.
m cole
@giantsfanmc4
·Mar 16
Replying to
@SethAMandel
It works so good. Dems and left create mass hysteria and chaos, then
people beg for “normalcy”. Trump fights back yes, but anyone paying any
bit of attention should recognize that nearly all chaos was a MSM and Dem
creation. Wars were being ended, jobs coming back, no race riots.
june
@shoe0nhead
Apr 14
honestly curious about the direction progressive twitter/media will take in
the general. like what the fuck are we going to do when trump repeats the
same things about biden we've been saying for months? lmfao we can't say
SHIT.

Amber Athey
@amber_athey
Apr 5
Whenever I teach journalism seminars to college students the first
thing I tell them is that no one cares about your opinions and to learn how
to actually report something first!
“Never have lives less lived been more chronicled."
– Dennis Miller

“ In retirement, he didn’t have Secret Service protection
until early 1964 - after JFK was assassinated - so the first 10
years of his retirement, he was on his own… The Secret
Service gave him the key to the gate - the five-foot steel
fence around the house - and said, Good Luck, we’re gonna
go work for President Eisenhower now. So one day a man’s car broke
down in front of the house and the guy didn’t know where he was – it
didn’t have a sign on it like it does today - so he walked through the front
gate and up the front steps and he rang the doorbell. And my
grandfather answered the door in his shirtsleeves and the guy said, “My
car broke down; do you have a phone?” and Grandpa said, “Sure, come
on in.” The guy used the phone in the front hall and the garage folks told
him it’s going to be 10-15 minutes before we can get over there and the
man said “That’s alright.” And he told my grandfather, “I’m going to wait
by the car for these guys” and Grandpa said, “No, don’t do that” and they
sat down in the living room and talked for 10 or 15 minutes – apparently
got along just great. Finally Grandpa looked out the window and said,
“I think the garage guy’s here” and the man got up and shook Grandpa’s
hand and he said, “Thank you for the phone, for the hospitality, for the
help” and Grandpa said, “You’re welcome, nice talking to you, I hope it
doesn’t cost too much”
And the man walked out the front door -- he got halfway down
the front steps and he STOPPED…
And he turned, and he looked back at my grandfather, and he said, “You
know something … and please don’t take offense… but you look a hell of
a lot like that son of a bitch Harry Truman.”
And my grandfather smiled at him and said no offense at all. I am that
son of a bitch.
..- Clifton Truman Daniel..

51. June 1, 2018
In a story about Trump tariffs, AP reported the dollar value of Virginia’s
farm and forestry exports to Canada and Mexico was $800. It’s
$800 million.
54. June 28, 2018
After a newsroom shooting, a newspaper reporter falsely tweeted that
the shooter “dropped his MAGA hat on newsroom floor before opening
fire.”
81. July 21, 2019
An MSNBC contributor and law professor falsely tweets that Fox is not
going to show upcoming Congressional testimony by former Special
Counsel Robert Mueller on the Trump-Russia investigation. When the
error is pointed out, the contributor says she was just kidding and deletes
her tweet–but not before it has been “liked” and “retweeted” thousands
of times.
87. Sept. 16, 2019
The New York Times publishes an editor’s note about its
recent story recounting a newly-reported accusation about an incident
decades ago involving Trump-nominated Supreme Court Justice Brett
Kavanaugh.
The editor’s note discloses for the first time that the Times never spoke
to the alleged victim, and that the alleged victim had told friends she had
no recollection of any such event. The Times reporters explained that
that information had mistakenly been edited out of the story.

Throughout the course of the 2016
election, the conventional groupthink
was that the renegade Donald Trump
had irrevocably torn apart the Republican
Party. His base populism supposedly
sandbagged more experienced and electable
Republican candidates, who were bewildered
that a “conservative” would dare to pander to
hoi polloi by promising deportations of illegal
aliens, renegotiation of trade agreements that
“ripped off” working people, and a messy
attack on the reigning political correctness.
It was also a common complaint that Trump had neither
political nor military experience. He trash-talked his way
into the nomination, critics said, which led to defections
among the outraged Republican elite. By August, a
#NeverTrump movement had taken root among many
conservatives, including some at National Review, The
Weekly Standard, and the Wall Street Journal. Many
neoconservatives who formerly supported President
George W. Bush flipped parties, openly supporting the
Clinton candidacy.

Trump’s Republican critics variously disparaged
him as, at best, a Huey Long or Ross Perot,
whose populist message was antithetical to
conservative principles of unrestricted trade,
open-border immigration, and proper personal
comportment. At worse, a few Republican elites
wrote Trump off as a dangerous fascist akin to
Mussolini, Stalin, or Hitler.
For his part, Trump often sounded bombastic and vulgar.
By October, after the Access Hollywood video went viral,
many in the party were openly calling for him to step
down. Former primary rivals like Jeb Bush and John
Kasich reneged on their past oaths to support the eventual
Republican nominee and turned on Trump with a
vengeance.
By the end of the third debate, it seemed as if Trump had
carjacked the Republican limousine and driven it off a
cliff. His campaign seemed indifferent to the usual stuff
of an election run—high-paid handlers, a ground game,
polling, oppositional research, fundraising, social media,
establishment endorsements, and celebrity guest
appearances at campaign rallies. Pundits ridiculed his
supposedly “shallow bench” of advisors, a liability that
would necessitate him crawling back to the Republican
elite for guidance at some point.

What was forgotten in all this hysteria was that Trump
had brought to the race unique advantages, some of his
own making, some from finessing naturally occurring
phenomena. His advocacy for fair rather than free trade,
his insistence on enforcement of federal immigration law,
and promises to bring back jobs to the United States
brought back formerly disaffected Reagan Democrats,
white working-class union members, and blue-dog
Democrats—the “missing Romney voters”—into the
party. Because of that, the formidable wall of rich
electoral blue states like Pennsylvania, Michigan,
Wisconsin, Ohio, and North Carolina crumbled.
Beyond that, even Trump’s admitted crudity was seen by
many as evidence of a street-fighting spirit sorely lacking
in Republican candidates that had lost too magnanimously
in 1992, 2008, and 2016 to vicious Democratic hit
machines. Whatever Trump was, he would not lose nobly,
but perhaps pull down the rotten walls of the Philistines
with him. That Hillary Clinton never got beyond her
email scandals, the pay-for-play Clinton Foundation
wrongdoing, and the Wikileaks and Guccifer hackings
reminded the electorate that whatever Trump was or had
done, he at least had not brazenly broken federal law as a
public servant, or colluded with the media and the
Republican National Committee to undermine the
integrity of the primaries and sabotage his Republican
rivals.

Finally, the more Clinton Inc. talked about the Latino
vote, the black vote, the gay vote, the woman vote,
the more Americans tired of the same old identity
politics pandering.
What if minority bloc voters who had turned out for
Obama might not be as sympathetic to a middle-aged,
multimillionaire white woman? And what if the working
white classes might flock to the politically incorrect
populist Trump in a way that they would not to a leftist
elitist like Hillary Clinton? In other words, the more
Clinton played the identity politics card, the more she
earned fewer returns for herself and more voters for
Trump.
In the end, the #NeverTrump movement fizzled, and
most of the party rightly saw, after putting aside the
matter of his character, that Trump’s agenda was
energy, gun rights, taxes and regulation, abortion,
health care, and military spending. In areas of
reasoned that sober and judicious Republican advisors
As a result, Republican voters, along with working class
Democrats and Independents voted into power a
Republican President, Republican Congress, and, in
essence, a Republican judiciary.

Trump’s cunning and energy, and his unique appeal to
the disaffected white working class, did not destroy the
Republican down ballot, but more likely saved it.
Senators and Representatives followed in Trump’s wake,
as did state legislatures and executive officers. Any
Republican senatorial candidate who voted for him won
election; any who did not, lost. Trump got a greater
percentage of Latinos, blacks, and non-minority women
than did Romney, and proved to be medicine rather than
poison for Republican candidates. With hindsight, it is
hard to fathom how any other Republican candidate might
have defeated Clinton Inc.—or how, again with hindsight,
the Party could be in a stronger, more unified position.
In contrast, the Democratic Party is torn and rent. Barack
Obama entered office in 2009 with both houses of
Congress, two likely Supreme Court picks, and the good
will of the nation. By 2010 he had lost the House; by
2012, the Senate. And by 2016, Obama had ensured that
his would-be successor could not win by running on his
platform.
A failed health care law, non-existent economic growth,
serial zero interest rates, near record labor nonparticipation
rates, $20 trillion in national debt, a Middle
East in ruins, failed reset and redlines, and the Iran deal
were albatrosses around the Democratic Party’s neck.

Obama divided the country with the apology tour, the
Cairo Speech, the beer summit, the rhetoric of
disparagement (“you didn’t build that,” “punish our
enemies,” etc.), the encouragement of the Black Lives
Matter movement, and a series of anti-Constitutional
executive orders.
In other words, even as Obama left the Democrats
with ideological and political detritus, he also
had established an electoral calculus built on his
own transformative identity that neither had
coattails nor was transferrable to other
candidates. Indeed, his hard-left positions on
redistribution, social issues, sanctuary cities,
amnesty, foreign policy, and spending would
likely doom candidates other than himself who
embraced them.
The Bernie Sanders candidacy was the natural response,
on the left, to Obama’s ideological presidency. But the
cranky socialist septuagenarian mesmerized primary
voters on platitudes that would have proven disastrous in
a general election—before meekly whining about Clinton
sabotage and then endorsing the ticket. What then has the
Democratic Party become other than a hard left and elite
progressive force, which without Obama’s personal
appeal to bloc-voting minorities, resonates with only
about 40 percent of the country?

The Democratic Party is now neither a centrist nor a
coalition party. Instead, it finds itself at a dead-end: had
Hillary Clinton emulated her husband’s pragmatic politics
of the 1990s, she would have never won the nomination—
even though she would have had a far better chance of
winning the general election.
_____________________________________
Wikileaks reminded us that the party is run
by rich, snobbish, and often ethically
bankrupt grandees. In John Podesta’s world,
it’s normal and acceptable for Democratic
apparatchiks to talk about their stock
portfolios and name-drop the Hamptons,
while making cruel asides about “needy”
Latinos, medieval Catholics, and African-
Americans with silly names—who are
nonetheless expected to keep them in power.
Such paradoxes are not sustainable. Nor is
the liberal nexus of colluding journalists,
compromised lobbyists, narcissistic Silicon
Valley entrepreneurs, family dynasties, and
Clintonian get-rich ethics.

The old blue-collar middle class was bewildered by the
leftwing social agenda in which gay marriage, women in
combat units, and transgendered restrooms went from
possible to mandatory party positions in an eye blink. In a
party in which “white privilege” was pro forma
disparagement, those who were both white and without it
grew furious that the elites with such privilege massaged
the allegation to provide cover for their own entitlement.
In the aftermath of defeat, where goes the Democratic
Party?
It is now a municipal party. It has no real power over the
federal government or state houses. Its once feared cudgel
of race/class/gender invective has become a false wolf
call heard one too many times. The Sanders-Warren
branch of the party, along with the now discredited
Clinton strays, will hover over the party’s carcass.
Meanwhile, President Obama will likely ride off into the
sunset to a lucrative globe-trotting ex-presidency. His
executive orders will systematically be dismantled by
Donald Trump, leaving as his legacy a polarizing
electoral formula that had a shelf life of just two terms.
November 11, 2016

EIGHTEEN
What Now?

Jimi_in_Mich
1 week ago
For some it is simple loss of power, but for quite a few others it
appears to be the joy of being a radical -- that euphoria of
religious zealotry, regardless of odds or reason. There is a
definite component of self-image and identity in a political
position. Dialogue and discussion are only for a minority trying to
make sense of things; the others are having fun.
Respect1
Replyreply
petty
1 week ago
Mr. Hanson, you are one of my favorite pundits, but your selfsophistry
(which I don't think you, in your heart of hearts, believe)
concerning the noble Trump rising above the Republican rabble
that opposed him detracts from your argument. Every Republican
could have accomplished the list you laid out - a few might have
paid lip service to the Paris Accord in order to accomplish more
important goals, a few might have postponed moving the
embassy until Israel gave the Palestinians a fig leaf of autonomy -
but all would be light years ahead of where we are now on
immigration with mandatory E-Verify (a subject Trump refuses to
mention) with TPP helping constrain Chinese trade
transgressions and tariff reductions generally, with reform of our
racial grievance industrial complex.
I understand you think Trump was the only candidate that could
win. I disagree, but understand that as a viable argument. But
there is no reason to go from that to pure sycophancy about his
staggeringly unfit leadership or management style
Respect
Replyreply
Reportflag

ScribblerG
6 days ago
You are delusional. The Bushies went along with climate change
and "free trade" (meaning unilateral disarmament). And the other
candidates didn't win, so we have some data here. Petty is a
good name for you. And oh yeah, accusing VDH of sophistry is
truly laughable, like it means you are a fool...
Respect
Replyreply
Reportflag
Corkscrewed
1 week ago
The left was sure they had it all; Obama had primed the pump
and Hillary was to turn it on. A liberal SCOTUS would authorize a
flood of immigrants to vote in a permanent democrat majority. The
new media would be shut down, the Second Amendment would
be declared to apply only to the National Guard, the populace
would be disarmed, and liberals would reign unchallenged.
But Trump won. And by reversing liberal policy he's making things
better for the average person. White, Black, Hispanic, Asian ...
a rising tide does lift all boats.
The left cannot handle it.
They're snapping.
Really.
Respect1
Replyreply
Reportflag

Pope1944
1 week ago
The left is getting more radical by the day. For the head of the
DNC to claim that the socialist elected in New York is the future of
the party should scare the breath out of Americans.
Respect1
Replyreply
Reportflag
kurt p
1 week ago
I think they need to eat some more crow before they can realize
America does not want to be a Socialist nation run by Coastal
elite.
Respect1
Replyreply
Reportflag
rwhwindstreamnet
1 week ago
The left better worry that they could be making acting out anger
over a loss of power an acceptable behavior that they won't solely
own.
Respect1
Replyreply
Reportflag
Pedsurg
1 week ago
And like Groundhog Day, Hillary repeatedly LOSES !!!!
Respect
Replyreply
Reportflag

loodredinabluestate
1 week ago
If the Left's answer to Trump is to double down on its Leftness,
rather than build consensus with the people it lost in 2016, the
Right will happily watch it commit political suicide.
But even a big Trump booster like VDH should know that his
statements about Trump doing "what no other Republican
President would have dared" is ridiculous. With the possible
exception of moving the embassy, President Cruz and a lot of the
other 2016 candidates would have done these things, and less
chaotically. And "seeking" to denuclearize North Korea" is as
much of an accomplishment as my "seeking" to win the lottery.
Respect5
Replyreply
Reportflag
JayWither
1 week ago
BULLSEYE.
Respect
Replyreply
Reportflag
DutchVandal
1 week ago
It makes everything so simple when you can classify an entire
political group's opinions to be based off of anger and insecurity.
I guess the progressives learned to do it by watching you?
Respect
Replyreply
Reportflag

doublehoo
1 week ago
Oooh, we better rush him to the burn unit! :-)
ElQueso
1 week ago
How did Republicans respond to loss of power in an
overwhelming fashion when Obama came into office and had
his super majority? Sure, they didn't like it, but I don't
remember seeing years of idiocy and marches and accosting
people in public places. And if that had happened, I'm very
certain that the very Left-leaning media would have happily
reported what ogres the Republicans were being.
No, they used political methods and speech to combat what they
didn't like. And that is how Republicans were ogres, by using the
means at hand - such as filibustering in Congress - which the Left,
under Harry Reid, did away with because they wanted to exercise
their power fully.
And now they are regretting such intemperate actions. The Left is
going nuts on a daily basis. You tell me where they actually
learned this from - do you think maybe from the "elders" of the
60s?
Respect
Replyreply
Reportflag
DutchVandal
1 week ago
While the current actions of the left are undoubtedly more
extreme; you have a shockingly rosy remembrance of the actions
of the right during the Obama years.

Evans_KY
1 week ago
If you view this in terms of war, then yes, the progressives are
down. Unfortunately, that misses the cyclical nature of our
existence. Long term, how sustainable is this chaos? Americans
are happy to go along with the status quo until the very last
minute. Until something so abhorrent pushes them in one
direction or another. Think game theory, my dear.
Respect
Replyreply
Reportflag
ElQueso
1 week ago
Republicans, it seems to me, are much happier to talk and
compromise. It's how we ended up with things like the extra
Medicare benefits under Bush and two giant spending bills under
Bush and Trump, among other things. The Democrats take that
and then refuse to compromise on anything else and meantime
people like Maxine Waters push to harass administration officials
in public because they don't agree with their policies. That is
going beyond any kind of "family squabble".
While they may be allowed to
do such things legally, they
certainly aren't following
principles that encourage
peaceful resolution of serious
issues, and in fact are making
issues worse - while proposing
idiocies that we can't possibly
afford, like medical care for all
nationwide.

I see one of three possibilities: The Right lets the Left win and
there will be peace and tyranny. The Right wins and pushes the
left so far back that that they are no longer a threat to American
principles (and I'm drawing a line between neo-liberals on the left
of the spectrum and the Left, who are neo-Marxist
revolutionaries), or the country separates into three or four
different countries and we let the idiots who can't see reality fail
on their own.
Ghandi did well against the British, who even though they could
be quite brutal at times were not led by people who would willynilly
murder innocents (except for a few bad apples who did their
side more harm than good when they committed massacres).
Imagine what would have happened with Ghandi against
someone like Hitler or Mao or Stalin. I don't think he would even
be a known martyr by now. Do we even remember the name of
the kid who stood in front of the tank in Tiananmen Square in
1989? That was nowhere near as long ago as Gandhi.
Game theory requires finesse as well as brute strength at times.
Politically, I don't mean strength as violence, but I do mean that
people on both sides of center need to put the Left to bed for
good in this country or separate from them before it tears the
entire country apart or places it under tyranny.
Respect
Replyreply
Reportflag
____________________________________________________________________________
Ever try to get into MSNBC to do an interview? They practically
strip search you… photocopy your license… the works. But photo
ID’s to vote is a bad idea.
- Mark Simone

- from Eureka: 81 Key Ideas Explained by Michael Macrone
18. May 27, 2017:
The BBC’s James Landale, The Guardian and others reported that Trump wasn’t bothering to
listen to the translation during a speech in Italian by Italy’s Prime Minister. They drew that
conclusion without asking the White House and based on a video that showed other political
leaders wearing large headphones. The Guardian even claimed Trump was fake listening
(smiling and nodding). After the reports circulated, the White House stated that, as
always, Trump was wearing an earpiece in his right ear.

“He only is beaten
who admits it”
Orison Swett Marden,
“Selling Things”
1916
'I'll fight them to the death': Judge Judy warns Bernie Bros that they
don't have a chance at the presidency because she's ready to battle
to get Mike Bloomberg in the White House
➔ Judge Judy, even jokingly, shouldn’t challenge the Bernie Bros. They
are essentially A N T I F A and have already demonstrated that they
have no problem violently attacking defenseless elderly people. Stay
safe Judge Judy.

Kirk B 4 days ago
"Life is now more secure than it was in the preceding age; but for this very
reason it is more dull. Like human anesthetists a Caesar and an Arsaces
and a Kanishka have taken the sting out of those once burning economic
and political questions that, in a now already half-forgotten past, were the
salt of as well as the bane of human life. The benevolent action of efficient
authoritarian governments has undesignedly created a spiritual vacuum in
human souls. How is this spiritual vacuum going to be filled? That is the
grand question in the Graeco-Roman world in the second century after
Christ; but the sophisticated civil servants and philosophers are still
unaware that any such question is on the agenda." ARNOLD
TOYNBEE (p.95; "The World and The West"; TOYNBEE; Oxford
University Press, Inc.; New York; 1953)
Show less
5
REPLY

103. Dec. 9, 2019
It would be difficult if not impossible from a practical standpoint to list the
thousands of the media reports, from the New York Times to CNN, that have now
been proven false by information documented in Justice Department Inspector
General Michael Horowitz’s report on the FBI’s misbehavior in investigating the
Trump campaign.
Here, they will all be grouped together as one media mistake, but include nearly
every major national media outlet that falsely reported, as if fact, that the
discredited Democrat-funded “dossier” — submitted by the FBI to get a wiretap to
spy on Trump associate Carter Page — was only a “small part” of the wiretap
application. Also, the reports that Page was a Russian spy and the conduit between
Trump and Putin. Also, the many insistences that Trump was a “Putin stooge” and
coordinating with Putin or Russia, when the FBI’s own evidence now shows they
never found anything remotely close to that. In fact, they appeared to disprove it.
106. Dec. 16, 2019
The news media widely misreport that the report by Dept. of Justice Inspector
General Horowitz found “no political bias” in the Russia probe. As Horowitz made
clear in his Congressional testimony, that is false.
Instead, Horowitz gave a limited, qualified opinion about a narrow part of the
opening of the investigation, stating he could not find documentary or testimonial
evidence that the serious political bias of various FBI officials impacted the
original decision to open the probe into Trump campaign-related Americans.
Horowitz explicitly acknowledged that various FBI officials involved in the probe,
including Peter Strzok and Lisa Page had political bias against Trump.
He also stated, in Congressional testimony, that Christopher Steele, the political
opposition researcher hired by the Clinton campaign to provide the anti-Trump
“dossier” to the FBI, had political bias.
And he stated that it’s possible political bias was behind other inexplicable and
egregious errors the FBI made during the probe, which he did not say was free of
bias. Those matters, Horowitz testified, have been referred to the criminal probe
and to the FBI to handle.

NINETEEN
We can’t all
be masters,
but we can all
be composers

Truths are illusions whose origin everybody has forgotten Nietzsche

no man has the
right to arrogate
to himself one
particle of
superiority or
consideration
because he has
had a college education, but it makes it doubly
incumbent upon him to do well and nobly in his
life.
- Teddy Roosevelt
- Giovanni Ruffini

Donald Trump is 'afraid of strong women' claims Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez as she says she would worry if he agreed with
her
-> Strong people don’t constantly play the victim card based on race,
gender, religion or sexual orientation. That is what weak shallow
people use to gain a moral advantage because they are incapable of
presenting a strong argument based on logic and facts.

Over the last 72 hours, students have taken over a small liberal arts
college in Washington state, and only one adult has tried to stop them.
Students at Evergreen State College in Olympia, who filmed their
exploits and posted the videos on social media, have occupied and
barricaded the library, shouting down anyone who disagrees with them
or shows insufficient passion for racial justice.
Biology professor Bret Weinstein was berated by dozens of students
outside of his classroom Tuesday morning for refusing to participate in
an event in which white people were invited to leave campus for a day.
Now he says police have told him to hold his classes off campus due to
safety concerns.
Things are “out of control at Evergreen,” he said.
Mr. Weinstein was confronted outside of his classroom Tuesday morning
by dozens of students who demanded he apologize or resign for writing
an allegedly racist email.
His email took issue with a “Day of Absence & Day of Presence”
demonstration, for which white students, faculty and staff were asked
to leave campus for one day.
He wrote: “On a college campus, one’s right to speak — or to be —
should never be based on skin color.”
A video of the confrontation, captured by Mr. Vincent, shows Mr.
Weinstein attempting to reason with dozens of students who routinely
shout him down, curse at him and demand his resignation.
When the professor tells the students he will listen to them if they
listen to him, one student responds, “We don’t care what terms you
want to speak on. This is not about you. We are not speaking on terms —
on terms of white privilege. This is not a discussion. You have lost that
one.”

After shouting at Mr. Weinstein for several minutes, according to Mr.
Vincent’s recollection of events, the protesters marched out of the
building and were met by campus police shortly thereafter.
“The students, fearful for their lives, began retreating towards the
library and ultimately ended up in the Trans & Queer Center/Unity
Lounge, trying to stay safe,” Mr. Vincent said in a Facebook post
Tuesday. “The white students were then delegated to spread out
throughout the library floor and watch for police potentially
surrounding the building.”
In order to keep the police out, the
students barricaded the entrances of the
library and seamlessly turned the retreat
into a political occupation. Demands
followed.
At a meeting between the administration and students later that day,
university President George S. Bridges said no students would be
punished for their involvement in the demonstrations, even before an
investigation into the matter.
“First and foremost, I want to state that there will be, as far as I
know, no charges filed against any students involved in actions that
occurred this morning,” Mr. Bridges said. “We will be conducting a major
review, an investigation of all that occurred and will be reporting back
to you, the campus community, about exactly what happened, why it
happened and what we intend to do about the incident —
not the incident, excuse me, the actions that were taken, both
students, staff and faculty involved.”

On Wednesday, students crashed a faculty meeting that was planned to,
among other things, honor professors nominated for emeritus status.
Families of the honorees were in attendance.
A member of the faculty interrupted the proceedings shortly after
they began and invited the students to the front of the room to share
their stories.
“I’m sorry, but I really appreciate you faculty, but students are here
right now,” the professor said. “Why do we need to — I mean, I
appreciate celebrating our accolades and how much we’ve done for the
college, but they’re here. Like, we need to listen to their voice. They are
out there, their bodies are on the line, right?”
When they got to the front of the room, the students condemned the
faculty for eating cake rather than supporting the library occupiers.
“Didn’t you educate us on how to do shit like this?” one student said. “It
was you that taught us that in class. Right, though? You taught us to go
and change the world. Ain’t that what you all sell on that state college
page? To when shit is wrong that we should try to change it? So why you
all in here eating cake and chewing?”
- Bradford Richardson

life is the only real counselor –
wisdom unfiltered through personal experience
does not become a part of the moral tissue
moral tissue
- Edith
Wharton
day in and day out
Tim McCarver
Curiosity is the engine of achievement
- Ken Robinson

Some of us have great stories, pretty stories - that take
place at lakes, with boats, and friends, and noodle salad.
Just no one in this car. But, a lot of people, that’s their
story -- good times, noodle salad. What makes it so hard is
not that you had it bad, but that you’re that pissed that so
many others had it good.
- Jack Nicholson,
“As Good As It Gets”
El Facho Conservador 1 year ago
3:39 “The thing that most struck me about those students in the street in
1968 was the sentimentality of their anger; it was all about themselves -
it wasn't about anything objective. Here they were, the spoiled middleclass
baby boomers who never had any real difficulty to cope with,
shouting their heads off in the street… burning the cars belonging to
ordinary proletarians who they pretended to be defending against some
imaginary oppressive structures erected by the bourgeoisie. The whole
thing was a complete fiction based on the antiquated ideas of Karl Marx
-- ideas which were already redundant in the mid nineteenth century.
They were enacting out, if you like, a self-scripted drama in which the
central character was themselves."
True
in
1968,
still
true
in
2018.
Art Curious 2 years ago
One of the great tragedies of modern American politics since Lyndon
Johnson declared war on poverty is that the Democratic Party has
viewed the black community as a voting bloc, more than as human
beings who want individual liberty and the right to participate in a free
market society like everyone else. For decades, we have seen the leftist
or progressivist social and economic worldview being imposed on the
culture, and during the Obama years, finally upon the government itself.

What I try to tell people who are compassionate and caring - who want
to solve social problems and find solutions to alleviate society’s ills - is
to start a charitable foundation, join a church, or run for a local political
office, where the people can hold you accountable for your actions.
Sir Roger Scruton helps articulate an important counter point in
this interview by recognizing that not only can the State be
dangerous, but so can the free market being applied to areas it is
not designed to perform well in - like culture and heritage. There
is a place for government, and a place for the free market, and a
place for collective social action. The mistake the Left makes is
that they want the State to do too much. The mistake the Right
makes is that they want the free market to assume too much
responsibility. Everyone is forgetting the importance of culture,
community, and family and their unique expressions in each part
of the world and region where we live. There’s more to life than
political power and consumerism. Part of Scruton’s genius is
that he has been able to explain this so well.
INTERVIEWER: "The indigenous working class has no right to
be upset about these liberal conceptions of sex and marriage
because they are the ones who have embraced them."
SCRUTON: "This is the biggest area of temptation
and a culture of resistance is needed for the
protection of the working class and children who
need a father at home who have lost that. Liberal
propaganda has made it impossible to say these
things unless you don't care what people say about
you. The truth has been made unsayable by liberal
censorship."

• James 3 minutes ago
Self-loathing liberals are proof human evolution is
teetering on remission. The nitwits expect the world to
take their flawed attempt at explaining a way to fix or
alter the most complex ball of math and physics
imaginable yet they can't balance a check book.

The planet has been through a lot worse
than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate
tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots,
magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles …

…hundreds of thousands of years
of bombardment by comets and
asteroids and meteors, worldwide
floods, tidal waves, worldwide
fires, erosion, cosmic rays,
recurring ice ages …
… And we think some
plastic bags and some
aluminum cans are going
to make a difference?

The planet isn’t going
anywhere. WE are!

We’re going away. Pack your shit,
folks. We’re going away. And we
won’t leave much of a trace,
either.
Maybe a little Styrofoam … The
planet’ll be here and we’ll be long
gone. Just another failed
mutation. Just another closed-end
biological mistake. An
evolutionary
cul-de-sac. The planet’ll shake us
off like a bad case of fleas.

The planet will be here for a long, long,
LONG time after we’re gone, and it will
heal itself, it will cleanse itself, ’cause that’s
what it does. It’s a self-correcting system.
The air and the water will recover; the
Earth will be renewed. And if it’s true that
plastic is not degradable, well, the planet
will simply incorporate plastic into a new
paradigm: the Earth plus plastic. The Earth
doesn’t share our prejudice toward plastic.
Plastic came out of the Earth. The Earth
probably sees plastic as just another one of
its children.

Could be the only reason
the Earth allowed us to be
spawned from it in the first
place. It wanted plastic for itself.
it.
Didn’t know how to make
Needed us. Could be the answer
to our age-old
egocentric philosophical question,
“Why are we here?”

"Plastic… asshole.”
- George Carlin

indianplysgtr 3 days ago
responding to Bill: trump supporters are fucking idiots.
These inbreds who make up as plumbers and carpenters
don't have the rudimentary skills to understand climate
change. How about they leave complex issues to the
experts. If we need our toilet unclogged we know who to
call. Fucking uneducated morons....
Bill 3 days ago
Responding to indianplysgtr: U prob dont know shit about
climate change either "Muh scientists agree". Rand Paul is
laying out a Good case for why the paris agreement is bad
and how it promotes russian and chinese growth but not
american
Bill 3 days ago
Responding to indianplysgtr: The hate that the left
displays for the regular working man these days is pretty
shocking.
indianplysgtr 3 days ago
responding to Bill: noticed when Jake Tapper asked this bimbo
where he is getting his talking points from and he said the energy
sector? He reads talking points from lobbyists and spouts them as
truth and the rubes in the Republican Party enthusiastically clap
like a seal with a bucket of chum. Some fuck mook from Podunk
Arkansas or Ohio eats this shit right up. Matter of fact, corporate
America overwhelmingly supports this accord. Why?

Because there is overwhelming, convulsive, evidence that trumps
golf course in Florida is going to be underwater. There isn't a
single conservative party in the world that believes climate
change is fake. It's just these inbreds, in this country, who think
they know better than the experts. These anti-intellectual
buffoons are so much smarter than the rest of us...
traderjack 3 days ago
responding to Zeke R: I guess we all live in echo chambers.
They say the exact same thing about us, that we have no
brains,etc. Let's face it, they are right on this one, the 0.2 degree
is documented and the Paris deal is a bad deal. Let's also face it,
it was colder 100 years ago. If we want to be totally honest ,
Rand Paul is also right about the most dramatic climate
changes was before we were here. I think we need to be more
intellectually honest instead of calling names, because they are
on top of the argument, and unfortunately we seem to be on
top of the propaganda and improper behavior. The title of this
clip was misleading, I was hoping for a take-down of Paul, all I
got was he was right.
indianplysgtr 3 days ago
responding to Bill: nah they don't work any harder than anyone
else. I refuse to massage their ego because they just happen to
live in rural America. When plumbers act like they know more
than the experts on complex domestic and foreign policy, then I
call bullshit. Look at any other conservative party in the world. It's
filled with people who are open minded and facts rule the day.
The Brits have May and Cameron to look up to our inbreds
emulate Steve Doocy.

Bill 3 days ago
Responding to traderjack: Haha you are so right man. I
watched this exact same video on Rands own channel and in
the comments everyone was saying how rand was OWNING
and killing it and here it is the absolute opposite.
Bill 3 days ago
Responding to indianplysgtr: "experts" The same experts
who gave arms to isis? The same "experts" who said
Hussein had wmds? The same "experts" who invaded
lybia? The same "experts" who got rid of mubarrak a
secular US ally. I could go on for days Obama
completely fucked the middle east and supplied arms
both indirectly and directly to jihadists so I am sorry if
I like to make up my own mind and dont trust the
people u call "experts"
indianplysgtr 3 days ago
responding to Bill: you seem to have gotten amnesia because
your outrage seems to have started in 2008 when the rest of us
knows a dumb fuck of epic proportions named dubya ran his ass
to Iraq because Hussein was a meanie to his fucking father.
When that fuck mook disbanded the Baathists what did he think
they were going to do? Sit home and watch cartoons? They ran
straight into the arms of no other than Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Guess who are the disciples of that killer? It rhymes with lices.
You morons spent a billion dollars for an embassy and have

nothing but a squat to show for it. The violence melted
over to Syria and lo and behold everyone else needs to
clean up your fuck ups. How about you guys stop creating
wars for democrats to fix? You think you can try that?? Like
I said if I need my toilet unclogged I will call a republican.
If I need my tires fixed I will call a republican. You morons
will be the absolute last for anything else.
Muhree 3 days ago
All the rednecks in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and
Michigan?
Richard 3 days ago
Responding to Zeke R: can't believe you dumb chinks are so gullible
zbitdot 3 days ago
I would give you though, the tone and tenor
of Trump and Republicans is off. With the
American First justification. It should be
‘America Leads World into new debate and
paradigm from the Climate Agreement short
on common sense’ (following with ‘It will not
change the Climate - full with platitudes and
negative on humanity progression, 3rd world
esp.’) and use America First indirectly

jim 3 days ago
responding to Zeke R: This is a comment thread based on
your original comment in which you mock the impoverished
and label 30 out of fifty states in the American Union,
"rednecks". AND then you cry @ Mike N. for "taking shots on
people because offending is easier then discussing." Serious
question here. How fucking stupid and hypocritical are you?
jim 3 days ago
responding to indianplysgtr: Firstly, you have the grammatical
literacy of a fourth grader and the intellectual tolerance of an S.S.
officer. People like yourself limited, with small minds, and thus
an incapacity for basic critical thinking, or generic empathy for
their fellow human beings, were the beasts of the twentieth
century. Today, you are just a bile spewing, uneducated primate
who discredits himself with his own moronic display of a lack of
control over clear sentences. So... you can fuck off and keep
watching Jake Tapper while strutting around like you are well
informed. It's highly amusing to those of us who actually are, you
knuckle dragging, saliva drooling, moron.
indianplysgtr 3 days ago
responding to jim: isn't this cute. A subhuman mongrel of a
republican trying to front. First off you little twat, go and bleach
that putrid pussy of yours. I can smell your rotting fallopian tubes
from here. How the fuck you haven't killed old people and young
children with that foul stench is a mystery. Splash some poison
into it, it might soothe the verbal rape I just gave you.

Now go back to polishing the nuts on your truck, don't forget to
wear your camo pajamas and rummage around the forest barking
how the government is after your Medicare. Tell your mountain
sister/mother I said hi fuck mook!
jim 3 days ago
responding to indianplysgtr: You do realize your capacity to
vomit up incoherent attempts at insults, actually isn't
impressive, right? In retrospect it places several exclamation
points on my calling you a knuckle dragging, uneducated,
moron. Which clearly, you definitely are. Run along now boy
with your hateful, ignorant, indian persona and your small
stale mind and your fourth grade level grammar so you can
continue failing at learning how to play an instrument
created by white as snow Europeans. Irony is truly a beautiful
thing. I'm done here son. You're completely boring me.
indianplysgtr 3 days ago
responding to jim: do I look like I give two shits what you think?
You actually thought we were put in this world to massage your
fucking ego? Go back to waddling down the buffet line while
gorging on the trans fat. Republicans are a good test case study
on why you shouldn't be weaned off the breast so early. Being fed
a corn fed diet on a continuous basis turns your brain into mush.
The good news is half of you stale fucks are literally dying the
other half is riding rascal scooters in their cute xxxl size
bedazzled American flag t shirts barking how Obama's black army
was going to indoctrinate your hillbilly children to Leninism.
Amazing isn't it?

People don't respect conservatives one bit, get use to it,
you people deserve all the scorn coming your way.
jim 3 days ago
responding to indianplysgtr: You know the Avett
Brothers are literally a band for twelve year old girls
who enjoy watching feminine males sing in an
extraordinarily high pitch. I'm sensing very little
masculinity in your genetic computation. Or taste in
music for that matter. What is your heritage again?
...Oh. that's right. Causality located.
Yourself 3 days ago
Snowflake alert.
Show less
Reply 3 4
Bill 3 days ago
Responding to indianplysgtr: I said why u would trust
experts from the government who has done all of this
things. Democrats started lybia. Democrats sponsored
jihadists they had know idea were those weapons are
going. "Stop starting wars for democrats to fix". If u
really think thats true then ure delusional
Show less
Reply 1

pgm 3 days ago
responding to Indianplysgtr: this shit is hilarious. Although I
would advise that too much vitriol towards the middle class
isn't great. It is the perhaps intolerance thereof... or at least
disconnectedness with them that causes so many of them
to foolishly vote against their own best interest and self
preservation. Well, that along with the intolerances so many
of them possess.
Show less
pgm 3 days ago
responding to jim: you do realize that your writing also
contains numerous grammatical errors and that you, too,
are resorting to "vomit[ing] up incoherent attempts at
insults" don't you? Ie, exactly the two primary complaints
you have about indianplysgtr. And then you had to drag
race/nationality/descent into this. WTF does that?
Show less
Frank 3 days ago
Liberals have to be the stupidest things on earth. Let me lay the
fact out for you, you uneducated, simple cuck. Climate
scientists agreed in the 70s that a "coming ice age was
imminent." What happened to that? And what happened to
Gore's ice caps being melted by 2104? They've grown. The
climate is too complex for accurate future predication. Hell,
the science of meteorology can't even consistently predict the
weather a week in advance, and we're going to fully invest in
scientist predicting events 50 to 100 years out?

