The Tragedy of Fake News

NBC News, come clean on Tillerson's alleged 'moron' quote | TheHill:

With my birthday being yesterday I have broken my Facebook hiatus for a couple days to honor all the birthday wishes and respond. It didn't take long for a FB tragedy to roll by, someone I am friends with on FB who was a Trump voter, moderately conservative to libertarian, gave up on Trump on the basis of this!

Naturally, the article was from CNN.

As "The Hill" article linked above covers in detail, Trump is absolutely right, this is COMPLETELY Fake News. It is created by the media finding "unnamed sources", 3 in this case, to state "off the record" that they heard Tillerson call Trump a "moron". THAT is "the news" here ... everything else is the result of that "news"!  (I suggest THIS policy on "anonymous sources") Any gyration about "how mad Trump is", Tillerson wanting to resign, EVERYTHING! It is totally Fake News with no other objective than to continue to make Trump and his administration look as bad as they possibly can 24x7 until they can either get him out of office or defeat him.

As Tillerson said, what anyone that is able must do is stick to reality ... including the reality I just stated.

When asked if he called the president a "moron" (and there's a reason that word is being kept in quotes, but more on that in a moment), Tillerson replied he wouldn't respond to petty stuff like that because the allegation and language is only meant to divide.

Why is our nation divided? Well, beyond the fact that we have lost God and therefore lost the idea of the sacred ... including our Constitution,  the ideas we were founded on, our founders, etc, it is the constant bombardment of partisan Fake News. Until '87 when Reagan allowed the right to fire back, it was 100% from the left ... now it is only 80% from the left. Which naturally the left finds to be VERY "unfair".

So in the Fake News world, when they make something up and put it out as "fact", a failure to deny is a sworn statement of the veracity of the charge. For those of you not offended by crassness of the sort that you wish didn't exist, but know does, I suggest you take a look at THIS ... LBJ on the subject of "getting someone to deny" ... the link is to a Democrat site that for some reason thinks the left has forgotten the "make something up, state it as fact, force them to deny it" ... or perhaps the modern left is pining away for something more "Johnsonian".

As the article put it:

For starters, we're fully expected to believe as fact that Rex Tillerson, one of the more guarded public figures around, called the president an "f-ing moron" or "moron" in public within earshot of the three sources NBC has.

We're also expected to believe as fact that all three of these nameless people kept this to themselves for almost three months before running to NBC with the story.

Tillerson, by saying the alleged comment was too petty to even address, is actually confessing to saying it. Or so we're told ...

One would think there would be no way that Trump could have even gotten elected, but the vast majority of his voters have completely turned off the 80% MSM. Facebook  and other sources increasingly become "amen corners" for the political views of the individual -- people that espouse the "wrong views" are unfriended, hidden, filtered, etc ... so eventually, everything they see supports their own views. They live in their own world where all agree ... and family events become minefields.

Some, such as myself, desire to see both sides, crave it even,  -- and have a VERY hard time not commenting when obvious MSM mind control such as this unfolds. Yes, I fully realize that my average sized finger in the dike of disaster is not going to fix anything, however as Burke said ... "when good men remain silent".

The part I realize today is that totally turning off FB for days at a time means that things like Birthdays,  grandkid pictures, etc go away as well. So, I'll adjust ... I did say that my leaving FB was a "liberal leave" ... can't we have our cake and eat it too? Would it not be better if it was free? Better yet, perhaps someone could pay me to eat my never ending supply of cake, and it would not make me fat.

Let's make a law! Perhaps we could have a team of "unbiased experts" filter all our feeds so we ONLY saw "factual truth"! We could call it "The Ministry of Truth" (or "The Fairness Doctrine")  ;-(

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Prayer, Gun Control, Articles of Faith

Right and Left React to the Las Vegas Shooting and the Gun Control Debate - The New York Times:

I find the article interesting in that it is a rare case where the NY Times actually provides both the view from the left and right on a subject, in this case Gun Control post Los Vegas shooting.

What does the Bible have to say?

4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.”

Man lives by faith. True faith is faith in Christ, false faith is faith in government, human nature, science,  people around you, that there is no God (atheism), your insurance company, retirement savings, your own "good sense" or intelligence, etc. Again, this is not to say that all the temporal forms of faith are ALWAYS false, only that they are temporal, limited, conditional and especially likely to fail you at times of crisis. (lots of prayers to God in foxholes)

So in the face of tragedy, those whose primary faith is in God, PRAY, because they realize that in the long run God is ALL that counts, and in the short run, he is the one with true power.

Increasingly, those on the left reject and even malign the faith of Christians in their prayers, increaseingly making their faith in government as their "god" more expicit. They are STILL "praying", however in their case their god is government, so it goes something like this:

Our government who is in DC, Hallowed be thy name,
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
In every inch of this territory as it is in DC,
Give us this day our daily handouts, and forgive us our debts (especially the $20 trillion and rising)
As we forgive no-one, and want to see those that disagree with us punished
and give us our pleasures, and insure we are free from seing Christianity, so we are not bothered ...

The faiths are remarkably similar on Gun Control. No Christian is going to explain to you exactly HOW God will work increased safety from gun violence, only that we recognize that we live in a nation that deserves to have such incidents 24x7 in all corners, as we have strayed from God so far as to have killed 60 million of his most innocent children since Roe V Wade (and many other examples). Christians believe it is only by the God's Grace that we don't have a Vegas shooting every day -- as a nation, we have served Satan, and yet God has spared us from reaping the full carnage we deserve.

Likewise, no advocate of "common sense gun control" is honestly going to tell you that any measure that they would suggest is actually going to stop the Los Vegas tragedy. It is just that their faith in government is total, so that "somehow" government COULD achieve such control is an article of faith  -- a total ban on guns, metal detectors and surveillance everywhere, all public and private spaces equipped with sensors to detect gunfire and dispense some knockout gas? ... there is no need for any specifics. Government can do it, if all would only put their total faith in government voluntarily or by force, so that "proper measures" could be taken.

The service that could be provided by philosophy is for at least some significant "elite" to understand that we ALL live by faith. The question is always "in what"?  In theory it would be possible for enlightened people to realize that there are two poles on which to make society move in the direction of "improvement" ... culture or control, with chaos being the result if culture is destroyed and government is not made totalitarian. I'm not holding my breath for either theology or philosophy to be re-discovered in BOistan.

The American founders cast their lot with culture, and on the scale of total control on the far left, and total chaos on the far right, they desired "slightly right of center" as the goal. They believed that a God fearing people would respect life, liberty, etc. and continue to improve the culture as the main means of there being individidual morality and thus a peaceful society.

The USSR, Nazi Germany, China, North Korea, etc chose control ... they believe(d)  that people must be heavily controlled and regimented in order for the nation to be ordered and "successful".

The elite in BOistan apparently believe that religion, respect for life, sexual morality, respect for parents, police, history, the Constitution, etc can be removed and yet "somehow" the culture will "improve" ... although they are very vague in saying what "improvement" would entail beyond "equality, diversity, removal of personal responsibility, ever larger government, etc".

Their answers increasingly are "more government" in one form or another, and in the case of guns, they are more direct in saying that means more control. While they still mostly claim that does not really mean a repeal of the 2nd amendment, more and more of their voices now point out the obvious ... that while such a prohibition of private firearms to the level that a multi-millionaire with multiple homes and owning two aircraft could not obtain them is what they want. Again, this is a matter of faith  ... "how" such a prohibition would  prevent such a man from getting them is purely left to faith. Perhaps it would not be possible in China? I'd guess it would take control more at the level of North Korea to actually accomplish "safety" from such incidents -- but clearly it is a level of totalitarianism that would be fought in America. Will it be in BOistan?

So we live in a country where respect for human life has been destroyed by order of the SCOTUS in Roe V Wade. Respect for God,  Flag, Anthem, Elders, Founders, Military, Institutions, History, Tradition, Honor, Truth, Life,  ... really anything but personal choice, equality, diversity, "tolerance" (of those who bow to "progressivism") ... all quite ill-defined, is for most of the population, GONE.

