An otherwise good review of the movie Dunkirk has this bit:
…the fact that there are only a couple of women and no lead actors of color may rub some the wrong way…
And, he’s right about that – it is sure to do so. But only because all too many people haven’t a clue of what happened further back than last week. What is your best guess on the number of Americans who can identify the significance of the word “Dunkirk”? I’m betting it’s less than 1 in 10. Brits would probably have a higher number, but I’ll additionally bet that its somewhat less than a majority of the population. And that gets me thinking – Americans might be vaguely familiar with such WWII battles as Okinawa and the Battle of the Bulge, but I’ll bet not one in a thousand knows of Tarawa or Anzio. We’re just not teaching history – or much of anything else, as this shows:
Algebra is one of the biggest hurdles to getting a high school or college degree — particularly for students of color and first-generation undergrads.
It is also the single most failed course in community colleges across the country. So if you’re not a STEM major (science, technology, engineering, math), why even study algebra?
The article goes on to give all sorts of arguments about why algebra isn’t needed – but you know what the real bottom line is: the kids are having trouble with it and it is vastly easier to just excuse them from it than it is to teach them the knowledge. Used to be, getting into college was hard and only the intellectual elite (and those with daddy’s who could buy their way in) got to go. But then colleges figured out that more butts in seats = more money for the college. This is just another method whereby Big Education proposes to keep the diploma mill grinding.
Word is that Trump will terminate aid to the “moderate” Syrian rebels. Some are upset about this – including some on the right. I can’t see why. There is zero chance those rebels will ever get atop Assad as long as Russia is backing him unless we go to war directly with Assad, and thus risk a war with Russia. And even if we decide the risk is worth it, what real assurance do we have that the successor regime to Assad would be any better? Sure, they are called “moderate”, but what does that really mean? Moderate compared to what? For my money, I say we go with the Kurds – help them form an independent nation with territory carved out of, initially, Iraq and Syria. I’ve never heard of Kurds organizing a beheading party, nor stoning people for minor moral failings. As for Assad, we have vastly more rebuild money than Russia or Iran does, so maybe we can wean him away from his allies? Look, it’s a lousy situation in Syria – Obama really screwed up the best US policy options when he was President. We might not be able to get anything good out of there…and keeping up support for rebels who can’t win only means the killing goes on longer. I’m not on board with that.
Mueller apparently is widening his investigation of all things Trump. I really do hope that Trump just fires him. The firestorm would be over in a week or so. There’s nothing to investigate except paranoid, Democrat/NeverTrump delusions. End it.
You might care about whether or not someone is forced to bake the cake, but you will be made to care.
If you want to look into a real political scandal, then the unmasking scandal of the Obama Administration is a good place to start.
Blogs For Victory 
……the fact that there are only a couple of women and no lead actors of color may rub some the wrong way……
Is there any chance that the reviewer is poking fun at the utter ignorance and blatant stupidity of the Race Grievance Industry? If so, kudos. If not, he is clearly a part of it.
Seriously, though, this kind of comment only serves to illustrate how totally unmoored the Left is. They have no connection to reality—in fact, seem to deny the concept of a solid, objective reality and want to simply create a new one every time they feel like it.
So the Left invents a huge scary bogie man and calls it AGW and then invent a lot of bogus “science” to explain it and defend it and bludgeon people with. To them, there is no biological gender, just a random and meaningless distribution of superficial genitalia. If they want a 1940s England populated with people of color and women in the armed forces, then so be it, according to them—-and anyone who doesn’t go along with this is a racist.
It’s not just gender that is fluid on the Left—it is history, biology, morality. You name it, on the Left it has no established definition or identity, but all is dependent on the whim of the hour or the political movement of the day and its current agenda.
I am not a numbers person, and for a while in high school I was failing algebra. That was hard for a straight-A nerd to deal with, but I had a wonderful teacher who did everything he could think of to get the concepts through to me. And it happened—-when it clicked, I was like Helen Keller at the well. On my own I went back and did every problem at the back of every chapter in the book, and got a 98 on my final exam. I loved algebra; it was like one cool puzzle after another.
More to the point, a few years after high school I got a job where I used algebra every single day. Nobody was more surprised than I.
If I can learn it, anyone can. But this whole idea of just dropping algebra because some kids think it is too hard is just another aspect of the Left. It goes back to that infinite fluidity I mentioned in my earlier post. There is simply no “there” there for the Left.
So they are moving us to a strange and unmoored world in which English teachers, who have already been hired and promoted while failing to understand, much less teach, grammar and spelling. Because those are RULES they have no place in the free-floating, undefined world of the Left. We are now in a world where published authors can’t build a sentence—-and don’t realize that their random collection of words is not a sentence just because they put a little dot at the end of it. Apostrophes rule, implying possession where none is intended and in general popping up at random before nearly every S and sometimes at the end of words just for the hell of it. Spelling? Ha. This is our language and it has a structure and rules, all of which are being tossed overboard. When I put on my tinfoil hat I see this as part of the plot to destabilize our culture in every way possible, dismantling yet another of the structures upon which it is built.
Think about it—people are united by their culture. Culture is based largely on a shared language, and language has to have rules to make it coherent. The Left is trying to destabilize our national culture by importing millions who not only do not share out language but who have no intention of learning it, and they are undermining the very structure of that language so it teeters on the brink of chaos and incoherence.
This leads to the insanity of English degrees granted to students who have never read Shakespeare but who have been told that The Bluest Eye (the pornographic novel by Toni Morrison written to let us share the feelings of an incestuous pedophile) is required reading for high school students in some Common Core classes. We have history majors who don’t have to study American History. We already had New Math, which discarded the old and effective ways of adding and subtracting, in an effort to remake mathematics. Why not get rid of algebra? It’s just another piece of the framework of mathematics, just part of the structure. Just wait—there will be a move to make math “fluid”.
It’s not just gender that is fluid on the Left—it is history, biology, morality. You name it, on the Left it has no established definition or identity, but all is dependent on the whim of the hour or the political movement of the day and its current agenda.