You've got to be a huge moron to blindly believe in global
warming, err I mean coming ice age, Oh, I'm sorry, climate
change.
pgm 3 days ago
responding to Bill: The answer to those questions of those
is a resounding "No". Highly educated biologists,
climatologists, environmental scientists... etc from nearly
every country in the world are not the same "experts" who
invaded Libya. Is that really not clear to you? No, seriously,
isn't it? Because some experts in one field of study from
one administration are wrong about a topic doesn't mean
that every expert on any topic from now until forever will
be wrong. But, please, tell us how Obama completely
fucked the middle east starting in 2008.
Sandstone
3 days ago
Really? After doing my research. The Liberal Left mind set is the
doctrine of Demons. It is a rebellion and rejection of God. LGBT
marriage are you kidding me, this is the ultimate death oath that
sends both to hell. All of you lefties look in the mirror of truth, you
are headed to in the wrong direction. Obama was the closest thing we
have seen to the antichrist, he took America to the front gates of Hell.
He was Lawless, Unrighteous and a Liar. He also changed God's
perfect law on marriage. Hillary would have sealed the deal. Climate
Change is of Satan, it is NWO propaganda being used to put in place
along with Agenda 2030, which is the end times beast system. You
really want to pay a tax to Satan and the future antichhrist?

As told in the book of revelations. But no you people don't believe in
God, or if you do you have changed the glory of the uncorruptible God
into an image made like to corruptible man. You are serving after the
creation or creature rather than the Creator. You think you are saving
the planet with climate change, you are going to kill it, and things will
get so bad it will lead to the battle of armageddon. Your Global Citizen
program wants this complete in 13 years. Hopefully it fails and we get
some more time, if not the sun and moon get darkened the stars fall
from Heaven. Than it is game over, the lights go out for good, unless you
switch sides and go up in the rapture.
Alex 3 days ago
Sandstone, you gotta keep your psychedelic
literature intake in check, dude. ))
pgm 3 days ago
Sandstone, i hope you don't have access to any children
Climate change could kill thousands of Americans each year
with a rise in global temperatures of just 3 degrees
'triggering a surge in deaths by drowning, assault and
suicide'
➔ Did these geniuses also consider the fact that people being
active outdoors is healthier than being sedentary indoors?
Maybe the temperature rise will save more lives than their
ridiculous study predicts will be lost.

The authors miss the fundamental issue underlying the
enviro-rads hysteria about the apocalypse we face because of
global warming. This has nothing to do with science. Rational
debate is off the table because the deniers (read: Holocaust
deniers) are right wing nut jobs. The enviro-rads' and their largely
left-wing Dem sycophants' objective is not saving the life as we
know from imminent destruction. It is instead government control of
the energy industry, energy intensive manufacturing and ultimately
of the entire economy. In a word, the alarmists' objective is
totalitarianism.
see more
Phineas W → dao1 • 6 days ago
The [opposing] argument makes the common error of making
the case on pragmatism rather than going to the very
fundamental of the issue, the moral issue. Lord knows the
enviro-crazies go straight to the moral argument.
We as advocates of liberty and freer markets must do the
same, make our case on the moral level first. Then go to the
pragmatic arguments.
Phineas W • 9 days ago
There is no science that can justify total regulatory control of the
economy, what we used to call fascism.
Climate scientists and climate activists seem to
have all but forgotten that the science of human
nature fundamentally requires liberty.
Or have they?

It wouldn't be the first time that genius minds tried
to diminish liberty under the guise of science.
o Reply Share ›
David A → Phineas W • 4 days ago
With renewable energy sources you'll still plug your
toaster into the same outlet.
So how exactly does that diminish your "liberty?"
Reply
• •
Phineas W → DavidA • 4 days ago
Renewable energy, promoted by our government
with subsidies for over four decades now, still only
accounts for a very small percentage of overall
energy consumption, maybe 1-2%. That is not the
free market at work. That is government promoting a
grossly inefficient alternative.
The government has at its disposal only one method
to achieve its ends, force. So to answer your q,
liberty is diminished when the government uses force
against law abiding people to take away what they
earned so that it may be given unearned to someone
else. Subsidies to non-profitable green energy
companies are examples of diminished liberty and of
legal theft.
That to some of us is a perversion of proper law
that can only be called injustice.

Jack Murphy @jackmurphylive
So you’re saying...
Quote Tweet
World Economic Forum
@wef · Dec 18
Venus was once Earth-like, but climate change made it
uninhabitable
ht t ps://wef.ch/38gHhcM #Space #ClimateChange
12:10 PM · Dec 19, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
Is this my cognitive dissonance or yours?
The quoted tweet is a top rate example of self own-age in a Twitter
sea of self own-age. That is a feat to behold!
...that women ruined Venus before they came to earth?
Clearly the only possible conclusion to draw from this fact is that it's
incumbent upon all of us to give them totalitarian power over every aspect
of our lives!
They pulled out of Paris Accord too early?

They had me at 'large igneous provinces (LIPS)'
Underrated comment
Those damn aliens and their plastic straws!!!1!!1!
Damn Venusians. If only they had a "Great Reset" they could have solved all
their problems. Let's ship AOC to Venus and she can use the Green New
Deal to save its climate.
We clearly need to expand the Green New Deal to include Venus
So, clearly humans originated on Venus...
In other words, humans ruined Venus before coming to Earth. Is that the
right answer?
Scientists found proof of plastic straws on Venus.
We should work to get off this fragile flower of a planet.
I think you missed the point.
If the venus-people used solar panels they would still be here...
FWIW: global warming is technologically relatively easy to solve, and
relatively cheap (a few trillion). It's global pollution that we'll be spending
the next 5-10 generations fixing.
Thanks humans for destroying Venus
The Venusians refused to act on climate change. See what happens.
Those pesky uninformed citizens of Venus and their damn Hummers.
Ruined a perfectly fine planet.

Jesse Singal
@jessesingal
This is going to establish terrifying new frontiers of sheer
unwatchability
dishesRdone
@bennettevan
Replying to
@jessesingal
If this is going to be the norm for climate activism
I'd rather the sun just bake the earth to a crisp

Everything in moderation… including moderation.
- Julia Child

Dinesh D'Souza@DineshDSouza
“A terribly sad story. A young man gets wrapped up in the white
supremacy movement. In a moment of madness he drives a car into a pedestrian in
Charlottesville. Now he faces life in prison.” THAT’s a headline we’ll never see. I offer it
only to show how political propaganda works
Richard Spoor@Richard_Spoor
A terribly sad story. Two young and idealistic lawyers, get wrapped up in
the BLM protest movement. In a moment of madness they throw a
Molotov cocktail into an abandoned police car and burn it. Now they face a
minimum 35 years in a federal prison.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/lawyers-arrested-molotov-cocktail-nycprotest.htm
I reclaim my time@gruffmadness
Replying to @Richard_Spoor
A moment of madness?! Which moment? Emptying the bottle? Finding the funnel,
finding a container of gas? Filling the bottle? Stuffing a rag in the bottle? Driving and
looking for a target... With the bottles? There's a whole lot of premeditation there for a
damn moment of madness
Jacko Mills@JohnnoMills
Replying to @Richard_Spoor
There's a simple way to avoid going to jail for bombing police cars. I use
this one simple trick every day & I do not go to jail for bombing police cars.
That simple trick: Do not bomb police cars. It's so simple. Handily, this trick
is very easy to get used to.

pipermcq@pipermcq
Aug 5
Replying to @Richard_Spoor
I would imagine the dragging you took for this one was
legendary, so I will only add a bit more to it. A “moment of
madness?” Seriously? They tried to explode a police car with
officers inside. Some bells you can’t unring. They deserve every
minute of that 35 years to life.
Jim Jatras@JimJatras
Aug 6
Replying to @Richard_Spoor
They deserve 35 years just for being young idealistic lawyers.
Brock
@BrockTheFree
I hate when weapons that take time to prepare just materialize out of thin
air at the exact time I'm experiencing a moment of madness.
So inconvenient! It's bound to get anyone into trouble!
Tony H@Sabrewulfe
Aug 6
Replying to @Richard_Spoor
Funny how you fail to mention what else they had in the car when the cops
caught them.....you know, in this `moment of madness`

Mark
Dice@MarkDice
Aug
6
Replying to @Richard_Spoor
Who
hasn’t
made
a
Molotov
cocktail
and
thrown
it
at
a
police
car
in
a
momentary
lapse
of
judgement
at
one
point
in
their
career?
whatsthatbook.com@whatsthatbook
Aug
6
Replying to @Richard_Spoor
Not
a
"moment
of
madness."
For
cryin'
out
loud,
this
young
woman
did
a
TV
interview
announcing
her
strategy.
"The
only
way
they
hear
us
is
through
violence."

Mr. Sunset Terra Cotta
Kano's_Razor • 4 years ago • edited
Nothing like hanging back for a little R&R at the rear a few
days after the main wave of commenters. I wonder how
things are going up on the front lines.
"Removing guns from the culture wouldn't
curb homicide/murder any more than
removing cell phones from the culture would
eliminate phone calls."
I can't help but unpack this a little. Noting that "curb" and
"eliminate" are two different things, I submit that
"removing guns" would arguably curb homicide by a great
deal. The problem is that "removing guns" is an
impossibility. If [Jeffery] Wells could clap his hands three
times and make every firearm disappear, we'd see the
homicide rate drop by quite a bit and double-digit
casualties even more. And I think a lot of the homicides are
less "hot-blooded" crimes of passion than they are nihilistic
expressions of sociopathy. Those impulses would still be
there, but they'd be a lot less empowered.
My take on Kurt Russell's "point" (or as you put it,
"the spirit of his perspective") is, as I suggested elsewhere,
that it's probably largely driven by the context provided by
Wells. To paraphrase, "So there was this terrorist attack
and you're in a violent Tarantino movie, don't you think
people will shun it because we all know guns are for
dumbfuck racist white guys with small dicks and this was
all their fault?"

When confronted with this perspective, it seems more
reasonable to argue that it is not a productive analysis of
what caused - or could have prevented - this incident. It's
like wanting to argue over speed limits after a drunk driver
just killed a family of four going 90 the wrong way. (Cue
analogy haters.) Just because someone says "No speed limit
is going to stop that from happening" in response to
someone who only wants to talk about slower speed limits,
it doesn't mean they think we shouldn't even have any. The
context helps dictate the rhetoric.
I'm probably not entirely on Russell's side myself, but I
think the amount of light this exchange shines upon his
views is limited. And while I don't know about your
"equidistant" theory, I do believe that there's no stance so
right that it can't exist in a stupider and more dogmatic
form. In fact, often the righter the stance the more likely
this is to happen.
20
Jackson Henry 7 years
ago
"Gun control is like OSHA
for burglars." Well said Mr.
Sowell!

stephenf@emncaity ·Jul 7 2020
I'd prefer that people wouldn't comment on the internal mental states of
other people, but Carlson's point, in the context of the entire segment, is
that Duckworth is one of many people whose actions mark them as being
bent on radically distorting ...
... the reality of what this nation is, comically overstating the flaws and
ignoring the good, etc. -- and that going to the "I was a soldier and I was
disabled, so I'm immune from criticism" well one more time is getting more
than a little old. ...
stephenf@emncaity Jul 7
While people are getting all heated up about Tucker's statement, hardly anybody at the
major media orgs seems to think it's any kind of big deal at all that Duckworth either
lied, or was stupendously ignorant, about Trump's speech on July 4th, in which she said
…
... he praised Confederate leaders but in fact he did no such thing. (You can check the
transcript for yourself.) She was widely applauded among the usual woke crowd, but it
was blatantly and provably false. But, you know, she was in the service, so...
stephenf@emncaity Jul 7
I come from a family of soldiers going back to before the Civil
War on one side and even before the Revolution on the other
side. (Also, John Adams and J.Q. Adams were my great-great-etc.-
grandfathers.) An uncle was at Ardennes (the Battle of the Bulge).
A cousin ...
... was shot in Vietnam -- twice -- and survived. Dad was in
the Navy, at the first Pacific atomic bomb test. Mom was in
the Coast Guard during the war. On and on. I remember a
time when no soldier would use his service ...
1:58 PM · Jul 7, 2020·Twitter Web App

stephenf@emncaity
·Jul 7
Replying to @emncaity
... as a way of proving he was right about some arguable substantive point
and to suppress whatever somebody else was saying about it. Soldiers then
knew that there were people in the service who were there for the right
reasons, some who were there for wrong reasons, ...
stephenf@emncaity
·Jul 7
... some who were heroes, some who were real scumbags, some who had
good intentions and some who didn't, some patriotic and some not. I don't
know how we got into the state we're in about it now. It's ridiculous. ...
stephenf@emncaity
·Jul 7
Also, Duckworth and her advocates don't seem to apply this standard
universally. They'll rip on a Trump-supporting veteran as a toothless,
backward, unevolved Trumptard just as soon as they will any other Trump
supporter. So yeah, it's getting tiresome.
9:23 PM · Aug 7, 2019·Twitter Web App
I hardly ever do this, mainly because I have friends and know good people
on both sides of the aisle. But it's just too much right now. If you're one of
those people for whom the primary or sole meaning of a mass shooting is
that it gives you another opportunity to pump out some more anti-Trump
and "hate toothless backward white-supremacist Trump voters" vitriol, you
really need to figure out what's wrong with you. Seriously.

Take a few days and think about what you've become.
Obviously, we have a problem. But facts matter: Twenty-six of the 27
shooters in the biggest mass-shooting events in modern American history
were fatherless. You want to look for a cause, there's one place to start. The
U.S. is about 94th among nations of the world in murder rate. We do not
have the highest rate of mass killings or victims of mass killings. Are you
getting that from mass media? Or a different story? Mass shootings
continue at about the same rate they've been at for the past several
decades, through presidents and Congresses of both parties, while gunownership
rates go up but the overall murder rate has actually gone down.
That is a very specific problem that doesn't bend well to memes and
platitudes and partisan blasting. Also, the "Australian miracle" is a myth. I
wish it were true, and I wish it were that easy. But it isn't. Sorry to the
kneejerk xenophiles here. No serious proposal to ban all firearms is being
made by anybody in Congress. Even if you could do it without a widespread
uprising, there would still be somewhere around 300 million firearms out
there in circulation. What do you think is going to happen to those? Guns
are durable goods. The ones made last week will be firing bullets a hundred
years from now, if they're taken care of reasonably well. You'd better
change the mind and heart that has access to the gun, because you're not
going to make guns actually unavailable. They're going to be available, and
they'll be available for a long time. Longer than your lifetime. Longer than
your children's lifetimes. You're going to need a better plan than "scream
until all guns are gone." You're going to need to think in clearer terms than
"If we pass this law against guns, that guy who was planning to massmurder
a ton of people at the mall won't be able to get a weapon, so he'll
just give up that plan." If all guns were made illegal tomorrow, getting one
would be no more than a speed bump for a criminal intent on doing harm.
It's the intent to do harm that matters. You're either interested in actual
facts or you just want to keep picking up and amplifying the monocultural

narrative and its memes. If that's all you're going to do, you're not helping,
and in fact you're probably making things worse by continuing to add to
the weight of public opinion that's rolling its way down a blind alley, away
from any real solutions. The fact is that we do mental health really badly in
this country. Even aside from diagnosable mental illness, even for more
ordinary people, there is a sickness in this culture, an isolation and
objectification and casual hatred, an inability or refusal to have normal
human empathy for other people, along with the obsessive need for fame
by any means, that people are marinating in every day. In a population of
320 million, with that going on all the time, it's pretty much a given that a
few of those people are sick enough to see actual human beings as nothing
but meaningless targets, ciphers, just characters in their own personal
dramas. You want to make a difference here? Find out why that happened
and what to do about it. Hate to break it to you, but it's been seen in
violent offenders, particularly young ones, for at least 30 years or more
now. It's not even close to a Trump thing. You need to stop this adolescent
nonsense of acting like everything really bad or really good in the world
started just when you started paying attention to it. This is maybe the best
brief thing I've heard since this awful weekend, from J.H. Kunstler: "This is
exactly what you get in a culture where anything goes and nothing matters.
"Extract the meaning and purpose from being here on Earth, erase as many
boundaries as you can from custom and behavior, and watch what
happens, especially among young men." But if your whole shtick is about
figuring out what can be seen today as more evidence that Trump is Satan,
how many more things can be posed as never happening before Trump
came along, how to justify showing up at a senator's house and actually
making death threats in your protest against violence, etc., …. ... I guess
you're going to continue to make actual human tragedy just a cipher, just a
part of your own personal drama, your own running narrative. Maybe in five
years you'll see the problem here. Circle back sometime.

Chainyanker - So first off, a couple of points: The U.S. isn't like
other countries, so saying "U.S. is the LAST developed country
in the world to have universal health coverage" is a fallacious
position. Government run healthcare is marginal at best (Make friends
with some folks from the U.K. and ask them how much they like it.)
Also, it's easy to say "all these European countries have free healthcare
and free college" but the truth is, they have the option for those
"luxuries" because they aren't picking up the really high dollar items like
global defense.
Anyway, on to your question: How is it bad? Let's just look at some
highlights:
1) The number of people who now have healthcare isn't 9 out of 10. I
have no idea where you got that number. The ACA website doesn't even
have that number. The number that have SIGNED UP is 17 million.
Signing up is different than actually having coverage. More on that in a
minute.
2) About 2 million of those people who signed up already had insurance,
but lost coverage when their employers dropped their insurance because
of the costs the ACA imposed.
3) Cost - Rates of coverage vary widely. Some plans are so expensive
that people simply can't afford it and choose to pay the fine. Others buy
it, but the deductibles are so high (Like $6000 ) that it’s like having no
insurance at all. (Really, it's just catastrophic insurance at that point) and
they still have to pay out of pocket, so they are getting almost nothing
for their money.

4) Efficiency - The government is notoriously bad at everything it does.
Some things, like national defense and interstate commerce have to be
done at the federal level, even if it is horribly mismanaged. Healthcare is
not someplace you want the government involved. (just look how badly
the VA healthcare system and Medicare/Medicaid have been run.)
5) Budget Projections - In 1987, Congress projected that Medicaid - the
joint federal-state health care program for the poor - would make special
relief payments to hospitals of less than $1 billion in 1992. Actual cost:
$17 billion.
In 1967, long-run forecasts estimated that Medicare would cost about
$12 billion by 1990. In reality, it cost more than $98 billion that year.
Today it costs $500 billion.
These aren't rounding errors; these are order of magnitude errors created
because the government can't possibly run like a business. It is a terrible
mechanism for running business. There simply is no accountability. No
one got in trouble for grossly underestimating the cost of Medicare,
because the government isn't going to punish itself. It just keeps growing
and growing. .(from an ACA thread circa 2017).
Nearly 100% of US women who got abortions say it was the
'right decision' five years after undergoing the procedure,
study finds
Of course they are going to say that they don’t regret their decision. By
regretting it, they would be acknowledging that they killed their unborn child
rather than just disposed of some useless mass of cells. They should poll
the women who decided not to abort. The women who I have spoken to
that considered abortion but decided to keep their baby consider it the best
decision of their life because they love their child and can’t imagine life
without them

“I think the reason the
abortion issue is such a hot
issue and the reason that so
many people do that split - go
all the way to one side or all
the way to the other…
because it does, in fact leave
you without… there's no
middle ground here… and so
you have to pick one… And if
both sides of the argument
make sense to you - because
they do - then you have to
decide which one has the
greater weight. And I don't
have the religious belief that
some people do, that drives
them to be very, very
passionate about this -- and
nor do I have the complete
lack of religious belief that
drives other people to be in the other position. This one is a tough one.
The reason I come down on the pro-life side is essentially pretty simple.
People say “This is my body - I should be able to control my own
body.” And I one hundred percent agree with that. But it's not your
body if this is an entirely different chromosomal pattern. You could
take a sample from the mother and a sample from the infant and you
would get two completely different people.
So frankly… look, the abortion issue is very simple and could get
resolved in one sentence. It won't be resolved in one sentence, but it
could be if you put all the advertising terms away… pro-life…prochoice…
put all that stuff away. What it comes down to is: “Is it a
person - yes or no - from conception to birth?
Is it a person?

If it's not a person, then who the hell are you to tell me what to do with
my bodily functions. If it is a person, then it has protections that
supersede somebody else's opinion about it -- and that's where the
entire heart of the issue is. Is it a person or not… and the reason this
thing is so bloody hard is because from conception to birth, there is no
single day or event that happens; there's no switch; there's no milemarker
that gets passed. It is a perfect spectrum of absolute uniformity
between a cell that splits in half and a little baby that comes crying into
the world. And this is why this issue is such a bear.
It’s a tragic conversation. There's nobody in this discussion who's
happy about this - no one's going “woo-hoo”. I had an interesting
thought about the abortion issue, because it got to me the question of
the whole “person” issue -- and maybe this will help people who are
on the pro-choice side understand the pro-life position. At least
understand it, if not agree with it. I certainly don’t expect them to
agree with it. At least understand it. And my position -- my thought
experiment was this: “Whose side were you on in the Civil War?”
Most people would say the North. Now the South claims that the North
launched this war of aggression, because they wanted to secede – state
rights, and all that. The reason the South left the Union was they
wanted the state’s rights - and the state right was the state right to have
slaves. So let's just call it what it is. They left before Lincoln was even
inaugurated. If you're a southerner, your position was: “This is my
property and they're going to launch a war and come all the way down
to my house and take my property - then of course it's aggression - of
course I'm going to fight it”. The North's position is the same position,
actually, as the pro-life crowd, which is: “That is a living person there,
and you do not own them, and you do not have a right to determine
their destiny.” Therefore, we have a right to go down and free the
slaves. We have not only a right, we have an obligation - and so now
what you find out is that the motivation of the Civil War comes down
to a very simple issue: “Are slaves people - yes or no - because if slaves
are not people… if blacks from Africa are not people - they're not
humans… then they're property -- like horses, and cattle, and so on…
The North is absolutely wrong, the war’s completely unjust, and so
on.”

But if they are people, then the North has the moral right and the
obligation to have the government step in on that person's individual
choice and protect that individual. That's the fundamentals of the
pro-life position: it has its own unique genetic code; it cannot defend
itself; it is no longer subject to your choice. It's a person and we're
going to protect it.
Is it a person or isn’t it? How do I know? We
know conception; we know birth -- and that's
all. And because the spectrum is
uninterrupted, we find ourselves in this
horrible conundrum which pits me against
my desire to protect innocent lives that can't
defend themselves and against the disgusting,
repulsive idea that any institution - including
the government - can tell you what to do and
when to do it.
Everybody automatically demonizes the other side - automatically
assumes they're evil. I suppose I've been guilty of that to some degree. I
try to focus that kind of vitriol on people who I am convinced are
aware of what they're doing. You know, not just people… most… all…
virtually all liberals… well, I think many liberal policies I consider to
be very poor, and some of them I consider to be downright evil. But I
will certainly grant that the huge majority of people who support
these policies do so for fundamentally good reasons. They think it's the
best way to help people. They think it's the kind thing to do; they think
it's the nice thing to do. I don't question their motives, but the people
who are enforcing these policies know what the consequences are in
the real world, and those people have a problem…
- Bill Whittle

Henry Smith3 years ago
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the
consent of the Owner. Solider=fetus / House=uterus. Better than the
slavery analogy.
Anthony 3 years ago
Everybody wants fewer abortions; I think we can all agree on this.
So, more contraceptives, Sex Ed, and proper education about how
to have good relationships would help. The irony is that the
religious pro-lifers are often against these measures... Also,
clapping and cheering on politicians who proclaim pro-choice at
rallies is a bad idea... you know the other side thinks you're
cheering on baby killing...not a good image...
Avdcmp 3 years ago
On the later point. Bill says it comes down to one question: "is it a person
...or not"? This is out of context. They are both entities. Both human
entities. But what of actual development and potential development? How
much of a person is a human cell at the point it has split into two? Not
much of a "person", but definitely a potential person. Why afford the same
rights to a two-cell entity that are given to a multicell, conscious being who
is able to sustain its own independent life? At the end, Bill makes the
comparison to slaves. A slave is an actual person, whereas a fetus is a
potential person. This is a not comparing apples with apples.
Tentacle 3 years ago
I consider the unborn baby a person. I also consider that person to
be an aggressive person in active attack against the mother. That
unborn person is sucking nutrients from the mother, causing the
mother pain and discomfort. Risking the mother's life during the
birth process. So yes that unborn child is a person, but the mother
has the right to self defense against that person.
Charles 3 years ago
In the same sense, the mother is potentially trying to abort the baby. So, by
your logic, the baby has the right to defend itself against the mother. And it was
the mother who caused the baby to start becoming a person in the first place.

So technically the mother made the first move. Now the child grows in order to
become self-sufficient, but it must feed off the mother for a short time. And
once born, raised to advocate for other mothers to be able to abort babies
because it knows what it puts its Mom thru. But it is so glad it wasn't aborted,
so that it could make sure other mothers have the ability to abort babies just
like it. See the hypocrisy? The day an aborted baby advocates for abortion will
be the day I am silenced. Need more evidence for how abortion is legalized
murder? Talk to any of the 23 people in the world who have survived an
abortion, they might enlighten you.
Alan
1 year ago
Mostly good, but he has fallen for the Lincoln myth. As far as the war being
fought over slavery: it was because of racist northerners who did not want
black people in the newly acquired territories. Several northern states
prohibited blacks from residing in those states, and Lincoln's plan to deport the
black population was only thwarted because the man he hired for the job
absconded with the money. Of course, the war was really more about the clash
between uncompetitive northern industrialists who relied on a combination of
protectionist tariffs and federal subsidies paid for from revenues that came
overwhelmingly from the southern states (around 90% of federal revenue at
the time came from the southern states). Lincoln even supported the proposed
Corwin Amendment which would have sealed slavery in U.S. law forever, and
it was the southern states that rejected it.
In a famous 1862 letter to Horace Greeley, Lincoln explained the reasons for
his action and his long-held feelings on enslavement and equality:
“My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to
save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I
would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I
could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.
What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to
save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would
help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing
hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will
help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall
adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
“I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official
duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal
wish that all men everywhere could be free.”

watsyurdeal3 years ago
My problem with the abortion debate: I constantly hear about the abortion itself, but
not its symptoms. You can't reduce or stop abortions without attacking the reasons why
they happen at all. If a Republican candidate came on stage and talked about how we
should be improving sex education, offering more birth control and preventive
measures, offered programs for single mothers to help with the financials, and
drastically improved the adoption process and how we manage orphans and children
offered up for adoption at birth, I would be much more inclined to vote for him or her.
Josh 3 years ago
I am pro-life from a religious perspective, but it raises many issues. A young
mother could receive intense social backlash (such as if she is in high school)
and possibly be forced to drop out and go to work. A poor mother may be
unable to be healthy enough for pregnancy -- let alone care for a baby. Or
be unable to afford a $10,000+ hospital bill. Children who are neglected are
more likely to become criminals as well. My point is: pro-life people have a
responsibility to provide child care services and subsidies for birth (while
avoiding exploitable benefits) if they wish to push that as an option - just as
pro-choice advocates wish to provide access to clean and medically safe
abortion.
Flg Flm Pro 3 years ago
I understand the abortion/slavery analogy, as far as giving
personhood to an unborn child, but it falls short in my opinion.
Hear me out.... A slave owner after abolition could basically say, "Ok,
you are not my property. My mistake. You're free. Have a good life.
Good luck." There's no inherent physical risk to the slave owner to
let their slaves free. If anything, it would make the slave owner
safer, because they wouldn't have these people around all the time,
who hate them for treating them as less than a person. Right?
Whereas, a pregnant woman takes on physical risk by seeing a
pregnancy to term. It changes her body in ways they probably
otherwise wouldn't choose - in most cases – forever. She most likely
will have to take time off from work, and even risk death... It would
maybe be a fairer analogy if, when the slaves were freed, that slave
owners were forced by the government to take care of ex-slaves for
9 months (feed them, give them shelter, and medical treatment)
without the requirement that the person work. The slave owner
must then gain 40 pounds within that same time period, plus not do
any physical labor for the last, say 3 months... Then, after all that, a
small percentage of the slave owners would be executed arbitrarily...

ablnch 3 years ago
Even if a fetus is considered human at any point in gestation, the problem exists
that one person cannot be held accountable for another person’s life. Take a simple
thought experiment to remove the 'baby blinders' from the equation. You pass out
in a bar and wake up in the hospital. Apparently, someone crashed their car outside
the bar and you were the only person nearby compatible with their blood type. So
now you're some “living life support”, and have some random person attached to
you at the forearm. The doctors assure you that you can sue everyone in sight for
what they did to you against your will.
But now you have a choice: let this random person leech off you for 9 months
while they regrow all their internal organs, or cut him off and go back to your free
life, leaving them to die like they would have - had you not been there. Would a
law forcing someone to lose their freedom for 9 months be a good law? Where
would a law like that end? Would doctors be required by law to save every
possible person because they're the only ones who can? A baby is a person just like
any other. They have rights. But the moment you start forcing babies to infringe on
the rights of other people, we have a problem. This isn't a solution, but I think
starting from this point is a whole lot clearer than trying to decide how many cells
equal a person.
TheOlzi 3 years ago
I believe a parent is accountable for their baby. Let's say the child was sick and
dying after birth, does the parent have the right to decide the fate of the baby?
REPLY
ablnch 3 years ago
True, but the point is the parent does not want to be responsible for the child at
all. Parents can give up their child even before they are born.
REPLY
Star Dreamer 3 years ago
Not sure if you're arguing against welfare and social programs...
REPLY

ablnch 3 years ago
I’m not arguing any points. I’m just trying to give people a new perspective on a
topic that is very convoluted. All I care about is freedom for every individual.
REPLY
TheOlzi 3 years ago
how do you know the parent is not trying to be responsible for the baby? Maybe
bringing a child into that person’s current lifestyle would be awful for the baby,
thus the most responsible thing to do is not have it.
REPLY
ablnch 3 years ago
People are only responsible for others by choice. If your child is sick and you
want to keep them, you are obligated to get them medical attention. If your child
is sick and you do not want them, you can give them up to the state and not be
responsible for any medical procedures. The topic is abortion and how much
influence the state should have in the decisions people make.
Show less
REPLY
stontmple p 3 years ago
But do you really think the perception and beliefs of a minority
should take away someone else's rights? Clearly, a person who is
pro-life would never HAVE an abortion themselves, but if we
make abortion illegal under any circumstances, we just
endanger women because regardless of what laws are in place,
they are going to get one. Birth, is not an easy task. It's actually
pretty traumatic and to force women to have these babies is
inhumane. Yes, more inhumane than an actual abortion.
All people have a line, and I think that if at three months you don't
know you are pregnant, you should be responsible for the baby. You
should have dealt with it.
Yes, abortion is dirty, and nobody likes it. But what would be your
line? Can someone not have an abortion at 2 months?

How
about
1
month?
If
you
really
are
pro-life,
you
put
the
life
of
the
woman
before
that
of
a
potential
life,
not
the
other
way
around.
That
just
makes
you
“pro
birth.”
And
as
far
as
abortions
go,
we
should
really
fund
planned
parenthood,
shouldn't
we?
If
you
want
less
abortions,
then
you
should
be
for
funding.
Look
at
Texas
--
Abortions
went
way
up
after
they
cut
funding.
Jay
3 years ago
From
the
top?
'But
do
you
really
think
the
perception
and
beliefs
of
a
minority
should
take
away
someone
else's
rights?'
-
Rights
are
rights,
not
a
consensus
of
the
majority.
Counting
noses
isn't
the
best
way
to
arrive
at
a
plan
of
action.
Democratically,
two
wolves
and
a
sheep
arguing
over
dinner
doesn't
make
it
right
for
the
sheep.
'if
we
make
abortion
illegal
under
any
circumstances,
we
just
endanger
women
because
regardless
of
what
laws
are
in
place,
they
are
going
to
get
one.'
-
I'm
going
to
start
with
the
callous
'And?',
then
move
into
the
rest
of
it.
If
the
woman
wants
to
kill
the
child
that
badly,
I'm
not
sure
that
I'm
going
to
be
all
fired,
concerned
for
her
safety.
Y'all
might
disagree
with
me
when
I
say
that
it's
a
baby,
and
that
aborting
it
for
anything
other
than
the
life
of
the
mother
is
murder,
but
there
it
is.
The
rest
of
it
is
that
the
numbers
would
go
waaayyy
down,
and
that
would
always
be
a
good
thing
to
me.
'Birth,
is
not
an
easy
task.It's
actually
pretty
traumatic
and
to
force
women
to
have
these
babies
is
inhumane.'
-
Did
someone
force
her
to
have
sex?
Was
that
inhumane?
Is
someone
forcibly
crushing
her
skull
and
ending
her
life
with
a
vacuum?
Is
that
inhumane?
Your
grasp
on
and
focus
on
'inhumanity'
would
be
a
little
more
relevant
to
me
if
it
were
a
bit
more
consistent.
'Forcing'
her
to
bear
the
child
for
a
year
seems
inhumane
to
you,
but
chopping
up
a
baby
does
not?

'Yes, more inhumane than an actual abortion. '
- Bull. You want proof? Show the results of an abortion in a theatre in public. You
can - and people actually have - shown birth in media, including the aftermath and
even breastfeeding. Have you ever seen the (even scrubbed clean) tissues after an
abortion?
'Yes, abortion is dirty, and nobody likes it'
- Most sane people, I would agree with. Lena Dunham who wishes she could've
had an abortion? Really? Good try at building a bridge there, though.
'But what would be your line? Can someone not have an abortion at 2
months? how about 1 month?'
- When the child has its own heartbeat, sometime after five weeks. I would rather
the answer be NEVER, but I can compromise.
'If you really are pro-life, you put the life of the woman before that of a
potential life, not the other way around. That just makes you pro birth.'
- Another good try at forcing your definitions on people. It's not a 'potential life', it
is a life. It is not putting the baby's life ahead of the mother's, it is putting the
baby's life ahead of the mother's convenience. There is an actual difference.
'And as far as abortions go, we should really fund planned parenthood,
shouldn't we?'
- No. We absolutely should not.
'If you want less abortions then you should be for funding. Look at Texas,
Abortions went way up after they cut funding.'
- Is this seriously the best argument you have for this? After all the videos
exposing Planned Parenthood, you think they need more funding? Not permissible
in a court run by the left is not nearly the same as 'never happened'. Cutting the
abortion rate down from 1,000,000 or so a year to under 10,000, or even 100,000
would be a very good thing to me. Some of those mothers getting hurt in the
process doesn't matter to me all that much, either.

Basically "fuck women" is your
really convince you from there.
stance.
I mean if
that's your view, I can't
REPLY
What
about
the
thousands
of women
Sam 3 years ago
aborted every day, do you
not care about them?
stontmple p 3 years ago
Sam oh please. You’re really going to put month-old fetuses on
the same pedestal as a grown woman, with memories, feelings,
loved ones, sentience, and dreams?
REPLY
Bearistotle 3 years ago
Women have a .00018% chance of dying from child birth. Not exactly a
high risk my dude. Whereas the person has a 100% risk of us going in and
making sure they are never born, after they have already been conceived
and, when left to their natural devices, would be born.
Bearistotle 3 years ago
Also, more oversimplification there, bud. I am not pro-life because the idea of an
abortion makes me "uncomfortable". I am pro-life because I believe every person
deserves a chance at life.
REPLY
Sam 3 years ago
Don't try to conflate pro-life views with sexism; do you realize that the
majority of pro-life individuals are women?
12

REPLY
Samuel Underwood3 years ago
Do you really think that the millions of men and women in the pro-life
movement are motivated by an intense burning hatred of women? Of
course you don't. What you are trying to do is to win an argument, not by
using actual logic, reasoning, and facts, but instead by throwing out ad
hominem attacks at anyone who disagrees with your stance. Look, it is fine
to be pro-choice, but if your only way of supporting your stance is by
throwing out insults, you shouldn't be a part of this discussion.
Read more
14
REPLY
Lara 3 years ago
"Progressive" and "liberal' - never mind. You just dealt with it. I do argue
that we know nothing between conception and birth. I don't advocate
abortion as birth control. I am even okay with early limits at 12 weeks with
an opportunity for judicial intervention if necessary. But the primary reason
women reluctantly choose abortion is because they do not have the means
to support a child and the woman ends up with the pregnancy 100% of the
time. We cannot provide adequate oversight and protection for the children
already in foster care - and we certainly cannot support an additional one
million children. DNA [reasoning] means two individuals have less access
to furthering their careers or education -- less chance to put more in and
take less out. There is a balance and it can be done, but we have to get the
emotional and religious filter off, if we're going to make rational legislation
on this issue. I am also a classical liberal, as well; I had never heard a prolife
position not cloaked in religiosity. I thoroughly enjoy this series.
Show less
REPLY
Human Speaking 1 year ago
The abortion issue for me is: If a female has to give up her own life, she
must do it willingly. If men demand she gives birth, and if she dies in
childbirth, the man who forced her to have the child should be killed as well,
since he just forced her to die. As a female, I would rather focus on why
abortions are needed - not that they are needed.

