Sixteen Years have passed – incredible that it has been that long, already. I can still remember it very vividly. Here’s the kicker, there are more and more adult Americans who can’t remember that day, or only remember it vaguely. We’ve fooled around with this issue, especially since 2009. This is a war that should have been over by 2006, at the latest. But because we’ve been dictated to by political cowards, we’re still at it. The fighting and the dying continue. Meanwhile, the real threat of Iran and China continues to grow. I hope that we finally obtain the courage to deal squarely with Islamist terrorism and finish the war.
California may move it’s primary to March – thus likely providing a boost to Kamala Harris’ Presidential ambitions (a lot of Democrats see her as Obama II: there is the similarity that both of them are all Narrative, but the harsh reality is that Narrative simply won’t go far any more: hard to catch lightening in a bottle twice). On the other hand, it could just be lobbing an expensive hand grenade into the Democrat primary system. Think about it: if Favorite Daughter Harris wins (as would be expected) then all the other candidates would say, “ignore it, Harris had a built-in advantage”. Meanwhile, if Jerry Brown jumps in (and his ego might make him do it), then you could have a bruising primary battle where no one emerges a clear winner. The bottom line for Democrats, in my view, is that their coalition is massively strained and likely to burst asunder. The MSM and Experts keep yammering on about GOP divisions (and they are deep and real – but the divisions are not among the GOP base, but among the fading GOP leadership), but the reality is that the Democrat base is in a state of flux…there are elements in it who very much insist upon the most extreme leftwing positions and won’t accept any watering down of them: that is not the worst of it. The worst of it is that each of these positions is political poison outside of the deep blue areas of the country and the adoption of all or some of them by whomever the Democrats nominate will make it next to impossible to appeal to an electoral college majority.
Antifa is willing to break bones and invade homes – I am very certain they won’t try this in the deep red areas of the country. I do believe, however, that antifa radicalism will turn off a lot of moderates who would normally never go for Trump…but if faced in 2020 with a choice between Trump and a Democrat who is in any way tied to antifa, such moderates will either go Trump, or stay home.
Story is that Hillary was so confident of victory that she purchased a second home in New York to accommodate White House staff. The circle of humiliation is complete…
Franco Harris suggests that Mean Joe Greene would have had a way of managing Kaepernick’s disrespectful behavior.
Millenial is upset that she keeps hooking up with Trump supporters. Please indulge your sense of humor freely.
Robert Stacy McCain with an obituary for a recently deceased feminist icon.
Blogs For Victory 
Proving that self awareness and intelligence are not character traits required by celebrities, I give you Jim Carey and Michael Moore:
“I don’t know, but if we don’t, then there will be another form. You know, and we may have to struggle, like other civilizations have. Like you know, people did during the czar, and things like that. We may have to struggle, because we deserve it, frankly. So much of our culture is being held back in the stone age by greed. And everything in our culture seems to have behind it some greed motivation–profit motivation, that keeps us from going forward, keeps us from having alternative food, from wearing new things and having good schools.”
Carrey continued, “Trump is a fucking imbecile, and I’m kind of glad he is, because if he were somewhat efficient, he’d actually be passing some of this sadism that passes as legislation. I swear to God. I don’t like him, and I think he’s poisonous, an egomaniac and a lunatic, but I know that there’s another side to the story that balances everything, and it’s keeping people like Paul Ryan from taking everybody’s healthcare away, or passing initiatives that are devoid of compassion. Cruel, you know? Absolute cruelty.”
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/culture/corinne-weaver/2017/09/11/jim-carrey-americans-may-have-struggle-people-did-under-czar
I always thought that Carrey’s manic persona had to be rooted in psychological imbalances. I sometimes almost felt guilty about laughing at him, because it felt like laughing at a disability, but he used to be able to channel it well enough to make it look like comedy. Even so, it often made me a little uncomfortable, as it seemed like a peek into a very disturbed mind. But it looks like the gear teeth have worn down enough to let everything start slipping, and peeking is no longer necessary. It all seems to be right out in the open now.