No truer words have been spoken.
Re: WWII, we really should have cast more women and minorities. Who was in charge of central casting? And honestly doesn’t this just mean that a disproportionate number of white males carried the burden and died? How is that fair?
Just to remind you, a few days ago a white woman was shot a killed by a black police officer for no apparent reason and yet no riots have broken out.
MSNBC is reporting this morning that the Russians are a little upset that they have not received the cooperation from the Trump admin. as they expected. How would MSNBC know the level of Russian expectations? Are they colluding with Russia?
Bill Nye says that old people need to die in order for climate policies to be effective, and NPR said that procreation has negative impacts on the climate. How about if just kill all the progressives and see what happens?
How about if just kill all the progressives and see what happens?
While I in no way think we should engage in the actual abolition of an entire class of people, I also can’t help but think what a better country, and world, this would be if at the very least the belief system of Progressivism were exterminated.
We’d have a color-blind society or be very close to it, a meritocracy where people are challenged to be the best they can be no matter what their color or gender, a world in which human life is valued and has inherent dignity, a world where people are expected to take responsibility for their actions.
So very very different from the “utopia” the Left works so hard to establish.
This is a long article but, as we expect from VDH, it is thought-provoking and well worth the read:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/267333/brawn-age-brains-victor-davis-hanson
The New York Times is reporting that Sean Spicer has resigned as White House Press Secretary.
Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, resigned on Friday morning, telling President Trump he vehemently disagreed with the appointment of New York financier Anthony Scaramucci as communications director.
Mr. Trump offered Mr. Scaramucci the job at 10 a.m. The president requested that Mr. Spicer stay on, but Mr. Spicer told Mr. Trump that he believed the appointment was a major mistake, according to person with direct knowledge of the exchange.
That person should be tracked down and fired. There can’t be many people with “direct knowledge of the exchange”.
I’d prefer to nail his hide to a White House door as a warning to other leakers, but firing is OK.
When your boat leaks, you can just live with wet feet, or you can spend a lot of time bailing it out, or you can fix it, or you can sink. Not a lot of options when it comes to leaks.
Spicer was the wrong choice from the beginning, so I am glad he’s gone. I wanted Laura Ingraham, and we need someone like her who will treat the progressive media like the bastard children they are.
The only thing wrong with America is that there are not enough dead progressives.
Laura’s too smart to latch onto this listing ship.
Laura will have to learn to pronounce “Chipotle” before I can listen to her. Her love for “Chip-Ol-Tay” was fingernails on a blackboard, as it is “Chip-Oat-Lay”.
OK, so I am carping. Otherwise she would probably be good. Dana Perino was great with Bush.
Spicer tended to follow any string the Left dragged in front of him, without learning the facts first or at least how to play the facts.
Trump needs much more aggressive push-back in his communications team…Spicer had a lot of the proper qualifications, but there’s still that back-of-the-mind thing of, “I’ll need these people for employment in later years”. Scaramucci doesn’t need anyone…we’ll see how he does, but I’m hoping that most answers to MSM questions amount to a polite way of saying “f*** you”. These MSMers aren’t reporters – they are Democrat operatives with by-lines. Their whole purpose is to just drag down Trump and his team at every opportunity. Treat them like that – and let them know you’re treating them like that.
It is, as I said, time to stop playing their game – and I hope this team change by Trump signals that.
That may have been what kept Spicer from being as aggressive as we wanted him to be. It may just not be his character to get too confrontational. It may be that deadly wish to be liked. But he did seem to be uncomfortable with conflict, even when you could tell he was ticked off, and we need a warrior in that position.
It was probably Spicey. Well oiled machine. Ha
Hmmm…. a listing ship? Seems to me we have a waste of flesh amongst us:
– Mining +21.6% in Q1; Construction +5.6%; Manufacturing +4.7%
– Illegal immigration at an all time low
– Hiring freeze at the federal level
– less WH payroll
– ISIS on the run
– Private sector wages up
Fielding it’s really best if people like you just crawl in a hole and die. Nobody respects you.
Oh and then there is this:
Over first 6 months, the Trump administration has cut 16 old regulations for every new one added
Oh, come on, Cluster. Wishing for people to die just sounds so….Progressive.
And people like “Fielding” serve to remind us not just how stupid they are but how proud they are of their stupidity.. He actually goes to the trouble of posting here just to remind us, and to preen in his negativity.
Of course no one respects him. What’s to respect? Vapid snot nuggets without an iota of intelligence? But hey, HE thinks he is cute. His mommy may even have thought so. The rest of the world? Not so much.
Look at this from the NYT:
Donald J. Trump can shield Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner from potential prosecution. But doing so could put himself into legal jeopardy.
Really? There is not even one scintilla of evidence that either one of these two have violated any laws, statutes, or even a regulation, and the NYT is talking “potential prosecution”????
I despise these people and pray for their demise.
At this point, I want Trump to fire Mueller and then issue pardons to each and every person who worked on his campaign…just to tell the critics that we aren’t playing their game. Every time there is a GOP President this is what the DNC/MSM does – seconded by various GOPe types: make accusations, start investigations and then drag things about (and people through the mud) all through the term. End it. Now.
…..fire Mueller and then issue pardons to each and every person who worked on his campaign…just to tell the critics that we aren’t playing their game.
Agree 100%. We really have to stop being concerned with how the media and liberals will react and just put our agenda into place and let results speak for themselves. The faux outrage is only designed to slow us down and we fall for it every time.
A pardon is still just playing defense, just defense with a bigger weapon.
We need to bounce back every single comment of theirs, right in their faces, hard. Really hard. Calling out CNN and other fake news started to have an effect, because that is what we were doing. We need to keep it up.
That means having a voice, or voices, that can and will do that. Right now it’s just Trump and his tweets calling these people out.
Prosecute whom? For what? Name the law or shut up.
Over and over again. And follow up by pointing out that those calling for prosecution knew all along that no laws were broken, but were lying to and manipulating the people who believed them. This is the element we never use.
