The Chinese government is buying stocks, so the economy is all better now – please resume your regular Kardashian news viewing.
Kasich viewed as a bigger threat to Bush than Trump is. Uh; well…ok. But being a threat to Bush is akin to being a threat to nothing…Bush hasn’t got a chance at being nominated.
Hillary Clinton is viewed as being dishonest and untrustworthy. This surprises precisely no one. Meanwhile, Joe appears to be Biden is time before he jumps in…
Boehner reportedly calls Cruz a “jackass”…this will, I’m sure, make Cruz more than willing to work with Boehner, assuming Cruz becomes President. If this story is true, then it is time to get another Speaker.
Read that Rubio doesn’t think Trump will win the nomination because we’re not an angry nation. Which is true. We passed “angry” in 2010. By now, we’re a scorching furious nation.
Charges have been dropped against a man for playing the Star Spangled Banner on the Fourth of July. Yes, this is still officially the United States of America. Sorta.
There are 141 counties with more registered voters than living people. And that does appear to be more voters than living people – not more voters than adult citizens. So, voter fraud isn’t a problem.
Blogs For Victory 
For an interesting perspective of government in (in)action, I recommend reading Michael Brown’s account of FEMA’s experiences prior to and during Hurricane Katrina. Michael Brown has a radio talk show in Denver, and I saw an interview with him and another local media personality, Peter Boyles, so I was already familiar with some of what he lays out in this article. There are things he does not cover in this essay, such as the fact that FEMA and the Salvation Army both had extensive supplies in N.O. prior to the disaster, anticipating their need, but were sent by Nagin to an industrial park where they were stranded by the flood waters and unable to get the food, water, medical supplies, bedding and portable kitchens to the people in need.
I’ve glimpsed a little of the media coverage on this anniversary of Katrina, and so far I haven’t seen anything about the criminal negligence of Blanco and Nagin.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/katrina-ten-years-later-michael-brown-121782?o=3
Best line I have read for a while:
Liberals believe that the babies of illegal aliens have no legal right to life, but do have a legal right to citizenship.
Cluster,
That does sum up the mindset of the modern Left pretty well.
Put another way:
Liberals believe that the babies of illegal aliens do not have the right to breathe, but they do have a right to food stamps
In a “chickens coming home to roost” moment, the blatant race baiting of this administration and its enablers and cronies and supporters has probably contributed to the bizarre claims of the newscaster shootings that when the reporter said she was “swinging by” a location, or was “in the field”, she was making racist comments. “In the field” was taken by him as shorthand for “cotton fields” which was supposedly shorthand for some kind of disparaging comment or attitude about black people.
Really? Saying “I’m in the field now but I’ll be swinging by the station later” is all it takes to be dubbed a racist? To earn a death penalty?
He had a fit when a manager brought in some watermelons for the staff, and about watermelon flavored Slurpees at a local convenience store. Uh-oh—-I have friends with watermelons in their gardens. Guess they need to be warned that they might be next on the black hit list. I ate some last week, so I’m looking over my shoulder.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/08/28/the-words-used-by-wdbj-reporter-alison-parker-that-killer-claimed-were-racist-and-apparently-made-her-a-target-for-on-air-execution
The determination of the Rabidly Radical Left to see pretty much EVERYTHING as a “dog whistle” or having some kind of racist content or motivation feeds paranoid loonies like this, and the absolutely disgusting responses by some black people will undoubtedly lead to more of the same. One tweet said the killer “did the right thing” and “stood up for black people”.
Even if most black people refuse to agree that sneaking up on and ambushing unarmed people is something to be proud of and a way of “standing up for” people of their race, this is the same kind of hate driven, delusional, paranoid and dangerous rhetoric that is part of the NBP wanted poster for George Zimmerman, “dead or alive”—-a poster Eric Holder described as a mere expression of 1st Amendment rights—-or the new war on cops.
Ummm, I don’t think I’d consider this guy as Poster Boy for the Left so much as Poster Boy for Batshit Crazy. That guy saw racism in his own shadow, it didn’t matter what she said.