And so I spend my 61st birthday in BOistan. Until 2006, I had faith that America would outlive me. I am so thankful that my Faith is in Christ Jesus, not in man! My Dad is 90, perhaps I have as much as 30 years left in this vale of tears ... and then eternity with Christ!

When a nation no longer respects life, why does it even mourn events like Los Vegas? If you are OK with killing the most innocent in the womb, why would you NOT applaud the slaughter of likely "deploreable" country music fans as was done by a legal VP of CBS?  Certainly if you are OK with the murder of a babe in the womb for convienience, the killing of country music fans that are largely "deploreables" anyway has to be seen as a positive, does it not?

My guess is that the Vegas shooting will be quickly forgotten even though the number of lives lost is large. It may seem to those that are taken in by the claims of the left that "they just want to save lives" that Vegas is a "perfect case" ... lots of lives lost, wealthy white male with no signs of mental illness doing the shooting, lots of premeditation, MANY "assault rifles", with even the "full auto" shibboleth given the "bump stocks".

We shall see ... I believe that the left is ONLY concerned about CONTROL and POWER, and "lives" are mere marketing. If they cared about lives, the 5-6 THOUSAND young black men killed in our large Democrat controlled cities each year would be a HORROR ... however, they care not at all for those lives. 

I believe that they will wait for another school shooting ... likely with a troubled young man with a lot of warning signs of mental illness. THEN, they will "blame the gun" ... not this time.

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A Little Trump Truth From a Dog

I suspsect that besides risking advertisers and their balls, the other reason that shows like SNL tend to avoid making fun of liberals is that it is too damned easy!

Talk about "Truth to Power"!

Haidting Trump, Pagan Taboos

Trump Breaks a Taboo—and Pays the Price - The Atlantic:

I've read quite a bit of Haidt (pronounced "height"). Happiness Hypothesis, and Righteous Mind being examples -- in general he is a very smart guy and I enjoy his perspective.

It is a bit funny how in "Righteous", Jonathan points out that liberals claim to be virtually immune to "sanctity/degradation" relative to sexual mores because they have been so indoctrinated that no matter how "yucky" some sex act is, as long as it "doesn't harm anyone" (temporally, they don't believe in eternity), "it's OK". Of course, when asked about things like a guy taking a chicken home from the grocery store, warming it up a bit and having sex with it, a PET scan showed that the old tired morality centers of their brains were screaming "WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!" as God intended -- they had just been socialized to lie about it, so they claimed it didn't bother them.

Who says indoctrination doesn't work? (at least if one can't peek at the wetware (brain))

Haidt seems to have the hypothesis that while lefties have managed to get vast swaths of humans to deny and lie about their sense of sexual sanctity/degradation wired in by either many 10's of thousands of years of evolution or divine design.  OTOH, somehow within the last "30 years or so" (being charitable -- BO and Hilly were against gay "marriage" in '08), sanctity/degradation about the KKK, created by Democrats in 1865 and being recruited for by Robert Byrd up to the 1950's is going to be absolutely the end of Republicans!

In that moment, Trump committed the gravest act of sacrilege of his presidency. In that moment, the president rendered himself untouchable by all who share the belief that Nazis and the KKK are not just bad—they are taboo.

"NAZI" of course stands for "National Socialist", and the party of socialism isn't the Republican party. KKK is a creation of DEMOCRATS, who were the party of slavery and Jim Crow for well over 100 years.  Isn't it amazing how "sacrilege" fails to stick to Democrats?  Yes, yes, I understand that the idea that "right" is "nazi" has been more marketed than lite beer, but I'm just not the lite beer sort. I'm guessing that Haidt has bought into it -- no matter how smart you are, marketing tends to work unless you are the sort of iconoclast that is WAY more disbelieving in human wisdom than someone tearing down monuments

This is why, for many Americans, things feel so unsettled this week. Extraordinary sacrilege has occurred, but divine retribution has not yet come down from the heavens, and we have no priest and no scripture to guide us. The world is out of balance, and America can’t just go on as before.

Yes, but can BOistan? America would have had to have a Constitutional Amendment to kill 60 million babies in their mothers wombs, it would have impeached AND removed from office any cad who would stain the oval office (literally) (Slick Willie), and it CERTAINLY would have had a Constitutional Amendment before there was such a wacko thing as gay "marriage".

I understand that Haidt can't go there, but doesn't his PET scanner give him a little insight to what ACTUAL sanctity/sacrilege/degradation looks like when something as basic to the species and every human religion in history as gender is supposedly beyond figuring out?

What is "sacred" in BOistan? I'm not so certain that divine retribution isn't raining down constantly ... people are dying in droves from suicide, substance abuse and just plain old hopelessness. Compared to what I grew up in, and certainly the '80's and the '90s, this is HELL -- hundreds of young black men die in just Chicago at each other's hands every year now ... thousands across the nation in other Democrat controlled cities. MUST the wrath of God be mass plague, nuclear war, dogs and cats living together?

I DO understand the marketing -- we are all supposed to decide that some tiny rump remnant of old National Socialists or Robert Byrd recruited KKK is "a big threat", while an Administrative State with it's roughly 14 million workers when fully accounted for is "nothing to worry about".  Haidt would like it if our very paganized state of BOistan deeply felt "sacrilege" --- but how are we to do so when we have been indoctrinated to believe that the ultimate good is "equality and tolerance"? If you remove all distinctions and claim anything goes, how well does the "except THIS!" really work? (we believe the science except for that X and Y chromosome thing) 

The truly strange thing is that if the universally left wing reviled Trump tweet ... "We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one!" was said by a previous president (not that many of them could actually state something that succinctly), it would sound dangerously like a boring platitude. It is the horror of TRUMP that creates the hysteria.

I understand that to the ruling elite and media, "Trump and reviled" are synonyms, however does that REALLY sound any different from what you would have heard from every president in your lifetime? Certainly our betters have TOLD us that BLM, Antifa, and even "Islamic Terrorists" are not violent (and in the case of self labeled Islamic, they aren't even Islamic), but DOES ANYONE SANE BELIEVE THEM if you PET scanned their brain? 

We need to remember the smarter old Bill ... or William S

“I can call spirits from the vasty deep."
Why so can I, or so can any man. But will they come when you do call for them?”

Are there any pockets remaining in the US that don't know what they are SUPPOSED to think? My sense is that is precisely why there is Trump. I'm actually not the only one that quit buying "The Party" (TP-D) mass marketing sometime around when Slick shook his finger at me and said that I better quit making a spectacle of "his privates".

This is BOistan, not "America" ... that was a nice place with God, churches, intact families, common decency, respect for the Constitution, freedom of speech, hard work, individual responsibility ... you know, that kind of tired old crap that our modern schools and TP detest!

Taboo? Is that a science guy thing?

Yes, the name of "progressivism" is to create constant new realities at each instant, and given the wonders of modern marketing, to make sure everyone at least claims to buy these new realities.

But how does the more ancient brain behave? Haidt would seem to know -- he has seen that even with full modern indoctrination, the underlying wetware still signals the actual OLD taboo, the question is just if you can condition the subject to lie as long as you watch them. But what if you are not watching -- or your "subject" doesn't actually give a rats ass for your conditioning?

Certainly Haidt is indoctrinated enough to believe (at least for publication) that National Socialists and the KKK have been "rebranded" to fit the current narrative, but DOES IT WORK? Are we truly as "the flies of summer", or is there a wee bit more in the human core -- perhaps, dare I say it, even a SOUL?

I keep wondering if deep down Jonathan has not studied a bit too much too deeply and might end up having a dark night of the soul. I pray that he does. I believe that our time frame is a LOT longer than the past 50ish years of heavy duty progressive indoctrination -- as in eternal. 