Me, when I know someone has lied to me, I stop trusting that person. If it’s a little lie when challenged (“Did you eat that Milky Way I had hidden in the freezer?) it’s not that big a deal but we are talking here about massively big lies created and promulgated specifically to get others to fall in line behind them, believe them, act on them, all for gaining political power. We are talking about lies created and promulgated specifically to control others. We never ask the average Lefty why he is so happy being constantly lied to and led around by the nose.
Where are our political cartoons showing voters on the end of strings being jerked around by the Puppetmaster NYT, or flocks of stupid-looking sheep being herded by snarling sheep dogs named Schumer and Pelosi? They make the rounds on email chains among conservatives but never see the light of day.
THESE PEOPLE (the average Dem voters) DON’T KNOW WE ARE LAUGHING AT THEM AND THINK THEY ARE BEING SUCKERED.. They think we’re just mad at them, and anger just creates more anger and it goes back and forth, growing but always feeling justified. But ridicule is harder to ignore. We give them power by taking them seriously and reacting seriously. We hardly ever just laugh at them and say we think they are silly because they volunteer to be fooled and then make fools out of themselves after being fooled. The only person I have ever seen look a Lib in the eye and openly laugh at him has been Tucker Carlson.
The “snowflake” meme stung, but they are adapting to it. That is the kind of thing we need to keep promoting, references to Liberal acts and statements that simply refuse to take them seriously, refuse to give them any respect at all.
You’re right, of course: it is defensive. It just tells them to stop bothering with their latest Watergate dream: that they won’t get a GOP President out of office, or even drag him down, via investigations leading to “process” crimes. Rely on it, if evidence ever emerges that President Trump committed a crime while in office, I’ll back impeachment…but it had better be darned good evidence: so strong that we don’t need to try it, we just can see it, plain as day. I, naturally, doubt there ever will be such – mostly because I think that Trump is smart enough to keep himself this side of the law. I base this belief on the fact that it’s really been two years and they haven’t got anything on him. I guess that decades of working New York City real estate/construction (with all that entails), taught some crucial lessons.
The counter-attack (and, you’re also right, it needs to be vigorous) has mostly to do with messaging. Trump does manage to tweak his opponents quite well, and can often score a devastating hit on them…but we need a whole phalanx of Trump people out there pushing back relentlessly on every accusation…and then coming up with some counter-accusations to put the other side on the defense. Word is that Team Trump is already working up a program to do this – and perhaps the new Comms hire is part of it. We’ll see.
We are talking about lies created and promulgated specifically to control others.
Spot on. And the reason why they MUST be called out and destroyed.
Remember Pajama boy? The picture of the metro sexual, emasculated, and effeminate man drinking coffee in that ad for Obamacare? That pretty much sums up men who are Democrats. I think fielding is a pajama boy.
I wonder how long it will take Liberal women to get tired of effeminate metrosexual man-boys and start to look for real men.
But that path is littered with soooooo many obstacles. Being a good father who supports his family is racist, wanting a man who fits old-fashioned concepts of manhood goes against gender fluidity, wanting a woman who doesn’t have a penis is transphobic, wanting a family means wanting to destroy the planet, etc.
I say make long-term birth control cheap or fund it through conservative foundations and make permanent sterilization free, and hope that these limp little losers never procreate. As procreation does demand acknowledgement of two genders, it may just fall out of fashion or be too attacked to be acceptable.
A few years ago, I met my first genuine cowboy…we were doing a sleigh ride up at Mt Charleston: being the complete city slicker, I had never done such and it sounded like fun. Anyways, the guy running it was this tall, lean man…quiet, polite. I’d have to ask a woman for an opinion on his looks, but I guess any woman who likes the rugged type would have found him attractive. He was down from Montana doing this – did it yearly; make a few bucks in what probably was his off season, and maybe a side trip to Vegas kind of thing. Main thing, he was a man – maybe not any spectacular sort of man, but someone who knows how to do things and could probably be relied on in a crisis to do the right thing. Brought to mind my late Uncle Mike – short and stocky, but also a man: he never mentioned it and I only found out after he died when I found some letters between him and my father – he got his VA benefits, as he put it, “at a little ridge called Heartbreak” in Korea. You’d never know it to just look at him, but once that bit of knowledge came into it, I understood why he was always someone I trusted. He was a man: he would do the right thing, or die trying.
I saw an article recently which talked of this Norwegian language instructor – the gist of it was that she was totally ok with the refugees and, apparently, keeps herself a house in Turkey where she goes for some, well, vigorous activities with the local men. Part of the story had her getting a call from a friend of similar inclination who had been beaten up by her Turkish man…and the only thing the language instructor did was give a tongue lashing to the miscreant…no reconsideration of the whole situation. Why, though, would a Norwegian woman go so far afield – and at such huge physical risk – for a man? Because, I guess, she wanted a man…even a bad man, I guess, is better than no man, at all, in some situations. This speaks volumes to the moral collapse of the West. It brought to mind a story from some years back also from Scandinavia where a murderer came into a class and ordered all the men out – once the guys were gone, he proceeded to massacre the remaining women. To be sure, I’ve never been in that situation – but my hope is that if I ever am, I tell the guy to go to hell and try to stop him, even at the risk of my own life. To leave defenseless women at the hands of a brute just isn’t right. But I guess for a lot of western men, other considerations are more important.
Mark, funny you should mention meeting your “first real cowboy”. I have known several, and one works for me now. He is my cousin’s son, and he is a real cowboy—rode rough stock in rodeos and did a lot of roping, has a soft natural way with horses and cows, and knows pretty much everything you need to know about ranching. He used to guide elk hunters, and has talked about having a horse flip over onto a sharp branch and gutting itself and doing back-country first aid, putting the intestines back in and sewing the horse up using a large fish hook and fishing line. If I had to use one word to describe him, it would be “competent”—-he just knows so much and is good at so much. He loads his own ammunition and is an expert on firearms and every aspect of ammunition, knows history, and can identify pretty much any kind of bird or wildlife.
