Understanding Conservatives Via Facebook

What Facebook can tell us about conservatives:

First the learned published theory:

Here's my theory.  Conservatives are a remarkably well-organized and tight-knit group. It's why every book from a conservative author shoots to the top of the best-seller list. It's why Fox News Channel's primetime programming regularly doubles that of its cable competition. It's why Rush Limbaugh has no talk radio equal among liberals. It's not terribly surprising then that organizational closeness extends to the digital space where conservative use Facebook to share stories/links from a handful of conservative websites.

Here is my theory. Supply and Demand.

When you have high demand and low supply people are anxious to access the low supply information and share it by lots of means ... Facebook, word of mouth, etc. 

Liberal media perspective on the web, cable, radio, etc is a saturated commodity. Liberals have NO need to post anything from "marginal sites", because NBC, CNN, NPR, NYT, HuffPo (which USED to be considered "left wing"), etc are FULL of any story with a liberal slant that they could possibly desire!  True, false, slanted, insane, etc ... ALL are completely available and easy to find. 

 Everyone always gets exactly the view they want AND MORE on the liberal view blasted at them 24x7 from EVERYWHERE! Even supposed "conservative media" STILL present the liberal view and generally just respond to it (like this blog). When a liberal outlet deigns to mention a conservative view, it is often castigated as being part of the "echo chamber" for even having mentioned the "false" view. 

If you add "conservative" and "moderate" together, 75% if US people identify as one or the other, where only 21% identify as liberal. (see Gallup data)

The book "Left Turn" is a very good attempt by  a couple of university professors, based on PEER REVIEWED RESEARCH (the magic wand!) to figure out:

1) Where the American people are relative to bias (like "40")
2) Where a bunch of media and institutions are
3)  Where our politicians are

Here are a couple of charts from that book 

Basically, Joe Lieberman was about a 75, most Americans cluster around 40, standard MSM is around 70, and Fox is like 50.

So there is my "supply and demand theory" ... or the other guy and Hillary could be right and there is a highly organized right wing conspiracy that is taking these things and in an organized way posting them on FB!

You make the call.


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WaPo Questions BO Sophistry

President Obama’s foreign policy is based on fantasy - The Washington Post:



We all have a little sophist  and/or narcissist in us -- the idea that the rest of the universe is just a reflection of us, that "everyone else is like us".  Mostly it is pretty innocuous, it just gets costly when we are foolish enough to elect a leader deep in the immaterialist fog.



It is actually why "liberals"  have so much trouble with evil, Hitler, Jeffry Dahmer or someone being a "conservative". They fervently believe that since THEY are absolutely "good inside", and there is no god, devil, or "dark side" in the universe, it HAS to be a case of "poor education, being exposed to religion, mental illness, or SOMETHING other than an actual diverse universe where everyone ISN'T "just like them"!!!!!



OMG, that CAN'T  be true!!!!



Except as WaPo seems to be noticing, it IS! We really DO have to "pay attention to that man behind the curtain".  No matter how fervently you believe that all matter exists only in your head, there may be a Samuel Johnson that shows up and refutes your view thusly.



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Gay St Paddies Day

Erin Gay Bragh? | Power Line:

It isn't enough to be treated like everyone else if you are gay. You must be treated SPECIALLY! Rather odd, when the supposed claim is the desire to be "treated like everyone else". Only, it isn't -- the desire is to have your lifestyle constantly validated and CELEBRATED! If you actually believed in your lifestyle, you would not care.

So everyone else follows the rules for the parade -- business attire, no green funny outfits, two flags, one Irish, one US, and the only political statement allowed is "England get out of Ireland". There are no groups identifying their heterosexual preferences for boobs, blondes, butts or brunettes either.

Turns out the parade isn't about sex! Wow, what a concept!  It is about Irish heritage and a SAINT! You don't get to eat, drink or smoke during the parade either, but the fact you don't is not a statement on the morality of any of the above.

If I go to someone's home that I know doesn't drink alcohol, I don't take wine, beer or whiskey even though I like all of the above. I don't have to always have my political or religious views expressed. I have them, they are mine. I not only don't need them validated, I'm absolutely fine if you want to question me on them or even denigrate them -- I will be very happy to defend them!