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"Moderates" In Brooks Clothing

What Moderates Believe - NYTimes.com:

David Brooks is not a man whose voice I would follow into a coffee shop without a good deal of skepticism -- however, I find this column generally worth reading. My view is that "moderation" is impossible without a transcendent view -- the best of which I find to be Christianity.

Politics is a limited activity. Zealots look to the political realm for salvation and self-fulfillment. They turn politics into a secular religion and ultimately an apocalyptic war of religion because they try to impose one correct answer on all of life. Moderates believe that, at most, government can create a platform upon which the beautiful things in life can flourish. But it cannot itself provide those beautiful things. Government can create economic and physical security and a just order, but meaning, joy and the good life flow from loving relationships, thick communities and wise friends. The moderate is prudent and temperate about political life because he is so passionate about emotional, spiritual and intellectual life.

I totally agree that politics is not only "limited", it ought to be WELL down the list of personal priorities ... God, Family, Friends, Community, Vocation, Study, ... maybe a couple more, and THEN "politics".

I strongly disagree that "government can create economic and physical security".  It CERTAINLY can't create anything economic at all -- it is an EXPENSE! It can aid in physical security, but absent a  moral and religious people, it is totally unable to protect individual physical security. Those are responsibilities of free men and women, and Brooks error in believing in the impossible shows how far from reality we live.

Beware the danger of a single identity. Before they brutalize politics, warriors brutalize themselves. Instead of living out several identities — Latina/lesbian/gun-owning/Christian — that pull in different directions, they turn themselves into monads. They prioritize one identity, one narrative and one comforting distortion.

Making "Christian" just another "identity" means there can be no "moderation". In order to put all our "hats" into perspective, we humans need somewhere to stand that is transcendent. Without a point to stand that is beyond temporal earthly concerns, we attempt to make earthy things into heavenly things, and thus we end up precisely where Brooks laments. Any "Christian" that puts their race, sexual persuasion, material owning, etc AHEAD of their Christianity is certainly NOT a Christian in any form at all. To be a Christian is to seek FIRST the kingdom of God!

I PERSONALLY don't understand how one can truly transcend humanity without Christ and the Holy Spirit presenting inhuman goals to me like "love your enemies", however I withhold judgement -- perhaps a very strongly held philosophical position could suffice to provide the transcendent grounds to reach that even-handed non-emotional appraisal of politics as Brooks seems to have begun to wish for as he watches the forces which he would normally support tear down even our own history.

His paen to "humility" would be better said as "The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom" ... for without that fear, his objective is for naught.

Humility is the fundamental virtue. Humility is a radical self-awareness from a position outside yourself — a form of radical honesty. The more the moderate grapples with reality the more she understands how much is beyond our understanding.

Brooks echoes Proverbs 9:10 here, so this is not exactly new thought. It is just RARE thought in these days of the "latest being the greatist" ("progressivism") -- a cause for which Brooks regularly shills, however at least he has his moments where he realizes that Pandora is well out of her box and the ability to limit her violence without naked force appears ever more unlikely.

All in all, a worthy read -- Brooks is at least apprehending our peril, although I find his appraisal of it inadequate and wishful.


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Charlottesville, Alt-Right, How To Think

An Establishment Conservative's Guide To The Alt-Right - Breitbart:

As an avid NPR listener, I DO know how I am SUPPOSED to think about Charlottesville. Charlottesville is FINALLY the turning point for Trump. It unmasks him completely as the racist he has always been and shows once and for all that conservatism is racism! It's SIMPLE, as the positions of NPR tend to be -- oh, and if you refuse to agree with this obvious truth, then you too are a RACIST -- end of story. There are correct thinking progressives -- Democrats, the MSM, etc, and then there are the racists. We live in a very simple and easy to understand world -- at least for the standard NPR listener.

The linked article gets long, but it can be summarized in a valid fashion pretty easily -- you won't get it all from here, but you will get the sense of it.

The ALT-right is the modern equivalent of the campus radical left "Weathermen", etc from the 1960's. Acolytes of Saul Alinsky -- rebel revolutionaries and faux revolutionaries like Tom Hayden, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (Obama worked as a "Community Organizer", the main foot soldier in the Alinsky revolutionary vision). The key words are YOUNG, radical and transgressive ... as the young often are.

The '60's lefty revolutionaries grew up and became Senators, Presidents and such -- somewhat less rabid than when they were young, but still with the same far left views. The left grew up, suffered under Reagan, then mostly took over the levers of power and gave us a stagnant economy, gay "marriage" and gender confusion -- not everyone was excited about these developments, so now the youth are "Alt-Right".

These young rebels, a subset of the alt-right, aren’t drawn to it because of an intellectual awakening, or because they’re instinctively conservative. Ironically, they’re drawn to the alt-right for the same reason that young Baby Boomers were drawn to the New Left in the 1960s: because it promises fun, transgression, and a challenge to social norms they just don’t understand.

Of course, just as was the case in history, the parents and grandparents just won’t understand, man. That’s down to the age difference. Millennials aren’t old enough to remember the Second World War or the horrors of the Holocaust. They are barely old enough to remember Rwanda or 9/11. Racism, for them, is a monster under the bed, a story told by their parents to frighten them into being good little children.

Naturally, the dried up leftist old fogies like Hillary, BO, Bernie, Nancy and their buddies at all the major news outlets want to go as negative as they possibly can on the Alt-Right, so it is important for them to link the group with skinheads, National Socialists, white supremacists, etc, and those groups of course DO exist, just like the Black Panthers, Students For a Democratic Society, SLA (kidnapped Patty Hearst), Charlie Manson, etc existed in the '60s ... and the "right" attempted to tie them to the general anti-war, peace, free love movement. (when the media is on the other side, it never works)

Repudiating National Socialists, skinheads and actual white supremacists is great and correct. We don't want to be like the left is with "Black Lives Matter", Nation of Islam and Islam itself. BLM is obviously a black racist group that needed to be repudiated from the left a thousand times over, but of course it has not been. Likewise, the difficulty which BO had with uttering the term "Islamic Terrorism" would be funny if it were not so sad.

The problem is that since the left media is dominant, and the left are EXPERTS at identity politics, Trump is on very dangerous ground here. He would have been FAR better off sticking with his initial statement about "ALL SIDES".  Absent the old world of actual principle -- eg. "we all revere God, Country, the Constitution, Apple Pie and Chevrolet", the "burn your bad actor "allies"" strategy is only demanded of one side. BO can cozy up to BLM even when they are yelling "Pigs in blankets, fry em like bacon!" with no MSM outcry to "repudiate BLM"!.  (why would the media want to repudiate BLM? they are on the same side!!!) In a world with no actual shared values, WINNING is the only "value" that counts.

Racism is indeed wrong, although it is inherent in the human condition. "White Privilege" is the current black equivalent of calling whites the equivalent of the N-word. Every white has it, they can't escape it, it is evil, it invalidates whites, etc ... They are a bunch of white N-words! We all have racism in our DNA -- the magic for the left is to be allowed to use it for their side BOTH to make their own identity groups (BLM) feel superior, but to label the other side as "bad racist", while blacks braying about "white privilege" have "dog whistle privilege".

So what is a "true conservative", the sort that has values beyond economic success to do? The article covers the "true conservative" (they call it "natural conservative") definition pretty well.

 For natural conservatives, culture, not economic efficiency, is the paramount value. More specifically, they value the greatest cultural expressions of their tribe. Their perfect society does not necessarily produce a soaring GDP, but it does produce symphonies, basilicas and Old Masters. The natural conservative tendency within the alt-right points to these apotheoses of western European culture and declares them valuable and worth preserving and protecting."


Needless to say, natural conservatives’ concern with the flourishing of their own culture comes up against an intractable nemesis in the regressive left, which is currently intent on tearing down statues of Cecil Rhodes and Queen Victoria in the UK, and erasing the name of Woodrow Wilson from Princeton in the U.S. These attempts to scrub western history of its great figures are particularly galling to the alt-right, who in addition to the preservation of western culture, care deeply about heroes and heroic virtues.