People like this make it really hard to have much respect for wimpy sissy-boys. I understand that growing up in the West, with a father like his, and choosing the life he led for 20-some years after he grew up, leads to a different kind of man than a city boy can look forward to becoming, but competence is available to all who seek it. A man doesn’t have to hunt big game or rope steers or be a crack shot to be a man, but he does have to be good at something and have the character to do it well.
I spend as much getting stuff fixed after it has been done badly by shoddy “professionals” as I did to have it done in the first place. Competence and pride in doing a job well define “manood” for me, or a significant aspect of it. A friend is married to a rather effeminate guy many think is gay, but he is really good at what he does, he works hard, he is a great father, he loves learning new things and is by far more manly in my eyes than a lot of macho jocks I have known.
I look at the posturing gangstas and not a one of them strikes me as manly. Ditto for the
protestersrioters throwing rocks and burning buildings. I can’t think, offhand, of a single Lib who strikes me as manly. Not one. I see them on TV and the nicest, family-friendly words that come to mind are “sniveling”, “whiner” and “wimp”. The most masculine Lib I can think of is Rachel Maddow.I believe the conditions for a Presidential Pardon is that there must be a crime for which the pardon was issued, and it must be of a Federal verity. I further believe it cannot be issued in the instance of presidential impeachment.
A blanket pardon for possible crimes would be immunity from prosecution which the President does not constitutionally have.
Regarding impeachment, that is a political undertaking. “High Crimes” as I’ve pointed out before, is a crime that by it’s nature can only be committed by a person in “high” office; like selling a pardon to Marc Rich, or granting access to uranium in exchange for personal remuneration.
If Trump committed a crime (in some way) by colluding with the Russians, he was a private citizen at the time and cannot be impeached for that crime. However, the opposition could label Russian collusion during a presidential campaign as a Treasonous Act, and because Treason is a fluid condition (once accused, always guilty) his status as private citizen is moot.
Since the only punishment available is removal from office, they could convict Trump on nothing more than innuendo knowing he will never be tried nor convicted of treason; only branded, removed from office and run out of the country by popular demand.
Firing Mueller would be confirmation of a political attempt to avoid prosecution fueling the accusation of treason.
Hey, Count, it’s been a while — a long while. How are things in sunny southern California?
A presidential pardon of Richard Nixon (Proclamation 4311) was issued on September 8, 1974, by President of the United States Gerald Ford, which granted former president Richard Nixon a full and unconditional pardon for any crimes he might have committed against the United States while president.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon_of_Richard_Nixon
Correct Spook.
But, Nixon was a private citizen when the pardon was issued and not subject to impeachment.
Good to see you back again, Count. Hope you stick around, as we have missed you.
You say: However, the opposition could label Russian collusion during a presidential campaign as a Treasonous Act, and because Treason is a fluid condition (once accused, always guilty) his status as private citizen is moot. To some extent I agree, but only in terms of Trump being slimed by an accusation that some will never forget.
But in law, treason is not a fluid condition.
To avoid the abuses of the English law, the scope of treason was specifically restricted in the United States Constitution. Article III, section 3 reads as follows:
Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
(wikipedia) and ….…..enemies are defined very precisely under American treason law. An enemy is a nation or an organization with which the United States is in a declared or open war . Nations with whom we are formally at peace, such as Russia, are not enemies. (Indeed, a treason prosecution naming Russia as an enemy would be tantamount to a declaration of war.) Russia is a strategic adversary whose interests are frequently at odds with those of the United States, but for purposes of treason law it is no different than Canada or France or even the American Red Cross. The details of the alleged connections between Russia and Trump officials are therefore irrelevant to treason law.
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-treason)
The way I read this, one could even sympathize with a formally declared enemy of the nation, and still not be guilty of treason unless he or she actually gave aid and comfort to that enemy.
Trivializing a very important word and concept, such as “treason” is irresponsible, but this is a typical Leftist tactic. They choose a word with great emotional content, such as “rape” or “treason”, knowing it will resonate on a deep emotional level, and then use it wildly and irresponsibly, diminishing its true meaning by attaching it to all sorts of minor and often invented offenses. We should call them out on this sleazy tactic when they try it, but we usually get suckered into defending against the accusation itself instead of pointing out that it is grossly misidentified and going on offense in pointing out that this is done precisely to manipulate peoples’ emotions.
Correct, as usual Amazona.
But, let’s revisit my original premise-impeachment is a political undertaking. As such, the definition of a high crime is subjective. Therefore, using the “crime” that Trump colluded with a known enemy of the United States to affect the outcome of a Presidential election, the opposition could easily assert that such an attempt to thwart the process of American Liberty must certainly be TREASONOUS.
It need only be repeated sufficiently to be considered fact by the great unwashed.*
Impeachment doesn’t require a crime by black letter law, it requires only that all parties agree that a high crime and misdemeanor (or, in the common tongue-misbehavior) has been committed.
The allusion of covering up a supposedly treasonous act is certainly wrong, can only be done by a person in high position, and is misbehavior of the first order.
Quicker than you can say Bob’s ‘yer Uncle, Trump is out of office and moving his businesses to Smolensk.
• * This is what I mean by a fluid crime. Once enough people believe that the crime of Treason has been committed, the accusers will never have to prove Treason in a legal sense. The accusation is more important than the fact pattern.
• Since Trump can only be removed from office for committing a crime-and that crime is a high crime as I’ve explained above, there will never be a need to charge him with Treason, prove the fact pattern and convict him of a crime he couldn’t have possibly committed.
• Impeachment is, IMHO a political undertaking.
Yes, impeachment IS a political undertaking, but even so it is really nothing more than the equivalent of an indictment. That is, an accusation. A CLAIM of wrongdoing. An assertion. The brainless Leftist sheeple seem to think it is removal from office.
We have no loud and repetitive voice challenging the Left to name the “crimes” they claim Trump has committed. As he has done nothing, that we know of at least, that rises to the level of criminality these howlers-at-the-moon would either have to shut up or name something that even many on the Left would shout down as not being criminal at all.
