There’s a story out that Tillerson is decimating the staff at State:
The State Department is in disarray and losing essential leaders at a “dizzying speed” under the Trump administration, according to an essay written by a top ambassador.
Plummeting morale, a rash of top diplomats jumping ship and a hiring freeze imposed under Trump have sent shock waves through the Foreign Service, wrote Ambassador Barbara Stephenson, the president of the Foreign Service officers’ union.
“There is simply no denying the warning signs that point to mounting threats to our institution — and to the global leadership that depends on us. There is no denying that our leadership ranks are being depleted at a dizzying speed.”…
First off, this sort of thing explains the rapid decline in the number of leaks. Secondly, it shows that Tillerson – and Trump – are determined to have people they can rely on to carry out Trump Administration policy. I can’t quite say where Trump policy is going – he’s keeping to his rule of not telegraphing his punches. We can glean a bit from statements and from actions, but the end game is hazy. In the Middle East, for instance, it appears that Trump has decided to go with Saudi Arabia and Israel as our primary partners…which is a bit of a fall-back to the pre-2001 US policy, but with a twist in that we seem to be willing to aid Israel and Saudi Arabia to take concrete actions against enemies – theirs and ours. If it works – and this will be highly dependent upon the new leadership in Saudi Arabia prevailing – then Trump might break the log-jam in the Middle East. We’ll just have to see – but, meanwhile, he’s going to have his people doing it his way.
Whether or not Trump’s people are going to be good at this remains to be seen. At all events, however, whomever he picks can’t possibly do worse than those who are being pushed out…the same sort of people who have been running US foreign policy for a century and have never, not once, got things right. Remember, these are the guys who started off this century of foreign policy folly by figuring we should break up the Hapsburg Empire and keep Germany intact. From there, they went on to such genius things as normalizing relations with Stalin’s Russia, using the UN as cover for us to get into Korea with a declaration of war, signed arms control agreements which merely hamstrung American power and, to wrap it all up, signed off on allowing Iran to move forward with nukes under Obama. These people aren’t just wrong, they are kind of stupid. Breaking the chain by clearing them out and bringing in new voices can only help.
Blogs For Victory 
I personally think Trump’s foreign policy is A++. On this most recent foreign trip his messages have been tough, direct, and measured, and he has gained the respect from South Korea, China, and Russia. He stood in front of the Chinese and told them point bank that the trade imbalance will not stand … and for that he was applauded and invited to have dinner in the Forbidden City where no other President has dined. In South Korea he point blank called out North Korea and what WILL happen if they continue to threaten American and South Korean cities, and for that he received two standing ovations. World leaders are realizing that for the first time in a long while, America has a President that says what he means, and means what he says ….. and that’s what they respect.
Good article over at Daily Caller:
“Liberalism is our biggest threat to our culture and our way of life,” says Steele, the author of five books………For those who succumb to liberalism’s group identity, he says, it can retard human development for those claiming victimhood, while falsely elevating those who wrap themselves in empty idealisms and popularized notions like “diversity, “multiculturalism” and “inclusion.”
http://dailycaller.com/2017/11/12/watch-shelby-steele-explain-race-issues-in-america-video/
Hilarious
Steve Schmidt: “The moral rot in the Republican Party – the rot, the stench, the cancer of Bannonism is a plague on this country.”
Wrong again Steve. It is a plague on your position and power as well as the positions and power of your establishment colleagues, and that is why you are all so alarmed by it, and afraid of it ……
Typical Leftist pap—nothing specific, which could be rebutted by fact, nothing of any substance at all, just a lot of vague emotionally laden insults. It’s what they do.
The rot, the stench, the cancer—oh me, oh my. How distressing!
It seems to work, on a certain category of the mindless who are always happy to see a new justification for their bigotry. But I think it is starting to push rational people away, especially those honest enough to start looking at the Clintons, now that so much has finally been revealed about them. It took a series of end runs around the Complicit Agenda Media to get a lot of this information out there, and the resolute donkeys are still pretending they haven’t heard, or think it is all a smear campaign, but we have absolute facts standing up against overwrought rhetoric like “the rot, the stench, the cancer…”
While I agree with your general point, I’m not sure US diplomacy can be blamed for Germany and Europe during WW1 & 2 and Stalin. I’m not sure there were any good choices. Whatever the US did probably wouldn’t have made much difference. (And who knows, we could have screwed up worse and lost either of those world wars or the been destroyed by Communism.) That being said, US foreign policy since Reagan has clearly been a disaster.