Oh, jeez, I just said “boy” and “shadow.” I guess I gotta buy a Klan outfit or something now. Is there a party? Can I register at IHOP?
I’d like to sincerely apologize to anyone I offended with my latest posting and I’d like to point out, before you report me to HR (again), that I have a wife and kids to support. Oh, please let me keep my job. Please!
Nope, HR is way too good for you. I’m siccing the Feds on you—the EEOC
Been thinking the same thing – those who have been asserting that the United States is fundamentally hate-filled against minorities (however classified) need to think hard about it. Sure, it helped get Obama re-elected in 2012 and for liberals that is a good thing…but when you feed the fires of paranoid hatred, you will get people who decide to take it seriously. And, yes, that does go for our side, as well.
I don’t know if any of you guys Tweet much, but over the last few months, especially, I have come across people who claim to be of the right, but are actually a collection of bigots of various specific hatreds. Some of these people I run across seriously worry me – and I do wonder how many incidents like that which happened in South Carolina will recur…because while people on the left are feeding the paranoia of the man who shot the newscasters, some on the right are feeding the paranoia of the man who shot up the church. The vials of wrath are getting filled.
As an aside, the Moderators are right – it is better to keep those who want to hate and fight out. Here’s an article over at Ace about the subject (language warning) – used to be their comments were a free-for-all, as ours used to be some years back. That is over, now. Seems that Ace got tired of people who just decided to pick personal fights with anyone who disagreed – and just like this blog, no problem with someone who wants to dispute fact with fact…but when discussions merely turn to flame wars, all it does is keep decent people away.
I agree. You saw what happened when I tried to give Rusty a chance to engage in actual political dialogue. The tap dancing around his refusal to pin himself down on anything (I think the Constitution should be FLEXIBLE but not infinitely so but I can’t say how far this FLEXIBILITY should go but it should be more than Amazona says and the federal government should not be severely restricted as to size scope and power but I won’t give an example of where an expansion of size scope and power should end, blah blah blah) was wholly predictable, but what got my attention was his bizarre combination of folding some kind of personal insult into nearly everything he said while at the same time bleating about how insulting I was being, and his rapid plunge into outright attack mode when he ran into the brick wall of fact.
In other words, the Left does not see a difference between “I think your ideas are wrong” and “You are a stupid worthless POS”. We attack ideas, they attack people.
I think this is because most of the Left, the part of the Left that is so agitated that it prowls the Internet looking not for a place to exchange ideas but for new targets to insult and attack, is completely a tool of Identity Politics. We see this all the time on blogs—-there is simply no grasp of objective abstract ideas, so there can’t be a discussion of objective abstract ideas, or analysis of objective abstract ideas. What there IS is a vague concept that people who do not share their fuzzy emotion-based pseudo-political feelings should be attacked and destroyed.
It’s a game. It’s psychodrama, the playing out of pathologies given the imprimatur of acceptability and even virtue by the Leftist minders who love having this screeching horde of blog vandals out trying to shut up opposing ideas. There was a time when being constantly agitated by hatred, resentment, rage, hostility and paranoia was properly considered a personality disorder, at best. These people are now recruited by the Left, filled with nonsense, and sent out to prey on the rest of us, smug in the Leftist-implanted delusion that this makes them mentally and morally superior.
They bring nothing of value to the table, but they do drive away serious people who want to read and perhaps discuss serious ideas.
Rusty
I’m sorry time pulled me from our earlier discussion.
I gotta say I’m a bit disturbed by this latest post in that, you were completely civil with me – I even told Amazona that in a post – but now I’m kind of seeing what everyone warned me about.
I understand your frustration. You are clearly the minority voice and you get piled on sometimes. But talking …….. and like that isn’t really called for.
I will always welcome a discussion with you but really, you gotta keeps things classy (even if you think the other side isn’t).
Bob,
This blog was actually started by Matt in 2003 as a vehicle to support President Bush in his 2004 re-election effort. It actually was a pretty big thing back in 2004 – but during that time I had my car vandalized, I was stalked at my place of employment, a radio host expressed the hope that I would be physically attacked, Matt was actually physically attacked…all because we just expressed our opinions. To be sure, back in the 2003-2004 time frame I was only a nominal Catholic and there were times I expressed myself in terms I simply would not do these days…but, still, the real thing is that I expressed an opinion that some disagreed with and rather than just disagreeing – and going away if it was too frustrating for them – I got relentless vitriol sent my way. It just isn’t worth it.