So the Alt-Right has a strongly shared value with "natural conservatives" -- which is likely why we more natural conservatives are reticent to throw the whole Alt Right movement out with the bad apples travelling with them.  We are perfectly willing to repudiate David Duke, skinheads, National (and other) Socialists, but draw the line at tarring the whole Alt-Right with that broad brush.

The left OTOH, won't even repudiate BLM -- let alone tar NAACP, Black Caucus, "White Privilege" intellectuals,  etc with a validly repudiated negative label! In fact, they cowtow to BLM because they know how identity politics is played! Repudiation rhetoric is for SUCKERS -- which means Republicans to them.

I found this paragraph to be very intriguing:

Some alt-righters make a more subtle argument. They say that when different groups are brought together, the common culture starts to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Instead of mosques or English houses, you get atheism and stucco.

Sadly, this is often the case. Decide you want "Christian Unity", and soon you have women ministers, gay ministers, ministers that can't tell you what they are, atheist ministers, no historical Jesus ministers, etc, etc. As long as America was a "melting pot" where everyone signed up for AMERICAN values -- hard work, self-reliance, reverence for the Constitution, Christianity, speaking English, etc, etc (ie. "American Culture"), it was fine to be an "Italian AMERICAN" who did some different dances, drank some different wines, and served some tasty food -- but spoke English and revered America.

The current sort of BOistani balkanization is more like the Italians would own a section of the city, speak Italian, throw out non-Italians,  and the Mafia would be in charge -- and that was OK, cuz it was "their culture", and there was no thought that there was any sort of "American culture". (why would there be? We live in BOistan).

If the left Davos elite succeeds in defeating Trump,  natural conservatives and assorted disenfranchised Christians, workers, misfits and hangers on (the likely outcome), the Alt-Right will be less than a footnote in a few years. 

**IF** however by some amazing luck, act of God, etc, "America" -- or something like it rises from the swampy wasteland of BOistan, then the Alt-Right likely contains the leaders of the future -- 30, 40, even 50 years in the future, as the Alisky left contained the leaders of today's now "mainstream left" -- even including avowed socialists like Bernie. 

Will Natural Conservatives stick around as researchers like Haidt would say they must because the position is "wired in" to everyone ... and dominant in many? 

The conservative instinct, as described by Haidt,includes a preference for homogeneity over diversity, for stability over change, and for hierarchy and order over radical egalitarianism. Their instinctive wariness of the foreign and the unfamiliar is an instinct that we all share – an evolutionary safeguard against excessive, potentially perilous curiosity – but natural conservatives feel it with more intensity. They instinctively prefer familiar societies, familiar norms, and familiar institutions.

At one level, all humans want to "go home". I argue that "home" is actually Heaven (and the Garden of Eden), and the evolutionary psychology ideas of "Darwin's Cathedral" are VERY specialized wishful materialist imagination. Christ is the difference that allows Christian Conservatives to make the best attempt in world history at actually loving their enemies and viewing history / reality through the transcendent eyes of eternity.

Or we may just be deplorable white privileged racists as the left has confidently labeled us.

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No Ground To Stand On, Post Modern America

How America Went Haywire - The Atlantic:

This somewhat longish column is a poster child for an attempted left wing analysis of "what went wrong"? How did they discover that something went "wrong"? Trump was elected. The wordy article leads us on a merry chase of how this terrible thing might have happened -- it is written by Kurt Anderson, who is a writer that graduated from Harvard and founded "Spy" magazine. An example of what "Spy" was about:

Founded by Kurt Andersen and E. Graydon Carter, who served as its first editors, and Thomas L. Phillips, Jr., its first publisher. After one folding and a rebirth, it ceased publication in 1998. The magazine specialized in irreverent and satirical pieces targeting the American media, entertainment industries and the mocking of high society.[4] Some of its features attempted to present the darker side of celebrities such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, John F. Kennedy, Jr., Steven Seagal,[5]Martha Stewart, and especially, the real-estate tycoon Donald Trump and his then-wife Ivana Trump.[6] Pejorative epithets of celebrities, e.g., "Abe 'I'm Writing As Bad As I Can' Rosenthal", "short-fingered vulgarian Donald Trump",[7] "churlish dwarf billionaire Laurence Tisch", "bum-kissing toady Arthur Gelb", "bosomy dirty-book writer Shirley Lord" and "former fat girl Dianne Brill" became a Spy trademark.

Strangely, although Anderson finds Trump to be a disaster of the first order, a quick read of the paragraph would indicate that Kurt and Donald ought to be bosom buddies ... "former fat girl Dianne Brill"?  Indeed. So what IS the shape our peril according to Kurt?

By my reckoning, the solidly reality-based are a minority, maybe a third of us but almost certainly fewer than half. Only a third of us, for instance, don’t believe that the tale of creation in Genesis is the word of God. Only a third strongly disbelieve in telepathy and ghosts. Two-thirds of Americans believe that “angels and demons are active in the world.” More than half say they’re absolutely certain heaven exists, and just as many are sure of the existence of a personal God—not a vague force or universal spirit or higher power, but some guy. A third of us believe not only that global warming is no big deal but that it’s a hoax perpetrated by scientists, the government, and journalists.

Kurt certainly seems to have a solid view of "reality" -- to the extent we can discern it's base, the key point seems to be strong materialist atheism -- creation, angels, heaven, and "a personal God" (we will assume he means Jesus) come in for special snark. For those of us that believe in Christ being God made Man, the "Word of Kurt" (WoK) calling him "some guy" seems just a bit presumptions. Somehow, I'm guessing he is far less snarky about "allah" ... at least around Muslims. They don't love their enemies, they kill them.

Kurt goes on a long discussion of how "America" has gone "haywire". So why is it that Kurt's ideas on this are supposed to be of interest to anyone at all?  Kurt does a great job of answering the reason for that right up front -- there is really no reason to read the rest of it.

Why are we like this?

The short answer is because we’re Americans—because being American means we can believe anything we want; that our beliefs are equal or superior to anyone else’s, experts be damned. Once people commit to that approach, the world turns inside out, and no cause-and-effect connection is fixed. The credible becomes incredible and the incredible credible.

 So what are the qualification of one of the founders of "Spy" magazine to give us a psuedo-intellectual tour of history? He is admittedly Ivy League educated, but certainly not philosopher, theologian, scientist, political scientist, or even sociologist; on what does he stand to provide us the answer for the deep meaning of "haywire". Clearly KURT believes that Trump defines "haywire", however what expertise, philosophy, revelation, equation, data, "standard", dream, etc is Kurt standing on as he says it? I'd argue it is exactly like Potter Stewart's definition of pornography ... "you know it when you see it'.

Kurt HIMSELF has clearly stated "expert's be damned" -- The WoK is being proffered as useful because he himself finds his own views to be "equal or superior to anyone else's". He invalidates his own case right up front.

My view is that we forgot that "the fear of God is the BEGINNING of all wisdom". Transcendence, something unchangeable and beyond mere matter -- TRUTH. A book that points out where we left the track is from my perspective is "Ideas Have Consequences" and the point and which we first became unglued was in the 14th century.

"This was a change that overtook the dominant philosophical thinking of the West in the fourteenth century, when the reality of transcendentals was first seriously challenged."

Without SOMETHING that is at least very close to an eternal principle, we ALL lack any place to stand to make any sort of judgments at all! Science leaps from the precipice that says "the universe is ORDERED, and results that we see today are assumed to be repeatable across time and space". The foundation of science is INDUCTION -- "it worked today, it will work tomorrow, and it will work anywhere for all time".

The difficulty with this is PERSPECTIVE. The Thanksgiving turkey postulates that humans are a benevolent species that cares and provides for turkeys. On the very day in which the turkey's "proof" has gained the status of maximally proven scientific "fact", the induction crashes and the turkey finds himself at a meal in which he is the guest of honor. The turkey lacked the perspective of a larger view -- as do we humans relative to eternity.