Prevention of a tragedy that is 99.9% preventable is far more
productive.
Our society needs to stop acting like random sex with each
other does not have serious consequences. I view it the same way you
explained how you care more about Black Lives Matter than the people in
Black Lives Matter. If men actually give a rat’s ass about abortion, why do
so many of them have sex with females they are not married to and are not
knowingly trying to have a family with?
Show less
REPLY
rick4652 years ago
Mr. Whittle, the reason for the prosecution of the Civil War on
the part of the North was NOT the ending of slavery. Some from
the North believed that was the motivating factor, MOST did
not. MOST in the South did not agree with the ownership of
humans. Slavery was not even illegal in several Northern states
when the North forced the attack on Ft. Sumter. The cause of
the war was the federal government's failure to follow the
Constitution. It was the belief in the Constitution that caused
the southern states to say, 'That's enough. We're out'. It was an
issue of 'freedom fighters' or 'insurgents' – VS -- 'preservationists'
or 'tyrants'. Your abortion argument was spot on (and I
STRONGLY applaud Dave Rubin’s platform to allow discussion
about it rather than vitriol and argument), but the comparison
of the Civil War is misguided.
Show less
REPLY
Richard
2 years ago
On the abortion part of this conversation ... it is a thorny issue, but
once I thought through it, (after pushing for one abortion in my
youth and fighting against one later), it is simple. After sperm meets
egg, leave things alone for 9 months, out comes a human being ... no
question. With modern health care and modern prophylactic
choices, there is no reason to get pregnant carelessly ... abortion is
murder. If you kill a pregnant woman, you will be charged with
double homicide. Enough said ... my logic is unassailable.

R. S.3 years ago
All this back and forth just proves Whittle's point....
Whether you see that unborn life as a "living person"
(endowed with unalienable rights) or not is the point of
contention. Here's another question to consider.... If one
day medical science does establish a point at which that
unborn life becomes a "person" and you find your
assumptions were wrong, would you be ashamed about
your previous stance?
"I believe the views of both
of you to be pure and
well-meant. I have a great
regard for you both, and
ardently wish that some line
could be marked out by which
both of you could walk."
- President George Washington
re: the opposing viewpoints and
ongoing (vicious) battle between
his two favorite cabinet
lieutenants, Secretary of State
Thomas Jefferson and
Secretary of the Treasury
Alexander Hamilton

Darth 19702 years ago
Leftists have always seen the working class as a mere means
to an end, and nothing more. Once progressives have gained
power, their true colors show through, and the workers are cast
aside, as they are no longer of use.
REPLY
AK 1 year ago
We haven't cast aside the working class. We have done and
continue to do our best to get the working class to cast aside the
traditions, prejudices and indoctrination, including excessive
patriotism and ethnic false consciousness, which keep members
of the working class obedient to and exploited by the
illegitimately wealthy, illegitimately ruling elites and respectful
of that elite.
Show less
REPLY
aussieboy087 1 year ago
What you said there is exactly consistent with the original
message. Casting aside all the traditions, systems, hierarchies,
and patriotism is YOUR goal, based on your personal morals.
What you ignore is how that has never actually benefited the
working class in history. Your goal scratches your own itch for
moral superiority, to be seen as a defender of the weak, while
having almost no reflection on the actual results for the workers.

That is exactly as said -- you are deceptively stating that you are
representing the workers, while only using them as the means
for your own ends of toppling authority. Never in world history
have so many been raised out of poverty than in the postcommunism,
post-Marxist eras, when countries adopted the
capitalist and free market system. Capitalism incentivizes people
to create value for others in society, by providing goods and
services that they VOLUNTARILY pay for. That is an amazing
thing to incentivize. You get wealthy yourself, by providing
other people in society with what they want.
Show less
REPLY
William 1 year ago
Leftists, like their Soviet counterparts, view working people as
"useful idiots." Useful idiots are the first to be sacrificed when
leftists gain power.
REPLY
David
1 year ago
regressives
REPLY
David
1 year ago
@Stephen socialism
is theft

jaybone 1 year ago
Of course, there are no leftists -- not a single one, (not even
Bernie Sanders, really) -- serving in American government at the
national level. American Democrats are not leftists.
REPLY
chbrules 1 year ago
Stalin killed the "successful" farmers.
REPLY
Gallowglass 1 year ago
Progressives are not leftists, they're regular liberals. I don't
blame you for being annoyed by progressives, anyway, because
their goal is to pass small reforms that please some of the
masses, but don't accomplish any real change - leaving their elite
patrons to comfortably line their pockets.
REPLY
Frederick the Great 1 year ago
@AK You're speaking out of both sides of your mouth. How
can you claim to champion the interests of the working class,
while simultaneously seeking to subvert the working man's
beliefs and desires? Your political philosophy is transparently
self-serving.

Flwlss Strtgy 1 year ago
How are successful capitalists "illegitimately wealthy"? Liberals
always imagine that rich people and corporations stole money
from their customers. No, people willingly give them the money
for things they imagine they must have: $1,000 phones; $300
shoes, etc. No one stole the money. If you're talking about tax
breaks and other incentives... well, that's just what they are,
incentives. Without these incentives, capitalists will head for
greener pastures, and you will lose the benefit of having them in
your neighborhood, including the jobs they provide. (To this, the
liberals scoff: "Who needs them anyhow!") If some other
country actually had better incentives, the capitalists could all
leave tomorrow, and the US would become just another 3rd
world shithole, with everyone jobless, poor, hungry, destitute,
etc. Capitalism comes with some necessary “evils”. However, it
is not immoral – rather, it is amoral. Libs/leftists/socialists are
so myopic. The biggest problem is, you want what the rich have,
but do not want to actually go out and get it; you want it given to
you with no effort on your part, but I have news for you… The
rich aren't going to hand over their wealth just because you
throw a temper tantrum.
grizzlygrizzle 1 year ago
For the left, they have always been "useful idiots."
Unfortunately for the left, the working class isn't willing to
accept that role.

Geronimo 2 years ago
"I've never in my life been hopeful. I take the view that
pessimism is the wise position to adopt, because you are
always agreeably surprised." - Sir Roger Scruton (43:45)
I just love the way that this guy thinks.
Rob 1 year ago
My philosophy is, we are that we
"might have joy". Don't understand pessimists.
Jared 2 years ago
It's a very stoic approach to life
Patrick 1 year ago
Stoicism is not pessimistic. Stoicism says to see the world in an
understanding and accepting way. At most, Stoicism is
skepticism that suspends judgement.
murkartik1 year ago
That's funny, because George Bernard Shaw originally said this
80 years ago, and he was no conservative.
Shaw was a blunt, flippant, perceptive rascal – his gems run long for this space… here’s one to
chew on: “Written over the gate here are the words 'Leave every hope behind, ye who
enter.' Only think what a relief that is! For what is hope? A form of moral responsibility.
Here there is no hope, and consequently no duty, no work, nothing to be gained by
praying, nothing to be lost by doing what you like. “Hell”, in short, is a place where you
have nothing to do but amuse yourself.” R-

A lion doesn’t
concern himself
with the opinion of
sheep.

America is not a safe space
Print Email
By Syndicated columns
Follow on Twitter
on November 15, 2016 at 6:30 AM, updated
November 15, 2016 at 6:31 AM
Pity the anti-Trump protesters thronging
the streets of American cities.
Apparently, no one ever told them that
they live in a geographically,
economically and ideologically varied
nation, and that about half of its
inhabitants might support a Republican
candidate for president. They mistook
the country for the campus of Oberlin
College.

The news that it actually isn't arrived with the force
of a thunderclap on Nov. 8. The shock of Donald
Trump's election has occasioned tears, rending of
garments and days of protests showcasing the rank
infantilism of the American left.
Prior to the election, liberal commentators
obsessed over Trump's rumblings about not
accepting the outcome and worried about his
supporters lashing out. Trump shouldn't have preemptively
declared the election rigged, but the
specter of Republican mayhem was always farfetched.
When was the last time that GOP protesters
ran out of control and burned down local business
establishments? Tea-party rallies were famous for
their orderliness -- participants in a massive rally on
the Mall in Washington, D.C., even picked up their
own trash.
It is left-wing protests that invariably devolve into
lawbreaking, and so it was that the same kids who
think Donald Trump is too divisive were soon
smashing windows and throwing projectiles at
police in behalf of their supposedly more openminded
vision of America.

(The left's street protesters act as if there is no
social or political problem that can't be addressed
by hurling things at cops.)
The same media that would have denounced
pro-Trump protests as a threat to democracy has
treated the anti-Trump protests as a natural
symptom of a divided country. Erupting in rage at
the result of an election went from a grave offense
against our system to the latest front in the battle
for social justice right around the time that the
Upper Midwest was called for Trump.
The same kids who think Donald Trump is too
divisive were soon smashing windows and throwing
projectiles at police.
The level of self-awareness of the protesters isn't
high. Some hold signs reading "This is what
democracy looks like." It is true that the right to
peaceful assembly is a key aspect of any liberal
democracy (even if some protesters need to work
on the "peaceful" part), but as an illustrative
exercise in democracy, you can't beat the national
election last Tuesday that has so outraged
anti-Trump protesters.

They have now adopted the slogan "Not my
president," a phrase that the day before yesterday
the left considered a racist slur when hurled at
President Barack Obama.
The post-election mayhem could be written off as
the work of an unruly fringe, if it weren't that the
Democratic Party is so beholden to the sensibilities
of its cosseted youth, whom it mistakes for the
shock troops of the future. A party that considers it
forbidden to say "all lives matter" because it will
offend the enforcers of political correctness is a
party that is going to have trouble appealing to
Middle America.
One anti-Trump protester was seen the
other day holding a sign reading "Your vote
was a hate crime." It's hard to imagine a
better distillation of the coercive smallmindedness
that prevails on college
campuses. This attitude ensures a state of
perpetual shock and outrage at the lived
reality of a continental nation of more than
300 million free men and women.

The anti-Trump protests will in all likelihood
continue. They aim to associate the president-elect
with chaos and delegitimize him from the outset.
But it is fully in Trump's power, so long as he
doesn't show irritation or anger, to see that they
backfire. One petulant tweet aside, he has struck a
unifying tone, while it is his adversaries who are
unhinged.
Trump's critics are certain that he is the champion
of a blinkered worldview. But the election and its
aftermath show that it is the self-styled citizens of
the world who need to get out more.

#gal 2 hours ago
If Hillary had won, the protesters would be
considerably older than the "kids" Lowry ridicules.
And they would be protesting while exercising
their 2nd amendment rights. No bottles, bricks
or broken windows needed.
FlagShareShare
LikeReply
oldvanport
2 hours ago
@ #gal: One problem there, ma'am: They
wouldn't be protesting.
FlagShareShare
LikeReply
letsgetrational 4 hours ago
An excellent article much needed at this point.
don't always agree with Mr. Lowry.
I

What we should be attempting to excise from
our discourse is hypocrisy. The double standard
that many expect cannot and should not be
tolerated in an enlightened society. This article
illuminates many instances of that. Hypocrisy is
always hiding political power posturing, but is
excused by the practitioners because they always
see themselves as right.
1 LikeReply
sxsw 6 hours ago
As the Dems circle the firing squad, one can hope they
realize they're losing (lost?) the working class of this
country, the people they once claimed to represent. The
Dems become an ideological breeder-reactor focused on
racial identity and class grievances....attempting to split us
into sub-groups that they cater to with insane edicts from
DC. And tearing us apart in the process, far worse and
much more deeply than Trump ever tried, if he was
indeed trying.

Pragmatist 6 hours ago
S pot o n! W hat
t hese
p rotesters
d on't u nderstand
d rive
I
to
did
p eople
not
i s
a gainst
support
s ucceed, partially
t hat
t hem,
t hese
not
actions
for
T rump, but
I want
to
spite
the
far
t hem.
him
l eft.
deminn 10 hours ago
Awesome headline, great op ed. I'm surprised it
was printed here.
Realitytrumps 10 hours ago
There were no protests from the conservatives
when Obama was elected! And they detested his
policies! That is not the issue.
We leftists in Portland understand we must
scream loudly, demonize our opponents, and
claim they are so bad they earned our irrational
disdain. No need to think, just act out in open
anger, defiance, and disruption of normal life.

Our goal is to force our leftist ideology on the
nation as we have in our great and intolerant
City of Portland OR!!!
FlagShareShare
brewhaha 10 hours ago
You're over-complicating it. Young people like
Obama but hate Trump. That's why there are
protests now but not then.
FlagShareShareLikeReply
Realitytrumps 10 hours ago
@brewhaha :
I know you are correct regarding Oregon. We
have purposely foisted upon our educational
system hard leftist thinking. Those students who
are not hard left are relegated to a lessor status
in the eyes of the teachers. Hopefully this is true
across the nation.
We need to raise up single minded leftist youth.

We stand in Portland as a monolithic community
against the open-minded free thinkers who
elected Trump!!!
FlagShareShare
LikeReply
sscamaro
9 hours ago
brewy:
Bill Ayers, Obama confident (sic) [confidante]
and political contributor during a 2006 speech
in Venezuela celebrating Chavez's Bolivarian
Revolution: "........We share the belief that
education is the motor-force of revolution,.....".
Seems Mr Ayers' success in Portlandia has been
fruitful.
FlagShareShare
2 LikeReply

Riptide 10 hours ago
I hope the light sentences will provide a precedent for
future Conservative rioters.
Or in case I just want to bash windows out of a car
dealership, I shouldn't actually be punished.
tek 11 hours ago
Trump flamed the passions of hate and anger during his
campaign, and now the chickens are coming home to
roost. The people who are in the streets feel they're under
attack from Trump, and they're striking back. He basically
called them out himself. He didn't have to do that, and
actions and words have consequences.
OnceAgain9 10 hours ago
@tek: Protesters paid by the DNC fanned the flames of hate
during the campaign, and it's the same ilk that are fanning the
flames now....
The progressives are being exposed by this violence for what they
really are, and it will not help them win future elections.....
tek 10 hours ago
@OnceAgain9 @tek: Trumps presidency will
implode, and the GOP will go down in flames with
it. The politics of hate anger and fear can only
end one way, and we won't like it.

sscamaro
9
hours
ago
tek,
you're
hyperventilating.
Take
a
deep
breath
into
a
brown
paper
bag
.OnceAgain9 7
hours
ago
@tek
@OnceAgain9:
Just
like
you
predicted
a
Clinton
victory?
Tek,
you've
been
exposed,
and
I
bet
your
real
is
freezing....
thesaurusrex
7
hours
ago
@tek
@OnceAgain9:
Tek,
I'm
fearful,
at
times,
that
you
are
correct. It
will
take
vigilance
and
work
from
true
conservatives
to
keep
things
on
an
even
keel.
tek 7
hours
ago
@thesaurusrex @tek @OnceAgain9: I
couldn't
agree
more.
I'm
not
sure
what
a
true
conservative
is
anymore,
but
I
know
that
Trump
isn't
one. He'll
have
a
tough
task
unifying
his
own
party,
and
actually
working
across
the
aisle
when
necessary. He
needs
to
bring
the
country
together.
It
will
take
both
parties
working
together
to
actually
solve
the
mess
we've
created,
and
so
far,
that's
looking
like
it's
not
going
to
happen. At
least
Trump
has
actually
spoken
about
some
of
the
issues
that
need
addressing,
which
hasn't
made
him
very
popular
with
everyone.
thesaurusrex 4
hours
ago @tek @thesaurusrex @OnceAgain9:
I
think
we
have
to
wait
and
see...

Realitytrumps 10 hours ago
@tek:
Your post is awesome. We must keep blaming
our opponents for what is clearly our leftist
community’s fault!! In Portland we welcome
your dishonest and irrational words. Demonize
our non-leftist opposition!!!
We will win the day and intimidate the openminded
free thinkers who elected Trump!
4
tek 10 hours ago
@Realitytrumps @tek: That's the Trump way,
intimidate them into silence. The leftist
community? What's that, everyone who
Trump threatened and vilified? There's lots
of angry people in the US. Some of them
blow up abortion clinics and bomb mosques
too.

OnceAgain9 7 hours ago
@tek @Realitytrumps: Once again, you are
confused, tek.
It's the left that tries to silence....
Who did trump vilify? Who did he threaten?
FlagShareShare
1 LikeReply
tek 6 hours ago
@OnceAgain9 @tek @Realitytrumps: He
threatened 11 million illegals with deportation,
and called them rapists and murderers. They're
not happy with him for that. He also vilified the
muslim community, and denigrated jews as
well. You should actually go back and read up on
the things he said. He's a very angry petty person,
and a lot of people are very offended by the things
he's said.

Jen 5 hours ago
@tek @OnceAgain9 @Realitytrumps:
...you kids need to stop parroting shill talking
points, and get educated about the Clintons -
because you seem to think that there was some
great choice in Presidents or that Hillary is some
kind of saint or the Clintons were fun and
games. Offensiveness?... look up Hillary's super
predators bit to see the kind of person you think
is admirable…
FlagShareShare
LikeReply
sscamaro
9 hours ago
tek, not all of these protests are "homegrown". Many
of them are well funded by outside organizations.

OnceAgain9 7 hours ago
@sscamaro : ....And bused in...
FlagShareShare
LikeReply
tek
6 hours ago
@OnceAgain9 @sscamaro : Right, kind of
like the people they bus in here to Coos Bay
whenever they have a meeting on Jordan
Cove.
FlagShareShare
LikeReply
sscamaro
2 hours ago
tek, like the 5 block long line of buses in
Chicago with Wisconsin license plates. Yea,
those too.

NJAO 11 hours ago
"One anti-Trump protester was seen the other day
holding a sign reading "Your vote was a hate crime."
It's hard to imagine a better distillation of the
coercive small-mindedness that prevails on college
campuses. This attitude ensures a state of perpetual
shock and outrage at the lived reality of a continental
nation of more than 300 million free men and
women."
BINGO
FlagShareShare
8 Likply
WLoodtkey 11 hours ago
Public policy forged on Satan’s anvil does spark
public fury. As Donald Trump stretches his leather
wings, he grips an iron hammer ready to
reshape molten democracy into despair, a
blackened vision of the alt-right.
FlagShareShare LikeReply

Enzo 11 hours ago
@WLoodtkey : ????????????????????
FlagShareShare
LikeReply
Riptide 5ptsFeatured
10 hours ago
WL : zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
FlagShareShare
1 LikeReply
sxsw 8 hours ago
@WLoodtkey :
FlagShareShare
1LikeReply

tsaurusrex 7 hours ago
@WLoodtkey : Please go back on the meds....
FlagShareShare
1 LikeReply
Spanky 3 hours ago
@tsaurusrex @WLoodtkey : ....And double the dose.
FlagShareShare
7. Jan. 20, 2017:
Zeke Miller of TIME reported that President Trump had removed the
bust statue of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. from the Oval
Office. The news went viral. It was false.
107. Aug. 5, 2019 (Out of chronological order because it just came to my attention.)
MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace falsely claims that President Trump had
talked about “exterminating Latinos.” She apologized the next day
stating, on Twitter, “I misspoke about Trump calling’s for an
extermination of Latinos. My mistake was unintentional and I’m sorry.”

"It is usually futile to try to talk facts and analysis to people who
are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance"
~Thomas Sowell

Communists look at
magnanimity as
weakness to be
exploited not as
kindness to be
reciprocated
- Victor Davis Hanson

Rice Krispies say “Snap! Crackle! Pop!”
only in English-speaking countries.
In Sweden, the cereal says “Piff! Paff! Puff!”
In South Africa, it’s “Knap! Knaetter! Knak!”
And in Germany, “Knisper! Knasper! Knusper
What level of fragility is this?

WASHINGTON – An assistant professor at the University of Iowa who pledged to
expose her students to “their own white ignorance” in a “peer-reviewed academic
journal” was stunned and appalled that she was, well, criticized for it.
Jodi Linley, a white education instructor, wrote that her goal was
to make her “mostly white” graduate students keenly aware of
their “white privilege” and use her classroom to “deconstruct
whiteness.” If she did otherwise, she explained, it would make her
“complicit” in perpetrating white supremacy.
“For white students,” she wrote, “talking about race with an all-white group of
peers … [reveals] their own white ignorance.”
Linley said her commitment to designing classes that fight white privilege began as
soon as she became a professor in 2014, at which point she resolved to “develop
courses that both unveiled and rejected” the notion that “neutrality and objectivity
are realistic and attainable.”
“As a white assistant professor of mostly white graduate students who will become
higher education leaders, I work to dismantle whiteness in my curriculum,
assignments and pedagogy,” Linley explained, noting that in addition to her “white
identity,” she also draws on her “identities as a queer, able-bodied, cisgender
woman” with a working-class background to construct her “teaching paradigm.”
She offered up five strategies other professors can
use to deconstruct white privilege in their own
classes, such as making sure students know that
their views on race will be challenged, “interrupting
oppression” that occurs in classroom settings, and
segregating students by race so they can have more
productive dialogues about privilege.
“For white students, talking about race with an all-white group of peers facilitates
their realization that they are raced beings, thus revealing their own white
ignorance,” Linley asserted as justification for segregating students during some
discussions.

Perhaps Linley and her university thought the paper would be a groundbreaking
work that would be met with universal praise. However, it was widely criticized on
social media, and she received some negative email.
She and her university described that reaction as being “targeted, harassed and
threatened.”
Daniel Clay, dean of the College of Education, expressed horror over the criticism,
issuing this statement:
“Recently, one of our faculty members was singled out for publishing a peerreview
article on race issues in higher education. This faculty member was
targeted, harassed, and threatened by many people from around the country
through email, phone calls, and social media.
“As the dean of our University of Iowa College of Education, I want to affirm that
we welcome all students, faculty, and staff of all races and backgrounds. We work
hard to create an inclusive environment that cultivates respect and appreciation for
everyone. The University of Iowa is also strongly committed to freedom of
expression and the First Amendment, and that extends to students, faculty and
staff.”
Apparently, however, the commitment to freedom of expression and the First
Amendment does not apply to dissenting opinions expressed in emails and on
social media.
As college students begin returning to campus this week, they can expect similar
coursework all across America.
Last year, Portland Community College devoted an entire month to “whiteness”
shaming.
This summer, an assistant professor at Georgia State University published an
academic journal article lamenting the “insidiousness of silence and whiteness” on
college campuses.
And last spring, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee called for
complete “abolition of whiteness,” saying only then will America see an end to
racism. The professors had one thing in common. They are all white.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.
If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal
controls on government would be necessary.
James Madison, The Federalist Papers (51), 1788
Www a wwpp f efw ewaxp, efewy f f pf xp y
wpeww. Nf a xp paw x xp fexxfp, xp ewpf, xp
axwp f xp efppwppxfp.
James Madison, in the “Naonal Gazee”, March 29, 1792
Wherever there is an interest and power to do wrong,
wrong will generally be done…
James Madison, leer to Thomas Jefferson, October 20, 1788
If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the
people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must
become happy. - Thomas Jefferson, leer to Thomas Cooper, January 29, 1802
All power in human hands is liable to be abused. In
governments independent of The People, the rights and
interests of the whole may be sacrificed to the views of the
Government. In Republics, where the majority govern, a
danger to the minority arises from a sacrifice of their rights
to the interests of the majority. No form of government
therefore can be a perfect guard against the abuse of power.
- James Madison, Leer to Thomas Ritchie, December 18 th , 1825

Douglass Murray: We’re at the beginning of this aren’t
we… there’s a long way for this to run – a long way for censorship
to run. You can’t help thinking, among other things, that the
people trying to make the rules at the moment have no idea of the
fact that these debates have happened before – they seem to think
that history started with them. And I wish that, among other
things with social media, people realize we have been through this
several times before and the lessons are pretty clear. They are not
that you can limit speech in order to attain political Nirvana, for
instance. Nor are they that you can simply use - for short-term
gain - accusations you know to be wrong, in order to further a
short-term political goal. We know all this; we’ve been through it.
The printing press – we went through it with John Stuart Mill; we
went through it with Milton. I just wish these people had any idea
of the fact that history started before their parents conceived them.
Joe Rogan: The whole culture of tech today is such a
progressive thought bubble – it’s an echo chamber. It’s
better that they’re really progressive and open minded
and left-wing than radical right wing. I think it’s better.
Douglass Murray: I agree, if by radical right-wing you mean neo-
Nazi racists. Of course. Although these people [on the left] have all
the ability to create those people and empower them, which is
something you don’t want: actual racists and Nazis to have
legitimate grievance claims. You don’t want them to be able to
disguise themselves as something they’re not. We’re not far away
from that place where I say what you say is hate speech, you say
what I say is hate speech – let’s call the whole thing off. We’re not
very far away from that, actually.

joe v 2 months ago
The far left is
the far right
like
Stalin,
tell
me
again
how
it’s
better
than
REPLY
D R 2 months ago
It’s like saying Stalin and Mussolini are far better than
Hitler; they are all terrible, but of course Joe has to start
the conversation with a wink and a nod to the left.
REPLY
Rev 1 month ago
@D R Stalin and Moose-a-lini ARE better (eg: less
successful) than Hitler. Facts are facts. Nod to lefties
not.
or
Rev 1 month ago
DEfinately.
A
socialist
is
WAY
better
than
a
fascist
REPLY

S Berry 1 month ago
➔ @RevD
“A socialist is WAY better than a fascist”
Socialism is simply a family friendly term for Communism. And
Communism and Fascism are just different sides of the same coin.
They are both equally terrible, just for slightly different reasons. The
slightly different reasons being that Communism is a con that will kill
you, whereas Fascism is honest and will kill you.
Rev 1 month ago
➔ @SBerry
you have a child’s understanding of these political
concepts. And you really had to stretch to reach that
childish point. All you did was straw man a democratic free
market concept (socialism) as if it were authoritarian
communism. Tfoh
REPLY
SBerry 1 month ago
➔ @”Rev –
"you have a child’s understanding of these political
concepts."
Communism IS childish. You can fluff it up with all the big words and
phrases you want, but that won’t change the fact that

Communism
is
basically
just
a
bunch
of
adults
demanding
that
people
give
them
stuff
for
free,
knowing
full
well
that
it’s
not
“free”
-
as
the
people
they
are
stealing
from
will
have
to
pay
for
it.
"All
you
did
was
straw
man
a
democratic
free
market
concept
(socialism)
as
if
it
were
authoritarian
communism."
Yeah,
because
if
51%
of
people
agree
that
theft
from
certain
people
is
okay,
it’s
not
really
theft
anymore.
Sounds
authoritarian
to
me.
Just
because
you
can
vote
in
an
idea
doesn’t
make
it
right.
And
rationalizing
it
makes
you
no
better
than
any
other
tyrant
in
history
that
rationalized
their
own
terrible
deeds.
Every
villain
is
the
hero
of
their
own
story.
Rev
1 month ago
@SBerry
wow.
So
your
stance
is:
democracy
is
authoritarian
tyranny?
Hot
take,
smart
guy.
Hilariously,
your
adversarial
foolishness
made
you
double
down
on
the
straw
man
fallacy.
Maybe
stfu
while
you're
behind.
Show
less
Ben
B
2 weeks ago
@joe
v Stalin
actually
killed
and
imprisoned
more
than
Hitler.
But
he’s
better
because...
science.

B S 2 months ago
because the far right are violent, divisive, bigoted man-children
who can't tell the difference between being asked to be civilized
and losing their "free speech"?
Beardfist TheGolden1 1 month ago
@B S The government can't tell you to be polite. Civilized
discussion is a wonderful thing, but as soon as laws compel a
certain type of speech, it has gone too far. Free speech is good
because you want people who believe actual racist and
bigoted ideologies to out themselves.
Roger 1 month ago
@B S Using violence and government intervention isn't
them "being asked to be civilized." BTW ANTIFA is just as
violent if not more so.
B S 1 month ago
@Roger That's nice, but nobody here is supporting anti-fa.
You're trying to provide a strawman, but that's not what we're
here for. Go talk to yourself if you don't want to be part of the
current topic. The alt-right are shitheads. That's the topic.

Roger 1 month ago
@B S
Actually,
the
topic
is
Joe
Rogan
stating
that
it
is
better
that
the
far-left
control
social
media
than
the
far-right.
The
OP
disagreed,
thus
the
discussion
is
‘who’
is
correct.
Antifa
are
far-left
pansies
who
wear
masks
because
they
don't
believe
in
consequences.
The
fact
of
the
matter
is:
that
weak,
far
left
group
is
far
more
violent
and
that
has
been
repeatedly
proven.
Your
cowardly
diversion
from
my
point
only
proves
my
point;
the
left
are
a
bunch
of
cowards
who
are
afraid
to
allow
the
other
side
to
have
a
voice
because
you
know
you
aren't
smart
enough
to
stand
up
to
debate.
B
S
1 month ago
@Roger Oh,
so
you
think
that
the
far
right
and
the
far
left
are
the
same
as
the
alt
right
and
antifa?
Also,
this
is
a
sub
thread.
The
topic
here
in
this
sub
thread
is
"The
far
left
is
like
Stalin,
tell
me
again
how
it’s
better
than
the
far
right".
Roger 1 month ago
@B S
You're
not
too
bright,
are
you?
Joe
used
the
alt
right
as
the
baseline
for
the
far
right.
That
is
the
basis
of
the
OP.
Since
antifa
are
commies,
they
are
the
far-left,
as
that
is
what
far-left
means.
You're
out
of
your
depth.

B S 1 month ago
@Roger I know people in antifa and they are all anarchists and
democratic socialists, not commies. Let me guess, you don't
know the difference between socialism and communism either?
You are a literal idiot.
Roger 3 weeks ago
@B S Anarchists are the complete opposite of democratic
socialists. Anarchists don't want any laws while socialists want
more laws. Some ANTIFA members may call themselves anarchists
but I highly doubt they actually are, based on the diatribe they
espouse. Why is it that you never hear about ANTIFA protesting
and shutting down left wing events in spite of the fact the left
wing is more authoritarian and more fascist? Their behavior has
more to do with wanting to shut down any ideas they don't like.
B S 3 weeks ago
@Roger ok I’m not reading what you said because “anarchists
are the opposite of democratic socialists” is already stupid. Go
look at all the different forms of anarchy.

Roger 3 weeks ago
@B
S
You
do
realize
that
anarchy
means
no
government,
right?
It
doesn't
really
matter
what
your
personal
beliefs
are
because
no
government
is
no
government.
It
is
astounding
that
you
could
be
this
stupid.
B
S
1 month ago
@Roger Also,
it
IS
better
for
the
far
left
to
control
social
media
because
conservatives
consistently
tend
to
be
idiots
when
it
comes
to
understanding
newer
tech.
Roger 1 month ago
@Justin Criticizing
people
isn't
the
same
as
using
the
government
or
violence
to
stop
people
from
talking.
That
is
the
crux
of
the
"free
speech"
issue
liberals
can't
seem
to
wrap
their
heads
around.
Rev
1 month ago
@Roger make
up
your
mind.
Is
antifa
fearful
teenagers,
weak,
laissez
faire,
pansies?
Or
are
they
violent
militants
who
kill
and
maim
in
the
name
of
intersectional
pronouns?
Why
u
scared
by
them?

--3 months ago
@lastDAN Progressivism just means constant flux
and cultural destruction.
REPLY
RaneboGhunt 3 weeks ago
Incorrect. False Equivalency=Logical Fallacy
Thanks for playing
Patricia 1 week ago
In 1961 my mother said to me: never put anything in
writing anywhere, that you aren't willing to have put
on the front page of the world’s biggest newspaper.
henry 4 days ago
@Rev Vladimir Lenin was originally a democratic socialist, How
did that turn out. Hugo Chavez from Venezuela was a democratic
socialist, how did that work out.

Rev
4 days ago
@henry okay.
Hitler
was
a
painter.
How
did
that
turn
out?
Satan
was
an
angel
how
did
that
turn
out?
Reagan
was
an
actor.
Blah
blah
blah.
Nobody
here
is
defending
communism,
no
matter
how
hard
these
snowflakes
want
to
conflate
it
with
socialist
democracy
and
beat
the
straw
man
instead
of
becoming
educated
and
ethically
driven.
This
conversation
was
never
about
democratic
socialism
as
it
is
understood
in
the
USA.
Here
in
America
what
we
think
of
as
'democratic
socialism'
is
actually
'socialist
democracy.'
Please
try
to
stay
on
track
and
use
comparable
examples,
like
from
this
century.
REPLY
henry 4 days ago
@Rev
Hugo
Chavez
was
a
democratic
socialist
who
ruled
this
century.
He
did
many
of
the
things
progressives
support.
Even
The
Young
Turks
praised
Hugo
Chavez
before
Venezuela
collapsed.
Bernie
is
not
a
European
social
democrat.
His
healthcare
plan
goes
further
than
any
of
the
Nordic
countries.
No
countries
in
Europe
offer
a
jobs
guarantee.
Jobs
guarantee
is
not
social
democracy
-
that
is
direct
socialism.
Many
European
countries
have
low
corporate
taxes,
like
Estonia
and
Ireland.
No
European
country
has
a
15-dollar
minimum
wage
and
some
European
countries
that
are
considered
progressive
do
not
even
have
a
minimum
wage.
Most
European
social
democracies
have
a
high
Value
Added
Tax
and
are
getting
rid
of
-
or
phasing
out
-
wealth
taxes
because
they
didn't
work.
Bernie
has
more
in
common
with
Latin
American
socialist
than
European
social
democrats.

Bernie does not identify as a social democrat - he identifies as a
democratic socialist. The leaders of those countries in Scandinavia
have disputed Bernie’s claims that they are socialist. Social
democracy is declining in many parts of Europe as well. Bernie
literally had a wedding in Moscow and praised Fidel Castro. Stop
lying and saying that communism is vastly different than
democratic socialism. AOC is literally part of the Democratic
Socialists of America and in the DSA they want workers to own
the means of production. Communist and socialist countries have
said the same thing. Tell me a country were socialism works better
than the United States. Scandinavian countries have a large
welfare state, but a capitalist economic system. The Green New
Deal that provides a jobs guarantee proves he is a real socialist.
Communism never even existed - they were socialist transitioning
to communism. Communist societies have the workers owning the
means of production and no government. No countries have
established that they merely attempted to and failed. Socialism -
where the government owns the means of production - has never
worked.
REPLY
Rev 4 days ago
@henry okay...... I don’t know why you are going on about Bernie
Sanders and it doesn’t matter how he identifies; definitions are
the definitions. If you would link where The Young Turks sing the
praises of Hugo Chavez, I’d be much obliged. As I’m inclined to
say, your full of elephant propaganda. What "Jobs Guarantee" has
any politician made that every other politician has not made?
That's fake news. Those places don't have Minimum Wage
because people get more than $15 per hour.

Socialist
policy
does
NOT
include
government
or
the
workers
having
ownership
of
means
of
production.
That’s
an
ignorant
understanding
that
you
are
conflating
with
communism.
I
would
be
hard
pressed
to
find
a
country
where
socialism
works
better
than
socialism
has
worked
in
the
United
States.
I
don’t
know
why
you
would
point
that
out
though.
I
figured
you
for
one
to
deny
the
socialism
inherent
in
the
USA
policy,
infrastructure
and
procedure.
You
are
swimming
in
socialist
governance
already.
Every
state
that
has
low
taxes
operates
at
a
loss.
Don't
be
obtuse.
You
need
to
learn
about
this
stuff
from
somebody
other
than
your
angry
McCarthyite
uncle.
Show
less
REPLY
henry 4 days ago
@Rev read
the
Green
New
Deal.
Everyone
would
be
entitled
to
a
government
job
making
15
dollars
an
hour.
You
have
done
no
research.
Socialism
is
not
when
the
government
does
stuff.
Socialism
is
government
or
communal
ownership
of
the
means
of
production.
If
you
do
not
believe
that,
go
look
up
the
definition
of
socialism
in
the
dictionary.
And
no
not
everyone
in
Scandinavian
countries
makes
15
or
more
dollars
per
hour.
Many
non-skilled
workers
make
less.
Just
like
in
the
United
States.
No
engineers
or
teachers
or
doctors
make
less
than
15
dollars
an
hour.
If
you
work
at
a
job
that
requires
no
skill,
then
it
is
common
to
make
less
than
15
dollars
an
hour.
No
European
country
guarantees
that
all
people
will
make
15
dollars
an
hour.
The
highest
is
around
less
than
12
dollars
an
hour
Show
less
REPLY

henry 4 days ago
@Rev Socialism - 2a: a system of society or group living
in which there is no private property b: a system or
condition of society in which the means of production are
owned and controlled by the state
Show less
REPLY
Machete Yo 2 months ago
Let me diminish the experience of something
I've never experienced....
OddityDK 2 months ago
People who write in all caps amuse me. Their complete
ignorance of how reading works, produces the exact opposite
result of what they are trying to accomplish. We don’t read
all letters in a word, like in so many other things, reading is
mainly pattern recognition.
W ic is w y an on c n re d th s.
All caps removes the contours of the letters, so the reader has
to read every letter individually and it makes people not want
to bother and just skip it.