However, being far far away from Jim’s wholly unique reality, I am actually able to wear new things, and have the freedom to evaluate any “alternate foods” that may come my way. Right now when I think of “alternate foods” I think of Soylent Green, but maybe that’s just me. I’m also smart enough to know that a contract with an entity in which the entity pays for healthcare in exchange for consideration is not the same as healthcare itself, but then again, maybe that’s just me. (It’s certainly not a concept understood by the Left, and certainly not by the looniest of the Loony Left, a title that Mr. Carrey seems to be pursuing.)
BTW, I notice that Newsbusters tried to insert a little coherency into Carrey’s rant, changing the wording from “during the czar” to “under the czar”. Gotta love those Complicit Agenda Media, always ready and willing to lend a helping hand to fellow Lefties.
Dennis Prager has an excellent article in NR: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/451267/leftism-liberalism-have-almost-nothing-common
This is something we have discussed here, and he makes some excellent points. The comments section shows predictable responses. The Lefties hate what he says and whine about it. The conservatives agree, for the most part.
I think he should have gone farther, because his article doesn’t do much to address the confusion that is the result of the Left hijacking a word because of its emotional appeal. This is what happened when Leftists, representing one of the most illiberal political philosophies in the world, decided to call that philosophy “liberal”. It is what happened when the Left, one of the most regressive political philosophies in the world, hijacked the word “progressive”.
I am, politically speaking, a hard-core conservative—speaking in terms of 21st Century American politics. I have no idea what a “conservative” might be in South Africa, or Tahiti. And I don’t care. In 21st Century American politics, a conservative is one who believes the nation is best governed by its own charter and constitution, which is based on the concept of a federal government severely restricted as to size, scope and power, with most authority held by the states, or by the people.
I am also liberal, and progressive—-but not A Liberal, or A Progressive. In my mind, when those words are used in a political sense, they must be capitalized, to show that they do not refer to the traditional, dictionary, definitions of the words.
We let the Left get away with their word games and not only allow but enable the semantic infiltration of Leftist uses and abuses of language. We have to start calling the Left on this, and pointing out what they are doing. Prager is good at this, but he should have gone farther, and given us a way to differentiate between a liberal and a Liberal, a progressive person and a Progressive. The use and abuse of these two words is a great place to start this educational process, as they are words that appeal to the goodness in people, the desire to be open-minded and forward-thinking, but when used politically they align these people with truly malignant agendas that represent the opposite of the true meanings of the words.
We could start to slow this death spiral of semantic infiltration and redefinition of terms, but we lack a clear and coherent understanding of the phenomenon as well as a clear and coherent agenda for dealing with it.
I think the broad majority is with you – I, on the other hand, am a bit of the odd man out. And that is how it should be, because I am rapidly changing in how I want things to come out. I’ve yammered on endlessly about Distributism, of course, but it is more than that. I once read that King St Louis of France supposedly said words to the effect of: “you should argue patiently with reason with someone for as long as you can, but if they won’t eventually see reason, the only thing you can do is put a sword in them as far as it will go”. Now, I’m not about to go grab my sword, but I take that in the sense that there comes a moment when further argument isn’t worthwhile – to treat lunatics as if they have something to say only allows lunatics to eventually set policy. We’ve seen that all through the past fifty years. Time to call an end to it.
The hard part, for us, will be to gradually get rid of those on our side who still insist we treat insanity as a regular part of the political discourse. I like people like Paul Ryan. I think he’s a good man with a lot of good ideas…but he’s still living in a world where there’s a point in actually taking into consideration the views of the left. Indeed, he even worries about falling into disfavor with them…which is asinine because you’ll always fall into disfavor with a lunatic. Even if you don’t do anything, they’ll eventually make up a reason for hating you. This doesn’t preclude, by the way, making short and fast deals to get particular things done – but it does mean that we stop talking to them as if they were rational people.