And one thing that would make even more Lefty heads explode could be the argument that even if Trump, et al, did collude with the Russians to influence the election, (1) this was done not to harm the nation but to protect it from harm, and (2) there is no evidence that the methods then allegedly used by the Russians were, in and of themselves, illegal.
Telling the truth about someone is not a crime. If someone is damaged by revelation of unsavory truth, this is not the fault of the person doing the revealing, it is the fault of the person who committed the acts being revealed.
I’d love to see a huge movement in all the media explaining that if it were to be proved that Trump did encourage Russia to reveal what it had learned about Hillary, Trump should be thanked and praised, as this act allowed voters to make decisions based on facts about her and her actions as a high-ranking official in our government. I’d love to see a lot of voices talking about how, if it were not for the revelations about the slipshod if not downright negligent way Hillary Clinton handled the details of Secretary of State, we might have had her doing the same as president.
I think the Left really does not want an actual trial, because the defenses would be so damaging to Hillary and her supporters. Even some of the hard-core howlers would not like having it repeated, over and over again, with great specificity, how this revealed fact and that revealed fact were actually true, and reflect badly on Hillary. It’s not as if she was taken down by lies. As has been said, any injury to Hillary was a self-inflicted wound.
We should call the whole Russian collusion meme “America Dodging a Bullet, With Russia to Thank”. How about calling the revelations “From Russia With Love”—-proving that nation’s commitment to protecting the interests of Americans. We should start tweeting thank-yous to Russia, and sending Putin e-cards—IF anything is proved, of course.
In the meantime we will just keep letting the Left get away with conflating a possible real-life Russian hack of some government sites with the non-digital, non-hacking, physical handoff of physical papers to someone who did not work with Russia, by a ticked-off Dem party member. Because they are really good at mixing things up and getting people confused, and we are helpless, just helpless, when they do it. A lot of us get sucked into the lies. Yes, the FBI has proved to its satisfaction that Russia was behind some hacking of government sites. No, the FBI has not proved that Russia hacked the DNC computers. On the contrary, there is ample evidence given by the very people who would know—such as the man who was physically handed the physical file by a person who worked with the DNC—-that the Russians had nothing to do with that information dump.
There was an early report that the FBI was skeptical that Russia was behind all of the actual hacking, as the original hacking was quite sophisticated and hard to track, while the latter event was clumsy and amateurish, so much so it appeared to be that way to purposely mislead investigators.
A claim of …an attempt to thwart the process of American Liberty … would have to rely on the argument that “the process of American Liberty” depends on hiding truth. That would be awkward.
It would depend on claiming that revealing truth is antithetical to “the process of American Liberty”. Again, awkward.
When have you ever known Liberals to be embarrassed over awkward?
When have you ever known Liberals to be embarrassed over awkward?
I would not expect those caught in those awkward situations to be embarrassed, but I do think if we had a voice, a charismatic and articulate spokesperson for the Right, who could and would explain the internal contradictions and/or logical conclusions of those Leftist positions and the hypocrisy, we might chip away at the support the Left gets from the middle-of-the-roaders who vote Dem out of habit, and the
independentssquishies who wobble back and forth because they can't take a position.Hey Spook an Amazona,
Andrew Sullivan says I’m wrong. Although he does allow “(t)here is also some debate about whether the president may pardon himself. “
But the Times has planted the idea in the empty skulls of its readers that there is some kind of crime here. Remember, these are the same morons who preach TREASON for anything they don’t happen to like.
But we don’t have a voice to challenge them, to say “name a crime or shut the hell up”. Mark is right, this is their pattern. I’m not sure that mass pardons are the answer—they would provide immediate gratification but no doubt be costly in the long run.
I’d much rather play Put Up Or Shut Up—–give them 24 hours to name a crime or some such tactic, with the caveat that it has to be a real crime, not just something that irks a Lib. Maybe remind them that they should be grateful stupid is not a crime, or the whole DNC would be in jail.
Cluster, I have to say, praying for the deaths of people is pretty creepy. It sounds too much like the hatred we get from the Left.
Their “demise” does not necessarily mean their deaths. These are not honorable people. These people have no integrity, no principles, no moral compass, and use any means to justify their end, so however their demise materializes, I pray for it.
For most of my adult life I had figured, or at least hoped, that we would defeat them on the battle field of ideas, especially since they don’t have any ideas, well, at least not good ideas. But events of the last decade or two have convinced me that this is going to end one of two ways: either we are going to use their playbook and recapture the bureaucracy that actually runs thing, recapture the education system that indoctrinates our children and recapture the media that shapes people’s minds, or we are going to engage them on a real battle field. The first would likely take generations, just as it has taken generations for the Left to get us to our current point, and I just don’t see Conservatism as having either the tools or the patience to fight that battle, especially on a playing field that’s as tilted as it is. The second scenario would be over in a few years at most, but it would be a temporary solution at best as Leftists never, EVER QUIT. The few left would just dig in and start the fight all over again. I like Amazona’s idea of a media movement funded, at first, by a few wealthy Conservatives, but ultimately funded by massive small donations from people like us, similar to Charles Murray’s Madison Fund only on a broader scale.
Knee surgery went well — already walking short distances without a walker after only 4 days. I still find it mind-boggling that medical science can replace major joints in a 1 hour and 15 minute surgery and have the patient up and walking in a matter of hours.
Good to have you back Spook. Can you jump over tall buildings now?
I am done with political correctness and you are correct Spook, the left will never quit so we are best advised to drop the pretense of bi partisanship and just take this country for ourselves and ignore the high pitched squeals of progressives.
Spook, I don’t think we can give up on winning a battle of ideas before actually fighting it. So far we have “fought” the Left on the battlefield of issues which is predictably futile. The only politician I have seen run for the presidency on ideas was Ted Cruz. He and a small handful of Senators try to talk about ideas but are ignored or drowned out, often by those in their own party.