Murall D 1 month ago
People adapt to all the compelled perspectives being
pushed by platforms. Take Dave Chapelle's sticks and
stones. Most people only watched it when the crazy
activist feminazi journalists came after him. People adapt
by changing their filtering criteria. What is pushed as far
right, people know is the actual center and they take these
information guardians with a pinch of salt, as it is.
REPLY
J. C. 2 months ago
Anyone who disagrees with you can be called anything
you want. Propaganda is not new... it’s just getting
"rediscovered" by people who need to redefine words in
order to maintain their "status" or "power" or whatever,
because they don’t have any of it in reality, or actual
fact. Since they can’t be REAL, they have to be FAKE.
And then they will attempt to convince you that their
FAKENESS is actually REALNESS - so that you will agree
with their bullshit little delusions and play their bullshit
little game by their bullshit little rules.
Show less

D B 2 weeks ago
➔ @Tman another dumbass that can't tell fascism
from socialism. What a stupid shit.
Tman 2 weeks ago
@D B well since every history class I've ever taken called Hitler a
fascist even though he was a member of the socialist party....
doesn’t seem to be much of a difference. The fact that socialist
Hitler was allied to fascist Mussolini also shows how close the two
ideologies are. But you keep believing what your socialist
professors tell you instead of looking at history and seeing the
truth for yourself.
Show less
REPLY
C C 1 week ago
➔ @Tman you're spouting pure Faux News drivel. Saying
Sanders is a Nazi because "the Nazis were National
Socialists" is like saying Republicans are Communists
because "the R in U.S.S.R. stood for Republicans"

REPLY
C
C 1 week ago
@Tman Wow.. are you seriously arguing the Nazis were
NOT RIGHT-WING??? . Your ignorance is
ASTOUNDING! Faux News is literally making you DUMBER
EVERY DAY!
REPLY
C
C 1 week ago
@nang q your ignorance is SPECTACULAR! You think the far-right
would never do ALL THOSE THINGS? THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT
THEY ARE NOTORIOUS FOR... FROM MCCARTHYISM TO THE
KKK TO WHITE NATIONALISM TO CHRISTIAN NATIONALISM
TO THE AMERICAN NAZI PARTY, THE AMERICAN GERMAN
BUND, ANY OF THE HUNDREDS OF FAR RIGHT "CHRISTIAN
IDENTITY" CONSPIRACY-THEORY-LADEN, WHITE-
SEPARATIST, ANTI-GOVERNMENT, ANTI-MUSLIM, ANTI-
IMMIGRANT, ANTI-ABORTION, ANTI-SEMITIC, ANTI-GAY,
ANTI-FEMINIST, VIOLENT, MILITIA-FORMING NUTJOBS THAT
HAVE KILLED MORE AMERICANS SINCE 9/11 THAN ANY
OTHER FORM OF EXTREMISM... WHY EVERYBODY HATES
THEM. https://www.newsweek.com/2016/02/12/right-wing-extremistsmilitants-bigger-threat-america-isis-jihadists-422743.html

REPLY
C C 1 week ago
Anyone who thinks the far-right is not a dangerous
deranged group of NUTJOBS, and pose the greatest threat
to America, read this (call it fake news but it's reality):
https://www.newsweek.com/2016/02/12/right-wing-extremistsmilitants-bigger-threat-america-isis-jihadists-422743.html
Justin _2 months ago
I'm not the least bit happy about identity politics
or a lot of these odd dogmas on the left; but to
say the right doesn't have its own very radical,
paranoid elements is to be willfully blind, or so
far in them you don't realize it. There's plenty of
hypocrisy to go around.
Truth Addict 1 year ago
"Hate Speech" is just free speech that you
don't like.

4d's 3 months ago
Intelligently, humorously and
entertainingly argues us into extinction.
Your enemy always tries to be the reasonable one in
the room.
Tony 2 months ago
That’s an interesting concept: that the left’s hate
speech inquisition is used to Trojan horse actual bad
ideas back into society.
Sean 1 month ago
@Justin _ come on, groupthink is like a diminishing
returns kind of situation where it doesn't just stop at
zero but folds back in on itself into negatives...
______________________________________________
I wasn’t the fly on the wall at many gatherings - I was a hungry
wasp. People looked at me with a kind of hostility they couldn’t do
anything about. Why I found this enjoyable I can’t tell you.
______________________________________________________________Tom
Wolfe

TWENTY
what would
be his
motivation?

“The decay and disintegration of this culture is
astonishingly amusing if you are emotionally detached from
it. I have always viewed it from a safe distance, knowing I
don't belong; it doesn't include me, and it never has. No
matter how you care to define it, I do not identify with the
local group. Planet, species, race, nation, state, religion,
party, union, club, association, neighborhood improvement
committee; I have no interest in any of it. I love and
treasure individuals as I meet them, I loathe and despise
the groups they identify with and belong to.”
-George Carlin
opinion: (noun) a belief stronger than impression and less
strong than positive knowledge
bps The_Irredeemable_Toxic_Avenger
• 2 days ago
the comments are like the toy in the
cereal box - everybody wants to get
their hands in there and unearth
something awesome - the story, much
like the cereal, is sugar-coated cr@p

A
clea
ad
ce
ccece
fea
i.
- lzFet te rst
I have long maintained that I
have no “rooting interest” in any
of this, other than an ongoing
optimism that we somehow
eventually get better at…this.
I left out known sources in
some places: “who” says
something can be prejudicial --
frequently obscuring an
otherwise well-made point or
valid position.
Almost half of these clippings
were simply home-grown
responses from what appears to be an increasingly engaged populace – authors
were not always divulged or apparent R ---
(*…love Chris Moore…one of the best…hope all “get him”…)

SLEUTH- Lawrence Olivier and Michael Caine ratchet up a battle of wits in an old-style, armchair
psychological thriller – pre-Hollywood special effects… this is perhaps my favorite movie of all time,
although once you’ve seen it, you can never again experience it the same way - repeated viewings will
never yield the same reaction….The original version (based on a play) is so treasured
by some, it has become difficult to find & somewhat expensive. The remake with
Jude Law is so awful, you wonder how anyone involved could have signed off on it
THE BAD & THE BEAUTIFUL --- Fiendish satire nails the path of destruction
that usually accompanies a climb to the top. Hollywood lampooned its own “Golden
Age” in this 1950s tale of deceit, betrayal, and alienation… almost startling in its
brazen depiction of an essential truth: this entire industry is self-absorbed and largely
full of shit…It’s common to think of this era as pretty straitlaced – you might not
imagine something this cool, acidic, and on the mark could spring from that well
NETWORK – a wildly ambitious, dangerously high-strung female TV executive crosses the path ---
and over the moral and ethical lines --- of a seasoned news veteran in the twilight of his career, and
learns … nothing. Bizarre and crude, yet strangely prophetic, “Network” predicted 50 years ago exactly
how far into the toilet television would end up.
JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG -- After they tried (and hung) all the obvious assholes in post-war
Nazi Germany, they went back to get some less obvious ones: the judges who subverted the law and
helped Hitler achieve his monstrous goals… Riveting dialogue & performances… all-star cast… a firstrate
courtroom drama (the original with Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, and [a dynamic] Maximilian
Schell in glorious black & white)… HIGHLY RECOMMENDED & EDUCATIONAL.
BUTCH CASSIDY & THE SUNDANCE KID - Paul Newman & Robert Redford as a couple of reallife
1890s outlaws… Newman, the affable ringleader of “The Hole in the Wall Gang”; Redford, the
notorious sharp-shooter no gunslinger ever wants to draw on. Pure entertainment … Once upon a time,
there wasn’t a soul alive who didn’t like this movie, except maybe a few sourpusses and historians who
objected to the character exaggeration & glorification of two Wild West bank robbers… (Butch
Cassidy’s actual sister was invited to the set for approval and accuracy stamps, and was apparently as
enterprising, obstinate, and wily as her famous brother in fact was)… produced when movies weren’t
subjected to endless cooks in the kitchen – a highly stylized, comical & enjoyable diversion myth…
PLANET OF THE APES -- Inspired by French author Pierre Boulle’s 1960s story about an upsidedown
world where apes rule and man is subservient, the low-tech original starring Charlton Heston –
made long before digital animation and without a blockbuster budget - is stirring, chilling, and
powerful.
CROSSROADS –the folklore of the blues seen through the eyes of a young, irrepressible guitar
prodigy… the title refers to the spot where the legendary bluesmen were said to have sold their souls, in
return for their ungodly talent & immortality... Entertaining; not perfect… The grouchy old “damned”
bluesman steals the show: the unlikely pair’s desperate efforts to get “Willie” out of his contract with the
Devil, and the wild “cutting heads” end-sequence are well worth the fun and educational ride
THE STING – Another all-time classic, Newman & Redford reunite three years after “Butch Cassidy”
as Depression-era grifters, going after the biggest, most dangerous score of their lives… The chemistry
is again perfect, and the lively tale, colorful characters, and endless twists always satisfy, no matter how
many times you see it, and even after you know the ending…

QUICK CHANGE – Under-the-radar Bill Murray movie is part comedy, part social satire…better than
“Ground Hog Day” IMO… a well-planned caper gets an unforeseen wrinkle and quickly spirals into
non-stop absurdity… to say more would spoil -- one of my favorite “Sleepers” …
SPINAL TAP – the funniest goof on asshole rock bands ever made… might not grab everyone, because
the era it’s making fun of is long gone, but this mostly-improvised “Rockumentary” by (pre-tweeting)
Rob Reiner was the first of its kind, and remains an often quoted gem
KATE & LEOPOLD –Endearing and entertaining time-travel movie…the contrast/conflict between a
superficial, insincere world and the noble, chivalrous gentleman from another century is the main
attraction, though it’s a sweet romantic comedy at heart
THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR – a bored millionaire businessman with no challenges left in life
meets a worthy female adversary in a fun, but intriguing tale of light-hearted deception…the modern
Pierce Brosnan / Rene Russo remake got a “chick flick” reputation, but still satisfies… coin toss…
ALL ABOUT EVE – Five-star, all-time classic… Bette Davis at her best in a mordacious, astute
skewering of stardom and what people do to attain it. Superb dialogue and a scathing study of inner
dynamics between people… won a million Academy Awards… timeless – still hits home after 60
years… Marilyn Monroe makes a surprise appearance as a ditzy wannabe actress…except for Ann
Baxter going over the top at times, this is an almost perfect movie…HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
DOC HOLLYWOOD – Michael J. Fox in his glory days… (I actually watched him tape a sitcom once
– interesting…). Youthful ambition crashes into small-town sensibilities… thoroughly entertaining spin
on “careful what you wish for” and one of the better deliveries of “you can blink now”…
A FEW GOOD MEN – the final courtroom scene is worth the price of admission alone… Jack
Nicholson & Tom Cruise square off – both in top form & first-rate material.…military theme, with light
moments, but ultimately a courtroom drama of the highest caliber that questions the moral and legal
limits of upholding a time-honored pledge by whatever means necessary. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
BIG – my untold story…
TO CATCH A THIEF – I love this movie just because I love Grace Kelly… as elegant & lovely a star
as there was… she left Hollywood on top and married a prince… there was no fairy-tale ending
MISSISSIPPI BURNING – realistic portrayal of the racial tensions that flared in the South in the early
Sixties and soon became national news… focuses on the actual case of murdered college-aged “Freedom
Fighters” and the ensuing cover-up…Gene Hackman’s pushbacks and set-ups on tight-lipped local
officials are riveting and compelling … HIGHLY EDUCATIONAL & RECOMMENDED.
MAJOR LEAGUE – best baseball movie ever (& there have been plenty)… funny and spot-on … the
devious, insufferable boss gets a comeuppance…Charlie Sheen can actually pitch, so the action looks
realistic, but the story is so comical and engaging, you don’t have to love the game, to love the movie
MORNING GLORY – love Rachel McAdams, but Harrison Ford steals the show as a cranky,
impossible, deadly-serious anchorman who must endure the ignominy of hosting a failing, cheesy
early-morning “news” program. McAdams is pure spirit & sunshine – determined to succeed in spite of
Ford’s constant sabotage attempts.

GIRL ON THE BRIDGE --- unique, French subtitled character study… The method of delivering the
"backstory" in the opening sequence is so out of the ordinary, you’re drawn right in. Though quirky and
light at times, the message is nonetheless pretty heavy and it’s advisable not to go into this on a low note
…I’ve lent this out as much as anything I own...
MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON – Old-school political classic… a principled, but naïve
young man suddenly finds himself a member of Congress… like so many before (and after…) him, he
thinks that politics is pure, and government is for the people and by the people…
WHOSE LIFE IS IT ANYWAY? – Heartbreaking true story of a passionate, wise-cracking sculptor
whose life takes an abrupt and unexpected turn…questions medicine, law, faith, humanity and the extent
of their respective powers when faced with a life-altering decision…Funny, sad, thought-provoking…
CHARLIE – movie version of the touching short story “Flowers for Algernon”. Suffers a little from
the cinematography of the era, but a poignant and perceptive tale, nonetheless
THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION: BEYOND CONSPIRACY – informative ABC documentary
that seeks to put a rest to all conspiracy theories… modern, frame-by-frame computer models re-enact
the events in Dealy Plaza with unprecedented accuracy… coupled with interviews of key figures,
including Oswald’s own brother, a convincing argument for a lone gunman emerges, but falls short of
eliminating the possibility that the lone assassin was a hired gun. Lots of interesting background
information and an absolute shredding of Oliver Stone’s version of the events - his fairy tale “JFK”
THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT – The story of “The Who” and the history of Rock are nearly inseparable
– The first of the breed… Ear-splitting, arena-rock music can be traced right back through this band’s
family tree… The Beatles & Stones never played like this, and Jimi Hendrix & Led Zeppelin came later.
Even if you don’t know the music, the presentation is so captivating (particularly the Woodstock
sequences), and the band members are personally so amusing, you can’t help being drawn into this very
cool and very well-done retrospective.
TOM DOWD: THE LANGUAGE OF MUSIC – the Les Paul of record production… An iconic
pioneer of audio engineering, Tom Dowd recorded and mixed more classic hits than anyone on the
planet – and was there from almost Day One. Engaging and completely devoid of ego, Dowd was a
natural teacher and universally beloved. This extensive documentary is in many ways a history of the
record industry from inception to maturity, with a short detour into Tom’s experiences as a physicist in
the Manhattan Project, working on the development of the atomic bomb. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
ELTON JOHN: CLASSIC ALBUM SERIES “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” – the making of one
of the classic albums of all-time… … as big as anybody through Rock’s platinum era: sold out arenas,
multi-million sales, private jets… If you were around, you knew…at the top of his game, he and lyricist
Bernie Taupin produced music that was rivaled by only a select few… Woven into a short documentary
of John’s career are scenes of the actual making of one of the great recordings in music history
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE – hmmmm…should I?.... violent, provocative social commentary…
almost left it out, ‘cuz it’s so disturbing and controversial… this was banned in England when it came
out -- and is still mostly hidden away from the innocent… a macabre story of over-the-top social
engineering gone bad… with scenes of violent rape and aberrant adolescent angst, this is absolutely not
for everyone… Stanley Kubrick, way before “The Shining” – visually innovative and ominous, the
“look” of this movie was as outrageous as the sordid story ….viewer discretion strongly advised.

DEATHTRAP – stage play, turned movie - creative ethics on unusual display…first-rate plot twister;
highly recommended dialogue piece w/ Michael Caine & Christopher Reeves…to tell more would spoil
HARD DAY’S NIGHT – At about the time the Beatles were becoming a unique and out-of-control
global phenomenon, an idea was posed to make a feature film about them. No one was quite sure what
tack to take – the Beatles themselves (four of the funniest ball-busters on the planet) would never have
stood for a predictable, pretentious “documentary”… The wacky, rapid-fire, non-sensical dialogue and
novel cinematography of “A Hard Day’s Night” was the perfect vehicle… a pre-screening for studio
execs elicited remarks like “I don’t know what it was about, but I loved it”… A candid snapshot of an
innocent, comical, loveable band and a truly wild era, like none other…
HIROSHIMA (2005 BBC History of World War II) – re-creation of the events leading up to the
dropping of the first atomic bomb on Japan and the unprecedented destruction of an entire major
city…interviews with actual participants and survivors… horrible, but illuminating… not damning or
judgmental…you want it to be only a movie, but this one actually happened…
SABRINA – it may be sacrilege to go with the remake, but I thought Julia Ormond was terrific as the
sheltered chauffeur’s daughter whose personal break-out & makeover gets her a ticket to the ball, but at
a steep price. An old story, but well done here… Harrison Ford & Greg Kinnear are the fantastically
wealthy brothers she’s torn between.
IN-LAWS – what happens when a relentless, risk-taking wack-job appears in your calm, banal life and
there’s no way to lose him… the stakes are worldwide inflation, so it’s not without purpose…Peter Falk
(Columbo) as a loveable, fearless, ad-libbing insider who turns a suburban dentist’s world upside-down
SHE’S OUT OF MY LEAGUE - a socially clumsy, dryly self-aware airport check-in clerk has no
illusions about what romantic field he is capable of playing in, until a chance encounter with a selfassured,
articulate goddess has him swimming in the deep end, with everybody offering their take on the
apparent mismatch … accurate, crude, and funny… even if you deduct a point for the low-budget
production and another for some random misfires along the way, it’s still an entertaining “solid 8”…
TO SIR WITH LOVE – Sidney Poitier as a thoughtful, principled school teacher enlisted to tame an
unruly bunch of 60’s-era British wise-asses…always considered a classic… definitely a period piece – if
you want to see how guys & girls dressed, acted (and danced) during the “swinging London” era…
NIGHTMARE ALLEY – a wicked, unusual, dark and disturbing cautionary tale of “what goes around,
comes around” (and the origin of the word “geek”)… film noir version with Tyrone Power ….
THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION – “Absolute power corrupts absolutely”… once in a while
someone gets even. This was a very short (like 25 pages…) and atypical Steven King story, turned into
a modern epic… included on just about everyone’s Top (whatever) List…
SCHINDLER’S LIST – heart-wrenching account of the atrocities of Nazi Germany, seen through the
eyes of German entrepreneur Oscar Schindler. His “epiphany” changes the dynamic of the narrative –
opportunistic businessman becomes noble savior… you turn this off with tears in your eyes...
BEN HUR – “Gladiator” long before “Gladiator”…. When movies were chiseled into stone tablets and
orchestras started the show… Some may need to get past the opening sermon, but this story of betrayal,
revenge, and redemption will get you every time… though you better have about 3 hours to get gotten

ROSEMARY’S BABY – truly creepy sell-out story… the depravity of the “bargain” is the unknown
plot twist… Roman Polanski’s directorial eye and understated touch (plus the genius of casting Ruth
Gordon as the insufferable neighbor) make this more bizarre and eerie than genuinely terrifying… a
classic tale of unfathomable horror…
MIDNIGHT EXPRESS – “true” story of an American caught up in an unjust and cruel third-world
legal system indefinitely… Imprisoned; mentally & physically tortured – the ordeal is harrowing and
vividly portrayed, though I took a point off after I found out (recently) that the main character wasn’t
exactly the babe in the woods he is presented as (returning three times to tempt fate)… still, this is an
intense and unbelievable nightmare – you’ll never think about the soles of your feet the same way
again….
WESTWORLD – Michael Crichton’s very first movie… and it’s a good one --- prescient commentary
on technology gone awry, some twenty years before we all started to think about such things… Yul
Brenner is coolly terrifying in a stand-out performance… one of my favorite movies… a unique classic
AMADEUS – Hollywood’s larger-than-life take on the crazy, flippant, tortured soul of classical
composer Wolfgang Mozart. Detailed and entertaining on a grand scale, though somewhat
embellished… the adversarial relationship between the flamboyant, gifted Mozart & the less-talented
Salieri was exaggerated for effect… Salieri’s impassioned vow to God to destroy his childish, arrogant
“creation” (for giving him only the talent to recognize the Earthly incarnation) makes for great drama,
but there’s no historical evidence of anything as sinister as what is portrayed here…Top drawer
Hollywood production… excellent acting… a sound score for the ages…HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
CONTINENTAL DIVIDE – warm, funny comedy about the ultimate long-distance relationship…
John Belushi, in a comical and endearing romantic leading role, is a voracious, aggressive big-city
reporter enlightened and transformed by a thoughtful conservationist living independently in the wild,
far removed from the dishonest sensationalism of the mainstream media
APOCALYPSE NOW – Director Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather) almost bankrupted himself to
make this Vietnam epic his way… those who served admirably and faithfully are not disparaged in this
fabricated assassin’s tale…some find it unbearably brutal and nearly impossible to watch, but if you
want to get a glimpse of just how fucked up this mistake of a war was, it is all vividly portrayed here…
ALL THAT JAZZ -- a twisted, original, black comedy, loosely based on the decadent lifestyle of
choreographer/director Bob Fosse. Highly unusual story-telling techniques poke fun at the downward
spiral of an obsessive ego-maniac drowning in work, excess, cynicism, debauchery, and every bad
health habit known to man… The quirky style was alternately praised and scorned for its derisive
treatment of some pretty morbid subjects… Fosse co-wrote & directed, and is clearly mocking
himself, show business, Life and Death … some critics thought it was sacrilege to
act this out like a Broadway show; others just didn’t get it… I thought
this was brilliant at times – a humorous, mostly accurate take on the selfabsorbed,
self-destructive genius: constantly battling - or bemused by --
his real and imagined demons…
AND JUSTICE FOR ALL – principled lawyer (a young Al Pacino)
takes on a corrupt judge and the legal system -- and must choose between
his ideals and disbarment

Amazon Reviewer, Doug Anderson
David Bahnsen
Conrad Black
Matthew Continetti
Ann Coulter
Michael Doran
Victor Davis Hanson
Brit Hume
Paul Krugman
Mark Leibovich
Rush Limbaugh
Rich Lowry
Peggy Noonan
Camille Paglia

Thomas
Jefferson
Letter to John
Norvell
June 14 th ,
1807

The only way to make
men honest is to
prevent their being
otherwise,
by tying them firmly
to the
accomplishment of their contracts.
George Washington
To Lund Washington
December 17 th , 1778

…The contestation of politics, the struggle over power and
ideas, over the Constitution and the law and who we are as a
political community, never ends. It's always possible for a
settlement or consensus at one moment of history to be
rethought, overturned, or reversed. Rights granted can later
be rescinded — and there's no way to prevent that from
happening beyond continuing the fight, day after day.
History isn't an arc slowly bending toward justice. It's a
battlefield on which a skirmish line shifts back and forth
in an unending contest between ideological combatants.
The agonistic character of politics becomes
concealed during eras defined by consensus, when
the skirmish line stays in much the same place,
shifting only slightly or fairly slowly from year to
year and decade to decade. But such eras are the
exception in history — or at least never more than a
temporary interlude between periods of more rapid
or intense struggle…
- Damon Linker

- from “The Hero In History” (1945)
by Sidney Hook
To gain what is worth having, it may be necessary
to lose everything else.
- Bernadette Devlin

“We have
nothing to fear
but fear itself.”
- Franklin Delano
Roosevelt

It is really a strange thing that there
should not be room enough in the world
for men to live without cutting one
another’s throats
- George Washington
The liberal ideology has hardened into a liberal theology
and is no longer negotiable.
- Theodore White
"The Making of the President", 1972

In January 1961, Dwight Eisenhower delivered his farewell address
after serving two terms as U.S. president; the five-star general chose to warn
Americans of this specific threat to democracy: “In the councils of government, we
must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or
unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise
of misplaced power exists and will persist.” That warning was issued prior to the
decadelong escalation of the Vietnam War, three more decades of Cold War
mania, and the post-9/11 era, all of which radically expanded that unelected
faction’s power even further.
This is the faction that is now engaged in open warfare against the duly elected and
already widely disliked president-elect, Donald Trump. They are using classic
Cold War dirty tactics and the defining ingredients of what has until recently been
denounced as “Fake News.”
Their most valuable instrument is the U.S. media, much of which reflexively
reveres, serves, believes, and sides with hidden intelligence officials. And
Democrats, still reeling from their unexpected and traumatic election loss, as well
as a systemic collapse of their party, seemingly divorced further and further from
reason with each passing day, are willing — eager — to embrace any claim, cheer
any tactic, align with any villain, regardless of how unsupported, tawdry, and
damaging those behaviors might be.
The serious dangers posed by a Trump presidency are numerous and manifest.
There is a wide array of legitimate and effective tactics for combating those
threats: from bipartisan congressional coalitions and constitutional legal challenges
to citizen uprisings and sustained and aggressive civil disobedience. All of those
strategies have periodically proven themselves effective in times of political crisis
or authoritarian overreach.
But cheering for the CIA and its shadowy allies to unilaterally subvert the U.S.
election and impose its own policy dictates on the elected president is both warped
and self-destructive. Empowering the very entities that have produced the most
shameful atrocities and systemic deceit over the last six decades is desperation of
the worst kind. Demanding that evidence-free, anonymous assertions be instantly
venerated as Truth — despite emanating from the very precincts designed to
propagandize and lie — is an assault on journalism, democracy, and basic human
rationality. And casually branding domestic adversaries who refuse to go along as
traitors and disloyal foreign operatives is morally bankrupt and certain to backfire
on those doing it.

Beyond all that, there is no bigger favor that Trump opponents can do for him than
attacking him with such lowly, shabby, obvious shams, recruiting large media
outlets to lead the way. When it comes time to expose actual Trump corruption and
criminality, who is going to believe the people and institutions who have
demonstrated they are willing to endorse any assertions no matter how factually
baseless, who deploy any journalistic tactic no matter how unreliable and removed
from basic means of ensuring accuracy?
All of these toxic ingredients were on full display yesterday as the Deep State
unleashed its tawdriest and most aggressive assault yet on Trump: vesting
credibility in and then causing the public disclosure of a completely unvetted
and unverified document, compiled by a paid, anonymous operative while he
was working for both GOP and Democratic opponents of Trump, accusing
Trump of a wide range of crimes, corrupt acts, and salacious private conduct.
The reaction to all of this illustrates that while the Trump presidency poses
grave dangers, so, too, do those who are increasingly unhinged in their
flailing, slapdash, and destructive attempts to undermine it.
For months, the CIA, with unprecedented clarity, overtly threw its weight behind
Hillary Clinton’s candidacy and sought to defeat Donald Trump. In August, former
acting CIA Director Michael Morell announced his endorsement of Clinton in the
New York Times and claimed that “Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an
unwitting agent of the Russian Federation.” The CIA and NSA director under
George W. Bush, Gen. Michael Hayden, also endorsed Clinton and went to the
Washington Post to warn, in the week before the election, that “Donald Trump
really does sound a lot like Vladimir Putin,” adding that Trump is “the useful fool,
some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind
support is happily accepted and exploited.”
It is not hard to understand why the CIA preferred Clinton over Trump. Clinton
was critical of Obama for restraining the CIA’s proxy war in Syria and was eager
to expand that war, while Trump denounced it. Clinton clearly wanted a harder line
than Obama took against the CIA’s long-standing foes in Moscow, while Trump
wanted improved relations and greater cooperation. In general, Clinton defended
and intended to extend the decades long international military order on which the
CIA and Pentagon’s preeminence depends, while Trump — through a stilluncertain
mix of instability and extremist conviction — posed a threat to it.

Whatever one’s views are on those debates, it is the democratic
framework — the presidential election, the confirmation process,
congressional leaders, judicial proceedings, citizen activism and
protest, civil disobedience — that should determine how they are
resolved. All of those policy disputes were debated out in the
open; the public heard them; and Trump won.
Nobody should crave the rule of Deep State overlords.
Yet craving Deep State rule is exactly what prominent Democratic operatives and
media figures are doing. Any doubt about that is now dispelled. Just last week,
Chuck Schumer issued a warning to Trump, telling Rachel Maddow that Trump
was being “really dumb” by challenging the unelected intelligence community
because of all the ways they possess to destroy those who dare to stand up to them:
And last night, many Democrats openly embraced and celebrated what was, so
plainly, an attempt by the Deep State to sabotage an elected official who had defied
it: ironically, its own form of blackmail.
Back in October, a political operative and former employee of the British
intelligence agency MI6 was being paid by Democrats to dig up dirt on Trump
(before that, he was paid by anti-Trump Republicans). He tried to convince
countless media outlets to publish a long memo he had written filled with
explosive accusations about Trump’s treason, business corruption, and sexual
escapades, with the overarching theme that Trump was in servitude to Moscow
because they were blackmailing and bribing him.
Despite how many had it, no media outlets published it. That was because these
were anonymous claims unaccompanied by any evidence at all, and even in this
more permissive new media environment, nobody was willing to be journalistically
associated with it. As the New York Times’ Executive Editor Dean Baquet put it
last night, he would not publish these “totally unsubstantiated” allegations because
“we, like others, investigated the allegations and haven’t corroborated them, and
we felt we’re not in the business of publishing things we can’t stand by.”
The closest this operative got to success was convincing Mother Jones’s David
Corn to publish an October 31 article reporting that “a former senior intelligence
officer for a Western country” claims that “he provided the [FBI] with memos,
based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian
government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump.”

But because this was just an anonymous claim unaccompanied by any evidence or
any specifics (which Corn withheld), it made very little impact. All of that changed
yesterday. Why?
What changed was the intelligence community’s resolution to cause this all to
become public and to be viewed as credible. In December, John McCain provided
a copy of this report to the FBI and demanded they take it seriously.
At some point last week, the chiefs of the intelligence agencies decided to declare
that this ex-British intelligence operative was “credible” enough that his
allegations warranted briefing both Trump and Obama about them, thus
stamping some sort of vague, indirect, and deniable official approval on these
accusations. Someone — by all appearances, numerous officials — then went to
CNN to tell the network they had done this, causing CNN to go on air and, in the
gravest of tones, announce the “Breaking News” that “the nation’s top intelligence
officials” briefed Obama and Trump that Russia had compiled information that
“compromised President-elect Trump.”
CNN refused to specify what these allegations were on the ground
that it could not “verify” them. But with this document in the hands
of multiple media outlets, it was only a matter of time — a small
amount of time — before someone would step up and publish the
whole thing. BuzzFeed quickly obliged, airing all of the unvetted,
anonymous claims about Trump.

Its editor-in-chief, Ben Smith, published a memo explaining that decision, saying
that — although there was “serious reason to doubt the allegations” — BuzzFeed
in general “errs on the side of publication” and “Americans can make up their own
minds about the allegations.” Publishing this document predictably produced
massive traffic (and thus profit) for the site, with millions of people viewing the
article and presumably reading the “dossier.”
One can certainly object to BuzzFeed’s decision and, as the New York
Times noted this morning, many journalists are doing so. It’s almost
impossible to imagine a scenario where it’s justifiable for a news outlet to
publish a totally anonymous, unverified, unvetted document filled with
scurrilous and inflammatory allegations about which its own editor-inchief
says there “is serious reason to doubt the allegations,” on the ground
that they want to leave it to the public to decide whether to believe it.
But even if one believes there is no such case where that is justified, yesterday’s
circumstances presented the most compelling scenario possible for doing this.
Once CNN strongly hinted at these allegations, it left it to the public imagination to
conjure up the dirt Russia allegedly had to blackmail and control Trump. By
publishing these accusations, BuzzFeed ended that speculation. More importantly,
it allowed everyone to see how dubious this document is, one the CIA and CNN
had elevated into some sort of grave national security threat.

Almost immediately after it was published, the farcical nature of the
“dossier” manifested. Not only was its author anonymous, but he was paid by
Democrats (and, before that, by Trump’s GOP adversaries) to dig up dirt on
Trump. Worse, he himself cited no evidence of any kind but instead relied on a
string of other anonymous people in Russia he claims told him these things. Worse
still, the document was filled with amateur errors.
While many of the claims are inherently unverified, some can be confirmed. One
such claim — that Trump lawyer Michael Cohen secretly traveled to Prague in
August to meet with Russian officials — was strongly denied by Cohen, who
insisted he had never been to Prague in his life (Prague is the same place that
foreign intelligence officials claimed, in 2001, was the site of a nonexistent
meeting between Iraqi officials and 9/11 hijackers, which contributed to 70 percent
of Americans believing, as late as the fall of 2003, that Saddam personally planned
the 9/11 attack). This morning, the Wall Street Journal reported that “the FBI has
found no evidence that [Cohen] traveled to the Czech Republic.”
None of this stopped Democratic operatives and prominent media figures from
treating these totally unverified and unvetted allegations as grave revelations...

BuzzFeed’s Borzou Daragahi posted a long series of tweets discussing the
profound consequences of these revelations, only occasionally remembering to
insert the rather important journalistic caveat “if true” in his meditations:
Meanwhile, liberal commentator Rebecca Solnit declared this to be a “smoking
gun” that proves Trump’s “treason,” while Daily Kos’s Markos Moulitsas sounded
the same theme:
While some Democrats sounded notes of caution — party loyalist Josh Marshall
commendably urged: “I would say in reviewing raw, extremely raw ‘intel,’ people
should retain their skepticism even if they rightly think Trump is the worst” — the
overwhelming reaction was the same as all the other instances where the CIA and
its allies released unverified claims about Trump and Russia: instant embrace of
the evidence-free assertions as Truth, combined with proclamations that
they demonstrated Trump’s status as a traitor (with anyone expressing skepticism
designated a Kremlin agent or stooge).
There is a real danger here that this maneuver could harshly
backfire, to the great benefit of Trump and to the great detriment
of those who want to oppose him. If any of the significant
claims in this “dossier” turn out to be provably false — such as
Cohen’s trip to Prague — many people will conclude, with
Trump’s encouragement, that large media outlets (CNN and
BuzzFeed) and anti-Trump factions inside the government (CIA)
are deploying “Fake News” to destroy him. In the eyes of many
people, that will forever discredit — render impotent — future
journalistic expose s that are based on actual, corroborated
wrongdoing.

Beyond that, the threat posed by submitting ourselves to the CIA and empowering
it to reign supreme outside of the democratic process is — as Eisenhower warned
— an even more severe danger. The threat of being ruled by unaccountable and
unelected entities is self-evident and grave. That’s especially true when the entity
behind which so many are rallying is one with a long and deliberate history of
lying, propaganda, war crimes, torture, and the worst atrocities imaginable.
All of the claims about Russia’s interference in U.S. elections and ties to Trump
should be fully investigated by a credible body, and the evidence publicly
disclosed to the fullest extent possible. As my colleague Sam Biddle argued last
week after disclosure of the farcical intelligence community report on Russian
hacking — one that even Putin’s foes mocked as a bad joke — the utter lack of
evidence for these allegations means “we need an independent, resolute inquiry.”
But until then, assertions that are unaccompanied by evidence and disseminated
anonymously should be treated with the utmost skepticism — not lavished with
convenience-driven gullibility.
Most important of all, the legitimate and effective tactics for opposing
Trump are being utterly drowned by these irrational, desperate, ad hoc
crusades that have no cogent strategy and make his opponents appear
increasingly devoid of reason and gravity. Right now, Trump’s
opponents are behaving as media critic Adam Johnson described: as
ideological jellyfish, floating around aimlessly and lost, desperately
latching on to whatever barge randomly passes by.
There are solutions to Trump. They involve reasoned
strategizing and patient focus on issues people actually care
about. Whatever those solutions are, venerating the
intelligence community, begging for its intervention, and
equating its dark and dirty assertions as Truth are most
certainly not among them. Doing that cannot possibly
achieve any good and is already doing much harm. - Glenn Greenwald, The
Intercept
IThis article was published on January 11, 2017 - nine days before President Trump was
inaugurated and seven days after a secretive perjury trap was set up against his
National Security Advisor, Michael Flynn. Mr. Greenwald, no great fan of The President,
could not have been more accurate with his assessments and his predictions. R-

TWENTY ONE
How long is he
staying here

marc a 1 week ago
A nation of sheep produces a government of wolves
65
REPLY
“Never
let
a
good
crisis
go
to
waste”
NegdoshaManido 1 week ago
"The beauty of the second amendment is that it
will never be needed until they try to take it away"
- Thomas Jefferson
Molon
Labe.
[come and take them]
disqus_zLY0jsDmax
Duezy
• 14 days ago
Maybe you can enlighten all us gullibles about
which of these campaign promises, already
fulfilled, is a lie:

Washington Examiner
OPINION: WASHINGTON SECRETS
Exclusive: Trump list shows 319
'results' and promises kept in three
years
by Paul Bedard
December 31, 2019 02:48 PM
Print this article
Sign up for Washington Secrets
SUBMIT
One month shy of completing three years in office, President Trump has
fulfilled or is making significant progress on most of his 2016 campaign
promises, which aides said give him a strong reelection argument to
counter his impeachment by a bitterly partisan House last week.
As the president and his team ready for the 2020 campaign at his
Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, officials said it would be built on the
administration's achievements list of 15 categories and 319 “results.”…

…The list provided to Secrets is the latest update of initiatives, executive orders,
accomplishments, results, and brags with a focus on the improved economy, trade,
energy independence, job creation, cuts to illegal immigration, the president’s
America First foreign policy, help for veterans, cutting eight regulations for every
new one, packing courts with conservatives, and Trump's record of becoming the
nation’s most anti-abortion chief executive.
It also charted Trump's successes in killing more than a dozen major Obama-era
initiatives.
Officials said the list would be longer if key agency initiatives were also included,
such as the Department of Transportation’s move to boost rural infrastructure and
the Interior Department’s expansion of areas open for hikers, hunters, and anglers.
Critics of the president have claimed that his achievements are overshadowed by
multiple court setbacks, tussles with foreign leaders, an exploding deficit, and the
Democrat’s investigations. But his supporters point to just the last few weeks
when, as he was being impeached, he won some of his biggest policy victories,
such as agreement on the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement and creation of
the Space Force.
Presidential historian Doug Wead said: "Historians of the future will come racing
back to this Trump era with amazement. The list of presidents on either side will
be a boring blur by comparison. Of course, the economic numbers from the Trump
time will be telling. They don't lie. And they point to a great presidency."…
PROMOTING
ECONOMIC
PROSPERITY
FOR
ALL:
President Trump’s pro-growth policies have led to an economic
that is lifting up Americans of all backgrounds.
boom
More than 7 million jobs
have been added to the
economy.
For the first time
Americans.
on
record there
are more
job openings
than
unemployed
There are more than 7
more than 1 million.
million job openings,
outnumbering job
seekers by

Nearly two-thirds of Americans rate
now as a good time to find a quality
job, empowering more Americans
with rewarding careers.
This year, the unemployment rate
reached its lowest level in half a
century.
The unemployment rate has
remained at or below 4 percent for
the past 21 months.
The unemployment rate for women
reached its lowest rate in 65 years.
Jobless claims hit their lowest level
in half a century.
The number of people claiming unemployment insurance as a share of the
population is the lowest on record.
The unemployment rates for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian
Americans, veterans, individuals with disabilities, and those without a high
school diploma have all reached record lows.
Wages are growing at their fastest rate in a decade, with year-over-year
wage gains exceeding 3 percent for the first time since 2009.
November 2019 marked the 16th consecutive month that wages rose at an
annual rate of at or over 3 percent.
Median household income surpassed $63,000 in 2018 – the highest level
on record.
President Trump’s policies are helping forgotten Americans across the
country prosper, driving down income inequality.
Wages are rising fastest for low-income workers.