Trump has blown away some of the cobwebs, and that is good. His “all sides” comment was, in retrospect, brilliant. All he had to do was wait for the far left to prove his point, and it only took a couple weeks for them to oblige. All of those on our side who knocked Trump for the comment look like fools…and fools who are clearly on their way out. And as we get such people out, we can replace them with people who know that when push comes to shove, it is time to stick by their own side. What is really odd about it is that for someone as smart as Ryan, he just can’t see it…he’s got all these good ideas and he could get almost all of them locked into legislation if he’d just give up on treating the left as if they are sane…as if their views of Trump need to be taken into consideration. Forget them! Move on, as it were. Stand by your side and get your stuff done…the left won’t shout any louder and, meanwhile, our stuff gets done. And any non-left action works to the weakening of the left. The more we do, the stronger we get and the weaker the left becomes. Keep doing it long enough and the left will eventually be excluded from all policy making power.
Of course there is the risk that as we do things, we’ll piss off a majority and lose an election – and that is what people like Ryan fear most of all. We’ve got to get past that fear. Democrats don’t like losing elections, but they don’t fear losing, either. ObamaCare is a complete failure – what is their response? They are working towards making support for single payer a political litmus test. They are working, that is, towards a day when they will have the White House and Congress and they’ll pass it…and if it costs them the next election, they are ok with it. Especially because they are (rightly) convinced that once they enact something, our side will never repeal it. This is why we must do what we want – even if it costs us terribly at the polls in the short term.
I once read that King St Louis of France supposedly said words to the effect of: “you should argue patiently with reason with someone for as long as you can, but if they won’t eventually see reason, the only thing you can do is put a sword in them as far as it will go”.
I hope it doesn’t come to that, but if the shoe were on the other foot, there are many on the Left who wouldn’t hesitate to do the same to us. Historically the Left owns violence as a political tactic. Unfortunately for them, at least the current crop, the majority are afraid of their own shadow. When the shooting starts, the safe spaces are going to fill up pretty fast.
I’m not saying we shouldn’t do what we need to do. I am just saying that part of that is calling out the Left every time they try to pull some semantic shenanigans, and point out what is wrong with what they are saying.
It’s not as if there is only one issue to deal with, which can be dealt with by putting a sword in. There are many fronts to this battle, and I think the biggest (in terms of scope) is that of fighting for the minds of the people.
We have talked a lot here about the power of the Left’s appeal to the preference of most people to be good, to be kind, to be generous, to be helpful, and to think of themselves as good people. This is what makes the Left so powerful—it is a shortcut to the HIgher Moral Ground, telling people they are all of those wonderful things if they only follow the Left. By promoting a massive Central Authority that gives a lot of stuff to people, they can feel that they have been good, kind, generous and helpful. And the chosen language of the Left reinforces that belief, by letting them call themselves Progressive, and Liberal. Those words carry with them really nice imagery.
My point is, we let them get away with hijacking those words, purely for the power they carry, without pushing back.
I think the vast majority of those who vote Dem in this country do so because they truly believe the party is the “good” party—-and that is reinforced by its own labels. They blandly accept those labels at face value, without looking behind them to see if they are accurate. And they move on, even if only subconsciously, to natural conclusions—that is, “if am am liberal and I have an opponent, that must mean he is not liberal”. “If I am progressive, and I have an opponent, that must mean he is the opposite, and is against progress.” These are dangerous and divisive conclusions, and am saying we need to strip away the fantasy and show that they are false conclusions, built on lies. We are already seeing the fruits of that mentality, as now so many basically decent Leftists lured into that camp by its instant branding of them as good people because of what they are FOR are mindlessly moving to the next step of hatred for the Other, which of course is accompanied by the sense that no matter what is done to that Other, it deserves it.
Allowing semantic creep to proceed without contradiction and clarity feeds the very problems you want to address with a sword.
……is that of fighting for the minds of the people.
I am not at all convinced that many on the left have much of a mind and I am being serious. I know several of them personally, ranging in ages from early 20’s to late 70’s and to a person, none of them think very deeply, or critically at all, so trying to appeal to them on an intellectual level is a complete waste of time. Case in point – many of them buy into the current narrative that Trump is a racist, which of course completely ignores Trump’s 30+ years of a very public life, spent mostly as a NY Democrat, who has employed tens of thousands of people and won awards from the NAACP. But not only are they not aware of that, they have no interest in finding out and instead just regurgitate the progressive narrative.