The reality is these days that I don’t tend to engage in debate with people of the left – because they don’t want debate. They want me to sit down and shut up, or grovel to them while proclaiming them to be oh, so much smarter than I am. They don’t debate because they don’t even have a point to make, in my view – here in me they’ve got a person who is opposed to the death penalty, favor amnesty for the illegal aliens and wants to slap a massive tax on the wealthiest persons and largest corporations…do I get any lauds from Progressives for this? No. Because I still disagree with them on such things as what to do about Islamism, what to do about border security, what to do about the size of government, they still hate me with a white-hot passion.
Why bother? People who are so filled with hate like that are worthy of my prayers for their conversion, but not worthy for me to talk to.
Rusty
I do not dispute the nastiness of these exchanges. When I ask the others about it they tell me their history with you drives their nastiness.
The problem is, as Martin Luther King showed, the way to win an argument is to stay positive and stay on your own message. We can all agree King dealt with a lot more than nasty statements on a blog, and had he caved to his own desires to lash back, he would likely not have achieved greatness.
MLK was a great man, a great American. Argue as he would argue, that’s my advice.
Bob, you may just have to take our words for it that what we have seen from Rusty recently is quite mild compared to what we have had to put up with for years on this blog. There is really no way to convey the level of absolute loathing and vitriol and profanity and nastiness that erupted from every Leftist poster whose IDEAS were challenged. Rusty is, actually, the least offensive of the lot, and does sometimes make an effort to appear civil, at least until he is embedded in a discussion or, as with you, there is someone new he wants to impress.
If you have watched this blog for long, you know that Mark and I often have spirited disagreements on several things, I think most passionate of which was our debate on whether Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy and/or was the lone gunman. We also disagree on whether illegals should be given “a path to citizenship”. And you know what? We have never come to verbal blows, have never attacked or insulted each other, and I think if we lived nearer each other we would be friends. As it is, I still consider him a friend, in the new world of online friendship.
Cluster and I have had our intellectual differences, but I think the world of him and he has never said a mean word to me. Again, even when I think he is wrong on something, I like him and consider him a friend.
That is the way it is when people respect each other as people but disagree about IDEAS. There are opinions that are just that—opinions. It is my opinion that caviar tastes horrible. I don’t like tattoos or body piercing, and find nothing of artistic value in rap music. I won’t try to argue those opinions, or try to sway anyone else one way or another on them, because they are just the way I FEEL about those things.
I also have ideas, and when I am committed to an idea you will find that I can usually defend my position with a thought process, with reasoning, with research.
I believe, and this is an idea/opinion because it is based on years of observation and experimentation but can’t be objectively conclusively proved, that the Rustys of the world base what they call political beliefs on feeling rather than thought processes, reasoning and research. I base this on my experience that they tend to be ignorant of the lessons of history and therefore of the proved failures of Leftist political theory—-there was a time when Lefties here on the blog sneered at me, between profane name-calling, as being TRAPPED IN HISTORY !!! when I tried to relate current events to historical outcomes of similar experiments. My experience has been that when a Liberal is asked to explain the political philosophy that is the basis for his ideology, the response tends to sound like a response to a beauty pageant question: “Well, I like believe in FAIRNESS and that, like, you know, people should be nice to each other, and be like EQUAL…” I don’t get an explanation of Leftist political ideology, much less a defense of it, and there is usually a level of denial of even BEING on the Left, which proves ignorance of the ideology.
That is fine. I don’t have the right to try to shove my own standard of political awareness down the throat of anyone. But when someone wants to engage me in a discussion that is alleged to be about politics, I do have the right to insist that it BE about politics. And you know what? This “discussion” ends up (1) illustrating a common Liberal belief that Identity Politics IS political philosophy, and (2) almost immediately degenerating into a spate of personal insults from said Liberal, personal attacks on me, and simultaneous claims to have whupped me in a debate when I finally get tired of the tap-dancing and subject-changing and give up……………
…which always generates, in my own mind, the image of the knight in the Monty Python movie with both arms and both legs cut off, shrieking that his opponent is a coward for not continuing the fight.