Middle-class
and
low-income
workers
are
enjoying
faster
wage
growth
than
high-earners.
When
measured
as
the
share
of
income
earned
by
the
top
20
percent,
income
inequality
fell
in
2018
by
the
largest
amount
in
over
a
decade.
Americans
are
being
lifted
out
of
poverty
as
a
result
of
today’s
booming
economy.
Over
2.4
million
Americans
have
been
lifted
out
of
poverty.
Poverty
rates
for
African
Americans
and
Hispanic
Americans
have
reached
record
lows.
Nearly
7
million
Americans
have
been
lifted
off
of
food
stamps.
The
prime-age
labor
force
has
grown
by
2.1
million.
In
the
third
quarter
of
2019,
73.7
percent
of
workers
entering
employment
came
from
out
of
the
labor
force
rather
than
from
unemployment,
the
highest
share
since
the
series
began
in
1990.
Small
business
optimism
broke
a
35-year-old
record
in
2018
and
remains
historically
high.
The
DOW,
S&P
500,
and
NASDAQ
have
all
repeatedly
notched
record
highs.
President
Trump
is
following
through
on
his
promise
to
revitalize
American
manufacturing,
with
more
than
a
half
million
manufacturing
jobs
added
since
the
election.
President
Trump
has
prioritized
workforce
development
to
ensure
American
workers
are
prepared
to
fill
high-quality
jobs.

The President has worked to expand
apprenticeship programs, helping Americans gain
hands-on training and experience with no student
debt.
Over 660,000 apprentices have been hired across
the country.
Established the National Council for the American
Worker, tasked with developing a workforce
strategy for the jobs of the future.
Over 370 companies have signed the President’s “Pledge to America’s
Workers, “pledging to provide more than 14.4 million employment and
training opportunities.
Signed an Executive Order prioritizing Cyber Workforce Development to
ensure that we have the most skilled cyber workforce of the 21st
century.
Signed the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act in 2017 – the largest tax reform
package in history.
More than 6 million American workers received wage increases,
bonuses, and increased benefits thanks to the tax cuts.
$1 trillion has poured back into the country from overseas since
the President’s tax cuts.
President Trump is revitalizing
distressed communities through
Opportunity Zones, which
encourage investment and
growth in underserved
communities.

More
than
8,760
communities
in
all
50
States,
the
District
of
Columbia,
and
5
Territories
have
been
designated
as
Opportunity
Zones.
The
White
House
Opportunity
and
Revitalization
Council
has
taken
more
than
175
actions
to
encourage
investment
and
promote
growth
within
Opportunity
Zones.
The
White
House
Opportunity
and
Revitalization
Council
is
engaging
all
levels
of
government
to
identify
best
practices
and
assist
leaders,
investors,
and
entrepreneurs
in
using
the
Opportunity
Zone
incentive
to
revitalize
low-income
communities.
The
President
is
ensuring
that
America
is
prepared
to
lead
the
world
in
the
industries
of
the
future,
by
promoting
American
leadership
in
emerging
technologies
like
5G
and
AI.
The
Administration
named
artificial
intelligence,
quantum
information
science,
and
5G,
among
other
emerging
technologies,
as
national
research
and
development
priorities.
Launched
the
American
AI
Initiative
to
invest
in
AI
research,
unleash
innovation,
and
build
the
American
workforce
of
the
future.

Signed an Executive Order that established a new advisory
committee of industry and academic leaders to advise the
government on its quantum activities.
President Trump has made supporting working families a priority of
his Administration.
Signed legislation securing historic levels of funding for the Child Care and
Development Block Grant, helping low-income family’s access child care.
During his Joint Address to
Congress and each State of
the Union Address, the
President called on Congress
to pass a nationwide paid
family leave plan.
The President signed into law
12-weeks of paid parental
leave for federal workers.
President Trump’s tax reforms
provided a new tax credit to incentivize businesses to offer paid family
leave to their employees.
The President’s historic tax reforms doubled the child tax credit, benefitting
nearly 40 million American families with an average of over $2,200 dollars
in 2019.
LIFTING THE BURDEN OF OVERREGULATION:
President Trump’s historic deregulation efforts are driving economic
growth, cutting unnecessary costs, and increasing transparency.
President Trump has delivered on, and far exceeded, his promise to slash
two existing regulations for every new regulation.
Since taking office, President Trump has rolled back nearly 8 regulations
for every new significant one.

The
Trump
Administration’s
deregulatory
efforts
have
slashed
regulatory
costs
by
more
than
$50
billion.
In
the
coming
years,
the
average
American
household
is
projected
to
see
an
income
gain
of
$3,100
per
year
thanks
to
President
Trump’s
historic
regulatory
reform.
Once
fully
in
effect,
20
major
deregulatory
actions
undertaken
by
the
Administration
are
expected
to
save
American
consumers
and
businesses
over
$220
billion
per
year.
Signed
16
pieces
of
deregulatory
legislation
that
are
expected
to
result
in
a
$40
billion
increase
in
annual
real
incomes.
Established
the
Governors
Initiative
on
Regulatory
Innovation.
This
initiative
is
working
to
reduce
outdated
regulations
at
the
State,
local,
and
tribal
levels,
advance
occupational
licensing
reform,
and
align
Federal
and
State
regulation.
Signed
legislation
eliminating
regulatory
barriers
that
made
offering
retirement
benefits
difficult
for
small
businesses.
Took
action
to
increase
transparency
in
Federal
agencies
and
protect
Americans
from
administrative
abuse.
Signed
two
Executive
Orders
to
guard
against
secretive
or
unlawful
interpretations
of
rules
and
prevent
Americans
from
being
hit
with
unfair
and
unexpected
penalties.
President
Trump
has
followed
through
on
his
promise
to
repeal
the
Obamaera
Waters
of
the
United
States
Rule,
lifting
a
burden
off
American
farmers.

Ended the previous Administration’s war on coal.
Signed legislation repealing the harmful Obama-era Stream Protection
Rule.
Replaced the overreaching Obama-era Clean Power Plan with
the Affordable Clean Energy Rule, which respects States’ rights and
promotes economic growth while lowering power-sector CO2 emissions.
In 2017, the President
announced the United States’
withdrawal from the Paris
Climate Agreement, which would
have killed millions of American
jobs.
The Administration has worked to
undo the Obama-era fuel economy
regulations by proposing the SAFE
Vehicles Rule to lower the cost of new
and safer cars.
President Trump helped community
banks by signing legislation that rolled
back costly provisions of Dodd-Frank.
Established the White House Council on Reducing Regulatory Barriers
to Affordable Housing Development to bring down the costs of housing
across the country.
The President’s deregulatory actions are removing government barriers to
personal freedom and consumer choice in healthcare.
In 2017, President Trump corrected Obama Administration overreach by
right-sizing Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante
National Monument.

FIGHTING
FOR
FAIRER
TRADE:
President
Trump
is
negotiating
better
trade
deals
for
the
American
people
after
years
of
our
country
being
taken
advantage
of.
President
Trump
negotiated
the
U.S.-
Mexico-Canada
Agreement
(USMCA)
to
replace
the
outdated
North
American
Free
Trade
Agreement
(NAFTA).
USMCA
includes
tremendous
wins
for
American
workers,
farmers,
and
manufacturers,
generating
over
$68
billion
in
economic
activity
and
creating
176,000
new
jobs.
Negotiated
two
tremendous
deals
with
Japan
to
boost
America’s
agricultural
and
digital
trade
with
the
world’s
thirdlargest
economy.
Thanks
to
President
Trump’s
efforts,
Japan
will
open
its
market
to
approximately
$7
billion
in
American
agricultural
exports.
The
President’s
negotiations
will
boost
the
already
approximately
$40
billion
worth
of
digital
trade
between
our
two
countries.
President
Trump
fulfilled
his
promise
to
renegotiate
the
United
States-
Korea
Free
Trade
Agreement,
providing
a
boost
to
American
auto
exports.
These
efforts
doubled
the
number
of
American
autos
that
can
be
exported
to
South
Korea
using
United
States
safety
standards.
Reached
a
historic
phase
one
trade
agreement
with
China
that
will
begin
rebalancing
our
two
countries’
trade
relationship.

China has agreed to structural reforms in areas of
intellectual property, technology transfer,
agriculture, financial services, and currency and
foreign exchange.
China will be making substantial purchases of
American agricultural products, marking a
monumental win for American farmers.
President Trump fulfilled his promise to withdraw from the disastrous
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
President Trump achieved a mutual agreement with the European Union to
work together towards zero tariffs, non-tariff barriers, and subsidies on
certain goods.
President Trump has worked to prepare for post-Brexit trade and made
Congress aware of his intent to negotiate a free trade agreement with the
United Kingdom (UK).
Imposed tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum to protect our vital industries
and support our national security.
Imposed tariffs to protect American-made washing machines and solar
products that were hurt by import surges.
The United States scored an historic victory by overhauling the Universal
Postal Union (UPU), whose outdated policies were undermining American
interests and workers.
President Trump has
expanded markets for
American farmers to export
their goods worldwide, for
example:
The European Union has
opened up to more American
beef and increased imports
of American soybeans.

China
lifted
its
ban
on
American
poultry
and
opened
up
to
American
beef.
South
Korea
lifted
its
ban
on
American
poultry
and
eggs
and
agreed
to
provide
market
access
for
the
greatest,
guaranteed
volume
of
American
rice.
The
Trump
Administration
has
authorized
a
total
of
$28
billion
in
aid
for
farmers
who
have
been
subjected
to
unfair
trade
practices.
SECURING
THE
BORDER:
President
Trump
has
taken
historic
steps
to
confront
the
crisis
on
our
Nation’s
borders
and
protect
American
communities.
President
Trump
is
following
through
on
his
promise
to
build
a
wall
on
our
southern
border.
The
Administration
expects
to
have
approximately
450
miles
of
new
border
wall
by
the
end
of
2020.
The
President
struck
new
agreements
with
Mexico,
El
Salvador,
Guatemala,
and
Honduras
to
help
stop
the
flood
of
illegal
immigration.
The
President
worked
with
Mexico
to
ensure
they
would
improve
their
border
security.
The
United
States
is
working
with
Mexico
and
others
in
the
region
to
dismantle
the
human
smuggling
networks
that
profit
from
human
misery
and
fuel
the
border
crisis
by
exploiting
vulnerable
populations.

The Administration negotiated agreements with El Salvador,
Guatemala, and Honduras to stem the surge of aliens arriving at
our border.
President Trump negotiated the Migrant Protection Protocols,
requiring certain migrants to wait in Mexico during their
immigration proceedings instead of allowing them to disappear
into our country.
Border apprehensions fell by more than 70 percent from May –
the peak of the crisis – to November.
The Trump Administration is
stopping deadly drugs and
violent criminals from flowing
across our borders and into
our communities.
Customs and Border
Protection (CBP) seized
more than 163,000 pounds
of cocaine, heroin,
methamphetamine, and
fentanyl at the southern
border in FY 2019.
The United States Coast Guard seized more than 458,000 pounds of
cocaine at sea in FY 2019 and referred nearly 400 suspected drug
smugglers for prosecution.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security
Investigations (HSI) seized over 1.4 million pounds of narcotics and made
more than 12,000 narcotic-related arrests in FY 2019.
Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seized over 50,000 kilograms of
methamphetamine and over 2,700 kilograms of fentanyl in FY 2019.
CBP apprehended 976 alien gang members in FY 2019, including 464
aliens affiliated with MS-13.

ICE
HSI
made
over
4,000
arrests
of
gang
members
in
FY
2019,
including
over
450
arrests
of
MS-13
members.
RESTORING
THE
RULE
OF
LAW:
President
Trump
is
upholding
the
rule
of
law,
restoring
integrity
to
our
asylum
system,
and
promoting
immigrant
self-sufficiency.
President
Trump
released
an
immigration
plan
to
fully
secure
our
border,
modernize
our
laws,
and
promote
an
immigration
system
based
on
merit.
President
Trump
is
working
to
combat
the
abuse
of
our
asylum
system
that
drives
illegal
immigration.
The
Administration
took
action
to
close
the
Flores
Settlement
Agreement
loophole
and
ensure
alien
families
can
be
kept
together
through
their
proceedings.
The
President
released
an
order
that
makes
aliens
ineligible
for
asylum
if
they
passed
through
another
country
in
transit
to
our
border
and
did
not
apply
for
asylum
in
that
country
first.
Since
taking
office,
President
Trump
has
stepped
up
enforcement
to
ensure
there
are
consequences
for
breaking
our
laws.
In
FY
2019,
the
Department
of
Justice
prosecuted
a
record-breaking
number
of
immigration
related
crimes.
ICE
Enforcement
and
Removal
Operations
(ERO)
arrested
143,099
aliens
in
FY
2019,
86
percent
of
whom
had
criminal
records.
ICE
ERO
removed
more
than
267,000
illegal
aliens
from
the
United
States
in
FY
2019.

The Trump Administration is cracking down on sanctuary cities and
increasing cooperation at the local level on immigration enforcement.
The Administration has more than doubled the number of jurisdictions
participating in the 287(g) program, enhancing local cooperation on
immigration enforcement.
The Administration took action to protect taxpayers by ensuring that aliens
wishing to enter or remain in our country are able to support themselves
and not rely on public benefits.
Issued a proclamation to ensure immigrants admitted to America do not
burden our healthcare system.
The President has taken action to reduce nonimmigrant visa overstays, a
problem that undermines the rule of law, impacts public safety, and strains
resources needed for the border.
President Trump made our country safer by ordering the enhanced vetting
of individuals attempting to come to America from countries that do not
meet our security standards.
The President is taking a responsible approach to refugee admissions,
prioritizing refugee resettlement in jurisdictions where both State and local
governments consent to receive them.
This order is designed to ensure that refugees are placed in an
environment where they will have the best opportunity to succeed in their
new homes.
CREATING SAFER COMMUNITIES:
President Trump’s policies are supporting our brave law enforcement
officers and making America’s communities safer.
Violent crime fell in 2017 and 2018, after rising during each of the two years
prior to President Trump taking office.

Since
2016,
the
violent
crime
rate
in
America
has
fallen
nearly
5
percent
and
the
murder
rate
has
decreased
by
over
7
percent.
President
Trump
signed
the
First
Step
Act
into
law,
making
our
criminal
justice
system
fairer
for
all
while
making
our
communities
safer.
Promoted
secondchance
hiring
to
give
former
inmates
the
opportunity
to
live
crimefree
lives
and
find
meaningful
employment,
all
while
making
our
communities
safer.
The
Department
of
Education
is
expanding
an
initiative
that
allows
individuals
in
Federal
and
State
prisons
to
receive
Pell
Grants
to
better
prepare
themselves
for
the
workforce.
The
Department
of
Justice
and
Bureau
of
Prisons
launched
a
new
“Ready
to
Work
“Initiative
to
help
connect
employers
directly
with
former
prisoners.
The
Department
of
Labor
awarded
$2.2
million
to
states
to
expand
the
use
of
fidelity
bonds,
which
underwrite
companies
that
hire
former
prisoners.
Revitalized
Project
Safe
Neighborhoods,
bringing
together
Federal,
State,
local,
and
tribal
law
enforcement
officials
to
develop
solutions
to
violent
crime.
The
President
is
standing
up
for
our
Nation’s
law
enforcement
officers,
ensuring
they
have
the
support
they
need
to
keep
our
communities
safe.
Established
a
new
commission
to
evaluate
best
practices
for
recruiting,
training,
and
supporting
law
enforcement
officers.

The Administration has made available hundreds of millions of dollars’
worth of surplus military equipment to local law enforcement.
Signed an Executive Order to help prevent violence against law
enforcement officers.
Signed legislation permanently funding the 9/11 Victim Compensation
Fund, aiding our Nation’s brave first responders.
The President has taken action to combat the scourge of hate crimes and
anti-Semitism rising in America.
President Trump signed an Executive Order making it clear that Title VI of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 applies to discrimination rooted in anti-
Semitism.
The Administration
launched a centralized
website to educate the
public about hate crimes
and encourage
reporting.
Since January 2017, the
Civil Rights division at
the DOJ has obtained 14
convictions in cases
involving attacks or
threats against places of
worship.
The President signed the Fix NICS Act to keep guns out of the hands of
dangerous criminals.
Signed the STOP School Violence Act and created a Commission on
School Safety to examine ways to make our schools safer.

The
Trump
Administration
is
fighting
to
end
the
egregious
crime
of
human
trafficking.
In
FY
2019,
ICE
HSI
arrested
2,197
criminals
associated
with
human
trafficking
and
identified
428
victims.
Signed
the
Trafficking
Victims
Protection
Reauthorization
Act,
which
tightened
criteria
for
whether
countries
are
meeting
standards
for
eliminating
trafficking.
Established
a
task
force
to
help
combat
the
tragedy
of
missing
or
murdered
Native
American
women
and
girls.
ADVANCING
AMERICA’S
INTERESTS
ABROAD:
President
Trump
is
putting
America
first
and
advancing
our
interests
across
the
world.
President
Trump’s
maximum
pressure
campaign
is
countering
Iran’s
influence
and
pressuring
the
corrupt
regime
to
abandon
its
malign
activities.
Removed
the
United
States
from
the
Iran
nuclear
deal
and
re-imposed
all
sanctions
that
were
lifted
by
the
deal.
In
response
to
Iran’s
aggression
and
gross
human
rights
violations,
the
President
authorized
crippling
sanctions
on
the
regime’s
leadership,
including
the
Supreme
Leader.
President
Trump
is
working
to
vigorously
enforce
all
sanctions
to
bring
Iran’s
oil
exports
to
zero
and
deny
the
regime
its
principal
source
of
revenue.

President Trump has held two historic summits with North Korea and
earlier this year became the first President to cross the DMZ into North
Korea.
The Administration has maintained tough sanctions on North Korea while
negotiations have taken place.
Since taking office, President Trump has taken historic steps to
support and defend our cherished ally Israel.
This year, President Trump acknowledged Israel’s sovereignty over the
Golan Heights and declared Israeli settlements in the West Bank are not
inconsistent with international law.
The President made good on his promise to recognize Jerusalem as the
true capital of Israel and move the United States Embassy there.
The President removed the United States from the United Nations (U.N.)
Human Rights Council due to the group’s blatant anti-Israel bias.
President Trump has
successfully urged North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO)
members to increase their
defense spending and to focus
on modern priorities.
NATO Allies will increase
defense spending by $130 billion
by the end of next year.
The Administration has worked
to reform and streamline the
U.N., cutting spending and
making the organization more
efficient.

Took
action
to
protect
our
Second
Amendment
rights
by
announcing
the
United
States
will
not
join
the
misguided
Arms
Trade
Treaty.
President
Trump
has
promoted
democracy
throughout
the
Western
Hemisphere
and
imposed
heavy
sanctions
on
the
regimes
in
Venezuela,
Cuba,
and
Nicaragua.
The
President
reversed
the
previous
Administration’s
disastrous
Cuba
policy.
Enacted
a
new
policy
aimed
at
stopping
any
revenues
from
reaching
the
Cuban
military
or
intelligence
services,
imposed
stricter
travel
restrictions,
and
reaffirmed
the
focus
ensuring
the
Cuban
regime
does
not
profit
from
U.S.
dollars.
Put
a
cap
on
remittances
to
Cuba.
President
Trump
is
enabling
Americans
to
file
lawsuits
against
persons
and
entities
that
traffic
in
property
confiscated
by
the
Cuban
regime,
the
first
time
that
these
kinds
of
claims
have
been
available
for
Americans
under
the
Helms-Burton
Act.
President
Trump
has
stood
with
the
democratically
elected
National
Assembly
and
the
Venezuelan
people
and
worked
to
cut
off
the
financial
resources
of
the
Maduro
regime.
President
Trump
recognized
Juan
Guaido
as
the
Interim
President
of
Venezuela
and
rallied
an
international
coalition
of
58
countries
to
support
him.

Blocked all property of the Venezuelan Government in the jurisdiction of the
United States.
Sanctioned key sectors of the Venezuelan economy exploited by the
regime, including the oil and gold sectors.
The Administration sanctioned Maduro’s key financial lifelines, including the
Venezuelan Central Bank, the Venezuelan Development Bank, and
Petroleos de Venezuela.
Secured the release of Americans unjustly imprisoned abroad, including
Kevin King, Xiyue Wang, Danny Burch, and more.
The President and his Administration have worked to advance a free and
open Indo-Pacific region, promoting new investments and expanding
American partnerships.
Negotiated the return from Finland of
approximately 600 tribal ancestral remains
and other sacred objects for the American
Indian and Pueblo communities from which
they came.
Released an economic plan to empower
the Palestinian people and enhance Palestinian governance through
private investment.
Created the first-ever whole-of-government approach to women’s
economic empowerment through his Women’s Global
Development and Prosperity Initiative.
In June of 2019, the President
released the U.S. Strategy on
Women, Peace, and Security,
which focuses on increasing
women’s participation to prevent
and resolve conflicts.

REBUILDING
OUR
NATION’S
DEFENSE:
President
Trump
is
investing
in
our
military
and
ensuring
our
forces
are
able
to
defend
against
any
and
all
threats.
Signed
the
National
Defense
Authorization
Act
(NDAA)
for
fiscal
year
(FY)2020,
authorizing
a
historic
$738
billion
in
defense
spending.
Continued
to
invest
in
rebuilding
our
military,
after
signing
legislation
to
provide
for
$700
billion
in
defense
spending
in
FY18
and
$716
billion
in
FY19.
Signed
a
3.1%
pay
raise
for
our
troops,
the
largest
increase
in
a
decade.
Signed
legislation
establishing
the
Space
Force
as
a
new
branch
of
the
Armed
Forces,
the
first
new
branch
since
1947.
The
United
States
Space
Command
was
relaunched
in
August
2019.
The
President
is
modernizing
and
recapitalizing
our
nuclear
forces
and
missile
defenses
to
ensure
they
continue
to
serve
as
a
strong
deterrent.
Upgraded
our
cyber
defenses
by
elevating
the
Cyber
Command
into
a
major
warfighting
command
and
reducing
burdensome
procedural
restrictions
on
cyber
operations.
President
Trump
is
protecting
America’s
defense-industrial
base,
directing
the
first
whole-of-government
assessment
of
our
manufacturing
and
defense
supply
chains
since
the
1950s.
Under
the
President’s
leadership,
the
United
States
is
taking
the
fight
to
terrorists
all
around
the
globe.

ISIS’ territorial caliphate has been defeated and all territory recaptured in
Iraq and Syria.
The United States has brought Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the founder of ISIS,
to justice.
The President has taken decisive military action to punish the
Assad regime in Syria for the barbaric use of chemical weapons on
its own people.
Authorized sanctions against those tied to Syria’s chemical
weapons program.
HONORING OUR VETERANS:
President Trump is standing up for
America’s veterans by ensuring they
receive the proper care and support they
deserve.
Signed the VA MISSION Act, revolutionizing
the VA system, increasing choice, and
providing quality care for our veterans.
This legislation reformed and expanded
many of the existing programs to give
veterans improved access to healthcare
providers and offered entirely new options
such as allowing veterans to get urgent care
in their local communities.
The VA MISSION Act put veterans at the center of their healthcare
decisions, not bureaucracy.
Expanded veterans’ ability to access telehealth services, including through
the “Anywhere to Anywhere” VA health care initiative.
President Trump has brought accountability to the VA, as promised.

Signed
the
Veterans
Affairs
Accountability
and
Whistleblower
Protection
Act
to
ensure
VA
employees
are
held
responsible
for
poor
performance.
Over
8,000
VA
employees
have
been
relieved
of
their
duties
at
the
VA
since
the
beginning
of
the
Administration.
Veterans
are
seeing
an
improvement
in
quality
of
care.
In
the
last
year,
the
VA
saw
its
highest
patient
experience
ratings
in
history.
The
Veterans
of
Foreign
Wars
found
in
its
annual
survey
that
more
than
90
percent
of
respondents
would
recommend
VA
care
to
other
veterans.
Signed
the
Veterans
Appeals
Improvement
and
Modernization
Act
of
2017
to
expedite
the
veteran
appeals
process.
The
Administration
is
working
to
seamlessly
align
the
VA’s
and
DoD’s
electronic
health
records.
This
new
electronic
health
record
system
is
on
pace
to
launch
next
year
in
select
areas.
The
VA
launched
a
new
tool
that
provides
veterans
with
online
access
to
average
wait
times
and
quality-of-care
data.
Opened
up
a
24/7
White
House
VA
Hotline
to
provide
veterans
access
to
help
at
all
times.
President
Trump
has
committed
his
Administration
to
addressing
the
horrible
tragedy
of
veteran
suicide.
Signed
the
PREVENTS
Initiative,
which
created
a
task
force
to
develop
revolutionary
roadmap
to
tackle
the
problem
of
veteran
suicide.

Signed an executive order to improve access to suicide prevention
resources for veterans.
President Trump is expanding educational resources, promoting economic
opportunity, and making sure our veterans have the support they need
when they return home.
This year, the veteran unemployment rate reached its
lowest level since 2000.
Signed an executive order that paves the way for
veterans to more easily join the Merchant Marine,
providing quality job opportunities.
Signed the Forever GI Bill, allowing veterans to use
their educational benefits at any point in their lives.
Expedited the process of discharging Federal student
loan debt for our Nation’s totally and permanently
disabled veterans.
Signed the HAVEN Act to ensure that veterans who’ve declared bankruptcy
don’t lose their disability payments.
Signed legislation providing a pathway for Alaska Natives who served in
Vietnam to receive the land allotments to which they are legally entitled.
COMBATING THE OPIOID CRISIS:
President Trump has made battling the opioid crisis a top
priority for his Administration, and the results couldn’t be
clearer.
President Trump brought attention to the opioid crisis by declaring it a
nationwide public health emergency.

To
address
the
many
factors
fueling
the
drug
crisis,
President
Trump
launched
an
Initiative
to
Stop
Opioid
Abuse
and
Reduce
Drug
Supply
and
Demand.
Thanks
to
the
President’s
efforts,
landmark
new
Federal
funding
and
resources
have
been
dedicated
to
help
end
the
opioid
crisis.
Signed
the
SUPPORT
for
Patients
and
Communities
Act,
the
largest
and
most
comprehensive
piece
of
legislation
to
combat
the
opioid
crisis
in
history.
The
Department
of
Health
and
Human
Services
(HHS)
has
awarded
nearly
$9
billion
over
2016
to
2019
in
grants
to
address
the
opioid
crisis
and
improve
access
to
prevention,
treatment,
and
recovery
services
in
partnership
with
State
and
local
officials.
Nearly
$1
billion
in
grants
were
recently
awarded
for
the
HEAL
Initiative
to
support
development
of
scientific
solutions
to
help
prevent
and
treat
addiction.
Announced
a
Safer
Prescriber
Plan
that
seeks
to
decrease
the
amount
of
opioids
prescription
fills
by
one
third
within
three
years.
From
January
2017
to
September
2019,
the
total
amount
of
opioids
prescriptions
filled
in
America
dropped
by
31%.
Launched
FindTreatment.gov,
a
newly
designed
website
that
makes
it
easier
to
find
substance
abuse
treatment
locations.

The President implemented new efforts to educate Americans about the
dangers of opioid misuse.
These efforts include an ad campaign on youth opioid abuse that reached
58 percent of young adults in America.
President Trump and his Administration aggressively worked to cut off the
flow of deadly drugs into our communities.
In FY 2019, ICE HSI seized 12,466 pounds of opioids including 3,688
pounds of fentanyl, an increase of 35% from FY 2018.
The Administration shut down the country’s
biggest Darknet distributer of drugs,
seizing enough fentanyl to kill 105,000
Americans in the process.
A DOJ strike force charged more than 65
defendants collectively responsible for
distributing over 45 million opioid pills.
The Administration has brought kingpin
designations against traffickers operating
in China, India, Mexico and more who have played a role in the epidemic in
America.
The Administration secured the first-ever indictments against Chinese
fentanyl traffickers.
This year, President Trump convinced China to enact strict regulations to
control the production and sale of
all types of fentanyl.
Evidence suggests that
President Trump’s efforts are
making a real difference across
the Nation.

Preliminary
data
shows
overdose
deaths
fell
nationwide
in
2018
for
the
first
time
in
decades.
Many
of
the
hardest
hit
states
–
including
Ohio,
Kentucky,
and
West
Virginia
–
saw
drug
overdose
deaths
drop
in
2018.
Since
2016,
there
has
been
a
nearly
40
percent
increase
in
the
number
of
Americans
receiving
medication-assisted
treatment.
PUTTING
PATIENTS
FIRST:
President
Trump
is
working
hard
to
give
Americans
better
quality
care
at
a
lower
cost.
The
Administration
is
delivering
quality
healthcare
and
promoting
innovative
treatment
options
for
American
patients.
Earlier
this
year,
President
Trump
signed
an
order
to
protect
and
improve
Medicare
for
our
seniors,
encouraging
even
more
competition
and
promoting
innovative
benefits.
The
President
signed
legislation
providing
an
additional
$1
billion
in
Alzheimer’s
disease
research
funding.
Signed
and
implemented
the
Right
to
Try
Act,
which
has
expanded
treatment
options
for
terminally
ill
patients.
The
President
has
taken
action
to
combat
childhood
cancer,
initiating
an
effort
to
provide
$500
million
over
the
next
decade
to
improve
pediatric
cancer
research.
The
Administration
launched
a
plan
to
end
the
HIV/AIDS
epidemic
in
America
in
the
next
decade.
President
Trump
took
action
to
increase
the
availability
of
organs
for
patients
in
need
of
transplants
and
provide
more
treatment
options
and
improve
care
for
patients
suffering
from
kidney
disease.

Signed an order to modernize the influenza vaccine.
The Administration is making healthcare more affordable and transparent.
The Administration is requiring hospitals to make their prices negotiated
with insurers publicly and easily available online.
The
Administration
expanded the
use of Health
Reimbursement
Arrangements
(HRAs). Now,
HRAs allow
employers to
help their
employees pay for the cost of insurance
that they select in the individual market.
The Administration has successfully
worked to reduce Medicare Advantage
and Part D Premiums to their lowest in
years.
The President is working to expand Association
Health Plans, which would make it easier for
employers to join together and offer more
affordable health coverage to their employees.
Extended access to short-term, limited-duration
health plans, giving Americans more flexibility to
choose plans that suit their needs.
The Administration has improved access to health savings accounts for
individuals with chronic conditions.

The
President
has
worked
to
reduce
the
burden
felt
by
Americans
due
to
Obamacare
and
eliminated
Obamacare’s
individual
mandate
penalty.
Released
legislative
principles
to
end
surprise
medical
billing
and
is
working
with
Congress
to
give
patients
the
control
they
deserve.
President
Trump
is
following
through
on
his
pledge
to
combat
high
drug
prices.
Released
a
blueprint
to
reduce
drug
prices
and
expand
affordability
for
American
patients.
The
Administration’s
efforts
to
lower
drug
prices
led
to
the
largest
year-over-year
decrease
in
drug
prices
ever
recorded.
The
President
has
advanced
efforts
to
import
prescription
drugs
from
Canada
in
partnership
with
several
states,
including
Florida
and
Colorado.
Launched
an
initiative
to
stop
global
freeloading
in
the
drug
market,
proposing
a
new
way
for
Medicare
to
pay
for
certain
drugs
based
on
prices
other
developed
nations
pay.
Signed
legislation
to
end
pharmacy
gag
clauses,
which
prevented
pharmacists
from
letting
patients
know
when
it
would
be
cheaper
to
buy
drugs
without
their
insurance.
SAFEGUARDING
LIFE
AND
RELIGIOUS
LIBERTY:
President
Trump
has
made
it
a
priority
of
his
Administration
to
uphold
the
sanctity
of
life
and
safeguard
religious
liberty
for
all.

President Trump is unequivocally committed to protecting the sanctity of
every human life.
The Administration issued a
rule preventing Title X family
planning funds from
supporting the abortion
industry.
President Trump has called
on Congress to end late-term
abortions.
The Trump Administration cut
all funding to the U.N.
population fund, due to the
fund’s support for coercive
abortion and forced
sterilization.
HHS rescinded an Obamaera
guidance that prevented
states from taking certain
actions against abortion
providers.
President Trump reinstated
and expanded the Mexico City Policy in 2017, ensuring that taxpayer
money is not used to fund abortion globally.
The President has taken action to end federal research using fetal tissue
from abortions.
President Trump is protecting healthcare entities and individuals’
conscience rights—ensuring that no medical professional is forced to
participate in an abortion in violation of their beliefs.

The
Administration
provided
relief
to
American
employers
like
Little
Sisters
of
the
Poor,
protecting
them
from
being
forced
to
provide
coverage
that
violate
their
conscience.
President
Trump
has
taken
unprecedented
action
to
support
the
fundamental
right
to
religious
freedom.
Signed
an
Executive
Order
establishing
the White
House
Faith
and
Opportunity
Initiative.
Signed
an
Executive
Order
upholding
religious
liberty
and
the
right
to
engage
in
religious
speech.
The
Department
of
Justice
created
a
Religious
Liberty
Task
Force
in
2018.

The Trump Administration
continues to vigorously defend
religious liberty in the courts at
every opportunity.
Reversed the Obama-era policy
that prevented the government
from providing disaster relief to
religious organizations.
The Administration is preserving a
space for faith-based adoption
and foster care providers to
continue to serve their
communities consistent with their
beliefs.
The Administration reduced
burdensome barriers to Native
Americans being able to keep
spiritually and culturally significant
eagle feathers found on their tribal
lands.
The Administration has allowed
greater flexibility for Federal
employees to take time off work for religious reasons.
The Trump Administration has stood up for religious liberty around the
world.
The Administration has partnered with local and faith-based organizations
to provide assistance to religious minorities persecuted in Iraq.
President Trump hosted the Global Call to Protect Religious Freedom at
the 2019 U.N. General Assembly, calling on global and business leaders to
bring an end to religious persecution and stop crimes against people of
faith.

The
Administration
dedicated
$25
million
to
protect
religious
freedom,
religious
sites
and
relics.
The
State
Department
has
hosted
two
Religious
Freedom
Ministerials,
with
the
2019
Ministerial
becoming
the
largest
religious
freedom
event
of
its
kind
in
the
world.
Imposed
restrictions
on
certain
Chinese
officials,
internal
security
units,
and
companies
for
their
complicity
in
the
persecution
of
Uighur
Muslims
and
other
Muslim
minorities
in
Xinjiang.
TRANSFORMING
THE
COURTS:
President
Trump
is
transforming
the
Federal
judiciary
by
appointing
a
historic
number
of
Federal
judges
who
will
interpret
the
Constitution
as
written.
Working
with
the
Senate,
President
Trump
has
now
had
187
judicial
nominees
confirmed
to
the
Federal
bench.
President
Trump’s
remaking
of
the
judiciary
is
only
accelerating
with
103
Federal
judges
confirmed
in
2019,
more
than
2017
and
2018
combined.
The
President
named
Justices
Brett
Kavanaugh
and
Neil
Gorsuch
to
the
Supreme
Court,
fulfilling
his
promise
to
appoint
justices
who
will
uphold
the
constitution
as
written.
President
Trump
has
appointed
50
Circuit
Court
judges
–
more
than
any
other
President
at
this
point
in
their
Administration

More than a quarter of all active Circuit Court judges were appointed by
President Trump.
The average age of Trump-appointed circuit judges is less than 50 years
old, ensuring that these qualified jurists will continue to have an impact for
decades to come.
President Trump has flipped the Second, Third, and Eleventh Circuits from
Democrat-appointed majorities to Republican-appointed majorities.
USHERING IN AN ERA OF ENERGY DOMINANCE:
President Trump’s policies are ushering in a new era of American
energy dominance.
President Trump has rolled back the
burdensome regulations of the past
Administration and implemented
policies that are unleashing
American energy.
The United States is the largest oil
and natural gas producer in the
world.
American oil production reached its highest level in history in 2019.
The United States became a net exporter of crude oil and petroleum
products in September 2019, the first time this has occurred since records
began in 1973.
Natural gas production is projected to set a record high in 2019, marking
the third consecutive year of record production.
President Trump is opening up more access to our country’s abundant
natural resources in order to promote energy independence.
Department of the Interior energy revenues soared in fiscal year FY 2019,
nearly doubling since FY 2016 to $12 billion.