The thing about the Hapsburgs and Germany is that our actions regarding both in 1917-1918 revealed a stunning level of ignorance. For centuries, the wise had helped the Hapsburgs preserve their place in Europe because the essentially pacifist Hapsburgs were a counter-weight to whatever nation in Europe was getting most aggressive. The Hapsburg Empire was an oddity – not really so much a nation but the personal property of the Hapsburg family, built up over centuries by purchase and marriage (in a literal sense, the Hapsburgs owned all the lands they ruled over, though vast tracts had been consigned to various Hapsburg servants of the centuries…the Esterhazy’s of Hungary had over a million acres, for instance). The thing which disturbed the balance of Europe was Bismarck’s creation of a united Germany which excluded the Hapsburgs. Wise policy would have been to keep the Hapsburg dominions intact (with reforms) while dethroning the Hohenzollerns in favor of the Wittlesbachs…but, our guys didn’t even see it, because they didn’t know. And kept on not knowing all through the last 100 years.
Back from an all-too-short week in Fort Myers, FL, visiting long-time friends. 85 and sunny when we left, 36 and raining when we arrived back in Indiana last night. My wife doesn’t particularly care for Florida since we lived there in the late 60’s, but even she was ready to turn around and go back as soon as we landed. The husband and wife we visited would fit right in on this blog. Both are avid Trump supporters, and we had some good discussions.
First off, this sort of thing explains the rapid decline in the number of leaks. Secondly, it shows that Tillerson – and Trump – are determined to have people they can rely on to carry out Trump Administration policy.
The decline in leaks has been pretty hard to miss, and I had sort of thought it might be some behind-the-scenes purging by the Trump Administration. My advice: keep it up.
THIN THE HERD
Pretty good analysis of the elections in Virginia.
From the YCMTSU file:
https://conservativetribune.com/gov-removes-penalty-guns-crimes/
I just saw your link Spook, which I also commented on. It’s hard to wrap your head around isn’t it. And yet at the next shooting, Gov. Brown will lead the “gun control” chants ….. WOW
Obama should have taken that call I guess …….
“Governor Romney, I’m glad that you recognize Al Qaeda as a threat because a few months ago, when you were asked what’s the biggest geo-political threat facing America, you said Russia.”…..“Not Al Qaeda, you said Russia,” Obama continued. “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because you know, the Cold War has been over for 20 years.” – EX President Barack Hussein Obama
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper says – “The threat posed by Russia, as John just said, is manifest and obvious. To try to paint it in any other way is, I think, astounding, and in fact, poses a peril to this country,”
California’s liberal Gov. Jerry Brown just signed a new law that would actually lessen prison sentences for those convicted of a crime with a gun — on the grounds that such laws are hardest on minorities.
Any comments?
What a piece of s——, worst GOP candidate ever:
As a fifteen year old, she worked(?) at a restaurant/diner that Roy Moore frequented. She recalls exactly where he sat. At the time, she claims that Moore would “pull the ends of her hair” flirtatiously.
When she turned sixteen, she brought her yearbook into work with her. He asked if he could write in her yearbook. She agreed.
“to a sweeter, more beautiful girl….Merry Christmas…Love, Roy Moore D.A.”
A little while later, she was waiting outside for her boyfriend to pick her up and drive her home from work. Moore exited the restaurant and noticed that her boyfriend was not there, offering her a ride home. She addressed him “Mr. Moore” as he was an esteemed district attorney and saw him as an authority figure.
She agreed to the ride. She recalls the shoes that Mr. Moore was wearing as well as the car he was driving. Instead of driving to the street, Mr. Moore drove her around the back of the restaurant. He stopped the car and put it in park (between the dumpster and the back of the restaurant). It was “dark and deserted”.
She asked him “what are you doing?”. Instead of answering, he put his hands on her breasts. She tried to leave, but he reached over and locked the door. She began to yell at him to stop. Instead of stopping, he tried to force her head onto his crotch.
He also tried to pull her shirt off. She struggled (good Lord this is getting difficult to type). Eventually, he gave up. He looked at her and sternly said: “you’re just a child. I am the district attorney of (inaudible) County. If you tell anybody, nobody will believe you”.
He pushed her out and burned rubber out of the parking lot (okay, I’m officially pissed off now). She got up and tried to “pull herself together”. Her boyfriend arrived. It was late and dark. She did not say anything to him as to what had occurred. Her boyfriend had a very violent temper and she was afraid that he would retaliate.
When she got home, she went to her room. The following morning, her neck had bruising on it. In the days following, she covered the bruising with makeup. She was scared to come forward as she was afraid Mr. Moore would come after her.
The day afterwards, she quit her job at the restaurant. She told her sister a couple of years after the event. She did not tell her mother until — OH WAIT, she now says that she supported Donald Trump. She says it has nothing to do with partisan politics. It has to do with Mr. Moore and Mr. Moore alone.
She said she was inspired to come forward after others “courageously came forward”.
“Mr. Moore attacked me when I was a child”, she says, “I was frightened by his position and his power.”
She says that he no longer has any power over her and that she no longer lives in fear of him.
Family values my ass.