The Left has lots of issues. The Left is founded on issues, and consists of nothing else. I speak here of the Left that votes for Leftists but has no real political philosophy other than their issues. The leaders of the Left have ideas, but they hide them from the masses behind vast volumes of issues. All the Right does is bat, feebly, at one Leftist issue after another, usually in a defensive posture.
When a conservative does try to present an IDEA it is, foolishly, usually in the guise of a “debate” with a Liberal, whereupon the conservative and his ideas are merely shouted down in an annoying (yet theatrical) display where no real ideas are ever presented and explained. I think much of Rush’s impact is based on the fact that he doesn’t fall into that “debate” trap and so has the time to lay out his ideas—though even Rush is predominately issue-oriented.
That’s why I have come to the concept of the TV show I mentioned. It would a period of uninterrupted IDEAS, stripped of emotion and hyperbole and hysteria.
..just take this country for ourselves and ignore the high pitched squeals of progressives…
I think that is what we have done, but we are hobbled by “Republicans” who hear those squeals and are intimidated by them, by pseudo-conservatives like McConnell, and by the stumbling, bumbling ineptness of the Trump administration.
OK, so the people said they didn’t want a politician, and they elected Trump. But the next step has to be to admit that Trump needs politicians—that is, people accustomed to the reality of life in the glare of rabid well-organized Leftist opposition and who know the political ropes—to function. He can’t surround himself with other newbies and expect that to work. He needs to send the family back home and surround himself not only with people who know how to play the game but people who are willing to take action against internal insurrection.
When Trump managed, through his own skills, to get a deal done, he then surrounded himself with the professionals it needed to be completed. That is, lawyers and engineers and architects and so on. He didn’t say he trusted his little girl and her husband so much he was going to have them do some of this work, or try to use the project to train Donnie by letting him play architect.
Spook, congrats on the successful knee surgery.
Cluster, your comment about leaping tall buildings reminds me of the time I got the go-ahead from a surgeon after knee surgery. He said I could do anything I wanted and I asked if I could play the piano. He said of course, and I said good, because I’ve always wanted to play piano.
That does it! I am getting my knee done. I have always wanted to play piano too.
Good to have you back Spook. Can you jump over tall buildings now?
Probably not for a couple weeks, but it already hurts less than it did before the surgery when I walk up an incline or go up and down steps.
I know everyone is shocked:
The new Huma Abedin emails released by Judicial Watch continue to demonstrate even more pay-for-play, classified information mishandling, and influence peddling between the Clinton State Department and the Clinton Foundation.
But as a high-ranking Dem under the protective wing of the Clintons, her crimes of failing to protect sensitive government information will never be prosecuted, nor will Hillary’s selling of national security to the highest bidder.
“Crime” and “treason” have to be defined according to who is doing what.
And here is even more crap from the left that we need to endure daily:
Why is Colin Kaepernick blocked from the NFL? “I don’t think there’s any question he’s being blackballed,” sportscaster Bob Costas says
Yea that’s right you moron Bob Costas. No NFL team wants Kaepernick because of his “black image”. HE’S A SHITTY QUARTERBACK!! Did that ever register with you Bob????
His disdain for the nation and the disrespect he shows reflect badly on the team. It’s the same reason teams get rid of wife beaters, etc. No team is required to hire someone whose image is that of an America-hating dissident who is more interested in getting fame for himself than for being part of a team.
I don’t know if he is a good quarterback or not. I just know that I have utter contempt for him and all the other morons who pull the same crap. It’s all meaningless posturing, virtue signaling at its most ridiculous.
Does any black man want to fight prejudice against blacks? Then act like a man and talk to your fans about how real men do act—they work hard, they don’t spawn illegitimate children and then leave them fatherless (like Kaepernick’s sperm donor did) and they take responsibility for their actions.
Jesse Jackson, of all people, basically said that black people deserve the image they have when he said that, walking down a street at night and hearing footsteps behind him, he is relieved to see they are of a white person.
If Colin and his fellow whiny-pants would man up and talk to “minorities” about how they have come to be seen the way so many of them are, and make the point that they have created this themselves and they are the only ones who can change its direction, I’ll stop thinking of them as unmanly sniveling losers.
The stereotype of Asians being good students and good at math didn’t just spontaneously erupt like some cultural Big Bang—it is based on the simple documented fact that Asian culture values knowledge and education and expects excellence. When you whine about every single thing that is asked of you—-such as speaking English or working for a living or learning algebra or not being in a violent gang or actually supporting your children—–and demand that little be expected of you, you create the image of lazy illiterate losers.
The President on health insurance, folks:
No-one knew healthcare could be so complicated!
Yeah, but little simoneeeeeeek! you always do have a hard time keeping up.
Simon, do you have any reservations as to your abilities, considering you make fun of a man who is ten times more successful than you personally and financially? Do you realize how that reflects back on you?
simoneeeeeeek! does as you pointed out, Cluster, and pretends that he, a lowly blog troll slug, is competent to criticize the speech patterns of a man who is vastly successful, and has been his whole life.
Here is what baffled poor Simon, with the minor correction needed to help him along what is evidently a very rocky path (for him) to comprehension. Bolded words are my insertions.
Pre-existing conditions are a tough deal. Because you are basically saying from the moment you get the insurance, you’re 21 years old, you start working and you’re paying $12 a year for insurance, and by the time you’re 70, you get a nice plan. Here’s something where you walk up and say, “I want my insurance.”
There. Better, little eeky? If you start paying for insurance when you are 21 and keep it up, there are no “pre-existing conditions” because you have always had the insurance. And at the age of 70 you still have that “nice plan”. But here, in Demville, you can just “…walk up and say, “I want my insurance.” ” And the brilliance of the Dem plan is that (1) no one has to take personal responsibility for his or her own health care by starting a plan early and sticking with it, (2) then an insurance company HAS to accept someone who waits till he has a problem and then “walks up and says “I want my insurance” and (3) all those who did take responsibility for their OWN health care planning now have to pay the freight for the slacker who couldn’t be bothered and now expects Uncle Sugar to take care of him.