Applications
to
drill
on
public
lands
have
increased
by
300
percent
since
FY
2016,
and
the
time
it
takes
to
complete
these
permits
has
dropped
by
half.
Signed
legislation
to
open
up
Alaska’s
Arctic
National
Wildlife
Refuge
to
energy
exploration.
President
Trump
is
promoting
energy
infrastructure
to
ensure
American
energy
producers
can
deliver
their
products
to
the
market.
Signed
two
Executive
Orders
to
streamline
processes
holding
back
the
construction
of
new
energy
infrastructure,
like
pipelines.
Took
action
to
approve
the
Dakota
Access
pipeline
and
the
Keystone
XL
pipeline.
Issued
permits
for
the
New
Burgos
Pipeline
that
will
export
American
petroleum
products
to
Mexico.
The
Administration
has
streamlined
Liquefied
Natural
Gas
(LNG)
terminal
permitting.
In
2019,
the
Department
of
Energy
granted
11
new
long-term
LNG
export
approvals.
American
energy
exports
have
reached
historic
highs.
LNG
exports
have
increased
by
247%
since
2017,
hitting
record
highs
in
2019
and
are
projected
to
continue
increasing
next
year.
In
2017,
the
United
States
became
a
net
natural
gas
exporter
for
the
first
time
in
60
years.
The
United
States
has
exported
LNG
to
five
continents
and
37
countries,
marking
19
additional
countries
from
the
beginning
of
the
Trump
Administration.

President Trump strengthened America’s domestic energy production and
supported our Nation’s farmers by approving year-round E-15.
Worked to ensure greater transparency and certainty in the Renewable
Fuel Standard (RFS).
Promoted domestic energy production and economic growth while working
to ensure Americans have access to safe drinking water and a clean
environment.
The United States environmental record is one of the strongest in
the world and America continues to make environmental progress
in clean air and clean water.
The EPA took action to protect vulnerable Americans from lead
exposure by proposing changes to the Lead and Copper rule.
In FY 2019 the EPA completed cleanup on the most superfund
sites on the National Priority List in 18 years.
Emissions of all criteria pollutants dropped between 2016 and
2018.

PROMOTING
EDUCATIONAL
OPPORTUNITY:
President
Trump
is
working
to
ensure
all
Americans
have
access
to
quality
education.
President
Trump
signed
into
law
a
modernization
of
our
country’s
career
and
technical
education
system
to
ensure
more
Americans
have
access
to
high-quality
vocational
education.
This
year,
the
Administration
proposed
Education
Freedom
Scholarships
to
expand
education
options
for
students
of
all
economic
backgrounds.
This
plan
will
invest
up
to
$5
billion
in
students
through
a
tax
credit
for
donations
for
state-based,
locally-controlled
scholarships.
President
Trump
is
expanding
education
and
training
opportunities
for
incarcerated
individuals
to
learn
how
to
make
a
living
before
their
release.
Signed
legislation
reauthorizing
the
D.C.
Opportunity
Scholarship
program.
Thanks
to
President
Trump’s
historic
tax
reform,
parents
can
now
withdraw
up
to
$10,000
tax-free
per
year
from
529
education
savings
plans
to
cover
K-12
tuition
costs.
President
Trump
has
made
supporting
Historically
Black
Colleges
and
Universities
(HBCUs)
a
priority
of
his
Administration.
Signed
the
Farm
Bill
that
included
more
than
$100
million
dollars
for
scholarships,
research,
and
centers
of
excellence
at
HBCU
land-grant
institutions.
The
Administration
has
enabled
faith-based
HBCUs
to
enjoy
equal
access
to
Federal
support.
Signed
legislation
providing
$255
million
dollars
of
permanent
annual
funding
for
HBCUs
and
other
Minority
Serving
Institutions.

I suggest you join the #WalkAwayCampaign and get
your life back.
see more
27
•
Reply
•
Share › Twitter > Facebook
Obama has an absolute talent of saying things that make no sense, but
not only sound plausible, but inspiring. – Thomas Sowell

Taylor Day
@TABYTCHI
Wiped my remote down with an anti-virus wipe
and now I don’t get CNN.
Kneckbeard @kneckbeardatsc
For those new to listening to the WEF, it's important to keep in mind
... You're eavesdropping... When the speakers use words like "we",
"us", "our", they're speaking to each other, not to you... This should
make the experience somewhat less confusing...
CA Buckeye Jul 5, 2020
I was thinking of the comparison to 1984 recently. I'll bet Orwell never
dreamed big brother would be a segment of the population rather than
the government.

max
w
1
year
ago When you watch this, you can see that the
Democrats never understood America or Donald Trump
ArJuna 1 year ago
Oh
they
understood
America
alright.
The
problem
was
they
have
strived
to
take
America
out
of
the
fight
so
their
twisted
evil
cabal
could
thoroughly
enslave
the
world.
Living
in
Washington
most
of
my
life,
I
realized
more
than
35
years
ago
just
how
evil
these
international
organizations
were.
I
watched
helplessly
as
they
infiltrated
our
highest
offices
and
led
a
silent
coup,
which
went
unnoticed
by
all
but
a
very
few
Americans.
When
Donald
Trump
won
the
election,
my
heart
was
lighter
than
it
had
been
since
I
was
a
kid.
Now,
as
I
watch
the
great
awakening
of
America,
I
truly
believe
that
we
have
a
shot
at
taking
down
this
evil
which
has
dominated
the
world
for
millennia.
Everyone
MUST
get
out
and
vote
this
November,
so
President
Trump
and
the
patriots
working
with
him
can
expose
and
arrest
the
many
thousands
of
traitors
who
I
know
exist
and
deserve
nothing
less
than
death
for
what
they
have
done
to
the
world.
And
when
the
world
discovers
the
truth
about
what
depravity
they
are
guilty
of,
and
how
much
unbelievable
human
suffering
they
have
perpetrated,
no
one
will
disagree
with
my
condemnation
of
them
and
my
assessment
of
their
deserved
punishment.

They also understood Donald Trump perfectly well. They knew what it
meant to suddenly have the highest office in the land turned over to
someone that was not one of them and who could expose them and make
them pay for their crimes. This is why they so desperately fought him
from day one and why they have been frothing at the mouth when
speaking about him since he won the election. They never expected their
cabal to lose power. They never expected that any of their high crimes
would ever face the light of day. Now they are in a full-blown panic as
they realize they have no way to take him down. And it's not just
President Trump vs. them BTW. President Trump has had a massive and
powerful team of military and intelligence people behind him from long
before he announced his run for office. These were patriots in high places
that understood the country was desperately in trouble and were not
going to sit by idly as the likes of the Clintons , Bush’s, Obama, et al
ripped the country to shreds. We are at WAR and Americans need to
realize the enormity of the threat.
Do your best to educate and wake up your neighbors who've been
asleep too long - as most of you were for far too long. This is
basically our last shot at reclaiming our country, not only for
ourselves, but for the entire world, because #WWG1WGA. #MAGA
Religion and Politics 4 months ago
At times I've felt depressed in life. But when life has got me down, I
don't use drugs or alcohol, they wouldn't help. My new prescription
for mental health is watching Thug Life videos of Trump.....and all of
a sudden.....life gets better! Great vids!

... Amid the hydrogen bomb of decrials of
moral turpitude and perceived high
crimes, there is no one else audible who
sees the Michael Cohen rollover as the
supreme victory for the president that it is.
The Mueller investigation that started out
with such a trumpet-blast of portentous
Wagnerian prophecy of impending
revelations of treason, has fallen to the
asininity of getting a sleazy lawyer who
has pleaded guilty to a smorgasbord of
criminal frauds to declare that candidate
Trump told him to pay hush money to a
woman he had allegedly had a sexual
encounter with 10 years before the election, and that this was
an illegal campaign contribution and attempt corruptly to
influence the outcome of the presidential election…
…It has come to this. Robert Mueller, former director of the
FBI, before it became the dirty tricks division of the Democratic
National Committee, could have exonerated a lot of people
who were defamed with imputations of treason in “colluding”
with Russia. He could have had some members of his
investigative team who were not rabid Democrats. He could
have investigated all the Democratic Party’s skullduggery with
Russia, starting with the infamous Steele dossier, the false
FISA warrants, the lies under oath to Congress and the FBI. He
could have adopted the view that he should find out if crimes
were committed, and if not, to say so, as normal prosecutors
do. But he just kept spiraling down like a deep-diving sewer rat.
He succumbed terminally to the Archibald Cox-Lawrence
Walsh-Ken Starr madness that his duty was to destroy the chief
target, no matter what level of professional degradation he
reached trying to do so, the facts be damned…

Jack 5 months ago
Impeachment? We don’t need no stinking impeachment!
ILLINOIS MEXICANS FOR TRUMP 2020
Pnchck 1 month ago
I can tell by the quote that you’re one of those whitewashed boomer
Mexicans who hate their own kind and used racial slurs. Fucking loser
Jack 1 month ago
@Pnchck. WRONG! ASSHOLE. First, “Mexican” is NOT a race;
Second, “AMERICA” is a continent NOT a country. As for “hate”. I
hate those who destroyed the Mexican Constitution which
happens to be modeled after the US Constitution. GOD , family,
pursuit of happiness. Love of country and its values, principles,
justice, security and RESPECT for laws. The Mexican Constitution
of 1824 Prohibited SLAVERY .... something the 1776 US
Constitution didn’t have then. Therefore, you know nothing about
me! When, then “Candidate Trump“ came to Mexico, he passed
out MAKE MEXICO GREAT, TOO hats. Loved it! As for
“impeachment “. I knew the LeftyCRATS had nothing on him. Now
I’m in Illinois and there is a huge Mexican movement that
supports President Trump. Lastly, have you ever heard of DUAL
CITIZENSHIP? So, go fuck yourself. After the LeftyCRATS
butchered up Spanish during the debates, even the illegals are
voting for President Trump. HAHAHAHAHA ILLINOIS MEXICANS
FOR TRUMP 2020

Thomas
L.
Friedman@tomfriedman
Aug
13
A
Geopolitical
Earthquake
Just
Hit
the
Mideast
“The
U.A.E.
and
Israel
and
the
U.S.
on
Thursday
showed
—
at
least
for
one
brief
shining
moment
—
that
the
past
does
not
always
have
to
bury
the
future,
that
the
haters
and
dividers
don’t
always
have
to
win.“
~
Thomas
Friedman
@nytimes
shane
pacey@PaceyShane
Aug
16
Ooh
a
peace
deal
between
the
rich
non
threatening
Arab
countries
and
Isreal...that
must
have
been
hard.
Sheriff
Buford*
T.
Dawg@t_sherrif
Aug
14
Trump
got
Little
Rocket
Man
to
meet
with
South
Korean
Leader...
Trump
DESTROYED
Isis
Trump
Gets
Taliban
to
agree
to
cease
fire
(Withdraws
Troops)
Trump
gets
U
A
E
and
Israel
to
normalize
relations
with
peace
deal...
COMMON
SENSE
PEACE
PRIZE
WINNER
(Screw
the
Nobel
Peace
Prize)
Jason
B@Jason071978
Aug
18
It's
not
a
Middle
East
peace
deal.
It's
a
step
in
the
right
direction
by
one
country
that
was
already
on
very
good
relations
with
Isreal.
The
left
want
to
ignore
it
and
the
right
want
it
to
be
a
huge
deal.
It
deserves
neither.

LetFreedomRing@snowsnickers
Aug 13
Epic FAIL today Joe and Kamala trying to act all presidential jabbing the President with,
“that’s what leadership looks like” statement over masks. Evil lost today. PEACE won.
Trump just owned leadership today making history with the Isreal/UA peace deal.
Trump 2020
STRIKE WON@STRIKEWON
Aug 17
Only leader EVER that has not budged on his stance which everyone ABSOLUTELY
LOVED him for the past 25 yrs until he ran. Which is very odd, don't you think? Media
manipulation much? He has kept all promises. Tell me any politician to ever do that?
Sean Davis@seanmdav
Aug 13
If historic peace deals between Israelis and Arabs make you mad, there's a
good chance you're a Jew-hating anti-Semite who's upset that the Iranians
haven't yet used the nukes you gave them to wipe Israel off the map.
Ben Rhodes
@brhodes
· Aug 13
This agreement enshrines what has been the emerging status quo in the
region for a long time (including the total exclusion of Palestinians).
Dressed up as an election eve achievement from two leaders who want
Trump to win. twitter.com/atrupar/status…

Danielle Allen Special to The Washington Post
Like any number of us raised in the late 20th century,
I have spent my life perplexed about exactly how Hitler
could have come to power in Germany. Watching Donald Trump's rise,
I now understand. Leave aside whether a direct comparison of Trump to
Hitler is accurate. That is not my point. My point rather is about how a
demagogic opportunist can exploit a divided country.
To understand the rise of Hitler and the spread of Nazism, I have
generally relied on the German-Jewish émigré philosopher Hannah
Arendt and her arguments about the banality of evil. Somehow people
can understand themselves as "just doing their job," yet act as cogs in
the wheel of a murderous machine. Arendt also offered a second answer
in a small but powerful book called "Men in Dark Times." In this book,
she described all those who thought that Hitler's rise was a terrible thing
but chose "internal exile," or staying invisible and out of the way as their
strategy for coping with the situation. They knew evil was evil, but they
too facilitated it, by departing from the battlefield out of a sense of
hopelessness.
One can see both of these phenomena unfolding now. The first shows
itself, for instance, when journalists cover every crude and cruel thing
that comes out of Trump's mouth and thereby help acculturate all of us
to what we are hearing. Are they not just doing their jobs, they will ask,
in covering the Republican front-runner? Have we not already been
acculturated by 30 years of popular culture to offensive and inciting
comments? Yes, both of these things are true. But that doesn't mean
journalists ought to be Trump's megaphone. Perhaps we should just shut
the lights out on offensiveness; turn off the mic when someone tries to
shout down others; re-establish standards for what counts as a
worthwhile contribution to the public debate. That will seem counter to
journalistic norms, yes, but why not let Trump pay for his own ads when
he wants to broadcast foul and incendiary ideas? He'll still have plenty
of access to freedom of expression. It is time to draw a bright line.

One spots the second experience in any number of water-cooler
conversations or dinner-party dialogues. "Yes, yes, it is terrible. Can you
believe it? Have you seen anything like it? Has America come to this?"
"Agreed, agreed." But when someone asks what is to be done, silence
falls. Very many of us, too many of us, are starting to contemplate
accepting internal exile. Or we joke about moving to Canada more
seriously than usually.
But over the course of the past few months, I've learned something else
that goes beyond Arendt's ideas about the banality of evil and feelings of
impotence in the face of danger.
Trump is rising by taking advantage of a divided country. The truth is
that the vast majority of voting Americans think that Trump is
unacceptable as a presidential candidate, but we are split by strong
partisan ideologies and cannot coordinate a solution to stop him.
Similarly, a significant part of voting Republicans think that Trump is
unacceptable, but they too, thus far, have been unable to coordinate a
solution. Trump is exploiting the fact that we cannot unite across our
ideological divides.
The only way to stop him, then, is to achieve just that kind of
coordination across party lines and across divisions within parties. We
have reached that moment of truth.
Republicans, you cannot count on the Democrats to stop Trump. I
believe that Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination, and I
intend to vote for her, but it is also the case that she is a candidate with
significant weaknesses, as your party knows quite well. The result of a
head-to-head contest between Clinton and Trump would be
unpredictable. Trump has to be blocked in your primary.
Jeb Bush has done the right thing by dropping out, just as he did the
right thing by being the first, alongside Rand Paul, to challenge Trump.
The time has come, John Kasich and Ben Carson, to leave the race as
well. You both express a powerful commitment to the good of your

country and to its founding ideals. If you care about the future of this
republic, it is time to endorse Marco Rubio. Kasich, there's a little wind
in your sails, but it's not enough. Your country is calling you. Do the
right thing.
Ted Cruz is, I believe, pulling votes away from Trump, and for that
reason is useful in the race. But, Mr. Cruz, you are drawing too close to
Trump's politics. You too should change course.
Democrats, your leading candidate is too weak to count on as a firewall.
She might be able to pull off a general election victory against Trump,
but then again she might not. Too much is uncertain this year. You, too,
need to help the Republicans beat Trump; this is no moment for standing
by passively. If your deadline for changing your party affiliation has not
yet come, re-register and vote for Rubio, even if, like me, you cannot
stomach his opposition to marriage equality. I, too, would prefer Kasich
as the Republican nominee, but pursuing that goal will only make it
more likely that Trump takes the nomination. The republic cannot afford
that.
Finally, to all of you Republicans who have already dropped out, one
more, great act of public service awaits you. As candidates, you pledged
to support whomever the Republican party nominated. It's time to
revoke your pledge. Be bold, stand up and shout that you will not
support Trump if he is your party's nominee. Do it together. Hold one
big mother of a news conference. Endorse Rubio, together. It is time to
draw a bright line, and you are the ones on whom this burden falls. No
one else can do it.
Marco Rubio, this is also your moment to draw a bright line. You, too,
ought to rescind your pledge to support the party's nominee if it is
Trump.
Donald Trump has no respect for the basic rights that are the foundation
of constitutional democracy, nor for the requirements of decency
necessary to sustain democratic citizenship. Nor can any democracy

survive without an expectation that the people require reasonable
arguments that bring the truth to light, and Trump has nothing but
contempt for our intelligence.
We, the people, need to find somewhere, buried in the recesses of our
fading memories, the capacity to make common cause against this
formidable threat to our equally shared liberties. The time is now.
Danielle Allen is a political theorist at Harvard University and a
contributing columnist for The Post.
Copyright © 2016, Chicago Tribune
READER COMMENTS
According to this “intellectual” we should throw out the Bill of
Rights and recant on our promises in order to save the country
from destruction.
Danielle Allen is proclaiming that she is wiser than the Founding
Fathers who wrote the Constitution. They actually foresaw that
not every President would be worthy of the job. In fact, they
knew quite a bit about demagoguery. They did not trust Presidents
who might want to act like kings. They also did not trust a fickle,
uneducated public. So they wrote the Constitution which we have
today.
A demagogue could get elected, but he still has to deal with
Congress, the Supreme Court, and the laws he inherits and swears
to uphold when he takes the oath as President. He can swear and
bluster as much as he likes, but he has no power to pass a single
law or fund a single program.
I have more faith in the Constitution than I do in Donald Trump
or Danielle Allen.« less

• 2 hours ago
You lost all credibility in that first paragraph when you
compared him to Hitler. I'm sorry, but you are simply
disgusting for doing so. I don't want to waste anymore of my
time on you and I find it
embarrassing that the Tribune
printed it. And no, I'm not a Trump
supporter.
• 1 hour ago
• bklm
• Rank 1056
That's right, make sure the press
only reports what YOU approve.
Thank God, there is still the
First Amendment in this country - I think. No, You
are the proto fascist if you think altering the First is
the way out of this mess. I love how the "intellectual
elite" love a "free press" but only when the press
reports what they approve. What a meat puppet.
• gdolejei Rank 867
You don’t like Trump so no one should like him. Typical
liberal, school yard argument.

• 2 hours ago
You made your article ridiculous in the first paragraph, when
you compared our primary process to the rise of fascism in
Germany. You have never lived in conditions of hyperinflation
and despair. How can you claim to understand the conditions
in which a dictator can seize power?
Try again, this time without the hyperbole and melodrama.
• 2 hours ago
•
• tbird
• Rank 53
About a month ago, Slate had an article discussing the reasons
why Trump was NOT like Hitler. Pretty easy to find but I will post
a link if I have time.
• 2 hours ago
• concerned citizen
• Rank 1366
This article could have been written about Obama, Bush 43,
Clinton, Reagan, JFK, FDR, Wilson, TR, McKinley, Cleveland,
Grant, Lincoln, Jackson, Monroe, Madison, Jefferson, Adams
and even Washington.
There's a big difference here, and this campaign isn't a fantasy
created by Sinclair Lewis and "It Can't Happen Here."
One can argue that Obama has done significant damage to the
USA through the ACA and other actions. One could argue that
Bush 43 and the Congress's passage of the Patriot Act has done
incredible damage to our rights. Reagan was even out of
bounds.« less

Flag
• dhm59923
• Rank 2
@concerned citizen2013
Indeed so - ever since the time of George Washington the
talking heads, in particular those who proclaim to possess a
high degree of learning, have predicted that if so-and-so wins
America will cease to exist.
I think that while we may not all agree on which were the best
and worst, the nation has managed to survive all of them.
Classic Liberal
Rank 325
• 2 hours ago
Now she is afraid of a presidential candidate who loves to
hear himself speak. One who rouses fear and resentment
and makes a lot of promises he can't possible keep?
Where was
this article in
2008?

…But if you thought that you held the keys to the kingdom,
and if you thought the serfs in the kingdom looked at you
with wild-eyed admiration and respect for brilliance and
culture, levels of success that you could never dream of
obtaining yourself, if you have that attitude, and all of a
sudden you realize the serfs don't see you that way and
maybe even begin to think, my God, why do we need these
people anyway? I don't need to send 'em any more money.
They feel abandoned. They feel like you are not believing
them. They feel like you are spoiled children; you are not
appreciative of the genius in your midst. And so if hell
descends upon you, you deserve it.
- Rush Limbaugh
• The rich who are buying media outlets these days, are
mostly guys looking to get government favors by not
investigating the corrupt politicians who return the favor
for their other bigger businesses. They expect their
media losses will be far smaller than the favors they get
for their other businesses.
In the meantime, they can survive on
political/government advertising, and the advantage of
having access to their favored politicians, while other
legitimate media are refused access and ignored.
see more
• 14
• •
• Reply
• •
• Share ›

…The saving grace of the right used to be that it was too stupid to rule.
Politically defeated liberals secretly believed that in a moment of crisis,
the country would have to be turned over to people who didn’t
think hurricanes were punishment for gay sex and weren’t frightened to
enter a room with a topless statue…
…Unfortunately, a growing quantity of opposite-number lunacies – from
a chess site temporarily shut down by YouTube because of its “white
against black” rhetoric, to an art gallery director forced to resign for
saying he would still “collect white artists” – is mostly off-limits. If we
can’t laugh at time is a white supremacist construct,
what can we laugh at?
Republicans were once despised because they were anti-intellectuals and
hopeless neurotics. Trained to disbelieve in peaceful coexistence with
the liberal enemy, the average Rush Limbaugh fan couldn’t make it
through a dinner without interrogating you about your political
inclinations.
If you tried to laugh it off, that didn’t work; if you tried to engage, what
came back was a list of talking points. When all else failed and you
offered what you thought would be an olive branch of blunt truth, i.e.
“Honestly, I just don’t give that much of a shit,” that was the worst
insult of all, because they thought you were being condescending. (You
were, but that’s beside the point). The defining quality of this personality
was the inability to let things go. Families broke apart over these
situations. It was a serious and tragic thing.
Now that same inconsolable paranoiac comes at you with left politics,
and isn’t content with ruining the odd holiday dinner, blind date, or
shared cab. He or she does this infuriating interrogating at the office, in
school, and in government agencies, in places where you can’t fake a
headache and quietly leave the table…
- Matt Taibbi

eatriz arturo Retweeted
John Hayward
@Doc_0
·
14h
It was bad enough when Democrats looked at America and saw
nothing but children who needed to be cared for by maternal
government. Now they look at America and see nothing but
hostages to be taken for their political ends.
Neil Walsh 1 day ago
There's an 'auto da-fe' [public penance] aspect about the
whole thing - as I said in a comment elsewhere on the net,
Robin DiAngelo's* speeches wouldn't be out of place in a
Mark Twain novella: America, in particular, has a long
tradition of charismatic salespeople and that's what I
believe this phenomenon is. We might be better
addressing the fact 4 people hold more wealth than the
bottom half of the country combined.
1
REPLY
[* author, “White Fragility”]

THE OPPOSITE OF WOKE IS
NOT CONSERVATIVE.
IT ISN'T EVEN ANTI-WOKE. IT IS
FREEDOM.
The opposite of “woke” is closedminded
selfishness and an inability to
learn. It’s anti-intellectual and cruel in
one's ability to dismiss the lives and
lived experience of others and a refusal
to learn from those lives. There is no
freedom in one's inability to grow as a
person
That doesn't make any sense considering
that you have to deny or ignore actual
science to take the "anti-woke" position....
which is just a cover position for bigotry.
I remember when "lived experience" was called "anecdotal evidence", and
dismissed for its lack of scientific validity.
Black people and indigenous people cannot be racist
because #CriticalRaceTheory has redefined what racism is.
Right, and then it is either use the correct pronoun or we burn your shop to the ground.
The days where that anti-science drivel is cool are numbered.
No matter how you slice it, individual "lived experiences" are irrelevant. Learning from
collective lived experiences is called "studying history" and that process cross-checks individual
accounts for consistency and whether they are supported by measurable archaeological facts.

You know that Enlightenment “universalism” justified
white supremacy, race, colonialism, genocide, etc?
Nope. That’s your narrative myth.
It's not a "narrative", they literally wrote about it
& constructed their political & philosophical
theories around them. Locke, Kant, Voltaire, Hobbes etc.
Pretty crap "skeptic" when you haven't read on the subject.
If we’re opposing every major thinker throughout history whose views on race
would be completely unacceptable by modern standards, we’d have nothing left
to learn from. And I've got some bad news about Karl Marx lmao.
Once upon a time "woke" meant being aware, cognizant of social issues,
particularly racism, sexism, various phobias, & oppression. Now it means to be a
prejudiced activist zealot, viciously demanding everyone conform to the latest
dogma while rejecting data for subjectivism.
I'm not sure if woke ever meant those things. It was marketed and sold as those things... Language
control by the far Left.
'Lived experience' is just another word for 'subjectivity'. If someone believes that they are the
reincarnation of Napoleon, you don't just believe them based on their lived experience.
Everyone applies critical thinking and judgment to others all the time.
Reminds me of how religious nut cases describe the sinners who aren't part of their cult.
I’ve been saying exactly this for years!

Way too easy: The opposite of woke is freedom of thought, speech, worship, press. Freedom
from media cancel culture. Freedom from Academics who have never accomplished anything.
Freedom to tell you we're not taking any crap in the woke world anymore. If you're up for the
fight LFG.
There’s a big difference in me wanting to “hear”
your “story” and you needing me to “hear” your
“story”.. and I’ll let the audience decide which one
is selfish
No, the opposite of "woke" is to think rationally. Not terribly popular in our backward and
regressive era. Could get you doxxed or de-platformed.
"Lived experience" is a dog whistle of the far Left.
Another read of the Constitution is in order. Nowhere does it say,
conform or else.
Woke is focusing on the wrong things and attempting to stop people from saying so.
There is nothing intellectual or kind about being woke. The entire premise is division
through racism.
'woke-ism' is actually the anti-intellectualist epistemology here. It requires a suspension of belief in
objective truth to be its follower.
oh wait he has pronouns
'anarchist'...LMAO
what are his adverbs?
Pseudoscience is neither open-minded nor kind.

ZUBY:@ZubyMusic
I have no idea how it's been framed that it's 'the right' who are obsessed
with 'race'. Might be the biggest myth in modern politics.
onefivethree@JamesEWhiteJr3
Replying to@ZubyMusic
Again, I cannot speak for people, but ... the Caucasian Leftists I've
known *really* like the idea of pitying + saving others. It's about their
dopamine hit of being publicly "righteous"
Stir constantly while simmering@knowitallmom
Replying to@JamesEWhiteJr3 and @ZubyMusic
The white savior complex is strong with the suburban housewives
me. I don't even think they realize they're doing it.
around
onefivethree@JamesEWhiteJr3
It's essentially caucasian arrogance en masse that seeks to "educate" and "shame"
others for not being as overtly + fashionably "tolerant" as they are. That's the shame of
white people I've known: -- the desire to use other ethnicities as fashion accessories
“…Bored overly comfortable white women especially have vast empty holes in
their lives that they are trying to fill. It's why they take up causes… to try to fill
that void. It’s also why they are so insane about it. Because when you counter
them on their issue, you are in their mind attacking THEM at what they believe
makes them "good" or "important" or even relevant…”

Jeff Anderson
If the guy had been white the sign
would have talked about lack of
diversity. Its a game you can't win, but
that's not the point of it.

Ꮲɛཞʂơŋą
ŋơŋ
Ꮆཞąɬą
It’s
called
irony
poisoning,
the
progressive
left’s
myopic
nihilistic
worldview
is
so
dominated
by
their
own
ironic
detachment...
Quena
González
Dude's
braced
to
stab
that
cat.
Pretty
cool.
Blawgdawg29
“The
accuracy
of
the
scientific
content
has
been
questioned”?
I’m
not
really
sure
how
that
works.
Gaston
Mooney
How
do
we
know
that
the
man
was
not
knocking
the
lion
off
its
camel
ride?
Or
maybe
the
lion
and
man
were
walking
along
together
and
the
camel
scooped
up
the
man
on
his
back
and
the
lion
is
now
trying
to
save
the
man
from
being
abducted.
Every
possibility
must
be
studied.
this
exhibit
is
actually
badass
lol
Michael
Clayton
starting
to
think
this
is
all
a
viral
marketing
ploy
because
I
want
to
go
see
what
else
they
have
now

Harrison Bergeron
I can't believe PETA hasn't weighed in yet because of the lion-on-camel
violence.
The display contains human remains and the taxidermist who
created it had a history of human taxidermy, particularly with
Africans. It's a museum of Natural History, not a house of horrors.
Sometimes it's worth it to take a few minutes and save yourself from
tweeting dumb takes
Yo Kpopper
But that's not what they say on the note next to the diorama. It clearly says it's because
the man is a PoC and don't explain if it's just a mannequin or a real person. They should
have bothered to explain it better on that note with a short sentence like yours.
Jo Maree
They've had an issue with this stupid thing for 100+ years. They bought it in
the 1800's because no one wanted it. The artist had a long history of grave robbing and
taxidermy of humans to create his works. Their decision to keep it all these years is a
head scratcher.
Merkin Muffley
The clothes are inaccurate, the zoology is inaccurate, the piece
contains human remains, and the sensationalism has made it a target of
criticism for over a century. But don't let context get in the way of some
culture war mongering.

Guy
Walker
In
the
19th
Century
it
was
common
for
people
to
sell
their
remains
before
death
for
medical
use
and
are
still
displayed
today.
I
find
that
Noble
and
fine.
This
however
was
probably
not
the
case
and
is
macabre
and
disrespectful
to
the
remains
and
I
agree
with
the
actions
taken.
Also
for
the
record
I’m
a
conservative
white
male
and
voted
Trump.
We
need
to
realize
not
everything
is
political,
everyone
deserves
dignity.
The
only
thing
would
change
my
mind
is
a
will
from
the
deceased
stating
this
is
what
he
wanted.
As
far
as
I
know
that
does
not
exist
KOB
The
taxidermist
(from
the
1800's)
used
actual
human
remains
for
the
guy
on
the
camel's
back.
Probably
not
a
respectful
use
of
human
remains,
especially
if
it
was
a
dead
African
being
posed
by
a
French
taxidermist.
I
get
the
issue.
I
thought
it
was
a
manniquin
at
first
glance.
Isle_of_Lucy
Just
say
the
lion
represents
white
privilege.
Then
it’s
all
better.
KatPhish
“Museums
are
on
the
front
lines
of
the
fight
for
culture,
of
good
with
evil
-
in
any
case,of
the
fight
against
platitudes
and
primitiveness.”
-Mikhail
Piotrovsky
Bel
Navassa
Guy
looks
all
cool
with
his
curved
dagger
ready
to
rip
out
that
lion's
throat.
I
thought
we
needed
more
good
POC
role
models.

…Handcuff the cops, tear down the statues, rewrite the textbooks,
make America the world’s bad guy — that’s what today’s Times is
selling.
Anyone with such an activist agenda had better be purer than
Caesar’s wife. The Times clearly fails that test and owes its staff,
stockholders and readers a full account of the slave holders and
Confederates in its past...
- Michael Goodwin
Kelly McCubbin 1 day ago
Alexis De Toqueville had America’s number in the late 1930’s
when he wrote Democracy in America. “In America the majority
draws a formidable circle around thought. Inside those limits, the
writer is free; but unhappiness awaits him if he dares to leave
them. It is not that he has to fear an auto-da-fé, but he is the butt
of mortifications of all kinds and of persecutions every day. A
political career is closed to him: he has offended the only power
that has the capacity to open it up. Everything is refused him,
even glory. Before publishing his opinions, he believed he had
partisans; it seems to him that he no longer has any now that he
has uncovered himself to all; for those who blame him express
themselves openly, and those who think like him, without having
his courage, keep silent and move away. He yields, he finally
bends under the effort of each day and returns to silence as if he
felt remorse for having spoken the truth.”
Not much has changed in almost 200 years it seems.....
Show less
REPLY

“It was as if the press in America, for all its vaunted
independence, were a great colonial animal, an
animal made up of countless clustered organisms
responding to a central nervous system. In the late
1950's (as in the late 1970's) the animal seemed
determined that in all matters of national importance
the proper emotion, the seemly sentiment, the fitting
moral tone, should be established and should
prevail; and all information that muddied the tone
and weakened the feeling should simply be thrown
down the memory hole. In a later period, this
impulse of the animal would take the form of blazing
indignation about corruption, abuses of power, and
even minor ethical lapses…”
“Loneliness wasn't just a state of mind, was it? It was
tactile. She could feel it. It was a sixth sense, not in
some fanciful play of words, but physically. It hurt... it
hurt like phagocytes devouring the white matter of her
brain. It wasn't merely that she had no friends. She
didn't even have a sanctuary in which she could simply
be alone.”
- Tom Wolfe

Allya Trit
Jh Hacck
-- Maace Oa- Mact 177

“People don't buy what you do; they buy
why you do it”
- Simon Sinek
Spring. 2020.
If. One. More. Fucking. Person. Hurls. An. Impassioned.
Missive. Into. The. Ether. With. Periods. After. Every.
Word.

Andy
McCarthy
@AndrewCMcCarthy
·
Governments
are
created
to
secure
our
fundamental
rights.
If
the
Constitution
still
means
anything,
it
is
not
your
burden
to
prove
your
job
is
‘essential.’
It
is
the
government’s
burden
to
prove
your
job
can’t
be
operated
safely.
Leon
Storie
@lstorie1971
·
Apr
18
Nobody
is
protesting
because
they
can't
go
to
Fuddruckers.
They're
protesting
because
they
are
scared
that
in
very
short
order
they
will
be
financially
ruined
and
left
to
deal
with
all
that
entails.
Pretending
it's
as
simple
as
wanting
a
fucking
burger
is
disingenuous
and
stupid.

Candace Owens
@RealCandaceO
Apr 28
Possibly the greatest trade deal ever inked was between the flu virus and
#coronavirus. So glad nobody is dying of the flu anymore, and therefore
the CDC has abruptly decided to stop calculating flu deaths altogether.
Agreements between viruses are the way of the future!
James Woods
@RealJamesWoods
·
Apr 22
News used to be perceived as either good or bad. In today’s
clickbait environment, it has just become shades of bad. This is
because Democrats need misery to exist, hope as the distant
light in a never-ending tunnel, and their lackeys in the press to
sell the whole phony scenario

It is a curious pathology of twitter posters that they believe their
smug, pithy retorts designed to elevate them do precisely the
opposite and simply confirm the original critique.
You may be underestimating or have underestimated the evil glee some
people feel while pointing and shouting “burn the witch!” during a moral
panic. It has very little to do with the witchery of the person about to be
burned.
Easy there! You said you weren't wrong, which is wrong, because
everyone knows you were wrong, and now you're wrong about not being
wrong
You only refused to wear a mask for the attention. Good for you, Typhoid Mary.
Yeah, but you’re a cunt.
I have to disagree on that.
She clearly lacks the
depth & warmth.
Weird hill to die on but at
least you’re dead.
Yo mama is so mean, when she
saw Mommie Dearest, she was
taking notes

Kit Yates@Kit_Yates_Maths
Author and Mathematical Biologist at the University of Bath.
My book The Math(s) of Life and Death is out now http://amzn.to/2MkmdcM
he/him
Oxford, England
kityates.com
Joined November 2011
896 Following 36.4K Followers
Not followed by anyone you’re following
Thread - See new Tweets
Conversation
Kit Yates @Kit_Yates_Maths
Talked to my daughter (8) about the COVID situation this morning.
She said “It’s just like climate change. They won’t do anything because
they say it’s too expensive, but it will end up costing humans.”
She’s more correct than she knows, the parallel’s run deeper.
2:29 AM · Dec 21,
2021·Twitter for iPad

S.D. Wickett@essdeewickett
Reminds me of the time my six-month-old looked at me and said "Caesar wasn't
actually a tyrant.
Rome had grown weak and burdened by ambitious generals; Rome needed a strong
hand to unite the Republic. His leadership at Alesia proved his value to Rome
beyond debate."
Richard McCusker@rjm83
My 1-year-old said the other day that the problem is that Capitalism will always
seek to exploit resources and the means of production and labour in order to make
profits for a ruling elite regardless of what the cost is to society and the
environment.
Children are so wise
nick, MSCE, FICO 756@nickb_92
My toddler and I were discussing the veil of ignorance the other day, when he
stated “From the original position I would seek a society that distributes to each
according to need rather than according to ability”.
Really makes you think

Justine Harper@MsHodl
Yeah my 6 month old was just telling me the other day how maps are a scam that
are used to enforce dominance over other countries by falsely exaggerating the size
of certain regions.
Kids are so amazing.
Michael@MJFordBooks
I remember when my pregnant wife was about to vote
for Brexit but the fetus kicked out the Morse code for
‘don’t do it - future generations will never forgive you’.
mundo_go_smash@mundo_smash
Talked to my hamster (2) about people making things up on Twitter for likes this
morning. He said "Ngl, it's pretty cringe bro. Someone with balls would just post
their opinion without creating a fictional scenario where it came from the mouth of
someone else"
The Red
Tory@politicotom1
My 5 year old cat
looked at me this
morning and said
“hospitalisation
and death data for
the new variant
suggests vaccines
have broken the
link between cases
and deaths”.
He also said “fill
my bowl, human”.