The other problem is of course that right/wrong, beauty, consciousness, love, etc are completely outside the realm of science, as science is about STUFF ... material, matter. Human life is founded on human consciousness -- right, wrong, up, down, inside out, or non-existent, it IS what WE perceive as humans!

Kurt certainly views HIS consciousness as a superb basis for analysis ... as do we all unless we recognize a power greater than our own perspective (eg. "the fear of God" or maybe "fear of Kurt"??).

Let's look at Kurt's "analysis" a bit":

Meanwhile, over in sociology, in 1966 a pair of professors published The Social Construction of Reality, one of the most influential works in their field. Not only were sanity and insanity and scientific truth somewhat dubious concoctions by elites, Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann explained—so was everything else. The rulers of any tribe or society do not just dictate customs and laws; they are the masters of everyone’s perceptions, defining reality itself. To create the all-encompassing stage sets that everyone inhabits, rulers first use crude mythology, then more elaborate religion, and finally the “extreme step” of modern science. “Reality”? “Knowledge”? “If we were going to be meticulous,” Berger and Luckmann wrote, “we would put quotation marks around the two aforementioned terms every time we used them.” “What is ‘real’ to a Tibetan monk may not be ‘real’ to an American businessman.”

Therefore, Kurt's "reality" would also be relative ... however, since he wrote this long article, we are to understand that it isn't really. Somehow, "The WoK" is privileged. (See "reality based" above}.

So what kind of heresy has failure to accept the WoK unleased?

Even the social critic Paul Goodman, beloved by young leftists in the ’60s, was flabbergasted by his own students by 1969. “There was no knowledge,” he wrote, “only the sociology of knowledge. They had so well learned that … research is subsidized and conducted for the benefit of the ruling class that they did not believe there was such a thing as simple truth.” 

Ever since, the American right has insistently decried the spread of relativism, the idea that nothing is any more correct or true than anything else. Conservatives hated how relativism undercut various venerable and comfortable ruling ideas—certain notions of entitlement (according to race and gender) and aesthetic beauty and metaphysical and moral certainty.

Ah, "simple truth" --- or as we can see from the column, "the WoK". Sadly, the evil American Right thought that there WERE ultimate truths ... like the Word of God, which included Genesis, now known to  fail the "reality based" test, according to the WoK. So the decried "relativism", as now apparently so does Kurt -- it's just that he finds any "relativism" according to the "Word of Kirk" to be bad -- therefore, he is a "rightwing fundamentalist" in relation to the "Word of Kirk"!

"Just before the Clintons arrived in Washington, the right had managed to do away with the federal Fairness Doctrine, which had been enacted to keep radio and TV shows from being ideologically one-sided. Until then, big-time conservative opinion media had consisted of two magazines, William F. Buckley Jr.’s biweekly National Review and the monthly American Spectator, both with small circulations. But absent a Fairness Doctrine, Rush Limbaugh’s national right-wing radio show, launched in 1988, was free to thrive, and others promptly appeared." 

Here I think we arrive at the crux of the matter. As long as whatever was being stated was duly approved by a part of the Administrative State lodged comfortably in the womb of the Federal Communications Commission, all could be certain that only Administrative State, Union Approved, Ivy League vetted, Davos Certified, "truth" would be provided to the masses. Everything was "ideologically SINGLE sided", which was "the good", and the idiots that provided the alternative comic relief -- Bill Buckley and the American Spectator, were "fringe" --- as heretics ought to be!

Did his voters know that his hogwash was hogwash? Yes and no, the way people paying to visit P. T. Barnum’s exhibitions 175 years ago didn’t much care whether the black woman on display was really George Washington’s 161-year-old former nanny or whether the stitched-together fish/ape was actually a mermaid; or the way today we immerse in the real-life fictions of Disney World. Trump waited to run for president until he sensed that a critical mass of Americans had decided politics were all a show and a sham. If the whole thing is rigged, Trump’s brilliance was calling that out in the most impolitic ways possible, deriding his straight-arrow competitors as fakers and losers and liars—because that bullshit-calling was uniquely candid and authentic in the age of fake.

Perhaps there really were consequences to Slick Wille having BJs in the oval office, lying about it, and skating. Maybe calling a vast power grab and re-distribution scam called the "Affordable" Care Act, "affordable" even though it added a grab bag of new benefits to health INSURANCE thus being certain to radically increase the cost, was slightly disingenuous. However, saying that "If you like your doctor you can keep him", "if you like your insurance plan you can keep it", etc was TOTALLY a direct lie which anyone that paid any attention understood to be a LIE ... or to put it in Kurt's words, "a show and a sham".

I personally know MANY people that budgeted for retiring with healthcare TOTAL costs (insurance + deductables + co-pays) of $8K for a 60 year old couple, finding that they needed $22K for insurance along, PLUS, another 8-10K for deductables and co-pays. $30K vs $8K ... PER YEAR!

Slick Willie ushered in the age of fake. BO made it the standard.

So what do I believe caused America to "go haywire", and turn into BOistan?

We have to stand on SOMETHING! As John Adams said: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other". That morality was founded on Jesus Christ --  we never had any other rock to stand on, and sorry to say, the WoK isn't much of a substitute.

So what does the "word of Kurt" say on this point?

What is to be done? I don’t have an actionable agenda, Seven Ways Sensible People Can Save America From the Craziness. But I think we can slow the flood, repair the levees, and maybe stop things from getting any worse. If we’re splitting into two different cultures, we in reality-based America—whether the blue part or the smaller red part—must try to keep our zone as large and robust and attractive as possible for ourselves and for future generations. We need to firmly commit to Moynihan’s aphorism about opinions versus facts. We must call out the dangerously untrue and unreal. A grassroots movement against one kind of cultural squishiness has taken off and lately reshaped our national politics—the opposition to political correctness. I envision a comparable struggle that insists on distinguishing between the factually true and the blatantly false.

What is "reality"? Is it matter only, with meaning defined by induction? Kurt, founder of "Spy" magazine firmly believes in the "World of Kurt" ... if you follow Kurt, you too can be "reality based". Isn't that special?

Choose ye this day whom you will serve ... Kurt? or something larger? Trump is only a very temporary occupant of the highest office in what is at this point the failed state of BOistan. I believe that God is bigger than Kurt, Trump, and BOistan, so God is my choice as the basis for reality -- eternal reality. 

What about you? 

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Friedman FIred From Google

Tom Friedman Has a Stopped Clock Moment | Power Line:

I'm thinking Tom is on vacation and mailed this one in after a bit too much fine wine. He AGREES with Trump on four major points and thinks that Democrats should too!

Yes, yes, Fiedman works at the NY Times, and it was a nerd at Google that got fired for saying that women might have needs for different things if we want to be successful in tech -- if you read this blog, you must be smart enough so I just insulted your intelligence.

It's short, just read it.

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The Left Notices the Farther Left

How the Left Lost Its Mind - The Atlantic:

When you are the dominant political strain, you tend to spend the bulk of your time focused on those evil unwashed masses that hail from "the right" ... that strange set of morons that believe in God, freedom, families, hard work, personal responsibility, and trash like that. As William Buckly used to say of NPR, they were even handed -- they tended to cover both the left and the far left views with great detail.

Given US propoganda since 1950, it continues to mystify our media, educational institutions, entertainment industry and the vast state and federal bureaucracy that there STILL exist people out there in Red State flyover country that are not "of the body", better known as "The Party", TP-D. Why, it is almost like there is actually a God, and that people somewhere live in a reality with actual work and some divine grace bringing forth crops and energy to keep the lefties alive!

This article is a bit different -- it takes notice of the fact that there is a leftward fever swamp, and has been for a very long time. MoveOn.org, Daily Kos, Huffpo, Slate, etc. How odd for them to be bringing this up post Dan Rather letting the Fake News cat completely put of the bag back in '04, and just in the last couple of weeks, CNN giving 3 "star journalists" the heave ho over shall we say "imaginative reporting" on Trump / Russia.