Just put some ice on it
I kept waiting for Simple Simon to point out the ludicrous elements of this tale. But no, he seems to have bought into it, hook line and sinker. He even got all worked up over it. Oh my! Simon got irate! Actually, he is “officially pissed off…” (I can just imagine the levels of rage and fury he must experience when reading of the underage sex slaves on the Lolita Express…)
We are to believe that a District Attorney would risk leaving bruises on an underage girl, and just drive away after molesting her, or at least trying to. OK, I am sure the rabid Left will have some explanation for this—he was arrogant, he felt invincible, whatever. But the fact is, even a powerful DA can be taken down by physical evidence, and every DA knows this. Every DA knows that there is a vast difference between an unsubstantiated story and one backed up by hard evidence, such as witnesses to her entering the car and bruising on her neck.
So SS buys into the claim that this man, who had been seen talking with this girl, who had written in her yearbook, who was probably seen with her as she got into his car (or at least had to consider that possibility) then violently assaulted her, shoved her out of the car when she resisted, and then did something that would draw attention to the fact that for some reason the District Attorney, after leaving a diner, had been parked “…between the dumpster and the back of the restaurant…” where it was “..dark and deserted…(Note: the space between the back of a restaurant and a dumpster tends to be a place where kitchen people are in and out all the time. Not exactly “deserted” unless it was well after closing time.) He was not afraid she would scream or cry out when he pushed her out of the car, wasn’t afraid that she would suffer additional physical and visible injuries to support a claim of being assaulted, and he didn’t mind calling attention to where he had been when he “burned rubber” as he left.
Hmmm
So, according to this nearly 4 decades-old story, he “burned rubber” in his exit from a place he had no rational explanation for being in the first place, leaving behind a presumably hysterical and bruised girl he had been seen talking with in a friendly manner, whose yearbook he had signed in a very friendly manner that very day. Again, presumably in front of witnesses.
Then, her boyfriend, when he finally showed up, didn’t notice that she was upset. Or bruised. Where was she when he got there? In the dark and deserted parking lot between the dumpster and the restaurant? In front of the restaurant? In the restaurant? So now we have a profoundly stupid—or reckless—-District Attorney and a very unobservant boyfriend. Adult women have a hard time appearing calm and normal after a violent sexual assault, but this young girl was evidently quite skilled at covering up her reactions. No one guessed, even in the minutes after the attack.
Was she afraid of her sister? Two years is a long time for a 15-year-old girl to keep a secret like this, especially from her sister. Evidently even as an adult she was afraid to tell her mother.
“She says that he no longer has any power over her and that she no longer lives in fear of him.”
Did she continue to live in the town where he was the DA? How long did he hold that position? Just what was the nature of his “..power over her…”? “…live(d) in fear?” Fear of what?
When you go through this story, you can see why Simon slurped it up with such glee. It reeks of stupidity and bulls**t.
I wonder if he was also “…officially pissed off..” when he read the story of the woman who, the day Bill Clinton (her boss, not just some county official) raped her, told her friends, told her husband, had a visible injury and left the conference she had been attending, with the patrolmen assigned to Clinton supporting her story that he had gone to her room. She, an adult married woman, was so visibly upset and shaken, she could not hide her emotions. I guess this little girl could have taught her a thing or two about acting.
And probably still can
Interesting revelations re Wikileaks communications with the Trump campaign:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/the-secret-correspondence-between-donald-trump-jr-and-wikileaks/545738/
“Hey Don. We have an unusual idea,” Wikileaks wrote on October 21, 2016. “Leak us one or more of your father’s tax returns.” Wikileaks then laid out three reasons why this would benefit both the Trumps and Wikileaks. One, The New York Times had already published a fragment of Trump’s tax returns on October 1; two, the rest could come out any time “through the most biased source (e.g. NYT/MSNBC).” It is the third reason, though, Wikileaks wrote, that “is the real kicker.” “If we publish them it will dramatically improve the perception of our impartiality,” Wikileaks explained. “That means that the vast amount of stuff that we are publishing on Clinton will have much higher impact, because it won’t be perceived as coming from a ‘pro-Trump’ ‘pro-Russia’ source.” It then provided an email address and link where the Trump campaign could send the tax returns, and adds, “The same for any other negative stuff (documents, recordings) that you think has a decent chance of coming out. Let us put it out.”
Less than 3 weeks after WikiLeaks began secretly messaging the Trump campaign, and less than 3 weeks after Trump’s son began secretly sending the notes to Hope Hicks so his non-email-using dad could see them, Trump was using WikiLeaks in his stump speech.
In fact, Trump’s citations of WikiLeaks in his speeches went through the roof shortly after Wiki3/ On October 12, 2016, WikiLeaks wrote the Trump campaign to say, “Great to see [Trump] talking about our publications.”
From that day on, Trump referenced WikiLeaks (on average) FIVE TIMES A DAY until Election Day.Leaks began secretly corresponding with his campaign.
Well that’s the end of Trump. It’s all over. Great work Simon…….
What a putz (Simon, not Trump)
What did I miss? There is a lot of heavy breathing and emoting over the fact that some people wrote to Donald Trump Jr. I missed the details of Donald Jr. writing back. Did he? What did he say? I see that he sent these communications on to someone else to show to his father.