But we don't HAVE to have that discussion! I don't need to wear my NRA T-shirt into your left leaning wine tasting, nor bring my whisky bottle to your milk and cookies Southern Baptist softball game!

We are at a very strange place. EVERYTHING is REQUIRED to be politicized! It is not enough for SOME behavior to just be tolerated, it MUST be "celebrated"!!!

We don't demand that the drunk drink up everywhere -- why, it is DISCRIMINATORY for them to not be able to drink and drive! We don't need to have heterosexuals flaunting their preferences -- at work, in school, in the St Paddies day parade, etc.

Smokers? Good Lord! Do you suppose that anyone WANTS to be addicted to tobacco? or alcohol for that matter? Pedophilia? Gambling?  Do you think that somebody decides "hey, this looks like a pretty good lifestyle, I think I'll have sex with kids"!

 No, there are all sorts of inclinations, proclivities, weaknesses, mental tics, poor upbringing, bad choices etc  that have to be controlled, kept private, avoided, regulated, criminalized, treated, etc. If Slick Willie was a captain of industry rather than a lefty politician, he would likely be a destitute ex-con in sex addiction recovery ... assuming that he could beat the Juanita Broadrick rape charge, or if not he would  be someone's "girlfriend" having romantic tin tray meals.

Oh, on Slick, if you are on the left, compare the treatment of Anita Hill / Clarence Thomas with the treatment of Broadrick. Put W's face on Slick and THEN see what you think of the charges as presented in that bastion of right wing vitriol, Slate.

I really really hate the "we are going to boycott this and that" deal -- I find it to lack respect for TRUE pluralism and in my book "the American Way". Yes, Guinness really pisses me off by dropping out of the parade cuz the gays had a hissy fit, but the "I'm never going to drink Guinness again" feels like Carter shooting the US farmers in the back when the USSR invaded Afghanistan in the late '70s ... only it is ME taking the bullet by missing that very occasional pint of black tar.  

Frankly, we have become a very limp wristed  namby pamby nation in general -- China, Russia, some Arabs, etc are likely going to have to really spank our ass seriously before some manning up occurs. 9-11 just didn't really get the point across, and we are certainly asking for it now.


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Fox Effect Book

Sometimes it is good to realize how we got BO for President. Skip ahead if you need to ... it is AMAZING how "well informed" these voters were on Palin -- or at least the Tina Fey parody of Palin. Our MSM does to a great job of getting it's political message out there -- even when it is a parody. Remember, this is 2008 for those reading this in the future.

I've been trying to SLOG through "The Fox Effect" by David Brock, founder of "Media Matters", who says in their "About Us" section:

"Media Matters for America is a Web-based, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media."

Got that? Media Matters IS a 501c3 CHARITY! The IRS worked hard (and unsurprisingly) Media Matters agrees that Tea Party organizations should NOT have tax exempt status because they are PARTISAN! Good thing that MM is doing a public service by monitoring for CONSERVATIVE bias! Can't be having any of that, and to be searching for ONLY "conservative bias" is clearly "non-partisan", so it is great that Media Matters is a 501c3! Got that? This is how things work in a single party state!

Why, Fox listeners are ill informed!! They don't KNOW that Climate Change is settled science. They don't know that BOcare is going to SAVE us money! They don't know that "anyone that likes their healthcare can keep it!" They don't know that W was completely responsible for the 2009 budget! (not even liberals are smart enough to know that the House is responsible to set the budget) .... See, "facts" are not up for discussion, and only the left has "facts"!

I may not be able to get through this book ... essentially it's whole point is "Fox is biased"!!!!  HORROR!!!

Did you know that Fox brought up quotes out of BO's "Dreams From My Father" book??? This of course is NOT "journalism" ... like sending teams of folks to scour anything they they can to try to dig up something on W from his days in the National Guard. Hey, he might not have been the worlds best FIGHTER PILOT! Clearly complete disqualification for being president!

.... how DARE you mention that BO discussed the idea of "filtering his Mom's white blood out of his body"? IN HIS OWN BOOK!  Unlike W maybe not being the greatest National Guard pilot  (and not even bragging that he was), which is TERRIBLE! If we could get some "fake but true" documents to "prove" that he wasn't (even though he never said he was), would that be a crime?