Bob, I went back to the beginning of the “discussion” with Rusty, beginning on August 8, and I didn’t find anything I said that I thought could be considered “nasty”. A little sharp, perhaps, a little sarcastic, but unlike Rusty I did not use words like “stupid”.
Here are what I think are the worst things I said to him. Not the most damaging, as his big reaction was being faced with the words of Jefferson and Madison to show how wrong he was, but the “nastiest”.
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Give me a break. You were wrong because you are Constitutionally illiterate.
There. I was mean to you. If you’re going to squeal that I am insulting you, I might as well insult you.
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Though a crayon sketch on a bar napkin probably would provide you with a political model with enough FLEXIBILITY to satisfy you.
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Though your problem is that I DO understand, just think your arguments are silly and not thought out but just recycling of Leftist platitudes, an opinion supported by the fact that you can only try to support them by hurling more Leftist platitudes. For example, I did understand that you simply reached into the back of your tightie whities to pull out that goofy comment that Jefferson just didn’t understand that someday we would be able to use the federal government to provide charity.
(BTW, that is what it looks like when I am being kind of nasty. Not sure which mild commentary got those panties of yours in such a twist.)
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Now you are lurching into hysterical hyperbole, as well as reframing my challenge to you. If I had wanted to bicker over any particular issue I would have said so. But I didn’t. I tried to first lay down a foundation of mutually understood, if not agreed-upon, political philosophy, to then explain our relative positions on those issues. But that was evidently too complicated for you, or too challenging, If you had just said, right up front, that you have no interest in discussing political theory, but just wanted to harangue me about my position on some of your pet issues I would have politely declined at the time.
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I never know how much of Rusty’s discussion weakness is a lack of comprehension and how much is just a panicky effort to squirm away from an uncomfortable question, but what does come through, loud and clear, is that for whatever reason (“I just don’t have the TIME!) he is incapable of engaging in an actual discussion.
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He’s a hell of a quibbler, though, and can regurgitate Lefty talking points a mile a minute!
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Come back if you can find some big boy pants and get into an actual discussion about real politics. Read up a little on how and why this country was set up the way it was, and be ready to say exactly what parts of the Constitution are not relevant to today’s America. See if you can find a single country with a government based on the Progressive model that has increased personal liberty for its citizens and experienced a robust and growing economy. But save your RRL talking points for other gullibles who can’t see through them. Don’t put on your tinfoil hat and bring them here unless you can man up enough to process opposing points of view instead of just haranguing us over and over again.
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“Big boy pants”
“tightie whities”
“quibbler”
“tinfoil hat”
Oh, the HORROR!!!!!!!!
Even five years ago, anyone claiming words like “swinging” and “field” are racist would be laughed at and properly considered a moron. All we have to do is look at what some people consider “offensive” to see how far down the rabbit hole this nation has slid.
A Muslim woman complained that the word “bacon” on a restaurant sign was “offensive” and demanded that it be removed. Hysterics are demanding that crosses erected along roadsides to commemorate the deaths of loved ones be removed because they “offend” those who dislike symbols of Christianity. Sports teams names are under attack because words like “Braves” are offensive to some hypersensitive scolds. (I went to a Rockies game last month and wondered how long San Diego can call its team the “Padres”—-it is sooooo sexist, and an offense to lesbian families, you know.) A man was threatened with legal action for having the gall to actually play our National Anthem in public on the Fourth of July! Students IN THE UNITED STATES are banned from bringing American flags onto school property because some of the students might feel offended by seeing the flag of the nation where they live and go to school, because they are not citizens. I once read a letter to the editor complaining that those Baby On Board tags in car windows should be banned because they were offensive, were just people gloating that they had children to make people who did not have children feel bad.
The list of such insanities would not only be too long to post here, it would be growing as I type. I suggest that we would not be so quickly becoming a nation of weepy whiners if weeping and whining was not rewarded by the weepers and whiners getting their own way.