Now the Dems are pushing Medicare for all again, which of course requires them to ignore the recent efforts by a few states (Bernie Sanders Vermont being one of them) to offer single payer, but had to abandon the effort because of the costs. This also requires them to ignore the fact that Medicare is a wholly insufficient coverage plan that requires supplement plans costing upwards of $500-$800 additional costs each month. This also requires them to ignore the fact that many doctors no longer accept medicare because of the paperwork and low reimbursement rates.
Being a progressive requires a high level of a “willing suspension of disbelief”, and it is impossible to intelligently debate the governance of a country when you don’t even share the same reality.
This also requires them to ignore the fact that Medicare is a wholly insufficient coverage plan that requires supplement plans costing upwards of $500-$800 additional costs each month.
Which also highlights another unintended consequence of single payer: the private insurance market will cease to exist, meaning those millions of people who are on Medicare Advantage plans who currently pay no suplemental premiums will be up the proverbial creek. In addition, multiply the tens of billions in Medicare fraud every year by about 3, and you begin to see just how unworkable Medicare for all really is.
As one who tends to complain about passively allowing the Left to assume moral and intellectual superiority, I had a reaction to a recent newsletter from Audible.com in which the silliness of the pseudo-intellectual posturing of some Miss America Trump-bashing was praised. This is what I sent to the company. We will see if they cancel my account.
I pay quite a bit of money to Audible and have sent many people here, FOR YOUR PRODUCT. I know it must be tempting to use your platform to proclaim your political sentiments, but this is not the place. Find a place that is not supported, AS A BUSINESS, by people who find them objectionable. Your editorializing about the mindless parroting of pop culture “ideas” at the Miss America pageant is one example, as is your fawning over Hillary Clinton’s newest explanation for why she failed.
I have no problem with reading swooning praise for something I find offensive, by readers who have paid for the product and have every right to tell us how they feel about it. That is not the same, by a long shot, as Audible using its entry into my home to promote your political ideas and agendas. I don’t invite you in to lecture me——I allow you in because you provide a product I like very much, which has become a part of my life.
Preening from an imagined position on a Higher Moral Ground is never attractive, and I think you would be well served to stop it.
There is a book review about a book that addresses many of the themes we discuss here,
In a rich and detailed new book, Bureaucracy in America: The Administrative State’s Challenge to Constitutional Government, political scientist Joseph Postell analyzes the evolution of the administrative state and assesses its constitutional standing.
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Postell begins with how the founders inherited and refined a set of principles that defined constitutional administrative power. These were “lawmaking by elected representatives, unity of the executive, the separation of powers, and judicial review of administrative action.” These principles reduced administrative discretion, preserved the president’s responsibility for administrative decisions, and empowered the courts to invoke judicial review of administrative actions.
Today’s bureaucracy clearly does not embody those principles. It is staffed by career employees, protected by civil service statutes, who are empowered to formulate rules that have the force of law, implement those rules with considerable discretion, and adjudicate disputes that arise from their application. Postell’s book chronicles the shift from one type of administrative state to the other.
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2017/09/20020/?utm_source=The+Witherspoon+Institute&utm_campaign
It turns out that Civil Service Reform in the 19th century was a bad idea – the original selling point on it was that we needed to protect civil servants because that way we’d get a better civil service…which might in some ways be true, but it was also an insult to average Americans. It was an assertion that John Doe on the street didn’t have the wit to work in a government department and only someone with special knowledge could do such a thing. The old spoils system – whereby pretty much every government employee was at risk of being removed every time a new President came in – was bad, but the idea that there are people better equipped than the average American to run the government is an anti-republican idea.
We need to strike a different balance – a system whereby it is neither “stroke of the pen” nor “lengthy lawsuit” to get an employee out.
I’ve been saying for years that one of the most important pieces of legislation we need to push is a massive reform of the Civil Service laws. If there was ever an example of Unintended Consequences, this law has to be it. We need to strike a different balance – a system whereby it is neither “stroke of the pen” nor “lengthy lawsuit” to get an employee out. People in the private sector already have protections—they can’t be fired on whims. We need to look at the big picture, and that includes the fact that these protections were not in place with the Civil Service law was passed, at a time when people in the private sector COULD be fired at will. In the current employment environment, there are enough protections to keep civil service personnel from being fired due to politics.