The HuffPo was nice enough to take down the following ...

Just this month, editors were forced to delete a contributor post that began, “Impeachment and removal from office are only the first steps; for America to be redeemed, Donald Trump must be prosecuted for treason and — if convicted in a court of law — executed.”

Come on folks, we have seen the severed head, we certainly know that the left has wanted those that think differently executed since the French Revolution! Are we to think this is "new"?

It is WAY too long, and WAY too much navel gazing ... I got a good chuckle out of this:

Before we go on, let me try to quiet the cries of “False equivalence!” before they begin: No, these personalities and publications do not yet wield the same influence in the Democratic Party that their counterparts do in the GOP. But ignoring them would be a mistake.

Yes, those Democrats are might selective on their news sources -- I know they never stooped to Dan Rather in the past or CNN more recently. The big left wing fiction is that the NY Times is anything "better"  that the left wing poltical believer version of "AM Coast to Coast!"

The tinfoil hat on a pink background WAS a very nice touch for the lead though -- gotta give them credit for that degree of self awareness!

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Times, Logs, Specks; And the Left Will Become Right

Why We Must Make a Mockery of Trump - The New York Times:

Matt 7:5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

All humans who have any standards are hypocites, this author hopefully included. To be a Christian is to have standards, while I certainly want to limit my hypocrisy, I am happy to have it rather than no standards.

The Times believes that protesting from the right is a sign of "thin skin". Apparently they have missed stories of Berkley, Middlebury and nearly every college campus in the country relative to "safe spaces", etc.

In the world of gender and race bending, why can't we call communism "right wing"?

Communism’s failure of humor is the subject of Milan Kundera’s first novel, “The Joke.” For writing the words “Optimism is the opium of mankind! A healthy spirit stinks of stupidity! Long live Trotsky!” on the back of a postcard to a girlfriend, Ludvik Jahn is expelled from the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and sent to work in the mines.The more monocratic the regime, the less it can bear criticism. And of all criticism, satire — with its single ambition of ridiculing vanity and delusion — is the most potent.

"The more monocratic the regime"? Last I checked, the Deep State was in full attack mode against Trump. While "The Party" (TP-D) hasn't done that swimmingly in elections of late, it seems to be very willing and able to execute maximum obstruction in Congress, through the court system, through the media, and through the judiciary. We were a LOT closer to "moncratic" with BO in the WH, even with both lapdog houses of Congress in scaredy R hands!

When BO was first elected, even the entertainment media could not find a way to make fun of the pompous gasbag. Why, even getting a Nobel Prize for getting elected wasn't funny! Even as late as 2013, a Rodeo Clown with a BO mask was too much for the media! For Trump? Nothing is "too much" for the media to deride Trump.

The fact of human is that we find those who disagree with us far more worthy of being the butt of jokes than we find ourselves and those we agree with. We all know that to be true -- the fact you can get away with a column like this in a paper just says how far left that paper really is.

They are so far left that the old USSR seems "right" to them!

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Blaming Victim OK for TP ("The Party" D)

Self-inflicted stupidity | Power Line:

We have all been lectured plenty that if a woman goes dead drunk and naked into a frat party with "F ME!" written on her chest, she is in no way "asking for it", and if notarized consent forms are not filled out in triplicate, "rape" is a legitimate charge.

Congressman shot while practicing for baseball game? Well, FIRST you have to ask "D or R" ... it if is a "D", we are talking major major league inexcusable crime, no doubt caused by R's!!

Oh, R shot? Well as CBS says:

“It’s time to ask whether the attack on the United States Congress, yesterday, was foreseeable, predictable and, to some degree, self-inflicted”

Let's face if, if you have an R next to your name you are basically ASKING to be shot!

In "The Party's" world, the R's are ALWAYS responsible -- even when they get shot by a BS supporter!

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Poor Marxmanship

Why You Can't Trust A Socialist With A Gun | The Federalist Papers:

Thanks be to God! Squeeky Fromme, John Hinkley, and now Hodgkinson, the disease ... Hodgkinson takes a booby prize though ... 50 some rounds with a RIFLE! If Socialists were talented in anything, we'd all be speaking German ... or at least Russian for sure.

I've not heard the term "Assault Weapon" used even once in the meda this time! -- no calls for bans on these horrible weapons, basically NOTHING! Was the gun not black? Why do we not know the brand, capacity of the weapon, etc? It nearly HAD to be effectively an "Assault Weapon", since it was semi-auto with apparently a hi cap mag in order to get off as many rounds as he did.

I think we all know that the level of "outrage" in the media is low for a good reason -- "their side" did some shooting at someone they basically believe ought to be shot, though they can't say it directly. He kind of "deserves what he got" in their mind -- "mean policies", pro-gun, hell, he probably STILL will not vote for a ban on the very weapon that grieviously wounded him -- the very definition of "stupid and evil" as seen from the left.

As the article points out, there is no evidence at all of "mental illness" in the shooter, other than being a Bernie Sanders supporter. He had been in the area a month, he was on Facebook groups that talked of killing Republicans and he had a list of some he wanted dead.

You have to love a media and political party (but I repeat myself) that is pretty much unconcerned when you see hashtags like #HuntRepublicanCongressman AFTER the shooting. Imagine if the Democrats had .0001% of the level of concern that they would have over #HuntMuslimTerrorists for such a hashtag? Why, if such a concern even registered at all with "The Party" (TP-D), we might actually be on the road to some sort of "comity".

We are ALL driven by emotion, and we seek to protect our tribe unless we worship a higher power -- say one that makes the truely hard command that we love our enemies. (and all of us fall short of that goal even when we pray and try) Hodgkinson is one of "The Party" and he gunned down one of their enemies. They know they can't cheer, but they are unable to display much in the way of concern -- in their hearts, it is "what do Republicans expect? They are evil racist people trying to harm others, how can they be surprised when violence results?".

"The Chicago way" is the TP way ... punish your enemies and reward your friends. Until Jesus hung on the cross, that was the ONLY way -- that is human nature, and the very thought of "loving your enemies" is INHUMAN (as in divine) in the extreme. TP seeks to celebrate the "natural angels" ... lust, hate, fear, pride, anger, etc. and to deny the existence of Christ and "higher angles". The leadership of TP fully understands that when those bitter angels take over, the chaos demands authoritarian rule, and that is fine with them -- that is why they are fine with Islam as well. When you believe man must be ruled by an iron hand, it makes no difference if it is Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Ayatolla whatever, Kim Jong whatever, etc ... or Satan.

Either there is an ulimate authority and morality, or there is not. If there is not, then might makes right and power IS "morality". You agree, or you die ... #HuntTPdeniers would be an honest hashtag.

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Political Violence, When It Matters and Doesn't

New York Times Hits a New Low | Power Line:

Yesterday was our 32nd anniversary, and it was one of those days that it is clear that we don't live in America anymore.

There has been plenty of poltical violence in my lifetime; JFK, RFK, MLK, there was an attempt on Gerald Ford, Reagan was wounded, Gabby Giffords was grieviously wounded, and now Steve Sclaise.

The left wing worked very hard to make JFK a victim of southern racism -- SOMEHOW it HAD to be there was a conspiracy of southern racists / John Birch Society / CIA / ??? that did it rather than an ex-Marine defector to the USSR that they didn't want who had visited the KGB in Mexico city a month before. Hey, the USSR were the GOOD guys from a left wing view after all!

Sure there were all sorts of racial shootings in the south -- all by Democrats. Kind of like Muslims, BLM, the folks in black ski masks, the Black Panthers, Nation of Islam, etc. Democrats making common cause with totalitarian groups that have very violent tendencies is not new at all. From a media perspective, the right is so evil that violent revolution is always an option that bubbles close to the surface -- it pretty much HAS to given the existential threat of there being people that don't agree with Democrats!