Even the Atlantic, in a piece that contains a vile and blatant lie (“….. On October 7, less than an hour after the Washington Post released the Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump bragged about sexually assaulting women, ..” when the record shows that Trump never did “brag about sexually assaulting women” but merely commented on the well-known fact that when a certain kind of woman offers herself to a man because of his status (“because I’m a star..”) she can be treated disrepectfully…) admits that “…Trump Jr. mostly ignored the frequent messages from WikiLeaks…” though it goes on to claim “… he at times appears to have acted on its requests.”
“Acting on its requests” evidently entailed no more that looking into what the email said, and then informing a long list of people about the trolling effort…..” …. on the same day that Trump Jr. received the first message from WikiLeaks, he emailed other senior officials with the Trump campaign, including Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, Brad Parscale, and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner, telling them WikiLeaks had made contact. Kushner then forwarded the email to campaign communications staffer Hope Hicks.”
What does this hit piece find to indict Don Jr. of some kind of wrongdoing? Its claim that “…At no point during the 10-month correspondence does Trump Jr. rebuff WikiLeaks…” which, according to the author, is damning because “Wikileaks…had published stolen documents and was already observed to be releasing information that benefited Russian interests.”
And there you have it. The whole article, which includes a gratuitous lie about Donald Sr. just to tip us off about its agenda, can only try to implicate Don Jr. by pointing out that he had been trolled, that at the onset of this trolling he did some investigating, he then informed a lot of other people about what was going on, and he “never rebuffed Wikileaks” which is really really, well, bad, because at the same time Wikileaks was allegedly doing something else unrelated to its trolling of Trump Jr.
Ignoring doesn’t count. The hit piece author demands a formal “rebuff”.
I’m missing the participation of a Trump in this alleged Wikileaks trolling.
I get something like 95 emails a day, many of them offering anything from raunchy sex to all sorts of financial inducements. How many of those unsolicited emails should be used to indict ME for some nefarious act? Or thought?
BTW, most of them purport to be FROM ME.
Yeah. Duh. Ever hear of spoofing? I have my own name in my own contact list, so when my email account was hacked and my contact list exposed, so emails could be sent to everyone on it, they were also sent to me.
I also get emails daily “from” Amazon, eBay, MasterCard, Bank of America, and several people from my contact list.
I think Simon has to have made a conscious decision to be as stupid as he sounds,. because I don’t think that level of gullibility and eagerness to believe any crap dished out about any conservative can just happen. It has to be nurtured.
Even Simple Simon should be able to recognize trolling when he sees it.
Simon sounds like someone who would be excited to hear from a Nigerian prince trying to get his millions out of the country………..after all, if it’s in an email, it has to be legit, right?
This morning on MSNBC, Steve Schmidt said that “loyal Americans do not conduct themselves like Donald Trump Jr.” I don’t even know what that means but it is obviously phrased to give the impression that Don Jr is not a loyal American and could be a Russian operative…….oh my
Morning Joe and MSNBC have sunk to a level I never thought possible. They are beyond partisan at this point and do nothing other than spread propaganda and half truths intended solely to take down a sitting President. Their 3 hour program is obsessed with, and focused solely on spreading mis information about the Russia collusion story…..
It’s mind numbing to think how willfully dishonest the political media is. We need to destroy progressives like Mika, Joey, Steve Schmidt, Nicole Wallace, John Heileman, Mike Barnicle, etc., etc. And I hope to be on the front lines…….
I’d love to have someone ask Steve Schmidt if “loyal Americans” would risk putting lethal weaponry, which could be used against Americans and probably would be, in the hands of Al Queda, while interfering in the internal politics of another nation and trying to help overthrow its elected leader.
I’d love to have someone ask Steve Schmidt if “loyal Americans” would put national security at risk and break the law in the process by using an unsecured email server, to avoid possible exposure of Pay to Play deals by the Secretary of State, by FOIA requests for records of communications.
I’d love to have someone ask Steve Schmidt if “loyal Americans” would direct the Department of Justice to ignore published offers to pay a cash bounty for the murder of a man based on his skin color, because those inciting murder had the same skin color as the president and attorney general.
I’d love to have someone ask Steve Schmidt if “loyal Americans” would use a government agency tasked with controlling the sale of firearms to instruct firearms dealers to break the law, enabling guns to be illegally taken across the border to become part of brutal cartel murders and the eventual killing of an American law enforcement officer.
I’d love to have someone ask Steve Schmidt if “loyal Americans” would condone prosecuting a man for a non-crime, when the prosecutor knew that someone else had done the deed, to further a political agenda.
There are so many questions I would love to ask Steve Schmidt about how he defines the quality of being a “loyal American”.
Got this from a friend this morning. My favorite line: “Trump is America’s first wartime president in the Culture War.”