There are several areas of legislation I think should be addressed, and this is one of them. Another is to make being in this country without our permission a felony, not the equivalent of a traffic ticket. If the penalty for breaking a law is a frown and a stern “Tsk, Tsk” that basically trivializes the law itself, saying it’s really no big deal.
About 15 years ago Rush Limbaugh started speaking to the “feminization of our culture” and the negative impacts that will have, and I have to say we have reached that point. We have become an over emotional society that values “feelings” over “thought” and espouses the scourge of “toxic masculinity”, to the point that I don’t even recognize who these “pajama boy” millennial men are any more. We have become a society that no longer values the role of men, the role of fathers, and the sheer will, strength, and determination that only men can bring to the table.
Another “willing suspension of disbelief” that is required of progressives is the notion of equality. We are not equal, We never have been and thankfully, we never will be. And you can not legislate equality.
And you can not legislate equality.
Well, you can, but the legislatees will always be less equal than the legislators. When government imposes equality on its citizens, it will always be based on the lowest common denominator.
It’s pretty funny how quickly Lefties backtrack when you take “leveling the playing field” (establishing equality) to themselves. As the average IQ is 100, shouldn’t smarter people be given drugs, or surgery, to bring their IQs down? Once we establish the average degree of attractiveness, anyone who is more attractive should be altered to fit that standard. Why should taller people have an advantage in basketball? Surely there is a way to make football equally playable by everyone, eliminating the privileges of size and skill.
We could do what the USSR did and decide how many square feet of living space a person needs (that is, be entitled to occupy) and make all housing look the same, with no advantage in size or decor due to wealth or even to taste.
Beige is a perfectly good color for a car, and no one needs a big car much less a red or black one. This is prime territory for establishing equality, and if engine size is equalized as well, down to 4 cylinders, think of the lives that could be saved!
We should all wear uniforms, preferably designed to hide physical attributes. And so on, all in the name of equality, of course.
Oh, and let’s start with government officials, just so they can inspire us all…………….
And not to be outdone by all the other lunacy currently taking place within the Democrat party, Antifa issues another brain dead claim:
Anti-fascist activists, or “antifa,” increasingly mobilized in the wake of President Trump’s election, are unapologetic about what they describe as the necessary use of violence to combat authoritarianism.
First of all, it needs to be widely known that Antifa members are all Bernie Sanders supporters, which is a disturbing glimpse into their political intelligence, as if fighting fascism with fascism wasn’t glaringly stupid enough. I will say that if I ever do confront an Antifa moron, I might just get physical. Watching an Antifa member bleed and recoil in pain would be very therapeutic.
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/350524-antifa-activists-say-violence-is-necessary
And one other serious question – why haven’t we sent a seal team into North Korea to assassinate the Fat Kid? I understand the unspoken agreement between countries to not assassinate leaders, but I think everyone understands the need for this, and there would be no repercussions.
If I am POTUS, I order that today.
I read that US sniper actually had Kim Jong Ugly in his sights but was told to not pull the trigger. If we can do it once we can do it again…with a different C.O.
That’s too bad it didn’t happen earlier. It shouldn’t be too difficult to pull of.
Please everyone, don’t over react to the bombing in London. We don’t want to anger the Muslims.
I don’t have time to fret about some run-of-the mill terrorist attack, not when I have to worry about “weather warfare”—-the government weaponizing hurricanes.
Scott Stevens is a “weather truther,” i.e. a person who believes hurricanes and other natural disasters are created by the government.
Stevens believes the US government created Hurricane Sandy, a superstorm that flooded New York City in October 2012. He also believes the Yakuza (Japanese mafia) created Hurricane Katrina to avenge victims of the 1945 bombing of Hiroshma.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
“It is 400 miles across and… the main chunk of Florida is 400 miles across. This is not a regular storm,” says Stauber. “This is absolutely weather warfare. This is not a natural storm. And they’re going to guide it all the way up the east coast – I guarantee you – for maximum destruction.”
http://thedailygrind.news/tdgn_wp/
Hilarious!!