The Times re-states the fable that Gabby Giffords shooter, Loughner was somehow "right wing", or Sarah Palin's rehotoric somehow "influenced him" ... as Power Line points out, simply another fake news scurriloous lie. Where has the Times been while "commedians" have been holding lifelike severed heads of the president, and facism, Hitler, etc have become the daily diet of not just left wing polticians and assorted loonies, but the whole MSM as well? Conservatives are being attacked on campuses and in the streets by thugs in black ski masks. Earth to BOistan, hello?

When I got up yesterday and looked at news, Google still had the critical condition of Scalaise at the top and discussion of the shooting. CNN had moved over to Comey's friend Mueller now "widening" the "investigation" to to included "obstruction of justice" using all lawyers who made contributions to the Clinton Fund -- "Cash, for Clintons".

What a surprise. MPR had an hour with Paula Poundstone on "being happy" ... not much reason to talk about an evil R being gunned down. When Gabby was hit, it was wall to wall news, which was appropriate, but it was also the constant assertion (unknown at that point) that it was all due to "Sarah Palin and the Tea Party". That was incorrect, however there is nothing like making Democratic propaganda before the light of truth shines on anything!

A sitting majority whip in critical condition after being shot by a Bernie Sanders political activist didn't make it into day two at the top of the Clinton News Network mast -- we return you to regularly scheduled efforts to overturn the election!

I wrote about this in 2012 as "The Right of the Left"  ... they find resorting to violence to be "understandable" given how nasty the R's are (yet try to pretend they don't),  while they go to ANY length to try to make it seem like the "right" is violent.

It isn't enough to lie about Tuscon. The Tines has to take this opportunity to lie about the results of armed citizens protecting themselves saying "studies say they usually hit bystanders". Really? Name one CASE, let alone "study". Our lovely left wing media is on a hair trigger to identifiy ANY failing of concealed permit holders or other armed citizens. Other then in Nowhere Nevada or something, we would all KNOW of the case(s). Take a look at this.

If you are going to do fake news, one would think you would at least TRY to do a reasonable job of the fakery ... find some bogus poorly written "study" that is impossible to follow and link it. Hell, you might as well link to the left wing fever swamp of the Daily Kos or something as a "source" that Loughner was an avid Tea Partier in perfect mental health. Why, just the day before he shot Gabby he worked the Time's crossword puzzle! Please prove he DIDN'T!

Here is a good NR column covering the same ground and more. The left has been looking for the right wing equivalent of James Hodgskinson for DECADES! Eventually they will likely find one so they can quit faking it. Can we all just yawn now?


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Blessed Among Women

Mother Mary unites Christians and Muslims.

Mustafa Akoyl, a journalist from Turkey, writes this in his recent book, The Islamic Jesus: How the King of the Jews Became a Prophet of the Muslims. He made me think ecumenically, and I cast back to the late William F. Buckley Jr., a Catholic and the founder of the magazine I’ve worked at for 20 years. “What disturbs me most about the opposition to Mary is that it is so unchivalrous,” Buckley wrote. He pointed to her as “an exemplary woman,” as does Akoyl, a Muslim.

I grew up Baptist. Mother Mary was a subject only mildly discussed at Christmas in a positive light, and for the rest of the year, "the most prevalent idol that Catholics worship".

A major part of the Baptist message was "we are fundamental Bible believers who hold purely to the Word of God, while Catholics are the Anti-Christ, joined with the harlot" -- the "Woman who sits on seven hills" (Rome) ... they "worship Mary".

As I spent a lot more time in the Word on my own of course, THIS spoke to me:


Luke 1:39-55King James Version (KJV)

39 And Mary arose in those days, and went into the hill country with haste, into a city of Juda;

40 And entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elisabeth.

41 And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost:

42 And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.

43 And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

44 For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.

45 And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.

46 And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord,

47 And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

48 For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

49 For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name.

50 And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.

51 He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.

52 He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.

53 He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.

54 He hath helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy;

55 As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed forever.

It turns out that Mary is more highly revered by MUSLIMS than she is by Evangelicals in the US! I always thought it odd that followers of Christ would hold his mother in as low estate as they often do. The Bible clearly said she is the TOP among women -- you are to revere her more than your own mother, wife, daughter, etc as a Christian. She is the chosen vessel of God for the miracle of fully God fully man -- Jesus Christ.

Interesting tidbit to go with the striking picture above. 

It was only on this trip that it was asked and confirmed that Mrs. Trump is Catholic and that she will soon be the first Catholic living in the White House since the Kennedys.

Now THAT is something not likely to get much attention in the media! 

Portland Attacker Bernie and Standing Rock Kind of Guy

No one should be surprised the Portland attacker felt the Bern | Intellectual Takeout:

Naturally, the left wing media peddles the story that the attacker was a racist Trump supporter -- this VOX column is headlined with themes of "Increasing racial attacks following Trump's election".

The top linked article covers the obvious themes that I have covered many times -- "fascism" is driven by massive government control of business and cronyism with business, but not government OWNERSHIP of business. Very few people in the US have any comprehension of anything other than throwing labels around that they hear ... confusion is the order of the day.

Certainly the anti-Trump "resistance" forces are more than happy to resort to violence and have many times across the country. I'm certain there will be some actual Trump supporters that become violent. Given the rhetoric and the incendiary media against Trump, the general level of restraint from the right is admirable.

Remember when Sarah Palin was virtually indicted in media for the shooting of Gabby Giffords because Sarah had used "crosshairs" on her web site! Oh! how that incited violence compared to ...

How standards have changed! Remember when a poor rodeo clown wore an Obama mask? OH! The HORROR!

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The Party Declares It's Champion

James Comey and the Revenge of Washington’s Professional Class - The New Yorker:

Beginning with FDR, flexing it's muscles in Watergate, and growing more powerful ever after, The Party (TP-D) has created, nurtured, and made it's main instrument of power the Administrative or Deep State (DS). No matter what temporary occupant sits in the White House or party sits in control of Congress, the Deep State abides, and it is not a comfort to those that loved America, liberty, or morality. As the linked New Yorker column puts it:

Washington is a lawyer’s town, built on protocols and rules. If this tends to make happy-hour conversation in the city a little more pedantic than the American norm, then it also has its advantages, among them a fanaticism for records.

As I've often written, lawyers in the US are "The House" as in the gambling sense, and the number one rule of gambling is "The house WINS!". It has to, or there would be no Vegas, State Lotteries, or Casinos dotting the landscape. At any moment, lawyers are always the majority in all the legislatures and the US congress, plus they have their own branch of government, and since at least the early '70s, they also own the now most powerful "hidden in plain sight" branch of government, the Deep State.

The common thread is lawyers. Both political parties are significantly by and for lawyers, with TP being especially by and for lawyers. I'm not trying to say that lawyers are "bad people", merely that as lawyers, they have been schooled to view the world in a very specific way, and that way is not what America was -- lawyers are indeed people, but WE THE PEOPLE are not to be subserviant to a ruling lawyer class. This is why government was to be strictly LIMITED!

In addition to the question of whether Trump’s Presidential campaign colluded with the Russian government, there is now the question of whether he interfered to stop an investigation—whether he, as President, obstructed justice.

 As the excellent cartoon at the top reminds us, "obstruction of justice" is "TP normal". IRS decides to target conservatives ? Lois Lerner takes the 5th, a bunch of computers turn up wiped, and BO declares it over -- hey, don't expect the Deep State to investigate itself!

BO's justice department goes after a conservative reporter trying to find out about leaks?  Well, most people don't even know it happened -- and it is CERTAINLY no concern for goodness sake! The "good guys" (BO) went after the "bad guys", (Fox News) ... nuff said! What is the use of having a huge weapon like the DS if you can't use it to destroy your enemies?

Many "progressives" have pointed out how "scandal free" the  BO disaster was ... to the blind, coal tar and snow may as well both be pure white! BO decided the investigation of Hildebeast on 60 Minutes "She had no intent to break the law, and no secrets endangered national security" -- oh thank you great and powerful BO for decaring the conclusion of FBI "investigation" prior to it being over! (no "obstruction" there!)