From your linked article:
We Right-thinking people have tried dignity. There could not have been a man of more quiet dignity than George W. Bush as he suffered the outrageous lies and politically motivated hatreds that undermined his presidency. We tried statesmanship. Could there be another human being on this earth who so desperately prized “collegiality” as John McCain? We tried propriety – has there been a nicer human being ever than Mitt Romney? And the results were always the same.
This is because, while we were playing by the rules of dignity, collegiality and propriety, the Left has been, for the past 60 years, engaged in a knife fight where the only rules are those of Saul Alinsky and the Chicago mob.
100% SPOT ON !!!!!!!!!
The gloves are off and Trump is leading the charge. DESTROY THE LEFT!!!
What amazes me is the number of those supposedly on OUR side who have revealed themselves to be deep state/establishment elitists since Trump was elected. I knew the swamp was large, but I had no idea………..
In 1929 Secretary of State Henry Stimson closed down the code-breaking office of the department of state. Remember, at this time this was the only real peek we had into what other countries were thinking/saying/planning, and was a critical element of national security.
How did he justify this? He said “Gentlemen do not read each others mail.”
(On Active Service in Peace and War, p. 188 . Also see David Kahn, The Codebreakers, p. 360 .)
Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. As the article aptly points out, “…while we were playing by the rules of dignity, collegiality and propriety, the Left has been, for the past 60 years, engaged in a knife fight where the only rules are those of Saul Alinsky and the Chicago mob.”
Spook, while I think that some dyed-in-the-wool “deep state/establishment elitists” are being revealed, what I think is really happening is the discovery of the depth and power of emotion-based Identity Politics.
I doubt that many were as ardently anti-Trump as I was during the run-in to the primary. I wrote passionate letters to everyone I could think of in any position of power in the GOP, and even got into quite a spirited back-and-forth with the then-head of the Colorado GOP. I canceled my membership in the NRA over their endorsement of Trump. No one could say I was moderate or wishy-washy in my conviction he was a bad choice for the nomination.
I don’t think a single point I made has been refuted, other than my conviction that Americans would not vote for a man with his history and lack of conservative ideology. I haven’t backed off on my convictions. But the fact is, they are no longer relevant. That ship has sailed.
But, as I said in another post, I also believe in redemption, and in giving people a chance when they are able to convince me they have changed. I refuse to let Identity Politics interfere with my acceptance and approval of the job Trump is doing. I am not evaluating a Donald Trump who existed prior to January 20, 2017.
But I think we are seeing a lot of Republicans who are stuck in the pre-2017 era of anti-Trumpism, and letting old feelings dictate what they feel and say and do today. Moving beyond old resentments and biases can be hard, and they have seemingly decided not to bother. I think many of them would fine with the exact same actions being taken by Trump if they were being enacted by someone with the right pedigree, so I don’t think it is ideology or a commitment to the Deep State that is motivating them, I think they are just surly at being ignored.
More evidence that Liberalism is a mental disorder.
If biology is a science, then apparently three out of four college-educated Democrats are science deniers. After all, hasn’t there been consensus for millennia that genetics and genitalia define gender?
And isn’t this a pretty damning indictment of what is laughingly called “education” in our colleges?
I guess you get what you pay for…… NOT !!
Perhaps the New Science has discovered a third chromosome, so now there are X, Y, and ?
The Left is brilliant at creating no-win situations, such as the Roy Moore mess.
The first step is to identify someone who might be a likely target, probably because he has a record of being outspoken enough to be labeled as “outrageous”. It helps if he is just a plain-spoken person with strong beliefs who might not couch his opinions in carefully crafted politic-speech.
After lining up a target, then all that is needed is to come up with charges. We have gone through this in the past, and too often it has succeeded. It did not succeed with Clarence Thomas, but only because the Right fought back, but it was close. And his attacker became a Leftist superstar, awarded with a prestigious position and a big book deal, and is still idolized by the muckraking Left as a “hero”.
I don’t know if Moore assaulted this girl. For all I know, he did. But for all I know, he didn’t. But there are a couple of things I do know. One is that this is a tactic of the Left which has been seen far too often to just take at face value, and one is that the story has too many holes in it to be completely believable. I also see many conclusions being based on lack of experience or information.
For one thing, in small towns and small cities in rural areas, including the South, it is not at all uncommon for people to frequent the same small diners and develop friendly relationships with the servers. I’ve been there. I grew up in a small town, and I waited tables in a small town. I personally experienced the jovial semi-flirtatious interactions of customers and staff in places like this, and for the most part it was always innocent. There is teasing about a new hairstyle or manicure or perfume, like “Debbie must be trying to impress that new guy in school because she sure does smell good today”—the kind of thing that has contemporary hysterics melting down and calling for a rope. Even today in the South, flowery and flirtatious hyperbole is part of the culture and no one takes it seriously.
Even as an adult married woman I managed an elegant urban restaurant where a regular routinely called all the women “darling girl” and was effusive in flattering comments which, to a contemporary Lefty, would constitute criminal action. We knew not to stand next to him at a table, because he would put his hand on our waists. He never dropped it below the waist, and was otherwise never out of line, and he seemed to find this unremarkable, but we avoided giving him the opportunity.