We, through our governments and business and personal selves, have to start standing up to this rapid and insidious eroding of spine and common sense.
I once saw a man killed in an accident, and the sound of the impact to his head was horrible. A couple of weeks later I was with friends watching a Planet of the Apes movie and the sound of people being thrown against a wall brought it all back. I did not demand that the movie be turned off. I did not demand that the movie studio pull the movie out of circulation because the sounds upset me. I just went for a walk. I think the fad of hanging balls off trailer hitches of pickups is crude and offensive, but I don’t demand laws banning them—-I just figure they are statements by drivers who realize they are lacking in that department and are trying to compensate.
Imagine a country where each of us could demand of the rest of the nation that any word or symbol we don’t like has to be removed and banned. I once knew a woman who believed that people who bought colored appliances only did it to flaunt their wealth, so she would be able to dictate that all kitchens only had white refrigerators. There would be no exuberant Bronco orange houses or cars in Denver, because some people in Denver root for the Chargers. Peta would probably force a change from “Broncos” anyway, to something like the Denver Kale.
We need to get a grip.
I just ran across some more things to be offended about—jeans and cell phones. Evidently the term “boyfriend jeans” is sexist, and possibly ageist, and discriminates against heavy women. And single women.
“It’s sexist and ageist and fattist. In case you don’t spend your time sitting around thinking of everyday things that could actually be secretly oppressing women, here’s one you might have missed: “boyfriend jeans.” That’s right. The fact that fashion designers use the term “boyfriend jeans” to describe looser-fitting pants is an example of the patriarchy — at least if you ask “essayist and journalist who writes about gender” Elissa Strauss.
“Are they a death knell for female confidence and ambition? Of course not,” Strauss stated in a piece for The Week, published Tuesday. “But each time I put them on, I stop and wonder how this subtle affront to my dignity has gone on so long,” she continued.
Now, some women might consider the idea that a name for a pants style could be capable of affecting their dignity in the first place to be a much greater “affront” to it, but Strauss seems convinced: “Here’s what’s so off about the boyfriendization of women’s clothing: It implies that a woman should only wear baggy clothes after she has secured a mate,” she explained.”
The trend to bigger cell phones is also sexist, as they don’t fit in the smaller pockets of most women’s clothing. And oh, BTW, this is actually part of an insidious plot to, well, do something bad to women. Make them dependent on men or something. “Less effective”. Not quite sure about how that works. I liked my iPhone because it DID fit into my jeans pockets, but I made a decision to go with a bigger phone because I get business emails on my phone and I wanted a bigger screen. Note the “made a decision” part of that comment. It was a choice.
Though many men also prefer skinny pants, Moore takes her argument a bit further, asserting that the very fact that men’s clothes usually have pockets more than women’s clothes is itself due to sexism. “Ever get the feeling that the general lack of pockets on your lady clothing is a conspiracy designed specifically to keep you from advancing by rendering you less effective? You were right,” she wrote. “Women going pocketless is an under-addressed, silent epidemic that has infantilized us all and given us a big giant baby’s purse to deal with in its stead,” she continued. “
Yeah, a CONSPIRACY. A Silent EPIDEMIC !!! When women were GIVEN a “big baby purse” they had no choice but to take it!
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/389781
BTW, when I worked in the standard business world, I never carried a purse. I took my cues from the men I worked with. I wore business suits, feminine but practical. When we went out to lunch, I put a credit card and a couple of bills in one pocket of my suit coat and a small comb and lipstick in another, and I was ready to go. Cold weather, short of a blizzard, called for a scarf and gloves. And I stood there with the men while the women fussed with their coats at the door, created another fuss with their handbags (which fell off chair backs, got underfoot, or took up room on the table) and in general MADE THEMSELVES “ineffective”. I would often be well into the business at hand by the time the other women stopped fidgeting and fussing.
Who knew I was really supposed to make myself a slave to some external “fashion” rules and then complain that these were sexist, demeaning, a conspiracy, a silent epidemic designed to impair me, etc? Guess I just missed out on that whole “Blame Everyone Else For Everything” memo.