BO ENDORSED HILDEBEAST ON JUNE 9th and Comey didn't fold the investigation until July 5th! Now, ostensivly, it was Slick Willie meeting with his boss on a plane in AZ on June 30th  that convinced Comey"it's over", rather than the POTUS endorsing a person under investigation by the FBI, but REALLY folks! The POTUS ENDORSES a person under active FBI investigation to take his job and that is NOT "obstruction"? Hello? Welcome to BOistan! Does not endorsing her for POTUS more than "imply" that "she is a nice lady and I hope the FBI can get by this so she can take my job". Even TP has not YET put in a CONVICTED felon ... many of them are felons, they just don't do the "conviction thing" because, well ... TP!

Anyone that is semi awake understands that in TP controlled BOistan, anyone that is not a TP member in good standing is someone that TP would see as needful of "investigation" -- and certainly, a  president that is non-TP REQUIRES "investigation".

Perhaps the "BOistan Constitution" should just say that "in the unlikely event that a person that is not a TP member in good standing is elected, a set of "Special Prosecutors", "Commissions", "Independent Councels", "Czars", etc  must be immediately appointed to investigate what are clearly "high crimes and misdemeanors", because someone not sworn to fealty to TP has ostensively gained power!" To TP, that is certainly a MAJOR crime!

We really didn't need to investigate BO ... his own book made it clear he wanted to destroy "the colonial powers" -- and he did a hell of a job on at least one of them!

Can Trump beat these bastards? Who knows, but BOistan  SUCKS!

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Raised Weiner Points At Hildebeast

Weiner raised again | Power Line:

One of my emotional proofs of the existence of God is stories like "The Weiner".

What are the odds in a universe of the highly unlikely, where the odds against our existence have been calculated by our best scientists to be 10 with HUNDREDS of zreros AGAINST us even existing, that a man named "Weiner" would keep showing up in Democrat politics, and he is married to the chief aide to their presidential candidate? Who also has a guy with "weiner problems" as a spouse.

Prior to Trump, I would have said that it COULD NOT happen on the Republican side, because there, you are destroyed if you mis-spell "potato"  (of course the "funny" part is that even major newspapers often spelled it "potatoe" up until '92!). There are now new rules FOR TRUMP ... somehow. I'm not sure anyone has really figured out why that is ... but naturally, I've tried.

God exists AND he has a sense of humor!


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Mind Numbing Reality and Opposition

Donald Trump Administration: Hundreds of Key Government Positions Still Unfilled | National Review:

Before Trump was elected, I covered the fact that he would be strongly opposed from BOTH SIDES ... Democrats and Republicans have been in power in DC for a LONG time, and they BOTH like power. They also like to use that power to improve the lives of themselves and their friends, so lots of cushy appointed positions have been added to our behemoth federal ship of state.

If you want your mind numbed, read through the linked column of some of the "missing":

At the State Department, Rex Tillerson is operating with 110 fewer presidential appointees than he should be. He’s missing a deputy secretary, a chief financial officer, an undersecretary for management, an assistant secretary for legislative affairs, an assistant secretary for intelligence, a coordinator for counter-terrorism, a representative to the European Union, and a special envoy for North Korea. There are no ambassadors to Germany, Canada, France, the Holy See, India, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, or South Korea, and there is no permanent representative to NATO.

I'm not sure I can complete my day knowing that we are missing an ambassador to the Holy See!

This particular article is from National Review -- it is mildly suspicious of Trump's competence relative to this ... many of those on the left are SCATHING! Total confirmation that Trump is massively incompetent!

Usually, in order to judge something like this we need to ask the Henny Youngman question "How's your wife?" .... "Compared to what?". Due to the wonder of the internet, it is very easy to find such comparative material. Here is some from the NY Times, May 2nd 2013, a similar time into the SECOND term of BO.

Hmm, so we have media writing articles about something that looks to be an issue in at least all recent administrations, and we are to be concerned? So what do we glean from this?

1. Our government is so huge it is beyond human comprehension. EVERYONE is lost ... the media, the population, the government bureaucrats themselves, etc. 
2. Media primarily sells words and they have to keep churning them out all the time -- left, right, etc, it is words, words, words, and any level of PERSPECTIVE, let alone "wisdom" is completely lacking. 
3. So here we are, left on our own to try to figure it out ... therefore, NEVER trust the media, ANY media! 

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Milbankian Causal Insanity

Now we know: Bill Clinton cost his wife the presidency - The Washington Post:

This rather insane column is a solid insight into how the leftist mind works.

1. Hillary Clinton sets up an illegal private server in her basement that is thinly defeneded from hacking.

2. She uses the server during her time at the State Department to hide her illegal foundation activities in the "Clinton Fund" ... funds, for Clintons, as well as storing / transmitting multiple documents classified "Top Secret' ... an eat off a tin tray felony.

3. She repeatedly lies about was on the server "personal yoga schedules", NOTHING classified in any way, etc, etc.

4. So she gets investigated ... and any other American would go to prison. HOWEVER

The specific reason he cited: Bill Clinton’s decision to board Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s plane in late June, when their planes were both on a tarmac in Phoenix. “The capper was — and I’m not picking on Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who I like very much — but her meeting with President Clinton on that airplane was the capper for me,” Comey said. Comey decided to “step away” and announce, without consulting the Justice Department, that Hillary Clinton shouldn’t be charged.

Ergo ... "Hillary losing was Bill Clinton's fault"!!!!

Let's rewind -- first of all, I'm no fan of Slick Willie.

Second, even in the "proximate causes" area, are we expected to believe that the Attorney General of the US has no ability to decline a private meeting with the well-known husband of a target of an investigation by her own agency? Clearly Comey thought there was DEFINITE meaning in her decision ... My boss is willing to break protocol and publicly meet with the husband of an investigation target, ergo, we are NOT going to prosecute this particular target ...

But seriously folks. WHO is it that set up the server in the first place and willfully broke a ton of laws in the process? HILLARY CLINTON!!!!

In the lefty universe, there is no truth, so there can be no causality. It's "the Russians fault", "Comey's fault", etc, etc. Even someone running for the highest office in the US from the left does not bear responsibiliuty for their own behavior nor the operation of their campaign. In the lefty world, they are NEVER responsible!

My personal guess is that "Deploreables" cost her enough votes to lose ... along with fainting in public, lying repeatedly, rigging the primaries and getting caught, etc, etc. She has to be the most unlikeable person to ever run for the presidency and that is saying a lot!

The AMAZING thing is that even with all that, she still only lost by an electoral landslide -- which in my book is more indicitive of the level of vote fraud in the country than anything else. A lefty can be a complete charlatan, run as such, and because the "dead, imaginary and undocumneted democrat" vote still goes 100% for them, they still win the popular vote!

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Normalizing Trump

At the White House with Trump | Power Line:

One of the Power Line guys was at the WH for a conservative media briefing. Since I listen to MPR/NPR all the time, including snippets of "Indivisible", the thinly disguised left wing call-in for "The Resistance" trying to make sure that Trump is NEVER normalized, it is really strange to see him covered as "just another POTUS".

The MSM has spent most of the first 100 days running around screaming "the sky fell" as if nobody had ever read Chicken Little. Day after day, everyone finds themselves still here -- so it doesn't really seem like the world ended -- only America ended, but that is old news -- it turned into BOistan in BO's 2nd term. I understand that NPR is worried BOistan could be damaged, but as long as the BOistani Adminstrative State is still in power, BOistan will live on.

It's worth going and reading the article just because of how normal it is. It is like zillions of left wing friendly news outlets reporting on their meetings with BO -- a normal, intelligent guy that maybe makes one cringe from time to time about how many times he says "I" and everything being about him.

Strangely, BO and Trump are so similar on the narcissim scale it makes one wonder if narcissism isn't the main requirement for BOistani leadership.

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