Let’s remind Simon and Fielding of what the Democrats did for healthcare:
President Trump has been urged to visit a country fairground in Virginia which has become a makeshift hospital to deal with the US health care crisis. As Republican officials continue to grumble over Obamacare, the reality on the ground is stark – people camping overnight to be first in line for free treatment at a pop-up outdoor medical center. Hundreds of desperate patients, some in their 90s, traveled miles to be seen to by doctors who used animal stalls, articulated lorries and barns to carry out examinations and treatment. Pictures show rows of people lying in beds being treated by doctors walking on dirty tarmac and it was described by one charity worker as a scene that might be expected in countries such as Sudan.
Healthcare is complicated, especially after the Democrats F**KED it up.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4724754/US-fairground-makeshift-hospital.html#ixzz4nlSNFIqL
simoneeeeeeek! does as you pointed out, Cluster, and pretends that he, a lowly blog troll slug, is competent to criticize the speech patterns of a man who is vastly successful, and has been his whole life.
Here is what baffled poor Simon, with the minor correction needed to help him along what is evidently a very rocky path (for him) to comprehension. Bolded words are my insertions.
Pre-existing conditions are a tough deal. Because you are basically saying from the moment you get the insurance, you’re 21 years old, you start working and you’re paying $12 a year for insurance, and by the time you’re 70, you get a nice plan. Here’s something where you walk up and say, “I want my insurance.”
There. Better, little eeky? If you start paying for insurance when you are 21 and keep it up, there are no “pre-existing conditions” because you have always had the insurance. And at the age of 70 you still have that “nice plan”. But here, in Demville, you can just “…walk up and say, “I want my insurance.” ” And the brilliance of the Dem plan is that (1) no one has to take personal responsibility for his or her own health care by starting a plan early and sticking with it, (2) then an insurance company HAS to accept someone who waits till he has a problem and then “walks up and says “I want my insurance” and (3) all those who did take responsibility for their OWN health care planning now have to pay the freight for the slacker who couldn’t be bothered and now expects Uncle Sugar to take care of him.
One of the most comprehensive responses to the global warming/climate change alarmists I’ve seen in a while. Most of his points I’ve seen separately, but he puts it all together in an easy to understand piece.
Actually it’s bizarre we even have to continue this debate. Climate change is a manufactured issue with no merit whatsoever and anyone with an ounce of common sense understands that. The climate alarmists have been wrong every time they make some amateurish fear based prediction, like the following from the article:
….the San Jose Mercury News (Calif.) reported on June 30, 1989: “A senior environmental official at the United Nations, Noel Brown, says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the earth by rising sea levels if global warming is not reversed by the year 2000
The only take away from this statement is that we stop listening to the climate heretics at the UN. Conservatives and people with common sense don’t even share the same reality with progressives, so I think it’s important we stop giving their contrived issues any credence.
On April 28, 1975, Newsweek published a provocative article, “The Cooling World,” in which writer and science editor Peter Gwynne described a significant chilling of the world’s climate, with evidence accumulating “so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it.” He raised the possibility of shorter growing seasons and poor crop yields, famine, and shipping lanes blocked by ice, perhaps to begin as soon as the mid-1980s. Meteorologists, he wrote, were “almost unanimous” in the opinion that our planet was getting colder. Over the years that followed, Gwynne’s article became one of the most-cited stories in Newsweek’s history.
https://longreads.com/2017/04/13/in-1975-newsweek-predicted-a-new-ice-age-were-still-living-with-the-consequences/
But once the Global WARMING hype started, Peter Gwynne decided that prediction was just an “oops” and started looking for a way to regain cred among his fellow “climate scientists”. So CYA time started, with all sorts of explanations and retractions and mumblings about how gee maybe things were not quite what those meteorologists were saying and we need to listen to different meteorologists. But even the efforts to walk back the article had some stumbling blocks. (following emphasis mine)
(One of the climate scientists whose research Gwynne cited in the Newsweek article long maintained that some aspects of the story were basically correct. But George Kukla, who had observed the satellite photos showing increased snow cover over North America during the early 1970s, denied believing that a sustained period of significant cooling had been imminent. He told an interviewer in 2007 that “none of us expected uninterrupted continuation of the trend.” Instead, he viewed the warming that followed as a cyclical and mostly naturally occurring prelude to the start of a cool-down that will become apparent in the middle of this century.)
Uh-oh. To back off on the hyperbole of a coming Ice Age, Kukla did have to explain that the warming period that followed the cooling period that prompted the article was not only just “…a cyclical and mostly naturally occurring..” but that it is a …..prelude to the start of a cool-down that will become apparent in the middle of this century.” (Fran and Ollie declined to comment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kukla,_Fran_and_Ollie)
Oh. So cooling and warming and then cooling again are just naturally occurring cycles. OK, “MOSTLY naturally occurring. Gotta leave some wiggle room in there.
Gwynne admitted that although his article accurately captured threads of meteorological thinking from the 1970s, “I didn’t tell the full story back then.”
OMG!!!!! A “climate scientist” didn’t tell the full story in an explosive and melodramatic story about climate change! Give me a minute here……
He left out the suggestive, but not then conclusive, evidence of CO2 increases in the atmosphere . He could not have possibly known that initiatives to reduce air pollution would quickly erase the blip of cooler temperatures in North America and help send temperatures up.
WHAT???? Reducing air pollution helped “send temperatures UP”? Well, we’d better reverse that ugly trend, doncha think?
Gwynne also said he was over-enthusiastic in writing his Newsweek article and incorrectly suggested a connection between global cooling and severe weather in the U.S. — an unjustified leap. “I also predicted a forthcoming impact of global cooling on the world’s food production that had scant research to back it,” he wrote.
So now we have an admission, though buried in a lot of self-defensive gobbledygook, that Gwynne, a highly respected climate scientist, published a melodramatic opinion on upcoming climate change that would devastate the world with “..scant research to back it up”.