Roger Ailes worked for Nixon ... uh, but Chris Matthews worked for Edmund Muskie, ran as a Democrat in Pennsylvania for congress and lost, was chief of staff for Tip O'Neil and was a speechwriter for Carter ... but he is a "good guy", no "bias" or even problem there!

Tim Russert was chief of staff to Daniel Moynihan and counsel to Mario Cuomo ... so he had experience!

Actually, it IS OK ... to me at least. I EXPECT that ALL people are going to have bias! Unlike the voters in the linked video, it would be VERY nice if they also had some clue about reality beyond the biased view, but I also know that I'm in a distinct minority on that theory.

Public Radio and TV are probably where I have the most difficulty. Every time I hear them say "we have PROOF that we are in the middle or the road because we get complaints BOTH that we are too liberal and too conservative"!!

Well DUH! Every self selecting set ... a church, a gun club, NRA, Sierra Club, etc, etc is going to have a "bell shaped curve population" ... half on one side and half on the other with most clustered around the middle!!!

Why? They select themselves! In general (excluding odd Mooses) the people listening to NPR feel that it is a "reliable and proper source for news" ... half of them will find it a bit on the liberal side, and half of them will find it a bit on the conservative side ... but those closest to the middle (the majority) will pretty much find it to be Goldilocks ("just right").

Most people feel the same way about the hoppiness of the  beer they drink, the hotness of their food, etc. etc. It is one of the most basic parts of statistics to understand this! It doesn't get any more basic than "the bell shaped curve"

We are ALL biased, and that is GOOD! We are NOT all biased in the same way ... thus we have something to talk about!

So why don't "liberals" think the same way? Because they KNOW that they are right! Not only that, they KNOW that conservatives are either stupid, evil or both! Thus, Fox needs to be stamped out ... along with anyone else that would ask questions of BO voters and make them look bad!

"Liberals" have the unconstrained view of mankind and believe that "key intelligent experts" need to get everyone's mind right. The "masses" are just not smart enough to understand the nuance and brilliance of the elite "liberal" view of the world, so it is only as a public service that they want to make sure that the horribly wrong thoughts of people not smart enough to see things their way are stamped out as quickly as possible!

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Ted Cruz Speaks Truth to Dirty Harry

Oh, Snap: Ted Cruz Fearlessly Calls Out Harry Reid For ‘Villifying’ Private Citizens on Senate Floor:

Somebody needs to get Reid back on his meds and off to professional help so he can maybe get a slight re-connect with this particular universe.

In the meantime, this is WELL worth the short time to watch.

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Merging Self-Righteousness with Empirical Delusion

‘Free to Be’ Boys and Girls: 40 Years After the Failed Gender Revolution | TIME.com:

The writer Andrew Sullivan is right when hedescribesthe sex difference as “so obvious no one really doubted it until very recently, when the blank-slate left emerged, That delusion was jumpstarted in 1974 with the advent of “Free To Be… You and Me.” Today, an army of gender scholars and activists is marching in support of the genderless ideal. But these warriors forget that ignoring differences between boys and girls can be just as damaging as creating differences where none exist. “Free to Be” is a cautionary example of how an idealistic social fantasy can turn into a blueprint for repression

The title is a good description of the "liberal" thought process, which unsurprisingly OFTEN (always?) results in "idealistic social fantasies that are blueprints for repression". 

Do we really need more "cautionary stories"? Take the idea of either "intention", or "great reverence for millions of years of randomness" out of creation, replace it with "self-righteousness and empirical delusions", and is there EVER a result other than disaster for at least thousands if not millions of people, up to and including mass slaughter? 

America's "war on poverty" is certainly an example of how an idealistic social fantasy turned into a blueprint for repression. The black male was replaced by the government as head of household. So he and his sons vacated said home for the streets, drugs, swagger and violence. Thus, in huge numbers they end up incarcerated or dead. 

We may be created in God's image, but it is less than a cartoon image.  We are NOT "little gods".

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A World Without National Socialism

I watched the excellent movie "Downfall" about the last days with Hitler in the bunker at the end of WWII. It is told based on interviews with his young female secretary who was 22 at the time she was picked to work for Hitler, as well as information from others in the inner circle that survived.