The fact is, a certain culture has evolved that seems to be pretty much limited to diners and small town restaurants, a culture in which a waitress might say to a regular “Lookin’ good, darlin’—-your wife lay down the law about that beard?” and he might reply “No, it’s all for you, sweetheart. Do I have a chance now?” And no one would be upset, take it seriously, or call it assault or even inappropriate.
So I have no problem with the idea of Moore tugging on pigtails and teasing a young girl who was waiting on him. She clearly didn’t mind, and was comfortable enough with him to ask him to sign her school yearbook. My personal knowledge and experience makes me just ignore that whole part of the meme, even though it did make Simon fretful.
Another thing I know about women—-we/they tend to talk about things like being sexually assaulted. It is a big deal. It is traumatic and scary, or at the very least it ticks women off, even young girls. They might not go to the police, but they confide in their sisters, their girlfriends, maybe even their parents. Whether the reaction is outrage and anger or fear and trauma, it is a lot to hold in, especially for a fifteen-year-old. And fifteen-year-old girls tend to like a bit of drama, especially those who enjoy striving for the attention of an older local politician, which she did when she asked him to sign her yearbook. The whole “hid it from the world for two years, covered bruises with makeup and lived in fear” story just doesn’t ring true.
On Moore’s side, he was a District Attorney. That means he was part of prosecuting criminal cases, and no doubt saw many trials in which evidence was presented to support criminal prosecutions. He knew, from his own personal experience of being part of criminal prosecutions that a bruised and hysterical young girl he had been seen flirting with (even in the most innocent and acceptable way) could destroy his career and maybe even send him to jail. Yet we are told he (1) invited this girl into his car—keep in mind, this is the kind of thing likely to be witnessed (2) then drove it behind a restaurant into what is described as a dark and deserted place where he could not explain his presence if seen, even if he was alone,, (3) violently assaulted a young girl in a way that left bruises, (4) physically pushed her out of the car knowing this might inflict more visible signs of an assault, and (5) then acted in a way that would probably draw attention to the fact that he had been parked in a area where he didn’t belong and which would support any claim made by a hysterical young girl.
Having said all that, I also think it likely that Moore did cross a line, in some way. He may have made a comment that was, or was taken as, suggestive or inappropriate. He may even have touched her in some way. These are not defensible. But I simply do not buy the whole violent physical assault story, because there are too many holes in it—and because of the timing.
Between the timing of his run for the Senate and that of the whole “heroic coming forward after decades of silence” hoopla about Hollywood sexual abuse, this whole concoction just seems too convenient and too carefully crafted to be taken seriously.
And finally, I come to my own belief in redemption. I think a lot of us have done things we now regret, have either confessed and made atonement for or just become part of a past we will never revisit. I feel very strongly that unless a prior act was egregious, criminal and damaging, if it was followed by awareness and acceptance of its inherent wrongness and a personal commitment to never do such a thing again, and if the next forty years or so have been based on that kind of commitment to be a better person, I don’t think old transgressions should be held against a person. If there is an ongoing pattern of bad behavior, then yes, it is a sign of bad character.
Maybe it’s just me, but I happen to think that when someone does something wrong or bad and then deals with it in his heart and mind and acknowledges that it was wrong or bad and commits to a different path, THAT defines his character, not the original bad act.
BTW, I made references to “small towns” and the fact that little goes unnoticed in small towns. The current population of Gadsden, Alabama, where Moore was assistant District Attorney, is about 39,000. 40 or 45 years ago it had to be smaller. One article says “After virtually crumbling in the 1970s and 1980s, Gadsden decided its best course of action was to stop being dependent on industry, and shedding its “company town” image.” So if the town was “virtually crumbling” in the 70s, it is reasonable to think that its population was not very large.
As one who has lived in small towns for many years, in different states, in different decades, I know that little goes unnoticed by someone, and that people who live there know this.
One is that this is a tactic of the Left which has been seen far too often to just take at face value,
A good rule of thumb is to never take the left at face value. They are not honorable people and should never be believed.
I am not saying Roy Moore is not a jerk. I am not saying he is not a creep. I am merely saying to keep accusations about him relevant to what he actually may have done, and not try to expand upon whatever he did to make it more dramatic.
Personally, I hate men who do what Moore has been accused of doing, such as “flirting” inappropriately with teenaged girls. If in fact he did have a pattern of such behavior he should certainly be held accountable. I just want more proof that his behavior went beyond the boundaries of behavior in his time and place.
But I tend to step back a little and look at a bigger picture. And what I see is the huge, vast, disconnect between the Left’s hysteria over what Moore did, may have done, is accused of doing and so on with the reality of Leftist culture, which has dedicated itself to making degenerate behavior mainstream in our culture.
I guess what I am saying to the Left, when it comes to sexual misconduct, is “Make up your minds, people. What standards do you want? And shouldn’t they apply to everyone?”