This is obviously supposed to just cancel out the New Ice Age panic so there is room for the new Global Heat Wave panic. But all I saw was proof that these guys just make stuff up as they go along.
This is a really good article, which I recommend.
In 1974, the National Science Board announced: “During the last 20 to 30 years, world temperature has fallen, irregularly at first but more sharply over the last decade. Judging from the record of the past interglacial ages, the present time of high temperatures should be drawing to an end, leading into the next ice age.”
You can’t blame these scientists for sucking up to the fed’s mantra du jour. Scientists live off grants. Remember how Galileo recanted his preaching about the earth revolving around the sun? He, of course, was about to be barbecued by his leaders. Today’s scientists merely lose their cash flow. Threats work.
In 2002 I stood in a room of the Smithsonian. One entire wall charted the cooling of our globe over the last 60 million years. This was no straight line. The curve had two steep dips followed by leveling. There were no significant warming periods. Smithsonian scientists inscribed it across some 20 feet of plaster, with timelines.
Last year, I went back. That fresco is painted over. The same curve hides behind smoked glass, shrunk to three feet but showing the same cooling trend. Hey, why should the Smithsonian put its tax-free status at risk? If the politicians decide to whip up public fear in a different direction, get with it, oh ye subsidized servants. Downplay that embarrassing old chart and maybe nobody will notice.
Sorry, I noticed.
It’s the job of elected officials to whip up panic. They then get re-elected. Their supporters fall in line.
………………………………
The fall of Saigon in the ’70s may have distracted the shrill pronouncements about the imminent ice age. Science’s prediction of “A full-blown, 10,000 year ice age,” came from its March 1, 1975 issue. The Christian Science Monitor observed that armadillos were retreating south from Nebraska to escape the “global cooling” in its Aug. 27, 1974 issue.
That armadillo caveat seems reminiscent of today’s tales of polar bears drowning due to glaciers disappearing.
https://www.forbes.com/2009/12/03/climate-science-gore-intelligent-technology-sutton.html
I’m having a hard time dealing with the tragedy of frost-bitten armadillos running for their lives. Ever seen an armadillo run? It’s got to be even worse weighed down with ice.
I actually sat through this segment this morning and was amazed at the level of stupidity Democrats have risen to. Al Franken is embarrassing:
http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/climate-expert-says-he-was-demoted-after-speaking-out-1007517251553?cid=sm_npd_ms_fb_ma
Can you believe the temerity of the Trump administration to reassign this obviously astute “public servant” to another job?? Doesn’t Trump understand that we will all be dead soon if he doesn’t act now on climate change???
Sorry, Cluster, but my stupidity threshold is a lot higher than yours, and I simply can’t/won’t spend a moment watching this drivel. So what, exactly, did this fine public servant reveal that got him demoted? About what did he so courageously “speak out”?
If he spoke out with more of the claptrap about AGW then he should have been demoted for being really bad at his job. I know, that is a radical concept and the Left simply rejects it.
(A few years ago I was talking to a couple of young guys about why I pay some people more than others and I said it was because some people were just worth more than others. My goodness, the pain and suffering this comment caused! There were actually quivering lips as these little snowflakes asked how I could possibly say some people are worth more than others? I explained that in the eyes of God we are all equal. In the eyes of the law we are all equal. But in the eyes of an employer, an employee’s worth to that employer depends on the value of his or her work. That was met with big eyes, open mouths and absolute utter astonishment. What an idea! I tried to explain. “So if you (pointing to Snowflake # 1) get twice as much work done as he does (pointing to Snowflake # 2) and he, on the other hand, not only does less work but doesn’t do it very well so I have to pay you (S # 1) to redo a lot of it, and on top of that he costs me about $25 a week in broken equipment, why should I pay him the same amount I pay you?” Because, because, because doncha see we are all equal and that is only FAIR.)
It’s the mindset of the Left. It’s the Participation Trophy mentality in the workplace.
Its corollary is the concept of “intellectual”—as Thomas Sowell wrote, an intellectual is merely someone whose only contribution to society is ideas. They don’t have to be good ideas. They don’t have to be right. They don’t even have to make sense. Merely having nothing much except ideas makes one an intellectual, and it’s a permanent designation.
Just curious. Why did they feel the need to “smash” the hard drives?
http://www.dailywire.com/news/18925/fbi-seizes-smashes-hard-drives-dws-it-aides-robert-kraychik?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=072417-news&utm_campaign=benshapiro
Of course if there were risque pics of DWS on that hard drive well then…… no one wants to see those.
Let’s see—these people are under investigation for defrauding the government, took expensive government equipment home with them and then damaged it and abandoned it, have shady if not outright criminal histories, are hiding out from authorities who try to contact them through certified mail and were never vetted for qualifying for access to confidential or sensitive government information.
And DWS still defends them and still employs them.
Wasserman-Schultz still employs the Awans as IT administrators with her congressional staff budget. In May, she indirectly threatened Capitol Police Chief Matthew Verderosa with “consequences” for keeping a laptop belonging to Awan as evidence in an ongoing criminal investigation.
Maybe we should impeach DWS and every other House person who employed these criminals and never even bothered to find out if they were actually working. Stupidity might not be an impeachable offense, but there are certainly plenty of others that qualify.
BTW, do you wonder, as I do, how much dirt these guys have on DWS and the other Dems who hired these people, to get them to fight so frantically to protect them and to keep them on various payrolls? It’s gotta be serious.
As for needing to physically destroy these hard drives, I wondered about that as well. Weren’t some of Hillary’s things physically destroyed, too? Blackberries, laptops, etc? Is that what you do to hide electronic data when wiping things with a cloth isn’t enough?
And I am amazed that you can even imagine that a risque picture of DWS could even EXIST.
And I am amazed that you can even imagine that a risque picture of DWS could even EXIST.
LOL.
You are right, IIRC there was more than one cell phone destroyed from the Clinton campaign and strangely enough the DOJ didn’t seem to want to know why. And how about the murder of Seth Rich? Oddly enough, the police and the DOJ have no interest in investigating this either. Weird, right?