A lot of you have seen a clip from it since it is the base for hundreds of parodies about "Hitler is told", my favorite being Hitler being told that they couldn't get him a Harley to ride to Sturgis. My wife is kind of like his secretary in the hallway saying "that's OK, we'll find some REAL BIKERS!"

The biggest thing that struck me was Magda Goebbels, the wife of Joseph Goebbels killing all six of their young children because  "she didn't want them to live in a world without National Socialism".

What a shame, they could have just moved to Russia, or even Great Britain a few years later, or just have waited around for the "last days of BO", so at least their grandkids would have been "happy".

"Socialism, Communism, Fascism, etc" are all "worship of the state". For people that think, they MUST be atheistic, even though in their early stages their adherents will try to soft pedal the "Godless" aspect a bit. Hitler had very strong faith that you put a bullet through your brain and what you get is "peace" ... well perhaps, I've been reading Dante's Inferno lately ... there are ALWAYS alternatives!

When you worship man (and you WILL worship, your brain is built that way) ... collectively or in the individual ... yourself, Hitler, BO, it really makes no difference, it is simply idolatry, and humans are GREAT at idolatry.

The second thing that hit me was the young SS rounding up old men that failed to muster for defense of Berlin and shooting or hanging them as cowards. A set of them is confronted by a Waffen officer, and the SS officer says "who is going to stop me? them? you?" as he is gunning them down.

Ah, how much less boldness such officers would have if the population had .460 S&W mags and .223 ARs. One only needs to see a few of your buddies blown away to get a LOT slower at searching out the old coots that have "failed" to follow "Mien Fuhrer" or "The One!" as required. Standing out in open in the street shooting a few of your fellow citizens is cause for a lot less arrogance when it regularly results in your troop dying ignominiously in a hail of bullets.

Make no mistake, gun control is about CONTROL, a free person NEVER gives up their arms!

I wonder how many Americans under 30 can even tell you that "Nazi" stood for "National Socialist"? "Those that fail History are doomed to repeat it".

Ah yes, the dream of living in a world without ANY form of Statism ... Communism, Socialism, Fascism, etc. Once our founders dreamed of such, but in the words of Franklin when asked what kind of government the Congress had wrought, he replied;  "A Republic if you can keep it".

Alas, we could not.

Libertarian Fails to Sink Republican

In Florida, Republicans win first election showdown of the year - CNN.com:

I happened to catch NPR yesterday talking about how "this race COULD show that BOcare is OK" and then extolling the virtues of the "strong Libertarian candidate". The Democrats ran a candidate that narrowly lost the race for Governor in 2010 and poured money into the race in a district that BO won in 2012.

Jolly won 48.5% of the vote, and Sink got just under 47%. Libertarian candidate Lucas Overby was a distant third, with just under 5% of the ballots cast.

48.5 + 5 = 53.5 vs 47%, it would have been a LANDSLIDE!  Everyone knows that Libertarians take votes away from Republicans, the MSM just fails to talk about it. Oh sure, they can always find the INSANE Libertarian that says "we pull votes equally", and for those that are from this planet, their choice is pretty simple: There is the candidate on the statist left, the Democrat, then there is the middle candidate, the Republican, who I freely admit is usually WAY too far to the left, and then there is the Libertarian on the right ... edging over toward that anarchistic right hand. The Libertarian makes the claim that the R and the D are tweedle D and tweedle Dum, so it MAKES NO DIFFERENCE, and they MUST pull the L lever to "create REAL " ... and because the other lifeforms on their planet are doing it.

Often their "change" is another far lefty like Mark Dayton, and the fact that the Libertarian killed the Republican candidate naturally gets no coverage in the media -- be a shame to have some of those folks return to earth!

So in this case, the strong Libertarian failed to hand the election to the Democrats, but I'll bet that some of the lefty donors were throwing a bit of money that way. NPR was sure as heck doing all they could to point out how strong a candidate that Libertarian was!

Given this outcome though, FL 13 is like MH370, gone without a trace! Had the outcome been the other way, it would be headline news today "BOcare Wins!"