The Left has been the primary mover in the efforts to make this nation cruder, ruder and more sexualized. Even supposedly clean acts like Carol Burnett have what is to me a rather ugly undercurrent of crudity. When my husband and I were watching a “Best of Carol Burnett” special one night we just turned if off, after highlighted sketch after highlighted sketch was focused on “boobs”. It got the point of being ridiculous, as all the personalities on the show cracked up, time after time, on the same theme. We were not prudes, but it was just so sophomoric and, well, crude. And this was from the most wholesome show on TV, after Andy Griffith went off the air.
The Left has sexualized everything including children, and glamorized lusting after barely nubile young girls, who in turn are encouraged to dress like street walkers. An old South Park show—-a series known for its own over the top crudity—-once had an episode where all the little girls in town were excited about the appearance of Paris Hilton, who was going to be in town to open the latest branch of her stores,, “Stupid Spoiled Whore” and were eagerly chattering to each other about how they could hardly wait to dress like whores.
There is a new term I recently heard, “prostitots” to describe the sexualization of young girls. Anyone take a look at popular Halloween costumes lately? How many children—let me emphasize the word children though we are mostly talking about girls, as boys prefer to be superheroes—dressed in overtly sexual costumes? One night I was cooking when a show on TV ended and the next one was about women shopping for wedding dresses, and I was astounded to see woman after woman declaring that she wanted to look “sexy” in her wedding dress and dress after dress being strapless and extremely, as in dangerously, low-cut and revealing. Suddenly ours is a culture in which even a wedding has become a place to advertise very blatant sexuality.
There is no level of crudity too low for Hollywood, whether in movies or on television, to embrace and try to make part of our culture, and sex in one kind of reference or another seems to be in nearly every line of dialogue in nearly every TV show or movie. Leftist women march dressed as their own genitalia, and give standing ovations to foul-mouthed harridans who brag about being “dirty girls”. No awards show fails to feature women whose mammaries are barely covered, and who are encouraged to pose in ways that expose as much as possible, photos which are then on the front covers of every grocery store magazine. “Celebrities” are created merely by being photographed with no underwear, or engaging in published tapes of them having sexual intercourse and then having illegitimate babies.
Every objection to this is met with scorn, derision and insults, as people who don’t like the crudification of America are dismissed as religions bigots, or worse.
And then the same Left, which has deified sexual predators like Ted Kennedy and Bill Clinton, and protected sexual predators like Gerry Studds, turns around and affects to have the heebie-jeebies about what they falsely call “pedophile priests” (who are not pedophiles but homosexual predators preying on post-pubescent boys) and the use of the word “pussy” by a man commenting on the lack of self respect shown by women who make themselves sexually available to men because of their status.
What I am getting at is, how can we have standards for sexual conduct if about half of the country is dedicated to removing all standards for sexual conduct? The hypocrisy is so blatant, and the disconnect so transparent, it is just hard to take any of the howlers-at-the-moon seriously when they flip so easily from endorsing and promoting crudity, promiscuity and hedonism to a politically convenient pious clain of prudishness.
Rush brought up an interesting fact on his radio show today regarding the allegations against Roy Moore. The woman who alleged Moore tried to sexually assault her in 1977 when she was 14 claimed he locked the car doors so she couldn’t get out. Only problem is that child safety locks on cars didn’t come into use until the early 80’s. So if she’s lying about that, how much of the rest of the story is a lie?
I don’t have a dog in this hunt, don’t live in Alabama, not a big fan of Judge Moore, but I find the persecution of him for wholly political reasons repugnant, particularly based on what are probably completely made up allegations.
What
amazes medoesn’t surprise me in the least is the number of Conservatives who took the initial Washington Post story at face value…and immediately started accusing anyone who even mildly questioned it of being “in favor of assault”. Then all the GOPer usual suspects came out and demanded Moore step aside. I figured that, even if true, it was a carefully orchestrated effort to take Moore down…some people just don’t want him in the Senate. Its not like Senators don’t have a strong stomach and that Moore is some completely awful thing…they lionized Ted Kennedy for decades, after all. Something else is afoot – and I think on the GOP side it is a determination to swat down the populist revolt, at least as far as Senate races go.As an aside, I’m thinking that the Democrats’ sudden willingness to condemn Bill Clinton is only partially related to clearing the decks so they can condemn Moore…I think that some word has come out that some very bad legal news is heading the Clintons way and the Democrats want them pre-smeared before it hits.
This is not in any way an excuse for crude, offensive or abusive behavior, but….the simple fact is that there are different cultural expectations and standards in different parts of the country. In small towns in the South forty and fifty years ago, flirtatious talk was and probably still is part of the social fabric of a community.
One thing that is bothering me is the focus on some things I think are either bogus or irrelevant. Take Ted Cruz’s claim that adult males simply would not, or did not, sign yearbooks for young girls. Nonsense. In a small town, a politician was “famous” and an autograph, especially a personalized one, would be something an ambitious or flirtatious young woman might easily want, and a request would be granted as easily as a request to sign a menu or a photograph, In that era, it would have been the equivalent of asking for a posed selfie with a prominent person in the community.