So according to this guy, the US government has full control over climate change? That has to be good news, right?
It’s not just us. The Japanese mafia is doing it, too, evidently because they are holding a grudge about Horoshima. It’s got to just be a matter of time before Black Lives Matters gets it figured out, and then Katy bar the door!
But yes—-after I left I realized I had missed the point of your post—if we can create hurricanes, and direct them, then we must have the whole climate change thing well in hand. Good point. I can finally quit worrying.
Now I just have to wonder how I got to my age without realizing that Florida is divided into “chunks”.
Again, it’s that self awareness thing.
“I think that this president and some of the people around him pose a clear and present danger to our country.” – Hillary Clinton
Hey, Hillary knows of what she speaks. She has already experienced the clear and present danger of having truths about her revealed, and is more aware than any of us about what still can come to light. Of course, to the great narcissist Hillary, what is bad for her is bad for the country.
This is an excellent article on how the Complicit Agenda Media hype “right-wing” speakers as dangerous. The tongue-in-cheek parody of Leftist media frenzy, its wholly invented story about “Kazika The Mad Jap”, doesn’t even seem far-fetched, as it so clearly echos the hysteria of the current media in their efforts to stir up hatred and fear. Change only a few words and names and it could come out of the headlines of many American newspapers.
http://theothermccain.com/2017/09/15/exactly-how-did-benshapiro-become-berkeleys-kazika-the-mad-jap
A Jewish White Supremacist…but, I’ve also seen on social media the assertion that there are Black White Supremacists, as well. As one jokester put it, “white supremacist” has come to mean, “someone I don’t like”. That, in itself, wouldn’t be entirely lunatic but we’ve also got people who hate others and really have no idea why…someone has just said, “so and so is bad”, and they are off to the races, mask and Molotov cocktail in hand.
We should start to use the word “bigot” to describe the Left, and “bigotry” to describe their attitudes. As they ascribe certain characteristics to large groups of people—all white people are racists, all Trump voters are racists, etc.—that should be called out for what it is. Bigotry.
And we can support that argument. We have anti-white bigotry, anti-conservative bigotry, anti-Christian bigotry, etc.
That, and laughing at them. Realizing that someone is of a different color or ethnicity is not racism—-ascribing any characteristic, whether malignant or benign, to skin color or ethnicity IS racism. When calling a black thug a thug is described as “racist” the person doing the accusing is really making the statement that thuggery and dark skin are so closely linked that to object to one is to malign the other. That is, that the accusation itself is what is racist.
Most lately, there is outrage—OUTRAGE !!! I tell you!!—about the utter and despicable racism and general insensitivity of Hobby Lobby selling raw cotton bolls on cotton plant stems. Because, you see, so many black slaves were forced to pick cotton bolls exactly like these, off cotton plant stems exactly like these, it HURTS to have to actually SEE them. Now. Almost 200 years later. Oh, the agony!
Who knew that black people (and probably White Guilt people) can’t even be faced with the terrifying spectre of having to see raw cotton! OMG, it has to be as traumatic as seeing banana peels! Does this mean that black people can’t wear clothes made of cotton, at least not without significant psychological harm?
Didn’t black slaves also have to harvest tobacco? Do these people fall apart every time they see someone smoking? Do black people refuse to smoke because of the anguish caused by ripping off the scabs of old wounds? (Wounds suffered by people long dead, but let’s not get into that.)
Is freaking out about wounds suffered by others as bad as other forms of cultural appropriation?
They are giving us all this ammunition, and we aren’t using it.
I guess I should have clued that black lady I saw buying some of those cotton balls that she was perpetuating the pain of slavery. But, she’d probably have had me committed if I’d done that.
Thing is, hardly anyone is as actually insane as our leftists…as you’ve seen, Robert Stacy McCain digs deep into their thoughts and it is clear that normal people just can’t think like that. You’ve got to deliberately make yourself insane to really believe the utter garbage these people put out…and, my contention is that most of it is put out because there are government funds (one way or another) for putting out said garbage. Take away the funds, and the garbage dries up.