Kroquegg Overon@kroquegg_overon
I don’t have any children of my own to exploit, but imagining a random 2-year-old
telling me exactly what I want to hear so I can plaster it on the internet for likes.
She wept for the cynicism of our venality and the terrible human cost.
Or maybe it was because she was hungry.
Jeff Wode is feeling better@JeffWode1969
My 6-year-old said "It's disgraceful that schools and the mainstream media shove
bollocks like Climate Change down our throats rather than encouraging critical
thinking and challenging poorly made assumptions".
And, do you know, I think he has a point.
Ric@ricster71
I want to know her views
on the Northern Ireland
Protocol. I'm sure she'll
avail us of them,
completely unprompted,
sooner or later.
Favorz@Idofavorzforu
Quit freaking your kid out and having them ingest fear porn.
Ära@AraTheFairy
My 3 month old dog said "Aliens are watching us and will approach us when
we're wise enough"
He also said "he loves chicken the most"

LINKbrah@kyndbrah
My 7-year-old also was telling me how she understands that COVID and climate
change are both control mechanisms that have been foisted upon us by the
government.
Smart kid to see through the lies so young.
Julius Chiguhr
Flag of United StatesFlag of Italy
Black large squareOrange square@DrJuiced
Talking to my 8-months-in-the-womb niece while my sister was sleeping about
just this thing. She added that she was saddened that we have yet to make Greta
Thunberg Grand Empress of Earth and that Pfizer only made 7000% profit and not
8000% profit.
Pote Galvez@markmcc4
I was literally shaking.
Deep debate with my son (3) earlier and he commented that “it turns out human
kind, is not that kind after all”; not sure where he gets it from.
If only he now learned to not shit his pants every day.
Matt Stark Rocket Cricket bat and ball@MattStark1991
And everybody cheered?

Marcus@iron_marcus2
I agree there are parallels. Both have agendas driven by big business and money
rather than saving humanity.
Phlegm Christingledango@Cain_Unable
My 4yo just said "Daddy, why do people make up things that their children have
said for social media? Isn't it just inherently dishonest & indicative of an inability
to construct a compelling narrative themselves?"

MickNose1960Flag of United KingdomFlag of Israel@MNose1960
My friend’s 3-month fetus said roughly the same on the bus the other day.
Even the driver applauded after he'd pulled over.
thrillhosg97@thrillhosg97
Safety first, I'm applauding right now
bork bork bork@o7_55
fake and gay
Steve TheLightningMan @LightningMan__
The sperm in the wet spot on my wife's side of the bed asked me if
climate change would affect their investments in precious metals and
should they diversify into Dogecoin.
Billy@AndrewsBilly
were you
"literally
shaking"?
cuz that’s
how this style
of fable
usually ends...

ole olsen@ollioliio
my two month old dog told me yesterday that it's uncanny how children can sense
what their parents want to tweet.
so wise.
Retired & Broken@Concerned482
My 8 yr old Great Great Great Grand Daughter stated the following to me,
"21st Century humans were really a bunch of fannies weren't they"
R. James@rysomerville1
Imagine limiting replies to an imaginary scenario with your daughter you threw on
Twitter for attention? The parallels run deeper...
@libsoftiktok

K. Z.
When this shakes out, no matter the outcome, the world
we grew up in is gone. People need to be thinking about what
they want to build on the ashes.
House
Rush
the
Some would
burn the
world to rule
the ashes.
They aren't
hard to spot.
PardonMyFrench
·
Longest 2 weeks of the nation's life. History will be
rewritten so the many lessons learned will be
repeated in the future.

The
reason I have been so
comfortable with the eccentric presidency
of Donald Trump is because he has
succeeded in ways that are important to
me, and where he can be said to have failed, it is in matters to
which I’m largely indifferent.
Trump has a far more realistic sense of the world than most
elites and experts. He
was right about globalism,
nationalism, borders, regulations, China, and taxes.
He
is
good at fixing things and making things work and making
decisions. He is not, like Obama and his professorial ilk, an
incompetent man snakebit
by a false academic sense of the world.
What Trump has not done is he has not accepted the moral duties of a
president as generally understood. Even though he has been far
tougher on the world’s tyrants than Obama was, he talks about them
as if they were great guys. He “fell in love” with Kim Jong Un,

a murderous psychopath. He has repeatedly praised Vladimir Putin,
a gangster. He believes in the power of his relationships, and gives
no care to the moral message these careless statements send.
I think this is a legitimate criticism of him. I don’t dismiss it.
I just personally don’t care very much about it. I don’t take my
moral cues from politicians. I think most of them are moral
buffoons. Trump does the right thing most of the time, no matter
what he says.
Which brings me to the Chinese Flu. I think Trump has done a
good job. He has done pretty much what he had to do. I think he
has kept the federal government in check during a crisis. He has
created no new agencies and has not tried to seize power from the
states. This, in my personal book of concerns, is an act of near
greatness.
I have trusted him in his decisions – not because I think he was
sent by God to save our nation (though he might have been. You’d
have to check with God). I have trusted him because his interests
are aligned with mine. He is not some right-wing ideologue

willing to watch millions die to make an obscure point about
liberty. He is not some left-wing idiot willing to let the economy
crash to “save even one life.”
It is in his interest to keep the death toll as low as possible and to open up
the economy as soon as possible, and he seems to be trying to do that
while allowing each state to make its own way according to their situation.
Nice going, President the Donald!
Should he have shut down the economy at all? Well, look at it this way.
There were two op-eds in Friday’s Wall Street Journal. One, by
Joseph C. Sternberg, makes the case we shouldn’t have locked down:
herd immunity, no change in the ultimate death toll, the brutal cost of
depression. The other, by Lee Siegel, reminds us what we thought of the
corrupt mayor in “Jaws,” who refuses to harm the city’s economy and
thereby sentences the locals to death.
Every
single leader in the civilized world ultimately made
the same decision Trump made. The differences and many
of the outcomes were largely dependent on how culturally
homogenous their nations were. In Sweden, where
everyone looks exactly the same and is named Sven, leaders can

just ask people to act responsibly and they will. In countries
where no one understands or trusts one another, like ours, you
don’t have that luxury.
So if everyone listening to the best experts with the most information shut
down, the chance is that Angry Twitter Guy who read three articles
confirming his already-formed opinion would also have shut down if he
had been in their position. In other words, even if the decision was wrong,
it’s the one virtually everyone would have made. We know this, because
virtually everyone did. Which means Angry Twitter Guy, who thinks it’s
“outrageous” and “insane,” only thinks that because he’s Angry Twitter
Guy, and not the president of anything.
There’s a lot of Outrage Noise out there. Some of it is justified.
But beyond the noise, what has actually happened – the shutdown,
the move to restart with proper precautions – these are the sad but
probably inevitable results of a tragic occurrence.
Fortitude in the face of them is a virtue.
Andrew Klavan

TWENTY TWO
nobody misses
him

Cernovich@Cernovich
The leftie media bro twitter accounts I follow are just
silent. They don't have anything to say, no answers, they'll
await their talking points.
10:06 PM · Aug 27, 2020·Twitter Web App
Aaron
18h
Replying to @Cernovich
Greatest convention ever. I'm as shocked as anyone.
Grateful Dad
Replying to @Cernovich
Dark and dangerous
clark
17h
Replying to @Cernovich
It's disappointing that we live in a time when journalists
feel compelled to read the room before they decide if/how
they will report the news.

Latina
for
#Trump2020
Replying to @Cernovich
This
is
all
they’ve
got?
Quote
Tweet
Chris
Cillizza@CillizzaCNN
· 18h
Serious
Q:
Why
the
emphasis
on
Trump's
middle
name/initial?
Is
there
a
"Donald
L.
Trump"
running
for
president
I
don't
know
about?
Conrad
Replying to @Cernovich
That’s
why
they’re
journos
and
not
consultants
lol.
Essentially
you
only
get
into
journalism
to
get
a
Democratic
comms
gig
and
have
lib
billionaires
funnel
you
money
to
oppo
dump
on
your
former
colleagues
Bard
Plimpson
Replying to @Cernovich
It's
easy
to
guess.
Just
try
to
imagine
what
a
snarky
25
year-old
douche
would
say
if
he
was
trying
to
impress
a
woman.
That
seems
to
be
the
only
driving
force
behind
media
bro
ideology.

Nee Nee
Replying to@Cernovich
Imagine the optics of attacking Kayla Mueller's family. To harass Alice
Johnson for being a victim of Biden's prison "reform" that sent her away for
life. To attack a widow of a Black police officer killed by BLMers. Tonight
was carefully curated.
Afroloops@afrosheenix
17h
Replying to@Cernovich
They're downloading firmware updates.
Updating Approved Opinions.xml

Reza Aslan@rezaaslan
If they even TRY to replace RBG we burn the entire
fucking thing down.
8:01 PM · Sep 18, 2020·Twitter for iPhone
M3thods
Sep 18
Replying to@rezaaslan
I'd tell you to use your brain but you probably ate it.
James
Be a real man. Burn down your own house first. Put it on TikTok.
Eric
You’re not gonna do shit. But some pussy-ass liberal arts major
with a skateboard and some firecrackers is going to pick a fight
in the wrong neighborhood. You guys are poking the bear.

Kenny
"Every
statue
and
street
building
has
been
renamed,
every
date
has
been
altered.
And
the
process
is
continuing
day
by
day
and
minute
by
minute.
History
has
stopped.
Nothing
exists
except
an
endless
present
in
which
the
Party
is
always
right.”-
'1984,'
George
Orwell
Lydia
Thank
God
I
was
only
reading
your
tweet
of
an
excerpt
from
that
sci-fi
book,
“1984,”
written
by
that
man
who
lived
back
in
the
1930’s
and
‘40’s.
Don’t
scare
me
like
that
ever
again.
Indigo
Waterglow
Makes
sense.
“If
we
can’t
have
it,
NO
ONE
CAN!”
Eric
Carmen@RealEricCarmen
Go
back
through
history
and
show
me
when
America
elected
a
President
from
the
party
threatening
to
burn
down
the
country.
Yeah,
that
would
be.."Never."

Sue
As a Democrat, I find this sort of comment unproductive.
LemonCake
or counter-productive
Jonathan T Gilliam@JGilliam_SEAL
Pipe down discount jihadist. RBG is dead. She isn’t getting replaced, her
position gets filled by another judge. And FYI you human brain eating
dumb ass, calling for the overthrow of our government is a dangerous
game that could get you cancelled this time, not just your show.
T.
You, thinking you’re in control, it’s cute!
Little Larry
Reza’s the most fierce keyboard warrior around.

㿿
You
can
officially
excuse
yourself
from
the
adult
table
with
this
tweet.
There
is
zero
constitutional
argument
here,
and
even
if
there
were
"burn
the
entire
fucking
thing
down"
is
not
the
answer.
This
is
incitement,
and
should
land
you
in
jail.
Thomas
And
peace
be
with
you...
Stash
Cool
story
bro
KaReN
#SaveOurchildren
Who
is
Reza
are
they
important?
Vicki
Heck
no!
Never
liked
them!

NJ Rambo
Lmao
don’t get mad if we start to hit back
Sachin
You mean when you can't do anything good..you must destroy everything.
SP
What's your plan?
AmPatriot
That explains EVERYTHING!
James
"We shall loot from the cannabis shops, from the liquor stores. We shall
never surrender."

Funny
Kawwa
kaw
kaw
This
is
also
a
kind
of
terrorism
instigating
people
to
create
law
and
order
problem
while
himself
sitting
in
comfort
of
house.
LovemyMarley
And
the
benefit
of
that
would
be?...
Gregg
While
dodging
gunfire!
What
a
man!
archipelago
You
should
get
a
flip
phone
mate.
There’s
a
whole
world
out
there
to
enjoy!
忿 濿 뿿
俿 濿 翿 迿 꿿꿿
I
can
make
you
a
great
deal
on
some
cigarette
lighters
I
have
about
15
in
the
original
cases.
I
can't
mail
them.
Make
me
an
offer!

eatriz arturo@beatrizarturo2
6h
“For decades, playing “fairly” resulted in conservatives losing
every single frontier of culture due to their pretended neutrality.
Neutrality historically cannot oppose a crusading ideology
such as liberalism.”
• SCOTUS
There’s No Downside To Trump
Nominating Amy Coney Barrett
This election was always going to be about culture. Treat the election as a
referendum on cultural issues and lean in, Mr. President.
By Sumantra Maitra
SEPTEMBER 22, 2020

It is said that when Napoleon was presented with the
credentials of a general, he asked, “I know that he is good,
but is he lucky?” The phrase might be apocryphal
[mythical], but it is by no means wrong. One need not
believe in the concept of fortune to be fortunate.
On that note, President Donald Trump might be considered
fortunate, presented with another opportunity to shape the future
with his third nomination to the Supreme Court. With the new
vacancy, Trump has also provided social scientists an opportunity to
test several academic theories about future political alignments.
For starters, there’s nothing Democrats can gain from this scenario.
If a caustic confirmation ensues, it would be a rehash of the Brett
Kavanaugh episode, which would galvanize Republicans. If there’s a
nomination but no confirmation and then a lame-duck session, it
would spur Republicans to vote for Trump for a future confirmation.
If riots break out, they would most definitely stir Republicans to
vote.
The talks of a political crisis are just that — talks. They’re a fantasy
narrative created by those who have a monopoly over media, similar
to the line that Trump would not give up power even if Joe Biden
wins the election.
The constitutional process is clear: The president nominates, and
the Senate proceeds to either confirm or deny. The party in power in
the Senate decides whether a confirmation process goes forward.
Democrats did that with Robert Bork, and Republicans paid back in
kind during the nomination of Merrick Garland.
Those in power decide the process. That is true for both parties. Any
other narrative is balderdash.

Draw the Battle Lines
Another objection from the left is that an efficient confirmation process
will break norms, which is ridiculous coming from the ideological side
that understands nothing but how to use raw power for political gain. It
was a power play when Kavanaugh was nominated, an episode that
stiffened the spine and broke the starry-eyed spell of a lot of formerly
centrist Republicans. It is a power play when ideological pseudo-history
such as the 1619 Project wins a Pulitzer Prize and is taught in more than
3,000 schools.
It is a power play when Democrats stop budget relief that would have
aided thousands of working-class people. It is a power play when jobs
and livelihoods are held hostage by protests and riots. Barricading a
Supreme Court nomination is most definitely a power play coming from
a side that wants to give statehood to D.C. and Puerto Rico, pack the
courts, and abolish the Electoral College. The talk of constitutional
norms, therefore, is absurd, as those who win elections decide the
norms, according to the established rules.
This election was always going to be about culture. Trump, for good or
for bad, understands that. Rhetoric aside, in the last week, his
Department of Education called the bluff of Princeton University’s
performative self-flagellating shtick, and fired a full broadside on the
insidious and subversive critical race theory. That is more ammunition
on the cultural front than any other Republican president fired off in the
last couple of decades.
It also has ensured the battle lines are clearly drawn. For decades,
playing “fairly” resulted in conservatives losing every single frontier of
culture due to their pretended neutrality. Neutrality historically cannot
oppose a crusading ideology such as liberalism.

Trump’s full-throttle, open-armed embrace of the cultural battle
lines has for good or for bad clarified who’s on which side. It also
surprisingly brought in support from those who were otherwise
inclined to be neutral and at least theoretically liberal.
Amy Coney Barrett Is a Clear Choice
The nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett would advance those
cultural battle lines. If one needs to be genuinely democratic, he or
she should be clear about convictions and proudly put forward the
alternative to the dilettante technocratic centrism that has been in
practice. The public loves clear choices, and the public prefers
leaders who act, instead of managers who hedge bets.
The left always talks a big game about direct democracy, but they
seem to forget that if every issue were treated as an individual
referendum, the chances of them losing major positions are
extremely high. Americans do not support Black Lives Matter
anarchism. The majority are patriotic and oppose taxpayer-funded
anti-American education. The majority of black Americans are far
more religious on average than the public overall, and the majority
of Americans oppose transgender activism. The majority of
Americans oppose abortion after the first trimester and want fewer
foreign wars. Ask yourself, which side stands for the majority?
Coney Barrett is tough on crime, is against campus kangaroo courts,
and is an originalist who would follow the letter of the law to the
last word. According to her own words, she would not be deterred
from making tough decisions. Her nomination should give the public
a clear choice, even if the confirmation does not proceed prior to the
election.

Vanessa Grigoriadis@vanessagrigor
Co-founder @campsidemedia.
Contributing Writer @NYTmagand @vanityfair. Author, Blurred Lines:
Rethinking Sex, Power and Consent on Campus (HMH).
campsidemedia.com Joined February 2009
2,542 Following 9,032 Followers

Vanessa
Grigoriadis@vanessagrigor
I
guess
one
of
the
things
I
don't
understand
about
Amy
Comey
Barrett
is
how
a
potential
Supreme
Court
justice
can
also
be
a
loving,
present
mom
to
seven
kids?
Is
this
like
the
Kardashians
stuffing
nannies
in
the
closet
and
pretending
they've
drawn
their
own
baths
for
their
kids
9:32
AM
·
Sep
26,
2020·Twitter
Web
App
Vanessa
Grigoriadis@vanessagrigor
And
if
there
aren't
enough
hours
in
the
day
for
her
to
work
and
mother
those
kids,
when
she
portrays
herself
as
a
home-centered
Catholic
who
puts
family
over
career,
isn't
she
telling
a
lie?
Replying to@vanessagrigor
"I'm
pro-choice,
except
when
women
make
choices
I
wouldn't
make"
The
Dank
Knight
“A
woman’s
place
is
in
the
kitchen”
-Dems
suddenly
Matt
Just
so
I
have
this
right...
you’re
questioning
how
a
woman
manages
to
raise
her
seven
children
while
having
a
successful
career?
Thomas
Excellent
point,
Vanessa,
and
such
insight!
Women
should
remain
home
and
take
care
of
their
motherly
duties
and
ensure
the
house
is
clean
for
their
man,
before
he
gets
home.
And
let's
not
forget
a
well-cooked
meal
waiting
for
him
too!
I
love
your
progressive
thinking.

Rona
Remember - she needs to make sure her hair and makeup are done as she’s preparing
to hand him his freshly prepared drink as he walks in the door after a long day, too.
Thanks, Vanessa!
Presilove005
Are you serious with this take? Remind me...how many kids is the correct
number to have? And are women “allowed” to work outside the home or
nah?
7144251112
Some women are just born with bionic energy. Not me but I have friends that do.
The Sassiest Semite
Christ, this take doesn’t help us at all. A million things you could
say about her, justifiably, and it’s this that you go with?
Mo
Oy! Looks like we’ve got a lot of remedial education
assignments to hand out here.
stacia
Exactly! A woman’s place is in the home. Barefoot and pregnant. In the kitchen serving
her man. If she’s a decent woman she’ll have a ribbon in her hair, his slippers and a
drink waiting when he walks in the door after his hard day at the office.

Ari
It's
ironic
that
the
same
people
who
are
claiming
that
this
nomination
would
lead
to
a
Handmaid's
Tale
society
are
also
saying
that
mothers
are
incapable
of
simultaneously
having
successful
careers.
weimadorable
This
is
what
1st
and
2nd
wave
feminism
fought
against...they
fought
against
Vanessas.
Stan
Jealousy
is
not
becoming
of
you
Paul
This
may
be
the
most
pointless
train
of
thought
in
the
history
of
@Twitter-
a
treasure
trove
of
pointless
trains
of
thought.
Congrats.
Gremlin
X
Sounds
like
someone
has
an
insecurity
complex...
Tom
So
much
for
supporting
women...
Tony
learn
to
code
honey.
Catherine
Ummm.
Can
her
husband
do
some
of
that
or
does
that
make
her
a
bad
mom.
Kristen
It’s
none
of
your
business
actually.
So
much
for
women
lifting
women
up.
You’d
never
ask
a
man
such
an
asinine
question.
Go
Amy
Go!
Fierce
and
smart
women
scare
the
left

1970's Feminist: "Women can be both mothers and career women."
2020's Feminist: "Women can't be both mothers and career women."
Jennifer
Correction: they can’t only if they are conservative
I'm wondering if being a contributor to Vanity Fair and NYTmag leaves a person enough
time and compassion to be a decent human being? It would appear that is not the case.
Mrs. Freeman
@vanessagrigor
If you can't do it. Doesn't mean someone can't do it
Your tweet is exactly why I am not one of these new age feminists...all you want to do is
tear other women down. We old schoolers build each other up, encouraging women to be
better, stronger, and ok with who we are.
Steff
Now you’re attacking her for not staying in the kitchen making
sammiches? I love it. Keep going.
Norm D'Plume
That's very liberated of you. Here I was thinking women were capable of great things.
Aldous Huxley's Ghost
"Strong women can do anything!"
"Not that!"
Zen Jordan
This is definitely not the hot take you think it is.

manzgringa
And
if
she
does,
in
fact,
eat
babies...is
this
the
kind
of
woman
we
want
on
the
Supreme
Court?
Kevin
My
wife
is
an
adamant
feminist
who
works
tirelessly
to
equalize
the
status
of
women
to
men’s....
she
has
a
doctorate,
read
your
tweets
and
responded...”sometimes
you
just
need
to
smack
a
hoe....”
Johnny
I
thought
women
could
have
it
all?
And
don't
forget
you
also
hate
women
who
are
stay
at
home
moms
due
to
the
superiority
of
the
husband.
In
other
words,
you
are
never
happy
about
anything.
MoJo15
Now
women
can’t
have
it
all?
Feminists
should
be
consistent
or
you’ll
keep
looking
foolish
and
hypocritical.
Dewey
You’re
a
Democrat
all
right.
You
always
get
ahead
of
everyone
else
by
a
step
or
two
and
start
complaining
about
something
that
may
or
may
not
ever
happen.
Red
In
America
So
mother’s
can’t
work?
How
is
it
that
the
left
is
both
tyrannically
feminist
and
tyrannically
misogynistic?
Pita
So,
because
you
are
not
capable,
no
one
else
is.
Riiiight...

AdamInHTownTX (Fiery but Mostly Peaceful)
I'm having trouble keeping up with the moving goalposts. So now the left
finds it problematic that a woman has a successful career, a healthy
marriage, and a big family?
Cali Girl
I can't remember the last time this question was posted to a male nominee.. Either
you're extremely jealous she's able to maintain a home/work balance or you're insecure
af...
Who's Gonna Be Lucky Indicted #2? - Brian Cates
How about you come right out and say any successful woman in her field
that has 7 kids must be a horrible mother instead of just tip-toeing around
the awful point you are trying to make? This says a lot more about you than
ACB.
Stupid, Lying, Dog-
Faced, Pony-Soldier,
Bastard
I suspect there
are A LOT of
things you don't
understand. Don't
sell yourself short.

Vanessa
Grigoriadis@vanessagrigor
OK,
let
me
clarify.
I
meant
to
point
out
the
irony
that
Barrett,
mom
of
seven,
achieved
professional
heights
only
with
the
help
of
child
care,
yet
she
wants
to
snatch
away
pro-choice
rights,
which
are
part
of
the
way
young
women
achieve
professional
heights.
Seattle
Independent
Replying to @vanessagrigor
Nice
save!
But
let's
do
even
better.
Congratulate
Judge
Barrett
on
her
professional
success
and
her
loving
family
and
praise
her
as
an
inspiration
to
all
Americans.
And
remind
the
American
public
that
the
Supreme
Court
doesn't
have
those
powers
and
they
should
look
to
Congress.
Melody
Who
needs
Babylon
Bee
when
we
have
Vanessa
CaliRebe
Too
late
you
wrecked
yourself.
Nanci
Maybe
take
a
Twitter
break
before
it
breaks
you.
Josh
That
was
one
of
the
more
impressively
lopsided
ratios
I’ve
seen
in
quite
some
time.
Well
done!
It
takes
mad
skill
to
say
something
that
insanely
ridiculous.
@IDues
You’re
doing
great!

Braden
Haha. Seriously, seek help. You just got owned. Badly.
Nice try on an attempt to cover your blatant misogyny. Too late
you've already vomited your contempt for successful women.
CJ
byrns
So, while we are clarifying, ACB cannot make abortion illegal. She can strike
down a SCOTUS decision that's roundly considered to be bad law on both left & right. Then
states can decide what is legal or illegal. And if those laws are challenged, she’ll rule if they
are constitutional
Wolfpack Member Tim
You need to stop tweeting, seriously. Take the weekend off and have some drinks, or
whatever you like to do. Just don't tweet.
Crazy as a Bed Bug Jen
Don't get pregnant (many, many ways to prevent this), take care of your own kids,
and Obamacare sucks anyway.
Liz
You really don’t have to keep tweeting every thought you have.
Replying to
@vanessagrigor
done digging the hole finally?
Steff
Trying to figure out how to dress as Amy Coney Barrett AS a handmaid
for Halloween.
Andrew
I'm sure you had high hopes for this tweet to be ratio-proof

Pastor
Publican
She
won’t
make
abortion
illegal.
You’ll
always
have
the
opportunity
to
kill
your
unborn
babies.
Just
not
on
taxpayers
dollars.
Ok
lady.
Amy
is
a
good
honest
hard
working
career
woman
and
family
woman
all
in
one
Patricia
Obviously
IGNORANT
of
our
Legislative
and
Judicial
System.
Kudos
for
being
a
TOKEN
PARODY
of
LEFTISM!!!
I
Outraged
How
long
before
this
account
goes
private?
Curtis
T-minus
3
hours
anneliesdd
Figures
you
give
her
handmaiden
no
credit!
#BlackCopsLivesMatter
You
are
confused
about
Roe
v
Wade
Proud
PegUSA
Wow,
you
really
blew
it
on
Twitter
today!
LRHB
Keep
deleting
and
reposting
garbage
takes.
You'll
never
be
half
the
woman
ACB
is.

Curtis Spicoli
You are not done being an asshole on Twitter today?
na na na na na na na na DRAFTMAN!
Abortion is not birth control.
Sonjaflies
Gotta kill those babies!
Vanessa Grigoriadis@vanessagrigor
46m
When she's trotted out as an icon of motherhood, which
she will be now, often, let's remember that she may make
young women have kids they didn't want and aren't ready
for--and when they do, they're on their own. She's
certainly not going to advocate for subsidized child care.
AnonymousAda
Replying to@vanessagrigor
And you continue... Now child care is different from abortion. Glad you
clarified, moron.
Mom
She’s a judge, not a legislator or an activist. She’s not going
to “advocate” for anything. She is going to hear cases & uphold the
Constitution of the United States to the best of her ability.

Jon
You
really
don’t
have
any
idea
what
you’re
talking
about
do
you??
She
can’t
make
abortion
illegal.
Even
if
Roe
is
overturned
it
goes
back
to
the
states
to
decide
for
themselves
as
it
should
be.
And
we
shouldn’t
pay
for
everyone’s
childcare
anyway....where
the
hell
did
that
come
from?
SkootersMom
Try
birth
control....condoms
work
well.
Maybe
young
women
should
understand
the
consequences
of
having
sex
and
how
to
protect
themselves
from
unwanted
pregnancies.
Lucinda
Wow,
do
you
really
hate
your
life
this
much?
Pathetic
for
one
mom
to
attack
another.
FreedomNinja
Keep
going
you
joyless
crone.
You're
doing
terrific.
Patrick
She’s
not
a
legislator
you
idiot.
She’s
not
advocating
for
anything.
Official
Lane
Train
Ticket
Puncher
Don't
want
babies?
Don't
have
sex
until
you
want
babies.
Problem
solved
this
is
serious
surprisingly
easy
not
to
get
knocked
up.
Kip
Good
God,
do
you
even
hear
yourself?

Brian
@vanessagrigor
Mentally ill liberals like Vanessa disparaging a working mom is a dream
come true for Trump.
Seattle Independent
So what are you saying? Are you saying that after decades of left-wing brainwashing
that young women are so incredibly empty-headed that the mere presence of Amy on
the court is going to make them go out and irresponsibly have children? You think
women are that impulsive?
TweetsByBritt
She can't force someone to get pregnant. The bigger issue here is
that young women who aren't ready for kids don't have to be ready to have
kids, but they also shouldn't kill them if they do create them.
Danny
It is not the supreme court’s job to advocate for subsidized health
care. Are you okay?
Branch Covidian
Wow if only there was a legislative body that could pass laws!
Margot
As a Justice of the Supreme Court her role is not to advocate.
That would be the legislative branch. Google it.

Vanessa
Grigoriadis@vanessagrigor
8h
Anyway,
more
power
to
ACB
and
her
ability
to
raise
7
kids.
My
only
problem
with
her
is
that
I
believe
she’ll
make
abortion
illegal,
destroy
any
chance
for
national
childcare,
and
gut
healthcare.
But
besides
that
she
is
an
inspiration
and
a
girl
boss.
Kim
Someone
doesn’t
know
how
the
Supreme
Court
works
if
you
think
SHE
will
make
abortion
illegal.
Mike
a.k.a.
Proof
ACB
doesn't
have
an
agenda.
She
is
a
textualist.
If
any
law
is
struck
down
as
"un-Constitutional",
there
is
a
remedy
in
the
Congress,
or
even
a
Constitutional
amendment.
What
most
liberals
mourn,
is
the
loss
of
a
super
legislature,
writing
new
law
without
ever
having
been
elected.
Hon.
Hey
April
She
has
said
she
considers
Roe
v
Wade
“settled
law”
and
you’re
a
conspiracy
theorist
for
believing
a
woman
with
a
special
needs
child
is
going
to
cut
our
healthcare.
But
thanks
for
acknowledging
that
she’s
“an
inspiration
and
a
girl
boss”.
Now
apologize
and
delete
your
account.

The_Metrologist
Lol. At least you toned it down this time. I am curious
how she is going to make abortion illegal. Even if SCOTUS revokes
Roe, all that would do is leave it up to the states. Unless you think
all states would ban it, but that still wouldn’t be ACB’s fault.
HardAttack
Blurting crap out and then walking it back, but then claiming ACB
is a legislative authoritarian. You ok?
This post right here is literally the reason some people wonder if
women can handle the real world on their own Stop being
emotional, and be factual and logical. Stop making things harder
on women.
#supportallwomen

Laura B politics writer / words in
@GQmagazine@washingtonpost@rollingstone@cosmopolitan
etc. / @huffpostalum / co-founder @savethenews
If McConnell jams someone through, which
he will, there will be riots.
Laura B
*more, bigger riots
Lisa
That ship sailed. Enjoy that overplayed hand.
Squiggy
Oh No! Not that! Lol
RightOfMiddle
And? If Melania blinks too fast there will be riots...
Stephanie
Which will clearly belong to the Dems and the left.
Game on.

Nikki
I hope at your house.
ReFounderParty
U r walking into it.
Nathania
There will be riots no matter what Trump does. Deal with it.
Problem Solver 101
The people they are threatening have been prepping for this for
some time. While they pursued Critical Race Theory some pursued Critical
Reality Theory.
Elizabeth
Of course you will! I’ll get my popcorn ready!
Veritas Aequitas
One side is armed to the teeth, the other can’t figure out which
bathroom to use.
JB
Gun at my house. Don't get near us in NC

ExpectingRain
As
opposed
to,
well,
the
last
100
days?
Hahaha
6%
GoodTrumpEvil
She’s
cofounder
of
“savethenews”
this
is
what
is
wrong
with
MSM
Eric
Riot
away,
have
fun
free
thought@free
thought
We
will
get
a
full
display
of
the
entire
Dem
play
book!
Zanne
same
stuff
everyday.
find
a
friend
and
cry
a
little.
Danny
Good,
let’s
start
this
shit
so
we
can
get
it
over
with
TickledDog
Since
we
don't
have
#LivePD
I
had
time
to
look
up
what
the
heck
"ratio"
means
on
Twitter.

Catturd
· Replying to@Laura
B
I’m just here for the humongous ratio.
Contrary Canary
Biggest ratio ever?
double standard
*more, bigger ratio
#thefoodguy Michael
I want to be part of the biggest ratio ever so here I am.
magni +++
Replying to@Laura B
Hi Laura, This is why Americans will show up in droves to re-elect
President @realDonaldTrump
You people are too stupid to realize that you're your own worst
enemies!
Enjoy Nov 3!

James
Woods@RealJamesWoods
Sep
22
Bravo.
Thank
you @SenJohnThune
for
fulfilling
your
Constitutional
obligation.
#FillTheSeat
Quote
Tweet
Senator
John
Thune@SenJohnThune
Sep
21
Many
GOP
senators
–
myself
included
–
decided
to
run
for
office
for
this
very
reason:
to
be
in
a
position
to
restore
the
court
to
its
original
constitutional
purpose
as
a
judicial
body,
not
a
legislative
one. We
ran
for
this. We
were
elected
for
this.
Now,
we
will
follow
through.

Peter Robinson, The Hoover Institution: Democrats will attack Barrett for her
Catholic beliefs. We've already had a taste of that in the hearings in 2017. Senator
Dianne Feinstein of California, then as now, the ranking Democrat on the Senate
Judiciary Committee:
“Why is it that so many of us on this side have this very uncomfortable feeling
that, you know, dogma and law are two different things, and I think whatever a
religion is, it has its own dogma. The law is totally different and I think in your
case, professor, when you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that
the dogma lives loudly within you. And that's of concern when you come to big
issues that large numbers of people have fought for years in this country”.
Senator Feinstein has been attacked - got attacked at the time - for asking that
question, and it's all been replayed…I just replayed it myself for you… but when it
comes to it, didn't she actually lay out a perfectly fair point? That there may be
areas in which one religion or another… she was talking about all religions, of
course… Judge Barrett is Catholic, but there's a difference between religious
belief and The Law. I’ll put this crudely, but the liberal social revolution which has
taken place largely by way of the courts - all three of us might argue that it
should never have taken place by way of the courts, but it has. And Dianne
Feinstein says, you know, there are a lot of people who have a lot invested in that
social revolution, and along comes a devout Catholic nominee and I want to know
‘Are you going to rule on the law’? And what she really is getting at is ‘Are you
going to permit to stand, decisions that have enabled and in some cases quite
directly advanced the revolution and mores… the social revolution… or are you
going to rule as a Catholic?’
And my first question is: “Isn't that a fair question…
Richard Epstein: I think it's a fair question, but I think it's already been asked and
answered. The whole point is that she understood that and recognized the
cleavage and she would go the opposite way. So to give you another illustration –
both Nino Scalia and William Brennan were Catholics, and it isn't as though they
came out the same way on Roe v Wade. Mister Brennan found that his religion
was a slight nuisance in some sense to what he wanted to do politically. He did
exactly what he wanted and it goes in the opposite direction. Sonia Sotomayor is
a Catholic and she's also on the pro-abortion side of these things. I think it's just
very, very dangerous to take some sort of general hypothetical concern and treat
that as a reality with respect to the person who's in front of you.

I'm Jewish - I mean, I have no idea whether this does or does not influence the
way I think on property rights and so forth, and I think generally speaking, the
correct answer is “innocent until proven guilty”. So asking a question creates an
innuendo, but it's not the same thing as making an argument. I think it's a general
point to be taken into account in the abstract, but it's a little bit of, shall we say,
improper behavior when it's done in a direct confrontation in a hearing where it is
well known that Senator Feinstein opposes Judge Barrett for what she believes on
a wide range of issues, many of which have nothing whatsoever to do with the
Roman Catholic faith.
Peter Robinson: A number of Democrats on the Judiciary Committee have
already declared they're going to vote against her. Why even hold the hearings?
Why shouldn't Mitch McConnell just move this straight to the floor and vote her
up or down?
Richard Epstein: Well, I have the following view about this … I think that no
nominee should ever be asked to go before a hearing…
PR: So you do oppose hearings in principle?
RE: No, not principle. I'm going to have people testify about her, but I don't want
to put her on the stand, because what they're going to do is play the same kind of
game: ‘Here's a sentence that you say - explain it away.’ Our friends could do that
quite well, and then what they're going to try to do is to get her to pre-commit on
future cases, which nobody ought to do. So the correct way to do this thing is to
have a battle about her, but not to put her in the middle of it, which was standard
practice, I believe I'm not mistaken, until Felix Frankfurter took to the floor in
order to explain himself [in 1938]. Louis Brandeis did not appear at his own
hearing… and by the way, [in a] controversial hearing where the Jewish issue was
very much on the mind of everybody. I think it took five days to complete. So I
think, in effect, that what happens is: you put the nominee up there, you're
guaranteeing a circus in the worst possible way it could go. I don't think this will
happen here.
John Yoo: I actually was really repulsed by Senator Feinstein's question -- and it's
not a question - she's making an accusation. I'm not Catholic, but I'm sitting there
thinking, ‘Well what's good enough for JFK is not good enough for ACB’ which is
this idea that if you're a Catholic, you'll be singled out and accused of allegedly
believing a certain set of things just because of your religion.