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Driving to Hawaii

Watch Cory Booker Claim He ‘Drove To Hawaii’ As A Teenager During Climate Talkathon:





Perhaps when the ice age gets a little deeper, Democrats actually can drive to Hawaii. Certainly, the claim that a Democratic Senator drove there on his first road trip is about as factual as the whole spectacle of the Democrats in general.



They  DO control the Senate, and have already been very willing to use various dodges to evade the filibuster, so could go ahead and pass cap and trade if they wanted to.  (which they failed to do even when they DID have 60 votes AND the house in '09-'10). But if they DID go on record as passing it, they wouldn't be about to get it through the House.



But what does that matter? If they had the strength of their convictions they would WANT to be on record as having passed it ... as the House as been on record more than once passing legislation to repeal or delay BOcare. Those actions received universal denigration in the media, but naturally when BO ILLEGALLY modifies and delays pieces willy nilly that is JUST FINE!



Never mind, the all-nighter was just a fund raising stunt, but the nice part of being a Democrat is that pretty much nobody that matters even cares to point out the obvious if it could be taken as "not reflecting well on Democrats".





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Koch's $4.4 BILLION Political Purchase

Kim Strassel: The Really Big Money? Not the Kochs - WSJ.com:

Mr. Reid was quite agitated on the Senate floor about "unlimited money," by which he must have been referring to the $4.4 billion that unions had spent on politics from 2005 to 2011 alone, 

Oh, I mean UNIONS, never mind, the Koch's were #59 on the list on the Open Secrets list they are 45th, with a LOT of unions above them.

I love this little shot of BO's top contributors -- drawn from the records because you have to say where you work when you contribute:

You might like need to zoom in a bit, but I'll give you the highlights:

#1, University of California, with SIX universities on the list.

4 either "US Government" or specific agencies.

Microsoft, Google, and IBM in that order.

The only reason that the left hates Citizen's United so much is that it gives conservatives a CHANCE to even up the spending a TINY bit ... but they STILL have to counteract NPR, NYT, NBC, CBS, CNN. MSNBC, etc. Do you REALLY think that the IRS even cares for an instant how much money comes from where on the left? Good gravy, the people working at the government gave $1.7 M  JUST TO BO!!! On the record ... and how hard do you think any limits are being enforced on that side?

We now KNOW that the IRS does specific political targeting against conservative groups (how many times must Lois Learner take the 5th before you believe that if you don't by now?). So we KNOW that the IRS targets conservative groups, AND we know that they are going to completely walk on it! Frankly, not enough people care enough to make it even a MINOR issue!

Would you bet that they are going to "go after" left leaning groups that funnel too much money into the coffers of candidates that are on their side?? It is for this reason that we ought not have ANY restrictions on campaign money and abolish the IRS meddling with a FLAT TAX.

Powerline has reported on the MANY New York Times slurs on the Koch Brothers.

Amazingly, it has gotten so over the top that NURSES in NYC are demonstrating AGAINST the Koch's giving $100 MILLION to a hospital!!

There are people that STILL claim to not understand "how could Germany have killed 6 million Jews"?

The hatred of the Jews didn't happen overnight. The blood of the French Revolution wasn't some "spur of the moment" random happening. When the Communists took over in Russia, the "wealthy" had to be suitably demonized before people were willing to see them killed. (and having them afraid was helpful too)

I wonder how many people on the left mispronounce the name Koch to be like Ed "Kaatch", the former Jewish mayor of NYC??? Apparently the "Coke" brothers are not Jewish, but the level of demonization of them makes one wonder if there isn't a desire for confusion. Democrats go in for "southern strategy", "racial codewords", etc on FAR less of a connection!

The left is going for "closure" here. They want Fox shut down, they want the Kochs to SHUT UP, and they want conservatives everywhere to get the message that they need to lie low an MAYBE nothing bad will happen to them (for now).

Mostly, we are all standing around while any semblance of political  thought diversity is rooted out and destroyed before our very eyes. Communism and Socialism ( including National Socialism) can only win when the opposition is silenced -- and they are willing to do anything to make that happen!

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Liberty, Equality, Efficiency

Liberty, Equality, Efficiency - NYTimes.com:

So does reducing inequality through redistribution hurt economic growth? Not according to two landmark studies by economists at the International Monetary Fund, which is hardly a leftist organization. 