Another is the claim that of course a man would have remembered an insignificant and fleeting event analogous to agreeing to sign an autograph, nearly half a century ago. People remember what is important to them. Perhaps a young girl eager to for attention, who took general teasing as more personal attention, was a little annoying when she presumed to ask for such a signature, and the man tossed off a couple of words before going back to his conversation. There would be no reason for him to remember something as meaningless as this.
As someone who worked in the hospitality industry for a long time, I saw a lot of celebrities and quasi-celebrities approached by people who did not respect boundaries and who made requests for things like photographs or autographs, and I have seen most of these requests graciously honored—people ranging from the mayor of Denver and two governors of Colorado to Luciano Pavorotti and Steve Martin.
If people have serious questions or concerns, that is one thing. But making these blanket statements that something as fleeting and insignificant as agreeing to sign something when asked really has deep and sinister meaning, or that to say he doesn’t remember it means the man is lying, is really a stretch and diminishes any legitimate commentary or concern.
If someone wants to quibble about the alleged signing of the yearbook, they should ask why a 15 or 16 year old girl would ask a district attorney to sign her yearbook. This is something usually reserved for friends and classmates and maybe teacher. My question is why she presumed to take her yearbook to the cafe and then ask the DA to sign it–it looks to me like she wanted to create the impression that she was special, that he thought she was special. I don’t see anything malignant in him signing the book, if he did, but I sure do question what motivated this girl. Evidently she was later known for making similar claims about other men, striving to be the center of attention, and in a way designed to make her appear irresistible.
I also question the claim that Moore was “banned” from a local shopping mall. I have never heard of such a thing, and I am quite sure if it happened it would quickly have become the top topic of gossip in the whole county. Yet only one or two people have been found who ever heard of it.
Meanwhile in Africa …….. oppression and slavery still exist:
….the smugglers become masters, the migrants and refugees become slaves.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/14/africa/libya-migrant-auctions/index.html
WOW. UNDERMINING THE PRESS!!!!!
A group of six Democratic House members introduced articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump Wednesday, claiming the president has violated federal law, the public trust and should be charged with high crimes and misdemeanors…….The congressmen list a number of charges against the president, including: obstruction of justice, a violation of the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause, a violation of the Constitution’s domestic emoluments clause, undermining the federal judiciary process and undermining the press.
“Undermining the press?” OMG, string him up!
Proving beyond any doubt that progressive voters are overly emotional mindless morons:
A new poll finds that Michelle Obama would win the Democratic primaries if she ran for president in 2020.
Now there’s an image I can’t un-think.
She might win a Dem primary, though I am not sure I buy into the polling result—Trump is not the only one who can troll the opposition—but the election? Just on stamina alone, I can’t see her doing well in the grueling battle of a presidential election, and she is a stone-cold bitch when she is challenged or not idolized. When she is angry, her face is a mess, and she radiates so many kinds of negativity, I just can’t see how she wouldn’t sink her own ship.
I think any such hope is based on a pitch to heartsick Liberals that she would really represent a third term for Barry, much as so many of them really yearned to see Bill back in the White House more than Hillary.
“Undermining the press” is evidently now a crime, as well as being defined as demanding that they do their jobs and not just be an echo chamber and support system for one political philosophy.
What he needs to do is undermine the House of Representatives by demanding an IQ test and a civics test before running for office. That would clean out the Dem side in a hurry.
Amazonia … I don’t think the republican side would be unscathed. Maybe there would be … what … fifty house members left?
I have to agree, we would lose some members. But we don’t have anyone claiming that the Constitution defended slavery, or that Guam would tip over if there were more people on it, or that if you look in the dictionary you will see the term “empty barrel” defined as racist. Missteps by Republicans tend to be more in the line of clumsy phrasing rather than outright stupidity.
In addition, behavior isn’t always aligned with political identity. But I do think fewer on the Right would be implicated in serious sexual misconduct.
Remember what Ann Coulter said about political sex scandals—-when they involve Republicans, there never seems to be any sex involved. A guy taps his toe in a stall in an airport bathroom. He doesn’t even talk to another guy, or be seen by him, much less touch him or have sex with him. SCANDAL!! Jack Ryan asks his wife if she is interested in having a threesome. She says no. He says OK, and all of a sudden Barack Obama is the new Senator from Illinois.
On the Dem side, we have a drowned woman in a car driven by a drunken adulterer, we have a president being sexually serviced in the Oval Office by an intern, we have a Representative buggering underage male pages…….
Adultery is wrong. But if a man marries the woman he had an affair with and is faithful to her for decades, what is the moral implication of his early behavior when it comes to his ability to do his job in Congress?
So we need to have a serious dialogue about what constitutes serious sexual misconduct and what is just annoying, and the importance of character in our legislators.