Could you imagine if senators had asked Justice Ginsburg the exact same
question, except about her Jewish faith or that senators ask the exact same
question to a Protestant because of their faith. “Oh, I see you're a religious
person; you're a very devout person; does your Jewish dogma live loudly…” It's
such a bizarre way of putting it, in fact, but I think it shows to me that what the
Democrats are going to do here… I really wish they didn't… I hope they would
take it on the merits, but instead they're going to use the fact that she's a devout
Catholic, that she went to Notre Dame, that she's a professor at Notre Dame, that
she has a large family, has had a good upstanding moral life - They're going to try
to use that against her and say “Oh, being Catholic to me is a stand-in or a proxy
for a certain view about Roe versus Wade or gay marriage. As Richard just said,
Catholic justices vote on both sides of all of those issues. I think something is
terribly, terribly unfair - it almost verges on the constitutional prohibition of
having a religious test for public office.
“The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious
encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without
understanding.”
“Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect
liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.”
“Most of the things worth doing in the world had been
declared impossible before they were done.”
“If you would only recognize that life is hard, things would be
so much easier for you.”
― Justice Louis D. Brandeis

"The constitutional vision of human dignity rejects the possibility of political
orthodoxy imposed from above; it respects the right of each individual to form
and to express political judgments, however far they may deviate from the
mainstream and however unsettling they might be to the powerful or the elite."
"We current Justices read the Constitution in the only way that we can: as
twentieth century Americans. We look to the history of the time of framing and
to the intervening history of interpretation. But the ultimate question must be,
what do the words of the text mean in our time. For the genius of the
Constitution rests not in any static meaning it might have had in a world that
is dead and gone, but in the adaptability of its great principles to cope with
current problems and current needs."
"Successive generations of Americans have continued to respect these
fundamental choices and adopt them as their own guide to evaluating quite
different historical practices. Each generation has the choice to overrule or add
to the fundamental principles enunciated by the Framers; the Constitution can
be amended or it can be ignored."
"Sex, a great and mysterious motive force in human life, has indisputably been a
subject of absorbing interest to mankind through the ages." Roth v. United
States (1957).
"I cannot accept the notion that lawyers are one of the punishments a person
receives merely for being accused of a crime." Jones v. Barnes (1983)
"Those whom we would banish from society or from the human community itself
often speak in too faint a voice to be heard above society's demand for
punishment. It is the particular role of courts to hear these voices, for the
Constitution declares that the majoritarian chorus may not alone dictate the
conditions of social life." McCleskey v. Kemp
"If the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married
or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so
fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a
child." Eisenstadt v. Baird (1972).
--
Justice William J. Brennan

TWENTY THREE
“What if we were wrong…”

Susan
Does
Susan
Rice
still
think
everything
was
done
"by
the
book"?
Sep
25,
2020·Twitter
Web
App
Ernesto
She
is
scouring
Youtube
for
a
video
to
blame
it
on
ScoggyD
Well
that
depends
on
what
book.
The
Constitution,
no.
Mao's
little
red
book,
probably.
Rich
in
Dallas
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Absolutely
by
the
book,
she
said
so
herself
in
an
email
to
herself!
I
know,
because
I
saw
it
on
youtube.
Yossi
Considering
that
@petestrzok
@Comey
@JohnBrennan
@SallyQYates
and
@AmbassadorRice
did
everything
“by
the
book”
as
ordered
by
Obama,
I
am
not
sure
why
@RepAdamSchiff
and
@JerryNadler
fear
a
report
by
Durham.
To
the
contrary,
it
will
affirm
that
they
did
everything
perfect.
No?

Mark Sep 24
Chief of Staff Mark Meadows says the WH “is prepared for a peaceful
transfer,” but he calls the use of unsolicited mail-in ballots “a perversion of
the electoral process.” On @FoxNews, he says “it’s about making sure that
every vote counts,” but only 1 vote per person.
Dave Sep 24
Will it be done ‘by the book’? Can you ask Susan Rice?
Quote Tweet
Barack Obama · Sep 18
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg fought to the end, through her cancer, with
unwavering faith in our democracy and its ideals. That’s how we remember
her. But she also left instructions for how she wanted her legacy to be
honored.
David
Oh she left instructions, did she?
Anjy
She said, "Lets do this by the book." Multiple Times.
Susan Rice documented it next month.
Josh Sep 24
For the record, I have a lot more concern about Democrats accepting the
results of a Trump reelection than Trump accepting results of a loss.
Dave Sep 24
They did it ‘by the book’ Josh. Just ask Susan Rice. She has emails to herself to back it up

James Lindsay, just an idea
@ConceptualJames
The temperature was in large part artificially inflated by these fuckheads. Them turning
it down now is more of them leading us around by the nose, and fuck them for it. They
don't have an ounce of my gratitude or respect.
Quote Tweet
Nathan Wright, behind by a week or so
@heynaenaehey
Replying to @ConceptualJames
I don't expect you to trust it, but it seems like efforts to bring the temperature down are
long overdue and are probably useful.
James Lindsay, just an idea
@ConceptualJames
You go verbally abusing a nation relentlessly, lying to it,
whipping it into a panic because you're not getting your
way and then suddenly switch tempo when you think you're
getting it? They’re abusers, not calm, cool heads who are fit
to turn any temperature down.
10:45 AM · Nov 29, 2020·Twitter for Android
James Lindsay, just an idea
@ConceptualJames
The temperature does need to come down, but the people who consistently and
intentionally raised it, rather than working day and night to keep it down day and night
since Trump's candidacy took off, have lost all authority on turning the temperature
down. They're the problem.

Allya Trii
Do not follow
where the path
may lead. Go
instead where
there is no path
and leave a
trail.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Allya Trii
If our island story is to end here, let it only end when each
one of us is choking on his own blood, lying on the ground.
- Winston Churchill, 1940

Matt Taibbi
@mtaibbi
No. My position on Trump has been clear from the start - he's an amoral
dunce. I think the maniacal press emphasis on him is designed to
distract from larger systemic issues, make people think he's the whole
problem - or, worse, a reason to suspend things like speech rights.
@LameDuckPresidentShemp
You can’t honestly believe that. If that were indeed the case, he’d shut
up and not continue to speak up against the myopic, self-righteous
dimwits dominating public discourse at the moment.
resident of the land of Used-to-be
I respect Taibbi's work, but he treats criticism as censorship, like most
entitled media celebrities. It's pathetic and serves to propagate bad
faith narratives.
@LameDuckPresidentShemp
Online bullying, violent suppression of speech, censorship and boycott
culture are not “narratives.”

esident of the land of Used-to-be
Correct. Online "bullying" and boycotting are forms of free speech.
Violent suppression of speech and censorship are not things a major
media figure with a huge platform is subjected to. Stop conflating these
things.
@LameDuckPresidentShemp
Sorry. It’s all related to the the same phenomenon: Devolution. We are
building a Nation of Assholes. Or as HT put it: A Generation of Swine
(albeit a new porcine generation). Rage against the dying of the light.
Good day. #Out
Scotch Scotcherson
Replying to @mtaibbi
Trump gets a pass because he’s seen as the enemy of your enemy. I
know you’d like to think there’s more to it than that, but I genuinely
don’t think there is.
william wiggins
The most extraordinary thing about Trump is how he doesn't
just live rent free in so many people's heads but is able to
continually expand the square footage of that space.

Senator Blutarsky
Society reaching a moment of intellectual and emotional cardiac arrest.
A byproduct of 40 years of poor economic, finance, and foreign policy
that have severely decayed our republic. Peak Polarization + Nadir of
Constitutional decay + End of Neo-liberalism = Unpleasantness.
Sanj G
It takes a bit of time to get out
of the mind meld. Be patient.
Let it happen. When some of
you wake up by mid March 2021
you may realise you wasted all
this time. FYI, if you are 35 you
ONLY have ~4000 shags left till u
r 75 years old at 2x per week or
~2000 pizzas at 1x/week.
The Nature Theater of Oklahoma
This sounds like the unending saga of explanations that don't
satisfy the inquest into thought crimes committed by a
journalist trying to present aspects of reality that don't conform
to certain ideological expectations.

sagelike
Exactly. Trump was a symptom and everyone chose to focus on the
symptom rather than the cause of the symptom. It's easier and makes
people feel superior and righteous calling others out.
Steve Ashley
The Press is driven solely by ratings (i.e. $). The highest ratings are
obtained by portraying Trump as the problem. Rinse, repeat.
bks1968
So, you believe you are smarter than him? This questioning of his
intelligence fascinates me. The man is a billionaire and won the Presidency
on the back of a napkin but he is stupid. Not sure why you and others feel
the need to go there frankly.
Amanda
Amoral dunce? That's quite an interesting take on someone who
eclipses everyone in your universe in accomplishments.
Nick
2. And he is not a “dunce” when it comes to the art of marketing and
manipulation. He has effectively used racism and fear-mongering to
build a constituency. In Trump World, BLM protestors, antifa, liberal
governors, and immigrant caravans are always out to destroy us.

Hogtown
You may not like him, but he is no dunce. If you knew
anything about our trade agreements (and no, it’s not “free trade”), the
effect of illegal immigration on wages at the low end of the income
scale, the effect of the corporate income tax on wages, you would
realize he’s spot on
Hogtown
Not to mention, foreign policy: US foreign policy has been a complete disaster for
30 years. Many of our so-called “allies,” are quite the opposite actually. Trump
has done a far better job in this area.
Mr. O
Right, the amoral man stacked the Court to overturn Roe v Wade, kept us out of
wars. The dunce figured out peace in the Middle East and how to put China in its
place. Good deal. You just keep searching for dummies to pay $5 per month to
read your drivel.
Twon the Almighty
Amoral, perhaps, but the billionaire real estate developer turned tv star
who married three models and became POTUS is not a dunce. He doesn’t have
your vocabulary but to infer he’s stupid damages your credibility IMO.
Cute Republican Puppy
You're going to have to get around to writing the piece acknowledging that
Trump's presidency was, objectively, a major success.

Sonny
Post-Obama presidency there was a feeling of letdown/disappointment
that we still lived in a country where little had changed. Post-Trump,
still, little has changed while the GOP has somehow broadened their
grip legislatively. Dems have underperformed for a solid decade now.
Harvey
How do people not get that focusing in on how many ways
Trump is the devil day after day is not news? Trump is no worse
than a thousand other rich assholes with power over government, he
just brings more views than any of them, because he has no filter.
Captain JT Spaulding
A "dunce" beat the GOP, Hillary Clinton, and mainstream media to
become POTUS. Might need to reassess.
UCantBThisDumb
I love this “Trump is stupid” bit. The billionaire real estate developer who had a
hit TV show and one of the most successful brands in history turned president of
US is somehow regarded as dumb? Accomplish 1/10 of that if you’re so smart.
LoneStar Sky
100% spot on. The new ruling coalition is more likely to invoke and
actually do the things they feared Trump would do. Stay tuned and
watch.

As
someone who
has
sought
therapy
to
help
process
the
trauma
from
Jan
6th,
this
is
an
important
piece
about
the
lingering
effects
that
day
has
had
on
a
Congressional
press
corps
that
continues
to
go
to
the
site
of
their
trauma
to
do
their
jobs:
‘So,
So
Angry’:
Reporters Who
Survived
the
Capitol
Riot
Are
Still
Struggling
The
reporters
who
survived
the
insurrection
are
still
covering
Congress.
But
things
don't
feel
normal.
vice.com
12:36
PM
·
Jul
6,
2021·TweetDeck
·
Jul
7
And
six
months
after
I
took
the
picture
above
of
the
bust
of
Zachary
Taylor
streaked
with
blood
from
a
rioter
on
Jan
6th,
they
have
pulled
back
the
covering
and
cleaned
it:
Lucas
Frank,
you
are
a
hero
akin
our
soldiers
in
Omaha
beach.
You
take
care
of
your
PTSD
my
man.
You’re
very
brave,
very
special,
very
smart
and
a
very
very
good
boy.
That
pic
of
a
drop
of
blood
on
that
statue
is
absolutely
terrifying.
Reminded me
of
my
pa-pa
telling
me WW2
stories.

Spudnik
I went to Wendy's and their ice cream machine was broken. I know exactly how
you feel bub. Stay strong Flexed biceps
We will get through this!
All you random deplorables liking this is making my Agent Orange act up.
Stop it! This is serious and not funny.
Hopefully nothing really bad ever happens to you. You’ll be completely
incapacitated if you ever have to suffer through, say, a really bad sunburn.
I can relate Frank. I’ve been traumatized by retirees, grandma’s, and dudes
with horns and face paint all my life. It never goes away. Therapy helps,
but I couldn’t have made it without the support of family and Santa Claus.
Do you feel silly typing this out while looking at a picture of the
buffalo man?
Give him a break, that guy has horns...
I love the smell of soy in the morning.
The kids that got picked last in school sports are covering the most important global beat.
Thumbs up
DoorDash took 45 minutes to deliver my order today. I know how you feel.
Maybe y’all will have a little more compassion for police
officers and how stressful their jobs are now. But I doubt it.

My Namename 11 hours ago
I live in DC. This "mob" was actually pretty well-behaved for a DC protest. The
difference was that the police actually tried to get in the way. We have protests
constantly, every day, including "raiding the Capitol". People "raid" federal buildings with
some frequency. Pussyhats did it, Brett Kavanaugh angry chicks did it, including
chasing senators into elevators. I get you don't like the optics, but the left owns the
media, they will skewer us no matter what we do or if we do nothing (which is what we
generally do). If we sit around sipping tea, hoping George 3 will come to his senses, we
lose. I am glad people showed up. We are at war, pretending we are not is useless.
Show less
96
REPLY
·
18h
Calypso
So if I have this right....the "anarchists" burned and looted small businesses
with the blessing and encouragement of the politicians and the "law and
order" types had the politicians curled up in the fetal position on the floor?
Fascinating.
Calypso Retweeted
Jack
The batshit lunatics who spent the last 4 years in a constant state of
apoplectic freak out, coming out of the woodwork to point their crazy little
fingers is absolutely perfect.

Lara Logan@laralogan
Four years of real sedition aided by many media & suddenly the word
“sedition” appears. Recognize the pattern? Another “shaping” operation like
the one to justify framing Carter Page, lying to FISA court, spying on US
citizens for political reasons etc?
Taylor Day
My political ideology will be used as justification for my death, no matter
how violently it occurs.
Taylor Day Retweeted
Mollie
@MZHemingway
“It is not whataboutery to draw attention to elites’ meek response to earlier
riotous behaviour. Rather, it is about understanding the growing dominion
enjoyed by the new clerisy over the political narrative and even over
language and words themselves.”
Scott Adams@ScottAdamsSays
This was the year the Fake News became so powerful they could
tell you there was definitely no election fraud because you aren’t allowed to
check. And it worked.

Paul
·
Jan
7
I
guess
the
government
doesn't
like
no-knock
raids
when
it
happens
to
them?
No
Longer
Silent
Retweeted
Melissa
Tate
@TheRightMelissa
Replying to @realDonaldTrump
This
was
DC
after
BLM
&
Antifa
riots.
$2
Billion
in
damage..
priceless
historical
monuments
destroyed..
400
year
old
churches
burned
down.
The
media
celebrated
this.
But
2
windows
&
a
door
were
broken
at
our
Capitol
&
it’s
the
end
of
the
world?
Disgusting

Taylor Day
@TABYTCHI
After the Democrats forcefully silence the last voice of dissent, they’ll have
finally defeated fascism
Valluco56
@valluco56
Jan 10
Replying to @TABYTCHI
Taking down American figures, burning the flag, burning out cities, chanting
death to America, trying to erase our history is a peaceful protest.
Questioning the election is terrorism. Communism is being enforced upon
us by the Democratic Party. The media embraces it.
Taylor Day
@TABYTCHI
·
Jan 10
They’ve always been scared of you. But just because they’re
terrified, it does not make you a “terrorist”. That is some crazy
gaslighting and you don’t deserve it.

JusticeIsJustice
You really think their aim was to take over the government? You
think that occupying a building means you're the government?
That ridiculous opinion is what you must defend to prove it was a
"putsch".

B**M****W****
They also stood inside and took selfies.
23
Woodshop
Please, I WISH they actually did. They inflicted some minor property
damage, which will be covered by tax money anyway. Nothing has changed
other than the politician rats getting to cry about it for clout and more
restrictive legislation.
1
5
I Have Spoken @omegabyte
Which is why they were recruited and allowed in. Meanwhile, bussed in
Antifa dressed up as Trump supporters ran around causing damage
outside.
2

Шибе Бре
Just goes to say you haven't seen a putsch in your life
.
Chukar
Dude really uses the German word to
make it sound scarier lmao.
Doru Sepailov
It is clownish you think some mild vandalism was a putsch.
Pep Reborn

Shmeebs
No, they pretty much stood around and took selfies and stuff once inside
(allowed in btw).
This
is
what
a History
like
Channel
education
Orbital Hypertelorism Bear
looks like
Doug~Lass
MacArthur
Raaayt...and brought along their generals to assume each position
of state? They were boomers taking selfies
Taylor Day
@TABYTCHI
·
Jan 10
“It was an attack on Democracy!”

Lay Off Rafael,
He’s a
Respectful
Employee

Much of the social history of the Western
world, over the past three decades, has
been a history of replacing what worked
with what sounded good.
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people
who want to feel important. They don't mean to do
harm -- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do
not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed
in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
--
T. S. Eliot
Some ideas are so foolish that only an intellectual
could believe them
- George Orwell

Contents
I - Hatchet Santa
II - Two Bugs And A Roach
III - Spank The Butterfly
IV - Corridors Of The Heart
V - Rose Colored Glasses
VI - Tres Nachos
VII - The Embalmers
VIII - When This Blows Over
IX - Not If I Was Dying of Hunger
X - Stop Calling Me Counselor
XI - Your Ego’s Loud
XII - I Can Go to My Parents
XIII - Jungle Jive Revue
XIV - Kiss for Hitler
XV - The New Grief Deal
XVI - Soft Pecker Quartet

XVII - Her Majesty Requests
XVIII - Dirty Hat Trick
XIX - Slap Me Silly
XX - Def Mutes
XXI - Like Goin’ On Your Mule
XXII - Lone Wolf
XXIII - Greenlight Red
XXIV - A Night at The Opera
XXV - Curtains of Gloom
XXVI - Cauldron
XXVII - Control and Power
XXVIII - Build Yourself A Beggar
XXIX - We’re All Out of Dog Houses
XXX - Or You Go Home
XXXI – I Said This What 5 Years Ago
XXXII - Stay Home

XXXIII - Ripshank Radio
XXXIV - Graffiti Gang
(“It” isn’t here)
XXXV - Mangina
XXXVI - Box Cutters for Life
XXXVII – She Doesn’t Get It
XXXVIII - Cold Sun Warming
XXXIX - Meet the New Boss
XXX - Deface the News
XXXXI – But Our Phone Bill’s Less
XXXXII - Empty My Pockets
XXXXIII – Cover Your Tracks
XXXXIV – Bitter Fruit
XXXXV - Karma Suits You

t four A.M., in a part of the globe that scarcely
registers a blip on any Western handheld device or
permanently mounted exhibition screen, a monstrous
scud missile pierces the night air and finds its mark,
demolishing dozens of civilian homes and creating the
sort of havoc, bloodshed and misery that typically
accompanies a ruthless stealth strike on a sleeping city
with a decidedly unfortunate location. The devastation
wrought by this unprovoked attack can hardly be
exaggerated. Upheaval and ruin are a couple of words
on a page, until you’ve actually lived them…breathed
them in your lungs…felt them in your joints.
The malicious act is viewed as indefensible by anyone with
even an ounce of intelligence, a single gram of common
sense, or a trace amount of reasonableness lurking anywhere
in his or her body.
The wise are wary of that most unpredictable of all entities:
the lightning bolt streak across a dark sky that is man… full
of such promise, but also so full of it - in shockingly random
proportions that crisscross the entire range of credulity…
featuring all manner of wonder, astonishment and potential,
packed into one big steaming pile of erratic ego-based
dynamite. Considering the habits of this wily beast - the only
species that kills for sport - the ensuing counter-move is all
but pre-ordained. It became policy … became resounding
principle … on the very first playground, against the very
first bad guys, in the very first round of the wildly haphazard
human game.

This particular gutless transgression – this punk-ass breach of
unspoken protocol -- this repulsive violation of simple laws
of simple decency is so far out of bounds, so reprehensible,
that the thumped and badly damaged nerve reacts
seismically…. involuntarily…There is no choice involved.
Expressions like ‘Deadly insult’… ‘Explosive
development’… ‘Unforgiveable betrayal’ ? Quaint and cute
by comparison. Gang movie dialogue. Cable news copy.
Reality show drama for dating contestants and housewives in
trendy cities. This is some nasty, real world, permanent
implications, game changing, you’re-dead-to-me treachery.
Accordingly, and quite justifiably, the retaliatory strike is
swift, powerful and unequivocal. There is collateral damage,
unintended bloodshed and general turmoil on the receiving
end of this obligatory response.
People with nothing at all to do with the original assault …
Innocent bystanders simply going about their business …
noncombatants just living their lives… blissful, benighted
souls who truly don’t give a shit about the politics, objectives
and motives of a perpetually pissed three-point-range chucker
who drew first blood … One and all are caught in the
crossfire.
And sadly, thanks to a repressed, neurotic, humorless,
devious, power-crazed coward with serious Daddy issues, the
war is on.
∞

Seven time zones to the left - some five thousand
eight hundred and thirty four miles away – comfortably
cocooned in a tiny climate-controlled office overlooking
absolutely nothing resembling the real world, lifting nothing
all day much heavier than a telephone and operating nothing
more involved than a copy machine and a Facebook toolbar,
a quite righteous fool is piercing the air with the
unmistakable shriek of a tightly wound moral avenger just
dying to personally get a hold of the outrage of the moment.
Today’s reprehensible atrocity that needs attention…
…demands adjudicating: Not the initial, surreptitious,
uncalled for, unconscionable, gutless lob of a lethal surprise
into the night.
No, the old fool is incensed at the return volley. The push
back on the initial, surreptitious, uncalled for,
unconscionable, gutless lob of a lethal surprise into the night.
Bloody images give way to hysteria on cue … doubled…
redoubled…then echoed through a vast array of well-placed
chambers…carefully scripted and choreographed channels…
unison mouthpieces contorting, intoning, piping and
projecting - non-stop - to a confounding, compliant, oblivious
and pliable legion of believers. All of it obscures the original
unprovoked attack.
This particular screeching shrew is no ordinary fool.

Featuring (and frantically trying to erase and re-invent) a
long and seriously checkered history, including, but not
limited to: knockdown, drag out cat fights with girls who
possessed people and things she couldn’t have … legal
career failure in an era when it was pretty tough to blow it
in that arena … thoroughly embarrassing appearances on
laughable, low budget squawk shows … all manner of
denigration and cruelty inflicted on individuals incapable or
prevented from fighting back … and elimination of anyone
who could actually testify to it all.
This modern-day scorned avenger currently has pulled off
the nearly impossible feat of being respected by few and
loathed by almost all. In contrast, the secure, successful,
strong leader of people – the substantial motivator - the
genuine article – often checks off one negative column and
wins the other. Losing on both scores requires a special
kind of stupid…
Now wielding a little bit of power in the world, but with no
other applicable talents or skills specific to the little fiefdom
she has manipulated and stumbled into controlling, this
raging tornado can nonetheless artfully … …skillfully…
make a tiny group of generally well-meaning serfs walk
around in perpetual angst… on a daily carpet of egg
shells… forced to perform their designated tasks in a semibeleaguered
state that alternates between interminable
gloom and stupefying boredom.

Happiness is not permitted!!!
Not for this bright bulb, the casual, harmless, brief and
typically uplifting banter that makes a work day move along
at a quicker pace or brightens the mood… and with the
additional benefit of a capable (check!), experienced (check!)
responsible (check!) team (!), actually boosts morale and
increases productivity.
No, the priorities for an all-knowing, worldclass
world-changer include completely
upending the entire chessboard. A cordial,
communal and comfortable working
environment – once a veteran collection of
money makers and specialists aligned toward a
common center, facing one and other in semiunified
purpose -- now, brilliantly re-arranged
to replicate the stultifying, stifling classroom
of an embittered schoolmarm, no longer
familiar with her material … relegated to
eavesdropping, hovering over her subjects, and
fervently pouncing on such unforgivable sins
as soliciting advice from a co-worker, making
a new hire’s work easier or (gasp!) sharing
memories with the genuinely affable and
courageous old soul who actually built the
place.

And why stop there? Why not get rid of about a
hundred years of employee experience, including
siblings with combined knowledge in their finger tips
that exceeds the sum total of the business acumen
residing in this genius’ entire sagging hide.
The final piece in a disastrously assembled petty and
paranoid puzzle: A big, fat, gaping, unblinking,
intrusive, accusatory eye-in-the-sky glaring down on
the whole sullen herd… (With remote viewing!) Get
that leering looking glass up and spying! … After
all, these children -- most with decades of work
experience (actual work experience!), who know
every inch of their business and consistently deliver
on a deadline -- they surely can’t be trusted to
monitor and pace themselves …
Sieg heil!!!

The adjoining warehouse -
a vital operational engine reduced
to running on sheer tractor trailer fumes - features off-the-graph
climate change that hockey sticks between “chattering” and
“sweltering” depending on the calendar position and the funds
allotted to provide tolerable working conditions for the people
who do ‘that kind of work’. Despite an even more comical
absence of knowledge and experience in the logistics and
machinations that govern such an environment, this bordering
institution is not spared the meddling crosshairs of revolution –
enduring a circus-like infusion and overhaul of bodies and
procedures completely alien and detrimental to its former
military-like precision and comradery. A vast moldering
dungeon of dust, dirt and noxious gases that has aggravated the
breathing function of all who spend significant time encased in
its walls, the employee calamity / defection rate in this once
stable and smoothly run ant colony would startle even the most
lenient analyst of actuary tables. One casualty of its oppressive
and toxic ambience – hospitalized with a collapsed lung – is
actually terminated via email while recovering.
This grimy, stark, cold and depressing enclave - completely
stripped of all humanity, humor and fun -- is in many ways the
perfect atmosphere … a dead-on metaphor… for the slippery
machinations of a bumbling spawn of Satan … The despicable,
dysfunctional birthplace of one of the worst examples of
administrative malpractice, dishonest brokering and outright
meanness one can witness – and I had a front row seat.

Yes, kids, I got to see (way) up close and (way, way) personal what
happens when a hardcore, delusional, impractical, clueless (but
compassionate!) agenda-driven, logic-challenged, social injustice
avenging, queen of victimology is suddenly given the keys to the
kingdom. In the very words of the great Lion himself, King George,
builder and true ruler of the roost, `Some people are not cut out to
manage’. At the time of our casual conversation, he is unaware of the
wisdom and prescience of his observation, which foreshadows the
disaster that is about to befall his empire.
Once upon a time, this hub of activity, this engine of purposeful,
highly efficient productivity, had as its manager, a 17-year veteran of
the trenches – a one-time road warrior, bumped up the ladder before
the arrival of the queen, he is slowly and steadily settling into his new
role as back-end caretaker of the machine that propels the locomotive
…A decent individual with a wife, a little girl, and a reprieve from the
rigors of thrashing about non-stop in the tangled, chaotic jungle of
Tristate area thoroughfares, he makes the unforgivable misstep of
alerting Her Majesty* to a serious mistake she is about to make…
of questioning her omniscient rule…
* so dubbed by Rafael

-- from Lay Off Rafael,
He’s a Respectful Employee
© 2019 Take 1 Productions / Russ
cameravision161@gmail.com

match the quotes to the
"…They just have become so comfortable with being a
victim, because society has allowed it. It's incredibly
immature. You've allowed the toddler to throw the
tantrum so many times that they think this is the method
to get what they want. It's easy. Being a victim is
remarkably easy. That's the easy path in life. Life is hard…
…I find it to be a fundamentally racist concept -- that attack by
white people who come to me and say, “You don't understand what
it's like to be Black in America.” I've done it my entire life. I've
never taken one day off on being Black, never… not even an hour
off. I've done it my entire life, and yet they feel they have the
authority… White guilt has given them the authority to help me
understand what it's like to be Black. Imagine that… I'm saying to
them, I view myself as your equal and that bothers them.
I want nothing to do with it. We have to start changing it.
We have to start changing the conversation. It starts
with White Americans getting out of the
conversation."
. "Pfmhf m'k hf f kmh jk km md Tjk'e
ji kfd Pfmhf m'k hf f lmf km
m emifkjd Wjk kjf Wjkf mef ejmh'gf
mf e ey fy hekfd Tjf gfe f jffd
Tjfy md Tjfyf jfhlhd ff'e kjf
lmikm m kjfid ff'e hh kjf llffk
kje f m mk kjfid' … kj l ym
ek gf fmhf hh kjf lmikm ym m'k
jgf km femk km ikfed fef fmhf f
m km m kjf mf kj kjfy hye m kjfy'f
m km kf f ml kjfiefhgfed"

W dg
I i
i e
f gdedee dg
eg
eg e
dg ifg’ fig I e' gg
gfei
e Rgi
P egg e egig. I gg
f edg
i
g
gid
d fi
g
d
gg
i
efig
eg g i
gg
di
i' g iig
gi
i e…-
… W g gg
e g
e
e' egeg
gfg
dig
i
eg di
d ig
gfg
e
iei
g
geg e f i
eg i
ig
e f i
g.
Wg
f
gi
e
e g
i
g
e
effg d
d gg
i d efg.-
“ O n o ne
s ide
o f t own
y ou
h ave
t hose
d ying
d aily
d ue
t o
t he l iving
c onditions, o n t he
o ther
s ide
o f t own
y ou
h ave
m any p rofiting
f rom
t he
l iving
c onditions
. O ftentimes ,
t hey n ever
m eet
o ne
a nother
. I’m f ighting
f or
t hose
w ho
a re d ying… ”
“ … M y f avorite
p art
a bout
g etting
h is
e ndorsement
i s r eading
t he
c omments c laiming
h e o nly
d id
i t b ecause
I a m Bl ack
...
a s if w e
d idn’t s pend
3 w eeks
w atching
a modern-d ay
o verseer
p lay D uck
D uck
G oose
w ith
t hree
Bl ack
w omen
t o m ake
a p ick
solely
b ased
o n c omplexion.”
1 Candace Owens, 31
2 Byron Donalds, 42
3 Tulsi Gabbard, 39
4 Kim Klacik,38 (endorsed by Donald Trump)

t
Last Words…

“I only wish I had drunk more champagne.”
― John Maynard Keynes
“I go to seek a Great Perhaps”
― François Rabelais
“Plaudite, amici, comedia finita est.”
(Applaud, my friends, the comedy is over.)
[Said on his deathbed]
― Ludwig van Beethoven

“This wallpaper is dreadful; one of us
will have to go.”
― Oscar Wilde
“Kiss someone like it's the last one you give.”
― Mattéo Bonnet
“Every damn fool thing you do in this life
you pay for.”
- Édith Piaf
“He felt weighted down by guilt
and regret for what might have been
his last words to all of them.”
― Karen Ann Wirtz, A Game of Truths

“The rest is silence.”
― William Shakespeare
“No one has ever properly understood
me, I have never fully understood anyone;
and no one understands anyone else”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“Look...at...me...”
― Severus Snape

I saw a man pursuing the horizon.
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
“It is futile,” I said –
“You can never…”
“You lie”, he cried,
And ran on.
- Author unknown

…"I did not read the article because
this isn’t news but I’m pretty sure this
guy can eat shit."
…”I read the article but I'm with you from the
get-go. I pretty much reject any information
that purports to BLOW IT WIDE OPEN or
CHANGE EVERYTHING cause those are bullshit
100% of the time.
The whole premise that some information
point is suddenly gonna make evil disappear
is counting on somebody else (gubment?) to
follow through/ make life better for you and
that ain't their job.
Read again: nobody is getting paid to help you.
No matter how much they are getting paid.”

…”move along everyone....MSM is frantically on full tilt this
week trying to PROVE that Mr. Trump had sex with a hot
chick....well, back when she was hot....and back when he wasn't
President. Apparently, lasciviousness is now OUT of style
again. I get all confused about when I am supposed to care or
not care about someone else's lust.
Thank GOD the MSM has now decided to be the policeman and
enforcer of Christian beliefs...whew...I feel safer already”…
“Yet here we are typing meaningless words to a
screen.”
“Many in the media have been skirting with
"aiding and abetting" in the commission of
crimes.”
“Damn skippy. But I would call it Conspiracy, and they're
not skirting. They hide behind the First Amendment to
shield themselves from prosecution.”
“The First Amendment is not a shield protecting them from
sedition and treason charges, knowingly aiding and abetting. CNN
fake news and the rest will all hang - and they know it. Note the
continuing rise in the level of their abject panic. Digging through
Russian trash... mummified porn stars. You get the picture”

“Then give me a sign that something is happening
because it sure looks like stagnation”
“Nothing is going to happen because Americans
just like sitting around "knowing." Kind of like the
way Snowden, and Assange got no place at all
with their whistle blowing, because Americans
just like sitting around 'Knowing.' And now you
"Know" the rest of the story. So now you can get
super duper {Active} and click the dislike button.
Thou is going to lord the dislike button over me.
Haha technology is making people so stupid.”
“Put Neidermeyer on it! He's a sneaky
little shit, just like you, right?”
- Dean Wormer

…”Every member of congress could be arrested
on multiple felonies today. It's just a question of
who they decide to go after and that would be
the guy rocking the boat and threatening the
status quo., a Mr. Donald J. Trump. Let me ask
you a serious question. All of these guys Mueller
has subpoenaed, interrogated, charged or given
immunity deals to - how many of them would
have ever had to deal with any of this had
Donald Trump NOT been elected President?
You know the answer and it should tell you what
this is all about.”
“The dems are roaring like lions as they make
political hay out of the real sleaze (albeit nonimpeachable
sleaze) that has been uncovered.
But, they've not the stomach for an all-out
exposure that an impeachment trial would
result in. They roar like lions ... but are truly
gutless. This too shall pass.”
see more
• 11
• Reply

Tsc Admin BriStep, redeemed • 2 days ago
One option for Trump is to come out as bi. I'd let
him bang me, if it helps.
see more
Oakhill hit a home run with his post.
see more
you are all so utterly clueless. You're like a dude at a baseball
game yelling "touchdown".
•
I'll drink to that!!!
The American People have your back,
Mister President and if they mean to have
a war let it begin here!
…

You might want to re-calculate the number of Americans professing to
having Trump's "back". Any action regarding force will not constitute "a war",
big mouthed tough guy, it will merely amount to a small "police action”..., an
action designed to neutralize the still ignorant "tough guys" remaining in the
"Trump Cult". There will be Kool Aid refreshments available at the "Cult"
debriefing tent upon completion of that mere "police action".
Then we can truly commence to MAGA !
Don't kid yourself. Mueller is just getting started. He will never stop
until he is escorted out by security. He will haul before a grand jury
every person Trump has ever associated with or known and threaten
them in any way, he has to get their cooperation. He is going to charge
Trump on obstruction, conspiracy, and campaign finance. He is going to
indict Trump. He will transfer cases to state prosecutors. He will fight to
the Supreme Court to compel Trump's testimony. He will bankrupt
and/or imprison every person who ever was in a position to have
information that would harm the President. There is no further pretense
that this is about Russia. This is an exercise in raw power to use the
power of a general warrant to undo the results of an election. It will not
stop. Not ever. It will still be going on at the end of Trump's second term
if something is not done and Jeff Sessions will still be sitting there like a
potted plant. Trump is going to have to fire these people and stick
someone in there with the stones to appoint a NEW special counsel to go
after the deep state. This last gasp stuff is really wishful thinking.

• So you're saying that because Donald Trump is
associated with an inexhaustible list of criminals; our
Justice Department should therefore stop prosecuting
these criminals because it makes the President look
bad?
There are 5000 federal criminal laws and about
300,000 federal regulations that can be enforced
criminally. The average American commits three
felonies before lunch. If the government is turned
loose on somebody with a general warrant, no
limits on scope, no time limit, and unlimited budget
they can get anybody. Show me the man and I will
show you the crime. The tax code alone can put
any billionaire in prison.
I don't believe that at all.
You disagree but I believe that a man
can be honest and
successful.
You are certainly entitled to your opinion.

Lee Smith
@LeeSmithDC
21h
As I note in @AmThoughtLeader interview w
@JanJekielek
premiering tonight, it’ll be 2 generations before
most Americans see ‘Collusion‘ was an operation
joining press & spies to deceive US public & destroy
Trump.
Daily Caller
@DailyCaller
· May 1
A majority of Americans say the Steele dossier’s allegations of
collusion between Donald Trump and Russia are accurate, even
though two government reports have poured cold water on the
salacious Democrat-funded document
https://dailycaller.com/2020/05/01/christopher-steele-dossier-true-false/

Dan
Bongino
@dbongino
16h
Watching
blue
check-mark
media
&
legal
twitter
throw
any
sliver
of
dignity
they
had
out
the
window,
while
going
all-in
on
support
for
brutal
police-state
targeting
of
their
political
opponents
has
been
edifying.
#ExonerateFlynn
Sebastian
Gorka
DrG
@SebGorka
This
speech
by
@dbongino
still
remains
as
one
of
the
most
comprehensive
summaries
of
the
#Obamagate
scandal.
#FlynnExonerated
#FlynnEntrapment
SPYGATE
-
Presented
by
Dan
Bongino
at
David
Horowitz
Freedom
Center...
Dan
Bongino
on
Obama
Mueller
and
the
Biggest
Scam
in
American
History
-
The
Attempted
Sabotage
of
Donald
J.
Trump
https://bongino.com/spygate/https://www.dn...
youtube.com

• It’s propaganda, mike. To keep
you angry