So "left" is statist control by small groups of experts, and "right" is distributed liberty of control by everyone. It is obvious that a small international organization of "experts"  that controls money on a world wide bases is NOT "leftist"? Well, if it isn't, then what WOULD a "leftist organization" be? Also recall that the IMF thinks that global wealth confiscation from the savings of the middle class is "the only way out" of the current GLOBAL economic crisis that includes Europe ... who Paul thinks we STILL need to emulate. 



Paul prattles on about how if you are one of the "40 million children living in poverty", equality of opportunity is a "cruel joke". What he doesn't say is that this is after 50 years of "war on poverty" which has primarily given us a vast number of single parent homes, drug addiction and urban violence. So far the "liberal" policies that were supposed to improve lives for the poor have made things worse -- but never mind, the ONLY "reasonable thing to do" is to double down on those policies!



Ah, "efficient" -- somehow those experts are ALWAYS certain that they can be "efficient". Tyranny IS a highly efficient form of government, but one needs to check if the "trains" are on time running to the amusement park or to the crematorium!











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Rspect for BO

Obama Misspells 'Respect' While Honoring Aretha Franklin, CNN Covers for Him | National Review Online:

I'm quite certain we are due to see a firestorm of late night comedians and people howling in the street in derision of an idiot that can't spell R E S P E C T ... even when it is set to music. I mean, we heard it of Dan Quayle misspelling P O T A T O in a spelling bee when it was written as P O T A T O E on his queue card. Right?

BO has now had "57 states so far", "10K dead in Kansas tornado", and "Hawaii is in Asia" among a good many others. "Some Village in Texas is Missing an Idiot" was popular when W was President, "Some Village in Kenya is Missing and Idiot" would be a hoot now, right?

But this won't happen, nor should it. It shouldn't have happened to Quayle, Bush or Palin either. But it did, and it will keep happening to conservatives.

Why? Because humans are prejudice. They always have been and they always will be. Christians who believe that they ought to love others as themselves with all their hearts are still prejudiced, because their hearts are human.

But "liberals" believe they are different. They have no higher power over them at all. In fact, their group DEMANDS that they CONSTANTLY deride conservative thought -- not only as "stupid", but as "evil" as well. If they don't, they will lose their "liberal card" -- and depending on where they work, (say government, teaching, more "enlightened" companies), that may well mean the loss of upward mobility in their position, or even their job. There is no "separation of church and state" to a liberal -- the state IS their church!

So they protect their own and attack those heretics that "bitterly cling" to things like The Constitution, The Bible, the Protestant Work Ethic, respect for parents and elders -- basically anything other than the latest "advanced new thought" that showed up last week.

Anything else is just stupid!

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Shooting in Zamboni Driving, Molson Swilling Paradise

CTV Toronto | News Video - Latest Toronto News Headlines, Breaking News and Live Reports:



How could it happen? I thought they had laws against things like this up there!



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Is This the "Flexibility" ?

Daniel Henninger: Putin Carterizes Obama, Totally - WSJ.com:

We may quibble over the timeline. Some might say it began when Mr. Obama whispered to then-Russian president Dmitry Medvedev he'd have "more flexibility" after the 2012 election; others that it set in when the U.S. president took Mr. Putin's offer to let Bashar Assad escape the bombing of his airfields for using WMD against his own people.

As BO bumbles Carteresquely around Putin, I for one have wondered whatever happened to that off-mike comment. 

The US MSM remains completely incurious of course, I doubt a Republican could even have been re-elected after obviously indicating intent to fraudulently mislead the American people to be re-elected and to then allow a rival nation "more flexibility". Let alone having the comment "forgotten". ("misunderestimated?)


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Crimea River (Ann)

Crimea River - Ann Coulter - Page 1:



The title just makes me jealous. When she is right, she is right -- one may as well just relax and let what happens happen when there is Democrat behind the foreign policy wheel.



I did notice that the JFK, Bobby, Marilyn "three way"  will not be adding to the Kennedy legacy for at least a while.



Man, I'm jealous about her title! As Ann almost always is, a "guilty pleasure" entertaining read.



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